[IDW] All the Queen's Treasure 01
Jan. 6th, 2020 06:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dracoqueen22Title: All the Queen’s Treasure
Continuity: IDW, Alternate Canon
Characters: Sunstreaker, Ironhide, Bob the Insecticon, Hardshell, Sharpshot, Kickback, Original Insecticon Character(s)
Pairings: Hardshell/Sunstreaker, Insecticon(s)/Sunstreaker, Hardshell/Sunstreaker/Sharpshot
Rating: M
Enticements: Consensual Body Modification, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Non-Graphic Oviposition, Off-screen Egg Laying, Knotting
Description: After Sideswipe, Sunstreaker returns to Cybertron, lost and alone, until Bob leads him on a wild chase into the wildlands, to a nest beneath the surface of the planet, and a place Sunstreaker might call home.
Part One
It wasn’t cowardice.
Sunstreaker had always hated Earth, even before its inhabitants fragged him up. It was organic and dirty, infested with tiny, filthy creatures who were far too curious for their own good. They stared, and they ogled, and they lusted, and Sunstreaker hated them.
He left not because of fear, but because there wasn’t a reason to stay. Not anymore. He’d paid his dues and then some.
He went back to Cybertron. With the Lost Light vanished into space, and Optimus slowly going mad on Earth, there was nowhere else.
All Sunstreaker had was Bob now, and they didn’t need to stay on Earth. There wasn’t a place for them on an organic planet, mingling with Cybertronians who seemed to have no issue with the new war on the horizon. He wasn’t about to join Soundwave’s little gang of rejects either. Frag that.
Cybertron it was.
Cybertron still had memories, but it didn’t have Hunter and the Machination and… and…
Sideswipe.
It held memories of his brother, but not memories of his brother dying. Slipping away. Lost to a dream.
There was only so much trauma Sunstreaker could absorb. He was tired of Earth. He hated Earth. He started to regret working so hard to save the damned planet. Nothing good had ever come of Earth for Cybertronians. It was anathema to them. Poison.
It was a place they did not belong.
No one tried to stop him from leaving. No one gave a cursory effort, except for Wrench to tell him it was a waste of energon to power the bridge. Sunstreaker didn’t care. He was prepared to make a fuss as long as it needed to get him back to a place he belonged, even if only in part. He didn’t want to be on Earth.
Optimus, in a moment of clarity, passed the order on. Sunstreaker doubted he’d paid much attention to who had sent the request.
Sunstreaker was one soldier among hundreds. In the grand scheme of things, he mattered to no one and nothing. Once, he might have mattered to Sideswipe.
He didn’t matter now.
They let him go.
He stepped back on Cybertron feeling as lost as he did on Earth, but at least he wasn’t surrounded by organics. At least Cybertron looked the way he felt: destroyed, lost, abandoned, lonely.
Ironhide welcomed him. He patted Sunstreaker roughly on the shoulder, grunted ‘welcome home’ and offered Sunstreaker a job. He pointed out the buildings they’d been refurbishing into living spaces and told Sunstreaker there was plenty of work to go around. Plenty to keep him busy.
He didn’t ask about Sideswipe.
Sunstreaker didn’t know if he was glad for it, or angry Ironhide hadn’t bothered to remember. Maybe a little bit of both. Sunstreaker’s relationship with people was complicated.
He settled on Cybertron. He picked out an apartment on the bottom floor so he wouldn’t have to worry about Bob taking a dive out an open window or balcony. He scrounged in the ruins like everyone else to find furniture and random bits to decorate. He took on odd jobs where extra hands were needed. Sometimes, he pretended to socialize at the bars scattered around the makeshift city.
There was always time for engex.
Ironhide was busy. Ironhide had a purpose. Sunstreaker didn’t see Ironhide much.
It was still better than Earth.
Cybertron was the closest thing Sunstreaker had to home.
~
Bob was weird.
He was an Insecticon. An Insecticon runt to be more precise, so Sunstreaker had considered it a given that Bob was weird. There were a lot of things Bob did that Sunstreaker dismissed because, well, Bob was weird.
He was cute. And adorable. And loyal. And the best friend Sunstreaker ever had.
But he was still fragging weird.
Spending the past week staring off into the horizon, his little antennae quirked and an odd sound echoing in his chassis, didn’t change Sunstreaker’s opinion about the bug at all.
Bob could barely focus on any task for longer than a handful of minutes. Frag, the cute bugger got bored when eating if something wandered into view to distract him.
So to see him so focused on absolutely nothing, staring off into the distance, it was weirder than weird.
Sunstreaker tried asking Flatline about it, but the formerly Decepticon medic had his hands full with wounded and new arrivals, and didn’t give two creds about Sunstreaker’s pet Insecticon. None of the medics were interested. So what if an Insecticon runt was feeling weird.
