Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

When he first woke up, he knew nothing. The room he was in was empty, and dark, aside from a few colored lights. Some of them were blinking, and others remained steady, bright holes in the blackness, like the point of a laser target. He did not turn to look at them, although he felt he should.

He did not move at all, in fact. He saw the low, gridded ceiling above him, and the little winking eyes in the dark, and that was enough. There was a myriad of little electronic noises too, piercing the air in their own steady rhythm of pings and blips and beeps. He wanted to be curious about them, but he wasn’t.

It was as though he were not really here at all. A dream, perhaps. He felt nothing. There was no sense of space or horizon. He could not feel what he was suspended by, if anything. There was no world outside the grid, the lights, the beeping.

Then there was. The door to the room opened, on his right, bright, clinical lighting spilling into the room in a flood, sweeping several nurses and a medic in with it. When the beam fell across his face his vision pixilated, and he did feel then: pain. He couldn’t bring himself to tell them, though. They crowded around him, clasping little data pads and bags of fluid to their chests. He could tell they were speaking, but it was so unbearably slow that even with careful concentration he could not make out the meaning of the sounds they made. They reached over him, and under him, but he couldn’t discern if they were touching him or not.

Another group of people pushed their way in between the nurses, firm and assertive, bending down to look at him directly. They also had data pads, but a larger brand, the kind used by tacticians and scientists. He managed to swivel his optics, for the first time since he had opened them, to return their stares. They spoke to him then to each other, then to him again. He watched their mouths move and wondered if he knew them.

When he tried to remember, a sharp pain bit into his processor, sharper than the pain the light from the hall had brought, and the room began to shake violently. All the nurses began to panic, but they reached for him and not each other, which he thought was a stupid thing to do because there was no way he could save them from the tremors. Even as they did this, though, the quaking became more subdued, and the more of them pressed their hands against where he assumed his body was, the steadier things became.

He looked back at the two who had come in late and was disturbed to find that the room was getting dark again. A deep, black fog crept into the corners of his vision, closing in fast until he could hardly see them anymore. A sudden urgency rose inside him, what little concept of which he currently had. They needed to know something. He needed to tell them. The world was ending and he was the only one who could stop it.

He couldn’t see where they were anymore, though. He turned his head from side to side, looking, but they were nowhere, there was nothing. The desire was so strong he felt he might burst into flame at any second, or freeze solid, something painful and improbable and worthy of the end of times.

None of that came to be. Instead, Blurr fell back into stasis.

 When he next awoke, he knew everything. The room was the same, but a window had been opened by the foot of the berth, illuminating the medical terminals hooked up to his body. There was a medic in the room, sitting in a small fold out chair in the corner, idly sipping from a cube while reading.

All of this he determined within the same moment his optics came online, and in the next moment he was up, ripping the plugs from his medical ports and swinging his legs off the berth. He had to get to Ultra Magnus. There was a spy. A spy who had tried to kill him. A spy who would eventually kill everyone. Everything would be over if he didn’t get out of here and into the Magnus’s office immediately and he didn’t have time for the medic’s surprise, for answering his questions.

The moment his feet hit the floor, everything burst into motion. Colors swam across the walls and equipment, which mutated and deformed before his optics, as if made of molten alloy. Pain exploded from his point of contact with the ground and shot up through his circuits like a flash blaze, and he doubled over at the force of it. Then kept doubling over, again and again, rolling forward through the swirling hell of light and sound.

Hands were on him. The medic, someone else. He wanted them to get off him because wherever they touched burned even worse, and he tried to tell them so but when he opened his mouth he purged his tanks. The two did not stop, even then, pressing harder against him and he wanted to scream but couldn’t, which only made him panic more and he retched again.

He felt them move him but couldn’t tell where, everything was spinning. Raising his hands up above his body he tried to grab at one of them, because even through all this he still had to relay his message, had to tell someone the truth, but before he could manage to get hold of them something stabbed into the back of his neck, lancing another streak of agony up his spinal column. Cybertron itself rocked, and then went dark.

“I know how hard this must be for you to hear.”

First Aid rested a hand gently on Blurr’s arm, as if to console him. It hurt, a lot, but Blurr did not show it. The medic was trying his best.

“It wasn’t our first choice to keep you here like this, but we know someone with your…” he struggled for an inoffensive choice of words, “you particularities is probably better off this way, for the time being.”

Blurr started at him dully. The hand began to rub nervous circles, probably unintentionally, and he winced. First Aid did notice then, and drew back quickly, fretting.

“Your motor relays can easily be reactivated though, don’t worry. As soon as you’ve integrated enough with this body to keep it from being…unsettled, when you move it, we will turn them back on.”

Turning his head slowly, painfully, Blurr observed the window. It was still open. He could hear the vague noise of traffic below, but no voices. There was loud, garbled music at various points in the cycle, seemingly permeating the entire city below. Judging by the distance of the sound, Blurr estimated they were at least three vuns up. There were not many buildings like that in Iacon. They were in Fortress Maximus.

First Aid was still speaking. His voice had a smooth, melodic quality that was at odds with how awkwardly he fit together his sentences. Unwilling to go through the trial of turning his head back to face him, Blurr simply listened.

“While your programming was badly damaged, the transplant was a complete success. These things simply take time to heal.” There was a practiced peacefulness about him that had the exact opposite effect it was intended to on Blurr. He recognized its falsity. Recent developments had led him to be more sensitive to secrecy than most and the idea that while he was here, like this, he was being lied to was certainly not a pleasant one.

“Your vocalizer will reactivate once the programming has fully developed and synched, and you and then we will be able to open a cleaner route of communication.”

Blurr did not respond, optics on the window. The music was playing outside again. It was repetitive and patriotic sounding. People were cheering.

