Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Timelines are weird. In one, a butterfly flaps its wings and across the globe five million people decide the action caused a tsunami. In another, a very drunk Ratchet asked a question he normally avoided to an equally drunk Wheeljack.

Unlike the butterfly and the tsunami, that conversation did have a direct consequence--leading Ratchet to confiscate a briefcase long before it could wreak havoc on a particular spaceship, instead passing it on to Wheeljack by way of Optimus.

This is that timeline.

BACK TO THE FUTURE PAST

“It’s been a long day and I’d like to solve the mystery of

what getting eight hours of sleep feels like.”

Ghost Hunters Adventure Club and the Secret of the Grande Chateau

Cecil H.H. Mills

‘Property of Brainstorm’ was scrawled across the underside of the lid.

So was a variety of sayings that looked like the scientist had seen too many human bumper stickers, and one disturbing line about someone named Quark that Wheeljack was already desperate to forget.

Not that he’d had much time to process any of that, seeing as the briefcase in question exploded roughly a minute after he’d opened it.

It didn’t even have the decency to be a normal explosion.

‘Of course it isn’t’, Wheeljack thought darkly to himself, lying on his back somewhere that looked like a stupidly clean version of the Iacon University’s Science and Engineering complex, waiting for his HUD to finish its damage report, ‘Brainstorm made the damn thing.’

He could only curse himself for being a complete and utter idiot.

See: he hadn’t known the briefcase was Brainstorm’s.

Not until he’d opened it.

He’d stupidly (and idiotically) trusted Optimus that it was one of Wheeljack’s own inventions, completely ignoring the fact that their former leader was so overworked he routinely forgot where he lived.

And pit. Wheeljack had made some seriously stupid inventions in the thick of the war. He certainly didn’t remember them all!

He still treated it like it might be a trap, but all the Autobot security measures checked out and Wheeljack promptly thought (stupidly thought) he was in the clear--until that little ‘Property of’ plaque had unveiled itself.

‘You have no one to blame but yourself.’ He thought darkly. ‘And Brainstorm.’

The events kept replaying in his head, ruining the gentle night sky that hovered above him.

Optimus had handed him the briefcase.

Optimus had told him it had been confiscated from the Lost Light.

Optimus had been decently amused about it because the mech who’d confiscated and requested Wheeljack examine and dismantle “whatever evil thing lives inside” was Ratchet, and they both knew how Ratchet felt about some of his more experimental projects.

Wheeljack had opened the briefcase--and after the already mentioned explosion, he now lay sprawled across the steps of the University as it once was, a clump of students snickering as they waltzed past.

‘Why the frag didn’t Ratchet tell me it was Brainstorm’s!?’ Wheeljack thought, as his first initial report came back clear, assuring him that at the very least he wasn’t going to die (and that his chronometer was completely out of sync with the local networks, which were about a billion frickin’ years behind.) ‘He’s heard me moan about the mech enough, he shoulda sent a warning!’

Perhaps wrapped the briefcase in caution tape, or written “CAUTION: BRAINSTORM’S” in bold red lettering.

Wheeljack had been the head of the mechanical engineering-slash-science department for more than half the war. Had personally approved all projects since the division had shrunken down to less than twenty mechs (five of which being medical crossovers.)

He might not have remembered whatever ridiculous thing Starscream and Windblade had argued about yesterday, but he knew his own people better than anyone.

Brainstorm, the youngest --and, though Wheeljack hated to admit it, the smartest-- of them all, had been on track to accidentally maim, murder, or destroy everything around him since some bright fragger had put science in his head as a career choice.

There were no less than 321 internal memos either to him or about him (not that Wheeljack had been counting.)

Ratchet himself had personally sent more than 20 “off record” ones!

So it wasn’t like the CMO didn’t know.

(Inside his head, Wheeljack’s systems was having a field day with the local feeds. A communications patch was being applied, one of the custom ones they’d developed to interface with Colony mechs, who were usually stuck on outdated… well, everything.

This particular patch had been designed after an especially strange run-in with a very old bot.

“Ancient” Starscream had sneered, much to Windblade’s annoyance, as they’d had fun trying to communicate properly with someone running programs that dated back well before the war.

There was absolutely no reason for such a patch to be running now, not a single one--not even the giant blinking display across the walkway insisting that students “Have a Safe Solstice Break!”

It was far easier to fixate on how much he hated Brainstorm than to admit what was glaringly obvious.)

Primus, he’d even been there during Brainstorm’s attempts mid-war to invent an ACME style rocket gun!

“You can shoot people with it, or you can point it to a target, activate the boosters, and have it do the chasing for you while it shoots!” Brainstorm had said proudly, two days before the twins had gotten ahold of it. “It plays a little jingle so you always know where it is, see?”

The only good thing to come out of that fiasco was having so many victims laid up in the med bay they’d successfully trained three different medics in a variety of emergency surgeries.

Something pinged his HUD, and Wheeljack opened it, figuring nothing could possibly make his day any worse.

::Message received from BR1-CASE 01::

Oh Primus, the briefcase was texting him.

‘What kind of psychopath…” Wheeljack muttered as text scrolled painfully slow across his HUD.

Remember…

Remember what’s…

Remember what’s at stake.

Leaving Wheeljack alone, with futuristic armor (weapons included, though now he was thankful they were at least a bit more hidden than they had been before the war quote unquote “ended.”) from hundreds of years in the future, smack dab into what was clearly the past.

He was going to kill Brainstorm.

xXx

“What happened to you?” Ratchet said, sprawled out on the trashed couch Wheeljack was only now recalling they owned. “Bar swallow you whole?”

He squinted, taking in his best friend, then sat up, clocking immediately that something was off.

“Jackie.” He said more firmly, and Primus, he was so young. Not just in body, but the way he spoke, how his field reached out unguarded.

Hell the way he moved.

It was more of a shock than seeing Iacon whole and (sort of) healthy again.

“Jackie.” Ratchet’s voice said, much firmer this time and there it sounded more normal. “What happened?”

A quick glimpse of future Ratchet. Or potential future Ratchet.

Fuck.

Wheeljack hadn’t thought this through.

“It’s alright. You’re alright.” Ratchet said gently, and it took Wheeljack a moment to realize his friend had reached out to grab him. That he’d just been standing there, shaking. “I’ve got you.”

Wheeljack sagged against him gratefully, thoughts and field and life all misfiring.

The future stretching out before him was more than any single mech could handle, more than he could handle alone. This was not the kind of thing one did on a whim, as a solo mission.

“I made a mistake.” He croaked out.

“Big enough that they upgraded you, huh?” Ratchet said gently, tracing down a still-healing weld and instantly, Wheeljack knew he hadn’t blown his chance to (Primus above) save them all.

Better mechs than him should be here. Teams of them, even, with Prowl and Jazz and the entire Command team at the helm, making plans and rewriting history. But that wasn’t what had happened. What happened was an accident, one he could barely wrap his processor around.

He wasn’t doing this by himself--he had Ratchet.

(He always had Ratchet.)

No one else would have noticed Wheeljack’s upgrades. Or hell--maybe they would clock it, and snub him on grounds they thought he was a sellout.

Ratchet wouldn’t think like that. Would see it for what it was, and demand to get his servos on it immediately.

Most of all? He’d listen.

(Wouldn't believe a damn word Wheeljack said until he saw undeniable proof, but he'd still listen.)

Nothing about this situation was going to be easy--or fucking believable. Not the time travel or the war --well, maybe the war, judging by the graffiti Jackie had passed on the way here--or any of the horrors that lay in their future. No one would want to believe it, but Ratchet’s downfall was the thing he could never deny: solid evidence.

It would just…take a minute.

That was the thought that finally loosened Wheeljack’s plating, that made venting just a touch easier. That he wasn’t going to do this alone.

Even if it sounded fucking crazy.

“The welds unrelated.” Wheeljack tried, words fumbling over one another. So many things circled in his processor, thoughts, ideas, general terror, that just focusing on the here and now was extremely hard.

What was the fastest way to explain this?

“I didn’t--the mistake, it wasn’t like,” Primus kill him now, “today.” He rubbed his helm, stepping out of the hug so he could look Ratchet in the face.

Figured it might sound like less of a prank if he stared the ambulance down.

(Explaining all this over and over again was going to suck.)

“Alright.” Ratchet said, calmly and assuredly, a sense of peace projecting out of his field that he’d lose after his second mass casualty. “When did you make it?”

That was a question that broke through the chaos. Something simple for Wheeljack to latch onto, lead him out of the anxiety he was drowning in.

Math.

“Three million, eight hundred ninety-two thousand, four hundred sixteen years and 10 clicks from today.” He answered when he was done running the numbers. “I don’t think that’s exact though, I can’t figure out what exact year this is so I can’t calculate down any farther.”

“The future?” Ratchet said oh so carefully, one optic ridge lifting in loud skepticism. “You made a mistake in…the future?”

And here it was, his moment to shatter his best friend’s entire worldview.

“I’ll prove it.” Wheeljack explained, ignoring a look from Ratchet that said he’d officially gone off the deep end.

(Which he had. And now, he was taking Ratchet with him..)

He leaned back from the embrace, raised his right arm.

A flick, and a panel opened up.

Out popped a gun, similar in style to Starscream’s null rays.

Was inspired by them in fact, something Past Starscream had been smug about when the mustang had been forced to use them.

Unlike the energy-based null ray’s, these were concussive mini cannons. They shot out a shell that split open into five parts, allowing Wheeljack to hit multiple enemies at once--or seriously damage someone stupid enough for close range combat.

