As the whirling portal spat out the femme like a ragdoll and she rolled around in the mud a few times before she finally stopped, she had no idea why this place was the one Shadow thought about when she chose the coordinates. Maybe it was pure bad luck for her to end up facepalming a brown puddle, but nonetheless, her escaping was not as graceful as she imagined it previously.
"Frag..." Darkwing grunted before she lifted her helm from the mud while spitting out some of the dirt-colored water, looking around to be sure that she was safe, but the only thing she saw was the last moment while her escape route vanished into the nothing behind her like it was never there.
Making the portal immediately close after it transported one person was so much easier to code into the system after the connection between the groundbridge and the makeshift remote control was stabilized, but it was a highly dangerous plan to hope that the portal could hold the overcharged state for that few seconds while the seeker jumped into it.
But it worked after all.
The seeker was sure that it would take the Autobots at least a few hours to be even able to find out what went wrong with the bridge, but by that time, she would be nowhere.
The rain fell on her frame with a quiet pit-patting sound as Darkwing turned her helm around in the wide open space, observing her environment in great detail. The sea of grassy land made a small piece of memory squirm around in her mind like a long-forgotten note of a song while her wings impatiently followed the back-and-forth thoughts with every new wind blow across the field, moving up and down, before they made a bigger flutter as the femme eventually recognized the place.
It was the same place Megatron brought her before, so they could talk without anybody else hearing their words. It was the place where he showed her his deep-hidden soft side, and asked her about her love toward him, the place where she told him about her devotion, and the place where she was left with shaking knees, because spilling out all of her feelings was too much for her at that time.
The recollection of that day made her smile, and as the realization of her newly achieved freedom hit her, Darkwing burst out in laughter. Her happy chuckling and laughing spread in the rain over the muddy field while she sat up, looking up toward the dark clouds above her. If anybody would have seen the femme like this, covered in dirt and laughing like a maniac, they would've surely thought that she had gone crazy.
"We did it... we escaped..." She said between two giggles, running her hands from the top of her helm down to her nape while she closed her eyes, enjoying the cold drops of rain on her face. "I can't even believe it!"
'Yes, we did.' Shadow's voice softened for a moment as she chortled too. 'And I have to admit, I really enjoyed your little show. The expression on their faces was hilarious... that fear and shock...'
Darkwing only rolled her optics at this statement before she glanced down at the phone in her hand, then threw it away as far as she could. The seeker watched as the remains of the pink phone flew up toward the sky, shrinking smaller and smaller in her view, only to fall down far from her between the tall grass, vanishing forever.
"And... now what?" She asked out loudly, while her sight was still glued to the point where she saw the last glimpse of pinkness.
'Call the ship.' Her sister's mind wiggled around in the back like she would try to find a comfortable, but not really existing position for herself. 'We are too weak to fly, and the adrenaline in our system won't keep us from crashing for too long.'
Darkwing nodded and cleaned down a small bit of mud from her audio, pressing her digits to activate her communicator.
"Darkwing to Nemesis..." It felt so good for her to finally say these words that the smile only widened on her face. "Can anybody hear me? I would need a groundbridge in my location."
For a few seconds, there was only quiet as she waited for a response from her communicator, and then suddenly, a static click got through the device as a sign that somebody connected to the channel too.
"Darkwing? Is that really you?" She heard the familiar voice of one of the vehicons.
"Yes." The femme nodded excitedly, even though she knew the other wasn't able to see it. "Can you send a portal? I am not in the state to fly for a longer period."
"Ummm... Just a moment." The answer was hesitant and weak like the other wouldn't know how to answer to any of this.
Some shuffling and the beepings of buttons got through the channel before the other side disconnected, leaving the seeker alone, waiting for the response that only came a few minutes later.
"Okay, the portal can be there in any second. Good luck." Said the vehicon in an uncertain voice finally, then the static noises completely stopped through the communicator.
As the silence fell on the fields once again, Darkwing stood up slowly and started cleaning off most of the mud from herself, because even with the sprinkling rain, she was sure that the dirt would be imminent as she would set foot on the ship. It wouldn't be good to start her returning by getting a scolding from the cleaning staff members.
While she scraped down the remaining dirt patches from her servos and chassis, her mind returned to the quick conversation again and again.
Why did they say 'Good luck'? Was she in that big trouble?
