Chapter 28
Office Initiation
The streets and everything are still very quiet when Prowl and I leave the showers, and I'm relieved about that because that means less of a chance of running into anybody, either some human who wants to stare or say something, or a bot who wants to start a fight with Prowl. I don't know why anybody would want to start a fight with Prowl right now, except Sunstreaker had wanted to, and Prowl seems to be expecting it, so… I don't know. I guess… I just have to be ready for anything today.
Prowl acts like we're going straight from the showers to his office, even when we come to the intersection where we need to turn for the pub.
"Prowl," I say, stopping him and motioning him the other direction. "We have to get breakfast, remember?"
He looks like he hadn't remembered, but he doesn't argue or anything, and he heads compliantly in the right direction for the pub. We get some premixed energons from the outdoor cupboard since it's too early for anyone to be there, and then we go to the office.
When we get inside the office, Prowl looks at everything with some sort of suppressed disapproval, I think. I'm guessing. He's trying to be unreadable, but he just seems displeased.
Then I notice the dust. Two weeks' worth of dust. The office really isn't a dusty sort of building, so two weeks' worth of dust isn't a whole lot, but it's certainly enough for me to notice.
"I'm cleaning the dust," I say. "After I finish my breakfast energon."
Prowl nods once in acceptance. "I will clean my desk," he says.
"After you finish your breakfast energon," I say, holding up my energon. I'm pretty sure I can't actually force him into taking his breakfast, but I'll have to coerce him some way if he decides to be difficult about it. Maybe threaten him with calling Ratchet or Ironhide. One of those two will be able to make him behave. I take a prompting sip. "Drink up."
"I will finish half and then proceed to work," Prowl says and then takes a sip.
I hadn't anticipated a compromise.
"And then finish the rest in the next hour," I say because he really does need to drink all his energon.
"Very well," Prowl says, and I guess that's that.
I drink all my energon, and Prowl drinks half of his and then sets the cube on his desk.
Then we clean. We both work quietly. Yes, I know I usually like to chatter and make up stories to tell, but I'm not glitched in the helm enough to be oblivious to Prowl's current temperament. He would not like it at all if I chattered or told stories. So all I do is remind him now and then to drink a little energon, and he does without any sort of objection, not even a sigh or wing shift. It's weird.
Eventually, everything is clean, and by that time, humans and bots have woken up and can be seen out the windows, which Prowl has also cleaned.
Prowl is putting the cleaning supplies away in the order he prefers (I didn't do that correctly) when the phone rings. In the quiet of the room, that startles me and Prowl's wings twitch just a little.
"Answer that," he orders before he even looks to see that I'm already stepping over to his desk.
I pick up the phone.
"Hello, you've reached Prowl's office," I say into the audio intake end (or whatever it's called).
"English?" a human voice says in English. I haven't even thought of switching over from Cy-Stan.
"Hello, you reaching Prowl office," I say in English. I can speak it a little better than that, probably, but I don't put forth the effort here.
"Is Prowl there?" the human voice asks.
I look sideways. Well, he is, and I'm not supposed to tell lies, but I know he's not about to come over and talk on the phone with anyone. Maybe if Auri or Optimus were on the phone, he would. But nobody else. Well, maybe Elita if she threatened him. But anyway…
Slag.
"Please repeating question?" I say.
"Is Prowl in the room with you?" the human says slowly and clearly.
"Sorry, no Prowl talking now," I say. I need to get out of this conversation. I glance over and see that Prowl is looking at me and clearly having second thoughts on telling me to answer the phone. "I transfer to Elita talking instead, yes?"
"Uh, yes." The human takes the bait. "Thank you."
I look at the phone set thing and realize that I actually don't know-
Prowl darts over and taps some buttons quickly and then takes my hand and moves it to hang up the phone. The phone makes a soft sound in its place, and I take my hand away from. Prowl's system huffs softly, and his wings settle a tiny bit.
"I was not trained for that," I say, halfway laughing and completely back to speaking Cy-Stan.
"An oversight on my part," Prowl says, showing exactly zero humor. Or any emotion, actually. "I apologize and will remedy that."
So I learn how to answer the phone. Properly. And in English. Proper English. Then I learn how to file, how to look things up in the database, how do a number of office things.
Prowl is still a patient and good teacher, like before, but he doesn't warm up to me at all. He stays cool and impersonal. The wall stays up, and his words sound like he reads them from a script. He's like somebody replaced my Prowl with a poorly programmed automaton. It makes my spark ache.
