Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It ends and begins with a sound like cannon fire.

Like the loudest thing in the universe.

Like having a gaping crater shot through his spark chamber and falling falling falling like Alice down the rabbit hole–

Sam wakes up feeling like he’s died.

Again.

It’s not a new feeling, but it is one that leaves him cold and shaking and rattled with the weight of his own last breath.

You’d think he’d be used to it by now.

Considering he’s been having that dream since he was seven.

There’d been a whole thing with a therapist and his mom and his school, and like.

No!

He’s fine!

He just dreams about getting shot every once in a while!

It’s fine!

Ugh.

Sam learned not to tell his mom or dad about his weird dreams after that.

He learned.

Very quickly.

Because if getting shot was bad enough, how much worse were ones of fighting to the death and winning, of standing in front of a crowd and hating it, of trying to clean the tacky, drying blood out from between his seams–

He–

Yeah.

Yeah, no.

Those were his.

His to agonise and mull over, thank you very much.

No more therapists.

There wasn’t anything wrong with him.

He didn’t want to die.

He was perfectly fine.

He was perfectly fine and shit he was gonna be late–

Another thing he never told his parents, which was frankly a lot, wow, he’s the worst son, was that when he looked at the old newspapers in the attic with their photocopied glyphs, they made sense.

Kind of.

He knew the shapes and the sounds and the way they should fit together but it was also slightly… off.

Like someone who knew Spanish trying to read Portugese.

Sam knew those glyphs.

He also kind of didn’t.

It was confusing.

But confusing was something he could handle.

It was the frustration that got him.

Because even though he knew the sounds, the shapes, the structure, he couldn’t actually speak it.

It.

Was.

The.

Worst.

Kill him now.

Because he was almost sure that the biggest one said Home and the second biggest said Battle and the smallest said Life.

He was almost sure.

But he couldn’t make the sounds that made up the words.

Sam wasn’t built for it.

He could get close.

He could get so, so close.

But he could never get the sounds right.

He knew what they were supposed to be.

And whatever he managed?

Was never it.

Sam didn’t tell his parents his secrets.

The person he did tell was Miles.

Not a lot, you know, because he’s uh, been burned before, but enough for them to not… weigh as heavy.

He didn’t tell him about all the dreams, in detail, and especially not the ones like nightmares, but sometimes Sam told him about the cities.

The sunsets. 

The almost-there impressions of names and faces and hulking shoulders with kind opti–

Eyes.

Kind eyes.

And warriors that spoke like poets.

Those were the good dreams.

The dreams without gore and sand and roaring crowds.

Sometimes they left a bitter taste on his tongue anyway.

Sam wasn’t sure why.

But the city made of crystals was always the worst, always left him cold with a feeling like acid on his teeth.

It always ended in smoke and fire and a hole in his chest.

The fun thing about having dreams where you’re forced to kill people, is that they make you paranoid.

They make you paranoid because what if someone wants revenge?

Does it matter that they’re dreams?

Does it matter that they aren’t real?

Does it matter that they never happened?

Brain juice says no!

It does not!

Paranoia for the win!

Paranoia and muscle memory.

Muscle memory from dreams.

Because in-between the cities and swords, there’s quieter moments.

Foggier moments.

Things almost like memories.

Things like how to read the glyphs, how to strike with purpose, how to think because they don’t want you to so you must.

There’s plenty of forms to pick out amongst the half remembered fantasies.

How to punch and kick and dodge and snarl like he means it because appearances are half the battle.

Appearances are half the battle and it’s not one you can afford to lose.

The thing about the dreams isn’t that they’re clear, or vivid, or striking.

It’s that Sam’s been having them all on and off for as far back as he can remember.

They get more concrete as he gets older not because they sharpen, but because he’s had them over and over and over, and he notices the things he was too busy to notice before.

Like sitting at a beach and getting another piece of a broken seashell with each sway of the waves.

Only one of the dreams is really, actually clear.

And it’s the one where he dies.

There are words that Sam just–

You can’t say them around him.

Not unless you want some visceral reaction and maybe a black eye, if you’re unlucky.

Not unless you want him to go cold and stiff and full of gritted teeth, if you aren't.

They don’t all make him want to run or break somebody's nose, but most of them do.

And the worst of the whole lot are the words swan dive.

Because it’s one thing to go stock still and another to stop breathing because of the white hot certainty that if he’s any louder He’ll find him.

He doesn’t know who He is.

What he does know is that he’s terrified of him.

There’s other words, better words.

Orion always fills him with melancholy and the vague idea of glowing screens.

Sound waves makes him want to turn on the radio and hold something close.

Sunny burns every room colder with the weight of something missing.

He said better, but only because they don’t scare the hell out of him.

It’s not a high bar.

Because really, anything that isn’t swan dive is already a thousand times more bearable.

When he was a kid, before his memories are more than fog or the dreams really started, his mom said that he used to just lay in the grass and stare at the sky.

Or he would find a patch of sunlight near the windows and curl up in it on the floor.

Wherever the sun went, he went.

And when she’d asked him why he did that, Sam had said that he wanted to remember being warm while it lasted.

Sam thought that either Great-great Grandpa Witwicky had been more sane than anyone gave him credit for, or that he himself was just as nuts.

No in-between.

Archibald was on to something or Sam had somehow inherited his lack of marbles. 

One or the other.

The glyphs made sense.

The babble in his journals felt like history.

The stories of a giant metal man pulled at something in his chest.

And the fractal patterns burned into his ancient glasses felt like home.

Sam has weird habits.

Weird habits like whispering thank you whenever he gets in and out of a car, or a train, or an aircraft.

Like checking corners and streets before he crosses or turns.

Like watching the sky like it’s going to fall.

Little things.

Definitely still weird, but little enough it’s harder to notice if it isn’t being looked for.

Miles notices.

His parents do too, to a lesser extent.

Sam’s good at hiding it

He’s had a long time to practice.

A long time that feels longer than what should only be twelve years.

If he had to describe his dreams in a word, he’d say static, or maybe VHS.

They were like old tapes playing over in his brain.

Things were fogged out at the edges, or had a double layer, and when he woke up and tried to remember more than the vague impressions he’d already gathered or known, it was like a corrupted memory file, full of blacked-out pixels and lines of static.

He’s learned to not think about it too hard.

To just let them float around in his head like something half forgotten.

It’s not perfect.

But it’s better than feeling like his head is made of fog.

Everything always comes down to the city made of crystal spires.

That was what started it all.

The sound of cannon fire and shattered crystal.

That’s what it always comes down to.

It always comes down to death from the sky.

It always comes down to the stray shot burning through his chest.

It always comes down to knowing that he’s dying, alone in a ruin of rubble.

Alone until he’s not.

Because someone is stepping over the rubble, edging around the shattered crystal and twisted metal.

Holding out a hand that he can’t tell the color of, the colored light spectrum being one of the first things to go.

He takes it.

He takes it, and when he’s pulled against their chest, it hurts more than anything in the Pits ever could.

It hurts.

It hurts so much, because there’s a hole in his chest and he’s going to die in a city that didn’t deserve what happened to it.

He knows that he keens, knows that he wheezes and rattles with the grinding of burnt metal on burnt metal, that he’s slick with the pink of it, but there’s nothing he can do.

He knows a fatal wound when he sees it.

“I’m going to die,” he tells the someone holding his hands tightly, one arm keeping him propped up.

“I know,” the someone says sadly. “But you don’t deserve to die alone.”

There’s a symbol on their chest, and it’s not one that matches his own.

“We’re enemies,” he says to the symbol, claws scratching weakly at his own shoulder. “Why are you doing this?”

“I know,” the someone repeats just as softly as the first time. “But you still don’t deserve to die alone.”

His battle mask is cracked, and falls off in broken pieces when he presses his forehead into their chest, vision clouded with error messages.

“You can’t be any older than I am,” they continue, and he closes his eyes so he won’t have to see the symbol staring back at him. “And the only energon on your servos here is yours.”

That’s a lie.

That’s a lie, but they don’t know what he was before.

“We tried to warn them,” he manages to gargle out, systems failing one by one. “We got some out. We tried but there’s still– it’s still one big tomb.”

“How many?” They ask gently, the hand not twined in his rubbing at the badge on his shoulder.

“Just two.” He whispers, coughing up pink. “Just the two of us. I don’t know how many got out. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” they tell him. “You did your best.”

“Should’ve done better.” He hisses back, and Primus that hurts.

There’s a rumble from the voice above him and they lean their head down to press against his.

“You’re making it worse,” they say, and they sound hurt too. “You did what you could.”

“Good,” is what he says back, systems failure alarms blaring in his ears. “What I could wasn’t enough.”

“There'll be other battles,” they tell him tiredly. “Praxus will be avenged.”

“But it’s still gone,” he whispers, feeling fading from his fingers and legs. “It’s still gone.”

“Yeah,” the voice croaks above him. “It is.”

The system failure alarms are getting so loud.

“What’s your designation?” The voice asks him softly.

He tilts his head up, briefly, but it costs more energy than he has to spare.

“S-124.” He says, voice clicking and spitting static.

The voice hums above him, and the alarm cuts off abruptly as his backup systems fail completely.

And the last thing that he hears is, “It’s good to meet you, S-1. I’m B-127.”

He’s not late.

Barely.

Just barely.

Chapter Text

A genealogy project being the hinging factor in getting a car was not Sam’s idea of a good time.

He didn’t really want a car either, but being able to get out of the house and maybe drive into the woods to scream about things he couldn’t really remember instead of smothering his face in his pillow seemed pretty cool.

That, and being able to hang out with Miles without always having to be at either of their houses.

That sounded fun.

Sam loved his parents, he really did, but they could be… 

A lot.

Miles’ parents were probably the exact opposite and that was just as bad.

And sometimes you just wanted to hang out with your best friend without worrying about either of your parents being weird.

Miles and him were both touchy but like… can a guy not just hug his best friend?

Literally?

It wasn’t a big deal?

His dad always looked like he wanted to make a big deal out of it and Sam just.

Could not relate or understand in any way.

Miles was his best friend.

He put up with all of Sam’s weird stuff.

He deserved hugs.

That was how things worked.

Anyway.

The idea of driving at night and listening to the radio while going down a highway also sounded… really nice.

Like setting up a fort on the couch when him and Miles were kids, or taking a sun nap in the summer.

All good things.

Maybe he did want a car.

Just a little.

Mostly for that midnight driving.

It made him feel some kind of way.

Some kind of way that kind of hurt but kind of still felt good.

And he didn’t want to let it go.

The presentation is easy.

Great-great Grandpa Witwicky might’ve been nuts, but he still got pretty damn far into the Arctic Circle for his time, was one of the first to do so, and they were proud of that.

They had all of his maps, his gear, his journals and the newspaper clippings, even his glasses with their strange fractal lenses.

Sam wanted to pop them out of their casing and really get a look at the pattern, but he was kind of scared of breaking them.

Which is what leads to the Reddit thread.

Half of the things he says to his class are bullshit.

Archibald had never translated any of the words he wrote.

Just talked and talked and talked, wrote and wrote and wrote, about things no one understood or cared to hear.

Sam cared though.

He cared and he understood.

So he embellished the truth with bits of fantasy, about clear spells where Archibald had converted the glyphs to English and written them down in his dozens upon dozens of journals before he’d gone blind.

It wasn’t like anyone could call him out on it.

But it did make his report more interesting, for the teacher at least.

No one else really cared, but that was fine.

Sam just needed Mr. Brown to pay attention.

His opinion was the one that mattered.

So he made the report interesting.

And interesting got him an A.

He’s sure Miles knows it’s bullshit, mostly because he’s caught Sam writing down the same glyphs and paging through whole journals with minimal hesitance since they were kids.

Not all of it makes sense, but he grasps enough.

Enough to understand some of it.

Enough to know that whatever Archibald had been writing about, whatever it was he’d seen in the ice, it’d ruined him.

Because he spoke of death.

He spoke of death and war and destruction in incoherent loops.

Of incalculable losses and terrible betrayal and over and over and over he repeated the loss of home.

It was… something.

For an eight year old to read.

The dreams were worse, though, in comparison.

The dreams were painted in his head and played out behind his eyes and when he woke up it was like a fog was sitting between his ears and all he could hear was the roar for hours.

The journals were just words.

And words didn’t hurt as much.

It was one thing for his dad to say he would help buy him a car.

It was another for him to bring them to a vaguely shady used car dealer.

The salesman's smile reminds him of something, and he can’t quite place what, but it’s enough to fill him with the certainty that if he finds something he likes, he should downplay it until it’s in the planet’s core.

Like if he knows Sam likes one, he’ll jack up the price an ungodly amount.

That’s what salesmen do.

They want you to spend more money.

They want to swindle you.

And Sam knows better than that.

He can’t help freezing though, when he sees the beaten yellow Camaro.

Because something feels off.

He can’t help freezing when he opens the door and slides into the cab.

Because it’s scratched and scraped to hell.

He can’t help freezing when he rubs his thumb across the mud on the steering wheel and the badge stares right back at him.

The badge.

The one from–

“I’m B-127.”

He almost chokes, and then plays it off as a cough against the dust.

When his dad turns to him, Sam says “I’ve made my choice,” and lies about how much damage there is and how much it would take to fix to be worth anything.

He gets the car.

And he feels almost sick with the weight of it.

The badge is right there.

It’s right there.

It’s real.

He–

He can’t breathe.

He can’t.

He kept it together as long as he could but he can’t–

Everything smells like burning metal and drying blood and it isn’t real.

Right?

Sam wants to be sick, to crawl into his room and never leave, but he told Miles that he would take him to crash a party after he picked a car.

And Sam doesn’t break his promises.

Even when he feels like death warmed over.

He’s sure that Miles notices, but he doesn’t say anything.

And they drive with his mindless chatter filling the air.

Sam has this thing called self control.

It’s pretty neat.

He’s really bad at using it.

Especially when he’s stressed.

When Trent goddamn DeMarco steps up to him to talk shit, his shoulders tense.

When the Camaro’s radio turns on on it’s own he almost leaves his body.

When someone drops a glass with a shatter, his nails break skin.

An already bad situation going markedly worse.

Slowly sliding downhill.

And then Trent says, “Why doesn’t your weird friend take a swan dive outta that tree?”

For a moment, everything is white.

Everything is static.

Everything is still and frozen and cold.

And then reality slides back into place and he snaps.

Should he have punched Trent?

Probably not.

But did it feel good?

Hell yeah it did.

Miles laughs so hard he actually falls out of the tree he’s on, but Sam is quick enough to catch him before he can break something.

There’s blood on his knuckles, blood in the air, and the crowd around them is roaring and–

“Another victory for–”

They’re leaving.

They’re leaving now.

Before he does something he’ll really regret.

Mikaela Banes is walking home on her own and Sam offers her a ride through the haze in his head and the white-knuckled grip he has on the wheel.

He doesn’t know why she says yes, and the radio jumps to life on it’s own again.

It’s going to give him a heart attack.

Faulty wiring.

Faulty wiring.

It makes Mikaela laugh though, and Miles joins in, and something in him loosens, just a bit.

He feels suddenly, horribly fragile and strung out, but there’s laughter around him, and the engine is purring, and something about finally pushing back at Trent felt good so maybe… maybe now he can calm down again.

Maybe he can breathe.

He takes it back!

No breathing for Sam!

Not today!

Because!

The car!

Is stolen!

By!

Itself!!

Awesome!

Great!!

Fantastic!!!

He just wants to relax.

For two seconds.

Is that so much to ask?

Apparently, because it gets worse!

Jazz hands, but wait, there’s more.

At first he just thinks it’s bad luck, getting a new old car stolen on the first day he has it.

And Sam is nothing if not stubborn, so he chases after it, right?

But here’s the thing.

There’s no driver!

And while that doesn’t fill him with the amount of terror it very well should, it definitely raises his blood pressure past a healthy amount.

And what does he do?

Does he give up?

Does he let it drive away?

Of course not!

Because Sam is a stubborn sonuvabitch and, if nothing else, that car had the badge on it.

It had the badge and if isn’t just something his brain made up then he doesn’t–

“Praxus will be avenged.”

His shoulder burns.

Well, he doesn’t know what that means.

He doesn’t think he wants to.

But he needs to find out anyway.

So he follows.

And the world tumbles out from under his feet with the sound of a thousand crashing crystals.

He takes a picture.

He takes one picture, and coughs down the acid in his throat and blinks past the tears in his eyes and tries to hold his chest together because it feels like it’s caving in–

Sam feels like he’s dying.

He feels like he’s dying and it isn’t a dream.

It’s not a dream.

None of it’s a dream.

He only takes the one picture, and taps his way into settings with shaking hands while wheezing past the phantom pain that’s making black out spots in his vision.

He filters it to black and white once, twice, three times–

Each time that sunshine goes gray and he–

He knows that shade.

He knows that paint.

He knows those hands, those arms, that symbol painting over the clouds.

He knows them.

He knows them and it burns.

It burns with the hole through his chest.

It burns with the pink eating through his plating.

It burns with Praxus.

“I’m B-127.”

Chapter Text

Everything is falling.

It’s all crashing down down down, piece by piece, bit by bit.

A rainstorm here.

No shelter there.

A wrong turn, a wrong turn, a very, very wrong turn.

Hands that clamp over his shoulders, claws that dig in, hisses to be quiet, a white out in his vision.

He doesn’t remember the space between the burning on his shoulders and the clang of a door sliding shut.

All he remembers is feeling like he’s falling.

He can’t fly.

He isn’t made for it.

He isn’t a se–

He’s going to die.

“Youngling,” a careful voice whispers, deep and rasping. “Youngling, it is alright.”

It’s not.

It’s not, he’s isn’t a… a something and he’s falling and he’s going to crumple and die–

“It’s alright,” the voice says again, closer now, and he can’t help flinching.

Everything is dark.

Everything is spinning.

“It’s alright,” the voice repeats one last time. “You are not alone.”

But isn’t he?

Isn’t he alone?

In the dark and the spinning and the tightness in his chest and–

Someone takes his hands into their claws, claws bigger than his own, and it runs a shock through his system.

He looks up, up, up, when had he looked down?

Blue stares back at him evenly, and the light casts a shine on their face.

It’s not dark anymore.

“Just breathe.”

He finally gets air back in his lungs and–

Sam feels kind of like he’s losing his mind.

Just a little.

Because the car with the badge is B-127.

What are the goddamn odds.

There’s two options now, he knows.

One?

He’s absolutely nuts.

Completely bonkers.

So far off his rocker he’s on the moon.

Two?

His dreams aren’t dreams.

He’s not sure which is scarier.

The thing is, is that in chasing down B-127, Sam broke into private property.

Hooray!

The other thing is, someone saw him follow B-127 into that private property through the super broken gate.

Double hooray!

The last thing is, they called the police.

Triple hooray!

Which is how he ends up at a police precinct at whatever o’clock in the morning, with the weight of a black and white half memory screaming at him to get out.

Get out you will die here.

His dad looks disappointed.

The police look suspicious.

Sam can’t bring himself to say a word.

Because he doesn’t trust this.

He can’t trust this.

It’s ingrained down to his very bones, even if he hadn’t known it was there until he’d heard the sirens and seen the lights and the first thought he’d had was you are about to die.

The clarity had been startling.

More so than the rough treatment.

Actually arriving at the police precinct with his head still on his shoulders is–

Somehow alarming.

So is his dad being there, waiting for him.

Things don't start making sense until they push him down into a desk chair and he gets crowded with officers.

It's not regulation.

Sam almost expects to get rattled around some more, regardless of his dad standing as part of the crowd.

He almost starts to relax when the worst they do is get in his face, and doesn't say a word until they level the grainy picture he took of B-127 up to his eyes and ask "What is this ?"

It takes another long moment for him to realize that the cop actually expects an answer and he–

He grins, just like he was taught, just like they said, appearances are half the battle and it’s one you have to win, and says “I dunno, some cool movie thing? Pretty neat, right?”

His dad looks disappointed.

The police look suspicious.

Sam smiles with a nervous confidence he doesn’t feel, the staggering weight of get out get out get out pressing splintering cracks down into his shoulders.

He glares at B-127, who'd been waiting innocently in his garage, and takes a deep breath to try and make himself feel less unsettled than he is.

“I hope you realize how much trouble you got me in,” he hisses under his breath, and something curls with satisfaction at the minute roll the tires make as B-127 edges backwards, barely noticeable. “I had to talk to the police. The police. And now I’ve got breaking and entering on my record. So thanks for that.”

There’s nothing for a moment.

Then one of the mirrors twitches.

“There isn’t anyone else here.” Sam mutters, and hops onto one of the workbenches in the garage. “It’s just you and me, man. And you made me have to talk to the police.”

Another silent moment.

And then the radio turns on and croons, “I’m so sorry–” before shutting off again.

Sam squints.

“I’m sure you are.” He scuffs a shoe on the floor, and then leans all the way back against the wall. 

Something under B-127’s hood makes a low whine.

“Uh-huh. I believe you.”

A low purr.

This should be weirder.

This should be weirder.

Sam rubs under his eye at the bags he’s sure are there and sighs.

Nothing makes sense.

Nothing makes sense.

“What are you doing here?” He asks quietly, and something in his chest curls tight and painful. 

B-127 doesn’t say anything for a second.

The radio whines again as he starts jumping through the channels, and Sam crosses his arms to wait.

He doesn’t have to wait long, B-127 announcing success with a loud click and then–

He stops breathing.

Because he–

He knows that voice.

He knows that voice like he knows the fall of Praxus, like he knows the feel of blood in his seams, like he knows that B-127 held him until his heart guttered out.

“We will fight on… regroup, rebuild, and retake our home.” Says the recording, says the echo, says one of two voices of a revolution. “But we must find refuge first. We must find the AllSpark. You will travel to Earth. Once I’ve gathered the others, we will join you. You must protect the planet. If the Decepticons find it, then our people are truly finished. Stay safe, soldier. I am…"

“This is–”

“Him, yes.”

He twitches at the sound.

He’s never heard this voice before, and claws his way further up his perch.

He’s so small and thin that it isn’t really hard.

The mag–

The ma–

The –

The somethings.

The somethings in his hands make it easier.

“He’s so young.” Says the new voice, and it sounds almost like a keen.

“A little older than the twins but… yes.” Says the voice he does know, and he sounds sad.

It’s strange.

Usually he sounds angry.

Why is he sad?

Why is he sad?

Something is–

Something is whining.

Keening, almost.

High pitched and twisted and pained like a dying animal and–

And–

Oh.

Oh.

It’s him.

And God everything hurts.

