Work Text:
Jack hated to draw attention to himself, but he sprinted through the corridors of the Nemesis, dodging other Eradicons as he ran. Luckily for him, he always knew where to find his friends before their shifts started.
Miko pulled Raf out of the way as Jack skidded to a stop beside them. “Whoa! What’s up with you? You look like you saw a ghost.” Jack gave her a pointed look, flicking his optics towards the ceiling. “Oh - yeah, sure. Hang on, I got it.” Miko turned on her radio. One of her human songs started to blast from it, and they all crowded around and put their heads together over the music.
“Guys,” Jack hissed over the guitars. “Bad news. Really bad news.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I heard Starscream talking to Soundwave.”
“Oh yeah, that’s the worst.”
“This is serious, Miko!”
“Then get to the point already!”
“The point is that he was talking about making contact with a Decepticon medic to fix Megatron! He’s on his way here! Right now!”
“A…oh. Oh scrap.” Raf and Miko’s optics went wide.
“Yeah. Which means, if Starscream has a Decepticon medic onboard…”
“He’s not going to need a Neutral medic,” finished Raf.
“We need to get June out of here. Like, now.” Miko looked about ready to take off for the medbay right then and there.
Jack and Raf both nodded. Starscream already didn’t like June - she knew he needed a medic and couldn’t just scrap her, and she had taken every chance to make it clear what she thought of him, while also reminding him he needed her. He wouldn’t pass up this opportunity.
“Apparently this guy’s a grounder, so we still have a day or so, but we don’t have time to waste. We need to get to June while the officers are busy, get her stasis cuff off, and bridge her out of here before anyone notices us missing.”
“I can break the cuff! I just gotta get in there while the place is empty. I’m on a solo repair shift today.”
Jack nodded. “I can tell Starscream there’s some interference or something that I have to check out, that’ll buy us some time.”
Raf nodded. “Definitely. We’ll have to move fast, but I can give us cover.”
“Good, then we just need - wait. We?”
“I’m coming too.”
Jack’s optics widened. “What?! No way, you’ll be on shift too, Soundwave’s never gonna let you-“
“There’s always something that needs to be fixed, I’ll tell him I need to take care of it. That’ll buy us some time.”
“We can run the groundbridge ourselves, it’s too dangerous-“
“You can turn it on, but you can’t hide the signal.” Raf crossed his arms. “You need me, or else someone might be able to track where June went. You know Starscream will want to.”
“He’s got a point,” Miko remarked. Jack grimaced. “Besides, if Raf’s with us he can hide us too. No one has to know we snuck down there at all!”
“…I guess,” Jack said reluctantly. He didn’t like it - the more of them sneaking around, the more chance someone would notice them - but if anyone could cover their tracks, Raf could. Besides, their time was running out. “Okay. Tonight, then. We sneak in, Miko breaks the cuff, we get June to the groundbridge and then back to our posts before anyone knows we’re gone. In and out.”
“Smash and grab!” Miko grinned.
“The exact opposite of that, Miko.”
“Eh, close enough.” Miko turned her radio up as the song crescendoed, dancing in place. A Vehicon passing along the adjoining corridor glanced at the group and moved on with a dismissive shake of their head. Jack had never been happier that the other Vehicons wanted nothing to do with the three of them.
“Everyone just be careful. Especially you, Raf.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll send you a comm. If I mention music, something’s wrong. If I mention a show, the coast is clear. I’ll meet you at the medbay.”
As soon as the song ended, Jack shooed both of them off towards their shifts, just like he always did, and hurried to his post on the bridge. With luck, no one would notice anything unusual. Just the three “Earth Vehicons” sneaking in some music before they got to work.
(They actually didn’t mind the name, just the way the other Vehicons used it. Earth was organic, sure, but it had made a lot of cool stuff.)
The first few hours of the shift dragged. Every time Starscream looked up, or Soundwave twitched, Jack was sure they’d discovered the plan. He could barely focus on the radar.
Raf managed to slip away to go “check the signal arrays were all functioning at full capacity,” and Jack focused carefully on his monitor, waiting as the minutes stretched out. The only sound in the bridge was soft beeps or clicks from the monitors, and the occasional mutter from Starscream. Every noise seemed magnified, and Jack had to lock his servos a few times when he started feeling too jumpy.
Want to watch a show later? I got the new Barrel of Monkeys special. Raf sounded a little stilted, but at least Jack wasn’t fighting to keep his fans from kicking on anymore. Phase 1 was a go.
He counted off the seconds until he couldn’t wait any longer - just in case Soundwave was paying attention to the communication. Finally, at 247, he gave up and cleared his intakes.
“Uh - Commander Starscream, sir?”
“What?” Starscream barely glanced up.”
“There’s some interference in the radar here, Commander. I think some of the port antennae got knocked out of alignment, sir.” Miko liked to give him a hard time about being a kissass, but as Starscream’s usual assistant on the bridge, Jack would rather lay it on thick and take the “suckup” label instead of the “insubordinate” one that Miko preferred.
“Why are you wasting time telling me about it, then? Go fix it!”
“Yes, Commander.” Instead of pointing out that if he’d tried to leave without permission Starscream would have had his head(maybe literally), Jack hurried out of the room. The medbay was towards port, so him scurrying off that way wouldn’t be unusual if anyone was paying attention.
If they were, he didn’t notice. In the hallway outside of the medbay, he found Miko. She was limping towards him and waved. “Hey Jack! Can I get a hand here?”
Was anyone around? Was Soundwave listening? “Okay, sure. But, uh, we better hurry up, Commander Starscream is gonna be pissed if I take too long.” He was talking too loud - nerves, he was seriously nervous. It was about to be too late to back out. If they got caught, they were all going to be shot.
So don’t get caught. Okay. They could do this.
Raf came hurrying down the corridor towards them. “Oh wow, Miko, what happened this time? Let me get the door!” Jack helped Miko “limp” the rest of the way, and Raf opened the door and slipped inside after them.
June looked up from sorting through supplies and frowned. “Miko? What happened?”
Raf shut the door behind them and tapped something into his wrist console, then nodded. “Okay, I set the sensors in here to run a diagnostic cycle. We’re covered.”
