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“Where have you been, soldier?”
“Working on your ship. Recalibrated the drive. Efficiency’s up seventeen percent. Sir.”
One could still cut the tension between them with one of Wheeljack’s swords. But something had changed. Efficiency, Ultra Magnus understood. And even appreciated.
“Show me.” And, catching Optimus’ optic, Ultra Magnus added. “Please?”
***
Now both of them were covered in grime, because the best parts, the most interesting parts, were always under the hood. Even if Ultra Magnus felt certain his spaceship had no such part as ‘the hood.’ Wheeljack rerouted the plasma modulator and… A host of other things that he described as he looked at the interested Ultra Magnus with disbelief, then talked some more, and more, and even more.
“Nobody wants all that detail. They call it ‘excruciating’ ” - Wheeljack finally said, looking… Yes, Ultra Magnus thought, he looked satisfied. Even excited.
“I appreciate detail,” Ultra Magnus said simply, and asked, “How will removing the redundant coils hold up under high-gravity planetary landing?”
And when Wheeljack spent a breem answering, Ultra Magnus took notes. On a datapad.
***
While Wheeljack discussed fine points of landing on small, dense planets versus gas giants, the flood lights of the military base turned on for the night. Fowler and Miko were nearby, so they were speaking English. “If you give me permission” - Ultra Magnus checked the newest slang dictionaries, but no, despite the tone, the word hadn’t mutated into a curse while he was away - “we can move to the humans’ repair shop. See if we can’t do anything about that little problem with acceleration.”
“Permission granted,” Ultra Magnus said, and asked, “What little problem?”
“Too much jerk!” Wheeljack replied with a smirk. Miko giggled, and Ultra Magnus checked dictionaries again. That was a slang term. But also the proper mechanics term. He made a note to figure out what Wheeljack meant, if only he could do so without antagonizing everyone. Would he ever?
Fowler flew with them to the shop. Miko asked to come at first, but caught a few minutes of their conversation about the rates of fuel injection and ran away. Undisciplined little alien.
They walked to the shop’s door, tall enough even for Ultra Magnus. Fowler unlocked it with his access card and pushed a button to raise it. He turned the lights on, and then they flicked, some sparks flew, and the shop became dark. “Edison’s burned bamboo! Not that circuit breaker again!” Fowler said. Ultra Magnus heeded Optimus’ advice not to try and decipher. Instead, he transformed and turned the headlights on.
He saw primitive human tools - cranes, a car lift, shelves with little things. And under a shelf, two shiny eyes.
“Scraplets!” he cried, backed out, then forced himself to stop.
“Where?” Wheeljack’s swords jumped into his hands as if teleporting. He was already crouching.
“Under the far right shelf. I saw the eyes. Now they have disappeared. My scans have returned no relevant results.”
Fowler walked to the shelf, looked under, stuck his arm deep into the dark space… Ultra Magnus tensed on his axles. He knew scraplets never attacked non-metal lifeforms, but the thought of an appendage near one would make any mech’s energon run cold. When Fowler pulled his arm back out, there were no horrors in his hand. Just a small organic.
Species - felis catus, a database supplied. A juvenile of a native lifeform.
“Stand down, Wheeljack” Fowler said. “The mechanic’s cat had some kittens. Darwin’s fluffy beard, they ain’t scraplets. See?”
The tiny thing made a loud sound in Fowler’s hand. Something in Ultra Magnus resonated, and then melted.
He zoomed his optics to look closer. The little face, similar to the Decepticon symbol? No, no, why would he respond to that symbol this way?! He knew that he did respond, that he wanted to keep looking at the tiny ball of black and white fur cradled in Fowler’s hands, now making quiet noises like a well-calibrated, content engine.
Ultra Magnus wanted to learn more about felis catus. He wanted details. Maybe he could hold one, possibly under a microscope. Next to his spark would be better, his processor told him, and he didn’t know why.
Wheeljack put his swords behind his back and shrugged. He searched the shop for the tools he needed, and went out. Ultra Magnus watched Fowler put the organic down on a soft human-made round berth, next to two more juveniles and an adult. Ultra Magnus kept his lights on until Fowler left for the part he needed to fix the electricity; stayed a bit longer and observed the squad of catus (no, he corrected himself, ‘family’ - Optimus had explained); and then transformed and went out to help Wheeljack.
They made a short work of the task, talking about mechanics. Then Wheeljack said, “I gotta tell ya, sir” - the word didn’t sound like a curse anymore, but still felt improper, in ways Ultra Magnus couldn’t define - “your wheels don’t quite align, when in alt. Wanna me to check ‘em?”
