#I don’t know any other Decepticons to put here at the moment

[quibbs126]

I probably need to design the Decepticons in my AU at some point, I’m realizing I never got around to that outside of those initial sketches

But I also never figured out how to make them work either, so hmm

[bots-and-cons]

Can't tell the future, feat Optimus

A/N: I’m feeling pretty crappy at the moment, so I wanted to write something for that. I usually do things like these on my other blog herofics, but I felt like Optimus was a good fit for this so I decided to write something with him. I tagged this with "suicidal tw" just in case, but it's not really an active thing Idk

You hadn’t been to the base in a while, which had Optimus a little worried. You had called him every day, when you couldn’t make it to the base, so he knew you were okay. There was just something about your voice that was bothering him. You’d told him you were just tired and that there was nothing to worry about, and even though he had let it slide until now, he didn’t really believe you. Optimus decided to go see if you would let him take you for a drive to talk. There hadn’t been any decepticon activity for days, so perhaps he would get lucky and the moment of peace would continue.

You were laying in bed with your laptop, trying to decide which assignment was the most interesting. Of course, it was the one that had the deadline months away and not the one that had the deadline next week. You couldn’t get started on any of your assignments, and the ones you had started seemed impossible to finish.

“Why am I like this?” you muttered tiredly, feeling like you might start crying.

The feeling of disappointment was quickly followed by an intense feeling of anger, which made you want to throw your laptop across the room. Why was it always like this? Why couldn’t you manage even school? Your classmates could manage school, work, their family and the rest of their life, and you couldn’t even stay on top of your assignments. Instead of destroying the laptop you had no money to replace, you just ended up hitting your pillow and screaming into it. Your burst of anger was interrupted as you heard a loud truck horn outside your apartment building. You of course went to look out the window and saw that it was Optimus. You put on a jacket on top of your home clothes and went to see what he wanted, maybe the two minutes outside would miraculously get you out of this slump you were in.

You went downstairs and out the front door of your apartment building and walked up to Optimus.

“What are you doing here?” you asked, sounding much colder than you meant to.

“I wanted to see if you were alright. Would you like to go for a drive?” he asked, seemingly not even noticing your tone.

“No thanks, I-” you paused. You were going to say you had a lot of school work to catch up on, but if you hadn’t managed to get started on even one of them the whole day, going for a drive probably couldn’t really make it any worse.

“Actually yeah, let’s go” you said.

Optimus opened the passenger side door to the cabin and you climbed in.

“Remember your seatbelt” he reminded you before starting to drive off.

“Yeah yeah” you muttered, buckling yourself in. “Where are we going anyway?”

“Where would you like to go?”

“Anywhere? Nowhere? I don’t know, we can just drive around” you sighed.

Optimus was never really one for subtleties, so you weren’t exactly surprised when the question you were dreading came. You knew he wasn’t blind, he could see there was something going on with you and that you weren’t doing well. You had really just hoped that he wouldn’t ask, because you felt like your calm demeanor was hanging on by a thread and it would snap at any moment.

“I do not mean to intrude, but I have noticed you have been quite distant lately. I know you have a habit of pushing others away when you are feeling unwell, because you do not wish to be a burden on anyone” he stated very matter-of-factly. “But I wish you would speak to me about what is weighing on you”

It wouldn’t really do any good to lie to him anyway, so you decided to just talk to him. Maybe he would get tired of you too and stop asking how you were. That’s what seemed to happen with everyone you ever talked to. 

“You asked for this” you sighed, before starting your little rant. “I don’t know if this is depression or burnout or what, but I’m exhausted. I don’t know how I’m supposed to manage 15 different school assignments that have deadlines within days of each other. Sure, some of the deadlines are over a month away, but then there’s like five of them in one week. I can’t even get any of them started”

“It sounds like you are feeling very unwell. Have you discussed this with your attending physician or anyone else in your care team?” Optimus asked with clear worry in his voice.

“Not really. When I’ve had calls or appointments with them, I always feel fine in the moment, so I don’t say anything, and when I get back home, it all explodes in my face” you chuckled dryly, looking out of the side window to the darkness outside. It had started raining too, and since Optimus had decided to turn to the highway, there were barely any lights anywhere anymore, because you were so far away from lived in areas.

“Would you like to discuss your current state of mind with me then? I would like to hear how you are really feeling” he inquired.

“I can try” you sighed. “You know how us humans live so much shorter lives compared to you cybertronians?”

“Yes”

“I remember thinking back to when I was like sixteen years old, that I would never make it to twenty. But here I am, in my mid-twenties and now it has changed to “I don't think I’ll make it to thirty”. I wonder if I’ll ever stop thinking like that? To you, that’s probably nothing. Thirty years goes by in a blink of an eye for you, because you live for millions of years. I can’t even imagine living that long. I can’t even imagine living thirty years…” you trailed off.

Optimus could feel you trembling on the passenger’s seat. You were most likely trying to hold in your tears, to stop yourself from crying. He knew you hated crying in front of others, so he didn’t comment on it.

“You are probably right about the fact that thirty years is a short time for me, but that does not mean I do not appreciate it. Take these last three years we have known each other, for example. It might have been a very short time for me, but it has consisted of some of the best things I’ve experienced in eons. Meeting you, for instance. You are not a burden (Name). You are my most precious one. I do not want to see you in pain, but I would still take that over never seeing you again. You are so very strong, but you must also rest sometimes”

You finally started sobbing the moment you heard the words “my most precious one”. Optimus was the only one to ever say something like that to you, he was the only one who seemed to truly understand what you needed.

“You should not burn yourself out because of something like university. It will wait until you are well again. Life happens now, and you can not sacrifice yourself for a future that you know nothing about. You never know where life might take you, but know this. I will always be there with you. You will never have to face these hardships alone again” Optimus finished.

“Than-thank-thank you” you sobbed like a child.

All the stress, all the grief, everything was just pouring out of you now that the dam had been opened. You were crying like a child, just crying away all your frustration as Optimus kept you safe. Even if your time in this universe was just a blink for him, you hoped he would be there until it was your time to go. Maybe you could stay longer if he was there, maybe you would make it past that thirty year mark if he was with you. You couldn’t tell the future, but you could hope.

[hoiststowline]

into the mystery

prev_first part four

“Are you now having doubts?” After the door had closed over, it left Streetwise with a tightness in his chassis that he couldn’t quite shake off, especially with Hot Spot’s concerned approach. “What changed between our conversation and now?”

He wouldn’t necessarily call it doubts, but there was an insatiable, troublesome feeling amongst the whirlwind of confusion and misdirected wishful thinking. Something he previously couldn’t place, but the fog immediately dispersed the moment you put that coin in the palm of his servo. It wasn’t so much the penny; your fragile hand encapsulated his attention in a jarring observation.

You were being asked a million things, tugged in six different directions and Streetwise hadn’t thought of the one thing that any good soldier would have. He was inadvertently putting an awfully big target on your back, a glaring obvious to them that you had virtually no idea of. And that made it infinitely worse, too blinded by their personal struggles to even consider roping someone so innocent into a rampaging mess.

“I didn’t think it through well enough,” His weight shifts from foot to foot, swearing under his breath. “There are too many things to go wrong. Things I hadn’t even recognized until now, I was acting on emotion rather than reality.”

“Such as?” Hot Spot is digging, and not that anyone could particularly blame him after such a display of guilt.

Streetwise finds himself being unnaturally vague, hopeful to not have to disclose his near unstoppable fondness over you, embarrassingly more so than Groove at this point. “We don’t know what’s out there, Spots. Accepting help is putting a universal target on their back, and they don’t even know that. That isn’t fair,”

“I see.” The leader rumbles, but somehow finds the right words to say. “No, it’s not, though, in all our time here we have not picked up on any Decepticon activity, nor any other Cybertronian life-forms.”

His shoulders jump faintly at the addendum, pausing to find the double meaning within them. “What? What are you saying? It's a bad idea to tell them?”

“No. I am not saying that, not at all.” He shakes his helm, arms crossing over his chest. “I think we must tell y/n your recent realization and leave it to them to decide if they would like to continue this relationship. I am mentioning the negligible activity if to ease a nerve.”

“Oh.” Streetwise fumbles, feeling internally conflicted. “Do you think I should go tell them now?”

“There has been a lot of excitement for today.” He answers, an ex-vent following suit. “You choose the best time, but it should be very soon. I should have uncovered this sooner, perhaps I was also blinded by a good thing. Let us work with what we have and go from there, all we can hope is that it will work out,”

In a moment of self-woe, Streetwise throws his servos up in defeat. “Why do I always gotta be the bad guy, just to deliver the bad news?”

“You know I will do it if you cannot,” Hot Spot speaks firmly, yet there’s a flicker of wit in his next sentence. “But to be truthful, I think you would do a much better job. With so much practice, and all.”

Streetwise loathes having to function as second in command every once in a while. 

“This was supposed to be a necessities list,” Unable to help it, the building frustration fumed over his limit upon entering the disconcertingly quiet room, holding the data-pad up with some tenacity. A short suspicion arises at the silence of the room, given that Groove, Rook, and First Aid were all congregated in the center of it, all occupied by something he cannot be bothered to acknowledge. “You can’t just put random scrap that you want.”

“I didn’t.” Rook takes immediate offense to Streetwise’s accusation, nudging at Groove’s leg underneath the table to get him to pay attention. “The only thing I put on there was some cables to fix the proximity sensors,”

Groove jerks alert when Rook elbows him a second time, now in the gut, finally catching on with an annoyed oof. “Okay, okay, I’ll bite. Who put what on there that isn’t a necessity?”

Brow raising, rightfully unamused, Streetwise begins reading off the list. “First of all, you do not need any more access to television, Groove. It is not only wasteful, but also stupid.”

“How do you know that was me?” Immediately his defenses raise, and before he can think of a clever enough loophole, the resident medic interjects.

“I think your perception of what y/n wants concerning this relationship is severely misconstrued.” Spoken nonchalantly, as if he knows it to be unequivocally true. Realizing he’s being stared at, First Aid looks around the room until his gaze settles back on Groove. “I mean, where’s the lie? You’ve been acting as if they were expecting to get swept up in this mess.”

“You can’t blame a mech for being excited about something. Especially when it appears like a light at the end of the tunnel.” Rook mumbles, somewhat agreeing with Groove. “It takes some warming up to, for sure. But, at least to me, I don’t see the relationship as firmly an exchange of goods. Or out of intimidation, or whatever you think it is,”

He considers his words before choosing his next counter very judiciously. “What exchange of goods? We have nothing to offer in return.”

“There’s things we can,” Groove argues. “Why are you being so negative all of the sudden? You’re the one who went out of your way the other night to meet them,”

“I like y/n. All I’m saying is you guys are up in arms about this list when we should be a little forthcoming about certain things.” Highly intelligent, First Aid was being obscure about something he had picked up on that the others either hadn't, or chose to ignore.

“Like?” Rook catechizes.

Noticing Streetwise has been inexplicably quiet, First Aid glances over his shoulder only to address the second in command. “I don’t know.”

Unmistakably, there were some mixed opinions and perspectives on the whole topic, but it’s glaringly fair of First Aid to bring up that point. It was more a slight toward Streetwise, looking for him to speak up, but this wasn’t the occasion to make such lapses known. Out of any of them, Streetwise found himself appreciative of the medic's nudges to get him going. While Hot Spot had the words of encouragement, First Aid has the realistic overview and the ability to give him that final push to set the idea in motion, something Hot Spot would never pressure him to do. 

And it isn't so much pressure, but he needed them both. He needed both sides, even if he doesn't voice his appreciativeness to them as often as he should. 

First Aid wanted this, anybody could tell, but he wanted it to be carried out the right way and for Streetwise to be honest, knowing he’s been behaving anxiously since the day you’d agreed to help them. You earned at least to know whatever he was being cautious about, even if the medic didn’t know the full extent of the police cruisers' disquiet.

He supposes the root of his prod was to acknowledge you weren't gaining anything from this. Sure, Groove was sometimes overeager and overhyped the situation at times, but he was also one of the few of them to remain positive in this whole ordeal. 

“Necessities.” Streetwise promptly changes the subject, moving to toss the data-pad to the center of the table that the three of them were gathered around. “Fix the list. I’ll be back to pick it up in a cycle, and it better be a short list of tools and parts. And those items only.”

It’s become fairly alarming that you know the way to their home base a little too effortlessly, navigating the terrain without much problem. Driving through the wilted greenery per the season reminds you that the wariness always lingers, a smidge of doubt if you were truly doing the right thing. Yet, each interaction eases some of those stressors, finding that you’ve come to enjoy their company, in some roundabout way. They were good amity, a sensible change to a monotonous and secluded daily life that harbored ill will.

It was still an internal tug of war. One you were still figuring out, and you’re almost certain that they felt they were in the same boat. Perhaps this was out of necessity and the cordialness was just out of stipulation. It was all a gamble, the same mantra persisting each moment you took to dwell on it, and that intensified when you came to a stop between the same two trees, shifting the gear into park.

Just through your windshield you catch an unfamiliar figure, sitting nearby to the entrance, but with their back to you. It didn’t feel quite right interjecting yourself into situations where you weren’t desired nor sought, but you didn’t want to appear rude as you’d literally walk right by them to enter.

Quietly, you exit the car and close the door, eyes trained on the bot as you patter across the grass, hopeful they will turn around at any point to save the awkwardness. Of course, they don’t, either they do not hear you or aren’t bothered to address you, and you can’t decide which is worse in the proximate circumstance.

Fearful of startling him, you take a brave step forward and push the words out of your throat. “Hello,” Stuffing cold hands into your pocket, you shuffle just a bit closer, seeing that he’s moved slightly, acknowledging your greeting. “It seems we haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet,”

Perhaps catching him at a bad time, he isn’t as verbose initially as the rest of them had been.

“No,” He eventually says, turning halfheartedly to cast a glimpse your way. Not looking particularly happy about your impromptu congregation, the remaining ground between the two of you didn’t look particularly welcoming. “We haven’t, though I feel like we have. Just because Groove is incapable of keeping his trap shut.”

“Right.” You rock from your heels to the tips of your toes, the cold nipping gingerly at your exposed face. “Looking for company?” As if to leave the ball in his court, momentarily hoping he would just say no, and you could slip away without appearing rude. It wasn’t that you didn’t have a second to talk, but he performed as if he had loads of better things to do than chitchat with you.

After a second of thought, he weakly gestures to the empty space beside him, as if to motion you to sit. “S’fine.”

You can’t directly decipher if his remark about inadvertently meeting is a compliment or not, due to his delivery. It was not enough to uncover the genuineness, but with a few brave steps you join him, lowering yourself to the ground amongst the dried-out leaves. “But I hope he’s mentioned all good things,” It makes foolish sense to crack a joke, though it still escapes as you watch him lean backward on his palms, staring out into the horizon.

“According to him, there isn’t a mean cog in your body,” You must stifle the gasp that rises as he eventually tilts his head your way, staring at you intently. “But he’s known you for less than four Earth rotations, so I can’t really vet that information.”

Something within that recollection reveals that Groove may be a little too trusting, at least notoriously so among his crew, though, something swelled in your chest that he always spoke so highly of you. The praise was not so easily deserved, only for knowing you such a short amount of time, and you suppose Blades somewhat demoralizing quip contains heavy spreads of truth.

Out of all of them, this guy appeared the most apprehensive and withdrawn, not even offering his name, while signaling that he doesn’t trust you any more than he can throw you. It took a moment, but you recalled the conversation with Rook the other day, mentioning a Blades, and how you were lucky to have yet to meet him. This would make the most sense, given you knew there were six of them and there was the aloof Blades that you had not quite met, nonetheless.

You had hoped your olive branch to assist them could better screen you, even if just a bit, but this all takes time. You didn’t necessarily trust them upon first meeting, not as nearly as frank or explicable to their situation as you were now.

“That’s okay,” You chirp, making peace rather than sparking a feud. “I’m y/n, by the way. In case he didn’t include that,”

“Blades,” He offers, but the hesitation overpowers the astonishment. “Who roped you into what this time?”

“I told Streetwise I would come over to pick up the list of things you guys need,” A soft smile erupts on your lips, trying your damndest to appear friendly. “I’m off from work today, so I thought it would be a good day to do it.”

In turn, you find shock when he tilts his helm back and barks a laugh, more sardonic than finding humor in your words. “Good luck with that. They’ve been arguing about that damn thing since you told Streets you’d do it.”

“Arguing?” You begin to chew on your bottom lip, smile drooping. “Why?”

“We’ve been out here for about three years, in your time. We’re all sick of each other, and our resources are painfully low. What some consider necessities, others consider junk.” Blades huffs, moving his gaze back out toward the mountains. “You’re better than me. If I were you, I’d have high-tailed it out of here,”

“I tried,” Your fingers fiddle within your lap, suddenly overwrought once more in the reliving of the other night. “I must’ve been dead on my feet and delirious after work to even have contemplated Streetwise’s suggestion of taking me home. I tried to run away, but no offense, who wouldn’t?”

To an outsider, you wouldn’t notice how Blades softens, just slightly. His posture loses its tightness, which directly correlates with the fact that he’s slowly dropping his guard, but not divulging full conviction to you, yet your honesty was a good enough start for him.

“A moron.” Blades deadpans, and just as a laugh escapes you, someone calls your name from behind.

You both turn to find Groove and Rook, just shy of the base's entrance. “Hello!” You wave, to which Blades rolls his eyes and turns back around at the two new faces. “It’s my first time meeting Blades,”

“How unfortunate.” Rook huffs, to which Blades whips around to deliver a well-deserved dirty snarl, to which is returned with an exhausted look. “Did I lie?”

Straightaway, you survey the prevalent strain between Blades and Rook, but you can’t dwell on it long as Groove smoothly intervenes. “Let it go, dude. It’s not the time or the place.”

Blades grumbles but returns to staring out at the skyline, leaving you to bid him goodbye with a short wave. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Blades.”

He makes a noise of acknowledgement but doesn’t yield the same sentiment, and you fear that perhaps he just still doesn’t accept your presence in their inner circle. But you wouldn’t assume anything, especially because you were the stranger treading on unfamiliar territory.

Once you’ve dispersed, now following the two of them back towards the entrance, Groove picks up the conversation as if nothing just occurred. “So, how is your day so far?”

“It's been okay,” It only feels right to cast one last look over your shoulder at Blades, mind fleetingly reeling until you round the corner, and he disappears. “I had off from work, so no complaints. How’s yours?”

Rook beats him to it, answering the question as if he feels he owes it to you, for being so cold in front of you towards Blades. "We've been good. Some stress, but I think it's alright now," 

"Do you really think so?" Groove challenges, laughing a bit. "I don't know about that, Roo." 

When Rook and Groove left to greet you outside, Streetwise took the opportunity to indulge his plethora of questions. "How did you know I was hesitant to accept the help after y/n agreed?" He turns to First Aid, who was watching the security cameras at the main dashboard. 

"Hm?" He turns, knowing that time was not in their favor for this discussion. "Well, aside from the fact that most of your thoughts are loud enough to hear?" 