"That is enough learning to start with," he decides after more than an hour of teaching me office things. Then he tries to send me out of the office on an errand.
"Oh," I say, shifting my wings deferentially so he will know I don't mean to be difficult. "I'm not going out unless you are."
His wings give a little displeased sign.
"You are my assistant," he says, "You will go fetch the reports from Security."
I dip a wing and keep my expression meek. "No," I say gently. "I'm Ratchet's assistant, and I'm not leaving you unmonitored."
"Un…" Prowl starts and then trails off and looks away as he thinks about this.
That "unmonitored" was a good word to use. Ratchet used it when he and I were intercomming earlier, and I'm very pleased that I remembered it, but I manage to not smile because I know Prowl would not like that smile.
"Mm," Prowl says after several seconds. "I see." He winces a little as he shifts and gets out of his chair. Then he heads for the door, and I follow after him.
We go to get the reports from Security.
Tracks and Sides and Moonracer are minding the Security station when we get there. Moonracer is watching various street cams, so she saw us coming and isn't surprised. Tracks says "oh" very quietly when he sees us comes in. Sides looks over to see what Tracks is making a sound about, and then he sees us. He moves out of his chair in an easy motion and gives Tracks a pat on the shoulder as he passes on his way over to us.
"Good morning," Sides says, carefully polite, stopping what seems like a safe distance away from us.
I feel like this is nonsense and move over to hug him. "Good morning, silly helm," I say. "We came for the reports." I snuggle a little in his return of the hug. He gives a good hug.
"The… uh, reports… Ultra Magnus picked those up about twenty minutes ago," Sides says with a bit of an apologetic grimace. "Didn't know you were coming for them, or I woulda kept them for you."
"Just to spite Magnus," I say, teasing, and Sides chuckles softly. He doesn't laugh as much as he used to, but he'll still laugh for me, at least a little.
He rubs my helm and looks toward Prowl. "Sorry Magnus beat you to the reports," he says. "Is there anything else we can do for you?"
Prowl thinks about for a couple moments and then shakes him helm slightly before turning to leave.
"See you later," I say to Sides.
"Not if I can help it," he teases.
"Don't lie," I say, "You adore my face."
He chuckles and bumps his fist softly on my jaw. "Sunny and I both."
I laugh at that and then I call goodbye to Tracks and Moonracer. Then I have to hurry to the door to catch up with Prowl because not only did he skip the farewell pleasantries, he also didn't wait for me.
He barely glances at me as I trot up beside him.
"We needed a walk and some sunshine anyway," I say, "so it wasn't a wasted trip."
He ignores that cheerful statement, and he ignores me and everybody else the entire walk back to the office. Here and there, bots or humans say "hello" and such to us, and Prowl barely glances at them, so I'm the one who answers back "good morning." Even to humans. I say "good morning" to humans in English. I don't like it. But I do it.
When we get back to the office, I sigh with some relief because being here means we probably won't see as many humans or bots, so Prowl will have less of a chance to be rude to any of them. But then Prowl heads for the door that leads to the other offices, instead of heading for his desk.
"Oh, where are we going?" I ask, changing course. I'd been heading for Auri's workstation.
"You may stay here," Prowl says. "I am going to Ultra Magnus's office."
I go to Ultra Magnus's office with him, undeterred by either the motion he made directing me to stay or by the small frown he bent at me. Ultra Magnus isn't in his office, though.
"Let's try Elita's office," I suggest. My spark says Ultra Magnus is somewhere close
Prowl make a tiny half-shrug with one wing and then goes down the hall a little ways to Elita's office. She calls "come in" when he taps lightly on the door.
He opens the door, and I peek in. Ultra Magnus is there, and I smile. Elita smiles at me. Optimus is also there.
Prowl's wings shift slightly and go very still.
"Good morning," Elita says, motioning us in.
I think Prowl should be going in first, so I wait for him, but he doesn't move. I look at him, questioning silently. He's thinking. Maybe he didn't even see Elita motion.
"Good morning," I answer, moving into Elita's office. I catch Prowl's hand as I pass him and give a little tug. He follows without hesitation, not resisting, so my touch stays light, and he pulls his hand out from mine quickly. "We came for the security reports that Ultra Magnus picked up earlier," I say, since I now doubt Prowl's ability to communicate. "He snuck out and got them before we could," I add, teasing.
