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Nov 8, 2024

caught in the undertow

Chapter: 5/?

Rated: E

Relationship(s): Optimus Prime/Megatron, Sentinel Prime/Bumblebee

Summary:

When Megatron, leader of the rebellion, escaped from prison, everybot knew one thing, and one thing only: he stole an innocent with him.

---

"I'm not a sheep, how dare you!" Orion hissed, bristling at the insult.

"Oh, really?" Megatron drawled. His red optics glanced up again, and Orion's glossa went dry.

Scrap.

Who knew the cruel and ruthless leader of the blasphemous rebellion was so... handsome?

Act I, Scene X: Float Like a Butterfly…

Bee purposefully turned off all of the live feed cameras the two times that they wound up doing this, even though it was a pain to set up a feedback loop and maintain a steady visual of footage that he used from previous recordings. A lot of work was required, but it minimized the risk of anything new accidentally getting recorded, which would definitely result in being demoted even more (something which Bee wasn't even sure was possible), or worse.

Though Bee knew the worst punishment was reserved only for criminals like the rebels, it still made his spark stutter in anxiety over the thought that there was a high chance that he and Orion could end up in one of the smaller prisons scattered throughout Iacon.

“What’re you thinking about, Bee?”

Bee blinked as he looked over to find Sentinel sitting on the floor, a position definitely not dignified for someone of his station. Looking at him now, even with his legs crossed and his back curled forward as he laid his chin on his servo, it was easy to glean that he was an aristocrat.

Sometimes, Bee didn’t understand how they became friends. It was honestly a bit of a blur, but, he thought with a fond ex-vent, it had definitely been Orion’s fault.

“Nothing,” Bee said after realizing he had been silent for too long. He glanced over his shoulder plate again, gnawing on his bottom derma as he stared at the frozen frame of Megatron still in his cell. It was just a single picture Bee had taken to act as a cover for any trails they might leave behind, but just that motionless image was enough to make him shudder.

It was made even worse by the idea that Orion was in there, with Megatron, the city's most wanted criminal.

“Uh, what do you think they're talking about?” Bee asked, shuffling closer to Sentinel, as if being in proximity with his friend would take away the heat of the monitor, the reminder that Orion was possibly getting beaten up or stomped on or whatever else it was that rebels liked to do.

Sentinel’s wings twitched. They stiffened slightly and then forcefully soothed themselves, which meant Sentinel had unintentionally moved them and was trying to cover up the fact, but Bee knew better. That particular flinch meant that Sentinel was anxious; it wasn’t uncommon to see him as such, but still.

Bee worried.

“Who cares,” Sentinel muttered petulantly. His voice was gruff and he seemed to be more concerned with sounding annoyed than being honest, but when Bee wandered closer and his finials waved hopefully, Sentinel sighed like he was doing a huge labor and begrudgingly crossed his legs, letting Bee climb into his lap with a happy chirp. “It doesn’t matter what they’re talking about. All Orion has to do is stuff the energon down his throat and he’ll be out, easy.”

“Right. Easy.” Bee echoed, and they exchanged hesitant glances, an undercurrent of doubt rising.

It wasn’t like Bee was stupid, or blind. He knew that Orion was being weird about Megatron, and Sentinel, who was probably the most observant out of all of them, definitely saw it too. There was always a distracted look on Orion's face whenever the subject of the rebel came up, and it wasn’t an expression of disgust or anger.

It was just… contemplation. Curiosity. And Bee knew personally just how dangerous Orion was whenever he became curious about something, and he also knew how dangerous Megatron was, period. So when those two things combined together, he couldn’t even begin to predict what would happen.

“He’s been acting weird,” Bee whispered, his legs hanging over the side of one of Sentinel’s thighs while his back rested against his arm. Like this, Bee could press his audial gently to a side of Sentinel’s chassis, and if he listened carefully, he could pick up the steady beats of his spark. “I’m not imagining it, right?”

For a moment, Sentinel didn’t speak. He was so still that if Bee didn’t hear the soft way he was venting, he would have believed he was a statue. Finally, Sentinel huffed out a slow breath, and his servo on his patella tightened its grip as he said, “no, you’re not. But don’t worry about it, okay? You know him. He’s always a little strange.”

“Not like this,” Bee muttered. “He’s not - it’s - Sentinel, what is this?”

He was immediately distracted by the sight of a bruise. A fresh one, judging by how it was a dark blue color, and Bee’s processor flicked up the memory of when they had met only a sol ago, when Sentinel definitely did not have a fist-shaped injury right on the top of his chassis plate.

“It’s nothing,” Sentinel said quickly. His servo reached up and firmly covered it, and he smiled at Bee, a charming half-grin that showed his dimple, and he said, “don’t worry. I’m fine.”

“You are not fine,” Bee cried out, leaning back so he had a wider view of his friend. A new bruise on his arm; a scratch on his neck cables; the chipping of paint on his shoulder that revealed soft silver underneath. Holy slag. These weren’t just injuries from scuffles or tripping, they were - “who’s been hurting you? Sentinel!”

“No one is hurting me!” Sentinel said in exasperation, looking away and deliberately not making optic contact. His wings were twitching again, frigid and jerking as they fought against their master’s attempts to control them. He ex-vented slowly and muttered, “just leave it, Bee. Don’t be dramatic.”

Bee made a wounded noise at that, and he knew Sentinel felt guilty as soon as the aristocrat flinched and tried to reach for him when Bee stood up from his lap and immediately crowded himself closer to the console, but he didn’t care, he didn’t care about the way Sentinel was looking at him, all soft and achy and hurt, and Bee wanted to cry.

“You and Orion always try to keep things from me.” Bee sobbed, and he felt his finials droop immensely as he sniffled like a sparkling and looked to the side. He couldn't stand knowing that Sentinel felt guilty, because Bee was well aware of how much his friends hated seeing him so upset.

But why did it matter? If they hated making him so sad, why did they keep doing it?

Bee just wanted things to be back to where it was. Before Orion was more occupied with a criminal than the bots who had stood by his side for vorns, and before Sentinel kept coming back to them sporting new injuries and insisting that they were nothing.

“Bee,” Sentinel croaked. The sound of him standing up and coming closer just made Bee look to the side even more, stubbornly refusing to turn his helm as Sentinel ex-vented heavily and ran a giant servo gently across Bee's side. “Come on, don't be like this. I didn't mean to say it like that, it came out wrong. I just…”

Bee sniffed. It was a pitiful sound, and Sentinel made another soft, wounded click of static from his voicebox.

“You have to understand. I don't deliberately keep things from you,” Sentinel murmured, his digits stroking across Bee's hip, like he always did back when they were stupid teenagers and Orion did something that got them in trouble and Bee sought comfort in Sentinel. Fragger. He knows my weak spots, some bitter part of Bee muttered. “But some stuff has to remain confidential.”

“Go away,” Bee said miserably.

“Bee.” Sentinel sighed.

“Go,” Bee repeated.

“How exactly are you two going to get home if I'm not here?” Sentinel asked in disbelief.

That finally made Bee whirl around, and he threw his servos up as he exclaimed, “I don't know! We'll walk! We'll plummet to our deaths, and that'll be the end of that! It's not like you can even attend our crappy cremation ceremonies, not when you're too ashamed to show anyone that we're friends!”

Sentinel looked like Bee had struck him.

Bee immediately clasped his shaky digits to his intake, his optics wide and filled with tears as they slowly spilled over, warm and pooling into the seams of his servos as he whispered, “oh, Primus, I-I didn't mean that. I'm sorry. Oh, Sentinel, I…”

“It's fine,” Sentinel said gruffly.

“Sen,” Bee said weakly.

They stood there, cooling fans whirring and the air distinctly thick with tension. Bee felt awful, like a grounder had run him over under their wheels, and the worst part was knowing that Sentinel and Orion never did any of this on purpose. They loved him, he knew they did; they loved him so much that they always kept coming to help him or rescue him from situations he caused from his own clumsiness, and Bee was so sad.

He slowly let his optics drift down again, lingering on the bruise that stained Sentinel's chassis. Hesitantly, Bee took a step forward, and when Sentinel didn't back away, Bee sighed and traced the fist-shape of the injury as he muttered, “it kind of looks like a heart.”

Sentinel vented harshly. For a klik, he didn't speak, and Bee thought that he was truly well and pissed off. But then Sentinel breathed in, and when he grabbed Bee's wrist, it was gentle, and his thumb slowly rubbed circles into the thin and vulnerable protoform there as he said, “yeah?”

“Yeah,” Bee said. He tentatively climbed into Sentinel's lap again, leaning the side of his helm on his chassis and staring at the bruise. It was such an ugly color on the otherwise brilliant polish and paint of Sentinel's frame. Bee hated looking at it. “You seem different.”

Sentinel didn't move from his perfectly still position sitting down, but there was a small twitch of gold out the corner of Bee's vision as his wings flinched. Sentinel cleared his throat. “Do I?”

“Mhm,” Bee mumbled.

Sentinel's gaze never wavered as he stared blankly at the monitors. There was something about his voice, something both flat and hard that Bee had never heard before, and he said, “maybe bots change.”

Bee clung to him tighter after that.

About fifteen kliks later, when Orion crawled out of the vent with a disturbed expression on his face and without any regard for the way both Bee and Sentinel sat together in stony silence, that was when Bee truly knew that things had changed.

He wished it never did.

Act I, Scene XI: You’re a Hot Shot, Baby

Sneaking back into the reception was honestly a pain in the aft, and Sentinel was already aggravated by Orion’s strange behavior as it was. His paint prickled with the uncomfortable realization that something had definitely happened in that cell, but even worse, Orion hadn’t talked about it.

Despite Orion’s blatant disregard for rules or protocol, he always conformed to the unspoken laws of their friendship with each other as well as Bee. Always be honest with each other. It was a testament to their loyalty to each other, their unwavering faith… Nevermind the fact that Sentinel was deliberately keeping from them his near deathly training schedule.

