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Chapter Text

The planet nears its cooler seasons, where the roads became slick and hazardous for the speeds Mirage was reaching. He competes with the frigid wind, engines roaring, burning rubber against asphalt as he races down the empty stretch of highway. Nothing but him and the field of stars above. If he shifted gears and went any faster, it would surely send him flying.

His engines whine.

Mirage was in a terrible mood, and it all started in the mess hall earlier today. A casual, innoxious joke about making a service of driving humans around, like a taxi. Why would anyone participate in an economy that was projected to collapse within a Cybertronian's blink of an optic, he may never know? But everyone in the mess hall had started chiming in. The chatter quickly turned into making future plans, living alongside humans, integrating with them… And by then, he had already lost his patience. It was a moment of weakness. He let it slip that the thought of humans climbing into his seat with their grimy little hands made him physically ill.

Not his best moment. He forgot that Autobots became synonymous with organic-lover. The spy made himself scarce soon after.

In any case, he would rather not deal with baseless accusations levied at him again if he could help it. He's hardly the only 'bot indifferent to humanity, but he knows all too well that his prickly nature and disappearing acts have gotten him into trouble before. It was better to cool off where no one could see him sulk and be nasty about this horrible terrible mudball of a planet that some mechs of this faction seem to like so much.

Sorry, Hound.

He was doing them a favor by distancing himself, honestly. Lest he run his glossa and apologize for being a glitch… again. They were good bots; he even liked some of them. The last thing he wanted was to ruin anything.

The midnight drive was doing wonders for his heated systems, giving him enough space to muse without judgment. He missed the towers and his cushy lifestyle before it all got leveled to the ground. He hates having to spend hours picking out leaves in his joints and washing mud off his tires during the horrid rainy seasons. He was happier back then, and 'bots had a tendency to twist his words to antagonize him for it. Former noble, stuck up aft-hole...

The war was an ugly thing. It has been dragged out for petty reason after petty reason for far too long. He's sick of it! He doesn't enjoy fighting for his life every day for the rest of his function. Is that a crime?

The crackling sounds of a warp drive activating overhead snap Mirage out of his thoughts, and he sharply swerves off the road. With a practiced motion, he avoids flipping over and spins himself into root-mode, landing with a flourish before creating a projection of the natural surroundings to conceal himself. The hum of his engines abruptly cuts off.

There is always a risk of Decepticon activity even well within Autobot territory. With how unpredictable Skywarp of all mechs can be, it shouldn't surprise him that the crazy 'con would dare teleport right into the enemy line of fire just for the thrill of it. He would have to report this back to Jazz and Red Alert.

Although... he wasn't sanctioned to be out on a little late night jaunt... so...

Mirage ex-vents quietly when Skywarp touches down on root-mode a few paces away from his hiding spot. Fear grips him in that moment. That maybe he didn't duck in time before getting spotted, and inevitably, the seeker would whip his helm around, and Mirage would have to dodge a volley of blaster fire before speeding back the way he came.

Luckily, the dark jet's battle protocols haven't come online yet. Null rays have a particular hum to them while they're active. In fact, he seems-

Mirage narrows his optics into slits and his lenses enhance, tracking the seeker's movements.

Seekers, as intel goes, are lethal vicious harpies with superior flight capabilities than any of their own fliers back in the Autobots. They rule over the skies with the kind of grace that would make a speedster jealous. But there was nothing of the sort when Skywarp's heel thrusters tip over uneven asphalt and sends the jet tumbling down to the ground-

"Slaggit-!"

and giggling as he goes.

Mirage could only stare bewildered at the state of the Decepticon, trying and failing to get back up like an overturned oversized earth bug. The absolute menace of a seeker unknowingly making a fool of himself in front of him. He was probably too drunk rely on his navigation system to warn him where he was.

There is a perfect opportunity in front to the spy's pedes to just- step in and cuff him and-

It might even make up for the infraction he would get for sneaking out, but-

It's just...

Mirage is tired. He's homesick, and at his wits end with the whispers behind his back, and his name dragged through the very mud he hates, and- and-

Some days, he could delude himself into thinking the Ark is his home and the Autobots his new family, but they're not. His few friends don't seem to understand why he hates going out on missions or training or having to gun down another mech to save his own plate. He knows it far too well, seeing the light leave their optics and frame steadily going gray. It's sickening.

He just wanted one night where he doesn't have to think about being stuck in this never-ending folly of a war. Is that too much to ask?

Throwing his spec ops training to the wayside, he clears his intake.

"Skywarp."

"Wha- huh..." Skywarp slurs as intelligently as he looks when his visual feed can't pinpoint where the voice is coming from. His sluggish processor read a big fat negative in the absence of any bot on the road with him.

"P-Primus?" His dark wings shot up, and he jerkingly sits up to look at the starry night sky. Red optics widen with a hint of astonishment. "Izzzzat you?"

Mirage isn't immune to a good ol' prank when it deliciously presents itself to him. He was forged with an ability to camouflage himself, for goodness' sakes! Of course, he makes use of it for something as foolish as this.

"Yes, Skywarp." He smiles like an amused creator looking down upon his stupid creation. "You are drunk. Go back to your base before anyone misses you."

"Yeeerr not the boss of me!"

Skywarp makes a noble effort to get back up on his pedes. A chilling thought strikes Mirage while watching him struggle. How does a warp drive work, and is the seeker in danger of clipping himself into the side of a mountain and ending his life instantly? Should he care?

"Err... refrain from teleporting for now." He doesn't need death on his conscience tonight.

"Ha! No shit... Shee... Shherrr... whoever the fuck..." Thankfully, he does nothing more than crawl off the road and lean his back against a sturdy looking tree.

Human profanities elude Mirage and he has no interest in picking them up like some troublemakers he knows... and Jazz. He's not in the business of judging his boss, that's suicide.

"Hey, Primus?" Skywarp thunks his helm against the trunk of the tree.

"Yes, Skywarp?" Mirage hasn't move from his spot yet.

He considered backing away slowly to let the inebriated seeker sober up on his own. The fun being well over by now. But he had developed a habit of watching mechs for their peculiarities, and there was something off about the seeker. Surely it couldn't hurt to stay a little while longer…

"Is uh... is home doing good?"

Cybertron.

No. "Perhaps, one day." He has to hold on to hope that it would. Otherwise, what was the point of all this?

Skywarp goes silent and any rookie would mistake it for him slipping into recharge if it weren't for the powerful engine still humming idly by. It's not the same kind of low hum during a defrag cycle. And Mirage would know the difference, stealth is his specialty after all.

It's way too easy to kill him right now, and when had that been easier than just walking away?

"I thought that..." Skywarp finally speaks up and he's squinting up the sky like it personally disgusts him, his mouth forming a sneer. "Thought gods weren't ssss- suppose to lie or some slag."

Mirage suppresses the urge to scoff because he's fairly certain gods also don't get annoyed the same way mortals do. "Do you not have hope for Cybertron?"

"That hunk of metal? Eh, sure." Skywarp shrugs. "Everyone else? Eeeeehh..."

Eloquently put. Mirage couldn't have worded it out better himself with how utterly doomed their species is as a whole.

"Howz 'bout you?" Skywarp asks while searching for something in the stars, searching for an answer.

Mirage doesn't have it. He came out here to actively avoid it.

"If the war were to stop-"

Skywarp cuts in with a harsh ugly laugh. "Like- like frag it would!"

Anger boils at the tip of Mirage's glossa, ready to spit venom, and it takes all of his training to rein it in. This is the difference between Autobots and Decepticons, wasn't it? It's not them perpetuating the damn war this long.

"Do you. Not. Want. It. To. End?" Mirage grounds out through gritted denta with what hopefully was a calm and collected god the seeker believes him to be.

Silence again.

This time, Mirage does start to walk backwards one step at a time so he can keep an optic on the seeker. This conversation should have ended the first time he had gone quiet, and the spy is mentally berating himself for being nosy. This was sloppy-

"Well, yeah... doesn't everyone?"

It was uttered so quietly that Mirage nearly missed it at first. The way Skywarp croaks with a pop of static in a way he's never heard a warbuild sound before. It's jarring, it caused him to pause, and to his mistake, step on a twig-

The telltale thrum of null rays activating has Mirage finally hightailing out of there.

◇

Sneaking back into the Ark is a simple affair if it weren't for the pounding in his spark threatening to leap out of its chamber. Night rotation doesn't hear Mirage slip by, but he thinks his systems are loud enough to wake the dead. He runs smoother than most bots, it's just that he isn't supposed to be this rattled over knowing what he already knows.

Warbuilds don't often show that kind of weakness out in the open. Some bots in this faction have propaganda so far up their exhaust pipe that they believe none of the Decepticons ever could. Mirage knows better because he's seen it time and time again. It's his job to observe, find a weakness, and exploit it. No matter the differences between civilian frames and military ones, they're all still Cybertronian in nature in the end.

Skywarp sounds just as sick of the war as he does. This should not surprise him, but it has his logic circuits in a tizzy. He sounded-

Mirage turns off his cloaking ability and the projection falls away in the safety of his quarters. He finds recharge to be the last thing on his mind. What would Jazz do with this information? There was an advantage somewhere here, he knows. Skywarp is a part of the command trine, despite being a well known idiot, he could be swayed to...

How many more Decepticons hate this war as much as he does? He thought Thundercracker would be the first to crack, defect, or just go AWOL. Autobot intelligence have several bets that hinge on the blue seeker tearing the command trine apart. But Skywarp? He's downright jovial in partaking in violence. So, why?

And if someone like Skywarp wanted the war to end, then there should be others.

Well, yeah... doesn't everyone?

There should be more.

Chapter Text

Purging his tanks out while in the middle of avoiding some pesky Autobot patrol was not how Skywarp wanted to spend the rest of his evening.

In fact, getting cratered was the only agenda he had planned out all damned day.

◇

It started with Starscream being slugged in the face by Megatron. The impact emitted a crack so loud that Skywarp jolted straight out of light recharge, fully believing TC had another sonic boom accident in the middle of a staff meeting again. He dozed off partway through Soundwave's droning report and had to hard reboot his visual feed to remember where he was. The details are a little fuzzy, and he'd have to ask TC about it later, but he can't concentrate on raids or flight maneuvers right now.

Screamer getting hit wasn't new. Heck, sometimes it's warranted to knock some sense into that evil little slagger.

Screamer going down after a single blow? Now that's a cause for concern!

The usual protocol was not to intervene, endure the screaming match and a bit of showboating until the fight's all over, so they can get on with their lives. There's no fight though. Starscream wasn't getting back up to yell or pretending to be down just to lunge at Megatron when he thinks the ol' slagmaker's guard was down.

Starscream was laying there flat-out cold!

A stifling silence descended on the stuffy meeting room for a few klicks, long enough for everyone to get uncomfortable, a little nervous. Megatron stands there with a weird look on his face, a cross between a snarl and something like constipation, before he's barking orders for someone to get that damn seeker off the floor! Out of his sight right now!

That should have been their cue to step in and drag their leader the pit out of there, but when he turned to TC wondering why he hadn't moved to Screamer's side yet, he froze dead on his tracks.

Because the look on Thundercracker's face, optics bright as a dying star, could put thunderstorms to shame.

It was gone too quickly for Skywarp to register what the frag that was about. TC was back to his cold indifference again, and anyone would have thought it was a trick of the light or something, but not Skywarp. He hasn't seen Thundercracker that seriously torqued in a long, long time. TC was holding his field in so close that he may as well be standing next to a sinkhole. He could suppress it all he wants, but nothing escapes the trine bond.

They ended up hauling Starscream's heavy aft to the medbay. Skywarp would have teleported to save them all the awkward march through the hallway for the rest of the base to see, if he didn't feel like his own gyros got knocked out of sync instead of Starscream's. He'll have to deal with the screeching about the indignity of it all when their trine leader wakes up later.

Hook slapped a patch over his helm a little more dispassionately than usual, and called it a day. No major damage, just a really well placed bop to the head.

Soundwave comms Thundercracker for disciplinary action after they've left Starscream in Hook's cold negligent hands, and Skywarp just knew his trinemate had said something crazy in his head back in that meeting room. He doesn't want to hear any of that mess in case the telepath hears TC's voice in his head and thinks he's thinking the same treasonous thoughts too.

He needed a drink.

Starscream bounced back a few joors later and returned to terrorizing the air fleet for drills like nothing ever happened. Thundercracker has to take extra shifts, so he can't hang out for Praxus hold'em tonight. A crying shame. TC's pokerface was good enough to win them a few cubes and other goodies. The rest of the base goes on in all its sunken battleship glory.

Except... Skywarp started noticing things.

No matter how many times the Constructicons reinforce the walls, there's an ominous creak and groan in the ship's hull that threatens to flood the lower levels and sink them further down the seabed. No one could get a proper defrag going with the near constant pitter-patter of a broken pipe somewhere. Lights are kept at the lowest setting, making the floors a tripping hazard. It's to conserve energy, they're all conserving energy, because they've all been on half rations for too damn long.

Skywarp can't tell if Starscream was influencing the bond into making him feel antsy to get out of the base or the constant chug of rusting machinery was finally getting to him. Sure, the Nemesis had seen better days, but it ain't so bad!

It felt like he was the one who got whacked in the head by several tons of tank power because suddenly everything was that bad.

He cornered Thundercracker at the elevator before his long night shift of boring monitor duty. A slap on the wrist by Decepticon standards, which goes to show that whatever the pit happened back at that meeting room really wasn't something to get their turbines in a twist over.

TC's field was a miserable mess that's leaking through the bond and making Screamer more irritable all the way across the ship in a lab he's holed himself in. They weren't supposed to show concern for one another, it's a weakness no one wanted out in the open for fraggers to capitalize, but he feels so off kilter in a way that's pissing him off too.

"Hey, TC? You good?" Skywarp cringes with each word falling out his mouth.

"... no." Thundercracker didn't even have it in him to lie.

◇

A few cubes of energex of questionable origins with a taste straight out of the Unmaker's waste chute and an honest to god conversation with Primus later, Skywarp is about to get captured by Cliffjumper of all bots.

Fragging Cliffjumper!

They may as well shoot him and get it over with. He'll never live this down!

◇

The stark contrast between the Nemesis and the Ark is that Skywarp is pretty sure the bright orange walls are supposed to be a torture method to make 'cons want to rip their optics out. Sadistic fucks. They're gonna start giving Vortex some new ideas.

His processor ache is helping nothing with his current situation. The overly bright lights even in the depths of the Ark's sorry excuse for a brig is only adding insult to injury. Why not rub it in that the 'bots have been hoarding all the energon for themselves and leaving the rest of them to starve?

He's so fucked that he's started cussing in squishy because he ran out of creative profanities to describe how well and truly fucked he is. An inhibitor lock around his pedes disables his warp drive and the stasis cuffs around his servos is making it real hard to scratch the itch between his wings. There must be a leaf stuck in the seams somewhere after falling down the dusty road at some point. He can't remember when that had happened. Was it before or after his talk with Primus?

They've blocked access to his comm system, and yeah, he expected as much. His trine has no idea where he is, and that does not bode well with how off TC and Screamer had been when he last saw them. Oof.

At least the berth is nice and warm. He could get some much needed recharge before the 'bots send whoever to interrogate him. Ha! He ain't Screamer. They'll be wasting their time with his magical ability to not give a fuck.

Unless if it's Prime's pitspawn demon of a TIC, Jazz. Actually, he isn't sure if Jazz was the TIC or the other black and white mech with the twitchy winglets and an impressive disapproving frown. Could give Megs a run for his shanix with that frown. He's pretty sure half the 'con base has a crush on the Praxian and he can't figure out for the life of him why?