There’s–

There’s a sound, and it feels so familiar it’s like he’s drowning and then–

And then–

He knows those hands.

B-127 holds out a hand, scratched and dented and chipped, and Sam leans into it without a second thought.

He’s never hurt him.

He would never hurt him.

He did the opposite.

He did the opposite and how was Sam supposed to tell him that?

The ceiling of the garage is low, low enough that B-127 is hunching, curling over him with one careful hand, and his eyes, his optics, are blue blue blue and Sam–

Sam hurts.

Sam hurts, a phantom of something making his throat feel tight and his chest ache.

He wraps an arm through the gaps in B-127’s fingers and reaches up his other hand to just under his optic.

“Sorry,” he rasps, but he’s sure B-127 doesn’t understand why, and he isn’t even entirely sure that he knows either. “I don’t know why I– I just– I’m sorry.”

He knows B-127.

But B-127 doesn’t know him.

He leans into Sam’s hand anyway, and his radio coos, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

“I don’t know why I– I didn’t mean to–”

He chokes on the words, and B-127 hums a buzz along with his radio.

“Everything’s okay… it’s gonna be alright.”

And Sam sort of laughs despite himself, a small, tinny thing that has to drag itself up his throat.

“Is that– God, what are they called–”

“–by Sweetbox–”

“Sweetbox!” He yells softly, a little hysterically, and B-127’s optics whir as the apertures narrow and he tilts his head further into Sam’s hand.

Like he’s smiling.

It…

Feels good.

Fragile and good.

“Thanks, dude.” He whispers, and Sam’s not super sure what he’s thanking him for.

B-127 hums what feels like a you’re welcome anyway.

And then Sam startles almost out of his skin with the yell of his mother saying that it’s "Almost four in the morning, get in here!"

B-127 startles with him, a violent twitch that sends a hum running through the garage as plating comes down to cover his face and he scoops Sam up in one hand.

That’s familiar too, and raises the hairs on the back of his neck, makes it smell like a storm, brings the taste of ozone to his tongue.

This close, he can see scared over cables and torn up metal around B-127’s neck.

An old injury.

A missing component.

Maybe that’s why he hasn't used his own voice.

He can’t.

For a long, long moment he doesn’t move, and neither does B-127.

Then he relaxes with a soft whir as the hum dissipates and the plates retract back into their sheaths, and after another moment, Sam lets out a small wheeze.

“Oh man, dude, that was just my mom and we both–” He starts laughing and drags both of his hands down his face. It feels hysterical. “Oooooh man, we– Wow. Jesus. Jesus.”

B-127 makes a curious clicking sound as he cackles into his hands, and then there’s a soft rumble from his engine as he starts laughing too.

Sam blinks up at B-127, a bowl of cereal in hand.

It was a hard earned bowl.

He'd been barely lucid enough to pretend to his curious parents that he'd slept through the night instead of slipping out of his window to go back to sitting in the garage at the first opportunity.

Listening to the switching channels of the radio mixed with foreign songs he half remembered was better than another nightmare about dying in the arms of the person sitting next to him.

Infinitely better.

“You’re a mess,” he tells him blearily, dragging a line of dust across one of the plates on his crossed legs.

B-127 belatedly manages to look offended, spitting out a high pitched “You don’t look too hot yourself buddy!” and poking his chest with just enough careful force to make Sam lightly stumble.

His doorwings are lazy though, fluttering just a bit and not drawn up in a tight, angry V.

He’s teasing.

It feels nice.

It feels good.

Everything about interacting with B-127 had so far felt like…

Like Sam had found something he hadn't even really known he was missing.

He smiles around another spoonful of cereal, careful not to spill anything, and B-127's doorwings flutter again.

Nervous, but happy.

Sam's not sure how he knows that.

He tries to lean all his weight on the knowledge while stuffing it into a closet to die.

“Yeah, well.” Sam shrugs, and gestures between the two of them with his spoon. “Both of our problems could be solved with a wash. Miles said he was gonna wash his dog today– maybe I can get him to come over and help out. Two birds with one stone.”

There’s a click as B-127’s optics shutter in a squint.

The suspicion is palpable.

“You’re a lot of car, and I may have an off period, but that’s not forever.” He explains easily. “Two heads are better than one, yeah?”

Another skeptical squint.

And then a loose shrug before B-127 folds back into a scuffed Camaro.

“Oh man, dude, this thing is scratched up.” Miles says when he arrives, leaning close to inspect one of B-127's doors. “I didn’t realize yesterday but like. Dude.”

Sam raises an eyebrow that has the mirror opposite the one next to Miles twitching.

“Well I did get ‘im used.” He drawls lightly. “Who knows what kind of stupid stuff happened with the guy before me?”

Another twitch.

Sam frowns, just a little.

It’s… not super fair to tease B-127 when he can’t say anything back because of Miles.

Or as fun.

He pats the hood gently.

“Just means the guy’s hardy though. If he can survive whatever did that, I think he can handle my high school years.”

He could handle Praxus and everything else.

Miles rolls his eyes, and if he thinks it’s weird Sam calls the Camaro a he and not an it, he doesn’t voice it.

He never has.

He’s always been… really good at not pushing Sam.

Maybe that’s why they worked so well.

“I’m less worried about high school, and more worried about Trent keying the sides or something,” Miles says speculatively. “He’s like, super touchy, man. He’s gonna be on the warpath.”

A jolt ripples up his spine at the word warpath, but he brushes it aside.

Not right now, brain.

Sam does his best to grin, and pats B-127’s hood again.

It feels sharp.

It's half the fight.

“I think we can take him.”

B-127 is clean and drying as they head towards the school when something sends the hairs on the back of Sam’s neck on end.

There’s a police car behind them.

And it has his brand on the grill.

His brand.

God, his shoulder burns.

It’s his brand.

He knows it is.

Sam’s never seen it in the dreams, not once, but looking at it in the flesh, he doesn’t know how he could not know it.

He knows his brand.

His badge.

It’s not a good one.

They’re–

They're the ones–

They’re the ones that go against B-127.

Praxus is burning.

He remembers.

He remembers B-127’s badge not matching his own and not understanding why he stayed.

Sam still doesn’t understand.

That or this.

What are they doing here?

Did they–

Did they find B-127 and Earth anyway?

Were they already here?

He can taste bile in his mouth, can taste the burn of metal on his tongue.

He feels hollow as the words ring in his head, half memories and the words of the recording B-127 played meshing in his head like cables.

Decepticons.

They’re called Decepticons.

His knuckles tighten on the wheel, and something that tastes like copper has him whispering “Badge on our six,” under his breath.

The radio belts out a “Roger roger,” that slips like silk into a mindless song.

“Hey Miles?” Sam asks carefully, and he’s kind of surprised that his hands aren’t shaking. “Can I ask you something?”

“You just did dude,” comes the answer from the back where Miles is definitely breaking seat belt laws and laying down.

Sam grits his teeth.

“Two somethings then.” He hagles.

“Shoot.” 

Sam takes a deep breath.

It doesn’t make him feel any steadier.

“How do you feel about running for your life?” He asks as calmly as he can.

There’s a pause.

And then, 

“I’m sorry, what?”

There’s a clunk as the gearstick moves without Sam touching it.

He lets go of the wheel and it spins on its own as the speedometer rises.

The radio crackles to life with what sounds like a sound clip from a 60s sitcom.

“Let’s split, cool cats!”

Miles jack knifes into his field of vision as Sam twists to look past him and directly at the police cruiser.

“That’s a tail.” He mutters with a confidence he doesn’t feel.

B-127 chirps an affirmative.

“Need to draw it away from people.”

Another chirp and he turns back around, Miles staring in a mix of awe and disbelief as B-127 drives himself. 

Think.

Think think think.

How to draw away a ta– 

Oh.

Wait.

Duh.

Idea.

“I’ll be bait.”

Jumping from a moving vehicle shouldn’t be as easy as it is.

He knows it shouldn’t.

But B-127 makes a drifting curve and Sam’s jumping and rolling and running again in the same breath.

It feels familiar.

Practiced.

He’s done rolls and dodging, but never jumping like that.

He doesn't think.

Maybe one of the… the memories–

Wait, no.

Focus.

Plan.

Plan.

He’ll pull focus to the parking lot building, which should be empty at this hour, which'll let B-127 drop Miles and circle back–

It’s a plan.

It’s a good plan.

Sam should stop thinking about it and start actually doing it.

No stopping, no breaks, just running–

Just run–

Just move–

Just–

Slag it all to hell.

The one day he needs a clear shot and someone stumbles in front of him, dead in the middle of the sidewalk–

Sam has a split second to process he’s going to crash and then–

Instinct takes over.

“Oh, it looks like our junior champion is cornered!” Calls out the announcer.

He pants.

He hates the announcer.

There’s sand deep in his seams, blood soaking into the grit and caking it down.

He’s tired.

Overheating.

His opponent isn’t.

“What will he do?” The announcer crows, and the crowd roars equal amounts his designation and his opponent’s.

He doesn’t want to die here.

He won’t die here.

Not in the Pits.

Not today.

Not ever.

He needs to think.

He needs to think.

Big opponent, bigger seams.

Slip the knife between the armor plating.

Swords in the front.

Go for the back.

How does he do that?

There's nothing here besides–

Besides the energy crackling at his back.

“Is this the last of our youngest gladiat– by Primus, do you see that?” The announcer’s surprised voice echoes in time the howl of the crowd.

His soles and palms burn from the field, but it’s worth it.

Use everything to your advantage.

That’s what they always said.

Use everything.

Use everything and fight smart and stay alive.

“A clear jump using the energon fields as a springboard! Will he ever cease to amaze?”

No.

He won’t.

Because he’s not dying in the Pits.

Not today.

Not ever.

Apparently mindlessly jumping and then kicking off a tree and over a person was impressive.

Apparently it was more impressive when you’d been seen doing dumb sports out of your car.

Mikaela is there.

He stumbles long enough out of the roar of the crowd in his head to say hi before he’s running again.

He has to draw the Decepticon away.

He has to draw them away

Sam miscalculated.

He thought it was just B-127.

He thought it was just him.

It wasn’t–

He didn’t think he would know them.

He didn’t think he would taste ash on his tongue as an alien roared his Reddit handle.

Something catches in his chest and it feels so cold.

It feels so, so cold.

He barely hears the question, barely hears the purr of B-127’s engine.

He barely processes anything at all.

All the breath leaves his lungs, and his throat dries and twists.

And he whispers, garbled and in a tongue he shouldn’t know,

“‘Cade?”

Chapter Text

Sam would once again like that check out that dying option.

He knows that mech.

He’s not sure how yet.

But he knows that mech.

Knows him enough to have something bitter left in the hollow of his chest.

It’s a shitty feeling.

He’d like it to stop.

They don’t get caught immediately.

They don’t get caught immediately through the combined powers of him croaking out Barricade’s position for every reckless turn and B-127 breaking like a million traffic laws holy shit.

Mikaela and Miles are strangely quiet.

It might be because Sam, once again, looks like death warmed over.

He doesn’t know.

… he doesn’t know.

Something new in his chest dies when he sees the tiny robot.

When he sees Frenzy.

Something dies and freezes and turns cold.

And it’s only instinct that has him standing his ground and digging his pocket knife into cables and joints.

His hands are burning, and it’s not just from his white knuckle grip.

It’s Frenzy’s blood.

It’s Frenzy’s energon.

It burns his skin.

It didn’t used to do that before.

Before.

Before what?

Mikaela cuts off Frenzy’s head, Miles kicks it away, and Sam almost screams at the both of them in wordless rage before biting his tongue hard enough to draw blood.

Frenzy was trying to kill them.

Frenzy was trying to kill them.

But the rules in the back of his mind scream that fighting something like Frenzy was to damage and maim, not–

Not kill.

Never kill.

He feels sick.

Miles and Mikaela–

They were just– just defending themselves and defending him.

They didn’t know.

They didn’t understand.

Sam didn’t even understand.

Everything was confusing.

Everything was blurry.

His hands burned with spilled energon.

His mouth feels dry when he looks to where Frenzy’s head would’ve hit, and he spits out the taste of copper.

It smells like burnt metal and spilled coolant.

Something tugs at his brain, and Sam looks away from the cluster of overgrown grass.

It feels like a memory.

A memory of a whispered, Don’t worry. Frenzy and Rumble are too stubborn to die.

Miles has a water bottle clipped to his belt loop and drizzles it over Sam’s burned hands as they walk away from the fence and back to the road.

He’s not sure if it’s actually helping, but leaving the energon to burn his skin feels like a stupid move.

“What is it?” Mikaela asks softly, and Sam glances at her.

Then he looks to the approaching silhouette of B-127.

“He’s a friend.” Is what he says, and shakes off the last of the water, wiping his knife off on his jeans.

Miles tilts his head at him.

“You sure?”

Sam can’t help but look at him like he’s stupid.

It’s B-127.

Of course he’s sure.

“Positive.”

Then he starts up the incline.

“What are you doing?” Hisses Mikaela.

He raises an eyebrow.

“I’m gonna talk to him.” He says easily. “He’s not gonna hurt us.”

“Really?” Mikaela probes. “Do you speak robot, because they just had like a giant droid death match.”

He almost says yes, and then clamps that down deep and dark and AWAY.

“That was a skirmish.” He says after a moment. “Death matches are for gladiators.”

B-127 stands tall and proud like a comic book character for a moment, and it has Sam laughing despite the pit in his stomach.

“Dude, what are you doing?”

Mikaela looks at him like he’s crazy, but B-127 lets out a clicking whirl like a laugh.

“Whaddah ya think, wise guy?” He shoots back, and Sam snorts again, making an aborted motion to cover his mouth with his stinging hands.

“You sound like a greaser, dude.” He tells him, and B-127 tilts his head for a miniscule moment before belting out a sound effect, miming popping the collar of a jacket and smoothing back non-existent hair.

“Very nice,” Sam says with a smirk. “If you were maybe not 16 feet tall and a human.”

B-127 shrugs.

“Ya win some, ya lose some,” he says in a heavy voice, followed by a low trill and a melodic, “Don’t know where, don’t know when–”

“Okay!” Shouts a voice before Sam can respond, and he almost draws his knife before the voice registers as Mikaela, and he drops his hand back down to his side. “What’s going on? Who are you? Who were they?”

Mikaela doesn’t look scared, so much as she looks maybe angry, and Miles looks… 

Knowing.

Like he’s putting together something about the glyphs he knows Sam can read and this alien that’s wearing them like tattoos and scars.

B-127 sends an uneasy glance at Sam, one hand drifting over to his left shoulder, doorwings tilting up and down in question?

Why would he…?

Oh.

“You can play the recording,” he tells him gently. “I’ll be okay.”

There’s a short “If you say so,” before B-127 gently taps the space around his shoulder plate, and then stops like he’s reading something.

His doorwings V up in annoyance.

“Damaged?” Sam hazards a guess, and B-127 tosses his hands up with a loud vent of hot air.

Then his radio crackles back to life with a loud “Way down like visitors from Heaven, Hallelujah!” as he points up.

Miles bounds up to Sam’s shoulder.

“So you’re like, an alien?” He asks curiously, and B-127 belts out a “You’ve been a wonderful crowd!”, clapping along with the sound clip.

Then there’s a loud groan of metal from behind B-127, who glances behind him as his battle mask clamps down with a sharp clang.

He inches a couple careful steps back towards them, and then folds down into a Camaro in one smooth motion, the passenger side door swinging open.

“Anymore questions ya wanna ask?” croaks the radio, followed by a different voice saying, “–on the road, again!”

Sam starts up the last of the incline without pause, and looks back at Miles and Mikaela.

“You guys comin’?”

Mikaela tears her gaze from the open door to look at him like he’s crazy.

Maybe he is.

“And go where?” She asks incredulously.

Sam smiles.

“Fifty years from now, lookin’ back on your life, don’t you wanna be able to say you had the guts to get in the car?”

Sam rests his hands loosely on the wheel, Mikaela in the passenger seat and Miles leaning between them from the back.

They both look at him oddly for a moment.

Like he’s just sprouted a second head or something.

“What?” He asks wearily.

“He’s– driving?” Miles says helplessly, and Mikaela continues with, “Isn’t that rude?”

Sam stares at them, for a long moment, uncomprehending.

Then it sort of hits him, and he squints.

“It’s mostly for appearances.” Sam answers after a second. “Driverless car is bound to get stares, and we’re trying not to get caught by ‘Cons.”

B-127 chimes in helpfully with a sound clip saying “Don’t be suspicious, don’t be suspicious!” and Sam pats the dash.

“See? He gets it.”

They look unconvinced.

“If you say so,” Mikaela mumbles after a moment, and Miles shrugs.

Sam smiles at them, kind of crooked but hopefully reassuring.

“He would say something.” He tells them gently, and pats the dash again, lingering this time. “Wouldn’t you buddy?”

There’s a wordless chirp in response, and then another, “Roger Roger!”

Sam draws his hand back to rest it on the wheel again, but it gets caught halfway there.

His seatbelt loops around his wrist and draws it close to his face, palm up and shining with new skin, a low croon filling the cab, sliding in between his ears like quicksilver, filling the space almost unnaturally.

It feels like liquid concern.

“They’re just burns,” he reassures B-127. “I went for cables and lines and the– I guess veins? Arteries? I figured if I maimed him enough he would return to the cruiser before he could get damaged enough to offline but–”

B-127 shakes his wrist, and it feels pointed.

The burns aren’t even red.

They’re almost pink.

Like they’ve healed over the course of a week and not maybe thirty minutes.

“They’re just burns,” Sam repeats firmly, the concern starting to grate. “It’s fine.”

And really, he thinks that should be the end of it, but the radio spits out surprised static, seatbelt drawing tighter, and Mikaela draws back, startled.

Miles looks exactly the same.

Sam squints.

“What?” He asks slowly, suspiciously. “What’d I say?”

“Didn’t say,” Miles tells him, chin resting on his hand. “Hissed. Sounded like a broken pipe. One’a the ones full of steam and stuff. Again.”

“Did not.” Sam barks hotly, and he’s not sure why that feels like such an insult.

“Did too.” Miles says breezily, completely unconcerned.

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did not.” 

“Did too.”

“Did–”

“Hey!” Shouts Mikaela, and Sam clenches his jaw so tight it almost hurts. “Are you guys gonna act like toddlers or are we gonna do something?”

Him and Miles trade a glance, and he looks away.

What did he mean by ‘Again’?

The silence hangs over them like a storm cloud, and Sam… 

Doesn’t like it.

B-127 hesitantly lets go of his hold on Sam’s wrist, seatbelt slowly lying flat across his chest.

He takes a deep breath, and tries to breathe past the heavy weight over his shoulders.

Past the heavy stare of Miles who’s always known way too much about him for comfort.

He guesses that’s what happens when you’re someone’s best friend.

They know even the things you don’t want them to.

Sam takes another deep breath.

Focus.

Focus.

Priorities.

“I don’t think either of them – the cruiser or the small one – are dead,” he says hoarsely, and clears his throat against the gravel. “And if they were smart they probably sent IDs to other Decepticons, so. Can you invert your colors, or something? To make it take longer to find us?”

The dial on the radio wanders for a second, and Sam tightens his fingers on the wheel.

He's not sure why.

Maybe it's the paranoia breathing down his neck.

Then a sound clip from the radio spits out an accented "Everybody off!" and B-127’s tires screech as he turns in a drift before popping open his doors.

Sam laughs to the sound of blaring car horns.

He’d forgotten the words for alt mode.

Well.

Not so much forgot as didn’t know they were a thing until B-127 changed car models and he was struck with the revelation that he’d changed alts.

The classic ‘67 is gone, replaced with the shiny new model of a generation five Camaro.

Miles and Mikaela look kind of stunned and awed, and there’s something that curls up tight in Sam’s chest almost like pride.

It feels kind of smug.

B-127 is so staggeringly important to him in a way few other things are.

In a way that he doesn’t think anything else can be.

I know, but you don’t deserve to die alone.

Sam… doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to do with the sure knowledge that B-127 was there when he… died.

When Sam died.

When… S-124 died.

Whoever… S-124 is.

Besides, impossibly, him.

He’s S-124. S-124’s him.

Somehow.

Because if the dreams are real, if B-127 is real, if the things that he’s almost sure now are memories are real, then… S-124, the hole in his chest, the burning of Praxus, that all has to be real too.

He doesn’t really… get it.

But what he does get is that… B-127 is good.

He’s good, and he’s important.

And other people should know that.

They should understand the quiet waves of suffocating gratitude that Sam will never be able to shake, the awe of I know this person and they know me, the sheer, drowning understanding that B-127 was the kind of guy to hold someone dying in their arms and stay there, regardless of faction.

Maybe not in as many words.

But B-127 is important.

He’s important.

To Sam.

To S-124.

And the piece of him that can read the glyphs in his grandfather’s notebook wants people to know he’s important too.

He doesn’t say anything of these things.

He isn’t even sure how he would say all these things.

So Sam settles for a smile, patting the hood gently.

“You clean up nice, buddy.”

The engine purrs, and a clip of Elvis says, “Thank you, thank you very much.”

And Sam can’t help laughing.

Lights streak across the sky and he feels so very unsteady against the fire of it all.

Against the sound of the air splitting in two and the way the earth shakes beneath his feet with the nearest impact.

He thinks he should be scared, maybe.

Frightened.

By the burning of the brand that isn’t on his shoulder, by the voice he knows knows knows, remembers glowing screens and suffocating sympathy, by the eyes on his neck as Miles pulls together every strange little thing he’s ever seen Sam do their entire lives, juxtapositioned by the way he understands just too much.

Too much for a human.

Too much for someone that didn’t have an idea of what they were getting into.

Too much for Mikaela who’s taking everything surprisingly well and too much for Miles who’s used to Sam’s weirdness but never could’ve expected something like this.

Not too much for Sam who by all accounts shouldn’t have memories of a life he never lived.

But Miles doesn’t know that, Mikaela doesn’t know that, B-127 doesn’t know that.

No one knows that.

He’s been careful.

Ever since he first dreamed of Praxus.

Careful to keep the horrors to himself, the journals and the glyphs and the wild, wild thing that punched Trent DeMarco and felt good.

Careful to keep sunny and Orion and swan dive close to his chest.

Careful to hold his secrets where they couldn’t be seen, not this time.

Sam was careful, of the phantom pains and the screaming nightmares.

Of the VHS tape memories and the burned out photographs behind his eyelids.

So very careful in the face of paranoid fear.

His shoulder burns and he should be scared.

But he isn’t.

Sam isn’t scared.

How could he be?

