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A velvety dusk is falling over Kaon, and cold city-lights filter through the construction site. So when you see him for the first time, Bulkhead is haloed in light.
He's chuckling at some dirty joke his team just told, leaning gingerly on a stack of pylons. He's bigger than the newsreels make him seem, bigger in every dimension; though they're solid steel, thick as your thigh, you're stunned that they can hold his weight. Larger than life: in your short career as a reporter, you've heard it dozens of times, but only now does it ring true.
You step into the light, and he turns.
"Hey--" The light carves out his strong chin and heavy brow.
"I'm with the Iacon Communication Service," you begin in a rush, flashing your holo-credentials. "You're Bulkhead, right?"
A silly question, for politeness's sake. He could be no one else.
"He doesn't do autographs," says a smaller mech at his side. "Here, this is a restricted site."
"I've got a hard head," you say, tapping it for emphasis. "Just one question, and I'll be on my way--"
"One question," says Bulkhead, and he shifts his weight: nervously, you'd guess, if old Wreckers got shy. "Depends what it is." And then: "I'll give you the autograph, though."
His crew mutters, their faces stony. Bulkhead quells them with a wave of his big hand; the light catches the dings in his paint, the scuffs in his fingertips where hard labor's worn his finish down.
Your vocoder resets, and for a klik, you're at a loss for words; a flash of current washes through your frame. You understand his shyness in a blistering instant.
But you'll get your story. You always get your story.
"Can I buy you a drink after your shift?"
Bulkhead almost chokes on his own vocoder.
His shadow falls across the noodle-shop's tinted windows. You scoot up at the end of the bar to make room. Your datapad sits close at hand, its hazy glow reflected in your Energon-cube.
The bell rings. The Minicon owner shouts a greeting.
Bulkhead edges into the shop; in the narrow aisle he seems colossal, his belly and hips bumping the stools as he waddles down to meet you. "I can't believe I'm doing this."
"Drinks are on me," you say. "I've got an expense account." Again you flash your credentials, and as you say your designation there's a purr to it. A boldness you don't quite feel.
"You aren't drinking," observes Bulkhead, settling onto two stools. His hips spill over the edges.
"I'm on the clock. You're not."
At an arm's distance, you can see every chip in his paint. He smells of diesel and warm metal and fresh upholstery; and you catch a whiff of something odd and sharp, something almost organic, before you realize he has an air freshener. An affectation left over from the war, perhaps--
--and you remember the rumor that Bulkhead had a soft spot for humans.
"Order what you want," you say, gesturing to the holographic noodle-bowls projected over the bar. "It's very simple: you keep talking; I keep buying."
Bulkhead looks dubious, his electric-blue optics narrowing. "Gonna make one thing clear. I don't talk about myself. I'm not that interesting."
Modesty becomes him.
"Then tell me about the Wreckers," you say, not missing a beat. "Is it true Moonracer protected the Torch on its way to Archon?"
He shifts, resting a hand on his gut and kneading it with a knuckle as he thinks. "I was there. Moonracer followed that spark all the way through the space bridge. Never put her gun down--and she was quick. Didn't get her designation for no reason--"
You pick up your datapad, your stylus engaging with a whirr. And so it begins.
The first bowl of wire noodles, doused in black oil and copper shavings, slides across the greasy bar. The second follows.
You'd almost forgotten you'd ordered. Bulkhead's been telling the story of Tyger Pax, of the air thick with screams and blaster-fire, of stepping over bodies and praying (to half-believed-in gods) that they were dead--
And even the owner's been listening, gawking none too subtly. You don't begrudge him that.
But Bulkhead breaks off. "That's the stuff." He swirls the noodles up in his chopsticks. Slurps them down, grinning and wincing at the heat. "One thing about Earth, they've never even heard of Rodionese noodles--"
You offer him a shaker of mixed mineral flakes. He takes it, dumping a generous portion into the broth.
You've always liked a mech with an appetite. "Do you miss Earth?"
It's a forward question. Another mech might have slung a punch.
Bulkhead grimaces, leaning forward; his gut bunches into soft rolls, squashing flat against the bar. "Don't remind me. Every solar cycle." His tank gurgles in sorry agreement.
