What Goes Around, Chapter 6: Rebirth
Title: What Goes Around
Status: IN PROGRESS
Rating: T/PG-13, with a couple of chapters of R.
Warnings: Crack. AU. Genderbending...sort of. Non-canon-ness. Total mucking around with Cybertronian history, culture, biology, social structure, and...yeah, just about everything, really. Reading the notes and the prologue is highly encouraged. If you can swallow the stuff that's in there, you'll probably be all right with this story. If not...Well, then you need read no farther than that.
Main Characters: Swoop, Starscream, Ratchet, Mirage, Wheeljack. With a touch of Prowl, Megatron, Optimus Prime, Soundwave, and Thundercracker.
Genre: Crack, but with a (hopefully) coherent plot!
Chapter Summary: Mirage thinks and frets and stuff while things come to a head with Swoop.
The lights in the room were dimmed, but Swoop's new body gleamed nevertheless, all shiny newness even in the wan lighting. Mirage, lost in thought, was absently circling the berth upon which it was laid out, waiting like Frankenstein's monster to be brought to life. The body was beautiful, he had to admit, one fit for a queen. It was all narrow, slightly rounded-off limbs in hues of deep blue, silver, and gold with touches of red here and there: the Autobot symbol, the red crosses on the outsides of her shoulders that marked her as a medic. Her wings, golden now instead of silver, would be flexible and gracefully back-curved when fully extended, gently tapering to long, delicate points, the seams along which they folded creating an intricate pattern across their width. Small, decorative designs in shimmering gold that matched the wings and that accented the blue and silver surrounding them looped along the body here and there. Such decoration was something that had gone out of fashion long ago, seen as meaningless frivolity in a time of war, but it had been quite common before the war, before his…their mother's death, and Mirage thought it fitting now, for Swoop.
Mirage had to admit that even though he instinctively resisted the idea of a Dinobot having refined tastes and talent, Sludge did indeed have an eye not only for aesthetics and beauty, but he also apparently harbored not a little sentimentality and had quite obviously done some research: Some of the glyphs that trailed along Swoop's new body were the very same ones that had adorned his…their…mother. The result was a reflection, perhaps, both of the parent that Mirage had lost and that Swoop had never really known as well as of the hope that Swoop now represented for their future.
If, of course, she survived the next few hours. And that, if Ratchet's worry-camouflaging grousing and Wheeljack's outright manic fretting were any indication, was apparently not an entirely sure thing.
Mirage wasn't sure how he felt about that. He wasn't sure about how he felt about Swoop in general. He'd come back - reluctantly - to Earth. He'd given serious consideration to the notion of refusing to do so, instinctively bristling as always at being ordered about by a mere civil, but in the end he'd been deeply curious, and the curiosity eventually won out. Jazz had told him that something huge had happened and that he was needed, but he wouldn't say precisely what had happened or why he, specifically, had been needed. Jazz would only tell him that he'd be briefed upon his arrival.
Mirage hadn't expected to be briefed by Ratchet, of all individuals, and he certainly hadn't at all expected what Ratchet had told him in typical Ratchet fashion: Bluntly, bordering on tactlessly. He wasn't one to mince words, particularly not when he was as exhausted as he obviously was. The medic's honest and blunt straight-forwardness was a trait that, in general, Mirage perversely appreciated, accustomed as he used to be to delicate, evasive deference whenever anyone had had to impart to him bad or upsetting news. When it came to the news about Swoop, though, Mirage almost wished that it had been delivered with just a bit of mincing.
It occurred to Mirage that his life being upended and then abruptly veering off in a completely different and unexpected direction was something of a disturbing trend, but this time it had happened in a way that was almost more difficult to deal with than the previous upheaval. When his family, his whole society, had been destroyed, Mirage had known exactly what to feel in response. Rage, sadness, and not a little guilt that he he'd been half-way around the planet had dominated his reaction. He'd spent many years agonizing about what had happened, certain that he might have been able to do something about the situation had he only been there. Guilt and a need for retribution of some sort was what had eventually driven him to join the Autobot cause. He hadn't been able to do anything for his family, but at least the Autobots were dedicated to thwarting the individual who had done the damage to them. It was a small penance, but a penance nonetheless. If nothing else, it had been a place to start.