“You don’t have to worry about a thing, agent.” First Aid clasped his hands in front of his chest as he stood; a reserved gesture intended to hide his discomfort.

“We’ll take care of you.”

There were nurses attending him round the clock. They didn’t do much, really, just sat in the corner staring into their data pads, bored. They tell him it’s to monitor his life signs, spark patterns, etcetera, because integration is a hard process and things easily go wrong. Blurr, still unable to move more than his neck and head, suspected there was something more to it. They do not trust him to be alone, but he cannot fathom why.

The nurse who is currently with him gets up abruptly and walks into the hall. This happens every once in a while, so Blurr is not suspicious. However, he does not come back in immediately afterward. Instead, Longarm Prime walks through the door.

His reaction is as violent as someone with no voice and nobody can have, disbelieving, horrified. His mouth opens and closes rapidly, and Longarm can hear his teeth click against each other. Blurr tries to lift his head, straining to find the nurse, call them back in, but the door is closed. Longarm pulls the chair over from the corner and situates himself at Blurr’s berth side, solemn, calm.

Already worn out Blurr stops and simply stares, optics as wide as they can be. He feels the pain of his fresh face as the expression twists it but is unable to retain composure. Longarm folds his hands in his lap. His eyes are weary and sad, but he smiles a little anyways.

“Agent Blurr.”

The monster made no attempt to hide his real voice. They are alone, and it is quiet, but it shocks Blurr anyways. He tugs his head back to stare, open mouthed, at the red disc on his former boss’s forehead, the movement jagged and violent, as if he could pull away from his useless body and escape that way.

“I imagine you have already grasped the gravity of what my visiting you means.”

Blurr didn’t know if he had or not. He had believed before that his perception of reality was the correct one, but Longarm had already once disproved that. He didn’t trust him not to again. Longarm did not break his gaze away for one moment, optics flickering up and down the length of Blurr’s body. He had not actually been shown it yet, and could barely lift his head to look himself, but if it were anything like the soft, fresh planes of his shoulder piles, it was probably very queer to observe. His armor wasn’t solidly formed, reflexes nixed. Totally vulnerable.

“I was…” Longarm paused, tongue barely visible, pressing against his dental grill as he tried to force the word out.

“…pleased. To hear that you had survived.”

It was unusual to hear Longarm speak so haltingly. Everything he had said before had been calculated, planned out, and now he was grasping for loose wires. Another scheme, surely. Blurr could not keep the anger from flooding his optics, mouth finally closing to form an ugly grimace. Longarm saw, his smile drooping.

“I know it sounds contrived, but it is fact.” He shifted to grasp at Blurr’s hand, and his touch was gentler than the medic’s.

“I have no further reason to lie to you. It would be so easy for me to end you right now, you know.” Their optics simultaneously traveled to the mass of cords hooked up to Blurr’s medical input and then back.

“But I will not. I want you to listen to what I have to say.”

Blurr could feel those thick servos, so much colder than he remembered, tighten slightly around his palm. He wanted to rip his arm away, sick with the knowledge he could not. Longarm brought his second hand up to cup Blurr’s tiny digits, pulling them to his chest as he leaned in. His face was honest and open and Blurr hated it with all the passion his spark contained.

How dare you. How dare you come here now.

“Megatron is dead,” said Longarm, emotionless. “Lugnut is captured. Starscream is dead. Strika and her troops are disbanded.” Not putting Blurr’s hand down, he righted himself.

“The Decepticons lost. It is over.”

He didn’t want to hear any more. It was too much, too soon. He wondered why the nurse hadn’t come back inside. He wondered why Longarm, Shockwave, the monster, tormented him still. His vision began to glitch. His tanks swam. The walls were closing in again and this time he could not even run. Somewhere through the haze, he watched Longarm’s lips pull down at the corners.

“I see you are unprepared for this.”

Blurr opened his mouth and gasped, desperate to relieve some of the tension in his throat, which felt crowded and hot. Longarm’s fingers were still wrapped around his own, cold, cold, cold.

“We can discuss this later. I will get the nurse.”

He leaned down and pressed a kiss to Blurr’s limp knuckles, watching him. Blurr shook, condensation beginning to form on his plating. Placing his hand neatly back in the position he’d dragged it from, Longarm stood, appraised him, and left the room. Blurr thrashed his head from side to side, confused and hurt. Why had this been allowed to happen? Why would no one save him?

The nurse came back in, considerably faster than he’d left. Running over to the berth, he immediately began typing code into one of the terminals, to sedate him. Trying to mouth the words, Blurr silently called over to the nurse, desperate. Longarm was standing in the doorway, arms at his sides. He looked concerned.

Blurr purged on his own chest.

“His tanks are still too new to withstand this kind of turmoil. If he continues purging at this rate, he will tear a hole in the lining and spill high power solvents into his mid-torso cavity.” Perceptor was being blunter than First Aid would have liked. Blurr was right there, after all.

“He isn’t purging because of preexisting damage or, or what we’re feeding him! He gets worked up. There’s nothing we can do to stop him from being scared.”

Perceptor eyed him dully, as if he were looking at a particularly bland table.

“That is true. At this stage in the integration, it could cause irreparable harm to his brain module if we attempt to suppress emotional discharge.” His frown deepened in thought.

Blurr shuttered his optics and listened. He was so, so tired. Recharge never seemed to yield release, and it did not come easy. The only reason he even knew the difference between off cycles was that they would close the window, the sole source of light in the room aside from the indicators and monitors on his equipment.

“He needs stimulation. Perhaps we can get him a vid screen in here? Monitored channels only, of course.” First Aid covered his mask with a hand as he spoke the last part, leaning away as though Blurr wouldn’t hear him. It was insulting, but hardly the biggest concern of the moment.

