I'm not reposting all the warnings. If you didn't read them in Pt. 1, then on your head be it.
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Pt. 28
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"Jazz."
If it weren't for utter exhaustion weighing him down, Jazz would have climbed the wall. "Waaugh! I don't - I can't even - " Visor wider on one side than the other, he leaned away from the other black-and-white. "Don't do that to me, mech."
Disapproval for his dramatics stared him down. Sometimes Jazz thought even Prowl's chevron communicated in severe frowns.
"You startled me," he defended himself, but Prowl's frown didn't abate.
Prowl's systems ran near-silent. He could run quieter than most SpecOps operatives simply by squashing anything but his high-priority functions, because his tactical mods were his highest priorities. The rest of his body could practically shut down to a whisper while running his battle computer at full power, and that meant he was one of the few mechs who could consistently sneak up on Jazz.
Not that he did it often. Just enough to leave Jazz totally unnerved when it happened.
"When have I ever been able to surprise you?" The mech's tone was drier than the Sahara.
The hint of humor settled the saboteur a tiny bit. "Whenever you want, ya fragger. Whatcha need?"
Prowl still frowned, and not at the disrespectful address. He'd have pulled the other officer aside inside the briefing room if this were a formal matter involving their respective ranks. "You reacted as though I were an enemy. Even lagging behind, your scanners should not be labeling me as a threat."
Eh-heh, yes, well, Jazz was just going to pretend the vibro-blade concealed along the inside of his forearm hadn't been pulled. "You're a quiet mech on a bad night. What'd you expect, a spontaneous fandango demonstration?" An assessing look swept the tactician from chevron to floor, sizing him up for dance class. "That's more Hot Spot's style."
Taking a large step back out of reach didn't ruffle Prowl's calm. A prudent planner, through and through, able to avoid intent to boogie without skipping a beat. "I did not expect defensive measures of this magnitude." Yeah, he'd seen that knife. He'd also seen the speculative sparkle in the innocently-wide visor. Nothing could be hidden from the all-seeing optics of Prowl. He was an expert reader of Jazz's subtle motions.
The jig was up, minus any gettin' jiggy with it. Jazz sighed and tweaked his wrist to turn the vibro-blade off. It clinked back into its hidden compartment. Prowl ignored the slight movement, although Jazz noticed he didn't re-enter the might-be-danced-with zone around him.
He let it go. Tempting as it was to borrow Hot Spot's default method for covering a moment of fright, not everyone could be Grimlock or Optimus Prime. Grimlock was a credible dancer when bemused enough by the ambush results to go along with it. Optimus Prime, of course, had been apologetic for scaring the young gestalt commander in the first place. Prowl would probably lock his gears up and start glaring if Jazz tried it. Best to stand his ground and let Prowl approach him. Under the circumstances, venturing too close might be misinterpreted as aggression. Crowding could aggravate the situation, and he didn't want to risk pumping more tension into the mix.
That was a recipe for starting something he wasn't sure he'd be able to finish, and he wasn't talking about the fandango. He'd learned that front to back in case of startled Protectobots.
Jazz stayed on his side of the hall, waiting for Prowl to make the first move.
The problem being that Prowl seemed equally wary of him in return, and his wariness didn't spring from mere fear of dancing. The Do Not Touch Me vibes were offset by the distinctive cast to his optics that Jazz had reacted on instinct; the peculiar focused/unfocused look gave away that his battle computer was up and running. He'd already categorized Jazz as a danger.
Fair enough. Jazz's subprocessors were churning out dire scenarios of their own as threat assessment calculated the likelihood of attack. The longer nothing happened, the more likely an attack became. Their weak attempts at humor hadn't eased the tension between them, and neither knew when it would snap.
They faced off, not quite challenging each other but defenses at the ready, and only the empty hallway witnessed their stand-off.
*"Break it up. Now, or so help me Primus, I'll throw ice water on the two of you,"* barked through their commlinks.
Scratch that. The empty hallway and the ever-present security cameras.
