Work Text:
Now.
The blast knocks Prowl back. He hits a wall and his optics glitch temporarily, leaving him blind and defenseless as Soundwave (and Jazz. Jazz. Not Jazz, Prowl thinks, desperately) steps over him. He can hear Brainstorm, faintly. Pleading.
Not pleading, Prowl thinks. Brainstorm sounds nervous, but also…annoyed? Like this has inconvenienced him in some way. He doesn’t sound as terrified as he should.
Prowl files that away for future consideration. The gun is still in his hand. Prowl resets his optics, and before Soundwave can react, Prowl fires.
Out of the five shots, three find their mark (Soundwave’s knee is shattered, lowering the possibility of escape to 49.2% and the rest of his frame is superficially damaged and two (he can’t fire at Jazz) go wide, hitting the opposite wall. Soundwave is staring at him but Jazz grabs his arm and practically drags him out of the lab.
The remaining static clears itself from Prowl’s processor and he finally (finally) has the sense to trigger the alarm. Brainstorm is babbling something at him. Prowl tries Jazz’s comm.
He tries it again.
Again.
“Let me see.”
Jazz is angry (furious, ashamed) but not showing it, and Soundwave dials down the sensitivity of his pain receptors. Jazz’s face smooths into a practiced calm, and though Soundwave can feel the storm of emotions beneath the surface, it’s enough to center him. For the moment.
“Hey!”
Soundwave moves to turn around, to confront the owner of the startled voice—Smokescreen, he thinks, an Autobot, anxiety manifesting in a compulsive gambling habit that tastes like smoke and engex—when Jazz hits him in the side, automatically triggering his transformation reflex. Jazz catches him effortlessly and initiates his own transformation sequence, speeding down the halls of the Autobot base with the smell of burning rubber following them like a ghost.
When they’re back in Decepticon territory “I’ll handle it,” Prowl says. Optimus Prime looks grave. Jazz transforms. Soundwave tries not to shudder as he feels himself being lifted up in Jazz’s hands. In this mode, he’s unable to receive regular visual input, but his hearing is unimpaired. He can hear the way Jazz’s spark spins in its chamber and uses it to ground him as he attempts to transform. He’s wiped the incident from the security feeds. Red Alert can write him up later. What is more important now is that no one knows what Jazz has done.
“Can you transform?” Jazz asks. Soundwave pings a negative.
“And you are certain he left without classified information?” Optimus asks. Prowl has to bite back a retort.
“I will thoroughly debrief Brainstorm after this meeting,” Prowl says, carefully. “However, I doubt Soundwave escaped with anything of consequence.”
The lie is bitter in his mouth.
Objectively, Prowl is the one best equipped to track them down—he knows this, and the rest of High Command know this, which is one of the reasons why he sees no need to tell them. Privately, Prowl reasons that if he does lose his objectivity, there will still be adequate time to inform the rest of the officers.
“Perhaps Jazz could search the databases of the ship?” Optimus suggests, and Prowl nearly winces at the suggestion. “He is the one best suited to detecting Soundwave’s subterfuge.” Without asking, Jazz begins to manually engage Soundwave’s transformation sequence.
“Jazz volunteered to lead a supply run in the Kessel system this morning,” Prowl says. The lie slips out easily enough. It’s not the first time he has lied to Optimus Prime, nor will it be the last. The falsified requests and communication logs are waiting for the Prime to reconnect to the ship’s feed and download any recent updates, but since the Omni-Globe incident Optimus has been reluctant to connect on a regular basis. Prowl hopes this will not be an issue, but in this case, it is a habit Prowl has taken advantage of. “He will be out of communications range for the next week. I will take responsibility for uncovering anything Soundwave may have taken.” It’s a slow, agonizing process, but Jazz doesn’t apologize. Soundwave appreciates that, and takes the time to focus on the way Jazz’s hands move confidently across his frame, pushing armor back into place and closing paneling over exposed wires. Before long, his hands are freed and Soundwave can assist, though he has to stop and allow Jazz to transform his leg, shutting off the pain receptors entirely. He sends Flatline a message, with the curt reminder not to fire on Jazz. While Jazz’s credentials have been temporarily updated to grant him access to the base, he wears the Autobot badge.
Optimus accepts the lie easily, Prowl thinks—at the very least, there is no indication he thinks Prowl has a reason to mislead him. Jazz’s loyalty has never been called into question before, and it would be just like him to volunteer to lead a supply run into a partially-charted and potentially hostile system. “I’m not becoming a Decepticon,” Jazz told him, when Soundwave had proposed the idea. “I’m not leaving one faction for another.”
Optimus dismisses him, And Soundwave had nodded, accepting the compromise, allowing Jazz to modify his own credentials temporarily to enter the Autobot base. A show of trust, perhaps? Soundwave puts the thought out of his mind for the moment in favor of returning his focus to Jazz. but not without an attempt at laying a hand on his shoulder, which Prowl had shrugged off with slightly more force than necessary.
Prowl has lied again. He’s already spoken with Brainstorm at length. He knows what Soundwave took, just as he knows that Brainstorm is too invested in this project to let it remain out of his hands for long. He will help.
Forecasting was difficult enough during wartime, and now that time travel is in play…Prowl doesn’t know where to begin. “Is this going to work?” Jazz asks. Soundwave, who had been turning the same question over in his mind for the last five minutes, nods.
“Jazz knows Prowl.” Soundwave doesn’t like hearing the self-doubt in Jazz’s voice. He wishes he could have seen Jazz perform more than once. Prowl sends a message to Brainstorm to arrange their final meeting before heading to his habsuite. Brainstorm is capable of tracking Soundwave’s passage through time, and until Soundwave reveals his motives, Prowl will need to rely on that. Brainstorm also believes that his paradox locks are tamper proof. Prowl isn’t sure how much faith he wants to put in Brainstorm’s failsafes.
His habsuite is dark. Quiet. Quieter than it’s been since Jazz picked the one next to it, with the adjoining door. Prowl sends the thought to deep storage and sets up an automatic process to send similar thoughts to storage. Now is not the time for regret and second-guessing.
Prowl takes a seat at his desk and begins redoing his calculations.
Now.
The portal snaps shut behind Prowl in a spray of bright yellow and greens, and the case remains a dead weight on his arm, secured only by the flimsy cable attached to his wrist. On instinct, Prowl grabs the case handle as he steps across a puddle of lubricant and energon—whoever had spilled it is long gone, but Prowl’s proximity sensors insist on pinging warnings nonetheless.
Soundwave’s path through time is easy enough to track: Brainstorm has rigged a sensor keyed into the case Soundwave stole, and it has been pinging Prowl at regular intervals, dispensing coordinates with startling accuracy.
Prowl should have been watching him more closely. He should have been watching all of them more closely. Prowl forces the thought out of his mind, canceling the priority and sending it to deep storage.
Soundwave has come here, to a recently-liberated Kaon. Prowl doesn’t hesitate before reaching into a subspace pocked to apply a rubbing over the Autobrand. Whatever Brainstorm assures him about paradoxes and safeguards, Prowl is not in the mood to be accosted by would-be Decepticons. Still, he can’t help but hold out hope that he will stumble across a younger version of Soundwave—more naive, fresh off the murder of the Senate, slightly more prone to making stupid mistakes—if only for the opportunity to extinguish his spark and prevent this whole debacle.
It won’t bring Jazz back, though. The realization forms before Prowl can deprioritize the thought and send it to deep storage. It settles low in his chassis, an immeasurable weight against his spark.
He finds the path more on instinct than calculations, and when he becomes aware of where he is going, Prowl balks, pushing the warring emotions down until his HUD pings, informing him that Soundwave had indeed followed this route.
Prowl walks to the former headquarters of Kaon Security Services.
Prowl is nothing if not impartial: Kaon has changed, and he is willing to admit it has changed for the better. A coordinated missile strike will flatten Kaon three million years from now, leaving little but silt and craters where the biggest buildings once stood, but today, two years after the simultaneous assassinations of the Senate and Sentinel Prime, it’s practically thriving.
Where Prowl had once spent an hour taking a report from a hostile witness regarding a bar fight, there’s a free medclinic, staffed by a cheerful receptionist who even waves to Prowl as he walks past. This district is quiet, when before there had always been a cacophony of noise—a protest without the necessary permits and Enforcer oversight, a bar fight, mechs fencing stolen goods.
To his surprise, Kaon Security Services is still standing. Upon closer inspection, he’s shocked to realize that there appear to be mechs living there. There’s even construction, with brightly painted vehicles rolling up to the north entrance, hauling building supplies under the direction of a watchful foreman, likely intending to patch the hole in the front entrance—a casualty of Sentinel’s own bloodlust, blasted in his haste to reach the action. He had calculated the Decepticons would have razed it to the ground at the first opportunity, and had never tried to send scouts to confirm. That his calculations were so wrong about something so simple is…unnerving.
The sight bothers Prowl. He cancels it, sends it to deep storage, and moves on.
Prowl doesn’t doubt that they’ve discovered the back entrance by now, but compared to the gaping opening in the front, he doubts anyone is using it these days. His hypothesis is mostly right—there are indications someone has recently used it, but Prowl meets no resistance as he pushes the door open and steps in.
It’s changed enough that Prowl can almost convince himself that it’s a different building entirely. He walks down the hall. Instead of the bright lights and chatter of workers outside, the inner corridors are dark and quiet, lit only by scavenged shop lights lining the halls at irregular intervals. He makes it to the end of the hall before he stops, considering his plan for a moment before he takes the left junction and heads down the stairs. Going lower is a foolish, dangerous idea. Besides the fact that the building itself is likely structurally compromised, the chances of an altercation with an unfriendly Kaonite in close quarters isn’t something Prowl is looking forward to. The case pings a confirmation.
