Chapter Text
It was all Miko’s fault, Jack would decide later.
See, that in itself wasn't unusual. It was almost expected, actually. There was some sort of unwritten rule scraped into the skin of the universe. Something that went a little bit like: the sky is blue, the grass is green, and if there was trouble to be found, Miko would run right smack-bang into the middle of it. A few too many of the dangerous, death-defying stunts that had started to define Jack’s life started and ended with Miko.
It could have been argued that the entire thing was all his fault. Technically, It could even be considered Optimus’ fault. But whichever way the blame got assigned, the facts of the matter were this: Miko had ran through the groundbridge, Jack had chased after her, and everything that had followed after that had been the consequence of both.
Simply put, a lot of the problems in Jack’s life started and ended with Miko.
He was absolutely going to strangle her.
"Miko, get back here right now or I swear to—" Jack swore and flattened against the rock just in time to duck a spray of gravel and plasma.
The world around him quaked under enormous metal feet. Rapid, angry blaster fire peppered holes in the rock. The cavern walls high above and the floor below swayed and quivered like a ship threatened with capsizing.
On cue, something gigantic and metallic flashed and Jack yelped, clinging to the wall like a limpet. He watched as a vehicon went sailing by in a deathly cartwheel of blown-off limbs. His heart was thundering in his mouth. This was absolutely not the place to be right now.
He cursed again and peered back around the rock.
It was easy to spot Miko. Her hair stuck out like a highlighter even in the haze of fine dust rising from the floor. She was pressed up into an out-cove, her phone held high and her hands waving with enthusiasm. He could hear her screaming all the way across the cave.
“Kick ‘em, Bulk! Smash their brains in! You’re wreck’n’ruling this joint!”
Jack’s stomach clenched. She wasn’t exactly out of sight.
“I'm being serious, Miko!” he yelled over the noise, nearly biting his tongue as he pushed himself up deeper against the rock. “Get back here!”
If she heard him, she didn't react.
Small miracle it was, but she hadn’t managed to make it very far out. That didn’t mean that she was safe from stray shots or falling debris but it did mean he could still get to her.
Mind made up, he grit his teeth and set his fingers into the rock, clenching his jaw tight as he started a slow, uneven path towards her. Something exploded behind him and the wall shuddered. Both of his hands scraped down the rock face and he winced. Still, he pressed on until he found himself hunkered down beside her. Miko didn’t even seem to notice he was there.
He grabbed at her arm, yanking her further into the wall crevice.
“Have you lost your mind?” he hissed heatedly. “We have got to go back. We are sitting ducks out here.”
“Shhh,” she whispered, swatting at him. He might as well have been talking to a particularly alive and stubborn brick wall. Her eyes were glued to the battle like mini-magnets. “I’m trying to get a good look!”
“Miko—”
Irritation swelled hot and heavy in his chest. This was getting dangerous. He would drag her kicking and screaming back through the groundbridge by her hair if he had to. But before he could move, Miko suddenly gasped and grabbed him by the shoulder, pointing wildly.
“Dude! Relic at 2 o’clock!”
“What?”
Despite himself, his head whipped around.
Half-buried under dust and gravel, sitting placidly in the middle of a storm of gunfire, was the relic.
It looked kind of like a companion cube from that old video game, Jack’s distracted brain decided. Or a companion cube’s much more adventurous cybertronian cousin. The cube—because really, there was no other description for it—was distinctly alien. There was a web of metal circular discs criss-crossed across each face and underneath all of that, an ominous dark blue light that seemed to emanate deep from within. Nothing good could ever come from anything that had a pulsating inner light, he thought.
It was also entirely unguarded. The rest of the cavern seemed to have forgotten about the relic’s existence. Jack could see Knock Out and Bumblebee grappling through a haze of incensed beeping and electricity. Across the cave, Bulkhead body-slammed vehicons left and right. Silver and blue darted by as Arcee whirled across the floor like a deadly acrobat. Every hit of metal-on-metal shook a small earthquake through the floor. He couldn’t even see Optimus anymore. Which left only Jack, Miko and the big glowing relic of potentiate-doom.
Even from several feet away, he could read the look on Miko’s face.
“Miko, don’t you dare—”
“Too late!”
Between one beat and the next, Miko vanished in a blur of pink and black. He didn’t even have the reaction time to reach out and snag the back of her shirt. Jack’s jaw dropped as he watched her scramble out into the open and immediately drop into a dead sprint.
Forget strangulation, he thought viciously. He was going to decapitate Miko’s electric guitar and use the strings to permanently attach her to Ratchet’s grill. But pre-meditating his friend’s murder would have to wait.
A stray shot hit the wall just above him and he suddenly found himself face down in the dirt, hands over his head. It took a second for the world around him to stop shaking. Carefully, he braved the open air and peeked back around the corner.
