This turned out a lot longer than it needs to be, but that makes up for the fact that it might be another few months before I update again.
Chapter IX
Soundwave was the first to wake up. It was his turn to share the horror of close proxemics. He found that his coils had managed to wrap themselves around Daniel and keep him snug to his own body. He had half a mind to amputate these autonomous appendages if they kept on dragging the closest source of warmth towards him. The self-mutilating thoughts ceased when the Vehicon moved, adjusting to get comfortable before his recharge cycle ended. It looked cute.
The commander shoved himself upright as though he was pushing himself physically from the thought. The tight coils yanked Daniel from his peaceful sleep and he lost his nerve when he found he was twisted up in the snake-like musculature.
"Don't kill me!" he shouted. "I didn't do anything!"
A wild limb hit the commander against his wide plane-wing shoulder. Soundwave glanced at him, frowning under the visor. The jerking motions were making the poor drone's predicament worse. His reflex when others frantically flailed about in the tentacles was to crush them with their strength.
[Stop moving.]
The drone whined. He slowed down, but he kept shoving as he tried wiggling himself out.
[Your erratic movements are making them contract.]
Daniel, panting from his panicked awakening, froze in place. The appendages relaxed and Soundwave carefully slid them over one another to detangle the lines.
"Did you… Were you trying to…?" He let the question hang.
[I was not trying to kill you.]
"Then… were you…?" He gulped, knowing this question was even deadlier than the previous. "Were you cuddling me?"
The four-pronged claws of one coil snapped open, grabbed Daniel by his blank face, and shoved him off the berth with a loud clang. The drone touched the plating to feel the tiny dents. He stayed on the floor to keep himself small.
"I'm sorry, commander, that was out of line."
[I told you that this is the only place where you can be out of line.] He turned his head, letting the dark visor be the expression that chilled Daniel's spark. [There are still limitations.]
"Yes, sir. Personal boundaries, I got it."
[You will not be terminated for your language.]
"No, just shoved violently if I nudge on those boundaries," Daniel sighed as he stood up. It seemed contradictory to be punished for being too familiar when he and the commander had already been intimate with each other more than once. The mech had already taken him on a quick tour through his own memories, for Primus' sake, and woke up to what might have been cuddling; and he was still being kept from being friendly. He knew better that it was not Daniel himself that was part of the problem, but Soundwave's reluctance to open up to others. It was a tough wall to break down, if it was possible to break at all.
Neither of them had anything to say to quell the silence, except for, "I'll see you tonight, sir, if you'll have me."
[If no other event prevents me, then yes, we will meet again tonight. You are dismissed.]
Daniel saluted, more out of reflex than of obedience, and left. After last night's discussion, he questioned while on his way to the mess hall if the salute was a result of programming. It would be another mind puzzle he could give to Ozzy: If drones are meant to be products of their simple programming and sensory experience, then are regular Cybertronians a combination of genetic programs overlapping until one comes out dominate, or even twisted so it is no longer mirroring either code the processor is meant to adopt?
The bigger question would be: If drones have the same programming and relatively the same experiences, how did they manage to develop differently? Daniel was one of many mechs who took up visual art as a first hobby. Some made music. Others became technical experts, very few were chemists, some liked studying multiple cultures—The miners all became geologists out of necessity and work experience, but half of them turned out to be more knowledgeable than others because of their growing interest in the composition of the lithosphere.
And though the miners and ship drones were segregated due to specializations of their builds, artists still appeared among the rock busters. Harrison, one of the older excavators, had showed the drone council images of doodles left behind on abandoned tunnel lines. The first evidences were simple figures of drones themselves, and occasionally a larger person that they assumed to be Lord Megatron that would stand over the mass of smaller, feeble stick-mechs. Later on, the etchings would enact imagined events or retell history. Recently, the cave artists had a tendency to carve the names of the fallen as memorials to drones and Decepticons alike. The marker for Breakdown was accompanied with deeper carves into the wall to shape a section of rock to the likeness of his face. Daniel was not sure who the anonymous artist was who so admired the ex-Wrecker that he designed the grinning face into the wall, but it seemed plenty of mechs approved of it. No other Decepticon had a marker like that. It drove home how much some of the drones enjoyed their time being able to talk to an actual non-drone on the regular, almost revering the relationship.
