Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The music swirled around Minimus as glittering shards of light swept over his frame. The ballroom was objectively a triumph of interior design, the stark black wrought iron decorations making each guest stand out in brilliant color. Truly, Senator Shockwave had outdone himself.  

Minimus took a sip from his engex flute (discreetly filled with plain energon and a dash of pink coloring), and resisted the urge to rub at his brow. He had a headache.

It didn’t do to decline an invitation from a senator, not if you wanted to maintain the influence of your House. It was important to be seen, to demonstrate that you were still alive and well and wealthy. Still a force to be placated, rather than exploited, or worse, ignored. But Minimus had been here for an hour already, and spoken to half a dozen people he detested. Surely that was more than enough to satisfy his duties? 

Minimus was considering his best exit route when an arm wrapped around his shoulder.

“Mims,” said Dominus, with an alarmingly cheerful air, “there’s someone I’d love to introduce you to.”

Minimus’ hopes of a quiet night in evaporated. “Oh?” he said. “I don’t know if—I really don’t fit in with your crowd—”

“Nonsense.” Dominus plucked Minimus’ engex flute from his hand and tossed it back. “Primus, are they watering the drinks? Waiter! Bring us something stronger, if you please? Anyway, Mims, you’ll just adore my friend. Or your fiance, I should say.”

“My—” Minimus sucked in a breath. Unfortunately, this was just as the waiter pressed a crystal cube of something inky black and reeking of imported diesel into his hand. He sneezed. “Dominus,” he choked out, trying to set the cube down even as Dominus tugged him through the ballroom, “what are you—”

“It really is a shame for the House to have you wasting away in spinsterhood, Mims,” said Dominus. “It’s my duty as Head to rectify the matter. I’ve been looking and looking for someone who might meet your understandably high standards, and I think this mech is just the ticket. Titled, quick-witted, funny, very rich—well. He didn’t show me his bank account, but I owe him quite a bit of money, and I’m sure I’m not the only one—”

“You owe him money?” said Minimus. “Dom, you’re not selling me to some ruffian, are you?”

“Of course not, don’t be ridiculous.” Dominus paused in front of a door to one of the back rooms and turned to look Minimus over from helm to toe. He licked his finger and wiped away a smudge in Minimus’ otherwise immaculate finish. “Didn’t you hear me say he had a title? Come on, it’s for the sake of the House, and you’ll get a handsome mech out of it too. I’d conjunx him myself, only Rewind would probably murder me. Ready?”

“No,” said Minimus, but it was too late. Dominus had already pulled the door open.

The lights inside were dimmed, and Minimus had to squint to see the mechs ringed around a card table as his optics adjusted. The usual suspects were all there, Dominus’ gang of wealthy layabouts, but there were also a fair few unfamiliar faces. Flight frames, most of them. You didn’t see seekers in Iacon very often.

One of them, a striking jet painted in red and blue with a dashingly crooked nose, laid his hand facedown on the table. He took a pull on a cygar and then leaned back in his chair, letting the smoke stream in wisps from his mouth as he grinned. “We-ell,” he drawled, in a deep, rasping voice. “You were right, Dom, your brother is a looker.”

Dominus cleared his throat, having the grace to appear just the faintest bit ashamed of himself. “Your excellency, allow me to present my brother, the Honorable Minimus Ambus. Mims, this is Lord Starscream, the Winglord of Vos.”

---

“—So there I was, fighting off a dozen rabid tradesmechs, each of them armed with the energon-stained mining picks they’d just used to cave in the helms of my closest friends and family. ‘You’ll never take me alive!’ I yelled, and then the largest of the horrible horde replied, in his gravelly, uncultured voice, ‘We have no need for your life, Winglord, only your head.’”

Starscream paused in his monologue and gave Minimus a meaningful look.

“Oh dear,” said Minimus, blandly.

“They wanted to cut it off,” explained Starscream, drawing an illustrative claw over his own throat. “Display it on a pike from the palace gates. Terrible people, these commoners, really don’t understand all the sacrifices I made in a life of service for my city.”

