Loved

-o-o-o-o-o-

There was no hiding or mistaking of what had happened when the rescue team found Huffer imprisoned in the Constructicons' base of operations. He lay halfway across a table, bolted face-down to it, legs and aft dangling. The panel covering his interface array had been forced open and bent back. The spattering of dried fluids down his legs and congealed across the floor testified to what sort of treatment he'd been receiving.

Swoop quickly cut the bolts with a hotknife while Grimlock and Mirage stood guard. Jazz came around to the front where the minibot's head lolled on the table, half-shadowed by his cowl. "Huffer? Huffer you there?"

The mech awoke with a scream, one that cut short on seeing a blue visor staring in at him.

"It's okay. It's me, Jazz."

"Jazz? Oh Primus. Just leave me," said the mech in a terrified voice, not the usual tone of someone about to be rescued. "I can't go back. Not after what's happened," he said weakly.

"You'll be fine. You can be repaired," Jazz assured him.

"I can't. They've gone too far. They..." His optics offlined and his head thunked against the table. "Leave me. Please."

"How are you coming with those bolts there, Swoop?" Jazz asked, looking around the cowl.

"Half done," squawked the Dinobot. Somewhere along the line Wheeljack had noticed the Dinobot had an aptitude for mechanical things and had started him in on some basic tool training. Medical training had followed.

Jazz gripped Huffer's hand and gave it a squeeze. "We're going to get you out of here and get you home."

"Don't. Just get yourselves out of here before they capture you and you end up like me," he sobbed, the usual whine of his voice missing.

"They're not going to. Just hang in there. We're going to get you home."

"I can't go back!"

"Last bolt," announced Swoop. "Him Huffer nearly free."

"You are, and we're going to clean you up and fix everything."

"Done!" cried Swoop exultantly.

"Some things can't be repaired," sobbed Huffer.

"Grimlock!" Jazz barked. "Carry him back to the ship. Let's roll, people!"

The Dinobot leader lumbered over and picked up the orange minibot as if Huffer were a discarded doll and slung him over a shoulder. As the others hustled out, Jazz withdrew a bomb from his subspace and placed it beneath the table. "Two breems everyone before that goes off."

-o-o-o-o-o-

On the shuttle Jazz and Swoop did their best to attend to the engineer's wounds, the minibot now in stasis. He'd been beaten and raped repeatedly over the days since his capture. His data ports were thick with burned carbon, the surest sign of a failed hacking.

"What they do to him?" asked Grimlock, staring curiously at the two mechs at work on the third.

Mirage, sitting next to Grimlock, looked up at the big warrior. "They touched him in a very bad way," he said diplomatically. "They hurt him inside, in a way that hurts your spark as well as your frame."

"Oh. That sounds bad."

"It's very bad."

"That why him Huffer not want rescue?"

"Yes. It hurts that much."

Grimlock sat thoughtfully, staring at the scene before him. "They touch him in delicate place? Him Ratchet say not let anyone touch delicate places. Him say that even though us strong, us have many places not safe to touch. Like not touch processors."

"Yes, essentially."

"Him Huffer broken in delicate place above legs," Swoop spoke up.

"Me Grimlock saw. Him Wheeljack said be very careful with that place."

"It is very delicate," agreed Mirage.

-o-o-o-o-o-

"I don't want to keep it," said Huffer. "I don't need another reminder of what happened there."

"Huffer, this isn't 'a reminder'. This is a living entity," said Optimus.

"Well I don't want it, whatever you want to call it. Just get it out of me!" Huffer snapped.

"I suggest you reconsider," answered Optimus. "You know how hard it is for any of us to conceive. And somehow you have despite the unfortunate circumstances."

Ratchet sighed. He'd known what would happen the moment the scans had reported Huffer being sparked. Unfortunate circumstances was putting it mildly. How could Optimus be so callous?

"Ratchet, talk some sense into him," said Optimus. "I'll be in my office." He turned and departed.