“Great!” Miko straightened up, much to Jack’s relief. He wouldn’t have put it past her to actually get hurt for an excuse to come this way. “We’re busting you out of here!”
“You’re what now?” June straightened up, looking between the three of them in confusion.
“Starscream got in contact with a medic. A Decepticon medic. He’s on his way now. And when he gets here-“
“I’ll have outlived my usefulness.” June had turned grim. “I see.”
“We’ve got a plan though! Miko can break the cuff, and then we just have to get you to the groundbridge and send you down to the planet! Starscream won’t be able to find you if you lay low.”
June gave him a concerned look. “What about you three?”
“I’m hiding our signals,” Raf put in. “We just have to hurry and get back to our posts before anyone realizes anything’s weird. I can wipe my program out of the systems and no one will know.”
“Speaking of hurry…” Miko held out her hands. After a moment, June lifted her cuffed foot to prop it on a table. She was careful to keep her hands away from it - if she touched it, it would complete the circuit, run a current through her motor systems to paralyze her to stop any interference.
Luckily, Miko took hold of the cuff, and Jack glanced at the door anxiously. Metal creaked as Miko began to squeeze the cuff, and after a few moments it started to crack. She twisted at the cuff with both hands, muttering “Sorry-“ as it snagged on June’s armor and she winced. Then the cuff came apart and fell off June’s ankle.
She stamped on it once, crushing it to nothing but scrap metal, then picked up the plain metal case that held her personal set of equipment, shooting one brief, shuddering glance at the dark corner where the comatose Decepticon warlord lay. “Okay. Let’s get out of here.”
The four of them hurried through the halls of the Nemesis, Raf leading the way. He had managed to memorize everyone’s schedules for today, and Jack promised himself Raf got to pick every movie for a month.
“Almost there,” he whispered. “Through there.” He pointed towards a door around the corner. “There’s someone there - he should leave soon.”
“Jack,” June whispered. “Are you sure about-“
“Hey!”
The group spun to find an Eradicon striding towards them.
“Raf,” Miko hissed, “I thought you said you knew who was assigned here!”
“I did, he’s not supposed to be here!”
“Commander Starscream wants - hey, wait a minute-”He stopped, seeing June, and his optics went wide. “Trait-”
Miko punched him in the face. The Eradicon slammed back against the wall and hit the ground, out cold. She prodded him with her foot, just to be sure. “I never liked that guy anyway.”
“Me neither,” said Jack, a little dazed.
The alarms blared suddenly. Raf clapped his hands over his audials with a wince. June looked back out into the hallway. “I guess that wasn’t as quiet as we would’ve liked.” Jack looked too, just in time to see the Vehicon who’d been in their way disappear out of sight around a corner and start shouting for backup.
“Scrap,” he muttered. “Come on!”
Shouts rose from behind them as they bolted. The door sealed as they ran for it, but Raf pushed past Jack. “I can get it, just give me a minute-”
“Not sure we have a minute!” Jack moved to cover Raf’s back, swinging his blaster back and forth to cover both corners. Miko shook her head at him and pointed right.
“You cover that side, I’ve got the left!” She didn’t wait for Jack to answer, just pushed him a few steps back to make room for herself. Jack turned just in time to open fire as two Vehicons came around his corner. He’d been hoping they could keep up enough blaster fire to keep the other Vehicons under cover, but there were only two of them that could shoot. Raf needed both hands to get the door open, and June’s weapons had been locked since before they’d even met her - not that she had much weaponry to start with, as she’d once admitted to them.
Constant fire wasn’t good for weapons mechanisms. June had warned them about that - their systems weren’t designed to shoot without a break like modern Vehicons were. Firing too long and too fast without giving them a chance to cool down risked long-term damage, or even burning out connections.
That was exactly what Jack’s HUD told him had happened when his right-hand blaster powered down with a sad little bweooo. “Scrap, scrap, scrap-”he banged his hand against the wall, frantically trying to get it to reactivate.
“Jack-”
“Raf, hurry up!”
“Almost-”
The returning fire was getting worse now that Jack was down a hand, and he took a shot to the chest that made him stumble. June caught him, bracing him. “Jack! Are you okay?”
“Fine - armor - scrap -”His other blaster was starting to transmit overheating warnings. “Miko-”
“I’m trying! I need like three more arms here!” Jack winced, seeing the air shimmer around Miko’s hands - she was probably getting warnings just as bad as his.
“What are you waiting for?! Destroy them!”
The voice triggered a white-hot lance of fear through Jack’s EM field, and three answering bursts flared around him. They could hold back, and even take down, other Vehicons, if they were careful and quick. They could take at least some answering blaster fire.
Starscream was another matter entirely.
“Got it!” Raf shoved the door open and June pushed him through, grabbing for Miko and Jack to pull them in after her as they kept up what covering fire they could. The door slammed shut again an inch from Jack's face, intercepting several shots that would've hit him.
“I sealed the door, but it won’t hold - even if Soundwave doesn’t help them, they’ll break it down eventually-”
“Forget the door, get the groundbridge working!” Miko put herself between the door and the others. “They can’t shoot us if we’re not here!”
“Miko’s right,” June said, taking Raf gently by the shoulders and guiding him towards the groundbridge console. “Go on. I know you can get us out of here.”
Raf looked nervously back at the door as shouts and pounding noises came from the other side, then nodded and dashed for the console.
Jack wasn’t actually sure how long it took. A minute and a half for the door to give out, but after that he didn’t have time to watch the clock. He’d taken cover behind a storage container, damaged in the mines and left here to wait until someone could do something about it. Miko was behind a bulkhead, setting up a fresh barrage of fire, while Jack drew more careful beads when anyone tried to plow through. Behind them, he could feel flickers from June and Raf’s fields that he couldn’t let himself notice.
The one he couldn’t ignore was a sudden spark of glee, accompanied by a green glow and Raf’s triumphant “Done!”
“Come on!” They scrambled backwards for the bridge as Raf added his own covering fire.
As Jack turned to run for the bridge, Starscream came into view, face twisted in rage. His optics locked onto Jack and his arm came up, missiles primed-
“Jack!” Miko's burst of blaster fire hit Starscream dead-on, throwing off his aim, but Jack could already tell it wasn’t enough, the missile fired-
Someone shoved him through the bridge. Everything shook with an explosion, and something slammed into him from behind.