"Primus, if you're listening..." Skywarp leans against the wall to stare up at the non-leaky ceiling of the brig. "Do me a solid and put some no name nobody to interrogate me. Thanks big P."

◇

"He appears to be praying." Red Alert narrows his optics at the screen. "He might be bugged. Skywarp has never been known to be religious before. We've checked him for bombs, right?"

"Yes, we've checked him for bombs-"

"Check him again."

Ratchet rubs his nasal ridge. The only thing running in Skywarp's systems was an ill advised amount of energex and not much else. The medic was watching the security panel with Red Alert because after his initial scan on the drunk seeker, he would have thought the crazy bird was suicidal. The other officers could deliberate over the seeker in their custody all they want, he has to monitor him for any signs. He has his own bots to worry about, and he really shouldn't concern himself with the enemy, but curse his spark for getting squirrelly about it.

Why this close to the Autobot base to get wasted enough for one wrong flight, one wrong flight and he'd fall nose cone first to deactivation? Or was he just plain stupid?

That may also be the case.

◇

Skywarp is in the brig and Mirage should have seen it coming.

Jazz forwarded the details of Skywarp's capture to his inbox just as Cliffjumper's boasting echoes through the halls for taking in a 'con three times his size. Surely there are more heroics to celebrate than wrangling one inebriated Decepticon? The seeker could barely tell the floor from his pede the last time he saw him.

Saves him the trouble of doing the work himself. But now he knows that Jazz knows he had been outside when he shouldn't, and forwarded the message as a warning, so he could wait for him to fess up on his own or risk being directly confronted.

Mirage checks the last message again to see how much trouble he's in.

;)

That won't do. Jazz may be his superior, but he hates being called out for being sloppy when really he was feeling "under the weather" and didn't want to mar his paintjob with scorch marks again.

Not a lot of bots know that being a spec ops agent isn't all about sneaking around and weaving lies. Jazz instilled in his agents to work with what they got rather than making a fool of themselves by pretending to be someone they aren't. The skill sets afforded to him as a tower's noble comes in handy more often than not and he has honed it in like a fine blade.

A sharp glossa, forging connections to mechs of high status, and knowing when to call it in.

Time to play dirty.

◇

"Good evening, Mirage."

"Good evening, Prime. I hope I'm not bothering you this late in the evening."

"Not at all." The Prime's field blooms in a warm welcoming embrace that washes Mirage's worries away, though only briefly. "Anything I could help you with?"

It almost makes him feel guilty to use Prime as a shield against Jazz, but he does have a purpose for showing up in front of the Autobot leader's room. There's information the other officers would twist into an advantage in favor of winning the war, and then there are matters of the spark when you need the Prime to step in and look at it from his unique perspective of endless empathy. Mirage isn't looking at this problem from a tactical standpoint, he needs someone to understand him.

And also because he's trying to avoid disciplinary action-

"I have a few things I'd like to discuss with you." Mirage's spark has been pulled thin as of late. His processor churning information he does not know what to do with yet.

Optimus Prime's optics brighten in surprise, some intrigue crosses his features that the battle mask does nothing to hide. He studies the spy in front of him before there's a twinkle of amusement in his field.

"Is this something you feel safer sharing with me than with Jazz?"

Mirage resists the urge to squirm.

"Yes, and no. I trust you're the only one who could help me."

"Ah."

Without another word, Optimus Prime welcomes Mirage into the privacy of his quarters.

Chapter Text

The Prime's personal quarters aren't all that different from the other officers in that it's spacious enough for a private one on one meeting, but otherwise far too humble for the status of a Prime. It's no surprise considering the open secret of his origins. It's not like he's hiding the fact that he used to be a dock worker. It's never been relevant enough to ever bring up.

Optimus strikes Mirage as a simple mech who would love nothing more than to live quietly with his fellow Autobots once the war was over. Something they share in common is absolutely loathing the war from the very start and everything about it since. When Mirage says he hates the war, there's a few mechs that would look at him sideways with suspicion. But when Optimus Prime looks off into the sunset with a forlorn expression of many great burdens, wishing peace and love on planet Cybertron, then that's entirely different.

Mirage takes his seat across from the Prime before jumping straight to business. "I apologize for leaving the base when I wasn't authorized to do so."

Optimus chuckles, "Jazz may have a reputation, but he isn't as scary as the rumors make him out to be. Most of those rumors, he started himself. You don't need to worry about the discipline coming from him unless it's deserved."

Keyword: most. Mirage is well aware and stifles a shudder. "I understand, sir. But this is more than that."

What he appreciates about Optimus Prime is that he keeps his field open. He's casual when talking with his Autobots, calm to put their worries at ease. Strong, but never overbearing, never to menace anyone into submission. He could do so easily given his size and power, but it wouldn't be their Prime if he didn't always radiate a field of a friend.

Right now, Prime is listening to him with an open mind, nodding for him to speak freely. The type of trust given to those he wholeheartedly believes have a good reason for doing what they do.

Mirage ex-vents and then begins, "I encountered the Decepticon, Skywarp, first on the highway. I was driving to clear my head before I heard a warp drive open behind me. The seeker was intoxicated, heavily so, and clearly unfit to be either flying or teleporting around in his state. He didn't see me when he touched down on the road. I then hid."

Optimus tilts his head, most likely reviewing the reports sent to him about said seeker in the brig currently. His optics flicker back down to Mirage. "You didn't inform anyone of his presence?"

"No, sir."

"Not even to tip the night patrol in the area?"

"No, sir."

There's no hint of an accusation in Prime's voice, waiting for him to continue. Mirage, however, knows how it sounds, and it does not cast him in a positive light. He's been labeled a Decepticon sympathizer before. Optimus willing to hear him out still puts him marginally at ease.

"I..." He resets his vocalizer. "I talked to him- well- I first talked him out of teleporting again."

"Because that would be very irresponsible." Prime rumbles disapprovingly at the seeker.

"Yes, very much so." Primus, drinking and teleporting is a horrifying thought...

"And what else did you two talk about?"

This is the part that struck him the most about the seeker, and he hopes he can convey why it felt so significant to him. "Skywarp, he- he told me he doesn't have much hope on the rest of us, on either faction for that matter, to end the war."

Mirage chances a glance at Optimus' optics and dares to voice his own opinion. "I feel much the same way."

He believes Optimus is a good leader, a fair and decent Prime where his predecessors had been much, much worse.

But...

"I understand." Optimus accepts it with a weary sigh, and Mirage's spark twinges with regret. He knows how difficult the Prime's position is and that he's doing the best he can...

But-

"He seemed troubled." Mirage presses on, looking down at his servos pressed flat against his lap. "Tired, resigned. It runs contrary to every piece of intel we have on the seeker."

"You sound troubled yourself." Optimus places a servo on Mirage's shoulder, and he snaps his gaze back up to meet Prime's. He looks- just as tired, just as resigned-

Well, yeah... doesn't everyone?

"Prime... Prowl's prediction models have always projected Megatron pushing for the war until the Decepticons either splinter the Autobots into smaller and smaller groups that they no longer pose a threat to his empire or complete eradication. He predicts this will go on for an indefinite amount of time until he gets what he wants. We are at a stalemate as of now, sir. He believes there will be a 'tipping point'."

"A great catastrophe that would propel one faction above the other." Optimus confirms gravely.

"But I..." Mirage hasn't had hope in a long time. It almost tastes foreign on his glossa. "I don't have enough evidence to support my claims, but I want to believe it won't come to that, sir. I think near everyone is fatigued to a point that- that maybe if we gather enough voices from the Decepticons side, then..."

"Then maybe they'd be more amenable to a ceasefire then." Optimus smiles behind his battle mask, his field lighter than it had been. "I hope for that future soon, Mirage."

Mirage feels the tension in his spark start to loosen up, and he shyly smiles back. He knew Optimus would understand him. "I as well."

"You still need to tell Jazz about this."

Dammit! "Yes, Prime..." Mirage deflates in his seat with an undignified whimper.

"I'll tell him to go easy on you." Optimus pats Mirage on the shoulder once before taking his servo back. "I have to say, how did you get Skywarp to confide in you? Was he simply too drunk to tell you were an Autobot?"

"I remained invisible, sir." Mirage perks up again, a little grin on his lips. "He convinced himself I was Primus, and I played along."

That got a laugh from the Autobot leader, and it makes this all feel worth it.

◇

"You Autobums are such hypocrites."

"How so?"

Skywarp takes a sip of the cube that had been handed to him and retches. "Drinking this slag is torture!" He spits it out, making a mess inside his own cell. "Thought you 'bots aren't big on that."

Ratchet cycles his optics in lieu of an eye roll, a human gesture he borrowed unwillingly from Carly.

"It's medical grade energon infused with the minerals your frame is sorely lacking. It's not supposed to taste any good."

The 'con spends a klick glaring at the medic, the gears clearly grinding overtime in his head. "Your frame is sorely lacking."

Ratchet sighs.

It's late. The officers had a meeting about their wayward prisoner when intel came back that the Decepticons haven't realized they're missing the only teleporting flying purple menace in their ranks yet. It means the fool snuck out on his own, had gotten drunk enough to no longer be able to rely on his navigation systems, and then wound up in Autobot territory by accident.

That, or a death wish.

Prowl had wanted to question their prisoner when he was no longer belligerent (i.e., hissing and cussing at him in a drunken tirade). Skywarp had only just calmed down when his fuel tanks went below the red line bordering on empty, and Ratchet had to step in to shoo the other officers out of the way, so he could get a better look at him.

Then Optimus Prime himself comm'd the officers to hold off interrogations until tomorrow. Let everyone get some rest.

Jazz had looked amused, like he knew something they don't, and then span around and took his leave first.

As chief medical officer, Ratchet stayed to make sure Skywarp drinks all his med grade, even if it took all night. He stops himself short from putting the damn seeker in a chokehold and force feeding it to him, because although he has done it a few times to his own band of miscreants, it's unethical to do so to a prisoner of war.

Doesn't stop him from wishing he could.

"Hey, doc."

"What is it, Skywarp?" Ratchet grumbles as he pushes another cube into Skywarp's cell. The seeker thoroughly ignores it.

"Do you believe in Primus?"

"No." The question comes straight out of left field that he thinks the seeker might be setting up for a joke about his ground pounding ways. "Why? Were you planning to meet him when you wandered your aft over to us?"

"Slag no." Skywarp snatches up the cube, stares at it, and then slowly back up at the medic. His optics narrow.

"If you even think about throwing that cube at me, I'm going to detach your glossa and use it as a mop to clean up the floor!" He brandish his trusty wrench at him in warning. The wrong tool for cutting glossa, not that the idiot would know.

Skywarp laughs uproariously and doubles over, which causes the the cube to spill, wasting the damn fuel... again. "Good one, Hatchet! Why don't you and Hook hook up? You both fragging suck!"

"Don't compare me to that two-bit hack of a medic! He wouldn't know the difference between the front of your aft from its back, and would screws it on backwards!"

Skywarp snorts, and Ratchet blinks his optics a few times at the sound. That was a human expression the 'con just made. Didn't they hate organics?

"Like you'd do a better job? They call you the Hatchet 'cause you hack mechs limbs off!"

"Of course I'd do a better job!" Their volume has gotten loud enough to have Ironhide peeking in through the door to see what the frag was going on. "I'm a proper licensed medic!"

"Good for you, aft-hole! Bet Hook would do better if he had half the fancy schmancy slag you got lying around!"

Ratchet catches himself from losing his temper and throwing his wrench at the seeker's head. Suddenly, a thought gives him pause. If Hook and the Constructicons had a fully stocked medbay and not whatever they cobbled up together...

"He'd be a turbo-bull in a china shop if you gave him a stocked medbay." Ratchet mutters.

"A wha-"

"You know what?" Ratchet slams his wrench back in his toolbox with a violent loud clang to make both Skywarp and Ironhide jump. "If I was given a few cycles with Hook and his optic-sore of a crew, I'd put them all through a course. They might even be halfway decent by then!"

Skywarp opens his mouth, shuts it, and stares at Ratchet like he grew a second head. "... Uhhh?" His language pack must have glitched, a symptom of insufficient fuel levels.

"Heck, I'll gladly lend them all my medical files if I didn't think I'd get shot at!" Ratchet means it too.

He wasn't blind to the fact that Cybertron had been a slagging mess before they all turned it into a giant scrapyard. The Constructicons didn't have the kinds of access to higher education that he was privileged enough to get by virtue of being forged a medic. Then the academies got blown sky high and now everyone's short on medics with proper credentials. And if the Constructicons managed with whatever slag they scrounged up over the millennia, imagine what they could accomplish if someone formally trained them?

"Huh."

An awkward stretch of silence ensues where Ratchet stares the seeker down. He pushes yet another cube into Skywarp's cell, hoping he'd get some decent recharge tonight.

By some miracle, Skywarp finally takes a drink and keeps it down without any further complaints. He even drinks the next few cubes Ratchet hands him until the seeker's fuel tanks were fully topped off.

Huh, indeed. Ratchet is kind of impressed.

◇

"What in the pits went on in there?"

"None of your damn business, 'Hide. I'm going to recharge." Ratchet yawns, another human expression, as he passes by. Frankly, he doesn't know what any of that was either.

◇

"Mirage."

"Sir."

Mirage stands in the TIC's rarely used office early the next day. It would be very unbecoming of him to shuffle his pedes nervously like a newspark about to get reprimanded by their sire. Jazz would laugh at the comparison, call him funny, and then send him off into a mission deep into the bowels of an underground sewage system.

He suppresses a shudder.

"Firstly, I'd like to apologize-"

"Save it." Jazz cuts him off and he wisely shuts his mouth with a click. "You're on janitorial duty for the next five cycles."

"Yes, sir..." He maintains his composure while he internally groans.

The punishment could have been worse. If Optimus already told Jazz his whole story, then he would know he purposely endangered a few lives last night. Drunk or not, the seeker was still a dangerous opponent with inbuilt weapon systems. The least he could do was help Cliffjumper, but he didn't want to get caught outside last night. He couldn't bear the accusations again, especially not from him.

He didn't want to get Skywarp caught either.

Sloppy.

"But before all that," Jazz waves it off and slides a datapad over to Mirage. It has the Autobot's file on Skywarp on it, and that's when he gets the sinking feeling that he has involved himself deeper than he ever wanted to be.

"Prime specifically wants you to handle the interrogation on the prisoner."

The news sends Mirage's train of thought careening into the ground. What? That's not a part of his skill set at all.

Jazz continues, a wolfish grin playing on his lips. "It's a tall order, I know. I'm wondering what you told Prime that got him to put you in charge. That seeker? We haven't had a prisoner in upper command in a long ass time even if it's Screamer doing all the legwork. Don't be fooled. He probably has something rattling around that helm of his."

Mirage had been fairly certain they'd want him far away from this incident as possible. Didn't this whole thing read as if he's been compromised? How could he be trusted with the grievous mistakes he made last night?

"But, sir- I didn't ask to be put in charge of his interrogation."

"Hey, it's no problem with me. You're one of my best agents, Mirage." Jazz dishes out complements all the time to put a bot in a false sense of security. Mirage has the benefit of knowing there's some truth to it because Jazz still personally hands him his assignments, and if he ever lost his respect, he wouldn't be talking to him right now. "Fair warning, it's gotten Prowl's attention, and he's gonna wanna work with you on whatever you could get out of Skywarp. He might even interrogate you himself if you let him."

