Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Wazzzpinator izz hidden. Pleazze do not make wazzpinator go."

Alpha Trion was old, older than anyone really suspected, older than rumors about his age, older than even these archives that he resided in. And yet, he could still find new and curious situations, right outside the doors to his private study.

Time was funny like that.

Funny in the way that found him on the floor, peering underneath one of the many chair that dotted studying and resting areas in the archives, looking at a pair of multifaceted violet eyes peering from underneath it.

"You're certainly welcome to stay for a time, but you cannot hide under a chair for the rest of your life."

"Wazzzpinator can."

He chuckled and slowly stood, spinal struts aching somewhat. "Well, if you feel the need to refuel, my study isn't far. You're welcome to read any of the archives while you are busy hiding."

THere was a soft humming from under the chair.

"Wazzpinator cannot read...but thank you."

"You are most welcome."

Alpha Trion left to his study, and when several cycles passed with no interruption he finished his current reading, and left to visit the chair again. This time, when he knelt down to look, there were no glimmering violet optics, but there was the gentle sound of buzzing snores.

The archives was supposedly no place for an illiterate mech, and some would have said that it was no place for a beastformer, to boot, although Alpha Trion had often wondered what had posessed such a fierce racism in Cybertron's children to produce that line of thought. But it would certainly do as a place for a pitiful thing trying to escape.

He slowly tilted the chair off the insectformer, and picked him up. Green armor, scuffed and dented with recent injuries, vocalizer buzzing even in recharge. Alpha Trion left the chair upon the floor and carried the poor thing to his study, to lay upon a couch. It would at least be better than the floor.

Besides, it interested him. It had been some time since he'd last seen an insectformer, and what little he knew of the world that was coming seemed to state it would be a long while before the insecticons would rise...perhaps this little lonely one was special.

Chapter Text

Cyclonus could sing- more than just the old prayers and regal bellowing of his Tetrahexian accent, he could sing just about anything. And he would, given the opportunity, sing just about anything so long as he thought he was alone. Although he'd hid it well for a while, once they'd found that he could pick up a tune on the spot it'd become a sort of game to see what would stick in his mind.

Boomer took great delight in playing whatever was loud and riotous in nature from a slew of planets and cultures, and Cyclonus soaked it up. He'd put on an impassive face and was seemingly dismissive, but Tailgate excitedly reported that he'd caught Cyclonus humming and mumbling the lyrics to Earthly songs quietly.

It wasn't until Swerve's particular generosity during a movie night had left everybody with a bit more high grade in their tanks than they'd intended that the real prize was won. Cyclonus had roared in delighted song and everybody had found themselves singing along, even if they were all a bit clumsy when it came to matching pitch or lyrics.

After all that, well...it was only natural that when they were back on Cybertron ("Funny" Rewind had said- "We keep winding up back here with even less of an idea of where we're supposed to go") and saw the posters for Maccadam's they knew they needed to drag him there. Especially once Boomer explained what the human word 'Karaoke' meant.

Tailgate was the one who was tasked with keeping Cyclonus' drinks coming, a steady supply of energon wine pushed gently into his claws. Nobody wanted to see Cyclonus relax more than the little white bot, and it was well known that Cyclonus found it hard to refuse him at times. So they waited, and watched the microphone, and tried to subtly urge him to go up there and take a turn.

Subtly urging, in Swerve's case, meaning- "WHY THE FRAG ARE YOU NOT SINGING YET?" Ten lightyears to the wind and standing on his chair, swaying dangerously as he jabbed a finger in the purple jet's face. "You- you could sing better than ANY of these 'bots."

"Yeah! Come on, Cyclonus-" Tailgate chirped. "You gotta sing- I'm sure there's songs you know in the player!"

Cyclonus was quiet, for a short time, and took a long drink of his wine before giving them a slight nod. Their whole table lit up with a cry of delight that drew stares and glares in equal part, before Cyclonus was being ushered over to the player to pick a song by an overexcited minibot.

Whatever he picked, when it came time to sing it, the whole bar went oddly quiet. Of course, Swerve realized , why would Cyclonus sing a song in anything but it's original Primal Vernacular? It wasn't like the heavy Tetrahexian accent made it sound like someone being murdered or anything, or that he doubted anybody in here knew a single word that was being said.

This was punishment, they were sure of it. Punishment for pushing Cyclonus to sing. Tailgate seemed to be the only one who was earnestly interested, enjoying the sound...well, maybe not the only one.

When Cyclonus left the stage and sat back down, he was immediately followed by a green bot with the biggest purple eyes they'd ever seen and a nervously twitching set of transluscent wings folded along his back.

"Wazzzpinator found Horn-Bot's song very pretty." Everyone stared, Cyclonus included, and the 'bot's mandibles twitched slightly. "No-body zzzingz in old Cybertronian, but Wazzzpinator knows little! Enough to recognizzze the Metrotitanzzz ballad."

Tailgate immediately excused himself and all but bodily forced the green bot to sit in his vacated seat beside Cyclonus. He was going to get Cyclonus to loosen up and make friends if it was the last thing he did.

Chapter Text

Drift's friend called himself Prowl, and everybody quietly wondered if it really was true that all the good names were taken. Nobody really needed to know the truth, and nobody would have believed him if he'd spoken about it to others. The cover story they'd settled on was that he was an autobot who'd been lost early on in the war and only recently recovered. It was true enough, in the end.

Besides, it was unspoken but clear that they liked this Prowl far better than the one native to their own universe, and he'd made himself a welcome addition to the Lost Light when he'd tagged along with Ratchet and Drift upon their return.

Ratchet and Drift, for the most part, also didn't mention how they'd found him because Ratchet still didn't quite believe it and Drift believed in it a little too strongly. Alternate realities? Becoming one with the Allspark, only to re-emerge a universe away?

It would have been too much to ascribe to the smaller mech, with his quiet disposition and wry humor.

Prowl and Drift preferred that others didn't know in no small part because they wanted to be left alone, to spend time with each other when they could. They meditated together, sparred, discussed the nuances of centering oneself and the virtue of processor over matter.

It drove Ratchet up the damn wall, but the medic was just happy to see Drift smiling.

And to know that Drift was getting some of that charge dispelled, at long last. Not that he'd ever admit that last part, but it still made him smirk knowingly whenever Drift and Prowl left the training area to return to their quarters, walking a bit faster than was necessary, closer than needed.

Chapter Text

It was difficult to tell if Cyclonus was feeling unwell at the best of times- his stoic nature and perpetually displeased expression masked any true discomfort. Tailgate knew, though, something was wrong, he could simply tell.

Cyclonus, of course, insisted that he was fine. All the way up until he'd sat up in his berth, after a particularly uncomfortable recharge cycle, and before he could stop himself he'd purged his tank down his front. Tailgate woke up, startled by the ragged coughing and bursts of static, and gawked at his poor roomate, covered in half-digested energon, before getting a towel out of subspace and offering it.

The jet was too startled to let mortification from being seen like this sink in, as he cleaned up, now-empty tank still churning and intake burning.

"I told you, you were getting sick!" Tailgate huffed, digging a bottle of solvent out of storage. "I knew it!"

"I am not ill." Cyclonus' voice croaked with static.

"Like pit you aren't! C'mon, you-" Tailgate grabbed his clawed hand and tugged, ineffectally. Cyclonus stayed sitting on the berth, looking vaguely amused. "-...look, you take care of me all the time." The minibot tried to get his feet grounded better and pulled again. "Even if you don't admit it. And that means I'm going to take care of you, even if you won't let me! Now, c'mon, we're going to Ratchet."

Cyclonus relented and stood, knowing that if he didn't...well...he would have rather Tailgate's suspicions be proven wrong by Ratchet than have Tailgate start asking around for help. The last time he'd done that was when he'd decided Cyclonus needed a sparring partner while training and...well...

It was better to not think too much on how that had ended up.

At least Ratchet was professional enough to know that Cyclonus didn't want to spend a moment longer than necessary on a medical berth, even if Tailgate insisted upon fretting and worrying to the medic over him. "Alright, lay flat and I'll run a scan. Sounds like a bug, though, or some bad energon...have you been drinking anything experimental at Swerve's?"

"No."

"Hm." There was quiet as Ratchet ran the scanner over Cyclonus...and the medic frowned, slightly. Then repeated the motion, and frowned deeper. "...Oh." Such a soft, single sound, but it made Tailgate's eyes spark with panic and got Cyclonus' full attention. "Have you sparkbonded recently?"

There was a long and uncomfortable quiet, before Tailgate gasped, sounding equal parts scandalized and proud.

"Cyclonus! You didn't tell me that you-"

"Yes." He raised a hand to cut off the minibot, suddenly feeling quite heated with a creeping unease and embaressment. "Somewhat over a deca-cycle ago." Tailgate was suddenly lost in thought, counting backwards in his head, as Ratchet gave a grim, humorless chuckle.

"Well, I'm going to have to give you a clean bill of health. A much better one than I would have expected you to have, given your history." He transferred something to a datapad with a simple wireless command, and placed the pad in Cyclonus' hands. "Congratulations."

Cyclonus stared at the pad. Then at Ratchet. Then at the pad again, eyes wide. The look of confusion didn't suit him at all. "A newspark." He mumbled, quietly, and touched his chest reverantly. He would have never thought his body could produce or sustain such a thing, not with having been through so much. Not after the dead universe touching him twice, or the seemingly endless buildup of damage one retained from battles.

Tailgate yelped, excitedly, trying to read the datapad in Cyclonus' hands. "Seriously!? Oh, Primus, that's amazing! I mean, it is, right? I hope it is?" He looked at Cyclonus, warily, and Ratchet cleared his throat.

"I suppose a congratulations for you is in order too-" The medic started, before Tailgate waved his hands, sputtering.

"Whoa! No, no, I mean, it's not mine! We're not 'facing or anything. He's like my creator! Ew!" Tailgate babbled out, and Ratchet blinked. Well, there was a surprise! But then... "I mean, I'm forged, not kindled, but it's not like that- Gaah, I just can't believe Cyclonus is carrying-!"

"So, who is the sire?" Ratchet ventured, letting the minibot continue mumbling and muttering to himself. "If you're comfortable stating who it is, I can add them to a patient file for the sparkling right away."

Cyclonus didn't answer, and instead glanced away, fidgiting uncomfortably.

Tailgate all but shrieked. "Don't tell me it was him! Come on, Cy! I set you two up to spar so you could let off steam, not to let off charge!" Ratchet couldn't help but stare, professionalism be dammned, it looked like nothing so much as the little minibot was chiding the fearsome warrior, who sat up and hunched his shoulders like a scolded mechlet. "I mean, this is incredible, but really? Really?! You have to tell him, okay? You can't just be all grumpy and silent about this."

"Hmph."

"Exactly my point!"

It wasn't until later that day, when Whirl was dragged to the medbay by Cyclonus and Tailgate (although Tailgate was less helping so much as simply lifting one of Whirl's arms slightly) with a crashed processor in shock-induced recharge that Ratchet felt a slight sense of unease in his spark.

There were some mechs you probably couldn't just trust as sires.

Chapter Text

Sunstreaker hadn't initially been certain how he felt about leaving the Lost Light to return to Cybertron. It was certainly a change, and it was nice to be close to Sideswipe again, but there were all new things to worry about. Especially when it came to Bob.

On the ship it'd been fairly safe to let Bob roam- everybody knew Bob, more or less, recognized him as a non-threat and knew to gently nudge him away from places that could be dangerous, like the labs or the engines, but on Cybertron? There were simply too many people, too much space, for Bob to get lost if he decided to start wandering.

Which was why it was a mixed blessing when Bob made a friend.

Bob had been given free reign to skitter around in Maccadam's once Blurr realized the little bot was happy to lap spilled energon from the floor, saving him the trouble of mopping, and the insecticon had learned that if he pulled big eyes and a plaintive whimper or purr, plenty of bots were willing to sneak him scritches or treats.

Even Sideswipe wasn't immune to Bob's sweetness and purrs and had developed a bad habit of sneaking the insecticon energon sticks even when Sunstreaker told him not to overfeed Bob.

But Bob had one real friend, besides Sunstreaker (although, if Bob could have communicated it, Sunstreaker was more like family. Swarm-brethren.) The other patrons were also, to his thoughts, a sort of strange swarm, willing to share food but not enough like him to really understand. His friend was part of the Maccadam-Swarm, but not.

"Bob-bot!" Waspinator buzzed happily as the insecticon came scampering up to the table and promptly hopped up into his arms. His thrumming wings whapped an irritated Swindle, but if anybody had complaints they were drowned out by the cacaphony of chittering and humming and clicks between the bugs. They didn't quite speak the same language, but Waspinator was better suited than most for mimicry of the Insecticon dialect and Bob was immensely comforted at the simple emotional content of his hums and purrs.

Sunstreaker watched, relaxing, as they chattered and started to walk around the bar, eventually making their way through a back door. At first he hadn't approved of Waspinator taking his...pet, friend, whatever Bob was to him, even he wasn't sure at times, out to the dumpster to rifle around but Bob certainly enjoyed tearing through trash as much as the next Insecticon scavenger, and Bob always seemed so much calmer afterwards.

But then came the one odd night, where Waspinator left abruptly after their dumpster diving, and Bob had seemed...grumpy, if that emotion could be ascribed to his stiffness and bristling. Maybe they'd had a fight, Sideswipe offered. They'd get over it, he was sure.

It wasn't until Bob had spent several cycles particularly lethargic and less of his usual cuddly self that Sunstreaker began to worry, especially when Bob opted out of going to Maccadam's for favor of curling up in his little nest of mesh-blankets with a hoard of energon cubes, hissing softly when Sunstreaker moved to pet him, for the fifth time in a row.

"I don't get it!" Sunstreaker complained over a cube. "Do insecticons even get sick? He's no in pain, he's not overheated or anything-"

"He's probably just got a bug. No pun intended." Sideswipe shrugged. "Bob'll be fine! Just let him sleep it off, c'mon. We didn't come here so you could fret."

It didn't take long, though, for Waspinator to find their table though and stand, nervously fiddling with a cube of Bob's favorite brand of mid-grade. "Izzz Bob-bot coming?" He was hopeful, antennae raised, big purple eyes wide, but when Sunstreaker shook his head he positively wilted, wings and antennae both drooping. "Oh...Golden-bot will tell Bob-bot that Wazzzpinator mizzzez him, and izzz sorry?"

That got Waspinator twin looks from the brothers. "Sorry about what?"

"Um." Waspinator suddenly feigned being very interested in his drink. "For zzzomething. Izz insecticon thing, do not worry! Juzzt...tell Bob-bot that Wazzzpinator would be happy to take care of them!" And he fled, not an uncommon thing for the wasp-bot, darting away through the tables and crowd.

"...What was that about?" Sideswipe mumbled, but Sunstreaker was already unsettled, and stood abruptly to pay his tab for the night and hurry off with no explanation. He had to get home, to Bob.

Bob, meanwhile, was perfectly content to rest in his nest, the peace and quiet all that he'd needed to finally feel safe enough to relax. It wasn't that he didn't trust and love Sunstreaker as a hive-brother, but this was a private time for any Insecticon, and these other bots simply didn't understand how important it was.

He gently rotated the eggs with his secondary hands, studying their transluscent shells with a delicate touch, the soft light of the sparks inside of them the only illumination in the apartment. He hopes Sunstreaker would understand, even if he couldn't explain it to the big, slow bot. They would soon have more brothers to attend to, after all, and the sparklets would be born hungry.

Now, if only he could convince his mate that there'd been no need to panic and deny when he'd revealed that he'd been carrying...

Chapter Text

Sunstreaker knew something was up when there was that one odd night, where instead of returning from their dumpster diving chattering and pleased, instead Waspinator had darted into Maccadam's alone and all but flew out the front door, and Bob had scampered in a minute after, looking around for the other bug and when he couldn't be found...well, Sunstreaker had seen Bob upset, and angry, but never...depressed, like this.

"They'll get over it." Sideswipe chuckled, putting a cube on the floor for Bob to sip at, the Insecticon brooding under the table at their feet. "Probably had a fight over something."

"I dunno. What could that have been all about?" Sunstreaker peered under the table, and Bob met his eyes, looking...deep in thought. He knew Bob's expressions. "What's wrong, Bob?"

Bob gave a humming exvent and nursed the cube of high-grade between his secondary arms. No answers there.

Waspinator wasn't at Maccadam's the next time they went, two days later, and though Bob's mood had improved he still searched through the bar several times, ignoring his favored treats even, and when Waspinator couldn't be found he retreated under the table with a resigned series of clicks.

A full deca-cycle passed witout Waspinator, although when asked Blurr recalled seeing him slipping in early, only to leave immediately after fueling up, and Swindle had apparently sold him a number of "slightly used" mesh-sheets and some refillable fuel tanks. After that, though...no sign of him.

Bob resumed going around begging for treats and searching around the bar, but he still seemed distracted, unsettled. Whatever it was, he couldn't seem to explain it to Sunstreaker, even though he'd tried with a generous amount of gesturing wildly and chattering, and Sunstreaker got the distinct impression that Bob simply thought he was slow to pick up on any implications or explanations.

Then, all at once, Waspinator returned one night, stepping into Maccadam's carrying a bundle of mesh-sheets close to his chest, looking around before making a beeline for Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, who both paused to watch. Bob was off fooling mech out of energon sticks and half-cubes, but even they'd started to worry.

"Where izzz Bob-bot?" Waspinator sounded...tired, his buzzing voice packed with static.

"He's around. Where've you been?" Sunstreaker swallowed the desire to chide Waspinator for worrying Bob.

"Buzzzy." The green bot fidgited, adjusting the bundle he held, and suddenly Bob landed on the table, shrilly chirruping and gesturing to a sheeping Waspinator who stood, antennae drooping and wings twitching. Sideswipe was about to interrupt to ask exaclty what in the pit was going on, before Bob reached out to the bundle, and Waspinator gently handed it over.

"Holy Primus, who art under our feet." Sunstreaker whispered.

"Unicron's tits!" Sideswipe swore.

Gently nestled in the mesh were eggs, transluscent little ovals glimmering with the faint, flickering light of newsparks. Bob gently cradled the bundle, chirping, and all of a sudden there were more eyes on them than before.

"Are those eggs?"

"Wait, are those Waspinator's?"

"Oh my gentle Primus."

Bar patrons murmured and muttered, as Waspinator stood, before Bob gently handed back the bundle with his secondary arms, trilling happily. Waspinator hugged the bundle of eggs close to his carapace and hummed with contentment. Well, at least his mate was happy.

"Wazzpinator made theze."

Chapter Text

Whirl was not afraid of anything. He had faced down armies, immenant deactivation, angry turbofoxes, and he'd never flinched. He was fearless, he was immortal! He was-

"Whirl! Come out!"

-he was definitely not hiding in a side corridor's supply closet because he was terrified out of his damn processor. Somehow, he would've felt better if it were Cyclonus looking for him, or even Rodimus, hell, he'd take Magnus, someone he could've picked a fight with, but this? This was frightening in a way he didn't quite understand.

"WHIRL!"

Tailgate was right outside the door. The little clink-clank of the minibot's footsteps had stopped right there- Whirl's spark froze. He couldn't have known this was where he was hiding, right? There was silence, then, and Whirl silenced his vocalizer, not trusting himself to keep quiet on his own power.

It didn't stop him from letting out a burst of static and scrabbling at the wall behind him as the door slammed open, Tailgate's small form backlit by the hallway lights, visor sparking angrily. "WHIRL YOU SON OF A GLITCH!" Whirl tried to jump over Tailgate to escape, and instead both of them just crashed to the ground and the minibot grabbed his legs, preventing him from fleeing further. "Come on! You're coming to the medbay, Primus damn it! If I have to call Magnus to carry you there, I will!"

"I can't!" Whirl finally yelled, rolling to and fro awkwardly, dragging Tailgate with. Primus, the little white bot had one pit of a grip! "I can't- you can't make me! I won't do it!"

"Whirl, you're gonna be there for your sparkling's emergence! You HAVE to be!"

"Aaaaa-" Whirl thrashed, before finally going still. At least he no longer ever felt embaressed, whining through a buzz of white noise. "I can't do it!"

"What are you even afraid of?" Tailgate shifted, sitting up, feeling a bit dented but otherwise fine from Whirl's rolling tantrum. "C'mon! You're supposed to be invincible! I'm losing what little respect I had for you!"

"I can't hold a sparkling!" Whirl blurted, and Tailgate went quiet. And still. "...look, look at these!" He waved his claws in the air, clicking them loudly. "I- if I moved wrong, I'd cut something that small and vulnerable in half! I can't do it! It won't even recognize me as a person- they only instinctively recognize faces!"

"Oh, Whirl-"

"Cyclonus is just gonna hate me more! And I'll deserve it!"

"He doesn't hate you. I mean, not like that? I don't think?" Tailgate huffed. Cyclonus had at least been willing to accept Whirl's help, and Whirl had seemed...fine, with doing what he could for Cyclonus, up until this point. Something about Cyclonus' first pains of emergence had sent Whirl into a real panic. "...look, you don't have to hold the sparkling if you're nervous."

"I'm not nervous! I'm fragging terrified!"

"But you should still be there. And it'll recognize you! I mean, Ratchet said they can recognize spark-frequencies, so it'll still know you're there." Tailgate held a vent as Whirl sighed, fans humming softly. "...besides, I know you like Cyclonus a lot, and this isn't gonna get you any favor with him if you refuse to show up and at least let him cuss you out for sparking him. I heard that when a mech's in emergence, they pretty much always rage on the sire!"

"That doesn't help."

"Yeah, but can you imagine Cyclonus swearing?"

That at least got a chuckle from Whirl, dry and nervous. "...He should've killed me."

"Yeah, I used to think that too." Tailgate hummed. "You're kind of a nutjob, you're dangerous, and I'm still not entirely certain you won't snap and kill us all while we recharge."

"Wow." Whirl grumbled, his fear and confusion suddenly replaced by annoyance. "WOW. Really."

"But I got you to spar with Cyclonus because he really needed someone to interact with who wasn't me, and I figured you two would be happy to knock each other around! Or, I guess, you were happy to knock him up, but the point is he wants you around!" Tailgate sounded...pleased. "And I think you wanna be around him too, even if you're both awful at this emotional business."

"...I'm scared." He wouldn't have admitted it to anyone else but the minibot, as he sat up. "I don't- I don't create things. I haven't made anything since..." His head tilted down as he looked at his claws. Expressionless as it was supposed to be, Tailgate could still see the sadness there.

"Well, you made a sparkling. Time to go finish the project, at least." They stood, and Whirl let Tailgate lead him away. "After all, I don't really think of you as half-afting anything."

Chapter Text

Waspinator/Bob : Buglets

"Buglets."

"Bugbits."

"Larvae."

It really didn't matter what they were called, but the little things had rapidly become unofficial mascots of Maccadam's. In no small part because their creators seemed to consider the bar their second home, and they drew a curious crowd. To say nothing of the regulars.

The translucent eggs had turned opaque around the little bundles of wires and protoform inside, and then a mere decacycle earlier they'd started to pop apart wetly, and both Bob and Waspinator had turned into a mess of panic as they frantically plucked tiny sparklings from the spent energon inside the eggs and set them aside.

Now, though, with Sunstreaker's assistance in cleaning them and their creators' indulgent feeding, the weird little things that Sideswipe had frankly found disturbing had turned out rather...cute. With their dully-colored unformed armor, their half-exposed protoforms, and their big, sparkling eyes.

"Did there have to be so many of them?" Sideswipe huffed as he watched. They'd all been placed in a basket to prevent them from crawling off, all half-dozen of them, and it had the unfortnate effect of making them look particularly adorable, even by mechlet standards.

"I don't know. Bob seems satisfied, but it's hard to tell with Insecticons." Sunstreaker drew a small cloth from subspace and wiped a bit of purged energon from one of the buglets' faces. Waspinator and Bob had named him a sort of honorary uncle, and as far as he was concerned that was fair permission to ensure that the buglets looked their best.

Bob was busy with a tall cylinder of energon, drinking greedily in preparation for feeding time, while Waspinator was gently petting his creations' antennae as he bathed in compliments.

"They're adorable!"

"Oh, Primus, look at those eyes! All four of them!"

"These ones even have little wings!"

The largest of them yawned, closing it's four violet eyes, and a soft "aww" rippled over the gathered watchers. It was hard to resist the allure of something to simple when sparklings were so rare, even in peacetime.

At least, there'd be peace until voices started being raised over what to name the Buglets...again.

Whirl/Cyclonus : Hurricane

A Hurricane was a force of nature, on planets with large liquid bodies. They were incredibly powerful, some of the most powerful weather systems to exist. They were unstoppable, brutal, and bought with them destruction, flooding and winds. They were disasters.