“Mm,” said Minimus. He resisted the inappropriate urge to pick at the golden wire that wrapped around his chair's armrest. Old-fashioned and opulent, just like everything else in this benighted chapel Dominus had found.

“Still, being Winglord in exile isn’t all bad.” Starscream relaxed into his seat, leaning his cheek against his loose fist and crossing his filigreed thrusters over each other where they were scuffing the rather nice brass-age table. “Iacon has been very welcoming. Good parties, good fun, lovely mechs…” He grinned at Minimus, as if inviting him to titter and blush at the barest hint of a compliment.

“Actually, Winglord,” said Minimus. “I—”

“Please, call me Starscream,” said Starscream. “Or Star—we are about to be conjunxed, are we not?”

“Yes, about that,” said Minimus. “I—”

“Do you have a cute little nickname, sweet thing?” Starscream pursed his lips in thought. “Minimus, Mini, Mims, Mimsy—”

“Starscream,” said Minimus, wishing that for once he wouldn’t sound so shrill when he asserted himself, “please refrain from the familiarity. I do not welcome it. I do not want it.”

Starscream’s optics narrowed, but Minimus kept speaking, preventing the mech from perpetrating any further nicknames. 

“This is a business transaction, nothing more,” said Minimus. “A practical arrangement. House Ambus gains access to your title and pedigree; you gain access to my funds and properties. A better deal for you than I, in all honesty—a title in exile from a revolutionary government isn’t worth much more than a few free dinners. But you did forgive my brother’s debts, and I—” Minimus looked down for a moment, swallowing his pride in favor of truth. “—I am not much in demand, as a commodity. So perhaps it is an even trade.”

Another mech of his wealth and status would have dozens of suitors. But Minimus Ambus wasn’t any other mech—he didn’t flatter or laugh at jokes, he didn’t excel at sport, he didn’t have a crowd. He was dull, rigid, and unfriendly. Foolish, he’d heard people say, when his House was always teetering on the edge of disgrace. His mentor had done his best to gamble away their wealth when he’d been alive, and now Dominus Ambus was actually giving it away. And he’d gone and conjunxed a memory stick.

Minimus was sometimes a little annoyed that Dominus was still popular amongst their peers despite his indulgences in philanthropy and inappropriate paramour. Meanwhile, Minimus was mocked for acting like an accountant when he managed their trusts and endowments, and now he was being bundled off to marry a politician so disastrously inadequate that he'd been run out of his own city.

But he’d always known that life was unfair. You just had to get on with it.

Starscream hadn’t rushed to fill the silence while Minimus contemplated the foibles of existence. He was watching Minimus, his optics sharp and his mouth a thin, uncompromising line. Likely Winglords rarely had such blunt speech directed at them.

Minimus collected himself, and returned to setting out the rules of their engagement. “We will live in opposite wings of my mansion. There are more than enough rooms for us both. We will not share a berth. You will not touch me. I will give you a generous allowance, but not direct access to any of my accounts. I trust this is acceptable to you?”

“It’ll do,” said Starscream. “For a start.” Perhaps he would’ve said something else, but then the door opened and Dominus stuck his helm in.

“Ready, loveshuttles?” asked Dom, cheerfully. “Everyone’s waiting.”

Minimus could hear the chatter of the guests, the chanting of the priests, the light choral music played on kazoo and keytar. He got to his feet and, after some deliberation, offered his hand to his betrothed.

Starscream took it. His hand felt smooth and cool, the hands of a gentlemech. Minimus supposed that was the best he could hope for.

---

Minimus woke up early the next morning. He stretched, in his big empty berth, and looked up at the velvet canopy that shielded him from the sunlight. Then he got up and went out to feed the turbofoxes.

It wouldn’t do for a member of Ambus House to do anything as gauche as maintain employment, but you had to do something with your time. Dominus collected art and worthy causes, their dutifully-beloved and rather exasperating mentor had held court in countless dens of iniquity, and Minimus kept turbofoxes. It had been Dominus’ suggestion. His brother thought he was very clever, very droll.