He left his thoughts at the door when he entered the mess hall. Mechs were buzzing about, finding their drinks and social groups to get ready for the rest of the day. Daniel pushed past to get his drink. The daytime bartender, Yovanni's apprentice, was working the counter.
"Still working the codes, Keimen," Daniel said when he grabbed the mech's attention. "Nothing energetic, please."
"In a minute."
Keimen worked his way down the line to get orders, scribbling on a small data pad without looking down at it. Daniel was never sure how one was able to understand the chicken-scratch excuse of Keimen's handwriting, but so long as mech's drinks tasted right then he did not care about legibility.
"Been looking around for you, Dan."
The Vehicon turned around to see Elias standing behind him. He stood out as always, a silver beacon among the herd of purple bodies.
"You never called," Daniel retorted. "I didn't know you were looking for me."
"You want to tell me why Joel and Barkley caught you going to Soundwave's room and not coming back out?" He sized him up and down. "Well, at least you're still intact, so being a punching bag is ruled out."
"Stay out of my business, Eli."
He put his arms on the counter, facing himself away from the stunned Seeker drone. He really wished he had asked for something stronger, even though the day shift drinks at this hour were barred from containing any high-grade content. Elias grabbed his shoulder to spin him back around.
"We're both councilmechs," he growled. "We're the heads of the same branch. Whatever you know, I'm supposed to know. I'm beyond entitled to your business."
"You better keep those claws off me if you're going to talk to me like that."
The closest mechs halted their own conversations to watch the argument, waiting for fists to fly to liven up their morning. Elias would never let it escalate to that, and Daniel knew it. But the Seeker was mindful of the attention they were starting to draw. He lowered his voice and leaned in with an arm on the counter, playing it off like a couple's spat.
"Where were you last night?" he asked.
Any other time, that sentence would have been innocent between them. It would have been simple curiosity instead of accusatory betrayal. Daniel knew Elias was trying to control the situation.
"Entertaining someone else."
Three or four listeners voiced their laughing "ohh"s before the silver drone whipped his gaze towards them. He scraped his claws on the counter as he drew closer, getting into Daniel's personal space to block the eavesdroppers.
"You were with Soundwave."
"So what if I was?"
"Why?"
It would have been an innocent question if not for Elias's tone. "Why" from someone like Tone or Dallas would have suggested curiosity as to why Soundwave required a drone's presence in his room. But a "why" from Elias without its inquisitive inflection implied that Daniel had a choice, that he could have said no. He knew he was going to hear lies, so he set up the question on purpose.
"I was ordered to."
"What did you do?"
The answer did not have a chance to settle. The Seeker used the first question to have his actual interrogation ready. Daniel's optics darted behind his visor, looking for a way out.
"Can we talk about this later?"
"Why not now? We've got time."
"I said later, Elias."
"How much later?"
Daniel craned his neck to see where Keimen was with his goddamn drink. "Tonight, at the Hub. I promise."
"A promise, huh?"
"You don't trust my promises?"
Elias's engine whined as he walked away. Daniel slumped onto the counter and hid his head in his arms. Someone patted his shoulder, and he looked to acknowledge their comfort.
"Dump him," the mech said. "I don't know if you're still actually dating or not, but dump him."
Keimen set a drink in front of him. Daniel groaned and buried his face in his servos.
It's a date. Those three words kept rolling around in Soundwave's mind when he least needed them to. As he tampered with another line of code, he wondered when he had last been on a date. It was long before the war, as was the case with many things in a Cybertronian's life. He cycled through memories, looking for a face to remember. Would it really be a date, or was Daniel making a joke? His distraction caused him to lose track of what he was supposed to be doing, so he put memory recall near the bottom of his list of priorities.
