Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sideswipe was having a weird day before the Quintesson space bridge threw out a glitching bot. 

            Starting with the fact that a quintesson space bridge had randomly opened up in the airspace above Gamma 3 and thrown out a dozen heavy hitters before he’d gotten his morning energon. Gamma 3 wasn’t a prime target, no important resources for either side, the base wasn’t well armed or significant at all. The only reason they were at the base that cycle was because Hot Rod had literally burned through the last of their repair mesh and they needed a restock. 

            Because that was all Gamma 3 was; a glorified storage facility and rest spot for injured bots.

            Which brought him to the second strange thing of the day: all the quints were injured. Some a lot worse than others. The first one he put down was already missing half its limbs, the next was littered with shrapnel. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a class 3 drop dead before anyone even got a chance to fire on it, a trail of its own guts leading back to the bridge.

            ||Any ideas what’s happening?|| he pinged the main frequency 

            ||Could be a retreat gone wrong|| Arcee suggested ||and they fraged up the coordinates somehow?||

            ||How the slag would they manage that?|| Sunny shot back, slicing through the eyes of a Quint that may or may not have already been blind.

            ||Maybe they were in a hurry and panicked|| Hot Rod chimed in. ||Quint bridges are weird||

            Quintessons didn’t have EM fields, or much in the way of readable expressions but Sideswipe had to admit even the ones that only had a few scratches seemed . . . Off balance. Certainly not prepared for a fight. 

            So while on a normal day a dozen quintessons dropping into Gamma 3 would have wiped the base from the map, today it only took them the better half of the morning to take them out. Arcee got the last kill and almost immediately her and Hot Rod were racing back inside, comming ‘aid to meet them in the hanger for high grade and a med check. 

            Not interested in dealing with the inevitable rant from Ratchet when he found out about that when they got back to the Ark, Sideswipe waved off their invite and scanned the field. He spotted his brother halfway across the way, kicking at a dead quint, and started making his way over to him. 

            And then the space bridge that had been fading since the first quintessons dropped in a full groon ago exploded in a kaleidoscope of color, the seismic shock knocking them both to the ground. 

            Definitely not the normal quintesson technique for closing a bridge. 

            Sideswipe picked himself up off the ground, audials ringing, and looked around frantically for his brother. At first he was panicked that he wasn’t anywhere near where he’d last seen him. Then when he saw him confidently picking his way over the rubble towards where the space bridge had been he was irritated that Sunny had decided that helping him was less important than-

            -helping a chittering mech a full helm taller than him to their feet. Huh.

            Sides reset his optics as he rushed over. But the sight remained and the longer he took it in the weirder it got. The mech didn’t have any sort of visible face plate, they were leaning heavily on Sunny, clear crush injuries scattered across their frame but not a drop on energon to be seen. Their legs were twisted, maybe broken but the symmetry of them made him think they were supposed to look like that. And they were. Talking? Maybe? There was a constant flow of noise coming from them, with the cadence of speech, sans the usual pauses for venting or letting someone respond. 

            Reminded him a little of Blurr.

            By the time he got to their sides Sunny was starting to look irritated; which meant he was still a ways away from actually feeling irritated, but it didn’t bode well. 

            “Heya!” Sideswipe called out.

            The mystery mecha jolted at his voice, but instead of pausing, their stream of noise got louder and faster.

            Sides tried tuning his audials through all the standard frequencies but there wasn’t a single recognizable glyph pinging in any of his language packs. Sideswipe glanced at his brother for help and saw he’d abandoned trying to decipher the stream of noise entirely and was fiddling with the mech's forearm.

            “What are you doing?” He asked Sunny, since clearly talking to the mech was a nonstarter.

            “I’m trying to find a dataport,” Sunny scowled, tracing a digit over the mech's transformation seams. Sideswipe noticed for the first time just how close together the plating on their limbs was set. The only seams with any leeway were the ones around their joints, with no allowance for shifting during transformation.

            “If Ratchet finds out you’re hardlining with a mecha you just met he’s gonna blow a fuse,” Sideswipe teased while puzzling through that. Maybe they were a monoformer? 

            Sunny gave him a withering glare before guiding the mech into sitting down on a stray piece of rubble. The mech didn’t seem perturbed by Sunstreakers brusque handling, going easily where they were led. 

            Sideswipe closed the distance to stand shoulder to shoulder with his brother while they both studied the mech. Still chittering away, though Sides got the feeling they were just talking to fill the space now, instead of out of any attempt to communicate. 

            “Soo,” Sideswipe drawled, “How are we gonna do this?”

            “Beats me.”

            Sideswipe titled his helm, eyeing the panels along the mech’s neck critically, “we could try asking them where their dataports are?” He offered

            He felt a wave of exasperation through their bond, “I already tried asking them, in standard and common before you got your lazy aft over here.”

            “What about charades?”

            “What?”

            “Like, pulling out your cable and showing them.”

            Sunny cycled his optics, “huh. Yeah, that could work.”

            The mech watched as Sunstreaker unspooled a data cable from his wrist. Despite their total lack of facial features or EM field, Sideswipe could sense their open curiosity. Then they made an “Ah-ha” noise when Sunstreaker lifted the cable to show it clearly and there was the familiar click of a panel shifting and the woosh of hydraulics triggering. For a microsecond Sideswipe relaxed, the tension in his joints eased by the return to normalcy. The evidence that despite everything undeniable off about this mech, at their base level they still operated the same as them. 

            And then instead of a panel sliding neatly away to reveal a data port, their entire visor flipped back to reveal a twisted mess of wires and sparking circuits. There were no optical components to speak of, just dozens of reflective lenses no bigger than the tip of his claw, and the way the shadows danced and sparks flickered off the tangle of techno components gave Sideswipe a grim sense that their entire helm was constructed like that.

            It was the kind of overblown nonsensical gore you saw in cheap horror flicks, except it was attached to a real living mech. Sideswipe felt his own revulsion echoed in Sunstreak horror laced EM field. It was almost enough to make him want to purge. 

            Then, with the aura of someone who thought they were being extremely helpful, the mecha took the data cable from Sunstreakers limp servo and plugged it directly into the mess of gore that made up their face. 

And then Sideswipe really did purge.

——————————————————

            Sunstreaker was trying very hard not to purge. Instead he focused all his attention on throwing up every firewall he had as he felt his cable click into some hidden port in the depth of the mech's helm. 

            In the back of his processor he could hear Ratchet's lectures about safe data sharing. “Never plug into an unfamiliar port” his gruff voice echoed, “non compatible hardware is much more likely to carry viruses your firewalls aren’t prepared to handle. Just cause it can fit doesn’t mean it should fit.”

            But instead of a wave of pop-ups and spam flooding his HUD there was just a single prompt, text unfamiliar, but after a moment of fear Sunstreakers code analysis revealed it was an invitation, not for the mech to enter his mind, but for him to send over his data. 

            Almost frantic, Sunstreaker pushed the cybertronian standard language pack through the connection and as soon as he got the notification that it was accepted he ripped himself free from the mechas helm.

            “Oh primus what the scrap was that,” Sideswipe groaned, still hunched over, regurgitated fuel splattered around his peds. “Oh that was so fragged what the pit.”

            Sunstreaker took a breem to shake off his wave of disgust, run a diagnostic, and ease his brother's fretting. By then more than enough time had passed for the language pack to integrate into the mechs programming.

            He turned back to face the mech, who thankfully had returned their visor back into place. “Who the FRAG are you?” He demanded.

            In a halting voice the mech carefully sounded out their response, “maɪ–dɛz-əɡ-ne-ʃən–ɪz—blu-strik.”

            “Oh you’ve gotta be slagging kidding me.”

——————————————————

            All things considered Bluestreak thought these aliens were way nicer than the ones invading earth. He was trying to focus on that instead of-

            -Orions orders. The Quintessenons, overwhelming them. There were so many, too many, the injured disappearing and new healthy ones popping up to replace them. And then they found the portal, but someone needed to shut it off, and it had to be manually, and Bluestreak was the closest and he was the least injured, he could get there faster than anyone, but still Prowl was screaming through their comms begging him to wait, let him do it. Even though Prowl knew better than anyone just how much each second they wasted would cost. How much more valuable his mind was against Bluestreaks shooting. The last thing Prowl said to him, the desperate plea, I can’t lose you too, I won’t survive. And then the portal swallowing him whole before he could say anything, getting ricocheted through space and time for what felt like hours-

            Anyway. The robot aliens were cool. The yellow one with the big vents on the sides of his head was gentle with his mecha, despite how grumpy his face was, and the red one with his cute black horns had seemed really friendly when he first walked up. They both seemed kinda put off when he plugged that cable in the yellow ones arm into his diagnostic system though, which was weird cause he was almost positive that’s what they had wanted.

            The language dictionary they sent him was super cool. It was written more like computer code than any actual human language textbook he’d ever read, but it was pretty user friendly. The way it seemed to run through his mechas programming and scrap every bit of language it could find to build a translation framework was kinda scary in the same way that Tarantulas was. Hyper competent, intelligent, and helpful but with the undercurrent of hunger. He’d tried to talk to Prowl about that, about him. The weird sense of foreboding Bluestreak just couldn’t shake every time he left a checkup.

            Tarantulas wanted to help them, he knew that. He wanted to make the mechas and pilots stronger, to improve their integration, to push the boundaries of what metal and flesh could do. And Tarantulas was helping them. But there was this lingering thought that just kept coming back no matter how many times he pushed it down. The certainty that helping them wasn’t Tarantulas’ goal, it was just a way forward towards what he really wanted.

