Title: Built Bridge: The Piano.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Hasbro owns all of these characters and they're all the better because of it.
Summary: This is my first in the Built Bridges series. In an Armada-verse in which the Decepticons and Autobots have called a truce, but they're still on Earth because they haven't finished building their ship (singular) yet. This is a one-shot between Rad and Megatron. Partially because Mrs. Bumblebee and MissCHSparkles keep asking for these two in a fic, but also because the idea bares merit in some insane little nook or cranny of my mind. This fic is dedicated to them. Live long and prosper.
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Megatron had been extremely reluctant to move into the Autobot Earth base, to say the least. In fact, he'd near out-right refused until his conscience that oddly had the exact same voice as Demolisher spoke up and said it would help with relations among the troops. Also, the voice had pointed out rather teasingly, it would make Prime happy enough to stop bothering Megatron on the tiniest little things for a short while.
The voice had obviously neglected to remind the ex-tyrant that the Autobot base was kind of the unofficial hang-out to the Autobots' pet squishies. A fact he'd immediately remembered when, an hour after his men and him had settled into their new and surprisingly pristine rooms, three Mini-cons had marched right into his room and started listing some important rules to him. Not one of these three Mini-cons was afraid of him, or even appeared to be. The one who was obviously the head of this gestalt unit just looked directly into his bloody red optics and said what needed to be said. Megatron could not step on the humans, could not flick them across anything, could not grab them and start playing with them like toys, could not yell at them (unless in a disciplinary action), could not walk in on them in the wash wracks if they were using them (especially the female), could not under any circumstances give them Energon for food (it could kill them in seconds) and most importantly, could not treat them as though they were stupid.
And then, before Megatron could say anything and in a show of bravery never shown by any Mini-con before them, the gestalt unit gave him a little nod of the head and left to go lay out the rules to the rest of Megatron's men.
Now, three days later, the commander of all Decepticons stood next to Optimus Prime as two of the organic younglings came in from the warp gate with Sideswipe and something attached to Sideswipe's vehicle modes' roof, via ropes and what looked like little plastic bubbles on sheets.
"Prime, I still don't see the purpose of you sending your men out to pick up useless human objects," Megatron said, leaning just a little into the blue and red semi, in a lower voice than strictly necessary.
Optimus' optics seemed to shine with a sort of mischief in response, "I know. You've told me that exactly seven times now. However, this "useless object" makes very beautiful music, according to Rad and Alexis, so I thought, why not? And anyway, I needed Sideswipe out for a while so Red Alert could do his experiments without the risk of being startled and blowing something up."
"Ah. Understood," The horned mech said. And he did understand, if the medic was anything like Wheeljack or, Primus forbid, Cyclonus with his secretive works then he could expect be privy to at least one explosion a week thanks to the rookie in blue.
The blonde fleshling was attempting to untie the rope from the inside of Sideswipe without much success. Sideswipe kept being overtaken by fits of giggles from the ticklish feeling he got when the fleshlings'—Rad, Megatron had to remind himself—hands brushed his insides and--- Bad, bad images in Megaton's head!
"Optimus, maybe you should… Prime?" The dark tank looked at the now empty place the blue semi had been and then to the doorway Optimus was headed for, "Where are you going?"
"Scavenger needs help pulling Hot Shot out of the training room's wall. I hope you don't mind helping the boys out?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Not unless you want to pull Hot Shot out. Did I mention it's his aft that's stuck and not his helm, by the way?"
"We'll be fine," Megatron answered almost well naturedly, waving Optimus off with one servo.
Once his now-equal commander was out the door, Megatron turned back to the "boys" and was greeted by a most unpleasant sight. Sideswipe was bouncing on his rear tires, laughing hysterically, while Rad and Carlos held onto the car's doors for dear life, trying to slip the rope out of the knots they'd made, at the same time. It would have been funny if Megatron didn't have to fix it somehow.
"Private!" Megatron said, bending just a little over the blue vehicle, causing Sideswipe to still instantly.
"Yes, sir?"