Slowly he takes another bite, chewing as he mulls it over. You gesture to the owner, silently: another bowl.
Bulkhead swallows. "Dune bashing. Monster truck rallies. Humans." It's almost tender. A lesser reporter would've called it a shock, coming from a mech so burly and rough--but you just smile. Impulsively you pat his pudgy hand.
Night is falling in earnest, the glow of the lamps outside the tinted window nearly the only illumination in the shop. The owner is draped over the bar, listening; his lumbering assistant tilts his head in your direction as he sweeps up, optics narrow.
"This is for your article," says Bulkhead. It's a question, with a dangerous note in it. "Getting kinda personal."
And then: "I don't have to answer any of this."
"But you did anyway," you say. "Another drink?"
Bulkhead eyes you; his free hand finds the swell of his belly, rubbing it as if to settle his tanks, and the plates squeak and sink into his mesh under his fingers. (You wouldn't mind touching that gut.) "I'm gonna regret this."
The next drink arrives with the next bowl of noodles; the drink is cold enough to freeze a bot's actuators, and the noodles giving off puffs of salty steam. Bulkhead downs them both like a starving mech.
"Am I your first pick to interview?" he says. "Sure, there aren't many of us left, but--"
"Ultra Magnus didn't return my comms, and Wheeljack threatened me with a grenade." It's only a slight exaggeration.
Bulkhead snorts. It's an adorable sound, and it makes his gut jiggle. "Good old Jackie."
"Good old Wheeljack," you echo. "Besides, you're a good candidate for a feature."
"Don't tell me I have star power," says Bulkhead mulishly. "I will walk out."
You laugh, putting down your datapad. "You're steady. Reliable. Decent, from what I hear. Not bad-looking, either, if you want the frank truth--"
Bulkhead grunts, sucking down noodles. (It wasn't an illusion, it occurs to you: he really is fatter now than in the old holovids. Your fingers curl, just a little.) "That's a good one," he says between bites.
"Maybe we'll put you on the cover."
The low light flatters him, you think: the soft swell of his paunch looks softer, and his optics glow gentle and cool in his round faceplate. Still he squirms, as if not used to being on display. "I don't know about that. I've got a face for radio comms--"
And that cools your Spark, just a little.
"Have it your own way," you say lightly, and you order a third drink.
Bulkhead is hiccupping and groaning as the interview comes to an end. Not drunk, you think--he's been pacing himself well--but full. His belly-plating pushes out farther beneath the solid weight of his meal; you imagine you can hear the uneasy grumble of his tanks churning. Turning oil and wire and Engex into weight.
He moves to rise, but stumbles. You throw an arm around his waist; it reaches barely halfway, and your fingers settle into a crease of mesh at his side.
"Uh. Thanks," he says, meeting your optic.
As you hoist him up, you can feel his mesh jiggling under his plates. He is strikingly heavy; you brace against the bar, one hand on his back rolls and one hand on his wobbling gut.
"Always happy to help out," you say. "I can have the credits transferred by tomorrow--"
"I'm getting paid for this?" Bulkhead's optics widen. He leans into you, and into the bar; his belly spills over the lip of the bar, crushing your hand. "Thought I was doing a rookie a favor."
"That too," you say. It's sincere.
Bulkhead nods, righting himself and freeing your hand. "You need my comms frequency too? I'm gonna want to see this--maybe veto a few things--"
"The whole truth," you say. "And nothing but the truth. Promise."
The owner snorts; for the last five cycles he's been pretending to wash dishes, glancing over at you too many times to be convincing.
Bulkhead groans. "Whatever you say--"
And for the first time that night he says your designation, and in his husky voice it stirs your Spark.
The Communication Service constructed a private ground bridge last stellar cycle; so you're back in Iacon before sunrise.
Still groggy from the late joor and the bridge, you stumble into your shabby office. Circuit's mumbling to himself, reviewing the morning's broadcast notes; Longtooth is napping at his desk. The usual chemoreceptor-tingling scent of cheap Engex and cheaper polish hangs around the place.
