[Bay] War Without End - Thundercracker - Pt I

[dracoqueen22]

Title: War Without End – Thundercracker
Universe: Bayverse, post-DotM, canon-compliant
Characters: Thundercracker, Skywarp, Ratchet, Drift, Wheeljack, Dreadwing, Tracks, Prowl
Rating: T
Warnings: mentions of character death, angst, some language, canon typical violence,
Desc: Thundercracker is tired of merely surviving. He wants to live.

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Thundercracker - Part One
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They are not a military unit. Nor civilian cohort. Rather, they’re something in between. A vague approximation that isn’t entirely one thing and not something else either. A group. A cohesive element. Bots facing the same general direction with circumstance binding them together and enemies all around.

Regardless of all this, a hierarchy has established itself.

No one is more surprised than Thundercracker when he becomes their unofficial leader. It’s a job that Ratchet doesn't want, seems to abhor truth be told. He says he's a medic; that his job is to fix mechs, not lead them.

It's a position no one wants Skywarp to have. The intelligence is there. But the maturity sometimes lacks, and Skywarp can be frustratingly short-sighted.

Drift, by his own admission, prefers to follow. Thundercracker suspects that the former Decepticon simply doesn't trust himself to make the right decisions.

Frag. Everyone makes mistakes. No one does the right thing all the time. Take a look at their precious Prime. Not so high and mighty now, is he?

Whatever.

So Thundercracker finds himself the one with all the answers. He makes the plans. He decides, taking leadership when they’re all floundering in the first few weeks after rescuing the hatchlings, retreating to their pathetic new home with Ratchet and Drift in tow, and at a loss for what to do next.

Ratchet spends days moping. Oh, he doesn't brood like normal mechs, but his usual irascible temper worsens to a downright hostility. He's taken up a habit of throwing things, usually at the wall, sometimes at the helm of whoever's irritated him the most. Which is typically Skywarp.

Amusingly, Drift seems to be the only one immune to said target practice. A fact Thundercracker has not failed to notice.

Ratchet also seems to make it a personal mission that every rescued hatchling will live. He's like one of Earth's mammalian matriarchs, devoting every non-recharge klik to feeding them solar-generated energon droplet by precious droplet.

Trying to force the medic into recharge is an exercise in futility, Thundercracker learns. He usually sends in Drift, and he doesn't know how the grounder does it. But somehow, Drift manages to patiently withstand the torrent of vitriol, and minutes later, Ratchet's shuffling off to his makeshift berth like a good nanny-bot.

Then, there’s Skywarp. Thundercracker has learned over many millennia that a bored Skywarp is someone he'd much prefer to shoot. So he makes sure to give his trinemate plenty to do.

Skywarp's first task, completed even before Ratchet had joined them, had been to construct generators as both a shield and a cloak. Now, their energy signals are effectively concealed from the humans and their random planetary sweeps for Cybertronian signals. Cobbled together from spare parts, a hefty amount of luck, and a few prayers, two generators rattle and clunk their way through every orbital cycle. To further ensure their safety, Thundercracker has put them all on war-time rations, not that anyone is complaining. To be honest, they are so used to limited energon and rations that anything more would be detrimental to their systems and downright decadent.

Thundercracker continues to give Skywarp little tasks to keep the mech's processor busy. Constructing more solar converters. Building berths. A single stasis pod. Some of the equipment Ratchet might need and hasn't had time to build for himself. Skywarp's also constructed their security net, the entire perimeter of alarms enclosing their makeshift base, and he was the one who hacked into the human's satellite systems so that they'd always know when a voyeur might be overhead.

Drift, as the most inconspicuous of the lot, is the one Thundercracker sends out on patrol. He often cautions the former Decepticon to be circumspect, but such warning isn't really needed. Drift quietly goes about his duties, doesn't protest once, and spends all of his free time helping Ratchet with the hatchlings. Not, Thundercracker suspects, because he's that worried over their survival. More because he's grown attached to the medic tending them.

It would be cute if Thundercracker dared think of anything in such terms.

All told, Drift is the quietest of their lot, and the easiest to manage overall. He does what he’s asked every time with deliberation and diligence no matter the task. He never complains (Ratchet) or cackles (Skywarp) or contemplates how in the Pit they ended up here (Thundercracker himself).

