Oracle 4/?
And now for some angst, followed by some 'Hide and 'Mia fluff. Still not pleased with the middle-ish to end of this part, but eh. Also: Ironhide's accent, it kills me.
Title: Oracle
Chapter: 4/?
Rating: T
Setting: Bayverse, pre-earth
Pairings/Characters: Ironhide/Chromia, Optimus, Unnamed Diversionary Tactician That May Or May Not Be A Suicidal Smokescreen
Summary: Ironhide really hated his job somedays. Mostly because he usually went above and beyond what was required of him, just because he felt he should.
---
With the sudden realization that Chromia would have to go into combat, Ironhide decided to do his best to make sure she'd survive. Every moment he could, he was drilling her on combat, and had pretty much permanently taken over a practice range, complete with ranged target dummies and melee holographic opponents. Chromia was less than pleased with all the training, and tried to convince him to let it drop, or at least slow the pace.
"Don't you have faith in your own combat protocols?" she protested after the second day.
"Combat protocols can tell you how to move, but they ain't a replacement for gut reactions," Ironhide growled.
"Aren't the others going to find it odd that you just reunited with your bondmate after who-knows-how-long and are spending all this time in the practice range?" Chromia's second attempt made Ironhide snicker.
"Femme, they've decided to scour this range with acid once we're done," he said.
"Why would - oh." Chromia inexplicably looked embarrassed as she realized the other Autobots thought she and Ironhide were interfacing in the practice range.
"Isn't the best way to learn these sorts of gut reactions through experience?" she tried next.
"Yeah, but you've already had that experience, supposedly," Ironhide said sardonically. "Prowl's gonna stick you someplace where he needs an experience fighter - maybe even in charge of a squad, depending on how short up he is."
"In charge of a squad?" Chromia was clearly horrified at the thought. There were no more complaints after that, and she set to the training with a new purpose. Seeing that, Ironhide decided not to tell her that he'd just been trying to scare her - Prowl would never put a new addition in charge of a squad. He'd want to see how she handled herself in combat, first.
Their half an orn break eventually came to a close, of course, and Ironhide found himself ridiculously relieved when, after Chromia officially joined the Autobots, Prowl informed her that she'd be joining a scouting unit for now. Not a lot of heavy combat, and it would keep her on base more often than not. On the down side, if her unit did get into combat, it was likely to be out in the middle of nowhere with no backup. Which was part of the reason Prowl wanted Chromia along, as it happened - she was to be the unit's heavy hitter.
"If it makes you feel any better, I already plan to use my gift to try and avoid getting into combat," Chromia said dryly after she came back from meeting with Prowl to find Ironhide brooding on the couch.
"Yeah, an' how will you do that without breakin' yer cover?" Ironhide grumbled.
"I may have slipped 'advanced sensors' into the combat specifications you gave Prowl," Chromia said innocently, and Ironhide frowned at her. "Oh don't give me that. With my gift, I can fake them well enough."
"It's still fragging risky," Ironhide said with a glower.
"I'm part of an army now. Of course it's risky," Chromia said with a sigh. Ironhide grumbled more complaints to himself, but didn't voice them. He knew he was worrying excessively, but he couldn't help himself - part of him was wishing he'd decided to just disappear with her, and not come up with this whole cover story. Chromia just shook her head and ignored him, letting him worry on his own as she went through the numerous datapads Prowl had given her on proper Autobot protocols. The tactician had said she could probably just skim them, since the Autobots took most of their protocols from the security forces - but of course, Chromia had never been in the security forces, so she had a lot of studying to do.
For all Ironhide's worrying, though, he ended up getting into combat before Chromia. After their major offensive the day they'd attacked the Temple, the Decepticons, like the Autobots, had been quietly recovering. They came back with a vengeance a few days after Ironhide returned to active duty, though, and all major combat units were sent to counter them - which, of course, included Ironhide. Chromia cheerfully saw him off, telling him not to trip and fall on his face too many times. Ironhide wasn't amused, especially when he tripped in the middle of battle, missing a shot. Thanks to Chromia, more than a few Autobots noticed, and snickered.
"You can't keep doing stuff like that, or someone is gonna notice!" Ironhide snapped when he returned to their quarters immediately upon returning to base, finding Chromia reading on the berth. She looked up and arched an eyebrow at him.
"If I hadn't, you'd be in med bay right now," she said coldly, then returned to her datapad.
"Femme, I end up in med bay every other battle, it's nothing new," Ironhide growled, though some of his anger had deflated. He did appreciate coming back from a battle uninjured, though he would rather come back injured than have Chromia blow her cover.
"Tell you what, I'll stop giving out little prophecies when you start calling me by my name," Chromia said, not looking up from her datapad. Ironhide twitched, then turned around and stomped off to the washracks. He glowered as he scrubbed himself clean, and many of the other 'Bots abruptly decided they could clean themselves later. He was still glowering as he went to the post-battle debriefing - scheduled rather quickly for once, as none of the officers had been seriously injured.