Jack hit the ground with a puff of dust, sand immediately starting to work its way into armor seams as he struggled upright, sore but somehow not exploded. “Guys?”
“Right here,” Miko grabbed Jack’s hand and pulled him back to his feet. “You okay?”
“Fine.” Jack looked around to see Raf helping June up.
“I can’t believe I timed that right.” Raf’s hands were shaking, but he was grinning. “We made it!”
“See, Raf?” June smiled weakly. “What did I tell you? I knew you could do it.”
Her knees buckled and she collapsed, energon oozing from a hole in her back, and Jack immediately realized why Starscream’s parting shot hadn’t hit him.
“June!” They all dropped to their knees, Raf grabbing for her field kit and frantically digging through it for something that could help.
Miko lit up her headlights, leaning over June, and Jack’s tanks churned at what the light revealed. Raf’s hands were the quickest - he was already trying to clamp off the energon lines before a sparking wire could catch.
There was nothing Jack could do, not without getting in the way, and that might mean - he clamped down hard on that thought and his field. Raf and Miko didn’t need the distraction.
The rock formations around them rose high overhead. Jack had to hope that was a good thing - the desert around them had almost nothing else in terms of cover, and the Nemesis would probably be looking for them. Still, he didn’t like it. It felt too exposed, after the corridors and the mines. It felt like standing on the deck of the ship, knowing how easy it would be to be knocked off the edge - or pushed.
The wind whistled through the rocks, nearly drowning out Raf’s urgent muttering, and Jack looked away. Perimeter. He’d do a perimeter - do something. The last thing they needed was for some humans to stumble on them. Circling around the rocks surrounding them, he spotted a thin, winding path up one of the larger formations, more than wide enough for a human to climb up. Maybe he should climb up himself after he made sure they were clear, to get a better vantage point. They were going to need some kind of shelter soon when - when, not if, it had to be when - Raf got June stable.
As he passed the cliff face, there was a faint scuffing noise from overhead, and a chunk of rock tumbled past him, narrowly missing his shoulder. He stiffened, transforming his one good blaster again as he started up the path.
Another faint sound caught his attention just in time. “Whoa!” Jack threw himself aside just in time to avoid a blade swiping down from the ledge above him. The Autobot scout sprang off the rocks as Jack ducked into a transformation, reversing back towards the group. He unfolded back into a defensive position at the same time as the Autobot landed, rolling back to her feet with her blasters primed.
Seconds ticked by, neither side moving, before Jack mustered his courage. “Look,” he said, “there’s three of us and only one of you. How about you just keep driving, and we pretend we never saw each other?”
The Autobot tilted her head. “There’s three of you,” she agreed, “but I think he counts as three all by himself.” She smirked, nodding at something behind the group. Jack looked back to see a groundbridge open - and Optimus Prime himself stepped out.
Panic slammed through him like a null ray blast. They were slagged. Starscream was never going to find them after all, because there wouldn’t be anything left to find. Optimus fucking Prime was going to vaporize them.
Somehow he managed to keep his guns trained on Arcee. Miko, never one to half-ass anything, circled around June and Raf to shield them from Prime’s slow approach, bristling. “Back off!”
Jack’s mind raced, looking for a way out. Suddenly he almost wished the Nemesis would find them - maybe if the Autobots were distracted by a bunch of Vehicons showing up, they could make a run for it.
(Who was he kidding? With their luck, everyone would shoot them first before they even started fighting each other.)
“Guys,” Raf said suddenly, so quiet Jack didn't think the Autobots could hear him. “There’s no time. I can’t…”He trailed off, but at a glance Jack and Miko knew what he meant. He could stop the energon leaks, but watching June patch Miko up wasn’t enough training to save a mech’s life. Raf couldn’t put June back together.
Jack looked back and forth between the Autobots, spark stuttering wildly in his chest. Right now, he would’ve given anything to go back to last week, when everything had been normal and June wasn’t dying and he wasn’t staring down the barrel of a weapon that would take off his head with one wrong move, looking for a way to get them all out of this alive.
Wait.
“Wait,” he said suddenly, lowering his blaster, and Raf and Miko startled, looking towards him. More importantly, so did the Autobots. “We just wanted to get her off the Nemesis. She’s not a Decepticon, she was a prisoner.” Optimus Prime said nothing, his mask making it impossible to tell what he was thinking. Jack mustered his courage and transformed his weapon back to his hand. It wouldn’t do much anyway, you could bomb Prime and he wouldn’t flinch, everyone knew that.
“She helped us,” Miko said quietly, and Prime glanced at her, unreadable.
“We can’t fix her, but - you have a medic, don’t you?” Jack looked at Prime, desperate. “I know we’re just Vehicons, but - I worked under Starscream, I can trade information-”
“I worked in the mines,” Miko jumped in. “I know coordinates-”
“I can tell you about their systems-”
Prime held up a hand and all three of them fell silent, going tense. “We will help you. However,” he continued before any of them could do more than sigh in relief, “we will require your cooperation.” But he lowered his weapon - though Jack couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t put it away.
Miko and Raf looked at each other, then at Jack, and both of them nodded. Jack looked back at Prime. “Okay. We’ll - do whatever it is you want us to do.”
“Optimus?” The Autobot scout - Arcee? Jack was pretty sure - gave the Prime a questioning look.
“Stand down, Arcee.” Oh, cool, he’d been right, he might be executed but at least he didn’t feel like a total idiot. Arcee glanced between Prime and the small group with obvious misgiving, but did as he ordered. Jack offered her a nervous smile before dropping his gaze and looking back at June, bracing for whatever would come next.
“What are your names?”
…Okay, “the Prime asking for introductions” wasn’t on the list, but okay. That probably would’ve had to happen eventually. “Uh. I’m Jack.”
“Just Jack?” Arcee gave him an odd look. “Not Carjack, or-”
“Just Jack,” he said, biting back the annoyance - why did the Autobots have to ask the same stupid question every other Vehicon on the Nemesis had? If he said he was Jack, then he was just Jack , it didn’t seem like a hard concept.
At least she didn’t start jeering. That was usually the next step.