His optics drifted to where Daniel stood. He had a separate window on his terminal, looking into a hallway camera. There seemed to be a scuffle between Insecticons and Vehicons. Hopefully it was a minor infraction. He pulled up his own monitor to take a look. More drones put themselves in the situation to try and separate the fighters. One was bulldozed by an Insecticon. Another took its place, firing a shot to the Insecticon's knee and disabling its desire to fight. Soundwave turned on the audio, letting it through the terminal's speakers. The three drones with him flinched when they heard a modified voice come through.
"If any of you scrap-chuckin' pit mongers take one more step, I'll shoot more than just a foot off!" screamed the drone, shouting in a dialect akin to the Earth's Southern American. He turned the gun on his fellow drones, the ones who were initially involved in the fight. "That means you too!"
Soundwave opened a link to Daniel, and the Vehicon responded immediately to the silent question: JA-YS1N, better known as Jason. Heavy machinery maintenance. He normally works on drills but he's up with here with a team to inspect any possible damage Trypticon might have caused.
"You want to do the Autobots' job for them, feel free to take it the hell outside," Jason continued. "But for the love of Primus, can we get through a single day without tearing each other's faces apart! We've got enough slag to deal with!"
No one took him up on the argument. The fight had dissipated. Soundwave looked at Lonni and Ozzy for reactions. They tapped away at their keyboards, ignoring what had happened. Daniel explained while he still had access: The drones involved are already getting back to work, but they'll be questioned later.
[Will it affect tonight's—] He was not sure if he wanted to say "date," not even to humor the drone.
No, sir.
Soundwave severed the connection. He was starting to focus again when he saw the camera pick up on Knockout storming through the halls right towards the bridge, snapping at the trouble-making Insecticons to follow him. As subordinates, they had to obey. The doctor was going up the ranks to make a formal complaint, and was surely going to be ignored. The commander had Laserbeak flip through the signals for him to track the red mech's movements while he tried working another segment of the Iaconian puzzle.
Knockout indeed went right to Megatron, storming past the working drones and the communications officer to moan about the savagery of the Insecticons that was causing dissention. Soundwave was tempted to shut off his receptors to block out the distraction, but he was too nosy for that. He wondered if Knockout's sentiments were shared among the drones, and if that frame of thought was what led to the fight to begin with.
An emergency transmission was being patched through from a mining line as Hardshell was making his threats.
"What seems to be the problem?" Megatron asked, glad to have something else to talk about than to further entertain Knockout with an audience.
"Unclear, my liege," said the drone who announced the transmission. "The caller will speak only to you."
That piqued Soundwave's interest. Drones never made demands of Lord Megatron. What could they possibly have to say that they demanded their lord and master alone to listen first?
Megatron pressed the receiver and said with apathetic annoyance, "What is it?"
"Nice operation you got here, Megatron."
Soundwave bristled. That cocky voice belonged to the Wrecker that nearly smoked him. He should have made him into an ugly spot on the mountainside like he planned. Laserbeak "whispered" his apologies, that, if he had been stronger, they would have one less Autobot to deal with. Soundwave let him know that there was no changing the past. It was not an assuring statement for the small avian.
"Although, technically," Wheeljack continued, "you might say it's under new management."
"Wheeljack," Megatron mused when the ID appeared on screen. "The one who enjoys explosive devices."
"What can I say, chief? I'm uncouth, and right now I'm sittin' on top of one of your big, juicy mining ops."
Soundwave's hull deflated. Ozzy and Daniel looked between each other, their own silent conversation happening. They were each making their guesses on what Wheeljack was planning. Why bother hailing Megatron to let him know one of the mining strips was in Autobot possession? It had to be a ransom of some sort.
"The loss of one asset is hardly a blow to the Decepticon cause," the Decepticon lord growled.
"Maybe, but I'm gonna keep on hittin' 'em," the Wrecker threatened,"one by one, until you give me what I want."
"And what, pray tell, would that be?"
"The Insecticon scum who tried to frag Bulkhead."
"'Tried'?" Megatron turned to Hardshell, speaking to both parties, "Are you saying the Autobot lives?"
"He is bluffing!" the Insecticon leader cried.
