I Am The King

Ambiguous Continuities

God-Shaped Hole: Insections x Reader

Backbeat: Jazz x Cybertronian Reader

Penstroke: Thundercracker x Reader

Armada

War Paint: Hot Shot x Reader

Labrador: Megatron x Reader

Animated

After The War: Ratchet x Reader

EarthSpark

Halfway Down: Bumblebee x Reader

Cages: Starscream x Reader

Art Link List

Non-Romantic Fics Link List

Ao3 Link

KingOfGambling

Ko-Fi Link

ko-fi.com/littlesnowcloud

☆ You'd brought up your strange robot to your coworker with the broad muzzle, let them sniff at your feathers. They'd given you a puzzled look and a, "Yup, definitely never smelled anything like that before," so that was definitely one point on your current theory of Alien Robot from Alien Space. You'd promised to actually talk to him this time, ask where he'd come from and report back.

There'd been a news report on them broadcasting throughout the day too, the channel seven newsanchor- the morning woman, with the unicorn horn- had been remarkably enthusiastic as she'd pointed off through the trees at a bright yellow one holding the hand of an equally brightly colored red one. People were starting to wonder about the big things that seemed to have simply moved into the woods. The main two questions people seemed to be asking, from what you'd seen as you'd played on your phone while on the clock, was; Were they dangerous and were they single? You were almost tempted to ask yourself, just for the pleasure of knowing something someone else wanted to have, but as you folded your wings and dropped, you brushed the thought away.

He was there again, of course, his finials pricking straight up when you dropped into his line of sight. "Hello again, little one." He offered a hand and you took it, alighting on his palm and looking up at the soft blue of his eyes. "I'm glad to see you."

Well, now or never. Puffing up your feathers rather importantly, making sure your tail was fanned in an impressive arc, you called, "Hello to you too!"

To his credit, he didn't jostle or jolt, but he did let out a rather undignified HONK that echoed through the trees and sent flocks of birds flapping up into the air, winging away for safer nesting. You just tucked yourself down more comfortably, watching his eyes get brighter for a moment, finials lying straight back, before he made an odd clicking in his throat and said, "Ah, you can- you speak? Are you not a um... a bird? The others birds never answer." Ohhhhh he was cute. He was cute cute cute. Has he just been talking to everything that moves?

"I'm not quite a bird!" You shook your head a bit, letting your cowl of feathers fall back to lay in a ruff around your neck. That was the part most of your non-bird buddies found fascinating. The thick layer of muscle and feather that shielded you from anything you might smack into up there, from bugs to simple dust. "I'm a human! Just one who got wings installed." His other hand was reaching for you, but he stopped without touching, clearly worried about hurting you. You spread your wings for him again, absurdly proud of the span. "I picked them myself. Do you like?"

"You're very lovely." His voice was a low rumble that you could feel reverberating through his whole frame. You wouldn't mind building a nest on him...

"Oh, hey, what are you?" Shaking yourself from your thoughts, you took flight to glide around his head. "You're from space, right? You gotta be! Some of your buddies were on the news."

"Yes, Jazz told me." Jazz. Did they have jazz? Or did he pick it coming here? You spun, flying upside-down for a moment, before dropping back into his hold. "I am Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots. I come from the planet Cybertron. We mean your people and your planet no harm. I do not know how long we have been in stasis, but we only recently awoke. We are looking for a way to leave peacefully, I assure you."

"Aww, already?" The thought of them all leaving made your heart drop a bit. How disappointing!! But... well, you could understand wanting to go home.

He made a sound that could only he described as a purr, a low, clicking rumble deep in his chest. "Not quite. We've only just begun assessing the damage to the Ark."

Again, he reached forward, this time hesitantly, slowly, rubbing at your jaw. You leaned into the touch happily. "Hey, maybe we can help? People, I mean. There's a lot of folks already interested in you guys. And you seem really nice." You introduced yourself then. Told him your name, what your job was and how your coworkers had all been talking about checking out the place themselves in an effort to say hello. Still couldn't see most of his face, but the way his eyes narrowed slightly sure looked like a smile.

"I would be happy to show you to the Ark." His hands folded over you, an easily-escaped cage as he rose to his feet and started to make his careful way back down into the trees. You just settled in for the ride, enjoying the soft warmth that came from his plating.

◇ Spike padded through the trees, curled tail occasionally waving without his input as an interesting smell hit his nose. He'd been meaning to visit you for a while, but he'd forgotten to call... again. So he'd shown up and you weren't home and- well, it wasn't like you'd ever told him to NOT check out the super cool stuff always hanging out in the thick, protected woodland that bumped up to your property.

He was following something really weird now, tracking the smell through the breeze as it got stronger and stronger, something vaguely car-ish, oily smells and hot metallics, but something off about all of it. It was... seasoned. Which sounded dumb even as the thought popped up in his head, but he couldn't think of anything else either. It was like the difference between a cooked steak, and one that had been marinated first, an undertone to the scent that betrayed the presence of other ingredients.

Scrambling partway up a half-fallen tree to try and spot a way through some particularly annoying shrubbery, Spike eventually took his chances and made a jump for it, getting his limbs around a tree on the other side of the bramble patch and sliding painfully down to the ground. The thick blond fur on his legs and paws took the brunt of the bark just fine. The normal, unprotected skin of his arms had more than a few complaints about the treatment though.

He was rubbing at the scrapes, trying to pat out the pain and examining the few places that were bleeding a tiny amount when the wind changed and the smell smacked him full in the face, hot and choking. He sneezed on reflex, but it did little to get it out of his system. The pain of his scrapes forgotten, he took off again, skidding to a halt when the trees thinned for a pebbly riverside. Lying half in the water was a robot. Massive, army-green and blocky, it was watching the water flow around its hips with a tilted head, while a horned red one licked at its face, like a grooming cat.

Without thinking, Spike barked, a sharp crack of sound. He blamed the medication that kept his fur healthy.

Both turned to look at him, but the green one smiled at least, rolling onto its side. "Well, hello there lil thing! Where'd you come from?"

