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woradat · 1 day ago

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2 Road 1 Together

SUMMARY - you float around in space like it's your home, and the exosphere is your backyard. The one that he have passed through twice, two times passed, two times met at different times

PAIRING - drift x reader, deadlock x reader (mostly)

Wandering through space with no rules, no map, and absolutely no idea what counts as "dangerously close to death" or "might get shot down just for blinking wrong"—now that’s your style.All you need is a curious cluster of stars, a planet with an unscanned surface, and a weird energy signature that makes your gut go: “Yep, I wanna poke that"

You’re the kind of curious that’s probably going to get you killed one day—or any minute now, actually. But hey, you’re still here, right? If the universe wanted you gone, it would've tossed you into a black hole eons ago. But no, you're still out here—vibing, floating, sipping lukewarm energon, and flirting with fate like it's an ex you never really broke up with

So, of course, you turned toward it

Like always and of course, you really shouldn't have

That was the first warning—the radar pinged something it couldn’t categorize, just before it cut out completely from interference that wasn't in any of your logs. You blinked slowly at the screen while your ship’s front cam caught it: a gleam of black and silver slicing through the void like a shark in deep water. Yeah, that’s not a meteor

You leaned back in your pilot seat, cradling your half-empty metal mug of slightly-warm energon, eyes narrowing from the star-glare bouncing off some uncharted, no-name rock in the distance “…Well, hello there, flying corpse” you muttered, flicking the comms open just as a voice came through—deep, stern, and not particularly in the mood for jokes

“Identify yourself. Unaligned vessel. You are trespassing in Decepticon patrol territory"

You made a face—not because you were scared, but because the word Decepticon always made your energon taste a little like regret

“Chill. Do you guys always open with that?” you replied casually, swirling your mug

“I’m not here to pick a fight. I just got… wildly off-track. As one does”

There was a pause

You half expected lasers, half expected dead air.Instead, your screen lit up—someone patched through the visual. And the face you saw? Yeah, that definitely wasn’t some border grunt, sharp frame, red optics that looked like they wanted to extract your spark and write your sins on it in high-grade. His face was so calm it was actually unsettling, like he’d done way worse than kill people and still didn’t lose sleep. You could practically see dried oil on his plating—except you had the feeling it wasn’t always oil

“I am Deadlock” he said coldly “Who are you? And who owns that ship?”

You smiled, shifting in your seat like you weren’t very much sitting under a Decepticon fleet’s laser sight

“Ship’s mine. Bought it used—nameless rock, three months ago. Total steal. As for me…” you lifted your mug for a sip, real slow “...do we ask names before killing now? Kinda kinky, but alright. I’m no threat. Ship doesn’t even have weapons"

Another long pause

“Land your vessel at the coordinates. Sent”

“Copy that, scary-voice”

—

The planet's surface was dry, dusty, and iron-flavored. You landed inside a neat little circle marked with a big ol' Decepticon symbol—like a passive-aggressive welcome mat that said “Congrats, you didn’t get shot. Yet” The ship door hadn’t even fully opened before something banged hard against the outer hull

“Exit the ship. Slowly” You did. Hands up. Easy smile. Totally unarmed. You scanned your surroundings—three figures, but only one stepped close enough to make your instincts twitch

Him

Deadlock stood tall, all hard lines and silent threats. His plating was scratched, weathered, and battle-worn—less a bot, more a weapon with legs. Red optics, still sharp, still watching like they could slice through lies with a blink. Every part of him screamed danger. Your processor finally caught up and flashed his stats across your HUD

DEADLOCK

CLASS: ENFORCER / SIC

STATUS: ACTIVE – TURMOIL UNIT

You swallowed. Great. Out of all the possible space-gremlins you could have annoyed today, you picked the tall, deadly, not-even-bothering-with-a-gun guy

But, hey. You’ve danced with worse. Probable

“I ask again” he said, voice like a warning shot “Why did you enter this sector?”

