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Rattrap knew enough not to open his optics first.
When a bot couldn’t remember how he’d ended up offline, it was best to let all his systems boot up nice and easy, let all the error messages play across his processor.
Let the world wait a click.
But the pain hit hard anyway as soon as his sensors came back online. He rolled onto his side, groaning. He got the fuel tank error message about two clicks before his internals seized, convulsed, purged. His systems weren’t made to process water.
Finally cycling air instead of water, Rattrap flopped onto his back again.
“Will you remain among the living, then, vermin?”
Rattrap reluctantly let his optics come online, seeking the source of that gravely voice. Dinobot sat to his right, back against a rock, sword resting against his shoulder. “Apparently,” Rattrap croaked, water still glitching his vocalizer.
“Good,” came the reply. When Rattrap looked surprised, he added, “Optimus would not appreciate my bringing him a drowned rat.”
Rattrap smirked at that, “You’d miss my shiny skid plate and you know it.”
Dinobot just snorted. Rattrap took a few clicks to figure out where they were. Downriver. Not the river that ran under the Axalon. Some other river. In some rocky, sandy wasteland maybe a couple hundred kilometers west of base. They’d been scouting, or exploring, or whatever the Boss Monkey felt like calling it. Bonding time, for all Rattrap cared, Optimus’s last, last ditch effort to make Dinobot and Rattrap be civil with each other. Then, while they were marching through the Primus-forsaken desert, the fragging flyers had found them. Rattrap’s memory banks weren’t entirely clear on what had followed. He thought maybe they’d jumped off a cliff into the river.
“Did we... How did we get into the river?” he asked, still laying on his back.
“You were shot. We had no cover. I could not withstand fire from three enemies. I made a... tactical retreat,” Dinobot half-explained.
Rattrap gave him a skeptical look, “You jumped off the cliff. Into the river.”
“I was not certain how conscious you were at the time.”
Looking back at the alien-blue sky, Rattrap sighed, “Not very.” He let his processor run through it all again, let it sink in, then whispered, “I can’t believe you took me with you.”
He heard Dinobot shift a bit, uncomfortable maybe. No response came. Maybe there couldn’t be one - maybe Dinobot couldn’t believe it either. It was one thing for a Maximal to save his fallen friends, but the ex-Pred had proclaimed on numerous occasions that the fallen should be left behind. Rattrap had fallen, no doubt about it, but Dinobot had hauled his body over a cliff and then out of a river. What was that all about?
“Have you contacted home base?” Rattrap asked, steering the conversation back to the practical.
“Negative. While this region is relatively energon-free, we are too far from base for our communicators to function.” The warrior didn’t sound happy about it, either.
“So we’re on our own. Oh, joy.”
“Indeed.”
Rattrap rolled over to push himself up. His body protested, warnings flickering across his visuals, but he ignored them. He was not about to look feeble in front of Dinobot.
“Let’s get going. I’ve got no love for deserts,” Rattrap said.
As Dinobot stood, towering over the Maximal like always, he answered, “Nor for this wretched, backwater planet.”
Starting off east under the bright sun, Rattrap chuckled. They didn’t agree on much, but they did share a preference for Cybertron’s shining, metallic cityscapes. It was something, Rattrap supposed. They traded complaints for the better part of a megacycle while they walked. Too much water, no skyscrapers, plants, sand, hot sun, cold snow, lightning... Rattrap knew Dinobot wasn’t eager to return to their home, but that certainly didn’t mean he liked this rock.
Their path was slow-going. They might have been a couple hundred kilometers from home, but the terrain forced them up sand dunes and around buttes. If they’d been organic, it would have been easy to get lost amongst the sand. The sun slid west, their shadows stretched before them.
Rattrap had been marching along alright for someone who’d been shot and then nearly drowned only megacycles ago. At least, he thought so. His internal repairs had been hard at work, and one by one the little error messages had blinked out. Still, his transformation sequence kept returning bugs and his knee -
The knee gave out, sending Rattrap sprawling across the sand. He must have caught the damaged gear just right. “Slag,” he swore, pain shooting up his leg as he tried to stand again, forcing him back to his hands and knees, “Fragging no good piece a -”
A clawed hand appeared before him, interrupting his rant. He looked up to see Dinobot looking at him, not laughing. Not amused, not mocking, not condescending. The sincerity in Dinobot’s face was the only reason Rattrap didn’t start swearing at him too. Instead he just shook his head and pushed away the hand before flopping over. On his back again, where he’d started. Maybe he should have stayed down, he considered.