But in this case, Mirage really didn't have the luxury of knowing how to react to the situation. He didn't know what he was supposed to feel, what he was supposed to think. He wasn't even sure, really, that all of Ratchet's theorizing about Swoop was at all correct. So the only thing that Mirage felt now was surprised confusion. He had resigned himself to being alone in the universe but for one loathsome other. For thousands of years, he'd considered himself truly the last of his breed…except that he apparently wasn't. Not anymore. In fact, if Ratchet was right, he hadn't been alone all along, but Mirage hadn't quite assimilated that notion yet, even though he'd been back on Earth and fully informed about the situation for almost a week now.
During that week, events had progressed quickly. Once Ratchet and Wheeljack had gleaned from Mirage whatever the information was that they'd needed, Swoop's new body had been hurriedly constructed, in a matter of half a day. It had required a group effort much like that which had been required when she'd first been constructed. Such haste had been necessary because her condition had begun deteriorating rapidly, systems shutting down left and right such that Ratchet and the other medics had been barely able to keep one step ahead of them until, now, her vital systems had shut down and she was entirely dependent on outside equipment to keep her alive. At any moment, Mirage knew, the medics would come barreling through the door with Swoop, to accomplish her transplantation. It was an extremely risky procedure, given her condition, but it was clear that there was no other choice.
As if on cue, the doors to the room parted and Ratchet, Wheeljack, and a few assistants burst through it, pushing a berth bearing Swoop and toting the equipment that, at the moment, was all that was keeping her alive. Mirage, without being told, scuttled away from the berth containing Swoop's new body and pressed himself against a convenient wall. Part of him insisted that he should leave, that he'd be in the way, and that, really, this wasn't something that he wanted to see at all. The rest of him, though, insisted that he should stay, that he should be there for the sister that he hadn't known that he had until a week ago, that he should witness her phoenix-like rebirth…or her death. In the end, since none of the medics insisted that he leave, Mirage stayed where he was, pressed against the wall, settling in as best he could to observe.
Given the amount of time and effort that had led up to it, the actual transplantation procedure seemed at first to progress easily and didn't seem very complicated. Then again, Ratchet always made even the most complex of procedures seem absurdly effortless, as if just anyone could do what he did. Which, of course, could not have been farther from the truth.
As it was, things went well…at the start. Mirage couldn't see much of anything that went on from his vantage point, since there were milling medics between him and Swoop's berth, but when he heard the monitors and the equipment that had been sustaining Swoop's body shut down with a fading whine, he knew that Swoop had been disconnected from her body. Then there was a flurry of movement as medics shifted quickly but carefully out of Ratchet's way. As they moved in front of him, Mirage caught a glimpse of Swoop's spark chamber cradled protectively in the medic's hands. Her spark was swollen, straining at the protective arms that encased it, just barely beginning the process of physical division, and it was dimly glowing a dull, sickly shade of yellow.
Mirage winced at it, both because of the sickliness of its color that should have been a been a mellow, beautifully shimmering gold, but also because, as he felt his own spark jolt and then shift and flutter in faint recognition, it rammed home the fact that Ratchet was right about who Swoop really was. In that moment, Mirage knew that Swoop wasn't a Dinobot who'd somehow, miraculously, managed to mutate into a queen in their hour of need, as some part of him had absurdly been hoping was the case. In that moment, Mirage knew that Swoop was, indeed, his sister and that her status, other than the fact that she still existed at all after Megatron's massacre, was not miraculous but simply…as it should be.
