We are a literate, intermediate to advanced AU Transformers RPG Based off of the first season of TFP with dashes of other incarnations sprinkled here or there. Characters from any continuity are welcome however must be restyled to match the TFPrime universe.
Active, with ongoing plotlines, we are always willing to integrate new characters into storylines once incorporated into the setting.
Ironhide let himself lean into the press of her field, exhausted systems riding on the safety and assurance she offered. It was familiar in ways that let him just cycle it through, content to hold steady through whatever happened until his systems could patch themselves. "Don't know," he admitted, however, because there was holding on and then there was the blunt reality of not actually knowing. "Glitch's always been internal for meh. Slags up mah sensor relays, then that's feedin' scrap an' misfired slag into mah motion autonomics until it's all misaligned." He exvented slowly. "Hurts, but it ain't ever been critical. Could be, maybe, if it got into mah base systems, but Ah'm runnin' enough workarounds t' keep that out."
He tucked his face against her throat cables - the press of her helm and shoulder, against his helm, was a measure of enclosed comfort. "Ain't let Jazz look at it too close," he confessed. "He'll want meh t' see Ratchet, an' Ah won't." He shuddered, hands holding tighter to her frame, field threaded through with sharp rejection undercut with fear. "Ain't th' same, Ah know it ain't, but Ratchet's the Prahm's medic an' Ah won't do it."
"You don't have to. We'll take care of you." Shadow's reaction was automatic; he wasn't draining out, wasn't at threat of deactivating, and that meant this was still cohort business. She hugged him close, careful not to look closely at what that said about her own involvement, and pulsed reassurance at him. "Do sensor blocks help? Or is it worse when the relays don't have anything to process but their own junk data?" She rested her cheekplate against his helm. "And have you gotten enough recharge to know if that helps?"
She was quiet for a moment, processor turning over options...and if Ironhide had been dealing with this entirely on his own, most of those options probably hadn't been explored yet. "Let me take a look," she said carefully, the suggestion wrapped in glyphs that made it clear she wouldn't push if he said no. "I'm no code expert, but we dealt with bad hacks and viral bombs more than once. I should at least be able to cut the number of errors you're trying to deal with, and if I can't, we go back to waiting it out."
The reassurance eased another level of stiffness out of some of his relays. It was an irrational fear, he knew it was, but knowing didn't help the spark reflexive recoil every time Ratchet's name had been brought up. It had been a different Prime, a different team of medics under the command of a different Primacy, but he could no more stop his entire system from seizing up in desperate rejection then he could stop the errors that were degrading through those same systems. Ironhide grimaced, face still tucked against the femme's plating, but his field spoke volumes. "Sensor blocks just mean Ah can't tell if somethin's so outta alignment it's gonna break," he said roughly.
"Ain't had much recharge," he added, and that was probably so blindingly obvious it barely counted as an admission. Her suggestion, however, brought him up short, and he had to pause and turn the offer over several times before slowly responding, trepidation flickering through his EM. "Ah don't know if..." He vented, sharply, and leaned up to press his helm back against hers. "Alright," he managed, the word coming out in a rush before he could reconsider it. "Ah... trust yeh. Just... lock yerself down first." He grimaced again, fully aware of how it sounded, a frontliner lecturing spec ops on scrap he didn't know anything about. "Don't want it bleedin' back on yeh, yeh don't want this scrap in yer systems. Ah don't rightly know how much of a mess it is, so just be careful."
"I'll be careful," Shadow promised, and didn't add the of course; she wouldn't be much help to him if she was crippled by code corruption. She brought her firewalls up to full strength, took the extra klik to initialize her full array of antivirals and anti-hacking measures, and jacked into Ironhide's systems with all the care she would have used for a suspected boobytrap.
Ironhide's code looked like a viral bomb had torn through it unchecked, some sections missing and others so fragmented and truncated that they might as well have been. Shadow sifted through it carefully; he was a mess, but he wasn't in danger of deactivating, and there were enough checks and redundancies surviving that he almost certainly wouldn't be in danger. Were, in fact, enough checks and redundancies, inelegant self-hacks, to indicate he'd gone through this at least once before.
