Chapter Text
He beats Corvus in a sparring match for the first time a few solar cycles after receiving Optimus’s message, having adjusted his fighting style to flow better with his way of movement.
It’s surprisingly easy, and B-1 finds himself taunting Corvus throughout the duration of the match. It’s in poor taste, but it feels good to make Corvus mad, and the use of his voice keeps him off balance and struggling to stop his peaking anger.
He’s good at that, assessing someone’s emotions and exploiting them. Jazz educated him on the power of manipulation, which had been an intimidating lesson at the time. Now, he wonders if he’s always had a knack for such things.
A cathartic bliss pulses through him when, with a throw over his shoulder, Corvus lands in a heap within the ring of the sparring range. They are both venting heavily, and his components probably burn to the touch, but he hardly notices. Corvus’s forehelm flows with a small but steady flow of Energon, one of B-1’s blows having pried apart a seam in the metal. It’s a superficial wound, and he won’t even need to refuel, but B-1 can’t help but feel some pride at having broken the spell. Corvus, the golden boy of the academy, bleeding.
No one is infallible, not even him.
There’s a mixture of cheering and hushed whispers, and B-127 knows people are stunned. Corvus hasn’t lost a fight all semester, and no one expected he of all bots would be the one to break the streak.
He shouldn’t, because he knows it comes from a selfish place, but he can’t bring himself to care. B-1 revels in his victory, in the unalterable fact that he isn’t as fragile or incompetent as everyone once thought.
He can’t help but wonder if Lariat would have treated him better if he knew just how much B-1 was capable of.
Would that have mattered?
Would B-127 have fought back any sooner?
The teeth of his long-neglected demons gnash, and in the roaring chorus of cheering, B-1 wonders if the fires he has been feeding are going to be what kills him.
Vaguely, he sees himself helping Corvus to his pedes, where they link servos to end their fight on a respectful note. There’s a biting tightness in the other bot’s frame, and while he fills the air with a distinctly inauthentic mask of humility, B-127 isn’t fooled. They smile at each other as they are supposed to.
He bares his denta, wondering if, in his hidden hatred and undulating spite, they’ve grown sharp.
***
The first term comes and goes, time so keen to march.
It’s an odd ruling when the younger cadets aren’t permitted to leave during their short break. B-1’s instinctual curiosity is near writhing underneath his plating, but their superiors are firm and unyielding of any sort of information.
No, you cannot visit Iacon. No, you may not leave campus. No, no, no.
With his natural urges to investigate furiously cowed by the stern commands, B-1 is consequently on edge, almost unable to enjoy his free time and the afterglow of his now-shimmering grades.
It makes him rather lousy company. Fidgety, and irritable enough to keep his mind steps away from a darker place he knows not to wander toward. His imagination conjures culled fields of people and rains of blood in some sick explanation for the lockdown, his wizened reason not fit to stop the images from manifesting. It’s irrational and stupid, but the mounting facts keep him speculating as he always is. They wouldn’t be kept from home for no good reason.
His messages back home are returned with vague missives and kind-sparked requests to enjoy the lull in training. Cliff is dismissive, something unlike him, and Elita is wordy and overly detailed in her replies. Optimus and Jazz hardly reply at all, always apologizing for making him wait. It’s eerie.
Even as he and his friends attend parties and the various half-aft activities set up by their instructors and cadet liaisons, a partition in B-1’s processor is always on what lies beyond the boundaries of the academy.
He and Blitz have been fighting a bit, and B-1 can accept that most of it is his fault. The relief he feels for his encouraging improvements is overshadowed by his unending sense of wrongness, and he knows Blitz is frustrated by how much he struggles to relax. Truthfully, he itches to train and continue on with the program, but everything but the gym is shut down for the break. With the number of students stuck here, it is crowded due to the lack of class rotation, and B-1 resorts to practicing outside the school’s walls, along with a few from his class who feel similarly.
But he feels a duty to Blitz as his best friend, his brother, and so he does his best to enjoy himself, and he does, for the most part. How could he not? He likes most of the people here, and as of his rise to competence, most of them like him.
It’s just, he can’t quite loosen his grip on the worry.
The war rages, and B-1 is sipping pilfered high-grade, talking lazily to a pretty purple femme whose name begins with an e. That bothers him, too, the sweet and sour fuel gives a nice kick and a buzz under his plating, but it troubles him not to recall her name. She’s nice, a bit younger than him, and a bit braver in her indulgence, but as he pulls up his ever-growing list of names, hers isn’t there, or at least, he doesn’t think so. The augmented fuel makes everything swim just enough to make him unsure. His peers jabber and cackle around him, the familiar ambiance something uncanny and comforting all at once.
He wants to care about breaking the rules, but even the instructors must know about what their cadets get up to outside the academy’s limits. Especially with a bunch of bored teenage-slash-young adults as your majority trainees. When they aren’t operating as training grounds, the abandoned city is perfect for these parties. Elita would squawk at his brazenness, but that thought is a whisp among a flurry of other things, and B-1 is content to let the guilt come later.
The girl’s optics flicker, a breathless giggle gracing her vocoder as she reacts to something B-1 says. His normally perfect recall is impaired, and he finds himself wondering what the hell is so funny. But she’s pretty, so he laughs with her anyway. She tries to kiss him, but B-1 gently keeps her from following through. Those kinds of affections are so terribly personal to him, having only really seen it from Newdawn and Faylever, and B-1 doesn’t want to recreate that sort of connection during some ephemeral moment of chemistry. Especially when she can barely keep herself upright.