And while their little military unit cum cohort continues to keep itself hidden, Thundercracker busies himself with making plans. What are they going to do from here? What if the Autobots and Prime or the humans find them? What kind of future do they have?

Getting off this planet is priority one, obviously. However, they need materials and supplies. They have no destination, so they have to be prepared for a long journey. They have the hatchlings to consider as well.

He spends a lot of time monitoring human transmissions, looking for signs that they’ve detected Thundercracker and his motley assortment of… well, he supposes the best term would be Neutrals. But there's no sign that Prime is even searching. As though he's turned his back on Ratchet as much as the medic has torn himself away from his Autobot brethren.

Never a fan of the Prime, Thundercracker still finds this disturbing. It’s always seemed a universal constant. Autobots are weak, soft-sparked, willing to concede.

Yet, it seems Optimus has more of his brother in him than any of them could’ve ever guessed. He's more ruthless now, unwilling to compromise. There are less grey areas and only black and white, us versus them. He’s colder. As if some part of Megatron lingers in his very spark and whispers venom in his audials.

Or maybe their Prime has always been this way. Has always had this dwelling inside but had better reason to keep it in check.

Either way, Thundercracker holds no illusions. Prime will wipe them out given the chance. He will not offer an option to surrender.

He'll offline Thundercracker and Skywarp on the spot. Nuke the hatchlings just because of their origins. And then he'll take Ratchet and Drift into custody for a parody of justice that’d result in their execution.

This is it. This is their only option. Band together and live. Or separate and die horribly.

And protecting them all has fallen onto Thundercracker's shoulders. It's a heavy burden. No wonder no one else wants the job.

He vents air and rubs a hand down his faceplate. The faint feel of gust and grim coats the metal surface, but given the circumstances and seeing as he’s had much worse, Thundercracker barely even notices.

Starscream though would have a fit if he were here.

“Why so glum, chum?”

Thundercracker twitches. “Shouldn't you be in recharge?” he asks without looking up from the console they've scraped together. It’s little more than a mutant lovechild of human tech and Cybertronian debris that’s held together by pleasant thoughts and well-timed kicks.

“I was. Not anymore.” A weight settles on his back, Skywarp's pointed chin digging between two plates and compressing a hydraulic line. “Got bored.”

How the frag does one get bored during recharge? Thundercracker will never understand his trinemate. The mech makes no sense at the best of times.

“I fail to see where that's my problem.” Thundercracker flares his armor, trying to encourage the mech to get off. “Go find something to do. Bother Ratchet.”

“Did that already, too.” Skywarp laughs, his energy field teasing and tickling. “He threw a scanner at me.”

Thundercracker resists the urge to vent again. “Did it break?”

“Not this time.”

“Thank Primus.”

He taps the console, bringing up another screen, this one a schematic for a potential escape shuttle. It's not Thundercracker's own design, but one he happened to have archived deep in his memory banks. Not even he's quite sure why. But it's more than adequate to suit their needs.

The only problem is obtaining the materials to build it, and where are they going to hide everything while construction is ongoing. Yes, they are isolated out here, but any human contraption passing by overhead could easily detect a shuttle of this size.

“TC,” Skywarp whines, pressing down on him with all the weight available in his frame. “Entertain me.”

He rolls his shoulders again, barely dislodging his annoying parasite. “No. Get off.”

One hand curls around his chassis. Skywarp's long fingers toy with a transformation seam.

“I could get you off.”

Of all of them, Skywarp seems to have embraced human vernacular the most. He takes a perverse sort of pleasure in spouting human phrases purely to confuse their fellows, even Ratchet who has arguably been here the longest.

Thundercracker jabs an elbow backward. He aims for a sensor nexus that's particularly sensitive.

“When have I ever been interested?” he retorts as Skywarp retracts himself with a pained grunt.

“Spoilsport,” the other mech grumbles, a screech of metal on metal filling the room as he absently rubs at his plating. “Seriously, TC. I'm dying of boredom here.”

“Go assist Drift,” Thundercracker orders, trying and failing to concentrate on the schematics. Skywarp's voice is like a burn in his processor.

Skywarp rolls his optics, visible in the reflection of the monitor. “No way. He's currently doing what he does best. Calming the raging Hatchet.”