"Hold Still and let these children do their work."
"He's trying," Carlos spoke up for the youngest Transformer, "But, we did a kind of stupid thing…"
"And that stupid thing would be?"
"Well," Rad said, detaching from the door and settling in the center of the leather backseat, knees bracing while his hands tried pulling at the rope once more, "We double knotted the rope so the piano had very little chance of slipping off and now it won't budge."
With the renewed actions to his insides, Sideswipe was about to start giggling again, but Megatron would not stand for that, "Oh, for the love of… Hold still."
Carlos practically dove away from the door as the commander in the room bent farther over, one knee placed on the floor, one servo holding onto Sideswipe's engine hood. Megatron placed his other servo's pointer digit just under the rope and in less than a minute sawed through it, setting the piano free along with Sideswipe. Rad grabbed the pieces of the rope that fell from within Sideswipe, giving a little grin out the younger Transformer's back window at the towering tank.
Megatron just barely caught the look as he got back up from the floor, gingerly taking this thing made of hard organic material, painted black with what looked like strings on the inside, all metal of various strengths and lengths. It was odd, but he'd seen worse back on Cybertron. Both the smile and the instrument… Wait, what?
The mech was so caught up in his inner thoughts that he almost dropped the instrument when one of the plastic bubbles popped under his digits. The little sucker actually made him jolt, thereby making Carlos give a little laugh at his expense.
"Carlos, a little help with the keys?" Rad called from back within Sideswipe's front seat, arms filled with what Megatron noted to be… sticks?
"Okay, I got 'em," The darker male replied, opening Sideswipe's other front door and pulling a much smaller pile of sticks out, these ones painted red, much like Megatron's optics.
"Be careful, those are custom, dude." The blond warned, shutting Sideswipe's door politely, Carlos doing so as well and both skittering quickly over towards Megatron's legs so the blue Transformer could change back to his more humanoid form.
Fully and completely upright on his peds, Sideswipe stretched out a little, the gears in his back making painful clicks and whirs in the process, "Slag, that was heavy. I'm not ever doing that again."
The kids, still next to Megatron's peds, the older mech noted absently, give a chuckle and a shake of the head, respectively, Rad starting to walk for the room the piano was to be kept in, making a motion with his head for Megatron to follow. One of the tank's optic ridges rose, but he followed, once both the fleshlings were a safe distance away from getting crushed, still holding the piano in his servos very carefully. Accidentally or otherwise.
"I don't see why you're complaining, Amigo," Carlos chirped back at the blue carbot who followed just behind the ex-tyrant, "The wrenches you guys use are heavier than the piano. We probably could have carried it ourselves if the risk of breaking it wasn't so high, so what's the big deal?"
"Yeah, well," Sideswipe defended a tad bashfully, "That's in 'Bot form. I've never carried anything on my hood before, except Nightbeat and you guys."
"I see your point. How about after we finish this I get Blurr to give you some high-grade as a thank you for hauling this, eh?"
If it were ever possible for mechs to give the "puppy eyes" humans often used, Megatron was finally privy to it as Sideswipe made this sickeningly cute face at the dark human for his offer. He even did a little victory dance that freaked the horned mech out so much he actually stepped over the humans to get farther away from the tremendously younger mech. If he wanted to see something like that he'd spend more time with Cyclonus.
"Uh, Megatron, take a step back. This is the room," Rad called, the tank turning swiftly around to see the blond walking into a room that was evidently used by the children and Mini-cons more often than the Transformers on base. Little nick-knacks here and there, a small bookcase and something fluffy Megatron vaguely recalled Prime mentioning the children slept in when they stayed the night on weekends and such.
"Where would you like me to set this…" Megatron asked Rad almost in that way that could pass for patience.
"Oh, uh," The teen looked from one area of the room to another, pointing to the roomiest corner, "Just over there—Please be careful! This was my grandma's prize possession."