Prowl's doors twitched. Jazz blinked. They glanced down the hall, but the rest of the Autobot command cadre had gone their separate ways. Red Alert's icon glowered at them, a stern, forbidding presence on the comm. line that just dared them to misbehave. There would be no more shenanigans tonight, and definitely no more courtship-related antics. His patience had reached its limits.
The two black-and-white officers looked at each other, and one of Prowl's optic ridges rose in question.
Jazz met that question with a Why Not? bob of his head. "Rowr, ffffft," he said, testing.
The comm. line all but vibrated as Red Alert's ire intensified. *"Don't push me. I'll do it."*
Prowl's fingers curled into a credible cat's paw at his side, making a stealthy little clawing motion in Jazz's direction.
*"Prowl, no. Bad."*
They knew full well that they'd been each other's main fuel line a moment ago. It wasn't like they'd forgotten. It was more that if the Security Director was going to treat his superior officers like squalling alleycats on a fence, then they felt morbidly obliged to find out if he'd follow through.
Prowl curled his upper lip. Jazz hissed. Their armor fluffed up in tandem.
*"That's it, I'm getting a bucket!"*
A brisk walk around the premises sounded like an excellent idea, all of a sudden. The two black-and-white mechs turned, perfectly synchronized, to hustle down the hall. They weren't outright fleeing, but they were most definitely heading at speed in the opposite direction from Red Alert. A chuckle might have floated in their wake, but that wasn't surprising. Jazz was known for his sense of humor. Someone would have to put the security footage under a microscope to catch the uptick at the corner of Prowl's lips.
Immature as baiting the Security Director was, it served its purpose. The deadlock was broken. Given a fraction of common cause to connect over, they'd gratefully seized the distraction and rolled with it.
It wouldn't surprise Jazz in the slightest if that was why Red Alert had done it.
They were moving, which was better than posturing at each other outside of the briefing room. They still stuck to the walls, leaving most of the hallway between them. This building had been renovated for use by average-sized Autobots, meaning that the halls were broad enough for Silverbolt but not for a triple-changer on Astrotrain's scale. The two groundframes skirting the edges of it were in uncomfortably close proximity, passive scans feeding constant updates to active combat protocols as they kept a watch on one another without appearing to look across the hall.
Violence hovered near the surface. Prowl shaved fractions off the space between them with every step, alerting Jazz's hyperactive sensors. They screamed at him to evade. The saboteur lengthened his stride, but 'escape' meant more than 'outrun' to an infiltration specialist. Most mechs didn't survive exposing an undercover agent.
The whisper of a knife hilt falling into a hand cocked Prowl's helm toward him, program-windows busy shadows behind his optics as his tactical mods updated and spun out solutions. Attack would be met by counter-attack.
Jazz had to consciously remind himself that this was a fellow officer, not an enemy. Prowl knew he was undercover, and that was okay. He wasn't compromised.
Threat assessment did not agree. Threat assessment thought he should shoot before the enemy did.
"We're not doing so hot," he murmured, more to himself than to Prowl, but it got him a nod.
"No, we are not. I dislike reacting this way to you." Below the level of conscious thought, that was. Rationally, Prowl understood the conflict between own stubborn processors and Jazz's current mission parameters. Being unable to control or predict those parameters placed them at odds. He knew that.
Jazz often took the more liberal, enthusiastic stance on things. That didn't mean he supported them wholesale, just as Prowl's more cautious approach didn't necessarily mean opposition. They'd played these parts before, although normally in the context of the Special Operations Division deliberately taking the Unmaker's Advocate role to snipe at weaknesses before plans finalized. The Tactical Division used SpecOps and all its functions, but that required giving SpecOps the freedom to turn Tactical on its collective heads. Jazz had a part to play, just as Prowl did. Prowl had to be conservative unless or until he was fully convinced, otherwise the underlying strategy for the war would be yanked around like a hooked fish every time new information came in.