“Still oblivious?” Thundercracker's mouth twitches of its own accord.

“Terribly.” Skywarp makes a clucking sound with his glossa. “Were we ever that dumb?”

“You?” he scoffs. “Quite often.”

A hand whips across the back of Thundercracker's helm, but the motion is halfhearted and barely stings. Thundercracker doesn't bother so much as glare. For Skywarp, that’s a love tap but still harder than Starscream usually managed. Not to mention, that as annoying as Skywarp is, he’ll never compare to Stars whenever his plates were all twisted up about Megatron. Or any of the Decepticon command staff for that matter.

“Why are you so mean?” Warp practically whines like a human child.

Thundercracker does even look at him. “Why are you so bothersome?”

Skywarp huffs out. “I can't talk to you when you're in a mood like this.” He whirls on a pede, stalking out of Thundercracker's tiny space with wings arched in a good old-fashioned sulk.

He must have learned that from Starscream, too. Nobody could sulk like Stars. Or subsequently plot revenge. Thundercracker should really do something to head that off at the pass. He does have to recharge eventually, and that’s when Warp is guaranteed to strike.

He taps a single key. The console spits out a tiny data disk.

“Skywarp.”

“What?”

It’s very nearly a snarl.

He swings around on his makeshift chair, holding up the disk between two claws. “Your next task,” Thundercracker replies, waggling the slim metal so that it catches the light. “That is, if you think you're up to it.”

Skywarp rises to the bait perfectly, just like Thundercracker knew he would. Warp stomps back into the room and snatches the disk from his talons.

“What is it?”

Thundercracker doesn’t smirk. It’s a near thing.

“A transwarp generator.”

“What?!”

That, right there, is kindly termed a screech.

Thundercracker winces, feedback echoing through his audials. He gives his trinemate an utterly patient look. Though over the millennia, he's surprised he has any left.

“We can't leave Earth without it.”

The disk disappears into subspace but only because Skywarp has thrown his hands into the air, field whipping around with incredulous shock.

“Just where am I supposed to get the materials to build it?” Warp demands, optics flashing. “At the very least, I'm going to need several tons of duryllium.”

“Get me a list of what you need, and I'll see what I can do.” Thundercracker swivels back around to his console, tapping a few keys to approach the schematics from another angle. “If you can't start on the generator, there are other components that need constructing.”

Skywarp grinds several gears to express his utter disgruntlement. “You really know how to ruin my day.”

That tone comes from Stars, too. Sometimes, he and Warp were far too similar for Thundercracker’s comfort. Though truth be told, Skywarp reminds him more of how Starscream used to be. Long ago when he still believed in the Decepticons and thought Megatron might actually make Cybertron better.

How naïve he’d been. How foolish they’d all been. Autobots and Decepticons alike. Optimus and Megatron were brothers after all. They were exactly the same. Rotten to the core.

Thundercracker continues to tap on his console. He ignores both his memories and Skywarp, too.

“I make it a point to do so,” he finally says, and really, it’s a bit too smug.

With that, Skywarp storms out of the room again. Thundercracker doesn’t look as he’s no doubt flashed a very human, very vulgar salute. At least, this will keep him occupied for the next week or so, and Thundercracker can get some of his own work completed. Also, Ratchet will be glad for the quiet. And a pleased Ratchet is a manageable Ratchet.

And that makes them all happier.

Refreshing his concentration, Thundercracker returns to the schematics and flickers his optics. It's going to take months, years even, for them to build this fragging thing. Of the four of them, only Skywarp has any real engineering experience. Ratchet knows how to work parts for Cybertronians themselves, not their machines. It’s hard to say what Drift actually knows but certainly nothing like this.

How are they supposed to do this again?

Thundercracker has considered modifying one of the humans' space shuttles. That would certainly save them on construction time. But how to go about such a thing without the humans a) noticing or b) tracking them down?

Or even c) killing them all?

Pit! Slag! Pitslag!

Is it too late to make Drift their leader?

--Thundercracker.--

His engine rumbles. Thundercracker slams his elbow onto the console top and props his chin upon his palm.