"Wouldn't bet on it," Wheeljack interrupted. "So here's the deal: I'm gonna transmit the coordinates of my next target. If Hardshell cares to meet me there, maybe he can save you from another loss. And Megatron? Just in case you ever wondered what three tons of exploding energon sounds like…"
There was a moment's pause. The whine of rockets incoming crackled through the speakers. The blast sounded, making one of the drones on the bridge flinch. Soundwave found himself more concerned about the lives of the mining drones than he was about the energon. The connection dropped with the destruction of the entire line.
"You allowed the Autobot to live?!" Megatron shouted at the inferior Insecticon. Soundwave imagined that anger directed towards him for allowing Wheeljack to walk away with nothing but a headache.
"Hmph. Bugs," Knockout snarked, glad to see some fury pointed at the ones that caused his recent paint scratch. "Not all they're cracked up to be."
"Lord Megatron," Hardshell pleaded as the warlord stepped towards him, "I swear upon the All Spark, the Autobot could not have survived his wounds!"
Megatron had Hardshell's back to the wall, growling, "Then you owe me a spark. And if it's not the one belonging to Bulkhead, it had better be Wheeljack's!"
Soundwave waited on orders to open a bridge to Wheeljack's provided coordinates. Megatron cut him off before he could even ask.
"Now go! And if you don't make it there before the Autobot destroys another one of our mines, it'll be your spark instead!" As he dismissed them, the Insecticons bounded out of the room as quickly as they could, screeching their horrific battle cry.
The commander turned to once again try to put all of his attention on his work. He pulled up a list of the drones that were working in the TVC-15 mining line to label them all as missing in action, at least until all of the bodies were found, dead or alive. Lord Megatron never made the order to check and see how many survivors were left. Soundwave wanted to ask Daniel what the procedure was to handling survivor extraction when their liege could not care less about them. He had a feeling there was no such thing, not when an endeavor like this could not go unnoticed. Drones were typically left to handle things on their own.
It was near the end of the day when a group of Insecticons dragged the broken and blasted torso of Hardshell onto the bridge. Soundwave could not say he was surprised. Insecticons were built to be cannon fodder, no matter what rank they had within their hive. They were meant to give Autobots a hard time, keep them busy, but even going one-on-one with such a creature was fatal. The factor was the Wrecker's training and healthy amount of carelessness made him something of a formidable warrior.
"The Autobot did this?" Lord Megatron snarled as he looked down upon the corpse.
"No, my lord," one of the Insecticons stated. "It was a human girl."
Megatron was at a loss for words, taking a secondary look and calculating how exactly a human—not simply a human female, but any breed of human whatsoever—could kill an Insecticon.
There was only one human female that they knew of who was actively a part of the Autobots. Soundwave pulled up the file he had complied of her up onto his facial screen. It had everything; from birth records to social media accounts, addresses of her residence in Japan to her current home in the States, the names of her host family, what music she downloaded in past year, the name of her retired piano instructor, her schools and grades, even the brand of guitar she owned. The one thing he could not deduce was her fighting capability. Judging by the massive crater in Hardshell's chest, he hazarded a guess that she was told how to operate a Cybertronian weapon if things were not working out in Wheeljack's favor. A cheap, lucky shot.
"Miko Nakadai," Megatron murmured as he read his underling's screen, invoking her name to recall something. "I remember now. She tried to threaten me while the planet was breaking apart.
"Take what's left of Hardshell to the medical bay to be salvaged and incinerated." The Insecticons dragged their fallen leader from the bridge. "Soundwave. What's our progress on the database?"
[No significant progress to report, my lord.] He displayed the one segment he had been hard at work decoding for the past several hours. Symbols that had been purposefully broken were whole, but not enough to decipher a set of coordinates from.
"A sluggish process that requires patience," Megatron said. Soundwave wanted to talk back. It was not like Lord Megatron was spending all day at the terminal using up his processing power on this. "Your work continues tomorrow."
[Of course, my lord.] He wondered for how long he would be enslaved to this station.
