A gift for @deformed-car! Sorry for the delay on this gift. One of your prompts was for Soundwave and the cassettes, so I went with Soundwave (and Ravage & Laserbeak) meeting Frenzy and Rumble in IDW. Hope you enjoy it!
“Soundwave, report.”
Standing in Senator Ratbat’s private office, Soundwave had to resist the urge to turn off his visor to deal with the throbbing in his helm. Instead, he fixed his gaze on a point just over Ratbat’s shoulder and started to review his mental notes of the day’s Senate session.
“Senate, gridlocked,” he said. “Factions, currently divided into four. Today’s debates, pointless, senate members remain unconvinced by new arguments. Senator Dai Atlas, maintains minimal support. Senators Decimus, Proteus, aim to consolidate their own bases of power.”
The sour taste of their plotting, orange and bitter, still coated the back of his glossa. It wasn’t helped by the way Ratbat was watching him smugly, sure in his victory with his secret weapon at his side. Soundwave suppressed the urge to swallow, knowing that the action wouldn’t remove the lingering sensation, and might make Ratbat suspicious of him.
“Yes, that much was obvious from the day’s debates. What are they planning to do about it? They can’t be planning to steal Dai Atlas’s support, that’s too little to make a difference with three major groups.” Ratback leaned back in his chair, humming thoughtfully. “Blackmail? They certainly would have enough on Crosscut, perhaps, or Concinus…”
His thoughts stuck like tar. Soundwave cut him off before he could mire himself too far in them. “Both Senators, considering you,” he said. “Their mining holdings, in direct competition. They will not form an alliance.”
This had Ratbat’s optics lightening considerably. He laced his fingers together in front of his face, but even if Soundwave had not felt the swell of sickly-sweet triumph in the Senator, the smile would have been obvious.
“Well, that is something to consider,” Ratbat said, slowly pleased. “I shall have to do some… networking, before tomorrow’s session.”
Soundwave nodded stiffly. “My services, required?” he asked. He could only hope that Ratbat released him from his duties sometime soon. If he was forced to follow the Senator through his attempts to curry favor with either Decimus or Proteus—or, more likely, to play both sides—then his helmache would only grow worse, and he’d start off tomorrow’s session already nursing a throbbing in his processor.
But Ratbat only waved him away. “No, no,” he said. “I have other tasks for you. You must make your way to the arena and work on our… special project.”
--
The gladiatorial arenas induced no less a helmache in Soundwave, but at least in this case, the complexity was replaced by pure bloodlust, and he was not obligated to stand in the middle of it. Still, he found himself focusing on Laserbeak’s comforting weight on his shoulder, and the solid, familiar presence of Ravage in his tape deck as he walked the winding corridors of the gladiatorial barracks toward the room Megatron had claimed for himself. Laserbeak leaned delicately against his helm, and surely would have started preening him if they weren’t in public, while Ravage started up the soothing rumble of a purr. Soundwave focused on the familiar comfort of their processors and their feelings of concern as he walked.
It did not reduce the pain in his helm, but it made it easier to push back the feeling of the match that had to be going on in the arena above. Maybe Megatron’s presence would do the same. Something about that mech’s purpose… it was so easy to fall into and forget the world beyond. It might be enough to make him forget the way every light felt like a dagger shearing through his visor right into his processor.
Only, when Soundwave finally reached the rooms and slipped inside, there was no Megatron to be found. Instead, Soundwave found himself exchanging surprised stares with a pair of mechs about a third of his height.
“Hey!” One of them shouted, pointing at him. Belatedly, Soundwave recognized them as being some of Megatron’s hangers-on, his fellow escaped miners. Rumble and Frenzy, he thought they were called, “What are you doing here?”
“Soundwave, searching for Megatron,” he said.
The other mech—that one was Frenzy, Soundwave thought—gave a snorting laugh. “Yeah, well, he ain’t here,” he said. “He’s up top beating the slag out of Roadrust or some other poor fragger. So what’re you going to do?”
They were both watching him suspiciously, though they had not allowed themselves to pull away. Soundwave could feel the citrus tang of nerves-curiosity-apprehension flickering through them as their visors darted between his faceplates, Laserbeak, and his chest compartment.
“With your permission,” Soundwave said calmly, “Wait.”
The two exchanged glances. “Guess not,” said the first one, Rumble. He jumped up onto the berth and adopted an aggressively lounging pose. Frenzy didn’t bother, he just crossed his arms and glowered in Soundwave’s direction.