Mirage sighed, suddenly overwhelmed by…something. Several somethings. Relief was in there, certainly. Happiness that, if Swoop survived, his long, solitary existence really was over. But there was also unease and uncertainty. And guilt, as he recalled things that he'd said about Swoop, some of them directly to her face. Mirage closed his eyes then and rested the back of his head wearily against the wall behind him as he contemplated how he would now regard Swoop, how he would treat her, what he would say to her…until monitors started blaring again, singing the wailing song of a spark in deep distress.
The sound catapulted Mirage out of his reverie, and his entire body jerked forward a few steps, completely on impulse. The only thing that stopped him from stumbling all the way over to Swoop's side was a warning glare from Ratchet as he frantically made adjustments to parts of Swoop's innards that Mirage couldn't see and the other medics pumped various fluids and, likely, drugs into the lines that were feeding her new body.
"Wheeljack!" the medic barked suddenly.
"Working on it," the engineer tersely answered as he frantically typed code into the console in front of him, which was linked to one of Swoop's interface ports so that Wheeljack could access her core programming.
Wheeljack was adjusting on the fly the "patches" that he'd coded years ago, when Swoop had first been created, the very patches that bypassed the damaged portions of Swoop's spark and that subsequently allowed her to be transplanted as an unexpected by-product. Mirage dimly recalled Wheeljack saying something about not knowing exactly what code adjustments, if any, would be required until Swoop's spark began trying to interface with her new body. And now it was a race against time, as monitors blared dire warnings and the medics, Ratchet included, did their level best not to glare urgently at the frantically-typing engineer. Wheeljack was all that stood now between Swoop and death.
After a minute or so, during which Mirage had begun to pace around his small corner of the room, Ratchet gave the monitors a concerned and very displeased look and then urgently growled at Wheeljack, "Work faster."
"Shut up," Wheeljack ground out in response, not taking his eyes off of the screen in front of him. Then, moments later, he mashed an unseen key on the console with urgent finality and then loudly announced, "There!"
At exactly the same moment, the monitors' warnings crescendoed to a keening climax, becoming a constant whine instead of frantic, rhythmic beeping, and Swoop's body heaved an almighty jerk, nearly leaping off the berth before going utterly still. The monitors continued to whine for a moment that seemed to go on forever…but then, slowly, they began to settle into less-frantic beeping. Indicators that had been glowing an angry, distressed red slowly muted to yellow and then to mellow green.
"She's stabilizing," Ratchet announced, just loudly enough to be heard over the monitors, the relief in his voice intense and obvious, mirroring the feelings of everyone in the room.
Wheeljack flopped back in his seat and cast a deeply thankful look at the ceiling. Then he turned a weary gaze on Ratchet and asked the medic if he wanted to flip a coin to see who'd go talk to Optimus. Ratchet grimaced and muttered something about waiting to make sure that Swoop was really all right first and that maybe that might possibly take five days. Wheeljack grunted tiredly in amused agreement. Mirage, meanwhile, slumped against the wall behind him, sinking down against it until his rear met the floor. Folding his arms over his bent knees, he rested his forehead wearily on them, not realizing until just that moment how tired he was, how little he'd rested in the week since his return to Earth. He stayed in that position, lost in his own thoughts, for he knew not how long, until noise prompted him to shift his attention back to what was going on around him again.
He blinked blearily at Swoop's berth, saw that Wheeljack and Ratchet were leaning intently over her. It took Mirage a moment to realize that they were talking to her and she to them. The latter took Mirage an extra moment to recognize because she sounded…different. It dawned on him that she now sounded almost exactly like their mother, and he had to fight to suppress a shudder. All of it, everything, was quickly becoming too much to deal with too soon. Memories that he'd initially buried in order to preserve his sanity in the wake of the massacre were surfacing, creeping all unwelcome into the forefront of his thoughts. Memories were creeping in, too, of the aftermath of the massacre, when he'd come home and seen the devastation…the bodies, even of the little ones… Now, hearing Swoop's voice, the memories and everything else became overwhelming.
