Ep 0.5 - TLC - Closed

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Cleaver could only stare mutely at the impossible image for a long moment, then actually transformed a blade to be able to put a fist to her mouth. She'd only met Optimus Prime, Commander of one half of the war that had decimated their race in a fight against a mech he refused to bow to, the living incarnation of Primus himself, twice- once to repair his arm after taking Cat to the Auotbot base, and before then whilst she was torn open and leaking in the desert. Even operating on him hadn't tarnished the larger-than-life image she'd held of him for millennia. Indeed, she'd put him offline needlessly on his part because it had been so unnerving.

Seeing him with a sparkling clutching his helm, apparently perfectly content with the arrangement, was mechanising.

Ironhide clearly had no trouble reconciling the mantel of Prime with the spark-and-parts mech in the holo. She, at this point in time, could not. Finally she settled on a safe, observational response. "Sparkling's do love to climb."

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Cleaver's wide opticed stare was... adorable, really. Not that Ironhide was going to risk telling her so, but it was, and it put a warm, loving note in his chuckle as he nuzzled the edge of her helm. "Couldn't stop Blue doin' it. An' this ain't nothin' - yeh should see some of th' ones Jazz has. Caught Blue mid-climb up, once, an' there's Optimus, standin' there with one of them looks, with a sparkling hangin' off his aft. He wasn't th' only one, either."

The holo in his hand flickered, switching to a smaller mech, all stiff, precise angles and posture. "Prowl," Ironhide identified. "Second in command under Prahm, our primary tactician, an' as by-th'-rules as yeh can get. Some of us would've sworn th' mech didn't have emotional subroutines any more, just slaved it all t' his tactics processor."

Again the holo shifted, this time to an age faded video with sound. The same mech, caught at an angle, the same small grey sparkling cupped in his hands, tiny hands reaching and grasping up at the mech. The sound was low, crackling with static, but unmistakably the harmonic frequencies of someone cooing sparkling base code sounds.

"Most of us might be full frames," Ironhide told Cleaver, "but yeh hand us a tiny bit an' we ain't immune by any means."

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"It's hard wired into our sparks to complete dote on them," Cleaver agreed, tilting her helm at the projection with a smile. Certainly these handful of images were only the tip of a very large iceberg of stored memories of Bluestreak, the little sniper who'd held ou's own against Airachnid when the two factions and herself scouted the mine.

A typical proud Sire.

It was reassuring in its own way to see Autobots, military mecha endlessly engaged in the longest and most devestating conflict in history as she was aware of it, turned play-thing-pawns to a big-opticed sparkling. It was an illogical and paranoid anxiety that she hadn't quite dispelled that the Autobots would see a sparkling borne of one of their officers as somehow theirs to mould into a fighter. Their race was a rapidly dying one, and a new life was precious as an asset as much as a symbol of renewal.

This was concrete, spark-soothing evidence that Prime, indeed none of them, would seek to indoctrine the newsparked into their ideals and war. No: they'd just let it climb all over them and spoil it utterly rotten.

"I take it Prime doesn't allow for Bluestreak to clamber up him any more, even if he is still a small frame," she mused aloud, shuttering her optics with an exvent as the linkages Ironhide had relieved thus far began a cascade effect of relaxing. The weapon specialist's lap should not be this comfortable. "Reckon he'll be as, amenable, to ours? Or has too much of the war gone by since then?"

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Ironhide hummed a small note, letting the holo fall away, his hands resuming their work against the lines and tightened links in the femme's neck and shoulders. "Blue don't climb much any more," he agreed, "but Ah think even Prahm'd be hard put t' find a reason not t' let Blue hug 'im." He vented quietly, amused. "Well - yeh've met Blue. Not sure hir's ever gonna grow into hir optics, an' there ain't many who c'n say 'No' t' that look."

He hesitated, his own optics half shuttered. "Ah can't really say how Prahm'll be. He's concerned, but Ah don't think he disapproves. He may be... more reserved, Ah guess. Ah ain't been with him for awhile an' everything Ah see now is more reserved than what Ah remember." He shook his head slightly. "Mech's had too many soldiers lookin' for orders an' not enough friends t' remind him there's more'n that, if yeh ask meh."

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One of the two faction leaders in a devestating war, carrying an essentially spiritual title, Cleaver had long had difficulty reconciling the Prime with the war machine he had functioned as since the civil war had made his traditional position impossible. To try to see him as just as mech on top of that was, frankly, difficult.

