Torment rubs his chest plates in an attempt to ease the unpleasant soreness in his new spark chamber.
It has only been a few days since the operation, where his spark chamber was replaced, and he takes the surgeon's warning when he was released from the hospital deeply serious.
"No teleporting for a week!"
He fully understands the surgeon's warning.
His spark requires time without any unnecessary strain to fully integrate with its new spark chamber. If he isn't careful, then he risks that his spark rejects the chamber, and that he will have to go through a new operation to fix the problem.
The surgeons have saved his life, and now that the explosive device is gone, he is free to directly challenge Torrent. He doesn't have to hide his intentions anymore.
His optics narrows.
And he should have known that Torrent would break out.
Should have made contingency plans.
In an instant everything could have gone awfully wrong. There had been no time to hesitate, because the moment Torrent realized what he had been doing, then he would be dead.
Luckily, Prowl had been amenable when he had made his urgent request, and he, Darksteel, Switch and Typhoon had been rushed to Praxus University Hospital to have the explosives removed and their damaged spark chambers replaced, before Torrent discovered what he had done and could detonate their chambers.
He knows it couldn't have been an easy decision for the Director of the Joint Investigation Unit to help four hardened criminals out of a situation that they couldn't escape by themselves.
A wry smile curves on his lips.
Prowl is not as he had expected him to be.
They are more alike than he deep down wants to admit.
He rises from where he sits on the stair when the building's main door far down below opens and a moment later closes with a loud, heavy slamming sound.
Light steps sound and slowly grows louder while she calmly ascends the stairs, and he looks down at the tenth floor while his spark fills with complicated feelings, that instantly turns into a burning passion the moment when he sees her.
Athena.
He vividly remembers when he had brought her home. When he had placed her on her berth and then...
...when something had held him back.
He had stared at her for a while, listening to her soft breaths, and then he had knelt down beside the berth.
"You are all I have ever wanted, but you are better off without me."
He had kissed her briefly and then resolutely teleported away before he made the fatal mistake to stay.
But he hadn't been able to stay away, had worried for her while his thoughts constantly wandered to her, distracting him.
She wasn't safe with him, still isn't, but he is caught and unable to let go.
Unwilling to do the only thing, that can release him from her grasp on his spark.
And to discover, that she in some miraculous way reciprocates what he feels for her after everything, that he has done to her...
...fills him with desire and longing for more.
Completely oblivious to his presence, she unlocks the door to her apartment and walks inside and he patiently waits an hour before he walks down the stairs and knocks on the door.
::...the final result of my test on the AI shows that the basic identity template is designed to shape and manipulate Thundercracker's new identity into one of submission.::
Athena's expression darkens.
"So that's why he did it." She growls.
::Who?:: Hotspot asks confused.
"Torrent." She says furiously, "He interfaced with Thundercracker right after Retrograde's procedure. Thundercracker clearly didn't know what was going on, and Torrent was uncommonly gentle towards him as he raped him."
She hadn't wanted to divulge what had happened in respect for Thundercracker's privacy, but Torrent apparently doesn't do anything without a reason, and this is utterly abhorrent.
There is a knock on the door to her apartment and she rises.
"Just a moment."
::Take the time you need.:: Hotspot answers while she walks out into the hallway.
She opens the door and her spark pulse increases rapidly, when her gaze meets a pair of cold, merciless and intelligent optics that she has dreamed of seeing again since their last meeting.
Torment smiles hesitantly at her and she blushes.
::Athena?:: Hotspot asks worried when there has been a prolonged silence from her, ::Are you there? Are you okay?::
"Yes, I'm still here." She answers slowly while her optics greedily studies Torment's frame, "But I'll have to go."
::You are sure you are okay?:: Hotspot asks sharply when he notices the change in her voice.
And she realizes, that Hotspot has understood what is going on. Her colleague knows her so well, that he instantly registers the smallest change to her behavior, and he is smart enough to put two and two together.
"Yes." Her voice turns serious, "I'm perfectly fine. There is no need for you to worry."
::Okay, contact me when you have time.:: Hotspot finally relaxes, knowing that she can handle any situation that may arise, and their communication terminates.
"Not afraid I'm going to hurt you?" Torment asks with a raised optical ridge.
She shakes her head.
No.
He is a killer, but what happened between them last time has convinced her that he isn't there to hurt her.
She blushes even more when she recalls what actually had happened between them.
How she had flirted with him and what it had ended with.
Him inside her.
It had been perfect.
One of the best interfaces she has ever had.
She suddenly begins to get nervous.
Had it been the same for him?
He had left her right after, but he had also given her his name and a way to contact him.
And now he had come back.
"Who was that?" Torment asks curiously, interrupting her thoughts.
Oh no you don't!
She is definitely not going to give him Hotspot's name.
"A colleague. We are working on the case with Retrograde together." She instead explains, "We have just found out what she and one that she worked with have done to a friend of mine."
She sees his expression darken, but it is gone the next moment.
"What friend?" He asks softly.
"A seeker named Thundercracker."
And there it is again, that dark expression.
Torment reflects upon the knowledge he has just gained.
Athena knows Torrent's old lover.
This knowledge is crucial, because while he himself no longer has any interest in killing Thundercracker, Torrent is without a doubt going to go after the blue seeker.
And if she also knows where the blue seeker is...
