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Rodimus held the envelope in his hand with no small amount of surprise. His partner wasn’t prone to open displays of affection, and he hadn’t been expecting Ultra Magnus to participate at all when Swerve had announced that he was hosting a Valentine’s Day party for the crew. He hadn’t even expected Magnus to join him at the party, though they had made plans for a quiet night in with movies and snacks after the Captain put in an appearance.
He must have stared just a bit too long, because Ultra Magnus’ shoulders slumped and a frown crossed his face for a moment. “My apologies, if I offended. It was presumptuous to--”
“No.” Rodimus’ hand darted out and wrapped around Magnus’ wrist. “No, it’s not that. You haven’t offended me or anything. I just didn’t think you’d be into this at all, so you took me by complete surprise.”
“I did?” The faintest ghost of a smile turned up the big mech’s lips. They both knew how rarely he managed to truly surprise Rodimus with gifts, as he was too prone to wanting to ensure that his gift would be something the smaller mech even wanted.
“Yeah, you did.” Rodimus grinned. “And I love that you put in the effort. I left your gift in my quarters, though. Cause I didn’t think you’d want these guys staring while you opened it.”
“You were correct. I do want you to open your gift, however.”
“Right.” The red and gold mech’s attention was drawn back to the envelope in his hand. He let go of his partner’s wrist and carefully pulled the flap up. He pulled out a card that was a rich blue dotted with silver stars, and nothing at all written on the front. He tilted it back and forth, watching the play of the light across the metallic stars for a moment before he flipped it open.
My dearest,
Something for you, when you are homesick.
Sincerely,
Ultra Magnus
He smiled at the message, a little painfully, because he had been homesick a lot lately. The rebuilding was taking away parts of Cybertron he hadn’t realized that he had identified with so strongly before. Then he looked at the small chip that had been folded inside. He read the glyphs printed on it, and then read them again. “You got me a gift certificate to Near and Far? You hate Near and Far.”
Ultra Magnus did hate his favorite restaurant. It was a point of contention between them when they were on Cybertron. Magnus wanted to go someplace nice, and Rodimus always wanted to go to the one restaurant in the city that served food that was close to what he had grown up eating in Nyon. Poor mech’s food, though Ultra Magnus had been polite enough never to call it that.
“I do, but you do not.”
“Wow.” It was surprisingly thoughtful, though getting Magnus to go with him would be a battle and a half.
“Do you… do you not like it? Were the others right that it was not an appropriate gift?”
“What?” Rodimus’ head snapped back up and he stared at Ultra Magnus again. “No! It’s great, though I’m never going to get you to come with me.”
“That was the point, Rodimus. I wanted to give you something you could enjoy without…” The large mech paused to consider his words, “Ruining your fun. This seemed like an acceptable compromise between taking you out and letting you go do something you enjoy without a fight.”
“See, that’s actually really thoughtful.” The red and gold mech smiled, then stood up on his tiptoes to press a kiss to his partner’s lips. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome.” Ultra Magnus returned the smile, briefly.