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So the rumor around town is that Wing’s bringing home a sparkeater.
‘Town’ being the New Crystal City Foster Shelter’s gossip mill, but. Semantics. There was an announcement about it at the decennial orientation—one of the assistant caretakers stood up with a whole powerpoint about how no newsparks are allowed in the medical wing without supervision this year; something about a triage clinic being set up in one of the unused classrooms if anyone has a medical emergency. Hot Rod doesn’t know. Those meetings are a total snoozefest. Usually he tries to sleep through them or fake sick.
Except this time the other newsparks came back looking totally freaked instead of half stasis-locked from boredom. So naturally, Hot Rod, being a forward-thinking and innovative mech, kept an audial dialed up for the latest gossip. Subtly, of course.
It went a little something like this.
[ SCENE: Three newsparks are clustered in one of the bunkrooms of the shelter’s recharge wing, helms pressed together and gossiping. ]
NEWSPARK 1: He wouldn’t really, right?
NEWSPARK 2 [scowling]: Wing doesn’t turn anyone away. There was that one feral mech, from the Tyger Pax tar fire—
NEWSPARK 3: Spinout!
NEWSPARK 2: —yeah, Spinout. He bit one of the minibots. Took off their whole arm. And Wing didn’t kick him out or nothin’. He’s totally glitched. He would bring back a sparkeater.
[ HOT ROD pops up, spoiler first, from where he had been hiding on one of the top bunks. NEWSPARK 1, on edge from the urban legend talk, springs into the air and yelps static in fright. ]
HOT ROD: A sparkeater?!
[ NEWSPARK 2 and NEWSPARK 3 exchange glances, visibly annoyed. NEWSPARK 1 has collapsed on the ground. No one pays her any attention. ]
NEWSPARK 3: Hot Rod, that’s Pico’s berth.
HOT ROD [waving a dismissive hand and leaning over the bunk safety rail]: Wing found a real sparkeater? That’s so friggin’ cool.
NEWSPARK 3: I’m going to tell Pico you got dust in his berth.
HOT ROD [annoyed now]: And what is Pico going to do? Spray disinfectant on me? I’m shaking in my struts.
NEWSPARK 3: You’re such a glitch, Hot Rod.
NEWSPARK 2: Yeah.
NEWSPARK 1: Yeah! And if you like sparkeaters so much, why don’t you take the rites with them?
[ HOT ROD rolls his eyes and sticks his tongue out at NEWSPARK 1. NEWSPARK 2 and NEWSPARK 3 exchange glances again, this time wide-eyed, a plan forming. ]
NEWSPARK 3: Yeah, Hot Rod. Go make friends with the sparkeater. It probably won’t rip your spark out.
NEWSPARK 2: Yeah. I mean, nobody here likes you. Why would a sparkeater even want to eat you? It would probably spit you right out.
[ NEWSPARK 2 spits oral solvent on the ground in demonstration. NEWSPARK 1 and NEWSPARK 3 eagerly follow suit. ]
HOT ROD [with spoiler hiked high]: Maybe I will. More interesting than your junk processors anyway.
NEWSPARK 2: Fall in a smelting pit.
HOT ROD: Eat hot slag.
Y’know. Normal investigation stuff.
Only, the sparkeater must be really sick, or maybe they’re keeping it super sedated, because Wing has barely left the medical wing the past few months. And when he does come out to help with self-defense training or supervise in class, he looks worn down. Underfueled. And the metalmesh around his optics pinches like he’s worried or in pain.
Maybe the sparkeater has been eating him.
The thought is unnerving enough that Hot Rod actually volunteers to help clean around the shelter compound, trying to overhear news from the medical wing. Cygnus is so impressed by Hot Rod’s change of heart that she does actually give him the shifts he asks for, which means Hot Rod is stuck burning his olfactory sensors with cleaning chemicals while he listens to a whole lot of boring slag about the war and what Metalhawk is doing or not doing about it. None of the caretakers talk about the new arrival at all. Hot Rod goes to berth cranky several weeks in a row.