"I see..." Mirage takes this as a good sign that Jazz wasn't disappointed in him... yet. However, Prowl looming over his shoulder is going to be a lot harder to deal with.

"So," Jazz laces his digits together and props his chin over his servos. "What did you say to Optimus?"

This may as well be a test run before he has to confront Prowl.

So be it.

"I told Prime how I met Skywarp while he was intoxicated on the highway last night and he started confessing to me about growing weary of the war."

"Don't we all?" Jazz let out a humorless laugh. His sentiments mirroring Skywarp and Optimus and... it really was everyone, wasn't it? "Do you think you could get anything more out of him while he's sober?"

Mirage has fought Skywarp in the battlefield before. Shot at him, tackled him to the ground, charged at him in his alt-mode and ran him over. Nothing personal, just as Skywarp has attempted to end his life many times in the past. It's war.

He has a sneaking suspicion as to why Prime put him up to this. He searches through his memory banks and rewinds their conversation from last night.

maybe if we gather enough voices from the Decepticons side, then...

Such a foolish thing to say and look where it got him! It's nice to think that Prime thinks he has a chance at making some sort of difference starting with a single seeker. He should be realistic and ask Prime to reconsider...

Then what would it change? They'll all just go back to war...

"I'm going to be honest, sir... I believe Optimus has a different idea on how he wants me to conduct the interrogation." He keeps his field calm, but his spark is whirling around restlessly in its chamber.

"Oh?" Jazz's visor brightens in interest.

"He'd want me to..." Mirage looks straight at Jazz, where his optics should be behind the visor. He needs him to know he's serious about this and not some idyllic fantasy he thought up during defrag. "Have a chat with him... sir."

Jazz barks out a laugh, slapping his knee guard, before leaning back in his seat to give Mirage a once over. "Sure, mech. Let's go around making friends with 'cons. Fragging, why not?"

Mirage keeps himself very still, because he knows Jazz is looking for a reaction out of him. A wince or to backtrack every word that came out of his mouth. Jazz stares back in an open challenge to see if he truly believes in the slag he presented him with or not, and Mirage isn't going to just fold under pressure.

He wants to believe in hope so bad-

"Would you befriend a Decepticon?" He asks earnestly.

Jazz casually throws in a shrug, his smile showing fangs. "Heck, I'd make several."

"... you would?" Mirage presses.

The tension in the office grows uneasy. A dangerous kind of hot static buzzing in the air. Jazz is letting Mirage feel the full extent of his field and it takes everything in him not to turn around and run. For a regular sized mech, Jazz exudes the presence of a predator lying in wait for the opportunity to strike. His reputation, forged out of the husks of the mechs he took out in the shadows, lives in infamy. Not so much on the Autobot's side where he projects a friendly front, but to those that know him and the Decepticons that fear him, he's the demon hiding in plain sight with a smile on his face and a hop to his step.

Gradually, it eases away, and Jazz's gaze drifts off to a blank corner of the room.

"Yeah," His smile only changes a fraction, but the difference it makes is something Mirage has only picked up on after working with Jazz for so long. It's softer, a little more real. "Think I would, actually. 'Sides, not like any of us are saints anymore."

◇

Skywarp seems surprised to see Mirage take the seat across from him in the interrogation room. He even has the audacity to look behind him, expecting a pair of black and white doorwings to pop out of nowhere, and then the real interrogation begins.

The nerve of him!

To be fair, even he feels out of place in the little room with a one-way mirror and the rest of the officers on the other side. Optimus Prime also came to observe the proceedings and had given Mirage a pat on the back for good luck just before he went in.

No pressure.

Prowl had given him a brief drill on what not to do during an interrogation. Optics bore into him with the heat of a solar flare. Jazz told him not to worry. That Prowl's deep frown was his "helpful" face.

No pressure, not in the least.

"Skywarp-"

"Hey, I know you!"

Mirage freezes.

"You're that prissy 'bot that fights like a pit fighter!" Skywarp shifts in his seat, the metal cuffs rattling against the table's surface. His grin vicious, like in the many times he's seen him out in the battlefield, and nothing like last night where he saw a glimpse of him that he shouldn't have.

"I-"

"Hey, is it true that Prowl's chassis bounces when he runs?"

Mirage's jaw drops, gobsmacked. He can't hear what's going on outside of the interrogation room, but he's pretty sure Prowl made a lunge for the door and several officers had to stop him.

Step 1: Don't let the suspect talk all over you.

Step 1, failed.

This was going to be a long interrogation.

Chapter Text

"YOU FROZE!"

"I'm sorry-"

"Don't apologize and take responsibility for your actions!"

Mirage endures the dressing-down he more or less expected was coming the moment Prowl pinged him in the interrogation room to call for a break. Skywarp winked at him when he stiffly excused himself, and did his level best not to flee the scene and break into a sprint.

Pathetic.

It had gone poorly. Skywarp hadn't given him a chance to get a word in edgewise for two and a half joors. Not a terribly long time to bear witness to the seeker saying anything and everything of unimportance under the sun, but long enough for Mirage to feel like his processor was being slowly grounded down to fine sand. He has to be doing it on purpose to drive him mad!

A horrifying thought of pitting Bluestreak and Skywarp in a room together crossed his mind. It would surely break him.

The most he learned is that Skywarp is a fan of *ahem* squishy action movies where they blow up in a bloody pulp. Very charming. He's easily bored when it comes to the plot (the talky bits), but TC (Thundercracker) seems to enjoy them. And since nobody else wanted to watch movies with him during downtime, he doesn't skip the dialogue to get his trinemate to stay longer. To his surprise, Starscream has a human series he watches religiously in the safety of the trine's shared quarters but only when the other two aren't around. It's on its third season, and Skywarp doesn't know the contents of said series aside from the complaints their trine leader has about it. A "connoisseur of hate watching", Thundercracker had told him once.

The Decepticons have karaoke nights. No one was allowed to sing "My Way", as it has led to fights in the past and, in one instance, nearly deactivated one of the coneheads. Skywarp couldn't care less who to remember. Soundwave banned the song from the karaoke machine ever since. Not because a conehead was at critical, but because Frenzy almost got stepped on in the faction wide brawl.

Somewhere during Skywarp's inane ramblings, Mirage despairingly compares it to the shenanigans the Ark gets up to whenever there wasn't a raid looming above their helms.

The twins racing down the halls, Cliffjumper tripping one of them and a chase ensues, pedes being ran over, more join in for the heck of it, Ratchet yelling to keep it down, tread marks everywhere, Prowl runs his sirens and corners all of them with the help of Ironhide...

Laughter, mischief, nonsense of that sort...

When Prowl called for a break, he was relieved.

Until the enforcer started scolding him like a sparkling caught with a servo in the rust sticks jar in front of the other officers and Optimus Prime. This was what Jazz warned him about, and he couldn't have imagined for it to be this humiliating to his already dwindling reputation. He could deactivate right now and call it an act of mercy.

"Well, do you have anything to say for yourself?" Prowl's hackles are up and his doorwings flare behind him higher than the tips of his pointy red chevron.

"I-" Mirage sucks in cool air through his vents. He had apologized enough times for the rest of his functioning and anymore would crumble whatever pride he has left. "I would like another chance, sir..." His voice sounding weak even to his own audials.

Prowl flicks a doorwing at his request, optic ridges furrow. "What makes you think I'm letting you back in there for another chance to waste everyone's time?"

"Now, Prowl..." Optimus steps in before Mirage decides to use his own cloaking ability to disappear from existence. "I believe this is an opportunity for Mirage to prove himself."

Jazz slips a servo around Optimus' and lightly pulls their leader towards the door. "How about we let the two hash things out between themselves? We can all get lunch in the meantime."

Mirage snaps his optics at his superior in alarm. He's abandoning him-

Red Alert shook his head. "What's there to discuss? Mirage isn't fit for conducting the interrogation, and the longer we drag this out, the sooner the Decepticons are going to find out that we have him in our custody."

"Why don't we call up the 'cons for a prisoner exchange already? Doubt Skywarp had much going on up there aside from his bad movie recommendations." Ironhide shrugs, not seeing the point of listening to the seeker yammer all cycle long.

"It's clearly a distraction tactic to stall for time." Red Alert turns to Prowl next, seeing the officer deep in thought. "Are you going to handle the interrogations, or should Jazz?"

"No," Prowl looks up after coming to a decision and addresses everyone in the room. "I'm going to have a talk with Mirage. We reconvene back in this room in 1300 joors. Then, we decide how to proceed."

Mirage watches in silent horror as the rest of the officers file out one by one. Prime offers a thumbs up before leaving him to his fate with Prowl alone. He doesn't know if he can take any more blows to his pride or if he's about to get demoted right here and now.

He hears a ping in his comm system, a single message from Jazz, and he reads it quickly before Prowl rounds the corner on him.

.:Make it work, Raj. Prowl ain't scary.:.

Easy for him to say-

"I had my concerns about your performance as of late, but both Jazz and Optimus Prime had assured me that you could get 'something' out of Skywarp." Prowl studies the spy that's trying not to wither under his scrutiny. "That 'something' is excessively vague."

Mirage had a plan going in: build up rapport slowly, get the seeker to a point where he would open up like he had last night, and then go from there. It was a mistake to assume the rude seeker would give him any room to speak. He couldn't stand the brute even under normal circumstances when they're both in the same battlefield. How much more now when he's trying to play nice? Their personalities clash, backgrounds practically worlds apart, he makes juvenile jokes that leave him aghast-

Jazz would have been a better pick for this. He would 'match his vibe' as he would call it and be his 'friend' to make the seeker trust him. But he's not Jazz-

Make it work, Raj.

"It's vague, sir, because we are trying something new." Mirage eventually settles with. His hands behind his back at parade rest. It would do him no good to start fidgeting now. "Skywarp had a moment of weakness last night that I do not wish to exploit, but rather to... understand. I wish to talk to him mech to mech."

If that rambling fool would just let me! He bites down on his glossa before the thought slips out.

"He is among the more loyal Decepticons in the army. The chances of him defecting is nil." Prowl has that look on his face when he's running calculations in the background and frowns when the results make it clear that Mirage's involvement seems to be a detriment. "We'd best prioritize our efforts into getting information while we still have a chance."

"I'm not trying to make him defect... sir."

Prowl glares at him, his voice clipped. "Given your recent actions, explain to me how this does not conflict with your loyalties to the cause?"

Try as he might not to flinch, he does. Mirage had enough bots questioning him the exact same thing.

Working closely with Jazz and the rest of the special operatives have demystified upper command for him. That, and gossip the team gathers about every single 'bot and 'con still active in the war. They spend shifts together sharing intel, creating connections, making theories...

Nobody asked, but sometimes Jazz goes on and on about Prowl and the way his mind works. It's anyone's guess as to why, and no one wants to state the obvious for fear of their lives, but it does give Mirage another perspective on the SIC.

Prowl operates at a different wavelength to other bots. His words may read a certain way, too harsh or cold, lacking inflection, sounding rather dry. Unless if he states directly that he detests your entire functioning and hope you have a swift deactivation, he most likely doesn't hate you.

Mirage's fans click on at the lowest setting to expel the heat from his frame. He takes the moment to run a quick diagnostic check to make sure he's working optimally to make inform decisions. Prowl isn't the enemy; he's providing valid concerns. He isn't bombarding him with questions, otherwise he would be firing them off to overwhelm and back him into a corner. It's permission as any to make the most of his allotted time to make his case.

That's a good sign.

"I-" He deliberately resets his vocalizer audible enough for Prowl to hear. "One moment."

"Fine." Prowl nods rather patiently despite how his field reads agitation.

A very good sign.

He tries again now that he calmed himself down. "Finding ways to end the war is in line with the Autobot cause, sir. I believe Skywarp's sentiments for being weary of the war is shared amongst other warbuilds."

Paul tilts his head doubtfully but doesn’t dwell on his loyalties, seeming to set them aside for the main problem. "Warbuilds by design were created to thrive in war. Their culture mostly revolves around it. Even Thundercracker hasn't made a move to separate from the Decepticons despite our intel."

"The war has lost its meaning a long time ago. I doubt there's anything worth fighting for that's sustaining them." Mirage recalls his life in the towers reading about turbofoxes, feeling safe. A warbuild dutifully posted outside, doing their job. "They were meant to protect Cybertron and Cybertronians as a whole, weren't they?"

"Unfortunately, we have the old senate to blame for the divide." Prowl looks away thoughtfully, optics reviewing data appearing quickly through his HUD. "Past diplomatic efforts for peace had been met with nothing but aggression. Optimus Prime himself had tried talking to individual Decepticons, as you’re attempting to do, but to no avail. We've reason to believe that they're simply not hot wired to quit anytime soon."

In Prowl's prediction models, he had gravely stated that the Autobots aren't going to outlast the Decepticons if they dragged the war out any longer. Civilians weren't supposed to handle high stress combat situations that the Decepticons were built for. Modifications and upgrades could only get them so far, but it's wearing them thin by the vorn. It's why they're desperate to find a solution now before it's too late.

Prowl's tacnet must be overclocked beyond his imagination.

"No matter how heavy duty their engines and ingrained their systems are to fight wars, any machine eventually breaks down. I want to try talking to Skywarp again, sir. All other options is either playing into the Decepticon's war games or being unable to relate to them." Mirage hopes his case stands on its own in Prowl's optics.

"No."

Mirage vents sharply.

"Not with the trajectory you were going." Prowl's doorwings canted upwards, and Mirage hadn't noticed it drifted down. "My previous advice isn't working. We are going to work on something best suited for today's task."

Fair warning, it's gotten Prowl's attention, and he's gonna wanna work with you-

Oh-

Oh!

"Y-yes, sir!" Mirage almost stumbles in place.

◇

The other officers came back from fueling to the scene of Mirage and Prowl hunched over a datapad playing a video of a human comedy skit with matching expressions of deep concentration. A sight odd enough to leave some of them questioning if they've stepped into a wormhole and came out the other side of an alternate reality.

"What are you two watching?" Red Alert leans over to see the screen, and cringes as a human falls over aft first to the ground after stepping on an organic produce known as a 'fruit'. A recording of laughter overlays the video, creating the effect of mockery over the individual that just fell.

How cruel!

"Studying." Prowl corrects while tapping away on a separate datapad filled with his notes. It has graphs and percentages.

"Studying... human cruelty?"

"The art of stupidity." Mirage replies as serious as an assassin locked in on a target.

Jazz laughs when Red Alert backs away in concern that whatever happened to the spy and SIC while they were gone was contagious. He saunters over and slings an arm over Prowl.

"Do you mechs need any help?"

"Are you providing yourself as an example?" Prowl asks without missing a beat.

Jazz starts laughing harder, Mirage could barely stifle his own, Red Alert is deeply disturbed, Ironhide turns to Prime with the look of 'can you believe these kids?' on his faceplates.

Optimus beams at everyone in the room, field radiating warmth.

◇

Mirage brings in two energon cubes into the interrogation room. One is for Skywarp, the other is for him to have something to do with his servos. He needs to garner the seeker's respect before he could proceed with earning his trust, and he can't do that while sitting uselessly for a few joors.

This time, he and Prowl now have a battle plan.

Skywarp's optics brighten when he puts a cube in front of him before taking a seat. His grin grows mischievous, fluttering his wings.

"You know what comes next after getting a mech a drink?"

"A date."

"A fra- huh?" Skywarp's wings shoot straight up nearly scraping the ceiling.

Mirage picks up his cube, swirls it elegantly in his servo like the finest high grade and brings it to his lips to hide a smirk. He takes a small sip, optics watching the way Skywarp's processor stalls with some satisfaction.

