Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Have you been experiencing this processor-ache for a long time?” Ratchet asked, staring at the scrolling readout from the machine connected to Ultra Magnus’ medical port. “The coding for logical processing seems to be branching off in unauthorized directions. And your emotional protocols look a little stressed.”

Ultra Magnus resisted the urge to bury his helm in his hands. The memory of chasing Rodimus down not two hours ago blared back into an aching throb.

Rodimus had successfully dodged this third attempt of Magnus’ to make him review and sign off on a proper maintenance schedule, and it had been exhausting to say the least. The Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord had lost his captain somewhere between the third storage room and the oil reservoir - Rodimus was much faster and far more adept at hiding than Magnus himself was at seeking, and no amount of diplomatically-worded arguments into the empty air had coaxed Rodimus out once Magnus had lost sight of him. Magnus had been forced to return to his office, datapad still sans the appropriate signature, frustrated beyond acceptable parameters.

Ratchet was still concentrating on the readouts when Magnus noticed that the medic was making an odd, circling movement with the fingers of the hand that wasn’t holding the machine. It looked strange, but also...somewhat familiar?

Magnus did not often allow himself to get distracted, but the harsh string of despair over his captain’s - and thereby his own - administrative failures demanded an exception, and so he latched immediately onto the protocol of ensuring a subordinate’s welfare instead.

“Ratchet,” he said, pulling the medic’s attention up to him. He nodded at Ratchet’s erstwhile appendage. “Are you well?”

Ratchet looked down, caught sight of what his own hand was doing, and straightened so quickly that it sounded like he was close to snapping a strut. “Yes. I’m fine.” It came out as a growl, the words and tone wholly unconvincing.

Considering the physical anomaly that he’d just observed, and the fact that Ratchet was well-known for putting his own needs behind that of everyone else’s, Magnus felt obliged to press for more information.

“What was that? If you are suffering discrepancies in the functioning of your frame, I must insist that you receive assistance.”

Ratchet glared at him. Magnus put on his most patient and neutral expression. They stared each other down for an entire klik.

“I’m not suffering any discrepancies,” Ratchet bit out irritably at last. “This. Is just. Something that Drift does.”

Magnus schooled his features to attention. It was as much politeness as honest curiosity. “Oh?”

“Spend enough time with someone and you end up picking up their habits, whether you want to or not,” Ratchet groused. “Drift likes to do these...absurd hand squiggles. Calling on the mysticisms of the universe, that sort of thing. He does them all the time and I suppose my processor just mirrors what I see. There’s only so much that can be ignored before resistance becomes futile.”

Ultra Magnus’ processing stuttered to a halt.

Increased exposure to an influence could lead to a high absorption rate despite unwillingness on the part of the one being influenced? Ratchet certainly sounded as though he had started imitating Drift despite adamantly not wanting or having set out to.

Magnus made every effort to be a good role model, and to not ask of others what he was not capable of himself. Indeed, it was one of his mottos to lead by example, and he was inordinately pleased at the concept that his work ethic might be able to inspire others to similar standards. Rodimus’ refusal to perform administrative duties adequately was therefore a result of willful disobedience rather than the lack of a good example, which was present in Ultra Magnus himself. But- if regular or greater proximity was what had been missing in the equation…

“You give sound advice, Ratchet,” he murmured. “I will attempt the method of your description. At the very least, it is something I have not yet tried.”

Ratchet eyed him sideways. There was a smidge of doubtful confusion on the very edge of the medic’s field. “I...alright? Anything that helps keep the stress of your coding down is good. So try whatever you need, but don't knock yourself out. Understand?”

“I understand,” Magnus replied automatically. He was already opening up the duty roster for tomorrow on his heads-up display. Rodimus was scheduled for the first shift, a timing that his captain seemed physically incapable of making, yet had to be assigned to every fourth day for fairness.

It would be a perfect occasion to begin his new endeavor.

***

“You have got to be kidding me.”

The words were slightly slurred, and Rodimus’ optics were flickering and not quite powering on. Magnus could see a fine crease or two on the delicate derma-metal of his captain’s faceplates that indicated an inadvisable recharge position. Was that a cable trailing off behind the curve of a yellow thigh, still connecting Rodimus to the circuitry of the berth? It was evident that Magnus had woken him up.

Magnus checked his chronometer. Half an hour before the start of the first shift. Any sensible mech would be up and about by now, refreshing themselves and preparing their mental faculties for the day ahead.