"I don't think there's too much distance between here and the human city," the red one supplied, pushing the others head back at the angle he wanted and plucking a large tree branch from the machinery of his neck. "There ya go. Yeah, I guess it probably walked here."

Spike moved closer, something sort of petty sparking brilliantly in his chest. You were going to be so jealous of him if he could get these robots to like him! You had one? Well, he had TWO. "Yeah, I'm from the town! One of my friends likes to fly around here- maybe you know em? They hang out with a big blue and red guy."

"Optimus?" The green one offered, but Spike just shrugged. "Well, I'm Hound. And this one's Cliffjumper. Say hey, Cliff."

"Hey, Cliff."

Hound turned, a grin on his face, and promptly wrestled Cliffjumper to the ground for being cheeky. Both of them were smiling, the sound of revving engines filling the air, and Spike was briefly reminded of cats again. Or puppies. His tail was wagging a mile a minute as he came closer, having to put actual physical effort to restrain the instinct to join in. "So uh, whatcha doing out here anyway, you two?" His weight still propped on Cliffjumper, Hound paused in his shaking of the red mech to look towards Spike again, and he figured he ought to introduce himself too. "My name is Spike by the way."

A brief pause, both going very still, and then they started to laugh. Spike wasn't sure what he'd done, but they were howling about it, Hound turning to hide his face against Cliffjumper's red chest while the smaller bot covered his face with both hands, whole body shaking from the force of his amusement. Hands on his hips, Spike sighed, tail still wagging. Apparently he didn't even have to try to be amusing and charming... an introduction was more than enough.

"We- We gotta- Hound, we have to take him to meet the others." Cliffjumper could barely get the words out, clinging to Hound with a wheezing giggle. "We have to, come on, hey- hey squishy guy-"

"Spike."

Hound started up again, voice audibly going to static from the strain as he rolled off of Cliffjumper, clutching his sides. Cliff barely contained himself. "Yeah! Yeah- Spike-" All his red plating prickled in a wave, and Spike's fur mirrored the twitch. "Hey, you wanna see a spaceship?"

Are you kidding???? Yes! So cool!!!! "Yeah!" He came closer, lured by Cliffjumper's offered hand.

"Alright, alright." Hound rose and shook himself, loosed pebbles and dirt showering around him. "Get in, then. I'll carry ya." There was an odd, mechanical sound, a shifting whirr as Hound began to change. Plates split and spun, seaming coming together in new ways as tires moved into place, cables and wiring tucked aside to expose seating, and right before Spike's eyes there was a military Jeep sitting sturdy on the shore. The door popped open and he didn't hesitate to throw himself into the driver's seat. You were gunna be so jealous!!!!

♡ Kickback patted down another layer of thick fabric, mass displaced to check the comfort of the nest he and Shrapnel had constructed. Had to do it right, had to make it perfect perfect, had to do it properly this time. You deserved to be courted like a Queen, laid in a true nest built by your drones, made for your comfort specifically. He'd been paying attention to you, which kinds of textures you ran your delicate little hands over, what you reached for first to tie around your waist or tuck close to the grubs. He was sure he had your preferences right. Just wasn't sure how much was enough.

Shrapnel joined him, dragged his mandible across biolights along Kickback's side with a salacious purr. "Test, test?"

Well, Kickback considered as he twitched his wings in a haughty dismissal, even as he allowed Shrapnel to shove him down into the nest, a test WAS the best way to determine if it would be good enough. He kicked out uselessly as Shrapnel slotted himself between his legs, tossing his head as if in threat to give Shrapnel the chance to sink his teeth into his neck, hold him down properly. The weight was a comfort. He let his panel slide back as the choice was taken from him, purring in contented containment as Shrapnel's spike pressurized directly in his valve.

The weight of his single egg was negligible in his nursery chamber. He wouldn't even have noticed it, if not for your forcing a scan. But his whole frame was humming warm from your order, accepting Shrapnel easily, a constant stream of information flooding the side of his vision as Shrapnel lazily rolled his hips, running his glossa over the fang marks he'd left in Kickback's neck. The end of Shrapnel's ridged spike punched through the seal of his chamber over and over, little shocks of pleasure that made him chirp and warble without meaning. He wanted it to be harder, rough and fast until he was stuffed full, but even as he let the feeling flood their bond, he knew that Shrapnel wouldn't listen until Bombshell got back. Wouldn't give him anything but this slow grind, pulling back only enough for the iris of his nursery chamber to slide shut, just to force it back open.

He could feel you and Bombshell in his spark, warm and close despite the distance. He nudged the soft pleasure of Shrapnel's ministrations through the bond, half an attempt at sharing, half a plea to come home already. Hadn't wanted you to leave at all, but Bombshell had wanted to take you on a 'date' like humans did for one another, prove himself a good mate, and Kickback could not deny that it was lovely to feel the warmth of your happiness after so much empty grey.

Shrapnel had eased him into an overload before Bombshell pinged him with the news that you both were on your way home, the charge rippling through him in a way that almost felt soft, echoing back on itself with every deliberate grind of their hips together. The promise of a lay, however short it would be, had triggered the nesting code in his systems and everything was warm and slow. He couldn't find the strength to do much more than open his mouth when Shrapnel pressed a kiss to him, shoved his glossa inside. He could feel it, the charge that was prickling over Shrapnel's plating, knew he was close too, but he just kept up the tiniest shifts of his hips, just enough to make Kickback feel it.

He was ready to start sobbing by the time the sound rang through the tunnels, Bombshell's broad plating scraping against amber. Shrapnel paused, looked over his shoulder with a soft churr, his claws going to grip Kickback's hips. "Now now?" He squeaked, arched his back to try and grind the transfluid out of that spike.

Shrapnel shuddered, looked back at him with a low, wanting growl. "Now, now." He pulled back slow and Kickback knew he would be watching his face, but Kickback could look nowhere but the pulsing spike barely notched to his valve. He was about to start begging, his frame heating up in furious desperation, when Shrapnel slammed in to the hilt with a strangled growl. He overloaded so hard that he shot off bolts of electricity, arcs of light searing scars into the chamber, ripping through Kickback's frame until he was squealing in his own overload. Everything went white for a moment, the sense of himself fading out of reach, until he came to with Shrapnel humping against him, chirping softly with every pulse of transfluid from his steadily emptying tank.