"What's wrong?" He asks, almost sweetly. "Never been on a proper date before, Warp?"

"Warp- huh??"

Mirage saw an opening and snatched it before the seeker could disorientate him by saying something crude. It's the first thing that came to mind, and after learning about improv, he now has to roll with it or risk becoming the punchline of the joke.

Finally. Now they can talk on an even playing field.

Chapter Text

Life as a Decepticon, at least for Skywarp, was pretty simple. Morning drills with Screamer and the rest of the air fleet, mess hall for fuel where they all get into a fight on who gets their rations first, patrol outside the base, scare a few squishies by threatening to dive bomb them, return back to base for the second batch of rations that's smaller than the last, another fight, weapon maintenance, watch slag on the datapad for downtime, and sneak off for a flight or two before TC drags him back to base for recharge.

Rinse. Repeat.

How are they? The 'bots can't disable the trine bond like they did for his internal comm system. That's something ingrained into a seeker's code like an inbuilt homing beacon set on each other, but a really unreliable one. He knows generally that his trinemates are alive somewhere, and he knows Cybertron is very, very far away. That's about it.

So he taps into it, and it's a splotchy mess of binary code that translates into feelings at the back of his processor.

He's met with chaos, ANGER, fear...?

He pulses confusion back at them.

The Autobots are a bunch of softsparks! It's not like he's suffering in the brig enough for the trine to get fussy over. It warms his spark a little that they do give a frag about him. Not like it's needed because he's doing great! All they do is feed him slag tasting energon. It's not entirely awful and his fuel tanks have never felt better. It's the best condition he's ever been in since landing on the mudball of a planet. He feels like he could outfly Screamer now...

He just has to wait until the 'cons make an exchange for him. Maybe Starscream or Soundwave could do something funny with the Ark's security systems and then he could bust himself out like a bad-aft?

Skywarp set his optics on the door. He's pretty sure he torqued off the prissy blue bot enough to bring in the big guns (and bigger chassis) to interrogate him. Not great for him, but it was fun while it lasted.

What was his designation again?

◇

The same blue Autobot came back into the interrogation room with his helm held high and his field giving off confidence that wasn't present before. He moves smoothly like an aristocrat, exactly the kind of mech the seeker would sneer at, and slides gracefully into his seat after giving him a cube of energon.

A huge mistake! Skywarp would love nothing more than to get that scandalized look on the bot's face again.

◇

He fragged up.

Skywarp had never paid much attention to ground pounders before in his entire function. They're too low to the ground, kicking up dirt, and speeding off cliffs or whatever.

Now one is flirting(?) with him??

Whatever they say about the fragging habits of seekers, it wasn't true. Everyone was too busy not getting slagged or shot out of the sky or hoarding fuel for hook ups around the base. That's what trines are for. But it's one thing to have a wingmate for company and another for someone to be interested in him for some reason. It's throwing his logic circuits through a loop and spitting up errors. He's never been in this situation before, and when all else fails, anger is what he falls back to.

"The frag do you know about me, prissy bot?!" Skywarp bares his teeth once he kicks his processor into gear.

"Aside from the surface level of your place within the Decepticon army, not as much as I would hope." The 'bot traces the rim of his cube with a digit and Skywarp tries not to get distracted by tracking its movements. "But we could certainly remedy that."

"As if I'd spill any secrets to you!"

"You won't need to. I'm not interested in intel." Then he smiles ever so slightly. "Just you."

What?!

"You know... you could call me Mirage." The way he purrs his designation sends Skywarp's core temperature to rise just a fraction. "Though I doubt you have the disk space to remember it."

Then he laughs, bubbly and a little mean.

Slaggit! This little blue glitch was messing with him!

Skywarp can't tackle Mirage for jumbling his circuits with the cuffs keeping him chained to the seat, but he does attempt to charge at him. The table is bolted securely to the floor and so is the chair.  The best he does is slam against the hard edge of the table with his cockpit, leaning as close as he can to growl at him, wings flared wide.

Mirage doesn't even flinch at the threat display. His blue optics glittering with amusement and his field is-

It's anticipation. An electrical jump in the atmosphere that the Autobot wants him to feel- because why else would it be so open like this?

Skywarp stares hard, trying to figure out what he's playing at. Screamer is better at mind games than anyone else he knows. It's the kind of slag that goes over his helm because he'd rather be direct in putting his fist through someone's denta. Playing dumb usually does the trick in getting the 'bots to write him off and send him away, but what to do when they're screwing with him back?

"How about I call you one of those blue mushy slag the squishies drink?" He narrows his optics.

A quick search only takes a nano-klick, and Mirage raises an optic ridge at the images displayed in his HUD. "A slushie? Are you calling me sweet now? That's cute."

"What?! No!" Skywarp struggles with his cuffs, face hot. "It's because you're all softsparked aft-holes!"

Mirage tuts, "If this is the best you can do for an insult then I would be terribly disappointed."

Skywarp's optics glows brighter and a slow grin forms. Is that what he wants? Slinging around insults? No repercussions?

"Your alt-mode's a disappointment!"

Mirage grins back.

◇

During Mirage and Prowl's research, they compiled the habits of warbuilds and how best to appeal to them in order to garner the respect he would need. It took whatever they could find in Teletraan I's archives and more recent intel based on personal accounts to figure something out.

Mirage couldn't just make Skywarp 'talk' to him, he needs to decisively win in a fight. Not in the middle of an active war zone, because of the subroutines in place to separate ally from foe. Not in a traditional sense either, because it would go against their ethics to attack a prisoner in their custody. But with the next best thing.

"All those times with Starscream and Megatron arguing with each other..." Mirage shakes his head.

"It would explain why Starscream stays as SIC despite his notorious attempts on Megatron's life. If our hypotheses is correct, that would either mean that they're very close friends or in a courtship." Prowl analyses the data again and frowns deeper. "Although, their relationship specifically make me uncomfortable..."

"I... yes." Mirage doesn't fully understand it, but he has to try.

◇

"What do you turn into again?"

"F1 race car."

"You that low to the ground because you love kissing dirt?"

"Speaking from personal experience with the amount of times I've made you kiss dirt?"

"Because all you grounders love sinking everyone down to your level."

"The only thing sinking is the Nemesis."

"Like the Ark's any better? How's the threat of getting crushed by a mountain in your recharge?"

"Good. How's the threat of an implosion in yours?"

"It's alright. I could teleport, no big deal. How's your coward trick gonna help you?"

"It’s helped me plenty, though; I’m hardly a one-trick zap-pony, unlike somebody..."

And so on and so forth…

◇

Mirage hasn't checked his chronometer in a while and nearly broke character when a ping alerted him that they were going to be receiving energon for the evening… and that time was up. They've been exchanging barbs for the last few joors and took up the whole afternoon in interrogation, apparently.

He never saw himself tolerating Skywarp of all mechs enough to feel some enjoyment in talking to him. This reminds him of the verbal spars the nobles used to engage in, with the use of wordplay and carefully crafted insults hidden within the layers of etiquette. Here, he doesn't need to think too hard because it's all lowbrow jokes and jabs. He could be 'mean', but never truly scathing. As long as it never went over the line, it was all in good fun.

And he was having fun, for as juvenile as the banter is.

Ratchet was the one to come in to deliver the energon, and to his surprise, Skywarp beams at the medic and greets him without a hint of aggression in his field. But, of course, Ratchet argues with everyone. Does that mean their hypotheses was correct? Did the old medic accidentally extend a servo of friendship to the seeker by being his usual crankshaft self?

Once Ratchet leaves, silence falls in the interrogation room as they drink their cubes. It's not uncomfortable, which he counts as a success. It's high time for a break. He can't tell if he was winning the verbal spar or if he needed to or… he and Prowl were wrong about the theory. He's running out of creative ways to compare Skywarp to organic vermin, like birds.

"Hey, Mira?"

Mira?

"Yes, Warp?" Mirage doesn't outwardly react to the nickname, but it's a new one for him. Jazz calls him Raj and very recently Cliffjumper had copied him because they've come to an understanding of sorts after the whole mind control debacle and-

"Is Ratchet single?" Skywarp leans in and whispers conspiratorially.

There are cameras and microphones hidden around the room. The seeker probably isn't aware, or he knows and just doesn't care.

Mirage valiantly struggles to keep a straight face. The gossip in him can't help himself and he whispers back, "Why? Are you interested?"

"Red ain't my type." Skywarp snorts. Snorts? "I'm wondering if Hook stands a chance."

Mirage gasps. "Hook? Hook is interested in him?"

"If he hates his hydraulics so much, then he must want to frag him, right?" His smile becomes devious. "Do you know if the sirens trip during interface?"

Mirage nearly let out a shrill noise he would regret when the speakers in the wall blares.

"ALRIGHT, YOU TWO ARE DONE HERE!"

It's Ratchet himself calling the "interrogation" off. This was it. He doesn't know if he could schedule another meeting with Skywarp or if he's wasted their time. Mirage had done all he could to steer the conversation. He tried being subtle, but to no avail. It was difficult to get Skywarp vulnerable when he wasn't drunk and in a contemplative mood. Should they have spiked his drink first? It's most definitely against the Autobot's rule book of ethics somewhere.

"It had been fun… but it's best I take my leave." Mirage sighs as he stands up, nodding amicably before he heads for the door. He's tries his best not to bleed defeat into his field. All thing's considered, it was fun while it lasted.

"You're not gonna finish that?" Skywarp points at the half finished cube he left at the table. He's inching his servo towards it like he'll snatch it regardless of his answer.

"You can have it." He looks back and shrugs, not particularly hungry. Was he feeling down that he might not be able to talk to him like this ever again? Possibly.

Skywarp's movements were quick and deliberate, red optics locked on his instead of the cube. When he twists his servo to bring the cube to his lips, he drinks exactly where his own had just been.

Mirage stares for a klick too long, mouth parted slightly in shock. Something at the back of his logic matrix tells him that if he doesn't do something -anything- right now then he loses his one and only chance Skywarp is giving him.

His spark was spinning wildly, like taking a tight corner in a high-speed race. No time to think; all he can do is burn rubber, heedless of the danger of flipping over.

He meets Skywarp's gaze dead on before he drags his glossa across his lips.

As he turns to leave, Mirage feels the heat of the seeker's gaze on his back struts.

◇

Mirage could only hear white noise when Ratchet meets him outside the interrogation room, ranting about rude mouthy seekers or something like that. He's too busy manually keeping his fans from clicking on and giving himself away.

The rest of the officers had left for their duties around the Ark and soon Ratchet does as well. Once he's done acting like a disapproving sire, he stomps away back to the medbay grumbling as he goes. That leaves Mirage alone with Prowl. He's silently reviewing the footage of the interrogation room and waiting for the spy to get a hold of himself.

He resets his vocalizer to clear the static lingering in his intake. "Sir."

"Status?" Prowl looks up from his screen. It's paused on the very last exchange he had with Skywarp.

From the angle of the footage, Prowl couldn't have seen the look Skywarp had or his reaction to it. The silent exchange only lasted a klick. He- he wouldn't know-

"Our interactions had become friendly, but it's hard to say." Mirage vents to let the heat out of his frame finally, and tweaks his field to show disappointment that their theory didn't yield the result they wanted. Which is true, just not the whole truth. His field should have been showing complete disarray. "I can't get through to him in such a short time frame."

"Time is not what we have." Prowl nods, not suspecting a thing. "The research we conducted had been enlightening, but it can't continue. The Decepticons have discovered Skywarp's whereabouts. They would want their teleporter back as soon as possible."

Mirage feels relieved, if not a little disappointed, and a bit like a traitor, and-

It's for the best that it was cut short.

◇

"Thank you."

Mirage worries that his audials might have glitched and missed something important in his haste to leave the room. His systems report no recent errors and audio receptors are in good working order. That leaves him halfway out the door and staring at the SIC in mild panic.

"Er- yes, sir?"

Prowl smiles slightly, doorwings high. "For working on a problem with me."

◇

Mirage wishes he could slip out of the Ark and go for a drive under the stars, feeling the crisp night air against the frame of his alt-mode. All the sounds muffled and far away by the wind and the roar of his engines, speeding by on a nice stretch of open highway, leaving his worries in the dust.

He can't go out two nights in a row. He already learned his lesson about letting his superiors see him get sloppy with his work. This is the most he's had to interact with upper brass and it's stressing his processor having to navigate everyone's individual datasets. His spark lurches. He endured enough embarrassment for the next few vorns.

His spark hasn't settled by the time he reaches the door of his quarters. Curse his weakness for seeking out dangers and inserting himself where he shouldn't be! It's going to get him killed one day!

"Mirage?"

"Oh." Mirage looks up and then down over at Cliffjumper, who had approached him while he was wallowing in despair in the middle of the hallway. A weary smile forms at feeling the minibot's concern over him through his field. "Don't worry about me. I had a long cycle. How are you, Cliffjumper?"

"I'm doing great!" Cliffjumper's field is then replaced by pride when he lifts up his arm and flexes, cables going taut behind the armor. "I caught a drunk 'con last night, but I bet you already knew that. Is that where you've been all cycle? Doing background spy work because of who's in the brig?"

Now that his lenses adjusted to focus on the minibot, Mirage could see the small nicks and scratches on his armor. Most look recent and no doubt from a scuffle with a larger 'con. Nothing a good buff can't fix, but it makes his spark twist painfully at the sight.

"Yes..." Guilt weighing heavier in his fuel tanks now. "He didn't give you too much trouble, I hope?"

"Trouble? It was a piece of oil cake!" Cliffjumper waves it off, but now he's looking at him weirdly again. "Seriously, are you okay?"

"I'm fi-"

"No, you're fragging not. You look like Jazz sent you to do customer service for the experience." Cliffjumper lightly punches him on the chassis for trying to hide his field. "Come on, Raj. I wanna hear all about it."

"I'm losing my touch if even you could see right through me." A weak chuckle rattles out his vocalizer. He taps in the code for his room and does a slight bow as the door whooshes open. "After you."

"Quit that slag before anyone sees us." Cliffjumper laughs as he drags Mirage in by the arm. The door closes behind them.

Chapter Text

Ever since the cerebro-shell incident, Cliffjumper had made it a personal mission to be Mirage's friend. Like all things about the red minibot, he's rather aggressive in making sure the spy felt included in the goings on within the Ark. A nice gesture, and he appreciates the thought, but it leaves Mirage feeling somewhat out of place in whatever crowd Cliffjumper drags him into.

Bumblebee picked up on his discomfort quick, and he begged the other spy to let him handle his issues on his own. His friendship with Cliffjumper was new. He doesn't want to lose it.

It didn't stop the rumors circulating around about them since Autobots as a whole love a good gossip, Mirage chief amongst them. He knew it was coming, and stopping the inevitable would be an impossible task (and highly annoying), so he decided to beat them to the punch by making a habit of inviting Cliffjumper into his quarters.

Cliffjumper had spat static, had gone as red as his plating when he first suggested it. Mirage reassured him that the logic behind it would benefit them both in the long run. Neither of them wanted to be subjected to the Ark's brand of teasing. If they let them believe what they want about their relationship, they'll quickly move on to other targets. Plus, his quarters has a nice plush berth big enough for two. He worked hard to make his space fit for the lifestyle he lost.

It's funny how easily the minibot got flustered about the berth. He sees nothing wrong with sharing what little luxuries he has to a friend. What's there to be embarrassed about?

"Alright, what's wrong?" Cliffjumper hops on the berth. The novelty wore off after a couple of visits, but at times, he couldn't meet the spy's optics whenever they're alone together.

