Archive of Our Own

"Well, someone's in a good mood," Dead End says as he sits down on one of Astrotrain's seats, and Astrotrain realizes that huh, he is. He didn't even bother to make Dead End run for a quickly-closing door, or pull the seat back before he could sit, or any of the little amusements that help make up for being stuck shuttling the bolt-head around at Megatron's orders.

Now that it's been brought to his attention, though, Astrotrain suddenly drops the back of the seat Dead End had chosen just as he begins to climb into the air, making Dead End lurch and sputter indignantly to keep his balance.

"Oh, real funny," he says when he's righted himself.

Astrotrain chuckles to himself, because some things he will never get tired of.

He flies them in silence, which is normal. Just because they've been paired up for patrols doesn't mean they have to like each other. What's not normal is the way Dead End keeps glancing at one of Astrotrain's other seats, an array of dubious expressions crossing his faceplate.

It's irritating. And Astrotrain might still be feeling fairly generous thanks to the thorough frag he'd gotten last night, but that good humor has its limits.

Finally, after the third klik of boring, unbroken wall dividing Cybertron in half, he grumbles out a "What?" when Dead End actually stands up to get a better look at whatever is so offensive to him about that seat, expression an exaggerated grimace.

"Is that transfluid?" Dead End asks, pointing in accusation.

Astrotrain rolls his holo-optics because- except, and he stops himself from answering. Except he'd given the seeker he fragged a ride back to base, and she'd slumped into one of his seats without doing anything to even try to clean up. It's entirely possible that there is, actually, a stain of dried transfluid and or lubricant on his seat. It's not like he took the time to scrub himself inside out.

His silence is apparently answer enough. Dead End looks torn between horrified and impressed, jaw slackening.

"Someone actually clanged you?" he says. "Who? Why? ...How?"

Astrotrain swerves in the air deliberately, forcing Dead End to scramble to keep his balance. "None of your business," he says. It's not like he and Dead End are friends enough to swap 'facing stories.

...Except that, if he thinks about it, Dead End kind of is the closest thing to a friend he has in this dimension. Closest thing to a friend in his original one, too, after so many cycles of Megatron (The real Megatron, no matter what the one from this dimension says) whittling down the ranks of every Decepticon he deemed 'unnecessary'.

It's a depressing thought on several levels.

"It was a seeker," Astrotrain says with some reluctance. He doesn't actually know her designation, not that she'd stopped to introduce herself.

"Figures," Dead End says with a snort, relaxing back into his seat after an exaggerated inspection to make sure it's clean.

Astrotrain doesn't really know how it 'figures', but he accepts the comment anyway. Just thinking about the encounter is enough to make him twitch deep in his relays- the tiny size of her, the way she'd been so flatteringly enthusiastic, to say nothing of the freaky, kinky thing she'd done with unspace...

"But how," Dead End says with a whine after a few astocycles, like he doesn't really want to know but is too morbidly curious to resist asking. "You're bigger than Menasor, how did you and a seeker possibly work out?"

Astrotrain doesn't have plans to mention the unspace thing- he's still not sure how he feels about it in hindsight, though at the time he was not complaining. The holo-avatar of his helm tilts to one side, in imitation of a shrug he can't actually express in current form. "We managed," he says.

He leaves it at that, kind of enjoying the thought of Dead End being unable to get it out of his processor when he's clearly so unhappy about it.

He doesn't really expect to see the femme again. She had her thrill, she'll go back to her- whatever seekers call their groups. It's been so long since Astrotrain had to deal with them, not since the whole frametype was deemed 'unnecessary' by his dimension's Megatron a few millennia ago- she'll go back with a story to shock them, and that will be that.

So it's a bit of a surprise to recognize that particular spread of colors on the wing of a jet doing casual, solo maneuvers in the air over the building Megatron's claimed as his center of command.

Maybe it's not the same seeker. He hadn't gotten to see her alt-mode, and it was dark in the rec-room and darker still in the abandoned lot she brought him to. The slim flash of silver separating purple and black sections of wing, though, is pretty distinct.

If he had her comm frequency, he'd hail her. If he knew her designation, he might just shout.

He's not really sure why he'd do either, except that the fragging had been pretty hot and maybe she'll want to do it again.

It turns out Astrotrain doesn't need to do anything though, because the jet slopes into a lazy, spiraling dive right over him as he pauses to watch. They buzz down close with a cheeky little roll, wings waggling in the sunlight, and it must be the same one as the other night because he can't imagine why any other seeker would act like they know him.

Then the seeker opens a hatch in their belly, and a cloud of something like dust pours out to cover him helm to pede.

He tries to dodge, but his reflexes are too slow for such an unexpected attack. The dust settles over him, into his seams, his intake and all his vents. Astrotrain swats at the now-retreating seeker, but they're already gone to higher ground, flipping into root mode and perching on a ledge far above his head.

Definitely the same seeker, that husky laughter confirms it.

He can't get the slagging dust off, but relaxes when he sees that it's only glitter. It'll be pit to get out of his seams, but he doesn't care about his appearance enough to really care that he now sparkles like cheap Polyhex shareware.

"Hey," the seeker says from up above him, smugness radiating off every line of her frame.

Astrotrain grunts, debating whether to fly himself up to her level and- he's not sure. Toss her around a little as payback, or ask if she wants to get a cube. It's a petty prank, but he supposes he deserves it for leaving her in such a state the other day.