“We must keep moving,” Dinobot insisted.
“I took damage in my knee joint - don’t know if it’s from the shooting or the falling or what, but internal repairs haven’t been able to fix it. A gear must be misaligned or something.”
“Why did you not mention this earlier?” Dinobot growled.
“Well excuse me if I didn’t wanna be a sparkling about it - it was working just fine til now,” Rattrap spit back.
Dinobot frowned but didn’t rise to the bait. He was being oddly patient, Rattrap thought. “Fine. It would be slower, but we may be able to continue if you transform.”
Rattrap’s face fell at that. He’d been hoping transformation wouldn’t come up, but now he’d have to admit that was broken, too. “No can do, Chopper face.”
“Useless vermin,” Dinobot hissed, frustrated.
“Hey! If you wanted to get home tonight you shoulda left me in the slagging river,” Rattrap threw back. Not that he wanted to give Dinobot any ideas. “Trust me, I would love to be able to transform. But it ain’t gonna happen right now.”
“Will your transformation sequence be able to repair itself? Or will you require a CR chamber before you can transform again?” Dinobot inquired.
Rattrap shook his head, “I’m not sure yet. It keeps returning bugs, but internal repairs haven’t given up yet, so it’s possible it’ll just take more time. I’m not feeling lucky, though.”
The ex-Pred clearly considered leaving the Maximal - Rattrap could see it on his face - and Rattrap wasn’t sure what conclusion he’d come to when he transformed and said, “I’m going to look for a place to take shelter for the night, then. Let us hope time is all you need, or that the others come looking for us.”
“And what am I supposed to do?”
Dinobot smirked, “Try not to attract vultures. Or Predacons.”
Rattrap rolled his eyes, “Gee. Thanks.”
Dinobot took off over the nearest sand dune. Unlike Rattrap’s beast mode, his was fast, and surprisingly well-suited to the desert. The raptor liked the heat.
*
Rattrap lay in the warm sand, staring at the deepening blue of the late afternoon sky. If Dinobot had returned at this moment, he would have accused Rattrap of napping. But the Maximal was trying to trace down the bugs in his transformation sequence, to speed along his internal repairs. After a few attempts, he managed to untangle one knot, then another, but the next knot was even bigger. It felt like some unholy combination of water and sand smeared across his circuits. He couldn’t clean anything out in this desert, though, not with all this fragging sand just waiting to invade his systems.
At least, he thought, his grays and browns didn’t stand out much against the dull-colored desert. The Pred flyers would have to be paying attention to find him. That’s why he’d chosen the rat in the first place: subtle, made for this place, for all places.
Against his better judgment, Rattrap made a second attempt at getting off his back since getting dragged out of the river. Nothing swooped down or fired on him as he sat up, so he counted himself lucky for the moment. As he scanned the bright, empty horizon, the Maximal’s thoughts turned toward Dinobot. Rattrap could guess why he’d chosen his raptor form. It was sleek, and dangerous all on its own. It could be covert if necessary, but there was nothing sneaking or scurrying about it. Like the rat, Dinobot’s raptor was highly efficient. Unlike the rat, what the raptor was efficient at was tearing things to pieces.
Rattrap shuddered at the thought of those teeth and claws, turned his attention to his knee. He tried to shake the former Predacon out of his thoughts, but the broken joint afforded him few distractions. It was easy enough to see that something was out of alignment, but just as obvious that without tools or a clean work environment he couldn’t do much about it. Still... What if that slagger didn’t come back? Or the Preds beat him to it? Rattrap needed his leg. He pulled out the tools he had on hand and slid open the knee cap to see what he could manage. With one of his sturdier lock picks and a screwdriver, he shut off his pain sensors in his knee - Primus, that felt better - and started shifting wires and cables aside looking for the problem.
He’d been right about the sand. Every time the breeze blew tiny grains were finding their way inside. He’d have to be quick. Ah-ha! There it was: the primary gear in the joint had been knocked off its axis. Probably by the fall, Rattrap figured. He was surprised he’d gotten this far on it. Gently, he nudged it back into place so its cogs fit smoothly between its neighbors. No sign of energon leakage, no snapped wires. The joint would be weak until it was properly repaired, but it might hold his weight now. Rattrap did his best to blow the sand out of his knee, squirting in a little extra oil to take the edge off the grinding, turned his sensors back on, and put himself back together.