Streetwise shoots him a look, as if to wordlessly say: really? 

"I'm kidding. I kinda pieced it together, I knew something was wrong when you weren't as ecstatic about it," First Aid responds, vying to find the right words. "I didn't know what the reason was, but you weren't happy and that was enough to guess that you had second thoughts."

“Rook was right,” He admits, his shoulders shrugging upward in a bemused way. “I got too excited about the light at the end of the tunnel. I was being selfish. Accepting their help puts them in unnecessary danger, and I unfairly didn’t tell them anything regarding that from the start.”

Always the voice of reason, First Aid replies without delay. "You understood you made a mistake, and that's the first step in the right direction. The second, make it right." 

"I...yeah." Slips from his lips, understanding that the lingering feeling of impending doom was just outside, meaning he'd have to swallow his fears and tell you the truth. The whole truth. 

"I want this to work out just as badly as you do." Comforting him, he hears the door open, knowing he'd have to wrap this up. "Be honest. That's all you can do." 

When the three of you enter the command center, Streetwise's attention immediately pans to you, as does First Aid's.

"Hi," You greet them both, but return to First Aid. "First Aid?" 

"Good guess," He hums, relaxing his posture to appear less daunting. "Nice to properly meet you." 

"Likewise," You match his warming demeanor, meaning it when you said it. "I haven't seen you since the other night."

"Yes, well." Though wearing a visor, and a mask, he was very expressive while nodding towards Streetwise. "May or may not have gotten in a smidge of trouble for that conversation." 

“Speaking of,” Streetwise segues, shooing the three of them towards the inner door. “I need to discuss some things with y/n and all of you need to go somewhere else that isn’t here,”

“We’re just going to listen anyways, why make it more difficult?” Groove sulks, nearly tripping as Rook shoves him forward towards the panel. "Is this about the scrap I put on the list?"

“What? No." Now confused, it only spreads when you laugh, meaning that he's already run his mouth to you outside. 

"What did you make him remove from the list? If I can swing it, I will do it." Your compassion seeps through your words so effortlessly that Streetwise briefly wonders how you've become so placid around them all so quickly. 

"That's not- no. Don't give into him," He finally says, nodding towards the door again. You don’t see it, but First Aid tosses two thumbs up towards Streetwise, clearly content he was heading his advice about being candid. 

The trio eventually departs, leaving just you and Streetwise once more, a familiar occurrence. "Is everything okay?" You ask, feeling as if you've taken three steps backward after taking an intrepid one forward. 

"Sorta." Running a servo down the length of his face-plate, he takes the high road and comes to a knee before you, restlessness discernible. "I haven't been totally honest with you, and I want to make everything transparent before you decide you want to help us. It's only fair, not everything is as secret as we think it needs to be." 

He watches your expression change ever-so-slightly, a dip of your body language that demonstrates modest betrayal. "Yeah?" Voice suddenly small, you feel uncertain as to what more to say. 

"So let's talk about logistics," Streetwise starts, remembering how difficult this was all over again. "And then, we can decide- you can decide, if you really want to see that list."

[nsokolow]

Transformers One: Charoite

Chapter Ten

“Okay, I’m stopping here,” Starscream said the moment Iacon City came into view. He de-transformed and stood on the ground.

Charoite de-transformed and stood on the ground as well. “Really? You don’t wanna at least visit?”

“Charoite, I’m Starscream. I’m kind of a big deal, I’m not with the other Decepticons, and I don’t want any attention.”

Charoite gasped. “Hey! That’s another thing we have in common! We’re both a big deal!”

Starscream rolled his eyes and smirked. “Yeah, sure. Well, see ya.” He transformed and flew away.

Charoite flew over to the city and felt increasingly excited yet nervous the closer she got. She landed as soon as she reached the city limits. Her spark sunk as she caught sight of a sign that had a recording of a screaming, triumphant-looking femme, and words below her that read, “Chromia, winner of the Iacon 5000, will be making an appearance at Prime-Con!”

Charoite already hadn’t been too optimistic about whether or not the Iacon 5000 had happened, but it was still a disappointment. “Well, at least there’s next year, and at least I qualify again.”

Now, to find the Autobots…

Did they have a base? Charoite sincerely hoped it wasn’t a secret base. Then she’d never find it.

Charoite heard some gasps and whispers.

“Holy Primus! Is that…?”

“Charoite?”

“Sentinel said she was killed by the Quintessons!”

Charoite looked around and saw more and more bots gather around and stare at her.

“Yeah, it’s me!” Charoite grinned and put her hands on her hips. “The new racer from a while ago! I know it’s a lot to take in, but reports of my death were greatly exaggerated, and—”

“Sentinel’s little bimbo came back!”

“Oh no! Should we BREAK the bad news to her gently? Ha!”

“Liar!”

“Traitor!”

“Boo!”

Charoite’s face dropped. She noticed a large amount of the bots had either angry or mocking expressions. Her embarrassment turned to fear as they ran in her direction.

Charoite screamed and flew away, the flyers flying after her.

“Leave me alone!” Charoite yelled.

Her plea was only met with raucous laughter and jeers.

“What’s the matter? Scared you won’t find another politician to spoil you?”

After about a minute, the chasers were out of view. Charoite landed and frantically scanned the seemingly empty area for places to hide, when a yellow and black arm popped out from a small square door at the bottom of a building.

“Psst! Come with me!” A male voice whispered loudly as the arm gestured for her to come.

Charoite ran towards the door and was pulled through it.

“Hey! Where’d that little arm candy traitor go?”

“Just keep flying! We’re wasting time!”

Charoite sighed with relief as she heard her harassers fly away.

“Are you okay?”

Charoite looked back and saw a mostly yellow bot with blue eyes, a subtle pair of antennas on his head. She noticed he seemed to be around her height.

“I am now. Thanks, yellow guy.” Charoite tapped his shoulder.

“Oh, the name’s B-127, actually, but everyone calls me ‘B.’ Are you really Charoite? Like, ‘Sentinel’s-secretary-slash-girlfriend-who-was-going-to-be-in-the-Iacon-5000-until-she-was-killed-by-the-Quintessons Charoite?’”

Charoite’s spark jumped. Didn’t Megatron mention a B who worked for the Autobots? “Yeah! In the metal! By the way, how does everybody know—”

“—Awesome! I only started hearing about you recently, since I was working at this really isolated place called Sub-level 50 before all the so-called mining bots got cogs and could transform. After Sentinel died—oh! Shoot! I hope you already knew—I heard some stuff on the news about you having been Sentinel’s secretary and that it turned out you two were in a relationship, and that you died tragically during a trip to find the Matrix, which Orion—I mean, Optimus has now!”

“Uh, cool! How does everyone know about me and Sentinel?”

B put his hand behind his head and grimaced. “You know Darkwing, that bot you attacked to save Megatron when he was D-16?”

“You know about that, too?”

“Oh, don’t worry! I’m getting there. Anyway, Darkwing and Airachnid started dating, since they bonded over being alone in society, with Sentinel gone, Airachnid now being hated for having worked with him, and mining not being a thing anymore. It probably helped that they both have kinda have ‘I hate everybody’ personalities.” B chuckled. He cleared his throat. “Anyway, Darkwing realized that with you out of the way and with the new government still being developed—me working for it too—he had a chance to stick it to you for him making the news for being attacked by a little bot like you. He must’ve really hated you if he wanted to do that after he thought you died! Plus, I don’t think Airachnid liked you much, either. They broke into the news room, which sucked, because they just fixed it because a bot damaged it. Not me! Anyway, they broke into the news room and broadcast some of your romantic moments with Sentinel using Airachnid’s memory.”

Charoite’s jaw dropped as she grabbed her head. To think she once wanted to go public with Sentinel! How things changed! “What did they show?”

“There was Sentinel touching your cheek when you all were on the surface, Sentinel giving you that decal and kissing you, and there was Sentinel asking you if you were ready to go to the surface and him telling you that whatever happens on the surface stays on the surface.”

“I didn’t know anything! I swear!” Charoite cried as she held her hands up.

“No, no, no! It’s okay! I believe you! I always had a feeling you were innocent, anyway! I’m just happy to meet a celebrity! Hug?” B held his arms out as far as they could go…they were a bit restricted from the tunnel.

“Sure! Glad to be a celebrity! Wish I was less of a controversial one!” She gave B a hug.

“Anyway, I don’t know if you know about us yet, but I work for an army—well, ‘army’ feels like a bit of a strong word—called the ‘Autobots!’ I think we could help you find a way to, you know, get back on your feet. Me, Optimus, and Elita know what it’s like to have everyone know who we are, so, yeah! From three celebrities to another! What do you say?” B grinned.

Charoite was so relieved by how easily she was going to find the Autobots. Even though they were supposed to be her enemies, maybe they could give her some help! “Lead the way!”

“Fantastic!” B exclaimed, “A new friend! A co-famous friend! Is that a thing? Whatever, I can make it a thing! Come on!” B turned around and crawled down the tunnel.

Charoite followed.

[flipping-the-coin]

[Inquisitorial Report: Subject - Megatron of Kaon]

[Authorization Level: Alpha (Elite Guard Selective)]

[Listed Authorizations: Head Elite Guardsmech Smokescreen]

[Assigned Inquisitor: Hush]

[16 Vorns after Cybertron’s Restoration - One Vorn, Nine Stellar-Cycles into assignment]

═════════════════

Hey Smokescreen. I’ve found out a great deal over the past stellar-cycle… and I think we have a real problem on our servos. Just, work with me here as I try to explain it all. I’ll work down the chain of stuff I think is important.

I was doing as you asked and looking into Alpha Trion, and I’ve found some things out. Although before I begin, I will say I’ve found exactly nothing about that doctor. He’s up and vanished again so I’d drop it if I were you. From what I heard, this something or other Wire guy killed one of the mechs trying to track him. A guardsmech too, might I add. If you sent that poor spark out… Well, I found their body dumped into a ditch a few miles away from my current location. I’d stay out of that Doctor’s way. He seems to not want to be found. And please, if you even give a frag about us, stop sending Inquisitors younger than me out on these sorts of missions. According to the Decepticon codex, no mech younger than twenty vorns should be anywhere near the front lines for a plethora of medical reasons, and that poor Inquisitor in the ditch was hardly five. Don’t let the younger ones get involved with this. I know it is their duty, but they deserve better.

Additionally, it has come to my attention that the Primal Steward is straight up nuts. First Aid came back to us on the brink of tears last deca-cycle. Doctor Ratchet is apparently on the edge of nose diving straight into some sort of breakdown and it does not comfort me in the slightest. He said it looked like a nervous reaction, something Ratchet couldn’t control. I am dead serious when I say he needs a Doctor, Smokescreen. Poor First Aid is losing his mind over all this. Can’t you do anything to help? I may not be Ratchet’s biggest fan after all he’s done to Orion, but even I can tell that mech isn’t doing all of this with a sound mind.

Regarding Carnage… nevermind. I don’t think you need to know about him. Simply put, I’ve experienced some frame changes. Having Carnage around has made my life make more sense. I also had a talk with Megatron after I ended up being unable to keep my sensory panels down after he dropped a plate. I was freaking out over it because, you know… my processor is literally exposed in the back when that happens and I get so much visual data I don’t know what to do. He didn’t get mad or anything, he just sat me down at the table and passed me a new visor and told me to put it on. A full facial visor, battle worthy too from my assessment of it. I did as he asked and the moment I had it on, it connected to my sub-sensory systems. I can actually control what I am seeing now.

With the visor the world is a lot easier to handle, and even Orion seemed happy for me. I was able to control how and when I flare my sensory panels. I could even control my extra optics for once. I know it doesn’t mean a lot to you, but I’ve never been able to operate normally and that visor meant the world to me. It has made a lot of things better, but more importantly to me at any rate, the dust doesn’t bother me nearly as much. And on top of that, helping Megatron search out typos in his poetry is far easier. Our poem production time has gone down exponentially, thank Primus. I can only handle so much of that when Orion is gone.

On another note, Orion bought the land the engraver’s hab was on. He’s hired a crew to go and build something or other in that area. He didn’t share the plans and Megatron keeps giving me this knowing look rather than actually explaining anything. The garden is growing well and I actually feel proficient in my work now. Everything is going according to mine and Orion’s outlined plans and things are… theoretically quiet.

 It has been storming a lot as of late, and I ended up getting sick for a while. It was the worst when the date night I mentioned last report actually occurred. I really did my best to help Megatron prepare for it, I even took some meds I nabbed from the pharmacy nearby. But it was rough, Smokescreen. I got to help Megatron cook a strange dish I cannot pronounce the name of, and it tasted delightful of course. Here’s the recipe if you like. I zipped it for your convenience. 

[Kaoni_dishes_that_I_like.zip]

As I was saying, I was super out of it that night. I did what I could, but my vision was blurry even with the visor. I couldn’t see straight and it felt like all my sensory sub-routines were out of sorts. Carnage tried to convince me to not help since my vision was so bad, but in the end he served as my guide throughout the night. He was my optics throughout the cycle, at least until my tactile sensors began acting up as well. I felt like every little thing was so much more… there? Even the ground beneath my pedes suddenly felt so hard that it hurt my legs. I must have been down on my firewall updates because by the time I retreated into my hole in the wall to let Megatron and Orion have their date night, I could hardly move far enough in to close the vent cover. I must have passed out at some point because the next thing I remembered was being pulled out by Megatron of all mecha.

I had no clue what time it was, where I was, or what was going on. I just recall being gently laid down somewhere soft and having my visor lifted enough for energon to be poured down my throat. It got bad enough that I remember being too overwhelmed to even vent properly. But at some point, I must have gotten well enough to sit up because my next real memory is of sitting in the garden all curled up late at night, my sensory panels fully flared. 

Why am I mentioning this at all? Because I got mouthy when I was sick, and while I was out there in the garden, me and Orion talked. He had… a lot to say after I said my piece. And I think you really need to start checking out our ranks, Smokescreen. Something is off. But anyway, our conversation went something like this:

“It is very lonely living this way. Always serving, never experiencing.”

“Are the working conditions here not to your liking? If so, I am terribly sorry, Melody.”

“No. I love working here. I love living here most of the time… but I have mecha who expect me to serve them since they took me in. Without them, I would probably have starved to death vorns ago.”

“You are an orphan?”

“No. My caretaker got rid of me after my optics became a problem. The Guar-, excuse me. My organization took me in after they found me wandering the streets. It was a chance at a better life… all in exchange for my service.”

“Are you running from them? Is that why you have no residence?”

“I… I don’t know. I don’t know if I can run from them… but I care about this place. I care about you and Megatron. You are the only bots who have treated me well. Like a real person.”

“I will not pry, but do know I understand your struggles to a degree. My Sire took me in from the wilds when I was just a sparkling. But he was a very strict mech.”

“You were brought up in the archives, right?”

“By the one and only Alpha Trion, the Master Archivist. He had plans for me that I never fully deciphered, so he raised me in relative isolation. I was forbidden to engage in anything that did not meet his standards. Including but not limited to most forms of leisure or potentially dangerous activity.”

“At least he cared about you.”

“I like to believe he did… but my life was cultivated to his vision. Even my friends were brought in by him. Ratchet, my oldest friend, was my physician long before he became my associate and began taking me to see the world my Sire forbade me to engage with. And Jazz only entered my life after Ratchet went through… an accident.”

“That’s terrible. I’m sorry.”

“It has been over for a long time now. I have my Conjunx, and he showed me everything I’ve ever missed. I do not regret my life in the slightest.”

“If it isn’t too much, could you tell me about Alpha Trion? How was he with you? Like… his habits and whatnot?”

“Why do you ask?”

“One of my bosses was looking into him, probably trying to locate a secret stash or something. I don’t know. It’s not really my business. But he wanted to know about Alpha Trion’s tendencies for his investigation last time I talked to him… I won’t tell him anything sensitive, but it would be nice to know.”

“… My Sire was always a strict mech. He had a tendency to use the fears and beliefs of those around him to his advantage. He tried hard to get me to become religious to the point of fanaticism by leaning into my interest in history, but it was not very effective. His most common method of getting me to obey was to use conditioning, associating certain activities with reward and others with punishment.”

“Sounds like my training.”

“What?”

“Sorry, continue.”

“Very well… He also had a surprising amount of influence, often digging his digits into religious organizations to get what he wanted. I do not know the extent of it, but by the time I was preparing to leave Iacon for good, I know he had much of the Primacy aiding him in collecting data. It seemed innocent enough for a Master Archivist, but looking back, those priests, and the Elite Guard for that matter, were oddly devoted.”

“The Elite Guard?”

“Yes. The Elite Guard and the Primacy listened to my Sire whenever he gave them an order. Strange, is it not? I never understood it… but I do know that he was very invested in cultural survival and put a great deal of time and effort into preserving archaic beliefs. I think he may have even been an associate of Sentinel Prime.”

“O-oh… How strange.”

As the conversation went on… I started to piece some things together. Alpha Trion had his digits in the Elite Guard and the Primacy, right? Well I started looking into our organization in my down time and I found a few worrying signs, Smokescreen. I know you are technically at the head of our order, but looking at the charts, it certainly doesn’t seem like you are actually in charge of much. No offence, but all you do is give speeches and assign personal escorts when needed. Do you actually know who is doing the sermons or the teaching? What about our recruits? I was looking into the Elite Guard training program and they are far harsher on the little ones than they were on me. Are we becoming radical?

The Decepticons did the same thing millennia ago and look where that led them! Seriously, who is in charge of the Elite Guard? Who is running the church? I can’t find any names, just references to the High Priest. Who is this person? Because I’m looking at the details of the Guard and, by Primus… fifteen casualties a stellar-cycle amongst recruits. We are overly fanatic, taught not to doubt our Prime. Taught to obey without question. That’s textbook cult behavior, Smokescreen! The Decepticon codex outlines what a corrupt organization looks like and we are it! Money is going places I can’t track. We have agents that are being deployed to suspicious locations. The Primacy is issuing heresy warrants. Heresy! That shouldn’t even be a law! If for no other reason than our Prime would never permit it!

I know I believed in the cause once… and I still believe in our faith, at least to an extent. Optimus Prime, even according to Megatron, was a mech with firm and moral ideals. But the Elite Guard? We are corrupt. This must be addressed as soon as possible. There is no other option. And if you don’t start doing something about it? I will .

I have Megatron’s audial. Or did you forget about that? He trusts me now. He has shown me more kindness than all of the Guard combined and through him I have begun to see things differently.  If I tell him our secrets and our training, I can guarantee you that he will tell Orion. And if Orion knows? There will be the wrath of Unicron banging on the doors of the Citadel. Please know that I don’t blame you for this. I’ve looked at your records. You were just a normal Guardsmech before the war, and from what I gather, you’ve just transferred over what you learned to us. But that doesn’t change the fact that all of this is wrong. 

I apologize for being so antagonistic, but something is wrong in our ranks. I don’t know if it is Alpha Trion’s influence or the mech himself, considering he was never confirmed dead. But I am going to stay here. I don’t care if you pull me back. I’m not going. I’m staying right here with my data until something is done about this. 

