"He's looking at me!" Breakdown had both arms over his helm in the brace position.
"No, he's not. Tempest is too young to accurately focus his optics." Mirage spoke evenly, his own optics on the crates not the Stunticon. He could see the Lamborghini via his lateral visual augment. It was designed for fast pick-up of movement to aid in collision avoidance at high speed. Breakdown was barely moving if you ignored the shivering.
"Everyone else is looking at me." The reply was a touch more petulant than panicky. Mirage didn't smile though he was relieved the young 'Con had conceded the point.
"They're getting bored now your teammates have gone. The stall-holder is talking to Thundercracker while his mentee is cleaning up." The noble remarked, still to the crates as he was aware of how skittish Breakdown was. He had been briefed extensively on the Stunticons in preparation for the mission to impersonate Menasor. Although Mirage had been in disguise as Drag Strip, he had read the dossiers on the whole gestalt.
"Do they look angry?" He edged deeper into cover not risking a peek.
"The Neutrals seem more resigned than anything. I expect they are accustomed to stand-over tactics trading on other planets." The galactic community was not welcoming to Cybertronians after numerous species had been dragged into their civil war. Mirage considered his conjunx's expression. "Thundercracker is more annoyed with me than you. Probably because I have his sparkling."
"His sparkling what?" Breakdown looked up briefly, confused.
"His creation." Mirage patted Tempest, who chirped and shifted so he could gnaw on the sling.
"He's not a deployer? Like Rumble?" The Stunticon warily assessed the Autobot and the little bot he was wearing. "Thundercracker made a baby? You know, in him like the humans do?" He held his hands out in front of him miming a big belly. "We can do that too?"
"It's difficult, and complicated, but yes." The noble wondered how much anyone had told the young gestalt about anything other than fighting. Half the time they spoke in Earth terms with the modified glyphs adapted for the indigenous cultures as though they were Earthlings themselves. "New Cybertronians can be made several ways. Sparklings are new sparks in new bodies, grown internally. Similar to how organics do, up to a point."
"So why do you have him?" Breakdown figured the Seeker would want to secure his baby more than beat on a subordinate so there'd be time to run. He sat up, ready to transform at the first sizzle of a gun. "Is it a pouch thing? I've watched the Discovery channel. And that Attenborough guy." He eyed the 'Bot. "You don't have boobs. How do you feed him?"
Thundercracker had the good fortune to intrude at this moment. He reset his audials but there was no entry in his error log to suggest he had misheard. Mirage was standing there like he'd been clipped by a stun ray.
"You are going to report to Knock Out for a lecture on sparking and how to prevent it." The Seeker ordered, boggled by the Stunticon's ignorance. "Your entire gestalt. You will each submit a report on the three best ways to avoid adding your glitches to the population. I will be assessing those reports. Those whose reports are inadequate will repeat the lecture until they pass. Understood?"
"Yes, sir." Breakdown got to his feet. He waited. Thundercracker did not hit him.
"Dismissed."
Breakdown transformed and bolted.
"Didn't you say the medics were busy?" Mirage asked, aware the punishment duty extended to Knock Out not just the younglings.
"The medical computers are busy. Shiny Aft can allocate some of his primping time to keeping those crazy grounders from reproducing." Thundercracker gritted his denta. He was not going to shout at his conjunx in public. "We are going back to the barracks now. We need to have a discussion."
Mirage complied placidly. He did not hurry and was not hurried. His conjunx escorted him at a steady pace, keeping his peace until they were behind doors in their quarters with Tempest tucked in his berth. Only then did Thundercracker's wings snap upwards into a combat ready stance and his turbines clatter, cut off from spinning up with his agitation. The Seeker was three paces from him, Mirage calibrated the separation sharply. He did not come any closer.
"You will keep your distance from those half-clocked glitches." The jet hissed. "I don't want Tempest anywhere near any of them! The ones that aren't violent crazy have dangerous outlier tricks." Thundercracker tried to moderate his volume but it was either shout and keep his hands relaxed or speak moderately and clench his fists. He couldn't seem to do both. He didn't want to frighten the 'Bot. He probably failed at that too. "I forbid it."
"As you wish, conjunx." Mirage conceded as his social coding overrode what he was intending to say. A direct order from his primary could not be openly defied. That would be indecorous.
"Don't fragging fold up like a drone!" He was shouting now. Thundercracker felt his core temperature rise and slammed open his vents.
"How would you like me to fold, conjunx?" The reply was all Mirage and all sass this time.
"I. am. Concerned." Thundercracker choked down his ire. He was worry-looping, the feedback making him aggressive. He had to do something. But there wasn't anything for him to do. He was home, Tempest was safe, the Autobot was home and secure. They were all fine. "I am concerned because the Stunticons are erratic. They hurt themselves and others." There, now that wasn't hard, was it? Be reasonable, he told himself. "Breakdown can't control his ability. He could accidentally kill Tempest. It wouldn't take much of a panic attack, and he gets them all the time."
"I am familiar with the mechanical failure effect. I would have retreated immediately." Mirage reassured calmly after seeing the Decepticon's effort at self-control. "I was hoping a gentle approach would keep him from spontaneously using the ability. It could have done quite a bit of damage to the market."
"I don't give slag about the market." The Seeker said intensely. He backed away from the racer until his wings rested against the wall. No looming. "I don't give slag about anything but Tempest. Until he's bigger, at the developmental stage he should be and everything's ticking over properly, I request..." Yeah, good word. "I request you set his safety as your highest priority." Deep vent, steady, steady. "I'll brief you on the 'Cons I prefer you to avoid."
Thundercracker sent the access code to his virtual workspace and the link to the personnel database he'd downloaded. He had already flagged the mecha he wanted to avoid or considered dangerous or didn't like or who had volatile powers. Scrolling through the roster had kept him from blowing a fuse during endless hospital waits.
Mirage opened the link. His bio-lights flickered as his processor lagged for a moment at the reams of data. If it had been live, he probably would have crashed from the sudden influx. The timestamps on the digital copies were all recent; since Tempest's unfurling. A precis of the record of every Decepticon not confirmed KIA.
"Thundercracker." Mirage closed the link as soon as his information hygiene unit caught up, wiping the files that had been shared. He kept the record of the deletion so he could prove he had expunged the transfer. "You absolutely cannot give me that information. I don't have clearance to see it. I'm a Prisoner of War."
"You have to know who's a threat. You can't fight them so you'll have to avoid them. I won't be around all the time once my leave expires and we can't rely on 'Screamer or 'Warp. You heard what he said. They're not listening to me." A bitter laugh interrupted his tirade. "They haven't listened to me for megavorn. I thought that would be different now with the armistice." Thundercracker laughed again, his turbines spinning in odd arrhythmic jerks. "I thought everything would be better when we finally had a family. I've been waiting so long but they don't love Tempest like I do. I don't know... no... I don't feel well."
His knees hit the floor with a clang. The Seeker caught himself on his hands as he swayed forward. He could only manage to slow his descent, sliding down onto his side in an instinctive canopy-saving manoeuvre. His wings fluttered, the lower one beating staccato against the wall as a seizure rippled through his motor functions. Thundercracker's optics whited out.