binary_runaway | NOVA STORM'S BEST AND GREATEST INBOX

You've never found a hidey-hole we couldn't both fit into.

[skywarp sounds confident in this, tone firm. she's already moving, because of course she is. now that she's had enough of an outlet for all her own rage, she's getting better at pushing everything that upsets her into that same box that she put all her feelings about having to debase themselves by working with mandroid.

it is also very cathartic to throw bricks at megatron and optimus daily.]

You get about five minutes before I've checked all the usual spots or anywhere I think you might be. Make the most of them.

[Nova doesn't respond verbally or through the bond that's still slammed closed on her end. Instead, she activates her jet boots and moves from her cubby to wedge herself into a functionally identical one except this is a much tighter squeeze. If she'd still had her wings, she would not have fit]

[When she does speak, her voice is still cracked and breaking apart]

Fast forward the instant replay, me. Not in those places.

Uh huh. Keep pushing me, me. You think if you couldn't get rid of me after four million years, you'd do it now?

[if nova cares to track skywarp's movement through scanning, she'll see that she's very quickly closing in on her through either sheer luck, tenacity, knowledge or all of the above.]

I'm not losing you to whatever the hell is going on. So don't try it.

[Nova has in fact checked, and wishes she hadn't. She turns her face into the side of her hidey-hole and shudders out hitched vents. When she speaks again, her voice is relatively even except for the part where she sniffs again at the end]

How come nobody ever believes me when I say it's fine, everything is fine. [She sniffed again, and okay maybe she was somewhat less than fine because she admitted to a fear she usually kept smothered deep down in her spark in a locked and buried chest] ...My fault. If you hadn't followed me out of the aerie, you wouldn't be in this mess.

'Cause you're a scrappy liar and you always have been.

[skywarp hasn't located her directly, but she can probably see her flying in a large arc around the ship now, occasionally teleporting around, firing missiles at a couple errant rocks.]

I chose to follow you, you gigantic dumb yellow idiot. Don't you dare take that away from me, not when we had so much else stolen from us by other people.

[Skywarp gets another hitched vent and a muttered sound that was probably meant to be in the neighborhood of "Am not" right before she gave her hiding spot a kick that would've loudly clanged and alerted Nova's twin to her position if sound traveled through the vacuum of space]

...Okay. Okay, fine. It was your choice. Doesn't mean I can't-

[Another kick and this time, even though it was still silent, it was hard enough that it made the antennae at the top of the plate she'd kicked start to wobble]

Think it stinks. Think we should've had more than other half grown seekers in that stupid, stinky army led by that stupid, stinky idiot.

[KICK, and an even more pronounced wobble]

No, it was my choice. Don't make it about you. [she hisses, trying to get through nova's fog by accusing her of the one thing she knows her sister hates to be accused of. regardless of whether she is or not, it should still serve as a jolt back to reality.] There was a lot that should've been different, but it wasn't.

[skywarp generally tries to avoid getting caught up in the what ifs and who could've and i should've, as nova does. it is simply a dichotomy in their thought processes, as skywarp not doing this means she doesn't always see the bigger picture and accepts things as they are rather than how they can be better.]

Hmm. Target located.

[Nova Storm's next words clog in her throat and she presses back into the hull at her back, optics going wide] I didn't- Not for you- [But, yes, that does serve to slice into the knot built up around her spark enough for Nova to heave in, and heave out a vicious swear, although this time she doesn't even know what about. Everything, maybe]

[Another kick, another wobble, and target acquired]

[Nova jerks and looks up for the first time, lowering one arm where it had crept up to grab her helm. She thinks about running again, then just vents out a resigned sigh that doesn't sting this time and shifts to hold out her arms, instead of curling in on herself]

Fine. Fine, you found me, like always. Get in here before I change my mind, already.

[there's a flash of red lighting and there she is, though she doesn't come extremely close to nova, just floats lazily in space a few feet away.]

Are you going to tell me why you're doing this?

[she could guess. but she wants words.]

[Nova just looks back at Skywarp for a few seconds, then slowly draws her arms back and over her head, curling up tight except to snap out another vicious kick at the curve of the ship, then another and another and another and-]

I- It-

[Nova heaves in a vent and expels heat in a shudder that wants to be a sob but comes out as a snarl]

It's my own stupid head going around in circles about things I don't know how to fix and can't talk about cause I'm a stupid bird and-

[another and another and another and-]

When I figure it out I'll make those things burn for making me feel this way, helpless and pathetic and-

[another and another and]

[she stays lazing around, only pulling nova back from kicking the ship by her shoulder, then whaps her upside the head. not gently, either, but not hard enough to dent.]

Get it together. [she doesn't say this angrily, though, as she's genuinely trying to pull nova out of a spiral.] Tell me what you can talk about.

[Nova grunts at the smack, but not out of pain or even as a protest, but simple acknowledgement. She huffs and lowers her arms, but keeps her optics aimed at the ship instead of her sister so she won't be tempted to say things that'll just end up getting trapped between her teeth and tongue, anyway. She's tried before]

Isn't great, [she mutters, plating rustling silent in the vacuum out of discomfort. Then she pauses, optics narrowing. Maybe she could dance around it...?]

...Y'know how with Mandroid, we used to- [They'd had a system with each other for if that idiot tried anything with the other, different movements and blinking patterns in their biolights from their twin language, but even saying this much twists tight in her chest. Nova averts her face with a frustrated snarl, so Skywarp doesn't see her wince. Stupid Antlers and his stupid, stupid compulsions]

[She kicks the ship again, hard, and gets a certain vicious satisfaction that she dents whatever is holding up that antennae]

[not fully understanding why nova has stopped suddenly, skywarp responds in positive in their language, then tilts her head with an inqusitive chirp. is this something that will work? she won't know until nova responds.]

[Nova sags back and lets her helm thunk silently against the hull behind her, easing out a vent before responding back in their twin language of biolights and chirps]

Compromised. Can't say it.

[her expression twists suddenly, as she knows who it is. who else could it be, but the mech she saw stab nova and who whatever it is he did to her spark-- and all the incompetents on the ship let him get away with it. growling, skywarp buries her fist in the ship wall next to nova.]

I know who it is. I don't care if you have to tell him I know. His sloppy work is going to undo him again.

[turning back to nova, her optics narrow.]

You stop blaming yourself for this right now. This is his fault, not yours. If you blame yourself and run away like this then he wins.

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