Prompt: Traitor
Required Character(s): Swoop
Other Featured Character(s): Optimus Prime
Rating: PG/K+
Warnings: Just a slightly shifty Ptero. And maybe a slightly scandalized Peterbilt. I gave it a "PG" just because the subject matter is a little heavier than what's generally told in a G-rated story. There's really nothing "bad" in it at all.
Genre: It's just a conversation. It could certainly lead to future drama, if I continue it, but I wouldn't exactly call this itself "drama."
Word Count (Not including this intro): 2,565
Notes: I have no idea where this came from, really. I was contemplating another story of mine, mentally bouncing around ideas for a little sequel sort of thing…and then I started thinking about this prompt on my list, too…and then the two kind of gelled in my head, and this was the result. It might be something that I decide to continue at some point…or not. Who knows, with me?

Swoop found Optimus Prime in the Control Room. He was speaking with Ironhide about something, so Swoop waited, nervously, until they had finished. And then, even more nervously, he approached the Autobot leader and made a small, hesitant noise to announce his presence. Optimus looked down at him, his limited expression managing to register surprise; it wasn't often, after all, that any of the Dinobots sought him out for any reason. But then he realized what Swoop might be after.

"If this is about that physical Ratchet's been nagging me about—" he began to say, annoyed, but Swoop shook his head vehemently, his eyes wide.

"No," he assured Prime quietly. "No, nothing like that. I just have a…a hypothetical question. Do you have a minute?"

Optimus blinked, utterly surprised at what Swoop had said, but he recovered quickly. He nodded and silently gestured toward the door of his private office, which adjoined the Control Room. Swoop nodded and then headed toward the indicated door. Optimus followed him and, once inside, he settled himself behind his desk. He gestured at one of the chairs in front of it, and Swoop settled uneasily into it.

Once he'd settled himself, Swoop found himself suddenly reluctant, suddenly certain that this was a very bad idea. But then he decided that it was too late to back out of his planned course of action and so he forged determinedly ahead.

He asked quietly, without preamble, "What would happen if one of the Decepticons wanted to defect? I mean, what would happen to him here, if he were to take refuge here? Completely hypothetically, I mean."

Optimus Prime blinked, surprised at the question. He'd had no idea what Swoop could possibly want to speak with him about…but the subject suddenly at hand was nearly at the bottom of the list, if it had been on the list at all.

"Well…" he said uncertainly after a moment. "We've… Well, we've never faced that situation before, actually, so it's not as if we have a standard procedure in place."

"Still," Swoop persistently pointed out, "you're the leader. What would you do? Hypothetically. I mean, would you put him in the brig?"

"Hypothetically…Possibly," Optimus said with a thoughtful nod. "Until we could be sure that he was being sincere and could be trusted, at least. In some ways, it would be for his own protection as well. Some of the Autobots can be a little…zealous."

"Really? I hadn't noticed," Swoop answered sarcastically, and Optimus Prime had to suppress a chuckle. Ratchet's sense of "humor" had quite obviously rubbed off on his star protégé.

"Really," he answered. "So…I'd have to say that, yes, your hypothetical defector would likely spend some time in the brig, if only for his own protection."

"But not forever," Swoop clarified.

"Well, no, of course not. Not unless he ultimately proved himself insincere and untrustworthy, that is," Optimus answered with a shrug. "But a sincere defector would likely do whatever he had to do to prove himself trustworthy, so…"

Swoop nodded thoughtfully.

"True," he said, and then moved on to his next question. "Would he be interrogated?"

Optimus flinched.

"Oh, 'interrogated' has such nasty connotations," he said. "I'd call it…debriefed."

"What if he didn't want to give any information?" Swoop asked.

"As I said, a sincere defector would be willing to do whatever he had to do prove himself trustworthy. Divulging some information would go a long way toward that."

"But what if he didn't want to divulge any?" Swoop persisted. "Hypothetically, of course."

Optimus sighed.

"I would say," he said, "that it would be reasonable to expect some information in return for granting someone asylum and protection. And if our hypothetical defector didn't want to be reasonable, then…" He shrugged, and it was obvious what he meant.

Swoop frowned, troubled.

"I see," he said, more to himself than to Prime.