Prowl persists, moving lower and lower into the building until he reaches the barracks. Prowl doesn’t bother with his own quarters; any confidential materials have long been made irrelevant, and Prowl had never made a habit of leaving personal belongings in his quarters.
Instead, Prowl pauses at the door opposite his own. Like the back door, it’s been opened—the smudges at the edges of the door would easily match a mech’s handprint, and Prowl’s own hand twitches, as though seeking old mechaforensics equipment.
He pushes the door open.
For the most part, it’s been left intact. Prowl steps in, sensors of high alert regardless of the knowledge that Jazz’s propensity towards silent alarms began long after Kaon fell.
There’s a flier on the berth. A single glance tells Prowl it’s old—the glyphs are worn, laser printed ink fading at the edges, not to mention the stain that a quick scan tells Prowl it was off-brand, cheap engex that was common in Kaon prior to Sentinel’s assassination. A quick search of the advertised establishment results in no leads; it’s one of a dozen bars that popped up around the outskirts of Kaon after the Senate was killed.
Something about it makes Prowl’s plating itch.
Wherever Soundwave is now, he is long gone from this room.
A clue, then. The condescension of it grates at Prowl’s nerves.
Soundwave knew he would follow, and he is toying with Prowl.
Prowl isn’t idealistic enough to believe that Soundwave would be so stupid, so arrogant, as to actually tell Prowl where he’s headed to next—or why he chose to come here, of all places. If anything, any messages encoded in the flier will be artful misdirection.
But Soundwave isn’t as smart as he thinks he is.
Prowl picks up the flier.
It’s heavier than he expected it to be, with one corner drooping noticeable as Prowl holds it up Upon closer examination, the heaviest corner is coated in a cheap, easily detectable rubsign, a direct predecessor to the material currently concealing Prowl’s Autobrand. It comes away easily, revealing a series of scrawled figures.
They’re coordinates, directing Prowl to a heavily encrypted storage drive.
Prowl weighs his options, torn between taking the flier back to Brainstorm, back to the lab where he will have access to the best partitioning technology the Autobots have. Unless that’s what Soundwave wants him to do, and this is a clever ploy to infiltrate the Autobot’s mainframes. He’s more than capable, and if Jazz…
Prowl sends the thought to deep storage.
He accesses the drive.
It’s empty save for two files. He accesses the first—a text file.
Some context.
-Soundwave
Prowl glares, and he’s unable to stifle the spark of anger. Soundwave’s arrogance has always been one of his least appealing characteristics, and since Jazz—
Prowl cuts the thought off and accesses the memory file.
Then.
On instinct, Soundwave freezes.
The presence at the edge of his focus isn’t retreating. Far from it, whatever mech has wandered into the remnants of Kaon Security services is insisting on walking further into the compound. His fingers twitch, immediately thinking back to the rushed lessons from Drift (now Deadlock). Soundwave isn’t arrogant enough to think you can win a firefight with any but the most careless mechs, and the way this one is moving, with practiced determination and a sense of purpose…
Soundwave pushes down the unease and begins to follow.
There isn’t much Soundwave can actually do about the intruder. If it’s a mech looking for a place to stay (unlikely) he can offer a room, but Soundwave is ill prepared to deal with someone who has hostile intent. But Soundwave has accepted the responsibility of this patrol and is not about to let this tentative, fragile thing between himself and Megatron end simply because he is afraid.
The intruder is going to the barracks. Possibly a scavenger then, either unaware that the compound had been thoroughly looted the week of the attack, or believing the Decepticons have missed something. It’s not until Soundwave got closer that the irritating entitlement of Enforcer seeps into his awareness.
Jaded, Soundwave thinks. Looking for better options.
Then why return?
It’s enough to cut through the anxiety and pique Soundwave’s curiosity, and he begins walking faster. The idea of recruiting this mech is a passing fantasy, but a compelling one—without Ratbat and Shockwave’s access, intel is getting more and more difficult to acquire, as Prowl (seeing this, angry, so angry and frustrated and hurt), wasted no time blacklisting Soundwave’s credentials the moment he saw him at Megatron’s side.
It takes a deliberate effort for Soundwave to draw his weapon. Finger off the trigger, pointed down, like Deadlock (still thinks of himself as Drift), showed him. The power is out, leaving the door wide open. The mech (Enforcer, tired) has his back to Soundwave, and he’s pushed the recharge slab up against the wall and removed a panel from the floor.
Soundwave’s credentials might be blacklisted, but his recognition software pings a match. Autobot Jazz. Former lieutenant to Sentinel Prime.
Jazz seems to sense the change, and for one horrible moment, Soundwave fears he’s stumbled upon another outlier, someone like him, but that is impossible—had an outlier of Soundwave’s type been with the Autobot Enforcers, the assassination would have failed, and Soundwave would be in the Institute. Had he cast a shadow in the wrong place, stepped in a way that changed the stagnant air in the barracks?
Jazz is holding something.
“I’m turning around now,” Jazz says, and he does. Soundwave waits, and the entirety of your focus comes to rest on the mech before you. Even Megatron, a constant presence at the center of his focus, goes quiet.
He’s hiding an electro bass. Jazz holds it out—not for Soundwave to take, there’s far too much desperate possessiveness in the way his fingers curl around the instrument. Soundwave stares, though the confirmation that it is what he said it was only adds to your confusion.
“See?” Jazz is saying. “I thought—well, from every indication, someone was in here right before I was, and, well.”
Soundwave’s voicebox shorts out. He’s in the middle of resetting it when Jazz moves, and it goes against everything he’s observed about Enforcer training, but it works, and before he can begin to remember what Deadlock said about close quarters combat, he’s been slammed onto the ground, pinned expertly with one knee. His blaster is pulled out of his hand and thrown into the hall, and Soundwave belatedly realizes that he had forgotten to disengage the safety.
“I’m not lookin’ for trouble,” Jazz says. “Just came to get something I left behind.”
The electro-bass, Soundwave notices, has been placed gently on a shelf. Jazz follows your gaze, and he nods.
“I keep hearing about the big bad mech who helped Megatron take down the Senate.” Before Soundwave can provide a carefully-worded denial, Jazz laughs. It reeks of insincerity, but there’s an undercurrent of genuine interest. Soundwave clings to it like a lifeline.
“You’ve got a long way to go, Soundwave.”
“Jazz: returned to Kaon.” Soundwave slips back into his old, comfortable speech pattern. To his credit, Jazz doesn’t comment on it. He simply nods, but his interest is piqued. Soundwave continues.
“Loyalties do not lie with the Enforcers. With the Autobots.” Soundwave is speaking rapidly now, throwing out half-formulated ideas in a desperate attempt to get the upper hand, or to throw off Jazz long enough to make his escape. The panic of being cornered, but it’s only a matter of time.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Jazz replies. “Due to our abrupt exit from Kaon, I’d just left something important here. ’s all.”
“Music is important to Jazz.”
“You could say that.” With the visor, it’s impossible to determine how Jazz is looking at him—his field is inscrutable, and even after tugging his awareness away from Megatron and trying to see Jazz, Soundwave is left mostly with confusion and a compulsion to prolong this conversation, since Jazz doesn’t seem to have any true intention of hurting him.
Soundwave gives it a try, though in hindsight, he’s unsure what compelled him to make the offer. “Jazz” is still an Enforcer, still a part of a system that would like nothing better than to grind you and your brothers under its heel.
But, Soundwave things, maybe he doesn’t have to be.
The words are out of Soundwave’s mouth before he can second guess himself. Jazz is surprised too, with sharp surprise in his field and an unreadable expression crossing his face before it slips back into the same practiced nonchalance.
At least, Soundwave thinks to himself, Jazz is capable of being surprised—he is not as level as he appears to be. Not like Shockwave.
“Y’know,” Jazz says, and he’s barely missed a beat. “A mech usually buys me dinner before makin’ me an offer like that.”
Hot embarrassment hits Soundwave like an acid pellet to the face, but Jazz just looks vaguely amused.
“I can’t pretend I don’t sympathize,” Jazz is saying. “Sentinel was…well, let’s just say there’s more than a few ‘bots out there who are happy to see him gone. OP, for one.”
The thought of the Decepticons doing anything that pleased Rodion’s former police captain makes Soundwave want to grimace. Still—either out of genuine interest or pity, Jazz is offering him this.
Orion Pax is not mindlessly following the will of the dead Senate, as most believed. Soundwave filed that bit of information away for further examination, though a small, petty part of him wished he could go through the rest of his existence without ever seeing or hearing of Orion Pax ever again.
Soundwave nods. Jazz comes and goes so quickly that Soundwave has to question whether or not it was there at all.
“I’m playing at Broken Cube next week,” Jazz says. “Check the schedule.”
Before Soundwave can respond, Jazz pushes past him, electro-bass in hand. The action has Soundwave freezing, immediately afraid this was a farce, but Jazz simply vanishes down a hall. Belatedly, Soundwave realizes Jazz has shoved a flyer for Broken Cube in his hands.
Soundwave spends another minute in the hab, drinking in the sensation of Jazz’s easy confidence. As he turns to leave, a poster catches his optic.
The memory file ends.
Prowl looks down at the flyer.
Broken Cube — Racers drink for free!
The briefcase pings.
Then.
The first time Prowl sees it, he’s in his office—it’s barely a desk and a chair crammed in at the end of a long line of cubicles but it’s his and he’s spent half the day cleaning it out even though a part of him knows that before long, it will be twice as messy as his predecessor left it. He gets it right on the third try. Why did he update his credentials so frequently? Outside, Jazz is stifling laughter. Soundwave is quiet, but Prowl shares his anxiety.
