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Five signals.
Arcee wants to scream. She wants to shoot Megatron and his army of imbeciles in their faces until there is nothing left of them to shoot. She wants to hit the walls and drive far, far too fast and she wants to cry but as her hand grips tighter on the back of the co-pilots chair and Jack looks up at her with concern she instead schools her features into an expression she hopes is ‘reassuring’ but probably comes across as ‘pained’ and holds herself together.
Five signals total. Four, discounting her. They’re heading towards two of the coordinates that are so close they’re almost appearing as one- some of the team have already found each other. The ship that Ultra Magnus pilots is fitted with advanced scanning capabilities, but nothing that lets them know which teammates they will be rejoining. All that shows up on the display is a pinpoint of light, a statement that an Autobot is present in that area. The other two coordinates are approaching each other, also- well, one has remained stationary for a while and the second is reconnecting with it, but by the time their ship has picked up the first and arrived Arcee is sure they will be together.
Two sets of two. Four of her team, reachable. It doesn’t feel like enough.
She startles as Jack jumps down from the chair, the movement snapping her out of her processor, and he gestures towards the back of the ship. Arcee follows him. She doesn’t want to keep looking at the map with its bright little lights that indicate her team and her family and the two lights that are missing and what that might mean but she doesn’t want to look away in case two lights missing becomes three lights missing becomes only her and Ultra Magnus and Jack left and-
She exvents. Jack is looking up at her again, that expression on his face again that twists something inside her, that says ‘please make this stop’ and ‘I want to go home’ and ‘tell me everything is going to be okay’. She’s spent so much of her life, too much, with that expression on the faces around her, on her, but she must do what she can because she is the only one who can right now.
“Arcee…” he glances away, “Who do you think is, uh… who has a ‘shielded’ signal?” Jack says it with enough hesitancy that she knows he didn’t believe her when she brought it up as a possibility, is using ‘shielded’ in place of a word far more permanent, and she doesn’t want to think of what the answer could be herself but they’re getting closer and closer to the first two signals, closer to knowing who might have made it and who hasn’t.
She thinks, for a moment that feels too long, and she thinks she knows who it must be. Wheeljack was already out there, in the thick of it, no chance to groundbridge away. Optimus would’ve been the last to leave, if he’d even left at all. Wheeljack and Optimus.
A nasty part of her feels glad that it is probably Wheeljack, who she’s never really meshed with. If it’s him, it’s not one of the other kids- Miko and Raf would be safe. Arcee boxes that thought up and pushes it deep, deep down inside her where she keeps them hidden.
Putting a servo on his shoulder, so small and fragile under her grip no matter how delicate she is, Arcee brings an approximation of a smile to her face, as close as she can get to the real thing. It can’t be a very accurate representation of a real smile, but she swears she can feel Jack relax slightly under her palm and that will have to be enough for now.
“Whoever’s shielded will probably show up on the map soon, kid. Don’t worry- we’ll find them all. Once we’ve regrouped, we’ll be ready.”
She can’t promise. Hopefully, she’s reassuring enough anyway.
It wasn’t Wheeljack.
She’d been beyond relieved when they’d come into view- despite the chaos and the… dragon? What Miko was calling a dragon. Despite the chaos and the dragon, Miko was alive and unharmed and so was Bulkhead and when he had crushed her close all she could think was we’re not alone and two of the kids are okay and when he had let her go she felt a little more like she was real, a little more solid in the world. But when she looked at Wheeljack…
Two signals left. A coldness ran through her circuits, a tension that made feel too tight, the world narrowed down to the map and the signals and five signals, out of seven.
Bumblebee, Smokescreen, Ratchet. Provided Optimus was still the other missing signal- as much as she wanted him to be okay, Arcee knew he would’ve been the last to have a chance to leave. Maybe… maybe Ratchet had stayed with him. It wouldn’t be surprising, normally, but Ratchet cared so deeply about them all no matter how he tried to pretend he didn’t and he would know they’d be in far more danger without a medic. Maybe he would’ve stayed with Optimus anyway.
Bulkhead ambled over to her, expression serious in a way that it was often not. She indicated that he should follow her to the back of the ship- Miko and Jack were occupied with each other, presumably telling tales of their exploits while separated, and Wheeljack was occupied with staring a hole into the back of Ultra Magnus’s helm, presumably with preemptive annoyance. Her and Bulkhead hopefully wouldn’t be overheard.
“Do we know who’s signals we’re got?” Bulkhead questioned her, voice quiet and stiff like he was trying to keep the worry out of it.