Mirage sits beside him, and all at once feels a wave of fatigue. He must have overclocked running simulations with Prowl, and it finally caught up with the rest of his frame. His visual feed dims and flickers as he reroutes power into staying awake.

"How Prowl hasn't fried his own processor by now is beyond me..." He sags slightly.

"Raj-"

Cliffjumper hesitates, servos hovering until he guides Mirage to lean against him. The height difference is awkward, but he's built sturdier than the spy and can provide adequate support for his lighter frame.

"You were working with Prowl? Yeesh! No wonder you look like yesterday's roadkill." Cliffjumper pats his back kibble consolingly.

"Please don't compare me to the vile left on roads..." Mirage's engine whines as the mental image flashes through his mind unbidden. He shutters his optics close.

"I really, really detest this planet..."

"Uh huh."

"And this war..."

"Mhm."

Cliffjumper heard this all before, and he let the spy sulk to get it out of his system. Mirage rarely has the time to just be miserable. With his tight schedule, gathering intel close to enemy lines, and generally being out of the base, there's barely any left for leisure. Didn't he have janitorial duties for five cycles straight starting tomorrow? Ugh!

"You really weren't built for the war-" Cliffjumper backpedals when Mirage's optics snap open. "I- I mean- none of us were, but especially you, because, y'know? Not to say your skills aren't killer- I mean-"

"Cliff..."

"I don't know! Everything's been slag since the Decepticons!" Cliffjumper's well-known mercurial temper rises, optics blazing blue. "It's not fair we have to live this!"

"Shh..."

Mirage shifts his weight, bringing Cliffjumper down with him so he can situate them both comfortably on the berth. He goes willingly, letting himself get cuddled by the spy twice his size. They've hugged in berth before, recharged in each others arms. Close calls and long absences from either of them had made it more natural over time. Less awkward.

What if one of them gets shot tomorrow? What if extraction weren't possible and the other gets left behind?

It's not fair.

"Feeling better?" Mirage pets Cliffjumper's helm.

"Aren't I supposed to be the one comforting you?" If his horns could droop, it would.

"No, I believe we take turns." Mirage chuckles, grateful for the other's company.

He grows quiet, considering the minibot next to him that's already powering down for a rest cycle. Mirage should as well, but his processor is still firing off half formed thoughts and what-ifs. There's absolute certainty that Cliffjumper would not take kindly to him extending any positive interaction with a Decepticon. He can't tell him. He'd lose him.

"What do you think it would it take to end the war, Cliff?" He mutters absently. And if he holds Cliffjumper a little tighter, it's entirely involuntary.

Cliffjumper offline his optics and vents harshly. He burrows his face into Mirage's chassis. "Take down the 'cons. Every last one of them."

Mirage's spark burns, feeling torn.

They all had to adapt weapons and battle protocols to keep up with the Decepticons. So much of Mirage had changed, so many upgrades and installations, that he no longer recognizes who he had been before the war, back at the towers on Cybertron where he had been happy and last felt safe. How much longer will it take before it strips his identity away, until there’s nothing left?

He can't let this war take any more of him. No matter what, he has to stay true to his core.

◇

The alarms startled them both into action at the same time, and they crashed into each other before falling off the berth in a tangled pile of metal limbs and kibble.

"Ugh- quit pulling-"

"Your long legs are heavy-"

"Ow! Your horn-"

◇

Skywarp had escaped.

At around 4:01 Earth time, Skywarp was in his cell in a deep defrag cycle before jolting out of the berth. Footage shows the seeker stumbling in a confused manner, as if being rudely woken up by an invisible force. His stasis cuffs and warp drive inhibitor short circuits at 4:10, dropping from his frame entirely.

He looks up at the camera and does a rude human gesture with his servo before teleporting away.

Mirage understands immediately why he's been called into the officer's meeting room, aside from his involvement with Skywarp. The footage does not look good on him and his cloaking ability.

It never does!

"Where were you at around last night cycle, Mirage?" Red Alert rewinds the footage a little so it wasn't paused exactly on the rude gesture on screen.

Mirage couldn't blame the security officer for his suspicion or the looks of everyone in the room. It's making his plating want to clamp shut. Yesterday was fun. He was practically flirting with the enemy, and everyone either saw or reviewed the footage before the meeting. It was for the good of the cause. It's not like it meant anything.

Until the end.

"I was in recharge in my quarters." Mirage answers truthfully, then inclines his head to the side to feign being shy. His field reflecting it when he quietly adds, "with Cliffjumper..."

It's the truth. It's his alibi. At times, playing into it was the easiest way to avoid more questions about his character.

A beat passes where nobody says anything. Then Ironhide strides over and gives the spy a heavy thump on the back that nearly topples the him over. "Hey, congrats! Want me to break out the high grade?"

Mirage's engine coughs.

"Hands off my mech, 'Hide. He might disappear for good on us." Jazz comes to his rescue and brings him over to his side. "Besides, this has Soundwave written all over it. Hound just reported finding scratches in the air vents, avian in nature."

"Dammit, not the vents again!" Red Alert threw his hands up. "I knew I wasn't imagining the rattling last night."

Ironhide looked doubtful. "Nah, I think you were."

"No, I wasn't!"

Mirage watches the officers argue and steadfastly remains calm under Jazz's watchful gaze behind the intensity of the blue visor. He still has an iron grip on him.

"You and Cliffjumper?" His vocalizer set low, so no one could hear. Not over comms to track his tells when he speaks.

"It's not like that, sir..." Mirage mumbles through his denta.

"And Skywarp?"

"..." He ex-vents softly, unsure if he could lie or form a half-truth or ask his superior if his processor hadn't been compromised again. "I wish it was as simple."

"Hmm..." Jazz finally let him go, and he's back to his jovial self. "Hey, shouldn't you be cleaning the washracks?"

Mirage aborts the instinct to groan. "I was about to..."

"Well, it's cancelled. I need you for something."

He couldn't believe his luck! His optics brighten with hope. "Yes, sir?"

"I'm sending you down a mineshaft." Jazz grins as the hope fades from his optics.

He groans then.

◇

What Mirage hates about fieldwork is the rough terrain and that his nice sleek alt-mode is most definitely not meant to drive on uneven dirt. It's low to the ground and aerodynamic to prioritize speed. Not great for much else, other than a high speed getaway on an asphalt road.

Mirage has to walk alongside Hound in root-mode or risk blowing a tire. The jeep drives at a moderate pace so he could keep up, Wheeljack's latest invention strapped in his seats. They're not in any hurry to arrive at the location. It's a recon mission that would take at most a deca-cycle to complete.

Down the decrepit old mines, oh joy.

"So... you and Cliffjumper?" Hound starts conversationally.

"You don't keep up with the Ark's rumor mill, Hound. It's old news." Mirage keeps watch of their surroundings, not looking at the jeep.

"You're avoiding the question."

"It's nobody's business, least of all you." Did that come off as rude?

"That's true." Hound accepts without question, his engine rumbles mildly in amusement. "Would you give me a straight answer though?"

Mirage doesn't have to worry about Hound misinterpreting his words when the scout's default setting has always been seeing the best in others. He often has to layer his words just to get an outcome he wants, adjust it to each mech before anyone starts any accusations. With Hound, he would take an answer at face value.

"We're friends." Mirage pauses to think. He rarely sees Hound inside the base, and he's not the sort that would jeopardize anyone's social life. "Well... we're at the intermediary period before friends."

"Can't say I've ever heard of that before." He chuckles. "Are you afraid of Cliffjumper?"

No? "Why would I be afraid of him?"

"You're hesitant to talk about him. Maybe fear's not the right word for it, but something has you worried."

Mirage forgets that Hound's side hobby was becoming a sage out in the mountains and surrounded by organic little beasts. He huffs, shaking his head. "How would you know I'm worried about anything?"

"You keep watching the sky."

Drat!

He hadn't noticed that he's been subconsciously scanning the sky, perhaps more than he should. Decepticons have many fliers in their ranks. It should be reasonable that he's cautious about one flying above their helms.

But he's looking for a specific black and purple one.

"I... I value his friendship." Mirage focuses straight ahead, determined to get the job done and over with.

"You should comm him. We'll be gone for a deca-cycle." Hound reminds gently, a low rumble of his engine as if to convey an apology.

"I probably should." He looks over at the green jeep with a slight smile. "Thank you, Hound."

Hound revs, his field projecting warmth. "Anytime, Mirage."

◇

Three cycles later, they found the mines and scouted the surface before heading down. It's every bit as horrible as he thought it would be. They're several mechanometers under the earth's surface, the ceiling was barely tall enough for their helms, dusty, and with broken pieces of mining equipment everywhere. It had long since been abandoned by humans, but intel gathered by Smokescreen suggests that a few Decepticons had been sighted loitering around the area.

To do what nefarious deeds? Who knows?

That's where Wheeljack's new invention comes in. Apparently, it's a sonar device that maps out the surrounding area and locates other devices of cybertronian design. It makes the search easier and more time efficient.

"He has tested it, hasn't he?" Mirage looks at the contraption with some amount of trepidation. It's not like he doesn't trust Wheeljack. He's wary of the scientist's tendency of his inventions blowing up on him.

"I checked in with Ratchet, and he told me he hasn't blown himself up recently." Hound steps back after following the instruction manual and turning the device on.

Mirage takes a few more steps back and behind a corner just to be safe. He hisses when he hears the mechanical whir of the device starting up. "Hound, get over here!"

"I'm plenty far away."

"You don't know that-"

The machine explodes.

◇

Mirage slowly comes back online with a slew of error messages scrolling down his HUD. He cancels them all. He doesn't need a wall of text to see a steel beam sticking out of his body. It had pierced through his fuel tank, and if he were to move, he would surely bleed out in an instant. He can't look down at the rest of his frame, but he's pretty sure he's half under a pile of rubble.

A distress signal went up the moment he lost consciousness. His logs captured the explosion that caused the ceiling to collapse, though his chronometer stopped around the moment he hit the ground and lost consciousness. He doesn't know how long it's been or-

"Hound-"

Mirage bites down the rise of panic and blistering pain. He can't afford it. He needs to focus on checking what he has that's still operational. Comms are down but not completely out. He tries booting it up a few times in case he gets a signal, and pinging Hound to please respond. Please.

He just has to hold on to hope that the rescue team was coming soon, and that Hound was somewhere close by and not-

His fuel tanks are already below the red line, 18% and dropping slowly. Not good.

Sorry, Cliffjumper.

Audio receptors are still working. He tunes it up to its max setting to listen-

There's a slight vibration coming from his right and growing louder. The sounds of rubble moving, crashing, breaking, muffled voices-

He offlines his optics and let the rest of his frame shut down to conserve energy, keeping only his audials listening. His spark settling somewhat despite the dire circumstances. All he can do now is wait.

Chapter Text

"Wake up, Autobot."

That definitely did not sound like Ratchet.

Mirage knew the moment his audials picked up the Constructicons and their distinct but gruff voices arguing on which one of them had caused the explosion and "Slaggit, what if it's Megatron?" Well before they broke through the rubble separating them.

Interesting...

He didn't have many options when they do eventually spot him. There was no telling if they would either kill him where he laid skewered to a steel beam, take him prisoner, or let him bleed out on his own, so he started drafting messages on the off chance his comm system could send something- anything out.

.:Cliff, I'm sorry. If I don't make it, please take whatever you want from my room.:.

Signal Lost. Retry?

.:I've been a lousy friend and had not been completely honest with you. Would you ever forgive me?.:.

Signal Lost. Retry?

.:I don't say this enough, and that's my fault, but you matter so much to me.:.

Signal Lost. Retry?

.:I love you.:.

Signal Lost. Retry?

Mirage kept trying. And when the Constructicons finally broke through and saw that he was only feigning to be offline, Hook went over and manually brought him into stasis.

Now, he's slowly coming back online to another bout of error messages clogging up his HUD, but not nearly as urgent as before. The first thing he registered was being in immense pain. Decepticons don't offer pain patches even for their own troops, so he's not surprised. His fuel tanks had been repaired and fueled just barely enough to keep him conscious. A decent welding job was done on his midsection because, as far as he can tell, none of his internals were spilling out.

The ceiling is thankfully not the inside of the Nemesis' brig.

They're still inside the mines, in a different location the Constructicons had carved out to fit their larger frames. It's outfitted with cybertronian amenities from top to bottom. He can't see much more of what appears to be a base of sorts when Hook's red visor and scowling face come into view.

Mirage stares back.

"Operational?"

"..."

"Don't give me attitude, 'bot." Hook spat out the word 'bot and then moves away from his line of sight.

The sounds of tools clattering and being rearranged on a workbench out of his peripheral has his spinal strut seize up in alarm. Are they going to torture him for information? It would be in line with how Decepticons operate, but not something the Constructicons had a personal hand in. It's never too late to update their database.

Grim thoughts aside, he's not strapped to the table.

Mirage does a systems check on the motor controls for his servos to gauge his chances. They've disabled them and half his body. Good thing he had a program installed to counteract medical locks and the like. Something he insisted Ratchet make for him after the Bombshell incident. There's enough fuel in his lines for him to allocate energy into making a projection over himself without running the risk of blacking out. He hears the rest of the Constructicons enter, but otherwise not paying full attention to him as they converse amongst themselves.

He takes a quick glance at the tools closest to his side and swipes a laser scalpel, tucking it under his servo.

◇

"It's your giant caboose that led the Autobots to us!"

"Do I look like Astrotrain to you?!"

"Long Haul! Bonecrusher!" Hook yells, getting their attention. "Did you two come barging in here just to give me a helmache? Where's Scrapper?"

"A helmache is the least of your worries! We're all getting scrapped!" Long Haul forcefully yanks Scavenger into the room with them. "Autobots aren't swarming right now! For pit's sake!"

"Scrapper said to pack up!" Scavenger has his servos full of equipment and shoving as many in his subspace as he can. "Why couldn't we leave the blue one up there with the green 'bot? He's just gonna cause trouble for us!"

"Not my decision to waste energon on some 'bot tha-" Hook turns around to point at Mirage mid-rant, only to see he's disappeared from the improvised examination table made out of metal slabs. "Where the frag did he go?!"

"How'd you lose him already? Thought you had it under control." Mixmaster strides forward and picks up a crate, fully expecting a blue speedster under there.

"He's not that small, Mix."

"What? He's tiny!"

WORP- "Hey, guys! Where's-"

Everything seemed to happen at once. Mirage had a plan to drop his projection and put all his energy into slicing the neck cables of the nearest 'con from his hiding spot. It would send the Constructicons into a disorganized scramble to either catch him or tend to the wounded, thus granting him a better chance to flee with the remainder of his fuel.

He didn't account for Skywarp of all mechs materializing out of nowhere and right in front of him. He had to quickly abort the list of commands queued up in his HUD- his processor stalls right as the flash of purple enters his visual feed- the cocky grin morphing into surprise- and-

What happens next is a room full of Decepticons shouting and drawing their weapons, and Mirage slamming Skywarp bodily into the ground with the grace of a head-on collision. His procured weapon jerked free out of his servo and never to be seen again.

"What's going on in here?!" Scrapper rushes over just in time to see the scene, and Skywarp laughing his helm off with a lap full of mortified Autobot. "We don't have time for this! Grab everything you can. Skywarp, grab your 'bot. The Autobots are coming!"

"What-?" Mirage didn't have the time to orientate himself as Skywarp secure his arms around him.

"Miss me that much?" Skywarp snickers just before the world disappears into light.

◇

Mirage could count it as a blessing that his tanks were near empty or surely he would have purged on the seeker by now. What an unflattering sight that would have been.

