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“Come again?”
Rodimus grinned at the slightly higher intonation that came out of Megatron's vocalizer, a clear testimony to how much his proposal had actually affected the mech sitting on the other side of the table; the other's hand was still suspended above the datapad, stylus clutched so hard he expected that when his co-captain would let go, it would just be dust in between the surviving ends.
“That's what I hope you will be doing tomorrow,” he teased, looking pointedly up and down with a smirk, leaning down by standing on the tips of his pedes to get even an inch more of a height advantage, when his face got pushed gently away to the side, making him pout instead, attempt at stealing a kiss interrupted.
“Rodimus, stop for a moment,” Megatron insisted exasperatedly, putting both of his hands down on top of each other on the desk, yet, to the speedster's amusement, not letting go of the stylus. “If this is a joke, I admit, you got me,” he offered with a tight lilt of his voice, the opening for Rodimus to take to exit this conversation now, and spare them the embarrassment and unnecessary drama.
Too bad for him, Roddy wasn't joking.
“No, Megs,” the smaller mech tutted, wagging his finger shortly, before he gestured around.
“This is a crew tradition,” he said, and stared to list on his digits: “helps to keep the morale up, gets the bots all together, and everyone gets some relief,” he noted, showering him with his enthusiastic smile, as he announced confidently:
“Win-win-win!”
Megatron stared at his servo and face for a moment, before his arms moved jerkily, lacking the usual grace; he took one of the datapads from the stack on his side, and, with a slight tremor, powered it on, before he started to scroll across the contents.
Rodimus was going to be a good co-captain and give him all the time he needed to accept his point of view, but if Megs was going to take much longer, he might start to fiddle with something in his reach to pass the time.
Luckily, before he could do any irreversible damage to the desk, other datapads, or himself, the gray bot slowly looked back at him.
“I didn't see any records of it on the ships logs,” Megatron pointed out, passing him the datapad - as if giving proof for the other's verification - but Rodimus only shrugged in response.
“Well, we've done it only a few times,” he explained, taking a spare stylus from the organiser (one of the few things Megs ever kept in this space, he needed to get him something more personal, even Mags gave in and put in a picture frame, playing out a slideshow), and twirled it between his fingers idly, “and it's not something we would have cataloged when we were expecting to come back to Cybertron later,” he tapped one end of the tool on the silver helm, winking, before his face contorted in horror.
“Can you imagine Prowl's face if he saw it?”
He saw Megatron's dermas twitch, and smiled.
“With the jump successful, we can start putting those on records too,” he proposed, yielding into the procedures for the sake of moving past this weak defense, and pressed on.
“Normally it's the captain and the crew, so it was just me before,” he flared his plating a bit, chassis jutting out proudly, and reached out with his hand to the mech, “but we're co-captains! We can finally share this!”
Megatron watched his servo warily. “I don't think it's a good idea,” he replied quietly, to which Rodimus dismissed by initiating contact first, putting both of his hands on those of his companion.
“It's not a good idea - it's a great idea!”
Despite his cheerful demeanor, the other mech remained silent, not meeting his optics; there was no sign that he would be shaken off, but neither had there been any gentle strokes across his digits, which was not the usual way between them.
Rodimus leaned away a bit, pulling at the larger hands to cradle them between his.
“Megs, are you afraid?” he queried, lowering himself down a bit onto his elbows so he could look up at the red optics instead.
Megatron's dermas were set in a thin line, but there was no anger present, which was pointing towards Rodimus being right, the mech was anxious; even with the progress he had made so far, after all they went through, it was nothing to compare with the eons of habits coming back up.
Roddy's proposal must have picked at the sense of vulnerability that he knew the former warlord was struggling to express in a way that satisfied him - and so now he was fighting between the ages of a need to squash it down, and the reason and iron will that knew his former response was not one he would accept anymore.
One day, Rodimus hoped his co-captain would find a way out without throwing himself into this state.
“There will be no deep connection without your consent,” he whispered, coaxing the mech back to him by pressing on the metal below his fingers, pulling the attention to the pleasant sensation instead of the turmoil in that damn bucket on his shoulders, “nobody can harm you, everyone who takes part is first tested,” he continued, moving slowly to cross the desk, closer to the grumpy face in front of him.
