#this is a general statement for across the board bc i see this happen again and again

[biracy]

Besides the whole idea that Bad People make Bad Art while Good People make Good Art in and of itself allows so much space for abuse apologia and victim blaming/shaming. If your dark empath super senses or whatever "can always tell," how are you going to react when some shit comes out about Your favorite musician/actor/writer/YouTuber/etc. man? Well you can finally divorce yourself completely from the culture of celebrity worship and develop a better relationship to art Or you can continue to do abuse apologia because "well they made a thing I like so clearly they're a good person", while at the same time calling Steven Universe or whatever Irredeemable Media because "well they made a thing I don't like so clearly they're a bad person."

[heyitsyn]

Oh God

TimeTraveler!Son x Haikyuu!! Part 2

a/n: hehe i wouldnt put ‘x haikyuu’ if manager y/n ends up with that certain character. youll just have to,,,, wait for the end 😏

he didnt want to lie but he had to so he could survive

hinata offered his hand to help him up and natsu winced at the scratches and the slight headache as he stood on his two feet

‘you okay?’

hinata asked and natsu nodded

‘yea, just a headache’

natsu tried to play it off as cooly as he could bc this must’ve been from the car hit before and he couldnt just say he got ran over by a damn car

‘where do you live? i can go and treat your wounds there’

natsu was about to respond but he remembers hes not in tokyo anymore and he cant just spout out his address

so he did the thing his mom told him to do whenever it was necessary

he lied

‘i-um,,,’

he fumbled for an excuse but he sighed to maintain the act

‘i got kicked out’

he mumbled and hinata had to make him repeat it twice because he said it so quietly

the tangerine boy gasped and held his arms

‘what?! why?!’

natsu sniffled

‘my dad,,,, he just,,, doesnt want me’

well, that was actually true

so a true statement could equal that lie, right?

thankfully, hinata bought it and he grabbed his arm to walk forward while his other was pushing his bike

‘i hit you with my bike so the least i could do is take you to my house and treat you!’

and that was what they did

natsu’s phone was dead even though he was sure he charged it from denki’s powerbank during practice but it remained its black screen no matter how many times he hit the power button

his surroundings was also something unfamiliar

his mother only kept him in tokyo and never took him to go visit her family because she was kicked out and had to go live with her auntie when she found out about him and his father refused to help her

‘so, sendai, huh?’

he mumbled and hinata looked at him confused

‘sounds like youre not from around here. where you from?’

‘t-tokyo’

he replied and saw hinata’s eyes brighten

‘oh?! you look like youre my age so you must have been in a high school in tokyo, right? what school?’

‘yuuei’

‘hah?! yuuei?! what is that?!’

natsu rolled his eyes and shrugged

‘a school’

hinata persisted though

‘do you know other schools?! any other school friends?! like nekoma?! or fukurodani?!’

natsu shook his head and he was supposed to be happy that he got to meet, even talk, to his idol yet his younger self was much more hyper than his mellowed out behavior on tv

‘i stick to my friends from yuuei’

‘but what are you doing all the way here?’

natsu’s throat dried up and he watched his feet kick the pebbles to distract him of his urge to just whine and throw a tantrum with the confusion from this mess

‘i dont know’

he choked out and he was so tired and confused and all he wants to do is cry in his mother’s arms like he used to but she doesnt even know he exists

hinata sensed the tension and sadness from the boy beside him and tried his best to stay quiet until they get home

to say his mom was angry was an understatement

‘SHOYO, DONT YOU KNOW TO WATCH WHERE YOURE GOING?!’

‘kaa-san i was so angry and bakageyama was yelling at me and hit me and-’

‘THAT DOESNT GIVE YOU AN EXCUSE TO RUN SOMEONE OVER!’

natsu sat there on their couch awkwardly watching the black-haired woman yell at the human tangerine

he coughed in impulse and she turned away from her son and went to sit next to the h/c boy

‘dear, im so sorry for my son and his terrible biking. i didnt catch your name when you entered, what is it?’

even hinata forgot to ask his name but thats such a hinata thing to do though

natsu froze

if he was to say his mother’s last name, it would raise suspicion that he might know her in this time period and izuku has shown him enough doctor who to show him what happens when he messes up in time

again, he lied

‘kiri,,,shima,,, natsu. kirishima natsu’

he inwardly apologized to eijirou for using his last name

mrs. hinata raised a hand to her mouth with a surprised gasp

‘oh! my daughter’s name is also natsu! natsu, dear! can you come here for a second?’