(Seven days ago he’d been able to upgrade them, this time with Starscream’s help rather than hindrance.

In return, Wheeljack had reworked the null rays into a saber sword that hid as one of Starscream’s wings, giving them both the appearance of being unarmed.)

This was advanced tech in his own time.

It was nearly alien in this one.

Better yet, rooting a weapon in your body was completely unheard of and, judging by Ratchet’s face, considered absolutely insane at best.

(Standards changed a lot over the course of the war.)

“Why would you do that?” Ratchet managed through his horror, hands hovering as though he could rip the offending item right out of Wheeljack’s arms. “Why the frag would you ever do that!?”

His touch light in a way only medic hands could be, like he was terrified the gun would explode if he pressed down too hard.

“Primus, Jackie,” He continued, tone pitching into something furious as he edged closer to the offending cannon, optics whirling. “for that to work, it has to be wired directly into your root systems, which means--why would you have that!?”

Wheeljack gave the medic a weary grin. “Didn’t have it yesterday, did I?”

“No.” Ratchet hissed at him, field smacking his hard in rebuke. “No, you fragging did not.”

Wheeljack rolled his arm, letting the light catch at all the shiny, tantalizing new tech that made up said gun.

Gave his oldest friend a grin, even if it was somewhat wobbly.

Teased; “Don’t you want to scan it?”

Ratchet’s hands, now cautiously in the air, flexed once, before the medic gave in and began doing exactly that.

“What the hell happened in the future that made you to do this?” He snarled as his scan initiated, and Wheeljack let himself be turned this way and that.

“A lot,” He said bluntly, because how else do you respond to that? “But that's just a part of it. See I sort of,” let Brainstorm near a fragging laboratory like a moron “accidentally traveled back in time. The cannons are unrelated.”

He popped the one on his other arm as he spoke to soften the blow, watching as the delicate gears in Ratchet’s optics blew wide at the concept of two guns (and, Jackie assumed, time travel.)

“Okay then,” Ratchet said after a long, ominous pause, “what, exactly, made you both invent time travel and mutilate yourself?”

Wheeljack snorted at the very idea of a very necessary weapon being considered mutilation before realizing that yeah, before the war, it kind of was.

(How odd.)

“I’m going to need some firmer answers here.” A sharp, reprimanding poke to his elbow joint followed, as Wheeljack tried to collect his thoughts into something even vaguely coherent.

“Fuck Ratch, I don’t know where to start.” He said, fighting a whine. He was itching down to grab and open one of the many bottles on the nearby table (a bottle!! When was the last time he’d even seen a Cybertronian product in one? Everything in the future had been forced to be reusable, energy efficient, light to carry…) but had a bad feeling he’d try to drown in it if he did.

“You can start by scrubbing whatever alien language keeps leaking into your sentences.” Ratchet said. “Unless fuck is how frag evolves.”

“No, it's alien.” Wheeljack confirmed. “By the humans who...huh.” He stopped, a thought struck him suddenly. “I’m not sure they’ve been invented yet.”

Oh yes, he could feel the judgement being sent his way, no field contact needed.

“Invented?” Ratchet deadpanned more than asked.

“Created. They’re biological, and rather small, but we end up being something of a cohabitant species.”

If not a straight up symbiotic one, at this point. Cybertron wasn’t anywhere near able to accommodate life, not without a massive amount of help. The Colonies wanted no one involved in the war to stay in their space permanently, and Earth was left as the defacto home they could still inhabit and safely create energon on.

The flat, disbelieving look was back. “Ok. What, exactly, happens? Use your big mech words.”

Wheeljack returned it with a flat look of his own. “We could sit here for the next month and I still couldn’t relay it all.”

“Give me an outline at least.” Ratchet snapped back, and it was so easy to forget where they were. That this Ratchet was working his way up the medical field, going for his doctorate, and not demanding a mission debrief.

That Wheeljack himself was supposed to be doing…whatever he was doing, at the Science Academy.

Trying to secure funding, or maybe dodging writing the next paper. Giving the next presentation.

‘Give me an outline. Touch on the pain points, the important parts’. His advisor always said.

In the future, there was only one important part.

“We go to war.” He said somberly. “We go to war and we stay at war, for a very long time. Some would say we’re still at war, even though we finally called an end.”

He paused, let the seriousness of his words and field do the work he couldn’t put into words.

Took a vent, and added; “A lot of good mechs don’t make it.”

Ratchet bless him, took that in with the weight it deserved. Was silent for a moment, before nodding once and asking;

“Did I survive it?”

“You did, Chief Medical Officer Ratchet.” Wheeljack said with a smile. Realized after he didn’t know how much he should say, about things like that, but in the moment couldn’t find it in himself to care. “You changed though. Not much, but. Enough.”

“It’s the future, of course I was going to change.” Ratchet said with a snort.

Because of course he didn’t care, of course he had accounted for the very idea of change.

It was very Ratchet of him.

Then he had to ruin it by pausing, and asking far more seriously; “Is there at least anything positive that happens, in the future?”

“You get a really hot boyfriend.” Wheeljack said, before immediately realizing Ratchet wouldn’t know what a boyfriend was. “Er--Conjux. You get a really handsome Conjux, and both of you outlive the war to be all happy and gross.”

Of everything Wheeljack has said today, this is clearly the one Ratchet has dismissed without a second though. “Sure. Do I happen to know this Conjux or have we not met yet?”

“I--” Wheejack paused with a frown. “Honestly I’m not sure. You never did say what year it was. Is.”

“Yeah, I think I’m gonna need some hard grade before we go there.”

Wheeljack held up the bottle in his free hand, the one he’d pilfered while Ratchet was still examining his arm.. “Already ahead of you.”

STEP 1: IDENTIFY A TURNING POINT

“After all, what else is scientific enquiry of any sort other than a controlled version of

banging one's head against the universe until something gives?”

Tom Holt

xXx

“Time travel,” Ratchet muttered, an indeterminate amount of time later. “is stupid.”

It was his fifteenth or so time saying it, so Wheeljack didn’t feel bad for ignoring him.

“At some point I’m gonna need you to stop playing with my systems and tell me what's actually happening.” He replied, giving up on cramming a millennia plus worth of history in a handful of cycles.

It was a rough way to grasp just how far he’d gone back.

Every detail seemed to require a full explanation. More often than not, he’d get halfway through some critical part or another, before realizing it still didn’t make sense--whether because he’d scrambled the timeline, misremembered something, or simply forgotten to include a part or person this Ratchet didn’t know.

He’d reached the grim conclusion that beyond the core point of ‘we need to stop the war before it wipes out the planet and everyone currently on it’ he was hopelessly lost explaining everything else.

Interrupted mid-scan, Ratchet let out a low, distinctly annoyed grunt.

“Define what ‘actually happening’ is supposed to mean.’” He asked, as he bodily moved Wheeljack’s shoulder around, poking at the seams in his armor. They were seated on the couch, Ratchet partly twisted to face him as he poked and prodded, Wheeljack letting him.

“Everything,” He replied, a thread of desperation slipping into his voicecoder. If he had just one marker, one defining moment in time to orient himself, he might actually make some progress instead of drowning in confusion.

(Not even a full day had passed since he’d woken up here, but the pressure to act was crushing him. Hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved-- if he did something about it all right now.)

“I guess the news? Anything related to the Decepticon uprising or protests…”

He trailed off, desperately trying to call any of the key pieces that had helped kick off the war. Something Ratchet would have heard of, that would have been big.

It was shockingly difficult.

The major moments stood out--cities collapsing, the Senate on fire, banners and screens shouting the Functionalists’ last panicked warnings before it all went to the Pit.

But all that took place after Optimus became Prime.

(Given Ratchet had called ‘Orion Pax’ earlier to reschedule their weekly drink & vent session, Wheeljack had ended up before all of that.)

It leaves a mess of memories for Wheeljack to claw at, desperately hoping there’s Ratchet knows that can clue him in to his exact point in time.

“Who are the Decepticons again?” The mech asked, a painful reminder that the Wheeljack was trying to do too much, too fast.

“Okay.” He said, after his process stopped trying to stall out on him. “I think I need to back up again.”

Ratchet groaned.

Wheeljack couldn’t fault him, this was about the eighth time or so he’d needed to restart.

“How about we don’t do that and instead,” Here the ambulance procures a datapad from absolutely fucking nowhere, dropping it into Wheeljack’s lap, “you watch this ridiculous video Orion posted that’s going viral while I go get more of this.”

Ratchet shook the can of not-beer he'd drained, before heaving himself up and off the couch, muttering about how he was going to need it.

The datapad glowed softly in his wake, the old Cybertronian ‘Play’ button pulsing on the screen.

Some social media platform--indistinguishable from any number of human social media platforms, wasn’t that a klick-- displayed two fuzzy blurs of color that Wheeljack really, really didn’t want to admit looked familiar.

With a grimace he reached down and hit play.

Sure enough, there stood one Orion Pax, right next to whatever the frag Megatron had called himself pre war, shakily filmed as they did some kind of…well he’d call it standup comedy if he didn’t know any better.

“I’m a Functionalist, but I have Anti-Vocationist cheat days.” Orion was saying, right as Megatron lifted him up to settle him atop his own shoulders, as to be better seen by the growing crowd.

(To a post war Wheeljack, the image was deeply unsettling.)

