Summary: No-War, No-Factions AU. Festival of the Five: They were two stars circling a single gravitational point. One driven by faith, the other by desire. They came together only with the blessing of the Guiding Hand, and when they did all of Cybertron was caught in their orbit. They weren't destined for each other, but as Primus said: There is destiny, and then there is destiny.
Warnings: Sexual Content, including one (mild but detailed) tactile interfacing scene. Cannon-typical violence. Alien Religion and various issues thereof.
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Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory
Part Four: Festival of Adaptus cont…
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Technically Mirage didn't need to sneak around. Not only did he live here in a set of rooms on this very corridor, but he was the only one allowed strait into Prime's office — or quarters — anytime of day or night no matter who he was with or what he was interrupting. Early after his Ascension, various administrators, merchants, organizers, guards and especially nobles had tried to bar a "mere" archivist that privilege, but a Prime's command was absolute. But tonight he was slightly angry at Optimus and thought he deserved a good scare.
After the night he'd eluded Escutcheon in the garden and met Hound, Optimus had (almost literally) dragged him to the Temple of Mortilus for training — "I'm not losing one of my only friends because you escaped your bodyguard at the wrong moment," — and Mirage had agreed only if Optimus was right there taking combat lessons alongside him. Valkyrie, the priest, hadn't questioned her new pupils. Training had started immediately and she'd pulled all manner of instructors out of who knew where on everything from basic hand to hand fighting to advanced lessons in resisting interrogation and counter-hacking.
To his surprise, Mirage had blitzed through the lessons so quickly the priest had announced she had nothing left to teach him within a century. Optimus still struggled, especially with situational awareness and reacting to threats and so — after Mirage had unknowingly spent an entire lesson on escaping and evading pursuit invisible, something he hadn't known at the time he could do — Valkyrie had tasked Mirage with improving his Prime's reaction times.
This wasn't the first time he'd snuck in. It got harder when the guards realized what he was doing and why, but even so he was rarely caught and that just highlighted why Prime needed this. There was always someone better out there.
He ghosted over to the berth and examined Orion's huge reformatted form, deciding which wire or tube he'd pull to "kill" his friend tonight. The primary data cord in his neck was always a sure bet, but even invisible there was no way to disguise the shift of bedding as he climbed up to reach it. The primary energon tube next to his spark was also a sure "kill" but well protected behind heavy military grade armor. There were still weapons that could shred through even that, but he had none of them integrated.
The energon line in his left hip — he could reach it from where he stood and if the large mech didn't bleed out quickly enough to, he'd still be disabled enough for a second "shot". Fingers crept closer to the vulnerable gap.
The instant Mirage's stealthy EM field mingled with Optimus' recharging one, a massive hand reached down and grabbed his arm, whirling and sending him into a painful collision with the wall. The world stabilized with his arm twisted behind his back and Optimus' weight holding him down. The dangerous hum of a vibro-ax ready to strike hovered near his audio.
Only then did Optimus' optics switch on to see he was holding thin air. "Mirage?"
Mirage shimmered into view and Optimus let him go. "Your getting good at that. Soon I'm going to have to start 'shooting' you."
The door opened, Ironhide and his massive cannon looking in to see what made that crash he'd heard. He saw Mirage and that Prime was in no danger, and closed the door again without comment. Good thing Ironhide was pretty discreet, else there'd be all sorts of torrid rumors about Prime and Mirage's violent BDSM relationship by now. The regular rumors that inevitably sprung up around any mech of rank were bad enough.
Optimus just looked resigned. "What'd I do this time?" he asked when Ironhide was gone.
"Do I need a reason to test how you'd respond to an assassin?" The answer being well enough to hold him off until his bodyguard responded, as long as the assassin went for a close-in kill, which was extremely good news. Optimus was a politically controversial Prime at odds with the majority of the noble caste and thus under threat, but he wasn't a battle-leader.
"No, but you're irritated with me," Prime answered. "I can feel it in your field."
It had always been impossible to lie to Orion even for one as well trained in the art as Mirage, and becoming Prime had only increased his sensitivity to others' emotions and EM fluctuations.
"I don't appreciate your interference in my love life," he said snootily to cover how tangled up in irritation and honest gratitude he was.
