Ep. 1.5 - Shelter From The Storm (Closed)

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<<This is set early in 1.5, after Jazz has come back and the shit has hit the fan. This is maybe later in the day from Five Minutes, and maybe a day or so before For Richer, For Poorer.>>

Ironhide safe and sound, though utterly slagged in the meta, check.

Shadow NOT safe and sound, which needed to CHANGE and hopefully WOULD, once Jazz's preliminary efforts at satellite scraping algorithms ran their course. Even more hopefully once Steeljaw got his claws into the search and made the planetary satellite 'net his slave.

Cleaver was safe and sound at Haven, according to a quick check-in as Jazz looked for the last member of his cohort, and all was quiet there.

Which left only the last present member of his cohort unaccounted for, and that was solely because Jazz had been having trouble finding hir.

There had been a blowup, Jazz had heard. Bluestreak had evidently ripped Prime a new one when Prime had come back from Haven with a spitting mad Ironhide, news of Barricade's revival, and a distinct lack of Shadow. Three strikes and he was out.

Jazz didn't blame Blue. Any of those issues were highly emotionally-charged for the bitlet (no, Jazz, not a bitlet anymore...), and all three at once would have had the most stoic of mecha throwing things, words or otherwise.

So no, Jazz didn't blame Blue one bit. Mostly he wanted to check on hir, as Blue hadn't shown up at Ironhide's quarters the way Jazz had half expected hir to. Checking on the sniper, though, required FINDING the sniper, and as much as Jazz had missed of Blue's growing-up, evidently Bluestreak's talent for hiding hadn't changed. Jazz had finally had to use his new security net to narrow down his search, and even then it took poking his head into a few unused rooms in the first sub-basement before he found the right one.

Jazz stood in the doorway, looking up to where the barest outline of a doorwing betrayed Bluestreak's position in the rafters. "Hey," he said, and left it at that.

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Bluestreak wasn't a bot of many talents but the ones ou DID have ou excelled. Those talents were shooting, talking, climbing and of course hiding.

Which it was why even though ou knew Jazz was very good at finding people/places/things the little sniper was still surprised he found hir. Of course he did though, Jazz had always been the best at finding hir.

Didn't mean ou WANTED to be found. The slag storm of bad news ou'd gotten quickly followed by promptly freaking out at OPTIMUS PRIME of all mechs had left hir in a rare bad mood. Only reluctantly looking in his direction, blue optics the only like in the dark room.

".... Hey..."

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Jazz had to stare at the ceiling a bit to even figure out how Bluestreak had GOTTEN where ou was. As much as they had kidded a bitty Blue about trying to fly by flapping hir doorwings, ou still had to obey the laws of gravity as far as Jazz knew.

Of course, one could always get where one wanted if one was creative enough. And Blue was certainly creative enough. As well as motivated enough, from what Jazz could tell. He could feel the grump from all the way down on the floor.

As Jazz leapt and climbed his way up to Blue's side, Jazz was just glad that Bluestreak wasn't the size of his cupped hands anymore. It severely restricted where ou could hide.

Jazz sat down next to Blue (after giving a quick listen to make sure that their combined weight wasn't likely to bring the whole human structure down), close enough for their fields to touch and for Jazz to send a pulse of cohort-support-love-here Blue's way. "Hey. Won't ask if you're ok, because that's pretty obvious, but...anything I can do?"

What he wanted to do was pull Blue in for a hug, but A) that might tumble them off their seat and B)...frag, he'd never felt so keenly the loss of all those vorn out in the black. He didn't know how this new, grown-up Blue acted when ou was upset. So he settled for sitting there, offering with field and posture.

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Ou looked over to Jazz with wide sad optics. Ou felt it too the time they'd lost. Time they'd never get back but... No reason to to not enjoy the time they have now. Carefully ou moved closer. Arms touching and doorwings brushing against the saboteurs back.

"I'm so angry Jazz. At everything. At Prime, at Shadow, and you and Ironhide and Cleaver."
Ou curled up a little tighter into hirself though not moving any further away.

"It's not right! How do Barricade and Megatron get to live after all they've done but WE keep loosing everyone we care about? Barricade ripped me open with his bare hands. Touched my spark! Megatron destroyed our Planet and Prime can't mech up and kill either of them! and Cleaver! Why didn't SHE kill him when she got the chance? Does she really believe if he wins he'll leave them alone?"

Hir field was a wild fluxing thing, emotions mixed ad volatile but through it all ou kept close to Jazz.

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Jazz let the surge of anger at Barricade, at Megatron, even at Prime flow through him. He felt it (for his sparkling, maybe not as much as Ironhide's but HIS, nonetheless, dammit), and he set it aside, because that wasn't what Blue needed right now. It wouldn't help.

Jazz pulled Blue close, magclamping his feet to the girder to hold them in place as he wrapped himself around as much of Blue as he could. He didn't have a certain Guardian's bulk, and he wasn't as big compared to Blue as he'd once been, but he could do a mean Ironhide impression.

"You're right, Blue. It's NOT right. Not a damn thing about this war that's been right, and I'm sorry you've been hurt, and I'm sorry I haven't been here for ANY of it."

He pressed his forehelm to whatever part of Blue's plating he could reach, pulsing sorrow and love and understanding. "I'm so sorry, bitlet. You got every right t'be angry. Don't blame you one bit."

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The anger was still there, a roiling seething living thing deep in hir spark but Jazz was there which was a miracle in it's self and ou found hirself holding tight to him. An anchor in the storm of emotions.

"I don't blame you, for being gone. It wasn't your fault and you came back to us. That's what matters."

One hand reached out to touch him, optics fixed in some far away place.

"The war took that away from us too. You missed so much and there's no making up for lost time once it's gone it's gone. All you can do is make the best of what you have now."

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"Right," Jazz said, voice firm. He tipped Blue's face up to look at him. "We make the best of what we have now. And we will. I love you, kiddo, and I'm lookin' forward to spendin' a lot of time with you."

"And I know how angry you are, Blue. I understand. I really do. I'm angry, too. I'm angry because you've been hurt and the fraggers that did it are still walkin' around. But I've learned that anger can hurt me way more than whoever I'm angry at. It'll make me do dumb things, things I wouldn't do if I weren't so focused on hurting someone else. The 'Cons know anger. They're USED to using that anger, to get their enemies to leap before they look."

Jazz dropped a kiss on his bitlet's helm and moved to tuck Blue's head under his chin. "That's why we gotta be smarter than they are, Bluester. We gotta be sure. We gotta pick our shots."

And then we'll take 'em down. Swear to you, bitlet, everyone that hurt you's not makin' it through this war. Swear it.

Jazz sighed as Bluestreak snuggled in a little tighter.

"Just gotta pick our shots."

<FIN>