Taking her half-empty cube of high-grade away, Pretty Girl pouts a bit, but allows him to steer her to where he thinks he remembers her friend group congregating. He’s helped some of them with homework before, and one of them gave him tips on his physical fitness. It’s different to see them all so light with easy laughs and uninhibited smiles. There’s a heaviness that hangs over everything during training, and B-1 is ashamed to be the only one who can’t seem to let it go.
He does his best, polishing off her high grade and letting himself be pulled into a dance ushered by music nothing like the beautiful tones Faylever used to enjoy.
***
He and Blitz crash into each other several times as they race, both definitely above the line of intoxication and definitely unfit to drive. But, they’re laughing, and the unspoken tension between them is momentarily broken by their complete clumsiness and camaraderie.
High grade isn’t something he ever saw himself touching, not with how the bandits, how Lariat, abused it. He’s older, now, and he can accept that the substance itself isn’t what made them mean, isn’t what made them hurt him.
Newdawn would indulge in it, sometimes, sitting beside him while they viewed some holo-film he was probably too young to watch. Jazz loves the stuff, and B-1 can’t think of him any other way but fondly.
And it’d be a lie to say he isn’t enjoying the effortless joy it brings, and he flourishes under the subtle relief that he laughs more than he growls under its influence. He’s not mean, not like them.
Just, different. So very different.
Blitz flips over a warped dumpster, skidding a few times on his cartop, and B-1 explodes into raucous laughter, and his friend soon joins, overwhelmed by the absurdity of it all. They drag each other back to barracks, uncaring of the disapproving glances from the night guards, and B-1, though still burdened, smiles. He hasn’t thought of Rule Number Two in a while, and though he probably won’t remember this in the morning, B-1 is overwhelmed by the privilege of his life, and how easily his derma turns upward, regardless of what troubles him.
***
Optimus,
Sorry, I know we can’t really talk much lately. Just let me know if my messages are an inconvenience. I just wanted to thank you.
Things are weird here. I’m weird, here. Does that make sense? Probably not.
Some of the medical instructors are hosting some sort of workshop for anyone interested in brushing up on their BLS protocols before the next term begins. I wish I’d known about all this when I was smaller. I wonder if it would have helped.
Maybe Ratchet would have been saved a few helmaches putting me back together. Ha ha.
I’m doing well here, I guess. So I promise I’m making up for it all, I will.
Everyone’s enjoying their break, and I guess I am too. Don’t ask me all we’ve done, I think you would turn green.
But I’m keeping up with everything. I promise.
Thank you. I don’t know, I feel like I say that a lot, and I’m always at a loss.
Sorry about that. hope everything is ok.
B-127.
***
When the break comes to an end, B-127 can’t lie and say he isn’t relieved. All of the playing around is enjoyable, but his internals tingle with the need for action and, perhaps a bit darkly, violence. It’s not something easy to admit, but his processor is relentless, and to himself, he has no other choice but to be truthful. It’s an ingrained expectation, a need deep inside him that he struggles to satiate.
Pride swells as his team and his dearest friends earn their second ring around their cadet sigils, a true sign of their growth as soldiers. One step closer to fulfilling and paying his debt, B-1 runs helm-first into his new classes. Most are similar to the first term, with a more advanced curriculum, which B-1 flourishes under almost immediately. The added difficulty in every area is so welcome that he allows his unending questions about the outside to fall to the wayside.
They are assigned more duties around the campus, and B-1 gets saddled with gate guard a lot more now, which he finds mildly infuriating, his body in a constant sway in some futile attempt to combat the sheer boredom of it all. His optics make him well suited for surveillance, and there’s no denying that he is good at it, but his mind is a cycling racetrack, and the awful monotony has him telling himself stories like he did when he was young.
His guard partner is not impressed, but B-1 sort of enjoys annoying him, so he keeps it up. Cliff would appreciate his creativity.
***
Corvus slams him against a passing building, the friction of his wheels burning against his frame and warping the metal of his doors on either side. They’re similarly sized in alt form, but the alley they race through is cramped and stuffy.
His HUD pings with slightly infuriated alerts of he damage caused, and B-1’s spark boils with anger at the unnecessary damage. “This is supposed to be a cooperative race, Corvus!” He grinds out, his vocoder rough as it echoes around his vehicle mode and into the empty noise of the alley. Wheels steaming, they exit the confined space and reenter the designated raceway, but Corvus doesn’t let up, immediately putting the pressure back on as he crushes B-1 against the median.
The pain is sharp but not blinding, easily repairable and totally permitted within the rules of this relay. It’s a pursuit course, and somewhere along the way. Corvus must’ve switched over his assigned target to him, because he’s been relentless. B-1 doesn’t even know where his assigned cadet is because he keeps getting rammed into walls.
“Just whittling down the crowd,” he easily excuses, and B-127’s spark squirms against the clear distaste he hears. “Didn’t you read the lesson briefing?”
Of course he read it, Corvus knows he did, but that’s not really what this is about.
They beat each other pretty consistently in their more competitive classes, but honestly, B-1 has been so busy trying to improve that he barely even has time to think about wanting to one-up him.
Clearly, Corvus sees things differently.