Everyone found the sparkling to be very aptly named.

"Hurricane, no." Cyclonus said, voice even and low, as the sparkling pulled his horns back sharply, using them as if to steer from it's position on his shoulders. The response he got was a high-pitched shriek of delight, and the motion was repeated, pulling Cyclonus' head back to clank against the sparkling's chestplate.

"I dunno what you thought would happen if you put him up there. Those things are really grab-able!" Whirl cackled, watching as the little being jerked Cyclonus' head back again, and again, apparently finding it the single funniest thing in existance. Whirl seemed to agree.

"It is irritating." Cyclonus grumbled, but allowed it to continue as he walked, the mechlet on his shoulders producing a steady CLANK-CLANK-CLANK punctuated by giggles through the motions. "I fully and entirely place the blame on you, for this behavior."

"On me?! I'll have you know I was a quiet, complacent little mechlet! My creators said I was an angel!" Whirl gestured grandly, prompting a dull look of mistrust from Cyclonus. "...What? I was! They didn't describe me as the spawn of Unicron at all! Ever!"

"That seems very specific."

"Heh, yeah." Taking pity on Cyclonus, Whirl up and with a gentleness he'd only recently discovered, he plucked the Sparklet from the jet's shoulders and cradled him atop of his chest. Hurricane peeped in delight and reached up to grasp the prongs jutting from his head. The pedipalps. "Hey, you little scraplet! Stop bangin' up your carrier, that's my job!"

Hurricane only giggled and tugged at his sire's head before leaning forwards to wrap short arms, barely armored, around Whirl's neck to hold on as little yellow optics closed in contentment. Whirl just tried not to let his spark beat out of his chest with excitement, as he did every time Hurricane chose him to fall into a light recharge on.

Cyclonus reached up and gently rubbed his horns and the back of his helm with a slight wince. Ow.

Chapter Text

"Stay put!" He'd growled, and she felt a horrible creeping in her spark. This wasn't a request, this was an order, and it scared her.

"No, no no- fraggin' no!" She'd begged, she'd screamed, but Tarn had picked her up in those huge arms of his, the fusion cannons humming and hot against her plating with charge. This close, she could see his eyes behind his mask, their glow frightened-bright and wide. "NO!"

He was afraid. She was terrified.

And then he dropped her in the small closet. "Transform." He barked at her, and she didn't think before she took her altform, a simple pressure pump. If anybody were to look in, they wouldn't think twice about it- it would just be another tool. Then he closed the door, hard, and she heard it locking, something being moved in front of it.

For a while, in the darkness, she refused to turn on low-light vision. She wasn't sure where she was, processor spinning. Were those sounds of weapon fire and shouting outside the door here, on the abandoned decepticon space station? Or were they on Prion, not so long ago?

For a time, she thought she really was back on Prion, holding very still in altmode, idling her systems, as the every last soul on Prion was slaughtered by organics. Every last soul except her. Maybe she'd never left Prion, she'd dreamed that she'd been found by Cybertronians, that for a while she had a home (if it was a strange one) and there was a family for her to care for (if it was a dangerous one) and she wasn't alone.

Maybe she really was alone. You couldn't cry in altmode, that was simply how it was, your optics were shuttered, they wouldn't spark, and with her intense desire to stay quiet she couldn't sob, so she stayed quiet and still and screamed inside her processor.

When the fighting outside finally stopped, she couldn't tell, but it must have been some time before she snapped out of her strange sense of a waking nightmare, suddenly realizing it was silent. She reverted to root mode before long, and found the door locked, jammed shut, leaving her in the dark, alone.

No, not alone, she told herself. Tarn would come for her! They all would! They wouldn't have left her!

Unless they're dead.

She tried to ignore the thought, and threw her tiny weight against the door to no avail. Even a boost from her jetpack left her bouncing against the metal uselessly, and she found no other way in or out of the closet. Trapped. Okay, there were worse things to be, right? Like dead! And she was a Prionite, a Cybertronian, she could be virtually immortal! Someone would get her out.

Right?

Her chronometer counted off a full three days as she painstakingly repaired every minor dent and kinked wire in her body, desperate for distractions. She even buffed out her armor and used up the last of her replacement paint in her subspace, although it blotted out her decepticon symbol and she knew she'd have to redo it later. She felt like it would've been easier to just recharge the entire time, put herself in stasis with an alarm set, than wait, when she finally heard sounds again.

Footsteps- heavy and metal- Cybertronian! And voices, muffled but there!

Safety be dammned, she would get out of this closet even if it resulted in her death! Tarn's orders didn't stand if he hadn't come back yet! She banged on the door, and screamed until her vocalizer burst with static. "HELP! PLEASE! LET ME OUT! PLEASE! FRIKKIN' PLEASE I'LL DO ANYTHING JUST LET ME OUUUUT!"

For such a tiny thing, she knew her voice could carry.

"There's someone in here! Help me move this out of the way!" The voices were closer, worried. Femmes! Well, that ruled out typical cybertronians, at least, and Nickel slumped against the door, hearing metal scrape, hearing two femmes speaking. "Don't worry, we'll have you out of there soon!"

"Windblade-we don't know who it is-"

"She's trapped!" The scraping stopped, and she listened as they struggled to unlock the door, before there was a frustrated shout. "Chromia, help me get it open."

"Whomever you are- step back from the door!" A brassy femme's voice shouted, and Nickel threw herself backwards, curling up to protect herself- and the door cracked and crumbled, being hacked apart by an energy axe. Once it was half-gone, Nickel slowly uncurled and stood...and found herself looking at two wide-eyed Femmes. "Oh."

"She's tiny." Whispered the smaller of the two, a bright red flier with a painted face.

"Yeah, she is." The larger of the two, blue and holding the axe, stepped into the closet over the remains of the door, and slowly knelt to Nickel's level.

Before she could stop herself, Nickel's optics sparked and her fans stuttered in hiccuping sobs. She threw herself at the blue femme, clutching at her in a panic she didn't know she had in her, and wailed. The femme awkwardly jerked back, then returned the embrace, looking at her companion helplessly for advice.

"Frikkin'- -hic- they left me -hic- I was a-alone -hic- slaggin' stupid idiots they b-better have a good reas-reason for leaving me -hic- they better be dead! Idiots locked me in there to -hic- h-hide-!" Nickel hadn't realized how much she never wanted to be alone again until that moment. Never again.

"Sheesh, you got a mouth on you." The blue femme mumbled, before standing, picking up Nickel more because she couldn't dislodge the minibot than anything else, before her expression softened.

Nickel went with them as they searched the rest of the station, and tried not to think about all the spilled energon and blaster marks around, the holes blown into bulkheads and through walls. The Peaceful Tyranny wasn't docked anymore, and Nickel tried not to think about that. To help, she lied.

She came here with a group of scavengers, she said. They pushed her into the closet when they were ambushed. Who were they ambushed by? She'd gauged the Femmes to be friendlier to autobots, listening to them talk, and said it was the DJD. It was true enough for her to make it convincing.

"Where are you from, anyways?"

"Huh?"

"Well, you're not from Caminus, and there's nobody quite like us on Cybertron." Windblade had smiled, happy to trust, happy to accept.

"Oh. Prion."

"Prion! Are there other Prionites out here?" Now she was curious, eager to know, brightening up at the prospect of other sister colonies. Nickel felt a twist in her spark as she looked at Windblade long and pained.

"...I fraggin' wish." Softly. "No. The, uh, the Black Box Consortium...the whole colony got wiped out. They missed me." She mumbled under her breath. "Frikkin' missed me."

After that, Windblade wouldn't hear anything other than Nickel coming with them, and Chromia was happy to agree. If she couldn't find the DJD again, at least these Femmes seemed decent enough. She could find her way back, though. Tarn would come for her, if he was alive, and she'd find her way back.

But until then, it was just nice to not be alone.

Chapter Text

The sound of two minibots colliding in midair would have been hysterical, if anybody else had heard it. But as it was, the only two around to hear the collection of clanks and squeaks and curses were the poor mechs themselves, followed by the crash of their ungraceful fall into a bin of scrap.

"Fragging fragger frickkity slaggin'-" The smaller of the two started, recovering from the stunning blow faster, before the other (currently trapped under her) started to apologize profusely.

"I'm sorry! I'm so, so so so so sorry! Oh, frag! I'm so sorry I wasn't thinking about where I was going!"

"You could'a taken off an arm!" She rolled off him, awkwardly, for neither was really made for graceful rolling (or graceful, well, anything), and glared down. Nickel was geninely pissed. It was probably only the very real sparking of Tailgate's visor and the way his EM field virtually smothered hers with genuine sympathy. It was adorable.

Too bad he had that ridiculously chunky autobot symbol on his chest, red against the white plating. She'd covered up her deceptibrand at Tarn's insistence- these planets weren't necessarily decepticon-friendly and if she was going to be about by herself he wanted her safe. It felt like it itched under a thin layer of paint.

"I'm really, really sorry-" He sat up. And at least he was cute, all shoulders and thighs- she'd never seen a bodytype quite like his before. Maybe it was common for Cybertronian minibots? "Ohhh man I'm in so much scrap aren't I? I shouldn't have been flying like that."

"You're telling me." She grumbled, rubbing the sore plating of her aft. It hadn't exactly been a fun landing, but at least she'd landed on top of him. It must've been worse for the little guy. Well...slightly larger than her guy.

And then for a moment he forgot her as he stood and picked something up, whole body going stiff with sadness. "Oh noooo-" He moaned, and she peered at the remains of his vehicle. A hoverboard. Snapped in two unevenly. "Auugh."

"...Is that...a painting of you?"

He quieted, suddenly embaressed as she looked at the underside of the pieces.

"Isn't that the matrix of leadership?"

"Oh, Primus." He let his face drop into his palm. "Yeah. A, uh, a friend did it for me."

"That's a-fraggin-dorable." She chuckled, annoyance evaporating somewhat. At least this bot didn't seem to pose a single threat to her, and before she realized it she was relaxing almost, enjoying not having to look as far up as she usually did to meet someone's face.

If he had a face behind there.

"Sorry." He muttered one more time, seemingly at a loss for anything else to say, and she reached out.

"Lemme see. I can patch that up faster n' a turbofox looking for a hump."

He flushed at the crude expression, but handed her both halves of the board and with her usual quickness she started pulling tools out of compartments on her, out of her subspace, and went to work. Tailgate hovered, and she tried to ignore his nervous presence as she worked, and it wasn't long before she held the board back out to him, good as new save for an ugly welding mark.

"Now, next time, watch where you're frikkin going before you get slagged to scrap!" She barked, but his unabashed delight at getting the board back made her tone feel chiding instead of annoyed. "It'd suck aft if a cutie like you got junked." She added, and his delight only grew at being called cute.

"I'll be careful." Then he thrust a hand out at her, open for the taking. "I'm Tailgate, by the way! I owe you one! Uhm, two, really, for hitting you and for you fixing my board."

"I'm Nickel."

"You're the smallest bot I've ever met!"

"..." She glared, open-mouthed, in disbelief. Really? She relaxes and that's the first thing he says to her in proper conversation?

"Oh, Primus, I'm sorry." He facepalmed again. "I owe you three now."

"Damn right you do. C'mon, we're going to a bar and you're buying me the nicest refined oil they've got. Unicron help your funds if they've got honest energex!" She led him off, chattering, and Tailgate hurried after her (She had wheels for feet! He needed wheels for feet, that looked fun!) just glad that Cylonus had given him an allowance to spend while the crew was on shore leave.

Three cubes of something that wasn't necessarily toxic but had lined his intake valve with an unpleasantly thick sheen he knew he'd feel for days, and he wondered absently how they'd gotten to the rented room and how such a small, boxy minibot as herself could be so adept at pushing him around already.

They laughed, and she cursed between breathless giggles. "Your thighs are slaggin' ridiculous." As she pushed them apart. "How's anybody s'posed to fit between these?!"

"I'm flexible! Seeeee?" True enough, he was, and she grinned as she ran her short, rounded fingers down his groin, tapping at his interface panels, drawing a shiver from him. "Oh! Uh-"

"Both of 'em." Those fast, stubby fingers of hers dove into the underside of his thigh and pinched the exposed cables there, drawing a thrilled yelp from him. The panels clicked open, exposing a stout, thick spike already pressurized and a plush valve, perfectly sized for her tastes. "Oh, Frag yes."

"It's, uh, been a while-" Tailgate gasped, head pitching back as she drew servotips against his valve, lubricant already starting to leak from him. "-ooOH!"

"Same for me. Hard to find someone in the right size category when it comes to getting a good frag." There was a soft click as her own panels released, and Tailgate inwardly cursed that he couldn't see down around his chestplate from this position. "You're so wet already! Sheesh, you're really hard up for this, ain't you?"

"Oh come on!" He whined, as she palmed his spike, giving it a playful squeeze, before returning to teasing his valve, finding his external node and giving it a hard pinch that made his squeal with static. "Eep!"

"You ready?"

"I've been ready for six million years!" He yelped when she repeated the motion.

"Don't tell me you're getting impatient on me!" Teasingly, and before he could protest or stammer again she shifted, and a pleasantly wide spike pressed into his valve. It wasn't a long push, her spike short and stout as the rest of her, a good, easy fit for him. "Ooh-"

Tailgate vented hard, brieftly going strutless. It really -had- been six million years, hadn't it? Since he'd been newely-onlined and messing around with the other waste disposal units to vent charge and stress, and he found he coudln't remember the name of the other bot he'd fragged back then.

It hadn't seemed like the sort of thing he'd want to remember, at the time.

"Ah!" He was hot and just right to slip inside of, and Nickel lost her voice for a moment as she gave a short thrust, fans humming with pleasure. The frag didn't last long before they were both grinding and thrusting, armor clanking where it met, chasing overload through a buzz of overcharge. She reached that peak first, and the feel of hot transfluid inside him triggered his, calipers squeezing down on her, urging her on for a few more thrusts before she had to stop and catch herself.

"Oh, frag yeah, frikkin' good-" She mumbled, and he nodded, feeling truely relaxed.

After a klick of cool-off, they awkwardly rearranged themselves- him pushing himself back and fully onto the berth and her climbing on top of him, stout legs splayed to either side of his midsection and small, puffy valve against his spike.

"Ah!" He cried out despite himself when she sank onto his spike, reveling in the sheer tightness of suh a small body as her insides gripped around him.

"Frikkin- ahh, oh, that's so good, Unicron's taint, that's good-" She groaned, grinding down on him. "Thaaat hits the spot. Ah, slag-" She cursed and meweled, starting to bounce on him with her hands braced on his chest. He didn't last long this time, either, and impressed himself when she managed to pull two overloads from him, her valve squelching and sopping with his transfluid by the time she peaked and slowed.

Both of them wheezing, venting hard through struggling fans, they waited, and she piped up.

"Think you can keep your refractory period low for a while?"

"Oh, Primus, yeah!" Tailgate moaned, and inwardly prayed to every godlike being Cylonus had ever taught him about that he wouldn't overheat and crash his processor doing this.

They'd rented out the room for a full day, after all, and he could easily be back at the Lost Light in time for takeoff with klicks to spare...

Everybody stared when Tailgate swaggered in. There was no other word for the walk, centered in his hips, free arm swinging while the other held the hoverboard under it. It was a swagger, coupled with the way he was humming a tune as he went even though his vocalizer was still strained with crackles of static.

It was the walk of a bot who'd just gotten fragged hard and given as good as they got. The dents and scraped that seemed to cover his armor, particularly arond his aft and thighs, helped.

"Cyclonus." He greeted his friend, heady with post-coital confidence as he slid into the booth at Swerve's with him, the overcharge from the oil drinks long spent out of him. Cyclonus stared, a curious expression on his face, and Tailgate waved Swerve over. "I'll just take a sparkling cube."

Swerve grinned, and elbowed the other minibot. "Right away. And I expect to hear about them when I bring it over!"

"Hear about who?" Tailgate said, cheekily, knowing full well the smell of ozone was still hanging around him. He glanced to Cyclonus...and saw the jet give him a small, enigmatic smile behind his own drink. If he didn't know better, there was a hint of pride in that expression.

Oh, yeah, everything was coming up Tailgate.

"And seriously, he made this hilarious sound when he overloaded! Like a balloon deflating, run through a static filter! It was frikkin' great!" Nickel chatted as she worked the dents out of her lower plating, and Kaon snickered.

"If there's one thing I can say for Autobots, they certainly tend to be sweet in the berth." Kaon shrugged. "Did you get his name?"

"Tailpipe or something. S'not like we're gonna run into him again." Nickel smirked, getting out the paint to re-do her finish. "We need more minibots around here. Next time one of you slaggers dies, I'm petitioning Tarn to get a minicon."

"Well, now, don't be too eager to get rid of us."

"I love you, Kaon...but I'll make sure your replacement's way cuter." She teased, and they laughed.

Chapter Text

He was young. So, so young that it almost hurt to see him like this, and it left the Prime with an uncomfortable weight in his spark. But then the younger bot caught him looking, and smiled, putting on a confident face.

It was one thing to learn that Metroplex's spacebridge, perhaps every spacebridge, had the possibility to move being not just through space but through dimensions as well, and to accidentally wind up with a denizen of another reality on their hands altogether. But for that person to be...himself.

Maybe not exactly himself, but a copy. No, he reminded himself, not a copy- another version. There were no originals or copies here.

"Optimus-" Wheeljack started.

"Yes?" They both answered at once, before the younger one stiffened up and rubbed his face, embaressed.

"Sorry."

"It's alright. This is taking all of us some getting used to." The Prime chuckled, patting the younger self on the shoulder. "What is it, Wheeljack?"

"I think we can duplicate the trans-dimensional warp, but there's a problem." Both of them frowned. "Yeah, I know, there always is. It's gonna take about a decacycle for us to build up the energy to do it again, at this rate."

"A decacycle?" The younger Optimus blanched, his expressions clear. It was unnerving. He was so expressive it was almost strange, to those who knew their own Optimus Prime. "Oh..."

"I am truely sorry, but we will return you home."

"I know, I know, I just...ugh, Bee and Sari are going to kill me." He sighed, and sat on a ledge, heavily. "...I wonder what'll happen when I get back and tell Sentinel I was in a universe where Starscream was the leader of Cybertron." He chuckled.

"Even I sometimes wonder if this is a very odd recharge cycle, when I remember that." The older Prime nodded. "We'll arrange quarters for you to stay in, if you'd like."

"Yeah, that...that'd be nice." The younger sighed, and the older frowned behind his battlemask. There was so much longing in the bot's face, watching Wheeljack and the others working on the spacebridge. "...You're going to want to exchange those power couplings. The outer one should be higher-voltage."

Everyone stopped, and looked at him, and he suddenly stiffened up, self-concious.

"...I mean, that's how we do space bridges where I'm from. It seems counterintuitive, but the stabilizing force is actually the outer nodes, not the inner ring." Still more quiet and stares, and suddenly Wheeljack was on his feet, studying the internal wiring of the spacebridge before cursing.

"He's fragging right! How did we not see that?!"

"I've been working on Spacebridges for a while." the young Optimus chuckled. "I just thought, maybe it's different for the ones here?"

"...This is the only spacebridge we have, actually." the Prime ventured. "You've worked with Spacebridges?"

"I was...ah..." He flushed again. This Optimus Prime, the one native to this reality, he hadn't heard much but he gathered he was a leader. A hero. A real, honest-to-goodness hero who'd fought in war for millions of years. And some sort of religious figure, to boot. "...Captain of a Spacebridge repair team. It wasn't very glamorous."

"...Get over here. Optimus, get the kid some quarters, while I work him to the struts." Wheeljack laughed, gesturing the younger Optimus over. At least this felt more comfortable than waiting, Optimus had always preferred having something to work on, and spacebridge repair was something he'd learned enough about to manage, though right now he'd give his left servo for Bulkhead.

"Wait, so Megatron's an autobot now?" Optimus stared up at the ceiling, then at the cube of energon in his hand. He almost missed the crude oils of earth, sometimes, the way the taste of them stuck in his mouth, the earthiness of it. This burned so much cleaner, thoug... "I'm never going to get used to this."

"I'm still trying to wrap my head arond the idea of Autobots and Decepticons being so different as they are in your world." The older admitted, as they looked out over Metropolis from the rooftop they perched on. Privacy was a premium, up here.

"ugh, this dimensional stuff is giving me a processor ache." The younger lay back on the rooftop, absently wishing he had his jetpack. "I can't even begin to see myself as...well..." he gestured to his alternate self, who chuckled softly, deeply. "I'm serious! You're...for one, you're huge. You're respected, you're in control, and I doubt I could hold up to that. In any situation." He sighed.

"You've already done great things, have you not?"

"Hm. Yes. Mostly through sheer luck and improvisation, but in the end I'm still an Autobot Academy washout who was relegated to repairing spacebridges." Even the stars were different, here, he noted, although a few constellations were still present. Strange.

"You remind me of me when I was younger. Albeit, in a different situation, but trust me." Optimus reached out and touched the younger bot's shoulder again. It was warm and comfortable, the gesture pleasant for both of them, surprisingly so. "...We seldom seek to acheive greatness, any of us, so much as we accept it when it comes to us."

"...Thank you."

They drank their energon and looked over Metroplex in silence for the rest of the evening.

There were many encounters during that decacycle. Optimus worked on the spacebridge, and people appeared to see him- to gawk or just to observe, to confirm for themselves that rumors were true.

Starscream had attempted to give a very flattering estimate of the young Prime's abilities, only for Optimus to point out that the Starscream in his universe was dead. Very dead. And had died shortly after trying to destroy his adoptive home city on earth. It turned the conversation a bit sour.

Prowl had appeared, brieftly, and while Optimus was initially happy to meet the alternate to his own departed friend, well...he managed to alienate this strange praxian with a single description of his own Prowl, and later told the older Optimus that this Prowl had, quote, "scraplets up his actuator. Don't tell him I said that."

A pink bot named Arcee stopped by, almost entirely unrecognizeable in personality and function save for the pink paintjob. There were too many constructicons, a friendly Ironhide he didn't recognize, Optimus took him to visit a small memorial for Bumblebee (he thought of his own Bumblebee, so young and bright, and felt unsettled), the days passed quickly.

Quickly enough that when Wheeljack announced they could make the jump, Optimus suddenly found himself wary.

He wanted to go home. He wanted to see Sari and Bee and Bulkhead on Earth. He wanted to walk on a Cybertron that was still alive and vibrant, where war had wonded a planet but not devastated it. He wanted to get a checkup from Ratchet because at least he was used to Ratchet's grumbling, and he even wanted to see Sentinel- if only to confirm that he was still miserable.

But there was also him, here. This other Optimus Prime, who was old and wise and had a confidence he doubted he could ever match, chosen by Primus himself. He wanted that sort of guidance in his life, to know that he was doing the right thing, instead of doubting.

He looked at his older self when they said their own private goodbyes on that rooftop, sharing energon again, and frowned. He was handsome, with the faceplates retracted, but the face wasn't his. He wasn't really him, not in the ways that mattered.

"...Optimus." He finally said, quietly, and leaned in, placing a hand on his arm. "Before I go, I want you to know, I've learned a lot this past week. About myself. Thank you."

The older bot smiled, placing a heavier hand over his. "Thank you, for reminding me about myself."

There was still much left unsaid, as their blue optics met and for a moment there was a charge in the air between them...then the older broke the eye contact, sadly, and stood as his facemask clicked back into place.

They parted ways and universes that evening, with little fanfare and Wheeljack excitedly discussing the possibility of creating regularly-working inter-dimensional bridges, the ability to network between multiple cybertrons making even Starscream grin.

And then he was back home, a week missing, being greeted and questioned and doubted until he produced video proof he'd been certain to get, which had turned Cybertron's scientists into busy little scraplets dissecting interdimensional travel. Even Bulkhead was getting involved.

Optimus took time, though, that week, to look up at the stars over Cybertron and pick out which ones were the same, and which ones were different, and wonder what he'd be like were he six million years older in this different world.

And what he'd be like if he'd been much braver when meeting the older Prime's optics that last time.

Chapter Text

The odd thing was how everyone had immediately assumed he wasn't worth being nice to. Everyone had been nice to him, when he'd first popped out of the rocks, but his new friend was scorned, spat at... He heard a lot of mutters of 'insecticon garbage' and 'exterminate him before he spreads'. He couldn't figure it out! It just seemed, well... Mean. Waspinator wasn't dangerous to anyone!

Chapter Text

"It's just kind of the fashionable thing to do, I guess." Nautica smiled, as she watched herself in the small mirror, patiently painting the outline of her lips. Brainstorm and Perceptor watched, curiously. "It's supposed to have derived from the cityspeakers, since they paint their faces to resemble Caminus, but it's become a more casual form of expression. It's very popular."