It was only until Megatron left did he realize that he had been given permission to turn in early, at least in the sense of what early meant in Soundwave's work scheduling. He became aware of the optics of the three other drones who were helping in his work. If he left, then they assuredly had the right to leave the Iacon project alone for tomorrow. If he left, then, he grasped, he would be walking into the crowded mess hall. Not including the fact that the drones reserved specific time and places among the ship to express any sort of freedom and he would not want to intrude on that. He also hated being in unfamiliar crowds.
Soundwave stood there a moment longer than he cared to. His subordinates were still waiting on him to see what choice he would make and they would be sure to follow suit. Ending his shift exactly at the time it was always meant to would prove beneficial later. After all, he had a date to get ready for.
He was three steps outside of the bridge and into the hall when he felt the tug to go back and keep working. He would rather spend another hour slaving over the keyboard than head into a crowd that was looking to get its nighttime ration. He hated social environments, especially among strangers. He preferred spending his time with a few close friends. The problem came in two parts: Friends always start out as strangers; and in this vessel, he had no close friends left. He had Laserbeak. Only Laserbeak. The others were gone. There was no one left to confide in.
The avian chirruped an argument, noting that Daniel could be a possible candidate in mutual friendship. Soundwave had a counterargument. They were colleagues. Daniel was a subject in an investigation, Soundwave acting as the investigator. Laserbeak argued again that if Daniel was going to share so much about his own life then it was only fair that Soundwave share some of his. The commander stopped responding. Laserbeak took it as a personal victory.
He walked into the mess hall and already regretted his choice. Megatron was on his way out with a cube in hand, a large portion made for a large mech. Neither of them knew what to say to each other. They had never talked outside of work, at least not in an age. They simply nodded their acknowledgement and went on, Megatron to his own quarters and Soundwave into the mess hall.
Knockout had claimed a spot against the wall, talking with two other mechs. He overheard something about paint color codes and not having an extra hand with difficult spots on the doctor's solid fire red finish. One of the drones responded. The doctor smiled, and Soundwave walked by them close enough to hear "You would do that for me?" When he glanced around again, the commander noticed that Dreadwing appeared to be missing. For such a massive Seeker, he was impressively elusive.
The commander came up to the counter feeling a pressure building in his tank. He told himself it was just nerves. There were a lot of bodies, a lot of mingling. He did not like being in these scenes by himself. It would have been different if Frenzy and Rumble were—
"Commander Soundwave, sir," said a drone behind the counter. There were five of them running back and forth between the storage and the counter, making sure each bot got his ration and sometimes spiking it with an ingredient of their choosing. He recognized the one in front of him as Yovanni.
[Standard, unmodified.]
"Of course, sir."
Soundwave leaned with his arms on the counter, being sure not to let his optics wander from the very clean spot he was staring at. Laserbeak was fidgeting, letting him know that he was not alone and saying that he hoped that Daniel could come in and rescue him from his introverted fears.
::Query: Why is Laserbeak passionate about Soundwave and D4N1-3L's relationship?::
::You need friends and a hobby. One out of two is not so bad.::
::Laserbeak: Delusional.::
::You've been thinking about them again, for the first time in a thousand years, and more often now. I'm the delusional one?::
::Orders: Know one's place.::
"One virgin," Yovanni said as he placed the cube down. Soundwave did not touch it and stared, black face to blank face. "Sorry, sir. That's code for unmodified energon."
[What code?]
"Uh… bartender lingo?"
Soundwave knew well enough what Yovanni meant. He wanted to hear his answer. Another drone besides Daniel was trying to be friendly and informal towards him. Did Daniel tell him anything? Did any of the drones figure out what was going on? If so, how many were aware?
"Standard. Unmodified." Yovanni put a hand over his chest in salute and left without his commander's dismissal, another oddity in Yovanni's core drone programming.
He took up his cube, staring for a second. He would not drink it here. He did not want anyone to see even a little bit of his face. He liked keeping up the solemn and mysterious personality. It kept people from bothering him. But what did a blank face mean to an army of mass manufactured drones? They all had the same face. Soundwave was not sure which one he hated most, the sea of copied physiques or the radical differences of each form. He took his cube and walked away from the counter.