Bombshell came into view then, bowing his head to gently lick the tears from Shrapnel's face. His whole frame hummed with pleasure and heat, his spark singing in its chamber when you came out from behind Bombshell, giving him such a fond look. Kickback trilled for you and those soft eyes were on him then. He thought he would overload again when you started to undress, pulling free the soft coverings Bombshell had gotten to hide you from the cold. "Hey, sweetheart." He just purred at the sound of your voice, valve cycling so hard over Shrapnel's spike that he yelped, gripping Kickback's hips as though he could push deeper inside.

You knelt by him, your soft, fragile hands on his cheeks. He loved you so much. Needed you wanted you loved you. His Queen. His everything. You leaned down to kiss him and he overloaded so hard that it rang through the bond, so loud a bolt of pleasure that Bombshell's plating snapped back to let his spike pressurize. When Shrapnel pulled out, shaking and chittering low in his throat, Kickback didn't bother with moving, just let Bombshell nudge his thighs a bit further apart and slide in easy to the hilt.

☆ The whole chamber was filled with thick, soft fabrics and fluffy pillows, a proper nest. It cradled Kickback as Bombshell slid inside, hardly any of Shrapnel's mess making it out before Bombshell plugged him up again. The wild franticity of the first time was gone, no sharp slams, no clawing servos. Bombshell held Kickback down in a way that made his pleasure hum straight through to your heart and rocked against him precisely as he knew his hivemate liked. They were cute together. It was an odd thought, perhaps, but you couldn't shake it off as you watched the way Bombshell's wings slid free, almost completely covering Kickback's frame with his own, protective and careful as he brushed their mandibles together.

You felt warm, something shivery taking up residence in your lower stomach. It took you an embarrassingly long time to realize you were excited, playing with Kickback's sensitive antenna while Bombshell made him shiver and chirp and beg so loud through the bond that you could hear the echo. Kickback's soft red eyes lock on you when Bombshell makes him tip his head to lick at his throat, churring at you. There's a question in the place his spark meets your soul, a soft request that you rise shakily to your feet to grant.

Bombshell moves to give you space, kissing your bare back when you straddle Kickback's face. His mandibles twitch wide to avoid nicking your skin as he nuzzles between your legs, and it is a genuine surprise when his glossa swipes over your clit and it comes with a soft glow of pleasure that is not borrowed from any of them. He licks and kisses you, drooling with want. When Shrapnel moves closer just to hold you, you cling to him for support, rolling your hips over Kickback's face while he fills your chest with a singing, brilliant exultation, so grateful for the warm weight of you against him.

Shrapnel kisses you slowly, nudges the memory of what he'd been doing to Kickback over to you until you can't stop the shiver that works its way down your spine. You're making a mess of Kickback's face, you're sure. His mandible brushes over your jaw, respectful and adoring, before he lowered his head. He shoved his tongue against you, rubbing over Kickback's as they both tried to get their mouths on you. You could do little more than cling to Shrapnel's helm and hold your thighs open, let them do whatever the hell they wanted.

You could feel it when Bombshell got close, his face pressed to your shoulder, panting and purring, the cresting tide of his charge rippling through to you. He asked permission before he came, a soft shiver in your heart in time with his muffled whimper. Shrapnel raised his head to watch, wings resetting with his badly-hidden excitement. He picked you up, Kickback hissing in displeasure, and held you against him, one hand sliding between your thighs while Bombshell too hold of Kickback's hips and fucked into him hard. He didn't stop until the overstimulation tipped over into pain, pulling out with a soft chirp with his face hidden in Kickback's neck.

Shrapnel nudged him gently away, laid you down in the thick nest of blankets as Kickback hauled himself upward, panting. It was strange, to feel in yourself the way his body was changing, parts rearranging to allow the egg chamber to shift lower. The heat coming off his plating was almost uncomfortable before he let his spike snap free with a high chitter of desperate relief, curling around you. Your whole body felt warm, everything shivery and strange as you hooked your legs around his hips. You wanted him in you, and he was more than happy to comply.

"Come here," you murmured, pulling him close enough to kiss. "You gunna get me pregnant? Gunna put that egg in me?" His wings shot straight up, teeth sinking into your shoulder with a hot bolt of venom. He shoved himself inside of you with a vicious sort of enthusiasm, humping against you in short, shallow thrusts while everything went soft around the edges for you. The world simply faded away until there was nothing else but the sense of your hive, charge sparking between you all, and the pressure of Kickback buried in you to the hilt.

There wasn't any pain as the egg forced its way inside, just a steady, comforting heat and the sense of a heavy pressure before the weight was simply settled in you. Kickback didn't pull out this time, there wasn't any need to. Just drug you over his spike until he overloaded, holding you close, hip to hip, until his spike chubbed up for a second round. You could feel him kissing around your face and neck, could feel Bombshell's mouth over your wound, licking the blood from the tear with the same begging desperation that Kickback had given your cunt. As the poison burned itself out in you and your awareness settled comfortably back under your skin, the first thing you thought to do was kiss Kickback on the lips.

Kickback churred at you before kissing you back, rocking slowly against you in a way that made your breath catch. This was how it was supposed to be, you could feel through the three of them, Kickback wasn't meant to pull out partway. Better to stay, to run his claws down your side and grind himself against you until you shivered, so close that everything felt too warm and too much. Behind you, Bombshell let his spike pressurize, nudged it between your thighs to rut against you with a sigh of relief. Shrapnel was touching Kickback's wings, making a soft, murmuring click of pleading. Kickback nodded once, turning to tap their mandibles together before burying his face against your neck again, a weak overload making his whole frame shiver, the soft swell of his spike and the rush of heat from his transfluid leaving you limp in his hold. You'd be purring too, if you could be.