Mirage sat on the floor, shuddering involuntarily but uncontrollably, staring over at Swoop, listening to what she and Wheeljack and Ratchet were saying without really hearing the words, taking in the varying expressions that passed in rapid succession over Swoop's face. And then, suddenly, an undeniable urge to escape overtook him, and he jerked to his feet. The sound of his back scraping against the wall behind him as he stood drew the sudden attention of everyone in the room, all eyes suddenly fixed on him. But Mirage saw only Swoop. Their gazes locked together, gold to gold.
The look on Swoop's face was, unsurprisingly, one of vast confusion; Mirage had vaguely heard Ratchet bombarding her with a vast quantity of bluntly-delivered information, answering the multitude of dazed and bewildered questions that had begun to spew out of her as soon as she had regained consciousness. All of it was no doubt overwhelming for her, perhaps even more overwhelming than it was for Mirage. And on top of that, she'd awakened to find herself in a new body, which Mirage had always imagined would be excessively disorienting; he was glad, in a way, that he'd never have to experience it. Swoop's reeling expression as her gaze met Mirage's reflected all of this.
But there was also a touch of something that was perhaps horror in her expression, as Swoop stared mutely at Mirage. Mirage supposed that he should have expected it, that he'd even earned it, but it still wasn't something that he wanted to deal with at the moment, on top of everything else.
So, turning his back on Swoop, Mirage stumbled gracelessly toward the doors, and he sighed in relief as they slid closed behind him. He knew that he couldn't avoid her - his sister - forever…but he could avoid her for now, at least until he could collect himself, until he could rein in the memories and emotions that were assaulting him. Still, he could feel Swoop's golden gaze burning into his back as he left, and he felt like the worst of cowards. He knew that, soon, he and Swoop would need to have a talk. Likely, a very long one. But that wasn't going to happen right now. Right now, Mirage chose to escape, to hide.
It was, he bitterly realized, what he did best.
Status: IN PROGRESS
Rating: T/PG-13, with a couple of chapters of R.
Warnings: Crack. AU. Genderbending...sort of. Non-canon-ness. Total mucking around with Cybertronian history, culture, biology, social structure, and...yeah, just about everything, really. Reading the notes and the prologue is highly encouraged. If you can swallow the stuff that's in there, you'll probably be all right with this story. If not...Well, then you need read no farther than that.
Main Characters: Swoop, Starscream, Ratchet, Mirage, Wheeljack. With a touch of Prowl, Megatron, Optimus Prime, Soundwave, and Thundercracker.
Genre: Crack, but with a (hopefully) coherent plot!
Chapter Summary: Mirage thinks and frets and stuff while things come to a head with Swoop.
The lights in the room were dimmed, but Swoop's new body gleamed nevertheless, all shiny newness even in the wan lighting. Mirage, lost in thought, was absently circling the berth upon which it was laid out, waiting like Frankenstein's monster to be brought to life. The body was beautiful, he had to admit, one fit for a queen. It was all narrow, slightly rounded-off limbs in hues of deep blue, silver, and gold with touches of red here and there: the Autobot symbol, the red crosses on the outsides of her shoulders that marked her as a medic. Her wings, golden now instead of silver, would be flexible and gracefully back-curved when fully extended, gently tapering to long, delicate points, the seams along which they folded creating an intricate pattern across their width. Small, decorative designs in shimmering gold that matched the wings and that accented the blue and silver surrounding them looped along the body here and there. Such decoration was something that had gone out of fashion long ago, seen as meaningless frivolity in a time of war, but it had been quite common before the war, before his…their mother's death, and Mirage thought it fitting now, for Swoop.
