Ep 1.5 Small Comforts (Closed, Wheeljack, Tailgate)

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(Set week 2, day 1)


Wheeljack, as a general rule, did not venture out of his lab. He did not interact with the Omega base bots if he could avoid it. He also generally did not do things for people unless they asked him first.

Which made all the more curious that he'd emerged out of his lair and set off to do something...something, well one could almost call it nice, if they didn't know Wheeljack and were unaware that such a comment would probably earn them a fist in their face. In his servos, he clutched a thin bar of Cybertonium, no longer than his forearm.

The best place to start looking for any mech on base tended to be the rec room. And it was to there that the Wrecker started his search for one small chronologically displaced Cybertronian.

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Why was it that Tailgate's life had been nothing else but consistently slow days at Omega Base?


Well, for him at least. The Autobot higher ups were still apprehensive about sending him on missions, no matter how eager Tailgate was to contribute to the cause. Though all the free time was lovely, seeing as how he rarely had free time as a sanitation bot, the Minibot was thoroughly bored. Free time wasn't fun if you were always free. It should be a reward for a long day's work.


Tailgate had opted out of spending another day at Haven. He needed a change in his routine. Instead he sat in the rec room of Omega, casually sprawled across what can only be described as a large couch made from metallic mesh and other various scraps. His faceplate was lit up with the soft blue light that emanated from the datapad in his hands. Tailgate was playing a puzzle game that Rafael had shown him the day before. And this was guaranteed virus and malware free.

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Having found his target -Tailgate sure made things easy, as opposed to say someone like Fort Max- Wheeljack fetched himself a cube of energon. Then he made his way over to the small bot and sat near the mech without asking for an invitation. He hadn't had actually had a chance to speak to Tailgate before, but he'd heard his story from Bulkhead. Got swallowed by some sort of space bridge anomaly and kicked out of time for six million years before the universe felt like letting him back in again. In some ways, the small mech was as alien to the Autobots as the humans were. He came from a completely different time and his culture, his world, everything was gone.

Aside from the escape pod and whatever Tailgate had been carrying on him at the time, the small mech had nothing.

Autobots were used to that kind of loss, after so many millenia of war. Which is why nobody had thought twice about turning over the escape pod into Wheeljack's servos. But Wheeljack had made the (unwilling and unintentional and why the slag had he even been contemplating this in the first place) realization half way through dismantling and melting down Tailgate's pod, that he was essentially destroying the last link to the mech's old life. Another unwelcome realization was that the mech might not be alright with that.

And since Wheeljack didn't have anyone to pass this realization off to and didn't want anyone to get the wrong (right) ideas about him, he decided to rectify this situation by himself.

"Tailgate, is it? Got something for ya," Wheeljack waved the bar of metal in front of him.

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The minibot was so absorbed in the puzzle game that it took the newcomer plopping down the couch next to him to shock him back into reality. His field gave a tiny ripple of surprise before it smoothed down to neutral as he recognized the bot.

Though he had never been formally introduced to this bot before, he was unmistakably the one known as Wheeljack. Base rumor labelled him as a trigger and bomb happy scientist who was mostly seen tinkering in his lab. Tailgate had always assumed him to a rough and no nonsense bot, but here he was offering him a stick of Cybertonium.

"Tailgate, is it? Got something for ya,"

A small bloop sounded as the Minibot paused the puzzle game and looked at Wheeljack.

"Uhm, yeah I'm Tailgate." He affirmed friendly enough. The minibot's bright blue optics followed the stick as Wheeljack waved it in front of him. Was this is a prank or test?

"Gee, thanks, that's really nice of you....?" Tailgate asked in a tone which implied he wanted a name.

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"Wheeljack," the Wrecker offered. As a person who was exceedingly blunt and normally didn't bother with small talk with mecha he didn't know, Wheeljack simply decided to get straight to the point. "Was in charge of salvaging your escape pod. Most of its been melted down but I kept a couple of pieces in my lab in case you wanted them."

Wheeljack nodded at the bar in his servos. "If you want to turn that into anything just lemme know," he paused and seemed to have trouble with forming his next few words, like he couldn't believe he was making the offer. "I've made a few trinkets in my time for a few mecha that have asked me to. Sentimental pieces that don't really have a purpose." He shrugged and took a sip from his cube.

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The bright optics of the Minibot widened at the sudden offer. It was highly...unexpected. And surprisingly sweet? Tailgate had never stopped to think about what became of the dingy pod he crashed in. His life before the accident was never great and was miserable, yet...seeing the metal bar before him, composed of his pod....that metal was the only thing in this current time linking him to the past. Waves of nostalgia rippled through him. Even though Cybertronian culture six million years ago was absolutely horrible it was the only one he knew. The caste system, Council of Primes, unhindered expansion, the whole universe to be claimed for the glory of the Cybertronian race....all these ideals had evaporated over time. Even with their home planet being a corpse and their species divided in a violent civil war, Tailgate had enjoyed more freedom than ever. Yet the bot still had a hard time adapting. Other bots would give him odd looks when he became too subservient around "higher ranking" bots. Tailgate couldn't help it; it was within his basic coding to submit to those greater. It was hard to adjusting to the fact that everyone was treated as equals in Omega.