The animosity between them has grown pretty palpable, at least on Corvus’s side, and his thinly veiled insults become less and less veiled every cycle.
Threshing out a decently loud vrum of his engine, B-1 shoves himself off the wall, pushing Corvus enough to cause him to fishtail for several hundred yards before he self-corrects. B-1 would find it amusing if he wasn’t pissed. “This isn’t even a competition, dude! I’m not even your target!”
Venomously, Corvus parries with a very pointed swerve, clipping him by the bumper. His metal doesn’t bow, but it does skid, and he’s certain he’ll have a metal bruise later. “You shouldn’t even be here.”
Well-thought and elegant arguments are so far from him now, his fuel courses through him and he’s so stupidly mad. “Rust off, you slagging caretaker coddled glitch!”
“Primus, you’re as eloquent as a Seeker on high grade.”
The sheer condescension pisses him off even more, so annoyed and frazzled by Corvus’s consistent lack of approval. He’s more than proven his merit by now. “If eloquence was all it took to make a good soldier, you wouldn’t be chasing my dust right now.” He clicks his vocoder. “Too bad, huh?”
Corvus’s EM flares hot. A crack in his perfect little façade. “Frag you!”
“Frag you too, you pompous little—"
A curve in the track interrupts their tussle, and B-1 is thankful for the distraction. With a sharp rotation, he manages to peel in front of Corvus before he can try to slow him again. Corvus is fast, but B-1 is faster by a long shot, even with his newly acquired dents. Red-lining, B-127 pushes his engine to the limit to put some distance between them, fruitlessly hoping to catch up to his target and salvage this entire thing.
Shame bubbles under the surface at his uncouth display, knowing the track is monitored and that his loss of composure has definitely been noted. While he isn’t the most level-helmed bot, he isn’t known to fly off the handle like that. Such ire hasn’t spewed from him in a long time, if his explosion in that maze isn’t considered.
Newdawn would chide him for his language.
But it would be a lie to say the anger doesn’t feel good. It does. It’s an ugly emotion, but a secure one, offering control and power in ways that feed into the innate need to rebel. So well instilled in him, the instinct to fight when he feels that ghostly noose around his neck. Does that make you a good Autobot?
Probably not, he thinks. It’s not noble, but rather a blistering, undulating mass surrounding his spark that coalesces deep within his resonance. It’s what gave him the power to take, to thieve, to kill.
Maybe Corvus is the only one to see that, and maybe that’s why they hate each other so much. The clarity that comes with bitterness reveals their darkest parts, and B-1’s chassis chills at the concept.
***
They are halfway through the term when Blitz gets hurt.
In truth, it’s not severe, just a bit brutal. A mild training accident that leaves his team a bit mauled from a building that should have been condemned, or at least reinforced before being used for CQC drills. His classes are pushed back when it’s clear he and a few other members of his squad will be down for the count for a good deca-cycle or so. His chassis is a minefield of dents and abrasions, and the entire thing brings up bad memories that should phase B-1. It’s a bit alarming when they don’t.
B-127, Flor Del, and ZB all crowd around his berth. Flor Del is a natural in the medical field, working diligently with his training instructor to properly treat Blitz. B-1 smiles, seeing the gentleness he once reserved for his sister poured out for his patient and friend.
It’s foreign, but he plays with the fantasy of being born with servos meant to heal, and not to hurt. It’s not how he has been built, but an old and starved part of him burns with envy.
Blitz is high on the Med-En and laughs at pretty much everything anyone says, which is typical because he would rather enjoy himself than pay attention most of the time. ZB is by his side, stroking his non-injured arm with a grace he doesn’t often see from her. He has to remind himself that this trio have known each other for so much longer than they’ve known him, and he thanks Primus for being allowed into such a tight circle. He never thought he could have that again, that he could deserve it. That isn’t something he can say, knowing the response he’d get.
Maybe it’s selfish, knowing their comfort isn’t what he wants to hear, and he feels even worse for knowing why.
***
“I’m dying.”
“You’re fine, Blitz.”
“I literally could not be any further away from fine. Tell Flory to lower my sensor nodes and up the pain meds.”
“Blitz.”
“Bro, if I could get on my knees, I’d beg.”
“Thirteen Primes, you get one little booboo and suddenly the sky is falling.”
“A building fell on me! The sky did fall.”
“… Touche.”
***
Optimus,
It’s been a long time, to me. maybe not to you. But yeah, I’m not sure about your last question. I’m pretty busy, and I’m guessing you are too, so I haven’t had a chance to read it. I’m sorry.
Things are just
Busy.
I’m still doing well. Good, I mean.
Hope you all are too.
B-127.
***
They form a circle around Blitz’s berth one night when they are all miraculously free and without homework. Blitz is whiny but a good sport all the same, and they play a few rounds of poker, like old times.
Well, almost.
No one is permitted to contact Sanctuary, and they haven’t heard from Tick-Tock or Rusters since enlisting.
Each of them have made new friends in different places, since, but it’s not the same. Even if some of the other bots came from Sanctuary too, they weren’t part of that connection. B-1 feels stupidly possessive of the memories when they were all together, of the childlike levity that came with being around them for no other reason than to enjoy each other’s company.
A part of him worries that it’s all a delusion, this bond he’s made with all of them. Terrified of the idea that none of this means anything to them, and he is the only one holding on so tightly, warping his joints in some attempt to keep the innocence intact.