Settling behind Kickback, Shrapnel messed with something on the grasshopper's hip, sliding a panel back that you'd never seen. It looked a bit like a USB port. From somewhere in his frame, Shrapnel pulled a cord and plugged into Kickback, tucking close to him with a shuddering sound of pleasure. You pushed your way into that connection, let the odd feeling run through you, the sense of being locked to another, waves of prickling pleasure that shivered through the whole body equally. It's enough to push you over the edge too, everything going white as you shook against their frames, clinging to him while Bombshell thrust harder, the drag of his spike over you and Kickback sending just enough of a jolt to drag your own end out, calming only when he did, his large claw on your hip holding you still as he spilled bright pink transfluid over you and Kickback both. He was purring so hard that you couldn't hear yourself think, just letting your eyes slide shut as they held you.

○ Jazz's entire body hummed, a suggestion of form buried in the web of cable and wire that ran from and through him. Everything, everywhere, all at once pumped through his frame, an awareness absolute.

Starscream in the Decepticon base, hiding the evidence of his carrying, the Insecticons he'd evidently mated with always there, always following, the Seekers growing further and further from the ground forces of the army, Megatron's great force slowly shearing apart and she didn't even notice. It almost didn't matter that their leader had been simply vanishing with greater and greater frequency, because he simply wasn't needed. This war was resolving itself. Starscream would see to that.

The woods. The acres he'd narrowed it down to. Tracks in the snow. The suggestion of violet plating. Scarlet splatters against the white. He'd followed the hunter, again and again, finding them in the slightest sliver between the evergreen, studying every frame with the highest scrutiny. He was sure he would find them. He could leave the war to its implosion, it did not need his gentle nudge. Megatron had stepped wrong in a way Jazz was sure could not be taken back. He could study the woods. He could find the puzzle's answer. It was right there.

It was almost embarrassing then, when he spotted Bombshell on the frozen lake, that human holding on to his hands.

Tender. Close. Appallingly affectionate. He filed it all away, the way you touched the Insecticon's arm, the way you'd been allowed in at his spark, the careful way he'd spun you, so attentive to be sure you did not fall on the slick surface. They cared for you. You were still alive, which boded well, and proved him right in your being kept, but he already knew that of course. That was obvious, of course he was right. He'd followed the tracks. Followed the flashes of black and purple, studied it obsessively, hour after hour draining away, until-

He had it. He had it, he had it. He pinged the closest mechs to his location, began the process of unhooking himself, rewinding the splattered-apart ruin that his frame no doubt appeared to be, gingerly pulling things back to where they were intended to be. When Cliffjumper came through the door he yelped, Bumblebee right behind him. His throat wouldn't work until he located and reset the vocal components he'd gutted to wire directly into the computer, but his comms were just fine.

:: Start unplugging ::

They did, the work slow, far too slow, but the more of himself that became recognizably Himself, the easier he could move, until he was frantically resetting the rolls of wire that bulked out his thigh plating, clipping armor back into place while Cliffjumper shakily rebuilt the plating of his hips. He stumbled to the map before the job was even finished, letting Bumblebee trail after him and awkwardly tuck a stray cable back into his side while he scanned the map, found exactly what he was looking for, and slammed down a violet pin. He'd done it. He'd found them.

"Where's Optimus?" His voice was still not quite right, but it worked again.

Bumblebee offered him a rerolled lump of cabling and Jazz tucked it into his chest as the scout offered a shrug and a, "No one knows! Ratchet was looking for him too. Said something about his last scan? I don't know. He's somewhere, I'm sure. Probably went on a patrol and forgot to tell us. You know him. He's the Prime! He's always busy thinking about the rest of us." Cliffjumper didn't look convinced by Bee's faith. Jazz wasn't either.

A flash of red and blue deep in the woods. Alone, wandering, far from either armies.

He shook off the thought. Stared at the place he had labeled. He couldn't wait. He had to see. He had to know. Without another word, he transformed, the shifting plates and structures snapping everything back into its proper places, rebuilding him into something stable until he slammed into the ground on all four wheels and went tearing out of the space so fast that he was sure it had left marks.

Didn't matter. He could fix it later. He had to know. He could taste the answers, just over the rise, and nothing was going to stop him from getting there.

☆ It was hard not to laugh at Kickback's enthusiasm as he tucked the grubs into their little nest, nuzzling and churring at them until they'd settled into a purring lump. His excitement was palpable, humming thick through your bond until the other two were poking in to try and figure out what had gotten him into such a tizzy. Kickback was running around like a fool the moment the grubs nodded off, snatching up whatever he felt he needed from the piles of fabrics and cushions that had gradually just filled up the center chamber for you. He kept picking up seemingly random things and bolting down into a side chamber, evidently wanting to do it right this time, and it wasn't much of a surprise to you when Shrapnel clawed his way into view and set himself to the task of helping.

You just watched, rather enjoying the spectacle. It was sweet, how hard they were trying when they didn't have to.

Bombshell didn't take long to get home. He'd been hunting, blood still smeared across his cheek, though Kickback tackled him with such enthusiasm that they both were sent sprawling to the floor from the impact, frantically licking Bombshell's face clean. Bombshell flipped them, pinning Kickback to the ground only long enough to share, mouth to mouth, before shoving him back towards Shrapnel. He was twitching his wings and grumbling under his breath as he sauntered over to you, as if it were some great chore to take care of the others, even though you could feel the soft pressure of his haughty pride at being useful.

He mass shifted to lay his head to your shoulder, nuzzling at the scars there, halfway to a question. You just ran your hand down the back of his neck, tracing the line of smooth biolights that flickered between the plating until he purred. "Later," you promised, and he tilted his head so a sharp mandible could tap against the curve of your jaw, his claws digging into the meat of your sides.

"Mn... Kickback, Shrapnel... Picky. Take a while." He licks your shoulder, shifts to give your neck the same treatment, just over the pulse. "Come outside with me."