For a long moment, Optimus Prime stared at Swoop, really seeing him all of a sudden, as he'd never seen him before. He studied the Dinobot intently, and he noticed the tension in his body, the way that he wouldn't meet his gaze, the way that he was fidgeting in his chair every now and then. Admittedly, Optimus didn't know any of the Dinobots well, mostly because they didn't allow him to know them well, and he supposed that he could understand that, given the history between them. But some kinds of body language were simply universal, so much so that they even crossed species. And Swoop's was saying…

"Why do I get the sense," Optimus Prime asked quietly then, "that these haven't been hypothetical questions at all?"

And Swoop did meet his gaze then, jerking his head up and breaking his fascinated study of the floor. The look that he gave Prime when their gazes met was intensely guilty…

…And then that old familiar sinking feeling was upon Optimus Prime once again.

"Because you're smart?" Swoop was saying in a tiny voice, with a wan half-smile. And then he collected himself, gathered his courage, and sat straighter in his chair. "I've been…talking to…to one of them, yes," he admitted.

Optimus Prime blinked and then shook his head to clear it out.

"I…repaired him once," Swoop was explaining. "After a battle. He'd been left behind, and he was too damaged to fly and…and I couldn't just leave him there for the humans to find. No one should be…locked up and treated like an animal, like they would have done to him. I…know what that's like," he said, nailing Prime with a reproachful look, but Prime let it pass for the moment. And Swoop continued with a defiant glare, "And I'm sorry, but I knew that he wouldn't be treated much better if he was brought here, either." And again Optimus chose to let it go…for now. "So," Swoop concluded, "I…repaired him enough so that he could get himself home. And I really thought that would be the end of it."

"But it wasn't," Optimus prompted, when Swoop fell into a silence and went back to staring at the floor.

"No," he said quietly. "No, it wasn't." He raised his head to look at Prime again as he said, "When I was…out once, he found me. He said that he just wanted to thank me for what I'd done for him. So he did and, again, I thought that would be the end of it, that he'd take off and that would be that. But instead…we ended up just sitting and talking. For hours."

"About what?" Optimus asked tersely, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Nothing important," Swoop said, suddenly wide-eyed. "I mean, we talked about the weather. The sunset. The moon. We were in Africa at the time. I'd gone there to check in on this herd of elephants that I like to observe. So we talked about elephants and why humans kill them. And then that led to talking about humans in general, and…and other things. Like, he told me some stories about Cybertron's glory days, since I never got to see that, and…"

Swoop noticed the look on Prime's face as his voice trailed off.

"I didn't talk about the Autobots," he said, "and he didn't talk about the Decepticons, if that's what you're thinking. I would never do that…and I honestly don't think that he would, either."

"I suppose not," Optimus said…although he didn't sound at all convinced.

"And then…he left," Swoop said. "And, again, I thought that that would be that."

"But it wasn't," Optimus repeated.

"No," Swoop answered quietly. "No, we've been…meeting each other, off and on, for about six months now. Sometimes he finds me, sometimes I find him. And we talk." At the suspiciously questioning look that Optimus leveled at him, Swoop added with something of an indignant glare, "And no, that's not a euphemism for…doing something else."

Optimus sighed.

"And now he's telling you that he wants to defect," he said.

"No," Swoop answered. "I mean, I don't know. I mean, the subject hasn't come up at all. I just… In case it does come up at some point, I wanted to be able to tell him the truth, to let him know what to expect. That's all."

"At some point?" Optimus Prime echoed, the tone of his voice almost amused, in a strange way. "So you think I'm just going to let you keep meeting with a Decepticon, then?"

Swoop raised his chin at Prime defiantly.

"Unless you convict me of being a traitor and then you lock me up in the brig for the rest of my life," he said, "it's not as if you can really stop me, is it?" And then he softened and added, "I promise you that I would never say anything to him that would put any Autobot in danger. And honestly, I think the same is true for him, for his side. That kind of subject…Well, it just doesn't even come up, actually. Or at least it hasn't yet."

Optimus Prime was quiet for a long time, staring at Swoop intently. And then he asked quietly, curiously, "Why are you doing this?"

Swoop shrugged and answered, honestly, "I really don't know. Maybe I think that there will be a pay-off, in the end."

"That he'll defect?"

"Maybe," Swoop answered, shrugging again. "I don't know. Really… I think that he likes having someone to talk to. Someone…outside of his normal life, I mean. And I've found that I like that, too. I appreciate the…different perspective."

Optimus sighed resignedly and leaned back in his chair.

"This is dangerous," he said, and when Swoop opened his mouth to protest, he held up a hand to forestall him. "I believe you," he said, "when you say that you won't tell him anything that he shouldn't know. I do. But he's a Decepticon and…"

"If he wanted to harm me," Swoop said quietly, "or capture me or beat information out of me or whatever, he's had plenty of chances to do so over the past six months, and yet I'm still here. And besides…I can take care of myself."