But as you review your notes, you taste cordite and battlefield-dust, and dimly you hear metal crumpling with a shriek.
It takes just two joors to draft the article. After forwarding your draft to Circuit, you step out for a refuel.
When you return, Circuit is squinting at his console. He says your designation with something like distaste. "This reads like a love story. I asked for a piece on the Wreckers, not a seduction--"
Bulkhead glances over the datapad, mumbling to himself. His finish is dull with a fresh layer of construction-site dust, and he smells of sunlight and hard work. You sit side-by-side outside a cheap Kaonian canteen, sipping your fuel and watching the pigeonoids in the gutter.
"Makes me sound like a war hero," he says at last. He pops a salt-crusted bolt into his mouth. (It's not his first.) "I wasn't a hero. I just kicked some Con tailpipe."
You watch the fading sunlight glitter in his blue optics. "Is there a difference?"
Bulkhead shifts in his seat; perhaps it's your imagination, but he seems heavier. Wearier. "Impactor--Seaspray--Jackie would blow me to smithereens if he heard me say it, but him too--they were the guys you want. They got the job done."
You shift too, drawing closer to him. The pigeonoids squawk and scatter, and Bulkhead chuckles and throws them a handful of bolts.
"So maybe you're not 'Bulkhead, the brave war hero,'" you say. "How does 'Bulkhead, the survivor against all odds' sound?"
"Better," says Bulkhead. He leans back against the canteen's filthy wall; a mech his size needs plenty of space, you think with a shiver. His belly sags into the space between his fat thighs. Your fingers itch to touch those thighs; you imagine the weight of that hefty belly in your hands. "The Wreckers are history, and I'm still here."
A twinge of survivor's guilt, you think.
"I'm not complaining," says Bulkhead hastily, perhaps misreading your expression. "I've got a good deal. I build stuff. I break stuff. Kaon got bombed half to the ground, and the other half is old Con rat-holes. Like that monster--"
And he gestures, the mesh hanging from his arm wobbling. In the square a statue of Megatron still stands, though stained by corrosion and worn away by the millennia. Megatron's smile is almost beatific. His optics, once inset with LEDs, are empty holes.
"Wouldn't I like to take a wrecking ball to that?" growls Bulkhead. "Talk about history--"
"It's art," you say, grinning. "Technically."
"You sound like Breakdown's old buddy. What's-his-malfunction. Knock Out. It's propaganda," says Bulkhead. "Bad propaganda."
You don't for a klik believe he has truly forgotten Knock Out's designation--but the vitriol on the names makes you shiver.
Bulkhead's optics are bright with old pain; beneath his heavy brow they gleam in shadow. His lip curls.
You have the sudden urge to cup his fat face in your palms, to tell him you're there. You resist, and it passes.
"So that's why you're in Kaon," you say. "You're the cleanup crew now."
Bulkhead chuckles darkly, popping the last of the bolts into his mouth. He swallows hard. "Wreckers don't call for backup--"
"--they call for cleanup," you echo.
The sunset tints Kaon's shattered skyline a brutal orange. Bulkhead settles back in his seat; it creaks underneath his colossal weight. Into the gutter he empties the bag of salt and mineral shavings, and the pigeonoids flock around your feet.
You could kiss him for that. But you resist.
He walks you to the ground bridge this time; you watch the sway of his wide hips, the jiggle of that belly. It hangs over his pelvic girdle these days, bouncing as he waddles along.
"Promise you're not going to make me into a hero?" He chucks your shoulder, as a friend would. "Miko would get a kick out of that--"
Miko. It's not a Cybertronian name. For a moment you wonder.
"Only the dirty truth," you say. "Rivets and all."
Again he chucks your shoulder. His hand lingers for an instant: it dwarfs your pauldron.
He leans in, bumping his forehead crest against yours. You are close enough to taste the salt on his fumes. Close enough to kiss. Bulkhead's optics are strikingly mild.
Then he pulls away and ushers you into the filthy little bridge station. He fills the tiny platform easily. As the bridge opens with a crackle and the smell of ozone, he is the last thing you see of Kaon.
