Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

"You," snarled Ratchet, as he stormed into the mess hall. "I don't know how you got out without tripping your spark monitor, but you are going back right now."

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, who'd previously been leaning in to hear all about the latest adventure that'd left Jazz with a dented bumper and a spark casing held together with wall putty and hope, carefully scooted their chairs away.

Jazz gave Ratchet a smile. He was a little hampered in this by the fact that his visor was on the fritz and there were currently three blurry Ratchets overlapping each other. He tried aiming the smile at the middle one. "C'mon Ratch, you did the triage and I'm stable. You got a dozen other mechs to work on—what's it matter if I wait in here instead of in the medbay?"

"In the medbay," said Ratchet, enunciating slowly and loudly like Jazz's audials were damaged on top of everything else, "I can monitor you and keep you from crashing."

Jazz reached out and patted Ratchet on his hip, which was as high as his current range of motion would let him reach. Ratchet jolted like he'd been slapped, and his armor fluffed out in an honest-to-Primus threat display. Jazz couldn't help but laugh.

"I'm not gonna crash, babe. Comm me when you're ready, and I'll toddle back to medbay, promise. I'll lie back, nice and easy, and you can take care of me personally." He tried a wink, but his visor wasn't cooperating. No prob, finger guns instead. "Now, I'm sure you got lots of mechs waiting on you..."

Ratchet growled, but Jazz caught the edge of First Aid's comm signal coming through. Ratchet's optics went distant as he started sending reels of medical instructions. He rummaged in his subspace and tossed a couple sealed cubes of energon on the table.

"At least drink med grade," he said, gruffly. "Your tank's crumpled."

"It's fine," said Jazz, but Ratchet had already turned on his heel and left without another word. Jazz leaned back in his chair, ignored the wrenching pain in his back strut, and watched him go.

"Wow," said Sideswipe. "That was something."

Jazz blew on his knuckles, then rubbed them on his chest. "You just gotta know how to handle him."

"No kidding." Sideswipe whistled. "That's romance, right, Sunny?"

Jazz paused with his hand still resting on his bumper. What?

Sunny nodded, which—how did the twins know something he didn't know? That wasn't allowed.

"It's not—" Jazz's processor was working overtime, which fragging hurt when he was already half-overclocked from keeping his sensornet from screaming. "I'm just pulling his chain a little."

"Yeah." Sideswipe sighed wistfully. "And he's so responsive... I wish I had a nemesis like that."

Sunny reached around to pat Sideswipe on the back. Jazz tried to get his processor back under control.

Nemeses were like—Big, grand, yeah, romantic. If Jazz had a nemesis endura, he'd expect to be dangled over a molten mercury pit while alloygators snapped at his feet and his dearly despised nemesis cackled with glee. Not badgered about regular checkups and taking care of his seams. Anyway, Ratchet deserved more than a little teasing. If Jazz was his nemesis, he'd treat Ratchet awful, get him so riled up he'd pin Jazz up against the wall and—

Jazz shoved himself up from the table, which caused an uncomfortable cracking feeling in his chest. "I'm gonna get another ration," he said, pointedly ignoring the cubes of med grade. "You want anything? No? Good."

---

Jazz ignored the buzz of Ratchet's comm about an hour later. He was too busy sitting alone, staring at the table, slowly spinning an empty energon cube on its corner.

Him and Ratchet? Him? And Ratchet?

Nah.

Maybe?

Nah.

But, y'know, Ratchet did get mad real easy. Got mad just looking at Jazz sometimes, his optics simmering sharp on the dents in Jazz's plating, his fingers clearly itching to grab Jazz and keep him nice and safe and secure. Jazz hated—Jazz didn’t like being looked at like that, like he was something fragile and precious and a little bit stupid.

His comm buzzed again. Jazz muted it.

He didn't need to go into medbay, did he? He had a spot welder and a dent puller in his quarters, plus a scanner he'd liberated from Ratchet's supply closet. How hard could fixing a spark casing be?

Jazz dispersed the cube and got up, not letting himself wince where anybody could see. The med grade cubes were still on the table where Ratchet'd dropped them, and Jazz thought hard about just leaving them there. But waste not want not, and anyway his tank was starting to cramp just from the mild richness of two normal rations. He scooped up the cubes and cracked one open, sipping from it as he strolled out of the mess.

Med grade tasted awful, thick with zinc and mild steel, but Jazz could feel it settling nice and heavy in his tank. He was maybe, just maybe, a little more fragged up than he'd been letting on. He finished the first cube and started on the second.