“And hey,” he said, placing a quick kiss on the other's cheek, “if you hate it, or it doesn't work out well, you don't have to do it again, promise.”
Megatron hummed, letting his hands get massaged for a while, before he ex-vented.
“Alright.”
*****
Drift knocked briefly on the door, unsurprised to find them sliding open at once, before he came into the office where he expected to find Rodimus.
He was still humming to himself soothingly as he got closer, tapping on the red helm attached to the rest of the mech, waiting for his captain to wake up from what he assumed was a deserved nap, given what today's event was.
“Hey, Roddy,” he called out quietly as the plating shifted, revealing the blue optics of his friend, and stroked the other's head in concern, “why the long face?”
Rodimus had a disappointed expression at first, but at the query his faceplates changed into a scowl.
“No reason to have my happy face on,” he answered, cheek still in the desk making him mumble a bit, which in turn caused Drift to look him over, taking in the details of their surroundings as well.
“On a day like that, I would have expected that you'd be all giddy as usual,” he stated, stroking along the yellow spoilers, “I can see you had some action, so tell me - was it not enough for your taste?” he asked teasingly, but soon after his tone changed into a more comforting one, “Or was it too much?”
Rodimus pressed against the touch, before he sighed, pulling himself back up.
“No, it was alright,” he assured, stretching a little and letting out a satisfied moan.
“Physically, I'm fine - I'm sore in a very pleasant way, Drift, don't get me wrong,” he chuckled, rubbing his digits over the traces of transfluid that remained on his chassis, before looking away, “it's just…” he muttered almost too quiet to hear, wiping his hand on his chair distractedly; leaning back, fully against the back of his chair, he let his servos fall onto the armrests, digging into them.
“Have you seen Megs?”
Drift's helm moved slightly in the first indication of a nod, and it was enough to get Rodimus to erupt, taking both hands to drag them across his face with a groan.
“For some reason, they've swarmed on him like scraplets,” he complained, rubbing between his optics as he grimaced, pointing towards the suspiciously clean office around him, given the circumstances.
“I had to move here because I kept on bumping into someone railing him,” he explained, “the walls here are much more soundproof.”
Drift let out a soft laugh, moving to sit on the edge of the desk.
“Well, it was your idea to get him into this,” he reminded his friend, shaking his head fondly when the mech turned on the chair, draping himself over it sideways.
“I know,” Rodimus grumbled, crossing his arms, “but I didn't expect there to be such a rush!”
He cursed quietly to himself for a bit, before his frustration spilled out again, making him get up to sit more properly.
“Mags set up a ticket system, for crying out loud!” he exclaimed, rummaging around his subspace to take out a little piece of shiny, perfectly rectangular scrap metal, with a number printed out exactly in the middle, and waved it at Drift, before looking at it with a frown.
“And looking at the number I got, I'll have to wait for the next time for my turn,” he bemoaned, collapsing deeper onto the seat, sinking down.
The other mech nudged him lightly with his leg. “You can always ask him later privately,” he reminded, aiming to provide some comfort.
Rodimus kicked just as gently back. “It's not the same thing.”
Drift didn’t wish to lie about this so obviously, so instead he tried another route. “It could be just the novelty - you'll see, one or two more of those, and it will all be back to normal.”
“I don't know…” the red mech ex-vented bitterly, chewing on the edge of his ticket, “Some bots had gone back, asking for more numbers…”
He shook his helm violently, putting the piece of scrap back into his subspace, before he started to tap on the desk impatiently.
“I've heard he even got sent to medbay now,” he hissed, “who knows if he will be up to continue today - or ever, for that matter…”
Drift remained silent, waiting for him to calm down, so to fill the quiet, Rodimus started talking again.
“I wonder what happened - Mags was stingy with the details, but I know it wasn't him, cause he already had his fun some time before,” he snorted, the sounds and visuals of that still in his recent memory, before he froze, optics wide.
“You know what I just realised,” he said, looking at the other mech with a sharp creak of the neck, in an increasingly peeved voice, “he didn't even take the Magnus Armor off.”
The tapping resumed, but the force of it increased tenfold, denting the surface.
“You know how long it took for me to get him to let me ride him in it?”
