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Chapter Text

The first time D-16 collides with the wall of the chute is enough to wake him from the thick and sickly-sweet haze. Fresh pain welcomes him with force and he starts screaming again.

The second impact dislocates something dangling on his right shoulder and snaps his jaw down hard on his glossia. Energon quickly fills his mouth as his optics fill with stars.

It takes the third crash against the chute walls for him to realize he is falling.

How long has he been falling?

Forever?

Gravity spirals and he feels weightless for a brief moment, like he is floating. It is a welcome bliss that last for the eternity of a single nanoklik.

And then D-16 lands.

The horrible impact slams solidly into D-16’s spinal-strut and his already crowded HUD fills with so many glitchy warning popups he thinks he has gone blind.

Primus, he wishes he could just crash and never wake up again but his body refuses stubbornly. Pain claws everywhere and every circuit burns as vertigo keeps his cracked processor spinning.

He cannot move.

He cannot see.

He hears the phantom whispers of sweet and sinful words.

He feels nothing but pain.

The sensations drag for what feels like cycles.

Or perhaps mere nanokliks.

Does it matter anymore?

The world rapidly grows hot as D-16 feels a terrible heat blanket him as the memory of large greedy hands all over his tarnished silver armor haunt him. The blaze seethes until he is certain he is being dragged to the Pit itself, his brutalized spark to be smelted for all eternity.

When he feels hands solidly seize and drag him, ready to tow him down to a crucible of eternal agony, D-16 lashes out with the last of his strength in a panic. He bellows a primal cry and chokes out one more, surely useless, prayer to Primus that only comes out as garbled static, his vocalizer glitching terribly.

D-16 does not expect someone to answer.

“Oh, my sweet fragging Primus!”

The hands tug harder and the heat suddenly lessens its intensity as D-16 feels himself falling again. He instantly lands on something hard, the endless pain somehow still layering.

Yet still, there is no mercy of unconsciousness.

So, through a laggy haze, D-16 closes each popup marring his vision one by one. Multiple impact alerts to dents and bruising. A warning about damage to his glossia. An antivirus update request due to possible rust sepsis risk. Scar diagnoses to multiple untreated cygar burns along his thighs. A caution alert over the mildly drugged energon that was his only source of fuel during his captivity. Severe welding lacerations to his chassis risking infection.  And so, so, many distracting emergency notifications over the state of his… what is left of his equipment.

Eventually, D-16 clears enough of his HUD to find his pixilated visual feed ease back into flawed focus.

Darkness and flickering red greet him.

The endless grind and whirr of machinery rumbles his very being.

He must be at the threshold of the Pit.

D-16 chokes on a broken cry of pure relief.

Any place is a haven compared to that lavish cell of a room he was trapped in, even the damn Pit itself.

Suddenly, bright blue orbs loom over D-16’s broken and battered frame.

The optics of an angel of Primus.

A small mech, armored in gold and black hovers above him, his hands trembling as they hesitate to touch the bleeding ruined silver below. The golden mech looks down at D-16 with concern, light from nearby fire, no doubt from the eternal blaze of the Pit, reflects against his helm like a bright halo.

“Where the frag did you come from?” he asks.

What a slagging question.

And from an angel of Primus, no less.

D-16 just laughs at the absurdity of it all.

But right as the bitter chuckle bubbles up from his glitching vocalizer, his processor decides to crash.

Finally, finally, his prayers are answered and he is gifted blessed nothingness.

***

Then D-16 wakes back up.

Something soft props up his helm as his body lies supine and splayed.

He feels like a dead weight.

Nausea claws from his tank to his throat.

Slowly, he reaches up to the wires of his neck that are tender and bruised from repeated near strangulations but only one hand makes contact.

D-16 takes no notice as awareness brings back the presence of pain.

It is unrelenting.

Dimmed golden-yellow optics blink on but his HUD is obscured by a log window.

His med-jack has been accessed.

The text is impossible to read in this half-online state so D-16 just minimizes the feed and tucks it in a corner.

It takes a lot of effort to refocus his visual input but eventually D-16 sharpens the mess of pixels into something coherent.

The world around him is nothing but red and metal and noise.

Beside him is the golden angel, his hands warm and gentle against the silver mech.

D-16 looks down at the angel’s work and-

Oh…

Oh, merciful Primus, where is his arm?!

It is not a clean detachment, as they were taught to perform in tunnel emergencies.

His right arm had been ripped away.

Torn like the limb from an unwanted toy.

The unloved toy of a spoiled sparkling.

From D-16’s right arm socket, sparking wires dangle obscenely. The primary artery cable is in the golden mech’s hands as he quickly works to stop the trickling flow of energon.

D-16 tries to scream but instead energon and bile purges from his mouth, sputtering down the mess of his heavily scarred and burning chassis.

The angel is startled.

“Nononono! Ah, frag! Take it easy! It’s okay, I’ve got you!”

D-16 feels a warm hand on his face as a gaze of worried blue degrades into blurred pixels as his vision spins.

His body spasms uncontrollably, processor teetering on the edge of crashing and failing completely.

That is when D-16 notices them.

From nearby, three bots watch the two of them in silence, rigid and motionless.

Vessels of judgment?

Merciful Primus, he is sorry he snuck the last of Orion’s smuggled energon goodies and then blamed Jazz and the Twins.

Primus… D-16 just wants to go home to the barracks… to wake up from this nightmare…

He feels another wave of putrid bile catch in his burning throat.

His vents heave and his vision blackens.

Something claws violently at his silver chassis, searching for seams.

“Alright, this might hurt a little. I’m going to try to jumpstart an emergency line to your spark casing so I can keep working on the fuel cables,” a shaky voice announces then D-16’s chassis cracks open with a sickening echo, “Th-There we go…”

D-16 wants to cry at the terrible sensation.

Instead, he just purges again.

“Oh… frag…” someone, the angel, whimpers in horror.

Something gentle wipes at his cracked lips uselessly.

Then something cold digs into the edge of his spark-chamber.

“I… I’m sorry, this is definitely gonna hurt. Just-”

Something fizzles, zaps, then stings into an electric surge that knocks D-16 into darkness again.

“Please,” the golden angel whispers desperately as everything fades, “Please stay with me…”

***

A weight of vile blue and gold is on top of him again.

D-16 tries to crawl away but there is no stopping him.

He is pinned to the berth and the process starts once more.

The silver mech disconnects and a feeling of sweet numbness soothes his psyche. He lets his mind wander as his body is used.

How long has he been here?

He is afraid to look at his chronometer anymore.

Does anyone know he is gone?

Do they even care?

Primus, where is Orion?!

D-16 was told he is fulfilling his new role as mining consultant admirably.

What the slag did that mean?

Why did he wander off during the service facilities tour?

Why didn’t he stay with him?

Why isn’t he saving him?

WHY ISN’T HE HERE INSTEAD?!

Something tears in his valve and D-16’s optics suddenly snap open.

The angel is between his legs.

“Shhh, it’s alright. I know it’s tough but I’ve got to stop the bleeding,” the golden mech coos softly as he withdraws his hand.

It is stained with energon.

D-16 tries to speak but struggles.

He licks his trembling lips and finds traces of vomit dried to a disgusting crust.

The taste makes him heave and retch but his tank is empty.

A soft cry rips free from his vocalizer and he tries to retreat.

But all he manages is a few weak twitches.

“I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Fragging Primus, there’s just so much slagging glass!”

Glass?

Oh right.

The Prime had gotten bored with him.

What had he even shoved up there?

D-16 cannot remember.

But he does recall the thruster of the Prime’s pede cruelly slamming right down onto his tank and making something inside him shatter.

He remembers the laughter that followed.

When he stopped moving the Prime grew unimpressed and decided he had enough fun.

The thrill of a pretty toy had faded once the silver tarnished.

So, D-16 was thrown away like used-up trash.

He is startled by the touch spreading his folds back open and the fresh sting of more pain.

“There we go. Good bot, just a few more pieces,” the angel soothes gently, “You’re being so brave…”

As the angel’s energon stained hand reaches back for the mangled junction between his thighs, D-16 crashes back into sweet, sweet oblivion.

***

The smile haunts him. It is wicked and sharp as a glossia runs slowly over pretty lips.

“I only need one miner to proselytize,” the velvety voice purrs, reverberating into thunder in his audials until it feels as if they are bleeding, “Why don’t you stay with me?”

The process starts for the first time and D-16 is left sore but full of bliss.

But then he finds the doors locked.

All around him, the walls are lined with flawless gold and they close in.

“Leaving so soon?” the voice croons as a glossia tastes his growing fear, “We’re just getting started.”

Echoes roar from the sweet whisper, violent and inescapable.

D-16 feels darkness coil around his limbs and cradles his chassis.

The memory of a shackle digs into his phantom arm.

The process starts once more and he is left sobbing.

He prays to Primus for strength.

The process starts once more and he is left too numb to move.

He prays to Primus for rescue.

The process starts once more and his body is left bleeding.

He prays to Primus to see Orion Pax’s face one last time.

And he is given nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Then finally he is gifted nothingness itself.

The temptation of the black ichor of the void is sweet enough to burn.

Suddenly, a blinding ray of golden light shatters everything as a bright voice breaks through the dark haze.

“All done.”

***

When D-16 awakes again, he finds the little angel is spooned against his left side.

The angel murmurs softly, voice too low to understand. He snuggles closer to the silver mech instinctually, a small smile on his round faceplates.

Their hands are entwined.

The touch is warm.

D-16 blinks. Cautiously, he looks around at his surroundings.

To his surprise, this is not the Pit.

It is just a room.

Someplace small, dark, cramped, and filthy.

It is noisy as a conveyor belt rattles before them, feeding the angry mouth of a fiery furnace.

His olfactory sensors pick up a stench of rust, rot, and smoke in the air.

It is sickening like the worst high-grade hangover.

Suddenly, there is clarity in D-16’s processor.

Quickly, he boots up every diagnosis window in his HUD. Pain receptors have evened out to a mostly tolerable gauge and his fuel levels are at half a tank with untainted energon. The backlog of damage is distressingly long and is filled with notes and commentary from a series of second party links via his primary med-jack.