You spend the day on the next draft. As you step out of the office, the sunset is gleaming on the gilded domes of old Iacon--the few that remain. You think of Bulkhead's wrecking ball; you think of Kaon, bombed into rubble.
Your comms line opens with a hiss. Got a new draft for you, Bulk.
"I'm not a writer," he says. "I never had any kind of education--"
You shrug, pushing the basket of silicon chips across the table. Tonight you're at a dive bar; the Jump Joint (now under new management) claims to predate the war, and from the smell, you believe it.
"Plenty of bots reinvented themselves after the war," you say as he dips a chip into mercury sauce. "You might have a hidden talent. For writing, or painting, or mathematics--"
At "mathematics," he chuckles obscurely and pops another chip into his mouth. With his free hand he scratches his belly, absently. (He's putting on weight, you notice: the stress-marks on his armor look fresh, and as he chews his chins jiggle.)
"It's good stuff," he says, nodding at the datapad and scooping up a handful of chips. "Too good for a guy like me."
You want to take his hand; it is getting harder and harder to resist. For a long klik you watch the lobbing match on the holoscreen above the bar. (Nova Cronum is winning.)
"You're kidding," you say at last.
"Don't flatter me," says Bulkhead, and there's an edge in it. In the half-darkness of the bar he looks thrillingly dangerous. You can imagine him looming over a pack of Cons, raising his fists--
--but all the same, you know you are safe with him.
"So when's the story done?" says Bulkhead with a little vocoder-hiccup. As he leans forward, his belly pushes over the lip of the table.
"Now, I think," you say, and you lean in, your optics offlining.
You can smell his salty-sour fumes, virile and heady, in the instant before your lips brush; from his little grunt, he is startled, but he slides a hand around your back and his lips yield to yours. He tastes of mercury and warm iron. His kiss is rough--
--but not bad. Not bad at all.
You barely make it to his habsuite--a modest room above a repair-shop. Bulkhead half-hauls you up the stairs, pressing you against his broad chest and fat belly. Like newbuilds just discovering sex, you paw at each other.
Your hands roam in the darkness of the stairwell. He is thrillingly soft: there is so much mesh on him that your hands find purchase everywhere, squeezing great handfuls of warm Bulkhead. Again and again your lips meet in bruising kisses; you groan a little, into his mouth--
"I've got an adapter," he pants, breaking away long enough to enter his security code. The door slides open, and you half-collapse inside. "Last time I did this, I was on top--"
"Fine by me."
The click of his panel retracting; the sharp ozone of his arousal. Bulkhead lifts his belly with a hand, grunting at its weight, and slips the adapter over his connector. He is--fittingly--huge.
You drop to your knees, onto the cold floor. Reaching up to knead his sagging underbelly, you nuzzle his connector; it twitches against your cheek, warm and slick with Bulkhead's salty lubricant.
"There's synthlube in the washracks," he gasps, "if you need it--"
But he does not speak coherently again for several cycles. You lick long swirls around his connector, taking it again and again into your mouth until your jaw aches. He lets his belly drop, and it engulfs you, its weight soft and insistent on your shoulders. You are drunk on the smell of Bulkhead, the warmth of him--
And then you are on your belly on his recharge slab, hips raised, and he is parting your legs. His fingertips trace your transformation seams, making you shudder and let out a little groan. And then his entire weight comes down on you.
You move together, in the crackling haze of sex. You feel his gut bounce against your back with every thrust; the momentum seems to drive him deeper.
"Bulkhead," you mumble, almost beyond words. "Bulkhead, Bulkhead--"
He rolls over, pulling you onto your side. Slings a heavy leg around your hip. Reaches down with a thick arm, feeling for your plating's catch with a Wrecker's rough hands. It releases.
"Can't believe I'm doing this," he mutters into your ear, and you can tell he's grinning. He wraps a hand around the base of your connector, sliding his fat fingers up and down your shaft. Current leaps between you, and you squirm in his arms, grinding your hips down on him--
And you tilt your head back and kiss him, sloppily. Your world is entirely Bulkhead--
His overload hits you like a lightning storm. With a thunderous groan he rolls off you; your back is wet with condensation, and at once you miss his weight.