Daniel had bumped into his shoulder as they passed by each other. He looked back to lock gazes, half of his visor flickering in a wink as he apologized. Soundwave nodded once and turned back around to leave. Daniel's spark fluttered a little. It felt scandalous being in any kind of relationship with the one mech who had absolutely no relations to speak about. He strutted up to the counter and flagged for Yovanni. The bartender had his head down.
"What's up, 'Vanni?" he asked.
"I used mixologist terms in front of Commander Soundwave," the drone sighed.
"Oh yeah? What's so bumming about that?"
"Not bumming. Try 'hellishly awkward.' He probably thought I was calling him a virgin when it's just the drink that's called a virgin. Damn it, why did I try to be cool?"
"Hey, you're always cool."
"Oh, shut up."
"Wow, I'd like to speak to your manager about your attitude."
"I'm the manager. Just order a drink, Dan."
"Fizzy. I have a feeling I'm going to need some energy tonight."
Yovanni reached under the counter to pull out three vials for Daniel to choose from. "I heard about that fight. Is there going to be a trial?"
"I don't think it'll be that bad."
"Then why fizz for it?"
"For something else." He picked one of the vials.
Yovanni paused, staring at Daniel.
"I… picked that one." Daniel pointed at the vial again. "Hello? You still operational?" He waved a hand in front of him.
"Are you?" Yovanni asked cryptically.
"Am I what?"
"You and Soundwave."
"Just say it louder, why don't you?" He threw up his hands when he saw Yovanni's hull expand. "I'm kidding, please don't."
"What about Elias?"
"What about him?"
"Aren't you two close?"
"I…" He looked down. Daniel had not thought much about Elias in the past few days. He remembered a time when he they had been obsessed with each other. He was not sure what happened, but he had felt something drive them apart. It had started a while before Soundwave became his new obsession.
His new…
"For fuck's sake…" He rubbed his helm.
"You alright, boss?"
"I'll be fine. Just some soul-searching I'll have to do eventually."
"The spark's fizzled out, hasn't it?"
"I don't know. I don't feel like talking about it."
"He asked about you when you left him hanging this morning."
"I didn't leave him hanging. He interrogated me, and when it didn't work, he went and had a tantrum somewhere else." Daniel paused. "What did he ask about?"
"If you were actually fragging with Soundwave."
"Why should he care? We're in an open relationship, we frag anyone."
"That wasn't a no."
"It wasn't a yes either, smart-aft. Where's my fucking drink?"
Yovanni turned to fetch a cube from the back to mix it with another chemical. Daniel's head hurt. His vision swam with the fit of rage that went through him. Why would Elias care about them now? Ten years of what he thought was the slowest breakup in history, did Elias think he could come back and say they're officially back together without talking to him about it?
"Hydro-tonic," Yovanni said, setting the cube in front of Daniel.
"Can you promise me not to talk to anyone about this?"
Yovanni lifted a digit to his face. "I don't know what you mean, sir."
"Thanks."
Daniel stormed away, avoiding anyone trying to get his attention. He knew what half of them were up to. Gossip had spread fast throughout the day, and they were asking about Elias. He missed the days when hearing that name had his spark fluttering. Now it brought on something distasteful.
He sipped his drink as he walked, the carbonation burning his throat and energizing his body. The sensation combated his nervousness, with neither overcoming the other. This "date" he had planned involved the Hub, the one sanctified location built by drones, for drones, and he was going to show Soundwave what it meant to be a drone in this stage of the war.
Without thinking about it, he held his hand up to the scanner at Soundwave's door and it rejected his biosignature. He knocked lightly and the door slid open at the wireless command of its inhabitant.
And there the commander was, sitting at the end of the berth. One hand kept his facial screen hovered just in front of his face so he could sip at his drink. Daniel stared with curiosity when Soundwave tilted his head back and he could see thin lips with a slight downturn.
[Enter.] Soundwave projected, as it seemed that Daniel had forgotten how he was supposed to act.
"Sorry. Bit distracted tonight." He came in and sat on the long end of the berth adjacent to Soundwave. The commander turned his head a little so Daniel could no longer see the evidence of his lower face.
[What distracts you?]
"It doesn't matter."
[It matters if it is distracting you.]