Notes like: “don’t worry, I worked with mining medical for a few days. I got this :D,” “fixed the leak with artery lines P-38 and M1A1,” “patched up wire lacerations at system sectors noted in attached file,” “you’ll probably need a new secondary fanbelt… among other things,” “I just realized I forgot about your arm on the conveyor belt. :( A professional should be able to install a new one,” followed by “I’m so sorry, I have no idea what I’m doing,” and lastly “please wake up.”

D-16 looks down at his aching silver frame.

His body is a fraction away from being cocooned by an overuse of electrical bandage tape. Everything, from his helm, to the individual fingers of his remaining hand, to his neck, to every scuff on his pedes, is bandaged to an absurd degree. Strips, wraparounds, crisscrossed patches, and a winding spica wrap at his hips are all dressed with the skill of a newspark playing doctor.

As sloppy as it is, however, everything has clearly been cleaned and welded in spite of the amateur’s touch.

The dangling cabling of his empty arm socket have been delicately protected one by one with wire caps and covered with a double layer of bandage tape for good measure. They are bundled together protectively with a zip tie.

A large smudged blanket has been secured around D-16’s waist, undoubtedly hiding away the painful mess between his thighs.

It was a divinely kind gesture. The silver mech’s protective panels had been torn away long ago.

D-16 turns back to the angel and feels his spark sink.

Upon a closer look, he realizes there is not a speck of gold in his paint.

The plating is just a dull and scuffed yellow.

His savior is cogless, just like him.

A lowly cogless.

The reality crash is just as brutal as everything else.

There is no salvation or reprieve from the pain lingering through his circuits. Everything either aches or is numbed to a destressing degree. The backlog list grows in the corner of his HUD, alerting him to every signal of everlasting agony.

Slowly, he begins to read the log of damage.

Somehow, in the face of that long and terrible list, D-16’s spark still beats, strong and steady.

He is alive.

It isn’t fair…

Primus, he feels so stupid.

Instinctively, D-16 jerks his hand free from the soft embrace. He whines as a fresh layer of pain lances through his entire frame at the motion.

The yellow mech beside him suddenly jolts awake.

“I wasn’t recharging, sir! I’ll have the rest of the minecarts polished in a jiffy!” the little cogless blurts out, his optics flickering back online slowly. He instinctively grabs the hem of the blanket at D-16’s hips and begins rubbing a corner of it frantically against the floor.

D-16 sputters a noise of confusion that snaps the little mech out of his daze.

Bright blue optics stare up at the silver mech in awe.

“Oh…” the yellow mech gasps, expression brightening with the force of a joyous sun, “Oh!”

D-16 freezes as a hug envelopes him. His vocalizer glitches at the feel of warm metal against warm metal.

“You’re awake!” the little cogless cries with pure joy, “Oh, thankyouthankyouthankyou, Primus!” He tightens the hug as if the silver mech will disappear and his vocalizer amps into full gear as he starts babbling.

“Sweet Lady Solus Prime, mech, you gave me quite the panic attack when I realized you were alive and real. You were touch and go for a while there but I’m so relieved you pulled through. Slag, I’m still shaking thinking about it. How did you get down here? Oooh, let me guess! Chute maintenance? A dare? Did you think it was like a dumbwaiter and thought it would lead all the way up to the Ceiling Towers? Don’t worry, I thought the same thing when I was a sparkling. No judgment down here. Oh, before I forget, anything need resoldering? The first-aid datapad said-”

D-16 can stand no more and he breaks.

A wretched and pathetic whine bursts from his staticky vocalizer as fat tears bead at the corners of his optics.

The yellow mech falters and grows panicked.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay! Don’t cry, everything’s going to be alright now,” he says as his hands clutch D-16’s, cradling the remaining limb gently, “Let’s get you calmed down. Follow me with some deep vents. Ready? One, two, and…”

The little cogless vents a deep intake.

D-16’s cooling fans rattle as he does the same.

“Good, now reverse fan flow.”

The two heave a sigh of exhaust together.

“That’s it, you’re doing great. Can we try for a few more?”

By the time they are finished, D-16 is still a twitchy mess, but the tears have dried up. He jumps when the bright blue optics flicker and the yellow mech wobbles forward before catching himself.

“Ah, sorry,” the little cogless laughs, rubbing the last of the sleep from his optics, “Didn’t mean to slack off on guard duty. It’s just my recharge schedule has been completely fragged up. I’ve been running wild nonstop these past six days.”

“Days…?” D-16 croaks out, his glitching vocalizer sounding weak and foreign.

“Well, it was at least six days until your chronometer glitched out. Took me a while to realize it was broken. Hope you don’t mind that I tried keeping track every time I plugged into your med-jack. Mine fritzed cycles ago and you would not believe how time flies down here.”

On cue, D-16 looks at his surroundings again, not that he can see much from his position on the floor.

The only light in the dark and suffocating room is from the furnace and a nearby dimly lit alcove. The conveyor belt clunks and clatters endlessly as streams of scrap fall from a chute from a blackened, smoke-stained ceiling.

“Wh…Where…?”

D-16’s hitched voice withers as a finger is pressed to his lips.

“Ah-ah, easy with the vocalizer. You’ve got some nasty damage along your neck. Not that you haven’t got worse elsewhere. I mean yikes. I just don’t want you to strain yourself, you know? Yeah, you get it. Oh, my Primus, I haven’t even given you the tour! Slag it! My bad, my bad!” the little mech blabbers before scrambling to his feet.

His yellow arms stretch wide as he flourishes an extravagant twirl then winks a bright blue optic, proudly announcing, “Welcome to good old Sub-Level 50!” The smaller cogless then leans in real close to the dumbstruck silver mech. “You’re gonna love it down here.”

D-16 blinks as unease slithers up his spinal-strut.

The yellow mech then snaps his fingers. “Right, introductions!” he grins before his voice grows stilted, as if he is reading from a cue card on his HUD, “Hi, nice to meet you. How are you, Mister… er…?”

The pause between them drags awkwardly before the silver mech sighs and stammers out an answer.

“D… 16…”

“Oh! Still stuck with your serial number, huh?” the yellow cogless says, perking up, “Me too. I’m B-127.” He seizes D-16’s limp remaining hand and shakes it vigorously. “Hey, maybe we can help each other out. Every bot’s gotta earn a name eventually, or so I’m told. Wanna toss around some nickname ideas? I’ve got tons to share.”

D-16 hesitates before giving a small shrug.

Things are starting to feel surreal.

“Great, I’ll go first. Top choice is… Ahem, drum roll please,” the yellow mech grins before puttering his engine and waggling his index fingers before loudly exclaiming, “Badassatron!”

D-16 instinctively recoils in confusion.

“You pronounce it like BADASSATRON,” the yellow cogless smiles as he looms closer, fluctuating his vocalizer so his voice deepens to a comical degree before snapping back to normal. “Okay, your turn. Hit me with your best shot, D.”

Everything suddenly seems to grind to a halt as the silver mech’s processor lags.

“Wha… what…?” D-16 says slowly, utterly unnerved.

B-127 suddenly snaps out of his overenthusiasm and backtracks with a nervous chuckle. “A-Actually, just B is fine, I guess. Don’t want to strain your vocalizer, after all.”

He groans as he harshly slaps a hand to his faceplates, hiding the hint of a blush of embarrassment. “Frag it, B. Focus. Get it together, mech,” B-127 says to himself as he reaches up and tugs harshly at one of his antennas. He yanks until his optics grow misty but he quickly blinks them clear as a confident smile slips into place.

The yellow cogless plants his hands on his lithe little hips and beams down at the broken and bandaged silver mech. “Right, now that we’ve got you completely soldered and stabilized, I’m gonna need to go scavenge for a bit in the abandoned upper Sub-Levels. We need to restock… basically everything.”

B-127 clicks his glossia in thought before rummaging around in his subspaces. He eventually pulls out two tiny cubes of energon. “Here. Since you were finally able to keep something down, I’m gonna give you my emergency-emergency rations. Just pop ‘em in your intake if you get really hungry,” he says as he places them in D-16’s hand, “Hopefully, I’ll hit another jackpot and we’ll have a feast when I get back.”

D-16 stares at the precious cubes dumbly. They feel oddly heavy in his weakened state. His tanks churn uncomfortably at the thought of refueling. So, he just pockets them into his chassis subspace, wincing as even the slightest movement brings pain coursing through his weary circuits.

Just as B-127 begins to head towards the garbage chute, he pauses and grabs a nearby long and sturdy metal pipe. “Can’t forget this,” he tuts before handing the pipe to D-16, “If the belt overflows or gets jammed while I’m gone, just give the clog a few whacks until it breaks up, if you can reach it.”

B-127 guides D-16’s hand to give it a few experimental smacks against the conveyor belt.

“Yeah, just like that,” B-127 smiles as he pets D-16’s helm encouragingly, “It’ll also be useful to keep any glitch-mice away.” His expression suddenly hardens and he gets up right into D-16’s personal space. “Make sure you aim for the head if you spot one,” the yellow cogless advises, deadly serious.

D-16’s spark fills with dread at that tonal shift. He instinctually grips the pipe close and nervously nods.

In an instant, B-127 is back to his cheery self, bouncing on his heels. “Good. I shouldn’t be gone too long, but don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of backup in the meantime,” he says before stepping over to the forgotten alcove.

There, under a string of salvaged lights, sit three lumps circled around a large table.

For a moment, D-16 has no idea what he is looking at, until he recognizes each pile of scrap is arranged in vaguely bot-like shapes.

Merciful Primus…!

What has he gotten himself into?!

“EP-508, you’ll take point as usual, I presume?” B-127 says, addressing the tallest shape then points a stern finger at the shortest one.

“A-A-Tron, I trust you not to slack off this time. We’ll play a round of cards when I get back,”

B-127 then loops a friendly arm around the last one, like someone embracing their closest friend and grins down at the increasingly dismayed D-16.

