An Accidental Love Story

by Bibliotecaria.D

In which Cliffjumper tries to figure out what everyone else already knows, and Mirage is singularly unhelpful.

3. Pt 3: An Obstinate Affair

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Pt. 3: An Obstinate Affair

(In which Cliffjumper looks at real estate in some place called Denial.)

'Living in Ignorance is expensive but blissful.'

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Special Operations did passive-aggressive like it was going out of style. When one operative got offended, the whole division started snubbing whomever was to blame. With a division like SpecOps, that meant misery rained down upon a mech until appropriate apologies were tendered.

Tracks had once told Hound that the green scout resembled a mutt instead of anything of real breeding, and the pink-faced mech hadn't been able to take two steps without sabotage appearing after that. Mud had poured out of the ceiling tiles; used oil had been flung on him 'accidentally' in the medbay; scrapes in his paint appeared during his recharge cycles. The thing with the elephant dung had been the last straw. Nobody knew for sure, but the only suspect with access to elephants had been Beachcomber, so he'd been the one credited for the vain mech's shrieked, ranting apology in the common room three days after the initial insult.

To be fair, SpecOps did turn their peculiar brand of disciplinary action on each other just as viciously. The day Jazz had made Carly cry had likely been the most maliciously pranked 24 hours of the officer's life. Wheeljack and Ironhide had put their respective territories preemptively into lockdown the moment she burst into tears, but the rest of SpecOps had still managed to break in and steal half their stuff to inflict on Jazz. And that had been after the Autobot Third-in-Command had apologized profusely. The mean-spirited pranks hadn't stopped until he bought her a new car.

Nothing was every said, however. The whole division specialized in never once bringing up what they were making someone pay for.

Cliffjumper had never been one for fashion. He didn't do passive-aggressive, stylish or otherwise. He did aggressive, and sometimes he could be pretty passive when the situation and/or berthmate called for it, but he was big on communication these days. Sometimes done at the top of his vocalizer volume, but still - communication.

Unfortunately, he seemed to be intimately involved with the poster mech for SpecOps' communication issues. A week and half into the newest bout of 'hmmph!' and pointed subject changes, and Cliffjumper was ready to bean Mirage in the head with a dictionary. Words, mech. Use them.

Fortunately, he'd decided to consult the relationship gurus. Perceptor and Wheeljack were the masters of using whatever was on hand. Give them two rolls of duct-tape and a mirror, and they could fix any mech's situation. As they'd been in the middle of doing when he walked into the Ark's laboratory to talk with them.

"He likes you, obviously," Wheeljack had said while taping down Optimus Prime's wrist.

"Else he would not consistently seek your companionship," Perceptor had agreed as he worked on a knee. "He does not enjoy being away from you, as I believe we can all attest."

The engineer and the scientist had paused to remember that unhappy moment in recent Autobot history. Cliffjumper, Bumblebee, and Gears had been concealed in medbay for extensive reformatting before being smuggled back to Cybertron looking like the Reflector components. No one but the top Autobot officers had known where the three Minibots had vanished to, and Mirage had taken the unexplained separation…badly. Sort of how a mother grizzly bear separated from her cubs took such things.

Cliffjumper had returned from that mission just in time to prevent Mirage's court-martial. He hadn't gotten the details, but apparently the charges involved various insubordinate acts done while trying to pry information out of Jazz in a most unpleasant manner. Knowing Mirage, verbal insubordination probably hadn't been on the list. The questions would have been asked in icily polite tones.

"Yeah. He likes you," Wheeljack had repeated needlessly.

One knee taped down, and Perceptor had sat on the other one to keep Prime from bucking free. "This is a matter of compromise," the scientist had drawn out as he measured out an intimidatingly long strip of silver tape. "You should not ask him to change overmuch for you, but in this matter you are most uncomfortable with his current methodology. He has indicated a desire to change it himself?"

That'd taken a second to translate, mostly because Cliffjumper had been staring fixedly at Optimus staring fixedly at the reflection of the fixed - uh. Right. Relationship advice from the masters, who'd been quite masterful at the time and totally understood the red Minibot's need to take a moment to appreciate their mastery.

"…what? Oh, yeah. We talked," with Mirage's legs tied in a lewd spread over the back of the couch and Cliffjumper sitting beside him with one of his own legs thrown over the blue mech's waist, "and he's trying. He said he wants to meet me halfway on this, but I dunno. He keeps getting…" He made an aimless gesture, trying to describe it. It'd been easier to understand when Mirage had been helpless and whimpering and willing to do anything, anything at all to work this out. "Hung up on dignity, I guess? Stuck in the past?"

He lowered his voice and muttered, "It's like he likes making me hold him down and dictate terms."

At that, Wheeljack and Perceptor had straightened up and looked at each other. The weighted, knowing look spread to include Optimus. The Prime even stopped jerking at his bound limbs long enough to join the group look turned on Cliffjumper. Everybody knew what kind of relationship Mirage and Cliffjumper had, especially after the Night of the Couch. The couch had needed to be cleaned afterward, for Primus' sake, and Spike had finally stopped dithering and proposed to Carly the next morning.

"…oh."

'Oh,' indeed. Mirage really needed to come with an instruction manual, or maybe a handy booklet of noble-to-normal translations. That'd be nice. For Cliffjumper's peace of mind, if nothing else.

Cliffjumper had a tendency to over-think personal issues since that whole traitor accusation thing. Jazz, Prowl, and Optimus Prime had all had long talks with him about unfounded accusations against fellow Autobots, and he'd been trying to control himself ever since. That did leave him double-guessing himself a little too often when it came to dealing with Mirage and his blasted Towers mannerisms, however. Subtlety was not Cliffjumper's specialty. Mirage doing his version of 'Relationship Cues Via Innuendo' wasn't working so well when Cliffjumper was trying not to leap to conclusions based on circumstantial evidence.

Wheeljack and Perceptor's advice hadn't been kind, but it'd been needed. Cliffjumper sort of had the dominant role in this strange version of a relationship, but Mirage kept fighting him for control. The red Miniobot's mistake had been in assuming that meant the obvious answer. He'd been trying to give Mirage more equality, caving when the blue Autobot pushed him, even when the pushed issues really rankled. No, really, he'd been giving ground on the most annoying things ever. If Cliffjumper heard one more snide remark about 'commoners,' he was going to lose his temper at last and punch the mech.

The obvious answer was apparently not the right one, according to Wheeljack and Perceptor. And Optimus, although the Prime's vote had been nonverbal. The masters of building firm boundaries out of miscellaneous objects had given Cliffjumper some not-so-obvious advice: put the noblemech back in his place. Forcefully.

Cliffjumper didn't quite have the ball bearings to use their advice about Mirage's altmode and the medbay car lift, but, hey. Maybe next month. This didn't seem to be a problem that would be resolved overnight, anyway.

It had definitely been time to begin working on it, however. He had marched directly to Prowl's office from the lab. A quick series of rearranged duty-shifts later, and he'd headed off to the common room for some old-fashioned face-to-face communication time. If nothing else, seeing mechs flounder for responses had quickly made it his favorite form of conflict resolution.

"I get off on being super polite and correct on people who are disrespectful to me," Carly had confided in him back when he'd asked her for help keeping a grip on his temper. She always seemed so calm and collected when confronting people, and Cliffjumper had to admit that he viewed those confrontations in a different light now that he knew her secret.

Chalk up a point for Carly. He'd tried it himself, and…slag. Keeping control was difficult but, but watching someone else lose it got him really hot.

He'd confronted Mirage at Special Operations' unofficial gathering table, which the taller mech hadn't expected. Usually, Cliffjumper was pretty good about respecting boundaries in their relationship. The red Minibot had learned to just leave well enough alone when Mirage got disdainful about sitting with Cliffjumper's buddies. Especially when the spiteful comments about 'sitting with the commoners' started. He just let Mirage go off to do whatever he wanted, which was usually stalk off in a huff or go sit with SpecOps.

Sitting at the SpecOps' table was a giant flashing neon sign of lordly disfavor and 'I'm having a hissy-fit right now and don't want to speak with you, so nyah!' Except marginally more dignified, because Mirage wouldn't actually stoop to sticking out his tongue. Unless he were about to use it. Which…wasn't the kind of thought Cliffjumper had wanted to entertain at that precise moment.

The red Minibot had stormed into the common room like a miniature tornado of fury and come to a belligerent halt in front of the SpecOps' table and its occupants. The operatives had stared. Cliffjumper had scowled back. Then he'd folded his arms, reset his vocalizer, and said his piece.

"I," he'd declared in ringing tones that'd made this particular bit of communication perfectly clear to everybody in a three-room radius, "am not talking to you. I don't want to even see you. You can come and find me when you're good and ready to apologize for being an insensitive glob of waste oil, and you'd better be ready to talk about it when you do. Got that?" He'd leveled an ill-tempered glare like a weapon.

Mirage had been shocked immobile, ration cube stopped halfway to his mouth. That mouth had worked uncertainly before squeaking out a dumbfounded, "Yes?"