Mirage had to admit that even though he instinctively resisted the idea of a Dinobot having refined tastes and talent, Sludge did indeed have an eye not only for aesthetics and beauty, but he also apparently harbored not a little sentimentality and had quite obviously done some research: Some of the glyphs that trailed along Swoop's new body were the very same ones that had adorned his…their…mother. The result was a reflection, perhaps, both of the parent that Mirage had lost and that Swoop had never really known as well as of the hope that Swoop now represented for their future.
If, of course, she survived the next few hours. And that, if Ratchet's worry-camouflaging grousing and Wheeljack's outright manic fretting were any indication, was apparently not an entirely sure thing.
Mirage wasn't sure how he felt about that. He wasn't sure about how he felt about Swoop in general. He'd come back - reluctantly - to Earth. He'd given serious consideration to the notion of refusing to do so, instinctively bristling as always at being ordered about by a mere civil, but in the end he'd been deeply curious, and the curiosity eventually won out. Jazz had told him that something huge had happened and that he was needed, but he wouldn't say precisely what had happened or why he, specifically, had been needed. Jazz would only tell him that he'd be briefed upon his arrival.
Mirage hadn't expected to be briefed by Ratchet, of all individuals, and he certainly hadn't at all expected what Ratchet had told him in typical Ratchet fashion: Bluntly, bordering on tactlessly. He wasn't one to mince words, particularly not when he was as exhausted as he obviously was. The medic's honest and blunt straight-forwardness was a trait that, in general, Mirage perversely appreciated, accustomed as he used to be to delicate, evasive deference whenever anyone had had to impart to him bad or upsetting news. When it came to the news about Swoop, though, Mirage almost wished that it had been delivered with just a bit of mincing.
It occurred to Mirage that his life being upended and then abruptly veering off in a completely different and unexpected direction was something of a disturbing trend, but this time it had happened in a way that was almost more difficult to deal with than the previous upheaval. When his family, his whole society, had been destroyed, Mirage had known exactly what to feel in response. Rage, sadness, and not a little guilt that he he'd been half-way around the planet had dominated his reaction. He'd spent many years agonizing about what had happened, certain that he might have been able to do something about the situation had he only been there. Guilt and a need for retribution of some sort was what had eventually driven him to join the Autobot cause. He hadn't been able to do anything for his family, but at least the Autobots were dedicated to thwarting the individual who had done the damage to them. It was a small penance, but a penance nonetheless. If nothing else, it had been a place to start.
But in this case, Mirage really didn't have the luxury of knowing how to react to the situation. He didn't know what he was supposed to feel, what he was supposed to think. He wasn't even sure, really, that all of Ratchet's theorizing about Swoop was at all correct. So the only thing that Mirage felt now was surprised confusion. He had resigned himself to being alone in the universe but for one loathsome other. For thousands of years, he'd considered himself truly the last of his breed…except that he apparently wasn't. Not anymore. In fact, if Ratchet was right, he hadn't been alone all along, but Mirage hadn't quite assimilated that notion yet, even though he'd been back on Earth and fully informed about the situation for almost a week now.
During that week, events had progressed quickly. Once Ratchet and Wheeljack had gleaned from Mirage whatever the information was that they'd needed, Swoop's new body had been hurriedly constructed, in a matter of half a day. It had required a group effort much like that which had been required when she'd first been constructed. Such haste had been necessary because her condition had begun deteriorating rapidly, systems shutting down left and right such that Ratchet and the other medics had been barely able to keep one step ahead of them until, now, her vital systems had shut down and she was entirely dependent on outside equipment to keep her alive. At any moment, Mirage knew, the medics would come barreling through the door with Swoop, to accomplish her transplantation. It was an extremely risky procedure, given her condition, but it was clear that there was no other choice.