Pressed up against the cube, Miko looked like she had shrunk by several feet. He could see her moving and it took him a second to realise what she was even doing. Then the realisation hit him as he watched her place her back up against it and plant her feet solidly in the dirt.
Jack gaped at her.
She’s trying to push it, he realised suddenly. Is she insane?!
He could see her straining, feet dragging in the dirt as she heaved her back against it with everything she had. It was slow going. Or rather, it was no-going. Ancient cybertronian artifacts had definitely not been designed with humans in mind. This one was probably too heavy to even make a dent in.
His brain warred with his desire to drag her back and out of the way. His muscles were wound like a hopped-up spring. Every nerve in his body tingled with untapped panic and anger. Did he try to help? Did he run and try to groundbridge them both out? He didn’t get much of an opportunity to decide.
It was just like something out of a movie. As his mind sputtered and spun with indecision, his eyes caught a small pocket of battle that opened up in the space just beyond the cube.
There was a lone vehicon slumped across from them at a very not-far distance. Clumsily, it shook a human-sized rock from off of its chest and dragged itself to its feet, staggering into the wall. Then it shook the daze from its visor. Almost in slow motion, Jack watched as the vehicon spotted the cube—and Miko—standing undefended and alone in the middle of the cavern floor.
Jack’s heart stopped.
"Miko, move!" he screamed but his voice was buried somewhere under the sound of the gunfire.
Miko didn't so much as twitch in his direction. She shoved helplessly at the relic, now near purple in the face with effort. Her sneakers dragged useless grooves in the floor. She couldn’t hear him, he realised, and her head was turned away from the blaster levelled at her back.
It was like a black hole had opened somewhere between his ears and his lungs. The screech of swords and rattling explosions faded. Suddenly, there was only the taste of iron, hot and heavy and sour as it pooled in his mouth. All he could see was the heat in the vehicon’s arm, the exposed span of Miko’s thin back, and the cube’s metal heartbeat pulsing like a warning beneath her fingers.
In the end, it wasn’t even a choice.
“Scrap,” Jack cursed. He lunged out from the safety of the rock wall and flat-out sprinted for his life across the cavern floor. “Miko!”
As if on cue, the world lurched beneath him. Heat razed across his back as one of the other vehicons spotted him in the sand. Jack swallowed a pained scream behind his teeth as wildfire ran up his torso. It nearly sent him sprawling in the dirt but by some kind of divine will, he didn’t go down. He pumped his legs faster, as fast as they could go. His whole chest felt like it might explode.
Please, please—
“Miko, move!”
Miko must have seen the flash of the blaster from the corner of her eye. She turned and her face dropped with a touch of wild panic. She raised her arms uselessly, mouth open to scream—
And then Jack was colliding with her back like a lob ball as he forcefully body-slammed her out of the way.
Safe, he registered faintly. She's safe.
And then they both collided with the ground in a spiral of limbs, grit and pain.
Jack rolled and the whole world seemed to roll with him. His back flashed white with pain. He could hear Miko squealing in his ears as they both tumbled out of the line of fire. then, the familiar rapid charge of a plasma cannon as another spray of dirt kicked up next to them. Everything tasted like gravel. Every muscle in his body ached but the fear was louder and it forced him to scramble and fight for his equilibirum in the dirt. Diszzily, He rocked back to his feet.
We have to move, his brain screamed at him.
His eyes immediately found Miko on the floor next to him, looking dazed and panicked but brilliantly, furiously alive. He didn’t even think. He fisted the flimsy cotton collar of her shirt (too thin to protect her from anything, too easily rendered by blaster fire and fallen rock) and dragged her around the edge of the cube. Gasping, he pressed her up against the other side of it as cover.
“Are— Are you okay?” he panted.
His head spun like he’d just come off a helter-skelter. It took her a second to respond and his heart lurched with panic but then—
“Dude.” Miko’s eyes were wider and wilder than he’d ever seen them. One of her pigtails had fallen out of its hairtie and her forehead was lined with scratches from their collision but she was alive. Frankly, Jack had never wanted to murder someone more. “That was way too close.”
He didn’t have time to reply. Around them the battle continued to rage. Another shot hit the cube squarely in the side and he felt it rock in the dirt, shoved up close to their backs. Next to him, Miko yelped and squished herself closer. Unspoken in their agreement, they both dug their feet in the dirt hung onto the cube for dear life.
“The stupid thing’s too heavy!” she cursed and smacked a frustrated fist against it. “We need to call Ratchet and groundbridge it out of here, like yesterday!”
“No, we need to groundbridge out of here,” he hissed back as another made them both sway dizzily. “Like, right now!”
Miko had the gall to look flabbergasted. “We have the perfect opportunity here, and you want to just leave?!”