He burned with the need to tell them. Since Longarm’s visit, the desperation had increased tenfold. No one had told him anything of the political climate, of what had become of the Earth mission, how long it had been since he had been offline. With his new frame, his chronometer had been reset. Checking it only drove him to distraction, the impossibly short time since its activation blinking proudly at him as if he were truly insane.

“That would be acceptable, but it would have to be very, very carefully done. Any mistakes could cause another reaction.”

“I know.”

They both stood over him, looking at each other. He could see the filaments in First Aid’s optical visor shift to glance at him from time to time, but Perceptor may as well have been in the room alone. It was awful, because Perceptor was so smart and Blurr just knew if he would look, if he would just try to understand what he was telling them, Perceptor would figure it out. He could still save everybody. But he wouldn’t.

First Aid wrung his hands.

“Our grief counselor is on vacation…”

He sounded so forlorn that is was almost comical. Blurr didn’t need a grief counselor. They were doing everything wrong. It was painful to watch like this, so close to having completed his task. His spark began to whirl faster, and an alarm sounded on one of the monitors.

“Oh…” said First Aid, turning to him. He craned his neck towards Perceptor, hoping, begging for him to look. He could tell him. He could fix this.

Perceptor turned and left the room.

Longarm came to visit again. Blurr had been mentally preparing himself for this moment, but when it actually came all the time he’d spent dredging up courage was rendered useless. He could not do it.

Again, Longarm came in alone. Again he pulled the chair over and sat. They stared at one another. Blurr quaked. Longarm sighed in that voice that wasn’t his.

“Oh, Blurr,” he said, crossing his legs smoothly. Blurr opened his mouth, then closed it.

“I am incapable of feeling regret.” He stared down at him, expression hard.

“I believe I acted appropriately for the situation at hand. Had I not destroyed you then, everything I had worked for and, consequently, my kind relied upon would have been pointless. Vorns of collected data, of work. My solitude here.” He cocked his head to the side. “Surely, you can understand that?”

Was he looking for forgiveness? Now, here, in this dead white room, while Blurr was unable to move or breathe or think without pain? His face must have made his disbelief clear because Longarm’s expression fell away to nothing.

“No,” he said, “I am not making an excuse. As I said, I do not regret. I do not need an excuse. However I feel I must make clear to you why it had to be done.” He leaned over Blurr’s berth in a sudden, sharp movement, arm extending to plant itself firmly on his other side. Blurr was caged beneath him, thrown into his shadow. His optics had to reset. He shook his head from side to side, looking for an escape route.

“It is imperative you understand, Blurr. I had no prior designs to damage you.” The red orb lit up, dimly, but enough to spur total recognition in Blurr. His ventilations stuttered and stalled, and he coughed raggedly. He was trapped, he was trapped, he was trapped…

Longarm pulled back.

“I know you do not want to hear this from me, after what I did to you, but I must speak.” Everything was spiraling out of control. “In our short time together, Blurr, I must admit I developed an affection for you.” The room whirled and Blurr gasped as the movement knocked the wind out of him. An alarm went off, then another. The nurse ran back in.

Standing up and backing away, Longarm clasped his hands together in exaggerated concern. Even as his body tripped into another spasm, Blurr kept his optics on him, wide and tight in his new face, so, so angry.

No one told him anything. This was not to say he was never spoken to, but when he was it was simply soothing words, as though his vocalizer wasn’t the only part of his head that was damaged. He wanted to know how long he had been gone. He wanted to know what had become of the Earth team, of Megatron, if anything. He wanted to know why Ultra Magnus had not sent an agent down to visit him personally with words of recompense for his heroic sacrifice and suchlike, a customary procedure. It was odd to have to wait this long. Perhaps he had been overlooked.

It would not surprise him.

He wondered if it was because something bad had happened. Of course the nurses seemed happy, because peace and platitude was their job. First Aid had told him they were going to try and keep him away from stress, that that was why he had his free movement temporarily taken away. Considering the implications made him panicky, and he had to work very hard to suppress it, lest he go into another fit.

That would, after all, only serve in prolonging his sentence.

Still, he wanted to know. The waiting, the theorizing; it was making him insane. He wanted to know if what Longarm had told him was the truth. He wanted to speak, to ask the medic first hand.

Infuriatingly, he was denied. After a while, a darker question began to form in his mind, one that he tried to ignore, because, surely, they were not keeping things from him intentionally. Surely they had nothing to hide. They were good, loyal Autobots after all.

They had wheeled in a vid screen, a very old model that had been in storage since before Blurr was protoformed. Still, it worked, and as it was the Med Unit’s property there was no need to put out any extra expenses on it. First Aid brought in a series of data files and asked Blurr to nod if liked one, if he wanted anything in particular. They were all very tame options, older films, frivolity.

Blurr wanted to feel indignant, but he was so glad to have a distraction he couldn’t find it in himself. He would watch any of them, all of them. So he did.

The nurses still attended his berth side constantly, but they rarely paid attention to the screen with him. Some of them were films he had seen before, and he would experience the odd, somewhat painful sensation of a memory file being fully restored, flooding him with images of quiet nights in his flat, or group trips with his speech therapy group. Phantom sensations of threading his fingers between his first partners’, Velocitronian dirt caking their boots. He yearned to speak.

There were so many little connections that still needed to be sparked inside his brain. He knew who he was, he remembered why he was here, but the little details still needed to settle. Each time another one slid into place, he was caught, for a moment, reliving it, sometimes to pleasant effect and sometimes not. Many of them were mundane at best; making a meal, a password for his office computer, the way he had to pound the enter key four times on the code strip for his apartment’s door lock.

Others were too good, precious moments of freedom that left him fiending. He would find himself caught up in a recollection, running out across the open highways, driving somewhere, free, and wake up aching at the stillness. Though he could not voluntarily control it, his body would spasm and shudder from time to time. The nurses were at a loss, unable to drain the excess energy without risking damage to his new form.

