An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Six months after Soundwave sacrificed himself to take down Tarn, Hot Rod is struggling to adjust to life in post-war Cybertron. Between his responsibilities in the new planetary government and his attempts to solve the mystery of the bots who have been vanishing off the streets of Iacon, he’s barely started to process his grief over Soundwave’s death, let alone his complicated feelings about their relationship in the days before the end.
So when Perceptor drops the news that there’s a chance Soundwave isn’t dead after all, Hot Rod isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do next.
My fic for the 2025 @tf-bigbang! It’s got four chapters, which will all be posted over the next few days. Be sure to check out @seafoamsol‘s absolutely gorgeous artwork for this story when they post it!! And special shoutout to @noodleblade and @azyranx for reading this over and cheering me on <333
The final chapter has been posted, and you can read the whole fic on ao3 here!
And Sol has posted their beautiful art for this story, which you can (and should) look at here!!