“I didn’t know it was your sector" you shrugged, hands still up “I saw an energy spike. Looked interesting. So I checked it out. That’s kinda… my thing"

“Lying?” he said flatly

"Exploring” you replied with a grin “Freelancer. No allegiances. No interest in your war. I’d offer to let you search the ship, but honestly, I’d rather you didn’t rifle through my underwear drawer”

He stepped closer. Way closer than was reasonable unless you had a death wish—or you were him. For a second, he said nothing. Then he turned to his subordinates

“Return to base. I’ll handle this one"

You blinked “..Ohhh, so that’s how this day’s going..”

The light from an unfamiliar sun stretched long across the ochre stone, painting shadows like veins on the broken skin of a dying world. The ground was cracked, breathless—as if the planet itself had exhaled its last—and in that breathless silence, only the sound of metal kissed the gravel underfoot

Deadlock moved slowly, every step deliberate, the rhythm of a ghost not yet ready to stop haunting

He was approaching you

And you—

You were seated beneath a jagged outcrop of native rock, its harsh form worn smooth by time, your back resting against its flank like you belonged there. Like you'd always belonged in the quiet places that war forgot

Your gaze was tilted to the sky, distant and full of wonder, like an astronomer from myth tracing constellations no one else remembered.

There was no tension in your frame, no fear, no urgency

Only that soft stillness of someone who had long since stopped expecting answers from the universe—and had begun, instead, to listen. One hand moved through the air, slow and unhurried, drawing symbols only you could see—delicate arcs, invisible lines, like mapping a star’s secret trajectory across your mind, the way a poet might write with light

“You can’t leave” His voice broke the silence like a blade slipping into a lake—sharp, but careful

You didn’t flinch

Instead, you turned to look at him the way one might acknowledge a passing signal: calmly, politely, almost absentmindedly

“Still being interrogated, huh?” There was no sarcasm, only mild curiosity—like he’d asked you what frequency you were tuned to, not just informed you of your captivity

“You searched my ship already, didn’t you?”

You returned to the sky without waiting for confirmation, like the answer didn’t matter, not really

There were stars out there still

Stars that had seen wars rise and fall, and didn’t blink for either

Deadlock didn’t reply right away. He stood there, the shadow of his frame stretched over you, his optics unreadable

He didn’t know what held him in place

There was no protocol, no justification – You had no weapons. No data caches. You weren’t a spy, or a threat, or even an asset. You were, in every practical sense, nothing

And yet—that was the part he couldn't let go of

You were the only one who had ever looked at him and not recoiled. Not bargained, not grovelled — You just sat there — Unchanged, unbothered, unreachable, like the stars above you

“You travel alone” he said at last

“No crew. No defenses. No shields or countermeasures”

“That’s right”

“Why?”

The question came out rough. Not because he wanted to accuse you. But because he didn’t know how else to ask the thing that was clawing at him inside: "Why do you risk this?" "Why are you not afraid?" "Why are you not trying to escape from him?" "don't you feel.. lonely?"

You turned to him again, the way one might turn toward warmth in the cold—softly, gently—and offered a smile.

Not mocking, not performative just a quiet honesty, carried like a candle between hands “Because I only want to see the world. Not conquer it”

It wasn’t the kind of answer that struck like thunder. It didn’t burn like fire. It was gentler than that — Like a drop of clear rain falling into a war-scorched desert and disappearing without sound, yet leaving behind something that didn’t quite evaporate

Deadlock stared at you

He had seen empires fall and comrades bleed out in the silence of space. He had delivered death in cold precision, had seen entire planets turned to ash in pursuit of conquest. But he had never, never, heard someone say they simply wanted to see

No dominion. No survival

Just presence

He didn’t understand it and he hated what he didn’t understand. But he didn’t leave – Instead, he lowered himself slowly to the ground beside you

No fanfare, no force

Just the quiet, unfamiliar act of choosing to stay. He left a small space between you. Enough not to intrude, not so much as to sever the thread between you, thin and strange as it was

And you—You didn’t shift away, didn’t question it, didn’t even ask “How long are you going to keep me here?”

As if you'd already decided the answer didn’t matter. Not compared to the way the stars still shimmered, ancient and unapologetic, above a planet that had nothing left to give

He was quiet for a long while, as if the words had to crawl their way out of the wreckage inside him “…You like it, then?”

“the stars?”