Ultra Magnus takes a thick stack of data-pads from subspace, and I go over to him, holding my hands out for them. He hands them to me gently, making sure I have a secure hold on the lot of them before letting go completely.
"Thank you," I say, smiling up at him.
"You're welcome," he says, and then I go back over to Prowl.
"Anything else?" Elita asks.
"No," I start to say, but Prowl says "yes," and I say "oh." I dip my wings.
"What is it?" Elita asks.
Prowl takes the data-pads from me and stores them. "I need Praxus's security clearance elevated to the level Auri held," he says.
"'Holds,'" I correct.
"She is gone; she no longer holds it," Prowl says.
"She's coming back!"
Prowl pauses. "We can discuss that later," he says steadily. I scowl at him. "Also," he says, ignoring me and shifting his optics to Optimus, "I need you to inform Ratchet that Praxus's presence at my every waking moment is unreasonable."
I open my mouth to argue some more, but Elita makes a small quieting motion with her hand.
"Of course," Optimus says gently, "Praxus should not be entirely giving up his free time and his hobbies to monitor duty. Who else are you willing to have share this job with Praxus?"
Prowl was already rather stiff and still before, but now he's pretty much frozen. I look at his face, and it's absolutely unreadable, but I would guess he's not happy with Optimus being tricky like that. Prowl wanted me out of the way, and he didn't want a replacement, but Optimus is asking him to chose a replacement. He stares at the space above Optimus's shoulder for several moments, making silence uncomfortable.
"You can get back to me about that if you need some time to think on it," Optimus says, and I file this line away to use sometime later, just like I did with Ratchet's use of "unmonitored."
Prowls nods once in acknowledgement. Then he looks cautiously toward Elita. "And Praxus's security clearance…?"
"I'll get the process started once we're done here," Elita answers. "I'll push to get it cleared by tomorrow morning."
Prowl nods once again. "Thank you," he says this time. Optimus didn't get a thank you, I notice.
"You don't just click a button that gives me clearance?" I ask Elita, curious about "process" and "push." She smiles, optics twinkling gently at me.
"No," she says. "We do have a few formalities of reviewing your history and having other bots agree that you can have that level clearance. And running it by a few humans as well."
"Oh…" I hadn't known that. That sounded like a little bit of a hassle. But also probably a smart precaution, I guess.
Prowl moves away from me, and Chromia nearly steps on me from behind.
"Whoops," she says, putting both hands on my shoulders. "Hi, mechling."
I tilt my helm way, way back and look up at her upside-downish. It's late enough in the morning that she's mostly recovered from being hung-over, and it's early enough that she hasn't gotten more high-grade in her yet. It's the best time to see her.
"Good morning," I say. She bends down and kisses my helm lightly. I smile at that, and then I lean back against her as she straightens. The warmth of her smooth armor feels good against my wings, and she's steady enough right now that her presence is reassuring. This moment feels nice and almost normal as she rubs my helm.
"Is there a meeting?" she asks.
"No," Elita says. "You've just showed up while I have a number of visitors."
"High-ranking visitors," Chromia points out, lifting a hand to motion at the other bots.
"She's getting me a higher level of security clearance," I say. "So I can be Prowl's assistant until Auri comes back."
"She is not coming back," Prowl says, and the nice moment is gone. I growl at him. No words, just a growl.
Chromia puts her hand back on my helm for a moment and then moves it to my shoulder instead and gently moves me over, pulling me onto her lap as she sits on the chair against the wall just inside the door. She puts her arms around me, drawing me close to snuggle me. Part of me wants to fight and yell about Prowl, but most of me wants to be snuggled, so I let her. I shut my optics and lean against her and rest my helm against her shoulder.
"I know you want Auri to come back," she says softly. "I do, too." Her voice breaks a little, so I don't have the spark to growl at her for acting like Auri won't come back. "But most Autobots who land in Decepticon hands don't come back. The only reason Megatron gave Prowl back was because he had Prowl close to death, and he got a live and healthy Soundwave back in trade. We don't have anything Soundwave would want in trade for Auri."
"And we did ask," Elita says quietly. "He said no. And he said to limit communications because Auri's presence on the ship is top secret and there is a risk of communications being intercepted if we keep contacting him. We can't risk Megatron finding out about her, so we've had to scale back on our requests to Soundwave to return her."