natsu heard soft sounds from the stairs and she shyly walked down 

‘come say hi’

she softly urged her daughter to come closer and the little girl ran to hide behind her older brother who gently smiled and held her hand

‘well, thats her. she just turned 10 a few days ago. look dear, kirishima-kun has the same name as you!’

she waved slightly and natsu felt his heart swell at the sight of the adorable little girl

his mother never really had time for relationships so he was an only child and never got to experience a sibling, only hearing the experience of having siblings from his friend, shouto

mrs. hinata placed a gentle hand on his arm to revert his attention back to her

‘shoyo told me what happened and im sorry that this is all happening to you’

he felt guilty at the sight of her sad eyes because this was all a lie but he knew if he told them the real reason, they wouldnt believe him

so he had to continue with the lie

‘everything was falling apart and i wanted to leave everything behind. so i just took the shinkansen to nowhere and ended up here’

mrs. hinata felt her heart tug because he was just a little boy and he was too young to experience this so she offered him something he shouldnt have agreed to but again, survival

‘you can stay with us in the mean time. our guest room has been collecting dust so you can live here’

‘what? no! i can’t!’

natsu instinctually turned it down because he hated people giving him charity

but the woman squeezed his arm to give him a smile

‘i will not allow a child to live in the streets because of something he couldnt help’

‘arent you worried youre inviting a total stranger in your home?’

but she gave him a knowing smile

‘im a mother. i can trust you, boy’

in exchange for board and food, he promised to get a part time job so he could pay her back and get out of their house as quickly as he could

shoyo led him to the bathroom upstairs so he could treat the wounds from the ground

natsu sat on the closed toilet seat while his literal idol was putting cream on his boo-boos

he still cant wrap his head with everything

maybe it was because he was so busy trying to come up with lies that he wasnt able to fully sit down and think about the fact that he just TRAVELED BACK IN TIME and could accidentally change it

‘shoyo, what year is it?’

he mumbled

‘2012′

he answered and natsu sighed but his head perked up

oh god

2012

thats a year away from 2013

the year he was born

that meant shoyo’s team manager was going to give birth to him next year

‘why? did you hit your head so far that you forgot?’

hinata joked but he paled when natsu didnt laugh

‘OH GOD DID YOU?!’

‘NO! AND STOP YELLING!’

natsu shouted, equally surprised

‘whew, thank god. again, im so sorry i hit you’

‘shoyo, dont worry about it, okay? im fine, i swear’

during dinner, mrs. hinata told him about his school situation

‘you can go to karasuno with shoyo. what year were you in?’

‘first’

‘perfect! shoyo is too so he could easily help you around the school!’

natsu nodded quietly, still out of it and his brain finally starting to accept this impossible reality

‘but i dont think i could help you with the entrance exams. im not the most-um-smartest, per se’

shoyo apologized but natsu already knew that

he was no extreme fanatic but he knew quite a lot about hinata shoyo, the player he watched during the 2021 olympics and the reason he started playing volleyball

natsu dreamed to join the msby jackals just like his idol did and eventually reach the national team like hinata did

it was during the olympics of 2021, he knew he wanted to be like him

this boy who sat next to him was the reason he came to love volleyball along with his other idol, oikawa tooru, from the argentina volleyball team after seeing that legendary match 

when oikawa hit that service ace, natsu wanted to be able to receive that

he was merely 8 and his neighbor, midoriya inko, was babysitting him and she placed him and her son who was his friend, izuku, in front of the tv where they watched the olympics match

‘someday, ill be someone great. ill be great like him’

he promised and from then on, he worked to achieve that goal 

‘natsu? hello?’

he was shaken from his thoughts as shoyo nudged him back to reality

mrs. hinata laughed

‘maybe you should head to bed early, dear. you must be tired after having a hard journey’

he nodded and was about to go and wash his dishes when she stopped him

‘no. go and sleep, ill take care of this’

‘i have to do my part in here, hinata-san. please, let me do this’

she finally agreed and he was scrubbing the plates when his mind wandered over to possible solutions on how he could go back

there was an episode that he watched with izuku that the character had to do something to go back

and he had a feeling that he would have to do the same thing

but what would that something be?

there had to be a reason he was thrown all the way in this time and it couldnt just be a coincidence that supposedly, this would be around the same time his mother would get pregnant

but who would it be?