He's saved from indecision by Megatron's hoarse shout of "Astrotrain!" coming from inside the building, the reminder that he's here for a reason.

He'll deal with the seeker later, he decides. He instead heads inside to where Megatron- this dimension's Megatron, not the true one, the one that haunts his every online moment- has summoned him, shedding flakes of glitter as he goes.

Some of the bits have gotten inside his seams, under his plating. He scratches lightly at a shoulder seam, where some of the worst of the glitter fell, and makes a mental note to hit the washracks as soon as this is over. He might not care how he looks, but it's already starting to itch as the tiny particles work themselves between wires and gears.

"There you- What. Is. That." Megatron says, disdain written all over his faceplate.

Astrotrain shifts his weight, aware that it's just making more glitter fall off him and onto the floor. Dead End, because of course Dead End was also called to whatever meeting this is, starts to snicker quietly.

"Trying a new look?" he asks, "Very flashy."

Astrotrain takes one slight step towards Dead End, just enough to be a warning as his pede comes down with a ringing clang on the flooring. The effect is somewhat diminished by the glitter which flakes off him in waves at the action.

"Enough," Megatron says, conspicuously waving the arm with the fusion canon. "We have more important things to discuss than Astrotrain's... dubious sense of aesthetics."

Astrotrain would feel insulted at the assumption he did this to himself, if it wouldn't mean revealing he let someone get the drop on him instead. He rubs at a seam on his forearm and says nothing.

The meeting is pretty standard. Megatron ranting about "the Other One" (as if the Megatron from Astrotrain's dimension is an imposter, an imitation, and not the ultimate culmination of this Megatron's most twisted hopes) and demanding he and Dead End provide solutions.

For some reason, his actual high-ranking officers are absent. Astrotrain knows he's just a grunt, a shuttle. He was only useful to his dimension's Megatron because he could carry more cargo than others, and he's only useful to this Megatron because of the multiverse drive currently hooked up to his systems. Dead End, as far as he can tell, has never been useful to anyone ever.

Megatron raves, Dead End offers borderline sarcastic comments, and Astrotrain stays quiet, focusing on trying to get that damnable itch out from under his plating.

"Will you stop that!" Megatron roars, startling Astrotrain out of his reverie.

"Apologies, Lord Megatron," he says automatically, stilling himself.

But he only makes it a few more astrocycles before he has to itch again, though he lets it build until his HUD is flashing at him in violent colors, warning him of foreign contaminates. And then he can't stop himself, digits scraping against his seams to dislodge the glitter within, except it doesn't even feel like glitter anymore, he has no idea how it's spread so deep and so quickly.

The whine of a fusion canon charging up is barely enough to get his attention, especially once his HUD blinks an urgent warning at him- 'rust infiltration: 13%'

Astrotrain can feel the fuel in his lines stutter from shock. Rust? That much rust? He is going to kill that seeker for whatever she sprayed on him, because he doesn't care that much about glitter on his armor but he does care about not rusting to extinguishment.

"Get out!" Megatron snarls, or at least Astrotrain hears something to that effect anyway.

He doesn't hesitate, activating the multiverse drive coiled in his wiring like a horrible-yet-useful parasite and jumping through the portal that opens. Going into unspace makes it worse, external stimuli falling away and leaving him with just the horrible, tank-churning awareness of rust spreading all over his internals, faster than should be possible.

It's not Cosmic Rust, is it? Surely that seeker wouldn't be psychotic enough to risk infecting not just herself, but the entire planet with the most virulent strain of rust ever encountered?

Astrotrain stumbles out of unspace directly into the washracks, the ones he had to set up himself because all the other functional spigots were meant for mecha a quarter his size at most. He scrambles to get the spray started, itching and squirming and hoping it's going to be enough to wash away the dust or glitter or whatever it was she infected him with.

The solvent has horrible pressure but it's hot and not all that diluted, and for a sliver of a moment when it washes over and under his plating he thinks it will be enough.

But the itch only gets worse, and his HUD is showing rust levels that rise and dip and rise again, until he can feel himself start to get weak and shaky, struts feeling like they'll crumble out from under him any moment.

His agony only gets worse when he hears a sort of whooshing pop, like air being displaced, and then a cackle of laughter ringing out.

It's the damned seeker. She's clearly come to gloat, and just as clearly managed to escape infection with her own rust-bomb, plating pristine and shining.

Astrotrain is going to kill her. He's going to crush her cranial unit and crack open her spark casing and then maybe stomp on her frame until it's flattened to foil, just for good measure.

"You-!" he snarls, lurching towards her and out of the washrack's spray.

She giggles and dodges backwards, but the ground is slippery with the solvent he's been flinging around, and she slips, fancy little thruster heels doing her no good for traction. He grabs her around her middle, unsure where to start first when so much of her chassis is vulnerable.

"Ah slag, wait, wait!" she's saying, wriggling and flailing like that'll do any good, and Astrotrain doesn't care, he's decided to pull off her pretty, shiny wings to get started.

She slaps against his forearm and yelps as he starts bending the wing back and forth, feeling the metal of a delicate joint creak from the strain when he tugs.

"Stop!" she shrieks, "I already gave you the patch! Stop, fragger!"

