Part 13
If he had to read Soundwave's stories, Jazz refused to be anywhere that other bots could see him. Curled up in the comfortable chair in Prowl's office (strike one), Jazz propped his pedes up on the desk (strike two) with a small cube of energon in easy reach on the console (strike three). When Prowl finally came back from interrogating the Decepticon Third in Command, he'd find the Autobot Third in Command breaking all of the tactician's office rules, and Jazz would be in trouble.
Which would be a nice distraction from the things he was reading.
Spec-Ops Mission #98, Jazz's Interrogation at Soundwave's Pedes, was naturally the first. Jazz had hoped for Soundwave's private thoughts and feelings, but the Decepticon seemed more interested in describing his shiny and wriggly prisoner.
The chain used to lash his axles and wrists made an appearance, and most of the book was devoted to the multiple overloads that Jazz suffered. And while a few of Soundwave's loyalties were called into question, those questions usually ended with Jazz screaming in pleasure.
By the time he finished that story, Bumblebee had escaped from his debriefing and sent him all the titles that they thought came from Soundwave. Between Blaster, Prowl, Bumblebee and Mirage, a list of suggestive titles had formed, all of them part of the Spec-Ops series.
He started at the beginning with Spec-Ops Mission #1 : Jazz - Agent of the Autobots. It sounded like one of the overblown adventures Ironhide had mentioned, and he scrolled through it with an optic for any mention of Decepticons or-
Jazz held Bumblebee flush against himself, securely gripping his waist as the small mech bucked in frustration. Jazzed teased the small mech's shoulder tire, tracing the pattern of his tread completely, then squeezing the hard rubber firmly.
"Commander," Bumblebee whimpered, his pedes scraping the floor without success. "Please..."
"Now now," Jazz murmured, his words only a soft vent over Bumblebee's audios. "Are you ready for your...debriefing?"
By the time he reached the end, Jazz had finished his energon and considered calling Sunstreaker for a supply of whatever spiked fuel he had.
Spec-Ops Mission #15 : He Wouldn't Surrender... Jazz groaned, wincing as his fans kicked in and set up a droning vibration in his head.
Jazz struggled, his arms held down by both Skywarp and Thundercracker, and roared in rage as Starscream knelt between his pedes. The Decepticon Second grabed Jazz's knees and pushed them apart, laughing at the Autobot's snarl.
"Fight all you want," Starscream chuckled, humming in satisfaction as Jazz writhed. "But you will take the purple insignia, and you will follow me obediently."
Gritting his denta as his ports were accessed, Jazz did not give Starscream the satisfaction of screaming.
By the third story, Jazz had sat up slightly to give his radiator and fans space to draw in more air. His joints ached from sitting so long in one position, and he ran his hand over his neck cables, massaging them gently. Spec-Ops Mission #332: Harvest of Energon promised to be better, a straightforward mission to save Autobots from Hook and-
Missing one leg and gripping the side of the medical table with his one good hand, Jazz fought through the white hot haze of pain in his cortex. He could not stop the agony, but he could find his vocal routine and shut down his voice...if only he could clear his thoughts long enough.
And then the pain was gone, leaving Jazz in a sudden cloud of relief. His every cable relaxed and he vented heavily, aware of only a hand coming to rest on his chestplate.
"Good job, soldier," Ratchet said softly, leaning over him. "You got everyone out, stopped Megatron's doomsday device, and made Cybertron safe for democracy."
Jazz smiled. That was all he needed to hear.
"What're you gonna do now?" Ratchet asked.
"Hm..." Jazz glanced up at the medbot, his optics softening. "How about you?"
Gently so as not to hurt his hero, Ratchet bent and kissed him.
The door opening and Prowl's stern silhouette against the light were a welcome relief.
"Why are you sitting here in the dark?" Prowl asked, flipping on the light and closing the door behind himself.
"I didn't want anyone to know I was in here reading trash," Jazz groaned, tossing the datapad onto the desk. "Primus, I feel like I've been tangled in knots."
As Prowl set down his own datapad, he refrained from knocking Jazz's pedes off the desk, only glaring until Jazz gingerly straightened himself, moving locked joints and putting his pedes back on the floor. The empty cube was cleaned away with a wordless frown, and Prowl sat down quietly in his spare seat, unaffected at finding the Third here.
It was hardly the first time Jazz had commandeered his office, after all.
"They aren't the best reading," Prowl conceded.
"You read them already?" Jazz asked.
"I was the one who combed through the list Spec Ops created," Prowl said. "Careful analysis set Soundwave's work apart."
"All of them?" Jazz sighed. "I've just barely finished three."
"You look more like you waged war against three," Prowl said. "Are you all right?"
"You know I ain't alright!" Jazz snapped, curling up in the chair again. "Nothing about this is all right."
