Caro Transmutata Metallo 35
A Transformers Prime Fanfiction
Forgiveness Give and Take
As the tactician and the saboteur sat there, half sprawled against the wall, Prowl carefully set the majority of his processor to meticulously organizing and reviewing certian memory files. They were old files, ones he had classified and suppressed before he had ever set optics on the new, naive Prime who had gladly accepted his fealty, never suspecting the true motivations of the seemingly emotionless enforcer. Each renewed techno-neural pathway seemed to burn another seam into his already tender spark. A smaller portion of Prowl's processor he dedicated to carefully and methodically considering his every movement since they had arrived back on Cybertron, but that went quickly and produced a null result. He had done nothing to give himself away to the saboteur.
"You are a careful mech, Prowl," Blockade said, the warm smile that always seemed to be held at the corners of his optics threatening to spread over the rest of his features. "I can honestly say that you are the first rookie who hasn't made a single mistake in protocol his first vorn here."
"Good service is its own reward." The statement might have sounded flat and trite, but Prowl meant every word. He had only followed procedure, after all, and despite the warm glow it caused in his spark, this praise was making him uncomfortable.
"You were Guardian-raised, correct?" the sergeant inquired causally.
"Yes, sir," the younger enforcer answered, confused at the change in topic. "I was the last of my cadre to be assigned a Guardian instead of a place in the civil service crèche."
For a long moment the old mech, his armor nearly all black, stared quietly at the newly minted enforcer.
"We could use a careful mech," he finally murmured.
Prowl's servos tensed at the memory. No, he had not given himself away. The most obvious conclusion was that something in Shockwave's files had revealed his actions. Had the Decepticons had access to material proof of the Autobot SIC's participation in pre-war actions against the state however, they would have used it for either blackmail or propaganda purposes long ago. Logically, Jazz must have discovered some incidental fact that implicated Prowl.
He felt Jazz's field began to flicker with awareness and Prowl reached out and tenderly traced the damaged plates of his friend's helm. "What did you find?" Prowl asked softly. "You have had all the data necessary to reach this conclusion since before the war began." Regret settled on his faceplates like an unwelcome guest despite his best attempts to hide his inner turmoil. "What finally managed to disrupt the emotional biases that compromised your investigative ability until now?" Prowl understood them well, after all, he had relied on those biases for far too long as it was.
"Come on, Prowler! Loosen up! Get out here!" Jazz called to him.
Prowl idly swirled the oil drink in his can as he watched the silver mech swinging across the dance floor to the beat of some patriotic, Senate-approved song. The enforcer had felt the disdain in the investigator's field at the trite lyrics, but soon the beat had proved irresistible to Jazz and he had tried to pull Prowl out into the crowd of swaying mechs.
"I have far too much office work to catch up on to risk on that kind of distraction." The enforcer had waved him off with a smile. "Go, enjoy yourself."
The statement was more than true, and Jazz was unquestionably enjoying himself now, lost in the moment and the rhythm. The silver mech was moving with a passionate grace that Prowl could not help but admire even as the investigator's professional deeds dragged his processor through increasing levels of complexity. There was no doubt that Jazz was good at what he did, be it dancing or investigation. Sometimes it seemed that a single clue was all he needed to unravel the web of deception Prowl had so carefully woven to protect those under his care. Sometimes it seemed that the investigator just knew their secrets without having to see anything. What must be a fantastic analytical ability coupled with keen observational skills that might as well have added up to a psychic Sigma Gift made Jazz the most dangerous mech the enforcer had ever encountered. It was fascinating. Jazz was fascinating.
"You know, if ya got out there an' mingled you could have this whole room sippin' energon out of your palm," Jazz declared with a laugh as he threw himself into the seat next to Prowl.
The other mech arched an optic ridge skeptically and raised his cube to indicate the enforcer shield on his shoulder. "I doubt I would have your success," Prowl replied with a rueful grin. "I do not make friends easily."
"I can't believe that," Jazz scoffed, as he reached over to snatch the enforcer's drink with an impish grin and a teasing glyph: ~too slow~ "There ain't a mech in here with a brighter spark than you. You, Prowl –" Jazz took a sip and the waved the stolen drink at the other mech – "you're a good enforcer cuz you're a good mech. Ya got passion; ya care."
"And what about you?" Prowl asked as he flagged down to waiter to order another oil to hide his reaction. Despite the fact that he knew the mech was playing him, the compliment sent a warm glow through his spark. "What makes you a good investigator?"