"Was?" The tank asked, setting the hunk of wood and meal strings onto the floor as gently as possible, one optic ridge lifting as Rad seemed to become a little uncomfortable, Carlos behind him putting the red sticks on the human table of the room and left with the overly cheerful Sideswipe to sucker that high-grade out of Blurr. This left the ex-tyrant and the blonde teen alone to speak their minds, if they so decided.
"Yeah, was," Rad answered, counting through all of the sticks, red and white, "A few months ago, before she died. She technically left it to me, but there's no place for it at my house, so I thought maybe the Mini-cons would like a go at it."
Mini-cons? What could they do with this sort of thing?
"What exactly does it do?"
Moving back over to the piano, Rad stripped the plastic bubbles from the smooth black wood that would get any musician in the world to become aroused at the mere touch of it and started putting the sticks into the piano, "It makes music. Creates the voice of the soul as it were."
Megatron had heard that word somewhere before. After his first few months on the moon, he'd gotten bored and started looking through the 'internet'. A lot of the words humans used were baffling to the mech who had been around millions of years, especially this word. It was confusing to actually hear this child talking about it, and even stranger that he was talking about anything with him. Rad was acting as though Megatron had never once tried to hurt him or his friends, like they were on a clean slate.
How odd humans are….
"And you are going to teach the Mini-cons how to use it? That seems very kind of you."
"Well, it's no trouble. I've known how to play this thing since I was about four. I'm no expert, but I'm sure the Mini-cons won't mind, especially High Wire. It seems he's really quite tolerant of me, even if I do butcher Bach."
The large mech tilted his head at this word, or name, or whatever it was, watching on as Rad managed to get a particularly stubborn stick into its place at the right end of the piano, tapping it once to be sure it was the correct one. A sweet little note floated into the air and caused Megatron's audios to twitch pleasantly, his shoulder struts losing their normally stiff behavior as a result. Rad noticed this and giving a little smile, tapped the stick once, twice more. Oh, how he'd missed that. He hadn't played an actual piano in… years.
The teen turned back to the table, grabbing three of the red sticks, Megatron suddenly was fairly interested in what the teen was doing. If just one of those sticks could make a sound that was so innocent and sweet, then what would happen when all of them were in place and fully functioning?
Finding his standing position getting to be rather uncomfortable, the ex-tyrant slowly and carefully leaned backwards, bent his knee struts and sat on the floor with his legs crossed. From Rad's position on the floor Megatron actually looked kind of like a kid observing some kind of animal build its home. It was cute, in a weird, unnatural kind of way that made Rad want to giggle so bad that he had to place his hand over his mouth as though to sneeze for a moment.
It really was funny. A few months ago, Megatron would have crushed him flatter than a piece of paper as soon as look at him and now he was participating in a truce with Optimus and meaningful conversations with the Autobots. And helping Rad put together a piano.
Megatron continued to watch on silently for the next fifteen of so minutes as the teen put the sticks in their proper places, giving each one a little tap, revealing a new sound, and occasionally having to switch one stick with another. The dark mech noted how the white sticks made sounds that resonated and the red sticks went flat quickly, but played brilliantly. Rather like his and Optimus' soldiers when he thought about it. When the last stick was placed inside, at the dead center of the piece, Rad gave it three quick taps, the sound somewhere between the darker side of sound and the lighter side. Megatron wasn't sure he liked it, but he didn't hate it.
"So, is it whole now? All the sticks are in place?" Megatron asked, optics following Rad as he pulled one of the high stools from the humans table and over to the piano, placing it before the center, sitting on it to look back up at the Transformer, another secret smile on his lips, "These aren't exactly sticks. They're keys. And yep, now I can give this baby a spin. Any requests?"
Megatron just gave the much younger male a blank look.
"Sad? Happy? Nonsense? Funny? Anything, come on," Rad coaxed, running his hands along the whole of the keyboard almost tenderly.
"Um," Megatron hesitated, giving a scratch to the back of his neck, a clear sign of nervousness, "Anything you could play is fine."
