(no subject)
Thundercracker hadn’t missed one of the Prime’s parties since his honeymoon.
Usually, he was there as security - the ruling dyad loved to include the people in their celebrations, a great change from their predecessors. Without a vetted guest list, the security force ballooned, and Thundercracker was always willing to cover the weak spots. When he couldn’t get a slot on the roster, Starscream dragged him along, on the very firm basis that Thundercracker had promised to share in his joy and his pain.
Tonight, though, he was invited on his own merits. They were celebrating the survival of Hot Rod and Galvatron, heirs to the thrones, and Skywarp, Megatron’s pallakos who took the shot meant for them. Thundercracker had been there, had hustled the two near-adults off to safety as Skywarp laughed off the blasts that would have torn through the nipio’ still-fragile plating. It wasn’t a large party, just the Senators and the Prime, the Lord High Protector and the Ministeries. Skywarp hadn’t needed more than a shower after, and Ultra Magnus had thrown the would-be revolutionaries in jail so fast, Prowl hadn’t even finished the paperwork. Then, before the giddy rush of survival had worn off, Optimus Prime had ordered high grade and ener-twists.
Skywarp seemed to be having fun, at least, and Thundercracker gladly let him bask in the spotlight. He and Skywarp had never been particularly close, not since Thundercracker had come home from a two meta-cycle tour of the Umi planet to find a stranger living in his spare room. Still, Skywarp seemed nice enough, and Starscream liked him a whole lot better than either of his two adelfi.
That had been a meta-cycle ago, and in the meantime they had been ships passing on the dark side, their schedules never quite lining up outside of work. Starscream was disappointed, Thundercracker knew, but tried to hide it. Starscream didn’t need to be a soldier to understand the time it took to return to normal society.
Starscream was talking to Ratchet on the other side of the room, the old Senator looking less cranky than usual with a drink in his hand. Ratchet had been a Senator for as long as Thundercracker had known there was a Senator from Simfur, but lately he’d been shadowed by a white mech that was missing. Thundercracker visually scanned the room behind his cube, catching sight of Drift by the bar, farther from Ratchet than Thundercracker had ever seen him, and Thundercracker had just spent two deca-cycles guarding Ratchet’s door while Breakdown was on his own honeymoon.
Thundercracker sidled up next to Drift, who gave him the kind of look he usually got on a battlefield. “Having fun?” Thundercracker asked.
Drift offered him a weak smile. “The Prime does enjoy celebrating.”
“Yes,” Thundercracker agreed. “Throws more parties than a Praxian partybot. This is one of the better ones.” He leaned backwards, his elbows on the bar, and waited for the mech behind it to have a free minutes.
Drift’s optics skittered over the crowd, and Thundercracker knew exactly what he was thinking. “I would have though you more popular. The great war hero.” The last four words weren’t sarcastic, for once.
Thundercracker shrugged. “Soldiers who swear to Ministers are about as popular as secretaries with criminal records. Can I buy you a drink?”
“I thought it was an open bar,” Drift said, shocked.
Thundercracker could have resisted the urge to facepalm, but the kid was so…something. “That’s the joke,” he said from behind his hand, then waved two fingers to the now-free bartender.
“Oh. Oh.” Drift smiled. “Sorry, I guess everyone else is so, sorry. I can’t recognize when someone is being nice to me.”
“I don’t blame you,” Thundercracker said. “I honestly think some of those Senators have lost their kindness subroutines if one of their constituents isn’t involved.”
Swerve brought over two cubes of bismuth carbonate for Thundercracker. “Are you inducting another member of your club?” he asked.
“I suppose,” Thundercracker answered, being sure to leave a generous tip in Swerve’s jar. Most of the mechs here, Starscream included, were terrible tippers, when they even remembered to pay for a drink and that energon didn’t magically appear in their hands.
Swerve grinned at Drift, who was looking a bit shell-shocked. “Good. This kid looks like he could use a friend.” He handed one of the cubes to Drift, and one to Thundercracker.
“Thanks,” Thundercracker said. Swerve drifted off to pour a drink for another customer, and Thundercracker did a quick survey of the room.
“Who else is in this club?” Drift asked, sounding a little nervous.
“Oh, it’s not so official,” Thundercracker said. “There’s just so few of us who aren’t lying little lugnuts, we need to stick together. Cyclonus is one.” He nodded to the Polyhexian senator, sitting at a table on the other side of the bar. He was also scanning the room, but when his optics met Thundercracker’s, he dropped them to frown into his drink. “And Skywarp, over there talking to Senator Shockwave. Let’s go rescue him.”
“Rescue him from what?” Drift asked, but he followed Thundercracker readily enough.
“Have you ever talked to Shockwave?”
“How long will you be gone?” Starscream asked.
“I don’t know,” Skywarp said, adding another datapad to the box. “As long as it takes. There’s five of them to get set up.”
“Hmph.” Starscream folded his arms. “And you’re the best one to do this?”
“Yep. Who else do you know that got out?”
“Still.” Starscream sighed. “I don’t understand why he wants you. There has to be someone else.”
“Because one of them’s an outlier, and you know what they do to outliers.”
“True.” Skywarp’s genei had belonged to a sect that didn’t look too kindly to outliers. Skywarp himself would have spent most of his youth locked in a closet if he hadn’t been able to teleport into Starscream’s house across the street. They hadn’t been too keen on much of modern society, hence the need for someone to stay with the rescued nipii -two of which were technically adults.
Skywarp had lived with Starscream until Thundercracker came home from the war. Starscream wasn’t sure the teleporter had ever fully mastered things like household budgets and programming the videorecorder. As strange as that sect’s beliefs were, few nipii raised in it walked away as adults, and fewer of those had survived the violence of an exorcism. Putting Skywarp in charge would be like the blind leading the blind. Off a cliff. Megatron indulged Skywarp more than Starscream ever had.
“Look out for Megatron for me?” Skywarp asked, sealing up the box.
Starscream snorted, “No.”
“C’mon, don’t let the Senate run him off a cliff.” With Skywarp’s mess packed away in the box, there was no trace of him in the simple, tastefully appointed apartments of the Lord High Protector. Starscream tried not to let that color his view of Megatron; Skywarp was happy, and quite frankly too stupid to hide it if Megatron wasn’t treating him well. But there wasn’t anyone else to look out for Skywarp. Except Starscream, because Skywarp couldn’t be trusted to take care of himself. Starscream didn’t know if it was because of his genei, or because of some native processor defect. Given Skywarp’s chemistry experiments, he tended to side with his upbringing, though Thundercracker would sigh and compare Skywarp to a scientist friend who could never quite remember his own address.
“He can hold his own against them,” Starscream said. “Don’t forget to call.”
“You know I will.” Skywarp grinned and slung an arm around Starscream’s shoulders. “Don’t worry so much. I’ll be fine.”
That would be the last anyone saw him for three paracycles.
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