Archive of Our Own ^beta

Adjusting to being a regular bot again was... odd. Not difficult, not after everything she’d done and endured as Prime, but still decidedly odd. She was still herself, she didn’t feel different, except for everything she no longer felt through the Matrix. Losing it wasn’t just like losing a sense, she actually had lost a sense. The nearest scientific explanation anyone had been able to come up with was that the Matrix functioned as an amplifier for her EM receptors, allowing her to pick up on the feelings of those around her in a much broader radius than was typical.

That wasn’t quite true, though. The Matrix was a link to the allspark, and through it she had been able to feel the prevailing moods of all mechs who yet lived, both on Cybertron and out among the stars. It had been reassuring, knowing that her people were, as a whole, content. Lacking that feedback was disconcerting, almost moreso than the feeling of being alone in her processor once again. The Matrix had been a constant companion, in its own way, and she found herself reflexively seeking its presence from time to time, the confidence it had brought her. Its accumulated wisdom rested with her amica now though, her own knowledge added to its depths.

At least she’d been able to work through most of it in the hospital, so her family weren’t seeing her stall out mid-sentence as she reflexively tried to reference the Matrix and found nothing. In that small way, at least, her most recent brush with death had been a blessing. At least the physical pains were gone now, damage repaired by some of the best medics on Cybertron, and she was cleared to finish her recovery at home. The door whooshed open as she climbed the steps, and Greenlight all but tackled her there on the front stoop.

“Nobody told us you were being let out of the hospital!”

“I wanted to surprise you.” Arcana smiled, hugging Greenlight back and bending to give her a light kiss. “I still have doctor’s orders to rest up, though. Nothing strenuous until I’m cleared next week.”

“Good.” Greenlight beamed, pulling back and catching her by the hands. “You’ll have no choice but to take it easy.”

“At least until Galebreach Convoy lets me back into the office to finish formalizing the transfer of power.” she chuckled. Greenlight pouted at her, and Arcana bent to brush a kiss across her forehead. “That won’t be for a few weeks yet, I’m sure. She’ll wait until the medics clear me.”

“Good.” Greenlight nodded. “Now come on, we’re just starting a movie.”

“Alright.” Arcana smiled, curling her fingers around Greenlight’s hands, both grasping her one. “A movie sounds nice.”

After so long under medical supervision, she could use a little while just relaxing with her family before she tackled everything she still had to do.

---

“Arcana.”

Arcana looked up from the screen of the data terminal in her little home office, her optics taking a moment to adjust from comparing and contrasting multiple streams of data. When they finished, it was to see Greenlight leaning in the doorway, arms crossed and mouth turned down in a gentle frown. Concern, she thought, more than irritation. “Yes?”

“You promised you’d take it easy.” Greenlight reminded her, entering the office to perch on the edge of her desk. “But you’ve been cooped up in your office all day.”

“I’m not touching anything regarding the transfer of power, promise.” she chuckled, catching Greenlight’s hand in her own. Admittedly, part of the reason behind that was Galebreach Convoy refused to send the datawork over until the medics cleared her completely, but that was beside the point.

“Then what have you been doing that’s more important than spending time with us?” Greenlight pouted, her field meshing easily with Arcana’s, perfectly transmitting her irritation and concern where their hands intertwined.

“I’ve been determining where I want to teach.” Arcana said, which seemed to startle Greenlight for some reason. “Now that I’m no longer Prime, I’ll need something else to fill my time, and I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. There are so many variables, though. Age bracket, subject matter, location...”

“A lot to consider indeed.” Greenlight agreed, twisting her hand to interlace their fingers. “Could you take a few kliks to consider where you’d like to go, for a family vacation?”

“Shouldn’t that be a family decision?” Arcana asked, and Greenlight rolled her optics. “I mean it!” she insisted, lifting Greenlight’s hand to brush her lips over her partner’s knuckles. “I know it’s to celebrate me having more free time, but I don’t want the rest of you to be bored or miserable. Could you go ask the others what they think, while I keep churning through all this?” she gestured to the data paused on her screens.

“You could come do it yourself.” Greenlight huffed.

“The sooner I have this settled, the sooner I can focus on other things.” Arcana promised, lifting her other hand to envelop Greenlight’s entirely. “For me, dearest? I can pick from a list, if you get the others to compile one.”