“I— Yes!” He might’ve stared at her, mouth open in the face of her audacity if the floor hadn’t started to quake again. He hunched down deeper into the dirt, hands over his head like that might stop them both from getting squashed. “Miko, are you absolutely insane? We will die out here if we don’t move. You almost just did!”
“Move to where, boy genius?!”
Buried somewhere under the bravado, Miko was starting to look panicked. Worse still, she was right. They couldn’t stay and cower but they couldn’t exactly run out into the open either. They were stuck.
Jack stopped and bit on a curse. Carefully, he peeked around the cube as far as he dared. The vehicon that had been aiming for them had been swallowed by the fight. Neither the Autobots or Decepticons seemed to even notice the giant metal cube in the midst of it all. They were on their own.
His eyes caught on the far wall of the cavern. It must have been at least 50 feet away. It was far but it was also out of the way. Miko on her own hadn’t been able to push the cube, but maybe together—
Mind made up, he swallowed and turned.
“We’re going to use the cube as moving cover.” His mind whirled as he spoke. “When I say, we start pushing towards that wall and get the cube out of the fight. Then we are calling Ratchet and groundbridging the hell out of here with or without the cube. Anyone tries to stop us and we run like hell. Got it?”
For once, Miko didn’t question him. Her face was set with determination.
“Let’s go already, dude!”
The world kept shaking, tiny shards of rubble raining down on them as he pressed his hands up against the cube and dug his feet into the dirt. Miko copied him. They traded a quick glance.
“One, two, three—”
As one, they both braced themselves and pushed with everything they had. For a horrible moment, nothing happened. Then something gave beneath them and impossibly, the cube started to scrape its way across the cavern floor.
“It’s— It’s going!” Jack panted and his whole body shuddered with relief. “Again! One, two—”
It was working. Miraculously, brilliantly, it was working. Together, they scraped the cube over the uneven cavern floor, shielding their faces from the kicked-up dust and tensing whenever a ‘bot or vehicon stumbled a little too close for comfort. Giant alien warzones were not human-friendly and it was not by any means a small miracle that had them getting as far as they did. He could see the wall just a few more feet away. They pushed and heaved like two very stressed worker ants in a colony, shuffling forward inch by microscopic inch.
They were so close.
Jack breathed deep and pushed again. Except this time, as his hands scrabbled against the metal, something—the sweat, the resounding panic, the scorching ache in his back like his spine had been scraped across a cheese grater—had his grip slipping. The cavern floor jolted once more beneath him and his knees buckled. His hands scrabbled for purchase. His whole arm shunted against the cube as he fought to keep his hands on it as something distinctly steel-like slashed bitingly across his palm.
“Scrap,” he hissed as he tried to find his footing.
It was a deep cut. Already, the metal under his hand was growing steadily wet. Hot and sticky, he could feel the blood congealing his sleeve to his skin like one of his Mom’s wax melts. His palm throbbed. It was almost imperceptible among the shaking of the world as the cavern was remade into a warzone but, for just a second, he swore that the relic shivered.
“Don’t stop, dude!” Miko heaved next to him, red in the face. Immediately, sound poured back in and he suddenly became aware of the flash of steel heels far too close for comfort. “Go, go, go!”
He clenched his hand into a fist against the pain and kept pushing. Except, just as it seemed like the wall was only a few more feet away, it all started to go wrong.
“I don’t think so, fleshies!”
The cube jammed to a dead stop. He and Miko yelped, stumbling as the construct rammed into something hard. A giant metal heel caught on the corner of the cube like a doorstop. Jack registered movement and his head shot up to meet narrowed red alien eyes, chock full of malice.
“Uh,” he said haltingly. His mouth felt as dry as the gravel beneath them.
Knock Out looked like he was a single scratch away from vivisecting someone. He was scraped to hell and covered in dust, face so twisted with frustration that it might have even been funny at any other time. Bumblebee was nowhere behind him, Jack realised as he grabbed at Miko’s shirt to haul her desperately out of the way. Very not good.
“What, did you think you were just going to walk away with it? Ha!” The Decepticon leered at them. Small as he may have been compared to the other ‘bots, he towered over the two humans like a particularly murderous red monolith. “I think I’ll be taking this now. Say ‘bye-bye’, pests!”
The next few seconds all happened so fast, that it was almost hard to keep up.
The Decepticon raised his arm, blades whining. Miko squeaked and started to scramble out of the way. Jack readied himself to run, weak at the knees and trembling. His arm and his back ached. There was nowhere to go.
And then, as if by some divine intervention, the giant alien relic between them flashed a bright, threatening red.
It was such a sudden, violent change that all three of them—two humans and one very annoyed decepticon—stopped dead in their tracks. Knock Out’s buzzsaws sputtered in surprise. Miko squeaked, going stiff as a dead racoon. Jack couldn’t even breathe—there wasn’t time to.