Astrotrain does pause, her wing strained almost to the point of shearing off but not quite there yet. "Patch?"

"To stop the virus," she says, arms trying to pry off his digits and legs kicking uselessly against his thick armor. The null rays on her arms are glowing, but if she's fired them he hasn't felt so much as a sting.

It's rust that's the problem, not a virus, and he nearly continues ripping off her wing before realizing that there is indeed a circuitry patch on his forearm, and radiating outwards from it is the most incredible sense of non-itchiness he's ever experienced.

His self-diagnostic keeps fluctuating with different rust levels, but it's steadily dropping as the sweet, almost cool feeling of the patch spreads.

He opens his hand and drops the seeker to the ground, too relieved to focus on anything except the fact that he won't have escaped deactivation countless times just to be taken down by a prank.

"Ow," she says from the ground, an awkward huddle as she tries to assess the damage to her wing.

Astrotrain glances at her disdainfully- they're so delicate, mecha of her size, he doesn't understand why it's the common standard- and then shuts his optics to focus inwards, watching as the apparently imaginary rust is cleared from his system.

"You're a real aft, you know that?" the seeker says. "I thought you could take a joke but you nearly ripped my wing off!"

Astrotrain unshutters his optics again. She's glaring at him, less like she's truly hurt and more like she's upset he didn't appreciate her prank.

"What do you want?" he asks, half exasperation and half honest confusion. He thought- they 'faced, and maybe they could have done it again if he hadn't seen the chance to get a cheap laugh out of stranding her in front of her superiors. She got her revenge, he didn't deactivate her despite having good cause, they're even.

So why is she looking disappointed, why is she still sizing him up like she's not ready to let him get away.

The seeker shrugs, then winces when it pulls at her wounded wing. "I was gonna see if you wanted to clang again but now I'm considering finding some real infectious rust," she says. Her optics glare bright and red up at him, the kind of easy, casual defiance he hasn't seen in his own dimension since Megatron started rounding up his own soldiers to be fed to the smelter.

Astrotrain genuinely has no idea what to make of her.

She crosses her arms over her chest and drags the heel of one thruster against the ground, throwing up little sparks that sizzle on the solvent-damp metal. He should shut off the spray, he thinks, but doesn't move. "Look," she says, "You don't get to hurt me." Her hands drop down to her hips, undamaged wing tilting out to make her look broader, more intimidating. As if a tiny slip of a seeker is intimidating to him, even one decked out in war-grade armor and weapons. "If we do frag again, you don't hurt me. Not like that, for a prank."

"Some prank," Astrotrain says. He thought he was in real danger of deactivating, his frame rusting out all around him.

"If you had better firewalls you wouldn't have even gotten the virus," she says, "just some glitter."

And, well, she kind of has a point about that. Not that he plans to ever admit as such... But it's been so long since he needed to defend himself from his own kind, instead of whichever alien species Megatron was conquering that cycle, that he'd gotten lax about hunting down their few remaining medics for more than the most dire of repairs.

He doesn't reply, just grunts.

She must read something she approves of in the noise because her frame relaxes again, or does until she moves the damaged wing and once again winces.

Astrotrain feels a little bit bad about that, now that he knows she hadn't really tried to offline him in the first place. Not enough to do anything about it, though. He turns away from her and shuts off the spray of solvent, the few remnants of glitter he hadn't already washed away barely a nuisance now that there's no virus attacking his processor.

When he looks back, the seeker is gone.

That should be the end of it. They fragged, they fought, they're done.

But in quiet moments Astrotrain keeps finding his processor dwelling on the flashy seeker, her arrogance, her lack of restraint and nearly-feral excitement, the sleek lines of her frame. Fragging her had been wild, an experience he's never had before. He still feels a little weird accessing his own subspace pocket, even nearly a full rotation of Luna-1 later.

So alright, yes. He'd 'face her again given half the chance. Hardly a revelation.

But he also remembers her laughter as she dumped the glitter and rust-virus on him, the look in her optics as she stared him down defiant and unafraid, her rambling storytelling hiding a truly clever plot. She intrigues him for reasons he can't articulate, reasons he doesn't want to examine.

The problem is, even if he did want to track her down for another encounter, Astrotrain still doesn't know her designation, her rank- anything about her. She's a Decepticon, a seeker with an outlier ability to teleport. That's as much as he knows, and his own low rank won't allow him access to enlistment records to do a real search.

The alternative is to find someone who might know and asking, and the thought alone grates like sand in his gears.

Especially if that someone is Dead End.

In the end he doesn't have to do much digging, because Megatron himself solves the mystery of the seeker's designation.

"Astrotrain," Megatron says when he's done speaking disdainfully about the very idea of the 'peace talks' the Autobots have apparently called for, "You'll carry us over the Line."

Astrotrain nods, because this is the sort of job he expects. Why use a non-sentient transport when you have a shuttleformer at your disposal?

"Soundwave, Skywarp," Megatron continues, and Astrotrain focuses his optics to confirm that- yes, it's the puple-black-silver seeker who steps forward alongside Soundwave. Her wing is repaired, her paint glossy. She doesn't look mischievous now, just solemn and determined, like a good Decepticon soldier. "You'll be accompanying me into the talks."

"Of course," Soundwave says.

