Title: Party in the City Tonight
Warnings: Mentions of kinks and kindnesses.
Rating: PG
Continuity: G1
Characters: Autobots
Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors (or scenery), nor does it make a profit from the play.
Motivation (Prompt): Metroplex character party
[* * * * *]
"Yes, you have to have a set of drones" (PARTY!)
[* * * * *]
The file is so old it's degraded, archives losing parts and pieces over the passing ages. Yet, still, Metroplex remembers.
"Yes, you have to have a set of drones," the mech in his memory said, ducking under a half-completed console.
Metroplex was younger and newer back then, and less aware of how duty always came before self. "Why is it necessary? You are here. The other engineers are here, and when they are not, the builders are." He had never been alone or lonely. His corridors rang with voices, and many hands worked on him every day. Supplies were always being brought in, never taken out. Feet and wheels crisscrossed his floors to build him higher and higher.
The mech was older than him, and wiser, although his wisdom didn't make sense at the time. "Metroplex, we're a construction crew," he'd said, oddly gentle as he emerged from under the console to grab another tool. "Eventually, we will complete your construction. I know it doesn't feel like it right now with all of us crammed into your service ducts and stuffing information through your cortex, but there will come an orn when we pack up our equipment and move out."
The cityformer took a moment to let that percolate in his newly functional processors. The idea went up against all the data he'd gathered so far in his short existence, and doubt tinged his voice. "You will return."
Regret and fondness filled the mech's smile. "If there's another project for us, of course. But I sincerely doubt it'll be the same exact team called back. You're a special project, and anything else you'll need once you're completed will have different project specs. Different people will come to work on you, and then they, too, will move on." His hand lingered briefly on the console surface before returning to work.
The touch triggered a pang of want so deep it bordered on pain: 'I don't want you to move on.' Tracking systems suddenly surged ultra-sensitive to every spark of life inside him. They laughed and worked and muttered to themselves, and he was abruptly aware of just how quickly they moved. They streamed out his exits as casually as they re-entered, and only now did he see himself as a worksite instead of a mech.
Something constricted need around his massive spark, and his fuelpump skipped. Three engineers immediately ran a diagnostic, but they couldn't trace the cause because the unspoken words didn't register: 'Stay with me.'
He sought some sort of stability in his programmed directives and came up with a fragment of hope. "I'm to have a city commander. He'll be here."
Sympathy patted his console from the inside in soft words and sad tones. "City commanders are assigned, just like work crews. They, too, go away." The mech hesitated, even if his hands didn't stop working. Because he had a deadline, and now Metroplex actually knew what that meant beyond 'work must be finished by X time.' "That's how it's going to be, Metroplex. It's part of what being a cityformer means. Populations change. People get restless sitting in the same location for too long. They are going to leave you, and not all of them will come back."
It...hurt, to realize that. His body housed a seething community, a shell in which the organism lived and breathed in little bodies. It struck him so hard it skittered excess charge through him that his job wasn't to keep that community trapped, but to shelter it. To enable it to continue growing, coming and going the way normal Cybertronians did.
Metroplex desperately, greedily watched them work and build, preparing to leave him, and thought, 'Don't go.'
"So." The mech heaved himself out of the console again, getting to his feet. "You need drones."
"I don't understand?" The massive weight of responsibility was settling slowly into him, directives setting up his duties like a work harness snugging into place.
"Drones can't leave you," the mech explained, snapping a panel onto the console side. "They must be here all the time, part of you but separate enough to be independent if needed. You're going to need that social constant, Metroplex. It's the only guarantee you'll ever have." A twinge of sorrow filled the mech's optics, but he only patted the console again. "My shift's up. I'll talk to you next orn, yeah?"
Eons later, long after construction completed and he'd been a city, then a ruin, then a battleground, and then a city once more - Metroplex still remembers. He watches over the lives inside him. They move in. They move out. He protects them and keeps them safe, but in the end, he lets them go.
And in his old files, an empty room whispers, 'Come back.'
[* * * * *]
"Earthquake readiness (or lack of)" (PARTY HARDER!)