The ceasefire had done a number on that strategy. Call him a skeptic that the Decepticons were provoking another huge, abrupt change in the name of peace.
His sudden switch to plotting with the Prime during the meeting had only been a minor tactical sally, a hurried use of an opportunity before this courtship thing spun out of control. It'd been reconnaissance for further information. He'd watched Ratchet bargain with the Constructicons the way he evaluated a battle plan unfolding during a simulation.
What he had seen hadn't convinced him. Supporting negotiations wasn't an option, not for him. Prowl didn't approve of rash action based off of what could be a ruse. Jazz knew that. He knew the tactician's reasons. He still voted for meeting the Decepticons halfway on this courtship stuff.
The Autobots had to act now. Dithering over doubts and reservations on contracting only gave the Decepticons more of an advantage. The peace negotiations couldn't be put on hold while the Autobots did research and caught up. The Decepticons seemed to regard contracts as part and parcel of ending the war.
Prowl stubbornly kept returning to whether or not the support for Jazz's intel on those contracts was an elaborate ploy. Jazz just as staunchly countered that by pointing out that there was no contradicting evidence. Neither of them could prove the other wrong. They both thought themselves correct.
It was a lot like figuring out if a mech was a plant. A solid cover personae used the truth as much as possible. As long as a spy was careful to avoid contradicting what was there to begin with, it created a plausible background for a lie.
Hence the reason the rest of the command cadre wanted Prowl and Jazz to argue. Nobody but the Decepticons knew if this was all a trick, a lie using the truth. It wasn't comfortable, it put them at odds, but Jazz and Prowl had equally valid points to make and invaluable perspectives to offer from standing opposite each other. They'd certainly torn Ratchet's call to the Constructicons apart between them, debating over details the other officers had missed until Optimus Prime finally dismissed the meeting to give everyone time to think.
It'd been an eventful night. Everyone needed time to process what had happened. In Ratchet's case, he needed time to plan out a game of Dodge the Constructicon. Nobody was under any illusion about what Bonecrusher and Mixmaster would be out to do if they caught him tomorrow, alone or in company. Their version of persuasion had no shame. An audience wouldn't stop them.
The good news was that having Prowl's narrow, emotionless optics analyzing every single move they made curtailed long-distance efforts on their part. He seemed to have unsettled Bonecrusher and Mixmaster something awful. They'd initially been thrilled to get a call from Ratchet, smiling until the vidfeed cleared on the Autobots' end. Then they'd seen the table of Autobot officers sitting behind their intended.
Goodbye, smiles. Hellooooo, apprehension.
Ratchet had stood in front of the camera. Prowl had given the medic a nod, and he'd squared his shoulders, chin tipping up with the confidence and dignity of someone who hadn't quivered helplessly in the hands of these very Decepticons. He'd delivered his line in a studiously neutral voice.
"For the purpose of ending our Great War, this is a courtesy call to prevent any future confusion. I'm confirming my permission to allow courtship from the Decepticons Bonecrusher and Mixmaster."
It'd taken a klik to sink in. The two Constructicons had started to nod, obviously relieved that this was only a formality to make sure they were all on the same file. After the incident in Ratchet's office, repeating in front of witnesses that his consent was voluntary and given without coercion was a sensible precaution.
Maybe it'd been the way Wheeljack's fingers wriggled, itching to take notes, or maybe it'd been how closely the whole group watched them. It could have even been their own experience in contract wording that clued them in; Jazz didn't know. Prowl's impassive stare certainly hadn't given anything away, and the other officers were a blank wall of nonexpression. Every vent in the briefing room had been closed, however, anticipating the moment the wording hit home.
The look on the Constructicons' faces had been worth the wait.
"Wait, that's not - what? Hey, no. What about the others?"
Ratchet could play stupid with the best of them. "What others?"
"The other Constructicons."
"Oh, them. What about them?"
"They're courting you, too." Bonecrusher had said it like he'd state a fact everyone knew and accepted, because surely this was all a misunderstanding. Ha ha, good thing Ratchet had called! Good job. Great idea. Wow, that could have been awkward.