He sees it first on the security cameras. Save for Prowl, no one is willing to remain onsite longer than is strictly necessary, so no one is there to question it as he makes his way to the lobby. He ducks into the evidence locker.
Being cold constructed means he experiences this from time to time, especially as an Enforcer. It was far worse in Petrex.
It’s the fact that he is using his credentials to sign in that gives Prowl pause and has him moving to unholster his weapon. His credentials were just updated at the start of the last shift, and he’s only been in Iacon for two days. Soundwave is monitoring him, which mostly amounts to sitting outside and listening and Prowl hopes he’s not getting distracted.
The lobby is still deserted. Even the receptionist is gone, and the silence weighs down on him like a smothering tarp. Abruptly, it occurs to Prowl that his new coworkers might have constructed this as an elaborate prank—Enforcers are well known for their traditions, and Prowl doesn’t think it’s beyond their capabilities to have reached out to an Enforcer from Petrex for the express purpose of hazing him. It’s a simple matter to take the parts—functional energon refineries are a rare commodity now, and Prowl has forecasted that things will get worse before they get better.
The credentials are the issue. They are intended to be a secret, committed to his memory only.
Prowl lets out a long breath and sans the room once more before heading back to his desk to bring up the cameras. It’s even simpler to modify the inventory, and as an afterthought, Prowl takes an extra minute to delete the footage of himself entering the precinct.
The footage is gone. Prowl stares at the image of himself staring blankly at the empty lobby. Recognizing emotions has never been his forte, but one would have to be completely stupid to miss the look of fear crossing his faceplates as he tries to puzzle it out before turning back and out of sight of the cameras.
Prowl shuts the computer off. Jazz and Soundwave are waiting for him.
Now ?
Prowl steps a week into the future. It’s raining in Kaon—not an uncommon occurrence, and the sting of acid rain makes him twitch.
He takes a moment to orient himself. It’s barely two blocks from the Broken Cube, but halfway across the city from the former Kaon Security Services. The streets are quiet for this time of night, and for a moment, Prowl wonders if time has simply made Kaon louder than it ever was.
Prowl starts walking, trying to remain inconspicuous. His proximity alarms keep pinging alerts, but whenever he turns to look, there’s no one there. He’s almost willing to write it off as an unforeseen side effect of using the briefcase, when he rounds a corner and walks right into a mech.
Abruptly, his proximity alarms go into overdrive. Blindly, Prowl tackles the figure to the ground and when his fist makes contact with the glass of a sound system’s chassis, fresh anger wells up in Prowl.
1.58 seconds later, Prowl realizes that Soundwave isn’t fighting back. He’s staring up at him, angry and hurt but mostly confused, and Prowl finally, finally sees it. The old alt, the handmade insignia. The way Soundwave’s first instinct had been to freeze, rather than fight.
The decision is made in half a second. Prowl pulls out his blaster from a subspace pocket and aims it at Soundwave’s spark.
A blow strikes the back of his helm. It’s calculated, with just enough force to stun Prowl, to knock him off of Soundwave. Static clings to his vision as Prowl sees Soundwave staggering to his feet, staring back at Prowl’s assailant. His gaze moves down to Prowl, then back up again.
Behind him, Prowl hears the now-familiar sound of a portal being opened. Prowl sits up, ignoring the alerts demanding he not turn his back to Soundwave, and blindly lunges for the portal. It closes with a sharp snap, and Prowl hits the ground—harder this time, landing face-first in a puddle of acid rain.
By the time Prowl gets to his feet, gun still in hand, Soundwave is gone. He reaches to tease a clump of detritus out of his transformation seams.
It’s a datachip—a cheap one, the mass produced kind sold in low-end establishments for recording performances. He turns it over in his hands, feeling the embossed glyphs under his fingers.
Like before, he knows what is on the data chip.
Prowl looks anyway.
4th Cycle 81st Rotation since Sentinel’s Ascension: Broken Cube’s Best Hits! (Use of this recording without the express permission of the artist will be punished to the full extent of the law.)
This time, Prowl doesn’t hesitate.
????
You (Prowl, Enforcer, Autobot) step in.
It’s cleaner than you expect, though if it were possible, the looks the other patrons give you would have charred you to ash (not even looking down to step over your body as they leave). You don’t remove your Enforcer decals though (brave? stupid?), instead choosing to sidestep into a booth with a good view of the stage.
The waiter (Patchwork) is shorter than you by almost a head, with pitted and rusty paint. He has an erratic gait that indicates a misaligned gyroscopic system, and you make a mental note to run a check on the bar’s licensing and maintenance requirements—though it’s small and new, a venue this size seems to indicate the proprietor would be required to provide a minimum amount of profits towards maintenance for his employees (he doesn’t and he won’t). It’s not much, but it’s enough to quell the twinge in your (guilt? Prowl feels guilty?) chassis.
The door has been propped open, so there’s no sound when he (I) step in.
You aren’t attuned to the nuances of other mech’s fields, but even you can sense the hostility emanating from every angle of his spectacular (am I spectacular, Prowl?) frame. Your own field wrinkles in turn and you feel yourself stiffen, armor settling tight against your protoform in anticipation of an attack.
You do not question the hostility (you didn’t understand then. Do you understand it now?)—Soundwave’s wrath is secondary to your main objective, but you put it aside for further examination at a later date (you never did, not until [now]).
When is now? Prowl wonders. He’s tucked against a rundown shop, shielded from the worst of the rain, playing his own memory file that someone had given to Soundwave…for what? Blackmail? Emotional manipulation?
Prowl ran the file through a series of filters—another one of Brainstorm’s creations, designed to detect steganographic ciphers for agents on the go. It’s not as effective as a specialized computer terminal—nor as secure—but it does the job, and before long a series of coordinates have been revealed, downloaded into short-term storage.
Now.
The briefcase pings.
He doesn’t need to look at the rest of the memory. He knows what happens.
He does it anyway.
???
It’s so loud.
Prowl struggles to fully integrate the next memory—it’s not his. His calculations place a 95.6% chance at it being Soundwave’s—he feels the crunch of the cube wrapper in his hands, the unpleasant, acidic taste in his mouth (never ordering off the secret menu again, might take the leftovers home to Buzzsaw) “How much did this COST?” Buzzsaw is thrilled. He keeps it in his personal locker and even after it’s gone, the cube stays in his locker until struggling not to collapse under the weight of their stares—bitter hatred and frustrated loss and grief an airstrike takes out the habsuite and it’s lost. Buzzsaw doesn’t say anything about it. I would like to build a future where Buzzsaw can have all the awful acidic drinks he wants.
Nothing can crack his ironclad beliefs so he—Soundwave—reaches out, listening in to Prowl questioning why some poor (lost, working off an endless debt, two amica at home) might not be able to afford Ravage would like a self-heating recharge pad. Laserbeak wants a comedy night. Rumble and Frenzy want to be free. Jazz—
He —Jazz wants. Jazz wants… comes onstage, all polished armor and an electro-bass making a carefully curated image (not-Enforcer, one of you, here for the music, that’s all).
Jazz is tired.
Prowl accommodates, shifting over on the couch and wordless hands a cube of mid grade over to him. Jazz accepts it easily enough, slumping over against Prowl’s frame. The action is practiced. It unnerved Prowl at first. Now, he tolerates it. Jazz thinks he might like it.
The memories taste like acid. Still, Jazz replays them, over and over.
Soundwave watches.
He’s got something on his mind, but a million years of knowing Jazz has taught Prowl that he’ll speak up when he’s ready, and not a moment before. Prowl had tried Jazz’s tactics to get him to talk with limited success, at one point making him laugh so hard Jazz choked on his energon.
Soundwave has only seen Jazz laugh that hard here, in this memory of a memory. If he’s not ready to talk, Prowl is ready to enjoy his company. So he turns, setting aside his datapad to focus on Jazz, though his processor insists on running calculations in the background. Jazz can practically hear them. Within the memory, Soundwave can almost see them. Those, at least, are easy to ignore, and Prowl contents himself with comparing Jazz’s reactions to their past couplings. Jazz reciprocates, running skilled fingers across the sensitive paneling on Prowl’s back until he shivers against the touch, doubling down on eliciting an equal reaction from Jazz.
Prowl traces a dent in Jazz’s forearm, stopping and pulling back when he winces, but before he can apologize, Jazz catches him in a kiss.
Not ready, Prowl reminds himself when Jazz settles in his lap. His cables unspool on instinct, and Jazz’s knowing grin—a condescending look on anyone other than him, has Prowl’s spark spinning in its chassis.
It takes a moment to link up, and another moment for them to bypass their own extensive firewalls to grant limited access. Jazz isn’t in the mood for anything deeper tonight, which is with Prowl. By Prowl’s estimation, it had taken him far too long to be comfortable with this and Prowl is loathing what little progress he has already made. The thought of anyone being deep enough in his personality circuits to see him never fails to set him on edge, and Jazz has been surprisingly patient—patient enough that Prowl has to wonder if he has his own hangups about it.
Prowl sinks into the current, matching Jazz’s pace as their core temperatures increase. Jazz tastes like smoke and midgrade and he feels worse than exhausted. He feels drained and—
Jazz wants Prowl.
Prowl rips the data chip out of his port with far more force than necessary.
He needs to get ahead of this.
It’s a simple matter to find Prowl’s communications.
Jazz is a master of subterfuge: when they had begun correspondence, Soundwave had struggled to uncover the data, which were buried in an artfully crafted musical number or concealed under a mass of writhing noise in the middle of an alien planet.
Prowl’s are obvious. He lacks Jazz’s subtlety—not a bad thing—but even if he was as skilled as Jazz is at concealment, it is glaringly obvious when Prowl has touched something.