Once finished, she smiled, her lips a striking new shade of purple to match her armor, outlined elegantly. Then, she started on her optic shutters, closing one at a time to paint over them. "I could always do some cosmetics for you, you know! Me and Chromia would do each others'."

"Oh." Brainstorm tilted his head, absently running a finger along the edge of his facemask. "I dunno, I'm really not a mouth kinda guy."

"I see no reason to use paint in order to draw attention to my faceplate's features." Perceptor went back to his papers. He'd been curious, for a short time, but it was little more than that, to him. A curiosity.

Nautica shrugged, and smiled at her reflection. A job well done! Windblade would've been proud. "At least let me do your lips, Brainstorm- even if you don't like how it looks, you can always put the faceplate on and nobody has to see it."

"Mm..." He looked considering, and she smirked, eyebrow raised teasingly.

"I could even do them decepticon purple."

"Oh! Oh, you wound me." He clasped is hands over his spark in mock anguish, pushing his chair back. Hey, she was allowed to make the low blows, after everything! He'd given her that. "I want blue. And if I don't like how it looks, I'm stripping the paint off." He undid his facemask and got comfortable as she started to gather the paints.

A few kliks later and she smirked, sweetly, and turned the mirror to face him. "See? It really emphasizes the movements of the mouth!"

Brainstorm stared at himself, blinked, then smirked experimentally. And started pulling faces. It really did look striking, blue to match his armor over the gold of his face, making his expressions far more obvious. Even he wasn't used to seeing his full face regularly, but the added definition of painted lips, well...it certainly made for a dazzling smile.

"It's not bad, honestly! I thought it'd look ridiculous, but it really works." He stroked his chin, and turned in his chair. "Percyyyyy-"

"Do not call me that." Perceptor had been attempting to ignore them as he worked. He was here to observe Brainstorm's designated lab time, even if it was being spent going over the intricacies of Camien facepainting, as opposed to starting to distangle the mess that was Brainstorm's lab.

"Percy! Perceptor! C'mon, take a look!" Brainstorm whined, Nautica chuckling, and he finally turned and huffed.

And stopped.

And stared, despite himself, for a long moment, forgetting the words he'd already prepared. There'd been a dismissal on his tongue, but instead he watched Brainstorm's new, blue lips, their shape oddly enticing and smooth, a flash of white dentae behind them only emphasizing the contrast further.

"...Cybertron to Perceptor~" Brainstorm repeated, sing-song, waving his hand in front of the former sniper's optics, snapping him from his stupor.

"It looks fine." Perceptor barked, a little too loud and fast, before turning away and burying himself in a datapad of lab reports again. Nautica and Brainstorm looked at each other, curiously, and slowly smiled.

"...I love it." Brainstorm grinned.

"Want me to show you how to do optic shutters?"

It spread through the ship before long. Nautica had always been an interesting character, from a new culture- new people and new ideas to absorb from her occasionally given up, but facepainting...took off as soon as she'd planted the idea.

Atomizer turned out to have a real flair for it, and could be found before many of Rodimus' bridge shifts touching up the co-Captain's hot-rod-red lips and winged eyeliner that only served to emphasize his optic shutters in gold and orange.

Ultra Magnus refused to participate, but admitted that he at least appreciated the sudden uptick in personal hygeine in regards to appearance. Megatron wouldn't admit it to any living bot, but he'd found that a thin lining of black and a dusting along his jaw made his eyes sharper and his face longer, just how he preferred.

Even Swerve got into it, highlighting the roundess of his cheeks with a dust of red, and really, once it became a bit of a thing in the bar it was everybody's game. Even Cyclonus had somehow been convinced to let Tailgate paint his thin, shapely lips a lovely, subdued shade of gray.

A lack of lips or optics didn't stop them, either. Rewind and Chromedome dusted the edges of their faceplates with each others' colors- a gesture found sickeningly appealing by much of the crew, and Tailgate himself, well...painting blue stars on one's mask counted, Nautica assured him.

Whirl somehow manged to dunk his entire head into glitter, but more curiously, managed to pull it off, although it did leave a trail of sparkling grit in his wake.

It was a welcome, happy thing on the Lost Light- something simple to experiance and experiment with, something new.

Of course, the Lost Light wasn't the only place where a touch of Caminus had become established.

Starscream's smirk had always been equal parts infurating and enchanting, to everyone who knew the Seeker, but now they were even worse. Or perhaps it was better. Rattrap knew he sure as the pit didn't know which it was, as Starscream grinned wickedly, white dentae behind those screaming red lips to match his armor.

Windblade let quiet regret stew in her spark, even though she'd admit...at least he pulled off painted lips well.

Chapter Text

The greatswords...sang to each other.

It was the best description either of them could give, after that first fight when they were pushed to the point of wielding the oversized blades. It was dangerous to use a Greatsword's full power- there was always the risk that it would pull too much from your spark, or that the blade itself would come up against too much for it to bare and the damage would lash back at the holder.

They made for handy swords, on their own, long and heavy and sharp, but when activated, when power flowed through them, well...

"What the hell!?" They heard Rodimus shouting, but it was hard to focus in the midst of battle, between the awareness of their enemies and the awareness of their closeness, of their blades singing.

Then, all of a sudden, it was over and they were standing amidst a veritable sea of slaughtered insecticons, the hoard that had previously been roaming this little moon, blades out and ignited, standing so close back-to-back that their armor brushed, to say nothing of their stifling EM fields, loud and high-energy from the battle.

"...Holy shit!"

Rodimus pulled them out of their momentary stupor, standing aside with his hands on his head, optics wide, mouth open in astonishment.

"Holy! Fragging! Shit!" He shouted again, and started grinning like a loon. "What in the pits got into you two?! That was...awesome!"

"What?" Cyclonus mumbled.

"It was nothing." Drift stated, but his smirk spoke of immense pride.

Afterwards, they studied the battlefield together, their swords safetly holstered away, keeping the space between them silent as they walked, stepping over metal carapaces and shattered internal mechanisms. When one of them did speak, it was Drift.

"I saw that you had a great sword, but I did not realize you could...use it, properly."

"Dai Atlas expressed much the same." Cyclonus' voice was low, a soft growl, sounding distant. He was deep in thought, as it was. "It seems that it should feel unweildy, but after I first used it...it..."

"...it bonds to you." Drift filled in. "It's like a part of you, after that, once it touches your spark." There was fondness there, as he thought of the sword on his own back, and it's previous holder. "...I have meant to apologize, for some time now."

"Mm." Cyclonus stepped on an optic that had fallen from an insecticon's head, and cringed when it burst under his foot. "You do not have to-"

"I do. I know you said apology accepted before, but that was, well..." Drift shrugged, thinking about how easy it had been for Cyclonus to disarm him. It felt so long ago, accusing him of Red Alert's murder. "...I'd like to apologize for that, and everything else."

"...thank you. Apology accepted." And after a moment, he added- "I'm sorry for slamming you on the table."

Drift looked at him for a moment, before he saw Cyclonus' thin smirk, and smiled, himself. "Yeaaah, no, you're not."

"True. I apologize for nothing that occured in that interrogation. You absolutely and entirely deserved that."

Drift laughed, and on their way back to the shuttle he asked Cyclonus for a simple favor- a regular sparring partner. Not that Rodimus wasn't decent with a sword by now, and fun to fight with, but he treated it as just that. As fighting, not as training or as anything else, and he had no interest in centering himself or learning forms.

To his surprise, Cyclonus agreed to it.

At least, in a sense. The little white minibot who'd hurried to Cyclonus' side in the shuttle overheard Drift asking and agreed to it on Cyclonus' behalf. Drift would have to buy Tailgate a drink later.

There was something to be said for having a partner who was equally matched in terms of skill, but in different ways than you. It made sparring a challenge- not like it had been with Rodimus, who lost to Drift constantly, but Drift found himself on the mat just as frequently as Cyclonus did.

It was refreshing.

Even though it meant many minor scrapes for the both of him, which he heard no end of complaints about from Ratchet. He was certain Cyclonus was getting those complaints too, considering the purple Jet's reluctance to go to the medbay.

Of course, Cyclonus had other reasons for that.

"So, you and Drift." Ratchet had huffed when he was repairing a particularly deep score along Cyclonus' palm. "Getting pretty chummy."

"We are training together."

"Right." Then Ratchet had grabbed Cyclonus' horn and jerked his head towards him, red eyes meeting narrowed blue ones. "...I didn't drag him all the way back here just so he could get hurt again, so you better watch yourself." And then Cyclonus' helm was released, and the jet stared at Ratchet uncomfortably, feeling...chastised, and uncertain exactly why.

"I..."

"Don't bother explaining it. Just know that the kid actually likes hanging out with you. I think he just has some sort of self-flagellation going on, seeking out grumpy old bots like us." There was the feeling that the last part was meant to be internalized, instead of muttered aloud, but Cyclonus didn't comment and Ratchet finished patching up his hand.

The next time they fought side-by-side, they were aware enough to see why Rodimus had been so impressed that first time. Drift had known it, experianced it, as had Cyclonus, but neither had really understood it at first. When your very spark was bared, in battle, like that, it was hard not to connect with someone else in the same situation.

They moved in perfect unison, watching each others' backs without effort, moving together. It was like a dance, a very brutal dance emphasized by flashes of blades and the flicks that sent energon streaking across the ground.

They didn't need to shout or communicate at all, it seemed, they just knew. And between them, the greatswords sang back and forth, a stream of energy in the battle. When Cyclonus caught the edge of a stray blast against his side, singed, Drift moved to defend that side without a word and without a complaint.

Afterwards, Cyclonus hovered near Drift, ever-present over his shoulder as the ninja discussed with Rodimus and Ultra Magnus. It took First Aid's fussing to finally coax him away, to have that skittered shot looked at, and Tailgate watched with delight when Cyclonus told him about the battle, about the fight, about the greatswords that evening.

Tailgate had seemed naive to many, trusting and sweet, but Cyclonus knew better. There was a very deceptive wisdom that came from the perception of youth- it was filled with hope, and wonder, and persistence.

A lot of persistence.

Drift had kissed him first, after they'd sparred. He'd simply asked for a moment of Cyclonus' time, before the jet could leave, and when Cyclonus turned to him Drift had reached up and touched his jawline before kissing him, softly.

Cyclonus froze on the spot and stared down, wide-optiked.

"...Cyclonus-" Drift started, and then suddenly Cyclonus was moving away- no- running away! He stared at the retreating back with equal parts disappointment and confusion. Cyclonus was not the kind who ran.

Apparently, except from gentle kisses.

Drift let him go, this time, and found it worked out to his advantage when Tailgate approached him at Swerve's later and slyly asked him just -what- he'd done to put Cyclonus in such a state. What kind of a state?

"Well, y'know..." If Tailgate had a mouth, he would've been smirking, Drift was sure of it, he would've been smug and insufferable. "...a very sweet kind of state. The kind where he sings songs that he thinks I haven't translated the lyrics to, and gets flustered."

"He gets flustered?"

"It's subtle. Very subtle."

Good enough for Drift, though.

Chapter Text

"Do I know you?"

"I know how easily you forget your friends." He chuckled, those strange eyes narrowing, all four of them. The spider-bot was big, bigger than Optimus, and he was fast. Unsettlingly fast, too easy for him to outmaneuver Optimus' axe. "Although, you managed to remember Elita, that day!"

It hit him, all at once. He's looked familiar, but it had been impossible. How could he have recognized him? With the purple and black, the extra legs and throax upon his back, the unmistakable chin framed by the edges of a helmet that seemed too sharp, too...intimidating to be his.

"...Sentinel?" Optimus could feel his vents hitch.

And for a split second, he felt regret well up in his spark- he wished, for that moment, that Sentinel had died.

"It's Blackarachnid now."

"But I thought you were-" Optimus' shock made it easy for the spidermech to swoop in close, his breath against Optimus' faceplates. He even smelled wrong- like an organic. Not like Sentinel's old mix, unmistakeable, of too much polish and oils.

And Optimus thought, then, fearfully- how was he going to tell Elita?

How could he ever tell her?

How long had he been down here? He wasn't sure, and he wasn't sure he cared half the time. He'd been abandoned by his friends, he had new companions now. Disgusting companions, organic and vile, so...alive, and stupid, but they were what he had and he could work with that. The spiders were still huge, compared to him, and even transformed he was a small specimen, but they accepted him, seemed content to let him linger.

So he passed the time. He drank energon from the remaining cubes, he watched as the shining pink eggs split open and new generations were born, his mind still reeling and struggling to adjust. For a while, all he'd done was scream and rage and stagger through the maze of caverns, lost, but now that had faded to a dull form of acceptance, and tired hate.

One of the spiders nudged at him as he drank. At least he could still get overcharged, even if none of this was high-grade or the oils he preferred, he could still fill his tanks, get himself loosened up.

"Go away." He muttered, pushing at it's face, and it hissed and chattered, nudging at him again, pedipalps rubbing together. "I said, go away! Go spin some webs or something, you stupid animal!"

It butted him again, harder, and he transformed without thinking, shrieking at it, brandishing his forelegs in irritation. It seemed to understand that, at least, and backed away. He shuddered, feeling the uneasy crawl of instincts, disgusting organic programming as he thought of it, going through his processor. Ugh. It was always stronger when he transformed, telling him to do this. Do that. Build a web. Make sure the eggs are arranged. Interact with the others.

Suddenly, the spider was back, behind him, tapping his abdomen with it's forelegs, and when he turned to intimidate them again they backed away, and tapped their forlegs against the ground, bobbing slightly. He'd seen this before, but now...his instincts were babbling in mind. It was like the inescapable drive of combat programming- drawing him forwards.

No! He raged, mentally, but his body relaxed, as the larger spider approached and suddenly clambered atop of him, squirming. One of it's pedipalps shifted, rubbing along the side of his carapace- no- armor! He was a bot, not an animal! And then suddenly he felt a familiar sensation, one he'd never expected to feel outside of rootmode.

"No!" Was all he managed to get out, before he trilled and purred in delight, legs twitching and body shuddering, his many eyes closed as the limb slipped inside of...of...was that his valve? Did these creatures have valves? He'd only ever seen them mount, never bothered to pay enough attention to see what was happening, disgusted by the idea that they were making offspring.

But he stayed still, instinct demanding of him, until he could feel fluid and gel filling up that opening in him like transfluid, and the spider wriggled with relief, and crawled off of him, carefree, lost among the other spiders in moments. He never could tell them apart, and as soon as he found he could remember how to move and control himself he fled, digging a leg into the spider altmode's valve to try and scoop the substance out, shuddering, before reverting to rootmode and finding one of the underground caverns, filed with water, to wash himself in, cursing.

Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. He was never transforming again, not if it let them get so...close to him!

And then, it had been but a few decacycles later, when he'd staggered to the energon cubes, consumed entirely with the need to be near a food source, arranged himself a small cluster of web that his body told him was a nest...and then he transformed, hunkered down, and breathed deep sighs of relief as his insides flexed and churned...and a pink egg slid out of him. Followed by another, and another, an a half-dozen more.

He came out of his stupor with fear and rage and the spiders continued to ignore him as he crushed the eggs he'd just laid, their insides splattering wetly, disgustingly, under his pedes, coating them with goo and soft chunks of biological matter- and silvery protomatter. He didn't want to know if a cyber-organic could have viable offspring. He didn't care. All he could do was purge and kick the remains of his ill-gotten eggs around.

Then the Decepticons had come, looking for the energon, for their lost ship, and he saw opportunity. No bot would know what had happened, and no bot could take his instincts like that.

The Decepticons were ruthless, and evil, and he hated them like a good Autobot should. But if anybody would take him in, take in a freak like him...it would be them.

"Sentinel!"

"Elita- we have to get out now!"

"We need to go after him!"

"No! No time! The ship's gonna blow!"

Optimus woke with a yowl.

The nightmare was a memory, a recharge cycle gone wrong, calling up old files marked for further consideration. But it only took that short cycle of recollection to jar him concious, sitting up on the berth and venting harshly. He could still remember the sensations better than almost any other memory file he had. Elita's hands, gripping hard enough to crumple his armor. Her screaming, her angry shout right in his face, eyes wide with rage and sadness.

"This is your fault!"

He made himself calm down, before leaving his room, and spent the rest of the day trying not to think about spidery legs and purple-and-black armor, of a broad chin and a mouth with sharp fangs. Of Blackarachnid, and Sentinel. Of course he would do anything for his team here, he'd already failed someone relying on him once. He'd never let it happen again.

Ever.

Chapter Text

It was something of a tradition. Not the kind that was written down or put into history books, not the kind that was talked about, the kind that was quietly accepted with smirks and nudges and shuffled neatly under the rug until everybody'd had too much oil and high-grade and even then it was something kept to hushed tones and snickers.

Nobody did it sober, at least, nobody would admit to doing it sober- that would have placed too much pressure on their flimsy moral block that made it okay, so Sentinel always made sure to hit up Maccadam's to pound back a few barrels before he went to the Stockades, a sway in his step, charge buzzing through him. He'd grin and flirt with the pretty femmes on desk duty while checking in, and ignore the minicons staffing the prison (they were just drones, as far as he was concerned. Not even proper bots.), and swagger on through the halls, wondering where his status as a Prime would get him this time. 

This time, through the haze of charge, something new caught his eyes. Greenish-blue, with a dash of gold in there...not Elita's colors, no, but it still made him a bit nostalgic. He leaned against the glass, smirking, and the smaller bot inside didn't respond, looking down at his pedes, barely even tensing.

"Hey." Sentinel knocked on the cell. "Hey! Look up at me!" The bot did, and winced, slightly. Sentinel felt almost like he remembered the bot, for a moment, but he didn't bother to chase that thread of thought. It wasn't important, and this was just some poor Decepticon traitor. Some poor idiot who got caught, all the better for the glory of the Autobots.

He unlocked the cell door and stepped in, rearing up to full height over the bot, even thought his overcharge still had his swaying slightly, and made his grin lopsided. The bot cringed back, but didn't speak, when Sentinel reached for him and grasped his chin- a prominent, sharp wedge to his helmet.

"You ever been with a Prime before?" Sentinel chuckled, gaze narrowing, and the large blue optics stared back up at him.

"Yes." Wasp spat the word out, and Sentinel laughed.

"Good! Then you know what to do. And, uh....I prefer you facedown, Decepticon." Sentinel's hands were large and strong, easily able to manipulate the smaller bot into whatever position he wanted. Even if Wasp had been in any position to resist, instead of locked and drained with stasis cuffs, he wouldn't have been able to do much. So he just let the prime manually open his interface panel and closed his optics.

Sentinel was large, his spike thick and fortunately dribbling pre-transfluid to make up for Wasp's lack of lubricants. He was overcharged and wouldn't last long, anyways, not with such a small bot as Wasp, and afterwards Wasp ignored the ache of overused calipers in favor of curling up and retreating into himself. It was kept rather chill in here, not as warm as the most of Cybertron was kept, and the transfluid inside him was cooling quickly and growing uncomfortable.

He just had to endure. He was innocent, right? He'd be out of here someday soon! They'd find the real Decepticon and he'd be free.

That was all it would take.

It couldn't be that long, could it?

His mind was broken a million different ways, but that was okay. He wasn't Wasp anymore, so Wasp didn't need to hurt or be scared. Wasp wasn't broken anymore. Waspinator was whole, and fine!

Well, maybe not whole, right now, but he was getting there! Once he'd managed to drag most of his body parts together they seemed to heal back up just fine, knitting together in a process he knew would have once been so biological in nature it would've disgusted him, or any other good Cybertronian. It was sticky and wet and exhausting, but at least he could move on his own. And after a few weeks, he was whole again, good as new.

He wandered the safari park for a time, driven by new thoughts and instincts. Waspinator was a hungry thing, but he wasn't interested in finding Energon or Oil like he used to be. Instead he stole gasoline from a jeep's fuel tank, and finished it off with his first organic meal- gorging himself on sweet pods that came from a tree. Fruit.

He spotted the spider, once, but they'd avoided each other, her disappearing into the darkness and he flitting off in a buzz of wings. Maybe this was what freedom was like? Peacefulness, in a sense? He was still angry, he would still make Bumble-bot pay, he would make all of them pay, but the anger felt different now. Dulled, not so jagged.

It grew sharp again when he saw the blue bot, though, and suddenly he remembered what Wasp had forgotten. What Wasp had tried to forget so hard, and buried away, blotting out recognition of blue and orange armor, of a large chin and a distinct sneer.

"Wazzzpinator...Wazzzpinator hate Sentinel-bot!" He hissed, watching as the bot strode about with a huge hammer balanced on his shoulder, searching. They were here to look for Blackarachnia, the spider-bot, he could tell that. They called her 'Elita' and there were other bots with him, scientists, seeking to find her. To better understand techno-organics.

Waspinator was better than Wasp had ever been, though. He could wait. Sentinel-Bot was cocky, he would get separated. And then Waspinator would show him- he had learned a lot from being techno-organic. He had learned to hunt.

It didn't take long at all, and then he had the blue bot pinned down, his shield and hammer knocked to the side. It reminded Waspinator of Wasp, bent over on a berth, his face shoved into the thin padding. "Get off of me, you freak!" Sentinel was raging.

Waspinator liked the rage.

"Wazzpinator...Wazzpinator preferzzz Sentinel-bot face-down." Wazpinator hummed, darkly, and that gave Sentinel pause. He'd said that, before. He'd said it several times. It was a tradition, after all, go work out charge on some criminal scum, on decepticons stupid enough to get caught!

"No! Get the frag off, you Abomination-" He shouted, but then a huge clawed servo grasped the back of his help and slammed his face into the dirt several times before grinding it down, muffling his angry shouts. Much better. Waspinator didn't care for the shouting insults, but they didn't deter him as one of his smaller secondary arms groped about Sentinel's groin before finding the manual latch to the interface panel, growling when he found it was locked. "GET OFF-"

Waspinator ripped the covering panel off, uncaring that Sentinel yelped and clawed at the ground, settling his weight on the other bot to pin them down. "No." Waspinator hissed, his own panel sliding open with a wet pop, his new form's spike pressurizing thick and long against Sentinel's aft, purring.

Sentinel's anger gave way to fear as he yelled, and screamed into the dirt, trying to buck away, to pull down, the struggle making it difficult for Waspinator to position himself while holding him down, but then- a secondary pair of arms made it quite a bit easier, grasping the blue bot's hips.

And then Waspinator really did feel peace, in a sense. Peacefulness found in heat and stretching mesh around his spike, in Sentinel's screams turning into a series of choked, panicked sounds and roaring vents struggling to cool his systems. Instinct took over, and Waspinator bucked and keened and his wings flickered, thrumming, until there was pressure and-

-oh. That was new. There was no transfluid to speak of, save for a gush of lubricant, and something thick and round pushing down, into Sentinel's abused, stretched valve. Sentinel sobbed, voicebox spitting static, and Waspinator humped his hips forwards hard, feeling a moment of resistance before he moaned, loud and buzzing.

Sentinel's processor crashed, then, registering a foreign invasion in his receptive tank, and then...blackness. Nothing. When he woke, everything hurt and he was alone. There was a vague, fuzzy impression of purple feet walking near him and a femme chuckling, but that too faded in favor of lingering pain as he stood, his comm unit chiming over and over with unread messages and incoming calls.

Once he realized his situation he desperately cleaned himself in a filthy pond of water before calling for a pickup, holding the hammer in a shaking hand.

It was fine. He was fine. Waspinator hadn't killed him, so he was fine, right?

Something felt heavy and unsettled in his receptive tank, but nothing registered on another scan, so he ignored it. It was just another reason to find that damn techno-organic and smash them with the hammer, just like you were supposed to do with bugs.

It wasn't until several more cycles had passed, ignoring Jazz's comments about the odd jumpiness of his behavior and Perceptor's concern for the new Magnus' sudden desire for solitude, and the Jettwins hanging back from him after he snapped more than usual, that he knew something was absolutely, definitely wrong, waking in berth with a scream and a rush of spent energon and fluids leaking from his interface panel, only to gush when he opened it.

The Jettwins burst into his room first, assuming from his howls that he was dying- and he might as well have been, the way he was screaming, and carried him to Perceptor despite his protests- he would deal with this alone. No-one needed to see his weakness.

He'd feel a little better about Perceptor's presence after a quick scan showed the techno-organic larvae lodged deep in his systems, slowly eating their way through his vital mechanics, and determined that immediate surgery was the only way Sentinel was going to survive.

And it looked like they'd gotten their techno-organic test subjects after all.

Somewhere, far away at that point, Waspinator was uncertain why he felt so proud, but his spark sang in his half-biological chest.

