Thundercracker's vents rattled in a genteel snore. Mirage didn't exactly recharge, he was unaccustomed to sharing a berth, but he did manage to cycle down into rest mode. Tempest investigated his elbow servo with needle fine claws before falling into a bored drowse. His wing buds fluttered like his carrier's wings, Seeker instinct dreaming of the sky.

Ravage thought they were cute together. The beast-former had no reproductive interest in vehicles, however there was something appealing in the pair cuddled together like nest-mates. Soundwave had been rather intense about Thundercracker and the Autobot being able to relax while they shared his quarters. There would be zero tolerance on pranks, thus some personal surveillance was necessary. There was also the sparkling.

The symbiont padded closer to the bed, precisely to the edge of where two calm fields would touch, before dropping into a sprawl. There was no sun but the carpet had a pleasing texture. The luxury of not risking being stepped on by stressed mecha in a hurry, of being able to lounge with cables lax, was still a novelty.

The spy roused as Ravage expected, coming alert covertly. His stillness was admirable; honed in parallel to his invisibility. He knew he was awake and he knew he knew he was awake and so forth. Mirage didn't speak until he had shifted away from Thundercracker into a more acceptable position for public conversation. Tempest unfortunately came out of recharge with optics bright.

"Did you deliberately go low so he would not see you contrasted with the floor covering?" The noble was not going to feed the sparkling with an audience. He was also not going to assume just because Ravage did not have a personal interest in mecha that he was not an audience.

"Yes." The felinoid's tail flicked. Tempest turned towards the motion then looked around puzzled at the source. His optical sensors hadn't yet developed the resolution to tell dark from shadow. "Little ones are grabby."

"I trust Soundwave will understand a bitlet accosting his symbionts." He had meant to use the glyph for 'excuse or forgive' but he just couldn't in reference to Soundwave. The Host neither forgave nor forgot. He had a roster of other people's grudges as well as his own. His frame-type often did, being both loyal and possessive. Blaster masked with affability but the protocols were still there.

"You may trust that, yes." Ravage replied languidly. Thundercracker continued to vent heavily. The cassette had sneaked in to dose the Seeker with the mild sedative Hook had prescribed. Recharge deprivation interfered with autonomic repair. Evidently, the jet found the racer restful company.

"Are you poised to tell me something unpleasant?" Mirage asked in a courtesy register he never would have used to a beast-former before the war, not even a favoured pet. He was not in the mood to repeat his gaffe with Soundwave or play games. He had rather lost his taste for intrigue.

"Soundwave intends to indulge you sufficiently that you will act as proxy to another Autobot to assist in negotiating a sparkling contract." There was audible emphasis on 'indulge' and 'you' with a notable absence of any weight on 'sparkling'.

Mirage sat up, shifting Tempest onto his lap incautiously. The seekerling noticed the movement of the pillows behind the Towerling and immediately lunged for them. An undignified wrestling match ensued, ending with a chunk out of the padding and Tempest coughing up a bite of foam. He hissed at the mangled gob, probably because of the taste.

"Must you?" Careful of fangs, Mirage checked for any remaining upholstery fragments. The sparkling helped by chewing on his digits. Just play-bites. "Why an Autobot? A Neutral would be more amenable surely."

"No respect." Ravage yawned, showing fangs considerably more impressive than Tempest's despite their comparable size. "Soundwave would rather have someone who wanted to kill him than someone who left him to die."

"I noticed a rehabilitation scheme. Have the Decepticons given any thought to mental health?" Mirage couldn't say outright 'is he crazy?' even if he had thought it wise to think it, which he didn't. He helped Tempest wobble onto his peds, supporting him while the seekerling flapped his wing buds and made noise. "Yes, we are somewhere new. We shall go for a tour later so you can hiss at everyone."

Tempest chirred and babbled in binary, hopping and waving his arms as though trying to take off. The noble was not looking forward to that and wondered if Thundercracker would object to a safety harness for his youngling. Perhaps a net on a pole would be less problematic.

"Same scheme. We do not distinguish damage." The cassette answered then waited.