Still, Minimus enjoyed times like this—letting the turbofoxes out into the run, watching them yip and clamber over each other as they jumped to take the copper nuggets from his hands. Once the feedbucket was empty he left it where the gamekeepers would find it, patted the bolder turbofoxes a few more times, and then slipped out the back gate. It was only a few minutes’ run down a well-trodden forest path to the nearest tram station. Another mech would have simply taken the highway into town, but Minimus’ registered alt mode was too small and slow to be street-worthy and his unregistered alt mode was apt to become roadkill if he were ever bold enough to take it out in public.

Anyway, the tram was restful. Minimus could simply sit down amongst the other minibots and alt mode-challenged and let it take him where he needed to go. Today (and most days), that was the stop nearest the unstaffed storage warehouse where Minimus rented a modest little unit. Inside was a mobile charging station, a work table filled with tools and spare parts, and… his armor.

Minimus touched it relevantly, his fingers resting on the hip, as high as he could reach. Then he began to put it on.

He began by attaching the legs, one by one, tottering a little until the balancing systems came online. Then the torso, dozens of armor panels clicking in place and swallowing him into something greater than himself. Then the arms, his hands plugging into specially-designed sockets. Finally, the helm. There was always a moment of darkness when he put the helm on, a moment of blankness, of unbeing—and then Ultra Magnus’ optics flickered to life and it didn’t really matter that Minimus Ambus didn’t exist any longer.

Ultra Magnus rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and left for work.

As the head (and, indeed, only employee) of the internal investigations department, his primary responsibility was ensuring that all anti-corruption rules were being followed and mechanical rights were being preserved in the operation of Iacon’s many, many bureaucratic agencies. In principle, this was an enormous undertaking which deserved dozens of staff. In practice, it was a thankless job that only the indefatigable Ultra Magnus seemed willing to tolerate.

No. Not simply tolerate. He loved it.

“Good morning,” he boomed in his deep, commanding voice, as he threw open the inner doors in the enforcer headquarters.

“Oh no,” said Detective Prowl, and tried to hide under his desk.

“You cannot hide from justice, Detective.” Ultra Magnus stooped to peer into the dim footwell. Detective Prowl appeared to be eating someth—ah. He reached out and plucked the datachip from between Detective Prowl’s teeth before the mech managed to crush it. “And you cannot devour the evidence, either. Have you located those interrogation reports yet?”

“Tumbler has them,” said Detective Prowl, pointing at a mech attempting to scurry away through the maze of cubicles—and trying (and failing) to grab the datachip back while Ultra Magnus was distracted.

Ultra Magnus simply straightened up and lifted the chip out of Detective Prowl’s reach. With his height, it was easy to look over the walls of the cubicles and spot his quarry. “Mnemosurgeon third class Tumbler?” he called. The lanky mech froze in his tracks, one hand on the door to the fire escape. “I believe you have documents for me?”

“I, uh,” said Mnemosurgeon third class Tumbler. “I haven’t, uh. Finished redacting them yet?”

“Oh, redaction isn’t necessary,” said Ultra Magnus. “I have level gamma clearance.”

“Yes, but.” Mnemosurgeon third class Tumbler’s fingers twitched, his needles sliding out an inch and then slipping back in. “I don’t. Have them printed?”

“I can download them directly.” Ultra Magnus smiled and produced a data cable the size of a standard mech’s forearm. “And anything else that might be relevant to my investigation. Can you bare the nape of your neck, please?”

Mnemosurgeon third class Tumbler stared at the data cable in undisguised horror. Detective Prowl, meanwhile, made a noise like a server mainframe catching fire and threw himself at Ultra Magnus’ back. Ultra Magnus simply twisted a little to one side and picked Detective Prowl up with one hand. The one which wasn’t holding that very intriguing datachip. 

“Now,” said Ultra Magnus cheerfully, holding Detective Prowl aloft by his bull bar. “Those interrogation reports?”

---

After the end of his shift, Ultra Magnus reluctantly retraced his morning commute, returning to his storage unit and coming apart piece by piece until he was once more reduced to nothing more than Minimus Ambus. Then it was back to the mansion, the tram ride feeling somehow longer and duller in the lengthening light of the afternoon. Starscream was probably awake and nursing his post-conjunxing hangover by now, so Minimus clambered up the crystal trellis on the southern wing and got into his rooms through a strategically unlocked window.