He reasoned with himself that it was necessary to keep them from finding out about it, even if Bee had come way too close to finding out after carefully observing his injuries up close and asking too many questions for Sentinel to dodge completely. In his defense, Bee was very hard to lie to; he did that weird, big-optic thing and his finials drooped and his purring was just so sad -

Regardless, the point remained. Sentinel knew he couldn’t tell his friends the reality of his daily life, how hard training was, how often he got tossed around like a mere used doll. Before, he had spent most of his physical spars with Councilman Sunstreaker, as he was the most proficient at combat aside from Ultra.

But after Sentinel’s little… scene… at Ultra’s morning banquet, his mentor had decided that Sentinel’s preliminary training with Sunstreaker was over, and instead went straight into what he liked to call “lessons of the real world”.

They were brutal lessons. Harsh ones. Sentinel spent more time in Dr. Ratchet’s office than he did in his own berthroom. In particular, his left wrist still twinged if he twisted it a little too far, which had been a result of Ultra witnessing the way Sentinel tried to help a miner when they tripped in front of him and scuffed their patella caps to the point they started to slowly bleed energon.

“You are the future Prime, Sentinel,” Ultra had said, glaring down at Sentinel as he vented shallowly on the ground in front of him. His wrist had snapped in a decidedly disgusting manner, and his armor had dented horribly around his arm. Ultra was simply too strong, and Sentinel too weak. “Do not ever lower yourself like that again. You’re supposed to set an example.

“You disappoint me.”

Just thinking about it honestly had Sentinel wilting. If he couldn’t even uphold the expectations of his mentor who had guided him and supported him all this time, what would his friends think? At least Ultra still gave him chance after chance even with all his failures, but his friends didn’t know how hard he struggled, nor how completely useless he felt.

He was meant to be the next Prime, but he couldn’t even handle a little training with Ultra. How was he going to defend Iacon and uphold the Prime legacy if he couldn’t do at least that much? It haunted him how Ultra had looked down on him, as if Sentinel had been nothing more than dust at his pedes, and he knew that if Orion or Bee ever glanced at him like that, he would truly break.

He sniffled a little, blinking back tears as he leaned against a wall and slumped pathetically while sipping slowly at a cube of high grade energon he had managed to grab from the tray of a passing waiter.

The reception was in full swing, and the doors to Ultra’s mansion were propped wide open as some of the party goers spilled out from his home and out into his yard. Various mechs and femmes were sitting on the ground or steps, chatting with each other cheerfully as they clinked energon cubes and reminisced how good it felt to be part of yet another Ceremony.

Sentinel had tried to plaster on a smile as he made his way back inside, waving to those who greeted him and offering short nods to the ones he knew a little better, but he couldn’t hide the dread inside his spark as he had slipped back inside and ignored the voice inside of him that said that he certainly hadn’t enjoyed another Ceremony.

Inside, it was easier to blend in, and he tried not to let it bother him that no one had seemed to notice that he had left and come back. He had timed it right and slipped out just as Hot Rod had been swarmed with congratulatory messages and servo shakes, his own brief congratulations and well wishes already given, so Sentinel should have viewed it as a blessing that he had snuck away and crawled back in with no one the wiser.

It shook him, though. He was easily one of the tallest mechs there but he felt small. Invisible. It had been different when he'd been with his friends. His armor still ached where Bee had touched him, and it was easy to recall the soft, almost wispy way the miner’s small digits brushed against the numerous bruises and dents on his plating.

It was just as easy to remember the way Bee had smelled, like sweet nectar and that same scent of ash all miners seemed to have. But with him, it had been a rather saccharine mix, and Sentinel stared down at the energon in his servo, wondering if Bee had really noticed him.

Had he seen him? Taken him in for who he was? How? Sentinel didn’t even know what the frag was going on with himself, so could Bee even possibly fathom any of it?

Primus, Sentinel felt like a real piece of fragging work seeing Bee cry like that. The smallest mech was easily the most emotional out of their group of three, but that didn't necessarily mean he cried the most (that was Sentinel, unfortunately).

Sentinel honestly hadn't meant to upset him like that, and he hated himself deeply, immensely, for doing so. Even now, his spark felt like it was eating itself alive, and he didn't know how to fix it, how to fix himself so he stopped messing up and so he could say sorry to Bee like he deserved and stop lying to his friends, his friends who loved him more than anything and the friends who he would die for -

Slag. Sentinel dragged a servo down his face and pinched the bridge of his nasal ridge, a migraine already forming behind his optics as he did. He couldn’t handle this; the bright lights of the mansion were blinding and hazy, and the loud chatter did nothing to alleviate his stress.

Tomorrow, he decided. He would reach out to Bee after the miner had a chance to recuperate and recharge, and Sentinel would offer him an apology, as well as a tentative plan for the both of them to hang out together, alone, so they could get back to where they were before.

Sentinel's processor felt like it was going to explode with all his whirling emotions. Even worse, he couldn’t stop thinking about Megatron.

Just the name was enough to have his paint crawl.

Sentinel had heard, even witnessed, the atrocities that slageater had committed along with the rest of his blasphemous rebels. Those files were within his level of clearance, and he recalled the numerous sleepless nights he had spent perusing them, drinking in the sight of mutilated bodies, atrocious crime scenes, all while holding down his energon and trying desperately not to throw it all back up.

It made him uncomfortable, more than he could put into words, knowing that Orion was well aware of all that and yet still chose to feed Megatron. On some level, maybe Sentinel could understand; even if he despised Megatron and his rebellion, the idea of letting anyone just starve like that in a cold cell was… disconcerting.

Maybe even disturbing. But at the same time, why, Primus, why did it have to be Orion who had to do it?

I didn't even know they used starvation as an interrogation tactic, some part of Sentinel's processor mumbled in uncertainty. He winced into his cube of energon and hoped no one caught it as he glanced around himself frantically and felt his wings droop in relief, as if anyone had the ability to read his mind.

The small part of his processor, the one that always sounded like Orion and made Sentinel feel horrible any time he had to return to his Prime training, whispered about how it was cruel that Megatron was being starved. How even if he was a prisoner at Titan's Hold, didn't he deserve dignity? Compassion?

Megatron has never wielded compassion in the entirety of his siege to raze down our city, a fiercer, louder voice reprimanded him harshly. It was reminiscent of Ultra's sharp inflection, and Sentinel set down the half-empty cube on a nearby table, feeling slightly nauseous as he did. Do not fall for his lies.

Right, Sentinel thought, shaking his helm. Right. If Ultra and Prowl decided to starve Megatron, that was their prerogative, and definitely justified. They had their reasons, reasons that they didn't tell him because he still wasn't worthy enough to know them, a thought that made him deflate slightly.

Regardless, he couldn't afford to sympathize with the enemy. That was crazy, and blasphemous, and - Primus, he was a terrible mech. He was going to become Prime and he couldn't even properly condemn a bot for the crimes he definitely committed.

It was times like these that Sentinel realized how utterly miserable he was.

“Sentinel.”

Sentinel jerked, his wings automatically stiffening and trying to tuck as close to his dorsal plates as they could in a natural reaction to the low, commanding voice that always made his servos shake and his glossa dry.

He bowed, sweeping his arm across his abdomen like he’d been taught to do in etiquette class, and he desperately hoped that his voice wasn’t trembling as he said, “good evening, my lord.”

Ultra Magnus slowly swept his optics down Sentinel’s frame, and it didn’t escape him that he wasn’t smiling. Before, with the other nobles, Ultra had been dazzling and charming, smirking as he told witty jokes or purring flirtations as he recounted the past Ceremonies and held beside him a flustered Hot Rod the entire time.

Now, he was anything but. His face was distinctly neutral, and with Ultra, that meant he was displeased. He didn’t look away even as Sentinel slowly drew his arms behind himself and clenched his servos tightly, his palms dripping with coolant as he realized that that gleam in Ultra’s glare meant many things.

He saw me leave, Sentinel’s processor whispered frantically. He felt dizzy. He was going to throw up. He saw me leave, and he’s pissed. Slag. He’s going to beat the actual frag out of me in our next -

“Oh, my. Lord Ultra, are you planning on hogging the young Prime all to yourself, or is it okay for someone else to take a bite as well?”

Sentinel looked up again (when did his optics slide to the floor? He was always doing that, always staring down at his pedes when Ultra was around, and he knew Ultra hated it, and yet he still did it anyway - and Primus, Sentinel was an awful student, and awful mech - ) and blinked slowly as he recognized the gleaming pink paint job and sinful curves that often kept him awake at night.

“Miss Elita,” Sentinel said in a stilted voice, feeling decidedly off kilter and confused as Elita smiled slightly at him, sidling up close to Ultra’s side and hooking her servos around his arm.

She was tiny compared to him, and though most bots were, the size difference between his mentor and her was rather ridiculous as she lightly leaned her helm against Ultra’s forearm, glanced up at him, and said with a slight pout on her glossy dermas: “my lord, must you hide him away in such a drab corner such as this? With a paint job as good as his, he’s good enough to eat.”

She purred her last word, her engine revving with a quiet hum as she eyed Sentinel like he was the most enticing cube of energon in the room.

This time, when his glossa licked at the back of his dentae, his intake wasn’t dry because of Ultra.

“Elita,” Ultra said. His voice was lighter, a tone of slight surprise coloring his words, and he gave Sentinel one last sharp stare before he softened and smiled at the femme. Sentinel tried to ignore the sharp sting of fear that pricked his spark as he recognized the hidden message of his mentor’s look. We will discuss this later. “Have you ever been formally introduced to my pupil?”

“We’ve only met the one time,” Elita said elegantly, waving her servo and somehow making it look both relaxed and coy as she stared up at Sentinel with glimmering optics. When she leaned in slightly, her scent of foreign jubiline berries surrounded him. He didn’t want to admit just how much that smell continued to haze in and out of his dreams (whenever he managed to recharge, anyway). “But it certainly left a lasting impression.”