Chapter Text

“Mm… your kid before five in the morning” - whirlrung IDW

The thin, reedy cries started at ungodly o’clock and hadn’t calmed down by half-past ungodly o’clock. Which meant that it was time for someone to go to the sparkling’s room and settle them down, that their sobbing wasn’t just a brief nightmare or a tired wail. Whirl’s optic onlined, and narrowed up at the ceiling as he lay very still, trying to feign sleep. Maybe Rung would take pity on him and-

“Mm…” Rung sighed and stirred, and Whirl tensed, slightly. “…your kid, before five in the morning.” The little orange bot mumbled, rolling over, away from Whirl.

“Oh, come on-” Whirl whined, tired static crackling in his voice.

“My first appointment is with Red Alert.” Rung sighed, curling up tighter. “Just bring him into berth to sleep with us.”

“Awgh. Little bit better appreciate that I’m sacrificing my morning frag for this…” Whirl sat up with a thin whine, joints creaking before he stretched and followed the sound of hiccups and crying in the dark. As soon as the mechlet saw Whirl’s optic, a sole glowing point of yellow in the shadows, the sobs stopped and were replaced by whimpers, punctuated by little whines.

“ ‘reator! ‘reator! Wan’ sire!”

“Sheesh, I carried you for all those cycles and you still want him?” Whirl huffed, but his annoyance faded into warmth the second the sparkling’s warm, needy little EM field touched his, and when he lifted their tiny orange-and-white form with blunted claws his own field was buzzing with love and adoration. “You’re so picky.” But he just couldn’t stay annoyed- the bitlet just wanted warmth and affection, and Rung’s spark chamber was closer to the surface of his armor than Whirl’s was.

The little bot just yawned, wide, body sprawling over Whirl’s cockpit, resting upon it easily and already starting to enter recharge again. He barely even noticed as he was settled onto a berth, where his sire’s slender orange arms enveloped him, and Whirl’s heavier build curled around them both protectively

“G’night, Blades….” Whirl mumbled softly as he started to drift off again, placated by the warmth of his family. “…you lil’ fragger.”

“I think we should have another” - dratchet IDW

Emergency’s name had largely been a little joke, at first. It wasn’t unusual for kindled bots to change names once their personalities or altmodes developed, so their first given name (Ratchet assured Drift, many times) didn’t really matter all that much.

But Emergency had entered the world in a series of, well, emergencies.

First of which had been what Ratchet was certain was the galaxies worst conception. Sure, he and Drift had sparkmerged and interfaced more than enough during the projected time period that any one of a dozen encounters could have produced a sparklet, but he was certain it was the one that was interrupted by pirates attacking the shuttle they were holed up in after all that stone warriors scrap, and it was only the pirate’s surprise and amusement at catching the two bots tangled up in overload that allowed them to get an edge and force them off the shuttle.

And then, they’d been a mid-term surprise. Ratchet’s fuel tanks were always prone to acting up, and he’d long since learned to suppress his own discomfort for the sake of working on others. It was so easy for even a trained medic to ignore their own symptoms, provided they were willing to push through unpleasentries. Besides, four million years of warfare had left everybody a bit unsettled, why should Ratchet start feeling well now?

And then his spark started to gutter and crash, and First Aid’s quick thinking saved him- and the tinier spark that had just detached from his own, settling into the budding protoform he hadn’t even noticed yet. It had been a terrifying experiance, and the mixture of fear and joy Drift had tried to get across had been a mess of emotional breakdown.

Ratchet tried not to think about it and swallowed down carrier-grade energon with a grimace, knowing it was always a small risk that when a sparklet dropped to their protoform that they’d wrench their parent spark away in the process. A freak chance, one that was easily treatable if corrected quickly.

Third, had come labor. An arduous process that came on suddenly, in the middle of Ratchet performing surgery on Minimus Ambus. To his credit, his hands stayed quick and steady as he finished up the fuel pump transfer, even though his legs were streaked with golden gestational fluid and First Aid was the definition of panic.

After it’s unfortunate timing, the process itself wound up taking nearly five times the average length, three whole days waiting for his body to respond enough to jump-start labor without damaging the mechlet, before he finally admitted it was time for the surgical option, after crumpling the metal of Drift’s fingers dring a particularly sudden, cramping pain.

It was no small amount of fortune that the mechlet was removed safetly and healthy, but the emergencies hadn’t stopped there. Emergency, for his joking namesake, was endless trouble.

He learned to climb and fall headfirst out of his crib before he could even walk. Learning to walk was accompanied by learning to run, and then running into every dangerous situation he could. Ratchet felt his spark sputter every time he received a comm from Perceptor- “I am uncertain how he managed to get into the labs, and we found him before he got into the radioactive materials-”

He blamed Drift, who worried and fretted but still couldn’t stop being amused by how flighty and prone to trouble the bit was. “He’s a free spirit, Ratchet. And he hasn’t gotten hurt yet!”

“Yet being the operative word!”

There were good times, though, as they watched Emergency, now nearly up to his parents’ waists, showing off his first altmode. Turning into a small, sleek red-and-white vehicle and back to rootmode over and over, bursting with pride. Followed by Rodimus urging him to go for his first drive, and driving straight into a wall.

“I’m okay!” Emergency shouted, rubbing dented armor with a huge grin. “I’m good. Ow. Rodimus! Race with me!”

Drift, standing besides Ratchet, sighed deeply and took the medic’s hand in his own.

“…I think we should have another.” Drift whispered, sweetly, and Ratchet looked back, expression soft and warm, meeting Drift’s eyes.

“…Don’t even think about asking me to carry again or I will remove your nanite production and the interface equipment that goes with it.” Ratchet whispered back, voice deadly cold. “You want another one, you can carry the scraplet.”

“I think someone had a little accident with the finger paints” - cygate IDW

When Cyclonus walked into Swerve’s, optics followed him. It wasn’t anything more than the usual glance-at-the-door-to-see-who’s-arrived at first, but by the time he actually made it to the bar a sizeable group was staring at his back,  muttering amongst themselves. Personally, Swerve couldn’t see what was so interesting, unless he’d missed some important gossip.

Whirl was the first one to actually speak up to Cyclonus, though, laughing.

“I think someone had a little accident with the finger paints!” he cackled, and Cyclonus just sighed, softly, trying to ignore the copter as Swerve handed him the usual drink.

“What?” Swerve blinked.

“…” Cyclonus was wordless, eerily silent as he turned in place, to show his back. While he’d been spotless from the front, his back…the purple armor was covered with colorful splatters and the small handprints of sparklings, resulting in an absolute mess of hues. It was, frankly, hideous.

And hysterical. Swerve couldn’t even spare a second before he started howling with laughter, leaning against the bar.

“How- how did they even-?”

“They are very coordinated.” Cyclonus muttered, turning back to the bar and picking up his drink, but he had a wry smile. “It is very impressive. I was ambushed by them as I entered their habsuite, pinned facedown, and painted.”

“Pinned down! You’re literally five times as big as ‘em!” Swerve was still chuckling, trying to force the laughter to stop, imagining the twin terrors pinning down their carrier. The coordinated mischief they had been getting up to was quickly becoming a staple of life aboard the Lost Light.

“I may have allowed them victory, to ensure their confidence.”

“And what’d Tailgate have to say about the whole mess?”

Cyclonus’ wry smile took on an almost mischievous bent, and Swerve felt a nervous shiver deep in his spark. The jet wasn’t answering.

Distantly, in a pair of joined habsuites, a little white minibot was not so white anymore, attempting to chase down two small, white bits with paint staining their servos, giggling as they darted two and fro, narrowly avoiding being grabbed. Oh, Tailgate was gonna kill Cyclonus for not warning him that the two were waiting in ambush.

“… You know, I’m really glad that he/she just came out and told us” - swervewhirl IDW

They sat at the bar, the place unsettlingly empty and quiet save for the two of them, trying to pretend that they weren’t nervous. Of course, it was a useless task, to pretend, but it was all they had. Whirl’s claws clicked arrythmically, his lone optic readjusting rapidfire every time he moved his head. Swerve had been polishing the same cube for twenty minutes, staring unseeingly into the glass of it.

Whirl snapped first, though, hopping off the barstool and pacing, quickly, practically whipping back and forth as his head bobbed and jerked, Swerve following the motion but lost in his thoughts. “It’s taking too long. Is it taking too long? Rrrragh! How long does it take?!”

“Ratchet would comm us if anything went wrong, right?” Swerve tried to reassure Whirl as much out of concern for his bar as for Whirl’s sake.

“I don’t know! Just…shut up. Pour me a drink. I need something, or I’m gonna explode!” Whirl sat back down, stiffly, and Swerve pulled a face before getting him a cube of high-grade. Whirl sipped, looking at Swerve with an unreadable expression. “…You know, I’m really glad that she just came out and told us. I just…uuugh.” His claws clicked and shivered.

“She’ll be fine.” Swerve looked at the glass, again. It was perfectly clean. “Just you watch, any minute now-” He was interrupted by the comm from Ratchet they both received, freezing.

[She’s all set and coming your way.]

They hurried to the door, then staggered back, trying not to seem too overeager. However, acting casual was neither of their strong suites so after a minute of trying to lean against various items of furniture in an attempt to seem relaxed failed, they settled for waiting, bouncing nervously on their feet.

And then, in she came.

“Divebomb!” Whirl buzzed with excitement. She smiled, Swerve’s cocky grin every bit evident on her face. The actual alterations to her chassis were minor, cosmetic really- there was very little different between the frames of mechs and femmes, but it’d been her desire. She’d seen Camiens and knew what she wanted, no, what she needed in her life.

“Hey, creators!” She laughed, arms wide. Telling them that their little Divebomb was, in fact, a femme had been all she’d wanted for so long, and now it was reality. How could things get any more perfect than this, as her creators wrapped her in a huge- Swerve’s chunky arms around her legs and Whirl’s powerful rotors around her shoulders, his chestpiece half-squishing her.

“Rrgh. I dunno. Could we just sand down all of the sharp corners? Would that be possible?” - rodimusdrift IDW

Nitrous was on a medical berth. Again. At least, this time the mechlet was sitting up and talking while kicking his legs eagerly, instead of laying back with his protoform being cast and his armor being repaired. Again. It was a minor incident, this time. A minor incident involving friends, racing, and a particularly jutting corner of a bench that happened to be right at eye-level to a growing bitlet.

His optic would be fine. He just had to keep the patch on, Ratchet assured them, and the self-repair would take care of it. If it wasn’t re-lit within’ a breem, take him in again and he’d go in and manually reattach the wiring.

“Rrg. I dunno. Could we just sand down all of the sharp corners? Would that be possible?” Drift mused, thinking over their habsuite with a critical mind, wary for more potential dangers.

Rodimus shrugged. “He’s fine! He’s just a lil’ speed demon, you know how us hotrods are.” He picked up his creation, who giggled, fingering the patch of metal over his broken optic. “You just wanna go fast, don’t you! You would’ve beaten the others, too, if you hadn’t gotten pushed into the bench!”

“Yeah!” Nitrous chirped in agreement.

“Rodimus!” Drift let out a distressed whine, and plucked Nitrous from the red mech’s hands, giving him a glare. “Nitrous, if you want to race with your friends, you can do so in the hangar, or the training room. But please, don’t do it anywhere you’re going to be crashing into furniture. Please?”

Nitrous nodded…then grinned and started squirming again. “Okay, okay, okay! Now lemme down, I gotta go get Hurricane back for shoving me!”

“Nitrous! We do not enact revenge upon those who have wronged us!” Drift tried, but set the sparkling down, watching as he stretched, his half-finished red-and-white armor shined and sleek, his grin wide and his optics bright and blue. “Understand?”

“Yeah, yeah…I understand.”

Drift smiled, but then Nitrous ran between his legs, darting away and out the door, shouting behind him.

“BUT I’M STILL GONNA KICK HIS AFT!”

Rodimus couldn’t even take Drift’s scandalized annoyance, laughing until his plating clattered.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to drop them off myself? I don’t think you could handle seeing them off alone.” - swervemagnus IDW

“Are you sure you don’t want me to drop them off myself? I don’t think you could handle seeing them off alone.” The larger bot stated, frowning softly. Magnus put a hand on Swerve’s shoulder. “I could go with you, as well. I would like to see them off, I can arrange the schedule-”

“You really don’t have to alter your schedule, I know you worked hard on it-” Swerve gestured, uncertainly, secretly relieved that the other was offering. “I mean, it’s really up to you-”

“I will be there.” Ultra Magnus offered one of his rare, subtle smiles. And he was, as Minimus Ambus. He still wore his first set of armor, making him taller than Swerve, but it felt…appropriate. Especially as the sturdy green minibot hugged around his waist, grinning, and Swerve tried nobly not to cry as the green bot who so resembled him, except cast in white and green, hugged him as well. His eyes still sparked, though.

“Y-you’ll be okay, eh? You’ll be ruddy fine.” Swerve gushed, rubbing Tap-Out’s shoulders, getting a grin back. “Just be sure to kick ass, right?”

“Of course I’m gonna, you guys. Look, I’ll call you all as soon as we’re settled into dorms, and I’ll keep you updated! I gotta run.” Tap-Out waved to them as he hurried off to the academy. No longer a Sparkling, no, he was a real bot now. Ready to go off, to learn, to pick his own fights now that he wasn’t always under the suprvision of his creators anymore.

Serve held it together until Tap-Out was out of sight, then the coolant leaked down his face and his visor sparked and crackled with excess energy as he sobbed, still grinning and chuckling between gasps. Minimus offered a stiff, uncertain hug, barely holding back his own desire to show too much emotion, to sniffle and cough. This must have been why creating sparklings was so discouraged during the war. To see them go off, to see them train to become Autobots or to fight, to wonder if they’d live…

It was tough. They comforted each other that night, Minimus shedding his armor until he was smaller than Swerve even and letting himself surrender into the metallurgist’s hands, playful and knowing. Tap-Out would be fine, they were sure of it. He was a tough mech.

“… They just grow up so fast” - bobwaspinator (IDW)

“They juzzt grow up zzo fazzzt!” Waspinator cooed as he stroked the buglet’s soft antennae, the barely-formed green armor of the sparkling warm to the touch, squirming in his grasp. This one was fresh out of an egg not two days prior, and already prone to climbing out of the nest and onto it’s creators. “It'zzz tragic. Wazzzpinator love zzzzparklings!”

“Uh-huh.” Swindle stared as another buglet crawled over the table, skittering on all fours like Bob did, blunt spikes on it’s forming shell. Yet another was sitting at the edge of the table, dangerously close to falling before Waspinator nudged it back. “They really do, uh, grow up fast.” His purple eyes darted to the side, where the first batch of buglets was standing at the bar, chattering in their weird mix of neocybrex and chirping buzzes.

They were, well…adult, as if they’d been forged or cold-constructed. Usually, kindled bots took longer to mature, but these…they grew like Insecticons had. It’d been what, two years, at the most? And there they were. One of them, with particularly shiny iridescent armor, preened and crooned over his drink, before his sister, who had suprisingly clear black stripes across her purple chassis, hissed at him and teased.

“So, Waspinator, weird question. Exactly…how many eggs have you and Bob had by now?” Swindle leaned over the table a bit, not sure he really wanted to know…

Waspinator shrugged, then looked at his fingers, doing some counting. “Six…twelve…twenty…twenty-four…” Counting up for each batch of eggs he and his Insecticon mate had produced. The buglet in his arms chirped and squirmed, little half-formed wings buzzing weakly. “…forty-seven!” Waspinator proclaimed, pleased.

“Right. Uh-huh.”

The shiny one, Scarab, was he called? He was looking a bit swollen lately, and another with a grill over his face- Weevil, he had lain his first batch of eggs- a mere three eggs, yesterday, to the uproarous delight of his siblings. Swindle did the math. Two years to maturation, to breeding. An average of three to seven eggs per brood…

Swindle was very good at math. He had to be, to be in the business of ripping off innocent mechs who weren’t as good at math as he was, especially when it came to their credits. And right now, the math was terrifying. He remembered Cybertron as it was, overrun by Insecticon swarms, a buzzing, thrumming mass of mutations and shrieking hunger, and he quietly excused himself and went to the far end of the bar, catching Blurr.

“We need to get off Cybertron.”

“What? Swindle, I told you, the bar’s doing fine-”

“You don’t understand. If there’s forty-seven of them now, and they all breed like Waspinator and Bob do, in a hundred years…” Blurr wasn’t as good at calculations, but he was fast at them. And his eyes widened.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I’m gonna look into getting a ship before we’re literally up to our optics in bugs. Again.”

Chapter Text

Swerve was willing to give everymech a chance! Decepticon or not, Swerve's Bar was here to serve everybody. Well, everybody who could pay. So long as they could pay, anybody was welcome, here on the Lost Light! Still, it was a surprise when Ravage padded in, plain as day, not slinking in the shadows or anything of the sort.

It was more of a surprise when the feline hopped up onto a stool, forelimbs up on the bar...and then when they pulled a card out of a small compartment hidden in their chest, delicately keeping the thin metal plate between two toes before handing it to Swerve.

"I'm opening a tab." Ravage explained, voice a low purr.

"...Sounds swell!" Swerve gave him a winning grin, scanned the card, and tried not to look too surprised when the shanix transfer went through. Where did Ravage even get money? He wasn't sure that he'd ever know, but that wasn't his business! "Now, what can I get for you?"

"A bowl of mid-grade with copper and magnesium infusion." The feline waited as Swerve dug for, and found, a sturdy bowl (really meant for making small punch mixtures) and mixed up the requested drink, the energon shimmering green as he poured it into the bowl, and he lingered, watching at Ravage bowed his head and lapped it up, eagerly. What -had- Ravage been ingesting while hiding on the ship? Had he been stealing energon? Or simply waiting it out?

Wherever Ravage had been getting his fix, he was getting it from Swerve's now, and the regulars quickly went from avoiding the feline decepticon to ignoring them, to talking with him. Ravage didn't say much, but he had more personality than they'd expected, a surprising knowledge of earthly culture, and a taste for mid-grade and light oils, of all things. He'd sit and watch the people, lapping from his bowl, occasionally discussing with Bluestreak or Blaster or Swerve himself.

It wasn't until late in one shift, when Ravage and he were alone in the bar save for Cyclonus and Tailgate tucked away at a far booth, that Swerve finally ventured to outright state his thoughts. "I think you're lonely."

Ravage stared back at him, ears lowered...and quiet.

"I mean, not that that's bad or anything, but you're used to having a carrier, and the other cassettes, right?" Still no response, but one of Ravage's ears flicked, his posture relaxing. "I think that's why you like it here, because it's a bit like being around them."

"...I miss them." Ravage admitted, after a moment, looking down at the lingering dregs at the bottom of his bowl. "Even Megatron doesn't pay me much attention, anymore."

"Yeah, well." Swerve shrugged. "He's not that great, anyways! Why bother with bucket-head when you can bloody well hang out with me?" He grinned, jabbing his thumbs at himself, and Ravage purred- a sort of chuckle, Swerve had learned, tail lazily swinging with pleasant thoughts.

"You do tend to offer me more drinks."

"Yeah, well, let it never be said that I've turned down a paying customer!" He pulled up a bottle and opened it. "Here, you ever do high-grade?"

"I...avoid it. I have a very small tank." Ravage seemed almost...sheepish. "High-grade is very effective on models as small and light as I am."

"Good! Then I won't have to waste too much to get you too overcharged to make it back to your habsuite without walking right into a wall!" Swerve poured half the bottle into the feline mech's bowl, and the other half starts to disappear down his throat, his FIM chip disengaging. His shift was almost done, Bluestreak would be here any minute to take over- he could afford to get a little overcharged.

Ravage watched him for a minute...then began to slurp up the high-grade, it's potency stinging his oversensitive nose when he inhaled near it, but the taste wasn't bad, and for being a spy he was growing tired of being alone while stuck on this ship. Very, very tired of it.

"Aahh!" Swerve was panting, grunting. This was a bad position for him, on knees and elbows, his front pressed down to the floor by the paws on his back, aft up in the air for nice, easy access to his interface panels. He hadn't meant to wind up in this position, it was just easier this way. Especially considering how Ravage had pounced on him the second they'd made it back to Swerve's habsuite, wobbling and giddy with overcharge.

What was it he'd said, as Bluestreak shooed them out, two bottles of high-grade gone between them? Sometime along the lines of "Ey, I think you're cute! Sure, you ain't bipedal, but I can appreciate pretty much anything with a spark. And some things without." He'd said it with a lascivious grin, and Ravage had been startled and they'd walked to his habsuite together, laughing, the cougaraider hiccuping between purrs that were so deep and loud they seemed to make the air vibrate.

And now he was like this, Ravage's paws on his back, sharp teeth grazing against the armor of his shoulders, leaving scratches. For a single dizzying moment he'd thought this is it, Ravage was going to kill him, he really was a Decepticon assassin just waiting for the right opportunity.

Ravage had simply nipped and licked and purred, stretched over Swerve and grinding, awkwardly, against his aft, letting out a rough whine of neediness.

"Oh. Oooh." Swerve grinned, squirming under the cat. "How long's it been, for you?"

"Not so long." Ravage's voice was faint, hidden under a layer of growls. "A few years."

"Dare I ask who?"

"Rrrrumble and Frrrenzy would take carre of us-" His voice kept fading into the deep purr, sounding more and more animal. Swerve decided then and there that he rather liked it, and with a playful wiggle, his panel clicked away from his valve and Ravage inhaled deep, moaning and hissing. That was right, Swerve thought. Ravage could smell -everything-, and right now he was getting a nosefull of eager lubricant.

"You wanna spike first?" Swerve chuckled, absently wondering just when and how he'd gotten so ready, but resolving that it was a mystery of high grade that would never be solved.

Ravage's answer, though, was the small sound of his own panel opening and a rough growl as the head of a spike pressed to Swerve. "You- rrrgh- you should....know..." Ravage was having trouble processing it all, so tense he was shivering, tail lashing with conflicting thoughts.

"Whatever it is, I can take it!" Swerve proclaimed, eagerly. It was technically true, after all, he'd had quite some adventures in the berth, and it wasn't like Ravage was particularly large or unusual, right? "OH, BLOODY PRIMUS-" Okay, perhaps a little unusual, the sensation of small barbs and nubs dragging, scraping at the walls of his valve very, very sudden. At least Ravage had the sense of mind left to move slowly, those powerful legs pressing him forwards without much effort.

Swerve whimpered, and vented harshly...but between the sensation of his inner mesh being slowly, achingly scratched and Ravage purring like a goddamn speedster's engine at full throttle atop of him...his calipers squeezed eagerly, and he moaned, loud.

"Oh, frag! Yeah! Oh Primus that's insane and so so so good-" Swerve was a babbler during sex. If Ravage minded, though, he didn't show it, only purring louder as he hunched over the minibot and started to grind and buck. This really wasn't a time to overthink anything, not now. Not anytime soon. "Oh, frikkin' Primus god that hurts so good- so fuckin' good Ravage-"

Ravage humped and yowled, forgetting his words, forgetting his stealth, forgetting everything except the heat of Swerve's body and the overwhelming smell of ozone and lubricants in the air. Charge crackled through his body, sparking off of him, Swerve's own charge building and intoxicating in it's own right. Then, Swerve shut up- biting his servos hard to muffle himself as overload hit him like the fist of Primus himself, calipers clenching down tight around Ravage's spike.

Ravage screamed, throwing his head back and his maw open wide, oral lubricant dripping from those long dentae. It felt like it had been too long, far, far too long, and the other cassettes had never been so eager like this. They helped each other out of necessity, or simply to relieve charge, or to dispel boredom. Swerve under him was eager and present and-

Oh! And full of Ravage's transfluid, his sleek black form slumping over Swerve's back strutless and venting harshly, optics shuttered and shivering from tailtip to snout. Swerve moaned, and started mumbling again.

"Oooh frag yeah that was the best frag I've had in age you should really face more often, WE should 'face more often, are the spikes normal or are they modded because you don't strike me as a modding type but I can dig it if you are-"

"Shh." Ravage shushed, putting a paw on the back of Swerve's head and pressing his face against the floor, muffling him for a minute, before he pulled back, whining as his sensitized spike dragged back over still-charged nodes, the sudden scent of his own transfluid practically overwhelming. "Rrrn." He stumbled back and sat, pleased and lazy, looking at Swerve's shivering aft still in the air, valve oozing.

And then out flicked that tongue, flexible and texture, rasping wetly along the rim of Swerve's valve, cleaning diligently as Swerve yelped and gasped and begged for more. "Ooooh Primus and Unicron and all the covenant and the hand do NOT stop that ohhh oh no if you stop that I'm never giving you drinks again I'm going to throw the bowl out the airlock just keep that up and aaahn! - Ohh yeah!" Ravage gave his exterior node a particularly firm slurp, amused.

"Mount me." Ravage purred. And that made Swerve's vents and voice hitch.

