Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You’re telling me you ain’t ever done it before?”

“What about it?” Kicking a rock into the river they had cross during patrol, Depth Charge once again rued how easily Primal swayed him into assisting on patrols. It’ll familiarize you with the territory, Rampage is one of the Predacon’s front liners, you’ll find him easier when out on the field , all absolute slag. All he got was a headache and a burning desire to kick his blabbering partner into the sun. “Some of us had actual military careers; not everyone has time for your brand of tomfoolery.”

Snorting, Rattrap zipped ahead in his wheeled form, weaving lazily across the path of past patrols. “Tomfoolery, pfft. I was in the military too pal, still found time to have some fun. Just admit you’re an obsessive stick in’da mud who’s never done anythin’ fun in his life.”

“Don’t need fun,” Depth Charge growled. “Certainly don’t need whatever you’re trying to sell me.”

Rattrap cackled, hitting reverse to spin around Depth Charge. Unfortunately, he deftly avoided colliding with his feet. “You sure you don’t want any of what I’m selling?”

“Absolutely no—” Pausing suddenly, Depth Charge replayed Rattrap’s words in his head, processing and analyzing each coy lilt and snide wheedle in his voice. “Wait, are you flirting with me?”

As a response, Rattrap popped out of his alternate form, transforming smoothly with his hands propped on his hips and gazing up at Depth Charge with a calculating look in his eyes. “Got a problem with dat? Or ya still too hung up over crabcakes?”

Instinctively Depth Charge reached for his gun, because anyone who dared to bring up Protoform X like that deserved to be blasted to bits. Except he could still hear Primal’s annoyingly reasonable voice in the back of his head saying something stupid about not proving other people right, and maybe it would be good to give other people a chance, but mostly he could hear X’s sneering voice calling him a coward for letting the snide accusation get to him.

“Listen, pipsqueak,” he snarled, spark pulsing a bit too hotly underneath his chestplate as he leaned down to meet at Rattrap at more-or-less eye level. “I don’t have a problem with anything. You’re hung up over what I have or haven’t done? Then let’s do it .”

And just like that, Rattrap’s face lit up with shrewd victory. “Suh-weet! Let’s go get high.”

Chapter Text

Grunting as a heavy paw pinned him to the ground, Quickstrike flailed his gun upwards, only for the snakehead to be knocked to the side, hard enough to dent the mouthpiece closed. A javelin stabbed the earth by his head, the sharp edge a breath from his neck.

"Barely a battle." Yellow eyes sparking, Silverbolt knelt in close to his prey, a triumphant snarl twisting his features. "What's the point of letting you live this long if I can't get any fun from you?"

"Reckon you ‘find your fun’ in other ways, pardner," Quickstrike grumbled, squirming to get comfortable but not quite trying to break free. 

Silverbolt sneered, but the hint of teeth was more playful than menacing. He shifted his weight off of the other, enough to give him room to relax but not escape. "Oh, so very true, but one of these days I might tire of you. Despite your claims otherwise, I know that you can give me a proper fight. Won’t you humour me?”

“Mmm…” Stretching out, Quickstrike reached out with his uninjured limb, each scorpion leg tapping up Silverbolt’s chassis. “Naw, ain’t feelin it after taking a licking like that. Maybe next time you don’t bamboozle me with some mean trick. If I gotta whoop ya, it’ll be a proper standoff.”

With a huff, Silverbolt settled to Quickstrike’s side instead, angling the javelin over his neck. “As though you don’t have your own tricks. What is a little stab in the back between paramours?”

“Think you’re a real hoot, huh?”

Chuckling, Silverbolt’s posture his grip on the javelin relaxed. “Well, when it comes to destroying my enemies—”

While it might not have been able to shoot venom right now, the snake head still made a fine club. With a strangled hiss, it whipped up and clocked Silverbolt in the snout. Barking with surprise, Silverbolt’s hands flew to his face as Quickstrike knocked the javelin away and scrambled to his feet.

“Sorry to cut the date short, hotshot, but the rest of the gang should be rounding up your fellow outlaws by now.”

“You—” Silverbolt growled, but Quickstrike was already scuttling away into the underbrush. The growl shifted into a savage smile, and Silverbolt flexed his wings. The little snake was worth a fight after all.

Chapter Text

“This is not our mission.”

“If you interpret the parameters creatively enough, it’s similar enough to a mission.” Not even bothering to look at her partner and stretching out all her limbs, Blackarachnia luxuriated on the warm sand, letting her eyes go offline to really enjoy the atmosphere. Also, so that she wouldn’t have to register Inferno’s disappointed glare. “Just lay down and watch the sky for any nefarious Maximal plots, all right? Or enjoy the water. Just frolic, it’ll lower their guards.”