Bob wasn’t bleeding. He wasn’t in pain. He had all of his limbs. Bob would be fine. He could wait. This mech here with the cracked spark chamber was higher on the priority list.
Sunstreaker missed Ratchet.
He tried not to worry. Bob was weird. That was the way things went. Maybe he was as rattled by the Metroformers fighting as everyone else. Maybe he was twitchy because all of Cybertron was twitchy. Maybe the journey to Earth and all of that disaster was as hard on him as it was on Sunstreaker.
And maybe, when Sunstreaker was taking a long walk around the periphery of the newly settled Metrotitan they called home, maybe Bob decided enough was enough.
He chirped and took off as if the entirety of the Decepticon army was on his heels. He raced into the night, ignoring Sunstreaker as he hollered after Bob, even going so far as to snarl the much-dreaded “bad boy!”
Nothing. No response. Bob continued to run helter-skelter, and Sunstreaker had a choice. He could let Bob go, or he could give chase.
Bob was the only person in the world he could rely on. Bob was the only one who truly cared. Bob was all he had left.
Sunstreaker didn’t want to be alone.
Ironhide chirped his comm as he ran, and Sunstreaker answered it without thinking. “Where ya goin’, kid?”
Good old Ironhide. The only one who gave a rip anymore. Must’ve been tracking Sunstreaker’s GPS or something, keeping an optic on him. Or maybe Sunstreaker had tripped some perimeter sensor.
“Bob’s acting fragged. Dunno why. I’m gonna get him back,” Sunstreaker said as he leapt off a roof, skidded down a broken wall, tumbled into a roll and transformed mid-way, putting pedal to the metal, chassis bouncing over a very battered road.
Bob was fast when he wanted to be. But Sunstreaker in alt-mode was faster. Well, when he had a flat surface unmarred by debris. Given the current state of Cybertron’s roads, he had to be cautious or risk tearing into his undercarriage. Bob didn’t have any such concerns.
This was going to be a hard chase.
“Be careful.” Ironhide was gruff, but Sunstreaker heard the affection as much as the warning in his tone. “Don’t get yerself killed again, ya hear? I don’t wanna come after ya.”
Sunstreaker grinned. “Loud and clear, rust-aft.”
He didn’t know if Ironhide heard him. The comm cut off with a crackle as if Sunstreaker had gone out of range. He’d heard that communication out here could be iffy, but he thought they’d fixed that once they stopped Shockwave’s plan. Apparently, it was one thing that wasn’t Shockwave’s fault. Who knew?
Bob remained on his sensors, albeit just out of reach. Sunstreaker didn’t know what crawled up the bug’s aft, but like frag would he let Bob go. He’d get tired eventually.
Sunstreaker hoped.
The road vanished. Sunstreaker was forced to revert to root-mode, his luxury alt-mode not built for rough terrain. He cursed his own lack of foresight, and worried he’d never catch Bob at this rate.
Except Bob must have noticed Sunstreaker transform. He slowed down, still keeping ahead of Sunstreaker, but at a slower pace now. It felt less like he was running away, and more like he was leading Sunstreaker somewhere.
What the frag was he up to?
The Metrotitan vanished into a dark blob behind him, far beyond the reach of any comm signal. Fatigue clawed at Sunstreaker. His stamina wasn’t what it used to be, and besides, war had never demanded a constant flight over rough terrain. It was short bursts of intense battle, followed by long periods of waiting.
Twilight overtook the sky. Ahead, dark and shadowed lumps gave rise to mountains. Sunstreaker couldn’t remember their name. The ground became pockmarked with cracks and holes, the lingering stench of fall out clinging to the air. Sunstreaker was forced to slow to a fast walk, exasperation and exhaustion hissing through his vents.
“Damn it, Bob!” he snarled, his voice carrying an unnatural distance over the empty landscape. His armor crawled with unease. “Get back here, you stupid bug!”
Bob paused at a ridge, near enough Sunstreaker could see him, but too far to begrabbed. His antennae quivered; his aft wriggled as if they were playing a game. He looked at Sunstreaker, and then he tipped his head back and made a sound Sunstreaker had never heard.
It was a cross between a chirp and a song. It rose and fell in waves, like some unknown language. Sunstreaker’s armor vibrated as if resonating with it.
What the frag?
The ground rumbled beneath Sunstreaker. He skidded to a halt, blaster leaping to his fingers, his sensors casting out wide and far. He detected movement, lots of it, all around him. Beneath him, to the sides, front and back, but at least, not above. He was surrounded.