A far memory shifted through her thoughts from her last real meeting with her leader, and her hand stopped the cleaning process for a moment.
Lord Megatron said that if she fails, she shouldn't come back.
On the edge of her view, a bright light lit up in the form of a new portal, giving the seeker a small piece of relief only by its sight.
She took a step closer, her Spark painfully thumping in her chassis with excitement as she did it, but then as she caught a glimpse of the approaching giant shadow through the portal, she stopped and watched as the frame of the bot cleared out more and more.
Her wings shot up in the moment her leader finally got out of the whirl fully.
"Lord Megatron!"
Darkwing was sure that she wasn't in her best look with the mud and her own spilled Energon on her body, but in this moment, her cleanliness was her smallest problem.
The warlord glanced at her, his optic ridges lifting so slightly that she doubted that she even saw it, then his gaze started to wander around her frame, getting more and more shocked with each injury he noticed. She waited for him to say something, anything... but her leader only stared at her with a gaze the seeker couldn't understand.
It wasn't disgust or hatred, neither fear nor loathe, but it was something dark... something that made her cautious about the last words he said to her.
"M-my Lord..." The femme bowed down her helm submissively, not daring to look at her leader. "I... I failed. I don't have an excuse for my inability to collect the relic, and I was caught by the enemy too like some newly forged bot, b-but please..." She gulped, trying to collect her thoughts, but those just continued to race around in her mind. "I... I know you said I shouldn't come back if I fail, but if you would just give me one more chance, I-"
"Darkwing." Her leader's deep and powerful voice beamed through the open space without any barrier, making the seeker look up with wide-open optics.
"Y-yes, my Lord?" She asked, her frame quivering slightly from the possible outcomes.
"All this time... were you a prisoner of the Autobots?" Megatron stared at her without blinking, while the portal still whirled behind him endlessly, not closing in like the one she jumped out of earlier.
Darkwing only nodded as an answer, following every little detail of the warlord's face to find out his thoughts, as he seemed considering something.
Was he angry? Disappointed? Would he punish her?
The femme was sure that he wouldn't kill her, but even torture seemed less painful than seeing him being so distant with her.
Luckily she didn't have to wait too much, because in the next moment, the mech fell down on one knee, and opened his servos to the side.
"Come here." He said in a so much softer tone than before, and Darkwing didn't need to hear or see anything else to know what he wanted.
Without thinking, she sprinted towards Megatron and jumped into his arms, wrapping her servos around his neck. As her frame crashed into him by the great speed she could muster up from that distance, his position only changed for a second before the warlord's own servos surrounded her from both sides and squeezed her in his grip, not daring to let go like she would disappear in the moment he would hold her any weaker.
"Is it really you, my little soldier?" He muttered into her audio as if he wouldn't even believe to his own optics.
"Of course... there is no other like me." The femme whispered in response, feeling the smile returning on her face again as she pushed her forehelm to the side of his helm.
"Oh, my dearest treasure..." Megatron pressed her a little back just to see her face better, one of his servos finally loosening before he grabbed her chin, turning her face from side to side. "Did they hurt you? Is this Energon on your frame is yours?"
He traced his digits all across her faceplate, taking a better look at her injuries like a worried medic. The femme felt under her hands as his emotions changed while his body tensed up in anger with every new little wound he spotted, and every small bruise he had a chance to see under the dirt and blue liquid.
Darkwing shook her helm in denial.
"I only got some minor scratches, but I'm stronger than to let them break me." She said calmingly to give him reassurance over these damages, then as her hands shook for a second, she turned to a more serious subject. "Lord Megatron... I don't know how long my little trick will stop the Autobots from opening a portal, and I'm not really battle-ready right now... Can we-"
"Of course." Her leader interrupted with a quick nod, already understanding what she wanted to say, and with keeping one of her hands in his grasp he stood up and turned toward the portal. "Let's go home, Darkwing."
Carefully watching every step the femme made by his side, Megatron led her into the whirling groundbridge, taking one last quick glance around the wet grassland before they both disappeared in it, and the portal was erased from the world.
As the ship's dark purple glow took over the main source of light over the dull color of the grey clouds, a big weight fell off of the femme's shoulders. The dark metal around her, the computers and screens on the walls with the bots working before them, and her leader's presence right by her side wiped out the last weeks of bitter treatment and loneliness in a blink of an eye to give place to the new set of emotions.
She turned toward her lord, realizing that he still held her digits, but her optics widened once again from the shock.