He decides to just suck up his pride and ask Wing about it.
Wing smiles sadly and strokes Hot Rod’s helmcrest. Hot Rod lets him. Usually he hates it when any of the caretaker mechs pet him, but it doesn’t feel belittling when Wing does it. Kind of feels like Wing is trying to comfort himself by comforting Hot Rod. Like Hot Rod is helping just by being there and reminding Wing that he isn’t alone.
“He was really hurt when the field rescue team found him,” Wing says softly. “The damage was down to the protoform and most of his nanites were fried. He needed a full-frame rebuild and nanite donation, and both of those were really hard to do when he was already undernourished.”
Hot Rod goes quiet at that. He remembers what starving feels like.
“Is that why you let it eat your spark?” He blurts out after a moment.
“What?” Wing gives him a funny look.
“Er.” Suddenly Hot Rod feels a bit foolish for believing the sparkeater rumor. “Some of the guys were saying…I don’t know…something about a sparkeater…?”
Wing laughs quietly. “I see. One of the fourth-protoform newsparks saw when I carried him in. It wasn’t pretty. Scared them half to death. That’s why I instructed Sirius to keep everyone out of the medical wing.” Wing strokes him again. “But no, he’s as Cybertronian as you or I. Sixth-protoform, actually.”
Hot Rod’s spoiler pops up. “We’re the same age!” It sinks back down after a moment. “Would’ve been cooler if he was a sparkeater…”
“That so?” Wing looks amused.
“What happened to him anyway? Caught in a firefight?”
“No,” Wing says. “Autobot carpet bombing. We pulled him out of a Decepticon field station.”
A Decepticon was a whole lot less interesting than a sparkeater. All the newsparks Hot Rod knew who came from Decepticon territories were fractious and jumped at shadows. They lurked at the fringes during classes and snapped up their energon rations before darting away. To his knowledge they didn’t even hang out with each other. “Is he okay now?” Hot Rod asks doubtfully.
He immediately feels sorry for asking. The creases return to Wing’s face and he stops patting Hot Rod to clasp his hands together. “We’ve done everything we can. The rest is up to him. If he wants to live.”
Hot Rod stops asking about the Decepticon after that. It’s a little unsettling to think that there’s a half-dead newspark a couple corridors from his berth. He’s starting to understand why Wing doesn’t want anyone looking in on the guy.
Apparently the Decepticon does want to live, though, because only a month or so after their conversation, Wing brightens right up. Hot Rod doesn’t even have to ask—it’s obvious that the Decepticon has gotten through the worst of it and will make a recovery. Another two months pass, and then Hot Rod actually catches a glimpse of the Decepticon in the metal. He’s licking at the last dregs of his energon ration in the mess hall, glossa shoved deep in the cube, when Wing passes by with the Decepticon in tow. Wing is speaking gently, explaining and gesturing to various corridors around the shelter. Hot Rod nearly chokes on his own glossa as he tosses the cube aside and sprints for the doorway just in time to see them turn the corner. Bright white armor over dark protoform, pointed finials, heavy shoulders, slinky gait, and standing almost as tall as Wing.
Hot Rod doesn’t have to wonder long about the new guy, because Wing stops self-defense class with all the sixth-protoform newsparks to introduce their newest addition: Drift.
“It’s Deadlock,” Drift snarls. His entire frame bristles, the plating separating to flare out and make him look extra spiny.
Wing raises an optic ridge tolerantly. “You were the one who told me a Decepticon pledge needs to earn his re-designation.”
“That’s—“ Drift snaps his teeth together and, woah, holy fang factor. “Don’t pretend like you understand my culture, old mech.”
Wing turns back to the gathered and cheerfully holds out his hands. “Drift here has had a rough start, so please be kind to him as he acclimates to our home.”
“I’m not staying here.”
This is…nothing like the Decepticons Hot Rod knows.