Holing up in his cozy den of a room sounded nice right now. He could lick his wounds, curl up on his bean bag with his little pile of blankets, listen to some chill beats and not think about anything too complicated. Like—

Jazz bounced off the wall and nearly fell over. He caught himself on the opposite side of the corridor and stared at the offending wall, feeling betrayed. Who the hell had put that there?

He'd dropped his med grade. He went to grab it and had to stop halfway through bending over when the world tilted sickeningly on its side. Something must’ve happened to the gravity generators. Power outage? Sabotage? Aw, he was gonna purge.

Jazz offlined his visor and held onto his knees, swallowing hard. Frag, frag, what a time to be under attack.

"You okay there?" said an amused voice.

"Don't worry about me," said Jazz, through gritted teeth. "What's going on? Decepticons bombing the base? What's wrong with the alarms?"

The mech chuckled, and Jazz managed to get enough of his visor back on just to see Ratchet looking down at him, all smiles.

"What'd you do," snarled Jazz.

"Sedatives in the med grade," said Ratchet. "Enough to knock out a hauler, actually. Want some help?"

"No," said Jazz, and made a heroic attempt to walk. Ratchet caught him before he hit the floor and hoisted him up in his arms, holding him chest to chest. Jazz wasn't much smaller than Ratchet, but all that meant was that his legs dangled awkwardly close to the ground and he could lean his chin on Ratchet's shoulder.

"That's it," murmured Ratchet. "We'll get you all fixed up."

"Frag off," mumbled Jazz, and kicked a petulant foot against the back of Ratchet's knee hard enough to make Ratchet stumble. "Don't wanna go to medbay."

Ratchet grunted and hitched Jazz up a little higher. "Why not, you menace?"

"S'loud." Jazz offlined his visor again. Everything was spinning, and it would be embarrassing to purge down Ratchet’s back even if the mech deserved it. "Too many people. Not allowed to stab anybody."

"Hmm." Ratchet turned down a corridor, away from medbay. He walked in silence for a few moments, then stopped. "All right, give me your hand."

Jazz tried to see where they were, but his visor came on all fuzzy. "Huh?"

"We're at your quarters," said Ratchet. "I'm assuming that's where you were headed. Unless you want to go to—"

Jazz reached out blindly and smacked his hand against the spark-reader. Ratchet carried him in through the opening door, and the lights automatically came up to a blissfully dim thirty percent. The door closed again, the soundproofing locking in place, and Jazz relaxed for the first time since he'd left on the mission four days ago.

Ratchet laid Jazz carefully on the blanket nest in the middle of his berth. "Where's your medical kit?"

"In the desk drawer." Jazz waved a hand vaguely. "Got a false bottom."

Ratchet went over to rummage around and swear at Jazz's desk. Jazz carefully tipped over on his side and watched the shape of him moving for a while. A nice, solid, reliable ambulance who wanted to swoop in and fix you. Every fragged-up loner's wet dream. Jazz was gonna bite him.

"This is one of my scanners," grumbled Ratchet, hauling it out of the drawer.

"Nah," said Jazz.

"It's got my glyph engraved on the back." Ratchet brandished it at him. The scanner gave a slightly distressing ping. "Damn. Thirty percent output. Open up and let me see that shiny spark of yours."

"Going kinda fast for a first date," said Jazz. He did try to pop his hood, but it made a wrenching noise and stuck.

"You think this is our first?" Ratchet laughed as he wedged his fingers into the gap in Jazz's chest. "How many times have I been wrist-deep in your engine, dumbaft?"

"Huh," said Jazz, and then bit back a whine when Ratchet finally managed to force the latch. Purple-blue sparklight shone out, weirdly bright in the places where his chamber had cracked. Ratchet hmphed and started prodding. Jazz hate—didn't like—hated the prodding.

"Ratch?" said Jazz. "Are we courting?"

Ratchet looked at him sidelong as he got out the spot welder. "I wouldn't call it proper courting. Unless you want me to go find a chaperone?"

Jazz snickered at the thought of dragging some poor unsuspecting officer into this mess. It'd have to be someone of higher rank, too, which meant Prowl or Optimus. Imagine Optimus sitting awkwardly in the corner, watching Ratchet—

"This will sting a bit," said Ratchet, and then bright white-hot pain filled Jazz's processor and he twisted to bite down hard on Ratchet's arm.

"Hold still," snarled Ratchet, and the line of fire moved along Jazz's spark in a blazing arc.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, voice hoarse and muffled by Ratchet's armor. "I'm not ready to be in a relationship. I hate commitment!"

"Oh, you hate it?" Ratchet started another weld. "Tell me more."