he finished putting the plates on the drying rack and he felt really thirsty suddenly

opening the fridge, he found no water bottles and natsu had a very sensitive stomach so he couldnt drink tap water

his next favorite beverage was there and he pulled a glass from the cabinet

‘hinata-san, is it okay if i can have some milk?’

he called out and she shouted that it was okay

natsu poured the drink on his glass and started drinking it when hinata entered the kitchen and snickered at him

‘yknow, you remind me of my idiot teammate. none of my other friends drink straight milk except for him’

natsu placed the glass down and wiped his lips

‘chocolate milk make me sick and i hate the taste of flavoring in milk. but i just hate flavoring in general. except for gari gari popsicles, those are good’

natsu reasoned, watching hinata move across the room to get an apple

‘still ew. but come on! lets go to bed so i can show you around school early before practice tomorrow!’

natsu noticed his excitement by the way he bounced in place and he chuckled

it reminded him of his friends mina and denki

hinata led them both to his room so he could check his wounds again just to make sure

then something caught his eye

‘kirishima-kun you like volleyball?!’

that threw him off

partly because he wasnt used to being called by his friend’s last name

but also because of the question

‘huh? how do you know that?’

natsu asked, almost defensively

hinata shrugged

‘i saw your volleyball shoes in your bag’

hinata reasoned and excitedly pointed at them

‘you should play for us! im part of the team too! oh oh! what position do you play?!’

‘l-libero’

natsu stuttered out, slightly overwhelmed by hinata’s energy

hinata started circling him, inspecting his height and looking at him up and down

‘yanno, kirishima-kun, youre really tall. like much taller than the rest of my club. maybe not saltyshima but really!! youre so tall!!’

hinata whined in envy and natsu laughed

‘blame it on the paternal side of the family. my ma isnt really tall’

he laughs but then memories of his mother resurfaced and he suddenly felt gloomy, guilty, even, bc he doesnt know if time stopped there or it kept going and if so, shes probably worried sick

and he knew she was always one who blamed herself

hinata noticed his downcast expression and thought he probably remembers his dad and got sad since he got kicked out

so our baby sunshine freaked out and he frantically waved his hands around

‘oh no! gomen kiri-kun! gomen! i really didnt mean to make you think about him! gomen!!!’

he even bowed which surprised the h/c boy and made him stand back up

‘o-oi shoyo! dont! you didnt because i wasnt thinking about him!’

he fussed and patted hinata’s hair

‘i dont care about him. to be honest, there isnt much to think about’

he didnt think about what he said until he heard himself

natsu’s eyes widened, fearful of how hinata could take it but he flinched when the orange-haired boy’s eyes were filled with his own tears

‘OH NO!! KIRI-KUN!!!’

then launched another series of apologies and natsu had to calm him down

oh dear

it was early in the morning like 5 when hinata bursted into natsu’s room

the loud shout of shoyo made his eyes blink open and he groaned before turning to the side

‘come on, kiri-kun! we need to go to take your exam!’

‘nooooooooo’

‘yeeessssssss’

it was quite a battle for hinata to even just get natsu out of bed but he managed to bribe the latter with some milk bread from the bakery down the street

‘2′

natsu showed his two fingers and hinata sighed before nodding

‘yes. now go hurry so we can leave!’

dressed in his grey sweatpants and a yuuei sweatshirt, natsu cursed as he only has clothes good for 2 days and he didnt want to bother the hinatas so he was at a loss

mrs hinata bid the two boys good bye and natsu was yawning and dragging his body to walk while hinata was skipping over to his bike

then he finally realized the problem

he nervously looked at natsu and the taller boy didnt understand why he was looking at him that way

‘what?’

shoyo pointed at the bike and awkwardly smiled

‘uh,,, you see,,, i dont think youd,,, fit,,, at the back seat’

natsu shrugged

‘then ill bike. ive done it before’

he sauntered over to the bike and swiftly lifted his leg before testing out the brake handles

‘its good and better than mine back home’

‘a-are you-’

‘sit down, sho’

hinata gripped on to the back of natsu’s sweatshirt as he told him the directions to how to get to the school

natsu remembered watching an interview of hinata talking about his high-school life and he remembered the star player talking about his dedication to go to karasuno everyday for volleyball

and the boy couldn’t believe hes doing that right now, with his idol literally behind him, and driving to the legendary karasuno high school

from the jackals to the adlers and even some other teams like the frogs, natsu cheered for them

there was a memory of his mother sitting with him on their couch during one of her rare day offs as they rewatched the recorded copy of the olympics

it has become natsu’s favorite thing to watch

‘with great talent comes great hardships. people don’t become good overnight and i watched those people suffer through it all but look where they are now’

