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Insurgency was more common than the average bot was led to believe. That was the simple outcome when the council owned every media outlet on Cybertron.

So this protest— just on the edge of turning riot, should’ve been fairly routine for Prowl and his team of enforcers. He’d dealt with dozens before. His logic unit had already run its suite of calculations for how this would play out.

When had it all gone wrong? 

Prowl went tumbling down the other side of the hill’s crest, his back hitting the ground hard, doorwings scraping painfully. He could feel the debris grinding into his paint, his joints. That was going to be a glitch and a half to work out in the washracks later.

If he got to even see the washracks.

His attacker landed on top of him, clearly doing his absolute best to use him as a sled as he skidded down the rest of the crest. He tried to throw him off, but after the stun-bolts in his side, it was frankly a miracle that he was even online. As it was, his senses kept flickering in and out. One moment he was tumbling helm over heelblocks, the next, he was flat on his back, all the air rushing out of his vents on impact. One last flicker of optics had that insufferable rebel standing over him, pede poised to kick his lights out, and then, black.

*

He onlined again some kliks later trussed up in his own stasis-cuffs, bound servo and pede, propped up against some rocky outcrop. Fragging humiliating. He writhed against the restraints, even as he knew it’d be futile. Dull pain flicked through his joints at the motion. At least the only one to see it was that insurgent. 

Jazz. He recognized him alright. Only bothered watching the Iacon 5000’s preliminaries so the other bots at the precinct would stop with their snide comments. He was not cold, or out of touch, or emotionless, or any of the other things they said behind his back. Except he couldn’t really muster up the anger for his coworkers, and maybe— just maybe, that made them right.

He had plenty for the mech crouched by his side, though.

“You are being charged with treason, unlawful gathering, vandalism, and now assaulting an officer,” Prowl spat. “Stand down and uncuff me, and the courts will be lenient.”

“Had my run-ins with the courts already, wouldn’t exactly call ‘em paragons of justice,” Jazz said, unspooling a cable from his dataport.

“What are you doing?” Prowl tried to inch back, but only succeeded in tipping sideways, his side hitting dusty ground. A digit pressed one of his port covers back. His vents hitched. He didn’t bother asking twice, using the remaining nanokliks before contact to pull up his firewalls and every bit of training on hacking he could recall. The jack clicked in place, and Jazz’s consciousness washed over the connection, running up against his defences. He heard the mech hum his concentration above him, as he felt him prod at those walls.

“I feel obligated to compliment your defenses. Haven’t encountered something this elegant in a vorn or two.”

Prowl didn’t answer, wouldn’t answer what was so clearly some kind of tactic, and went back to reinforcing his mind. Jazz didn’t press it, and answered in kind, getting right to work shredding those same defenses.

Nearly a cycle passed without either gaining any real ground. Every time Jazz broke a wall down, Prowl had a new one waiting, much to his own satisfaction, though he could feel his defrag queue growing at an unsustainable rate. Coolant had started prickling on his plating, and his fans had cranked up in an effort to keep his processing power in peak range. Jazz on the other servo, didn’t seem to be expending any effort at all, not even the hint of a furrowed brow with the visor in the way.

“Give it up,” Prowl grit out between heavy vents. “I can do this all solar-cycle.”

Jazz almost smiled. “I believe you.” Just as quickly, it slipped off his face as the gravity of that truth set in. A digit came down to swipe up coolant off his plating. Jazz inspected it, then came to some conclusion. Prowl could feel the weight of it over their connection, but with the firewalls in the way, he couldn’t tell what it was, only that Jazz wasn’t happy with it.

“I don’t expect this to make you feel better, but I want you to know I feel bad about this.”

“About wha–” Prowl’s question abruptly choked off when Jazz’s fist slammed into his abdominal plating. Pain rushed across his lines, swift, but not unmanageable. He sucked in another vent. “I won’t break,” he forced out. Jazz didn’t answer. A few more hits and the method became clear. It took him a moment to fight the pain enough to bite out, “you fragger. You’re trying to overtax my defrag queue. It won’t work.”

“Won’t it?” Prowl got the distinct impression he was cocking a brow under that visor. Another wall crumbled under his assault.

“Frag!” Prowl hissed. Where his frame was muted pain, his processor was burning with it. His concentration wavered, another wall fell. Only one left to go, and they both knew it. He could feel Jazz’s grim satisfaction brushing up against his panic.

“This should do the trick.”

Prowl didn’t know what he was planning, and only had a nanoklik to steep in his own mounting horror before electricity pulsed through the connection. For a hanging klik, everything was static, muted, pain.

He felt the mind in his mind before his sensory array came all the way back online– could feel the damn insurgent sifting through his files. Prowl thrashed back to full consciousness, trying his damndest to tear himself away. It didn’t do much. The stasis-cuffs held his joints locked. Jazz took his shoulder in a tight grip.

“Careful,” he said lowly, “you pop that connection and it’s both our brains on the line.”

“Better than letting you get away with precinct data!”

Jazz huffed a laugh, finding the pathways to more sensitive information, worming his way in. “Damn! This scrap is organized!”

He was taking everything. Locations, numbers, supply chains, profiles, even Prowl’s own analysis and contingencies.

“You really think of everything, dontcha?”

Didn’t think of this, he didn’t say. Jazz must’ve heard it in his mind, cause he chuckled anyway. Prowl refused to feel any way about it, even if he couldn’t remember any point in time that anyone had ever thought him funny.

“You sell yourself short, anyway,” Jazz murmured, going another level down in his files. 

Prowl sucked in a vent. That was where he kept the most valuable information– passwords, plans, precinct secrets… his own.

He couldn’t, under any circumstances, allow this. He wouldn’t be able to face his subordinates, much less his superior if Jazz got all that. Unfortunately, the thought only spurred his attacker onwards, shredding through remaining mental defences like they were cheap tin. Prowl bucked against his bonds again, and again, his rotors stayed locked. If the physical were out of the question, then his only hope was his mind.

Frag, he thought. This was going to hurt like the Pit.

He steeled himself, then threw everything he had at Jazz.

*

Three cycles later, and Prowl’s mind was entirely focused around the narrow channel where Jazz’s processor still met his. Both frames were hot now, doing their best to dispel the dangerous amounts of heat that were building in their systems, made worse with the way Jazz was straddling him to keep him pinned, less surface area for heat to escape. Every part of him hurt, none more than his mind, but he felt satisfaction knowing that Jazz hurt too. At some point in the fight, he’d managed to sever the connection long enough to split Jazz’s processing in two. A fragmentation. That was going to be a glitch to repair, and they both knew it. He’d expected a beating for that, but all he got was a wild smile, and a reinitialization of the connection. The fight had started anew.

“Checkmate,” Jazz announced, breathless. 

Confusion washed him, until Jazz lowered some of his mental shield to reveal that the copies had finished transferring. It couldn’t be– but it was. He searched more closely, and realized that the narrow channel, the place that Prowl had mistaken as their only remaining point of contact, was actually a ruse. All the while, he’d been sneaking in through the side, hidden beneath layers of Prowl’s own agony.

“Fragger,” Prowl hissed– more whined, though he wouldn’t admit to it. His helm fell back. There was nothing left for him to fight. His failure burned heavy in his spark. Shame and hatred threatened to prick his optics as tears. That really would have been too much. Luckily, he wouldn’t have to deal with it much longer.

“I’m not going to kill you.”