How could he be when finding B-127 is maybe, just maybe, the best thing that’s ever happened to him?

B-127 slows to a stop in a dark alley, headlights dimming as the speedometer ticks down down down, and the next few moments are ones Sam can only remember in flashes.

And the first of these are: he stops breathing.

For just a moment.

It’s not a conscious choice.

There’s just… welcoming high beams, a flash of brilliant blue and red, a greeting rumble from a loud engine, and he… he just forgets.

Because even if nothing else in his mind makes sense, even if nothing else is clear and concrete, there is the sudden, absolute certainty that he knows those colors.

It’s quite nearly blinding, just how sure he is.

It clamps down on his tongue, freezes him in place, makes his mind race as he tries to understand why he knows those colors.

The headlights flicker off.

The truck rolls to a stop.

And then it changes.

Changes and twirls and twists and becomes something new.

Red and blue and gleaming silver.

Sam feels like he’s dying.

He can’t remember the frame.

He can’t remember the face.

But he knows that voice, those colors, those optics.

He knows this mech.

He knows this mech and it hurts.

It hurts almost as much as seeing B-127 rend and swirl and become for the first time, and it’s something like a miracle that he hasn’t blacked out.

He’s just not breathing.

Because he can’t.

Because he’s blinded with sudden certainty.

Because that is Orion Pax.

And Sam feels–

Sam–

His vision crashes, blacking out in spots and stars, as he stumbles away from B-127’s leg and inhales so deeply it aches.

Everything goes blank and he forgets.

The second flash: there’s a whisper in his ears, a keen of he’s so young, and it hurts hurts hurts.

Glowing screens and gentle hands and he doesn’t know this mech so why are they so sad for him?

There is no such thing as mercy from strangers so what is this?

There’s alarmed clicking over his head, he can hear it, almost as certain as the forgotten murmur of a little older than the twins, but… yes, and then a whir as the ground falls around from under him, as he’s lifted up and away and held close as he tries to breathe breathe breathe.

His fingers itch and his nails feel so suddenly, so incredibly dull.

Everything feels dull.

Everything feels fragile.

And for one blinding, dizzying moment, S-124 feels sick.

So sick it’s a wonder he doesn’t keel over and die right then and there.

It’s a wonder all his systems don’t shut down with how he must be overheating.

It’s a wonder.

It’s all a wild, suffocating wonder.

And then the weight of his own body, or rather, lack thereof, slams back into him with the force of a moving train and he finally remembers how to breathe.

His vision flickers out like a dying light.

The third flash: B-127 croons after what feels like a long, long moment, after what feels like no time at all, after what feels like nothing and eternity, and as it rattles all the way through Sam’s bones he’s struck by how it’s almost achingly familiar.

Then it hits him in a dull sort of way that B-127 had done that when he was dying.

Everything feels dull.

Everything feels numb.

Everything is–

Is shaking but– but wait no that’s just him.

And someone–

Someone says–

“Primus, is ‘e alright?”

And it–

It–

Meister–

He almost keens, sound catching in his throat, wordless and painful, and it– it’s not human.

Everything is jumbled and everything is scrambling and everything is too much behind the thin film of gray.

It feels–

It feels sort of like a systems crash.

Like he’s trying to process too many things at once and didn’t partition enough bandwidth.

Humans–

Humans don’t do that but Sam has the sudden, clear and certain knowledge that this is exactly what a systems crash feels like.

B-127 croons again, low and soft and gentle, and it only makes him feel marginally better.

“Put him down,” someone orders then, voice quick and professional, almost familiar, almost something he knows, “He’s overheating, B, and your plating isn’t helping, put the youngling down.”

And–

And something–

And something jagged and rasping claws up his throat and mutters, “Not a youngling.”

And it–

It burns all the way up his esophagus, and he knows those aren’t the right sounds, the right noises, knows it as certainly as he knows that Orion Pax and Meister are right there, but it’s a close enough approximation that has someone, or maybe someones, breathing in sharp.

Sharp enough to cut.

B-127 doesn’t put him down and he blinks–

And there is blackness.

The fourth flash is the second to final one, and begins with this: the sensation of his own hands carding through his hair, fingers digging into his head, as he tries to force everything to come back together with pressure along both sides of his skull.

It helps, just a little bit.

He thinks maybe he’s using just a bit too much force when his scalp starts to sting where he’s digging in his fingers, but the stinging pain is grounding and he doesn’t let up the pressure.

This is–

This is better than last time.

He hasn’t blacked out into a memory yet.

He feels so much more sick than dizzy or out of phase but–

He hasn’t lost himself in a haze like he did when he saw B-127.

And that’s–

That’s something, isn’t it?

He knows where he is.

Sam– Sam knows where he is.

With B-127.

In an alley.

With Mikaela and Miles.

With Orion Pax and Meister, whatever the hell those names mean to him besides old hurt.

He doesn’t know.

They just–

They’re just painful.

Painful like B-127 was.

And they’re–

They’re Autobots.

They’re all Autobots.

He’s with the Autobots.

Sam leans his forehead into B-127’s chest plates, squeezes his eyes shut, and tries to count his breaths by the steady thrum of a heart.

A spark.

A soul.

And he tries, he really does, to let everything else fade away as he parses and partitions and picks through the scrambled mess in his head.

One piece at a time.

Shuffling the errant everythings back into their corners.

Unfamiliar songs and a blazing, burning city of crystal, brilliant datapads and a kindness so foregin it was almost suffocating–

Sam can almost make out the words, the voice in his ears and glyphs behind his eyelids–

And everything slowly starts to settle back into place.

The fifth and final flash of memory comes after a long pause that Sam doesn’t think takes as long as he feels it does.

A hesitant croon slides between his ears and he grimaces.

It feels like worry made into sound.

He makes B-127 worry.

A lot.

“Sorry.”

There’s a stumble of a pulse as his throat grates raw.

He tries to clear it, to ease against the strain, and licks his lips.

“I’m– I’m fine now.” He says next, and drums a beat against B-127’s fingers with his own. “You can put me down.”

A venting of hot air ruffles his hair.

He can almost taste the disbelief.

“I’m fine.” Sam repeats, stronger this time, without the stutter, and looks up at B-127’s scrutinizing optics. “The big guy’s just–just a lot, okay? You were already a lot and he’s like, three times your size.”

There’s whirring as B-127’s apetures swirl even further closed in skepticism.

Sam groans, and leans up so that he can grab the sides of B-127’s face.

“I’m. Fine. I had too much to process at once,” he explains as carefully as he can, and then stresses, “but I’m fine now. This– This was better than the last one. Stop worrying.”

“Over stimulation.” Someone says, and Sam–

Sam snaps his head away from B-127 to see–

To see–

Oh.

Oh.

Orion Pax is–

Is looking at him with something very, very careful in his optics.

Sam swallows.

It still kind of hurts.

His throat, and hearing Orion Pax’s voice.

“Y–yeah,” is what he manages to say. “Too much– too much going on. Outside and– and in my head.”

Orion Pax seems to consider that, which should probably be a lot more nerve wracking than it is.

Maybe Sam’s just numb.

“This is a regular occurrence?”

“No,” he hears himself say, and distantly notices something wrong with his accent, “it’s– it’s uh, pretty new.”

Orion Pax squints at that.

Someone clears their throat behind B-127, but Orion holds up a hand, and nothing gets said.

“Because of us?” He says next, and Sam sort of grimaces.

“I’m pretty sure.”

“And the Cybertronian?”

Sam opens his mouth–

And his jaw clicks shut.

Cybertronian.

Cybertronian.

His jaw clicks shut as his mind grinds to a halt because–

Because Sam’s never been able to directly translate anything, only relate concepts.

He knew that– that Barricade was an Enforcer, that an Enforcer was like a cop, in a distant sort of way, but he couldn’t say Enforcer in English.

He couldn’t say Barricade in English.

He couldn’t say B-127’s designation no matter how much he wanted to.

He couldn’t say Praxus.

But–

But Orion Pax could.

Orion Pax had– had the software for it, the ability to translate and relate words and glyphs that Sam didn’t, so maybe he–

Maybe he knew what Archibald had been trying to say in his journals, in his mad ramblings, in the senseless babbles of a man long dead.

A giant man buried in the ice.

Sam inhales –

And breathes out, “I’ve always been able to do that.”

Orion Pax’s optics are so very blue, and he feels like one half of a torn polaroid, like the last piece of the puzzle that makes up Sam’s disjointed thoughts.

But before he can say anything, before he can speak, Sam digs his fingers into the thing that tears up his throat and leaves it raw, tries to remember how to say the words, and whispers, “Why are you here, Orion Pax?”

And the world around him stills into a single heartbeat, into a single sparkbeat, narrowing to the way Orion Pax’s optics widen as he pulls back like he’s been stung, to the way B-127 draws him even closer, to the way no one seems to breathe.

It coils around his throat like a noose, but Sam can’t look away.

Not now.

Not with this.

Not with how Orion Pax is staring at him the way a man would a ghost.

Something twists in his chest, and Orion Pax makes a painful sound, before squeezing his optics shut and smoothing his faceplates.

When he opens them, they’re dim.

“We are here for your grandfather’s glasses,” Orion Pax tells him, voice warbling on an unsteady note in a way that’s very nearly not there, “and the location of the AllSpark.”

Sam–

Sam chokes, hands flying up to his throat, his mouth, as all the blood leaves his body and drips out onto the cold, hard ground, and he’s drained dry dry dry.

He’d–

Forgotten–

About–

The–

A

l

l

S

p

a

r

k

“Do you know what this is, S-1?”

He blinks and squints at the glyphs scratched on the wall in front of him.

“That’s, um, one of – of the glyphs for creation?” He says hesitantly, and carefully taps one with a claw. “And that one looks… like the one for Primus, but upside down?”

“Very good.” A clawed hand comes to rest on his shoulder, and the person behind him kneels down to a knee, reaching out with the other to guide his along the swirls and loops. “These are the glyphs for the AllSpark. Do you remember what that is?”

He huffs a heavy gust of air and sticks out his tongue.

“My memory isn’t that scrambled,” he mumbles in a moment of brashness, and then hunches his shoulders. “I know what the AllSpark is. The source of creation at the heart of the Well, origin of every spark and archive of all Cybertron. Right?”

The person laughs at that, heavy and deep, and some of the tension leaves him.

“Right. We’ll make a scholar of you yet,” they say warmly. “Now go terrorize the twins.”

“Which ones?” He asks after a moment.

There’s a snort, and he finally looks up to scarred-up faceplates and blue blue blue eyes.

“Surprise me.”

Sam blinks at the cloud-choked sky, and breathes in so deeply it aches.

“Hate it when that happens,” he wheezes out, and the hands curled around him twitch.

B-127 leans into his vision, hands fluttering, and Sam realizes, in a dull sort of way, that he’s switched to someone else’s hold.

He has a pretty good idea which.

Sam tilts his head back at Orion Pax, and blinks.

“I can bring you to the glasses.” He says, very, very quietly.

Orion Pax shutters his optics, and he looks pained.

“Thank you, Samuel.” He says instead of whatever is lurking behind the blue, and Sam wonders what it is that he’s thinking.

What it is he might’ve put together or grasped.

“Sam is fine,” he tells him, and Orion Pax takes another deep breath.

Vent.

Inhale.

He doesn’t have lungs, so why does he breathe?

And Orion Pax says, so very quiet, quieter than a giant should be, “Thank you, Sam.”

He smiles up at him, and it kind of hurts.

“You’re welcome, Orion.” Sam says, English blending with the feeling of his throat torn raw.

Optics shutter.

“I have not been Orion in a very long time.” Orion Pax whispers with a distant sort of grief.

“Do you want me to stop?” Sam asks him carefully, and he shakes his head.

“No,” Orion Pax says then, voice laced in what feels like a damning sort of finality. “No, Sam. I think… I think that I have missed it. Thank you. I had not realized how much.”

Sam smiles again, crooked at the edges.

“You’re welcome, Orion.” He repeats past the ache, past the lump in his throat.

And then Sam sits up properly, pushing himself to his feet in the palms of Orion Pax’s hands.

B-127 holds out his own, and Sam steps into them easily, twisting to look back at Orion Pax, blue and red and silver, hands empty and shoulders bowed, glyphs tracing the lines of his plating.

“The glasses are at my house,” Sam tells him as B-127 brings him back to his chest. “And I don’t think that– that five of you guys is gonna go unnoticed for long. We should hurry.”

Orion Pax blinks at that, looking so very big and impossibly lost, a great, lonely giant, before a mask snaps into place around his mouth and he nods decisively.

“Indeed,” he says, voice echoing different behind the piece of metal that changes almost his whole face. “Bumblebee, take the humans and point. Jazz, Ratchet you take up the middle. Ironhide and I will make the rear.”

And then–

And then he says, “Autobots, rollout.”

Chapter Text

“You know him.”

It’s not an accusation.

He knows that.

But it feels like one.

And it burns all across his spine.

“I know a lot of people.” Is what Sam says.

“You know a giant thirty foot tall robot.” Miles stresses, leaning over the center console. “By name.”

Sam purses his lips.

“Not quite thirty feet.” He hedges, and Miles throws up his hands, fingers hitting the roof with a snapping noise that has him yelping and shaking out his hands.

“But you admit to knowing him,” Mikaela says next, gaze heavy and intense and boiling.

Sam glances at her, but ends up saying nothing.

He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say.

How to explain it.

How to make them understand.

Because Sam still doesn’t even understand it himself.

Mikaela and Miles seem to realize that they aren’t going to be getting anything out of Sam anytime soon, and instead turn to the one victim that’s even less talkative than Sam.

Because he literally.

Can’t.

Talk.

“The big guy called you Bumblebee.” Miles says, eyes focused right on the radio. “Is that your name?”

The dials spin as the speakers spit out a, “Sure is!” spliced into a deeper voice saying, “And proud of it!” and something in Sam’s chest feels warm.

He’s not sure why.

But having a name and not a designation feels… important.

Mikaela frowns.

“Isn’t that like… an Earth thing, though? No offense, but…” her frown deepens, more confused than anything else. “Why would an alien, you, have the same name as an Earth bug?”

“It’s a gift, doll.” B-1– Bumblebee, says through the radio, and Sam makes a curious noise, low in the back of his throat.

“Who gave it to you, Bee?” He asks, name shortened out of familiarity and old habit.

And the engine purrs like a giant cat and the radio sings, “Good time Charlie’s got the blues!” and the air feels… warm and good for lack of any other or better explanation, and Sam smiles in earnest.

“Old friend?” He guesses, and whoever this Charlie is, he thinks he’d like to thank them.

For finding Bee and being his friend.

For giving him a name.

The next voice out of the radio is soft, the sort of hushed, blurry quality you got from old Disney movies.

“The very best.”

Sam purses his lips, wonders how he’s going to explain the “new” Camaro, and then decides he doesn’t have time for semantics.

They’re on a crunch.

“You all need to stay here, okay?” He tells the row of vehicles lining the street in front of his house, half turned away, frozen in the space between. “You need to stay. There. And, for the love of– of Primus, do not transform please. If you get seen we’re toast.”

“Who’s Primus?” Mikaela hisses from his right, leaning over to Miles, because apparently they’ve joined forces, now, in the face of Sam’s weird bullshit.

Great.

Just what he needed.

“I have no idea,” Miles hisses back, hand in front of his mouth like a gossiping housewife, like he isn’t making direct eye contact with Sam at that very moment. “But at least it was in English?”

Sam flips him off, and makes one last pointed glare at everyone before starting towards his house.

“So, uh, it’s past my curfew, and my dad’s gonna kill me, and we don’t have time for me to get lectured, so we’re climbing.” He says as he passes between Miles and Mikaela, grabbing the former by the hood of his jacket. “It’ll be like old times.”

“Are the handholds still there?” Miles asks curiously, jogging to keep step as Sam edges around the fence to the dark spot farthest from the screen door.

He’s maybe a little too good at knowing how to sneak into his own house, but it had been sneaking out when the house was getting suffocating, or getting violent with something as the tension rose.

He’d chosen sneaking out.

“Handholds?” Mikaela whispers, and Sam gives her his best ‘I promise I’m not insane’ look.

“I used to, uh, to think the possibility of getting murdered in my own house was a thing I had to worry about?” He explains, inching his way towards the wall under his windows. “When I was like seven? And then I finally did something about it at around– I think I was twelve. And by that I mean I used my allowance to buy some tools, and me and Miles spent like a day unsupervised causing property damage to my house by making handholds.”

“Your dad let you do that?” Mikaela asks incredulously, and Sam snorts.

Imagine.

His dad knowing that he’d defaced his beautiful house.

Ha ha ha.

Yeah no.

“My dad,” Sam says grandly, stepping carefully around the flowers, “doesn’t know I did that. He’d go postal.”

Mikaela makes a face at him that he doesn’t quite know how to place.

Maybe something along the lines of ‘THOSE are your priorities?’

“Why was getting murdered a thing you were worried about when you were seven?” She changes tracks, squinting as he quickly hauls himself up the side of his house.

“I had a lot going on when I was seven.” He calls down defensively, and Miles snorts.

“He had to go to counseling, got pulled from school– it was a whole thing.” He says in a stage whisper.

“Thanks, Miles.” Sam dangles from his windowsill for one long moment before he starts to pull himself up. “You really know how to keep a secret.”

Miles makes a scoffing noise.

“It was the source of gossip for like, months, dude.” He says back, edging closer to the handholds. “It’s not exactly a secret. It’s just been like, ten years. You want me to head up?”

Sam doesn’t answer right away, and digs his fingers into the crack between his window and the wall instead, before slowly pushing it inward, 

His room is more of a mess than usual, but– it’s empty.

No waiting parents.

“Coast is clear,” he calls over his shoulder, and slips through the opening.

Sam stands suddenly alone in the silence of his room, drinking in the quiet and dust.

Stars and supernovas stretch plastered across his ceiling, galaxies taped along his walls, and for a moment, he sort of starts to wonder if the reason why he’d tacked all of them up, years ago, was because a part of him was looking for home.

The stars of Orion burn across his eyelids.

Radio waves sear into his brain.

Everything is an echo.

Everything is a mimicry.

Sam had surrounded himself with pieces of S-124’s life without even realizing.

And something about that feels…

Really, really sad.

“Why is your room so messy?” Mikaela mutters as she digs through his bookshelf, Miles sifting through the crate of stuff he’d brought down from the attic for his presentation, and Sam lifting up his bed to see underneath.

“I haven’t exactly had time to clean.” He says, setting the bed down, and as he starts picking through his desk he wonders how the hell he managed to lose Archibald’s glasses in his own house.

“Bee was here,” he continues absent mindedly. “And I’d been having some bad nights. I slept in the garage– uh, last night? I think it was last night. Early this morning. Whatever. Haven’t been in here for longer than a couple minutes for a while, is the point.”

“What was it this time?” Miles’ voice drifts over in question, and Sam wishes, for a just moment, that Miles didn’t know anything about him, instead of everything.

“The burning city.” He says instead of trying to give Miles amnesia through a severe concussion.

It’s a strong temptation.

Might be the adrenalin.

“The one you got a therapist for?” Miles asks, and Mikaela makes a wheezing noise as she starts coughing.

Sam drops his books back onto his desk with a bang, and looks over at Miles.

He stares innocently back.

“Miles?”

“Yes, Sam?”

“Do I have any other burning cities?” 

“No, I don’t think so.” Miles tells him, shoving a crate back into the space under his bed. “But apparently you’ve got a lot of stuff going on you don’t talk about so–”

“Uuuuggghhh,” Sam groans into his hands. “I get it, I get it.”

“Do you though? Do you really?” Mikaela cuts in, a skeptical look on her face, and really, he should give her a medal or something because she’s taking this all really well.

He kind of wonders how much Miles told her while he was like…

Blacking out and stuff.

Actually, scratch that.

How much Miles told her and how much the bots told them.

“I do.” Sam answers. “And I also know that the glasses aren’t here.”

“What do you mean, not here?” Mikaela asks, finger quotes and all.

He starts to explain, “They were in a bag, my A-day backpack–” And then hits his forehead with his palm. “Downstairs. I meant to bring it back up here but there was Bee and going to school and then the ‘Cons and– shit.”

Sam bridges his fingers over his nose, and then looks to the ceiling like it has all the answers.

The Andromeda galaxy stares back at him.

“Either of you guys good at sneaking downstairs without getting caught?”

And then there’s a pounding on his door.

“Sneaking in past curfew –”

Sam frowns, and trades a glance with Miles, then Mikaela.

“–with a girl and Miles– it’s good to see you by the way–”

They need to get the glasses.

They need to get the glasses and go.

“–what were you thinking? That goes against all our rules–”

They really, really don’t have time for this and Sam is seriously considering just brushing past his dad and running, damn the consequences–

And then the doorbell rings.

And something cold sinks into his gut.

And there's a warning flash, barely there, past the fence and in the corner of his eye.

Out of time.

Sam trails behind his parents down the stairs, hanging back as his dad goes to answer the door, and dives for the kitchen once he’s out of sight, breathing a sigh of relief at the sign of his bag.

He digs through it and–

Yes.

Glasses.

“Oh thank God.” He whispers, pressing the case to this forehead and closing his eyes.

“That it?” Mikaela asks, just as quiet, and when Sam opens his eyes, Miles is moving to cover them both, eyes trained on the other way out of the kitchen.

“Yeah,” he breathes, and shrugs on his jacket, slipping them into his pocket as he starts for Miles and hopefully the door. “Listen, we don’t have a lot of time, we need to cut and–”

A man in a suit stands in his living room.

Sam’s mom is standing in front of him, and he’s holding a bat that he tosses to another man in a suit, smiling.

He sort of distantly recognizes the bat as his mom’s.

“How y’doin’ son? Is your name Sam?” The man in the suit asks, and Sam clenches his jaw so hard it hurts.

“Yeah?” He answers like a question, and clenches his hands into fists.

God, he really hopes the others had started running as soon as these men in suits got even close.

“Well, I need you to come with us.” The man in the suit says, starting towards them, and something about the way he walks is familiar, too too too familiar–

And then his dad is in front of them, his mom too, saying, “Woah, woah, that’s way outta line–” and Sam wants to–

To shove him out of the way, maybe.

Because this guy–

This isn’t the kind of guy that you can tell what to do.

His dad has to realize that.

“Sir, I am asking… politely.” The man in the suit says slowly, voice drawling, face a parody of civility. “Back off.”

“You’re not taking my son.” His dad says, and something in Sam goes… cold.

Because those–

Those are fighting words.

Those are fighting words, and the man in the suit seems to get that, and he’s sure his dad does too, but what he doesn’t seem to get is that this isn’t a fight he should want.

