[TF] Tread Lightly
Jan. 17th, 2022 05:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dracoqueen22Title: Tread Lightly
Universe: Consortium, the Prime’s Consorts
Characters: Jazz/Soundwave, Ratchet, Optimus Prime
Rated: T
Description: Jazz knows he’s a ticking time bomb, and with Optimus getting ready to make his move, it’s time Jazz trusts him enough to get defused.
Words… are important.
Actions speak louder, true, and better reflect the internal thoughts of a mech, but words have power, too.
There is nothing reckless about Optimus Prime. Jazz cannot confuse his gentle, well-meaning spark for weakness. He means what he says, but there’s a quiet calculation in everything he does. He’s deliberate. He’s intentional.
He has plans.
They’ve all been settling. For months now, Optimus has been playing the public game. He’s respectful and quiet, demurring to the Senate, to those in political power, while he watches and he waits and he gathers information.
Optimus is plotting.
He spends days in his office, always with Prowl and Ultra Magnus, often with Starscream, and they plan. He has three of the greatest tactical minds on the planet bonded to his spark, and rather than force them into his berth, he draws upon their expertise.
Prowl, Jazz knows, has no interest in Optimus’ berth. Starscream visits on occasion, but it is rare. Neither of their absences has changed Optimus’ reliance on their expertise. He values their opinion. He trusts their loyalty as deeply as he trusts Ultra Magnus’ loyalty, the only Consort that could be said he chose.
They plot, and they plan, and they scheme, like pieces on an elaborate game board.
Jazz watches them from the vents, quiet, shivering with the refusal to record, venting hard as he shunts their conversations to short-term rather than long-term memory. Optimus plans a great many things, and Jazz knows none of the details, because he can’t share what he doesn’t know.
Tell me his secrets, my Meister. Tell me what he murmurs while curling next to you, Proteus whispered to him, the last order given as Jazz’s freedom was snatched from him. He’d stroked Jazz’s face, heedless of Jazz’s internal shudder, and said, Tell me how to keep him in his place.
Soon, Jazz knows, Optimus will make his first move. He will stir the nest of pitvipers, and they will realize it is not a complacent mech who’s taken the Matrix, but a warrior. They are going to screech in their private homes, and plot against Optimus, and each one of those who think their pawns are in place, will realize they miscalculated.
Sunstreaker has his brother, and no more loyalty to the mech who enslaved him and forced him to bond with the Prime.
Soundwave’s outreach is safe, excised from the need for external funding, a safehouse relocated out from under the Senator’s thumb, and no longer a point of pressure.
Prowl’s sibling is here, too, in the manor, and no more a liability out in Praxus, unguarded and easy prey.
Ironhide and Chromia are bonded. Have been, Jazz knows, since the moment they were reunited and decided they no longer needed to wait. They have their Prime’s permission, their indulgence, and yes, Jazz knows good and well that they share Prime’s berth from time to time.
The stumbling blocks have been reassured, have been won over -- Ratchet and Starscream and Skyfire -- and well, the kid’s the most enthusiastic of the lot. His loyalty has never been in question. He’d been chosen to sow discord with the other Consorts, to be a point of jealousy, but there’s not a disingenuous strut in Hot Rod’s frame.
Then there’s Jazz.
Optimus prepares to make his move, and there is a shadow lurking behind him, a vibroblade poised to strike, and he doesn’t know. Oh, surely he suspects. Optimus Prime is many things, but he is neither an idiot nor a fool. Jazz has told him very little, and that lack of knowledge both keeps him safe and puts him at risk.
Tell me his secrets, and Jazz would rather claw out his spark than obey that command.
Optimus Prime is a good mech, and he can bring Cybertron back from the brink. Jazz believes it more and more, and he can’t do it. He won’t do it.
He thinks of Proteus dangling Optimus’ strings, and his tank churns. He wakes from night purges, feeling the phantom energon tacky on his hands, the weight of his betrayal, and Jazz won’t do it.
“Trust Optimus,” Soundwave tells him one night as their frames are ticking down from exertion, and he’s tracing gentle circles across Jazz’s abdominal plate. His field is earnest, open to prying, but Jazz doesn’t look, because he can’t share what he doesn’t know.
“Do already,” Jazz retorts, a grumble, because he’s drifting off to recharge, and Soundwave is keeping him awake with his rationality.
Soundwave hums, non-committal, and those gentle circles turn to idle swirls up Jazz’s chassis, delicate along his central seam. “Keep him safe,” he says, vocals heavy. Deliberate. “Protect him.” The finger glides along his seam, firmer pressure.
Jazz snaps, grabs his hand, tightens his fingers around the wrist, thumb pressed to a cable that makes Soundwave’s hand go limp. “I know what I said,” he hisses, and his spark flutters, a frantic beat of fear that he knows Soundwave can feel. He hates that he can’t hide it as much as he loves that he doesn’t have to.
It’s been months since Jazz first climbed into Soundwave’s berth, and Soundwave is not as tentative as he was then. Oh, he’s still careful. He recognizes a weapon when he sees one. But he’s not afraid to push.
He’s not afraid of Jazz.
“Let him help,” Soundwave says, as if it’s that simple. He knows nothing because Jazz has told him nothing, couldn’t tell him anything even if he wanted to.
Perhaps he’s reasoned some of it. Soundwave’s network is as far-reaching as Jazz’s own, and he’s spent enough time in the shadows that he probably knows what chains keep Jazz tethered to Proteus. After all, he’s the only one who’s identified Meister and hasn’t paid the price for that knowledge.
Soundwave probably knows.
They’re a lot alike, he and Soundwave. Before they were ever consorts to the Prime trapped in the same circumstances, Jazz recognized a kindred spark. It’s why he made the most reckless decision he’s ever made in his life when he didn’t kill Soundwave. It’s why he let Soundwave keep his secret, and why he wouldn’t let anyone else take Soundwave out either.
Soundwave has no idea. Or maybe he does. Jazz hasn’t asked; Soundwave hasn’t offered. They both like their secrets, their tiny treasures carefully hoarded because one never knows when the right bit of information will turn the tide.
Let him help, Soundwave says as though it’s a mere matter of Optimus summoning a distant sibling and bringing them into the fold. As if bank accounts will break Jazz’s chains. As if Jazz needs only a promise and a genuine effort, and everything will be okay.
“He can’t,” Jazz says as he rolls away from Soundwave and off the berth, landing soundlessly on the floor. “No one can.”
He’s gone before Soundwave can protest, not that Soundwave would. He doesn’t push, he never pries, though Primus knows curiosity has to burn him. Jazz adores Soundwave for his patience as much as it frustrates him.
And…
It’s not strictly true.
Jazz drifts through the hallways, empty this late at night, save for the occasional patrol of Chromia’s well-trained guard. They don’t see him. No one ever does. Jazz has long since memorized their routes, the blind spots in the cameras, the places no one thinks to look.
He could assassinate Optimus Prime tonight and no one would know.
Jazz shudders and goes to the roof. His quarters are too close to Optimus’, and though he doesn’t want to extinguish Optimus’ spark, he doesn’t always know what he’s capable of. What Proteus is capable of making him do.
He’s reasonably sure Proteus can’t give him such an order over the comms. He’s nearly certain Proteus hasn’t buried an order in his subconscious, a sleeper code to kill.
It feels too much like a risk.
Jazz perches on the roof, on the edge, between two horribly elaborate projections that exist for no more purpose than to embrace opulence. They're ugly, in Jazz’s opinion, but he thinks that’s how it is for the obscenely rich -- the uglier it is, the more they think it’s worth. False value.
He frowns and stares up at the moons, drifting further and further away each passing decade. Hah. Jazz can relate. He thinks he’s less and less a person as the decades pass, and soon, he’ll be like Whipstrike. He’ll be a shell of a mech, no longer bothering to fight, just one who obeys.
Gross.
Jazz prods at a loose panel in the roof, finger slipping under and tugging it up, letting it snap back down, before tugging it up again. Tug-snap. Tug-snap.
Optimus could help him.
Jazz has already worked it out. The thing about obedience is that as long as he follows the letter of the order, he can interpret it however he likes. Jazz is forbidden from telling Optimus Prime about his coding. He cannot reveal its existence to anyone, truth be told, but there is room to maneuver.
Technically, Jazz is beholden to those of higher rank than him. Proteus holds his strings, but the coding tugs him this way and that, dipping spindly fingers into his processor, demanding obedience and subservience to anyone above him.