For a long second, they all goggled at the cube like it was wired to explode. And in war, a second is long enough.
Footsteps, loud and heavy and fast, echoed on the cavern floor and an enormous blue-silver fist struck out with all the force of a ten-ton hammer. Knock Out didn’t even have the chance to scream. He was sent rocketing across the cavern with a satisfying crunch.
Miko cheered. Jack wanted to cry.
“Go, Optimus!”
“Oh, thank god.”
Optimus Prime was a living, breathing deus ex-machina. His optics were bright and blue and full of fire as he turned on them both. Jack had never been so happy to see anyone in his entire life. Miko yelled something up at him and then the mech was turning, sheltering them with the giant shadow of his frame. He looked like every storybook knight ever written come to life.
“Miko, Jack, take cover!” the ‘bot rumbled like thunder.
Without hesitation, Jack threw himself and Miko to the ground. She squeaked in protest but he was past caring. Just in time, too.
Something rocked the air like a shockwave above them. He felt Miko gasp with delight at the ever-familiar sound of metal crashing violently on metal. Then Knock Out’s rasping screech and something heavy shook the ground beneath them once more. Then, as the clashing and cursing started to slow, he and Miko peeked carefully up from the floor. Their hands were still latched onto each other’s shirts like something might tear them apart.
The battle around them seemed to be dying, slowly but surely. Optimus stood to his full height, a vehicon spilling limply at his feet.
Jack felt the breath leave him slightly as he watched the ever-careful leader of the Autobots sheath his blades and stand tall. He was a silent tower, solemn, unfaltering and undeniably imposing. Optimus looked almost untouchable.
“What is wrong with you?!” Knock Out almost screeched as he dragged himself up from the floor. “It’ll take me orns to buff all of that out, you—”
All at once, he seemed to realise that the cavern was quieter than it should have been and Knock Out fell auspiciously silent. His eyes tracked to the piles of sparking vehicon parts scattered across the cavern, then to the relic still behind Optimus, and then behind that to watch as what was left of the Decepticon batallion slowly and surely met their untimely end at the hands of the other Autobots.
Optimus took a quiet, measured step towards him.
It was enough. Outnumbered and horrifically outgunned, Knock Out recoiled, transformed and sped away. Soon enough, he was gone in a cloud of dust, racing around the bend like a bat out of hell.
“Coward!” Miko yelled at his retreating bumper. Jack would have probably felt vindicated if he wasn’t also about to keel over.
Still looming like a protective guardian over them both, Optimus sheathed his blades. He turned and knelt to meet them. He was hard to read at the best of times, but his entire body looked stiff and wary (robot adrenaline, Jack had to guess) and his expression creased with something like concern.
“Are you both unharmed?” he rumbled gently.
“All good!”
“What she said,” Jack muttered.
Optimus seemed to soften slightly, air leaving him a small exhale. Then his eyes found Jack’s arm and they narrowed. “Jack, you are leaking.”
Jack followed his eyes and found his own forearm. Immediately, he had to wince.
It probably looked worse than it was. Even so, it was a bad day to be wearing white. Blood dripped steadily from his wrist like a pot of spilt ink. He could feel it cloying hotly against his skin, red and wet. He didn’t even want to know what the back of his shirt looked like. It felt like it was clinging oddly to his midriff, like that too was wet somehow. He had the sudden horrid thought that the cotton may have seared to his back from the heat of the blaster like in those pictures of old motorbike accidents Mom had forced him to look at. The idea made him woozy.
“It’s just a scratch,” he huffed and tried to shrug it off. Immediately, he regretted it when his shoulders started burning something fierce. He couldn’t quite hide the full-bodied flinch that rocked through him.
Naturally, Optimus noticed. His optics creased with concern and his lip-plates seemed to flatten doubtfully but he didn’t get much of an opportunity to argue. In a whirlwind of heavy vents, earth-shaking footsteps and round engine-noises, Bulkhead stumbled into view.
“Miko?” the big ‘bot yelped, optics wide and rigid with panic. “What are you doing out here?! Are you hurt? Did anyone manage to get to you?”
Already, Jack could feel the adrenaline slowly leaking out of him as the other ‘bots started towards them. With it, the pain in his muscles, his back and his hand started to throb, going from a dull and distant ache to something sharp and distinctly unwelcome. Miko, who’s own body must have been made out of rubber, seemed to almost bounce in her excitement as she ran up to meet her guardian. Jack had to wonder a little if any of it was for show. If it was, it worked; Bulkhead immediately sagged with relief.
“Miko,” he groaned, “you two aren’t even supposed to be here!”
Optimus looked at the two with something soft in his eyes and Jack watched as the big ‘bot bent down and scooped the relic into his hand. The cube still looked big, but somehow much smaller and lighter in Optimus’ hand. The leader of the Autobots looked thoughtful.