But Cliffjumper had been looking at the other mechs at the table. Hound had blinked back in surprise. Trailbreaker had nodded tentatively when glared at long enough. Jazz had touched two fingers to his helm in sardonic acknowledgement of the ultimatum.

"Good." With that, the little red Autobot had whirled and stomped back the way he'd come. To a round of applause from the entire common room, oddly enough. When had Cliffjumper's personal affairs become everyone else's soap opera?

…meh. The acting was better than anything on 'As The Kitchen Sinks.'

Things hadn't been half bad after that. Shifts hadn't been a problem. Prowl did some fancy shuffling of the duty schedule, and Cliffjumper and Mirage were sent in opposite directions most days. That kept the blue spy out of his sight on-shift, which kept the awkwardness down. Whenever they did somehow end up in the same room, all the other occupants mysteriously kept getting in the way. Cliffjumper had been somewhat alarmed, then just plain entertained by the antics that ensued when Mirage so much as took a step toward him.

Although the tripwire in the medbay had scared the bolts out of him. He'd just been lying there as First Aid repaired his leg after the latest battle with the Decepticons, and Mirage had suddenly hit the medbay floor in a tangle of elegant limbs and not-so-elegant splotches of green paint. Cliffjumper still couldn't believe Sideswipe had gotten away with pulling that right in Ratchet's domain. Or maybe the frontliner had gotten permission beforehand.

That would kind of explain just how Mirage, invisible spy extraordinaire, hadn't been able to so much as set foot in Cliffjumper's general vicinity in twelve days. It seemed that the Autobots had taken a side, and that side was Cliffjumper's. Optimus Prime himself had called Mirage for a meeting out of nowhere when the spy was almost within audio range, and Cliffjumper couldn't say that the timing was coincidental. Blaster had idly mentioned a recent problem on the comm. network, too. Something about frequently lost messages from certain senders.

Special Operations was firmly in the red Minibot's camp as well. He hadn't actually seen any of the incidents described, but Bluestreak had chattered through a lengthy list of 'accidents' that had befallen Mirage lately. Photos of the homemade Spy Piñata in the common room had been promised. Bluestreak had also giggled through a story of Sparkplug, 6 dozen powdered sugar raspberry jelly-filled donuts, and Mirage's upholstery.

Guilt had threatened Cliffjumper for approximately a klik afterward, but it went away soon enough.

The same mechs now defending his dubious honor were the same mechs he'd listened to Mirage belittle and look down upon for a couple of months now. The last three weeks had been increasingly bad, but the lead-up had been nasty enough. Cliffjumper had just been trying to tolerate all the sniping comments directed at his pals and, well, himself for too long. Let them get their petty revenge. They hadn't heard the stuff Mirage had said only in the privacy of Cliffjumper's quarters, and frag if the Minibot was going to spread that hurt around. He had enough trouble controlling his own temper without trying to rein in everyone else's.

Righteous anger had motivated him to stay away during his off-shifts, and it seemed as if the entire Ark crew had started a plethora of Really Important projects that he had to help them with Right Now. He hadn't had free time to think, much less get mopey. When he did have time, somebody was always lurking about willing to fill it. And by 'willing to fill it,' he meant 'predatorily waiting to pounce on him.'

He was beginning to feel a bit hunted, actually. Not in a bad way, but chasing the wild Cliffjumper's tailpipe had evidently been a missed sport. Everyone wanted to catch up on lost time.

Hoist and Grapple had insisted he "spend some time becoming better acquainted with us." That had involved a vanilla set of berth escapades that had left the three of them tired, greatly pleased with themselves, and certainly better acquainted than when they'd started. That'd been downright nice.

Bumblebee had asked him to stay in the Protectobot base all of Tuesday, which of course had let to a cuddle pile of epic proportions. It'd also turned into competitive fire truck groping once Bumblebee came by and agreed to participate in the first annual Autobot 'What Goes Up Must Come Down' ladder-climbing race. Hot Spot's sirens had gone off three times during the event, and his knees hadn't exactly been steady when he'd proclaimed "the red Autobot" the victor.

Since Bumblebee had, inexplicably, shown up that evening painted in Cliffjumper's colors, they'd figured the fire truck hadn't been able to see straight enough to qualify as a judge anymore. Either that, or they'd both won. The other four Protectobots had decided in his stead that there had to be a tie-breaker round.

It hadn't helped. A tie had been declared due to judge incapacitation. Hot Spot's emergency lights had still been flashing fitfully when the two Minibots took off for the Ark afterward.

Ratchet, in the Medbay, with jumper cables. Enough said.

Grimlock, in altmode, with teeth. Words unnecessary.

How had Cliffjumper forgotten how much fun it was to be unencumbered? It wasn't that Mirage had ever asked for commitment, because Primus forbid the noblemech outright ask for what he wanted, but Cliffjumper had gradually ceased playing other 'instruments' in the Autobot orchestra. The spy didn't have exclusive rights to the red Minibot's berth, but…quite frankly, Mirage had a racer's frametype. He had both a superior design and custom-manufactured parts from the Iacon Towers. Even after millions of years of war, he functioned at a higher level in pretty much every category. Every category.

Cliffjumper hadn't had the energy to frag around for months. Now he suddenly had all that energy free to give to good homes, and a whole parade of Autobots willing to adopt him for a night or two. Or three.

It wasn't until Omega Supreme propositioned him that Cliffjumper realized exactly how many mechs he'd been interfacing with just to feel normal. His systems were just that high-output, now. He'd adjusted to keeping up with the noblemech's stamina. Months of interpreting Mirage's subtle - but frequent - signals had geared him up to read every gesture and wink sent his direction to mean, "Frag me through the wall, right here and now."

He'd pondered the ramifications of that for a whole six seconds before shoving the thought in a small hole somewhere. What, was he supposed to feel bad that he was having fun? Pfft, whatever. He had a Supreme willing to interface him dizzy, and all was right with the world.

Sure, he felt increasingly moody as every day passed, but all relationships had their ups and downs. He had to establish firm limits now or be prepared to walk away before the blue Autobot made him completely unhappy. He'd been well on his way down that route before consulting Perceptor and Wheeljack. He didn't like not knowing what Mirage wanted on any given day. He didn't like having to decode the noblemech's frustratingly deceptive politeness. He didn't like having to restrain himself every time Mirage opened his fragging mouth.

Most of all, he didn't like winding himself into anxious knots inside trying to decide if Mirage wanted to be tied up and left on display in the common room, or be treated like a dignified upper class Towers mech. Cliffjumper had been tolerating Mirage's hints and nudges and boundary-pushing long enough. As Perceptor and Wheeljack has suggested, it was past time to make the noblemech decide for himself where his place was. More than that, he needed to admit out loud where that place was. Then Cliffjumper could put him there.

No more ever-so-unhelpful conversations about the declining grade of energon in the rations. No more snooty comments on the company Cliffjumper kept. No more cold shoulder because of missed hints Cliffjumper hadn't even been aware of.

Speak out or get out time, Mirage.

So Cliffjumper stubbornly refused to miss the mech. He spent his off-shifts flirting with Aerialbots, Blades, Gears, and Powerglide. Well, not all of them at once - but yes, all of them, and not one at a time. He intentionally ignored the few times Mirage actually managed to get within speaking distance, because that never lasted too long. If the spy said anything, Cliffjumper didn't hear him before circumstances separated them again. Circumstances mainly being other Autobots, but there had also been a security system in Corridor 49-1A going haywire and, in one memorable and rather frightening instance, a herd of Dinobots stampeding through the Ark's bridge.

It was depressing by the twelfth day, honestly. Mirage was good, but…one spy versus the entire Special Operations division and the rest of the Autobots wasn't very fair. Cliffjumper hadn't even caught a glimpse of finely polished blue armor in two days.

Maybe Mirage had given up.

Teach Cliffjumper to get his hopes up. Mirage might not have been a traitor, but that didn't make the mech any less capable of backstabbing someone in the spark.

He reported for a late-night shift in a sour mood and waved the last shift out with a grunted, "'night, guys."

Huffer and Skids gave him slightly concerned looks for the lackluster greeting, but Cliffjumper only grimaced. He really didn't want their well-meaning worry tonight. He didn't like doubting himself, and right now he was stuck in the middle of wondering if Mirage had ever felt more than passing lust for him. Had the advice been totally off-target? Had he demanded too much of the noblemech?

"Cliffjumper." Red Alert seemed distracted as the others left, but he always seemed distracted when he took a late shift. He'd spend most of it physically transferring security footage down to the Ark's secure archives for final examination and processing. It meant he had to walk back and forth across the ship about fifteen times total, and the connection between Security Director and Teletraan 1 had to be maintained the whole time or the downloads automatically scrambled. It was a complicated procedure requiring the majority of Red Alert's attention.

The Lamborghini still spared enough to nod cordially at the red Minibot. Probably because even a notoriously duty-conscious mech like him had to suffer a short flashback to this same Minibot training him for the next annual Autobot ladder-climbing race. Inferno hadn't been able to walk straight after that particular training session.