“I see.” Ultra arched an optic ridge and this time, when he looked down at Sentinel, it was not one of anger; it looked like he was almost impressed, and his touch was shockingly gentle, warm, as he raised a servo and rested it briefly on Sentinel’s shoulder plate. “Well, that’s to be expected. My Sentinel is a good conversationalist.”

“An invaluable asset as our future Prime.” Elita agreed.

“Indeed,” Ultra said, now looking pleased. It was honestly a miracle. These sols, Sentinel often felt like Ultra hated him rather than loved him, and it was the first time in cycles that Sentinel beamed up at his mentor in genuine happiness as Ultra chuckled. It was a buttery and deep sound, so reminiscent of the times when Sentinel was younger and more naive, and Ultra had been more forgiving. “Well, then, I’ll leave you two young bots to it. I believe Councilman Chromedome is about to overindulge, and I don’t think anyone wants to see him when he inevitably throws it all up.”

He ended his sentence with a wink to show it was all in good humor, and Sentinel felt like he was floating on a cloud as his mentor left, for once not scowling or frowning or acting like Sentinel was the worst thing to ever happen to him -

“You seem happy. Something you would like to share with me, my Prime?”

Sentinel nearly jumped out of his paint job as a servo, slim and clever, curled around his elbow joint and his entire frame rose at least several degrees (his temperature gauge was screaming) as Elita pushed her chassis lightly against his arm and nearly caused him to fall over with how her sweet scent filled his olfactory sensors.

Charge increased by 16%, his interface subsystem tried to ping his processor, which absolutely mortified him because what the frag did his system mean, charge increased by 16%? He frantically attempted to kick away the notification, plastering a smile onto his face and praying that Elita wouldn’t notice the strain in the corners as his subsystem continued to insist on its charge monitoring.

Frag, he was pathetic. The first femme he was interested in and he was about to make a complete tool of himself in front of her. If Orion were here, he would have laughed his aft off and called Sentinel all shades of stupid. It wasn’t like Sentinel was exactly blind, Elita was definitely putting off more than a few flirty signals, but Sentinel had never - he hadn’t -

Oh, I’m fragged, Sentinel whined in his helm as he said, “uh, just - happy to be here, Miss Elita. And, please, there’s no need to call me Prime. I haven’t even come close to finishing all my training.”

Elita hummed, and when her optics roamed across his frame slowly, he flushed as he realized it felt like she was stripping him bare and laying him out in front of her for the taking. Throughout his adolescent and adult years, he hadn’t exactly been oblivious to the attention he got, especially after Ultra and the council deemed him as the next Prime in training, but he hadn’t really given it much thought.

He always didn’t have enough time, was always more interested in focusing on his duties or sneaking out to meet with his friends, but - something was different this time. Maybe it was the overwhelming need he felt any time he was around Elita, who smelled so good and looked at him like he was the only thing worth paying attention to. Maybe it was his new schedule, chock full of brutal sparring and etiquette lessons, often leaving him with such little time that he didn’t even recharge most nights.

Or maybe it was the stress in knowing that he had, once again, deliberately disobeyed Ultra, the mech who had chosen him out of everyone else, the mech who had raised and cherished him, and snuck Orion into Titan’s Hold just so he could feed the one criminal who probably deserved to be starved.

Whatever it was, it had Sentinel’s walls crumbling like aluminum, and he was weak.

“I already see you as a Prime, so I don’t see any problem in addressing you as such,” Elita said carefully, quietly, her digit slowly tracing a shape into his arm and causing his spark to beat so wildly in his chassis that he felt like it was going to leap out of his throat. “Won’t you indulge me?”

“Oh,” he croaked. He cleared his voicebox, but when he spoke again, his words were husky, hoarse with his lust, and he was sure he wasn’t imaging the way her smile widened ever so slightly as he stuttered, “if that’s the way you feel, I - well, I don’t want to impose anything upon you - “

“Lord Sentinel!”

Sentinel didn’t know whether to feel relieved or annoyed at the joyous call of his name, and he leaned back from Elita, feeling his wings twitch with embarrassment as he realized he’d been so close to her helm that if he had drawn any closer, he would have kissed her.

Just the thought alone was enough to have coolant dripping down the back of his neck cables as he smiled politely and said, “Hot Rod. Enjoying your victory?”

It was a genuine question, tinted slightly with warmth as Hot Rod approached both of them with a grin on his face and a light fluster to accommodate it. Though Sentinel didn’t know the mech personally, the stuff he did know about him, he liked.

Hot Rod was a refreshing change of pace from the nobles. It most likely had something to do with the fact that he was only tier 12, an archivist who never really had a life outside of shelves and datapads and occasionally dust. But Sentinel liked to think it was because of how vibrant Hot Rod was - all the way from his outrageous paint job to his boisterous attitude, Hot Rod certainly didn’t look or act like someone of his caste level, and Sentinel felt a strange level of fondness for him.

He kind of reminded Sentinel of Orion, actually.

“Totally!” Hot Rod said enthusiastically, practically bouncing on the balls of his pedes as he beamed up at Sentinel so widely that his face plate had to be aching from it. “Can you believe it? I won! I mean, Primus knows I deserve it, but still! I thought Chromia would have me beat, you know? She’s awesome, I’m glad she isn’t pissed at me for scratching the slag out of her paint job. Oh, hello, ma’am! I’m Hot Rod.”

Elita smiled as she shook Hot Rod’s servo, which had been stuck out eagerly. “Hello, Hot Rod. I'm Elita-1. Your race was definitely the most exciting one I’ve seen yet.”

Hot Rod crowed in delight and immediately began to babble, both him and Elita unaware of Sentinel’s rising turmoil as he struggled to keep his smile on his face while guilt bubbled deeply within his spark. He couldn’t help but think back on his conversation with Orion during the race, when Orion had gotten upset over Hot Rod winning, and -

He was right, of course he was right. The whole thing sucked and it hurt and Sentinel felt so bad for this young, vital and bright young mech who was about to be shot into space and never return home. No one else seemed to share that same grievance, as no bot seemed even an iota less than thrilled that the Ceremony was approaching soon, but Sentinel…

Well.

That wasn’t his place to think about. (Even if he hated it. There, he said it, he hated it, Orion was right, this all fragging hurt and it was stupid and cruel and Hot Rod and Tracks and all the other trailblazers deserved better but what could Sentinel do, he wasn’t even Prime, and he probably never would be with how inadequate he’d been lately - )

“I wanted to thank you,” Hot Rod said sincerely, interrupting Sentinel’s quickly spiraling thoughts. The younger bot seemed sheepish, maybe even a little shy as he fidgeted lightly with his digits before he straightened up and gave Sentinel a bright, crooked grin that revealed a single dimple on his right cheek plate. “For earlier! You and your friend - whoever they are - definitely made this night a little more bearable. I was kind of nervous, but…”

He laughed. It was a quiet sound, surprisingly soft for a mech like Hot Rod, who had such a bright personality that it was hard to look away. Like this, it was a cold reminder of just how young he was, only a few vorns younger than Orion, and a couple more than Sentinel himself.

It took a moment of struggling for Sentinel's processor to wade through his memories of that sol to figure out what exactly Hot Rod was talking about. After a micro-klik, a belated memory of him hastily telling the young mech that a nameless friend of his wanted to wish him luck on his endeavors was drawn up, and Sentinel smiled again, this time slightly helplessly as he reached out and squeezed Hot Rod's shoulder.

Orion, Sentinel thought to himself, brushing his digits against Hot Rod's paint, almost trying to memorize the feel of his warm metal, and the softness of his protoform. You somehow reach mechs without even talking to them. I wish I was more like you.

“Hot Rod,” Sentinel said earnestly. “Good luck.”

Hot Rod beamed, and he was bouncing away, immediately inserting himself into a conversation with Chromia and Councilman Blurr, both of whom looked delighted by his presence, though Chromia did punch him in the arm with a smirk and said something that looked like that's for beating me, slagger.

“You must really like him,” Elita said, nuzzling even closer to Sentinel, who looked down at her and smiled as best as he could while trying to ignore his processor pinging him about yet another charge increase.

“He's very admirable,” Sentinel said, watching the way more and more nobles surrounded Hot Rod, who looked both flushed and proud as he raised a fist with his medal and there were various cheers and whistles throughout the area. “He deserved to win. I think he'll be missed, though.”

Elita tilted her helm. Her optics were sharper, less hazy, and she quietly asked, “by you?”

Sentinel blinked at the question. For a moment, he didn't know how to answer, and then he released a small vent as he realized that… “Yes. I think so. I don't know him that well, and we haven't met before this, but…”

He trailed off.

He sighed. It was a wistful sort of sound. “He reminds me a lot of my friend.”

“Your friend?”

“My dearest friend,” he said quietly.

The only one who's always had my back.

“Well,” Elita said slowly, and she was grabbing his servo and walking backwards. Somehow, she seemed to know where she was going, even without having to look over her shoulder. Her optics were shining with something, both hungry and full of a warmth he had never seen before, and she said, “do you know what I think, my Prime?”

“What?” He asked, a little breathless and a lot clumsy, as she pushed her pede back and it propped open a door out into the hallway. Just before they stepped through it, he looked back once, in time to see Ultra clasp a heavy servo to Hot Rod's shoulder, lean down, whisper something to him, and begin to lead him away.

The door swung closed, cutting off Sentinel's view of them, and he had an armful of femme as Elita suddenly reached up, wrapped her surprisingly strong arms around his neck, and tugged him down fiercely so she could kiss him.

He instantly felt dizzy, and just like that, all his worries, all his anxieties flew out of his helm and all he could think of was the way her chassis pressed against his, the feeling of her soft and yielding protoform under his digits as his servos scrambled to wrap around her waist, and the unbelievable sensation of her dermas against his.