"Hmm," the medic had folded his arms and drawn it out, "mmmmmmmmno. No, I didn't give them permission. I'd remember doing that. Did I do that?" he'd asked over his shoulder, and Prowl had consulted his notes before shaking his head in the negative. "Didn't think so. I only said 'yes' to you two." He'd pointed at the Constructicons gaping at him.
"What?! You can't do that!"
"Why not?"
"…uh." Mixmaster had opened his mouth, but no sound had come out. Bonecrusher's hands had risen into view shaping strange shapes that failed to express how thoroughly dumbfounded he'd been by that simple question. So many unfounded assumptions made about what Ratchet had agreed with. So many.
Ratchet didn't agree with scrap. Nobody had told him. He hadn't been informed.
How the Constructicons responded to his ignorance depended on how badly they wanted a contract with him, now didn't it?
Prowl's optics had gleamed almost as bright as Wheeljack's as the experiment really kicked into high gear.
Relying on the Constructicons for accurate information was folly, but their reaction to the call had backed up everything Jazz had found out about Decepticon contracts so far. There was coaxing, appeals to reason, and attempts at logic traps, but no threats or demands. When Ratchet denied them, they respected that denial. Kept wheedling, of course, but they seemed to recognize his decision as a roadblock instead of speedbump. They treated it as something to be lifted or gotten around, not run over.
Cue the sweet talking. Ratchet hadn't even need to imply that he might accept a bribe. As soon as Bonecrusher and Mixmaster figured out that he wouldn't let them ask for permission on behalf of their absent teammates, they'd poured on the silky-smooth charm. Surely they could persuade their dear intended with a small gift, if he'd only hint what he might like from them..?
The command cadre had taken the Constructicons' bargaining posture into consideration.
It'd only served to make Prowl warier. His wariness bent full-force on Jazz himself.
As the operative's handler, Ironhide had laid out to the other officers how deep Jazz's cover now reached, but understanding that Jazz was deep-cover and reacting to him as a compromised agent hit at different levels. The massive shift in social paradigms tonight had taken its toll on his emotional suppression software, tangling it up, and it was too great a personal and professional conflict for Prowl's battle computer to parse on its own.
Rumor had it that he took nothing personally, and that rumor wasn't unfounded. The cold-sparked executive officer image was more than a role played to contrast against Optimus Prime's compassion. Emotional separation from duty was coded into his software.
Running an emotional response underneath his tactical mods created unreliable output. Other people dealt with the coexistence of logic, reason, and emotion all the time, but other people didn't have Prowl's battle computer. Living his personal and professional life at the same time sent his CPU into chaos as too many processor threads fought for priority - and power. The emotional suppression software wasn't just there for his peace of mind. It was there because it freed up valuable power for his battle computer when it needed it the most.
Then along came Jazz-the-Vosian, who was also Jazz-the-Autobot-officer, and separation of duty and self went out the window. The nature of the issues brought up over the last two days didn't sit right with Prowl in any way, shape, or form. Social protocols were firing off at random, stalling his suppression software, and worse, his spark was troubled by the rapid shifts. Ratchet had him on remote surveillance even now in case his spark and CPU fell dangerously out of alignment.
Suspecting Jazz had become a focal point, something Prowl could return to puzzling over whenever his processors started to spit out errors and spark integration wobbled. He'd sensed something off about Jazz and distrusted it below the level of rational thought. Ironhide's announcement had only given a name to what he'd already picked up on. They knew each other too well for even miniscule changes to slip by.
Relatively benign as it could be, Jazz's undercover persona meshing with his real personality could also be a formidable threat to the Autobots. Prowl couldn't tell which was the real Jazz versus the cover this time. There was a vast difference between maintaining a cover story and deliberate, malevolent deception, but that difference could be hidden under a smile and flash of charm. Nothing Jazz said or did could be trusted, in that light, because this particular spy could be a spy for either side at this point.