“Sometimes I have to treat myself to some thoughts that’d get me in trouble. Like I saw Senator Decimus once submit the completely wrong bill and when informed, he turned it upside down and tried to submit it again! The whole time I’m thinking man, where the pit is the data clerk--”

If one bothered to translate the thought Wheeljack had at that moment, from Neo-Cybertronian to Human-English, it might have gone something like ‘Please God tell me the war didn’t start because Optimus and Megatron got famous mocking politicians on Tiktok.’

It was enough to nearly cause him to crash.

(Again.)

Thankfully, Ratchet saved him from seeing any more videos by returning with a full case of high grade--also procured from seemingly nowhere.

(Did they own Mary Poppin’s apartment? How did they even all afford this!?)

He dropped it on the floor, tossing the one in his hands to Wheeljack. “Alright mech. You have talked yourself to damage, and we both know you’re not recharging until we give that processor of yours something to chew on.”

Wheeljack opened his mouth to protest, and closed it right back up at the harsh glare he got in return.

“We are not going to solve this in one night.” Ratchet put his hands on his hips, a move that was only soothing because it indicated action was coming. “And I will kill you myself if I wake up to you trying to work things out in the middle of my recharge cycle. So we’re going to do this now, for both our sakes.”

Ratchet bent down, grabbing his own not-beer from the case. “What do we do when we don’t know where to start?”

“Make a list.” Wheeljack said automatically, like the good student he once was.

“Correct!”

They grinned at each other, and for just a moment, it felt like no time had passed between them at all.

(Ratchet ruined it by stabbing the side of the can and shotgunning his high grade while Wheeljack watched in horrified fascination, Primus help them all.)

xXx

People change.

Wheeljack knew this. It was inevitable, more so when one is thrown into arguably the longest and largest war any singular species has ever had.

What he hadn’t realized was that in the process of aging, you forget the little quirks your friends had before the lot of you went and got severely traumatized.

Ratchet’s obsession with making organized lists, which now felt utterly insane given the abrupt and sudden recall of just how much Ratchet loved his stupid priority trees.

(Also, high-grade.

Lot’s and lot’s of high-grade.)

“How many of those have you had?” Wheeljack asked, eyeing the third (fourth?) can of not-beer Ratchet had grabbed since the dingy clearboard --a datapad similar to the human’s standard whiteboard, only sized for Cybertronians-- had made its way to the center of the room.

Wheeljack hadn’t recalled they owned one of those either and said so, causing Ratchet to snort and point a finger towards the neatly printed ‘PROPERTY OF IACON UNIVERSITY’ glyphs stuck to the top.

(It would appear that their shared inclination to steal university resources was another thing Wheeljack had forgotten.)

“Not enough for this slag.” Ratchet grumbled back, crumbling the can.

Which was a feat in and of itself, and Wheeljack found himself constantly wanting to examine a material that had practically gone extinct in the war.

It wasn’t aluminum, like the human’s cans but it was of a similar looking material…

“Name all those people again.” Ratchet said, interrupting his thoughts. “The ones you said were important before we got sidetracked.”

With an internal reprimand, Wheeljack jerked his attention away from things that felt like a fever dream, and dutifully did as told.

Halting an oncoming war isn’t something that one can plan in a night.

Logically, Wheeljack knew this.

(Verbally Ratchet had warned him of this no less than three separate times because “I know how you get with problems you can’t solve, Jackie.")

Even with the warnings, it still hurt when they were two packs of not-beer later and they hadn’t made any fragging progress.

Nothing solid, or actionable. No clear path forward.

All Wheeljack was left facing the harsh, unyielding reality of just how impossible all this was starting to look.

Ending the war had been difficult enough.

Preventing it during its awkward, prepubescent ‘something has to be done eventually, right?’ phase?

That was much harder.

It doesn’t help that Wheeljack’s memory is fuzzy. Sepia toned, full of glitching holes and black little burns. Things are blending together, in a game where the specifics matter.

The holovid had switched on at some point in their evening (morning? Wheeljack couldn’t bear to look at his chronometer) buzzing white noise in the background.

Whatever Ratchet had initially put on had long been replaced by the news, though neither of them had paid it much mind.

Or at least, Ratchet hadn’t.

Wheeljack kept tuning in, wading through the Senate’s propaganda in vague hopes that something would jog his memory. Some moment caught on film, or even some piece of--

“Breaking News! Chaos erupted in the streets today as an arrest was finally made in the case of the Scientific Exploration Murder!”

“It’s late.” Ratchet grumbled loudly, as he collapsed on the couch as Wheeljack’s attention ripped towards the holovid. “We’ve done all we can tonight--and we’re both going to be worthless if we don’t recharge.”

He leaned over to grab another can, the motion more instinct than intention.

“Mechs of all kinds swarmed to the jail where the suspect is being held. While most were in favor of the arrest, there was a notable number of protestors in the crowd.”

Ratchet cracked the can open while Wheeljack ignored him, fumbling for the remote to turn up the volume and sitting his aft down next to the medic’s.

Channel 7’s action team was on the scene as the suspect, identified as Vosian Seeker Starscream, made his appearance-”

“Jackie?” Ratchet asked. “We were going to recharge?”

Then; “Hello?”

“Wait.” He commanded, optics glued to the holovid. To something he knew.

“Jackie--”

“Shhhzz.” He waved a hand rapidly in the air in warning, audios straining towards the smooth talking reporter as he rehashed the details of the investigation. “That’s--”

Ratchet rolled his optics.

“Starscream.” He said, like the seeker was some celebrity he was tired of hearing of. “ I’m surprised it took them this long to arrest him. Shame, too--he’s the fourth Seeker Iacon Academy’s ever accepted, and it’s first combat frame.”

There was a brief pause as the camera swept over the massive, furious crowd and the sea of signs they held aloft. Some were almost playful, demanding Starscream’s freedom in bright colors and bad fonts.

The lens zoomed in on one—a huge, cheaply printed poster that shouted DON’T BELIEVE THE SENATE’S LIES in bold letters, before cutting to a shot of the Senate.

“Official story is that he had some sort of combat induced PTSD episode, killed his partner, came home and blamed it on a storm.” Ratchet supplied when the broadcast veered from it. “Senate’s pointing fingers at the University for letting a combat-class Seeker go out with…”

He trailed off, clearly forgetting the partner’s name.

“Skyfire.” Wheeljack vents it in a short, breathy burst, like a human prayer.

Ratchet cut him an odd glance. “Didn’t know you knew him.”

“I don’t. Or, I don’t right now--we don’t meet until well after the war starts.” He finishes lamely, focus tied to the image of a shockingly young Starscream sneering at a camera.

The seeker was walking tall between the Iacon University president Subvocal and a mech Wheeljack cannot recall but whose frame looked vaguely familiar.

“Well that’s impressive, considering he’s dead.” Ratchet said bluntly, as the word ‘MURDERER ARRESTED’’ scrolls across the bottom of the screen.

That got the slightest of small smiles. “He’s not dead. Trapped in ice, on that same planet the aliens I mentioned earlier are from, but he’s not dead.”

“The aliens you said hadn’t been invented yet?”

“Uh-huh.”

The two watched as the reporter on the vid cut back to the protestors, providing small highlights of the case, finishing with; “While we are unable to get a comment from Starscream himself, we were able to speak to some of his classmates.”

They cut to an interview of said classmate, the mech far too excited to talk trash on live feeds.

Wheeljack didn’t hear a word of it, processor stuck on Starscream.

Starscream, who was practically built to be a ruthless politician, who’d gone on to lead Cybertron better than anyone before him, even if he had that awful obsession with that tacky crown.

Starscream, who had effortlessly held his position as Second in an army where rank was maintained through combat, despite all of Megatron’s repeated attempts to offline him.

(Starscream, who shouldn’t have inspired in Wheeljack the same instant relief that Ratchet did, and yet somehow managed to do exactly that.)

“Him.” He blurted out, all higher thoughts fleeing entirely. “We need him.”

Ratchet stared at the holovid, now showing Starscream’s somewhat sinister-looking university ID.

“Are you glitched?” He demanded, when it became clear Wheeljack wasn’t joking. as

“Did we not just waste an absurd amount of time figuring out goals we can actually accomplish?” Ratchet continued in biting disbelief, as he watched Wheeljack spring up and beeline to the clearboard.

“If tracking down whoever the pit Jazz and Prowl are is already difficult, what makes you think you stand a chance at talking to a mech whose trial the entire planet is watching?”

“Gonna be honest with you here Ratch, I’ve done stupider things in worse conditions.” Wheeljack’s words came distractedly, his focus split.

He and Ratchet were in over their heads here, but Starscream?

Wheeljack had watched Starscream get out of messes Primus himself would have struggled with! He was exactly who they needed!

(And If they get to Starscream first, before Megatron? If Wheeljack could talk to him, get him on their side?

War or no war, it would change everything.)

“I don’t even want to know.” Ratchet complained, servos going to rub at his optics. He stood, staring for one moment longer before huffing out a vent in reluctant acceptance.

“Move mech. If we’re pulling an all-nighter, I’m going to need actual high grade instead of this cheap slag.” He kicked at the empty cans strewn about their floor for emphasis.

Wheeljack ignored him as his processor chewed through data, running calculations and projections simultaneously to try and get even a glimpse of what future where Starscream was on their side existed.

Pit, even one where he was a neutral, or just not involved with the Decepticons…

Preliminary reports came back in a rush, spitting out estimates.

This was it, Wheeljack realized, the familiar thrill of an experiment finally yielding the results he had predicted. This was how he would change the future.

“We’re gonna have to break Starscream out of jail.” He said aloud, the words ringing clear as a bell in the room.