The others might have come from Decepticon camps and occupied territories, but this is the first one who actually acts like a Decepticon ought to. Or, at least, the first who acts like a Decepticon from the “war propaganda” holovids Cygnus always yells at the newsparks for watching. Drift is angry, hostile, and disrespectful. Wing offers him a few more words of welcome and Drift snorts and turns his back, stalking off across the compound with that same feline grace, uncaring of his audience.
Hot Rod’s spoiler wiggles. He kind of…really wants to be friends with Drift.
Hot Rod hasn’t made many (any) friends since Arcee left. It doesn’t bother him, really. Half of the newsparks have rusted out their processors and the other half are rotten slaggers. If anything, he’ll be doing Drift a favor by taking him on as a friend. An outstretched hand of sensibility and guidance. And if Hot Rod nets a lackey—ah, no, a friend—in the process…a big, snarly, scary friend…well. More power to Team Hot Rod.
It’s with this sense of import that Hot Rod approaches Drift a couple days later. Drift is crouched by the perimeter wall in the process of…scratching something into the dirt? He’s holding a shiv that he’s definitely not allowed to have at the shelter, but Hot Rod magnanimously decides to overlook this as a courtesy to his soon-to-be friend. He clears his throat when it becomes apparent Drift hasn’t noticed Hot Rod’s arrival. Drift continues to ignore him.
Rude.
Hot Rod goes as far as to tap Drift on his shoulder and gets a full mouth of terrifying—er, really cool—fangs whirling on him with a snarl. Drift’s electromagnetic field, stretched out so thin Hot Rod hadn’t felt himself pass into its perimeter, snaps in close, rushing over Hot Rod’s plating and startling him into drawing his own field in tight and protective. He holds both his hands up, pacifying, and takes a step back. Drift’s optics are the yellow of molten metal and equally as burning bright. His paint is polished and slick, with no cracks or dents to his frame that would suggest the damage Wing had spoken of when he brought Drift in. He looks every bit the fully-grown Decepticon he will soon become.
“Wicked,” Hot Rod breathes.
Hot exhaust hisses from Drift’s vents. His optic ridge twitches, then he makes as if to turn back around.
“Wait!” Hot Rod exclaims.
Drift’s optics shoot to Hot Rod’s hands, but Hot Rod has learned his lesson. He clasps his hands behind his back. Drift’s optics flick up to Hot Rod’s once Hot Rod has tucked his hands away and he grunts, the universal language for, Well? What do you want?
Hot Rod straightens up, spreading his spoiler high and proud. “So, Drift, seeing as you’re fresh energon and haven’t cozied up with a crew yet…maybe on account of how Decepticon-y you are, and all—not that I mind. ‘Cause I don’t. But anyway, I’ve been around the block, so to speak, and I’ve got room on my roster of pals and buddies for one more cool dude, so I thought I’d offer my services. Guide, friend, mentor—the works, y’know. What d’you say?” And he gives Drift his very best smile.
Drift eyes him for a long moment before he snorts and turns back to scratching around in the dirt.
Okay. Not exactly the classic, Hallmech moment Hot Rod was anticipating. But that’s fine. Hot Rod runs his engine half on tenacity.
So he tries again. And again. The first handful of overtures are greeted with the same level of barely restrained violence—Drift snaps his jaws at Hot Rod; wheels around with plating flared, Hot Rod’s size and half again of pissed Decepticon; lashes at him with his field, leaving Hot Rod’s neural net sore and oversensitized; revs his engines with a roar so ferocious it rattles Hot Rod’s finer components. But after a couple weeks of this runaround, Hot Rod manages to get under Drift’s plating. You can only threaten the same mech so many times before it gets boring, even for Decepticons it seems. They settle into a grudging sort of routine. Hot Rod approaches with only kindness and good in his spark; Drift rolls his eyes, or grunts, or simply stands up and vacates the area.