Optimus, Ironhide noticed, was unusually quiet throughout the entire meeting, and the weapons specialist stayed as the other officers filtered out of the room at the end of the meeting. Standing and heading over to his friend, Ironhide put a hand on the Prime's shoulder.
"It was a good battle," he said.
"No battle is ever good," Optimus murmured. "And the anger will only last so long."
"Anger?" Ironhide asked curiously.
"At the loss of the Oracle and the Temple," Optimus said. "Chromia was right, you know. I should have sent a squad with you."
"There were other priorities. Way I heard it, you barely prevented Megatron from grabbing the Allspark as it was," Ironhide rumbled. "An' we'd all hoped that the Oracle would speak up and convince the priests to leave." Optimus snorted at that, but didn't elaborate. "The Temple and the Oracle are just one more loss to pay back the Decepticons for, anyways."
"You've been distracted, Ironhide," Optimus said with a small smile. "There's a subdued quality around the base that was not there before. It's been here since we returned from the Temple and reported it lost. Megatron knew what he was doing that day. Every Autobot knew that the Allspark was the priority - but the Temple was the last island of peace on our world. It had remained untouched for so long. Probably on purpose. Fragging glitch." Optimus growled the last part, glaring at a spot in the table, the comment clearly aimed at Megatron.
"We'll recover. We always do, Optimus," Ironhide said.
"I know," Optimus said, relaxing in his chair. "I suppose I'm just...torn. Part of me wishes the Oracle had chosen to speak up, to save herself, at least. The other part of me...understands."
"Understands what?" Ironhide asked with a frown, and Optimus gave him a tired smile.
"Like her, I have been trained to serve my people since the first moments I can remember. It is a great burden, and sometimes...sometimes it can be too much. Megatron used to help with it...before..." Optimus trailed off, then shook his head. "The Oracle served the Cybertronian people for far longer than I have. I cannot imagine how that burden weighed on her. I only wish that in the end, she hadn't chosen to end it in death. It would have been...nice...to have someone to speak with who understood." The Prime sounded wistful, while Ironhide's processor was whirling at what Optimus had just implied.
"You think the Oracle purposely stayed quiet, so that she wouldn't have to serve anymore?" he asked, aware that maybe he should be more focused on his friend, and not on the Oracle, but not able to pull himself off the topic. Even though Chromia had given him her reasons for staying quiet at first, he still wondered what future she kept to herself, what future made her turn her back on the few priests she'd admitted she could have saved.
"I'm as close to certain as I can be without asking her," Optimus said with a bitter laugh. "I went to see her a few times, as Prime. Most of the time she was calm, collected, distant. Just once, though, there was..." Optimus shook his head. "For a moment, I saw something else, underneath her calm exterior. Someone else. Someone who was not happy with their life, someone who looked so miserable it made your spark ache." Optimus looked up at Ironhide thoughtfully. "No, I understand why she chose as she did. I wish she hadn't, but I understand. I suppose that's why I sent you, instead of an entire squad. I wanted her to have that choice." Sighing, Optimus stood. "Anyways. Enough wallowing in guilt. What's done is done. I'll just have to plan for the inevitable consequences."
"Yeah," Ironhide agreed hollowly, and watched as Optimus headed out. He stood there, thinking over what Optimus had said, before heading back to his quarters.
Chromia was still reading on the berth, and Ironhide stood by the door for a few moments, watching her, thoughts whirling in his processor. Thinking back over his conversations with her, over how she'd smiled when she'd brushed off her decision not to save at least a few of her priests. The faint triumph in her tone, so slight he hadn't even recognized it until now, when she'd mentioned that the priests couldn't block her. But then there was her anger when he'd taunted her about her priests deaths. Her comments to Optimus. Her desire not to inadvertently cause anyone else's death...
"Ironhide?" Chromia was suddenly in front of him, giving him a curious look, and Ironhide grunted in surprise. "Something wrong?"
"Er -" Ironhide paused. If Optimus was correct, then there was every chance that Chromia had used him to escape the Temple. She hadn't just stayed quiet because the future was unclear, she'd stayed quiet until the future became what she wanted. It was a disturbing and unwelcome thought. At the same time, however, Ironhide found himself unwilling to accuse the femme in front of him of being so cold-sparked. "Nah, nothing's wrong."
Chromia frowned at him, but after a moment, returned to the berth and resumed her reading. Ironhide went over to the couch and started cleaning one of his cannons, forcing the unpleasant thoughts from his processor for now.
---
Despite his best attempts at ignoring his unpleasant suspicions, however, Ironhide found that they just wouldn't go away. He found himself brooding over the idea at the oddest times, and others noticed. Fortunately, a few crude remarks about private conversations between bondmates threw them off, and Ironhide was left to his brooding. As much as he brooded, though, the weapons specialist couldn't come to any satisfactory conclusion about the topic - not without asking Chromia directly, and he'd never do that. If he was right, there was nothing to be done about it except argue. If he was wrong, he'd just be creating an unnecessary rift between them.