“D, you remember Steve, right? He’ll be your look-out buddy until I get back. Try not to let him drag you into his shenanigans, alright?”

D-16 is frozen as something raw crawls up his spinal-strut as the yellow mech turns to the stack of garbage.

The gutted projector that is its head blips momentarily with blue light.

“Ha! Good one, Steve!” B-127 laughs. He nudges the trash playfully, making it flash and spit something from its garbled speaker, before sauntering back to D-16. “Watch out for this guy, D. He’s always the jokester,” he giggles and gives the petrified silver mech a parting pat to his helm.

“Now, you four have fun! I’ll be right back!” B-127 announces before suddenly jumping up the garbage chute as soon as there is a lull in the flow.

He disappears in the blink of an optic.

D-16 is left alone again.

The pain remains, keeping his weak body splayed on the grimy floor, as if magnetized, with only a tarp and a stained pillow for cushioning.

He grips the sturdy pipe close as it is the only thing he can do.

For a long, long time D-16 lays on the floor in a horrible silence that is occasionally broken by endless waves of trash dumping from above.

Primus, his little savior is utterly insane.

D-16 chokes on a weak and shattered sob.

He is going to die down here.

Chapter Text

THE.

MECH.

NEVER.

STOPS.

TALKING.

B-127’s voice is relentless and overwhelming. Even when deep in recharge, something has to come out of that damn vocalizer. The only reprieve comes whenever the little cogless scrambles up the garbage chute. He disappears for groons only to return from his scavenging, usually with mixed success, just as chatty as ever.

D-16 swears he can actually feel the dark circles under his optics as he lays rigid and exhausted, propped up on his back in his makeshift berth underneath the alcove table. His recently redressed welds itch and ache, leaving him wallowing in a haze of pain and misery. However, the plush comfort beneath his bandaged body is a luxury that lets him tune out the newest ramble the little mech is babbling about as he rummages in the alcove’s hidden wall storage.

It is not perfect. None of the old plush blankets are fully clean and the previously owned pillows and plushies either smell or are bursting fiberfill at the seams. Still, it is surprisingly better than his old recharge nook. At least he can lay down here. Besides, the imperfections keep him from comparing it to the first real berth he recharged in.

The one he was eventually chained to.

Just as his thoughts threaten to darken, D-16 tries to shift one of his legs in the cramped space only to bump it into EP-508’s chair.

The light contact instantly shoots a sting of protest from his endlessly aching hips, making D-16 hiss.

Unable to do anything but lay there and take the pain, D-16 focuses back on the most distracting thing in the room. Somehow, it is not the maddening rhythm of the conveyor belt.

D-16’s shuts his glazed over optics and just lets the yellow mech’s endless words wash over him.

“…And that’s why I think Six Lasers Over Cybertron is a better vacation destination than Crystal City. Well, it would be if, you know, they both didn’t get blasted to smithereens during the Quintesson War. I wish I could’ve- Oh! Finally found the last of ‘em!”

Suddenly, B-127 is kneeling at D-16’s side, brandishing two large and partially ripped stickers. “You want the one with the cyberkitten that says ‘Happy Spark-day’ or the holographic turbofox?”

D-16 snaps his gold optics open to shoot a tired glare at the other mech. “I don’t care…”

“Yeah, both is a good answer,” B-127 smiles before slapping the stickers onto the underside of the table, adding to the mess of decals and other vinyls littering the surface. Their addition only adds to the cluttered chaos D-16 is forced to look at every klik he is stuck on his back.

The silver mech stubbornly shutters his optics again. The few decals that are of random members of the Thirteen only make him think of his Megatronus Prime collection back home.

His left pauldron aches from the cruel wound etched into a mockery of his hero’s emblem as his thoughts focus on one thing.

Home…

Would anyone recognize him in this broken state?

Would anyone want to?

He is so useless now, barely able to do anything for himself in B-127’s absence.

D-16 wishes he was stronger but there was an old saying in the mines.

Wish in one servo and spit in the other and see what fills a minecart first.

He had often chided Orion with that phrase every time the other mech got too wistful to do his job, often waxing poetic on big ideas he could accomplish if he could transform. D-16 would hammer the message stubbornly, hoping it would stick. Then one day, with a big stupid grin on his handsome faceplates, Orion took the saying as a challenge.

You know what? Get a tally going, D, I’m gonna see how many this actually takes.

They immediately got in trouble with Elita-1 because D-16 quickly devolved into howling laughter after the first few shots of spittle into their cart. Orion quickly joined him after getting a silver elbow in his side and looped him into a crushing half-hug.

Primus, he misses Orion.

Why, why did he wonder off?

Did he really have to be so selfish after everything he went through with that damn race?

It was his fault he ended up in the hands of that-

D-16 awakens violently from his thoughts when something nudges his leg, startling him. For a nanoklik, he is back in the barracks waking up from Orion poking him playfully with his foot. He frowns and shoots a glare towards the other mech only to see B-127’s pedes shuffling nearby to another tuneless song of his as he busies himself with Steve.

His frown deepens as a longing pang grips his spark.

Then he feels another touch against his leg.

D-16 looks down and he freezes in horror.

A retrorat.

It is huge, almost the size of his helm from whiskers to tail tip, bigger than any D-16 had ever seen during his entire life in the mines.

D-16 feels his processor stall into a panicked stupor as the retrorat’s wire whiskers brush against his leg as its olfactory sensors sniff cautiously. He wants to scream but his vents just give a useless wheeze. D-16 cannot move as the retrorat looks up and zeroes in on the bundled bandaged wires at his arm socket.

He needs to move. He needs to do something, anything.

His pipe is right by his left hand, B-127 had attached a crude gripper mechanism at the end so its reach is more than enough. D-16 just needs to grab it and swat the little beast away.

The retrorat bares its strange bladed teeth and raises its spiny hackles as it creeps closer.

All D-16 has to do is move his arm.

Any nanoklik now.

A single finger twitches.

His vents hitch in lieu of a shout.

The retrorat curiously creeps closer, beady red optics locked on the dangling wires.

An easy target, that is all he is now.

What a fragging useless weakling.

Just then, there is a blur of yellow and a shiv of scrap sinks right in between those red optics.

It is dead in an instant.

“Gotcha!” B-127 announces proudly as he snatches the retrorat up and holds it like a hunting trophy.

D-16 chokes out a noise of relief, movement suddenly returning.

That gets B-127’s attention and he stoops down. “Oh, good you’re up just in time. Steve just helped me figure out the last game we needed for the tournament bracket. You ever play Praxus Fold 'Em? Let me just whip this fella into a quick snack and then clean my hands before I teach you the ropes and-”

D-16 interrupts with a retch of disgust. “You…” Primus, he is going to be sick if he says it, “eat retrorats…?”

“Pfft, not the whole thing. The only good bits are the wires and crystal buildups in the…”

The yellow mech suddenly stalls, his dumb little smile frozen in place. It twitches.

D-16 just gives him a deadpanned stare.

“Ahaha… Kidding!” B-127 blurts out loudly, forcing a laugh as he awkwardly backs away until he feels himself bump into something solid. “That was a joke, cuz we’re best friends and best friends make jokes. Funny, right? I mean who in their right mind would do something like that? Gross! Yucky! Ick!”

He quickly tosses the dead retrorat onto the conveyor belt. “Okay, in you go little fella,” he chuckles nervously, “Bye-bye.”

D-16 swears he sees the yellow mech’s lower lip quiver as B-127 watches the metal carcass slowly fall into the furnace.

“You… look like slag,” D-16 grunts, not that he cares.

B-127 just smiles in response, wide and twitching. “I’m fine,” he openly lies as he wipes his hands on a passing by oily rag on the conveyor belt. “Okay, back to business. Breaktime is over and we’ve still got quota to fill. We’ll hammer out the tournament details after my shift.”

The silver mech scoffs, uninterested in B-127’s so-called job of salvaging one type of trash from another.

They were left down here to rust, he must know that.

 D-16 decides to turn onto his left side and go back to ignoring the yellow mech.

However, as soon as he struggles to shift even a fraction, raw pain lances through his circuits from his hips. D-16 can’t stop the wretched whimper as he feels something suddenly leak down his leg. “F-Fragging… Pit!” he hisses, his whole body tensing up and a wet patch forms on the blanket serving as a cleanish modesty skirt.

“D, what happened? Are you alright?” B-127 says as he stumbles over himself to investigate. He quickly spots the problem and gives the silver mech a sympathetic look. “Ah… Oh, D, don’t get upset. The datapad said that a little lubricant discharge is normal for an injury like yours.”

Embarrassment burns at D-16’s face plates that momentarily overrides the pain. “I am not… upset! I…” he starts but is quickly cut off.

“Here, let me clean it up a bit. Maybe your valve needs some more med-gel? I’ll go grab-”

D-16 grows angry. He has already suffered trauma lag once today, he has no interest in an opportunity for it to happen again.

“No, I’m fine. I don’t need you to coddle me like I’m a- Ow! Fragging pipe sucking spawn of a glitch!”

B-127 panics. “Are you okay? Did some of the scabbing snap?”

“I don’t fragging know!” D-16 seethes, frustration and embarrassment overwhelming him as he tries to shift his position only to end up on his back again. He glares daggers at the stickers above him.

“Take it easy, big guy,” B-127 soothes, petting his dark helm, “Just relax while I go double-check something.”

After returning to root around the storage cupboards, B-127 picks up a cracked datapad that flickers uselessly until he gives it a couple whacks against the table. As he reads, he begins chewing at his lower lip absentmindedly.

“See, it says here that reapplication of med-gel and keeping the valve otherwise clean and dry should help with any swelling or valve discharge plus lower the risk of rust.”

He sets the datapad in front of EP-508 and grabs the nearby med-kit and opens it. “Ah, frag. Only two travel size tubes left after this one,” B-127 frowns as he picks up the largest of the metal med-gel tubes that has been reduced to a near husk over the past days from its constant use every time something either needed redressing or rewelding.