"Really? And here I'd thought you'd appreciate not having to convince him without revealing why you wanted him there this vorn, when you were willing to drop it after just one invitation last time." Glitch could feel Mirage's gratitude too. And he'd hit exactly on why: Mirage didn't want to tell Hound just yet why he wouldn't be sitting with Optimus this vorn. Sometimes he thought Hound might try and stop him, and he certainly didn't want to take that risk. This wasn't something Hound would ask of him, but something Mirage felt he had to do and he didn't want anyone trying to talk him out of it. Maybe it wasn't logical, but very little about entering a Race for a bondmate really was. Optimus respected that, but it did make the prospect of convincing Hound to go to Praxus with them a daunting one.
"Yes," Mirage muttered. "But you're still an interfering busybody who really, really sucks," the low-caste insult rolled out of his vocalizer with an ease it had taken decades to acquire after being kicked out of Phantasm's manor, and he felt Optimus' EM field flush with fondness. Mirage could craft a beautifully cutting subtle insult with the best of his caste, so precise you only knew you were bleeding after he walked away, but he only used low-caste crassness with Optimus. "You suck. You suck the afterburners of a cone-headed seeker, such is the quality of your suckage."
"Yes, of course." Optimus hesitated; sometimes his next request triggered Mirage's often prickly temper because of the issues with Trailbreaker and Hound, other times it helped them both recharge and reminded them of when they'd both just been archivists and sharing an apartment so small it was hard to avoid each others' grieving, tired EM fields. Simpler times when togetherness had been a comfort, not a potential landmine. "Did you want to spend the night?"
Irritation prickled across Mirage's field, but he didn't snap at his Prime. Instead he just sighed. "Yeah, just let me buff out the scratches you gave me in that tussle. Wouldn't want anyone," by which he meant' Trailbreaker, who seemed to make a hobby of collecting rumors about Mirage and retelling them in the most negative way to Hound; Optimus knew it but he didn't call him on it, "thinking anything inappropriate."
"I'll help."
Mirage gave him a grateful smile and he knew everything was going to be okay.
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The introduction had gone smoothly enough. Hound and Trailbreaker had been quiet and nervous and as respectful as mechs who hadn't been schooled since creation in the art of elaborate manners could be. Hound had even found the time to visit a temple of Primus and have one of the priests teach him the proper greetings. He stumbled halfway through the first one, when he'd looked up — and up! — into Prime's optics and realized that that was a demigod smiling gently back at him, but Prime had been pleased with the attempt. And then had done his best to tackleglomp both his guests almost squishing them with a bulk he still forgot he had and the awkwardness had disappeared in a puff of embarrassed chuckles.
In hindsight though, the shuttle ride to Praxus could have gone better. Between Senator Proteus' genteel insinuations about Mirage's sordid relationships with "various" lesser creatures and Trailbreaker's aggressive defensiveness Optimus had eventually had to exercise his Primal authority to send them to separate corners of the shuttle, who'd laughed silently, EM fluctuating in unmistakable mirth, at his high-caste passengers being treated like errant newsparks. Mirage had muttered almost quietly to Hound a comment about muzzling them both to stop their incessant barking and Hound had laughed, but not without a guilty look towards Trailbreaker. The comment had shut up the rest of the Prime's entourage and the nobles had restricted themselves to dirty looks lest the Prime take his advisor's suggestion and have them all leashed.
Trailbreaker glared when the sleeping arrangements had revealed that Mirage would be sharing with Prime, but Hound had been mollified by the rotation bodyguards who'd also be sharing the room. Besides he was sharing with Trailbreaker, because they were roommates in Iacon, which would have meant five or six of them (the three of them and Mirage's bodyguards) stuffed into a room only really big enough for two. And Mirage and Trailbreaker couldn't switch; there was still the space issue and a stranger couldn't be allowed to recharge in the same room as a vulnerable Prime, and sharing with Prime let more of the bodyguards have a full recharge cycle to prepare for the crowds and ceremonies they'd have to be wary of the next day. It just didn't logistically work, however Trailbreaker protested.
By morning, Mirage was gone. Hound had been slightly disappointed, but he'd been ambushed by Prime's personal detailer (Trailbreaker was in there now, trying to fend off the pushy femme in defense of his stains and scratches…and losing, while Hound had snuck out after a basic buff and matte polish; honestly he'd stopped being unreasonable about getting clean after a vorn of courting Mirage and just said it was just an opportunity to get dirty again which never failed to spark a laugh) which made meant it was later by the time he left his temporary quarters to find his lover, and he'd been warned Mirage wouldn't be there to watch the race.
