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“Thank you for coming, Nightbeat,” Ultra Magnus greeted without just yet looking up from his datapad. One last signature and – there, finished. The form was sent off and Ultra Magnus slipped the datapad into his subspace, since for once this wasn’t a business meeting, so there was no place for work here.
As off kilter as that put Ultra Magnus, there was something in the novelty of it that was… for lack of a more eloquent word, nice.
“You’re the one who sent the invite,” Nightbeat replied casually, standing next to the chair across the desk from Ultra Magnus. There was a stiffness to his posture that was unlike how he might stand in a casual setting, but it didn’t seem to be born from discomfort. More like a spring waiting to be sprung.
A sentiment that Ultra Magnus could understand.
“True. But you did not need to follow suit given this is an unofficial meeting.”
Nightbeat’s visor flickered and the corner of his lips twitched. Ultra Magnus felt his spark sputter in his chest at the reminder of how handsome his guest was.
“‘Follow suit.’ Right,” he said, softer and with a hint of humor, like it were some shared joke. Ultra Magnus, however, wasn’t sure just what the joke was.
Nonetheless, Ultra Magnus persisted, saying, “Please, feel free to take make yourself comfortable,” while he rose from his own seat. The reality of what he was doing was really starting to set in, filling Ultra Magnus with a nervous energy that he could have contained sitting but preferred to be in motion to satisfy. And this was an unofficial meeting, so he was allowed comfort as well. “May I offer you a drink?”
Nightbeat grasped the back of the chair next to him, but instead of settling into it normally, he spun it to face away from Ultra Magnus and then straddled it so he leaned his chin on his arms where they crossed over the back of the chair. Ultra Magnus had seen Rodimus sit backwards in chairs enough time that it didn’t necessarily surprise him anymore.
Though there was something about how Nightbeat did it that caused a slight rise in Ultra Magnus’s sparkrate.
Perhaps it had something to do with the piercing gaze, as if trying to dissect and see through Ultra Magnus to his core.
And that was why they were there, wasn’t it? The way that from that first day they found themselves on the same ship, on the same quest, Nightbeat noticed Ultra Magnus. Whenever Ultra Magnus walked into a room, if Nightbeat was there, he could count on the mech looking up, really seeing him. Much more often than any other crewmember, he would greet Ultra Magnus. Ask him about his day. Sometimes even try to engage him in casual conversation about himself. What he liked, what he didn’t like, his origins, any friends or family…
It was flattering. Ultra Magnus couldn’t rightly recall the last time anyone had been so interested in getting to know him. He was so used to mechs trying to avoid him that to have a mech notice him and engage with him was enough to bring a slight flush of heat to his face.
It didn’t help that Nightbeat was such a handsome mech on top of that. Handsome, and intelligent, and full of interesting stories and facts and insights.
He must have thought Ultra Magnus rather slow on the uptake considering how long it took him to realize that Nightbeat’s attentions meant something.
It seemed rather obvious that Nightbeat, well. That Nightbeat fancied him.
At least, it was once the idea finally occurred to Ultra Magnus. But he couldn’t be blamed for not recognizing it when it wasn’t something Ultra Magnus ever looked for in people he met and interacted with. Even as Minimus, it hadn’t been something he’d ever had to recognize.
But it was flattering. And exhilarating. And anxiety-inducing.
Ultra Magnus may have been avoiding Nightbeat for the last week before finally deciding he had to simply face this head on.
Because maybe he rather fancied Nightbeat as well.
“Didn’t take you for the type to keep engex in your office.”
“I’m usually not,” Ultra Magnus admitted as he turned away from Nightbeat, hoping to gain at least some of his composure. He opened his cabinet to pull out a bottle and two cubes. “This is from my quarters. It’s a sparkling engex, so I hope you don’t mind it will not induce as high a charge.”
“I’d expect nothing less from you. After all, anything higher would be against regulation for keeping in your personal quarters.”
Ultra Magnus felt the corner of his lips twitch in an almost smile.
“I’m glad you understand.”
“Of course,” Nightbeat replied as Ultra Magnus began to fill one of the cubes. “Even when trying to bribe someone, you’ll still follow regulation.”
Ultra Magnus froze then, his processor hiccupping.
“Bribe?”
“Let’s not beat around the bush, Ultra Magnus. If that even is your real name.”
The cube started to overflow, finally snapping Ultra Magnus into motion as he put the bottle down and scrambled into his subspace for a towel, still not looking at Nightbeat as he tried to get a grasp on what, exactly, was happening.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you mean—”
“Don’t play dumb with me. You’re too smart for that.”
Ultra Magnus turned and jolted when he found that Nightbeat had made his way around the desk to his side, leaning his hips back against it with his arms crossed over his chest, looking up at Ultra Magnus confidently.
He was also that much closer now. There was very little space between them.
“As much as I’d like to take that compliment, I’m really not sure what you’re insinuating.”
Nightbeat huffed.
“I know that you’re not the original Ultra Magnus, if there ever was an original Ultra Magnus.”
