Title: A Lesson in Compassion

Prompt: Toys for Tots
Summary/Notes: Written for the lj user="prowlxjazz" December 2010 celebration. Enjoy?

Jazz was grumbling to himself. Prowl could hear the sub harmonics of his vocalizations, but Jazz was very carefully not saying anything loudly enough for Prowl to actually hear. Grimly, Prowl ran over the scenario. They'd only recently woken from stasis on a planet the inhabitants called Earth. The crew of the Ark, chosen for their abilities to do their chosen jobs or specialties, not for their ability to get along, had been subjecting each other to increasingly destructive pranks. Jazz, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker and Inferno had pulled a prank that had resulted in energon covering the floor of the common room of the Ark, a waste of a precious resource, which also caused a downswing in the mood of the entire contingent, already struggling to figure out their place on this new world and combat the Decepticons. Jazz had confessed that he hoped the result would have been laughter, not sighs and even anger. However, it was his opinion that they could simply replace the spilled energon by taking what they needed from the humans that lived around them. Prowl's doors had hitched up high on his back, showing his displeasure, and he had tightly informed Jazz that they would not be treating their allies in such an ill manner.

As the SIC, the punishment detail had fallen to Prowl. He'd set Sunstreaker to helping Wheeljack catalogue the remaining contents of his lab and stockroom, ignoring the complaints of the yellow warrior about his paint. Sunstreaker was rather happy with his alternate form, scanned from an Earth vehicle, and loved the color and thus, he hated anything to happen to his paint right now.

Prowl hadn't blinked at Inferno's complaints of working with Red Alert, instead directing him to place the proximity detectors as Red Alert wished. He hoped Inferno would do his usual high quality of work, since the net Red Alert had designed would keep them safer if it was properly installed. If Inferno didn't do the work properly, he would find himself redoing, this time under very close supervision.

Sideswipe, the only family member not complaining, was helping Ratchet get the medbay cleaned and ready for the injuries sure to come in. He'd already taken an inventory for Ratchet and was right now putting together more medical berths from the remains of the old ones and other equipment they had at hand, listening to Ratchet's complaints about the primitive conditions they found themselves in on this planet.

Prowl had chosen to have Jazz do his punishment detail under Prowl's careful optics, aware that Jazz usually wriggled his way out of such details by promising to be better and charming his way out of any strenuous activities. This time, however, Prowl wasn't going for something physically punishing, but rather, something that would engage Jazz' s empathy routines and show him that the human culture was worthy of Jazz's protection, something the saboteur was having a difficult time understanding.

They finally arrived at their destination, a place the humans called a mall. As far as Prowl could understand, a mall was simply a collection of places to shop for items the humans deemed necessary. He wasn't sure why one would need small figurines made from silica and oxygen, but he did understand that the humans preferred to have cloth covering their skin, so the large stores that sold all manner of the cloths cut to fit human bodies made sense. He shook his head slightly to get himself back on track and led Jazz to a story on one branch of the mall that sold playthings for the young humans. He made himself known to the person that had requested their help.

"Ms. Smith? I am Prowl." He used a hardlight figure to introduce himself.

"Oh, Prowl! So nice to meet you. I thought you were, um, bigger. And more…metallic?" Ms. Smith seemed flustered.

"Yes, ma'am, I am. However, I have no desire to frighten anyone, so I use a hardlight avatar to interact with you."

"You mean, like a hologram?" Ms. Smith asked, puzzled.

"Something like that," Prowl replied, "You asked for our help – what can we do?"

"Oh, yes. Well, we're doing the Toys for Tots this year, and we're hoping to get a lot of donations because times are difficult, but we haven't really had a draw. I was hoping that if you could introduce yourselves and talk a little about the program that we could get more donations than we did last year. Please?"

Prowl nodded. "How did you want us to do this, as these figures or in our normal bipedal forms?"

Ms. Smith again looked a little confused. "I want you to be the big metallic guys we've been seeing on the news on TV. Can you do that?"

"Yes," Prowl answered. "Do you want to introduce us first, or simply have us scare everyone here?"

Ms. Smith did laugh at that. "I'll introduce you. If you wouldn't mind staying for an hour or so, to help us with this toy drive? The radio station is here, they'll be broadcasting and might want to ask you some questions, too. I hope that's OK." She walked over to the small stage area where a man was talking into the microphone and whispered to someone. A nod was exchanged and when the man finished talking, Ms. Smith walked to the microphone and spoke into it.

"Hello, and welcome to the annual drive for Toys for Tots. Today, we are thrilled and honored to have some special guests join us. You could say they are out of this world! May I introduce Autobot Prowl and Autobot Jazz. Give them a big round of applause!"

Prowl slowly transformed into his bipedal mode and heard Jazz doing the same thing behind him. They stood up, towering over the humans and both gave small waves to the awestruck faces turned up to them.

A gasp from the crowd, then applause broke out and built as more shoppers came over to see what the noise was about.

Prowl made a slight bow and said, "Thank you for your welcome. We are very happy to be here, supporting such a wonderful endeavor. I am Prowl, and this," he gestured, "is Jazz. To all who have donated a toy, thank you. To those who have not, please consider doing so and bringing happiness to someone less fortunate than yourself."

::You sound like a professor, lecturing a class on mechanics or something similar.:: Jazz sent to Prowl.

In response, Prowl sent Jazz a datafile containing the basic information about Toys for Tots – started in 1947, going national the following year. Only four years ago, a decision had been made that only new toys would be accepted, since it was getting more difficult to refurbish the used toys and taking a lot more time, now that they were mostly plastic instead of wood. Toys for Tots was the major charity of the US Marine Corps Reserve and every year tried to provide toys for children whose parents couldn't afford to buy them toys at Christmas time in the hope that the gift would help the children become responsible and productive citizens. Jazz set aside the 'patriotic' portion of the slogan and began to research the definition of the word. He found vastly different definitions on the mainframes of the various countries he could access; in the United States and Britain, it was a positive word, but that didn't hold true for some other countries, where it seemed to be used in a more negative sense.

Fascinated, Jazz, tapped into more computers and began to laboriously do research on Christmas, the Marines, and toys. Letting his processor tick away on the research, he still left enough of his processor free to interact with the humans that were fascinated to see Autobots up close.

The Marine that was also there, Major Thomasson, came over and introduced himself to the Autobots and the three of them patiently answered people's questions about the toy drive and about the Marines and the Autobots. After two hours, Jazz began to understand why Prowl had made this into his punishment detail – he needed to learn about the culture of the people they lived among and this was a very good way to show the Autobots in a positive light while teaching Jazz this lesson.

::I've gotta hand it to ya, Prowl, you do think these things through.::

::I wouldn't be much of a tactician if I didn't, Jazz.::

Jazz sent a sidelong look at Prowl before returning his attention to a man asking him about his chosen alt-mode.

::Thanks, Prowl.::

::You're welcome.::

After that day, Jazz began to look forward to working with Prowl. He enjoyed puzzles more than the average bot, and every single plan of Prowl's had at least two ulterior motives nested within. Jazz enjoyed teasing them out of the plans and began to admire the processor hiding within the stoic façade of the SIC.

It was, as the humans said, the start of a beautiful relationship.

The End.