Not worded like a question, but it wasn't like that mattered. You felt the inflection his voice could not carry brush against your soul as his wants shivered through the hivebond. "It's cold out," you mused. But even as you said the words, he was leaning back to pull a coat from his subspace, and it doesn't even surprise you anymore, how readily they anticipate what you need. He dresses you gently, claws fumbling over buttons until you're encased to the throat in a proper winter coat, the same deep royal purple of their plating. Pulling out thick pants and helping you step into them, even offering you boots before picking you up, cradling you against his chest.

It had been so long since you'd been properly dressed that it felt genuinely strange. Restrictive and heavy, the weight of heavy shoes dragging oddly on your legs. But even so, you were grateful for it when he'd carried you back out into the world without the fuss of watching over children and the cold nipped only at your face and the hands you tucked under your arms to try and keep them warm. You expected to be carted around, maybe fondled without Shrapnel and Kickback getting in Bombshell's way, but he just set you carefully down on the mess of muddy snow your grubs had churned up and took your hand.

You tried to pull his thoughts into you, but the sense of his presence danced playfully out of reach, and you gave up with a small smile, just leaning against his warm plating and letting him keep his secrets. It was too pretty a day to scold him anyway, you thought as he led you onward.

You'd always loved the snow. When you were properly small, your dad and uncle had taken turns hauling your little sled while you hung on and squealed. Then they'd taught you how to make a snowman. How to pack a snowball. How to sled downhill without going flying and breaking your nose. Your mother had always done the cooking. She'd just enjoyed it. And the winter always came with the cookies and treats she'd labeled as Christmas Specials, which just so happened to end up as your favorites. The memories burn bright in your thoughts for a long moment, unnaturally so, and it isn't until you hear Bombshell snap hungrily at nothing that you figure out it's his doing. Nosing around in your thoughts.

"I don't think they would approve of you," you tell him. "Well. Dad might have tried to understand, but Mom never would. If I called her and asked her to send me some cookies so I could share with a big metal bug, she'd probably think I was crazy." Bombshell growls softly before his hands close around your waist, gently lifting you over a fallen tree in the path. "I haven't called her in forever, though. Years. I think she stopped trying, or... maybe my phone just didn't work. I don't know."

"... want?" His voice is low and soft, deeper than the others and harder to coax out of him. You couldn't help but smile at the sound, gently poking him with the thought that he should talk more instead of just thinking in your head. He gives a wordless hum as an answer.

You think for a moment as you gaze up at the trees, sparkling with snow and icicles. "I think I would like to talk to her, yeah. At least one more time. Just so she knows I'm alive." You feel it this time, when Bombshell combs through your memories. Pulling up thoughts of holidays and being snowed in. Leaning against her side, laughing, while she acted as the event announcer for your father washing the dishes.

What's this, ladies and gentleman? Is he going for it? Is he going to do it? He is! He's going for the mug, everyone, and it's looking like a perfect setup, but can he follow through??? ..... YES! YES, HE'S DONE IT!

You wish you hadn't been so far, when it happened. You knew, of course, that you weren't the only one who'd lost him. That so very many had felt that empty space where he should have been. But you'd left your family to be with them. With the person who'd sworn you would be each other's forever. So far that you hadn't been able to visit your mother. Hadn't been able to drum up the strength. And then they'd left you and you'd been all alone. Maybe if you'd been closed things would have been different-

Bombshell nips you for that one, a sharp prick of thought that makes you miss a step and stumble. He catches you easily, pauses to lean down and kiss you in apology. "Queen... survived. Here in the hive now. All that matters."

"Right, you're right... sorry." Maybe you would change it, if you could go back. Maybe, if given the chance, you'd set your life on a different course. But that chance wasn't ever going to be real. And at the end of the day, you think that maybe you got pretty damn lucky. Looking up at him, the feeling swells in your chest until you can forget that you are a thing carved hollow, just studying the set of his jaw, the shape of his broad shoulders. You look down at the claws linked with your fingers, holding your hand on a stroll as though you were an ordinary couple. "I love you."

It's his turn to be flustered, it seems, looking away from you with his mask snapping reflexively into place, as though you cannot feel the shivering notes of pleased embarrassment that are ringing through his whole soul. Can feel the reciprocation, but you bump him anyway, your body nudging his arm. "Can you say it for me? Please? I'd like to hear it."

His wings slip free for a moment, a nervous flutter as his attention seems to wander, optics studying the path, manibles twitching softly with every harsh crunch of your steps through the snow. He pulls your hand up a tad, taps the claws of his free servo along your fingers, brushing over the joints. Fidgeting. But finally, as he leads you from the trees, he whispers a soft, purr-shaken, "Love you too."

He's taken you to the lake. You'd been so caught up in him that you hadn't even noticed. The surface is almost painfully bright in the light, frozen solid. He leads you down to it, calming your instinctive prickle of fear when he sets a pede to the ice, offering the memory of his already testing the frozen surface. "Hard winter," he muses, pausing to lower himself again, press his cheek to yours. "Frozen almost all the way... holds me." And so you follow his lead. Let him tug you forward, clinging to his arms for balance, your boots sliding across the surface with too little friction. His claws dig in easier, let him keep his balance as he pulls you onward, spinning lazily as though you were dancers. He's so beautiful that it breaks your heart, a sharp pain of desperate longing, as if you were parted from him even though he was right here, hand in dirtied hand.

He pulls you into a proper spin, drags you close to his chest while the world blurs to nonsense around you. His plating splits. You do not hesitate to shove your cold face into the gap, kiss the light of him until he is churring with soft sounds of enjoyment, his hands gently encircling your waist to hold you close. You'd thought their sparks were the same, the first time around. A near-white light that sparked and twisted with restless energy. But knowing them as you did now, you knew that you would be able to pick them out of a lineup by spark alone.

Bombshell's was bigger than the other two's. A slightly cooler tone to the shifting flares of light, suggestions of blues and greens. It turned slower, the whirling flares that reached for you spilling out in thicker waves. And always there was that feeling of calm. A certainty that he was who he was, and would receive was he was owed. A patience that soaked into you down to the bones.