It was not Megatron's hand.
The whole lower side of his servo was changed out for a yellow and red colored limb, with dull-ended digits instead of the claw-like ones he had before. Moreover, this forearm was old. Old even for them, according to the rusted colors and the shineless metal which was covered in scratches.
"L-lord Megatron..." Darkwing stared at the servo with a puzzled look, then slowly lifted her gaze toward her leader's face. "What... What happened to you?"
The mech looked away, a taint of embarrassment coloring his face as he let go of her hand too, but before any answer could have left his dermas, a quiet voice robbed away the little seeker's attention.
"Kite?"
As she turned around, she could see the datapad falling out of the cherry-red medic's hand before he darted toward her at full speed.
"KITE!"
Knockout wrapped his arms around her torso and lifted her up, turning around in a circle with her peds above the ground before he let her back and hid his face in the crook of her neck.
"Oh, you idiot... you fragging idiot..." He muttered silently, squeezing her form with surprisingly big strength.
As the mech held her even stronger, Darkwing wrapped her arms around his neck cables, letting her protection down for a few precious sparkbeat to enjoy the long-missed feeling.
With how their last talk went down, she didn't hope for a warm welcome like this, but nonetheless, it felt so good that she had to force herself to not cry.
"I missed you too." She whispered to him, nuzzling as close as possible. "I'm so sorry..."
Knockout pushed her back, but only just to cup her face in his hands, and start to hint dozens of little kisses on her faceplates and forehelm.
"You can't leave the ship without me anymore. Can you hear me?" He said finally in a scolding manner. "You idiot, if anything would have happened to you..."
Tears gathered in the medic's optics as his hands shook around her face, and a hurtful thought ran across his mind. His sniffing and irregular breathing held him by a thread from sobbing, then without warning it snapped, and the drops started to pour out of his eyes.
"S-stop... If you cry then I will-" Darkwing immediately felt tears in her optics. "Scrap, look what you did to me..."
"I'm sorry kite, I..." The mech let her go, holding out his servos before himself to calm her, but he wavered too from touching the femme.
"N-no, it's good." The seeker shook her helm quickly while the back of her hand cleaned down the tears from her face. "It means I'm home. I'm home."
She giggled between two sniffs, completely acknowledging her own words.
She was at home.
It wasn't a dream or hallucination, she was finally back with her owns.
In the next moment, a soothing, soft touch on the top of her helm made the femme turn her sight upwards to her leader.
Megatron's digits ran over the darker piece on her helm, the crown-like ornament on her forehelm, and the pointy antennas on her audios. A small, almost invisible smile hid in the corner of his dermas as he pulled away his servo at the end.
"And you will never have to leave us again. I-"
It looked like it was the day nobody had a chance to finish their sentences, because as the warlord would have continued, the entrance opened, and a dark shadow rushed in, stopping dead in their track at the sight of the femme.
The Energon turned solid in the cables inside Darkwing as her mind recognized the steps even before she could have seen the slim and tall frame.
Soundwave.
Megatron, the medic, and every other lower-level Decepticon in the room kept glancing between them back and forth, waiting for one of them to do something, and in the end, it was Soundwave who reacted first.
The slim bot took a shuffling step closer, then another, approaching the femme in a slow pace.
He didn't say or do anything until he was enough close to reach his hand toward her face, his digits only inches away from her helm when Darkwing finally snapped out of her stone-like state.
She quickly stepped away from his touch, bowing down her helm.
"It is... Good to see you again, sir." She muttered, forcing her voice to not quiver.
The silent mech's servo froze in the air for a moment, then was pulled back and lowered back to his side.
Darkwing felt him staring from behind his visor. She felt his gaze on her, those deep purple optics she loved for so long, and it was torture for her to not look up. But she had to do it.
"TCCK... Welcome back" Soundwave said with his recordings, retreating out from Darkwing's personal space.
The seeker's knees shook as the familiar pain in her Spark burst out from its place, causing her knees to shake and her digits to claw into her own palms, but not like any other time before, her eyesight went blurry and she started to feel light-headed too. These signs were not part of the broken sparkmating earlier... however, another weak time of the femme had these symptoms too.
An unexpectedly lethargic and limp feeling took over Darkwing's processor, with a newfound exhaustion over all of her body, which made her scared and disturbed.