“No… I meant the way it makes you feel”

You didn’t answer at first

You just smiled—that faint, elusive thing, like starlight trying to find its way through the dark of a half-shuttered window and then, without a sound, you laid yourself down fully on the flat, cold surface of the stone

It cradled your form like a long-lost memory—unforgiving in texture, but strangely familiar in its silence

“Of course I do” you said at last, voice barely above a whisper “It never demanded anyone to pick a side. It never pulled anyone into a war they didn’t ask for..”

There was no venom in your tone, no bitterness. Just an old ache, worn smooth like the stone beneath you—like something you'd carried for so long it had stopped cutting into your circuits. Deadlock stared down at you, at the way your optics held no urgency, no defense

You weren’t trying to justify yourself, weren’t trying to change his mind

You were just… being

“Are you running from it?” he asked, though the words felt foreign in his own voice. You let out a breath that could’ve been a sigh, or a laugh, or maybe just the sound of something letting go

“I’m not running” you said

“I’m just not chasing it anymore”

He didn’t understand

Not really

Not in the way he understood blades and missions and silence that followed orders. But something about your words lodged itself inside him, like a shard of light piercing a place he’d forgotten he had

He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Because what he wanted wasn’t something he could ask

He just… watched

Watched you trace invisible shapes in the stars with your optics, your fingers twitching slightly like you were sketching something only you could see.

Watched the way you seemed content to let silence fill the air between you— not as a weapon, not as a shield, but as a choice

He wondered how long you would lie there if he said nothing. How long you could let peace settle over you like a cloak. How long before the world demanded something of you again—and whether you’d yield, or vanish, or simply turn away

He didn’t know and it scared him—this not-knowing

This ache for something he couldn't name

Because deep in the pit of his spark, in that place no training could reach, he feared that if he let you go—he might never see that kind of freedom again

—

The stars were bruises in the night sky—deep violet and silver, bleeding slowly across the horizon as the remnants of a distant supernova whispered through the black. Cold wind stirred the dust around the rock you sat on, sharp with metal and ozone, the smell of a world long-abandoned

Deadlock stood a few paces away, framed in the dim light like a statue too stubborn to erode. His armor caught the faint gleam of a dying moon—scratched, dulled, but still solid as the name he bore. He hadn’t moved in a while. Not since you both fell silent

Perhaps it was the silence itself that unmoored him

“…What are you, really?”

His voice broke the stillness not like a blade, but like the creak of ancient hinges—rough with disuse, but careful not to slam anything shut too quickly. He spoke with edges, yes, but underneath those edges was hesitation. A low hum of something that could be called longing, if he had the words for it

You didn’t look at him immediately. Your optics remained fixed upward, toward constellations that didn’t belong to either of you. They were just… there. Unclaimed. Free

“An explorer? A wanderer? A drifter?”

You let each word roll lazily off your glossa like you weren’t quite sure which one fit “Take your pick”

He shifted his stance. Barely. But you caught it. The uncertainty behind the motion

“No mission? No objective?”

“I follow gravity” you said at last “Whichever way the pull leads. A planet, a moon, a quiet stretch of empty space”

“I move toward what draws me in. That’s all”

Deadlock’s optics narrowed faintly

“That sounds… senseless”

You finally turned to look at him, head tilted just slightly “Maybe. But it’s mine”

Then, quieter, almost like an afterthought: “What about yours?”

He hesitated

Not because he didn’t have an answer—he had one ready, and you could see it form on his tongue. But saying it aloud here, in this quiet pocket of the universe where war wasn’t echoing off the walls, made it feel… false. Outdated

Still, he answered “My duty is to eliminate the enemies of the Decepticons..”

The wind blew again. Cold this time

It caught on the edges of your plating and rustled loose grains of shattered stone. He didn’t move. But something in him seemed to shift. The tension between you both wasn’t combative anymore. It was quieter now. More like a question waiting to be asked. And then, he asked it

“What’s your name?”

“Will you remember it?”