Prowl vented in mild exasperation. "You are letting this affect you too much."
"How come you ain't freaking out?" Jazz grumbled. "Our enemy slipped code into the Ark's mainframe."
"Only to add his stories," Prowl said, "in admittedly the most roundabout way of trying to tell us he wanted to defect."
"You sure about that?" Jazz said. "'Cause so far all I'm seeing is 'Jazz gets interfaced every which way but loose'."
"I am reasonably sure," Prowl said, which meant that the tactician had already calculated the odds of being wrong to less than a percent. "Red Alert is still running diagnostics on the Ark mainframe, but so far nothing has come up."
"That ain't what I mean and you know it," Jazz growled.
Unintimidated, Prowl reached over and picked up the datapad, looking over the story Jazz had finished.
"Going in order?"
Jazz nodded once, curtly.
Prowl paused, giving a long vent as he stared at the door. Only after a moment's thought did he face Jazz, reading his hunched shoulders and darkened visor. Jazz trusted few mechs to see him this way, brooding and moody, quiet as if he listening for a surprise attack.
"No one thinks you do any of that," Prowl tried to assure him. "You're letting your own anxiety wear you down."
"I've had it pointed out recently," Jazz snapped, "that I'm shiny."
"Hardly a fault," Prowl said.
"Dammit-"
"Jazz," Prowl said over him. He did not often have to use his rank, but he could push the sense of authority to make the Third listen. "Your paranoia is affecting your performance. Perhaps you need to come to terms with the source of your anxiety about these stories."
Jazz stared at him, then glanced at the door. The console lay between him and escape, but it was hardly insurmountable. A quick hop and then through-the lock wouldn't stop him for more than half a second-
"You cannot run away from this." Prowl motioned toward the datapad. "It might be best to simply face it headlong."
"You gonna lock me up like Soundwave did?" Jazz demanded.
Wrong thing to say. Prowl sat up straight as if struck and his doorwings tightened, and while he made no threatening moves, the air around him turned heavy.
"I'm not a Decepticon,"Prowl said, narrowing his optics. "Don't judge my interfacing by their standards."
Jazz held his look a moment longer, then vented and looked down. His mouth twisted. Prowl was possibly his best friend. He didn't deserve how biting Jazz could get.
"Sorry. Should'na said that."
A klik passed before Prowl similarly vented and relaxed. Jazz posed an unusual problem. Almost all of the mechs in this conflict had been alive for thousands of vorn. They were used to physical intimacy and interfacing.
But those same thousands of vorn at war created deep seated paranoia and fear that eased only when around their own faction, and sometimes not even then. For mechs who commonly rooted out traitors and spies, trust could not be given so easily. Spec Ops bots and security personnel were notorious for often crossing cables only with mechs that had somehow proven their loyalty.
Jazz, in command of that entire branch of the Autobots, apparently did not even do that. For all his reputation as a chaotic bot, the most he indulged in was questionable energon and the occasional off-hours party.
"You aren't the only bot," Prowl said quietly, "who has refrained from crossing cables."
Looking like he'd wished he'd never confided in the tactician, Jazz curled up a little tighter. He gave a half-shrug.
"Ain't like my seals are still intact," Jazz muttered. "Anyone going into espionage knows they're gonna be force-downloaded eventually."
Prowl didn't reply for several seconds. Force downloading was a terrible violation, an enemy creeping around in a mech's very cortex. Suffering through one often left bots hurt, twitchy and unable to interface for orns, sometimes whole cycles. For an already paranoid bot who'd only known interfacing with Decepticons...
"That was done under duress," Prowl said. "Against your will. And it isn't fair that you've never experienced it with someone who wasn't out to hurt you."
Jazz squirmed. The air had grown thick and tense, and he waved his hand as if to clear it.
"Well, no big deal, right?" he said in a forced light tone. "Ain't like there's on the job training like that."
Prowl didn't answer for several seconds, long enough that Jazz started to feel awkward. Jazz might tease and flirt, but he never followed through, and Prowl never reacted. Had he said the wrong thing?
"If you wanted help in that regard," Prowl said slowly, meeting Jazz's look with the same intensity that he gave his job. "I would be willing. Honored, even."
Jazz's optics widened, flashing his visor to a bright white. His hands clenched into fists as his shoulders stiffened.
"I don't need pity," Jazz said tightly.
"I'm not offering any," Prowl said in the same horribly calm voice, nevermind that his fans were whirring to life. "You are my friend. I don't like seeing you in pain."
Jazz's hands relaxed only very slowly, and he vented in and out. His fans hummed harder, making his headache worse, and he looked at Prowl as if his friend had suddenly turned upside down. A subroutine asked permission for additional coolant, and he allowed a flood that dropped his temperature several degrees. It did nothing to help his headache, and he pressed one hand against his helm.