“Name’s Miko.”
“Raf - uh, Rafael.”
“Her name is June,” Jack added, motioning towards June.
The Prime nodded. “I see. Thank you.” He lifted a hand to radio back to base, or wherever the Autobots kept their mechs. Did they have a ship? They had to get here somehow, but Jack thought if they had a ship the Decepticons would probably know.
“Cooperation,” it turned out, meant letting the Autobot medic disable their weapons, radios, and IFFs, and also letting the Autobots handcuff them while the medic stabilized June and brought her back through the groundbridge. Jack’s fingers twitched nervously until Miko bumped his shoulder with hers in silent reassurance as they followed. When they came out of the groundbridge, Raf nudged his elbow to point out where June had been set on a makeshift berth for repairs. That made Jack relax again, at least a little. Cuffs or not, they were all together, even if they were Autobot prisoners now.
“Jack.”
Instinct made Jack snap to attention - as much as he could in handcuffs, anyway. He turned to find that Prime had somehow managed to come up behind him without Jack noticing. How a bot about three stories tall could pull that off, Jack wasn’t sure.
“Now that June is in repairs, I have some questions to ask you.”
Jack froze as impulses warred in his head. On one hand, refusal to obey would get him killed even if it had just been Starscream he was disobeying, let alone the Autobots. On the other, if he let Prime split him up from the others, that weakened all of them, and with one of them already incapacitated-
“If you would prefer not to leave her, we could speak here.”
“Uh - yeah. Yeah, here’s fine. Thank you, uh, Prime. Sir.” It was probably better to show too much submission than too little. It always was with Starscream, and at least Starscream had had a reason to prefer Jack alive, even if that reason was just that replacing him would be a little bit inconvenient. “What did you want to know? Commander Starscream,” scrap, should he not call him that? Optimus didn’t seem to be reacting but that didn’t mean he wasn’t remembering, he might hold a grudge, and Jack plowed ahead and hoped he could smooth that over quickly, “didn’t exactly talk to me about his plans but I worked on the bridge a lot anyway, so I heard him talking to Soundwave about them, so I know at least the basics of them.” See, look at him, being cooperative and helpful and respectful, it would be way more inconvenient and time-consuming to beat information out of him when Prime could just ask, right?
Unless Prime wanted to get back at the Decepticons for their treatment of Autobots more than he wanted information. Jack hadn't, he realized, thought about that angle.
“I will gladly take any information you can offer,” Prime said, “but that was not the first question I needed to ask.”
“Oh - okay. I’m sorry. What was it?”
“You surrendered to us in order to save June. Why was she injured?”
Jack managed not to flinch at the thought. “We - we were trying to get her off the ship. She would’ve been killed. But we got caught, and - she took a rocket blast. For me.” His shoulders hunched slightly. “I didn’t even realize she did it until she fell down.”
“I see.” Prime glanced back at the medical table. “That was courageous.”
“I don’t think she’s scared of anything.”
Prime gave a quiet, acknowledging hum, focusing back on him with a thoughtful look(again, terrifying. Jack wished he’d stop doing that). “And you risked yourselves to rescue her. Why?”
Jack paused. “I - why do you want to know? I thought Autobots were all about that stuff.”
“We do seek to aid all those who require it,” Prime nodded, “but I wish to hear your own reasons why you chose to risk your lives for a friend.”
“I mean…” Jack hesitated. Friend didn’t seem right for June. Miko and Raf were his friends, but that wasn’t the same thing. “She looked out for us, you know? Raf didn’t end up in medbay a lot after Soundwave picked him up, but me and Miko did, with the mines and all.” Mostly Miko, really, ever since Starscream had decided he wanted an assistant too, but Jack wasn’t going to make any of them sound like too much trouble. If they decided they wanted to, five Autobots wouldn’t have any trouble scrapping three exhausted, unarmed Decepticons. “I don’t know why.”
“I see.”
Jack had gotten pretty good at reading Starscream’s moods, mostly in self-defense, but Prime had a serious poker face. Maybe that wasn’t enough. “She yelled at Com- at Starscream once,” he offered, “because he put Miko back on shift right after she got caught in a landslide.” Jack paused. “I mean, Starscream shot her and put Miko on doubles for a while after that. I had to help her patch herself up. But she tried to help. We didn’t want her to die because Starscream found a loyal medic.” He glanced back to where Miko and Raf hovered near June and the Autobot medic, under the watchful optics of the other Autobots. “We’ll tell you whatever you want to know, just…you can fix her, right?”
When he looked back at the Prime, something had changed in him, though Jack couldn’t quite tell what. “If anyone can repair her, it will be Ratchet. He will do everything in his power to save your friend.”
Jack hoped so. “Thank you, sir.” Mustering his courage, he added “So, uh - what do you want to know? About Starscream, and the Nemesis.”
Starscream had almost killed June. Jack thought it would be good payback to tell his enemies everything.
“I’ve done everything I can, for now.” Ratchet wiped his hands off with a cloth, setting aside his tools. “The good news is, she seems to have a robust self-repair system. She wasn’t exactly in the best condition before being injured, though.” He eyed the trio sourly. Jack, having some experience in the “we’re being glared at by someone scarier than us” department, kicked Miko’s ankle as subtly as he could to distract her from pulling a face when Ratchet turned his back. He ignored the answering jab to his own ankle.
Optimus Prime nodded. “We can only hope she recovers quickly, then. In the meantime,” he turned his own attention to the small group, “come with me.”
Raf piped up, “Um, where are we going? Sir?” he added quickly.
“We have set aside a room for the three of you to remain in until-”
“Wait, what?”
“And leave June here?!”
“We’re not leaving her alone!”
“Your Neutral friend isn’t the prisoner here,” Ratchet snapped, and beside Jack, Miko shifted slightly to put herself between the looming Autobots and her friends. “I’m not going to have an unconscious patient put in confinement just so-”He broke off as the Prime placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Easy, old friend. That will not be necessary.”
Ratchet rounded on the Prime. “You’re not seriously considering letting them stay out here?”