“Give me a nanoklik and we’ll get started,” B-127 says as soon as he sets up his medical tools into a little station nearby. He unties the knot of the soiled skirt and lays it open carefully, cooing gently when D-16 flinches and looks away. After warming his hands in the glow of the furnace, he quickly cleans them with a restaurant branded sanitary wipe. Then B-127 takes the shriveled up remains of the standard sized med-gel tube and squeezes it for all it is worth. There is just enough to coat two of his fingers.

“Okay, open up nice and slow. Good, just like that,” B-127 says softly as his free hand runs over D-16’s thigh.

D-16 sucks in a tense vent as his legs are coaxed open.

B-127 never asks about the source of D-16’s injuries. No wild guesses or judgment, just gentle understanding and respect of privacy. It was welcome but D-16 could not help but find it odd.

“I’m going to enter now, okay? Remember to comm me if you feel yourself lock up again.”

D-16 sneers but he is near trembling as the fingers enter his valve.

Primus, he hates this.

It feels strange and unpleasant but not due to B-127, who is surprisingly professional with his fingers. So many sensors had been destroyed from the glass that D-16 barely feels anything down there other than uncomfortable numb sensations from scarred mesh and poorly self-repaired calipers. There are occasional sharp stabs of pain that interrupt the procedure but D-16 bites them back with grunts and a stressed rumble of his engine.

“You’re doing so good, D,” B-127 whispers encouragingly, “Now remember to relax for this next part.”

The yellow mech slips his fingers deeper before spreading them in slow scissoring motions, trying to spread the gel onto every bit of the valve he can reach.

D-16 takes it. He has to take it. The only thing worse than this would be for rust sepsis to set in and slowly eat him from the inside out. That horrible thought is enough for him to brace himself against the unpleasant numbness and stings undulating through the remains of his valve as B-127 works in deeper.

Then the knuckle of B-127’s thumb accidentally bumps against the silver mech’s external node.

A tiny ripple of pleasure nearly registers through his tense circuits and D-16 wants to scream.

Darkness begins to cloud his vision as his HUD warns of more joint locking as his body tenses into a rigid flex. His denta grit painfully as everything seems to clench and seize. He sees a hint of gold again and his processor flashes him with after images of the pleased flutter of golden wings.

There is pressure in his valve as Sentinel Prime begins to-

“Okey-dokey and we’re done!”

D-16 blinks and finds B-127 withdrawing his fingers and feels a dry cloth wiping against his scarred valve lips. He lays there in a gasping heap as the yellow mech gets up to go rummage at his cupboards again after rubbing the mess from his hands.

The silver mech shuts his optics for a blessed nanoklik of quiet before something presses against his lips.

B-127 beams down at him as he shoves the something to the silver mech’s mouth as he places an empty jar in front of Steve. “Here you go. My last energon goodie. You deserve it for being such a brave bot, D.”

As if on cue, D-16’s half fed fuel tank twists painfully and drool dribbles down the corners of his trembling lips. He cannot stop his lips from parting automatically as soon as the crystalline crusted jelly touches them. He ravenously eats it in one bite, chewing slowly to savor it.

It is gritty and stale, kept in that jar for who knows how long. At the same time, its sweetness is a divine luxury and its chewy softness is contrasted by a dusting of bismuth cookie chunks, which are near petrified with age. It is strangely sublime.

As he lets the treat melt against his glossia, D-16 thinks back to those damn energon goodies he stole cycles ago.

Orion had, supposedly, found the fancy box of multiple flavors during one of his escapades up to the Archives. D-16 remembers that dumb proud smile the blue and red mech flashed as he brandished the box as if it was a showroom prize.

D-16 tried to play it cool, as always, until they started sampling flavors. It was too good not to share the excitement.

At first, they alternated bites, but then Orion got greedy. After sharing a bite each, Orion practically inhaled one filled with gallium cream and D-16 went livid.

So, Orion gave him one last taste of it from a kiss.

That shut D-16 up.

The box was their sweet little secret.

Then one day, they had an argument. It was over something stupid he can no longer remember but D-16 was mad enough to feel like he had to do something drastic as payback.

So, while Orion had been distracted by Elita-1 chewing him out for slacking off again, D-16 snuck the goodie box with him into the empty washracks. He shoveled down the last few goodies in anger before tossing the box.

The contrasting flavors had mingled unpleasantly in his mouth for days afterward.

Orion, to his surprise, got mad over it. Really mad. It was the angriest D-16 had ever seen him.

Part of him wanted to confess, but stubbornness, as always, won out. So, like a petulant sparkling with a chip on his shoulder, D-16 pointed the finger at the easiest targets as possible suspects.

Jazz, Sideswipe, and Sunstreaker.

Although proud troublemakers, the twins did not appreciate the accusations, especially Sunstreaker.

Jazz, on the other hand, figured the scheme almost instantly. Rather than rat D-16 out, he took the fall, for a price. In exchange for his secrecy, Jazz roped D-16 into covering his drill maintenance duty shifts for almost a whole cycle. Eventually, it became an inside joke between the two of them.

Orion quickly forgave Jazz but the loss seemed to embolden his trips to the streets above.

Next time, D, I’m getting us a huge box set, one with every flavor known to Cybertronian kind.

Guilt had nearly crushed D-16 on the spot.

Orion…

Why did he have to leave him to that monster?

D-16’s thoughts are suddenly shattered by a frantic voice and a thumb wiping away something wet on his cheek.

“O-Oh! Don’t cry! I’m sorry, I should of asked if you liked the kind with bismuth crumbles. I know they’re not everyone’s fav-”

“I’M NOT FRAGGING CRYING!”

B-127 recoils at the shout and snarl of exhausted engines. He stumbles backward hard onto his yellow aft, instinctively shielding his helm and curling into a defensive ball.

It takes the little cogless a klik to lower his guard and cautiously looks up at the silver mech. “S-Sorry.”

“Primus, just shut up, you fragging little weirdo…” D-16 snaps, balling his fist into a nearby plushie of an armless Amalgamous Prime until stuffing spews from its split seams.

For a nanoklik, it seems the yellow mech has finally quieted down but then he crawls over to gather up the soiled skirt.

“Here, let me see if I can find something to wash this,” he says quietly.

D-16 does not answer, only wincing as B-127 yanks the cloth from underneath him.

“Got it…” B-127 gasps, oddly panting from the effort, “Now I’ll just grab a… a bucket and… tap that old washrack pipe on… Sub… lev…”

B-127 glitches as he stands and a tremor jolts through his circuits. Suddenly, the smaller mech’s optics flicker black and he collapses forward.

His yellow helm smacks hard against the edge of the table on the way down as he falls to the floor with a solid crash. He stays down, motionless and silent for a long, long moment.

The unexpected hush is broken up only by trash falling onto the conveyor belt.

“All right, cut that out,” D-16 snaps out of reflex.

Silence only drags and the silver mech feels his tanks churn.

Primus must have a sick sense of humor.

“B?” D-16 tries again, “B, get up. This isn’t funny."

That is when he notices energon beginning to puddle beneath the yellow helm.

“No…!”

Struggling, D-16 tries to stand but can barely bear to get to his knees with the pain lancing through him. He opts instead to crawl a few paces before collapsing and dragging himself over to the fallen cogless, his arm clawing desperately at the floor.

Primus, it hurts, it hurts so much!

With all of his effort, D-16 manages to sit up and gather the smaller mech into an awkward embrace.  He winces at the sight.

B-127’s noseplate took the brunt of the fall, a sizeable dent dug into the metal. His olfactory sensors must be damaged as well because a thick trickle of energon dribbles from the mess of his noseplate all the way down to his chin.

D-16 curses as he struggles to unspool his communications hardline from his wrist. It takes a lot of difficulty and eventually he has to resort to using his denta to yank the input cable-jack free. Fumbling to stick the tip of the plug into the med-socket at the base of B-127’s neck, D-16 finally gets it in with an audible click.

“C’mon,” he mumbles as he fights his way through the unconscious mech’s HUD until he gets medical access, “C’mon, you can’t leave me like this, little mech…” He struggles through confusing binary trees and medical jargon until his processor aches.

In desperation, he sharply tugs one of B-127’s antennae, knowing that they should be sensitive.

That finally gets the yellow cogless to stir and he blinks his bleary blue optics open.

“Hey…” B-127 smiles slowly as soon as he recognizes the silver mech’s silhouette.

D-16’s vents sigh in relief before he shifts his focus back to the medical feed.

Luckily, despite the bleeding energon, the damage to B-127’s faceplates is relatively minimal. A line of bandage tape and a couple of well-placed zaps with the anti-dent magnet in the med-kit should fix the worst of it. However, there is one very, very big problem.

“You’re running on fumes?!” D-16 thunders in horror.

Even during the toughest of rationing spells, none of the miners were allowed to have their fuel tanks in such a state. Empty tanks led to empty processors, as the saying went, and any lapse in skill or judgment usually meant an accident. And accidents meant delays and cleanup, time that could be spent filling quota. And unfilled quotas meant punishments.

Why didn’t he know better?

No fragging wonder he was eyeing that retrorat.

“When was the last time you refueled?” D-16 demands, voice cracking.

Blue optics flicker in confusion before they look away guiltily. “Dunno… been so busy… so worried…”

D-16 feels like screaming in outrage.

All he manages is a disgusted “Tch,” before he takes his single hand and fishes out one of the emergency-emergency rations from the subspace in his marred silver chassis.

Although it is small, D-16 hesitates trying to force the whole ration into B-127’s intake. Instead, he digs his fingers into the cube and breaks off a piece from a corner. He then awkwardly presses it to the yellow mech’s lips.

It takes B-127 to register what is happening and lets the energon fall into his mouth.

“I can’t believe you would do this to yourself,” D-16 growls in frustration, wiping his hand over his helm as a headache threatens to flare up on top of everything else, “Fragging Primus, this is insane. You expect me to take care of you when I’m like this? Even Orion knew when to refuel when-”

“Who’s Orion?” B-127 asks after swallowing, already feeling energy seep into his circuits even from the tiniest crumb of fuel.

D-16 tenses before adverting his gaze. “No one.”

“That’s a shame… It’s such a pretty name…” B-127 sighs.

