TITLE: Broken
SERIES: Imperfection Deviation
AUTHOR: Macx
RATING: R for violence and one naughty dream sequence later on
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters belong to me, sadly. They are owned by people with a lot more money :)
Author’s Voice of Warning (aka Author’s Note):
English is not my first language; it’s German. This is the best I can do. Any mistakes you find in here, collect them and you might win a prize The spell-checker said everything's okay, but you know how trustworthy those thingies are....
FEEDBACK: Loved
PLOT-BETA: Sapphire
GRAMMAR-BETA: okami_myrrhibis

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The world was a mass of confusion and pain. Memories were sketchy, close to non-existent. He had no idea where he was and how he had gotten here. He didn’t know why he felt so much pain and why it didn’t stop.

Wasn’t someone supposed to stop the pain?

And who was he?

Everything was dark with spots of light that fled when he tried to concentrate on them.

His head hurt.

Head… huh, he had a head. Sure he had a head. Everyone had one, right?

And it hurt.

He wanted to move, but the thought died halfway out of his brain and down the neural connections to his legs. He felt pain, but he didn’t know where it came from.

Breathing…

Breathing was complicated. It involved pain. He wanted to stop, but stopping to breathe was bad. It might end the pain, but then everything else would end as well.

So he remained in his pain-filled world, motionless, thoughts bleeding off into nothingness, and he fought to remember.

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The arrival on the planet called ‘Earth’ by its inhabitants had been less than stellar. It had been a rather forceful crash that had rattled more than just a few systems. Hot on the trail of that scumbag of a Con, the hunter had tried to find a trace of the hunted, but the Con had gone into hiding. And this planet was large enough for him to disappear. So the hunter had tried to get his bearings and find his target again.

It was arduous work. Hiding from the humans, hiding from possible Decepticon detection, and trying to survive with war-scarred circuits on a world that proved to be dangerous to a mechanoid. The hunter had little chance to rest. Always careful, hyper-aware of everything, trusting no one. Trust had killed or crippled comrades. Trust had torn him from his home, his friend, his team. There was no one left, all scattered into the four corners of the universe. Their leader had disappeared, looking for the Allspark, Cybertron had tethered on the brink of destruction and finally succumbed, and the hunter was all alone.

Alone for millennia.

It had grated on the abused systems, it had changed a lot, and it had made him wary.

Contact with the humans was non-existent. They were part of this world, but as much the enemy as the Decepticon he was hunting. The hunter was waiting for the wrong move, to strike out and annihilate this thorn, this dangerous killer.

But the Con remained in hiding.

Instead the hunter found traces of his own kind, and another Decepticon. So the hunt turned into a hide-and-seek, a reconnaissance mission that might end with two killings and a reunion.

The problem was that the hunter didn’t know about his compromised circuits. He didn’t know that the long neglect, the loneliness, the maddening chase, had done a number on his core systems. Logical decisions had long since died and been replaced by spur of the moment, almost instinctual reactions. There was always a threat, always a danger, and to the already wired mind the constant readiness was like a never-ending overload.

‘Feverish’, a human would say. Or mad.

Mad was a good description.

Mad explained the hunter’s actions.

Because when he discovered a fellow hunter, together with a human, things went down south pretty fast…

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Will Lennox, ex-Army Ranger and former Major, had finished his morning run, long legs eating up the set distance, showered, drunk two large cups of coffee, and changed into his jeans and t-shirt. He had grabbed a bottle of mineral water from the fridge and then set off on an early patrol through the base. It was something he had adopted in the last months. He prowled around the levels of the Autobot base, a former Air Force hangar and adjoining buildings, popped in on the humans and mechs working here, and generally got a feel of the place for the day. No one stopped him, no one really asked any questions, and since Ironhide was unofficially the chief of security, Will had become his ‘assistant’.

He snorted a little.

He had no official position and he was paid by the invisible funds of the Department of Defence. Not that he had anything to spend it on, aside from the occasional beer or fast food trip. He couldn’t go out into the public, couldn’t spend an evening at the movies, have a nice lunch or dinner at a restaurant, couldn’t lounge around at the beach or anything of the like. The runes made it impossible. They crawled over his skin even if he was completely relaxed. Emotions changed that.

The base was relatively quiet, which suited Lennox well. He nodded at some of the soldiers and spent half an hour chatting with Jazz, then sauntered back toward the main office that was his usual hang-out when Epps didn’t kick him out. He had promised Epps to go over some of his old reports and file them away. When the command had changed, Epps hadn’t really incorporated all of his former commander’s reports, just left them where they had been, and Lennox had more or less volunteered to help. He knew his reports best and he knew the new filing system, so it should be easy.

Ironhide was tinkering with the security systems and wouldn’t come out of the lab unless the base was under Decepticon attack. Lennox wasn’t about to disturb him. He had spent quality time with him last night, sleeping in the transformed mech. Sometimes he did that. It was just… nice… being so close. It was just rather embarrassing that the runes showed it so openly. There would always be the same strings of cosmic code lazily swirling over his exposed skin and when Will had once checked his chest, he had seen some of them there, too.

Ironhide had been amused.

Lennox had been even more embarrassed and muttered curses under his breath.

Not that it helped. Not that it ever stopped them from becoming even closer, even when Will was human. In the beginning he had had to change into his Protoform form to connect to Ironhide, but a similar way had been discovered because of the runes and his changed body. It was different, lasted longer than the Sharing in his Protoform shape, but it was satisfying for both.

Lennox knew the new guys to the base always stared, talked behind his back, but he had friends who stopped the talk, who set people right on the matter. It never took the newbies too long to adjust and giant alien robots were a lot more fascinating and gawk-worthy than a simple human with runes and glyphs. Only the medical personnel knew that he was genetically no longer human either, so they always wanted to check or test something or other. Lennox had ended those Q&As a long time ago.

He wasn’t the local guinea pig.

Sometimes he hated the runes. They were part of what had separated him forever from his ex-wife. A divorce was one thing; declared dead another. Annabelle was growing up, Sarah had a new man in her life, she was back in her hometown and worked a good job, Annabelle went to school… life had gone on. For both of them.

Major Will Lennox had died. His life had ended. Will Lennox had continued to live. Sometimes he pondered letting Annabelle and Sarah go, stop his prying into their lives. Only sometimes, because she was still his little girl and he still loved Sarah. Ironhide was someone else, something new, something different. How could he ever explain what he felt and what it was to him to someone else – he didn’t even understand it himself. He was in a strange kind of relationship with a giant, alien mech. And it was fulfilling and warm and calming and something he had come to enjoy, for lack of a better word. He couldn’t call it love, but it wasn’t simple ‘like’ either.

Sitting down in the chair and powering up the computer terminal, he tried to chase away thoughts of Ironhide. The runes begged to differ, bright and running in long strings over his exposed skin. He glared at them, but his emotions had launched them and the soft feelings reflected in the writing. A few cosmic code strings among a lot of Cybertronian glyphs.

Will glared more when he read the words.

Great. Just fucking great. If he ran into a mech now, or Sam, who read Cybertronian just as fluidly, he was an open book. Resolutely he turned to the computer files and paged through them until he found his old stuff.

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Every human of the military contingent at the Autobot base had a tracking device, mostly in their cell phones, and the higher ranking ones had an extra one they were required to carry with them. It was a matter of security and so far it had proven to be effective. So when Lieutenant Trent DeMarco didn’t call in as usual, the officer on duty alerted his own superior, Captain Epps, and Optimus Prime.

“Call Arcee,” Epps ordered, standing behind the man and waiting.

“No reply,” Baker replied.

Optimus tilted his head, apparently trying to do the same, then his optics narrowed a little. Epps felt a grim feeling rise inside him.

He didn’t like this. Not at all.


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He had lost consciousness for a while. He didn’t know how much time had passed because it was still, or again, dark. He only knew that the pain had woken him and he couldn’t move. It was colder now. Part of him was shaking. At least it felt like it. Maybe it was an illusion.

The pain wasn’t really so bad any more. It was almost bearable. He had been in worse. When he had broken his leg during a football game. Damn, that had hurt. It had been a sharp pain, not so dull and distant as the one he felt right now. But at least back then he had known why he hurt. It had been that idiot Borlander, crashing into him while trying to impress one of the cheerleaders. Moron…

He wondered how he could remember the name of the jerk who had broken his leg, but not his own.
Suddenly there was noise. A lot of noise. And lights. Voices. He had no idea what they were saying, but his eyes were forced open, the lights blinded him, the ground was shaking, then deep rumbles could be heard. More voices, then someone moved him.

The pain returned with a vengeance.

And finally there was only blackness again.

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The desert was awash with lights. Gleaming headlights, spreading an eerie cold aura of whiteness. Red and blue flashing lights of a police cruiser and an emergency vehicle, coupled with the blue lights of a military contingent from Nellis Airforce base. In the absolute darkness beyond the blinding lights, animals had gone into hiding. Shadowy figures moved, armed and ready to fend off whoever might still be lurking around the attack site. A Black Hawk helicopter was hovering the dark sky above, massive rotor blades disturbing the air. Its night vision equipment showed the pilot the area as clearly as daylight.

It hadn’t been an accident. It had been a clear attack, and armed forces had been dispatched. Captain Robert Epps was talking to his men, directing them to take up position, secure evidence, trace, anything they could find. No criminal science team would be called; this was a matter of the highest security.

The ground shook a little as Ironhide walked over to where Ratchet was conversing with the emergency medical personnel as they prepared the unconscious Lieutenant to be airlifted out of here. Trent was hooked up to several machines, all showing the same, disheartening, actually quite shocking, low read-outs. Lennox was with the team, fully armed, in combat gear, despite the fact that he wasn’t part of the Army any longer. No one cared.

When the Search and Rescue helicopter had finally picked up the lieutenant and the paramedics were on board, too, Ratchet transformed and followed on the ground. The Black Hawk remained, slowly expanding its search perimeter, sometimes closer to the ground, then rising up into the air again.

Lennox looked up when Ironhide joined him.

“Anything?” he asked, voice cool and controlled. Anger boiled in his eyes.

“Not so far. No sign of Arcee. Jazz and Barricade found signs of a fight. Traces of energon, traces of another mechanoid.”

“Decepticon?”

“We don’t know. You can’t generally tell from a few drops of lubricant and energon.”

Lennox’s lips were a thin line and his grim expression was matched by Epps, who had walked over to them.

“We secured the area,” Epps told them. “Wide perimeter. No sign of anything but small animal life.”

“Arcee wouldn’t have left Trent just like that,” Ironhide rumbled. “She must have been forced away.”

“She didn’t call us either,” Epps added. “Whatever hit them, she’s incommunicado.”

“Not good,” Will muttered.

Definitely not. They had only found Trent because he hadn’t checked in on time and Epps took these things pretty seriously. All his men were drilled to follow protocol and check in on the second. Trent had never missed a call and when he hadn’t replied, the search had been on. They had discovered the small tracer they all wore out here. Unmoving.

Trent was in a very bad shape. No one knew how long he had been laying in the desert. He had been out and about with Arcee, both on them on leave for the weekend, and he had always checked in on time. Since they hadn’t left the area for the time off, had even paid Bowman at Nellis a visit, the attacker must have struck just as they were going back.

“Got word from Barricade,” Ironhide suddenly said. “He’s following a faint trace, Cybertronian energy signature.”

“ID?”

“Impossible.”

It was a big step on Ironhide’s part that he didn’t just transform and go where Barricade was to keep an eye on Jazz’s partner. The trust Ironhide showed was a thin one, but it was trust.

“So you think it’s a Decepticon?”

The expression in the metal face said it all. Lennox knew the mechanoid well enough to read even the slightest twitch of flexible parts. Ironhide wasn’t happy.

“So we’re going to join Barricade and Jazz?”

“The moment we’re done here,” was the reply.

Okay, the big guy had learned at least a little bit of patience.

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An hour later Ironhide and Will were on their way, heading to where Jazz was waiting for them. Will was talking to Epps, who would stay at Nellis and coordinate what needed to be done from there together with Bowman. When he had finished, he leaned back and gazed out at the almost monotone landscape that flashed by.

“I felt two,” he finally said.

Ironhide rumbled softly.

“And we thought one’s a Decepticon because of the events in Maine. Now Trent was injured in Nevada and Arcee has disappeared. You think the Decepticon knows the Autobots are located here?”
Another rumble. “We don’t know if it is a Con,” Ironhide said reluctantly. “Could be an Autobot.”

“Who hurts a human and leaves him to die?”

Ironhide gave a sigh. “Not all of us have Prime’s tendency toward other life. Some of us are pretty self-absorbed. Then there are some who can’t get enough of alien contact.”

“Like Jazz?”

“Like Jazz.”

“So it might be an Autobot. But why attack Arcee?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like a Decepticon,” the black mech elaborated.

Will cocked an eyebrow. “Feel?” he quoted.

This time the warning was more of a mild version of before. “I know what Decepticons do, Lennox,” Ironhide growled. “Trent would be dead and Arcee’s body parts scattered for us to find and collect. This isn’t them.”

Lennox watched the runes drift over his skin for a moment. Finally he nodded. “So it’s an unknown factor, a mechanoid, possibly an Autobot, but very likely dangerous.”

“Exactly.”

“I can work with that. Let’s hope Arcee’s still alive.”

“She’s a troubleshooter. They’re hard to put down.”

Will hoped they were. He liked Arcee and she had been a breath of fresh air among the Autobot forces. If she had been killed it meant something very hostile had arrived, something they hadn’t detected. Maybe something that had been here for as long as Prime and the others; maybe even longer.

Whatever it was, Will knew it was one thing for sure: trouble.

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When the alert came in, Hot Rod was in the middle of recharge. His systems went online without hesitation, interrupting the recharge process, and he immediately downloaded all available data.

“Oh hell,” he whispered as the implications of it all settled in his processor.

Tony wasn’t at his home. He was somewhere in New York on a business matter that he had told Hot Rod was boring and would probably kill his brain enough to affect his genius. The New York branch of Stark Industries was in the middle of negotiating a contract for advanced computer systems and they had already scored a victory over one competitor, but now it was down to a one on one fight, and Tony had to make a personal appearance.

Hot Rod went through his options, but there weren’t many. His job was to guard Tony Stark and with a possible Decepticon threat looming over them, Tony’s safety had to be assured. He was a valuable ally and the Extremis made him an asset that the Decepticons would go after.

::Jarvis?::

::Yes?:: the artificial intelligence replied immediately.

::Lock down the house. Full safety protocols:: Hot Rod ordered as he drove out of the underground workshop/garage.

::Is there a threat?:: Jarvis asked as he complied, making the Malibu house more of a fortress than a simple billionaire’s fancy.

::Yes.:: He downloaded what he had into the AI and Jarvis seemed to rock back slightly. ::I’ll hitch a ride to New York:: the Autobot went on, simultaneously contacting Captain Michael Bowman of Nellis Airforce base.

::You think Mr. Stark is in danger?::

::I’m not sure, but better safe than sorry::

Jarvis radiated worry without voicing it. Hot Rod had come to know the AI and he knew that the computer had developed a lot further and more quickly than anyone could ever have thought. Jarvis had emotions not unlike a human being, though he was new to the emotional responses and sometimes confused himself with what his reactions were to certain events. He loved his creator, was protective, served him without question, and he was loyal to his last blip.

::I’ll keep you updated:: the Autobot promised.

::Thank you:: was the sincere reply.