The seeker- Skywarp, Astrotrain makes a point of tagging the designation in his memory- nods, and he wonders what kind of rank she has that she's joining Megatron at this meeting. Or maybe it's just her teleportation Megatron wants at his side, as if Astrotrain's multiverse drive isn't enough for a quick getaway.

Megatron continues to talk for a while, getting sidetracked to rant about Optimus Prime- and Astrotrain still thinks it's pretty funny, the mech he knew as a file clerk is now carrying the Matrix of Leadership for his own army, isn't just editing Megatron's speeches but is charging into battle himself, by all accounts a fierce warrior- and the general pathetic nature of Autobots. He talks more than the Megatron Astrotrain is used to, but then again, his dimension's Megatron hadn't needed to do any work to ensure his command.

At Megatron's cue he transforms, allowing the small party to climb inside his alt-mode. Megatron and Soundwave proceed immediately to his cab, talking lowly between themselves, while Skywarp hangs a few steps behind, like she wants to explore now that she's not too fragged-out.

And remembering that, how the first and last time she'd been in his alt-mode she had been a strutless wreck after taking his spike- It's a good thing Astrotrain keeps his systems locked down as a regular habit.

She runs one of her hands along his wall, and sensory data isn't the same when he's in an alt-mode as when he's bipedal, but he feels it nonetheless.

"Is there a problem, Astrotrain?" Soundwave says, and he realizes that he's still sitting on the ground, distracted by keeping track of Skywarp.

Astrotrain says nothing, just fastens his outer doors and ignites him engines, lifting off.

The meeting place is a building in Kalis, surrounded by rubble.

Every time he sees another of Cybertron's cities destroyed Astrotrain is surprised all over again, remembering that it was because the conflict in this dimension became a full civil war, not a one-sided annihilation. He's used to cities that are empty, lifeless, but more or less pristinely intact.

He lets his passengers out, then transforms. Optimus Prime is already present, along with a few mechs Astrotrain doesn't recognize. One in blazing red and yellows nods to Soundwave, mouth quirking up into a smile as he says, "Commander."

To Astrotrain's surprise, Soundwave returns the greeting instead of just staring the mech down, inscrutable behind mask and visor but a low hum of music playing.

"Prime," Megatron growls.

"Megatron," Optimus Prime says in reply, voice calm. Astrotrain immediately distrusts him, though he isn't sure why; this is his first time seeing the Prime outside of the Quintesson battlefield. "Shall we?"

Astrotrain watches as the others file into the building. He'd follow- he suspects he was also charged to be present on this mission for the intimidation his height affords him- but he can clearly see that the levels of the building chosen are much too small for him to fit inside.

Soundwave sends him a comm message, ::Remain in the area::

Then he's alone, in a ruined and dead city, for only Primus knows how long.

He's used to it. The flipside of being used as a transport shuttle is being left places until they need you again. Astrotrain doesn't even mind it, most of the time- being left alone means Megatron isn't tormenting him.

But that Megatron isn't even this dimension, and Astrotrain is recalling a particular set of tracks in Kalis built for amusement that he used to run on, and wonders if they're still there. Staying 'in the area' is a relative term when one has a multiverse drive installed.

He finds the railyard half-bombed out, tracks twisted and most unusable. The high arcs, the daring loops, those are gone. But there's still a ground-level set he remembers with some fun switch-backs, tight turns that dare him to tip and crash.

His train alt doesn't get much use. What's the point in having wheels if you need a specific track? But Astrotrain's always liked the simplicity, knowing he could tune out and trust his wheels to get him where he needs to be. Megatron had tried to force him into a different alt, had consulted with Shockwave about downgrading him, ripping away his third form altogether.

Astrotrain shudders and the tracks underneath him vibrate, a deep thrum resonating to his laser core. He's escaped, he's free, he's on his track with his engine churning powerful and fast and no one can get him now-

A dark shape appears out of the air mere mechanometers before him, and Astrotrain engages his brakes, but it's very difficult to stop a train of his size quickly once he's built up momentum. The dark shape resolves itself into a seeker- Skywarp, of course- who barely flings herself up above the draft to avoid collision as he barrels down the track.

"Are you trying to run me over?" she shouts, almost inaudible above the creaking and grinding of his wheels as he slides to a stop. Normally he uses more finesse, makes sure he isn't in danger of creating flat spots, but that seems a secondary consideration.

"What are you doing here?" Astrotrain asks when he's stopped. He hasn't gotten any comms from Megatron or Soundwave, so he assumes she's not here to retrieve him on their orders.

"I got bored," she says, and without any warning lands herself in jet form on his roof.

He tries to shake her off, but casually. She sticks to his plating like she's magnetized. If he really wanted her off, he need only transform and fling her away, but he doesn't initiate his T-cog.

Well, there's no emergency, no command from Megatron to follow. Astrotrain starts moving again, following the track through a series of sinuous curves his frame is just barely able to clear without cheating.

"You ca-- this --un?" Skywarp shouts from up above him, her voice ripped away by the wind as he gains speed.

He can feel her transform into root mode, gripping his plating for a better anchor. She slaps a hand down on his roof. "--ter! At -- east go fa--er!"

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what she's asking for, and Astrotrain doesn't see any reason not to keep gathering speed when there's plenty of track ahead. He works his engine harder, faster, pistons churning as his wheels fly down the track.