Jazz made a rude gesture with the hand that wasn't trapped under his side. Ratchet laughed at him and wrenched a bit of Jazz's spark casing back into place.

Later, patched up and sleepy from sedatives and pain, Jazz laid in berth and watched as Ratchet inspected the deep tooth-shaped dents in his forearm. A couple of them had punctured through to the energon lines.

"You're my least-favorite patient," Ratchet informed him. He'd tucked Jazz in like he was securing an enemy flight risk. Jazz could barely move a servo.

"You're my least-favorite doc," said Jazz, fondly. He was gonna ruin Ratchet's life now he knew he'd been slacking. "C'mere and let me bite you again."

Chapter Text

“Knock it off,” Hound said, without even looking up from his book.

“I have no idea what you could be talking about,” Mirage lied, like a liar. Metal clanked as he shoved whatever explosive he had been tinkering with back under his plating.

“I’m just sitting here!” Jazz protested, also completely lying. There was no noise of him hiding anything, so Hound would probably have to check under that chair later to make sure he hadn’t decided to go for a booby-trap after being thwarted in his mischief.

“One nice evening.” Hound scrolled down. “One nice evening to watch a meteor shower. That’s all I wanted.”

“Weeeell…” Hound looked up to see that Jazz was leaning across Mirage’s space in a deliberate provocation, grinning at him. “If it’s a sparkly shower of falling metal bits you want, you could just let me—“

“I know where you sleep,” Mirage threatened him.

“Kinky.”

Hound sighed, closed his book, stood up, and pushed Jazz’s chair over so he could sit in between the two of them. There was an ominous click from under the seat.

“Uh.” Jazz suddenly looked like he didn’t want to be there. “Hound, do you wanna just leave the room for a—“

“Get rid of it,” Hound said, flatly.

“Getting rid of it,” Jazz said. He grabbed the entire chair and dashed back inside. There was a faint explosion.

"Well,” Mirage said, self satisfied. Hound reached over and shoved at exactly the spot under his doors he tended to stash his gadgets.

There was another click, and a rapid series of ticking noises. Mirage gave him a look like a kicked turbohound.

“You too,” Hound said.

“At all sides I am beset by cruel, mocking, abusive—“ He went back in the door, still complaining. Jazz came back onto the balcony carrying the smoking remnants of a chair. There were soot stains on his front.

“Will you have to clean anything up later?” Hound asked, already reopening his book.

“Not too much,” Jazz said. He plucked the book file out of Hound’s hands, climbed onto Hound’s lap, and handed the book back over. “You owe me a chair.”

“Fine,” Hound said, flicking back to the part he was at.

Mirage came back out, happily undamaged, and took his own seat. “Everything is under control,” he announced.

Hound actually hadn’t been worried it wasn’t until he said that, but that could be a problem for after the meteor shower.

Mirage was adding details from his last patrol onto the planning map and, as such, acutely aware of any and all movements of the table. Such as constant shaking from two people kicking each other.

”Enough,” he snapped, lifting the stylus from the light structure before a jagged line could mark out a mountain where there wasn’t one. “Stop it, you tw— what are you even doing.”

Hound and Jazz were both halfway across the table, like they’d been tackling each other in slow motion. Hound had a grip on Jazz’s visor. Jazz had his fingers stuffed into Hound’s missile turret.

“Nothing,” they said, in unison and entirely unconvincing. Mirage stared at them until they disentangled and settled back into their seats.

He bent his head back over the map and put the pen down right in time for there to be the muffled thump of a kick from under the table. One would have been acceptable. Three was probably the limit.

“Sparklings,” Mirage said, mildly. “I know you’ve been stuck in this base for three days. Believe me. I know .” He’d certainly had to listen to enough of their complaints. “But if you don’t sit down and behave yourselves long enough for us to make a plan to get out of this base, I will figure out a prisoner exchange just so I can have empty cells to lock you both in.”

“We’re not doing nothing!” Jazz protested. Hound nodded in agreement, looking wounded.

Under the table, someone kicked someone else again.

“I’m going to leave you both for the twins,” Mirage threatened. Jazz let out a sad whistle and Hound stepped back from the table, very visibly removing himself from temptation.

“Sorry, Mirage,” Hound apologized.

“Kissaft,” Jazz said because he could never resist.

“Thank you, Hound,” Mirage said, loftily ignoring Jazz. “I appreciate you understanding that this has been a trying time for all of us.”

Jazz sighed and draped himself over the table, pulling out his own stylus to add to the map. “Alright, alright, I’m getting with the program, I’ll be good.”