“Fine.” Greenlight sighed, sliding off the edge of the desk and seating herself across Arcana’s lap. “But first, you owe me some attention.” she teased, kicking her legs over the arm of Arcana’s chair. “You’ve been home all day and I haven’t gotten a single proper kiss!”

“If you insist.” Arcana giggled, and bent to give her partner a kiss, then another one, and another, and another, scattering them across Greenlight’s face like stars in the night sky. Greenlight was laughing by the time she pulled away, and Arcana kissed the back of her hand once more before her partner slipped out of her home office, hopefully to go assure the rest of the family that she wasn’t being a workaholic, just proactive about her future employment.

---

“You still haven’t responded to my last messages.” Lancer said, which almost distracted Arcana enough for her partner to land a hit. Only almost, though. Her medic had insisted on light exercise only, and she couldn’t argue. Her frame was definitely not up to how hard she usually went in the ring, but her reflexes were still plenty quick enough to block Lancer’s kick and pivot to shove her partner off-balance.

“Yes I did.” she frowned, checking her comm history as she swung a set of wide sweeping chops at Lancer, who nimbly evaded each one. Show-off ♡

“You acknowledged them, but you haven’t actually answered.” Lancer argued, punctuating with a flurry of kicks that had Arcana’s vents hissing as her frame tried to forcibly cycle air and clamp down against damage at the same time. “So, where do you want to go?”

“I haven’t looked into them yet.” she fibbed. She hadn’t even opened the attached list of potential vacation spots, so it wasn’t technically lying to say she hadn’t looked into them. “Galebreach Convoy sent me some transfer datawork, I’ve been making sure it’s all done correctly.”

“Arcana.” Lancer scolded, actually straightening from her ready crouch. “You’re supposed to be taking it easy!”

“And I am!” Arcana stood up as well, stepping in to catch both of Lancer’s hands in her own. “I’m taking things one at a time, I promise. Hammering out details on where I’ll teach is on hold until I get through this datawork, and Galebreach Convoy is refusing to give me more files until I finish what I’ve got.”

“Well at least one of you two has some sense.” Lancer grumbled. “But still!”

“I know, I know.” Arcana bent to kiss her partner atop the helm, then again on the lips when Lancer leaned up for it. “I haven’t forgotten about the vacation, I promise. You know I hate leaving things half-done.”

“Unless it’s housework.” Lancer slipped a hand free to poke at one of Arcana’s side seams, making her squeak. “How many times have you skived off to go do data sorting and left the rest of us to finish?”

“Those were for important Primely duties.” Arcana huffed, and Lancer laughed, tugging her down for another sweet kiss.

“You’re such a dork.” Lancer grinned, gripping Arcana’s hands. “And we love you that way. But you’ve got to stop spending all your time working, darling. I swear, if not for being your designated aft-kicker, I’d see you less now than I did when you were Prime!”

“I was holding my own.” Arcana couldn’t help but argue.

“When I’m holding back.” Lancer’s optics glinted. “But, if I went all out on you, I’d have to deal with an angry medic, and I value having all my bolts properly tightened.”

Lancer turned, and Arcana slid a pede forwards into her path, making her partner trip and stumble, though she managed to recover rather than fall flat on her face. “You little scraplet!” she yelled, and Arcana laughed, holding up her arms as a defense against her partner’s swats.

One thing at a time, one day at a time. She’d get to the vacation destinations list eventually.

---

“Wind- sorry, Galebreach?”

Arcana looked up from the datapad her amica had given her, and cycled her optics at the sight of two more of her partners standing in the doorway to the Prime’s office.

“Is it that late already?” Galebreach Convoy asked rhetorically. Anode and Lug wouldn’t swing by unannounced unless Galebreach expected them, which meant their late-afternoon appointment had already arrived.

“Yeah, it is.” Lug said, clambering onto the chair opposite the desk from where Galebreach sat. “So how come Arcana’s here?”

“Yeah, you were supposed to be in and out.” Anode frowned, leaning on the back of Lug’s chair and keeping it from hovering all the way up to comfortable conversational height. “What happened to helping GC here with just a few transitional datapads?”