She giggled, the sound light and airy as she continued to kiss him, leaving him cross-opticed and unaware of their surroundings as he was the one to go backwards this time, simply following her lead as she gently pushed him to go somewhere.

His wings hit what felt like a door, and he grunted lightly when she kicked it open, shoved at his chassis, and he fell down against the soft sheets of a berth - were they in one of the numerous guest berthrooms at Ultra's mansion? Oh, slag, he was going to be pissed if he found out that -

Sentinel's processor short circuited as Elita climbed on top of him, sat directly on top of his interface panel, and leaned down to kiss him again.

“Let me tell you what I think, my Prime, so listen carefully,” Elita whispered as her dermas, slick with their lubricant, slid off of his and trailed down to his audial, leaving kisses as she did, which made him shiver uselessly under her as his servos helplessly clutched at her hips. “Rod might be the victor, and your friend might be someone worth missing, but you - “

She moaned, low and barely audible and so sensual that he immediately bucked in response, his voice box crackling with static and garbling its words as she laughed quietly.

“You're the hot shot around here, my Prime,” she mumbled. She pressed a hot, flashing kiss to audial, and Primus, he was drunk on her. “Don't you ever forget it.”

Then she smiled, beautiful and succinct and all shades of lustful, as she slowly slid off of him and kneeled down just between his legs, which dangled down and had his pedes resting on the floor.

“Now,” she hummed, looking entirely pleased with herself as her small servos began to stroke his twitching thighs. She leaned forward and nuzzled his patella, and he gasped at the sensation.

“Open,” she said gently.

He shuddered and obeyed.

Act I, Scene XIII: Ya Like Jazz?

Orion knew immediately that something was up the moment he and Bee were gently dropped off of the rooftop of their stacks building and Sentinel didn't give them his usual hug before he took off again, flying through the air and his wings twitching minutely as he refused to look back.

Orion's optics narrowed as he watched him leave in the direction towards the center part of the city where the reception was being held at Ultra's mansion.

Bee, who had been strangely quiet the entire flight back, was staring at the ground, and his finials were drooping in that way that told Orion he was upset. No, not just upset, but about to cry, or - he looked closer, alarmed to see the faintest tear marks down the dullness of Bee's scuffed faceplates - already cried.

“Bee,” Orion said urgently, reaching out and grabbing his friend's wrist before he began to make his way to the door. Bee sniffled lightly, and Orion made a quiet, worried click at the back of his throat as he gathered him close and said, “what's wrong? Did something happen?”

“No,” Bee mumbled into his chassis. Despite his petulant response, he was clinging tightly to Orion, and he let out a small hiccup before he suddenly tugged himself away and scrubbed his arm across his optics. “‘M tired. I just wanna recharge.”

“Okay,” Orion said helplessly, watching as Bee trudged his way to the door and held it open. He refused to meet Orion's optics again, but it was clear that he was waiting for him, and so Orion heaved an ex-vent, realized that he wasn't going to get any answers from Bee, and carefully slipped past him, leading the way down the stairs and to the fiftieth floor, where their recharge bays were.

Luckily, Bee didn’t actually let any tears spill, since Orion often felt like his processor went to mush in his panic whenever Bee got upset to the point he bawled. Regardless, Orion made and filed away a note to demand Sentinel as to what happened between them while Orion had been with Megatron to leave behind streaks on Bee’s solemn face.

It was still early in the day, maybe only a few joors after highsol, so the floor was bustling with miners, all of whom were there at the same time since work had been canceled for the race. It was a bit of a mess, actually, and the air smelled musty, like energon dust and flakes of earth.

It was also loud, what with all the overlapping conversations going around, as well as the sounds of several mechs and femmes practicing their sparring by jabbing at bags full of iron shavings or each other. There was a particularly harsh sound of metal meeting metal when an infuriated Arcee tackled Cliffjumper to the ground, and Orion carefully stepped around them as their scuffle continued on the dirty floor.

They’re going to get dust in their optics, Orion thought wearily. And possibly rust-tetanus.

“Where the Pits have you two been?” Jazz asked from a bench near their recharge bays as Bee tiredly climbed into his own and immediately curled up. Within micro-kliks, he was snoring softly, his optics offline and his servo clenching tightly at his raggedy doll that Sentinel had stolen for him some vorns ago when they were still sparklings.

“Around,” Orion said vaguely. He regarded Bee carefully, his optic ridges furrowed into a frown as he reached out and gently brushed his digit tips against Bee’s forehelm, trying to rub out the upset wrinkle that had formed there. It worked, but Bee mumbled something that suspiciously sounded like a sniffle as he turned away and his venting deepened even more.

“Right, around,” Jazz said with a fair amount of amusement. He seemed at ease, with a towel around his neck cables and a cube of low refined energon in his servo. Orion tried not to stare at it, aware that his compartments were filled with a much higher quality kind; though he wanted to share it with him, there was no way he could explain how he got them without giving away his relationship with Sentinel.

“What’s with him?” Jazz continued, jerking his chin plate slightly towards Bee. He tilted his helm and said, “he looks like he just watched someone get unscrewed in front of him. Whoa, geeze, bud, are you okay?”

Jazz grunted a small noise of both surprise and effort as Orion collapsed onto the bench next to him, almost immediately drooping onto the other mech and groaning lightly as Jazz began to automatically massage at his shoulder plates.

Jazz swore softly and said, “what the frag is going on with you two? And Primus, Orion, you’re tenser than a damn coil! Haven’t you been going to the medbay? You know it’s protocol to go every few orns. If you’re too sick or injured and you get hurt on the job then it’s all our afts that have to look after you and make sure you don’t get yourself offlined.”

“As if Ricks would ever give me enough time off to get to the medbay, much less rest,” Orion retorted with a small laugh, though that quickly turned into a wince when Jazz mercilessly dug a thumb into a particularly hard knot and didn’t let up even when Orion punched him in the arm. “Ow! Primus, Jazz, you’re supposed to be massaging me, not torture me!”

“No, you’re supposed to be getting massaged by a professional, but you haven’t even gone to see a medic like you’re required to in at least half a vorn,” Jazz deadpanned in a way that suggested his optics were rolling behind his visor. At least he let his servos drop, a miracle considering Orion was about to develop a crick in his neck from how he kept flinching with each unrelenting dig at his plates. “You sure everything’s okay?”

Orion let his gaze drift back to Bee, who, like Orion, had been born and grown up in the slums and then eventually the stacks, so the constant noise around him didn’t even remotely rouse him in his recharge. It was better seeing him like this, resting and not keeping damn secrets from Orion.

But Orion knew he was being a hypocrite, and he was about to be a hypocrite again as he kept his intake shut and didn’t answer Jazz’s subtle but prodding question.

No, Orion’s processor wanted to scream. Everything is definitely not okay.

Bee and Sentinel were becoming more and more closed off around him, and he hated it. But he couldn’t even point it out, not without making it obvious that he was just as guilty when it came to keeping secrets from his friends.

It wasn’t like Orion wanted to lie to them, and well, it technically wasn’t lying, since it was really just… concealing the truth (a lie of omission, something in his helm hissed. It sounded too much like Sentinel again, and Orion felt a little sick) and trying to protect them.

And, really, what else could Orion do? It felt like the weight of the world was suddenly being pressed onto his shoulder plates, like he was the only one lifting up the sky and shaking underneath it as he did. He had never expected anything to come forth from his conversations with Megatron, since as much as Sentinel liked to tease and Ricks liked to accuse, Orion wasn’t stupid.

There was a chance, a very high chance, that everything Megatron had told him was a lie. A manipulation tactic to squirm under his paint job and make his veins race, to force his adrenaline to blow up and get him into trouble. And as much as Orion wasn’t stupid, Megatron wasn’t exactly unintelligent, either.

How could he be? No one stupid could just start a rebellion and then lead it so carefully that up until now, no bot had ever been caught. So if Megatron saw Orion, a foolish mech who was curious about him, who was sympathetic of him, then the smartest choice would be to try and sway him in his favor so that Orion would eventually do something idiotic, like break him out of prison.

Not that that would ever happen. Of course not. Orion knew well enough that Megatron was playing him, and that everything he said, his blatant seductions and his honeyed words, were being used to caress his audials and weaken his already admittedly soft resolve when it came to a mech he found so attractive.

Frag, Orion thought a little hysterically. He knew all of this, and his spark still yearned for answers. He had to see it for himself, figure out if Megatron really was lying to him or not, even though his processor screamed at him that the rebel was an inherent manipulator and would do anything to get Orion to believe him.

He let out a soft ex-vent, ignored the way Jazz looked at him with a small noise of skepticism, and tried to think about what Megatron had told him.

There was something about the Ceremony that Megatron wanted him to look into, and he had said that the archives might have the answer, an idea that almost had Orion groaning as he dropped his helm and ran a servo over the back of it in frustration.

The Golden Archives was considerably hard to get into. Not because it had guards or anything - the entire building of records was open to the public, so it was trivially easy to waltz inside, grab any kind of datapad, and spend the sol reading as much as your spark desired.

It was open to the public, yes, but only to bots who were caste level 10 or higher. None of the low caste bots were allowed in, since the middle and high level Cybertronians didn’t like to see the dirt and grime that most miners trailed in. There was also no need for it, since none of the low castes were given an education.

The only reason Orion and Bee even knew how to read, much less write, was because Sentinel made an effort to continuously sneak them tomes and educational texts as much as he could, either from the archives or from his own personal stash.

The archives were also in the most well-lit and populated part of the city, near the council hall and the highly monitored, luxurious neighborhoods of the noble caste bots. With his size, poor paint job, and constant scent of energon dust, it would be a miracle if he could even get to two streets over near the archives before getting caught and thrown into the civil prison for a sol or two.

Again.

Frag, this was impossible, some part of him screamed. He felt accusatory, angry, as an image of Megatron’s handsome facial plates wavered through his processor. The bucket of bolts was probably trying to teach him a stupid lesson or something, to show him that he shouldn’t stick his nasal ridge where it didn’t belong.

