a/n: this is supposed to fit into lost light #20, but like a slightly different #20 where they have a little bit of free time

Bored, stressed, and looking for a way to both kill time and distract themselves, Krok and Nautica happened to pass each other in the hallway and she had stopped him to ask for his perspective on Towards Peace, among other Decepticon literature, since she'd never had the opportunity to hear a point of view like his. With Swerve, Spinister and Nickel busy scrambling around the Mederi center medibay, Grimlock and Crankcase aboard the Lost Light, and Fulcrum busy making himself useful, lonely Misfire parked himself across the hall from Krok and Nautica, sitting cross legged on the ground and inspecting the grime in the seams of his hands, doing his best not to interrupt while the other two stood and talked because he realized he'd never actually heard Krok discuss the topic so obviously relevant to their lives and was genuinely curious about what he had to say. Now Misfire generally thought that any conversational topic was compelling, but Krok and Nautica were dissecting some specific passage from an obscure response to Towards Peace and he felt totally lost. Eventually a brief

silence fell and Misfire sprung at the chance to change the subject.

"Hey, Nautica." He nodded in her direction. "What's with the name? It's not exactly a word."

"Oh," her body language changed subtly, her mildly relaxed stance shifting to discomfort. "It's from my alt mode. I'm a deep water submarine-" her thousandth recital of her practically scripted explanation was cut short.

"Actually, let me guess-You just so happen to be extremely picky about phonetics." For some reason totally confident in his assumption, Misfire gracefully transitioned his fingers from a snap to finger guns, aimed at her.

Nautica assumed an expression of total disbelief. "Y-yes! It's just that I have to hear it so often, I'd prefer it sound appealing..."

"Hey, I'm no stranger to that. I have a name like the one you used to have, you know, because of my alt mode. My nickname was honorably bestowed upon me due to an utterly embarrassing incident, but I kept it, partially just because it sounds good as hell."

"Oh? What's your other name?" Nautica's unquenchable thirst for knowledge overrode her social courtesy. Thankfully, Misfire didn't mind.

"Flyhigh. I know, I know, it's pretty cute..."

"So, wait-" Suddenly feeling more invested in getting to the bottom of Misfire's mystery than resuming her conversation with Krok, Nautica took a step back to reconstruct the sequence of events based on the context clues she'd been provided. "You made some massive mistake, I'm assuming with a gun-"

"Yeah."

"-and people ridiculed you, called you names, and you just decided...that's me now?"

"Well, yeah."

Nautica looked utterly perplexed, silently cross-examining Misfire's patchy story with one she knew much better. "Why?"

Misfire smiled. "There's something about a self-deprecatory title, I don't know exactly how to articulate it. It's kinda hard for people to bother you when you blatantly admit and accept what's wrong with you, you know? It's empowering, for me at least. Plus, it's just more accurate. I wasn't flying high at all, but with a new name I had a chance to try and be something else."

"Like the Curator." Nautica noted. Both Scavengers nodded in agreement.

"It might not sound like it, but he's being too sensitive." Krok assured Nautica, rolling his eyes. "Why don't you tell her about your quest to earn the right to retire your nickname? All that stuff about being successful enough to have everyone call you Flyhigh again?"

"Hey!" Misfire booted Krok in the shin. "Not cool! That's confidential!" He pouted pathetically, continuing the shin kickings to emphasize his words. "You don't get to tell her that when you haven't volunteered the fact that you named yourself after your! DEAD! PET!"

Nautica couldn't help but laugh at that. She tried desperately to hide her face behind her hands. "By the Primes-You've got to be joking!"

Krok crossed his arms and turned away. "Oh please. First of all, Misfire, I think what you're doing is admirable, don't be so embarrassed. And at least I didn't chose my named based on something as superficial as its damn phonetics."

Misfire could sense how insulted Nautica felt at that comment and scrambled to defuse the situation before it got worse. "See, we've all got weird names. Nothing wrong with that. They're unique. It's endearing."