"Be a gentlemech," you gasp, "and finish me off--"
"Way ahead of you," pants Bulkhead, and again he flips you over. His warm mouth closes on your connector, hot and slick and hungry.
You awaken before he does, curled against his gut. You stumble off the slab in near-darkness; the twin moons hang in a sky barely tinted with the light of dawn.
When Bulkhead comes online, the habsuite is full of the warm smell of fresh petroleum-balls and oilcakes.
"Made a run to the fuel refinery," you say, from your station by the heating coil. It's an ancient setup, and you wiped dust from the coil before setting down the pan. "You don't keep much in the cold storage."
Bulkhead rubs his optics. Blinks away recharge. "Never had to. Where's the army?"
"It's all for you." It comes out almost embarrassed. "After last night, you need to refuel. Keeps your strength up--you'll need it for those Con rat-holes--"
Bulkhead chuckles, at first uncertainly. He smells of you, you notice. "Gonna make me even bigger, cooking like that--"
And it sounds like an invitation--an invitation you didn't know you were waiting for. By the time Bulkhead's hosed down in the washracks, the shabby table is groaning with food.
He eats it greedily at first; but after two or three plates he flags, groaning. The sun is rising in earnest now, and Bulkhead glows in the thin morning light.
"C'mon, Bulk." You hold up the petroleum balls for him. "Eat up."
And he opens his mouth for you.
You walk him to the construction site, talking about everything and nothing. This district of Kaon was an industrial slum before the war, he tells you, and through the patina of millennia you catch faded graffiti. NO COUNCIL, NO PRIME, reads one scrawl; OUT WITH HALOGEN, reads another.
"They got their wish," you mutter. "Eventually."
Bulkhead groans. "Are you cooking up another story?"
You pass an entire city block leveled by bombs. Turbofoxes are foraging in the ruins, and Bulkhead leans down with a low groan to scratch a friendly one's ears.
"I might be," you say. "Might need me to stay in Kaon for a while."
At the gates of the construction site he kisses you roughly, his jaw bumping against yours. You squeeze a huge handful of belly, and he grunts in surprise--and kisses you harder.
And then he is gone, waddling onto the site to start his day. His aft jiggles, you notice idly.
You maintain separate residences for several quartexes. "Bad for your career," Bulkhead tells you, "if they find out you 'faced your way to a scoop--"
"I came by it honestly," you say, a little hurt, and he snorts and pats your thigh.
So every few evenings, you step onto the Kaonian bridge-platform as the sun disappears behind the rising skyline. More often than not, Bulkhead is there to welcome you with a bruising kiss and a slap on the back.
The story--"Wreck and Rule," Circuit and Longtooth called it--breaks in the Iacon Communication Service bulletin. For a solar cycle or two, you imagine it has been entirely ignored--
And then the comms messages begin to pour in.
"You've got more fans than a cold-storage in the desert," says Circuit as you arrive for work. "And more than a few enemies."
"Ex-Cons?" asks Longtooth, glancing at both of you sidelong and splicing together what looks to be staticky war footage. "Bulkhead's designation is a dirty word with that crowd--"
"Not just," says Circuit. He forwards a message. (You read the first few lines and wince.) "Making the Autobots look like a pack of black-ops lowlifes," he quotes. "Whitewashing the Wreckers, this other one says--"
"I won't lie," says Bulkhead when you tell him. "We played dirty, and we played to win."
You rub his broad back, feeling a freshly-formed crease between swelling rolls of mesh. He's gaining at a steady clip; his back feels wider, his rounder aft taking up more of the bar booth.
There's something soothing in that. You squeeze a hefty roll as you speak. "You did what you had to."
"I got a kick out of it," says Bulkhead offhandedly. He drains his drink, setting it down with a click. In the shadows of the Jump Joint, his expression is nigh-unreadable; still his optics glitter like chips of ice. "We all did."
In moments like these, you wonder if you will ever understand him--
--and yet he can be so tender your Spark leaps into your throat.
"Love you, Bulk," you mumble, slumped against his shoulder. You're watching The Three-Headed Mutant Monkey Man Takes New York, and the tinny babble of the humans' voices is lulling you almost into recharge.