The sky grew darker, as if something had come along to swallow the last of the sun, and all of the starlight. Sunstreaker’s spark quivered. He swallowed over a lump in his intake, realizing suddenly how very alone he was.
Bob went silent. He chirruped and bounded down from the rise, scuttling across the ground straight for Sunstreaker.
A loud, ominous crack echoed through the air. The shuddering had an epicenter right beneath his feet. Sunstreaker had a single astrosecond to think that maybe chasing Bob was a very bad idea, before the ground crumbled and swallowed him whole.
The last thing he saw was Bob, bright optics and quivering antennae as he leapt toward Sunstreaker, and the distant peek of stars in a darkening sky.
And then he was falling, tumbling around, debris pattering his armor. The sky vanished as the hole sealed itself up behind him. He scrambled for something, anything, to arrest his fall. His blaster tumbled from his fingers, lost to the dark.
He hit something, and his head smacked into something else. Static blitzed his vision. His audials rang, and through the roaring noise, he swore he heard an unsettlingly familiar sound. That of thousands upon thousands of skittering feet, and their accompanying chirping chatter.
It was one of many nightmares come back to haunt him until unconsciousness took the rest.
~
Sunstreaker onlined slowly, his head throbbing and his self-repair furiously at work. Remarkably, the only registered damage was superficial. Scrapes. Dents. Dings. A rather large bump to the back of his head.
He was alive.
Static circled his processor. His audio feed pinged back garbled information. Odd noises, half-familiar, half-foreign. He reset his optics again and again, but could only gather shadows and gray fuzz.
Sunstreaker groaned and tried to move, but moving took effort, like swimming through tar. Sluggish thoughts banged together, uncoordinated.
“We welcome you. You who are here. Here at last.”
Words trickled through the hazy static, oddly clear. Sunstreaker did not recognize the voice. It had an odd, musical cadence.
He groaned again and managed to sling an arm over his optics. His armor prickled. He lay on something hard and cold, definitely not a berth.
He remembered falling. He remembered chasing Bob. He remembered the bug being weird, as bugs do.
Sunstreaker tried to move, and his processor swam again. He dizzily dropped back down as the whispering, skittering noise rose around him in a wave.
“Who’s there? Where am I?” he demanded, but his voice came out as a crackle, and had no weight behind it.
He rebooted his optics again, and more light filtered through. His sensors registered a humid environment, the air thick and still, with the occasional waft to tickle his dermal net.
“Shhh. Quiet now. You are safe. Safe here. Here with us.”
Us?
Sunstreaker looked around, his vision hazy. All he could see were dark blobs of color, streaks of biolights, and pinpoints of brightness, optics and optical visors.
There was a mech beside him. He was massive, nearly twice Sunstreaker’s size, and loomed over Sunstreaker’s prone frame with ease. His voice was deep, guttural, and something around him clicked. Chittered. Like Bob.
“Bob?”
“He is here. Here beside you. Look.”
Dizzy, Sunstreaker managed to sit up, though his processor lurched. He reached out, only to hear a familiar chirp and for a head to bump against his palm. Little hands patted his thighs.
“Bug,” Sunstreaker murmured, relief coursing through him. “There you are, you silly thing. Why’d you run?”
“Because we called. Called him here. Here to us.”
Us.
Sunstreaker shook his head. He rebooted his sensory suites, and when he unshuttered his optics, his vision was less hazy. Shadows still surrounded him; he suspected because there was little lighting.
He looked up at the speaker. He stiffened.
Though still bathed in shadow, the dark shape was clearer now. An Insecticon towered over Sunstreaker, his large mandibles more than enough to present a threat. There were two parallel marks cut across his face, seemingly intentional, and where there should have been optics, a yellow band gleamed down at him.
Which meant…
Sunstreaker carefully looked around, swallowing his terror. The shapes coalesced. The walls shuffled and hissed and clicked and whirred. Biolights pulsed. Optics flickered. Visors glowed with unreadable intent.
He was surrounded by Insecticons. He was in an Insecticon Hive. He was alive, in an Insecticon Hive. They could have killed him, but they didn’t.
Why?
“There. You see. See you are safe. Safe with us,” the Insecticon said.
“Am I?” Sunstreaker asked. He dared swing his legs over the side of the platform. It was an interesting berth, but not one he wanted to keep using. It felt too much like some kind of sacrificial altar.
No one tried to stop him. Grit rained from his armor. He didn’t have to look to know his finish was in an appalling state.
No. Focus on more important things right now.
Sunstreaker swayed on his feet. Bob scuttled across the pseudo-berth and head-butted him in the back. He purred. His little hands patted Sunstreaker’s back as though trying to reassure him.
“Yes.” The large Insecticon shifted his weight, his visor following Sunstreaker but nothing else.