“I wanted to escort you to your shift,” Magnus started, although Rodimus’ optics had started to dim and his captain had begun listing against the doorframe. “I thought we could perhaps- ” and the words sounded strange enough in his processor that he had to parse them through a syntactic analysis to be sure he hadn’t gotten something wrong, “ -spend some time together?”

The aperture of Matrix-blue optics blinked slowly at him, before they shuttered fully and went dark. “Mm-hmm?”

“Right now,” Magnus clarified, because it didn’t seem as though Rodimus was any closer to understanding why Magnus was at the door of his habsuite. “I thought we could spend some time together right now while I escort you to the bridge. We could go through the maintenance schedule I was trying to show you yesterday?”

Rodimus’ vents gave a little hiccup. Magnus stared at him. Was Rodimus- no, surely not- ?

But a few seconds more of observation left no doubt. His captain had fallen back into recharge. Standing up.

Magnus almost abandoned the shred of hope he’d been clinging to. But then Ratchet’s voice replayed in his head: There’s only so much that can be ignored before resistance becomes futile.

Magnus could persevere. He could persevere until ignoring his good influence became a futility.

“Rodimus!” he barked, and his captain jerked forward, face-planting into the middle of Magnus’ armor.

“Ow.”

This level of somnolence seemed abnormal. It occurred to Magnus then that Rodimus might be running short on fuel if he had just woken up. Magnus himself always prepared a cube before he plugged in to recharge so that it would be ready and waiting when he onlined again. He had even purchased a little fuel-warmer on one of the planets they’d stopped at for this express purpose, a decadent indulgence that Magnus felt inexplicably embarrassed to even think about. However, there was no questioning the pleasant effects. Fuel went down the intake so much more smoothly when it had been warmed, and it jump-started his systems quicker as well.

Perhaps he should have brought Rodimus a cube.

He looked down over the top of Rodimus’ helm to what was now clearly visible as the cable connecting his captain to the recharge slab. Biting back a sigh, Magnus reached down and meticulously unplugged the connection, gently closing the small panel on the smooth arch of the left side of Rodimus’ waist. “Rodimus,” he tried again, trying to lightly shake his captain off. “Are you in need of fuel?”

Rodimus muttered something into Magnus’ plating. It sounded suspiciously like “Frag, yes. Primus help me.”

Magnus debated the wisdom of leaving his captain unattended to fetch the requisite fuel. Alone, Rodimus might very well crawl back to berth, which would result in him being late as usual for his shift. If he brought Rodimus with him, the lack of fuel might result in Rodimus toppling over before they even reached the dispensers.

“I will carry you,” he decided. Just this one time.

It looked like he would have to subtly correct Rodimus’ fueling habits to avoid a recurrence of this. How fortuitous that Magnus had come early after all. It had given him an opportunity to find yet another aspect of his captain’s routine that he could assist in improving.

Rodimus stilled at his words, then finally stood a little straighter. He leaned backwards, looking up and catching Magnus’ gaze. His optics finally brightened, although there was an odd, vaguely-stunned expression on the mobile face. “Uh. Really? Wait, why? You’re- huh?”

It appeared that the lack of fuel was affecting Rodimus’ own syntactic protocols - the situation was more urgent than he’d thought. Magnus bent slightly at the knees and scooped his captain up, ignoring Rodimus’ startled yelp. He was careful not to crush the breadth of the yellow spoiler against his frame. “We are going to the dispensers right now.”

Rodimus’ jaw was hanging open. His fingers gripped and flexed repeatedly, scrabbling at Magnus’ chest and arm. “Look, Mags. It’s way too early for me to be thinking this hard about this. I’m not sure what you think you’re- wait, is all of this because I didn’t sign that timetable yesterday?”

Oh? Rodimus was bringing up the maintenance schedule of his own volition? Things were moving in the right direction already.

“We can discuss it on the way,” he said magnanimously, stepping out into the corridor and waiting until the door to Rodimus’ habsuite had slid shut and locked with a double-beep. “And if you are satisfied, you may sign off on it before the start of your shift.”

Chapter Text

Magnus had been trying to make it a habit to stop by Rodimus’ quarters at the end of each day, both to offer his guiding presence as much as possible as well as to drop off a cube of fuel in advance for Rodimus’ morning requirements if they weren’t on the same shift. At some point, he’d even procured a little thermal box from Brainstorm that kept the fuel reasonably warm over a typical recharge period of four hours; the convenience and function of that contraption had pleased Magnus more than he’d admit.