"I know you can," Optimus replied quietly. Of course he could; he was a Dinobot. And Prime remained quiet for a long while after that, trying to decide what to make of the situation.

It was difficult for Optimus Prime to trust any of the Dinobots, and he liked to believe that he had justification for his caution in that regard. Even with earlier…misunderstandings…having been resolved and put behind them, the truth was that the Dinobots were still a largely unknown quantity, at least to Optimus Prime himself. Grimlock was extremely stubborn and even more argumentative, and he still had a power-hungry streak a mile wide that could sometimes put the Decepticons to shame. Slag was openly hostile toward everyone and everything…except possibly Swoop, but that was something that Prime couldn't really process yet. Sludge was mostly harmless, true, but he was also very easily led around by the nose, and Grimlock and Slag, in particular, were all too happy to lead him. And Snarl…Well, who knew what went on behind Snarl's coolly indifferent stone-face?

But this was Swoop that he was dealing with now. Swoop had managed not only to make himself very useful – several Autobots owed him their lives now – but he'd also proven himself to be level-headed, intelligent, and keenly, not to mention surprisingly, insightful. Ratchet had told Prime that he had something of an innate gift for counseling, for talking to people and, perhaps more importantly, for patiently listening to them and addressing their fears and concerns.

And perhaps that was exactly the heart of the matter at hand. Swoop had simply found himself someone to counsel. Optimus might wish that it hadn't been a Decepticon, but in some ways it made a strange sort of sense. For all that Swoop was the Dinobot who had made the most effort to integrate himself with the Autobots as a whole, and for all that he'd had far more success at that than any of his brethren, he was still largely seen as an outsider, not as someone to whom to spill one's guts, as the saying went. A Decepticon, however, might have far fewer compunctions in that regard, if he could bring himself to talk to an Autobot at all. And obviously this one, whoever he was, had done so. And maybe Swoop was right and there would be some kind of pay-off in the end. So…

"Just…be careful," Optimus advised with a long, drawn-out sigh. Half of him was screaming in horror at the decision he'd just made, but the other half acknowledged that trusting Swoop's judgment in this and allowing him some latitude might, if nothing else, communicate to the other Dinobots that he was willing to give them some latitude, too.

Within reason, of course.

Meanwhile, Swoop gave Prime a wry half-smile and said, "Well, that goes without saying, I think."

And then, sensing that the conversation was finished, he got up out of his chair. He stood there for a moment, regarding Optimus Prime uncertainly, and then he said, "Thank you." When Prime only looked at him questioningly in return, he added, "Thank you for telling me the truth…and thank you for not throwing me in the brig."

Optimus Prime made a resigned noise.

"Yes, well," he said grumpily, "that could change at any time if I think there's a reason to do so, so…enjoy your 'friend' while you can."

Swoop smiled uncertainly, and then turned to leave.

"You do realize," Optimus Prime said just before Swoop passed through the door, "that once he's lulled you into a false sense of security, he will use you to acquire information. Don't be fooled. And then he'll use whatever he learns from you to curry favor with his superior, and then—"

Swoop halted abruptly and spun away from the door.

"No," he insistently interrupted, shaking his head vehemently.

"Of course he will!" Optimus countered. "That's how one rises through the ranks in the Decepticons, by currying favor or…or assassination."

"But he doesn't need to rise through the ranks!" Swoop blurted, and then instantly regretted that he'd said it. He resisted the urge to look alarmed or to slap his hand over his mouth, just in case Optimus wouldn't see the implication of what he'd said.

But of course he did.

"Of course he needs to rise through the ranks! They all do. Unless—" Optimus began to say. And then he gave Swoop a hard look. He'd assumed that Swoop had managed to create a connection with some low-level grunt, but now…

Optimus Prime stood and approached the suddenly frozen Dinobot then, stepping out from behind his desk and advancing slowly toward him, not stopping until he was only a pace away from Swoop. He leaned down so that his glaring gaze could bore more deeply into the Dinobot's.

"Just who is it that we've been talking about here, Swoop?" he demanded to know, his voice almost dangerously quiet.

Swoop thought frantically, trying to decide whether it would be wiser to tell the truth or to try to invent some outrageous and far-fetched lie on the fly. But he wasn't very good at the latter, and he'd always been taught that telling the truth was always the preferable option. So…

"It's Thundercracker," he whispered.