They rematerialized in a different area that's high above the ground, possibly a base that's under construction built into the side of a mountain. It's rather drafty up here with a good view of the night sky. His sensors were too overwhelmed from his atoms being rearranged and transported at light speeds to take in much of anything else. But they're not alone.

"Here, take him." Skywarp unceremoniously drops a disorientated Mirage into Thundercracker's lap. "Don't kill, Mira. I gotta go get the other guys." He does a two digit salute and disappears into another flash of purple.

"What?"

Thundercracker only grunts his assent and locks Mirage in his arms much like Skywarp did. He understands that he's their prisoner now, and this was to ensure he doesn't escape, but couldn't they have cuffed him like civilized mechs?! Have the Decepticon's lost all their stasis cuffs somewhere in the bottom of the ocean?

His gyros were spinning wildly, making it hard to think, but with the evidence compiling on his HUD, things were starting to fall into place. What if it wasn't deemed necessary to bring? This base and the last one were fairly new and only stocked with the most basic of necessities, the lack of intel of their movements, the fear of Megatron's involvement...

Oh.

He might have discovered something big.

"Remind me again why we couldn't just kill him?"

Mirage involuntarily jolts in Thundercracker's grasps and the seeker's claws extend to dig into the wiring between his plates in warning. The shrill voice is undeniable, and it's hardly his fault for being alarmed.

Starscream was lounging in a pile of mattresses and bedding, likely stolen from the home furnishings section of a human store. It's all arranged in a circle kind of resembling a bird's nest. They're in it as well. The nest takes up majority of the floor.

Perhaps all those bird jokes the Autobots have on seekers might have some credence to them? Any knowledge on Vosian culture was lost when the city of fliers fell and every seeker pledged their allegiance to the Decepticon cause. Would this have been one of those unwritten customs that they all do?

Or was this a peculiarity unique to Starscream? He wouldn't put it past him.

The infamous SIC of the Decepticons looks annoyed at him, but he's seen him seething with rage before, and his optics aren't nearly as bright. Mirage doesn't think he's in danger, no thrum of battle protocols or weapons coming online, but something is off about him. Starscream seems strangely calm, almost withdrawn. The likes he's never seen before.

"Skywarp likes him." Thundercracker shrugs like he couldn't care less. He shifts closer to Starscream's side, bringing Mirage along with him.

Wait- no-

"Really? A ground pounder?" Starscream sneers, but he let his trinemate set Mirage down in the space beside him without so much as a complaint for having to share. His red optics scrutinizes the spy, and he tsks at the damage and welding marks all over his frame. His gaze heavy with disapproval.

Rather rude. It would normally offend him if he could muster up anything more than barely contained fright... and confusion.

What was happening?

He never thought to be caught in the middle of two seekers that weren't out to kill him. They've boxed him in between their larger frames. His fuel levels are too low for him to move, and even if he could, how would he be able to get out of the strange situation he's in?

Dare he say that he misses Skywarp.

"I mean... I think this one has wings, at least." Thundercracker squints at him, more specifically, at his chassis. Mirage feels the urge to cover up.

"He does not have wings!" Starscream yanks at the bottom protrusions of Mirage's chassis and it makes him wince. It's painful, but not enough for it to be excruciating. The seeker could very easily rip it off. He doesn't.

"T-they are called wings. That's the front." Mirage's vents stutter, holding in a whine. He would like to smack the offending servo away, but his own have gone unresponsive.

"Front. Is there a back?" Thundercracker asks and does Mirage a mercy by prying Starscream's claws off.

"Yes."

"That's two wings."

Starscream tries to turn him over to find the other fabled wing, and Thundercracker has to intervene again. All Mirage could do is grunt and grit his denta while being jostled around by the two. He's still in a considerable amount of pain, but showing weakness around warbuilds was always a bad idea.

Starscream scoffs, "This is less aesthetically pleasing than the doorwings on Praxians."

Ouch.

"Well... if you think about it," Thundercracker inspects Mirage over, and he tries not to squirm. This is the most scrutiny his frame had been under since his creators' reaction to his choice of blue. "They function more as wings than doorwings do. Can reduce drag and redistribute airflow throughout the frame."

"Have you been reading up on race cars?" Starscream sounds appalled. If he had been a former Vosian noble, Mirage wouldn't be the least bit surprised.

"I've... read a few..."

"Unbelievable."

His higher processing must be cycling down like the rest of his frame. Some weird recharge flux that his overclocked processor cooked up while he lay unconscious in a brig somewhere in the bottom of the ocean. That would make more sense than this.

His visual feed had begun to pixelate by the time Skywarp teleports the rest of the Constructicons one after another into the base. They're loud indecipherable blobs of green and purple moving and talking over each other. His view was then obscured by red glowing optics close to his face. This must be Skywarp, and he's talking to him, but static is all he hears. His language pack must have gone out too. It's symptom of being under-fueled, Ratchet had once told him.

The last thought he has before powering down is that his level of fear for all these Decepticons crowding around him wasn't as distressing as it should be.

◇

A recharge flux happens during defrag where data and memories are reorganized, streamlined for later reference, and stored into the appropriate sections of the processor. Often, information ends up being broken down into fragments and played like a holovid of mismatch parts and nonsensical plots.

Sometimes, they playback an entire memory sequence stored deep in a mech's memory banks.

◇

This section of Oasis' library wasn't open for younglings like Mirage to peruse without supervision, but what his carrier doesn't know can't hurt him. He already learned how to pick every lock and sequence of code needed to enter all of the rooms in his family's tower vorns ago. His ability comes in handy for more than just giving his mentors a spark attack whenever he disappears on them when he gets bored.

An author he fancies has their entire catalogue pushed to the far back, as if its scandalous contents might jump out at them if left out in the open. He knows his carrier still reads them though. That's why they're tucked behind a hidden panel so his sire wouldn't see. What's the shame in it? It's just romance literature. The library has thousands of those.

Mirage plucks out the last one he read and begins where he left off. He can't take the datapads with him, they might search his subspace. They've never trusted him ever since he tried to stuff a turbofox in there. He was a sparkling back then and didn't know any better. He can't download them either, or they'll find his designation recorded in the logs.

Reading them in the corner with a projection concealing him till his fuel runs low was the only solution. His ability eats up so much energon even while he's staying perfectly still.

The knight's servo trembled, hovering just above the smooth surface of Axion's backplate. The noblemech's spinal strut shivered with anticipation. Static electricity, a current of spark deep longing, coursing through both of their fields.

"We can't keep meeting like this, my Lord." The knight's vocalizer rumbles against Axion's audial, gravelly and thick with restraint.

The noblemech traces a digit against the scar running down Razor Edge's mouth, lingering on his bottom lip. His touch gentle and reverent. "You are leaving for battle, my knight. Please, how long must we deny ourselves?"

The knight finally pulled Axion closer, both of them pressed chassis to chassis, his strong engines revs as the last of his control breaks. "Then, my Lord, allow me to make it worth your while."

Razor Edge pushes the noblemech's legs apart—

Mirage skips to when the dialogue comes back.

The knight vents hard, their sparks cycling down after the intensity of their merge. Gently, he pulls out his—

"I love you, Axion." Razor Edge mumbles almost broken by the admission as he holds his Lord tightly in his arms, afraid he might slip away.

"And I have loved you since the very first night you called me yours." Axion's optics dim with a soft glow of adoration for his knight, his protector.

Mirage emits a few high-pitched beeps, kicking his pedes with glee. Finally! He was close to throwing the datapad if they danced any longer around each other.

"Leaving evidence of your tampering is sloppy work, young master."

He shrieks, the datapad goes flying, and his projection falls away to reveal the young noble huddled in the corner. "Don't tell, carrier!"

His bodyguard catches the datapad and switches it off without a single glance of its contents. Mirage feels his shoulders sag in relief. He would have been mortified if he had to explain himself.

"You don't want to lose access to your favorite stories now, do you?" He rumbles deeply, his field mildly amused. "Let's put this back and return you to your room."

"But it's too early for recharge…" Mirage didn't want to sound petulant, but his creators are out and he wants to make the most of it.

"Hmm…" He offers a strong servo to help the young noble up. "How about the shooting range?"

"I would love to improve my aim!" It's unbecoming of him to be pulling his bodyguard out towards the hallway as not to waste anymore daylight. The larger mech goes along with it, being patient behind the battlemask and visor.

Mirage stares at the family's bodyguard. A standard warbuild's system hums a little differently than a civilian's. Their engines were designed to outlast even their own frames, strong, built to protect. His field radiates safety. He's large but strangely featureless and it's not just because of the visor covering his optics. Didn't he have a designation?

...

No Results

Ah, a recharge flux. He was unconscious.

Mirage knows for a fact he never learned the bodyguard's designation and never bothered for the next few that replaced him. Their numbers had dwindled catastrophically because of the war that the chances of anyone he knew from his previous life still functioning out there in the cosmos was close to none. And even if they were still out there, he wouldn't be able to recognize them.

It'll bother him for the rest of his function; not knowing, not caring. It's sloppy work.

He knows better now.

Chapter Text

Four cycles ago.

Skywarp popped back into the Nemesis like nothing ever happened.

It was Buzzsaw that snuck in through the vents and woke him up with a high frequency squawk that made the vents on the sides of his helm ring like crazy. The moment it short-circuited the cuffs and blew out the inhibitor, he gave the camera the bird and warped away.

The Nemesis was just how he left it, dark with a side of dreary. Soundwave gave him a sideways glance before forwarding his duties, and he slid back into work no problem. Nobody missed him or noticed he was gone.

Almost nobody.

"What in the pit happened to you?" Thundercracker took him aside in their quarters after his shift and talked in hushed tones as if anyone was around to hear. Screamer wasn't even here. Double kill in his opinion. Maybe one of Soundwave's brats was lurking around somewhere?

Skywarp huffed, batting TC's servo away. "Thought you'd be the first to know?"

Technically, Screamer would and then TC, but it's always Screamer who makes anyone with a pair of wings his business to know before anyone else.

TC growled, low and with an edge that made Skywarp stare. "I know you got yourself caught. But why? Why were you in Autobot airspace?"

"Uh..." Skywarp could blame it on the energex but finds it difficult to wrestle it out of his intake.

The trine bond had been... strained before he left, but now it's that same mess, but more. He has no idea what the frag happened. He was only gone for one whole cycle!

"You never think, Skywarp!" Thundercracker crowds him into a corner, jabbing a digit at his cockpit. He was angrier than he let on. It's always a slow simmer with TC. No one would notice he was well and truly torqued until he went BOOM. "What if they shot you out of the sky? You can't be that stupid! You could have died!"

Skywarp flicked a wing in agitation. The frag was his deal? He's fine, wasn't he? They didn't shoot him. They didn't even bang him up for trespassing. They fed him and gave him some bots to talk to. It's the most undivided attention he's ever had in vorns and vorns and-

Hackles up, his wings flared wide, "And you care now?!"

TC looked stricken and took a step back.

Made Skywarp feel like an aft, but it wasn't his fault! He didn't mean to say as if his trinemate had never cared, no, it's just that-

"It's been a long time you cared, okay??" Skywarp spat out before Thundercracker chose to withdraw like he always did. He reached for him and grabbed him by the arms.

"I care! I have always cared!" Thundercracker reached for him too, and now they're both holding on to each other like a couple of pinheads. "You can read it through the bond, Warp. I've always looked out for you and Star!"

"Yeah, well- well, you never fragging say anything!" Skywarp vents, expelling the heat from his frame. They're not supposed to show it, sure, whatever. It's not like they're under surveillance all the fragging time!

He's looking at him, really looking at him, and he can't tell which one's looking more like a cornered mechanimal between them.

It makes him feel uneasy. "I'm going out-"

"The frag you are!" Thundercracker spun him towards the door and begins army walking him out their quarters. "We're going to Star."

"What? Like- barge into his lab?!" Skywarp last felt Starscream through the bond as an endless pit with an occasional phantom of a screech falling down it. No, thank you? "You sure he won't just bite our helms off?"

"He could damn well try." Thundercracker growled, and now they're walking down the halls towards the science wing.

"Gulp."

Skywarp plays the human soundbite and gets a thwack in the helm for it.

He could warp out of this. There's nothing short of a fancy gizmo to keep him in one spot, but he can't run off again. They're trine. If one of them wants to get yelled at by the Lord of all Screams, then they're both getting an audial full.

Because that's how it works, they're a packaged deal.

◇

It's like walking into a horror movie. Not the fun ones with the chainsaws and the massacres, but the oppressively quiet dark pit that Starscream's personal lab had become. It's a wreck inside. There's broken beakers, tables and chairs overturned, and the smell of scorched metal like the aftermath of an acid rainstorm.

Skywarp and Thundercracker peek inside, not daring to step in yet in case the floor had any chemical spills that'll burn their paint off.

"Star?"

"Screamer?"

Nothing.

Then, from the corner of the room, the sharp plains of a shadow twitched but didn't move to acknowledge them.

The two shared a look.

"So, uh- what the fuck happened while I was gone?" He'd be the first to admit he can be pretty oblivious to most things, but even he thinks this is a bit of an overreaction even for their trine leader, the King of Overreactions.

"Don't cuss in human. Star hates that." TC mutters while he scans the ruined lab for a safer path inside. They're going to have to stumble around in the dark with a possibly armed and volatile seeker prowling inside because it looks like all the lights had blown out. "Slag, uh... Star wasn't doing too hot after- y'know who- did y'know what."

Skywarp stares hard at him, clicking his glossa impatiently. "The fuck does that mean?!"

TC snaps back, "You're not that dumb! You know what I mean!"

Like a feedback loop, Skywarp responds in kind. "But he wasn't like this before!"

"How would you know?! You left the base!"

"For one cycle! You were with him and you left him like that?!"

"I was busy worrying you'd phased through a- a nuclear reactor or something!"

"Fuck off! I was fine!"

"YOU'RE MAKING A RAUCOUS IN MY LAB!!"

They both jump at the audial splitting screech that could rival any artillery in the army, and somehow it's the break of tension they need before they turned on each other. Starscream looks rough. He had signs of low fuel levels, flickering optics, and paint going dull. He looks a little wrung out like those nocturnal neck cable suckers in the movies. But whole, and uninjured as far as they could tell when he emerges from behind a jagged piece of machinery he must have blasted into slag. He stomps towards them with the crunch of shattered glass trailing in his wake.

Skywarp feels a wave of relief from TC and throughout their bond that he greedily soaks up and pulses right back. It staggers Starscream a moment, who looks surprised at their concern.

Starscream's engines cough worryingly. Then he's standing straighter, projecting an air of confidence fit for an air commander. "Why were you in Autobot airspace, Skywarp?"

Skywarp blinks, "Uh..." He turns to TC for help and all his trinemate does is shove him forward and keep a servo on his shoulder pauldron so he wouldn't bolt. "Um- slag, Screamer, shouldn't you worry about yourself first?"

"You think you can go for a leisure flight any damn time you please?" Starscream snarled, ignoring the question.

"Uh- no?"

"They have around the clock snipers on the Ark's roof..." There's a dangerous edge to Starscream's vocalizer. He looks ready to pounce, teeth bared and clawed servos flexing. "Are you stupid?!"

"I was fine! Nothing happened!" Skywarp struggles in Thundercracker's arms. He's grappling him now, as if anticipating he'll start a fight. It's pissing him off. It's the feedback loop from two aggressive fields that's making him want to claw his way out, but he can't. He can't take both of them at once, and even if he could put up a fight, he'll only get slagged! What's the point? What's the point of everything?

