Chapter Text
One month later…
Thundercracker walked back to his dorm room from the brig as he rotated his shoulder to dull the throb of pain from the beatdown he had gotten from Megatron one month prior. It wasn’t a pretty sight, and even with his trine mates watching still didn’t sit well with him. Starscream had told him, earning their forgiveness was going to take a very long time. When he was finally released from the brig, he ignored all the sneering looks and quiet jeers from his fellow Decepticons and avoided crossing his leader with great caution.
Yet, thinking back to the reason for his insubordination, he had little regrets.
Especially seeing Carly’s grateful look at him when Skyfire closed his doors and flew off to the hospital.
When Thundercracker reached his room doors, he ex-vented expecting his room in shambles from the others as their own form of punishment to him. Surprisingly, upon entering it still looked pristine with little dust layers. After a time of dusting, he noticed a package on his berth. Going up to it he saw a notepad in Vosian on its screen.
‘A certain spybot handed this to me before I could blast him. Don’t think I’m doing you any favors.’
SS
Flickering his red optics, he then opened the package and gasped at its contents. A wrapped portrait of two human adults softly smiling while holding their brown-haired blank looking month-old baby.
Spike, Carly, and Daniel were written on the picture frame.
Thundercracker looked at it with confusion then saw in the package box was a rock, cut open to reveal glittering crystals within it, the crystals looked to have the same shade as his own body color, and an envelope.
Picking up the envelope, he opened it carefully and read the contents of the human’s English.
‘To Thundercracker,
I never imagined writing this to a Decepticon, but we all feel we must say this to you. “Thank you”, for what you did that day. Thank you for helping Carly get the help she needed and protecting her to your best abilities despite your station. We haven’t told the press of your involvement and Prime has ordered no one mentions it to anyone either.
I know our current circumstances are not the best, it’s worse and more complicated to a degree. I don’t know what will happen in the future or how you’ll view us then. You have your own ideal’s that I know you won’t change regarding your war and your cause; I don’t expect you to. We humans don’t have the long lifespans Cybertronians have and maybe you’ll outlive Daniel and feel that what you did for us wasn’t worth it to you. But please know this, for as long as we live and for what Daniel will feel when we eventually tell him, we will be eternally grateful to you.
Don’t think too hard on these words, and maybe you’ll disregard them all together, but we still want to express our gratitude to you anyway. You can do with the picture how you wish it, keep it or destroy it but our feelings with it won’t change. As I mentioned, we don’t live long and even the picture might disintegrate with time, but the geode in the box is our gift to you. It will last much longer than the picture, and if anyone asks, just say you got it as a souvenir from “conquering” Earth.
Again, Thundercracker, I don’t know what the future holds for all of us, but from this small insignificant human being, thank you for saving my wife and child. May God and Primus bless you.
Sincerely,
Michael Samual ‘Spike’ Witwicky of Earth
‘Til all are one.’
For a long time, there was no movement and no sound other than the occasional groans of the ship's hull echoed in the room.
Static intakes finally sounded and the servos holding the picture and letter shook. Putting down the letter, Thundercracker crushed the picture and then walked to his personal incinerator and threw it in. He’d rather not have any hard evidence for anyone to blackmail him about it; he took a memory file of it anyway. He then walked back to the package and took out the geode to examine it.
The human must have gone to great lengths to find the right crystal color.
After throwing away the package box in the incinerator, and hiding the letter securely, Thundercracker climbed up to his berth to lay on it with a conflicted expression. He brought his arm across his face, occasionally his intake staccatoed in the room space.
He won’t change his ideals, he agreed.
He believed in a better Cybertron.
He believed in the Decepticon cause for order and unity.
… but his fellow Con’s, Megatron… he felt that they had lost their way.
Thundercracker moved his arm away and turned his helm to the geode displayed on his work desk, its crystals catching the faint light of his optics and glittered slightly.
The faces of the small human family momentarily flashed in his processor, and he smiled softly.
Well, small miracles are better motivators than others.
What the future holds ahead, held little stance to the blue jet. He’ll just go along with what he believes is best for himself and his ideals.
With one last intake, Thundercracker fell into recharge, and waited for a new day for his recovery and new orders.