Onlining after his tac-set was restarted was similarly as odd as the first time. There was one major difference: this time he felt accomplished, even refreshed. He did something on his own, without the AI prompting him, or at least trying to prompt him. Granted, it started off with yelling and some flailing limbs, but his brothers calmed down and he even had a solution to the family problems.

'Perhaps I should consider this more often for personal problems,' he mused before trying to quickly banish that thought. It didn't disappear, as it lead him back to how his tac-set wanted him to incapacitate Jazz during his nightmare. 'The Decepticons can attack anytime,' he argued with himself.

There was no denying that the Decepticons would not be doing anything for at least a deca-orn. He theoretically could do this once an orn without consequence, up to the earliest date the Decepticons might try something. Besides, the tac-set would have to be on when he was recharging with Jazz, so it might not make a difference anyways. Not unless there was a safe, non-hackable way to turn it off and on for him, without causing problems.

Why was he even entertaining this? Being able to better listen to his spark would never be on equal footing as providing the resources of a mobile battle tac-set.

"Feeling better?" Ratchet asked.

"Yes, much."

"Good. Hopefully it'll feel more like when we repaired your processor of that emotions damage."

Prowl gritted his dentae, fighting hard to not show Ratchet what his thoughts were on that, and that he didn't need the reminder. "I feel better," he repeated. "Please excuse me; I have work to do."

"Shocking. See you later. Have fun with your personal time."

Prowl made it back to his quarters, opting to skip the Coff-E for now so he didn't taste like sludge. Knowing Jazz, if Prowl was giving him his time, then Jazz would put an amorous touch to it since it was still close enough to the mission for the Polyhexian's heightened needs.

Prowl worked until late before there was a ping to his commlink. ::Come on over. Remember, hallway is safe because this is for painting with privacy. Most get that.::

::Understood. Wrapping up my datapads now.::

::Okay. You better not bring any over here! Do so and I'll paint it, screen included.::

::But… fine.::

Prowl stored and saved all his data and progress, and then trekked passed Ironhide's closed door to Jazz's. The door opened and Prowl stepped inside. "How's the agent?" Prowl greeted.

"Fine enough. I've got the situation handled for now," Jazz paused to yawn, "and monitoring systems set up should something happen. Plus Communications know to comm. me if anything comes in. I told them anything."

"So your time is split between here and work? What a strange sense; I'm not used to sharing your with your work like this."

"Hey, mech, now it's your turn to know what I feel when you work late. I got the paint equipment set up in the washracks but I didn't bother dragging the TV or any other entertainment. You'll just have to settle for me."

"Your entertainment value alone is hardly settling."

Jazz half-smiled, his energy having depleted faster than he anticipated due to all the work items, considering he lost significant useful recharge. He promised to make time for this repainting and he strongly intended to follow through. "Time to strip, Prowler!"

Prowl stepped into the washrack, dreading the worst part of a new paint job, or at least tied with small detailing for that title. "You aren't planning to do that to my chevron and doorwings, are you?"

"Yes I am. When I comm.'ed Sunny and asked him what he suggested, he got a tad too excited. Excited for him, anyways." Jazz tapped a close bag. "I got all the brushes and strippers and fixin's for Praxian detailing and sensitive spots here. Apparently I'm not the only one who's noticed your mismatching touchup paint. Now get in my shower."

Prowl grumbled as he did as told. Jazz hooked up the main stripping brush pad to a paint chip collector, a bag attached on the opposite end. "Okie dokie, here we go."

Jazz made quick work of all the large-to-medium non-sensitive parts. When he was switching tools for the doorwings he spoke to the mostly-stripped mech, "Almost forgot to ask. What did you say to Hide?"

"I told him that it would benefit anyone working in this corridor to have a storage space and that he would benefit the most from the move due to his socializing and responsibilities."

"Okay, so far nothing strange," Jazz murmured as he started up the quiet and soft strip pad for the doorwings. Prowl automatically brought all sensors down to near zero sensitivity. "Keep going."

"He mentioned being surprised that I was pushing it through so quickly. I explained to him that I didn't want to leave him or our administrative process in limbo."

"And what he'd say?"

"He accepted it, all around. He did ask me if I had more to say, but I said no."

Jazz turned off the pad. "What exactly did he say?"

"He said 'if that's all you got to say about me moving.'"

"How did he say it?"

"He said it like how Ironhide normally asks such questions? I fail to see what you're worried about."

"Did his optics do something funny? Did his voice change inflection? Did he do something abnormal?"