I’ll be sending additional reports if I find anything else of note. But the time to act is now. Please, listen to me. If you care at all about what we are meant to stand for, help us become better. You are our Head Elite Guardsmech. You have the power to change things. I implore you, do what you can before it is too late to act and you end up removed from power or wrapped up in it. That is not a threat by the way, that is just the natural outcome of things according to Megatron’s writings.

═════════════════

[Report Received: Visibility Status - Seen. Report… Redirected.]

[Notes: … None.]

[kryptonitecore]

Reread: The Transformers (2009), #1-4

This comic really wants you to know that Spike Witwicky fucks, and I hate that.

We’ve gone from Furman to McCarthy to Mike Costa, who, as TFWiki points out, was at one point the third most prolific author in the Transformers canon, writing more than thirty issues. He would eventually be outstripped by later writers like Barber and Roberts, but I think I really underestimated just how much of IDW1 Costa actually wrote.

We have another time jump, this time to either two or three years into the future after Megatron’s defeat. I’m slightly wobbly on exactly how long it has been, since the comics themselves waver back and forth. Costa begins with his version of Optimus, who is very verbose… if in a slightly unfortunate way. No to be juvenile, but when you put together phrases like ‘reduced, in our impotence, to naked hope’ I can only assume you are doing it deliberately.

The art is similarly interesting, as Don Figueroa began to opt for Bayverse-inspred designs, which appear in several issues. I’m not a huge fan of that, though it does perhaps indicate who they are aiming this comic towards. A slight quirk in the art of the human characters, meanwhile, is that they often look kind of sleepy, with their eyes half-lidded. That, or they have a sort of resting sneer.

Characterisation with Costa is extremely variable. In some cases he picks up right where Shane McCarthy left off and builds from there, for example with Thundercracker, but with others he takes characters in a completely different direction. I think the most obvious example of this here is Prowl. In one of the first scenes, Prowl sees that Breakdown is potentially about to be captured or killed by Skywatch, Spike Witwicky’s anti-Cybertronian task force. Morally outraged, Prowl impulsively rushes in, breaking cover and disobeying orders to try and help the Decepticon, eventually getting captured for his trouble. Now, character interpretation is subjective, but this is coming after Furman’s strict Prowl, McCarthy’s embattled Prowl in All Hail Megatron, and the introduction of Nick Roche’s cynical, pragmatic version. Not only is this pretty out of character by any of those standards, it’s just kind of a confusing move - there were so many other Autobot characters who could have done something like this more believably, but it ends up being Prowl for some reason.

Ironhide is killed off very early on, so new readers probably would not have had much time to develop an attachment to him, and his backstory with Optimus was only filled out in one of the coda stories at the end of All Hail Megatron.

Speaking of Optimus… Wow, is Costa’s Optimus Prime not working for me at the moment. He’s combining a lot of verbose narration with some very high-handed actions and overall the character seems sort of clueless, vague, and oddly indifferent to the wellbeing of his own faction. I presume that Costa was interested in exploring the idea of a martyr complex and I honestly don’t mind that angle at all, but here the character seems to view himself as beholden to humans to a weird degree, even defecting to Skywatch. I know that Costa was interested in a human-focused storyline, but it’s really kind of jarring to see the character change so abruptly.

This isn’t helped by the fact that a lot of the Cybertronians in general, not even just the Autobots, come across as a bit hapless and are pretty easily captured by small teams of humans with some advanced technology, when only two or three years prior the US military was so incapable of fighting the Decepticons that other countries were preparing nuclear countermeasures. The time-skip helps make this more plausible and characters like Breakdown are presumably not in good condition, but it’s still a massive turnaround that takes place off-page. Regardless of these technological surges, Optimus is portrayed as feeling intensely guilty and somewhat pitying towards humanity, even as Skywatch begins attacking and abducting Autobots, including Prowl. And that’s a thing! Optimus seems weirdly complacent about Prowl being captured, despite the fact that Skywatch were actively trying to kill a fleeing Breakdown and, say, what the Machination did with Sunstreaker. I think perhaps Costa was so focused on developing Optimus’ relationship with the human characters that any sort of loyalty or camaraderie or concern about the second in command being kidnapped is framed as an overreaction. Certainly, Hot Rod/Rodimus is painted as impulsive and over-emotional, even as Optimus abdicates and defects, abandoning his faction in a crisis situation, because he feels really bad, you guys. The problem is that I don’t know if the irony is intentional or not.

Ironhide’s comments really don’t help in that scene, as he is written with a very condescending tone: ‘You did the right thing, Prime. Make the kid [Hot Rod] feel like he’s doing something’. Keep in mind, this is in response to Hot Rod taking a team to rescue Prowl… The apparently shocking revelation that the humans are willing to use lethal weaponry against them (despite the fact that they have killed and abducted multiple Transformers by this point?) results in Ironhide taking a shot for Hot Rod and dying. To be honest, it didn’t have a ton of impact on me, especially as it felt rather hurried. Apparently, Costa wanted to kill of Bumblebee, but Hasbro refused, so Ironhide was substituted in. Initially, I thought that Ironhide’s death was going to be used as a sort of ‘punishment’ for Hot Rod for not listening to Optimus, especially given the emphasis those panels put on the fact that Ironhide died protecting him and his reaction afterwards. However, in the following issues it didn’t seem to head in that direction at all. If anything, it helped to speed up Hot Rod’s alienation from the Autobot hierarchy. Also, a lot of characters call Hot Rod ‘kid’ in this, despite the character not being younger than them in this canon. It’s minor, but the character is written to be particularly immature here in a way I don’t think some fans would appreciate.

The strongest moments of these issues probably come in the one focused on Thundercracker, which I don’t particularly like, yet I suspect is the most competent bit of writing. Between this and ‘Heavy Lies the Head’, perhaps this is an indication that Costa fared better with character-focused issues? However, I didn’t enjoy the slower pace as much as I could have, as one of the chief complaints about the Costa run overall is that it is very decompressed, essentially not a lot happening in each issue and some arguably wasteful uses of limited panel space throughout. As a result, this feels like a slow issue among already slow issues, rather than a change of speed. 

Costa leans heavily into the change of heart for Thundercracker that McCarthy began, really developing his appreciation for humanity and Earth into something more philosophical and personal, a choice that would influence the character’s portrayal for the rest of the continuity. Nevertheless, I don’t love it, as I feel that his internal narration relies on a few too many faulty premises (the Decepticons were incapable of wiping out humanity, Transformers are a static and unchanging species, lacking in personal development, that Earth is the first time that Thundercracker has had an opportunity to appreciate beauty). Ultimately, I think that Costa turns the very internal process of Thundercracker reevaluating his life and then focuses that outwards… But it ends up going in the direction of putting humanity and the Earth at the centre of everything in a way that feels a little self-aggrandising. It feels like it flattens the Cybertronian characters (and any other alien species that are portrayed later) in favour of the human ones, I suppose.

Speaking of flattening, this is a minor bugbear, but IDW1 in this period had a bit of a fixation on ‘brothers’. Characters use the word a lot in dialogue: talking about literal brothers, members of their faction, members of their team, particular friends, and even just anyone with a similar frame type to them. I don’t like it because it’s used to so many times and in so many contexts that it starts to lack any meaning, effectively just flattening social dynamics between specific characters to very broad, boring ideas of loose alliance. Costa also makes a point of having several characters fail to understand idioms, despite the fact that it hasn’t really been a problem in previous comics, which further helps to make their speech seem formal and distant. See also: Optimus Prime’s voice.

This is also my first extended look at Spike Witwicky under a new writer and it’s not great. Thing is, I think there were ways Spike could have been a much more interesting or sympathetic character than he has ended up being so far, even keeping this general shape.  They clearly wanted a more action-hero-esque version of the character, so they aged him up, made him and his father military, had him be incredibly central to the plot and way more adversarial… Yet you also cannot tell me that Costa was not writing him to be obnoxious on purpose. I think wish fulfilment is the only explanation I can think of, that Spike was intended for certain readers to project themselves onto. Hence the insistence on the fact that Spike fucks. And drives a cool car. And is really muscular. And is in a super prestigious position with authority yet does whatever he wants, regardless of the consequences. And the frequent references to incredibly non-specific problems with his father.

Swindle does have good finger guns, though.

[minorisato]

all i think about is karma

transformers / tarnstreaker / wc: 2297 / warnings: references torture, minor manipulation / notes: the beggining of my djdstreaker au! reposted from my ao3 :3

“That’s another one done,” Kaon smirked, making a note of something on his datapad. “This one wasn’t very fun,” Tesarus complained. “He didn’t fight all too much.” Helex nodded along with him. Vos, next to him, made a comment in ancient Cybertronian, prompting Tarn to step forward.

“A traitor doesn’t really repent until they’ve died,” he explained, in that way where every word he said sounded like it’s own little speech. “Even so, they still know what their fate will be. That’s good in it’s own right, it means our message is spreading further.” He turned to Kaon. “Who’s next?”

The two began to converse as the Peaceful Tyranny approached, and Sunstreaker stared up at it, feeling… sort of bored. Tesarus was right, that one wasn’t very fulfilling. Sunstreaker felt hollow as he watched the traitor just accept what was happening, that he was going to die. They hardly had to do anything at all before he accepted his fate and gave in to whatever torture the division had planned- not nearly as much as usual, once they realized he clearly wasn’t fighting back. He, in Sunstreaker’s opinion, obviously didn’t care about whatever life he’d managed to garner separate from the Decepticons. Sunstreaker couldn’t imagine that this fate was better than sticking with the failed faction for the sake of it, but he didn’t know.

The Peaceful Tyranny landed, its doors opening to the mechs below. As soon as they did, a turbofox burst from the inside, running at Kaon. And then jumping at Kaon. And then mauling Kaon a bit. The electric chair merely laughed, though the laugh itself sounded like the laugh of a madman as he greeted his pet. Perhaps if The Pet was an actual turbofox, Sunstreaker wouldn’t mind the display, but knowing what he did, he just cringed away from it in disgust. They should get an actual pet, he found himself thinking, one that isn’t just a braindead mech who can’t transform.

Sunstreaker turned to get back on the ship, when Tarn suddenly called out to him. “A word?” He asked, and Sunstreaker let Kaon pass him with his trotting freak. “You don’t seem very happy.”

The yellow-gold mech scoffed. “Am I supposed to?”

Tarn seemed to consider him for a moment, which Sunstreaker had come to figure was a generally very bad thing, but eventually he began making his way to his ship. Sunstreaker trailed behind him, optics to the ground. “Everyone else gets some sort of fulfillment from this,” he explains, “be it by helping The Cause, or in another way. Everyone else is also a dedicated Decepticon, brought on by Lord Megatron himself.” Tarn paused, sparing another glance at Sunstreaker. “You are clearly an exception to that, but here you are anyway, having insisted on working with us.” Another pause. “I suppose I’m just curious what you stand to gain from being here. What, exactly, you’re getting out of it.”

Optics still to the ground, Sunstreaker replied, “Same thing as you are, probably.”

“This is a tentative alliance at best,” Tarn clarifies, which Sunstreaker knows. He’s known that since the beginning. “Any day now, this could change.” I could kill you. It goes unsaid, but the intention is there. The meaning of every word is clear.

“I know.”

Tarn lets out a vent, heavier than his others.

They board the ship.

~~~~

“Alright, you look fine,” Nickel tells him. Of course, Sunstreaker always looks fine- compared to the dirt and grime and energon constantly coating the rest of the D.J.D., he’s still up to par, consistently keeping up with being the best-looking mech in any given room. “How are you feeling, though?”

“Fine,” Sunstreaker tells her, referring to his physical health.

“Emotionally,” she clarifies.

“You aren’t a therapist.”

“No, I’m not,” Nickel agrees, gritting her dentae. “But I’m your doctor, and Tarn refuses to put any of our grave-robbed funding into getting a fragging therapist on the basis that no one here has expressed the need for one, which is absolutely ridiculous coming from him of all mechs-” She shakes her head, dialing back. “So I’m both, actually. Besides, if you start malfunctioning ‘cause you got too sad and didn’t wanna talk about it like a grown mech, that won’t exactly be helpful.”

Sunstreaker wasn’t certain that could actually happen, but he also didn’t know enough to call her out on it. “Fine,” he repeats.

Nickel sighs. “Really? Totally perfectly fine?” She squints at him. “The torture and maiming isn’t too much for your precious little Autobot sensibilities? You want me to believe that?”

He shrugs.

Again, Nickel sighs. “Alright, sure, fine. I’ll just go ahead and ask. What the pit are you doing here?” She sits down the datapad she’d been making notes on, and is now looking at him directly. It’s uncomfortable. “You practically begged to come with us and help. I was there. So why.”

Sunstreaker turns his head downwards, noticing the paint near his knee-joint has started to crack. He’ll need to repaint it later. “Same as everyone else.”

Nickel scoffs. “Wow, really? Didn’t know Autobots suddenly got complexes about defending the Decepticon cause. Oughta call the Prime too, ask how he feels about it.” Sunstreaker chances a glance back at her, and she looks some flavour of incredulous. “I’m not gonna tell Tarn, if that’s why you’re flipping out.” (Sunstreaker, in his own opinion, was not “flipping out.”) “I won’t tell Kaon either. Or Vos. Or anyone. They’d take away my license if I did that.”

Sunstreaker picks at the paint chipping on his knees. “Can you actually understand Vos?”

“No,” Nickel chuckles. “Normally Tarn will come in with him. Sometimes Kaon will, but usually Tarn. There’s some exceptions made to the confidentiality rule when the mech needs a translator present 90% of the time,” she explains, and Sunstreaker nods along.

A bit of the paint falls to the floor. “I don’t think it’s bad to want people to get what’s coming to them.”

Nickel raises an optical ridge. “Do you actually think all those ex-cons deserved it?” This prompts a shrug from Sunstreaker. “So you just like watching them die.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” he tries to explain, but Nickel just waves him off.

“Well, you’ll need to tell me just how complicated next time,” she resolved, “since you spent all the allotted time avoiding it, and I actually do follow some schedule here.” As she says this, a knock shakes the door from the outside. “Speak of the unmaker. I gotta take my next appointment now, get out.”

Sunstreaker is actually quite glad to do just that. As soon as the door opens, he’s met with Tarn on the other side.

He pushes past his boss- boss? Business partner?- nodding a curt greeting as he retreats from the medbay.

~~~~

The next stop is distinctly farther away, on the planet of Messatine. It acts as something of a base of operations, Kaon had explained to him, and Tarn had business to take care of on the snow planet before they could continue onto their real next destination. Business which he’d decided, for no apparent reason, to shove onto Sunstreaker.”It’ll be easy,” Kaon had assured him, “just walk in and ask to see Pharma. He knows it’s due.”

Sunstreaker was not entirely certain what Kaon was talking about, but he also knew better than to question it.

When he walked into Delphi medical facility, he first noticed just how run-down it had seemed. He also noticed that the person greeting him was distinctly not Pharma. Pharma was almost-kinda-half-famous as a surgeon, mostly for the fact he had studied under Ratchet, and the fact that he managed to be a jet and a doctor. The mech at the counter, exhaustedly filling out paperwork, Sunstreaker had never seen before. “I need to see Pharma,” he told the desk mech, who only glanced up for a second.

“He’s kinda busy.”

“Okay,” Sunstreaker started, “well I kinda really need to see him.”

Again, the desk mech glanced up at Sunstreaker, holding his gaze a bit longer. “You don’t look like the usual. You look like an Autobot.” He paused. “You are an Autobot.”

Sunstreaker isn’t arguing with a nobody.

He’s sort of saved when the mech he’s actually looking for walks through two swinging doors. Sunstreaker turns to him, and they both give each other a bit of a look-over before Pharma speaks. “We aren’t accepting any new patients at the moment.”

“Tarn sent me,” Sunstreaker replies simply, and the surgeon scoffs at him.

“You can’t expect me to believe that, Sunstreaker.”

Of course, because he’s also almost-kinda-half-famous. He readies his blaster, aiming nebulously for Pharma’s chassis, ending up pointing it close to his Autobrand. “I don’t give a slag if you believe me, he’s gonna be angry at both of us if I go back to that ship empty-handed.” Pharma is staring down at the gun, but the desk mech still just looks exhausted. Like this happens a lot. “I’m gonna go ahead and assume you don’t want that.”

Pharma clicked his glossa, turning to the desk mech. “When First Aid gets back, tell him to check room 36R,” he says simply, and then disappears behind the swinging doors again. This time, Sunstreaker follows him.

The walls of the hallway are just as bad as the walls of the entryway. They look like they’re actively decaying. It’s lined with doors, and Sunstreaker can hear a cacophony of mechs coughing and hacking behind each. Some are sobbing. The lights flicker overhead. This seems a lot less like a place to heal and recover, and a lot more like a place you could go when you’re just waiting to die. It was unnerving. It was worse here than on the Peaceful Tyranny.

At some point, Pharma stopped in front of a door that didn’t look any different than the rest. The only noticeable difference was a sign that read “STORAGE.” Unceremoniously, the surgeon lifted a metal crate out of the room, and then dropped it in front of Sunstreaker. “Take them and get out.”

The desk mech stared at Sunstreaker as he left. ~~~~ Sunstreaker never looked in the crate. Tarn seemed happy with it, and that was what mattered.

They could finally get on with their lives to their actual destination. Kaon had briefed them on who the traitor was, and what he’d done- generally, it was something along the lines of “ran away from battle” or “was enjoying life after the war ended” (though, of course, none of the D.J.D. really thought the war was over at all.) Sunstreaker wasn’t exactly paying attention, he didn’t care. Nickel wasn’t wrong- “defending the Decepticon cause” wasn’t why he was here. He himself wasn’t entirely sure why he was here. Why he needed to be here.

He still hadn’t gotten around to repainting his knee-joint. That bothered him.

Autobot traitors weren’t treated the same way Decepticons were. You were always allowed to come back if you were really really sorry, but not everyone believed you were sorry, and that was made worse when you weren’t really sorry. Almost no one would forgive, and no one ever forgot. Even if you swore up and down to not do it again, they’d never forget that you had done it at all. You were included technically, but in actuality you were ostracized. When you were an Autobot, you suffered, and when you were a Decepticon, you were killed. One felt so much more merciful than the other.

It felt wrong. To ally with the D.J.D. while being a traitor himself felt so wrong, but he needed to. Because the truth was that those Decepticon traitors had it so much easier than being an Autobot traitor- and still, people would look at the D.J.D. and think that they were the worst beings in the galaxy. Sunstreaker had seen worse. He’s been through worse. And all those stupid ex-cons, maybe they didn’t have it coming, but they sure had something good going for them. They sure didn’t appreciate it. Maybe that’s why he’s here. He’s so jealous. They all had it so much easier than him. When Helex shoves your brain module down your throat, you’re usually far too dead to notice.

From somewhere in the Peaceful Tyranny, music resounded. Sunstreaker felt himself carried towards it. He’s so jealous.