Normally Minimus would spend a few quiet hours writing reports when he got home, but now that he was a conjugated mech it behooved him to make an appearance so his… so that Starscream didn’t think he’d died in the night. He selected a plush purple dressing gown from his closet, gave his facial insignia a quick polish, and finally emerged from his rooms.

He could hear the chatter of voices as he descended the grand staircase, a cackling laugh rising periodically over the din. He stopped at the foot of the stairs, one hand resting delicately on the spiraled banister, and peered through the open door of the dining room.

Starscream was there, looking rather livelier than expected. He was holding court amongst the remnants of a (presumably late) luncheon, a seeker seated on either side of him. Minimus thought he recognized them from that first lamented meeting, though he didn’t recall their names. They were passing a deck of cards from claw to claw, not shuffling or dealing, just arguing amiably about something. Starscream was different, talking to his friends. His tone was a little higher, his words coming faster. Something in Minimus’ chassis twinged a little. He’d probably strained something when he picked up that detective.

Starscream looked up, and the sharp grin he’d directed at the other seekers melted into something more saccharine as his optics caught sight of Minimus. “Darling!” he called, his voice deepening and smoothing as if it were being distilled. “Did you just wake up? Come join us!”

Minimus crossed his arms over his dressing gown and joined them, more or less. He went into the room, anyway, though he took a seat at the opposite end of the long table. Starscream was sitting in Minimus’ usual chair, at the head of the table. He looked ridiculous, the small chair straining to accommodate a seeker’s frame.

“We’ve just finished,” said Starscream, gesturing at the picked-clean platters. “Though I suppose the serving drones can scare something up for you. Quite a mech of leisure, aren’t you? It must be nice, relaxing all day without any duties to drive you from your berth.”

“Mm,” said Minimus. He signaled to the drone docked in the corner, and a few minutes later he had a goblet of plain energon in his hand. He sipped it, watching as Starscream licked his finger and ran it through the pewter shavings left on his plate.

“I can’t stand idleness, personally,” said Starscream. “Aristocrats just lazing about, growing fat off society…”

The black and purple seeker sniggered, but the blue one nudged Starscream in the side.

“Present company excepted, of course,” said Starscream, a little resentment creeping into his voice as he shoved the blue seeker back.

Minimus barely restrained himself from rolling his optics. “Yes, I’m sure we Iaconians must seem quite useless to Vosian nobility. After all, you keep up such a strenuous lifestyle of drinking, gambling, and… I’m sorry, what else is it you do?”

A scowl flickered over Starscream’s face before he regained his ingratiating smirk. “Well, there are a few other things. I’d be happy to show you in private, conjunx dear.”

Another snigger. Another nudge. “No, thank you,” said Minimus, firmly. He took another sip from his goblet. “Are these guests or intruders, by the way?”

Starscream frowned and glanced around him before his optics lit on the other seekers. “Oh, them? Allow me to introduce Thunder—ah, Duke Thundercracker, and his associate Skywarp, the… Marquess of Crystal Clouds.”

Thundercracker waved. Skywarp leaned back, his chair balancing precariously on two legs. Twisting behind Starscream’s chair, he said to Thundercracker, in a remarkably carrying whisper, “does that mean I, like, outrank you?”

“The titles don’t quite translate,” said Starscream, loudly. “It’s very confusing to us poor refugees.”

“No, but like, am I more important, or less important?” said Skywarp, still at a volume that he apparently considered quiet. “Because if you gave me a shitty title, I’m gonna—”

Starscream smacked the back of the Marquess’ helm, which turned the mech’s attention from his title to the tragic possibility of scuff marks.

“We were just about to play a round of elder bachelor,” said Thundercracker, offering Minimus a smile rather more genuine than Starscream’s. “If we’re done arguing about the deck, that is.”

“We weren’t arguing,” said Skywarp, still rubbing sullenly at his helm. “It’s just not a fair deck, that’s all.”