There’s an echo, in the back of his mind, gravely and deep, and it whispers, “Pick your battles wisely, because it is not often you will get to fight for yourself instead of others.”

This is not a wisely picked battle.

It’s one he’s going to have to pick anyway, because his dad isn’t backing off.

“Really? You gonna try to get rough with us?” The man in the suit asks in the present, something Sam can’t place edging into his tone.

His dad–

His dad says, “No, but I’m gonna call the cops because there’s somethin’– somethin’ fishy goin’ on around here.” and Sam barks out a laugh.

“Cops don’t care, Dad.” He tells him, something like muscle memory guiding him to make eye contact with the man in the suit. He grins with teeth, and he knows it isn’t kind. “They answer to these guys. Right?”

The man in the suit grins back and huffs a laugh.

It’s not nearly as nasty.

Sam is sure.

He learned to snarl from the best.

He learned to snarl with fangs.

“The kid gets it,” the man says, swings the pen in his hands around and through his fingers. “You the head of this little operation you got goin’ on?

“What operation?” His dad asks, and the man in the suit chuckles, a low thing that grates on Sam’s last nerve.

He watches as another suit walks right up to the man, whispers something that has the man’s eyes going wide as he looks between them, handing off a device that looks almost like a Geiger counter, and then the man takes a step forward.

“Son?”

“Ain’t your son.” Sam says, and there’s more dark in his tone than he’d like.

But he doesn’t like this.

He doesn’t like this at all.

“Step forward, please,” the man asks him, and Sam takes the chance to finally be between him and his parents and Miles and Mikaela.

He’s almost positive that whatever that thing is, is going to go off.

That’s his luck.

And he’s right.

“18 rads…” the man in the suit whispers in disbelief, and Sam clenches his jaw again at the light that enters his eyes.

They’re fucked.

The man is already sweeping away as he crows, “Bingo! Tag ‘em and bag ‘em,” and the house erupts into movement.

Someone grabs him by the arms from behind.

It takes everything in him not to bite.

“So,” the man in the suit drawls from the passenger seat, and Sam grits his teeth from where he’s sandwiched in the back between Miles and Mikaela. “Astronomer two-seven-seventeen. That is your Reddit handle, correct?”

“I like space.” Sam bites out, and Mikaela snorts next to him.

The man in the suit digs around in his phone, and pulls up–

The photo he took of Bumblebee.

Gray as the day S-124 died.

Sam’s mouth runs dry.

“Whadda ya make of this?” The man asks, probing, and his eyes feel like coals.

“Some cool movie thing,” Sam speaks past the cotton in his mouth, “Thought it looked cool.”

The man stares at him.

Everyone here knows he’s lying.

“You were picked up by the police last night,” the man eventually continues. “For breaking and entering a– scrap yard, was it? And there looks to be some cranes in this picture.”

Sam doesn’t say anything.

“The witness who called it in said there was a Camaro, before you showed up. One that broke the gates.” The man says, voice lilting up and down in a way that can only be mocking. “You rode in following, and were apprehended later by the police but… the Camaro never drove out. And didn’t you… purchase? A Camaro? That day?”

Sam clenches his jaw, hands curling back into fists where they’re cuffed behind his back.

“Did your car… transform, Mr. Witwicky?”

Sam smiles, teeth and fangs and god, whoever had taught him, the deep voice and the scarred face and the blue optics, god, they’d be proud.

“That’d be crazy, sir.” He answers with all the saccharine venom he can. “It’s just a car. They don’t transform.”

“Right, right…” The man chuckles, low and mirthless, and then his face snaps blank as he says, “So what d’you kids know about aliens?”

Sam feels sick.

This is… literally the worst situation.

He can almost hear the roaring in his ears.

“What, like, ET, Star Wars?” Miles asks incredulously from his left. “I mean like, statistically they probably exist but, like, on the other side of the galaxy or in another universe or something. The odds of meeting intelligent life are like, super low. I’ve looked.”

“Crop circles and abduction stories are all just done for attention.” Mikaela adds. “UFOs are just like, ball lightning and experimental planes and stuff. Martians and everything, they’re not real.”

And the man’s face just–

Drops.

“You see this?” He asks as he digs out and holds up a badge embossed with the word and number Sector 7. “This is a ‘Do whatever I want and get away with it’ badge. I’m gonna lock you up, forever, if you don’t start talking.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you are.” Sam hears himself say. “Because I’m so likely to be more cooperative in federal custody, when you’ll throw me away as soon as you have what you want. I’m not an idiot.”

“And I’m sure it’d go over so well with our parents.” Mikaela tacks on. “You got Sam’s, but Miles’? His are gonna start filing reports pretty soon. People notice when whole families vanish. But then again, you’re probably just pissy cause pretty soon you’re gonna have to go back to guarding the mall.”

Miles wheezes out a laugh as he leans into Sam’s shoulder, and he snickers too.

The man in the suit doesn’t even do one of his horrible chuckles.

“You, in the hoops. Do not test me.” He says like a warning, and, yeah, they probably shouldn’t be picking fights, but… it was kinda funny. “Especially with your daddy’s parole coming up.”

Son of a–

“Parole?” He asks lightly, and Mikaela, in that moment, has never looked so flighty.

“It’s nothing,” she starts, before getting interrupted.

“Grand theft auto, that ain’t nothing?” The man asks.

Not really, Sam dares to think, not to a murderer.

Because if Praxus is real, Orion is real, Bumblebee is real–

Then the crowds must be too.

The crowds and the sand and the energon in his seams.

Mikaela takes a great heaving breath, and it sort of helps to drag him back into the present.

“You don’t have to tell us.” Sam tells her, and he can see the painful way her throat bobs as she swallows.

“It’s fine.” She bites out. “My dad… used to teach me to fix cars. They– they just… weren’t always his.”

“She’s got her own juvie record and everything. She’s a criminal.” The man says smugly. “Y’know it’d be a shame if he had to rot in jail for the rest of his natural life.”

The Geiger counter starts clicking.

Sam stops breathing.

The man says, “It is time to talk–”

–and then the windshield fractals against giant metal fingers.

For a moment, there is only light.

Brilliant and blinding and resplendent.

Then, there is metal, concaving and tearing and rending asunder.

It screams in his ears and it feels like home.

There is an impact, a rattle.

The air leaves his chest, and he laughs helplessly.

The light dims and flickers.

And above them–

Orion Pax stands, red and blue and silver death, gleaming chrome and fire in his optics.

He is fury in every inch, a soldier baring down for war, battle scars and broken plates.

He is safety.

He is home.

“Taking the younglings,” Orion Pax whispers then, in the deathly, rumbling voice of a raised sword, a cracked whip, a smoking gun, “was a bad move.”

Meister(Jazz?) takes the mens’ guns, Bumblebee scoops them all up into his arms, Ratchet and Ironhide hold the perimeter, and Orion looms over like a great metal beast wreathed in holy vengeance.

It seems like the only way to describe the ominous way his shadow stretches and casts, how his optics burn such a blinding blue that they light up his own face plates in harsh, unforgiving angles, the shape of his silhouette as he leans down down down to be level the insignificant humans that dared to spirit the three of them away.

Sam smiles with teeth bared anyway.

“Hi there,” the man in the suit manages to choke out, and he really has to fight back a laugh.

“I am Optimus Prime,” Orion says in that echoing voice, in that tone that promises hell to pay. “And you do not seem afraid. Are you not surprised to see us?”

Optimus Prime.

I am Optimus Prime.

“Holy shit Orion’s Prime.” He whispers to himself, and almost doesn’t recognize the warring vitriol and reverence in his own voice.

He doesn’t even know what a Prime is.

… does he?

“They’re uh, standard, S Seven protocols, okay?” The man’s voice blusters over. “I’m not authorized to– to communicate with you, except, to tell you that I can’t… communicate with you.”

Orion’s optics narrow to boiling slits.

Sam’s almost surprised at how angry he is.

Orion’s voice rumbles, then, even lower than before as he near snarls, “Get out of the car.”

The man starts to speak, starts to splutter, and Orion barks a “Now!” that sends the other humans scrambling.

It’s kind of funny.

“Are you still cuffed?” Mikaela whispers, and Sam rattles his still-bound hands behind his back.

“Can’t, uh, can’t exactly lock-pick with my hands tied like this.” He whispers back, shuffling in place along the braced length of Bumblebee’s arm, offering up the handcuffs. “Haven’t practiced.”

Mikaela pauses, for just a second, as she starts messing with the lock.

“You know how to lock-pick?”

Miles snorts, leaning back against the gap between Bumblebee’s arm and chest.

“It’s his lost career,” he says in that same quiet murmur. “I used to forget my house keys all the time and Sam would have to pick the lock so we could get in.”

“Yeah?” Mikaela asks to the click of his cuffs coming undone.

“I had a lot of practice.” Sam answers, briefly rubbing at his wrists and shaking out his hands.

Then he pats at the spot right over Bumblebee’s spark and jumps.

Hitting the ground from about thirteen-ish feet in the air should be more jarring, he thinks, but Sam just rolls with the movement and bounces back up, easy as breathing, done without thought.

Muscle memory is good for some things, he supposes.

The man in suit watches as Sam skirts the edge of their circled group, and he’s completely unreadable when Sam comes to stop next to Orion’s crouched and thunderous face.

“What’s Sector Seven?” He asks, and likes to think he’s being pretty calm. “What’s your name?”

The man responds almost immediately with a biting, almost shouted, “I’m the one that asks questions around here, NOT YOU YOUNG MAN!”

Orion bristles violently next to him, and the man seems to realize his mistake, pursing his lips but not saying anything more.

“How did you know about these guys?” Sam continues. “Where did you take my parents?”

The man looks between him and Orion, and he says, “I’m not at liberty to discuss–”

Sam takes his ID.

“You’re really unhelpful.” He says blandly, and the man tenses.

“You touch me, that’s a federal offence–”

“Do whatever you want and get away with it badge.” Sam recites with bared teeth and a lazy wave of his hand.

“Brave all of a sudden,” the man huffs a laugh, “when he’s got his big alien pets all around.”

Sam freezes.

The words that fall out of his mouth do not feel like his own.

“I’m sorry?” He asks in a deathly whisper, and doesn’t really feel the way his heart stops beating.

“What?” The man– Agent Simmons says his badge– asks, pinning Sam with a stare that feels far too calculating for someone that’s so fucking wrong. “That not what’s going on here? They just helping you out of the goodness of their big, alien metal hearts–”

“They are not my pets.” He hisses, snarls with all his damn teeth, getting close and personal and angry. “They’re my friends and if you ever insinuate something like that ever again–”

“Youngling.”

And Sam bites his tongue, as screaming metal washes over him, twisting to face Orion.

“That is enough, youngling.” Orion says, repeating the term, glyphs heavy with– with something that Sam can’t find.

He looks back to Simmons.

“Fine.” He hisses out in a breath that should taste like steam but doesn’t, and Simmons does a full body twitch.

“Where’s Sector Seven?” Sam asks in a duller tone than before, digging through the badge.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Simmons says loftily, but there’s a shaking in his tone that wasn’t there the last time he spoke.

“Yeah,” Sam says dryly. “That’s why I asked, man.”

And, over where Mikaela and Miles are being gently put down, Bumblebee snickers out static.

There’s basically nothing in the wallet, besides an ID card and a badge and a few hundreds.

Simmons probably isn’t going to be saying anything anytime soon.

Better to cut and run than waste their time.

“You’re all super unhelpful.” Sam decides, making eye contact with Mikaela and jerking his head to the remains of the SUV. “Line up.”

Simmons blinks. 

“What?” 

“I said, line up.” Sam repeats, and the threatening rumble of Orion behind him as several of the men doing exactly that.

“Why?” Simmons asks, face scrunching up.

Sam grins that grin that bares the sharpest of his teeth.

“I ask the questions here,” he parrots in a low, smug drawl, as the first set of cuffs click into place. “Not you.”

There’s a moment, when he looks back to Orion as Mikaela and Miles work their way through the ranks of single file suits, still smiling.

There’s a moment, when he looks back to Orion and there is something stung in his optics, something wreathed in old hurt and bleeding wounds.

There’s a moment, when he looks back to Orion and sees a sight so familiar he almost, for a moment, feels made of metal and wires instead of flesh and bone.

“Are you–are you okay?” He asks quietly, taking a step closer.

Orion– blinks, shutters his optics, shakes his head ever so slightly, looks away.

Like he’s chasing away something that isn’t there.

Clearing his vision of a bad memory.

Like it hurts to look at him.

“I am alright.” Orion says back, sliding, crashing syllables that rush between his ears. “You just… reminded me, for a moment, of someone I once knew.”

Sam blinks.

He probably shouldn’t ask.

He does anyway.

“Yeah? Who?” 

And when Orion looks back down, there’s something so sad about him that it seems to taint the very air and squeeze Sam’s heart so tightly he can’t even breathe.

“A very dear friend, youngling. A very dear friend.”

The sound of helicopter blades is how they know something is wrong.

How they know this isn’t going to be an easy cut and run.

It’s a chase.

It’s a chase and they’re outnumbered.

Ironhide and Meister/Jazz smash their hands into the road in synch, a wave of electricity breaking through the asphalt in a ripple that has the cars screaming on their breaks, and a roar of sound splitting the windows all at the same time loud enough to hear the shattering glass even from their distance.

Miles and Mikaela back away from his left and right, and he follows, nearly bowling into Orion’s folded knee.

He holds out a hand, palm up, mask over his face drawn tight, hiding everything but the changing light of his optics.

“Up you get.” He says, and they all scramble onto his hand.

With the three of them it’s a tight squeeze, but him and Miles have always been bad about personal space anyway, and they’re half on top of each other and leaning into Mikaela before Orion raises his hand to the nooks and crannies in the plating across the lines of his shoulders.

By then it’s muscle memory again that has him jumping and digging his hands and feet into familiar grooves.

He’s hooking his ankle around bulky cables when he risks a glance up, and for a moment, all he sees in the struck and stunned and startled look in Orion’s optics.

Like he’s never seen Sam before in his life.

And then he’s looking away, lurching into a heavy run under search lights as Sam shows Miles and Mikaela how to latch on like burrs.

He wants to ask.

This time he doesn’t.

“That wasn’t very stealthy!” Mikaela whispers under her breath as the helicopters pass beneath them.

“It wasn’t supposed to be,” Sam hears himself whispering back, adjusting his grip because something tells him these handholds were never meant to hold up against gravity, not without help. “It was a trick.”

“Make them think he’s too big to hide–” Miles starts.

“While the others draw the fire.” Mikaela mutters decisively. “And cause a bunch of confusion at the same time.”

Orion breathes out a wordless affirmation, systems running near silent.

Another helicopter passes beneath, and he starts to think that maybe something will go right and they’ll make it.

But then Sam sees Mikaela’s hand start to slip, and the next few moments are a flicker he’ll later blame on the concussion.

Mikaela’s hands start to slip, because the gravity is too great, and her and Miles and him, they’re all missing something he can almost remember that would keep them from falling but they’re human and they don’t have it and so she starts to slip –

–but Miles sees it too and grabs her hand in his, curling his fingers into a smokestack–

–but their combined weight starts to drag them down down down, Miles’ grip slipping too–

–and Sam reaches out to grab onto Miles, to hold him back–

–and then–

 –they begin to fall, Orion’s panicked roar rattling through his ears

“What do you do if anything ever happens to me?” The scarred face and blue eyes and clawed hands asks.

He frowns, and blinks past the numbing blur.

“Go to ‘wave?” He answers, tone lilting up because the medicine is making him dull and tired.

“Very good,” says the deep voice, gravel and thunder and safety. “And what do you do after that?”

“Get… get the twins and– and the cassettes and– and run?”

The claws start rubbing at the sore spot on his back, between his d–

Between his do–

Between his shoulder blades, and he relaxes into the blackness just a little bit more.

“That’s right.” They say, a wheeze and a rattle to their breath that always happens after a fight that’s just too much, even for them. “And where do you go?”

“To Iacon,” he whispers, shifting how he’s resting on his arms so that he can look up. “We go to Iacon. And find Orion Pax.”

“That’s right,” they repeat, so much softer this time. “You find Orion Pax. He will keep you safe.”

He looks away, from the strange earnestness and the fresh new scars, and gazes at the wall instead.

“How do you– how do you know that, though?”

“Because he promised me,” they say, carefully lifting his chin to look at them as his vision finally starts to dim. “And I have never known Orion Pax to break a promise.”

There's a crack in his bones as they’re caught, briefly, before they fall again, tumbling through the air–

–and then a crack of something that isn’t him as someone catches them, holds them tight, and there’s the scream of metal as they go skidding and–

–and there’s Bumblebee, plating scratched, optics so blue blue blue as he croons a wordless tone of relief.

“Hey,” he hisses out, wheezing around the ache, and Bee’s optics tick up that much brighter.

It’s a bare second of reprieve, right before the swinging of the guillotines.

There is light and smoke and the twang of cables flying and the scream of metal rending and the air tastes like ozone and blood and energon and Sam almost stumbles under the weight of it all because it’s too much.

It’s too much and Bumblebee is howling in the only way he can, electronic and static and whirs, as they shoot him, as they run him through like he isn’t alive, like he can’t feel pain, and it–

It’s too much.

It’s too much as B-127 screams and howls and holds out a reaching hand, optics blue blue blue, as a chill fills the air and Sam is dragged away and–

And–

And he finally stops giving a damn about picking his battles and being docile and holding back and he twists the man holding him clear over his shoulder in a roar that feels like coming home.

If B-127 won’t defend himself then by Primus he would.

And Sam stops playing nice.

It’s never been so easy to tackle someone down, to step on their rib cage, to lunge for the next enemy because that’s what they are they’re the enemy

It’s never been so easy to struggle and snap and flip people away from him like chess pieces.

It’s never been so easy to look at someone and feel only hate, as two men, three men, four men, force him down, cuffing and tieing him as he tastes the blood in his mouth.

Simmons waves a mocking hand in his face.

He doesn’t hear what he says.

S-124 bites.

Chapter Text

Sam rapidly decides he doesn’t like helicopters.

Or, at the very least, he doesn’t like all the straps in them that hold him in place.

Or the three layers of cuffing on his wrists.

Or the guns pointed at him.

They aren’t obviously pointed at him.

But they still definitely are.

“So,” the blonde woman seated across from him starts with a strange sort of smile, “what’d they get you for?”

Sam blinks, for a second.

Takes in the question.

What’d they get you for?

And then he smiles.

“Apparently, siding with the giant alien robots is a bad move.” Sam drawls, an imitation of apologetic, and the man next to the blonde woman wheezes. “Even when they aren’t the ones that, uh, kidnap you or shoot your friends.”

None of the guards noticeably twitch, but the one next to Miles definitely tightens his hold on his gun.

Sam doesn’t know if that’s a guilt or an irritation thing, but either would be good, he thinks.

Something to kill the faceless guard look at least.

The blonde woman raises an eyebrow, and tilts her head at, presumably, all the extra straps holding him in place.

“And the restraints?”

Sam’s smile gets sharper.

“I broke a few ribs.”

The woman eyes him, for a long, long second.

“Not your ribs.” Is what she says at last.

“No,” he echoes with all his teeth, “not my ribs.”

They do a hand off from the helicopters to SUVs, and from there, they take them to the Hoover Dam.

The air feels different, there, heavy and cloudy and fogged, and it makes Sam hazy.

Muggy and tired.

Like he hasn’t slept for too long.

He finally gets his restraints cut once they have to actually walk in front of other people, but it doesn’t really tone down just how obvious and conspicuous they are.

They have an armed guard.

He’s not super sure whether or not cutting them actually makes much of a difference.

He rubs the feeling back into his wrists anyway, fingers digging into the new but familiar grooves.

Sam wonders if he’ll keep getting zip-tied.

He wonders if they’ll scar.

Miles and Mikaela stick close to his sides as they make their way across a bridge to a pillar, one side lined with men in uniforms.

They’re all covered in bruises, and Sam kind of wonders what happened to them.

He kind of wonders how they’re involved.

He doesn’t catch much of the conversation though, because right now, it feels like he’s walking through a wall of water.

Something about it is familiar but he can’t place what.

More than that, something about it feels wrong.

Something about it feels wrong.

But he just… doesn’t know what.

He doesn’t know what.

Simmons is there, in a uniform instead of a suit, and Sam narrows his eyes past the cloud over his head.

“Hey there, kid.” He says, friendly by all accounts, but he stays carefully out of range Sam’s range, four, five feet away.

He’s wearing fingerless gloves.

Sam can see the white of bandages peaking out anyway.

“I think we got off to a bad start, huh?” Simmons continues, almost making a motion to reach out before aborting, arms folding back into place.

He’s weary now.

And Sam thinks Good.

“You must be hungry.” Simmons says, fingers drumming on his arm awkwardly. “You want a–”

“I want Bumblebee.” He interrupts, low and in his throat and angry. “Where is he?” 

“Bumblebee?” Simmons asks, face screwing up, “Who–”

“Yellow,” Sam says, crowding into his space, something smug curling in his chest at the way Simmons takes steps back to stay out of grabbing distance. “Black racing stripes, has a second job as a Camaro, best damn person I’ve ever met. Where. Is. He?”

And then there’s another man, one in a suit, stepping into the space between him.

Sam can see his reflection in the blackness of his sunglasses.

He can’t remember the last time he’s ever looked so angry.

“Son, I need you to listen to me very carefully.” The new man in the suit says, voice low and serious and close because he doesn’t know yet that getting close is grounds to be burned. “People can die here. We need to know everything you know, and we need to know it now.”

“I ain’t,” he near hisses, “your son. But you’re right. People could die. Like my friend that you shot with harpoons.”

The new man in the suit’s expression drops just a little but away from serious and more into unhappy.

“I don’t know what it is B-one-twenty-seven told you, son, but–”

The world stops moving.

Because–

Because–

Because he said B-127–

Sam–

Sam stops–

Sam stops breathing–

“Who told you that?” He hears himself whisper, breathless and empty and drifting.

“I’m sorry?” The new man says after a pause.

Something starts to rise in his chest, something frigid and heaving.

“Who told you he was called B-one-twenty-seven?” Sam hears himself say, voice rising. “He’s only ever used Bumblebee, hasn’t used B-one-twenty-seven since before he got here, who told you he was called B-one-twenty-seven?”

And Simmons– has the gall to look startled, maybe even alarmed, and the new man’s eyebrows are rising past the rim of his stupid reflective sunglasses.