He’d already, even during his time still serving the Autobots, resigned himself to being hated for the rest of his existence, as long as his spark burned. He had accepted that his betrayal would follow him to his far-too-late grave, and the mechs he’d once considered his friends- his family- would never speak to him again. Of course he left. Of course he left. What was there for him, with the Autobots? He’d been through enough. He’d been through more than enough. Those idiotic Autobots and nobody ex-cons all had lives he could never have again, and they didn’t even appreciate it. Maybe they did deserve it.

The music got closer. It was so unfair. Sunstreaker could name a hundred Autobots who had done worse than him. It was so unfair. Optimus himself wasn’t perfect, but people followed him without a second thought, hinging on every word he said. It was so unfair.

Right on the other side of this door. The music was coming from here.

A traitor doesn’t really repent until they’ve died, a voice called, in the back of Sunstreaker’s helm. Tarn’s voice.

The same mech who was looking down at Sunstreaker now.

Sure feels like it.

“Sunstreaker,” Tarn began, reaching out to him. He just barely grasped the former Autobot’s servos, pulling him gently into the hab. “Do you want to come in?”

[eldritchships]

if you're doin em for drabbles - ❓ - "is this what you want?" with BlurrLine? 👀

On my hands and knees. I truly don't know what happened here, I think I got possessed.

❓ - "Is this what you want?"

This was a terrible idea.

Blurr’s been pacing this rooftop for hours, enough to practically leave his tire treads in his wake. He’d sent the invitation before midday, in what he’s now decided with increasing insistence was a state of delirium. And/or his central processor blowing a fuse. Or maybe some warped sense of survivor’s guilt. The point is that it’s now well past evening, well past the time he had listed on the invitation for them to meet. If anyone is going to show up, Blurr thinks as he stops to vigorously tap his pede.

Maybe he should give up and go inside, maybe it’s best that he take this as a sign to forget about this stupid idea, to forget about him. Maybe the invitation hadn’t gone through at all - Blurr had put it through half a dozen layers of encryption to ensure no-one else could possibly get their servos on it. Maybe he’s not coming and Blurr’s standing around on this roof for nothing. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Blurr’s audio receptors catch on the rumble of a jet engine, quiet but getting closer. His helm snaps up to the dark sky; his body’s first instinct is to seize up for action, but then a rush of relief, joy and apprehension flood over his spark. The jet’s shape is less sharp than a usual Decepticon’s, he recognises the wingtips. The most telling clue of all is when the jet banks and gently curves down towards the rooftop, and the soft light fixtures illuminate a pink and blue paint job.

Blurr steps back, feeling like his fuel pump is in his throat as the jet transforms, plating shifting in a fluid turn of gears and actuators. Turbines whip up a small whirlwind which disturbs the scenery, and Blurr raises an arm, protecting his faceplate. The pink Decepticon lands a few feet before Blurr, wings clicking into place on his back.

They stare at each other for a long moment, two sets of blue optics that don’t dare look away. The Decepticon - Flatline, who really came and accepted the invitation and is here - tilts his helm lower, a breathing mask retracting from his faceplate to reveal a set and sceptical frown.

“You came, I almost can’t believe it I mean it wasn’t the safest course of action and in fact there was a noticeable element of danger to coming but you did and I was beginning to think you wouldn’t.” There’s a smile on the corners of Blurr’s lips even though his servos are shaking. Flatline glances over his shoulder pauldron and ducks further into the rooftop seating area, hoping no-one managed to see him arrive.

“I didn’t expect to see you again.” Flatline’s voice is more controlled than usual. Away from any prying Autobot optics, Flatline circles Blurr; Blurr doesn’t miss how he’s keeping a distance, taking an assessment, gauging the situation. He must be expecting a trap. It’s a clever deduction, and Blurr expected the same. Blurr shifts, doing a slow spin so he can keep Flatline in view. That lilting voice is still hanging in his processor, but Flatline is still a Decepticon, and Blurr is a well-trained intelligence agent.

“I didn’t expect to see you either after the ship and what you did both to me and for me the former of which I’m still sore about by the way, you’re lucky that I was given a healthy diagnostic once the medibots gave me the once-over.” Blurr places a servo on his hip, giving a firm glare to make a point. Flatline slows to a stop, and a chuckle escapes his lips. Blurr straightens, his spark flip-flopping in its chamber at the sound.

“There shouldn’t be any long-lasting damage from anything I gave you.” Another helm tilt, to the side this time, and amusement plays on the guarded look in his optics. Lovely, shining blue optics- “Is that all you called me here for? Verification on your check-up?”

“No no no of course not.” Blurr shakes his helm quickly. He glances across their surroundings; a comfortable seating area for the tenants of the building’s habitation suites, lit with soft lamps dotted above the different benches and chairs. The current time of night gives everything a cosy and secluded atmosphere, one that might be more perfect than his original plan. Flatline’s question hangs unanswered, and Blurr chews on it for a second longer, averting his optics. The Decepticon’s wings twitch higher, slightly more flared. “I just wanted to talk to you again I suppose, I have questions and I didn’t trust trying to relay them to you over encrypted messages that might be found by someone else. I couldn’t get you out of my helm and trust me I tried and tried and tried but I couldn’t take it anymore I had to see you again.”

Flatline brightens, although it seems like he tries not to.

“You…missed me?” It’s barely even a question. Blurr crosses his arms, which causes Flatline to hazard a single step closer towards him. Ah, Blurr had almost forgotten about that; how Flatline always found it amusing and ‘cute’ when he gets fluster- defensive. He doesn’t reiterate how true it is that he could hardly think about anything else except this moment for the whole cycle. Instead, he uncrosses his arms to gesture in invitation to the bench closest to the two of them. Flatline’s optics flick between the bench and to Blurr, but he stalks over and takes a seat, folding one leg over the other. Blurr is quick to join him.

Blurr sets his servos on his knees, a digit tapping rapidly against the blue metal. He can feel Flatline’s attention closely on him, roaming up and down over his form, and he resists the urge to squirm. Instead, he goes for the spark of the matter; the burning question that’s been bothering him for weeks.

“Why did you help me escape? You never explained why and it doesn’t make any sense to me why you would stick out your neck cabling to release a prisoner, especially not when I’m an Autobot and you’re a De-”

“The same reason I kissed you.” Flatline cuts him off, talking over the word Blurr was about to say next. His pauldrons relax, and his voice calms from the bite it temporarily had, “....Twice.”

“Three times.” Blurr corrects, holding up the same number of digits.

“At least one of those times was initiated by you.” Flatline insists with raised brows. Blurr sits straighter, puffing out his chestplate with a huff. The corners of Flatline’s lips start to curl, primed and ready to retort to whatever Blurr says next in defence. He’s arrogant, too clever for his own good, cocky, and it gives Blurr a rush of warmth that could be either anger or affection. As a result, all he does is deflate, and stare at Flatline as he grumbles under his breath. Flatline cracks a full smile, and pats the servo Blurr has tapping his knee. It’s hardly a consolation, but at least the pink medibot’s attention drifts away - he sits back, helm tilting up to look at the night sky. That’s right, Blurr remembers, optics widening slightly, The first Cybertronian sky Flatline’s seen in eons. He’s been cooped up in ‘Con laboratories all this time, and from the soft sigh that leaves his lips, you’d think he’d been left starving without the pinpricks of light dotting the dark backdrop. Blurr doesn’t dare move to disturb the vision sitting next to him. Flatline looks pretty like this, with the lamplight shining on the curves of his pink frame, and oh so tempting…especially when Blurr isn’t being held captive. His gaze follows over Flatline’s form, but it lingers on the syringe built into his arm, and Blurr is hit with a cold reminder of the danger to this reckless idea.

A frown sours Blurr’s features, and he clears his throat. Flatline’s helm snaps back down to look at him, just fast enough to make Blurr tense. His vocaliser seizes, but he forces it to reset.

“See the fact of the matter is you and I clearly have some affection for each other based on our prior poor calls in judgement and I thought that might have gone away on its own but it hasn’t. I really really really must have caught some form of malware because all day every day for the last few weeks I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.” His expression softens into something close to anguish, shaking his helm as he blurts out a confession he wishes he had practised more. The ground unfortunately doesn’t seem like it’s going to do him a favour and swallow him anytime soon. “The reason I sent you an invitation and found the most private location to meet is because despite knowing this is dangerous beyond measure and will likely end in one or both of us being killed, I couldn’t bear not being able to see you again in person.”

He points his optics at the floor and keeps them there, refusing to look at Flatline. A unbearably long moment of silence passes, and Blurr’s servos fidget in his lap. He’s tempted immediately to start denying everything, say it was a joke or a deception and run as fast as he can out of the building. Surely, this is where Flatline laughs at him, and then impales him clean through and disposes of a loose end.

Flatline shifts. Blurr braces himself. Flatline scoots closer towards him on the bench, and slowly, ventures taking one of Blurr’s servos in his own. Blurr’s helm shoots up to look at him, watching as Flatline raises their interwoven digits. The look on his faceplace isn’t mocking, he looks flattered, and a little smug.

“Freedom looks good on you.” He presses a kiss to Blurr’s knuckle-joints, optics half-lidded and fixed on Blurr as he does so. Blurr’s cooling fans click on, sounding louder in the otherwise peaceful space, and he quickly straightens and paws at his own plating, trying to shut them off. Flatline chuckles, and releases the servo he’s holding. He shifts closer again, and starts to lean in. Blurr stops trying to manually disable his own internal systems and freezes entirely, although his processor is running faster than he ever could with a million whirring thoughts and hesitations. His servos hang in the air, unsure where to put themselves as Flatline cups his cheek. His helm tugs away slightly in the soft touch on impulse, and Flatline pauses. Blue optics watch Blurr intently.

“Is this what you want? Really?” Flatline’s thumb-digit brushes over his cheek. Blurr searches his faceplate. It’s so close, so close Blurr could move just a little bit forward and break the remaining distance so easily. His engine revs, and rumbles steadily to match the high-pitched noise he makes while his focus grapples with having Flatline’s lips so close to his own.

“Yes, yes yes please.” Blurr breathes. Flatline surges forward and kisses him. All at once Blurr is swept away by a tidal wave, washed over by delight and terror in equal measure and sparks are sent shooting through his entire circuitry. This is an awful idea and he knows that but his servos clutch onto Flatline as if his life depends on it. Flatline moves again until they’re flush against each other, kissing underneath the stars and soft lamplight above.

Blurr can kick himself for this decision later. Right now, his spark feels so full it might burst, and he’s too enraptured by Flatline’s intoxicating presence to think about ‘later’.

[constantzeigarnik]

Help me plan this Soundwave/Ratchet fanfiction, please for the love of Primus...

So this is a bit of a weird post, because I have part of an outline for a long ass oneshot I want to do under the read more, but I don’t know where I want to actually TAKE the story, so I need ideas, suggestions, just whatever you guys want to throw at me for what to do with this. 

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Rumble injured on battlefield, drags self off to secluded location to ping Soundwave and get rescued. Damage is sever, and he’s having trouble functioning enough to communicate to the others where he is, but eventually manages to get his coordinates out.

Ratchet finds Rumble in his injured state while doing SOMETHING and hardly even considers that Rumble is a Decepticon before he gets down to try and help him, despite Rumble weakly trying to fight him off and calling him some colorful language.

Rumble sends out a frantic comm to try and warn Soundwave and the others not to come and get him, that he’s been found, he’s going to be captured or offlined outright by this medic, and he can’t really do anything to stop it. Soundwave is already on his way, and Ravage will get there even sooner than him. They ignore Rumbles warnings that they should stay away.

Ratchet is well aware of the fact that encrypted comms are being sent, and he can only assume that Soundwave is WELL aware of what is happening here, but he puts that out of his mind and sets to work on trying to stabilize Rumble there on the battlefield because Rumble is just going to bleed out there before anyone else could hope to get to him if he doesn’t do anything about it. After a few harsh words from both Ratchet and Rumble, Rumble finally stops struggling and Ratchet sets to work.

Ravage arrives and slinks in the shadows once he sees that Ratchet seems to be working on Rumble, and he knows damn well that no matter what Ratchet is actually doing, attacking while he’s got his hands deep in Rumble���s chassis is only going to lead to Rumble’s death, so he hangs back to assess the situation and update Soundwave, who is only a short ways away, on what’s happening. The bond between them all is a frantic mess of panic and worry from cassette and carrier alike.

Since Rumble is awake, Ratchet tries to talk rumble through what he’s doing to try and save his life as he works, but Rumble can’t really do much to respond with the condition he’s in, so he is mostly just talking to himself. Rumble doesn’t understand why the medic won’t shut up, but some small part of him is grateful that he at least knows what’s being done to him, and he figures that’s why Ratchet keeps talking even with no response from the cassette.

Ratchet goes quiet when he hears a gun cock and he looks up to see that Soundwave has arrived. There is a brief moment between the two where they stare each other down like they’re just waiting for the other to make the first move, but Ratchet cuts the silence by demanding that Soundwave put the gun down and get his aft over there to help him. Rumble’s got more leaking fuel lines than Ratchet has hands.

Soundwave hesitates for only a fraction of a second before he quickly lowers his weapon and makes his way over to help in any way he can. Ratchet gives instructions, and Soundwave answers any questions about the cassette’s frame type and modifications that they might have truthfully as Ratchet works to save Rumble’s life. All the while Ravage and the birds watch from cover, questioning what’s happening, trying to calm a frantic Frenzy down as much as they can, but that is proving to be quite difficult. The only thing that even begins to kind of calm him is just that Soundwave is there at Rumble’s side now, but he is NOT happy about the fact that there is an Autobot working on him right then.

Ratchet is contacted by Optimus/Prowl/Jazz about just where the hell he wandered off to, and Ratchet informs them that he’s kinda busy trying to put someone back together. When questioned about who he’s working on, he dodges the question in some way, and perhaps ends the call early depending on who he’s talking to. Maybe Soundwave listens in on that comm?? Maybe he’s too busy focusing on Rumble??

By the time they finally have Rumble in a more stabilized state, the sounds of battle have died down and it’s gotten almost uncomfortably silent, and Ratchet is getting ping after ping of mechs questioning where he is, concerned. No word of any medical emergencies that might take priority over treating Rumble, and maybe that makes Ratchet realize exactly what he’s doing. Working on the enemy.

Soundwave has only been contacted by Megatron asking where the fuck he is and why he dipped in the middle of battle. Soundwave answers truthfully, at least up to the fact that Rumble is injured. He leaves Ratchet out of the conversation. Megatron isn’t happy, but he just tells Soundwave to get back to them as soon as he can.

Ratchet isn’t too happy to let Rumble go in the condition that he’s in, but Rumble is finally at least stable enough for Soundwave to take him and transport him back to the Decepticon base, and it’s clear that they both need to get back to their respective factions before someone stumbles across what they’re doing. Ratchet is pretty sure he could defend himself from the scrutinization of the Autobot higher ups if they had any qualms about him helping a defenseless and dangerously injured mech, but the lower ranked mechs would certainly TALK and who knew what problems that would bring up. He gives Soundwave some rather strict instructions on how to handle Rumble (much to Soundwave’s annoyance) but hands the cassette off to him and tells him to take his runts and scram before either of them get caught.

Soundwave takes Rumble (who was in and out of conciousness) and starts to leave, but stops and looks at the gun in his other hand. He turns back towards Ratchet, who’s back is to him as he quickly gatheres up his tools, and he raises the gun to aim at it. Ratchet stills when he hears the gun begin to power up.

All at once the cassettes begin to yell at Soundwave through the bond, demanding how he could even THINK about taking Ratchet out after he just saved Rumbles life.

Soundwave lowers his gun and leaves, Rumble tucked against his dock.

* * *

When they meet next, it’s face to face in the heat of battle, and Soundwave has the upper hand. Ratchet’s already been in one rough scrap and taken some damage himself, and Soundwave stumbles upon him while he’s trying to make some quick field repairs so he can get back out there and help more bots. Soundwave is in about as good a condition as he can be, and he has his weapon in hand at the ready, so when Ratchet looks up and sees him, he figures he’s finally run out of luck.

Soundwave contemplates Ratchet for a brief moment, not immediately raising his gun towards the medic like he had last time, because he can see that Ratchet is hurt, and SOMETHING makes him stop and consider his course of action. This time there’s no cassettes yelling at him not to do it, to spare the medic, but he can FEEL all of his cassettes are alive and well, Rumble included, and that’s only thanks to Ratchet.

They have a stare-down for a few tense moments, before the sound of the battle (some sort of explosion or order from Megatron in the distance) makes Soundwave look up from Ratchet. Ratchet tries to reach for his weapon again while Soundwave is distracted, but Soundwave looks back down to him before he can.

Much to Ratchet’s surprise though, Soundwave turns from him and walks away. Nothing is said or spoken between the two of them through this whole encounter, but as Soundwave is walking away, Ratchet realizes that because of what he did for Rumble, Soundwave would look the other way just this ONCE.

* * *

The scene begins with Megatron and Soundwave overlooking a live survailence together of 4 captured autobots currently being restrained by Thundercracker and Hook, one of which is Ratchet.

Soundwave is unfazed when Megatron entrusts the task of interrogating and extracting information from the Autobots to him, and really Soundwave sees no problem in what he’s going to have to do. It’s work he’s done before, it’s work he’ll do again.

He starts with Ratchet, because he happens to be the highest ranking Autobot that they were able to capture, so he would be the most likely to have sensitive information stored on his processor compared to the others. Soundwave does happen to know that Ratchet is FAR from an easy target to work with.

The cassettes seem ready to go in with Soundwave and help with the interrogation as they have plenty of times before, but this time Soundwave instructs them to wait, that he will handle Ratchet alone. They’re all a bit confused by this and immediately start trying to question Soundwave on why they can’t help, but he doesn’t give them an answer. He goes in alone, and Ratchet honestly doesn’t look too terribly surprised to see him.

Ratchet is handcuffed to the wall, and he has been trying to see if he can break out of them in any way while he was alone, but he stops struggling as soon as Soundwave comes in. There is a short silence before Ratchet begins questioning Soundwave, asking what he intends to do and how fast he thinks he’s actually going to be able to pull off whatever hack he clearly intends to do. He knows Prime and the other Autobots are going to come and get them out of this situation, that’s not a question, but it’s just a matter of whether or not they will make it in time to protect sensitive information from the Decepticons.

Soundwave of course doesn’t answer him, so Ratchet tries a different approach, asking where the cassettes are, and Soundwave just assures him that they’re keeping watch.

“Lemmie guess, it’s nothing personal, right?”

Soundwave sets to work, just a LITTLE surprised that Ratchet isn’t struggling against his restraints, or against his touch when he sets to find small ports on his helm so that he can make the proper connections he needs to begin an assault on Ratchet’s firewalls. That’s where the real fight would be and they both know it.

Ratchet knows he won’t be able to get any information about what Soundwave (and perhaps Megatron) plans to do with him and the other captured Autobots, so he lets his attention wander elsewhere. If he can’t get Soundwave to divulge anything, then perhaps he could at least throw him off his game by questioning some of his previous actions.

He asks Soundwave why he didn’t kill him when he had the chance.

Soundwave, to his own slight horror, realizes he doesn’t know which time Ratchet is talking about.

