The ground was trembling beneath Soundwave. He performed a sensory scan of his surroundings only to find readings of energon radiation. He shook his helm in disappointment. Decepticons and Autobots rarely fought near energon reserves for this exact reason. From his readings, Soundwave could tell that a large warehouse under Decepticon surveillance had gone up in flames.

He laid back on his berth. There was no point in waiting for the report to be posted. What reason did he have to read the list of faceless ‘cons who had died in the explosion?

Soft white noise filled the room as he offlined his optics to enter his recharge state once more. The transition was nearly complete when a ping! alerted him to a message sent to his personal frequency. There were few transformers who knew it; even fewer would dare contact him so late.

Dismissing his body’s alerts to enter recharge, Soundwave checked the message. It was from Shockwave. He had half a mind to ignore the mech, or at least send him a scathing response about the obvious differences between their physicalities, but the subject line gave him pause.

.:Shadow Striker:.

.:Injured:.

Then, trailing after the first message as if it pained Shockwave:

.:Apologies:.

The drive to Shockwave’s laboratory was spent blasting a cacophony of music to the skies of Cybertron. Soundwave never could stand silence. Much less at times like these where it would simply fuel any unnecessary worrying.

Shadow Striker was fine, he reasoned. She was a scout. There was no reason for her to be at the warehouse for extended periods of time. Her injury was most likely due to her stretching past her limits. Nothing more.

That was all Soundwave could tell himself. He transformed upon arrival and bypassed the locks Shockwave had installed. They were fairly simple compared to his other handiwork. However, to anyone unfamiliar with him, all of his work was leagues above their understanding.

Soundwave stood at the entrance and realized he didn’t know what to do with his servos. They hung in the air uselessly, like he was waiting for something to grab a hold of him.

Nothing did.

Shockwave’s modifications made his body noisy. The whir of his canon moving was comforting to hear. Soundwave was surprised to find that he had been waiting for something to indicate that there was another living being in the room.

“Soundwave,” Shockwave started gently, “Shadow Striker had a classified mission. Megatron did not want anyone to know...” He trailed off.

Soundwave moved toward the center of the lab where he could feel energy pulsing. He found the examination table. He reached out until he felt a chunk of metal, cut into and full of holes. Warmth radiated from the center, pulsing more erratically when he picked it up.

A spark.

Somewhere deep, deep inside his chassis, Soundwave felt his spark jerk against its casing.

Shockwave moved behind him. “She was inside the warehouse during the explosion. Her entire team was with her. They have already perished from their injuries.”

There was complete silence in the laboratory. Soundwave felt the other mech’s feeble attempt to reach him through their fields, but Shockwave’s had always been particularly weak. He latched onto the sensation and pressed the chunk of metal to his dock.

“You can repair her, right?”

The question was hesitant, a tentative step in their fragile communication. Doubt spiked in their fields, then anguish. Soundwave felt his legs give way only to have Shockwave catch him.

Shockwave, whose expertise spoke volumes of his ability. Nothing made him flinch. Second-guessing his actions was a foreign concept to him. There had never been a situation that gave him reason to hesitate. He had no need for doubt. There was no logic in apprehension, no rationale in something so arbitrary as hope and longing.

Shockwave reached out to Soundwave.

“I will do my best.”