[* * * * *]
"The ground…moves." The disembodied voice sounded skeptical, but also a little squeamish. It reminded Chip Chase of when he'd told his niece about how her uterus worked. She hadn't wanted to believe him, but all the evidence presented had led to an inevitable and distasteful conclusion. She'd sounded like Metroplex did right now. "Tremors are common to this planet?"
"Earthquakes? Yeah." The human continued uploading the Earth information archive to Metroplex, watching the status bar and adding a new directory as the individual files appeared. "Continental drift and plate tectonics should be all be in the Earth-specific Science subfiles, connected to the Geology grouping. You can request a direct line to the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the U.S. Geological Survey will probably be happy to supply you with seismic records of the last fifty years or so for this area. They'd love to get more Autobots involved in their department. Cybertronian equipment really helps the seismologists, and I know there are going to be geologists crawling all over you if approval goes through for the geothermal energy converter."
The disturbed note in Metroplex's voice was enough to vibrate Chip's chair, and the human blinked as he looked up in surprise. "The Yellowstone Caldera is a hugely unstable area. Why has Autobot City been located within the potential blast zone? Drilling for geothermal power increases the danger!"
"It's the best place for it?" At least Metroplex was less shrill about his squirm-worth discomfort with the idea, but Chip still smiled his best reassuring smile at the nearest camera. 'It'll be okay, I promise. This is a perfectly natural thing, and yes, sometimes it goes wrong, but that's a risk you're going to just have to take. You can't exactly remove it.' "Metroplex, this isn't a metal world. There isn't a square meter of Earth that isn't somehow going to change on its own. That's what living worlds do. The continental plates are going to continue to drift. Earthquakes will happen. You need abundant energy, and quite frankly, humans have been living with the Yellowstone threat without undue alarm for years. Having you in place may actually help predict when The Big One is coming, in fact."
He could almost feel the cityformer look up what 'Big One' he referred to, and the smile widened when a strangled blurt of static came from the speakers. 'No way!'
Chip pushed his wheelchair back from the consol and settled in for one of those long, awkward discussions his family seemed to like dumping on him. Autobot and human disasters and puberty had strangely similar conversational scripts, apparently.
[* * * * *]
"Adventures in bondage." (Party like it's 2005!)
[* * * * *]
"So...you can't transform until it's repaired."
Metroplex was slightly confused that First Aid would insist on restating the obvious. The Battle of Autobot City had left a lot of damage behind, much of it emotional, but First Aid had seemed to be coping well. Had he finally reached a breaking point?
The cityformer weighed his words and decided it wasn't his place to intervene. The Protectobots had suddenly started flocking in this direction, and they could handle First Aid's fragile emotional state. "No."
"Can you move at all?"
"Internal systems are compromised," Metroplex said slowly, playing for time. He'd keep the little Autobot occupied until his gestaltmates arrived. "Several corridors and rooms near the outer hull have been short-circuited or torn open. Assistance would be appreciated."
First Aid had a very weird glint in his visor. "That's not an answer."
Because a straight answer was too quick. "My inner chambers are capable of full movement. Outer chambers and exterior subsystems are no longer functional, no."
"Yes. You'll need a lot of help to just repair your repair systems." The new Autobot Chief Medical Officer was referring to Metroplex's machine arms. Every room had at least three tucked away in various hatches, meant to assist the huge mech in accessing his interior in ways his rootmode's hand-size didn't allow. Most of those hatches and arms had either seized up or been destroyed during the Decepticon attack.
Metroplex noted that Hoist and Grapple had joined the migration toward First Aid's position. That was probably for the best. The little medic had an alarming twitch to his hands as he studied a schematic of the city, and Metroplex was very much afraid First Aid would do himself damage before someone arrived to stop him.
"You're willing to let us help you in every way possible?" It almost physically hurt the gigantic Autobot to hear First Aid say that. One of the most terrible things about war was the way it tore up the innocent, and the medic was the sweetest, most loving mech Metroplex had met in a long while. It wasn't fair that he'd have a break down now!
"Of course," the cityformer rumbled, trying to soothe, aching with how much he cared.
There were transmissions being broadcast over the medical network that he politely didn't eavesdrop on, and hacking into a combiner team's private line was both difficult and rude. Still, he kind of wished he had done it when the Protectobots and Hoist and Grapple suddenly headed purposefully for damaged areas instead of here, where they were needed much more. Were they really going to start repairing him when it was First Aid who so clearly needed the helping hands?
