#this isn't a fic this is a drabble or an outline or smth

[deepspacespicy]

Part 1 blurb to toxic AND doomed shockwave x cybertronian reader: before the fall

I have been so PLAGUED by thoughts of Shockwave I swear to god this idea has been in my head for days (also note that I haven't read any of the comics where half of this lore comes from so if I get something wrong please tell me 😭)

So this goes back to the Senator Shockwave days right. Expressive, vibrant, empathetic, iconic, etc.

Then there's you. Lower class worker, probably a service bot of some kind like a waitress or factory drone.

He meets you when you're scrounging together energon to feed yourself. You lock eyes with him and freeze, not only because obviously you recognize him but because you know he knows too that all the excess energon is supposed to go back into storage, but... you havent had enough to eat recently.

I don't think Senator Shockwave would ever report someone for a victimless crime and as such turns a blind eye, even going so far as to keep your boss occupied so you can finish scrounging, which you remain suspicious of until he contacts you again later.

He's amicable like every politician is supposed to seem, but then he starts asking you questions, like how often you get rations and if they're of any decent quality. You tell him to frag off, thinking things some weird pity thing for clout but he apologizes for infringing, but that he suspects a global energon shortage is in the horizon, a result of expansion and over population on the planet. He tells you he's working to find an alternative energon source for the future of Cybertron.

You tell him to take his fear mongering propaganda elsewhere, but much to your horror he does not. Even worse, the longer he wears on your patience the more you think he might actually have a point. Even while arguing where you can, by the end of the encounter you're forced to concede that he might be on to something, but it makes no sense as to why he'd waste his time to tell you all this when he could be campaigning for more support.

His optics twinkle when he speaks. "It wasn't a waste." He says. "You believe me, don't you?"

He departs shortly after, citing a need to get back to that campaign of his. You watch him leave, baffled by the encounter and left wondering about the future.

That was, unfortunately, far from the last you'd see of him. He seemed to seek you out, which was crazy, because every time you spotted him you clicked your tongue and rolled your eyes.

You're strong-willed and you're smart. That's what he likes about you. It takes a while of him wearing you down with his presence before you realize you're actually fairly comfortable around him. He doesn't treat you like a subject or as the lower class bot you are, he treats you like a friend, a peer even. You give up trying to understand him and before you know it, your walls have come down and he's waltzed inside your spark.

You can't see each other with any frequency due to his busy schedule but you keep up via comms and he comes to visit you whenever he can. It's always been harder for you to travel to him all the way up in the nicer parts of Iacon but he's always told you he didn't mind.

You become confidants, he tells you about Orion Pax, his hope for the future, and his concerns and arguments with the functionists on the senate. He talks a bit about his experiments but doesn't go too deep in detail about them. They put you off a little because generally they do seem a little unethical but this is before he's willing to actively put people's life at risk, so you tentatively agree that the ends will justify his means.