[TF] Despicable Me - 10

[dracoqueen22]

Despicable Me
Chapter Ten

It is too early by all standards, and yet, it is the time Ultra Magnus finds himself in his office, perched behind a desk that is more than large enough to fit his frame, yet still far too small to contain all of the paperwork stacked upon it.

Fatigue hangs on his back. It wars with the lingering relief of a war that is finished, a Cybertron on the long, slow road to recovery, and the fact that the responsibility of it still rests on his shoulders.

He, like so many others, has to come to grips with a Cybertron inching toward civilian prosperity rather than military rule. He needs to settle into his civilian life, but the longer he sits behind this desk, the harder it is.

He would never admit it upon pain of death, but Megatron’s return had been the first time he'd felt fully himself since the end of the war and Optimus leaving them. He’d been excited by the possibility of friction, and Ultra Magnus knows it’s not healthy. But rusting away behind this desk is not healthy either.

He does not know how much longer he can continue doing this on his own.

A soft chime echoes through his office.

Ultra Magnus cycles his optics and checks his chronometer. It is barely late enough to be considered polite. Who would be visiting him this early?

“Enter,” he calls, not sure who he should expect, but Bulkhead and one of the newsparks -- obvious by the soft sheen to their armor -- are at the bottom of the list.

Ultra Magnus straightens. “Bulkhead, is something the matter?”

“Kinda but not really,” the former Wrecker says, his hand on the shoulder of the much smaller mech, his pale green and black armor a near-match for Bulkhead’s. “Sorry to bother ya so early, but I didn’t want to force Minimus to wait any longer.”

“Oh?” Ultra Magnus studies Minimus, who meets his gaze in a straightforward manner many of the newsparks eschew. They tend to find his stature intimidating. “For what?”

Minimus squares his shoulders then, lifts his chin, and the bit of kibble above his lip twitches. “I don’t want to work in construction,” he says.

Ultra Magnus blinks.

Bulkhead sighs and scrapes his free hand down his face. “And like I told ya, Mims, ya don’t gotta if ya don’t wanna. But ya still gotta tell me somethin’ else you want to do.”

Wait.

Minimus is no larger than Bulkhead’s hip.

“Why were you working construction?” Ultra Magnus asks, flummoxed. He gives Bulkhead a confused look, but underneath, wonders if he should be working toward a chastisement.

They’re supposed to be helping guide the newsparks to suitable and appropriate work, not sticking them where the hands are needed, no matter how short-staffed they are.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Bulkhead grumbles, shuffling his feet awkwardly. “He wasn’t on site. He managed the books.”

Oh. Well, that makes sense at least.

“I see,” Ultra Magnus says. He leans forward, bracing his elbows on his desk, only to disturb a careful stack of datapads, nearly making it topple over.

He leans back again. “What would you like to do instead, Minimus?” He looks around his desk, trying to remember which stack contains the datapads relevant to this particular situation.

He’d reorganized the stacks by priority yesterday, but he can’t for the spark of him, remember how he’d prioritized the topics. He suspects it’s because shuffling around the stacks is a way of pretending to do work, without actually doing work. There is simply so much of it, and he’ll never admit it aloud, but he’s drowning.

“There should be a list of openings in one of these datapads,” Ultra Magnus says, though it is more to himself than his visitors.

“I would like to work with you, sir,” Minimus says. He moves closer, out from under Bulkhead’s broad palm, and when he takes in the stacks of work on Ultra Magnus’ desk, his optics widen. “I would like to work in administration on the municipal level.”

For the second time this morning, Ultra Magnus is flummoxed and searching for the appropriate words. “Were you not doing something similar before?”

Minimus shakes his head. “I was managing work shifts and inventory. While necessary, it was not challenging enough.”

“He was bored,” Bulkhead says, as though Ultra Magnus needs the clarification.

Minimus reaches for one of the datapads in the stack nearer to him, and without a moment’s hesitation, flicks it on, skimming the contents. He makes an inarticulate noise before his field flicks through the room with unrestrained disappointment.

“No wonder our request to break new ground hasn’t received a reply. It’s been sitting here for two weeks,” Minimus says with a click of his glossa. He looks over the rest of Ultra Magnus’ desk and shakes his head. “You desperately need an assistant, sir. This is too much work for one mech alone.”

