otes: Thanks to yankeesailor for beta'ing like always and putting up with my random squeeing. Also, thanks to purajo for giving me with bunny.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters within, nor am I making any money off of this story. All I own are the twisted ideas floating around in my head.
Respect cannot be learned, purchased or acquired - it can only be earned.
-- Unknown
The Elite Guard had been on Earth for a few weeks now and each member had…endeared themselves to the Autobots in their own special way. Sentinel Prime had continued to needle and harass Optimus Prime until the red and blue mech was at the end of his patience. No one dared to raise an objection in Ultra Magnus's presence however. You just didn't complain in front of Old Thunderstaff. So Sentinel wasn't winning any popularity contests and had managed to send the normally even-tempered Bulkhead into an all-out froth more than three times in the past week alone.
The one mech wrecking crew was currently repairing the wall leading into Prowl's personal sanctuary that he'd accidentally torn down during his last scuffle with the Elite Guard. Normally, Prowl didn't mind the over-eager mech but Ultra Magnus had ordered Sentinel to help Bulkhead with the repairs so the air was filled with snarled insults and growls from the two mechs.
It was grating on Prowl's last nerve. He'd retreated to his room to try and meditate and those two Sparklings were disrupting the precarious hold he had on his own temper. Prowl had his own problems to worry about. The full extent of them could be summed up in one word.
Jazz.
The cyberninja had thought he'd gotten over his woeful case of Hero Worship vorns ago. Back on Cybertron, the name Jazz was whispered with an almost god-like reverence and Prowl had constantly sought to surpass the famous records the Elite Guard had set in his time at the cyberninja academy. Only the most promising were accepted into the school and Jazz had been constantly used as an example of how a perfect cyberninja was supposed to perform. The famous mech had demonstrated the best examples of their philosophy--calmness in battle, the ability to sink into your surroundings and the world around you, and above all else, a respect for the very spark of life that existed all around.
Prowl had both idolized and reviled Jazz's reputation at the same time. There had never been any question that he was a gifted student, but the masters had seen from the very beginning how Prowl's constant pushing and demands on himself had taken him further and further away from the ideals they taught. In striving to become the best, Prowl had inadvertently stepped off the path and had paid the ultimate price for it.
Leaving the academy shamed and wrestling to find some inner peace, Prowl had thought he'd put his foolish need to stand on equal ground with Jazz behind him. But now that he was living in close quarters with the famous cyberninja, Prowl was coming to realize he still harbored those dangerous emotions and the need to prove himself.
To complicate things, Jazz seemed to take special pleasure in Prowl's company and was constantly seeking him out and trying to get the reticent ninja to chat with him.
This afternoon, Bumblebee was hanging around with Bulkhead as he and Sentinel patched up the ruined walls.
"I finally figured you out," Jazz's voice easily carried through the air over Prowl's head, and the black 'bot looked up to find Jazz grinning down at him from the limb of Prowl's tree.
The motorcycle fought the urge to twitch at seeing Jazz's feet smashing the delicate fall of moss that clung to the sturdy limb. "Get down," Prowl grumbled.
Jazz gave him a quizzical look but gracefully leapt down to land in the cyberninja's personal domain. He looked around unashamedly. "Wow, nice. I like it," he smiled at Prowl and stepped silently over to where his fellow ninja was seated in a meditative position.
"Did you need something?"
"Yeah, I said I figured you out?"
"… figured me out?" Prowl knew he sounded rude and somewhat juvenile but he just couldn't seem to properly modulate his vocal processors when he talked to Jazz. Either he sound brusque or he ended up sounding all husky and using a tone that was not socially acceptable. It wasn't the sports car's fault Prowl was wrestling with his own emotions and the Sparkling--how he hated to even THINK the word--crush… he seemed to have for the other cyberninja. Prowl just didn't understand his own feelings on the subject and Jazz's very presence was upsetting the precarious inner peace Prowl had been trying to attain all afternoon.
"Yep." Another brilliant smile was granted to Prowl. "I remember you now." Jazz watched his fellow cyberninja from beneath the shielded safety of his optic visor and he did not miss the nearly imperceptible way Prowl stiffened.
"We've never met before so I assure you that you're wrong."
"Nope, but I remember hearing about you from the Academy. You're the one who was out to beat all my old records, weren't you? The masters told me about you. Told me you were a bit of an arrogant slaghead but had a good spark."