He can see where Prowl has touched Jazz.
On his part, Jazz is unashamed of it, and it is a welcome relief. Most of the Autobots are so hung up on interface Soundwave had almost dismissed the idea without consideration. Beyond that, the Cause comes before his own personal pleasure, and this…
This feels like cheating. It feels like betrayal—and it is a betrayal. Soundwave can content himself with the knowledge that he is in the right, just as he contents himself with the day he can finally admit his betrayal to Megatron. The consequences, whatever they are, will be a relief.
Prowl hadn’t followed him. Soundwave had immediately worried that Prowl had lost interest (impossible) or lost the trail (unlikely), but Jazz had simply nodded and taken a step back in time to ask Brainstorm to ask him to outfit the case with a sensor to track any aberrant movements across the timestream.
That has led Soundwave here.
It’s a datapad, containing a copy of Towards Peace. Unsubtle, and Soundwave has to stop himself from scoffing—not that there’s anyone to hear him. This battlefield has been deserted for a century, significant only because it’s one of the first skirmishes of the war to take place outside Kaon.
The victory had been indecisive, with Soundwave and Prowl locking themselves into a tight stalemate. The Decepticon’s lack of resources had eventually led to them retreating back into Kaon, content with the knowledge that the Autobots had lost twice the number of troops that they had.
It’s not a matter of if Prowl is trying to send a message, but Soundwave has to wonder if Prowl is truly that unsubtle.
Soundwave picks up the datapad. He can almost feel Prowl’s hands on it and he can taste the flurry of conflicting emotions Prowl had felt as he prepared his message. He’s disappointed to realize that the spark of curiosity he had hoped for is not yet present. Instead, there’s a dull sense of smoldering anger. Betrayal is a familiar sensation to Soundwave, tasting like acid and charred energon. Beneath that is the worry, the fear that Jazz is dead and gone.
The datapad has a false backing. It pops off easily enough, and Soundwave is left with a simple message in his hands: a text file, nothing like the beautiful subtle data streams he and Jazz use to communicate.
I recall your first meeting with Jazz.
At least, it is the first meeting he was willing to disclose to me. I have no doubt that you met on other occasions, but I find it likely that they were simply unmemorable, at least until Kaon fell, and Jazz snuck back into the barracks in order to retrieve his things.
As you might have inferred, Jazz did not tell me where he was going. As he was off-duty at the time, he technically had no obligation to do so, although the fact that he willingly entered the Decepticon-occupied zone without notifying anyone has me questioning his judgment to a greater degree than I thought possible. Perhaps if something had happened to him, some failsafe would have been activated and I would have received the details in order to conduct the necessary steps to retrieve him.
Regardless. You met Jazz.
I remember the first time he brought you up overtly.
At this point in time, I have no doubt he has disclosed to you, and as such I feel little hesitation in taking the time to correct any misconceptions you may have had after the conversation with him. I do not know what compelled him to spare my life, nor do I know what has compelled him to abandon the Autobot cause in favor of an illegal, immoral, cross-faction relationship with you of all mechs. As you are likely aware, I intend to exploit this to the fullest. Removing both Jazz and yourself from the battlefield will no doubt provide the Autobots the needed upper hand in order to secure a victory and end this war. As I am also sure you know, with our forces being stretched across the system, it would behoove the Autobots to secure a victory before the war continues to envelope still more systems, neutral or otherwise.
Though Optimus Prime is willing to accept a conditional surrender from Decepticon High Command in order to develop an armistice agreement, you should know that I will oppose any agreement that results in any Decepticons (most importantly Megatron, but you, Soundwave, are a close second) being provided a modicum of freedom.
-Prowl.
Now / Then
The briefcase pings, and Prowl steps through time once more.
Soundwave is already gone, and Prowl has to dodge a collapsing support beam.
It takes him .90 seconds to realize where he is.
Prowl is dying.
Pulled by a morbid instinct he can’t explain, Prowl sprints down the hall. The realization doesn’t alarm him as much as he thought it would. He has run all the calculations, all the scenarios, and they have all come down to this inevitability.
There’s no one he wants to reach out to, no comm channel he’s going to spend his last minutes speaking into. Tumbler—Prowl cuts that thought of with such force that he actually winces, and the amount of energon that spurts from his side is…concerning, if only because it appears to be slowing down.
He pulls up the ship’s schematics as he runs. This is the warship Arbitration, a Victory-class starship that had been sent to the Minyzxx-3 system in order to broker an alliance with the native organics.
His ship.
Prowl runs another set of calculations.
There are no regrets, but Prowl can’t help but feel that if it weren’t for the shock that had knocked his pain receptors offline, he would be doing something other than sitting here, calmly waiting to die.
He thinks he feels angry—he wants to feel angry. He is so much more than this; there had been so many things he wanted—needed—to do rather than die here on this ship.
Prowl checks his failsafes again. Upon his death, his processor will undergo an automatic wipe, erasing everything that could potentially assist the Decepticons (or the pirates that are in the process of destroying his ship). Prowl has been informed that it will even prevent a mnemosurgeon from doing more than a cursory reading, and if no one finds you within a few hours (and Prowl is counting on this) even that will be taken from them.
He skids to a stop just outside the bridge. His memories of the event are hazy at best, and what he does remember is shot through with a deep fear that makes him hesitate, even now.
Why did Soundwave lead him here?
There’s someone standing above him.
Prowl had shut down his optics several moments prior, paradoxically desperate to conserve whatever energy remains in his systems despite his impending death, but as his proximity sensors ping a warning, Prowl forces his optics open.
He runs the calculations. He runs them again. And again.
Prowl stares down at himself.
Prowl has never bothered doing more than cursory research into near-death experiences, but it would make sense that his overclocked, underfueled processor would spit out a hallucination as he clings to life.
If he had the strength, Prowl would tell him (yourself?) that bafflement is not a good look on him (them?), but if this is a figment of a dying processor, wouldn’t he know it already?
Prowl thinks he looks scared.
He kneels down and hesitates for a moment before reaching for his wrist port. The connection is made, and Prowl’s younger self stares up at him, struggling to make sense of this. Prowl wishes he could explain.
He doesn’t even know how to explain it to himself.
Prowl is so tired, but there’s a new and very real fear curling around his spark as his hallucination pulls a medkit out of subspace.
He’s lost far too much energon to do more than utter a weak protest as Prowl continues his work. The initial shock has worn off, and Prowl feels every sharp pain as the wounds are exposed. The neural circuits below Prowl’s waist are offline, sparing him the pain of his legs; crushed, splayed at odd angles and Prowl watches him draw in a ragged breath as he cauterizes a line, cut from the impact of shrapnel as the first blast tore through the shields.
Another chance, Prowl thinks.
Still dying, Prowl thinks.
It’s foolish to try and speak. Prowl watches him try anyway. Prowl reaches out, grasping his wrist and his hallucination stiffens, staring at the contact like it’s utterly foreign.
He still looks so afraid.
He looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks, with grimy armor covered in dust, and clear signs of energon deficiency with the way his optics are blank and hollow.
“Calm down,” Prowl says. Prowl tries to think of a response. All that comes from his voice box is a rush of static. He tries to get away but there’s nowhere to run.
The briefcase pings. His hallucination stiffens, doors twitching at some unseen threat, but before he can attempt to speak again, Prowl turns to continue his agonizing work on his frame. Soundwave is already gone.
Yet Prowl remains. He applies sealant as quickly as he can. It’s sloppy, trailing down Prowl’s broken armor but it’s a solution. It will keep him alive. Prowl shoves a cube of energon into his hands and breaks the connection.
Prowl stares at him diagnostics tell Prowl that his situation has changed from imminent deactivation to merely dire. but his sensors ping, and he turns away.
Soundwave has left something just outside the door.
Prowl steps back into the present before examining it.
It’s a datachip—custom made, and despite himself, Prowl has to admire the effort Soundwave has put into perfecting his work. He runs it through a cursory safety scan before sliding it into his wrist port, sifting through terabytes of data to find the text file.
Let’s meet.
His reply is so terse that for a moment, Prowl questions it—but even after running it through half a dozen scanners, Prowl comes up empty. The rest is merely music, demos from pre-war Cybertron. The chip itself could easily fetch several thousand shanix on the market. Prowl finds himself tucking it into a subspace pocket and heading to his habsuite.
One of Jazz’s personal data pads is in there, tucked into a secured locker. Prowl hasn’t yet been able to bring himself to look at it (irrational, he knows—there could have been intel there, a clue to Jazz’s whereabouts) but now he switches it on and keys in the deceptively-simple passcode. Jazz, hunched over the datapad, struggling to put the music he hears onto the screen.
He opens up Jazz’s preferred audio editing software Jazz opens the chat function. There are three unanswered messages—two from automated botnets and one from a user with an innocuous-enough username. and begins importing the music from the data chip.
Jazz saves a copy of the file and sends to user boss_superior43. While it downloads, the implications of what he is doing—what Soundwave did rests heavy on his spark.
jazzzz84: thoughts? The likelihood of Soundwave deliberately leading Prowl somewhere to save his own life seems wildly improbable, but Prowl’s algorithms insist this is the case.
boss_superior43: Suggestion: layer audio sampling from Kalis’ industrial district. Soundwave had saved him. Saved him.
jazzzz84: why kalis? The uncertainty is unsettling in how familiar it feels.
boss_superior43: Industrial district of Kalis contains a unique signature due to high levels of lithium embedded in the structural supports of many of the buildings.
jazzz84: huh. alright.
