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"Been meaning to ask, but what are the goggles on your head for?" Astrotrain hiccuped, before downing another cube of high grade. "You already have a visor."
Beside the larger mech, Blitzwing chugged his high grade, the fluorescent pink liquid trickling down the corners of his lips. "To protect my optics."
"But...you already have a visor."
Maccadam's Old Oil House was filled to the brim with patrons, bots of all sizes coming together to get completely overcharged on high grade, without a single care in the known universe. After the war ended, the bar became the place where former bots and cons could find common ground. They would enter the bar at each other's throats, and come out at the end of the lunar cycle with their arms around each other, laughing and singing into the night.
Astrotrain was in a particularly horrible mood. Downing more high grade, he stood outside the doors of Maccadam's, not only because the inside was completely full, but also because there was no conceivable way for him to ever fit in there. The doors were designed for average-sized mechs, not a triple-changer more than twice the height and width. A few mechs hanging about the entrance stared up at him in a strange concoction of awe and fear.
Though also larger than the normal mech, Blitzwing was still much smaller than he was and could definitely squeeze into the bar, but the fellow triple-changer decided to loiter outside with him, for reasons that completely escaped him.
During the war, Astrotrain's size made him feel powerful, invincible, as he toppled structures and crushed enemies beneath his feet, the screams of terror and wails of pain music to his auditory receptors. Now however, with the war over, the sudden awareness of staring optics only made him feel out of place and want to retreat into one of his alt modes.
Truthfully Astrotrain disliked high grade, yet Maccadam's blend in particular was the only thing that could dull his sensors and make him forget about everything, even if it was for a fleeting moment. Blitzwing on the other hand inhaled high grade like that planet-devouring pit-spawned glitch Unicron.
"Why do you always look like you want to kill everyone around you?" Blitzwing's words broke his train of thought.
"Huh?"
"I mean have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror?" Blitzwing mimicked Astrotrain's scowl, his lips set into a deep exaggerated frown. "Your optics always look like they could cut a planet in half!" He snickered, prompting the shuttle to roll his optics and groan, hot steam exiting from his vents.
"Well I can't help it. It's not like I want to look like this all the time." He sipped on his cube gingerly, looking away.
"What d'you mean?"
Sighing, Astrotrain finished another cube, chucking it into the pile of empty ones by his feet. "Stand back and let me guess how many digits you're holding up."
Confused, Blitzwing took a few steps back and held up his hand. "Like this?"
"Further."
Blitzwing took another step back.
"Further."
Blitzwing backed up again.
"Further."
"Okay what's the point of all this?"
"Ugh, just do it. You'll see."
Blitzwing now stood two meters away from where Astrotrain was standing. He held up a new set of digits, looking at the shuttle with confusion still plastered on his face. "Well Spacebus, how many am I holding up?"
Astrotrain squinted, trying hard to make out Blitzwing's digits. They looked like a blurry indistinguishable mass of purple.
"Uhhh...three?"
"Are you serious? I was holding up five! I'm not even that far away!" Blitzwing held up both hands this time. "Stop messing around!"
Astrotrain squinted even harder, cupping his hands around his optics in hopes that it would miraculously make his vision clearer. "T-three?"
"Nine! Are your optics busted?" Exasperated, Blitzwing started walking towards Astrotrain, joining him once more.
"Well now you know why I look permanently grumpy. I can't fragging see clearly." The triple-changer pointed at his optics.
"Are you sure it's not just the high grade making your internal functions go haywire?"
"I sure wish it was. Got degenerative optics, been like that since the war started."
"Why didn't you get Hook have a look at them?"
"You think I trust Hook to operate on my optics?"
"Fair enough."
"Plus didn't want Megatron to think I was a liability." Astrotrain downed another cube of high grade, the liquid stinging as it flowed down his throat and entered his systems. He had lost count of the number of cubes he had already drank. Avoiding Blitzwing's gaze, he looked down at the mechs exiting Maccadam's. Although the war was long over, and peace had descended onto Cybertron after millenia, he never expected to tell anyone about this, much less Blitzwing of all mechs.
"Huh...no wonder you were such a horrible flyer."
"Gee thanks a lot, you spawn of a glitch."
"Well Hook and Megatron aside, you're a dumb aft for not getting your bad optics fixed for so fragging long. Do you have something to help you see or do you just knock into walls all the time?"
Astrotrain pulled out a pair of binoculars and handed them to Blitzwing. They were dented and some of the grooves saw reddish-brown rust beginning to fester. The lenses were smudged, and one of them had cracks across it. Blitzwing examined them. They were just the right size for him, but seemed comically too small for Astrotrain's larger hands. He looked up at the other mech, his expression turning into one of amused confusion.
"Again, you're such a dumb aft, you know that?"
"Wh-what's that supposed to mean!?" Astrotrain growled and leaned forward, glaring at Blitzwing.
"You said you didn't want Megatron to find out about your bad optics and see you as a liability. But wouldn't your horrible flying and inability to shoot anybot that wasn't right in front of you make you look worse?"
"............Ah." Astrotrain felt his internal systems heat up, his cooling fans whirring and kicking into high gear. Sweltering hot steam shot out of all his vents, the violent whistling noise they made reminiscent of an Earth steam engine. The heat spread to the coils underneath his face plate, causing his metal plating to flush a shade of red that almost mirrored his optics.