"Love me," says Bulkhead with an almost-sly grin, "love my movies." He plants a kiss on your crest. "What d'you think?"
"You're lucky you're handsome." Your optics are fluttering. He is warm and solid and exquisitely soft beneath you. "Someday, you've got to take me to Earth--"
You expect him to crack a joke. Instead he holds you tight. "Miko would like you." He pauses. "She'd be about thirty now."
"The mysterious Miko." It's meant to be teasing; it comes out tender. You wave vaguely at the holoscreen. "Are all humans this stiff?"
Bulkhead rumbles. You feel the vibration run through his frame, making his gut shake. "Here. I've got a picture--"
The hologram is scanned from a two-dimensional photograph. All humans look alike to you, you suppose: but the organic perched on a thinner Bulkhead's shoulder has a certain wild charm. It's the look in her optics: fierce as Megatron, you think (and decide not to share).
"She looks like a Wrecker," you say instead. "Tough."
"She was," says Bulkhead, in a tone you cannot quite read: she was tough or she was a Wrecker?
"Mm." You nuzzle into his broad shoulder, into the spot where the human once sat; your hand finds his underbelly, kneading the tender mesh there. "You'd better introduce me. Or am I your secret?"
It comes out pointed.
Bulkhead hesitates. "I don't get to Earth that often--" And he says your designation with weary sweetness. His optics soften. "Sure. Next time I'm on Unit: E business."
"Unit: E? You're full of secrets--"
And the movie is forgotten.
"So you're the one," says Wheeljack, and the scars on his lips stretch as he smirks, "making Bulkhead so fat he rolls."
You raise your hands to protest--and Bulkhead laughs it off. "The one and only. Jackie, I told you about him--"
"I read your little hit job on the Wreckers," says Wheeljack. He sits hunched into himself at Bulkhead's side, his grin crooked. "Seem to remember chasing you out of my lab with a grenade--but I guess Bulk's always been a softie--"
And he elbows Bulkhead in the belly, pointedly.
The three of you are sitting in a diner so cheap it doesn't have a name; the neon sign dangling lopsidedly over the window reads only "CLEAN FUEL." Bulkhead takes up most of a side of the table by himself, and Wheeljack is squashed against the greasy window.
"You treating him right?" says Wheeljack abruptly. "I didn't come to town to see the sights. Whatever sights this scrap heap has. I mean business."
"Thought you were here for a research conference," says Bulkhead, frowning. His double chin triples as he lowers his head. "Current Perspectives in whatsit--"
"One or the other," says Wheeljack. "Point is, twinkle-toes, I can live with you fattening Bulk up--"
"Hey," says Bulkhead mildly. "Enough."
"--but if you do one thing to hurt him--"
You wince, sipping your Energon. Wheeljack has the look of a warrior about his chipped plating; in fifteen stellar cycles since the war, he has not buffed away his scars.
"Dr. Wheeljack, I presume?"
He rolls his sour blue optics. "Just Wheeljack to you, or I might purge."
"Bulk's tough," you say. "He can handle himself."
And Wheeljack folds his arms behind his head, regarding you almost quizzically. "I know he can. Question is, what about you?"
That night, you 'face lazily under the light of the rising moons. The habsuite window is open, and the hubbub of the city drifts over you like the cool breeze.
Tonight you are on top, and Bulkhead squirms and bucks under you with every measured thrust. He fills much of the recharge slab, his belly spreading out beneath him; he is as lush, as abundant, as he is handsome, you think, when you can think in words.
As you clamber off him, spent, you slap his massive aft. It takes a second for the jiggle to die away.
"What d'you think, Bulk?" you murmur into his shoulder. "Can I handle myself?"
Bulkhead seems to float up from a distant dream. He does not turn his head; it takes him a cycle to speak, and his voice is hazy. "I'm not much of a Wrecker anymore."
"From the sound of it," you mumble, "that might be a good thing."
He grunts. "I'm more of a doorstop these days. Wheeljack was right. I practically roll."