Technically, if Jazz wants to obey the letter of the order, he needs to find someone of higher rank than him who he can trust. It cannot be Optimus Prime. But there’s one other mech who could help Jazz, who together with Optimus, can free him from these shackles.
It’s a chance. It’s a small, carefully calculated chance, and a terrible, terrible risk.
Tug-snap. Tug-snap.
Jazz leaves the loose roof panel alone and looks back at the moons. His fingers itch to hold an instrument. He wants Soundwave to be more than a fun romp in the berth with the only mech he’s sure he can trust.
Optimus is moving into offense soon, and Jazz can’t be the blade that points at his back. He’s running out of time.
Jazz leans back, crossing his arms behind his head, and stares into the vastness of the sky above. He’s running out of time, but he can wait until morning at the least.
~
Ratchet is where Ratchet always is because he lives in the medical ward. Granted, it’s the size of a small hospital, but still. Jazz wonders what that says about Ratchet’s mental state that the place he feels most comfortable and at home is also the place where he works.
They’ve been living here for months now, and while Ratchet has already put every Consort through their paces, ensuring they are in peak health, he’s had his hands full attending to the staff. Their overall health is a gross negligence on the previous Prime’s part, Ratchet grumbles at their nightly dinners.
“Then I am glad you are here to ensure otherwise,” Optimus tells him in that genuinely sweet tone of his, and Ratchet’s anger softens to pride before he scowls and pretends he hadn’t glowed gentle and appreciative for a handful of seconds.
“Yeah, well, someone has to,” Ratchet says, but he’s not fooling anyone. Least of all Jazz.
Ratchet has no other appointments until later this afternoon. Jazz had hacked into Ratchet’s schedule to make sure of it. There’s not going to be anyone to interrupt or bear witness to Jazz trying not to awkwardly stumble through what is surely going to be a painful experience.
He likes Ratchet, he does.
He doesn’t have a fondness for medics is all.
Jazz shows up early, and he knows that’s a mistake immediately because Ratchet gives him a look -- up and down -- instantly calculating.
“You’re the only one I haven’t gotten my hands on despite my many attempts to drag you here,” Ratchet says. “And now here you are, on a schedule I could have sworn was more packed, and early no less.” He raps his fingers over a datapad. “What have you done to yourself?”
Jazz grins, tries to effect a lazy glee as he leans back in a chair, draping himself over the surface as though he hasn’t a care in the world. “I’m in the peak of health, doc,” he drawls. “I actually came to ask for a favor.”
Ratchet gives him a long, steady look and tucks away his datapad. Jazz registers a distant click, the soft hum of recording equipment going silent.
"I'm listening," Ratchet says, having given them as much privacy as he's capable.
"Right," Jazz says and clasps his hands together to stop himself from fiddling. "So you bonded with Optimus before I did."
Ratchet raises his orbital ridges. "Everyone bonded Optimus before you did."
Except Soundwave. But Jazz doesn’t mention that.
"I'm not askin' everyone. I'm askin' you." Jazz cycles a ventilation, ignores the tiny curl of warning at the back of his mind. "So technically one could argue that your rank is higher than mine, yeah?"
Ratchet shifts, and the corner of his mouth twitches as if he's trying to smother a cocky grin. "I'd like to look at it that way, sure," he says until he lets the amusement slip into sobriety. "What's this about, Jazz?"
Jazz rubs his hands down his thighs. "Ya gotta say it, Ratchet." There's an itch at the back of his processor, a tightness trying to wrap around his spark.
Ratchet frowns, his expression darkening, and he scoots closer -- chair drag-screeching across the floor. "I am a higher rank than you," he says, slow and careful, like he's choosing his words. "You are subordinate to me, Jazz. Which means the next time I tell you to show up for a maintenance check, you're going to be here. Understood?"
The tension eases, and Jazz can draw in a vent. "Yes," he says, and bites down on the 'sir' because it isn't necessary. He cycles a ventilation, in and out, half-afraid to meet Ratchet's gaze and see the pity there.
"Good." Ratchet sighs, and his field trickles out, resignation and exasperation and a low-burning anger all coiled within it. "You're lucky I'm old and know exactly what favor you're asking me, though I could've sworn that barbaric practice ended eons ago."
Jazz manages a staticky laugh. "I'm a lot older than ya think I am." His grip on his knees starts to ache, so he peels away his fingers. "And ya should know that if a mech in power can get away with keepin' someone beholden to him, he ain't gonna drop it."
Ratchet makes a noncommittal noise, but it does nothing to calm the rage simmering beneath the surface of his field. “I’ll need to take a look for myself,” he says, a statement, phrasing to suggest a command, while Jazz can read the request between the glyphs.
“I know,” Jazz says. He draws in another vent, hates how it shudders, and taps between his shoulderblades, at the base of his neck. “Medical port’s here.”
“Not in your wrist?” Ratchet asks as he stands and moves to Jazz’s side, staying in his peripheral vision, telegraphing each movement.
Jazz grimaces. “Not anymore. There are better uses for that space.”
“A number of tools fit for a mech of your talents, I’d imagine,” Ratchet says before his hand rests on Jazz’s back, warm against the chill radiating out from Jazz’s core. His thumb brushes upward, brief against Jazz’s nape.
Nausea clenches in Jazz’s tank. He grips his knees again, and doesn’t think about -- Whipstrike will need to teach you how to bow.
“Jazz?”
“M’fine,” he grits out and triggers the protective panel to iris open before Ratchet has to ask. “Do what you have to do.”
“I’ll be quick.”
And he is.
Quick. Professional. His touches don’t linger. He doesn’t make inappropriate comments about how malleable Jazz’s code is, or how sweetly it takes the submission protocols. His hands don’t wander, and neither does his digital presence.
Ratchet goes directly to Jazz’s core coding, examines the intricacies of it, the lines and permissions and commands. He makes a noise behind Jazz, a sound of disgust and offense, not directed at Jazz, before he withdraws, as gently and swiftly as he’d eased into Jazz’s systems in the first place.
“Well?” Jazz asks.
“It’s clever,” Ratchet says as he produces a datapad and starts typing notes into it, optics narrowed with focus. “But not more than us.”
Relief floods Jazz’s lines, but he doesn’t let it go any further. He doesn’t let it show on his face or ring too loudly through his frame. He’s not a coder, he doesn’t know how these things work. He only knows that if he ponders too long on freedom, there’s a whisper, a nudge -- better on your knees, let someone else make the choices, Proteus knows best, you belong to Proteus, you belong to Proteus, you belong to--
Jazz cycles a ventilation.
“You’re in the peak of health,” Ratchet says, his tone a touch too bright to be genuine, but the approval in his words sending a wave of reassurance to that insidious line of code. “Though you are in need of a fuel filter. Stay there. I’ll be right back.”
Ratchet tucks the datapad under his arm and leaves the room before Jazz can protest, not that he would. It might as well have been an order. Stay there, says a mech who is his superior. Technically, technically. So Jazz does.
He sits on the berth, and he doesn’t move. He ventilates, in and out. He’s done what he can. He’s put the knife in someone else’s hands.
Ratchet returns, and when he does, he’s not alone. Jazz’s spark simultaneously flip-flops in his chassis and tries to sink into his tanks. He grips his knees hard enough to dent as a violent war of conflicting impulses scatter through his processor like explosive ordinance.
Tell Optimus Prime nothing.
Optimus’ expression is sober, his lips pressed firmly together, his field withdrawn tight to his frame. There’s a storm in his optics, a rage he can’t suppress, and part of Jazz revels in it. This is the Prime the Senate will not be able to destroy. This is the Prime they are not ready to face.
Ratchet must see the conflict in Jazz’s face or in his field because he barks, “Be still,” and it’s at once a relief and a challenge.
Jazz locks his limbs -- it’s an order from a superior and he’s meant to obey. His vents click-clatter, cycling faster.
“Frag,” Ratchet breathes, and he moves quickly, back beside Jazz, hand on his nape, fingers quick and sure as he slots back into Jazz’s medical port. “This slagging code is insidious. Optimus, stand right there, and when I tell you, say it.”
Optimus shifts, briefly uncomfortable, but he moves in front of Jazz, looks down at him with all the presence of a Prime who bears the Matrix, his field inescapable. “I am sorry,” he says.
Jazz manages a weak grin, his armor clattering. There’s a scrape-scraping at the back of his processor, an itch he can’t soothe, even with Ratchet easing back into his systems, following familiar routes to his core coding.
“Only apologize if this doesn’t work,” Jazz says. “And make sure it can’t happen again.”