“I do not recognise this relic,” he murmured.
“Do you think it could be something dangerous?” Jack couldn’t help but ask.
“I am unsure. However—” Optimus started and then stopped. He slowly dropped the cube into his other hand and Jack watched as the ‘bot shook out the hand that had originally held the relic, frowning down at it like the thing had stung him.
“Optimus,” Jack started unsurely, “everything okay?”
Optimus didn’t get a chance to respond.
“It was awesome, Bulk’! You should have seen it. Optimus was so cool and Knock Out was just screaming and you were absolutely tearing it up! It was kinda scary for a minute and we almost got blasted but then—”
“‘Awesome’?” Jack felt something like a shudder tense up his spine as a smooth, cold voice interrupted from behind. “Well, I’m glad you were enjoying yourselves.”
Even Miko flinched. He turned with his heart already dropped low to the floor with dread.
Arcee did not look happy. Her wings were hiked threateningly behind her, lips so tightly pressed that they could have been used to pop a lid off a glass bottle. By this point, he could say he knew his partner pretty well. He’d seen her panicked, stressed, irritated, amused and angry all in equal measure. And right now, he had never seen her look more murderous.
“You had better have a slagging good explanation for this one,” she seethed.
Scrap.
Angry Autobots were a bit like cats, Jack thought. Their plating flexed and bristled like tight-knit fur coats. Hydraulics hissed, denta ground together and claw-tipped fingers seized as if they were struggling not to start clawing wires out. Or maybe that was just Arcee.
“What were you two thinking?!” He half-expected her to start spitting hot oil at them as she paced across the base floor. “You ran out onto a live battlefield. Both of you are smart enough to have known better.”
“I was thinking,” he grit back without thinking, “that Miko was going to get herself killed and that someone needed to make sure that didn't happen. What, you thought it was somehow my idea to run into the groundbridge?”
He could feel the rest of the base’s eyes on him as they watched the argument play out. Heavy disapproval seemed to radiate from every ‘bot in the room—especially Optimus who watched from the corner. The attention made Jack’s skin prickle and his cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
“I don’t give a slag whose idea it was,” Arcee hissed and her optics shuttered as she suddenly turned on him, rigid and furious. “You both could have jeopardised the mission. You could have jeapordised your lives! Or ours!”
Her anger was cold and her words were biting, accusatory. Injustice had a bite like a bear trap. Jack’s hand throbbed, his back still ached like hell, and suddenly the ugly unfairness of it all burst out of him in a half-shout.
He threw his hands in the air, frustration boiling under his skin.
“Don’t you think I know that? I didn’t exactly want to be there. What else was I supposed to do, exactly? Why don’t you go and try yelling at Miko for a change?!”
“Oh, trust me,” Arcee muttered and her optics narrowed into furious little slits, “she’s next.”
Hidden safely in Bulkhead’s curled fingers, Miko flinched. Jack could see the guilt written in her expression but he didn’t care.
The tension was thick as he and Arcee stared eachother down, but he refused to look away. It hadn’t been his fault. He had tried to do the right thing and he would not be made to apologise for trying to help. That had probably been Miko’s exact line of thinking when she ran through the groundbridge in the first place and a small part of him registered the irony but he didn’t care. He was tired, he was hurt, but he had also stopped his friend from getting herself killed and he would not be sorry for it.
Behind them, Optimus rumbled softly, “Arcee, the children know the danger they put themselves in.”
“Do they?” Arcee scoffed. She didn’t look any happier. “Because they seem a bit too happy to constantly put themselves right in the middle of it every other cycle.”
“It was completely fine!” Miko harrumphed, but even she seemed unconvinced.
“Tell that to my arm,” Jack muttered. “Ow!”
“Burn damage to your upper dermal layer,” Ratchet grumbled as he finished his scan, “and that slice on your servo needs patching, but otherwise you seem fine. I would recommend consulting with your mother for the proper form of treatment.”
“Yeah,” Jack sighed bitterly, “that’s kind of what I was worried about.”
Ratchet wasn’t done, however, and he scowled as he turned back to the medical terminal. “I would also recommend that you never throw yourself into a live firefight again. Either of you!”
It hit hard and Jack grit his teeth as he tried to shrug his shirt back on one-handedly. It was an awkward process, especially when he was being stared at by most of the team. The two-inch blackened holes in the back where the shot had grazed him didn’t help. Neither did the blood sticking to his under-sleeve. He wouldn’t be able to hide it. Mom was absolutely going to kill him.
Miko, on the other hand, seemed to have gained something of a second wind. “You totally should’ve seen it, Bulk! Jack threw me out of the way and took the hit like some sort of real life superhero! I would have been totally dusted if he hadn’t been there.”
“Really?” Bulkhead raised an impressed optic ridge at him. “Good job, kid.”