ZB turns over her holo-carts, dropping them on Blitz’s chassis, which they’ve been using as a makeshift table. Her straight flush glares back at them in mockery, and they all exclaim a breathy groan as she snickers, raking in her winnings of cold packs and solvent shower tokens.
It doesn’t take long for them to be shooed from the medical building for being too loud, but he savors every moment of normalcy, begging to banish his uncertainty with laughs and sardonic whispers.
***
“It could have been you, it would have been you,” Corvus comments, eyeing Blitz as he struggles through his requalification test. He’s doing well, but B-1 recognizes the familiar pinch of pain.
His curiosity gets the better of him. “What do you mean?”
He shrugs, barely hiding the roll of his optics. “Your team was slated for CQC that cycle, it was only moved because your training instructor had to reschedule.”
That is news to him, and he balks, lenses dilating as he runs through the public information on the incident. While it is true his team was listed for the drills, it wasn’t supposed to happen until about three solar cycles after. He’d heard nothing about the initial change.
Even still, he believes. Corvus is vindictive and a bit conniving, but he isn’t a liar.
“Relieved by your good fortune?”
A bit peeved to have his silence misunderstood, B-1 limply shakes his helm, now following Blitz’s every move, irrationally wondering if all this could have been avoided. His spark clenches, remembering the pain Blitz and, by extension, his entire team has had to suffer through. Clenching his fists tightly at his sides, B-127 exvents slowly. “It shouldn’t have happened.”
Scoffing, Corvus’s features pinch. “Think you could have done better? Blitz is a competent operator, but c’mon, he’s a bit of a slouch.”
The insult rolls off so casually it honestly takes a few nano-kliks for B-1 to hear it. His frame locks and his stills, optical ridges furrowing in silent outrage at the jab said at his best friend’s expense. “The building was unstable, it was an accident.”
But he’s unflinching. “I didn’t ask if it was, I asked if you could have done better.”
“What the hell are you playing at, Corvus?”
He shrugs, throwing on one of his annoyingly shiny smiles. “Just, that’s what you want, right? To be better?” Waving a servo in his direction, towards his general essence, Corvus’s grin drops, and a harsh frown replaces it. “You’re unsure, because you want to protect your friend’s dignity. Well, newsflash, buddy, that’s not good enough, because while you can blame fate or rusted bolts all you want, I won’t. I know I would have done better, I know I could have gotten out before that building fell, gotten my team out.” His EM is biting, it almost hurts. “We won’t know what we’re walking into on the battlefield, and I don’t intend to die because I wasn’t prepared for a so-called ‘accident.’ War isn’t a game you win by waiting for the winning hand. You win by taking control and ensuring you’re the only one in the room with an ace up your plating.”
His lenses shrink to pinpricks, and his tactical subroutines suggest a dozen different ways to leave Corvus spluttering in the dirt. It’s a miracle he is able to curb the urge to follow through. “Primus, you just love the sound of your own voice, don’t you? Did your caretakers play it back to you to get you to recharge?”
“At least I have caretakers. I don’t have to act like a rabid animal to prove I’m worth paying attention to.”
That pinches a nerve, and B-1 shudders involuntarily, almost impressed by Corvus’s callous profiling. With his internals steaming with excess heat, he engages his secondary fans, willing himself into a deeper calm. His mandible is shut tight, his denta creaking from the pressure. He wants to argue and fight, allow some darkness to seep through in the form of claws and sharp words, but he doesn’t. Because, if he’s honest, Corvus has a point.
And he knows it. “So, knowing you as the skilled, determined, and selfishly compassionate bot you are, let me ask you again. If it had been you – as it should have been–could you have done any better?”
Some distance away, Blitz exclaims, vaulting into a series of cartwheels in celebration. B-1’s optics follow the contented set of the instructor’s body language; Blitz has passed his test. Thank Primus.
Still, his tanks feel heavy with emotional weight, set upon him so quickly it nearly gives him vertigo. In the cries of cheer, he hears Lycan’s tinny laughter, and in Blitz’s endless physical expression, he sees Blue Breeze, boisterous and present.
God, he feels a bit sick.
He can’t look at Corvus, too dubious of who he’d see instead, but with a slightly shaking projection, his vocoder responds.
“Yes.”
***
Visited by older horrors, it doesn’t take long to set a new routine.
Blitz and ZB now join him for some of his extra training sessions. It is a bit tight making their schedules works, but B-1 is insistent, and it doesn’t take too long to wear them down into submission.
He’s a tough teacher, ZB says, after he’s had them repeat a certain simu-course for the third time.
His spark withers, but he doesn’t speak up to argue with her, afraid to spew the same excuses Lariat could always manufacture with ease.
It bothers them, and while their grace for him is seemingly endless, he can tell it’s a burden for them. To humor his unease and let him guide them through exercises they don’t really need.
Something presses on him, whispering that if they only knew, if they knew what he’s seen, they’d understand. They would want to be better, too, and wouldn’t look at him with that pinch in their optical ridges.
They don’t need to be better, really. Their grades are perfectly reasonable.
Still, something wriggles within him, sliding around in thick tendrils and keeping a tight hold on his internals, somehow hindering his venting. Pushing them is a necessary sacrifice, even if it leaves them a bit mad at him. They just, they don’t know, not the way he does.
