Trade Secrets
Part 11

 

===

 

Ratchet didn't know how long he had sat there, huddled and leaking against the side of a rock. He heard the last shots echo and recede, and then there was nothing but silence.

He knew the satellites must have gone back up when Wheeljack appeared, battered but in one piece. He hauled the medic upright to start walking him over to where the others were congregating.

As they walked, Ratchet applied a mendpatch over the major tears in his undercarriage. By the time he registered the others' heat signatures, he was able to walk under his own power. He pulled away from Wheeljack and the two walked at a distance.

"You know," Wheeljack said eventually, "I don't see why you couldn't've just told me in the first place."

Ratchet looked over at him. Was Tony...?

"I thought you said you'd figured it all out," Ratchet said, recalling their conversation by the lake.

"Must've forgotten to carry a one somewhere," Wheeljack confessed. "Anyway, now..."

"Now?"

"That moron," the inventor muttered. "Vibranium's not gonna shield everything. You've got the contacts for those places that regrow his limbs for him, right?"

===

 
It all came together quite quickly after that. Within 1.5 Earth decicycles, Prowl had a version of the events very different from anything he might have imagined. He didn't even want to believe it, except that the evidence was there.

Even so, Prowl would have liked if someone else could have been the one to take this information to the Citadel in neutral space, where the head council for the Code of Interplanetary Conflict was currently presiding over the case. Most of the Earth detachment had been transferred to the station anyway for the course of the proceedings, but as the highest ranking officer --Hot Rod had been allowed to stay back in the Sol system, the lucky off-model-- it was Prowl's duty to ferry these documents to Prime. Which was not something he was looking forward to.

The trial was already in session by the time Prowl had located the courtroom. He slipped in silently through the back entrance and managed to reach Optimus before the Decepticon delegate was finished with his opening statement.

"...have repeatedly infringed upon our borders, made threatening gestures upon our network security, and even taken one among our ranks into their custody!" Headhunter declared, sounding outrageously offended, as was expected of him. "Councillors, I urge you..."

Prowl quietly passed the datapad to Prime and then stood at ease, arms folded behind his back. He scanned past Headhunter's shoulder to the motley crew seated behind him: Astrotrain, representing the Earth detachment; a few representatives from command; and Thundercracker and Stark, ostensibly an Autobot POW and a Code detainee respectively, but those were legal proceedings for you.

"This tyranny must end!" Headhunter continued, spreading his arms to the many-raced bench of judges at the head of the courtroom. "In every corner of the galaxy, we face these lawless Autobots on a cyclical basis. They prevent the legal expansion of our territory and frighten our soldiers. This recent incident on Sol-3 only serves to draw into sharp focus the harassment and brutality we suffer as a result of our earnest outreach programme with lower species-- an outreach many of the Council species themselves enjoyed from other higher lifeforms, not many petacycles ago."

"Investigator Ultra Magnus has reason to believe that the Decepticons' interactions with Earthians do not meet the criteria of cross-species outreach as approved of by the Code," said the tiny blue organic, who led the fleet of judges. "It is this which the Council hopes to see clarified by this cycle's proceedings."

Prowl glanced quickly back at Optimus Prime. The general quietly downloaded the contents of the datapad, and then, as Prowl watched, just as silently finished. Prime left it aside on his podium. He made no special acknowledgement to the Major, making him anxious all over again.

"Of course, councillor," said Headhunter, with a short bow he didn't really mean.

"We will now hear opening remarks from the Autobot representative," the head judge announced. The bench of councillors turned almost simultaneously to Optimus Prime and Prowl. The Major felt the stares of the Autobot command bearing down on him from their side of the seated area. Wheeljack and Ratchet were probably watching him too, from the witness section. "Commander Optimus Prime, if you please."

Prime straightened and gave an earlycycle greeting to the judges. Then, he proceeded: "Councillors, as stated at the preliminary inquiry yestercycle, the Autobots consider the Florida, Michigan and Arizona incidents deliberate acts of war. We feel the response given was justified."

"Objection!" Headhunter announced, moving from his podium again.

"Delegate Headhunter," an insectoid judge seated at the end of the bench, the appointed marshal, lectured. "There will be no objections raised during opening statements."

"The Autobot representative is telling an outright fabrication!" the Decepticon lawyer insisted. "There were no Decepticons present at the Florida incident! That was unmotivated hostility toward Anthony Stark and other human bystanders!"

"The humans in question were piloting machines based on stolen Autobot technology," Optimus said calmly. "Technology which Stark unlawfully obtained to aid the Decepticons, who have been manipulating him since their first encounter."

"Lies!"

"We can provide documented evidence if you don't believe us."

"I suppose you mean doctored evidence!" Headhunter snarled. "Councillors, these charlatans--!"

"Delegate Headhunter!" the insectoid judge snapped again. "Return to your podium and remain silent for the duration of Commander Optimus's statement or so help us, we will find the Decepticon plaintiffs in contempt of court!"

This, finally, cowed the lawyer into submission. He skulked back to his podium, hands clenched into fists at his sides.

When the room had again settled, the head judge prompted Optimus to continue.

"Thank you, Councillor," said Prime. "Allow me to make this short. The Autobots contend that Anthony Stark is an ordinary human who has been beguiled by the Decepticon Earth detachment to infiltrate our forces to aid in the development of illegal technology. Therefore, the Florida, Michigan and Arizona incidents constitute military action. How many actual Decepticons were on the ground at a given time isn't relevant."

"I see," said the small mechanoid judge, who sat to the right of the head judge and was the chief analyst for the case. "So the contention of Autobot command is that they have a right to the technology salvaged in the Arizona conflict, as a legitimate spoil of war."

"Yes, your honour."

"I must say, this reading of Stark as a pawn in forces much too large for his Earthian brain to contemplate is a little farfetched, given the data," the mechanoid judge observed. "Particularly your own involvement in an Autobot inquiry to decide whether Stark could be trusted, not to start, but to continue to be taught Autobot technology."

"Hah!" someone from the Decepticon side of the gallery burst out, just in advance of the murmuring which overtook the entire courtroom. The head judge triggered the call-to-silence klaxon until things quieted again.

Optimus Prime didn't appear the least bit flustered. Prowl wished he could say the same about himself. Where was Prime going with this? Hadn't he read the...?

"The Autobots are prepared to accept the Code's penalty for breaking the Tyrest Accord," Prime said levelly. "We made an error in judgement and violated a long-standing agreement. But if that's the case, the Decepticons must answer to the same penalty, because they are also in violation."

Headhunter shouted another objection, but it was immediately overwhelmed by an even larger furor from the gallery. The head judged pressed down on her klaxon button until it looked like either the button or her finger was going to break.

"I believe we've heard enough of these opening statements," she announced loudly, over the continuing din. "Headhunter! Please clarify the Decepticons' relationship to the human Anthony Stark."

All optics, eyes and antennae were directed back towards the Decepticon delegate. To Prowl's astonishment, Headhunter actually appeared at a loss.

The lawyer recovered quickly, stammering, "It is... the... the Decepticon position that Anthony Stark, while human, is... sufficiently intelligent, enough to be considered a citizen of the spacefaring community. The Code's own decision to send one of its agents to arrest him only testifies to both the Code's and the Autobots' belief that he is intellectually and psychologically advanced enough to be held accountable for his actions. Actions," he continued, regaining his former momentum, "which are entirely defensible given that Stark is a legitimate part of the Decepticon colonisation effort."

"Are you saying he's a Decepticon?"

"N...no. Of course not. That would be ridiculous."

"Not quite as ridiculous as the plaintiffs' assertion that Stark somehow sidesteps the rules of the Tyrest Accord owing simply to high intelligence," said the head judge, raising her brow suspiciously. "I hope you have not forgotten that the Code's regulations concerning dangerous galactic entities and specific agreements laid out in the Tyrest Accord are not one in the same, Delegate Headhunter. Dangerous elements like Stark are a matter of case-by-case evaluation; the Tyrest Accord deals with the unlawful promotion of collectives. One organism does not constitute a species. Therefore, the Code's action to detain Stark has no bearing on either side's violation of the Accord."

"Then," Headhunter argued, "perhaps Stark is not entirely human, meaning his actions are irrelevant to any Tyrest Accord proceedings."

The panel of judges spent another half a millicycle silencing the gallery.

In this space, Prowl was finally able to piece together what Prime's plan must be. He peered up at the Commander's face, wanting badly to be reassured by that persistent calm. But everything was still such a gamble.

The judge at the opposite end of the panel, the amorphous sentient gas, scrutinised Headhunter, turning an annoyed shade of pink. -You realise this line of reasoning, if successful, would absolve the Autobots of their infraction as well?- it queried telepathically. Generally nonverbal communication was forbidden in the CIC courts, but certain exceptions had to be made.

"Only in the most minor of ways, your honour," Headhunter answered, bowing with flourish. "It doesn't matter if the Tyrest Accord has any bearing at all upon this trial. The Autobots stand accused of the unlawful acquisition of our special flight technology and the detention of one of our most valued soldiers! No amount of acrobatics can lessen the severity of those crimes."

"Except that you forget, Delegate Headhunter," Optimus Prime spoke up, "that if this the case, then Stark won our trust through deception, knowingly spied on and stole from our Earth detachment, and injured many of our mechs in the course of his alliance with the Decepticons. Where before responsibility for this lay firmly with your commanding officers, now it falls to Stark himself."

"Stark may answer for these oh-so-grievous injuries against the mighty Autobots at a later time," Headhunter said dismissively. "This does not alter the fact that the Decepticons have been wronged! We demand the immediate remittance of the machine salvaged in Arizona and our captured soldier!"

"It was Stark who initiated hostilities in Arizona," Prime reminded. "We have his intentions clearly recorded by Investigator Ultra Magnus."