"How about, it's none of your business?"
Soundwave put his facial screen on the berth before he felt the urge to crack it. His cube dropped from his hand, spilling over the floor. Daniel jumped up and backed towards the wall.
"I'm sorry! Oh, Primus, I'm sorry, sir! Please, I didn't mean to, I just got angry and I shouldn't have said that. I didn't mean to make you upset."
The drone begged and dropped to his hands and knees. He kowtowed, mumbling more apologies and pleas. Soundwave heard this type of begging before, but typically when it came from Starscream to Megatron. He pleaded forgiveness, was sorry for his insolence, promised never to do it again. When Daniel ran out of things to say, he muttered, "Please, please, please…" The commander picked up his facial screen and snapped it into place. Soundwave waited until his own spark rested to project:
[I am not going to hurt you.]
"Can you forgive me?"
[If you can tell me what is bothering you so much that you feel the need to be rude towards a commanding officer, I may find myself capable of forgiving you.]
"It's… Oh, Primus, it's stupid."
[Entertain me.]
"It's my… my coworker, Elias. You know, the Seeker drone you saw me with that… one night… I think he's been spreading rumors about me and you."
[What is the nature of these rumors?]
"I'm not sure, but I think it has to do with us… fragging, if you'll forgive my language."
[These are truths, not rumors.]
"Sir?"
[Were we not interfacing?]
"We are, but not regularly. Um. Do you remember that talk we had about favoritism? I think Elias has put it in his head that I think you're more important than him."
[I am more important than him.]
"Not in that way, commander." He almost laughed at the bluntness of his superior's tone. He tried to come up with a brief explanation. "Elias and I… We used to be close. As in, we were about ready to be spark-mates."
Soundwave's head snapped to look at him. The drone was still in his subservient position, not daring to move until he was ordered to. The purple mech trembled as he imagined what Soundwave would do to him.
"Please don't be angry with me."
[I am no longer angry. I am fascinated.]
"F-Fascinated?"
[Do you understand the implications of a spark bond?]
"I think… You open your sparks up, literally, and you let them touch. They connect and you become part of that person, and they become part of you, forever." Daniel's gaze drifted as he spoke the last word. "Wow, I dodged a massive bullet. What was I thinking?"
[That is an extremely basic way of describing it. Is bonding considered normal among the Eradicon army?]
"No, sir, not in a few hundred years."
[It has happened before?]
Daniel got up into a sitting position, staring down at the floor as he talked. "There were… a few. There were very few of us who were bonded, but when we started losing more and more of our people, we decided it wasn't worth it. The feeling of the bond breaking when their partner died was too much. Drones had offed themselves because they did not want that much anguish in their sparks. I only know of two others who kept surviving after their spark-breaks."
Soundwave patted a hand on the berth, inviting him to come sit. Daniel shifted crookedly to get there. Now that the floodgates had opened, he kept talking and oversharing.
"I thought Elias and I were it. I thought we'd be one of those lucky ones that found someone to spend the rest of their life with. I don't know what's been up with him lately. It's like he broke up with me without breaking up with me and now he's acting all possessive because of a rumor. He's the one that wanted the open relationship! He gets to screw around with whoever, but I'm the one that needs to give him the list of who I'm with?" He flexed a fist, open and closed. "I'm sorry, sir. I shouldn't be bothering you with my personal problems."
They were quiet. Laserbeak was bombarding his master, to nudge him into saying something personal with the excuse that opening up about something similar would get Daniel to trust him more. Trust led to an easier influence over shifting through the other's memories. The avian had this annoying way of making sense.
[There is only one mech I thought seriously about spark bonding with.]
That caught Daniel off guard. Of all people, Soundwave was the last one he expected to fall in love, or to have any intimate feelings to begin with, and to admit it. He wondered if the commander had felt the same as he did during their interfaces, but he would not trudge through that territory just yet. He took advantage of the moment to be the one to ask questions this time.
"You were in love?"
[One-sidedly. I have never confessed. He is too full of his own ambitions to notice. I lost romantic interest when I came to the conclusion that he would have made an unpleasant mate.]