"You know I often don't notice those things so well," Prowl chastised. "He left the office slower, watching me a little longer. I assumed he was a bit perplexed about me doing his paperwork so fast, as he had questioned."

Jazz groaned. "So many flaws in your assumption. Please tell me Hide is the only one you've had this kind of conversation with, like you didn't tell anyone else about the move."

"Just Prime, but briefly. That reminds me, Ratchet saw my scratches."

Jazz grimaced, both at the reminder of the harm he'd done to Prowl and the possibilities of Ratchet noticing damage. "I'm almost loathed to ask, but what did the two of you say?"

"I told him it was caused by falling datapads. He called it poor luck."

"What happened next?"

"I tried to satisfy his curiosity and any dissuade any thoughts on repairs. I said you owned me a repaint, and then when he asked why you owned me a repaint I said you caused me to drop the datapads."

Jazz facepalmed with one freed hand. His voice was almost strained when he asked, "What happened next?"

"I'm not really sure. Ratchet became quiet and stared at me. Much like how Ironhide stared at me, now that I think about it. Plus he kept mentioning privacy. Am I doing something wrong?"

"I almost can't handle that question. I don't even know where to start. Wait, maybe I do. I got an idea." Jazz set down the tool. "I was going to hold off until I was further along to give you something, but I think I should give it to you now and just tinker as I can. Wait here."

Jazz returned in less than a breem, holding a box. "I made you a present. Open it."

Prowl took the box and carefully opened the lid. "A yellow visor?" Unlike Jazz's, this one actually had a cutout for a standard-size nose, like Prowl's.

"Yeah. It occurred to me when we were pre-mission-debriefing the other orn that you could use some help reading others. Then I thought you should probably just have an interpreter. Put it on."

"I have no hookup points."

"I know, which is why you have to recharge it when you recharge. It works independently of your systems, unlike mine."

Prowl obliged, but spoke with some confused concern. "It's yellow. I don't have any yellow paint."

"No, but your paint job and optics basically limit you to matching me or matching a Decepticon. So you get one of my 'blank' spares, and I thought yellow would go better than emerald green. I've got clear but that would be weird because everyone could see what the visor is doing and what it does… well, test it out to see what I mean."

Prowl pushed it around on his still-painted face until it sat comfortably on his nose and by his helm. "Now what?"

Jazz narrowed one optic, turned his helm slightly, and smirked. This was better than answering.

Suddenly the optic movement, helm profile change, and downward mouth movement were highlighted on Prowl's visor. Across the bottom flashed "Possible emotions: smug satisfaction, coy, pleasure."

Prowl was taken aback by it. "What is this?"

"It's your emotions reader for helping you understand others! Or it's your emotions interpreter, depending how you use it." Jazz clapped his hands and smiled.

The visor highlighted the movements and popped up a small list of content, pleasure, or enthusiasm. Prowl commented, "It's not entirely exact."

"It's a work-in-progress that I'm giving you way earlier than I was planning. As it is, I only did slight modifications from the downloaded physiatrist's database on watching for emotional responses to therapy. It'll give you the most likely database hits, so it'll probably return more than one. I added the framework for my visors' adaptive learning coding."

"That's really thoughtful and resourceful, thank you, but I don't think I can wear a visor around base." Prowl pulled it off. "Not without some serious questioning and suspicion."

"Already thought of that. Tell people it's tactical. Special Ops tactical that I'm giving you to better grasp our operations from an agent's POV. No one's going to argue with you upping your tact game, and mechs know I have that kind of personality to push Ops training on another department affecting my own."

"I'm still not sure this will work."

"Just try it for me, okay? Be my beta-tester."

"Isn't this more like alpha-testing, given I'm the target audience of one?"

"No, because I'm making it and I did try it. I'm alpha, you're beta. Now get your beta in the show so we can keep working."

"What about Ironhide?"

"I'll deal with him. Somehow. Plus Ratchet, somehow. You just focus on trying out that visor tomorrow." Jazz gently took it from Prowl's hand and placed it back in the box for safekeeping.

Considering the effort time and the relatively-low energy both had, Jazz managed to completely strip Prowl of all paint in record time without hurting the mech once. Jazz asked, "So, blacks, whites, greys, and red where they were before?"

"Yes. I have no desire to change my paint job."

"Not even, say, with yellow painted decals? Like a cop?"

Jazz pinged Prowl with some pictures. "When I was finishing up I thought about your point that yellow doesn't really belong. I ran an image search and came back with some human cop car paint decals."

