Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was dark, so his armour looked almost black, but it took more than shadows to hide Perceptor from sharpshooter optics.

“Percy!” Moonracer didn’t wait for him to turn around before slamming into him, wrapping her servos tight around his waist. She laughed at the thought of the shocked expression he always got when she hugged him, optics both normal and target-specialised popping out of their sockets as he tried to manoeuvre around his sparkmate’s grip.

When she looked up at his faceplate though, cold red was staring at her where she expected the safe, soft blue she always loved.

“Moonracer?” Perceptor’s voice was different, a deep solemn bass that pulsed through his frame, causing vibrations under Moonracer’s digits as they lay on the glowing red panel of his chestplate. She would have flinched away from it if her servos didn’t feel like stone.

“I thought you were with Hot Rod and Springer’s patrol?” What would have been an amusing befuddled tone on the Percy that she knew was suspicious and calculating on this... stranger. Not calculating as in, ‘How many Sharkticons does it take to power up a fuel cell?’. More as in, ‘How many bullets will it take to kill you?’
On that note, Moonracer took a step or five back.

“I was... reassigned at the last minute.” She was used to lying under pressure- enemy pressure, but she tried not to think about that. “But I don’t have anywhere to be right now so... I thought I’d pay you a visit!” A wide smile found itself plastered on her faceplate, and it almost wavered from relief when she saw Not-Perceptor return a shadow of it. At least the real Perceptor didn’t smile much either.

“I see you got a new paint job on the way.”

“Um, yeah!” It looked like lying was going to be her best friend while she was stuck here. “The... other one just lost its charm-“ Her sentence ended with a cry of surprise as Perceptor pulled her close again, pressing her body against his as her faceplate hit under his chest’s dim red glow.

“I like it.” She was still dazed from the grab, but Perceptor’s words, his growl, was so unexpected that she would have collapsed if not for his servos supporting her.

“Th-thank you-“ Again she was interrupted by surprise as black digits seized her faceplate and forced it up towards his, planting his lips hard on hers and shoving his glossa into her mouth. Moonracer had been kissed before, but never like this- her own glossa too heavy with shock to act against his and her jaw too weak to close him off with his hand holding her faceplate in place. She only managed to wrench away from him when his servo moved from cupping her chin to skimming down her chestplates. He had a smirk glazed with oral lubricant, but it disappeared when he saw Moonracer’s optics were wide and flickering.

“Is something wrong?” The worry in his bottomless voice sounded genuine, but she didn’t trust it. The fact that it sounded too much like Perceptor somehow didn’t help.

“Just... tired.” Moonracer’s digits had balled up against his chest, but he still held her firmly. And the smirk was back.
“I’d be happy to accompany you to your quarters...”

‘No.’ Her processor echoed the verdict but her vocaliser made silent, other than low whimpers as she struggled against his grip. He was still talking, mentioning ‘Decepticons’ and ‘daily captives’, but her attempt to escape made her deaf to his words. One servo was still managing to hold her while the other was curving around her hips... her protoform was shuddering under her armour at his unknown touches.

But there was something else as well; crawling underneath Perceptor’s own armour, thudding under her digits and reaching up her olfactories, reaching and clawing and suffocating her-

And then, with a frenzied glance upwards, Moonracer recognised it.

Energon.

The stench of splattered drying death.

It was all over her hands when she pulled them away from him. In the gloom she hadn’t noticed it, but now, with pale liquid life dripping between her digits... he was covered in it. Not his black scarred armour, but his protoform. Energon was starting to leak over the seams, staining through his joints and forming a shallow puddle on the floor beneath his peds. She would have thought he was bleeding if he didn’t look so proud.

“You would have loved to have heard them scream, my love.”

Love sounded so wrong coming from his upturned, ravaging lips. Her own were still numb from his kiss, tingling and wavering with blossoming horror. A sob jolted from her choked vocaliser, and Perceptor’s new fallen expression finally freed her lead-heavy peds from the floor.

She ran.

She ran far, fast, faster than she’d ever ran in her life. By the time she collapsed the energon on her hands had long since dried, along with the coolant from her optics.