Prowl’s helm snapped back up at that. It didn’t make any kind of sense. He was an enemy commander, the second of Kaon’s enforcers, and moreso, he knew all about the rebellion’s forces. Jazz had to be aware of that. It was one of the first reams of data he’d stolen. Prowl knew who was conspiring, had projections on their next moves, even knew the true origins of their beloved leader. That last part was the only that really seemed to bother Jazz at all, and even then, that knowledge didn’t make him waver.

Or maybe he just didn’t register as important enough to kill. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been overlooked. Time and time again, he delivered results, clawed his way up to his rank, only to be dismissed.

Not personable, not compatible, not emotional– that last one should’ve been a boon, and yet.

“You’re selling yourself short again,” Jazz said, retreating to his mind, spooling in his cable. “Trust me, I considered it, if that makes you feel any better.” It did, even if the notion left him uneasy. “To tell you the truth, I’ve never had an opponent like you before.” He flashed a smile. Prowl had the sudden impression that he was winking under the glitching visor. “Just seemed like a damn shame to snuff your light, that’s all.”

In one fluid motion, Jazz stood from his straddle, stretched with his arms held high over his helm. Prowl watched the way his plating separated and scrunched with the movement, for lack of anything better to focus on– better than his own scattered mind. 

And then Jazz pulled a gun from subspace, leveled it at Prowl’s face.

“You said…” Prowl didn’t let any of the panic into his voice– wasn’t really feeling it anymore. He narrowed his optics, letting the sentence trail off, daring the mech to prove himself a liar.

“It’s set to stun, Prowly, doncha remember?” He angled the blaster to confirm it. “Things are going to be different when you wake up.” He tilted his helm, suddenly serious, scrutinizing, like the last several cycles in his processor hadn’t been enough. “If you’re the kind of mech I think you are, I urge you to consider every variable.”

Prowl didn’t have a nanoklik to parse what that might mean. The gun’s barrel flashed white, and unconsciousness reclaimed him.

***

Prowl woke two solar-cycles later to Kaon lost, and Iacon on the edge of chaos. 

A little over a megacycle later, and it was over.

Jazz was right.

Admitting that, even in the privacy of his own mind, was like cutting off a piece of his frame. The thought burned inside him, curdled, spoiled.

And then he’d throw the whole emotional web into the defrag queue, and gotten back to work. 

No one listened when he warned them. None of his superiors, none of the senators, who he’d attempted to contact. Can’t you see it? You’ve shown the rebellion that negotiation is impossible, and now they’re going to make you pay. He could see the crumbling of Iacon like those in power couldn’t, and then, he didn’t have to imagine it, because it was happening. All his work for something better– he had plans, damnit. There was something wrong in their system. He knew that, but he’d been so preoccupied mitigating the symptoms that he’d never been able to grasp the bigger picture.

And now he didn’t need to try, because it was being shown to him in all its terrible glory. The senate fell, that upstart gladiator Megatron had slaughtered the half that’d been opposing him. Sentinel Prime was killed, simply, and maybe even deservedly– the light shone on his crimes too brightly to ignore. That new Prime– Orion turned Optimus– he remembered him. Didn’t know where Primus got off imbuing a hopeless idealist with such power, but wasn’t surprised when the remnants of Iacon’s elite flocked to him. He’d expected Optimus to send them packing. After all, their precious new Prime had started as a miner. There couldn’t be anything there but distaste.

Only, right. Hopeless idealist. The damn fool believed the elites could do better, meanwhile Iacon’s lower-caste– the underbelly– the muscle, fell into Megatron’s waiting arms. 

He could see it plain as day, the way that Prime’s forces would fall. He had a tight-knit, loyal following– proven by Jazz, who remained steadfast by his side, but Megatron had numbers, and that was just starting with Iacon and Kaon. He could see the way the entire horrible tower had been built, and the way it would come crumbling down. Optimus put out his appeals to end the bloodlust, but whatever had transpired had already rent the chasm too wide. For every public declaration of peaceful intent, Megatron would only destroy another section of Iacon. Soon there wouldn’t be anything left.

This was the exact projection that had Prowl standing outside of Optimus Prime’s makeshift office, waiting for an audience. 

He’d honestly been surprised he’d managed to swing it, calling in every last one of his remaining connections to make it happen– not that those held a lot of merit these days. Most of Prime’s subordinates were miners-turned-officers. Even if they didn’t remember him from C-12, he was still an enforcer. He actually had gotten a rejection at first, and had begun preparing his own escape from the city. It was shameful, he knew, but if war was going to erupt, and Cybertron’s capital was beyond saving, he wanted to be back in Praxus. At least he knew his connections carried some weight back there. Maybe there was a chance to gain influence and get the city fortified before war could break out in earnest.

A cycle into his planning and packing, and the rejection had been reversed.

He carefully prepared all the things he wanted to say, queued them up in his mind so no hesitance would show. This was his one chance to gain Prime’s audial– avoid the devastation of war he projected. Or rather, not avoid– he could already tell it was too late for that. The only question now was the scale. How many would die before it would end?

The door slid aside, Prowl stepped past the threshold.

His entire speech dropped completely from his processing.

Optimus sat at his desk, servos clasped in front of him, battlemask pulled up. Unlike any of the superiors Prowl had served before, his finish was scuffed. This mech had seen the front lines.

But what had his processes stalling, was Jazz, leaning casually against the side of the desk.

It took a few nanokliks for Prowl to get his motor relays working again, and only when Prime gestured to the chair across from him. Prowl took it, even as he would’ve preferred to stand. Didn’t like the idea of being any kind of stationary where Jazz could pounce.

“I don’t bite,” Jazz said, infuriatingly calm, even giving a little wave with his digits. Prowl struggled not to crumple the arms of the chair in his servos. He struggled even harder not to bolt. He would not be cowed by this mech, even if–

His processor twinged, memories of the mental attack still fresh. He refused to let any of it show.

“I hesitated to accept your request for a meeting,” Prime started, brow furrowing. His optics were cycling knowingly. There was no doubt that he remembered him from the riot.

Prowl didn’t let any emotion pass his face, he only watched the Prime back. His voice was deeper than Orion’s. His frame was bigger, every part of him more powerful that that scrawny archivist-miner. The only thing that really remained the same was the visible part of his face, that barely leashed righteous fury.

“Why did you accept, then?” Even as he already knew the answer.

Prime didn’t disappoint, tipping his helm to Jazz. “He vouched for you. Said I at least needed to hear you out.”

So Jazz had actual sway over the Prime, and moreso, was using it to help Prowl. He couldn’t trust that any more than they could trust him. Jazz was playing at something. Prowl only had to find that line between using and being used. He was familiar with these political games.

“I think what Oppy here’s saying is that you have fifteen kliks to explain exactly why you’re here,” Jazz said, tapping out a little rhythm on the tabletop. It was distracting.

But not important. He adjusted his audio filters and sensitivity, and took a deep in-vent to speak.

He’d been so ready to make all the correct pleasantries and compliments and niceties to make his point heard– done it all more times than he cared to recount. He understood the instant Optimus spoke that it wouldn’t work here.

The unpredictability had his fuel pump accelerating in equal parts fear and thrill. Maybe this Prime truly was different.

He explained what had to be done, and exactly what would happen if it wasn’t.

*

They let him keep speaking well over the fifteen klik mark. Prime listened intently for two full cycles, never once appearing anything less than completely focused on what Prowl was saying; optics belying his frown when he spoke of the danger, asking for elaboration where it was required, frowning further when he spoke of the darker things that had to be done.

Even as he let himself fall into the easy rhythm of his explanation, he could never forget that Jazz was there too, just off to the side. His optics were hidden by his visor, but there was no doubt in Prowl’s mind that he was watching just as– if not more keenly than Prime was.