After all, Orion didn’t know how to get near the archives, much less inside. In fact, the only miner that Orion knew had ever managed to break in was -

Was…

Orion’s helm shot up and he stared at Jazz with wide, unblinking optics.

“Jazz,” Orion blurted out, reaching over and grasping Jazz’s elbow joint with an urgency that had his digits digging just a little too sharply into the soft protoform there. He leaned in close, their forehelms almost touching, and he said, “you - you’ve been there!”

“The frag?” Jazz’s visor scrunched as his optic ridges lowered. He frowned lightly and jostled his arm a little, but it only served to make Orion grip on tighter, and Jazz’s dermas pursed as he scowled and said, “dude, let up, you’re going to bruise me and I don’t need my team leader yelling at me again - “

“You’ve been to the archives.” Orion cut him off, smiling sheepishly in apology when Jazz huffed at the interruption and swatted harshly at his shoulder plate. Orion ignored the stinging pain of the hit and instead said, excitedly, “you know how to get in!”

“Yeah,” Jazz said slowly, clearly thinking that Orion had lost his mind as he leaned back slightly so there was more air in between them. By this point, he had given up on trying to get Orion to loosen his grip, and simply let his arm dangle uselessly over Orion’s lap as he said, “is there a reason why you’re looking at me like I’m highly refined energon?”

“Oh, right, good point. You should have some,” Orion said in an absentminded voice as he flipped open his compartment, tossed a glowing cube at Jazz, and ignored the mech’s yelp as he fumbled to catch it and immediately yelled how the frag had Orion gotten such an expensive portion.

The part of him that had been worried about Jazz asking too many questions about the energon (and therefore eventually about Sentinel) was impatiently waved off as Jazz immediately began to sip, a look of bliss sweeping across his face as he cooed something about how good it tasted and how it was loads better than their usual rations.

Orion’s processor was whirling rapidly as he thought quickly. He couldn’t believe how he forgot that Jazz was the only one out of the miners to not only have the balls to break into the archives, but do it so constantly that he was always sneakily trying to read a glowing datapad during the lune cycle and successfully pissing off all the mechs around him.

And, judging by how Jazz was literally licking the seams of the cube and bemoaning about how he drank it too fast, it seemed like he owed Orion a favor.

“Jazz,” Orion said again, his voice saccharine and coated in honey.

It immediately put Jazz on edge, who paused his glossa from swiping over the same face of the cube for the third time as he slowly lowered his servo, scrunched his visor, and said, “... uh huh?”

“You liked that energon, right?” Orion purred.

“Sure,” Jazz said cautiously. “It was good. Real good. Why're you acting so - “

“I can give you more,” Orion said, beaming as he leaned in and nearly smashed their nasal ridges together in his excitement. Oops. He fluttered his servo in some generous gesture, and he said, “tons more! Trust me, I have more than I need for myself. Listen. I'll give you two - three! Three cubes if you tell me how to get into the archives.”

Jazz didn’t respond. He clutched the empty cube to his chassis, and for a moment, Orion thought he would say no, and he felt his spark drop to his aft. But then Jazz glanced down again at the glass, made a soft, whining buzz at the back of his throat, and the hope was obvious in his voice as he hesitantly mumbled, “really?”

“Really.” Orion nodded firmly.

Another beat of silence.

“Four cubes,” Jazz said.

“Three.”

“Five.”

“That's not how this works.” Orion laughed.

“Five cubes,” Jazz said insistently, now seeming rather enthused himself as he leaned forward and gently knocked their helms together. There was a grin on his face, and it was in that moment that Orion remembered just how much of a slageating smile he had, all mischievous and laughing and smug. “And I not only tell you how to get into the archives, but I also keep my intake shut.”

Orion arched an optic ridge, but his dermas were twitching with his own smirk as he scoffed and said, “as if you wouldn't keep your intake shut anyway. Your aft's on the line if it’s let out that you break into the archives, you know.”

Jazz wiggled his digits. “Five.”

Orion huffed out a small laugh.

He reached forward and firmly shook Jazz's servo once. “Yeah. Five.”

Jazz laughed, and Orion threw a pillow at his face.

Act I, Scene XIV: Archive of Our Own

“The archives were rebuilt a couple dozen vorns ago, but they kind of just put the new one on top of the old one, so there’s a few passages left behind that the wreckers used when they were still constructing. You can squirm into one of those to get inside,” Jazz had said to Orion as soon as he had handed over the promised cubes and the both of them had wandered up to the rooftop of the stack building to avoid any nosy Nosedives.

“Isn't that a safety concern?” Orion had wondered. “I'm surprised that you even found that out. Wouldn’t there be locks to make sure something like that can't be used by someone they don't want to let in?”

Jazz had snorted and sipped at a cube. “I don't know about safety concerns, especially since you're about to do exactly that and break in like the little criminal you are. And yeah, there are usually locks, but…”

He had trailed off, looking a little uncomfortable, and Orion hadn’t wanted to prod, but eventually Jazz sighed, slumped slightly, and grumbled, “I, uh. I kind of have a friend who helps me out. Either way, the area should be unlocked. I'll contact my friend and tell him you want to get in, so it should be fine. Just don't run into him if you can help it, he's a total afthole.”

Orion's dermas had twitched in his amusement. “Sure. And who exactly is your friend that's willing to let you break into our city's sacred archives, huh?”

Jazz had given him a dry look and said, “why do you wanna break into said sacred archives?”

Orion had sheepishly relented and accepted the coordinates that Jazz forwarded to him without any more questions. The message had been clear: you keep your secrets, I keep mine.

With Jazz's instructions and coordinates now safely downloaded into his processor, Orion simply waited (a little impatiently, if he was being honest) as Helios lowered completely and Selene appeared. The lune cycle of Iacon was always quieter, darker, and only lit up by the colorful lights of skyscrapers.

It meant cover for his otherwise suspicious movements, so after pressing a small kiss to Bee's helm and watching him fondly as he mumbled in his recharge, Orion had slipped away and out of the stack building, aiming for nonchalance as he passed various miners who only gave him curious glances when he left.

Getting to the richer part of Iacon wasn't that hard, though the bullet train only went so far. Bots higher than level 10 were born with cogs, so they had no need for the train, which meant that as soon as Orion hopped off at the last stop, he was not only walking the rest of the way, but he had to be cautious about it.

Sticking to the alleys seemed like his best bet, since there weren't any lights there and he could press himself against walls and simply stay still as nobles or guards walked past him. He could have done without the grime that started to cover his frame or the debris that tried to get stuck under his pedes, but he had experienced way worse in the slums, so he only silently sighed and sucked it up.

Luckily, getting to the building itself was easy enough. The Golden Archives was a structure almost as big as the High Covenant Chamber, what with its golden topped dome as well as its pristine walls and columns made of white marble.

Orion, who was carefully flattened against the wall of a spa resort across the street, was filled with awe at the sight of the archives. It wasn’t like he had ever seen it in frame before, and it was just as magnificent as Sentinel described on the rare occasion he indulged Orion and Bee and liked to tell them a bit more about his world and personal life.

Sentinel would kill me if he saw me doing this, Orion thought with a small, weary chuckle as he glanced around him, made sure it was all clear, and silently slipped out of the shadows and briskly jogged to the hall.

Then again, so would Bee, probably. Orion had made the conscious decision to leave them behind not out of any malice or ill will, but simply because he knew they wouldn’t understand. He knew his friends more than he knew himself, and it hadn’t escaped him that they were starting to get worried about him.

In quieter moments, when he had more thoughts gathered to himself, maybe Orion could admit that he was also worried about him. This, breaking into the archives, deliberately carrying out Megatron’s orders - it was nothing like he’d ever done before. Sure, he got into trouble more times than he liked to admit, and maybe he had the lowest joors since last accident tallies out of any of the other miners, but this was more than some petty prank or playful rule-breaking.

This was real. Unnervingly so.

Focus, Orion scolded himself, forcing away any thoughts of lingering guilt or regret as he shuffled past the broken fence that blocked off one of the alleys beside the archives that Jazz had told him about.

“There’s no direct way inside except for the front doors. You’ll have to kind of get on the ground - yes, servos and patellas, don’t give me that look, you wanted to do this - and feel for something that has a little give,” Jazz had said to him on the rooftop. “Once you find it, just dig your digits around until you find a hook. Pull it up and go down the stairs. It’s not exactly easy to find, so be patient about it.”

Orion grumbled lightly to himself as he hesitantly got down to the dirty floor and sank to his patellas. He had to hold back a shriek when he felt something scuttle past him, and his optics adjusted rapidly as he tried to glimpse at what had just touched him, only to bite back another scream as he recognized the shape of a mech mouse.

The lighting here was non-existent and Orion shuddered as he realized that not only was he about to spend the next Primus knew how long kliks trying to find the stupid hatch door that Jazz mentioned, but also, his only company would be - his spark skipped in fear - mice.

“I hate this, I hate this, I hate this,” Orion muttered to himself as he dropped his servos to the ground as well and grimaced when dirt immediately got into the seams of his digits and dug under his plating uncomfortably. It was somehow considerably worse doing this compared to how filthy he got during his shifts, and he got disgusting a lot of the time then.

It was made worse by the scuttling noises his audials picked up, extra sensitive as he tried to stretch his hearing as far as he could and nearly offlined when he felt something brush against his pede, again.

“Fragging finally,” Orion whispered as at last, his pointer digit poked something that was a different texture than the rest of the hard, dirty concrete. It wasn’t soft exactly, but when he pushed, it flexed just the slightest bit underneath his paint. He dragged his digit down, carefully tracing the shape, and he made a small noise of triumph when he felt something that was shaped like a flat handle.

He grunted as he sat up and crouched, letting his legs do the hard work as he shoved his servo underneath the hook and tugged as best as he could. For a moment, he was scared that it wouldn’t work, that Jazz’s friend had bailed and Orion would get caught buck-aft naked and vulnerable for the guards to find him, but to his utter relief, it gave away to his strength, and opened without a sound.