The sun sank even lower in the sky, darkening to gold and, slowly, into fiery orange. Rattrap saw no sign of Predacons, at least, but that unfortunately included ex-Preds. What was he going to do if Dinobot didn’t come back? He could probably walk now, but not far - certainly not all the way back to base. This desert was so wide open - nowhere to hide. He pushed aside his worry and opened his comm link to base, “Axalon, this is Rattrap, do you copy?” Only static answered. As much as he hated to admit it, Dinobot was right: they were too far away. “This is Rattrap calling any Maximal within range,” he tried again, “Does anyone copy?”
The line buzzed empty for a moment before it crackled to life, “This is Dinobot. What is it, vermin?”
Relief skittered across Rattrap’s systems - the ex-Pred hadn’t left him. It was stupid, but he’d been afraid. Alone. “The heat musta fried my circuits because I’m starting to miss your ugly mug, Chopper face. You coming back here or what?”
“Hn,” Dinobot snorted over the comm line, “I am en route.” Rattrap expected that to be it - enough information to satisfy the question, nothing extra. That would be typical Dinobot. But he went on, “I have located some acceptable cover for the night. About 5 kilometers south of your position there is an oasis.”
“Please tell me it has an oil spring and all the energon a bot could drink.”
“Keep dreaming, rodent.”
“Oh, I am, lizard. Maybe this oasis of yours is full of scantily-plated femmes who don’t wanna shoot me.”
Dinobot actually laughed, “Even if they were there, what makes you think they’d stay?”
“You’re right - you’re gonna scare ‘em all off just by showing up. Better let me go in first.”
This time, instead of crackling over his comm, Dinobot’s voice reached him in person as he came over the nearest sand dune, “As if they would not have fled at the first whiff of your stench.”
Rattrap laughed and conceded the point, “Yeah, we better approach from downwind. What kept ya?”
“It took some time to find the oasis - and I attempted a more complete reconnaissance after I found it.” Dinobot paused, looking over the Maximal before him. “How have you faired?”
“Oh, you know, just kicking back, enjoying the breeze, sipping a high grade cocktail.” Dinobot rolled his optics and Rattrap chuckled at the response. “Seriously though, all quiet here. I mighta fixed my knee a bit, but it won’t be quite right again until we get back to the Axalon.”
A fraction of the tension Dinobot always wore eased off at that. “Then perhaps you can transport yourself to our... Holiday spa getaway.” He dropped his tail to help Rattrap stand up, and held it still until he was sure the Maximal had his balance.
The gesture was one of those backhanded kindnesses Rattrap was only just starting to recognize. Dinobot refused to acknowledge such actions, and was mostly a slagger even while he was being helpful. But Rattrap noticed anyway. It was his job to notice details. Any other Maximal might take these courtesies for granted: a converted Predacon learning righteous, sparkling Maximal ways. Rattrap knew better - Dinobot’d been a slagger in the beginning and he was now and probably always would be. He couldn’t give a drone’s skidplate about Maximal etiquette. So if Dinobot’s actions didn’t stem from a belief in social harmony, then what? Predacons always came back to personal interest, so what was Dinobot’s interest here?
Rattrap tried to puzzle out an answer as they walked - well, as he hobbled - toward their destination. Dinobot had saved his life today, too, and continued to stick with him despite his malfunctions. Pull back, Rattrap thought, look at the bigger picture. The ex-Pred wasn’t nice to him, but he also wasn’t... Like he was with the others, either. Optimus had earned his grudging respect, but otherwise Dinobot mostly ignored his comrades unless they were discussing battle strategies. Sometimes Cheetor could ask the warrior a direct question and receive no response.
All Rattrap had to do was walk into the room and suddenly he had all of the warrior’s attention, whatever form it took. Oh.
It hit Rattrap like a heap of slag. Oh. Distracted, he stumbled, caught himself. He looked up to see Dinobot looking at him over his shoulder, assessing. Satisfied that his companion could continue, he looked away again, but Rattrap kept staring at the back of that scaly head. How in the Pit had this happened? How’d it taken him so long to notice? Why didn’t you say anything?