"How are you tonight?" Red Alert asked with absent-mindedly courtesy.

He'd been better. "Fine," Cliffjumper said, because he really wasn't the type to admit to feeling down even with Megatron standing on his back. "You ready?"

"Only waiting for you."

Ten months ago, Cliffjumper would have lashed out at that comment. He'd have assumed it was a dig against him. His first thought was still that Red Alert's words implied he was slow or late, but it was habit now to rethink that initial thought. He gave the Security Director a suspicious look but was too preoccupied with his own worries to summon more than a few seconds of irritation. The Lamborghini didn't even look up at him, and on second thought, it was just Red Alert stating a fact.

Cliffjumper was overreacting. Again. Of course. Because that's what he did.

"…yeah, okay. I'm here," he said shortly. He flung himself into the nearest seat and signed into the shift log. Red Alert's footsteps left the bridge behind him, leaving him alone on the deck.

Usually there had to be a two-mech party on the bridge shift at all times, but he'd be sitting alone on the bridge tonight while Red Alert did his slow, manual transference. The Autobots walking patrols through the ship would check in at random throughout the night, and Red Alert would appear briefly fifteen times, but most of the shift would be spent alone in the semi-dark of the bridge. Right now, that suited Cliffjumper's mood just fine.

He glared at the security monitors. There were Cassettes wandering the halls; good. He liked sharing the night shift with Blaster. The boombox could always be counted on to supply some ridiculously inappropriate song when Cliffjumper was in a foul mood. Which he was most certainly in right now. He could do with some country music, in fact.

Straightening up in his seat, he scooted it along its track toward the console only to have his foot hit something underneath it. "Sonnuva glitch! Ow." He bent and peered into the dark seatwell but didn't see what he'd stubbed his foot on. He hoped whatever it'd been wasn't important, or Hoist would nag him about fixing it next shift. Ooo, no, wait, that could be fun. Next bridge shift was Hoist and Smokescreen.

No, bad Minibot. No interfacing while on shift. Not after the time Red Alert had 'verified' Prime's identity during an important negotiations call with Megatron. Megatron had offered concessions in exchange for an encore, but Prowl had still insisted on adding 'No Interfacing' to the duty regulations.

Smiling slightly at the memory, Cliffjumper gave up on getting any closer to the console for the moment. He reached out and keyed into the network. "Hey, Blaster," he asked over the comm. line. "Got anything with a dead dog, three ex-girlfriends, and a rusted Chevrolet?"

*"Aw, mech. That bad a night, huh?"* Blaster's sympathy didn't grate on his spark, at least. *"Don't worry, little red. The Master Blaster's here to make it aaaaaall better. Gimme a klik to find something for you,"* the boombox told him cheerfully.

"I'm sure you'll find me many things," Cliffjumper drawled, tone alluded heavily to the 'all better' comment. It was the on-shift verbal equivalent of a waggled optic ridge and, "Interested?"

An unexpected EM field-flare of searing jealousy washed over his feet.

The comm. link closed as the red Minibot shoved himself back in the chair, snapping his knees open to gape between them at the empty space under the console. There was nothing there but the seat-track inlaid in the floor and a dust bunny the size of a human baby. The jealousy at his feet faltered. Embarrassment trickled into it. Apparently Mirage hadn't meant to turn off his electromagnetic blocker right then.

"How long have you been waiting down there?" Cliffjumper blurted, looking over his shoulder toward the doors. They were both still closed, and he knew he'd have heard either of them opening.

For a moment, he thought the spy wasn't going to answer. What, did he really think Cliffjumper would believe he was imagining things? "Two and a quarter joors," the noblemech finally admitted. "Huffer kicks harder than you do."

Just for that, the small Autobot kicked at the empty space again. There was another loud clang of metal on metal, and this time he could see that he really had stubbed his foot on nothing.

It was satisfying, but it still hurt his foot. "Ow," Cliffjumper grumbled.

Mirage didn't make a sound, but Cliffjumper hadn't expected him to. Spies knew better than to react while on mission. Hiding under a console in the Ark was hardly on the same level as infiltrating the Decepticon base, but a SpecOp operative was a SpecOp operative. It was kind of surprising Mirage had given himself away in the first place. Had the spy done it just to get his attention?

…if this was another attempt at manipulating him, Cliffjumper really was going to dump him. Permanently. Into the ocean, at this rate.

Anger boiled up in the Minibot, and his face set in a frown. He pointedly directed it at the monitors. He was very, very sick of being jerked around. He watched Ramhorn trot through the halls instead of watching the empty space where an infuriating, invisible, and immensely irritating Autobot sat.

"…I deserved that," sighed from that empty space eventually.

"Not talking to you," Cliffjumper muttered.

The trickle of embarrassment had poured into a pool that filled the seatwell. "I know," Mirage said quietly, "and I deserve that, too. I'm not asking you to speak - just listen." The pool shifted as Mirage moved, and Cliffjumper could feel him rising. The EM field emerged from the depths of the seatwell to kneel between his legs. If embarrassment felt like soldering sparks, the emotion underlying the sparks felt like the sluggish glug of used coolant. "Will you allow me an audience, or am I that unworthy?"

The formal words grated on his nerves. They were a cheese grater of annoyance across his sensor network. The spy had spent months mocking and sniping in that same fragging tone of voice, using those same stilted words, and then came asking to talk about it like that? He had learned nothing? Apparently not. Although Cliffjumper didn't really have a problem with Mirage's Tower-trained manners, not really, just what he kept doing with them.

Kneeling, Mirage was nearly as tall as Cliffjumper was while sitting. The red Minibot refused to acknowledge that the spy's face was likely somewhere in front of him. He deliberately looked through the empty space at the monitors. On them he could see Blaster patrolling the corridors toward the bridge, and a flare of fury snapped through Cliffjumper's circuitry as he recalled Mirage's contemptuous words about the boombox. Cliffjumper had mistakenly restrained his temper instead of losing it; there was a point where tolerance became being taken advantage of. There had to be a point where an opinion became verbal abuse, and Mirage had crossed that line weeks ago.

Cliffjumper narrowed his optics at the monitors and pulled his EM field close. He couldn't hide it completely - he didn't have a blocker - but everyone knew how to pull in their current. It was no different than a human learning to control facial expressions and body language, after all. He didn't say anything. He'd already said his piece, and if Mirage hadn't figured out how to talk on his own, then this was a waste of time.

The spy flinched back at the vicious crackle of fury but then leaned forward to follow the red mech's retreat. To Cliffjumper's vague surprise, Mirage's habitually-damped field ballooned out to blatantly offer his systems' status. Electromagnetic energy pushed outward, trying to mesh with the tight, hostile skin of energy hugging close to red and black armor plating. Cliffjumper's inbuilt circuit monitors registered the surge of foreign input and triggered under-armor interference. The tiny mechanisms didn't block his signature, but it did prevent his own circuitry from being influenced by the outside press of someone else's field.

Angry, Cliffjumper repelled Mirage's field instead of allowing it to mesh and join his own. The blue Autobot's field stopped meekly enough but remained intimately splayed open. It was an offer to read his reactions. Slag, it was practically a plea. Cliffjumper knew that the spy could lie with his body as easily as with words, but the emotions…they could be genuine.

It was almost comical. Cliffjumper, king of wearing his emotions for all to see, sat in the chair concealing everything he felt. Mirage, frost queen, knelt at his feet with every emotion on display. Funny how they weren't laughing.

"Cliffjumper." Sorrow wisped over him, a thin silk layer of cool and grey over the dark sludge gurgling deeper in the spy's field. Mirage didn't touch him, but Cliffjumper could feel him slide forward between his legs to get closer. The larger Autobot was very careful about not touching him. Curiously so, in fact. "You don't have to say anything. Just listen, and don't…" A hesitation laced through with the sharp spangles of desperation burst out to flick against the Minibot's chest, the arm resting on the console, his ankles. "…don't send me away."

Blue optics remained locked on the monitors. Cliffjumper wasn't going to give Mirage the satisfaction of reacting. The noblemech couldn't manipulate his feelings if they weren't out there to be mishandled.

The gray deepened, a backdrop of depression and sadness making desperation stand out even brighter against the smooth EM field.

The door hissed open behind him, and Blaster walked into to the semi-darkness of the bridge. "Hey, little red!"

"Blaster," Cliffjumper said, and Primus help him if he even knew what he felt right then. Should he be grateful the boombox had interrupted, or impatient for him to leave again? Between his legs, Mirage had gone silent and still except for the telltale burn of jealousy - envy? - smoldering its way through the spy's field like a fire creeping up damp wood. "You find that song?"