He did not recharge. First Aid recognized this early on and would periodically come in to induce stasis, keeping his defragmentation process running at a semi-normal rate. When Blurr awoke, he was disoriented and frightened, the walls looking too close and the ceiling too low. He would have begged First Aid to leave him be.

In an uncomfortable attempt at compassion, a large portion of the movies First Aid brought were his own favorites. It was mostly action films, though he took care to leave out the particularly violent ones. They were low grade, incomprehensible power-fantasy drivel. Blurr was surprised by this, and a little disappointed. Many of them included a lot of racing, which left him uncomfortable and dissatisfied. He preferred the documentaries. They were, at the very least, distracting.

 Longarm came to visit while one such film was playing. They had dragged in a chair from another room to keep permanently beside Blurr’s berth, likely at his request. He sat, greeting Blurr. Very dull, very pleasant. Blurr bristled, kept his optics on the vid screen.

Instead of this prompting Longarm to leave, he simply turned in his seat to watch alongside him. As if he should enjoy his company. As if this were normal.

After a few kliks, Longarm leaned in close.

“Is this really the kind of thing you choose to occupy your time?”

Blurr did not look at him. He would not.

“I think you and I both know better than that.” Longarm stretched out and switched off the film.

The nurse had left the room. They always did, when Longarm came. Blurr wished they wouldn’t. He wondered what Longarm had told them to make them do so.  

To spite him, he continued to deny Longarm his gaze, staring instead at the now blank screen as if this little act of defiance would mean something. Seeming content with that, Longarm pulled out a data pad of his own, pulling up some files and beginning to type. It was deskwork, Prime things. Blurr watching his fingers move out of the corner of his vision.

He did not know how long they remained this way, but it must have been a long time because the lights from outside began switching to off-cycle dimness. The music from before began to play, and Longarm paused, expression darkening, until it ended. The angle began to hurt Blurr’s neck, and he let his helm fall back against the berth until all he could see was the grid of the ceiling. He was disturbed by little flashes of memories, Longarm and himself sitting together like this, in peace, during their lunch breaks. Of course, Blurr usually carried the conversation then.

He was angry that the monster continued to hide, continued reminding him of those feelings. He wanted Shockwave to show himself, dispel any illusions that things could be the same again. He wanted the sickness to return full force, as it had when he’d first been visited by his boss, to remind him of why he was here. He wished he would just kill him.

 After a point Longarm stood again, packing away his work.

“I don’t suppose you’d like me to turn the film back on?”

Relenting to his weakness, Blurr rolled his head to the side and looked at him. Longarm took his hand between his own, as he always did, bringing it to his chest as if to show he was truly earnest.

“I will be back tomorrow. I hope to find you in better spirits then.”

The nurse did not return immediately after he left, and for a few kliks Blurr was alone in the darkness.

Blurr was not raised on Cybertron, and as a consequence all the stories he knew of the Third Great War were retold by older bots who didn’t have great memories or second hand tales spun by eager eyed cadets in his class. Their credibility was dubious, if one bothered to give them the benefit of a doubt, but they managed to entertain and they were completely different from the dull lore of Velocitron.

He had not heard much about Shockwave, before his profile became mandatory reading, after his induction into the Intel Agency. Even then, there was little information. Young bots hadn’t heard of him and old bots didn’t want to talk about him. There was, however, one story Blurr had been told that had stuck with him through the stellar cycles, partially because it involved the mysterious shape shifter and partially because the tale itself was such a novelty.

At some point during the war Shockwave had been captured after a poorly constructed bomb laid by an underling had gone off with him in the vicinity, damaging him badly. The crew who brought him in was small, their ship not much more than a scrap heap with an engine, but they managed to construct a field container in the back room to keep him in. They took no other prisoners.

They decided that, even in his sorry state, Shockwave was too dangerous of a prisoner to leave at any time, so they had chosen to leave one guard back with him at all times, switching out periodically throughout the cycle. All this was relayed to the command hub of a larger Elite Guard ship passing in a nearby galaxy, who they intended to leave the prisoner with and go on their way.

The ship arrived on time, a little over a deca-cycle after their transmission had been sent, but when the Guard hailed them they received no response. Boarding the ship they were shocked to find every crew member dead and Shockwave missing. It would have been a straightforward case had it not been for the nature of their fatal wounds, which all seemed very small and controlled. It was unlikely that Shockwave could have off lined so many trained warriors this easily in his condition.

Luckily, the ship had internal surveillance. It was visual only, and even then the quality was not the finest, but it was wholly intact and that was all they could ask for at this point in time. They watched the crew drag the unconscious body of Shockwave into the containment cell and decide who would guard him first. After a while he seemed to awaken, pushing himself up with his remaining arm and observing the room. Then he leaned forward and spoke to the first guard. They would not make out his words without any lips to read, and the only clue they had that he was even talking was the reactions of the other bot.

She did not like whatever he said, rapping the field with her blaster angrily. He leaned back and appeared to bother her no more. However, when the post changed, he spoke again to the new guard, who experienced a similar reaction. And the next one, and the one after him. He did not stop attempting to communicate, even after the cycle had run through itself and he was back to the first bot. Eventually they stopped responding with anger, seemingly ignoring him. Still, he tried.

The crew became listless. They did not speak to each other. Their duties in maintaining the ship were performed as if by drones.

Then, when the time stamp in the corner of the video reached less than two cycles from when they’d arrived, the members of the crew broke off from one another, secluding themselves just the way they’d been found, and, one by one, they began to take themselves offline. The Guard members were horrified. The act seemed to come out of nowhere. All of these bots were known within the ranks. They had friends. They were well adjusted.    