There are a few short moments that Soundwave doesn’t do anything, doesn’t even move as he seems to freeze mid search, and through the bond he can feel his cassettes questioning what’s happening, what Ratchet could have possibly said or done to stall Soundwave like that.

Megatron ALSO questions what Ratchet said, as he is still watching through the surveillance feed. Soundwave is pulled from his stupor when his leader begins to question what the Autobot said, as an inkling of doubt for his most trusted officer’s loyalty. Soundwave is quick to assure Megatron that what Ratchet is saying is well out of context. Megatron at the very least seems to accept this answer.

Soundwave, with his telepathic abilities, can sense Ratchet’s nerves, that he IS worried about what’s about to happen and is likely buffing up his firewalls and preparing for whatever attack on his system is coming. He can also feel the total, utter DEFIANCE all but radiating from Ratchet. Ratchet isn’t afraid of being hacked or anything else Soundwave night do to him, but he is afraid of letting of letting Optimus, his friends, and the Autobots as a whole down if Soundwave broke through his defenses before the others could come to help.

* * *

A scene in which (on earth) Soundwave and Ratchet end up trapped in a cave as a collapse seals them in. It happens mid battle, and neither bot are sure that anyone is aware that they’re in there. Soundwave tries to make contact with the other Decepticons, and Ratchet tries for the Autobots, but neither can get through.

Ratchet realizes he doesn’t know where his weapon has gone, and Soundwave lets his cassettes out of his dock. He’s outnumbered, and not for the first time he figures that if they want to kill him, he’s at a clear disadvantage and he might not make it out this time. Not that he would go down without a fight, but 1 against 5 is hardly a fair fight, even if four of them are casseticons.

Much to his surprise though, Soundwave doesn’t order them to attack like he expected. Soundwave instead instructs them to begin pulling rubble and rocks aside from the entrance so they can hopefully dig their way out. All of the cassettes take a look at Ratchet, but they seem… oddly relaxed with him there, and don’t seem to regard him as much of a threat. Ratchet finds it odd, but he’s not going to push his luck and ask WHY they don’t want him dead right then, not wanting to change whatever decision they had seemingly already made about him.

Besides, more hands helping just means that they have a better chance of getting out of there faster. After a moment of steeling himself, Ratchet doesn’t need to be told to get up and get to work alongside the Decepticons.

They all work in relative silence for a short while, though Ratchet can FEEL the encrypted comms going back and forth between Soundwave and his cassettes but he tries not to think about what they could possibly be talking about too much, instead just focusing on trying to clear enough rubble away that they could all escape.

Frenzy goes to pull a rather large (for him) rock away from the pile and things begin to shift. Rumble and the other cassettes are able to quickly duck out of the way, but Frenzy is caught so off guard that he doesn’t have the time to as a huge chunk of rubble comes right at him. Soundwave tries to snatch him up and pull him to saftey, but before he can, Ratchet has his arms around Frenzy and is shielding him with his much larger frame. The rubble hits him hard, and Ratchet can feel his shoulder get half torn off in the process, but he is able to keep Frenzy from getting hurt.

Frenzy isn’t too happy about being held by an autobot, but after he quickly squirms away from Ratchet and is calmed, he seems as stunned as the others do at what just happened. Soundwave recovers first as Ratchet pulls away and goes to sit down once more and have a look at his shoulder as best as he can, see what he can do to make an on the fly repair if possible. He orders his Cassettes to continue on and be EXTRA careful this time, before he makes his way over to Ratchet.

Ratchet is of course surprised to see Soundwave approach him as he’s trying to adjust his shoulder to an angle he can work on, and he pauses, almost telling him to leave him be and that he will help as soon as he’s able to. He doesn’t though as Soundwave kneels down beside him, and asks what tools Ratchet has on hand. Ratchet seems skeptical, not sure why Soundwave would want to assist him, and not being quite sure just how much medical knowledge Soundwave actually had. Soundwave was a communication’s officer, a spy, and an engineer, that much he knew.

Soundwave surprises him though by stating that he had worked on injuries like this before, that he was almost always the one to do his cassette’s repairs when necessary, and that Frenzy had sustained one very similar to this before in the heat of battle. Multiple times.

Soundwave doesn’t touch Ratchet right away though, simply looks the wound over as Ratchet goes back and forth internally on whether or not he really wants to risk letting a Decepticon, especially one as crafty as Soundwave, have a go and messing with any of his internals even if it was just his shoulder.

Rumble grunts as he hefts a large chunk of rubble off to the side after breaking it off with his pile-driver, and even if Soundwave went to go assist them it wad clear it would take way too long to clear out with just them. If Soundwave could help him get his arm back to at least a functional level though, then perhaps they could really make some decent progress.

After a moment’s hesitation, Ratchet agrees, and Soundwave sets to work on removing some of the exterior plating on Ratchet’s shoulder so he can have a look at just how bad it is before attempting to do a makeshift field repair on the medic. Ratchet does his best to guide Soundwave and assist in anyway he can, and thankfully Soundwave doesn’t seem to get irritated by the back seat doctoring, but he clearly hadn’t been lying when he said he had dealt with injuries like this before because Ratchet didn’t actually have to direct him terribly much.

A small silence comes over the cave, and Ratchet watches the cassettes continue to work on removing what rubble they can as Soundwave makes the repairs. He gets a bit lost in thought about how much of a bizzare situation this actually is, because Soundwave was his enemy. A notorious, dangerous one at that, and though it was clear Soundwave was only helping him because it would only increase the chance that he and his cassettes would make it out of here online. That was the only reason, right?

Ratchet’s curiosity gets the better of him, and he speaks up, asking why Soundwave continues to ignore the massive target that Ratchet knows he has on his back as the Autobot’s CMO, and how much of a massive blow it would be to the Autobot cause if he was lost. Ratchet didn’t exactly have an ego about it, but they were painfully short staffed on mechs who could do the life saving repairs that a lot of them often required after battle. If he was taken out, it’d likely only be a matter of time before mechs started dropping like nano-gnats, even with Ratchet’s efforts to train others in his field.

Soundwave doesn’t respond at first, instead keeping his focus on the repairs he was doing until he pulled back and hands whatever tools Ratchet had lent him back, and instructs him to move his arm and make sure it’s going to hold until they can get out of there. Ratchet doesn’t expect an answer to his question after that, but he does as he’s instructed and it’s certainly an improvement. He can’t exactly think of anything more he would have done if their positions were switched, and he can’t help but wonder if Soundwave has some proper medical training, or if he’s simply been forced to learn from experience. Either possibility seems equally likely to Ratchet.

Ratchet is starting to push himself to his feet when Soundwave speaks up, surprising not only Ratchet, but the cassettes as well. He tells Ratchet that there aren’t many mechs who would look past the insignia to help a member of the other side when they need it most. He is a Decepticon through and through, but it is nice to occasionally be reminded that in the end they are all just cybertronians. It’d be a shame to get rid of such a bright reminder.

Ratchet doesn’t really know how he feels about that at all, and it doesn’t seem like Soundwave cares how Ratchet feels about it because he is already going back to helping his cassettes with the rubble. The cassettes are giving Soundwave a bit of an odd look, but they don’t say anything and after a few moments they get back to work trying to dig them out of the cave. They’re gonna be able to make a lot more progress with the bigger mechs back in it too, but Ratchet is left in a bit of a surprised stupor at first. He can’t help but think that three times is a pattern…

That said, he’s not willing to risk prying deeper into that, because like Soundwave said, he was a Decepticon and Ratchet wasn’t really willing to find out how much patience he had (though he suspected quite a bit considering he put up with the Decepticon High Command). Instead, Ratchet rolled his shoulder once more before getting up and assisting once more with clearing the rubble. Thankfully, it isn’t long after that when they begin to hear muffled chatter and orders being given from the other side, and they double their efforts to escape before finally light breaks through, and Ratchet sees the familiar, comforting face of Optimus greeting him.

No sign of Megatron or the other Decepticons anywhere though.

When Ratchet glances back at Soundwave, the cassettes have already returned to his dock, and as soon as the other Autobots notice Soundwave, guns go up and stay locked on the Decepticon TIC. Soundwave freezes, and for a brief second nobody seems to know what to do because they have a high commander cornered and outnumbered by a long shot. Soundwave looks between the bots, and it’s hard to tell what he’s thinking, but just from his stance it doesn’t look like he’s even going to try fighting against the situation.

Ratchet hauls himself out of the hole first though and shakes his helm, telling Optimus that the battle is over, and he knows that Optimus isn’t about to order the death of an unarmed mech. Soundwave is hardly a mech that could ever really qualify as unarmed for a number of reasons, but Rachet knows damn well that doesn’t matter to Optimus. Mentioning that needs to check the rough patch job Soundwave did on his shoulder ASAP also does wonders to soften Optimus’ spark.

Unfortunately, the other Autobots are louder than Ratchet, more steadfast in the fact that they have the chance to take Soundwave into their custody, to sway the tide of war in their favor, and that they need to do so. Optimus knows this as well, and though he wants to simply look the other way, he knows he can’t. He orders Ratchet to report to First Aid, and for Jazz and Red Alert to take Soundwave into custody. Everyone there can see how upset Ratchet is by this descision, even if he schools his expression quickly and follows the orders he’s given, and nobody knows for sure why.

Soundwave watches Ratchet as he is placed into stasis cuffs, firmly locking his dock as he does so (much to the annoyance of his cassettes) and sending a quick, encrypted comm. to Megatron to let him know what’s happening. He does not get a response.

* * *

Soundwave is sat in a cell, his processor aching horribly for a number of reasons. The foremost reason being the long winded complaining and raging from both Rumble and Frenzy from within his dock for pretty much the entire duration of their transport into the Autobot holding cells, though they had long since gone quiet since Ravage had scolded them, and they had realized just what kind of an effect they had been having on their host.

Hours later though and they still haven’t been let out of the dock though, and Soundwave can feel the fact that all of his cassettes are starting to get antsy. They wanted out, even to just wander around the cell and stretch their limbs, but Soundwave knew that was just asking for trouble, for them to be hurt…. He couldn’t allow that. He had full confidence that if he let them out, they would easily be able to work out a quick and effective route for escape, even from inside the cell there, but knowing how to get out didn’t amount to much when nearly every mech on base had their optics firmly locked on them. Without the element of surprise there wasn’t much they could do but wait.

As far as he was aware though, Megatron hadn’t even made an attempt to contact him yet.

While they wait, the Autobot Higher Ups are deep in a rather heated discussion about what they should do with Soundwave now that they had him. The uncomfortable conversation of whether or not they should, or even could, hack into his processor for what would undoubtedly be crucial data and information that could be used against the Decepticons, and it ends up being a bit of a headbutting war between the mechs there at the meeting. Ratchet isn’t thrilled by the idea to begin with, because hacking into a non-consenting mech’s processor is not only a terribly violating experience, one that strips a mech of pretty much all of their agency, but with a mech like Soundwave it would be a risky endeavor for Ratchet as well, and he would be the one doing the hacking in this situation. All in all, hacking into a mech was something that was to be left as an absolute last resort in Ratchet’s opinion. Thankfully Optimus agreed with him, under usual circumstances, but having Soundwave in their custody was a unique situation, so the option wasn’t taken straight off the table, much to Ratchet’s displeasure.

Other options are discussed as well. Everything from using Soundwave as some sort of bartering chip against Megatron (It was no secret to anyone that Soundwave was Megatron’s favorite), to the possibility of just talking to Soundwave and seeing what information they could get out of him naturally (that one got a laugh out of Jazz), to the discussion of what would happen if they took the very drastic measure of offlining Soundwave, taking him out of the equation entirely. The utter devastation it would have on The Decepticons… would it be worth it?

It leaves a couple mechs with their tanks churning, shifting uncomfortably in their seats, but Ratchet just stands up and makes his way towards the door, not even wanting to humor the conversation anymore. Optimus calls after him, as well as a few other mechs in the room, but he ignores them, and Optimus stands to follow after him, telling the others that he would be back shortly.

When Optimus catches up to Ratchet, he reaches out to grab his arm and stop him, but Ratchet yanks his arm away and just turns on heel to glare up at Optimus. It’s been a while since Ratchet’s famous temper has been turned on Prime, but it’s still an intimidating sight all the same, and Optimus of course knows exactly why he’s upset, and very much so believes he has the right to be so.

Ratchet quickly goes into a tirade about how not only would it be wrong of them to take Soundwave offline because they’re not fragging Decepticons, and even if killing Soundwave would be benificial to them in the end, it wouldn’t be right, but it also just wouldn’t be something that Ratchet could sit by and let happen on a base level. His damn coding wouldn’t let him, and he knew that First Aid and anyone with half a processor would agree with him. Optimus gives a tired sigh and tells Ratchet that he’s right, and that he agrees with him, but Ratchet just snaps at him and tells him that Optimus should have shut that conversation down the moment it began. They could handle this situation without considering murder.

After that it’s Optimus’ turn to (much more calmly) call out the flaws in Ratchet’s thinking and remind him that they ARE at war, and that things like this do at time have to be considered. He then lets Ratchet know that this isn’t even the first tine that taking Soundwave out has been brought up between himself and a few of the other higher ups, this is just the first time that Ratchet has heard about it, almost entirely because Optimus knew that it would get this sort of reaction out of him. Soundwave is, and always has been, a high priority target for many of the Autobot soldiers, and the only difference here is that Soundwave is unarmed, to an extent.

Ratchet is, of course, pissed off by this and waves Optimus off, stating that no matter how high of a target Soundwave is, he knows Prime isn’t about to kill an unarmed POW no matter what the others say. He informs Prime that he’s going to go and check on their prisoners, because they’ve been left in that cell for hours with no fuel, no medical attention, and no information since they had arrived, and turns to leave. Optimus watches him go, before heaving a sigh and contacting Red Alert, telling him to meet Ratchet at Soundwave’s cell so that he’s not going in by himself.

Ratchet is a little annoyed to find Red Alert waiting for him outside Soundwave’s cell, but he doesn’t comment on it, instead just telling him that he’s just bringing Soundwave a bit of energon and checkin him for necessary repair jobs that need to be done. Red Alert makes a bit of a face at the fact that Ratchet is wasting energon on a Decepticon, but the look that Ratchet gives him lets him know that he better not say a damn thing because he is so not in the mood to put up with that right now. He also stops Red Alert from going inside the room, telling him to wait outside and watch through the cams, but keep them muted. There had to be at least some semblance of patient confidentiality here or Ratchet was going to blow a gasket. Red Alert looked like he wanted to put up a fight about it, but he could tell Ratchet was dangerously close to losing his patience, and he didn’t really want to be on the receiving end of whatever that would bring about, so he begrudgingly agrees, and Ratchet steps in alone after Red Alert has got the cams up.

Soundwave is surprised to see Ratchet come through the door to his cell, and really that just shows him how much his processor is giving him trouble if he can’t even pick up the mechs standing right outside the door. He watches as Ratchet approaches, eyeing the cube of energon in his hand, but he doesn’t move to take it straight away when it’s offered out to him. Ratchet holds it out to him for a minute before telling Soundwave that he doesn’t have to drink it. He can give it to his runts instead if he wants, or if he really doesn’t want to take it, Ratchet will just have it himself. It’s well past his refueling time anyway, and the energon’s certainly not going to go to waste.

Soundwave stays still for a moment more before reaching out and taking the cube. He looks it over, before finally his mask retracts back with a click, and he tests the energon with a sip. Ratchet’s more surprised about the fact that there’s nothing particularly remarkable about Soundwave’s face that he can see (lower half, anyway, his visor is still in place and who’s to say what’s going on under there) than he is surprised about the fact that Soundwave actually retracted his mask in the first place. He doesn’t stare though, and Soundwave’s mask clicks back into place in short order after that, the cube hardly touched.

Seconds later, Soundwave finally unlocks his dock and calls his Cassettes out, ejecting each of them until they’re all stood between himself and Ratchet, who takes a half step back when the minicons come out, but they look more tired and a bit confused than eager for a fight, all of them looking up to Soundwave rather than giving Ratchet more than a glance. Ratchet watches as Soundwave wordlessly hands the cube off to Frenzy, and he can tell that they’re communicating through either some sort of encrypted comm. link or possibly through a bond, but a few moments later the cassettes move to the side and all but huddle together as they begin refueling, passing the cube between each other and letting the cassettes with beast forms take their turns drinking as well.

There’s something about the gesture that strikes a cord in Ratchet when he sees it, because he has his suspicions that Soundwave would have gladly taken that cube for himself if his cassettes weren’t present or in need of fuel themselves. He watches the cassettes for a brief moment before clearing his vocals and turning his attention fully to Soundwave for the moment.

He asked questions that he hadn’t bothered trying back in the cave, keeping it professional and really only wanting to know if there were any injuries that had been sustained in the battle that he hadn’t known about before. They had all seemed to be in fair condition considerin they had been able to haul rocks and boulders away from the cave in, but Ratchet had long since learned just how far a mech could push themselves when they needed to, well past the point of injury and breakage.

Soundwave kept his answers short, denying that any of them needed any medical attention, and Ratchet can all but feel the telepath prodding at the most outer barriers of his processor. He’s not sure what Soundwave is looking for, but he quickly bolsters his defenses and continues on as if he hadn’t noticed the attempt. It was a strane feeling, the sensation of someone else’s conciousness prickling at the back of your mind, and Ratchet decided he didn’t much care for it. As soon as his defenses went up, Soundwave’s posture changed, from leaning forward in an almost curious manner to stiff, restrained and pulled in, almost like he was trying to make himself look a bit smaller. It was likely an instinctive movement, useful when dealing with aggressive Decepticons out for the blood of anyone unlucky enough to catch their attention. It wasn’t so useful in an empty room with a single other mech and a camera.

After that Ratchet catches Soundwave up to speed on what’s happening, the fact that they are in discussions now about just what to do with him, and what Soundwave’s options are. Soundwave continues to regard Ratchet in silence as he takes in everything that is being said to him, and a few of the things that Ratchet says does get some nasty looks from the cassettes as well, but when Ratchet finally finishes with what he has to say, there are a few tense moments of nothing between them all. Ratchet figures that maybe he just isn’t going to get anything else out of Soundwave, and to be fair that’s really all he had expected coming in here in the first place, and he felt he had done his job checking up on them since it didn’t seem like anyone else was going to anytime soon.

Ratchet just puts his datapad away and mutters something about needing to go back and see what arguments had bubbled up in the meeting while he had excused himself (assuming they let him back in there in the first place) before he turns to leave Soundwave and the cassettes to the cube. Before he can take more than a step or two, there’s a hand on his arm, grip strong and keeping him from leaving. Soundwave has leaned forward once again, seemingly on impulse, and grabbed him much to Ratchet’s surprise. He can already hear Redalert going off through the comm. he still has open with him, starting to call for help and likely going for his gun just on the other side of the door, but Ratchet tells him to cool it before Redalert can get it open, and he calmly turns back to Soundwave, who very quickly realizes what he just did and lets Ratchet’s arm go.

“Query: Termination possible?”