“We’ve only gotten through four of them.” Arcana groaned, leaning back in her chair.

“But those were the heftiest ones.” Galebreach Convoy pointed out. “All that’s left now are the little finnicky ones that have to get approved outside of my direct office.”

“You were here doing this instead of, y’know, taking time with your family, like you said you’d do?” Anode asked sharply, and Arcana winced.

“The time got away from me.” she mumbled, though it sounded weak even to her own audials.

“We oughtta set a minder on you.” Lug muttered, and Galebreach had the gall to giggle.

“Your partners have a point, Arcana.” she said, her tone gentle, teasing, familiar in a way few mechs outside of her amica and her family dared to be with her, even now that she was retired from being Prime. “The rest of the transfer datawork can wait, you should be spending time with your family.”

“Instead of spending time with you?”

“Datawork is not a girls’ night.” Galebreach scolded, flicking her on the nasal ridge. “I appreciate spending time with you, Arcana, but your partners do have a point that we tend to fixate on work, rather than simply enjoying each other’s company.”

Arcana grumbled, but when Lug managed to swat Anode into taking a seat of her own and the three of them started to talk Cityspeaker business, she took that as her cue to leave. Everyone in the building still recognized her, a few even moved to salute before remembering she’d retired, and Arcana chuckled to herself as she walked out into the afternoon light. Since her frame hadn’t reverted, and she foresaw herself spending quite a bit of time in Galebreach’s office with her amica, it would likely be at least a vorn before everyone consistently remembered that she was retired.

A new comm message pinged on her HUD, and she opened it as she folded down into altmod, luxuriating a bit in the stretch after spending most of the day at a desk.

GC◆: You’ve been saying you want to take a break for a while now. You should do it. Spend time with your family. I’ll have plenty of datawork for you to help with after.
GC◆: Just don’t tell your partners that’s your idea of a girls’ night ◇

---

“Up.”

Arcana yelped as a strong hand wrapped around her upper arm, and only the spark-deep familiarity of the accompanying field kept her from lashing out at the femme hauling her out of her desk chair. “Aileron?” she cycled her optics, looking down at her partner. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on is you missed the dinner bell. Three times.” Aileron planted her hands on her hips and directed a powerful scowl up at Arcana, the disappointment in her field so thick it felt like it was creeping under Arcana’s plating. “Come on.”

“Aileron, I-”

Aileron silenced her with a ‘bup’, then more as she tried again, until finally her partner turned around and glared up at her again. “You are not taking your fuel back to your office. You are going to sit down at the table with the rest of our family and actually spend time with us!”

“I spend time with you!”

“You do chores in the same room, then you go hide in your office. Every. Day.” Aileron fired back without hesitation. “You’re supposed to be retired, Arcana! What happened to taking it easy, taking a break? What about that vacation you still haven’t picked a destination for?”

Arcana opened her mouth, but found her vocaliser queue empty. “It... slipped my processor?”

“Table. Now.” Aileron said, and Arcana walked next to her partner the rest of the length of the house. The dining room smelled wonderful, an extra-large dish of iron filing casserole shimmering with heat in the middle of the table, surrounded by various side dishes. Enough food to feed a unit, or her entire family. All of her partners were at the table, listening raptly to Sideswipe the Second telling a story of some trouble she’d gotten into since she was last on Cybertron.

“Look who emerges from her datawork.” Aileron said, when Sideswipe hit a lull in the story, and everyone turned to look at her.

Arcana had been a Prime for millennia; she could lead troops, give speeches, negotiate with interstellar cohabitation leaders and aliens alike. But the combined focus of her family had her shying away, plating fluffing and clamping down in waves as her shoulders crept up around her audials.

“Hi, mom!” Sideswipe beamed, giving a jaunty wave. “I helped Gauge make dinner!”

“That’s why the ferro-cupric mix is a whip instead of chunks tonight.” Gauge smirked at her sister. “Someone forgot how much they need to be smashed, and it was the only way to rescue the powdery mess.”

“I said sorry.” Sideswipe whined, and a dull Clunk signalled that one of the girls had kicked the other in the shin.

“Bits.” Aileron said firmly, taking a seat and gesturing for Arcana to take the one remaining. At the head of the table, because her family were all absolute slaggers when they put their processors to it.