Instead of frolicking, she could feel Inferno’s heavy peds stomping irritably, forcing the sand to jump as though in fear. “You should be reported! For us to waste our time here, instead of fulfilling our Queen’s glorious orders—”

Blackarachnia’s eyes snapped open, already whipping out a stream of webbing to bring Inferno crashing down beside her. “Excuse me, the only Queen you should be listening to is me . And this Queen is saying is to lay your fine aft down, and just enjoy one damned moment of peace. Can you do that for me?”

Tangled up on his hands and knees, Inferno could do little more than gnash his teeth at the unsympathetic spider, wriggling around and flexing apart for the webbing only for Blackarachnia to weigh him down with more. Eventually he was wrapped from foot to neck, staring miserably at the upcoming tide upside down as Blackarachnia crawled up to straddle his waist, placing a mocking kiss on his cheek.

“You got that hissy fit out of your system yet? I promise I won’t tattle on you to Megatron if you take a moment to relax a bit.”

With one last defiant squirm, Inferno reared up and pressed his forehead against Blackarachnia’s. Maybe in another time there would have been more force to it, but now he only huffed. “You will explain to the Royalty why we brought back no Maximal heads in tribute to his glory.”

Chuckling, Blackarachnia relaxed at his side. Felt nice to win this particular battle of the spark.

Chapter Text

“—and they took me aboard their ship, opened me right up like a can! Ohh, my dear Ravage, you could not imagine the depravity, my terror… !”

“Terror, yes, very certain that is vhat you vere feeling.”

“So very terrorized,” Tarantulas confirmed solemnly, wringing his hands together. In the gloom of the tunnel they met in, Ravage could almost believe that his distress was genuine. “The experiments they subjected upon me while I was bound and helpless, they were horrific! Those aliens, why, if I ever catch them again—”

“They make another nice excuse for your tardiness?”

“Yes...wait.” Squinting at his partner, Tarantulas dropped the legs of their package. It was fine, silly thing had passed out ages ago from energon loss. That’s just what happened when you tried double dealing behind the backs of the Tripredacus Alliance. So unfortunate that Tarantulas’ travails had forced him to miss the actual collection; such a waste of good screams. “Are you implying that I’m lying ?”

Giving him a dirty look, Ravage continued dragging their quarry away by himself. “You lie many times. Story about alien abduction explaining your absence? Very much in your vheelhouse.”

Sputtering, Tarantulas stomped after him. “Excuse me?! You think I would lie about being kidnapped and experimented on, just to excuse being a little late for a mission? Utter nonsense, you know I love missions like this the most!”

A growl escaped him before he could tamp it down, but Ravage stubbornly continued on his way even as Tarantulas stalked beside him. “I am thinking that you vould also love being in the grasp of aliens capable of breaking past Cybertronian defenses. Vould be great fantasy for you, no?”

“Fantasies! I mean, maybe in other circumstances, but this! The aliens—the Vok, that’s what they called themselves, they were beyond our understanding! And they didn’t even have the grace of being remotely appealing.”

Scoffing, Ravage finally dropped his load and turned on Tarantulas, pointing at him accusingly. “You really do not know vhat you have done? I am not upset about mission!”

“What?” A consummate professional like Ravage, brushing off the mission like that? The gears turned frantically in Tarantula’s head, perhaps a bit slower than usual after the Vok’s fiddling. “What are you...oh. Oh .”

“Ah,” Ravage sneered. “Now he remembers.”

“...We can reschedule.”

“Reschedule vith your precious ‘Vok’.” And with that Ravage snatched the body by the head again and stormed off, leaving Tarantulas to fall to his knees and shake his fists in helpless rage at the distant skies they could not see.

“Curse you, Vok! You have seduced me away from a decent one-night stand for the last time! ”

Chapter Text

“Hrrm. I don’t like it.”

“I did say it was more of a human custom,” Optimus Primal said, pulling away with a small smile. “A different way to express affection, sure, but it’s not all that bad. Every culture has its quirks.”

With a huff, Dinobot ran his tongue over his teeth contemplatively. “Of course you would say that. Maximal gestures are notoriously saccharine.”

Primal laughed, leaning back into the grass. To all the world he may have looked like he was cloud-gazing (for research purposes of course), but Dinobot could still feel him watching from the corner of his eye, feel that soft curl of a smile that had been so close only moments before. “This is the first complaint that I’ve heard of it. What is it that Predacons do, then? Best their beloved in a fight?”

“It’s more intricate than that,” Dinobot replied stiffly, straightening up and turning his nose up to hide how his face had heated up.  “It is a delicate ritual, more akin to a dance than a fight! Participants must prove themselves not just in strength, but in trust. A practice not meant to end in bloodshed, but in matched passion!”

“Oh?” Curious, Primal leaned back in close. “To be honest, that doesn’t sound like something I could see the rest of Megatron’s crew participating in.”

“...It may be considered an old-fashioned practice.”