“Why?” Sunstreaker glanced around, hoping to quell the fear shuddering through his spark.
He was on some kind of raised platform in the middle. Insecticons of various shapes and sizes clustered on every inch of the surrounding walls and ceiling. They were fixated on Sunstreaker, watching without motion. They made quiet noises, the occasional rustle of their frames, but otherwise clung unmoving.
It was too dark to see much of anything. But beyond his right shoulder, he thought he could see a long tunnel.
“You will be one. One of us,” the Insecticon said and he lifted a hand, his clawed fingers reaching toward Sunstreaker, who had nowhere to go but back against the slab.
The tip of a primary talon touched his chestplate, just below his Autobot badge, and it rested there.
“You,” the Insecticon droned, “are needed.”
Sunstreaker frowned. Bob nudged his backplate. “For what?”
“We are a Hive without a Queen.”
That voice came from behind Sunstreaker. The talon slid away from his chestplate, the Insecticon in front of him withdrawing with a dip of his head.
Sunstreaker whirled to see another Insecticon approaching. This one was even larger than the other, and he had three parallel scars across his face. Sunstreaker was certain they were intentional.
“The little one says you are a perfect fit,” the new Insecticon said as he moved around the pseudo-berth and closer to Sunstreaker, bringing heat with him, the gust of his ex-vents buffeting Sunstreaker’s frame. He’d come up from behind the platform, Insecticons parting for him, but they moved quickly to fill the gap.
It was unnerving to be the focus of that much undivided attention. Especially since Sunstreaker knew Insecticons loved to eat anything, but tended to favor living, Cybertronian metals.
“Little one?” Sunstreaker echoed. Maybe if he kept them talking, he could figure a way out of this intact.
The Insecticon raised a hand and gestured behind Sunstreaker, to Bob.
Sunstreaker blinked. “Bob doesn’t talk.”
A raspy laugh burbled out of the three-scarred Insecticon’s intake. “Not in words you understand. Not yet. But you will. Soon.”
Sunstreaker folded his arms over his chassis. His armor prickled. Unease clawed at his sensors. He was surrounded by the Enemy, but they had done him no apparent harm, and his coding couldn’t reconcile that.
“I am Hardshell,” the three-scarred Insecticon said, and like the other, he lifted a hand, but rather than prod Sunstreaker’s chestplate, he gestured down Sunstreaker’s frame. “And the little one is correct. You are perfect.”
Despite it all, a little thrill ran through Sunstreaker at the compliment. “Perfect, huh? Well, that’s true. But I’m not an Insecticon. So whatever you think I’m perfect for, you got the wrong mech.”
Hardshell tilted his chin, and if Sunstreaker could describe the Insecticon’s expression, he’d call it smug. “That can be changed.”
Nope. Nope. Sunstreaker didn’t like the sound of that. “No, thanks. I like me just the way I am.” He eased backward as his mapping algorithm refused to return with an escape route.
Frag.
“You misunderstand.” Hardshell chuckled, and it rattled out of his intake like one of Earth’s old, non-sentient vehicles struggling to start. “Come. I’ll show you. Once you understand, you’ll change your mind.”
Sunstreaker arched an orbital ridge. “And if I don’t, you’ll kill me, right?” He cycled a ventilation and glanced around him. “Just warning you, I’m pretty hard to kill, and I guarantee I’ll take a lot of you with me, and people will come looking, too. People who care about me and won’t be bothered by bombing the Pit out of this place when they do.”
Well, at least he hoped someone cared enough to come looking. Ironhide was too busy working with Starscream, but maybe he’d remember Sunstreaker for a minute. Arcee’s grief seemed more suffocating than Sunstreaker’s own.
And Sideswipe wasn’t around to care anymore. If he ever did.
“We will not kill you,” Hardshell said, and his tone was oddly… genuine? He almost sounded like he keeping Sunstreaker alive was the better option. “You will be returned to your kind as intact as you arrived.”
Sunstreaker squinted. “Really?”
Hardshell hunched forward as though in a bow, but tilted his head, baring the vulnerable column of his intake. “On the submission I offer you, yes.”
Whoa.
What the actual fuck?
Earth curses, Sunstreaker felt, were entirely appropriate in this moment.
Sunstreaker looked down where Bob half-leaned over the edge of the berth, his own head tilted, and his optics bright and cheerful. He chirruped at Sunstreaker, little hands waving at him as if asking for trust.
He was one of the few living beings in all the universe Sunstreaker still trusted.
“Fine,” Sunstreaker bit out. “Show me. Isn’t like I have anything better to do.” It would keep him alive, too, and give him an opportunity to find his escape.
The Insecticon straightened. “Very well.” He gestured to himself. “I have introduced myself already. Behind me is Sharpshot. Later, you will meet Kickback. And we three, my queen, are yours.”