“Did you finally convince him?” Drift replied, following the prompt obligingly, which made Rodimus bang his fists on the desk.
“Exactly! No!”
He let his fists open up, moving everything on his already messy desk around obsessively.
“‘It's too dangerous, Rodimus,’ he said” he seethed, parroting the voice of Ultra Magnus without really trying, pushing the pitch up on purpose, “‘you're too small, Rodimus,’ he said,” he imitated the talking with his servos, before he pointed to himself, offended beyond belief.
“Megs is bigger, okay - but I can take it too!”
The echo of the words bounced back at him in the office, which only made the nods he received from his friend all the more difficult to see, despite not doubting the sincerity behind the gesture.
He let his arms fall to his sides, hugging himself for a moment. “Anyways, if you've come here to make sure I'm not brooding, you can go.”
Drift clicked his glossa, coming in closer. “Why don't you assume I wanna ‘face with you, Roddy?”
“Well, you've got your conjunx,” Rodimus gestured towards him, “you're giving quite an… ‘ exclusive’ vibe,” he added air-quotes for a good measure, before he laid his weight on his arm, pretending to be more cool with it than he really was, “plus, I don't wanna make it weird between you and Ratchet…”
The other bot traced his cheek with familiar softness. “That is so not the case, my friend.”
“You don't have to pity me, Drift,” Rodimus replied, batting the hand away, “maybe if Megs can't continue, some will come to me anyways,” he wondered aloud, trying to keep the incredulity out of his voice - and failing.
“Yeah, about that…”
Rodimus glanced back at the other mech, surprised when Drift just sat on the desk in front of him, relaxed.
“From what Ratty is telling me, Megatron had been fixed up a couple of minutes back,” he announced serenely, smile on his face, “and is surely still up for it, given how focused he is on sucking the life out of my conjunx's spike.”
Rodimus broke a datapad in half.
“What,” he squeaked, throwing it away.
Drift shook his helm, knowing that it would probably lead to a scolding for his captain in the future, but he still followed up on the unspoken request for explanation.
“Ratty did say that he might be cutting the line, but if it wasn't for him, they probably would have to wait much longer, so they can go complain to someone who cares - so I wouldn't count on the crowd dispersing that quickly…”
Rodimus stared at him, intake wide open. “How can you be so… unbothered?”
“That is why I told you that Ratty and I being conjunxed getting in the way of us interfacing isn't really a case,” was his reply - which would have been relatively fine, had it not been immediately followed with another bombshell:
“especially since I was the one who sent Megatron to the medbay in the first place.”
“...No,” Rodimus spoke up after a moment, pointing at the other’s chassis accussingly.
“I’m afraid so, Roddy,” Drift shrugged, palms open - truth laid bare.
“No!”
“His new frame doesn’t bend the same way, but I noticed a bit too late-”
Rodimus stopped him with a gesture, rubbing his optics. “Oh, just don’t.”
“Sorry, Roddy.”
He looked at his friend again, the apologetic tone making him actually even more angry with everything.
A polite tap sounded on the door, and the entrance opened to admit the imposing figure of Ultra Magnus - though, at a closer scrutiny of any onlooker, the armor itself was in an oddly less-than-perfect shape, littered with streaks of silver.
Rodimus perked up a little, looking forward to a distraction. “Hey, Mags!”
“Rodimus,” the mech greeted in return with a nod of his helm, before coming closer to the desk, where Roddy was already starting to get right back into the correct mood he should be having on a day like this, watching the imposing armor approach -
- only to see the bot deposit another stack of datapads from his subspace to join those already littering the surface.
“I am here to remind you that when not otherwise engaged, you're still on duty,” he announced sternly, and pointed towards all of the devices, grimacing at the disarray briefly before he schooled his expression a bit better. “Could you please provide your feedback on these reports?”
Rodimus looked at the datapads, at Mags, and just nodded numbly, waving at the mech as he left just as suddenly as he appeared.
“Drift,” he said hoarsely, but resolutely, which made his friend look towards him again.
“Yes, Roddy?”
“Could you please ‘face me so hard I can claim incoherency so I can push this into tomorrow, when I can ask Megs to deal with most of it?”
“Sure, Roddy.”