'Dear.' Shadow shambled around in the back, muttering in a tired voice. 'We can't keep up like this any longer. Ask for the shard.'
This time, Darkwing felt that her sister was completely right with her request. Going through all of this pain and caption and then dying in the end was not in her plans, so without any more hesitance, she gulped and lifted her sight toward her leader once more.
"L-lord Megatron..." She lifted her hand in front of her chassis, running her digits along the marks of her injury. "They... they took away my shard, and... I-if you could spare a smaller piece of dark Energon..."
"What?" The medic chimed in. "Did your processor become rusty? You know how weak is your body without a shard, you idiot!"
Megatron's optic ridges furrowed and his optics narrowed too, then half a second later he grabbed the seeker by her arm to pull her closer, and lifted her up to his chest to carry her in his arms.
"To the medbay, now." He said in an ordering tone. "Knockout, you are coming with me. Everybody else, continue your work."
The giant mech didn't wait for a response from anyone, he darted towards the exit with the surprised and lightly blushing seeker in his grasp, while for a shard of a moment, he glanced toward his third in command.
The dark visor of Soundwave lit up while he followed with his sight as Megatron left the control room with the medic following close behind with smaller, but faster steps.
The heavy pace of the warlord made everybody in the corridors step out of their way quickly as he rushed through, his helm kept high while he occasionally peeked down toward the femme in his grip. With a sudden thought, he changed his hold around her, only to be able to press his digits on his communicator for a second, immediately giving his orders through it.
"Dreadwing, bring a dark Energon shard from my own storage to the medbay."
He didn't even wait before he ended the call, lowering back his servo to support his hold under the small seeker, and glancing at her again. Darkwing silently endured the carrying until now, looking at him with a tired look and resting her hand on the mech's chassis, but as their gaze met, her dermas opened for a weak sentence.
"Lord Megatron..."
Her leader growled in irritation, tightening his hold around her.
"Damn you femme..." He blurted out, lifting his sight toward the way he went. "Why didn't you say anything earlier? You know how weak you are without the dark Energon!"
For a moment, Darkwing lowered her helm, her digits pressing against her leader's chassis before she shook her head.
"I... I don't know..." She muttered. "I was just so happy to be back with you, my lord. It was terrible to be so far..."
This sentence made the warlord change his expression into a soft smile before he lifted the small femme higher in his hands, only to rub his forehelm to hers.
"I'm happy too, my dearest treasure." He muttered, but realizing the cherry red medic's presence behind them too, he continued in a bit harsher tone. "But it doesn't mean I will tolerate this careless behavior by you."
Darkwing chuckled weakly, then while the medbay's door opened with a hiss, she leaned closer to her leader's audio and whispered only for him to hear.
"I missed your ordering voice..."
Megatron tried concealing his reactions at her comment, but to the femme, it was obvious how much effect it had on him. The way his body stiffened was evident.
Seconds later he laid her down on one of the medberths, and Knockout immediately started scanning her frame with his little devices. He carefully checked her pulse and her reactions to sudden light and took his time to observe the shapeless marks all across her chassis. With a short, questioning look toward the femme to see if it was okay for her, he got a response with her opening up her Sparkchamber for further inspection. Megatron turned his sight away as he heard the hissing of her chassis platings, respecting the most private examination their kind could have, but the noises couldn't evade his hearing.
The soft humming originated from the femme's Spark got enough loud without the protection of her outer frame to be easily hearable all across the room as the medic carefully inspected her Sparkchamber, looking for any irregularities or life-threatening injury, but after some time Knockout stepped away, cleaning down his servos from any filth stuck on them from the checkup.
As the closing noises reached his audios, their leader turned back toward the femme and the medic, waiting for any word, but soon he became impatient by the cherry mech's silence.
"So, doctor?" Megatron asked hastily.
First, Knockout shrugged his shoulders, looking at the femme again and again, while wearing a sad, but understanding expression.
"She is relatively alright." He said finally, giving a small squish to her digits which rested on the medberth by her side. "No overheating, or permanent damage in her system, but her Spark... Its beatings are very weak. She needs that shard as soon as possible."
Like to a signal, the door of the medbay opened, and the seeker captain rushed in with the dark Energon in his hand, looking like a blue flash going through the room.
"My liege, I have brought you the requested shard." He said quickly, putting down the crystal onto one of the tables to seize contact with it as soon as possible. "Can I ask-" The blue mech turned to face the others, and as he noticed Darkwing, the words stuck in his voicebox for a moment. "Dark... You are... You are back..."