            The problem, and the reason he couldn’t get Prowl to listen to him was that he had no idea what that might be.

            Bluestreak highly doubted an especially advanced language AI was going to suggest he get cybernetic implants in his eyes to further improve his sniper range though.

            Probably.

            He pushed those thoughts out of his head and focused back on the two robots in front of him. For some reason they looked even more irritated than before.

            “wɑt—ər—jər—deZ-ig-naations?” he asked carefully, feeling slightly better about his pronunciation this time

           “FraggingPrimutheglitchcantevenprocesesalanguagepackright,” the yellow one threw his arms up in the air.

            Bluestreak winced. Okay. So apparently his pronunciation left something to be desired.

            “My designation is Sideswipe,” the red one, Sideswipe replied, “this is my brother, Sunstreaker.”

            Bluestreak consulted the dictionary, “it—is—ve-ri—nice—to—met—ju, Side-swipe—and—Sunstreaker.”

            “Well at least he’s getting better fast,” Sideswipe offered.

            Bluestreak beamed. Sunstreaker scoffed.

            Sideswipe turned to face his brother and snapped something way too fast for Bluestreak to even try to translate, and then his brother responded in kind and they dissolved into an argument. Instead of trying to follow it, Bluestreak turned his attention back towards studying the language program. 

            Luckily Bluestreak was something of a fan of linguistics, so it wasn’t overly difficult to follow. All the phonetics existed across the languages he already knew, and the grammatical structure was pretty straight forward. Plus it included all their swears, which was a nice bonus. 

            After a few minutes Bluestreak noticed they’d both gone silent, though a glance revealed that they were still emoting like they were talking. Probably, the conversation had switched to comms.

            “We’re heading back to the base,” Sunstreaker informed him gruffly after another few minutes, “you coming?”

            “Yep!” Bluestreak popped up to his feet, and immediately felt a strut in his leg give out. Luckily Sunstreaker and Sideswipe both surged forward catching him by one shoulder each, and pulling his arms around them.

            “Oh frag he’s hurt,” Sideswipe breathed.

            “Well no slag, look at him, of course he’s hurt!”

            “I mean yeah, I noticed that early but then I got distracted by. Everything else.”

            “Oh this doesn’t hurt,” Bluestreak offered, “it’s just uh. ˌɪnkənˈvinjənt?”

            “Inconvenient?” Sunstreaker echoed 

            “Yes! That. Me-myself, I can’t actually feel my body yet because of the əˈdrɛnələn, I mean I’m probably injured but the damage to mech-me, that’s different.”

            He glanced between the robots. They were both looking at him with identical baffled expressions.

            “Oh you guys are twin brothers aren’t you? I didn’t notice before because your bodies are so different but your faces are totally the same huh? Me and my brother-“

            “We might need to loop Ratchet in on this,” Sideswipe interrupted, “this is definitely beyond First Aid’s pay grade.”

            “We’ll keep that door open,” Sunstreaker allowed, pulling Bluestreak and by extension his brother into motion. “But for now the dysfunctional horror flick mech is on a need to know basis.” 

            “Not that you care if he gets in trouble,” Sideswipe teased.

            Sunstreaker huffed, face glowing faintly, and whacked him with his free arm.

            They made the trek over the battlefield fairly quickly. Bluestreak was struck again by how gentle their hands were where they supported his mecha. Technically most the tactical sensation he got through the mechas connection was placebo; he couldn’t actually feel the warmth radiating off their frames or the slight give in their metal plating where his mecha weight rested but he knew instinctively it was there. He could hear the engines deep inside them thrumming like an idling car, and there was no sound of friction or scraping where their bodies met. So. Warm and soft.

            They entered the base through a large hangar door. To the left was a large nondescript ship, Bluestreak thought it could probably fit six or seven mecha his size comfortably. To the right there were three mecha sitting on supply crates in a semicircle. Two of them, a white and pink one and a flame patterned one with a very ornate helm design, were drinking cubes of glowing purple liquid. The third was patterned in red and white, with a red cross symbol printed on their shoulder. That one was probably a medic build, he thought. They certainly looked like what he would expect out of a robot doctor. He tried to connect the other twos forms to the terms he’d noted in the dictionary, but besides the white and pink one maybe being a femme, he was coming up blank. 

            “You said he was only hurt a little bit!” The probably-doctor accused, jumping to his feet and brandishing a wrench at the three of them. 

            Bluestreak studied his face closely. He had a visor similar to Bluestreaks, but he could see the glow of two eyes moving underneath the tinted glass. The lower half of his face had been exposed at first, and he’d caught the barest glimpse of lips, teeth, and a splattering of what might have been freckles, before a metal plate much like a surgical mask snapped into place and hid the rest of his face from view. 

            The other two had equally detailed faces, he noted as they closed the distance. There was a looseness to their bodies, a visible age to them, different to Bluestreaks mechas own wear and tear.

            These robots weren’t like him, he knew, same as he’d known the first second he’d laid eyes on Sunstreaker. They were alive all on their own. Part of him had wanted to reject the thought as soon as he had it; so what if these mecha were way more advanced looking then anything Wheeljack had even attempted to build, that didn’t mean they were living robots. But Bluestreak had spent his whole life trusting his instincts- solving the problem on a whim and then only after talking it through with his brothers being able to pick out every little microscopic factor that his brain had processed and logged subconsciously to give him the answer, the right answer, without him ever deliberately considering it. 

            “We said there wasn’t any Energon,” Sideswipe corrected. 

            “Is he an Empurata?” The red and orange one asked, “What’s up with his frame?”

            “Primus, Hot Rod you can’t just ask someone if they’re an Empurata.”

            Bluestreak consulted the dictionary. Empurata, it read, a banned practice of mutilating the body of an accused criminal, particularly the face and hands, to limit their ability to function and emote, and ostracize them from society. 

            “Oh no I’m supposed to look like this,” he chimed in. 

            Five pairs of eyes widened in shock. 

            “Not entirely, I mean,” he explained as the medic and Sideswipe guided him to sit on one of the crates, “I’m supposed to be able to stand and walk on my own but my ‘face’ looks like this on purpose and my limbs are all like they’ve always been. When they were building us expressions weren’t really a primary focus, it was all about fighting and killing quintessons. And up until now its not like I’ve ever needed to have a face, honestly, even though it would be pretty fun to be able to smile at people and stuff but there probably wouldn’t be any room to add all those controls in my skull anyway so it’s not like it really matters but I guess since it makes you all uncomfortable it does matter a little bit huh? The last thing I would want is to make anyone feel bad but at the same time it’s not like I can actually do anything-“

            “I thought you said he could barely talk?” the femme interrupted.

            “He couldn’t,” Sunstreaker shot back. “He was fumbling through basic introductions five breems ago!”

            “I’ve been studying the dictionary as fast as I can,” Bluestreak protested, “but it’s a lot to read.”

            “The dictionary?” Sunstreaker turned back to him.

            “Yeah. That you sent me! When you,” he paused, consulting the dictionary, “hardlined me.” 

            Sunstreakers face flushed blue and the medic started sputtering, sounding a lot like a backfiring car engine. The pink and white femme covered her face with both hands while Hot Rod burst into incredulous laughter.

            “Oh wait- no. Data shared?” He corrected, “it’s- sorry the context of a lot of these words is kinda hard to parse.”

            “You’re good,” Sideswipe reassured brightly, “but what do you mean by dictionary? Why didn’t you just incorporate the language pack directly into your processor?”

            “I don’t think I can do that?” Bluestreak frowned, “I mean I could try, but it might. Kill me? I guess if you think it’s safe-“

            “Nope!” The medic interrupted, “we can communicate, and that’s good enough. We can wait to figure out what exactly is wrong with your systems before we start integrating foreign programs.”

            “That works,” Bluestreak agreed easily. “I’m Bluestreak, by the way” he added, as the medic began running his hand over the damaged parts of his frame.

            “First Aid,” he responded, “that’s Arcee and Hot Rod,” he gestured to the other mechs who had pulled Sunstreaker away and were now needling him about something.

            Bluestreak hummed in acknowledgment.

            “So,” First aid began after he’d finished repairing the damage to Bluestreaks shoulder and started puzzling over the broken strut in his leg, “you said you’re a MTO? For fighting Quintessons?” Behind him Bluestreak saw the others perk up.

            Made to order soldier, or MTO’s: cold constructions designed for a specific task at the order of high command, powered by stockpiled sparks. Often serve as canon fodder.

            “Kinda?” Bluestreak hedged, “at least, I guess I’m my planet's equivalent to that.” 

            “Your planets? Are you from one of the colonies?” Sunstreaker frowned.

            “No? At least I don’t think Earth is anyone’s colony.”

            The robots exchanged a look. “I’ve never heard of Earth,” Arcee offered. “Is it far from here?”

            “I’m not actually sure where here is to be honest. The portal didn’t come with street signs.” 

            “They usually don’t,” Hot Rod laughed, “it’s a major oversight.”

            “How are your fuel levels?” First aid asked as he transformed a single digit into a blow torch and began welding Bluestreaks leg back together.

            “They’re fine, at about 70%,” Bluestreak paused, considering how he was feeling, not just the mecha’s diagnostics, “I’m getting pretty hungry, but I doubt you’d have any food I could eat.”    

            “What do you mean?” Sideswipe raised a brow.

            “Just that since the atmosphere of this planet is so toxic, nothing here would be safe for me,” the read out from the filtration system was pretty interesting though. 78% of the air registered as unknown elements and as extremely hazardous. 

            “What do you mean it’s toxic?” Sunstreaker glanced around, “you’re fine, aren't you?”

