"leave him be Ratch, he's just grumpy." Wheeljack chuckles softly, watching the sparkling. "right? you're just a little grumpy with us." Wheeljack chuckles, smiling at the sparkling. Reflect growls at him around his cube.

"why don't you take him back to your room or something and see if you can't get him a nap." Ratchet says.

"sure." Ironhide shrugs. "c'mon squirt. bet we could go sit outside in the sun for a bit and you'd finish your nap." Ironhide says, heading out of the medbay. the sparkling cuddles to him quietly.

once they get outside, Ironhide finds a nice warm spark, not too bright, where he and the sparkling could sit for a while. its quiet between the two as the sparkling finishes his cube, but he doesn't nap.

"would you like to hear more stories about Will sparkling?" Ironhide ask. Reflect looks up.

"okay." he agrees. Ironhide nods a little and leans back some.

"hmmm... lets see, surely I have a good story about Will and not a sad one." Ironhide frowns. "well... guess they're all sad to me." Ironhide sighs a little. he frowns, going quiet to think before a grin breaks out on his face. "let me tell you about the time Will and I messed up big time on the 4th of July, a human holiday." Ironhide snorts. "humans have these colorful little gunpowder filled explosives they call fireworks. they fire them into the sky. its both chaotic and beautiful. he allowed my holoform to join him in picking them out, it was nice... this was about four years before Will died. he was so excited to get this pretty big one, almost the size of my servo actually," Ironhide says, holding his servo up to the sparkling. "it was bigger than Will and took up the bed of my alt. it was huge for humans. he was so excited the whole day. he was, as the humans say, as excited as a human child on 'Christmas', thats another human holiday they have a lot of them. I'll have to show you my memory of the day later, I have it saved as one of my favorite days with Will." Ironhide explains.

"okay." the sparkling murmurs, watching him. Ironhide sighs a little.

"he was so mad we had to wait for it to get dark outside, but he waited. we set off all kinds of bottle rockets and 'roman candles' and these tiny colorful smoke balls. it was very pretty. we were out in the back yard of his house, I had cleared out a lot of space to make sure everything was safe, though we had a rogue rocket that caught his old Oak tree on fire, he was upset about that, but I put the fire out." Ironhide snorts. the sparkling giggles. "he was so excited to like the big one, we both were. he lit that fucking firework and it just died out. didn't do anything. he was so disappointed... I'll never tell anyone but you this, so you better not tell anyone I said this or I'll have to kill you, got it?" Ironhide ask.

"Ratchet an Jack stop you." he huffs, blowing a raspberry at the weapons specialist.

"yeah they'd kill me after I kill you so you better keep quiet alright?" Ironhide ask.

"okay." he pouts. Ironhide snorts a little.

"I hated seeing Will upset, he was a handsome human, but... losing Cybertron was worth it when he smiled. when he was happy it was... I would have absolutely never have given up a single day with Will to get Cybertron back, I loved that human, still do...." Ironhide murmurs. "well, he was disappointed, like the whole day had been a waste or something.... like the day wasn't worth it if he didn't get that one last firework in... so you know what I did sparkling?" Ironhide ask. unfortunately the sparkling can't remember this in his own memories, so he shakes his head.

"what do?" he ask.

"I... got stupid. humans call it being love struck. I didn't want Will to be upset. so I figured I could fix it... I was wrong." Ironhide chuckles. he smiles a little and shakes his head. "well, I didn't think the explosion would be too big so I walked over to it and fired my cannon at it. I figured at least it would explode and he'd be a little happier, but I was really wrong sparkling. I don't admit that often, but I was absolutely wrong in that moment. I was lucky Will didn't get hurt. the explosion was bigger than either of us thought it would be. it was huge Reflect, I mean huge." Ironhide snorts. "the fire went everywhere and it knocked me over, I crushed his Oak tree when I felt on it, he never let me forget that, or the fact I could have lost my arm from it. once we got the fires out and cleaned up the best we could, I went to apologise.... I felt terrible for ruining everything. the firework, the night, his yard, his stupid tree. I felt pretty bad... I turned to him, ready to tell him I was sorry and would leave if he wanted me to but before I could say a single word, he started laughing sparkling. he laughed like he had heard the funniest joke in the universe. he laughed until he couldn't breathe. he was changing colors from laughing so hard, idiot almost died laughing, which I had thought was just a human joke but he almost managed it I swear." Ironhide says. a small smile crosses his face plates. "then he begged me to take him to get another so we could do it again because he was pretty sure he blinked and didn't get to see it all." Ironhide murmurs, looking out into the distance. there's a far away look on his face and he heaves a sigh.