You slide an arm around his waist, resting your fingers on a bulge of tender mesh. "We can stop. If you're not happy."
And you mean it.
Again he goes quiet for a cycle. "I am happy. Happy as I'm gonna get, I think." And then: "With kids like Smokescreen and Miko doing all the heavy lifting these days--"
Smokescreen. A name you've heard on the newsreels. Another little wound in Bulkhead's past, you think.
"Bulk," you say, and you pull him closer into your arms. "Bulk, Bulk, Bulk--"
"Getting old, I guess," he mumbles. "My hips are killing me. Haven't felt right since the Tox-En--"
You stay quiet, peppering his shoulders with little kisses; sparks jump between you, bright and fragile in the warm darkness.
"I never told you," he says, "about the Tox-En."
"No," you say.
Bulkhead groans. "Guess you deserve to know." And then: "It's a pretty rough story. You sure you want--"
A loud conversation, in a harsh Kaonian accent, drifts up from the repair shop below. The night is cool and crisp, and it smells of ozone and hot oil and trust.
"Bulkhead," you say. "I want to know everything about you. Even the ugly parts."
He chuckles. "It's all ugly parts." And in a low, strained voice he begins.
When he is done explaining, you bury your face in his thick neck; it's rapidly disappearing under plump new mesh, and he is soft and yielding beneath your kisses.
"Told you it wasn't a happy story," says Bulkhead in a low rumble.
"Bulkhead." You hold him close; you hold him tight. "You insist you're not a hero, but--"
He rolls over, his optics sharp. "I barely made it out of there. It ruined me." And then, in a voice like the shifting of continental plates, "I couldn't do my thing when Miko and Team Prime needed me--"
"You survived," you say. "You did the hardest thing of all."
A little huff; a disbelieving snort. Bulkhead hauls himself out of bed--it takes a klik's effort--and waddles, broad hips swinging, to the washracks.
You follow him.
He is slumped under the showerhead, staring blankly at the wall; solvent runs in rivulets down his rolls and folds, pooling in his transformation seams. Reminding you of nothing so much as rivers on a mountainside. He glances up with a grunt, and a gush of solvent runs down a face you've never seen so stern.
"Bulk," you say, "let me in. Let me help you."
His mouth twists. "I don't need help." And then: "Go ahead. Leave. Mech like you deserves better than me anyway."
And it almost quenches your Spark. You drop with a little gasp to one knee, reaching for the rag and soap. "You're a stubborn ass-gasket. Did anyone ever tell you?"
"Only a few hundred times." There's dark amusement in it. Bulkhead turns his face to the wall again.
You scoot up behind him, working soap into the rag. Matter-of-factly you take a handful of his side, tugging at the edge of the plating, and scrub it clean. Bulkhead makes a delicate surprised sound.
"I love you, Bulkhead," you say. "Faults and all."
His vents hiss. He leans forward until his crest taps the wall. Giving you room, you suppose.
You reach around him--there is so much of him that you shift on the cold, slick floor to get purchase--and work the rag beneath his underbelly. He is velvety-soft there, and vulnerable; the mesh clinks as you scrub it clean, handful by handful, in tender little circles.
"Beautiful," you murmur into his audial. "My big, fat, strong warrior."
He chuckles a little; you can picture his disbelieving face. You kiss the back of his neck, where a fold of mesh bunches up, where he tastes of salt and iron and solvent. And Bulkhead relaxes into your arms. "You win."
Again you kiss him. "Are you the prize?"
And from his voice, you know he is grudgingly smiling. "I might be."
Quartexes pass, unhurriedly.
The former Iacon Communication Service--now the Intercity Communication Service--expands to the South. "New horizons," says Circuit briskly. "It's about time."
So you take up permanent residence in Kaon: that scrappy Badlands city, dusty and windswept. That city bombed half to the ground, now rising again construction site by construction site.
Without preamble, you invite Bulkhead into your new habsuite. "Built for two," you say. "Ground floor," you add--
--for lately Bulkhead is having trouble with stairs. He is pushing twenty-five tons, he has told you offhandedly, and his cables never recovered from the Tox-En.
