Is this... the first thing I’ve written with only autobot characters? With two autobot characters? Hmm.
idw canon-adjacent, early Phase 2
Jazz’s shiny new hab on shiny new Cybertron was a worn-out cubby in a worn-down block of rooms that he remembered needing a repaint back at the start of the war, when Metroplex was an Autobot base. It was funny the kinds of things you got nostalgic for. Anyway, it was familiar, which shorted his usual six-month settling-in period for learning all the sounds, rhythms, and defenses of a new place to crash before he could recharge at half efficiency. Which isn’t to say, no offense to Metroplex, that he hadn’t made his own improvements.
Even without them, he would’ve known who was waiting for him well before he opened the door. When Prowl looked up from the couch—because Jazz had a couch, now—his optics were next to fritzing.
“We’re letting them win, Jazz,” he said. Prowl had never been one for pleasantries, even at the best of times. Jazz moseyed over to a cupboard and pulled out two cubes of mid-grade, one thick with supplements for a processor that ran too hot every day of its functioning. Prowl took it eventually, when Jazz held it in front of his face.
“Mech. If this is what you think a Decepticon victory looks like, you need to recalibrate your reality matrix,” he said, settling next to Prowl on the couch, legs pretzeled, facing him. “What have we been fighting for, these last million years? We wanted Megatron to stop slagging planets. Well, here we are. We did it. He’s done. We even got a planet of our own again.” He sipped his energon. The colonists may have adopted Decepticon cubes, but their distillates were still way better than rations.
“This can’t be it,” Prowl said, glaring into his cube like it was resisting interrogation. “There are still Decepticons everywhere, and these NAILS—"
Jazz interrupted that rant before it could get going. “I know the neutrals grind your gears, but what are you going to do, kill everyone without a red badge?” He didn’t think they were at the point where that was a serious consideration. “Maybe this peace won’t keep; Primus knows, the ’cons have never known when to quit. But you know where I was tonight?” He waited for Prowl to look up. “I was in a bar, listening to music. On Cybertron. I didn’t have to shoot at anybody or get shot at. You can’t tell me that ain’t something new.” He pointedly took another drink.
“Does any of that matter, if the Decepticons kill us all tomorrow?” Prowl was cooling down a little, incorporating that data as he spun the cube in his hands. Jazz nudged it until he started drinking too. “I can’t predict what’s coming next,” he finally said, coming to the heart of the problem. “There’s too many sides, too many new variables, and the Autobots are fractured like never before.”
“You and Bee, you’re used to running things,” Jazz said. He sympathized, he did; for a mech like Prowl, that’s where he was happiest. That was where he felt useful—and he always felt he had to be useful. “You’re used to being the ones who have to run things. I’m thinking, maybe that’s not true anymore. Maybe it shouldn’t be true.” Peaceful governance might be the one arena where the neutrals could actually pull their own weight, and… maybe the Autobots bossing other folks around didn’t sit with him so good, anymore. It didn’t end up great on Earth. It didn’t even really win them the war. “If any plan you make now is going to get you nowhere, maybe you just sit back and see how it goes, for a little while. Chill out some, charge up, and be on the lookout for an opening where you can jump back in if you have to.”
Prowl seemed to hear him, but he was still looking a little desperate around the edges. He was wondering if there was a crank in shiny new Cybertron for a cog of his specs, too. “I’ve never been good at improvisation,” he said, which was high in the running for understatement of the megavorn.
“That’s what you come to me for,” Jazz teased.
That simple acknowledgement near as stopped his spark. Prowl kept their gazes locked as he drained the rest of his cube, trust and challenge in equal measure. Jazz rewarded him with a crooked smile. “Well. Take it from a maestro: sometimes the most important thing you can do is rest.”
Prowl cocked his head as he analyzed. “Is that another music metaphor?”
“Worse,” Jazz admitted, “it’s a pun. But it’s also the truth. Come on, Prowl. Let’s go to bed.”
yousharknotpass
snowghoul
titsay
baratheonpilled
jbbartram-illu
