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Brainstorm has a fantastic grip on his own sense of self. He understands what he loves about weapons - the power, the strength, the fact that making them makes him valuable - and what he doesn’t like about them. Namely that they kill people, violently and oftentimes slowly, and when he doesn’t do his job right they might even kill the people he made them for.
Brainstorm loves weapons, but that love has a limit. And that limit usually comes to seeing them in use. There’s a reason he doesn’t let Whirl put them to use in front of him. He’s never found them to be - be sexy before, no matter how many times Rodimus has accused him of having a fetish. Something about watching mechs blow other mech’s helms apart with the weapons he designed not being a turn on.
That’s why the sudden flash of heat that runs up his spine when he sees Perceptor handling his weapons catches him by surprise.
He watches Perceptor run his hands down the barrel of the gun, cold, clinical, checking the sight in one smooth motion motion. He cocks it, rests the butt on his shoulder, and squeezes off three lightning quick bolts down the range. He waits another moment to check that he’d hit the center of the targets - he had, except for the one that Whirl had utterly destroyed during his turn testing the new weaponry - before thumbing the safety and returning the weapon to the tray. “It is ... passable. The sighting isn’t accurate enough and the barrel pulls slightly to the left. The reduced kickback was a pleasant surprise.”
Brainstorm eyes the weapon in Perceptor’s hand, thinking of the heat suddenly pooling in his groin.
“Try the next one. It’s another energy weapon, wicked cool.” Literally, as he watches Perceptor discover.
It’s the competence, he decides, watching Perceptor ice down half the range. The sheer confidence of the mech handling his weapons of war, unafraid of the destruction they can wreak, entirely reassure of his own ability... Even thinking about it makes his mouth go cotton dry. The curve of his back, the breath of his shoulders, the slight narrowing of his single blue optic.
He’s beautiful when he’s holding Brainstorm’s weapons. A creature build for science and trained for war, standing tall and laying hands on Brainstorm’s creations like he was always meant to be the mech to handle them. Like he was always meant to handle Brainstorm’s creation.
Perceptor turns to him when he’s finished testing the last weapon, optic bright but posture perfect. “These are excellent,” he tells Brainstorm, and the warmth in those three words is almost enough to knock the scientist off his peds. His aerilons flutter in response, and he digs through the collection of not-quite-ready weapons he keeps at his desk. Anything to keep Perceptor shooting, anything to keep him talking to and paying attention to Brainstorm. Anything to keep him from walking away.
The weapon is returned to the rack, Perceptor adjusting the armor of his wrists and fingers after the workout they’d suffered. “Is this all you had for me?”
Brainstorm doesn’t want to let him go, but there isn’t anything keeping him there. No more weapons to try, and even if he wanted to risk Brainstorm’s incomplete masterpieces, the range is too destroyed for Perceptor to use it. No reason for him to stay.
Perceptor lingers by his desk. “I think it would be beneficial to go over the weapon specifications together. I have the time to do so at present. Do you?”
Spark in his mouth, Brainstorm scrambles to gather up the datapads with the correct specs on them and clear a place for Perceptor to sit. “Yeah, ‘course, sit down and we can talk -“
Perceptor hums softly. “I do think it will take some time. You’d best clear the rest of your day.” He hooks his ped around the leg of the weapon’s rack, dragging it towards the desk. “We will have to go over every one of the weapons you introduced to me today.”
Brainstorm pours himself into his rolley chair, cheeks warm. “Right. All of them.”
It’s not necessary for them to do this together; Perceptor could just as well send him a report the next day with his notes on the weapons. Instead, he’s sitting with Brainstorm, talking, helm leaning close to his as they comb over the specs together. Their fingers brush. Neither of them pulls away.
Sometimes love is simple.