He gasped like a fish on dryland, wondering if he was seeing a ghost, but the femme only waved to him in response.
"Hi, Dread."
"I'm... I'm glad you returned, commander." He bowed toward the smaller seeker, then smiled as he straightened back. "The vehicons and the workers were all worried about you."
"Perhaps we can reassure them." Darkwing sat up, holding her side and looking at their leader to explain. "I mean a few of them already saw me, and if we are not going to tell them soon, they would think that there is something wrong."
Megatron contemplated her words, then nodded and turned toward the blue mech.
"Dreadwing, I hope I can leave the reassurance of our soldiers to you. I will stay to be sure no further harm will happen to Darkwing through the replacement of her shard."
He stepped closer to be by the femme's side, looking at Dreadwing with a gaze that didn't leave any room for him to deny his order.
"As you wish, my liege." The blue mech nodded quickly, turning his gaze to the medic for a nod. "Doctor. Dark..."
"We will meet later, Dread."
As the door closed behind the seeker captain and silence fell on the room, Knockout grabbed the dark Energon shard, observing it in his grasp. He lifted it toward the light source to make sure it was clear from any contamination before it would be put into the seeker's Spark, possibly making her even sicker or hurt, then with his best knowledge, he got rid of them.
"Then... if you are ready..." He muttered, offering the purple crystal to the femme.
Her digits shook as she reached toward it, her wings fluttering anxiously in response to the purple light and the vibration of the shard.
She remembered the last time when she came in closer contact with this dark matter. That power and greediness for even more control to rule over everything and everybody... She didn't want to be like that without a point she could focus on to survive the rush of energy.
But she had no mate to concentrate on this time, nobody to help her get through the first few minutes of the wild and primal emotions this shard would induce.
'Shadow...' Darkwing gulped as she clutched her digits around the crystal. 'I... I fear... I fear what we will become with this...'
But the reassuring didn't come from her other half. A big, dark grey hand reached under hers lightly, and as she looked up with surprise, her optics met with Megatron's gaze above the glowing shard. The same disturbing expression was seated on his face like not long ago on the grass field when they were alone, and from this close distance, Darkwing had a chance to see the tiredness caused dark circles under his eyes. He was a different Megatron from her dreams or even her earliest memories from before the war, but the familiar warmth and softness radiating from him were enough to make the doubtful thoughts inside the femme's mind retreat.
"Everything will be alright, my little soldier." He whispered, while encouragingly tightened his hold around her digits. "Everything will be perfectly fine."
And for a moment, for an almost invisibly short fragment of time, she believed him.
~~~~~~~
"Are you sure you are feeling better?" Megatron glanced down at the femme in his hands, while walked toward his quarter in a slow pace.
They only left the medbay minutes ago, strolling through the empty corridors without meeting anybody in this late hour, while the engines buzzed lowly in the far parts of the ship.
"For the fifth time..." Darkwing quietly giggled and nuzzled her helm to the warlord's chassis. "Yes, my lord. I feel perfectly fine, and you can put me down."
"Someone has to take care of you." The warlord responded, turning a corner in the meantime to reach the hallway to his room. "You heard what Knockout said, you need to be under supervision for the night."
Darkwing rolled her optics while gently patting his servo by her side.
"He said that he could look after me, but you just picked me up and left." She chuckled again as the memory of the incredulous Knockout while he looked after them sneaked into the front of her mind.
"I just wanted to make sure that you can rest peacefully on your first night back with us." The warlord muttered quietly as he stopped before his door, changing his hold around the small seeker to be able to write in the codes to open it. "And truth be told... I will recharge better if I know that you are safe."
The entrance to the familiar room opened in front of them seconds later, and Megatron didn't spare any moment to linger outside. Inside, he put down Darkwing on the bed, making sure that she was comfortable before he stood back up, his gaze wandering around her frame for a moment.
The femme couldn't stop herself from feeling exposed before her leader as he did it, so she glanced down too, immediately feeling embarrassed by her looks. After all, she was still covered in big patches of green, brown, and blue from her escape, and despite being incredibly tired, this made her sit up to not put any more dirt on the berth.
"I'm sorry my lord, I think I should-" Darkwing tried to stand up, but with a hand pressed down on her shoulder to keep her down, Megatron stopped her from doing it.