Hot Rod gets really good at tracking down Drift, too. He has his fair share of hidey-holes and less-frequented areas on the shelter grounds that he likes to retreat to if the atmosphere in the bunks or classrooms gets unbearable, but Drift is like…a freaking glitchrat or something. For a mech with such bulky armor, he manages to squeeze into some tight crawlspaces that even Hot Rod, with his lightweight, aerodynamic armor, would never attempt. He’s in the slagging walls. The ceiling insulation. Hacks the lock to a utility closet, and then makes it look like it hasn’t been tampered with.
Drift managed to evade Hot Rod for two whole days, and the smug little fragger actually smirked when Hot Rod finally found him in the mess. Hot Rod had huffed and puffed and not even tried to make friends that day, he was so heated. So in revenge, he spent the next three nights working on a program to actually track Drift. Hot Rod doesn’t have Drift’s comm frequency or his spark signature in his data banks, but he has been exposed, at length, to Drift’s EM field. Field trackers are finicky and usually inclined to failure since EM fields lack the individuality of a frequency or spark signature, but while Drift might be hard to pick out in a sea of Decepticons, that far-reaching, scraping field might as well be a homing beacon in a shelter full of NAILs.
Drift’s scowl after Hot Rod finds his fifth hiding place in a row is worth the backwards progress in friend-making.
At one point, Sirius pulls Hot Rod aside to commend him on his compassionate treatment of Drift, and how nice it is to see Hot Rod playing with the other mechs, but maybe Drift wants to be left alone for now, and blah, blah, blah. Hot Rod doesn’t feel he’s done anything particularly commendable and Sirius talks forever, so Hot Rod tunes him out at about the sixth word and funnels energy into his tactical matrix to figure out how he can get Drift’s attention next.
Hot Rod might have felt discouraged, if not for the fact that Drift rejected everyone. A handful of other newsparks caught onto Hot Rod’s game with Drift and tried their hand at it. Drift snarled at them like he had at Hot Rod, but unlike Hot Rod, these mechs squealed in their hurry to transform and run away. Which was kind of dumb, if you asked Hot Rod. Like, yeah, Drift could be scary when he put his back struts into it, but he was also hilarious. Like when he poked holes in the sleeping tarps with his claws while hanging them up to dry on chore duty, or when his claw got caught in the pull tab for his energon ration. Both times he got this kind of blank expression on his face, like he was trying so hard to play it cool while his finials flicked up and down. Hot Rod was so delighted that he pulled the short clip from his flash memory into long-term storage. When else would he have the opportunity to see an embarrassed mini-Decepticon?
Honestly, it’s kind of fun, if not in the way Hot Rod intended. He likes to think Drift is more entertained than he is annoyed by their game. Hot Rod is a lot less bored now that Drift is around, at least.
Hot Rod forgets they don’t exist in a vacuum.
He’s so used to the script that he forgets what it might look like to mechs who aren’t in the know. Hot Rod trots up to Drift; Hot Rod makes some outrageous proposal of camaraderie and brotherhood; Drift rudely—but with an air of amusement—turns him down. The rejection is expected, basically choreographed at this point, and Hot Rod isn’t the slightest bit bothered, until he hears sniggering behind his back.
He turns, curious more than anything, and realizes the group of five newsparks are laughing at him, at them; at Hot Rod’s genuine overture of friendship, at Drift’s casual rejection. Mortification blooms in his field before he can think to stifle it, and all he can do is clench his fists, snap his field close, and glare at them. They don’t get it; they don’t understand Drift like he does, and they aren’t invited to know.
And they seem to have forgotten exactly who and what they’re dealing with, or they wouldn’t have laughed so blatantly at a hostile Decepticon pledge who could see fit at any moment to remind them of their place. And boy, does Drift see fit to do so.
He gives no warning growl or bristle of plating. Drift lunges at the group, fangs and claws outstretched. His engine rackets up to an audial-splitting scream in less a second—a crisp, snarling, racing engine that has more than enough power to chase down each and every one of them and rip them to pieces.