The first time he’d shown up in the evening, Rodimus had squinted at him for nearly two kliks before shrugging and letting Magnus in. The captain had seemed bewildered by the fuel that Magnus had prepared in the little thermal box, but accepted it with only three occurrences of side-eye. It was a sound arrangement on all fronts - Magnus could pick up the cube and thermal box when he escorted Rodimus in the morning, thereby accomplishing yet another task at the same time that he (gently) exerted his positive influence and made sure that Rodimus was where he needed to be.

By the end of the first week, the door started sliding open automatically when Magnus approached. Rodimus had lazily waved a hand and casually mentioned that he’d programmed the automatic locking mechanism to start a little later.

Magnus worried about it briefly - it was an opportunity for a security breach, and he’d overheard many a mech high on engex complaining about Rodimus’ freewheeling tendencies and the captain’s penchant for dangerous decisions (not entirely untrue, perhaps, but Magnus had written some of the more insistent accusers up for fomenting dissent). At the beginning of the now-unlocked hour, Magnus was now always in the vicinity on his way to Rodimus’ habsuite; he decided that his proximity adequately made up for the increased risks presented by the disrupted door-locking schedule.

He had been slightly anxious that even though the endeavor to place himself near Rodimus as often as possible was well underway, it’d be challenging to find areas they could talk about that didn’t relate to work. If what Ratchet had confessed was to be believed, Drift’s powerful influence on the medic had been accomplished without direct or visible purpose.

This highlighted the disturbing possibility that the less Magnus talked about what he actually hoped for Rodimus to achieve - if he instead focused on simply spending time together without a written agenda (a concept that Magnus had previously found impractical) - the more likely it was that Rodimus would subconsciously pick up on - and start engaging in - Magnus’ rigorous adherence to regulation and propriety.

But it hadn't been as difficult as he’d feared. After it’d become clear that he wasn’t there only to talk about the duties that Rodimus regularly shirked (Magnus still couldn’t help himself from trying to get at least one sign-off every four days; his personal queue-list of tasks began blinking unbearably otherwise), Rodimus had, for want of a better word, started to relax around him.

Innocuous and interesting topics had appeared quite naturally, even if they seemed superficial at first. Magnus had reluctantly allowed himself to go along with a discussion on the merits of glossy versus matte paint, and been unexpectedly furnished with new knowledge on the functional benefits of various colors - shiny black was apparently the most generally inefficient. After a while, Rodimus had even asked after Magnus’ poetry, even if the captain had fallen asleep partway through a (admittedly fairly long) recital.

At one point, Magnus had even found himself, to his startlement, indulging in a little sacrilegious banter about the mythical racy proclivities of Liege Maximo. That particular conversation had made Rodimus laugh so hard that a filament in one of his optics had shorted out. The subsequent incidence of a yellow hand gripping Magnus’ arm for support had provoked a little tingle that felt…quite nice. Magnus had left the habsuite and headed for his own shift with an inexplicably warm, satisfied feeling (though he had not allowed the strange sensation to detract him from fixing an appointment with the medbay for Rodimus’ optic at the earliest possible time).

Then one day, without warning, Rodimus began signing off approvals before Magnus nudged them over. With a few exceptions, he even started to do so on a somewhat regular schedule, approximately once every three days - right before Magnus’ queue-list began shooting off reminders. The captain still didn’t deign to read all the datapads that Magnus kept on-hand in subspace, but another positive of their increased time together was that Magnus quickly learnt the art of presenting only the most important parts in a succinct way. If Rodimus was in the mood, he’d let Magnus reel off at least three outstanding issues without interruption, and Magnus was comforted by the fact that Rodimus knew what he was signing off on (he’d had a deep fear that his captain approved things without looking at what he was affixing his signature to).

All in all, it felt as though the plan was seriously working. If Magnus calculated the average processing time of reported problems and recurring administrative tasks that required attention, Rodimus’ productivity in reviewing them had definitely increased despite Magnus fighting his own imperatives and mentioning work as little as possible in their time together.

Regretfully, Magnus marked the incomprehensible hypothesis of ‘Less-is-more’ as indisputably proven (at least in this instance), and shuffled it to the Learnt Lessons folder of his long-term memory archive.