Shockwave pushed through the field barrier as if it weren’t even there, walked up to the emergency exit bay, slipped inside an escape pod, and left. 000

Despite his working chronometer, the cycles blended together. First Aid began to forget which films he had already shown, and would sometimes replay them, occasionally more than once. Blurr began to hate them, hot with anger every time the medic would enter the room. He had not had a fit in a lunar cycle, did not feel the crawl of sickness when he was touched. He wanted to move again, burned with the need.

Perceptor came back, once. He said nothing to Blurr, hardly looked at him. He was talking readings from the monitors though, plugging a data slug into the terminals one by one, silent and efficient. Blurr watched him work and wondered if he would have been the best person to inform of Longarm’s true nature. There was no compassion in him. What would he have done with the information?

When he had finished, he finally did acknowledge the patient, looking at him with a small nod.

“Your integration seems to be progressing at the expected rate. Your physician will have the test results by next cycle.” And then he left.

Blurr did not pretend to know all the intricacies of the body, certainly not what exactly went on after a full spark transplant. He had been here longer than he had expected though. His glitch generally ensured that all the processes of his frame were accelerated, healing included. If this was truly a quick recovery, he found the concept of supposed normal length of the process mindboggling.

Oddly enough, Wheeljack visited him next, about three cycles later, very early, before the lights had gone to full brightness and his window had not yet been opened. He was, of course, still fully online, staring up into space. Perhaps at another time it would have been nice to have the distraction, but Wheeljack had always made Blurr nervous. He had been caught in a couple of accidental explosions caused by the scientist before, when visiting Perceptor for various reasons. Of course, he’d never been seriously damaged, but there was something else, something darker about the scientist that he didn’t trust.

Wheeljack pulled over Longarm’s chair, flipped it around so the back faced the berth, and sat, open legged, looking down at him.

“Hey kid. How ya’ feelin’?”

Blurr glanced down at his body, then back to his visitor. He made a face. Wheeljack laughed.

“Yeah, I know.” Rubbing his muzzle with his index servo and thumb, he surveyed the prone form.

“Armor came out very nice. Should be fully settled soon.” He reached out and ran a hand down Blurr’s waist experimentally. Though the touch was scientific, it made Blurr heavily uncomfortable and he looked away.

“Mm…” pausing in a few places, Wheeljack would prod and squeeze, testing the mechanics underneath with short bursts of electrical resonance from his fingertips. Despite seeming to sense Blurr’s discomfort, he did not stop.

“Sorry to get a little handsy, but I like doing things with my own two mitts, ya’ know? Just makin’ sure the scans were right.” Blurr did not see how this would be more effective, if it were effective at all. There was nothing he could do about it though, so he looked back up at the grid above. Some of the work lights outside were finally beginning to activate, illuminating the room in a pink glow. How soft everything looked.

Wheeljack pinched his upper thigh. Normally it would have been an annoyance at best, but so much inert energy had built up since his stay here that two things happened simultaneously. Involuntarily, his legs spasmed, kicking out and nearly clocking Wheeljack in the face as a bolt of electricity shot up through his core, and Blurr threw his head back, gasping, because a deep pocket of pain receptors, long-offline, burst to life.

Pulling away, Wheeljack waited out the twitches. Two of the machines hooked into his lower torso went off, but he reached over and silenced them.

“That’ll happen, from time to time,” he said, unapologetic, “it just means things are working right.” 

Blurr wanted him to leave.

The nurse walked in.

“What’s going on?” he had been drawn by the alarms. Wheeljack stood, explaining. Blurr stared up, not listening, phantom stabs of pain lingering in his legs.

“Not today,” the nurse was saying. He nodded towards the window, mouth a light line, optics flickering between Wheeljack and the berth. Some unspoken signal seemed to pass between them. Wheeljack consented, jotting something down on a notepad and handing it over.

“I’ll come back tomorrow, I guess.”

Blurr prayed he would not.

There had been a time when Blurr had loved Longarm with all his being.

He was already an agent when Longarm joined the Intelligence Agency, had been for nearly a thousand stellar cycles. It seemed odd someone so soft and disarming would want to be involved with the Guard at all, even in an area that had little to do with combat. Blurr assumed that perhaps he hoped to move, as Cliffjumper had, into a secretarial position. It paid well, and gave him certain social standing, without any of the field work.

This did not end up being the case. While Blurr had initially given the bot no mind, Longarm’s motivation and skill drew much attention to him in the department. Within four stellar cycles, he had reached Blurr’s level and within the fifth he was moving his things into desk down the same hall. Trading data files instead of going to the vault to look them up was not an uncommon practice in the office, and once or twice their paths crossed that way. Longarm had been obliging, made an effort, albeit a stiff one, to ask if he was well. Blurr had found him rather handsome and was a bit embarrassed by the stream of words that spilled forth from his mouth at even the slightest prompting. But Longarm smiled, nodding as if he understood.

Twelve more stellar cycles passed, and Longarm was promoted again and moved out from his cubicle. Blurr would occasionally be startled to see someone else at his desk, and then chide himself for it. This was around the same time that he began to receive longer away missions, further and further out into the nexus of space. He began to lose track of his few friendly acquaintances. He was forced to quit his speech therapy group, due to excessive absence.

Seventeen stellar cycles after they had first met, Longarm approached him in the cafeteria and asked if he could join him. Blurr had recently returned from an incredibly unpleasant trip to Io, some damned corner of the galaxy that had several reports of potential Decepticon activity. It had, of course, been a dud. There was nothing there but rocks and dirt and a terrible little race of mechanical beasts whose defense mechanism included kamikaze tactics. He was feeling decidedly worse for wear and had just wanted to lunch in peace.