“We can’t leave her alone,” Jack protested. Survival instincts, learned very well on the Nemesis, screamed at him to shut up and do what he was told, but if he did that-
The Autobots had no reason to care if June survived - actually, they probably would prefer if she didn’t, they didn’t have energon mines at hand. Repairs weren’t free. Someone had to stay with her, make sure nobody tried anything.
“What if something happens? She could take a turn, or something.” Raf stepped forward. Nervousness washed through his field as the Autobots’ attention turned to him, but he pressed on. “We could keep watch on her.”
“As if I can’t monitor a patient myself?”
“No, sir. I helped June monitor patients sometimes, it was easier if someone was with them so she could do other things.” Raf’s voice was level, but his stance was unmoving.
Prime shook his head. “I understand your concerns. However, if you are to remain here, we cannot remove your handcuffs. You would have to agree to be confined, for that.”
All three of them looked at each other in silent consideration, before nodding. “That’s fine,” said Jack. “We’ll stay here.”
I’m on the first guard shift. You two should fuel up and rest.
“We shouldn’t leave you on your own, what if it’s a trick?”
Maybe. It seems like a strange trick. There’s five of us and we’re all armed.
“We should stick around the common room while they’re still out there anyway. Just in case.”
“Hopefully they won’t be stupid enough to try anything, but if they are planning something…”
The three Decepticons stayed clustered together, barely straying from each other or their unconscious friend(prisoner? protector? It would have to stay a mystery until she came back online and could clear things up herself). Strangely enough, they kept taking what Agent Fowler would call “catnaps,” constantly, in shifts - at least one of them was always alert and aware, usually pretending not to be watching the Autobots themselves.
Bumblebee wondered if that was new, or a habit they’d learned on the Nemesis. How safe could it be to recharge among Decepticons? They weren’t exactly officers, but they stood out - that had to have been a dangerous position to be in. He couldn’t help but sympathize - he could recharge and defrag properly here, even though by human standards it would take days, but he’d had missions where he couldn’t risk it. If he couldn’t get in a full cycle, he had to snatch what little rest he could in minutes, maybe an hour or two at a time, all progress undone by the time he got the next opportunity. It meant barely keeping ahead of your own exhaustion.
He knew this could be a trick - he was young, not stupid, and he wouldn’t be here otherwise. He just had a hard time believing that a couple of low-level Decepticon grunts would walk into the hands of Optimus Prime’s team planning to double-cross them. Ratchet had disabled their radios and their weapons, and all they’d done since was huddle together by the Neutral’s bedside.
If he was honest with himself, Bumblebee wanted this to be genuine. If they really were here because they cared more about their friend than they hated the Autobots, maybe they could do more than fight to win the war.
The smallest of the Decepticons was the one awake now. The other two were sitting on the floor by Ratchet’s makeshift medical berth, curled up back-to-back and leaning against it as they snatched another nap. The one on watch, who could have been an Autobot if it wasn’t for the badge and the red optics, looked over and went still when he saw Bumblebee watching. Both of them stared for a long moment.
Finally, the tension began to feel awkward, and Bumblebee chirped a hello, giving a little wave just to break the tension. The Decepticon blinked, then smiled and waved back - and, to Bumblebee’s surprise, clicked hello back at him. It wasn’t quite right, but it was recognizable, and Bumblebee couldn’t help but respond.
Where did you learn machine language? I didn’t know Decepticons learned it too.
I don’t know. I just know it. It sounds different than yours. I’m sorry.
That’s okay. It’s nice to hear anyway.
The Decepticon looked surprised, then relaxed a little. Decepticons might have a different dialect. I’m glad I can understand you anyway.
Me too.
They were both quiet for a minute, before the Decepticon spoke up again. Is it always this quiet here?
This is pretty normal.
The Nemesis is always noisy. Even when you’re alone.
Bumblebee knew what he meant. He always had a hard time adjusting to the constant sounds of engines when he was on a ship. It’s not what you’re used to.
No. It’s nice.
Arcee’s sensors were more finely tuned than any of the others’, and she was the best at picking up the quiet conversations the Decepticons would have among themselves when she was on guard duty. It was nothing she wouldn’t expect - “nothing happened while you were recharging” “Ratchet came and checked on June, he says she’s improving” and so on.
She recognized all three of their frame types as being early-war models. Vehicons, especially, had been through a lot of different models. Most of them hadn’t survived to upgrade to new frame types, especially later on when the Decepticons had started producing them en masse. Still, there might be swarms of Vehicons, but they went down a lot easier than they used to, and most of them seemed pretty short on independent thought.
There were a lot of rumors about how Vehicons were made. Arcee wasn’t ruling any of them out.
It had been a long time since she’d seen a Protectobot, though. Optimus had ordered MTO production halted not long after Cybertron had fallen. They’d been survivors, though, and the ones Arcee had met had all upgraded and modded themselves until they were barely recognizable as having once been pre-assembled soldiers. The one currently in Ratchet’s makeshift medbay, pretending he wasn’t trying to watch Bumblebee’s cartoons from across the room, might be the only unmodified Protectobot left.
That suggested all three of them were old, or should have been. They sure didn’t act like it. Her best guess was that they’d been in stasis somewhere, and then - what? Come online and sought out the nearest 'Con ship? And how had an Autobot MTO gotten involved?
The Decepticon who seemed to be the leader of the trio had noticed her watching. He fidgeted for a minute, and then, to her surprise, stood up and approached her.
“...Can I ask you a question?”
“That depends.” She narrowed her optics at him.
The Decepticon was pointedly avoiding looking her in the optic. “I just wanted to know - is your human okay?”
“Our human?”
“The one Starscream kidnapped, and you guys snuck on board to rescue. Is he okay?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I don’t know, I just - wondered. Starscream’s pretty dangerous, and humans are, uh…fragile.”
“The human is fine.” Cliffjumper wasn’t. Nothing felt worth that.
“I - oh. Oh, the - I’m sorry. About your friend.”
“And what do you know about it?” Arcee’s fists clenched. If he said the wrong thing-
“I-I was with Starscream. When they brought him. It - happened so fast, your friend-”
“He was my partner,” and an angry rev accompanied the words.
He flinched, gaze darting up towards her and then dropping again. “Sorry. I didn’t mean - I’m sorry.”