With that Hot Rod accelerated and headed for the Nevada base.

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The Search and Rescue helicopter with its patient was expected at Nellis. A team of medical personnel received the injured man and hurried him off to the emergency facilities.

Now they were getting ready to treat their patient. Five people swarmed over the lieutenant, getting him stabilized, by inserting tubes, checking vitals and attaching electrical leads. Dr. Mark Keyron was impatiently waiting for the x-rays while Captain James Hiro, orthopedic specialist, had a look at the other scans and results. He would handle the leg surgery while Keyron took care of the inner bleeding. The anesthetist was currently watching DeMarco and finally nodded at Hiro that everything was stable. As if on that cue, the x-rays were brought in. Both medics looked at them and Hiro nodded.

"Compound fracture," he said. "And that's the easy part."

Keyron stepped closer and regarded the x-ray critically. The leg had been broken in four places, five ribs had equally broken, two more were cracked. There was internal bleeding and one of the ribs had punctured a lung. A broken bone could be fixed, but there was always the muscle and nerve damage.

Hiro turned to their patient. "Innervation and arterial supply look good. What we're going to do is to stabilize the bone, remove the fragments and deal with the soft tissue as need be. I think we'll find a lot of crush damage to muscle bellies, but the vessels and nerves look intact."

Keyron agreed and then stepped to the table. His own work was just as extensive and he hoped they wouldn’t have any bad surprises waiting for them.

It was time to begin.

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Sam arrived at Nellis several hours after the helicopter with Trent aboard had landed. Bumblebee and him had been in Tranquility, visiting Sam’s parents, when Bumblebee had received the news about the attack, about Arcee being missing, and Trent badly injured. They had been off within ten minutes after the call had come in, breaking all speed limits and a few more traffic laws, to get to Nellis.

Ratchet was there, as well as some guys from the unit. They were milling around, looking fierce and angry and a little scared. Whatever had attacked Trent and Arcee, it had to be a Decepticon. And a Con on Earth meant a new-arrival.

“Anything?” Sam asked when he had found Captain Michael Bowman.

Their liaison officer shook his head. “No. He’s in surgery and they had to stabilize him for an hour to get even started. Looks serious.”

WiFi, perched on Bowman’s shoulder, chirped softly. The tiny red optics glowed dully and he looked a little scared himself. Sam gave the Nokia a weak smile. He could feel the worry and fear and he tried to ignore it.

They were all scared, as well as shocked. If a Decepticon had landed on Earth and had attacked Arcee, where was she? She was a troubleshooter, not a maintenance bot. She knew how to handle herself; she was very good, she was deadly, but she had been forced to leave a badly injured Trent in the desert.

Sam got himself a coffee and joined the waiting men. He knew it might take a while. A call to his parents passed half an hour. He informed them of what had happened, calmed them, promised he would call again as soon as there was anything on Trent, and hung up. Throwing away the empty Styrofoam cup he walked over to where Bumblebee was standing.

“You okay?” he asked quietly.

“As okay as we all are. There is nothing on the attacker and Barricade is following the trail he found. He’s a shock trooper. He’ll find even the smallest trace.”

“Jazz there, too?”

“Yes.”

Sam was quiet, gazing out over the base where dawn was approaching. Ratchet had left to return to the Autobot base where Optimus Prime was preparing for their own search. They had informed Hot Rod of a possible Decepticon landing. He would keep an extra optic on Tony.

“Will felt two extra sparks,” Sam finally said, reminding them of the strange dream-like vision of their friend.

“We now know that one is a Decepticon,” Bumblebee agreed.

“Just what we needed.”

Silence ensconced them. Sam leaned against the wall, watching the sun rise, thoughts drifting. He had known that it was possible, that more Decepticons might come. He had hoped they wouldn’t. He had prayed that with the death of Megatron, things would be quiet. If the Decepticons came, the presence of the Autobots among them would no longer be a secret. They would have to openly confront the enemy and show themselves to the humans.

::We’ll be fine:: Bumblebee told him.

::Yeah:: he murmured.

Fingers crossed.

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Hot Rod’s arrival at the airbase was undercover as always. Bowman was at the side entrance where only the Autobots and their allies came and left, and he nodded at the Audi as the mech transformed.

“Your flight’s almost ready. I’d fly you myself, but I’m needed here.”

“No problem. I talked to Tony and he knows what happened.”

Worried blue optics glanced at the busy movement of men and machinery around them. No one was gawking at him. Everyone here knew of the Autobots.

“Anything on the attacker?”

“No news so far. Trent’s still in surgery.”

Hot Rod nodded grimly and walked toward where the transport plane was still in the middle of flight preparations.

“Fifteen more minutes,” Bowman told him.

Hot Rod was prepared to wait. The flight would be a lot fast than driving, which might take days.



Twenty-five minutes later a silver R8 was loaded into the cargo hold of the transporter which then took off. Destination: New York.

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Tony Stark had been in the middle of a boring PowerPoint presentation that threatened to send him into a coma when a brief message on his cell phone informed him that Hot Rod was on his way to New York. Pulled out of his stupor from too much data and not enough common sense to compress the presentation facts to the really important stuff, he wondered what was going on. Using Extremis he found a secure frequency.

::Hey, Roddy. Bored of the surf and in for the filth that is New York?:: he joked while pretending to be the interested party that he wasn’t, in a meeting that was as superfluous as the common cold.

::I wish. Lieutenant DeMarco was attacked and seriously injured by an unknown third party, possibly Decepticon. Arcee has vanished without a trace.::

Tony felt himself tense immediately, though in the outside he didn’t show a single reaction.

::When?::

Hot Rod relayed time and place to him, adding that no one knew if Trent would make it. And if he did, no one could foretell his chances of healing completely.

::So you’re doing your babysitter thing?::

::Guardian, Tony. And yes, that’s it. We don’t know what happened and you’re..::

::Important? An asset?::

Hot Rod sent a tight smile. ::Yes. And my friend. I’ll be at the airport in twenty more minutes. According to your schedule you’ll be in this meeting for two more hours::

::Don’t remind me. I’m already comatose::

::Pepper and Happy have been informed, too:: Hot Rod went on. ::You’ll be at your mansion for the rest of your stay, not the hotel::

::But I like that hotel! It has the best steaks and home fries in the whole of the country::

Hot Rod chuckled. ::Tough luck::

::Yeah, right. Okay, the mansion it is. Any idea just who we’re dealing with?::

::No. And you’re not dealing with anyone:: the Autobot told him firmly.

::Aside from mind-numbing presentations and suck-up assistants:: Tony replied. ::I think I’m going to have a brain aneurysm::

Hot Rod sent amusement. ::I’ll be waiting for you when you’re done.::

With that he signed off and Tony was left with the option to die a premature brain death in this meeting or entertain himself with wading through the data streams running through his head. In the end he logged himself into the military channels, kept a close eye on the rescue operation, the search for the unknown attacker, and he had a direct line into the Nellis mainframe to have an immediate update should something go wrong with DeMarco. All the while he maintained an interest, superficial as it was, in the meeting, smiled, shook hands, and wondered if they really needed this contract so badly. If the presentations were that bad already, how exciting would working together become?

The minute they were, Tony gave all a bland, neutral smile, nodded, shook hands, warded off attempts for a dinner invitation, and quickly left the building.

Hot Rod was already there, waiting.

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Coming online was not at all like it was for humans, who called it ‘waking up’. Systems booted or rebooted, checks were run at lightning speed, and all sensor data was immediately compiled. Humans would probably offline from overload once again if all data came simultaneously for their brains to process. Cybertronians had never worked differently.

Arcee let the information run past her processor and she tried to gather where she was, recall what had happened, and gauge the danger of the situation.

She and Trent had been traveling down an old, rarely used byway. She liked hanging out with the human. He liked speed, he knew how to ride a bike, and he was fun. Arcee liked fun.

Now she was…

She accessed the collected data and found she was no longer in the desert. She was inside. An old building, probably derelict, probably long abandoned. She detected one energy signature, another Cybertronian, but she couldn’t tell whether it was friend or foe.

When in doubt, act first, ask questions later.

So she acted.

The troubleshooter moved with the speed her kind was known for. She homed in one the other presence, using no other weapon than her body. She had been disarmed, but that didn’t mean she was helpless. Her captor hadn’t secured her at all – big mistake.

The other Cybertronian moved as well, fast, but not as fluid as Arcee, and she caught the other in the chest.

Blue optics flared.

She stopped, shock coursing through her system. Impossible…

“Chromia?” she managed.

The other mech nodded.

Arcee stepped back. “When did you come? Why didn’t you contact any of us? What happened?”

Chromia looked a lot worse for wear. Her unfamiliar exostructure was battered, cracked and in bad need of repair. She had chosen a vehicular mode, probably a small, fast car, Arcee suspected, and the orange paint job needed a wash and wax. At least ten layers.

“Can’t trust anyone,” Chromia answered. “There’s Deceptiscum everywhere. Can’t hide for long anywhere. Always moving.”

Arcee noted the erratic twitch in her friend’s fingers, the way she almost nervously kept scanning the room.

“Optimus Prime defeated Megatron. The others fled,” she told Chromia, leaving out the fact that one Decepticon was still on Earth and actually their ally.

“Everywhere,” Chromia repeated. “They killed the others. I could escape. I followed Prime. He came here, so did I. But there’s Cons. All around us.”

Arcee felt a sliver of worry. “You need a system check, Chromia. Ratchet’s here, too. Let him look you over.”

“Can’t trust. Never trust. Troubleshooters are on their own.”

Now the sliver turned into a big shard. Arcee knew enough about processor defects to see that Chromia had been damaged badly. She needed Ratchet to take a look at her, a very deep look.

“We’re not alone. We never were.” Arcee stepped closer. “Let’s go to the Autobot base, okay?”

“No! We’re not like them. We’re troubleshooters. We’re hunters. And I’ll hunt the Decepticons to my last pump beat!” Chromia yelled.

“Chromia, you’re not thinking straight! You even attacked me, an Autobot!” Arcee exclaimed.

And then she remembered Trent.

“Where is the human who was with me?”

Chromia’s optics flared bright blue.

“Where. Is. He?”

“I saved you, Arcee. You were in serious danger. We’ve been undermined!”

“You left him?” Arcee was aghast. “You left him in the desert? He could be hurt!”

She couldn’t remember anything about what might have happened to Trent. Whatever Chromia had hit her with, she had been stunned and off-lined. She hoped her friend was fine. He had a locator with him and his cell phone. He could be found.

“Chromia,” she appealed to her fellow troubleshooter once more. “Let me take you to see Prime. You need help and many of us are already here.”

Chromia’s face twisted. “What if your base is already compromised? I followed one of them here. He’s on this alien world.”

“Who?”

Her hands clenched spasmodically again.

“Soundwave.”

Arcee’s systems ran cold. “Soundwave?”

Soundwave was one of the upper ranks of Megatron’s troops. He was the most loyal Decepticon, standing by his leader with an unwavering confidence. Cold, logical and the Decepticons’ communications officer, he had his ears everywhere. Nothing escaped him and while there was no such thing as telepathy among machines, Soundwave’s processor was wired differently than the others’. He picked up even the slightest whisper and with his legion of symbiote mechanoids, he was a small army. The symbiotes were loyal only to him. They spied or went on recon missions, following only his commands.

When Arcee had heard about Frenzy and Barricade she had believed it was a similar relationship, but Frenzy had never been as closely knit into Barricade’s systems as the symbiotes were. While Frenzy had fed off Barricade’s energon supply and had kept the larger Con’s systems working, he was still nothing more than a temporary tool.

“Are you sure?” she then said.

“Yes! I saw him! I’ve been following him!” Chromia’s optics were feverish with intensity. “And his spies are with him! They spread out over this world and they have taken on human disguises!”

“What?”

“You can’t trust anyone!” Chromia pointed a finger at her. “You fell for it, too. They’re so cunning!”

“Chromia, what are you talking about? There are no Decepticon anywhere!”

“I saw one! You were with him!”

“Trent? Are you talking about Trent?” Arcee felt her worry double. “He’s human. He’s my friend. What did you do, Chromia?”

“Took care of the two-faced snake,” she hissed.

“What did you do?!”

The smile was cold and calculating. “One less to worry about, Arcee. And if you side with him, you are worth just as much as he was: nothing!”

“Chromia, no! Trent’s human!”

The larger troubleshooter suddenly loomed over her, one hand shooting out to grab her by the neck and pin her to the wall. “Naïve little thing. They are here. They are waiting. I’ll take them out and kill Soundwave, even if it is the last I’ll ever do. He killed my friends, my team. It’s time for revenge!”

Arcee was thrown to the side and her already overtaxed systems blared with alarm. She wasn’t fast enough to react as Chromia raised her weapon and pulled the trigger. Everything simply shut down and plunged her back off-line.



Chromia looked down at the body of her former team mate, then turned on her heels and headed out. A perimeter alarm went off and she checked, smiling darkly as she caught the energy signature coming her way.

“Decepticon,” she whispered, the light in her optics almost mad.

She transformed and left her hide-out.

It was time to take out another one.

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Barricade felt the thrill of the hunt course through him. It had been too long since he had felt this way and he had missed the race of energon through his systems, the near-overload caused by constant tension, the heightened senses, the sharp reflexes, all playing together to outsmart and maybe terminate the enemy. The battle simulations he ran with Jazz were satisfying, but they could never be what the real thing was. Jazz understood and felt the same. They were really very much alike. Jazz reflected the exhilaration, the silent communication between them entitling Barricade to a peak into his bonded’s state-of-mind.

He had no idea who the prey was, Decepticon or Autobot. He actually didn’t care. While serving Megatron he hadn’t just hunted Autobots. The enemy also came from within the ranks and as a shock-trooper it had been his duty to follow his lord’s commands. His kind was feared. His kind was respected. And he had been among the very best.

The prey he was currently stalking was good, too. Agile, fast and able to cover their tracks. There were hardly traces left, but even those he could detect.

Not old.

Recent passes.

The prey had been here for a while and used this area to hide.

Barricade smiled darkly. He would find them and drag their sorry carcass back to Prime. Let the Autobot leader decide.

His loyalty to the powerful Autobot had surprised him at first. He found no thoughts of betrayal or an alliance out of necessity in his systems. He followed Jazz, who was loyal to Optimus Prime. Indirectly, so was Barricade now. He respected the Autobot. He truly did. Even when Barricade had still served Megatron. Back when there had been only one faction, when all had still followed the joint leadership of Optimus Prime and Megatron, Barricade had been fascinated by the silent strength and conviction of the older mech. Prime commanded respect by his mere presence. That Barricade had decided on his loyalty to Megatron had been due to the fact that he had seen the Decepticon leader as the only winner in the conflict.

It had been foolish back then and he realized that now.

Now his priorities had changed; his loyalties had drifted. Megatron was dead and since the Decepticon leader had broken his promise to his shock trooper, had killed Jazz – knowing he was Barricade’s spark-bonded – Barricade’s ties with the Decepticons had irreversibly been severed.
Focusing back on the hunt again, he tried to locate their prey, circling through the area of most traffic. The paths were erratic and Barricade wondered whether the mech was truly functional. This looked… like a mad course across the landscape, stopping, driving, stopping, driving… Either this was a new tactic to confuse a possible hunter – which Barricade doubted, considering his long experience in the matter – or the mech was not fully sane.

Jazz was about five kilometer ahead, puzzling over the traces, too.

