Ep.1 - "Quite A Sunday" - [Closed]

"...If I stop I'm not sure I'll be able to start again."

It wasn't the strut-rattling snarl he'd been aiming for, wasn't even the lazy see how many frags I don't give? drawl he'd been (unsuccessfully) trying to pick up from Sideswipe the past few cycles. It was- and he cringed to admit it- a whimper, a thin, shaky thread of sound so warped and tangled by fear it threatened to choke him. It didn't quiet the paranoia clawing at his spark, didn't lessen his need to run faster, farther, felt like an admission of failure, like something to be gritted back and ignored-

But Cat's request was still there, hovering in the air with the unexpected force friendship brought to bear behind it, and gradually- in fits and spurts and engine-snarling internal battles waged and won- Shot's frenzied flight slowed. Africa swam into view outside his windows, dull sand and scrubby brush dyed red in the last light of day. The first few stars twinkled overhead by the time the Charger came to a shuddering halt, but by Primus, Shot wasn't about to question small miracles all for the sake of piddly-aft timelines.

"Get out, please."

He didn't scream, didn't purge, didn't rip apart at the seams, didn't do any of the wildly-dissimilar things the tattered remains of his processor insisted he needed to right that instant. Instead he sat, face buried in servos that simply refused to stop shaking and, once he was (marginally) certain he wouldn't yak all over Cat, he talked, clicking through broken Basic and three dialects of Cybertronian before finding a language she might be able to understand.

"That... that was Megatron. Th-the big bad himself. Wasn't it?" A rhetorical question at best, an utterly daft one at worst, and one they both knew the answer to. If it had been someone- anyone- else in the control room he wouldn't have run for the hills.

...Okay, he still might've run. But he certainly wouldn't've dragged Cat along for the ride. And he would've stopped sooner. Maybe.

Sometimes Shot loathed automated warning systems. They served their purpose, of course- blared convenient warnings at him when he sunk a little too deep into his flavor-of-the-month projects and started skipping recharge cycles, for example, and shouted creative obscenities when human laws regarding safe speeds and police interference slipped his processor- but appreciating their utility wasn't the same as liking them. Especially when they kept clogging up his HUD like a particularly persistent cloud of dust, stubbornly reminding him of every last warning and near-miss he'd ignored in his frantic rush Anywhere But Here.

Especially when the glitch-fragging things were right.

He hurt already, systems never meant for extended use shrieking at the abuse they'd endured, and even through the haze of post-overdrive letdown he knew tomorrow was going to suck slag like nothing else. Presuming he lived until then, of course. Presuming he had a base to go back to. ...Presuming Cleaver didn't weld him to the medbay floor for running off in the first place.

"I don't know what you saw back there. Pit, I don't know what I saw back there, but where there's one leader the other's never far behind. I don't... Do you really think that base can hold both of them?"

His shakes had spun themselves out to near-nothing, faint shudders he could bite back and ignore if he had to, and even if he hadn't a blessed clue what he was asking for Shot extended a hand in Cat's direction. Some gestures, after all, were universal, and 'I could really use a hug right about now' was one of them.

"They- he didn't hurt you, did he?"

Listening rarely came easily to Moonshot- and never as easily as running his vocoder did- but out in that desert a hundred miles from anyone who might care to judge him, the white mech made himself do exactly that. As much as he might liked to have offlined his audios and ignored every slagging thing Cat had to say, scream to the stars that she was wrong, had to be, because Sides and Cleaver were safe, could be trusted, just as Megatron couldn't be... he didn't. Didn't, because as much as the thought made his spark ache and his lines crawl, he couldn't deny the truth in Cat's statement.

Just because he couldn't didn't mean he wouldn't, though.

"Who's this 'we', Kemosabe?" He muttered sourly, subjecting Cat to his best Evil Optic. Even in his own audios the would-be snarl lacked force. "Just because you're p-perfectly okay going back there and d-dancing a jig in front of the big bad himself doesn't mean I am."

Damnable stutter. Damnable anxiety. Damnable emotions. ...Damnable Cat. Damn them all and him too, because no proper Cybertronian should lean right back into the human leaning on them no matter how rattled they were. As a race they were stronger, prouder than that- strong enough to tear their race apart from the inside out, and proud enough to blame everyone but themselves in the process.

But when had he ever given two slags and a stripped nut about pride?

Grumbling, he hunkered down and, unabashedly leaning into that too-welcome contact, waited for the kaleidoscope of half-realized fears and haunting 'what-ofs' to settle at the edges of his consciousness.

"I hope you're right. B'cause I think I might l-lose it if I go back and have to stare Megatron in the face all over again."