The urge to discard everything he said warred with Prowl's need for information and the possibility that Jazz was telling the truth. Ratchet and Jazz had confronted him over the conflict and forced him to recognize his software rebelling, but that didn't make his suspicions magically go away. His concerns were real. There was just an uncontrolled personal element to them, and he couldn't currently take a step back to see where the separation should be.
He was aware that he wasn't thinking as clearly as he believed he was, which made him second-guess himself. Which made him obsess. Which made him wonder if he'd stepped over the fine line between legitimate suspicion and paranoia. Which made him question himself again.
It was a vicious cycle. Red Alert knew it well.
Prowl had little experience doubting himself like this. It was easier to doubt Jazz.
Jazz understood that. How could he not? His own adaptation sequences were aching, phantom pains from social protocols being ruthlessly revised, and it would be easier - incredibly, immensely easier - to doubt the Decepticons. Support the status quo. Let suspicion win, and stand back instead of stepping forward to defend what he'd seen tonight.
Considering how much more flexible his spark was in comparison, he didn't resent Prowl acting out of instinct. Part of it could be chalked up to sheer self-preservation, at this point. Things were changing too fast, and shooting the messenger could delay the onslaught of strange news. It wasn't nice, it wasn't pretty, but survival often wasn't. The tactician's mind protected him by throwing up barriers against using or processing the information brought back from Vos.
It would be simpler if Jazz were strictly an operative, removed from influencing the command cadre. An active agent was usually taken out of decision-making processes as more than a source of intel, and Prowl's kneejerk reaction was to insist on following that protocol. Jazz had a biased perspective. The data brought back from the mission so far was of dubious nature, and letting Jazz present and argue it meant allowing the influence of someone who might be compromised on a deeper level than any of them knew. The Autobots desperately needed to understand what the Decepticons were doing, but the quickest way to fall into a Decepticon trap was to blindly follow a Decepticon sympathizer into it.
Jazz knew that. He knew all of it. Prowl wanted him out of power, out of rank, out of any position that could be used against the Autobots. The Autobot Second-in-Command wanted him in a safe, guarded box with defined boundaries and careful monitoring. Jazz understood how he felt. He put every one of his agents into that box. It removed them from the position of 'friend' and even 'person,' making it easier to analyze and control both them and everything around them.
Lacking the permission to contain Jazz as an agent, Prowl had to deal with him as a fellow officer, friend, and potential spy. It made him a disorienting, dangerous bag of contradictions, and Jazz didn't trust himself. He preferred Prowl wary and ready to take him down over relaxed and unprepared. The alarming possibility that he'd been turned into a plant among the Autobots was real. Prowl's fixation on it was an overreaction, but Jazz would rather Prowl suspect him than accept a traitor.
Even if he wasn't an agent of the Decepticons, he was still the anti-Prowl at the moment. Not anti-Autobot, not a Decepticon, but someone who was voluntarily adapting to Decepticon culture, then turning around and trying to convince the rest of the Autobots of what he'd learned. Jazz the intended of Vos was adapting himself to what he'd learned so far of Vosian culture and thought, taking what he'd discovered with a grain of salt but assimilating what the Decepticons were telling him far faster than caution dictated. He had to for the mission. It was his job.
He got why Prowl was watching him like an armed bomb. Really, he did.
Now reverse Prowl's distrust and paranoia, because Jazz had the other side of the equation. A big, fat target rested on his back, because if or when Prowl made a final decision on this 'bomb,' the tactician would be the one pulling the strings to take him out. Jazz would never see it coming.
Thus, he never took his scanners off the mech. Whatever else he might be right now, he didn't want to be dead. Or disarmed. Or even detained, honestly. He had too much to do.
Leaving them with the last thing the peace negotiations needed: two officers so at odds they couldn't even look at each other without threat assessment screaming alarm.
The worst part being that threat assessment was correct. They were each other's greatest threat.
Besides the Decepticons, that was.