When you leaned back, warm and panting, you had slowed to a stop on the ice. Bombshell all but crushed you in a hug, rubbing his scent against your neck as though he needed to make sure he could keep you. You let him, taking hold of his mandibles when he was done to pull him down to your mouth, kiss him until his wings flared.

You had time. For the first time in a very long time, you were absolutely sure of it. When Bombshell took your hands again, you did your best to take the lead, fighting to learn how to skate on the ice in snow boots with an oversized beetle of a husband doing a fair enough job of keeping you upright.

☆ The fog is thick early in the morning, but it cannot touch you high above the treetops. It looks like the whole world is blanketed in cobweb or silk thread, drifting ghost-like through the trunks. You don't bother with stopping to sightsee. You have a shift today and you want to check for him, before you have to get to it.

At least, you muse as you let the wind carry you forward, you don't have to pay for bus tickets anymore. With your wings acting as sails, you rocket easily through the air, pushed along its current, the land rolling by far beneath. It isn't hard for you to spot him. He is, as you've said, Very Very Red. The bright color of his chest and arms stands out so sharply against stone and trees, your eyes locking onto the strangeness miles before you'd actually reached him. You wonder who else has seen him. You know you're not the only bird around here- maybe that snowy owl who worked at the laundromat had seen him on one of her night flights?

Dismissing the thought for a moment, you dropped free of the wind's dragging influence, landing yourself in a much gentler gust to slow yourself until you flew in lazy circles over his head. He didn't even look up once, just looking out over the trees, and eventually you get tired of waiting, dropping down to land on his head.

Those finials go straight up, but he doesn't move otherwise. Makes no move to grab at you or swat you away. He probably thought he'd scare you off if he did. You were getting the feeling that your odd metal giant was remarkably gentle. He kept staying still, so you decided to take the time to examine him a bit, tucking in your wing enough to get your hands free. It always creeped your mom out a bit, that you could do that. Shake a hand free of the end of your wing, like shaking it clear of a sleeve. She didn't like it when you had your 'hood' up either, the encasement of feather that protected your face from wind and debris.

You wondered what he would think, if you decided to show him, leaning down to touch a seam in his helm. He jolted slightly and you leapt up, flapping wildly to hover, before touching back down with a brief flash of embarrassment. Walking to his finial, you leaned forward to look at where it connected to his head, the rounded puck sort of shape over where an ear would be. It was kind of cute.

You had mercy on him then, tucking your hands out of sight and flying to the stunted tree to watch him properly, tilting your head when he turns enough to look at you. "Hello again." That deep, melodious voice, kept soft for you. You flapped your wings for him and you're sure that the way his eyes narrow is a smile. "It's nice to see you again. You aren't like the other birds, are you?" You tilt your head at him and he makes that rumble, deep in his squared chest.

He reaches for you, but stops well away. An offering. After a long moment, you take it, flitting easily over to land on his finger, like a pet parakeet. And again, he freezes so completely that he almost looks like a statue, so reluctant to startle you, but from this vantage you can see movement behind the soft glow of his gaze, tracing the lines of you with his eyes. You do some studying of your own.

He's clearly metal all the way, but there's a slight give around the brow and eyes that looks... well, not human, but expressive at least. And the mask that covers most of his face is nicked and scratched, chips missing by his eyes and marked all across. There's similar wear and tear on his whole body. Chips out of his finials, nicks against the blocky squareness of his head and shoulders, thin lines scored into the glass on his chest. He'd been through hell, evidently. Or maybe he was just really clumsy.

"You're a strange thing, aren't you?" He barely murmurs the words audibly, studying what, to him, must look like a blank mask of overlapping feathers, no visible eyes or mouth. You puff up at him a bit, bulking the feathers along your chest and shoulders, and those blue eyes narrow in what you hope is affection. "I meant it as a compliment, little one, I promise." You flick your tail at him anyway, launching back into the air to circle him, get a good look at his whole frame.

... he was actually kind of cute. He reminded you of a toy, just super-sized, all chunky legs and blocky arms. He kept trying to follow your flight path, twisting one way, then the other, so in the space between his turning when you were out of his sight, you dropped down to hide behind him. Perched on a ledge at about his eye level, you watched the back of his head as he looked around himself and the sky, trying to find you and failing. Chuffing to yourself, you waited until his finials laid fully back before flying back into view, winging right in front of his eyes. His whole body jolted at the flash of your feathers, but then he started to purr. "Playing tricks?"

You spiraled and flew loops just to show off. You were about to do something even more impressive when you caught sight of the sun's position and remembered about work. Shoot...

You kinda didn't wanna leave him. You wanted to bring him things and see how he'd react, or get a closer look at this big blue legs, but regrettably, duty called. Giving a final flip for him, you pulled up, flapping hard until your wings hit an updraft, carrying you upward. Looking down, you saw him waving at you and almost wanted to call a farewell. Next time, you decide, letting the wind carry you back towards town. Next time, you'd shrug out of your feathers and say hello to him.

☆ The warmer air catches beneath your wings, taking the burden of effort from your flight. You coasted easily on the thermal, sharp eyes following the familiar lines of the mountainside. When your eyes had been remade, you'd been worried that it would be too much to adapt to. But as your own body proved, there was nothing a simple human being could not learn to live around. And it had been worth it. From your vantage point, you could track deer trails miles below through the canopy, pick out nests amongst branches, follow the path of a caution orange fox as it sped low through the underbrush.

You knew the forest like you knew the set of your feathers. Knew the pattern of the life within, the dips and rises of the earth itself, where the deer went to lick salt from the riverbank. It had been your personal little patch of the planet for a few years now, as you'd grown your wings and then learned to use them. Worked through the growing pains of new muscles, new bones, got used to the fan of your tail and the way the wind pushed and pulled the weight of your body. Learning that flight was not weightlessness like you'd imagined, but the settling of that weight.

So it didn't take long for you to notice something was up. Greenery trampled, old trails scarred by massive divots and gouges in the earth, hunks of bark stripped from trees. Something absolutely massive had passed through.