Above him, Skywarp slaps his roof again, barely able to be felt through his thick plating. If she's saying anything, he can't hear it.

He's just starting to contemplate transforming out his rocket engines, giving himself a boost to the very limits of what the railway can sustain, but his comm alerts him to an incoming message.

::Where are you?:: Megatron's voice snarls at him.

::Coming, Lord Megatron:: Astrotrain replies, and opens a portal to unspace directly on the tracks.

Skywarp whoops, still clinging to his plating. The momentum alone is enough to carry him through from one portal to the next, landing with a thud and a screech outside the meeting building, metal tires not meant to be taken off the rails.

"That was awful," Skywarp says with a shudder, audible only because she's clinging to his roof, faceplate pressed so close he can feel her lips move as she speaks. She sounds like she means it, though he doesn't know why. Maybe she'd been yelling at him to slow down, before?

"I ordered you to stay here," Megatron says, even though he hadn't- Soundwave had given the order, and that was merely to stay 'in the area', a vast range when Astrotrain can travel anywhere in the multiverse in mere astrocycles. "Do not test my patience."

Astrotrain says nothing. Apologies and promises to do better tend to only serve to remind Megatron of one's failures, and for now at least he's still too useful to be dismantled.

"Skywarp!" Megatron barks out next, and she launches herself off Astrotrain's roof to land on the ground with a little flourish. Clearly not too shaken up by the journey. "Follow the Autobots. I want to know where they're holed up and what they're saying."

"Of course," she says, head bowing but wings still high and proud. She flips into her transformation sequence and zooms away, and Astrotrain has to manually redirect his optical sensors back to Megatron and Soundwave.

"And why are you still a train?" Megatron growls.

Astrotrain transforms into his shuttle form immediately and says nothing, holo-avatar shut off. The less attention he draws to himself, the more likely he is to weather through a storm of Megatron's ill temper intact.

It's a long trip back to their side of the Line.

"So," Skywarp says from the top of the energon dispenser he's using, having just appeared in a flash of purple light and the faint impression of transwarp radiation, "I am never going through one of your portals again."

Astrotrain, cube halfway to his intake, pauses to look down at her. Then he shrugs, and continues drinking the energon he'd poured himself. "Okay."

He brings the empty cube back to the dispenser to fill it again. It'd be more practical to just fill a cube scaled to his size all at once, but the taps only dispense an astroliter at a time and can't even fit a larger container under them anyway, so he has to stand here and take it sip by sip. At least there's plenty of energon so he can fill his tank.

She watches him fill another cubeful and pulls a face. "You really haven't hacked the dispenser yet?"

He has no answer for that- of course he hasn't hacked the dispenser, or else he wouldn't be crouched here, trying not to break a tiny cube under a tiny tap with his big hands. Truthfully it hadn't even occurred to him, because where he's from that's the kind of thinking that gets you deactivated.

Astrotrain drinks his next cube and eyes her, because she's still willingly interacting with him. A thought occurs to him, the only explanation he can think of for why she's showing interest in him. "You wanna frag?"

She visibly brightens, frame perking up, so apparently he guessed right. Then she slumps, wings drooping. "I've got-" she waves a hand vaguely in a gesture that could be anything- "stuff. You free later?"

He nods. "What's your frequency?"

Skywarp is clearly not prepared for their size difference meaning he can't just tap their wrist-comms to transfer the data, but that he actually has to program it in manually. She takes a moment to actually retrieve the data so she can recite it, and he pings back almost as soon as he's done entering it, so she has his frequency in return.

::You're going to want to switch to another dispenser after that cube:: she sends to him, rather than speaking it aloud.

Astrotrain frowns at her, not understanding why- they're all hooked up to the same tank. Then he realizes that she's pulling a hand up and out of the insides of the tap, glowing purple with her transwarp energy. No one else will have noticed, since his frame is blocking her entirely from view.

He ex-vents a huff of amusement, wondering what she's done and who it'll affect.

Skywarp winks an optic at him and disappears, and he takes his last cube to the corner of the mess, watching for the chaos he's sure is about to go down.

It's late when she comms him again, a simple ::Still up for clanging?::

Astrotrain had just been getting ready to hunker down and recharge, but the message sends a jolt through his system. ::Where?::

He's pretty sure seekers bunk together, and his berthroom isn't a room so much as a corner of the hangar where there was enough space for him to stretch out. But he can't say much for fragging in the ruins of a long-dead garden again, either.

Skywarp sends him a set of coordinates. Too far away to fly without making her wait- and he remembers vividly how impatient she was when it came to interfacing last time.

So he transforms, and opens a portal to unspace. He wonders what about it had made her declare she'll never travel with him that way again- she uses unspace when she teleports, doesn't she? Unspace is hardly a pleasant place to be, a void without being a void at all, littered with the remains of countless pieces of junk and those unfortunate enough to have become lost in it- but it's no worse than flying between the stars, space black and silent and achingly empty all around.

The new location is some fancy building, long since abandoned and dilapidated but not bombed to ashes. The door is tall enough he only has to duck somewhat to fit through, and his helm clears just a mechanometer shy of the ceiling. He's honestly impressed. Most buildings aren't built to his scale at all, and this one managed to last through a civil war and (he still can't believe this really happened) the loss of the allspark more or less intact. 

He's not really sure if this is better than the crystal garden, but it's not worse.