But on the two occassions when they'd met, she'd felt the youth in him under the weariness, and the sadness that seemed so ingrained into his spark that she wondered if Ironhide had ever known him when he was simply content. Even happy. She wondered if that'd ever be possible again, even if the Autobots did ultimately win. No homeworld, a scan few of them left, all battle-worn and spark-tired of killing.

Perhaps that was why they let human children loiter about their base.

"I can see you and Jazz workin' to do somethin' about that." The plates around Cleaver's optics tightened, and she shifted with a harsh ex-vent to turn onto her side in Ironhide's lap and change the distribution of pressure around the manufacturing chamber. It also helped to stir her systems up a little, having been at real risk of sliding off into recharge on the weapon specialist's thighs. "Should have him over here, some time. Might do him some good to get away from the rank and file stuff for a while."

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Ironhide vented a laugh. "Oh, we been tryin', dahrlin'. Yeh ask him, he'll tell yeh work is relaxin', an' a whole line of slag about how he's just fine th' way he is."

He settled back on the sofa, hands smoothing over her plates in strokes meant to ease and lengthen tightened lines. "Used t' use Blue for that," he confessed. "Mech couldn't hie off t' go do reports when his systems were all but in recharge if we pinned him down with a sparkling first. Out like a light, as th' humans say. Reckon' he might be harder t' pin down this time around, but rechargin' sparklings are th' best recharge aid ever made."

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"Reckon you might be on to something there." She was still trying to reconcile the living symbol of Primus being pinned by Ironhide's cohort with a strategically placed sparkling on his chassis. Her spark was too full and lazy, optics slightly dim, to expend much effort on trying to mesh the pieces together right now. Ironhide's knowing hands were very nearly putting her into recharge, and she suspected that she'd be able to see the coming sparkling work its brand of power on the Prime and, perhaps, believe it better then.

"How'd you end up with Blue anyway?" Cleaver fidgeted a little, tucked a blade up to her chassis in a better recharging position. Ironhide certainly didn't seem to mind. "You found hir, you've said before, and I'm figuring ou couldn't go to a creche given that they'd all been burnt out and abandoned. Is it 'finders keepers' in the Autobots, or did you want hir?"

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Ironhide's hands slowed a little, lingering over Cleaver's shoulders and rotor mount. "Prauxis," he said heavily, a wealth of memories in the city name. "Bitlet was th' only survivor we pulled out'a that mess after..." He checked himself, vocalizer clicking softly. "Well... after. Medics kept insistin' there was an active spark trace, an' we kept tellin' 'em there wasn't anything even mini sized left, but we kept diggin' anyways... and there was Blue."

He shook his head slightly, love-cohort-kin shading his glyphs. "Chromia's squad was th' one that brought hir in - Primus willin' yeh two'll meet some day, if she makes her way out t' this end of things. Then there was a whole Pit slag of debate about what t' do with hir - we were kickin' around ideas for finding somewhere or someone safe - Neutrals, maybe, or one of th' outlying groups that were just tryin' t' stay out of it all. An' then th' question was what t' do with hir in th' meantime, and all of us standin' around without a clue, an' the medics fussin' about how someone needed t' do somethin'... an Chromia just went an' grabbed th' bitlet, dumped hir in mah hands, an' said fine, we'd look after hir until somethin' else came along."

Ironhide vented a low laugh, leaning down to brush his forehelm against the side of Cleaver's helm. "Ah... well, Jazz'll tell yeh Ah'm glitched, an' he might be right. Time was, mah function was protectin' Cybertron - th' mechs, th' planet, our race. Somethin' about th' bitlet was like wakin' up that code again, sayin' here, THIS, this is what yer supposed t' be protectin'. Took 'em a decacycle t' pry th' sparklet outta mah hands again, an' that was just t' Chromia or Jazz. Primus help meh if anyone else tried."

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Prauxis had been a disaster - stories of the battle that had levelled one of the last largely-civilian cities left had been murmured far. Cleaver had ventured into the sector perimeter to give medical aid, but had never seen the site for herself. Only holos, and those had been harrowing enough. She'd believed up until now that there had been no survivors out of that Pit. To find Bluestreak there had been nothing short of a miracle.

