Thundercracker knocked on the door of his own study. He felt bad that he didn't feel bad about locking the Autobot in. He wouldn't have got any recharge aware the 'Bot was prowling around his quarters or escaping. Powering down for a while had helped clear his helm. He wasn't altering his course. If the grounder was compatible enough then they'd bond.
He wasn't going to be a slagger about it though.
So he knocked. When he heard permission, Thundercracker unlocked the door. Mirage was sitting in his chair, to be fair it was the only chair, reading a datapad. The Seeker could tell by the dents on the case which one it was. His library had travelled hard.
"I don't have the next volume." He said to say something.
"Volumes six, and eight through eleven are in Teletraan's archive." Mirage replied, happy to pretend they were civilised mecha doing civilised things. "We've been looking for the last two for vorn. There's some dispute whether the series was ever finished." Records of popular fiction had not been a priority. "Bluestreak wrote an ending that is rather good, though I disagree with the characterisation of SmoothAxle. I doubt he would have stayed with the colonists."
"I don't like the author's move towards him as a reformed criminal. Too trendy. He's very like Farsight's first conjunx in Fuel the Flames, the one we're supposed to regret him leaving. I never bought the lovelorn pining for the bad boy." Thundercracker stopped, he hoped before he sounded fannish. High caste were supposed to prefer the classics and pen erudite critiques not gush over drivel. His sires had repeatedly told him so.
"I never finished that one. I heard a symposium discussion on the underlying themes and it sounded so much like a reworking of the Electrum Saga that I couldn't not compare the two." Mirage had taken to reading modern novels to get away from the dense historical works. He didn't need a shoddy, uncredited condensed version.
"The Electrum wasn't part of the curriculum in Vos." The Seeker didn't lament the omission. That saga was heavy going even among Golden Age works. He'd never got around to trying to slog through it. "There was some debate over its authenticity."
"The consensus in Iacon was it had been revised to fit the Geometric Cadence Theory but that its contents were original." Mirage had his own opinions. There had been a considerable amount of editing-through-translation of very early works that might not mesh well with Functionist dogma. He hadn't considered the revisions to be significant, just like he had not been troubled by Functionism. He'd fit in his place.
His ignorance was galling to him now.
"Would you like to see Tempest?" Thundercracker ventured as their conversation stalled.
"I think I should." Mirage spoke with well-modulated easy confidence he had learned to fake in far worse situations than this. He'd already decided he would have a room of his own. He would not be sharing his privacy with anyone. If he was to be polite to 'Cons to be included in the new society then he needed a refuge. And his own washrack. He felt grubby.
The sparkling had his own berth, with raised sides and on wheels, which magnetised to a larger berth or trundled around as necessary. Someone had painted clouds around the edges of the small platform to match the pattern on the covers loosely swaddling the bitlet. Mirage had seen many sparklings, albeit not recently, and Tempest did look small.
"He's not got his colours yet. All his nanites are slow." Thundercracker unwrapped his bit, still protoform silver. Starscream was already complaining he wasn't showing any red. "Hook ran his CNA to check for anomalies. Nothing obvious, so that's okay. There's not time to do a full sweep for cosmetic details. A lot of mecha are coming home with long-term damage so the medical AI are fully tasked."
"What did your creators look like?" Mirage hazarded a personal question to test for a reaction. If Thundercracker had a temper or was free with his fists, he needed to know.
"My Carrier Cloudrunner was monochrome deep blue with the chatoyant variant. He was gorgeous. My sires both had the white vent/panel pattern. I inherited that from them. Stormflash was grey with blue trim. Windsheer was blue and white." The Seeker answered calmly. Their loss didn't hurt any more. "They didn't approve of Starscream and never met Skywarp. We don't talk about them."
"Is there anything else you would prefer not to discuss?" The spy had kept current on the Intelligence they'd gathered on all the Decepticons stationed on Earth; sporadic in the beginning veering to weirdly specific towards the end. Mirage knew for instance that Thundercracker subscribed to thirty-seven different streaming services though not how he paid for them, which he did actually do.