Skywarp shows up with a soft vop of energy and displaced air, purple glow briefly illuminating the room more brightly than their bio-lights alone. It doesn't really improve his opinion of the place.

"You didn't click back," she says, "I wasn't sure you'd be here."

Astrotrain... may have forgotten, in his haste to get here before she became impatient. He covers his embarrassment by shrugging. "I am here, though."

"Mhm," she hums, stepping closer to him. "I've been thinking of this all cycle." Her grin is a quick flash in the dark.

"Me too," he says, because it's not a lie and he doesn't know what else to day.

There's a dilapidated bench seat shoved against the wall that looks sturdy enough to sit on, so he moves to it because it beats the floor. He sits down, the metal creaking underneath him but holding, an easily-dismissed proximity alert pinging from his wings.

"So what did you wanna do?" Skywarp asks, moving to stand between his legs and craning her neck to look up at him. He may be sitting down, but she's still tiny compared to him. "Only, there's a new medic, and if I damage myself clanging again so soon he said he'd reformat me into a street sweeper-" she pauses, a strangely thoughtful expression on her faceplate- "Hey, you think he was making a pun? Seeker, sweeper, heh. But yeah, so I can't take your spike tonight unless you shrink like, way down."

He hates the feeling of mass-shifting, his particles rearranging, the loss of protection he has by being so big. But he really hadn't had much thoughts beyond chasing an overload with an enthusiastic partner, hadn't thought about the logistics.

He hadn't known he'd actually damaged her last time, either. Unless she's talking about some other berthpartner she's had.

Astrotrain realizes she's waiting for him to give an answer.

"Well if you don't know," she says, and ignites her thrusters to launch up into the air, landing with only a slight wobble on one of his thighs, pedes fire-hot. "I've got a few ideas."

"Should I be concerned?" he asks, even though her last idea had been processor-blowingly good, once he got past the sheer weirdness of sticking his spike into her subspace pocket.

"Maybe," she says, voice dropping into a lower register. "Come down here first." She waves a hand, reaching, and he bends himself down so his head is level with hers, relatively speaking.

Skywarp grabs the vents on either side of his faceplate and kisses him. He's surprised- the size difference means most wouldn't even bother with this form of touch, to say nothing of being relative strangers- but her intake is a point of hot, wet contact on the seam between his lips. Charge zips through the connection and he tries to respond without overwhelming her entirely, but he feels so large and clumsy.

Normally it's not Astrotrain who feels large, it's the rest of the world that feels small.

He carefully spreads a hand out against her back as her mouth moves away from his, feeling the quick little flickers of her wings as she adjusts to keep her balance on his thigh. It's hard to touch a mecha her size with the right amount of pressure, at least when he isn't trying to crumple armor and cause pain.

"I think," she says, glossa darting out to lick her lips, "You should get your spike out."

He wonders how fast seekers gather charge, because he certainly isn't there yet from a bit of kissing. "Thought you couldn't get damaged again," he says, and rubs the pad of one curled finger against her pelvic armor pointedly. The plating's already hot to the touch; if he focuses, he realizes he can hear her ventilation fans humming inside her frame along with her high-pitched engine.

"I can still look," Skywarp says, a bit of wheedling creeping into her tone. "I can still touch..." But instead of repeating the request immediately she stretches herself out, digits teasing along sensitive transformation seams. Her hands fit easily inside the vents on his chest, touching parts of his sensornet that aren't meant to be touched and he in-vents, fans clicking on at the jolt of charge that skitters through his frame.

"You're so big," she says, almost to herself. One hand splays out against his cab's windshield, a burst of heat on cool glass. Then her mouth descends to the seam between glass and metal and Astrotrain lurches, caught off guard by the surge of charge that flickers between their circuits, carried by the conductive surface of her glossa.

She yelps and loses her balance, but his hand is still around her chassis. It's easy to take her weight entirely and lift her in the air.

"Put me down," she says, but it's not a protest- there's a gleam in her optics like she's just come up with a plan. "On the bench, between your legs."

Astrotrain complies, widening the stance of his thighs so there's plenty of room for her.

Her hands dive into the unprotected joint of his hips, digits caressing and tweaking the exposed wires and bio-lights there, and he vocalizes a pleased groan. It's his largest weak spot in his root mode, the necessary flexibility requiring a lack of armor. If she wanted to, even a mecha as small as her could do serious damage to him if her sharp little digits decided to rip and tear instead.

But Skywarp doesn't. She just plays with him, moving from his thighs to his modesty panel between them, which is rapidly feeling the strain of charge that's building in his system.

He strokes down her back, the only place he feels confident reaching for when she's positioned like this. Her wings twitch and flutter, so mobile and different from his own. He can't resist tracing the sharp shape of them, the straight edges and pointed tips, the flashy paint.

Then her mouth is on the seam of his modesty panel and Astrotrain remembers the way she'd licked him last time, intake dwarfed by his spike. The difference will only be the greater now and he's suddenly eager to see it, panel transforming away.

"There it is," Skywarp coos, jerking forward even as his spike begins to extend from its housing, hands reaching out eagerly to touch.

Compared to his frame, his spike is an average proportion. Compared to hers, it's large enough to be utterly overwhelming.