…except that Jazz could be a Decepticon agent.
Even he wasn't trusting himself at this point. This was some kind of doubt-lined whirlpool sucking them into the Pit of distrust.
If this had all been part of Starscream's plan, then the Air Commander had outdone his treacherous self this time. The flyer had the entire Autobot officer cadre side-eying each other over interfacing, of all things, and Jazz and Prowl had only just managed to play nice for the camera. Presenting a united front during the conference call had strained their attempt at civil behavior, and no wonder.
The Constructicons had blustered and failed to explain why Ratchet should honor the combiner team's contract, but everyone had noticed that Bonecrusher and Mixmaster had looked to Jazz when it became clear they needed an ally.
"What're you looking at me for?" Jazz had asked, faux-innocent. "You're negotiating with him, not me!"
Look at the little birdie who'd whispered in the Autobots' audios a rumor of an idea of a thought about contract terms and limitations. Little birdie, come back to roost with the flock. Little birdie, little spy, courted but not yet one of them. Jazz didn't owe the Constructicons slag.
Yet the Decepticons looking to him for help had set off alarm bells inside Autobot heads. Prowl in particular had heard a cacophony. Little birdies could tweet to anyone, after all.
So here they were. They could play their parts in front of a mutual enemy, but it couldn't last. Something had to give.
Prowl stopped. Jazz swung about to face him as if a rope connected them, and they stared at each other across the hall. It a short distance that could have been from here to Luna 1 for how close they actually felt to one another right then. Optics dark with suspicion met justified caution in a narrowed visor. Magnified, it reflected back.
Jazz had faced Starscream in a hallway much like this one, and he'd felt more confident about his ability to handle the Air Commander. The glass of his windshield itched between his doors. He was a target, he was marked, he was on defense before the fight had even begun. Tank gaskets skreeled shut deep inside him in preparation for a fight. He didn't move a gear, but every part of him was tensed, ready to dodge.
Someone had to diffuse the situation. Someone had to…
Oh.
It came down to faith, again, didn't it?
Two hallways, two mechs in a stand-off, and his spark twinged as Jazz compared the strangely-similar situations. There could be no trust, not when both sides had every reason to distrust the other, but things would only escalate if they stayed balanced on the edge of action. Despite every reason not to offer even a flash of vulnerability, one of them had to. For the purpose of peace, someone had to have some faith.
It was more or less a challenge, if he chose to look at it that way. The Decepticons had done it, and the Jazzmeister wouldn't be outdone. It just wouldn't be easy. Perhaps that said something about how difficult it'd been for the Decepticons, but he had other things to worry about right now.
It took effort of will to ease the tension out of his joints. The stiff way he held himself announced his distrust to anyone who could read body language, but at least he wasn't poised to run anymore. Prowl watched him closely as he uncrossed his arms and rolled his shoulders back to loosen them.
He held his visor steady on the mech in turn as doors shook back. It took the tactician longer to work the aggression from his stance. His hands opened slowly from tight fists, knuckle joints creaking, and he cycled his ventilation system in a prolonged, forced inhale/exhale as if he could expel the tension with the air.
"Jazz," Prowl said. He took a single step forward.
Any infiltrator who'd survived this long knew the feeling of pursuit, and red flags popped up urging survival. Pulling a vibro-blade was automatic, the first level of engaged combat protocols, and Jazz had to clamp down on that reaction. Prowl was a hunter, but Jazz was not prey.
Threat assessment disagreed, warnings streaming through his processors. He'd been found out. The spy was uncovered. An empty hallway like this one triggered threat assessment in a big way, sending violence and the need for safety clawing into his mind. Since he refused to attack, that left running. Run, run, run.
While everything in the saboteur shrieked to escape, to run, Prowl's fan rate remained steady. If Jazz ran, he'd be chased down, and Prowl's systems wouldn't skip a beat. The former Enforcer had been built for pursuit. He was perfectly calm, standing there balanced on the verge of taking Jazz down like a petty thief running from arrest.