“Thank you, Jazz,” Mirage said, because it never hurt to reinforce good behavior, handed them both a strip of sweet bismuth.

“Hey, he started this,” Hound protested. “Why does he get one?"

“Sucks to suck sometimes, my mech,” Jazz said, slurping his strip. “So. What are we looking at in the polar quadrant?"

“Alright,” Jazz said, tossing the scrap of a busted hallway onto the interrogation table. “Explain this to me. What exactly were you thinking?”

Mirage and Hound both looked down at the piece of metal, and then started to trade glances. Jazz snapped his fingers in between their faces.

“Nope, nope, eyes on me. No stories, no agreeing, just the truth. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that we hadn’t had nearly enough excitement around here recently,” Mirage said. Jazz let him wither under the full force of an unimpressed look. “It was Hound’s idea,” he admitted, sheepicronishly.

“You encouraged it,” Hound said, because the mech had no shame. Jazz switched his withering look anyways. “I still don’t think anything was wrong with the idea.”

“Really,” Jazz drawled. Hound continued to have no shame. “You think there’s nothing wrong with the pair of you going bungee jumping off a bridge to taunt the Seekers into crashing into it.”

“It worked,” Mirage mumbled. 

“I can’t leave you two alone for two orns,” Jazz complained. “Walk me through what happened. First gear, if you don’t mind, real slow.”

“Well,” Hound said. “There was the bridge. Over the Clay Gorge.”

“I’m familiar with it, yes,” Jazz said.

“The supply shipment was attacked while crossing it and most of the pallets got lost,” Mirage said.

“I’m familiar with that too, yes,” Jazz said. “We don’t need to take it that slow.”

“So the supplies needed retrieval,” Hound said. “We didn’t have anyone who could get them. Windcharger’s in space right now. Optimus couldn’t take his winch out on the bridge because it would make him a sitting digiduck. You were gone.”

“A mistake I’m not gonna make anytime soon. How’d you get the bungee cord?”

“Well,” Mirage said. “That sort of rubber rope has been useful for. Other things we do.” He was stiffer than usual.

“Yet another thing I’m familiar with,” Jazz said. The balance of the pale romance they all had going on and their relationship with each other that didn’t include him was a delicate one, best handled on a case by case business. Another time he might make them squirm by explaining, just to drive home how much they’d fragged up this time, but for the moment he needed them to stay on target. “So you had it in the trunk and Hound decided the best way to use it was dropping into the canyon headfirst. And neither of you stopped to think, hey. This might be a bad idea.”

“It worked,” Hound said, again.

“Mmhm. For how long?”

“We actually got three cases of the supplies back up before the Seekers realized we were still alive,” Mirage said.

“And how many of those made it back to base when you had to skedaddle off the bridge before they blew it up?”

“One and a half, which is still more than we had earlier,” Hound pointed out.

“And yet that’s all we’re getting over the gorge for the near future, because we have no bridge.” Jazz didn’t chuck the piece of what had been the bridge at Hound because he was being responsible right now and that meant he couldn’t give in to roughhousing. He did lean forward to run his fingers over the dent on Hound’s helm. “And you two came out of it worse for wear.” He didn’t hide how disappointed he was from his tone. Mirage was dented as well, but he didn’t like to be touched as much. A head tilted his direction conveyed the same amount of sympathy without pushing his limits.

“We’re not that hurt,” Mirage murmured, but the pride had trickled out. He looked properly abashed, finally.

“You’re both menaces,” Jazz said. “No more bungee jumping. Ever."

Chapter Text

One thing about wartime was it made it hard for anyone to be too traditionalist. Things used to be real buttoned down in the old days, real reserved—you’da never seen a mech tenderly smoothing away a creased brow in public, let alone shushing them, let alone crying on them. Wasn’t done to be seen like that, or at least, that’s how respectable types looked at it.

Jazz never cared much about anybody’s idea of respectable, and he’d been comforting mechs as they struck him in a pitiable light since the day he onlined, with little thought for decency, monogamy, or long-abandoned social norms.

“No, no,” Mirage said, frowning at him, “anyone can offer a friend a sympathetic pat on the back, what I’m speaking of is pale romance, the true delicate pink of it all. The longing. The desire.”

Jazz made a face at him. They were sitting at the unofficial Spec Ops table in the mess hall, stretching out a fuel break to kill time between mind numbing busywork around Kimia. The team was becalmed here on the space station, at loose ends, with nothing to do but shoot the scrap and get under each other’s wheels. And apparently Mirage decided to take up matchmaking to kill time.

