i came across this while writing my shockwave/whirl fic and I!!!!!!!!! THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm gonna use this time to shout about them bc i love them and they both deserve to be happy.
In the au that I'm writing, Shockwave is taken onto the Lost Light in the Good Ending of ll (the only ending imo). He's obviously still incredibly dangerous, even though all of his weapons have been shut down and he's limited to a very small part of the ship. However! He needs someone to watch him, someone to keep an eye on him who is Not Afriad Of The Cybertronian Version Of The Boogeyman.
In comes Whirl! Whirl, who looks death in the face and demands a refund bc WHAT THE HELL TOOK YOU SO LONG?! Whirl who is rough and tumble, who has so much trauma behind his optic that unpacking all of it would make Rung faint. Whirl, who is one of the only members of the crew who was Empurata'd.
Whirl knows what Shockwave went through, everyone does. But Whirl understands Shockwave at a level that no one else really will ever be able to, because he went through a very similar thing. Whirl doesn't jump at the chance to be Shockwave's "babysitter", but he also doesn't say no when offered the chance.
After all, its uncommon for a bot who went through Empurata to become something bigger than what they were changed for. In a tiny part of Whirl's spark, he admires Shockwave for how he was able to push past the agony and terror of his new body, and wield it better than he ever could have in his previous body!
Shockwave sees Whirl in a sort of similar light, but more in the way of "if you tried to cut my main energon lines with your claws, I would not try to kill you". He's seen Whirl, seen what he can do, how rough he fights and how he puts on a front that is so strong it's almost covered who he actually is.
Whirl looks at Shockwave and sees both an adversary and an equal. Shockwave looks at Whirl, and sees an angel with a gun ready to put a bullet in his helm and he's excited about it.
They're together all the time, and there isn't really any butting heads between them because of the mutual respect between them as well as the mutual knowledge that the other went through the same trauma that they went through, and made it out without a scratch on their paint.
And since Shockwave isn't allowed anything that he can make anything dangerous out of, Whirl teaches him how to make clocks. It's clunky and awkward between them, with Whirl's masterful claws being able to navigate the tiny machinery, and Shockwave's one hand being shaky and creaky (because it was made to be weak) and his one blaster hand that is eventually replaced with a rolling magnet in the place of where his blaster was! So he can pick up very small things (CLOCK PARTS!!!)
It's a learning process for the two of them, but it's also therapy. Being Empurata means that you have to learn how to be yourself, when you aren't yourself. How to communicate without a mouth, without hands. How to show affection without lips. Most of their time spent together is quiet, filled with the sounds of them tinkering with a clock. But there is also another sound. Whirl's claw tips clicking together, followed by the mechanical up and down of Soundwave's finals on his helm. When they get closer, Whirl actually bumps their helms together so that their optics look right into one another. Its incredibly intimate, sort of clumsy, but it brings a sort of lightness to the both of them.
Being together, and eventually becoming Amica Endura (bc all of their bits were removed, and shockwave doesn't like sex anyway) they find a connection with each other!! And they're no longer alone!!!
Okay I'm done <3 just had to get that out of me hehe
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