He must have oiled the hinges, Orion thought with some amusement as he carefully lowered himself into the darkness and closed the door above him.

The stairs themselves were crudely built, and Orion recalled how Jazz had said they were just makeshift scaffolding for the wrecker bots as they built the new archives on top.

“Why did they rebuild you?” Orion said out loud, slowing down slightly to let his servo drag alongside the wall beside him.

The area was damp and dark, and only barely lit by weak little bulbs stuffed into the mortar lines of the wall. When he tilted his helm and observed more closely, he made a noise of curiosity as he realized that his digits were touching what looked like crack marks. He rubbed his thumb over one particularly large web-like spindle of damage, and he frowned when some of the material crumbled off.

He rubbed it between his pointer digit and thumb, slowly feeling the granules under his sensitive painting and holding it closer to his optic. Though the lights of the bulbs were weak and orange, he could still figure out that the material was a soft, silver color. When he looked at it some more, taking into account the size of the granules - not granules, he realized, but crystals - and the durability, as well as the luster…

Oh, his processor said lamely. It’s granite.

But why? Granite was strong, but it wasn’t as structurally sound as steel or reinforced concrete. Even the stacks weren’t built out of granite, and Orion had spent enough time underground to understand that the stuff was pretty and optic-catching, but relatively easy to drill through if necessary.

Jazz had said that the original archives were built over some dozen vorns ago. That didn’t make even a lick of sense. Orion spent less time reading Sentinel’s (stolen) datapads than Bee did, but he had still used quite a bit of his sols looking through various geology and architectural tomes to better understand the best way to do his work (and not to find the easy way out, no matter what Sentinel liked to say).

According to the texts, steel and concrete became the required norm by law around two hundred vorns ago. So were the original archives even older than that? What the frag?

He glanced around himself. There was no one but him, but he felt a chill, and he shivered slightly before he tucked away the little bits of granite into his subspace. He didn’t really have the time to think too hard about it, so he carefully put away that train of thought deeper into his processor and then jobbed the rest of the way down.

The deeper he went, the more evident it became to him that this was definitely Jazz’s space. There were little marks of him left behind - pedesteps that matched the underside of his pedes in both pattern and size, as well as various little trinkets that Orion recognized as his. He huffed a little in amusement when he came upon a small scratching on the wall that read JAZZ ROCKS.

“Slagger,” Orion said to himself in a fond voice as he jumped off the last step and came upon another staircase. This time, it went up, and he was silent as he climbed, allowing himself to think as he did.

“There’s another door at the top of the second staircase,” Jazz had said, his words slightly muffled as he rattled around an entire cube in his intake to try and suck as much energon out of it as he could. “It leads into an old storage closet. No one ever goes there except for my friend, and he should have unlocked the vent grate for you to go through. Yes, Orion, a vent, don’t look at me like that. Just crawl through it, follow the path, and it’ll spit you out into the middle of the mythology section, which is always empty because no one cares about that slag.”

He had swallowed heavily, wiped his intake with the back of his servo, and had regarded Orion carefully. Though his optics were always covered by his visor, his facial plates gave the distinction that he had looked at Orion with some type of reluctant sorrow.

“Be careful,” Jazz had muttered. “Keep your helm low. Don’t let anyone see you, especially not my friend - he’s already pissed I’m asking such a huge favor from him. Go in, get out, and let’s never speak of this again.

“Good luck.”

Orion sighed as he opened the door at the top, closed it carefully behind him, and looked around. True to Jazz’s word, he had ended up in some kind of storage closet, though everything was covered in dust and definitely looked more than a little outdated. There was a second door right across the tiny room, and out of curiosity, Orion jiggled the handle, but predictably, it didn’t budge.

“Alright,” Orion said, looking up and eyeing the already open vent grate above him. He shook his helm, cursed under his breath, and said, “I can’t believe I have to do this kind of slag again. Okay… Here we go…”

Hauling himself up into the vent wasn’t any harder than it had been when doing the same in Megatron’s cell, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed crawling through a tight, dark space and getting dust and dirt and whatever else was in there all into his seams. He seriously needed a shower after all of this, and he grimaced when his patella touched something that was either a dead mech mouse (holy frag) or a giant dust bunny.

Thankfully, he saw the faint rays of light that indicated the end of his journey, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he quickly shimmied over and slid a few digits through the slides to first take a peek below him.

The shelves were way larger and taller than he had anticipated, and he said a soft, “whoa,” in pure awe at the pristine, shining metal of the rows of datapads. It was honestly kind of incredible, and for a moment, he lied there, drinking it all in and once again wondering to himself if this was really the kind of life and privilege that Sentinel enjoyed everyday.

He shook his helm lightly, dispelled his growing thoughts, and carefully observed the area. Like Jazz said, there was no one around, and when he turned up his audial sensitivity, he also couldn’t hear anything nearby. It seemed like the entire section was abandoned, and so he quickly swung up the grate, slid downwards, hung himself from the square rim by the tips of his digits, and then jumped off.

It wasn’t too much of a fall, and after vorns of getting into trouble (and escaping Darkwing’s wrath), Orion knew very well how to roll into a ball and muffle most of his impact so that he only made a light thud. He came to a stop when his dorsal plates mashed into the lowest shelf, and he blinked as some of the datapads around him rustled, and then settled with the vibrations.

He stood up, dusted himself off, and looked around a little helplessly.

Uh.

So… now what was he supposed to do?

The answer came in the form of him figuring out that the entire place was arranged by genre, then alphabetical order, and then content order. It was a bit convoluted, honestly, and it took quite a bit of cursing and muttering from him before he finally found the history section.

This area was a bit more populated than the others, and Orion had to play his cards right so he wouldn't get caught. Luckily, these bots seemed more interested in burying their noses into datapads than looking up whenever someone happened to move past them, so Orion took advantage and slipped past a pair of femmes as well as a lone mech to stand in front of the section he needed.

“Revitalization Ceremony, Ceremony, Ceremony…” Orion mumbled to himself, repeating the words as his servo drew up and carefully ran along the various spines of the datapads.

Restoring Chrome Candles… Receiving Countless Colored Cups… Revitalizing Ceres.

He blinked.

“Huh?” He muttered.

Revitalizing Ceres. Revitalizing Control In Your Unruly Sparkling: A Guide.

“What the frag,” he whispered, both servos now reaching up and frantically sorting through the datapads, his optics trying to fruitlessly search for a spine right in between the last two titles he skimmed. It should have been there, it should have been right there, there was simply no other place it could be, and yet -

“It's gone,” he croaked.

It was gone. There was no trace of it.

He crouched low to the ground and rubbed at his forehelm, trying to dispel the ache forming behind his optics as he tried not to yell in frustration. This didn't make any sense. How the frag could the datapad not be here? The Revitalization Ceremony was a crucial part of their culture, and going by how the history section was one of the largest wings of the archives, clearly every part of Iacon was considered important!

Oh! Wait, wait! Maybe something with Iacon 5000, instead? Or even anything to do with the word ceremony! Oh, dammit, duh!

Trailblazer!

Orion eagerly stood up again and began his search.

Two joors, three dozen datapads, and very tired optics later, Orion slumped his dorsal plate against the nearest shelf behind him and groaned weakly as he let the last text slip from his servo and clatter innocently to the floor with a soft sound.

Nothing.

Not a single fragging thing on the Revitalization Ceremony, the trailblazers, not even the Iacon 5000! Large informative texts were maybe a bit too much to hope for, but what about records? Weren’t the archivists in charge of that sort of thing, to make sure every piece of Iacon history was written down and tucked somewhere so that everything was kept transparent and real?

He blinked slowly, his optics focusing on the spines in front of him as he frowned deeply. So was all of this effort for nothing, then? Had Megatron sent him on an actual fruitless chase just to see him act like an idiot? Was he sitting in his cell, laughing his helm off, thinking about poor Orion, who had spent the last few joors frantically reading datapad after datapad?

Maybe Sentinel was right, Orion thought to himself tiredly as he ran a servo down his face and then back up to pinch at the bridge of his nasal ridge. He was so exhausted that he could fall into recharge right then and there. Megatron's an obvious liar. I wouldn't put it past him to manipulate me. This is stupid, I should go home and just…

He paused. His digits twitched lightly against one of the datapads that were stacked around him in his franticness to figure out the answer to what Megatron had dropped a hint of, and Orion stared blankly at the shelf across from him.

No, he thought slowly. That didn't make sense. Though he didn't think that Megatron was above petty lies or cruel tactics to sway him, why would Megatron insist on Orion coming back afterwards if he knew that the archives wouldn't actually have anything? He already knew that Orion was going back regardless to feed him, so a steady supply of energon couldn't be it.

He was trying to prove something, Orion’s processor murmured. There's no such thing as the Ceremony, according to the archives. Did someone check out all the datapads that have to do with it? Or did the archivists forget to restock these?

He chewed on his lower derma. Frag. He wished he could talk to Hot Rod; he had been an archivist before he won the recent race, so surely he would have had some answers. But Orion didn't have his comm link, and he wouldn't be able to even get near him enough to ask for it.

But… maybe someone else could.

Private Comm Link (ID: #628317): Sentinel Prime? No, Sentinel Prick

Outgoing message…

DES: Orion Pax - ID: OP-001628

:: Sentinel! ::

Orion waited five kliks. He tapped his pede anxiously when there was no indication that Sentinel was typing, much less had seen his message. What the frag was he doing? Sentinel never left texts alone for too long, especially not when Orion was calling for him so urgently.

Slag. Was the thing that happened between Sentinel and Bee worse than Orion initially thought? He should have pushed more for answers, then maybe he could have pushed past whatever tiff the two of them were going through and so Sentinel would stop freaking ignoring him.