“No.” She responded, then exvented heavily. “…Probably not Optimus.”
He shuttered his optics, with a grim resignation and not surprise. “Yeah. I thought so.”
Arcee flicked a glance back at the children, and that pit inside her opened once again. “Bee will be safe,” she stated as firmly as she could manage. “He has Raf. They’ll be okay.”
Bulkhead nodded. Neither of them wanted to bring voice to the alternative, the fear that they could have bridged out with three fragile humans and gather again with two, a life gone that had barely begun.
“So. Smokey or Ratch. One of them will be with Bee and Raf.” Bulkhead said, though his shaky venting betrayed him. “And the other…”
Arcee rested a hand on his arm, knowing it was weak comfort given the situation but an attempt nonetheless. Then, in an attempt to comfort herself, to just share a little of her previous fears, she rattled off her theory. “When Jack and I bridged out, it was just Optimus and Ratchet left. He… Ratchet may have stayed with Optimus, Bulk.”
They locked optics, mirroring fear and worry and are they really gone, taking a sliver of comfort in the fact that at least they themselves had made it, some of them were safe, their family wasn’t all gone. That moment of comfort and tension lasted for a sparkbeat and an eon at once, before a warning came from Ultra Magnus that the signals were just ahead, that landing was imminent.
Optimus and Smokescreen.
She’d been confident about Optimus since they’d bridged away, since he’d met her optics with a gaze too complex for her to even begin deciphering. He knew he wasn’t going to make it- had made peace with that decision and had decided that at least he could send them out to give them a chance, so they could regroup and avenge him and rain down fury and grief on Megatron and the rest of those slimy Decepticons…
Well, he’d probably not want it to be quite that brutal.
It was Smokescreen she was surprised by. When the ship had landed and the dust had settled, she’d seen Bumblebee and felt relief, heard Miko and Jack gasp as they ran forward towards Raf, their three humans alive and as safe as they could be. Then her optics had switched to Ratchet, and the sense of oh he’s okay he’s okay he didn’t stay behind he didn’t sacrifice himself he’s here and that means we’ll be okay collided with the far less pleasant where’s Smokescreen that had her feeling almost dizzy with fear as she realised that one of their missing signals was the kid.
She could see it in Ratchet and Bumblebee’s optics as they darted over their ship crew, a confused worry joining the previous resignation that had confirmed Optimus’s lack of presence as an expected loss.
“So…” Bulkhead said, voice tinged with worry and the beginnings of grief he had been trying to hold off since they’d met back up with the group. “The kid’s… he’s… Smokey’s not here.”
Arcee and Ratchet grimaced. The three of them had separated from the others, Wheeljack keeping an eye on Ultra Magnus and the ship as Bumblebee watched over the humans, both youth and adult. Now that the rush of trying to return to each other had worn off and the team was as rebuilt as it could be, there was no denying the tight wash of grief that had formed over them. Trying to stay positive in front of the children had been draining, and now they were away from them they could afford to let a little more slip.
“He bridged out.” Ratchet’s voice was hollow. “He bridged out before me. He should’ve been alright. I thought it would just be Optimus.” His voice broke with a buzz of static and he let out a shuddery exvent to calm himself before continuing. “But I couldn’t save him and I couldn’t save Smokescreen”.
“Woah, hey,” Bulkhead extended his servos in a reassuring gesture. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Ratch. Optimus chose this. And Smokey…”
They all went silent.
“He might still be okay. He’s good at surviving, that kid.” Bulkhead tried to sound upbeat, but he couldn’t quite get his tone right and the words felt wrong. Smokescreen had barely been with them for any time at all, fresh from who-knows-how-long in stasis and imprisoned before that, and had already nearly died enough times to be ‘good at surviving’. It felt more like a cruel jab at fate than a compliment, like a death sentence and not a branch of hope.
Arcee tried to keep her thoughts positive, yet in her processor all she could imagine was Optimus, crushed beneath their once-home, plating grey and cold, warm optics never to light again. Smokescreen, in some unknown location, still so new and untrained in this planet’s ways, boundless confidence and enthusiasm diminished for eternity as he died alone, waiting for one of them to help him.
She should’ve insisted he bridge out with one of them, more experienced in this world and this war and this life. Should’ve taken him with her and Jack, given Ultra Magnus six signals to find.
As she stands there with what remains of her team, the grief around them still so fresh, she feels so hollow, so lost and so, so angry.