There’s so little time, Primus, so little. How do you teach stellar cycles worth of hard-learned lessons in two terms? How do you show someone how painful and dark the world can be without showing them first-servo? That isn’t something he ever wants them to experience, none of it. The hunger, the fear, the hatred.
But those things kept him alive, and he’s terrified to admit that it might one cycle keep them alive too.
He can’t guarantee their safety once they graduate, not like he can here. It’s unlikely that they’ll be assigned to the same base, let alone unit. They’ve been taught to trust each other as brothers and sisters in arms, but how can he possibly let them go from his grasp without knowing they can handle themselves?
They can, they can, he reminds.
The sessions last a while before ZB and Blitz usually tire and return to barracks, leaving B-1 alone with his frantically racing spark and a helm full of rigid terror that doesn’t go away unless he works himself to steaming internals.
Honestly, it’s a bit of a miracle that it’s taken this long to hit him.
They could die. They enlisted because of him, and they could die.
And, just like the last time, he won’t be able to do a single thing about it.
***
Optimus,
It’s pretty late as I’m writing this, I won’t be allowed to send it for a few solar cycles, but i need something to do. Lights out was three groons ago. I wish I could go outside and look at the stars. Are the skies clear in Iacon?
Do you have restless nights too? I took my berth suite for granted.
Things are still good. Here I mean. Great, even.
Hopefully this finds you at a good time. If there is such a thing.
I’m gonna try to recharge now. Jazz says you’ve been running around all over Cybertron. Try to get some rest of your own, okay?
Ok,
Okay.
B-127.
***
“B, I’m tired, I skipped mess this morning,” ZB whines, stepping off the training threshold to stretch.
His insides thrum, willing her to see his side. “You’re just holding back on that last maneuver, I’m telling you, you could perfect it.”
Her patience has grown since they first met, and she only huffs. “It’s good enough, B. I’m a certified markslady, it isn’t the end of the world if I can’t execute a flawless saunter hook.”
“But—”
“—B,” she voices, louder now.
He freezes, pulling himself a little further in and straightening, his finials falling. Blitz left a little while ago, miffed at B-127 for something he can’t even remember saying. ZB is quicker to anger than Blitz, he wonders why she hasn’t stormed out, too.
Exventing, he shifts his weight, pede-to-pede, feeling the creak of overworked pistons and struts that need tightening. The pain is a comforting throb.
“We’re doing fine,” she finally offers, not quite smiling but not baring her denta either. Her field extends to him, softer than he is used to feeling. Concern ebbs from it in little, controlled pulses, he can tell she is trying to hide. “Everything is fine, B.”
They aren’t exactly near each other, a good few yards as he monitors their scores. The distance yawns like she is miles away. “Right.” He flounders, his chest plates tight with painful tension. “I just want to make sure.”
Her smile is a warm one, so unlike her callous and sharp smirks she enjoys throwing around. “A building isn’t going to fall on me.”
“It might.”
She shrugs. “I can’t control that.”
“No, but you can control you.”
Her vocoder clicks a few times. “Not always, and even if I could, my bad-affery can only take me so far.”
That twists something inside him, and his fists clench, wishing she’d just try, try and understand. He just wants someone to understand. “Being able to control every variable is crucial,” he argues, weaker now.
ZB-12 feigns a shiver. “Primus, don’t talk like that, it’s creepy.” She laughs softly. “… And stupid. No one has that kind of power, dude. Not even Megatron, and he’s been tryin’ for eons.”
His helm lowers further, shame filtering through the fog. He feels exposed. “I’m sorry.” For what, he isn’t sure. Everything, for giving her and Blitz the idea to be here in the first place.
And in an instant, she’s before him, sending him jolting slightly as his processor catches up to his visual feed. Her smile is gone, now. “I’m god-awful at racing.”
He can only shutter his optics a few times, bewildered by her reply and even more so by how easily she admits it. ZB hates admitting when she is bad at something. At least, she used to. This place, it's changed her. Evened her out in ways no one ever expected.
“Not terrible, just a little bow-wheeled.”
Snickering, she roughly ribs his side, scoffing. “Frag you, I was just joining you in saying stupid slag.” She puts on an appropriately dramatic frown. “You were supposed to compliment me.”
“Oh, and you were gonna compliment me back?”
“Frag no, god knows you’ve got enough groupies already,” she spits, laughing slightly as she speaks. Her vocoder’s pitch hikes up and she swoons a little. “Oh, B-127, please show me that move again. Oh, B-127, I need help with this assignment, oh B—”
Hastily placing a servo over her intake, she stops. “Okay, you can, ah, not do that anymore.” His face burns with embarrassment, and he isn’t even sure why. Regardless, he manages to pull himself above the surface of his mania to find a chuckle. It dies too soon, but it helps him find his bravery. “I just need to know you’ll be safe.”
“You can’t promise that, B,” ZB admonishes, shaking her helm, bringing her servo up to tap his cheek. It’s not a slap, but it carries enough force to keep his attention. “Now, get it together, soldier, we aren’t kids anymore, we sacrificed that title the nano-klik we enlisted.”
She is right, though he wants to disagree. His spark races, burning the walls of its chamber, but he is unwilling to argue with her now. A shy, tired smile stretches across his dermas, tense and hurting. “You know best, of course,” he gently replies, feeling small now.