Ultra Magnus’ mouth opens, closes, and he cycles a ventilation. He looks at Bulkhead, who lifts both hands and backs away from the desk.

“Look, I got one accident-prone kid who’s more than ready to get off the assembly line and behind a desk where he might actually be safe,” Bulkhead says. He scratches at his jaw and edges toward the door. “He’s all yours, sir.”

Bulkhead approximates a salute before he hurries out the door, faster than a mech his size should be able to move. It slides shut behind him, leaving Ultra Magnus with the newspark.

“Sir,” Minimus says as he turns the datapad around toward Ultra Magnus so he can see the screen, which he taps with one small finger. “I’ve found a grammatical error. Would you like me to edit this document?”

Ultra Magnus looks into the face of his tiny savior and feels the barest of smiles curl at the corner of his lips. “Yes, please correct any errors as you come across them.” He leans back and surveys the mountain of work in front of him. “Why don’t I go find you a desk?”

“Oh, I can work here for now.” Minimus climbs into the chair opposite from Ultra Magnus, within easy reach of the stack of infrastructure datapads. His feet dangle above the ground. “I’ll need my own office eventually.”

Yes.

Yes, he absolutely will.

For the first time since Optimus left Ultra Magnus to the madness, a stirring of hope dares light inside his spark.

~

Knock Out’s struts ache, he’ll be picking grit out of his treads all night, and dust cakes his undercarriage. But none of that matters, because between one klik and the next, with a rev of his engine, he shoots forward and crosses the invisible finish line before Bumblebee.

Knock Out whoops with glee and hits the brakes, sending his back end into a fish tail that kicks up a spray of dirt. He transforms and skids to a halt on his feet, pumping his hands into the air. Bumblebee, not to be outdone, speeds past him, whips into a circle and somehow manages to perform an elaborate flip out of his alt-mode and into root-mode.

“Looks like we’re tied again,” Bumblebee says, his sensory panels twitching as he flicks a heavy pebble from the tread of his right shoulder tire. “It’s a good thing I let you win.”

Knock Out huffs and plants his hands on his hips. “You did not.”

“Are you sure?” Bumblebee moves in closer, caressing the curve of Knock Out’s jaw. “Maybe I lagged just enough that you’d win because of how beautiful you are when you celebrate.”

Knock Out’s tires twitch.

On the one hand, Bumblebee had given him a rather delightful compliment. On the other, he’s trying to say he didn’t lose, and that, Knock Out can’t accept.

“You’re not going to distract me with compliments,” he says, poking Bumblebee right in the middle of his chassis. “I won fair and square.”

Bumblebee grabs his hand and drags it up to his lips, brushing a kiss over the knuckles. “You’re the number one winner in my datapad,” he murmurs.

Despite himself, Knock Out’s spark flutters. “Stop trying to cheat.”

“I’m just being honest,” Bumblebee says, but his free hand is curving around Knock Out’s waist, pulling him close, despite the filth clinging to their frames. He presses a kiss to the curve of Knock Out’s jaw. “I’m not saying you didn’t win.”

Knock Out shivers and gives in to the embrace, letting Bumblebee’s warm field wash over him, despite how overheated he already feels. “Fine,” he grumbles. “But you owe me another race.”

“Anytime you want, sweetspark.” Bumblebee chuckles and steals a kiss, and when he does that, Knock Out finds it hard to be angry.

Bumblebee has this ridiculous ability to make him feel safe and happy in a way Knock Out never expected he could feel. Cybertron had not been a safe place. The war had not been a safe time. Earth had not been safe. Knock Out has always done what is necessary to survive, only taking risks when the threshold of failure is low, and making himself out to be ruthless and terrifying, so no one would call him out on it.

He feels like he can be himself with Bumblebee, even with his flaws, and it’s as terrifying as it is wonderful.

“I hope you don’t expect us to get up to anything adventurous out here,” Knock Out says as Bumblebee nuzzles him.

Bumblebee chuckles. “I know better than that.” He presses a kiss to Knock Out’s knuckles before releasing his hand to wrap both arms around him. “I’m just enjoying a bit of peace and quiet.”