"What's wrong with my place, huh?" Bulkhead feigns offense, though a bright spark dances in his optics.
"You live like an old bachelor." You smile, chucking his shoulder: a gesture of love you picked up from him. "You deserve better than that."
It takes half an evening to move his few possessions. You break in the recharge slab immediately; it's double-wide, and still Bulkhead fills most of it. So as Bulkhead hoses off in the new washracks, you make mental plans to find a steelsmith who'll handle triple-wide furniture.
You can never plan too far ahead.
Bulkhead is promoted twice within the stellar cycle: first to construction site manager, then to head of division operations in Kaon's lower-rent districts.
"You hear that?" He's ebullient, pounding the dinner table with his fist. "I'm getting recognized--"
"You always have been," you say mildly, and you stack fresh calcite chunks on his plate. They disappear quickly; his appetite is only growing.
And that night you rub his belly especially tenderly, in smooth deep circles to soothe the gurgling tanks. Lately the rest of him seems an accessory to that vast belly, following it around and leaning back to carry it. It sags well past his knees now, swaying with every step. His thighs rub together with a soft little metal-on-metal sound, and you've taken to repainting them by night. So his waddle is changing too, slower and more decisive.
He has, you think, the gravitas a hero deserves.
You kiss him, readily and often: his plump jowls; his hanging triple chin; the thick roll of mesh that was his neck.
"You happy?" says Wheeljack. Through the smoky haze of the bar his expression is unreadable.
"Happy as I've ever been," growls Bulkhead, and he takes a long swig of Engex. He spills over three sturdy chairs. His new cane is propped discreetly against the table; after quartexes of stubbornness he agreed to use it, and now after six solar cycles he goes nowhere without it.
Fat and happy, you think with a smile, but you keep your silence.
"Because--" Wheeljack rubs his temples. "I was thinking. The Cons are still out there. Breakdown might be scrap metal--"
At the sound of the designation, Bulkhead's faceplate darkens. "I'm just sorry I wasn't the one who did it."
"--but his old crew's out there. The Stunticons. Little birdie tells me they blew Regulon-4 to smithereens last quartex." Wheeljack leans forward--and his expression is no more readable. "Been thinking we oughtta get the old crew back together."
Bulkhead opens his mouth--and turns to you, a question in his optics. He has never been handsomer, you think.
"Go if you want to," you say. "I can survive without you. If I must."
"Scrap," says Wheeljack, "we'll make you the Wreckers' official biographer."
"You're joking," says Bulkhead after a pronounced pause.
"Of course I'm joking," says Wheeljack. "So what d'you say, Bulk? Are you in?"
Bulkhead's hand finds yours beneath the table. His hydraulics whine as he turns back to Wheeljack. On the holoscreen over the bar, a Cube player scores a point, and the bar breaks into raucous and dirty cheers.
"I've got a pretty good life here," says Bulkhead. "Sorry, Jackie, but I'll pass this time." And then, as you squeeze his hand back: "I still owe my main mech here a trip to Earth."
Outside the bar, he kisses you. A dust storm is kicking up, carrying with it the raw wild scent of the badlands; Bulkhead holds you close and tight, his tremendous weight pressing you against the bar's warm windows.
"Got us a trip on the space bridge," he pants between kisses. "There's someone you need to meet."
The sunlight of Earth has a strange, misty character, and the ground is dense with life. Gingerly you step through the tundra, dodging low shrubs and half iced-over creeks. From half a mile away, a small organic creature sees you and takes off into the greenery.
Bulkhead lags several steps behind, his fans working double time beneath his weight. You slow down, letting him catch up.
"Like it?" he asks. "Unit: E's investigating a crash in the Arctic. Might be a Russian weather satellite--but if it is, I'll eat my actuator--"
Footsteps. A shape, almost Cybertronian, comes loping through the underbrush.
The cockpit gleams with fog. The human piloting it is smooth-faced. An adult of her species, you guess, thinking of the monster movies--and no longer precisely a young one. But her cry as she embraces Bulkhead is bright with joy.
"Miko," says Bulkhead, and you realize he is choking up. "There's someone you need to meet."
And as he breaks away from her, he takes your hand.