The hand extending toward Jazz hesitated for a fraction of an instant.
His scanners caught the tiny pause. Threat assessment subprocessors immediately spat out a dozen reasons for it. He didn't look at Prowl's hand directly, keeping most of his attention locked on the tactician's face. His passive scanners gave him a picture of the hallway, Prowl's position, even the vague locations of the mechs recharging behind the doors lining this hall. If anything changed, he'd be ready.
But they didn't. Prowl stayed guarded, just a shade too aggressive to be neutral. He stood in the stance of an authority figure trying not to ride someone's bumper, an Enforcer merely chatting with an acquaintance instead of confronting a suspect.
He looked terribly out of practice. Prowl had never been very good at small talk. He'd always been more comfortable issuing orders than observing social niceties.
It was an attempt to bridge the gap between them, and that meant more to Jazz than the somewhat pained look on the Prowl's face. However awkward it was, the hand extended toward him was an attempt to meet him halfway. It was an effort to treat him as something other than a possible traitor.
Jazz tamped down his jitters and let him approach. One step, and then another, until Prowl's outstretched fingertips brushed his upper arm. His vents closed, fans taking slow, shallow sips of air as he waited, wondering what the tactician was doing.
The hand slid down to cup his elbow in firm hold. Not a restrictive one, but when Prowl pulled him forward, it was clear the mech meant for Jazz to come closer.
"Jazz," Prowl repeated, as if he were at a loss for words. Perhaps he was searching for how to begin.
He drew the slightly smaller Autobot toward himself, optics dropping to trace over the miniscule scrapes left from the night. Some were from Starscream, far earlier in the day. Some were from Thundercracker, namely the mussed polish on his hood and the scorched paint across his face. The dent on his bumper came from Ironhide resting his weight on him, and from the false alarm earlier. Ironhide and Blaster combined were a lot of weight to crash on top of one relatively small mech. Jazz wasn't a Minibot, but he wasn't that far out of the model class.
Jazz reset his visor as Prowl's other hand came up. Careful as a Dinobot given Carly's grandmother's tea set, the tactician smoothed that hand over the marks, one at a time. He paid meticulous attention to each one. His fingertips lingered to really feel the dents and the slight roughness of marred paint. Even Ratchet hadn't examined the Porsche's armor this closely.
The light, almost tickling touches skimmed over his hood, down his grill, and across his bumper. Jazz's fans began pulling more air for an entirely different reason. When a thumb deliberately rubbed around the rim of one headlight, his helm cocked to the side. It didn't conceal how he pushed into the touch.
The hand on the saboteur's elbow tightened, asking a silent question.
Jazz swallowed, cramming his first response down under responsibility. He knew the unspoken rules, but he'd spent the whole night thinking about them. He couldn't abide by them anymore.
Knowing the reasons to violate them didn't make actually doing it any easier. Fear for Prowl's response knotted his cables. That, if nothing else, was reason enough to speak up. He should not be afraid to say this out loud.
"You thinkin' we should patch things up the old-fashioned way?" he asked, keeping his voice to a quiet whisper. The part of him afraid to break the silence was hoping the question would be seen as intimate. "You want to hook up, Prowl?"
Doors twitched, and Jazz's chin jerked up as an active scan swept over him. Okay. Right. Fair enough. The scan hadn't been directed at him. He was willing to bet Prowl would have been back across the hall in a split second if the only other people on proximity radar weren't in recharge behind sound-muffling doors. As it was, slightly-widened blue optics darted left and right, visually checking that they were alone.
Once he was sure no one else was there to witness Jazz's impropriety, Prowl gave the smallest nod. Jazz would have missed it if he hadn't been looking straight at the mech. That still counted as an open answer to a question blunt enough to make Autobots squirm. He knew it was that blunt because his own tanks were a nest of insecurities writhing about inside him.
And that was even before he outright asked, "Do you want to interface with me?"