“He’s had Bumblebee since he got to Earth, the Autobots only call him Bumblebee, who told you he was B-one-twenty-seven?” Sam thinks he might be yelling now, might be shouting, because there's something horrible growing in the back of his mind, something cloying and cutting and awful, burning through the cotton-candy haze.

The new man doesn’t say anything, and neither does Simmons.

The just– look at him.

They just look at him and they don’t say anything and there’s only one way they could’ve gotten that, only one way they can know–

You do not look surprised to see us.

“A Decepticon,” he whispers, voice rising, shoulder burning as he steps backwards into Miles and Mikaela. “You talked to a Decepticon, are you insane?”

“We made a mistake,” the new man in the suit finally speaks, something off off off about his voice. “And trusted the wrong aliens. But we aren’t making the same mistake again. Now you need to come with us, tell us what you know, and you’ll have a chance at seeing your– friend again. How does that sound?”

Sam clenches his jaw, so tightly that it hurts.

He can’t say no.

He can’t.

Not when they have Bee, not when they have his parents, not when they have him and Miles and Mikaela.

But they still need him.

They still need him.

They’re blackmailing him but they still need him.

“I want my friend, and I want my parents, and– you wipe her juvie record.” He orders without as much shaking as he thought there would be. “Forever. And then I’ll go.”

Mikaela goes still, but the man in the suit nods.

“Fine. Come with me.”

And he starts to walk away.

Simmons and the man in the suit walk them deeper into the layout of the dam, fast paced to catch up with the rest of the group, and Miles hooks an arm around his.

“Are you doing okay?” He whispers, and Mikaela takes his other arm.

“I’m fine,” he breathes out, lacing his fingers together over his stomach and sandwiching himself in-between them. “This is just– it’s a lot. A lot is happening. Maybe– maybe too much.”

Miles gives a humourless sort of laugh.

“Yeah, that sounds about right.” He mutters, and Sam closes his eyes against the heaviness of it.

Mikaela’s arm tightens around his elbow, and she takes a deep breath.

“Thank you.” She whispers too, “For doing that.”

“No problem.” Sam says back, and she squeezes his elbow again.

“You’re probably the weirdest guy I’ve ever met,” she continues, and Miles chimes in with a “same” that has him snorting.

“Thanks guys.”

Mikaela smacks his shoulder with her free hand.

“Shut up, I’m not done.” She takes another deep breath. “I just– you’re weird, but it’s… it’s a good weird. You’re a good weird Sam.”

He waits.

Mikaela purses her lips.

“But?” He asks gently, and she zeros back in on him.

“How do you know them, Sam? How did you know that? That whole– B-one-twenty-seven thing? How did you know? Me and Miles are struggling just to keep up but it’s like you’re ten steps ahead and not even playing the same game.”

Sam doesn’t say anything, for a long time.

He’s not sure what he’s supposed to say.

The words that end up leaving him, though, are true.

“I don’t know yet.” He answers. “But I’m starting to remember.”

“Remember what?” Miles whispers.

Sam swallows down the pang in his throat.

And he says, “Cybertron.”

The pressure gets worse the deeper they go, the one he’d sort of shaken off for just a moment.

Simmons leads them all, as a group, him and his friends, and the blonde woman and her friend, and the men in uniforms, and the men in suits, across the concrete pathways closest to the water level.

“Alright, here’s the situation. You’ve all had direct contact with the NBEs.” Simmons calls out from the front, voice echoing in the empty space.

“NBEs?” One of the uniformed men asks, dark skin and a bright red beret, turned away from Sam so he can’t see the name on his chest.

“Non-Biological Extraterrestrials.” Simmons explains. “Try to keep up with the acronyms.”

And they walk even deeper, towards a door leading into a tunnel that feels freezing, and it’s like there’s lead pushing down on his shoulders, roots digging into his brain.

The tunnel is dark, and dank, with maybe only one or two red emergency lights, and it’s so, so cold.

It’s so cold, with puddles of water on the ground showing them reflected as darkened, formless shapes.

Sam decides rather quickly that he hates this tunnel, even as it comes to an end, light flooding in along with the sound of– of soldering and shouting and dozens and dozens of footsteps.

“What you’re about to see,” the man in the suit shouts, “is totally classified.”

And then–

And then Sam decides Hell must be cold.

It must be cold, because this being Hell is the only explanation for the ghost the rears up before them, wreathed in ice and smoke and–

And–

And his knees buckle as his vision blacks out and he realizes he's stopped breathing long enough for his lungs to ache as he inhales the cold and the water and the overwhelming feeling of Wrong.

Someone–

Someone shouts –

And his vision goes completely dark.

“Do you have a name, youngling?” The blue blue blue optics asks, voice so strangely gentle and quiet for all that it’s deep and rumbling and gravel.

He flexes his claws against the soft, unrefined metal of the floor.

It’s poor quality.

He’s sure of that.

Like the sand in the Acid Wastes or the Rust Sea but… softer.

Less gritty.

He clamps his plating down tight anyway, flush with the protoform beneathe.

It would be a pain to clean out.

He… he shakes his head.

He doesn’t remember having a name.

He doesn’t think he ever did.

There’s a deep inhale above him, and then a heavy venting of hot air.

He can’t feel the EM field of this other mech.

They’re keeping it too close and tight.

“Do you know how long you’ve been online?”

After a longer pause, this time, he shakes his head again.

Everything is –

Blurry, and wrong, when he tries to access his memories.

Like they’re damaged.

“Something’s– something’s wrong with my memory files.” He hears himself finally speak, near a whisper for how loud he manages to be. “I’m sorry.”

There’s another heavy vent of air.

“Don’t be sorry.” The blue blue blue optics finally says after a long time. “It’s not your fault. Do you remember if you were requested? If you were, you will have a Sigma designation. In your base code.”

“Do you have one?” He hears himself ask instead of answering.

They don’t say anything, for a moment.

“… Yes. I was commissioned. For mining. That is different from a request.” The blue blue blue optics adds gruffly, and then there’s claws resting on his head, between his audials. “Now check your base code. Do you remember how to do that?”

That, thankfully, is a question he can answer with a nod.

“I remember.”

“Good. Check.”

So he does.

He turns his focus inward and tries so hard to avoid the jagged edges where his clear memories should be, and digs for base code instead.

It’s not that difficult, he doesn’t think.

And at the beginning of the line, there is a designation.

“S-124.” He reads aloud, opening his optics, and shakes the awful feeling of seeing the ground and his code at the same time away.

“S-124.” They repeat above him, and then there is a slight tremble in the ground as the blue blue blue optics sit down across from him, clawed hand leaving the space between his audials and coming to rest across their knees.

“Do you know how you got here?” They ask him, pitted scars across their mouth and over their helm lit by the light of their own optics.

“I was… taken.” He answers. “I was taken. I remember that. I got… lost. During a storm.”

They hiss across from him in – sympathy, he thinks, and there’s a wavering, minute brush across his field that feels the same.

“Taken during an acid storm–” They snarl, bared denta and gleaming fangs, but he – but S-124 is sure it isn’t at him. He’s sure.

They grumble some more, under their breath in what almost sounds like the glyphs they’re speaking now but – harsher.

Different.

“Do you know where you are?” The blue blue blue optics asks at last, voice rising up from the quiet, screeching grumble. “At all?”

“Kaon.” He answers, relief flowing through him at having the answer for another question. “I’m– we’re in Kaon.”

Their shoulders ease down across from him.

They’re relieved too.

“That’s right.” They say. “We’re in Kaon. Do you remember anything else? Anything at all?”

And S-124 tries to think back, he really does, but –

“It’s static,” he reports with a shake of his head. “It hurts to look.”

“That is – that’s alright.” They sigh, a clawed hand coming up to rub at the space beneath their optics. “We will see if… if Soundwave can help you, when he gets back.”

S-124 doesn’t know who Soundwave is.

He says, “Okay,” anyway.

Help sounds nice.

He would like to remember.

“Do you know who I am?” The blue blue blue optics eventually asks, hands joining under their chin as they lean forward.

They are – very big, he thinks.

Very big, but trying to make themselves appear small.

For him, he thinks.

So that he does not get scared of this mech with scars and fangs and claws.

“I think you’re nice.” S-124 tells them, and doesn’t know why their faceplates go a little still, inhale hitching.

They shutter their optics, and he wonders if he’s done something wrong.

He says as much, and they give a humorless sort of laugh.

“Mechs do not typically call me ‘nice’.” Is what they say to him, one optic opening, a thin smear of blue.

S-124 frowns, and shuffles a little closer.

“Why?” He asks, audials twitching back.

The blue blue blue optics smiles.

“Because I am Megatronus,” he says, glyphs so heavy with meaning and import it’s a wonder S-124 doesn’t stagger under the weight of it all. “Champion Gladiator of the Kaon Pits.”

Sam blinks back to himself, on his hands and knees, and he feels like he’s burning from the inside out.

There’s hands on his shoulders, under his arms, bracing him.

It’s almost like he started to fall, and then blinked, and he forgot to feel the impact of his knees hitting the ground.

He doesn’t think it was a long time.

A long time that he’d forgotten to feel the impact, that is.

A couple seconds, maybe.

But not long.

He rocks back onto his heels, and the hands rip away as he casts his gaze up, tastes copper on his lips, feels something warm trickle down his face.

Someone is shouting, he thinks.

People are always– shouting, when he blacks out.

He’s been doing it a lot lately.

It never used to happen before.

He should probably be worried about it.

He feels too far away right now to care.

Because there is–

There is Megatronus.

With clawed hands and pitted scars and optics that, even from this distance, he can see are dark dark dark.

And something… something tells him that they would not be blue.

He takes in a rattling breath.

It aches with the cold, and he licks his lips.

It tastes like copper, and his blood is weirdly warm in the frigid air.

And then he shoves himself to his feet, near stumbling.

Someone grabs his arm again, a hand that near burns him with the heat of it.

He pulls away, and looks up again.

Megatronus stands above him, frozen and terrible and locked in ice.

Sam’s badge stands embossed proudly on his chest.

Right over his spark.

It makes him hurt.

It makes him hurt a lot.

Sam licks his lips one more time, and then–

Then he starts walking.

It’s not a long walk.

Maybe ten steps.

But as the steps take him closer and closer to Megatronus, each foot fall feels as though he’s trudging through waist-deep water.

And then Simmons is there.

Yelling.

He’s always yelling.

“–idn’t do anything to him, you know that,” he’s arguing, hands flying, “he did more damage to us than we did to him–” but then he sees Sam, and goes still.

He'd been yelling at the man in the suit, who goes still too.

They both look at him like he isn’t real.

“How long’ve you had him here?” He asks, more tired now than he's been in… a long time. “On ice.”

“Him.” The man in the suit repeats.

Everyone around them has gone quiet.

He nods his head in a jerky bob.

“You got a name for this one too?” Simmons asks after a pause, and Sam thinks it’s mostly sarcastic.

“Not one I can pronounce.” He answers anyway. “And not one you’d understand.”

“He’s a Decepticon, right?” Someone says, then, and Sam turns to– to look at Miles.

“The leader.” Finds its way out of his mouth.

“Optimus said that was Megatron.” Mikaela says, throat bobbing, as she looks right at him. “He said the leader of the Decepticons was– was named Megatron.”

Sam feels–

He feels very grateful, then, in that moment.

“Thank you,” he says, and hopes she can tell how much he means it, because there’s nothing more frustrating than the fact that he has all this knowledge and knows all these words but can barely say or use any of them.

Then he turns back to Simmons and the man.

Megatron, she’d said.

Not Megatronus.

Megatron.

“How long have you had Megatron here?” He repeats, and forces down a shiver.

It’s too damn cold in here.

The man in the suit looks at him for a long time, sunglasses having disappeared in the nebulous seconds where Sam was lost in his own head.

“Nineteen-thirty-four.” The man finally says, looking up and away at Megatron. “And he’s been in cryostasis since nineteen-thirty-five. Your great-great grandfather made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind.”

“The giant man buried in the ice.” He mutters under his breath, digging his fingers into the warm space between his ribs. “That explains the journals at least. And if he’d found– if he’d found Megatron, no wonder all he wrote about was death.”

No one says anything.

He looks back over to the man in the suit, and he finally doesn’t look so damn neutral anymore.

Instead, he looks baffled.

Maybe even edging into struck.

“You can read Archibald Witwicky’s journals?” He asks quietly.

Sam makes a face.

What kind of question is that?

“Of course I can. I’m not illiterate.”

Honestly.

And from what he’d pieced together that was–

Megatronus had made sure of that.

He’d made sure.

They do not want you to so you must.

“Not all of it,” he continues. “Like– I dunno, someone that knows Creole trying to read signs in Paris, or something. It’s a little off. But I can read most of it. It’s pretty repetitive. Mostly talks about– about the war.”

Then something occurs to him, and he frowns.

“You’ve had him for like, eighty years. In a dam. In cryostasis.” Sam squints at Simmons, taking a curious step closer. “If he’d woken up, he would’ve killed everyone here, leveled the facility, and gone back to looking for the AllSpark. Why would you– why would you risk that?”

Simmons looks to the man in the suit, but the man isn’t looking at him.

He’s looking at Sam.

Sam wonders what it is he’s seeing.

Simmons clears his throat.

“What you’re looking at, is the source of the modern age. Microchip, lasers, spaceflight, cars.” He rattles off, casting an arm back to gesture to Megatron. “We reverse engineered everything from him. That’s why.”

Something in Sam feels–

He’s not quite sure if the word he wants is sick or furious.

He settles for grinding his teeth and saying nothing.

Reverse engineered.

Like Megatron is a thing.

A machine.

Not a person.

Leader of the Decepticons, who– who tried to kill him, or take him, or whatever, so maybe not a good person, not anymore, but–

Still a person.

Still Megatron.

But not Megatronus.

Not Megatronus.

Sam blinks back to himself when a new voice says, “Is that true?”

And then it takes another few seconds for him to realize that he’s the one being asked.

“Is what true?” He says while searching for the source.

It’s another man in a suit, older this time, hair graying.

“That this robot would’ve slaughtered all the people in this facility?” The new man says, gesturing up at Megatron.

Sam tilts his head and follows the pointing of the new man’s hand.

He considers it.

“Probably.” He decides. “Depends on how– how angry he is, I guess. He might think everyone here’s like… ants, basically, and not bother. Or he might be pissed about being experimented on and… uh, trash the place. The Autobots would probably know better. We’re organics so… we might not even be worth the time. S’grab bag.”

The new man in the suit turns to the other man in the suit– why does no one introduce themselves anymore– and says, “And you didn’t think the United States military might need to know that you’re keeping a hostile alien robot in the basement?”

Sam snorts, and the man in the suit finally turns away to look at the new man in the suit.

“Until these events, we had no credible threat to national security.” He says, and Sam decides to hell with it.

If no one’s introducing themselves, he’s naming them.

End of story.

Original man in the suit is Sunglasses now, and the new man in the suit is Flag Pin.

It’s too confusing otherwise.

“Well y’got one now.” Flag Pin says decisively and walks away from Sunglasses.

Sam breathes in.

It’s still too cold.

“So why Earth?” Someone says from behind him, and he turns to look at one of the uniformed men, the one with an old cut on his face and the name Lennox on his uniform coat.

Lennox looks right back at him.

“It’s the AllSpark.” Sam answers, and tries to figure how to explain something that he doesn’t have any human words for beyond a name.

“All spark?” Flag Pin asks, words halting wrong in the pronunciation. “What is that?”

Sam taps his foot on the ground, and looks back up at Megatron like he’ll have all the answers.

The source of creation at the heart of the Well, origin of every spark and archive of all Cybertron.

“It’s like– it’s their connection to Primus, besides– besides the Prime.” He stutters out, voice halting as he tries to find and force English words to roll off his tongue. “It’s part of the core of Cybertron, part of– them and– and the Well and it’s– like their version of– of– ugh, I don’t know. It’s an endless backup of their culture, it’s the source of all creation, it’s their holiest artifact I don’t– I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s the AllSpark.”

“But why here?” The voice of Lennox finally asks in the ensuing silence.

“Because the AllSpark is here.” Sam answers again, drumming along the line of his ribs with his fingers. “And he wants it.”

“Why?” Says Flag Pin.

“I was out for that part of the lecture,” Sam says, and then looks at Miles and Mikaela because if they’d known the name Megatron then–

“The big guy said Megatron was like– looking for it so he could use the AllSpark– this cube lookin’ thing– to…” Miles falters for a second, and then nods decisively. “To bring Cybertron– that’s their planet– back to life but like… only with Decepitcons that would follow him. And then use them to finally win the war.”

“He’s basically the harbinger of death.” Mikaela adds. “So the Autobots were trying to find it before him, so that he couldn’t do that or hurt any humans, either.”

“And you’re sure about that?” Simmons asks after a long while.

Sam stares at him.

For a heavy, aching moment.

“You know where it is.” He breathes. “You know the location of the AllSpark.”

Simmons trades a glance with Sunglasses.

Sunglasses looks over their group, gaze roaming, before coming to a weighty stop on him.

“Follow me,” he finally says, and leads them off into the gloom.

There is–

There is a weight, pushing down on his shoulders as they go deeper.

As they edge closer and closer to the heart of the facility.

His shoulders, his spine, the small of his back, it all starts to ache.

It makes his throat tight, makes his eyes sting, makes it harder to take in each breath after the other.

He’s not walking through water anymore.

He’s wading through quicksand.

He feels dizzy, out of phase and out of touch and–

Unreal.

Distant.

Hazey.

His body doesn’t feel like his own.

It feels–

Like one of the flashes.

After he’d met Orion.

Where he’d–

Forgotten.

Where he’d forgotten he was Sam.

Where he’d forgotten he wasn’t S-124.

He’s not sure what it means.

He’s not sure why it’s happening.

But it’s only getting worse.

It’s only getting worse.

Simmons says–

Says, “You’re about to see our crown jewel. Look familiar?” while gesturing out, towards the windows, and–

And Sam–

And Sam aches.

He can’t move.

He can’t breathe.

He can’t speak.

Because there is the AllSpark.

There is the Cube.

There is home.

He–

He looks away.

He has to look away.

If he doesn’t look away now he’ll never be able to do it again.

Everything sounds as though it’s underwater.

“Carbon dating puts the cube here around ten-thousand BC.” Sunglasses says, voice far, far away. “The first seven didn’t find it until nineteen-thirteen. They knew it was alien because of the matching hieroglyphics on the cube as well as NBE1. President Hoover had the dam built around it. Four football fields thick of concrete. The perfect way to hide its energy from being detected by anyone or… any alien species on the outside.”

There is silence.

And then–

Then softly, quietly, someone whispers, “And you put it right next to the guy that wants it the most.”

He doesn’t know who.

It takes him a moment before he realizes it’s him.

And no one… has anything to say to that.

Because he’s right.

He’s right.

A ringing starts in the back of his mind.

“–ou said the dam hides the cube’s energy…” the blonde woman’s voice drifts into his ears. “What… kind exactly?”

And the very pit of his stomach starts to sink.

He doesn’t know why.

He doesn’t know anything.

He’s empty.

His memory files are corrupted.

They’re corrupted.

“Good question,” says Sunglasses. “Follow me.”

They follow.

What else is there to do?

They follow.

They follow.

They enter a room.

It’s cold, and small, and in the very center, there is a glass box.

The walls are damaged.

Torn.

Pockmarked.

Something about that feels familiar.

He’s not sure why.

There’s a hand on his shoulder, and an arm looped around his elbow, and they guide him into the depths of the room.

He thinks they’ve been there for a while.

“Please step inside,” Sunglasses tells him, tells them, tells the group, from the very bottom of the ocean. “They have to lock us in.”

Lock us in.

The pit in his stomach sinks further.

He thinks he knows why now.

He thinks he knows.

He’s been–

In Kaon.

In Kaon.

In the Pits.

The cells were locked.

“For your own safety,” whispers the ghost of a saccharine voice but–

But no.

He doesn’t think that was it.

It was never for their safety.

It was for their compliance.

Someone pushes something into his hands.

He looks down, and focuses on–

Goggles.

Tinted ones.

The someone is–

Miles.

Elbow looped through his.

So the shoulder must be–

Mikaela.

Miles catches his eyes.

“Hey,” he whispers, and he thinks there’s other words being spoken, but they’re distant, and far away, and Miles is right there and suddenly, profoundly real. “Are you okay?”

Someone snorts, and Miles cringes.

“Right, stupid question.” He mutters, looking away long enough to slip goggles over his own face, hair tied back.

When did that happen?

Miles looks back at him.

“Do you– what’s wrong, man?” He says next, and Sam–

Frowns.

He holds the goggles loosely in his hands.

People keep talking.

“AllSpark.” He finally decides, just as quiet. “Something– messin’ with my head. S’foggy. Dizzy.”

Miles purses his lips.

Mikaela leans over his shoulder.

“Like– hazy?” She whispers, goggles on her own face. He should– probably do that. Goggles. “You gonna black out again?”

He can answer that.

“No.” He says, struggling for the right words. “Just… less than optimal.”

And then there is–

Humming.

The talking is louder now.

It feels less like just him and Miles and Mikaela.

Because now there is–

Humming.

Buzzing.

Singing.

Not like Meister’s songs.

But it’s singing.

He’s sure.

He’s sure it’s singing.

And then there’s–

A bright light.

A flash.

He blinks.

There’s a phone in the glass box.

And then it–

And then it stops being a phone

It stops being a phone.

It stops being a phone and starts being something else and it throws itself into one of the glass walls, right in front of him, right at his friends, and–

And for a moment he stops being–

Being in between the haze he’s found himself in.

He stops being that.

He starts being S-1.

And slams his fist into the glass so hard it rattles through his whole body, teeth bared, snarl furious.

How dare this thing try to attack his people.

How dare it.

The thing scrambles away.

It’s optics are red.

It looks– spidery, and thin, and delicate in a way that he thinks is–

Wrong, maybe.

They aren’t supposed to be so small.

So tapered.

Frenzy wasn’t, and he was–

He was small.

But he was not this–

This spidery, alien thing.

It’s optics are red.

And bright.

And burning.

But they aren’t alive.

They aren’t alive.

Weapons unfold from it’s back but–

That’s wrong too.

It’s wrong.

It’s all wrong.

Shiny scars marr his clenched fists.

They’re wrong too.

Because he got them from hurting Frenzy.

Why–

Why were they fighting?

What had– what happened?

Why was Orion Optimus Prime and why was Megatronus Megatron and why was–

Why was there a war?

He can’t remember.

His memory files are corrupted.