She doesn't seem daunted as it extends to its full length, even though it takes nearly the full length of both her arms to circle his girth. "Okay," she says, sounding like her vocalizer isn't getting enough power, "So me sucking you off isn't gonna happen, then."

Astrotrain stares at her in disbelief, unsure if she's joking or really did have that idea tucked away in her processor. There's no way his spike can fit inside any of her orifices when he's his full size- well, he admits, maybe her alt-mode depending on how it's configured. Unless he's counting her subspace as an orifice and that's still such a strange thought, because he can see that it's a blazingly clever trick for dealing with a size mismatch, but she'd gone wild with it like he was tapping into an entire secondary set of interfacing nodes. He's never known another mecha to have anything close to that kind of reaction.

"Hey, keep touching my wings," she says, and he obeys without a second thought.

Skywarp moans when he pinches the tip of one wing between his digits, the noise reverberating through her chassis and into his spike where she's pressing her frame up against him.

His own wings don't have much more sensory nodes than the rest of him- not a lot of need for it if he's flying where his alt-mode is intended, in the vacuum of space- but hers are apparently another story. Astrotrain remembers how he'd nearly taken her wing off and brushes a careful digit along the flexing hinge, no damage remaining.

She presses up against his spike with a purring engine, oblivious to his thoughts. It looks like an awkward angle, her balancing up on her toe pedes trying to get to the tip, and he has an idea of what he wants her to do. "Your panels open?" he asks.

"Yeah," she says, and pointedly looks up at his optics and then down at his spike. "You're not gonna fit, though."

Astrotrain ex-vents, because obviously. Then he scoops her up, more careful about it than he usually is, and places her so she's straddling the top of his spike.

He can feel the wet point of contact that is her exposed valve, the hot jut of her own extended spike.

Skywarp makes a pleased noise, and wriggles against him- at first like she is just finding a comfortable spot, and then more deliberately, grinding against his spike.

With such a small surface area covered it's not much stimulation for him, aside from the visual of it. She's literally riding his spike like she's on the back of some mechanimal, wings bobbing in time to the sinuous rolls of her hip joints. She moans, then twists herself to look over her shoulder, taking in the rest of his spike left unattended.

"Just an astro'," she says, and then realizes the pun she made and snorts a giggle.

He has certainly never heard that one before, Astrotrain thinks sarcastically, but has enough wisdom not to annoy her when his spike is aching for touch, sensornet practically throbbing with the charge his circuits are carrying.

She wriggles around until she's facing away from him, staring down the length of his spike. Her thighs are spread wide around his girth, and when she leans forward as if to give it a hug, she still can't even reach the head.

"You're so small," he says dumbly, the size difference really hitting home for him. His entire spike is about as long as she is tall and thick to match; he's never even tried to interface with someone in her size class without a significant amount of mass-shifting first, and even then it was usually their spikes in his valve.

"I'm not small," Skywarp huffs, a faint wash of heated air from her vents almost ticklish on the sensitive surface of his spike. "You're just really, really big." It doesn't sound like she's complaining.

She squirms, body doing some sort of contortion that looks strange, but feels amazing on his spike as her arms and legs squeeze him, hands stroking his dips and ridges. He groans, no longer apprehensive about whether this is going to be worth it to him.

It doesn't really feel like any other experience he's had as she uses her whole chassis, grinding down her own array while rubbing at his spike, thighs clamped against his base and cockpit glass cool as it skates right over a biolight.

Astrotrain reaches down and curls his hand underneath his spike, giving himself a little more friction while also being able to tease his digits against her wings, bobbing in the air as her frame rocks and grinds.

She vocalizes a pleased moan, and then nuzzles her face into the divot just below the head of his spike, glossa able to slip into the small seam easily, a move that wouldn't be possible if they were equal sizes. The discharge of electricity thanks to the conductivity of her mouth has him gasping, but Skywarp yelps and jerks back, clearly not as pleased.

"Sorry," he says, but there's not much sincerity in his voice.

She twists around to glare at him, sticking her glossa out like she wants him to see the damage. There isn't any, as far as he can tell- most likely the sensors just need to be reset.

He can still feel her fans blasting away, engine running hot. So the jolt wasn't enough to deplete her charge, at least, and he moves his other hand to stroke down along her back in apology. Skywarp arches into the touch, lifting her aft up off his spike and the loss of her hot valve against his sensitive metal is compensated by the fact that he can slip between her spread legs, and touch her little valve with his digit instead.

She intakes sharply, fans ratcheting up another notch.

Even mass-shifted, he has a hard time believing he ever fit inside her valve; it's so small, tucked between slim hips. There's a crown of bio-lights around the rim winking at him enticingly, a flashy little mod as if he needs any help figuring out where his spike wants to bury itself.

Her voice is thick, sounds distorted by the damage to her glossa, but he catches her meaning. "I could fit a digit."

Astrotrain is not really sure if she can, the size difference between them overwhelming. He can't pretend he isn't eager to watch her try, though.

He slides his smallest finger against the head of his spike to gather the beads of lubrication he's leaking, shuddering at the contact. She obligingly tries to widen her stance, legs scrambling against his spike, hands searching his ridges for a good hold.

Skywarp moans when he presses his digit against her valve opening, wings pulling up high and sharp, bio-lights flaring bright. She rocks herself back on it, rubbing, making a grand mess of lubrication everywhere between her thighs.

