[TFP] Despicable Me - Chapter Six

[dracoqueen22]

Despicable Me – Chapter Six

What was done once, can be redone. Recreating the circumstances that lead to trapping Soundwave in the Shadowzone is not the hard part. Figuring out where Soundwave is in that plane of existence is the trick.

They'd trapped him in mid-air, floating thousands of feet above open fields. There's no telling where he could have gone from there. Earth is a big planet. And that’s only if Soundwave stayed on Earth.

“I can’t decide if this is a good idea or a horrible one.”

“Can’t it be both?”

Ratchet sighs at his lover’s sarcastic drawl and sweeps his scanner in another direction, the sun beaming down at his back, warming his plating in an uncomfortable matter. It’s the peak of summer, here on the west coast of North America, and Ratchet hates it. He longs for the cool damp of their base in Nevada.

Primus, those were the days.

His scanner beeps negatively at him. Unsurprisingly.

“We’ve been at this for hours,” he grumbles as the sky rumbles ominously, gray clouds approaching at speed, eating up the blue with an oncoming summer storm.

Rain, too? This day can’t get any worse.

“And it’ll probably take hours more,” Starscream says. His own scanner honks at him, also negatively. “It’s not easy to hone in on an energon signal that may or may not exist when it’s located on another dimension, you know.”

Ratchet narrows his optics. “Considering I spent the last week crammed in a lab with you to try and figure this out, yes, I know.” He huffs and mutters, “And all this for a Con who’d gladly snuff out both our sparks.”

“If Soundwave’s alive, I doubt he’s in any condition to kill us,” Starscream says, almost absently and without an ounce of worry in his voice.

There’s something wrong with the universe when Starscream sounds like the reasonable one.

“Ratchet, if these readings are correct, you two should be getting close.” Raf’s voice crackles through the comm. They’d left him back at their old base, plugged into their old console, with Knock Out and Bumblebee. Who Ratchet hoped were actually helping and not off making out in the corner.

Ah, young love.

Arcee’s supposed to be with them, but she’d taken one look at Knock Out and Bumblebee’s flirting, and took off to find Jack and surprise him. Barring that, she intends to take a long, distant patrol.

Ratchet supposes he can’t blame her. Besides, she’s only a groundbridge away.

“My sensors say nothing, child,” Starscream replies, tapped into the same comm line as he is.

“Change your settings.” Raf is remarkably unperturbed. Then again, he’s an early high school graduate halfway through his college career, and he’s not old enough to buy tobacco yet. “Shift your frequency. Then you’ll see what I’m seeing.”

Starscream grumbles, but his fingers flick over his scanner, and sure enough, the display lights up with bright bursts of color and noise. “What the frag,” Starscream breathes. “This is the last place I would’ve expected to find him.”

They’re in the middle of nowhere. It’s a desolate forest on the coast of Oregon. There’s nothing and no one for miles around. Why would Soundwave choose here? Or did he choose? Is this where he collapsed?

“Good job, kid,” Ratchet says, disquiet growing and gnawing at his tanks. Part of him had hoped they’d fail, if only because they already have one complication in the form of Megatron. They don’t need another. “Send Bee on through, will you? We might need another pair of hands.”

“Got it. He’s on his way.”

Ratchet tucks his scanner into subspace and glances at Starscream. His Seeker’s face is pale, thoughtful, his lips pressed to a thin line.

“What?” Ratchet asks.

Starscream shakes his head. “Nothing.”

It isn’t ‘nothing’, but Ratchet doesn’t have time to dig into whatever is bothering Starscream. A ground bridge swirls to life behind him, roaring and crackling on the edges, perhaps sensing the dimensional disturbance where Soundwave lingers around somewhere.

“You called for backup?” Bumblebee asks as he strides through, Knock Out on his heels.

Ratchet sighs and rubs the space between his optics. “I didn’t ask for the Terrible Twosome. I just needed Bumblebee.” They better have called Arcee back first.

“Clearly they’re a matched set now,” Starscream says. He arches an orbital ridge.