"Say what?"

"Mount me." He slurped again, the roughly textured tongue drawing a long and needy whine from Swerve. "How many overloads can you take?"

"As many as you frickin' want, holy slag!"

Ravage started slurping again, tongue strong, delving into the soft folds of mesh, transfluid being slurped out of that heated, slippery valve. Swerve howled and keened and promised Ravage anything- ANYTHING he wanted, until he howled in overload, hips sagging down, away from Ravage's relentless maw and to the floor as his fans kicked on high. "Gimme a click. Half a click. Nope, wait, slag- I'm already pressurized-"

He pushed himself up to his knees and found that Ravage was already turned away, haunches up and forelimbs down, and Swerve was practically falling all over himself to get into position, Ravage's tail twisted up and to the side to expose a pretty valve, all matte black and wet, no biolights to decorate and still so very, very appetizing.

With a soft snick, his panel released a pressurized spike, short and thick just like he was, gaudily decorated with red biolights and a cherry-red paintjob. Not that Ravage seemed to care for the display, yowling and arching his back down, needy and wriggling with want. Swerve grinned, like an idiot, and pushed forwards into warmth and pressure- what a night. What a wonderful night this was going to be- he couldn't help it.

"Let's go, pussycat!"

"Don't call me that."

Chapter Text

“Sorry I pulled a gun on you!” The apology was so earnest and completely without heasitation or malice that Megatron was caught off-guard and froze, staring down at the minibot like he was a bomb about to go off. “…Uhm.”

“Thank you.” He finally managed, quietly, and continued on his way down the hall…only to realize that there was the tink-tink-tink of smaller footsteps following him. He glanced down and stopped- and so did Tailgate, as if waiting for something. “…Can I help you?”

The little white bot shrugged, and Megatron sighed, deeply, and continued on the rest of his way to check in on others, largely ignoring his small, blue-eyed shadow. It didn’t escape him that the bots who largely bristled or glowered at him seemed to relax when they saw his companion, or even make conversation with him cheerily as Megatron looked over their work. Even the pyrobots were almost friendly, for once, as if Tailgate’s very presence made Megatron- well, made him less of a threat.

There was a time he would’ve hated that, but right now it was exactly what he needed to make his way around this Autobot ship.

“He has a type.” Rodimus whined, when both co-captains were on the bridge later, and Ultra Magnus shot the red speedster a stern look that Rodimus ignored, and continued to glare at Megatron. “Big, spooky, evil.”

“I am hardly spooky.” Megatron grumbled under his breath, where he normally would have ignored Rodimus (as he often did). “I fail to see what this ‘type’ has to do with me.”

“It was the same with Tailgate and Cyclonus! You can’t put the lil’ guy in a room with someone who’s ostenably a serious danger without him gravitating towards them!” Rodimus huffed. “Just be nice to him, okay? The bot’s been through a lot and I’m not exactly feeling like I want to trust you around him-”

“Rodimus.” Ultra Magnus cut him off. “I’m reasonably certain that Megatron would do nothing to endanger his position here, not after all that’s happened.”

He chewed on his glossa and resisted to urge to point out that Megatron was he, and he was in the room, and instead he rose, stated that he would be back shortly, and left the bridge. He didn’t make it past Swerve’s before the little tink-tink-tink of minibot footfalls fell into step behind him again.

“Hey, Megatron! Where are we headed today?”

We. Megatron mulled it over. “Cargo bays, to double-check that inventorying had been done properly.”

“Sounds like a plan!”

He’d had worser shadows than the sweet little minibot, and Tailgate held no personal anger at him- having missed the war in it’s entirety. It wouldn’t hurt to let him tag along, and it would make life easier. Rodimus would just have to get used to worrying.

Besides, as he’d learn soon enough, when his own orders weren’t intimidating enough Tailgate’s sparking visor and coy whines could get anything done.

BUT WAIT I ALSO DID A LITTLE SOFTSMUTTY DRABBLE TOO

Mass displacement had it’s uses, uncomfortable as it was. Right now, though, it was quite the blessing. He couldn’t make himself as small as Tailgate was, but he could at least be a compatable size when the waste disposal bot laughed and crawled over him on the now-oversized berth of his spartan room.

“Sorry! Hehe-” Tailgate’s hands rubbed his own faceplate as he looked down at Megatron’s wry expression. “It’s just, it’s so weird to see you so…small!”

“I’m still larger than you.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not an acheivement.” Pouty. “It’s cute, though. I could probably pick you up and carry you, like this! I’m pretty sturdy!”

“Tailgate-”

“Of course, you’ve got such long legs it might be a little awkward, uness you piggybacked!”

“Tailgate!”

“What?” Tailgate was pulled from his musings by Megatron’s frustrated bark, and then kept from them as the former leader of the Decepticons slipped shrunken fingers against transformation seams, teasing along biolights, drawing a squeal of ticklish delight from the minibot. “Ooooh!”

“I didn’t use my mass displacement so you could talk me into berth again. We’re already here.” Megatron grinned, a slight edge of wickedness in his eyes as he curled fingertips against sensitive wires and gave them a tug, making Tailgate arch down against him. “We can talk later.” True enough, their cooling fans were humming hot air from them, and there was a charge skittering across their plating.

“Will you read me some poetry?” Tailgate gasped.

“I will read you anything you want, if you hurry up and open my interfacing panels.”

“Even the Autobot code rulebook?”

“Anything but that.”

Chapter Text

He'd agreed to the poison, as he thought of it. The Autobots claimed it as insurance, something to make sure that he wasn't an actual threat despite his remaining size and strength- so he swallowed down the fool's energon with every refueling and grit his teeth when it inevitably make his spark feel like it was being smothered and his tanks churn unpleasantly. It made his internal diagnostics ping him with angry warnings he'd learned to ignore and dismiss without reading, and he could feel the brittleness of his protoform like an itch under his plating throughout the day.

It was necessary, he reassured himself, even though he hated it. He'd lived through worse punishments, longer fates, and he could live through this. Besides, this autobot probation had it's upsides- he was free to think, to rest after what felt like an eternity of fighting and anger. He was allowed to be tired, instead of on-guard constantly.

And it had to be said, despite the fact that so many looked at him with fear or hate or both in their optics, it was pleasant how willing several were to interface with the former big bad leader of the Decepticons. But then, Cybertronians had never been terribly shy about sharing charge, with a few cultral exceptions.

Of course, things had taken a turn for the unpleasant when a particular pang of exhaustion ran through him without warning as he sat in his chair on the bridge, and when he moved to rise...the ship seemed to tilt, and the next thing he knew he was on the floor, with Rodimus looking confused and Ultra Magnus frowning, far above him, and his vision kept glitching into resets of color and brightness.

"Megatron?" When had his audio sensors turned off? They onlined again and everything seemed far too loud.

"...Medbay." He groaned, forcing himself to get up, climbing to his feet with help from Ultra Magnus. "I will be back as soon as this is taken care of." He gave Rodimus a pointed look, the firey mech rolling his eyes, before he shrugged off Ultra Magnus' helping hand and started to make his way to the medbay on his own.

Even if he did have to stop and lean against the wall several times, feeling like his spark was being pulled apart, flickering, before he could continue again. It was disconcerting. Pain, he could deal with, exhaustion as well, but uncontrolled weakness...well...this was not pleasant in the slightest.

But he made it there, sat himself on a berth, and when Ratchet came around with a stern expression and a simple general scanner in hand he growled out that he'd collapsed on the bridge and his power levels weren't reading correctly. Ratchet started the scan and began talking, more to himself than Megatron, about how if they were getting Megatron's 'special' energon wrong he was going to start mixing it personally himself, because he didn't have time to start patching up corroded fuel tanks and clogged energy lines-

"-oh." Ratchet cut himself off, mid-sentence, staring at the readout in his hands...and then looked at First Aid with wide eyes, silently conveying an honest shock. First Aid hurried over to see the datapad himself, and tensed as he read it, and Megatron sat up, suddenly.

"What? What is it?"

"Get two, no, three megadoses of recovery-grade energon-" First Aid started, and Ratchet nodded, moving to get them. "-Megatron, you're going to want to lay back. We need to do a complete flush of your fuel tanks and it's not going to be pleasant."

"What?!" Megatron hissed. This was it. The poison had actually started to kill him, hadn't it? The fool's energon was eating through his tanks and corroding him from the inside out, that must have been what those corrupted warnings were. Now they'd have to save him from their own punishment for him. It would've been ironic if he hadn't suddenly been hit by another wave of dizziness and fell back to the medical berth. "It's the fool's energon."

"Yes, and no." First Aid pulled something from a cupboard that had a long, slender hose attached to it and Megatron cringed. "Open up." He obeyed, opening his mouth and shuttering his optics, mentally shutting off the sensitivity of his intakes to stop himself from gagging as the tubing was slid down his throat. He had to give First Aid credit- he worked fast, and in moments he could feel the strange sensation of suction in his fuel tanks, followed by a sharp pang of hunger. The tubing was removed as fast as it'd been placed, and he coughed, tasting half-digested energon in the back of his mouth.

"Sit up, and drink up." Ratchet ordered, placing a tall pipe of a distressingly bright-pink energon in his hand. The medical-grade blend smelled painfully strong and tasted worse- worse than the fool's energon had, but his body recognized real, honest-to-Primus fuel for the first time in what felt like ages, and after that first cringing sip he found himself swallowing it down embaressingly eagerly. "Okay, okay, slow down, no need to spill it-"

"More." Megatron growled as he emptied the pipe, thoughts suddenly clouded as his energy levels read properly.

Ratchet handed him another, and a third, and Megatron didn't even care that he had energon dribbling at the corner of his mouth, down his chin. He barely stifled a giggle, optics refocusing as power returned to him, bit by bit. It wasn't quite enough to satisfy the tank he was, but it felt good.

"His fuel levels are better." First Aid was preparing a different scanner, one Megatron didn't immediately recognize. "Ratchet, I don't suppose you could get a general nanites infusion readied?"

"I'm on it." General nanites? Were his systems that run down internally? What had they been pouring down his intakes all this time?

"Megatron, can you run a secondary systems check? Tell us anything that pops up."

He did it without thinking, the sensation of a pleasant buzz in his processor taking away his will to resist orders or complain. The familiar list of processes and diagnostics rolled in his mind, simple and comforting. Armor repair. Sensory input. Excess energy storage. Gestational protocols.

Wait. He scrolled back up the list, the slight buzzing in his mind suddenly gone as he re-did the systems check, this time focusing- "Impossible." He muttered.

"What is it?" Red Alert asked, and Megatron suddenly turned to him, glaring and tensed.

"You know what it is! You could have told me to be prepared for this!" He tried to stand up off the berth but fell back onto it, legs tingling as energy filtered into his system, making his whole protoform feel as if it were filled with static.

"We weren't sure. It's not easy to tell on a frametype of your size and thickness, and with your...unique condition, we can't tell if we're getting a false signal from some sort of, ah..." First Aid glanced at Ratchet, who shrugged, holding a thick canister. "...internal wormhole."

"..." Megatron's eyes narrowed.

"Your body is riddled with subspace structures, Megatron. We needed to be sure what we were dealing with." Ratchet put a hand on his shoulder, handing him the open canister, and Megatron stared at the viscous silvery fluid inside. "Try to keep that down. What's the readout on your gestational systems say?"

Megatron took a long drink, first, and resisted the urge to gag as the nanites slid down his throat in a cold glob. "...Protoform at 20% completion, gestational chamber energy low-" He winced. This was no freshly-kindled spark, this had been gestating for at least a month, maybe longer. And to think, he'd been undercharged this entire time... "Now that I've got proper fuel feeding it, I can tell there's a distinct drain on my spark." The last part came bitterly, even if he hadn't intended for it to.

"We'll have to do a spark examination." First Aid gestured with a long, slender scanner. "Once we do a more thorough scan over the gestational chamber. You said Protoform was at 20%?" Megatron nodded. "Well, at least you got to skip waiting for it to form a bud."

Megatron did not care for the forced levity.

"I would have thought you'd have an inhibitor installed." First Aid directed Megatron to lay back with a gesture.

"Apparently, when my body was rebuilt this last time, they neglected to install one." Megatron was past anger and numbness, pushing his way through every emotion that wasn't useful in a situation like this and settling upon determination. "Can you isolate the sparktype of the newspark?"

"Not yet, not until they've separated...right now all we can say for sure is if it shares a sparktype with you or not." Ratchet frowned. "I suppose you'll want to cross-referance it's sparktype with everyone you've interfaced with, as soon as we can isolate it?"

Megatron's cold glare at First Aid said it all, and the medics looked at each other tensely. If there was one thing that would certainly keep the Lost Light interesting it was a sparked, fully fueled Megatron. Now, how to inform the rest of the crew about this development...

Chapter Text

What Brainstorm had created could be defined as a work of art, as the impossible made real. A functional time machine, one that could be used with alarming specificity, slipping people to the correct times and places without breaking the universe in half (in theory, at least, so long as you didn’t mess with it too much). It was almost too much power to consider anybody or any group having, to go back, to alter things, especially now that Perceptor theorized it could branch off new universes through it’s own power, change things so irrevocably that reality would split itself just to protect itself from paradoxes.

This seemed, to part of Megatron’s mind, like a complete waste of it’s potential. But then, hadn’t that been the original intent?

Brainstorm was going back to save someone he’d loved, even if that desire hadn’t been returned. He’d spent those millions of years thinking and working to make something so powerful it could move Primus and the Pits itself, all for what- some scientist? And now there was only one piece left, one small, curious part left of all those briefcases, and Megatron was looking it over in his hands, wondering if he was thinking too small.

No-one had accused him of thinking too small, not since long before he’d named his people the Decepticons and started cracking faceplates open in the pits of Kaon.

A small sound pulled him from his thoughts, and he glanced up at the feline sitting before him, expression cool and patient even though Megatron knew Ravage was disappointed. After the trouble Ravage had gone through with Megatron’s one request, bringing him the final portion of the machine and dropping it on his berth expectantly, only to find that Megatron was wasting that potential.

“You could stop all this from happening! Go back, and lead the Decepticons right- guide yourself, guide us!” Ravage had argued at the time, but then Megatron had dismissed him and the cat drowned his sorrows away in Swerve’s bar for the night, only to return the next day, curious and accepting that whatever Megatron’s plans were...they weren’t going to involve any sort of return to glory. At least, in anything but a personal sense. For now, Ravage was here strictly in a supporting role...and perhaps a little because he still felt an intense loyalty towards Megatron, towards his once-leader and now co-captain.

“I’ll only have ten, possibly fifteen minutes at the most.” Megatron explained as he finished making the connections, wiring the briefcase into the engine’s open control panel. “And they’re going to come the second I made the jump, the energy surge will put the whole ship on high alert..are you sure you don’t want to make yourself scarce?”

“Someone’s going to have to make sure they don’t disconnect the briefcase and leave you stuck.” Ravage snorted. “I’d hate for us to have to go dig what’s left of you out of Messatine ourselves, now.” At the very least, Ravage seemed to feel much more comfortable with how he spoke around Megatron, and it made him feel a touch better, offering Ravage a wry smile as he stepped into place.

One jump. He could get one chance, here, and he hoped it was the right one. He’d hate to go through all this trouble, only for reality to decide he’d made the wrong decision and shunt him off into another dimension. Or nonexistence. Or really anywhere but back here- even if there’d be hell to pay when they found him using the briefcase.

“Are you nervous?” Ravage suddenly asked, cutting through his thoughts, and Megatron scowled. “...I’m not saying that’s bad. It’s kind of refreshing to know that you have doubts, too.”

“Thank you.” It came out of his mouth more honest than he’d intended. “...Anything you want me to pick you up while I’m gone? A souvenir?”

“From your old mines? How about a rock?” Ravage’s tail lashed in amusement and irritation. “Just come back in one piece. I’d hate to have to explain this all to Ultra Magnus by myself. ‘Yes, Ultra Magnus, I accidentally lost our second captain in the past. My mistake.’ I’d never hear the end of it.”

Megatron felt bolstered by the conversation, by the almost casual feel of it, and he relaxed some. “...I’m ready.”

“Initializing.” Ravage pressed a button with one delicate claw-tip, and flinched slightly as the quantum engines suddenly hummed and roared to life, but moved the ship nowhere. And Megatron, standing in a small circle of wiring, faded for a moment and was gone in a puff of steam. The alarms blared, and Ravage sat back on his haunches, waiting. It was all that could be done, for now.

The mines smelled just like he remembered. This wasn’t what he thought would strike him, but it was- there was a smell- dust and dryness and stifling, overused air. The faint smell of burning metal and oils, wafting through what little breeze there was from circulation fans. It hit him hard, and he hesitated.

He didn't have long, though, so he forced his way through memories of needles in his processor and the guilt carried in armfulls of datapads, and he moved fast. Alarms started, a few miners rushed past him, but he bowled them over and continued on his way until he burst into the cramped chamber. He had written masterpieces here. In this dirty, dark place, lit by a single lamp, filled with a single berth and a desk and piles of ill-organized writings-

A single occupied berth. The only difference from when he'd last seen it. When it had been empty.

"Who-!?" The mech tried to sit up. "Bad enough they take him, but you-!" He coughed, vocalizer guttering coughs of static, and Megatron swallowed hard. "Go on, then."

"Terminus." He knew he was different. Too different for Terminus to recognize, at least not at a glance, not even in his voice. "Come on, we have to go-" He couldn't waste time-

"Don't you dare-" Terminus started, trying to push himself up and away as Megatron approched- that was when the alarms started.

"No time-" He moved Terminus, trying to be gentle, but he had mere minutes left, and while Terminus was brittle and weak and underfed- he could still struggle, managing to get a hand on Megatron's faceplate, thumb against an optic painfully. Memory had softened his mental image of Terminus, cleaned it. In the armor, he looked more worn than Megatron had dared to think of him, his faceplates cracked and lined in exess, rust infection sweeping up from what remained of his legs in dusty reddish blotches, everything on him looked...old. Weak. "-Stop that! We don't have time for this!" Dying.

Something, then, in his voice or maybe the way he flinched back when Terminus tried to grab at him, gave the old mech pause. "...Megatron? What did they-"

"I don't have time to explain-but I promise, it is me." He pulled Terminus up into his arms, the refueling cord left behind. Terminus winced and hissed, and Megatron knew that his broken body would be worse for the rough treatment, but he needed him close. There was only so much room for the teleportation signal. "I'm taking you somewhere safe."

"...If I'm offline and this is the greeting I get to the Well of All Sparks, I hope I get armor that nice." Terminus muttered humorlessly, but it made Megatron smile. "Pity you were taken there first."

"We're not dead yet, Terminus." He could feel the teleport start, a low static that skittered across his plating and quickly rose to a feverish itch across his entire sensornet. "And not for a long time, once I get you home."

He hadn't even registered that he'd said home, and wouldn't for some time yet.

When the future, no, the present came into focus, through a haze of smoke and sparking, burning wires, Megatron couldn’t help but smirk. The sight of a dozen weapons aimed at him was almost comforting at this point, but he held the mech in his arms closer, tighter, and kept very still. Ravage purred, pleased despite his trapped position, kept tightly under one of Ultra Magnus' hands, a few clawmarks lining the huge enforcer's hand betraying that he really had stuck around to defend the briefcase.

Which was on fire, a little bit, but that seemed to be a non-issue compared to the sudden appearance of the Co-Captain and guest.

“Megatron!” Rodimus shouted, bristling, wide-eyed. “Put down the...uh...is that a person?!"

“He needs a medic.” Megatron interrupted him, flatly, voice loud but even, and he could feel Terminus flinching, shifting in his grasp. “Now.” Energon was starting to pool under them. The leak was slow, but they’d never been able to pinch it off fully, even when Terminus wasn’t being carried around and jostled every which way. The movement had probably re-opened it, and Megatron wasn’t about to waste time when he could be bleeding out. “Now!”

Velocity was a credit to her profession as she pushed past the imposing figures of Ultra Magnus and Rodimus, and the rest of the security team. “He’s leaking-”

“I know. It’s in his main spinal lines- there’s a bad rust infection around the area.” Megatron slowly lowered Terminus as he knelt, laying him on the floor.

"He's got a bad rust infection everywhere, more like." Velocity muttered.

Terminus coughed, vocalizer very quiet and filled with static. he must’ve been in more pain than he’d let on. Or even lower on energon. “Megatron, my friend...you are going to have a lot to explain.”

“I know, Terminus.”

“A pit of a lot. Don't think your apologies will get you out of this.” It made Megatron smile, and he placed a hand on Terminus’ jawline without thinking, letting the older bot turn his head against his hand for comfort. A tiny motion of compassion, one that made the security still on high alert reel back a bit, starting to lower their weapons. Ravage purred as he was released from under Ultra Magnus’ arm and padded over to Megatron, where Velocity was pulling simple first aid from subspace.

“Roll him over- I’m going to clamp the line. This is going to hurt-” She motioned, and Megatron did so. Terminus scowled and yelped as the clamp was placed, but almost immediately the color of his faceplates seemed less dull, his eyes a touch brighter. “There. First Aid, get a berth ready in the medbay- we’re going to be bringing someone in-” As she spoke and Terminus was laid back down, Megatron started to rise.

“I’ll talk with you soon.” He promised Terminus, who gave him a stern look, one that didn’t entirely hide his worry or confusion, and turned to Ultra Magnus, hands raised. “...You have every right to be angry with me-”

“You had one of the fraggin’ briefcases!” Rodimus shouted, stepping in front of Magnus and jabbing a finger at Megatron’s chest. “What in the PITS were you doing? I knew you were going to try something, but what is this?! Who is that?!” The finger swung to Terminus, who gave a weak little wave. Velocity had an injector against him main fuel line, and whatever she was putting in his system seemed to have taken away the pain.

“Someone very important to me.” Megatron growled, finding himself defensive. “If you’re going to run an internal trial for me, you should call it now, so I know if I’ll be going to the brig or not, Co-Captain.”

Rodimus crossed his arms, and they stood there, glowering at each other before Ultra Magnus shook his head and ordered the security team to stand down.

“We’re going to investigate what’s been done here, and if we find that the ship was placed in danger-” he began, but Megatron raised a hand and cut him off.

“I’m aware of the protocol. Keep me informed.” He turned from them, back to Terminus, and with easy strength lifted up the rusted mech into his arms again, even as it made Velocity stamp her pede and huff about not moving a bot with emergency clamps unless they were held still. “We’ll be in medical.”

Terminus smiled up at him, optics half-lidded as if overcharged, before he closed them and vented in slow and evenly, the aging systems rattling dangerously. Explanations would have to wait, Megatron thought, and there would be a lot of them. He owed Terminus that much, and then some.

 ~Epilogue, some time later...~

“Where’s all your other poetry?” Terminus asked, one evening, as he flipped through a datapad while sitting across from Megatron at Swerve’s. The only others who’d dared to sit with them were Rung and Tailgate, raising their heads up curiously. “The juicy stuff?”

“Terminus, don’t-” Megatron started, but it was too late, Tailgate had perked up with interest.

“Juicy stuff? You mean, like…” Tailgate made an unmistakeable and frankly obscene gesture with his hands, one that made Megatron’s face go pinched and Rung chuckle.

“Exactly that.” Terminus affirmed with a short laugh. “I might’ve been his proofreader, but he wrote quite a bit of poetry that got circled around the mines well before he even knew me. And before he became quite so eloquent.”

Megatron buried his face in his hands. He would have argued, but when had that ever done anything with Terminus? Four million years later, and here he was, still just waiting for Terminus to tease him. Some things really didn’t change, did they?

“How did that one go?” Terminus stroked his chin throughfully. “Ah! I recall; There was a young buymech from Vos-”

“I’m leaving!” Megatron stated as he rose and made for the door, mortified. Yet, he found himself smiling as he headed for his habsuite. He'd done something right.

It felt good.

Chapter Text

___ Megatron – Secretly one seductive motherfucker ___

This had gone from delightful to a nightmare entirely too fast. It wasn’t just that he was witnessing something rarer than a bloom of hot sparks, or that the sight in front of him was entirely unnatural. He just didn’t know how to grasp this situation. The bar was packed. People were chattering, talking to each other from around their glasses, mumbling behind their hands. Megatron was in total flirt mode…and he was doing marvelously.

He’d circled the room, dropping in a word here, a touch there, smiling, laughing, but never loudly, a soft, pleasurable chuckle, rich and deep, one that made you want to lean in to hear it. More than a few bots, even former autobots (!) had leaned in, only to have lips brush their ear, before he strolled off, a hand caressing them by their hips. It was frankly bizarre, and entertaining.