He can use this knowledge in his plans and will have to talk with Prowl about how they can protect Thundercracker.
"Where is he right now?"
Athena stares skeptically at him and remains silent, and he knows that she isn't going to tell him the information he needs to know. But if she knows the blue seeker, then the Joint Investigation Unit should too.
"You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to." He soothes and changes topic, "I'm sorry that I had to leave you so suddenly last time, I hope you can forgive me?"
His smile is disarming and he sees her relax.
"I'm sure you had your reasons." She says softly and steps away from the door.
He enters and before the door has closed behind him, she is swept into a strong embrace while his lips claims hers in a deep and sensual kiss.
"Primus, Athena." He murmurs huskily while he stares deeply into her optics, "I can't get enough of you."
Her spark fills with joy and overwhelming desire at the sound of his words.
This confirms it.
Their first time had been just as perfect for him as it had been for her.
She withdraws slowly from him and takes his hand before she leads him to her berthroom.
"Sit." She orders him, before she straddles his lap and begins to explore his frame with her hands and lips.
Their first time had been hard, fast and overwhelming, and she wants to enjoy this moment to get to know his frame more intimately.
He groans in pleasure at her passionate touches and she mirrors the sound, when his hands begins to explore her frame and locates her erogenous zones. His hands moves sensually down her sides, over her hips and down to her aft, where he grabs her hard and forces their pelvic plates against each other.
"You're so beautiful." He whispers breathlessly against her audio, before he with firm undulating movements of his hips stimulate her closed valve cover as their pelvic plates grind hard against each other.
Intense pleasure shoots through her, and she throws her head back with a desperate, needy sound, when his lips mercilessly goes for her sensitive neck cables and begins to kiss passionately along them.
Torment moves his lips along the major energon line in the right side of her neck, and he licks gently at it in an unvoiced apology. There is no visible sign of where he had injected the anesthetic into her, but he knows it had hurt, and his spark flares with the need to protect her from ever getting hurt again.
Her hand moves to his spike cover and it draws him out of his thoughts.
"Open."
He laughs inwardly.
It seems like she is in a dominant mood and is going to take the lead this time.
He retracts the cover and his spike slides eagerly out and meets her waiting hand. She grabs hard around him and he groans lustily.
Oh yes!
Definitely in a mood.
She pushes him hard down to lie on his back on the berth and moves between his legs before she lowers her lips around his spike, and he could overload right there!
There she is, his brave little Athena.
Her tongue swirls slowly and sensually around him, and he digs his digits hard into the surface of the berth to steady himself while he groans appreciatively.
His overload is steadily approaching while she stimulates him, and he slowly undulates his hips against her lips while he enjoys the overwhelming pleasure she gives him.
He looks down at the erotic sight of her when she takes him deeper and deeper into her mouth, and he meets her optics, that are darkened with lust while her cheeks are colored with a light blush from her arousal.
His overload hits hard and intense and knocks the air out of him.
"Athena...!" He groans loudly as he fills her mouth with his transfluid.
Athena stares at the erotic sight of him when he gets caught up in overload, and she continues to slowly stimulate him while she swallows his ejaculated transfluid to prolong his pleasure while her lust intensifies.
She is pulled up against him the next moment, before he rolls on top of her and looks down at her with a raw burning passion in his hard optics.
"My turn."
And she gives herself completely to him.
Torment is still in deep recharge beside her when Athena wakes in the morning the next day, and she studies him in this vulnerable state, where his hard outer shell is completely relaxed and innocent-looking.
In this moment he looks like any other sire.
Gentle, loving and caring.
It's when you stare into his spark through his optics, that you realize how deadly, brutal and merciless he also is.
And yet, she can see how that part of him slowly changes into something soft and affectionate.
Is it because of her?
Could her influence change him enough to make him stop killing?
Could she subdue and vanquish that brutal side of him and turn him from this murderous machine and into something else and more?
Make him fit into the society?
Be together with him?
She blushes when she realizes where her thoughts have wandered to.
Does she really want a serious long-term relationship with him with all that it entails?
Her spark says 'yes', while her mind still fills her with warning.
He is a dangerous hardened criminal and her professional experience tells her that someone like him rarely is able to change.
She can dream all that she wants, but she also needs to be realistic.
Shift looks up from her delicate work on the neural inhibitor, when several alarms at the same time begin to sound from the secluded section that houses her computer.
What the...?
She rises and walks over to investigate what's going on, and immediately curses.
Torrent is finally making his move against them.
Three of their former colleagues are already within Kalis' city border and moving fast while the rest have gathered to the west of the city-state and are stationary.
Why did the alarms only activate now?
They should have been activated the moment her systems registered a sudden, unexpected change in their movement patterns, and after Torment's decision to betray Torrent, she had specifically set the alarms to alert her if any of them came within 500 miles of Kalis.
But they hadn't activated.
Not before now, when it is too late to do anything.
Someone had kept her in the dark.
She narrows her optics while fury fills them.
I will find you, and when I do, there will be nothing left of you.
Thank Primus that Celerity is at work, because this is really really bad.
The three moving dots suddenly change direction, and she pales when she realizes that they are moving towards Athena's area of the city.
Frag!
Of course Torment is there, but how did they know?
She sits down at her computer and contacts Torment to warn him about the incoming danger.