Knock Out grimaces as the ground bridge closes, leaving him standing in dusty marsh-brush, the dry grasses swaying around his ankle tires. “Let’s just get this over with. This place is filthy.”

“It’s Earth,” Bumblebee teases, jostling the sports car with an elbow. “But he’s right, Ratch. Let’s get Soundwave and get back. I think Megatron is making everyone anxious.”

“Yes, it’s kind of his trademark,” Starscream drawls.

Ratchet pulls the portable generator from the wagon and begins setting it up. They need two ground bridges for this to work. Rafael will call for one, Ratchet will call for the other, and the rest will dive into the portal, spend as long as they dare searching for Soundwave, and then return before the generator runs out of energon.

At least, that’s the plan.

“You really think he’s alive in there?” Bumblebee asks as he bobs on his feet next to Ratchet. He’s long learned not to bother offering assistance. He and Bulkhead have broken far too much of Ratchet’s equipment in the past. He trusts neither of them with something this delicate.

“He’s a Decepticon,” Ratchet grunts as he double-checks his connections and runs a test cycle. “They’re survivors.”

Bumblebee nods slowly, and folds his arms. “What about Megatron? You think he’s gonna rebuild his army and take us back to war?”

The generator chimes at him, announcing the end of the test cycle. It’s fully functional and ready to give this a try. If the power levels hold steady, they’ll have ten, maybe fifteen minutes to search.

"I'm trying not to think about that, kid," Ratchet sighs. He rests a hand on the generator, which thrums happily beneath his palm. "I'm focusing on one problem at a time." He taps his comm. "Ready when you are, Rafael."

"Ready on my end, too, Ratchet," Rafael responds, and there's eager anticipation in his voice. No doubt he's already concocting a thesis for his graduate program, with this effort right here.

Such a brilliant kid.

"Good. Let's get this bad idea on its way," Starscream mutters, his wings hiked upward, his optics darting around as though he expects an attack at any moment.

Ratchet swallows a comment. He lets Rafael count them down, because the kid loves little things like that.

“We’re go for activation in three… two… one.”

At one, Ratchet flips the switch, a groundbridge crackling into view a good fifty feet away, too far to pull anyone else in, but close enough for the others to run inside without wasting time. As he does so, Rafael hits the switch from his end, and another groundbridge swirls to life, facing Ratchet’s, energy crackling and hissing and spitting between them.

The third portal, when it appears, is a violent swirl of energy with a dark hue. It looks unstable, despite Ratchet’s warnings proving otherwise.

“You sure you want to go in there, kid?” Ratchet asks as the portal slowly stabilizes, and Bumblebee stares at it like he doesn’t dare look away.

“No.” Bumblebee’s upper tires twitch. “But I’m going to do it anyway.” He knocks his knuckles against Knock Out’s upper arm. “Coming with?”

“You’ll get killed without me,” Knock Out says with a twist of his mouth and a flat look.

“Neither of you are allowed to get killed,” Ratchet grunts and shoos them toward the portal. “You’ve got ten minutes. Don’t forget.” He hopes if he’s grumpy enough, he can hide how worried he is.

He’d go in himself, if he didn’t need to be on this side to ensure the ground bridge stays open as long as possible so they can come back.

Bumblebee grins. “I’ve got it memorized,” he says as he taps his head and jogs backward toward the portal, Knock Out managing a more dignified pace beside him.

“Good luck,” Starscream says, and then they’re swallowed up by the riotous energy, vanishing into the gray plane of the Shadowzone.

Ratchet swallows and stares at his instruments, looking for the slightest blip out of place. “Raf?”

“It’s all stable on my end, Ratchet,” Rafael says with a chipper, confident voice that soothes a few strands of Ratchet’s anxiety. “Don’t worry. Bee’s got this.”

Ratchet cycles a ventilation. “Let’s just focus on getting them back in one piece,” he says as Starscream steps up beside him, resting a hand on his arm.

He offers a commiserating look. Ratchet draws on the comfort of his field, and then he focuses on his equipment.

Ten minutes.

They have ten minutes, and then Ratchet’s coming in after them.