Starscream sighed. “Why don’t we let my darling conjunx be the judge?” He tossed the deck down the table. The magnetic field that held it together broke as they hit the polished tungsten tabletop, scattering the cards in front of Minimus’ placemat. “Well, Mins?”

“Don’t call me that,” said Minimus. Reluctantly, he set down his goblet and began picking up the cards. There was, yes, there was a slight weight difference between the little sheets of metal. The face cards had an extra 0.01 to 0.03 micrograms, and the prime suit had a reversed polarity. Subtle work, cleverly done, but quite obvious to the right optic and a tuned set of hands.

Minimus neatly stacked the cards, then drained his goblet and pushed his chair back. “They seem quite fair to me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a nap.”

He could feel Starscream’s incredulous optics on his back as he turned and went. “Is he really—” began Skywarp, when he probably thought Minimus was out of earshot. He was cut off with another ringing smack.

Minimus trudged back up the staircase. He’d always considered his home a refuge from the inanity of society, but this was his life now, he supposed. At least he had centuries of experience playing dumb to draw on.

It didn’t really matter if Minimus Ambus enjoyed his life, anyway. It was only twelve more hours until Ultra Magnus’ next shift.

---

Ultra Magnus worked cheerfully at his desk, relishing the predictable productivity of completing a few dozen requisition and travel forms. He loved his office, with its simple aluminum furniture and shelving filled with datapads that contained the regulations that forged order out of chaos. The world was mapped out at his fingertips, every action leading inevitably to another. Box 15a to 27c, sign and date, please provide the last forty digits of your source code… Ultra Magnus let out a happy sigh as he completed his stapler refill request and opened the daily commuter reimbursement form.

He was answered by a resentful groan.

“Having trouble?” he asked Detective Prowl, who was hunched over the table in the corner of Ultra Magnus’ office, poking at a datapad with his index fingers.

The datachip Detective Prowl had attempted to destroy had contained records pertaining to an unregistered informant who was providing Detective Prowl with rather unsavory details about government corruption. Detective Prowl seemed to believe that once Ultra Magnus learned about this informant—this Rattrap—he and his partner’s careers and perhaps even their lives would be forfeit.

Ridiculous, really. The penalty for an unregistered informant was nothing more than a ten shanix fine, and, of course, completing the paperwork to register them. Which Detective Prowl was working on under Ultra Magnus’ watchful optic, since the enforcers had apparently been neglecting their protocol training. 

“Is it page forty-three?” prompted Ultra Magnus. “The flowchart is a little tricky.”

“No,” said Detective Prowl, quickly. “I’m fine, leave me alone.”

“There’s no need to struggle in silence,” Ultra Magnus assured him. The mech was clearly in need of mentorship from a seasoned bureaucrat. “Here, allow me.”

He leaned over Detective Prowl’s shoulder and plucked the datapad from Detective Prowl’s surprisingly firm grip. The screen displayed… well, not page forty-three, and in fact no pages from the informant registration form at all. It appeared to be a dossier from the central taxation authority.

“I was just taking a break,” said Detective Prowl, trying hopelessly to retrieve his datapad. “I’m working on the form, I just—Someone gave me a tip, and I—”

“The engines of government do not take breaks,” said Ultra Magnus, sternly, and lifted the datapad further out of reach. He allowed himself to indulge his curiosity for a moment, since Detective Prowl clearly needed the time to reflect on his behavior. The dossier detailed a rather nasty case of serial fraud, embezzlement, identity theft, and a score of related petty crimes. There was a photo attached, a seeker sneering at the camera as he held up a datapad displaying the designation ‘Ulchtar.’ Ultra Magnus tilted his helm, considering. The frame was generic, the paintjob unfamiliar, but there was something about the expression—the crook of the nose, perhaps…

“We think he’s linked to the Senate,” said Detective Prowl, leaning in as if confiding a great secret. “Or maybe even the Institute. Someone powerful, anyway. The central surveillance net caught his spark signature in Senator Shockwave’s residence a few days ago, but then it went out of range.”