His inability to find a solution to his brooding made Ironhide cranky, of course. And a cranky Ironhide had little tolerance for diversionary tacticians that seemed to have taken it into their heads that it was safe to flirt with Chromia. Especially since Chromia, as naïve as she was, didn’t realize the mech she was chatting with was flirting with her, and Ironhide didn't particularly want to point it out to her. She had, after all, refrained from interfacing for a very long time - if not her entire life - and it wasn't unheard of for bondmates to sometimes interface with others. And as much as this charade was to protect Chromia and not to create any sort of actual bond, Ironhide did not want a reputation for having that kind of a bond. Besides, if her priests hadn’t been able to block her out while they were interfacing, there was no telling if he’d be able to block her out, and he really didn’t want to listen to that.
Getting Chromia to stop talking to her new friend without explaining why was, of course, an exercise in futility. The more he tried to get her to say goodbye, the more Chromia dug in her heels and refused to. Already short on temper, Ironhide finally just snapped.
~Just get yer slaggin’ aft over here an’ finish yer energon so we can leave.~ It was a flat-out order, and Ironhide expected Chromia to either out-right ignore him - in which case he was going to go pick a fight with an annoying tactician, proper decorum for an officer be fragged - or snap back and start a fight with him. Either was fine with him at this point. He was irritated enough that he just wanted a fight, no matter the origin.
To Ironhide's eternal surprise, however, Chromia instead politely excused herself, got up, and walked over and sat gracefully next to him. She glared the entire way, and seemed intent on ignoring him once she’d sat down, focusing instead on her energon. Ironhide stared at her incredulously.
“What?!” she finally snapped as he continued to stare at her, slamming her empty cube down on the table. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t expect ya t’actually do it,” Ironhide grunted in reply.
“Surprise,” Chromia said with a snarl, and Ironhide frowned.
~What’s up?~ he asked her over the bond.
~What do you think is up?~ she snarled, and seething anger came over the bond. Ironhide recoiled slightly in surprise at the sheer intensity of her anger, far more than it should have been at him being a cranky glitch.
~What did I do, femme?~ he asked irritably.
~You mean besides ordering me over here like some kind of slave?~ Chromia retorted.
~Oh like you ever listen -~ Ironhide suddenly stopped, his retort dying as his previous contemplations bought to the forefront a disturbing realization. Every direct order he'd given Chromia, she'd followed, even if she hadn't wanted to. She’d worked around it in some cases - she hadn’t broken into his processor again, but she’d lifted Prowl’s name in a different manner. He’d ordered her not to do that, either, and the next time she’d needed information, she’d asked. She’d gotten up and followed him for weapons training even when she clearly didn’t want to. She’d stopped speaking prophecies, though she’d fought the hardest for that, trying to find every way around it that she could. Other, smaller things.
Suddenly, he remembered how insistent Lowdown was that he needed to bond to the Oracle to look after her properly. And he remembered Chromia outright stating that she only went along with his plan because of the bond Lowdown made between them, and the glare she gave him when he joked about it being a good thing.
Ironhide’s tanks churned unpleasantly, and he abruptly stood, grabbing Chromia’s arm and hauling her up and out with him as he stormed back to their quarters. Chromia cursed and fought him the entire way, earning them both some strange looks as they went, but Ironhide ignored it all, focused instead on his destination. Inside their quarters, he quickly let go of Chromia and locked the door before turning to face the cursing femme.
“Mute it, Chromia,” he ordered to test his theory. The femme muted it, mid-word, and glared at him. “Primus fraggit - what the frag kinda messed up -“ Ironhide snarled, stomping over to Chromia and looming over her. She glared up at him defiantly. “Ya have ta do whatever I directly order ya to.” It was part question, part statement, and part accusation.
“Yes,” Chromia snarled.
“Cuz of that bond thing Lowdown did.”
“Yes.”
“An’ did ya have to do everythin’ the priests said, too?” Ironhide growled.
“Of course I did, that’s part of fragging bonding, as you well know, glitch!”
“No it is fraggin’ not part of bondin’!” Ironhide exploded. “I don’t know what kind of messed-up bond Lowdown an’ the other priests formed with you, but it ain’t normal for any member of a bond ta have ta obey th’ orders of another! Frag, that’s just twisted - a bond is about bein’ equals. Even creators can’t use their bond with their creations to outright order ‘em to do things. That’s fraggin’ slavery, not bondin’!”
“You haven’t even been bonded before, what the slag do you know?” Chromia retorted.
“I know what every young Cybertronian has been told the moment their interface protocols come online!” Ironhide snarled. “I know from vorns’a experience as a security officer that bondmates can, an’ do, violently disagree with each other, sometimes to the point of physically fighting! Do ya honestly think that it would come ta that if they were able ta order each other around?!” Chromia just glowered at him, and Ironhide frowned back at her, his optics narrowed as his processor whirled.