But then one evening, the door slid open automatically as it always did, and Rodimus wasn’t there.

The dangers of the changed locking schedule blared so loudly and suddenly in Magnus’ primary processor that he almost activated his standby battle functions before his visual feed helpfully provided him with more input.

Drift looked up from polishing his sword, helm cocked quizzically. “Wow,” the third-in-command said meditatively. “You really do come by every day, then?”

It was odd. Drift was Rodimus’ amica. Magnus knew that Drift and Rodimus spent a lot of their time together, be it for training, (illegally) racing in the cargo bay, polishing each other, or just hanging out (a term that Magnus still disliked for its ambiguity). Drift had even been the inadvertent genius architect of Magnus’ quest to teach Rodimus how to impose order in his duties.

And yet, seeing Drift sitting there casually on Rodimus’ berth - during the time that Magnus usually spent with Rodimus, no less - made Magnus feel (with a burst of self-chastisement) rattled and disturbed. He registered the anomaly of his emotional sub-unit as out-of-sorts to a disproportionate degree, for absolutely no reason that he could think of beyond the disruption of an established routine. Worst of all, the routine in question had started off as a private undertaking rather than a strictly-professional one. Logically, that indicated that it should merit far less negativity than it was currently generating.

Drift gave a short vent as Magnus struggled with his erstwhile emotional processing (the apparent malfunction of which also had the lamentable side effect of him stalling with no reply to Drift’s simple query).

“Look,” Drift said quietly, returning to polishing the sword. “It’s the anniversary of when Nyon was blown up, alright? I’m not surprised that he didn’t say anything, and nobody else really remembers it anymore. But he usually gets kind of down, and he has to spend some time alone before he can brush it off. I’m just here to make sure he gets back before too long, that he plugs in properly to recharge, and that he knows someone is here and cares, that sort of thing.”

Oh. Drift hadn’t owed Magnus an explanation. Magnus found himself appreciating it significantly anyway.

He cleared his intake and subspaced the datapads he’d come prepared with - it was the third day after the last round of approvals, and he’d been complacent enough to start expecting the next round on clockwork. But with Rodimus’ personal motivations justifiably affected by a previous traumatic event, Magnus found that he didn’t have it in himself to worry about the alerts that would be generated from his queue list.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked, and Drift’s helm popped right back up. The third-in-command had a strange expression on his face - it flickered wildly between warily pleased and surprised and then back again.

“...just what I said before. It’s good if you show you’re here. And that you care. If you really do.”

Magnus’ emotional sub-unit jumped to attention as it parsed that last random addition…as a warning. But Drift had already gone back to placidly hefting and staring down the blade of the sword, giving away nothing in his field. Magnus made a note to ask Ratchet to recalibrate the aforementioned sub-unit - it was clearly behaving erroneously.

“Thank you,” he said, reversing out of the doorway and excusing himself. There was no meaning in him remaining in Rodimus’ habsuite when Rodimus himself wasn’t there, and also when Drift, armed with the prior knowledge of Rodimus’ history and needs, was already present and prepared.

Something felt hollow as he pulled up his own archive on the long, long timeline of Cybertron’s war. The document indeed reflected today’s date as the anniversary of when Nyon had been destroyed. Drift had been correct in the assumption that Rodimus had not given any outward indication that he was still affected by the event beyond his absence today. Magnus would have had no way of knowing since Rodimus hadn’t ever said anything.

His faulty emotional sub-unit persisted in throwing up a feeling of distress anyway. Thinking of Rodimus sitting somewhere alone, yellow spoiler slumped and sad, blue optics dull and staring bleakly into nowhere-

Magnus abruptly changed direction, heading towards Swerve’s instead of back to his hab. Rodimus had a strange fondness for the cheap little metal umbrellas that topped some of Swerve’s fancier concoctions - the captain smiled often enough as he twiddled with them. Magnus had also observed Rodimus ordering a double serving of potassium shavings in his fuel on more than one occasion.

As far as gestures of comfort went, these were probably insignificant things. Magnus found himself hoping they would help anyway.

Chapter Text

Armed with five packets of potassium additives and a blindingly-neon yellow umbrella stuck in the corner of a cube of warmed fuel, Magnus turned up half an hour before the start of the first shift of which Rodimus was scheduled for today.