It’s a weird question to Ratchet, mostly because of Soundwave’s voice modulator which doesn’t allow for any real inflection of his voice. He can’t hear any fear or concern behind his words, but just like that all optics are locked on Ratchet. Soundwave’s face is still hidden behind it’s visor and mask, but Ratchet can feel just how closely Soundwave is watching him. The cassettes are all looking to him as well, expressions caught somewhere between aggression and concern, ready to fight for their lives if they had to just like they all were, but they held back.

Ratchet could have told them about what was actually being discussed in the meeting in detail, how termination had been brought up as a possibility, but not only would that likely have counted as a breach in confidentiality from a faction standpoint, he just didn’t even want to entertain the idea anymore than he already had.

Ratchet denies it, quickly, firmly. He doesn’t know what exactly is going to happen with Soundwave and his cassettes, but he knows that as long as he’s still online, they’ll remain that way as well, assuming they don’t give them a reason to need to take them offline anyway… He doesn’t expect thanks, he doesn’t even really expect a response after he assures Soundwave that he’s not going to be offlined as a POW. What he really doesn’t expect though, is what Soundwave says next.

Soundwave asks Ratchet why he is ignoring the massive target on his back.

There’s something about the way it’s asked that gets to Ratchet, using his own words on him, makes him want to scoff and blow the question off and just leave.

“I don’t think you need to ask me that, Soundwave.”

[missmeltycat]

Ohhhh boy. Here we go. *Cracks knuckles*

Let me just start with the preface that I have been with TF since the very beginning and so my love for these mechanical goobers is so deeply rooted in my soul that my blood cells are Seekers.

Anyway... That aside, I suppose I should wiggle my way into some form of thing to express my feelings for them.

Hold onto your butt, this might turn into a bit of an essay.

Starscream

I don’t say this lightly or with any sort of warped pride, but I relate to Starscream. Some have likened him as my second braincell. This is something that stems from a long time ago where I struggled in life for recognition and desperately tried to be better at every possible moment. It’s a long story and filled with a butt-load of trauma and a**se and whatnot that I won’t add on here. This guy was one of those oddities where I was instantly hooked on him. I felt a connection, I felt a strange draw. I’m a massive fan of aircraft, so that definitely added to my fascination with him and his Seeker brethren.

I enjoy his nature, his hilarious moments of whiney ridiculousness. I also greatly enjoy some of the other arcs out there that explain his need for power as a way of earning respect, a way to finally be noticed for his talents and capabilities, but of the Decepticon’s own free will rather than subjugation. Something that deeply resonates with my past self.

This guy has had the biggest impact on me through the past few decades. Hell, I even created a dumb satire thing called the Starscream Family Chronicles that got popular once, based on him finding a human mate and having to put up with human family politics (Such as shopping for his new grandmother-in-law) while still trying to be the Decepticon SIC. To be honest, I should probably bring that whole thing back, it was pretty freakin’ funny.

TFA-wise, he’s just fun. As are every single one of his clones.

Oh, can I just say that Buscemi as his voice in TFOne was a stroke of genius. <3

Thundercracker

Oh, come on. He’s a Seeker. Instant hit! And blue is my favourite colour!

TC is a warrior, but I do love how they are fleshing him out to be more of a pacifist-minded guy who actually doesn’t hate everything. I remember back in the day he was quite brutish and had the whole bias towards grounders. I like how he’s more nuanced lately.

Skywarp

Back in the day, back when I was part of a couple of communities online that interacted and did some silly RPs together (One of which is where I actually met Derrick) my now husband decided to join in and played Skywarp. Ever since then, I can’t resist that SOB.

Thrust, Dirge and Ramjet

HURR DURR DUMB PLANES HOT. Basically. They’re like a harem of rocks for brains, but I love them.

Acid Storm

Going back to the aforementioned communities, when I was trapsing around with Derrick and Co on Formspring, that’s when my love for Acid Storm was kindled. You may know of the character I worked on (Ionia), well I decided to adapt her for RP purposes as a G1 Seeker. Despite the fact she isn’t anything to do with TF, it worked. Well, tl;dr: There was an Acid Storm RPer and the two interacted a lot and I kinda just… Began to appreciate the obscure character from that.

(Acid x Ionia forever)

Jazz

G1 Jazz stole my heart. As a dancer and music lover, his vibe and enthusiasm just worked for me. He was also extremely loyal, dedicated and capable, despite his nature, which proves that you can be so much more than one thing. Despite being a car nut, but one who is not fond of Porsche, I adore his Martini Porsche 935 Turbo alt mode. I love his visor too. And that smile. <3

TFA Jazz, while I was never fond of his helm design (The white cap design) I loved his body type and the face. It kept so much of his OG self while also giving him something that really matched his personality.

What can I say? I’m a sucker for Jazz.

Ratchet

Cranky boys have a place in my heart. I can’t help it. He’s just so OLD MAN CRANKY BASTARD!

Kup

Again OLD MAN CRANKY BASTARD! Aughhhh! I love him and that VOICE. <3

Ultra Magnus

Any Ultra Magnus is fine by me. I didn’t always like him. In fact, I actually used to find his huge optics in G1/G2 to be mildly terrifying. A bit like how I found Starscream mildly terrifying once upon a time when they did close ups of his face. But I grew to appreciate him. His size, his nature, the fact he’s self-deprecating despite his obvious skill. A humble, sweet, big guy with some PTSD issues. I love him to bits. TFA Ultra Magnus is just as OLD MAN CRANKY BASTARD for me. Gotta love him. His design is just… MMPH chefs kiss.

Megatron

OK OK OK, look. I can’t help it. He’s badass, has a great voice no matter which iteration you’re watching and he has PRESENCE. I admit that G1 and TFA catch my attention the most.

Optimus Prime

This one is definitely a guilty pleasure for me. He grew on me massively over the years. Plus, TFA Op has those lips you just wanna SMONCH.

Blitzwing

TFA Blitzy is brilliant. I love him and feel sorry for him in equal measure. Everyone seems to have a soft spot for the guy and I don’t blame them, but I will say it right now… Hothead is my favourite. 😉

Yoketron

Let me take you back to the Derrick era again. Haha. During that time a Yoketron account popped up and began to interact with everyone. My Ionia, being G1, had a hilarious little plot point where she slipped through a time rift allowing her to infiltrate the TFA universe, thus keeping continuity. (Continuity was everything back then, let me tell you.) She met Yoketron and the two interacted for a while. There were shenanigans, some drama surrounding Prowl’s tree which got them chased off the site and that’s how I basically grew to enjoy the character just a little more.

Henry Masterson

OK, look… This guy was me in the 90s/early 2000s. L337 speak was just part of my daily online and gaming life. Hell, I even had P|-|33r 73|-| |337 |-|4><><0r as my forum sig for a long ass time. I still even retain some of the lingo and occasionally slip back into it. (Don’t cringe too hard.)

Yeah, you can see where I’m going with this. He’s my other braincell. He’s just fun and does actually have major potential. Plus, human Starscream vibes, you know?

I remember the day Derrick posted something of him and I was like “WHO DAT” and he responded with “DON’T”. Haha. I guess I’m predictable.

Did I forget anyone?

Lowkey I wanna talk about your tfa "hear me outs" because they're so interesting ;A; sdfgfdfg

Oh, I'm always open to divulging my shameful thirst. Hahaha.

[cas-kingdom]

❛❛ If you don't know how to follow an order, perhaps you shouldn't be here. ❜❜

“If you don’t know how to follow an order, perhaps you shouldn’t be here.”

The sonorous voice of the Autobot commander reverberated around the construction site. He paced back and forth, ignored by the men clearing the ground after the Decepticon attack and the following confrontation, his fists clenched and his battle mask still at the ready.

Below him, sat in the back of an ambulance, a nurse finishing his last touches in bandaging your arm, you ardently glared in response. You were the only being, robot or human, with the nerve to do such a thing, demonstrated very easily by the silence of the nurse and the quick movements of anyone passing by, their faces set with a determination to get out of the way lest Optimus accidentally step on them.

“Oh, you’d love that, wouldn’t you?” you said provocatively, causing Optimus to pause in his pacing and the nurse to stop bandaging for a split second, his eyes subconsciously widening. You leant forward, your glare hardening. “To hide me away every time something big happens just so I don’t get hurt? To keep me away from…what I want to do?”

The 'Bot’s optics narrowed dangerously. “Do you truly think I would consider the opposite?” he all but hissed, steam practically emanating from his body. “I do not prioritise your desire to run into danger, however fierce that desire is, over your safety.”

You stood to your feet and the nurse gladly moved to tend to others. “I can do—”

“No,” Optimus interrupted. “You are not yet experienced enough. One day you will be, and perhaps I may feel more inclined to let you come on a mission like this, but for now, when I tell you to stay behind—” He lowered his voice and his head, his optics piercing your eyes— “you stay behind.”

You could have said something else. Countless words were circling your brain, crawling towards the tip of your tongue, all too eager to spill...but your emotions were high, and before you could let any of them leave your lips, your eyes welled with sudden tears and you clamped your mouth shut, turning quickly away from him.

Seeing this, Optimus took the time to reign in the steam and cool himself down, straightening after a moment to give you space. You both knew his anger was the result of multiple things, all stemming from the fact you had directly disobeyed an order he’d given you and trusted you to abide by, and you knew you deserved it. Still, you rarely got into such meaningful arguments, and never had the need for one such as this arose before today. Whatever Optimus’s feelings, the sight of you upset still tugged at his spark.

He turned towards where you were staring, averting his gaze so he didn’t make it awkward for you when he caught sight of the tears he knew were there. Taking in a deep, unneeded breath, he ensured the next words to leave him would be softer.

“This injury today could have been worse, Y/N,” he said slowly. “If one thing had gone sideways…had gone in any way different…well. You might not be here for me to reprimand.” He glanced down at you then, hoping he’d somehow penetrated your current frozen exterior and knocked some important sense back into you. You were still looking ahead, one hand wrapped loosely around your bandaged forearm, where a piece of shrapnel, sent flying by a Decepticon, had sliced through your skin. He felt his jaw tense at the sight of it, remembering the events before, during and after...remembering how he’d suddenly seen you in the fray of battle when he also remembered ordering you to stay away.

Another sigh wafted through his vents. “Do not ever put me in that position again,” he said. “I cannot, I refuse, to deal with the grief I and countless others would feel at your loss. If you ever repeat today’s actions, I will send you home. Do you understand?”

You sniffed. “Yeah,” you mumbled, and Optimus nodded once in acceptance, as satisfied as the situation could presently allow. He didn’t speak lightly. The words held powerful weight. He loved having you at N.E.S.T. just as much as you did, and the emotional turmoil of sending you back to your parents would not be easy...but if it meant you would be safe, he would not think twice about it.

“It isn’t what I want,” he said, finally causing you to tilt your head slightly to look at him, your tear-stained cheeks glistening in the sunlight. “You said I desire to keep you from what you want to do. Primus knows your happiness is something I value greatly, but I have been in countless situations like this before. I know how they turn out. If shielding you from them keeps you alive, no matter how much you may hate me, I will do it over and over.”

There was a moment of silence, the quietude interrupted only by Will’s voice shouting orders in the distance and the clanging of metal as the men dealt with the dead Decepticon and the wreckage it had left behind. A cold wind blew past and you shut your eyes, letting yourself relax. 

“I don’t hate you,” you said, wrapping your arms around yourself. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

Optimus nodded once. “I accept your apology,” he said. Any hint of animosity had left his voice and you were glad of it. It was an established fact between you that your relationship would be rocky for the next few days as you each built it back, and there would likely be further conversation to add to this one, but for now, it was over.  

“Colonel Lennox says the injury will heal well,” he said, referring to the moment Will had pulled him aside to speak to him before he’d turned his attention on you.

“That’s what the Doc told me,” you confirmed with a small nod. “I’m fine.”

“Good.”

Silence reigned once more, a peaceful one this time, and when you could no longer keep your emotions on the side-line, the stress and fear of the situation bleeding through, your quiet cries broke through the loud wind, and Optimus quietly bent to let you step on his palm. He brought you to his shoulder and you grasped the plating on his head as you sat there, the both of you working on what you could before you built together once more.

Transformers Masterpost

send me the first sentence of a fanfic and i’ll write the next five, except i don’t know when to stop writing so i guarantee there’ll be more than five

[quibbs126]

So I ended up making the Transformers X reference for Megatron today

I wasn’t planning on doing it this soon, but I tried drawing Elita again and it was not going well, as usual, and the rest of what I was drawing wasn’t working out either, so I went “screw it, let’s do Megatron’s ref because I can actually draw him”

It’s now that I’m really noticing how plain the background is. I mean I already knew that, but since Megatron doesn’t need a weapon ref, it really is just him and the title text on a white background. I need to find some better look for it

But anyways, outside of the new colors and some additions to his lower half, the main new thing is his Autobot symbol. I do admit his gem might be superfluous at this rate, especially as it’s the only purple on his design (well, proper purple at least), but I like how it looks, and I don’t want to get rid of it. So I instead put his symbol on his shoulder, though opposite of Optimus’. I also colored the lines instead of the symbol because that’s how Optimus has it. I know that’s because he and the symbol are the same color, but might as well keep that up here, with me deciding to make the lines another color on the body; purple here so there’s another use for that gem color. Maybe I’ll change it later, but for now that’s how I’m having it

Overall I think I’m pretty content with this design though. My only real gripe at the moment is that his left arm looks a bit stiff, but oh well

And I suppose while we’re here, might as well give the basic recap on him like I did Optimus

Megatron is another high ranking member of the Autobots, known for his incredible power, recognizable in his large cannon that makes up his right arm (even it means he doesn’t have a right hand). While he can be rather violent on the battlefield, and has an amount of intensity and aggression off it, he’s overall a very dependable bot, especially to his battle partner, Optimus Prime

He’s also notable for his immunity to the virus that plagues Cybertron, same as Optimus. Although unlike Optimus, who gets his immunity from the Matrix of Leadership, it is unknown what causes his. Though it is also by others that he differs from many bots in his inner workings (such as his non retractable cannon and his solar panel recharging system), and truth be told, no one truly knows where he comes from or who built him, including himself. So it’s assumed he simply is immune due to differing systems

However, while he is truthful about his unknown origins, he lies about his immunity to the virus. But it did not affect him the way it does any other bot, and he doesn’t know why. And in truth, he doesn’t want to know, because he’s afraid of what it means about himself. And he’s afraid of ever being cured, because while he doesn’t remember his origins, he does remember his days before the virus and never wants to return to them

He knows that withholding this information could be blocking the path to finding a cure, and he knows he’ll be punished if the truth ever comes out, but he doesn’t want to be out in a cage to be studied, and he doesn’t want to lose the Autobots, the only people he has. Especially not Optimus, the most important person in his life. So for now, he’ll keep up the lie, and hopefully, he will never be found out

While he was never a Decepticon, he’s far more tied to them than he or anyone else realizes, all except the mysterious Decepticon leader himself, who’s very interested in turning Megatron to their side. But for what purpose?

And yeah, I think that about wraps it up here

[fangirlingpuggle]

Yet another very dumb half asleep TFA AU idea.

So AU where a Decepticon will scar a bot in certain way (one that can’t be fully repaired) it signals for other Decepticons to not kill the bot for 2 reasons 1) I am the one who is going to kill this Autobot or 2) I’m courting this one DIBS.

The scars are similar and only very high up Autobots know the difference (All Decepticons do though)

So when Megatron scars Optimus team prime just think Megatron’s stated he’s going to be the one who kills Optimus...well at least Lugnut’s not trying to kill him now….in fact he’s making suree no -one else even gets close to kill him…Decepticons are weird.

When the elite guard show up and see the scar, they all know the difference

Sentinel:...uh who gave you that?

Optimus: Megatron of course, I kind of killed him before so I guess him wanting to kill me makes sense...what wrong with you?

Sentinel *panicking and realising that oh fuck he does still care about his friend and he’s being courted by the lord of the Decepticons and he has no idea how to deal with this and the idiot doesn’t even realise what’s happening how the fuck did Optimus even seduce Megatron? what the hell is he mean to do here???* NOTHING YOU STUPID DROPOUT.

Sentinel is freaking out, then when Blackarachnia shows up and realises what’s happening she also has the ‘oh fuck I still care about him NO NOOOO FUCK!’ moment.

The two of them are both panicking and trying to figure out a) How to tell Optimus what’s going on or if they should and b)...can I use this to my advantage?

Optimus is totally oblivious.

Megatron also doesn’t know that the other doesn’t realise so he’s very happy the courting going well.

Also he’s not the only one

Optimus:...Bee...who gave you that scar.

BB: Blitzbrain I don’t even know what I did to piss him off so much? Why does he even want to murder me that much?

Prowl:You are annoying

BB:Yeah...but not THAT annoying

Wasp’s attempted attacks are interrupted by a very pissed off triple changer.

Magnus has no idea what to do with team prime at this point...he’s also sure anything they do that might move the team is going to lead to very pissed off Decepticons...more pissed off than normal...

He’s also still trying to figure out how agent Blurr who has not run into any Decepticons that he knows off somehow has A SCAR ALSO? He is so done right now…but if he retires…they’ll put Sentinel in charge…and that can’t end well

Everyone in high command is freaking out...except Longarm prime who looks weirdly smug.

[favesgrave]

Cut the Heroics

((Navigation))

((this is the last time i try posting this. if it doesnt show up in the tags then i give up))

---

The mood had been… a bit odd lately. Recovering the Omega Key and Smokescreen was of course a success, but the loss of the Star Saber was not. A weapon that powerful had shattered like glass next to Megatron’s and had brought Optimus down to his knees in defeat. It was chilling, none of them could deny that. They knew a weapon like that in Megatron’s hands would only bring forth more suffering.

Not all was lost though. One key was in their possession, while the other three were unaccounted for. If they had any luck left, then the Decepticons wouldn’t discover the true purpose of them.

Their work was definitely cut out for them. Optimus knew, and was diligent as ever with his decoding. Blurr would watch him, studying the speed of his typing with interest. If he knew anything about how the technology here worked, or anything about this universe in general, then maybe he could help. Sadly, he was still learning.

He stood near Arcee and Bulkhead, the three of them behind Smokescreen.

“I’m gonna be a great warrior someday,” he said, fully confident in himself. “Like Optimus.”

“Well, train hard and gain some wisdom along the way, and I’m sure it’ll happen,” Bulkhead encouraged. 

“Oh, it will.” Smokescreen turned to look at them, a smile on his face. “It’s my destiny.”

“What was that now?” Bumblebee asked in a way that reminded Blurr of his Bumblebee back home.

Blurr made a face. “Sorry, could you repeat that? Did you say your destiny?”

“How so?” Arcee asked and he was glad that someone was on his side.

Smokescreen remained unbothered by their skepticism. “Well, one minute I’m running security detail at Iacon, the next I wake up on the other side of the galaxy to find myself under Optimus’s command! I mean, what are the chances, right? Things happen for a reason!”

“Smokescreen, I believe the word you’re looking for is a coincidence,” Blurr stated. “Do you need me to define it for you?”