--Yes, Ratchet?--

--Have you refueled today?--

There’s a distinctly tetchy note to the medic's comm. He really is in a foul mood. Either Skywarp has annoyed him to this point so early in the day, or there's a deeper reason. Thundercracker suspects it’s the latter. What has stirred the sleeping dragon this time?

--Yes, I have.--

--Recently?--

There’s a nagging note to his comm that only proves the sheer protective nature the medic has suddenly adopted. Thundercracker slumps on his crate, rubbing his faceplate tiredly. He's never going to get this work done.

--Adequately.--

It’s less a reply and more a retort.

--I'll decide what's adequate!--The response is swift and sharp. --Drift's on his way. Drink every last drop, you ungrateful slagger.--

Thundercracker buzzes with the static of a dropped line. So much for being the leader. He's still getting pushed around by the medic, but then again, that does seem to be a universal constant.

Hook hadn't been one for idle chatter either.

Fingers rap over the open doorway to Thundercracker's tiny cubicle. Drift at least announces himself as opposed to Skywarp's pouncing method.

“Special delivery,” the grounder says dryly and with a twinge of humor that’s certainly new in the last several weeks. Definitely since he and Ratchet left the humans and their Autobot pets.

Thundercracker sticks an arm behind him and waggles his fingers pointedly. “I'm resigned. Give it here.”

“For someone who doesn't want to lead, you certainly give orders well enough,” Drift observes, but the weight of an energon cube settles on Thundercracker's fingers.

Drift is very good at obeying at least. Unlike everyone else.

Thundercracker pulls the cube into view, frowning at the violet hue. Is it a special blend of mid-grade? Or is this a side-effect of the slapdash technology they’re using to manufacture the energon? Every orn it's a different shade or texture. Is Ratchet experimenting, or does he have Skywarp to blame for this?

“It's got a kick,” Drift offers with a hint of wickedness to his tone. “Kind of tastes like magnesium slime, but it energizes well enough.”

Fantastic.

Cutting off his chemoreceptors, Thundercracker quickly downs the whole cube. He still shudders as the thick energon sludges down his intake. He should have cut off his olfactory sensors, too.

Sigma, the smell!

“Could be worse,” Drift comments. He watches as Thundercracker crumples the cube in his fist. “Could be mil-rats.”

Thundercracker gives the former defector an askance look. “Tell me Ratchet's not giving this sludge to the hatchlings.”

“He'd be offended you think so little of his medical knowledge.” But Drift merely offers him a placid look in the medic’s stead.

Thundercracker flicks a wing back at him. “He'll get over it.” He presses a knuckle to his lipplate. “How are they?”

“You should see for yourself.” Drift's shoulders lift and fall, jarring the pommel of the sword visible to the left of his helm. “I'm a soldier, not a medic.”

Impertinent little...

Argh. Megatron would have backhanded Drift across the room for that kind of nonchalance. Not that Megatron is the sort of leader Thundercracker intends to emulate. Not Prime either. One stabbed everyone from the front. The other let them fall into rust to waste away.

Both have managed to nearly kill all of them.

He glances back at the work he's not getting done and rises to his pedes. He taps the console, saves his progress, and shuts down the file.

“Has he recharged?”

Drift looks away, which is pretty much all the answer Thundercracker needs. He clamps down on his wings before they flutter, betraying his agitation and rubs the plates of his face. His free hand waves through the air.

“Just... go make sure Skywarp doesn't blow anything up.”

“An exercise in futility if I ever heard one,” Drift mutters, but he turns to do as Thundercracker asks. He doesn't salute, but then, Thundercracker never demands one. As far as he's aware, it's never been an Autobot habit either.

Drift leaves, vanishing into the shadows for all that he's mostly white with a few bits of silver and black. Purity to balance out the darkness in his spark.

Thundercracker shudders. He remembers Deadlock, and the difference between that particular Decepticon and Drift is startling. It's hard to look at Drift and believe that his spark is the same one. Deadlock was everything Megatron wanted in a soldier. Quiet. Efficient. Deadly. Cold. Calculating. Merciless.

Drift is quiet. Efficient, too. But there is warmth despite the silence. Genuine concern for their group. For their medic in particular. He’s already risked what little clemency and goodwill the Autobots had for him on the word of Ratchet alone. He, more than any of them, truly understands what’s now at stake. But he’d helped Ratchet and subsequently followed them home anyway.