~

“When you said ‘let’s go on a date’, I didn’t know you meant to the Shadowzone to find one of my former associates,” Knock Out drawls. His scanner steadily beeps, guiding them through the grayless expanse, a dimmer, more boring version of the universe they’d left behind.

“It’s an adventure,” Bumblebee says, nudging him with an elbow, though he’s learned how to be careful about it, how not to leave a mark behind.

“It’s filthy.” Knock Out grimaces. “Not to mention eerie.” His spinal strut hasn’t stopped tingling, and he can’t shake the feeling they are being watched. He swears he heard something roar in the distance, but no living thing should be here.

Unless he counts Soundwave, who may or may not be functioning. Laserbeak, he’s certain, has long since departed. The little cassette is not built for survival.

His scanner beeps faster, pointing them down an incline, to a shallow basin and what appears to be a cave at the bottom. Wonderful. A cave.

“And of course Soundwave would pick a dark, dirty cave to hide in,” Knock Out sighs. “Spies are the bane of my existence.”

Bumblebee chuckles. “You’re cute when you’re complaining.” He steps down the edge and slides down the rocky slope, sending debris skittering down into the ravine ahead of him and kicking up a cloud of dust in his wake.

“Do you have something against my paintjob?” Knock Out calls down to him as he follows, at a much more sedate and careful pace.

Or at least, he tries to. His foot catches against a rock and he loses his balance, sliding down and tumbling forward the last few feet, right into a collision with Bumblebee. Right into his arms as a matter of fact.

“Maybe it was all a ploy to get you right where I want you,” Bumblebee murmurs as he squeezes Knock Out’s aft. He leans in for a kiss.

Knock Out debates for a half-second resisting, but honestly, what he wants is a kiss. So he lets Bumblebee’s mouth cover his, glossa slipping out, hot and sweet. Their engines rumble. Bumblebee smells of cheap polish – he’ll fix that soon enough – and Earth.

Knock Out’s scanner honks wildly at them.

“Too bad we’re on limited time,” Bumblebee says. He squeezes Knock Out’s aft and pulls away, turning toward the cave. “Ready?”

His knees are wobbling.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Knock Out grumbles and plunges into the dank, dark ahead of his partner.

He flicks his headlights on to illuminate the dim. The scanner goes shrill, and Knock Out quickly cuts it off. He’s pretty sure they don’t need it to guide them anymore, not when his sensors can detect the barely audible ventilations of a Cybertronian.

“He’s definitely here,” Knock Out mutters as he peers into the dark.

Bumblebee moves past him, sweeping a floodlight through the interior of the cave.

They almost miss Soundwave in the dim. He’s lost his color nanites to hunger and low energy, so he’s a dark, dusky grey. He’s curled into himself, a lump of metal tucked between two large boulders, his biolights deactivated, no doubt to conserve what little energon he has.

“Primus,” Bumblebee breathes and approaches Soundwave carefully. “He’s alive?”

“Barely.” Knock Out’s sensors ping back to him a world of hurt. “We need to get him out of here and back to Cybertron. He needs a CR chamber. STAT.”

Bumblebee nods. “Okay. But how do you suggest we do that.” He gives Knock Out a sidelong look. “I know better than to touch a sleeping spy. Jazz tore three fingers off once.” He wiggles his right hand for emphasis.

Knock Out crouches next to Soundwave and lays his palm against the nearest armor panel – his arm perhaps. It’s cold to the touch, and there’s no living thrum. “He’s in stasis lock. He’s not aware enough to cause either of us a problem.”

“I’m trusting you on this,” Bumblebee says as he reaches for Soundwave.

Knock Out smirks and stands, wrapping his fingers around Soundwave’s other arm. “Don’t worry. I’ll fix anything he breaks.”

“That’s so reassuring.”

~

The steady cadence of his feet over the floor is not as soothing as he hoped it would be. Megatron paces back and forth, circling around and around the tiny confines of his room. If he wants to leave, his little rookie guard outside can’t stop him, but earning the Autobot trust is paramount right now. They are the only ones who can help Soundwave, which they are supposed to be doing at this very moment.