"so?" the sparkling asks. Ironhide snorts.

"so, I put myself back together, transformed, and took him to get more fireworks. I wasn't going to tell him no, not if he was going to keep laughing like that. not if he was going to keep being so happy. I'd never say no to that, not to him. we shot off fireworks with my cannon until the sun came up and then again the next night. he smelled like gunpowder for a week, but he didn't seem to care. he just couldn't stop talking about it, of course he got me in trouble with Prime and Ratchet over it, but I didn't care. I would have, and still would mind you, go head to head with Megatron in a no chance to win battle, just to get the chance to do it all over again." Ironhide smirks. the smirk falls after a minute, like he's suddenly realized the memory is more painful than he remembered. "you would have liked him sparkling, I'm sure of it. he would've gotten a kick out of watching you run from us, keeping all of us on our toes as the humans say... I learned as much as I could from humans on the internet, but Will... he taught me so much more than any website ever could... and he reminded me I could be happy even without a gun in my servo. he reminded me that even with this war going on and the loss of our home, that I could still be happy... and I never got to thank him for that." Ironhide says, solomely. "he was my best friend, but he was so much more than that too. I didn't need Cybertron when I had him, because he was a world of his own." the mech explains.

its quiet a few minutes, both seemingly lost in thought, before Ironhide speaks once more.

"humans don't live very long Reflect. their average life span is face less than ours by thousands of years... I knew that... but I still hoped for just a little more time with him, though I suppose that it would probably have never been enough, y'know? even if I'd had one more day with him, one more year with him, one more anything with him, I'd still be wishing for one more." he sighs. Ironhide shakes his head hard. "damn, I've got to stop dumping all this shit on you. the last thing I need is Ratchet or Wheeljack going through your memories and hearing how soft I am for some stupid human whose been dead for nearly 12 Earth months." Ironhide mutters.

"12? almost a year? my end stage sparkling hood will be coming up soon then I hope, man I still don't understand Cybertronian time, I'll be able to finally reveal myself."

the sparkling chirps at Ironhide and the mech smiles a little.

"in 2 weeks, 5 days, 12 hours, 35 minutes, and 20 seconds, it will have been a year since Will died... and in 3 weeks, 4 days, 22 hours, 4 minutes it will have been a year since Wheeljack found you. hey maybe by then they'll finally have your T-cog built and you can finally download an alt mode and transform. you've gotten pretty big these past few months." Ironhide snorts.

it goes quiet again, the sparkling finally seems to be drifting off. Ironhide's staring off into the distance again with a forlorn look, thinking over memories. he breaks out into the smallest smile.

"we do not have 'birthdays' as the humans have.... but Will, with some help from Sam, figured out what would be mine if I was human. I thought it wa stupid, but he insisted on celebrating it and calling it my 'sparked day', had to convince him not to call it that by explaining what that meant in our terms." Ironhide snorts. "but we celebrated my so called 'birthday' with a party. it wasn't really a party it was really just me and Will doing whatever I wanted for a day then we had cake. it was interesting, it was the first human food Will could convince me to eat with my holoform, and of course my convince I mean he shoved it in my face and pouted until I ate it." Ironhide huffs, smirking. he looks down at the snoozing sparkling chuckles, going silent.

Ironhide sits outside silently with the sparkling for a bit, before getting up and heading inside when he's alerted the others are coming back to the base. he heads straight for his own room.

"hey Ratchets catching up on some lost stasis, the sparklings been a little wild today, you goo to keep the sparkling a bit so I can join him...?"

Ironshide snorts a little, laying out on his berth.

"yeah I got the sparkling. go take a nap Jack. all three of you are cranky today."

"well, we were up all night building Reflect a holoprojector, putting it in, rigging it to cast a holoform onto his protoform, and then designing all of our holoforms to be a similar so humans wouldn't question us being with him."

Ironhide doesn't even bother to answer him, letting the sparkling lay on his chest plates.