"Stay here for a moment, I am going to find something to clean you off." He patted the top of her helm with a gentle smile on his face before he turned around and left, leaving the femme completely alone in the room.
The quiet creaking of the berth signaled the change of position as Darkwing looked around, the tips of her wings scraping the metal surface behind her while her optics took in her surroundings.
Not much has changed since she last saw this well-protected place, but some minor details showed enough changes to be obvious to the femme. On the work desk where previously the hordes of datapads outnumbered the empty Energon cubes, now half-full glasses stood in piles on top of each other like small towers. According to the light pink color in most of these, it was one of the higher-grade cubes they had on board, rarely consumed by anybody because of the high value. It wasn't so weird to her, her leader was a big mech, maybe he needed this high quality sometimes to stay fully functional.
The giant glass cabinet didn't change much either. The relics of the war stood there without change in perfect rows, and as Darkwing stared at them, she recognized the ones she had a chance to see before. Their old flag folded neatly with their famous insignia in the middle of it, and stood next to an old, broken sword, along with a few remainings from other battles too.
The whole place was illuminated by only the moonlight through the thick glass window, but instead of the red one from earlier, this time the glass was clear and translucent, showing the big snowflakes that danced around outside in the snowstorm below.
They were seemingly near to one of the poles of this planet, or at least in a less populated and colder place where the Nemesis could easily hide under storms like this from the always-watching eyes of the humans. Even if the outside was far under zero, the femme couldn't feel any of the cold in here as she stared out of the window from her place, lost in the moment of peace.
Megatron came back soon after with a wet cloth in his hand, sitting down on the other side of the berth and facing the seeker, leaving room for both of them to move if they needed to, but enough close to easily reach her.
"If you excuse me..." He muttered while he looked up and down on the femme's frame, thinking about where he should start.
His left servo grabbed her chin, lifting her helm higher, while his right servo with the piece of rag started to carefully clean down the mud and spilled Energon from her face. The warlord gently pressed it on her cheek, slowly rubbing the soft matter until the spots disappeared from it, then continued the cleaning on other parts of her face.
He ran the cloth under her optics to erase the dirt, and cleaned off the Energon around the small cut on her lower derma too, which she didn't seem to notice until now. Then he continued on her servos. The mech's brows furrowed as he observed the marks on her wrists that were made by the cuffs, his digits rubbing over the dark lines in the hope to ease some of the pain these could have caused her. Slowly but surely, Darkwing's purplish frame became more visible under the dark brown and blue patches, revealing more of the scratched and dulled metal under them, along with the silver metal over her newest injury too.
"What... did they do to you?" Megatron asked hesitantly, the tip of his digits grazing over the damaged chest plate of the femme.
She didn't respond at first, thinking if she should tell her leader the whole story, but in the end, she thought it would be easier to shorten all of her experiences.
"I... I made a deal with the Autobots." She gulped, glancing down at the berth. "I had to turn their groundbridge into a spacebridge, in exchange for my freedom. I was almost done when they played out their little tricks and stabbed me to steal my shard."
"Did you-?" The mech asked, while cleaned down bits of her chassis, watching as the seeker shook her helm in response.
"No. Shadow was sure that they wouldn't let us go, even if I did a perfect job... So... We took over the control of the bridge, and escaped."
"That's how you ended up on that field?" He asked curiously, and now she only nodded in response. "My clever little femme." The mech patted the top of her helm, earning a small chuckling from her.
"And you, my lord? How did..." Darkwing pointed at his red and yellow limb. "...this happen?"
The warlord lifted his servo, taking a closer look at it like he would be thinking about an answer, but it rather seemed like he would have been spaced out from this question. He bent his digits on it to form a clenched fist, then eased it back, continuing to rub the cloth on the plates of the femme's tanks.
"This servo..." He started. "It was a sacrifice I had to make, to achieve greater power. It is the limb of one of the dead Primes."
"Liege Maximo." The seeker muttered out as she finally recognized the servo, making her leader's expression turn into surprise.
"Do you recognize it?"
Darkwing nodded slowly, following every little movement of the limb.
"He was... he was on one of the older paintings in the building of the High Council."
The mech stared at her for a moment, trying to decide if she was disgusted by this servo touching her, and in the end, he pulled it away from her frame, deciding to ask her directly.