“I ain’t lookin for commitment, Raj. I got pity in my spark for any mech broken up ‘n lookin for comfort.” 

“Yes yes,” Mirage waved him off, “you’re the very picture of free love and anarchy. But suppose you could pick anyone in the galaxy to be comforted by? You must have a short list in mind?”

Despite his best efforts at a poker face, Jazz’s gaze darted across the mess hall towards a flash of yellow paint and laughter, just visible through the adoring crowd that formed slowly but inevitably wherever he went.

Mirage’s expression screwed up into schadenfreude and delight. “No,” he said.

Jazz pulled another, more aggravated face. “You can’t even see where I’m lookin you no good spawn of a so-and-so.”

“Can too,” Mirage said, primly. “There’s no need to cast aspersions just because you have doomed taste. You do know every soldier and their CO has a pale crush on Bumblebee, don’t you?”

Jazz tried to sink down out of sight and would have managed it if Mirage hadn’t stuck his leg out under the table and blocked the way. “I know,” he muttered. “Stop lookin at him, you a spy or ain’t you?”

Mirage sipped delicately at his fuel. “I could arrange something for you.”

“Don’t you dare,” Jazz hissed. 

“You’ll never know if you don’t ask him,” Mirage said. “As far as I’ve heard, he doesn’t actually have an amica endura yet.”

“All that means is the mech’s got high standards. Which I know I ain’t meetin. Raj, baby, look at me,” he said, and gestured at his face which was just visible between the bench seat and the edge of the table. “I’m cool as calico, baby, I don’t need an amica.”

“Yes,” Mirage said dryly. “I can see that.” 

There were no days or nights on the space station, only duty shifts. And Jazz spent the rest of his trying not to think about anything Mirage had said. Jazz wasn’t made to be comforted, anyway. Jazz was a confidant, not a confesser; a protector, not the protected. And even if he entertained the fantasy now and again, Jazz had a whole army to take care of. He wasn’t meant to be tied down to one mech. 

On his recharge shift, Jazz determinedly set the idea aside, did a forced power-down, and thought about it no more.

The word through the Intel Ops grapevine reached Bumblebee probably more quickly than it reached Optimus Prime—which was to say, fast. Even if it wasn’t in his own department, he would have been told right away; nobody kept secrets from Bumblebee, even when they probably should have. 

“Went straight to his hab,” Gears had told him, in the shuttlebay, “no debrief or anything, and he’s usually good about that. He looked fine to me, wasn’t missing any limbs. Wasn’t even leaking, actually.”

Not a matter for Ratchet then, it sounded like. Not something you could fix with a wrench, thrown or otherwise.

Bumblebee wandered restlessly past the rec room, waving off invitations to join a game of darts, and past the lob ball court where he turned down more invitations to join a 3v3. His helm wouldn’t have been in the game, anyway. He was too busy thinking about Jazz, holed up in his hab suite, tending his wounds alone… Running whatever horrible memory through his processor again and again… Bumblebee circled around the embarrassingly familiar fantasy of being the one bot allowed to cross that sanctum and hold that trembling hand.

He shook it off, as usual. Everyone knew Jazz didn't have time for that sort of thing. It wasn’t that Bumblee had been angling for the position, he’d just, you know, kept an audial out. 

But Bumblebee had been keeping an audial out for a while now. Ever since he was deployed down into the shatterzone a few warfronts ago. He'd been down in the aftermath of a bombing, looking for survivors, only to find Jazz cradling an injured frontliner under the wrecked shell of a building. The colossus of broken stone was like a lacework around them. Jazz had been holding him so gently, talking softly, head bent low. Before that moment Bumblebee had liked Jazz, but always found him a bit larger than life, more of a performance than a person. But he’d been so tender there, cradling that legless frontliner, probably as much a stranger to them as to Bumblebee, and some pale circuit in Bumblee’s spark had suggested: what if I could hold him like that? 

He was just. Thinking about how someone should do it. Just this once.

“This would be your second circuit around this hallway,” said a decorous voice in a doorway behind him, “I don’t suppose you’re nervous about something?”

Bumblebee jumped. Mirage gave him a look that said, aren’t you supposed to be a scout? But he was too polite to actually say it.

“This is Jazz’s hab suite,” Mirage told him. “Although I think you already knew that.”

“Er,” Bumblebee said. It was bad to be caught, and to be caught wanting. Worse that Mirage was apparently on his way out of Jazz’s habsuite, where- as soon as Bumblebee got out of his way -he’d no doubt been tenderly patting Jazz's hand.

“Worried about our fearless commander?” Mirage asked.