"An entire war happened and you're just now realising it." Blitzwing snickered, hands on his hips. "And they call me the dumb one."
"Well I thought...I mean...I just..." Astrotrain fumbled at every word, as he attempted to come up with an effective response. Overwhelming amounts of concentrated high grade and acute embarrassment were a noxious mix that messed with his processor. The annoyingly wide toothy grin on Blitzwing's face did not help.
Blitzwing simply stood and grinned at the flustered triple-changer. Astrotrain was normally very imposing, stand-off-ish and frankly a grouchy pain in the aft, so seeing a bot of his size and stature crumble and stumble on his words like a freshly-spawned sparkling was incredibly entertaining.
"Never thought you were this hopeless. Come on." Blitzwing grabbed Astrotrain's hand and began dragging him away from Maccadam's, the shuttle's hand burning hot to the touch.
"W-Where are we going?"
"You'll see."
"Okay what do you see?" Blitzwing asked.
"It's just Iacon, and one of Cybertron's moons."
They were sitting at the edge of a cliff that overlooked Iacon, the city's newly-restored structures piercing the sky. Overlooking the former Autobot capital was one of Cybertron's moons, what remained of it anyways.
"And what do you think of the view?"
"I don't know, it just looks like a bunch of tall buildings to me. And there's a lot of blurry colours? Why are we doing this?"
"Shut off your optics for a klik."
"What!?"
"Come on, just do it!"
With a huff Astrotrain did as he was told, turning off his vision and plunging himself into complete darkness. All of a sudden he felt Blitzwing shift beside him and move behind him, placing something over his optics.
"What are you-"
"Turn on your optics."
When Astrotrain regained his sight, the blurry forms of Iacon's skyscrapers before him swam into near crystal clarity, the indistinguishable foggy colours now becoming city lights of blue, green, purple and orange, overwhelming his processor. He could clearly make out every window, door and balcony, every twist and turn of the winding highways, every detail now almost entirely vivid. Blitzwing's goggles sat comfortably over his optics.
"Like what you see?" Blitzwing scooted from behind him back to his right, his optics gazing expectantly at Astrotrain, who was still dumbfounded. For once Astrotrain's lips weren't pulled into a deep frown. It felt like an entire cycle had passed before the triple-changer spoke.
"Why?"
"Well I was tired of looking at your dumb frowny face, and also I thought the goggles would be much better than those rusting binoculars you have."
Astrotrain was at a loss for words for the second time that night. Warmth spread through his systems once more, but this time it wasn't the overheating kind. It was a warmth that danced across his cheeks. It was a warmth that enveloped his spark chamber and made his spark throb and pulsate at a quickened, erratic pace. It was a welcome warmth that intermingled with the high grade in his tanks and made him feel...nice. With these foreign yet comforting emotions, he then did what any reasonable mech would do to show gratitude.
He punched Blitzwing in the face.
The other triple-changer was thrown completely off guard. Though considerably lighter than a full-powered punch, Astrotrain's fist still collided with Blitzwing's face with a force that made him bleed a little, denting his right cheek plating.
"What was that for, you glitch!?"
"......Thanks." Astrotrain muttered, avoiding his companion's glare. His optics were still transfixed at the picturesque nightscape before him.
"I give you the power of good vision and you deck me in the face. I feel very loved."
For a brief moment Astrotrain hesitated, before pulling the smaller mech into a hug. The hug started out tentative, before tightening and increasing in force.
"I'm fragging terrible at this, alright? When was the last time you heard a Decepticon thank someone?" Astrotrain buried his head in the crook of Blitzwing's neck.
"Touché."
The Decepticon army was not known for their camaraderie, for instead of words of affection and tight embraces, they exchanged every insult under the Cybertronian sun and were almost always tearing each other to pieces. During the war, Astrotrain and Blitzwing were always together, but it was purely due to the fact that they were the only triple-changers in Megatron's forces at the time. It was at its core a work relationship borne out of obligation, characterised by smarmy remarks and shared moments of brutality, as they pounded Autobots into the dirt. They had even attempted to stage a takeover at one point, involving a sentient train army and a horrible misunderstanding of the rules of the Earth game football, but that ended with both of them at the receiving end of Megatron's wrath. They had been, to the other Decepticons, joined at the hip, never apart.
With the fighting over, there was no reason for them to continue meeting, and yet much to Astrotrain's annoyance, he was grateful that Blitzwing had continued to bother him, that he had continued to invite him to places that were much too small for him. Blitzwing's presence was the single source of stability that remained after everything related to the Great War had ceased.
He was grateful that Blitzwing had, in spite of making fun of him initially, bothered to give him a replacement for his breaking binoculars. It was a small gesture, yet it made Astrotrain's spark flutter.
"You know Blitzwing?"
"Yes?"
"You're less of a pistonhead than I thought."
"Just stick to the hugging, big lug. Your compliments suck."
As Iacon's multicoloured city lights filled the sky, the glittering stars and remnants of Cybertron's moon bore witness to the shared moment between the two triple-changers. What began that evening as a self-destructive bender became the first time Astrotrain had felt entirely at ease since the Decepticons had lost the war.
The lingering traces of his foul disposition from before dissipated, as their chassis touched and the two mechs felt the throbbing and warmth of each other's sparks.