::If he’s damaged, the question is, what’s better: a Con or a Bot?::

Barricade chuckled darkly. ::Depends on what you want to do with him::

Jazz echoed the chuckle, sounding lighter, though. ::Damage might be repaired::

::An Autobot then. Figures:: Barricade teased.

And then his world exploded.

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Jazz had scanned closely, trying to find the tiniest hint as to where the possible Autobot was, also using an encrypted Autobot frequency to coax the newcomer out of hiding. If this was truly an Autobot and he had attacked Arcee and injured Trent, he had to be severely damaged. Jazz didn’t believe for a moment that any sane Autobot would just destroy life and attack a comrade.
Barricade had reluctantly agreed. Autobot mentality was just like that. They might not all think like Prime, but they weren’t as ruthless as most Decepticons when it came to alien presence and the annihilation of it to reach a goal.

::It’s strange that he doesn’t even react to my calls:: Jazz mused out loud to his partner when suddenly a massive screech came over the frequency. ::Barricade?!::

The garbled mess that followed contained only a few words that made sense, but Jazz got the gist of it: Barricade was under attack and it seemed to be an Autobot.

He didn’t need much more. Homing in on Barricade’s last position he contacted the closest of his team, which was Ironhide.

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Barricade wasn’t an easy mech to take down. He was a shock trooper, had been one of the best, one of Megatron’s elite, and his speed and cunning had served him well. He had executed his share of Autobots, crushing their fuel pumps and annihilating their sparks with ease.

The first explosion had shaken his circuits and pushed the Saleen off the uneven desert path. Rock splinters and sand had rained down on his chassis, but there had been hardly a scratch. He could afford to lose some armor in his car mode. Nothing vital could be touched by a simple mine like that.

Transforming he scanned the area and his optics locked on a rather sleek looking mech about Jazz’s size. A lot less body mass, though, and with an armor that spoke of a specialization that reminded him of the troubleshooter Arcee.

Another one, he thought.

Which explained why it had been so hard to find her.

Barricade was surprised by the next strike that nearly hit him. The movements of his enemy were near perfect! There was a definite grace behind them, a grace only a troubleshooter could master after years of training. They were fast and agile and able to fit in places even shock troopers had problems with. They were worthy opponents and while Barricade had been tempted, he had yet to take Arcee up on her offer for a sparring session. Barricade was nearly too surprised to dodge the attack.

And the Autobot troubleshooter attacked again. Again Barricade was just barely able to get out of the way of the strike, which had been aimed at his head. But he couldn't evade the next blow which hit his mid-section. He staggered, evading another blow, but getting hit by the next.

Blue optics shone brightly, the mouth of the unknown Autobot twisting into an almost insane smile.

Barricade growled and decided he had played punching ball for long enough. His foot shot forward, slamming into the middle of her chest. The other mech staggered back, optics glittering with a cold, silvery fire. She flew at him once more and he lashed out with his claws, catching her arm, but she twisted in an impossible way and her own claws tore deep grooves into his armor. Barricade looked at her in amazed silence.

The fight dragged on, neither winning or losing, both landing severe blows and inflicting serious damage. Barricade noticed with grim satisfaction that the movement of the troubleshooter was becoming more erratic, but it also meant she was harder to predict. Despite the fact that the former Decepticon had torn apart her left shoulder armor, left deep gouges in her abdomen and crippled one hand, she was still going strong.

Amazing.

The silent troubleshooter suddenly pulled a blade from behind her back, the smile now icy and calculating.

::Nearly there, hold on:: Jazz sent.

The damage done in the short time the encounter had only lasted was immense. Barricade’s systems were busy rerouting and reconfiguring his body to make up for the loss of function in some areas. The alerts were multiplying and he was reaching a point where he feared that this might end because either ran out of energon, not because he was stronger or better.
Barricade gnashed a curse. He tried to dodge the blade, but the troubleshooter was incredibly fast considering her damage.

The blade struck the former Decepticon, going through the armor, severing circuits and tubes as it twisted inside him, then started to burn. It slashed sideway and cut a deep wound into him. Barricade’s optics flared in surprise and then pain, locking on the emotionless features of the troubleshooter.

He lashed out and buried his claws in her already weakened shoulder structure, taking great pleasure in the howl of servos and her hiss of pain and annoyance.

The socket cracked under the strain of his crushing grip.

She twisted the blade.

Barricade gasped in pain as his circuits finally relayed the pain and he collapsed. The stranger let him crash to the ground, smirking slightly. Her left arm looked useless, hanging by the seriously impaired shoulder socket, but she had either switched off her pain sensors, which was insane to do, or she liked the pain. Barricade had known several shock troopers who had done either in the past. Without pain signals it was hard to tell when your body was reaching its limits or had gone past it. Death was usually the result, though the fighter normally took down a lot more enemy soldiers than any other mech. Then there were those who liked pain, who lived with it like an old friend. Barricade had never been part of that group either.

His opponent regarded him with silent triumph, then got out something looking like a magnetic mine and placed it onto his chest.

"Time to say good-bye," she spoke up for the first time and it was a sick pleasure echoing in her words.

Barricade tried to ignore the massive alarm of programs crashing, systems dying, and his fuel pump desperately beating to ensure his survival. He launched himself at her, surprising her with his move, and rammed a fist into her mid-section. Her blade re-entered and cut dangerously close to the spark chamber, just glancing off it. Barricade screamed in pain as systems overloaded and crashed.

Then there was nothing.

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Ironhide had been working along the grid they had set up in their search for the attacker when the emergency message from Jazz came in. He didn’t hesitate and headed out immediately.

What he didn’t expect was to receive a familiar signal, see a mostly familiar figure, and the very person he had once trusted with his spark slaughtering their ally. Barricade was down, losing energon and servo fluids in copious amounts, and a mech he knew by the designation Chromia still delivering blows.

“Chromia!” he called and transformed.

Lennox had slid out of the cab, eyes wide, body tense. Whether it was under his own volition or just instinct, he had changed his skin color and his eyes glowed blue. He was halfway morphed into his protoform. Only his size was still human.

The troubleshooter stopped, optics coming to rest on Ironhide. She looked bad. Very, very bad. Not just because her armor was cracked or missing, she showed signs of a vicious battle with severe damage and charred areas, but because of her twitchy stance, the way her fingers clenched and unclenched, and her optics flickered.

“Chromia, stop!” the weapons specialist commanded.

“He’s a Decepticon!” she spat, voice filled with hatred.

“He’s our ally.”

And if that didn’t hurt to say out loud. Then again, Barricade had been around long enough by now. Ironhide had grown accustomed to seeing the Con and not reach for a gun the very moment he laid an optic on hi,

“No Deceptiscum would ever ally himself with an Autobot!”

“This one did.”

She laughed hollowly. “I doubted the day would come that you would stand by a Con and plead for him, Ironhide! You have grown weak!”

“Chromia, what’s going on? Why didn’t you contact us? And where’s Arcee?”

She was still too close to Barricade and the Decepticon wasn’t moving. “Arcee’s a traitor. She worked with the Decepticons. They changed her, swayed her to their side,” the troubleshooter spat. “Their influence is widening. It’s Soundwave’s work!”

Ironhide stared at her in confusion.

Chromia’s optics fell on Lennox, who had moved out far enough away not to be in Ironhide’s way should his partner need to act.

“Decepticon spy!”

The black Autobot wasn’t fast enough to react to the violent action of his former friend. Chromia discharged a huge energy pulse that was aimed at Lennox, and the resulting impact and explosion sent the hybrid hurtling back into a rocky outcrop.

“Will!” Ironhide screamed, shocked. “NO!”

His weapons charged without actively thinking about it and he sent several volleys toward Chromia. She ducked and jumped away, faster than he remembered her ever being.

“You protect this scum?!” she demanded, voice rising.

“He’s no Decepticon! He’s human!”

“The whole planet is infested with the Decepticon spy network!” Chromia cocked her head, optics blazing feverishly. “Are you one of them, too? Did they get you? Did Soundwave purge your mind?”

“Chromia, stop this!” Or I have to stop you…

A bright blue pulse blast hit the troubleshooter square in the chest and Ironhide whirled around, astounded. Lennox?

The human hybrid had changed into his full protoform, optics flaring with anger. He had shaped a gun attached to his right forearm, pointing it at Chromia, firing again. Whether the first blast had been powerful or Chromia was just too surprised, the second one hit her again, spinning her around. She crumbled to the ground, optics on Lennox, whose form was displaying the Allspark runes brightly.

He was pissed.

Really, really pissed.

“Great Cybertron…” she whispered.

For a moment Ironhide had the hope that the sight would shock her out of her strange and violent behavior, then she fired back. One blast hit Will in the shoulder, having him stumble, then Ironhide joined his partner in trying to subdue the Autobot troubleshooter.

He aimed at Chromia, whispered an apology, and fired. His blast was joined by Lennox’s and the smaller Autobot crumbled with a last cry, then lay still.

“Will?” Ironhide asked, working through his shock.

“I’m fine,” came the growled answer.

He didn’t look fine. Far from it. And the runes no longer moved but pulsed in position. Some just glowed steadily, other were a dark, burnished color. Aside from the ice blue optics, Lennox looked like the Allspark on legs.

“What the fuck was she talking about and who is she anyway?” the hybrid demanded.

“Her name is Chromia. She was Elita-1’s second-in-command. A troubleshooter.”

“And totally insane?”

Jazz’s arrival interrupted whatever Ironhide wanted to answer and the moment he saw the first lieutenant’s shocked face, he knew things were only going to get worse from now on.

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Jazz had no time to stare and feel the shock. He moved quickly, efficiently, without hesitation. His feet took him over to the mutilated body of his bonded and while his spark cried in denial, his logical side scanned for the worst damage.

“By the Pits…” Ironhide could be heard, towering over them.

Jazz saw it. A small, innocent device attached over the spark chamber.

He knew what it was.

And he felt his world almost stop.

“We need to remove it,” Ironhide said. He sounded far away. “Can’t take him back to base like that. We don’t know whether it’s a contained or an uncontained one.”

Lennox was next to him, looking a bit worse for wear with his shoulder injury, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was still in protoform shape and his ice blue optics scanned the device attached to Barricade’s chest. Fluids crusted his skin, but it was neither blood nor energon.

“Guess it triggers when removed?” he asked, voice cool and controlled.

“Yeah. It’s your basic Autobot design, but I think Chromia added a few personal touches. I’ve seen these things go off and leave a hole the size Tranquility behind.”

“A bit of an overkill, hm?”

“In war, no.”

Jazz didn’t want to go into the details. The Cybertronian Wars had been harsh, violent and in the end fatal to their whole planet. Neither faction had won. Now they had no home to return to and those few survivors had scattered throughout the universe.

“Can you disarm it?” Lennox asked.

“I hope so.” Jazz met the hybrid’s optics. “You don’t have to be here.”

“Nope.” But Will didn’t move.

Ironhide was still close by, next to the off-lined form of Chromia, and Jazz knew he was already in contact with Optimus. A wide area had been secured and everyone at the Autobot base had been set on alert. It also went for the Nellis Airforce base allies.

Lennox looked expectantly at Jazz. The specialist nodded briefly.

“Let’s do this,” he said softly.

That the body shell was that of his spark bonded registered, but Jazz couldn’t let it affect him. He had a spark to save.

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Bumblebee had made a 180 degree high speed turn when he had been told about what had happened out in the desert. Sam hadn’t so much as yelped, simply clutched the steering wheel tightly, his expression grim. His partner was getting constant updates from Jazz and Ironhide on the matter, which didn’t really ease the tension.

“Magnetic detonator,” Bumblebee told Sam when he inquired. “There are two different kinds. One blows inward, destroys the spark, leaving the area around the mech in question relatively unscathed. Then there are those that take out a wide area, sometimes several square miles since their charge is chain-reacting with everything that can be used as an explosive.”

“So if there’s anything flammable around it, it goes up, too?”

“Yes.”

Sam grimaced. That meant any mech who was too close to the blast zone. Their energon and fluids could work as accelerant.

“I wonder what happened to Chromia for her to react like this,” Bumblebee mused, sounding worried and angry in one.

“Maybe she was damaged? Or it’s trauma.”

The Autobot agreed, but it didn’t relax him or ease his mind. Chromia was a fellow Autobot, had been a comrade in the war. He had never known her closely, like he had Arcee, but as a troubleshooter she had been known to be fast, effective and deadly. Now she had attacked not only Barricade, who she didn’t know of as an Autobot ally, but also a fellow Autobot and a human. And she had shot at Will.

“Maybe something…” Sam started, then broke off with a cry, clutching his head.

Simultaneously, a burst of information arrived in Bumblebee’s processor.

::Sam!:: he cried, ignoring the open line to Ironhide, who was yelling for back-up. There was also Ratchet all of a sudden, telling them he was just seconds away, and Optimus, who had a whole unit of Epps’ men in tow.

::Sam!!::

Sam had curled over the steering wheel, whimpering in pain. Bumblebee reached for his partner and found the human mind overwhelmed with signals coming from…

… Barricade.

Bumblebee neatly inserted himself between the strong signal and Sam’s presence, soothing the agonized mind.

::Sam, breathe. Relax. It’s okay::

He kept up the mantra while still heading for the coordinates, just partially aware of what else was happening. Jazz was down for the count, as was Lennox. Ironhide was in uproar, Ratchet was just arriving. And Barricade…

Bumblebee turned to the signal and found something that made him grow cold. There, just at the edge of Sam’s mind, sat the barely perceptible shadow of what he had come to know at Barricade’s presence when he was linking to their technopath.

--The charge blew inward—he heard Ironhide snarl. – Do something, Ratchet!—

He wasn’t aware of the open channel between all Autobots and he probably didn’t care.

::Bee…:: the weak mind voice caught Bumblebee’s complete attention while his scanners caught the scene as he neared it.

::Sam, keep calm::

::Barricade…::

::He’s still there::

::I know:: was the trembling reply. ::Holding him::

Bumblebee’s energon pump almost missed a beat. ::What?::

::I got him. Here. Not letting go:: Sam sounded strained.

Bumblebee stopped outside the circle of Autobots and humans swarming the attack site. Optimus had turned to greet him, now looking slightly confused as to why Bumblebee hadn’t transformed.

-- Sam – Bumblebee only said, relaying all other information in a brief data transfer.

And Prime suddenly understood. Sam was the only thing keeping Barricade’s spark from dying.

::Can do it:: Sam managed. ::I won’t let it happen::

Bumblebee surrounded his partner with careful shields, watching the struggle to keep Barricade from off-lining completely. It was the first time he saw a mechanoid spark up close and personal as it was dying. It was frightening, it was amazing, it was terrifying. All the while Ratchet was working frantically on the severely mutilated Decepticon, trying to stabilize what was left of his spark. Jazz sat next to his spark-bonded, blue optics bright and almost feverish. He had been scathed by the blow, his armor looking blistered and burned, but he was functional.

Ironhide wasn’t moving from the damaged protoform of Will Lennox, who was just now changing back to his human self, though still displaying Allspark skin. Prime had secured Chromia’s temporarily off-lined form and Epps’ men were busy loading the inactive troubleshooter on a ride back to the Autobot base.

Sam shuddered and Bumblebee increased his support. He watched as the technopath clung to the weak shadow of Barricade’s presence, fighting with all he had.

“Ready for transport, Prime,” Ratchet could be heard. His optics fell on Bumblebee. “Is Sam okay with us moving Barricade?”