"guess you're staying with me tonight sparkling.' Ironhide murmurs. according to his internal clock it was nearing 8PM, those family days normally lasted slightly longer, usually going from little kid friendly to teens and adults only from around 6pm to almost 10, but they must've ended it early today. Ironhdie honeslty hadn't realized how late it had been getting, one of the bad things about their base location was, most the time it didn't start actually getting dark until around 8 or 9 pm anyway. they must've been out there a while without him realizing it.

the weapon specialist had gotten a little lost in silently remembering memories with Will. he missed the man dearly. he sighs to himself, better go a head and get some rest while the sparkling was already in stasis. he settles himself down and shut down for stasis.

there's an alarm going off in Ratchets head, quickly waking the medic. he looks around, sitting up quickly. the alarm is literally in his head and he knows immediately whats happening. its a distress signal, its Ironhides distress signal. Ratchet had specifically blocked Ironhdies signal from the others after Will died. since Will was Ironhdies bondede due to Allspark exposure, once he died Ironhides spark had reacted and not in a good way.

Ironhides spark had reacted like most sparks acted and he's woken up the whole base twice with his accidental distress signal the first two days after Wills death, but he couldn't help it. his bonded was dead, so his spark was sending out distress signals and, as far as Ratchet was aware, there was only three ways to make it stop. the distressed spark would only stop sending out the signals and crying for its other half if, the bot in question found a new bonded, the bot in question was killed/or died, and, on rare occasions, the bot in question couldn't take it anymore and ended their own life.

Ratchet knew Ironhide would never get a new bonded or end himself, so he blocked everyone from the distress signal except himself. the mech couldn't help when it sent the signal out and it usually went off while he was in stasis.

the medic immediately jumps up and takes off running for Ironhides room. occasionally while sending out a distress signal, his own body would mistake the signal for him dying and if not dealt with immediately, his spark could exstinguish itself and kill the mech.

Ratchet throws the door to Ironhides room open quickly.

"Hide." Ratchet asks, looking around. all he finds is Reflect curled up sleeping on Ironhides berth, safely tucked away from the edge so he can't fall off. "shit." Ratchet mutters. he turns and runs off, following the signal. he'd just assumed Ironhide was still in his room.

he chases the signal outside, transforming and speeding off to follow it. the signal appears to be on the move, like Ironhide's trying to get away from the base to not wake everyone up. the medic can't help but wonder where he's going though.

he finally gets his answer when he tracks the signal to the nearby military owned beach the Autobots and Nest soldiers frequently visited. as far as Ratchet was aware, Ironhdie hadn't visited the beach since Wills death, but he guessed this was a special circumstance. he transforms and walks closer quietly. he doesn't want to startle the mech when he's like this, it could end up with his head blown off. Ironhide is sitting on the dock silently, legs folded, servos in his lap, staring out over the almost peaceful waves. Ratchet inches closer, it looks peaceful, but there's tension in the mechs body.

"Ironhide?" Ratchet asks carefully. the mech tenses and jumps up immediately, cannon firing up and pointing at Ratchet. the medic immediately brings up his shield to block his face, but knows it wouldn't stop Ironhides cannon from such close range. "easy Hide, its just me." Ratchet murmurs. Ironhide growls dangerously, huffing steam out his nose, optics narrowed, and body wound tense like a spring. he sits like that a second before looking slightly confused.

"sorry Ratch." he mutters, striaghtening up slowly. the tension lessens but is still there, even as he powers off his cannon and lowers it slowly. in seconds he goes from looking angry to confused and a little lost. he turns back around to face the water and sits back down.

"its okay Ironhide." Ratchet assures inches closer.

"your sparkling is on my berth go get him before he falls." Ironhide mutters, staring out over the water. he winces a little, rubbing at his chest. the signal, which had finally stopped once he recognised Ratchet, was back again and louder than before.

"he's in stasis. he's okay. are you?" Ratchet ask, walking closer.

"I'm fine, just didn't want to wake everyone up." Ironhide mutters. he tenses again, servo clenching slightly against his chest plate and setting his distress signal off again. Ratchet frowns and carefully walks over. he doesn't want to risk Ironhide hurting either of them.

"you alright?" Ratchet asks.

"I already told you I'm fine." Ironhide snaps.

"yeah but then you grabbed your chest, like it hurt." Ratchet murmurs.

"it always hurts idiot." Ironhide scoffs.

"if you tell me these things, it makes it easier to help..." Ratchet trails.

"help?" Ironhide ask. he huffs. "you can't help." Ironhide mutters.

"surely I-" Ratchet starts.

"no you can't alright? so frag off. you know you can't help. its part of losing a bondmate." Ironhide snaps. "it'll be like this forever." he adds.

"but it shouldn't hurt like that-" Ratchet tries.