And then he’d picked his ultimate target, and Rodimus had gone from delighted to horrified. Megatron had smiled, shot him a wink, and then sat down next to the hulking bulk of Ultra Magnus. The large lawgiver had come in to ensure peace and quiet, and was reading the laws (as set by Tyrest in… frankly, Rodimus tended to black out most of the time when Minimus spoke about law. It was a defense mechanism more ‘bots needed, as far as he was concerned) ignoring Megatron. The Decepticon leader had feigned disinterest for a few minutes before leaning in.

“What are you reading?”

“As if you don’t know.” That smoky laugh his only response. Megatron had taken the book from his hands, and looked at it, ignoring Magnus’ yelp of irritation. A pause, and then a snort.
“Tyrest’s biggest problem is still that he has zero oratory skill. And I’m including the hole in his head. ”

“I- You- And what would you know of it?”

“Oh please, he was shopping this little codex around back when I was digging tunnels. Not much else to do but read and think over what you’ve read. Tyrest couldn’t incite a crowd to riot if it would save his life… Which it didn’t.”

“If you’re trying to start a fight, Megatron-“ Ultra Magnus began, starting to stand, face solemn. Megatron rolled his eyes and waved him back down.

“I’m trying to get you to talk. You’ve been entirely silent ever since I’ve arrived. No complaints, no threats… You’ve been so bitingly polite I’m ready to declare myself the graffiti artist who’s been defacing the lower decks, if it’ll just get you to punish me for it.”

“I don’t understand what you mean. I’ve done my best to treat you as I would any other crewmember. Your political ideology and position not withstanding, you are afforded the rights of any other Cybertronian-“ Megatron waved a hand to silence him.

“You’re a terrible police officer, Magnus. And I mean that as a compliment. You do your best to lack bias, you’re scrupulous and fair to a painful extent… Frankly, I don’t know how Tyrest found you. But no one lasts in an ivory tower, alone. Descend, if only for a moment, and blame me. I know you’re wanting to do it. I’m sure I killed a friend close to you, caused you some personal grief. Just air it, and I can stop wondering if the first biased act you’ll take is against me.”

“You mock me, Megatron.” Stiffly, sitting up straight. “I pride myself on my impartiality, and I would not violate it, even for someone who has committed crimes as heinous as yours.” Megatron chortled at that, slapping the table with the book.

“There we are! I knew there was an ounce of resentment in you. Let it out! No one will judge you for it, and you can be as impartial in your official capacity, later.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? I bet you’d like me to take you aside for the next half cycle and brutalize you, if only to leverage it against me later.”

Megatron grinned at him, and leaned close. “For you, enforcer, I’d be prepared to spend the whole cycle getting… Brutalized.”
Magnus gaped at him. And then blushed.

Rodimus wanted to eat a chair.

__ Ultra Magnus – Very unprofessional desires __

A lot of them thought him very similar to Tyrest’s automatons, a lawgiver that existed just to spread the immutability of Cybertronian justice across the stars, with no feelings or thoughts of his own. In some ways, they were right- In his role as the Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord, he had very few opinions to offer, or wants of his own. That title conferred upon him the responsibility of being above himself, responding to more than his own wants. When the Ultra Magnus armor had been placed upon him, he had been tasked to a higher calling.

That didn’t mean he was entirely without desires, however. More than a few had joked about how he must go to bed and dream about enforcing justice, but the reality was much…stranger. No one could say what he did was illegal. Outside of the normal moral boundaries, to be sure, but not illegal. But when the bulkhead sealed, and he was on his own time… He had a less monk like existence than the others might assume.

The first part of the evening was the polishing. He had to step outside of his armor, down to his base self, to polish and repair, and make each and every part of the Minimus (Rodimus had joked that his base self was actually ‘Mini-most Ambus’, a poor joke) shell gleam. Then the Ultra Magnus, going over it with a brush and polish, scrubbing away any dirt or soot that might be in the cracks, to ensure that it looked as good as the day it was given to him by Tyrest himself. That was of course, only the first part.

The second part involved certain aspects of automation. In the even that the ‘bot inside needed time to himself, but must maintain a presence, the armor had basic functions enabled. Autonomic systems that would activate and act without the need of a brain or spark. The sort of thing you needed if you just wanted it to react. Like say, when you’d been polishing it with a soft cloth and you wanted the interface port to open.

Rodimus had joked that Magnus must be packing an enormous stick up his ass, to be so hidebound, but the reality would have shocked him. It wasn’t just that Minimus had a stick up him… It was that he quite eagerly serviced it, mouth wrapping around the spike of the armor, bobbing and gagging as it filled his small throat. He’d felt a certain affection for Ultra Magnus from the first time he ever saw a picture of him. Finding out he was something of a trick had dimmed that feeling, temporarily. Being him even more so- How could he feel such desires for himself? But then, inspiration: the moment he realized he could be him /and/ possess him… Well. Ultra Magnus was a symbol, and it was entirely possible to love a symbol.

So yes, he would bob his head on this spike, and rub his own plush valve, getting it ready for an interfacing that would never come. And he would curse his size and grind his hips against the leg of the armor until he dirtied it again. And then he would clean it, with his mouth. His sticky, interface fluid coated mouth. There was a reason for all the polishing, after all. And if the others thought him at all unprofessional, they never said.

Even if they had, they’d be frankly shocked at what the silent types got up to at night…

__Rung: Intimate Therapy__

When he’d first boarded the Lost Light, he’d expected to finally have some peace and quiet, a chance to work on his dissertation, an opportunity to study the effects of prolonged space travel on soldiers. Because, to be honest, they all were all soldiers.

Swerve was a soldier, even if he denied it. He still checked corners and thought in terms of how much food he could store in case he had to starve again. Whirl was a soldier, albeit a poor one. If you asked him about the best way to raid a compound he’d have the answer instantly: doubtless he had been thinking about it since the moment he stepped outside of the ship. The only crewmember who hadn’t been a soldier was Tailgate. It was probably why the others liked him. Even after killing Tyrest he wasn’t a threat. He knew nothing of logistics, of supply lines, of watching friends die in the mud for some cause you didn’t even believe in anymore.

But Rung hadn’t expected the amount of pain he encountered, regularly. Fortress Maximus had been severely damaged by the predations of Overlord. The big ‘bot had more than a few scars, and Rung had been forced to dig deeper into his ‘playbook’ of therapies to help him. It had resulted in the bigger bot quivering in fear after being tied up, Rung being gentle and kind to him, stroking him, sucking, and pushing slick fingers into a quivering, tensing valve. The results had spoken for themselves: Fort Max hadn’t had a nightmare since Overlord escaped, and was even starting to pursue a long distance relationship with Thunderclash. The two of them had found a commonality in their experiences: the feeling of having no future, and having it suddenly restored to you.

Rodimus had needed help with his need for attention, and his fear of being alone. The bombardment of Nyon had left him with a crippling fear that he would be obsolete, that the only thing he would be remembered for was being the last survivor of that city. It hadn’t been easy, coming up with a solution, but Rung had found a way. Designating one of the conference rooms as a gloryhole had taken a lot of notes slipped to people, and a lot of word of mouth, but Rodimus had never been happier. Hearing people mutter about the mysterious ‘bot who could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch had put a spring in his step and a confidence in his heart. It had also improved morale generally, which was a double win.

Swerve had needed encouragement to even begin talking about his depression, but Rung had found a way to make it easier for him. The little ‘bot wanted to be important, be everyone’s friend. It hadn’t taken much to ensure a stream of companionship, and Swerve barely noticed that Rung was paying a few ‘bots to pleasure him regularly. With luck, and time, Swerve would become able to find his own partners to support him. …with a lot of luck.

If he had known how much effort it was going to take to socialize Whirl, he wouldn’t have ever volunteered to do so. It wasn’t just the three times a day interfacing. It wasn’t just the jealousy about his other patients. It was the constant, unending comments about dropping this whole ‘therapy’ business and starting a brothel. Really! As if he would ever stoop to charging people for sex. Whirl just didn’t understand rungian therapies.

…though he was starting to wonder why the ‘bots he was paying to sleep with Swerve were starting to refer to him as a ‘Madame’.

__Fort Max/Thunderclash__

They had met only briefly on his initial tour of the Lost Light. It had been perfunctory, a nod, a greeting, and they had both moved on. He had still been wounded by his time in Overlord’s grasp, still struggling through therapy. Meeting a hero, one who bore up under his illnesses, rather than being overcome by them…seemed just an opportunity to flagellate himself for his failings. He was trying to learn to rise above that, bit by bit. It had only been mildly successful, so far. Rung had been helpful, but it didn’t mean he was better. Just that he wasn’t as bad as he had once been.

Later, after his new position, Enforcer of the Magnus Accord, he had learned of the troubles with the so called ‘personality ticks’. A bizarre situation…but one he was interested in. If such things existed, they might make a useful tool for handling certain criminals who couldn’t be restrained any other way.

Thunderclash was among the greatest of all Cybertronians to ever live- If they could bring him low, then they could stop perhaps even Overlord.

When they met for the second time, it was rather different. He wasn’t the fragile, delicate thing he’d once been, fearful of his future, of the past that still pained him. He had purpose again, and he had a mission he was carrying out. By contrast, Thunderclash seemed…weaker. The vitality of his newfound health bloomed in him, but being drained for such a long period of time had left a toll he was still recovering from. The mighty Autobot had gone from near death to having millions of years ahead of him. It was a welcome change, but a startling one. How did you go from being a walking corpse to a living being again?

They’d talked, initially about the usage of personality ticks to help the ill, and then about their histories. He’d teased out the thoughts no one had ever heard: how Thunderclash had thrown himself into battle not out of bravery, but out of fear of dying in a recharge berth, weakened and brought low by illness. How his vaunted nobility was in part due to his belief that he didn’t have the right to impose himself upon anyone else, as someone who was so weak inside, so afraid of death that he sought any means to either avoid it…or get it over with, as soon as possible.

It was, Fortress Maximus told him, the biggest pile of waste that he’d ever heard. Period. The idea of being a weakling just because he didn’t want to die in bed? What kind of idiot wasn’t scared of that? He had spent nearly a half hour haranguing the other ‘bot, and, in a way, his own past self. He was so embarrassed, when he’d realized, that he’d left, near immediately. It had taken a week, and then a letter from Thunderclash, before he came back.

It was to his great surprise to see the other Autobot walking.
He explained, between painful bouts of physical therapy, that he’d been slacking. Just because he had years more didn’t mean he could lie around. Some things in his life were more pressing than that. There was a quest to undertake, the Knights of Cybertron to find, and handsome warriors to pursue.

It took a minute after Fort Max had inquired, trying to keep jealousy out of his voice, as to who this handsome warrior might be, that he realized. Seize the future indeed.

Chapter Text

They’d asked him, for what must have been the two-hundredth time, if he was really willing to do this. It was getting old. Sentinel growled at them, swiped the cube of energon from Wheeljack’s hand and eyed it warily, the sheen of additives and mineral supplements giving it’s coloration an unsettling, oily texture.

“Look, once we expose ya’ to this new...matrix, it might be uncomfortable. Your spark’s gonna be carrying a lot of extra energy, so ya’ gotta be ready for it.” The scientist explained, and Sentinel kept eyeing the energon in his hand warily. “Bots haven’t carried for a long time for a reason, Magnus. It ain’t gonna be exactly a walk in the park.”

“I’ve read the material you’ve given me a dozen times over.” Sentinel growled. In truth, he’d skimmed it a few times, focusing on what he really needed to know, glossing over everything too technical. “How long is it gonna take for my systems to prime?”

“Anywhere from a few days, to a full decacycle.”

Sentinel scowled...and threw his head back, chugging the bitter, additive-infused energon before the taste could make him gag too much. It wouldn’t be too long, then, long enough to make his choices. And then, then he’d get the praise he needed! Carrying was an honor, a privilege right now! The Allspark had been reduced too much to create new sparks entirely from it’s own being, but there had been other ways, abandoned during warfare.

In theory, any spark could be infused with enough energy to bud, given enough stimulation and charge from a partner, it could form it’s own CNA, ripen itself until it was ready for implantation into a protoform. It used to be commonplace, though Sentinel himself could scarcely imagine it, it had seemed so...organic at first that he’d been disgusted, but now? Maybe it was the possibility to be a poster child for the Cybertronian repopulation project, or to create something that was so absolutely his it would be hard not to absorb praise for it’s very existence.

He rubbed the plating of his chest, trying to imagine what it would be like with a second spark resting there, orbiting his own.

“That tasted awful.”

“Get used to it, you’re gonna be drinking a lot of additives to make sure you’re getting what you need for newspark formation.” Wheeljack almost sounded delighted at the prospect of forcing the Magnus to drink the bitter concoction on a regular basis.

Sentinel just glowered and rubbed his chest again. How hard could this be, really? Have his spark overcharged by the Matrix, then wait for his systems to ping him that they were primed, and select ideal contributors. Easy! He was Sentinel Magnus, the most important mech on Cybertron (even if Optimus Prime had been insufferably popular ever since returning to Cybertron with a captured Megatron in tow…) and he already knew he had a few loyal friends who would happily assist him when it came time to make this newspark bud off!

~

At least, he thought that, until a week later he woke from a deep recharge with his whole body overheated and his spark thrumming with eager, primed energy, restlessness overwhelming him. He was ready, his processor told him as much, and he hastily went to call Jazz. An ideal first choice, sure, Jazz could be nerve-wracking at times, unpredictable, but he was the closest Sentinel could call a friend and he was always there for him!

Except, apparently, right now, as Sentinel received a recorded message back stating that Jazz was so sorry he was missing Sentinel’s big thing right now, but he and the Jettwins had a very sudden and vital mission to attend to on Velocitron. And they were using their vacation time to do so.

Okay, so Jazz was out of the picture. As were the jettwins, although Sentinel could hardly stand them at times, they were devoted to him and stoked his ego in the best ways, and if he carried the first of Cybertron’s true autobot fliers…well, no chance of that now.

Time to re-think plans.

~

Optimus had been busy, overwhelmingly busy, as of late. Apparently, being hailed as a hero involved a lot more public appearances and trying to dodge paparazzi, and a lot less being able to finally relax. It still felt so unreal, in many ways, the defeat of Megatron, the return to Cybertron...it made his head spin. He’d been so distracted that he’d barely paid attention to this new project being discussed- The Cybertronian Repopulation Project. In any case, he felt that he’d be returning to earth well before anybody could start asking his opinion on it.

He was proven wrong after receiving a rare and unsettlingly politely-worded request from Sentinel, to meet him at the Magnus’ quarters for some oil and to talk. Which quite frankly was worrisome- Sentinel? Polite? Looking to talk about things? Optimus didn’t dare to even imagine that Sentinel’s ego had actually been cowed by his return to Cybertron, and he spent the entire time going to meet his former friend wondering what could possibly be in store for him.

When he arrived, Sentinel had two barrels of oil set out, although his own smelled oddly metallic. And there wasn’t much more beyond a brief, tense greeting and a long, awkward silence.

He’s going to ask me to publically endorse him as Magnus. Optimus thought. Give him time. He’ll get over his ego. That’s what this is all about.

Instead, Sentinel finally cleared his intake and asked; “I take it you’ve heard about the Cybertronian Repopulation Project?”

“Not...not much.” Optimus shrugged. “Did they find a way to make the Allsp- I mean, the Matrix put out newsparks again?” This was an...unexpected topic. He sipped the oil in front of him, unsettled.

“Not entirely. Apparently it can’t output enough energy to fully form newsparks, anymore.”

Optimus tried to ignore a brief flicker of guilt. The allspark has been lost because of him, he felt sometimes that if he’d found another way...but no, Prowl had managed to collect what was left of it. That was what mattered. “Oh. Wait, then how-”

“But it can prime other sparks for budding.” Sentinel watched Optimus closely as the other Autobot paused, stunned, glancing away for a long moment in consideration. Optimus always did love history, he knew it better than Sentinel had ever bothered to discover.

“They’re...they’re going back to having bots carry?” Optimus’ voice came out hushed, quiet, and Sentinel could feel the his temperature kick up a few degrees. As good a sign as any. “I didn’t realize- I mean, nobody’s carried since the start of the war-”

“Well, I’m going to.” Sentinel had been waiting to state it for a while now, and the words came out bold and confident. “And you should sire.”

Optimus choked on his oil and went into a fit of sputtering and wheezing ventilations, optics wide. Sentinel crossed his arms and waited, scowling, impatiently tapping his pede on the floor until Optimus finally could sit up straight again, staring. “...wh...what?” He croaked out.

“You heard me.” Sentinel sipped at his own mineral-rich oil. “Don’t get the wrong idea, we’re not friends.”

“What.” Optimus’ voice cracked high.

“But I need the favor, and it’d be good for Cybertron.”

“What?” Optimus just kept staring, awkwardly. Sentinel gave him a look.

“I’m asking you to sire a newspark in me, Optimus. It’s not exactly complicated.”

“What?!”

“Yes or no? Come on, Optimus, I’m only primed for few weeks!”

“I...I have to think about this.” And before Sentinel could say anything more, Optimus was out of his seat and hustling out of the door. “I’ll call!” He shouted as he ran, and Sentinel stared at his empty seat, feeling somehow insulted and burning with embarrassment. Fine, then, scrap Optimus! He growled and threw back the rest of his oil, cringing at the taste of additives. He’d find someone! He’d find someone else just fine.

Chapter Text

If it had been human, he would have been well over ten feet tall. As it was, though, it was twenty-eight and a half feet of Mer, and according to the scale built into the transport sling, one-thousand and seven-hundred pounds and then some. Not the largest Mer that Ratchet had ever seen, but certainly in the top five, top three maybe. Big enough that they’d called in every volunteer they had to help move him, and had bought out the sling-truck, something usually reserved for small beached whales.

It was lucky that he was unresponsive. Not lucky for the poor Mer, no, but lucky for them- Ratchet didn’t want to think about what he could have done if awake, if he panicked and tried to lash out. Easier to treat a quiet patient, too, as he crouched in the back of the truck with him, trying to keep him steady and to prevent the harpoon from being jostled. They’d already packed the area around where it had pierced him with foam to keep it still, but who knew what kind of damage had been done already by the time someone had spotted him, wedged among the rocks on the shore, bleeding out profusely-

Ratchet scowled, eyeing that harpoon warily. This was no old, scavenged weapon he’d seen Mers injured by before, this thing was heavy, thick…and shiny-new. Oh, if he found out there’d been poaching happening in these waters, well, the whole pod would be up in arms before he could talk them down.

The Mer groaned, softly, and he tensed when he saw dark, reddish eyes flicker open briefly, before he fell still again, and Ratchet sponged water over the gills. They just had to get him into the WRC’s one operating room, and he could do his work. In the meanwhile, he told Red Alert to get a picture, the intern doing so with his phone, and he hoped Ultra Magnus wouldn’t mind a visit- he didn’t recognize this one as part of the local pod, but then again, Mer were pretty secretive…

———-

Megatron woke cradled by something soft, something supporting him shallowly in the water, his dorsal in and the rise of his back emerging as he lay on his stomach. A lazy, unthinking swish of his tail and he rocked- he was in a sling, of some sort, and he briefly thought of Soundwave cradling him before he roused himself fully and tasted the water.

And remembered.

In a flurry of rage he grasped the cloth sling he was resting on and shredded it, twisting down into the water with a shriek. The movement made his wounds sting and a burn start inside him, but he would not be restrained, no! A quick look around betrayed him, and he realized he was in a tank. A tank!

This would not do.

He had to get out. He had to return- before-

A human ran into the room, staring down at him, concern across it’s soft features, and he snarled and dove down, tail slapping against the wall of the tank on the way. He heard it shouting, but ignored it’s cries and questioning tone in favor of twisting around and studying himself. A great swath of tightly-bound slippery material around his torso, where the harpoon had struck him, and every movement pulled at it uncomfortably. And the other injuries, too! He would’ve preferred bleeding out, letting the blood seep into the water until salt and pus sealed them, but a human treatment!?

He started peeling them off, unthinking, and there was a low buzz before a voice emanated from somewhere hidden amongst a wall of the tank. He glanced up- the human was speaking into a microphone, and his voice was a harsh, electronically-distorted thing to sensitive Mer ears in the water.

“Calm down, please.” And to top it all off, the human was trying to speak a Mer tongue! He felt sickeningly insulted. “We’ve treated you, but we need to make sure you’re going to heal properly.”

It sounded rehearsed. Someone must’ve said those lines a lot. Megatron hovered vertically, wondering if he could get up enough speed in this tank to jump properly, before his side cramped and he knew that if he struggled anymore the wound would tear open inside and outside of him. Fine, then, he decided. He wouldn’t respond to a human, but he could at least make his displeasure well known, turning down towards the silt-and-gravel bottom, studying the accommodations. An old rowboat, turned over and propped against a barrel to provide a hiding space. Concrete stones, smoothed around the edges. Plants, shells, stones…aside from the plants, it was devoid of life.

And it was too small.

“You’re in an isolation tank.” The words must’ve been difficult to translate into mer. Something closer to loneliness, protection, quarantine. “Just to make sure you’re not carrying anything, and that you won’t hurt the others in panic- hey! What are you-”

The human started shouting when Megatron curved along the bottom of the tank, digging into the gravel around one of the large concrete stones at the bottom, perhaps big enough for a smaller or typical sized mer to hide behind. For him, he could fit maybe half of himself on any side of it….but it wasn’t his intention to hide. He strained, bracing his tail against the bottom, and with a mighty heave-

The stone tipped, collapsing over onto the hiding-boat and crushing it, and the barrel.

“Son of a- how did he do that-” There were more humans now, shouting and gesturing, and admittedly their panic soothed him somewhat. Especially as he surveyed his handwork, ignoring a sharp twinge in his belly from the strain. That was the biggest eyesore to be rid of, he was certain, now to start on the plants, as he began to uproot them, shredding them.

He would be petulant, and like a pup sent to sit alone, and it would be how he would push back. He could not be kept here- he would not be kept here, and as he crushed a decorative shell into shards and dust he sighed. He would return soon, to reclaim his place, and he would reclaim his people. For now, he’d simply claim this little…”isolation tank”.

A small kingdom was still a kingdom, after all. 

Chapter Text

It had been a stupid thing to do, virtually suicidal and pointless in any sense. Cyclonus may have been no autobot, but still, with Galvatron at the head of the Decepticons he wasn’t expecting a warm reunion in any sense when he pursued the familiar signal through the planet’s thin atmosphere, plating rattling with the speed he was pushing himself to. A small Decepticon outpost, nothing of note, as far as most of the Lost Light was concerned. Just one of those little pockets that wouldn’t go down, wouldn’t play nice.

But Cyclonus knew better. Cyclonus had seen the identification signature flicker amongst the others, and left the main fight far behind as he pursued his quarry. It was like a hunt, like something from long, long before.

Except back then, a hunt usually involved Galvatron at his side, not in his sights. Whether or not Galvatron was waiting for him, he couldn’t tell, but the warlord seemed far from surprised when Cyclonus barelled into him, knocking him from the transport being loaded with energon. The other Decepticons moved to assist their leader, but Galvatron called them off with a bark and a laugh. It didn’t matter, Cyclonus only had focus enough for Galvatron.

He thought he had found, if not peace, something like it. His turning on Galvatron, Galvatron’s lies and manipulation, they seemed so far away, as if he could almost forget them. But now…right now, he knew that was a lie. That the rage was still boiling in him, burning and clawing to get out like the screaming insanity of the dead universe all over again, and when Galvatron smirked and beckoned him, before grabbing a hovering loader and taking off- Cyclonus took chase eagerly.

He was faster, but Galvatron knew him. Knew how he planned, how he moved, and proved surprisingly difficult to catch on the rocky terrain, darting in and out of ravines and along deep-cut cliffs, before Cyclonus finally got the air on him- and transformed as he dove, knocking into him bodily and sending them both crashing down to the dirt and stone.

“Cyclonus.” Galvatron was smiling, his eyes burning so bright, and Cyclonus remembered being young and hopeful and seeing the promise of Primus himself in that smile. In that determination, believing that they would conquer everything together, and that his place was destined to always be at Galvatron’s side, defending his back. Here, hearing Galvatron saying his name made his tanks roil like a sickness. He leaned over Galvatron, pinning the heavier mech, heaving with exertion from the chase- and startled when Galvatron suddenly moved under him, hips pushing up to meet Cyclonus’.

It was just enough to throw Cyclonus off-balance, and suddenly Galvatron was on top of him, pinning him bodily, a position so familiar that his frame relaxed of it’s own accord despite his anger.

They battle was victorious, at great cost, and they were covered in energon and grime, they were exhausted and overheated and wounded, it was ugly and foul and they waded through a battlefield strewn with the dead and dying, their own survivors picking through what was left with an obscene cheeriness and outbursts of laughter and singing. Galvatron was worst than most of the survivors were, scored and cracked armor stained pink and gray, blotting out the purple, scorchmarks covering his faceplates and hands, he looked like the dead walking in the fading light. A grim spectre of the gerusome price of success.