DES: Orion Pax - ID: OP-001628

:: Look, Sen, I really need your help. I'm assuming you're still at the party, so could you get me Hot Rod's private comm line if you can? ::

:: I know it's a lot to ask but I seriously need to talk to him. ::

:: … Sentinel? ::

:: Sen, come on. Whatever happened between you and Bee, we can fix it. Don't be too upset. I seriously need you right now, buddy. ::

:: Sen. ::

:: Sentinel!!! ::

Orion let out a garbled noise of static as he received no reply within the half-joor he waited impatiently. He wasn't usually rude enough to spam Sentinel, who he knew was the busiest out of all three of them, but this was important.

What the hell was Sentinel doing that had him so distracted? He had never ignored Orion like this before. Especially not when he was asking him for a favor that he had stressed was imperative to him.

He sighed and begrudgingly pulled another datapad towards him. Well, the good thing was that it was still early in the lune cycle, so he still had enough time to peruse some of these other texts and try to find some clue he might have missed. He doubted it, but it at least gave him something to do while he waited for Sentinel to -

“Councilman Sunstreaker, it is such an honor to have you here, you won't even believe how excited we all are!”

Slag. Slag, slag, frag, bolt-eating bucket of - !

Orion scrambled to hide himself as he quickly scooted back and pressed his dorsal plate flush against the flat end of the shelf he had been leaning on. His spark pounded dangerously fast in his chassis, and he swore lowly under his breath as he carefully peeked out and watched a femme archivist lead a mech painted black who was rapidly tapping away on a datapad, and behind him -

Orion's vents hitched.

Councilman Sunstreaker was worthy of his name; he was larger than both bots in front of him, and seemed to have no shame in letting his heavy steps echo throughout the otherwise silent hall. He was painted a near blinding shade of yellow, and he seemed more interested in picking at his audial and flicking away pieces of dust than paying attention to whatever the archivist was saying.

Orion had never seen him before, mostly because he tended to only watch the live projections that featured Ultra or Sentinel. His processor dug through his files and brought up everything Sentinel had ever mentioned about Sunstreaker, which wasn't a whole lot.

All Orion knew was that the councilman was apparently the head of the Elite Guard, which was much larger than Ultra’s personal high squadron. Judging by the bulging cable muscles as well as the sheer size of Sunstreaker's shoulder plates, Orion could warily conclude that the title wasn't unwarranted.

Of all the nights for him to be here - !

Getting caught by a noble? Bad. By a guard? Worse. By a councilman?

If Orion wasn't careful, he was as good as dead. Coolant began to drip down his nose and he again swore quietly when he felt his cooling fans kick on with a soft click. Hastily, he overrode his temperature gauge and sat there completely still, his frame heating up from his nerves.

“Yes, yes, thank you,” Sunstreaker said, his tone bored and slimy with arrogance as he waved off the next of the archivist's spewing. She had been talking about their newest wing of datapads or something or other, and Orion cringed in sympathy when she deflated and shut her intake. “Longarm, what exactly did I need to come find?”

The black mech that had been texting furiously on his datapad looked up and blinked. He didn't seem at all affected by the councilman's rudeness, and instead politely said, “the text on the best brewing methods for high grade energon, my lord. Remember how you said you wanted to drink the ale that the Primes used to?”

“Oh, yes,” Sunstreaker said, now looking thoughtful as he nodded his helm eagerly. “That sounds awesome. Imagine getting drunk off that and fragging the night off to do whatever you want!”

He laughed, a bellowing sound, and Orion was honestly just shocked that a senator was so crude. Ultra always had the appearance and attitude of regality and power, and though Orion had always heard Sentinel whine than not, he always caught a glimpse of that noble and aristocratic nature of his time to time.

Sunstreaker was none of those things. Powerful, yes, and certainly imposing enough. But he was… rude.

Luckily, it seemed that attitude didn’t extend to Longarm, who Orion assumed was Sunstreaker’s assistant, or at least something close to it. The smaller mech simply nodded along, his facial plates impassive, and it was clear that he was simply doing whatever he needed to do to appease the boisterous councilman.

“I just don’t see why we had to come tonight,” Sunstreaker complained loudly, causing a couple of heads with peeved expressions to poke out between shelves, only to shrink back as they realized who it was and quickly schooled their appearances to appear demure. “Ultra’s party is off the hook, Longarm! Look, look - see? Blurr just commed me that Chromedome’s vomiting up all his energon! Argh, I should have been there!”

“I understand, my lord,” Longarm said soothingly. He sent an apologetic, handsome smile to the architect who had been guiding them, who immediately blushed a pale blue and ducked her helm in bashfulness. “But the brewing section is usually closed off during the lune cycle, and you know I can’t have access without your key code.”

Sunstreaker grumbled something under his breath, too low for Orion’s audials to pick up on, but whatever he said seemed to have amused Longarm, who chuckled quietly.

“If you want to go so badly, just hand me the key code for now and I’ll meet you back at the mansion,” Longarm said, raising his servo in a give it here gesture.

“My key code?” Sunstreaker hesitated. He didn’t fidget or anything like that, something Orion legitimately could not even imagine a mech of his standing would do, but the way his optics darted from Longarm’s wiggling digits to his face was similar enough. “You know that’s confidential, Longarm. Ultra will have my aft if I - “

“That’s fine,” Longarm said gently, resting his servo gently on Sunstreaker’s much larger one. The councilman swallowed and glanced down again, this time looking entranced as Longarm murmured, “I understand. You can just stay with me and we can look through the shelves together, it’ll be fun. I mean, you’ll have to send your regards to Lord Ultra, because there’s no chance we’ll be done before morning - “

“What?” Sunstreaker blurted out. His face was suddenly set in a scowl as he jerked his helm down to stare at the archivist, who nearly jumped out of her plating as he did. “Is this true?”

“Y-Yes,” she squeaked. She cleared her throat and bowed, but even from here, Orion could see the way her servos shook as she folded them politely in front of them. “The brewery wing is large and old, my lord, and a good number of the datapads are unfortunately uncharged due to lack of interest from our patrons - “

“So we’ll have to wait for some of them to turn on while we look through them,” Longarm muttered thoughtfully. He was stroking Sunstreaker’s digits by this point, and Orion was mortified by how intimate the gesture was. He had originally thought that Longarm was Sunstreaker’s assistant; was he his lover instead? Were councilmen even allowed to have… romantic entanglements? “Well, then, show us the way, archivist. We’ll just - “

“Here.” Sunstreaker’s dentae were gritted as he shoved something towards Longarm. Despite the harsh way he did it, Longarm took what looked like a small, thin card with grace, and simply stared up at the councilman as he grumbled. “Spending all my lune here, are you crazy? Do I look like a nerd who wants to waste my time here when Ultra’s busting out the good stuff from his cellar?”

“Thank you, Sunstreaker,” Longarm said, just as softly as before.

Sunstreaker blushed. It was a bewildering look on a mech who Orion had clocked as annoyingly arrogant, and he stared, tilting his helm slightly as Longarm smiled at Sunstreaker in a decidedly both pleased and coy manner.

Well, whatever. This was his chance. With all three of them so distracted, Orion could start sneaking back towards the vent he had used. He raised a pede, intent on shuffling just the tiniest bit to stick closer to the wall, only to freeze when he nudged a datapad.

It was one of the thinner ones, so it slid easily at least a couple of inches, before it innocently stopped. It didn't move much, but half of its edge was in the light, and Orion froze, his spark in his throat as there was a small noise of surprise, and Sunstreaker said with a suspicious tone, “what was that? I saw something move.”

Holy frag, I'm so fucking dead, Orion thought hysterically to himself.

He risked another peek, using the angle to his advantage so they wouldn't see the shape or color of his helm, and he felt like he was being pierced in the optics as he realized that it wasn't Sunstreaker who was looking directly at him, but Longarm.

The black mech had a scowl on his face and glared so fiercely that Orion winced on principle. There was no way he hadn't been spotted, and he almost sighed as he realized that he would have to message both Sentinel and Bee that he would be out of commission for the next few sols.

Dammit. Ricks was not going to be happy. He already had a pole up his aft if Orion was late by a micro-klik, imagine the look on his face if he knew that Orion wouldn't be showing up at all for the foreseeable future?

That might make all of this worth it, Orion thought to himself, almost snickering as his processor helpfully generated an image of Ricks looking gobsmacked.

“I don't think I saw anything,” Longarm said sweetly, and Orion whipped his helm to gape at him as the smaller mech smiled up at Sunstreaker again, palming his wrist. The councilman, who had been squinting in an accusing manner at the stupid datapad that had given Orion away, flushed once again as he stared in awe at Longarm. “Why don't you start heading back, my lord? I'll catch up.”

????? Orion's processor nearly short circuited as it tried to make sense of what was happening.

Hadn't Longarm seen him? There was no way he didn't, they literally made optic contact, and Orion had already gleaned that the mech was far sharper than his boss/lover was. So what was it then?

“And I'll find you…?” Sunstreaker trailed off, his voice overly eager and obviously expecting a specific answer as he leaned down slightly.

Longarm smiled. It was a slight thing, nothing more than a little quirk of his dermas, but his optics lidded half-closed, he leaned up on the tips of his pedes, and he whispered into Sunstreaker's audial, just loud enough that Orion could pick up on the edges of his words: “In your berth, with my legs apart.”

Orion blushed and clapped a servo to his intake in horror mixed with embarrassment.

The archivist, who had been hovering nearby, went so blue with energon rushing to her face that she looked like she was going to faint.

Sunstreaker grinned, wide and way too lustful for a public setting as he eyed Longarm with such a seedy look that Orion felt slightly violated.

With a nod of satisfaction, Sunstreaker turned on his pede and began to march back where he went, in a disturbingly good mood as he bellowed out greetings to the startled mechs he passed by.