Bumblebee shifted from foot to foot. “I heard he was… bad,” he admitted.

“Well, he insists he’s fine, of course,” Mirage said. “The insufferable mech. I’m not the one to pry it out of him, in any case, I’m afraid.”

Bumblebee tried not to sound too hopeful. “…You’re not?”

Mirage shook his head. “We aren’t like that,” he said, “I can distract him, but I can’t… soothe him, do you see what I mean? No, he’ll need someone else for that. Someone concerned for him. Perhaps someone pacing in front of his door, longing to go in.”

“I’m not pacing.” Bumblebee ignored the bit about longing, which was too embarrassing even to acknowledge.

“I’m sure,” Mirage said. He reached into a subspace pocket and extracted a tin box, bright with red and white enamel. A first aid kit. The most basic kind, the type with putty and anti-rust spray and wax. A boo-boo kit. Like something from a cheesy pale-rom novel.

Bumblebee flushed up with light like a festival display. 

Mirage dangled the kit at him, smirking. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Bumblebee swallowed his pride and took the kit. He pressed the cool metal against his hot chassis. Mirage’s smirk became more of a smile as he stepped out of the way and gestured Bumblebee towards the door. 

He stepped inside. The door swished closed behind him. The room was lit mostly by the pink light of an unfinished musical score projected from the holotable, like the runner lights along the floor of a theater, glowing long after the stage has gone dark. Jazz had his back to the starboard wall, a zitaur in his lap as he absently tuned the frets.

“Seriously, Mirage,” Jazz said, “I ain’t in the mood.”

“Er,” Bumblebee said. “Hi, Jazz.”

Jazz jolted in his seat on the bean bag, fumbling his instrument as he twisted to look. Normally it was hard to read Jazz, between the self-possessed confidence and the immobile visor, but it wasn’t hard to read a dropped jaw at all.

“I thought…” Bumblebee said, and then gestured ineptly with the kit in his arms. “I mean. If you, er, want me to…”

Jazz’s gaze fell on the kit, and he froze. His mouth opened a couple times, silently, before he managed: “You don’t… hafta...”

Bumblebee took a step forward. “I want to, though,” he said. “If you want me to.”

Jazz stared, long enough and silent enough that Bumblebee began to think he didn’t want him to. But then, without looking away, he set the zitaur down on the floor beside him. “Come over here,” he said.

Bumblebee went. He knelt down on the floor in front of Jazz’s bean bag and set the kit open next to the zitaur. Jazz’s knees were covered in shallow scratches, from crawling probably, or skidding down an escape route. Cosmetic damage. Bumblebee lifted his hand and gently touched the roughened metal.

“Ya sure?” Jazz asked, his voice dry and uncertain. 

He looked so pitiable in that moment, scratched up and slumped in his seat, his expression strained without the constant smile to brighten it. He looked tired. 

“I’m not, yknow… easy to…” Jazz trailed off. 

No, he wouldn’t be easy to take care of. He was evasive, stubborn, opaque. He drove Ratchet crazy with it. His position demanded self-reliance; his responsibilities kept him always on the job. He was quick to give support, and hard pressed to accept it.

“You deserve to have someone take care of you, too. Even if you’re hard to love,” Bumblebee said. “I want to be the one who does it.” 

Day to day in the halls, in the rec room, out among the soldiers, Jazz strode under a spotlight, shiny and confident. But here in the dark of this small room which kept the world at bay, Jazz couldn’t look anything but exhausted. His lights were dim and thin, underfueled.

Jazz said nothing for a moment. And then, trembling slightly, he held out his hands and uncurled his fingers, exposing the equally rough and abraded metal. 

“Okay,” he said, in a hoarse whisper. “As long as you know what you’re getting into.”

Chapter Text

This one was OP’s fault, straight-up.

“Prime,” Jazz said, ignoring the giggles of the peanut gallery. “Optimus. Sir.” Maybe laughing along just a little. “Orion, pal.”

His pal Optimus blinked awake—one groggy blink, one slightly startled one focusing on Jazz, and then a slow brilliant glow that obviously went with a sunrise smile behind his mask. “Jazz. Hello dear.”

The peanut gallery—elite officers and experts of Autobot Special Circumstances—erupted into laughter, and one or two hoots or whistles.

Jazz flipped them off and smiled back at Optimus. He laughed, leaned in, and kissed Optimus on the forehead. “Good morning brightspark,” Jazz said. “Do you want to end the meeting?”

“Ah!” Optimus’s mask clicked quietly like he was trying to shut it in panic and he stood up fast, suddenly very awake. “Thank you all for coming and sharing best practices and ideas!”