Vehicons were mass-produced. It made them replaceable. Arcee had seen Decepticon officers brutalize their own soldiers for all kinds of reasons: insubordination, failure - delivering bad news.
The anger deserted her all at once. Her chest felt hollow. “Just…don’t. I don’t want to hear anything about it from you.”
“Okay.” He took a step back, turning back towards his previous spot.
“Wait.” The word escaped her before she knew it. He stopped to look at her, waiting. After a long moment, she spoke again. “Cliffjumper. When Starscream offlined him…”
“...He wasn’t scared.”
“...Good.” Cliffjumper had never been scared. It was - not right, but it was something, that he hadn’t been afraid at the end.
“…I’m, uh. Glad. That your human’s okay.” The Decepticon turned away and went back to sit down next to his friends. For an instant, Arcee thought of sitting in the medbay, long before she’d even heard of Earth, waiting to hear if Tailgate would survive his latest stunt. She scowled, crossing her arms, and settled back against the wall.
Starscream had offlined Cliffjumper. If they got nothing else out of this, she knew that now.
Since Bulkhead had taken his watch shift, he’d been having a staredown with the combat-build Vehicon. She’d been sitting between her little friends and the rest of the room, and hadn’t taken her optics off him.
She almost looked calculating, and Bulkhead didn’t think he liked it.
“So,” the Decepticon said slowly.
“What?” Bulkhead crossed his arms.
“Saw you punch through a rock once.”
“Yeah? What about it?” He knew how this went: she’d make a crack about the rock being harder than his head, thinking if he got mad she could trick him and pull something, and then when she tried whatever she was planning he’d knock her across the room. She wouldn’t be the first ‘Con to think she could insult him into doing something stupid. It never worked that well - they usually found out why no one wanted to be on the wrong end of an angry Wrecker, if they were lucky.
“It was pretty awesome.” She grinned suddenly. “Bet I could do it too. Piece of cake.”
He blinked. Okay, that was a new one. “Piece of - isn’t that a human thing?”
“Yeah, what about it? I thought Autobots liked humans. You’re not here just ‘cause you wanna fight ‘Cons, there’s Decepticons all over the galaxy.”
“Where did you learn human lingo?”
“There’s like, three Cybertronian movies on the Nemesis, and they’re all super boring.” She rolled her eyes expressively. “Humans made way more fun stuff! Raf gets us tons of music and shows and stuff like that.”
“I would’ve figured Screamer wouldn’t let you do that.”
“Well,” she said, drawing the word out, “we weren’t really supposed to? Nobody else did. But it was so boring watching the same stuff over and over so Raf did his thing. I think Soundwave just didn’t care or something, ‘cause we were still doing what we got told to do. So we didn’t get in trouble.” She shrugged. “I’m totally gonna go to a demolition derby one day though.”
“And do what?”
“Uh, win, duh. Don’t you think it sounds fun?”
“Running over a bunch of human cars? Sounds like a real challenge.”
“What, scared you’d get banged up and lose?”
He snorted. “Please. That’s what Wreckers are for.”
“What’s a Wrecker?”
“Only the toughest bunch of bots you’ll ever find.” Bulkhead smirked. “Anyone who wants to go through a Wrecker better bring a couple combiners - and a lot of bombs. I took out a whole gestalt team once before they could even combine.”
“You did not, you’re making that up.” She sat up, leaning forward with obvious interest.
“It got easier when I took down the right arm, I used him to beat down the other five.”
“Yeah? Well, I bet I could take you,” she announced, undeterred and grinning.
“I’d like to see you try, bitlet.”
“I could totally do it! You’re not the only tough mech around, you know.”
“If I had both servos tied behind my back, maybe.”
“Oh, it’s on! After this, we’re totally duking it out, and I’m gonna win.”
“Sure you are.” Despite himself, Bulkhead couldn’t help some fellow-feeling. After all, that was exactly the same attitude he remembered so fondly in his fellow Wreckers.
The Decepticon prisoners kept trying to creep closer, as if he couldn’t see them inching forward. The moment he’d announced he was bringing his unexpected patient back online he’d had to enlist Bulkhead to keep the three of them in line, and even that wasn’t helping as much as he’d like. Still, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d had Decepticons venting down his neck over a patient, and at least these ones didn’t have guns to his head.
The Neutral - June, if the three Decepticons were telling the truth - stirred, optics flickering online. The monitors scrolled rapidly, and Ratchet’s practiced optic picked out the most important details; fuel levels middling, spark discharge normal, processors operating at peak efficiency. Good.
Then she jolted as if he’d run a few million volts through her. “Jack?!” she called, servos seizing briefly as she tried to sit up too fast. “Miko? Raf!”
“June!” All three of them swarmed immediately. Ratchet nearly went for a weapon, but they passed him without even looking and rushed the berth. He glanced back, and caught the tail end of a transformation as Bulkhead’s wrecking ball disappeared.
“Are you okay?”
“How do you feel?”
She waved off the questions, and the trio immediately went quiet, watching her anxiously. For a moment, Ratchet was somehow reminded of First Aid. “Never mind that. What happened?” She looked around, spotting Ratchet first, and her optics narrowed slightly.
“We made a deal with the Autobots to get you fixed.”
“A deal? What exactly does that mean?” She tried to sit up again, and the skinny scout-build Vehicon quickly braced her shoulder, helping her up.
“Well, we know enough to make it worth helping us, so we’re giving them information. ”
“Are you.” She sounded distinctly suspicious, looking at their handcuffs.
“Yeah, we’ve just been waiting out here for you to wake up. We, uh. We were pretty worried, after...” He frowned. “You shouldn’t have done that, if they hadn’t agreed to help us-”
“It doesn’t matter.” She squeezed his shoulder. “It was worth it, and I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“Excuse me.” Optimus stepped forward. “It is good to see you online again. If you feel well enough, I need to ask you some questions about how you came to be in this position.” When she nodded warily, he turned to the Decepticons. “I must ask you three to leave us. Bulkhead will escort you out, and you may return after I speak to June.” The Prime’s tone brooked no argument, but Miko looked ready to try anyway. Jack put a cuffed hand on Miko’s shoulder, looking past her to June. She recognized the silent question and nodded to him.
“Thank you.”