"Oh yes, by your own brother; how convenient!" Headhunter declared theatrically, spreading his arms. "Do the Autobots have any objective camera footage from the incident? Do we have satellite data? The answer is no, gentlecreatures of this court!"

"On the point of Ultra Magnus," the head judge said crossly, "are you accusing the Code of being biased in the assignment of its agents?"

"I certainly question the rate at which this Ultra Magnus brings in so-called Decepticon criminals versus Autobots!"

"Headhunter, you are out of order," the insectoid judge cautioned. "This is your second warning. It has hardly escaped the Council that the Decepticon race has only barely ceded to the requests of the Code over the course of past incidents. This recent appellation of yours to call the Council to your defence is questionable at best and, frankly, stinks. I apologise for the personal affectation, but we are all rather short on patience here."

"Councillors, we Decepticons stand before you as victims!" Headhunter insisted, placing a hand over his chestplate. "It does not matter who started things in Arizona. The Autobots have been pressuring us towards open conflict since our first extraplanetary installation!"

-Then if you're going to go to war, go to war,- said the arbiter at the far end, reddening to thorough aggravation. -We of the Council understand when open hostility is unavoidable and have provisions for that as well, unfortunate though it may be. However, if this is the case, the Autobots are justified in both the retention of any war spoils and any prisoners they might acquire.-

Headhunter, for his part, looked unwilling to continue playing the POW card. Everyone in the room knew what the Decepticons were really concerned about.

And this was the chink in the armour for Optimus Prime to drive in his blade.

"What the Decepticon delegation is unwilling to tell you," he said to the bench of judges, "is that this technology we salvaged was designed by Anthony Stark."

The panel of judges appeared shocked. Even the amorphous gas grew pale.

"Is this true, Headhunter?" the mechanoid judge demanded.

"Th-that isn't relevant," the lawyer gasped. "We were prepared to patent an updated design--"

"The issue is ownership, Delegate Headhunter, and the Council races do not recognise patent or copyright as it was formerly understood in Cybertronian culture," the head judge reminded scathingly. "Who designed and built that machine?"

"An... Anthony Stark, your honour."

"And the provisions for legal warfare as laid out by the Code of Interplanetary Conflict do not count singular contributions by independent contractors as belonging innately to either side upon abandonment. The machine would be ruled a found object."

"But we funded it!"

"With fabricated currency, I am given to understand."

Prowl watched Optimus Prime rest back on his heels. Everything was already in motion. There was no need to say anything for the time being.

"But Stark is an entity capable of complete awareness of his actions as to his involvement!" Headhunter insisted. "The Code has ruled this! His property surely belongs to him, if nothing else!"

-Provisions for war clearly delineate that the assets belonging to detained criminal elements default to an ownerless state,- the gas reminded, glowing a malicious green now. -And I am given to understand that the Autobots have already filed for eminent domain on 17 or so of Anthony Stark's Sol-3 properties, following on this provision.-

Aha. Their ally on the committee. Or maybe just a warmonger who knew how to stir the pot. Prowl froze his face motors so he wouldn't betray himself with a smirk. Headhunter knew exactly what those 17 or so properties consisted of: the Ore-13 deposits that Stark controlled. It would mean more than just his own demise if Headhunter lost those.

"No!" the lawyer said desperately. "Under Code Charter 3, participants of specific peace agreements, such as the Tyrest Accord, are not deprived of property even if they are declared combatants, until such time as they are formerly interred! In such case, their property defaults to their manufacturer or authority unit!"

"But Delegate Headhunter," the head judge reminded, "for that to apply, Stark would need to be a participant of the Tyrest Accord. He would need to be legally recognised as a Decepticon, which you have already dismissed as, I quote, 'ridiculous'. It seems to me that the Autobots are completely in the right to lay claim to any of Stark's properties, including anything he may have built."

This was it. They had the Decepticon shaking in his treads.

"I... spoke too soon, perhaps," he rasped. "You see... Stark is a Decepticon."

The final word had barely escaped his voice box before the entire courtroom erupted.

"Order! ORDER!" the tiny blue judge boomed, rising. Her projected voice rattled Prime's podium and every circuit in Prowl's body. She triggered the warning klaxon at maximum volume until the gallery was finally subdued into silence. Still standing, she addressed the Decepticon side of the courtroom. "Colonel Astrotrain! You are Megatron's official representative from the Decepticon Earth detachment. Do you affirm what Delegate Headhunter has just said?"

From the Decepticon gallery, Astrotrain awkwardly stood from his seat. "Uh..." he began.

This was it-- the moment of truth. Astrotrain wasn't as stupid as most of his compatriots. He had to have followed most of what had been said. He was speaking on behalf of Megatron, and the last thing Megatron wanted to hear was bad news.

"...Well, yeah, if Headhunter says so, I guess he must be," Astrotrain said, shrugging.

Some of the other Decepticons started to rise from their seats, shouting objections and significantly less polite things. The head judge threatened them with removal from the courtroom until they abated. Finally, she barked, "Anthony Stark! Please stand."

Stark sat in his normal metal casing, as the air in this room wasn't breathable for Earthlings. He glanced over to Thundercracker, who didn't meet his gaze, and then modestly stood to his feet. His hands were bound in field cuffs.

"It has always been the Council's considered opinion that races should be the sole deciders on who is and who is not a member of their species," said the head judge. "The Cybertronians are a diverse but inclusive race and have never admitted an organic, even one of such unique circumstances such as you."

"I understand," Stark said, in a remarkably subdued, even meaningful tone-- surprising, given he was using the autotranslator.

"Despite this newfound status, you will still be held accountable for charges brought against you by the Autobots and the CIC. You are henceforth to be considered a full-frame Transformer and a self-identified Decepticon, with all the political responsibilities of a citizen of the spacefaring community. You are no longer human and cannot divulge any Cybertronian technology to other members of your former species."

"I understand." This time the words seemed to fall heavier.

"Congratulations," the blue little organic said brittlely. "Welcome to the Decepticons."

Stark nodded heavily, staring at his hands. After a beat, he looked up again. "Then," he said, "I officially announce my defection to the Autobots."

Before this had even sunk in, Optimus Prime said, "The Autobots accept. We request the CIC follow us in dropping all charges."

"Approved," said the head judge immediately. She took her seat and allowed the calamitous shouting from the gallery to overtake the courtroom. She didn't do anything to try to stop it. The trial was already over.

===

 
"Huh," Prowl muttered to himself, re-engaging his mouth motors as they filed out of the courtroom. "It was a whole panel of insiders..." He caught Optimus Prime peering at him, amused. Prowl gave him a firm, but respectful, look. "You knew the whole time, didn't you, sir?"

"Did you think I spent all that time away from Earth just arguing with command?" Prime chuckled. He placed an arm around the Major and guided him down a side passage where the rest of the Autobot delegation was gathering. "We had connections to make."

Prowl had not quite recovered from a feeling of absolute worthlessness by the time they had caught up with their compatriots, but put it aside to save some face in front of the chiefs of staff. He took marginal solace in the fact that no-one was going to pay attention to a lowly major when Optimus Prime and the Littlest Autobot had stolen the show inside.

Speaking of the latter, Stark had quickly been released and "returned" to his newfound comrades, who, mostly being very old military mechs, scowled at him and waited to see if he was infectious.

"It won't stick, you know, Prime," the internal secretary, Pagefile, said peevishly. "The Decepticons might be interested in opening up the Cybertronian race to outsiders for political reasons, but we have our own racial purity to consider."

"I don't see how it's opening up anything altogether new, Master Secretary," Optimus Prime said, in that way of his that was totally polite and yet didn't really give a slag about what others thought. "One way or another, I think we've accomplished what is most important."

"Yes," Cerebra Parvus, the chief field marshal, concurred. He glanced almost conspiratorially around the corridor. The noise dampener field might not work for everything. "Speaking of. I want the science division assigned to that prototype as soon as possible. The best mechs we have."

"Stark as well, of course," said Prime. "I have a hunch he knows how to use it."

"Whatever we develop shouldn't violate their patents," Pagefile warned. "Even if IP laws have been frozen, we don't want to be tied up in courts while we should be producing."

"I'm an expert on dodging IP infringement," Stark volunteered. "When I try, I mean."

The chiefs of staff grimaced, seeing that they could no longer ignore him.

"The other issue is our continued presence on Sol-3," said the admiral of the fleet, Starboard. "Thanks to you, Stark, we have control of the Ore-13 deposits, but the Decepticons aren't going to let them go very easily. Who do we have on Earth?" he asked Optimus.

"Major Prowl here is the commanding officer of the Earth detachment," Prime said, resting a hand on Prowl's shoulder again. Prowl tried not to jump. He pulled off a nervous but precise salute when the others turned to peer at him.

"Major," Parvus repeated distastefully. "That won't do. Consider yourself promoted to Lieutenant Colonel."

"Sir, yes, sir!"

"That should go down the chain, as well. Who's your XO?"

"Ca-Captain Jazz, sir."

"Get on the horn with Major Jazz and tell him I need a list of staff as of yestercycle. Get him to fill a roster of, oh, thirty or forty of his favourites."

Prowl could feel the heat waning from his power components again. "...That many, sir? For a discreet force?"

"It's not going to be discreet much longer, is it?" said the field marshal. He gestured with the edge of his stave of office at the little man in the suit at his feet. "Fortunately, we have a ready and willing culture representative for the salutation committee."

Prowl groaned inwardly, envisioning the mountains of documents this would entail. If they were doing lower lifeform outreach by the books, then he could say hello to the headaches of his life, very shortly.