"It is an easy vow to make, and with your help, one I am guaranteed to keep," Optimus Prime murmurs.
"Kindly refrain from talking if you please," Ratchet says with a touch of exasperation in his vocals. "This won't work if you insist on being your noble self in the moment."
Amusement twinkles in Optimus' optics. "There is little doubt who is the superior in this room, Ratchet," he says, and Jazz manages a stuttered laugh through the compulsive grip on his spark.
Ratchet's digital presence shouldn't feel like anything, but Jazz swears he can feel Ratchet sifting through his files, peeling open his coding, and tweaking the commands until it responds to his will. He can't remove the coding, Jazz knows this much. It's too firmly intertwined with the coding that helps him function. Their best course of action is to operate within the boundaries of the command strings.
Jazz must have a master, and only that master can free him. Proteus would never do so, but he is not the only mech the coding will obey. Despite what he believes, Proteus is not the most powerful mech on Cybertron. He doesn't even rank in the top ten.
Granted, none of those mechs are interested in freeing Jazz either. None of them, save perhaps Optimus Prime, and he is, of course, the one mech Jazz is forbidden to tell.
Words are important, and a careful mech, a clever mech, can figure out the best way to twist them to his favor.
“Hah,” Ratchet breathes a sound of victory, but it’s not quiet enough to stop Jazz from startling, and then hating himself for that bit of weakness. “There it is. Hiding in a codestring it had no business being near.”
“Cybertronian Standard if you would please,” Optimus says with a glance over Jazz’s shoulder, a touch of affection winding through his field. “You are the only mech in this room with any formal, medical training.”
“He’s found th’ switch,” Jazz says as Ratchet’s digital presence taps on something that sends a low, pulsing thrum through Jazz’s entire digital net.
He shivers, like Ratchet’s wrapped a hand around his spark, not ungentle, but there. Something deep inside screams at him to fight, and Proteus looms over the back of his cortex, phantom hands on his shoulders, sibilant whispers in his audial -- You belong to me, Meister.
“Jazz?”
Optimus reaches for him, but Ratchet snaps a warning, and Optimus rears back, jaw set, optics turning hard. He’s such a gentle spark; he’s going to do such good for Cybertron. Jazz needs to make sure he keeps Optimus alive so he can do it.
Jazz’s resolve firms. He takes the ghost of his current master, and he glares it down. He looks up at Optimus Prime as there’s a jarring pop in his digital mindspace.
“Now, Optimus,” Ratchet hisses.
Optimus inclines his head, squares his shoulders, and says, “I am Optimus Prime, foremost authority on Cybertron, and there is none other above me. You will obey my commands as spoken until such time that I am supplanted by a higher authority or I release you.”
The words slot into place like keys in a lock, one by one, and Jazz ventilates slow and even for the first time in several minutes. He’s dizzy with it, slumping where he sits, fingers aching in their fierce clamp.
“Did it work?” Optimus asks.
“It took the reassignment,” Ratchet says, his free hand resting on Jazz’s shoulder, warm pulses of comfort radiating from his palm. “You're registered as his master now.”
Optimus flinches. “Please do not ever call me that.”
“If you do what you’re supposed to, I won’t need to. There’s one more step, Prime, and you better do it quick, or I’ll rip out your spark myself,” Ratchet snaps, squeezing Jazz’s shoulder.
A shuddering ex-vent precedes Optimus kneeling before Jazz, down to one knee, and Jazz has no choice but to look into Optimus’ blue-blue optics. It feels wrong, for Optimus to kneel in front of him, and Jazz has to resist the urge to throw himself to the floor, to lay flat until he’s further beneath Optimus, as far as he can go.
But Optimus hasn’t demanded it of him, so he can ignore the impulse. He can’t, however, look away. He’s trapped by the sincerity in Optimus’ field, the intent in his gaze.
“I release you from service, Jazz,” Optimus says, his words carrying less the cadence of formality, and something more honest and genuine. “You are no longer beholden to me or any other.”
Jazz does not know what to expect.
When the coding had first been installed, he’d been unconscious. He’d onlined with a weight inside of him, one without physical origin or shape, but an unconscious knowledge that something was different. There was an urge to find Proteus, to bend the knee, and when Proteus looked at him with something akin to triumph, a part of Jazz had felt triumphant as well.
A disgusting, unwelcome part of him. That shared pride churned Jazz’s tanks, but it never showed anywhere Proteus could see it.
He knelt because a small, insidious whisper told him to do so. He fought against the chains, but there was no escaping them. Whipstrike told him as much. Jazz’s own research, whatever he could manage against the restrictions of the coding, confirmed Jazz’s suspicions.
He could not free himself. Only his master could break the chains.
His master.
Optimus’ words filter through the staticky haze of the coding’s angered reprisal. They strike to the very core of a knot of obedience deep within Jazz, and he thinks if the coding itself were sentient, it would scream as the bonds sizzle and snap and turn to dust.
Or at least, he imagines it must look like that.
There’s no physical sign or weight. He doesn’t immediately feel relieved or free, but there’s a tiny spark of hope daring to flicker deep within his spark. He won’t know for sure until he’s standing before Proteus, but Jazz believes it worked.
“Well,” Ratchet says. “As far as I can tell, the coding’s inactive.”
“Can it be reactivated?” Optimus asks quietly, and for a moment -- a moment -- fear runs white-hot through Jazz’s lines. The urge to leap from the berth, dart away from Ratchet, pin his vibroblade in Optimus’ spark runs through Jazz so strongly he has to grip his knees and lock his joints to stop himself.
That’s not what Optimus means, he tells himself fiercely. It’s not.
“Not by the time I’m through with it,” Ratchet grunts, and his grip on Jazz’s shoulder tightens, his digital presence sweeping through Jazz’s code like a wave of divine retribution. “I can’t remove it completely, but I can ruin it to the point it’s worthless.”
“Good,” Optimus says. “I don’t want this to be for naught. I want to ensure we never have to do this again.”
“Yep,” Ratchet says, the agreement of a mech distracted, still ripping and tearing and slicing his way through the insidious code until bits and pieces of it fall behind him like shattered links in a chain.
Jazz draws in a shaky ventilation, slow and careful, one after the other. He peels his fingers from his knees and looks at Optimus -- directly because Optimus is still kneeling -- and manages a thin smile.
“Thanks, Prime,” he manages. “And I ain’t a mech accustomed to saying that kind ‘o thing.”
Optimus rests a hand over his, giving it a gentle pat, his field one of warm reassurance. “It is not something you should thank me for. It is the very least I could do.” He pauses, a flicker of regret winding in the echoes of his field. “I only wish I could have freed you from this before you were bonded to my spark.”
Jazz lifts his shoulders in a shrug, despite Ratchet hissing at him to be still.
--and there it is, a brief moment of panic, Ratchet who he identified as his superior, giving him a command but ah, there it is, Jazz feels no urge to obey, it’s victory, however bittersweet--
“S’alright,” Jazz says. “Better this than the alternative.”
He doesn’t explain: without that bond Jazz might never have trusted Optimus at all.
He doesn’t say: even if it hadn’t worked, Jazz would have rathered Optimus hold his leash than anyone else with the capacity for that power.
He won’t admit: he’ll do anything to protect Optimus now.
“Ratch, you done back there or are we gonna be cabled up all night?” Jazz asks, flashing his visor in a wink at Optimus as a jitter runs through his legs, an urge to flee because he’s feeling far too seen. “Not that I’m opposed to a bit ‘o cabling, here and there, but usually it means I’m having lots more fun than I am right now.”
Ratchet mutters something Jazz can’t quite catch before he says, “I’m as done as I can be without knocking you out--”
“--no thanks,” Jazz interjects.
“--Exactly,” Ratchet continues and his digital presence withdraws, quick and clean, followed by the soft click of him disconnecting from Jazz’s medical port. “So the rest’ll have to be done by a full defrag. I suggest you find somewhere you feel safe.”
He steps back and Jazz rolls his shoulders, his neck, easing away from both Optimus and Ratchet, trying to find some much needed space. He’s raw on the inside, and while he’s under no illusions neither have noticed, he’d like to pretend to have some dignity.
“You can’t remove it completely?” Optimus asks.
Ratchet grunts. “Would that I could. Whoever put this in knew what they were doing. It infiltrated every strand of his code, from the benign to the necessary.” He moves away, giving Jazz more space. “Best I can do is cut out what I can to make it inert.”