Prowl scrolls back through to see Jazz’s preferred preset filters. He picks one at random and is relieved to hear a garbled string of numbers layered against the song. He adds the remaining three preset filters to draw out the remaining numbers starlight, starbright / first [09.299] star I see tonight and sets up an automated process to transcribe the numbers and arrange them into coordinates. But I can’t take away what’s not mine [[1xax.3829]] / you’ll see you’ll come to me in [[8.2222.xxhyr]] no time
He can’t help but wonder at the possibility that Jazz might have left something for him—if not in the data chip, then in the program itself, and if Prowl hadn’t been too stubborn and angry to avoid looking at it… I had all my bets [[456677.och.rr8]] laid all on you He is acting irrationally. He should have turned this over to the rest of High Command weeks ago.
The planet is barren. It’s lifeless in every way that matters: no intelligent life, not even microbes. No temptation for an energon harvest, too far from the subspace relays to be useful for cyberforming. In every way that matters, it is not a target, sitting just outside the range of both the Autobot and Decepticon’s oldest listening posts—the ideal place for a quiet rendezvous.
Or an act of treason.
It had not taken him long to find it. The region’s weather patterns mean the impressions from Jazz’s first trip remain, and the part of him that’s determined to see this through exactly means he steers his own ship to match Jazz’s landing as best he can.
The idealistic, sentimental (95.5% he is emotionally compromised and should cede this investigation to someone else) part of him thinks he can hear the faint hum of Jazz’s electro bass on the wind.
It’s nonsense. Best case scenario (65.9% and dropping) Jazz is dead.
Worst case (25.1% and climbing) Jazz is…
Prowl sends the thought to deep storage before he can begin running further calculations and takes an experimental step. The faint outlines of Jazz’s tracks are still visible, and he follows them.
It’s not a long walk, but it gives Prowl more than enough time to run a risk assessment of the planet.
This far from the war, without interference on his part, there is little chance anyone will find Prowl if things take an unexpected turn. According to his ship’s scans, there’s a rare electrical storm headed for this region of the planet, and Prowl is running the risk of being stuck here if this rendezvous takes an unexpected turn. That they would not find Soundwave (or Jazz, the traitorous part of his processor insists on reminding him) either is also possible, but it is not worth further thought. Prowl has his own contingencies in place, and he has no doubt Soundwave has arranged his own. Soundwave is many things, but unprepared is not one of them.
It’s not long before he finds himself in the shadow of a cliff. It’s not massive by Cybertronian standards, but it is the tallest formation in twenty klicks. Prowl gives his surroundings a cursory glance, and it’s clear that Jazz’s tracks have ended here, at the base of the cliff. Did he...?
Prowl sighs. It’s familiar, a well-worn exasperation that suits him.
He starts to climb.
His abilities make identifying his route simple, and even for a mech unused to this type of physical exertion, it’s not difficult. Before long, he’s at the top, pulling himself over the edge, and…
Of course. Of course Soundwave is here, invisible to his scans but unmistakably present and completely infuriating. Smugness rolls off the mech like a fever. Prowl can’t imagine Soundwave scaling a cliff, and his opinion is only cemented when he follows Soundwave’s gaze over the opposite edge, where there was obviously a path—a steep, difficult path, but a path.
Prowl has to stifle a sigh.
The impending storm has rendered everything but short range scans useless, but there is no sign of Jazz. Prowl’s calculations adjust, and he sends another thought to deep storage.
There’s no point in trying to win. Prowl’s silence might be icy, but Soundwave’s ability to simply be quiet is unparalleled, and Prowl finds himself wondering what the mech thinks about in these moments. Strategy? Is he using his abilities to burrow into his opponent’s mind, taking every nanosecond of quiet to slip past firewalls and security checks, uncovering realms of classified—personal—information along the way?
Before Prowl can concede and speak, Soundwave holds out a hand. Prowl automatically reaches out to take the proffered object, but comes to his senses. He snaps his arm back to his side and glares, but Soundwave doesn’t seem offended. Instead, he tosses it to Prowl, who doesn’t move to catch it.
It lands in the dust.
Refusing to look away, Prowl bends down to pick it up. Soundwave watches him, and his expression is cool and smug and even.
Prowl runs it through a scan. Then another. Then another.
It’s clean.
It is a datapad stylus. Prewar. There’s a Senate engraving on the side—not the sigil of the Primacy, but of Kaon. Ratbat.
Save for the most expensive styluses designed for single proprietary use, the charging ports are easily accessible, and in a moment Prowl is staring at the empty charging port.
Prowl’s hesitation is palpable. Soundwave can feel it pressing against the back of his neck, weighing down his shoulders. It’s pulling him further from the choice he and Jazz worked so hard to place before him.
A calculated risk, Prowl thinks, and wonders if it’s worth it.
Soundwave watches him think.
Prowl’s case is missing, but Soundwave can see the faint change in paint where it had been secured to his wrist; it’s a half-shade of white lighter than the rest of his armor.
Soundwave’s own case is secured in his tape deck, easily accessible at a moment’s notice.
Only as necessary, he knows, though the temptation to turn back and revisit this moment will be tempting. He’s unsure that having Prowl so tantalizingly close is something a future version of himself—or Jazz—will be able to resist, and Soundwave isn’t sure what will happen if he comes across his future self stepping through time.
Should Prowl not accept this offer, Soundwave knows he will try again, returning back to this moment, over and over to change Prowl’s trajectory. If he is currently insufficiently prepared, would a future version of himself be better equipped? Would his present self be willing to step aside?
He misses Jazz. He longs to return back to the Victory Condition, to settle next to him in their habsuite and spend an hour or two dreaming about Prowl between the two of them. He can imagine how Prowl would fit against them, a solidly pragmatic complement to their own unique skillsets.
Prowl has come to a decision. Soundwave watches as he connects the stylus cable to his wrist port without looking. His gaze is locked onto Soundwave, and a lesser mech would have crumbled under its weight.
Not Soundwave. Prowl’s regard is nothing compared to the scorn of the Rodion enforcers, of Ratbat, of Shockwave. He listens as Prowl bypasses the security mechanisms and finds himself falling into a memory.
Prowl’s doors twitch.
The impending storm has gotten closer, and if the slight tell of Soundwave shifting from side to side is any indication, he’s been tracking it as well. This system isn’t well documented, and Prowl finds the uncertainty of the weather patterns almost more uncomfortable than the situation currently presented to him.
He tries not to think about the memory Soundwave had just shared with him, the awkward bleedover of Soundwave’s feelings mixed with facts. This communication was different from the rest. Personal. Prowl isn’t sure how he feels about it.
He is sure, however, how he feels about the fact that Soundwave seems to be toying with him.
There’s a bigger picture here. Prowl only has the faintest sense of its shape.
This might be his only chance.
“Mind if I stay?” Jazz’s voice is light (forced, nervous
Prowl draws his blaster. Soundwave steps back, surprised (and it feels good, to know that Prowl can still surprise him), but before his cannon can power up, Prowl’s taken the shot.
::We are not letting an Autobot on our ship.:: Ravage’s nervous irritation threatens to bubble over, and Soundwave sends a reassuring ping. He knows what he’s doing. Probably.
The blast hits the piston controlling the boarding ramp. It cracks, dropping the ramp down at an odd angle.
Soundwave is staring at him.
The clouds have changed the sky from a bright yellow to a deep gray. In this light, it’s difficult for Prowl to make out Soundwave’s expression, and the crackle of lightning overhead has made discerning EM fields…difficult.
“It appears that we are stuck here for the time being,” Prowl says, as neutrally as he can manage.
Soundwave is still staring at him. The whine of his now fully-charged shoulder cannon nearly has Prowl stepping away, but he forces himself to remain still for another moment.
Then, without waiting for an invitation, Prowl heads up the ramp into Soundwave’s ship.
It takes longer than he expected for Soundwave to enter, and Prowl uses the time to conduct a thorough scan of the ship. It’s more cramped than he expected, though Prowl supposes the cassettes are uniquely suited to managing tight quarters. There’s a space for a fold-out recharge slab in one corner. Prowl sneaks a glance at the navigation systems in the hopes that Soundwave’s route might hold some clue as to Jazz’s location, but the console is locked down.
By the time Soundwave can summon the courage to re-enter his own ship, Jazz has made himself at home.
He had put the probability of Soundwave trying to conduct a failed emergency repair at 84%, so by the time Soundwave enters, Prowl has done his best to make himself at home. Soundwave appears as placid as ever, but there’s a tightness to his posture that’s new. He’s taken a seat in the pilot’s chair, turning it around to face Soundwave in a demonstrative show of casual authority. Anything to push Soundwave further off kilter.
Prowl takes the lead.
“I ain’t lyin’,” Jazz says. “I think you know that by now.”
Soundwave nods. Jazz is being truthful, though Soundwave wouldn’t put it past the Autobots to shadowplay a member of their own army for the express purpose of soliciting blackmail in the form of treason, or even to seize the opportunity to disable him via malware.
“He saved your life.” Prowl isn’t trying particularly hard to hide the acid in his voice.
“A foolish move,” Soundwave says. “Soundwave is capable of self defense.” Soundwave doesn’t think this is the case. He hopes this is not the case.
Prowl slams his hands down on the console. He wants to speak, but there are no easy words for the anger boiling in his spark. He knows Jazz. Soundwave—this arrogant, smug mech who schemed his way into a position of power—does not.
He decides to tell Soundwave just that. Jazz leans back in his—Soundwave’s really—seat, and a wave of exhaustion washes over both of them.
Soundwave accepts the insult, which makes Prowl even more furious. Prowl wishes Soundwave had simply started shooting, and abruptly hates himself for his decision to strand Soundwave here with him. He thinks this is a side of Jazz that few mechs ever get to see.
Thunder booms overhead.
“Jazz and Prowl’s relationship: known,” Soundwave says. “Jazz—” Prowl has seen it.