*
They reached the oasis just as the sun was setting. The western sky was an impressive spectrum, while the smudge of indigo in the east quickly spread upward. To be fair, Rattrap thought, Cybertron didn’t have an atmosphere quite like this one. It might be strange, but it was at least a little beautiful.
The oasis contained no oil baths, high grade, or femmes, but it did have a respectable rock formation and a surprisingly dense palm grove surrounding a small, burbling spring. It would provide the cover they needed if their flyer friends showed up again.
“Finally,” Rattrap huffed, folding over, hands on his knees. “I feel like I’ve been walking for a stellar cycle.”
“It was only a few megacycles, rat, perhaps you would be able to handle such activity if you took better care of your systems, rather than clogging them with garbage,” Dinobot criticized.
Rattrap rolled his optics, “Yeah, yeah, Dinobutt.” Sometimes they fought for real, their attacks meant to hurt, other times they were only playing. Nobody else seemed to know the difference, but in this particular instance, Rattrap knew, Dinobot only meant that it mattered to him if Rattrap survived.
“Hn. Dinobot Maximize.” The raptor transformed back into his towering robot self. “I will keep watch. You recharge.”
He was going to argue, but at the mention of sleep Rattrap couldn’t stop himself from yawning. “Frag it, fine.” The Maximal found a spot against the rocks he liked, tucked back and covered in dark shadows. As he settled in, he was thinking of something witty to say about beauty sleep or waking him up for the Pred party, but it’d been a longer day than he wanted to admit. Rattrap was out in a nanoclick.
*
A megacycle later, Rattrap startled awake, his frame tense, his eyes slits of red in the dark. Everything was quiet. He ran a hand over his face and let out a quiet sigh. A decent recharge was getting harder and harder to come by on this planet. Rattrap shook off whatever fragmented memory had woken him and scanned for Dinobot. Even that fragger was better company than his dreams these days.
The bot was standing not too far off, looking out over the desert. The white moon had risen while Rattrap recharged and now the sands were bathed in its eerie light. Dinobot was carefully positioned in a palm tree’s shadow, nothing but a black silhouette.
Rattrap snuck within about 3 meters before that silhouette turned, red gaze pinning him where he stood. He knew enough to put his hands up in mock-surrender: there was something in the Pred’s code that responded to perceived threats with single-minded violence. It was something Rattrap had discovered the hard way, sword to his throat, until he’d learned to diffuse situations quickly. As he sat down, leaning against the tree, Dinobot said, “Aren’t you supposed to be recharging?”
Rattrap shrugged, “Had enough for now.”
Dinobot’s quiet for a moment, continuing to scan the empty desert before he goaded, “Perhaps my theory is correct after all: you derive your energy from plaguing me.”
“Look who’s talking. Most days I think you defected just so you could torment me personally.”
“On the contrary, vermin. I am convinced Primal spared my life only to prolong my suffering by forcing me to live with your infernal stench.”
“As if you’re a bed of roses, scale belly!”
“Hn! I should have left your insolent hide in the river.”
Something in the tone shifted, and it stung, so Rattrap pushed back, “Then why didn’t you, ya stinking Pred?”
“It’d be irresponsible to inflict your shell on the unsuspecting organics of this world,” Dinobot hissed.
“What a load of slag. I knew you were a fragging bastard, but I didn’t know you were a liar, too!”
“I will not stand here and have my honor insulted,” Dinobot growled.
As Dinobot transformed and began to stalk off, fury drove Rattrap to his feet. He staggered, but caught his balance on his good leg. He chucked a rock at the back of Dinobot’s head and screamed, “Coward!”
It was a moment of madness, Rattrap knew, but it was too late now. He stuck with it.
The raptor whirled around, rapidly unfolding into the huge mech that was Dinobot, snarling, as he stormed back toward the rat. His fury matched Rattrap’s, his sword drawn, optics green, but Rattrap knew it was all bluster.
They stood, staring each other down, Dinobot halted inches from Rattrap. “I am no coward, vermin,” he snarled.
In a sort of out of body experience, Rattrap heard himself respond, “Prove it.”
With a fierce growl, Dinobot dropped his weapon and dragged Rattrap in, kissing him deeply.