A more demonstrative mech would have flinched. Prowl only looked away, and the suggestive thumbing of Jazz's headlight subsided to a palm resting on his hood. It was a warm presence. It made Jazz ache, because it didn't feel like a threat. Never was a friend more missed than when he was an enemy.
He pressed into it. "I need an answer," he almost begged. He needed Prowl to understand this. Even if the rest of Autobot Command decided the information he'd brought back tonight was dangerous and a Decepticon ploy, Jazz needed them to understand that he couldn't personally compromise on this.
The burring rumble of an engine turning over came from Prowl's own chest, matching the strained idle of Jazz's motor. Despite that, Prowl's voice stayed calm. "I have thought about that. It...does not sit well with me to discuss such things in public. Ironhide also mentioned his aversion to it. Is there a particular reason you feel that we - Autobots in general, but I mean the two of us specifically, right now - need to reach an agreement to - to interface?" He glanced up and down the hall again. "Here? I would prefer to conduct such a discussion in private."
Huh. Good question.
"I, uh, guess there really isn't?" Jazz hazarded, thoughts going a bit wonky. Why exactly did he feel that a public agreement was required? The Decepticons were blatantly public about their interfacing, but the Autobots weren't. Decency, or their version of it anyway, kept all talk of it behind closed doors or swathed in discreet language. Was there actually a reason he kept defaulting to Decepticon behavior?
He blinked as it suddenly hit him that the Decepticon probably negotiated via interfacing in public so everyone involved in them via other contracts could see what was happening. Agreements made in public were probably harder to go back on. It might be a sign of how little the Decepticons trusted each other that consent and fragging was done in public so nothing beyond the agreed-to interface could be slipped in.
Then again, for all he knew, someone consenting to a frag in public was a point of pride. A 'That's right, I'm just that good' mark for both sides, maybe. Or, rust and iron, it could be a kink. An extremely common one, in that case.
He couldn't think of a reason that the Autobots had to copy the behavior. He wanted to change the idea that talking about interfacing was filthy and degenerate, but forcing people to be tank-churning uncomfortable about it didn't sit right with him. "So long's we do the talking bit and you don't take this as skippin' to the good stuff, that's, um." Jazz chewed the inside of his lower lip. "Yeah. That's cool with me."
Prowl relaxed so abruptly there were visible signs. "Good. Privacy will...help, I believe." The sudden change was startling, but sort of reassuring. It was nice knowing Jazz wasn't the only one trying to pick his way through a minefield of half-rewritten social protocols.
Jazz pasted on a lopsided grin and finally moved his own hands. Prowl's optics snapped to them, instantly cautious, but the saboteur kept his movements steady. One hand pushed under the hand on his hood, twining their fingers. The tension pricking the Datsun's doors up melted back down, and Prowl's other hand dropped to meet Jazz's.
Simple, metal-to-metal contact. Already more emotional than normal, Prowl had no defense against it. Anyone who'd ever interfaced with him before knew what he truly yearned for, and Jazz wasn't above ruthlessly exploiting Prowl's needs in order to calm the mech's suspicions.
Truth be told, he could really use a hug or ten at this point, too.
"Alrighty then," he said. "My room or yours?"
"We should - "
Prowl's head whipped around, hands springing open like Jazz had burnt him. Survival instinct had the saboteur dancing back out of reach. Active sensors swept the hall, and what pinged on their proximity scans froze them into shocked statues.
Red Alert rounded the corner, sloshing bucket in both hands and irritation stamped over his face.
The two black-and-white officers, he would tell them later, didn't look like cats on a fence at all. 'Deer in headlights' would be the exact phrase he used to describe them.
[* * * * *]
End Pt. 28
[* * * * *]
[ A/N:This part was commissioned by the ever-awesome and infinitely patient Jeegoo. Thank you so much for your patience.
If you caught the reference to PlaysWithWorm's Protectobot fics, well done. If you didn't, go read them until you spot it.
Bonus picture from Shibara up on Ao3 and Tumblr!
Thank youuuuu