He lands close enough to the group that his shimmering exhaust makes their paint bubble. The newsparks scream and fall over each other in their clamor to escape. Two of them leak a little oil in the process. Drift doesn’t pursue but lets another roar tear out of his powerful engine in warning, lip curled over fangs that had been sharpened to points rather than filed down to harmless nubs.
Maybe Hot Rod has forgotten how scary Drift can be, too. He falls on his aft at the first scream of Drift’s engine, Drift’s flashing golden eyes glinting off of talons lingering in afterimages when Hot Rod resets his optics. His servos lock up and he couldn’t have run even if he wanted to. He just stares stupidly up at the brilliant, terrifying star of Drift’s overclocked frame, almost too painful to look at directly.
And then Drift locks optics with Hot Rod and his servos feel fit to move again, except rather than doing anything useful, they set his frame shaking. Like every nut and bolt holding Hot Rod together has come loose. Drift’s optics are still fervor-bright, almost white. Hot Rod drops his gaze before he knows it, looking at his pedes as if they somehow hold the answer.
Drift goes very still, his engines stalling. A moment later they rev back to life and for the first time, Drift transforms in front of Hot Rod. His alt mode is a sleek muscle car that zips away as soon as his wheels hit the ground. Hot Rod doesn’t have even a second to gawk at him, or to try to goad him into racing. He slumps back, exhausted.
Drift stops playing their game after that.
He relocates to the roof which is, inconveniently, one of the few hiding places Hot Rod can’t access. Not that he won’t give it his very best try. After he falls on his aft for the fifth time—not even halfway up—he vents loudly from the ground and scowls up at Drift, whose yellow optics peer at him from over the gutter.
“How did you even get up there?” Hot Rod demands. “You don’t have wings or grapples. You’re a speedster like me!”
Drift narrows his eyes and turns his head, muttering, “Shouldn’t have done that…”
It is, Hot Rod realizes, the first time Drift has spoken to him. Or, well, spoken adjacent to him.
He sits up. “Can’t you show me?” he wheedles. “I promise not to bother you that much if you do.” Crosses his fingers behind his back.
Drift rolls his eyes and doesn’t say anything more, no matter how Hot Rod tries to taunt him into conversation.
“Fine! You’ll have to come down eventually. And once you do, I’ll catch you when you're climbing back up.”
Except, well, where Hot Rod has excelled at tracking Drift, Drift has excelled at evading Hot Rod. He doesn’t see so much as a flash of Drift’s paint anywhere on the shelter grounds, not even at the mess or by Wing’s private quarters, which is where Drift also recharges. Hot Rod only ever sees him up on that pit-spawned roof, tapping on a datapad with his legs swung over the side, or stretched out languidly, taking a nap. Drift stops going to class, too.
Hot Rod waits for Wing to say something, but when it becomes clear that Wing is going to let Drift work through this on his own, Hot Rod takes matters into his own servos. Like, c’mon. Drift can’t cut class. That’s Hot Rod’s thing.
So every day Hot Rod tries to climb up onto the roof, and every day he slips, or loses his grip, or gets too tired and ends up on his back or his aft or his belly, flat on the ground. Drift laughs at him too, in that really mean way that would normally set Hot Rod off. But Drift always hooks his chin over the gutter and observes with watchful optics, not laughing until Hot Rod groans and rolls over, or slams his fist against the ground, or sits up with his plating fluffed. Drift doesn’t laugh until he sees that Hot Rod isn’t really hurt.
And yeah, Hot Rod doesn’t end up with anything worse than a bent tailpipe or dented fender, but his pride sure is taking a lashing. This is going to take patience and strategy, neither of which are his strong points. What he really needs is extra practice, off the clock, when Drift can’t see him flailing like a sparkling learning to walk.