His concern amped up as the Autobots scattered throughout him started picking places to work. What kind of repairs required that kind of equipment? The other Autobots had to notice that their medic was off-balance if they were being ordered to bring out that kind of equipment. Metroplex had to get them to come find First Aid immediately.
The other Autobots ignored his insistent pings. Hmm. He'd use his speakers, but most of them were damaged. And he was a little afraid his voice wouldn't stay level enough to be taken seriously if Blades kept that up.
"We'll take good care of you," First Aid reassured him as he patted the closest wall. "I checked your records. It's been far too long since you've been overhauled, and Ultra Magnus put in a request log for intensive physical therapy psych-sessions for you ages ago. We'll do those first while you can't wriggle free and find a battle to fight for us." He sighed, looking a bit put-upon. "Your tendency toward neglecting your needs is well documented. Good thing I caught you like this, isn't it?"
...wait, what?
[* * * * *]
"It's lonely at the top (of the size range)" (Everyone in the house, party down!)
[* * * * *]
Metroplex couldn't have said that he'd ever really felt lonely, per se. As a cityformer, he'd always had a city commander. He'd always had mechs around or in him in some capacity or another. As part of the Autobots, he was considered an essential part of the war effort. He was certainly never ignored; the Autobots assigned to him were very well aware that he was a mech as well as a city.
The Autobots on Earth had actually been the best crew he'd ever had, in that sense.
Optimus Prime immediately included him in the command meetings, asking for input and aid directly instead of merely consulting with Ultra Magnus. That was something nobody had ever done before. Metroplex was intimidating and a mech of few words; most people preferred to speak with his city commander. Being addressed directly had actually been kind of unnerving. Metroplex had lived a long time, but he'd never been spoken too by a Prime before.
When Prime went straight to Metroplex the first time, Ultra Magnus had responded to the cityformer's uncertainty by smiling. "Do you mind?"
"No." But he didn't want Ultra Magnus to resent him for speaking with the city commander's commander, and sometimes city commanders got possessive or felt that people were going over their heads by addressing the cityformer instead.
"Good," his current city commander said firmly, putting the worry to rest. "That frees up my time for other duties."
Those other duties being more administrative in nature. Moving to Earth had dumped a lot of responsibility on the city commander, but he'd delegated many of his previous intermediary duties when it became clear just how well the current crew worked with Metroplex.
Blaster had taken over the communication sector without a hitch. He'd immediately begun an extensive series of updates to the cityformer's admittedly outdated equipment. The day he'd chased Ultra Magnus around the city with a requisition list as long as he was tall had been one of the more entertaining days of Metroplex's existence. Ultra Magnus had suffered a mysterious plague of 'Comm. system failure, please stand by' errors and somehow didn't notice that Blaster was trying to corner him to sign off on the expensive upgrades. He'd authorized it eventually, of course, but he'd made the boombox Autobot work for it.
Red Alert all but crawled inside Metroplex's security systems and nested. The other Autobots joked that every new surveillance device was offspring hatched from the Security Director's jealously guarded domain. Metroplex and Red Alert ran with the joke, releasing a veritable flood of Red Alert-painted remote-control miniature Lamborghinis to patrol the corridors on April Fool's Day. Metroplex named every single one and chided multiple Autobots for nearly stepping on the 'twins' Safe and Secure. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe had cracked up at that and taken to shepherding the bitty-twins around. The 'sons' (of the revenge of the return) of Metroplex's security systems had even beeped Morse code "Mommy!" when 'reporting' to Red Alert throughout the day, which had set everyone within audio-range to laughing.
…well, except for Inferno. Metroplex got the feeling Inferno had never forgiven him for that prank.
The other Autobots had actually taken it as some kind of sign that Metroplex was just 'one of the guys' and noticeably changed their behavior toward him. It was…odd, being treated like just another Autobot. Not bad, but Metroplex had nothing to compare it to. 'Odd' was the best word he could apply, here. The sheer variety of responses had been bewildering at first.
