Chapter Text
Your dreams are blue, white, and gold.
When you wake up, Shockwave cradles you in his arms. His dark violet armor is a splotch against the sterile steel tables, cushioned by a few synthetic woven towels. Though mass-displaced, he is calm and at ease looking at the sea of titans milling about.
You’re not wearing your spacesuit, so you can feel the warmth of his armor against your skin. It makes you sleepy. You turn, place a hand against his chest, and he starts in surprise. His vocal processors fail as he cants his gaze down. Crimson– no, rather, the deep rose red of his gaze gently washes and combs over the contours and depth of every part of you. Your eyes. Your mouth. Your hands.
You reach out and gently set your palm against his helm. You hold his gaze in the way a sunbeam caresses its yellow-petaled devotees. You read him in an exhale, a flick of a finial, a low thrum of violet bio-lights on his frame.
Shockwave shuts his optic and burrows his helm into your palm. “I…”
His timbre is low, like distant thunder. If he is cloudburst and tempest and hurricane, you are the eye of all storms.
“I missed you,” says Shockwave.
Without waiting for a response, he gathers you closer and you hold on tighter.
There are several new faces belonging to the reawakened Autobot, Decepticon, and independent factions.
Any unresolved tensions between values and vendettas were handled by Fortress Maximus. A charging blaster whine and a gruff threat to take things outside were enough to quash spats. He wasn’t a fan of Decepticons but these weren’t prisoners. Moreso, he wasn’t afraid to reassert his dominance over Garrus-9.
Most mechs were simply eager to resume their lives or seek fresh starts. Wheeljack was shocked to recognize a few of his cohorts and gave his spiel about the Earth Autobots. A few Decepticons listened in, pondering and debating Megatron’s persistent warmongering. They were beyond confused to see Shockwave interacting with an alien species, but wisely kept their intakes shut.
Prowl kept to himself, not trusting that a vengeful mech wouldn’t stab him in the back when Max wasn’t looking.
(Shockwave had cornered him in a tense moment between recharges. While yes, aiming and firing at you might have been the first domino to defeating Sunder, it was ultimately clear: You were not a pawn in any mech’s scheme. The risk was calculated but Shockwave demonstrated again and again how little he cared for logic when you were in danger.)
Though the titan is reluctant to leave your side, he relents at your and Pharma’s insistence at proper repairs. Deadlock sits with you while Pharma is joined by a Decepticon medic with a dark gray plating and an even more severe grimace.
“Do you feel different?” you ask Deadlock. “Now that Sunder’s gone?”
He shakes his head. He certainly didn’t act like a Decepticon, even when surrounded by his former comrades. Oftentimes he’d still flash those razor-sharp fangs, but he was significantly calmer without Sunder haunting the halls.
“Will you go to Earth with Jackie?” The two mechs, despite their rough starts, had bonded closely. Interestingly, Deadlock had asked Wheeljack to redo his paint job. Gone were the dark greys and violets. Now he was an offwhite, like your jumpsuit, with tints of red racing stripes, like Wheeljack.
“Not yet,” he admits. Deadlock runs a polishing stone across the edge of his katana. “I have a few more loose ends to tie up before I can join the Autobots. But I think the fewer who knew who I was, the better for me.”
“‘Legendary Decepticon warrior Deadlock, lost to the stars. Current whereabouts, unknown’.” You phrase it like a news headline, and he snorts. “You’ll need a new name.”
Based on his expression, he was not entirely convinced by your suggestions.
Pharma steeples his fingers together. He’d finally returned all Sparks to their bodies, and mechs were fleeing Garrus-9 as if it held a contagion. While his actions may never be redeemable, he would at least find some relief by scolding your stupidity.
“So to summarize,” he says sternly, “you directly stabbed a Spark chamber with a syringe. Do you not grasp the implications of your actions?”
“Oh my god,” you moan. “You sound like Ratchet.”
The medic twitches. “Ratchet?”
Usually Fortress Maximus does not enjoy the quiet.
Quiet indicates that ruses and schemes are happening behind the frontlines. He much prefers the liveliness which comes from warfare and brute victories. But he manages to be content, once more walking on his own two feet, and without invaders crawling around in his brain module. He will never be that helpless again. Never, ever again.
Fortress Maximus enters the communications hub on the main floor. Desolate and silent and abandoned. He places his palm against the center console and it awakens. The system reads the master access card installed into his circuitry and chirps a bright welcome.
Immediately, all the satellites across Garrus-9 stir awake and lift their dishes to the stars. For the first time since the war, they sing to the unknown galaxies. We are here. We are still here. Some responses are automated, from now-defunct stations across the systems. Others are delayed and confused, sure to attract wandering and long-forgotten Cybertronians.
And strangely, one responding frequency seems to sound like purring.