In desperation to get out, he finally snaps. "I don't understand! What did I do to torque both of you off so bad?! You want me gone so badly? Is that it?"

TC's iron grip on him starts to shake. "No, Warp-"

"Keep him still!" Starscream barks at Thundercracker, and then he grabs Skywarp by the collar to bring him in closer. His field was burning hot like it does when he's wading through an active battlefield. "I was indisposed for a few joors and your response was to bait the Autobots into slagging you without backup? Do you have a death wish?"

Skywarp's vocalizer fritzes, the words lodge in his intake and refusing to crawl out so he can save his own aft from having to explain anything to them. Screamer was always the best at words. He'd know how to wriggle his way out of any conversation. It's not fair!

"I... didn't mean to?"

"It's impossible for you to get lost even with half your circuitry missing. You'd slag yourself the moment you online if you weren't good navigating with an inbuilt warp drive. So that begs the question," Starscream's optics are searing into him with the heat of a thousand suns and he knows he can't escape this even if he chose to warp away. "Do you have a death wish?"

Skywarp's wings shuddered and canted low. How was he meant to answer this and when had everything got so complicated lately? It used to be so simple. They all had a single goal in mind and now-

"I don't know... everything's been slagged lately..." He mutters unsure if they'll take his answer or yell at him again.

It seems to be the right thing to say because Starscream doesn't tighten his grip that's precariously close to his intake. He's not Megatron, he wouldn't go for the vocalizer to shut him up. He'd just fight him.

"You're grounded. No unplanned flights without my say so." Starscream let Skywarp go with a light shove, seemingly putting the matter to rest for now. TC was still holding on to him and he has to elbow the blue sap to knock it off. His wings were starting to cramp.

Skywarp can live with being grounded. He can teleport. It's barely a punishment and more of a suggestion. Screamer, however, is still being weird...

He clears his vocalizer once he thinks he's in the clear, "So, uh- we good?"

"No. You two are distracting me from my projects."

Thundercracker flicks his wing incredulously towards the war zone that was once the lab. "The projects that wrecked your lab or the projects you wrecked along with your lab?"

"I'm sorry, was your designation Wisecracker? I don't think so." Starscream turns, fully intending to walk right back into 'work' before he's stopped by both his trinemates.

"What're you working on anyways?" Skywarp shoots an arm forward and shuts the door, to their trine leader's annoyance.

And then even his annoyance drops, his mood goes down with it, and that free falling feeling was back in the bond. "Nothing."

"Okay... uh-" Skywarp pings Thundercracker privately through comms.

.:TC, ngl, I'm kinda weirded out.:.

.:Yeah. Me too. We need to do something.:.

.:Like what??:.

"I can hear you two on a private channel. You aren't slick." Starscream drags a servo down his face tiredly. His optics are flickering again no matter how many times he rubs with the back of his knuckles. "Nothing is working. I'm unmotivated."

That sounded like an easy fix to TC who begins to smile a bit hopefully. "Well, alright. What would help motivate you?"

Starscream stares at nothing in particular down on the floor, probably a scorch mark that's not to his taste. "I want some good fragging feedback." Then a bit quieter and almost alien coming from their trine leader, he adds, "Skyfire used to... before..."

Huh... They awkwardly shift on their pedes.

Skywarp only knows one other nerd that's smart enough for Screamer. "Oh, hey! There is someone that could help with your projects-"

"If it's Shockwave, I'd rather die, thanks."

"Uh..." Faltering slightly, he turns to TC who at least had a back up plan.

"Well- there's the next best thing?"

◇

"Oh, it's simply marvelous!" Scrapper picks up the schematics to look over the designs of an energon converter, but doesn't touch the half charred model Screamer was able to salvage from his lab.

It was a something something- convertor of organic material into fuel- something or whatever. Skywarp stopped listening when the Constructicons piled over the singular table they have in the medbay that wasn't full of scrap with Starscream to talk engineering jargon with. He could see a pair of white wings sticking out of the sea of green and purple. It flutters every so often when a praise gets thrown his way.

Whatever the pit that's been happening to them for a whole cycle and a half wasn't completely resolved yet, but their fields have evened out to something resembling normal again. He and TC weren't complaining.

"I'm sensing a but." Starscream's voice cuts through the chatter like it usually does, but he sounds a bit... quiet... which is unnerving everyone in the room. It's not just them that's sensing something wrong lately.

"But it's not feasible." Scrapper's engine rattles nervously when he picks up a lightpen and starts making a few marks in a few places on the blueprints.

Starscream doesn't even complain like he usually does when anyone tells him his vision was less than perfect. "We won't know unless we make a workable small scale model and conduct a test in a controlled environment."

"That's going to be a problem as well." Hook shook his head. "We have a backlog of work that needs approval and Lord M-"

"I'm not talking to him." Starscream cuts him off icily. It was cold enough for everyone in the room to flinch.

"Er... we could ask Soundwave since he's present in the bridge and not... lurking around somewhere." Hook glances behind him as if a cannon might appear and blow his helm off.

Skywarp hasn't seen Megatron all cycle now that he thinks about it. He checks in with TC over comms.

.:Am I missing something?:.

Silence

.:TC?:.

.:We'd have better luck bribing Soundwave for time off.:.

Was that sarcasm? How was he meant to understand that? The walking blue boombox doesn't do bribes!

.:What do we even bribe him with??:.

Thundercracker appears to be thinking. His wing flicks towards Starscream's direction, Starscream answers back without looking with a wing twitch of his own. Private comms.

"Skywarp, go ask Soundwave to approve of the project. Be sure to tell him it's off base and that I'm taking everyone in this room with me for..." Starscream clicks his glossa, throwing a random number. "A stellar-cycle."

Not surprising. He's always relegated to errand boy because they think he has all the fuel in the world to be warping around all the time, which he doesn't.

"Why do I gotta do it? Scavenger loves groveling. That's what that dirt scooper's for!"

"I think you meant gravel-" Scavenger gets ignored as Starscream steers Skywarp out of the medbay and pushes him out.

"Because you're stupidly loyal without a processor to vocalizer filter. He won't suspect a thing."

He stumbles, rights himself, his optics narrow suspiciously at him. "Wait- huh? What thing?"

"Exactly."

◇

"It's a big project, right? Need a lotta space?"

"..."

"Screamer's asking the whole Constructicons plus me and TC off base for a stellar-cycle."

"Project: Approved."

"Wha- huh? Uh- Cool, thanks? Bye?"

Skywarp wasn't going stick around any longer in case Soundwave changed his mind or suddenly develop a sense of humor and tells him sike. Screw everyone else in the base! He's looking forward to getting out and doing frag all for a stellar-cycle straight.

◇

Four cycles into the best break he's ever had since flunking out of the academy, and he's convinced himself that the Nemesis must have been haunted and that's why everyone's been acting all weird. TC thinks the same thing but with different words, describing it as mass hysteria or some slag.

His trinemates had been hanging around the hanger the Constructicons built on the side of a mountain. When they finished with the main base of operations, they jumped straight to the next building project deep in the mines they found. He can’t remember whether it matters for whatever project they were working on, or if he even cares.

Screamer has his experiments running in the background and TC started doing a lot of reading, because what else was there to do? Without any drills or raids to prepare for, they suddenly had too much free time and nobody knew what to do with it, so he drags everyone to watch dumb slag with him. Screamer hates it, Hook complains about plot contrivances, Long Haul fights him over the remote, and Mixmaster cooks up some dross to share. It's great.

There's still that looming dark cloud above their helms no one wants to talk about, and neither does he. Who wants to go back to the Nemesis with the poltergeist that's been turning mechs crazy anytime soon? Not him.

Then the underground base had an explosion and he teleports over to check it out.

◇

"Oh, hey! I know this one!"

Skywarp has never been glad to see an Autobot before unless he had something explosion inducing in mind for them, but this is the rare exception.

Mirage was on top of a bunch of metal slabs that serve as an operating table with Hook's servos deep in his internals. For as slagged as the blue 'bot seems with a gaping hole through the fuel tanks, he looks like he'll pull through.

Hook grunts as he shoulders Skywarp out of the way so he can connect the fuel lines together with medical grade tape. Looks messy.

"The Autobots found us. It's only a matter of time." He snips the tape and moves on to the next line. "Can't let either of them deactivate or they'll rain down on us heavier than a mortar barrage, and we don't want that type of heat on us."

That's when Skywarp notices the second green 'bot in the room on top of a bunch of stacked crates. He looks like he got hit by a frag grenade and then buried under a landslide. The 'bot would be fine. He quickly lost interest, and turns his attention back on Mirage.

"But we're keeping this one, right?"

"What? Slag- fraggit-" Hook scrambles to clamp the line that's spraying energon everywhere. Must be tough working on a skinnier bot with such large servos. "They're not pets! We can't just keep one!"

Skywarp cycles his optics the same way he saw Ratchet the Hatchet do it. "Well, duh! This one's my friend."

"What?" Hook tied everything together neatly and double checked his work to make sure he's personally satisfied with it before giving Skywarp a glare through the visor. "Your friend?"

"Yup."

"An Autobot?"

"His designation's Mira."

Hook vents a long suffering sigh. "That's certainly not his designation, but I don't care. We leave the green 'bot somewhere where they can find him and maybe they won't slag us for botnapping the other one."

"Great!" He can't wait to show Mira off to his trine!

◇

The Autobutts had to raid the Constructicon's underground base, so now they'll all have to hole up in the same hanger together. Screamer was gonna get snippy about having to share recharge space with grounders- or maybe not? He and TC look pretty snug with Mirage in between them.

"He ain't looking so hot... Hook! Thought you said you fixed him?" The trine makes room for him. He chooses to land his aft on Screamer's cockpit, so he can get a better look at Mirage's dimming optics.

"UGH! Skywarp- off!"

"It'll hold!" Hook throws in with a grunt before he gets pulled back to the conversation with the other Constructicons. They're planning to expand the hanger it sounds like. He tunes them out.

Screamer yanks him down beside Mirage. They tussle for a bit.

"Autobots don't bounce back like us 'cons do, Warp." TC mutters while acting as a barrier in case if their rough housing spills over to the blue 'bot that's already powering down.

"Why not? Wasn't their medic better than ours?" He's pinned down by Screamer while he was distracted thinking about how terrible civilian frames were made. It's stupid. Why don't they get better upgrades if they're hoarding all the good stuff?

"Hey! I heard that!" Hook barks from somewhere.

"No, Warp, it's-"

"It's their processors." Starscream finishes for TC as he plops down at his side.

"What's that gotta do with it?"

"They weren't built to withstand high-stress situations, like, say, getting their fuel tanks blasted to bits. Their danger protocols get tangled up with the emotional part of their processors instead of pouring everything straight into survival. They'll either start glitching or keep rerouting power until it finally gets to their survival protocols. They're terrible at energy efficiency." Starscream went to a science academy with civilians before it all went down, so he'd know more than anyone else, wouldn't he?

"Then how the frag had they been winning anything?" Skywarp looks down at Mirage's slack faceplates, because the little bot had taken him down. A handful of times to be an embarrassing mark on his record. He's a little menace like that and act as if he's above it. Kinda hilarious in his opinion.

"They're not above altering themselves and act all shocked when we do it." Starscream huffs, "They'll burn themselves out sooner or later."

"So we'd win?" Skywarp's wings shoot up in excitement. Damn, so there's an end to all this?

"Yes, well-" TC add, a touch quieter. He has that pained look on his face whenever he doesn't want to talk about anything related to the war, so most of the time. "The Autobots are not lasting the war. They're going to eventually burn straight through their core."

"Oh." Skywarp… didn't know how to feel about that.

Autobots were stubborn as all pit and got every civilian doing whatever the Prime tells them to do- and for what? To slag themselves? Why?

The sinking feeling of a free fall came back with a vengeance. He likes Mirage; Mirage's funny. He likes Ratchet too. They're alright. Why would they be fighting for so long for? What's the point?

When had everything gotten so complicated?

Chapter Text

"How's the afterspark?"

The first thing his audials pick up after the third time he reboots is Skywarp's smug voice.

A quick system check reveals much of the same errors he came to expect. He's uncomfortable, in pain, under fueled, and more than over it by now. Not that he has any room to complain. He's fairly certain they've taken him prisoner and don't intend to let him go for reasons unknown to him. With the fragments of conversations he was able to recall, this was solely Skywarp's fault for that decision. How ironic, given that their roles had reversed from a few cycles ago.

"Akin to being crushed by the weight of a fighter jet." Mirage flickers his optics on to find the purple seeker draped over him like he's a piece of furniture he scored at the scrapyard. It's an apt comparison considering the state of his frame and the jagged welding lines across his midsection. He's almost afraid to take a look. Instead, he studies the 'con in front of him.

As injured as he is, his threat response program isn't blaring red warning signs all over Skywarp's face. He has that cocky smile he's seen many times back at the interrogation room. It's almost playful. There's not a hint of animosity in his field.

Just to be a menace, Skywarp bears down more of his weight on him.

"Ugh! I'm not a berth-" On a good day, he could roll the seeker off despite the height and power differences, but he might pull a cable attempting it right now. The best he could do was to kick ineffectively at a bad angle, to the brute's amusement. "Skywarp-"

"What happened to Warp? Thought we were friends?" Skywarp's teasing him, and- why does this feel significant somehow?

"...we're friends?" Then it clicked.

His and Prowl's theory, the interrogation, how nothing has ever worked to get through the tough exterior of a warbuild-

"You saying we're not?" Skywarp's field retracts all of a sudden, his wings cant upwards, there's a slight twitch. Alert? Aggression? Was he still amicable with him?

He realizes he can't read him. Not with high accuracy. There wasn't a change in expression or inflection in his vocalizer for his social protocols to pick up on because they're geared towards Autobots! Everything he has on Decepticons was for combat-

No time. He needs to fix this or lose him at this rate, and appealing to a Decepticon has served him well so far.

Thinking quickly, he does a trick he knows for sure works on most frontliners high off of battle. There was no battle; but warbuilds do love getting into one.

Mirage cancels the warning that popped up in his HUD as he hook his servos on Skywarp's pelvic plating and plants his pedes as firmly as he could on the plush bedding below. With a surge of power, he revs his engines and goes full throttle into flipping the seeker over, reversing their positions. He straddles his waist before he has the chance to know what hit him.

"GAH-" Skywarp's wings splayed underneath, his optics wide and fixed on him.

Mirage ex-vents harshly, "I never said that..." Sharp pain lances through his spinal strut. He grits his denta and grins through it. The look on the seeker's face was worth it. "Would you like to be my friend, Warp?"

Skywarp stares a moment longer. The force wasn't nearly enough to knock the wind out of him. Mirage only managed to take him by surprise.

Then he starts laughing with abandon, and it's utterly infectious.

"H-holy slag! I think you're stupider than me!"

"That's impossible." Mirage is laughing too, sharing a brief moment with the 'con, as if the war was galaxies away. Maybe the explosion had knocked his logic circuit out-

Hound!

"Skywarp- I mean- Warp! Have you seen another bot with me?" Searching through his memory banks has only the fuzzy recollection of murmurs and purple lights, but they definitely don't have him here.

"Who?" His laughter trailed off, but the smile remained.

"A green jeep alt- Ack!"

Skywarp tackles Mirage back down onto the pile of mattresses, jostling his sore frame and making him grunt. His visual feed glitched briefly from the impact. The pain would have been excruciating if it weren't for the cushions and the fact that Skywarp didn't exert that much force at all. It's a stark contrast to their abilities. He didn't stand a chance.

"Who's he to you?" Skywarp holds him down by the shoulders as if he has the energy left to get back up.