Jazz hops down from the berth, rubbing the back of his neck. He traces the nearly-invisible seams of his medical port panel, the ghost of Ratchet’s touch lingering. For all that he’s standing, knees firm beneath him, he feels unsteady.
Somewhere he feels safe.
Jazz honestly isn’t sure he knows what that means.
“All right. That’s all I needed. You’re done. Scoot,” Ratchet says, boldly taking Optimus by the shoulders and marching him to the door. “No more questions. You did your part. Jazz’ll be fine.”
“Of course he will. He’s in the hands of the most skilled medic on Cybertron,” Optimus says.
Ratchet chuffs a vent, but he can’t hide the pride or pleasure in his field. “Optimus Prime, now is not the time for flirting. Get your aft out of here.”
Despite Ratchet’s insistence, Optimus does pause in the doorway, and he looks back at Jazz as though he has something to say before he shakes his head and thinks better of it. Or maybe that’s Ratchet who gives him another push.
“He’ll come to you when he’s ready,” Ratchet barks. “Good night.” He slams his palm on the door panel and closes it in Optimus’ face.
Only Ratchet would be so daring as to outright boss Optimus Prime around. Jazz doesn’t think any of the other Consorts would do it, though he’s reasonably sure he’s seen Chromia put Optimus in his place a time or two. Not that any of the consorts feel intimidated by Optimus anymore, but it does take a certain kind of mech to assert their will over the leader of the entire planet, and Ratchet’s the only one with that special bit of madness.
Ratchet huffs. “There’s well-meaning and then there’s idiotic, and sometimes that damn Prime can’t tell the difference between the two.” He glares at the door, hands on his hips, before he slowly turns back toward Jazz. “I meant what I said. Rest and defrag. You can stay here if you want. The door locks.”
Jazz shakes his head. “Nah. Medbays and I don’t get along too well.”
“Fair enough.” Ratchet stays at the door, his gaze lingering on Jazz. “If there’s anything else you need, comm me. I don’t care what time it is.”
He sketches a salute. “Sure thing, Ratch.”
Ratchet snorts and palms open the door. "Don't you start or I'll ask for it to become a habit."
"Don't threaten me with a good time!" Jazz retorts as Ratchet slips out the door and it closes behind him, panel clicking over to red as it locks.
Not Ratchet locking him in, but locking everyone else out, should Jazz choose. Not that he has any intention of staying in this room.
Somewhere he feels safe?
Jazz lets himself out of the medbay, and thinks to head for his own quarters, but changes his mind halfway there. He's got an apology to deliver. Or something like it.
He gets lucky.
It's early, and Soundwave's still in his quarters rather than out doing whatever it is he does during the day. Communicating with Blaster, probably. Jazz doesn't ask. It's one of those things they just don't talk about.
Jazz can't spill what Jazz doesn't know, etc. It’s not about trust, it’s about minimizing risk. It’s a thing they both understand. Jazz isn’t offended by it. He assumes Soundwave isn’t either.
There’s a lot Soundwave seems to take in stride. Sometimes, Jazz wonders if Soundwave doesn’t have a touch of loyalty coding of his own, or if it’s just the intrinsic nature of a carrier mech showing its face. It’s hard to say, and it’s kind of rude to ask your berthpartner to pop open his panels so you can have a look-see at his core coding. Just in case.
Worry for another time, perhaps. Or not a worry at all. Soundwave doesn’t seem bothered by it, and who’s Jazz to judge?
Jazz lets himself into Soundwave’s suite with practiced ease. At some point, Soundwave stopped trying to keep him out and Jazz interpreted that as tacit permission. After all, Soundwave never actually said “stop breaking into my suite.” He just changes the codes or adds new security measures, and Jazz drools over the challenge.
At this point, it’s foreplay.
Soundwave’s in the sun room, one of many utterly useless rooms each of their suites seem to have in pointless abundance. There’s enough space in the Prime’s manor to put a hefty dent in the homeless crisis, and while Jazz knows Optimus would gladly fling open his doors to let in the social dredges, he’s not yet in the position to do so.
Besides, it’s not like the Prime manor is the only example of excessive waste.
Jazz lingers in the doorway for a moment, under no illusions that Soundwave doesn’t know he’s there, and watches. Soundwave’s seated on the floor, Laserbeak in his lap, and Ravage sprawled in a patch of fake-sunlight nearby. He’s tending to the cassette’s tessalated plating, brushing the delicately flared panels while she purrs with audible delight. She lifts her wing so he can better reach the underside of it, and Soundwave obeys the unspoken request.
It’s a beautifully tranquil moment. A part of Jazz feels he has no business inserting himself into the equation. It’s safer for everyone if he doesn’t get attached because he never knows when he might have to destroy the thing he loves most.
Except he’s free now. He can take those risks, if he’s brave enough. If he’s absolutely certain Proteus’ hold on him is gone for good. He trusts Ratchet and Optimus as much as he can trust anyone, but they’re both fallible. What if they missed something?
And what if he spends the rest of his life alone based on the slimmest possibility that he’s not truly free? Then Proteus would have won, wouldn’t he?
Jazz pushes off the door frame, not wholly confident, but quite indignant over a presumed Proteus victory. “So how much does one gotta pay for that kind of one-on-one service?” Jazz asks as he slinks inside.
Ravage acknowledges him with one briefly unshuttered optic before he goes back to napping. Laserbeak giggles and nudges her wing more firmly into Soundwave’s grip.
“You couldn’t afford it,” she teases.
“Oh, I dunno. I think we could maybe barter somethin’, little wing,” Jazz drawls as he moves up behind Soundwave, draping himself along the larger mech’s back. Soundwave radiates heat and the gentle thrum of his frame is a sweet rhythm.
Jazz drapes his arms over Soundwave’s, nuzzling Soundwave’s helm with his own. “What d’ya say, Soundwave? Think we can exchange some favors?”
Soundwave makes a chastising noise. “Jazz inappropriate,” he says while Laserbeak giggles again.
“Frequently, I’m told,” Jazz purrs against Soundwave’s audial, hitting that frequency he knows is going to resonate all beautifully through Soundwave’s frame. “But I can see you’re busy right now, so I’ll just take myself a nap and wait for you to attend me. You don’t mind, do ya?”
There are layers to his request, and Soundwave is too astute not to pick it up. He hums an agreeable sound, his field drifting to settle around Jazz like a warm blanket.
“My berth is yours,” he offers.
Jazz pecks a kiss on Soundwave’s cheek, lips lingering on the raised weld line of a scar, usually hidden behind a mask. “You’re the best,” he murmurs, field briefly tangling with Soundwave’s in a lover’s caress before he withdraws.
He hadn’t come here with the intention of recharging in Soundwave’s berth and using that opportunity to defrag, but now he can’t think of anywhere else he’d rather go. To his suite alone? Where there’s no one to answer if there’s an error or a glitch? Where he’s helpless?
Or here. With Soundwave. Who won’t bother him. Who will treat him with the same care and protectiveness he does the cassettes in his care. Who understands.
Maybe Soundwave doesn’t know all the particulars. Maybe he doesn’t even need to know. Soundwave’s never asked; Jazz has never offered, and their relationship hasn’t suffered at all for it.
There’s still a risk, Jazz acknowledges. Soundwave has cassettes to protect. He needs to know precisely what’s sharing his berth, no matter what Jazz has done to mitigate the threat. He should know there’s a chance, however slim, that someone might tug on Jazz’s strings, and he’ll have no choice but to respond.
Ratchet’s good. Very good. But Jazz can’t know for sure until he’s standing before Proteus, defying the Senator to his face.
Jazz pauses. Waits.
Nothing.
No twinge, no tug, no whisper. Nothing to suggest he shouldn’t even think of disobeying Proteus. His spark continues spinning. His core temperature remains steady. It’s almost a little too quiet.
Jazz flops into Soundwave’s overlarge berth, half-tuned to the murmur of conversation in the room beyond where Laserbeak teases Soundwave and Ravage occasionally adds smart commentary, and Soundwave indulges them both. Wisps of Soundwave’s field linger in his own, and Soundwave’s been in this suite long enough, it’s seeped into the walls as well.
It shouldn’t be so comfortable, but it is. And it’s a comfort worth protecting. Soundwave is worth protecting.
Jazz offlines his visor and drifts in the dim, lulled by his surroundings, his spark cautiously expanding in his chassis as though tasting the lack of boundaries and tentatively examining the new freedom. His next move depends on how everything shakes out after this defrag, but Jazz is cautiously optimistic.