As if on cue, the doors to the room parted and Ratchet, Wheeljack, and a few assistants burst through it, pushing a berth bearing Swoop and toting the equipment that, at the moment, was all that was keeping her alive. Mirage, without being told, scuttled away from the berth containing Swoop's new body and pressed himself against a convenient wall. Part of him insisted that he should leave, that he'd be in the way, and that, really, this wasn't something that he wanted to see at all. The rest of him, though, insisted that he should stay, that he should be there for the sister that he hadn't known that he had until a week ago, that he should witness her phoenix-like rebirth…or her death. In the end, since none of the medics insisted that he leave, Mirage stayed where he was, pressed against the wall, settling in as best he could to observe.
Given the amount of time and effort that had led up to it, the actual transplantation procedure seemed at first to progress easily and didn't seem very complicated. Then again, Ratchet always made even the most complex of procedures seem absurdly effortless, as if just anyone could do what he did. Which, of course, could not have been farther from the truth.
As it was, things went well…at the start. Mirage couldn't see much of anything that went on from his vantage point, since there were milling medics between him and Swoop's berth, but when he heard the monitors and the equipment that had been sustaining Swoop's body shut down with a fading whine, he knew that Swoop had been disconnected from her body. Then there was a flurry of movement as medics shifted quickly but carefully out of Ratchet's way. As they moved in front of him, Mirage caught a glimpse of Swoop's spark chamber cradled protectively in the medic's hands. Her spark was swollen, straining at the protective arms that encased it, just barely beginning the process of physical division, and it was dimly glowing a dull, sickly shade of yellow.
Mirage winced at it, both because of the sickliness of its color that should have been a been a mellow, beautifully shimmering gold, but also because, as he felt his own spark jolt and then shift and flutter in faint recognition, it rammed home the fact that Ratchet was right about who Swoop really was. In that moment, Mirage knew that Swoop wasn't a Dinobot who'd somehow, miraculously, managed to mutate into a queen in their hour of need, as some part of him had absurdly been hoping was the case. In that moment, Mirage knew that Swoop was, indeed, his sister and that her status, other than the fact that she still existed at all after Megatron's massacre, was not miraculous but simply…as it should be.
Mirage sighed, suddenly overwhelmed by…something. Several somethings. Relief was in there, certainly. Happiness that, if Swoop survived, his long, solitary existence really was over. But there was also unease and uncertainty. And guilt, as he recalled things that he'd said about Swoop, some of them directly to her face. Mirage closed his eyes then and rested the back of his head wearily against the wall behind him as he contemplated how he would now regard Swoop, how he would treat her, what he would say to her…until monitors started blaring again, singing the wailing song of a spark in deep distress.
The sound catapulted Mirage out of his reverie, and his entire body jerked forward a few steps, completely on impulse. The only thing that stopped him from stumbling all the way over to Swoop's side was a warning glare from Ratchet as he frantically made adjustments to parts of Swoop's innards that Mirage couldn't see and the other medics pumped various fluids and, likely, drugs into the lines that were feeding her new body.
"Wheeljack!" the medic barked suddenly.
"Working on it," the engineer tersely answered as he frantically typed code into the console in front of him, which was linked to one of Swoop's interface ports so that Wheeljack could access her core programming.
Wheeljack was adjusting on the fly the "patches" that he'd coded years ago, when Swoop had first been created, the very patches that bypassed the damaged portions of Swoop's spark and that subsequently allowed her to be transplanted as an unexpected by-product. Mirage dimly recalled Wheeljack saying something about not knowing exactly what code adjustments, if any, would be required until Swoop's spark began trying to interface with her new body. And now it was a race against time, as monitors blared dire warnings and the medics, Ratchet included, did their level best not to glare urgently at the frantically-typing engineer. Wheeljack was all that stood now between Swoop and death.
After a minute or so, during which Mirage had begun to pace around his small corner of the room, Ratchet gave the monitors a concerned and very displeased look and then urgently growled at Wheeljack, "Work faster."
"Shut up," Wheeljack ground out in response, not taking his eyes off of the screen in front of him. Then, moments later, he mashed an unseen key on the console with urgent finality and then loudly announced, "There!"