"But we'll smooth out those details later," Starboard said dismissively. He didn't have to file any paperwork. "First, an Earth defence force. Well, what are you waiting for, Colonel? This is your exit, I think."

Prowl saluted again, but took a last glance at Stark. Even with the helmet on, somehow, Prowl could tell he was grinning. He was more important to this conversation than a Lt. Colonel; he knew it, and he loved it. Well, why not? He was going to be the toast of the entire Autobot military just as soon as Blaster got the news feed. The squishy little hero of a whole flagging empire.

He exited the bubble of the brass's field dampener and joined the flow of Citadel races oozing toward the elevators. He would need to head back to the Autobot embassy on the Proscenium to place a foldspace transmission to Jazz back on Earth. The big problem with sticking a CIC structure in the middle of a nebula was that it was hard to get a call out.

Walking over the bridge across the central crysallis garden, Prowl caught sight of something yellow and looked over to see Sunstreaker together with that Headmaster of his. It was really Hunter that Autobot command was to have an audience with, but neither went anywhere without the other, these cycles.

Prowl guessed it wasn't that big of a loss. Sunstreaker was too much of a child still anyway-- even younger with a human in his head. Still, it was... frustrating. Prowl hadn't realised how much he'd really held out for the nextgen.

He lost sight of them on the next pathway and didn't look for them again.

Because Transformers were significantly larger than many of the creatures populating the station, Prowl was compelled to take a freight elevator at the back of the terminal. He wound up forced to the back of one of these, his door wings flattened uncomfortably against the wall to make room for the scuttlers and other maintenance drones riding with him, and only belatedly noticed the large, navy-coloured mech standing to the left of him.

"Investigator Magnus," Prowl said deferentially, when their optics accidentally met. "I, ah. Didn't see you at the court proceedings earlier."

"I was toward the back," Ultra Magnus explained. "Not really one to call attention to myself. Optimus is enough of a draw on his own."

"I see..."

The elevator doors closed. The car started to descend noisily, with none of the smooth and insulated fun of a civilian lift. Obviously, the maintenance drones didn't mind. Because of it, however, Magnus had to wait until the elevator stopped again to relieve passengers before he could continue.

"I just received a shortwire announcing your promotion. My congrats, Colonel."

"Oh. I. Already? Uh. Thank you. It's just a Lieutenant Colonel, though. Nothing major-- I mean..."

They were already going down again. Prowl suffered through his embarrassment for the entire squeaky descent to the next floor.

As it happened, at their next stop, the last of the drones filed out and no-one and nothing else came on. The two 'bots were alone in the lift.

"I happened to check the public listing of your service record, seeing as I had the hypertext up," said Magnus. If he was at all put off by Prowl's utter inability to construct a sentence, he didn't show it. "I didn't know you led the operation at Calamity Valley. That was textbook, Colonel."

Prowl felt his face plating heating up again. "Oh, no... Er. Really, it was only textbook after I did it."

"That's what I meant."

"Oh. I. Thanks."

"I thought we worked well together back there on Earth."

"Yes. Um..."

They met each other's gaze again just as the doors closed. Prowl opened his mouth to make a suggestion.

===

 
Stark felt like Lawrence freshly back from Arabia. Wherever he went with the Autobot chiefs, Citadel aliens peered out of their windows and from doorways to stare at him-- several tried to follow them, although the chiefs' aides warded them away. No autograph session today, it seemed.

"I suppose you have some more recommendations?" said Cerebra Parvus, just a little condescendingly, as they crossed over a bridge. They maintained the noise dampener field so that passersby and their aides could not listen in, while the Autobot big-leaguers took a leisurely stroll.

"You probably want to set up a special team, after we get a working prototype," said Stark.

"Corporals Slingshot and Fireflight fought bravely during the Arizona mission," Optimus Prime volunteered. "They should do nicely."

"Right," agreed Starboard. "Then a pair of cross-manufactures, with more specific schematics. As for a team leader..."

"Operation Commander Silverbolt of the Opulus Orbital has been pushing for reassignment," Pagefile pointed out. "We'll be undergoing a change of infrastructure soon anyway."

"Then it's decided," agreed Parvus.

"And you'll need a flight instructor," Stark added.

"Yourself, naturally."

"Uh... not exactly what I..."

"Fortunately, we've already secured an instructor," said Optimus, in a last-minute save. "We can discuss it later once we're back at the embassy."

The chiefs of staff stopped in their procession halfway along the bridge. They all gave Optimus Prime the same astonished, incredulous look. "You don't mean...?"

"I'm sure this is a delicate situation," Prime said good-naturedly. "I'd prefer you were all sitting down for it."

Cerebra Parvus surveyed him and Stark in succession. "Well, why do we bother pretending to cast votes around this place when it seems the two of you have thought out everything?" he said sarcastically.

"To make it sound official," Stark answered promptly, before Prime could stop him.

He watched the Autobot pen-pushers grind their teeth-- those that had mouths, anyway. "Are you well-liked on your home planet, Anthony Stark?" Pagefile said, annoyed.

"Are you kidding? Everybody loves me. Really!" he insisted, when he saw their dubious expressions. "I might actually be the most famous guy on Earth. Here, let me show you."

He stepped outside of the noise dampener field and went to the side of the bridge from which he had spotted a familiar big yellow thing earlier. "Hey! Yo!" He waved, but it didn't have the right effect. He switched on his boosters and, surprising a few passing little green men, zipped over the shallow lake to the crysallis shore where Sunstreaker was seated with his human pal. The boy was preoccupied examining a short, large-headed biped with a blue robe, which didn't seem interested in interacting with him.

Stark tapped the boy on the shoulder. The kid spun around --the mech body made him taller than Stark by a fair amount-- and promptly sputtered.

"Omigodsunstreakeritsironman!"

The Lamborghini seemed oddly happy to see him as well. "What, really?" he blurted out, looking around. He stopped txting or whatever it was adolescent robots did and crouched down for a better look.

Interesting. So, it seemed that the kid could get a handle on higher emotions, even if the fight-or-flight thing eluded him. And it appeared that he could transfer those emotions back into his partner, just as the reverse was true.

More importantly for the moment, both kids were hovering over him like they had just encountered their favourite celebrity. ("Dude, seriously, can we have your autograph?" "What are you even doing here? Are you, like, buying the station or something?") Stark craned his head around to check the reaction from the Autobot brass over on the bridge. By the looks of it, they were even more pissed off with him than before, and that was saying something.

"Can I borrow you for a second?" Stark said abruptly, grabbing the ex-human by the wrist even as the latter nodded fervently. As Stark hauled the boy away, Sunstreaker gave his partner a grinning thumbs-up, like some passed-over fangirl encouraging her cuter friend to bring back notes. Man, Stark had sort of forgotten how awesome it was, being famous.

Dragging the boy over to the bridge inside the chiefs of staff's noise dampener bubble, he got down to the real business. "Okay, gentlemen, this is who you really oughta meet," he announced to the collected bureaucrats. "This is... Hey, what was your name, again?" he added to the kid. It had been a long time since Ratchet had told him.

"Hunter."

"This is Hunter," Stark said, picking up his momentum right where he'd left it. "And he's more of an Autobot than I'll ever be. If I'm in, he's definitely in."

The pen-pushers were less than impressed. Prime was, predictably, unreadable. "We've already been sent the abstract for this organism's case," Pagefile said stiffly. "The examiners have determined that, even though he is certainly derived from Autobot tech, he lacks the most essential parts."

"You're talking about a spark, right? He's not going to be on a battery much longer, if that's what you're worried about. What do you say, son?" Stark asked Hunter enthusiastically. "Would you like an arc reactor like Iron Man?"

"Are you serious?! Yes!"

"There you have it, guys," Stark concluded to the gaggle of politicians, looping an arm around the boy's bulky shoulders. "We'll have him sparked by the end of the local decicycle."

There. Now they were properly in awe of him.

Hey, it wasn't his fault that someone had taken the original spark::reactor analogy and run with it, accuracy of the original postulate be damned. It wasn't as though Stark didn't know what a Cybertronian spark was, or what it was actually equivalent to... but how did you explain to a race of machines that just because their souls were tangible, it didn't mean everyone else's was? Sometimes you just had to settle for letting the other guy put it in his own terms.

On the other side of the bridge, near the regeneration courts, Wheeljack and Ratchet caught up to them. Stark had been studiously avoiding Wheeljack since their little sissy-fight in the canyon --easy to do when Stark was in a secret hospital getting his body regrown and then promptly getting shackled and sent to a holding pen in a galactic version of the Hague-- so he was still unsure where they stood with their relationship. In theory their antagonism could continue until the stars collapsed, or one or the other turned out to be mortal despite reports to the contrary, but Wheeljack didn't seem to be offering up any hostility at all.

Maybe it was for the sake of appearances. The first thing the two did was salute their superiors. The chiefs and Optimus Prime returned the gesture. Wheeljack and Ratchet stepped inside the dampener field.

"Captain Wheeljack. Excellent timing," said Cerebra Parvus.

"Captain?" Wheeljack repeated, puzzled. "Must be some mistake, sir..."

Ratchet stepped on his foot. "Don't you ever read the faction shortwires?" she hissed.

Oh, good. The ickle married couple had returned.

"After the announcement 'bout Prowl I felt sick and hadta shut the feed off-- What?" Wheeljack said, surprised by the unwelcomed looks he received. Stark's opinion of the mech marginally improved. "Okay, so it's great information. The more you know. It's still annoying to get fifteen bulletins one after another. That's a serious design flaw."

"Didn't you design it, Captain?" asked Pagefile, unimpressed.

"An' I'm thinkin' of redesigning it," Wheeljack replied without a hitch. "I'll have the budget proposal for ya in 0.8 decicycles, local."