June watched warily as the big, heavily-built Autobot led the kids out of the room. Jack glanced back at her and she gave him her most reassuring smile, holding it until he was out of sight. Then she turned to the Prime. “You didn’t have to do that. They’ll be pacing the floor now.”
“Unfortunately, it was necessary, under the circumstances.”
“They’re good kids,” she said defensively. “I know they’re on the other side of your war, but that’s not their fault - if you hurt them-”
“I have no desire to harm any of them,” Prime said firmly. It was hard not to believe him - hard not to trust him, even knowing nothing about him but the stories that only reached her after being exaggerated a few orders of magnitude. “Regardless, I cannot allow them to remain for this conversation - particularly as it pertains to them.”
“You mean,” June said sharply, “you think if they were around I’d be too scared to tell you the truth.” The thought was ludicrous. She’d seen Miko discover she could skate around on her wheels and immediately take Jack and Raf down in a laughing heap, only mildly scuffed.
“Unfortunately, such things have occurred in the past. We cannot take chances - especially not when Earth may pay the price for our mistakes.”
Logically speaking, June knew that was true. She also didn’t care. “I couldn’t be afraid of them if I tried. Fine. I have a question for you first, though.”
“I will gladly answer.”
“I haven’t been…recruited again, have I? Once was plenty, thanks.”
He immediately shook his head. “No. We will not hold you against your will. You have seen far more of captivity than any of us should suffer.”
“Good.” She couldn’t necessarily believe everything he said, but it was something. “What do you want to know?”
“They tell us you were held captive on the Nemesis.”
June nodded. “I was captured on Maziani-7, after my shuttle went down.” She scowled slightly. It hadn’t been much to look at, bought secondhand from a shipyard before the Pit-slagged war had spread and made Cybertronians unwelcome on any world that didn’t want bombing runs to break out. At the time, she was sure that she only needed it to last until the war had run its course and she could go home. She’d estimated that it had a good half a million years left on it.
Four million years later, it had finally given out, and at first she thought she’d been hit by a meteor. She’d been lucky. Faithful to the last, the shuttle’s heat shields had held till it crash-landed on Maziani, leaving her stranded on a planet without a single energon crystal to be found.
For a moment, she’d thought the arrival of fellow Cybertronians was another stroke of luck, soldiers or not. Starscream’s “magnanimous” offer(his words) to recruit her had mostly just been an annoyance, and she’d thought that offering a trade of medical aid for repair supplies was perfectly reasonable. She certainly hadn’t been prepared to find a dozen blasters leveled at her as Starscream made it clear “come with us” wasn’t a request.
“Was that when you met your young friends?”
“No. They came from here, actually.”
“Here?” He blinked.
“This planet. From what I picked up, a pair of Autobot and Decepticon ships packed with factory-line soldiers,” she gave the Prime a sharp look, “crashed down here.” June went quiet for a moment. “There were dozens of them. Jack, Miko, and Raf were the only ones in any state to salvage.” They’d been lucky, too - if more of their brethren had survived the crash and ensuing stasis, she might not have had the spare parts she needed to save them all. “They didn’t even have full education modules - their installs must have been interrupted when the ships crashed. I woke them up, Starscream told them they were Decepticon soldiers, and they got put right to work.”
“I understand you were something of a protector to them.”
June blinked. “I wasn’t much of one. It wasn’t like I could do anything to keep them safe.” And hadn’t that been a brutal blow, smiling and offering them what little help she could and then watching them leave, knowing they’d be back tomorrow because Raf had been too close to a mining explosive, or Miko mouthed off to the wrong Eradicon, or Jack was simply in the wrong place when Starscream needed to vent his fury. If they hadn’t been able to carry each other to the medbay, they probably would’ve been written off as not worth fixing.
The Prime, oddly, smiled. “I believe they feel differently. You have seen the risks they were willing to take for you. Jack in particular speaks very highly of you.”
June’s field flickered at that, and she pulled it back under control in a hurry before her optics could start flaring with emotion. “Like I said,” she answered, voice carefully even, “they’re good kids.”
“I agree.”
June wasn’t sure how to feel about any of this. “I think I should get some rest.”
“Of course.” The Prime rose. “Thank you for speaking with me. It has given me much to think about.”
“I hope so,” June muttered, easing herself back down as she programmed an abbreviated recharge cycle. Her self-repair protocols could reconnect delicate circuitry more easily if that circuitry wasn’t in use.
“So what do you think?”
“I hate to say it, but…for Decepticons, they don’t seem so bad.”
I like them. I think they seem nice. I hope you’re right about Optimus’ plans.
“You just want someone to watch cartoons with.”
I can want two things.
It took him a solid hour of working up his courage before Jack managed to approach the Prime, and he spent most of it listening to Raf telling Ratchet everything he knew about Soundwave’s systems and surveillance. He kept offering suggestions for the Autobots’ systems, too, every one of which was shot down as needing some piece of equipment the Autobots didn’t have. None of it made much sense to Jack, but Raf didn’t seem to be taking offense, and Ratchet didn’t seem inclined to hit him for making bad suggestions, though Jack twitched each time he lifted a hand in a dismissive wave.
“What about the Turbofox Burrow?”
Ratchet pinched the bridge of his nose with an irritable sigh. “Did you happen to bring a quantum wiring unit with you?”
Raf shook his head. “A modified version - if you adjust the processing units to half the usual strength, the signal changes-”He picked up some tool Jack couldn’t identify to demonstrate something that made no sense to anyone who didn’t think in machine code.
“That-” Ratchet paused. “...That might work,” he conceded, grudgingly. “If you could solve the coolant paradox.”
“I have some ideas about that, actually-”
“Earth to Jack.” Miko’s hand waved in front of his face. Jack jumped and swatted it away. Miko leaned on the slab next to him. “You okay?”
“Fine. Just - thinking.” He glanced back at June, then lowered his voice. “I need to talk to the Prime. About - you know, what’s next.”
“June’s not even fixed yet, though-”
“And we’ll run out of information to give them soon. I need to know what happens then - if they’ll still help June, or just kick us all out into the mountains or something.”
“I’m gonna guess he’s not gonna tell you if they’re planning to scrap us after we tell them everything.” Miko raised an optic ridge.