Soundwave didn’t take his attention off of the two, but he let Laserbeak butting up against his cheek distract him a little, and he raised a hand to gently trace his fingers along the bird-cassette’s wings. He felt an enquiring ping from Ravage, and let his chest fold away to allow the other cassette to emerge. Ravage did so immediately, leaping out to prowl the room curiously, giving Rumble and Frenzy a generous radius.
Soundwave let it happen. Ravage would not be satisfied with Soundwave staying in an unexplored room, especially when his abilities were leaving him so tired today. And certainly not when there were two potentially hostile presences for Soundwave to keep track of.
Soundwave would not do anything to them unless provoked, of course—they were Megatron’s allies, and Soundwave would not upset the tenuous balance of his own position with Megatron, particularly not when the initial meeting had been at Ratbat’s request. He still had to prove that his interest in Megatron’s cause was due to more than the whims of his current master.
“Hey.”
Soundwave looked away from Ravage, who was very thoroughly investigating a floor-level vent, to find both minis staring at him with oddly intent expressions. Soundwave tilted his head toward them, and they both shuffled, nervous, but did not take their visors off him.
“You’re one of those hosts, right?” Rumble asked, pointing directly at Soundwave’s chest. When Soundwave nodded, Frenzy piped up as well.
“So you don’t, like. Steal them to make them your slaves, or something like that?”
Soundwave frowned. “Negative,” he said, firmly. The thought of forcing Ravage or Laserbeak to serve him, when they’d saved his spark in so many ways…
Neither cassette had Soundwave’s ability to sense thoughts, but they did not need it to read him, by now. Laserbeak settled down against his shoulder with a shrill cry, and Ravage circled back around to him, weaving between Soundwave’s legs before sitting pointedly at his side. Soundwave petted them both, then looked back to Frenzy and Rumble. “Cassettes, willing partners.”
He could still sense the complicated mix of emotions behind their intense visors. “Frenzy, Rumble, curious?” he asked.
“No!” “No way!” They shouted together, scoffing and turning away from Soundwave determinedly. “We just wanted to know if we’d need to beat you up.”
“Beating, not required,” Soundwave told them, shaking his helm. Reaching a decision, he settled down into a kneel, careful not to disturb Laserbeak as he did so. Ravage settled in against his side, chassis beginning to rumble once again with a purr. “Soundwave, will not do anything Rumble and Frenzy do not agree to.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t agree to that.” Rumble sniffed, and Frenzy nodded, but there was less vehemence to the statements than Soundwave had received when he first arrived, and the glances the two were throwing at him now were just a bit more curious than suspicious, now.
Things lapsed into silence for a little while, as Soundwave paid attention to Ravage and Laserbeak and tried to relax and let the knotted pounding in his processor lessen. It even lessened somewhat, though it would take a true shutdown away from others to set him fully to rights.
“Do you just do beastformers?” Frenzy asked, leaning toward him to break the silence. He was looking now between Laserbeak and Ravage, who were eying him back with what Soundwave could feel was just as much wary interest.
“And how do you do it?” Rumble asked, optics narrowing. “You don’t have to steal their sparks or anything, do you?”
“Partners, not selected by frametype,” Soundwave said, shaking his helm. “And partnering process, not permanent.”
“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t steal their sparks,” Rumble grumbled, but they both seemed further mollified.
“Don’t think we’ll trust you so easily!” Frenzy echoed him, as both crossed their arms and retreated once more.
“Soundwave, would not assume.”
Assumptions would get him killed in the grim underworld of the gladiator arenas. So would letting his guard down, even to a pair of minibots such as these two. And yet…
Soundwave’s spark felt buoyed up. It was not the same effect as Megatron had on him, but they soothed his spark nevertheless, these two spiky bundles of emotion. It was not unlike the effect Ravage and Laserbeak already had on him. Clearly, they felt it too—or at least they felt something. The pink-yellow starbursts of their interest were a precious beginning, one that Soundwave refused to squander.
He would prove himself worthy of their trust, just as he would Megatron’s. He let this conviction slip into his visor as he raised his helm to them, meeting each of theirs in turn. “Becoming cassettes, will be your choice. Soundwave, promises so.”
They scoffed, and laughed, and withdrew into wary observation until Megatron finally arrived, but Soundwave let them be. This was only the first step, after all. He would earn his place in time.