Grunting dismissively, D-16 readies another piece. “You are not to do this to yourself again, understood?” he says firmly.

“But you’re hurt…”

“Yes, I am slagging aware of that, idiot!” D-16 snaps venomously as he shoves the bit of energon roughly into the smaller mech’s mouth, shutting up any more protests. “Look, you can’t let yourself go into stasis or worst because of me. I…”

D-16’s vocalizer cracks terribly. He struggles to continue, his body demanding he just break down. His engines rev as frustration, defiance, and pain war in his processor. “I can’t take care of myself while I’m… like this. I…” he chokes out, a weak sob catching in his vocalizer until he smothers it with an honest whisper.

“I… need you…”

B-127 blinks, optics brightening up as his strength slowly returns. “Nobody’s ever needed me before…”

There is a long blissful quiet between them before the yellow mech shatters it with something that hits D-16 like a shovel to the face.

“Primus… Is this what love feels like?” B-127 sighs, his pixilated vision locked on the silver mech.

The words bore into D-16 spark like the serrated teeth of an energon drill. It digs deep, deep enough to physically hurt.

Love? How can someone love him anymore?

With nothing left but a broken body, after being thrown away like overused trash?

Useless and ruined.

It is almost enough to make D-16 shatter.

Instead, he says, “No, it’s just delirium. Eat something, stupid.”

D-16 continues to feed the yellow mech in tiny manageable bites until the cube is rendered to sticky crumbs. The silver mech shudders when B-127 cleans the residual energon from his fingers with soft little licks like a newly forged cyberpup.

Primus, did he look this pathetic when Sentinel forced him to eat from his large hand like a trained pet?

Pathetic.

B-127 pauses as he licks his lips, blue optics locked on the silver mech as his vision finally sharpens back into clear focus.

“What?” D-16 grunts.

“You’re smiling,” B-127 replies in awe, “I’ve never seen you do that before.”

The silver mech scoffs rudely with a roll of his golden optics. But then he feels it. It is small and crooked, but it is there.

D-16 promptly snuffs it with a scowl of annoyance.

“Awww…” B-127pouts.

Chapter Text

“Hey, careful with the welding, D.”

The soft reminder jolts D-16 from absentmindedly picking at his mostly healed scabs and scars along his silver armor for the third time that morning.

Or is it evening?

Time has lost all meaning down here.

Without a functional chronometer between them, the only ways to keep track of anything are their irregular recharge shifts and the healing progress of D-16’s many injuries.

Keeping track via their fuel usage is almost impossible because hunger is now a constant. Their fuel reserves rarely ever reach out of the red, no matter how hard B-127 struggles to collect anything. Usually, their refuels barely amount to the equivalent of a single ration cube, often consolidated crumbs and remnants from various sources followed by long stretches in between. The precious leftovers and dregs shared between them after groons and groons of B-127 combing through trash or foraging alone in one of the ten abandoned Sublevels.

That said, low fuel is still better than no fuel.

Down here, they take their miracles where they can get them.

In spite of everything, D-16 is unsure if his recovery, slow as it is, is a blessing or a curse.

A number of his wounds have healed enough that they no longer need rebandaging but, without a maintenance kit to grind and buff out the welding, the scarring can break off in places were the metal is still healing. And without extra med-gel, the fresh scars are starting to itch and burn.

“Please don’t scratch your chassis,” B-127 suddenly scolds gently, swatting D-16’s hand away from clawing at his heavily scarred empty chassis socket once more.

“Are you fragging sure this isn’t rust rash?” D-16 snaps, balling his hand into a fist and slamming it onto the table in frustration, “It feels like I’ve got a scraplet swarm under my plating.”

“According to the datapad, it’s just nanite inflammation. It should go away once the welding fully solidifies and flakes off,” B-127 replies before frowning as he watches D-16 drum his twitchy fingers against the tabletop, “If you keep picking at them, you’re going to rip something open again. I know it’s hard, but we’ve only got a little bandage tape left so try to focus on the game, okay?”

D-16 scoffs irritably as he wraps the thermal blanket from around his shoulders over his helm like a hood before slumping back in his chair to sulk in his misery. His fuel tank gives a rumble of need but he does his best to ignore it.

The silver mech wants to point out that it was B-127’s overuse of the med-kit that got them into the newest addition to their mess but he thinks better of it.

Unlike Orion, who always found a way to shirk his duties or sneak off to the Archives and left him to pick up the slack, D-16 is aware that B-127 is trying his best with what little they have. It has become clear to him that B-127 really embodies the phrase jack of all trades, master of none.

Yet still, an amateur’s touch is better than nothing down here. It can be its own sort of miracle.

While his medical skills leave much to be desired, not to mention his bedside manner can be a little too doting and clingy, D-16 is relearning how to sit and stand again thanks to the little annoyance. It has taken a lot of effort, and he cannot take more than a single step before the pain in his hips and internals flare up in vicious protest, but B-127 keeps finding new ways to help.

The whacking pipe, as B-127 called it, was recently converted into a utility crutch. He attached a supportive arm pad and hand grip and made the grasper at the end retractable. It is not the most comfortable to use and not useful as a reach extender if D-16 needs to stand, but it technically works and that is a statement unto itself.

Really, the yellow mech’s talent, aside from his oddly lightning-fast reflexes for pest control, is that he is an imaginative bot at spark.

D-16 is shaken from his thoughts as B-127 slaps a hand down in front of his smallest statue.

“Busted! Aaannnd that’s hand six over!” the little cogless announces before marking an X on the scoreboard made from a discarded iron filings casserole box. B-127 turns to D-16 as he runs down the current round’s recap, “Okay, A-A-Tron decided to call Steve’s bluff and lost big time, so it looks like he’s out of the finals qualifier. EP-508 raised the bet and added a shiny engex bottle cap and a bent Onyx Prime trading card, common, to the pot. I’m gonna fold for this round so you go next, D. You anteing up or what?”

D-16 grimaces as he shifts in his chair, a quick flicker of searing pain stings his eternally sore valve but is kept manageable by the pillows cushioning his aft. Huffing his vents in annoyance, he buries himself further into the blanket.

They have been doing this tournament thing between scavenging and medical maintenance for what felt like forever.

“This is stupid.”

“You’re just saying that cuz Steve is winning,” B-127 sing-songs as he leans down to peek past the hood to meet the other mech’s golden optics, “Come back from blanket town, D. Don’t make me call the clock.”

He is answered with a grumble of a puttering engine.

Part of D-16 is beginning to hate the yellow mech and his softsparked dumb little smile.

He hates how he is beginning to actually have rare moments of fun.

Here, in this slagging wastehole of all places.

“I’m fine here, thank you very much,” D-16 grunts before sarcastically sneering, “Maybe, if I feel like it, I’ll send you a souvenir.”

It is not much of a joke but it earns a joyous little giggle from the yellow mech and D-16 feels his spark swell with something sweet and warm.

The feeling turns to ice when the large imposing door from the other end of the room suddenly opens with a mighty and echoing clunk.

There are many constants down here and one of the truest was that door never opens.

Immediately, B-127 is on high alert, his makeshift cards slipping from his hands and clattering to the floor.

The other side is revealed to be an empty elevator shaft and something large lands heavily at the threshold. The thud reverberates through the entirety of Sublevel 50.

A cogged bot stands slowly.

D-16 recognizes him.

Darkwing.

Instinctively, D-16 grabs his crutch.

He has not been in the presence of a cogged bot since...

“Darkwing!” B-127 reacts enthusiastically as he bounds over to the hulking mech, “What a surprise! I haven’t seen you since you won the Iacon 5-”

As soon as he is in range, B-127 is shoved to the floor.

Hard.

“What have I fragging told you about staying at your post, glitch?” Darkwing thunders with a snarl of his engine as he glares down at the yellow bot, his magenta visor flashing in lieu of a sneer.

B-127 gulps nervously. He looks so small compared to the flier.

D-16 grips his crutch tight enough to hurt but can do nothing else as he feels himself lock up again, his wide golden optics the only things able to move.

No, not now!

Don’t freeze up now!

D-16 struggles but cannot even manage a feeble twitch.

He needs to do something, anything!

He needs to-

“Whatever happened, it wasn’t me,” B-127 blurts out quickly. The lie comes too naturally, an obvious knee-jerk defense mechanism.

Darkwing does not entertain it for a nanoklik and gives an offended scoff. “Oh? So it was just some other cogless runt skuttling around in Waste Management’s walls begging for handouts like a nasty little cyber-tick?”

“My frametype is pretty popular, maybe it was someone else?”

B-127 yelps as Darkwing grabs one of his antennas and yanks him roughly into the air.

“Do you think I’m fragging stupid, you disgusting little manifold muncher?”

“N-No!” B-127 gasps, wincing as pain lances through his helm, “No, sir! Ow, ow, ow…”

A phantom ache skitters across D-16’s cheek at the cry of pain but the thought of the flier setting his sights on him sends a tremble along his struts. D-16 feels his vocalizer contract painfully as he struggles to voice anything, his body still and useless.

In this state, a single punch could send the silver mech back to square one. Or worse…

Fear and rage clash in the D-16’s spark, reaching a frenzy, but all he can do is sit there like a bundled lump of rust.

Primus, how disgustingly pathetic, D-16 chastises himself. He might as well be another one of the statues.

Darkwing tightens his hold until the delicate yellow metal of the antenna begins to dent. “There have been multiple reports from Waste Management, Energon Processing, Equipment Maintenance, and even the On-sight Offices of a mech fitting your description disturbing work personnel during different shift hours.”

B-127 chokes on a stressed whine as the cogged mech begins to twist his antenna. “I’m sorry! It’s just I’ve been so hungry and we need-”

“Excuse me?!” Darkwing bellows before unceremoniously dropping B-127, letting him fall into a trembling heap, “You ungrateful little slagger! I go out of my way twice a quartex to come down here to make sure you’re earning your dues. No one else volunteered to be your keeper.”

“Actually, it feels like it’s been more than three quartex since I’ve last seen-” B-127 starts but quiets when Darkwing seizes his chin, forcing their gazes to meet.

