Suffering in Silence (a Rescue Bot Academy fanfiction)

Chapter 22

Heatwave's POV

As Hotshot fell asleep on me, I looked down at him fondly. It has been a while since we were freed and Firefrost killed the three that took us, though she got injured. She did have to complete many different things nowadays due to the orphanage and having to go back to her work now that the treaty she once had is now void. But one thing she kept pushing was for me to adopt Hotshot, more so now than before. To be fair, the more I thought of it, the more I wanted to do it, but I did worry if Hotshot wanted it. He avoided us for weeks afterwards, and despite us knowing where he was and the constantly checking up on him, he didn't seem to want to be around us to much, as if he was putting up his defenses once again. I fear that I will never be able to break his defenses to allow me to help him, even if he does not hate me and forgives me, he has walls that even I can't break. I sighed as I picked him up and take him to a berth so he could sleep comfortably. Since it was the only berth in the house, I opted for the couch to rest and recharge from the day, especially with how much I was dragged around by Hotshot and helping to rebuild the orphanage. I watched him as I got lost in my thoughts. I was the last of the professors that are here on Cybertron and I was going to bring the recruits back to Earth as well as meet the rest of their families. After looking at him for a bit, I got up to leave to let him rest, reaching to the door before I was stopped.

"Please stay, professor," Hotshot mumbled, his exhaustion evident in his voice. I froze and looked behind me at him, who was sitting up rubbing his optics tiredly. I smiled as I walked up to him, sitting down onto the berth, hoping he lay back down and go to bed. Instead, I was caught off guard as he climbed into my lab and hugged me around my waist as he started to cry. "I don't want you to leave me alone. I want you stay, I don't feel safe alone anymore."

"Oh Hotshot," I whispered, hugging him close as I allowed him to cry into me. It took him about a good twenty minutes for him to settle down and about another fifteen to fall back asleep. I ended up falling asleep as well, only to wake up to Hotshot missing during the morning hours of the next day. I began to panic as I looked around the entire house only to have him to walk in through the front door with a bag, a content smile on his face. When he looked at me, he looked at me confused as I stared to calm down my panic. "Primus, Hotshot! At least leave a note before you leave, so I don't think that you have been kidnapped again!"

"You sound like a worried dad, Professor," Hotshot commented, obviously confused by his actions. I looked at him mad since I was very much worried since I didn't know where he was when I woke up this morning. "Also, sorry. I went out to get energon that is based off of human food for you to try, assuming you've never tried it before."

"I was worried about you kid; you nearly gave me a spark attack this early in the morning. And you'd be correct that I have not tried it," I stated as my panic finally faded completely away, but the worry I felt was still there. We ended up eating in silence not speaking because of something that I wasn't too sure about. We had about two more full days before we went back to the academy and I wanted to ask Hotshot if he wanted me to adopt him, especially before anyone else would. "So, what are you going to do today, Hotshot?"

"Dunno, what about you?" he asked in return. I looked at him and smiled.

"Well, I was going to continue helping on rebuilding the orphanage today, since I offered to help. Unless you want to something with me, that is what I was going to do," I informed him. I was hoping he would want to do something because there wasn't much left there to do and they told me that I really needed a break from helping, especially before I would have to return to Earth. I watched Hotshot as he got lost in his thoughts, in which he looked up to me after a couple of minutes and smiled.

"Can we stay here and hang out? You'll probably have me doing chores again when we get back, so I'd like to spend the remaining time with you if you can," he stated shyly. Sheesh, I really knew nothing about this kid, it's really disappointing. I nodded my head.