Huffer hissed some unsavory things about the Autobot leader, which Ratchet had to agree with. But then Ratchet and Huffer were left staring awkwardly at each other.

"You're not going to convince me to carry it," the small mech stated firmly.

Ratchet understood and truly felt sorry for Huffer. The minibot's experience with the Constructicons had been horrific. Normally in this situation a mnemosurgeon would be brought in if the victim wanted and the traumatic incident erased and forgotten. However, this was not a possibility. "I'm not going to try to," Ratchet stated calmly. "As much as we'd love to have a sparkling about, I will go with your wishes," he said gravely. "Due to regulations, I'll have to wait an orn before I can terminate the pregnancy, but I will if you still want me to when that time comes."

"An orn! Why an orn?"

"Standard regulation whenever any mech wishes to terminate an unwanted sparkling."

"This isn't a standard case, Ratchet!" Huffer spat. "I was captured by the 'Cons, bolted to a table, and raped I don't know how many times. They forced themselves into my valve. They forced themselves into my spark. They tried to hack my processors but couldn't."

"I know. But there are regulations I have to follow. Come back in an orn... thirteen days, and I'll take care of it right away."

"Fine," Huffer sighed.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Word went out about what happened, some of officially, some of it unofficially. It was decided it was best that everyone on the Ark knew, first in hopes that Huffer would change his mind about the new life he carried, and second as a warning of what might happen when captured by the enemy. Perhaps it was only the Constructicons who would do such a brutal thing, but certainly any of the Decepticons were capable.

Huffer went about his work glumly, no one really addressing the issue at first. A great number of the crew were unusually kind to him. But after a few days, suddenly the encouragment to keep the sparkling began. "You don't have to raise it alone," or "You'll make a great carrier," and "It's a gift from Primus" were phrases he heard far too often much to his disgust. A few of his fellow mechs even offered to act as the sparkling's sire to avoid later questions or perhaps to overwrite the unfortunate origins of the child. Another few days and the unwanted kind words became more pressuring, telling him he was denying the cause or denying Primus himself if he refused to carry the bitlet to term. And nine days after his rescue, some of his fellow minibots, led by Bumblebee, cornered him in the rec room and basically insisted that he would be a bad mech if he opted for the abortion.

Angered and hurt and optics streaming tears, Huffer leapt to his feet and shouted angrily at them all. "Don't you understand!? Don't you know how much this hurts? Why should I have to carry a child that was created by hatred and violence? Why should I have to be a parent to a sparkling that will only remind me day after day of what happened back there!? Children are supposed to be conceived in an act of love, and there was no love there. I was forced. I was beaten and forced open when I wouldn't cooperate with them. I was violated in a dozen horrible ways, and you all want me to go on like this was the best thing that could ever happen to me and that Primus wanted me to become pregnant?"

The group of minibots drew back, aghast at Huffer's anger at their good intentions. Why couldn't he see how special it was that he was carrying, even if the means had been traumatic? How could he want to end the life of a new Autobot? His child would be an Autobot, regardless of the awkward siring. "But Huffer," began Bumblebee.

"I hate you all! You have no idea what it's like to be reminded of what happened everytime my systems give me updates on my status! And how am I supposed to move past what happened if the unfortunate result is right there all the time demanding that I love it?" Huffer turned and stomped for the door. "I'm going to Ratchet right now, and if he won't do it, I'll shoot myself through the gestation chamber. I'm not bluffing!"

The occupants of the rec room stared after him, some feeling sympathetic, some feeling the mech was still overreacting, some praying to Primus that Huffer would change his mind.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Huffer heard an engine behind him just as he turned into the corridor where the medbay was located, and suddenly Wheeljack, who'd been in the rec room, spun out in front of him and transformed. "Huffer, wait. Let me talk to you before you go in there," the fellow engineer pleaded.

"You're not going to talk me out of it. Get out of my way!" he said, dodging the larger mech.

"Wait, please, hear me out," Wheeljack begged, stepping into the orange mech's path again.

"My mind's made up. I have to do this."