Maybe Rattrap should have seen it coming. After all, he’d figured out what game they were playing, had known he was calling Dinobot’s bluff. Sometimes, though, he still forgot that for the warrior, action was everything, always. The spy was pretty sure he could speak the same language. Rattrap kissed back.
Dinobot pulled back, optics offline, hands still clutching Rattrap’s shoulders tight. He let his head rest against Rattrap’s. They were both venting a little faster than usual when Dinobot murmured, “I did not expect you to reciprocate.”
“Shows what you know,” Rattrap breathed back. As the ex-Pred’s optics flickered back online, he could see Dinobot wanted to ask more questions - when, why - but Rattrap didn’t have the answers, just knew that for once they were running in sync and he didn’t want to screw it up. He reached up and pulled Dinobot back in, let himself enjoy the sensation. Don’t over think it.
They shifted closer together. Without thinking, Rattrap put his weight on his bad knee - the gear caught, sharp pain shot through his sensors and he broke the kiss with a grimace. Dinobot circled one arm around his waist, easily lifting most of Rattrap’s weight off the injured joint. It helped, really, and pressed their plates together. But the Maximal wasn’t nearly enough of a damsel for this. The only warning Dinobot got was the mischief in Rattrap’s opitcs just before he tucked a foot behind Dinobot’s and came in low, shoving hard. They both went down, Rattrap laughing, the ex-Pred cursing. They rolled, and wrestled, and in the end Rattrap came up on top, straddling Dinobot.
They had fallen into the moonlight, and here their optics caught on each other. Both were stark contrasts of silver and shadow. The light cut the soft roundness of their organic forms into the sharp lines of Cybertron. Rattrap ran a finger over Dinobot’s face and asked, “What alt mode were you before?”
The warrior caught Rattrap’s hand, kissed his wrist. “Does it matter now?”
With an uneven breath, Rattrap answered his own question, “I was a motorcycle.” For once, he let himself remember how it felt to fly down the open highways of his lost home.
Dinobot saw the longing in his companion’s expression. He pulled the spy down until they were face to face before he said with quiet conviction, “And you will be again.”
They kissed again, slowly. Rattrap braced himself on one arm, hand planted in the sand beside Dinobot’s helmet. His other hand held Dinobot’s wrist as those often terrifying claws cupped his head. The ex-Pred’s free hand played over the seams in his plating, drawing static-edged sounds from the smaller bot.
Everything felt gentle to Rattrap. This wasn’t what he was used to. This wasn’t fast or hard or fun or dirty. This wasn’t fragging. Whatever this was, it made his spark feel tight in its casing.
They found ways under each other’s armor, literally for once, instead of the figurative ways they explored on a daily basis. Their ventilation systems worked hard as they cycled each other’s increasingly hot air. Slow or not, Rattrap needed more, and he told Dinobot as much, pressing his mouth close to the warrior’s audio, demanding and hungry.
Instead of plugging into him, though, Dinobot ran a claw down the center of his chest plate. “Open?”
Rattrap’s optics went wide and he pushed back enough to see Dinobot’s face. The other bot was serious. The Maximal’s processor skidded to a halt. He hadn’t met many bots he trusted enough to even open his plate for, but he knew Dinobot was asking for more than that. A spark bond. He flew through his memory banks searching for why, why Dinobot of all bots would ask him for such a thing. It wasn’t a permanent thing, at least not the first time, but it would be a tie between them, an intimacy so far beyond the physical most bots who’d experienced a bond were at a loss for words when they tried to describe it. Rhinox had once told him a spark bonding was the closest thing to the Matrix a bot can experience in this life.
“Are our fates not already bound together?” Dinobot asked, jolting Rattrap back to reality.
And weren’t they just. At each other’s throats, maybe, but since they’d landed on this dust ball they’d been... Rattrap shook his head, “I’m not much for destiny and fate, you know.”
“From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean,” Dinobot recited, “We are star-crossed, vermin.”
“You and those old poems,” Rattrap sighed, but he could feel in his spark that Dinobot was right - they were already connected. He leaned down to kiss the former Predacon. Then, all his systems tense, afraid of this unknown, the spy let his guard down, slid open his armor and opened his spark casing. A blue light brighter than the moon flooded the space between them. Dinobot gasped and opened himself in turn. The two sparks resonated, pulsed in time, and floated free of their shells.