ZB remains silent for a time, watching him. He can’t meet her gaze, scared to see what mirrors he’ll find there. His neck is hot with embarrassment, but he tries to follow her order and pull himself together. He succeeds, marginally.
Her palm grazes along his arm, lighting up his sensor nodes with minute data, which makes him shiver as the embers of it dance under his plating. A bit braver now, he looks, finding her optics staring pensively into his. The sadness he finds there rocks him back to himself, and he invents harshly. Gone is the rigid toughness ZB always projects, leaving a more vulnerable version of his friend, and the openness weakens him in ways he didn’t know possible.
“It would be good for you to get some rest, I think.”
The way it is said is impossibly gentle, nearly imperceptible to the buzzing ambiance of the training hall. Something from so long ago whines and tears away from its calloused coffin, and B-1 releases a shuddering vent that rocks him helm to pede. It’s quiet in the training hall, now. Without the constant clang of metal and huffing fans, B-1 now feels a foreign silence settle, and all the more displaced.
Never one to idle, ZB-12 steps off only a moment later, steps light as if afraid to break the trance she has so thoroughly entrapped him in.
She is nothing like Lycan, not in any way, shape, or form.
But Primus, as she edges towards the exit, he swears she is speaking through her.
“Shoulders are good for leaning, B. For holding your weight, and whatever else that drags along with you.”
They bid each other goodnight with distracted nods and shuffled pedes. The loss of her wavelength is like a ripped strut, he is reminded of his every feature, of the subtle warble in his field that will never quite go away. And while the room is now empty, the press of his ghosts feels more suffocating than it has in so, so long.
***
Catching Blitz on his way to class, B-1 loses track of all of his words, his infodex emptying itself at the sight of him. They haven’t spoken in a few solar cycles, and B-1 is feeling the loss.
He has never had to miss someone right in front of him. The reality of someone’s absence has always been assured and clear. Now, he is befuddled and raw. Unsure of what to say to make it right, of what to do.
Blue Breeze would want him to be honest, so he is.
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh, here we go. What now?”
…
“For-for being, I dunno…”
“A paranoid nutjob?”
“Harsh, but yes.”
…
Blitz shuffles his data pad between his servos. Their classmates pass them by, unaffected by the quiet display.
“Yeah, well.”
“I know you wish I were different.”
“Primus B, no, I don’t. You’re my best fraggin’ friend. Other people might want you different, but not me.”
“You just want me to lay off.”
“I want you to relax. I want you to have fun with me without looking over your shoulder. And Primus, could you get some slagging sleep?”
…
“… You care about what happens to us, what happens to people. It’s a good thing, B, but Pits a’ Kaon, I swear I ain’t heard you laugh since I got hurt.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that.”
There was once a time when Lariat would demand apologies. Over, and over, and over. Groons would pass with B-127 on the ground, shivering through the pain, begging forgiveness. Mercy.
But that’s not what is wanted here.
“Okay.”
…
It’s not what is wanted.
“Just promise me something?”
“I’m slag at keeping them, but get on with it.”
“Don’t die.”
“Why don’t you ask me to kill Megatron with a song and dance? While we’re making impossible promises.”
…
“I’ll try, but only if you do the same.”
There’s an edge to his tone, vocoder crackling just under the surface of his fun-loving, slightly jagged field. It tells of past hurt, and B-1’s resolve weakens like a rusted joint.
He makes a concession.
“How about we just die at the same time?”
“Primus, what a nightmare… I’ll race you to the Allspark.”
“Oh, please, we both know I’d smoke you. Primus made me that way.”
“I’ll push you off this tower right now, I’m not kidding.”
“Try it, desperado.”
…
“Hey, B?”
…
“… Yes?”
…
“What’s the B stand for?”
***
The second term flows by rather uneventfully, which B-1 finds dreadfully suspicious. Communications with the outside world are slowly limited even further, and by closing assignments, B-1 is only allowed to send out messages once an orbital cycle. Elita has snuck in a call once or twice, each time sounding more and more ragged despite her attempts to mask it. She is less than forthcoming, and he doesn’t anticipate hearing from her soon.
They won’t be allowed to leave once the term break commences, again, and B-1 is going a bit stir-crazy.
His solitary life before the Autobots was lonely and full of strife he tries not to think about, but it was never boring. During the repetitive lessons and duties assigned to him and his team, B-1 sometimes wonders if boredom is worse. Rationally, he knows it is not, but Primus, he does have to think about it. Each term is six orbital cycles, and so at this point, it’s been nearly twelve continuous cycles of training, the academy, and all the slag that comes with it.
That frantic, almost incessant static thrumming around his spark has yet to abate, and it’s all he can do to exhaust himself through training to calm it. The fatigue keeps him from clawing at his plating and pulling at his internals, so he sees it as a win.
Sessions with Blitz and ZB slow, once the guilt catches up and he realizes how far he has pushed them. Their improvement is stark, but so is their annoyance, and after a few spark-to-sparks, he promises to let up. The training courses are a lot easier, less tense, and B-1 can admit they are a lot more fun without his harsh ministrations.
In return, he goes to every party Blitz wants him to and participates in whatever game night he is required to. It would be a lie to say he doesn’t enjoy himself; he does, even if he attends mostly for his friend’s benefit. He can relax, he can have fun.
If the high grade, dancing, and whatever else help to dull the buzzing, that’s good too.