Ratchet had declared that if Metroplex were going to - voluntarily or not - observe his medbay at all times, then the cityformer could make himself useful and learn basic emergency care. It was the first time that anyone had ever offered to teach him. Sure, there were downloads available, but there was a vast difference between downloaded knowledge and actually practicing touching such tiny, precious little mechs' damage under an experienced medic's watchful optics. Handing the medic tools and helping patch minor wounds with his machine arms had been an incredible balm on the cityformer's guilt the first time the other Autobots returned from a battle he himself couldn't join.
First Aid talked to him periodically, just letting him know that he was aware the cityformer was with him every klik of the day. Bluestreak did that too, directing nonstop chatter to the ceiling, but the medic also periodically hugged corners and doorframes. That was nice. Unexpected, but nice.
The other Protectobots had attempted to smother him in well-meant comfort the first time the Decepticons tried attacking Autobot City. That was back before construction had completed, and Metroplex had transformed to defend the structure. Megatron had retreated, being no fool, but Metroplex had emerged from the fight sporting scorch marks, rubble in awkward areas, and bent antenna. The Protectobots had arrived soon after, and that had been the cityformer's introduction to exactly what the 'disaster relief' part of their duties actually meant.
It'd been the Protectobots' introduction to a disaster area that talked back, too, and First Aid had been forced to intervene when they wouldn't believe Metroplex's repeated, "I'm fine."
"It's just that, well, you're alive. We're worried. We don't look at torn-up ground and punched-in walls quite the same as you do," Hot Spot had explained sheepishly. The fire truck had fidgeted. "…are you sure you're okay?"
First Aid had put his face in his hands and started to explain the difference between nerve sensor networks and awareness sensor networks yet again, but right then Blades had bellowed, "Dear Primus, he's missing a whole fragging door up here!"
Metroplex had patiently repeated himself about forty more times as the Protectobots descended into concerned twittering once more. They'd settled down eventually, but the cityformer still caught them occasionally petting the places he'd taken damage. He couldn't tell if they were checking up on him or were still worried that he'd somehow been scarred for life.
Blurr and Wheeljack were apparently out to outwit his interior sensors, in their own separate ways. Blurr tried to outrace active zones, speeding in and out of online areas of the city until Metroplex got a barrier up in time to stop him, then blazing off in a new direction. The game would go on until the cityformer finally cut off all his escape routes. It was like some bizarre form of tag. Wheeljack just kept inventing new and stranger methods of bypassing his sensors entirely. That was an interesting and combat-applicable goal most of the time, as was foiling the engineer's efforts, but Metroplex still wasn't sure he believed filling Corridor 18-B with packing peanuts had been strictly for science.
The Aerialbots claimed Blaster's transmission tower as their perch of choice when they weren't at the Ark. Metroplex obligingly asked Hoist and Grapple to modify the floor below Blaster's communication deck to make it suitable for jets. That led to endless squabbles and pushing each other off the launch pad when the flock of flyers visited, but it also led to movie nights with the combiner team. The Aerialbots were determined to include him in everything pop culture here on Earth, which meant viewing the great cinematic accomplishments of the past 100 years. At least, 'great' as according to the widely divergent tastes of the Aerialbots. That meant six hour blocks of time at a time devoted to arguing loudly over what actor was a total hack, why silent movies were wonderful (Skydive) or the most boring thing in the history of ever (everyone else), and what did Metroplex think of being Superman's new Fortress of Solitude?
Ultra Magnus asked him one time if he wanted the city commander to ban them from the premises for annoying him, but Metroplex only laughed. The cityformer had once observed a group of fifteen starlings all try to land on the same six inches of power wire strung between his transformation joins. The resulting explosion of fussing and chirping had ended in a line of birds stacked nearly on top of each other, tiny feathered fluffballs cuddled together. He'd never told anyone, but that was exactly what the Aerialbots and their frenetic antics reminded him of. At the end of every movie night, there were five disgruntled mechs recharging in a sprawl that somehow managed to fit on the tower's one battered couch, and Metroplex thought they were so slagging cute. Lookit their little wings! And the tailfins! Just…lookit! D'awww.