Blaster could be completely oblivious to someone disliking his music, but he was a Cassette Master. Even if he didn't typically take Special Operations missions, his Cassettes did. Reading small details was second nature. "No jams with three ex-girlfriends, but I found one with an ex-wife an' a shotgun. That work for your jones?" And over a quick-connect private comm. line, *"Am I interrupting something, or is there some garbage in here that needs taking out?"*

"Oh, come on. You've gotta be kidding me. Humans actually made a song about that?" Cliffjumper shook his head, a reflexive smile lifting his mood a little. *"I…dunno. Check back in a few kliks, okay?"*

"I know," the boombox said blithely. "Makes me despair for humanity, it really does. You don't want it, huh?" He passed within a dozen meters of Cliffjumper's station but didn't pause. He headed for the other bridge door instead. *"No prob, little red. You let me know how it goes."*

The red Minibot raised a hand to wave the other Autobot on his way. "I'll pass. Shotguns aren't my thing."

"Gotcha. I'll keep my optics open!"

When the door closed behind Blaster, the jealous burn finally subsided. "…I do not like him."

Cliffjumper was well aware of that, thank you very much, and he couldn't hide the defensive rage that bristled from his armor to poke at Mirage's EM field. It winced but accepted the silent reprimand. The red Minibot was surprised again as a squirming hot worm of shame writhed through the noblemech in response. Stinging heat wrapped around the invisible mech's field and braided into emotional chains. The red Minibot stared sightlessly at the monitors, feeling the bird-wing field-flutter of Mirage fighting his own emotions. Cruel tenterhooks of shame twisted the spy.

A hand wrapped around his knee, and the noblemech hunkered down to press the side of an invisible helm into his inner thigh like the mech would hide there. But this was one foe who couldn't be hidden from, couldn't be fought against. Mirage tortured himself, wallowing in guilt until, at last, he ceased trying to escape what he'd done.

Mirage looked up. The red Minibot couldn't see it, but he could feel the larger Autobot's helm roll against his thigh. He steadfastly refused to glance downward even as Mirage surrendered. The noblemech's field peeled out and spread in a rippling tide over red armor, flinging wide open like the larger Autobot had opened up his chest and closed Cliffjumper inside. It left Mirage totally vulnerable. A whole mech, submitted for Cliffjumper's inspection. The congealed emotion under the surface guilt oozed up, chasing the shame like a gluey, sinister shadow. It glugged upward, thick and sour until Cliffjumper could nearly taste it.

He suddenly found a word to put to it: remorse.

"I don't like him," the spy said, quiet and honest. "He makes you smile even when you're unhappy. Even…even when I've made you unhappy, he can still find silly songs that make you forget me." Regret stabbed, deadly as a knife slamming home through remorse, but the blade was turned on Mirage. "They all do. I," the spy's intakes hitched, the confession tearing free of his pride one syllable at a time. "I…tried…to turn…to turn you…against them, but they…they kept giving you…giving you reasons t-to smile." The helm turned, burrowing into Cliffjumper's thigh. "I'm the one you should turn against!"

Stated so bluntly, all the pretty mannerisms stripped away and the pretense gone, Mirage's actions were laid out plainly before the noblemech's own optics. All the crimes came winging back to roost, crowding bitter words at the base of his throat in a choking, painful mass. He cringed in utter disgrace, field whorling in on itself with self-inflicted punishment. The painstaking honesty dug up words the noblemech frantically tried to deny to himself, but he couldn't. Cliffjumper felt the way Mirage forced himself to say them out loud.

"I - Primus, I knew it was wrong every time I said anything. Every time I looked down upon you as common, you were more noble than I. I'm a disgrace to my upbringing. I would never have dared - I couldn't - the Towers' social circles would have ostracized mechs behaving as I have! My honor is rust and scrap. I've…I've ground it down to the bare metal with my own behavior. I know I can't control you. I don't have the right to control you, no one has that right, and trying to do it makes me - I attacked you. I t-tried to manipulate you, said things about the other Autobots…" Shame spread like a flash fire, burning there and gone again over Mirage's field and leaving prickling black-char remorse to clog the mech's intakes. "You never repeated any of it. Oh, Primus, if you'd repeated half of the poison I spewed in your audios, Prime would have pitched me out on my skidplate. I tried to turn you against them, and you wouldn't - I'm no better than a Decepticon."

Shame and regret and the sick sucking undertow of disgust churned through the spy's EM field. It funneled the agonizing confession straight back into the noblemech's spark, where it couldn't be escaped. Not anymore, at least. How long had this been building? Cliffjumper had given his ultimatum twelve days ago, but the situation had been coming to a head for months. Worse, the Minibot hadn't realized how insidious the attempted manipulation had been. He hadn't realized, in his inability to see the subtleties, just what Mirage had been trying to do.

Cliffjumper had only wanted to be able to interpret Mirage's elitist behavior. Only now did he discover that trying to change himself, trying not to be offended so easily and understand the Towers mech more, was the worst possible thing he could have done.

He stared blindly at the monitors. There was no one between his legs according to his optics, but all his other senses told another story. Same with their farce of a relationship: he'd put everything on the surface, taking everything he saw as truth, but his optics had lied. The truth was in what hadn't been seen.

He had to clench his hands, one on his thigh and the other on the console, to stop himself from stroking the helm bent into his lap. At the same time, it took joint-tensing effort to restrain himself from pulling away and shouting his sudden, pounding rage right in the invisible mech's face. A whining keen full of strained static came from Mirage as the Minibot's field blazed furiously. Even skimmed tight to red armor, the surge of unadulterated rage and betrayal flamed. Cliffjumper might have actually been less hurt if Mirage had actually joined the Decepticons. Decepticons, at least, could be expected to stuff his spark in a shredder out of no more than jealousy.

Cliffjumper didn't understand, and that made it even more awful. The rage coating the red Minibot like a second paintjob poorly covered bewilderment and a vague sensation of guilt, and Mirage cringed all the more to think that the small Autobot might somehow blame himself. His actions were so, so petty out in the open. So stupid, and so vile, and exposing them to scar Cliffjumper's hard-earned trust shoved unavoidable, self-directed hate into Mirage's festering EM field.

Under the loathing, without the mask of aloof dignity, the spy's core signature shrank into something tiny and ashamed. He was afraid, desperately afraid of the consequences millions of years of war and society games had allowed him to dodge. Action with minimal repercussion had snowballed out of control, and now here he was: kneeling at the feet of someone who demanded he face the music he'd written one mind-frag at a time.

The score was written in uncompromising black and white. It made him shake to play, fine tremors accompanying inexcusable words. The hand became an arm, hugging Cliffjumper's knee as if Mirage feared he'd be kicked away at any moment, and Cliffjumper could feel it all.

And it hurt.

The voice speaking against his armor was thick enough to be almost unintelligible. "I'm no better, I'm not. I betrayed you. I-I deserve worse than your anger, I know that. Cliffjumper, I - "

The bridge door hissed open. Mirage's word stopped with an audible click of his mouth snapping shut. Cliffjumper jumped in his seat like it'd scorched him.

Wide optics turned to see, well, exactly whom he expected. "Red Alert!"

"Hmm? Yes?" Distracted, the Security Director strode toward the secondary monitor station. "Is there a problem?" A secure comm. line pinged, reception only, letting the Minibot know the Lamborghini was not nearly as distracted as he acted.

That figured, actually. A quick glance around the bridge took in the surveillance cameras in every corner. Red Alert linked at the processor level when downloading from Teletraan 1. It wouldn't surprise Cliffjumper at all if Red Alert had been monitoring the whole conversation. The spy might not have avoided all of the Ark's sensors. The Autobots who'd been on duty when the invisible mech snuck into the seatwell had probably let him, in the spirit of letting him try to make up with Cliffjumpmer. So the not-really-distracted question was probably a real offer to remove Mirage if the red Minibot did indeed think him a problem.

It was a very tempting offer at the moment. He could…send Mirage away. He could rebuff the mech. He could shout at him and scream all his feelings loose, or even just leave it to Red Alert. He could hide behind the other Autobots until the blue noblemech finally gave up on whatever pit-slag game he was playing. Maybe he should expose the mech for the backbiting double-faced creep he apparently truly was, and the others could deal with him on their own. He'd been so stuck on trying to understand why the noblemech was lashing out that he'd somehow made the blue mech's behavior his own problem.

Yeah, well, Mirage was a big mech. It might be time for Cliffjumper to step out of this particular soap opera. Let the Mirage melodrama continue without him. Why did he feel responsible for Mirage's venomous little comments, anyway?

Eventually, it would stop hurting so much to know how badly he'd been taken advantage of. It would. He was a bull-headed trigger-happy Minibot with an attitude bigger than his frame, and someday he'd hop into berth with someone who actually would interact with him on the level instead of play mental games on him. Relationships weren't supposed to be minefields.

He in-vented a deep breath, gathering scattered thoughts into a decision.

Mirage rose silently to his feet, and one knee settled onto the small triangle of seat exposed between Cliffjumper's thighs. Fingertips slid up the Minibot's jawline, trembling just enough to be felt, and cupped his face. Not trying to move him or even hold his head in place, but there. Holding without the slightest pressure. Hands barely cradled the snapping, confused crackle of Cliffjumper's EM field. Still cloaked and invisible to scans, Mirage accepted the hostile sting of the smaller mech's field and pushed himself open in return.

Regret. Remorse. Shame. Guilt. Sorrow. The jarring spangles of desperation, and above all: fear.