***
By third term, B-1 and a small selection of cadets are permitted to select specialty classes for advanced training, set apart by their performance and merit. Corvus, Novaris, and Flor Del are among them, and the rest B-1 knows only in acquaintance. It feels a bit conceited to say it, but it can’t be denied, everyone here is the best of the best, and the academy knows it.
B-1 puzzles over what to specialize in, his hunger for knowledge making it a rather difficult decision. Blitz begs him to go into ballistics or something flamboyant like that, and ZB tells him to go into sharpshooting. He appreciates their input, even though neither of those categories holds any particular interest. B-127 has flair, but he’s not a Wrecker, and while his aim is very good, he doesn’t really want to stay far from the action as a sniper.
The image does remind him of Moonracer, and he warms at the thought, wondering if she’s gotten her transfer by now.
Overall, the scales are rather even for him. He takes some time to weigh his options, flummoxed by the sheer number of possibilities.
Honestly, it shouldn’t have been such a puzzle, considering his natural attributes.
His servos twiddle a few times over the surface of his data pad, and he smiles as he locks in his enrollments, excitement pulsing through him quickly enough to make him dizzy.
Advanced Closed Quarters Combat, Espionage, and the Art of the Scout.
***
Jazz,
You’ll never guess what I did.
***
“You look tired,” Dr. Gaurza announces during a routine checkup.
He smiles, wide and a bit crooked. “Someone’s gotta burn the midnight oil, ma’am.”
Gaurza scoffs, shuffling through her medical cart with keen precision. The clicking of her joints mingles with the buzz of the overhead lights. “You look like you’ve been burning more than oil.”
His helm tilts, antennae raised, door wings aflutter. “But I’m still pretty, right? You wouldn’t be so nice to me if I weren’t pretty.” With a little wink, he stretches his derma wider, avid to direct her knowing spark to safer pastures.
She snickers, rolling her optics and strapping something mushy and cold to his elbow. It’s been hurting a bit lately, and the cold compress is like magic, seeping through his plating all the way down to his pistons and easing the dull ache into a benign hum. “You’ve grown into your cheek, cadet,” she mutters, optics sharply on him.
The lines driven into his faceplate are taut and stiff. “Only to please, ma’am, only to please.”
“Somehow, I highly doubt that, cadet. I highly doubt that.”
***
Never in his life did B-1 ever think his time as a decrepit, starving little thief would come in handy. He doesn’t look back on those memories fondly, and he doubts he ever will, but the silver lining shines through in the form of just how much he excels in his covert training.
The rank of Scout has multiple different layers, Scout I, Corporal Scout II, and Scout III, with Scout I being the lowest, in rank and typical mission difficulty. Most bots with the first rank tend to use their place as an easy way to graduate up to Warrior or some other specialized rank.
Upon starting his classes, B-127 realizes he will not be a part of that group.
Because he is good at this, really, really good at this.
And it’s fun, so fun it should probably be concerning.
Thieving was never something he took joy from, serving only as a means to an end. A way to secure his survival of another cycle. His tanks had tumbled with guilt over the ease of it all, the detached and cold way he did things. He often wonders if it had been necessary, and if he could have done anything differently, if he should have.
He’ll never know, and he resigns himself to the scars of regret.
In a way, he fears the numbness, not wanting it to take hold once more, even if it is what gave him the strength to keep himself afloat in the first place. He doesn’t want to be cold; he’s experienced that, and he doesn’t want to consider forcing another person to frost because of him.
But, if it meant the success of the Autobots, he would, and that scares him too. His loyalty is frightening, and he knows that if he came face to face with the little sparkling that abandoned his friends to preserve his inner self, he would be appalled.
And as he continues to grow in the art of surveillance and deception, B-1 wars over whether it’s a sacrifice worth making.
Not for the first time, he prays for the council of his ghosts. It’s such a curse to miss them as he does, but that’s another thing, isn’t it?
Another mistake he must be marred by. To think, and think, and think.
A drive.
He will go for a drive.
***
Ratchet,
I twisted something in my leg. Dr. Gaurza says I knocked something loose. Clumsy, right? I should know better. You’d probably have a lot more to say about it. sorry.
I really am. You put in so much work on me. for me.
School is going well, I feel like an idiot for this accident. I tripped over myself, which hasn’t happened in ages. Some Autobot, huh?
You didn’t reply to my last message, and I don’t really expect you to. There are more important things. It kills me that they won’t tell us anything here. I’m stuck on this berth until tomorrow. I could die.
I hate sitting still. you know that.
Things are good. I’m well, besides the leg, I guess.
Well. I won’t bug you anymore. Optimus says you all will be at graduation next term? True or no?
Stay safe, please.
B-127.
***
By their fourth, and final term, B-1 is offered a tutoring position for extra credit. Not that he necessarily needs it, but he accepts the position eagerly, hungry to be of some help to some of the newer cadets that might need it.
He’s softer on them than he is with ZB and Blitz. These new kids get enough grief from the instructors and other cadets, and B-1 isn’t much for hazing beyond some light ribbing. He knows what it’s like to have every little thing about you picked apart.
ZB is serving as a cadet liaison for her extra credit, though in contrast to him, she definitely does enjoy the degradation of her newer comrades. She’s a bit vicious, but in the same way as she made friends when they first arrived, she is well-liked amongst the first termers.