Ratchet stopped to stare over his shoulder.

“A lot of high grade.” The medic amended, and then promptly went to get said high grade.

(He ended up chugging three cubes, which Wheeljack would have reprimanded for had he not been actively attacking the clearboard.

The new priority tree–er, plan-- was now in place.

He’d already completed Step 1, latching onto a major point in the war that he could in fact, influence, both directly and indirectly. It lead directly into Step 2 which was–)

STEP 2: GET STARSCREAM

“So the plan wasn't a clusterfuck, it was just circling the clusterfuck target zone,

getting ready to come in for a landing.”

― Martha Wells, Exit Strategy

Fun fact: Starscream hasn’t actually been charged.

Sure he’d been arrested, but he was technically being held illegally--at the local jail, not in the maximum security, for profit prison the Functionalist Council ran.

This made breaking in a little easier than it normally would have been, and almost laughably easy for someone like, say, Jazz.

Unfortunately, Wheeljack did not have Jazz. He only had himself, the guns he put in his arms, his wits (which while formidable in the realm of science and engineering, wasn’t really helpful for this type of crazy)-- and Ratchet.

Who, as it turns out, wasn’t often sober at this point in his life.

(Not outside the med center, anyway.)

They needed help.

Real help, ideally from someone currently in a position of power and knew firsthand how to plot their way out of the pit itself.

And that’s how Wheeljack wound up staring at his original list of mech’s, each one with a full blown pros and cons (ha) list, and one name circled in red.

“There it is. The next step.” He said, eyes fixed on it, thrill of accomplishment shooting down his struts.

It was a flimsy start to a plan, but that was okay--because the name he had circled had been Prowl’s.

(And Prowl would just take one look at Wheeljack’s plan and rewrite it anyway.)

He wouldn’t be the only mech they’d tap of course. They had a few days until Starscream’s first court appearance, and he intended to use every single one to find as many people on this damn list as possible--but Prowl was the best mech to start with.

Nothing rivaled Prowl’s tacnet or the sharp, borderline diabolical mind that powered it. As an added bonus, his job was not only high-profile but focused on helping the general public.

The mech’s base coding demanded he provide help to people in distress, and Wheeljack was very fucking distressed, thank you!

“First thing tomorrow, I’ll find him.” He announced aloud, more to hear it than anything else.

Then he sat down on the couch and promptly passed out.

xXx

The thing is, what you think you know about someone and what you actually know are two very different things, especially when you’re dealing with hundreds of thousands of years of history.

Processors could be corrupted, data lost, and recall became, frankly, downright static.

(Wheeljack’s search on the local network turned up five Prowls in this precinct alone

Turns out it's a shockingly common designation.)

He knows his Prowl is in Iacon. Knows, because he remembers Prowl being there from practically the beginning of the Autobots, though he didn’t actually join them until vorns after the war had started in earnest.

Their future SIC had clung to his old post as long as possible, desperately trying to stay neutral until his precinct was overrun, a story Wheeljack had been relaying to Ratchet, as the two of them went in search of Prowl.

“You really think the Head Enforcer’s going to listen to us?” Ratchet didn’t say it like a question, but more as a direct challenge to Wheeljack’s intelligence.

“Yes?” Wheeljack hedged back. He hadn’t wanted the medic to come with him--had intended entirely for Ratchet to remain sleeping under his can-pile, but unfortunately his best friend had an audio for shenanigans even now.

He’d barely got the door open before Ratchet was after him, snarling about how Wheeljack still hadn’t downloaded a map of the city and was too stupid to be in public by himself anyway.

(“You can wander around when you stop using that alien language--people will think you’re from the Colonies,” he’d said. Which, Wheeljack remembered, was supposed to be an insult back then.

Propaganda had a funny way of rewriting who counted as ‘us.’)

“I didn’t know him back then--or, er, now,” Primus there had to be a better way to phrase that. “but I do know him. He’ll hear us out.”

“Alright then.” Ratchet said with blatant skepticism. “ But I’m not bailing you out if you get arrested.”

Wheeljack rolled his optics.

“I’m not going to get arrested."

His field might’ve been filled with confidence, but he’d played this game long enough to know just how fast it could unravel. How saying just one wrong thing could ruin it all.

(How saying one wrong thing to Prowl specifically, could ruin it all.)

They had one chance to make a first impression, and while the future SIC was the easiest to find, he’d be the hardest to win over.

Which is why Wheeljack fully planned on lying a little to ease the way.

(Ratchet thought the story he’d come up with was ridiculous and needed work, but this version of Ratchet hadn’t spent the same countless hours Wheeljack had spent fabricating the lore of Autobot High Command.

Those lies had often been made under duress, first as a tactical deception and later as a kind of creative exercise, a way to spread misinformation while slipping in a little payback of their own.

Wheeljack blamed the whole thing on the fact that Megatron had somehow managed to charm every mech in marketing over to his side, the jackaft.)

Of Autobot High Command, Prowl’s history was both the most honest, and the most well known.

That was the other reason Prowl was his safest bet--Wheeljack was pretty sure he understood exactly who Prowl was at this point and time. Knew how to appeal to him and his core loyalty to justice. How to leverage the familiarity they shared and the principles that guided Prowl to turn him against the very government Wheeljack knew he was already losing faith in

(Plus having the Chief Enforcer helping him would make the whole jailbreak thing like, ten times easier.)

“I’m just saying. You act like he’s going to be waltzing around!” Ratchet tossed his hands in the air, indicating the otherwise empty street they walked down. “Shouldn’t the Chief be behind a desk somewhere, attending meetings or some such?”

An ad flickered to life on the early morning street, bathing everything in red and white as Starscream’s face loomed across the screen, along with the details of the next press release.

“Maybe dealing with something?” Ratchet added with pointed emphasis.

“Trust me, the mech does his rounds. He’s a bit of a mess without regular patrolling.” An understatement, but Wheeljack wasn’t willing to get into it just now. “This is the quickest way to get him alone.”

As if Primus had finally decided to send him some favors, a familiar faceplate appeared around the corner.

Prowl was young.

Younger than Wheeljack had ever clocked him for; with paint so fresh he could practically see fumes coming off it (and wasn’t that a shock to see?)--but it was still Prowl.

The same set jaw. The same faceplates, with the same stern expression he’d worn for the entire time Wheeljack had known him. The same steady, familiar gait, unhurried authority woven into each step.

Wheeljack hadn’t considered him particularly close to Prowl before all this.

The mech was usually too much of a hindrance when it came to his projects, nevermind his budgets--and yet, Wheeljack couldn’t help but want to tackle him. Pull him close and beg forgiveness for all the times he’d ridiculed his plan

He settled for yelling his name instead.

Prowl looked up, towards them. Pointed his dumb little authoritative face their way and strode his aft on over.

“I thought you said you were friends with the Head Enforcer?” Ratchet hissed, voice dripping with judgment, hand darting out to grab Wheeljack’s wrist. “Because that is not the Head Enforcer.”

Which Prowl heard, because Ratchet couldn’t whisper for shit.

“Excuse you?” Young Prowl demanded, fixing Ratchet with a sharp stare as Wheeljack fought not to beam too openly in his direction, or elbow his best friend.

“Of course he’s Head Enforcer--hey, Prowl.” He greeted, and it was too hard to keep the joy out of his field, the same one struggling to lean against the other ‘stangs.

(Prowl wasn’t a mustang here of course--that was another thing Wheeljack hadn’t realized had happened. His alt mode was no more Cybertronian than Prowl’s was an earthen vehicle. Nevermind his paint nanites, which had a noticeably Earthly hue.

Another problem for later to add to the list!)

“You don't know me,” Wheeljack started, “but I know you!”

Which was not what he was supposed to say, but it still tumbled out like an overexcited puppy.

Prowl looked between him and Ratchet, expression professionally deadpan.

Asked; “Have you both been drinking?”

“Not yet.” Ratchet said just as deadpan.

“Ignore him, he’s got a terrible sense of humor.” Wheeljack laughed awkwardly, shaking off one red hand. “I know how this sounds, but if we could have a moment of your time I promise, I’ll make it worth it.”

Now free to dig, he went to un-subspace the datapad Ratchet had forced him to script his cover story on. “Sorry, I had something for this, hold on…”

“He says you’re the Chief of Iacon’s Enforcers.” Ratchet said over his fumbling. “You do not look like the Chief of Iacon's Enforcers.”

This Prowl was apparently every bit as easy to rile as his future self, a fact they were well on their way to proving.

“Is this some sort of joke?” He snapped, looking between them.

“No, no, no jokes here!,” Wheeljack hurried to reassure him, cursing under his breath, fingers digging into his subspace. Fraggit, where was that damn datapad? “It’s not a joke, I swear! I… okay, if you’re not Chief, then you’re still pretty high up the chain, right? You have to be, with the tacnet!”

“Tacnet?” Prowl said, voice notably sharp and Wheeljack cursed harder because he was fucking! This! Up! “You think I have a tactnet?”

“Mech I know you have a tacnet.” He responded, because apparently his processor and his mouth were disconnected entirely. “I’ve seen it in action.”

“I do not have a tacnet.” Prowl fired right back in what was unmistakably his table-flipping voice.

“A tacent is highly illegal tech. Only the most elite of the forged police mechs are cleared to install one, and even then they’re selective about who gets to keep it.” A scan initiated, rough and invasive, cataloging Wheeljack’s own tech. “They don’t hand them out like candy.”

It was a good moment to realize he was forgetting something, and a bad one to not recall what it was.