Code could be patched and re-written, but not effectively while a maelstrom was still ripping it apart. Shadow had neither the skills nor the tools to stop what was happening; she did have the ability to slow it down, hopefully to a point where Ironhide's systems could keep up with patching themselves.
She shifted her attention to the frame trembling against hers. "I think I can help. I have some adaptive patches; they're meant to control the damage from viral bombs until the antivirals can clean things up. It won't stop what's happening, but it should repair the worst of what's already been slagged, and keep you from losing ground quite so fast." She nuzzled against his helm, field steady with the assurance that she would be there, that she was with him as long as he needed her. "Make the waiting it out easier."
"Do it." No need to think about it, no way he could stop her even if he wanted to - his firewalls were shreds, defenses as ripped up as the rest of his code, and he could no more block the phantom spider sensation of her picking through his code then he could stop the ache in his struts from registering as new welds where there were only well set old ones. It was hardly quantum physics to make the call; anything that would help was a blessing. "Go ahead an' do it, a patch can't make it worse."
He was holding her, wrapped around her, but it felt more like leaning on her. There was an unfairness there - Shadow responded to his pain, whether she might think better of it or not, and it was unfair of Ironhide to use that as a bargaining point when she had been set on leaving only half a breem before. Wasn't fair but was, he could tell himself, right - what they both needed, whether they would or no. He couldn't let her go, willing to bank on the very real pain of his own systems as a bargaining chip if it would keep her tucked against his side.
It wasn't, even one bit of it, anything but the truth. Need, his field whispered against hers, stay-tired-so tired-love/trust-don't go.
Here. Her answer was as automatic as the hand stroked against his helm, or the reassuring thrum coming from her vocalizer, but Shadow could not have given a different one even if she'd thought about it. Here/staying-repair-guard-love-safe/rest.
The code patches were queued and ready to upload into his systems. Shadow knew the most effective order and timing to deploy them; she also knew most effective was not most pleasant. "This may hurt," she warned, tightening her hold, "or it may just feel weird as Pit. Shouldn't last more than a few kliks, either way."
Right here-with you-staying, her field promised, as the first of the patches uploaded and began twining itself into his code.
Ironhide jerked involuntarily, shuddering. 'Weird as Pit' didn't begin to describe it - the pain was minimal, only one more note in a system already fielding too many, but the feel was a strange, crawling, itching sensation somewhere in his processor and up in his endomass that he couldn't put a finger on. It spidered through him, first here, then there, twitching and itching and shifting non-physical things that had no business doing any of the above. He grit his dente, holding as still as he could through it.
No sooner had one finished than the next one started and 'a few kliks' was a ridiculously long period of time when your processor was crawling with foreign code. By the third code push Ironhide was grinding sparks off his dente, a half pained note grating through his vocalizer. Shadow was curled around him, her helm pressed to his, wordless reassurance and almost done-little longer-right here-with you giving him something to cling to.
When it finished he vented everything in one deep expel - and then sucked in an equally deep intake, his systems only hitching minimally. Whatever she had done had cut an entire chunk of errors from his HUD - not fixed, not by a long shot, but noticeably better. It might only last briefly, but the leftover itch of shifting code was worth it for the temporary diminishing of errors.
He chirred a wordless relieved note, collapsing deeper into the berth padding. "Better," he assured her gratefully. "Weird as th' Pit, t' be sure, but better. Thank yeh, bitlet."
Shadow relaxed when Ironhide did, though she stayed curled around him, humming soft reassurances. "That should hold for a while." She nudged her helm against his, the faintest of warnings - love you-don't be stupid-don't be stubborn - in her glyphs. "If it looks like the errors are getting ahead of the patch, I can do it again, and it'll probably be easier if you say something before it's bad enough for me to notice."