“Alright,” Prime pinched his brow, then turned to Jazz. “Show him to the tactical center. I want a report of all this to bring to the rest of command first thing tomorrow. Make sure everything–” he fixed Prowl with something only just shy of a glare– “has been vetted.”

“Yessir!” Jazz chirped, before starting out the door. Prowl made to follow.

“One last thing.” Prime was standing now. His expression suddenly sullen. No more of that fire. “I’m sorry about what Jazz did to you under my command.”

*

Jazz escorted Prowl off to some makeshift tactical headquarters they’d thrown together– all of their stuff was like this, he realized. Shoddy, unfunded, unsupported. He’d find some way to change that if he stayed long enough. He was good at things like that, resource acquisition and management, almost as good as he was at strategizing for battle. In the end, they were all just different kinds of tactics.

He couldn’t quite shake what Prime had said at the end there. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience, but he had never, even in his most radical prediction models, ever imagined an apology. 

Jazz stopped in front of a door, and Prowl shed enough shock to remember his wariness. He was fairly certain that Jazz wouldn’t hurt him now, at least, not at the Prime’s behest.

The mech tipped his helm back over his shoulder, giving a glimpse of his side-profile. “I want you to know that Optimus doesn’t always speak for me, and quite frankly, had nothing to do with what happened between us.” He turned to face Prowl more fully. “No doubt about it, Optimus is as good as they come. He pictures the future that we could only be so lucky to see someday.” His lips twisted into a wry smile. “But values alone won’t be enough to win it. I’m not sorry. I’d do it again.” That smile cracked, showing dentae. “Will, if you ever give me reason to.”

And then he pressed through the door to the tactical center, greeting a whole menagerie of bots by name. They were calling back, full of enthusiasm, bright like they were actually happy to see the infuriating mech.

Prowl followed in, taking only a nanoklik to make sure his expression was smooth, field calm. First impressions were important, after all. And besides, he refused to let the Jazz have any kind of effect on him.

***

Slowly, but surely, the tide of the war changed– didn’t turn completely. The Decpticons had too much of a head start, but that had been nearly mitigated by then. Autobot recruit numbers were up, just like morale. Stellar-cycles passed, and they managed to curb the destruction caused by their enemies. They had better luck keeping civilians safe.

“Good job on the campaign,” Ironhide gave him a hearty pat on the shoulder, and Prowl tried not to stiffen noticeably under it. 

“Yes, thanks.” He tried to force his lipplates into something other than his eternal frown. He’d been getting pointers on that well before the minted Autobots– autonomous bots. That was a phrase used once in one of Prime’s rallies, and stuck fast ever since. 

“I’m serious!” Ironhide barked, seemingly unaware of how the noise startled Prowl. He counted that another victory. “Y’know,” he leaned in conspiratorially, “I’ve been hearing talk on high about promotion.”

Prowl’s brows reached the brim of his helm. This… truly was a surprise. He said as much to Ironhide, though without the wavering doubt, and the red mech laughed, jostling him again. 

“I don’t see how. It’s been nothing but improvements since you got here. Sure, there was some discord at first, and that whole deal about the paperwork,” he chuckled, reminiscing, “but Prime’s smart. He knows better than to hold a good bot back just because of his past.”

Prowl thought on this as he walked back to his habsuite. Everyone had grown used to his presence. He really wasn’t the worst offender in the Autobots when it came to comparing past sins, but certainly the worst in HQ. He’d quickly learned that most bots close to Prime had somehow suffered at the servos of enforcers. That, he wasn’t surprised to hear, especially having been one of the officers assigned that task before the war. None of the retribution had gone any further than some shoving in the hall. And that one time that Prime’s Second in Command, Elita, had really given him a scare. She’d cornered him outside his habsuite, given a long list of things she’d do if he ever betrayed them, and then left him to scramble to his tactical meeting, kliks late. An embarrassment, to be sure.

And then there was Jazz. He didn’t see too much of the mech these days, always off on some assignment or another. Prowl wasn’t quite privy to those yet, though that could soon change, if Ironhide were to be believed.

What he did see of Jazz, was mostly a light smile, and a visor that betrayed nothing. Even his body language left much to be desired. Prowl prided himself in being good at reading these things, even if he often didn’t know what to do with them, so it was quite unsettling when Jazz smiled wide, but his kibble stayed still, not bobbing in any way that might indicate his excitement. 

Oh yeah, and the way he was always watching Prowl. That one he couldn’t prove– didn’t have to. It’s not like he could go to anyone with the information. The visor was angled away, but he could feel the scrutinizing optics on him.

Unsettling.

*

When Prime announced Prowl’s promotion, the only one who seemed to be surprised was Prowl. Not that it showed. He bowed his helm and accepted his new title of Head of Tactical Command with humility, and a queue of changes a kilometer long. At first he’d registered no visual reaction from Jazz, until his gaze wandered down, and he’d noticed it.

Two black servos, twined politely on the table, creaking, just barely, with the force of the grip.

***

.:Team 15-b needs immediate support from tac!:. If Blaster was the one shouting over comms, that meant it was serious. From the DJ’s point of view, those were meant primarily for tormenting his fellow officers with that terrible Iaconian synth-pop.

Prowl also didn’t need anyone telling him whose team needed saving. Even if he hadn’t kept extensive memory on exactly where every mech in spec-ops was stationed, he would’ve remembered that team 15-b was Jazz’s. There’d been talk of some kind of weapons development that could change the tide of the war in Megatron’s favor. While Prowl had started his campaign to recruit scientists, Jazz had gone to Kaon to sabotage the Decepticons, or at least deign what it was.

In an instant, Prowl was on the line, plugging himself into his console for quicker relays and all the relevant information.

.:Connect me, Blaster:.

.:You got it:. And a nanoklik later, the line was severed and reconnected, crackling. At first the static was too great to receive anything, and then–

.:Can anybody hear me?:. Jazz’s signature, clear as crystal. 

.:Affirmative:. Prowl responded, neat and professional, poised to deliver .:Status?:.

.:Aw mech, connect me to anyone else:.

Sharp anger, pent up, and specifically reserved for this mech alone flared through him. It took some difficulty to force it down .:I’m what you got. And I will get you home. Status NOW:.

A pause like a sigh, then numbers and a location. Of Jazz’s five bot team, two were offline, and the rest were wounded in some way, furthermore, Jazz’s lack of specificity to his own injuries led Prowl to believe it was worse than he made it out to be. The location wasn’t ideal either. Prowl used to patrol this area of Kaon. Two levels down, and flush against the border wall. It always made him nervous back then, knowing that if something happened it wouldn’t be an easy escape.

.:Are you pinned?:.

.:You’d like that, wouldn’t you?:.

.:Jazz!:.

.:Fine–:. A sharp pause where Prowl was unsure if he’d surface again. .:Yes. We’re surrounded. Put Blaster back on. We got the plans. I need to transmit:.

Prowl blinked. Of all the impressions he’d gotten of Jazz– flippant, arrogant, and brash, infuriating, he’d never stopped to imagine he might be brave.

And in that moment, his resolution became more than just obligation, words. His pride demanded he get this mech home.

.:Negative:. He mustered every edge of authority he’d cultivated over the vorns of enforcement. .:I will bring Blaster back on, but then you’re going to link your sensory feedback through him to me:.

.:What, so you can watch me offline yourself? Make sure it really happens?:. Jazz scoffed over the line .:I assume you won’t be able to recharge soundly otherwise:.

Prowl grit his dentae, dug his digits into the sides of the console in an impressive demonstration of restraint. .:So I can save your sorry aft. You fragging two-byte ram!:.