Then it’s kinda on Bumblebee for following up on that.

People filtered out of the room still amused, but already moving on, splitting off, back to their own things. Optimus being a sentimental dork weren’t nothing, and he hustled off embarrassed. Jazz blew him another kiss, playing it off perfect as standard Jazz Stuff.

Bee waited until they were heading towards a rec room. “Brightspark?”

Jazz shrugged. “It’s a term of endearment, cutie-pi.”

“I know.” Bee narrowed his optics a little in a way that said, ‘Don’t be a dick Jazz; if nothing else it’s suspicious.’ “It’s more… how you said it.”

Maybe it’s a little on Jazz, for not thinking through what it meant to have Bumblebee as amica.

“Brightspark!” Jazz said again, spreading his hands. “Optimus is an inspiring mech, and I can be inspired to a term of endearment!”

“But. It was… y’know.” Bumblebee hummed, thoughtful. “Do you even do that kind of, um, endearment?”

And yeah, Jazz paused long enough to for sure twig Bee that the answer was tricky. Whoops! It woulda been easy to lie all the way, but Jazz’d maybe forgotten to come up with something the right kind of true for right now. “The Jazzmeister goes with whatever comes!” He smiled and shrugged again, for the public. “And he don’t kiss and tell.”

Jazz flirted broadly, but he didn’t commit. Honestly, he was curious about the state of gossip. Bee had a collection of gossip that rivaled Jazz’s, and probably a better view on what people thought on this particular story. Jazz saw a conversation coming up next time they were detailing somewhere with decent anti-surveillance.

“Yeah.” Bumblebee paused, glanced around real quick, and Jazz could almost see him thinking better of pulling at this thread while waiting in line for an energon dispenser.

“Yes.” Mirage, though, had the delicacy to know better, but the ruthlessness to enjoy putting Jazz on the spot. “But do you have a crush on Optimus Prime?”

“Fine, yes.” Jazz made a face at Mirage. “But, mech, have you seen him? Heard him? OP’s a catch, who isn’t a little in love with Optimus Prime?”

“I’m not,” Wheeljack said.

“And that's a fine part of who ya are, Jackie!” Jazz said, nodding at Wheeljack as he finished getting his energon and headed for the tables. “And it don’t gotta be a big deal for either of us!”

“I said ‘crush.’” Mirage held his cube under the dispenser and watched it fill with way too much interest. “You’re the one who confessed love. Love, hm?”

“Yeah,” Jazz said, a little less laid back than his standard. So, yeah. Being next to Optimus felt selfishly good, in a way he didn’t understand but he’d maybe been willing to follow through hell. “What of it.”

“That’s surprisingly cute,” Hound said. “You two are cute.”

“Thank you, Hound!” Jazz said, taking his turn getting energon.

“Why ‘surprisingly’?” Bumblebee asked.

“It’s just nice.” Hound smiled. “Are you going to ask him out?”

“Nah,” Jazz took a sip of his cube and went for the seasonings. He grabbed some cobalt and shrugged. “Ain’t looking for that kind of relationship, y’know.”

Sure, Jazz couldn’t drink a cobalt double-twist without remembering stumbling drunk and giddy up against Optimus, stealing his drink, and getting grabbed into a laughing hug before he could fall over, but that’s just a nice thing. Jazz added more cobalt, grinned, and winked back at the group. “I get what I need. S’all good.”

“Hm.” Mirage sipped at his own copper-tinted cube, watching Jazz judgmentally. “So. What about Optimus’s crush on you?”

“Can we just agree that we’re adorable and lay the frag off?” Jazz complained. “He’s nice to everyone, it don’t mean he’s interested, and even if it did—"

The energon dispenser stuttered to a trickle into Bumblebee’s cube. Jazz smacked it, in a totally measured and reasonable way to get it to gurgle back into normal flow.

“I like being friendly, he’s very polite, and it’s a fun time all around just like that.” Jazz smiled. “It ain’t practical to get too excited, and it don’t mean a thing about whether he’s even interested.”

A bit of energon splattered onto Bee’s hand as the dispenser turned off. Bee ignored it to stare at Jazz, alongside his other horrible nosy friends.

“I know for a fact that he’s interested,” Ratchet commented, walking by for absolutely no fragging reason at all.

Actually, it turned out that everyone around Jazz was here to dig up problems and torment him.

“Oh hi Gears! Are you sitting with Beachcomber?” Bee kidnapped a mini into the huddle, and spec ops ranks immediately closed around the best gossip, instead going for prying whatever Gears was up to lately, because Bumblebee was a good agent and a good friend who looked out for Jazz.