He had wondered, fleetingly, how the priests had managed to create the group sparkbond. Part of the reason it had only been a rumour was because it was supposedly impossible. Once a sparkbond was made, it couldn’t be added to or altered - the only change that could happen to it after it was formed was its dissolution with the death of one of those involved. Granted, that didn’t mean there couldn’t be multiple sparks in a sparkbond - pairs were 'normal', but trines were just as frequent amoung Cybertronians, and occasionally there were quads or more. But in all cases, every spark involved in the bond was there at its formation. There was no way to add others afterwards. Yet the priests had maintained a group sparkbond for an incredibly large number, and had added to it over time. The reason they could do that, Ironhide was realizing, was that it was not a normal bond - they’d twisted a sparkbond into something else entirely, something they could use - something to control the Oracle.
And suddenly, everything he'd been brooding over since his conversation with Optimus slid into place. Ironhide felt the urge to shoot something as he realized just why Chromia had chosen not to save those last few priests. Something that preferably had Lowdown's faceplate.
Instead, however, Ironhide chose to deal with the results of the priest's abhorrent actions.
“Open yer sparkchamber,” he told the femme in front of him gruffly, taking care not to make it an order.
“Why?” Chromia asked suspiciously.
“Because there is no way in the fraggin’ pits that this bond is gonna remain as it is,” he growled. “I refuse to be part of a bond that allows me ta have absolute control over someone. I refuse ta allow you ta be part of a bond that allows someone ta order you around.”
“Even though it makes your job easier?” Chromia taunted, though Ironhide caught a hint of surprise in her optics. The weapons specialist brought his hands up to rest on the femme’s shoulders as he pinned her with his optics, speaking entirely seriously.
“My job is ta keep ya safe - includin’ from mechs or femmes like yer former priests who would take advantage a’ya, through a twisted bond or otherwise. If I could, I would break the bond we have an’ make sure, through any means necessary, that you were never forced inta such a bond again. But I can’t. So the only solution is ta fix the bond we do have to prevent others from takin’ advantage of ya fer as long as I can protect ya from ‘em.”
Chromia stared at him, a confused expression on her face, her body tense. She clearly didn’t know what to think of the situation, and with a sigh Ironhide let his arms drop as he continued to speak.
“Y’know what Optimus’s favourite sayin’ is? 'Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.' Most mechs an’ femmes think they understand it, whether or not they agree with it, but most’a them don’t. I do, though. So do Prowl an’ Ratchet. It’s why we’re Optimus’s officers. He knows we understand that he doesn’t just mean freedom from physical slavery - he means freedom from all kinds of oppression: social, mental, and physical. The freedom to go where ya want doesn’t mean slag if ya can’t be who an’ what you want to be.
“An’ that type of freedom is what this fragged-up bond is denyin' ya.” Ironhide gave the femme an intense look. “Optimus said somethin’ the other cycle that made me think that maybe you stayed quiet at th’Temple until the future became what you wanted - until it was unavoidable that the priests should die, leavin' only me as yer guardian. I didn’t want ta believe it, ta ask ya ‘bout it, cuz it’s a pretty cold-sparked thing ta do. But if you’ve been living with this kinda oppressive bond for all these vorns, I don’t fraggin’ blame you one bit. Frag, I wanna shoot your priests myself right now.”
Chromia gave him an intent look, looking like she was trying to find the truth of his words in his optics, and after a moment, Ironhide reached out over the bond, which was no longer completely closed off.
~Look if ya don’t believe me,~ he said, keeping his own trepidation out of his mental voice as he invited Chromia into his processor. She swept in like a storm, her presence a whirling ball of emotions as she slipped past his lowered firewalls and saw that he absolutely believed and meant everything he’d just said. She was gone in a flash, the bond closing as she gave him a look that was part wonder and part curiosity. After a beat, Ironhide let his chest armor slide apart, and opened his spark chamber to her. Chromia’s gaze shifted to his exposed spark, and she reached out with one hand, resting it on the armor that had slid aside. She looked up at him with a strange expression on her face.
“With our current bond, if you found your mate, you could still bond with them, breaking our bond,” she said. “If we do this, though -“
“An’ as someone who can see th’future, tell me, when will I find that mate, huh?” Ironhide drawled. Chromia smiled weakly, seeming a bit unsteady. “Yeah, tha’s what I thought. I gave up on findin’ a mate when I made that oath to protect ya, Chromia. I’m not givin’ up anythin’ I didn’t already give up.”
Chromia hesitated a moment longer, then nodded, stepping closer to him. Her arms wrapped around him as she burried her face in his neck, and he held her in return as he felt her chestplates slide apart. Then she must have opened her spark chamber, because suddenly the room was gone and he was entirely focused on the new spark joining with his own.
It wasn’t sexual, or even romantic, but Ironhide was fine with that. He was doing this to protect her, and he let that be the tie to bond their sparks together, even as she offered up her desire to be free as her half of the bond. For any other mech or femme it might not have worked, the bond might not have formed, but Ironhide was fierce in his desire to protect the things or people he felt strongly about, and Chromia’s desire for freedom was a spark-deep ache. Their two desires, different and yet equally strong, swamped the lopsided and twisted bond that had been there before, and it broke part, dissolving into nothingness as it was replaced with something much stronger.