He can only wait and pace and worry.

He's alone. It's both a concern and a relief. He hasn't seen Orion since Starscream agreed to help him.

It hurts. Megatron keeps watching the corner of the room, keeps spinning to catch any motion in his peripheral, hoping for another glimpse.

There is none.

"You're done haunting me now, is that it?" Megatron mutters, but no one answers him. There's no one there. He’s beginning to wonder if there ever was, or if his grief and his loneliness had conjured up a ghost to torment him.

He doesn't have a next step. He needs to figure out the next step. Whether the Autobots find and retrieve Soundwave or not, Megatron has to decide the next step. But he's a gear spinning in place, unable to find purchase on a slippery slope.

His door pings.

Megatron whirls toward it. "Open," he says.

The Autobot rookie pokes his head inside. "So, uh, Ratchet just commed. Says you can come to the medbay if you want."

"They found him?" Megatron demands, already striding toward the door, his spark twisting and shrinking and expanding and contracting, like he doesn't know how to feel.

Smokescreen nods and backpedals out of the doorway before Megatron can bowl him over. "Yeah. He's in pretty bad shape, but he's alive and uh, okay."

Megatron starts down the hall, assuming Smokescreen will follow.

"You don't know a thing about patience, do you?" Smokescreen asks as he jogs to catch up. He's lost some of that cloak of fear he had for Megatron in the past week.

Domesticated. That's what they've done to him. Feh.

Megatron slants Smokescreen a look. "And you haven't learned to quit while you're ahead."

"Ahead of what?" Smokescreen cycles his optics, dumbly oblivious.

Primus save him.

Megatron rolls his optics and tunes out the rookie. His only consolation is that his habsuite, and he uses the possessive noun loosely, is located near the medbay. They probably think he's as secure as they can manage here, rather than elsewhere, since they're not inclined to put him in a cell.

Megatron barges through the main entrance, Smokescreen hot on his heels, and scans the reception hall. The only mechs in sight are Knock Out and Bumblebee, the both of them covered in dirt and scrapes, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

"Where is he?" Megatron demands.

"He's back here, Megatron." Ratchet steps into view, coming around the corner of a hallway, wiping his hands. "And maybe learn to ask nicely next time." He glances past Smokescreen. "Take a break, kid. I've got it from here."

"Thanks, Ratch!" Smokescreen tosses off a salute and he's gone before anyone can say another word.

"Is he alive?" Megatron asks as he moves to join Ratchet, ignoring the chastisement.

Ratchet sighs, and Megatron notices that like the others, Ratchet is also coated in a gray grime and scratches. "He's in stasis lock at the moment. He's on several fluid drips and neuropulsing to keep his processor active while we slowly restore his frame. It's a long process, Megatron. It could be weeks before we bring him anywhere close to conscious."

"He was very nearly dead," Megatron realizes aloud.

"Yes."

Ratchet passes a few rooms before he stops in front of one with a larger door and a viewing window. Megatron steps up to it as Ratchet makes no move to open the door, his gaze grave and full of warning.

"He might still die," Ratchet points out in a quiet tone. "I want you to know that I'm not making any promises."

Megatron glances through the transparent window, and can barely see his communications officer beneath the wires and the machines and the equipment in the room. Soundwave is no longer the vibrant blue Megatron remembers. He's a dull gray, and if not for the machines recording physical tells, Megatron would think him offline.

His dock is empty.

"Where is Laserbeak?"

"We don't know. The symbiote wasn't with him when we found him."

Megatron's frown deepens. Soundwave has never allowed Laserbeak to be far from him. Laserbeak was the last of the his symbiotes.

"Could you find it?"

"No."

"Damn it." Megatron pinches the bridge of his nasal structure, because it hurts too much to look at Soundwave as he is. This is his fault, Megatron realizes.

To have died in battle is one thing, but this? This is an ignoble end.

"How long until you know if he'll make it?"

Ratchet's weight shifts. "If we don't shock his system. If he responds to the stimulators...." He ex-vents and folds his arms. "I could clear him, and he could relapse in a flash. It's impossible to say." He looks up at Megatron pointedly. "He's never going to be the same, Megatron. If that's what you're hoping for. There are whole sections of his processor that he might not recover."