"You've seen ou right," she finally uttered, optics dim against the thick plates on Ironhide's chassis. The spot where she knew he'd tucked the sparkling for safe keeping in the distant past.

The femme felt his hand press beneath her roto mount, high between and above her shoulder assemblies. It sent a shiver of loosening charge down her struts, easing out a sigh. "'m glad Chromia put ou in your servos. Cybertronian Guard after the core went dark and what was left of our race was scattered... Know a lot of 'em went beyond glitched with core errors and spark conflict. Just wonder if under all the grilling Jazz gets it."

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Ironhide brought one hand to cup against her helm, fingertips smoothing over the base linkages at the back of her neck as the other slid beneath her flight blades to work slowly down her backstrut, chasing the tiny pockets of tension he could feel beneath his servos. Her words called up old memory files, things he shunted aside and re-archived on automatic, his voice remaining steady.

"They wrote th' code out of us when they decommissioned th' Guard... or tried to. Didn't always take. Didn't much matter, in th' end - weren't that many left t' go glitched or otherwise by th' time th' cores went." It was the most he could remember saying on the subject in countless vorn, the topic so old that it felt strange in his vocalizer, and Ironhide vented softly, optics dim as his hands continued their slow motions across Cleaver's frame. "Jazz... Ah don't rightly know if he gets all of it, but Ah think he gets enough. He knows Ah'm fit t' drive mahself an' everyone around meh glitched if Ah ain't guardin' something. Teasin's just his way of carin', an' Ah've been callin' him scrap as long as he's been callin' meh glitch. Only thing either of us mean by it is 'cohort'."

He shrugged slightly, plates shifting. "Had workarounds for it sorted long before Jazz came t' us. An' teasin' aside, it ain't wrong. Ah was on overclocked defense protocols from that first point until well after Blue was walkin', talkin', an' wishin' Ah'd leave well enough alone." He rumbled quietly. "Can't guarantee Ah won't be just as glitched with this one, though Ah'll be tryin' t' keep it reasonable."

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"I'll mind you, don't worry."

It was a muted reply, quiet as her systems stubbornly wound down with Ironhide's knowing ministrations despite her processor's active and interested engagement with what he was saying. Neither of them, really, had talked about their past much. It was habitual in war - previous events were more painful than pleasent, full of ugly memories and enduring hurts and grudges.

Cleaver concentrated enough to transform a blade and reach a hand back to take his, stilling the massage and capturing his attention. She shifted her helm just enough to meet his optics, her own bright with sincerity and affection. "Gonna be a model sire, and I could never fault you for wanting to keep our bitlet safe in a 'verse that just isn't ever going to be. Spark's in the right place, overactive protocols or not. Just gotta keep in mind that protecting can end up hurtin'. Suffocating."

Her mouth pulled a little, spark briefly harking back to that cold moment when she'd realized the same. She'd adjusted, though, and she could only hope that Ironhide would manage to do the same. Even if the 'verse around this sparkling was so different, and so much more deadly.

"Need to prepare it for the 'verse and not just hide them from it. That's dangerous, and a hard reality to choke down, I know."

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Ironhide squeezed her hand gently, thumb tracing over the joint of her knuckles. His smile was wry, curling at the edges in a lopsided expression. "Ah know, dahrlin'. Ah know." He huffed a soft laugh. "Ah did eventually teach Blue t' shoot. Ou targets better'n Ah do, now."

Another squeeze, held tight. "Yeh said yeh didn't want that, though, an' Ah... Ah'll be just as happy not t'." He watched her optics dim, his free hand stroking gently across her helm. "Be nice t' see this bitlet choose somethin' outside of a faction mark. Outside of just thinkin' about weapons an' war. Want hir t' be anythin' ou wants t' be."

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"Bitlet'll make your spark ten sizes too big for its casing if it decides to be a master confectioner and dedicates its life to making sweets," Cleaver replied at half her normal volume, the smile that followed equally muzzy. "Actually I'd like that. Utterly useless and completely wonderful. Good mix. Can't ever be weaponized."

Her optics dimmed to near-nothing before they finally shuttered over to protect the crystal lenses, the femme's heated systems cycling into a low hum of easy rest. Ironhide's field was one of safety and love, permeating beneath her awareness to put her quickly and solidly into deep defrag and recharge.

There was a high probability that the femme wouldn't stir when he ultimately extracted himself from beneath her.