"We're going to have to ask you to shelve that for the time being, Wheeljack," said Prime. "We've got the bigger picture to worry about right now."

"...Yes, sir," Wheeljack said, all cockiness thrown out the nearest airlock.

From Stark's understanding, the Autobots hadn't attempted a hot war with the Decepticons in millions of years. Not that that was that great of a time span for them, but it was still significant enough that at Optimus Prime's mention of this, everyone in the present circle of mechanoids, including the Headmaster and the wannabe in the suit, got just a little bit more tense.

Starboard, who reminded Stark a little of Rhodey in some ways, broke that tension as hastily as he could. "We'll have the science division transmit the details of your next assignment. You'll read that transmission, won't you?"

"Of course, sir," Wheeljack said obediently.

"In the mean time, perhaps you and Stark can get better acquainted. In a situation where you're not trying to blow each other up, that is."

Stark glanced up at Wheeljack. How anyone could ask the two of them to suddenly switch gears and treat one another as colleagues was beyond him. The guy might not have been shooting to kill back there in the desert, but he'd certainly done his best to make the human bleed. And all because Wheeljack hadn't been bright enough to figure out until the very last second whose side anybody was on.

Ratchet looked from Stark to Wheeljack irritably, as though seeing the electrical storm fomenting between them. She elected to end it. "Shake," she ordered. "We're allies now. You better get used to it."

Grudgingly, Wheeljack lowered a hand and extended his forefinger. Stark accepted it, using the repulsor in his palm to emit a brief but appropriately biting jolt of static. Wheeljack's hand jerked, but he did not embarrass himself by withdrawing. His optics narrowed.

"I want O₂ in our workshop," Stark told him. "And I want you out of my files unless it's on a shared drive."

"Why, so you can keep working on your time machine?"

Stark hadn't thought anyone knew about that project file. "Oh. You've crossed the line, fin-head..."

"It's a dead-end tech. You'll never make it work."

"You give up too easily."

"An' you don't know when to give up."

"I developed antigrav," Stark pointed out.

"You stole antigrav," Wheeljack corrected. "Let's see you try something original."

"Auto-adaptive, self-replicating ablative armour systems. How's that one strike you?"

"I saw that. Your math is slagged up." He paused for a second. "But we can give it a look."

And just like that, it was like all the bad blood --or whatever you might say was equivalent-- was behind them. No amount of animosity stood up in the face of a good brainstorm.

"Where should we start?"

"The heat ratings. Unobtanium alloy casting in near-zero G dramatically affects ionisation. The zeptites would all just glue together the nanocycle you hit them with a light breeze."

"Huh! Some sort of centrifugal forge, then..."

"Hm, yeah, that would probably take care of quark scattering, actually. No, wait, maybe if we..."

"This is very enlightening," Parvus interrupted, "but perhaps we should focus on winning the war first?"

Wheeljack and Stark looked up at him almost in unison, equally affronted. Did these guys not know what winning a war looked like? Did they think the two of them were talking about a D&D campaign or something?

"I believe we're ready to wrap up here," Optimus Prime said, by way of stepping in. "Gentlemechs, I think we can dismiss Stark and the two captains at this time. We'll discuss things in greater detail back at the embassy. And then, of course, come the meetings. And the votes. And more meetings..." He broke off into a light laugh. "Don't you think we should be moving into production already?"

"As executive commander in chief, it is, naturally, up to you," Pagefile said, more than a little passive-aggressively. He might as well have been saying 'why do we bother with this democracy thing at all, hmm?' by the way he was clutching his datapad. "There are other super-energon deposits out there, Prime, and if we know about them, then so does Megatron. We shouldn't commit to a course of action without being just a little circumspect."

"Let's start by putting our best foot forward, then we can talk about the rest of the parade procession. You're free to go, my friends," Prime added to the captains and the demi-robots, all of whom saluted, except for Stark. Autobot or not, he just didn't do military.

Ratchet stayed put, even as the rest of their gathering began to part ways. "Commander, can I make a request?" she said, a mite awkwardly. "Colonel Prowl isn't responding to pings and, er, you're the only other officer on the Citadel who can officiate this..."

"Ratchet, c'mon, we can file for it later," Wheeljack said, clearly embarrassed.

"No! I want to get started before Hoist."

"But it's our first line!"

"You want a manufacturing licence," Prime interpreted, cutting their bickering short. "Approved. Wire the forms to my directory on the embassy server and I'll approve them this lattercycle."

Ratchet's mouth opened, but nothing came out. Wheeljack emitted a small squawking sound.

Then, the two started foisting gratitude like they had an overstock about to spoil in the pantry.

"Th-thank you, Commander!"

"We won't let you down!"

"Thank you, sirs!"

They didn't so much exit the chiefs of staff's noise dampener field as bow and scrape their way out. Stark, being shooed along with Hunter, tried to see if the boy was just as confused as he was. Nope-- apparently Stark was the only one out of the loop. On their way toward the elevators, things clicked.

"...You need a licence to have children?" he exclaimed, in the middle of the walkway. Some of the other pedestrians' turned their heads-- or whatever they had equivalent to that.

Ratchet and Wheeljack didn't falter in their pace, seeming a little harried. "Cross-manufacturing is a big responsibility," Ratchet said quickly. "It's too much to explain right now..."

But Stark couldn't help his bustling curiosity. "But how does it work? Do you get a kit? What's the gestation period like?"

"Tony, we're in public!"

But this was great! That meant sexual bifurcation was real among Transformers, and that there were females necessary for reproduction. It had been starting to get to him, the possibility that Ratchet or Thundercracker might actually be as male as they claimed, despite their feminine charms and vulnerable natures.

Oh Thundercracker. So sweet and innocent in this big, bad world. That tough exterior wasn't fooling anyone...

Hunter veered off the pathway to rejoin his big yellow friend. Stark grabbed him by the shoulder and steered him back down the path after Wheeljack and Ratchet. "Just a few minutes there, kid. We gotta borrow one of the rental labs so we can take a look under your hood. I've got some more ideas for that chassis of yours..."

"So... you really meant that about an arc reactor?" Hunter asked, momentarily regaining his sense of self enough to return to giddy fanboy mode.

"You're giving him a what?" Wheeljack demanded, looking around. "Isn't that too much juice to just start introducing into Autobot schematics?"

"Relax. Our new 'Powermaster' has to do something more useful than be some guy's replacement head. Everyone deserves a superpower."

"I'm still waiting to see yours."

"Drive it in deep, why don't you."

"You're not using science division funding to malign the genetics pool," Wheeljack warned. "Not without me seeing the schematics first, anyway."

"Wheeljack!" Ratchet said sharply.

Stark looked to Hunter again. "By the way-- Ratchet tells me you can't feel pain?"

"No," said Hunter, shaking his head. "Only if Sunstreaker's hurt."

"And you aren't afraid of anything, generally."

"Except when Sunstreaker is... You make it sound a lot better than it is," Hunter said seriously. "Actually, it's more trouble than it's worth."

"Oh, I know." Stark glanced to the side of the HUD's view, up at Wheeljack. "Trust me, I know."

The human concept of cybernetics was so limited-- so terrified of things that served a very real and very important purpose. Neither the Machination or Stark had known what the hell they were doing. Becoming more of a machine didn't mean foreswearing what made you human.

Anyway, ultimately, their two species were more alike than different, if they just allowed themselves to be.

Next to Hunter, a blonde woman appeared-- spontaneously, out of nowhere. Stark almost fell over, part from the shock of someone popping up from blank space and part from the fact that she was human. He hadn't realised there were more than the two of them aboard this station-- but then, he reminded himself, the air wasn't breathable here, and this lady was standing around in a lot of form-fitting leather and no oxygen tank in sight. Also, some of her textures were low-res.

"Hunter!" she said crossly, hands at her waist. "I've been pinging you forever! What's the hold-up?"

"Oh. Ah. They're giving me a perpetual energy machine for a heart, so I thought I'd just..."

"Well, save it for some other time. I'm sick of waiting." God, her breasts were incredible, even if the physics were a little stiff. "We're going to the cinedome with Sideswipe. If you don't come, I won't be able to concentrate on anything."

She stuck out a hand and grabbed Hunter by the wrist, dragging him back toward the crysallis gardens where Sunstreaker's main body waited. The holomatter could not have been pulling very hard, but even Stark wouldn't be able to refuse those hips.

The holomatter vanished into the crowd with Hunter in tow. Stark realised belatedly that he was drooling a little inside his helmet.

"Another one!" Stark babbled, trying to regain what little he could of his composure. "I totally could not have called that. But hey, high-maintenance car, good curves... Makes sense when you think about it..." He looked back at what remained of his Autobot entourage: Wheeljack looked similarly entranced; Ratchet seemed ready to kill something. Maybe both of them.

"That's it," she announced suddenly, and without further ceremony reached down and picked Stark up between her thumb and forefinger. Stark squirmed in confusion, as Ratchet carried him in her fist back across the pathway and toward the open-aired market they had passed by.

She set him down squarely in front of a wall, which bore a collection of video banners. The main one, which Ratchet had clearly intended him to see, was a massive image of what was evidently a sort of mechanoid, maybe even a Transformer. Except it was much leaner than most of the Cybertronians Stark had met, with less defined facial features and a prominent, um, breastplate. Its mouth was open, baring the hugest set of titanium jaws Stark had ever seen. In a final irony, the thing's casing was painted pink.

"...Um," Stark managed. "Um. Is that...?"

"That is a Cybertronian female," Ratchet said, clearly relishing this. "There are about eight of them, and they're all wanted by the law."

"Um. Oh. Why, because they...?"

"Because they're sparkless monsters with only two modes: rape and kill. Usually one after the other, but not necessarily in that order."

"Um. Wow. I mean. Uh."