“Don’t talk about him.” The thought comes to the forefront of Soundwave’s mind, unbidden.
“Prowl initiated the conversation topic.” Soundwave’s voice is neutral, but Prowl can still hear the absolutely infuriating tone of smugness underneath. He wonders what side of Prowl Jazz is allowed to see.
“Jazz was invited,” Soundwave continues, and his voice drops into something quieter. Thoughtful. “Jazz: believed that his presence would complicate matters.”
Soundwave could be lying. Prowl knows this. At the start of this conversation, he had put the probability of Soundwave lying at a steady 68%, and the number has only continued to rise. Still. Prowl can’t stop himself from saying:
“He said what?”
“Prowl’s anger is understandable.” Soundwave doesn’t look like he’s terribly bothered by Prowl’s mood—if anything, this entire situation appears to be a source of amusement, which only infuriates Prowl more. His ironclad self-discipline is the only thing keeping Prowl from tackling the big stupid blue mech to the ground and doing his best to win the war right here and now. That, and the growling realization that he may be Prowl’s only hope of ever seeing Jazz again.
“Why.” Prowl struggles to stop himself from yelling, and his voice becomes flat and toneless.
“I’m tired, Soundwave,” Jazz says. “And I think you are, too, ‘else you wouldn’t have agreed to this meeting.”
Soundwave actually appears to be considering the question. For a second, Prowl dares to hope that he’s going to get an actual answer, before Soundwave opens his stupid mouth. Soundwave is functioning optimally, and his scans show Jazz’s own functioning is well within acceptable parameters. It takes Soundwave a minute to realize Jazz is speaking metaphorically.
“Jazz requested my assistance. Soundwave’s assistance: freely given.”
“That’s treason,” Prowl says. Jazz would never—”
“Prowl is currently meeting with Soundwave. Requesting information from Soundwave. Assistance.” Soundwave’s smugness is back and it’s getting unbearable. “Treason?”
“I consider this more of an interrogation.” It’s a flimsy justification, and both of them know it.
“Jazz wishes to end the war.” Soundwave doesn’t want to think about what Jazz is saying. He would much prefer to continue to dance around the subject, engaging in usually-despised social niceties. Ravage’s frustration is bleeding into the comm line again.
“I don’t know anyone who doesn’t ‘wish’ to end the war,” Prowl says. “Except maybe Megatron.”
Soundwave bristles visibly, but Prowl ignores it. A string of hypotheses are forming in his mind, pivoting with each new addition of data. He’s able to see the general shape of his answer, and Prowl is beginning to wonder if he actually wants to know why Jazz left. “You are tired,” Soundwave says. Jazz nods.
He discards the notion that he might not want to immediately. Personal investment aside, Jazz is vital to the Autobot war effort, and while Prowl’s contingencies mean the rest of High Command won’t be seeking him out for the foreseeable future, his absence will not go unnoticed indefinitely. Prowl needs—needs—to use this time to find Jazz.
For whatever reason Soundwave trusts Jazz enough to meet Prowl on this barren planet, alone and well beyond immediate assistance. And that means that Jazz trusts Soundwave enough to meet Prowl here. Unless Soundwave has been lying about Jazz’s involvement from the start, and Jazz is actually dead in a bolthole somewhere, or a prisoner, or—
“Are your cassettes here?” It’s an abrupt shift in topic, but Prowl needs a minute to collect himself.
Soundwave hesitates, and Prowl catches the instinctive movement to shield his chest.
“Negative.”
“I don’t believe you.” Prowl can’t easily recall a time when one of Soundwave’s minions wasn’t in close proximity. While the chance of one or more of the cassettes lurking in the background at 90%, he puts the chance of one of the cassettes being tasked to kill him at a mere 15%.
Without breaking eye contact, Soundwave reaches up, pressing the button to open his deck.
Surprisingly, it’s empty, but the faint glimmer of a spark catches Prowl’s notice. It’s…disconcerting, knowing that Soundwave allows the cassettes so close to his spark. That level of trust is completely foreign to him. Even Tumbler hadn’t—
Prowl forcibly cuts off that thought process and sends it to long term storage. Even after all this, the limits of Soundwave’s abilities are still unclear, and Prowl is unwilling to risk Soundwave knowing any more about him than is strictly necessary. The idea that Jazz might have told Soundwave anything about Prowl is…unnerving, but Prowl can’t discard that possibility. Ravage’s discomfort feels like an itch Soundwave can’t scratch. Soundwave sends another ping. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He feels adrift, unmoored by the uncertainty that has buoyed him for the last two million years.”
“So you came here, alone,” Prowl says slowly. “Why?”
“Prowl requested the meeting.”
“And you listened?” ::You need to say something.:: If he stretches his awareness beyond the confines of this ship, Soundwave can hear Ravage’s footsteps, and if he listens further, the nervous way his tail swishes in the still air. ::Or don’t. The way this is going, you’re courting treason and I know you know that.::
Soundwave shrugs. “Soundwave, Jazz, determined it was an acceptable course of action.”
“So he’s a Decepticon now,” Prowl says. “Spending all his time with you, gossiping about me.”
It’s a reductive, spiteful take, but Prowl doesn’t care.
“Negative.” Soundwave hasn’t diverted his gaze, though he moves to close his deck. Prowl thinks, despairingly, that Soundwave is mocking him. He has a few seconds to argue that Soundwave isn’t that immature, when Soundwave says: “Discussions about Prowl are a limited fraction of our conversations.” ::Is it worth it?:: Ravage asks. Soundwave has noticed Ravage isn’t trying to talk him out of this.
“Shut up. He saved your life.” “Tell me,” Soundwave says to Jazz. He sees hope, bright and jaded but unmistakably present. Prowl is repeating himself. He knows this. His side aches. He’s replayed it over and over in his mind, dedicating a significant amount of processing power to identifying the factors influencing Jazz’s decision to defect. Clearly, this had not been a spontaneous decision. Something had been eating at Jazz all this time. Prowl had simply not seen it.
“Jazz is willing to put aside faction differences in order to end the war.”
Soundwave’s word choice hasn’t escaped Prowl’s notice. Prowl composes a packet of expletives in thirteen different languages and hopes Soundwave and his stupid outlier abilities pick up that.
“How did he do it?” Prowl asks, finally.
Soundwave produces another datachip. Prowl takes it. His hands are shaking. He hadn’t expected Soundwave to answer him, at least not without another ten minutes of Prowl antagonizing Soundwave.
It’s a song. The tune is immediately recognizable, though it’s been years since Prowl last heard it—he’d heard the earlier drafts across many late nights in his soundproofed hab, enough times that Prowl had inadvertently caught himself tapping out the tempo with his stylus during his shifts.
“Encrypted by a key located within the songs Jazz played at Broken Cube.” Soundwave seems more smug than normal. Prowl wants to punch him in the face. “Then, it was a simple matter of analyzing the song with a spectrogram in order to retrieve the raw data and compare it to the key.”
“You’ve been exchanging messages this whole time.”
“Negative.” Soundwave offers the data chip again. Prowl takes it with only slightly more force than necessary and shoves it into his wrist port. “Tell me,” Soundwave says, again.
Jazz holds out a cable.
This is one of Jazz’s memories, and if Prowl hadn’t been sitting, he would have fallen over. As it is, he shoves Soundwave’s steadying hand away, realizing too late that Soundwave is already there. This is a memory of a memory—this is a memory Jazz had shared with Soundwave, to be precise.
For a moment, Prowl isn’t sure who to be furious with.
”I have done the math.” Prowl hears himself through Jazz’s memory, interplayed by Soundwave’s utter fascination as he watched this for the first time, a third hand witness.
”The math’s sometimes wrong,” Jazz is saying. He’s trying (and succeeding) to look nonchalant, but with the gift of hindsight, Prowl can see that he’s completely focused on his words. He hasn’t even commented on the data pads strewn on the floor, victims of Prowl’s earlier frustration. At least the desk is back where it belongs. Prowl feels his hand twitch, longing to reach out.
In the memory, Prowl’s optics are bright. There’s three empty cubes of engex on his desk. He’s never done this before. ”Prime reduced our numbers by 25. Twenty five percent.”
”You did tell him the omni-globes were a bad idea.”
”This is our chance to win the war.” Prowl knows what comes next. Wildly, he considers the possibility of risking the storm, running back to his ship and grabbing the briefcase, disabling the paradox locks before stepping back into the past to assassinate himself.
Prowl and Jazz and Soundwave all watch, all enraptured, as the words come out of Prowl’s mouth.
“According to my calculations,” Prowl says, “A successful conclusion to the war hinges on the influence of outside parties.”
Jazz looks confused.
“There are no ‘outside parties’. The neutrals are, y’know.” He makes a vague gesture with one hand.
In the past, Prowl sighs. In the present, Prowl wants to scream.
The nature of his calculations have always been difficult to put into words, and it is frustrating when they are so easily misinterpreted. Prowl regrets mentioning it almost immediately, not in the least because he knows Jazz is intelligent enough to eventually deduce that ‘outside parties’ can only mean large-scale defection from both sides.
Had Jazz been considering this already? Had he been colluding with Soundwave prior to this? Had this conversation been the proof he needed to defect?
Prowl chooses that moment to turn his attention back to his datapad, and in the present, Prowl chooses this moment to glare at Soundwave, who stares back, impassive.
He’s been running more numbers, trying to figure out the proper procedure to sow seeds for widespread defection. It needs to be subtle—the Wreckers are proof enough of that. At that moment, Prowl knows he’s thinking of Skids; subtle and clever enough to work their way into positions of power and influence. He makes a mental note to identify similar mechs and run a cost-benefit analysis on the possibility of creating a new task force, one opposite the Wreckers.