“You mean, without the drama that follows Megatron around like a rust infection?” Knock Out snorts, his engine rumbling with distaste. Megatron’s return is something no one expected, and no one quite knows how to handle. Least of all himself.

“Yes, that.” Bumblebee presses his forehead to Knock Out’s and shutters his optics, venting slowly, in and out. “It’s not fair. He lived; Optimus died.”

Knock Out gnaws on his bottom lip. “He’s not the first Decepticon to outlive an Autobot.”

“It’s not the same thing.” His hands sweep over the base of Knock Out’s spinal strut. “This is Optimus’ dream, and he had to die to get it, but Megatron is here instead, and it’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not,” Knock Out concedes. But he cups Bumblebee’s head and tilts it up so that they are optic to optic. “But you’re still here. And I’m here. And there was a second there, neither of us were going to survive.”

Too many close calls.

Bumblebee vents a shuddery sound. “True. And it’s not all bad.”

“It better not be. I’m not a consolation prize,” Knock Out teases.

Bumblebee laughs, and his quiet chuckle sends a wave of relief through Knock Out’s spark. “No, you’re a trophy.” He grins and his hands slip down, shamelessly gripping Knock Out’s aft. “My grand prize.”

Knock Out rolls his optics. “Sure,” he drawls. “But my point is, maybe the Prime isn’t here, but this is a way better life than I thought I was going to get, and I have him to thank for that.”

“And me,” Bumblebee says.

“Yes, and you.” Knock Out shakes his head, but he can’t stop smiling because of this idiot. “Megatron can huff and puff and throw his weight around, but he can’t ruin any of this. We won’t let him.”

Even if it means ignoring every instinct he has that insists on running and surviving. He’s finally got a life he doesn’t want to lose. He’s got something worth more than just surviving, and not even his fear of Megatron can touch that.

“No, we won’t,” Bumblebee says, and he’s grinning now as he tugs Knock Out more firmly against him, grinding their armor together, the grit making a horrendous scrape that Knock Out will make him buff out later.

Knock Out sighs. “I swear you have a vendetta against my paint.”

Bumblebee chuckles. “Maybe it’s just an excuse to get my hands all over you.” He pats Knock out’s aft with a quiet ring of metal on metal. “Promise to buff it out.”

“You better,” Knock Out grumbles, but it’s half-sparked at best.

Bumblebee is warm and vibrating against him, his field a happy rush against Knock Out’s own, and with the victory still singing in Knock Out’s lines, it’s hard to maintain a grump.

“Easy promise to make.” Bumblebee knocks their foreheads together gently. “Just so you know, I might miss Optimus, but I’m happy with you.”

“Pfft.” Knock Out’s face heats, but he vents a scoff to hide the mix of embarrassment and delight in his field. “I already knew that. I’m a catch.”

“Yeah, and I caught you,” Bumblebee murmurs. He leans in for a kiss, and Knock Out allows it, despite the grit and the grime.

Bumblebee will just have to make it up to him later.

~

“He’s cute when he’s pouting.” Wheeljack stretches out on the bench, slouching into the curve of it and resting his arms along the back. He’s dinged and scraped and filthy, but if he’s lucky, he can catch Bulk when his partner comes off shift, and they can get cleaned up together.

“Is he?” Arcee stands nearby, hip cocked, one hand resting on the other hip while she clutches her engex as if it’s trying to escape her grasp. “You’re into that kind of thing?”

Wheeljack grins and takes a long gulp of his engex, staring over the rim of his cup at Smokescreen as the youngling all but stomps around the training ground, picking up after their scheduled session. “I’m into all kinds of things.”

“I don’t know how Bulkhead puts up with you.” Arcee sighs, but there’s fondness in the curve of her lips, the twitch of her winglets.

“If you’d come to our berth, I’d show you.” Wheeljack waggles his orbital ridges, but Arcee rolls her optics and drops down into the bench beside him. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to give the suggestion they’re having a conversation.

Which they are.

“No offense. You’re not my type,” Arcee says.

Wheeljack watches Smokescreen bend over to pick up the pieces of a demolished training dummy. “I know you like ‘em mouthy.”

“Not your kind of mouthy.” The amusement in Arcee’s field is enough to take the sting out of the rejection.