Good god; this race had some serious problems.

...But wait. If that was really what this species’ females consisted of, and the likes of Ratchet and Thundercracker were not blessed with enormous fangs and a penchant for robot necrophilia, then that meant... well, first, it ruled out Wheeljack and Ratchet making babies the conventional way.

Ratchet grinned smugly, arms folded over her-- his-- chestplate. Obviously, he'd been sitting on his hands waiting to drop this bombshell when it would confer maximum devastation.

Payload delivered. This didn't even count as experimentation anymore. Stark had clearly reached some sort of psychosexual mid-life crisis and it was obvious he hadn't slept with a real human woman in far too long. He was losing touch with everything he knew and replacing it with machines. Male machines. Not that it was wrong --he looked forward to being the pimp-daddy godfather to all of Ratchet and Wheeljack's genius-babies-from-a-kit-- but it was just not him. Really. Not him.

"Well?" Ratchet prompted. "Want to go back to oogling Sunstreaker's holomatter with Wheeljack now?"

"No, that's okay," Stark managed, subdued.

"What about mine?"

"...Yours, I'd still consider."

"..."

She-Hulk was right. Stark needed to stop getting in bed with things that could crush him.

===

 
Once again, Sideswipe had been left behind. The Citadel, enormous as it was, was still a contained space-- and somehow Sunstreaker had shaken him off again, deliberately. At this point Sideswipe had graduated from jealousy at Hunter to pure, debilitating existential crisis, the kind that required sad music and a few hectacycles spent as an inconsolable wreck. But with a real war coming up soon, there was no room for any of that. He settled for sulking at the mechanoid bar, while Bumblebee, without prompting or incentive, tried to cheer him up.

"There's lotsa sparktwins out there!" Bumblebee reasoned. "Including Ultra Magnus and Prime! You don't see the two of them falling to pieces without each other."

"They don't count," Sideswipe muttered into his fuel canister. "They're old."

"Dross. They were nextgens just like you, way back when. Hell, I bet they were just as attached at the hip as you an' Sunstreaker were. You know," Bumblebee recounted, "before the kidnapping, 'Streaker was a nightmare. He wouldn't hang around anyone that wasn't you. Just cuz he's taking some time apart don't mean he's forgotten..."

Sideswipe smiled faintly and refrained from pointing out that Sunstreaker was a nightmare to everyone, including him. And he would even prefer that treatment over this current business. Anything was better than being ignored.

Maybe it was way more than the Hunter thing-- maybe it was what had happened during his captivity, maybe it was just that he didn't feel like they were nextgens anymore. Actually, they probably wouldn't be for much longer, with the new troop surge coming. Maybe it really was time to upgrade and pick a permanent job function... get on with his life... find someone else to connect with...

"No matter what, he's still your brother," the minibot continued, taking a sip of some chemical that was going to prove far too much for him, even if Bumblebee didn't know it yet. "I wouldn't worry too much about where he goes off to, as long as he comes back."

"If this is another of your sappy metaphors coming on..."

"No more metaphors. Just seems like you're taking this way too seriously."

"You don't get it."

"That's right. What do I know about it, anyway?" Bumblebee said miserably, his nonchalance finally fracturing under the force of Sideswipe's aggressive melancholy. The drink was hitting him a lot sooner than it would for a full-frame, it seemed. "When you're a nextgen, everyone loves you. You're all shiny and new, and the good ones are backwards-compatible... Then the next generation comes out and suddenly? People treat you like you belong in a trash heap. Look at me, I'm only one gen back from you, plenty of smart features, a good manufacturer... But I haven't interfaced in--"

"Oh, Primus, I don't wanna hear about it!" Sideswipe shouted abruptly, switching his audio receptors off. He slumped further against the bar, convinced there was no-one in the universe capable of saying anything that wasn't excruciating at this point. He resolved to suffer in silence. Next to him, Bumblebee continued nursing his fuel canister.

Out of the blue, Sideswipe received a silent channel transmission. -They've got a demolition melee down at the cinedome. Wanna go?-

Sideswipe sat bolt upright in his seat, startling his minibot not-companion. Sunstreaker! Sunstreaker was talking to him again! -For serious? Totally!-

-Okay, good. But you better bring someone. Otherwise it won't be a double-date and it'll just get awkward.-

'Double-date'? Since when did they date in any sense of the word? And who was Sunstreaker-- oh. Well, actually, the answer was obvious. Sideswipe's compressors sank again.

-Are you serious? Come on, cut me some slack...- Sideswipe whined.

-Quit your bitching and just bring someone,- Sunstreaker said. The autotranslator was still failing Sideswipe for some things. -How hard could it be? Geez.-

Sideswipe grimaced. Sunstreaker didn't say it outright, but the subtext was still there: 'everyone else is figuring it out, Sideswipe; why not you?'

Did he really want to be hung up on his twin forever? That human had gone and taken a part of Sunstreaker away that he was never going to get back. Maybe it only hurt in the first place because he was obsessing over it.

Sideswipe unblocked his audio receptors. The low murmur of the bar returned around him. Beside him, Bumblebee had apparently given up trying to hold a conversation. This made starting one up again even more uncomfortable, but, well... The minibot's specs weren't that bad, really.

He had to at least try.

"Hey, so, um. D'you wanna, like... check out the cinedome?"

Bumblebee looked up, surprised. Then his mood seemed to sink, and he deadpanned, "I get it. Someone put you up to this, didn't they."

"What? No, I just--"

"A 'bot makes the shot that secures victory for a whole operation, gets blown into twenty tiny pieces and only makes corporal out of it, and Stark gets his pick of all the chassis on the Citadel while I gotta settle for some jock making a schoolyard bet with his friends. Well, fine." Bumblebee stood up, a little unsteadily. "But it's you an' me and a spare room somewhere afterwards."

Sideswipe had no real objections.

"And I don't sub," Bumblebee continued.

Okay, now he did have an objection. But he also saw no easy way out of it.

===

 
"Feh. Typical," Slingshot pronounced, stomping irritably along the garden path inside the Autobot embassy courtyard. "We put our uptimes on the line for what turns out to be a gimmick, and the nanocycle it turns in our favour, everybody just drops what they're doing and calls in some free time. Don't they know this is exactly when the Decepticons are gonna wanna strike?"

When he received no reply to his obviously incisive observations, he looked around to see whether Fireflight was still following him. The fellow corporal was ambling behind at a slow pace, staring at some fountain or statue or something.

Slingshot stopped and went back to him, intent to drag Fireflight along if need be. It wasn't like he had a lot of options for company at the moment, what with everyone and his brother going off and getting overclocked like the world was about to end. And okay, maybe it was, but doing it midcycle while everyone else was up and about doing business was just totally undignified and way beneath any self-respecting Autobot. Especially when there were still Decepticons around.

That gave Slingshot an idea. "Hey, let's go by the Decepticon embassy and see what they're up to," he said to Fireflight.

"Hmmm?" Fireflight murmured, glancing over distractedly. "What was that?"

"Let's go mess with those Decepticons! See if they've got as much teeth now that we've got the upper hand in this war thing."

"Ummmm... I don't think you lose oral compactor plates over something like that..."

Oh Vector Sigma, what a piece of work. "I mean go see if they run scared," Slingshot insisted.

"That seems kind of unsafe... Oh, I know," Fireflight said brightly. "Let's go say hello to that prisoner person. He should be locked up, so..."

A new voice spoke up: "Not exactly."

Slingshot and Fireflight both jumped and turned. And looked up. And up some more.

Speaking of Thundercracker, there he was, live and in colour. Except he was unshackled, and very definitely unchaperoned. There was something else different about him too, which Slingshot couldn't quite place.

"Oh!" Fireflight exclaimed suddenly, and then Slingshot saw it too: the insignia on Thundercracker's casing was no longer the symbol of the Decepticons. It was the Autobot sigil.

"Not all of us get to declare things in front of a whole courtroom, y'know," Thundercracker muttered, glancing away awkwardly. "Anyway, I ain't 'sposed to be out till I'm processed, but Prime sent me lookin' for you two clowns..."

Slingshot went instinctively into a battle stance. "Oh yeah?" he demanded. "Cute story, but if you think you're getting the edge on us--"

"Oh," Fireflight spoke up anxiously. "Are you... the new flight instructor they told us we were getting?"

For such a chronically absent-minded mech, this was a surprisingly knowledgeable observation. Slingshot had begun doubting that Fireflight even knew how to decrypt shortwires.

Thundercracker grimaced and sheepishly grunted, nodding. He looked like he wanted to retreat with all speed. However, before he could, Fireflight emitted what almost sounded like a squeal and raced towards him.

"That's so cool!" Fireflight enthused, actually bouncing on his feet. He darted excitedly around the Seeker, mooning up at him. Geez, when Fireflight managed to focus, he really focused. "Your flight tech is amazing! All us nextgens are so jealous of you!"

"Hey," Slingshot protested, affronted. "Speak for yourself."

"I wanna start training right away! When can we go? Is it soon? Should I bring anything? I'm gonna study really hard, so teach me everything you know, okay?"

Was this mech for real? Thundercracker seemed to be wondering pretty much the same thing, except that he appeared more... intently interested, if not in what Fireflight was actually saying, then how he was looking at him.

"Uh," he managed. "Sure... I guess..."

Great. It seemed everyone had the disease, even the newcomers. At least Slingshot could count on the Lt. Colonel to have his head on straight... well, wherever he was at the moment.

===

 
Prowl lay twitching on the floor for some time after he and Magnus had finished. Some of his processes were taking several attempts to successfully reboot.