Megatron mutters a curse. He doesn't know much, but he does know that replacing Soundwave's processor won't fix him either. Well, it will fix him, but he won't be Soundwave anymore. Not exactly. He'll have his core memories, his spark memories, but the rest will be gone. He'll grieve without knowing why. He'll anger without understanding the trigger. He'll hate and not remember the face which causes it.

Most mechs go mad.

"There is a way," Orion murmurs and Megatron sucks in a vent at the unexpected voice. Unexpected but desired. "Remember, Megatron, what happens when Autobots and Decepticons work together."

A way...

"The scout," Megatron realizes aloud.

Ratchet furrows his orbital ridge. "What?"

Megatron turns toward him. "Your scout. Bumblebee. He has a vocalizer now. He's the one who killed me after he fell into the Omega matrix. It fixed him."

"Which is irrelevant because we can't recreate that matrix," Ratchet says and rubs at his forehead like he's in pain. "Believe me, we've been trying for months."

“You were responsible for creating it before,” Megatron points out. “What’s different now?”

Ratchet scowls, and looks offended. “It was a group effort. We all had a part to play in the formula. Me. Knock Out. Shockwave.”

Shockwave. Another missing Decepticon. Megatron has spent the last week caught up in the search for Soundwave, pouring all of his energy into ensuring the Autobots would keep their promise.

Shockwave would have been next on his list.

“You need Shockwave,” Megatron says. “Then let’s find him.”

Ratchet’s mouth opens before snapping shut. He cycles an audible, rattling ventilation. “No one’s seen or heard from him since we sealed Unicron. It’s widely assumed that he’s dead.”

Megatron stares through the window, at the emaciated frame of his communications officer and loyal friend. Possibly all Megatron has left in the universe. “They assumed the same thing about Soundwave. I won’t believe it until I’m looking at Shockwave’s gray frame with my own optics.”

“Fine. Whatever. Do what you want.” Ratchet flicks a hand dismissively and turns away from Megatron, like he doesn’t have the energy to keep arguing anymore. “Collect all your Decepticons. Pit, revive Dreadwing and Breakdown and Skyquake and whoever else you think you can find. What do I care.”

The last is less of a question than a statement and has Ratchet spinning on a heelstrut, striding away from Megatron without so much as a parting word.

Megatron frowns, but doesn’t summon him back. He doesn’t bother to try the door to Soundwave’s medical room. If it’s not locked, there’s still no point in him entering. He’s too large. He might disrupt a machine keeping his subordinate alive.

Soundwave couldn’t hear him anyway.

He needs to find Shockwave.

He’s finally found the next step.

~

There are a lot of things Arcee doesn’t like about her current position and the state of Cybertron, but her main source of concern has just strode into their conference room as though he has every right to be here.

“I was waiting for my invitation, but it must have gotten lost,” Megatron says as the door quietly closes behind him, in total ignorance of the threat Megatron represents.

Arcee wants to protest. Wants to tell Megatron to take his arrogance and leave the room, but Ultra Magnus is more polite than she is.

“This is an open committee,” he says with a careful control Arcee doesn’t have. “You’re welcome to participate.”

Megatron grins, and it’s not a pleasant sight. “That’s good to know. For the future.” He glances around the room, spies an empty seat between Smokescreen and Ratchet, and heads right for it. “If there aren’t any other topics on the table, I have one I want to present.”

It’s almost pleasant. Reasonable. Like Megatron has become an entirely different mech, but Arcee’s not fooled. There’s danger in the controlled way Megatron perches in his chair, how he takes up so much space, and Starscream glares daggers at his former commander’s head.

“Wait your turn,” Arcee growls, because every thread of her coding wants to shoot Megatron, wants to destroy him. Starscream is bad enough, but she’s expected to sit here and tolerate Megatron as well? It’s unreasonable.

Ultra Magnus lifts a hand as Megatron’s gaze cuts her direction, sharp and amused, like her anger is something for him to toy with.