“Thank you for indulging him,” Longarm said to the archivist. He was acting like nothing had happened. He didn't even look flustered! He simply palmed the key code that Sunstreaker had given him and tucked it away into his subspace, smiling crookedly in a way that was a touch too charming as he said, “I know how to get to the brewery section from here. Your guidance so far has been appreciated.”

The archivist blushed again. It was honestly a bit fascinating to see her so blue; surely she would fall over soon from how practically all her energon was in her helm, now. If Orion wasn’t so busy trying not to get arrested, he would have asked her if she was alright.

“Oh, no worries, Mr. Longarm!” She said, frantically waving her servos about and giggling a little helplessly when his smile widened just that much more. “I'm so happy to help. I have to return to my desk now, but if you need anything else, here's my comm link ID.”

I guess all that energon in her helm gave her some courage, Orion thought in amusement as he watched the way she leaned down and scribbled something hastily on Longarm's palm, blinking coyly up at him as she did so.

He didn't seem offended by the offer, and simply said, “thank you, miss,” and dipped his head lightly as she tittered and then scampered off.

Orion let out a vent as he and Longarm stood there in silence, with nothing but the shadows and light to separate them. He did contemplate leaving, perhaps try to slip away and hope that Longarm wouldn't follow, but he had a feeling that would work as well as that one time he tried to convince Sentinel that drinking cycles-old energon was fine (read: it wasn't).

“Are you going to continue standing there, or are you going to come and arrest me?” Orion finally sighed, leaning against the dark, flat portion of the shelf as his helm tilted back and laid on it gently. He was busy trying to figure out how to beg (or bribe, sometimes it worked) the enforcer that would have to oversee his cell as he was detained for however many sols they deemed he needed.

“Don't speak so loudly. Or are you not nearly as intelligent as Jazz says you supposedly are?”

Orion jolted, and the noise that left his throat was mostly static as he realized that in the micro-klik he had spent staring up at the ceiling, Longarm had not only strode right past the shelves, but was standing so close to him that Orion had to jerk his chin up to even look him in the optics.

It was then that what Longarm said hit his helm like a damn brick, and he knew he was gaping rather unattractively going by the unimpressed look on Longarm's face as Orion sputtered, gestured at him incredulously, and then finally gasped out, “you're the friend Jazz was talking about?”

Longarm didn't answer. His previous light charm and wit seemed to have melted away completely the moment he stepped into the shadows, and his bright optics were dimmed so that they were barely visible. His expression was tight with irritation, and his arms were drawn across his chassis in his displeasure, but finally, after standing there for at least two kliks, he dipped his chin plate slightly in a yes.

“What the frag,” Orion deadpanned. When Jazz had said that he had a friend who helped him out, Orion had expected an archivist or some noble that had formed a relationship with him, similarly how Orion did with Sentinel.

But Longarm wasn't either of those things. He was not only Sunstreaker's assistant, but he was also his lover, or at least something of the sort. He was as close to the council as anyone who wasn't an actual senate member could get, and it made Orion blink several times as he realized that somehow, some way, Jazz had befriended this - this -

“You should have listened to Jazz.” Longarm's frown deepened into a scowl. Geeze, talk about a total 180. Gone was the soft-spoken, agreeable mech who had coaxed Sunstreaker into leaving and also appeasing the archivist to go away. He had been so faintly seductive that even Orion had felt a little flustered, but the bot stood in front of him now was cold. Annoyed. Maybe even a little angry. “You weren't supposed to draw attention to yourself.”

Orion looked at him in disbelief. “I didn't, at least until you came along! If you knew I was going to be here, why the hell did you lead Sunstreaker right towards me?”

Longarm pursed his dermas and looked to the side. When he spoke, it sounded like his dentae were gritted, and he ground out, “that fool? Please. As if he would ever leave me alone enough for me to venture out on my own. It just so happens that we both lucked out and Ultra is throwing a party. If he wasn't, we would both be in trouble.”

Orion stared at him.

Okay, now he was really confused.

“Uh.” He started tentatively. He didn't want to upset Longarm; if he really was Jazz's friend, then that meant by extension, he was Orion's ally. But curiosity beat out his struggle for propriety, and he cleared his throat, rocked slightly on his heels, and awkwardly said, “sorry, I don't… understand. I thought you and Sunstreaker were - ?”

Longarm shot him a vicious glare, and Orion quickly shut his intake.

“You need to get out,” Longarm growled, now sounding impatient as he glanced past Orion's helm, clicking his glossa in irritation as he saw something. “The archivists continuously sweep the floors every five joors to clean up any messes. Did you find what you were looking for, or is your helm too thick for that?”

Orion's optic twitched at the insult, but he brushed it off and said, “no. I've been trying to find out about the Revitalization Ceremony and also the records of all past winners and trailblazers, but I couldn't find anything. It's like they all disappeared or something.”

He let out a frustrated vent. He just couldn't figure it out. How could there be nothing about the Ceremony? That was impossible. Ever since the Primes disappeared and Ultra took the lead of their congress, he had implemented a system to soothe the restlessness of Iacon citizens. Part of that system had been to record everything that ever happened in their city, so that bots could come and read about their history whenever they wanted.

It was about transparency, integrity, and generosity. So why…?

Orion realized that Longarm hadn't said anything in the kliks that passed, and he glanced up at him, wondering if something was wrong, only to nearly flinch when he saw that Longarm was not only staring at him, but he was staring at him so intensely that it was a wonder Orion's helm didn’t have a hole burnt through it.

He wanted to ask what was wrong, but he was understanding more and more that the Longarm that he had seen with Sunstreaker and that archivist had been a facade. A mask that he put on for some reason, and had dropped around Orion because he wasn't worth it.

“The Ceremony,” Longarm rasped. He glanced down to Orion's chassis, where his cog well was empty. Orion didn't even have time to feel offended by the blatant staring before Longarm reached out and gently pressed his digit tips against the edge of the empty socket. “Why do you care? You can't compete.”

“Hey!” Orion snapped, the first dredges of real anger sparking at the edge of his processor as he harshly slapped away the servo. Surprisingly, Longarm let him, and the larger mech simply leaned back and continued to stare as Orion snarled and said, “listen, I know that to you I'm just a miner, but that doesn't mean you can just go around touching me like that! What gives you the damn right, huh? Just because you're a higher caste - !”

Longarm laughed.

Orion froze.

It wasn't a mocking laugh, and it wasn't one full of anger or irritation. It was short and more breathy than voice, but it was real, and when Longarm smiled, it wasn't like the slight one he gave Sunstreaker, who easily fell for his seductions. It wasn't even like the one he showed to the archivist, full of polite charm and wit.

It was rough, more of a smirk than an actual smile, but his voice had softened around its rough edges as he said, “you're right.”

Orion was taken back, and he was sure his confusion of what was going on was clear as he said, “er, I am?”

Longarm nodded. He straightened and said, “at least about that, yes. But the records of the Revitalization Ceremony… they won't be found here. You're on an endless hunt for it if that's really what you're searching for.”

“But - “ Orion said helplessly. “I need it.”

Longarm's dermas twitched. “Earlier, you said it's like they disappeared.”

Orion nodded, his skepticism making his face scrunch into a frown as Longarm hummed in contemplation.

“Perhaps you aren't entirely off the mark with that observation,” Longarm said, and he gave Orion a pointed, knowing look.

Do you understand? Longarm's optics stared.

Oh, Orion stared back. I do.

Oh.

Orion understood. Megatron hadn't lied to him or manipulated him or done anything like Sentinel and Orion had expected him to; he hadn't sent Orion on some stupid, helmless and scatterbrained quest. This was what Megatron wanted him to see. There weren't any records of the Ceremony, not because someone had checked them out or they were replaced.

Someone had taken them. Deliberately.

They were hiding something about the Ceremony, Orion thought rapidly. There had always been something strange about the whole thing, and Megatron's knee-jerk reaction to Hot Rod winning hadn't been a coincidence, either. Whatever Megatron knew, the bot who stole all these datapads didn't want it getting out.

That meant the secret was dangerous. This was bigger than what Orion had originally thought it was; this was more than him and Megatron playing a game and seeing who would bend the knee and call for mercy first.

“Longarm - “ Orion started, his voice hard and insistent, but the larger mech breathed out a soft curse as he grasped Orion's arm and started to weave through the shelves, ignoring the way the miner stumbled behind him and hissed at him to slow down.

“You're out of time,” Longarm said, not looking over his shoulder as he breezed past a few femmes, both of whom were luckily too engrossed in their respective data pads to glance up. “The archivists will be here soon to check the area, and I'm limited on time, myself. We part here.”

Orion nearly slammed into the back of Longarm’s legs as the mech suddenly let go of him and the speed they'd been walking carried too much momentum. He felt slightly dizzy as he peeled off his servos from Longarm's legs where they'd clutched at the metal in an effort to catch him, and he made a noise of recognition as he recognized the vent grates up above them.

“Wait,” Orion said desperately, trying to jump down when Longarm unceremoniously scooped him up by the waist and lifted him. Instinctively, Orion clung to the rim of the opening and then lifted himself the rest of the way, but he quickly turned to try to plead at Longarm, who was already reaching up and locking the grates with something Orion couldn't see. “Longarm - “

“The answers you seek are not easy to understand,” Longarm warned as he finished locking the grate and then carefully observed the area. Luckily, no one was near, and he gave Orion one last, examining look. “You have to figure it out yourself. Goodbye.”

“Oh, you slagger,” Orion muttered darkly as Longarm turned around and disappeared beyond the corner of a shelf, moving so swiftly that it was like he'd never been there in the first place.

Still, Orion thought, shimmying forward in the vent tunnel and his processor clicking as he filed away everything he had learned that night into his hard drive.

He had definitely found some invaluable intel.

When was the next time he could see Megatron?

#undertow #megop #sentibee #megatron #optimus prime #orion pax #transformers #transformers one #bumblebee #sentinel prime #sorry ill reformat this later #im too tired to do it properly #this chapter almost made me die #like fr #why is it so long

redyarns