The other Autobots were sometimes just as cute. Hot Rod and Daniel drove through his corridors, crazy and reckless, and Kup ran hot on their wheels. Metroplex helped whatever mech asked first, which was often Prowl because Kup got too stubborn and the terrible duo thought it was cheating to escape via Deux Ex Metroplex. Prowl just wanted them all to shut the frag up and let him have some peace and quiet. There were times Metroplex pretended he couldn't hear Prowl's requests, just to listen to laughter ricocheting down the halls a short while longer.
Jazz and Mirage and Bumblebee stalked each other through the ducts and rooms, challenging Metroplex and Red Alert to make their spy games more difficult. Red Alert set traps. Metroplex transformed entire sectors just to shake them up. Hearing dignified, aloof Mirage swear like a dockworker after getting locked into a storage locker made his entire week. Catching Jazz full in the face with a firecracker made Red Alert's. Bumblebee won the unofficial competition by somehow dodging not only both the other SpecOps mechs but also the horde of mini-Red Alert remote-control cars sent after him.
There were humans galore running rampant, and Springer and Arcee courting each other everywhere, and Minibots bungee-jumping down his lift shafts for the sheer fun of it, and Metroplex couldn't have said that he'd felt lonely before Earth.
He hadn't known that's what he felt until after it went away.
[* * * * *]
"Caretaker" (Party until the lights go out!)
[* * * * *]
The fingers weren't as nimble. They shook, and the backs of the hands were blotchy with liver spots.
The eyes weren't as sharp. Thick glasses had been made even thicker. Surgery had taken away the cataracts, but they still squinted in near-blindness.
The body wasn't as strong. It had always been crippled, relying on a wheelchair to get around, but now the arms couldn't always push the wheels.
Chip Chase had aged well, considering.
Decepticon invasions, Megatron and Galvatron, hostage situations, and running for his life on alien planets. Yes, Chip had done pretty well. As far as lives went, he'd had one worth talking about. He wasn't the kind to lie down and die, and asking him to move into a retirement home was actually kind of insulting when cast in that light.
The old man only patted his niece's hand one papery-skinned hand. "I like it here," he said to her with a denture-filled smile, and she pouted back at him.
She was a smart woman, however. Even as she sat beside her elderly uncle, a machine arm snuck out of the wall and put a plastic cup full of his pills on the tray his lunch had been set on. The meal had been reheated cafeteria-style food, pre-packaged and delivered to the city before being reheated and served. It was uninspired, but Uncle Chip hadn't seemed to notice as he'd chewed and swallowed in that plodding, patient pace she recognized from her mother's own mealtimes. Food was fuel. It required concentration, not necessarily pleasure.
The tray had slid out of a slot in the wall with a loud authoritative bleep, the kind of alarm noise that warned it would continue until Mr. Chase ate. It'd been the kind of alarm that took no excuses. Eat, Mr. Chase.
Now the plastic cup sat there, waiting with that same stern injunction. Your medication, Mr. Chase.
Chip's niece really looked at the room, at the spill of half-drawn blueprints and the scent of fresh solder. Most men Chip Chase's age would have retired to a sunny porch, their working days ended by the palsy that shook their hands. Instead, everywhere through the room was strewn evidence of a working man. Machine arms tidied the stacks of circuitboards. Tools were racked on the walls. Through the open bedroom door, the bed was neatly made. The linens looked crisp and fresh.
Was a retirement home the answer? She had gone to tour the retirement home her mother was considering. It had been airy and full of light, but even through the smell of rose air freshener and frequent cleaning, the halls had smelled of tiredness and age. Intellectual stimulation began and ended at group outings to local shopping centers, or gatherings in the common areas of the buildings.
The body had deteriorated, not the mind.
So she pouted, but she spent the rest of her visit chatting with him about her work in the flying car business. As always, he was extremely interested. New technology always interested him. It was good to talk with someone who understood what she was going on about, too.
When she left, she laid a hand on the wall outside her uncle's door and said calmly, "Take care of him. I love him very much."
"So do we," Metroplex rumbled back.
[* * * * *]
"Companion & 'Trypticon, jealous'" (Party with the people!)
[* * * * *]
Metroplex didn't want to be like Trypticon. No, never, not even close. The Decepticon fortress-former was insane on a good day and a hot mess the rest of the time. Why would anyone with a crumb of sense want to be like that? Who wanted to imitate a mech who got shot at by his own side?
Not Metroplex, certainly.
…not much.