Air puffed soundlessly out of vents again as lips touched the very corner of Cliffjumper's mouth. The Minibot stared straight ahead, still as stone. His mouth tightened, lips thinning to a grim line under narrow, angry cobalt optics. Really? Mirage thought a kiss would make it all better? If it weren't so difficult to unclench his jaw against the fiery bitterness suddenly seething in the aperture valve of his intake, Cliffjumper would seriously give the noblemech a piece of his mind for the ridiculousness of that notion. This was not something that a few emotional moments and a kiss could solve.

An invisible head withdrew as if to study his reaction, and the chair creaked in response to an otherwise undetectable flinch for his scowl. The spy angled his head to the side and returned, pushing earnest submission through his field. A ghostly strength swelled: courage. The lips returned as well, angled cross-wise, and Mirage began peppering incredibly small kisses across gray lips. Progress was slow as he barely moved with each whisper of contact.

Cliffjumper's mouth remained in a thin line, lips burning with a coat of anger. He would not be manipulated again.

Something dark and cold sapped the flicker of bravery from underneath when the Minibot's aggravated expression didn't lighten: despair. But at the same time…

Everywhere their plating met, a deep, shivering glow of need lit. The spy kissed it, tiny firefly blooms of heat working across Cliffjumper's lips as if trying to replace the anger one spot-patch at a time. Mirage's lips lingered, not attempting to engage Cliffjumper's mouth but unable to stay away once he'd started. Every kiss brushed into the Minibot's field. The touches physically breached it in the way Cliffjumper had previously denied the spy's EM field, and the Minibot felt the pull as Mirage almost frantically sought the red Autobot's emotions.

They earned a wince as the spy tasted the burning, wounded anger. It seeped like acid through closed lips with every repeated kiss, filling Mirage's mouth until the blue Autobot drank of his own actions. He didn't stop. Cliffjumper could feel the twisting chains of shame coil tighter with every miniscule peck, but the spy didn't stop. Maybe he couldn't.

No, kisses couldn't make this better. At the moment, however, Mirage didn't have much more to offer. Even through the anger simmering like a fire spreading under his armor, Cliffjumper had to recognize that. And he wondered what would drive the noblemech to do this here, go through the effort and humiliation of hiding and confessing this right now, if not something more than lust.

Hope made the pain worse, and Cliffjumper tried not to feel it. He didn't want to feel it. He was too cynical to feel it.

It hurt.

There wasn't a single sound or movement to give Mirage away. The hands were barely touching Cliffjumper's face, and there wasn't enough pressure behind the kisses to do more than skim the Minibot's lips. It was up to Cliffjumper to decide what Red Alert saw.

…oh, what the slag. He didn't need other Autobots to fight his battles for him. When he ejected Mirage from his life, he'd do it himself and probably put the blue mech's head through the door on the way out.

"Nah," he said a little stiffly, trying not to refocus his optics or speak differently. Every sense but vision insisted there was a large mech right in his face, but he refused to move his head back or stop watching the monitors. Blaster was following Steeljaw down one of the corridors now. "Nothing wrong, Red Alert."

Distracted optics turned toward him for a moment. "Alright." The comm. line stayed open anyway. As always, the Security Director knew more than he let on. Cliffjumper turned his head a little to glance over in his direction, but Red Alert had linked in to another duty station to begin a new download.

The motion, small as it was, took Cliffjumper's mouth out of immediate reach. Mirage took the opportunity to kiss his cheek instead. Again, the touch was almost too light to be felt, more of a caress of electromagnetic energy over the Minibot's extremely unfriendly field. It was also entirely chaste. The need continued to spread warmth across Cliffjumper's field one infinitesimal point of contact at a time, gradually building up a sweet blush of desire that…had nothing to do with interfacing, strangely. Lips painted the spy's fervent craving in tiny brushstrokes, but Cliffjumper's temperature gauge didn't even waver. Not-quite-pressed against the Minibot as he was, Mirage's temperature stayed completely level, too.

Whatever else Mirage felt, the need radiating above his darker, more depressing emotions wasn't lust. Whatever game the noble was trying to play didn't have anything to do with the berth.

"Hmph." The Minibot turned forward again, grouchy and knowing it. He hated not knowing what was going on, but he was also too stubborn to stop pretending that everything was okay. Nothing to see here, Red Alert, go on with duties as per usual. Move along, move along. "How's the download going tonight?"

The invisible mouth seized the opportunity. The second gray lips came back within range, soft nibbles moved across the bottom lip. Cliffjumper couldn't talk with his lips tight and disapproving. They had to loosen to speak, and Mirage did everything he could to take advantage of that concession.

Something shot a thrill straight through Cliffjumper's spark, and it took him a moment to separate enough to realize it was his own emotion.

"Everything is on schedule," Red Alert said, busy inputting the next set of passcodes into the other console.

"That's…good."

Mirage paused, ventilation locked down in breathless anticipation, until Cliffjumper didn't seem about to continue. Then the invisible lips were back. The rest of the spy's body slowly descended, covering Cliffjumper in cautious plate-by-plate movements that didn't so much as clink their armor together. Mirage's head ended up below Cliffjumper's, his mouth reaching for the Minibot's from below in a constant, nearly-inaudible scrape of metal-on-metal. Invisible kisses invited his participation, nibbling and lipping more at his EM field than his mouth. The light strokes went so far as a darting lick at the middle of Cliffjumper's bottom lip, just barely brushing his upper lip as if not quite daring to deepen the kisses further. He seemed to want permission to go further, or maybe he wanted Red Alert to leave the bridge first.

The Minibot sat there and endured, emotions miring into a tangled mess. He stared through nothing - and someone - at the monitors. Red Alert's occasional comments from across the bridge got grunts or brief words in return, and every time, Mirage froze into a waiting statue. Waiting for Cliffjumper to expose him, or trying not to give himself away by occupying the Minibot's mouth at the wrong moment and muffling anything?

It was less like being seduced as some…bizarre dramatic scenario out of a warped dream. If their relationship suddenly transformed into a movie, the battered bridge chair would be a throne, and Cliffjumper would be the powerful king standing judgment. That would make Mirage the supplicant pleading for mercy by offering himself in exchange for his crimes.

Which kind of put an interesting twist on what exactly the spy was doing here tonight. Had the spy remained invisible because he didn't want to be caught, or was it for genuine emotion? This wasn't a fantasy. There was a vast difference between a petitioner going through the motions because he felt obligated to by outside forces, or shame so great he pushed his face into the ground because he couldn't bear to look at himself. Why was the ever-so-gentle mouth there, closing on Cliffjumper's bottom lip and sucking with hardly any pressure? Was it because Mirage still played his games, or because of the sludgy, horribly chilled remorse dripping from his EM field?

The other bridge door slid open, and a jumping blare of music preceded Blaster skipping in - dancing? With Rewind? What? Cliffjumper's head whipped around so fast he clipped Mirage's helm with his own. The clang was covered by the music, however, and the two mechs dancing together didn't seem to notice.

"Mechs! Check this action out, you're gonna love it!" There was hip waggling. Why was there hip waggling? Bemused, both Autobots currently visible on the bridge watched Cassette Master and Cassette spice up an already surreal night with saucy hip pops. "Guess what kinda dance this is!"

"I don't want to know," Red Alert and Cliffjumper chorused in identically dry voices, because they knew where this was leading. That was a very attractive red aft bopping about, but they had better things to do than watch it at the moment. Although that was a close call.

"It's a form of dance classified as Latin - " Rewind started on one of his random facts.

"Don't wa~ant to kno~ow," Red Alert sing-songed, pulling his link out of the console and heading for the opposite door. "Bu~usy!" Rewind deflated a little, but Blaster was too into the music to notice someone trying to harsh his squee. Red Alert passed that red aft without a second look. He had some kind of mystical Security Director power, because Cliffjumper was having some difficulty tearing his optics away.

Difficulty, that was, until jealousy all but slapped him in the face. The field-buzzing hands cupping his face smoothed downward to trace his neck cables with not-there fingertips that eventually settled on his shoulders. They stayed there, massaging lightly at the joints tucked beneath armor. Mirage redoubled his efforts, kissing down his cheek and up his jaw until he got to the tip of his chin. And then down the front of his neck.

"Aren't you supposed to be patrolling?" Cliffjumper asked a tad bit sharper than strictly necessary, but he was having some trouble reining in the automatic urge to lift his chin.

Blaster's smile never faltered, but his voice on the comm. was concerned. *"You alright over there?"*

*"Fine. Just...need some alone time."* Even over internal comm., he sounded strained. It was painfully obvious that 'alone time' wasn't a euphemism for interfacing. This wasn't that kind of strain, tragically, and Blaster's music skipped to something quieter in instant sympathy. Everyone knew there was more than met the eye to the soap opera-esque relationship those two 'bots had, and it seemed things were coming to a head tonight, one way or another. That didn't mean things would end well. Not every story got a happy ending.

"Right, right, we're movin'," the Cassette Master said. He herded his Cassette toward the door. "Bit-bot, you got any info on line dancing? Always wanted to try gettin' the whole gang into one dance."