(Pity all he had was the nagging awareness that something was slipping past him. that he was mistepping.)

“No, I know,” He stressed, “but yours was forged! That’s why it’s special!”

Too late, he remembered that part might’ve just been propaganda--though from the way Prowl’s expression flickered in surprise, it was more truth than falsehood. Figured either way it was best to skip past it and protested; “Come on mech, I can literally see the tacnet vents on the sides of your helm.”

Prowl lost it. 

“That’s not the only reason people have those!” Hw screeched. His field, which had been cop-neutral, pulsed with a puzzling combination of anger/fear/anxiety, his lights starting to flash in his rage before he cut power to them.

(Yeah, they were definitely in table-flipping territory.)

“No one is forged with one of those things and if they were,” He stressed the word so hard it practically spat it, “that mech would be kept under close watch by the Senate as a whole, not treated like a rookie!”

His field shot out, slamming hard into Jackie’s, who absorbed the impact with the calm precision of someone used to Prowl’s frequent outbursts.

For a long moment, they simply stared at each other. Prowl with his chest heaving, the chevron rising and falling like a warning flag, and Wheeljack, reading past the fury, picking out the words that really mattered.

Words like--

“Did,” Wheeljack said carefully, in the thick moment that followed, “Did you just say rookie?”

Just like that, Prowl’s field snapped back, faceplates heating.

“No, I said like a rookie.”

The correction was fast, defensive.

Then, as if he could fix this by simply bulldozing through it, Prowl jabbed a finger and snapped, “Do you have a permit for any of the modifications on your person?”

“Jackie.” Ratchet cut in, once again reaching out to try and snag a wrist. “I think we’ve taken up enough of the nice enforcer's time.”

“Neither of you are going anywhere until I see permits.” Prowl cut in, and the niggling feeling plaguing Wheeljack expanded until his entire helm practically danced with the feeling that something was off.

Wrong, in a way he should know, but couldn’t identify.

“You don’t need permits in Iacon for vanity frames.” Ratchet challenged, one part of the wrongness falling into clarity, as a second, deeper scan struck them both. 

Wheeljack didn’t need permits for the modifications Prowl could see--not his audios, or some of the more visible kibble that made up a scanned, off world altmode.

(He did need one for the cannons, along with a bunch of other tech, which Prowl was bound to find here any minute.

Part of what felt wrong was that his Prowl, the future one, didn’t need scans to spot a weapon, even back before the war. Most enforcers didn’t. It was the kind of instinct you learned, like a seasoned racer knowing the exact moment to make a move past an opponent.

That this Prowl didn’t have it meant…)

“Oh my god,” He blurted out, completely ignoring the way he mangled the phrase in Cybertronian, “You’re new!”

The enforcer didn’t stomp his pede, but it was a near thing. “I’m not new! I’ve served extensively in Praxus and Tarn in multiple positions before Chromedome--”

He caught himself, mouth closing with a harsh click, as Wheeljack gaped at him.

“I may be temporarily assigned to a lower position but I am by no means a rookie.” He concluded, grasping for dignity and missing it entirely

Wheeljack let out a short, incredulous bark of a laugh.

“You’re a fragging beat cop!”

Red and blue light up the ally, as Prowl lost control of his lights in his anger, “And you are harassing an officer while openly sporting illegal modifications!”

He gave a pointed look to Jackie’s arms and spat; “Iacon or not, I know gun ports when I see them. Turn around and put your hands behind your back."

Behind him, Ratchet loudly mocked; “No Ratchet, you don’t understand! He’ll listen to us, I won’t be getting arrested!”

“Shut up!” Wheeljack tossed in his direction.

To Prowl, he said; “I’m sorry for laughing okay? I came to you for a reason--we,” He gestured frantically between Ratchet and himself, “need your help.”

“Sure you do.”

“Just hear me out, okay? My name is Wheeljack, and I’m the Chief Engineer of the Autobot Army. There was an accident, and look, I know how this sounds, but I was sent back in time--”

Ratchet audibly groaned behind him as Prowl worked, now scanning Wheeljack for his government ID and weapons, both.

“I can prove it! Look at my armor--it’s not from this time period, and you have to admit my alt mode is weird.”

“Yes it is.” Prowl agreed, in the voice teachers use to talk to very young students rambling nonsense. “Because it’s illegal.”

“You’re not even looking!”

“I’m trying to access your ID, which is proving suspiciously difficult to retrieve.” Prowl finally met his optics, fury blazing them a lighter shade of blue. “Care to explain what mod you’re using to pull that off?”

::Would you stop riling him up?:: Ratchet commed angrily, the glyphs heavy in disapproval. ::You’re going to get actually arrested and then what are we going to do?::

“How about something only you’d know?” Wheeljack wheelded, instead of responding.

Registered, in that back of mind sort of way, that Ratchet had stepped back but had begun filming the encounter, the light in the side of one of the hospital's Commlink camera blinking red as he held it aloft in his hands.

(He wasn’t sure if it was for blackmail footage, or to keep Prowl in check.

Knowing Ratchet it was probably both.)

“If it makes you feel better.” Prowl told him, and the unexpected flatness of his tone gave away that he too, had noticed the camera. “I still cannot locate your ID, or any permits for the weapons and modifications you are carrying. You have five clicks to present them to me, or you will be placed under arrest. Five.”

The camera bobbed, as Ratchet seemed to realize what was happening.

“Jackie.” He said, a tremor of real fear in his voice.

“Four. Three--”

The countdown continued

The status cuffs made a telltale noise as Prowl took them out, and years of training had Wheeljack relaxing as they were clumsily put on.

“Jackie.” Ratchet repeated, voice now drenched in his panic.

(It took Wheeljack a moment to realize that an arrest in this day and age was a big deal.)

Every part of him resisted admitting it, but this entire encounter was a loss.

Prowl was a dead end.

With a frustrated groan, Wheelhack sent one of Jazz’s little codes to override the cuffs, silently catching them as they clicked open.

::Get ready to run.:: He commed to Ratchet, he said. Aloud, and to Prowl, he added;

“I am really sorry about this.”

Then he dropped and spun, fast as lightning, until he’d swapped their positions entirely.

Prowl’s doorwing’s flicked in surprise, helm turning right as one of the cuff’s snapped closed on his wrist.

“Hey--” He yelled, but it was far, far too late--Jackie had already slapped the other end around the light pole.

“Go. Now.” Wheeljack commanded calmly, as Ratchet gaped at him open mouthed.

“Get back here!” Prowl snarled, twisting about to try and uncuff himself.

A series of curses followed, not that Jackie hung around long enough to hear them all out.

“What the frag was that!?” Ratchet tried, but they weren’t far enough away yet, and Wheeljack hustled him along with promises of explaining later.

They ducked and weaved, and if Wheeljack had been smarter about things, he’d have hacked into the Enforcer feed to hear how many mechs Baby Prowl had set on them.

(Hoped vaguely, that this Prowl was treated a bit like a rookie, and that none of his coworkers would put in much effort into chasing after two university students.)

“So that didn't work.” Ratchet grumpily informed him, a good handful of city blocks and several alleyways later, when Wheeljack finally agreed to let them walk normally.

Wheeljack huffed air through his vents, one hand rubbing the back of his helm.

“No.” He agreed, as they walked by building after building with official looking signs.

Silence descended, both of them walking until finally a red hand reached out, tugged him to a stop.

“Come on Wheeljack.” Ratchet told him gently. “Let's go home.”

Angry, frustrated but overwhelmingly tired, Wheeljack nodded his helm in acceptance.

He’d failed.

Fresh graffiti sparkled at them both, the colors vivid and bright against the drab grey walls as they made their way toward the apartment.

The paint was still wet, newly laid, and far easier to focus on than any of his own wandering thoughts.

The mural depicted a crystalline city under attack by a four-headed mechimal—Wheeljack thought it looked like a dragon, or maybe a hydra. It was familiar, though not in the way Iacon had been. This was something he recognized from his own time, something he had seen recently, before being pulled back

He knew this artist.

He was friends with, this artist.

Wheeljact rifled through his processor, attempting to summon up the works of the various Autobot artists he knew, trying to match styles to bots. Let his feet freeze to the street while he did it, much to Ratchet’s distress.

It wasn’t Sunstreaker. The yellow twin’s art dipped more into realism and fantasy, the kind of detailed portraits so lifelike and breathtaking you felt like you could fall in them.

It wasn’t Hound’s either--he preferred a more tribalistic style of repetitive patterns and simple color palettes.

It wasn’t Bluestreak’s colleges or Chromia’s gorier looking works.

Blaster, maybe? Wheeljack tried desperately to summon up one of the mech’s works and found himself drawing a blank.

Blue and red lights abruptly lit up the piece, dancing across it as a familiar ‘whoop-whoop!’ of a siren rang out in the night, and while he doubted Prowl was still chasing after them, he felt Ratchet tense.

He gave one last parting glance to the graffiti.

Promised himself he would puzzle it out later.

You know--after he prevented the war and saved millions of lives.

‘No pressure though Jackie.’ He told himself, a dark sort of humor churning within him as he followed dejectedly after Ratchet. ‘Just the fate of multiple worlds in your hands is all.’

xXx

Ratchet had to go to school.

Wheeljack knew this, just as he knew it wasn't actually school but some sort of residency at a hospital, but the details didn't matter. What did, was the fact Ratchet was abandoning him.

“Im not abandoning you you dolt.” Ratchet snorted, but his optics sought Wheeljack’s out immediately after.

Looked his friend over, and softly added; “If you really need me, I can call out you know. Stay home.”