The habsuite door remained closed, but Rodimus had sent Magnus the access code a while back - rather indiscriminately tacked on as a second addendum behind a ludicrous (if rather amusing) note that the captain sometimes liked to pop on at the end of a sign-off. Rodimus hadn’t mentioned it, though, so Magnus hadn’t either; he’d assumed it was some sort of emergency allowance for the days that Rodimus might not be able to drag himself out of recharge. Magnus had never used it up till now, far preferring for Rodimus to let him in rather than invade Rodimus’ privacy despite the unspoken permission given (entering an open door was one thing - actively inputting his captain’s access code was quite another).

But with the silence behind the door feeling heavier than usual and no response after knocking and calling out several times, Magnus braced himself. He gripped the cube tightly, lifted his hand to the access panel, and, with a rushed vent, input the string of illogical glyphs. The door slid open.

The hab was dark, and even the glow of Rodimus’ biolights was dim. His captain was curled up on the recharge slab, looking smaller than Magnus had ever seen him.

His spark did an uncomfortable flip in its chamber. “Rodimus?” he called, approaching slowly and flaring his field measuredly to broadcast his presence. “Rodimus, it’s time to get ready for your shift.”

One blue optic onlined, a thin streak of light in the gray. “Mags?” Rodimus murmured.

His captain sounded younger and older all at once, simultaneously weary but vulnerable. It suddenly struck Magnus how much trust Rodimus must have in him to allow Magnus to see him in such a groggy state. To permit Magnus to come this close even when he was in recharge.

Magnus’ spark spun again, but this time, it felt a little tight.

“Yes, captain,” he said gently, hunkering down next to the berth. He modulated his voice and field to be as reassuring as possible, before proffering the cube and the additive packets. If he’d felt silly about procuring such trivialities yesterday, that embarrassed sensation had now vanished in the fervent desire that it would jog Rodimus back to a normal, happier state.

Rodimus blinked down at what he held out. A soft snuffle escaped his vents; it took Magnus a moment to recognize it as a disbelieving little laugh. “Is that for me?”

Magnus huffed. “I can assure you that I am not drinking any fuel with additives or unnecessary flourishes.”

“Oh.” The laugh petered out into a small smile. Light blue optics searched Magnus’ faceplates carefully, as if looking at him for the first time. Magnus bore the scrutiny patiently, wondering if Rodimus was still recharge-addled. Perhaps his captain hadn’t gotten the requisite amount of hours this night, if he’d returned late from wherever it was he’d gone off to.

He reached out and took Rodimus’ hand when it became clear that the smaller mech wasn’t going to move. The yellow fingers twitched in his grasp, but Magnus was determined to hand off his gift. Nudging the additive packets forward on the berth, Magnus pushed the decorated cube onto Rodimus’ palm, lightly closing his captain’s hand around it. “Drink,” he advised. “And put in as much potassium as you want.”

Rodimus looked away, but the smile on his face widened as he finally moved to sit up. Something eased in Magnus’ chest.

“Do you need to postpone your shift?” he asked without thinking, and then was horrified when he realized what he’d said. Was he encouraging a- a dereliction of duty?!

“Nah,” Rodimus said dismissively, rolling his neck and stretching his cables, thankfully denying Magnus a preemptive spark-attack as he tried to come to terms with the unconscionable suggestion that had just left his vocalizer. “I’m good. Better than I thought I would be.” He eyed Magnus, smiling again as he unsealed the freshly-prepared cube. “Thanks, Mags. For this. For being so…” one slender finger twirled a nonsensical circle in the air, “-you.”

And that strange statement snapped Magnus right out of his frantic self-scanning for viruses, bringing about an incongruous wave of heat to the surface of his plating. “You are most welcome,” he replied automatically, and then wanted to cringe at how formal it sounded.

“Do I need to approve anything?” Rodimus asked idly between sips. “Sorry that I disappeared yesterday, by the way. There was, uh- I was- yea. I guess I should have commed you, but my processor was just kinda- Drift mentioned you’d stopped by, which was really nice because I did sort of end up missing you last nigh- ”

There was a finger on Rodimus’ mouth, pausing his blathering. It was a large, white finger. It was Magnus’ finger, and he had no impression of how it’d gotten there. Rodimus froze, a drop of fuel smudging his lower lip and a rare flush coming to the pale white faceplates.