He waits until after curfew when all the other mechs are deep in recharge, then slips the guard and returns to Drift’s corner of the roof. Hot Rod stands, hands on hips, and lets his field stretch to map the combination of crumbling structure and dilapidated generators and sheds that Drift must use to haul himself onto the roof. Hot Rod spends the next hour or so scrambling around without any thought to how silly he must look, only returning to his berth once he crashes loud enough to attract the attention of the guard drones.
Hot Rod assumes no mech cares enough to follow him out of berth, but he would be wrong. Wing does not interfere, but he does tail Hot Rod, silent and invisible, to make sure he isn’t getting himself into trouble he can’t get himself out of. And Wing permits the equally silent but not imperceptible tracking of himself by Drift. Wing suspects Drift does not know what Wing is up to and is simply regarding Wing with blanket suspicion.
He is proven right when he stops to observe Hot Rod from a shadowed vantage point and after a moment of contemplation, Drift reveals himself and joins him. His optics widen and he tenses when he sees Hot Rod’s pedes scrambling uselessly against the slick side of a defunct energon refinery still. Hot Rod slides rather pathetically backwards until he falls back to the ground, catching himself with a slight stumble. He shakes his body as if wet and his spoiler twitches. He crosses his arms and taps his pede, muttering to himself. Drift narrows his eyes but can’t look away from Hot Rod. Wing doesn’t look away from Drift.
When Drift finally catches him watching, he scowls and starts to bristle. Wing nods at Hot Rod and shrugs one shoulder. Drift bristles harder and stomps off. Satisfied that Hot Rod is only up to his usual shenanigans, Wing follows Drift back to their shared hab.
Hot Rod’s nightly efforts pay off. He is able to climb higher each time he tries to reach Drift and feels less discouraged when he falls. He notices Drift isn’t laughing at him anymore and takes that as a sign that he’s on the right path, which is even more encouraging. And then finally, after two weeks of trial and error, Hot Rod finally gets high enough to wrap a hand around the gutter. He crows in victory. Then promptly begins to lose his grip and squeaks in alarm.
He hears an exasperated huff and then—impossibly—Drift’s hand catches him around the forearm, his claws carefully pressed into armor where the sensation only tickles. Drift hauls Hot Rod up and over the edge of the roof and to safety like he’s a sack of coolant packs.
Hot Rod is ecstatic. He barely manages to gasp out a quick ‘thanks’ to Drift before he’s on his feet and ready to charge across the new territory. His engine revs excitedly and he takes four quick, prancing steps before his celebration is cut short. Hot Rod is bodyslammed to the ground, the wind knocked out of him, and Drift is in his face, fangs bared.
“Idiot!” Drift snarls. “Don’t let everyone know we’re up here!”
Hot Rod stares up at Drift with wide eyes, completely frozen. He has never been easily thrown around like that. Drift overpowered him like the energy cost was nothing to him. Hot Rod’s threat assessment routines scream at him and he has been forcibly shocked into high alert, his fans spinning up as energy reroutes to his tactical matrix in anticipation of combat.
Drift’s own eyes widen and just as fast as he had brought Hot Rod down, he is off of him and two body lengths away. Hot Rod manages to sit up and sees that Drift won’t look directly at him, glancing at him and away the next moment. His fists clench and unclench.
“I didn’t mean to…” Drift starts. His vents hiss steam. “You were just—you were too loud.”
It takes Hot Rod a moment to come off high alert, and another moment longer for his spark to stop spinning wildly in its chamber. He’s not sure what to say. Drift seems just as uncertain, hunched into himself and looking straight ahead at the horizon even though his field is tickling at the edges of Hot Rod’s, pulled tight to his plating.
Hot Rod scratches at his nose. Well, if words fail…
He gets up and scoots closer to Drift. Drift’s plating puffs in response to the proximity, his field going haywire, but he doesn’t growl at Hot Rod. Still won’t look at him unless it’s out of the corner of his eye. That’s…promising. Probably. Hot Rod is starting to suspect that Drift is just used to playing rough and didn’t intend to hurt or scare him. He dares to pet Drift’s plating, flattening it back against his protoform. Drift’s eyes bug out at that and his plating fluffs right back up, which is honestly kind of funny. Like petting a silodenta cat, with the added benefit of not losing his hand.