Trypticon was a bully, a slob, and Metroplex's mortal enemy. He also sort of, might of, kind of had thought of something first, and now Metroplex wanted what he'd thought up.
Every cityformer had a commander. It was necessary when a mech was the size of, well, a city. Fortress-formers got commanders, too. They were harder to control, and sometimes the commander was more of a dangerous accessory than a controller or aid, but fortress-formers all had a commander running around somewhere.
What Trypticon had acquired - and what Metroplex was most certainly not envious of, nope - was a companion.
Commanders gave orders. They acted as mediators and intermediaries. It was their duty. Metroplex knew that Ultra Magnus was required to help him, just as it was his duty to obey the city commander in turn. It stung something bitter in him.
Not that Ultra Magnus was wrong; Metroplex knew that duty always came first. But Ultra Magnus would someday be reassigned. He would move on to different commands. Metroplex would get another commander. The only other option was that Ultra Magnus would die in the line of duty, and that was a horrible thought that made the bitterness gag him.
Duty among the Autobots would make Ultra Magnus stay until death instead of worry about his own life. Duty among the Decepticons wasn't nearly so strict, but once a commander fled, he wouldn't dare return for fear of reprisal, accusations of cowardice, and death.
A companion, however…a companion wasn't part of the hierarchy. A companion had to have enough concern for his own life to run away, and enough attachment to the cityformer to return afterward. A companion was outside the normal faction structure. He'd last longer that way.
Trypticon had Octane. Metroplex had no idea how that had come about. He only knew that the Decepticon refugee still fretted about the fortress-former and occasionally slipped away for clandestine meetings out off the coast of Africa. Concerned, Metroplex had brought up the meetings with Ultra Magnus, only to be told that Octane really wasn't considered a threat. A nuisance and not a neutral, but not a threat, either. Octane just…missed Trypticon.
And considering the fact that Trypticon kept lurking around Africa despite repeated orders from Chaar to return, it seemed the attachment was mutual.
Metroplex couldn't imagine Ultra Magnus doing the same. Frag, he couldn't picture himself doing it.
So. A companion. Someone self-centered enough to save his own armor, but without a steady connection already in place. Selfish but with the potential to settle.
It was more difficult to find someone to fit those specifications than anticipated. Autobots had a tendency toward selflessness, and even those who were selfish seemed to already have a cadre of close friends. Metroplex needed someone set newly adrift. And, of course, he needed to win that mech over somehow.
In the meantime, he watched Octane pal around with the new Autobots from Paradron and tried to contain his envy. He was not jealous of Trypticon. Octane was here, inside Metroplex, and Octane was flirting with a rotary instead of flitting off to meet Trypticon. Metroplex felt a little smug because even he knew Sandstorm was just using the Decepticon refugee as a fling. Sandstorm seemed determined to be attached to everyone at some point or another, yet make no attachments at all. Commitment was anathema to the Paradronian, and that was probably why Octane liked him so much.
Or maybe not. The Decepticon and the Paradronian Autobot really were spending a lot of time. Maybe Trypticon would be out a companion soon, hmm?
Metroplex watched, and felt smug, and was so busy trying not to feel jealous when Octane flew off to Africa that he didn't even notice the wistful way Sandstorm watched the triple-changer go. Or, for that matter, the oddly thoughtful - and then frankly acquisitive - look the little Autobot immediately turned on him.
[* * * * *]
"Size before beauty" (Party by yourself, shhh…)
[* * * * *]
Metroplex knew what a 'size kink' was. He was a cityformer; he had a target all but painted on his aft for that particular fetish.
For the most part, it didn't bother him. Really, it didn't. He'd had two or three actual lovers in his time, but they'd all been regular-sized mechs. Both Optimus and Rodimus Prime had offered, but Metroplex had honestly been too nervous to accept. He'd been afraid that the Matrix might actually succeed in a full-system overload, and once he experienced that…it was already somewhat frustrating to only be able to interface sectors instead of his whole body.
Ultra Magnus occasionally interfaced with him, as had all his city commanders. It was part of the duty, written in because Metroplex's designers had been no fools and knew that the life of an enormous frametype could be unbearably lonely sometimes. The human had it in most of their fairytales: the giants ostracized from the rest of the world became reclusive, grouchy, and even evil. Ratchet, Hoist, and First Aid had all dutifully linked into him as well, but his best and most frequent overloads, by far, were from the fetish mechs.