"I am not well-liked among my former faction." He hesitated over 'former'. He hadn't defected. He hadn't been the only one to surrender. That mattered to him. However Mirage doubted it would matter to many other Autobots. "Soundwave would be better placed to persuade with another advocate."

"Soundwave would be better placed not to bother with any of you." Ravage didn't need to sneer. The contempt was implicit. It dripped like venom.

"I did wonder at your candour." Mirage didn't expect to be confided in. He would adore such intimacy with an amica but when it had been easy he had been shy then after the grief had ebbed, who could he trust? Jazz lied to everyone even himself. Tracks was a whore. Any of the medics would have been upper castes before the war but medics kept to medics. He could have slummed with someone of the servitor caste. They would've understood. And pitied, a state worse than loneliness.

"My Host has asked us all to behave. To be polite to you." Ravage stretched, rubbing sleek flanks on the carpet. "I choose to interpret that as a need for frankness." Claws flexed. "You should know what is expected of you."

"So kind." The noble remarked, echoes of dire tea parties in his vocalisation.

"Never to you." The beast-former relaxed into a tidy loaf. "But we will all get along better if you stay in your lane, and to do that you have to see the lines." Ravage watched the sparkling expressionlessly. "To that end, I am telling you however awkwardly Soundwave broaches the subject of breeding, he doesn't want to do it with you."

"That is reassuring." Mirage snarked. The symbiont's red optics shifted to him and lingered lambent. The silence congealed, and as it thickened the noble had to concede however reluctantly that it was in fact reassuring. If it were true. "Why not me?"

"Programming disparity." Ravage answered easily, evidently prepared for this question. "The high velocity coding you have does not mesh well with immobile alt-modes. The same suite that made you a good match for a Seeker ruled you out as a carrier for a Host."

Now that byte of data, Mirage accepted. Not because the Decepticon said so but because Ratchet had hammered on about contraceptives. The Autobot CMO had campaigned diligently to keep his comrades healthy and part of that was ensuring they didn't get themselves into situations where there were no good options. Regular health lectures were a persistent feature on the Ark, even after energon rationing made sparking near impossible.

Ratchet had taken him aside, as well as all the mecha with 'high performance' alt-modes, and informed him bluntly to take every precaution while on Earth as the limited access to Cybertronium meant guaranteed deactivation for any newspark. Ultra-speed engines needed an excess of that native metal in addition to particular coding requirements, which Ratchet could not replicate without a specialist. Mirage remembered that earnest conversation now.

"Praxians would be unsuitable too, I presume." The noble mused as though he was considering the issue rather than considering whether he should engage with the issue in any way at all ever. Matchmaking for the Decepticon Third-in-Command would be rife with tripwires. His inspiration unit conjured forth a miniature hybrid of Prowl and Soundwave; brilliant, bossy, and emotionally inert.

"There are priority requests for any repatriating Praxians. Soundwave would have to wait for all potential contracts to resolve or be rejected. A lengthy process." Ravage's tone was more than dismissive.

Mirage wanted to ask but he was gun-shy after his faux pas with the Host. The destruction of Praxus seemed straight forward. It was a registered war crime, one of the first. The few survivors carried the trauma to this orn. It was unlikely any of the Autobots from that city-state would return to a Cybertron under Decepticon control.

So 'priority requests' struck an odd chord. Yet Mirage still hesitated, letting the moment for query drift away. He covered himself by interacting with Tempest, who was definitely hungry now and bored of trying to fly. Thundercracker was usefully still in much-needed recharge. A request for privacy seemed appropriate.

"I need to fuel the sparkling. I would prefer to do so unobserved." There could be other cassettes in the vents or lurking under the berth. The spy did not expect solitude but no one could object to a guest asking for it.

Ravage unfolded and left with a nod. Once the door slid shut, Mirage pulled out a feeding line. Tempest latched on with a good appetite. Perhaps he was growing. He didn't feel to be any heavier but processor development was an energon intensive activity. The sparkling might be talking soon, which would mean the spy had to be even more careful about what he said. He frowned at the prospect of another tiny eavesdropper. Tempest made a face back at him. The resemblance with Starscream was undeniable.