***
Continuity: IDW, Alternate Canon
Characters: Sunstreaker, Ironhide, Bob the Insecticon, Hardshell, Sharpshot, Kickback, Original Insecticon Character(s)
Pairings: Hardshell/Sunstreaker, Insecticon(s)/Sunstreaker, Hardshell/Sunstreaker/Sharpshot
Rating: M
Enticements: Consensual Body Modification, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Non-Graphic Oviposition, Off-screen Egg Laying, Knotting
Description: After Sideswipe, Sunstreaker returns to Cybertron, lost and alone, until Bob leads him on a wild chase into the wildlands, to a nest beneath the surface of the planet, and a place Sunstreaker might call home.
It wasn’t cowardice.
Sunstreaker had always hated Earth, even before its inhabitants fragged him up. It was organic and dirty, infested with tiny, filthy creatures who were far too curious for their own good. They stared, and they ogled, and they lusted, and Sunstreaker hated them.
He left not because of fear, but because there wasn’t a reason to stay. Not anymore. He’d paid his dues and then some.
He went back to Cybertron. With the Lost Light vanished into space, and Optimus slowly going mad on Earth, there was nowhere else.
All Sunstreaker had was Bob now, and they didn’t need to stay on Earth. There wasn’t a place for them on an organic planet, mingling with Cybertronians who seemed to have no issue with the new war on the horizon. He wasn’t about to join Soundwave’s little gang of rejects either. Frag that.
Cybertron it was.
Cybertron still had memories, but it didn’t have Hunter and the Machination and… and…
Sideswipe.
It held memories of his brother, but not memories of his brother dying. Slipping away. Lost to a dream.
There was only so much trauma Sunstreaker could absorb. He was tired of Earth. He hated Earth. He started to regret working so hard to save the damned planet. Nothing good had ever come of Earth for Cybertronians. It was anathema to them. Poison.
It was a place they did not belong.
No one tried to stop him from leaving. No one gave a cursory effort, except for Wrench to tell him it was a waste of energon to power the bridge. Sunstreaker didn’t care. He was prepared to make a fuss as long as it needed to get him back to a place he belonged, even if only in part. He didn’t want to be on Earth.
Optimus, in a moment of clarity, passed the order on. Sunstreaker doubted he’d paid much attention to who had sent the request.
Sunstreaker was one soldier among hundreds. In the grand scheme of things, he mattered to no one and nothing. Once, he might have mattered to Sideswipe.
He didn’t matter now.
They let him go.
He stepped back on Cybertron feeling as lost as he did on Earth, but at least he wasn’t surrounded by organics. At least Cybertron looked the way he felt: destroyed, lost, abandoned, lonely.
Ironhide welcomed him. He patted Sunstreaker roughly on the shoulder, grunted ‘welcome home’ and offered Sunstreaker a job. He pointed out the buildings they’d been refurbishing into living spaces and told Sunstreaker there was plenty of work to go around. Plenty to keep him busy.
He didn’t ask about Sideswipe.
Sunstreaker didn’t know if he was glad for it, or angry Ironhide hadn’t bothered to remember. Maybe a little bit of both. Sunstreaker’s relationship with people was complicated.
He settled on Cybertron. He picked out an apartment on the bottom floor so he wouldn’t have to worry about Bob taking a dive out an open window or balcony. He scrounged in the ruins like everyone else to find furniture and random bits to decorate. He took on odd jobs where extra hands were needed. Sometimes, he pretended to socialize at the bars scattered around the makeshift city.
There was always time for engex.
Ironhide was busy. Ironhide had a purpose. Sunstreaker didn’t see Ironhide much.
It was still better than Earth.
Cybertron was the closest thing Sunstreaker had to home.
Bob was weird.
He was an Insecticon. An Insecticon runt to be more precise, so Sunstreaker had considered it a given that Bob was weird. There were a lot of things Bob did that Sunstreaker dismissed because, well, Bob was weird.
He was cute. And adorable. And loyal. And the best friend Sunstreaker ever had.
But he was still fragging weird.
Spending the past week staring off into the horizon, his little antennae quirked and an odd sound echoing in his chassis, didn’t change Sunstreaker’s opinion about the bug at all.
Bob could barely focus on any task for longer than a handful of minutes. Frag, the cute bugger got bored when eating if something wandered into view to distract him.
So to see him so focused on absolutely nothing, staring off into the distance, it was weirder than weird.
Sunstreaker tried asking Flatline about it, but the formerly Decepticon medic had his hands full with wounded and new arrivals, and didn’t give two creds about Sunstreaker’s pet Insecticon. None of the medics were interested. So what if an Insecticon runt was feeling weird.