::Yes:: Sam answered and Bumblebee relayed it to the others.

“Good. We’ll airlift Barricade out of here. Jazz?”

“I’m okay,” was the level reply.

Ratchet didn’t look like he agreed, but he kept his silence. The dying bond was no physical ailment. It was a mental component. Jazz didn’t feel the death, but he was present as Barricade deteriorated. He knew the possible outcome. Whether he was aware of Sam fighting for Barricade, Bumblebee didn’t know.

::Go after him:: Sam murmured distractedly, busy keeping Barricade together.

Bumblebee did just that. His mind was still stunned by what had happened, how everything had so completely and abruptly been changed by one single event.

If Barricade died…

::Won’t:: Sam told him. ::I won’t let him::

Bumblebee hoped that determination was enough.

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Sam had never done what he was currently doing before. He had rarely touched a mind as deeply in the past as he was now. Sure, he Shared with Bumblebee, but that was a matter of equal trust, equal awareness, and equal openness. There was nothing forced in their encounters, nothing that the other didn’t want. It was mutually satisfactory. The same went for the way Jazz and Barricade touched, or Ironhide and Will interfaced. It was wanted.

But Barricade had been attacked, his spark nearly erased, and Sam was holding on to the fragments with all his power. Attempting to reel him in, cocoon him in his own mind, and wait for Ratchet to repair the spark chamber meant something completely different.

Sam had trained his technopathic abilities and he had touched Barricade numerous times before. The former Decepticon had trained with him and that meant Sam knew the battleground. Still, this wasn’t a simulation. This was real.

Sitting in the med bay, out of the immediate work are of Ratchet, he watched the work on Barricade’s torn apart body with a distant expression. The moment Ratchet would shut down the spark chamber to take it out of the wrecked chest area, he would have to act.

It was so easy to get lost in a technopathic contact, to get entangled in the otherworldliness of a living mind. Thoughts of highly evolved, intelligent beings were never straight forward and clear; they were a mess of thought processes all happening simultaneously. Thoughts came to life, existed, continued, were cast away, were formed anew, connected to memories or other thoughts.... It was dizzying to even touch the very surface of the thought process, let alone go past it and much deeper.

While training his Allspark-induced abilities, Sam had frequently used his powers to read surface thoughts, something he was accomplished in and which was like a second nature now. But he would have to go past the surface and into the depths. He would have to confront the memories which were closely guarded by the consciousness and the sub-consciousness, and he would have to be careful not to hurt what he encountered.

Tricky. Difficult. Minuscule surgery.

Memories were nothing but stored data, though not exactly stored in a pattern but also not at random. There was a system behind memory, but since it was flexible and ever-changing, a technopath could get a headache searching for a simple piece of information -- especially if the one whose thoughts he was reading was resisting. And he wasn't even looking for open memories – he was trying to hold a complete mind. Sam knew it would be straining and painful.

And it would be dangerous.

If his plan didn't work and Barricade didn’t recognize him, the attack could cripple him. Attacks in the mind world were lightning fast and bloody.

Ratchet turned and looked at him, expression grave.

“I’m ready,” Sam said solemnly.

He felt Bumblebee with him, supporting him the only way he could. He could barely offer any help should things go downhill, but Sam was still glad he was there.

Ratchet cut the power.

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His mind was a jumbled mix. Pressure was building up and cracking his walls, some of them ancient and often tested in the past, some only lately erected around certain memories. The walls were battered and had been often strained through events, but none had ever broken down.

Now the first cracked.

Memories leaked.

Some unimportant and petty.

Some important.

Some fearful.

Some frightening and terrorizing. Those were the ones coming out of the dark recesses of his mind, hidden there, shoved back to forget. Now they were back.


...the dead shell of his spark-bonded.

… the pain of losing the only thing that was worth dying for.

…aching.


The war memories came upon him full force, involving him on all planes, making him a center figure as everything revolved around.


...Megatron’s insane quest for power ruining his world

…the Allspark lost in the nothingness of space


He turned weakly, every movement evoking more pain. Inside his mind-world, he was a torn, bleeding presence, weak and shivering. He cried out as pain lanced through him again; he had never been that badly hurt before and it was slowly taking away every rational thought.

Plaster burst off the memory walls in large chunks and then the whole wall just broke in on itself.

All memories mixed now and there were no more second thoughts about what he saw.

No more focus. No more control. Just emotions.

Barricade screamed, but the scream echoed only in his mind. He swayed at the edge of insanity and it was so invitingly easy to take the last step... to give in...

He was dying. His spark was barely there. He was holding on to the last shreds of his self because of Jazz. Jazz was his focus. He blindly sought for the bond, but his scattered, shattered mind couldn’t find it.

Barricade cried out, needing at least one last, fleeting contact, but there was nothing.

But there was a touch. Calm, firm, known… familiar…

Barricade curled up into as small a target as possible, shivering. Coherent thought was beyond him and he hurt. Badly. Something touched him and he tried to get away, but it was impossible. The thing wrapped itself around his hurting presence, cool and soft to the touch, warm and gentle at the same time.

He moaned softly at the pain it induced, but the pain was welcome. As long as there was pain, there was an existence. After a while, he stopped shivering, but the pain stayed. It echoed around his mind like a bad dream, remaining, feeding on his strength.

He wanted to exist.

For Jazz.

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The raw fear and agony hit him like a brick between the eyes. He could feel it take him, lift him up, trying to pull him inside, swallow him. He steadied himself, shielding his mind. A cyclone of fear and pain swirled around him in a mad little dance and Sam knew he had to act. He struck out and lodged part of himself in the mindscape, then went in, looking for all that was Barricade, constructing a net to keep the crumbling presence together. Without a spark chamber to contain it, the spark was floating free.

If the Allspark had survived, Sam didn’t know if he could have done what he was doing at the moment. All sparks returned to the Allspark; the pull was inevitable. It was like a gigantic recycling machinery. Spark energy returned to the origin.

Shaking off those thoughts, the technopath plunged deeper.

He was greeted by memories.

A lot of them.

Sam knew many of them, had seen the horror that resided in the memories of Barricade’s mind, and while reviewing it all again wasn’t any better than the first time, the second run was easier to digest.

Using paths he had walked before while training with the former Decepticon, Sam gently wove together what was tearing apart, and when small surges rose, a weak defense against his healthy, stronger mind, he calmed the dying spark.

::Barricade? It’s Sam Witwicky::

There was no verbal reply, just a weak flicker.

Sam looked around, found an imprint of where the spark bond to Jazz usually shone with tantalizing brightness, and he placed another net anchor there.

::I’ll get you out of this. Hold on. Just hold on. Trust me. I won’t hurt you::

Whispering to the severely depleted spark he continued to work, aware that the longer it took, the greater the danger for him and Barricade.

Sam spread out a bit further and examined the tangled mess of strands he saw waving in the dark, like sea weed in the surf. Memories torn out of context and collected here, he realized, all of them together overpowering the rational mind, leaking constantly, looking for an opening to the reality of conscious thought. Pictures, sounds and emotions, all packed tightly together, strung on an endless line of recurring events, waiting for their chance to break free. And it was his job to stop this process, to get the memory pieces back where they belonged.

To heal.

Sam set to work and began to slowly untangle what had been fused together or shattered. The moment he freed a particular piece it whisked back to its place of origin, melting back into the cluster of memories it belonged to.

Time passed.

The young technopath lost track of time as he worked. There was no time here, only memories. He was treated to many of them. He ignored them all, but some were insistent and very intense. Even with the protection he worked under his work had turned into something painful and heavy to handle.

And then he was done.

Sam looked up, exhausted, facing the cocooned spark that was Barricade, smiling tiredly.

::Sam::

He barely recognized the normally so strong, rather cold and harsh voice. Now it was a shadow of its former self.

::I’m here. Not leaving:: he sent. ::We can do this. You can do this::

::Jazz?::

::The bond is unbroken. He’s fine. You will be. Trust me::

There was no reply, but a wave of something touched Sam and he smiled as he deciphered the meaning.

Keeping Barricade’s spark close he allowed himself to drift back to reality. He felt Bumblebee’s presence, the touch brushing over him in an almost quizzical manner.

::I’m fine:: he told his partner. ::Tired, but fine::

::Barricade?:: Bumblebee asked.

::Will be::

Sam opened his eyes, blinking into the light that was too bright for his eyes. He found that he was lying on a mattress someone had put onto a med bay desk, and that Will was sitting next to him. He was still looking more like an Allspark than a normal human, his skin all dark bronze and burned gold colors. The runes were bright and rather telling of his condition. Not to mention the still healing shoulder and some other injuries he had sustained from the explosive device.

“Hey,” the hybrid said softly, sounding as tired as Sam felt.

“Hey.” Sam tried to sit and managed to with some difficulty.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

Ice blue optics regarded him out of a mostly human face. Sam didn’t add that he was aching, tired and really wanted to sleep. But right now he was needed and cradling Barricade’s spark in his mind needed him awake.

“How’s Ratchet doing?” he changed the topic.

“Still working on it. Lots of damage. They found Arcee. She’s fine. Rattled, but fine.”

“Does she know about Trent?”

“Prime told her. It devastated her. I think she went to Nellis the moment she heard about it all. Jazz is outside. He’s… well, not taking this well.”

Sam nodded. Who would? Barricade was his spark-bonded.

“Ironhide’s running a ditch into the desert,” Will went on. “He hasn’t decided what bothers him the most: me getting halfway blown up or Chromia being the bad guy.”

“Or Barricade nearly dying,” Sam added softly.

Will smirked. “Never tell him that. I know that, and you know that, but he hasn’t realized it yet. Barricade’s his favorite enemy.”

Sam smiled humorlessly.

“Hot Rod called in. He and Tony are in New York, at Stark Manor, and he won’t let him out of his sight. Tony already complained bitterly. Prime’s been talking to a lot of higher-ups and Epps’ unit is combing the desert and Chromia’s hide-out, just in case. So far, no sign of another presence.”

Sam regarded his friend. “You felt two new sparks.”

Lennox nodded. “I know. And it was real. I didn’t dream it. Someone’s still out there and since Chromia turned out to be a homicidal maniac, we don’t know whether it’s a friend or the enemy.”

Will was silent, gazing at the still form of Barricade at the other side of the room.

“Why don’t you go and stay with Ironhide?” Sam suggested. “I’m okay, not going anywhere, and I bet Bee’s going to trade places with you in a second.”

Lennox chuckled. “Yeah, probably. I might also get some shut-eye.”

The technopath frowned, but unlike the mechs, he couldn’t get a reading from the hybrid. Lennox slid off the table, easily cushioning his drop, and waved at Sam as he left. As predicted, Bumblebee was there not too much later, joining Sam in his vigil. As much as he wanted to sleep, Sam knew he was still needed. He was tracking Barricade’s mind and spark, keeping a close eye on each little pulse. Bumblebee was simply a supportive presence in the background.

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The basement section of Stark Manor wasn’t any smaller than Tony’s Malibu home. If anything, it might even be bigger. It consisted of three different levels, all gigantic, easy for Hot Rod to navigate in car mode and one level allowed him to transform. It happened to be Tony’s ersatz workshop.

Right now, his friend was working on something concerning his armor, deeply absorbed, but Hot Rod had known him long enough by now to recognize his preoccupation with something else.

News of what had occurred in Nevada had come in and Tony had immediately gone down here, started his work, and he hadn’t talked since. He spoke with Jarvis, giving orders, requesting updates, but no casual conversation. Hot Rod let him tinker and weld and fiddle with things. Tony needed this time. Tony needed the freedom to choose when to breach the topic.

He did three hours into his work.

“You think there’s another one out there?” he asked without prior indication as to what he was talking about.

But Hot Rod knew.

“Will thinks so. He felt or saw two sparks.”

“Could be hostile, too.”

“Yes.”

“And it was up here. East. Near Bangor.”

Hot Rod was silent, shifting uneasily.

Tony scowled at him. “I read the reports, Roddy. I know. I keep up to date in these matters.”

Of course. And the Extremis helped with that, too.

“There might be a Decepticon here. Or it might be another Autobot with traumatized circuitry,” the Autobot finally conceded.

“You get that a lot?” was the sarcastic question.

“War does strange things to a mind.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

Tony turned back to studying the output from his simulation.

“Please don’t tell me you want to look for the second possible target,” Hot Rod finally broke the silence, the suspicion rising inside him that Tony would.

He got a bright, humorless smile. “Then I won’t.”

“Tony…”

“I won’t, Hot Rod. Promise. Just wondering. You said I shouldn’t make a target of myself, so we stay in New York. But it’s a small country, right? If that Decepticon is here and looking to take out Autobot allies… well, New York’s a small step away from Bangor in mechanoid terms.” He held up a hand. “And don’t tell me you protect me. I know that. But Chromia took out a bad ass like Barricade, and he’s a hard nut to crack. If we run into some crazy, mentally unstable, totally cuckoo Con…”

“I can’t make promises, Tony,” Hot Rod said softly. “I can only tell you that I will definitely protect you to the end.”

Stark stopped in his work, shoulders stiffening. The tension in his frame was almost too much to bear for Hot Rod. He transformed and knelt down, meeting the troubled eyes.

“I’m your friend,” the Autobot said calmly. “I won’t let anyone hurt you if I can help it.”

The expression in Tony’s face was intense.

::Don’t:: he finally sent, using the Extremis.

Don’t die for him. Don’t sacrifice himself. Don’t waste his spark for a human.

Hot Rod’s smile gentled even more. He didn’t reply, just let the emotions speak for themselves. Tony looked away, hands clenching.

Not worth it, Hot Rod picked up from the emotions coming back. Not worth the sacrifice.

“You are,” he finally replied out loud, reaching out to touch the smaller human. “I know you would give your life for me. Accept that my sentiment is exactly the same.”

Tony fidgeted with the tool, then nodded jerkily. Hot Rod let it go with that, sitting down next to the work station, as close as his size and the room allowed. Tony didn’t seem to mind him watching the continuing work, so he did just that.

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Optimus Prime walked into the heavily secured basement room, nodding at the two soldiers currently keeping an eye on both the machinery and the mech life form kept in stasis. Rachet had prioritized Barricade and Prime understood. The former Decepticon had been dying and only because of Sam had he survived. It was still touch and go and there was no telling what kind of trauma and damage the mind had suffered, but the spark chamber was now safe and secure once more, and Ratchet had repaired Barricade’s shell. The rest would be taken care of in recharge.

As for Chromia, she was still looking beat up and no longer like the proud warrior she had been. Ratchet wanted to access her processor and download the repair program reports the moment he was done with Barricade, and maybe they could find out what had happened to her.

Prime wasn’t surprised to find his oldest friend with the damaged troubleshooter. Ironhide looked like a massive black statue, gazing almost lost and longing at the stasis pod.

“Lost in thought?” Optimus asked.

“Lost in memories,” was the quiet reply.

“There are many attached to her.”

Prime had known of Ironhide’s involvement with Chromia. Like Elita had been for him, Chromia had shared with Ironhide, though their relationship had been superficial compared to his own with Elita. Sometimes these partnerships were formed out of necessity, for relief and companionship. The war had demanded a lot from them and Chromia and Ironhide had found a small island of peace whenever they managed to get together.

“She’s not who I knew, Prime. She changed.”

Optimus looked at his weapons specialist. “We all have, Ironhide. The war changed us, the death and destruction. Our experiences changed the way we thought and acted.”