Hot Rod pushes his luck even further and pokes at the exposed protoform between raised armor plates. Drift’s plating snaps tight and nearly takes off Hot Rod’s finger. Drift does turn to snarl at Hot Rod for that, but Hot Rod just grins.
“You’re not mean at all, are you Drift?” He teases. “You’re a nice little Decepticon.”
Drift rolls his eyes.
His field finally calms down, returning to its usual long, flowing reach. He turns to drop his legs over the side of the roof and let them dangle. Rodimus joins him, kicking his pedes back and forth cheerfully.
Drift hesitates, then mumbles, “Deadlock. If you’re going to use a designation, use that one.”
Hot Rod beams. “Then call me Rodimus!”
He fluffs his plating, totally chuffed. Drift tenses at the display, but he must sense the elation in Hot Rod’s field because he eases up without any coaxing.
“I figure it’s a bit more, y’know, leaderly,” Hot Rod continues. “Nothing wrong with ‘Hot Rod’ but it doesn’t exactly scream ‘dedicated section in the Iacon Hall of Records,’ does it?”
“The Hall of Records?” Drift sounds amused.
“What, they don’t have the Hall of Records at Decepticon school? Sounds like someone shouldn’t be skipping Cygnus’s history lessons.”
Drift elbows him. “Glitch. Obviously I know what the Hall of Records is. What is your name doing there? ‘A study in how not to conduct diplomatic relations’?”
“Ha-ha, very funny,” Hot Rod sniffs, sticking his nose in the air. “I’ll be getting the last laugh when I’m famous and you’re telling everyone you used to hang out with the Rodimus.”
“Don’t you mean ‘infamous’?”
Hot Rod peeks at him. Drift is trying very hard not to smile. Hot Rod tries very hard not to let his spoiler wiggle.
“What will you even be famous for?” Drift asks.
Hot Rod waves a hand. “Not important. I’ll figure it out as I go along. I just know deep in my struts that I was forged for greatness. You wouldn’t understand.”
Drift snorts. “No, no—you’re right. I am naught but a humble grunt. I shall defer to my lord Rodimus in these matters of import.” And he turns to Hot Rod and dips his helm low with a handsy flourish.
Hot Rod starts to feel a little embarrassed, actually. He coughs. “Erm. None of that. A friend of the great Rodimus will of course be great himself. It’s only natural. Anything less would make me look bad.”
Drift lifts his head to roll his eyes. “Naturally.” Pauses. “‘Friend’?”
Hot Rod fidgets. Too soon? But this feels so different from their game. He thought, maybe… Then Hot Rod notices Drift’s finials flicking back and forth. He’s not even sure Drift knows he’s doing it. That same, embarrassed, unconscious motion as when his claws get stuck in stuff. And Drift’s field is open even if his expression is pinched and guarded.
Could…could he be happy?
“Yeah,” Hot Rod says impulsively. “We’re friends, aren’t we? Hot Rod and Drift, Rodimus and Deadlock. C’mon. We make a great team.”
“I don’t do friends,” Drift says, but his finials are still twitching with interest.
“Ugh, don’t be such a killjoy, ‘Lock. You totally wanna be my friend. You saved my aft earlier.”
“Maybe I just felt sorry for you.”
“I thought Decepticons don’t do pity?”
“We don’t.” Drift stretches his arms above his head then leans back to stretch out his whole body along the slope of the roof. “Guess Wing’s NAIL slag is getting to me.”
Hot Rod flops back next to him. “Nah, you kinda like me. And obvs I’ve wanted to be your friend this whole time. Don’t give me that look.”
Drift does indeed give him that look.
“Tell you what,” Hot Rod says. “You give this whole friendship thing a whirl, and if I drive you too crazy you can push me off the roof, no hard feelings. ‘Kay?”