Wheeljack’s not exactly hurting for attention and affection anyway. He’s only offered because honestly, Arcee could use it. She’s wound tighter than the shocks on the Jackhammer, and the rise of Decepticons in Kaon has not made her any less tense.

“Besides,” Arcee says with a rattling vent and a twist of her jaw, “I’m thinking of leaving.”

Wheeljack cycles his optics. “That’s news to me. I’m usually the one who takes off.”

“Guess we’ve traded places.” Arcee’s grin is crooked and wry. “There are three too many Decepticons around here. Starscream’s bad enough. I don’t know if I can stand walking around Kaon knowing I might run into Megatron or Soundwave, too.”

Well, that’s fair.

Wheeljack’s not having an easy time of it himself. He’s had to manually disable his threat protocols and stop his blasters from engaging more than a couple of times. It was a lot easier to take one Starscream than it is to handle the others. Doc-bot’s got a good handle on Starscream.

No one’s got a handle on Megatron or Shockwave or Soundwave.

Wheeljack’s not opposed to gradually letting Decepticons come home. He doesn’t outright loathe them to the same degree as some of the others. If they genuinely just want to come back, settle down, contribute, and be peaceful -- Wheeljack’s all for that. It’s just, he’s not sure he can trust that the entirety of Decepticon command is hanging around to do that.

He’s fine with trusting the foot-soldiers, it’s the general he’s leery over.

“Where would you go?” Wheeljack asks.

Arcee takes a long drink of the engex -- making a face that mingles disgust with appreciation. It’s tank-rot, but it’s effective. “Out there, I guess. Plenty of wandering Cybertronians who need to know it’s safe to come home. That the war’s over.”

Wheeljack makes a non-committal noise. He watches Smokescreen interact with one of the newsparks, laughing as he claps the mech on the shoulder. “A worthwhile venture, I guess,” he says. “We’d miss ya around here. Not enough old guard to go around.”

“Plenty of Decepticons though,” Arcee says.

“Predacons, too,” Wheeljack says with a crooked grin. “But you gotta do what you gotta do, Arcee. I don’t blame you if ya need a change.”

Arcee leans back, one foot toeing into the grime of the training center. “What about you?” she asks. “I could use a partner.”

Wheeljack finishes off his engex and smacks his lips. “If you’d asked me a year ago, I probably would’ve joined you, but now… I don’t really wanna leave.”

“Because Bulkhead won’t?”

“Yeah, but not just.” Wheeljack tucks the empty container into his subspace -- no littering for him -- and rolls his neck. “It’s nice, coming home and knowing Bulk will be there. Knowing I don’t have to worry about losing him to a Decepticon.”

Scrape-scrape goes Arcee’s foot against the ground. “Technically, that could still happen.”

“True. But it’s a lot less likely than it used to be.” Smokescreen and the rest of the newsparks vanish inside, leaving the training grounds tidied and empty, and Wheeljack nothing to look at. “I don’t trust them, but I think they’re as tired of fighting as we are.”

Arcee’s gears click-click in a non-committal reply.

“Megatron’s got a look about him,” Wheeljack says as he tilts his head back and looks at the gray, uninspiring sky. “I don’t think he was as ready for Optimus to die as he thought he was.”

“None of us were.”

“Yup.” Wheeljack cycles a ventilation, offlines his optics, and thinks about catching Bulkhead right after shift, when he’s all tired and dirty, but still in high spirits. “I think I like this life. I think I wanna keep it.”

“Then you should,” Arcee says, and she gives him a smile, a genuine one. “I’ve never seen Bulkhead happier, either. I’m happy for both of you.” She looks up, however, her winglets twitching and settling against her back. “But I don’t think I can stay.”

Wheeljack hauls himself to his feet, stretching his arms over his head. “Then you shouldn’t.” He turns and offers her a hand. “Sometimes, ya gotta go before you realize what you can’t bear to leave behind.”

She takes his hand and lets him haul her to her feet. “You’d know best about that,” Arcee says, as she gives him a smile before taking her hand back. “Guess I’ll talk to Magnus and see if he’ll lend me a ship.”

“Jackhammer’s yours if you want her,” Wheeljack offers. “Better than letting her sit here and rust anyway.”

Arcee finishes off her engex and hands him the empty. “I might just take you up on that.”

Wheeljack hopes she does.