.:Shame on you, Prowly. Temper temper. Your classism is showing:.

.:You wanted me on Prime’s team! I’m here. Let me do my damn job, so I can go back to ignoring you with whatever peace I have left!:.

Prowl took Jazz’s temporary silence to bring Blaster back on, and told him what to do. When the request for sensory access sent, Jazz gave it. A moment later, Prowl was seeing the battle like he was there. It was never a pleasant sensation when he’d had to do it in the past, but it was something he was used to by this point. 

Pain in the left stabilizing-servo, arm, and chassis– the entire left side, honestly. He didn’t dwell on that though. The two surviving operatives, Mirage and Hound, if he remembered correctly, stood their ground, each propping up the other, hefting their weapons. Alt-modes squealed in the distance. They were, indeed, surrounded, backed up against the wall between Kaon and Iacon. If they’d been a level down they could’ve accessed the tunnel network. That was definitely why they’d been chased here. It wasn’t like the Decepticons didn’t know of, and abuse, that same network. Both sides had done their fair share of sneaking through, and paving over the tunnels. 

.:Do a full 360 around you:. Prowl commanded. He half-expected snark for his trouble, but Jazz only did as asked, giving him a full understanding of the landscape. 

.:Ready to let me transmit the plans now?:. The energy coming from him was lighter than before, that distrust replaced with resignation. Jazz truly thought he was going to die.

Which was understandable. Too bad for Jazz’s delusions of going out in a heroic last stand, Prowl was the extra set of optics he was currently missing. That, and he knew more about this terrain than Jazz did. 

Nanoklik by excruciating nanoklik, a plan slid into focus. 

.:Can Mirage still go invisible and move independently?:.

A moment of hesitation .:No:.

Frag. .:What about you and your stealth mods?:.

.:What are you planning?:.

Without any other option, Prowl told him. Jazz’s contemplation was swift. There was a crackle on the line that Prowl initially tagged as blaster fire that would kill them all, until mirth seeped over the comm, and he understood Jazz was laughing.

.:Ah what the hell. Let’s give this a shot:.

The line went dead. 

There was nothing to do but wait.

*

There was no news, so Prowl paced.

It wasn’t because he cared for Jazz, rather, giving him that plan meant that whatever outcome was his responsibility. Yes. That was exactly what was bothering him.

.:Prowl:. came Blaster’s comm.

.:Yes?:.

.:They’re back:.

He pointedly did not rush to the med-bay. He didn’t care. There was nothing to be done, and in the grand scheme of the war, the outcome was trivial.

He walked a little faster.

Prowl wasn’t the only one crowding the med-bay. Once again, he was baffled by Jazz’s popularity. How could such an insufferable mech be so liked?

“Alright, back it up!” Ratchet waved his wrench in a menacing arc, missing Blaster by millimeters. The crowd surged back. “Let me make one thing abundantly clear,” he snarled, “visiting cycles are over!”

Ratchet’s ire was enough to chase away most of the mob. Threats dealt with the rest. Prowl turned to follow them out. He’d only just managed to avoid getting on Ratchet’s bad side, and would be remiss to put that small victory in jeopardy.

“You. Stay.”

It took Prowl a moment to realize Ratchet was talking to him. He gave a puzzled tilt of his helm.

“Jazz is stable, and he asked for you.”

*

The mech certainly didn’t look stable— had about a dozen manual hookups on his frame, and enough splints and welds to build a whole new bot. He looked halfway to the smelter, to be honest.

And yet, when Prowl stepped through that door, he beamed like he’d been told the war was won.

“Prowly! Mech! Just lookit you!”

“Now’s probably the right time to tell you he’s off his bumper on pain-blockers,” Ratchet groused, turning to one of his other patients. He’d be no help here.

“Nah, nah, don’t listen to th’ doc-bot. Things’re clear as crystal.” He crooked a digit, the less injured side, and beckoned Prowl closer. For lack of any single better option, he complied.

“Closer. Closer…” and then that less injured arm snaked around Prowl’s neck, pulling him down level. For a nano, he thought he was being attacked, only, for the first time since they met, Jazz’s field finally lost that aggressive edge.

When was the last time anyone had held him amicably?

Still meant trouble though. He shot Ratchet a pointed look, hoping he’d understand the situation wasn’t Prowl’s fault, and maybe do something about it. It couldn’t be good for the welds—

“Prowly, Prowly, Prowly. Primus, I can hear your processor all up in your noggin right now, thinking.” He laughed. “How’d you come up with that trick? How’d you know?”

He meant the save. “I knew the layer between you and the tunnel was thin. That used to be my beat, and I’d report it every damn solar-cycle.”

“Bet that got old quick.”

It had, but Jazz had probably meant for his superiors.

“And I studied up on all of the different specs for military frames even back when I was an enforcer. Brushed up more now that we are fighting them. I saw Megatron’s forces had a class-M tank, which all share that weakness, the one you can use to trigger an explosion.” The place where his plating met Jazz’s was starting to get uncomfortable. Not the sensation, but the presumption. He wasn’t sure if he was the one overstepping, or if it was the other, only that it felt wrong.

Jazz hadn’t noticed in the slightest, only giggling— giggling, and pulling Prowl in closer. “Mech, I wish you could’ve seen the looks on those other tanks’ faces when that guy blew up. And then we were all ‘seeya,’ and gone. Would’ve given anything to see their faces after that.” More laughing, and then he finally let go to hold his servo over some part of himself that was aching from all the heavy venting. Ratchet stormed over a klik later, and then Prowl was made to leave.

“You can come back when Jazz learns to behave,” like Prowl was the problem, and his removal was the punishment.

He could still feel the lingering warmth across his shoulders as he returned to the tactical center.

***

Over a period of three stellar-cycles, five megacycles, and two solar-cycles, Prowl noticed an uptick in interactions with Jazz of 1200%. And of those, he would categorize a whopping 97% to be positive.

Of course, he would need at least another decade of observation to be sure of these statistics.

Not that he was on a time-table or anything.

“Prowl, mech!” Jazz’s voice rang out behind him in the hall. Even all these stellar-cycles later, he still found his combat systems booting up at that voice, even after time and time again tagging the frequency as ‘ally.’

Prowl didn’t change his pace, knowing Jazz would sidle up beside him whether he sped or slowed, not even entirely sure whether he wanted him to.

“You heading to the commissary?”

Prowl had been, but he didn’t quite like that hopeful tone. “No.” The reply came out a little less confident than he would’ve liked.

“Yes you are. You always take your energon at 1600.”

He didn’t want to know how Jazz knew that. He only grunted, and lengthened his stride. Jazz broke into a trot to keep up. If he got the message, he was ignoring it.

“Hey, me ‘n’ some of the other racers are gonna take the new track for a spin later, wanna tag along?” He grinned. “Test your mettle against mine?”

Prowl narrowed his optics, trying to parse the statement. His mind landed on challenge. “You used to race?” He already knew the answer, but figured the question was polite. Not like it would really do to piss off one of his fellow officers, even if he deserved it.

Jazz laughed. “Yessir.” He tilted his helm. “But you already knew that.”

Prowl’s frown deepened.

“You keep up with racing? I uh…” What little of Jazz’s field that Prowl could feel turned sharper, and he understood what Jazz was about to say.

“When you were hacking my mind.”

Jazz didn’t falter long. “You knew all the Iacon 5000 qualifiers— y’know, back when they did that kind of thing.”

“Yes.”

“So you’re into racing.”