Drift is nothing like Deadlock.

That worries him more than anything.

What kind of torture, Thundercracker wonders? What kind of reprogramming could change a mech so drastically? What could have possibly happened to make him so very different?

But that’s a pondering for another time.

Thundercracker shuffles out of his makeshift office, having to turn to the side to accommodate the spread of his wings. He steps into a broader space, which is a full two-thirds of a barn they partially use for their home.

Lennox's farm is quite large by human standards; cramped and barely suitable by Cybertronian needs. Once upon a time, it might have thrived. There is land as far as the optic can see, fields upon fields of swaying grasses and rangeland. There are three intact barns and a farmhouse, easily two stories not including a basement.

They’ve turned one barn into living quarters of a sort. Warp has claimed another as a lab-cum-engineering space. The third doubles as energon manufactory and makeshift medbay. There’s plenty of room in the Seekers' barn. Ratchet and the hatchlings spend their days in the medbay, so of course that was where Drift can be found, too.

The house, for the most part, has been gutted of all usable materials. Many of the unnecessary walls are removed, leaving a hollowed out space in the middle that is now simply storage. From the outside, no one can even tell that four massive, sapient machines currently lived on the property.

How long their presence will remain a mystery, however, is a worry that haunts Thundercracker constantly. It’s clear that they cannot live on Earth forever. Their supplies will ultimately run dry. Prime’s madness will seek them out. Some human youngling could stumble upon them. Any piece of bad luck could be their downfall.

Where to go from here?

This is a question that plagues him nearly every night. There is also the matter of how.

Why in the Pit is he the fragging leader again?

Stooping, Thundercracker eases himself into the medbarn and manufactory. He straightens once inside, heading away from the widened entrance area and through a half-door. The sounds of bubbling liquids and a mech’s mutters float to his audials immediately.

They've had to get creative when it came to the hatchlings. They don’t have the supplies, the knowledge, nor the means to build actual tanks for the young ones. So they’d acquired an assorted collection of human bath tubs, metal tins, and anything water-tight and bowl-shaped large enough to bear a hatchling.

Three rows of these assorted tubs line one of the walls, each row containing four bins, each bin home to a hatchling. The tubs themselves are filled to the brim with energon – a brighter, fresher color than the sludge Thundercracker earlier consumed. He knows that Ratchet spends a lot of time calibrating and concocting nutrients to add to the alimentary baths. It's a crude and primitive set up compared to the colonies they once had on Cybertron, and Thundercracker's spark constricts at the sight.

This is what the war has brought them. They have only themselves to blame. Themselves and Prime and Megatron.

“If you've come to complain about your energon, you can save it,” Ratchet says without so much as turning around. He’s bent over a table, examining one of the hatchlings. From here, Thundercracker can't tell which.

He steps carefully into Ratchet's domain, choosing to hover near the tanks as they will provide him a measure of protection. Ratchet won't dare throw anything if he's in their vicinity, soft-sparked bot that he is at his core.

“I know that you’re doing the best you can,” Thundercracker replies carefully. He's particularly talented at this given how volatile Starscream was.

He keeps that observation to himself though. He doubts any comparison between Ratchet and Stars would put him on the medic's good side. Not that Ratchet really has one. Starscream didn’t either come to think of it.

The grounder huffs, half-turning to give Thundercracker a suspicious glance. “What do you want?”

“You assume I want something.”

Only a bit unnerved, Thundercracker turns his gaze to the hatchlings, his optics focused on the top row, which contains all of the Seeker models. Well, three of them at any rate. Ratchet must be tending to the last.

He reaches for the first bin, dipping a talon in the energon bath, gently nudging the resting hatchling. It wriggles in the thick gel, wing nubs twitching and hand blindly pawing for the tip of Thundercracker's claw. The earliest stages of color nanites are beginning to take form, Thundercracker notes. A pale yellow is appearing in patches on the hatchling's legs and arms.

“You didn't come here for a chat,” Ratchet retorts, but he does turn his attention back to the hatchling, words acerbic but touch gentle.

The Seeker hatchling grasps for Thundercracker's talon and holds on, tiny digits squeezing and unsqueezing as though testing its strength. It's a fragging miracle. Especially considering that when they had first brought the hatchlings here, none of them had any capability of motion. They were too energy-starved.