On any other day, Jack might’ve blushed and ducked his head away. Today, his back still stung and Arcee’s reprimand stuck hard and heavy like an anvil in his chest. To be honest, all he felt was exhausted.
“It was nothing,” he muttered.
Ratchet scoffed, peering at him sternly over the top of his medical equipment. “It was not nothing. That shot may have grazed you but it very well could have offlined Miko. I will also remind you both that I am not a human medic and I will not be able to help you if one of you ends up severely damaged in the line of fire.”
“Jack’s mom is a doctor,” Miko shrugged, non-plussed.
“Mom is a nurse,” Jack ground out. “We don’t even have a first aid kit on base.”
At that, Miko’s confidence seemed to waver. She looked conflicted as she glanced at his still-dripping hand but then she seemed to shake it away.
“Optimus was there! The big guy wouldn’t have let anything happen to us.”
“But what if he hadn’t been?!”
Miko glared at him, looking distinctly put out. “Dude, whose side are you even on?”
“Right now? Mine!”
“Miko,” Bulkhead started warningly, but it was Optimus who shifted and rose to his feet.
“Miko, Jack has paid for your choice in injury while you very nearly paid with your life. I am humbled by your faith in me but if I had not reached you both in time, the consequences would have been severe.” Optimus’ words were chiding but unnervingly gentle and Miko immediately wilted under them.
Facing disappointment was one thing, but facing Optimus’ disappointment was its own monster. He almost felt sorry for her.
It was hard to see under all the dirt but Jack watched the false bravado leak out of her slowly as she deflated. She wasn’t stupid; she knew when she’d pushed it too far. He could feel her eyes flitting back to the blood on his shirt. Regret and guilt stuck cleanly on her face.
“Yeah, I know,” she admitted. After a second, she turned to Arcee, shifting uncomfortably in Bulkhead’s hand. “Look, if you wanna blame anyone, blame me. It wasn’t Jack’s fault. He saved me.”
Arcee studied her for a second and then gave a tired, frustrated sigh. “Miko, we know you wan’t to help, but putting youself in danger is not the way to do it. You’ve got to promise that you won’t do something like this again.”
Miko just nodded quietly, looking unsure but hopeful as she said, “Maybe only for emergencies?”
Arcee didn’t soften exactly, but her voice was gentler when she agreed, “Only for emergencies.”
Jack could only shake his head. The anger was fading slowly but surely, replaced by a bone deep exhaustion and a faint bitterness he couldn’t quite shake. He remembered suddenly the look of deathly panic he’d seen on Miko’s face after he’d managed to push her out of the way, the way she had trembled as he’d thrown themselves to the floor behind Optimus. Just like that, the frustration seemed to ebb. They’d both had their fair share of recklessness. Maybe they could make up for it by not doing it in the future.
Miko almost seemed to read his mind. She gave him a faint, guilty smile. “Thanks, for saving me back there. And, uh… sorry for everything else.”
Despite himself, he couldn’t bring himself to be angry anymore. Or maybe that was just the pain talking.
“It’s okay,” he sighed. “Just… maybe let’s agree not to do it again.”
Miko lips quirked into a small smirk. “You know, for once, I think I actually agree with you.”
There was always a sort of hollow quiet that followed the bigger battles. A moment to breathe, Mom would probably call it. It hadn’t taken him long to notice how, in the little post-battle bubble of exhaustion and refueling, every one of the ‘bots seemed to stop, post-up somewhere well within view and just watch the room like they were double-counting heads and injuries. Ratchet’s mutterings and the low drone of his equipment filled the room with a heavy, quiet sort of hum as they fiddled with their new wounds.
War made people quieter, Jack thought, and it was in this tired quiet that he noticed the energon.
Energon glowed like something radioactive — and well, technically according to Ratchet, it was. It was a kind of otherwordly blue that was impossible to find in the natural world. It had a smell that somehow made his mouth tingle like an acid battery on fire or a sherbert stick dipped in gasoline. Like it would hurt to touch. Miko and Raf were both fascinated by the stuff. Jack hated to admit it but he was a little bit, too. It was utterly alien in a way that drew attention and kept it. It was also very hard to miss.
His eyes caught it immediately; there was a path of luminescent blue scattered across the silo floor, glowing softly with life and heat. Jack’s gaze tracked the path of it across the cement upwards to… Optimus’ fist. The ‘bots thick fingers were curled and closed but dripping steadily with burning blue.
“Optimus,” Jack hesitated and the Autobot leader’s head turned to blink at him. “I think you’re bleeding?”
Optimus didn’t so much as glance down at his injured hand.
“I am functional, but I thank you for your concern,” he said after a moment.
Very much like a bulldog that had just scented a squirrel nearby, Ratchet’s head shot up from where he’d just finished welding Arcee’s leg. His optics were narrowed as he beckoned impatiently.