Bob wasn’t bleeding. He wasn’t in pain. He had all of his limbs. Bob would be fine. He could wait. This mech here with the cracked spark chamber was higher on the priority list.
Sunstreaker missed Ratchet.
He tried not to worry. Bob was weird. That was the way things went. Maybe he was as rattled by the Metroformers fighting as everyone else. Maybe he was twitchy because all of Cybertron was twitchy. Maybe the journey to Earth and all of that disaster was as hard on him as it was on Sunstreaker.
And maybe, when Sunstreaker was taking a long walk around the periphery of the newly settled Metrotitan they called home, maybe Bob decided enough was enough.
He chirped and took off as if the entirety of the Decepticon army was on his heels. He raced into the night, ignoring Sunstreaker as he hollered after Bob, even going so far as to snarl the much-dreaded “bad boy!”
Nothing. No response. Bob continued to run helter-skelter, and Sunstreaker had a choice. He could let Bob go, or he could give chase.
Bob was the only person in the world he could rely on. Bob was the only one who truly cared. Bob was all he had left.
Sunstreaker didn’t want to be alone.
Ironhide chirped his comm as he ran, and Sunstreaker answered it without thinking. “Where ya goin’, kid?”
Good old Ironhide. The only one who gave a rip anymore. Must’ve been tracking Sunstreaker’s GPS or something, keeping an optic on him. Or maybe Sunstreaker had tripped some perimeter sensor.
“Bob’s acting fragged. Dunno why. I’m gonna get him back,” Sunstreaker said as he leapt off a roof, skidded down a broken wall, tumbled into a roll and transformed mid-way, putting pedal to the metal, chassis bouncing over a very battered road.
Bob was fast when he wanted to be. But Sunstreaker in alt-mode was faster. Well, when he had a flat surface unmarred by debris. Given the current state of Cybertron’s roads, he had to be cautious or risk tearing into his undercarriage. Bob didn’t have any such concerns.
This was going to be a hard chase.
“Be careful.” Ironhide was gruff, but Sunstreaker heard the affection as much as the warning in his tone. “Don’t get yerself killed again, ya hear? I don’t wanna come after ya.”
Sunstreaker grinned. “Loud and clear, rust-aft.”
He didn’t know if Ironhide heard him. The comm cut off with a crackle as if Sunstreaker had gone out of range. He’d heard that communication out here could be iffy, but he thought they’d fixed that once they stopped Shockwave’s plan. Apparently, it was one thing that wasn’t Shockwave’s fault. Who knew?
Bob remained on his sensors, albeit just out of reach. Sunstreaker didn’t know what crawled up the bug’s aft, but like frag would he let Bob go. He’d get tired eventually.
Sunstreaker hoped.
The road vanished. Sunstreaker was forced to revert to root-mode, his luxury alt-mode not built for rough terrain. He cursed his own lack of foresight, and worried he’d never catch Bob at this rate.
Except Bob must have noticed Sunstreaker transform. He slowed down, still keeping ahead of Sunstreaker, but at a slower pace now. It felt less like he was running away, and more like he was leading Sunstreaker somewhere.
What the frag was he up to?
The Metrotitan vanished into a dark blob behind him, far beyond the reach of any comm signal. Fatigue clawed at Sunstreaker. His stamina wasn’t what it used to be, and besides, war had never demanded a constant flight over rough terrain. It was short bursts of intense battle, followed by long periods of waiting.
Twilight overtook the sky. Ahead, dark and shadowed lumps gave rise to mountains. Sunstreaker couldn’t remember their name. The ground became pockmarked with cracks and holes, the lingering stench of fall out clinging to the air. Sunstreaker was forced to slow to a fast walk, exasperation and exhaustion hissing through his vents.
“Damn it, Bob!” he snarled, his voice carrying an unnatural distance over the empty landscape. His armor crawled with unease. “Get back here, you stupid bug!”
Bob paused at a ridge, near enough Sunstreaker could see him, but too far to begrabbed. His antennae quivered; his aft wriggled as if they were playing a game. He looked at Sunstreaker, and then he tipped his head back and made a sound Sunstreaker had never heard.
It was a cross between a chirp and a song. It rose and fell in waves, like some unknown language. Sunstreaker’s armor vibrated as if resonating with it.
What the frag?
The ground rumbled beneath Sunstreaker. He skidded to a halt, blaster leaping to his fingers, his sensors casting out wide and far. He detected movement, lots of it, all around him. Beneath him, to the sides, front and back, but at least, not above. He was surrounded.
The sky grew darker, as if something had come along to swallow the last of the sun, and all of the starlight. Sunstreaker’s spark quivered. He swallowed over a lump in his intake, realizing suddenly how very alone he was.