“No, but - look, I’ve got a plan, okay? You just - stick with June and Raf.” He didn’t want to talk about it out loud.
Miko nodded. “No one’s getting through me.” She cracked her knuckles(lucky June was sleeping - she hated it when Miko did that, scolded her for straining the struts every time). Jack gave her a thumbs-up, cycled a deep breath to cool his nerves, then got up. Prime was working at a console, but when Jack approached, he paused, turning to look at him.
“Uh, Optimus Prime, sir? Could I, uh - talk to you? For a minute?” How did Arcee do it? She was the same size as him and she didn’t even twitch when the Prime talked to her.
(It was probably different when he had never shot at you.)
“I mean, if I’m interrupting, it can wait, that is-”
“No need.” Prime stepped away from the console. “I have time now.”
Jack followed Prime, discreetly opening a short-range comm to Raf. The Autobots might have disabled their radios, but they’d missed Raf’s emergency link. He’d salvaged some old discarded parts to install a while back, so the three of them could keep in touch in case of cave-ins when they were in the mines. It was what had first gotten Soundwave’s attention - they’d never used the link, not when the very next shift Raf had been summoned to the bridge. Raf could link Miko in, too - just in case the two of them needed to know something in a hurry. That way, later, they could put their heads together, and one of them might notice something he didn’t during the conversation.
A polite distance away from the other Autobots, Prime stopped. Jack kept a measured step back, just to be safe. “What did you need to talk about?”
Jack cleared his intakes nervously. “Well - it’s been a few days, and we’re really glad you helped June and everything, but I…think Raf is going to run out of things he can do to help with your systems soon,” which was kind of a lie, because Raf was sort of terrifyingly good with computers, but even Jack knew there was a limit to what he could do if Ratchet wouldn’t let him within arms’ reach of a console, “so - should we be, uh, preparing to leave, or…?”
“To leave?” Prime frowned.
That was not good. “I mean, you - probably don’t have the resources for us to stick around much longer, right? Once we’re out of info to give you? So - once June’s fixed, we should go, right?” They wouldn’t fix her just to scrap her once they got information, right?
Prime blinked. “Where would you go?” Jack’s growing fear must have shown, because Prime added quickly, “That was not a threat, just a question.”
“Well…I don’t know? I mean, we definitely can’t go back to the Nemesis, there’s no way Starscream would let us get away with breaking June out-”
“Certainly not.”
“But there’s a whole planet out there, right? We never really got to see anything outside the mines. I don’t know-“ Jack stiffened as a thought came to him. “Uh, we’re not going to - steal from the humans, or hurt them or anything though,” he said quickly. “We won’t bother anyone, we’ll just - we know where the mines are, we can get energon there-“
“Jack,” and nope, still weird to hear the actual Prime use his actual name, “that may not be necessary.”
“Okay?” Jack wasn’t sure where this was going, but it was making him even more nervous.
“You are correct; the Decepticons would not welcome you back as traitors, though your only crime was protecting an innocent mech, and you were willing to risk a great deal to protect her. However, you do have a choice. Should you wish to, you three would be welcome to join us - to become Autobots.”
Raf dropped the tool. Miko shouted “You can do that?!” Everyone looked at them as Jack instinctively cringed, glancing back at Prime and waiting for the realization and ensuing rage-
For just a second, the corner of Optimus Prime’s mouth twitched upward.
“Perhaps it would have been better to have this conversation with all three of you.”
“Uh - I can explain-”
Prime shook his head. “I understand.” He motioned for Jack to follow him back across the room. Raf nervously handed the dropped tool back to Ratchet, receiving a sour look in return before Ratchet started inspecting it for damage. Miko traded looks with Jack, both their optics wide. The commotion had woken June up, and Jack mouthed sorry at her as she gave him a confused look.
Prime stopped, and when he spoke again it carried across the entire room. “You already know our war has taken a great deal from our kind. I cannot promise you it will not take more from you, before the end.” He looked down at the three Decepticons, and his optics met Jack’s. “If you choose to leave, and fend for yourselves, we will honor that and groundbridge you elsewhere. But though you may have been Decepticons, it is clear to me that all three of you have the makings of mechs I would be honored to call Autobots.”
Jack couldn’t place it, but something in the way the Prime looked at them - at him - made him think Prime was seeing someone else, too. “You’d…really do that?”
“We’ve tried to kill you,” said Miko.
“You’ve tried to kill us,” said Raf, who had admitted to them once that as scary as Soundwave was, he preferred the bridge to the mines.
Optimus inclined his head in acknowledgement. “Indeed. I truly do apologize for the necessity - and,” he added, “I am glad you are here today. For all our sakes.” He nodded to June, who was watching the whole scene with a measuring air. “Regardless, I would be proud to defend Earth alongside you, if you choose to join us.”
“I - oh, man.” Of all the things Jack had been prepared for, this was somewhere down the list, right next to “Starscream opens an ice cream parlor” and “Miko spontaneously develops flower-growing superpowers.”
“I know,” Miko muttered back.
“I don’t know about you guys, but…I think maybe we should?” Raf looked up at the two of them. “I mean, we could all drive around hanging out and doing nothing forever, but…I kind of like the idea of staying and helping the humans.”
“You know what? Yeah! I think I’d rather kick Starscream’s butt!” Miko slammed her fists together. That was a good point, Jack realized, joining the Autobots meant they’d be fighting Starscream.
Starscream, who had put all of them in the medbay more than once in a matter of months, and who almost killed June.
Jack turned to Optimus Prime, nodding firmly. “We’ll do it.” He held out a hand.
Optimus Prime smiled, there was definitely no mistaking it this time, and shook Jack’s hand. “Then allow me to welcome you to the Autobots.”
A pulse of fear flickered next to Jack, and he looked down. “Raf? Something wrong?”
“No, I just…really hope I don’t run into Soundwave again, now.” Raf shuddered a little. Jack patted his shoulder.
Suddenly, Miko snapped her fingers, grinning. “Hey, Raf, guess what?”
“What?”
“You can totally see snow now!”
Raf’s optics widened, nerves forgotten. “I can!”
Jack couldn’t help himself. He laughed, and suddenly didn’t even care that all the Autobots - all the other Autobots - were watching.