The little Wrong Thing slams itself into the opposite glass wall, then, and leaves it fractured and breaking and–

And he rips his hand away as he hisses an, “Enough,” that is drowned out by a sudden blinding flash and ringing crackle and the smell of burning coolant and melted metal.

The Wrong Thing is dead.

Except–

It would’ve had to have been alive first.

And it was not alive.

It was a drone.

Without– time to evolve.

Just a drone.

An empty, hostile drone.

What a waste.

He frowns, removing the goggles, and they–

Remind him of something, almost.

Something familiar.

He doesn’t remember what.

He doesn’t remember a lot of things.

Then there’s–

There’s a rumble that shakes the whole room, vibrating through the ground.

The overhead lights flicker.

There is something like–

Dread, that begins to coil in his chest.

It’s heavy.

The fog settling back doesn’t feel as–

Blurry, now.

It doesn’t feel as insubstantial.

It doesn’t feel as smothering.

Now it starts to feel sharp.

It starts to feel biting.

“Gentlemen,” echoes the voice of Flag Pin, both so close and so far away. “They know the cube is here.”

And then everything that follows is a flurry of frantic motion.

He has–

He’s done his part.

He’s answered their questions and told them what he knows and he’s getting tired of feeling so distant.

The people around him are running and shouting but he doesn’t… feel the urgency.

He doesn’t really have the strength to care.

Not when there’s frostbite slowly seeping into his brain.

He ends up dragged through long hallways and large rooms until they hit somewhere new, somewhere that smells like gunpowder and oil.

Everyone is frantic, loading rounds and lowering weapons and he–

He doesn’t care.

He just wants to see Bumblebee.

That’s all he wants.

Bumblebee will know what to do.

He’ll know how to help.

He’ll know how to fix the haze.

How to call for Orion and Ironhide and Ratchet and Meister/Jazz.

How to bring in backup and get the AllSpark far, far away from this place.

The lights flicker again, in this new room, and everyone freezes.

Simmons drops a round from his hand with a quiet clink.

He focuses on that.

“You have to bring me to Bumblebee.” He starts, the first words he’s managed to say since Megatron that feel– concrete, but Simmons doesn’t look at him, just keeps loading rounds into the gun he’s holding.

Like he’s not worth the attention.

“You have to bring me to Bumblebee,” he repeats, says it harsher, angrier, and now Simmons does look at him. “He’ll know what to do with– with the AllSpark and he’ll be able to call the others and–”

“Your buddy? He’s confiscated.” Simmons says dismissively, shakes his head, but he doesn’t miss the tensing of his shoulders as the space between them gets smaller.

“Un-confiscate him.” He says, steps into grabbing range, and Simmons leans away.

Trying to get out of the line of fire.

It doesn’t work.

“We don’t know what will happen if we let any of this tech–” Simmons halts, stumbles, through his words. “Well, maybe you do, but I don’t.”

And there is something–

Angry, then, rising in his chest.

It burns at the frostbite coiling down his cheeks and spine.

“So you’re– you’re gonna just let this happen?” He hears himself say, incredulous and so– so suddenly angry. “Not remove the thing we’ll all get– get slaughtered if we’re in the way of? The thing endangering the scientists and engineers and workers and– they’ll be safer if we take it out of here! Away! Where they aren’t cannon fodder! Do you have– any idea what kind of damage their guns do to each other, let alone humans?”

And there is–

His chest hurts.

Burned through with Seeker fire.

Bleeding out pink pink pink.

“You don’t even care.” He snarls, shiny new scars on his hands stinging as he clenches them into fists, and that finally gets a real reaction out of Simmons.

“There’s people’s lives on the line,” he shouts back, “don’t you start talking abo–”

Lennox grabs Simmons.

He grabs Simmons and shoves into one of the armored cars, a snarl on his face, growling an order of, “Take him to his friend.”  

The Sector 7 men start drawing guns and then–

Lennox’s crew turns on them, their own guns drawn, faces and shoulders angry, angry lines.

All of them furious.

All of them wild.

“Drop your weapon, soldier,” Simmons says, but his voice wavers. “There’s an alien war goin’ on and you’re gonna shoot me–”

“Y’know we didn’t ask to be here,” Lennox grits out.

“I’m ordering you under S Seven executive jurisdiction–”

“S Seven don’t exist.” Says one of Lennox’s men.

“Right, and we don’t take orders from people that don’t exist.” Lennox hisses down at Simmons.

“I’m gonna count to five–”

“Well I’m gonna count to three.” Lennox interrupts, and points his gun with a click of the safety coming off directly at Simmons’ heart.

It all happens in under thirty seconds.

He watches impassively.

“Simmons?” Flag Pin finally says.

There’s a twitch.

“Yes, sir?”

“I’d do what he says,” Flag Pin continues. “Losing's not really an option for these guys.”

And Simmons–

Nods, after a long moment.

“Alright,” he mutters, Lennox’s gun still aimed at his heart. “Okay. You wanna lay the fate of the world on that kid’s Camaro, that’s cool.”

Lennox removes his gun.

Simmons leads them into the dark.

The doors open, and the first thing he hears is screaming.

His heart nearly stops.

And then–

Then all of the anger comes rushing back in.

And some of the people there must remember him or know what he did or whatever, because when he storms in close they scramble away, Sunglasses and Simmons shouting orders at his back.

He’s scrambling up the platform, moving past the burn of the cold on his hands, his face, shoving people off just by stepping near as they stumble away away away.

There’s an echoing, fading scream.

He feels sick.

He feels sick.

God, what did they do?

“Hey,” he croaks out with a hiss, words slipping between familiar syllables and crashing glyphs, “hey, look at me, Bee.”

And he sees–

Shining, shimmering, blue blue blue.

His hands are on the sides of Bee’s face before he can think.

He’s cold.

It burns.

He doesn’t care.

“They didn’t hurt you?” He whispers, and Bumblebee croons, appatures narrowing in a happy squint as he gently, gently leans his weight into his hands.

And then Bee pulls away, battle mask snapping down as he flips over onto his chest fully, right arm reforming into a cannon as he scans the room, a thrumming, echoing pulse filling the space like smoke.

It’s valid.

It’s justified.

But they don’t have time.

“Bee.” He calls, and optics single back onto him. “The AllSpark is here, and so are the ‘Cons. So is– So is Megatron.”

And Bumblebee’s doorwings spike up in alarm as he swings himself off the slate Sector Seven had put him on, cannon still roaming and–

A hand reaches over to scoop him up and pull him close.

He frowns and sighs.

“Ignore them.” He says, grabbing onto both sides of Bee’s battle mask. “Ignore them. They’re not gonna hurt you, or me, or anyone else. Okay? They’re not gonna hurt me. They’re not gonna hurt you.”

Optics narrow.

“They’re helping now,” he promises. “We’re okay. Put the gun down. Please.”

And… after a moment, Bee does, waiting until he’s removed his hands to retract his battle mask.

He looks skeptical at best.

“It’ll be okay.” He repeats. “They’re bringing us to the AllSpark.”

Bumblebee refuses to put him down, but he manages to argue for shoulder privileges on the way to the AllSpark.

One of Lennox’s men watches with unabashed amazement.

“Man, this guy really likes you, don’t he?” He says, and his uniform jacket reads Epps.

Bee gives a happy little hum, and holds a closed fist over his spark.

All he can do is smile.

He’s set down, gently, when they reach the large cavern, the edges of the Cube hanging over them scored and carved with glyphs that he can’t even hope to be able to read.

It’s–

It’s too much.

The AllSpark is–

Is right there, overhead and humming and so much closer than his memories of Cybertron ever thought he’d get to be.

It’s so much.

More than he can take.

One of his knees gives out, but the world doesn’t waver, doesn’t shake, doesn’t black out in spots.

Someone gives an aborted yell, but he doesn’t hear the words.

He doesn’t hear anything.

His left hand finds his heart, and his head bows, and it’s–

He can’t remember ever being devout.

Not in this life or the past one.

But this is the AllSpark.

Origin of all that is.

He can’t–

He can’t imagine just standing before it with the easy sort of confidence that Bumblebee was.

He can’t.

He’d been–

A gladiator.

He’s pretty sure.

And gladiators don’t get to see holy artifacts.

They don’t get to go to temple.

They fight and they kill and they dream of better things.

But they do not stand bare feet away from the AllSpark.

“Sam?” 

He flinches, looking up and–

It’s Mikaela.

She holds out a hand.

“He’s almost done.” She says, and he–

He looks even further up and there is–

There is singing metal, shuffling and compacting into itself with ripples of blue blue blue and it–

Primus, it’s more than he can take.

He takes Mikaela’s hand, because he’s sure he won’t be able to get up on his own.

He’s sure that if he doesn’t move then he’ll never be able to move at all.

And the AllSpark just–

Keeps folding inward until it’s small enough to rest in Bumblebee’s hands, still crackling with that heavy shade of blue.

“Message from Starfleet, Captain,” Bee’s radio calls lightly, before switching tracks to a deeper, “Let’s get to it.”

And Lennox says–

Something.

He says something that he suddenly doesn’t hear because Bee is leaning down, one hand curled around the AllSpark, and the other coming to rest around him, shielding him from everyone but Miles and Mikaela.

“You alright, pal?” A voice clip asks, and he really–

Wants to say yes but–

He’s not and it’s–

God, the AllSpark is right there, innocuous and small and–

He doesn’t know how to deal with that–

And then Bee makes an– unhappy noise, a trilling note, looking over his shoulder and kibble once before–

Before he drops the AllSpark directly into his arms.

He stops breathing and–

–and the fog lifts and everything clicks into place.

Sam inhales, and digs his fingers into the grooves and seams and lines, and there is–

Certainty.

Because–

His memory files are uncorrupting behind his eyes, piece by piece by piece, bit by bit by bit, brushed clean images of what’s been burning behind his eyelids for years and years and years and–

For a moment when he looks down at his hands that must surely be shaking, he sees–

Claws and plates and metal, superimposed over his skin.

Like a mirage.

Or an illusion.

It’s familiar.

It’s him.

And there is–

A pained, hitched croak, and he looks up and–

And Bee stares back at him, a recording of his own, dying voice, whispering “S-124,” playing in the air, his optics wide, doorwings high and stressed and fluttering and–

And Sam smiles.

And Sam smiles and says, warm and fond and pained in a way he can’t imagine living without, “Hey, B-127.”

Chapter Text

There is–

A split second of nothing, a moment of pure calm, and then–

Bee screams, a wordless, painful thing, full of static and popping sparks and–

Sam fumbles the AllSpark, not even pausing to see where it lands because why is he screaming what’s wrong is he okay what happened –

And great big hands draw him up up up, until all he sees is yellow and black and blue blue blue, until all he hears is a dying keen, until there’s living metal leaning against his forehead, warm and shaking and real–

Because Bee is staring at him with big wide optics, pressing their foreheads together, down to one knee as he cradles him in his hands–

And he’s–

He’s repeating a recording of someone’s voice, he doesn’t know who, and they’re just saying “I’m sorry” over and over and over in a cacophony of metal syllables and–

Sam puts both of his hands on the sides of Bee’s face, presses his thumbs in strokes along the space under his optics, and does his best to smile because–

“I never blamed you,” he promises, and Bee’s venting hitches. “Even when it was– when I was– just– just know that I never blamed you, okay? That I don’t blame you. It’s alright, Bee.”

And Bee leans back, takes his warmth away, shakes his head no no no –

“I’m late! I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!” He insists using the voice of the White Rabbit, a loud squeal of static betraying the next track switch to, “My fault, this is my fault–” 

“I died a long time ago, Bee.” Sam interrupts with certainty, with less shaking than he thought he’d be able to manage. “And I’ve been dreaming about it for years. I’ve had time to get over it. It’s okay.”

And Bee leans back in again to press their foreheads back together, a painful whine spitting out of his throat and Sam–

Some part of Sam is reeling at being remembered.

At causing this kind of reaction.

Of the fact that Bumblebee never forgot and that he blamed himself for it.

He doesn’t really know how to feel except maybe even more lost.

Even more in awe.

Even more–

Something.

Even more something.

He doesn’t know.

But it’s okay.

He doesn’t have to.

And they don’t really have time right now anyway.

“Hey, hey,” he whispers, voice soft, and smiles again, hoping against hope it does less harm than good. “We gotta get a move on right, Bee? There’s an AllSpark to save.”

And Bee’s optics stay focused on him for one more long, long second before–

“You got me there, chief.” The radio says softly. “You got me there.”

The calming down of Bumblebee had taken two minutes of burned time in total, and they didn’t really have a lot to begin with.

Bee refuses to set him down again, refuses to even let anyone look at him until they’re in a space wide enough for him to transform, and even then he’s ushered in by an awaiting door.

Sam doesn’t think anyone saw, though, what the Cube did.

Anyone except for Bee and Miles and Mikaela.

It’s kind of hard to see around a giant, 16 feet tall robot.

So all they would’ve seen was Bee– freaking out, for lack of a better term, suddenly and without warning and that’s–

That’s better than them knowing.

Better than them seeing.

It’s better.

It’s better.

Lennox calls out for them to form up around Bumblebee, and Sam slides into the driver’s seat even as Mikaela settles into the passenger side and Miles throws the Cube into the back along with himself.

It’s wrapped up in his jacket, and as soon as they’re all strapped in, Bee doesn’t waste another second to start driving.

Sam looks out the window at the passing concrete walls and stone pipes.

It’s easier than looking at Miles or Mikaela.

It’s easier.

It’s so much easier.

Something has to give.

“Are you going to explain what that was?” Mikaela breaks the silence first, and Sam glances at her reflection in the glass.

“I’d have to know to tell you.” He responds, and flexes his fingers like it’ll make the ghost of what he used to be come back.

It’s quiet again, for another few seconds.

“Who was that?” Miles tries instead, and Sam starts to clench his jaw because it’s beginning to become a reflex to questions he doesn’t like.

“I don’t know how to say it in English.” He says.

“I didn’t ask for a name.” Miles says softly. “I asked who that was.”

Sam flexes his fingers again.

In, and out.

In, and out.

In, and–

“It was you, wasn’t it?”

–out.

“That’s why you know all this stuff.” Mikaela continues. “Because that– that Cybertronian that we saw, that used to be you.”

Sam closes his eyes.

He doesn’t like this conversation.

“Yeah,” he croaks out anyway. “It did.”

And for some reason–

For some reason, when he opens his eyes again, Mikaela hasn’t recoiled.

She’s gotten closer, her and Miles both.

“What happened?” She breathes. “How are you– you, right now? Did you know the others before this, is that why you keep–”

“I got shot.” He says, clipped, short, and Bee’s engine sputters, for a moment, before evening back out to a steady roar. “It was lucky. I bled out. I died. I don’t know why I’m here. I used to know Orion, and Megatron, and Jazz, I think, and I met Bee when I died. Anything else?”

More silence.

Daylight is streaming in from the end of their tunnel.

They’re almost out.

“There was…” Miles starts hesitantly, and then cuts off again. “There was, on your shoulder–”

“It was a Decepticon badge.” Sam interrupts, and curls his fingers into the space between his ribs. “It was– I think it was different then. But it was a Decepticon badge.”

Another heavy silence.

He swallows down the lump in his throat.

He’s not ashamed.

He’s not.

“How did you know Megatron, Sam?” Mikaela asks quietly, and he presses his face into the window, eyes screwed shut.

He doesn’t answer for a long moment.

Then he finally whispers–

“He taught me to read.”

–and that small fact hurts to admit more than confirming the badge that used to brand his shoulder.

Bumblebee drives them up an exit ramp into the desert, where the light is so bright it kind of hurts to look at the sand.

Sam feels… weirdly hollow.

His head feels at the same time both messy and painfully clear.

There’s still– there’s still gaps, too many gaps, great huge chasms of things he can’t place or remember or know, but–

It’s clearer, in a way.

Where things had been hazy and unfocused they’re starting to come into clarity when he tries to recall.

Things like–

Like the half-memories of fighting forms.

It was Megatronus, making sure he– making sure S-124 wasn’t going to die in the Pits on his first day.

Making sure he would live long enough to learn of better things and become resentful.

And the cities, those were–

They were views from high towers atop a spiraling archive as Orion and Megatronus spoke in the background of better things.

He can’t make out the words, but he’s sure that’s what they were doing.

That’s what they were always doing.

But there’s still– emptiness.

Emptiness between the Pits and Praxus, deep in the Pits itself, painted across the vastness of Cybertron that he knows he would’ve seen but plays empty across his mind.

There’s no line of linear consciousness.

There’s just… scraps of the time before.

It’s already more than what he had, clarity and context for muggy, half-remembered dreams, but it’s still not enough.

He doesn’t think it’ll ever be enough.

They have a stream of escorts trailing behind them like a black banner, Bee roaring at point, and in the distance–

“Open the top,” Sam says quickly, tapping the roof with his knuckles, and it comes apart in a splitting of seams.

He stands quickly, one hand braced against the metal curling around the windshield and he–

Casts out his free arm in a half remembered gesture for join up/circle back, big and obvious for the line of military vehicles already bracing, and the smell of burned rubber hits his nose as Orion brakes, hard, as they drive past, joining up with the back of the line in a swing across the two lanes, the other Autobots following half a second behind.

He stands for another moment longer, watching them all fall in line, and then twists to look forward.

The road merges with a freeway in the far, far distance.

A freeway.

Lines and lines and lines of cars to be made into tombs.

“Bee!” He calls down, still watching the horizon. “Is there any way we can skip the freeway and cut straight through?”

“What?” Mikaela yells back, over the sound of a half hearted whine.

He ducks back in, settling his feet back on the floor mats and off the seat, the top closing back over above him.

“I wanna skip the civilians.” He explains quickly. “The road merges with a freeway a couple miles ahead, and I don’t wanna chance it. Can we skip it and cut straight through to the next check-point?”

The radio dial spins furiously for a long moment, before it spits out, “No problemo!” and Bee cuts into a hard brake, drifting with the sound of squealing tires, and then they leave the road all together.

Miles lets out a breathless laugh.

There’s a crackle over the speakers then, for just a moment, before Lennox’s voice filters through.

“The hell was that?” He barks, but when Sam glances back, they’ve still got the rippling ribbon of black vehicles on their tail, followed by the alt modes of the Autobots. “Epps, what hell is he–”

“Avoiding unnecessary civilian casualties.” He says, fingers tapping on the wheel, and there’s a long pause of silence.

Probably because Bee tapped into the radio of their jeeps.

“Fair enough,” Lennox finally says, and there’s a muffled curse of ‘what the fuck he’s on our radio’ . “It’ll take a bit longer to reach Mission City this way, but that should give the others time to call in the Air Force. We’ll scatter once we’ve hit the city proper and give the Decepticons too many leads to chase out of the city while you stay behind and pass off the cube. Sound good?”

Sam drums his fingers again, a tap tap tapping along the wheel.

“Yeah.” He reports back. “Sounds good.”

About halfway through the desert, there’s a welcoming committee.

Barricade and a Decepticon he blessedly, blessedly doesn’t recognize.

Orion and Meister/Jazz both split off from the group to ram into them full-tilt, Orion with his shoulder and Meister/Jazz with both feet as he spins up from his alt mode, and they all go down in a hazy cloud of dust.

The rest of them roar on.

Sam doesn’t feel ill when Meister/Jazz and Orion join back up with them, intact and barely scuffed.

He doesn’t.

They reach the city, and there’s a Decepticon tearing through the air waiting for them.

Long range radios were out, and the city was barely evacuated, and there’s so, so many civilians.

It’s a death trap.

It’s a tomb.

It’s just like Praxus.

There’s even Seeker fire.

Ironhide and Bumblebee lever up a truck and a trailer as a brace for the fire and–

–and the impact nearly sends him out of his bones.

Because the city is burning.

And the shattering of glass sounds just like crystal.

And then everything is white.

Sam blinks back into focus with ringing in his head.

With the sound of Praxus falling like a feedback loop in his ears.

There’s dust everywhere, dust and rubble and faint, panicked screaming.

It’s too much.

It’s too much.

Mikaela takes his hand, crushes his fingers with enough force that it hurts and the pain helps to cut through the fog in his head.

He can’t get his mouth to work to say thank you.

He thinks she gets it anyway.

They all scramble to their feet and behind rubble and cement and there is–

Bee keening, electronic and static and painful, and it’s so very different from earlier.

His legs trail coolant and pink pink pink energon and that’s–

That’s too much too, but Bee is right there, struggling to move away from the rubble that’s cut through him like a knife, or maybe that was the Seeker fire, the heated round, because if anyone knows how well it burns through living metal it would be him.

And then there is–

Meister/Jazz is there, levering his hands under Bee’s arms and helping to move him away behind a large slab that can hide his full bleeding weight and–

And the two of them–

In a burning city of falling glass and scorched metal and Seeker fire is –

It’s too, too much.

And Sam chokes on nothing.

Nothing at all but the overwhelming weight of something that he should be over he said he was over it he said it didn’t matter –

He digs his fingers deep into his palms and it hurts but it’s something, anything to keep him grounded, to keep him there, away from Praxus and away from S-1 and away from “I’m B-127.”

He can’t–

He can’t afford to black out, to forget himself, not here not now not in a burning, burning city.

He needs to–

“Breathe for me, bitlet. Need ya to breathe.”

–breathe.

And there is–

A hand cupped around him, claws and silver metal, and Meister/Jazz is already glancing over his shoulder even as he finishes speaking.

He’s part of the problem.

But he’s still trying to help.

And he tries to–

Inhale, slowly, steadily, but it doesn’t quite work because he’s not really seeing Mission City, not really seeing the new white paint of Meister/Jazz, not really seeing a great blue sky choked with dust.

He’s seeing things that’ve been gone for so long it’s almost incomprehensible.

“–ey, hey, hey, look at me bitlet look at– S-124 look at me right now that’s an order.”

The blurs snap back into focus and he looks –

Meister/Jazz is staring at him, visor gone, optics red red red.  

It’s comforting.

Almost– grounding.

Everyone else is blue.

But he’s red.

He’s red.

“You looking?” Meister/Jazz asks, and he gives a numb sort of nod.

He tries to breathe more, tries to focus, and keeps his eyes trained on the red of Meister/Jazz’s optics.

It helps.

“I need you to focus– I have a job for you.” Meister/Jazz tells him, glancing back over his shoulder. “Alright, bitlet? I got a job I need you to do.”

He nods again.

“I’m only gonna say this once– ‘cause I gotta get out there like, now– but I need you t’take the AllSpark,” Meister/Jazz intones seriously, “and book it the Pit outta here. Get it t’the humans so they can take it away from here, because we ain’t moving to the second location, not with wounded and not with Screamer up there takin’ pot shots. Got it?”