She settled more comfortably against his side, field still wrapped deliberately around him, optics offlined as she listened to systems which were by no means back to normal, but which no longer sounded like he was on his way to the smelter. It reminded her of home, of safety measured by familiar frames and fields pressed against yours, even when those frames and fields were jagged edged and broken. Especially then, because broken meant still alive, and alive meant repairs were still possible.
Shadow pressed her helm against Ironhide's and carefully did not think about things which couldn't be fixed because they had never existed in the first place.
"I missed you," she said instead, the words trembling around the edges. "I'm sorry I wasn't here when you needed me."
Ironhide leaned against her, field soaking in the simple reassurance of hers, faceplates pressed against living metal that thrummed a stabilizing note even when he offlined his optics. "Missed yeh too," he rasped quietly. Shifting up, he pressed a kiss to her helm. "Yeh were where yeh needed t' be, Shadow, no fault there. Ah'm just glad yer here now."
He leaned his helm back against hers, letting his systems relax slightly in the uncomplicated warmth between them. His own field reached back to her where words failed, woven into an echo without form, love-belonging-trust without reciprocal demand. "Sorry Ah couldn't come get yeh like Ah said Ah would."
"It's okay. I didn't expect you to." It had been a promise meant to comfort, reassurance for her to hang onto when she needed it, and if Shadow had given it the weight of a promise between cohort, that had been lost at some point in the weeks between the DMZ and now. Now...now things were different, but not so different that the warmth of Ironhide's field wrapping around her couldn't ease the cold knot of escape, of probabilities and contingency plans, enough for her to push a hint of teasing into field and voice. "I'd have just outrun you anyway."
She would have. For a while, at least, though not with the same desperation she'd felt to escape Prime. Because she had needed to run, but in the end, no matter what Ironhide thought, running had not taken her where she needed to be.
She wasn't sure that place existed any more.
Curled together like this, Shadow could almost convince herself - yet again and despite all the evidence - that this was that place, cohort and safety and home. Almost; the ghosts of what had happened still stood between them, keeping check on what slipped into her field, so that the rippling pain of loss never manifested, nor the doubt that she would be staying. Cohort needed to see where the cracks were so they could be repaired, but she wasn't cohort and she wasn't here to have her own damage patched; she was here because Ironhide needed...not her, but someone to help him hold himself together.
"I'm here now," she assured him, firewalling her own doubts and hurts until there was nothing but love in her field. "And right now, this is where I need to be."
He could feel the edges on her - whisper ghosts of things that weren't being said, but the rest of her frame said that now wasn't the time and Ironhide wasn't sure of how hard to press and not trigger something worse. It was enough to have the initial knot mostly dissolved, to have her there, where actions could speak louder and with more truth than words.
Even still... "Ah would've. Even if yeh ran, no matter how far - Ah would've come for yeh if Ah could've."
His own failure in that gnawed at him, more personal and spark-felt than the code ripping failure of his oath to the Prime. Ironhide pressed his face against the edge of her shoulder armor, letting the press of plate and field echo dimly the sheer need to just have this be reality - cohort, safety, the need for rest and someone else to stand guard as he hacked through his own code and rode out the sucking drain of the dissolution. It wavered in his field, beyond what he could control, any more than he could control the tremors that were sunk into his struts. Love, it whispered. Need-safety-together-cohort.
"Glad yer here," he told her quietly. "Missed yeh."
Shadow turned his words over, filtering them for deception and finding none. "I know you would have," she said after a long moment. "I know. You couldn't; that's not your fault. I don't blame you for that."
It wrenched open an ache of possibilities, might-have-beens that would have left them both less shattered than they were, and she hugged him more tightly against her. She couldn't promise to stay, but she couldn't leave him like this, either; the need in his field - weary and hurting, edging on desperate - was too familiar, calling up a silent, spark-deep insistence that this was where she belonged, in defiance of reason and and the sting of betrayal.
"I'm glad I'm here, too." She rested her cheek against his helm, pulsing love and reassurance at him, the complex yours/mine reciprocals inherent to her concept of cohort slipping like phantoms into her glyph choices. Safe, her field promised, wrapping comfort around him. Safe-protected/guarded-loved, and among her own cohort, that would have been enough. Ironhide, though... "Not going anywhere as long as you need me. I've got you, Hide; it's okay to rest."