"Oh!" The Cassette brightened visibly. "Of course. Line dancing is a form of - "

The bridge door closed, cutting off another of Rewind's factual monologues, and Cliffjumper slowly drew in a deep vent of air. The mouth working down his neck hesitated fractionally, probably wondering if the Minibot would end things now, but Cliffjumper only returned to watching the monitors. Whatever else happened tonight, it wouldn't sit right with the red mech if he didn't give Mirage a chance to make amends. He wasn't about to let the spy try and 'face him tonight, but so far…this didn't seem to be sexual. Maybe? He wasn't sure. He couldn't be sure. But he would never be sure unless he allowed the mech to continue.

Call it giving Mirage enough rope to hang himself with.

Cliffjumper's optics narrowed again, staring resolutely at the screens. He'd said he didn't want to talk to or see the spy until there was an apology. That required words, and so help him, if Mirage thought admitting his wrongs was enough, he had another thing coming.

The spy pushed another surge of remorse through his field as jealousy got chained down by a renewed burn of shame. The frustrating weave of emotions made Cliffjumper dizzy, and not in a good way. Mirage didn't seem to know what he was feeling at any one time, but none of the emotions were pleasant to experience second-hand. Yet the churning mass of feeling had an awareness to them, now that Cliffjumper's initial leap of anger had subsided enough to notice. Mirage at least seemed to be acknowledging emotions existed. He didn't quite seem to know what to do with them, but this was the most emotional Cliffjumper had ever seen - er, not seen - the noblemech. Dignified detachment seemed to have taken a temporary holiday.

The red Minibot still wasn't sure what was meant by the trail of kisses being laid down his altmode's roof, now. The blooms of warm need were more obvious but also more confusing. Hands flattened and stroked from his shoulders down the sides of his body. Mirage's mouth lingered longer every time his lips made contact with red plating. The chair shifted slightly as the knee between Cliffjumper's thighs slid away, lowering slowly back to the floor. The spy followed suit just as slowly, working his way down the Minibot's body. Lips encountered the edges of windshield and windows and followed them, steamed the glass in short, panting vents between kisses. Tiny, sliding kisses, one right after another, pressure barely lifting before it returned. Blossoming spots of yearning fought to pacify Cliffjumper's simmering temper, and the dark tide of guilt spat droplets of desperation and fear every time the Minibot shifted in the chair.

The invisible helm lifted, and for a moment Cliffjumper lost track of the spy. He found him again quickly, or rather, Mirage's mouth found the inside of his elbow. Fingers that had settled on small black hips disappeared for a second and reappeared against holding gently onto the Minibot's forearm. Finally, a bit of force was applied. The hands tugged, just slightly insistant, at Cliffjumper's arm. Not demanding, but asking that the Minibot drop his hand off the console and into his lap.

Gray lips turned down in a frown, and he stiffened in his seat. No.

The tugging immediately stopped, and the spy's mouth left sorrow and shame in its wake. Message sent and received: Cliffjumper didn't trust Mirage as far as he could throw him. He was allowing the blue Autobot this chance, but cooperation was really too much to assume at this point. If Mirage wanted that, he could fragging well ask.

A nauseating downpull of regret and fear rattled the spy so deeply it actually sent a cold spike of sickness through Cliffjumper's tanks. It was gone a moment later, however, and the Minibot blinked and shivered in response, trying to interpret what he'd just felt. He shivered again for a different reason as that invisible mouth turned to single-mindedly mapping the surface area of Cliffjumper's forearm.

Lips softly glided and nibbled over his elbow joint. Fingertips danced over his plating, practically worshipping every square centimeter, and both lips and palms stroked along armor seams. They went back the way they came and paused to discover the joint all over again. Finely crafted fingers were barely narrow enough to dip into the gaps opened up when Cliffjumper almost involuntarily relaxed enough to stop clamping his armor battle-tight. They played on wires and sought the sensor network on the underside of his armor, pushing Mirage's EM field further into Cliffjumper's.

It felt oddly tentative. All of this was, but the contact focused Cliffjumper enough to really notice how off Mirage was acting. The push didn't have any of the self-assurance he was used to. Mirage had never been aggressive, at least not in comparison to Cliffjumper, but the noblemech was normally so confident that the contact felt queerly submissive in comparison. The invisible spy's EM field ventured into him like a shy mech lacing his fingers around his own. Mirage's kisses became even tinier, angling until the spy's head was below his arm even as the noblemech's fingers continued to explore and caress whatever they could reach. The field emitted by them wasn't invasive; it flowed into him and shimmered against his circuitry in a nonverbal…plea, almost. A sense that the invisible spy wanted him to feel what he felt so badly that he'd merge his field with Cliffjumper's in any way allowed.

Instead of feeling pressured, Cliffjumper felt strangely magnanimous accepting the touches. Just the knowledge that he could reject them, that Mirage knew he could reject them, steadied his turbulent frame of mind.

Mirage abandoned one arm and immediately turned to the other. The Minibot controlled a jerking flinch when hands and a mouth abruptly glossed fingertips and a tongue down the plating. The invisible spy was certainly thorough with his efforts, that was for certain. There was something disconcerting about knowing there was someone all but crawling into his lap, yet flicking a glance down showed no one. If he hadn't had experience interfacing Mirage while the noblemech was invisible, he wouldn't have been able to control his automatic reaction. When something touched a mech out of nowhere, it was machine-level instinct to get away or lash out. When interfacing a mech notorious for appearing out of nowhere because, hey, his special ability was invisibility, a mech learned to throttle his first instinct. Nothing quite killed the mood of a good frag like struggling to escape or trying to punch his partner.

So he didn't look down at all. If he didn't look, he could believe his other sensors. He watched Blaster race Eject down the corridor, moving from one monitor to the other. Red Alert progressed across the monitors far more slowly, pace measured. A hot exhale of air against his recessed wrist joint caused a faint twitch of his hand, but he forced his fingers to stay relaxed on his thigh, and he didn't look.

Hands cupped his forearm and dragged down, sweeping his plating with tingles of desperation. Mirage proffered the bottomless tarry gulch of remorse like evidence brought by a frantic supplicant to an angry god, opening his ugly inner workings to judging optics. But the smooth grey sadness on the surface of the spy's EM field lightened one shade at a time as the kliks passed and Cliffjumper didn't push the noblemech away. A white purity kindled impossibly slow, daring to glimmer at the very edges of the leaden field: hope.

Mirage was definitely on his knees by now, because a rain of pinprick kisses fell upon Cliffjumper's hand. There was still no strength behind the touches, but the noblemech's mouth engulfed every finger from above, sucking and nibbling and coaxing, trying to convince the Minibot to offer a finger, just one, for him to lavish attention on. His chin, then his cheek, pressed into Cliffjumper's thigh as he angled his head this way and that to reach as much of the red Autobot's hand as possible. He licked, testing, and nuzzled gratefully when the forefinger drew up just a bit in implicit permission. Gratitude lapped in long, appreciative swathes over Cliffjumper's wariness, the noblemech's tongue probing under the bent knuckle and curling to taste him.

Too much force put behind the eager licking, however, and the finger flattened out with a zing of disapproval through the Minibot's field. The bright glint of hope faded away like a hydraulic system losing pressure. A shadow of a whimper came from the invisible mech, and Cliffjumper felt Mirage's helm duck further.

This time he targeted Cliffjumper's knees. The thighs got their fair share of devout caresses, unseen hands meticulously trying to appease the red mech's still-hot anger with tapered fingers and sensitive palms that endlessly yielded rolling waves of remorse regret shame. Kisses scattered before them, headed downward.

Cliffjumper didn't even jump when the bridge door opened again. He cast a single glance back, but Red Alert only gave him an inscrutable look in passing. The Security Director walked over to uplink again and ignored him. Them, really. What one mech on duty knew, all the Autobots on duty knew. It was a security issue, privacy be slagged. Cliffjumper was vaguely surprised he hadn't been called out on it, yet. Red Alert had a tendency toward being uptight.

Mirage didn't seem to care that this edged on breaking regulations. He didn't stop his ardent touches. Butterfly petting from the very tips of his fingertips traded off with the grazing brush of his lips over every component he could reach. The smaller Autobot's joint relaxed as the persistent but almost reverent groping teased tight armor loose enough to open gaps. Oh, those gaps. Mirage pushed his face into the reluctant opening between knee joint and thigh, tongue delving in to wrap as best it could around cables and wires, squeezing and licking. Fingers dug in, not quite courageous enough to exert pressure and open the gap more. They eased back out obediently when Cliffjumper didn't take his suggestion. Lesson learned, there.

The noblemech stuck his tongue under the Minibot's thigh plating and lipped at the edge, biting gently and rubbing his tongue back and forth over it. He in-vented, breathing in Cliffjumper's EM field through his mouth as if to taste him. The acidic tange of betrayal went down in a gagging swallow, and another hushed sound of misery came from him. After almost a klik of gulping down consequences, one of the noblemech's hands ventured to the other knee.