He–

He feels–

Rattled, and fragile, and kind of like he might be dying all over again.

But he’s got it.

He’s got it.

He nods once.

And Meister/Jazz gives him a fanged sort of smile– no one else had daggers for teeth but he does, he does, and that’s comforting too – before removing his one carefully cupped servo and vaulting over the pile of rubble in a move that has him smoothly transitioning to his alt and driving right into the thick of it.

And he is–

Alone, with Bee, bleeding steadily, so steadily from cut lines.

Pink pink pink.

His hands sting with the phantom burn of it.

His chest hurts.

He needs to–

He needs to find the AllSpark.

Find it and get it away from here.

That’s his job.

But–

But Bee is right there, letting off pink pink pink, sluggish and bright, in a city filled with burning buildings and the taste of smoke, and he doesn’t–

Bee didn’t leave him.

How can he leave Bee?

He can’t.

He can’t.

He can’t leave him.

And the words tumble out of his mouth, “I’m not leaving you,” and they aren’t crashing syllables and rending metal, aren’t hissing steam and throttled engines, aren’t what he wants them to be, but he thinks Bee understands anyway. 

It’s not what Bee said to him.

He wishes it was, wishes he could say to him what B-127 told S-124, but he doesn’t have the words for it.

All he has is what he’s got.

And Bee–

Holds up a hand to curl around him that he grabs into, desperately, because this is so awful and he’s so scared and it all feels too much like when he got shot straight through the chest and didn't get back up again.

He’s scared.

He’s terrified.

But Bee–

Bee just hums comfortingly in what sounds like the shattered remains of his vocalizer, sending the sound out into the air to rattle through his bones.

“Don’t know where, don’t know when,” his radio sings softly, “But I know we will meet again, some sunny day.”

“Bee–”

“Go,” Bee says in a voice that doesn’t belong to him. “Be the hero.”

“I don’t want to be the hero,” he whispers. “I want to stay with you.”

“Don’t you see?” Bee whispers back, “That’s why it has to be you.”

And he–

He laughs, helplessly, hysterically, because–

Because–

“You got that from a video game.” He wheezes out, and Bee croons happily.

“Hey,” a voice says from behind them, and he turns carefully around the hands holding him and–

Mikaela has a cable looped through her clenched fists, and there’s a truck that wasn’t there before.

Miles’ jacket is bundled up tight in his arms, carefully wrapped around what can only be the AllSpark.

“We’ve got it from here, dude.” Miles says, and holds his arms out. “You heard him. Go. Be the hero.”

And he–

He swallows, harshly, painfully, because this all–

It all hurts.

It’s all scraping him raw, carving away at any bit of stability he manages to find.

But Sam says, “Okay. Let me help first, though,” anyway.

Lennox and his men come storming up to them, while they’re still getting Bee ready to be pulled onto the bed of the tow truck so he’s not a sitting duck.

“Sam!” He yells. “Where’s the cube?”

Mikaela toss another cable to Miles, who passes it up to him to hook back into the truck, and he scrambles for a moment but–

“Right there.” He answers, pointing to the base of the bed.

Lennox says– something else, staring up at something that Sam can’t see from where he is, before rushing back over to them.

“Okay,” he starts, stopping right at Sam and setting his gun down next to his feet. “I can’t leave my guys back there, so take this flare.”

And he just–

Shoves a flare into his hands.

“There’s a tall white building with statues on the top.” Lennox continues, pointing at some far off tower before looking back to him. “Go to the roof. Set the flare. Signal the chopper.”

And that’s–

Meister/Jazz told him–

“No, I can’t, I have to–”

And Lennox yanks him down by the shirt collar until they’re almost nose to nose, and his eyes are heavy and intense and made of stone and there’s blood running down his face.

He has to resist the urge to snap his teeth.

“Listen to me! You’re a soldier now,” Lennox hisses, jaw clenching, so damn angry, so damn tired. “Or maybe you already were, I don’t fucking know with you, but soldiers at least bother to listen to their commanding officer before fucking off to do the exact opposite. Get to that building. The choppers will take the cube away. Alright? Cause otherwise, a lot of people are gonna die.”

You’re a soldier now, or maybe you already were.

How did–

He swallows.

No time for questions.

No time.

“That’s what Jazz asked me to do.” He bites out, struggles to explain the panic he’d felt. “I thought– I thought you were gonna make me do something else. He gave me an order to get the AllSpark away.”

“Good. Glad we’re all on the same page.” Lennox says, calmer now, shoulder easing as he passes the AllSpark into his hands. “Now get out of here.”

And this time, there’s cloth between his hands and the metal.

Nothing happens.

He’s… really damn relieved.

Sam trades one last look with Bee.

It hurts.

And then he starts walking away.

Mikaela stops him, for just a second.

Her and Miles both.

“No matter what happens,” Mikaela says. “I’m really glad I got in that car with you.”

Miles punches his shoulder with a smile.

And then they’re gone.

And Ratchet and Ironhide are on his flank.

And he’s running running running.

It feels like there’s a hole in his chest.

He doesn’t stop to check.

He’s not sure what he’ll see if he does.

He’s almost positive that it won’t be real.

The Seeker– Meister/Jazz called them Screamer but it sounds more like an insult than anything– lands hard with an impact that shatters concrete bare feet away from him and Sam scrambles back to get away from upturned cars and swinging claws and rippling camouflage that’s peeling away to reveal red and blue and white.

He thinks he knows them.

He decides not to think about it and ducks even further for cover as Ratchet and Ironhide attack them full force.

It only lasts– maybe ten seconds at most– but the rattle of Seeker fire above him is enough to make his heart clench almost painfully in his chest.

It feels sort of like he can’t breathe.

And then the Seeker is gone, transforming into alt and blasting off, and Ironhide is calling for him to “Get to the building,” and–

And he’s running again.

He’s running.

Sam thought the Seeker was bad.

He isn’t prepared for Megatron.

He isn’t prepared for the roar of, “Give me that Cube, boy,”, isn’t prepared for the knee-jerk instinct that has him stumbling, isn’t prepared for the part of him that says listen to him listen to him.

He isn’t prepared and it costs him time and more instinct is the only thing that has him dodging out of the way of the car that almost hits him, holding the AllSpark close to his chest as he runs and runs and runs some more because if he stops–

If he stops… 

He’s not sure he’ll be able to look Megatron in the face, living and breathing and red red red, and not break.

The white building with the statues on top is gleaming at the crown of it and decrepit and boarded over at street level, with cracked glass windows and swirling towers of dust.

He wonders what it used to be, with it’s great open space and great arching windows and winding industrial staircases.

Then he stops doing that because being distracted is a sure-fire way to get himself killed again.

God, how many people can say that?

He passes by column after column after column, all of them coated in cobwebs and stained dark and splotchy.

It’s not really inspiring much confidence.

And then there’s the sound of shattering glass and breaking stone and his heart leaps into his throat with Megatron’s crashing call of, “Youngling!” and roar of, “I smell you, boy!”

It’s too much it’s too much it’s too much –

He lunges up a staircase anyway past the seized feeling of his lungs and heart.

It gets worse with the echoing growls and snarls that rattle through the space from every direction.

They’re familiar sounds.

They’re from the Pits.

They’re what Megatronus did when he was hunting down his opponent and flaying them to wires.

He’s the opponent now.

He’s the enemy.

He’s the one being hunted.

And it aches aches aches.

Megatron breaks through the wooden panelling of the floor he’s running across like some ancient monster in the surf, and he wants to just fall and stop and give the Cube over because this is Megatron but–

But it’s Megatron.

It’s not Megatronus.

Him and Orion are fighting and he–

He still doesn’t understand why.

He doesn’t understand the betrayal and the hurt and the blood Archibald wrote about.

He doesn’t understand.

Sam scrambles up another staircase anyway, and doesn’t flinch at the hissing call of “Maggot.”

He finally reaches the roof, with it’s reaching-to-the-sky statues, and scrapes the end of the flare against the cement wall along the opening until it catches and begins to burn.

The smoke tastes like sulfur.

The heat burns his fingers.

He can hear the clanging landing of the Seeker, see them out of the corner of his eye, but he keeps running, focusing on the sound of the choppers as they close in on the smoke.

One rises from behind the edge of the building, a man leaning out with arms out-stretched, ready to take the Cube and get it away away away and then–

And then–

He hears the click of a cocking plasma cannon and pulls back, calls “Look out!”, ducks low and to the ground and away but–

But the helicopter is hit and it goes down, scraping over him in a roar of rotating blades, before careening off the building in a smoking haze of twisted metal and fire.

And he is alone.

He is alone, on a roof, surrounded by the enemy, with only the far off call of “Hold on Sam!” from Orion to tie him down to shore as Megatron splits apart stone work and claws his way up and out like a beast from hell.

It’s terrifying.

He can’t stop to look.

If he does, he’ll never be able to move again.

So he runs, because it’s all he can do, and scrabbles up the ledge of the building, twisting around with his back to open air and his arms around the statue in front of him.

It’s a minor obstacle, in the face of Megatron, in the face of a gladiator, but it’s something and something is all he has.

“Is it fear or courage,” rumbles Megatron, in a voice that echoes with home but for the hate that drips from it like acid rain. “That compels you, fleshling?”

He tries to find his voice, tries to speak, but his tongue is weighed down with lead and his mouth is stuffed with cotton.

He can barely breathe, let alone speak.

“Give me the AllSpark,” Megatron treaties, circling around his shield of stone, almost amicable for all that he looks like a bird of prey edging in on a cornered mouse, and the mouse is him. “And you may live to be my pet.”

And that–

Burns, in a new and interesting way.

He knows Megatron.

He knows him, or at least he knew Megatronus.

But Megatron doesn’t know him.

He’s an insignificant speck of an organic being on a backwater world that froze and experimented on him, running around and playing at keeping from him the one thing he wants most.

Megatron’s toying with him.

A hungry cat batting at a fallen bird with a broken wing.

There’s nowhere for him to go.

Nowhere but down down down.

But he–

He can stall.

Orion said to hang on so–

So he just needs to–

He needs to find his voice and say something, say anything, and–

And the thing–

The thing that crawls out of his mouth like a rusted, dying thing is–

“What happened to you and Orion Pax?”

And Megatron freezes like liquid nitrogen’s been dripped directly into his spark–

Before letting out a wordless roar as he lunges, reaching with angry claws and burning optics and something that almost looks like spiraling, burning grief–

And the statue cracks, shatters around a metal hand with metal fingers that come so very close to his face and he falls, tumbles through the air as the wind tears into him like blistering knives–

And Orion catches him.

Orion catches him.

“I’ve got you.” Orion whispers, hand curled around him as he brings him close. “I’ve got you.”

“You find Orion Pax. He will keep you safe.”

“How do you– how do you know that, though?”

“Because he promised me. And I have never known Orion Pax to break a promise.”

Megatron hits Orion’s back as they descend and they go down, spiraling out of control and hitting the ground with an impact so great his everything rings and whites out.

Breathing hurts.

It hurts hurts hurts with every rattle of his lungs.

Orion’s hands unfurl around him from where they were curled tight against his chest, from where they couldn’t be used to help him take the impact, from where they kept him safe.

“You did so well,” Orion whispers, battlemask retracting to show his faceplates, the one that’s so horribly familiar now past the hazy film of what memories he’s managed to grab a hold of and not forget. “You did so well, Sam. You did not need to risk your life so.”

And he–

He finds the voice to say, “No sacrifice, no victory,” and Orion gives him such a horrible sad smile.

It feels like a parting gift.

“If I lose,” Orion warns softly, “I need you to push the Cube into my chest. I will sacrifice myself to destroy it, so that Megatron may never twist it to his own gain. Do you understand?”

And he–

He feels like he’s been dunked in ice, frozen through and burned alive and shot through with Seeker fire –

“I understand,” he chokes out, voice cracking in all the worst places. “I understand but Orion you can’t–”

“It is the only way,” Orion whispers. “Now hide.”

And he listens even though all he wants to is argue that no, no he can’t do it, he can’t, Orion can’t ask him to kill him, he can’t do it, he doesn’t want to be a murderer, not to Orion he’s not strong enough what will they do about Megatron if he’s gone?

He scrambles into a ditch and around rubble even as Orion and Megatron roar and fight above him and it’s–

It’s wrong.

Everything about it is wrong.

Wrong wrong wrong.

What happened to Megatronus and Orion Pax?

What happened to walking Towards Peace?

He tries to cut through, to get past Megatron and towards Orion to do his stupid, stupid, awful task, and then there’s shells and mortar fire, and he skids along the asphalt where the shock waves throw him, and then–

And then Megatron is close, too close, bearing down above him and Orion is saying “Put the AllSpark in my chest, now!” and he–

He reacts.

Because Orion is still someone he knows.

But Megatronus is gone.

Miles’ jacket slips from his fingers and away from the Cube and–

And there is metal superimposed like a phantom image over his skin as he raises the AllSpark–

And Megatron chokes, optics flickering as his gravel roars die in his throat–

And the AllSpark burns in his hands like Seeker fire.

He had forgotten the sound of death throes.

He remembers now.

Megatron’s chest is–

Is burned and smelted and scorched so hot it’s glowing, and just looking at it sends a painful stab through his chest and–

And his hands are burned too, trailing lines carved into his fingers and palms and wrists, and they look like– like circuitry, like plate lines, like glyphs and–

And Megatron says, rattling, echoing, “S-124,” and it feels like dying in one breath.

And suddenly he–

He can’t breathe again because this is–

This is Megatron.

This is Megatronus.

This is–

Primus, what has he done?

And he–

He scrambles over, scrabbling for purchase, and–

And Megatron is burning to the touch, but his optics are–

They’re blue blue blue and he feels like he’s dying, like he’s bleeding out slowly, vent by vent, breath by breath, as his systems shut down one by one, alarms quieting and silencing as he falls falls falls–

“I’m sorry,” crawls out of his throat, jagged and horrible and wretched, “I’m so sorry, I’m so–”

“Do not be,” Megatron hisses, still so blue blue blue even as the place where his spark should be is red red red, “Do not be. I killed you, didn’t I? It is only fair.”

And he–

He knows Megatron wasn’t in Praxus, he knows it was a Seeker, he knows knows knows, why is he–

“N-no you didn’t,” he protests, some awful thing clogging his throat and stinging his eyes and making everything hurt so damn much. “You– you weren’t–”

“I called for the Razing,” Megatron wheezes out, and he can almost hear the internal alarms cutting out one by one by– “And you perished within it. That is enough.”

“No,” he hisses back, “No, no it’s not–”

“It is the greatest of my sins,” Megatron continues, heedless and faint and no no no he can’t he can’t he can’t– “Your death at my hands.”

“S-stop,” he pleads, wretched and cold and so goddamn sorry, “Stop saying things –”

“It’s poetic, is it not?” Megatronus asks him softly, optics already going dim dim dim – “We meet again, on another world, and it is you who shoots through my spark.”

“No,” he cries again, like it’ll make any difference, like it’ll change anything at all, “No, please –”

“You did well, youngling.” Megatronus whispers, “You did well.”

And–

And he–

He’s–

Orion’s hand curls around him, pulling him away, as he leans his forehead down to press against Megatronus’.

“Rest now,” he whispers softly in crashing syllables and weeping metal, “Find peace in the Well, dearest friend, spark of my spark, Lord High Protector.”

“Do you remember who this is?”

S-124 peers curiously over Megatronus’ shoulder from his perch.

“The librarian.” He says after a moment.

The librarian smiles at that, small and little and not at all like Megatronus’ great fanged grin.

It feels warm anyway, just like his EM field.

He’s red and blue and his plates aren’t scratched like theirs, aren’t scuffed and scarred, aren’t heavy and layered and welded back together.

They’re smooth and shiny, a little matte, but clear and unmarked.

His hands are a dull mess.

All around the digits and the joints and the wrists, working hands on an otherwise polished mech.

His optics are blue.

Blue like Megatronus.

He’s not a gladiator like them, that’s for sure.

But he looks kind.

And Megatronus is smiling at him big and bright and happy.

“That’s right,” he says to him. “The librarian. His name is Orion Pax.”

“Orion Pax.” S-124 repeats dutifully, rolling the glyphs around his mouth and over his glossa.

It’s very different from their numbers and glyphs, ones heavy with the weight of their function and their status as owned and not-free mechs.

He thinks he likes it.

It’s nothing like Swandive.

And Orion Pax smiles a little wider, before looking to Megatronus with a tilting of his head and a raising of his optic ridges.

Megatronus– sighs, and it sounds like the one he does when S-124’s done something foolish but he’s not mad anyway.

“Would you like to introduce yourself?” He asks him, tone heavy with – something, but it kind of makes him want to laugh.

He considers for a moment, doorwings fluttering, and then nods sharply.

Orion Pax puts a hand over his mouth, but it does a poor job of hiding his smile, almost a grin now.

S-124 carefully demagnetizes his hands, and then jumps off of Megatronus’ back, landing on the ground with a barely-heard thud, and he smiles to himself.

Soundwave’s gonna be so pleased.

Then he marches right up to Orion Pax, who’s only a head or two shorter than Megatronus, and holds out his hand.

Orion Pax kneels to take it.

“I’m S-124.” He says with all of the politeness Megatronus has managed to drill into him, because the spectators expected beasts, so they had to show them that they weren't. “How d’you know Megatronus? How’d you meet him?”

Orion Pax can't hide his grin this time, not with one arm resting across his bowed knee and his other hand shaking S-124’s.

“He’s a very dear friend of mine.” Orion Pax tells him softly, all rumbling laughter, before leaning in like he's about to tell a secret.

S-124 leans closer eagerly, audials flicking.

And Orion Pax, smiling as bright as his blue blue blue optics, says,

“I liked his poetry.”

Chapter Text

Orion sets him down gently.

So very, very softly. 

And stays kneeling with him, legs folding under him as they both sit in the rubble and dust and–

He’s not quite sure if it’s mourning.

He’s never done it before.

But he thinks that this might be it.

And they sit there.

Together.

As the world slowly falls silent.

“Aw, slag,” is the first thing he hears and really processes.

Mostly because it’s so close.

The second is, “Frag, what happened to the kids’ face?”

And the third, “Ratchet, give me that idiot and get over here!”

Then–

There’s movement.

And color seeps back into the world as he chokes and struggles to breathe because–

Because Megatron is dead.

Megatronus is dead.

Dead dead dead, and he’s the one that killed him.

“Give him space,” someone says, but it barely registers.

He’s not sure when the first tears start to fall.

He’s only sure of when they stop.

And that isn’t for a long time.

Heaving and gasping and aching but–

But the howls catch in his throat and instead he hiccups and sobs and tries to make any sound that isn’t something wretched and suffocated–

But he can’t.

He can’t.

And all the sound gets caught in his chest as he folds into himself, and wraps his arms tight around his ribcage like it’ll somehow help hold him together.

It doesn’t.

It doesn’t at all.

And he cries.

And he mourns.

And Orion Pax mourns with him, solid and real like a lighthouse in a storm.

After awhile he feels…

Tired.

Too tired to cry anymore.

Too tired to be anything but exhausted.

He wants to sleep.

Sleep and never move again.

His hands hurt and his chest hurts and his– everything, really, feels pretty fucking bad.

His… face hurts too, actually.

Why does–

He unfolds and ow god shouldn’t have hunched over for that long mistake mistake and raises a hand to his mouth–

It burns, and his fingers come away red when he rips them back.

He licks his lips and that–

That was even stupider, because holy shit it really fragging hurts.

Did he–

Did he get hit?

And not– notice?

When did he–

“Sam.”

He snaps to attention, and there is–

Orion.

Cybertronians don’t cry.

He’s hit with the knowledge very suddenly.

They don’t cry.

They can’t.

Looking at Orion though, with his optics almost fever bright, his entire frame pulled tighter than a fraying string, plates clamped tight and down and unhappy, he thinks that…

He thinks that Orion would be.

If he could.

Instead, his voice is choked with static and wavers on a hair-thin edge.

“They won’t let us smelt him, will they?” Is what he hears himself say, around blood and dust and Primus is that his voice?

Orion lets out a strangled sort of noise, and then holds out a hand.

He takes it carefully, and then leans against the palm because–

Because standing on his own doesn’t feel possible right now.

“No,” Orion says eventually, and there’s a long pause filled with clicks as he– as he resets his vocalizer.

“No,” he repeats, bowing his head, optics harsh in their brightness and blue blue blue. “I don’t think they will.”

Some part of him–

Some part of him understands why.

There’s things to be learned from even a corpse.

And this is not their– this is not Cybertron.

But the other part screams against a wall because–

Smelting is a gladiator’s funeral rite.

They had no space to be entombed.

They were reduced to molten components and liquid metal alongside what honor they had.

He’s sure of that.

Megatron–

Megatronus deserves to be smelted.

But he won’t be.

He won’t be.

“Sam.”

He follows the sound to Ratchet.

Orange and white and medic’s crosses on his pauldrons.

He hums in answer, and Ratchet holds out a hand that’s still speckled pink.

“You’re bleeding.” He says matter-of-factly. “A lot. You need medical attention.”

He hums again, and Ratchet sighs.

“Will you let me help you?” He asks, voice level and steady and strong, and it cuts through some of the haze in his head. “I’m going to do it regardless, but consent for medical procedures is generally appreciated. I need a verbal yes or no. Preferably yes, but considering you’ve got that idiot there for a role model I’m prepared for a no.”

And he–

He opens his mouth– and it still really really hurts, Jesus Christ – and croaks out a hoarse, “Yes. Please. Thank you.”

Ratchet lets out a heavy sigh of vented air, throwing a pointed glare past Sam at Orion, before laying his hand with the finger-tips to the ground for Sam to climb on to.

“You should follow his example,” he grumbles with bared teeth. “Accepting medical attention without even half a speech about why he doesn’t need it. Even adding a thank you.”

Orion doesn’t even say anything in his defense, just lets out a wordless sort of sound half mixed with a rumble.

And then Ratchet pulls up sharply, optics widening, and he almost tumbles off his hand.

It’s not–

A long fall?

But he doesn’t want to fall again.

Not after that whole–

Building.

With the statues.

And the claws reaching out–

Oh.

“Have you been walking around with two broken ribs –” Ratchet starts furiously–

“Do you have a mirror?” He interrupts quietly, and–

Ratchet pauses, at that.

“A mirror.” He repeats.

Dull and uncomprehending.

“A mirror.”

Ratchet stares at him for a second.

And then he rumbles, “Would sheet metal do?”

He–

He nods his head in a short bob.