I don't like any of this.
"I don't want to hear any more of that," I say. Chromia touches my wings so they won't shake. "She's coming back."
"I hope she will," Chromia says, but I can tell from her voice that she doesn't think it will happen. "And I hope he brings her back himself so I can rip his spark out with my own hands."
No one says anything, and then she sighs and rubs my back again. "I won't actually get a hand on him," she grumbles. "He'll be safely escorted away and locked away for legal processing. If he's ever stupid enough to show his faceplate around here."
None of these words are comforting.
I sit up.
"Nobody thinks she's coming back!" I cry angrily. "Nobody-! Why-!?"
"I just explained…" Chromia starts softly.
"WHY?!" I scream.
Nobody answers. I hear the silence and the small sounds of them shifting to look at each other. My chest aches, and I want to scream again, but I know it won't do anything helpful, so I don't. Elita shifts a data-pad on her desk.
"Why…" she says slowly. "Why do we all seem to have accepted it so quickly?" she asks. I can tell she's looking toward me. Maybe trying to ask me if that's what I'm asking. I don't know.
I shift my wings. Maybe? Is that what I want to know?
"Maybe," I say.
Elita shifts the data-pad again.
"We've lost a lot of bots," Ultra Magnus says very quietly. I think about how he is the only bot who lived in a town that got massacred. "We… I… I don't have the energy left to grieve as I should."
"That is how it is for most of the bots," Optimus says, his tone also very quiet. "Our sparks have been broken too many times, so we no longer stop long to wade through our grief and pain. We bottle it up and move on."
"And also get drunk to drown it," Chromia murmurs softly.
I settle down and lean against her again, and she snuggles me.
"Does knowing that help you understand the other bots better now?" Elita asks gently.
"Maybe," I say. I'm really not sure. Perhaps later it will make more sense.
"None of us has forgotten about Auri or stopped caring about her," Optimus says quietly. "I assure you."
"We need to resume work," Prowl says like we've wandered off topic.
"Actually, it's time for your lunch break," Elita says firmly.
"It's…" I trail off to look up the time.
"10:26am," Prowl says.
"Exactly," Elita says. "You two started work a little before 6:00, about four and a half hours ago. It is certainly time for your lunch break. And when you come back from that, you will have three and a half more hours of work for a total of eight hours. You are not allowed to work more than eight hours per day unless there's a particular or urgent circumstance that necessitates it, and you'll have to get permission for that."
I think that's reasonable. Eight hours is a third of an earth day cycle, giving us plenty of time for rest and physical therapy and eating and hygiene and hobbies. I don't think Prowl likes that, though. He gives a small, forced nod of acknowledgement.
"I'll mix us up some yummy energon," I say to Prowl. "Come on." I motion him toward the door and make a bow to the other bots. "Good day, see you all later." I have to hurry after Prowl then, so I don't know what they replied to me.
Once I catch up to Prowl, I redirect him to the break-room in the office building, and there I mix an energon for him and an energon for me.
"What shall we do after this?" I ask, knowing it won't take an entire hour to drink our energons.
Prowl gives the smallest of shrugs and continues to stare at the wall, his hands resting on the counter next to where I'm mixing the energons.
"We can do your hand physical therapy," I offer. I put the spices away and wipe the counter. Then I look at Prowl. "Yeah?" I prompt.
He frowns just slightly. "That would acceptable," he says.
"Okay," I say.
So we sit at a table and drink our energons and then we do the hand therapy. Those two weeks while Prowl wasn't doing anything, Ratchet and I had still made his hands do some therapy motions, but Prowl hadn't engaged in it, so it hadn't helped as much. Doing therapy now, I can see that his dexterity and control have decreased from what it was. I don't say anything about that, though. I just focus on the good things. Prowl focuses on doing the therapy work and not saying anything.
When we have a few minutes left in our lunch break, Prowl gets up to leave, and I follow him back to his office. He's at his desk the very second the lunch break is over.
I look at him and wonder what Auri will say to him when she gets back. I imagine she'll call him "silly helm" at some point.
I sigh and go settle in for my three and a half more hours of work. I end up being too busy to think about many things, and I don't notice the time until Elita opens the door and sticks her helm in.
"Five minutes, Prowl," she says.
He glances up from his work. I watch, wait. He nods his helm slightly in acknowledgment, and then Elita leaves.