The red Minobot's ventilation system didn't even hitch. He continued to watch the monitors, perfectly composed except for the anger communicated by the grim line of his mouth. Red Alert exited the bridge as quietly as he'd entered, and Cliffjumper didn't expect to see Blaster again. The Cassettes might peek in from a repair shaft for security's sake, but Blaster had more tact than to come back tonight. That left the two Autobots alone in the semi-dark, lit mostly by the bank of monitors and Teletraan 1's download status bars. A casual observer would only see one mech, however. Even a close observer might not notice anything. Cliffjumper was sitting in the chair more casually than normal with his legs spread like that, but Bumblebee sprawled all the time. The seats weren't really made for Minibots. The support poles adjusted up or down, but the seats themselves were rather large. Unless the observer typically kept track of how the Minibots compensated for that, the unusual way Cliffjumper sat would pass unnoticed.

Other than the spread legs, he looked startlingly unaffected by Mirage. One hand laid flat on the console, and the other rested on his thigh, fingers slightly apart. His feet barely touched the floor, but they didn't move. Not even when every piece of metal and casing in his knee had received its due in kisses and touching, and Mirage's mouth began sliding down again.

Down…

Regret.

That talented tongue for once focused on something other than thinly-veiled insults or misleading statements perfectly polite on the surface and pure poison underneath. Cliffjumper had to appreciate it even as the reminder fueled his anger once more. The gray and black struts of the Minibot's shins were delicately traced, Mirage's mouth wandering down every line but always heading downward.

Remorse.

So many cables and transformation points. The areas without an extra altmode layer had armor, but the sensors were closer to the surface. Mirage sought them out. Unhurried but urgent, his lips found them and…the press of those lips both were and weren't kisses anymore. They moved, almost saying something, almost scraping up enough courage, and still they went downward.

Shame.

By the time Mirage switched to Cliffjumper's other leg, the words were just about audible. They pushed against the struts, pulled out of the noblemech's pride one by one, and Cliffjumper could feel how it hurt to wrench them free.

Guilt.

"…all my fault," whispered into the metal. "All of it. This is all my fault, and I accept the blame. I deserved to be - I deserve worse than anything you could do to me, and I accept that. You are entirely right to refuse to speak or look at me, and I do not…" Another bitter swallow of unvarnished truth, and the words kissed down Cliffjumper's shin. "I do not expect anything. It's entirely up to you how you choose to deal with me, and I will accept your decision no matter what you decide."

Sorrow.

"My honor is nothing," Mirage said quietly, gently smoothing his hands around one of the Minibot's disproportionately large feet. All the altmode mass made Minibots look ungainly until there was suddenly tiremarks on a mech's face because he'd gotten his aft kicked in by those same feet. The red armor pulsed Cliffjumper's field, righteous anger and now unease, and Mirage's hands stung as the Minibot's EM field snapped at him. He bent his head deferentially, and anger-narrowed optics suddenly blinked wide to stare in blind wonder in the direction of the monitors as lips pressed resolutely to the red. "After what I did, my honor is less than nothing, but it is all I have left. Whatever pathetic remnant I have, I forfeit to you," Mirage surrendered formally against his feet.

Desperation.

"My honor, my possessions, my body, my pride…my spark is in your hands, Cliffjumper. It is yours. It's a paltry compensation for what I put you through, but I beg you take it and me as recompense. It is your choice how you extract satisfaction from me, but I swear that I fully submit to your will." Mirage's hands shook slightly, and his voice rose to a harsh whisper as if trying to convince the red mech that he spoke honestly, for once. "My word is worthless, I know that, but only through obedience may I regain myself."

And above all: fear.

The shower of kisses had become just one extended press of Mirage's mouth. The spy huddled to the floor in the seatwell, bowed before him. "I will present myself to Prowl if you order me to," the noblemech said thickly, voice static-laced and wavering slightly with released emotion. "The things I said…I may not have committed treason, but it was purposeful sabotage of shipboard relations. I intended to manipulate your mind and set you against the rest of the crew. Prowl will mete out justice for my actions in your stead, if you will it. Or…or you may command me to confess before the crew, publically or privately. You may - I mean to say, it is your right to sell my belongings or give them away as it please you. I will serve you in any way you wish, or stay as far away as you like. It is your decision to make, and I will abide by your choice."

Mirage hesitated, and Cliffjumper couldn't stop the ringing in his audios. Sheer astonishment threatened to send his processors into shut-down, and his sensor grid sent a barrage of alarms and sensor ghosts in response. This was absurd. Unbelievable. Primus, how was he supposed to handle this slag?

Fear jolted through the larger Autobot's EM field, an electric shock of emotion that spat against Cliffjumper's armor, and the Minibot found he'd stopped his vents to hear. What could cause more fear than judgment or - or - what the frag was that even called? Being afraid of official consequences, yes, of course, that made sense. Stated openly, phrased that way, Mirage had admitted to what amounted to a war crime. It was the kind of thing undercover agents seeded through the Decepticon ranks when given a chance. Prowl really would put him through a trial. He'd probably stand the spy up before an officer tribunal to mete out punishment.

But…what, subjugation? Indentured servitude? What kind of fragged up place had the Towers been, anyway?

"I have no right to even make this request, but I find I cannot help myself," the noblemech said, voice dropping to a low murmur again as the words unwillingly dragged out of him. "Allow me to attempt to apologize to you."

Blue and white materialized out of the darkness of the seatwell, catching Cliffjumper's optics, and when he looked down there was a mech groveling at his feet. "Please," Mirage pleaded quietly, looking up just enough to meeting his optics, and naked despair made the blue Autobot's EM field a sucking black hole, "let me apologize. I do not deserve the opportunity, but may I at least say the words?"

Cliffjumper's EM field exploded out from his armor in a dynamite burst that deflated before a single emotion could be picked out of the screaming crowd. It went dull and flat as quickly as it'd gone out of control, and the Minibot could only stare.

Mirage winced as the eruption cracked over him like a whip. He waited a moment. When no denial seemed forthcoming, he grabbed the lack as permission. He reached out and gathered Cliffjumper's other foot closer, until they were both in his hands and nearly in his lap. His neck bent, and he cleared his vents of whatever scraps of pride he still clung to.

"Cliffjumper, I humbly beg your pardon for my behavior. I accept all blame for what I have done. I cannot express to you the depth on my sincerity, and I sorely regret the damage and stress I inadver - " The formal phrasing hitched, and the noblemech's field reflected how much effort it took to right himself. " - intentionally caused you. To my shame, I cannot correct this error through monetary payment or other physical compensation. I can only hope that you will accept my submission and eventually be completely satisfied with my efforts to repair the breech in crew relations my cruel actions and words have created. This was a grave mistake on my part, and I am very embarrassed by my poor judgment."

Vents creaking closed, Mirage bent even further to touch his forehelm to the Minibot's feet, and need clawed through the darker emotions to bloom over red armor. The hands holding Cliffjumper's tires dug desperate fingers into the rubber. "I am most profoundly ashamed of what I have done to you. It was both careless and thoughtless, and I must beg your pardon. I will continue to do so, as often as you permit me. I will take whatever steps you deem necessary to earn my return to your good graces, if that is something that is even possible. It is my most fervent desire to be allowed that redemption. I have no excuse - there can be no excuse. I know what I deserve, and I only ask that you please listen and hear my apology. In time, I hope that you might accept it."

There was a moment of dead silence. Mirage appeared ready to stay bowed in debased subservience until told to rise.

Cliffjumper had basically frozen with shock so deep it'd stalled out several of his processors.

"You pit-slag recycled tin can," the red Autobot said at last, and Mirage visibly controlled a flinch. The sudden blast of fury radiating from the Minibot didn't really help the noblemech stay calm, but then the feet he clutched were kicking at him, and he automatically brought his arms up in defense. "You - you idiot! Circuit-tweaked, drone-fragging, glitched-up Towerling. What by Primus' sky-spanning skidplate did they teach you slagging nobles?"

A hand flailed under the console until it caught one of Mirage's raised arms, and it wasn't Mirage's place to deny the Minibot anything. Cliffjumper dragged him out of the seatwell and practically up into his lap, and the noblemech braced himself for a blow. The kicking hadn't been forceful, but the red Autobot's fists were formidable weapons. Acceptance and resignation pushed through his EM field, submissively rippling meek wavelets against Cliffjumper's looming rage.

Instead, he found himself crushed in an embrace that nearly bent his shoulder axle. A startled, undignified squawk squeezed out of him. "Cliffjumper!"

"You're the stupidest sonnuva motherboard this side of the galaxy," the Minibot barked in his audio, and Mirage blinked, utterly bewildered as a hand pressed his helm under Cliffjumper's chin as if the red Autobot would protect him. "How the frag did you get through millions of years of war without learning how to just plain spit out 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't of done it, and I won't do it again'?"

"I…I rarely associate with anyone outside of an official capacity..?" Mirage sounded only mildly confused, while his swirling EM field made it clear he hadn't a clue what was going on. He obviously had no idea what was going on, or why the Minibot was reacting this way.