“So... I heard Auntie Windblade is Auntie Galebreach now.” Sideswipe said, once everyone began serving themselves. “How’d that happen? We only get, like, half the story for anything on Earth. Haven’t gotten a secure enough comm line set up to get all the details on things yet.”

“It was... an eventful day.” Arcana muttered, rubbing the plating where she’d been shot.

“There was a firefight.” Gauge stage-whispered.

“I got to put the fear of Solus in some mechs.” Anode boasted, to Sideswipe’s clear delight.

Between the lot of them, they managed to relay the full story, including the injury Arcana had suffered, and how only recently had she been fully cleared by her medic. “This dork has been doing basically nothing but datawork since she retired, though.” Greenlight teased, swinging a leg towards Arcana and brushing a heel against her shin. “I’m starting to think the only way to get you to take a break is to slap you in stasis cuffs and toss you on a shuttle while you’re recharging!”

“It’d work better than talking to her, that’s for sure.” Lancer snorted.

“You were planning a family vacation and didn’t tell me?” Sideswipe gasped, pressing a hand over her spark.

“Hey, I asked where you’d like to go!” Gauge kicked her sister under the table again, and Sideswipe kicked back.

“I’m... I’m sorry I haven’t been prioritizing you all.” Arcana mumbled, optics dropping to her fuel. A delicious meal, for their Sideswipe home from Earth, and she hadn’t even known Sides was going to be on-planet. “It just seems like there’s always something that needs to be done, even if I take it one piece at a time... it never stops.”

“You could start with handling things in the order you get them, unless it’s time-sensitive.” Lug chimed in. “You’ve been pushing that vacation planning list to the bottom of the stack for how long, now?”

“Since I got it.” Arcana grimaced.

“We miss you.” Greenlight said, resting a hand on Arcana’s. “Take a break, Arcana. Take a vacation with us, all of us. Unwind, and come back ready to start that teaching job refreshed and relaxed.”

“I still have to finalize my datawork for that.” Arcana grimaced. She’d have to redo the entire form she’d been filling out when Aileron grabbed her, the data had likely corrupted with her rapid disengagement and would certainly have timed out by the time she finished her fuel.

“It can wait.” Anode said, and Arcana looked aside.

“I wanna go on a family vacation!” Sideswipe said, practically bouncing in her seat. “It’s been ages since we got to do anything with all of us together, someone’s always busy.”

“Usually Arcana.” Lancer muttered, then winced as she received at least two kicks for that. “It’s true!”

“Still rude.” Gauge stuck her nasal ridge in the air, but only for a moment before turning her optics back to Arcana. “Please? I wanna spend time with you again! We can go somewhere with a little kitchen, and I’ll make this really fun looking breakfast recipe, and-”

“Or!” Sideswipe shoved a hand in her sister’s face, optics bright. “Or, you an’ me could make up those huge bags of trail fuel like you taught me, and we can get a bunch of snacks, and rent a big shuttle, and go see a bunch of cool slag!”

“Doesn’t spending the entire time travelling sort of defeat the point of a vacation?” Aileron frowned.

“The humans call it a road trip.” Sideswipe said sagely. “People do it in the summer, they drive down to... wherever, and stop at a bunch of kitchy little places on the way, and get souveniers like silly hats and fridge magnets!”

“We go anywhere ‘kitchy’ and this one’s gonna try to make off with whatever she can fit in her subspace, just to see if she can.” Lug chuckled, jabbing a thumb at Anode.

“Lies and slander.” Anode huffed. “I’d go for whatever I could fit in the shuttle.”

“You are so lucky none of us have ever been the type to snitch on you to the enforcers.” Lancer sighed, rolling her optics at the well-worn joke. “I’m not entirely sold on this ‘road trip’ idea, honestly. I’d prefer a resort, or maybe a week in the wilds.”

“I mean... I have a lot of time off banked.” Sideswipe grinned, mischievous as her namesake ever was. “Why choose from our list of places, when we could go visit all of them? A weekend at a resort, a few nights on some uninhabited moon, bounce by Caminus to see the museums...”

“And.” Gauge added in, beaming a megawatt-smile. “Being in a little shuttle with each other means Mom can’t hide away to do datawork!”