Prowl let the question hang between them. Let the lie remain, and appear more personable? Or tell the truth, and… what?

He didn’t really know what possessed him. “No. I’m not.”

That was the point where Jazz was supposed to become incredulous, ask ‘why?’ He’d gotten it before— before he learned to press that part of himself down and tuck it away.

But Jazz only hummed, pushing through the commissary door, and holding it wide. “After you.”

***

Having your tactical officer out on the field of battle was rarely a prudent strategy. Unfortunately, this was not one of those times. 

The Decepticons had managed to disable Blaster, and work their way into centralized communications— a plot stellar-cycles in the making. The Decepticons’ spy-turned-saboteur was offline now, Blaster would recover, but the damage had been well and truly done. 

And now they were under full-scale assault. The Decepticons had used the pre-planned gap in intelligence and communications to catch the Autobots off-guard. Prowl hadn’t been given any information, and hadn’t been able to get any out, so he did the one thing he could think of, and sent himself to the front lines.

It was a mess when his transport touched down. More casualties than he dared let himself calculate the full breadth of, and a hole in their forces that he couldn’t even begin to compensate for. He could feel the energon in his lines turning to sludge with the horror of it all.

“Prowl! Glad you could make it!” Jazz bounded up, characteristically upbeat, despite the gore. Only the lack of nickname betrayed his stress. 

But Jazz wasn’t panicking. He approached the situation the same as any other, he kept the tone light, did his damn job, and Primus on Cybertron if Prowl would let himself be outdone.

He took a deep vent, rebooted his tac-unit, let it do the calculations while Jazz explained exactly what was going on, and what was going wrong.

“We can’t salvage this,” Prowl said.

Jazz’s answering expression was near-unreadable with the visor, but Prowl didn’t miss the way the tendon in his jaw jumped.

“You need to find a way, mech. If we pull out now, we lose the city.”

“We don’t leave, we lose this entire battalion.”

“You’ve gotten us out of worse. Thousands of battles now. What’s different?”

“Without a communications system, there’s no way to relay orders fast enough.”

“I have the comms of every bot on the field— duck!”

Jazz grabbed him around the waist and threw the both of them behind an outcrop as hell rained down. He could feel the paint on his backplates sizzle. He’d need a scrape and repaint if he— they survived this, which was looking less likely by the klik.

“Okay, you have comms, but only Blaster is specialized to route that many. If I try messaging that many bots my processor will fry!”

Jazz’s frown ticked up in the corners. “Use mine.”

“Same problem. You’d only get one order out before you’d malfunction.”

“Nah mech,” he flicked back a dataport cover and offered it. Prowl couldn’t help but flinch back at the sight of it again. “I got special broadcasting equipment. I’m rewriting some code now. Use my processor like Blaster’s consol.”

“You’ll have to go into protective stasis to avoid burnout.”

“And you’ll keep me safe.” It wasn’t a question. The visor was going dim, because he was already doing it. He offered up the port again, and Prowl held firm. “Gotta initialize before I go. C’mon.”

“You’re not worried.” 

“Should I be?”

Prowl held his dimming gaze— at least, he assumed Jazz was still watching him under the visor. He had to know what Prowl meant. Mind in his mind, scraping the sides of his brain bare for any scrap of code, the occasional twinge or processor-ache where there hadn’t been before. If he were Jazz, he’d be worried about vengeance, but then, he knew Prowl better than that, didn’t he? Had known him from the moment he stepped pede in his mind.

“You didn’t always trust me.”

“Hey,” Jazz was whispering now, vocalizer powering down. “If you felt the hatred in your mind, you wouldn’t trust you neither.” He smiled. “But feelings aside, you put the cause first, dontcha?” He offered the port again, and Prowl understood. He plugged in, initializing the connection kliks before Jazz fell into stasis.

It was close– too close, but they secured the city with barely acceptable losses within the megacycle.

***

“Did you know you talk in your recharge?” Jazz said, poking Prowl teasingly in the side.

Prowl refrained from rolling his optics. “Most bots do.”

It was the fifth day of their stakeout. This wasn’t Prowl’s kind of mission, but he’d insisted after hearing the target, and the importance. If the senator of his own city-state was involved, then Prowl wanted to be too. 

It was taking much longer than anticipated for Praxus’s senator to turn up to the Decepticon meet, but Prowl didn’t bother asking Jazz to confirm his intelligence’s accuracy. Knowing him, it was triple, quadruple checked. He’d said as much at the meeting, before Prime had allowed Prowl to even go on the mission.

“But did you know you were muttering statistics?”

Prowl glared, but it was only to cover his embarrassment. 

“Hey, don’t be like that. I know you’re more than your freakishly powerful processor.”

He pointedly did not react to the praise, though, he felt something warm bloom in his spark. 

“Did ya know you clench your jaw when you’re trying not to react to the nice things I say?”

Prowl did react then, intake opening, then closing, finding no way to refute the statement. He’d never noticed it in himself. 

“Hey, no, don’t be like that. I think it’s kinda cute.”

Prowl turned to glare again, and instead found Jazz’s face centimeters from his own. It was only vorns of practice that kept him from leaping back. He forced his fuel pump to slow, an exercise he was well-versed in. “What do you think you’re trying to accomplish here?”

He wished Jazz would take off the visor. It lent such an unfair advantage in this game.

“I’m trying to kidnap the Praxian senator, y’know, so he doesn’t go doing something stupid, like allying with the Decepticons.”

“I’m not talking about the mission.”

“You ever heard of pressure-testing?”

“Is that what you’re doing?”

Jazz shrugged, easy. 

“You don’t know what you’re doing, do you?” Prowl sat back on his haunches, feeling unsettled. “You didn’t have a plan!”

“I don’t think this is something a bot plans for,” Jazz said, looking back out the window, taking interest in something on the street. “This, however–” he pulled his blaster from subspace, set it to stun, and took aim at the arriving senator, “is.”

***

For better or worse, Prowl had resigned himself to being an emotionless mech. He still panicked, and got snappish when his processor ached, and even lost his temper when his plans went awry, but the small things– the personal things, those were not supposed to affect him. They never had. He’d lose a coworker in the line of duty– both with the enforcers, and the Autobots, someone would get emotional in front of him, command would get devastating news.

Prowl wouldn’t know how he was supposed to react.

He supposed he didn’t know now, either. Praxus was a smoking crater, and all he could do was stare with blistering detachment. He supposed… he should be crying? Getting down on his servos and knees and begging Primus to take it back? 

Instead he just let himself down into the charred pit, lagging after his fellow Autobots, and started looking for survivors. He knew he was doing a bad job of it. For the first time, his tac-unit was silent, or rather, fritzing at the edges. It didn’t even hurt. 

The Autobots searched into the night.

There weren’t any survivors.

*

Prowl saw Prime— Optimus, as he insisted on being called, many times. They met at least once a megacycle for command meetings. Today, he was standing in front of him, giving condolences. The words slid over Prowl. His mind just didn’t seem capable of keeping them, like rain off the sides of a submersible, only the damp clung, rusted, festered.

He remembered every agonizing klik. His mind demanded it, eidetic recording. If he’d deigned to play it back there’d be nothing missed. He never would. He cordoned off the data and threw it into archival the moment Prime felt his job done and left, ready to comfort some other traumatized praxian, most likely. 

Optimus wouldn’t be planning his next move against the Decepticons, that was for sure. He’d say something along the lines of, “now is not the time for aggression, but for mourning. The War has cost us greatly. There is no need for us to exacerbate it.”