At exactly the same moment, the monitors' warnings crescendoed to a keening climax, becoming a constant whine instead of frantic, rhythmic beeping, and Swoop's body heaved an almighty jerk, nearly leaping off the berth before going utterly still. The monitors continued to whine for a moment that seemed to go on forever…but then, slowly, they began to settle into less-frantic beeping. Indicators that had been glowing an angry, distressed red slowly muted to yellow and then to mellow green.
"She's stabilizing," Ratchet announced, just loudly enough to be heard over the monitors, the relief in his voice intense and obvious, mirroring the feelings of everyone in the room.
Wheeljack flopped back in his seat and cast a deeply thankful look at the ceiling. Then he turned a weary gaze on Ratchet and asked the medic if he wanted to flip a coin to see who'd go talk to Optimus. Ratchet grimaced and muttered something about waiting to make sure that Swoop was really all right first and that maybe that might possibly take five days. Wheeljack grunted tiredly in amused agreement. Mirage, meanwhile, slumped against the wall behind him, sinking down against it until his rear met the floor. Folding his arms over his bent knees, he rested his forehead wearily on them, not realizing until just that moment how tired he was, how little he'd rested in the week since his return to Earth. He stayed in that position, lost in his own thoughts, for he knew not how long, until noise prompted him to shift his attention back to what was going on around him again.
He blinked blearily at Swoop's berth, saw that Wheeljack and Ratchet were leaning intently over her. It took Mirage a moment to realize that they were talking to her and she to them. The latter took Mirage an extra moment to recognize because she sounded…different. It dawned on him that she now sounded almost exactly like their mother, and he had to fight to suppress a shudder. All of it, everything, was quickly becoming too much to deal with too soon. Memories that he'd initially buried in order to preserve his sanity in the wake of the massacre were surfacing, creeping all unwelcome into the forefront of his thoughts. Memories were creeping in, too, of the aftermath of the massacre, when he'd come home and seen the devastation…the bodies, even of the little ones… Now, hearing Swoop's voice, the memories and everything else became overwhelming.
Mirage sat on the floor, shuddering involuntarily but uncontrollably, staring over at Swoop, listening to what she and Wheeljack and Ratchet were saying without really hearing the words, taking in the varying expressions that passed in rapid succession over Swoop's face. And then, suddenly, an undeniable urge to escape overtook him, and he jerked to his feet. The sound of his back scraping against the wall behind him as he stood drew the sudden attention of everyone in the room, all eyes suddenly fixed on him. But Mirage saw only Swoop. Their gazes locked together, gold to gold.
The look on Swoop's face was, unsurprisingly, one of vast confusion; Mirage had vaguely heard Ratchet bombarding her with a vast quantity of bluntly-delivered information, answering the multitude of dazed and bewildered questions that had begun to spew out of her as soon as she had regained consciousness. All of it was no doubt overwhelming for her, perhaps even more overwhelming than it was for Mirage. And on top of that, she'd awakened to find herself in a new body, which Mirage had always imagined would be excessively disorienting; he was glad, in a way, that he'd never have to experience it. Swoop's reeling expression as her gaze met Mirage's reflected all of this.
But there was also a touch of something that was perhaps horror in her expression, as Swoop stared mutely at Mirage. Mirage supposed that he should have expected it, that he'd even earned it, but it still wasn't something that he wanted to deal with at the moment, on top of everything else.
So, turning his back on Swoop, Mirage stumbled gracelessly toward the doors, and he sighed in relief as they slid closed behind him. He knew that he couldn't avoid her - his sister - forever…but he could avoid her for now, at least until he could collect himself, until he could rein in the memories and emotions that were assaulting him. Still, he could feel Swoop's golden gaze burning into his back as he left, and he felt like the worst of cowards. He knew that, soon, he and Swoop would need to have a talk. Likely, a very long one. But that wasn't going to happen right now. Right now, Mirage chose to escape, to hide.
It was, he bitterly realized, what he did best.