Title: Oracle
Chapter: 4/?
Rating: T
Setting: Bayverse, pre-earth
Pairings/Characters: Ironhide/Chromia, Optimus, Unnamed Diversionary Tactician That May Or May Not Be A Suicidal Smokescreen
Summary: Ironhide really hated his job somedays. Mostly because he usually went above and beyond what was required of him, just because he felt he should.
---
With the sudden realization that Chromia would have to go into combat, Ironhide decided to do his best to make sure she'd survive. Every moment he could, he was drilling her on combat, and had pretty much permanently taken over a practice range, complete with ranged target dummies and melee holographic opponents. Chromia was less than pleased with all the training, and tried to convince him to let it drop, or at least slow the pace.
"Don't you have faith in your own combat protocols?" she protested after the second day.
"Combat protocols can tell you how to move, but they ain't a replacement for gut reactions," Ironhide growled.
"Aren't the others going to find it odd that you just reunited with your bondmate after who-knows-how-long and are spending all this time in the practice range?" Chromia's second attempt made Ironhide snicker.
"Femme, they've decided to scour this range with acid once we're done," he said.
"Why would - oh." Chromia inexplicably looked embarrassed as she realized the other Autobots thought she and Ironhide were interfacing in the practice range.
"Isn't the best way to learn these sorts of gut reactions through experience?" she tried next.
"Yeah, but you've already had that experience, supposedly," Ironhide said sardonically. "Prowl's gonna stick you someplace where he needs an experience fighter - maybe even in charge of a squad, depending on how short up he is."
"In charge of a squad?" Chromia was clearly horrified at the thought. There were no more complaints after that, and she set to the training with a new purpose. Seeing that, Ironhide decided not to tell her that he'd just been trying to scare her - Prowl would never put a new addition in charge of a squad. He'd want to see how she handled herself in combat, first.
Their half an orn break eventually came to a close, of course, and Ironhide found himself ridiculously relieved when, after Chromia officially joined the Autobots, Prowl informed her that she'd be joining a scouting unit for now. Not a lot of heavy combat, and it would keep her on base more often than not. On the down side, if her unit did get into combat, it was likely to be out in the middle of nowhere with no backup. Which was part of the reason Prowl wanted Chromia along, as it happened - she was to be the unit's heavy hitter.
"If it makes you feel any better, I already plan to use my gift to try and avoid getting into combat," Chromia said dryly after she came back from meeting with Prowl to find Ironhide brooding on the couch.
"Yeah, an' how will you do that without breakin' yer cover?" Ironhide grumbled.
"I may have slipped 'advanced sensors' into the combat specifications you gave Prowl," Chromia said innocently, and Ironhide frowned at her. "Oh don't give me that. With my gift, I can fake them well enough."
"It's still fragging risky," Ironhide said with a glower.
"I'm part of an army now. Of course it's risky," Chromia said with a sigh. Ironhide grumbled more complaints to himself, but didn't voice them. He knew he was worrying excessively, but he couldn't help himself - part of him was wishing he'd decided to just disappear with her, and not come up with this whole cover story. Chromia just shook her head and ignored him, letting him worry on his own as she went through the numerous datapads Prowl had given her on proper Autobot protocols. The tactician had said she could probably just skim them, since the Autobots took most of their protocols from the security forces - but of course, Chromia had never been in the security forces, so she had a lot of studying to do.
For all Ironhide's worrying, though, he ended up getting into combat before Chromia. After their major offensive the day they'd attacked the Temple, the Decepticons, like the Autobots, had been quietly recovering. They came back with a vengeance a few days after Ironhide returned to active duty, though, and all major combat units were sent to counter them - which, of course, included Ironhide. Chromia cheerfully saw him off, telling him not to trip and fall on his face too many times. Ironhide wasn't amused, especially when he tripped in the middle of battle, missing a shot. Thanks to Chromia, more than a few Autobots noticed, and snickered.
"You can't keep doing stuff like that, or someone is gonna notice!" Ironhide snapped when he returned to their quarters immediately upon returning to base, finding Chromia reading on the berth. She looked up and arched an eyebrow at him.
"If I hadn't, you'd be in med bay right now," she said coldly, then returned to her datapad.
"Femme, I end up in med bay every other battle, it's nothing new," Ironhide growled, though some of his anger had deflated. He did appreciate coming back from a battle uninjured, though he would rather come back injured than have Chromia blow her cover.
"Tell you what, I'll stop giving out little prophecies when you start calling me by my name," Chromia said, not looking up from her datapad. Ironhide twitched, then turned around and stomped off to the washracks. He glowered as he scrubbed himself clean, and many of the other 'Bots abruptly decided they could clean themselves later. He was still glowering as he went to the post-battle debriefing - scheduled rather quickly for once, as none of the officers had been seriously injured.