“Functional or not, there will be no bot leaking across this silo if I can help it. Go and sit in the medbay with Jack. I’ll check on you in a few moments.”
Optimus paused. For a second, Jack watched the ‘bot seem to weigh up the consequences of refusing. He almost looked like he was about to argue but then he made a quiet sound like a huff that made Jack almost do a double-take. Ultimately, the ‘bot seemed to make the smart choice. He turned, quietly retreated into the medbay and lowered himself onto the same small platform that Jack was sitting on. It creaked ominously under his weight.
Jack tried not to stare.
The Autobot leader looked almost awkward, sitting carefully and gripping at his damaged hand. He looked like he was trying to angle himself to try not to spill energon all over the bench.
When Jack had first seen the ‘bots leaking, there had been a sort of disconnect. His brain hadn’t registered energon in the same way that it did blood; with alarm and discomfort and that little roiling cluster of empathy that cleched in his stomach. Energon was too alien, too abstract for his human brain to grasp as anything other than a distant cousin to gasoline. It didn’t matter if it spilt, his brain seemed to say, even when he knew it wasn’t true. It was a fuel and they could make more. But Autobots were people, not robots and people didn’t leak, they bled. It had taken him a while for his brain to make that shift.
He’d seen the Autobots with much worse injuries, but there was something oddly gruesome about this one. Maybe it was just the fact that it was Optimus. He had always seemed untouchable, somehow.
Jack started as his brain registered movement above him and he drew his eyes and away from Optimus’ clenched fist.
The Autobot leader was staring at the ends of Jack’s blood-soaked sleeve with a scrutiny that he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen on the ‘bot before. It took him a second to place the look on the mech’s face. Guilt. Shame, maybe. It looked almost wrong.
Jack wasn’t sure what made him do it, but he found himself suddenly and carefully brandished his half-wrapped hand up at the ‘bot. His own palm was crusted with blood that he couldn’t wipe off. It probably looked a bit off-putting but he tried to wiggle his fingers anyway.
“I guess we match,” he half-joked. Almost imperceptibly, Optimus’ optics softened.
Across the room, Bulkhead scratched lightly at the back of his helm and sighed. “Well, at least we grabbed the relic before the ‘cons did.”
“Speaking of which, do we know what it actually does?” Arcee asked.
Jack frowned and found his eyes drawn back to the cube that had been dropped somewhat surrepticiously in the centre of the room. Ratchet, who was still digging around in his toolbox, waved dismissively.
“It’s not one that I’m familiar with. Optimus?”
Optimus frowned. “I… I have no recollection of this item within the archives.”
There was a small, charged pause as all eyes immediately tracked back to the cube.
There was something vaguely ominous about it, Jack thought warily. It might have been the smoke still curling like a cat’s tail from one corner. It might also have been the several very wet-looking streaks of blood slashed gruesomely across its front face like something straight out of a slasher movie. Some looked much too hand-shaped to be anything other than disturbing. (Jack winced. His palm still ached.) On the cube’s other side, several lines of freshly spilt energon dribbled down to meet the floor. The result was a very odd, mildly violent picture: a giant alien cube with blood and energon streaked up and down it like Miko had suddenly broken out the primary colours and gone berserk.
As he stared at small strains of blue smattered across the cube’s corners, a thought stirred quietly in the back of his tired brain. His eyes flicked to Optimus’ hand. It was still dripping. Suddenly, he found himself tracking the light trail of blue flecked across the floor of the base. He remembered the expression the Autobot leader had made as he picked it up.
Optimus had been the one to grab the cube and lug it through the groundbridge, he realised. And, like Jack himself, he had got a giant metal papercut for his troubles.
Huh, he couldn’t help but think, I was joking earlier but we really are matching. And now that he was looking at it, the cube seemed different. It was—
“It was glowing before,” he couldn’t help but mutter and almost jolted when he found the room’s attention back on him. They looked confused and he hurried to correct himself. “It was glowing more before, I mean. It looks kind of… duller now.”
It did. Before, the cube’s core had pulsed the same brilliant, blue-teal of a cybertronian’s lifeblood. Like a radioactive heartbeat. Now, it was closer to crystal-white than energon-blue and it had dulled to a faint light that barely shone through the cracks. It was a minor change, sure, but change of any kind was worrying.
His eyes shifted over the thing again. It took him a second but suddenly he registered something else that he hadn’t noticed before: the cube looked like it was moving.
It was the kind of movement so small that it makes a person squint and do a double-take, like staring at a spot on the wall from a distance and trying to decide if it’s an insect or a smudge of dirt. It was also very clockwork. The cube’s circular face seemed to swivel inch by microscopic inch. Jagged silver rings spun out of sync in measured intervals like a very large and oddly-proportioned kitchen timer.