‘KIRISHIMA, WATCH OUT! COWS CROSSING!’

natsu was snapped out of his thoughts at hinata’s shout

then it morphed into pure and utter confusion

‘cows?’

shoyo laughed

‘since youre from the city, this must be a weird sight for you, huh? well, in the countryside, this happens a lot!’

but natsu didnt mind

in fact, he loved cows

he loved any farm animal in general

maybe it was his upbringing in the hustle and bustle of the city that he grew to love the countryside

shoto took him with his family to a trip to the country once and he remembered loving the smell of grass

they were able to do an activity in a farm where they worked in a rice farm and the peace and serenity was something he will always remember

his mother was lucky she grew up in a place like this

‘kiri-kun, ive been wanting to ask, how is your volleyball team in the city? are you a powerhouse?’

natsu felt pride bubble up in his chest

‘of course! we got second place in nationals!’

he boasted and blurted out before he could stop himself

then he felt fear

he shouldnt have said that because for all he knows, yuuei probably doesn’t exist at this time period

hinata had a different reaction and his eyes shone

‘WHAT?! WOAH! SO COOL! I HAVE TO TELL OUR CAPTAIN THAT WE’RE GETTING A POWERHOUSE STUDENT!’

‘uh-i-uh-’

natsu didnt know what to say because he had a feeling he definitely just did an oopsie

so he switched topics really quick to divert the attention away from his past

‘o-oi sho, once youre done being a pro volleyball player and stuff, we should have our own rice farm’

of course it was such a random idea but it distracted the orange boy

hinata shrugged

‘i mean,,, i have to be a pro first but i guess we can!’

‘hmm,,,, i dont think you have to worry about that’

.................................................

taglist:

@hartbeat-art​ @yakus-yakult​ @nerdyphantomlady​ @jollycowboysaladhero​ @cynicallychaotic​ 

a/n: oh god this sat in my drafts for so long and i really dont know what im doing like i kinda have a rough outline of what im doing but im just going with the flow but i dont think the flow is quite flowy 

[libermachinae]

Schematics [Or, Another Chance] – Ch. 3, Law/Crime

Also available on AO3! Notes: Day 3 of @prowlweek! More Constructicon nonsense bc I, too, am a bulldozer rocketing down the street at max speed and my momentum cannot be stopped.

⏳ 🚧 🚓 ⌛ 🏗 🚧 ⏳

Third walk through the timestream: wasn’t getting any easier. Prowl was waiting for them somewhere in the past, and Hook had to keep reminding himself of that while every step felt like his frame was betraying him. He was behind Long Haul this time, an experiment to see if another member of the team would be better at following Prowl’s first instruction. Bonecrusher followed him. Scavenger had passed out once they’d gotten him propped against a wall, and Mixmaster had promised to use his downtime to find a way to reverse the effects of the powder. Though he only had a small assortment of chemicals on hand to work with, Hook had no doubt he would put something together.

He startled when he bumped into Long Haul. Again, he’d withdrawn so much that he hadn’t noticed the point at which he was supposed to stop. Patience was hard to define in a place where time didn’t strictly move forward, so Hook could be forgiven if he was in short supply. As soon as Long Haul started moving again, Hook followed him, feeling Bonecrusher close behind.

They emerged on a rooftop, under a bank of stars. Underneath them, a vibrant, writhing, pre-war Iacon pulsed with nightlife. This wasn’t a sight Hook had ever personally witnessed, though he might have once helped lay the foundations for something like it.

“This is 4th cycle 501,” Prowl said as the team gathered around, snapping their attentions back to him whenever they started to drift toward the distracting collection of lights and sounds down below them. “Nominus is Prime, the Clampdown is in effect… Am I forgetting anything?”

“Decepticons are growing,” Long Haul said.

“This would’ve been before Scrapper got us recruited, though, so Megtron’s not building arenas yet,” Hook added. “Autobots are on guard, but no one’s declaring war yet.”

Bonecrusher didn’t contribute anything. Whenever Prowl wasn’t the one talking, his attention drifted outward, to the sparkling lights and distant signs of life. Like Prowl, he was a little hard to read sometimes, but the steadiness of his movements indicated that this was no trip down memory lane: he was surveying, searching for any possible danger. Prowl was doing something similar, actually, though Hook didn’t dare to assume he knew Prowl’s intentions.