            “Oh, yeah, my filtration system is keeping the poison out and I’ve got an oxygen stockpile in here,” he tapped his chest and felt the vibrations echo through his cockpit, “so I’ll be fine for a while. But hopefully I can figure something out before that all runs out.”

            The robots were exchanging confused looks again,

            “Bluestreak,” First aid began slowly, “what exactly are you?”

            Bluestreak titled his head, “How do you mean? My species is called human. I’m a mecha pilot though. And a Gemini.” He paused, “also I’m lactose intolerant.”

            “and what is a human mecha pilot?” He latched onto the first part of the sentence.

            Bluestreak frowned and ran through all the terms the dictionary had related to aliens or body types. After a minute he found something. 

            “I think you’d call me ‘an organic load-bearer’.”

Chapter Text

Sunstreaker followed as First Aid and Sides rushed the mech- the human- Bluestreak, into the ship. He was moving less sure now, helm swiveling around as he tried to- What? Track their movements? Assess the danger? It couldn’t be more obvious he had no idea what they were doing, the situation he was in. The easy, carefree way he offered up his spark on a platter.

An organic load bearer.

            Sunstreaker lingered in the entrance of the shuttles barestruts med bay, watching as First Aid wired Bluestreak into all the monitoring software they had, surface sensors magnetized across his chassis. First Aid didn’t flinch at the sight of Bluestreaks inner helm, just inserted a medical diagnostic cable and began reading through the output on one of the scanners. Hot Rod at least turned away before he started dry heaving. 

An organic load bearer.

            Arcee was futzing with the surveillance equipment. Sideswipe was helping her. That made sense; someone always went through all the logs when the supply ships returned to the Ark. Ratchet would often double and triple checking the medical bay security feed, knowing bots would rather weld themselves up then admit to whatever ‘nonsense’ got them hurt. This was more than their usual nonsense though this was-

An organic load bearer.

            Sunstreaker had no idea what this was.

——————

            Sunstreaker stared resolutely at the ship's manifest. Everything was logged perfectly, the new medical equipment they were bringing back to the Ark, the fuel stores meant to last them the 10 groon trip back, with a 3 cycle surplus just in case. The minor repairs the ship's hull had undergone the cycle before were noted, with the pictures the mechanic had taken. It was a textbook data file; he’d done it exactly how Ultra Magnus taught them. Every column and row neatly filled, budget balance. Not a single pixel out of place.

            It was ridiculously suspicious.

            Sunstreaker had never spent more than a breem filling out a data file in his life. But when First Aid had kicked them all out, citing ‘doctor patient confidentiality’ Arcee had immediately gotten to work corrupting the hangar bay’s security feed and wiping any incriminating audio, so the rest of them had to scramble to find something productive to do or else risk getting assigned to whatever Arcee came up with.

            Hot Rod called dibs on charting the navigation and Sides went back into the base to check in with the ground crew, which left Sunstreaker to fill out the manifest.

            Perfectly.

            Ultra Magnus was going to take one look at this and send him to Ratchet for a processor check. Or worse. Expect it again. 

            He dragged a servo across his face, signed First Aid’s designation at the bottom and closed it out. 

            ||All good with the ground crew?|| He commed Sideswipe.

            ||Almost,|| Sides replied after a beat. ||had to walk them through ‘safe quintesson corpse disposal’ a few times; no one stationed here has ever dealt with them this close up.||

            Sunny wasn’t surprised. There was a crew of exactly ten bots staying at the Gamma 3 base, and at any given time half of them were taking stasis naps.  None were combat grade. Just a few mechanics and civilians keeping stock in the middle of nowhere. 

            ||Anyone in high command get in contact about the attack?||

            ||Just the automated system. Betcha Ironhide is gonna expect a full debrief when we get back though.||

            Sunstreaker hissed through his invent, ||Any ideas how we’re gonna swing this?||

            ||Got a few,|| Sideswipe replied vaguely, ||be up in five for a debrief?||

            ||Sounds good.|| Sunny sent out a meeting request to others, immediately getting a confirmation from Arcee and a “man I’m sitting right next to you” from Hot Rod. First Aid didn’t respond, but he did mark the message as read. ||Over and out.||

            Sunny sided eyed Hot Rods monitor, “is that the Iacon 5000?”

            Hot Rod nodded, “first time Blurr won.”

            Sunstreaker hummed. He’d dreamed of being a racer once; had the right alt for it. But he’d ended up in the pits of Kaon instead. He wasn’t ashamed of it, of doing what was necessary to survive, but sometimes he felt like other people expected him to be. The weight of their gaze on him, like they thought he should feel dirty for it. 

            He doubted very many people were watching reruns of his fights.

            Megatron’s fights, on other hand, were a regular feature all across cybertronian space.

            “See how savage he is?” The newsbots would croon every time he lost the senate's favor, playing one of his earlier fights, when he was just as desperate and hungry as the rest of them, “how can we trust a cold construct to lead the armies of Cybertron in the fight against the Quintesson threat?”

            Then, when he did lead, when he won another impossible battle, saving a colony, pushing back the endless tide, it would be Sentinel Prime himself simpering empty platitudes to the masses, “I saw something special in that lowly miner, turned gladiatorial champion,” and the clips they showed would be from when Megatron ruled the pits, when he set the stage, when the deaths, when they were even real, were just to pander to the crowd. An elaborate performance “and look what he’s achieved under my guiding hand.”

            “Sooooo,” Hot Rod drawled from where he had planted his aft firmly on the navigation console, “What’s the verdict?”

            Sunstreaker snapped back into focus. Arcee and Sideswipe were back, lounging around the flight deck. First Aid was just breaching the doorway, attention on his servos as he wiped them down. There was a palpable tension in the air that made his EM field crawl.

            “He’s definitely an organic,” First Aid began, “and ‘load bearer’ is an accurate enough term for his relationship with the mecha suit.”

            “So he’s a fleshie wearing a cybertronian corpse?” Hot Rod grimaced,

            “Is that what load bearers do?” Arcee frowned

            “No, the ‘suit’ was constructed on his home planet, it’s all dead metal.” He subspaced his polishing rags, “and load bearers only sometimes steal corpses.”

            “Neat,” Sunny chimed in dryly. “But what’s his deal? And where is he?”

            “Mandatory berth rest, and as best I can tell he’s exactly what he said; a soldier designed to fight and kill Quintessons,” First Aid glanced around the room, “so now the question is, what are you going to do?”

            “We need to protect him,” Sideswipe began, not as a suggestion, or request, but as an immutable fact.

            Because it was. It was obvious that this organic had no idea the world he had stepped into. If it was anyone else, if he’d been even a fraction less earnest and chatty then maybe, maybe they would have thought to fear him, to be wary of the monster who claimed to be an organic wearing their skin. If Sunstreaker was more paranoid then he might have wondered if this was some kind of elaborate play, revealing his secrets so easily just to lull them into a false sense of security. 

            And maybe it was. But if this was some sort of Quintesson trick then Bluestreak could only be their sacrificial turbofox, shadowplayed into the role of a sleeper agent. Besides, if there was anything like that going on First Aid would have found the signs of it. 

            It was odd, Sunny knew, for him to feel so sure about the nature of someone he’d known for less than a groon, but any second guessing he might have entertained crumbled in the face of the simple fact that everyone else was clearly on the same page. 

            “Yeah,” Arcee frowned, “but how?”

            “As of right now it isn’t safe for him to leave his mecha for more than a breem,” First Aid offered, “which I am working on, but at the very least it means for now we won’t have to worry about anyone seeing him.”

            “Are we gonna pass him off as an Empurata then?” Hot Rod raised a brow. “cause theres no way he’s gonna pass as a regular bot looking like that.”

            “Would anyone even buy that?” Arcee argued, “I mean yeah, he definitely looks the part but he’s so. . . Bubbly. I don’t think I’ve ever met a happy Empurata.”

            “Plus I don’t think he’d be very good at keeping a secret,” Sunstreaker chimed in, thinking about how talkative he was with only a rudimentary grasp of cybertronian.

            “Well,” Sides hedged, shooting a look at First Aid, “the mecha isn’t actually him, right? And he said earlier that the damage to it doesn’t affect him, so what if we just. Disabled his vocalizer and passed him off as a drone?”

            “Are you serious?” Sunstreaker growled after a beat of stunned silence.

            “Just temporarily!” Sides held his hands up defensively, “until we can find a place to hide him on the Ark, I mean, no one’s gonna look too closely at a drone, or care if it disappears.”

            “And how are we going to explain why we suddenly have a massive drone in the first place?” Arcee snarked.

            “I’m just trying to get the gears turning here.”

            “No that could work,” First Aid interrupted, “not the drone part, exactly, but instead of saying he’s an Empurata we could pass off most of his appearance as temporary field repairs, and the rest as him being a colony mech from an edge planet. It wouldn’t hold up to Ratchet, but it doesn’t have to- we just need to get him through check in and into my habsuite.” First Aids EM field flared with excitement and all four of them tensed reflexively. First Aid was a skilled medic, and generally a pleasant bot to hang out with, there was no denying that, but it didn’t take much one on one time to realize that the things that made him really excited were more than a little off color.

            “And then?” Sides prompted hesitantly.

            First Aids visor brightened, his servos tapping a steady rhythm against his legs, “and then I can build him a face.”

———————————-

            “But how many faces do you think he has?”

            “Hot Rod-“

            “Like, sure, he’s a medic, I guess it makes sense for them to have spare faceplates on hand-“

            “Can you please just focus on flying-“

            “But this feels like private collection kinda thing-“

            “I really don’t-“

            “And it's not like he’s gonna request parts from the medbay for a secret habsuit surgery-“

            “Roddy-“

            “I’m just saying. I bet he’s got at least three.”