Beating your wings, breaking free of your lazy spiraling, you put in a bit of effort to climb higher, following the mess higher along until the trees began to be interspersed by cliffs of stone. That's where you found him. It would have been hard to miss him even if you hadn't been following his trail, as bright scarlet as he was. You would have called it a tasteless art installation if he wasn't moving, running a massive blue hand over a blue helmet-looking head, hunched over on himself as if in pain. You let yourself drop, but kept a fair enough distance, just watching as the robotic thing rubbed at his face as though wiping away tears.

... no, not as if. Dipping to catch sight of his face, you could see that he was crying, something thick running from softly glowing blue eyes. What was he? Where had he come from? Some government weapon, maybe?

There was a sad looking tree clinging stubbornly to life not terribly far from him, roots desperately holding onto the stone, and you took it as a perch, your claws sinking into crumbly bark. Still out of reach, but here you could hear the way he hummed slightly, like a car engine, and the soft creaking of metal joints. He was fascinating to look at, your eyes picking out the gaps between metal plating, into silvery wires and odd tubing, the delicate latchwork on the litany of vents and openings on his metal body, the depth of expression on that worn, masked face.

You didn't think he was looking anywhere but forward, the flat blue of his eyes betraying no direction, but it was obvious when he spotted you. His entire body straightened up a bit, broad shoulders squaring, the flicking finials on the sides of his head pricking straight up like a cat's ears. You froze. You knew, logically, that you should take to the skies, but the alarm was paralyzing you, your feathers puffing up slightly as if you could ward off a metal giant.

"Oh, hello there."

He speaks and you can understand it, his voice low, calm and soothing. When he moves, it is slow and careful, and you think of a hand extended to a trembling fawn. So careful not to frighten something delicate and lovely. He faces you on your precarious perch and again there is the instinct to flee, the knee-jerk terror of being so near to something so, so much larger than one's self. But there is a kindness to that face. A softness in the way he studies you, even as you do just the same.

His hand raises, just slightly reaching for you, but he pauses the moment your wings begin to flare. Those finials flick, laying back slightly, and you're sure you don't imagine the way his shoulders drop. "It's okay." There's an age to his voice. A heaviness that sounds like scars. "It's alright. I understand. I must be so frightening." You almost want to talk back. To ask where he came from, what he is, but you're not willing to expose yourself so quickly. Let him think you an animal.

"You're beautiful." Your train of thought is interrupted and you can admit, you preen at the compliment, let your feathers ruffle to show off the sheen. He doesn't try to reach for you, just watches, so you spread your wings outward, let him see the stripes, and you swear that the hum of his engine lowers to a rumbling purr. You were proud of your feathers. You'd picked them out yourself, before the treatment started, figured out the precise colors and patterns and sheen before submitting yourself to the pills and the injections and the surgery at the base of your spine to encourage your tail when it didn't want to grow in. It had been more than worth it.

You stay for a long time after that. Just watching him. Occasionally he speaks, a soft compliment or a gentle word intended to keep you calm, or something about the color of the sky or the shape of leaves. You're sure that he isn't a weapon. Not some thing created to harm. A weapon does not remark upon the path of a creek or the shape of flowers.

He makes a sound that is almost a sigh as the sun drops low enough to paint the sky, rising to his feet. You take flight, rising to be at his head level just in time to hear him murmur to himself, "I have to get back. Jazz is going to start worrying." Jazz? A name, obviously. Another robot? It surprises you, how much you want to know. But maybe it shouldn't. After all, he's the most surprising, most unusual thing you've ever come across in all your life. It would probably be weirder if you didn't want anything to do with him.

He starts to head down, so very careful to avoid breaking the stone that had bore his weight or nicking the trees that his body was strong enough to harm, and on a whim you drop down to land heavily on his shoulder. His finials twitch straight upward, his head starting to turn towards you. You stay there only long enough to feel how warm he is from his time in the sun before you take off, catch the closest draft you can and spin far out of his reach, watching him from a safe distance again.

He raises a hand in something like a wave and you tuck into a roll, just to try and let him know you accept the farewell. Then he's off, half hidden by the trees, and you follow him only long enough to find his home, catching a flash of silver metal through the trees, before you winged to the left and made for your own home. You'd come back tomorrow, you muse as the wind catches you and sails you easily through the sky, and maybe next time you'd land on him a little big longer.

☆ "Come on. Come here, sweetie, come to mama."

Singer's sharp gaze is locked on you intently, balancing uncertainly on his own two feet while his two brothers still tumbled about like rambunctious puppies across the cave. Behind him, Kickback chirps a soft encouragement and Singer, arms stuck out in instinctual balance, stumbles a step forward. And another. Another and another until, wobbling and cheeping for help, he half falls into your waiting arms. You pick him up even though he's starting to get too heavy for it, spin him around while he trills at you and headbutts you right on the sore lump on your jaw.

Kickback picks you up with him, cradling you both in his arms while he rubs his face against you. You can feel him, deep in your chest, how happy he is that he can have his purpose back. He has missed taking care of grubs so very badly.

In your arms, Singer is straining to get his face to his papa's, beeping and hissing until Kickback relents with a soft chitter, turning so that Singer could begin to determinedly- and ineffectually- clean his father's massive mandible. He'd gotten in the habit of that recently and you wonder where he picked it up, pinning his siblings down to clean their faces or yowling until one of his parents settled low enough for him to try and do the same to them.

"He's like me, that's all all all." Kickback answered the question you had not voiced, half singing it as he nuzzled his grub affectionately. "Take care of the hivemates. Keep the grubs safe. He'll be an egg drone, too."

"You can already tell?" You reach out to touch Kickback's face too, brush your knuckles against the mirrored place of where Singer was loyaly attempting to bite free some imagined speck of dirt. You thought of old family rituals, of laying out money, pens, flower seeds, trying to guess the future by what a baby reached for first. Your parents had tried that. You'd crawled right into your dad's lap. Maybe that's why your future had died right alongside him.

Bombshell nips you through the bond, as he is wont to do, cutting off the thought before it can properly exist at all. You're grateful for it.