“Chromia never hurt an innocent before, Optimus.”

He was silent, aware of the fact. It was a very worrying thought, but so far, with Chromia in stasis, he hadn’t pondered it more deeply.

“I tried to talk to Ratchet about bringing her around enough to talk to her,” Ironhide went on. “If we could just talk… maybe she would remember?”

“It’s too dangerous, Ironhide.”

“She isn’t just some mech, Prime!”

“I know that.”

“She knows me! We trusted each other! I’m sure I could bring her around, get through to her.”

“Ironhide,” was the patient reply once more. “She tried to kill Arcee and Trent. She shot Will and she even aimed her gun at you. We have nothing to base this trust on but belief and hope.”

“Optimus!” he roared.

Prime placed a calming hand on the massive shoulder. “I know you two shared more than a friendship, but that was millennia ago. Something happened to her, changed her processor, destroyed part of who she is.”

“No!”

“Ironhide…”

The other mech turned abruptly and left the stasis pod chamber. Optimus watched him go, then sighed. This was hard on Ironhide and it would get harder.

Arcee was shaken up, more over what had happened to Trent than anything else. Chromia had been her commander once, Elita’s second-in-command, and while she respected her fellow troubleshooter, her attachments to those at the base were greater than that respect. She had left the base, without taking the time to let Ratchet repair the superficial damage, and set up camp at Nellis Airforce base. Optimus let her. He knew what friendship meant and he felt with her for the injuries Trent had suffered. Arcee felt responsible and Trent was in very bad shape.

Gazing at the still form in the holding tank, Prime wondered if they might really have a chance to heal Chromia, return her to her former sanity. She had attacked humans and fellow Autobots in the delusion that they were Decepticon spies. He didn’t even know how much truth there was to her claim that Soundwave had arrived on Earth, but he wasn’t foolish enough to ignore the possibility.

Wordlessly, the Autobot leader turned and left the room, going back upstairs to see how matters had progressed. He had to call Banachek and give him an update, as well as Keller, who probably knew most of it already through Stark Industries. But it never hurt to call.



In a dark corner, Will Lennox finally detached himself from the shadows and walked past the stasis pod. His eyes fell on the damaged mech, face neutral; then he left.

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Somewhere, he existed. He didn't know much about himself, just that he was; had been; should be. It was all so confusing. He knew there was something to him, that he was missing himself; part of himself. But he couldn't say why or how he had managed to lose this part.

Around him, there was nothing.

There should have been something. More than just something... someone. But who? He couldn't catch a coherent thought, though his logic processes were doing fine. What had happened? Who was he?

::Barricade::

Yes, he was Barricade.

He turned to the voice. It was familiar.

Then it came. It touched him, ran questing fingers over his outer shell, and he flinched. What was it? What did it want?

::Barricade, it’s Sam. Hold on. Just hold one::

The next thoughts were not his own. They were infused into him like liquid fire, taking up his thinking, his action, and he went with them. They did things, they acted for him, and he was just a watcher. He watched as part of him lashed out against what had touched him and he felt the other withdraw, hurt. Not badly, but hurt.

::Stop fighting me. I’m here to help you!::

And then the familiar presence was everywhere, holding him together, keeping his thoughts from sloshing off into nothingness.

Barricade suddenly recognized it. A human mind, powerful and so alien to his mechanoid mind, but still… he knew it.

::Sam?::

He was greeted by relief.

::Yeah. Hang on, Just hang on. Almost there. Almost…::

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Arcee thanked her small size that she could be with Trent in a manner. She had to crouch a little to fit in the room, but with only close to nine feet she easily fit when sitting down. Her optics were on the still form on the bed, taking in all the various tubes leading in and out of the fragile body. The doctors had elevated the broken leg, which had been operated on again just yesterday. More surgery would be necessary for Trent to perhaps regain full use. The ribs were a smaller problem compared to the internal damage, like perforated lungs. One kidney might have to be removed, but so far it looked like it could heal completely. His spleen had been removed already. The head trauma was another matter of concern and the doctors had already had to relieve pressure on the brain, which had meant shaving Trent’s head for the operation. Right now his head was wrapped in bandages.

Her fault.

Had she been more alert, had she paid more attention…

Trent had been dressed in protective gear, but nothing short of Cybertronian armor could have protected him from these injuries.

Part of Arcee hated Chromia for what she had done. Part of her wondered if they could ever get the old Chromia back. And yet another part whispered that she might have killed humans before, that her delusion could have cost lives already.

The door opened and the known figure of Dr. Mark Keyron walked in. He checked the readings on the multiple monitors. No change. There was no change because Trent would be kept in an artificial coma as long as necessary.

Arcee watched him silently. There was nothing else for her to do. She felt useless. And alone.

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Lennox had slept soundly for about six hours, which was a lot for him. Ever since the Allspark changes the need for sleep had grown less, but he felt no adverse effects. Usually two or three hours were enough.

It was the middle of the night, but the base was rather busy. With the events of late it was no small wonder. He nodded at some of the soldiers he knew and found his way down into the heavily secured stasis chamber.

Lieutenant Carlsson was on duty and the man gave him a salute, despite the fact that Will wasn’t in the military any more, let alone anyone’s superior.

He stepped into the large room that held several stasis chambers and looked at the tall cylinder that held Chromia. She was small, like all troubleshooters, when compared to the regular Cybertronian mechanoid. About ten feet, which meant she was taller than Arcee, but with just as little bulk and the same open construction. From what Will had seen Chromia had chosen a four-wheel vehicle mode, unlike Arcee, and her primary colors were orange and black.

She looked heavily damaged. No one had repaired the injuries. The optics were dark, the body frame lax. The monitor on one side of the cylinder showed no processor activity.

So this was Chromia. Ironhide’s ex. How weird was that? They hadn’t been bonded, just shared the occasional moment, but still… it didn’t really sit well with Lennox.

He pushed the first trickles of jealousy aside, squelching those feelings.

Runes swirled around his left hand and he pressed it against the transparent material of the cylinder. The glyphs flowed toward that point of contact, all ancient code, and Will thought he felt the spark inside the damaged shell. It felt… bad. Sick. Torn.

He stepped back, severing the contact, breathing hard. Nausea rose inside him and he shook his head.

“Shit,” Will murmured.

He hated it when he gave in to his own curiosity about the possibilities of his abilities, and then got smacked into the face with something he hadn’t expected.

Steeling himself he placed his hand against the cylinder once more and waited. Runes drifted along his fingers in agitation and he felt his whole body tense. The spark was there again, a shadow of what Ironhide felt like, but it was unmistakably a mechanoid spark. It was tainted by trauma and suffering and torture and it made Will sick again. Here was a mech who had turned insane because of the war and God only knew how many more there were. This wasn’t the Decepticon obsession with domination of a weaker species, the need to conquer and kill the enemy. This was pure insanity.

Lennox stepped back once more and clenched his hand into a fist. A single rune pulsed over his knuckles and disappeared.

He looked at the motionless body shell, wondering what Prime wanted to do with her. This wasn’t simple physical damage. There was a strong, overpowering mental component where only friends and family might be able to help with professional assistance.

Someone like Ironhide. Someone who Chromia knew and had trusted in the past.

Will pushed those thoughts away, but they didn’t budge. Deep in thought he left the room again.

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Barricade woke with the terrible sensation of suffocating and his mind went immediately blank with panic. Mechanoids didn’t breathe, the feeling was like something suffocation probably felt like. Over-sensitivity to everything hit him like a sledge-hammer; too much sound and light! Too much bombarding his body. He activated his optics, shielding them automatically against the glare of the light. He gasped as he felt energon course through him like liquid fire. He sat up, panic threatening to take over.

Enemy lines.

Him off-line.

Unable to defend himself.

Emergency operating procedures uploaded and weapons tried to go online. His whole body went into defense mode… and his systems locked.

The panic doubled. His weapons weren’t reacting; he had no weapons! He was without protection, without defense, and his mind was a jumbled mess.

The last memories came back, of pain and something ripping him apart, tearing into his spark and shattering it.

"Barricade, stay calm!" a familiar voice said and someone took his shoulder, trying to get him to lie down again. "It's okay."

A presence touched his mind and wrapped a secure blanket like a shield around him, helping to disarm the panic and calm him down.

::You’re safe::

"Jazz?" he rasped. Another shiver went through him and he reached for the Autobot. His fingers encountered smooth metal and grabbed onto it.

"Yes, it's me. Calm down."

His optics finally fixed on a face and a reassuring smile. It was Jazz. "Where...?" And then he realized where he was. Med bay.

Someone else appeared. It was Ratchet. The Autobot methodically checked him and, mainly because he was much too weak and confused, Barricade let him. Jazz was always close by and he became also aware of someone sitting on the desk across the room.

Red optics met dark, human eyes.

::You’ll be fine:: Sam Witwicky told him.

The human sounded close to completely exhausted and Barricade had learned enough about this species, and this particular human, to know he was dead on his feet. Pale, circles under his eyes, and his mind-presence was weaker than usual. Shadows of a headache trickled through the connection between them and the food wrappers next to Sam were a dead giveaway.

::Hey, talk about yourself. You nearly died:. Sam replied, trying for light but failing.

It had been bad.

"Looks good," Ratchet finally said, finishing his examination. "You need to rest and I strongly advise against transformation, but you are on the way to a full recovery."

The medic nodded at Sam, almost like thanking him, and Barricade tried to recall what had happened. He sat up again and was hit by total disorientation. A strong hand took his arm and kept him where he was.

"Take it easy. You aren’t strong enough to go anywhere," Jazz advised.

"I'm perfectly fine," Barricade snarled, his voice too uneven for his own liking.

He slid out of the bed with an angry scowl, the scowl deepening as his legs threatened to give way beneath him. He forced himself to stand upright.

"I can see that."

He glared at his bonded, but there was no heat behind it.

“Recharge, you two,” Ratchet told them. “Now. Barricade, you need to really take it easy. I had to completely disconnect and reconstruct your spark chamber. You nearly died.”

The former Decepticon stared at the Autobot, thunderstruck. Then his optics shifted to Sam, awareness of what had occurred rising. Memories teased him and he shivered.

Nearly died… spark shattered… and a strong, non-mechanoid mind keeping him together and helping him through it all.

::All in a day’s work:: Sam told him, mind-voice barely a murmur.

::Recharge:: Barricade growled, making it almost an order.

He was still struggling with the fact that the technopath had kept him alive, had… seen it all. More than ever. Probably everything there was to his very core being.

Jazz stepped into his line of view. “Recharge, now,” he ordered. “You and Sam can hash it all out later.”

The Autobot sounded as rough and ragged as Barricade felt himself. He didn’t fight when he was almost manhandled onto a recharge unit and he noticed almost absent-mindedly that his body was actually his protoform. His chameleon circuits were offline and he didn’t have the energy to even try to convert his outer shell.

Curling his fingers, now without claws, around Jazz’s wrist he stopped the silver mech from leaving.

The bond between them felt tight, strained, almost like the time when Jazz had been brought back by the Allspark and Barricade had been the one who had survived it all with barely a scrape. Jazz smiled and placed a hand onto his chest, over his spark chamber, and Barricade felt the bond shiver with the need to be close.

They had made it. Again.

“What about the troubleshooter?”

“Chromia’s still off-line. Ratchet’s keeping her that way. Arcee’s alive. Just a bit shaken up.”

Jazz’s fingers brushed over the smooth, dark protoform metal. His optics were burning with an inner need that was reflected by Barricade.

“Recharge,” the former Decepticon only said.

Afterwards, when their shells had enough power, their systems had been cleansed and realigned, they would handle everything else.

Jazz nodded and reluctantly left, walking over to the second recharge unit. As both sank into recharge, Barricade felt Jazz’s touch and let his spark-bonded flow closer. He relaxed into the contact, aware of how messed up his systems really were when the estimated recharge time appeared. Then he shut down everything but the essentials and let the unit take over.

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Bumblebee had waited until Jazz had manhandled Barricade into the recharge chamber, then he stepped into the medical bay and approached Sam. The young human was on the brink of a shutdown and Bumblebee wanted to make sure he would get his rest.

“Sam?” he queried softly.

“Yeah. Know. Tired.” Sam yawned and scrubbed a hand over his face. “’S just that my head’s still full.”

“Echoes?” Bumblebee hazarded a guess.

It got him a grimace which confirmed it. Echoes that manifested in pain, in a headache that was on the verge to a migraine. Sam knew them, had had them so many times before, and he tried to work through it. Reaching out, the Autobot ran a gentle caress over the human’s back with one finger. Sam leaned into the contact, swaying a little. His mind flailed a little, then held on to Bumblebee’s like an anchor.

“Can you make it to bed?”

“Hopefully.”

Walking was out of the question and while Sam looked embarrassed and complained softly about it being not dignified, that he appeared like a little kid, he couldn’t really come up with an alternative mode of moving. No one paid them much attention and Bumblebee entered Sam’s home undisturbed. He set down his precious cargo and Sam crawled into his bed, groaning softly.

The Autobot felt echoes of the headache his partner was trying to head off and he settled down next to him, sending a silent question: would it be okay to be close?

Sam opened his mind immediately and welcomed him, wrapping himself in Bumblebee’s presence like it was a blanket.

::Sleep:: Bumblebee murmured.

He didn’t really have to say it as Sam dropped off like a stone sinking into a pond. He was out like a light and his presence eased, leaving Bumblebee to think about what had happened in complete silence for the first time. He stroked over the sleeping form of his partner, noting the strain the whole matter had put on Sam. And he noticed the emergency life-line, a thin, thin strand connecting Sam to Barricade – just in case.

Bumblebee settled in for the time Sam needed to recover. He kept his channels to the others open, but his priority was his bonded. Prime respected it and he was busy with all the other things to handle for now.

Like deciding what to do with Chromia.

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A bored Tony Stark was a dangerous Tony Stark. It was a lesson Hot Rod had learned quite early on. So when Tony had promised not to go looking for the second possible mech on Earth, the Autobot had taken that with a grain of salt. Tony could occupy himself with the armor or new gadgets only for so long, then his curiosity and over-active mind would get the better of him. Add the Extremis and you had a dangerous concoction.

Hot Rod wasn’t all that surprised then when Tony started to dig around the internet for sightings of UFOs or strange occurrences. He silently watched, smiling a little to himself, and he knew that Tony knew that he was watching. Stark’s first target was finding out when Chromia had actually arrived on Earth and why no one from Sector Seven or later the newly formed task force had caught wind of it.

When it became clear that she had arrived after Prime and the others, Tony turned the internet upside down on his search for clues.

Where had she landed? When exactly? How had she hidden? Had anyone come in contact with her?

“You might consider sleep,” the mech remarked after a while of simply watching.

Tony grunted something and gazed fixedly at the screen. Data scrolled past, just like it was scrolling past his inner eye, the Extremis eye.

“Tony.”

“I’m fine. Don’t nag.”

“I’m not nagging. You’re still human, despite all your claims to the opposite. You need rest.”

“I’m fine.”

Hot Rod sighed. “Of course.”

It got him a brief smirk, then Tony was back hip-deep in data.

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Five hours later Stark finally surfaced and there was a triumphant smile on his face. Hot Rod knew what that meant.

“You found something,” he stated.

“Yep!” With a flourishing gesture he had the largest of the computer screens light up. “Ta-daa!”

Hot Rod didn’t really have to transform to read the information, but he did and sat with his back against the wall, watching the data. Surprise flickered through him.

