tenthtimeisthecharm | (no subject)

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There is a brief pause filled with audible clicks and thuds, followed by the slightly echoey acoustics that come from someone recording audio in a large room. "Hello hello! You've reached Dr. Velocity! Feel free to leave a message or a video or whatever here, and I'll do my very best to respond promptly! And if it this is about the stickers, Ratchet, I didn't do it! Love and love and love!"

text | voice | video | action

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Not long after returning from the Cathedral of Mirrors, Velocity finds herself floating in darkness. Is she floating, actually? Or is she falling very, very slowly. Her thoughts float gently from one idea to the next before her one last peaceful moment is broken when a white chain suddenly clamps around her right wrist. Then her left one. Then, lastly, her neck. She's yanked in all directions, her arms pulled into a t-pose as she's forced to look up into the darkness.

He descends, his hands outstretched, reaching and holding her face tenderly with both hands. His silver-blue tentacles float behind him as though he's swimming through water, his face pulled back into a malicious grin.

"Mine again, just as you were meant to be." He whispers, leaning in until their faces are uncomfortably close. "Such a pity your teammates didn't consider you worth sacrificing for. Your life and safety is never anyone's top priority, is it? I know your worth though, Velocity. I would have given the world to you."

He laughs, cold and mocking.

"You will be useful to me again soon enough.

Sleep well, my dear. Until our next reunion."

Abruptly, the dream ends.

Velocity jerked awake and sucked in a strangled vent to scream that didn't come back out, optics flaring so brightly they'd gone from yellow to almost white. She catapulted herself out of her berth, stumbling and crashing into her end table and scattering unseen objects as she crumpled to her knees. Sucked in vents that shrieked in her audials, too fast and too ragged and too too too-

she'd chosen this she'd known it would happen she'd accepted it she'd chosen this she'd known it would happen she'd

Without thinking, she scrabbled frantically for her datapad and attempted to comm Megatron, unknowingly opening an audio message to the entirety of the group chat instead as she dropped the datapad. Velocity bent in half over it and hugged herself and rocked, hyperventilating vents dragging ragged gasps that scraped her throat raw.

"M-Megatron I'm sorry I'm sorry I- I- you c-can be mad still be gone still- st- I need you I need you please he was in my dream he-" She clapped two hands over her mouth and keened through her fingers. "I'll s-say anything you want if you just-"

Her forehead touched the floor next to broken glass and the sticker on her datapad that proclaimed 97% in faded pink glitter and let out a broken, punched out noise as she started to weep alone in the dark.

Rung is to his feet right away. He told himself there were to be no regrets that the choice must be done. But how can he follow his logic to protect some one right next to him if..

He makes his way down the halls. "Lottie, dear it's not Megatron. But I am still coming to you. Speak to me. Name 5 things you see, keep focus on this till I get there "

"I'm on my way," Moonracer adds in, phasing towards Lottie as fast as she could. It wasn't fast enough - she couldn't get there instantly- but she's hurrying.

"We're coming."

"I- I- I-" Velocity drew in a startled vent. Her vocalizer spat out static and choked, hiccuping noises on the vent out but she lifted her head slightly.

Her optics skittered around her darkened hab suite like frightened animals, unable to settle. She wanted the gift Megatron had given her on the cruise but she'd traded it away to help defeat Nemo she'd given it away and she had nothing left of him she'd traded away his present-

Another sob caught in her throat and she vented in and in and in with sharp bursts. "St-sticker, I-" Her gaze settled on her upturned datapad. It had landed on the notifications page for the group chat. At the very bottom of the page, half cut off, was the alert that Megatron had left the chat.

He'd left.

He'd left and he'd never have answered her begging him for help, anyway.

Velocity's vocalizer clicked and clicked and came back online halfway through a cry of, "-lert that he left he's gone he isn't g-gonna-" Her optics widened further as the realization pierced through her panic that Rung and Moony had both heard her they'd all heard her, she-

Velocity froze, her extra set of hands drawing in towards her chest in horrified shame just before she lurched back to her pedes. She staggered away from her datapad, every step crunching through broken glass and squishing small fidget toys before she slipped and bumped back into the wall, startling another thin cry out of her. "S-s-sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm-" She drew her top, original set of arms over her head and wailed wordless fear and misery.

"sweet spark, it's okay. He's not here but you're not alone. I'm sorry dear, I should of been at your side when we returned," Rung rounds a corner finding the door to velocity.

"I'm at your door. I'm opening it, and I will be here now"

He's slipping up in his own ways. But she will not be alone now.

"I'm here," Moonracer says as she finally phases into Lottie's room.

Instantly, she's moving to wrap the medic up in a hug, engine ticking over in a soothing sound.

"We're here for you, Lottie."

She makes sure to leave room for Rung, too. Lottie needs everyone she can get.

Velocity hiccuped out another stuttery burst of static when Moonracer appeared out of nothing and gathered her up in a hug. Her knees gave out and Velocity sagged, dragging them both down to the floor. Her lower, newer pair of arms clapped back over her mouth and she shuddered in Moony's arms. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry, you shouldn't have to-" She whispered in an agony. She was bothering Moony and Rung and everyone she was making her choices their problems and had done so much worse, too. All of the blood he'd spill was on her hands too, she'd agreed to it, she-

she'd chosen this she's chosen this she'd chosen this

"I want him back, I- I need M-Megatron, he-" Velocity said in the smallest, glitchy whisper that faded into a purely mechanical noise of misery, clinging on to Moony.

She lifted pale optics to look between them both. She had only ever had Nautica before arriving on the R2. She'd never experienced the war firsthand, never been abandoned by anyone. This was her first true firsthand experience with loss, and it made her spark lurch in her chest. It was overwhelming, strangling. "H-he helped me, he always helped, he made it better he told me wh-what to do to fix it and said he liked me that I was one of his favorites, he-"

She drew shaking legs up to her chest and started to rock again. "I'm sorry..."

"There is no reason to apologize. I should, dear. I didn't take care of you, I didn't consider you like I should." Rung moves forward and sits by and works to puzzle pieces them all into this hug.

"I'm so sorry, Lottie. I know I'm no Megatron or powerful defender. But I want you to know you're not a burden. Not to me."

Velocity hiccuped out a burst of static and buried her face into Rung's shoulder. "Y-you don't have to be a-" Her voice caught and wobbled, and she shook her head. "I should be able to-"

All the words that had been hurled at her before made her heave in a vent far too fast, then another. She needed too much, made others fight her battles for her too much, weakling, useless, can't be depended on-

That awful, twisting anger that had been boiling in her chest since Megatron had done what he did lurched inside of her. She could also feel an almost painfully sharp feeling of relief hovering just on the other side of yelling, of rejecting the offered help, and she almost did. Trembled with it, but-

But in the end it all crumbled from the edge of her tongue and she sagged into Moonracer and Rung's embrace, the same way she always did. "I trust him," she whispered weakly. "We all do. Why couldn't he trust us back?"

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