"IT ALWAYS HURTS!" Ironhide snaps, getting up and turning to glare at Ratchet. "you may have your stupid medic knowledge, but you have never lost a bondmate and your books could only teach you so much! you-" Ironhide shouts. he cuts himself off with a grunt, a look of pain coming over his face. his signal goes off once again and the mech growls, turning away to sit back down. "get the hell away from me." Ironhide snaps.

"you're my friend Ironhide. I can't just leave you out here alone and in pain." Ratchet frowns.

"we may be friends Ratchet, but I have been alone and in pain for almost a year.now, so don't bother wasting your time. you can't help." Ironhide snaps. he tenses again.

"I need to at least check your spark Hide, it could be ripping itself apart." Ratchet murmurs

"that doesn't concern you. I've been dealing with this for a year." he grumbles.

"you didn't wake me up with your signals for a while." Ratchet murmurs.

"sometimes I can stop them before they go out. I've been stopping them and driving out here so I wouldn't wake anyone, but I had to stop and put Reflect back into stasis before I could leave. I woke him up on accident." Ironhide mutters. Ratchet frowns a little.

"scoot over." Ratchet murmurs. Ironhide almost refuses, but in the end, for once, he doesn't have it in him to fight. he moves over, shifting to let his legs dangle into the water. he didn't care about the rust anymore. "I don't know the pain of losing a bondmate, but I do understand the pain of a spark calling out for someone whose long gone." Ratchet says softly. Ironhide shifts a little, glancing over at him. "its no where near the same, but sometimes Jack and I, our sparks still call out for Nitro, looking for him. it actually put a hole in my spark and almost killed me once." Ratchet frowns. he looks over at his friend and frowns. "and I know it hurts... it feels like physical pain, like someone is taking a blade and slicing your spark open, it hurts and I get that." Ratchet murmurs.

"it feels nothing like that. its like someone crushing your spark with a servo, slowly, ever so slowly closing their servo around it, occasionally digging their claws in and tearing into it before continuing to crush. mechs have been known to throw themselves to the Cons to stop this pain, and I understand why they do it. because otherwise, it doesn't stop. it goes on and on for the rest of your life." Ironhide mutters. "it wittles you down, breaks down your will, leaves you struggling and in a darker place than this war." Ironhide mutters.

"Hide...?" Ratchet asks looking over worriedly. Ironhide looks up from his lap to look at the water.

"we were better off never coming to Earth. I never should've let Prime convice me Will needed a guardian. I never should've gotten as close to him as I did, and I never should've failed him." Ironhide mutters.

"he was dying anyway Hide, the exposure to the Allspark-" Ratchet starts.

"if I wasn't his guardian, his bonded, it wouldn't matter." Ironhide mutters. "and yes I know he was fragging dying anyway, but that doesn't change anything." he huffs.

"sitting out here alone while your spark tears itself apart doesn't help either." Ratchet murmurs softly.

"I don't care anymore and I haven't for a while. I get it, losing a sparkling hurts. I remember finding you with Nitro and back then, seeing you like that was the worst pain I ever felt.... but losing a sparkling is nothing like have your spark ripped in half and you know thats exactly what happens when a bonded dies." Ironhide frowns. "this pain and that pain are two different types of pain, it still hurts, don't get me wrong. I will forever remember finding you hunched over the shell of your sparkling. I will always remember the sounds of the gun fire and your pain. I'll always remember your cries as I pried his body from your servos so I could carry you both out of there. I will never forget. it hurt to see you like that. it still hurts more than anything when I think about it, but its a different kind of pain from this." Ironhide says. Ratchet sits silently. "watching my friend lose his sparkling vs loosing my bondmate, they both are the worst pain I've ever felt, but they're different types of pain...." Ironhide sighs to himself.

"Ironhide-" Ratchet tries.

"I don't want to do this anymore." Ironhide admits. Ratchet straights.

"Hide are you-" Ratchet tries.

"no. whatever you question is, no. I'm not going to take my own life Ratchet, I'm desperate to make it stop, but not that desperate. we have a war to win and me killing myself wouldn't help us win. but that doesn't mean I haven't thought about it." the mech admits. its quiet a moment.

"I can't make the pain stop Hide, but I can help, or I can at least try. you said you didn't want to do this anymore, but give me a chance to help. please?" Ratchet ask, getting up. he holds a servo out to pull the other mech up. "I mean, even if I can't help, what harm is trying going to do?" Ratchet asks softly. Ironhide sighs a little and takes the offered servo, letting the medic pull him up.

"okay, I guess. whatever." Ironhide mutters. Ratchet smiles at him.

"we'll figure this out." Ratchet assures.