——————

            Sideswipe was watching his brother watch the alien.

            Bluestreak woke up less than half a groon after they set off. He was walking easily now, all the injuries to his frame neatly repaired or hidden away under silver mesh. 

            On Sideswipes invitation he’d joined the two of them in the rec room. As a shuttle class ship the transport they were on had all of five rooms, the medbay, the command center, the storage bay, the recharge cells, and the rec room. The rec room was the largest space after the storage bay, and it was equipped with a holoscreen and an energon dispenser.

            There was also a set of cards, which they were supposed to be using to play Primes match, but Sunstreaker, normally the most competitive bot in the room, was more concerned with unsubtly staring at Bluestreak. 

            And Bluestreak was, well- 

            “So go fish is basically our version except since our cards only have four suits instead of six, and sometimes people play it where you only have to get two of a pair, which is better for kids, I think, but I don’t really like that version as much. It’s too easy and it’s way more fun to steal someone’s-“

            Sideswipe had to admit it made for a pleasant background noise. Unlike Blurr when he really got wound up, Bluestreaks voice stayed fairly steady. Fast, but legible. And it was kind of interesting, which made it distracting, which meant that under normal circumstances Sunstreaker would be cleaning up at cards. 

            But for one, Bluestreak didn’t have any money so they hadn’t placed any bets, and two, Sunstreaker had looked at his cards all of three times since the game had started. 

            Instead of focusing on them, he was focusing on Bluestreak.

            Intently. 

            It was a little creepy.

            “-when I was in the academy there were a lot of card games we used to play and then we had to start making up new ones every time Barricade or Prowl got another one banned, cause Barricade would cheat and then when Prowl would catch him he’d say he wasn’t actually cheating, he was training us to detect subterfuge and then Prowl would flip the table and it would usually break-“

            Sides had taken several assessing looks at Bluestreak, and while he was definitely interesting looking Sideswipe wouldn’t have thought him appealing, at least not to someone as superficial as Sunstreaker tended to be.

            His helm was featureless and misshapen. His servos, short a digit each, were too long, more like talons. His twisted, triple jointed legs bore more resemblance to an mecha-animals than a cybertronian. 

“We stopped playing games like this for awhile after the first attacks but when the mecha program started picking up speed games got fun again and Smokescreen said it was a good way to team bond. Prowl was kinda grumpy about it but that’s just cause all the guys in construction picked up our rules for Mao way faster then he thought they would so he lost like, 50 bucks to Smokescreen-“

            Don’t get him wrong, Sideswipe wasn’t that shallow, he’d grown up in the gladiator pits, and he’d always thought there was something magnetic about a mecha who bore the scars of the battles they’d won and lost with pride. But this was different. All those traits pinged in his processor as ‘Empurata’ and his logic cascades kept spitting out conflicting results 

            Criminal. Victim. Dangerous. Pitiable. Different.

            It was annoying, and it was confusing because he knew better. Knew Bluestreak wasn’t an Empurata,  knew that Empuratas were more than what functionalist propaganda said, knew that weren’t just one dimensional tokens proving the system was cruel. 

            Yet Sunstreaker, who primps and preens for breems every morning, who scoffed at mechs who skipped their morning polish or went out with scuff marks, didn’t seem to be able to look away.

            And Sideswipe wanted to be able to see what he saw. 

            Bluestreak, or his mech suit at least, had nice hips. His plating was mostly shades of gray, with bold red legs and a matching red visor. The visor itself had an appealing shape to it, angular, almost like a chevron. He had no kibble, save for a pair of what were probably sensor panels mounted on his back, about the size of doorwings but with the delicate arch of a seekers wings. 

“Prowl says Smokescreen has a gambling problem, but Smokescreen says it’s only a problem if you’re losing, and he almost never loses-“

            “Prowl and Smokescreen are both your brothers?” Sunstreaker interrupted, stopping Bluestreak’s monologue cold and pulling Sideswipe from his musing.

            “Yeah! Prowl’s my twin, Smokescreen’s a couple years older than us but everyone always thinks Prowl’s the oldest, cause of his hair and the way he acts.”

            Sideswipe frowned, wondering what hair was and how it could have any barring on your perceived age. 

            “and they’re like you?” Sunstreaker pressed, gesturing vaguely at Bluestreak.

            “They’re both mecha pilots, but Prowl’s support class, and Smokescreen was combo battle and support. I mean, everyone in the program is also battle capable, no one is just tactical or medical-“

            “He was?” Sideswipe probed gently

            “Oh, yeah, he uh,” Bluestreaks digits started twitching in a rhythm where his servo rested on the table. On a normal bot Sideswipe probably wouldn’t have noticed it, but Bluestreak’s mecha didn’t move the way a Cybertronians did; his door wings didn’t flutter, his panels didn’t flare or contract, his visor light stayed steady. He- it, wasn’t alive the way they were. You wouldn’t notice it, at least not at first, and if you didn’t know you might just brush it off as a quirk, but it made every little expression that he could make stand out. “He got hit pretty bad about a month ago, they thought he just had a concussion at first, but then it got worse and they had to put him in a medically induced coma. He’s gonna wake up though! Flatline said his brainwaves are improving a lot. It’s just that he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to handle piloting again.”

            Bluestreak went silent for a moment, “I need to be there when he wakes up. I don’t- I don’t want him to have to worry about me while he’s still trying to get better. And I know Prowl needs me, even though he’ll probably pretend he’s fine like he always does. And I- I need them too.”

            Sideswipe knew what it was to be driven by the need to protect your siblings and to be protected by them in turn. Bluestreaks words resonated deep in his spark, and he felt the same surge in Sunstreaker as it echoed through their bond.

            Sunstreaker moved first, reaching across the table to clasp one of Bluestreaks mangled gray servos in both his flawless yellow ones. “Don’t worry,” he said, intense and serious, as gentle as he got.

            Sideswipe rested his servo on Bluestreaks shoulder, “we’ll get you home.”

———-

            Growing up Bluestreak had always known he and his brother were odd. People were more vocal about it when it came to Prowl. They saw him as standoffish, rude, stuck up and full of himself. Bluestreak saw Prowl as steady, cautious and confident. Clever. It hurt when he heard what people said about his brother behind his back, and later to his face. How they’d laugh and think that his lack of a reaction proved them right, that he really was a soulless puppet. (Nowadays they called him a heartless solider)

            But Bluestreak knew it bothered him, knew how hard he tried to be the perfect well behaved son their parents wanted. How despite everything they still criticized him for not being social enough, then turned around and told Bluestreak to ‘stop that blabbering for Christ sake’. Smokescreen was better, he said they balanced each other out, said they made a good team. 

            When he said Prowl needed to loosen up and that Bluestreak needed to learn to just be quiet sometimes, he said it because he was worried. Because he loved them. His eyebrows would crease, his eyes would crinkle at the corners. He’d say it softly.

            It made it hurt less. 

            So they grew up. Prowl got better at minding his tone, got used to being on the outside looking in. Told Bluestreak that it was okay if his friends didn’t like him, that it was more important for Bluestreak to have friends. And Bluestreak pretended that he didn’t mind the silence. Taught himself to pause, learned to watch people’s faces closely so he could tell when they were starting to get tired of him, so he could stop without them telling him too. 

            And then the world started to end and all that stuff started mattering a lot less. 

            Bluestreak still did his best to mind his tongue, but it was so much easier to pilot the mecha when he just let himself ramble. Easier not to dwell on the brothers he left behind when he filled the silence with his own ideal chatter.

            Smokescreen had suggested that the more stressed he got the more he needed to self soothe by going on a streak. Bottling it up only ever made him feel worse, after all. 

            Bluestreak was also aware from Smokescreens lectures that he was compartmentalizing right now. But in his defense, it was pretty easy to push everything to the wayside when you’re halfway across the universe traveling through deepspace with five robot aliens. Besides that fact that they were all fighting quintessons there really wasn’t any overlap with his life on earth and what was happening currently, so. Into the box it goes, tucked away where Bluestreak doesn’t have to spiral on it. 

            And the mecha he’d found himself with gave him plenty of other things to focus on. 

            “So,” First Aid continued from where he was jotting notes on his data pad, “what I’ve just sent you is a basic data pack that’ll help you blend in. First is the classic ten step MTO onlining guide, then there’s an expanded brief about the situation between the quintessons and cybertron, and last is a general overview of how colony bots live and operate.”

            “IS HIS VISOR BACK ON?” Hot Rod yelled from the doorway, where he was turned facing the hallway with both hands over his eyes.

            Bluestreak triggered the release to let his visor snap back in place. He’d been informed after the first day that to them the sight inside his mechas head was fairly graphic. Only First Aid as a medic was unbothered by it, though he had spent a good amount of time during their first check up poking around through the wires.

            First Aid rolled his eyes, “let’s go meet the others then.”

-

            The plan as it had been explained to Bluestreak was fairly simple. And the motives behind it were easy enough to figure out. 

            In order to keep him safe, instead of announcing that Bluestreak was actually an organic in a mecha suit, they would be passing him off as a heavily injured colony mech they’d found in a wrecked escape pod on their way back to their flag ship.

            What they didn’t tell Bluestreak, but he figured out almost immediately, is that the reason they didn’t want everyone to know he was an organic was because there was a fairly widespread anti organic sentiment. The extent of it wasn’t totally obvious to Bluestreak, but he could tell even the bots who were going out of his way to protect him were uneasy with that side of him.