Mirage scans what's available: exposed cables, open vents, and gaps between the armor plates around the seeker's frame. Without any tools, it'll be tricky to fight his way out from under him. He could go for the optics...

"He's my friend." He feinted a strike aimed at the seeker's air vents. It gets blocked, and he uses the opening to reach for his optics.

Skywarp's faster than him and catches both of his servos, pinning them beside his helm. "All you Autodweebs call anyone a friend."

"That's not true. I only have a handful." Mirage shouldn't go wasting his fuel again, and he doesn't want to do anything damaging. This was possibly the friendliest fight anyone's had with a Decepticon to date.

Skywarp barely felt the knee to his midsection and snorts at the attempt. "Oh, yeah? Name them."

He's not about to give out designations of those closest to him. Who knows what this rogue group of Decepticons would use it for? He needs information on them. What were their goals? Did they splinter off? Were they in hiding? Was the only reason he's here was because Skywarp liked him enough to botnap him? There were too many questions stacking up in his queue.

Mirage huffs, "Just answer the question!"

However, Skywarp takes the deflection another way and laughs. "No slagging way you got no friends?"

He has friends, dammit!

Mirage bites his glossa, tamps down his field to hide his indignation, but it's too late. Skywarp, the known bully, finds his lack of an answer hilarious and laughs harder.

"Skywarp!" He kicks him again for all the good that it did. It didn't even make him budge. "I have friends!"

Skywarp smirks, "What would they do if they find you friendly with a 'con?"

Mirage couldn't avoid the hiccup in his engines or the sudden intensity of Skywarp's gaze when he faltered, unable to answer.

It's a touchy subject that's going to haunt him. He's not a Decepticon sympathizer. He's not- No one on either faction was innocent for the damages done to each other or the planet they left as a husk. It doesn't matter who started it, or what's right and wrong anymore.

All he ever wanted was for everything to end. No more night purges, or losing bots he came to care about, or the fear that he might not wake up tomorrow, or wake up one day changed and unrecognizable.

So what if he feels bad? Losing a life should be a tragedy, a crying shame. When had empathy become a crime?

"They'd what? Slag you?" The seeker's red optics are boring into him now.

"No- of course not." Surely they wouldn't.

And Cliffjumper, who had been willing to send him to the brig before they became friends, wouldn't either. Right?

"Well, frag them!" Skywarp lets go of his servos and sits up. The temperature surrounding them heats up from the heavy thrum of the seeker's engine roaring to life.

Was he mad? Why? The escalation makes no sense to him. "It's really not like that-"

"When had the Autobots ever cared about anyone else other than themselves?" Skywarp snarled, wings raised up high, vibrating with fury. "All they do is say they're good and righteous and slag anyone else for questioning them, right? They care about the organics now? What about us? What about you? What about our own fragging planet?!"

Skywarp grabs him by the collar, lifting him slightly off the pile of bedding, and all Mirage can do is stare in stunned silence. "They gave up on us first! They gave up on our home! They'll drop you faster than when they dropped Vos, too!"

With a growl, Skywarp activates his warp drive and disappears with a loud pop, the air crackling with static in his wake.

Mirage drops back down on the sheets with a heavy thump. His spark spinning restlessly in its chamber. He can't tell which emotion is trying to push its way forward first and settles for being overwhelmed. Skywarp didn't group him up with the rest of the Autobots. He seemed to have excluded him, and it's making his logic circuits misfire at the distinction.

Thundercracker finds him staring at the ceiling a while later. His chronometer was still broken. He can't tell how long it's been. "You two weren't fragging, right?"

"No." Mirage avoids a full system crash by sheer force of will. He drags a servo over his optics, the beginnings of a helmache forming.

"I brought you a cube." Thundercracker sits beside him. The small container looks ridiculous in the seeker's large servo. "Don't complain about the portion size. You're the smallest, so you get quarters."

"I wasn't going to..." There's no point. He takes his cube and drinks it in one go. His tanks will do the complaining for him later. These Decepticons are being downright generous if he takes into account the unique situation he's in. "Am I a prisoner?"

Thundercracker shrugs, "Beats me. You know too much, and we can't just let you leave, so probably."

"Know that this group is hiding from Megatron?" He goes ahead and tests his luck.

The seeker's expression darkens. "That's none of your business."

Something happened, probably within Decepticon high command, that the Autobots have yet to find out. Being held as their prisoner seems counterintuitive to him. The Autobots are going to start looking, and it's going to get Soundwave's attention. Wouldn't the communications officer already know there's a gaping hole in upper command? The elite trine with the Constructicons, arguably one of the more important 'cons in the faction based on Earth, going AWOL?

This group of Decepticons are tolerating him, risking detection, and for what purpose? Because of Skywarp?

Mirage glances at the empty space Skywarp had been and shifts the topic.

"He suddenly left."

"Yeah, he does that." Thundercracker ex-vents tiredly. He fishes a datapad out of his subspace and powers it on.

"Is Skywarp okay?"

Wrong thing to say. Thundercracker's indifference shifted quickly, and he took his optics off the datapad to bear his fangs at him. Aggressively? Defensive? "Don't act like you know what's going on here."

Right, conversing with 'cons. Fine. Mirage revs his engine back, trying to appear as if he could take the seeker on despite how obviously out matched and injured he is. "I asked if he's ok."

Thundercracker sizes him up. They stare each other down. It reminds him of times when he's conversing with Jazz. He can't allow himself to back down.

The seeker eventually grunts a quiet curse. His field extends, and Mirage can just about feel... his uneasiness? It's a weird fluctuation in the air that's making him feel off-kilter, kind of like falling off the edge.

"I don't know." Thundercracker wrestles out the admission. His tone no longer having the aggression he held moments ago. He sounds... defeated?

This is exactly what he was looking for when he first started talking with Skywarp, wasn't it?

"You were... working on something?" Mirage brings attention to the datapad, hoping to ease the tension. Maybe it'll help him to open up more.

Thundercracker blinks. "Oh, right." He picks up his datapad again and hands it over to Mirage. "Since you're stuck here, you might as well make yourself useful."

Curious, he leans in to read the screen.

"Nightstorm, an F-22 fighter jet with a slick black and silver paintjob, lands on a cliffside located on a continent within Earth. His faceplates are sad and mad at the same time. He scans the perimeter for hostile entities. His enemy detection radar displayed no one in the immediate vicinity. He stands and watches the Earth's sun go down..."

Mirage reboots his visual feed before looking up at Thundercracker's serious yet expectant expression. "A... novel?"

"Yes."

"You wrote this?"

"Yes." Thundercracker inclines his head and nudges him slightly. "I need an editor. You're an Autobot. Weren't you all made to do arts and crafts or something? Soft slag like that?"

Soft slag? "Isn't what you're doing... soft slag?"

"Well, what else is there to do? We have no objectives currently." Thundercracker taps at the first few lines on the screen. "Does this sound natural?"

The absence of objectives?

He scoots closer. "It's a tad stilted in some areas. We can refine the narrative structure to make your sentences flow more smoothly."

They soon fall into the rhythm of reading and editing together. It's a rather bland story in his opinion. He can't help but find it charming for it.

Mirage knows he's been living in a bubble for most of his function. It took Jazz dragging him around to every mission requiring him to listen and observe to all kinds of bots of every background and social standing. It had broadened his understanding of the world they lived in. How his previous self-isolation wouldn't do him any good if he kept ignoring the bots around him.

Jazz had not been kind when beating this lesson into his helm. He lived a privileged life since the moment he was sparked. The wake-up call had been needed.

He never considered what Decepticons actually do in their spare time. It's narrow-minded, he knows. Why wouldn't they write and sing and watch movies? It's different from hearing a secondhand account to editing sentences with a 'con known to level buildings by just showing up.

Warbuild's wanted to live a life other than the role they had to serve dictated by the senate. If civilians can adapt weapons, then so can warbuilds pursue anything to their spark's desires. It was never fair on them. In the absence of an objective, something to fight for, society had taken them for granted.

This was what Optimus Prime had been fighting for, to be an autonomous bot. Freedom, the right for all sentient beings. They had the same goals this entire time.

His and Prowl's theory lacked the crucial understanding that they weren't as different as their society made them out to be. He was on the right track, however.

◇

"Aside from the jury-rigged fuel pump keeping Hound from guttering out before we got to him, he'll be right as rain in no time." Ratchet had to hand to Hook. The foreign blob his scanner picked up in Hound's internals had given him a scare, but it's pumping fuel through his vitals as intended. A temporary solution before his frame decides to reject it. "We'll get you a replacement soon, once Wheeljack stops burning his audial fins off."

"Oh Primus, I'm so sorry!" Wheeljack's audial fins were blinking rapidly with guilt for the last few joors. "I've double- triple- quadruple checked the sonar device before sending it off! Not once during each test did it so much as sputter or sparked!"

"Cool your engines, Jackie. Prowl's recreating the crime scene as we speak." Jazz hasn't left Hound's side ever since the rescue team brought him into the medbay. He's waiting for any word on the whereabouts of Mirage. Something was bothering the spy master who's itching to take off at a moments notice to find his mech. "You doing good, Hound?"

Hound had woken up from medical stasis and reported everything he could remember up until the blast that knocked him out. His recent memory files were being played on the monitor next to the berth where Prowl had been flipping through them scene by scene in silence. "I'm fine, really. I'm more worried about why they'd take Mirage and not both or neither of us? I'm sure we discovered a base of sorts."

Prowl's doorwings twitch when he catches something of note. "Wheeljack, do you have the schematics of the sonar device?"

"Here." Wheeljack produces a datapad from his subspace and passes the file along to have the image blown up on the larger screen. "The only thing that would cause an explosion that big would be the generator catching fire-"

"It wasn't the generator." Prowl cuts him off. He draws lines on the monitor with a lightpen, comparing the schematics with the footage. "If a fire had started inside the generator, Hound should have detected smoke prior to the explosion." He traces the trajectory of the projectiles before facing the group with a frown. "This wasn't the case of faulty machinery. See how the explosion radius comes from a single focal point? After Hound turned the sonar device on, it must have triggered a bomb."

Gasps erupted in the room from the other officers. Wheeljack's audial fins glows bright yellow in alarm. "That would mean- it had been tampered with before Hound and Mirage were sent off on the scouting mission!"

"Only one mech sneaky enough to make the whole thing look like an accident." Jazz shares a look with Prowl. "Blaster ain't heard nothing from the Nemesis yet. It's radio silent in there. Wherever they're holding up my mech, they're being pretty damn quiet about it."

"Because the 'cons would be gloating up and down the halls?" Ratchet quirks an optic ridge.

"Yeah, you could say that." Jazz pauses to take an incoming comm. "Bumblebee just secured the area. But he's saying it's odd there hasn't been any 'cons in the sky yet- or lately."

"Like, at all?"

"None. Something's up with the 'cons and I don't like it."

Prowl studies the screen again with growing suspicion. "The Constructicons left some of their equipment behind to get away with Mirage rather quickly… Too quick for their frames."

"There are tracks leading everywhere but out the mines." Jazz was beginning to suspect a certain purple seeker involved in the botnapping.

Just then, the doors of the medbay bursts open as Cliffjumper barrels his way in, ducking under Ironhide's attempts at catching him. "Is he here?! Where is he?!"

"Cliffjumper, you're not authorized to be here!" Prowl holds up a servo, about to give a warning.

"It's Mirage!" His field was a mess of anxiety, fritzing in the edges with something close to grief. "H-he sent me- I just received a message from him!"

Ironhide yanks Cliffjumper back, but only to help ground the panicked minibot. "Easy, mech. What'd he say? Is it gonna help in finding him?"

"He said that he hasn't been completely honest with me. Asked if I'd ever forgive him-" Cliffjumper's vocalizer tinged with static. "What does he mean by that? Where is he?"

Prowl's doorwings slants down. He snaps Jazz a sharp look.

.:I don't want to accuse your agent-:.

.:Then don't.:.

.:But would he have gone willingly?:.

.:We'd have to find out. I don't like whatever the fuck is going on with big, blue, and boxy. You keep up the search on Mirage. Bring him home.:.

.:While you take on Soundwave yourself, as you always do?:.

Jazz shot him a look of his own, then smoothed it back into a reassuring grin as he turned his attention to Cliffjumper. "That just means our Raj is out there trying to contact us back. Any other messages we should know about?"

Cliffjumper sags in Ironhide's grip. "No, sir..."

"Then I'm heading out. Hoping you a speedy recovery, Hound." Jazz spun on his heel and heads for the door.

"I'm going-"

"Sorry, Cliff. It's gonna involve a lot of sneaking around where I'm going." Jazz pats a dejected Cliffjumper on his way out of the medbay.

"Bring a team!" Prowl shouts after him to deaf audials. He grumbles to himself before he laser focuses in on Cliffjumper.

The minibot squeaks, "Uh-"

"You're with me. We are going to comb through everything we can to get to the bottom of this."

At the chance of being involved in helping to get his friend back safely, Cliffjumper quickly agrees. He cracked his knuckles, ready to take on any 'cons their way. "Yes, sir!"

◇

Mirage must have fallen into recharge in the middle of editing scenes of Thundercracker's novel. What took up the bulk of their time was the amount of editing that was needed to make it a coherent story and less of a droning report. It's far from done. Thundercracker was surprisingly easy to work with, if you had endless patience in dealing with a brick wall. He had to prompt the seeker a couple times to get an opinion other than "I don't know" or a dispassionate shrug.

He's invested, sure, the seeker just had a hard time conveying anything more than a stoic front.

When he online his optics, it was dark inside the hanger again. He's sandwiched between all three of the elite trine in what he could only describe as a 'cuddle pile'. The very thought was breaking his logic matrix a little. The last 'con anyone in their right mind would want to be caught in recharge with would be Starscream.

Wrong phrasing. His processor had been through the wringer lately.

"Psst."

Mirage blinks at the glowing red optics staring back at him in the dark. Skywarp was awake and back to being half draped on him. Starscream was behind the purple seeker and Thundercracker was to his left, exactly where he had been before he dozed off.

"You're back." He murmurs just above a whisper as not to wake the other seekers.

"We're you and TC, y'know..." Skywarp raises and lowers his optic ridges in a suggestive manner that Mirage completely ignores.

"Reading together, yes." He deadpans.

"Is that what the 'bots are calling it? Kinda lame." The snickering he does earns him a thwack from Starscream smacking him over the helm.

"Shut. Up."

"Geez, fine." Skywarp was all smiles and jokes again.

A part of him had been worried after their last conversation. He'll put a pin on it for later when he's working at optimal capacity again.

"Can't recharge?"

Skywarp shrugs, "Nah, too much fuel to burn. I'm grounded. No flights."

"You're grounded?" He's more surprised that Skywarp would follow an order that kept him from flying. Don't seekers thrive in the air?

"Eh, it's whatever." Skywarp leans in and whispers a little quieter. "So… he was green?"

That definitely woke him up and his optics cycled wide. "Yes, do you know-"

"Alive. They dropped him off for the 'bots."

Skywarp couldn't have sounded any less enthused even if he tried, but it was more than enough for Mirage. He quietly ex-vents in relief. "Thank you, Warp."

"The frag you thanking me for?" Skywarp mumbles before he shutters his optics off. "Go back to recharge before I knock your lights out."

"Alright." Mirage was in high spirits and didn't want the opportunity to go to waste. He drops his vocalizer into something sweet and sultry. "Goodnight, Skywarp..."

He gets the lightest punch he’s ever taken from a Decepticon, and it makes him wheeze out a quiet laugh.

Worth it.