“How long?”

Ratchet's gears grind in exasperation. He doesn’t look up though.

“You'll have to be more specific.”

The metal of the hatchling's frame is scarily soft, yielding under Thundercracker's light touch. No wonder Ratchet banned Skywarp from doing more than looking.

“How long until they can be ensparked?”

Ratchet huffs again and turns, cradling the little Seeker in one hand. “You mean if we had the Allspark?”

He reaches up, very gently depositing the hatchling into the nutrient bath before shifting his attention to the second row, pulling out one of the other airframes. Thundercracker strongly suspects it will be a rotary.

“I don't know when they were first formed,” the other mech deflects. “Hatchings usually take a hexa-diun.”

Thundercracker watches him for a moment. “If you had to guess.”

“They were severely under-nourished. That delayed their development.” Deft medic fingers remove the hatchling from its tank, to a very vocal protest by said hatchling, and Thundercracker feels the prickle of a scan. “Three more diun, I suspect. Though Seekers tend to incept earlier.”

The hatchling beside Thundercracker falls back into a pseudo-recharge, its grip loosening on his talon. He withdraws, letting the energon trickle back into the bath. They can't afford to waste a drop.

“What can we do?”

Ratchet brings the airframe closer to his optics. Thundercracker hears the click-click of magnifiers.

“Nothing. They'll be alive, but that's about it. We'll have ourselves a nice collection of drones. Without the Allspark, that's all they'll ever be.”

A long moment of silence passes. Thundercracker watches Ratchet confirm something with his inspection before he returns the hatchling to its bath and reaches for the next. He's been keeping a close optic on all twelve of them, determination bent to making sure they survive.

It makes Thundercracker’s spark ache and crack on the inside.

“Are we wasting our time?” he asks softly. Tone something that Ratchet’s never quite heard before but something Warp would easily recognize.

Ratchet doesn’t dare glance his direction.

“Depends on your definition.”

“Ratch--”

“You're asking me a question I can't answer,” Ratchet snaps with an audible growl of his engine. “Did I make the wrong choice? You think I don't ask myself that every fragging day?” His energy field spikes, betraying the emotions churning beneath the surface. The sorrow and the regret and the determination and the longing.

Thundercracker holds his ground. “Drift has mentioned Perceptor's research more than once.”

“He doesn't have any copies of it!” Ratchet whirls toward him, abandoning for the moment his inspection of the hatchlings. “All he has are memory fragments of overheard babbled conversation!”

“It can't be entirely useless,” Thundercracker counters.

The grounder’s ventilations kick into a higher gear. “It is to me. Drift 's not a scientist. And for that matter, neither am I.”

Thundercracker doesn’t buy that at all.

“But you are a medic.”

“A field medic,” Ratchet stresses. “I've had vorns of experience, but I don't have all the data. This is beyond repairs. This is mythology and spark physics and creation all rolled together into a crumbling scrap heap that makes no sense.”

Thundercracker frowns, folding his arms over his chassis. Mythology? His processor flickers, contemplating.

“Who made the Allspark?”

Ratchet startles, audibly rebooting his audials. “What?”

“It had to have come from somewhere,” the Seeker insists. “Primus? Who is that? The body of Cybertron?” Thundercracker works his jaw, thoughts leaping from one pattern to the next. “Does that mean Primus is dead because Cybertron is gone?”

Ratchet palms his faceplate, shoulders sinking. “Now, you're having an existential crisis? Sigma, Thundercracker. I don't know what you want me to say!”

“That's not what I'm getting at.” His wings flutter. “If the Allspark was made, can't we make it again? Or go back to the source?”

One of Ratchet's hands wave through the air dismissively. “From what I can gather, that was the core of Perceptor's research. Allspark origins and the like. But you're asking the wrong mech to make sense of it.” He fists his hands out of sheer frustration. “We need Perceptor. Or Skyfire. Or slaggit all to the Pit, Starscream.”

Thundercracker doesn’t even tense at the final name anymore.

“We don't have them.” But it’s quiet. Gentle even.