Magic words, never quite right any more but as the feel of the field wrapping him was as close to what he needed as it ever got any more; the words became immaterial. Ironhide shuttered his optics, intakes cycling the heat scent of familiar metal, trying - without much success - to curl inwards and minimize the difference of their frames. There was safety there, between her field and the wall, a hollowed out space that offered rest with enough ease to make the resting worthwhile.
"Thank yeh." It wasn't just words. The words were secondary, reflexive, accompanying a thick layer of glyphs of gratitude that encompassed give and take, wordless promises of reciprocation, a single whole that stood stronger together and took care of its own. 'Cohort' was so inclusive as to be understood without saying, kin and whole and together - or if not whole, then more when together than apart.
Please don't go. The want to say it was there, but he held it back - there were limits, they were both hurt and ripped up, and now was not the time to ask that sort of thing. It was enough that she was there, that he could curl into the press of her frame and ride out the errors and the things that hurt while she stood guard. He radiated that gratitude into her plates, sparkfelt and deep, and held on.
It felt familiar, so familiar and right that it hurt if she let herself think about any of what had happened, any of the reasons those so-familiar glyphs of cohort and care were false. Shadow focused on Ironhide instead - the still-ragged sound of systems that were cycling down slowly, reluctantly; the need and hurt and relief in his field - and let herself relax into the familiarity, carefully not thinking about the events which had brought them here.
She couldn't pin and shelter him as he had done for her, as she would have done for one of her cohortmates; the difference in their frametypes was too great, even with Ironhide curling down into himself. She could offer the illusion of shelter, though, field flared wide around them both, helm pressed tight to his, one arm curled protectively over the vulnerable neck components his collar fairing didn't fully shield, the other hand braced wide against heavy shoulder armor to give an impression of mass she didn't have. It wouldn't hold if he didn't want it to, not when he could bodily remove her, but they could, in the absence of better options, make do.
"Let go," she said quietly, the words not quite an order. Her field pulsed love and safety at him, I'm here a steady foundation beneath the rest of it, reassurance and promise in one. It was surprisingly easy, too easy, to turn off memory and fall into the familiar pattern of strength shared willingly, broken and disparate pieces which nonetheless belonged together, meshing into a kind of wholeness that would keep them steady until they healed. Here, her field promised, resonating softly with that sense of belonging. Rest-heal. Safe-united-guarded. Here. "I'm right here, I'm not leaving; it's safe. Let go and rest."
His vocalizer was silent but the electric flicker of Ironhide's field keened softly, an EM fission that was equal parts pain and relief. Let go. Stand down. There had been a time he had known what that meant, could have done it easily, the feel as familiar to him as his own sparkpulse, as the press of his cohortmates shielding him when his own shields were down - but that had been a different life, a different function, a cohort he had been sparked to and them to him, and the times he had done it since were so few and far between that he had forgotten the feel of it. He could paw at it, scrabbling uselessly at elusive controls in his own circuits, but the disengaging of his protocols felt so alien as to register as a threat, an injury to constantly alert sensors and endlessly aware frontline sequences.
Ironhide wrapped an arm around Shadow, drawing her as close to his own frame as he could, and managed, after long moments and a conflicted surge through his field, expressed in a pained huff through his vents, to disengage the most far reaching of his protocols. It drew him back into the sphere of the room, their frames, the berth they were on, his range shrinking and twitching alert protocols trying to shriek that his sensors were compromised. He kept his optics shuttered, shunted the errors aside, and forced himself to focus on the femme beside him - Cohort, no matter what the words they used. Safe, trusted. On guard.
It took several repetitions of the last into his processor to convince the errors to subside. Ironhide coaxed tension filled hydraulics into easing, one at a time, and leaned more heavily into Shadow's frame. "Trust yeh," he told her plates, field reaching to tentatively slot into place against hers, letting her envelop him with a sense that was more than just the mismatched extent of their frames.