"I can't have any human symbols I'm not sanctioned by their government to have."

"So no Sherriff stars or whatever. What about Cybertronian? I remember little stem-less arrow things Iacon Enforcer had. Did Praxian Enforcers have them? Don't see them on the human photos so they can't mean anything government-regulated here."

Prowl considered Jazz's points, as well as the efforts Jazz put into gifting him an object for his benefit. "In Praxus it depended on criteria I never opted to see if I qualified. While you prepare, I'll consider it and the criteria more carefully."

"Awesome," Jazz grinned. He mixed all colors, keeping red in a smaller paint pot. He pinged the latest shift in paint supplies to bring him a small yellow pot, just in case.

Halfway through, when the pot was dropped off, Prowl finally gave an answer. "I'll allow the yellow Enforcer symbols." He wasn't sure if it was smart or not to go with something from his ruined home, but there was a rush of memories he didn't want to push aside. Before Jazz could comment, he murmured allowed the new thought, "Still, who knows how this will affect others, an officer wearing pre-war markings?"

"If for the best, then you should totally positively affect 'em; if for the worst, then to Pit with them and their problems. Send me photos of the specific Praxian Enforcer symbols."

"The stemless arrows are fine." Still, he pinged Jazz photos of the decals mounted on Enforcer shoulders.

Jazz worked swiftly for the smaller areas, without detailing the yellow. Painting the chevron had Prowl's face twitching but he said nothing. Jazz suspected it was ticklish under the brush but he wasn't about to irk Prowl by asking if he was losing to a tickling sensation.

"Okay, so a pair of shoulder-wide stem-less downward arrows on each shoulder?" He asked, holding a brush and a straight flat stick for painting the outlines.

"Let's not do the full shoulder width. Maybe half, or less, to keep it somewhat subtle and a little less like our pre-war world."

Jazz drew an outline of one small arrow, near the top of Prowl's shoulder and pointing downward. "These should totally be pointing to something. Like those bars or grills new cars have, or something. Ooh! You should get handle bars on your shoulders!"

"Why?"

"Why not? Plus then It'll be easier to do this," Jazz suddenly straightened his full height to sneak a kiss to Prowl's watchful bowed helm. "But without having to wait until you're looking down to sneak attack you like that."

"I'll… consider it." Littler flurries of energy in his spark, timed to Jazz's actions and words, said "do it." The idea of frame changes for non-work related reasons was unquantifiable and he didn't like that, but he didn't like the idea of not considering it, either. Life had far too many questions these orns.

The longest part of the repaint and bane of Jazz's tired focus was making sure the arrows lined up perfectly across the two shoulders, even with the right tools. When the last stroke colored in the last arrow, Jazz happily declared, "Ta da! You're now completely painted… except for your interfacing equipment," he added with a smirk.

"No. Absolutely not. I'm not sitting through that right now."

"Obviously. You aren't supposed to sit through it. At all."

Prowl supplied only a very pointed glare. "I don't need it and I'm too tired to go through that," he countered, opting for the easy out.

Jazz sighed, "Yeah, me too. Except now I'm kind of too turned on to recharge. Maybe a quickie, hmmm?"

"I don't think that would be wise with our energy levels."

"I didn't say a hard and fast quickie. Hardlines are totally back on the plate now. Help me put this stuff away, because regardless what happens we have to do that."

Never let it be that Jazz couldn't formulate subtle plans for getting what he wanted. The two cleaned the equipment, with only a few "slips" by Jazz. One of those slips somehow managed to get drops of paint on his aft. "Oops," Jazz said demurely, slowly cleaning it off with his hips cocked to the side.

Prowl figured out exactly what Jazz was doing with his exaggerated movements but found himself in a similar situation as Jazz of a building charge before he could stop it. He pretended not to notice.

His efforts to not react were noticed and served to encourage Jazz. The saboteur kept finding ways to carefully pick items off the floor in inappropriate poses, and then arching his back when coming back up.

With everything packed, Jazz licked his lips and said in a slow, low voice, "Aaahhhhh, everything's packed. Managed to stuff everything."

To the Pit with it; Jazz wasn't the only one capable of surprises. Prowl took a deep in-vent and moved before his nerves could stop him. He grabbed Jazz tightly, kissing him borderline hard on the lips while pushing him towards the sink.

Jazz's surprise that Prowlinitiated ended when he rewarded it with wrapping one leg around Prowl's waist.