He hadn’t seen Longarm in what seemed like ages, though, and the fact that he’d even been remembered was touching. So he accepted.

He did not regret it.

Their conversations were awkward and halting at first, because Longarm had very little to say and Blurr had everything in the world on the tip of his tongue. Blurr always felt he was talking over Longarm, and he would cut himself the moment the other bot opened his mouth, even though half the time it was simply to take a sip from his cube. For the first time in a long time, he felt ugly and overbearing, and it showed. It did not deter Longarm, though. He took his time with Blurr; encouraging nods, asking related questions. He understood, and that was the best feeling for Blurr. He developed a crush.

They found their break periods often coincided, and made it a ritual to meet up whenever possible. Though one or the other would sometimes be forced to bring their work with them, it never kept them from at the very least spending time together. Blurr talked about everything but himself, and Longarm gave away very little to begin with. They hardly knew each other.

They were accustomed to each other, though. A tentative trust, solidarity. Blurr’s crush evolved.

When Longarm became a Prime and subsequently Blurr’s boss, they celebrated together. It was the first time they had ever seen one another outside of the workplace, and in the beginning their interactions were fresh and raw again, the new setting putting them both on edge. They had decided on a diner near the Metroplex, nothing personal or fancy, but neutral ground. Blurr was not capable of overcharging without trying very, very hard, but he was surprised to find that Longarm allowed himself to become somewhat tipsy. If anything, it only served to stir up Blurr’s nerves even more, because Longarm kept touching the back of his hand and arm lightly, thanking him for coming out tonight, promising he would get the new chair Blurr had been wanting for his desk ever since he had broken the old one by sitting down too quickly and sliding it into the wall.

Then he had offered to escort Blurr home, which opened a whole new bundle of potential embarrassments. If they drove, Blurr would go too fast, but if they walked Longarm would tire quickly. Blurr’s neighborhood would look too cheap to Longarm, or maybe they would run into his neighbor who was always a little lewd and crude and Longarm would make unfortunate assumptions, or maybe Blurr would just screw things up himself, like always, and say too much or too little and push Longarm away.

None of that happened. Blurr talked the perfect amount for Longarm, who was not underwhelmed by Blurr’s neighborhood in the slightest, and they passed down his hallway unmolested.

This is not a date, thought Blurr, as he invited Longarm in for a nightcap. This is not a date, he repeated, as he elected to sit on the same sofa as Longarm and not the one opposite the seldom used floor table. I’m not going to mess this up, he thought, bringing a hand to Longarm’s shoulder, to his chest, leaning in with hooded optics, pressing their lips together in a slow kiss.

Longarm did not kiss back. When he pulled away, Longarm was staring at him with the saddest eyes he had ever seen.

Oh, thought Blurr, I did screw it up.

“Blurr,” said Longarm, slowly, then, “Agent Blurr.”

Blurr pushed himself back across the couch as though Longarm had slapped him.

“Oh Primus oh Primus I am so sorry Longarm I mean I am really really really sorry I don’t know what I was thinking I mean I was just, I wasn’t, I wasn’t thinking I am so, so sorry Longarm I won’t do it again I mean, oh, Primus, oh…” Longarm reached for his hand but he pulled away, standing up and covering his face.

“I messed up. I messed up, I messed up, I messed up.”

“You know that we can’t.” Longarm’s voice was imploring, low as tight, as if he were restraining himself.

“I’m your boss now. I was your superior before.”

Blurr turned back to him, face a mess of anguish.

“Please don’t say that. Don’t say it’s just because of that. Don’t lie to me, don’t lie to me, don’t lie to me, please.”

“I’m not lying.” Longarm’s brow knit. He looked at the couch.

“Oh!” cried Blurr, throwing his arms down and looking up, laughing at his own idiocy. “I’ve ruined everything.”

Faster than Blurr had ever seen him move, Longarm stood up and grabbed him by the wrists. It hurt, shocking Blurr out of his self-deprecation. Longarm was shorter than him, but in this moment he felt as though he filled the entire room. He looked straight into Blurr’s optics, mouth a hard line. There was something else there, behind his gaze, searching. Blurr stared, open mouthed.

“Blurr,” he said, and his voice sounded so low, so foreign, “we can’t. No matter how much I want you, we can’t.” his hold on Blurr’s wrists tightened until the metal creaked. “Even if we did not work together. It cannot be.”

The pressure finally became too much, and Blurr squeaked in pain. Longarm released him and he hunched over, rubbing his dented wrists. Longarm’s expression softened until all that was left of the intensity was sorrow.

“There are things about me that would keep us apart, Blurr. I will hurt you.”

Blurr looked up at him, clutching his hands to his breast.

“I don’t care.”

Longarm was genuinely surprised. His features shifted, then stuck, contemplative shock. For a brief moment, hope sprang eternal.

“You deserve more than that, Blurr.”

He let himself out.

People were talking out in the hall, which was novel enough on its own because Blurr rarely heard anyone but First Aid and the nurses outside, but was particularly queer now because it was about four hours after the down cycle had begun. They were excited. He couldn’t quite hear well enough to understand them, but he was able to differentiate the muffled tones from the usual hospital droning. They were getting closer, at least four pairs of footsteps distinguishable in the echoing noise.

“You know, I was against it in the beginning, but after the first few I realized it was…” this part was mumbled, he couldn’t make it out, “…can be very satisfying, you know?” The statement was met with various hums of agreement.

“I don’t see why we should feel bad anyways. They’d do the same to us in a spark turn.”

“Some bots are just soft in the laser core.”

“More like soft in the head. This is the only real option we have! The Magnus is right, if it didn’t work to do things the lenient way before, why would it work-”

“Excuse me!” that was First Aid, and he sounded angry. Blurr perked a bit.

“There are patients trying to recharge here!”

Some mumbling.