Jack suddenly felt a rising sense on unease grip his insides. It definitely hadn’t been doing that before.
“Maybe it has something inside it?” Miko’s head popped like a gofer over the upper railing, hands working her hair back into their usual ponytails. “Oh, oh! Like a cybertronian version of one of those creepy doll jack-in-a-box thingies?”
Arcee raised an optic ridge, looking somehow unamused, tired and bewildered all at once. “Jack’s not in the box. And even if he were, I’m not sure that would be safe. Or helpful.”
Jack may have been tired and in pain, but even he couldn’t resist snorting.
As Miko delightedly dived into explaining the intricacies of creepy puppet-boxes to an alien, he found himself looking at Ratchet. The medic was frowning, staring down his scanning equipment as if wishing it could speak to him.
“Could it be a container for something?” Jack asked. “Like with the Apex Armour?”
Ratchet side-eyed the cube doubtfully and then sighed. “Not impossible, although this doesn’t resemble the typical unit that cybertronian relics were typically stored in.”
“What if it was a bio-hazard, like with the Tox-En? Something like liquid poison or an explosive. That would need something different, right? Maybe even something timed.”
Ratchet looked at him in rare appraisal. “That’s not entirely out of the question.”
“Dude,” Miko said as leaned over the railing, frowning. “It flashed all red and scary too, remember? Before we got totally blasted by that ‘con.”
The room suddenly took on a very uncomfortable air. Jack found himself fidgeting, trying not to stare hard at the floor as several disapproving eyes landed on him.
“Yeah,” he said, half-resignedly. “Bright red.” It was the only thing that stopped Knock-Out from killing us, he wanted to add out of pure spite, but saw the already-tense looks on the ‘bots faces and decided it was probably better not to mention it.
“Red?” Bulkhead blinked down at him, looking at the cube with a newfound unease. “Like when Miko kicked the data cylinder thingy?”
Jack couldn’t answer, still staring at the thing warily. He hadn’t been there for the data-cylinder incident but the team’s explanations had been colourful—and sobering. Next to him, Arcee slowly started to stand to attention. Her arms uncrossed, her optics narrowed.
“That data cylinder thingy self-destructed. Ratchet, are there any chances that this one might…”
Explode.
There was a drawn-in breath.
Slowly, they all turned and stared at the cube like spectators waiting for the executioner’s axe to come down. The cube’s internal rings tick-tick-ticked but otherwise, all was still. It didn’t look like it would start exploding anytime soon but that didn’t really mean much by cybertronian standards.
The rest of the room seemed to silently follow his train of thought. Bulkhead’s lip plates flattened and he took a careful, pointed step away. Jack couldn’t help but notice that it put him directly in front of the humans in the room.
“I cannot be certain,” Optimus murmured, “but I believe that if the relic had contained a built-in safety mechanism it likely would have already activated. I will see if I can locate our answers in the archive database.”
Ratchet’s head shot up and he immediately lasered them all with a pointed glare. “Not right now, you will not. For now, I am prescribing you all copious amounts of rest and recovery. It has been a long solar cycle and you are all in need of a good recharge. Medic’s orders.”
The room seemed to breathe a collective sigh. Miko groaned.
“Seriously? It’s Saturday!”
“Yes, and the children are going home.” Ratchet’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Before they decide to drive us all into early meltdown with their recklessness.”
With that, the team dispersed. Bumblebee wandered off in his own loop of chatter and animated buzzing. Miko, somewhat reluctantly and with another half-apologetic look in Jack’s direction, climbed into Bulkhead.
Quiet, clicking footsteps started up behind him and he turned to face his own guardian, stomach clenched. Arcee’s posture was still stiff and still dangerously full of reproach. She wore a look he knew well-enough from Mom; disapproving, some shade of angry but the kind that came from deep-seated care. You are not forgiven, her expression seemed to say, but for now you’ve been punished enough.
She raised a pointed optic ridge at him.
“You get to be the one to tell your mom what happened.”
Jack swallowed a groan. Great. He’d almost forgotten. Somehow, that conversation seemed like it would be more painful than all of the aches, pains and third degree burns in the world.
“Way to rub salt in the wound, Arcee,” he grumbled.
Arcee half-smirked back at him. It wasn’t as comforting as he might’ve liked.
“Let’s get you home, partner.”
She transformed in a dizzying whirl and Jack clambered onto her back gingerly. There was already a raw pulling sensation to his shoulder and a bone-deep ache settling in his muscles as they started to roll out of the silo and out into the desert. It would be hurting come morning, he knew, and he could only hope an ice pack or two would do the trick.
Even as they left, he couldn’t shake a creeping sense of foreboding and he glanced again at the dull, lifeless device left sitting in the middle of the silo floor—and the puddle of blood and energon pooling quietly at its base.