Seriously, he was some kind of magnet for kinks. The mechs who wanted to be engulfed by their lovers; the ones who wanted to be treated like drones or furniture; the ones who wanted to be held down and totally helpless; the ones with body part attractions who could overload from the sheer presence of their chosen body part, supersized. There was something about Metroplex that drew the kinky Autobots in, and that was just fine. The cityformer took his enjoyment from many kinds of interfacing, and making someone happy was always fun.
It always came back to his size, in a way. Which, again, was fine. Some mechs loved that feeling of being tiny. Metroplex wasn't just small - he was enormous. It had been somewhat surprising when the first gestalt approached him, but it made sense. The Autobot combiner teams were so used to feeling mighty when they conjoined that Metroplex's overwhelming size became an opportunity for powerplay no one else could offer. Superion liked to be handled by giant hands, just feeling the amount of surface contact all at once. Defensor wanted to be cradled close and protected. Computron wanted his databanks blown in one fell swoop, processors shut down by Metroplex's superior capacity.
Metroplex gave them what they needed. He didn't really understand most of their fetishes, but he didn't mind. It had taken him until 1984, Earth local time, to truly get the size kink thing, and he figured that he owed others the benefit of a doubt.
Because in 1984, Metroplex had seen the footage of Unicron's attack on Cybertron, and Primus save him. Unicron was ugly. He was the Unmaker, the Destroyer, the anathema of life. Metroplex knew all that, just as he knew that the God of Chaos would swat him aside and kill him without a thought.
That didn't stop the cityformer from disappearing into the Sahara Desert to create a lake of glass from melted sand the moment he could transform again.
Size kink from the other side was not something he'd had experience with, and discovering he had it bad had knocked him for a loop. Metroplex was a cityformer. Unicron was an entire slagging planet. Metroplex could perch on his shoulder. Unicron could cage him in one hand. The Unmaker could eat him in two bites, and guuuh that thought alone had overloaded him hard enough to flash-melt the sand even before he landed. This wasn't healthy in any way, but he couldn't stop the surges of current when he thought about it.
He put in subtle suggestions for archiving the memory files of the Autobots involved in the final fight against Unicron. Just in case of future problems. For history, right?
He wanted them. Oh, yes, please and thank you. Bumblebee getting consumed would create an entire glass ocean if he got those files, oh please oh please, let him have those files. He was going to have to ask for more time off if he did, and that was going to create questions, but he didn't care. He couldn't care.
In the meantime, First Aid and Ultra Magnus looked curious but acquiesced to his request for more frequent interfacing.
[* * * * *]
"Metroplex: origin - coming online as a cityformer" (Get the party started!)
[* * * * *]
It's all very confusing at first, life is. The systems booted in order, but that order varied on their sectors. His core booted its processors first, but then the security programs around his exterior regions immediately began sending in information as they kicked in. Then came the interior sensors, and he was full of life. The little things scurrying about inside him were magnified a thousandfold in the utter industrial chaos his exterior sensors began telling him about, and there were more of the little living what's-its crawling on him. There were a hundred thousand sensors suddenly reporting, and it made a certain kind of sense, at least to his data banks, but Metroplex could only sit there trying to think for a while.
"Sky," he rumbled, abruptly aware of the star-spangled darkness in a mind-boggling arch above him. That was one thing his sensors weren't telling him about in tiny detail, although a sensor suite pinged him asking if he wanted it to. He hastily turned it off and directed his optics upward to look at space. It was very big, and except for the occasional flying metal creature, it was very peaceful. That was pleasant, except that looking at it made him aware that he wasn't looking through optics. Not optics. Security cameras? But they registered as 'Optical sensors, Citymode,' and oooh, he had a bipedal mode! Except, wait, that meant he wasn't bipedal right now, and why had he assumed that, anyway?
The cameras turned toward himself, trying to see what exactly he was. There was every form of mechanical being running about inside and out, in a hundred different shapes and a thousand different colors. All he saw of himself was…a wall. He zoomed out, and zoomed out again, but he just couldn't place what he was seeing.