For the briefest of moments shock and pain shot through Jazz'z bright field, his faceplates tightened and the can in his hand dented under the stress of his servos. His visor dimmed and he glanced out over the crowd. The answer was murmured so softly that Prowl was never certain he was intended to hear it.
"Probably that I stopped caring."
Prowl might have believed that then, when he had seen Jazz as an extension of the system that had taken so much from him, but it was a delusion he had not held for long. A low sound came from the mech curled against him and Prowl spread his field out to soothe him. The act of calming Jazz served to center Prowl a bit, but contemplating how much Jazz did care, how much the betrayal had no doubt hurt him, how much more the full revelation would damage their relationship… a minute shiver of agony passed through Prowl's wings.
"How did ya know?"
The muttered question was wrapped in so many emotions that Prowl didn't even try to make sense of them. He drew a long draught of air through his vents and considered his answer. "I was informed by my superior that a cultural investigator had been sent to discover and eliminate those of us in Praxus. I determined that was your assignment when you arrived – "
"No, about – " Jazz's voice caught and cracked with rage – "about Tumbler."
Another sharp pain shot through Prowl's processor as he tried to make sense of the question. Of all the things in their past, Jazz surely had no reason to be angry at him regarding the death of his partner. "He left a cryptic message with me when you got too close to them and they fled. I had a direct line to his spark monitor for security purposes." Prowl's helm dipped and old pain flickered in his optics. "I knew the moment when he went offline."
There was a long tense moment of silence between them, each spark pulse sending a fresh wave of pain through Prowl's already harrowed processor.
"So when I came in the next morning ta ask you out for a cube?"
"I knew then that Tumbler was offline, yes."
Fury and agony burned through the enforcer as the silver investigator sauntered into headquarters with his signature smirk in place. The hot emotions were a sharp contrast to the shame and self-loathing that sat heavy in Prowl's spark. How had he allowed himself to grow so close to the mech he knew to be the enemy?
"Hey, Prowler! Care to join me for a cube after your shift?" Jazz asked blithely.
"I will be unable to this orn," Prowl responded, fighting to keep his composure. It had just felt so right, all those off-cycles out with the investigator. He had told himself at first that he had been keeping Jazz away from Tumbler and Rollbar, but in truth he had enjoyed the connection, the budding friendship. Primus, part of him wanted to accept now, to find some solace in the other's presence. That thought made his tanks churn harder.
"Suit yourself. If ya change your processor, you'll know where to find me."
"Yes. Yes, I will."
"Jazz," the tactician's control was very near cracking as he struggled to focus on the now, "perhaps it would be best to continue this conversation in a more appropriate venue."
"Shaddup," muttered the smaller mech as he curled tighter against Prowl. "Hangover. Don't want ta move."
"Shaddup," the dissolute silver mech slurred out at the enforcer who stood over him. "Yer ruinin' a good overcharge with yer confession. Don't wanna arrest no more mechs today."
Prowl glared down at the form sprawled limply in the alleyway behind what might have been a respectable oil house at one time. His dark servos clenched as darker thoughts flowed through his processor. Confession? It was accusations he had hurled at the mech at his peds. The silver murderer should be the one confessing. Prowl would gladly stand as his judge and executioner. It would be so easy. No one would ever know. Who understood better than a street patrol mech what was found in a back alley murder? The trash that filled the space was rife with sharp, perforating instruments. The target was nearly senseless. "How fitting," Prowl hissed. "You will extinguish here like the trash you are."
Even in his enraged state, however, the gentle words of his mentor whispered to him. Every spark is precious; Primus mourns each that returns to him too soon, no matter the circumstances.
"It doesn't apply to him," the enforcer spat out. "It can't. Not after what he has done. He deserves this." But the still small voice continued to whisper to him the words he had known since he was a sparkling. Every spark.
Deliberately Prowl ignored the murmur and refocused on the task at hand. Spark burning, the young mech bent and selected a slim fragment of broken metal. His processor offered that it most likely came from an oil storage rack, but his battle computer was whirling along with so many interesting ways to end the miserable existence of the murderer in front of him that he paid such a triviality no heed. He decided on a quick upward slash along the ventral pectoral loci, statistically the most commonly fatal wound in such cases. No one would question it. Prowl leaned forward and gave a hiss of static before collecting himself enough to speak.
"This is for Tumbler!" he finally choked out.