“Why did our guy put himself on the roof?” Hook asked. “He a flier?”

“He’s—”

“Hey, Prowl, isn’t that you?”

Bonecrusher’s effort had paid off. Standing at the edge of the roof, he pointed down to the ground level entrance. The others joined at his sides, just soon enough to watch Prowl and some other mech enter the building beneath their pedes. Hook glanced to Prowl, whose optic had brightened in interest.

“Oh,” he said, “I see why he might’ve come here.”

“What’d you do?” Long Haul asked.

“I was performing my function,” Prowl said. “Tu—Chromedome and I did everything as per regulation. That an incident occurred doesn’t—”

“Clowndome?” Long Haul interrupted. “What were you covering his aft for? You’re better than him.”

Hook felt a thrill of alarm as Prowl’s doorwings sagged down. He couldn’t let another mission go sour, not when they’d barely gotten this second chance. Furious at his teammate for potentially jeopardizing it (even if he wasn’t entirely sure what Long Haul had done wrong), Hook took advantage of their usual conflict resolution strategy: he slugged Long Haul in the arm.

“Hey!” Long Haul yelped, grabbing at the shallow dent that had formed. “What was that for?”

“Don’t say stupid slag,” Hook warned.

“The frag are you talking about?”

“Behave,” Prowl snapped, doorwings flaring back up above his head. Even if Hook didn’t know exactly what they were trying to say, the attempt at intimidation was obvious enough. It didn’t really work, not when the size difference between them was still so apparent, but both mechs stepped away from each other and turned their attention to Prowl. He huffed and straightened.

“To answer your earlier question, Hook,” he said, “our target does possess flight capabilities, though he is not especially fast. If we move now, there is a chance we can catch up with him. Hook, you’ll come with me for a perimeter check. Long Haul, Bonecrusher, you’ll stay here and keep watch over the timestream. Do whatever it takes to keep anyone else from finding it, but keep in mind that I am currently in the building and have no memory of encountering you this night. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” they said. Hook thought he heard Long Haul grumble something, but since Prowl didn’t comment on it, he decided it wouldn’t be his place to, either.

“Can you at least tell us what we’re looking for?” Long Haul asked.

“He flies,” Bonecrusher offered.

“He’s green,” Prowl said.

Long Haul and Bonecrusher took up positions to either side of the portal, the latter with more earnest enthusiasm than the former. Prowl stood back to look at them once, like a general inspecting his troops, then turned his back on them to lead Hook to the opposite edge of the roof. The alley here was narrow, allowing them to leap across. As they started to maneuver the rooftops this way, Hook distracted himself from his vertigo by thinking about anyone he knew who was green and had something against the flow of time.

“It’s not that Liege Maximal guy, is it?” he asked. “Hated him.”

“He’s dead,” Prowl said.

“Yeah, and? Seems like everything that happens is because of some guy that was supposed to be dead,” Hook said, watching as his teammate surveyed the area around them before deciding another direction to head in.

“You mean Shoackwave.”

“Yeah, and also Optimus Prime, Metroplex, Megatron.”

“Hm.” Prowl peered down from the edge of one building, as though judging the distance to the ground.

“What?” Hook was pretty sure Prowl was thinking something. It would be generous to say that meant he was learning anything about his teammate, since Prowl was always thinking about things the others wouldn’t get to know anything about, but the noise he made suggested that something significant was going on in that processor.

“Your statement could almost make someone mistakenly believe you were anything less than jubilant when Megatron returned,” Prowl said.

Hook took a moment to make sure he understood Prowl’s meaning before he responded.

“You were in our head,” Hook said. “You know it was more complicated than that. We had a bad thing with the Autobots, and no matter how we felt about Megs, he was our ticket out from under them.”

“No loyalty to the Decepticon cause, though?” Prowl said.

“Eh.” Hook shrugged. He’d had this conversation with plenty of Decepticons before and had become comfortable with his level of commitment to Megatron’s fanaticisms. Sharing it again with Prowl, whatever he considered himself nowadays, wasn’t stressful.

“Mixmaster’s into it,” he said. “Can’t stand organics, and that means Bonecrusher’s on board, too. But for the rest of us, it just started as another job. I think Scrapper read Megatron’s big book before he got us hired, but it’s not like he ever told us about it.”

“Not a conversationalist?”

Hook didn’t know why Prowl was curious about any of this, but he was delighted and didn’t want it to stop.

“Nah, it’s just that he was like you,” Hook said, “everything was always about—”

Prowl grabbed Hook’s shoulder and shoved him down, until he was almost flattened on the roof.

