Airazor was on a routine patrol, and up until now, it had been pretty routine. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and it was a beautiful day, so she had ascended from the skies to take a short break. There was a attractive little spot that she had seen earlier, a grassy clearing in the forest, and had taken note of.

She stood there now, watching some small, colorful insects flit among the flowers growing there. What had Tigatron called them? Ah yes, butterflies. Even their name was pretty.

Something rustled in the undergrowth at the edge of the clearing and she spun around, her blaster at the ready. She stood for a moment, her aim not wavering, before calling out. "Come out. I know you're there."

Another rustle, and out of the shadows slunk Blackarachnia. The other femme was holding both of her claws in the air, showing she was unarmed.

"What do you want?"

"Oh, calm down, feathers. I was just out getting some fresh air." Airazor snorted.

"Sure you were. What are you really doing?" Blackarachnia gave her an odd look.

"Really. You don't think I like to get out of that base once in a while and get some time to myself?" The flier lowered her blaster slowly.

"Time to yourself?"

"Well, don't you ever get… I don't know… tired of all the attention?"

"I… don't know what you mean." Airazor watched warily as Blackarachnia circled her slowly.

"I think you do. I mean that the way mechs treat you differently." Now Airazor frowned, confused.

"What are you talking about?"

"You know—they're more polite to you. More soft-spoken. More chivalrous." The last word was spat out like a curse. Blackarachnia's circling stopped, and now she stood with one hip cocked and her arms folded, a sneer marring her face.

"They don't…" Airazor immediately began to deny it, defending her friends and comrades, but trailed off as the words really sank in. They… actually did act a little bit differently around her. She had seen it more than once; mechs horsing around and ribbing each other, but once she entered the room, they would straighten up, tone down their joking.

She didn't like to think about it, really, because at first she thought it was because they still thought of her as an outsider. But on further reflection, she realized that even Tigatron did it, and they spent much of their time with each other. He did use a more gentle tone with her than he did with the others, even than with Cheetor and Optimus, and she was fairly certain he was on quite friendly terms with the both of them.

And when any of them made physical contact with her, they acted as if she would break if they touched her too hard. Not that she minded too much—she'd seen some of the "friendly" blows some of the mechs exchanged. They left dents on each other, for Primus's sake.

"Maybe… they do. So what? It means they respect me." She still felt a little defensive. They were her crew, after all.

"Darling—" The spider's voice practically oozed condescension. "—do you really enjoy being placed on a pedestal? Do you enjoy being seen as weaker?" She gestured down at her own body. "They don't understand… this. All they can see is that we're smaller and less-heavily armored, and they write us off."

"Then why—"

"Because, my dear, they want you." Blackarachnia laughed at the look on Airazor's face. "Oh, please don't tell me you don't know about that."

"I—I don't—"

"Interfacing. Banging bolts. Crossing wires. Tab A into Slot B. Fucking." Airazor could feel her plating heating up heating up with embarassment as the Predacon laughed at her. "Aww, is the little birdy a virgin?"

"I don't know!" Certainly, she'd never had any kind of… that contact… with the others since she'd awoken on this planet. The subject had never come up, and she never thought about it anyway. But maybe, before she had this form, she'd had someone…? She tensed up as the spider approached her. There was something almost predatory about the way Blackarachnia moved, and it was making her more nervous than she'd ever been in battle with an enemy charging her with the intent of ripping her limb from limb.

"Then let me explain it for you." One golden claw brushed against the feathers on Airazor's chestplate, and she fought the urge to bat it away. She refused to let the other get a rise out of her. "When they see us, they see how small and vulnerable we are. It makes them want to protect us, to possess us. It's just instinctual programming, you see."

The claw trailed lower, across her stomach plating and around the curve of her hip. The other claw ran lightly down her arm, and now Blackarachnia's face was inches from her own, her voice lowered to a soft purr. Airazor stared at her, unable to move. This was—entirely different from any other time someone had stood so close to her. The air between them felt like it was charged with the very electricity from their bodies, and she wondered at the slight tremor that ran through her body.

"But I'm not like them."

"Obviously," Airazor muttered, suddenly unable to keep her gaze, but the spider reached up and tilted her face back towards her own.

"I don't have a mech's programming. I can be as rough…" The claw on Airazor's hip rasped briefly against her plating, leaving a line of scratches. "…or as gentle…" The other claw traced Airazor's lips, feather-light. "… as I want."

Her whole body was shaking, now, burning with a need for—something, more touch, more pressure, something, she couldn't even tell what. Her lines felt like they were coursing with something much, much hotter than normal energon, and somewhere in the back of her meta she wondered faintly if something was malfunctioning, to make her feel like this.

"Mechs can't ever truly understand a femme's body. We're built so differently, they can never tell if they're doing things the right way, so they just have to bumble along the best they can. Whereas I," Blackarachnia's optics burned in a way that made her feel like her struts were going to melt, "know your body just as well as my own. I know how where to touch, what feels good. I know how to make you scream."

And that was it. Airazor was doomed. As Blackarachnia's mouth met hers, and they sank to the ground in a tangle of limbs, her last thought was that when Optimus had warned her to avoid the spiders when alone, this was not what he had had in mind.