Prowl didn’t realize where his pedes had taken him until he bumped into the tactical center door. How long had he been on autopilot? Long enough to return to Iacon. Long enough to watch the smouldering embers fizzle out to nothing. No fire where his people had once lived, stood, slept, worked.

He commed his passkey and slipped inside. He would– had put together new plans to overcome the Decepticon threat– except, anything he’d think of now, Optimus would never approve. He’d already brought his best, his most moral. Anything left would be of the darker stuff. He wouldn’t be able to tell his general. He’d have to go it alone, under the radar.

“Prowler,” Jazz said flatly, turning in one of the chairs, hooked up into a tac-console. The one to the right of where Prowl usually stationed himself. “Was wondering when you’d finally turn up.”

Jazz didn’t come here. Last Prowl had seen of him, the mech had been comforting Bluestreak back in the crater, and then nothing. A part of Prowl had been waiting for Jazz to interrupt his grief– because this muted spiral could only be that, but he hadn’t. Not a peep in the… how long had it been? A megacycle?

“What are you doing?” Prowl finally asked, voice coming out raw, because he hadn’t said more than a few words since the attack. 

“Going over all the intel we had on the Decepticons.”

“You have that at your spec-ops headquarters.” He took up his place in the next chair over. “Unless your facility is lacking?” If it was, he’d put himself right to work requisitioning new materials to fix it. Spec-ops needed to run at its best.

“Nah, nothing like that.” And then Jazz was back to typing, no further explanation. Prowl knew better, but he hated to say it. Hated to say it in case he was wrong, that this really was just one of Jazz’s many whims, and not a far-fetched scheme to find Prowl in the aftermath. Even if he’d had the strength, he wouldn’t have known which to hope for. 

He pulled up the newer reports, and sent them to the top of Jazz’s terminal. His digit hovered over the plans, the ones he’d drawn up on the way.

The ones Optimus wouldn’t approve of.

He sent those too.

Jazz spent more than a few kliks looking it all over. Then finally, “what were you planning to do with these, mech?”

Prowl narrowed his optics. It was all there in the plans. It wasn’t ‘what?’ it was if. Jazz was supposed to tell Prowl he had to stop. He needed to say the thing that was clear as the smoking hole where Prowl’s home used to be, that this was too far. He burned for it.

“It’ll work?” Jazz asked. Only, he wasn’t asking, was he? The line of his intake said he already knew that it would, because this was Prowl, and when Prowl presented a plan it worked front to back, within every statistical margin outlined.

Prowl nodded for Jazz’s benefit. A single, curt motion. Jazz mirrored the motion, slower, appraisingly.

“It worth it? Or just to make you feel better?”

Something in Prowl’s spark curdled, but not the anger he was expecting, maybe shame. “Does it matter?”

Jazz shrugged. “Maybe not. But I still want to know.”

“How couldn’t it matter? Vengeance is the Decepticon way. It goes against everything Prime touts.”

“Because the bottom line is that it will work. It will bring us closer to winning the War. Ending it. But I can’t have you regretting something like this, and I can’t have you regretting getting into berth with me.”

Prowl swallowed. “I don’t follow.”

“We do this, and it ties us together forever. Framing Decepticons for firing on their own? Destroying MTO plants? That’s rather Decepticon too. We can never tell Optimus.” Jazz smiled, almost sharp, but for once, Prowl found himself drawn in instead of scared off. “You’ll be trusting me.”

Prowl studied Jazz carefully. His visible face was smooth where it wasn’t curved around his smile. Unbothered. 

“Take off the visor.”

Jazz didn’t startle, exactly, just the smallest jolt in his mechanisms. He just looked at Prowl for a long klik, so still that Prowl almost turned out the door, wouldn’t have bothered telling Jazz to forget it. He was a smart enough mech to figure it out himself. But then those black servos were coming up to the visor, there was the faint click of detachment, and then Prowl was looking into two points of violet, bright like the crystal gardens of Praxus– long gone, or a pool of fresh energon, only more blue tinged.

“Well?” Jazz’s smooth voice pulled him from his wonder. He cycled his optics on impulse. Praxus, the plans, and then this. It was all so unbelievable that his reality matrix was stalling.

“Tell me we’re doing the right thing,” Prowl croaked out, throat impossibly dry.

“I can’t tell you that.” Those optics remained captivating, steady. Prowl didn’t see any uncertainty there.

“Tell me you think we’re doing the right thing.”

“I do.” Jazz said, leaning forward, field uncurling, vibrant in its conviction. “Do you remember the first thing I told you after you joined the Autobots?”

“You said Prime was good, but his values wouldn’t win us the War.” 

“Optimus’s ideals are the reason there will be something left of us worth saving someday, but what we do behind his back will be why there will be anything at all.” His optics shone with his words, flashing equal parts danger and allure. There was something so real behind them, it was like seeing right into the mech’s spark. “But I’m not going to sit here convincing you. You need to decide that it’s the right thing to do.”

Prowl finally had to look away. Those optics saw right through him. They were an anchor, an axis. Jazz was right. The answer had to come from within.

Praxus wasn’t the last atrocity the Decepticons would commit. Now that they knew they could, they weren’t going to stop. Prowl could see it all laid out, neat and tidy in his logic unit. Staniz, then Protihex. If they couldn’t sway those states to their side, or overcome them with brute force, they’d just wipe those off the map. Prime would have those bots evacuated before the casualties could reach anything on Praxus’s scale, but when a city went up, it wasn’t just the bots, it was the history. Every smoking crater dug their people deeper into the War, blew their planet into a few more pieces. If the Autobots didn’t fall back on underhanded tactics– meet the Decepticons on their level now, then their servo would only be forced later.

Prowl asked himself if he could trust Jazz, thought back to the mind in his mind. Jazz was a pretender. It was all he ever did– wore disguises like second armor, pulled up the unbothered facade quicker than his blaster. 

But he’d never tried to hide that. There was a comfort in the discomfort. ‘I’d do it again,’ Jazz had once said. He’d meant it. He’d tear Prowl’s mind apart if he thought it would further the cause more than Prowl’s loss would hurt it. He’d dropped the persona, turned deadly. Maybe he’d only meant to intimidate in the moment, decided Prowl’s wariness was more valuable than his love. Maybe he’d known Prowl would see it for what it was, pragmatism, not vindication.

They could bring the War closer to an end. Prime wouldn’t approve. Prime wouldn’t need to know. They could bear that burden.

Together.

“Alright,” Prowl said, forcing himself to meet Jazz’s optics again. Their violet light didn’t waver, but somehow, seemed softer. “Yes.”

***

Prowl used to take his energon at 1600 because it was the time the commissary was least busy without cutting into his recharging time.

He didn’t know when he’d started taking it a cycle later, wished he didn’t understand why. Bots bustled around him, finding their friends and their seats. Prowl always sat at the same table in the corner, and everyone knew better than to take it. He was exposed like this. Not that he cared what anyone else might think– only it was so easy to be aware of how silent his table was compared to the next one over. He swirled his cube lightly, pretending to be fascinated by its contents. Another cube sat across from him, waiting.

“Sorry Prowly!” Jazz plopped himself down into the waiting seat. Took the proffered cube as he always did, kicking his pedes up on the table. “You wouldn’t believe the cycle I’ve had. Stuck in a vent,” he muttered. “Could you imagine?”

Prowl chuckled despite himself. “Chassis like that? Yes.”

Jazz’s intake dropped open in mock offense. “Chassis like what?” He pulled his stabilizers off the table so he could lean across it instead. “Curves in all the right places? You sound jealous… unless…”

Prowl got the sense Jazz was waggling his brows under the visor. He rolled his optics. “Yes, you’re very aesthetically pleasing. Is it worth getting stuck in a vent?”