"What do you think about it?" He asked quickly, seeing as the confusion made her questioningly tilt her helm to the side like she did so many times before.
"My lord?"
"About me using the limb of a dead bot. That I became a carcass user."
The tint of shame darkened Megatron's face as he blurted out these words, but it only made Darkwing change her sitting position by inching closer to him and putting her digits on his new servo.
She observed it for a long time, running her digits up and down on the decorative limb to feel every little detail of it before she spoke up again in a soft voice.
"Let me ask you this. What do you think about me using these wings?" She looked up at her leader while continued her exploration on the new servo.
This question surprised the mech, and first, he slowly shook his helm before he grabbed the until now still caressing hand of the femme, and interlocked their digits.
"There are times when I forget you were not forged with them." He whispered only for her to hear, while his thumb moved over the side of her hand, learning to touch her with this new limb too. "When I try to remember..." He shook his helm again, his gaze glued on the wings of the femme. "I can only see you with these wings. They are a part of you."
Darkwing gently tightened her hold, squeezing the warlord's digits as carefully as possible while a small smile appeared on her dermas.
"Then I think the same about your new limb. If you needed it, then you needed it. It's a part of you now."
They looked at each other, both of their faces colored by a slight blue as they blushed from the long contact, but when Megatron glanced a bit lower, he noticed a small bit of Energon seeping through the crevices of the femme's chassis, and he pulled out his servo from the hold, grabbing the piece of cloth once again.
"Can you... Can you open your sparkchamber for me?" He asked hesitantly, continuing by pointing at her chest as the seeker's optics widened. "Some of your Energon got through the seals, and I want to be sure that it is nothing serious. If Knockout left out a lethal injury because he couldn't see it through the dirt..."
Opening their chamber in front of medics for checkups was usual, but Darkwing couldn't even gather the courage to do it in front of anybody else before. Revealing their core, the most protected and most sensitive part of their body meant that they trusted the other bot without the smallest doubt, it was something the cybertronians only did as a big gesture toward their closest friends and their sparkmates while they bonded.
But did she trust in her leader enough to let him see it?
He never gave her any reason for doubt after all. And he helped her to keep their secret for long years, the secret she never dared to say out loud to anybody else... maybe it was a kind of gesture she had to do as a sign that he could trust her too.
"I-it's okay..." She mumbled quietly. "Just please be gentle."
Darkwing shifted in her place, running her digits across her chassis to feel the different metals on the place where the Autobot medic repaired the hole, then closed her optics.
She concentrated on the feelings, the shifting of the metal plates on her front side, and the radiating warmness reaching out from her core as she revealed her soul to her leader. As she opened her eyes, her face shaded by flushed blue as she took in the never-seen sight before her.
Megatron looked at her Spark with curious, widened optics, while his servo reached out toward the light purple source of light. He reached closer and closer, almost hypnotized by the Spark of the femme, until his hand was inches away from it.
"Lord Megatron?"
"You are... You are beautiful." He said, shaking his helm before putting the cloth on the inner edges of her frame to clean down the drops of Energon. "I apologize, it is not usual for me to see anybody's core without crushing it."
"It's... It's okay... I understand, I have never seen any other bot's Spark outside of the battlefield either."
For a few minutes, everything calmed down. None of them spoke as the warlord gently pulled the rag across her inner seals, cleaning out every bit of the remaining Energon from these difficult places. For the most of it, Darkwing stared at the ceiling, or out of the window, watching the still dancing snowflakes outside to distract her mind from the way her leader fidgeted with the cloth so close to her life force, but once or twice she glanced down at him too, just to be sure that everything was alright.
Megatron's face softened as he concentrated on the cleaning process, his optics returning toward the small source of light before him frequently like a moth and before she could even realize it, the femme started to feel something happy and content growing inside her Spark.
She didn't want this moment to end.
As the thought rushed through her processor, a small stabbing pain got through her Sparkchamber at the same time too, followed by panic as she looked down, and eventually saw the cause of the aching. Through the thin, protective cage that was still around it, one of the little tendrils of her Spark reached out and wrapped itself around the warlord's digits, not letting him pull away from her.
Both her leader and the femme froze down from this never-before-experienced situation.
"I'm so sorry my lord, I didn't mean to...!"
Darkwing tried to pry down the light purple tendril from his servo, but it seemed like it didn't want to let go, and only held onto the digit even tighter. Her panic and the pain this caused her made the seeker even more frightened, but as she tried to get away, Megatron's free servo grabbed her around the waist to not let her do any more movement.