He has a whole future ahead of him now, and Jazz is going to fight like the Pit to keep Optimus around so he can live it.
***
Universe: Consortium, the Prime’s Consorts
Characters: Jazz/Soundwave, Ratchet, Optimus Prime
Rated: T
Description: Jazz knows he’s a ticking time bomb, and with Optimus getting ready to make his move, it’s time Jazz trusts him enough to get defused.
Words… are important.
Actions speak louder, true, and better reflect the internal thoughts of a mech, but words have power, too.
There is nothing reckless about Optimus Prime. Jazz cannot confuse his gentle, well-meaning spark for weakness. He means what he says, but there’s a quiet calculation in everything he does. He’s deliberate. He’s intentional.
He has plans.
They’ve all been settling. For months now, Optimus has been playing the public game. He’s respectful and quiet, demurring to the Senate, to those in political power, while he watches and he waits and he gathers information.
Optimus is plotting.
He spends days in his office, always with Prowl and Ultra Magnus, often with Starscream, and they plan. He has three of the greatest tactical minds on the planet bonded to his spark, and rather than force them into his berth, he draws upon their expertise.
Prowl, Jazz knows, has no interest in Optimus’ berth. Starscream visits on occasion, but it is rare. Neither of their absences has changed Optimus’ reliance on their expertise. He values their opinion. He trusts their loyalty as deeply as he trusts Ultra Magnus’ loyalty, the only Consort that could be said he chose.
They plot, and they plan, and they scheme, like pieces on an elaborate game board.
Jazz watches them from the vents, quiet, shivering with the refusal to record, venting hard as he shunts their conversations to short-term rather than long-term memory. Optimus plans a great many things, and Jazz knows none of the details, because he can’t share what he doesn’t know.
Tell me his secrets, my Meister. Tell me what he murmurs while curling next to you, Proteus whispered to him, the last order given as Jazz’s freedom was snatched from him. He’d stroked Jazz’s face, heedless of Jazz’s internal shudder, and said, Tell me how to keep him in his place.
Soon, Jazz knows, Optimus will make his first move. He will stir the nest of pitvipers, and they will realize it is not a complacent mech who’s taken the Matrix, but a warrior. They are going to screech in their private homes, and plot against Optimus, and each one of those who think their pawns are in place, will realize they miscalculated.
Sunstreaker has his brother, and no more loyalty to the mech who enslaved him and forced him to bond with the Prime.
Soundwave’s outreach is safe, excised from the need for external funding, a safehouse relocated out from under the Senator’s thumb, and no longer a point of pressure.
Prowl’s sibling is here, too, in the manor, and no more a liability out in Praxus, unguarded and easy prey.
Ironhide and Chromia are bonded. Have been, Jazz knows, since the moment they were reunited and decided they no longer needed to wait. They have their Prime’s permission, their indulgence, and yes, Jazz knows good and well that they share Prime’s berth from time to time.
The stumbling blocks have been reassured, have been won over -- Ratchet and Starscream and Skyfire -- and well, the kid’s the most enthusiastic of the lot. His loyalty has never been in question. He’d been chosen to sow discord with the other Consorts, to be a point of jealousy, but there’s not a disingenuous strut in Hot Rod’s frame.
Then there’s Jazz.
Optimus prepares to make his move, and there is a shadow lurking behind him, a vibroblade poised to strike, and he doesn’t know. Oh, surely he suspects. Optimus Prime is many things, but he is neither an idiot nor a fool. Jazz has told him very little, and that lack of knowledge both keeps him safe and puts him at risk.
Tell me his secrets, and Jazz would rather claw out his spark than obey that command.
Optimus Prime is a good mech, and he can bring Cybertron back from the brink. Jazz believes it more and more, and he can’t do it. He won’t do it.
He thinks of Proteus dangling Optimus’ strings, and his tank churns. He wakes from night purges, feeling the phantom energon tacky on his hands, the weight of his betrayal, and Jazz won’t do it.
“Trust Optimus,” Soundwave tells him one night as their frames are ticking down from exertion, and he’s tracing gentle circles across Jazz’s abdominal plate. His field is earnest, open to prying, but Jazz doesn’t look, because he can’t share what he doesn’t know.
“Do already,” Jazz retorts, a grumble, because he’s drifting off to recharge, and Soundwave is keeping him awake with his rationality.
Soundwave hums, non-committal, and those gentle circles turn to idle swirls up Jazz’s chassis, delicate along his central seam. “Keep him safe,” he says, vocals heavy. Deliberate. “Protect him.” The finger glides along his seam, firmer pressure.
Jazz snaps, grabs his hand, tightens his fingers around the wrist, thumb pressed to a cable that makes Soundwave’s hand go limp. “I know what I said,” he hisses, and his spark flutters, a frantic beat of fear that he knows Soundwave can feel. He hates that he can’t hide it as much as he loves that he doesn’t have to.
It’s been months since Jazz first climbed into Soundwave’s berth, and Soundwave is not as tentative as he was then. Oh, he’s still careful. He recognizes a weapon when he sees one. But he’s not afraid to push.
He’s not afraid of Jazz.
“Let him help,” Soundwave says, as if it’s that simple. He knows nothing because Jazz has told him nothing, couldn’t tell him anything even if he wanted to.
Perhaps he’s reasoned some of it. Soundwave’s network is as far-reaching as Jazz’s own, and he’s spent enough time in the shadows that he probably knows what chains keep Jazz tethered to Proteus. After all, he’s the only one who’s identified Meister and hasn’t paid the price for that knowledge.
Soundwave probably knows.
They’re a lot alike, he and Soundwave. Before they were ever consorts to the Prime trapped in the same circumstances, Jazz recognized a kindred spark. It’s why he made the most reckless decision he’s ever made in his life when he didn’t kill Soundwave. It’s why he let Soundwave keep his secret, and why he wouldn’t let anyone else take Soundwave out either.
Soundwave has no idea. Or maybe he does. Jazz hasn’t asked; Soundwave hasn’t offered. They both like their secrets, their tiny treasures carefully hoarded because one never knows when the right bit of information will turn the tide.
Let him help, Soundwave says as though it’s a mere matter of Optimus summoning a distant sibling and bringing them into the fold. As if bank accounts will break Jazz’s chains. As if Jazz needs only a promise and a genuine effort, and everything will be okay.
“He can’t,” Jazz says as he rolls away from Soundwave and off the berth, landing soundlessly on the floor. “No one can.”
He’s gone before Soundwave can protest, not that Soundwave would. He doesn’t push, he never pries, though Primus knows curiosity has to burn him. Jazz adores Soundwave for his patience as much as it frustrates him.
And…
It’s not strictly true.
Jazz drifts through the hallways, empty this late at night, save for the occasional patrol of Chromia’s well-trained guard. They don’t see him. No one ever does. Jazz has long since memorized their routes, the blind spots in the cameras, the places no one thinks to look.
He could assassinate Optimus Prime tonight and no one would know.
Jazz shudders and goes to the roof. His quarters are too close to Optimus’, and though he doesn’t want to extinguish Optimus’ spark, he doesn’t always know what he’s capable of. What Proteus is capable of making him do.
He’s reasonably sure Proteus can’t give him such an order over the comms. He’s nearly certain Proteus hasn’t buried an order in his subconscious, a sleeper code to kill.
It feels too much like a risk.
Jazz perches on the roof, on the edge, between two horribly elaborate projections that exist for no more purpose than to embrace opulence. They're ugly, in Jazz’s opinion, but he thinks that’s how it is for the obscenely rich -- the uglier it is, the more they think it’s worth. False value.
He frowns and stares up at the moons, drifting further and further away each passing decade. Hah. Jazz can relate. He thinks he’s less and less a person as the decades pass, and soon, he’ll be like Whipstrike. He’ll be a shell of a mech, no longer bothering to fight, just one who obeys.
Gross.
Jazz prods at a loose panel in the roof, finger slipping under and tugging it up, letting it snap back down, before tugging it up again. Tug-snap. Tug-snap.
Optimus could help him.
Jazz has already worked it out. The thing about obedience is that as long as he follows the letter of the order, he can interpret it however he likes. Jazz is forbidden from telling Optimus Prime about his coding. He cannot reveal its existence to anyone, truth be told, but there is room to maneuver.
Technically, Jazz is beholden to those of higher rank than him. Proteus holds his strings, but the coding tugs him this way and that, dipping spindly fingers into his processor, demanding obedience and subservience to anyone above him.