"Easiest to tell," Kickback says, allowing Singer to man-handle him, obligingly tipping his helm to let the little grub lick over his optic. "Others... who knows? Maybe like Shrapnel, maybe like Bombshell, maybe will be wanting to spend all time outside getting food, maybe even be a Queen!" He purrs, Singer copying the sound, and you twist in Kickback's hold to watch where Headshot and Highrise are wrestling each other, galloping about awkwardly on all fours just to crash together and go down, grappling and nipping and yowling. You wondered what they'd be. What would they look like, when they grew into all the pointy armored pieces their sires sported? What path would their lives take? Would you be there to see it?

You wanted to be. Wanted with a fierceness that, for a moment, did not feel like yours. Surely this was Bombshell's quietly searing passion in your chest. But that doesn't last long, of course. There is no part of them hidden from you, nothing you cannot feel the ownership of, and you know without having to truly ask that it is only yours, this need to Live.

Kickback nuzzles Singer, gently nudging him back into your arms, and with his attentions freed, he turns to kiss you. Kisses you deep and warm until you can fall into him, let everything else fade away until all you are is the heat in your chest where his life is tied forever to yours. There is a firework-flicker of his memories crackling through you, bright and quickly fading. The shape of the first Queen, the first Hive, a life lived in efficient servitude. But he is not like Bombshell. There is no soft grief for a way of life lost in Kickback. Just a precious, golden-warm preference for You.

You want to figure out how to say it back. That he is so much more than the loneliness. But he doesn't give you the chance, shushing you with kisses that cover your face and trail down your neck. Kisses you until Singer physically shoves himself between you with a beep of furious jealousy and you both pause to kiss him too, one on each cheek.

While Singer chuffs self-importantly and rubs his face against your chest, Kickback clicks for the other two. They pause in their fighting, struggling free of each other to trot up to him. He clicks again and you look down to watch as they claw their way up him to settle on his shoulders, looking down at you like rumpled kittens. And Kickback asks, before he moves, seeking your permission as though you could do anything to stop him. Not that you wanted to. When the idea of taking your grubs outside to play flickered through your thoughts, quiet as though he thought he could hide it from the other two, you just nodded and let him carry you away.

The other two slide down to join Singer, pressing heavily against you with shivered churrs of nervous fear. You soothed them, as best you could, kissing their little faces and letting them try to hide against your neck. "It's not scary. I promise. Oh, sweet thing, mama's got you. I'm never going to let anything hurt you. It's okay." You hold them close as Kickback cradles you all, taking you steadily within reach of the sun.

It had been too long since you'd been able to feel it. The wind brushes through your short hair like a greeting, the sun through pine needles not enough to warm you. Kickback's metal plating heats up against you, his best effort at keeping you warm, as you nudge your grubs. "Look. Look, sweeties, look at the snow." It takes an effort to coax them out. Hiding against you, shaking like little leaves, they cheeped softly for help and you just tried to keep your voice calm and low. "Look, Singer. Highrise, come on, sweetheart, let me see that pretty face. Headshot? Baby?" You clicked your tongue at them, trying to mimic Shrapnel's sounds, and it slowly began to work.

Headshot looked first, raising his head with his antenna flattened as though he suspected something was waiting to snip them right off his pale grey helm. His eyes widened, wings shivering as he stared at the white-covered world. He chirped, shoving at his siblings, and when they refused to leave the shelter of your body, he leaned down and bit Singer hard on the neck. Before you could scold him, Singer was doing it himself, turning around to chitter and yowl a string of what would one day be obscenities, you were sure. He stopped mid-beep, his twisted wings flickering briefly into view as he started to look around.

Then, as a team, Singer and Headshot began to batter their little fists against Highrise's back.

You let them wrestle on you, pretending it didn't hurt at all until the mounting bruising was bright enough for Kickback to feel it through your bond. Hissing softly, he tapped each grub with his mandibles, leaning down just enough to knock each one into the snow beneath. For a moment, you thought of baby birds, taking their first flight. Your little ones, finally seeing the outside world. They landed in a lump in the snow, each of them letting out sounds of shock at the cold.

Kickback sat down crosslegged, the plates on his chest splitting open. Gently, he pressed you close to his spark chamber, let you hide from winter in the shelter of his frame, and together you watched your kids figure out what snow was. Headshot transformed for it, scuttling through the powdered white, leaving a trail, leaping about with his sharp little legs flailing. Singer barrelled after him, struggling to run on two legs but mostly falling down back all four limbs over and over, tossing himself after his brother with so much enthusiasm that he was kicking up snow in his wake. A chunk of it smacked Highrise right in the face and, after a moment's hesitation, he started to shove his hands into the snow around him, fighting to pick some up and eventually just gripping a handful and tottering three-limbed after the other two, mashing the fistful of cold slush to Singer's face the moment he was close enough.

They were so happy. So carefree. Shrieking the wordless joy of a child as they discovered the true size of the world outside their nest. They kept looking back at you and Kickback, raising sticks or rocks or handfuls of melting snow, pointing at trees and the sky and the sunlight through the branches as if making sure you could see it too. You wondered how it must feel to them, this whole forest something new and unknown, every snowbank hiding another surprise. Romping about without an ounce of fear. So certain that the world was safe and theirs for the touching.

You couldn't wait to teach them the names of every tree and flower. How lucky you were, to have this. In the sparklight that weaves around your limbs, you can feel that Kickback is thinking just the same. How lucky the four of you were, to have made things so perfect.

Kickback had an egg in him. The thought hit you so casually that you almost didn't properly catch it, the awareness of him so total that you didn't even have to look for the update. But when you poked, you got a confirmation. His nursery chamber had put together one more egg, the start of a clutch. But for you, small as you were...

"Do you wanna put that in me, later?"

You say it without thinking and Kickback's frame heats up so fast that you squeak, shifting towards the cold air on reflex. You look up at his face. He's steaming in the winter air, looking away from you, hand over his mouth. He doesn't answer, but he doesn't have to. He can't hide anything from you, after all. The frantic wondering of when the kids would wear themselves out into naptime made his feelings on the matter obvious enough.