            Now all they had to do was iron out the details.

            “I still think we should say his colony is in the Arcadia quadrant. It’s the closest unincorporated zone; if he was from anywhere else then someone’s gonna try to access the databases to find his id number,” Arcee said.

            “But if we say he’s from Delta 83, which has mix of Cybertronian and Camien frame types, his weird body sticks out less, and it makes more sense for him to be in an escape pod cause they just got attacked,” Sideswipe argued 

            “Why would a refugee from Delta 83 be in this quadrant! That’s a deca-cycle away! He wouldn’t be this far out!” Arcee threw her hands up in the air.

            “and he doesn’t look anything like a Camien-Cybertronian hybrid,” Sunny added, “plus if he’s a survivor of Delta 83 then they’re gonna wanna interview him.”

            “Why do we need to tell them what colony he’s even from?” Hot Rod asked through a mouthful of what Bluestreak thought might be metal crackers, “we can just say we found him super injured in a pod, his memory files are a little corrupted, we’re figuring it out.” Hot Rod shoved another handful of chips in his mouth.

            “Less complicated is better,” First Aid mused, “we don’t offer any more information than needed.“

            “That sounds good to me,” Bluestreak agreed. And then with a light air he added, “I’ll be so taciturn. Not a single unnecessary words coming outta my mouth.

            Across from him Sunstreaker gave a single sharp laugh and a sly grin. Bluestreak manually flashed his visor back in place of a wink. 

            “Well,” Arcee sighed, “I guess that’s it then. We touch down in just over a breem- docking request has been sent and received,” she paused, and slowly glanced around the room. “Did anyone ever actually message command about the additional passenger?”

            There was a beat of silence.

            “Hot Rod?” She pressed, “after we decided on the pod thing, and you sent the check in report, you included that, right?”

            “Ah,” Hot Rod made an expression that was somewhere between a smirk and a grimace, “so I uh, never actually sent that report? Cause like, first of all I never send the check in reports, and second, they would have started comming us with all these questions and Ratchet would have insisted on being there when we land. And this just felt less complicated.”

            “I hate to say it but I think he’s kinda right,” Sideswipe said.

            “It makes us look more suspicious,” Arcee countered.

            Sunstreaker shrugged, “nah, it just makes Hot Rod look lazy. If they ask, we wrote a report and Hot Rod just never sent it.”

            “This is gonna be so fun,” Bluestreak said brightly, “I’ve always wanted to do undercover work.”

Chapter Text

Bluestreak hadn’t spent much of the day and half trip looking out the windows. As fascinating as deep space was, he couldn’t help but be unnerved by the endless black. It had the same sort of hollowness as the ocean. Sure, he knew both were teeming with life under the surface, friendly and otherwise, but he also knew these forces of nature would swallow him whole if he let them. 

            So he’d been avoiding looking out the windows right up until Hot Rod had announced they were coming up on the Ark.

            He’d sort of expected to be awestruck by the sight of it, the same way he’d been when he’d first seen Sunstreaker and the others. And don’t get him wrong, the ship was impressive- easily the biggest thing he’d ever seen, plucked straight out of a sci-fi movie. But his first thought when he saw it wasn’t about the rows of thrusters or the glimmering wing flaps, how fast it could go,or how many people it could hold. 

            His first thought was, “Wow, that is really fucking orange.”

            Sunstreaker side-eyed him, “it’s copper,” he said dryly, while Sideswipe choked on a laugh.

            “Copper isn’t usually that orange,” Bluestreak argued, “this is violently orange. It’s like a radioactive pumpkin.” He paused, glancing around the room, “which is fun! Nothing wrong with that. I love pumpkins, my brothers and I used to always carve them for Halloween.”

            “What’s a pumpkin?” Arcee frowned.

            “It’s a type of gourd.”

            Hot Rod turned away from the controls to look at him, “what’s a gourd?”

            Almost immediately First Aid slapped him on the back of the head, “pay attention. If we crash into the hull we’ll never live it down.”

            “Mostly ‘cause we’d be dead.” Sunstreaker added.

-

            As soon as the hatch to the ship opened and began to lower into a ramp, Arcee and Hot Rod started nudging each other. At first Bluestreak thought each one was trying to push the other infront, but then as they escalated to elbow jabs and graduated to full on grappling he thought they might have switched goals. In any case, as soon as the ramp fully extended with an audible thud, they both went tumbling down it in a tangle of metal limbs. 

            Sunstreaker and Sideswipe followed them, nonpulsed, while Bluestreak fell into step in between them, doing his best to hunch over to match their heights.

            Descending the ramp he found Arcee had Hot Rod in a complicated looking pin some ways into the hanger, while two other bots looked on. The one closest to the pair was colored in shades of green and teal, empathetically instructing them both. 

            “No no no, see you need to get your arm properly locked across his chassis, move it up just a little bit- yep that’s better, that locks up his shoulder joint. Ain’t that right? Can’t move that arm anymore, can you?”

            Hot Rod wiggled curiously, “nope!”

            “Good, good,” He praised, “now both of you get up, let’s go again.”

            At first it seemed like the rest of them would sneak by unnoticed. Arcee and Hot Rod were making more than enough noise to cover the sound of their steps. But then the second bot, a blocky looking red and gray one, who was standing a little closer to the door they were sneaking towards, suddenly turned towards them, as if triggered by some sort of robotic sixth sense.

            “And where do you two think you're sneaking off to?” He began lightly, a grin on his face. 

            At his words the other bot looked towards them as well, and Bluestreak noticed that both of them had visibly worn faces. He hadn’t really processed it with the others; he had a vague idea they could age like that, from the dictionary, but the idea of a metal face with crows feet and laugh lines had never occurred to him. 

            And as he studied the signs of aging in this new robots face, he saw the moment he caught sight of Bluestreak. How his blue eyes flashed bright, his smile froze and then dropped completely. Behind him the green robot was making a similar expression.

            “What in the-“ he breathed. Bluestreak noted he had a slight drawl that was just left of southern.

            Sunstreaker and Sideswipe had frozen like deer in headlights, and Bluestreak had stopped as well so as not to run into them, so it fell to First Aid to grab Bluestreak by the wrist and rush them both out of the room, calling over his shoulder as he did.

            “Love to stay and chat, Ironhide, but I’ve got to get my patient some proper repairs- field medicine can only do so much when you lose half the existing plating to cosmic rust, you know? Really it’s a testament to my skills that he can function at all.”

            As they passed through the door Bluestreak heard him make a baffled noise, and then, to the others he asked, “where in the pit did you find that guy?”

            “Escape pod.” Sunstreaker answered immediately, “we don’t really know where he came from or what happened yet- lotta damage to his memory core.”

            “We explained everything in our check-in report,” Arcee chimmed in, voice colored with confusion, “didn’t you read it? Hot Rod said he sent it in two groons ago.” 

            Hot Rod, still lying on the floor, shot her a betrayed look that luckily neither Kup nor Ironhide caught.

            “Did ‘Aid ping Ratchet?” Kup frowned, looking at the door they’d just gone through, “looks like he's gonna need some serious help.”

            “Oh First Aid has got everything completely under control,” Sideswipe reassured, “Bluestreak’s totally stable, he just needs some cosmetic work, and he’s a little shy with new bots, you know?”

            Sunstreaker nodded, “really, we should go be with him, for emotional support, and all. It’s- he got attached very quickly and it’s important we keep him feeling safe and supported during this transition period.”

            Ironhide raised a brow, “you’re going to support him. Emotionally.” He said slowly, each word dripping with skepticism.

            “We are,” Hot Rod chimed in, jumping to his pedes. “This trip you sent us on really did help us learn more about responsibility and teamwork. It was an excellent lesson.”

            “You were gone for half a decacycle.”  Ironhide said.

            “You were supposed to learn not to use your outlier ability next to flammable objects.” Kup added dryly.

            “Yeah, that didn’t really come up.”

            “Well,” Sunstreaker clapped his hands together, rocking back and forth on his pedes, “nice catching up but we’ve got mechs to see.” He spun around and took at step toward the door only for a pair of servos to clamp down on each of his shoulders and physically turn him back around.

            Ironhide was suddenly much closer, and studying him intently. Sunstreak tried to make his best ‘innocent mech’ expression. It was one he’d never quite mastered. A few mechs had told him it was more unsettling then trust inspiring. 

            “I don’t know what you kids are up to,” he said, “but you do know I’m going to find out eventually, don’t you?”

            “We aren’t up to anything,” Sunstreak replied, letting a slight hint of offense slip into his field and he shrugged off Ironhide's grip, “we literally told you what’s going on. Not my fault you’re getting paranoid, old timer.”

            “Old timer?” Ironhide repeated slowly, eyes narrowed. Behind him Arcee grimaced while Hot Rod was doing frantic charades.  

            ||NOT THE RIGHT MOVE|| Sideswipe blasted through their comm link.

            Sunstreaker held up both servos in a placating gesture, taking a step back as he did, “sorry, sorry, what I meant to say was; bye!”

            As soon as the words left Sunstreakers mouth he flipped into his alt mode, immediately gunning it down the hallway. Behind him he heard Ironhide’s shout of surprise  and three more engines revving up and following him out. 

            ||that was so stupid|| Arcee groaned.

            ||well maybe he’ll be too slagged off at sunny to remember to be suspicious?|| Sideswipe suggested optimistically.

            ||What about Kup though?|| she shot back. 

            ||oh yeah. We’re fragged.||

—

            They skidded to a stop in front of First Aids habsuite. Sunstreaker pinged the access panel and after a moment the door slide open with a cheery chime.