“She’s been here for six years?”

“Yep. A long time to nurture your insanity. Chromia was the meteorite sighting from August 12th, 2013. The meteorite came down in Kazakhstan, near the Russian border. There were a few people who told stories of a large creature moving about, but since it was night, cold, and they were drunk, no one believed them. Reports of strange occurrences are scattered over the next twelve months, leading up to the East Siberian Sea coastline, then disappear. There’s a monster sighting from a fisherman in Provideniya, but it was ignored like so many alien claims. It’s where Russia and the US are the closest. I believe she crossed over there.”

Hot Rod nodded slowly.

“After that there was hardly a sighting, until two years later, and I’m not even sure it’s her.”

An erratic, dotted line appeared on the map of North America. It ended in Maine, near Bangor.

“Might be Chromia, might be the other guy, if there is one,” Tony pointed out. “Since Chromia moved back west again and there were some rather weird accidents still east, maybe her claims aren’t that far off. Maybe there is a mech out there we don’t know about.”

Hot Rod didn’t like that possibility one bit. Especially if it was Soundwave.

“Someone took snapshots of a ghost car a year ago,” Tony went on. “Chromia’s a car, but maybe she changed forms frequently. We don’t know that.”

A blurry image of what might be a small sports car appeared.

“That was taken near Lac Walker in Canada, a place in the middle of nowhere.”

“By whom?”

“One of the crazy people who think living in the middle of nowhere is fun,” Tony replied with a grimace. “It was his camera phone. He didn’t believe he had actually seen a car until the camera took the image, too. He thought he had imagined it. He also claims hearing odd noises and seeing flashes of light. Of course no one believed him.” Tony’s smile was humorless. “I cross-referenced Lac Walker. Just ten miles into the wilderness was a research lab run by Sector Seven. They had odd choices for these kinds of installations. It was where they ran experiments on Allspark energy and its creations.”

Hot Rod shuddered. He knew all about those experiments from the files. Tony only nodded in agreement.

“The lab had been shut down around the time Sector Seven had been discontinued by Keller.”

“So the car might be a Decepticon looking for the Allspark?”

“Might be.”

“And he might have moved down South toward Bangor to the next installation?”

Another nod. “Very good, grasshopper,” Tony lauded with a grin.

“But nothing happened in Bangor.”

“Nothing that warranted reports. Or maybe no one ever managed to write a report.”

“Prime sent a recon team up there, Tony. They found nothing. The storage facility contains nothing incriminating any more.”

“I know. I’m just saying that just like Chromia traveled halfway across the world to where she then attacked Arcee and Trent, something else might be looking for… well, I don’t know. The Allspark is gone, Megatron is dead, his troops, too.”

“But something might be out there.”

“Yep. Might be coincidence, might be a mech.”

“And we’re not going to look for it,” Hot Rod said firmly.

Tony gave him an innocent smile. “I’m going to bed,” he only said.

“Tony…”

“Sleep. You said I should sleep. So I’m going to sleep.”

::Tony, you promised.::

Human eyes met blue optics. ::I promised.::

And with that he retreated into the small side room that contained a cot and a mountain of books and reports.

Hot Rod sighed. Tony had promised, but he would find a way to dig around and somehow involve himself. The Autobot just knew it.

Well, no one had ever told him it would be easy to keep an optic on Tony Stark. A grin passed his features. Then again, easy was boring, and Tony was entertaining.

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Sam slept twelve hours straight. He hadn’t woken, not even to the sunlight streaming through the windows, and only the need to go to the bathroom had finally roused him enough to set foot out of bed. A shower revived him a bit more, but he still felt packed in cotton wool, on top of being bundled up in a very thick blanket and buried in fluffy feathers. His brain was mush, but not in a bad way. He felt no pain, just groggy and sluggish. Dragging himself into the kitchen, he decided against black coffee and rummaged through the kitchen cabinet until he found instant cappuccino. While the waffles were in the toaster, he emptied a glass of orange juice, feeling better for having something to drink.

::Awake?:: Bumblebee asked.

He had been watching and waiting silently, not interrupting Sam’s wake-up process.

::Kinda::

::I see::

Sam smiled and leaned into the now more pronounced presence. ::How are things?::

::Barricade is still stable. Ratchet is very pleased with the way the repairs and the regeneration went. Chromia remains in stasis. Prime has ordered for her to stay there until we know what we can do to help. Releasing her now might result in more injuries.::

Sam sighed. ::Yeah. Maybe I could take a look at her?::

Bumblebee didn’t appear happy about the offer.

::Bee, I can take care of myself::

::She’s crazy, Sam. Her processors are severely damaged and her logic circuits are compromised. Entering her mind might… harm you.::

Sam walked over to the garage section of his home and found Bumblebee in his car mode, sitting patiently and waiting. He hoisted himself up onto the hood.

“I might be able to help.”

“What if she hurts you?”

“I’m not exactly helpless, Bee.” Well, maybe that had come out a bit sharper than wanted.

Bumblebee was silent for a second. “No, you’re not. But I worry. We all do. Chromia is more dangerous than any Decepticon because she exists under delusions. Barricade at least is sane.”

Sam chuckled. “Not that Ironhide would agree with you there,” he teased. “But I understand your concerns. It’s just… I might be able to help and I should try.”

“You should listen to what Ratchet has to say and not just head in unprepared,” Bumblebee told him softly. “I don’t want to lose you, Sam.”

He leaned back against the windshield and brushed a hand over the alien metal of the hood.

“I’m not suicidal enough to do this unless Ratchet agrees.”

“Good.”

Sam closed his eyes and relaxed, feeling Bumblebee cushion him, gently embracing him. He opened his mind, let the link deepen, and sank into the alien mind he knew so intimately by now. Emotions he had no words for enveloped him, thoughts that he couldn’t translate into appropriate words flowed by, and the presence that was everything surrounded his own mind.

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For the next two days, Jazz didn’t really leave Barricade alone. At least not for a long stretch of time. The former Decepticon had reactivated his chameleon circuits, despite Ratchet’s misgivings about the power drain. It came as no great surprise that he was back as a police cruiser. Barricade secretly enjoyed the form, not just because it was such a contradiction. The moment he had come to this planet he had taken the most functional form, a police vehicle, because humans trusted it or were very wary of it. Afterwards he had kept it because he still enjoyed himself. He enjoyed their fear and their false hope.

Jazz claimed he enjoyed the hope for another reason, too. He enjoyed the trust. He liked it. Barricade would argue vehemently against it. Of course it helped that humans wouldn’t get in his way, gave him a wide berth, or were scared off by his presence. No one tried to steal him or parts of him, and appearing in some areas more frequently scared away the lowlife.

He had come to like the black-and-white camouflage.

Jazz had only given him that fond look Barricade wanted to strangle him for when the transformation had been complete.

He had taken to driving out to lonely spots and simply sitting there in car form, and Jazz joined him. Always close. Always touching. Their sparks were simply drifting together, taking strength from the other, and while Barricade didn’t talk, Jazz knew what his bonded was going through. He had suffered through the same.

Post-traumatic stress due to near-death.

Barricade hadn’t mentioned any memory loss or any kind of damage sustained from the close call. Then again, the shock trooper wasn’t the kind of mech to open up in that regard and spill his guts, as the humans liked to say. Jazz knew he would have to be patient and that Barricade would talk if he needed and wanted to. Until then he would be there for him, in whatever capacity he was needed.

Sam hadn’t been mentioned, or his participation in Barricade’s rescue. Jazz had no way of knowing or comparing the effects a technopathic net had on a Cybertronian mind. Sam had been closer and deeper inside Barricade’s mind than ever before, as close as only Jazz could ever be. But where Jazz hadn’t been able to help, had been banned to watch from the outside as his spark-bonded was dying, Sam had taken the active role and done something.

Curling close to the other spark, feeling minute tremors coming from Barricade, Jazz let soft hums permeate between them. Barricade just flowed closer, meshing their energy signatures together, and Jazz wrapped himself around him.

He was simply glad Barricade had survived against all odds, against logic and reason. Everything else was a gift, the good and the bad and the very ugly. He would be able to get through this with Barricade.

One way or the other.

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"We have to go! Move it!"

The insistent voice got through the daze she was in, jolting her back to reality. Chromia blinked, wincing as she saw the mutilated, charred corpse at her feet. Something had ripped the chest apart like paper and energon was splattered all over the ground. The formerly lively optics were nothing but shattered colorless prisms.

Cliffjumper.

Cut down in cold blood, his core unit smashed, his body kicked and blasted repeatedly to make sure he was really dead.

"Chromia! Move!"

Someone grabbed her arm and pulled her away. Her instincts screamed, resisting the retreat. There were many more of their friends out there, fighting, hurt, dying...

"It's no good," the voice told her forcefully and the hand on her shoulder was like a vice.

"But..."

"No!" Moonracer gave her a rough shove and she almost stumbled. "We’re losing this battle and I don't want to see more of my friends cut down like droids!" The other troubleshooter dragged her along.

Chromia knew she should take charge, should give the orders. She was Elita’s second! But her circuits seemed frozen, her processor unable to work through the shock. She was injured herself, tortured by Shockwave, and she knew she couldn’t last much longer.

Around her buildings blew, blasts rocked the streets, made bridges collapse and towers sway. Angry streams of deadly fire followed their retreat, searching for a target to obliterate.

"What about the others?" she asked, voice trembling.

"We can't do anything for them anymore," Moonracer answered, pain audible in the few words.

They met up with more survivors, fighting back against the Decepticon forces.

Then she was inside the stolen space ship, watching the pilot key in the commands and open the thrusters. They took off with as much speed as they could risk. Her mind was still frozen, but the hatred came alive, boiling through her, encompassing her mind.



Ratchet turned to look at his leader and found Optimus watching the datastream with a neutral expression.

“This is only the beginning and the clearest of all memories I was able to download from her mind. The rest is rather jumbled and I can’t tell which is real and what might be a hallucination. What I can say with clarity is that Chromia was separated from the rest of her team. They never met up with Elita’s last forces and she watched Moonracer die too. I don’t know how she made it to Earth, but by the time she came here, she was already running on a severely scrambled processor matrix. I suspect she was caught and maybe tortured, but she might also have suffered from exposure.”

“Exposure to what?”

“The nothingness, the loneliness. I suspect her mind couldn’t take the fact of her team’s destruction, the death of the last survivors she had been with, and the absence of anyone she had ever known.”

“Is there anything you can do?” Prime asked neutrally.

“Not without a crack team of surgeons and a lot of time. I can’t tell what memory strands are real and what she imagined happening. Everything is running together. I can’t even say if Soundwave making it to Earth is fact or illusion.”

Optimus nodded once. “Keep her in stasis.”

“There is nothing else to do,” Ratchet agreed. “Her reaction to both Arcee and Ironhide proved that, and she attacked humans. Right now you wouldn’t be able to get through to her with reason. She would be a single-minded killer if let lose.”

Prime nodded once again, then clapped Ratchet on one shoulder. “Thank you for trying, Ratchet.”

“Of course.”

Then the Autobot leader was gone and the medic knew that this would weigh heavily on him. As it weighed on them all.

They had found a survivor, but she had gone mad. How many more were out there, in the same state of madness? Ratchet didn’t really want to think about it, but part of him was, and the answer was depressing.

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Sam had never been to the DeMarco’s home. In school, he and Trent hadn’t exactly been friends. He had been a bully, a jock, a guy who didn’t interact with the geeks. Not that Sam had ever felt like a geek. They had been too different right from the start and competing over the same girl, well, Sam trying to steal the girl from Trent, hadn’t really helped in furthering a friendship.

All that had changed in the past ten years.

The DeMarco home was in the best area of Tranquility where the houses were mansions, everyone had a pool, a car park the size of Wal-Mar and at least two employees, a housekeeper and a gardener. Here was where the money lived, his father had once remarked. Sam wouldn’t say they lived better, just… more opulent. You could see from the outside that the inside was just as rich.

Bumblebee parked behind two SUVs. One was a BMW X5, the other a Mercedes ML 500. He would bet that a flashy sports car was in the garage.

Getting out of the Camaro, he gave Bumblebee’s roof the now habitual pat, then walked over to the massive oak door. He rang and waited. It took a minute, then a woman answered. She was dressed in a housekeeper’s outfit and she gave Sam a neutral smile.

“May I help you?”

“My name is Sam Witwicky. I’d like to talk to Mr. and Mrs. DeMarco.”

“I’m sorry, but Mr. DeMarco made it clear he doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

“It’s about his son Trent. We tried calling him, but we couldn’t reach either…”

“I’m sorry,” the woman repeated.

“Could you at least ask him?”

“Sina?”

The housekeeper turned and Sam caught sight of a slender, blond woman with high cheekbones, watery green eyes and a pale complexion. She was dressed as if she was on her way to a business meeting, in tan slacks, a white blouse and a matching tan jacket. The jewelry alone was worth more than some people made per year.

Yes, Trent’s parents had money.

Sam nodded at Mrs. DeMarco.

“Ma’am, my name is Sam Witwicky. Your son and I went to school together.”

“Trent doesn’t live here any more,” she replied.

“I know that. He’s a first lieutenant at Nellis Airforce base. We tried to call you to tell you about what happened, but we couldn’t reach either you or your husband…”

She didn’t reply, but her expression grew stony.

“May I come in?” Sam asked.

“We don’t have a son,” a new voice suddenly said and Trent’s father appeared, looking annoyed and angry.

“Mr. DeMarco, Trent was in an accident.”

“Didn’t you hear me? We don’t have a son!”

Sam steeled himself. “I know that you and Trent had a falling out, but he might not wake up from this. He was seriously injured in a road accident…”

“Which wouldn’t have happened had he listened to me and not joined the damned Army!” the elder DeMarco growled. “Now get off my property before I call the police!”

Sam stood there for a second, then nodded once. He held out a business card with his name, mail and phone number on it. Mr. DeMarco refused to take it, so his wife finally did. She looked far from happy.

“Dr. Witwicky?” she read.

There were both doctorates on it, printed in neat black script, and while Sam had protested against it, the military had still delivered them like that. He found it pretentious.

“Good-bye,” the elder DeMarco only said, cutting off whatever might have resulted from his wife’s inquiry.

Without looking back Sam walked to where Bumblebee was patiently waiting. He felt the mech’s confusion over the DeMarco’s behavior and his own anger mixed with those emotions.

“He’s their son, Bee,” he said angrily, voice harsh. “Whatever grudge it is they’re holding, it’s stupid!”

Bumblebee started his engine and rolled down into the street.

“Their son!” Sam exploded, thumping the steering wheel. “I don’t care what Mr. DeMarco wanted for Trent! It’s been ten years and he might not make it! And if he does…”

“Sam,” Bumblebee said quietly. “You can’t change what they think and feel.”

Sam clenched his fingers around the steering wheel. “I just wanted them to show a human reaction… to care…”

“Maybe they do, but pride stops them from showing it.”

He snorted, but didn’t comment.

Almost without thinking, Sam drove to his parents’ home and Bumblebee whispered his approval.

His mother hugged him, asking about Trent. His father just gave him that intense, understanding look. And when his mother had him sit down and drink some coffee, he let go of his anger about parents ignoring their children, holding silly grudges, and his fear that Trent might not make it.

