Work Text:
The exhausted red mech skimmed through the content of the datapad in his servo. The whole 27,768-word report was about a bot who complains that his neighbor keeps doing suspicious late-night activities while he's the one at fault for setting up a camera facing the other's berthroom. “This is why Prowl always has that dead-aft expression on his face all the time.” Ironhide groaned out and laid his faceplate flat on the table. He couldn’t bring himself to look at another datapad.
He missed the time of action, swinging his fist left and right, knocking out any Decepticon in his range. He, himself was a whole army of Autobots, he was the toughest Autobot for his Prime. Now, he has met his one true enemy, paperwork.
It’s been hours since he last stood on his pedes. Hours from being stuck in this office, unable to see the outside world. Was this the true reason why Prime left Cybertron? To escape the mountain of work?. He began asking himself silly questions to keep himself from dying of boredom. ‘Primus, if you are real. Please, hear my prayer and lend me your aid.’ And he prayed.
Then, he waited for 5 kliks. For 15 kliks.. For 30 kliks... For an hour.... But nothing happened. He sighed, and shut off his optics for a bit.
The clanking sounds of pedesteps caught his attention. He had expected one of the workers to drop by to unload several more datapads. The door to his office slid open, revealing a striking blue bot. He lifted his head to see and his dull blue optics met hers.
“Ironhide, you look… restless?” The blue bot asked him. Her voice sounded ever so familiar to his audials.
“You mean mopey?” The red mech said with a smirk on his face. Chromia froze up a bit. Then, she rolled her optics at him. “Didn’t think that she would actually snitch on me.”
“It’s more of a slip of the tongue. She was in a flat spin the moment she realized that.” Ironhide said, as an attempt to save the Cityspeaker from being scolded by her bodyguard.
“Do you need my help with anything?” He didn’t forget that they were still in working hours. Chromia must have needed something from his office for her to come all the way here.
“Windblade sends me out to get the datapads that you signed for her. The ones that are related to the Metroplex vandalism problem.”
“Oh yeah, those. I’ve just finished signing. I think I put them… right here.” Ironhide said as he spinned his chair around to search on the shelf behind him. “Weird noises complaints… No, that’s not it… Wall graffiti issue… Yep, definitely them.”
“I believe these are the ones she asked for.” Ironhide turned back to see that the Camien bot had closed the distance between them. She stood right in front of his desk, with optics locked in with his. He didn’t say a thing to disturb it. Just, quietly gazing back at her.
“How’s work these days?” The bot finally broke the silence surrounding them. Ironhide thought it was strange of her. Chromia is never up to small talk. She is the type of less talk, more action kind of bot. But he didn’t mind the sudden change. It made him feel more homely… “Well, It’s only been three days since I established this business and the amount of work is insanely depressing. Sometimes, I just wanna abandon it all and go back to my old job.”
“Which is?” She quirked her optic at him.
“Walk around the place, roughing up some misfits in the way.” A faint smile crossed his face as he recalled bits of memory from that good old time. She blinked twice, having trouble trying to imagine this rarely-call-for-violence bot as the one looking for a fight. “Sounds so much unlike you.”
“Yep, that’s the old me. Now, I’m just a... tired,… moody bot.” He said at a slow, dragging pace.
They ended their short little conversation there. Chromia then took the datapads from the red mech’s servo and stored them inside her subspace.
She didn’t leave after that. Ironhide took notice of it and asked- The blue bot suddenly leaned in close to-
*chu*
It was the sound of a soft feather-like kiss planted right on his cheek. The surprise attack threw him off-guard. Before his very own optics, was her tender smile. A visible tint of red surfaced on the dumbstruck red mech's faceplate.
“Do your best, mopey.” She said and walked out without looking back.
It took a few kliks for him to unfreeze and some more kliks as he took his sweet time caressing the spot she had touched… with her lips. The red mech then fixed his posture, straightening his spinal cord, sliding his chair right between the table. And picked up the unfinished datapad, continued reading it. This time, with a beaming smile on his faceplate.
Oh, Primus did answer him.