He rolled his optics at that. “Haha, hilarious, Blurr. I’m serious though!”

Arcee raised a hand, cutting him off to spare the rest of them. “We get it, Smokescreen. You’re special, we’re lucky to have you,” she said dryly. 

“I’m just saying! I’ve come a long way, and this is one opportunity I don’t plan on messing up.” He was being genuine about it, Blurr could tell. But Smokescreen was prone to rushing into things without thinking. Judging on what he’d seen so far, that could cost him his life. He’d already faked them out once before, Team Prime did not need to experience the real deal.

“Autobots,” Optimus said, putting a stop to the conversation. “The next Iacon coordinates have been decoded. Ratchet, ready the groundbridge.”

“Last one to the Omega Key has to scrub the energon tanks for a week!” Smokescreen said, right before dashing off to the groundbridge in a typical Smokescreen manner leaving Arcee to remark about how she didn’t know they were keeping score.

Optimus seemed to have other plans, however. “Arcee, Bumblebee, prepare to roll out.”

“You got it, Optimus,” Bee beeped, buzzing with energy.

“Wait, what about me?” Smokescreen questioned. Bulkhead rested his servos on his hips while Blurr crossed his arms.

“Excuse me, I think you’re forgetting Bulkhead and I!”

Smokescreen looked over, cringed slightly at his error, and then quickly amended it. “I mean me, Bulkhead, and Blurr.” He stole a quick glance at the two, who still weren’t thrilled about being glossed over, but looked slightly more appeased than they had a few moments prior. 

“The three of you will remain here in the event I am able to decode a subsequent database entry before the others return,” Optimus explained. With that out of the way, he turned his focus back to decoding and let Ratchet take over the conversation.

“Optimus is right. Considering the very fate of Cybertron is at stake, response time is critical.” Then he finally opened up the groundbridge for Arcee and Bumblebee, who stood at the ready.

“Keep your engines idling, kid.” Arcee had looked over at the younger mech, preparing a jab at him. “Come on Bee, destiny awaits.” The two transformed and rolled off into the bridge, leaving behind a disappointed Smokescreen. All that eagerness had been sucked out of him in an instant. Now he’d been left behind in the base, cooped up until it was his turn for a mission. As he moved closer to him, Blurr found that he could sympathize with that. He always felt the need to be doing something as well, even if it was as meaningless as tapping his pede.

“We call it a pit stop,” Bulkhead said, proceeding to give Smokescreen a hard clap on the back that knocked him forward and made Blurr jump. He knew it was just Bulkhead being Bulkhead, but he also knew that if he ever got hit like that by the green mech, it would send him smackdown into the floor. He would like to avoid that scenario. He also thought about how Bulkhead was a bit of a hugger, with a very, very strong grip. Humans called it a bear hug. 

“I know you mean well Bulkhead but please never do that to me or hug me because I want to avoid getting crushed by you.“

Bulkhead laughed as he looked down at him. “Don’t worry, I’m smart enough to know not to try any of that. You’re not built like the rest of us.”

“You’re all very different from me, that’s true,” Blurr nodded. 

“So… is everyone as short as you back in your universe?” Smokescreen said, doing some thinking aloud. 

“No,” Blurr fixed him with a glare. “Autobots can vary in height following a certain range, though there are some exceptions such as Omega Supreme, but since most of us aren’t warframes like the Decepticons we tend to be much smaller than our opponents. It’s never a problem for civilians since they rarely ever encounter Decepticons considering the Tyrest Accord.”

Smokescreen and Bulkhead shared a look. “What’s the Tyrest Accord?”

“It’s what ended the war! The Decepticons were given a pardon for their actions during the war as long as they agreed to their exile from Cybertron. I can’t be surprised that you don’t know of it since your war never ended though that brings me to my own question; Once you revive Cybertron, what are your plans after that regarding the Decepticons? What’s stopping them from killing the planet all over again?”

There wasn’t an answer for a few seconds. “Sounds like an Optimus question,” Bulkhead said. “Or maybe a Ratchet one.”

The plan, as far as they knew, was that there was no plan. They’d never imagined getting a chance like this to revive their dead homeworld, not in a million years. For everyone’s sake, Blurr hoped they figured it out soon.

The last thing he wanted was to see Cybertron burn.

After all, the nightmares of it were already horrifying enough.

---

Not too long later, Arcee and Bumblebee stepped through the bridge covered in fresh scratches and holding no relic. Any doubt of them failing their mission had been erased as Ratchet ushered them both to the med-bay.

Another victory that was lost to the Decepticons, but their hope hadn’t been eliminated yet.

But they still had one key. They just had to hold onto that one. If they did that, then they could still hold onto their chance.

“While our quest to restore our planet may have reached a stalemate, securing the remaining keys is still the most prudent course of action.” As usual, Optimus spoke only facts.

And to no one’s surprise, Smokescreen wasn’t the most skilled at reading the room. “Man, it must’ve been crazy with Knockout going all sonic. Ugh, I wish I’d been there! I would’ve-“

“Would’ve what?” Arcee cut in, her wings flattened to her back as she glared at him. “Recover the key like you did the first one?”

“Maybe,” Smokescreen said. “Who knows? I just want us to be firing at all cylinders! You know, now that the Star Saber’s gone. And I have a pretty good track record so far.” 

Arcee scoffed and pushed herself to her pedes, stalking past him silently. Blurr watched, silently pondering on whether or not he should go after her. She had comforted him when he needed it, was it his turn to do the same? Arcee seemed to like her space, and he didn’t want to intrude on that. He didn’t actually know the first thing about comforting a bot. So, he stayed where he was.

“Look kid,” Blurr tuned back into the conversation to listen to Bulkhead begin to speak. “Arcee and Bumblebee are no slouches, and Optimus managed just fine for eons without the big sword. ‘Course you wouldn’t know about that, you’ve been locked in stasis the whole time we’ve been fighting this war.”

Blurr didn’t exactly know about any of that either, but it went without saying that he got a pass.

“Exactly!” Smokescreen agreed, like someone was finally getting it. “And I’m ready to make up for lost time!”

“When Optimus says you’re ready,” Bulkhead shot back. “You gotta be in this for the long haul. Slow and steady wins the race.”

“Not necessarily,” Blurr said. Speed had always gotten the job done for him… for better or for worse. It’d almost cost him his mission back on Earth with that whole street-racing scheme. He still hated thinking about it. 

“Sometimes, you gotta live life in the slow lane,” Bulkhead told him, ignoring the face he made. That sounded like an actual nightmare for him, so they would have to agree to disagree indefinitely on that one.

There wasn’t much more that could be said, on account of the familiar beeping that rang through the base. “The next Iacon coordinates are ready,” Optimus announced.

“There remains one set left to decode,” Ratchet said. He put in the required coordinates to give them a fix on the location, then pulled the switch that brought the groundbridge to life. 

“On it boss,” Bulkhead said.

“I’m gonna bring back that key,” Smokescreen promised. He took one look at Arcee, who looked skeptical but didn’t comment on it.

“Uh, Bulk?” she called out. Once he turned around, she held up the tracker for the relic. “Forgetting something?” He stared for a short moment before facepalming and shuffling on over to take the tracker. As Blurr passed them by to join Smokescreen, he couldn’t help but listen in as the two exchanged words, something about keeping an eye on destiny’s child. It didn’t take a genius to know Arcee meant Smokescreen.

Blurr was stopped by the voice of a red and blue “Blurr, I would like to request that you remain here.”

“What? With all due respect Optimus Prime sir, I can’t see the reason for me staying behind when there could be a larger advantage with me going, especially after the last attempt of grabbing an Omega Key went wrong, which I don’t mean any offense to Bumblebee and Arcee.”

“I understand your argument…” Optimus gave a nod to Bulkhead, telling him that he and Smokescreen could go. “Though I have my own concerns. While your quick-thinking has demonstrated to be useful in the heat of battle, you are still new to war.” Blurr’s face dropped at that. So Arcee had been right when she said everyone else had probably figured it out. He knew it would happen eventually, but he would have liked to be at least a bit more ready. “With Megatron’s power growing, there is no doubt his attempts to retrieve the Omega Keys will prove to be more harrowing. I will not put you in that danger.”

Blurr gaped up at him. “So are you saying that I’m not allowed to go on any more missions and that I’m confined to base?” He could practically already feel the claustrophobia setting in.

“No,” he answered. “I believe you need to learn more knowledge of our world before you are ready to engage in more perilous missions.” He would prefer not to send him into the field at all considering how young he was, but knew Blurr wouldn’t accept that. He was stubborn, after all.

“I can see the logic behind your reasoning,” Blurr admitted. “Will I be given datapads to read from or learn from a teacher?” His first guess was Ratchet since Optimus was too busy at the moment, and the medic was the second most knowledgeable Autobot they had.

“I think it would be best to use both methods,” Optimus said, looking in another direction. Blurr followed his optics, which landed on Arcee. That was a surprise, but a welcome one. “I have already discussed it with Arcee, and she has agreed to give you a few lessons. I suggest you begin now.” He nodded down at him and left him to join up with Arcee.

“Are you sure you’re willing to do this right now? If you’re injured, then you should rest to recover because not doing so could possibly worsen your wounds,” he chided.

Arcee chuckled. “I’m just a little sore, don’t worry. Come on,” she said and started down the hall. “Tell me what you learned in your Elite Guard.”

“Well before even joining the Guard, I had to go through training at Autobot Boot Camp where my platoon and I learned all the necessary skills any talented Autobot should know and my speed naturally made me stick out among my peers, giving me my name and allowing me to move onto the Autobot Academy which is a more prestigious institution where most Elite Guardsmen start out, with some exceptions.”

“You got your name from boot camp?”

“Of course! Most Autobots do,” he said. “I take your outrage as a sign of things being different here.”

“Sometimes we’re given names, but we’re allowed to choose our own names too,” she said. “Back on Cybertron before the war, there were lower caste bots who weren't ever given real names. And they chose them for themselves.” 

A caste system? It suddenly occurred to Blurr how little he actually knew about this universe’s Cybertron, besides the fact that it was dead. “Would you mind elaborating?” 

Her optics widened slightly, like she thought he had misspoke, but she obliged. Different universes meant different circumstances. “Cybertron had three classes. High, middle, and lower. Lower class belonged to the manual laborers, like miners and haulers. The caste system is the reason the war broke out in the first place. A miner-turned-gladiator started giving speeches, gaining a following…”

“Megatron,” Blurr guessed, feeling uneasy just saying his name. He hadn’t forgotten the cruel look in his optics, or the way he threatened to slice Arcee in half. He wouldn’t ever forget any of that. But what scared him most of all was the fact Megatron knew that there was something that marked Blurr as different from the rest of the Autobots. He wanted to have a little chat about it, but Megatron’s definition of a chat was more likely some kind of torture session, one Blurr wanted zero part of.

Arcee had nodded, confirming his theory. “It didn’t take long for the war to break out after that.” She stopped in front of a wide, empty room. This was supposed to be an old human base, so Blurr could only wonder what they used to cram in here. “What kind of training did they teach you?”

“Most of it was all battlefield simulations to sharpen our ability to think fast while in combat, but there were occasions where we would be put into pairs to spar or on teams to compete against each other. They would test us often in order to rank our strengths and weaknesses and those results would all factor into courses, sometimes increasing difficulty levels on assignments.”

“I can work with that,” she said. “But ‘Cons fight dirty. It’s not going to be like a simulation. It’s not fair, but we still have a few things that can even the odds. The Apex Armor, the Immobilizer, the Polarity Gauntlet, the Spark Extractor,” she listed. His optics widened at the last one. “Some we use only if we have to, but this is a war we’re outnumbered in. We have to do what we need to to survive. But, I’ll take a guess and say you don’t have any of those relics back home.” When he shook his head, she went into a quick summary that covered the basics of each weapon, but promised there was a more in depth version written down. “I’ll give you the datapads later.”

“When I first arrived here and told you about how your alternate self was a teacher you were very dismissive of the idea but look at you now,” Blurr said.

“Don’t push it,” she said, without any real venom in her tone. “Optimus thought I’d be a good match to train you.”

“Because we’re both small,” he said. He had been taller than his universe’s Bumblebee, but now he barely reached this one’s hips. If his Bumblebee ever saw, he would hold that over him while also despairing over the fact that he couldn’t be as tall as his other self. He hadn’t known him for that long, but he was a slightly annoying bot, so it seemed about right. Despite a few lapses in judgment, his spark was in the right place. He at least had that going for him. 

He pushed Bumblebee out of mind to focus on the lesson. He didn’t have a clue why he’d even been thinking of him in the first place, maybe it’d just been homesickness.

“Being small will get you underestimated,” Arcee continued. It’s what some of his instructors would repeat to all their students. “So use that to your advantage. Your speed’s already a good start, it can let you take down your opponent before they even know what hit them.”

He took half a second to think about what she said. “When you say ‘take down’ you mean kill, don’t you?”

She looked away from him. That in itself was already an answer. “Sometimes there isn’t a choice,” she said quietly. “And I hope you never get put in that position... I mean that.”

He believed her, he really did. But he remembered the way the Autobots had gunned down those Decepticons that had been after him the first day he arrived in this strange universe. There’d been no hesitation there, even from Smokescreen, who was pretty green as far as combat experience went. He was already preparing for the day he’d have to make that same life or death choice.

They both received a message from Ratchet, informing them that Bulkhead and Smokescreen were about to return.

“Guess lesson’s over for today,” Arcee said. She left the room to rejoin Ratchet and Optimus, and Blurr took that as his cue to follow. By the time they’d gotten there, Smokescreen and Bulkhead had already come back… neither of them carrying an Omega Key. They’d just finished explaining what had happened to Optimus and Ratchet, Smokescreen in particular looking like his pride had been beaten down.

“What happened?” Arcee asked.

“Smokescreen was sucker-punched.” Blurr’s optics widened at that. Who’d been fast enough to get the drop on him? “Could’ve happened to any of us.” Bulkhead tried to comfort him with his words and put a servo on the kid’s shoulder, but got shoved away.

“But it didn’t,” Smokescreen said. “Because I was the one who dropped his guard. I was the one who blew it. Some great warrior I’m turning out to be,” he said under his breath.

Arcee didn’t take that lightly. “You still don’t get it, do you? A couple of victories aren’t gonna make you a legend, and not every mission results in success. Not for me, not for Bee, not even for Optimus.” Blurr noticed Optimus glance over at his team at the mention of his name. His optics darted away from his leader and back to the others in a panic. Something was about to happen, and he had the feeling it wasn’t going to be good.

 “We’ve gained some relics and we’ve lost some. We’ve also lost friends. We’ve even lost a world!” she snapped at him. “But this is one time we get a do-over. We have a chance to bring back Cybertron and everyone in this room needs to be in sync. This isn’t about you or your destiny.” Smokescreen didn’t have any snappy comeback at the ready, only dropping his gaze to the floor. 

Optimus finally fully faced them all. “Arcee, you’ve made your point.” 

“Optimus, he needs to hear this. You might actually become a great warrior someday, and I sincerely hope that you do. But greatness begins and ends with putting the team first, not your personal scorecard.”

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you guys!” Smokescreen insisted.

“Then stop trying to be a hero and start being an Autobot,” she finished firmly.

Smokescreen looked to Optimus, maybe hoping for him to defend him, but he only got silence. Silence from Optimus, and silence from the rest of the team. “You know what? Maybe I’m just not good enough,” he snapped. Before anyone else could get another word in, he transformed and sped out of the base.

“Maybe next time Optimus advises you to stop, perhaps you should listen,” Ratchet suggested. Blurr felt a shred of sympathy for Smokescreen for getting chewed out by Arcee like that. She would make a good drill sergeant back home.

“I’ll bring him back.” Bulkhead took a step forward, but a servo placed on his chest by Optimus stopped him.

“Smokescreen is young, Bulkhead, and has much to learn. But right now, he needs to clear his thoughts. And I need to finish decoding the final Iacon entry.”

The final one.

The whole time Blurr had been here, it’d been all about the Iacon relics. What was supposed to come after that? They couldn’t just jump on over to Cybertron, considering they only possessed one key. Retrieving the other two from the Decepticons would be no easy task, considering they had a warship. Blurr was not feeling confident in their odds, but tried to keep quiet about that.

“Think the kid’ll be okay?” Bulkhead asked worriedly.

“He’ll get over it,” Bumblebee said. “Just give him a bit of space.”

Blurr wished he could be as optimistic as Bumblebee was, but his anxiety was telling him that there was still something wrong and the worst wasn’t over. Maybe he was just being paranoid. Yeah, that had to be it.

“Smokescreen’s a very confident and proud bot so one loss such as this will feel like the end of the world to him,” Blurr commented. Then, he realized he had not helped things and winced internally before trying to lighten the mood again. “But I’m sure Bumblebee’s right and that he’ll bounce back in no time!”

“We’ll see…” Bulkhead said.

There was at least some good news as Optimus told the others the final relic entry had been decoded.

“Has it?” Ratchet questioned, staring at a blank screen. It switched to reveal a clump of scattered blue pixels, but it was hard to tell what exactly it meant. Maybe it meant nothing and the file was somehow corrupted. 

“Hm… Perhaps it is a second encryption,” Optimus said. 

Red pixels gradually began to join the blue ones and as Blurr took a closer look, his optics widened. “They seem to be revealing some sort of image, maybe something along the lines of a map as an extra precaution but the more I look at it, the more it looks like a bot!”

“The relic’s a bot?” Bulkhead asked.

“How would that make any sense?” Ratchet said, ever the skeptic. “It’s the fourth Omega Key, it has to be a key as well.”

Optimus’s frown deepened. “I trust that Alpha Trion had his reasons.” 

Once the pixels finally finished assembling, the image was revealed to be…

“Smokescreen?” Bulkhead managed, wondering if he was seeing things wrong. The picture was undeniably him.

Arcee narrowed her optics. “Is this that hot shot’s idea of a joke?” 

“I don’t think he could pull something like this off,” Bumblebee said, and Blurr found himself agreeing.

“Maybe he knows where the key is!” Bulkhead tried, though even he knew that was a long shot.

“And not say anything to any of us? That doesn’t add up!” Blurr interjected. 

“A more likely possibility is that Smokescreen himself somehow is the key without knowing it,” Ratchet said. If they had decoded the final entry by now, then the Decepticons must’ve too. That meant they would have their sights set on him by now.

Blurr hated whenever his anxiety ended up being right.

“Whatever the case, Smokescreen could be in grave danger.” Optimus raised a digit to his commlink and attempted to summon him back, but there was only radio silence.

“He may have deactivated his commlink,” Ratchet said.

“Locate his position and prepare the groundbridge.” Even in a crisis, Optimus still maintained a levelhead. Blurr supposed that’s just one of the things that millions of years of what would get you as a leader.

The urgency of the situation was slowly setting in for everyone. It took mere seconds for Ratchet to get a fix on his signal that was moving rapidly down the roads of Jasper, Nevada. Until suddenly, it came to an abrupt stop. The bridge opened a moment later and the team, minus Ratchet, raced on through. Blurr nearly followed after them until he remembered his orders of staying behind on missions. If there were Decepticons there, then he was sure this counted as one of those times.