“You were affected by a personal event. I understand,” Magnus forced out stiltedly as the input from his visual feed sank in. His alarm at his uncharacteristic actions soared exponentially. Magnus jerked his finger back, ready to- ready to do something- but balked when his undisciplined gaze followed the swipe of Rodimus’ glossa across his lips instead.

“Mags..?” Rodimus lowered the cube slowly, and the air of tentative enquiry was suddenly too much to bear.

“I have to see Ratchet for an appointment at once,” he blustered, standing so quickly that his hydraulics protested with a twinge. “Will you be fine making it to the bridge by yourself?”

Rodimus looked up at him, helm tilted. His captain seemed torn between brushing off the offensive suggestion that he couldn’t make it to his own bridge unattended, and delicately asking Magnus what was wrong (except Magnus had no idea, no answers to offer on his own. Ratchet was not fond of unscheduled drop-ins, but Magnus felt that his rapidly-multiplying sequence of errors warranted an urgent visit, surely). Mercifully, after staring at him for a few long, considering moments, Rodimus waved him off with a small shake of his red helm and a chuckle.

***

“Something is very wrong,” Magnus blurted, at the exact same moment that Ratchet grunted, “So I see the courtship is going well.”

It seemed to take an interminable amount of time for Ratchet’s words to sink in, and even then, the only response Magnus’ spinning processor managed to muster up was a weak “...what?” It must have shown on his face, because Ratchet stared at him and then, in a wary tone better reserved for interrogations, asked, “What exactly is very wrong..?”

“Courtship?!” Magnus finally managed, after an entire staggering klik. His vocalizer squeaked out the word at a concerning pitch and volume. Ratchet threw down the mesh cloth and frowned at him.

“You’ve been rather obvious about it,” the medic pointed out, crossing his arms. “Visiting twice a day, bringing fuel, spending your free time together regularly? I think there are even rumors that you’ve been caught smiling. Not to mention Swerve hasn’t been able to stop chattering on and on about the thoughtful present you got yesterday. If you were trying to keep it a secret, you’ve done a slag job of it.”

Magnus thought he might reboot - or actually shut down. The strings of his processing were extrapolating and tangling at a dizzying rate. “Obvious- smiling- secret?” he parroted, and the lack of proper syntax pinged immediately and accusingly on his HUD. Of course, his processor chose that dire moment to flash a montage of recent memories at him.

The warmth he’d felt when he’d made Rodimus laugh. The pleasant tingle when Rodimus had put a hand on his arm.

Seeing Drift in Rodimus’ hab, and the irritation that had burst forth before he could stop it.

The sight of Rodimus curled up on the berth, and the tug at Magnus’ spark to see him so.

The way Rodimus had lit up when he’d seen the silly yellow umbrella, and the satisfaction that Magnus had felt to know that his gesture had been the cause of it.

The way Rodimus’ fingers had fluttered in his larger hand.

Primus. They’d held hands.

The realization crashed down upon him.

“I’ve been courting my captain,” Magnus croaked, blank with the sudden overwhelming weight of discovery.

“Yes?” Ratchet was looking at him as if he’d lost his rationalization unit. “That’s what I’m saying. We know. We all know. Now, do you want to tell me what’s wrong with you, or am I going to have to run full-frame diagnostics?”

Ratchet could have been talking in the Primal Vernacular for all that Magnus understood him at that moment. He was still firmly stuck on how his attempts to impress the importance of order upon his captain had morphed into Rodimus impressing on him.

It hadn’t been his original purpose, not one bit. But it seemed foolish now to deny that he had apparently come to form an attachment to Rodimus.

He was…fond of his captain. Quite a lot.

Rather more than Magnus had ever expected he could be fond of someone so different from himself.

Was he interested in pursuing this further? Were there fraternization rules against it? Surely there was no conflict of interest to be had on an exploratory mission such as theirs. Why was Magnus already pulling up all available archives, looking for any precedent for conducting personal relationships within the command staff of a ship?

“I have been good for him.” The thought didn’t feel egotistical; it felt like saying it out loud made it objective and affirming and real. “And he has been good for me.”

Ratchet stared at him, unamused. “I take it those smiling rumors are true?”

Magnus lurched to his feet. He felt a rush of gratitude for Ratchet’s brusquely-enlightening presence, and a sudden pressing need to draft out a proper declaration of his interest that he could submit for Rodimus’ approval.

“Yes,” he agreed, feeling unexpectedly light. “They’re true.”