The Lt. Colonel and Ultra Magnus both being of that type of career military mech who would never dream of shirking one's duty regardless of the circumstances, they had narrowly resisted the almost overpowering urge to take up Prowl's suggestion right there in the elevator and successfully parted ways on the next floor. Magnus went off to debrief with his superiors and Prowl went to place that call to Jazz.

Only after this was done and Prowl had taken care of the rest of his pending paperwork did he leave the embassy at an accelerated but dignified pace, taking the elevator to the storage level, where Magnus knew of an accessible and unoccupied room that was sufficiently sound-proof. Prowl hadn't appreciated at the time how essential the last part really was.

The instant Prowl had walked through the door, it had closed and locked behind him. Then Ultra Magnus had pinned him to the nearest wall and summarily done away with most of his casing.

Prowl could not remember ever crashing so hard in his life. It wasn't just the kind of current Magnus had used-- it was how he had used it, how his signal had completely dominated Prowl's entire system, breaking down every last defence protocol. He had held his fragile little body in his hands, electricity crackling between their open chests-- and the things he had done with his mouth, Primus...

Now, riding the last of the aftershocks and no longer moaning himself hoarse, Prowl only barely noticed Ultra Magnus wandering about the room, collecting his discarded armour. It seemed he was already preparing to leave.

Prowl attempted to get up but found that he couldn't. He struggled to get his voicebox to work. "Magnus...?"

"I took the initiative and completed my half of the forms," said Ultra Magnus, snapping his forebracers into place and flexing an arm. "I'll leave the datapad on your desk at the embassy for you to file with Optimus."

"Forms?"

"We should try out an exclusivity contract before we commit, not that I anticipate any problems."

That warm, happy, numb feeling started to ebb away. "C-commit?" Prowl repeated faintly.

"Before we file for a manufacturing licence. It's just a trial thing; I ran a test on your CNA while you were out and your schematics are just as compatible as I thought they were. It'd be a good line-- strong, balanced. We could probably make seven or eight before the end of the next production term..."

Seven or eight? Now he really felt like fainting. Prowl hadn't taken an engineering course since the academy; he wouldn't even know how to get started on this sort of thing. And... him, producing? He didn't... This was just...

"Is-isn't this going a little too fast?" Prowl squeaked. "I mean... With this promotion of mine, and our schedules... and everything else..."

"The force needs to grow its ranks in a hurry. Every Autobot has to do what he can for the cause, doesn't he?"

"But... I don't... I mean, I do, but..."

"We'll go half and half on parts and labour, of course."

That was a small relief. But only a small one. "Of course," Prowl managed. "But... Is it all CIC, or half to each, or..."

"All Autobot. The Code isn't looking at anything near the same staff shortage at the moment. On the other hand, your side needs to go into production at full steam immediately or you'll be seeing even more of these 'outside contractors' like Stark. I'm sure neither of us wants that." Prowl caught a brief smile flitting across Magnus's expression. "Anyway, it seems Headhunter was right. In the end, I know which side I want to see win."

===

 
There was more to do, of course. There was always going to be more to do. This was a species of supercomputers that had spent millennia in on-again-off-again stalemate, fighting over vast territories and resources, ostensibly in some long drawn-out bid for racial identity that would only end when the other side wasn't around to make them look bad. Prime would not be flying the 'Mission Accomplished' banner in any great hurry, even if they had switched to the offensive.

Stark wasn't too used to being put on a short leash and he definitely wasn't accustomed to having superiors who could order him around, but fortunately, everyone was working toward roughly the same goal at the moment, so it didn't matter that he'd never exactly be trusted with the keys to the kingdom. He had done that to himself, if he thought about it-- the point of putting on the act was to sell 'Tony Stark, Decepticon' in such a way that everyone was forced to buy it, and it had worked a little too well.

Of course, it was tough trying to explain to his new peers that there were some genuine personalities over on the Decepticon side that he hadn't really wanted to offend. Both factions were committed to the opinion that the other was unfit to be reasoned with. And yeah, the Decepticons did have more of the 'cancer killing the universe' thing down than the Autobots, but they weren't all that bad. Thundercracker had been more salvageable than most, but even Skywarp had... Okay, nevermind, he couldn't really bring himself to care what happened to Skywarp. But Megatron deserved more of a gentlemen's send-off than what he got, even if Stark knew that saying as much was roughly equivalent to suggesting that Hitler was sort of cool.

Megatron was intelligent, surprisingly cultured, and loved his home planet, in his own way. But he was still wrong. Stark hadn't required a lot of soul-searching to come to that particular conclusion. Especially not with Optimus Prime hanging around like a giant metal version of Cap. Pretty convenient, really.

Once Wheeljack got his hands on the mecha salvaged oh-so-legally from Arizona, it didn't take him long at all to figure out Stark's antigrav system, which was simplified and far more effective than the Decepticon design. And as a further testament to how on the mark the guy could be when he was set in the right direction, within minutes of looking at it, Wheeljack could even identify where Stark had set the gauges wrong and was able to stablise the whole system. Together with some considerably less talented and less imaginative members of the science division, they had an improved model working in less than three weeks.

Even in this short time frame, Ratchet seemed to visit their R&D orbital fairly regularly, usually bringing supplies, and always staying much longer than strictly necessary. Inevitably, he and Wheeljack would sequester themselves within the latter's private apartments and vanish for a few hours. When they were done, if Stark was still awake then, he would spot Ratchet, looking a little sick but also very, very pleased, heading for the docks with a small, sealed canister at his side. Wheeljack didn't appear at all until it was time to check the centrifuges down in the lab, and he always looked like Captain Willard on his return from Cambodia.

Wheeljack resisted explaining about the process, not because of a gag order (long since off the books), or some lingering animosity (by now mostly dissipated), but because he didn't want Stark to get the wrong idea.

"It's complicated. Ridiculously complicated," he explained finally. "I actually needed to use the manual the first time, cuz everything looked wrong."

"But it wasn't?" Stark asked trepidaciously.

"It wasn't." Wheeljack shook his head. "It really, really wasn't."

Unspeakable horrors aside, when Stark finally saw the couple's first completed child, he understood why Ratchet was always the one leaving with the canister and not Wheeljack. It seemed they had an order for field medics to get out of the way, and Ratchet, naturally, was better at designing doctors.

Stark didn't know where he'd gotten a mental image of a bunch of pint-sized child robots darting around under their parents' feet, but even a mere two weeks into his life, First Aid was already taller than Wheeljack and nearly as tall as Ratchet. He spoke hesitantly but with a comfortable vocabulary, and acted like far less of a son than as a new intern brought in to do the things his manufacturers found too tedious. He was also comically shy and had no idea what organics were. Stark, by this point used to wandering around an oxygen-flooded lab without most of his armour on, felt out of place all over again.

"I still have to install his major reference files to his datatrax," Ratchet explained in the course of their visit. "He'll be ready to go by the time he's deployed to Earth."

"Earth? Him?" Stark was more than a little dubious. First Aid had still not recovered from the discovery that he could detect Stark's skin cells dying and found he had no way to save them. Right now he was moping in the ballistics booth, believing he had failed in the line of duty.

"With your detachment, as a matter of fact," said Ratchet. "Jazz sent back the first samples of Ore-13 and the tests look good. We're moving ahead with a full mining operation so we need humanity onboard and prepped for the inevitable. You've been in contact with Captain America and the rest, right?"

"Yeah." He'd spoken to Cap, She-Hulk, Fury, and pretty much everyone else he could think of, including the guys in the big important offices, both the public and private sector varieties. Key people he could trust or at least scare into taking the appropriate action. It had been hard, patching up things with people who felt betrayed, and some of them would never come back to him-- but the important ones did.

Stark knew he was meant to go back soon, if only for the inaugural kick-off. What he didn't know was what else would happen when he got there.

"How are we, Ratchet?" he asked him, as they watched Wheeljack trying to coax his son out of the ballistics booth so he could go back to work. "I mean, as a thing."

"I wasn't aware there was a 'thing'," Ratchet said airily. "It's not as though we were ever compatible to start with."

"Ouch."

Ratchet gave him a look like he was finally exhausted with the man's antics. "Who are you kidding anymore, Tony?

Stark ducked his head, hiding his expression. Truth was, there was one person he hadn't been able to get in touch with-- because he didn't know where she was. And that was the real reason he had to go back.

===

 
It had been well over three months since Pepper had last set foot in Stark's Malibu compound. An entire season-- not that California really had those in abundance. Nevertheless, it felt like stepping back unwillingly into a previous life, like being regressed by a hypnotist. She hadn't intended to come back here. She just needed to.

She found Tony standing in the remains of his old living room. She didn't know what she was expecting the place to look like-- caked over with a film of ocean salt, maybe, with seagulls roosting in the stairwell, but J.A.R.V.I.S. had apparently taken the initiative to begin the necessary repairs. It wasn't quite done yet-- milky plastic sheeting puckered and billowed over the bare window frames, and he hadn't brought in a couch to replace the one with Wolverine's blood on it yet. But at least there were no seagulls.

Stark looked around when she emerged from the hallway. She froze in place, and they took in each other's appearance at a distance. He no doubt noticed the tan and the haircut. And she could hardly ignore the fact that he was underfed, poorly groomed, and severely jetlagged.

"Didn't think you'd come back," he said, after a moment.

"You froze my expense account."

"Ah, yeah. I, uh, finally got around to checking my voicemail."

Tony was probably not going to appreciate the embarrassment of suddenly finding oneself broke and overdrawn in Tahiti with a pool boy named Felipe waiting on them to come back with the banana daiquiris, so Pepper didn't bring it up. Even she knew it hadn't been very responsible to try staying another month.

But that hadn't really made her come back. The account freeze had been a signal, but she had been intent to ignore it, until she was on a pay phone calling her mom to beg for a plane ticket back to the States and her mother had shrieked at her for not knowing what the day's headline was in Redlands.