“Aesthetically…” Jazz laughed. “You sure know how to make a bot feel appreciated.”

Prowl took a sip of energon instead of acknowledging the way his cheeks were heating up. “You still got stuck in a vent.”

“Forget it. I don’t know why I tell you anything.”

Energon at 1700 wasn’t so bad.

***

Prowl understood his position. He understood his responsibilities, and what he meant within the Autobot ranks.

He still found a strange sense of dissonance, cuffed and being marched through the halls of the Nemesis, watching as Decepticon grunts saw him, gave a fearful field flare, then skittered off or shook where they stood. He didn’t cut the same menacing figure as Prime, or Elita, not even close. 

Maybe he’d only been blinded by Autobot perceptions. Soldiers talked when they thought their officer wasn’t listening. Pencil-pusher, desk-jockey, coward hiding behind the lines, throwing others at the threat while he sat safe. There were many more who didn’t share this opinion, which he was grateful for, but even these were often surprised when he displayed prowess in physical combat. He didn’t advertise it. A hidden strength was an opponent’s weakness. He was more loath to give this up than his pride.

The guard at his back kicked in his knee-rotor, forcing him to kneel before the throne he’d been led to. He glared defiantly at its occupant.

“Well, well,” Megatron drawled. “Tactical Officer Prowl. We haven’t had the pleasure.”

They had, the few times Prowl had had the misfortune of finding himself on the front lines. Never a sign of battle going well. He’d been smart enough not to announce himself then, and he didn’t do so now. He wouldn’t bother reminding the warlord.

“Yes, I’ve heard of your stoicism,” Megatron continued. “Spare me. It’d be far wiser for you to give up your secrets before, not after I let Shockwave have a go at you.”

Prowl ground his dentae around the loaded retort. He had a lot to say to the mech responsible for Praxus’s destruction, for the whole damn War. Knew better than to run his intake. 

“I must admit, I’d expected a mech of your reputation to carry a bigger stature.” Megatron smirked. 

“I could say the same.” He couldn’t help himself, and regretted it instantly when the warlord’s optics lit up.

“Really.” He stood from his throne. It’d been a lie anyway. While Megatron wasn’t the biggest of the Decepticons, he made up for it in cunning, raw power, and charisma. That, and he was half a meter taller than Prime. He took the stairs in large, confident steps, stopping a stride away from where Prowl knelt. No, unfortunately, the warlord stood exactly as tall as his reputation had promised, and emanated potent malice from his field. Prowl kept his firmly pulled in, something he was well used to at any rate.

“I’ve heard whispers, Officer Prowl. Gossip, I hate to call it. Talk of under-servoed dealings made in the tac-office. The fall of Helix, that Decepticon riot in Vos, sabotage of the Vindicator and her transports. Maybe coincidences, bad luck on the part of my forces. I went into this War expecting a measure of it, but these…”

Prowl had never exactly been expressive. What constituted his poker face was actually just his normal resting expression. He’d gotten lots of practice at feigning ignorance anyways in the aftermath of these incidents, when Prime and other members of command had come his way with their suspicions. Some early slips, but nothing provable, kept them coming back. Prowl’s absolute dismissal of these accusations kept them from sticking.

“You’re blaming me for some bad luck and your soldiers’ own incompetence?” Prowl let something like a sneer color his face, shaking his helm. “I was surprised enough to see your bots’ fear of me, don’t disappoint me with more of the same.”

Megatron let himself fall to a knee, grabbed Prowl by the chin-guard so he could better level his burning gaze. “You may have that idiot of a Prime and his underlings fooled, but you won’t deceive me. You’re nothing like them.” He smirked. “You’d make a much better Decepticon.”

Prowl tried to feel nothing in the face of the statement. Anger curdled where there should’ve been indifference. “I’ll never be a Decepticon.”

“You know I’m right.” Megatron gave his cheek a pat, then rose back to full height. “But have it your way. I know Shockwave will be happy to have his servos– servo on your processor.” He inclined his helm to Prowl’s entourage. “Take him away.”

Resistance was futile, so Prowl spent the march shoring up his firewalls, and preparing the failsafe. He had at least a dozen different contingencies for capture, but only one he hypothesized might work on Shockwave. If he was going to wipe his own mind, he would try to take the mad scientist with him. One last sacrifice for the Autobot cause. It’d suffer in his absence, maybe even in ways he hadn’t calculated for, but Jazz would find the preparations he’d left behind soon enough. He’d–

Jazz.

Prowl swallowed down the thought. Would Jazz miss him? Did it matter? Prowl fought because it was the right thing to do. His purpose was to do the things no one else was capable of.

And maybe somewhere down the road, Jazz had wormed his way under his plating, made living that tiniest bit more bearable. Confronted with oblivion now, Prowl was struck with the mundane thought that he wouldn’t get to take energon with Jazz at the next A-block before his shift. 

“I’ll take him from here.” A dark figure blocked the entourage’s path, short, stocky, the kibble was wrong, but the voice was unmistakable. Prowl kept his intake shut.

“We’re taking him to Shockwave,” the leader snapped back, shouldering his weapon. “There wasn’t any mention of a handoff.”

“Dincha hear? I’m Shockwave’s personal liaison. Decided he doesn’t like dealing with the unintellectual.”

“Lord Megatron ordered–”

“Hey,” the figure put up his servos in a helpless gesture. “You wanna try him, be my guest. The last bots who bugged him sure learned. Maybe a few more and people will start taking my warning seriously.”

Prowl was close enough to feel his captor’s field pulse fear before hardening. “No,” the leader shook his helm, “I would’ve been told. And I don’t recognize you from this base.” His weapon powered up. Prowl tensed, ready to throw off the other’s aim in any way.

“Heh,” was all Jazz said as Prowl and the entourage were magnified to the floor. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant sensation, the way he was forced to the ground all at once with a dull clang. His shoulder joints were contorted uncomfortably between the pull of the magnets and the cuffs.

“Was that really the best method you could think of?” Prowl knew he shouldn’t be snarking at his savior. The situation had no place for it, but Jazz’s intake quirked up all the same, and some fluttering something stirred in his chassis– his spark? He tried not to think about it while Jazz pulled him off the magnetization pad that’d been disguised on the ground and helped him to his pedes.

“You’ll pay for this, Autobot scum!” one of the grunts shouted.

Jazz finished fiddling with the cuffs, slipping them off Prowl’s wrists and subspacing them. “Our lovely hosts treat you too badly?” He clapped Prowl on the back, gesture casual to the outside viewer, but rigid to Prowl’s trained optic.

“Why, worried?” He let an easy smile color his face.

Jazz relaxed fractionally. “Nah, Prowler, just making conversation.”

“Just wait til Megatron gets his servos on you two! There won’t be anything left!” That same soldier.

“You going to do it, or should I?” Prowl said, tapping a pede. Now wasn’t the time for idle banter.

Jazz got the memo, pulling a blaster. “Guess they’ve seen the meister ‘guise. No helping it?”

“Not unless you’ve learned mnemosurgery since I’ve been gone.”

“In a solar-cycle, mech?”

“Hey, hey!” the soldier was pleading something inane, unbecoming.

Prowl shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past you.” 

***

“Prowl!” Jazz hopped from one ledge to the next, finding a spot next to Prowl, perched on the edge of the cliff. The local aliens called it ‘The Grand Canyon.’ The place had nothing on some of the gorges in the Wastes. Not to mention a single one of Cybertron’s vents. Human scale continued to baffle Prowl in its modesty, but he’d keep that to himself. He got enough side-optics as-is from the other Autobots. Like he was crazy for suggesting that they keep humans out of their affairs. They were small, squishy. A weakness that Megatron and the rest of the Decepticons exploited at every turn. 