"Please... One breem. That's all I'm going to ask. Please Huffer."

Huffer snarled. Admittedly, Wheeljack was one of the few Autobots aboard that he actually liked, one he might actually call a friend some days. "All right. You get one breem."

"Thank you," said Wheeljack, the engineer looking somewhat relieved. "We'll go in here," he said, unlocking one of the medbay's storage rooms across the hallway.

Huffer followed Wheeljack in, finding the room full of odd pieces of repair equipment, pieces rarely used but indispensable when needed. Apparently the overgrown storage closet was also something of a break room for the medical staff as well, for there were a few chairs clustered around a table in one corner, upon which sat a small energon dispenser and a collection of entertainment datapads. Wheeljack sat down and gestured to the chair next to him.

Huffer obliged grumpily. "One breem, starting now."

"Huffer, I'll try to make this quick. I'm not going to try to talk you into keeping the child. Ratchet told me he wasn't going to, and I agree with him. However, I want..." The engineer looked down at his hands and sighed. His train of thought changed direction. "Huffer, long before we left Cybertron, I was badly injured while defending Iacon. I took a bad hit. A really bad hit... here." He put a hand over his lower abdomen. "The medic working on me managed to save my life, but there were certain parts of me that couldn't be saved and weren't considered 'necessary.' I lost half of my valve and all of my gestation chamber."

"So you're saying that I should be grateful that I came home in one piece and that I should keep the child in gratitude to Primus and those that rescued me. Fine. Discussion over. I see your point but I'm not convinced." He began to get out of the chair but Wheeljack stopped him.

"That's not what I was saying. Please hear me out. I was going to ask... well..." Blue optics focused on the minibot amid the heavy whir of internal fans. "...If you'd let me have the child."

Huffer stared at the inventor. "What?"

"I... I was..." Wheeljack was fighting the rising emotion in himself. "When I was injured, I was carrying."

Huffer gasped.

"It wasn't just a matter of losing parts... I lost that little life inside of me. He was probably less than two orns from waking, but I'd already grown attached. He was one of those parts that was permanently lost."

"Oh Wheeljack. I never knew."

"Only a few of us do. Huffer, I'm asking if... if you really don't want to keep the sparkling, if I could have him. I know how much this whole thing has hurt you, and that you're bitter about your carrying and the way the others have treated you has been upsetting. But I just see a little mech-in-waiting who was forced into being and wants to live, and deserves a good life and someone to love him. I want to be that for him. I can't make you change your mind or order you to either. Not even Prime can do that. But I'm asking if you'd let this tragedy of yours make up for the one in my life."

Huffer stared at Wheeljack, who'd given up the struggle against his tears and was crying like no one had ever seen him cry before.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Huffer looked up from the drafting table as the door entered and Wheeljack and Pipes entered, Pipes in his robot mode sitting atop his father's chassis. With a joyful shout Pipes tumbled off of his father's alt-mode and the engineer transformed. The youngling reached up and took his hand, leading him over to their part of the workroom. "Are we going to work on the Autobot City gateworks today?" the child asked.

"You bet. Unless you want to go help Grapple with the residential buildings, or Red Alert with the security systems, or Huffer with the bridges, orrrrr..." Wheeljack opened up a subspace pocket. "These came in yesterday."

A package was pushed into Pipes' hands. He didn't open the mailing wrapper covering it, instead giving it a light shake. "More Kre-O blocks!" he squealed and ran for the table where he'd been building his own version of the city to come.

Grapple, busy at his drafting table with Hoist looking over his shoulder, chuckled. "You spoil him with the Earth toys."

"Those blocks are the only spoiling he gets," laughed Wheeljack, booting up the display at his workstation. "The rest of the time he suffers along with the rest of us."

Grapple and Hoist grinned as they watched the child enthusiastically rip open the packaging and then carefully open the box inside. "We aren't exactly suffering here on Earth."

"Not of late." Wheeljack sat down to begin work. This week he'd been working on a means to connect Metroplex seamlessly and comfortably to the rest of the city.