He’s not going to lie. It’ll be sad to see her go, but not everyone needs the same things in order to be able to move forward, and Arcee’s lost a lot. If she thinks she’ll find her peace out in the universe, shouldn’t no one try to stop her.

All they can do is make sure she has a home to come back to.

~

Warm.

He’s warm.

The unusual sensation is enough to stir Soundwave online, bringing him to consciousness from the slow slip into the gray. His thoughts are slow, trickling across his synapses. His sensory suites equally lag.

There’s a dull echo of sound, too indistinct. He’s warm. His visual feed activates, and for a moment, Soundwave thinks he’s still caught in a recharge purge. There’s a sea of blue-green iridescence with dark shapes moving beyond it. One of them pauses, massive and broad, but Soundwave still looks down upon it.

His comm crackles.

“Soundwave.”

Soundwave jerks in place, liquid sloshing around his audials, his scanners reporting an influx of nutrients, nanobots, and fine energon surrounding his frame. He knows this voice. He knows it all the way to his spark.

Lord Megatron.

“Be calm,” Lord Megatron says. “Be still. We’ll release you in a moment.”

Soundwave focuses on the shape in front of him, tracing the parameters with his memory, slotting Lord Megatron’s shoulders over it, the jut and angles of his armor.

“Query,” Soundwave transmits in return.

“Answers will come,” Lord Megatron says. “Patience.”

The command given, Soundwave subsides into silence. He focuses on his exterior sensors, clinging to the connection with Lord Megatron which has not broken, but idles.

It does not compute.

Soundwave taps into his memory banks. Last he recalls, he’d been trapped in the Shadowzone, wandering aimlessly through a colorless landscape while trying to reason out a way to escape. He’d found none, and rather than waste energy, had taken refuge in a cave to wait for his inevitable demise, feeding Laserbeak from his own frame to keep her functional.

Laserbeak.

Soundwave searches his mounts, his connectors, his sparklink -- he can’t find any trace of her. If she is nearby, he cannot reach her.

“My lord,” Soundwave starts, but trails off into static. Patience is required of him.

The liquid around him begins to vibrate with a low hum. Soundwave can move, albeit with great effort, so he relaxes back into stillness, until the liquid starts to lower, with him in it. His feet touch something solid, more liquid drains away, until his head is freed, then his shoulders, his chassis, and further down.

Lord Megatron stands before him, separated by a thick layer of what Soundwave can only assume is transparent transteel. Coherency trickles in -- a CR chamber, likely in a medical bay, though what he can see through the transteel does not resemble the interior of the Nemesis.

Everything feels distant and distorted, even when the last of the liquid drains away, and there’s nothing to hold Soundwave upright but the various tubes and lines plugged into his frame. He slumps against the back wall of the chamber, exhaustion thrumming through his cables, his processing speed a slow trickle.

His vents echo loudly in the confines of the chamber, louder even then the gurgling of the liquid, the whir of some machinery, the tick-tick-tick of something overhead. It’s hard to move, and Soundwave doesn’t know if it’s because his commands are misfiring, or because there’s something wrong with him. Error messages flash across his internal display, over and over and over, too quickly to make sense of them.

Static crawls out of his vocalizer.

The door to the CR chamber slides open, admitting a rush of warm, antiseptic air. Soundwave’s fans suck it in greedily, and he tries to move toward it, but his feet won’t obey his commands. He tilts when his foot won’t lift, and it’s Lord Megatron who catches him as wires and cables snap free of his frame.

The pain is distant. The touch of Lord Megatron’s armor is scorching against his chilled plating. He’s dripping with fluid, coughing it up from his vents, and there’s movement in his periphery.

“Hold him still. I don’t want him to damage himself anymore than he already has,” says a familiar gruff voice.

Lord Megatron’s arms steady him. Soundwave tries to lift his head, but there’s no strength in him. He’s a puppet without strings, without coherency , and his sensory suite flashes to gray static.

“Frag. Catch him!”

Where’s Laserbeak? Where is he? What’s happened?

Soundwave’s vents drag in humid air, too fast, too sharp. He’s cold, all the way down to his spark, and the grey seeps in, swallowing, swallowing.

Black.