“We were coming to get you anyways,” said the first voice, a little quieter. They had moved to directly outside his door now. He could just make out the silhouettes of their feet beneath the frame, surrounded by the ugly pale light of the hallway.

“We’re pre-gaming before the show tomorrow. You wanna come?” First Aid tutted.

“Isn’t it customary to have the party after the presentation, not before?”

Laughter, considerably less subdued. First Aid shushed them again, loud with annoyance.

“Come on, Red Alert and I have the late shift tomorrow. We can’t do it then. Besides, we know you aren’t actually on the clock now.”

“You need to get out more.” Lots of shuffling, clanging as people touched. First Aid let out an indignant squawk, apparently having been grabbed.

“Fine! Fine. Just get out of the hall!”

More laughter. The voices grew quiet with distance.

The music was playing more than usual, and louder. He could here muffled voices, amplified by some device, echoing over the buildings. The movie First Aid had put on today was chosen in a blind grab, the medic’s other hand rubbing his aching helm. Apparently he had gone with the group, and gotten rather slagged at that. The unfortunate consequence of this was that his choice was particularly vapid, and Blurr focused his attention on the static laden sounds outside, trying to make sense of them. He couldn’t.

Longarm let himself in and excused the nurse. Blurr did not look away from the window. When Longarm sat down, he followed Blurr’s gaze and frowned.

“They’ve been planning it for weeks. Yet they act as if we are so different.” Blurr turned to give him a sullenly questioning look. Longarm seemed surprised.

“They haven’t told you?” No response. Longarm correctly accepted that as an affirmative.

“Sentinel, that blithering idiot, is showboating the Autobot victory over the Decepticons again. Every lunar cycle or so, he brings out a new prisoner for the public’s amusement.” Blurr could not stop the question from crossing his face. Longarm’s optics were distant and grave.

“Would you like to see?” for reasons he did not care to fathom, Blurr nodded.

Longarm reached for him ever so carefully. His hands slid beneath Blurr’s waist until they linked at the back. He watched Blurr’s face for any sign of discomfort, but there was none. Blurr was reveling in the feel of metal against his own, and loathing it. Lifting him into a sitting position, Longarm managed to pull him up in a fireman’s lift, close to his chest. To his credit, Blurr had enough control to keep his head from leaning onto Longarm’s broad shoulder.

For the first time since he’d woken up, Blurr looked out onto the world. It was shining and beautiful, more so than he’d remembered, but something about it rang false. Far below, masses of people were crowded, all looking up at the multiple video monitors situated on the surrounding buildings. Blurr could not recall having seen them before. They must be new additions.

Now that he was closer, he could positively identify the warbling voice as Sentinel Prime’s, except he could also read the print on the view screen and was perplexed to find that his title read “Magnus”. Sensing Blurr’s confusion, Longarm shifted him in his arms, humming distastefully.

“Ultra Magnus was a casualty in the final confrontation. Sentinel took his place.”

Blurr was lost. No one had informed him of any of this. He had only been out of the picture for a short time, but it was as if Cybertron had gone through some dramatic change as he slept. It wasn’t too far from the truth.

The vid screen panned out to show a throng of Guards and a Decepticon, one of the Starscream clones. It was weighted with stasis cuffs, unnecessarily so, and wearing a silencer muzzle. Its chest had been forcibly opened, a wedge cutting in to the glass of its cockpit to hold it that way, exposing the pulsing mass of its spark. He was horrified by the barbarism, that this was being displayed on an open channel, in front of the public. Its face was hard, resigned. Longarm’s breath tickled Blurr’s crest.

“Do you know what they are going to do?”

Blurr shook his head, lips pursed. He had never seen anything like this before. Sentinel said something and the crowds erupted into cheers. From this close, they sounded crude and mean, as if the entire mob was swearing simultaneously. Fear, thick and black, began to rise in his throat. It was wrong, all wrong.

“Sentinel parades them out like beasts, to give a speech, to excite the masses. Then they will be publically executed.”

Blurr looked at him in abject terror, vents flaring. Longarm continued to stare out the window. Shockwave gazed down into Blurr’s optics. The crowd’s collective voice rose and fell behind him, a wave of sound and rage.

 “They love him for it. They accept what he is doing completely. It is to this fate that Lord Megatron fell.”

His arms were so cold. Shockwave’s optic glowed darkly.

The screen panned out, showing the smiling faces of the Autobot citizens, polished brands and raised fists. They screamed their approval. The Guards were raising their weapons, aiming it at the bot’s unprotected laser core. It shuddered, knowing, anticipating. Blurr felt his own quake along with it, trying to deny what he was seeing, that this was reality. Sentinel raised his arm, preparing to give the signal.

“What are you doing!” something slammed against the wall. Longarm turned to face First Aid, Blurr still clutched tight to his breast.

“Get him away from there! He can’t be exposed to that kind of thing; it’s too much for his systems right now!” 

“I-I’m sorry,” Longarm stammered, innocent, “he wanted to see.”

First Aid gripped his shoulder steering him to the berth and practically ripping Blurr from his grasp. His touch was far less gentle than Longarm’s had been, and though his armor had settled well, it hurt. Blurr gasped silently. The movie on the vid screen in his room was still running. The crowd cheered.

“How could you do something so reckless with him!” Longarm allowed himself to be backed into a corner, hands raised defensively. Their tones dropped to below audibility. Blurr struggled, as best he could, mouth opening and closing, opening and closing. First Aid had been hiding things from him. Everyone had been hiding things from him. While he was trapped inside this room, Cybertron had gone mad. Something in the film exploded. The crowd cheered.

Longarm was nodding, apologizing. First Aid pointed him to the exit. Blurr wanted him to come back. He wanted to know the truth. His body began to seize. First Aid rushed over to him, calling for nurses. He pressed him palms hard against Blurr’s chest, pinning him to the berth. Sentinel was yelling, words filtering through the window in clumps.