Belatedly, Prowl realizes Jazz is still in the room, staring at him with an unreadable expression. Prowl doesn’t want to ask (and in the present, Prowl desperately wishes he had). It’s just his luck when Jazz merely inclines his head towards the door.
Prowl nods. He’s never been one to turn to physical pleasures in order to distract himself, but he can’t deny the irritating itch building up under his plating, a mix of anxiety and other unidentifiable, uncomfortable emotions crawling beneath the surface.
He follows Jazz.
A distraction would be good for both of them, he thinks.
Soundwave, who had been watching his own memory files, exits the replay feeling far less disoriented than Prowl.
He resists the urge to comm Jazz. He’s not naive enough to think the (former?) Autobot doesn’t have his own failsafes in place should Soundwave’s mission be unsuccessful. It will not be unsuccessful—Soundwave is determined to see this through to the end, and he has already decided that the end will include Prowl.
A part of Soundwave wants to blame Jazz for this fascination with the current Autobot second-in-command, but if Soundwave is being honest with himself, Prowl has always been a subject of interest to him. It’s only now that the interest has turned…personal.
As Soundwave watches, Prowl composes himself, letting out a measured breath and straightening his shoulders before he speaks.
“I remember.” Prowl turns to face Soundwave. “Nowhere in that conversation did I tell Jazz that your presence would be required to end the war.”
“Perhaps I was willing to be persuaded.” That is as far as Soundwave is willing to entertain Prowl on the subject. Prowl has not agreed to anything. In fact, Soundwave is still a little surprised he’s contained his blaster fire to the ship.
“I don’t suppose you’re willing to disclose Jazz’s location.”
“Auto—Jazz: has Prowl’s communication’s frequency.”
Soundwave feels the flash of sharp anger before Prowl glares. He decides to change the subject.
“As you are unable to return to your ship,” Soundwave says, and hopes Jazz will be proud of him for making the effort, “You are welcome to remain on this ship until the storm passes.”
He wants Prowl to protest, just so he can remind Prowl that he is the one who disabled Soundwave’s ship. But Prowl just sets his mouth in a thin line says:
“And how would you suggest we pass the time?”
Soundwave’s gaze wanders to the recharge slab.
“Prowl is welcome to rest,” he says.
“I am not sleeping while you stare at me.”
Soundwave almost laughs. Prowl’s arrogance knows no bounds.
“Soundwave: requires recharge.” He can’t stop himself from adding. “If Prowl is capable of refraining from staring.”
Prowl’s mouth tightens. Soundwave refrains from telling Prowl that he’s unable to accept the expletive-laden data packet without a hardline, but Prowl is thinking it so loudly Soundwave can’t find it in himself to disappoint him.
Without the cassettes, he doesn’t have much of a pre-recharge routine to follow, but he makes a show of double-checking the ship’s systems before very deliberately making his way to the recharge slab. He feels Prowl’s glare (95% Soundwave is actually serious, 50% Jazz will respond to his messages) as acutely as he feels his own exhaustion.
He’s…not entirely certain this is a good idea. Soundwave doesn’t have Prowl’s powerful forecasting software, but even he knows that seeing Soundwave asleep and (relatively) defenseless might tempt Prowl to do something impulsive.
So Soundwave sits on the edge of the berth and composes his own data packet, which will be automatically broadcasted directly to Jazz and the cassettes (waiting at the safehouse, likely getting on each other’s nerves) if he is not awake to cancel the delivery. Soundwave tries not to stare at Prowl as he composes a similar data packet (to the Autobot Wrecker Springer), but can’t help himself when Prowl stands and makes his way across the ship.
“Move,” Prowl says, and Soundwave obliges.
The ship is small, but the recharge dock has two open ports. Soundwave takes the primary one, because it is still his ship, and he does Prowl a favor by actually moving over (he doesn’t do this with Jazz, but with Jazz it’s different. Jazz wouldn’t care if he wakes up in the morning to Soundwave pressed against his back.) more than is strictly necessary. Jazz is cautious, running his requests through half a dozen security protocols before he agrees—and it’s not like Soundwave doesn’t understand. He’s already done the same thing. He lowers himself into the berth, hoping to make up for the differences in frame class—Soundwave isn’t used to being the larger one in a coupling, and experience has taught him it can be intimidating.
This close, Soundwave can’t help but pick up on the Jazz-flavored taste of Prowl’s thoughts. Jazz stares down at him like he’s walked onstage and doesn’t remember any of the lines, and Soundwave wonders at the fact that he’s allowed to see this side of him.
Prowl is staring up at the ceiling. Wondering how he got here (rhetorical, Prowl has been questioning the chain of events that led to this a minimum of twenty times per hour since landing on this planet), trying to figure out where Jazz is (86% certain that if Jazz truly doesn’t want to be found, Prowl has no chance of locating him, 42% chance and dropping of successfully placing a tracking beacon on Soundwave’s ship).
It’s almost endearing, but Soundwave will settle for relatable.
“Treason: not taken lightly.” Soundwave takes it upon himself to distract him, sending the command to retract his battlemask. Jazz stares, despite himself, and Soundwave makes the decision for the both of them, reaching out to grasp Jazz’s wrist.
Prowl turns to look at him. Jazz still shows no outward expression of emotion, but Soundwave can feel the maelstrom of conflicting emotions within, and the intensity doubles as he makes the connection.
“Then why do it?” Soundwave’s loyalty to Megatron has never been questioned. Why here? Why now? Why Jazz?
Soundwave trusts Jazz’s instincts—mostly. And Jazz trusts Prowl’s calculations—generally.
By extension, Soundwave reasons he trusts Prowl—sort of.
He’s not telling Prowl that.
“I…” he hesitates. “Was willing to be persuaded.”
He hears Prowl’s mouth tighten back into a thin line. The weight of Soundwave’s treason runs thick, threatening to choke him, and Prowl is only experiencing the first hints of pressure. Soundwave deliberately ignores the memory files this coupling is bringing to the forefront of Jazz’s mind. Their alliance is still tentative at best, and he isn’t willing to risk it merely to satisfy his own curiosity, and he can feel Jazz’s weak relief at his resolve. They may have granted limited access to the other’s systems, but with their respective skills, it’s still enough of an opening. A show of trust, then.
“You said that already.”
Soundwave sends a command to dim the lights. It’s more for show—they don’t need darkness to sleep like organics do, but there’s something comforting about having this conversation where they don’t need to look at each other.
He wishes he knew what to say. It’s easier with Jazz. Jazz, who was the one who approached him, who laid out the facts and arguments until Soundwave had no other choice but to be persuaded. Soundwave refuses to be intimidated by the daunting task of persuading Prowl, and Jazz seems to believe he is capable.
And Soundwave trusts Jazz.
He sees Prowl sit up. In the dim light, his silhouette sits in sharp relief against the auxiliary lights. Prowl turns to look at him.
Soundwave nods.
In the morning, Prowl wakes, angry and ashamed in Soundwave’s berth.
There’s a data slug in his wrist port. Prowl—your anger is palpable. It is bright orange (Sentinel) and thick like a cloud of dust after a bomb. It is nearly suffocating and your urge to reach out, blaster forgotten, and attempt to throttle the life out of me (Soundwave) as if it would do anything to allay the pure fury building up in your systems.
Is that how we ended up on the (single, not enough room) berth, tangled in wires and low level access, more frustrated than before we started? Your attempts to block out the memories of Jazz are…admirable. Futile, but admirable. It is amusing that you think I care what your interface habits are—or were, with him, though I must admit that fantasy with the wires is particularly compelling.
You take such pleasure in being the one with foresight, the one who is willing to do what needs to be done (arrogant, entitled), the one who told Jazz in a moment of weakness what needs to be done. Yet you are furious (betrayed, jealous) that Jazz looked at the available evidence (trusted you) and acted accordingly?
“Outside of wildly statistically improbable events, victory conditions hinge on the confluence of outside forces.”
“A third faction? But the neutrals--”
“I am not referring to the neutrals,“ you say. Jazz looks at you (conclusion already reached, seeking validation) and says:
”You're talking about mass defection.”
The rest of the conversation is irrelevant, though I am certain you do not think it is. You’ve replayed it over and over and over in your mind (50,193 times as of our disconnection) until the words blur and you start seeing meaning that is not there. Your words feel like despair. Jazz feels like hope.
By the time your conversation is finished, Jazz has already made the decision to seek me out. He tried to put it out of his mind when you follow him to the berth—knowing you will not detect his treason and feeling guilty all the same.
He thinks of you often. He makes no effort to hide it from me.
He misses you.
In the morning, Soundwave wakes alone, with a sore frame and hazy orange light filtering through broken storm clouds.
There’s a data slug in his wrist port.
Let’s say I believe you, which I don’t.
Why would I believe that you are willing to betray the cause you began with Megatron based on my calculations? What reason could you possibly have that would justify any of this?
Soundwave resets the berth, folding it back away into the storage compartment.
Without the pressure of the storm, the repairs to his ship are completed, and before long, Soundwave is in orbit. Prowl is long gone, and there is no reason to linger.
With some distance between them, Soundwave can think more clearly. Prowl’s doubt is suffocating, making Soundwave yearn for the days of clarity under Megtron’s rule. Jazz is…different. Less certain, and Soundwave finds himself wavering—is that why Jazz suggested Prowl? Or had it been less personal?
Soundwave can’t imagine what it would be like to be near Prowl when his resolve is strong.
He wants to (hopes he can) find out.
Being alone is far too quiet for his liking.
Prowl pulls away.
He returns the briefcase to Brainstorm, who’s thrilled to have it back. He gets the reason out of Brainstorm “Quark,” Brainstorm says. His voice is ragged with grief, Prowl thinks. and endeavors to watch the scientist more closely.