There isn’t much time to sneak off and party lately, his advanced courses keeping him thoroughly engaged just about every groon of the cycle. It’s a good thing Blitz has taken on more responsibilities in the gymnasium, because that gives him no time to be annoyed with B-1 and his lack of ‘fun-having,’ as he likes to put it.
B-127 doesn’t fault him for the frustration, he knows he’s just trying to savor it while they have the chance. Hell, that’s why the instructors usually look the other way about the sneaking out, the drinking, and general irresponsibility.
Because once they graduate, there will be no time for such exertions. Their life will be the war, living or dying, that is the way of things. B-1 can live with that, he never planned for anything different, but he can understand why Blitz would be strung out, and eager to hold on to whatever good memories he can.
It’s all a distraction, a misdirect, as Jazz or his Covert Ops instructor would say.
He and his team are tight-knit, now. Maybe not necessarily friends, but they trust each other. Novaris has shaped up a lot since B-1’s first term, and it shows in the way he treats each member of the team with consideration and respect. No cadet of Iacon Academy leaves the same as they arrived, if they possess the courage and might to see the program through, and B-1 sees it in this group that once treated him with such contempt.
Though their bond with each other is mostly transactional, performative, B-1 won’t lie and say he hasn’t grown a fondness for them. Sirenae is still a Prima donna, but she’s got a good spark underneath her vanity. Razorsync and Conveerto are incredible in their chosen specialties, and B-1 has no doubts that they will thrive in whatever base they are deployed. Bisca-424 transferred over to medical studies sometime in the third term. The shift had been sudden and a bit jarring with the way the team flowed, but thinking about it, B-1 can’t help but decide it’s for the best.
They still converse from time to time, since medical students have to shadow on a lot of combat assignments, but he can tell she feels far more comfortable. Raincatcher remains the stoic character he always has been, but B-1 has managed to get a few chuckles out of him in the past, and they’ve both gone into covert ops in some capacity, so he considers him a friend. Whether the feeling is reciprocated, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t expect it.
Graduation is coming up soon, and B-127 hasn’t slept well in orbital cycles. It’s not exactly his default to recharge through the night, but a wicked chill has settled inside him like a frozen acid lake, and he isn’t sure why. School isn’t something he struggles with anymore, and he isn’t wanting for friends; he’s made plenty of fond acquaintances over his school career.
Regardless, the impending culmination of all his hard work has him in knots, doubling over after class, struggling not to purge. His servos are flighty, jittering around his chassis as if they might fly away, were they detached from his wrists. The stars have left him wanting lately, shadowed by heavy cumulonimbus clouds, thunderheads roiling with unspoken promise.
Soon enough, his four-ringed sigil will be replaced with a full-fledged insignia, branded into his metal, a crest as much a part of him as anything else. Blue Breeze used to squeal about moments like this. About the glory and honor of it.
Are you proud, Blue? Are you pleased?
As B-1 rounds the perimeter of the school for the fifth time tonight, the sky crackles with chromatic light, a few drops of acid spitting from the heavens and onto his dusty plating. All of the fourth-termers have been given solvent shower tokens and extra fuel rations. They are expected to look and act their best for their graduation ceremony.
Looking back, B-1 isn’t sure it’s possible for him to ever truly be clean. A dark hole of insidious pain lives inside him, and all he’s learned how to do is hide it. Newdawn would quote a melancholy sonnet, with handsome language and sagacious morality.
He hasn’t been able to read much for himself. The library is for education and edification; such pretty words don’t find themselves on the shelves of this school.
“There’s no place for frilly fantasy in this world, kid,” Lariat would say, gripping the back of his helm in some poor mockery of affection. Sometimes, B-1 could almost convince himself he cared. The new dents would set him straight soon enough.
A distinct shape flickers between the clouds, and B-127 freezes, tilting his helm and allowing his optics to spiral to near-perfect focus. Only a turbo-hawk, miles and miles above them. Relaxing his mandible, B-1’s vents rumble quietly, a small spew of steam rushing through the grates as his HUD pings an unhelpful report regarding his mildly overheated bio-mechanisms.
He’s come to appreciate the paranoia that afflicts him. Blitz would call it a nuisance, has labeled it as such, but B-1 knows better. He isn’t like the others; he’s a scout, a spy, a shadow. At least, he will be. Hyper-vigilance is essential, and B-1 has a head start on looking over his shoulder.
ZB and Blitz will never understand that, and he’s made his peace with that. He can’t protect them from the realities of this world, and maybe it’s selfish to think he ever could. Their pain shaped them as much as his has, and he feels nauseated by his attempt to snuff that fact out. Lariat tried to shape him, too, and he was beaten into the ground for trying to remain his own being.
Can a good soldier come from such a dark place? Can he make the moral decision when his entire life he has been taught through blood and tears not to? Maybe not. Maybe that is why he chose this path, comfortable in the veil of secrecy and slight of servo. Is he weak for not choosing another path?
Ironhide, while deeply close with Jazz, has always been vocal about how he feels about Jazz’s branch of command. “It’s dishonorable,” he once slurred after one too many cubes of Energon wine. Back then, it had seemed like a friendly debate. Jazz would rag on Ironhide’s unit, and he would return fire, any damage done healed and forgotten the next morning. Now, he’s not so sure.
He exchanges a nod with his perimeter partner, wondering if his smile reaches his optics. Do the stars still shine from behind the clouds?
***
…
…
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