There was a tiny creature - a 'mech,' some part of him dredged up as a label - welding on a wall. Eventually, he made the connection that the zinging burn he felt in one sector was the stinging heat of a welding torch. Even after that, it took a while to actually wind his way around to realizing that the mech was welding on him. The wall was him. It wasn't that it wasn't obvious once he figured it out, but it was rather difficult to narrow down one sensation among the millions currently registering and figure out how visual and sensor data were meant to work together. He could see the mech welding, he could feel the welding torch, but it didn't quite click that the two things were somehow related.
After even longer, it occurred to him that the sensor data probably meant that welding hurt. Not a lot, but magnify that by the mech's entire workcrew and the crews banging and building and scrabbling about inside him, and Metroplex was surprised to add it up to a significant amount of pain. "Ow," he said experimentally.
Oops. It'd come out from a speaker tucked away in one of his rooms deep inside. And, hey, he had rooms! Interesting.
Part of him became immensely distracted by a series of schematics pulling themselves up automatically when he made a query about his speaker system. Oh, goodness, he was a very large…well, what was he? The schematics were labeled Prototype Alpha-Class Cityformer, Dual Transformation Type; Designation: Metroplex, so he knew the blueprints were of him. He was Metroplex. He could transform? Bipedal mode, right, which meant that he had to be in his other mode at the moment, which was a…cityformer? That would explain the walls, wouldn't it? And the rooms, of course. He had lots of hallways, too. Corridors? What as the proper terminology for his internal structure? There were scribbled engineer notes with sixty different signatures throughout the schematics, and the notes all referred to his structure using different terms depending on who had written them.
It was all terribly distracting, but the part of him that had initially asked for the speaker system data traced the correct connection this time. He adjusted his volume, carefully judging how the amount of pain should be reacted to.
"Ow," he said, loud and clear right beside the welder he'd first noticed, and felt very pleased with himself for figuring out how he should react.
Until the welder fell off his perch, clutching his audios in shock. Everyone in the area looked shocked, in fact, and they were chattering sounds that Metroplex was having trouble making sense of because there was just so much information. They were all holding their heads, however, and he had the sinking feeling that maybe he'd done something wrong. Too loud, perhaps?
"I apologize," he whispered, but nobody reacted, so maybe he'd been too quiet this time around. Some of them seemed to be in pain, though, so he kept silent to let them calm down. Could sheer volume hurt people? The little mechs were apparently fragile. Um. This could be tricky.
It did make him aware of the noises, which resolved into words as his linguistic databanks booted up, and he wanted to ask the workcrew to repeat what they'd said so he could understand them this time, but the words they were currently spouting - well, he certainly didn't want that repeated.
There were lots of words being said elsewhere, anyway, so he listened to those. It was all interesting in different ways. He was fascinated by the work group interactions, and the pain was worth listening to the workers talk about what they were doing or what they'd done last orn. And, eventually, an insistent group of mechs near his core finally caught his attention. Mostly because a nagging uplink kept pinging him, and it didn't seem happy to just take the automatic system responses.
Again, it took him a little while to make the connection between seeing a group of mechs standing in a room and hearing the words coming through his audio sensors in a room and the uplink coming from the console in a room. The three things floated through his sensor suites as if occupying separate rooms before a nudge of system synchronization finally snapped them together like layers in a digital picture.
"Metroplex, are you online?" one mech said, and the uplink from another pinged him, and yet another mech was tapping at his camera as if trying to get his attention.
"Yes," he whispered after painstakingly finding the right speaker. "I am online."
They all seemed to relax at once. "That's a relief," one grumbled. "You weren't responding."
He thought about that, curious as to what was meant by it. "There are many things to respond to," he stated after a moment. "What did you wish me to respond to first?" Maybe there was some kind of priority list that he hadn't found yet. "I apologize if I overlooked something in my initial sweep. I currently have 189,572 sensors functioning," a ping, "ah, that is, 189,583 sensors, as Sector 54-B workcrews have finished installing the pressure sensor under a section of my floor paneling. Which sensor did you wish me to respond to?"
Mouths opened and closed all around the room. Metroplex wondered if his audio sensors were malfunctioning, because he didn't hear anything coming out.
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