            As a medic First Aid was allotted a slightly larger habsuite than standard issue, though it wasn’t anywhere near as nice as high command or division leaders got. Still, he had an anteroom big enough to hold a sitting area and his standard issue energon dispenser came with a kitchenette stocked with additives and enhancers. It made it a tempting choice to hangout in when they wanted somewhere more private then the rec rooms, but Sunstreaker could count on one servo the amount of times he’d been in First Aid’s habsuite. Partly because Aid insisted on having at least a groon to tidy before he let them in, partly because of how often he was on call, but a lot of it came down to the fact that they weren’t actually that close to First Aid.

            Or, he amended, they hadn’t been that close to him. The four of them had fallen into a group fairly quickly after being deployed; Arcee and Hot Rod had trained under Kup, Ironhide had recruited Sunny and his brother from the pits, and by virtue of all being frontliners in the youngest age class on the Ark they’d ended up lumped together. First Aid had joined the Ark a few vorns later, one of a group of medics they’d picked up off Delphi just before it fell to the quintessons. 

            Sunstreaker hadn’t really thought much of any of the transplants at first, most had gotten transferred to other ships, but then he and his brother had ended up in the medbay for one reason or another, and instead of getting lectured by Ratchet, they’d been treated to the truly alien sight of the chief medical officer getting mouth offed at by his own trainee. 

            Stranger still was that as far as Sunstreaker could tell, First Aid had actually won whatever argument they’d been having. Ratchet had left in a huff, and First Aid had patched them up.

            Sides was the one to first make inroads with him, commiserating about overbearing mentors. Arcee had been excited when First Aid started joining them for fuel, immediately locking in on the benefits of having a medic on side. Hot Rod had had the unfortunate experience of discovering that just because First Aid hung out with them it didn’t mean he was willing to turn a blind optic to all their nonsense; especially when the damage was enough to require a welding.

            So First Aid had fallen into place beside them; not quite a part of their squad, but not outside of it either. He’d refuel with them often, but not as often as he did with the other medics. It was a toss up if he’d join them in the rec room or their habsuit during their shared off shifts, or if he’d spend his free time holding vigil over a patient's berth, helm buried in a datapad. But these past few decacycles First Aid had been spending less time in the medbay, and was far more willing to get into trouble with them.

            Everyone else had taken the change in stride, but it made Sunny pause. Aid didn’t tell them much about his work, usually citing patient doctor confidentiality, but they’d heard the whispers that Ratchet was gearing up to officially make First Aid his successor. Sunny had heard it from Mirage over some high grade. It was little more than a ceremonial gesture; Ratchet was a millennium away from even thinking about retiring but high command wanted contingencies in place and as young as First Aid was he was good. As good as Ratchet had been at his age, and with Ratchet there to guide him, he was getting better. Innovative and driven, if a little obsessive; bordering on neurotic.

            Then the Peaceful Tyranny had been hit, hard, and the half that survived had all gotten reassigned, and Ratchets old ‘friend’ from medical school had wound up gaining a posting on the Ark.

            And the rumors about First Aids promotion stopped dead in their tracks. 

            Which Sunny knew could mean nothing. Maybe the rumors had been unfounded from the get go, maybe the new transplants were just more interesting.

            Still, Sunny was waiting for someone, anyone, to bring it up. To check in with him. First Aid had always had an undercurrent to him that had inexplicably reminded Sunstreaker of the gladiator pits. He’d never been able to figure out why, exactly. But there was something that would ping in the back of processor every time First Aid got a little to into a surgery. It wasn’t danger- he knew he was safe around Aid. But it was something close to it.

            And lately Sunstreaker had been getting that ‘ping’ a lot more often.

            Right now though, what he was feeling was much stronger than a ping, as they strolled into First Aids berthroon and witnessed the reconstruction in progress.

            Bluestreaks mech was sprawled across the berth, strutless and limp. First Aid was sat cross legged at the top of the berth, holding the bundle of wires that wrapped around Bluestreakss core processor in both servos, the empty casing of his helm resting casually on the covers beside them, split open like a circuit-clam. 

            “Sweet Primus.” Sideswipe vented.

            “Oh hey,” First Aids visor flashed as he glanced up from his work, “you guys made it.” He turned his gaze back down, focusing back in on tracing the wires.

            “Oh who is it?” Came Bluestreaks voice, much softer and without its usual reverb. It seemed to echo out of his chassis, whatever vocal components he had had around his helm now fully disengaged, “I heard Sideswipe, is everyone else here too?”

            Arcee, never one to shy away from gore, peered curiously at Bluestreaks frame, “heya Blue, you still in there?”

            “Yep! I’m not wired in but I can still monitor the systems better like this. I don’t usually do my own maintenance, but I know how to check the diagnostics and First Aid says it’ll be easier to make sure nothing gets offlined during the reconstruction rather than trying to reactivate stuff later.”

            “It’s a very sophisticated sensory system,” First Aid chimed in, “but the way it’s integrated- its very clearly designed to be easy to remove and reframe, the sensor net isn’t woven into the plating like it is for us. Which makes this,” he gestured to the processor unit, “a fairly straightforward operation.”

            “Soooo. What’s his new helm gonna look like?” Hot Rod asked.

            “I can reshape the pieces easily enough to get a good base for a speedster’s helm type. Probably something leaning Velocitronian.” First Aid delicately set the processer unit down on the berth, still connected to the rest of the frame by a tangle of wires that disappeared into his neck. He hopped off the berth and made his way over to the side of the room.

            Sunstreaker had been too distracted by the open helm surgery to take a proper look around but now he was noting the fully stocked work bench and loose crates of recycled paneling.

            ||the face collection|| Hot Rod whispered through their private channel.

            ”Are you supposed to have all this?” Sides asked tentatively.

            First Aid riffled through a box filled with curved pieces, pulling out two that were about the right size and shape to be battle masks, “oh yeah, this is all dead metal- bits that aren’t viable to be repurposed on a living mech for some reason or another. As long as there’s no traces of rust or anything in them we don’t have to dispose of them.”

            “And you keep them because?”

            He shrugged, “good for practicing welds.”

            Sunny glanced at the amount of metal First Aid had saved. It seemed more than a little excessive for welding practice.

            “Anyway, new helm shape, add a battle mask, and reworking his visor just a bit will be enough of a face for now. Once I have a better idea on how to integrate cybertronian tech into his circuitry I can work up something a bit more elaborate.” First Aid grabbed the pieces of Bluestreaks helm and settled into the workbench, transforming one finger into a laser cutter as he did. 

            “What about the rest of him?” Sunny turned his attention back to Bluestreak, “what’s the plan there?”

            “I can add an extra digit onto his servos fairly easily. Those don’t have much sensors woven in so I just need to duplicate the hydraulic system. He won’t have full control over it at first, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem,” First Aid held up the modified helm, turning it over in the light. It had lost its strange oblong shape, but kept the slick, aerodynamic look. “I’m not sure if we should add any kibble to suggest an alt mode, since he’s never gonna be able to transform, anyway, it would probably just raise more questions.”

            Sunstreaker gave Bluestreaks mecha an assessing glance. “He needs a new paint job,” he decided. Besides the red pieces he didn’t have much of a coherent color palette; it was obvious there hadn’t been many aesthetic choices going into his construction. Besides that, nearly every meter of him bore a scuff, and the paint lacked the proper shine of a healthy cybertronian. 

            “Oooh we should make him blue,” Hot Rod suggested, “cause like, it’s weird that that’s his name but he doesn’t have any blue on him.”

            “It won’t work with the red and grey,” Sunstreaker scowled. Though that wasn’t necessarily true. Blue tones could work with a base of gray and red. But he knew what kinda of shades Hot Rod thought looked good, and those wouldn’t mesh with the color palette he may or may not have already settled on in his mind.

            “Well maybe he wants to be blue,” Arcee said. She turned towards him “Do you wanna be blue, Blue?”

            Bluestreak didn’t answer. His mecha remained completely still.

            “Is- Bluestreak?” Sideswipe called a little louder. First Aid turned from his work to cast a concerned look their way.

            “Oh primus is he dead?” Hot Rod looked around frantically.

            Sunstreaker strode towards the berth and grabbed the mech by the shoulders, “BLUESTREAK?” He yelled.

            “What!?” Came Bluestreaks voice, “wh-what’s going on?”

            Sunstreaker let out a deep vent.

            “Did you die?” Hot Rod asked. 

            “What? No, sorry I think I fell asleep for a second. Its- being connected to the mecha for long periods takes a lot outta me so when I do disconnect I tend to crash, I guess.”

            “Should you be staying connected for so long then?” Arcees field flared with concern.

            “I mean, I don’t really have any other options? If I’m gonna live as a giant robot until I can get back home then that’s just how it’s gonna be.”

            “Still,” First Aid spoke up, attention mostly back on the helm. He’d attached both the battle mask and the visor. The battle mask was shaped to complement the sharp chevron of the visor, and both gave a nice contrast to the smoothness of the helm. “You’re welcome to get out and stretch your limbs for a little bit, if you’d like. The air here is safe for you.”

            “I think I’m more comfortable staying in here for now,” Bluestreak responded after a moment.

            Not for the first time, Sunstreaker wondered what Bluestreak really looked like. He’d spent a lot of the trip home trying to map out how his body might fit inside the mecha suit. Obviously his own helm didn’t reach into the shells, and his limbs probably didn’t reach past the first set of joints on the mechs own. Unless Bluestreak had something like tentacles he didn’t think there was enough room to hollow out in the joints for organic limbs to fit.