Gingerly, he took the offered rod into his hands. Smooth and shiny, it was near flawless save for the near invisible ripples in the metal that signified its reforging. Tailgate looked the rod over as he turned it in his hands. He looked back at Wheeljack.

"...thank you. Really. This means a lot," he said sincerely. "But...why? You don't even know me..." Tailgate added hesitantly.

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Aaaand this was the part of the conversation that was dipping into uncomfortable territory. Did Wheeljack have a reason? Not particularly beyond 'oh wow, that sucks' and 'someone is gonna realize this down the track and I don't wanna be blamed for this.'

Wheeljack might have severed all ties to his life as back at Crystal City but, in the early cycles of the war, watching as Autobots had lost their homes and their futures, that had been a decision he had made for himself. His memories of that time weren't all that strong thanks to the degradation caused by Shockwave's experiments but he could remember vaguely the shock his fellow soldiers went through as they realised that they no longer had homes to go back to. He'd never gone through ir himself (or at least, he thought he didn't, thanks a lot Shockwave) but there had been people he'd cared about who had.

The Wrecker shrugged again. "Well, it must be hard, isn't it?" he replied simply. "Everything you've ever known, just gone in a couple of astroseconds. Well. On the bright side, at least, you didn't have to watch it all burn down."

The king of sensitivity, Wheeljack was not.

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"Um...well when you put it like that...sure?"



Wheeljack's reasoning was not the most sincere sounding. Truth be told it was rather difficult to get a read on the Wrecker. Though the gesture itself was generous, Wheeljack sure wasn't acting like it was. The Wrecker was basically handing the Minibot a sliver of his lost life and was acting as if it were a casual act. Indeed, Wheeljack's attitude implied he was doing Wheeljack a disservice.

Though the Wrecker had been wrong. The only difficult part to Tailgate's chronological handicap was adjusting to the evolved modern culture. Life on Cybertron had been a short one for Tailgate before the accident. Approximately two weeks in human time, he calculated. Not long enough to create sentimental feelings.

Tailgate didn't have a clear understanding of what exactly transpired during the war. Nobody wanted to divulge the particulates. All he knew so far was that bad things happened. Really bad things. So the Minibot did not quite understand what Wheeljack meant by watching it all "burn down".

"Yeah," He twisted the rod around in his fingers. "Guess I lucked out there. Not like....things were exactly peachy keen 'back then' either. But better, I guess."

The Minibot gave the Wrecker a skeptical look.

"No offense, but, you don't exactly seem like the kinda guy to do this outta the charity of his spark. Are you trying to bribe me? Do I need to help you bury a body or something?" He asked sarcastically.

[Deleted]

Wheeljack gave a startled bark of laughter, rocking back on his seat before taking a long sip of energon. Bribe Tailgate? Him? Pfffft.

"Right, listen up, Tailgate. First off, I'm not sure where you're getting off claiming to know the sort of mech I am but I can assure you that I never say or offer anything I don't mean," Wheeljack explained with honest amusement. "The stick's a stick, nothing more nothing less, until you want it turned into something else. Secondly, don't listen to base gossip. It's bad for you. Thirdly, I don't bribe people. 'm a Wrecker, we don't go for that underhanded dodgy slag. You're thinking of spooks. Wreckers are much more direct."

He paused for a bit then added pleasantly in afterthought; "If I want to get someone to do something they don't wanna, I gently persuade them. With my cannon. Pressed against their head."

With that, Wheeljack rose to his pedes, deciding that he was done with this whole voluntary socializing thing for the cycle/terrorizing the new guy. "Well, I'll catcha around," the Wrecker finished on a friendly tone.

[Deleted]

"Uh, good talk? Bye, I guess. See ya 'round....."

Wheeljack had left rather promptly after such a sudden and unexpected gesture. The entire exchange lasted a mere matter of minutes and left the Minibot in a suspended state of confusion. His, if minimum, knowledge of certain bots around base had lead him to believe that Wreckers were gruff and rigid. Such behavior was call for aroused suspicion. Yet the Minibot felt that he had done nothing to be deserving of a cruel Wrecker prank and decided it was, even if dubious, a true gesture.

The Wreckers departure from the room made for an awkward silence as Tailgate simply stared at the door frame which he had exited through. Rotating the stick in his hands once more, the Minibot looked it over. Without the back story, it looked like an ordinary stick of metal. Tailgate didn't even have the forging skills to make this somewhat pretty. He decided that until he found a use for it, it would make for a nice paper weight.

Tailgate plunged the metal stick between two metallic cushions. The tablet blooped back to life as the Minibot started up his puzzle game once more.


Just another day at the Autobot base.


End.