As if Ratchet hadn’t been helping him for days, with absolutely nothing to show for it (unless you count another unpleasant encounter with Prowl, who was now very much out to get them.)

“No. No you're right.” It was painful to admit, but he got through it anyway. “I think I was just hoping for an easy fix and I--I wasn't ready to face the fact this might take time.”

All of time and the life he had lived in it.

That he might have to live life in the past, while making preventing the war something of an all consuming hobby.

“ I don't even know if I have somewhere to be.” He added, more thinking aloud as he stared down their priority tree--now covered in scribbles. “The university? Classes?”

Was he employed somewhere?

How the hell were they paying for the apartment right now!?

“Vent mech, you're on break.” Ratchet answered. Even now he was taking time to talk Wheeljack down, when he should be headed out.

It just made this entire situation feel worse.

“Thank Primus.” Wheeljack muttered, and didn't bother hiding his relief.

“I'd hold off on doing any thanking until we can get you looking a little bit more normal and less…” Ratchet waved a hand up and down Wheeljack’s torso, before making a face.

It wasn’t a good face.

“Futuristic?”

Another face. “Ragged.”

“I'm not ragged!”

“Also sad. You're too sad, Jackie.” Ratchet came over closer, enough that the engineer could teek concern. “People are gonna ask you what's up.”

“I’ll make something up. A cover story, or something, while you’re out today.” ‘Brtter than the one you didn't use on Prowl.’ Went unspoken, but very much heard.

“That’d be good. We can go over how believable it is when I get home.”

“I can do believable!”

“You asked me what day it was this morning, and when I told you I didn’t know what a day was, you tried to show me some sort of alien calendar.”

“And I sent you the fragging packet with all the main Earth languages!” He shot back, faceplates heating. It was hard to keep all of it straight--and not just English either.

He’d spent a hot minute in Korea, and it kept coming out in hand gestures.

They both froze as Ratchet finally opened the door, their optics meeting for a brief moment.

“You’ll wait for me, right?” Ratchet asked, not for the first time. “You’ll be smart and stay here, instead of chasing answers?

“Yes, Creator.” Wheeljack said with a played up sigh.

(It wasn’t the first time he’d told that particular lie either.)

“I won’t be gone long, I have a short shift today.” Ratchet told him with one last concerned face, before finally leaving.

The door had almost clicked shut when he yelled, “And try not to blow anything up!”

That at the very least, made waiting for Ratchet to get far enough ahead for a safe exit somewhat amusing.

(Better than the alternative, which was focusing on Starscream’s looming court date and what might happen if he failed to break the seeker out before it happened.)

Wheeljack reviewed his plans over in his head one more time, before opening the door to officially begin the hunt for Jazz.

There was a lot to think about.

His frame was different, as Ratchet kept pointing out. Bad different, at this point and time. He was basically walking around shouting ‘I get into fights for a living!’ and he needed a reasonable explanation for it.

He was pretty sure “I’m from the future.” wasn’t going to cut it.

(Neither was saying he got his frame offworld, or even a far away Cybertronian city. Best excuse he had was merc for hire and all that did was make him want to rematch Deadpool before he realized he had zero access to any kind of human media.)

Could not, in fact, come up with anything better in all the hours he spent walking about, desperately trying to remember where in the pit Jazz had spawned from.

All of this, to the tune of Starscream’s court date, which literally hung over him.

Every screen around him seemed dedicated to counting down the hours, plastered with his face on endless news segments.

Wheeljack did not possess hair to pull out, but was spiraling in a way that made him wish he had some.

It felt like countdown to the war itself.

He tried hard not to get caught up in his feelings about it, not to see the lack of progress as failure. Science was like this too; long stretches of nothing before everything came all at once.

Only this felt…worse somehow.

To not have his friends.

Not to be able to go to Prowl, to Jazz, to anyone.

Sure he had Ratchet of course, and even Orion at this stage, but…

Orion is Orion. Dedicated to becoming Optimus Prime, one of the most important figures in history.

(Wheeljack couldn’t imagine a world where Optimus Prime doesn't exist, and is mildly terrified of mucking with things badly enough that he does just that, and lands them with something awful.

Like Ultra Magnus, or--Primus help them all--Rattrap--

Ratimus Prime? Wheeljack thinks half hysterically. Rat Prime? RatTratimus???

He tries to picture it and nearly gags.)

Reluctantly, he examined everything that went wrong—the points where he needed to improve if he was going to pull this off.

He had thought he knew what to say, how to get Prowl on board quickly. He’d assumed the mech’s very nature meant that presenting undeniable proof would make the tacnet expedite things.

What he hadn’t anticipated was that same tacnet dismissing everything he said as Bad and Wrong. Or for Prowl to deny he had a tacnet at all.

(He still wasn’t sure what was going on with that, unless it was some secret the enforcers were hiding. Never mind that they had no obvious reason to, unless it was on orders from the Senate, or someone in the Senate. He couldn’t even begin to guess, really.)

Likewise he had thought Jazz would be the harder sell, only to have to face the facts that Jazz was fragging impossible to find.

‘Primus how did Orion do this the first time!?’

A question that had very much been rhetorical and not meant to be answered, and certainly not by two passing mechs whose optics were glued to a datapad one was holding showcasing the very mech himself.

“Oh that archivist is too cute.” one of them cooed, right as Orion boosted himself up on Megatron’s back to change some sort of Functionalist poster about bodyframes into a pun with spraypaint. “I’d absolutely let him talk me into defacing government property.”

“Think you’re gonna have to fight the miner guy for him.” His companion said, amused. “Pretty sure they’re dating.”

“An archivist and a miner? No way.”

“Mech the miner does poetry, haven’t you seen--”

Which wasn’t exactly a shocking thing to hear. 'Megatron has a creepy fixation on Optimus because they’re ex’s' is one of those rumors so old and rote that everyone knows it.

Just like everyone equally knows its fake as false credits.

Unfortunately for Wheeljack--and several very unlucky members of Autobot high command--the truth actually leans closer to “no, actually, they kinda were,” a fact he has spent considerable effort trying to erase from memory.

It being brought back with video evidence, was thus, unappreciated.

This thought triggered a cascade of memories Wheeljack had apparently shoved into the “never ever recall” folder in his processor, most of them centering the fact that Orion found Megatron’s poetry and shoulders downright hypnotizing.

(Only Orion hadn’t used that word, and Wheeljack recoiled the moment he remembered any of those many, many painfully awkward conversations.)

Somehow, between the time traveling and the issue of him potentially having a warrant out for his arrest, he managed to put it out of mind.

Familiar graffiti winked at him and Wheeljack slumped over to it, taking in the picture (this one a tangled mess of embedded arrows) and let himself hate his life for a moment.

“You can do this, mech.” He told himself, uncaring that talking aloud made him look as crazy as he felt. “You have to. You don’t have another choice.”

(Well, he did, but that meant reliving the war and all its little horrors a second time.

Wheeljack would rather put a gun in his mouth.)

“Don’t suppose you could point me in the right direction.” He dejectedly asked the arrows, as if they might all unscramble themselves and point him the right way.

Maybe even find Jazz for him.

His HUD buzzed, the alarm he’d been snoozing going off once again, and all the alerts and messages he’d been suppressing rose back to the surface.

90% of them were from Ratchet.

Get the frag back to the apartment, now. This one read. Following it was a string of impressively creative insults, and unlike the last four times he’d read his roommate’s messages, this time, Wheeljack sent one back.

Coming. Was all it said.

It was all he could manage, given his failure of a day.

There couldn’t be anything worse than going back in time and having to attend school, he thought idly as he started his walk back. He couldn’t imagine what he’d do if he had to show up at the science department next week looking like this, pretending nothing at all had happened.

(But there were worse things.

Much worse things.

One of them was on couch.)

xXx

Jackie had a list of excuses at the ready when he opened the door.

Figured he could get out a chunk of verbal lashing if he made sad enough optics and started about how awful it was to be culturally disconnected.

(For all of Ratchet’s tough exterior, the mech had weak points Jackie had never been above exploiting.)

Instead, he opened the door and a blast from the past nearly knocked him off his feet.

“Jackie!” Orion Pax beamed at him from their couch, Ratchet glaring next to him.

“Hey.” He managed weakly, coming in.

Took in his old friend, in the body he used to inhibit, as Ratchet smiled and commed him a flurry of scathing messages regarding how awful he was.

Optimus Prime as Wheeljack knew him, was a massive mech, whose demeanor was gentle in the way a human guard dog was gentle.

His field was always a little sad, his smiles never quite reaching his optics, but the Prime had the oddest ability to make it seem like for the short moments of his time you held, you had his full and total attention.

Orion Pax, on the other hand, bounced.

“We're talking about my almost date.” He said, and okay, maybe bounced was a mean exaggeration, but it wasn’t helped by the noticeably higher pitched voicecoder.

( Jackie had forgotten the whole soothing bass thing was Matrix fabricated.)

“And--Jackie, listen to this.” Orion Pax didn’t have a mouth to grin with but his face managed it anyway, field flashing sharp bursts of joy in a way that was making Ratchet wince beside him. “He finally told me his favorite color was the hexcode of my optics!”

“You’ve mentioned that one before.” Ratchet complained, but it was fond.

“Oh, don’t be sour.” Orion good naturedly elbowed Ratchet, a tint of heat to his faceplates. “Jackie hadn’t heard it yet.”

The two of them looked over again; Orion excitedly and Ratchet so he could pointedly look from Wheeljack to the clearboard and back.