"We can go to med-bay and do the rest of your physical therapy," I say so he won't be too mad about not having something scheduled to do next.
"Yes," he says, and I feel a sense of relief. For a little while.
When we get to med-bay and Ratchet comes to guide us on Prowl's physical therapy, I get the suspicion that Prowl is not pleased with Ratchet, just like he isn't pleased with Optimus. It's there in the way Prowl keeps his optics off of Ratchet even when Ratchet is speaking to him or when he has to answer Ratchet. I studied Prowl all day, trying to learn his new behavior patterns, and even though we had Optimus in our presence several times that afternoon, Prowl never looked at him. Prowl looked at the space above Optimus's shoulder instead of looking at his face like normal. I'll have to watch out for this, notice if he does it to me at some point.
"What are you mad at me about?" Ratchet asks Prowl halfway through the session. He has a dry tone, and Prowl is face down on a berth so he can't give Ratchet any sort of looks. I guide Prowl's pede and lower leg movement like I'm supposed to and wonder what Prowl is going to say.
"I suspect you told them to restrict the number of hours I work each day," Prowl says.
I peek up at Ratchet and see a hint of a tired smile cross his expression.
"Your suspicion is correct," Ratchet said. He reaches over and gently adjusts my hold on Prowl's pede. His voice is also gentle. "I know overworking is your coping mechanism, and I wanted to direct you away from that."
"What the frag am I supposed to do then?" Prowl demands quietly, and I'm so startled that I let go of his pede and leg both. Is using swears a thing he's going to do now, too? I really don't know this Prowl. I cycle some air to calm myself and then take Prowl's pede and leg again, going back to the therapy.
"Get appropriate amounts of sleep," Ratchet says, "Spend time with other bots. I have a list we can go ov-"
"No, thank you," Prowl bites the words a little, and Ratchet drops the subject and lets him be in a quiet accepting way, still treating him kindly like before.
After therapy, we go out into the main room. I thought Prowl and I would go back to the room we'd been staying in, or something, but he heads for the door to leave med-bay.
"Oh," I say, stopping and just standing there. After being yielding and tolerant all day, I am getting a little tired of it. "Where are we going?" Also, I hadn't seen Starlight in person all day, and I was missing her.
"Sunstreaker's Studio," Prowl answers, slowing to halt partway between me and the door.
"That sounds like a bad idea," I say. I want to snuggle on a couch, not struggle to hold back a fight between two difficult mechs. "Also, it's almost dinner time. We need to eat."
"We are invited over there for dinner. I have been intercomming with Sunstreaker," he explains. "You do not need to worry."
Well, I still feel worried. I'm also a little annoyed that he didn't tell me ahead of time what we were doing. "And then what are we doing after dinner?" I ask. I don't wish to have any more surprises. I might more than just a little annoyed. It came out in my tone.
Prowl pauses, taking a moment to consider things. "Whatever you want," he says carefully, and his voice is more gentle than it's been all day. I look closely at him, but he's busy checking his armor for scuffs. "As long as it does not involve being very sociable," he adds, glancing up at me. "Going to the lounge for karaoke and dancing? No. Coming back here to eat candy and sketch? Sure."
I like karaoke and dancing, but I also like eating candy and sketching.
"And we can go to bed early," he adds.
I like going to bed early but staying awake for a while. I'm still hesitating, though, I guess because I'm still annoyed.
"Come on," Prowl says, moving toward the door with a tiny sigh. "I can read a few poems for you, too."
I love being read aloud to. Prowl knows this. It's not fair. I sigh and follow after him.
A/N: Thank you all so, so much for the reviews last chapter! I definitely needed the encouragement and reassurance and feedback! On the idea that most people have grown out of ffn, I think that's probably true for a lot of folx. I started on here over a decade ago, and almost none of the people I follow(ed) ever post anymore… and I haven't gone looking for new authors, so I basically haven't been reading anything here myself. I'm not familiar with AO3, but maybe it's worth looking into posting on it? (I also need to reset my deviantart password so I can get back on there). I also understand the "I don't know what to put in a review" thing. But I don't need lavish and fancy reviews; just a few words will do, just something to let me know that you're reading and I haven't bored you. "Yay, good update!" is enough. Or "Ooooh, no, what's Prowl getting them into?!" or "lol Praxus on the telephone" or "I can't wait to see _" or "what's for dinner, a knuckle sandwich?"