Daniel turned to face him, putting the pieces together in his mind and daring to ask, "Were you in love with Lord Megatron?"
Soundwave stiffened. It had been a while since he thought about his ridiculous feelings for the Decepticon overlord. And now he was talking about it to a random drone, the only other being besides his symbiotes to know. His spark twisted into itself at remembering the ache he caused himself when he knew that chasing a mech uninterested in intimacy was bad for him.
[He has never known. He is not one to have romantic interests for contemporary reasons. He would bond if only it politically benefits him most. A spark bond opens one up to all of the other's secrets.]
"And Megatron's not exactly the vulnerable type, huh?"
[Correct.]
"Are you a Decepticon only because of Lord Megatron?"
[Incorrect. I am a soldier of his cause. The romantic interest grew when I gained his favor. It came from a place of respect. It has waned over time.]
"So, you don't have a crush on him now?"
[No.]
"Good."
Soundwave turned to stare at him.
"I meant good like 'it's good you're not obsessed with him anymore.'"
[I did not use the word "obsessed."]
"Well, alright, Commander Precision. It's good that you didn't let yourself get stuck in a one-sided relationship." Although he knew Soundwave wanted to keep a few boundaries between them, this rare opportunity of openness with the most private mech onboard had Daniel's thoughts flowing from his vocoder with no filter. "I can see that happening. Forgive the blasphemy, but if you ended up with Megatron, I don't think anything would have changed. He gives you credit, but never enough, in my opinion. It's always work, work, and more work, and to be thankful that you didn't fail. The failures get punished, but the winners—You, have you ever felt rewarded for all that you do? You're smart and beautiful—gorgeous, actually—and you deserve someone who pays attention to you. You deserve way more than what he can give, if he ever really 'gives' in the first place, you know?"
The rant went from observance of the hypothetical relationship to the drone's subjective opinions about the commander. Soundwave was looking at him as he talked. Laserbeak had activated his own audio recording so there could be two accounts of this filed separately in their systems. A drone, a simple drone, was telling him he deserved love. The avian believed this was a moment that needed to be remembered. When Daniel reached the end of his tangent, he added a gentle, "Sir."
Soundwave turned his head away and felt his spark pound a little harder. He had heard others from a lifetime ago tell him the same sentiments that Daniel was. Deserving better, deserved more, you're pretty, you're smart—the same simple lines. Daniel's sounded more passionate and genuine.
He felt the drone grasp the hand closest to him. He looked, both curious and terrified of what he thought he was going to do. He had told Daniel something dreadfully personal, and he was scared that the Vehicon would think differently of him for it. Soundwave had not expected words of comfort, not for something he had moved on from centuries ago. If Daniel was looking to get closer to him through these gentle words, the dark mech was not sure he could reciprocate.
"Are you okay, sir?"
[I forgive you.]
"For what?"
[Your previous audacity.]
"Oh. Yeah, I'm really sorry for snapping like that." Daniel took his hand away, feeling that the silent mech was done with their spark-to-spark. "What a way to start this date, huh?"
[Is this a date?]
"Not—I wouldn't think so. I'll just be showing you around the Hub for a bit. I have some business to do inside."
[What is the Hub?]
"Okay, first, I need you to understand something." He sat on the berth with a leg up on the edge to better face him. "You're not supposed to know about this. At all. It's probably our biggest secret. When we go in, you keep a low profile. Your name won't be Soundwave, you'll have to pick another name."
[Why?]
"Think of the Hub like a virtual reality server for drones only."
[You have the resources to maintain a virtual reality simulator?]
"And the security for it."
One of Soundwave's tendrils lashed out to snap itself in place at Daniel's atlas port. He uploaded the memory of the unfamiliar files he encountered when running scans after Trypticon's attack. The maps, the audio bites, animations, and archives.
"That's part of the Hub," Daniel answered. The drone felt the rise of irritation in the commander's EM field, and he consoled, "We thought because the files and codes weren't predatory that you would never notice them. It re-encrypts itself every few minutes to stay out of reach."
[How is it accessed?]
"Get comfortable, because we might be inside of it for a while. I'll show you how to get there."