Technically, if Jazz wants to obey the letter of the order, he needs to find someone of higher rank than him who he can trust. It cannot be Optimus Prime. But there’s one other mech who could help Jazz, who together with Optimus, can free him from these shackles.
It’s a chance. It’s a small, carefully calculated chance, and a terrible, terrible risk.
Tug-snap. Tug-snap.
Jazz leaves the loose roof panel alone and looks back at the moons. His fingers itch to hold an instrument. He wants Soundwave to be more than a fun romp in the berth with the only mech he’s sure he can trust.
Optimus is moving into offense soon, and Jazz can’t be the blade that points at his back. He’s running out of time.
Jazz leans back, crossing his arms behind his head, and stares into the vastness of the sky above. He’s running out of time, but he can wait until morning at the least.
Ratchet is where Ratchet always is because he lives in the medical ward. Granted, it’s the size of a small hospital, but still. Jazz wonders what that says about Ratchet’s mental state that the place he feels most comfortable and at home is also the place where he works.
They’ve been living here for months now, and while Ratchet has already put every Consort through their paces, ensuring they are in peak health, he’s had his hands full attending to the staff. Their overall health is a gross negligence on the previous Prime’s part, Ratchet grumbles at their nightly dinners.
“Then I am glad you are here to ensure otherwise,” Optimus tells him in that genuinely sweet tone of his, and Ratchet’s anger softens to pride before he scowls and pretends he hadn’t glowed gentle and appreciative for a handful of seconds.
“Yeah, well, someone has to,” Ratchet says, but he’s not fooling anyone. Least of all Jazz.
Ratchet has no other appointments until later this afternoon. Jazz had hacked into Ratchet’s schedule to make sure of it. There’s not going to be anyone to interrupt or bear witness to Jazz trying not to awkwardly stumble through what is surely going to be a painful experience.
He likes Ratchet, he does.
He doesn’t have a fondness for medics is all.
Jazz shows up early, and he knows that’s a mistake immediately because Ratchet gives him a look -- up and down -- instantly calculating.
“You’re the only one I haven’t gotten my hands on despite my many attempts to drag you here,” Ratchet says. “And now here you are, on a schedule I could have sworn was more packed, and early no less.” He raps his fingers over a datapad. “What have you done to yourself?”
Jazz grins, tries to effect a lazy glee as he leans back in a chair, draping himself over the surface as though he hasn’t a care in the world. “I’m in the peak of health, doc,” he drawls. “I actually came to ask for a favor.”
Ratchet gives him a long, steady look and tucks away his datapad. Jazz registers a distant click, the soft hum of recording equipment going silent.
"I'm listening," Ratchet says, having given them as much privacy as he's capable.
"Right," Jazz says and clasps his hands together to stop himself from fiddling. "So you bonded with Optimus before I did."
Ratchet raises his orbital ridges. "Everyone bonded Optimus before you did."
Except Soundwave. But Jazz doesn’t mention that.
"I'm not askin' everyone. I'm askin' you." Jazz cycles a ventilation, ignores the tiny curl of warning at the back of his mind. "So technically one could argue that your rank is higher than mine, yeah?"
Ratchet shifts, and the corner of his mouth twitches as if he's trying to smother a cocky grin. "I'd like to look at it that way, sure," he says until he lets the amusement slip into sobriety. "What's this about, Jazz?"
Jazz rubs his hands down his thighs. "Ya gotta say it, Ratchet." There's an itch at the back of his processor, a tightness trying to wrap around his spark.
Ratchet frowns, his expression darkening, and he scoots closer -- chair drag-screeching across the floor. "I am a higher rank than you," he says, slow and careful, like he's choosing his words. "You are subordinate to me, Jazz. Which means the next time I tell you to show up for a maintenance check, you're going to be here. Understood?"
The tension eases, and Jazz can draw in a vent. "Yes," he says, and bites down on the 'sir' because it isn't necessary. He cycles a ventilation, in and out, half-afraid to meet Ratchet's gaze and see the pity there.
"Good." Ratchet sighs, and his field trickles out, resignation and exasperation and a low-burning anger all coiled within it. "You're lucky I'm old and know exactly what favor you're asking me, though I could've sworn that barbaric practice ended eons ago."
Jazz manages a staticky laugh. "I'm a lot older than ya think I am." His grip on his knees starts to ache, so he peels away his fingers. "And ya should know that if a mech in power can get away with keepin' someone beholden to him, he ain't gonna drop it."
Ratchet makes a noncommittal noise, but it does nothing to calm the rage simmering beneath the surface of his field. “I’ll need to take a look for myself,” he says, a statement, phrasing to suggest a command, while Jazz can read the request between the glyphs.
“I know,” Jazz says. He draws in another vent, hates how it shudders, and taps between his shoulderblades, at the base of his neck. “Medical port’s here.”
“Not in your wrist?” Ratchet asks as he stands and moves to Jazz’s side, staying in his peripheral vision, telegraphing each movement.
Jazz grimaces. “Not anymore. There are better uses for that space.”
“A number of tools fit for a mech of your talents, I’d imagine,” Ratchet says before his hand rests on Jazz’s back, warm against the chill radiating out from Jazz’s core. His thumb brushes upward, brief against Jazz’s nape.
Nausea clenches in Jazz’s tank. He grips his knees again, and doesn’t think about -- Whipstrike will need to teach you how to bow.
“Jazz?”
“M’fine,” he grits out and triggers the protective panel to iris open before Ratchet has to ask. “Do what you have to do.”
“I’ll be quick.”
And he is.
Quick. Professional. His touches don’t linger. He doesn’t make inappropriate comments about how malleable Jazz’s code is, or how sweetly it takes the submission protocols. His hands don’t wander, and neither does his digital presence.
Ratchet goes directly to Jazz’s core coding, examines the intricacies of it, the lines and permissions and commands. He makes a noise behind Jazz, a sound of disgust and offense, not directed at Jazz, before he withdraws, as gently and swiftly as he’d eased into Jazz’s systems in the first place.
“Well?” Jazz asks.
“It’s clever,” Ratchet says as he produces a datapad and starts typing notes into it, optics narrowed with focus. “But not more than us.”
Relief floods Jazz’s lines, but he doesn’t let it go any further. He doesn’t let it show on his face or ring too loudly through his frame. He’s not a coder, he doesn’t know how these things work. He only knows that if he ponders too long on freedom, there’s a whisper, a nudge -- better on your knees, let someone else make the choices, Proteus knows best, you belong to Proteus, you belong to Proteus, you belong to--
Jazz cycles a ventilation.
“You’re in the peak of health,” Ratchet says, his tone a touch too bright to be genuine, but the approval in his words sending a wave of reassurance to that insidious line of code. “Though you are in need of a fuel filter. Stay there. I’ll be right back.”
Ratchet tucks the datapad under his arm and leaves the room before Jazz can protest, not that he would. It might as well have been an order. Stay there, says a mech who is his superior. Technically, technically. So Jazz does.
He sits on the berth, and he doesn’t move. He ventilates, in and out. He’s done what he can. He’s put the knife in someone else’s hands.
Ratchet returns, and when he does, he’s not alone. Jazz’s spark simultaneously flip-flops in his chassis and tries to sink into his tanks. He grips his knees hard enough to dent as a violent war of conflicting impulses scatter through his processor like explosive ordinance.
Tell Optimus Prime nothing.
Optimus’ expression is sober, his lips pressed firmly together, his field withdrawn tight to his frame. There’s a storm in his optics, a rage he can’t suppress, and part of Jazz revels in it. This is the Prime the Senate will not be able to destroy. This is the Prime they are not ready to face.
Ratchet must see the conflict in Jazz’s face or in his field because he barks, “Be still,” and it’s at once a relief and a challenge.
Jazz locks his limbs -- it’s an order from a superior and he’s meant to obey. His vents click-clatter, cycling faster.
“Frag,” Ratchet breathes, and he moves quickly, back beside Jazz, hand on his nape, fingers quick and sure as he slots back into Jazz’s medical port. “This slagging code is insidious. Optimus, stand right there, and when I tell you, say it.”
Optimus shifts, briefly uncomfortable, but he moves in front of Jazz, looks down at him with all the presence of a Prime who bears the Matrix, his field inescapable. “I am sorry,” he says.
Jazz manages a weak grin, his armor clattering. There’s a scrape-scraping at the back of his processor, an itch he can’t soothe, even with Ratchet easing back into his systems, following familiar routes to his core coding.
“Only apologize if this doesn’t work,” Jazz says. “And make sure it can’t happen again.”