“What the frag did I say about backtalk, no-cog?” Darkwing snaps as his fingers dig bruises into the soft metal. “If it wasn’t for me, your troublemaking aft would still be stuck shucking scum and rust off of minecarts with a tread-pick and recharging in a rusted-out locker.”

“Sorry, sir,” B-127 says, trying not to wince, “I really do appreciate this job. Honest…”

“Uh-huh,” Darkwing grunts, releasing the smaller mech. He straightens to his full height and crosses his arms. “Well? What have you got for me this time?”

B-127 tenses, a horrible realization dawning on him.

“Right… Quota…” he says slowly as he forces a polite smile.

He scrambles to the opposite side of the conveyor belt and yanks up a hatch from the flooring, revealing some storage space. “I’ve got some quality salvage this time,” B-127 says as he reaches in and pulls out the datatrax audio player he had been tinkering with occasionally when he found a rare spare moment.

“Here, I managed to splice two players together to get it to this point. Plus, I found a shockpop trax already plugged in.”

“Does it work?” Darkwing asks, unimpressed. He snatches it out of the yellow mech’s hands anyway to inspect it himself.

“Kinda. All that’s left to fix is a problem with the speakers. It’s taken me ages to find a replacement hub for the aux cab-”

Darkwing cuts B-127 off by throwing the datatrax player to the ground, smashing it to pieces.

Countless days of hard work gone in an instant.

D-16 nearly jolts at the violent and callous act, his throat aching from a trapped shout of outrage, but it is not enough to break the spell. His body just sits there, forcing him to watch in silence.

“Are you wasting my time, glitch?” Darkwing asks bluntly.

B-127 cannot tear his gaze away from the remains of the player. “No, s-sir!” B-127 whimpers, his voice a broken little hiccup.

“Anything else?”

That snaps B-127 from his stupor and he kneels down to rummage through the storage hatch desperately. After a moment of pawing through uncompleted projects he finally finds something suitable. “I have this mini desktop cube game. It has all the pieces. I think it was only used once.”

Darkwing rumbles a noise as he snatches the desk toy and looks it over.

“The box said it’s great for office stress relief.”

The large flier pauses, as if weighing his thought, before pocketing the tabletop game. “Acceptable, I guess. I suppose I can send it to Shipment Processing. They’ve supposedly earned an incentive with their recent quota uptick.”

There is a long pause as Darkwing glares down expectantly at the cogless mech.

“What?”

“That’s it?” Darkwing glowers, impatient.

B-127 flounders and wrings his hands. “I-I… um… I’ve been kind of busy lately.”

Darkwing grows livid. “Oh, I didn’t realize all of Cybertron had to slam on its slagging breaks because some stupid little nameless no-cog can’t do his one job!” he shouts as he stomps over to the cowering B-127.

He huffs out an amused scoff when B-127 scrambles backwards and trips, landing hard on the floor again.

Rolling his shoulders, Darkwing turns toward the elevator shaft, as if ready to leave. “I’m beginning to think you don’t even want your rations anymore,” he says offhandedly, keeping his stride purposely slow.

“W-Wait! Please!” B-127 exclaims as he bolts over, trying to block the exit.

“Regular rations are for competent workers,” Darkwing says, repeating a common supervisor saying as he brushes past the small bot.

B-127 immediately latches onto Darkwing’s arm, dragging his yellow pedes against the floor hard enough to scrape up sparks. “Please! I know I did a bad job, but I need my rations. I’ll do anything… I…” his voice withers into a tense quiet before he lifts Darkwing’s hand.

He places the cogged mech’s hand against his bruised faceplates and nuzzles it tenderly.

Invitingly.

“We…” B-127 stutters and gulps as he meets the large flier’s keen gaze before steeling himself and fluttering his blue optics, “We can… do that thing you like…”

Darkwing’s visor glints with a strange triumph. “That’s what I like to hear…” he chuckles darkly.

With that, Darkwing slams B-127 against the nearest wall, making the cogless yelp. The flier’s large hands paw at the curve of the rounded chassis before slipping lower to grip the small hips, fingers digging into the yellow metal with possessive strength.

B-127 shudders and winces but gasps and coos noises of encouragement until he grabs Darkwing’s wrists, earning a growl of annoyance. “Um… Can I close the door first?” he asks quietly, motioning over to the alcove, “I want to give us some privacy and I don’t want to bother my friends…”

Darkwing recoils back a few steps and gives a full body shudder that goes all the way to his finials. “Oh puke, you’re somehow getting slagging weirder?” he asks with a wretch of disgust. He backpedals a couple of steps and averts his glare to a corner and crosses his arms again. “Fine. Whatever,” he sneers impatiently, “Just hurry it up. My spike is killing me.”

D-16 is suddenly reminded of his own existence as B-127 hurries over, having lost himself in the growing horror he feels slithering up his spinal strut with a sickening cold chill. He still cannot move, his limbs feeling heavier than ununtrium. His golden optics are locked on the yellow bot with a mix of pleading and concern.

B-127 just shushes the silver cogless by pressing a finger to his lips as he draws the metal shutter close, pausing to lock their gazes and gives D-16 a reassuring smile. His scruffbar is suddenly seized by Darkwing and he is yanked away with a yelp.

The shutter is left open by enough of a fraction that D-16 can see everything from his frozen state.

“Hurry up before I change my mind, stupid little slagger,” Darkwing grunts as he mechandles the cogless to a spot clear of the overhead chute and conveyor belt.

“Waitwait, let me just…”

B-127 squirms nervously as he is pinned to the floor by the much larger mech. He instinctively shies away only for a rough hand to grip the back of his helm and forces him to face the foremech.

The shutter opening frames them in a near perfect angle from the alcove’s shadows.

Suddenly, D-16 is back in the Tower of Primes.

He had been quickly distracted by the view from a huge beautiful ornate window of the private suite. The sight of the cityscape drew his attention so completely that he did not notice the sudden presence in the room until large hands gripped his shoulders and the warm breath of a chuckle caressed the back of his neck.

Quite the view, huh?

D-16 can feel tears streak down his faceplate as his tanks twist with painful knotted churning as he remembers that smile.

And the touches that followed.

“Ah…”

Reality surges back into focus as D-16 sees B-127 staring up nervously at a girthy spike being slowly stroked.

“Been a while, hasn’t it?” Darkwing taunts as he kicks open the yellow thighs, “Spread your legs and open those dirty panels, glitch. I’ve been desperate to get my spike wet with some cogless valve for almost a quartex.”

B-127 winces but does as he is told. “Yes…” he murmurs emotionlessly, as if reading from a script within his HUD, and there is a click of his yellow panels, “You can do whatever you want with me, sir...”

“Atta bot,” Darkwing hums as he savors the blue light emanating from the obscured sight of the little mech’s valve. He promptly kneels and hauls the yellow cogless onto his lap, easily holding B-127 with just one hand.

A choked whimper glitches in B-127’s vocalizer as the spike impatiently presses into his barely lubed folds. Darkwing only grants him a brief courtesy tease before B-127 gasps at the intrusion. “Nggh…!” he cries out with tiny whimpers, his arms clinging to the cogged bot’s broad blue chassis.

“Mmm, there we go…” Darkwing groans with a pleased sigh as he bounces the little mech on the tip of his spike like a toy.

Once slick starts to drip down B-127’s trembling thighs, Darkwing starts to thrust in with earnest.

D-16’s processor spirals as their mingled noises rise in volume.

His memories stagger to the forefront and he remembers the sweetness that was his first time.

It was nothing like those secret kisses, the bump and grind of hot heated frames, or the curl of curious fingers.

Nothing like Orion Pax.

D-16 knows he should have been ashamed.

It was the same as cheating, right?

But in that moment, he felt nothing but allure and passion, maybe even a little pride.

He was with THE Sentinel Prime, after all.

How cool was that?

“O-Oh! Too deep! D-Dark, let me catch u-up, I- E-Easy!”

“What did I tell you about nicknames, spike-sleeve?” Darkwing grunts, their voices shattering through the haze of D-16’s memories.

Darkwing’s hand is at B-127’s antenna again, tugging roughly.

“S-Sorry…!” B-127 gasps as his hands struggle to find purchase against the mech’s chassis, “M-Master Darkwing…”

“Well, what do you know? Looks like you can teach dumb glitches new tricks,” the cogged mech laughs as he keeps his pace rough.

A small, nasty, disgusting, and horrible part of D-16’s processor is just glad the degrading subjugation is not happening to him.

Wait, what?

Horror hits the silver mech like a punch to his nauseated tanks as he registers what he just thought.

Why?

Why would he think of something like that?

How could he think of something like that?

Has he lost every semblance of decency?

It was a fleeting and involuntary thought, freakish and selfish, but it leaves a regretful burn that sears like the branded scars along his remaining pauldron.

When did he become so sparkless?

It was that night he lost his seals, of course, he answers himself.

If Orion wanted to wander off again, he was on his own. D-16 was going to have the best night in his entire life.

The morning, however, was sobering.

The guilt D-16 had woken up with hit just as hard then as it does now.

As soon as he realized he was alone, he remembers trying to leave. His inner thoughts chastised himself as he made his way to the exit.

The door was locked solid.

It did not take long for him to panic.

In a whirlwind of dread and anger, D-16 threw the nearest piece of furniture at that beautiful window with all his might.

If Orion could scale Iacon’s complex architecture, so could he.

But it was not a window.

One of the panels cracked under the impact to reveal it was nothing more than a screen playing some sort of recording of the city’s bustling vista.

There was no escape.

There was no calling for help.

D-16 was trapped.

Nevertheless, he tore through the golden room like a caged animal, desperate for any sort of getaway. When he found none, rage overtook his senses and he just started smashing things. He swore and screamed and shattered for what felt like cycles.

Sentinel found the silver mech panting at the sill of the broken fake window.

On instinct, he grabbed a leg he tore from a stool and launched himself at the surprised blue and gold fiend.

Looking back, it was utterly laughable how D-16 was so certain he could kill a Prime.

So egotistical.