"Tumbler?" The name ended in a soft whine from the investigator's engine. "Who? Why? Who?"
The visor retracted and the potential weapon slipped from the enforcer's suddenly limp servos. The cerulean optics that stared up at him were full of such pain as the young mech had never seen. He had never imagined that a being could carry such grief, such anger, and still function. Something shattered in his own spark and the fury and hate that had been holding him together spilled out of the cracks in his psyche.
"Tumbler?" the voice slurred again. "Yer not him. Offlined him."
"Why?" the enforcer gasped out, unable to break optic contact with the mech he had been going to end only moments before, but the silver mech reached up weakly and gripped his arm.
"Why? He fought, wouldn't be taken. Kidnapping. Wouldn't surrender the sparkling. Orders," the investigator's voice slurred heavily. "He had ta go. Broke th' rules. Pit, slagging, orders." The cerulean optics seemed to pierce the enforcer. "He screamed. Th' lil' one, when I took 'im away. Orders. Why?"
Some great need seeped through the pleading and Prowl felt a bitter laugh escape his mouth as he dropped to his knees beside the mech. He stared down at the keening, overcharged investigator feeling a confusing mixture of compassion and disgust. Oh, the lying silver coward still cared, just not enough to do anything to preserve whatever he cared about. Prowl reached out a hand and tilted the filthy faceplates up to where he could study them, expanding his field to take in the wild and tumultuous agony that was Jazz: his enemy, his friend, a murderer, a victim. The enforcer's cover was blown, his only hope was offline, and as long the helpless mech he was currently kneeling over functioned, his own spark and the sparks of his cadre were in mortal peril. Gritting his denta, Prowl stood and pulled the overcharged mech onto his shoulderguard in a perfectly regulation carry hold. There was no need for secrecy. No one would think twice about an enforcer dragging an inebriated mech through even the most dangerous streets of Praxus.
Prowl gave a low groan as he managed to shut down the memory re-play and pushed Jazz away from him. The saboteur rose with sulky grace and snapped his visor firmly back into place. Prowl got slowly to his peds and flexed his sore doorwings carefully. The small pain was almost a welcome distraction from the growing agony in his processor. No one but the head of Special Operations would have noticed the wince that movement generated. His friend muttered what might have been an apology, or an insult, and pulled a container of salve from his subspace. The action was familiar, yet it sent a fresh stab of guilt through the tactician's already harried spark and caused another memory file to activate.
Jazz sat cross-legged behind him on the medical berth, servos working the salve – non-regulation and almost certainly black market – into doorwing joints sore from spending far too long pressed into non-Praxian equipment. His voice chattered on soothingly about the new friend he had made in Iacon. Prowl leaned forward, shuttering his optics to block out unnecessary input to his over-sensitized and stressed processors. If he were strictly following the medical technician's orders, he would also be blocking out the sound of his companion's words. While the information was useful, it was not so critical that recording and reviewing it later was not a viable option. Still for all the lies, for all the pain that existed between them, it was soothing to simply hear his friend's voice.
The tactician sat, ignoring the mess that had been made of his office, and spread the sensory surfaces in acceptance. Without a word Jazz began massaging the healing salve into the sensitive wing joints with a skill that spoke of long practice. His field was still a wash of confusion and pain, but the mech gave no indication of his internal discomfort through the touch. After a moment he spoke, his voice raw with emotion.
"The reason I could never find any sign of yer attacker when yer processor was fragmented: there was no attacker; there was only you in that lab." Jazz began to enunciate his words with greater clarity, spitting them out like daggers. "It was you all along. You were the last member of the cult that I could never root out."
This time the mech behind him paused expectantly and the enforcer nodded curtly, not bothering to correct the minor technical errors in Jazz's statement. Prowl could feel the pressure building in his cortexes. He had to get himself under control.
He had hesitated, fear and uncertainly coiling in his tanks as he lay on the sterile medical berth. The machines around him hummed and whirred impersonally. His doorwings scraped against the sterile surface of the berth. The chemical receptors that permeated them could only detect the powerful, scouring agent he had used when he had last cleaned it. Prowl stared at the cracked ceiling that seemed to loom just in front of his faceplates. This was madness. Tumbler should have been here, as Prowl had been there for his partner. To alter one's core coding oneself, without a trusted ally to observe and assist, was almost certain to cause irreparable damage. As far as he knew it had never been done. A brief intense longing for Jazz filled him and his doorwings stretched out as if trying to sense some lingering trace of the investigator's presence. He could not help laughing bitterly at the irony. Jazz had the skill to make this much safer. But he was still the servant of the enemy, still to be feared, not to mention that merely revealing the lab to him would destroy any trust he had for Prowl. Primus, how had he gotten into this mess? All he had ever wanted to do was serve and protect his fellow mechs, to fulfill the function for which Primus had created him and to pass that passion on to the next generation. He felt trapped, the situation closing in on him from all sides, leaving him only one, terrifying path. Drawing a shuddering invent to cool his systems, the enforcer sent the signals that would activate the procedure.