Cyclonus had never seen anything more beautiful in his life, and when Galvatron grasped him by the shoulder armor, digging his fingers painfully into a deep slash that exposed sparking circuitry, he eagerly let himself be dragged along, too tired and wanting to care for more than the slightest of privacy afforded by a tall spire of stone, when Galvatron threw him to the ground and pinned him down, charge skittering from his body to Cyclonus’, his neediness a physical desperation.

Galvatron kissed Cyclonus, then, pulling him from the memory, and Cyclonus bit at Galvatron’s lips, tasting energon when he did so. Galvatron’s head jerked back and he stared down, startled. “...you’ve never bitten me before.”

“I didn’t hate you before.” Cyclonus snarled.

Galvatron was silent for a long moment...then he smiled again, and this time Cyclonus could see the darkness in it, the cruelness he’d always accepted for intensity before, and when Galvatron kissed him again he bit and struggled...and knew that he was already losing a battle he had no desire to win. Galvatron stopped pinning him and instead his hands roamed, squeezing and teasing transformation seams and joints in his armor that never failed to make Cyclonus gasp. Cyclonus returned the stimulation, claw-tips delicately finding little wires to pinch and plating to scrape over, and they kissed hard, lipplates clashing and teeth flashing in little displays of aggression. They nipped and bit and Galvatron ducked his head down, and sank his teeth into the cables of Cyclonus’ neck.

Cyclonus twisted, yowling when Galvatron managed to catch one of the more slender lines, tugging at it with a jerk of his head, and without thinking plunged his claws deep into a vent, drawing energon. He expected a blow, a strike, or a howl of rage from Galvatron, but instead his former leader moaned, deeply, and drew back every so slightly to arch into the violent touch.

The jet twisted, then, suddenly realizing that there would be no escaping this if he didn’t force himself to leave now, turning to his belly and trying to pull himself away on his elbows, only for Galvatron to fall upon him again, arms wrapped around his chest from behind, teeth finding the back of his neck. With a feral sound, a possessive growl, one of Galvatron’s hands dipped down between Cyclonus’ legs, fingertips digging against his modesty panel.

Cyclonus moaned, and his eyes squeezed shut. He couldn’t tell if this had been what he really wanted when he set out to find Galvatron, anymore, not when he just wanted things to be how they’d once been so bad…

His back scraped against the rock face with every long, slow thrust that Galvatron made, crying out his lord’s name and every name of Primus that he knew as his thighs squeezed around Galvatron’s hips, and Galvatron’s fingers dug into his aft. Galvatron had him picked up, pressed to the stone, helpless and quivering as his spike sank deep and slow into Cyclonus with measure motions, watching Cyclonus so intently as the bodyguard begged and cried and cursed with need.

“Cyclonus…” He moaned, shuddering. He couldn’t stay slow for much longer, not when the charge between them was agonizingly sharp and desperate for release after the battle. “You’re so beautiful, whatever did I do to earn you?”

Cyclonus couldn’t answer. Galvatron kissed him, hard, before he could have spoken, even if his vocalizer wasn’t spitting static and desperate pleas.

Their panels weren’t even open as Galvatron grunted, his hips pressing against Cyclonus’ from behind. He released the jet’s neck from his mouth, only to grasp Cyclonus’ shoulders from behind and force them down, making his aft stick up into the air- and better angling it against his own pelvis. He didn’t have anything to say, growling as he bucked forwards, dry-humping Cyclonus and reveling in the way sparks skittered across their armor and the heat, the roar of his cooling fans suddenly pushing to maximum.

“Open.” Galvatron snarled, and Cyclonus achingly refused, forcing his body to stay closed. “Open, damn you! If you don’t open your damn valve for me, I swear I’ll tear off these damn panels and take your spike off with them!”

Cyclonus opened, and not a moment after Galvatron was shoving two thick fingers into him, roughly and with little preparation. Had Cyclonus not been wet already, or had a tolerance for the sudden burn and stretch, he would’ve been louder- instead he merely hissed and tried not to think about how much he wanted it to hurt. How he wanted to erase the lovely memories with new ones of anger and pain- of reasons to stop thinking about Galvatron.

“Tight! Here I was worried you’d start finding someone new to throw yourself off, after Vector Sigma.” Galvatron sneered, and scissored his fingers, knowing just how to find Cyclonus’ nodes with agonizing precision, pressing and rubbing them roughly. “I’m going to enjoy breaking you open again. Just like the first time.”

“Stop. Talking.” Cyclonus growled, pressing his hips back against Galvatron’s hand, making the warlord laugh harshly. But it got him what he wanted, hearing the soft click of Galvatron’s spike being exposed, and he whimpered as Galvatron’s fingers pulled from his valve- only to be replaced by the blunt head of something much bigger. “Do it!”

“Desperate. Good.” Galvatron adjusted himself, the tip of his connector nosing just into the lips of Cyclonus’ valve- before with one violent, harsh thrust he was entirely within’ the jet, howling with pleasure as Cyclonus’ insides barely managed to stretch fast enough for him, slamming into his ceiling node and making his once-bodyguard scream in a way he’d never heard before. Cyclonus wasn’t ready, calipers pinching and spasming briefly as they tried to adjust between relaxing to stop the pain, or trying to force the intrusion out. He jerked his hips back, rearing back to stare down at Cyclonus’ stretched valve and his spike, licking his lips before he slammed back into him.

The rhythm was fast, violent, and their charge was pitching higher and higher faster than either of them would have liked to admit. Cyclonus made the most wonderful strangled cries- choking sounds that might’ve been sobs of pain or pleasure from a less disciplined bot, and Galvatron howled his pleasure without care for anyone who may have heard, watching his connector disappear into that glorious port, caring not about the lubricant and prefluid squelching back out around him with every buck of his hips, not even worried at the beads of energon that seeped out with it. He’d injured plenty of bots deeply before- and Cyclonus was made of sterner stuff than many of them.

Rhythm faltering, he threw himself over Cyclonus’ body, his chest to the jet’s back, and panted, thrusts growing shorter and sharper, faster and more desperate. “Mine.” He growled. “You were mine. You were meant to be mine!”

“You’re mine.” Galvatron would tell him, when they made love. Whether it was fast, impromptu relief that left Cyclonus flustered and startled, or long drawn-out sessions of leadup that turned his bodyguard into a ravenous beast in the berth, he always knew what Cyclonus really wanted. “You are mine, my guard, my back, every bit of you is mine.”

“Every part of me, my lord.” Cyclonus would murmur back, holding so tight to him, his expression so full of honest devotion and love. “I am yours.”

Overload came for Cyclonus first, his vision turning to white heat and the burning charge in his body reaching a feverish peak that he knew would burn out some minor connections. He trembled and writhed in Galvatron’s arms before a warning flashed across his vision- one he couldn’t quite focus on or read with Galvatron’s hips still pistoning in and out of him. He screamed, desperate and pitched and laden with static- and then he crashed into blissful darkness.

Galvatron reached overload moments later, in Cyclonus’ limp body, realizing just how long it had been since he’d relieved himself as his spike swelled in that trembling, squeezing valve, transfluid gushing into Cyclonus in such volume that, as he reached under the jet to keep him pulled close with a hand under his stomach, he could feel the slight bulge of plating indicating an overfull gestational tank.

He rested. Panting and fans screeching from overuse, sparks dancing on the edges of his vision. His softening spike was pulled back from Cyclonus’ valve, and he looked it over before snapping his interfacing panelling shut, satisfied beyond belief and feeling obscenely proud of how Cyclonus looked. Out cold, his aft still in the air, valve stretched and exposed and leaking a thin trickle of lubricant and transfluid.

In a moment of, perhaps, pity, or simply decency, he manually engaged Cyclonus’ modesty panels, hiding away his abused port, and tipped him to the ground. The jet would be fine, he would live, at least, to fight again...and Galvatron certainly hoped so, limping off and looking at the scuffs covering his armor, scratches where Cyclonus’ wild clawing had drawn energon. If anybody asked, he supposed he would tell them that they fought.

It wouldn’t be a lie.

Chapter Text

Ratchet cursed everything- he cursed his own distractions, he cursed the youth and eagerness of the Autobots, and he cursed the Decepticons for choosing now to turn the Detroit docks into a warzone. With the way Optimus and Prowl had been posturing against each other it was only a matter of time before a fight broke out, if Ratchet couldn’t find a way to implement the preventative coding in either of them.

He’d expected to have a few days more, though, to work on that special little program.

Instead, he was burning rubber towards the disturbance. He’d asked Bulkead to stay behind, slaggit! He’d asked- he’d told a reasonable amount of truth to try and keep the young autobot put. Rogue programming, an old throwback, probably only active because he’d been bought online out in the energon farms, on a colony instead of Cybertron proper.

“It’ll pass.” He’d told the big, green bot. “But I’m gonna want you staying at the base until it does, y’hear? The last thing I need is to be patching you up because your programming decides to glitch out on you out there.” Truthful enough.

But what had happened? Of course, Bulkhead had heard about a the Decepticons attacking one of Powell’s cargo shipments (Primus only knew what that slimy little human was trying to move around this time) just after the others had left and charged after them before Ratchet had thought to check and make sure he was staying back. The medic could beat himself up about that later, though, as he rounded a corner and transformed to his base mode just in time to stop...and see the tension escalate to the snapping point.

Bulkhead stood as if in a trance, motionless and staring at the brawl before him, Sari and Bumblebee at his side, ineffectively tugging at his arms to try and get him to -move, you big lug, do something! They shouted. The two of them were being ignored, of course, too young- maybe Sari wouldn’t even register as the right species, which left Optimus Prime and Prowl against the combined might of Megatron, Lugnut, and Blitzwing. The only relief was that Ratchet could see Shockwave standing near the shipping containers, seemingly unaffected, body language best described as ‘vaguely annoyed’ more than anything else with his single optic fixed on the fight.

Ratchet would’ve been more worried for their young leader and the cyber-ninja, were the Decepticons not just as focused on fighting each other as they were on the autobots. Bulkhead’s heat must have put them into one frag of a rut, he considered, wincing as Lugnut’s massive claws clubbed Megatron square in the face, sending his own beloved leader soaring backwards. He couldn’t imagine the sycophantic soldier even considering striking Megatron, if he wasn’t completely lost to the desire to fight.

Blitzwing shrieked, his face contorted into his random personality, that red mouth open wide and optics blazing as he tried to strike at the nimbly dodging Prowl, only for the triple-changer to stagger as Optimus Prime slammed into his back, bringing both fists down in a hammer strike atop his helm. At least they’d forgotten all about their weapons, small miracles one could suppose.

“Ratchet!” Sari cried, battlemask retracting. “What’s going on?! They’re fighting, but they won’t- they won’t fight us, they’re just all fighting each other!”

“They’re trying to slag each other! Prowl was kicking Prime’s aft before Blitzbrain got involved!” Bumblebee supplied, giving Bulkhead’s leg a kick. “And he won’t move!”

“Get out of the way-” Ratchet growled, reaching up and unlocking Bulkhead’s medical port from the back of his helm quickly, plugging in. He didn’t have the program prepared, he’d never been a gestational specialist, but there had to be something he could do-

Sari and Bumblebee flinched back, half-hiding behind Bulkhead as Lughead crashed to the ground before him, sitting in the midst of a small crater, Megatron landing atop him a moment later, grinding his pedes down as Lugnut’s optics flickered, a bit of energon spattering out with a rough ventilation, before he fell unconscious. Megatron stepped forwards, rearing to full height even as Sari started to charge up, battlemask snapping into place, Bumblebee’s stingers crackling with electricity.

He loomed, making no motion other than a slight smirk, as Bulkhead looked him up and down, the process inside of Bulkhead’s mind clearly readable to Ratchet, plugged in as he was, and the medic grimaced at first.

He was big, so big, not that the coding cared. Size meant strength, it meant armor, it meant protection for a newspark- a single or double at the most with a warbuild. Megatron had power, too, political and military, control over other mechs and a domineering, cruel bent in personality that Bulkhead had to consider. But then, even the programming had doubts- he was an enemy, he’d attempted to offline Bulkhead and his friends, destroy the world he loved so much. And if a newspark didn’t please him...well, Megatron had enough energon on his hands that he could be a threat, even to a creator.

Bulkhead shifted back, slightly, and looked away, glancing behind Megatron with a dismissive little nod, arms crossing. It was nonverbal, but the message was entirely clear.

Not good enough. Barely equaling out to a 50% approval as a mate.

Megatron’s cocky expression fell into surprise, then he bared his teeth. Sari and Bumblebee both aimed- and fired when Megatron reached forwards to grab the green mech, only to be thrown back, off-balance, by their combined firepower. Ratchet sighed in relief, unplugging from Bulkhead, nothing he could do. “Good job, you kids.” He grumbled. “Keep a guard on him. Don’t let anybody approach him!”

“What’s going on?” Sari asked again, grinding a foot down. “Ratchet! Just tell us!”

“When you’re older!” He barked back, and her eyes widened slightly. Oh. She knew what that usually entailed, recalling Issac saying the same thing in exasperation. “Just help me keep anybody from getting too handsy with him!”

Megatron started to get up, only for Optimus to fall on him while he was down, bellowing wordlessly as he took advantage of Megatron being stunned to rain down blows on his face, before he was knocked away by Blitzwing and Prowl’s struggles, sending them all rolling in a tangled mess of rage and shouts. Megatron clubbed Prowl away, the lightweight ninja not standing a chance against sheer size as he was sent soaring and landed with a dull *plip* into the lake, only for Optimus to dodge a punch thrown by Blitzwing with his face red in rage, Megatron instead catching the blow square between the optics and falling back with a huge shuddering ventilation.

That made two of them out. Lugnut and Megatron, and Ratchet was greatful at least for that. Lugnut was out cold, and Megatron was exhausted, laid back and dull-eyed- perhaps his programming had finally accepted the rejection. Blitzwing, though...unpredictable, against Optimus- Optimus fought dirty, but he was smaller and tiring fast, while Blitzwing kept switching between random and angry, black to red and back again, hammering him back with strikes and wildly changing movements.

“We have to help-” Bumblebee started, and Ratchet slapped a hand against his arm harshly.

“Don’t interrupt them. They’ll both turn on you!”

“Both of them?!” Sari squeaked, before flinching as Optimus took a particularly solid blow to the chestplates, ugly cracks spread across the metal and windshield...and he reeled back, Bulkhead stiffening. Some part of him would have preferred that Optimus be the one to win this challenge, and the tension around him was clear. Blitzwing finally, for the first time in the entire fight, swapped to the Icy face, piercing and almost terrifying for it’s very slight smile...before Shockwave made a small sound, a little ‘a-hem’ of surprise. It pulled their attention away just long enough to interrupt Bulkhead’s calculations, automatically running.

(Blitzwing, for the record, barely ranked at a 47% compatability, his unpredictable personality swings ultimately counting against him when it came to considering the safety and ability to provide.)

Blitzwing didn’t stand a chance when the cyberninja hit him, water droplets spraying off him as his boosters roared, pressure points where the plating was thin and the wiring was unguarded being struck- and then he was down in a heap, atop of Lugnut and Megatron alike, Optimus groaning off to the side. Ratchet frowned, stepping between Bulkhead and Prowl, even though the green mech was...smiling.

“Prowl…” He warned, wary, glancing behind him at Sari and Bumblebee. “Prowl, you don’t know what you’re doing-”

“I know what Bulkhead’s in.” Prowl’s voice came out low and quiet, almost a purr, his optics blazing near-white behind his glasses and focused solely on Bulkhead. “I didn’t, but I do.”

“Oh.” Ratchet shifted back as Prowl took another single step forwards. “You don’t have to, either of you-”

“Ratchet, move.” Prowl growled. “Before. I. Forget.” Each word was tense with concentration and control. “Now!”

Sari and Bumblebee backed away, suddenly, as Bulkhead finally moved, putting a hand on Ratchet’s shoulder...and gently pushed him aside. “He’s good.” Bulkhead mumbled, trying to reassure Ratchet even now, with a clumsy wave of his hand. “Good.”

95% compatible. Winner of the challenge.

Ratchet realized he didn’t stand a chance of getting between the two of them, then, and cringed as he turned, pushing Bumblebee and scooping Sari up under one arm. “Come on, you two. Scoot!”

“But- uh, Bulkhead and Prowl-” Bumblebee tried to squirm away and gesture, catching a glimpse behind them as Prowl reached up, placing a hand on Bulkhead’s chestplates, the larger mech shuddering with a relieved ventilation.

“Are best left alone for a bit!” Ratchet barked. “Now, c’mon!”

As the younger autobots were dragged off, Bulkhead and Prowl looked each other over, relieved and suddenly very tense with uncertainty. But programming knew what to do, instinct knew how to push, and Bulkhead placed a clumsy hand over Prowl’s delicate servo, splayed over his chest, feeling his sparkbeat. “Is, uh….there somewhere we can go? To be alone? I mean, uh-” He stammered, and Prowl smiled, a gentle expression despite the cracked glass of his shades, and the scuffed dents in his armor.

He needed to be somewhere secure, private, safe. It wouldn’t do, to be interrupted in this state, not in the slightest.

“We’ll get a boat. I know somewhere.”

They were well on their way to Dinobot island by the time Ratchet and the younger two returned to pack up the Decepticons, who were still groaning and just starting to reboot. An easy catch, for once.

Chapter Text

The Decepticons stewed. They returned to their base and brooded, hiding out after escaping Autobot clutches- what else could they do? They were hurt and distrustful. Lugnut had apologized profusely for attacking Megatron, Blitzwing had begged forgiveness, but Megatron had simply ignored them and retreated into privacy to stew.

Shockwave made himself scarce. Smart.

He’d come so close to winning the heatfight, over nothing more than a simple little autobot, why was he so distressed about being rejected? Was it a blow to his personal pride? Was he simply bitter about his own lieutenants turning on him? He couldn’t fully understand it himself, so he brooded morosely until recharge finally took him.

When he woke up, an alert informed him that he was operating at slightly above optimal temperature levels, and that he was hungry. Very hungry, body aching for energon, for oil...for mineral deposits until even the walls of the mine looked good, and he found himself scraping small rocks off with his fingers and chewing them, a distant memory of times long, long past doing the same coming to light.

Oh no. He knew what was happening, then, and at the entryway to his makeshift quarters he could see Blitzwing and Lugnut looming, shouldering each other with muttered insults, posturing more than they typically did.

Oh no.

Lugnut: Loyal, to a fault. Huge, powerful, incredibly aggressive but obedient- and already mated, though Lugnut’s consort was far, far away the programming pointed out that sires with other mates were more than capable of becoming a danger, should the others find out and try to establish dominance. He’d seen more than a few warriors who shared too many berths during their own heat winding up losing newsparks to jealousy and territorialism. Still...it was a risk. A good 75%, a risk he might be willing to take if this continued.

Blitzwing: Insane, processor damaged by the experimentation of Blackarachnia at Megatron’s behest, but still a triple-changer. The coding would be part of his CNA now, and that could prove invaluable, triple-changers were so rare, so incredibly rare, that any newsparks with that talent would be precious indeed- precious and powerful. But Blitzwing was unpredictable, and one couldn’t know if his multiple personalities would influence development. A 72%, almost perfectly equal with Lugnut.

Megatron shook his head, roughly, and retreated into privacy before either of them could notice him, pinching the bridge of his nasal ridge. Where was a suppressant when you needed it? That damn autobot’s heat had triggered his own, a risk with rejection, and how long had he been forcibly overriding his own programming, putting it off? Too long.

He could ask Shockwave to plug into him. Shockwave was old, older than even he was, skilled, and lacking heat programming. But at the thought, his processor reeled.

Shockwave: Loyal, but not desperately so. Sharply intelligent and logical, capable of altering his size and shape, brutal in battle and tactically minded. Shockwave was capable perhaps not of genuinely caring for anything, his emotional abilities were so tightly controlled, but he could express care and emotional states well enough, one had to in order to blend in with Autobots. Shockwave would do whatever Megatron demanded of him. Anything at all. 93% compatible.

But he wouldn’t be affected, he reminded himself. Shockwave wouldn’t participate in a challenge fight, not in any way that mattered. And unless Shockwave was willing to take Megatron to berth, Megatron was wholly unwilling to press such a valuable asset into doing anything he might find distressing.

His warbuild instincts called for him, then, craving the open air to cool off, to get away from potential suitors while mulling it over. He squeezed his bulk through a side entrance, well-hidden, and took to the sky in altmode, finally relaxing. He could wait his heat out, he knew. Sequester himself, refuse any challenges, live with the discomfort. He’d done so before, many times, he could do so again. It simply seemed...unpalatable.

It was several hours of head-clearing flight, circling and wandering aimlessly, before his distracted processor belatedly registered and oncoming threat and something- someone- crashed into him from above, sending them both falling in a wildly spinning tangle.

“Megatron!” A pitched voice shrieked in delight. “Fancy meeting you here, my old leader!” Starscream’s claws dug into his plating as he reverted to his root form and tried to throw the seeker off his back. “And in such an enticing state, too! Must be my lucky day!”

“Starscream!” The betrayer, the inexplicably immortal, who’d abandoned them and hid out somewhere else. Megatron roared and, as the ground approached, activated his boosters as Starscream did, the two of them barely pulling out of their dive. Starscream pressed against him, leaving long marks in already-dented armor, laughing salaciously, cruelly.

If there was no-one around to challenge Starscream, he could focus solely on Megatron, and Megatron on he. It was not a situation Megatron wanted to be caught in.

Starscream: violent, predictable, hateful. A second-in-command of virtue, once, kept in line by devotion to the cause, then consumed by powerlust and hate. There had been a cycle, millenia earlier, when Megatron and Starscream’s positions had been reversed- he remembered it well. Chasing the seeker down in flight, hammering away other suitors- Starscream had been his, and his alone back then, and they’d properly been ready to nest, Megatron’s spark had swelled with the pride of producing heirs.

But newsparks were fragile things, even before they separated from their carrier, and there had been a true war back then, fighting unavoidable. Starscream went against instinct, against orders, and had been shot down on the front lines.

A clutch of three had gone down with him. It had been some time before Megatron could forgive him, and not long after that was when the seeker had become distrustful, paranoid, seeking power.

He hated to think what Starscream was capable of now, able to rise from any injury and with Megatron at the mercy of his instincts. The numbers dropped low- 35% positive match, high risk, few potential rewards. He twisted and cut his engines, heavier weight forcing them down, slamming Starscream into the ground under him. At least he could still fight, and if he offlined the seeker long enough, he’d have an opportunity to run, as much as the prospect of retreat pained him. He turned on Starscream, stunned on the earth, and brought down heavy fists against chest armor that buckled before Starscream rolled away, still cackling.

He snarled, blades converting to his greatsword easily, held at the ready.

“Aww, bringing weapons to a little heat-brawl?” Starscream’s optics were bright with challenge, with uncontrolled want. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of me!”

“I wonder how long it will take you to reawaken, should I divide you into small pieces.”

“If you can get me.” Starscream grinned, and Megatron bore his teeth.

~

“That’s Megatron alright.” Optimus muttered as he looked at the video feed. “Who’s that attacking him? Starscream?”

“It could be, the seeker hasn’t exactly been friendly with his fellow Decepticons lately.” Ratchet snorted. “I say we let ‘em duke it out- they’re out in the wilderness, no humans around to harm, maybe we’ll have one less problem to worry about.” In truth, he glanced over at Optimus, eyeing the still-scuffed armor. He’d fixed him up, best he could, but he knew that with Bulkhead and Prowl still gone, Sari and Bumblebee asking questions he couldn’t find good answers to, Optimus was sore and tired still.

A brawl would do that to you.

“We can’t let them keep fighting- even if there’s no humans out there, somebody should be keeping an eye on the situation. And not just this...cell phone footage someone posted.”

“Prime, I can’t really say I want you to go out there-” Ratchet started, and Optimus cut him off, raising his hand flatly.

“I’m going. Bumblebee and Sari are too inexperienced and will draw attention to themselves, and I’m perfectly capable of monitoring the situation.”

“...young and foolish.” Ratchet grumbled, turning back to the screen, away from Optimus. “Go on, then. You’re the big boss around here- but don’t engage them unless you have to! I’m not exactly happy with the idea of patching you up again, not after I just fixed you up.”

“Understood.”

He transformed and was off, eager to get out of the base where the awkward tension was filling the air, to work off the excess energy still coursing through his systems. Ratchet had explained what was going on with Bulkhead, with Prowl and himself, with the Decepticons in the fight, and he was eager for a distraction not to think about Bulkhead like that again.

