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"Welcome to our shop--Soundwave?"
Soundwave looked at Hot Rod, whose faceplates were warming in embarrassment. He wasn't expecting the speedster to be working in a shop like this post-war.
"You work here?"
"A-As a temp, actually," Hot Rod said with an embarrassed grin. "Ugh, what brings you here? Anything catching your optics behind your visor?"
Soundwave paused. "...Would you mind helping me look around?"
Hot Rod blinked. That was odd. Soundwave, the quiet Decepticon, asking an Autobot to help him look around? What Cybertron had come into?
"Uh, sure! Follow me!"
Eager to make a sale after a long cycle of boredom, Hot Rod began to accommodate Soundwave by showing off the shop's set of popular designs. There was one with an avian theme made of soft feathery tingrass, and another designed for something more intense with matching lava theme.
He panicked when Soundwave began to yawn. Uh-oh. "Uh...Not your type? We have some more around the corner...unless you're not into this..."
The Con shook his helm. "No. I was looking for a specific one."
"What specific one, exactly...?"
Soundwave sighed. "A surprise for someone."
"Oh."
And then he saw that tape deck's grin even when the latter's mask was hiding it. "You sound disappointed. Jealous?"
"Wha--No!" he blurted out, flustered.
He looked away from the Con. He had a secret crush on him that he couldn't tell anyone since the war and he was still keeping it a secret. The only thing he always frowned upon was Soundwave's cheeky arrogant teasing.
"Heh."
"*Ahem* Let's move on. You need to tell me what they look like. Paint job, kibbles, personality."
"Alright." Soundwave hummed. "Before that, what's the set you like the most?"
"Who, me? Wow, Soundwave, I didn't know you wanted my opinion when you're here to give someone a maid outfit, no?"
"Hmm. Show me that one."
Hot Rod was about to talk when he backtracked. "Uh...Oh, right! Maid outfit. Kinky! Right this way." And he mentioned to the tape deck the details of the specific lingerie before Soundwave thought loudly of petrorabbits. Of course, Hot Rod pulled him to that one.
"Is that a Nyonian dancer set?"
Hot Rod shot his optic toward the one design sitting at the very corner of the room. "Well, yeah. That one's for, um...those who like something exotic."
"I like the design, the colors and all. That will suit my date."
"Yeah. The lucky bot will surely suit with it."
"I'll take that, and the other two as well."
"Alright. Let me check you out at the counter."
After folding the ones that Soundwave had chosen, he paid up and left. Hot Rod sighed and sat back, now bored and lonely.
He then received a private message from his chatmate, who was later inviting him to his apartment. Hot Rod was eager for a serious relationship, and he was hoping this time was for real.
So it was a surprise when he went to the apartment as promised and Hot Rod was met with some romance-themed scavenger hunt.
He was taken aback when he saw the familiar pieces of lingerie sets scattered all over the apartment. His blind date instructed him to follow instructions, something which he wasn't keen in doing, so he collected the pieces of the lingerie and ended up in the bedroom.
A sound played with Ultra Magnus' voice. :You're supposed to follow the instructions, Hot Rod!:
"Alright, I am a little freaked out because I am suspecting that I know who's behind all this!" he snapped, half-jittery, half-annoyed. "Soundwave?!"
He heard a "tsk" before a chuckle, and then he looked around, his suspicions right, but it still felt wrong! Like right wrong! Or wrong right! Ugh...!
"Slag, Soundwave...! You toyed with me!" he wailed in annoyance. "Have I known that you've been picking on me the whole time, I shouldn't have welcomed you! Slagger!"
Soundwave chuckled. "Surprise."
"Frag you! I'm leaving!"
"Are you sure?"
Oh, yeah. Hot Rod wasn't. "You're the most annoying son of a glitch I have ever met!"
"And you're the sexiest idiot I have ever met."
He paused. Sexiest was a good thing, but idiot?!
"Stop teasing me! Why didn't you tell me that I was chatting with you all along?! 'Twincast'?! Huh?!"
"And you fell for it," Soundwave chuckled again. "And I will keep annoying you until you say yes."
"Yes to what?!"
"That we stay together."
Hot Rod stammered. "Y-You? And me?" He saw the Con nod. "W-Why me? Is it because of my outlier ability? Don't poke with my feelings, Soundwave."
"I'm not. I've been wishing we could be together since the war, but the war took too long before it was over. You chose your side, I chose mine, but despite the differences, I still want to be with you."
The speedster gasped silently. "You liked me the whole time?"
"I still love the same inferior Autobot in front of me."
Hot Rod swung his servo toward Soundwave. Soundwave was a good evader, unfortunately. "Scrap! I can't believe I fell for that!"
"And I'll keep messing with you until you fall in love with me." Soundwave grabbed Hot Rod and pulled him close. He could feel the warmth of Hot Rod's faceplates and enjoyed his flustered look. "And I was right with the lingerie pieces fitting you."
"Stop teasing me," he pouted.
"I can't help it. It's better than seeing you hurt."
Another pause. Hot Rod stared at Soundwave, his faceplates now blushing. He gulped when he felt the Con's digits feel the welds on his spoilers, his sides, his chestplates, and even on his helm. It was as if Soundwave had seen where he was hurt before.
And to see the light of his optics behind the crimson visor was something Hot Rod wasn't expecting. There was emotion. Longing. It seemed so unbelievable, but here he was, witnessing Soundwave unfold before him.
He realized a little late when he felt a piece of the maid piece on his helm, the neck ornaments of the Nyonian dancer set around his cables, and the lava avian covering over his panels.
"What the?!"
"Shh."
Hot Rod's optics shifted back toward Soundwave, who now began to play a Nyonian courting song from his speakers. The Con began to sway, his servos guiding the speedster to move. Hot Rod eventually relented and he danced with him.
The song reminded him of his home, where he could dance freely with his fellow Nyonians in celebration of Primus and his benevolence. He was so drowned in the reminiscing of Nyon's past that he had forgotten about his sole audience watching him dance on his own.
He wasn't aware how Soundwave was enamored by his dance and how the Con remembered how similar it was during the war when Hot Rod fought one time with that grace.
And when he stopped dancing, that was when he felt Soundwave's optics gazing through him. And he stood there as the tape deck approached him slowly to give him a gentle and passionate kiss.
He was like in a daze and he became lost in the feeling, responding to Soundwave in kind until they ended on the berth where one by one the pieces of lingerie were gently taken off and his frame trembled to welcome Soundwave in that intimate moment.