Later, Rattrap would remember fragments of memories that were never his. He’d miss the weight of a sword he never carried. He’d remember the thirst for battle and the driving force of honor that defined Dinobot. Later, he’d feel the remnants of this other inside himself.
In the moment, there is no Rattrap. There is no Dinobot. They are merged. The dark glass between them is lifted and they know. They are known. It is ecstasy.
On this plane of existence, of course, such a state could not be maintained. The energy between them built, fed back through their systems. As their bond destabilized, they began to become aware of themselves again. They felt the power course through their circuits, shudder through their frames, cycle higher, higher until - still connected - they overloaded together.
*
Rattrap opened his optics to the eastern sky turning bright with the coming dawn. The system’s second planet hung like a diamond, heralding the rising star. They’re lucky, he knew, that they hadn’t crashed down there - all their scans showed a corrosive, volcanic environment hostile to any life, including Cybertronian. Maybe Dinobot would call it fate.
Speaking of Dinobot, Rattrap could feel the bot behind him, still and cool in recharge. Spark bonding should come with a warning: they’d both been out for megacycles. On the plus side, Rattrap thought as he ran a diagnostic, all that extra energy and rest had worked some wonders on his internal repairs. His spark felt calm... tranquil.
A distant buzzing interrupted the spy’s musings. “I don’t like the sound of that,” he muttered. Moving as little as possible, Rattrap scanned the horizon and, sure enough, they had two flyers in-coming. Terrorsaur and Waspinator. Shouldn’t be a problem if they could surprise them a little. “Beast mode,” he whispered, reveling in his newly repaired transformation sequence. “Thank Primus.”
Rattrap scurried into the rocks, quickly squeezing his way in and up until he was well-hidden and perched high. Lying flat, he transformed again and drew his pistol. The Preds were almost on their location when he opened his internal comm link to Dinobot, “Wake up, Chopper face. Your old friends have come to play.”
He saw the ex-Pred sit up fast, snarling. The bot had a thing for waking up ready to fight. The Maximal whispered over the comm link, “Don’t look for me. When they ask, tell them you lost me in the river.”
“Understood,” came the reply, and Rattrap hoped he really did.
Terrorsaur came in screeching, strafing right on target. Dinobot was faster, though, as he dove to the side, rolling up with sword in hand and optics firing green. “Come down here and face me, coward!” he taunted.
Terrorsaur wasn’t stupid enough to actually land, but as Waspinator came to hover beside him, he couldn’t pass up an opportunity to open his big mouth.
“The view’s much better from up here, Maximal,” he shouted down. “Now where’s your pet rat?”
Dinobot growled, but answered as Rattrap had asked, “Drowned in the river, I assume. He fell in battle - perhaps if he is lucky, his spark now rests in Silicon Valhalla.” He smirked a little at the thought of Rattrap in such a place.
Terrorsaur and Waspinator cackled at their apparent good fortune in finding Dinobot alone. Finally Terrorsaur said, “It’s good to know that at your core you’re still Predacon, after all, even if we’re going to slag you anyway.”
“Nothing would please me more than to watch you try,” Dinobot answered, unnervingly genuine in his enthusiasm.
The battle resumed as the two Preds opened fire and their grounded former comrade returned shot for shot. Waspinator flew wide to flank their target, giving Rattrap just the opportunity he was waiting for. As the wasp buzzed near his location, Rattrap let off a single shot. He hit Waspinator dead on, right in the back, and the flyer screeched to the ground trailing smoke the whole way. Terrorsaur squawked, confused, pulled up to look around, but Dinobot seized on his distraction: green lasers lit up Terrorsaur. With one more shot from Rattrap, the red flyer crashed down into the desert sands, his own smoke plume rising up into the dawning blue sky.
*
“You shot him in the back? Must you be so underhanded, vermin?”
“Hey, I didn’t hear you complaining when I was saving your skid plates.”
“Hm! Saving, hardly. You used me as bait.”
Rattrap smirked, “Well, maybe. But I don’t think you minded.”
Dinobot grinned at the memory of battle, “Perhaps not.”
They kissed again, their systems humming with victory.
“This probably isn’t exactly what Optimus had in mind when he told us to get along.”
Dinobot laughed, “Probably not. Come on. Let’s go home.”
The two bots continued their hike back to the Axalon. If they happened to take a few detours, a few extra breaks, well, who would know?
Besides, the world could wait a click.