Optimus, Ironhide noticed, was unusually quiet throughout the entire meeting, and the weapons specialist stayed as the other officers filtered out of the room at the end of the meeting. Standing and heading over to his friend, Ironhide put a hand on the Prime's shoulder.
"It was a good battle," he said.
"No battle is ever good," Optimus murmured. "And the anger will only last so long."
"Anger?" Ironhide asked curiously.
"At the loss of the Oracle and the Temple," Optimus said. "Chromia was right, you know. I should have sent a squad with you."
"There were other priorities. Way I heard it, you barely prevented Megatron from grabbing the Allspark as it was," Ironhide rumbled. "An' we'd all hoped that the Oracle would speak up and convince the priests to leave." Optimus snorted at that, but didn't elaborate. "The Temple and the Oracle are just one more loss to pay back the Decepticons for, anyways."
"You've been distracted, Ironhide," Optimus said with a small smile. "There's a subdued quality around the base that was not there before. It's been here since we returned from the Temple and reported it lost. Megatron knew what he was doing that day. Every Autobot knew that the Allspark was the priority - but the Temple was the last island of peace on our world. It had remained untouched for so long. Probably on purpose. Fragging glitch." Optimus growled the last part, glaring at a spot in the table, the comment clearly aimed at Megatron.
"We'll recover. We always do, Optimus," Ironhide said.
"I know," Optimus said, relaxing in his chair. "I suppose I'm just...torn. Part of me wishes the Oracle had chosen to speak up, to save herself, at least. The other part of me...understands."
"Understands what?" Ironhide asked with a frown, and Optimus gave him a tired smile.
"Like her, I have been trained to serve my people since the first moments I can remember. It is a great burden, and sometimes...sometimes it can be too much. Megatron used to help with it...before..." Optimus trailed off, then shook his head. "The Oracle served the Cybertronian people for far longer than I have. I cannot imagine how that burden weighed on her. I only wish that in the end, she hadn't chosen to end it in death. It would have been...nice...to have someone to speak with who understood." The Prime sounded wistful, while Ironhide's processor was whirling at what Optimus had just implied.
"You think the Oracle purposely stayed quiet, so that she wouldn't have to serve anymore?" he asked, aware that maybe he should be more focused on his friend, and not on the Oracle, but not able to pull himself off the topic. Even though Chromia had given him her reasons for staying quiet at first, he still wondered what future she kept to herself, what future made her turn her back on the few priests she'd admitted she could have saved.
"I'm as close to certain as I can be without asking her," Optimus said with a bitter laugh. "I went to see her a few times, as Prime. Most of the time she was calm, collected, distant. Just once, though, there was..." Optimus shook his head. "For a moment, I saw something else, underneath her calm exterior. Someone else. Someone who was not happy with their life, someone who looked so miserable it made your spark ache." Optimus looked up at Ironhide thoughtfully. "No, I understand why she chose as she did. I wish she hadn't, but I understand. I suppose that's why I sent you, instead of an entire squad. I wanted her to have that choice." Sighing, Optimus stood. "Anyways. Enough wallowing in guilt. What's done is done. I'll just have to plan for the inevitable consequences."
"Yeah," Ironhide agreed hollowly, and watched as Optimus headed out. He stood there, thinking over what Optimus had said, before heading back to his quarters.
Chromia was still reading on the berth, and Ironhide stood by the door for a few moments, watching her, thoughts whirling in his processor. Thinking back over his conversations with her, over how she'd smiled when she'd brushed off her decision not to save at least a few of her priests. The faint triumph in her tone, so slight he hadn't even recognized it until now, when she'd mentioned that the priests couldn't block her. But then there was her anger when he'd taunted her about her priests deaths. Her comments to Optimus. Her desire not to inadvertently cause anyone else's death...
"Ironhide?" Chromia was suddenly in front of him, giving him a curious look, and Ironhide grunted in surprise. "Something wrong?"
"Er -" Ironhide paused. If Optimus was correct, then there was every chance that Chromia had used him to escape the Temple. She hadn't just stayed quiet because the future was unclear, she'd stayed quiet until the future became what she wanted. It was a disturbing and unwelcome thought. At the same time, however, Ironhide found himself unwilling to accuse the femme in front of him of being so cold-sparked. "Nah, nothing's wrong."
Chromia frowned at him, but after a moment, returned to the berth and resumed her reading. Ironhide went over to the couch and started cleaning one of his cannons, forcing the unpleasant thoughts from his processor for now.
---
Despite his best attempts at ignoring his unpleasant suspicions, however, Ironhide found that they just wouldn't go away. He found himself brooding over the idea at the oddest times, and others noticed. Fortunately, a few crude remarks about private conversations between bondmates threw them off, and Ironhide was left to his brooding. As much as he brooded, though, the weapons specialist couldn't come to any satisfactory conclusion about the topic - not without asking Chromia directly, and he'd never do that. If he was right, there was nothing to be done about it except argue. If he was wrong, he'd just be creating an unnecessary rift between them.