His habsuite is still quiet. “Who?” Prowl asks. Brainstorm sighs.
His excuses range from needing time to attempting to find a suitable mech to replace himself as head of the investigation, and though a part of him knows both of those statements are lies, he uses them anyway.
Prowl is waiting.
Eventually, a message comes through.
Prowl leaves the base. It’s not an especially long drive to the rendezvous point, but it’s long enough that Prowl is second guessing himself. The dust his alt mode kicks up is getting caught in his vents, and Prowl has to suppress a cough as he transforms.
Soundwave is there. Waiting. Waiting. Willing to be persuaded.
Prowl finds himself wondering what it feels like for Soundwave when Jazz finally makes his way into view, and if his instinctive step back is any indication, Prowl’s reaction is strong but all he feels is a sense of despairing relief.
“Hey, Prowl,” Jazz says, and it’s been so long since he’s heard his voice, Prowl wonders if he’s imagining the ragged relief echoed in Jazz’s tone.
Prowl manages to maintain a semblance of professionality as he offers his own greetings; to Jazz first, then to Soundwave. It goes without saying that the cassettes are there—Prowl has noticed the shadows moving against the dim light of Cybertron’s setting sun (Ravage - 70.5%) but every time he looks at Jazz or Soundwave, the urgency to know who it is floats away.
They talk. Prowl likes to think he keeps his temper under control.
The part of him that’s a tactician forged in the furnace of wartime wants to cut the niceties short and hammer out a plan for their next move. He resists the urge because there will be time and because Jazz is right there, and hasn’t been for weeks.
So they talk. It’s mostly between Jazz and Prowl, though Soundwave occasionally interjects when his role in the story is too focal to be glossed over. Prowl isn’t blind to the way Soundwave and Jazz orient themselves to each other. It’s tentative but strong—much more steady than the way Prowl has been avoiding looking at Soundwave but ends up staring anyway.
And then Jazz reaches out to take his hand. It’s so unexpected that Prowl nearly winces and draws back. He catches himself in time, feeling the warmth of Jazz’s plating against his own. He knows what Jazz is asking for and he concedes with a single nod before being pulled into a tight embrace.
Jazz had always been good about asking.
Eventually, the conversation dies down. Jazz has secured a spot beside Prowl and is in the process of mapping out every transformation seam on his frame, idly tracing the lines as they tentatively broach the subject of what next.
It’s easier than Prowl expected to talk like this. So much of the past weeks had been agonizing over word choice and motives, not to mention that now the weight of hunting them (Jazz) down has been lifted, Prowl feels…light.
“All for me.” It feels like it should be a question, but in Prowl’s mouth, it comes out like an incredulous statement.
“All for you,” Jazz agrees, and Soundwave nods.
Before Prowl can ask why, Jazz has hugged him again. This time, Prowl reciprocates.
When the conversation truly dies down, two hours later, Soundwave looks at Jazz, and Jazz looks back at Soundwave.
“Would you be up to, you know—” Jazz’s visor band narrows, and Prowl imagines he’s reading one of Soundwave’s messages. “That’s obscene.”
Soundwave shrugs.
Prowl calculates the angles of Soundwave and Jazz’s frames, the slight tilt to Soundwave’s head that always appears whenever he’s hearing something interesting (98.5%). The way Jazz is looking at him. Asking for permission.
This time, it’s Prowl who initiates the embrace. There’s something comforting about physical contact under his own terms, and he’s missed it since Jazz left. In the interim he had almost managed to convince himself that he hated touch, but now, Prowl holds Jazz close and doesn’t pull away when he feels Soundwave’s hand on his waist. Jazz disentangles one arm to grab Soundwave, holding him against his side, and Prowl thinks that he can get used to this. Soundwave relaxes.
A part of him notices that the cassettes are gone. The bigger, recently lonely part is totally focused on Soundwave leading them deeper into the base.
Soundwave is the first one to settle onto the berth. He sits and waits for Jazz and Prowl to get comfortable. Jazz is a reassuring presence at his side, and Prowl disengages the covers on his ports. Soundwave is looking up at them, and Prowl tears his gaze away for a second before looking back.
Prowl comes back to himself with a throbbing headache and a pile of overheated circuitry and tangled limbs. Jazz’s arm is around his waist, Soundwave is draped over Jazz’s legs, helm resting on the plane of Prowl’s abdominal armor. Their systems aren’t used to being in sync, and the feedback had been what triggered the headache.
Soundwave sighs. He’s awake—they’re all still connected, and Prowl has had to devote an untoward 5% of his processing power to prevent Soundwave’s abilities from flooding his own awareness. It’s a steady pressure at the back of his mind humming in tune to the pounding of his headache. He pushes against the apologetic ping Soundwave directs at him. Prowl initiates a repair cycle for the three of them, restoring the fragmented code and cracked firewalls in their systems. Jazz sends a burst of appreciation over the connection.
Later that day, when Prowl shoves them out the door, bolting it behind him and turning to face the hapless, unlucky group of Autobot trainees who had stumbled on their meeting place, Prowl clings to it like a lifeline.
It’s quiet. Dark, too, but the lack of light isn’t as much a hindrance as it is an annoyance to Prowl.
This new lack of control is as freeing as it is frightening. Prowl has run the calculations, shored up his failsafes as best he could on short notice until all that remains is to wait.
They—if they are coming for him—are taking longer than expected. Of course, Prowl has accounted for the possibility that they are not coming back, that Jazz and Soundwave have decided to cut their losses and continue on without him. The probability of it is low (26.42%) but it has crept into the back of Prowl’s mind and refuses to leave. Prowl tries to tell himself it is their choice—if the last month has taught him anything, it is that he cannot force it. Force this.
He thinks back to the way he ceded control just last night, pinned between the linkup of Soundwave and Jazz, struggling to balance their minds with his own until he gave up and floated freely in the chaotic synthesis.
That had left him with a headache.
This will likely end in an execution.
Prowl wonders if Chromedome will be called to do a reading, or if Optimus will be so furious he will just shoot Prowl on the spot. He isn’t sure which one is worse. The mercy of a quick death, but without the chance to negotiate and prolong his life, or the humiliation of a farce of a trial that ends with Chromedome’s needles in the back of his neck.
He does not see a point in trying to justify himself, though the desire to make Optimus see makes his plating itch. Optimus is far too convinced of his own abilities, his own righteous cause to ever truly consider an alternative viewpoint. Prowl would be wasting his time.
He still might, though, if Optimus shows his face.
Prowl tries to put the idea of his mind in favor of focusing on other, far more interesting scenarios: Jazz and Soundwave at the end of the war, victorious. Jazz and Soundwave bringing their carefully laid plans to fruition, working together to circumvent the inevitable backlash that would follow their mission. Prowl deliberately doesn’t bother imagining what-ifs in regards to his own situation. It will either happen (65.9%) or it will not (35.1%). Prowl thinks back to the tangle of wires and control, how they had held it in their hands as a fragile, precious thing, and promised to utilize it to the best of their ability. And that was all he had ever wanted, wasn’t it?
It feels too desperate, too self-congratulatory even now, so Prowl endeavors to avoid thinking about it again. The idea that Chromedome might soon have access to those memories is…disquieting. Prowl had managed to put thoughts of Chromedome aside throughout this whole ordeal—Jazz was so unlike Chromedome that he had not attempted to draw any comparisons between the two until now, and Soundwave’s hatred of mnemosurgery ran deep, triggered by his own experiences and exacerbated by a million years of propaganda. It didn’t bear thinking about, yet Prowl couldn’t help but wonder if there might have been a way to bring Chromedome to their side. With a mnemosurgeon…
No. Soundwave would never have tolerated a mnemosurgeon—privately, Prowl considered it a small miracle Soundwave had allowed Chromedome to live after his capture.
He misses Soundwave.
The realization is as startling in its simplicity as it is in its depth. Missing Jazz hurt more, but it had faded to a familiar ache in his chest, but through it all, Soundwave had been a constant. He had been an infuriating, dangerous constant for most of it, but he had been there.
Prowl sighs and leans back. His restraints do not restrict his movement as much as he feels they should—the guards had even kept the stasis cuffs minimally powered, leaving him barely restrained. Still not following protocol, even when the prisoner is one of their own. Prowl has to fight the urge to write them up, even though his clearance has been put on hold and the form will go nowhere but back into his inbox as it received.
He takes a moment to consider Brainstorm, who has moved up to first place as a candidate for what Soundwave has been calling “Operation: Mass Defection”. While Soundwave believed they would benefit from immediately recruiting a more charismatic mech to serve as the figurehead of the movement, Prowl had disagreed, and Jazz had backed him up. Right now, they needed a solid, logistical framework for their movement, and more than likely (88.3%) it would require utilizing Brainstorm’s briefcases in order to remain undetected.
The air inside the cell coalesces into shining green and white as Prowl watches. His tactical network springs back to life, spinning calculations into his awareness as two figures step through. Distantly, Prowl can hear alarms blaring.
Jazz’s smile mirrors his own, and Prowl likes to think that under his mask, Soundwave is doing the same.
“Waiting long?” Jazz asks. Prowl mumbles an affirmative he hopes doesn’t sound too relieved as he gets to his feet. Soundwave cuts the stasis cuffs off his wrists in a singular, clean motion. He flexes his hands as renewed feeling floods back into his sensornet, then looks to Jazz and Soundwave, who look back at him. Trusting. Expectant.
For the first time in years, Prowl feels something akin to hope.
Soundwave has left the portal open. He steps through with Jazz at his side, and they each hold out a hand—symbolic, Prowl thinks. Aside from the first time he traveled via briefcase, he had never had a problem.
Prowl takes their hands anyway.