(Or rather, the spot on the clearboard that read ‘Orion Dates a Bad Guy’ as one of the potential causes of war.)

Wheeljack’s vents shuttered at the reminder.

“Unlike some people,” Orion continued, even as Wheeljack suffered a moment where everything was too big and too small, all at once, where he envisioned every horror he had ever personally witnessed Megatron committing, “he’s been supportive about my crush.”

Orion beamed at him once again.

It looked so much like Optimus’s real smile, the one he tried so hard not to let people see.

Wheeljack couldn’t do this.

“Right Jackie?” Orion asked, right as his back hit the door.

“I--” He said, optics darting between Orion and Ratchet.

“Wheeljack?” Ratchet asked, angery and humor falling off him as both watched as he pressed himself back and back and back--

“I’m so sorry.” He said, meeting Ratchet’s optics. “I can’t do this.”

He fled.

xXx

The place one goes when one is at rock bottom is typically a bar.

Trying not to be a complete stereotype, Wheeljack worked very hard to keep out of them.

Unfortunately, stereotypes were created for a reason. Wheeljack, worn past his limits and crushed under the weight of an entire planet and countless lives, let himself fall right into this one.

Or at least, to the first bar he’d found that looked like it might actually be friendly towards him.

Unlike all the flashy, clean and stupidly overpriced places lining the main streets, Nuts & Bolts was the kind of dive most everyone steered clear of.

Dingy, torn booths clung to the walls while mismatched, half-broken chairs crowded around battered tables. The lights flickered, some more noticeably than others, and the mechs inside all wore the same guarded, suspicious look.

Tension eased off his frame before Wheeljack could even properly process that of all the places on Cybertron, the disgusting warframe bar was what felt like home.

‘This is what you’re preventing.’ He told himself as he made his way in with a nod to the bartender, mechs sizing him up as he goes. ‘Things are bad right now and they need to change, but the war wasn’t the answer, and this place should never be the norm.’

He tries to keep a hold of that thought (and not any of the ones where Optimus-as-Orion waxes poetry about how sexy Megatron is or how he’s completely failed at all attempts to fix things) as he scans the place, looking for the best spot for a nice mope.

The clumps of mechs around tables aren’ t promising, and neither are the groups gathered at both ends of the bar, but the middle is wide open, sans one seeker, painted in a garish orange.

There’s grey there too. In fact, the majority of him is actually grey, but it’s hard to see that given the intense, burning orange.

It was practically glowing, it was so bright, and Wheeljack squinted at him, trying to place why the seeker looked familiar (and not in the way that all seekers sort of look familiar.)

Which would be the moment when the bartender ignored Wheeljack in favor of turning back to the walking traffic cone. “I mean it Skywarp, you aren’t getting a single drink until you pay off the last tab you ran out on!”

Wheeljack didn’t have a drink to choke on, but his vents still stuttered, combat systems and Jazz’s training kicking in as he fought to pretend he hadn’t just suffered a minor spark attack.

Pretending to look at the menu, scrawled in bold lettering behind the bar, while he examined Orange Skywarp out of the corner of his optics and proceed to have a rapid series of thoughts.

They went something like:

• Skywarp can teleport.
• Why the fuck is Skywarp orange.
• Skywarp likes Starscream for most of the war--had to, given he was trined to the glitch.
• If Wheeljack successfully talks Skywarp into helping him save Starscream, there’s a chance he can also find Thundercracker, and that means he could befriend the entire Decepticon Command Trine before the ‘Cons ever even get their optics on them.
• Why the fuck is Skywarp orange.
• Even if he fucks up and the war does start, he can at best keep them away from the ‘Cons entirely and at worst, sabotage the shit out of early Decepticon leadership.
• Did his Starscream know Skywarp was orange? Was that how they’d met? Starscream took one look at the paint job and felt violently compelled to fix it? Primus, it was bad. And Wheeljack would know; he’d spent a chunk of his life on the Ark surrounded by nothing but shades of orange!

Wheeljack’s no strategist, but even the lowest-ranked Autobot knows the Decepticons’ air force is a problem. Starscream was clever, insanely so, but Thundercracker and Skywarp had their own merits. And while his Starscream wasn’t exactly on good terms with his trinemates, underestimating any one of them alone was the kind of mistake that got a mech killed.

Plans spin around his head as Wheeljack approached the bar, pulling out the little card Ratchet had informed him was his own credit line.

Thinks on all the information he had ever cleaned from Spec Ops, or Prowl, or hell ,even the twins in regards to getting a mech on board with an utterly insane plan.

‘Hi my name is Wheeljack and I’m from the future. I know you can teleport. Would you mind using that power to help me break someone I don’t know out of jail?’

Easy, right?

(Right.)

“But Swerve,” Orange Skywarp whined, “I did pay it last time!”

The barmech--Swerve, folded his arms tight, glaring. “No you did not! And just so we’re clear, that whole ‘oh no Swerve, you just forget again!’ routine? Not working on me anymore. Exploiting a mech’s bad memory is dirty.” the minibot turned on his heel, shouting over his shoulder: “Pay up or get out!”

With a sad little huff, Orange Skywarp proceeds to slump in a way that Wheeljack hadn’t known was possible. The seekers entire frame seems insistent on defying physics, one wing slanted lower than the other, his entire body at a near 90 degree tilt as he sprawls out on the bar stool.

He’s in danger of tumbling right off the thing, which makes all the other mechs giving him a wide berth practically comical.

For a minute he thinks it's because Skywarp is a mean drunk (or possibly just an asshole) but it becomes pretty clear that even in a bar aimed at combat frames, the seeker is in a league of his own.

Or was, anyway.

You know, before Wheeljack stepped into the bar.

“What’s his tab?” Wheeljack asks as he steps up next to Skywarp, mindful of the wings. He knows an opening when he sees one and a quick check on his credit balance on the card Ratchet reminded him he owned shows he can definitely take a hit, if needed.

So long as Skywarp didn’t drink the place dry, anyway.

“50.” Swerve tells him, suspicious. Wheeljack nods his assent, though given the face Swerve is making at him he clearly thinks he’s trying to pick Skywarp up. That’s fine, given Wheeljack sort of is.

“Thanks mech.” Skywarp says brightening. He turns to look at Wheelhack properly and freezes, optics scanning him over.

“Why are you--” Skywarp stops, though his examination doesn’t, red optics still squinting over Wheeljack’s frame.

“Armed like that?” Wheelhack finishes with some mirth, sliding into the seat next to him.

Skywarp pillows his cheek on one hand, looking puzzled. “Yeah.”

“It’s a long story, as annoying as that saying is.”

“Well slag mech, I ain’t going anywhere.” He leans forward, wings flicking in interest. Gives a matching little flicker of his optics. “Especially not if I get a drink.”

Ah-ha. Skywarp, Wheeljack is realizing, is a mooch.

“How about this? I buy us both a drink, tell you a very abbreviated version, and then ask you a question.”

Skywarp gives him a wicked little smile. “Deal.”

The nice thing about this being Skywarp, Wheeljack thinks as he takes a vent and launches slowly into his cover story, is that he makes this feels more like a mission.

He starts carefully. Talks his way around things, pretends like he’s testing out how much Skywarp knows like the guy isn’t blatantly military.

Waits for the signals Spec Ops (and later, Starscream) had drilled in him, before he started getting a little firmer with his details until finally Skywarp has abandoned his drink entirely, enraptured as Wheeljack described how Skyfire and Starscream’s mission was a cover, for something the Senate was interested in.

Their trip, he says, was meticulously planned, but it brushed too close to unfriendly territory--one of the colonies that had real weird ideas about their alt modes.

(“You know the one.” He says, nd Skywarp is already nodding before the words are even out, completely hooked.)

Lenas in and drops his voice to a whisper as he talks about how he was secretly assigned as a high ranking guard, and outfitted with the absolute best of the best weaponry, in order to bring back the information needed.

‘The trick is not to make yourself out to be the hero.’ Said Jazz’s teachings.

So he didn’t, and made himself out to be a failure.

Played up how hurt Skyfire got when he’d been captured. How Starscream and Wheeljack barely made it back with their lives, but didn’t complete their given mission.

Explained that this whole murder farce was Starscream’s punishment for failing, and Wheeljack, now in disgrace, needed time to prove that Skyfire was alive and in need of rescue before he and Starscream both were executed.

It was fantastical. Something right out of a spy vid.

It had Skywarp so enraptured he blurted out; “So you have to get to Starscream before the court date.”

Bing-fucking-go.

“You're saying that like it's easy.” Wheeljack said. Didn’t even have to fake exasperation.

“Cause it is.” Skywarp gave a little shrug, a not-really embarrassed grin. “For me anyway.”

And it was hard. So fucking hard, to keep his field blank, and his expression doubtful, instead of cheering wildly and snatching Skywarp up in a hug. Told himself the seeker hadn’t promised anything yet.

Channeling his inner Jazz, he leaned back, crossed his arms and said: “Let me guess. You're some kind of expert jailbreaker.”

Skywarp’s grin widened, smug and self-satisfied.

“Nah mech.” He said, chasing that gap until the tips of their nasal plating nearly touched.“I can teleport.”

Stealing a line--and over all attitude--from Prowl, Wheeljack hummed, then said; “Sure you can.”

Skywarp chuckled, the sound lazy and far too entertained for someone being accused of bluffing.

“You don’t believe me? Guess you’ll just have to stick around and find out.” His tone dripped with mischief, wings flicking in the seeker equivalent of a playful wink as he backed out of Wheeljack’s space.