"Jazz?" Prowl asked, leaning forward with one hand out in concern.
"I'm fine," Jazz said quickly, smiling weakly despite himself. "I'm...slag. Usually I'm the one throwing you for a loop."
"I'm sorry," Prowl said. He let his hand fall and glanced away. "I didn't mean to do so."
Jazz vented, not at Prowl but at himself and the situation. His simple, easy, straightforward friendship had suddenly become complicated.
"I am one messed up mech," Jazz said softly, closing his optics.
Prowl paused, nodding in agreement. "But shiny."
In disbelief, Jazz raised his head. Laughed once, then again.
"I..." Jazz smiled wanly. "Would you believe I got a headache?"
Prowl half-smiled. "Likewise. That was rather nerve-wracking to ask."
No doubt. His friendship with the tactician was unlikely, the bot most comfortable with chaos finding companionship with the bot consumed by patterns and planning. Jazz still wasn't sure how Prowl's cortex worked, but sometimes, when he had spare time between missions, he looked over Prowl's shoulder as he worked, sorting thousands of details in neat rows of statistics and variables. Jazz could spot the best options in a split second emergency, but Prowl...Prowl could see *everything.*
No wonder he glitched when it all started moving. If Jazz introduced too many variables or shuffled the stacks in Prowl's head too quickly, then the tactician glitched from input overload.
The first time it had happened, Jazz had called Ratchet in a panic, sick that Prowl might not wake up. The fear hadn't gone away when Ratchet assured him that sometimes it happened. The dull optics, body slumped like a doll, and worst of all, the soft whine of the vocal processor losing power...
That Prowl could reboot and continue analysis, knowing he could glitch if he absorbed too much too quickly, seemed far more impressive than just sending bullets downrange at a Decepticon. Any bot could aim a gun. Only Prowl could aim Jazz.
"Would it make you...?" Jazz started, cringing inside as soon as he asked. A flush of heat raced down his face and throat cables. "Primus, what a dumb question-"
Despite Jazz's discomfit, Prowl chuckled once.
"No," Prowl assured him. "You choose how much of yourself you share. Even if your cortex were completely chaotic, the interfacing would not cause a glitch. Unless you intentionally tried..."
"No way," Jazz said quickly. "Um...can we? I mean, not right now. I got the rest of these things to read, and you got your shift, and...but..."
Prowl's optics narrowed, but not in confusion or caution. Half-lidded, with a satisfied smile, Prowl reached forward and put his hand on Jazz's.
"When you are ready," Prowl said. "Say, after today's shift? I need to compile today's data, and you still have all that reading to do."
"Yeah," Jazz muttered, looking back at the datapad. "You, uh, you said you already read these?"
"The ones on the list that Blaster and your mechs gave me," Prowl nodded. "Later on, after you've finished, I would like to discuss any similarities you found, clues to Soundwave's thoughts that leap out to you."
"He's a messed up freak," Jazz muttered.
"Beyond that," Prowl said. "I still have to check in on Soundwave's cassettes, brief Optimus on everything so far, and meet with Red Alert."
"And after all this," Jazz sighed, waving his hand at the datapad. "I gotta get reports from Mirage and 'Bee. There's no way Megatron ain't in a tizzy over Soundwave up and leaving."
Prowl nodded. "So after shift then."
Jazz rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah. Sounds good. Sounds...geez."
He looked at Prowl and gave a long vent, suddenly aware of how hard his fans were blowing. He mercilessly shut them down, not caring how he started to overhead immediately.
"You sure about this?" Jazz said, not sure if he was giving a chance to back out to Prowl or himself.
"Are you nervous?" Prowl asked.
"Yeah," Jazz said as if it was obvious. He was acting like a lovestruck sparkling, or worse, one of the characters in these awful stories. "Aren't you?"
Prowl shook his head. "I rarely interface, but I trust you utterly."
Jazz started his fans again.
"I'm...gonna go finish reading," Jazz said, standing grabbing his datapad, edging around Prowl and knocking his hip against the desk. "Ping me when you're done, okay?"
Prowl didn't move, only sliding his optics to follow Jazz moving to the door.
"I look forward to it," he said softly.
As soon as Jazz had the door closed after himself, he ran his fans at maximum and released a flood of coolant into his systems. He didn't immediately head to the cafeteria to resupply. A vague plan formed in his head about meeting up with Prowl to refuel-a cube of energon, coolant. At least it would give himself something to do with his hands as he sat across from Prowl, spoke to Prowl, saw his reflection in Prowl's optics.
He smacked his fist against the wall, shuddering as he vented out.
TBC...
(Author's Note: Hey all, school's starting up again, so these updates will slow down quite a bit, sad to say. But updates will continue. Just...very slowly.)