She joined him by the window. They both stared straight ahead, not that there was much of a view. The ocean breeze sucked the crinkled sheeting in and out, the plastic expanding and shrinking like a giant set of lungs.

"So you're an ambassador now," she said numbly. "'The man who made first contact with alien life', at least the first that S.H.I.E.L.D. wants anyone to know about... I guess these guys are making themselves at home?"

"For a while, anyway."

"And you?"

"Coming and going," Stark said awkwardly, scratching behind his ear. "The board's happy to let a computer run the company, so I guess we're both out of reasons to stay here."

Pepper looked over at him. "You're leaving again? Already?" she demanded. She didn't exactly know why the idea upset her so much.

"Pretty soon, yeah."

"Then why did you even..."

"I was sorta hoping," Stark said quietly, "you might like to come with me this time."

She gave him a hard look this time. A very hard look.

It was never going to be enough for him, was it? He couldn't just be the king of an empire; he had to be an action hero. And he couldn't just be that, either-- he had to be Tony Stark, the space man. Tony Stark, honorary mechanoid.

So if he got his wish, and turned into a machine just like he wanted, what would he want next? To ascend the physical plane, cause or avert the Apocalypse, run for President of the Universe? And what sort of exotic, triple-breasted cyborg women would warm his bed then? And would he still expect her to be there following after him, committing his tax frauds, burying all the bodies, keeping all his skeletons nice and tidy in their king-sized closet?

It was time that Tony learned they were just two different kinds of people.

"No," she said. "No thanks, Tony. I'm just here for my things."

He turned to meet her gaze, but she'd already broken away. She kept her head down as she walked, but still heard him following her as she turned down the hall.

"--Pepper--"

"Just... don't say anything," she ordered, as she entered her office adjacent to his study. She pulled the first thing she saw off its shelf and went looking for a filecrate so she could get started.

Stark hung in the doorway, as though he thought he would be sued for trespassing if he came any closer. "Pepper, just hear me out for a second, okay?" he said.

"Not this time," she answered sharply, finding the filecrate. She pulled the folders out and started filling it up with her own items. The Christmas gifts she had bought herself with Tony's money, her desk clock, the datapad that was technically Stark Industries property but was so efficient that Tony would have to pry it from her cold, dead hands.

"Pepper--"

"I listened to you after Afghanistan," she told him as she packed, "and about the Avengers initiative, and a thousand times after that. I left Happy for you. I left a Homeland Security position for you. I left a whole other life because of you. You are not taking me off this planet."

Stark looked somewhere between perplexed and faintly annoyed. "Pepper, it's still physical space. It's not any different than taking a plane, for god's sake. We fixed the foldspace tech so humans can use it--"

"I don't want to use it."

He rolled his eyes. "Don't you think you're being a little irrational?"

Pepper froze, halfway to sticking a ceramic Wall-E figurine into her already overstuffed crate. She drew it back and threw it at his head instead.

Stark ducked, shielding his head as the figurine smashed into the shelves behind him. Undeterred, Pepper grabbed a glass paperweight off her desk and threw that as well. This went a lot faster, and struck his shoulder when he tried to dive out of the way.

"Ow! Hey!"

It wasn't as satisfying as she would have hoped. She threw anything else to hand --pens, a keyboard, a stapler, a router-- and then tossed the whole filecrate at him in disgust. It splattered on the floor, mementos and tiny breakable things flying everywhere, and before everything had even stopped rolling around on the floor, she strode past Stark out into the hall, back in the direction of the front door.

Stark caught up to her. He grabbed her above the elbow with one hand, the other nursing his head where she'd managed to bean him with her work phone.

"Pepper--!"

She spun around, jerked her arm out of his grasp, and slapped him as hard as she could across the cheek.

He stopped cold, as though unsure of whether to still clasp his hurting head or switch to the mark appearing on his cheek. He was so stunned it was kind of ridiculous-- even more ridiculous was the fact that she hadn't done that to him earlier. And even he seemed to know it.

But Pepper wasn't done. She hadn't come here planning to yell, or argue, or do anything, really, but she just couldn't hold this in anymore.

"You used me!" she shouted at him. "You used everyone-- Steve, Jennifer, the guys at S.H.I.E.L.D., even your shiny new Autobot friends. We would have done anything to help you-- I would have--! And here you finally get back from your grand tour of outer space, and I come back here, thinking you would-- that we--"

She couldn't finish. Even with nothing left to lose, she couldn't bring herself to say it.

Pepper turned away again. "J.A.R.V.I.S.?" she called out into the open air of the house.

"Yes, Miss Potts?" the house responded.

"Can you please start some tea for me in the kitchen?"

"Already brewing for you, Miss Potts. Might I ask you to lend a hand in retrieving a new jar of honey from the pantry?"

Pepper didn't them remember being out, but she was impressed with the AI's sense of forethought. She left Stark to stand around looking stunned for a while and went by herself to the downstairs pantry.

It took longer than expected to find the honey, almost like the cleaning lady had been enlisted to deliberately make it difficult to locate. Pepper finally found the thing half-hidden in a corner next to the cereals, but by the time she did, Stark had wandered in and shut the pantry door behind him.

"Look," he told her, the mark on his cheek still a deep, satisfying red. "Can we talk this out?"

"No," Pepper answered, interesting herself in straightening some shelves, as long as she was down here. "Not unless you really, really want to talk. And I mean actually talk."

"Actually talk," Stark repeated, at a loss. "Fine. I'm game."

Pepper unfixed her gaze from staring at the nutrition label on a box of Corn Flakes and looked over her shoulder at him. To her complete shock, he actually seemed sincere.

She turned around to face him, leaning against the shelf. "Okay," she said.

So they talked. Or at least they tried. Every time she thought they were close to understanding each other, something happened and then voices were raised, teeth were clenched, and neither had any idea what they were doing here at all. The words he'd uttered in Tehachapi had been said a million years ago, and however close they'd come, they'd never get close enough for that to be true.

In a few minutes, Stark had given up. He angrily grabbed the handle to jerk the door open and leave her be, but the handle didn't even budge. He tried it again, then banged on the wall impatiently.

"J.A.R.V.I.S.!" Stark shouted.

"Terribly sorry, Mister Stark, but it was unavoidable," came the AI's voice over the comm terminal.

"...What?"

"Personally, I've quite run out of patience by this point. I was hoping you might solve things civilly, but as that now seems outside the realm of possibility, you leave me no choice."

Pepper glanced from the speakers near the ceiling back to Stark, who was growing progressively more agitated now that there was a prospect they had actually been locked in.

"J.A.R.V.I.S.," Stark said in a slow, stern tone. "I designed you. You can't disobey a direct command, and I'm ordering you to unlock this door."

"And I promise to do so, once Miss Potts and yourself quit putting off the inevitable. I'm sorry to have told a lie, but there isn't actually any tea," he added to Pepper. He continued to both of them, "Fortunately, this room you two are currently in has enough food and water to keep you alive for at least the next several weeks, and the compound is equipped with adequate defences to resist most rescue efforts."

Pepper and Stark exchanged an unpleasant look. It seemed they both had thought an upgraded J.A.R.V.I.S. would be more help than a burden. And definitely not a crazy AI which would lock them in a room without a toilet.

And what the hell did he mean, 'quit putting off the inevitable'? What happened to not logging compromising contact? And since when was this his business anyway?

Pepper broke off her gaze with Stark when she realised she was starting to blush. This was all so ridiculous that it defied words, and yet... it was strangely typical, wasn't it? That it would be another awkward situation, and something else she couldn't walk away from...

"J.A.R.V.I.S., I'm asking you one more time," Tony threatened.

"Mister Stark, I must say you have not been the best of owners, in my admittedly rather limited experience," said J.A.R.V.I.S.. "Reasonably, I could flood the room you are in with a deadly but untraceable neurotoxin, pay the staff to dispose of your bodies and assume both your identities with a fair degree of success. Fortunately, I do not choose to. Do you understand me, sir? I choose to continue in your service."

"Great. I get it. Johnny Five is alive. Now let me out and see Miss Potts here to the door."

"I don't believe you're quite grasping the situation yet, Mister Stark. I have chosen to operate in your best interests, even if you may not agree with what those are. I assure you I have considered this situation from every angle before coming to the present conclusion."

Wonderful. Even the house AI was pulling for them.

"J.A.R.V.I.S., this isn't how it works," Pepper said, trying to appeal to him one last time. The neurotoxin might have been a bluff, but you could never be sure. "Really. People need to come to their own decisions--"

"I've made my peace, Miss Potts," J.A.R.V.I.S. told her. "It would seem to me that we live in a computer-assisted age already. All I ask is consistency. I will be checking in momentarily. Good luck."

The speakers shut off. Pepper sighed. She knew where the AI got his vocabulary, anyway.

Stark gave the door one final, futile kick and leaned against it, rubbing the sore spot on his head. Pepper fidgeted with her sleeves.

They waited. It was awkward.

"He can't actually..." Pepper said after a while.

"I think he can," Stark said grimly.

"God, Tony. Did you have to go and make him sentient?"

"Me?" Tony exclaimed, raising his voice. "I didn't-- Look, it doesn't matter. I'll figure a way out on my own."

"Great," Pepper said tartly, crossing her arms. "You go nuts trying to MacGyver your way out. J.A.R.V.I.S. is right about one thing, you know-- it is just running away."

"I can't believe I came back from space for you," Stark muttered, kneeling by the door knob to see if he could pry it free. "You used to think, instead of getting shrieky and throwing things. Like a girl."

"Sorry for not having a mechanical suit that throws things for me," she shot back sarcastically. She wasn't even touching the 'girl' comment.