"He left a message for you," Prime said when the gruff red bodyguard let him in when he went looking for Mirage, and he passed over the tiny datachip.
The message was short, but thoughtful. Whatever happens, remember that I love you — Chimaera. Mirage's full formal name, the one given to him by Vector Sigma when he'd been sparked, as Sagacitas was Hound's.
"Thanks," he said awkwardly to the Prime. He resisted asking why Mirage wasn't here, why he was leaving the Prime to attend the Race without him. Whatever it was, if Mirage had wanted him to know he would have said and it must have been really important. He felt like he knew Mirage pretty well and he was sure that nothing was more important in the blue mech's mind than being Prime's friend. Besides it was likely this had all been arranged so that they had to come to the Festival and Mirage would actually join them later.
"It was no trouble at all, Hound. Truly." Prime waved away the thanks. "Now… we have about a joor before we need to be at the stadium — a joor which I refuse to spend with the stick-afts I have to spend all orn with back in Iacon. I'm told you like wild crystal gardens, and Praxus has the largest track of land set aside for wild crystals on Cybertron. Does that sound like a good way to spend a joor?"
"Sure," he looked down embarrassed that he'd forgotten his manners, "I mean. Yes. Whatever you want, Lord Prime."
"None of that," Prime admonished. "Not from you."
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They didn't stay at the Garden the whole joor. Neither did they really explore it as thoroughly as either Hound or Trailbreaker might have liked; Prime was required to keep his paint nice for the upcoming ceremony, something that Hound was used to after similar things with Mirage. Most of the time Mirage was willing to get a bit scratched and dirty, but occasionally when he wouldn't have time to clean up afterwards they would have to be careful. Not to mention their own paint. He and Trailbreaker had to look nice too. Even if they weren't part of the ceremony, they were going to be in the viewing box with Prime in front of cameras. They couldn't mess up their own paint. They had neither the time nor desire to be ambushed again.
Trailbreaker started the outing seeming willing to find fault in anything Prime did, but with what Mirage had called "the most boring and self-interested members of the noble caste" absent it was hard not to like the Prime in person. He didn't talk down to them and seemed genuinely interested in what they had to say about the garden. Trailbreaker talked about why this area had been chosen for the Praxans' wild space — his surveyor's programming pointing out how it was too unstable to support the soaring towers that Praxans preferred — and Hound made observations about the ecosystem.
He even admitted to sheltering the cybercat nests when he could, to his great chagrin, but the Prime had just been so interested that it had seemed so reasonable.
Though, he reflected as Prime waved off his stuttered apology, it was likely he'd already known about that through Mirage.
Eventually they ended up on the balcony of a local refueling shop so small it had only the single mech running it.
The roar of approaching seeker engines drew his attention away from the conversation (still about mechanical ecosystems) to the newcomer, who drew himself up, transformed and landed on the other side of the balcony where he was accosted by the bodyguards. He waited patiently while Ironhide growled and blustered and searched him for weapons, which he had a military-caste seeker's standard allotment but obediently allowed the ammunition and power capacitors to be detached and he subspaced them (not confiscated, but harmless there), but didn't take his gaze off Prime and Hound.
Optimus finally told the bodyguard to stand down and allow the seeker to approach. As he did so, Hound couldn't help but drink in the sight. Everything about him seemed graceful and perfect, gleaming paint in shades of gold almost liquid smooth on his frame, and Hound just felt boxy in comparison. Really, even if the'd thought the interfacing was all there to it, he wouldn't blame Mirage for wanting a seeker like Sunstorm.
He approached Prime first, as was right, and knelt.
"You shouldn't," Optimus sounded truly distressed. "Stand up." The seeker did so and Prime squirmed under that gaze. "What is it?"
"Everyone fails at some point in their functioning," the seeker said, with authority. "You wouldn't have been chosen if you could fail at what matters most. You're not capable of it."
Prime straightened, "Wha—?" but the seeker had already shifted his attention to Hound.
The gold seeker's gaze was disturbing. He didn't quite focus on him, seemed to look at and through him, and right about the time Hound would have snapped for him to explain himself he simply nodded and took off, heel-thrusters igniting and carrying him in the air.
"Sir," Ironhide interjected, "should I have Silverbolt intercept?"
"No…" Prime said, "let him go."
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tbc