***
Maybe it was all the talk about the ship for half a day. Maybe it was everything that was wrong, the war, the lost Autobots, his missing hand. Maybe it was the juvenile furry organic. But somehow or otherwise, Ultra Magnus found himself up on a human lift for trucks, in his alt form, letting a mechanic - not even a proper doctor such as Ratchet - look under his hood.
Wheeljack rigged a human floodlight to work off his system, tying it to his helmet with wires, but the rest of the hangar stood in darkness. He worked on the wheels, checking, rotating, aligning. He told Ultra Magnus to move this or that part, but they didn’t speak otherwise, and the commander didn’t feel like asking anything, or trying to see. Feeling Wheeljack work was enough.
“The way your hands move...” Ultra Magnus started, then paused. Saying it out loud made his motor, already running high, switch to the next gear.
“What about ‘em?” Wheeljack asked with a grin Ultra Magnus could hear, although he couldn't see it against the light.
“Your movements are precise and economical. Beautiful.” He had no idea where the last one came from. Once he’d said it, he knew it was true. He also knew overriding vents had become painful. He let them grab cool night air, felt the relief, had to ex-vent in a big sigh.
“Oh? Lemme just check one more thing…” Wheeljack muttered, and made a front wheel spin slowly.
One of his hands stayed next to the wheel, the light touch almost a caress on the tire's surface. The other hand lightly slid around the wheel’s well in counter-rotation. The hand’s rotational velocity matched that of the wheel, slowing down until the wheel stopped. The two touches were in perfect tune, and started a feedback loop all over Ultra Magnus’ sensory net. He sighed again, ex-venting air that was entirely too hot for a truck sitting idle.
At that moment, the big floodlights in the hangar turned on, and Agent Fowler said, “Are you detailing the commander, Wheeljack? Here, some light will help.”
Ultra Magnus winced so much the platform shook. He was heavier than a human truck would be; Wheeljack grabbed the edge of the platform and Ultra Magnus’ front fender and held, until everything was steady. The commander wanted to explain that’s not what they were doing, but Wheeljack said, “Thanks, Fowler. We are all over in oil and coolant. From repairing chief’s Iron Will.”
The way the Wrecker said the name of the ship! His tone made plain words hold extra data, as simple touches of his hands meant strange mechanical miracles. Details. Primus lived in the details.
Fowler left, and the large door lowered after him. “Want to do it, chief?” Wheeljack said quietly, seriously, and Ultra Magnus once again felt deeper meaning behind simple words asking if he’d like surface maintenance.
He said, “Yes.”
***
Ultra Magnus’ reboot sequence was slower than usual, but he was clear on where he was, why, and how, because he had the best defragmentation cycle in… in way too long. Maybe since before the war. He was in his alt form, on a lowered truck lift, in a human repair shop, with Wheeljack still asleep tucked next to his hood, where his last overload caught him.
In the clarity of a fresh defrag, Ultra Magnus ran the analysis; the result came back quickly, and read, “Be glad.” What he and Wheeljack now shared should be good for the morale of their little army unit. No, he corrected himself. Their little family.
He ran through the memories of the last day, the two of them improving the ship, Wheeljack’s clever hands on ridges of Iron Will’s engine, then under Ultra Magnus’ own hood - always in the right places, with the right pressure, with the right rhythm. Simple touches, meaning so much. It warmed his spark.
Something else warmed his spark too, a tiny intrusion next to the crystal, and just a few degrees under what his spark housing was - much warmer than the ambient temperature. That should have alarmed him but didn’t. He didn’t transform to gain hands - that could be dangerous - but scanned. There was no extra metal next to his spark. But he had just ran through yesterday’s memory file, and the answer was obvious. He zoomed in on the berth of the catus family. They were three; the juvenile that Fowler caught yesterday was missing.
Ultra Magnus reran the memory file to check. Then he increased the audio gain on the right frequency, and heard that quiet engine-like purr.
It was going to be a busy day, but he could linger yet, next to the warm frame of Wheeljack, and the warmer organic under his hood. Ultra Magnus decided to run another relational analysis about the catus. He pooled the details from the memory file: frequencies of the louder and the quieter sounds the being made, the shape of its face, its temperature, the pattern of its covering… This time (thank the morning clarity!) there was a high-significance match to what must have affected his subconscious processing yesterday.
It was a relation, this-like-that: white audio-sensing triangles like door wings, tiny olfactory intake like the black emblem on the chest, the frequency of the louder sound like one of the sirens.
Ultra Magnus felt Wheeljack stir. He would wake up, and lift his hood - the commander shivered a little - and gently remove the stray alien. Ultra Magnus hoped they could arrange for it to join the Autobot family like Fowler, Miko and other local lifeforms had.
He would study it in detail, and take care of it, and name it Prowl.