“Tell me something I don't know.” Ratchet's field spikes, slapping the Seeker with a harsh whip of exhaustion and exasperation. “The Allspark is gone, Thundercracker. We can't rebuild it. We can only resign ourselves to extinction.”

Ratchet abruptly turns back around, belying his own words with the tender care he gives to the next hatchling he scans. The tiny grounder lies in his palm, blunt fingers curled into fists, optics shuttered, barely formed frame soft and malleable. They are so fragile, and no wonder Skywarp doesn't dare touch them. No wonder Drift only looks, afraid that his self-control is not as strong as he needs it to be.

There are only twelve of them. The entire future of the Cybertronian race, and they are nothing but a collection of drones. So much wasted life, so much wasted potential.

“We'll find an answer,” Thundercracker states firmly. To believe otherwise invites him into a spiral of pessimism and surrender. Despair.

“So you say.” Ratchet grinds several gears together, his engine idling, and seems to bend his entire focus toward tending the hatchlings.

For right now, it really is all they can do.

o0o0o

They aren't a military unit or a civilian cohort. They aren't really friends or family the way humans have them. And yet, it somehow doesn't feel strange to sit together, all four of them at once, passing around cubes of Ratchet's latest attempt to distill a better energon.

The kneejerk reaction to seeing the infamous Autobot sigil has all but faded. Thundercracker's weapons no longer cycle up. His battle systems have stopped flashing online. He doesn't so much as startle.

He sits next to Skywarp, stares at two former enemies from across the swept-clean space of a barn floor, and it should feel odd. It doesn't. Not anymore.

“Know what this slag reminds me of?” Skywarp says into the comfortable and contemplative quiet as he holds up his cube of energon, giving the pink hue of it a disdainful look. “Remember Maccadam's?”

Thundercracker pulls out a datapad from subspace. “Don't think there's a mech from Cybertron who doesn't know Maccadam's.”

“Yeah,” Warp offers with a shrug,” but remember that one time Oilslick got into a fight with Sky Shadow?”

He glances up from the datapad, cycling his optics. “What does one have to do with the other?”

Skywarp shrugs and quickly tosses back the energon, his powerful engines giving a thrum of distaste. “Just making conversation.” He leans back against a crate, legs splayed out in front of him. “It's been eons. Cybertron's just a memory now. And I've had enough of forgetting those.”

“We don't forget,” Ratchet says, facial components twitching with the effort of concealing his emotions. “We don't have squishy brains.”

Skywarp taps his helm with one talon. “Memory cores get damaged. Slag happens.”

“That's what backups are for, glitch.”

“Backups get lost. Destroyed.” Skywarp shrugs and glances away, his body expressing discomfort. “Sometimes, even we forget.”

Thundercracker doesn't look up from his pad, but he can feel the tension in the room. He remembers the first time he met Skywarp, eons and eons ago, remembers hauling the battered mech out of a warzone, thinking that the poor Seeker wasn't going to make it. But some field medic had performed a miracle, and Skywarp had survived. But his processor had been severely damaged, his memory core taking the worst of it.

There's a lot Skywarp doesn't remember. And never will.

Sometimes, Thundercracker wonders if forgetting is the greatest gift any of them could have. There's a lot he doesn't want to recall.

“And when we're gone, who’s going to remember?” Skywarp adds, a strangely maudlin tone to his vocals. “Cybertron's gone. There's what? A few hundred of us left? Probably less. Our culture's rust on the eaves.”

Thundercracker ventilates, offlining his pad with an audible click. “Washracks,” he says, to the surprise of his three companions. “I can't remember the last time I used a proper set of washracks.”

There had been facilities on the Fallen's ship, but they spat cold solvent and were shared with dozens of drones who had no concept of quiet and personal space. Right now, they are cleaning themselves with buckets and human clothes. Thundercracker can feel the grit in layers, all through his internals. Probably packed on his hydraulics, his joints, everywhere. He can't remember the last time he had a full maintenance either.

“Rust sticks,” Drift offers from where he leans against the wall, sword propped over his legs, fingers idly tracing the length of the blade. “Energon gummies. Oilcakes with tungsten shavings.”

Thundercracker's tanks gurgle an agreement. Eons and eons ago, when energon had taste, when the higher ranked military mechs could spend their meager credits on a treat now and then. When the shades of energon were varied not because of their quality but because of the special additives and flavors of metallics.