Ratchet mumbles something, then, that he doesn’t really catch or understand, but then he’s pulling out out a scrap of metal that can only have been used for armor patching and–

And he–

He blinks at himself.

Sam blinks at himself.

At the two bloody, red, raw lines tearing up his mouth and across his face, crawling up from the right side of his jaw to an inch or so under his left eye, just barely missing his nose.

It’s–

It’s–

He knows those lines–

::It was stupid.:: He insists sullenly, and Megatronus clicks his vocalizer.

“You’re young yet.” He admonishes aloud, claws making careful work of the welding fluid on his faceplates.

It’s not– really fluid, he knows, it’s just metal made hot enough to turn to liquid and be used to fill in scratches and chasms.

S-124 kind of likes the feeling of it, because it’s so warm, and all his pain receptors are off, but the fact it has to be there at all dampens any content he might’ve had.

::It was stupid,:: he repeats, careful to go over comms and not actually speak because that would just mess Megatronus up. ::I should know better. I’m a better fighter than Meltdown. I know I am. I shouldn’t’ve gotten hurt.::

“Everyone makes mistakes.” Megatronus says absently, before pulling his hands away. “Turn your head. Let me see.”

S-124 does so, barely thinking about it, and continues arguing.

::You wouldn’t say that to Scorponok.:: He says, and it’s not petulant.

“I do not like Scorponok, of course I wouldn’t.” Megatronus grumbles, and then nods his head. “It is passable. Let the welds cool. You’re off the roster since you won your fight for the next orn anyway.”

He huffs out air through his seams, and very pointedly doesn’t reach up to touch the cooling welds.

Megatronus looks at him with amusement anyway.

“Yes?” He rumbles out slowly, leaning an elbow joint on the plating of his thigh, and then his head onto his closed fist. “Did you need something, S-1? Use your words. I’m not Soundwave.”

He fidgets for a moment, and then–

::Can we do more writing lessons?:: S-124 asks cautiously, and tries to stifle the fidgeting of his doorwings.

And Megatronus –

Smiles.

“Do you remember where we left off?” He says, pulling sheets out from his subspace, covered in lines and lines of glyphs.

S-124 has to fight back a grin.

It’ll mess up the weld.

::I remember! The difference between our alphabet and the rest of Kaon.::

Megatronus smiles brighter.

“Very good.” He says. “Very good.”

“-am?”

“Present.” He says reflexively, and then winces again at the tug on his–

His injury.

Injuries.

It’s the same shape.

It’s the same lines.

Except–

Megatronus had healed those.

Megatron cut these ones open.

“You spaced out.” Ratchet tells him brusquely. “You have a concussion. I was concerned.”

He makes a huh noise.

He very suddenly misses comms now that he remembers they’re a thing.

“I do?” He asks curiously, and thinks that might explain some stuff.

Ratchet makes a wounded noise.

“Primus help me,” he mutters, briefly shuttering his optics before opening them again to glare down at him. “You have two broken ribs, three bruised ones, a mild concussion, first degree burns on your hands, and two profusely bleeding facial wounds. I have many reasons to be concerned about you spacing out right now. And that’s not even starting on whatever is going on with your vocal cords, but schematics say they shouldn’t be doing whatever it is they are.”

He huhs again.

And then there’s–

There’s a stomping, like a hoard of people running, and–

He turns–

Lennox and his men rush up in a clattering of guns, a tow truck following along side–

And Lennox calls out a, “What the hell happened to your face, kid?”

And he just– 

Sort of–

Points to–

“He did.”

He can see Lennox follow the direction he’s pointing to and–

Lennox whistles, looks at him again, looks at Orion, and then looks back at him.

“What the hell happened to him?” He asks loudly, and some part of him is–

Glad, that Lennox doesn’t look happy.

That he seems to get that there’s something wrong with this picture.

He doesn’t look happy.

Just.

Tired.

And he says, so softly it barely carries down,

“I did.”

Ratchet doesn’t really have things to do human medical treatment, but he has a pretty good time listing out the various ways both him and Orion are damaged and in need of repair.

Lennox manages to squirrel a box of first aid out of his one million pockets and that distracts Ratchet long enough to at least get his hands wrapped and some disinfectant on his face, which hurts even more , and he’s gonna need so many stitches.

Ratchet doesn’t actually do the wrapping.

Or the disinfectant.

He has Lennox do that, and watches him like a hawk the whole time.

It’s–

Something, at least.

Talking probably isn’t helping but–

He can’t not talk.

They’re not… too deep at least.

It definitely looks like someone tried to flay his face open and missed, twice, but it didn’t cut to the bone anywhere except his chin, right against his jaw.

It’s definitely going to scar.

He… can’t bring himself to mind.

Determinedly not staring at Megatron will only get him so far, and when he finally does have to look he–

He thinks he should be more upset, maybe.

Considering he–

He broke and shattered like that, but–

But he’s tired, now.

He’s tired, and he’s empty, and Megatron(us) is dead, and he killed him, and he’s never going to get over that, probably, but–

But he’s no stranger to death.

He hasn’t been for a long time, apparently.

Even if he hadn’t thought it was real for most of his life.

It had still been a staple, a constant.

Something familiar.

Megatron(us) is dead.

He’s dead.

And Sam killed him.

Maybe one day he’ll suddenly explode, and break down again about the fact that the person he was just beginning to finally piece together was dead, but he might also move on.

Eventually.

He’s not going to move on from killing him.

He’s never, ever going to move on from that.

He doesn’t think he can.

He doesn’t think he ever could.

He gets a brief glimpse of Ironhide holding Meister/Jazz in two somehow alive pieces no do not wave holy shit please go back to being one person instead of halves before there’s–

Before there’s Bee.

There’s Bee and Miles and Mikaela and–

They’re okay.

They’re okay.

Mikaela has cuts on her arms, fine, thin ones, and Miles has the beginnings of some awful bruises and a bloody leg, but they’re–

They’re okay.

They’re alive.

Bee is–

No better than he was before, but no worse.

He’s alive too.

He’s alive.

They’re both–

Alive.

They made it out.

They made it out of the burning city.

They made it out of the cannon fire.

And that’s more than before.

That, in itself, is better.

Ratchet levers up Orion to do a trade off with Ironhide, grumbling the whole time, but all he can really focus on is his friends and Bee.

He feels sort of like a tiny planet orbiting a gigantic star.

Because he always comes back to Bee.

No matter how long it takes.

“Oh dude your face,” is the first thing Miles says, which.

Fair.

That’s fair.

He gives him a lazy sort of thumbs-up, and then stops because his hands are still visibly shaking.

Mikaela winces too. 

“Ouch,” she mutters, like her arms aren’t covered in over a dozen fine cuts. “What happened?”

And he just–

Points over his shoulder.

Again.

And what crawls out of his mouth is, “Carer,” which–

Sounds–

Completely… right?

It doesn’t sound–

Managled, or twisted, or–

What the hell?

Humans can’t make that sound.

They super, super can’t, he knows because he’s tried to repeat the things he read in Archibald’s journals and that one was really, really close to the glyphs for–

For–

For something, what was it?

Connection and–

And–

And something that he can’t quite put his finger on–

“Dude, I have no idea what you just said,” Miles says amicably, wincing a little as he shifts his weight, “but I can get the jist. You went up against him? Are you– … are you okay?”

And that’s–

A fun question.

Is he okay?

And he thinks–

Not really.

Not really, no.

Megatron(us) is dead, and Sam’s the one who killed him, and the AllSpark is– gone, but that doesn’t sound quite right either because it’s the AllSpark, it’s pure energy given form and pure energy can’t be destroyed, only displaced or transfered.

He doesn’t know where it is, physically.

But he doesn’t think it’s gone entirely, just because–

It’s the AllSpark.

It’s not something you can destroy.

It’s impossible.

“Sam?” Someone says, and he tunes back in.

Miles and Mikaela are staring at him expectantly, and a little worried.

Mikaela was the one that spoke.

He didn’t–

Mean to do that.

What was the question?

Is he okay?

He–

He… 

“I’m alive,” is what he settles on.

Miles and Mikaela both frown for a split second before it smooths out.

And Miles says, “Actually, given your track record that’s fair,” and then Mikaela hisses, “Miles,” and punches him in the shoulder with her bloody knuckles, and Miles laughs and it’s–

It’s nice.

Maybe things will be okay.

Maybe they’ll be okay.

Bee is next on his list, because God help him but he needs to actually hear his pulse if he wants to even pretend to get some sleep tonight.

And Bee whirs at him happily, spitting out a little clip of, “I told you so,” before holding out his hands to bring him into his arms.

“You did,” he says back, and lets Bee do all the supporting for him, because he’s–

Super tired.

Super, super tired.

Bee does a little head tilt, antenna flicking almost in time with his doorwings, leaning in for a second for a closer look at his face.

“A familiar face–” his radio says, “–I’ve seen you before – once upon a dream.”

And he has to fight back a smile.

Bee remembered his face.

He remembered the scars.

“Yeah,” he croaks back, “I saw it too.”

And Bee–

Hums softly, before lightly tapping their foreheads together.

“We’re okay.”

And he–

He sort of dimly realizes he’s crying again but it’s–

It’s relief.

It’s relief.

Because–

They’re alive.

They’re alive.

It’s not Praxus.

It’s not Praxus.

Ironhide has to support him, but Orion manages to stand, and Meister/Jazz lets out a lazy sort of victory crow that has Ratchet swearing all over again to stop fragging moving.

“Megatron is dead,” Orion starts, and no one comments on how his voice wavers when he says it. “But that does not mean the war is won. However– I must thank you, all of you, for what you have done today. Fighting our war alongside us. Trusting us. Risking your lives.”

“Well I mean– we kind of had it coming,” Lennox calls out tiredly. “With the whole– experimenting thing, that’s definitely on us. A little bit our fault.”

“Man,” a soldier that he’s pretty sure is Epps yells, “Whose bright idea was that? In what world does experimentin’ on the alien of unknown origin ever go well?”

“Telenovela,” says another soldier in response, “Telenovela’s never had alien problems.”

“That you know of,” probably-Epps scoffs, and someone in the squad erupts into hysterical laughter.

And Orion is smiling too hard to respond, hiding his face behind his battlemask as he ducks his head away.

And Sam sort of begins to smile too, even though it hurts like hell.

“Permission to speak!” Bee barks then in– is that Star Trek? God, that’s gotta be Star Trek– and Orion turns to face him.

Face them.

“You have blanket permission, Bumblebee.” Orion rumbles tiredly, but with no small amount of amusement. “You know this.”

And Bee frees up one hand for the sole purpose of waving it dismissively, before saying–

Before–

“I want– to stay– with him.” Bee says through cobbled together voice clips and it’s–

It’s somehow more endearing and heart-wrenching than anything he could’ve said in his own voice.

Because– because he searched through a thousand, a million, an infinite amount of sounds, of songs, of over a century of media to piece together a sentence, all to say–

All to say that he wants to stay.

With him.

With Sam.

He wonders how hopeful, how struck and frozen and aching that he must look, because Orion takes one look at him, and then says, “I would not dream of parting you.”

And that’s–

It ended with a promise to stay.

It all ended in a burning, broken city, with a promise that he wasn’t leaving.

They’ve come back to the burning city, to the smoke and the haze and the rubble, on a different world thousands upon millions upon incomprehensible amounts of miles away from– from home, and to the promise to stay, to not leave, to not just go.

But it’s not a parting gift.

Or a vow to a dying mech.

Not this time.

They’re alive.

They’re both so very, very alive.

They stay in Mission City long enough for haulers to arrive and long enough to lay the dead Decepticons down in two of them.

But the fact of the matter is that most of them are tired, and damaged, and need medical attention and food and– and a fragging nap.

Bee and Meister/Jazz both need their legs reattached in two very different cases of severity.

They can come back to help with the relief effort.

Right now they need rest.

And to– hell, did any of them bring energon?

God.

What a mess.

They’ll just keep running on low until they go into stasis and Bee’s already lost a bunch of energon–

What a mess.

And they–

They drive away.

They leave.

It takes a long, long time for the smoke of Mission City to finally disappear.

They get a lucky break, when they finally pull back into the not damaged parts of the Hoover Dam with it’s arched ceilings big enough for a mech to stand.

Sector 7 had, apparently, been mining energon deposits for years.

Because it wasn’t natural to Earth’s composition, but it sure was everywhere, with a weirdly high energy output, and no real conceivable way to actually use it.

Sam sort of wants to–

Laugh hysterically, maybe.

At the crates upon crates of glowing crystals.

He’s not super sure if he wants to know why Earth has energon.

He’s not super sure he even cares.

Frenzy was still alive.

Alive and grumbling and screaming in a locked room.

Where was Soundwave?

His memories on him are still fuzzy and basically non-existent but–

But Frenzy should be with Soundwave.

Why isn’t he?

He asks to see him.

Sector 7 can’t exactly tell him no, and Bee gives him a parting croon as he goes.

Sam isn’t much help with medical stuff anyway.

He might as well be productive.

“Where’s Soundwave?” He asks in a hiss of steam and metal that isn’t steam and metal, and the soldier behind him stares with wide eyes.

Frenzy goes still.

And then hisses back, “What?”

Sam raps his knuckles against the glass.

“Where’s Soundwave?” He repeats dully, and Frenzy twitches violently, like a live wire in water.

“None of your business,” he snarls, all fanged denta and an angry visor and puffed up armor plates. “Who told you that name?”

Sam blinks, and tilts his head.

“Megatronus.” He tells him, and Frenzy quite possibly crashes seeing as how he doesn’t move for two solid minutes.

And then he says–

“What are you?” In a wavering, suspicious voice. “No one’s said that name in– who told you that?”

“He did.” Sam says, and then– and then muscle memory guides him into placing a hand over his heart and bowing his head. “What do you think I am, Frenzy?”

And the glyphs are heavy with familiarity and said with habit, with ease, a simple pronunciation done around a well-known name.

And Frenzy–

Flinches.

“You’re dead,” he suddenly accuses in English, lines of his faceplates angry and upset. “You’re dead.”

“You got beheaded.” Sam tells him, and Frenzy reflexively tucks his chin to better cover his throat cabling. “I’m as dead as you are.”

And Frenzy just–

Just stands there, trembling in every inch, before deflating and curling in small.

“Let me go,” he pleas softly, glyphs dripping with exhaustion. “Just– stop this, and let me go.”

“I’ll talk to Orion,” Sam says just quiet. “As long as you promise not to hurt anyone, and go back to Soundwave, I’m pretty sure we could make it look like you escaped.”

Frenzy makes a dying sort of sound.

“Primus, you even – no one calls him Orion anymore, you idiot.” He says, but it's weak like a doused flame. “He’s Optimus Prime. Not Orion Pax.”

“Aren’t they the same?” Sam asks him with a tilt of his head, grabbing a chair and settling down in it backwards, chest aching. “He seems the same to me.”

“He’s – you’re unreal.” Frenzy scoffs. “This is a joke. This is – stop. Stop talking you’re not–”

“It burned.” He says softly, and Frenzy goes still again.

“What?”

“The Seeker fire.” He tells him, and it’s–

Frenzy finally drops to the ground, first to his knee joints and then flat on his back, an arm tossing itself over his visor.

“Frag. Frag frag frag.” He hisses, slamming a fist into the concrete. “I hate you. I hate you.”

“Do you?” Sam asks, and he thinks that maybe if he had more than scraps of mentions in his memories right now, it would hurt more.

Frenzy doesn’t say anything, and he settles in to wait.

It takes five minutes before Frenzy finally cracks and says, 

“No. I don’t. You fragger. You’re the worst.”

“Oh no,” Sam drawls, “My poor feelings. However will I go on?”

And Frenzy chokes again, wheezing as something rattles in his chest, before he spits out, “Primus your Megatron impression is still so good, this is so unfair. You were dead, we’d moved on, and – how did he take it?” 

It takes him a second to figure out what Frenzy means.

A long, long second.

“He said I did well,” he croaks out, “right after I killed him.”

Frenzy doesn’t say anything for a moment.

“Yeah.” He eventually mutters. “Sounds like him.”

And then he hesitates.

For just a single ticking of the clock.

“He was never the same.” Frenzy tells him, visor pointed at the ceiling. “After you offlined. He was never the same.”

Sam closes his eyes, and hooks his fingers together behind his throat.

It hurts.

Then he gets up.

“I’ll talk to Orion.” He tells Frenzy quietly, and Frenzy waves a lazy hand.

“I’ll be here. Doing… nothing.”

It’s harder than it should be to not laugh.

Sector 7 holds them all for two days.

Two days that pass in a flurry of motion.

Frenzy escaping is chalked up to a freak malfunction, and there’s no time to focus on it further.

He disappears, and there’s no bodies left behind him.

Not this time.

No one asks.

Sam doesn’t answer.

They go home.

None of the original team is allowed to help rebuild, or to even step foot in Mission City.

There’s risk of being recognized, and none of them are in good condition anyway.

Lennox’s team was running on almost five days of no sleep, and Sam and Miles and Mikaela were, for all accounts and purposes, civilians and also teenagers.

With mild to severe injuries.

Sam is the one with severe injuries.

He doesn’t think he’d be able to stomach going back anyway.

So they go home.

And Bee goes with him.

Things… move on.

Sort of.

Getting the stitches taken out of his face is probably one of the most unpleasant things he’s ever had to do, note to self, never again, and his hands, once they’re finally treated for the lines burned into his skin, stop hurting after a couple days.

They still look like plate lines and circuitry, some glyphs even, but they’re faint in the curling of his joints and the hollows of his wrists.

They only really show up if the light hits them right.

The scars across his mouth are visible in pretty much any light at all though, and he’s definitely going to have to answer questions about them for the rest of his life.

So that’s… nice.

But they’re familiar too, and he can’t really bring himself to mind too much.

He ends up right about not getting to give Megatron(us) a proper funeral, and instead of smelting, he’s dropped into the bottom of the ocean, seven miles under.

He’s not supposed to know, but Orion tells him anyway.

Sam isn’t sure how to articulate how grateful he is, and settles for giving him all of Archibald’s journals.

Or photocopies of them, anyway.

And it turns out that his parents were told pretty much nothing while they were being detained and the thought of trying to explain everything to them is so exhausting that he just.

Doesn’t.

He doesn’t say anything.

He thinks Simmons is trying to murder him with his eyes when Sam leaves him to trapeze through the cover story.

Serves him right.

But his mom takes one look at him, at his face and the bags under his eyes, and sweeps him into a hug.

His dad does too.

He’s a little surprised, but it’s… 

It’s nice.

He doesn’t really mind.

His first night back at home, a week out from going back to school, he wakes up screaming.

That’s kind of new.

It catches in his throat like a dying thing, and he just–

Wheezes and shudders and tries to remember how to breathe and he–

He’s so tired.

He’s so tired.

He just wants to sleep without–

Without awful things playing behind his eyelids.

Without having to relive Megatron tearing his face open as he falls falls falls–

A croon fills his ears, and blue light filters into the room.

Bee whines softly, and Sam digs his palms into his eyes.

“Just a nightmare,” he whispers. “Just a nightmare. I’m okay.”

Bee makes a skeptical noise, optic ridges coming down as he squints suspiciously.

“It’s okay to not be okay,” says the voice of some random woman, probably from a self help video.

“I’m okay.” He repeats, this time with cascading metal, and does his best to just– breathe, like a normal human, that does normal human things. “Go back to recharge.”

He gets an even unhappier squint in response, and a sad noise.

He feels a little bad, but then–

Then Bee perks up suddenly, and disappears from the window, and there’s the sound of him transforming back into alt.

Sam just sort of… stares uncomprehendingly.

He’s… so tired.

And then there's–

A flicker of light, like an illusion, before there’s a person sitting on his window, facing in.

What.

The person smiles triumphantly, but doesn’t make to move.

They have blue eyes.

Almost unnaturally blue.

Blonde hair, and he thinks tanned skin, and–

And a scar rippling all around their neck like sunlight in water.

There’s a racing stripe on the chest of their leather jacket.

A racing stripe.

Oh.

“How are you doing that?” He whispers incredulously, and Bee– because it can only be him– seems to take that as an okay to hop off the sill with barely a sound, coming over but stopping within reaching distance.

Waiting for Sam to make the first move.

He holds out a hand, and Bee takes it.

It’s… warm.

Simulated warmth.

Their hands fit together easily.

“How are you doing that?” He repeats, softer this time, bringing the hand closer to look at all the little freckles and reflections of scars he had seen on Bee’s hands in his root mode.

Bee lets him, and sits down on the edge of his bed, legs folding up criss-cross, the boots he’d been– wearing? Simulating? Whatever– disappearing with the motion, replaced by normal human feet.

What.

Even.

Holy shit.

He’s too tired for this.

“Is this– Is this a hologram?” He asks quietly, and Bee beams at him, blue eyes shining.

It’s a nice smile.

He is.

Unfairly pretty.

What the hell.

This is a crime.

Sam’s being assaulted in his own home.

And then Bee wraps him up in a hug before taking them both down with his full holographic weight, tucking his chin over the top of Sam’s head and settling in like a heavy blanket.

Again.

What.

“Not all problems are solved by hugs,” he mumbles dazedly, and Bee makes an unhappy sort of huffing noise, one arm leaving it’s place around him to flick the side of his head.

“I’m injured.” Sam mutters, but he’s smiling. “You’re attacking an injured guy. You monster.”

Bee laughs a little, quiet and wheezing, and taps him once with his chin.

It’s a pretty clear message.

Shut up and go to sleep.

“At least let me fix the covers you weirdo.” He says, and Bee just squeezes him tighter.

That’s a pretty clear message too.

No.

Well.

It’s not like it’s cold in his room.

Especially with the window letting in warm, almost-summer air.

Sam sighs, and resigns himself to his fate.

It’s not a bad fate at least.

And it… it does help.

Because everything– it all still aches.

It all aches and it’s all terrible and he’s–

It’s going to take a long time for him to get better.

But–

But he has Bee.

Bee, wrapped around him and holding him close and breathing even if it’s just a hard-light hologram.

There can’t be any hologram without him.

It’s proof that he’s still there.

It’s proof that Sam’s not alone.

He has Bee.

He has Bee, and Orion, and Miles, and Mikaela, and– and Meister/Jazz and Ironhide and Ratchet and–

And he has Lennox and Epps and–

He has–

He has friends.

And family.

He’s not alone.

He’s not alone.

And this, this right here, with the sound of breathing that isn’t real and a heartbeat that’s a mimicry of a spark–

It’s enough.

It’s enough.

And for the first time in a long series of long days, he feels… 

Happy.