“We can take a moment for an aside,” Ultra Magnus says. “What is it, Megatron?”

Arcee sits back in her chair and folds her arms, tries not to fidget. Bulkhead’s field reaches out, offering a steady pulse, and Arcee leans into it because it’s taking all she has not to show herself for reckless anger.

“Cybertron is in ruins,” Megatron says, as though they are all unaware of this. “Our population is too reduced to make effective repairs. We need the Omega matrix formula.”

“Oh, gee. Why didn’t any of us think of that?” Starscream asks, rolling his optics. He’s as taut as a wire right now, his tension about to snap.

For once, Arcee finds herself agreeing with Starscream, and it’s unpleasant.

“We’ve been working on it,” Ratchet says, his tone sour and angry, his optics narrowed aggressively at Megatron. Doc’s counted too many welds on Starscream to view Megatron as anything but a monster. “While you were rusting away in the wastes.”

Megatron arches an orbital ridge. If the tension directed at him is a bother, he doesn’t show it. “And yet, you’ve made no progress. Why is that, I wonder?”

“You know frag well why it is,” Starscream hisses. “Your pet scientist fragged off to who knows where with his third of the formula. We’re all but starting from scratch.”

“Then we find Shockwave,” Megatron says, as though that idea hadn’t occurred to anyone yet.

“If you have a concrete suggestion for how we can do that, we’re interested in hearing it,” Ultra Magnus says with far more politeness than Arcee would have utilized. “Otherwise, you’re only echoing sentiments we’ve all discussed before.”

Megatron lifts his chin. “I would speak with Predaking. While he’s disinclined to talk to any of you, I might be able to convince him otherwise.”

“Without violence?” Arcee snorts. “If you think he likes you any more than he likes any other Decepticon, you’re as much of a fool as you’ve always been.”

She expects a roar of outrage. For Megatron’s field to become a wild, frustrated frenzy. Lord Megatron of the Decepticons has never taken kindly to being refused anything, and it must burn right now, to realize how much of his existence is in the hands of Autobots.

Megatron, however, merely curls his lips into a parody of a smile, his denta gleaming sharp and challenging. “Mechs didn’t follow me because I was violent,” he says. “Predaking will speak to me.”

Arcee stares at him.

Who is this mech in front of them and what has been done to Megatron? It’s eerie and unsettling, and she doesn’t like it.

“You’re welcome to try,” Ultra Magnus says after the silence dredges on too long, and Megatron’s smile gets wider and wider, like it’s all part of his big plan, to make them all unsettled. “Predaking has claimed the old Predacon graveyard for his territory. If there is anywhere you’ll find him, it’s there.”

Megatron nods and stands. “Information is all I needed.” He braces his hands on the table, stance cocky and assured. “I’ll find Shockwave and the final third of the Omega matrix equation, and when I do, I want Soundwave to be the first repair made.”

Ratchet groans and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I knew you had another motive.”

“Do you consider repairing my subordinate to be a selfish choice?” Megatron demands with a slanted look at Ratchet and a sharp tone to his voice. “I guess I’ve been misjudging Autobots all along.”

Arcee chuffs a ventilation, folding her arms as she leans back in her chair. “Your motives are suspect. Doesn’t mean that a particular choice is or isn’t selfish.”

Megatron chuckles, and his smile turns only the slightest shade toward sincere. “You and Starscream must get along,” he says, and pushes back from the table. “I’ll have Shockwave within the week. Try not to shoot him when I get back.”

Megatron leaves. No one tries to stop him. They allow him to have the last word. Well, maybe allow is the wrong adjective. No one can think of a rebuttal, Arcee supposes. It’s bad enough they’ve let him live, they’ve let him wander around the city freely, and now that he can walk into their committees the same as any other free mech, it’s a tenuous balance.

“I’m goin’ to ask this only cause I don’t think anyone else is,” Wheeljack says with a lazy drawl and a drag of his fingertips down the length of one sword. “Do we actually want Megatron and Soundwave and Shockwave runnin’ around? Cause if ya ask me, that’s just lookin’ for trouble.”