He was quickly pinned to the floor and forced to join the rest of the ruins.

A static laced cry dissolves the hallucination of blue and gold looming over D-16 and the silver mech watches as Darkwing pins the small yellow bot to the floor. His large blue frame blankets B-127 from view, threatening to crush him as small hands claw at the broad shoulders.

“Overloading already? Ngh, Primus, you’re such a dirty little slut,” Darkwing moans as he quickens his pace, his pounding brutal.

D-16 struggles to focus, the spiral worsening as things begin to parallel.

He cannot shut his optics, they are too wide with horror, so he tries to mute his audials but only manages to lower the volume. He does not want to see or hear any of this, but resistance only draws him into something darker.

Disassociation returns him to the Tower Room.

Alone.

His right arm was chained to the berth in the room that had returned to its flawless opulence.

Things became a process after the escape attempt, each repeating over and over again.

Energon rations laced with something that left his processor fuzzy and compliant.

Training that broke down the fire of his spark until even the embers were smothered.

Echoes of laughter towered over him as his anger was crushed and molded into fear and sorrow.

Pain, endless pain, reminded him of what he was.

Cogless.

Useless.

A toy.

Over and over again, the process would repeat.

Over.

And.

Over.

All of it endless and cruel.

Until all that was left of him was garbage.

Utter garbage.

A bellow roars loud enough to cut through the muffled volume and D-16 blinks, his optics locking onto B-127’s.

The sweet blue sparkle has dulled to a faraway stare as a large hand presses his helm down hard against the metal floor. His glossia lolls as he whimpers and drools as Darkwing gives a few more savage thrusts. He tries to speak but his words are a quiet garbled mess.

“Uggh… there we go… Take it all, you no-cog whore,” Darkwing groans as his fingers dig into the yellow metal of the smaller bot’s thighs.

They still for a moment and just let their cooling fans roar.

Then Darkwing withdraws slowly.

The noises are sickening. A squelch and a splatter of wetness followed by B-127 gasping as his limp limbs twitch. Then Darkwing laughs and their mingled fluids ooze and gush into a puddled mess.

“Frag, glitch. I forgot how much your slutty tanks can take,” Darkwing taunts as he stands, stroking his dirtied flaccid spike. He lets out an appreciative hum as he watches B-127 struggle to regain his bearings. After a few moments of just staring, Darkwing reaches into one of his subspaces. “Seems like almost a waste to give you these, what with how stuffed you are. But I suppose you’ve earned it.”

B-127 jolts in surprise when several cubes of energon are thrown to the floor near his helm.

“Enjoy your rations, glitch. Primus, a nice tight valve is exactly what the doctor ordered after the slagging shift I had.”

With a shaky sigh of relief, B-127 scoops up the energon and holds the cubes close. “Thank… you… s-sir…” he chokes out, grateful and exhausted.

Darkwing grunts, still eyeing the mess between B-127’s dented thighs as he plays with his limp spike. He then startles the yellow bot as he squats down to yank the antenna again to angle B-127’s focus back to him.

“You interested in getting in on a little side hustle of mine? I don’t give this offer to just any no-cog down here and especially not… miners…” Darkwing says, grumbling out that particular word as if it something vile before continuing, “But you, you’re a cute little thing when you know how to shut up. I flaunt a photo of you and I’ll have mechs throwing so much shanix my way I can pay my way past the qualifiers for a guaranteed top slot the next Iacon 5000.”

B-127 blinks in confusion as he struggles to untangle his overclocked systems. “I… What do I need to do?”

“Ha, I knew a desperate thing like you couldn’t resist,” Darkwing chuckles as he pulls out an outdated foremech’s pager from his chassis and waves it around. “One day, once I feel like you’ve earned a regular ration schedule like a real mech, I’m going to activate this buzzer. You are to then, I don’t care how, get your scrawny yellow aft to Sublevel 08 Sector GR1 and take the nearest door to the washracks. There, I want you to scrub your filthy frame spotless then stay there until I come get you. You do as you’re told and perform well at this gig, then I’ll think about making it a semi-permanent thing in between your scaving. You’ll earn over double rations in exchange, depending on your performance.”

The flier pauses as he lets his instructions sink in before handing the pager over. “Sound good, shareware?” he asks.

B-127 gives a small smile as he sits up and excitedly takes the handheld device. “That sounds great!”

Darkwing lets out an amused snort and turns to leave, only for a little hand to clutch his wrist.

“O-Oh, before you go, can I please have that med-kit you promised a while back?” B-127 asks, only to be answered by a harsh backhand.

“You fragging greedy little glitch! Haven’t I done enough for you?” Darkwing seethes, mood suddenly shifting gears.

B-127 recoils, kicking the energon away before he can accidentally step on it. “Please! It’s for my best friend! He’s hurt and-”

“Primus, can you not be a fragging freak for a single nanoklik?”

Darkwing grabs the yellow mech’s scruffbar and forces his small face towards his crotchplate. “Suck my spike clean,” Darkwing orders, “You keep quiet and do a good job, maybe I’ll forget your disrespect the next time you want to flash your slutty panels for some energon.”

Whimpering, B-127 extends his glossia and begins to lap at the thick length. He shudders at the taste as he feels their fluids smear all over his faceplates.

“Primus, you’d better be worth all the trouble,” Darkwing grunts before he ruts the blunt tip against those soft little lips. He does not let B-127 adjust as he shoves his spike down that annoying intake. “There you go.  Ngh, that’s right, choke on it.”

The flier holds the yellow helm in place just long enough for B-127 to swallow down the mess of thick fluids, groaning as he feels that little glossia run hesitantly along the underside of his spent spike.

Once satisfied with the cleanup, Darkwing yanks himself free, making B-127 sputter and cough as he stumbles to the floor.

“Here, dumb glitch. It’s coming out of your quota so I expect triple results next time, or else,” the flier snaps as he throws a med kit at the yellow bot’s feet. It clatters open, spilling the contents amongst the remains of the datatrax player.

“Fragging Primus, maybe the old saying is right. Don’t stick your spike in crazy,” Darkwing mutters to himself under a breath of exhaust as he turns on his heel and towards the only exit.

He pauses at the threshold and glares back at B-127. “Don’t be late when I call for you.”

Without waiting for a reply, the flier rockets back up the empty elevator shaft.

Then the huge door slams shut hard enough to rattle Sublevel 50 to its core.

For a long moment, B-127 lays in a heap. He struggles to his knees then spits a wad of gunk onto the floor as he chokes back a weak sniffle.

D-16 sits rooted to the spot as he watches B-127 silently begin to pick up the pieces of the med-kit as he wipes his scarred noseplate with the back of his hand. There is a soft noise as his panels click back securely over his used array.

He feels like a specter.

His joints howl in protest from their locked state.

Primus, he wishes he could walk over and place a comforting hand on the yellow bot.

Or seize him with a secure hug.

Anything.

But no, he cannot even give the little mech a shred of comfort.

How broken is he now?

Nearby, the conveyor belt clunks along, steady as ever, as if nothing happened.

As if to emphasize that, B-127 brightens as that dumb little smiles slides back into place as he slowly counts the gathered cubes of energon.

“D!” he cheers, voice bubbly and excitable once again, as he rushes back over to the alcove with the energon and important medical supplies in his arms and shoves the shutter open, “D, look! We’ve got four full cubes plus there’s three emergency rations in the med-kit! We hit the jackpot! This should last us for…”

His enthusiasm dies as soon as he sees the familiar state the silver mech is in.

“D? Hey, shh, it’s alright,” B-127 coos gently as he deposits the energon and supplies onto the cluttered table in front of Steve. He lifts back the blanket then cups the silver mech’s cheek, thumb tracing the handsome angles in soothing circles.

Just like that, the processor lag clears and, without thinking, D-16 drops his crutch and slaps the small hand away.

B-127 yelps at the sharp contact but gives a sigh of relief. “Oh good, you had me worried for a klik.”

D-16 glares at him through stinging tears before his optics widen in horror. “You’re… bleeding…” he gasps, his strained vocalizer hitching terribly as static punctuates his words.

“I am not, silly bot. You barely touched me,” B-127 assures him with that unwavering smile, even as he is rubbing the sting from his hand.

“No, I mean down… there…”

B-127 tenses into a brief state of shock as he glances down and, sure enough, sees a bright trickle of energon seeping from a corner of his closed pelvic paneling and down his leg. “Ah… u-um! It’s fine, it’s nothing. Just a teeny-weeny tear from a popped caliper, should heal up completely in a few days,” he says quickly as he pulls out a stained cleaning cloth and wipes furiously along his inner thigh.

D-16 cannot believe he has the gall to look more embarrassed than hurt.

It makes him want to purge.

Instead, he just gives a stuttering growl of his engines.

B-127 looks up at the rev and motions for the silver mech to settle down. “It’s okay, Darkwing didn’t mean it. We’re friends,” he says simply.

The larger cogless is stunned in an instant, his jaw dropping in shock. “Friends…?” D-16 echoes numbly. The word sounds dirty on his glossia.

“I know, I know. They say you shouldn’t get buddy-buddy with your boss but Darkwing’s different,” B-127 tuts, as if they are having the most casual of conversations. “It’s just a little quid pro quo when I can’t keep up with my salvage quota. It’s only fair, right?”

D-16’s wide golden optics stare at the smaller bot, as if truly seeing all of him for the first time. “You’ve been letting him…” Primus, he does not even want to finish the sentence, “interface with you?”

B-127 suddenly sputters a scandalized gasp.

“What, that? That wasn’t interfacing,” B-127 scoffs, motioning over to the horrific puddle left on the floor before walking over and wiping it up with his slightly blooded cloth, “At least not real interfacing. Everyone knows it doesn’t count if there’s no spark stuff or hardlines or, you know, other things like that. I was just helping Darkwing blow off some steam. It’s no big deal,” B-127 insists with a shrug as he finishes cleaning the mess.

He pauses to toss the cloth onto the conveyor belt to join the passing scrap.