Bee looked out for Jazz for all of about two shifts, before he invited Jazz to the riverside market to hear the evening artists at a kinda specific time and place that at the very last minute it turned out oh no he couldn’t make it to sorry Jazz! It was a nice time and place, though, and Jazz wasn’t worried about being more alone than he wanted. The end of cycle line-up was good, so the crowds were out and happy and even well-stocked with familiar faces.

“Jazz?” Optimus was out with Ratchet, which was an unlikely kind of nice.

“Ey, OP! Ratch!” Jazz, deciding to roll with it, smiled at quadrant corners. “Sup?”

“Lovely night, isn’t it?” Optimus smiled, lit up multicolor from the market lights. “Are you here alone? Would you like to join us?”

Jazz smiled back, even if he was keeping an eye on Ratch, too. “Lovely night, yeah. But don’t let me intrude, yeah?”

“Hr—“ Ratchet snorted, then stopped and squinted somewhere past Jazz. ”Do you see that? What’s that?”

Somewhere past Jazz, there was the sound of calm but urgent voices shouting for space. Jazz tilted his head to listen. “That’s. Doc.”

“Probably nothing, but I’d better check that out, sorry Optimus.” Ratchet whooped a siren and shoved through the crowd towards the incident. “Doctor, coming through!”

“Ratchet?” Optimus made to follow, ‘cause he obviously fragging would. “What’s going on?”

Jazz caught his hand, but stepped along a few paces to get a better look. “That’s Hound faking a disturbance, it’s only gonna get more ridiculous if you go.”

“Should…” Optimus stopped, frowning. “That seems…”

Jazz squinted through the crowds, and spotted a blue and white mech talking fast at the edge of a small disruption of people. Mirage located, he turned and led Optimus the other way at a jog. “C’mon, quick, this way.”

Optimus hesitated one moment and then followed Jazz through the market, slow and jerky as he avoided people, laughing, until they reached a quieter section where the walkway stepped low all the way down to the river. Jazz pulled Optimus down to the lowest step for a little bit of cover, and to get a closer look at the iridescent shine off the broad slow-flowing river. They paused, there, while Jazz listened — heard music and laughter and chatter, but no one following.

When he looked back at Optimus, he found Optimus staring back down at him, smiling. “Hello.”

Jazz smiled back. “Hey.”

Optimus’s gaze flicked down to their still clasped hands, and then slowly tracked back up to Jazz’s face. His smile broadened, and he leaned in. “Have we been rumbled?”

The problem, really, the problem that wasn’t a problem, was that Optimus was lovely, and maybe someone who knew Jazz well enough would catch Jazz looking at him like a fool in love.

Jazz laughed. “Ain’t a secret we’re both fools in love.” He shrugged. “But I think we’re being set up.”

Optimus accepted that with a laugh, then made a slow somber nod, without looking away from Jazz. “How would you like to play this?”

Jazz considered how long it’d take Mirage to extract himself from his and Hound’s own nonsense, and went ahead and reached his other hand out, stepped in closer to Optimus and held on. “We can shake the tail and find somewhere with a big berth?”

Optimus’s engine kicked up a little, rumbling under Jazz’s touch. “That does sound nice,” he said. He looked up, a moment, looked around at the flickering lights and colors around them, and looked back at Jazz. “But I never got to take you on as many dates as I wanted.”

“Yeah.” Jazz forgot any kind of counter he might’ve had to that. “Okay.”

Optimus bent towards him, and Jazz tilted up to get the kiss—practiced, but practiced enough to look easy.

“Who’s tailing us?” Optimus asked, while Jazz was there.

“Uh,” Jazz said, for a second. “Bee. Maybe. Maybe Bee.”

Optimus hummed. “Have you told Bumblebee? We did discuss that, right? Sorry I’ve been so…” Optimus put Jazz back on his own feet, mostly. “I’m very sorry about the meeting.”

Jazz hopped back up to plant another kiss on Optimus. “Hey, hey all good! We’re adorable!” Jazz reclaimed his hand, too. “Take care of yourself, yeah? And we did talk about Bee,” Jazz confirmed, nodding. “It’s fine. I’ll tell him when it’s funny.”

“Yes—yes, of course—“ Optimus looked at Jazz again for a bit, thoughtfully. “Hm,” he said. “Let me know if I can help.”

Jazz grinned. “‘Course, brightspark. Love you.” He tugged at Optimus’s hand and nodded towards the nearest batch of interesting lights. “Lights?”

“I love you too,” Optimus said. “Lights.”