"Everything, probably." He tickled Tempest's turbines, a wan smile tracing across his face-plate as the sparkling roused enough to kick. "We should be safe with literature, energon, and the weather." As he woke, the bitlet began to grizzle. Thundercracker hastily removed his hand then waved the 'Bot forward. "See if he'll let you hold him. He purged on 'Warp last time we tried so, yeah, brace yourself."
Mirage had had the care of a nanny throughout his early development. Professional sparkling-minders were a fixture of Iaconian high caste life. Some lineages produced a glut of heirs to allow competition to hone the best. His peers had often visited with staff in tow, and being a shy mechlet he had spent much of his time observing. So he did know how to pick up a sparkling properly.
The Towerling still hesitated. Tempest was little, and gentleness had not been a skill he had much practised during the war. Mirage stroked a fingertip down the fragile bubble of cockpit watching for any sign of distress. The sparkling beeped a confused vague noise that would become a proximity ping when he was old enough to understand there were mecha in the world other than Carrier. This young even sire-recognition was more habit than confirmed identity.
"Hello there." Mirage murmured, touching a finger to Tempest's palm. He curled his digits around the odd new thing and kicked his peds again. He didn't cry though so the spy slid a hand behind him to gather him up. With wincing care, Mirage held the sparkling against his chassis. Nothing dramatic happened. Another curious beep.
"He's usually shrieking by now if 'Screamer or 'Warp have him." Thundercracker spoke softly in case Unicron heard him and ruined this. "A couple of the others tried but he didn't like their fields and they weren't a close resonance anyway." There weren't many Decepticons who weren't bonded or gestalt or viciously untrustworthy. "Soundwave can settle him eventually."
"He can't help with the spark issue?" Mirage asked, shifting his grip cautiously so he could support Tempest securely. The movement prompted a hiss from the micro-jet and a flailed kick. Thundercracker crowded forward to take the sparkling back but Tempest relaxed and began to investigate the race car's hood by gnawing on a seam.
"He wanted to." Delicately, Thundercracker petted his bit's helm trying to have a spark full of joy like the manuals said he should. He kept his field winched in tight. That tended to help though no one had diagnosed why. Tempest continued to gnaw untroubled. "His spark can't feed a bitlet. It's a Host frame thing. 'Cause of the symbiont network."
Thundercracker would've weathered Starscream's unholy fury to let Soundwave foster Tempest but unless they reformatted the sparkling into a cassette, it wouldn't work. The blue Seeker didn't know, not for sure, not in the way he badly wanted to be certain, if his trine-mate would rather see their creation dead than not be theirs.
"How many mecha did you scan for resonance?" That byte of data interested Mirage immensely. There weren't many nobles left. However, his caste seemed to be a convenient justification not a necessity. He presumed the Command Trine could have manufactured an excuse to fit the candidate.
"All the Seekers. There's a registry." Thundercracker stared enraptured as his bitlet drooled leaving a clean patch on the Autobot's dusty plating. "We were hoping it was just our messed-up trine bond. Then Hook did some more scans and kept giving us bad news." He blinked away leaking optic fluid not caring if the 'Bot saw. "Knock Out's got a car fetish so he was creepily thorough about the prisoners' medicals. He knew who was bonded and who wasn't. Your designation popped up top of his list."
Mirage did not find the medic's interest in him at all complimentary. He didn't remark on it because he wanted Thundercracker's attention on him not a potential rival. He wanted the 'Con committed, definitely. The spy was undecided whether he was better off rushing to sign the contact to secure his parole or drawing it out for more concessions.
Normally, he'd play hard to get to prolong negotiations. With the rest of the Command Trine and Soundwave lurking Mirage doubted he'd win much. Caving quickly might buy him more wiggle room later. He would be bonded to Thundercracker exclusively, the antiquated contracts were intense about fidelity, which would add protection.
"I'd like a wash before the medical exam." Mirage twitched his chin towards the patch of oral lubricant pooling in his cowling. That seemed an acceptable reason to hurry things along.
"You can get detailed at the hospital." He suggested after checking his chrono. Thundercracker aired a smile he hoped was charming. "I've always wanted to elope."