"It is an easy vow to make, and with your help, one I am guaranteed to keep," Optimus Prime murmurs.
"Kindly refrain from talking if you please," Ratchet says with a touch of exasperation in his vocals. "This won't work if you insist on being your noble self in the moment."
Amusement twinkles in Optimus' optics. "There is little doubt who is the superior in this room, Ratchet," he says, and Jazz manages a stuttered laugh through the compulsive grip on his spark.
Ratchet's digital presence shouldn't feel like anything, but Jazz swears he can feel Ratchet sifting through his files, peeling open his coding, and tweaking the commands until it responds to his will. He can't remove the coding, Jazz knows this much. It's too firmly intertwined with the coding that helps him function. Their best course of action is to operate within the boundaries of the command strings.
Jazz must have a master, and only that master can free him. Proteus would never do so, but he is not the only mech the coding will obey. Despite what he believes, Proteus is not the most powerful mech on Cybertron. He doesn't even rank in the top ten.
Granted, none of those mechs are interested in freeing Jazz either. None of them, save perhaps Optimus Prime, and he is, of course, the one mech Jazz is forbidden to tell.
Words are important, and a careful mech, a clever mech, can figure out the best way to twist them to his favor.
“Hah,” Ratchet breathes a sound of victory, but it’s not quiet enough to stop Jazz from startling, and then hating himself for that bit of weakness. “There it is. Hiding in a codestring it had no business being near.”
“Cybertronian Standard if you would please,” Optimus says with a glance over Jazz’s shoulder, a touch of affection winding through his field. “You are the only mech in this room with any formal, medical training.”
“He’s found th’ switch,” Jazz says as Ratchet’s digital presence taps on something that sends a low, pulsing thrum through Jazz’s entire digital net.
He shivers, like Ratchet’s wrapped a hand around his spark, not ungentle, but there. Something deep inside screams at him to fight, and Proteus looms over the back of his cortex, phantom hands on his shoulders, sibilant whispers in his audial -- You belong to me, Meister.
“Jazz?”
Optimus reaches for him, but Ratchet snaps a warning, and Optimus rears back, jaw set, optics turning hard. He’s such a gentle spark; he’s going to do such good for Cybertron. Jazz needs to make sure he keeps Optimus alive so he can do it.
Jazz’s resolve firms. He takes the ghost of his current master, and he glares it down. He looks up at Optimus Prime as there’s a jarring pop in his digital mindspace.
“Now, Optimus,” Ratchet hisses.
Optimus inclines his head, squares his shoulders, and says, “I am Optimus Prime, foremost authority on Cybertron, and there is none other above me. You will obey my commands as spoken until such time that I am supplanted by a higher authority or I release you.”
The words slot into place like keys in a lock, one by one, and Jazz ventilates slow and even for the first time in several minutes. He’s dizzy with it, slumping where he sits, fingers aching in their fierce clamp.
“Did it work?” Optimus asks.
“It took the reassignment,” Ratchet says, his free hand resting on Jazz’s shoulder, warm pulses of comfort radiating from his palm. “You're registered as his master now.”
Optimus flinches. “Please do not ever call me that.”
“If you do what you’re supposed to, I won’t need to. There’s one more step, Prime, and you better do it quick, or I’ll rip out your spark myself,” Ratchet snaps, squeezing Jazz’s shoulder.
A shuddering ex-vent precedes Optimus kneeling before Jazz, down to one knee, and Jazz has no choice but to look into Optimus’ blue-blue optics. It feels wrong, for Optimus to kneel in front of him, and Jazz has to resist the urge to throw himself to the floor, to lay flat until he’s further beneath Optimus, as far as he can go.
But Optimus hasn’t demanded it of him, so he can ignore the impulse. He can’t, however, look away. He’s trapped by the sincerity in Optimus’ field, the intent in his gaze.
“I release you from service, Jazz,” Optimus says, his words carrying less the cadence of formality, and something more honest and genuine. “You are no longer beholden to me or any other.”
Jazz does not know what to expect.
When the coding had first been installed, he’d been unconscious. He’d onlined with a weight inside of him, one without physical origin or shape, but an unconscious knowledge that something was different. There was an urge to find Proteus, to bend the knee, and when Proteus looked at him with something akin to triumph, a part of Jazz had felt triumphant as well.
A disgusting, unwelcome part of him. That shared pride churned Jazz’s tanks, but it never showed anywhere Proteus could see it.
He knelt because a small, insidious whisper told him to do so. He fought against the chains, but there was no escaping them. Whipstrike told him as much. Jazz’s own research, whatever he could manage against the restrictions of the coding, confirmed Jazz’s suspicions.
He could not free himself. Only his master could break the chains.
His master.
Optimus’ words filter through the staticky haze of the coding’s angered reprisal. They strike to the very core of a knot of obedience deep within Jazz, and he thinks if the coding itself were sentient, it would scream as the bonds sizzle and snap and turn to dust.
Or at least, he imagines it must look like that.
There’s no physical sign or weight. He doesn’t immediately feel relieved or free, but there’s a tiny spark of hope daring to flicker deep within his spark. He won’t know for sure until he’s standing before Proteus, but Jazz believes it worked.
“Well,” Ratchet says. “As far as I can tell, the coding’s inactive.”
“Can it be reactivated?” Optimus asks quietly, and for a moment -- a moment -- fear runs white-hot through Jazz’s lines. The urge to leap from the berth, dart away from Ratchet, pin his vibroblade in Optimus’ spark runs through Jazz so strongly he has to grip his knees and lock his joints to stop himself.
That’s not what Optimus means, he tells himself fiercely. It’s not.
“Not by the time I’m through with it,” Ratchet grunts, and his grip on Jazz’s shoulder tightens, his digital presence sweeping through Jazz’s code like a wave of divine retribution. “I can’t remove it completely, but I can ruin it to the point it’s worthless.”
“Good,” Optimus says. “I don’t want this to be for naught. I want to ensure we never have to do this again.”
“Yep,” Ratchet says, the agreement of a mech distracted, still ripping and tearing and slicing his way through the insidious code until bits and pieces of it fall behind him like shattered links in a chain.
Jazz draws in a shaky ventilation, slow and careful, one after the other. He peels his fingers from his knees and looks at Optimus -- directly because Optimus is still kneeling -- and manages a thin smile.
“Thanks, Prime,” he manages. “And I ain’t a mech accustomed to saying that kind ‘o thing.”
Optimus rests a hand over his, giving it a gentle pat, his field one of warm reassurance. “It is not something you should thank me for. It is the very least I could do.” He pauses, a flicker of regret winding in the echoes of his field. “I only wish I could have freed you from this before you were bonded to my spark.”
Jazz lifts his shoulders in a shrug, despite Ratchet hissing at him to be still.
--and there it is, a brief moment of panic, Ratchet who he identified as his superior, giving him a command but ah, there it is, Jazz feels no urge to obey, it’s victory, however bittersweet--
“S’alright,” Jazz says. “Better this than the alternative.”
He doesn’t explain: without that bond Jazz might never have trusted Optimus at all.
He doesn’t say: even if it hadn’t worked, Jazz would have rathered Optimus hold his leash than anyone else with the capacity for that power.
He won’t admit: he’ll do anything to protect Optimus now.
“Ratch, you done back there or are we gonna be cabled up all night?” Jazz asks, flashing his visor in a wink at Optimus as a jitter runs through his legs, an urge to flee because he’s feeling far too seen. “Not that I’m opposed to a bit ‘o cabling, here and there, but usually it means I’m having lots more fun than I am right now.”
Ratchet mutters something Jazz can’t quite catch before he says, “I’m as done as I can be without knocking you out--”
“--no thanks,” Jazz interjects.
“--Exactly,” Ratchet continues and his digital presence withdraws, quick and clean, followed by the soft click of him disconnecting from Jazz’s medical port. “So the rest’ll have to be done by a full defrag. I suggest you find somewhere you feel safe.”
He steps back and Jazz rolls his shoulders, his neck, easing away from both Optimus and Ratchet, trying to find some much needed space. He’s raw on the inside, and while he’s under no illusions neither have noticed, he’d like to pretend to have some dignity.
“You can’t remove it completely?” Optimus asks.
Ratchet grunts. “Would that I could. Whoever put this in knew what they were doing. It infiltrated every strand of his code, from the benign to the necessary.” He moves away, giving Jazz more space. “Best I can do is cut out what I can to make it inert.”
Jazz hops down from the berth, rubbing the back of his neck. He traces the nearly-invisible seams of his medical port panel, the ghost of Ratchet’s touch lingering. For all that he’s standing, knees firm beneath him, he feels unsteady.
