heliopauseentertainments | Family Ties (Reply)

For

Continuity: IDW1

Rating: General

Relationship: Springer & Prowl, implied Tarantulas/Prowl

Characters: Springer, Prowl

Summary: In which Springer visits Prowl in the medical center.

Warnings: I don't know how to warn for the horrors/discomfort of being related to people, but here we are.

Crossposting: Tumblr | AO3

Fic under cut

Springer stood at the foot of the medical slab, for once finding himself unable to look someone in the optic. Prowl lay there, silently blinking at him with his one remaining optic while recovering from the injuries he’d received fighting Infinitus, the load bearing minibot that had masqueraded as Sentinel Prime, on Luna 1. None of those words were things he ever expected to consider in that order. Luna 1 had long disappeared before he was constructed and the rest was just nonsense.

Visiting Prowl in the medical center in the first place was not something he would have considered doing under normal circumstances, not unless it was related to a mission. Prowl’s health was his own problem as long as he was otherwise functional and able to do what needed to be done. Besides, it wasn’t as though Prowl had been terribly injured. It wasn’t an emergency.

Or at least, that’s what Springer used to think. And here he was, having dragged himself here to Iacon from Alaska, with Verity patiently—relatively—waiting for him out in the hallway.

Machines beeped softly but regularly, an audible sign of Prowl’s physical health. Cables attached to the machines hung like vines between where the commander reclined on the slab.

But Springer also used to think that he himself was Warborn, an MTO, made specifically to assist in the fight against Decepticon forces. That was what Kup had always told him. Kup…. Impactor…. They had been his mentors, taught him everything he ever needed to know.

His experience as an “MTO” had been different, however. He hadn’t woken up, pushed out of a vehicle into battle with a gun in his hand. Springer had onlined twice. Neither time in the heat of battle. He always thought the first time had been a preconscious dream of a sub-powered spark, blurry shapes and confusing voices with words he didn’t yet understand.

Ostaros.

That was the only sound sequence he remembered. It meant nothing. Meaningless noise. Meaningless until that… monstrosity… Tarantulas called him by that same designation. It wasn’t nonsense. It was his name.

The sound of Tarantulas’ voice calling him that half-forgotten name sent chills up his spinal struts every time he recalled it.

The second time had been to full vision and audio, Kup’s voice greeting him. Another voice off to the side, unseen, thanking Kup for “taking over the training of this new-build” before disappearing before Springer could even turn his head to see who the voice belonged to. He only later learned that had been Prowl. He’d been told that Prowl had simply brought him from the cold construction facility to Kup, the deliverymech.

Now… now Springer knew better. “Deliverymech” was quite the understatement for what Verity had called Prowl’s role, a role that meant nothing to any other Cybertronian to ever function: father.

What was Springer supposed to do with that?

He stared at Prowl as though with new optics. In a way that was entirely foreign to his species, to his understanding of their place in the universe, he was bound to Prowl. A horrible, unbreakable attachment that Springer had gotten no say in. For all of the awful things that Prowl had done, for all his repulsive personality, Springer would not exist without him. Even if he never spoke to or saw Prowl again, that fact would remain. As would his same dreadful link to Tarantulas… to Mesothulas.

It hurt, like a knife twisting in his spark. Through circumstances beyond his control, he was inextricably tied to two other mechs, two of the most repugnant mechs he had ever met. Nothing he could do would ever change that. The futility burned.

Worse was that Mesothulas had, despite all of his atrocities, loved him. Wanted him. Made him to care for him and watch over him. Prowl took that away. He took all of that away. Springer didn’t know if being cared for by a mad scientist with an unreliable moral compass would have been better, but the opportunity to know that was long gone.

Then he realized he had been staring silently for a number of minutes, as had Prowl. Maybe they had some things in common. His hands, the joints now aching, had been clenched into fists this entire time.

“Of course, you weren’t going to tell me anything,” Springer started, finally breaking the thick silence, “were you?”

“It was need-to-know information and you didn’t need to know.” Prowl tried to sit up, only to be hindered by too-short diagnostic and power cables plugged into his arms and torso. With a huff, he flopped back down, squinting up at the ceiling. “You wouldn’t have wanted me around anyway. What difference would it have made?”

Probably little to none.

“All the difference in the world,” he lied. A weak lie, of course. Springer had always been terrible at lying and Prowl, a king among liars, would immediately see right through it.

Springer walked around the medical slab and sat down on the utilitarian chair provided for visitors. Never minding that Prowl was probably right, that Springer wouldn’t have wanted Prowl around, he would have wanted to know, even if he had remained with Kup.

“Prowl, I need you to tell me what happened to Mesothulas. Before he became—“ He couldn’t bring himself to say it. Yet he finally looked directly in his… creator’s one remaining optic. “What did you do to him, Prowl?”