Bob went silent. He chirruped and bounded down from the rise, scuttling across the ground straight for Sunstreaker.
A loud, ominous crack echoed through the air. The shuddering had an epicenter right beneath his feet. Sunstreaker had a single astrosecond to think that maybe chasing Bob was a very bad idea, before the ground crumbled and swallowed him whole.
The last thing he saw was Bob, bright optics and quivering antennae as he leapt toward Sunstreaker, and the distant peek of stars in a darkening sky.
And then he was falling, tumbling around, debris pattering his armor. The sky vanished as the hole sealed itself up behind him. He scrambled for something, anything, to arrest his fall. His blaster tumbled from his fingers, lost to the dark.
He hit something, and his head smacked into something else. Static blitzed his vision. His audials rang, and through the roaring noise, he swore he heard an unsettlingly familiar sound. That of thousands upon thousands of skittering feet, and their accompanying chirping chatter.
It was one of many nightmares come back to haunt him until unconsciousness took the rest.
Sunstreaker onlined slowly, his head throbbing and his self-repair furiously at work. Remarkably, the only registered damage was superficial. Scrapes. Dents. Dings. A rather large bump to the back of his head.
He was alive.
Static circled his processor. His audio feed pinged back garbled information. Odd noises, half-familiar, half-foreign. He reset his optics again and again, but could only gather shadows and gray fuzz.
Sunstreaker groaned and tried to move, but moving took effort, like swimming through tar. Sluggish thoughts banged together, uncoordinated.
“We welcome you. You who are here. Here at last.”
Words trickled through the hazy static, oddly clear. Sunstreaker did not recognize the voice. It had an odd, musical cadence.
He groaned again and managed to sling an arm over his optics. His armor prickled. He lay on something hard and cold, definitely not a berth.
He remembered falling. He remembered chasing Bob. He remembered the bug being weird, as bugs do.
Sunstreaker tried to move, and his processor swam again. He dizzily dropped back down as the whispering, skittering noise rose around him in a wave.
“Who’s there? Where am I?” he demanded, but his voice came out as a crackle, and had no weight behind it.
He rebooted his optics again, and more light filtered through. His sensors registered a humid environment, the air thick and still, with the occasional waft to tickle his dermal net.
“Shhh. Quiet now. You are safe. Safe here. Here with us.”
Us?
Sunstreaker looked around, his vision hazy. All he could see were dark blobs of color, streaks of biolights, and pinpoints of brightness, optics and optical visors.
There was a mech beside him. He was massive, nearly twice Sunstreaker’s size, and loomed over Sunstreaker’s prone frame with ease. His voice was deep, guttural, and something around him clicked. Chittered. Like Bob.
“Bob?”
“He is here. Here beside you. Look.”
Dizzy, Sunstreaker managed to sit up, though his processor lurched. He reached out, only to hear a familiar chirp and for a head to bump against his palm. Little hands patted his thighs.
“Bug,” Sunstreaker murmured, relief coursing through him. “There you are, you silly thing. Why’d you run?”
“Because we called. Called him here. Here to us.”
Us.
Sunstreaker shook his head. He rebooted his sensory suites, and when he unshuttered his optics, his vision was less hazy. Shadows still surrounded him; he suspected because there was little lighting.
He looked up at the speaker. He stiffened.
Though still bathed in shadow, the dark shape was clearer now. An Insecticon towered over Sunstreaker, his large mandibles more than enough to present a threat. There were two parallel marks cut across his face, seemingly intentional, and where there should have been optics, a yellow band gleamed down at him.
Which meant…
Sunstreaker carefully looked around, swallowing his terror. The shapes coalesced. The walls shuffled and hissed and clicked and whirred. Biolights pulsed. Optics flickered. Visors glowed with unreadable intent.
He was surrounded by Insecticons. He was in an Insecticon Hive. He was alive, in an Insecticon Hive. They could have killed him, but they didn’t.
Why?
“There. You see. See you are safe. Safe with us,” the Insecticon said.
“Am I?” Sunstreaker asked. He dared swing his legs over the side of the platform. It was an interesting berth, but not one he wanted to keep using. It felt too much like some kind of sacrificial altar.
No one tried to stop him. Grit rained from his armor. He didn’t have to look to know his finish was in an appalling state.
No. Focus on more important things right now.
Sunstreaker swayed on his feet. Bob scuttled across the pseudo-berth and head-butted him in the back. He purred. His little hands patted Sunstreaker’s back as though trying to reassure him.
“Yes.” The large Insecticon shifted his weight, his visor following Sunstreaker but nothing else.
“Why?” Sunstreaker glanced around, hoping to quell the fear shuddering through his spark.