“You offering to help?” He asked, and didn’t hide some of his very real desperation. Real emotions sold fake stories, after all. “‘Cause I understand if this is too dangerous for you..”

Skywarp unfortunately did not take the bait.

“Offering’s a strong word.” He said instead, grin sharpening. “I’ll consider it--on a condition.”

Of course.

Wheeljack tilted his helm, pushing just enough desperation into his voice to sound believable.

Let a trace of anxiety bleed through for good measure.

“What’s the condition?” he asked, like the fate of Starscream--and possibly the war--didn’t hang on whatever idiocy the seeker said next.

Skywarp tilted his helm the opposite way, optics gleaming with mischief. “You ever play flip cup?”

Which would have come out of left field for anyone other than fragging Skywarp.

Wheeljack didn’t lose it, but it was a near thing. “You mean the game where you drink, flip the cup, and repeat until someone cries, loses a limb, or questions the meaning of existence?”

“Well, we determine how many rounds first, but yeah.”

Wheeljack processed this. Carefully. Trying to figure out if Skywarp was mocking him, testing him, or just... like this all the time.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “Look mech, I get how crazy this sounds but I am serious--”

“No, I believe you.” Skywarp cut him off with a waive. “And I’m happy to help. Probably the only one happy to help, because let me tell you, a jailbreak is the kind of fun I actually enjoy when I’m between deployments. But I’m also not free, mech. And you don’t exactly look like you’ve got the credits for the going merc rate, let alone for something of this scale, so…”

He shrugged his very orange shoulders. “We leave it to a game of skill. You beat me, I help. You lose…”

Another shrug, this one exaggerated by his wings.

“I get to name my own prize.”

“Are you saying,” Wheeljack said, speaking slowly because he was about to have a meltdown if he didn’t, “that if I defeat you in a game of flip cup, you’ll help me break Starscream out of jail?”

“Yeah mech.” Skywarp gave him a serpent’s grin. “I will. Because you won’t defeat me.”

He leaned forward on scuffed elbows, red optics curving with his smile. “No one has ever defeated me.”

(At the words, a wild, somewhat relevant memory suddenly popped to the front of Wheeljack’s processor.

It involved a very similar cup to the one in front of him, some sort of thin, flexible metal, and a very drunk Starscream seemingly unable to lose at Blur’s bar.

Which meant there was a non-zero chance the entire reason Starscream knew Skywarp was due to fragging beating him at flip cup.

He could not decide if that information made this entire situation better or worse.)

“...Can I phone a friend?” Wheeljack asked, shoving all thoughts of future Starscream in a box in his head.

“If you trust the friend, sure. But I’m letting you know right now fighting is cheating.”

“No fighting, promise.” Wheeljack held up a hand and crossed two fingers, uncaring that the gesture was foreign as he immediately comm’d Ratchet.

Flip cup.

What even was his fragging life right now?

This is how Ratchet ended up at the opposite end of the dingy table facing down Skywarp, rough human hour later, talking a painful amount of smack.

(There had been a significant amount of convincing involved of course. Wheeljack hadn’t considered the medic might be worried about him until he interrupted his best friend’s cautious hello with, ::Hey, have you won that flip cup tournament at Alpha Centauri Phi yet?::

Expected the follow up questions flung at him, but not the worried undertone he could hear, plain as day.

Felt a little bad when he exploited it, but he wasn’t going to get the mech here without a reason, and if that reason was because Ratchet was a damn good friend, well… Wheeljack supposed using that was worth it to prevent the future.

…Well, and maybe to escape Orion. Wheeljack hadn’t asked if the mech was still on their couch, bemoaning the state of his dating life.)

“I have so many regrets.” Jackie morosely told Swerve the bartender, who was looking at them like the lot of them were morons.

Could only pray to Primus that Skywarp was serious, and would actually help because there just wasn’t a lot of options Wheeljack had available to him with the time they had left. Not to get Starscream, anyway.

He couldn’t bear to imagine what he’d do if he had to come up with some other way to stop the war, because the only other idea he’d had involved just shooting Megatron.

“Ha!” Ratchet bellowed, clapping Wheeljack’s shoulder in his excitement. “I won!”

“You won?” He asked, audios flashing the brief, if cautiously hopeful little rainbow of colors.

“Well slag me sideways.” Skywarp says, staring at Ratchet the way one might stare at a god they had accidentally encountered. “Yeah. He won.”

He palmed the back of his helm, looking to Wheeljack in partial disbelief. “Guess we’re commiting the jailbreak of the century.”

“You’re serious? About helping?”

“I did say I would if I lost.” Skywarp said, like he’d never considered not following though.

(Like breaking Starscream out wasn't a massive risk, extremely illegal, and bound to get them all executed.)

“If I say I'm in, then I'm in, no matter how crazy. There is one teeny tiny little problem though…” Skywarp said, and the dropped the equivalent of a bomb on the entire conversation.

“You have an inhibitor placed on your outlier ability?" Wheeljack said at the end of it while Ratchet twitched angrily beside him at the concept.

He knew there was a fuel component to the teleporting--he and Jazz had long figured out the range and frequency of Skywarp’s ability ranged depending on how well fueled he was, much the same way Trailbreakers field worked-- but a limiter?

“It’s how my boss keeps me in line when I’m off missions.” Skywarp said, casually brushing past what amounted to a major rights violation like it was nothing more than a routine refuel.

“Teleporting uses a lot of energon. The limiter, plus a lower pay rate to offset some of my fuel, is how they keep me cost-effective.”

He spun one of the cups around as he talked, flipping it idly.

(Kept giving looks to Wheeljack that Ratchet caught but Wheeljack, in his current crisis, didn’t.)

“It’s why I got so good at dumb stuff.”

“They shouldn’t be doing that to you.” Ratchet said, and Wheeljack simply pointed to him in agreement. It didn’t help, and he knew from Skywarp’s face the mech had heard those words enough times to equally know how empty and useless they were.

Said; “I’m sorry.” anyway.

“No reason to apologize. Besides, you gave me plenty of fuel.” Skywarp winked, like high grade was in any way equal to actual energon.

“My point,” He rushed to continue, before any more pity-partying could occur, “is that we have a very specific window for me to use my ability, particularly with passengers. You want to get Starscream out, we have to move fast to use it.”

Wheeljack Braced himself and asked; “When's the window?”

“You’re not going to like the answer.”

“Try me,” Wheeljack said--just as Ratchet let out a loud, exasperated groan, because Ratchet understood the Cybertronian calendar and pay periods better than Wheeljack did right now.

“Tonight.” Ratchet guessed, swiping a hand down his face.

“Tonight.” Skywarp confirmed.

“You know, you’re right,” Wheeljack admitted after a brief pause, which Ratchet filled entirely with swearing. “I don’t like that answer.”

“Jackie,” Ratchet cut in. “You can’t be serious.”

“Skywarp, it’s late.” he said instead, exhaustion making the words heavier. “You sure your timeline absolutely cannot stretch to tomorrow?”

The seeker paused, clearly weighing his words. Finally, he said, “Low fuel is just one way they keep me in line. Checkups are another--and I’m due to report to my unit tomorrow, so they can make sure the limiter’s still working. It’s now or never.”

Wheeljack winced.

“Fine.” He said, ignoring Ratchet’s protests. “Now it is.”

Things moved fast after that.

Within an hour, they had a plan, and within two they were in front of the jail, Skywarp and him reviewing what they had one last time.

(Ratchet had been sent home, though “sent” was generous. He’d only left after a lot of pleading and a reminder that Wheeljack might need a bail-out if this went south, though the truth was that he did not want any part of this impacting Ratchet’s own life should they fail.

He and Skywarp could play fast and loose with theirs, but Ratchet was going to save a lot of people regardless of the war. Wheeljack could never take that from him.)

“Shorter the distance, the more fuel I save, the more trips I can make.” Skywarp said, filling him in in that rapid-fire cadence military types used across the universe. Then he grinned that stupid, sneaky grin of his and added;

“Your mech’s in the back-left unit, Cell 7. It’s one trip to get you in, and since the jail uses the old RackTron cameras, there’s an exploitable camera glitch. I can--”

“How do you know what cameras the jail has?” Wheeljack interrupted. Starscream’s cellblock location might be public to those who knew where to look. There were plenty of parties eager to exploit that information, but the cameras?

That was a whole different level of insider knowledge.

“What, like it’s hard?” Skywarp said, as if he had telekinesis too.

Wheeljack gifted him a very flat look.

“So, they might buy these cameras off the military, and I may have assisted with that delivery. Worked out nicely for you and your jailbird, didn’t it?” Skywarp drifted closer, until the two of them were practically brushing chest plating.

He’d never noticed before, but Skywarp was actually shorter than Starscream--just enough that he had to tilt his helm up when standing close, red optics catching the light. “The point is that we have one trip to get you in and one trip to get you out--but because I’m teleporting multiple people, those two trips are all we got, and you get about 20 ticks between them. If you aren’t ready to leave when I come back, you’re gonna stay in that jail cell with your bird now,”

The seeker looped his arms around Wheeljack’s neck and asked; “Are you ready?”

That wasn’t how teleporting usually worked.

It was that thought that finally made things click.

Skywarp hadn’t just been helping him out of curiosity, or because they beat him, or because of some fragging sense of joy at thumbing his nose at the Senate.

Skywarp was doing this as some sort of insane flirting tactic.

‘Too late to do anything about that now.’ Wheeljack thought, right before Skywarp’s field let out a telltale buzz.

Wap! they went.