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Ironhide didn’t know how to feel. Part of him was frozen, numb, completely lifeless as he looked at the troubleshooter currently held in stasis. Chromia had seen better days. A lot better days. Her body was so damaged, it was a miracle she hadn’t shut down. But that was a troubleshooter for you: resilient to the end. Not unlike the Decepticon shock troopers. That her mind had suffered just as much as her body was even more tragic. She had wreaked a lot of havoc, injuring humans and mechs alike.

He had come here several times in the last few days, drawn to the silent room with its reduced lighting, the quiet hum of machinery and the barely perceptible scrape of human feet on the ground as the soldiers made their rounds.

Sometimes Ironhide was tempted to go against Prime’s orders, to bring Chromia around enough to have her understand him. He would talk to her, explain what had happened, make her see reason. And then another part called him as dumb as a maintenance bot for even thinking he could heal what millennia had destroyed. Something had eaten away at Chromia’s sanity and left her crazed out and unpredictable. She was highly dangerous.

Ironhide turned away from the motionless figure and came face to face with Ratchet. The medic looked apologetic.

“Not good, huh?” Ironhide rumbled.

“No. Her processor is severely compromised, almost shredded in parts. I can only guess what happened to her. I’m sorry, Ironhide. I doubt we can ever restore her to who she was before.”

He grunted. Yeah. Sorry. It didn’t help Chromia. It didn’t help his friend.

The black mech left the medical area. Arcee was still undergoing treatment, but she would be fine. She had been badly bruised and shaken, some systems rattled, but all in all she had had worse, as the troubleshooter had told Prime.

Yeah.

Ironhide walked out of the base and wondered how much truth there was to Chromia’s claims. If Soundwave was on Earth, they would have to find him. He was too dangerous, singularly loyal to Megatron, and capable of resurrecting the Decepticon forces. Starscream was a nut, in Ironhide’s opinion, but Soundwave was a cool-headed, logical mind. He had the patience and the respect and power to continue what Megatron had begun. With him on Earth, everyone was in danger. Maybe not now, but in the future. Soundwave was nothing if not patient.

Looking around for Lennox, Ironhide didn’t see any trace of his partner outside, so he walked back in, opening a com line to contact him. Usually Will could be found somewhere close. They had a habit of drifting toward each other, though they never stuck to the other like glue. Will had his work, Ironhide his own. Sometimes the weapons specialist could spend a day testing and redesigning guns, and Will might be at Nellis for days. But usually…

He frowned to himself. Lennox wasn’t answering.

So he went looking.

An hour later Ironhide felt a trickle of frustration. No one had seen the human hybrid and Bumblebee had given him this weird look.

“Why don’t you just go and hang around Sam,” Ironhide had retorted, temper short and nerves lying open.

“Sam is with Trent,” Bumblebee replied mildly. “And Sam isn’t the problem.”

“Who is then? Me?”

“Since you’re already mentioning it…”

Ironhide glared at the smaller mech. “My business is my own.”

“Not if it reflects back on those around you. Like Will.”

“What about him?”

“I might not know him as well as you do, but I can read, Ironhide. The runes said it clearly. At least those in our language. He’s upset. He’s hurt. And you just ignored him in favor of Chromia.”

Ironhide wanted to lash out verbally, but something stopped him, made him think. He had spent a lot of time down in the stasis room, trying to think of a way to maybe bring her back. She was his long-time friend, his comrade, and his… He sighed. Yes, they had Shared in the past. Brief flings, the humans would call it. A girl-friend. Maybe just a bed partner. Cybertronians had different terms for that kind of relationship, but none really described how superficial it had been. She had never been, nor would she ever be, his bonded.

A part of him cringed.

Another part yelled at him for being such a blind, thick-headed moron.

Will was human, with human thoughts, a human upbringing, and just barely an understanding what it was that they shared. He could only compare it to his partnership with Sarah and that was… completely alien to Ironhide in turn. They had found a common base, but it was a thin one. Lennox appeared self-confident, but he also compared his abilities, and himself, to those of other Cybertronians and found himself completely lacking.

Ironhide swallowed a curse. Instead he looked at Bumblebee, who appeared sympathetic. Being bonded to a human gave the other mech a good idea what Ironhide was dealing with, though the bond with Sam was a lot easier and more firm that Ironhide’s with Lennox.

“Know where he is?” the weapons specialist asked.

“I think he left the base and went for a run.”

Ironhide suppressed a sigh. Will’s manner of dealing with emotional stuff was running, exercise in any form, right down to target practice and battle simulations. He should have known.

Using his knowledge of his partner’s usual routes, Ironhide drove away and started looking for him.

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Lennox had no idea what had possessed him to act the way he did. Chromia was back. Sure, she was insane, kept in stasis, but she was back. And Ironhide had been with her. She was a known factor in his long, long life. She wasn’t some hybrid form. She didn’t have his kind of emotional baggage. He knew how to handle her, how to relate to her, she was his own kind.

And Will Lennox was… someone who had been altered by the Allspark and was currently going through some kind of hyper-emotional identity crisis.

Chromia was probably in permanent stasis, though. She might never revive. She might never be who Ironhide remembered.

He spends time down there, looking lost and like wants her back, he reminded himself.

But did he really want to? And did the current reaction say anything about his relationship with Will?

He groaned. Great, he was acting like a girl. He was playing it out like bad soap opera!

Ironhide hadn’t so much as hinted that he would wait for her to come back, that he was interested in getting back together with a troubleshooter who might never be who she had been.

Will remembered how upset and protective Ironhide had been after the whole matter had been over. Will had been beaten and shot up, he had ached all over, had wanted nothing more than sleep, and Ironhide had almost carried him over to the next available bed.

Still… what if this was Sarah? What if Will had a chance to be with his ex-wife again? What if she would take him as he was?

Strangely enough, Lennox didn’t feel the unabridged love he had once felt when it came to Sarah. He still missed her and his little girl, who wasn’t so little any more. He sometimes wondered how they fared and then he would spend some time on the computer, calling up different sites. School, credit cards, banks… He felt cheap then and usually stopped before he snooped too deeply.

He wasn’t a stalker and he was past his anger at the situation he had been forced into by the Allspark.

Ironhide had helped him through the loss and the physical changes. He had been there, in his own way. An alien way. But still…

Will couldn’t say he loved the mech. Not like he had his human wife. He felt something, something strong and dizzying, for Ironhide. He felt a lot when they were together, when they connected, but this wasn’t a relationship like either had had it before. There was no kissing, no cuddling, no making out. No sex either. Sure, they touched. He enjoyed being touched by Ironhide, either as a human or in protoform. He liked the interfacing. Hell, yeah, he actually loved it. It was a rush, it was better than sex, it was… very, very intimate.

But Will Lennox, for all the outer appearance sometimes, wasn’t Cybertronian. He was still human. There had been times when he had had very human reactions to Ironhide’s teasing. The mech hadn’t been disgusted, just surprised and later smug.

But Chromia…

He sighed. Really bad soap opera. C-movie at best.

“Will?”

He groaned again and looked up at the black mech towering over him.

Great. Just the one I wanted to talk to now, he thought sarcastically.

ooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo


Ironhide looked at his human partner and noted the string of glyphs running over his exposed forearms, as well as the markings on his face. The unmoving representation of his own name in Cybertronian script caught his optics and he felt the old pride of that fact surface. Even before they had found themselves together in a relationship that defied human or Cybertronian definition, Ironhide had been slightly tickled by the runes. They were part of Will and sometimes showed his emotions openly. He knelt down to be on a more equal level with Lennox.

Troubled. He looked troubled.

And the runes told the story. Upset and angry, maybe even jealous.

Jealousy was a concept well-known to mechs, too. Ironhide almost smiled. As negative as the emotion was, it told him something else, too: the connection between them was a lot deeper than either had probably ever thought it would be.


“I can’t spark bond,” Will said softly.

“You’re human,” Ironhide agreed. “Humans can’t spark bond.”

“Then what happened when I touched you?”

Ironhide was silent. Finally, “We shared something new.”

Will smiled dimly. “Huh. Yeah. Something really new. Freaked me out.”

“Because you touched my spark?”


Yes, Will had touched his spark. It had been strange, but powerful and welcome. They had connected that moment, the time Lennox had had his ‘vision’ of other mechs on Earth. The bond between them wasn’t a spark bond, but it was something Ironhide liked a lot. It was born out of Will’s hybrid status and Ironhide’s receptiveness when it came to his partner.

“Will?” he repeated.

The dark eyes had a tiny blue light in them, speaking even more clearly of Lennox’s emotional state.

“Chromia and I were friends,” Ironhide said without Will needing to prompt him what to say. He knew what was going on in that agile mind. “And we had what you might call an affair. Mutual comfort,” he added, feeling uncomfortable talking about something that private.

But Will was ‘something private’ too. He was more than that. He was his partner and they had a bond. Without resonating sparks, without being of the same species, but it was tight and intense and it filled Ironhide with pride and longing and need for the hybrid.

“Now she’s back,” Will remarked neutrally.

“Something is back,” Ironhide replied. “Chromia, the Chromia I knew, died. What’s left turned insane.”

The dark eyes were filled with doubt and the runes told the whole story.

Ironhide wanted to touch Will, but he refrained from doing so. Right now they needed to talk this out.

“Even if the Chromia from millennia ago would return, I’m not interested,” he said, voice serious, intense. “Spark bonds are very rare.”

“I don’t have a spark,” as the flat reply.

“Our bond is even more rare. It’s unique.”

Lennox frowned. “Sam and Bumblebee share the same.”

“No. Their bond is the result of technopathy. Ours is because of yourself.”

“The Allspark.” Lennox sounded even more derisive.

Ironhide followed the agitated runes, watched them flare in accusing scripture.

“I want to think that even without the Allspark, something would have developed.”

“Ironhide, without the Allspark I’d still be married to Sarah!” the human exploded. “I wouldn’t be dead to the world! My wife would still be my wife! I’d have a normal life with my family! My daughter!”

The mech took the emotional explosion calmly. “Or maybe you would have divorced her anyway. Maybe you would have found that the secrecy is too much to bear. Maybe something else would have happened. There is no guarantee. I had a time where my What Ifs kept me from thinking straight. You can’t change what happened, Will.” Now Ironhide did reach out and ran a gentle finger pad over one tense arm. “I don’t want to change what we share.”

“What we share is… Well, with the right mech coming along, I’d be obsolete, Ironhide. You could spark-bond.”

Ironhide chuckled. “I’ve lived for a long, long time. I never bonded, and the chances, even on a Cybertron teeming with mech life, were slim to non-existent. Spark-bonds are so special and rare, aside from Jazz I never heard of anyone bonding in all my existence. There isn’t the perfect fit for me out there anywhere.”

Will’s hand rested on Ironhide’s large finger, the glyphs and runes flowing freely.

“This isn’t anything like I had with human partners,” he finally said. “And I like it. I don’t want it to end. Chromia… she could give you more than I could. I was afraid…” He stopped, smiling darkly. “I sound like a girl. Damn. I’m forty and feel like fourteen with my first crush!”

“I’m your crush?” Ironhide teased.

“Oh, shut up!”

The mech grinned. He could see the mood change. The past several years had taught him about human expressions and he knew Will better than any other human.

“Okay, I get it,” Lennox sighed. “Chromia’s no competition.”

“She never was.”

“And you like what we have.”

“Very much.”

“And I’m a moron.”

“Something like it.”

“Well, thank you.”

“You said it first.”

Will glared, but the runes had changed and spoke of his rising good humor. Ironhide felt his systems unclench. He held out a hand in a silent offer and Will tilted his head. He finally placed his hand against one of Ironhide’s fingers, the runes bright and alive at the point of contact.

“I think we should get out of here,” Ironhide offered.

“Good idea.”

The mech transformed and opened the door to his cab. Lennox climbed in and they left for some time to themselves.

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The day Trent DeMarco came out of his artificial coma was the day a lot of people on the base breathed their first sigh of relief. Lennox and Sam had gone to Nellis to be there when their friend finally woke, even though it would take a while for him to be coherent. Doctors had woken him gradually over a period of twenty-four hours and everything looked stable.

“How bad?” Trent asked, voice rough and scratchy when the Dr. Keyron was finally through checking and examining everything.

“You were caught pretty good,” Keyron answered.

“Leg?”

“It will need time and several more operations to tell how much use you will get back.”

Sam admired Trent’s composure, as well as Keyron’s ability to deliver even that news in a calm and soothing manner. Keyron had become part of the tight-knit little group of humans at Nellis and the Autobot base who had been there almost right from the start. The medic had been with Sector Seven before the department had been disbanded and despite the slight distrust and open doubt, he had been finally accepted. Sam suspected that right after his technopathic abilities had surfaced and Keyron had proven to be more than capable had the others lost their last reservations.

“Anything missing?” Trent now asked.

“So far only what you won’t really miss. Your spleen.” Keyron smiled wryly. “We managed to save your kidney. You’re not feeling anything right now because of the high dosages of painkillers we’re administering. That will be gradually reduced.”

“Fun. How’s Arcee?”

The troubleshooter had left the room once the doctors started the coma reversal. She hadn’t been seen since.

“She’s fine,” Sam spoke up. “She got banged up and Chromia had her trapped for a while, but she wasn’t permanently harmed.”

“What happened?”

“You were attacked. I’ll give you the details later when you’re more awake,” Sam evaded the whole depths of it all.

“’Kay. Hold you to it.” Trent’s eyes were sliding shut again.

Keyron turned to the two men, nodding at them to please leave and they did. Once outside they waited for the doctor, who appeared a few minutes later.

“He’ll be in and out for the next few hours. The medication and the trauma to his body will always tire him out after a few minutes. He needs the rest.”

“We understand,” Lennox told him. “Captain Bowman will be here in case anything comes up, and Sam and I will be visiting. Doc, truthfully, how are his chances?”

Keyron sighed. “His leg was broken in four places, his knee is in a bad shape, and we might have to replace it. It will be months before he might walk without crutches. The ribs are healing, the kidney looks fine, his head injury might trouble him with headaches and nausea once we lessen the pain medication as it heals, and he won’t be back on any kind of duty for a while.”

“But he survived,” Sam added firmly.

“Yes, he did. And if you can find Arcee, send her by. I think they both need to see each other.” Keyron smiled.

Sam nodded, as did Will. Neither had any doubt about it because both understood relationships between mechs and humans. While Trent and Arcee were far from anywhere as close as Will and Sam were with their respective partners, and Sam doubted Trent would even consider it a possibility for himself, their friendship had grown over the time Arcee had been on Earth.

“He was lucky,” Lennox said as they left the hospital wing.

“Yeah. Very. I tried to talk to his parents. No luck. For them he’s dead, doesn’t exist. I can’t understand how parents can behave like that, Will. I just can’t.”

The older man nodded. “He has friends. I think that’s just as important and as good as family that doesn’t want you.”

“Friends are the family you choose yourself,” Sam quoted.

Will chuckled. “Wherever they come from.”

Trent had a new family among the people now very worried about their logistician and friend. Whatever the reason for his birth parents to shun him like that, Lennox didn’t care. DeMarco was his friend and he would be there for him, no matter what, and he knew Sam seconded that.

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Matters had calmed down considerably over the last ten days. The military was still in an uproar. Banachek was working closely with several different bases to ensure a tight search pattern for a possible Decepticon presence. So far, no other blips had occurred, no new incidents had been reported. A team had been sent to Maine, the area around Bangor, led by Lennox and Ironhide, to look into the matter of the accidents that had occurred over the last year. All had been more than mysterious and the local lore had it that there was a ghost car driving around.