Nautica quietly parroted his word to herself. "Endearing..." She tapped her lip pensively. She'd certainly become more endeared to Misfire in the little amount of time they'd been talking. Maybe it would be wise to follow his spontaneous example. "Did you hate 'Misfire' when they first started calling you that?"

"Big time. It was pretty soul crushing."

Nautica's gaze fell to the floor. She got a look like she was deep in thought and had been for hours, but quickly snapped out of it. "I have a name I hate too, actually-"

"Oh!" Misfire's slowly eroding posture sprung back to life. "Do tell!"

"It's-" Nautica buried her face in her hands but managed to power through. "It's 'Naughty Nautica'."

"I can only imagine how you got stuck with that." Misfire smiled.

"Misfire." Krok rolled his eyes.

"Sorry! Kidding!"

Nautica snorted at Misfire's antics and explained herself. "Caminus is a very creative society, but I never bothered with art. I mean, I studied it plenty, but making it is a different story. I wanted to be a quantum mechanic, but no one thought too highly of that."

"Sounds like you were bullied." Krok stated, since Nautica seemed shy to admit it.

"Oh, I wouldn't call it b-"

"Nautica." Krok stared her in the eyes and assumed a commanding yet supportive tone. "Really think about it."

It took her a moment to agree. She wanted to give her situation the benefit of the doubt, but Krok was right. "Yeah. I was bullied. Any time I was reading-Which was most of the time-They'd ask me if it was a screenplay for a film or some other blueprint of an art project and would insult me when it wasn't. A few of my friends-Like Velocity, she's here with us-Had inartistic aspirations too, but it sort of feels like they got away with it because...ugh. Because they at least tried to fit in? Velocity went to school for the performing arts before I convinced her to go to medical school. I was always too busy studying my own interests to be bothered with pretending to be someone I'm not...So they stuck me with that awful nickname."

"But you became a mechanic anyway?"

"Of course."

"Nautica! That's amazing! You should be proud!" Misfire rose to his feet, assuming a pose not unlike the moment when Megatron first declared war or when Rodimus announced that he was off to find the Knights of Cybertron. "You never gave up and became the best damned quantum mechanic in the galaxy-"

"Okay, I don't know about-" Nautica's started turning blue from the energon pooling beneath it.

"No! You're the best! You sound crazy smart. I bet you've read more books that all of Cybertron has ever even authored. Even when everyone told you that you were wasting your time with that stuff!" Nautica pulled down her visor and hid behind her hands. "You refused to be anything but yourself in the face of adversity-come on, Nautica. Do you have any idea what kind of strength that takes?!"

"...A lot?" Nautica timidly moved one of her fingers to the side to peek at Misfire.

"A fucking lot!" Misfire shook her. He exhaled and stepped away from her. "It's like this...Krok decided to it was important to honor his dear Gatoraider no matter how much ridicule he'd receive. Which has been a lot, by the way. Immortalized in a very popular stand up special and everything. They called me Misfire to try and break my spirit, but I've been practicing and I can hit my targets like, a third of the time now. Literally and metaphorically. When they call you Naughty Nautica, all they're saying is that they're afraid of how unapologetically self-determined you are. They're jealous cuz deep down I bet a whoooole lot of them wished they were as brave you."

Nautica sheepishly released her face but held her arms close to her body, her gaze locked to the floor. "You really think so?"

"It's a working theory. I'm not from Caminus, obviously. But people are people everywhere, so it seems likely, right?"

Nautica had formulated a reply but was cut off when loud, impending footsteps stopped before them.

"There you are. All three of you have friends who are more than overwhelmed in the medibay and could use a little moral support on their brief upcoming breaks." Ultra Magnus stated, fists held firmly to his sides.

"Alright, alright, not like we're busy..." Misfire fluttered past him in an attempt to avoid confrontation.

"Right away, sir." Krok nodded at Magnus and went on his way. "See you, Naughty."

Magnus restrained Nautica by holding his arm in her way. The moment the Scavengers were out of earshot, he whispered, "'Naughty'...? If they're being a nuisance, just let me know and I'll have them reprimanded."

Nautica smiled and waved at him dismissively as she walked off. "Don't worry about it."