Drift sits up. “Really?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re sure.”
“Yeah, dude, but don’t hold your vents or anything. You won’t regret it. I’m awesome. Got mechs lining up from all over to pal up with ol’ Rodimus. No one here, of course, they all suck major tail. You’re cool though, so I think—uh.”
Hot Rod looks over to see Drift with his legs bunched under him, crouched and poised to leap at him. He turns a wicked, fanged grin on Hot Rod, then lunges.
Hot Rod lets out an undignified squeak as Drift knocks him back and pins Hot Rod again with his superior weight. But this time the grin stays and his finials flick playfully. He lowers his fangs to Hot Rod’s audial slowly so Hot Rod can see just how sharp they are before he hisses: “Deal.”
Hot Rod huffs and blasts Drift with steam. Drift laughs and shakes his head, flopping strutless on top of Hot Rod. Hot Rod kicks at him, complaining about how heavy he is. Drift responds by squirming up Hot Rod’s body to mash his cheek into the roof with the weight of his chest. And then they’re tussling.
“Drift! Hot Rod! Get off the roof this instant!”
Wing’s voice. Both of the newsparks freeze up, and in the process lose their balance mid-grapple and start to tumble towards the far edge of the roof. Drift’s claws scrabble for purchase with angry screeches while his other arm grabs Hot Rod around the middle. His claws catch briefly before they slip and both of them go hurtling over the gutter. They crash in a groaning pile of dented plating and bent components.
Rodimus rises first, shaking the gyros in his helm back into place. He staggers to his pedes, hooking an arm under Deadlock’s shoulder and hauling him upright. They look at each other, dazed for a moment, before breaking into matching grins.
.
.
.
After that, they are inseparable. Rodimus didn’t have any friends to start, and Deadlock refused to let anyone but Wing close to him, so they form their own, impenetrable two-mech bubble of inside jokes and games and play. Rodimus still ignores the rest of the shelter populace. Deadlock is still frigid with and growls at anyone who isn’t one of his two trusted confidantes.
Wing notes this with trepidation.
He wants to be happy for them. Rodimus had been desperately lonely after Arcee left, whether he would admit it or not. His hot-headed, bulldozing personality pushed away many mechanisms. In some ways, Deadlock, with his own stubbornness and aggression, is the perfect match for Rodimus. They’ve knocked their heads together enough that they’ve been forced to learn to give ground to each other.
But Deadlock, despite his young age, lived his formative years with Decepticons. He may be only a pledge, but he thinks like a ‘con and acts like a ‘con. As he made clear to Wing, their culture is his culture. And while Wing is a tried and true NAIL, he knows enough about ‘con culture to worry at how Deadlock smothers Rodimus.
Typically, Decepticons only touch their own to reinforce the status quo. Sometimes this means physically enforcing their superiority over a mech lower in the pecking order. Other times it means reassuring their squadmates that they are safe and welcome. Brushing plating or fields, napping while curled around each other, singing or howling in a group; that kind of thing.
Certainly, Deadlock does all of the above with Rodimus, and he never truly injures him, even when their play turns rough. But Deadlock also rests his claws on Rodimus’s nape when they are at ease, leaning into him with an arm slung around his shoulders. He nips at Rodimus’s side, aiming for protoform. When they play fight, Deadlock always tries to get on top of Rodimus to pin him.
All heavy, possessive touches that smack to Wing of imprinting. Decepticons don’t imprint. But feral mechs—NAILs—without any relations do, in order to form their own trusted family units. Wing had suspected Deadlock was a feral mech picked up by Decepticons and not a Decepticon sparkling himself; this behavior all but confirms it. Imprinting, coupled with Decepticon aggression, is a recipe for disaster. Wing worries for Rodimus’s safety, especially if one day he comes to reject Deadlock in some way.
Say, for example, if he was chosen by a holy artifact in possession of the Autobot forces.
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