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"Huh.” Rodimus picked up the memory card, a really old style card that might have been new when Ratchet was a freshpaint, and looked at it curiously. It definitely wasn’t his, and probably wasn’t Magnus’, and he had no idea how it had gotten onto his desk. He didn’t even have anything that would read a memory card this old, and he was raising a hand to his comm to call Ratchet when he remembered, abruptly…
…That someone had been trying to blackmail Ratchet with anonymous media from his med school days for years now.
“Aw, Pit.” He completed the gesture and activated his comms before rubbing his optics while waiting for Ratchet to answer.
”What is it, Rodimus? We’re a little busy right now.”
“I know, Ratch, sorry. I just…” Rodimus sighed. The was no good way to deliver this news. “I found a really old memory card on my desk and I remembered the blackmail and… well.”
Ratchet echoed his sigh. ”Well, thanks for warning me. Did you play it, yet?”
“Not yet. I don’t have a reader for it, and if it is more blackmail for you, I probably don’t want to see it anyway.”
”Heh. That’s not what you said last week.”
“Last week, it was the four of us in your room, not blackmail.”
”Yeah, I know. I’m sending Drift up for the memory card. One of us will let you know what was on it.”
“Thanks, Ratch. Sorry, if this is more of the same old scrap.”
”Me too, but if it is, maybe it’ll be what Jazz needs to finally break the thing open.”
-_-_-_-
When they finally got the memory card to play back, Ratchet was glad that Rodimus hadn’t actually watched it. The footage was grainy, either copied repeatedly or degraded with time, but even the low quality couldn’t disguise what was happening in the video as it ran.
On the screen, Mirage was dancing on a table, panels open and plating flared to show off his protoform. His biolights were flashing in time with the music that must have been playing, though the recording didn’t have audio, and several mechs were reaching up to try and touch the noblemech. None of the mechs in the video were Ratchet, at least, and he didnt’ remember ever seeing Mirage at one of his parties until long after the war had started.
When Jazz found out who was behind this mess, Mirage was going to kill someone.
“Oh, I’m glad Roddy didn’t watch this one,” Drift said softly.
“I was just thinking that.” Ratchet reached out and paused the video. Then he ejected the memory card and tossed it onto the table. “This whole thing is getting out of hand. It was bad enough when we thought they were trying to discredit Starscream and Optimus, but if they’re dragging more mechs into it? I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“I still think they’re trying to discredit us all, because someone doesn’t want us to move back out into the galaxy peacefully.” Drift frowned. “And I don’t like that idea at all.”
“Me either. So which one of us gets to give Mirage the bad news?”
“I’ll do it,” Drift said, patting Ratchet on the shoulder. “You had to tell Starscream, and that’s bad enough for three people.”
Ratchet laughed. “Yeah, but I don’t think Mriage is going to take it nearly as well.”