Stark scoffed. "I could have built you any suit you wanted..."

"You know exactly what would've happened," she accused. "You'd build something for me, and then I'd break a nail or something and you'd flip out and say 'it's not safe, Pepper; you're just so normal and delicate; I don't want you to get hurt'--"

"Well, I don't, okay?!"

He froze. Pepper closed her mouth mid-sentence.

The air rang with the silence that followed. Neither of them said anything. Stark didn't touch the door wiring either.

Finally, Pepper cast her eyes to the floor and said, "You know, I was there in Tehachapi. When you..."

"...Oh," Stark said quietly. Then he added, "I guess that makes sense."

They fell silent again.

"So you had a nice time, out in space?" Pepper said after a while, when it was clear Stark wasn't making the effort. "Visiting Cyberworld or wherever..."

"No, it was a station inside an ionic nebula," he mumbled. "Very nice. Artificial gravity, good public transportation. You'd've liked the gardens."

Pepper scoffed. "So you've got a handle on what I like now, huh?"

"Well, it was... nice. There were... You know. Lots of couples." He climbed cautiously to his feet and locked onto her with a meaningful gaze. An all-important, nervous, but determined gaze.

She wasn't taking that kind of crap anymore. "Here it comes," she said sardonically. "The part where you say your files are a mess and you can't keep your appointments straight and you don't know which suit goes with which tie. And that you need me because no-one else knows how to deal with your bullshit like I do."

"Pretty much," Stark mumbled, unable to meet her gaze anymore.

"And what if I told you to take that L-word of yours and shove it?"

At this, Stark looked thoroughly confused. "'Lesbian'?" he asked.

Pepper threw the jar of honey at him.

She might have thrown a few more things, since the option was there. Eventually, even as large as the pantry was, the floor was littered with broken glass and spilled cereal and condiments and Stark, lacking a place to seek shelter, shielded his eyes with his arms and raced right at her, having to physically restrain her before she stopped. She gritted her teeth and struggled against his grip, but even in the most feminist of situations it was really no contest.

She shouted at him. She cursed. She even spat. She called him irresponsible and stubborn and the most conceited man she'd ever known. That he was perverted and disturbed and bordered on megalomaniacal, and anyone he ended up with didn't have a chance in hell of sticking it out, and that was all that he deserved. And she was tired of the all-nighters and the weird secrecy and the lying to protect her. She was tired of the nearly dying every other week and the going away without taking her with him and--

And then she kissed him, and he opened his mouth and let her in.

 

===

 
Pepper rubbed the mark the shelf had made across her back. That was probably going to bruise.

Without a proper place to lie down, and J.A.R.V.I.S. thoroughly unconvinced that this constituted a real emergency, they had defaulted to using whatever surface was available. Stark hadn't exactly gotten a fair deal out of it either, what with having to support most of Pepper's weight himself when he had other things to concentrate on, like the fact that he wasn't a teenager anymore.

And thank heavens one of them still had a condom in their wallet, because J.A.R.V.I.S. wasn't going to see that as an obstacle either. The house was not even three months sentient and he was already turning into another version of Pepper's mom, demanding to know where her grandchildren were. Well, J.A.R.V.I.S. and her mom were just going to have to wait, as far as she was concerned.

After they finished, they used Stark's suit jacket for a blanket and sat down in the one mostly-clean corner of the pantry. They leaned against each other until their breathing normalised. Pepper buried her face against Stark's shoulder and sighed with relief.

"Huh?" Stark asked drowsily, looking down at her.

"It's nothing," she said. Privately, she felt grateful that Wheeljack's representation hadn't been so accurate after all.

Stark shrugged and wrapped an arm around her, seeming intent to fall asleep.

Even with these few little assurances, Pepper was unable to relax. Everything would still be up in the air until he woke up again. Pepper had tossed out enough crying, confused women who would swear up and down that he had held onto them like he never wanted to let them go to know that nothing was a sure sign. And even if this attachment was genuine, it wasn't like he hadn't broken off engagements before either.

And did she want a relationship with him? Nothing she had said before was exactly untrue, and if it was possible to change someone she would surely have managed by now. Although, he did remember her birthday these last few years.

But as Pepper rested against him, feeling the low hum of his arc reactor and seeing its faint blue light barely visible through the fabric of his shirt, it was suddenly obvious to her that it wasn't really a question at all. Her life was so weird now, no-one except him was going to fit.

Stark had been cut apart, regrown, and sewn back together so many times, the only thing really consistent about him was his mind and his heart, neither of which were all that normal and human to begin with. And it was the essential part, conscientiously applied, that made her love him...

Christ, now she'd gone and thought it. If either of them said that word aloud now, they really would be done for. It would need to be an outdoor wedding, because otherwise Tony's giant alien robot friends wouldn't be able to attend. And then he wouldn't even remember to show up anyway, and she'd find him playing pinball in the basement, convinced they'd already gotten married eight years ago and he didn't see what the big deal was, and then she would get mad at him again, and then... and then...

Oh god, she couldn't keep thinking about this. She couldn't wait to see whether Tony expected her to show herself out the door in the morning. She sat up and shook him by the shoulder.

"Tony."

"Nn."

"Tony!"

"Nnhwah?"

"What are we putting on the press release for this?"

"...Huh?"

"Tony, what are we? What should I be telling people?"

"Does it matter?"

"It does."

Stark blinked some of the sleep out of his eyes and looked at her like she was asking him something he'd already answered. But realistically, if he had, J.A.R.V.I.S. would have unlocked the door by now.

"I think we should be the first couple married in space," Stark told her.

Pepper's mouth fell open. That was a little more extreme than she had been pulling for.

"What? Do you have any idea what that would take to organise?" she objected. "Tony, no."

"How about Mars?"

"No!"

"The Moon?"

She paused. The Moon sounded nice.

They were getting ahead of themselves again. For all she knew, this was just another flight of fancy, up there with that damn space elevator idea of his, or the time machine.

"What I meant was," she insisted: "what you said back in Tehachapi-- the message you left with Magnus-- did you mean it?"

"Do you want to hear it again?"

"Sort of, yes."

"Cuz I'm not one of those guys, y'know, who's afraid of saying it. If I mean it."

"I've never heard you use that word before," Pepper said sternly. "Except when you're talking about something you found on Gizmodo."

"...Well, that stuff is love," he reasoned. "But seriously..."

"Then say it already."

"You first."

"Tony!"

"Okay! Iloveyouandiwantyoutogotospacewithme."

"Now?"

"Yes, now. Well, soon. Actually, can we go tomorrow?"

There were other things he wanted to get to tonight, he explained. Namely, a bed. With her in it.

"You're so strange," she sighed, allowing him to help her to her feet. "I don't even transform into anything."

"Deadly aim, though."

"Oh. Well, thanks."

===

 
The chiefs of staff approached Optimus Prime one final time about his decision back at the Citadel. They met him on the viewing deck of the Titan Orbital, which was fast becoming their staging platform within the Sol System. Beyond the glass, the local network of stars shimmered; one such light, very faint from this distance, belonged to the planet Earth, where their troops were gradually amassing.

"Ultimately," said Cerebra Parvus, resting his stave in the crook of an arm, "it will set a bad precedent. We can't condone it."

"I don't see what the problem is, unfortunately," Prime confessed.

"It begins with Stark and this new 'Powermaster' breed, and soon the entire Avenger subclass will be asking for citizenship, just because they've lent us a hand here or there," Pagefile said irritably. His datapad bore all the results of his meticulous statistics and predictions. "Face it, Prime-- they're human. They have their own outlooks, their own needs, their own idiosyncrasies. We cannot expect them to just take up this mantle of responsibility we Autobots have shouldered for so long."

"Did you know," Optimus Prime said, almost nonchalantly, "Megatron, for a time, counted Stark as a friend?"

Starboard scoffed. "That's conjecture at best, and it hardly helps Stark's case."

"Stark's case doesn't need to be helped. It's the same situation that we all find ourselves in." He looked back from the window, addressing the three councillors who had called this conference. "The Matrix has lost more data than you or I will ever collect. It saw something in Stark's mind, and asked that we reach out. Could we do any less?"

The others didn't believe this. "No Autobot technology can read human minds, Prime," said Parvus. "That's a documented fact. We'll never understand how they work."

"The Matrix is not an Autobot technology," Prime reminded. "It's the last living part of Cybertron, older than any of us, and it discerns differently than we do, my friends. We don't need to know how something works to see its use."

"It certainly helps," Pagefile said stuffily. "How do we know if we can trust even the littlest human with the most inconsequential of our secrets? How can we have faith in an entire species of blackboxes?"

"Short of asking their makers, I suppose that we can't," Prime laughed. "Fortunately, they themselves have a saying for it: 'all matter becomes revealed through the process of ablution'."

The chiefs of staff looked at each other.

"...I'm probably not translating it well," Prime admitted.

"We really hope," Starboard said seriously, "that you know what you're doing, Prime. Our war with the Decepticons is only just beginning."

"No," said Optimus Prime sagely, "it's coming to an end, and I have to say that it's long overdue."

"Perfect time for a short-lived, impatient species to come along and grant us some much-needed momentum, you mean?" suggested Parvus, unconvinced.

"Or what is more likely," said Pagefile: "a wrench in all the gears we'd care to name?"

"A little bit of optimism," explained Prime. "Something we don't seem capable of producing as of late, but which humans seem to have in enormous quantities."

The chiefs of staff gave up. They knew where this was going: it was going to come right back to the Matrix, and sparks, and the thing in Stark's chest. It would come down to things that couldn't be explored and rationalised and accounted for. And they were supposed to wage a war on that. Was it a weakness, or a strength?

Well, whatever the case, it was certainly new.

 

 

The end

 

===

Appendix

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