Huffer turned to watch the young mech studying the contents of his new box of building blocks, the studious look on his face betraying the depth of thought being applied to the contents. Even at this early stage of life the child was taking after his carrier, his sires, and his surrogate parent. He was considered a part of the Autobot City engineering team as much as any of the others were. Though young and inexperienced, the child had a gift with mechanical and constructive things.

Pipes had come out looking almost exactly like his carrier, though dark in color with bright chrome plating. After his emergence he'd been immediately placed in Wheeljack's arms, who then hurried away with the sparkling as if the reluctant Huffer might suddenly change his mind, and the two had been inseparable since. Wheeljack adored his adopted son, never once regretting his origins, loving the little mech with his whole spark. And Pipes loved him back with every flare of his own soul, sometimes to the point of clingyness as if he had a deep fear of being abandoned. And somehow, despite his connection to the child, Huffer failed to see any reminder of what had happened those few horrible, terrifying days. It was as if handing the living burden of his trauma and grief over to his fellow engineer as a replacement for the child Wheeljack had lost so tragically long before, had redeemed the tiny spark that pained him so much.

Somehow, in all the chaos and collision, two wrongs had become a right.

-o-

-o-o-o-

-o-o-o-o-o-

The End

-o-o-o-o-o-

-o-o-o-

-o-

Author Notes:

Canon & Fanon & Headcanon – This story fits in tightly with the canon and fanon, set in the years between G1 season two and the 1986 movie—one of my favorite places to write. I also have this headcanon about Wheeljack having a quiet obsession with creating and being a creator and the continuation of the Cybertronian species. My story "Sunset Dreams" is all about this (and one odd way he has of going about it). This theme is also comes up in another of my fics ("Found" if you're interested, though it's not been posted yet). Additionally I have a bit of a headcanon that Wheeljack and Pipes are somehow related. Another of my fics ("Found" again) has him as Wheeljack's little brother. As for Pipes' appearances, he shows up in two episodes, both after the 1986 movie, displaying mechanical skills but seeming a bit depressed and lonely in those few moments. Wheeljack was lost in the movie, in which case Pipe's apparent personality would make sense if they were close.

Pipes did get a bit more to do in the IDW comics—pretty much being one of the Lost Light's "redshirts." Poor little guy.

Huffer – I chose Huffer as the victim in this story even though he's not exactly popular and most readers wouldn't care about him one way or another. I myself was originally thinking Bluestreak or Skyfire in the role. But he's there because of how I wanted the story to end, and because Pipes' G1 appearance was essentially a recolor of Huffer. You can read more about this (and "Puffer") on the Tfwiki.

Grimlock & Swoop – I was writing the first scene fairly quickly and plugging in characters for the roles needing filling, and somehow Grimlock and Swoop fell into a couple of them. That's why they're part of the rescue team along with the special-ops guys. I love the fanon idea that Swoop becomes a medic, and the same that the Dinobots are more than the big dumb comic relief guys, or the "solve it by sending in the muscle" guys. They often fare better in the hands of fanfic authors than they did in the hands of the G1 scriptwriters.

Apology – Yes, it had to be Kre-O. Sorry Dad... I know you're the world's biggest LEGO fan, but... Hasbro, you know.

-o-o-o-o-o-

This was another story inspired by a kinkmeme prompt:

REQ: Any - Any/Any - Rape recovery, pregnancy, angst 2016-11-21 09:54 pm

I tend to see a lot fics where when a mech gets knocked up, they love the bit to pieces with a surrogate sire/their lover of choice. I want to turn that up on it's head:

Autobot if your choice is captured and raped. How it happens, heat cycle, torture, interrogation, etc, up to you. When they're inevitably rescued they find out their sparked.

AoYC spends a lot of time contemplating what to do with the spark, and their first choice is to terminate, because for them the newspark is a constant reminder of their trauma. The autobots, being a religious bunch, guilt and cajole the carrier into keeping the spark. This furthers the resentment for the sparkling from the carrier.

-o-o-o-o-o-