The teen gave him a look that Megatron had never seen before on any fleshling in the base. He'd maybe seen it from Prime on some rare occasion when their methods of commanding were on the same page, but not exactly. This one seemed lighter and softer in some way that the giant robot couldn't explain if he ever needed to, even under threat of annihilation. He decided he liked it anyway and gave his own look in return, Rad starting up a rather pleasant melody.
"This is my personal favorite. It's old, but it's still a really nice song. Mostly because you don't have to be a rockstar to sing it, you just need to know the words and speaks slow and low."
Picking up on the speed of three mellow notes, the teen began what might have been considered as singing and Megatron had to hold himself back from nodding along,
"I'm a mousetrap, Without a piece of cheese,
I'm Vienna, Without the V and E's,
I'm Da Vinci, Without the Mona Lis'…
When I'm without you…"
Was this supposed to be a romantic song? Megatron wasn't sure, but he was near sure it should be. Of course, most of the human songs the ex-tyrant had heard, compliments of Cyclonus and even occasionally Starscream, consisted of something called heavy-metal, rock and dance. This though, this was nice and without the degrading and sometimes audio shattering lyrics. Megatron could grow to like this, along with Rad if circumstances called for it. Mmmm…
"I'm Las Vegas, Without a slot machine,
I'm Nijinsky, Without a tambourine,
I'm Napoleon, Without his Josephine…
When I'm without you…"
Maybe the horned mech could start listening in on Rad's lessons with the Mini-cons. This wasn't terrible and Leader-1 had been riding him all week to start getting to know the humans so he'd be less inclined to off them when his temper ran short with Prime or Starscream or the many other annoyances that came from living on this back wood mudball of a planet. Yes, plus music never hurt anyone, right?
"I'm a doctor, Without a single pill,
I'm a dentist, Without a tooth to fill,
I'm a fry cook, Without a steak to grill…
When I'm without you…"
Some lighter notes flew from the teen's fingers as he was nearing the end if this song. It was odd, he'd have imagined that he'd have mucked this up horribly after being out of practice for so long, but it appeared that Megatron liked it. That was, if the way his head was lulling to the right side was anything to go on.
"I'm a mousetrap, Without a piece of cheese,
I'm Vienna, Without the V and E's,
I'm Da Vinci, Without the Mona Lis'…
When I am… Without… You…"
With a few more tiny taps to the lightest of the light keys, the song ended, Rad pushing on the pedal under his foot to draw out the note beautifully.
The last thing Rad expected was for the giant towering over him to start clapping in light applause. The sounds of his servos knocking together wasn't really all that bad, the blush on Rad's face saying it was really quite appreciated if not a little embarrassing.
"It's nice to be privy to music that doesn't make me want to purge my tanks after the first twenty seconds. Now I understand why Optimus was more than happy to allow this fine instrument a place here. That was exquisite, you really have a great talent."
The blush expanded from Rad's cheeks and all the way down past his shirt collar at this compliment Megatron was giving him. He'd never imagined getting hailed as anything like a good musician from a mech that used to scare the living heck out of him and sometimes still did. It was rather overwhelming.
From outside the room that Rad and Megatron occupied, they hadn't noticed the leader of the Autobots standing just out the door, leaning against the wall and listening in on this conversation. He'd finally gotten Hot Shot out of the wall, thanks to some added help from Demolisher and Smokescreen, the mostly yellow tank had suggested they wrap the orange mech's cable around the yellow speedster and pull. It had worked much sooner than expected, Hot Shot catapulting into them and sending Demolisher to the med-bay. It would have been a total fiasco, had Demolisher not been such a good sport.
This situation, however, now had his full attention. A grin was spread out under his battle mask, though nobody could tell unless they looked at his optics. He knew this would work. Rad had a way with leader types and this piano business had given Optimus the perfect opportunity to test out his theory about his rival and (secretly) favorite fleshling.
"I don't suppose I could hear you play again…?" The blue semi heard Megatron ask hesitantly, causing Optimus to cover his mouth and hold in his chuckle. Oh, this was going perfectly…
Fin.
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….This sucked, didn't it? I'm really not that good with portraying Rad or a slightly agreeable Megs…