A flicker passed behind his optics

“I don’t forget the name of something I’ve decided… not to kill” The way he said it—carefully, precisely—told you everything

How rare that decision was. How dangerous it felt to say it aloud. A soft laugh escaped you, almost involuntary

“That almost sounds romantic”

“It’s not” Too quick. Too sharp

And yet… not sharp enough

There was doubt bleeding into the edges of his voice now, undermining the flat certainty he tried to wrap around his words

You didn’t tease him for it—Didn’t press

You simply said your name

Soft. Unrushed. Like the first syllables of a melody that didn’t need to go anywhere

He stood still as stone

But his optics shuttered for a moment—just one flicker—like he was sealing the name into memory, not in the way a soldier memorizes a target…but the way a starless wanderer might memorize the name of the first light they ever saw in the dark

—

Space doesn’t remember you but you try to remember it

Time was a cycle on a ship—measured in rotations, daybreaks, dusks. But out here, there is only the faint light of stars that have not yet arrived. A delay of millennia between what was and what now flickers through the viewports. You sit alone on an old research vessel once built for Central Exploration. Once. Now it is yours. Yours alone

The lab is a chaotic graveyard of curiosity

Uncatalogued star samples lie scattered across the workbench, dimly glimmering like fossilized light. A datapad blinks open beside a half-finished cube of energon, lines of unintelligible code and notes scribbled hastily on translucent film paper. Your handwriting—jagged, erratic, alive with questions. The low murmur of galactic radio frequencies hums in the background, like the universe whispering to itself through static

You press a finger to the recorder and begin speaking into the dark

"Date... I don’t know. I’ve lost track time"

"Today I saw a star. Not a bright one. Not large. But for some reason… I couldn’t look away.. something about it felt familiar—as if I’d seen it before in another sky"

You stare out past the hull window where stars burn like slow-dying embers

“If a star dies… does it still exist in memory?”

A question. Not yours. Not originally

A voice from long ago, from one drifting bot you met in the deep of the black. You never remembered his name. Not truly

You don’t even recall the shape of his faceplate now—only the texture of his voice, like worn brass and hesitant gravity. You remember the way he asked the question, during a night you were both stranded on a derelict moon. It hadn’t matched him—this strange softness, this sudden philosophy. But he asked anyway and now you carry the question with you. Like a splinter in your spark

He stood still, alone in the quiet hum of his quarters.

Not Deadlock anymore—not in name.

But beneath the new plating and repainted insignia, there were fractures in the armor that couldn’t be covered. Slivers of memory embedded deep in his frame.

The past clung to him like dried coolant. Regret, like rust

They had made a brief landing on a backwater star system—standard protocol. Faint signal detected. Possibly a distress call. Possibly a trap. The Wreckers were ready for either. What they weren’t ready for was… nothing. A desert of broken scrap. Torn structures. Empty wind

Except for one thing

Half-buried in the sand like a secret someone tried to forget. A datapad, scorched at the edges, humming softly with preserved memory

He found it or perhaps it found him

“Still asking too many questions, huh…” His voice was low, hoarse—spoken more to the silence than to anyone present

He brought the datapad back with him

Now, sitting at his desk, the lights dimmed to a soft, amber hush, he stared at the familiar, impossible scrawl on the screen. The symbols, the tangled phrasing, the dense streams of data interspersed with words that shouldn’t have belonged there. Shouldn’t, and yet—you always made them fit

It was you. He knew it like he knew his own scars

No one else wrote like that, no one else could thread particle physics through metaphors of burning leaves, no one else could take gravity equations and lace them with longing

His hand trembled slightly as he swiped to the final line – There, typed alone in the last blinking entry:

"A nameless star… but once, I knew it well"

He read it three times. The fourth time, he didn’t need the screen

He could feel the words pulsing through his core memory, reverberating through every old protocol he had tried to bury. That you had been here—recently, possibly—That you had looked up and seen something familiar

That maybe, impossibly, you remembered him

Not his face, not his voice

But the version of him that asked questions beneath dying stars and maybe that was enough

He closed the datapad and sat there for a long, long time. The silence around him was no longer empty—it rang with a single memory: A voice, low and curious, in the echoing dark of yours—

“If a star dies… does it still exist in memory?”

He didn’t have an answer

But now, perhaps, he wanted to find on

#transformers idw publishing #transformers idw #transformers x reader #drift x reader #deadlock x reader #cybertronian reader #reader insert

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