Minimus’s spark grew cold where he was tucked away in his suit, aware of his façade in a way he could usually ignore.
“You’re a conspiracy theorist then.”
Nightbeat frowned.
“I hate when people put it that way. I don’t think every mystery has sinister political powers at work behind it. Just the ones that do have sinister political powers at work behind them. And I know the case of the Multiple Ultra Magni is one of them.”
“And that’s why you think you’re here?”
“Why else would you avoid me for a week and then invite me into your office? Obviously you realized I was getting close to the truth.”
Ultra Magnus’s frown deepened as he ex-vented.
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave, Nightbeat.”
Nightbeat didn’t leave.
Nightbeat continued to stare up at Ultra Magnus, that piercing gaze more sinister now, but somehow, despite it all, still just as flustering.
Fifteen seconds had passed, and Ultra Magnus was preparing to ask a second time when Nightbeat said, “Yes, why? Why would you have acted this way if you hadn’t realized my intent?”
“I’d rather not disclose that.”
“But will you?” Nightbeat pushed away from the desk and stepped closer, which in turn had Ultra Magnus stumbling back against the cabinet. Worst still that Nightbeat uncrossed his arms to brace his servos against the wall on either side of Ultra Magnus’s torso, trapping him. “Why am I here?”
Ultra Magnus swallowed thickly.
“I thought you fancied me.”
Nightbeat’s visor flickered, but that’s all that changed about his frame.
“You thought I fancied you.”
“Mechs don’t notice me much, or if they do it’s not for any pleasant reason. They certainly don’t choose to engage in casual conversation with me or wish to know more about my personal life. You know, now that I’m saying this aloud, I’m starting to see that it was a rather stupid conclusion—”
Ultra Magnus found himself interrupted by one of Nightbeat’s servos reaching up to slap across his mouth.
“Fascinating. What a fascinating turn of events…” Nightbeat mused to himself as he looked up at Ultra Magnus with a bright visor, his mouth, inexplicably, turned up in a smile. “If you thought that I fancied you and with that idea in mind chose to invite me here for an unofficial meeting in which you offered me a drink, that must mean that you fancy me.”
It wasn’t a question, so Ultra Magnus didn’t reply.
Also because there was still a servo on his mouth.
“And now that you bring it up, I can’t say that I don’t fancy you.”
Ultra Magnus narrowed his optics and finally couldn’t help saying, “You do know that a double-negative—”
“Of course I do. I imagine that’s at least a fraction of the reason a mech like you would fancy me.”
He wasn’t wrong, so Ultra Magnus went back to his silence.
Also because his spark was warming, which was outrageous because he was still in a room with someone determined to out him and the whole Ultra Magnus project. Yet—
“Anyway, since you fancy me and I don’t not fancy you, I suggest we do the only reasonable thing and start dating.”
Nightbeat finally removed his servo from Ultra Magnus’s mouth, instead propping it on his own hip rather proudly as he still leaned on his other servo, which meant that he was still leaning into Ultra Magnus, which meant he was still doing things to Ultra Magnus’s composure.
“I can’t tell if you’re suggesting that because you’re actually interested in me romantically, or if you’re suggesting that because you want to get to the bottom of this conspiracy of yours.”
“A little of column A and a little of column B. What’s romance without a little mystery?”
“And why would I agree to dating you, knowing it’s in part because of your theorist intensions?”
“Because it would be awfully suspicious for you to not date someone you fancy if you didn’t have anything to hide, wouldn’t it?”
“But that in turn would mean I could be choosing to date you purely as a bluff did I have something to hide.”
“Ooh, you’re right. I do fancy you.”
Nightbeat was beaming from audial to audial as finally he moved back. In fact, he started humming as he made he was back around the desk, as if headed for the door.
“I’d say we pick things up here but I think we both need a little time to restrategize. So, what say we pick things up tonight at my place? A little evening refueling for two?”
Ultra Magnus only realized then that he was still awkwardly sprawled back against the cabinet and wall. Clearing his vocalizer and standing himself up straight again, Ultra Magnus managed to reply, “You’re suggesting a date?”
Nightbeat offlined half his visor in a wink.
“You tell me.”
And miraculously he waited the full thirty-three seconds of vigorous internal debate it took Ultra Magnus before he finally committed to saying, “I look forward to it.”
Instead of finally leaving, as Ultra Magnus had assumed, Nightbeat turned back and strode across the office, stepping up on the guest chair and then the desk to reach a height just slightly above Ultra Magnus’s helm.
“I’m going to get to the bottom of you, whoever you are,” Nightbeat promised before leaning down and pressing his lips to Ultra Magnus’s. A second passed and he pulled back, looking devilishly handsome as he continued, “And I can’t wait to meet you, mystery mech.”
And then Nightbeat was gone, leaping back to the floor and closing the door behind himself as he left.
And it was only then, stood alone in his office, that Ultra Magnus realized he’d been kissed.
And Minimus’s spark roared to life in his hidden frame, begging to be known.
Oh what a truly terrible, idiotic mistake he was making.
And yet, he still added the date to his schedule.