“Facilities,” Ratchet offers quietly, optics downcast. “Real medical equipment. Scanners and welders and stasis pods and fully-functional berths.”

“Chairs,” Thundercracker agrees, thinking longingly of actual seats where he can be comfortable without worrying about pinching a line or kinking a joint. Where he can flex his wings without flicking them against something solid and uncomfortable. “Any kind of furniture really.”

Skywarp makes a noise of agreement. He tosses back another gulp of his cube and grimaces at the taste of it.

“Holovids,” he adds almost reverently. “It's so fragging boring here! What I wouldn't give for one of the classics.” He leaks air. “The shopping districts, remember those? Not that we ever really got to roam around one.”

Mech's got a point. Shopping was for the nobility; those who didn't have to work for a living. They spent their creds, wandered around the expensive stores, and exclaimed over the newest frivolities.

Thundercracker's sole experience with shopping extends to hunting through the lines and lines of merchant stalls crammed into the tiniest alleyways in Kaon or Vos, depending on where he was stationed at the time. What little credits he had were spent on the maintenance and upkeep of his frame. Rarely did he get to indulge.

“Libraries.” Ratchet’s optics glimmer with the evidence of upcoming overcharge. “Archives full of data. Full of answers. What would I give to have access to those again?” He slumps against the wall, dully pushing his energon away from him.

“The mausoleums,” Drift murmurs. His helm tips downward, the side of it leaning against the hilt of his sword. “Respect for the dead. Think we lost that a long time ago.”

Thundercracker's spark gives a squeeze of sorrow. He thinks of his kin, fellow Seekers, wingmates and soldiers. All who have fallen over the course of the war. Thundercracker is one of the last of his kind, if not the only one left. Even Skywarp is of a different model line.

“We lost a lot of things,” Skywarp decides miserably, kicking out his pede again, like a sparkling building toward a tantrum. “Stuff we aren't ever gonna get back. Frag us all to the Pit and back.”

Silence sweeps through the confined space, their energy fields syncing in shared misery and guilt. Ratchet's, however, is the worst, as it has been from the moment he first pulled Thundercracker and Skywarp from the wreckage. There's so much remorse and agony in the medic's field that it's painful to be around him.

So Thundercracker is hardly surprised when Ratchet lurches to his pedes, tossing his empty cube at the wall. It shatters into bits, highlighting his noisy stomp from the room and taking his swirl of despair with him. Another pair of blue optics track Ratchet's exodus, and once again, Thundercracker is hardly surprised when Drift stands as well, carefully stowing his sword in the sheath along his backstrut.

“Thank you for the company,” he says in that painfully formal way of his and makes an exit from the room, albeit much quieter and contained.

Skywarp watches after them and then leans back into the cradle of scavenged bits and pieces. “Mech really knows how to ruin a mood,” he remarks, gaze sliding toward Thundercracker with a knowing glint.

A smirk curls Thundercracker's lipplate as he bows his head. He returns the majority of his attention to the datapad in his claws.

“You think it'll be tonight?”

“Nah. Ratchet's prickly, and Drift doesn't know how to push. The saga continues.” He kicks up one pede, making himself obscenely comfortable. “Never have I seen two more oblivious bots.”

Thundercracker stares at the screen without really seeing it, memories surging to the fore and threatening to spill into his active recall. He reboots his vocalizer, just to ensure there isn't any static in his response.

“Yeah,” he agrees and bends further over his pad. “Autobots have a talent for being blind to the obvious.”

Skywarp snorts, an organic noise that he has assimilated into his emotional routines. “It's how we got in this mess in the first place.” He slings an arm back over his optics, as though he intends to go into recharge at this very moment.

Thundercracker makes a wordless hum of agreement. He hopes that Skywarp does fall into recharge. Then he can sink into the memories in peace.

It’s quiet for a time. So long that he does think Skywarp is on the verge of recharge. He’s wrong though.

“TC?”

It’s soft. Almost uncertain.

Thundercracker slowly looks up.

“Yes?”

Skywarp's energy field vibrates with hesitation. His face says something Thundercracker isn’t sure he wants to hear.

But then, Warp turns away.

“...Never mind.”

****