He can feel her spike rubbing against his, a tiny line of heat. She's so tiny all over, he thinks dumbly, unable to do anything but watch as she wriggles herself onto the tip of his digit, hot silky mesh enveloping him bit by bit.

He groans, and doesn't feel embarrassed to realize he's mumbling praise and encouragements at her. With every rock of her hips his digit slips further inside, stretching out her valve as he forces her open. And she just takes it, eagerly, greedily trying to fit more and more of him inside of her. There's no subspace open this time, no cheating. Just her valve and his digit, the smallest of which is still massive compared to her frame.

Skywarp's engines hiccup when he hits the ceiling of her valve, her legs slipping from their grip around his spike so her hips are suspended for a moment by his digit inside of her alone. He's quick to ease her down, but she's already twitching and contracting against him, charge crackling from her frame directly to his spike as she overloads.

He can't help the way his own hips jerk at that, spike scraping against her plating as he tries to keep the hand still buried in her still.

She sort of whines, and Astrotrain can't tell if it's because of distress or eagerness, considering how many rounds she was capable of last time they clanged.

"Sorry," he says, more honest than his last.

"'s good," she says, voice still a bit distorted but clearer, like her glossa is indeed already recovering from the earlier shock. "You can, if you want."

He's not entirely sure what she's giving permission for, but the need to move is burning up his processor now that he's had a taste of more friction. He adjusts his other hand, the one still cupping his spike from underneath, and hopes she doesn't mind some scrapes to her paint as he holds her still and rocks his hips up.

His spike slides over her plating and she shudders, but doesn't tell him to stop. Her arms start to grip and caress him again, though her legs stay lax. His digit is still buried deep inside her valve, and despite the splash of transfluid he can feel, her spike is still extended, rubbing against his own.

Astrotrain starts to grind into the combination of his hand on one side, her entire frame on the other. It's strange to be sure, the sensation of all her armor clicking and scraping against him, the smooth dome of her cockpit, the hot air blowing from her vents.

Strange doesn't mean it isn't good, though, especially with the way Skywarp is clearly still charged up and willing, letting herself be moved like some kind of self-service toy but also reaching out with her hands to touch what she can, rocking against the digit he still has sunk inside her valve.

She somehow gets her intake on the head of his spike as he pulls back, a quick flicker of wet glossa, and at his size the small point of contact really shouldn't feel as intense as it does. He adjusts his grip carefully, just enough so he can rub against the spots on either side of his head that always get him off the quickest, and with one last flurry of thrusts he overloads.

He slows to a gentle rocking again, working himself through the high as charge drains from his circuits. Transfluid spatters everywhere; up his chest plating, across his thighs, over the floor.

All over the seeker still wrapped around his spike, a silvery-blue coating to her once pristine paint.

Skywarp doesn't sound upset by this, moaning and writhing, caught between his digit inside her and his spike below her. She's overloading again, he realizes somewhat dumbly.

This time when she seems finished he eases his digit out of her valve, as carefully as he can but knowing it must be uncomfortable all the same. She sighs and whimpers, and when his spike begins to retract back into its housing she somehow manages to roll over, off of it and into his hands, splayed out on her back.

She's nearly covered helm to pede in his transfluid, her own contribution lost in the mess. Her front is even more of a mess underneath it though, paint scraped away in long messy streaks, cockpit glass probably scratched and foggy.

Astrotrain spares a thought for what his spike must look like, smeared with black and silver and purple, no doubt.

She licks her lips and grins up at him, cradled inside the palms of his hands. Despite the absolute fragged-out mess her frame is, her expression looks like she could still go another few rounds if he offered.

It makes something shiver through his circuits and relays, the thought that someone actually wants him. Not so different than knowing he's wanted for his transport capabilities, maybe, and probably it's just the overload still messing with the charge getting to his processor, but it feels... nice.

"You're a mess," he says out loud, voice coming out gruff. He un-subspaces a cleaning cloth, sized for his frame which means it's enough to wrap her up in entirely, and starts to dab at the mess on her plating before it congeals and becomes hard to get off.

Skywarp looks down at herself and vocalizes a groan that doesn't sound very annoyed at all. "You sure have big tanks, huh?"

He shrugs a shoulder, because obviously. Everything about him is big, why should his transfluid reserves not be to scale?

She lets him clean her up, arching into it when he wipes down the backs of her wings, ex-venting a gentle, almost wistful sigh.

It makes him feel strange, showing enough care to a berthpartner that he's cleaning them up after. Astrotrain tells himself it's just so she doesn't get transfluid on his interior again if he flies them back- but she isn't nearly so messed up this time, she could fly or teleport herself back herself.

He bends to set her down but she ignites her thrusters, zipping into the air instead.

"Let's do this again sometime," Skywarp says, flippant and a little fast, and before he can reply she's winked out of existence in a flash of purple light, air rushing to fill the space she left behind.

Around him the dilapidated building is darker now that there's only his own bio-lights to illuminate it. He looks around and thinks it might have once been some kind of fancy restaurant once, the walls paneled in rusting decorations that were considered classics before he was even sparked and a plethora of broken tables and chairs littered around the floor.

He wipes himself clean quickly, without finesse.

The night air outside is cool, free of the musk of interfacing fluids and dispelled charge. Astrotrain transforms into his shuttle alt and kicks off into the sky, taking the long way back to headquarters.