Prowl's fingers flexed slightly atop his knees and he glanced at Jazz from the corners of his optics. "Rumors aren't always true."
"But he's still a slaghead," Bumblebee put in from the other side of the wall. There was the unmistakable sound of metal hitting metal as Bulkhead no doubt whapped his friend upside the head.
"Whad'ya go and do that for!?"
"Shhh! Now we're never going to hear about Prowl's time at the academy." Bulkhead muttered.
"Oh."
"Didn't your creators tell you it was rude to eavesdrop?" Prowl snapped.
Bulkhead and Bumblebee poked their heads around the doorframe and grinned sheepishly at the irritated ninjabot. "Sorry, Prowl."
"Ya can't blame us for being curious though," Bumblebee pointed out and grinned at Jazz. "So you knew Prowl from the ninja academy thingie?"
"I knew of him," Jazz hedged and didn't miss the glower Prowl sent his way.
"So! Tell us about him? He's really closed-mouthed about his past, won't say a word."
"A mech's entitled to his secrets, Bumblebee. Sorry, can't help ya there." Shrugging helplessly, Jazz shook his head with a wry glance at Prowl.
"Hrmph. If you're going to talk about me like I'm not in the room, could you at least not do it in my own quarters?" Prowl climbed to his feet and frowned at the three of them.
"Sorry, Prowl." Jazz moved to apologize but the other cyberninja abruptly leapt for the tree and swung up out of the hole in the ceiling with enviable grace.
"He does that a lot. You get used to it," Bee offered helpfully.
"I see." The Elite Guard seemed to mull something over for a moment before he moved to follow the motorcycle.
"Jeeze. Cyberninjas." Bulkhead mumbled as Jazz disappeared through the ceiling.
"You get used to it," Sentinel spoke for the first time. There was a wry tone in his voice that told the repair bots Jazz had a habit of doing that. The fact that the sullen Elite Guard had even deigned to talk to them, much less in a non-condescending way, was startling.
Bulkhead exchanged a look with Bumblebee and the two just shrugged and turned back to their repairs.
It took Jazz almost twenty minutes to track Prowl down. He found his respect for the younger mech increasing when he realized he'd walked right past his position three times without noticing. The forth time, it was a bird's flickering shadow that alerted Jazz to the ninjabot's presence in the treetops. Jazz pretended he didn't see Prowl and continued to walk down the path. Once he was certain he was out of Prowl's line of sight, Jazz leapt into the trees and slunk through branches.
He had to give Prowl credit--the black and gold mech didn't even flinch when Jazz landed beside him with a sunny grin. "So, what's up?"
Prowl looked at him sharply. "Are you stalking me?"
"Depends. You wanted me to follow you, right?"
"I did not."
"Really. Sure looked like an invitation to me. Otherwise you wouldn't have made such an effort to hide from me."
"Did it ever occur to you that I might not wish to be found?" Prowl drawled.
"Yeah, but if that were the case you prolly would have left the base rather then skulking around in the shadows."
"I was not skulking!"
"Hmmn, my mistake." Shrugging off-handedly, Jazz tilted his head and looked at Prowl from beneath that unreadable visor. "So were you just trying to test your skills against mine then? It's been a while since I had a good game of, what is it the Terrans call it... hide and seek?"
"What do you want from me, Jazz?"
"It's more like what do you want from me, Prowl." Smirking, the Elite Guard crossed his arms over his chest as Prowl tried to keep from staring too much. Curse the slagger. Surely he'd noticed Prowl's discomfort!? Now he was just teasing him to be cruel.
It was beginning to piss Prowl off.
But at least it was helping to burn any traces of foolish crushes or equally stupid attraction out of his mind. "Stop toying with me, Jazz, I don't appreciate it."
"What would you appreciate then?"
"Can you say something without making it into a question?"
"I don't know, can I?" Now he was just being obnoxious.
It was beneath Prowl's dignity to huff so he just shot Jazz a venomous look and shifted to jump down from the tree. The black and white snagged his wrist before he could move and held Prowl's arm in a loose grip. "Wait, stop running from me, Prowl."
"I'm not running. And kindly let go of my arm."
Jazz dropped his arm and just studied him with that inscrutable visor. "What did I do to offend you then?"
