Chapter Text
One hour.
It had been one full hour since Cody, Frankie, and Russel had run off. One hour since the stakes had peaked far above any of their heads, out of reach to the mere mortal soul.
Graham and Boulder went to the dam to look for the particles. Nothing. It had either been too long since the initial groundbridge use and the particles had dissipated or Frankie, Cody, and Russel, (more accurately, Frankie, the boys definitely did not understand what was going on), had ‘used them all up.’
So for the last hour, the team members that hadn’t been kidnapped or gone rogue had been scrambling to find anything.
And the amount of time this disaster had drawn on for was finally beginning to take its toll.
Graham had not seen Bumblebee in the last day, since Blades had… he hadn’t seen Bumblebee since he had last seen Blades. Apparently, the situation there wasn’t great. Bee blamed himself completely for letting Blades and Doc go in unprepared. When their communications were destroyed he seemed sad yet unfazed, as if he had been expecting it. Either that or Strongarm’s ‘confession’ had been the nail in the coffin. Her meandering rant about casual murder and betraying what she had known to escape Bumblebee and his team could have very well pushed him over the edge. Hearing her speech made Graham feel absolutely awful and he didn’t know anyone involved beyond working together in a professional capacity.
“Graham?”
He had been staring into space for too long. “Yeah, buddy?”
“Were you listening to a word I said?” His words held a certain tone, but there was no way in hell Boulder meant to come off callous and rude, so Graham brushed it off.
“Sorry, ‘zoned out.” Graham pulled his glasses down and wiped them on the collar of his shirt. “I still think our best bet is to break Frankie’s encryption on the tech she’s put together and track that.”
Boulder sighed heavily. “At least we’re on the same page there. I can start working on it, you go get some food and take a break.”
Graham laughed but it sounded sarcastic and tired even to his own ears. “Nice try.”
“Sorry?”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Not to put you down, but humans need to pay more attention to basic survival necessities than autobots. You need to eat, you require more time to recharge, plus don’t you need to shower and defecate and what not?”
“I can do that after this is done. We need to focus on this.” Graham went to pick up a holopen and his laptop but Boulder snatched both before he processed what had happened. “Hey! Boulder, I said I’m fine!”
“Ten minutes, that’s all I’m asking.” Graham turned away in his fury, crossing his arms to get his point across. “Graham, I promise I’m not trying to be cruel.” Boulder sat down on the ground of the makeshift lab, prompting Graham to turn around. “My brother is in danger too. It isn’t fun and I can’t imagine you're having a better time than I am. You don’t have the assurance that he can defend himself and is hard to damage.” Boulder’s optics were dim and he blinked a lot. He was trying his best to make eye contact, but it kept falling to the dirt below. “You’ll do better work if you take a short break, even just to let your brain rest. Just go eat something and rinse off really quick, then we’ll get started.”
Graham was really trying his hardest not to blink and break eye contact. It felt incredibly nice to know someone he cared about could relate as well and just wanted the best for him. He took a few steps forward to close the space between them and rested his forehead on Boulder’s knee.
“Okay, but ten minutes—“
“You can come back in ten minutes and I won’t say a word.”
Graham lifted his head and stood.
Ten minutes.
~
Ten minutes, a quality whore’s bath, a bathroom break and a granola bar later, Graham sprinted back to their workspace. Boulder hadn’t moved an inch since he had left, still staring at the big screen as if the answers to every problem presented. Graham fully came around the corner and found none other than his siblings occupying his space. Dani sat on his temporary desk swinging her legs back and forth and watching the motions while Kade had made himself comfortable in the chair. Dani’s eyes were red and so puffed up Graham questioned whether or not she could see. Kade was examining the disastrous work space but looked up when his brother arrived. The way he clicked his pen and stared Graham down made his nerves spike.
“Your chair has shitty lumbar support.”
“Yeah, I found it in an old white van with ‘free vapes’ written on the side—what do you guys want? We’re busy.”
Dani looked up from the ground but her legs never stopped swinging. “We want to help, Graham.”
“Yeah,” Kade swiveled in the chair, “it feels like crap to just be on standby.” The chair squeaked as he stood. “Look, bro. We know damn well we're not super geniuses like you and Boulder and Doc, but there has to be something we can do. Even if it’s just grabbing you stuff like pens or coffee—“
“He’s banned from coffee,” Boulder added.
Dani raised an eyebrow. “By whom?”
“Well Heatwave walked by and thought he was having a heart attack because of how hard he was shaking and sweating so he told Chief and your dad said—“
“It doesn’t matter!” Graham cut him off and pinched the bridge of his nose. He realized that he just got mad over not having coffee, (which he wouldn’t have gotten mad about if he had had the coffee), so he took a breath before speaking. “Look—I appreciate you guys and I promise I love you and I would let you help if I knew where to start—“ he turned to look at the holoboards that spanned behind him, the writing had been organized at one point but it had devolved over the many hours of theories “—but I don’t know. I don’t know where to start, I don’t know how to fix this… I don’t know how to get everyone back.”
“God, you’re an idiot,” Kade sighed.
Graham turned back around. “Pardon?”
Dani stood up and elbowed Kade lightly in the shoulder. “No, you’re not an idiot. What Kade meant was you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself and while, yes, you could potentially be the one to find the solution, that’s too much stress for any person to handle.”
“Yeah, that.” Kade got up too and brought a hand to Graham’s shoulder, then hesitated before hugging his little brother. “You are doing fine, you are being smart and productive and helping as much as humanly possible. So, how can we help you?”
Graham was about to answer when Boulder, (Graham had forgotten his partner was there for a second), said, in a hauntingly low voice “You can get ready to go.”
Kade turned around and loosened his grip on Graham a touch. “We are ready to go, we’ve been on standby for hours.” Boulder shook his head and knelt down to plug something into a lower computer. The screen flashed awake and words that Graham couldn’t make out without his glasses appeared.
“No, I mean get ready to roll to the rescue because Frankie just sent me an encrypted Groundbridge code.”
Graham pulled his glasses off his shirt and looked at the screen again. It was a long string of code, coordinates, and a single word that stuck out very clear.
HURRY