“Bots like him just like keeping it on the down low. No need to get into workplace drama and all that. Besides, Darkwing is…” B-127 continues before falling strangely quiet, “He is gentle compared to others…”

“Others…?” D-16 deadpans.

A blush of embarrassment blooms along the yellow mech’s soft faceplates before his vents heave a weighty and wavering sigh. B-127 then hops up and sits on the edge of the table. He clasps his scuffed and worn hands in his lap as he looks up at the silver mech with those bright blue optics.

“The first time it happened was with my manager in Energon Refinement,” B-127 says demurely, as if speaking to a confessional effigy of one of the Thirteen. “He swore I wouldn’t get reassigned again if I gave him what he wanted… He busted me down five whole tiers just two days later for accidentally knocking his toolbox into a processing vat.”

He pauses to chuckle wistfully, as if recalling a fond memory, “Mech, you should’ve seen the look on my face, talk about embarrassing.”

B-127 sighs as he leans back, swinging his feet that are too short to reach the ground, as words begin to pour from his vocalizer like they often do. “It happened again at Shipment and Processing, the couple who ran the operation heard a rumor about it and they gave me shift leave every time I was sore afterwards. It only happened a few times because they got promoted to an office gig ceiling-side not long after my transfer.”

There is another, this time longer, pause as B-127 grips the edge of the table, fingers digging into the metal. “After that, I sorta struggled to stay in any tier for very long as I ended up in practically every job in the mines. I managed longer in some thanks to my reputation but I guess the few managers who offered me that ‘special’ overtime, like Darkwing, didn’t want to get attached. Which was fine by me, I didn’t want to risk getting attached either. I’m saving my spark for someone special.”

D-16 just sits there. Almost too stunned to speak. “You let bots hurt you,” he whispers, his processor struggling to comprehend what was just said.

B-127 blinks in confusion. “Hurt? Hold on a klik, D. This isn’t like what happened to y-” he catches himself and averts his gaze, as if guilty.

As if this mess is his fault.

“It… it wasn’t the same. I wanted it, I offered it. I still…” B-127 turns back to the silver mech, his bright blue optics misty-eyed, “Until you… it was the only way I ever got close to… anyone…”

That hits D-16 hard, hard enough to physically hurt as his spark twists painfully within his scarred chassis.

“Cogged bots…” D-16 sneers beneath a biting scoff, “All they ever do is take from us.” He curls his remaining hand into a fist, aches skittering through the tense joints, “We spend lifetimes listening to them… Obeying them… Worshipping them… All for them to throw us away like…!”

The silver mech’s intake chokes on a noise of despair and B-127 scoots closer, placing a concerned but comforting hand on the silver pauldron, unintentionally touching the scar shaped like the visage of Megatronus.

“D… You don’t have to say anything else if it hurts. I’m not going to force you to-”

“It was Sentinel Prime.”

The sudden confession is joined by a lull of the garbage chute and, for a moment, Sublevel 50 grows as quiet as it can be.

B-127 is utterly speechless.

D-16 watches the yellow bot’s emotions rapidly cycle through his frazzled little processor.

Confusion.

Buffering.

Denial.

More confusion.

Horror.

Dots connect then scramble.

Nothing makes sense.

D-16 does not blame him.

Eventually, B-127 finds his voice again.

“That’s… How could anyone...? Why would a Prime do that to a cogless?”

D-16 lets out a loud bitter laugh.

Good fragging question.

The silver mech leans back in his chair and glances upwards, as if he can see through the Sublevels all the way to the Tower of Primes itself. “He told me it was my purpose. My role as a cogless Cybertronian who is akin to a space barnacle compared to real bots. He told me I should be grateful for his grace and his mercy. He kept me as a… thing. Beat every shred of resistance and anger out of me until now all I can do against any possible confrontation is lay there like a broken toy…”

He turns his attention to the fiery mouth of the furnace. “Who knows… maybe he had a point… Maybe I do belong with the rest of the fragging garbage now.”

“No…”

D-16 blinks as if suddenly pulled from a veil of darkness. “What…?” he chokes out as he looks down to see those blue optics alight with an oddly familiar fire.

“I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but the Prime is wrong!” B-127 says firmly. “What you just said about yourself, it isn’t true! And what he did…” he pauses to ball his hands into little fists, “No one should have to go through such a terrible thing! It isn’t right!”

The silver mech falls quiet before his lips curl into a wistful smirk. “Tch… You sound just like Orion…” he mumbles, not realizing he said it out loud.

“Oh…?” B-127 perks up excitedly at the name of the mystery bot that came up once more, “Should I be flattered?”

D-16 lets the question linger for a long moment before he answers. “Orion Pax was my… friend. He always dragged me into his shenanigans and we had just done the stupidest thing any cogless had ever done in the past fifty cycles. It was the best and worst day of my entire life. We had been escorted by a femme to the Tower of Primes and what’s the first thing he did?  What he always does… wandered off and left me to deal with the cogged overseers. He just… left me with Sentinel…” D-16’s voice trails off as his optics burn, threatening more tears.

He wipes them away with the back of his hand, sneering. “Now I’m slagging stuck down here and he’s probably… probably… Frag, I…”

“And now you’re worried the same thing is probably happening to him…” B-127 concludes as the sentence hangs between them.

D-16 freezes.

Such a thought never even crossed his mind.

That is weird, right?

That is what a normal bot would think about, right?

But not D-16.

Orion had probably made it back to the barracks… Otherwise, Sentinel would have seized the opportunity to torment the silver mech with his best friend, right?

For a horrifying moment, D-16 imagines Orion Pax’s greying corpse suddenly falling onto the conveyor belt, as if to taunt him for the oversight.

He feels nothing but numbness at the thought.

It scares him.

Such a selfish coward he has become.

D-16 is shaken from his distressing thoughts when he notices B-127 pick up the roundish pager from the collection of energon and attempts to pocket it into his chassis. He instinctively grabs the smaller mech’s wrist. “You aren’t actually considering going up there?” he asks, his golden optics wide.

“Why not? It’s a great offer,” B-127 answers with a shrug, pocketing the pager into his chassis subspace with his free hand and then reaching for a brand-new tube of med-gel. “Now, let’s take care of that nanite inflammation.”

“Are you cracked?” D-16 chokes out in confusion, unintentionally tightening his grip, “That’s your priority? You are literally bleeding!”

B-127 scoffs dismissively and tries to yank his hand free. “I already cleaned up the worst of it and my HUD says it’s nothing serious.”

D-16’s frown deepens. “You promised you’d start taking better care of yourself, remember.”

“I told you, I’m f-”

“THAT WASN’T A FRAGGING SUGGESTION!”

B-127 recoils at the shout, his free arm shielding his helm defensively as the grip on his wrist tightens and the silver mech’s thumb digs a bruise into his plating. He hesitantly meets D-16’s glare and sees the golden optics are narrowed and near smoldering with a dangerous gleam of orange around the edges.

His yellow antennas droop and he gives an obedient nod. “O-Okay…” he murmurs softly before trying to climb off the table, “Let me just…”

“Do it where I can see you,” D-16 snarls suddenly, keeping his grip.

When B-127 looks up at him in embarrassment and confusion, D-16 snaps out of the surge of intensity and reins in his emotions to a simmer, letting go. “Just prove that you’ll actually do it. I won’t stare. I…” He averts his gaze low and the tint of orange evaporates back to pure gold. “Look, just trust me on this. Nanite inflammation itches like the bite of a rust plague scraplet.”

Slowly, B-127 relaxes. “Alright, D,” he says before scooting his legs over the other corner of the table, staying nearby but keeping his panels out of sight even if the silver mech looked his way.

True to his word, D-16 keeps his sight magnetized to the floor as he hears the interface array open and the yellow mech reaches for the medical supplies amongst the energon. He twitches when there is a soft squelch of fingers slipping into the hidden folds, not unlike when those fingers were inside his ruined valve, and when B-127 gasps at an aching sting from within. Or possibly something else.

D-16 fears he may never get those sounds out of his processor.

Lucky for him, it is over in less than two kliks.

“Ngh… Okay, I did it. Is one layer of gel enough? It really isn’t that bad,” B-127 announces as soon as he is finished.

“Fine…”

B-127 vents a relieved sigh and there is an audible click as his panels slide back into place.

 “I don’t want you to take that offer.”

B-127 looks up at the hushed murmur and frowns at the silver mech, who sits still staring at the floor. “I get that you’re nervous about it, D, I really do. I know a lot of bots struggle working two jobs but I know I can handle it if it solves our energon problem. Maybe it won’t be so bad? I heard Sublevel 08 is-”

“Please…” D-16 whispers, taking B-127’s wrist in his hand again. This time, his thumb smooths gently over the fresh dent.

“But we’ll eventually need…” B-127 trails off as he glances over to their boon of energon.

Even if they continue with their extreme rationing, they both know the cubes will not last forever.

“Can I think about it?” B-127 asks, patting the silver mech’s hand comfortingly.

D-16 does not answer, he cannot. Every fiber of his being just wants to bellow out a scream until his spark snuffs itself out. Instead, he slumps forward, helm in his remaining hand.

A small warm touch cups his silver cheek and lifts up his gaze to meet those comforting blue optics.

“C’mon, it’s your turn. Let’s get each other fixed up so we can refuel,” B-127 coos as he spreads a dollop of med-gel on his cleaned fingers. He takes his time and rubs the salve into every scar welded into the silver and black metal of the larger mech’s broad chest, taking the utmost care around the chassis slot. “There, isn’t that better?”

The relief of the soothing nanite-balm is almost instantaneous and D-16 can’t stop the pathetic whimper when B-127 tends to his scarred pauldron.

“Why… Why are you doing all of this for… me?” D-16 chokes out as the yellow mech screws the cap back onto the tube.

“Why wouldn’t I? You’re my best friend, silly.” B-127 says, beaming his dumb little smile as he loops his arms around the larger mech’s neck and nestles against D-16.

D-16 just withers under the touch.

This little mech…

What the frag is he going to do with him?

Words fail, so D-16 reluctantly curls his only arm around the smaller cogless, returning the hug as something begins to swell like storm clouds in the back of his processor.