"I still d-don't really get what you want me to do, Sideswipe."

Sideswipe knew he was only making Fixit's vocaliser glitches worse by yelling, but it was all he could do to get himself heard over the beeping echoing in his helm. "Just... get my comm unit to stop glitching!" He roughly banged against the side of his helm in another desperate attempt to turn the thing off. "I've been getting random pings for the past decacycle and I've got no clue who's sending them!"

Fixit trundled over to a toolbox, clicking his vocaliser nervously. "Well... it might be an accidental feedback loop, or... someone playing a prank on you," he theorised as he dug through his mess of equipment.

Sideswipe groaned, shoving a hand against his face. "I don't care what it is, just-" Another accursed ping interrupted him. "MAKE IT STOP, DAMMIT!"

"Okay, okay!" Fixit zoomed over wielding a screwdriver and small console. He pulled Sideswipe's helm down to take out the panel fastenings, revealing the circuitry of his comm unit. "Just... hold s-still... if I can just reset the module... there you go!" Sideswipe felt something switch off in his processor, leaving him disoriented for a few nanoklicks before it started running again, wiped clean of all sub routines. And no beeps. Sideswipe was allowed to feel relief for as long as it took for his inbox HUD to initiliase, and he finally saw a record of who it was plaguing him with pings for so many solar cycles.

Knockout.

Sideswipe instantly wished he'd just stayed with the anonymous annoyance.

Even so, he had enough grace to keep his manners in line. "Thanks, Fixit. I owe you one." He pushed off the scrap pile that made up his seat before the minibot could dismiss him first. He needed to get somewhere alone without anyone catching him- he wasn't looking forward to the discussion he was going to have, and the last thing he needed was someone eavesdropping on it.

Checking left and right behind a stack of stripped cars, Sideswipe braced himself for a voice he'd hoped to leave behind on Cybertron.

"And here I thought I raised you better than to ignore your own sire, Sideswipe."

And just like that, the guilt tactics were out. Knockout really hadn't changed since scoring himself an Autobot badge. "My comm unit was acting up, Dad," Sideswipe explained in a hush through gritted denta. "And I wasn't exactly expecting any calls from you."

He only regretted that remark after the deathly pause that followed. "...I'll ignore that tone if you tell me why you went to Earth without informing me."

"I didn't think it was any of your business." Sideswipe felt the urge to shrug even though no-one could see him. "You've got your 'Bot duties and I have mine."

"So you think that gives you a free pass to up sticks over a thousand light years away without telling me?"

"I think you're over exaggerating, and I know I'm not a sparkling anymore." For once, Sideswipe struggled to keep his voice down. "You let Smokescreen stay in the Elite Guard and he's off on prison planets half the time, why don't you go chew him out like you always do?"

"Oh, I already have."

He wasn't expecting anything that wasn't a subtle threat. "You talked to him before me?" He never thought about whether or not his sire favoured one twin over the other before, not when he was safe in the knowledge that they'd always be better off in his optics than Smokescreen, but... well, he didn't talk much with Smoke even before the war. Primus only knew if he'd finally managed to get himself into their sire's good datapads.

"He was easier to reach," Knockout explained dismissively. "I spoke to Sunstreaker as well, by the way. He wants you to get him a souvenir while you're down there."

"Yeah, he mentioned that..." Sideswipe recalled the last time he'd commed his twin just before his Earth transfer. He'd been thinking of a nice jar of dirt for Sunny's quarters-

"Sideswipe?" Oh, scrap.

Strongarm stood behind him, partially hidden from view by the wall of car bodies. She must have seen the online light of his comm unit from how she mirrored his whisper. "You okay?"

Sideswipe nodded silently, still glancing aside at his HUD for any indication of his sire speaking. Unfortunately, it came while Strongarm was still looking curiously at him.

"Ooh, is that a femme I hear?" Surprise didn't often suit Knockout well, and the centuries apart made no change to that. "Finally putting that family charm to good use, are you?"

Sideswipe juggled his attention between his sire and Strongarm as she made impatient servo motions. Sides held up a digit and hissed into his unit, "Just tell me what you want or let me go."

"Oh, I'll tell you once the ship lands."

"Wait, what?" The line cut off before Sideswipe's confusion found a voice. He was right back to banging away at his unit while Strongarm pulled him out of the alcove.

"Bumblebee's been looking for you," she said in her favourite lecture tone. "There's an unregistered starship coming in through nearby airspace, so we all need to be prepared for hostiles." She paused to give him another curious look while he slowly realised he'd have to greet his father face-to-face in less than a breem.

"Who were you talking to?" she asked, sliding a servo plate aside to check on her weapon diagnostics. Sideswipe could tell that it deliberately made her seem less interested in the answer than she actually was.

"...Family trouble," he eventually answered with an uncomfortable rub of his helm. "Looks like it's managed to find me all the way out here."