~

Megatron was tiring. Taxed from fighting old coding, from the heat fight he’d already participated in, Starscream had an advantage in energy and stamina right now and it was getting increasingly worrisome. He swung at Starscream again, and the seeker delicately dodged out of the way, missing half a wing from an earlier strike but not slowing. “You’re getting old, Megatron! Maybe it’s time to retire! What do you say….settle down, raise a clutch, let me take care of the Decepticons.”

He was goading Megatron, taunting him, and it was working, his former leader swinging in rage instead of precision, giving Starscream the opportunity needed to duck, letting the blade bury itself in the trunk of a tree, stuck just long enough to strike Megatron’s hand off the hilt.

He staggered, Starscream advanced...

And was abruptly slammed into by a red-and-blue blurr. The firetruck, sans trailer, screeched on it’s tires as Starscream was thrown back, then unfolded into the form of Optimus Prime...who glanced only briefly at Megatron and straightened up. Now it was a challenge fight, then? Megatron took a deep invent- he should flee, now, take to the sky and hurry off while they were occupied battling each other.

Instead he stood, simply, watching as Starscream tackled the small autobot with a screech and the two rolled, trading sharp strikes of knees and fists. Instinct demanded he relax, that he watch and judge.

Starscream; 35% positive.

The little autobot prime, the one whose name took a moment to recall, Optimus; 90% positive.

The numbers would have shocked him if it wasn’t so easy to understand. The prime was strong, despite his small size, fast and decent in battle, readily adapting to both fighting against him and once fighting alongside him when needed. Unwilling to give up, he was honorable and defensive...Megatron could easily see him defending a nest, providing- if anything, the little autobot would happily over-provide while Megatron carried and nurtured, he would be soft like that. Optimus Prime had resources, had leadership, had companions who would follow him in defending sparklings.

Megatron stared as Optimus Prime straddled over Starscream’s chest, knees on his shoulders, shouting wordlessly as brought down a fist that shattered one of Starscream’s optics.

95%, then, when he admired the slim lines of the autobot’s waist, the tapered thighs that led to sturdy pedes, the exaggerated broadness of shoulders. The red and white were obnoxiously colorful, nothing like the subdued scheme of a Decepticon, but he could see the appeal, and it certainly drew attention. Starscream cursed and knocked Optimus off of him, moving to tackle him again, to take advantage of superior size, but a grappling cable wrapped around his legs and dragged him into the dirt before he could lunge.

Fighting dirty during a heat challenge? Oh, Optimus was looking better by the second. The autobot fell on Starscream with exhaustion clear in his stance, his fans overtaxed and engine screeching with effort...but with renewed ferocity, kicking at Starscream’s helm and shoulders until the jet quieted and lay still, moaning softly and optics dim. Optimus looked up at Megatron, and saw the warlord’s small smile and narrowed eyes….and kicked Starscream again, grinning, for good measure.

Megatron stayed still as Optimus limped to him, eyes bright and expression eager and open. He looked almost innocent, like this, naive and uncertain as Megatron stared down...and slightly nodded. The autobot was young, very young, and if Megatron had to guess…

“Wh...what now? What do I, you, what do we do now-” Optimus was breathless, eyes roving over Megatron hungrily. He didn’t know what he wanted, right now- he wanted to ‘face Megatron into the dirt, he wanted to feed him, he wanted somewhere quiet and warm and safe, and he wanted to scream from the rooftops that he -had- Megatron. Megatron was his, in a way he didn’t understand. “What can I do?”

...ah, yes. A blank slate. Perfect, Megatron smirked, struggling to control his own temperature as it shot up, a warmth spreading throughout his abdomen as gestational protocols began to activate, readying him. “Find me somewhere safe, somewhere protected.” Megatron’s voice rumbled, and he reveled in how eagerly Optimus perked up, listening and nodding. “For us.”

The autobot grinned, and grasped Megatron’s hand fearlessly, leading him along like this was nothing so much as a joyful, careless fling between two young mech. This hadn’t been Megatron’s plan, no...but he could do well with this. He could do very, very well with this.

Chapter Text

“Hurry up.” Minimus breathed against Cyclonus’ audial, and the jet walked faster, thankful that they were alone in the hall as he hustled along to Ultra Magnus’ quarters, and in the privacy they had he might have even admitted to breaking into a slight jog, holding the mini tight to his chest as he did so. “Hurry up!”

Cyclonus’ fingers almost faltered over the keypad as he entered in Magnus’ password, before he steeled himself. Minimus was seldom in such an eager mood- for the most part his lover was stoic and methodical, and they both enjoyed long bouts of foreplay. It took time and patience to work either of them up.

Except for right now, as Cyclonus strode into the quarters with an armfull of squirming, overheated minibot and laid him out lengthwise on the oversized berth, made for a mech twice as big as even Cyclonus. Maybe it was stress, or just the result of waiting what felt like far too long between their nights together, but right now when Minimus stretched out under Cyclonus and arched his back up, it made Cyclonus’ spark pulse wildly.

“Minimus.” He growled, a deep rumble in his chest as he leaned down and ran his lipplates over Minimus’ exposed throat tubing. He was so small, in his irreducible form, so delicate in appearance, it was intoxicating. Minimus whimpered below him, modesty panels retracting the moment one of Cyclonus’ claw-tips delicately traced over his pelvic armor. “Minimus!” It was a posessive sound, and he palmed Minimus’ small, slender spike- smooth and unadorned as it was.

“C-Cyclonus-!” Minimus meweled and he bucked wantonly into Cyclonus’ touch. “Hurry, please-” His vocalizer hitched, eyes burning bright until the red was almost pink. Cyclonus just…chuckled, low and deep, even as his own cooling fans roared and his spike tried to pressurize vainly against his own panelling. He squeezed Minimus’ connector, stroking him torturously slow, listening to his lover rapidly coming undone.

“What bought on this eagerness tonight?” He growled, hunching over Minimus posessively, a hand steadying him on the berth.

“Hngh-” Minimus’ face was gorgeous, and Cyclonus comitted it to memory. Torn between desperate need and pleasure, his mouth fallen open. “-I just need you. Cyclonus-” He reached down, small and delicately made hands grasping Cyclonus’ arm with strength that never failed to surprise the large bot, guiding him off of his spike…and pushing him down towards his wet, wanting port. “Get me ready- now!”

“Patience.” But even Cyclonus was struggling to restrain himself, one finger sliding easily into the lubricated valve, reveling at the softness and heat within’. Minimus cried out, and Cyclonus had to half-pin him down by the chest with his free arm to stop him moving too fast or roughly, knowing that a wrong move with his sharpened digits in that delicate valve could end quite poorly. Another finger was added, easily. “You really are needy for me, aren’t you? At this rate, I’ll barely need to stretch you.” He scissored his fingers, and Minimus howled, so unlike himself to be so desperate- and Cyclonus loved it.

“Hurry up and frag me! I need- I need it-” The minibot keened, and Cyclonus worked a third finger into his valve, feeling calipers pinching down and a fresh gush of hot, viscous lubricant around his digits. “I need you-” Minimus whimpered, and Cyclonus drew his fingers out, meeting Minimus’ eyes as he bought them up to his mouth…and licked them clean with careful, agonizing slowness. Minimus whined and writhed, clutching at the arm pinning him down, his smaller body giving off heat so intense the air around him practically shimmered.

Cyclonus struggled to keep his motions slow and deliberate, to keep himself under control, as he moved onto the berth over Minimus, finally releasing his spike and sighing deeply as he pressurized fully and was leaking prefluid almost instantly. Minimus groaned, and Cyclonus released him only to grasp his thighs, pushing them up and spreading him open. “Minimus.” He breathed, the minibot’s eyes unfocused as he looked up at the ceiling of the habsuite, ventilations fast and panting. “Look at me.”

Minimus’ eyes met Cyclonus’, and the larger bot shifted until the tapered end of his spike was pressing into the lips of that oh-so-inviting valve. “Cyclonus.” He moaned, brieftly tensing as Cyclonus pushed forwards steadily, their equipment a tight fit- but doable when he was stretched, or eager as he was now. “Cyclonus!” Charge passed between them, from nodes buried deep in a small, squeezing valve to a long, slender connector and back again as Cyclonus pressed into Minimus’ body with one long, steady motion.

A gentle scrape of metal and Cyclonus was buried fully in Minimus, shaking as he held himself back, head spinning. Usually it took more warming up, some coaxing, to make his lover open up fully, but this time it had been easy- easy and intoxicating. Minimus shuddered under him, impaled fully and whimpering, clutching at Cyclonus’ chestplate. “O-oh…Cyclonus…yes-” He gasped for cooling air. “-don’t hold back, don’t- you know how much I can take, and I need- I need-”

Cyclonus didn’t need to be told anymore as his hips snapped back, then forwards, driving hard and listening to Minimus’ ecstatic cries. For such a reserved sort, this was where Minimus came undone, where he was loudest and unguarded, and right now it made Cyclonus lose that tightly-wound self control. The metal of their hipplates rang as it struck with each harsh, needing thrust, and Minimus gasped, begged for more, only dimly aware of the berth’s surface scraping below him, his attention ultimately taken by the purple form over him, pulling his hips up onto his thighs to better fill him, growling and needy.

Then suddenly half of his body was suspended in the air, falling back with the sudden, disorienting shift of gravity, as Cyclonus gave a particularly hard thrust, and he snapped from his pleasured haze. “H-hold- hold on- I’m going to fall off the berth-” He stammered out, and Cyclonus stared down with burning eyes, looking positively feral. He wondered if Cyclonus was even hearing him, as the jet grasped his hips hard and dragged him back, rising up onto his knees and dropping Minimus in his lap, gravity helping him to work himself deep as possible again.

His thrusting was wild, devoid of rhythm or gentleness, and Minimus ached exquisitely for the attention, trying to press himself as close to Cyclonus as he could, losing himself into the tight grip of clawed hands. Cyclonus could almost chase a memory in the back of his mind- when was the last time he’d made love- no -fragged this carelessly, this wild? Taking a mate like a mechanimal in rut, instead of like a practiced lover?

There was a brief, fleeting thought of a broad face with a cruel smile, a helm framed by a crown of horns, of a once-leader and charge.

Then he was back, and listening to Minimus’ scream as the minibot overloaded against him, around him, and nothing in the galaxy could have stopped him from following Minimus over the precipace, vision whiting out as transfluid filled, and filled, and overfilled Minimus’ rippling valve.

He fell forwards, caging Minimus’ body with his own, and they shook together, transfluid staining down their thighs and puddling on the berth below them. It was some time before either of them had cooled enough to think, and Minimus groaned under him, wincing. Cyclonus gently pulled from Minimus’ swollen valve, realizing how tender he’d left his lover, and Minimus moaned with relief as he was emptied.

“…I…I apologize.” Minimus whispered, as Cyclonus lay beside him, and the warrior blinked, pausing.

“For what?”

“I do not know what came over me, there. I simply…needed you.”

“Mm.” Cyclonus squirmed…and wrapped his arms about Minimus, pulling him close, protectively. “Worry not.”

Chapter Text

Soundwave woke to the sensation of pain. For a long moment, he struggled to comprehend it before realizing it wasn’t his own. It wasn’t his own, and he was warm and safe, laying on a padded berth with an actual mesh blanket to call his own. The pain was familiar, though, he’d felt it before on the streets, through other mechs. He shifted, reaching down and pawing at his groin plating. He was still a youngling, he had no proper interfacing equipment or drive, but the empathetic echo of pain left an ache between his legs.

The pain echoed again, like a wordless cry, and he got up, trying to remember what he’d been learning. Focus. Find something to hold onto, to block out the louder thoughts in the world. He searched for a familiar mind, someone safe, someone he knew- he reached out for Ravage.

The pain intensified so suddenly and clearly that he yelped aloud, and thrashed, rolling off the berth to the floor. The physical pain wasn’t much more than an echo, but there were tones after tones of emotional anguish in there. Humiliation, guilt, anger- they left something like a taste in his mouth, even after he closed the connection desperately. There was another thing there, in his gut- pleasure underneath all the negativity.

Soundwave tried to push that from his processor most of all, fearful of the crawling heat that made his spark pulse, gathering himself, focusing inwards. He was scared. Alone. The others were out working tonight, leaving just him and Ravage- no Buzzsaw to drape a wing over him, or Laserbeak to nuzzle. His own emotions weren’t much better, but they gave him clarity enough to rise from the floor and go to the door to seek out the source of all that pain. Ratbat’s instructions repeated in his processor-

You stay in your quarters until summoned. Do not leave them unless I tell you to do so, or that you are allowed to do so. When you are dismissed, you return there.

Ratbat was terrifying. Senator, spy, the mech who controlled the media and the flow of information across Cybertron. But Soundwave was...well, he was scared, and young, and suddenly felt very brave with the prospect that one of his only friends may have been in danger.

Once he followed the trail of Ravage’s distress to the door of Ratbat’s private quarters, left open just enough for a cougaraider like Ravage to slip through, he realized that bravery was a close sibling to regret, and they often came together. He heard Ravage well before he peered into the room, silent and creeping, the beastmech’s snarls and yowling unmistakeable, punctuated by heaving ventilations and hisses. He’d been expecting punishment, perhaps, like Ratbat had dealt to another one of his spies with a shock-rod, not...this.

Ravage was on the berth, forelimbs folded down and claws tearing long strips into padding, his lithe body arched so his aft was in the air, tail folded up over his back. The position would’ve been a stretch for him, in any other situation, but Ratbat was behind him on his knees, his hands gripping Ravage’s thighs tight, squeezing the connection points and grinding forwards. Quieter than Ravage’s growls and whimpers was a wet sound, a squelching every time Ratbat’s hips shifted, and Ratbat’s hushed, calm words.

“Good pet, there we go...just relax, my pretty pet...you’re so tight, so lovely, it’s a shame I have to waste you on field work. Someday I can retire you, keep you to my berth at all hours of the day, treat you like a real...proper-” His hips pulled back and he thrust forward with violent power, leaning over Ravage and pinning him down as he did so, the sound of their armor colliding a sharp CLANK. “-pretty...pet! Ah-”

Soundwave barely managed to mute his vocalizer in time to avoid moaning as a sudden wave of sympathetic pleasure washed over him, Ratbat’s overload like an explosive force to his psychic abilities. He staggered, and clutched at the wall to stay upright, leaning against it hard as his processor spun. There was a dim awareness of Ratbat laughing, Ratbat speaking.

“Clean yourself.” Ratbat ordered, and he could feel Ravage’s embarrassment at the command, again tainted with that vile pleasure. After some time, Soundwave felt like he could stand on his own again, walk again, and he realized he had to hurry- he had to leave before- “And tell Soundwave to come in on your way out.”

“...Master, he isn’t-...oh” Ravage started, but there was a change in the tension there. Soundwave froze, suddenly petrified, and Ravage burned with rage that could go nowhere. Ravage stepped out of the door, head low, refusing to look up at Soundwave. There was lubricant and transfluid smeared on his muzzle, and the inside of his legs was shiny with oral fluid. “...Soundwave.”

Soundwave merely nodded in response.

“...You should stay in your quarters when you’re not asked for.” It came out of Ravage as an angry hiss, and Soundwave was started by how angry he was. Angry at Soundwave, at himself, at Ratbat. “Go in.” Soundwave complied, feeling oddly numb, like he was floating on the furious waves coming off the spy. Ratbat was sitting on the edge of the berth, subspacing a cloth, looking clean and composed as ever, his modesty panels thankfully in place.

“Soundwave. We need to talk about what you’ve seen.” He stood, and Soundwave tried not to cower, looking away and finding his gaze settling on the berth- on stains of wetness of clawed-open padding and the overwhelming smell of fragging- he jerked his gaze to Ratbat’s pedes. “And what you may have felt. Have a seat, Soundwave.” Soundwave moved for a bench, but Ratbat cleared his throat...and smiled one of those awful smiles he had when he was about to humiliate a fellow Senator, or someone who’d disappointed him. “Not there. On the Berth. Mind the stains.”

Soundwave sat, and tried not to think of what he’d seen.

Which became impossible with the next words out of Ratbat’s mouth.

“Tell me how Ravage felt.”

Chapter Text

He'd always thought that the great Tyrest, the creator and upholder of the Tyrest accord, the man who set up the prisons that'd held him and the laws that chased him, would've been...well...more impressive.

Sure, he was certainly impressive in his own way, all huge shoulders and winglets and elaborate helm, but the once-majestic metalmesh cape was largely holes and worn tatters, the green and gold of his armor was dulled and chipped, and the holes...the holes were a story of their own. A nice, long story of self-flagellation.

It took an immense effort on Overlord's part not to give in to the temptation to jam a finger into some of the more accessible holes in the armor, just out of sheer curiosity. Would it even bother Tyrest? He'd found the mech occasionally, drilling new holes into his armor. Parts of it were outright structurally unsound from the sheer amount of damage done to the armor.

And then there was the bot's torso. Which was just a mess of a patchjob, and frankly if there were any evidence for the usefulness of faith it was that sometimes, Overlord was sure that was all that was keeping Tyrest upright and alive. He'd had a hole blown through him big enough that he should've been offline or at least in stasis, and instead he walked around, if it was in a sort of daze.

"Why am I here, anyways?" Overlord had asked it several times, and already knew the answer he'd get.

"You will see. Soon."

“I’m getting bored.” The phase-sixer growled, but he settled for hunching over where he sat. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure how he’d even gotten here- the last thing he remembered was reaching for the little recording minibot, and then...blurriness, fire, occasional glimpses of the void and stars between long bouts of static. And then...here. Disappointing, really, he thought he was stronger than a single missile strike, but apparently not, when it came to being knocked into stasis. “Tyrest!”

Tyrest’s only response for him was a short glance.

“C’mere.” He beckoned, with a finger. Tyrest didn’t move. “You said we had the same enemies. What’d you mean? Megatron? Autobots?”

“The ship. The Lost Light.” Tyrest looked away as he spoke, gazing into the distance. He had an unsettling habit of doing so, staring away into distant stars and the to the horizon as if waiting for something. Overlord was starting to think that nothing was coming, that he’d been dragged here by some...inexplicable force for nothing so much as to watch Tyrest going insane. Well, more insane. “We will have justice, for what they’ve done.”

“When?” Overlord rose. He was huge, but he was entirely capable of slow, cautious movement, of stepping almost silently, even in his battered state. Tyrest showed no indication of noticing his approach, still focused on some faraway point.

“Soon enough. Be patient, Overlord. I have been promised.”

“Not soon enough.” Overlord growled, and grasped Tyrest, one hand grasping his wounded torso, the other grabbing one of those long spires so like a crown on his helm. Tyrest...didn’t resist, and his expression was more that of annoyance than anything else. Pity. Overlord had been hoping for fear, or at the very least, anger. Instead, Tyrest was easily manipulated, tossed to the ground to his knees, where he rested, looking up at Overlord with slightly pursed lips and narrowed eyes. “The frag is wrong with you?” He growled down.

“If you’re going to murder me, it is a waste of time.” Tyrest spoke, simply, and Overlord scowled...then grinned, and chuckled, and wound up laughing boldly.

“And be ever more desperate for entertainment than I already am, on this dusty little rock you’ve had us on? What do you take me for?” He grasped Tyrest’s crown again, jerking his head up roughly, as his other hand rested on his abdomen, sliding down to his crotchplates smoothly, and he sighed deeply as his modesty panel clicked aside, spike still retracted and unpressurized, but he could fix that, gently teasing the edges of it’s housing with broad fingertips. Tyrest, for all his bluster, simply looked...disturbed, lip curled and nasal ridge wrinkled. “You know, they say you were one of the finest orators in all of history…”

“I’ll do whatever disgusting thing you intend, provided you don’t subject me to a terrible pun in the meantime.” Tyrest bit out.

“Sounds fine to me.” And without tact or care, Overlord pulled him forwards by the crest of his helm, haphazardly grinding Tyrest’s face against his groin, ignoring the judge’s scandalized yelp and growl, pressurizing with unhurried ease until he shifted his hips back, meeting Tyrest’s glare, apparently wholly unintimidated and unamused by the thick spike resting against his cheek. “Open up.”

Tyrest grit his teeth. “This is foul. I can see why you’re needed.”

“Open up your mouth or I’m going to pick another hole to fuck. You got a lot of ‘em, but I’m pretty sure most of them aren’t big enough.”

His mouth fell open, slackly, and he looked positively, frustratingly bored as Overlord kept a hand on his crown, the other palming his spike to guide it into Tyrest’s mouth. His lips stretched, and he gagged slightly, flinching as the head forced it’s way past his dentae, but....there was no struggling, no trying to pull away, no swallowing or gagging. Just a disgusted gaze up at Overlord and the wet sound as he pushed the spike deeper into his mouth. “I’m already startin’ to get bored again.” Overlord huffed, and grabbed another spike upon Tyrest’s helm to hold him steady as he thrust. At least this time, it got a reaction, Tyrest choking automatically.

The dull sounds of Tyrest’s faceplate being impacted by the metal of Overlord’s crotch and thighs, the squelch of his mouth with each violent thrust- Overlord grunted and snarled. It was too quiet, it wasn’t enough. Tyrest just knelt there and...did nothing! Sure, his mouth was hot and wet, and his throat so tight he wouldn’t be surprised if Tyrest was spitting static after this, but it wasn’t enough. He jerked himself back, out of Tyrest’s mouth, barely satisfied with the fact that Tyrest gave a few rough coughs and cringed, drool on his lips.

“Disappointing. And here I heard you were some kind of overachiever.” Overlord spat.

“I’m sorry I never felt the need to hone my skills when it came to sucking a connector.” Tyrest growled, voice coming out distorted and rough. He looked away, reaching up and wiping his mouth clean with the back of a hand. Overlord looked down, thinking. He could push Tyrest to the ground, he wondered if such a high-and-mighty bot had ever been properly fragged, the way one learned in gladiatorial rings after fights...or during the better-paying ones. It would at least get him off, he knew that, nothing was quite like a proper valve, but it didn’t seem like enough. Not for true satisfaction.

He eyed the most blatant hole on Tyrest’s body, resting in his forehead, and he swore if he really squinted he could see the glimmer of wiring and a brain module deep inside. It isn’t big enough, he thought, yet.

Tyrest finally responded, yelping and trying to jerk away as Overlord forced his face back towards him, kneeling beside him, and he jammed a thick finger against the hole, grinning wide. Oh, he’d made holes to frag into bots before, but right in the center of one’s head? This was going to be new. “Stop-” Tyrest hissed, before the metal buckled and tore as Overlord’s finger plunged inside, stopping only when he felt a crackle of energy against it, licking his lips. “Augh! Foul, how dare you-!?” Tyrest started to holler.

“Go on, shout. Maybe whatever you’re waiting for will hear and join the party.” Overlord chuckled, letting Tyrest scrabble at his arm uselessly as he wriggled and crooked his finger, pulling back out and forcing layers of metal with it. Now that finally had Tyrest screeching. He repeated the motion, careful not to push his fingers too far in, watching eagerly as the wound went from a neat, careful little hole drilled dead center in Tyrest’s head to a gaping, jagged opening. He’d seen plenty of processors before, but usually the bots were dead if he were that invested in tearing them open.

Tyrest meweled. It sounded damn fine, and his spike ached, desperate for attention. Resisting the urge, just barely, to use Tyrest’s head like a fragtoy, he settled for stroking himself, looking at the twisted, pained expression on the judge’s face, the way his eyes were near-white with stress. Now that- that was a pretty sight, and maybe it was frustration or just being backed up, or anticipation for something that had never occured to him before, it wasn’t long before an overload was approaching and he wrenched Tyrest’s head closer.

Tyrest had gone near-limp, maybe just tired of struggling or fighting, or in one of his trances again, it made it easier for Overlord to line up- the hole was still a little too tight, and the ragged metal was uncomfortable and biting at the blunt head of his spike- but that was fine. All he needed was somewhere to-

“Hhhunh!” He groaned deeply, and Tyrest jerked, eyes going wide as conductive transfluid flooded his processor cavity, sending those delicate and fine-tuned nervous connections into chaos. Overlord found himself laughing, giddily, watching as Tyrest thrashed and tried to control himself, yelping in confused static binary and flailing, before finally slumping, optics open but dim. He pulled himself free, swollen tip of his spike popping out audible, and when he tipped Tyrest forwards his own pinkish transfluid dribbled out, pouring over the judge’s face. “Hehhahh...it’s a good look for you.” He growled, feeling heady with post-overload satisfaction.

Tyrest twitched, optics briefly glowing again before he went still, but Overlord could hear the faint hum of ventilations, feel the warmth still coming off him- he’d live. Part of the phase-sixer hoped he’d wake up soon, after all...he’d been waiting so patiently for someone to come for them. It’d be a shame if he were still unconscious when they got here.