"What? You didn't offend me." Puzzled and a little unsure, Prowl rocked back on is heels as far as he could without slipping from the branch.
"No offense, Prowl, but that's a load of slag. You've been itching to get away from me the moment you met me. So what's bothering you? I'd like for us to be friends. It's been a while since I've been around someone who studied the same arts as I."
Prowl felt a sting of guilt. He had been undeniably rude and his own sense of honor demanded he apologize for that. "I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention."
"It's okay, I just didn't want to make you uncomfortable."
"That's not it," Prowl leapt down to the soft grass below and looked up at Jazz. "You wanted to talk with me?"
"Yeah," Jazz grinned and followed him. "Or maybe we could spar or something. I'm half afraid I've gotten rusty since I joined Ultra Magnus's guard." A wry, self-recriminating little smile tugged at the corners of Jazz's lips. "Might do me good to have a challenge. And maybe I could show ya a thing or two you might not have picked up in the academy."
Pride warred with excitement. Prowl wasn't sure how he felt about being offered to be tutored by the mech who's reputation he'd spent most of his adult life trying to surpass. But on the other hand, when would he get a chance to spar with his former idol? He knew he'd end up kicking himself if he let such a rare opportunity pass him by.
A fleeting smile curved the normally set lines of Prowl's lip components and he nodded. "I would like that."
Jazz's visor flashed eagerly and he fell into a fighting stance, they were far enough in the woods to keep them out of sight of prying eyes and passing bystanders. . Prowl mirrored him and the two spent an astroclick just assessing the other. Each was looking for flaws or possible weaknesses in their opponent's stance. To the casual outsider, they appeared as still and lifeless as statues--then, quicker than the eye could follow, the two cyberninjas closed the distance. Blows were exchanged and glancing. Neither used their full strength. The point of the exercise wasn't to harm the other but rather to challenge themselves.
They seemed to flicker and only the clang of metal striking metal rung through the wooded area. There were no flashy dramatics or taunts. Both were too well-trained to make a noise and neither made the mistake of underestimating the other. Prowl might not have been a fully trained cyberninja but Jazz was a little rusty like he'd proclaimed. The motorcycle saw an opening in Jazz's guard and he punched, sending the Elite Guard flying back.
It hadn't been a very strong punch but Jazz just hadn't been expecting it and he rubbed his midsection where black paint was scraped across his metal skin. "Nice," he grinned and lunged at Prowl, who suddenly found himself on the defensive as Jazz drove him back with a flurry of kicks and punches. It was all he could do to defend against the tall mech's sudden aggression. The sliding brush of Jazz's hand along the sensitive panels on his back had Prowl stumbling back.
Jazz smirked at him. Prowl glowered and they moved together as one, exchanging a few more 'love-taps' before falling back. With a smirk, Prowl unsheathed one of his stars and tossed it at Jazz. The sports car made a noise and deflected the star with a hastily drawn nunchuck. "We gonna play it that way, are we?"
It was Prowl's turn to smirk as he fanned a gleaming handful of those golden stars between his fingers.
"Heh, okay, if that's how ya wanna play it," Jazz grinned and approached the other cyberninja. Up to this point he'd only been playing but now that Prowl was upping the ante, the Elite Guard buckled down and got serious about the spar. Prowl was at a disadvantage in close combat but Jazz had to be very careful of his surroundings to make sure he didn't tangle his weapons in a low-hanging branch or throw off his rhythm. Jazz had to keep his attention split between Prowl and the weapon, which gave the motorcycle an advantage in speed and reaction time.
But even when Jazz was pulling his punches, it fragging hurt to get knocked with those nunchucks. Prowl ended up toppling onto his aft, dizzy and over-balanced, after catching a stray nunchuck to the side of the head.
"Oh frag, sorry!" Jazz knelt down next to Prowl when the black and gold ninja went crashing down. He dropped his nunchucks on the ground and gingerly reached out to turn the other mech's head to the side so he could inspect the wound. "You okay, Prowl?"
The black and gold ninjabot's optics flickered for a moment as he stared up at Jazz. The genuine concern he saw on the other mech's face touched him and he almost felt guilty for what he was about to do.
Almost.
Prowl's hands snaked up to grab Jazz's forearms and he flipped the other ninja over his head. He rolled after the sports car and grabbed the discarded nunchucks. As Jazz tried to process just where exactly he'd lost the control of the situation, Prowl pinned him down with his own nunchucks pressing across his neck. There was a fierce gleam in Prowl's optics, the first real sign of passion and excitement the other mech had ever shown in Jazz's presence.