He was on some kind of raised platform in the middle. Insecticons of various shapes and sizes clustered on every inch of the surrounding walls and ceiling. They were fixated on Sunstreaker, watching without motion. They made quiet noises, the occasional rustle of their frames, but otherwise clung unmoving.
It was too dark to see much of anything. But beyond his right shoulder, he thought he could see a long tunnel.
“You will be one. One of us,” the Insecticon said and he lifted a hand, his clawed fingers reaching toward Sunstreaker, who had nowhere to go but back against the slab.
The tip of a primary talon touched his chestplate, just below his Autobot badge, and it rested there.
“You,” the Insecticon droned, “are needed.”
Sunstreaker frowned. Bob nudged his backplate. “For what?”
“We are a Hive without a Queen.”
That voice came from behind Sunstreaker. The talon slid away from his chestplate, the Insecticon in front of him withdrawing with a dip of his head.
Sunstreaker whirled to see another Insecticon approaching. This one was even larger than the other, and he had three parallel scars across his face. Sunstreaker was certain they were intentional.
“The little one says you are a perfect fit,” the new Insecticon said as he moved around the pseudo-berth and closer to Sunstreaker, bringing heat with him, the gust of his ex-vents buffeting Sunstreaker’s frame. He’d come up from behind the platform, Insecticons parting for him, but they moved quickly to fill the gap.
It was unnerving to be the focus of that much undivided attention. Especially since Sunstreaker knew Insecticons loved to eat anything, but tended to favor living, Cybertronian metals.
“Little one?” Sunstreaker echoed. Maybe if he kept them talking, he could figure a way out of this intact.
The Insecticon raised a hand and gestured behind Sunstreaker, to Bob.
Sunstreaker blinked. “Bob doesn’t talk.”
A raspy laugh burbled out of the three-scarred Insecticon’s intake. “Not in words you understand. Not yet. But you will. Soon.”
Sunstreaker folded his arms over his chassis. His armor prickled. Unease clawed at his sensors. He was surrounded by the Enemy, but they had done him no apparent harm, and his coding couldn’t reconcile that.
“I am Hardshell,” the three-scarred Insecticon said, and like the other, he lifted a hand, but rather than prod Sunstreaker’s chestplate, he gestured down Sunstreaker’s frame. “And the little one is correct. You are perfect.”
Despite it all, a little thrill ran through Sunstreaker at the compliment. “Perfect, huh? Well, that’s true. But I’m not an Insecticon. So whatever you think I’m perfect for, you got the wrong mech.”
Hardshell tilted his chin, and if Sunstreaker could describe the Insecticon’s expression, he’d call it smug. “That can be changed.”
Nope. Nope. Sunstreaker didn’t like the sound of that. “No, thanks. I like me just the way I am.” He eased backward as his mapping algorithm refused to return with an escape route.
Frag.
“You misunderstand.” Hardshell chuckled, and it rattled out of his intake like one of Earth’s old, non-sentient vehicles struggling to start. “Come. I’ll show you. Once you understand, you’ll change your mind.”
Sunstreaker arched an orbital ridge. “And if I don’t, you’ll kill me, right?” He cycled a ventilation and glanced around him. “Just warning you, I’m pretty hard to kill, and I guarantee I’ll take a lot of you with me, and people will come looking, too. People who care about me and won’t be bothered by bombing the Pit out of this place when they do.”
Well, at least he hoped someone cared enough to come looking. Ironhide was too busy working with Starscream, but maybe he’d remember Sunstreaker for a minute. Arcee’s grief seemed more suffocating than Sunstreaker’s own.
And Sideswipe wasn’t around to care anymore. If he ever did.
“We will not kill you,” Hardshell said, and his tone was oddly… genuine? He almost sounded like he keeping Sunstreaker alive was the better option. “You will be returned to your kind as intact as you arrived.”
Sunstreaker squinted. “Really?”
Hardshell hunched forward as though in a bow, but tilted his head, baring the vulnerable column of his intake. “On the submission I offer you, yes.”
Whoa.
What the actual fuck?
Earth curses, Sunstreaker felt, were entirely appropriate in this moment.
Sunstreaker looked down where Bob half-leaned over the edge of the berth, his own head tilted, and his optics bright and cheerful. He chirruped at Sunstreaker, little hands waving at him as if asking for trust.
He was one of the few living beings in all the universe Sunstreaker still trusted.
“Fine,” Sunstreaker bit out. “Show me. Isn’t like I have anything better to do.” It would keep him alive, too, and give him an opportunity to find his escape.
The Insecticon straightened. “Very well.” He gestured to himself. “I have introduced myself already. Behind me is Sharpshot. Later, you will meet Kickback. And we three, my queen, are yours.”