            Sunny really hoped he didn’t have tentacles.

            “Did you guys need something, though?” He tacked on after a moment.

            “Oh yeah!” Hot Rod brightened, “do you wanna be blue? Sunny’s gonna paint you.”

            “Why would I be blue?” Genuine confusion laced Bluestreaks voice.

            Hot Rod faltered, “because it’s your name?”

            “Huh? Oh! Oh, no. That’s not- Bluestreak is technically just a nickname I’ve had since I was a kid, and then it became my callsign, but its not a color thing- I mean. Technically the origin of the phrase kinda came from associations with the color blue but people call me bluestreak cause of the phrase ‘to talk a Bluestreak’, which means to talk a lot without stopping, basically.”

            Hot Rod frowned, “oh.”

            “So what is your name then?” Sideswipe pressed.

            “It’s Casey.” He answered awkwardly.

            “What the slag kinda name is that?” Sunstreaker frowned, rolling the sound over in his processor. 

            Arcee jabbed him hard in the chassis. “Don’t be rude.”

            “Well it’s a weird name. Bluestreak is way better.”

            Bluestreak laughed brightly. 

            “So you don’t wanna be blue?” Hot Rod cut in.

            “Nah, blue’s smokescreens color anyway.”

            “I can paint you blue,” Sunstreaker offered. 

            “And I could pull it off, but that’s besides the point.”

            “Maybe with purple highlights? Or some of that nice burgundy-pink you used to have?” Arcee perked up.

            “I’m not going back to pink— everyone thought we were matching on purpose.”

            Sunstreaker gave Hot Rod a once over, “that pink tone did look good on you. And it didn’t actually match Arcee’s.”

            “Helms ready,” First Aid interrupted, holding it aloft, “do you wanna paint it before I reassemble or after?”

            “After,” Sunstreaker decided after a moment, “easier to keep everything cohesive that way.”

            First Aid nodded and got to work reattaching the helm. Sunny watched as he wired two blue optical lenses into the processor unit before adjusting the pieces of the helm back around it and firing up his blowtorch.

            “Thought you weren’t giving him optics yet,” he commented.

            “trial integration,” First Aid supplied easily, “and they’ll help give the impression that he actually does have a face under this.”

            Sunny peered a little closer and saw that yeah, now there was the faint suggestion of optics behind the visor. The blue lenses behind the much thicker red glass gave them a slight purple tint.  

            “That working for you?” First Aid asked after he’d gotten all the wires tucked back away and the helm remounted on Bluestreaks shoulders.

            The mecha powered up with a faint hum, visor glowing softly. 

            “Yep! All systems go,” Bluestreak replied cheerfully, voice once again being channeled through the suits speakers.

            “Alright,” First Aid clapped his servos together, “so it’ll take me just under a breem to get these servos sorted out, which gives us just enough time to go hide in your guys habsuit before Ratchet gets off shift and comes to yell at me in person for not responding to his last,” First Aid paused, checking something on his HUD, “15 messages!”

            Hot Rod barked out a laugh while Arcee winced.

            “Do you think it’s a good sign or a bad sign we haven’t heard anything from Kup or ‘Hide yet?” Sides turned to Sunstreaker.

            “Definitely bad.”

            Sideswipe had always enjoyed watching his brother paint. It had started on the suggestion of some shrink they’d both had mandatory evals with after they enlisted. Sideswipe had been cleared immediately, no holds barred. 

            Sunny hadn’t.

            It wasn’t like he got barred from combat, or anything. You had to be really glitched out for that to happen, but the psychiatrist had recommended Sunny meet with him regularly, at least while he was still settling in.

            The implication that there was stuff Sunny needed to talk to a shrink about that he couldn’t share with his split spark twin had irked him. When he’d realized that Sunny actually was telling the shrink stuff he wasn’t sharing with him he’d, well. 

            He hadn’t handled it gracefully. 

            Luckily Sunny hadn’t actually been there for that little temper tantrum, and Ironhide had gotten his helm screwed on straight with his usually gruff advice.

            Then a deacycle later Sunny had excitedly shown him the set of paints, powders, and airbrushes Ironhide had gifted him on the shrinks advice.  He hadn’t totally gotten it as first- sure, Sunny was as vain as they came, rivaling even some of the most self obsessed seekers to walk cybertron, but he was a brawler, not an artist.

            But it was undeniable that Sunstreaker had a gift for it, and even more impressive to Sides was just how calm it made him. 

            It was like he became a whole new mech when he had a brush in hand. One who never had to fight to survive, one who hadn’t spent most of his first vorns starving.

            So Sideswipe had accepted the need to serve as his brothers canvas on more than one occasion, and had helped corral other candidates into their habsuit for a makeover when Sunny was getting twitchy.

            Usually Sunstreaker didn’t tolerate anything but total quiet from his canvases, but Bluestreaks construction meant he could hold an enthusiastic conversation while remaining as still as a statue.

            “But what does energon taste like?” he asked plaintively.

            “It’s warm,” Arcee responded tiredly from where she was draped sideways over Sideswipes berth, legs going up the wall and helm hanging over the edge, “kinda tingly, usually. Good high grade burns. Bad high grade burns too, but in a different way.”

            “Those aren’t flavors,” Bluestreak argued back as Sunstreaker added silver highlights along the panels of his crimson legs. “Those are sensations.”

            “Medgrade is usually cold, also” Hot Rod added.

            “That’s still a sensation. Flavors are like, sweet, spicy, savory, that kinda stuff.” Bluestreak elaborated. “Is- do you guys not have taste buds?”

            “I don’t know what those are.” Sideswipe frowned, “Aid, do we have taste buds?”

            First Aid glanced up from his datapad. “Uhhh. Not exactly? I mean. We do, we just . . . don’t use them the way organics do.”

            Sunstreaker, attention mostly fixed on painting Bluestreaks newly reformatted digits a matte white, shot them a quick look, “what’s that mean?”

            First Aid gave a vague shrug, “I’m a medic, not a xenobiologist.”

            Bluestreak hummed, “is it always a drink?”

            “No, we can make it into gummies.” Arcee had found one of Sunstreakers spare airbrushes and was now carefully spraying something on an oblivious Hot Rods spoiler. “And we can eat most metals.”

            “Oh, yeah, I noticed that— do those taste like anything?” Bluestreak pressed. 

            She gave him an apologetic look, “it’s mostly a texture thing.”

            Sideswipe sat up sharply, a thought suddenly occurring to him, “Blue, are you hungry?”

            “Oh yeah, kinda. I’m trying to ration my rations though. I can stretch what I’ve got for about a week, maybe?”

            Sideswipe shared a look with First Aid. They’d had a conversation about Bluestreaks fuel early on, but he’d said he had supplies and the inevitable problem of needing to get more had been pushed to the wayside in the favor of more pressing issues.

            “You can make him more fuel, right?” Sideswipe asked.

            First Aids field flared with unease, “I might be able to synthesize something based on his rations. But I don’t work with organic matter- I would need to get supplies and tools that I can’t ask for without raising questions, and I wouldn’t even know where to start for off market acquisitions.”

            “How long is a week?” Hot Rod asked Bluestreak.

            “It’s a little shorter than a decacycle, I think?”

            First Aid visibly winced, “I don’t know if I can figure it out in that kinda time frame, even if we got the supplies this cycle.”

            “But, there are people who study organics here, aren’t there?” Bluestreak asked, and for the first time Sideswipe could detect a tinge of fear in his voice.

            “There are,” First Aid began slowly, “but most are focused on studying quintessons, and not because they want to feed them.”

            “So,” Sunstreaker stretched, his back struts audibly cracking, “what we need is someone who not only studies organics, but actually likes them, can be persuaded to keep a secret, and won’t draw any attention by randomly ordering organics materials?”

            Sideswipe physically felt it as everyone’s processers clicked.

            “Well-“ Hot Rod began tentatively

            “Absolutely not,” Sideswipe jumped to his peds, “there’s no way we’re looping him into this.”

            “He’s not that bad,” Arcee protested, “and Bluestreak needs this.”

            “No, he’s great, I love the guy, but if we loop him in then that means. . .” Sideswipe trailed off, letting the implications hang in the air. 

            “Maybe he won’t be there?” First Aid suggested weakly.

            Bluestreak glanced around the room. “Who won’t be where?”

—-

            “Well, well, well,” Starscream all but purred, draped over a lab table laden with chemicals, “look who's come begging for my help.”

            “WE DON'T WANT SLAG FROM YOU.” Sideswipe yelled, only holding back from lunging at the seeker because of Sunstreakers grip on his arm, and the towering shuttle between them, holding his hands up in a placating gesture.

            “Star,” Skyfire chided gently. 

            Starscream rolled his optics, but hopped off the table and busied himself with studying an array of glowing test tubes.

            “So,” Skyfire began again, field as bright and welcoming as always, “what is it exactly you need? And uh, who's your friend?” He gave Bluestreak, also engrossed in studying the array of glowing tubes, a glance.  Sideswipe made sure to keep half an optic on that situation. Blue was giving Starscream a respectful distance, but the seeker wasn’t exactly known for being even tempered.

            “That’s Bluestreak, he’s a new recruit.” Sunstreaker answered easily, “we’re showing him around the ship.”

            “Hiya,” Bluestreak waved.

            Skyfire waved back, brightly.

            “But that’s not why we’re here,” Sideswipe cut in, “we need your. . . Scientific expertise.”

            “Mine?” Skyfire repeated, glancing around the room as if expecting there to be a third, hidden scientist they were addressing.

            Sunstreaker leaned in, “hypothetically speaking. How would one go about. . . feeding an organic.”