"You used your position so I never found out when one o' the sparklings would be snatched after that. Made it look like I'd taken care of 'em all," Jazz continued.
"Being head tactician gave me access to all available resource data," Prowl confirmed. "It allowed me to conceal much, even from you." A wry grimace twisted his faceplates, both at the memory and his own precarious mental control. "Though you did not make it easy – "
"When ya approached me ta get ya an audience with Optimus," Jazz cut him off harshly, "that plot against him ya talked about, ya weren't trying ta track them down. You were the plot." It was a statement, not a question.
"That is," Prowl hesitated, "more or less correct. It was to get closer to Alpha Trion that I suggested you seek out an archivist, and it was to gain intelligence on the rebellion building in Kaon that I encouraged you to pursue your friendship with Orion Pax. It was unexpected but fortuitous when the head archivist petitioned Halogen to nominate him as Prime."
Jazz hissed as if in agony and his servos dropped to Prowl's sturdy shoulderguards. The Praxian felt the smaller mech's crest brush against the back of his own helm and fought back a shudder at the raging emotions in the saboteur's field. By habit his own reacted, stabilizing and calming to give his friend an anchor, even as the old guilt rose up to choke him, as potent as it had been that dark night when he had sealed his own fate. He knew he was perilously close to a crash and struggled to find balance.
"I have betrayed your trust, Jazz," Prowl began when it seemed as if the saboteur were not going to go on. He had been both dreading and longing to give this apology. It would be a relief to finally acknowledge his guilt, but the thought of losing Jazz's trust sent an almost physical pain through his spark. "I cannot –"
But suddenly, in one of his signature impossible movements, Jazz's talon-tipped servos were wrapped around his hands and the smaller mech was practically kneeling in front of him, trembling with grief and rage and guilt and fear.
"No, no, no, no. Unicron in th' pit, no, you slagging glitch!" the saboteur snarled out. "Don't you, don't you dare!"
Prowl shuttered his optics in confusion as red-hot fire tore through his processor. He could only tilt his helm to the side and fall silent in acquiescence.
"This ain't about you. I know you. I trust you." Jazz must have felt the agonized spasm that sent through the other's field because he answered with an aggressive flare of his own. "You earned that trust, Prowler." The saboteur laced his words through with all of the glyphs that he had come to associate with his friend over their millennia of knowing each other: ~protector~ ~trusted~ ~friend~ ~safe~."Before the war, I spent what? Maybe a vorn total with ya between missions? I didn't know ya then and the Pit knows what kind a' space my processor and spark were in. Then we were thrown together, second- and third-in-command ta Optimus. Th' right and left servos of the Prime. How long have we known each other since? How many times has my spark, my mechs' sparks, rested in your servos?" The words were followed so strongly by the glyph for ~rhetorical question~ that Prowl's mouth snapped shut on the answer. "We were on the same side, had the same goals. We disagreed over methods. We fought, but I knew – " Jazz's field, strong with conviction, suddenly began to falter – "I always knew that you had the moral high ground. You were an Enforcer – " ~protector, sentinel, servant, true-witness~ – "I was th' Investigator – " ~inquisitor, spy, hunter, liar~. "If we were on opposite sides of any issue I knew it was me, bending the morals I was supposed to be upholding ta' get the job done, that put us there. We were on opposite sides then, when you were fragmented, when I offlined your – when I …"
Jazz fell into silence, with only the sound of his heaving vents filling the small room. Prowl did not speak, letting his field express the complete confusion he felt even as he fought the rapidly growing agony in his processor. Finally the saboteur gave a choking sob and dropped his helm down onto their intertwined hands.
"Primus, Prowl … I'm so sorry. So sorry."
"Jazz," Prowl whispered as he stared down at the frighteningly still investigator he had just violated, "I am sorry."
With that the familiar safety snapped in the tactician's processor, sending him into welcoming blackness.