His inability to find a solution to his brooding made Ironhide cranky, of course. And a cranky Ironhide had little tolerance for diversionary tacticians that seemed to have taken it into their heads that it was safe to flirt with Chromia. Especially since Chromia, as naïve as she was, didn’t realize the mech she was chatting with was flirting with her, and Ironhide didn't particularly want to point it out to her. She had, after all, refrained from interfacing for a very long time - if not her entire life - and it wasn't unheard of for bondmates to sometimes interface with others. And as much as this charade was to protect Chromia and not to create any sort of actual bond, Ironhide did not want a reputation for having that kind of a bond. Besides, if her priests hadn’t been able to block her out while they were interfacing, there was no telling if he’d be able to block her out, and he really didn’t want to listen to that.
Getting Chromia to stop talking to her new friend without explaining why was, of course, an exercise in futility. The more he tried to get her to say goodbye, the more Chromia dug in her heels and refused to. Already short on temper, Ironhide finally just snapped.
~Just get yer slaggin’ aft over here an’ finish yer energon so we can leave.~ It was a flat-out order, and Ironhide expected Chromia to either out-right ignore him - in which case he was going to go pick a fight with an annoying tactician, proper decorum for an officer be fragged - or snap back and start a fight with him. Either was fine with him at this point. He was irritated enough that he just wanted a fight, no matter the origin.
To Ironhide's eternal surprise, however, Chromia instead politely excused herself, got up, and walked over and sat gracefully next to him. She glared the entire way, and seemed intent on ignoring him once she’d sat down, focusing instead on her energon. Ironhide stared at her incredulously.
“What?!” she finally snapped as he continued to stare at her, slamming her empty cube down on the table. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t expect ya t’actually do it,” Ironhide grunted in reply.
“Surprise,” Chromia said with a snarl, and Ironhide frowned.
~What’s up?~ he asked her over the bond.
~What do you think is up?~ she snarled, and seething anger came over the bond. Ironhide recoiled slightly in surprise at the sheer intensity of her anger, far more than it should have been at him being a cranky glitch.
~What did I do, femme?~ he asked irritably.
~You mean besides ordering me over here like some kind of slave?~ Chromia retorted.
~Oh like you ever listen -~ Ironhide suddenly stopped, his retort dying as his previous contemplations bought to the forefront a disturbing realization. Every direct order he'd given Chromia, she'd followed, even if she hadn't wanted to. She’d worked around it in some cases - she hadn’t broken into his processor again, but she’d lifted Prowl’s name in a different manner. He’d ordered her not to do that, either, and the next time she’d needed information, she’d asked. She’d gotten up and followed him for weapons training even when she clearly didn’t want to. She’d stopped speaking prophecies, though she’d fought the hardest for that, trying to find every way around it that she could. Other, smaller things.
Suddenly, he remembered how insistent Lowdown was that he needed to bond to the Oracle to look after her properly. And he remembered Chromia outright stating that she only went along with his plan because of the bond Lowdown made between them, and the glare she gave him when he joked about it being a good thing.
Ironhide’s tanks churned unpleasantly, and he abruptly stood, grabbing Chromia’s arm and hauling her up and out with him as he stormed back to their quarters. Chromia cursed and fought him the entire way, earning them both some strange looks as they went, but Ironhide ignored it all, focused instead on his destination. Inside their quarters, he quickly let go of Chromia and locked the door before turning to face the cursing femme.
“Mute it, Chromia,” he ordered to test his theory. The femme muted it, mid-word, and glared at him. “Primus fraggit - what the frag kinda messed up -“ Ironhide snarled, stomping over to Chromia and looming over her. She glared up at him defiantly. “Ya have ta do whatever I directly order ya to.” It was part question, part statement, and part accusation.
“Yes,” Chromia snarled.
“Cuz of that bond thing Lowdown did.”
“Yes.”
“An’ did ya have to do everythin’ the priests said, too?” Ironhide growled.
“Of course I did, that’s part of fragging bonding, as you well know, glitch!”
“No it is fraggin’ not part of bondin’!” Ironhide exploded. “I don’t know what kind of messed-up bond Lowdown an’ the other priests formed with you, but it ain’t normal for any member of a bond ta have ta obey th’ orders of another! Frag, that’s just twisted - a bond is about bein’ equals. Even creators can’t use their bond with their creations to outright order ‘em to do things. That’s fraggin’ slavery, not bondin’!”
“You haven’t even been bonded before, what the slag do you know?” Chromia retorted.
“I know what every young Cybertronian has been told the moment their interface protocols come online!” Ironhide snarled. “I know from vorns’a experience as a security officer that bondmates can, an’ do, violently disagree with each other, sometimes to the point of physically fighting! Do ya honestly think that it would come ta that if they were able ta order each other around?!” Chromia just glowered at him, and Ironhide frowned back at her, his optics narrowed as his processor whirled.
