Disclaimer: I do not own them. I just play with them.

A/N: I got the idea for this story after finding a community in livejournal for plot bunnies. So, sadly the idea doesn't even belong to me. Like always, tell me of any mistakes you find and I will fix them as soon as I can.

(Past)

The first one to find the ghastly sight was a merchant. He was a promising mech that had sadly started as a black market trader. He wasn't proud of it, though he never denied his skill in matters not quite legal. For a mech built to spend his existence as a gladiator, he had fought against all odds to get out of there. To make a living that didn't involve violence. Just him and his brother. It wasn't much, but it was enough for the both of them.

He managed to straighten up as much as he could after his business finally paid off, but he could never leave that life completely… At least not with the amount of information and contacts he'd gathered over the years. The only reason he'd been traveling through that place was because he, once again, found himself in charge of delivering a cache of modified weapons to a small group of protesters.

Sideswipe had left the killing in the past, but even he had to admit Megatron made a lot of sense with those speeches of his. It didn't surprise him that some of the mechs hearing him would start getting violent. Or at least start talking about getting all violent. Most mechs liked to talk big but they didn't actually deliver. Now if they'd been from Kaon he would've felt more troubled about it, but Sideswipe was not one to feel fear easily, least of all by a small group of aristocratic mechs playing low-model rebel.

"Holy Primus!"

Maybe he should've suspected something because the sight that appeared in front of his optics suddenly had him regretting selling those weapons. It had been a massacre. Why would they bother to kill them when it was obvious they carried nothing of value? Everyone knew that the traveling clans made a living of begging or performing for fuel and never carried anything any civilized mech could consider valuable. Not even energon.

"What happened here?"

Yet, the ground littered with the gray bodies and dried mech fluid told of an entire clan being killed in a single night in the outskirts of Iacon. Too far away for anyone to flee to the city for help, but not so far that the horrible crime could remain uncovered. This couldn't be done by the mechs he sold the weapons this time, but what about before? Was he somehow connected to this? Was death all he could ever bring to Cybertron?

He stood there, red and black against a sea of gray. It had been a big clan, maybe eighty mechs and five or six sparklings that he could see. They could've been considered a walking city in itself. A small city, but a city nonetheless and not one survivor in sight.

A cry had him active in less than a second. It wasn't very far, but it was faint. A survivor! Sideswipe began moving the bodies into a pile, desperately hoping to find the one alive before he turned silent.

"Hold on! I'm here! I'll find you, just hold on!"

How much time he spent dragging the dead and searching through the makeshift tents the clans set up for recharging he didn't know. Cybertron's lack of sun and long dead moons were of no help to distinguish the cycles and he had more important things to do. Like find that slagging survivor. It would take him some time to realize that the cries had stopped and there was only silence.

"Hello! Answer me! Say something! Come on!"

He kept adding bodies to the pile and as the mountain grew his hopes of finding whoever had been calling for help diminished. He sighed as he glanced with unseeing optics at the fragile-looking body of a mech curled up as if protecting something. Maybe another dead sparkling… Primus he couldn't take much more of it.

He grabbed the arm of the corpse to drag to the pile and with a sharp tug the body unfurled. From his arms, a small bundle fell on the ground… and a strangled cry of surprise and pain had the red mech hurrying to the bundle.

"Primus! Shhh…. It's okay. It's okay."

A sparkling! A Primus fragging sparkling! Sideswipe took off the polishing rags covering it and held the sparkling at arm's length. The small black and white sparkling made a weak sound of protest at being held that way and squirmed. Sideswipe couldn't help but laugh and pulled it close to him. He recognized that tone! It had been this little thing crying all along.

"So it was you! Said I would find you, didn't I? You're a very strong sparkling, aren't ya?"

The sparkling in question was depleted. It had spent more time than it was healthy without fuel. Crying for those that had taken care of it to the point of death. Sideswipe felt the little one falling into recharge as soon as he held it close to his chassis.

"Tired, eh? Well, don't get too comfortable. I'll drop you off with the first mech responsible to take care of this mess."

It was an awkward hold, the little one sporting a set of panels behind its back. Sideswipe had noticed that most of the clan had door wings. To him, the panels were in their place until the little thing had at least one or two body upgrades.

He glanced at the pile of dead mechs and then at the recharging sparkling. Guilt still pulsed in his spark and he vowed to never again sell another weapon to anyone. If his contacts didn't like it, then they could send him to jail. He'd make sure to get them in there with him.

"For what it's worth, little one, I never meant to cause you any pain. I never wanted anyone else to die. Not anymore."

There was nothing left in the place he found the sparkling. No datapads. No ID chips. Nothing except the corpse of the mech that had held it and the pieces of used polishing cloths that had kept the sparkling unseen to whoever had done this.

"What am I supposed to call you? You can't be Thing forever, can't ya? Who am I talking to? You're deep in whatever it is you sparklings dream off."

The thing squirmed to get comfortable in the awkward hold and Sideswipe felt a small smile coming to his lip components. A smile that faded as soon as he finally studied the small Cybertronian and realized there were graying spots on the panels on its back. Without thinking twice, Sideswipe left the dead clan and hurried back to Iacon, hoping that the little one had enough strength to survive for a while longer.

"Don't worry. I'll take care of you. Always, ya hear? Just hold on a little longer. We can make it. We'll be alright."

He briefly wondered what Sunstreaker's reaction would be like when he arrived with a sparkling, but Sideswipe knew he couldn't leave it. He didn't spend a day among the dead looking for it, only to leave it under the care of some strange mech he didn't know. Sideswipe only trusted two mechs in his life besides himself: Sunstreaker and Wheeljack, the crazy inventor that lived next door. And he wasn't going to leave a sparkling with a mech whose limbs had to be reattached every day or so.

"I can't keep calling ya Thing. How 'bout Flit? Or Covert… Hmm… Whatever, I'll wait until you online and tell me your designation or get bored and call you whatever comes first to the CPU."