The sports car rather liked it.
"Not what I had in mind, but I'm game," Jazz murmured cockily. Dark hands rose to rest on the servos of Prowl's hips. The motorcycle was understandably wary and paranoid that Jazz was going to wait until he dropped his guard and revisit his trick upon him.
Prowl's grip on the stolen nunchucks tightened fractionally, as did the pressure on Jazz's neck.
"Didn't take you for kinky, though." How had Jazz managed to pick up so much human vernacular in a few short weeks?
"Do you ever shut up?" Prowl growled. He was surprised to hear the husky, low quality of his voice and the slight brightening of Jazz's optic visor told Prowl he had not missed the tone either.
"Sure I can, whatcha gonna do about it, though?" There was an unmistakable challenge in the Elite Guard's tone and the knowing smirk curving his lips just got under Prowl's armor.
"Hrmph." It was inevitable perhaps. There was an undeniable pull between them and the distance seemed to close at an agonizing rate until Prowl's face was hovering over Jazz's. The circulation of air through their vents charged the air between them with a subtle energy.
With Prowl's lips hovering painfully close to his own, the sensors embedded in Jazz's metal skin could all but feel the ghost sensation of imagined pressure. But Prowl remained still and just out of range. Jazz moved to lift his head so he could complete the kiss only to find his way blocked by the nunchucks. Realization flickered through Jazz's mind and he found his respect for the other cyberninja just rising even higher.
A ragged circulation of air cycled through Jazz's vents as he shot Prowl an accusing look. The silent 'Get on with it already!' hung between them and Prowl merely quirked his lips up in a faint smile. "Prowl," Jazz flexed his fingers against the black and gold mech's hips impatiently. "If you don't finish this, I will--" His threat was cut off by Prowl's lips finally pressing firmly to his own.
Jazz honestly hadn't known what to expect when Prowl kissed him. The other mech could be surprisingly uptight and cold so the Elite Guard had been half expecting the gesture to be clinical and dispassionate. He was happily revising his opinion on Prowl, however, because there was nothing cold or clinical about the way the other mech's lips moved against his.
Prowl wasn't sure exactly he was going with this. It was one thing to indulge in the heady thrill of realizing he'd temporarily bested the famous Jazz. It was another thing all together to pin him down and kiss him like some over-eager Sparkling. The cyberninja wasn't sure where this unexpected urge and desire had sprung from, but Jazz was hardly protesting so Prowl decided to indulge himself a little longer.
The motorcycle was just beginning to get into things when he felt Jazz's grip shift and he suddenly found himself flipped over and their positions reversed as Jazz pinned him down.
Jazz did something quick and graceful with his hands and Prowl suddenly felt the cord of his stolen nunchucks tightening around his wrists. Surprise flared through him and he jerked away from Jazz's lips when he found his arms tied and pinned above his head by one of Jazz's hands.
"Now, this is the proper way to restrain someone. I get the feeling they didn't teach you this in the academy either, am I right?" With a slinky smile, Jazz shifted his stance until he'd straddled Prowl's legs and pinned them beneath his greater weight. Prowl just glowered up at him though there was a flustered gleam in his optics. "Shall I continue?" the Elite Guard nuzzled at Prowl's jawline briefly before nibbling at the sensitive edge of the darker mech's helmet.
That garnered him a strangled sound from Prowl and Jazz smirked to himself. This was turning out to be much more interesting than a simple sparring session. It had been a long time since Jazz had been with a fellow cyberninja and it was nice to be with someone sensitive enough to appreciate the little movements and touches he put into the situation. They were built to be hyper-aware and sensitive to their surroundings and that sensitivity had a nice fringe benefit when it spilled over into the recharge berth.
"Yes, please, continue," Prowl finally managed to breathe. His vocalizer was threatening to fritz out on him but that was the least of his concerns at the moment. "I'm always eager to learn—ohh…" Prowl broke off with a startled moan when Jazz did something clever with his fingers of his free hand.
Jazz chuckled low and appreciatively. "Oh, you just made my day, Prowl." He grinned and lowered his head to kiss Prowl again and was delighted when the dark ninja kissed him back. This promised to be a very interesting afternoon indeed!