“I’ll text my coworkers.” Sideswipe blurted, whipping an interplanetary personal comm from her subspace. “Gotta put in for time off and ask how many of them can lend me their party games.”

“You’re... really enthusiastic about this.” Arcana said slowly, and Sideswipe looked up from the screen in her hands to give her a perplexed look.

“Um, yeah? Who wouldn’t be stoked as pit to spend time with their family?”

Arcana sighed a heavy ex-vent. “Be grateful you never met my brother.”

“You have a brother?!” the girls gasped, and Aileron only nominally tried to hide her laughter.

“Had.” she corrected them. “And he was... not a good person. We fought on opposite sides.” she frowned at her fuel for a moment. “If he was still alive, I wouldn’t want him anywhere near you two.”

“What, no worry for the rest of us?” Greenlight teased.

“The rest of you are veteran Autobots who could at the very least hold your own until I arrived to kick his aft.” Arcana took a bite of her iron filing casserole. “This is quite good, Gauge. New mineral mix?”

The girls, thankfully, took the topic change without complaint, and Gauge happily began talking about her various fuel prep experiments, only some of which had explosive results, literally or metaphorically.

“You know, I’m glad this worked.” Lancer said, stretching her arms over her helm as Sideswipe helped clear away dirty dishes and Aileron went into the kitchen to retrieve dessert.

“Glad what worked?” Arcana glanced at her partner.

“The plan to get your aft our of your office and on a vacation.” Lancer said glibly. “My backup plan was literally cuffing you in recharge and not waking you until we got offworld.”

“I was about ready to ask Galebreach Convoy to fake a distress signal for us to answer.” Aileron joked, bustling back in with a massive bowl of mercury-gallium mousse with magnesium flakes sprinkled on top.

“Galebreach would not fake a distress signal.” Arcana shook her helm.

“For you?” Anode raised an optic ridge. “She’s your amica, she’s on our side here.”

“Problem was, we couldn’t think of a way to have them call for all of us that sounded natural.” Aileron shrugged. “It would’ve worked, though.”

“It would have.” Arcana chuckled. “You all know me too well.”

“I should hope so.” Lug scoffed. “What sorta partners would we be if we didn’t?”

“Still better ones than I’ve been, of late.” Arcana admitted, and Aileron leaned in to kiss her cheek before taking her seat again.

“Hey.” Greenlight reached over to knock her knuckles against Arcana’s forearm. “You get lost in your work, we all know that. We wouldn’t’ve bonded with you if we weren’t willing to deal with it.”

“Sometimes dealing with it is a conversation over a spar, sometimes it’s a family dinner.” Lancer shrugged, serving herself a scoop of mousse.

“Sometimes it’s a Prime-sanctioned abduction or a fake mission with the parameters of ‘relax for once, you dork’ or something like that.” Lug added with a grin.

“I still think the stasis cuffs idea had merit.” Anode served herself and Lug, then passed the spoon on.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to bringing a pair.” Arcana said, and Sideswipe sputtered so hard she nearly fumbled the serving spoon right into the bowl of mousse.

“Mom!”

“You’re a grown femme.” Arcana smiled, plucking the spoon from Sideswipe’s hand and scooping up a serving with plenty of magnesium. “I’m sure you’ve experimented a bit yourself, by now.”

“Yeah, but I don’t go telling you and Gauge about it!”

“Uh, yeah you do.” Gauge wrinkled her nasal ridge, and held up her bowl for a scoop of dessert. “You always comm me when something goes sideways and you want advice.”

“Oh that’s not always.” Sideswipe said, stuffing a spoonful of mousse in her mouth, then going for the shaker of oxidized copper bearings. “That’s just when neither of us wanna ask our coworkers.”

“Wait, you’re seeing someone?” Greenlight asked, optics flaring. “Who?!”

“It’s not like it’s serious.” Sideswipe whined. “We’re just fragbuddies.”

“Bit, do you have any idea how long I was saying that about this bolt-brain?” Lug asked, jabbing a thumb at Anode.

“Fine, it’s nothing serious now.” Sideswipe grumbled, and Arcana smothered a laugh in a bite of dessert. She truly was lucky, to have not only a family who loved each other but one which loved her enough to ensure she stayed a part of it.