#bob is lost

[wily-red-and-galeforce-gold]

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[wily-red-and-galeforce-gold]

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Bob has found a wall-

-but it’s not so much the wall that catches his optics. There are a lot of walls here, after all. Tall walls, cracked walls, walls that seem to go down and down and down forever, and walls that forgot how to be walls because they instead were rubble.

This wall has things on it though.

He can read some of the glyphs, the caretakers had taught him after all, but he doesn’t understand completely. Doesn’t understand the imagery. Or all of the symbols. The cracked insignias are a little unsettling. Because the ARK friends wear the red one. The caretaker does as well. Seeing it broken seems wrong? 

He doesn’t understand.

Still...

Somehow this wall, forgotten and covered in broken holos, and graffiti, and posters... it only reinforces the thought that wherever he was, wherever this was-

Something bad had happened.

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[wily-red-and-galeforce-gold]

?!?!?!?!

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The not-friend wasn’t stalking toward him anymore.

The not-friend was shrieking a horrible noise and clawing through the steam and smoke that was clinging to his face. The remnants of the light that struck him.

Bob had seen a bolt of light like that before. In the ‘range of shooting’ at the Ark home where the Autobot friends would practice hitting the targets. He had been warned to be careful around there, because the weapons were dangerous. Had the not-friend been shot? That’s what it looked like given what he could see behind the wall of-

gold. There was gold. 

He doesn’t understand what he’s looking at. Not at first.

Bob was completely and utterly bushwhacked, and for a surreal moment the fear left him. The angry, cacophonous noise overwhelming his helm quieted. The confusion and panic and indecision was gone. Even the hurt in his optics was a faraway thing.

Before there was a tear welled up in his optics because of the shock of being struck. It had stung, and cleanser had welled up; a reactionary protocol to clear the debris, or material obstructing his vision (not that he could have explained it that way.) Not because he was sad. Or distraught. At that moment if anything he had been angry.

There were no tears when he had been scared. There hadn’t been time to process that torrent of feelings, all over the place as they had been.

Now the tears were welling up because of the swell of relief. Of affection. Of disbelief, but maybe that last one was wrong because he knew. He had known all along-

For a moment in this alien, dark, scary place that he didn’t belong in-

-it felt like home. 

Home had found him like he knew it would.

It felt safe, because now it would be safe.

Because as he sat crouched, and staring up slack jawed at the one before him, familiar golden hands were reaching for him and he knew that it’d be ok.

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[wily-red-and-galeforce-gold]

Before Bob leaves the wall-

-of posters, and pictures another notice catches his optic.

It’s another “AD-VISE-OR-EE”

It’s newer looking than the doctor-talk one, but still fairly old. It’s a lot shorter too.:

WARNING-GLOBAL GROUND AND SPACE BRIDGE SYSTEMS HAVE BEEN HIJACKED AND COMPROMISED BY THE ENEMY. HALT ALL EVACUATIONS, AND STOP USE IMMEDIATELY UNTIL THE SITUATION HAS BEEN RESOLVED. A VIRAL CODE HAS BEEN EMBEDDED INTO THE PROGRAMMING. COORDINATES, REGARDLESS OF WHAT WAS ENTERED, WILL BE RANDOMIZED ON USE-.

Bob blinks at that.

Space Bridge? Ground bridge? He knows those words! Did he hear them at the Ark-home? It was the green light! Right? Huh. But there was nothing like that where the Autobot friends lived.

He is sure he remembered what that was though....Although the picture in his head is foggy... Far away and from a time when everything was immense, and strange, and hard to focus on.

A time that was lonelier.

Maybe it was from a while ago?

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He thinks he remembers them feeling like falling.

[wily-red-and-galeforce-gold]

Sunstreaker asks Bob to unlatch his mask-

-to make sure that the damage isn’t more extensive beyond the cracked optics.

Bob is still shaky from everything, but with watery optics he listens and the plating retracts.

Behind it he’s smiling.  Bob’s jaws are enormous enough to split his face when unhinged, and rowed with cruel teeth.

Honestly, the small smile on his face should be chilling, razor thin and hiding needles as it is, but it simply…isn’t.

For all the raw power and destructive potential Bob has... Despite his naïveté, and incomprehension of the vastness of his own strength, there has always been something gentle about him.

And it’s a relief to see that even now after everything that gentle thing still is there.

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