“Prowl!”

“Shush!”

A silent finger pointed out, across the rooftops. Silhouetted against the lights of the living city and the stars above was a figure, standing still, looking out across this small slice of the planet.

“Is that our guy?” Hook whispered.

“No,” Prowl said. “That’s Orion Pax.”

Hook felt the tide of revulsion he’d become so used to over the years.

“Ugh, Optimus? What’s he doing here?”

“Doing exactly what he’s supposed to,” Prowl said. “When a Decepticon attacks the residential building, he’ll jump down and neutralize the threat.”

“When a—Prowl!” Hook’s systems revved at the threat to his teammate.

“Be quiet, Hook.”

He forced his engine to calm down and dropped his voice to a hush again.

“You never said you would be in danger.”

“I’m not, in a determined sense,” Prowl said. “Orion does his job and I survive the war, remember? Anything that happened prior to our meeting doesn’t concern you.”

In a logical way, yeah, sure, Hook understood what Prowl meant. He didn’t understand, though, how Prowl thought he would be comfortable sitting here, several blocks away, knowing that his teammate was about to be attacked. Even with combat routines locked down, he felt like he might bust out of his plating for all the effort it was taking to keep himself in place.

“Yeah, of course,” he managed to say, “but when the others hear you being shot at—”

“Hey!”

They swiveled around, following the sound of the voice back to the rooftop they’d come from. Though hard to see from a distance and in the dark, both were able to make out Long Haul. Impressive for his stature and his natural steadiness, it was a shock to watch him as he struggled to grapple with the much smaller Bonecrusher, who was apparently doing everything in his power to fling himself off the side of the roof. And, by the looks of it, that was a lot of power.

“Let go of me, Prowl’s in danger!” Bonecrusher roared. He broke free of Long Haul’s grip and sprinted forward, before he was flattened again by Long Haul’s tackle.

“We can’t,” Long Haul said, “Prowl will—”

“Who cares?” Bonecrusher demanded. “Let me—”

“Halt!”

The whole team, two on the original roof and two watching from afar, froze as a familiar voice traveled across the rooftops. Bonecrusher used the moment of surprise to get his legs underneath him and start to physically lift Long Haul off himself. As the surprised dump truck was tossed aside, Bonecrusher once more made a break for it, only to be intercepted by Orion Pax.

When the officer spoke, his deep voice was too low for either Hook or Prowl’s audials to pick up. Twice, Bonecrusher tried to dodge around him, but a firm hand would stop and put him back in his place. After just a couple minutes of talking, there was a sound of gunfire, glass shattering, and Orion had whipped around to look down and behind.

Then, he was gone.

“Did he just—”

“Yes,” Prowl said with an air of resignation. “He was fond of that sort of thing.”

Hook followed him back to Long Haul and Bonecrusher, who had scooted back to the edge of the roof to watch the action. They both turned at the sound of footsteps; Bonecrusher jumped.

“Prowl,” he said, “how did you get up—”

“Both of you, up, now,” Prowl said, ignoring the question. “We’re leaving.”

“Already?” Hook asked.

“There’s no sign of our target and even if he had been here, you’ve caused enough of a disturbance that we’ll be unlikely to find him not,” Prowl said. “Bonecrusher, you will have time to explain yourself when we return to base.”

“Not that much to explain, Prowl,” Bonecrusher said. “You were in danger. I had to protect you.”

“I was in danger in the past,” Prowl said, the glare of his single optic narrowing as he pointed an accusing finger up at the berserker.

“Well, yeah, but—”

“No,” Prowl said. “It is not your job to reason or make decisions. You leave that to me. Regardless of what the situation is, my authority comes first.”

Hook glanced at Bonecrusher, but still his stance gave away little. He didn’t know how to explain to Prowl that this was what BC did. He was the protector, the one who always had everyone’s backs. Even if Prowl asked if he understood, and even if BC said yes, he wouldn’t think twice about it if the same situation came up later and there was no one else to help.

“Follow,” Prowl commanded, as he led the way into the timestream. Long Haul waited the two seconds, then followed, but Hook lagged at Bonecrusher’s side, waiting until they were alone to speak up.

“What’d Optimus have to say?” he asked.

“Wanted to give me a citation for ‘disturbing the peace,’” Bonecrusher said. “Told me to wait here so he could finish filling out the form.”

The cant of his helm and the glint in his optic band told Hook exactly what he thought of that.