~

Soundwave is warm again, but this time he isn’t floating. When he resumes awareness, sound trickles in first -- the steady beeps of monitoring equipment, the vents of another mech nearby, the subtle hum of ambient transmissions. He onlines his optical feed and static clarifies into a room in a medical bay, evidenced by the equipment, the sharp scent of weldfire and sterilization hanging in the air, the prominent universal symbol for recovery slapped on the wall.

He’s not alone.

Soundwave turns his head as a chair creaks and there Lord Megatron is, perched beside him, looking both different and the same as Soundwave’s last clear recollection of him. Different enough Soundwave is sure this isn’t a dream; familiar enough he’d recognize his lord and master in an instant.

Unicron is gone. Lord Megatron is free once more.

“Soundwave,” Lord Megatron says, and the relief in his field is almost painful the way it rasps against Soundwave’s.

He does not smile, but then, Lord Megatron rarely smiled with genuine joy. His smiles have always been a thing of sharp edges, of bitten despair, or flagrant boasting.

“You are in Kaon,” Lord Megatron continues, answering the unvoiced questions burning at the back of Soundwave’s processor. “You are in the intensive care unit of the medical center under Ratchet’s care. You are not a prisoner. The war is over.”

War.

Over.

Soundwave pauses to replay Lord Megatron’s statement over and over, solidifying the truths in Lord Megatron’s tone into his central memory banks. Unicron is gone. There is no trace of dark energon in Lord Megatron’s lines.

He is not chained or collared. He is broken, but not by the optics of those forcing him to speak. He is grieving.

Soundwave knows the Decepticons did not claim victory. Yet, Lord Megatron sits here, unfettered, unbothered, and Soundwave is alive, no longer trapped in the Shadowzone. Lord Megatron could not have done this on his own. He would have needed help. He would have--

Laserbeak.

Soundwave jerks and his hand flattens over his chassis, fingers sliding into the empty dock where his last cassette should be and is not. A mournful sound escapes before he can stop it, the grief threatening to swallow him.

“She was not with you when we found you,” Lord Megatron murmurs, again, answering the unvoiced question, knowing Soundwave too well for his centuries of silence.

Laserbeak is gone.

Soundwave cycles a shuddering ventilation.

He tried to stop her. He gave her a command. She ignored him. She said she would save them both, she would find a way. She would find them fuel. She left him in that cave, and he was too weak to stop her. Too weak to do anything but watch her flit into the gray.

And then it was only black.

“We will find her if you know where to look,” Lord Megatron says. “We will take action. Effective action. The time for silence has passed, Soundwave. We will speak and be heard.”

Soundwave looks at Lord Megatron. His vocalizer clicks -- irritable with disuse, but not as much as he would have expected. He curls his hand against his empty dock, the ache of Laserbeak’s loss like a hollowness in his spark.

“S-Soundwave s-serves,” he stutters, each glyph grating out of a vocalizer he’d long ago abandoned. “L-lord M-Megatron.”

Lord Megatron, however, shakes his head. He leans closer, close enough that the heat of his frame leeches away the chill clinging to Soundwave’s. It had been so cold in the Shadowzone. Cold and devoid of life.

“I am a lord no longer,” Lord Megatron says, and for a moment, he glances past Soundwave, as if he’s looking to someone or something else. His face softens, the harsh lines smoothing into affection, before the stern commander returns. “I am Megatron still, however, and we have a lot of work to do.”

His hand rests on the berth, near Soundwave’s cubitus joint. His fingers lift as though he means to touch, but then he withdraws, indecision wafting around his field.

“If you’re still with me,” Lor-- Megatron says.

Soundwave cycles a ventilation. Two.

The war is lost. The Autobots have claimed victory. But they sit here unfettered, and Soundwave has been freed. Megatron has need for him yet. There must be work to do.

Soundwave knows the Autobots. He knows their weaknesses, their thoughts, their assumptions.

Yes.

Megatron is right.

The war is over, but they still have voices to speak, and they deserve to be heard.

“Always,” Soundwave says, the static clearing from his vocalizer, the resolve wrapping around his spark, over and over and over again. “Beside you.”

Megatron’s fingers brush his arm. “I knew I could count on you,” he says, with a curve of his lips that might almost be a smile, if Soundwave was generous.

There is nowhere else Soundwave would rather be.

****