Whether this was proof of a Decepticon presence or another deranged Autobot was anyone’s guess. But after Chromia’s violent appearance, everything was possible. If Chromia had indeed followed Soundwave, he and his symbiotes were deep undercover.

Tony and Hot Rod had returned to LA, but the alert hadn’t been lifted. Stark was in danger if anyone was looking to take out the Autobots’ allies or cripple their assets. Tony was putting up a token protest, but he hadn’t really argued that much. Hot Rod was used to his bitching anyway and he put his foot down if necessary.

Ratchet had repaired Chromia’s shell as much as was possible, keeping her under for the whole procedure. He hadn’t said a word about her mental state to anyone, except maybe to Prime, and Optimus was the only one who knew how bad matters were concerning their latest new-arrival. To ensure their safety, no weapons had been reactivated. He had actually removed all armament and disconnected Chromia’s trans-scanner from her protoform.

Sam had taken a few days off and had driven to see Mikaela and then continued on for a bit of R&R. He needed to take his mind off matters just as much as everyone else, especially since the echoes of Barricade’s near-miss were still rebounding inside his head.

Bumblebee offered all the support he had and it was gladly taken. Sam could let go when he was with his partner. He could lose himself without any danger to his sanity, and that some of those deep-links resulted in very pleasurable experiences for his body were a bonus. He was no longer embarrassed by his physical reaction. It was natural for their partnership, mostly because humans usually had a very physical expression of pleasure and lust.


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For Will, things had calmed down considerably and while he had a penchant to stick around Ironhide until his logical mind told him he was an idiot and clingy, he didn’t really care most of the time. Neither did Ironhide, apparently. Their mission in Maine had them close to each other anyway and both enjoyed the different scenery, even if it was all work-related and not a vacation; just like Lennox enjoyed being in command again, even for a short while.

They still had to hide the true depths of why the military was here, looking into apparently unrelated accidents and local lore about ghosts and such, but it was… fun. Will almost smiled. Fun of a different kind. He was very much aware of how serious their mission was, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t take some pleasure in being away from the base, though he had to mostly hide himself. Lieutenant Carter was doing the leg work together with his team. Will was there to keep an eye out on a possible mech appearance.

Will had set up camp in a motel room. Carter had rented the room for him since a man with moving tattoos would really stand out. The motel wasn’t frequented that much and it had seen better days, but the rooms were clean and no one asked any questions. Ironhide’s massive bulk was standing out, but aside from a look or two, no one had stopped and bothered him.


It felt like real skin under his hands. Warm and alive, soft over hard muscles, and Will Lennox couldn’t moan softly as broad hands slid over his slick skin, caressing him. Nerve endings screamed, his body vibrating under the touch, and he wanted nothing more than to thrust and find release.

Dark eyes regarded him, heat and power combined in a devilishly handsome face. High cheekbones, tanned, the black hair cut short, and clean shaven. Drop dead handsome and just about everyone’s wet dream.

Will’s included.

“Gawd… please…” he groaned as one hand slid south.

He had never been submissive in any of his relationships and mostly he had topped, or at least retaliated from bottoming by topping the second round.

Not this time, though.

He couldn’t but let the other take what he wanted, the way he wanted it, and it was this heady feeling of utter bliss that raced through him at every little caress that had him whimper.

So real. So fucking damn real!

The hands were maddening and when they guided him to bend over the hood of the car he did just that. Will’s fingers splayed over the warm metal and he moaned encouragement as he felt something hard and deliciously thick enter him. How it was at all possible was beyond him – and right now he didn’t care.

All he wanted was the hard rhythm, the hands holding his hips with bruising strength, the sensation of molten lava running down his spine, and the ecstasy that came with penetration.



Will woke with a start, feeling extremely aroused and more than a little disturbed by what could only be called a wet dream. He was breathing hard, harder than should be normal when waking up, and it took him a moment to remember that he was in a strange bed in a motel room. The sheets were tangled around his legs.

Will’s eyes narrowed all of a sudden. “Ironhide!” he hissed and grabbed for his communicator.

“Slept well?” the mech in question asked as the line connected.

“What the fuck did you do?!”

Runes swirled lazily over his skin and he felt the need to really, really do something about the state he was in. With gritted teeth he tried to will down the arousal, but the dream had been rather… real.

Almost unconsciously a hand drifted down his body and rubbed over the prominent bulge. Will bit back a groan.

“Tried out something I suspected might work.”

“You gave me that wet dream?!”

“We share a bond.”

“Hell…” Will whispered, trembling from the tension he was under.

“You only woke too soon.”

“You have no idea about human sex!” Lennox exclaimed.

“Your internet is a good educational tool.”

He groaned again.

“Didn’t you enjoy it?”

I would have enjoyed it more if it had come to an end! Lennox thought. Now I’m left hanging!

“You gave me a gay dream,” he muttered instead.

“And you liked it.”

He glared at the ceiling for lack of a better target. Lennox wasn’t ready to go out with a hard-on and yell at his truck. The runes swirled over his hands and forearms, probably all over his body, and they spoke of his satisfaction, a well as his aroused state.

“What porn site did you browse?” he muttered, angry at the pleasant, fuzzy sensation still residing in his body.

“There were several interesting ones.”

“Why did you do it?” he finally asked wearily.

“I thought you might enjoy the difference.”

Uh-huh. Yeah. He had really enjoyed it and he hadn’t even been bi in the past!

“I adjusted some things…” Ironhide added slyly.

“Yeah. Noticed.”

And he still noticed it. Shit.

“How would you even know what it feels like?” Lennox asked.

“It’s amazing what you can learn on your internet.”

“You never felt it!”

“The information was enough to simulate the actual interaction.”

Will sighed. This relationship was still complicated and always hit him from out of the blue with something new. Now this… this… whatever it was.

“Can we just go back to the usual sex?” he sighed.

“We don’t have sex,” Ironhide repeated his usual answer.

“Sharing,” Will corrected himself.

“Right now?” came the taunt.

“No!”

Right now he wanted to go into the bathroom and finish what Ironhide had started.

“Spoilsport.”

He hissed a curse and flung the communicator onto the bed as he crawled out between the sheets. Right now he needed relief, not a roll in the hay with a horny mech who thought this was funny.

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Trent had never thought that of all the people he knew, a mechanoid life form would have the most trouble with his current condition. Propped up in his hospital bed, bored by the daily TV program, he had turned to looking for Arcee. He had called her through the usual channels, but he didn’t get a reply. Inquiries had gotten him the information that she was functional, had been seen, but she wasn’t talking to a lot of people. Least of all him.

Sam had told him that Arcee felt guilty because she thought she could have prevented his injuries, but from what Trent figured that was wishful thinking. Bikers always got the short straw in any kind of accident, even if they only hit a small mammal the size of a rabbit. Arcee had been attacked by a crazy troubleshooter who had figured that Trent was the enemy. There had been no chance for either of them to influence the outcome. Trent was just glad to be alive.

Still, Arcee refused to see him or talk to him. Trent knew from Keyron and the nurses that she had been with him for a long time, cooped up in his room, watching his every breath. Now that he was awake, she was MIA.

A month had passed since he had woken from the artificial coma and he was making progress, but his body felt weak and he knew it would take a long time to recover. Sam spent time with him, keeping him up to date, playing video games, watching TV with him, or just generally hanging around. Trent was glad for the company. He was going stir crazy sometimes. Lennox dropped in when he had time, which was at least once a week. WiFi had set up camp, much to Trent’s surprise. The little Nokia had accompanied Captain Bowman during a visit and had popped up two days later on his own. Trent had called Bowman, much to WiFi’s angry chittering, which probably translated along the lines of ‘I’m not a child, I make my own decisions, idiot!’, and he got the confirmation that the cell phone transformer had decided to stay for a while.

That had been a week ago.

“I know where to find him,” Bowman laughed when they talked. “Don’t worry. He’ll behave.”

And he did. WiFi was an avid video game player and he had beaten Trent in four out of five games. Not much of a surprise since Trent was still a little out of it, fell asleep sometimes in the middle of a game, and WiFi was a computer.

The mech also set him up in the World of Legend online role playing game and Trent was stunned to discover a few familiar names.

“The Autobots play RPGs?” had been his surprised exclamation.

The expression on WiFi’s tiny face had been smug.

Now Trent was a player, too, and it was fun. It fought the boredom, which he was glad for.

WiFi chirped and then shrilled something. Trent looked up from his game and frowned, then his face lit up with a smile.

“Arcee!”

The troubleshooter was crouching slightly outside his room, blue optics duller than he ever remembered them being, and she appeared hesitant.

“Come on in. I think we can squeeze you in somewhere,” Trent said lightly.

WiFi scurried across the table and hopped onto the raised back rest of the bed. He looked expectantly at the much larger Autobot.

“Hello, Lieutenant DeMarco,” Arcee said, sounding formal.

“Cut the crap and come in,” Trent simply replied.

Arcee folded her legs under her, looking a bit lost.

“You’re a hard mech to find. I tried calling you.”

“I had some things to take care of.”

“Like brooding in a forgotten corner?” Trent teased.

She gave an almost human sigh.

“Arcee, what happened wasn’t your fault! No one blames you, least of all me!”

“You could have lost your life and we have sworn to protect our allies. You were seriously injured and it’s still not clear how much you will recover.”

“I don’t blame you for it.”

Arcee was silent.

“I don’t,” Trent repeated. “I’d by lying if I told you I’m not terrified of what my future might be. I’d by lying if I said that I know I’ll always have a job with you guys. I don’t know anything and I’m scared as hell, but I’m alive!”

Arcee’s optics were a deep blue, looking as old as she was, serious and very level. “I spent time with Tom Banachek. I wanted to make sure you’re not left on your own, that I can take responsibility for my failure.”

“Arcee…!”

She raised a hand. “Trent, it was my fault. I could have detected Chromia if I had looked more closely. I let my guard down on your world and you paid for my mistakes. Banachek promised that you will have a job with the Autobots and the Earth military, at the base, and with full payment.”

Trent blinked.

“You’re a valued member of the team and while you’re part of the military, you have, as Tom said, a desk job. You can still work for us, even with a handicap.”

“I…”

WiFi chirped softly, sounding pleased.

“Thanks,” Trent finally managed.

Arcee smiled a little. “And if you still want to once you are healed, we can drive together again.”

If his leg allowed it, Trent thought. If his body allowed it. From Arcee’s expression he knew she had realized that as well. He simply nodded.

“So, you got some time?”

Arcee tilted her head a little. “Yes?”

“Ever played World of Legend?”

Arcee suddenly smiled. “Jazz told me to get an account and I already set one up.”

“Cool. Want to play?”

The troubleshooter nodded and the screen on the wall lit up, showing Trent and WiFi’s characters. Suddenly there was a third one and Trent had to laugh. Arcee was an Elemental, a fire breather, which looked like a mix between a human and a dragon. Two-legged, scaly and not really very nice to look at. Most of her character was hidden under a long, black, thick cloak. WiFi had gone for being a kitsune and Trent himself had opted for a warrior scholar.

“Okay, let’s see what’s up for us,” he announced, grinning.

And they walked off into the Forest of Naab.

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Barricade had chosen one of his regular hang-outs, the old and abandoned warehouse district of Mission City, and he had parked in the shadow of a derelict building. His presence had already driven away the scum that had chosen this site as a drug trafficking area. There were just a few of the homeless still sleeping here.

Jazz had unerringly found him. The Autobot hadn’t been far away from his spark bonded ever since the attack and while Barricade openly growled and grumbled, he was secretly glad to have Jazz close. Their role reversal wasn’t lost on him, even though he hadn’t suffered as badly as the first lieutenant. His memories were still intact and he hadn’t actually died.

What disturbed him were the imprints Sam’s contact had left on his matrix. He could still tell where the safety net had been attached to, how strongly the human technopath had held on to him, and how much it had cost. Sam had nearly been dragged down as well, but he had been stubborn and his strength made Barricade proud. He had trained the human; this was his achievement.

The connection he had to the human was also stronger than ever before, as well as easier to access. It wasn’t Sam’s doing, just a result from the rescue.

::Cade?:: Jazz murmured.

His reply was a gruff grunt.

Jazz smiled and caressed his spark presence. ::Glad you’re alive:: he only whispered.

So was Barricade. More than glad, even if he would never say it out loud. Not just because he preferred living to permanently off-line. No one wanted to just die. Few were suicidal enough for that. Too much was now connected to him. Jazz was connected to him – and closer than ever. As frightening as that fact had been just a few years ago, it was now a major factor in calming and comforting the former Decepticon.

For some strange reason Ironhide had left him alone after Barricade had been beaten by Chromia. The shock trooper had expected taunts and jeers, but nothing of the like had happened. Ironhide had been strangely laid back, unresponsive when it came to Chromia and her attack on their Decepticon ally, and he hadn’t so much as looked wrong at Barricade. Then again, she had also blasted the Autobot’s partner and attacked Ironhide himself. That had to smart.

Barricade wondered why Prime was so reluctant to pull the plug. Chromia was beyond help. At least their help. Maybe the Allspark could have repaired her, but that was a huge bet. And while Lennox looked like the Allspark’s two-legged vessel, he wasn’t. He didn’t have these kind of powers. It would be merciful to off-line the troubleshooter completely.

::We don’t do that:: Jazz chastised.

::No, you wait for her to find a way to kill one of you::

If it had been Bumblebee who had been under attack and nearly dismembered, maybe they would have acted different. But it had only been him.

Anger coursed through him, coming from Jazz’s side. ::You’re not some redundant cannon fodder!::

Barricade chuckled darkly, but he didn’t reply.

::Cade!::

::Don’t blow a fuse:: he told his bonded.

“You’re not superfluous, you’re not anyone’s cannon fodder, and whoever says something like that will get to know me real personally!”

Barricade laughed and transformed, catching his partner’s hands and trapping him against a wall. He leaned in, optics glowing a deep, blood-red.

“I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m very well able to take care of myself. Autobot.”

Jazz glared. “I don’t like it when you think so lowly of yourself with us.”

“I know where the acceptance ends.”

“That’s not true!” was the hiss of anger.

“If it weren’t for the spark bond, I wouldn’t even be here any more. I surrendered to Prime, but aside from maybe Bumblebee, none of the others would trust me.”

“You have proven yourself multiple times. You’re our ally,” Jazz insisted.

“And I honor that alliance.”

Barricade slid one clawed hand around his partner’s waist and Jazz leaned closer. There was a soft clonk as he rested his head against the shock trooper’s shoulder armor.

“You’re no different from the others,” he repeated.

Barricade didn’t even try to argue. Jazz was an Autobot, an idealist. As much as they were alike in so many regards, here they different. Had Jazz joined the Decepticons he might be tainted like Barricade, too. He might view certain things differently. He might be more suspicious, less trusty. As it was, he hadn’t. Jazz was an Autobot, through and through.
And somehow, it was the spice in their relationship. Barricade grinned, a terrible expression on his features, and tightened his hold. His spark grew in presence, enveloping Jazz, and he surprised his bonded, who suddenly chuckled.

“Pushy. Sexy, but pushy. I like.”

Barricade only growled, but Jazz didn’t resist. He grinned cheekily and invited his bonded inside.

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Optimus Prime couldn’t say he was satisfied with the turn of events or how the situation had resolved itself. There had been no resolution. The problems were still there. One problem was now in stasis and would probably not come out of it any time soon. The other was the possible presence of a Decepticon. That worried him more than anything else.