            Starscream, making no attempt to hide his eavesdropping, gave them an indecipherable look that was, like all his expressions, 80% scowl.  

            Skyfires optics flared bright, “did you guys get a pet?”

            Sideswipe hesitated slightly. The plan had been to withhold as much information from Skyfire as possible, playing it by audial to gauge whether his reactions made him trustworthy with the full truth or not. Arcee and Hot Rod had spilt to go run interference on Kup and Ironhide, and First Aid had gone back on shift, finding increasingly inventive ways to abide by the technical phrase of ‘working medical’ without going anywhere Ratchet would think to look for him. As of his last check in, he was doing surprise weld inspections and firewall updates in the hangars. 

            “This is all hypothetical,” Sideswipe emphasized, not liking the idea of referring to Blue as a pet, regardless of the context.

            “Hypothetically, I would think the organics home planet would be the best place to start.”

            “What if that wasn’t an option?” Sunstreaker pressed.

            “Is it not an option because the planet was destroyed, or because it’s inaccessible?” 

            “More like the home planet is a complete unknown.” Sideswipe offered.

            “Okay,” Skyfire hummed, “do you know what species it is?”

            Sideswipe wondered if the word ‘human’ would mean anything to Skyfire. It hadn’t come up in any of the databases First Aid had tried, but if Skyfire did know about them-

            Well. That could be a good thing or a bad thing.

            “Not sure,” Sunstreaker replied.

            “What’s it look like?” Skyfire tried, a touch of exasperation tinging his voice.

            He glanced at Bluestreak, who was now leaning over Starscreams shoulder and asking questions about the assortment of chemicals and instruments on the table. Starscream only looked about half as annoyed as he would have expected, and seemed to be answering Bluestreaks questions with almost no sass. Then again, Starscream was always on his best behavior when Skyfire was around.

            “I’m not really sure how to describe it,” Sunstreaker said vaguely.

            ”Well, about how big is it?”

            Sideswipes shoulders dropped. “We don’t know.”

            Skyfires optics dimmed, and he brought a servo up to rub the bridge of his nose, “how do you not know?”

            “We have a sample of their fuel!” Sideswipe blurted out, and pulled out the ration Bluestreak had given them.

            That had been an interesting process- he’d made all of them turn around for a weirdly long amount of time, with only the click of hydraulics activating to give them any idea what he was doing. When he’d finally let them turn back around, nearly a full breem later, he was holding a single silver package delicately between two digits. It was comically small.

            Skyfire peered at the package. Studying it for a long enough time that Sideswipe started to get antsy.

            Finally he raised his gaze to meet Sideswipes optics, “this has writing on it.”

            Sideswipe glanced down and saw that yeah, the little black markings on it sure did look like some sort of primitive script. “Is that a bad thing?”

            “It certainly raises some more questions.” Skyfire plucked the package from his servo and began turning it over with all of the care of a mnenosurgeon.

            Starscream sat up suddenly, fast enough to make Bluestreak leap back to avoid the sudden flare of his wings. “Oh Primus,” he vented softly to himself, and then, turning sharply to look at Bluestreak he said “you’re the organic.”

            “Whaaat?” He replied, somehow managing to hit a tone that was both deadpan and oversold surprise, “no, of course not! Look at me, I’m all metal!”

            “Are you short a logic tree, Screamsr?” Sunstreaker growled, “Obviously Blues not a slagging organic.”

            “Then why,” Starscream rose to his peds, wings fanned out as he glowered at the two of them, “doesn’t he have a spark signature?”

            Sideswipe couldn’t feel where his panic ended and Sunstreakers began. Worse still was that Skyfire, who they had been counting on to keep Starscream on a leash if it came down to it, had gone completely still, EM field locked down,

            “Thats-“ he tried to stall and gave up almost immediately, “how could you even know that?” He asked helplessly.

            Starscream looked down his nose at him, “I didn’t. Not for sure at least; that was a guess,” he admitted, “I could tell he didn’t have any energon in his system though, and any seeker would be able to sense that.”

            “How much energon would we need to put in him for you to not notice that?” Sunstreaker asked.

            Sideswipe shot him a look that he hoped Sunstreaker understood to mean “really not our biggest problem right now.”

            But to Sideswipe's surprise Starscream's scowl relaxed slightly, and he gave Bluestreak an assessing look, “three rations, maybe?“

            Sunstreaker relaxed slightly, “we can probably do that.”

            “I don’t understand- how is he an organic?” Skyfire asked.

            “It’s a suit of some kind,” Starscream guessed, “the organic is inside, piloting it.”

            “Yeah that’s exactly right,” Bluestreak confirmed cheerfully.

            “Why?” Skyfire looked around the room, “for safety? Or, are you hiding from something?”

            “I mean, I’m supposed to be a secret, but this,” he gestured at himself, “was built to kill quintessons.”

            Starscream hummed, the corners of his mouth picking up in a slight smile. He circled around Bluestreak, openly studying him. “It passes well as cybertronian. Is it a repurposed cold construction, or a new build?”

            “My design is from phase three of my planet's mecha program,” Bluestreak offered tentatively, “I’m not sure if any of the parts were repurposed..?”

            Starscreams optics flashed bright red, “this was made on your planet? By other organics?“

            “Sure was,” there was a new edge to Bluestreaks voice. Sideswipe couldn’t blame him; being the focus of Starscream's ire was bad enough. Being the focus of his interest was a different beast entirely. “I mean, I just got a bit of a makeover but all the bones are from earth.”

            “Why don’t you lay off, Starscream,” Sunstreaker stepped towards them, EM field flaring protectively.

            Starscream leaned away from Bluestreak, holding up both servos, “I meant no offense; I’m just curious about what you’ve brought onto our ship.” He turned back to Bluestreak, “how well equipped are you to kill quintessons, anyway?”

            “I’m pretty good,” Bluestreak shrugged, “better with my rifle, but I lost that in the portal. I think I’m currently ranked 7th kills this quarter? In the main list, that counts solo and team kills. I’m 3rd for solo kills, though. 46 confirmed as of last count. There’s this new guy, though, whose gotten 19 solos just this past month, so he’s probably gonna be number one soon-“

            “Wait-“ Sideswipe interrupted, “you’ve killed 46 quintessons by yourself?”

            “Yes?”

            “How many Quintessons are attacking your planet at any given time? How many have your species killed?” Starscream asked, “and how many of you are there?”

            “Uhh, I’m not really sure about the first one, but when they do attack it’s anywhere between 3 to 50, at the absolute most. I’d guess we’ve killed a couple hundred over the past two years. And there’s about 5 billion humans left right now,” Bluestreak paused, “I think there’s currently 60 active combat class mecha, out of the 200 some that have served. Then there’s a few dozen low connection mechas, just for post battle clean up and what not. And there’s supposed to be a new wave of full uplink compatible recruits joining soon, about a hundred, I think.”

            Starscream tilted his helm, “how very interesting.”

            Sideswipe had to agree. He’d never heard of an unaffiliated planet getting hit by those kinda numbers and surviving. Pitt, he’d never heard of any planet getting hit like that and surviving. And here Bluestreak was, talking about it as if it was nothing special.

            “Can we get back to the food thing?” Bluestreak looked at Skyfire. 

            “Oh, yes!” He startled, “We can definitely get you some food, I’ll just test this,” he gingerly held up the ration pack, “and see if I can’t synthesize something with the same chemical make up.” With that Skyfire swept over to his lab table, followed by an eager Bluestreak, and began pulling out a dozen tools sideswipe couldn’t even guess the names of.

            ||We need to deal with Starscream|| Sunstreaker pinged their private line. ||I don’t like the way he’s looking at Blue.||

            ||Are you worried he’s gonna try to steal him?|| he teased

            Sunstreaker let his expiration sweep through their bond. Sideswipe pushed back with overdone merth. Sunstreaker kicked him.

            “So,” Sunstreaker began with all the subtlety of a rabid turbo fox, “what’s it gonna cost for you to keep this on the down low?”

            Starscream EM field flared with sickeningly fake surprise, his face a mask of offense. Sideswipe knew for a fact that Starscream was an expert at manipulating EM responses, to the point where it was a highlighted note on his official conscription form that nothing felt from him should ever be considered genuine. When he lied like this, flimsy and plastic, it was only ever for two reasons. Either he didn’t think you were worth the effort of a good lie, or he was playing some sort of convoluted game of psychological warfare. “Why Sunstreaker,” he sighed, “I’m not going to make you pay me to cover up this little treason of yours.”

            Sideswipe bristled, “watch who you’re calling treasonous, glitch.”

            “Harboring an undeclared organic is in direct violation of several codes of conduct.” He smirked, “And since this is also the first I’m hearing of you’re little plus one, I’m guessing you haven’t filled out any sort of new recruit forms.”

            Sideswipe shifted awkwardly, “We may have gotten a little sidetracked.”

            “Ironhide and Kup both saw him,” Sunstreaker defended, “no one’s gonna look too hard at us not doing things by the book.”

            “Hmm,” he planted his aft back on the table and made a show of inspecting his claws, “well I suppose that’s true. Still, you can’t honestly expect to hide this forever.”

            “We don’t.” Sunny glowered, optics bright, “we just want to keep him safe till we can get him home. And we aren’t going to let anyone put him in danger.

            Starscream stared them down for a long moment, “I can keep this is secret,” he spoke carefully, “on one condition.”

            “What’s that?”

            “When you do find his planet,” he leaned forward, and there was a brief flicker of an intensity Sideswipe had never heard from him before in his voice, “you tell me where it is.”