"Please don't pull away, your Spark can get injured from that." He said worriedly, glancing back and forth between her optics, and the feeler-like tendril around his digit. "Take a deep breath and calm down... do you remember how did we do it last time?"
The way his left servo rested on her side and calmingly stroked it to stop her from hurting worked charms on the femme's emotions, and soon she collected herself enough to be able to nod. She reached her hands toward his chassis, searching for the strong thumping of his own Spark, and as she finally found it, she closed her optics to concentrate her whole attention on it, trying to match her own beatings to this slow rhythm.
"My good femme..." She heard her leader's voice right beside her audio, while his servo still rubbed on her side to calm her nerves. "It's alright... Your Spark shows your true emotions... Everything you want, your Spark can reflect all of your needs in its own special way... Maybe it will let me go if you tell me what you want." His hand stopped caressing her side, and traveled up to the back of her helm, to bump their forehelms together. "Tell me, my dearest treasure... what your Spark craves mostly in this moment?"
If this was what it would take for her to do, Darkwing would've gladly told anything to get out of this embarrassing situation.
But what did she really want?
Her mind rushed through everything that happened since she returned from her long journey across the stars until the moment she had a chance to hug her leader after being far from him, and she still didn't understand what her Spark would want from her. Maybe it was one of Shadow's needs?
She quickly rejected this idea.
Shadow was not emotional, she knew this. They were together for so long, being the only one she could count on, and with her, she was never alone...
Alone.
"You..." Darkwing whispered as quietly as possible, not believing the words that left her mouth. "I want you... to never leave me..." She gulped, opening her optics to face the mech with a bold expression. "Even if you would have punished me for coming back without the relic... even if you would have beaten me up like you did with Starscream so many times... I would still ask you this. It hurt to be so far from you, and I was so scared that I would never see you again..." Her voice trembled for a second, while she felt like an invisible hand would try to choke her. "That you will never pat my helm, or call me your treasure, or your soldier... Please, my Lord... Please never leave me."
Tears, that she didn't even feel leaving her eyes got cleaned down from her face by both servo of her leader. His digit was finally free from the grip of her Spark and to prevent anything similar to this, the femme closed back up her chassis, while the warlord still didn't let her go.
"I will never leave you alone, Darkwing." He muttered silently as his thumbs ran over her cheeks lovingly, but on his face, a serious expression spread all over. "I vow to you, my dearest treasure, that even in the darkest times, when you would think there is nobody by your side... I will be there with you."
Maybe it was from her exhaustion, or his words had so much effect on her, but tears gathered repeatedly in her optics, no matter how hard she tried to hold them back.
'Darkwing.' Shadow's voice got through their connection in a calm and collected tone, nothing similar to the one she had before getting the new shard. It dried up every tear and made Darkwing concentrate on her inner voice to respond to her sister immediately, while her face was still pampered and caressed by the warlord.
'Yes?'
'I want your side of the deal to be done right now.'
Right now? What could be so important that needed to be done in this moment, when she was completely honest with their leader?
'What do you want?' Darkwing asked hesitantly, and in her mind, her twins' smirking face appeared.
'Kiss him.'
These two words almost made the femme jump up from her place.
'What? Are you mad?!' She asked angrily, only to get a scolding sensation through Shadow.
'As the half of the whole, you promised. Do it.' The ordering tone was clear in her voice. 'Now.'
There was no way for Darkwing to get out of this situation. Not without doing something she didn't want.
He was her leader after all! The connection between them wasn't like it was with Soundwave! He was kind, poetic, a real warrior with a soft Spark... but she didn't love him like that. He was her closest friend in these years, somebody who was so dear to her Spark that she would've even died for him.
She looked up at him as he stopped the caressing of her face, realizing that she froze down for a few seconds.
"Darkwing... Is everything alright?" He asked quietly.
He was still so worried about her, even after he knew so much about their past, and the weight they carried with them as the Shadow of Kaon... She didn't want to lose his trust by forcing herself onto him, but if she wouldn't do it... She would break a type of promise that was never broken before, and would anger her sister even more.
So she decided it... and chose the smaller wrong.
"My lord... I am so sorry..."
Within a second, Darkwing gently grabbed the back of Megatron's helm, then leaned in and pressed her dermas on the warlord's.