Begrudgingly, he stuck by Ratchet. 

His spark nearly gave out when he saw Smokescreen’s signal vanish from the screen. “Is he-?!”

“No,” Ratchet said quickly. “The Decepticons wouldn’t slaughter him so quickly knowing what we do. Since I can no longer track Smokescreen’s signal, then I fear he’s been taken prisoner aboard their ship.”

Another loss to the Decepticons.

[erimeows]

At The Shrine Of Your Lies (NSFW)

Sentinel wasn’t sure how he ended up in this situation, arms kept behind his back by stasis cuffs and aft on the ground, knocked back with you looming over him.

The night had been going swimmingly. He’d gone on patrol in the city of Detroit with Optimus and the pile of scrap metal he called a team, found an All Spark shard, and collected it to take back to Ultra Magnus, only to be stopped by you on his way back. He hadn’t seen you before, but he assumed you were a Decepticon working for Megatron if the huge purple logo that littered your front chest plate and the ends of the wings on your lithe Cybertronian frame was anything to go by. He didn’t think you’d be much of a challenge- you were a tiny little seeker, even smaller than him despite being a Decepticon, and you had a sweet voice and a relatively unthreatening presence.

But now, he knew how wrong he was. You’d swept the floor with him in mere seconds. Now, he was on the ground with you walking towards him, the heels of your stabilizing servos clicking against the floor of the warehouse that the two of you had wound up in during your little scuff.

“What’s your name?” You knelt down in front of him and tilted his chin up with one of your digits. In your other hand, you had the All Spark shard clenched tightly, and though his hands weren’t free, he tried to lunge forward for it, only for you to dodge and for the cuffs to send an excruciating shock through his body. He landed forward on his face and thought it better to remain there so you wouldn’t be able to see the pitiful expression he knew he was wearing, but you used the end of your stabilizing servo to roll him over so he was lying flat on his back. “Didn’t you hear me? I asked what your designation is, pretty.”

“Why do you need to know?” He huffed as you sat on top of him, right on his midsection, though you weren’t heavy enough for it to be even remotely uncomfortable.

“Trust me, it’s best that you cooperate and answer whatever questions I ask,” You warned, voice surprisingly kind and unthreatening, almost as if you were a lover giving him advice rather than a Decepticon about to kidnap him or take his life. “You don’t know what I can do to you.”

“Try me, you filthy con.”

Sentinel, in that moment, realized how sick he was of his life. He was sick of living a life of rules and restrictions, of properness and formalities, of the Elite Guard and by Ultra Magnus’s standards, because it always seemed to end up with him being in situations a lot like this one. He wanted a change, for things to be different for once... For some sort of escape.

“Listen, I may be a Decepticon, but I’m no brute,” You explained, and that much was true. Even whilst fighting you, he noticed that unlike the other Decepticons he’d faced on earth who would step on his limbs, throw him into walls, and blast at him without an ounce of hesitation, all you’d been focused on was gracefully restraining him without actually landing a single blow. “I know that these All Spark fragments are valuable to your leader as they are to mine. So, here’s what we’ll do…”

You stayed seated on top of him and crossed one leg over the other before opening a storage compartment that was built into your arm and putting the fragment there. You closed it and looked down at him. Then, your (e/c) optics- entirely different and unique than any other Decepticon’s in a terribly beautiful manner- were practically pouring into his… But you didn’t say anything, leaving your sentence unfinished in a way that made anxiety and frustration bubble up in his chest.

“Well? Finish what you were saying!”

“I don’t care too much about the fragments. Megatron doesn’t know that I have it, and Ultra Magnus doesn’t need to know that you ran into me. So, I’ll undo your stasis cuffs,” You got off of him and sat next to where he laid on the ground. He used all of his strength to sit up, which was followed by you undoing his stasis cuffs just like you’d said. He was so shocked that he couldn’t even do anything, simply sitting there dumbfounded whilst rubbing his sore wrists and peering down at them to check for scratches. “If you try to attack me or refuse to answer my questions, I’ll transform and fly away, then take the fragment back to Megatron- same goes for it you try to retreat before I’m done. But, if you decide to be a good little mech and answer everything I ask, I’ll let you have the fragment, you’ll be free to leave, and no one will hear a word of this. Understand?”

“Understood,” He grumbled. No part of him wanted to listen to your cocky little aft, but you seemed decent enough and as long as no one knew about this, he was fine with it- he could take the fragment back and brag about the valiant battle he fought against a Decepticon twice his size instead of the truth, which was whatever this was… It was nice that you seemed curious about him too, though he had no idea why and that was what was killing him. “But what is it you want from me?”

“Firstly, I’d like to know your name.”

“Sentinel Prime, and you? I’ve never seen you before.”

“(y/n),” You answered and held out your servo for him to shake, so you did. He considered using that hold on you to rip the fragment out of your storage compartment by force, whether that be by crushing the storage compartment with his bare servos or tearing your arm off and running away with it, but he was too squeamish for something so brutal no matter how much he fronted that he was tough and built for fighting Decepticons. Plus, he didn’t think you were bluffing- you’d already proved that you could absolutely body him in a fight, so you merely escaping with the fragment would be a breeze. All he needed to do right now was let go of his pride, vent deeply, and do what you said so he could get the shard to take back to Ultra Magnus unscathed. “Where are you from?”

“Born and raised in Autobot City,” He said it proudly, though you looked at him with a quirked optical ridge as if his pride was misplaced. “I, uh… What about you?”

“Same, actually.”

Your answer shocked him so much that he felt his face twist in surprise and couldn’t even really stop it.

“W-Wait, really? No wonder you’re so small! How the hell are you a Decepticon!?”

“Well, the Magnus before the current one banned my frame type because a lot of us were Decepticons, even if I wasn’t at the time. I was born and raised an Autobot too, was actually in the middle of completing courses at the Autobot Academy to join the Elite Guard when the frame ban was passed,” You talked about the ‘frame ban’ as if it were something he should know about already, which made him confused.

“Frame ban…? Never heard of it,” He muttered, surprised that he was having such a casual conversation with a Decepticon and not feeling grimy for it, but then again, you didn’t seem too bad.

“They’re not legal anymore for obvious reasons, but at the time, I only had a few options; I willingly get melted down into spare parts, go to neutral territory, become a Decepticon, or run around and get hunted down by Autobots who supported the ban. So, I became a Decepticon- more pay, more protection, better medical care. I don’t agree with everything they do, but it ain’t too bad. As much as I’d love to go back to the Autobots, even with the frame ban lifted, I couldn’t; I’ve done too much, have too many warrants out for me now.”

No wonder why you didn’t care about getting the fragment back to Megatron- you didn’t care about the Decepticon cause, your only joined them in the first place because you’d needed the benefits they offered. But why not try to fight for your spot in the Autobot cause if you’d been wronged by that ban in the first place? It wasn’t your fault, but... Even he knew better than to pry about something so personal, though he really had no idea why you’d even forfeited such information in the first place.

“Why are you doing this? Talking to me so personally? What are you hoping to get out of it? I mean, what do I have to offer? What do you want from me?”

“I’m interested in you,” You answered as if it were simple, and Sentinel blushed, flattered. “I’ve seen you from afar before, with those other Autobots on earth or fighting Megatron and his high command. You’re very interesting.”

“Is that so?” He murmured with a small smile and averted his gaze.

It was weird to imagine that you had watched him consistently, either lurking so high up in the sky in your vehicle mode that he couldn’t spot you or hiding well enough somewhere on land that he never caught you on the act. On one hand, it was creepy, but it was also nice to know that there was someone paying that much attention to him- someone who cared that much, someone who was interested in him. He didn’t get that from anyone very often, and really, it made him feel valued by you- even if he’d only known you for a little bit and knew better than to be so naive with someone he’d just met, let alone someone of the opposing faction.

“You seemed cocky at first, very pure and self-righteous, the high-brow and straight laces type, but if I’m being honest… I think I really like you, Sentinel Prime.”

“…Would it be crazy for me to say that I think I really like you too?” Sentinel placed a servo over his chest, right over where his spark lied in its chamber, beating hard and fast with anticipation. He hated himself in that moment. He’d not only been bested by this Decepticon in a fight, but now you were luring him too, and he was falling for it. But how could he not? You were gorgeous, soft spoken and alluring in a way that he couldn’t quite describe, but it was like nothing he had even seen before. He’d known you for maybe a half hour and he was already captivated. No one needed to know, right? He could get away with it. “And that I’d like to get to know you better?”

“Not at all… But if you think you like me so much… How would you feel about coming home with this so-called ‘filthy con’ for a bit?”

Maybe Sentinel was actually going crazy, or maybe he was just sick of following all the rules and being the pure, perfect little Elite Guard member for Ultra Magnus to use as a puppet whenever it was convenient him- whatever it was, he didn’t know, but he found himself nodding at your proposition with a grin.

“I’d love that.”

And that’s how he ended up tucked away in the little cave that you called a ‘base’ or even a ‘home’, a private area that you’d flown him too. The walls were made of a smooth, gorgeous rock, almost like marble and colored a deep, purple blue. Outside of it was a beautiful, clear river, but right now, he was in the depths of the dark cave, laid on his back with his elbows behind him to support his weight and you on top of him. You straddled his hips, your servos roaming up and down his chest.

He wasn’t sure how it had escalated to this point. It had started with casual conversation, turning into light touches, and then next thing he knew, the two of you were making out with you on top of him. You had dirtied him, splayed him out and teased him for Primus knows how long, and made him so desperate that he couldn’t help but want more. He knew that it was wrong, that Ultra Magnus would have his head if he knew and that he’d never be able to live it down, but something about being dirty and wrong for once had his spark slamming against his chest and his pleasure receptors at their highest sensitivity. He couldn’t help it- you were alluring, and the fact that you were a Decepticon added onto that somehow.

“So, how does it feel, huh?” Your voice snapped him out of his trance, and he looked down to see that you were still at work; little digits rooting around in the seams of his interface panel, pretty lips ghosting right above the line between the top of said panel and the beginning of his waistline. You had been kissing and nipping at his thighs for a few minutes now, a touch so delicate and intoxicating that he could barely handle it and found himself turning into a weak puddle of desperate desire, falling apart beneath you. It was unlike anything he’d ever felt before- especially from an Autobot. He didn’t answer for a second, simply staring down at you as you bit down on his thigh, your fangs leaving a heavy mark. He cried out in response and tilted his head back. “That a filthy Decepticon is making you moan like this? Is it humiliating? Embarrassing? Or do you like that I’m corrupting you like this, baby?”

“Good,” He answered, gasping when his panel finally slid open on its own to reveal his pressurized spike and dripping valve. “It feels s-so good, (y/n)… Please, can I have more? Can you ride me? Please?”

He wasn’t sure how he’d been reduced to begging to easily when you hadn’t even encouraged him to do so, but he was, struggling not to just snatch you up, roll you over, and fuck into your lithe body. 

“Of course,” You cooed and settled back in his lap, opening your panel so you could rub your slick valve up against his spike. He moaned and peered up at you, feeling helpless with you dominating him, grinding so slowly and reminding him of just how bad he needed to cum. You lifted your hips and grabbed his spike. The feeling of your claws brushing up against the sensitive area had him shuddering, but then, you were sinking down onto his spike in one fluid swoop and making him cry out. The noise echoed through the cave as he fell back and grabbed your hips with his servos, the back of his helm slamming against the rocky ground. You leaned down far enough to kiss his audial fins. “How could I say no to that pretty face when you’re being so good for me?”

You were squeezing and fluttering around his cock where you sat, pants leaving you as you adjusted to his large size. He found himself rocking his hips up into yours before he could even think about it, and you didn’t object, simply bracing yourself with your servos on his shoulders and moving in tangent with him. You ground your hips down into his with his spike buried to the hilt inside of you, your wings fluttering and (e/c) optics flickering on and offline from the intensity of it. 

“Could you leave marks on me?” He requested between thrusts. “P-Please?”

“What kind of marks?”

“Hickeys, and uh… Claw marks too, and maybe some paint transfers? Dents?” He looked away, only for you to lean down to make him meet your gaze and chuckle.

“That’s a lot for your first time doing this with the likes of me,” You teased but obliged regardless and went straight for the neck as the two of you started a steady rhythm. He keened when you clenched down around him and bit right into the side of his neck, leaving open fang marks that dripped with energon from the impact. “What, you want everyone to know how much I’ve tainted you? Is that it? You want to go back to your comrades so they can all see how I absolutely wrecked you, huh? Want Ultra Magnus to know that his second in command is just a little slut for any Decepticon he runs into on the street?”

“S-Stop antagonizing me,” He stammered with a groan and forced himself to sit all the way up. Then, he used his grip on your hips to fuck up into you even more, railing your smaller frame and stuffing you full of his spike. You moaned his name and wrapped your arms around his neck with your claws scratching at his back so hard that he could feel you peeling his paint off. “Frag, you feel so good, (y/n)...!”

Still bucking his hips up into yours, he used one servo to reach between your legs. Thick, strong digits rubbed at your anterior node as his cobalt optics admired how the (f/c) from your frame was slowly being transferred onto him so bad that it blended with the navy blue on his thighs and left (f/c) marks in the shape of your aft and the backs of your thighs. Your aft was leaving dents on him with the force his hips were slamming into yours, as were your claws and digits digging into his back and shoulders.

It felt good; the sensation of you riding him like your life depended on it, the aura you’d created feral and needy and desperate, the feeling that, for once, he was wanted, needed. It was nice to have something different for once, to have something that was filthy and impure like this instead of his usual day to day. The thought of this being the secret he’d have to keep was what sent him over the edge combined with the head of his spike hitting an especially spongy spot in your valve that made you finish around him.

When he felt that he was overloading, too, he pulled out and shot his transfluid all over your abdomen and the outside of your valve as well as the insides of your thighs. It was so much that it trickled down your body and fell in thick drops onto him, but you quickly moved to grab a microfiber cloth from one of your storage compartments to clean the two of you up with.

Sentinel sighed and came down from his high with you sitting next to him on the rock floor of the cave. The two of you closed your panels.

There was so much more that he wanted to know, wanted to do. He wanted to lay with you for hours, to never leave and to find out about your past, present, and future. He wanted to know everything about you, to memorize every feature of your frame, but then again... He had only known you for a few hours, and you were currently standing up to toss the All Spark fragment at him, looking ready to leave.

“We should meet again sometime,” You muttered and looked down at him as he hastily caught the fragment in his servos, your (e/c) optics sparkling with something unfamiliar, something that he found terrifying but also found himself wanting more of. “You know where I live now, so you know where to find me... I’ll see you around, Sentinel Prime.”

With that, you transformed into your vehicle mode and flew out of the cave, up and away, not even giving him time to respond. All he could do was sigh and look down at all of the marks you left on him.

“Yeah... See you soon, (y/n).”

[weenwrites]

Can you write something where tfp Knockout or smokescreen (whoever you want to write for) their human s/o turns out to be spidergirl. (They kinda have like a Miles Morales backstory/past) I had ideas for the reveal if you want to use them or not. Im just putting this out here:

smokescreen falls off a cliff or the nemisis during a fight and s/o catches him with webbing and pulls him up to safety revealing her spider persona.

For Knockout I see something heavy for a human falling off a table in the med bay and wouldve landed on spidergirl s/o, but she flips out of the way and webs it to the wall out of reflex. Knockout sees this happen. Sorry for the long ask/entry but anyway do with this what you wish. if you just want to write their reacts or have completely new ideas I’ll be excited to hear what you have to say 😋

TFP Knockout and Smokescreen W/ A Spider Vigilante S/O

Pairing - Romantic Category - Headcanons Trigger Warnings - None

Knockout

OH??? You’re a superhero? He may or may not have heard rumors of a spider vigilante swinging from here to there, saving the day and such… But he’d never figure it was you—though he has noticed you pack something away in your bag at times and found it rather odd that you’d at times have to go in a hurry—but still, he’d never guess that you were the hero.

He is interested about your hero vigilante persona and asks you a couple simple questions about it, but if you explain that you’re fine if he asks you any and every question he has, he’ll gladly ask away. Of course if your powers are some sort of mutation, he does his best to keep you away from Shockwave. Knockout is well aware of the fact that the other Decepticon scientist would love to get his claws on a rather unique human specimen such as yourself, and since you’re his partner he would hate to see Shockwave string you up on his lab table for experimentation, science, and research. If your powers aren’t a mutation, and say a neat gadget you made yourself, he’ll ask if he could examine such a fine piece of technology. Perhaps he could improve it a little because he may know a thing or two about weapons…

Whenever you’re out doing your hero work, he frequently checks the news for any word of you. He needs to know if you’re alright, but he doesn’t want to possibly distract you during a crucial moment by giving your phone a ring, and so the next best option apart from checking up on you himself is to look at the news. If there happens to be anyone streaming you fighting some super villain, he’ll unfortunately get distracted from his work and spend as much time as he can watching. He’ll be rooting for you all the way, and whenever you’re dealt a painful looking blow or whenever things don’t look all too well for you, his spark will drop and he’ll look away, fearful for what happens next. Of course if you return alive, albeit battered and bruised, he’ll quickly rush in to treat your injuries to the best of his ability and express how amazed and worried he was. All in all, he’ll be relieved that you’re alive and mostly alright.

Smokescreen

WHAT?! You’re a super hero?! That is SO awesome! Do you have an awesome hero costume? Or an awesome hero name? Y’know he’s sorta like a hero in a way, he fights cons and saves the Earth from time to time, you fight villains and criminals and save the city. But mostly, why didn’t you tell him?! Right… Right… Secret identity… Gotta keep it a secret… But c’mon he’ll keep it! No one but the two of you will know!

With all this excited buzz about your secret identity, you’re not sure he’ll even keep it a secret, or if it’ll even end on the other hand. He asks you all sorts of questions about your secret identity, such as: How did you get your powers? Why did you become a hero? How’d you get your awesome suit? Do you have a hero name? If so, how did you choose or get it? The list goes on and on for miles, but if he’s bothering you with all these questions he’ll apologize and try his best to tone it down. Then an idea hits him and he asks you if you know about how Batman has his batmobile, he asks if he could be your ride, and it’s up to you to accept or decline his proposal.

Nowadays he’ll ask you all about your super cool adventures as a super hero. If he catches anything about you fighting some criminals or some super villain, you can be sure he’ll ask you all about it afterward, wanting to know all about the details. If you happen to get out of a pretty rough fight with someone, he’ll definitely ask if you’re alright and offer to take you to see Ratchet or Nurse Darby to see if they could fix you up.

Depending on how strong you are and if you allow the rest of the team to know, he might just want to take you along with him on missions. The two of you could be a power couple! A duo of doom! Smokey and Spidey! Of course he knows that he can’t put humans in danger, especially you. Sure he knows you’re capable of handling your own, but would Optimus really approve of taking you out to fight Decepticons with him? Nope. So for the time being, his fantasies of the two of you being a power couple that beats up bad guys and saves the world together remain dreams.