“No one wants trouble,” Ultra Magnus says with a long, aggrieved sigh. “But we have a responsibility to the laws we created, and it’s important that all Cybertronians understand they are welcome here. The war is over. Factions no longer exist. We all agreed on that.”

Reluctantly.

Arcee distinctly remembers wanting to vote on caution when it came to accepting former Decepticons back to the planet. They only know how to destroy, not build. They are too selfish, too determined to be right. They have rust in their gears and would rather let it grind then add a bit of oil.

“If and when they commit a crime, we’ll handle it, until then all we can do is watch them,” Ultra Magnus finishes, and there’s something almost helpless in the gesture he offers. “Which means…”

Smokescreen sighs, long and aggrieved, and rises from his chair. “I’m on it,” he groans. “Track and report. Here I go.” He sulks out of the room, sensory panels drooping on his back, and Arcee feels for him, just a little.

“We have other matters to discuss,” Ultra Magnus says as the door slides shut behind Smokescreen. “Bulkhead, how about the reconstruction?”

Arcee swallows a groan. Maybe she envies Smokescreen, too. Because there’s nothing more boring than this meeting.

Ugh.

~

Smokescreen sets off at a jog, then a run, if he has any hope of catching up to Megatron before he loses his quarry. He skids around a tight corner, and screeches to a halt, nearly impacting the opposite wall.

“Were you waiting for me?” he blurts out.

Megatron’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking deep in thought. He lifts his optics to Smokescreen, however, and his lips curve in a smirk.

“You’re meant to follow me, aren’t you?” he asks.

Smokescreen stares at him. “Yeah, but…” He rubs the back of his head. “Figured, you know, you’d be wanting to avoid that.”

“What better way to show I mean no harm than by allowing your surveillance of me, hm?” Megatron asks. He pushes off the wall and starts down the hall.

Smokescreen hurries to fall in step beside him, and is surprised when Megatron keeps a reasonable pace Smokescreen can match. “You’re playing politics,” Smokescreen realizes aloud.

Megatron gives him an approving look. “You are not nearly as dumb as you seem.”

“And that’s not really a compliment.” Smokescreen huffs, and is pleasantly surprised when Megatron chuckles at him, rather than growling and getting visibly annoyed at perceived backtalk.

“Show me to this graveyard, rookie,” Megatron says instead. “I have a lot of work to do.”

“Warmongering work?” Smokescreen asks, because it needs to be asked. He wants to see for himself.

Megatron laughs and smiles, and Smokescreen doesn’t know if it’s genuine or mockery. Maybe it’s even both. “There will be a battle, Autobot, but not in the way you think.” He slants Smokescreen a look. “Too long have the Autobots sat on the throne of their victory when this planet isn’t theirs alone. I’d have a seat at that table.”

Smokescreen cycles his optics. “You can take a seat anytime you want,” he points out.

“When I’m invited, then I’ll have a seat, until then, I’ll have to take it,” Megatron corrects, and Smokescreen can kind of see his point.

It’s like how he feels, sometimes, on the outside. He’s still something of a rookie, and he doesn’t have all the interpersonal ties that the others do. He’s not like Ratchet or Arcee or Bulkhead, with all their connections. He has a hard time fitting in. He does his job because he’s there to do it, but sometimes, he feels on the outside looking in, waiting for an invitation to let him know he belongs.

“Okay,” Smokescreen says. “That’s fair.” He jerks his head to an adjoining corridor. “Come on. We gotta go this way since I can’t fly.”

“Which is a pity. Wings might suit you,” Megatron muses, and Smokescreen almost chokes on a vent, because he can’t tell if Megatron is serious or trying to throw him off. “I could carry you.”

Smokescreen shakes his hand and his head. “No thanks. Would rather walk. Um. Let’s go.”

He darts ahead, knowing Megatron can keep up with him, feeling the hot weight of Megatron’s gaze between his panels. It’s not like a threat, it’s something else. Like he’s being appraised for his worth, and it’s unsettling.

Smokescreen rolls his shoulders and tries to shake it off. He’s got a job to do. Best to focus on that.

***