He had wondered, fleetingly, how the priests had managed to create the group sparkbond. Part of the reason it had only been a rumour was because it was supposedly impossible. Once a sparkbond was made, it couldn’t be added to or altered - the only change that could happen to it after it was formed was its dissolution with the death of one of those involved. Granted, that didn’t mean there couldn’t be multiple sparks in a sparkbond - pairs were 'normal', but trines were just as frequent amoung Cybertronians, and occasionally there were quads or more. But in all cases, every spark involved in the bond was there at its formation. There was no way to add others afterwards. Yet the priests had maintained a group sparkbond for an incredibly large number, and had added to it over time. The reason they could do that, Ironhide was realizing, was that it was not a normal bond - they’d twisted a sparkbond into something else entirely, something they could use - something to control the Oracle.
And suddenly, everything he'd been brooding over since his conversation with Optimus slid into place. Ironhide felt the urge to shoot something as he realized just why Chromia had chosen not to save those last few priests. Something that preferably had Lowdown's faceplate.
Instead, however, Ironhide chose to deal with the results of the priest's abhorrent actions.
“Open yer sparkchamber,” he told the femme in front of him gruffly, taking care not to make it an order.
“Why?” Chromia asked suspiciously.
“Because there is no way in the fraggin’ pits that this bond is gonna remain as it is,” he growled. “I refuse to be part of a bond that allows me ta have absolute control over someone. I refuse ta allow you ta be part of a bond that allows someone ta order you around.”
“Even though it makes your job easier?” Chromia taunted, though Ironhide caught a hint of surprise in her optics. The weapons specialist brought his hands up to rest on the femme’s shoulders as he pinned her with his optics, speaking entirely seriously.
“My job is ta keep ya safe - includin’ from mechs or femmes like yer former priests who would take advantage a’ya, through a twisted bond or otherwise. If I could, I would break the bond we have an’ make sure, through any means necessary, that you were never forced inta such a bond again. But I can’t. So the only solution is ta fix the bond we do have to prevent others from takin’ advantage of ya fer as long as I can protect ya from ‘em.”
Chromia stared at him, a confused expression on her face, her body tense. She clearly didn’t know what to think of the situation, and with a sigh Ironhide let his arms drop as he continued to speak.
“Y’know what Optimus’s favourite sayin’ is? 'Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.' Most mechs an’ femmes think they understand it, whether or not they agree with it, but most’a them don’t. I do, though. So do Prowl an’ Ratchet. It’s why we’re Optimus’s officers. He knows we understand that he doesn’t just mean freedom from physical slavery - he means freedom from all kinds of oppression: social, mental, and physical. The freedom to go where ya want doesn’t mean slag if ya can’t be who an’ what you want to be.
“An’ that type of freedom is what this fragged-up bond is denyin' ya.” Ironhide gave the femme an intense look. “Optimus said somethin’ the other cycle that made me think that maybe you stayed quiet at th’Temple until the future became what you wanted - until it was unavoidable that the priests should die, leavin' only me as yer guardian. I didn’t want ta believe it, ta ask ya ‘bout it, cuz it’s a pretty cold-sparked thing ta do. But if you’ve been living with this kinda oppressive bond for all these vorns, I don’t fraggin’ blame you one bit. Frag, I wanna shoot your priests myself right now.”
Chromia gave him an intent look, looking like she was trying to find the truth of his words in his optics, and after a moment, Ironhide reached out over the bond, which was no longer completely closed off.
~Look if ya don’t believe me,~ he said, keeping his own trepidation out of his mental voice as he invited Chromia into his processor. She swept in like a storm, her presence a whirling ball of emotions as she slipped past his lowered firewalls and saw that he absolutely believed and meant everything he’d just said. She was gone in a flash, the bond closing as she gave him a look that was part wonder and part curiosity. After a beat, Ironhide let his chest armor slide apart, and opened his spark chamber to her. Chromia’s gaze shifted to his exposed spark, and she reached out with one hand, resting it on the armor that had slid aside. She looked up at him with a strange expression on her face.
“With our current bond, if you found your mate, you could still bond with them, breaking our bond,” she said. “If we do this, though -“
“An’ as someone who can see th’future, tell me, when will I find that mate, huh?” Ironhide drawled. Chromia smiled weakly, seeming a bit unsteady. “Yeah, tha’s what I thought. I gave up on findin’ a mate when I made that oath to protect ya, Chromia. I’m not givin’ up anythin’ I didn’t already give up.”
Chromia hesitated a moment longer, then nodded, stepping closer to him. Her arms wrapped around him as she burried her face in his neck, and he held her in return as he felt her chestplates slide apart. Then she must have opened her spark chamber, because suddenly the room was gone and he was entirely focused on the new spark joining with his own.
It wasn’t sexual, or even romantic, but Ironhide was fine with that. He was doing this to protect her, and he let that be the tie to bond their sparks together, even as she offered up her desire to be free as her half of the bond. For any other mech or femme it might not have worked, the bond might not have formed, but Ironhide was fierce in his desire to protect the things or people he felt strongly about, and Chromia’s desire for freedom was a spark-deep ache. Their two desires, different and yet equally strong, swamped the lopsided and twisted bond that had been there before, and it broke part, dissolving into nothingness as it was replaced with something much stronger.