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He stepped into the security room with a feeling of oppressive sorrow. He’d known it was coming when the Primes had given the orders to dismantle the Ark and repurpose the materials that were usable into other things. He’d known that they had to take down all the monitors in the security room and strip all the recording devices for usable chips and wires—orders were orders after all.
He’d known, but it didn’t make that empty chair any easier to see.
It’s Tuesday. Red would have been keeping an extra optic on Sunstreaker because he was always paired with a minibot for patrol on Tuesday. He ran his through the dust on the back of the chair sadly. Red would never have let this room get so dirty. He would have had sideswipe in here with a toothbrush before letting it get to this.
He moved away from the chair to the monitoring console. Like the rest of the room, it was covered in dust, but he could still see scratches in the metal from the time he and Red had interfaced against it until neither of them could stand. Prowl’s reprimand when he had caught them basking in the afterglow had been worth it, just to see that look of peaceful contentment on Red’s face.
His intakes hitched at that memory. Red and Prowl were both gone, now.
“Inferno?” The voice behind him was soft. “You okay?”
He turned to look at Sideswipe—funny how he had just been thinking about the red Twin—in surprise. He hadn’t realized anyone else had followed him into this part of the ship.
“I’m…” He cut off the lie before it could even form. “No. I’m definitely not okay.”
Sideswipe moved to his side, putting a hand on his back. The motion was meant to be comforting, he was sure, but he couldn’t find any support in it for some reason. “You don’t have to do this, you know. Eject and I can handle it.”
He shook his head, even as fresh pain stabbed at his spark. “No. I have to. Red would have wanted his equipment handled carefully, all the way til the end.”
“Sure. I get it.” The red Twin held up a package of cleaning cloths and some scrub brushes. “You don’t have to do it alone, though.”
For the first time in a long time, Inferno smiled.