Primal chuckled, but not unkindly. “But probably still in practice, if you hold it in such high regard.”

Dinobot had no answer for that but a sharp, grateful nod. When silence fell between them, it fell comfortably, much like the puffed up clouds drifting above.

“...Primal. The human thing.”

“Hm?”

“We should try it again.”

Chapter Text

“If you fall off, I’m not stopping or going back for you.”

“Ain’t gonna fall off,” Quickstrike scoffed as he hopped to reach the seat, only to overshoot and topple off the other side. “While we’re driving. Ain’t gonna fall while we’re driving.”

Groaning, Rampage watched the pitiful display as Quickstrike time and again tried to clamber onto the bike, only for his foot to slip on footholds just too high for his stout legs, or for his sleeves of his jacket (not actually his jacket, Rampage recalled sourly) to fall over his hands and catch on an edge. Finally he broke, grabbing Quickstrike from under the armpits and hoisting him properly onto the bike seat.

“Yee-haw!” Just happy to be on the bike and nonplussed as to how he got onto it, Quickstrike wiggled a bit to get comfortable as Rampage slung his own legs across the front of the seat. “Gotta say, pleased as a pig in slop we’re doing this!”

“Don’t talk about slop,” Rampage grumbled, turning just long enough to shove a helmet onto Quickstrike’s head. The sight of him drowning in all that leather sent a bolt of irrational, irritated heat through the pit of his abdomen. “If my jacket gets messed up at all, I’ll feed you your own limbs.”

“Fair ‘nuff,” Quickstrike said cheerfully, slinging his arms around Rampage even through they couldn’t quite reach all the way around. “Now giddy-up big guy, let’s hit the trail!”

“You ‘giddy-up’.” Nevertheless, Rampage kicked up the stand, revved the engine, and hit the acceleration.

Within a hundred meters, Quickstrike fell off and thumped to the ground like a sack of shrieking potatoes.

In another fifty meters, the bike tipped over and took Rampage with it.

(He’d spent most of his life imprisoned. Who could blame him for exaggerating how well he could drive a motorbike?)

With both his body and ego bruised, Rampage abandoned the bike to trudge back to his fallen companion, who sat up with a dazed whine. 

“Whaddaya know, y'came back for me,” Quickstrike said, taking the second Rampage had stopped beside him as an opportunity to grab his hand and leverage himself back up. Much to Rampage’s embarrassment, Quickstrike appeared largely unharmed, shielded by the helmet and the jacket’s bulk. “I’d say he had ourselves a hog-killin’ good time. Let’s never do that again.”

Chapter Text

“I think,” Tarantulas said dreamily, arachnid limbs skimming over the arms and shoulder of his companion as he hung over the edge of the hot tub, “I could almost stay on this wretched little planet for the rest of my life, don’t you think?”

Grimacing, Megatron shrugged Tarantulas’ tantalizing touches away, sinking further into his tub. “I think not! Every moment wasted here is another moment I could be ruling Cybertron. I’m surprised that you of all Predacons have grown fond of it. Back off, I don’t need your presence contaminating my relaxation time.”

Tarantulas only crept closer, dangling like a tease over the bubbling CR liquid. “Well, I did say almost. But this world does have its perks! A never-ending buffet of new and interesting creatures to taste, plenty of energon to experiment with, Vok experiments to disrupt—I could very well get used to it all.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were feeling... sentimental.”

Chittering at the very thought, Tarantulas dipped a finger into the tub. Megatron flicked it away, but offered no further reprimand. “There’s just so much more potential in this silly little planet than we have previously given it credit for. Even if your ambitions for the Ark fall through, who’s to say that we can’t twist fate into our favour anyways? The Autobots could emerge millions years from now, only to find that humanity already reviles them!”

Megatron glanced at the other. Of course he had considered that—if they could just eliminate the Maximals once and for all, the planet would be his for the reaping. Of course he wanted the Ark, but if any pesky variables interrupted that, he could always use his fill of Earth’s energon resources.

Yes, Megatron had plenty of plans packed away for whatever the future held for him. He was used to others either relying on those plans, or having plenty of their own. What confused him instead was Tarantulas’ strange little fixation of the moment.

“My preference would be to be back home, on Cybertron,” Megatron finally answered diplomatically, watching his rubber duck float past even as he watched Tarantulas from the corner of his eye. “Surely you have something worth going back for as well?”

Tarantulas’ face was irritatingly blank, tilted and staring at something through Megatron’s head. Just as he was ready to file this conversation as another of Tarantulas’ strange whimsies to watch out for, he found himself sputtering as Tarantulas suddenly dove into the tub, splashing CR liquid all over. 

“Oh, nevermind all that,” Tarantulas said as Megatron furiously scrubbed the liquid from his face, taking the opportunity to curl into Megatron’s side before he could be shoved back out. “Just considering what the future might hold, is all.”