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She is there the night he almost dies.
He is thrown from the platform into the sea, dragged by the current, battered by a hail of debris from the blast, systems too damaged to prevent the corrosive fluid from leaking through his vents to his internals. Struggling in his condition is illogical. He lets his single optic fizzle out as he sinks, wondering if his sensory fields will go numb before the sea eats through any vitals. His vision is engulfed in darkness.
And then her.
He lies flat on solid ground, the world fuzzy before him as his vision returns to life. She crouches over his frame, illuminated by some source of light that survived the energon ignition. All too quickly, he recalls the room of surgeons, the hazy figures leering above him in a place more sterile and terrifying by far. This life will end as it began, he realizes, at the hand of shadows he cannot identify.
His view sharpens as she turns to glance at him.
Her face is kind — far kinder than the shades who had taken his head and hand. She sighs in relief and then… noises. Words. She speaks, but the sound is muffled, garbled in his mangled audials. Is she addressing him, or reassuring herself that she did not save a mech from drowning for him to merely die on the shore?
It is in his nature to know, to understand. But strain and exhaustion overpower his personal directive; the fog over his hearing spreads to sight, and soon she, too, fades away to nothing.
When he comes to his senses, she is gone.
She is there in the warehouse, cubes in one hand, a blaster in the other.
No trace of the others this time. It is a reckless move to come alone, but he deems it likely for her in retrospect. Even now, burning optics lock onto him with an unspoken challenge, one that would not be amiss on a desperate, starving animal.
The crumbling underground has not been kind to her. She looks every bit as young as she was by the sea, but filth and grime cake her frame, already marred with scrapes and dents. Her engine sputters as though it will fall to pieces any moment.
Under the trappings of ferocity, her face is an open book. She knows who he is. She remembers. She wonders if he remembers likewise.
Like clockwork, he takes aim with his cannon arm.
She evades with ease despite her cargo and her poor state, responding with her own barrage of gunfire and racing to the exit. The skirmish is a cycle of shooting, dodging, running, shooting. Data collected prior to this moment tells him she is a far better marksman than this.
She knows exactly what she is doing.
He lets the cannon drop to his side as she transforms and speeds off to freedom. His actions have not betrayed him.
He almost wishes they had.
She is there as Autobots and Decepticons alike gather to make sense of it. Peace .
Many say it will not hold, others damn the change and want to fight on. But above all there is talk of collaboration, of reconstruction, of healing both their ruined world and the ones left to live on it. The excitement at having a future to shape is infectious.
He is approached for the restoration, for his intellect as well as his records of the barren planet, compiled over centuries. They do not trust him, not completely, but they know he can do what must be done. They tell him it is the logical course to take, and on that he can agree. He accepts a seat at their meetings as they develop the foundation of a new Cybertron.
She enters today as they discuss buildings and infrastructure, the stripes of a courier painted over her usual mint green. She waits, attentive, parcel in hand, until the meeting concludes and she can deliver it to one of the mechs present.
No one moves to turn off the hologram of proposals at the center of the table. Figures file out one by one, until he sits alone. She stands across from him, scanning over the projected ideas. Her optics widen as she absorbs the information — she sees the possibilities held in the wreckage where she once struggled to survive.
She breaks the silence as he rises from his seat.
“What’s next after this?” she asks, a bit too loud for the almost-vacant space. She clears her throat and lowers her voice. “I mean, once you fix the roads and hospitals and stuff.”
“What’s next” is a question unthinkable for now. There is far too much work to be done as it is, most of it just beginning. But he is not stunned that she asked. He is stunned that she echoed a question of his own.
He follows her gaze back to the projection, tries to piece together the future beyond the future.
“The Academy,” he decides. “Proper education will be beneficial to the people, once made more accessible.”
She beams at his answer. “I never did get to finish school.”
He studies her face from across the table. Once he saw crackling, blinding lightning in this face; further back still, he had seen embers of hope and kindness. Now, in this tranquil, quiet room, he sees both at once.
“Soon, there will be nothing that can stop you.”
She is here, beside him on the shore.
He remains silent as she settles to his right, gazing out to the sea. They have had no direct exchange since the meeting room, but in a way she never leaves his sight. She thrives in peacetime, lives for progress — and when Iacon needed ambassadors to reach out to the city-states around the world, she leapt at the call. She is a public face of the restoration, a symbol of Cybertron’s potential.
She continues to fascinate him.
Minutes lapse in silence save for the waves lapping over sand. For lack of a better greeting, he says, “Meetings with the located colonies begin tomorrow.”
She glances at him with a raised brow, but moments later a smile blooms forth. “So I’ve heard. It’s exciting stuff.”
“I hope to see you there. Your diplomatic prowess would be invaluable.”
She tilts her head at him. “You’re being pretty friendly with someone you just met.”
He finds this statement bemusing. “We have met before.”
Her grin tugs a little wider at the corners as she nods.
“But not exactly,” she counters.
“No,” he agrees, “Not exactly.”
“But hey, everyone starts somewhere, right?” she muses. “I think we’ve got plenty to go off of.”
There is a shift as her hand moves from her lap to the ground, next to his. Her digits barely brush his own; the touch is light, almost hesitant, waiting. Neither pull away.
She tells him, “If you want to.”
He does.