If this wasn't the strangest thing Cliffjumper had ever heard - or done, for that matter - he was going to eat one of his own guns. He tucked the noblemech closer and gritted his teeth as he wrestled his temper down. True enough, the blue Autobot really never spoke with anyone outside of the Autobot military structure, at least not until Earth had forced him into constant close proximity with the same crew members day after day. And, well, Mirage was part and parcel of Special Operations' oh-so-special passive-aggressive methodology. Apologies weren't really a done thing among the operatives, so far as Cliffjumper could tell.

Okay, Cliffjumper: transform into Awkward Social Teacher alternate mode.

"Are you sorry?" he asked firmly, because fraggit, that was an important starting point no matter how muddled this had become.

Mirage managed to stiffen even further. "Of course. I apologize for what I - "

He shook the noblemech by the shoulders until the blue Autobot shut up. "That's not what I asked. I didn't tell you to come find me just when you were ready to apologize. I've heard you apologize before, and lemme tell you, I've never heard emptier words. I told you to come find me when you were ready to talk, and I didn't mean about what I was gonna do to you. If I'd wanted to do something to you about all the slag you've been pulling, I'd have punched you."

That percolated slowly down through the noblemech's confusion. However long it'd taken him to compose that ritualized monologue, he'd had twelve days to stew in his own guilt over it. He'd apparently forgotten that Cliffjumper was not a noble, had never even been inside the Towers, and got about half of the real meaning behind his formal manners. This wasn't about possibly treasonous actions that might end with Mirage being brought up on charges. It wasn't about the other Autobots at all. It was about what was between the two of them, and only them.

As difficult as Cliffjumper found Mirage to read, sometimes he had to remember that Mirage found it just as difficult to read him in return. They were both Cybertronians, but they'd come from different social worlds.

"Are you sorry?" the smaller Autobot asked again.

Mirage shifted, uncomfortable. "I…yes."

"Say it," Cliffjumper ordered sternly.

It felt blunt and wrong, somehow, without all the flowery words couching the sentiment. Childish, as the humans would say. Simple, as the nobles had said. But simple took away all the masks and defenses and formalities, and that's probably why he felt so exposed saying it. Still, he owed the Minibot, and…he truly was. So he choked out, "I am s-sorry."

The anger burning in Cliffjumper's EM field cut away like a light switching off, replaced by a gentler humming of roused temper felt through the arms wrapped around him. Mirage nearly straightened up in surprise. Cliffjumper firmly hugged him back against the red chestplate, however, and Mirage numbly let him.

A sense of sadness laced through the Minibot's field. The noblemech's reaction…was forgiveness such a complicated thing? Really?

"I'm sorry," Mirage repeated, numbness gradually lifting. He marveled at the hands holding him, a glittering beam of wonder briefly showing from under remorse regret shame. "I am, Cliffjumper. I cannot - I can't tell you how sorry I am."

"Good. Will you do it again?"

"No!" Appalled, the blue Autobot almost succeeded in pushing away. "Never!"

The Minibot almost let him go, too, but seized blue helm vents in his hands and yanked him forward a second before the noblemech broke free. Mirage was too dignified to yelp, which was fine because it would have sounded really weird inside Cliffjumper's mouth. "Mmmph!" sounded strange enough, and Cliffjumper wasn't even sure what the words had been before he'd lapped them out of the noblemech's mouth. He thrust his tongue nearly to the fuel intake to catch them syllable by syllable as they left the vocalizer. They were half-sobbed on the cresting wave of emotion pouring out of Mirage, "Mm sree ffmmprr sree sree sree. Mm ss sree ffmmprr."

He didn't stop kissing the blue Autobot until the muffled words finally halted. One last nip to a trembling lower lip, a lick to the upper one, and Cliffjumper raised his head to look right into wide optics. "Good," he repeated, nose-to-nose with the noblemech. "You won't do it again."

Mirage's head turned, too raw to take that kind of scrutiny directly. He slumped against the seated Minibot and nodded almost helplessly as he said the simple words. "I won't do it again. I swear I won't."

"Good. Then I forgive you." His head snapped back around again, mouth agape, and a finger covered his lips before a denial emerged. "If." Mirage's circuits sputtered electromagnetic energy like he'd been running without maintenance for months. Tonight's emotional rollercoaster ride wasn't doing either of them any good, but the noblemech was getting whiplash. Cliffjumper gave him a severe look. This wasn't any easier for him, either, truth be told, but it was painfully clear that Mirage was deferring to his judgment right now. "If you tell me why, Mirage."

And there went the conflict again. Dark emotions swamped the noblemech's EM field, trying to force a confession out. Cliffjumper waited impatiently, tamping down his own emotions. Mirage was willing to abase himself entirely for his wrongdoings, but he froze up when told he had to explain why. That seemed so backward it was alien. Cliffjumper's first reaction when accused of something was to try and justify himself. What kind of place had the Towers been?

"I…"

Anger had begun to re-emerge despite Cliffjumper's best efforts. He wasn't the best mech for waiting on results, and…yeah, he was still angry. He had reason to be mad, really. He was trying not to be because this was hardly the time to try and prod Mirage into a loud row. That's really what he needed to get the rage out, but it wouldn't work in this case. Which sucked, but emotions weren't exactly logical.

Mirage could feel the stinging burn coating red armor again, and he burrowed into the Minibot's arms. "I…wanted you." The words hurt to say. SpecOps had trained an already independent mech into hating dependency, and wanting something this way turned hate back on him. But under the hate glowed that unplaceable need. He wanted Cliffjumper more than he hated himself for that desire. "For myself, and only for myself."

Cliffjumper digested that. Alright, well, that sort of made sense. In a really warped way. Mirage had been constantly trying to drive Cliffjumper away from the other Autobots. Had this all really been just jealousy spinning out of control?

"And. I."

He gave the blue helm wedged against his chest a wary look. There was more to it?

"I wanted. You." The noblemech shifted, discomfort pulsing and writhing a complicated dance around shame, and need need need warmed his whole field. "To stop me. Make me stop. Shut me up."

"…oh."

That need suddenly clicked a lot of things into context. And oh, come on. So that's how it was, huh? Perceptor and Wheeljack had called it, after all. Twelve days of wondering what the frag Mirage wanted out of their relationship, and it turned out to definitely not be equality. The noblemech wanted a collar and leash, it sounded like. He wanted a master, not an equal. That was something Cliffjumper could easily provide, but it would have certainly fragging helped to have known he was supposed to nip Mirage's snide comments in the bud before things careened out of control.

"We're gonna have a long, long talk about this stuff," Cliffjumper promised, unamused. This situation had gone well beyond ridiculous. Fine. If the mech wouldn't communicate openly on his own, he'd just opened the door to Cliffjumper making him talk. "We've got a date after this shift is over."

That evidently hadn't been the response Mirage had expected. The helm tilted, and curious, hopeful optics peered up at him. "We do? I mean, yes, whatever you want, but - "

"You, me, and the car lift in the medbay."

So that's what a deer in headlights looked like. Good to know. Cliffjumper had kind of wondered what the other Autobots were talking about.

His hands tightened possessively, because he wasn't letting go. Not anymore. It'd been twelve days of uncertainty, and he wasn't letting the spy disappear again. The mech wanted to be dominated? Then Cliffjumper was going to start treating him like property, and he wasn't going to let his property walk away again.

He sighed hot air out his vents, frustrated beyond words. "In the meantime, what the slag am I gonna do with you?" He had a joor left on his shift, and now way was the noblemech weaseling out of their 'date' by leaving the bridge. He tightened his grip and brooded in the direction of the security monitors. Blaster and Red Alert continued to patrol. Thank Primus for competent teammates, because he was doing the shift no good with Mirage cuddled to his chest like this.

The noblemech stopped staring eventually and just pressed his helm to Cliffjumper's chest. It felt…good. It'd been a long twelve days.

Might as well start that talking thing to pass the time. "You promised you'd talk to me about this before it got to prison cells and handcuffs again," he chided the noblemech.

"Yes," mumbled shamed and…heh, excited against red plating. Smelt him, it was the return of the libido. "I apolo - I'm sorry. But you, ah," Mirage's voice turned peculiarly sly, "you did mention what you might do to me if I didn't speak."

Cliffjumper frowned, thinking back to the Night of the Couch. He had? What'd he say?

He looked down, surprised, as Mirage suddenly vanished. From sight only, because the noblemech remained pressed against him. Except that the invisible mech was standing, stepping over the seated Minibot to stand next to him instead of kneeling half-in the seatwell, and what the frag? What the frag was Mirage doing, leaning over him like…that…

Careful and quiet, the spy laid himself over the smaller Autobot's lap. Mirage was larger and heavier, but his weight balanced comfortably instead of smushing the smaller Autobot. He wriggled slightly, settling himself and propping his hands and feet against the floor. Anticipation ran thrills over their meshed fields, and Cliffjumper slowly lowered his hands until they encountered one upraised aft, ready and waiting for punishment.

Cliffjumper smirked. Well, that did take care of the question of what to do for the rest of the shift.

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