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Sky and Ground: Quaterne	By : swordqueen Category: S through Z > Transformers (Movie Only) > Transformers (Movie Only) Views: 2920 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers or the characters or settings. I make no money writing or posting this story.

Chapter List
- 8
- 9
Thundercracker caught up with Skywarp, his jets burning blue hot.
“Skywarp, can we at least…say something?” His arrogance collided, messily, with the plea.
“There’s nothing to say.” But Skywarp throttled down. Probably surrendering, ungraciously, to the fact that he was caught. No escape.
“There’s plenty to say.” Thundercracker pulled alongside, matching the pace. “Want to start with where you’re going?”
A long pause. “No.” A low, broken growl. “Just…trying to get away. Before I broke something.”
“You can break it by leaving. Nothing gets solved if you run away.” Thundercracker’s voice, even through the thin vacuum, was heavy with regret and the freight of memory.
It was that thick voice that caused Skywarp, finally, to pull up short. “Should have realized that back then,” Skywarp snapped.
Thundercracker’s mouth worked, chewing on some bitterness. “I didn’t. But I learned from my…mistake.” A conscious, tangible effort to say the word, a fierce combat with his own pride. “Learn from it, too.”
“It’s different. He told…you! Not me!” The hostility melted into an uncomprehending hurt.
“He told one of us. He told the Quaterne. That’s what matters.” Repeating himself from before, and he knew it.
“He should have told me.”
“He…was afraid.”
“Why you?” Skywarp’s long talons curled, building hostility, trying to rechannel his discomfort into its old, familiar channel.
Thundercracker gave what he hoped was a diffusing snort. “Maybe because he felt pretty secure I couldn’t think much less of him.”
“He saved you.” The growl amped up.
“I know.” Thundercracker’s optics narrowed. He didn’t really need to be reminded. He struggled to master his frustration. This larger situation was more important than his pride. More important than Skywarp’s…tantrum. He couldn’t see it any other way. As much as he felt for him, understood it, he knew more how damaging it was—to everyone—to let Skywarp continue to indulge his temper. He had to learn control. He had to. “And I am trying to save you.”
“I’m not going to do anything stupid,” Skywarp snapped.
“You’d be flying the wrong way for that,” Thundercracker said, dryly. “And I know that.”
“You know. You know this. You know everything, don’t you?” Skywarp sneered.
Thundercracker shook his head. “Determined to deflect this, aren’t you?”
“Shut up!” Skywarp’s thrusters angled, launching him across the gap, grabbing at Thundercracker’s chest plating.
“Deflection,” Thundercracker said, calmly, his voice going cold and hard. He knew Skywarp recognized the voice. Knew it infuriated him. Better push him to it and get it over with. Better take him—as he had taken Skywarp’s rages, channeled them, burnished the edges off—here where he could be managed, before he damaged something real and breakable.
Thundercracker swept Skywarp’s hands off him with a swipe of his forearm. Skywarp’s attitude adjustment boosters fired, trying to compensate, keeping him from spiraling off into space. He latched onto one of Thundercracker’s finger barbs, hauling himself back, using the leverage to swing a punch at the blue face.
“Deflect this!” Skywarp cried, wildly.
Thundercracker let the blow land—he couldn’t block it entirely, after all, and the zero-gee nullified a great deal of the power behind it. He grabbed the wrist, twisting it outward, pulling it down, forcing Skywarp’s gaze to meet his. “This doesn’t solve anything.”
“It makes me feel better!” There was a wild, desperate pain on Skywarp’s face.
“Does it? Really?” He pelted the words at Skywarp. Starscream might have said the same words, but soft and gentle as rain. His were bullets, punching through Skywarp’s defenses.
“He told you and not me,” Skywarp repeated, the voice tremulous, lost. The arm vibrated, tense, hurt.
“Right now,” Thundercracker said, more hard words, more cold rounds of sense, “we should be worrying about why they did it…and revenge. We can settle that…later. The Quaterne needs to stick together right now.” He jerked the arm closer, Skywarp bouncing toward him, their nasal plating bumping. “Or else they win. Do you want that, Skywarp? Do you want them to win?”
Skywarp’s optics whirred, wildly, fury and hatred and fear warring across his face. “They can’t win.”
“We’ve been through too much.”
Skywarp nodded, ending with his head bowed. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Revenge first.” Thundercracker’s optics blazed. He held Skywarp’s gaze until he saw an answering flicker of determination and anger. “Revenge. The Quaterne stands together.”
“Don’t know why you care,” Skywarp threw out, one last, feeble dart from his empty quiver. “You hate Barricade.”
Thundercracker’s mouth twitched to one side. “Maybe there are some things I hate more.” He dropped his optics. “And maybe…I’m not churlish enough to forget that the fraggin’ grounder saved my life.” The moment stretched. Thundercracker shifted, his wing panels rustling. “We going to stay out here all shift?”
“I…don’t know how to do it. Get back at them, but…how?” Skywarp’s processor, flipped , diverted, the anger beginning to uncloud from his cortex. Thundercracker relaxed.
“Let Starscream and I do some thinking first. You…go talk to Barricade.”
“I won’t know what to say.” The hand in Thundercracker’s grasp shifted, clinging to him.
“Then say nothing. Just…be there.” How many times had Thundercracker done that himself? Going into Starscream’s or Skywarp’s recharge, not knowing how to reach through their trauma, only to discover the power of just…being there and not judging them had? “Unless you want to justify every reason he had to be afraid of telling you.” Hard words. But they needed to be said. Thundercracker was covering his own wounds.
Skywarp flinched. It was always Thundercracker’s way. Tear the wound open. Let it bleed so it can heal. He began a snarl, but it faded to a whimper. “Like you care.” Still trying to resist, dragging the tatters of his anger over the open wound of his worry. This, Thundercracker could handle. Better than he could Skywarp’s teetering on breakdown.
Thundercracker snorted. “I don’t. Just need the Quaterne to be solid. Survival. For all of us.” It was an insult to the Quaterne. A blow at them all. Skywarp searched his face for something. Thundercracker could feel the dying embers of Skywarp’s rage trying to fan themselves to life. “Go,” Thundercracker said, quenching the ember. “Barricade needs you.”
And, he added silently, a thing he’d never admit, Skywarp desperately needed Barricade.
- 8
- 9
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Sky and Ground: Quaterne