Somewhere he feels safe.
Jazz honestly isn’t sure he knows what that means.
“All right. That’s all I needed. You’re done. Scoot,” Ratchet says, boldly taking Optimus by the shoulders and marching him to the door. “No more questions. You did your part. Jazz’ll be fine.”
“Of course he will. He’s in the hands of the most skilled medic on Cybertron,” Optimus says.
Ratchet chuffs a vent, but he can’t hide the pride or pleasure in his field. “Optimus Prime, now is not the time for flirting. Get your aft out of here.”
Despite Ratchet’s insistence, Optimus does pause in the doorway, and he looks back at Jazz as though he has something to say before he shakes his head and thinks better of it. Or maybe that’s Ratchet who gives him another push.
“He’ll come to you when he’s ready,” Ratchet barks. “Good night.” He slams his palm on the door panel and closes it in Optimus’ face.
Only Ratchet would be so daring as to outright boss Optimus Prime around. Jazz doesn’t think any of the other Consorts would do it, though he’s reasonably sure he’s seen Chromia put Optimus in his place a time or two. Not that any of the consorts feel intimidated by Optimus anymore, but it does take a certain kind of mech to assert their will over the leader of the entire planet, and Ratchet’s the only one with that special bit of madness.
Ratchet huffs. “There’s well-meaning and then there’s idiotic, and sometimes that damn Prime can’t tell the difference between the two.” He glares at the door, hands on his hips, before he slowly turns back toward Jazz. “I meant what I said. Rest and defrag. You can stay here if you want. The door locks.”
Jazz shakes his head. “Nah. Medbays and I don’t get along too well.”
“Fair enough.” Ratchet stays at the door, his gaze lingering on Jazz. “If there’s anything else you need, comm me. I don’t care what time it is.”
He sketches a salute. “Sure thing, Ratch.”
Ratchet snorts and palms open the door. "Don't you start or I'll ask for it to become a habit."
"Don't threaten me with a good time!" Jazz retorts as Ratchet slips out the door and it closes behind him, panel clicking over to red as it locks.
Not Ratchet locking him in, but locking everyone else out, should Jazz choose. Not that he has any intention of staying in this room.
Somewhere he feels safe?
Jazz lets himself out of the medbay, and thinks to head for his own quarters, but changes his mind halfway there. He's got an apology to deliver. Or something like it.
He gets lucky.
It's early, and Soundwave's still in his quarters rather than out doing whatever it is he does during the day. Communicating with Blaster, probably. Jazz doesn't ask. It's one of those things they just don't talk about.
Jazz can't spill what Jazz doesn't know, etc. It’s not about trust, it’s about minimizing risk. It’s a thing they both understand. Jazz isn’t offended by it. He assumes Soundwave isn’t either.
There’s a lot Soundwave seems to take in stride. Sometimes, Jazz wonders if Soundwave doesn’t have a touch of loyalty coding of his own, or if it’s just the intrinsic nature of a carrier mech showing its face. It’s hard to say, and it’s kind of rude to ask your berthpartner to pop open his panels so you can have a look-see at his core coding. Just in case.
Worry for another time, perhaps. Or not a worry at all. Soundwave doesn’t seem bothered by it, and who’s Jazz to judge?
Jazz lets himself into Soundwave’s suite with practiced ease. At some point, Soundwave stopped trying to keep him out and Jazz interpreted that as tacit permission. After all, Soundwave never actually said “stop breaking into my suite.” He just changes the codes or adds new security measures, and Jazz drools over the challenge.
At this point, it’s foreplay.
Soundwave’s in the sun room, one of many utterly useless rooms each of their suites seem to have in pointless abundance. There’s enough space in the Prime’s manor to put a hefty dent in the homeless crisis, and while Jazz knows Optimus would gladly fling open his doors to let in the social dredges, he’s not yet in the position to do so.
Besides, it’s not like the Prime manor is the only example of excessive waste.
Jazz lingers in the doorway for a moment, under no illusions that Soundwave doesn’t know he’s there, and watches. Soundwave’s seated on the floor, Laserbeak in his lap, and Ravage sprawled in a patch of fake-sunlight nearby. He’s tending to the cassette’s tessalated plating, brushing the delicately flared panels while she purrs with audible delight. She lifts her wing so he can better reach the underside of it, and Soundwave obeys the unspoken request.
It’s a beautifully tranquil moment. A part of Jazz feels he has no business inserting himself into the equation. It’s safer for everyone if he doesn’t get attached because he never knows when he might have to destroy the thing he loves most.
Except he’s free now. He can take those risks, if he’s brave enough. If he’s absolutely certain Proteus’ hold on him is gone for good. He trusts Ratchet and Optimus as much as he can trust anyone, but they’re both fallible. What if they missed something?
And what if he spends the rest of his life alone based on the slimmest possibility that he’s not truly free? Then Proteus would have won, wouldn’t he?
Jazz pushes off the door frame, not wholly confident, but quite indignant over a presumed Proteus victory. “So how much does one gotta pay for that kind of one-on-one service?” Jazz asks as he slinks inside.
Ravage acknowledges him with one briefly unshuttered optic before he goes back to napping. Laserbeak giggles and nudges her wing more firmly into Soundwave’s grip.
“You couldn’t afford it,” she teases.
“Oh, I dunno. I think we could maybe barter somethin’, little wing,” Jazz drawls as he moves up behind Soundwave, draping himself along the larger mech’s back. Soundwave radiates heat and the gentle thrum of his frame is a sweet rhythm.
Jazz drapes his arms over Soundwave’s, nuzzling Soundwave’s helm with his own. “What d’ya say, Soundwave? Think we can exchange some favors?”
Soundwave makes a chastising noise. “Jazz inappropriate,” he says while Laserbeak giggles again.
“Frequently, I’m told,” Jazz purrs against Soundwave’s audial, hitting that frequency he knows is going to resonate all beautifully through Soundwave’s frame. “But I can see you’re busy right now, so I’ll just take myself a nap and wait for you to attend me. You don’t mind, do ya?”
There are layers to his request, and Soundwave is too astute not to pick it up. He hums an agreeable sound, his field drifting to settle around Jazz like a warm blanket.
“My berth is yours,” he offers.
Jazz pecks a kiss on Soundwave’s cheek, lips lingering on the raised weld line of a scar, usually hidden behind a mask. “You’re the best,” he murmurs, field briefly tangling with Soundwave’s in a lover’s caress before he withdraws.
He hadn’t come here with the intention of recharging in Soundwave’s berth and using that opportunity to defrag, but now he can’t think of anywhere else he’d rather go. To his suite alone? Where there’s no one to answer if there’s an error or a glitch? Where he’s helpless?
Or here. With Soundwave. Who won’t bother him. Who will treat him with the same care and protectiveness he does the cassettes in his care. Who understands.
Maybe Soundwave doesn’t know all the particulars. Maybe he doesn’t even need to know. Soundwave’s never asked; Jazz has never offered, and their relationship hasn’t suffered at all for it.
There’s still a risk, Jazz acknowledges. Soundwave has cassettes to protect. He needs to know precisely what’s sharing his berth, no matter what Jazz has done to mitigate the threat. He should know there’s a chance, however slim, that someone might tug on Jazz’s strings, and he’ll have no choice but to respond.
Ratchet’s good. Very good. But Jazz can’t know for sure until he’s standing before Proteus, defying the Senator to his face.
Jazz pauses. Waits.
Nothing.
No twinge, no tug, no whisper. Nothing to suggest he shouldn’t even think of disobeying Proteus. His spark continues spinning. His core temperature remains steady. It’s almost a little too quiet.
Jazz flops into Soundwave’s overlarge berth, half-tuned to the murmur of conversation in the room beyond where Laserbeak teases Soundwave and Ravage occasionally adds smart commentary, and Soundwave indulges them both. Wisps of Soundwave’s field linger in his own, and Soundwave’s been in this suite long enough, it’s seeped into the walls as well.
It shouldn’t be so comfortable, but it is. And it’s a comfort worth protecting. Soundwave is worth protecting.
Jazz offlines his visor and drifts in the dim, lulled by his surroundings, his spark cautiously expanding in his chassis as though tasting the lack of boundaries and tentatively examining the new freedom. His next move depends on how everything shakes out after this defrag, but Jazz is cautiously optimistic.
He has a whole future ahead of him now, and Jazz is going to fight like the Pit to keep Optimus around so he can live it.