“I can hear you thinkin’ from here,” Jazz said, tapping out some snappy tune on the rock. He smiled brightly when he got Prowl’s full attention. A little too wide. Prowl tensed in suspicion– maybe anticipation, but Jazz only hopped up and flipped backward, landing right into alt. “Race me?”

“It’s been a while,” Prowl said, narrowing his optics. “What are you planning?”

“Who says I’m planning anything?” Jazz revved his engine once. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of losing.”

Prowl stood, stretching out his cables as he went. Something in him popped, a release of tension. He twisted the other way, chasing it, trying to decide if he’d rise to Jazz’s bait. He finally sighed, folding down into alt. “First to the ranger station!” Prowl shouted, throwing his pedal to the floor.

“No fair!” Jazz yelped behind him, coughing in the dust, but doing the same. It didn’t take long for Jazz’s racer alt to catch up to Prowl’s cop car. Lucky stretch of clear ground. Some brush was approaching fast that would choke up Jazz’s low chassis. Prowl let himself have a private smile as they hit it, watching Jazz’s distinct figure unfold into root to clear it, landing back on his wheels a large distance back.

“Can’t blame me for that!” Prowl exclaimed, giving a sharp whoop of his siren. It was easy to get lost in Jazz’s rhythm. The ground gained and lost, the short losses, and shorter victories. It didn’t take long for them to fall to dirty tactics. Jazz threw oil into Prowl’s path, Prowl shot an EMP, forcing Jazz to do a quick reboot. The ranger station approached quickly and they were neck and neck.

“Hey Prowl!”

He swept his sensors quickly over the other, trying to see through the trick he was sure was waiting.

“Yes?”

“If I win, I’m going to tell you something a little crazy, okay?”

It’d been a long time since Jazz had said something properly cryptic. Prowl was starting to wonder where that part of him had gone. There were a million baffled responses to something like that. He landed on, “you think you have a chance at beating me?”

Jazz only laughed, sounding a little helpless, before finding more power to throw into his RPM. He swept ahead just as they passed the ranger station, scattering dust in Prowl’s sensors. Prowl rolled to a calm stop, feeling anything but as he watched Jazz do a flashy drift, and spin back into root.

Prowl did the same, ignoring the way he twitched all over. He didn’t stress like this in battle. In battle it was just you and death. You did the best you could, and Prowl was very, very good. 

He didn’t know what this was, only that something would be different at the end of it. There was no fighting it.

Jazz was doing a dramatic stretch to the side, arms over his helm, leaned way back. He let out a deep “ahh,” but Prowl understood it for what it was: a distraction. 

“You won.”

Jazz flashed another smile. “You let me.”

Had he? Maybe he could’ve tried harder at the end there. He’d been thrown off-guard. That was all.

“So what did you want to tell me?”

Jazz’s smile turned sheepish, which was odd, because Jazz was never sheepish. The closest he ever got was that wry twist of the lips when he knew he’d fragged up. 

“What did you do?” Prowl said, injecting annoyance where panic wanted to swell.

“Nothing yet.” Jazz tapped a pede, anxiously, Prowl realized. His frame stiffened of its own accord. Jazz didn’t get scared either. 

So Prowl did what he always did: threw emotion aside and let his logic unit run its natural course. His combat systems nearly engaged of their own accord when the module spat out its conclusion.

“We can’t sparkbond,” Prowl said, letting the logic unit run the rest of those inherent follow-ups. Too risky. Too risky by far. There was a 86% chance alone that one of them would fall in battle before the other, and then they both might as well be dead, and that couldn’t come to pass, because the Autobots needed them. No one did the things they did. 

“What makes you think I was gonna talk about that?”

Logic was easy. He let logic reign. “You said you haven’t done anything. Yet. And I doubt there’s anything you could be planning that would make you so nervous. Not around me.” He paused, feeling his own spark being squeezed in the silence. “Unless it were about this.”

Jazz laughed, still with that strained edge. “I wasn’t.”

And Prowl’s tanks dropped. Silly, stupid. He’d missed something, hadn’t he? How had he been so confident in his conclusion? That Jazz would be interested in him that way? Jazz who got along with everybody. He’d be an idiot to settle for someone like Prowl, callous, emotionless Prowl. Mechs said he was blunt, single-minded to a fault. They were right.

And where did Prowl get off letting himself hope? Since when did he care? They were right. He was emotionless, so he didn’t care.

“Of course,” Prowl said– mumbled, he couldn’t wrestle his vocalizer quite into its usual volume. He took a step away, ready to force his systems back into alt-mode. He had work to do. They both did, surely. They weren’t even supposed to be taking this time to race. Stupid.

“Prowl!” Jazz snapped his digits in his face. “You hearing a word I’m saying?”

He blinked, found those violet optics looking back. Jazz’s other servo was curled around the visor.

“Look at me damnit!” 

Prowl nearly flinched when Jazz gripped him by both arms. 

“There. You didn’t let me finish. Stop thinking for one fragging second, won’t you?”

He nodded mutely.

“I really messed this up. I guess the appropriate thing to do would be to declare my intentions to sparkbond– that’s uh… definitely how I would’ve done it back then, y’know, before, but then, we wouldn’t have been allowed to be together then anyway, so, I guess Megatron didn’t do all bad.”

Prowl scowled at that.

“Ah, but, I know, Prowl. Whatever conclusions you came to about the whole thing, I came to them too. A sparkbond would be a really, really bad idea. Maybe…” Jazz trailed off, and it was a wonder to see those violet optics scrunch in worry. “Maybe someday, if you were interested. After. Maybe not. I don’t care.” Jazz’s servos trailed down, and took Prowl’s. “I just wanna be with you. That’s what I wanted to say.” He chuckled a little self-deprecatingly. “If you want to be with me, that is. After all the slag you know about me. The worst of me. I can’t imagine you have the best view of me.”

Prowl took a confused step forward, caught off-guard. “What?”

Jazz snorted. “C’mon. You’re a smart mech. You can figure it out. I tortured you, Prowl. I’ve hurt you, and doubted your motives, and helped put thousands of bots in the smelter. Horrible, horrible things for the sake of the Autobots.” He forced a smile onto his face, but it was a fraction of his usual easy-going facade. “And I’m a liar. All the time. I think you’re the only mech who’s actually seen me down to the core— at least, seen me and not flinched. And there’s a part of me that’s gotta hope that means you saw everything and liked it. Then there’s the rational part of me that says you saw everything and merely decided you could work with it. I know which I’d prefer.”

Jazz's words sent stars realigning. Prowl had seen all these sides of him, seen it and grown more enraptured— more comfortable as the vorns slid by. But he’d never once considered that maybe Jazz was just as self-conscious as he was. Jazz was sure-peded, pretended as easily as he vented. He danced through conversations with the ease of a mech sparked to do it. Everyone liked him.

He was everything Prowl wasn’t. 

But among his hordes of friends and fans, he’d picked Prowl to show this to, looked at an incorrigible bastard, more dedicated to the work he did than the people he did it for, and decided, ‘yep, this is the mech I’m going to bare my spark to.’

Jazz made Prowl better. He’d never once thought that maybe the reverse was true too.

Prowl gave Jazz’s servos a squeeze, and delighted at the trill that bounced back across the contact points. The War had already been long, and it was far from over, but maybe, just maybe, Prowl didn’t have to bear it alone.