“Supremacy…kind…”

“Nurse!”

“Autobots…we have…no more…”

“Nurse! He’s in another fit!”

“Vanquish…ending them…for the greater….that will be all…”

He could see Longarm in the doorway, watching. He wanted him to come back. Oh, Primus, no, he wanted him to come back. Three nurses rushed in, jostling the idle Prime with their shoulders, but still he remained.

“Give him the sedative, we need him down NOW!”

“Finally…gone…finally…”

 His spine bowed, jumping, and he felt the familiar stab of the code bar in the back of his cortex. His vision cut out immediately and his mouth fell open, the circuits sparking the final connection necessary, updates flashing across his processor, his new vocalizer coming into the world with jagged screech.

“Don’t leave!”

The sound of fourteen laser rifles discharging echoed across the city.

The crowd cheered.

Blurr could not cease his weeping. All but First Aid and Perceptor were barred from the room. They stood in the corner and whispered to one another. First Aid gesticulated wildly at a data pad he had taken from one of the terminals lining the walls of the room. Perceptor hardly moved at all, but appeared to be winning the argument.

The window had been shut, and he could hear no more.

Good, he thought, good. Then, to solidify the reality of the event, he said it out loud.

“Good. Good, good, good, goodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgood.”

First Aid rushed over and laid a hand to his head, trying to soothe him, and he screamed.

First Aid was so, so sorry. He had been keeping Blurr away from eustress because he thought it would be too much for him, but he had been wrong, so wrong, because that was what was keeping Blurr’s processor from initializing the final programming updates, telling his body to connect the last few hard lines. It had been vorns since the last successful spark transfer had been performed; they had forgotten what to expect. He would do whatever was necessary to make up for it in terms of assisting Blurr’s total recovery.

Blurr had immediately requested that his functionality would be restored, which made the medic very uncomfortable.

“Well,” he said, fingers knotting together, “well, that will take a while, but alright, okay.”

It had not taken very long at all to install the signal blocker that prevented him from moving in the first place. When Blurr brought that up, First Aid looked away, “It’s not that simple.”

Things were falling clearly into place inside Blurr’s mind.

“I want to watch the news instead of these movies now. I don’t know what’s being going on since I was found, or before then, and nobody has told me how long I was even offline for which I have to admit I find far more stressful to think about than it would be to actually know.”

“No,” said First Aid, “that’s still too much. If you overstress again, start purging like you did before, you can set yourself back by lunar cycles.”

“I’m fine!” the frustration he had carried with him the entire time began to well up again, spilling over in harsh, crackling bursts.

“There is nothing about my current condition that is being improved by my staying like this and I’d say if anything its only making me worse yes that’s right it is making me worse because instead of being able to move and think and feel by myself I’m being carted around like a bundle of old cables and I don’t like it, I can’t stand it, don’t you dare try to leave me in the dark like this!”

First Aid sighed, putting his hands on his hips, as though he was reasoning with a drunk.

“If you keep acting this way, we’ll have to put you in short term stasis again.”

Blurr stilled, cold with fear.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

Nonplussed, First Aid crossed his arms. Blurr looked away, upset.

“We’re trying to make you better, agent.”

Three cycles passed. Wheeljack came to see him, turned his head from side to side, had him speak at varying pitches and volumes. He left shortly after, when Blurr vehemently denied him permission to do another full body exam. He did not seem particularly worried by the latent anger in Blurr’s voice, optics smiling as if he knew something Blurr didn’t. He was just like First Aid, thought Blurr; he is lying to me too.

There was little noise in the street. There was none in the hallway. It was as if the entire world needed a break after the festivities. The execution. Blurr had not seen it with his own visual feed, but he believed it. He hated believing it, but he did.

“You did not tell them.”

It had been nearly a deca-cycle since he had seen Longarm. He looked tired. Blurr could not help but wonder if he actually was or not, if the false face conveyed a real emotion. Longarm had told him the truth when no one else had. But Longarm was, in himself, a lie told by Shockwave.

“No.”

Blurr had so much to say, but for once found himself unable to find the words. Longarm reached for his hand, as he often did, but hesitated at the last second. Blurr watched him, silent.

“May I touch you?” it was Shockwave’s voice. At least that was one thing he could accept as a truth without question. He looked down at their fingers, so close he could feel the warmth of Longarm’s energy signature.

“Why?”

His optics cut into Longarm’s like energon scalpels, clinical and dissecting. He watched as Longarm’s eyes dulled, something he had come to recognize as the emergence of his other form.

“Why?” the monster repeated, rolling the word over his vocalizer without the use of his mouth.

“You come in here again and again, talking to me, to sit with me, telling me all these things about what is happening outside that may or may not be true, holding my hand like this, and I don’t know what it is you want from me!” Blurr hissed the words out in a sharp whisper, as if the nurses outside could hear them, as if they had very little time to talk.

“Because I want to.”

“Do you think this will keep me from outing you? Do you think that by coming in here, acting as if nothing had ever happened between us, do you think that will keep me from getting you killed like all those others?”

“Is that what you believe I deserve?” he said, but Blurr heard the question implicit. Do you think you could live with yourself. He made a small noise, very small, a sound of agony.

“You tried to kill me,” he said, barely above a whisper, cracked with sorrow, “I hate you so much.”

Longarm pulled his hand away, started to stand.

“Don’t!” cried Blurr, still soft, still torn.

“Don’t leave. Please.”

He sat.

While it had already been evening when Longarm came in, it still surprised him how quickly darkness fell. The television was off, had been removed from the room conspicuously after Blurr’s request to watch the news. The window remained bolted down. They said nothing to each other for a long time.