“Hm.” It was dispiriting, hearing a bright young enforcer babble conspiracy theories. In Ultra Magnus’ experience, the Senate was too argumentative and ineffectual to employ the host of criminals and assassins that dissidents liked to imagine they had at their beck and call. And everyone knew the Institute was just an urban legend. “Is this informant registered?”

Detective Prowl did not have expressions, as a rule, which Ultra Magnus admired. But something about him still crumpled. “I think,” he said, “I think Tumbler registered him…”

“It’s easy enough to check the records,” said Ultra Magnus. “Do you have your informant’s deidentified verification code?”

Detective Prowl did not. Ultra Magnus wrote up another citation, collected another ten-shanix fine, and assigned a second 237-page informant registration form to Detective Prowl’s task list.

“I can rescind the fine if you do turn up that verification code,” he told a very disgruntled Detective Prowl. “Always better to be safe than sorry, I find.”

“I wouldn’t be sorry,” grumbled Detective Prowl. Ultra Magnus chose to ignore that. He took another look at the photo of Ulchtar.

There had been several seekers at Senator Shockwave’s party, hadn’t there?

“May I offer you some advice?” he asked. Detective Prowl glared at him silently, which Ultra Magnus took as assent. “A simple explanation is often the best one. No need to complicate things.”

Detective Prowl redirected his glare to one of the shelving units filled with regulations. Ultra Magnus really wasn’t sure what that was meant to communicate.

---

That evening Starscream was sitting in Minimus’ grand-mentor’s high-backed chair in the third-best living room, his thrusters kicked up on the delicately engraved table. His cronies weren’t anywhere to be seen, and in their absence Starscream seemed somehow… diminished. As if his brash arrogance was simply a costume put on for an audience, to be discarded when he went backstage.

Minimus stood in the doorway, half-hidden by the shadows and his navy-blue dressing robe, and watched as Starscream tapped idly at a datapad. Starscream’s optics dimmed as he took a drag on his cygar, holding the smoke in his mouth for a moment before pursing his lips and making a lazy attempt at a smoke ring. 

He was handsome, Minimus thought, if one went in for that sort of thing. His gold detailing highlighted the strong curves of his armor and the sharp planes of his face. Warbuilds were always on the heady edge of taboo attraction, at least in civilian-dominated Iacon. Minimus had seen more than enough senators with a tank or a troop carrier on their arm at the opera. Or dangling from their much larger companions’ arms, as the case may be. Minimus wondered if Starscream had ever seen military service, or if the armor was only a fashionable prop.

Starscream’s lips curved around his cygar again, his bottom lip dimpling under the thick cylinder. Minimus dragged his gaze up to Starscream’s distinctively-broken nose. He adjusted his visual filters, giving Starscream the optic-searing green and pink paint of Detective Prowl’s dossier photo. Yes. Yes, he thought—

Starscream tipped his hand to the side and tapped his thumb against his cygar, sending a few drops of molten metal to burn holes in the antique hand-woven rug.

“There is an ashtray, you know,” said Minimus, unable to stop himself and barely able to moderate the venom in his tone.

Starscream’s wings flicked up and his armor fluffed out, but his expression didn’t change. “Is that an ashtray?” he said mildly, nudging the little carborite dish on the table with his foot. “I thought the drones had forgotten to fill the candy bowl.”

“I don’t eat sweets,” said Minimus, stiffly. “And I’d prefer if you didn’t burn the house down, so if you don’t mind—”

“Dear Minimus, let’s not fight.” Starscream leaned down and set his cygar in the ashtray, flicking the heating element off as he did so. “Come and have a seat, tell me what you’ve been up to. I haven’t seen you since yesterday. Oh, and I had a few questions about the Ambus line of inheritance—nothing pressing, just something the Marquess was asking about—”

Minimus considered it, for a moment. It would be an opportune time to subtly ask about the details of Starscream’s background, his possible connections to this Ulchtar character, any criminal activity… The seating options in this room were all too large to be really comfortable, but he could have one of the drones bring a chair from the second-best living room—

Starscream caught his optic and leaned back in his seat, patting his thigh with a smirk. “I kept my lap warm for you, Mimsy.”

Minimus felt his face surge with heat. “I don’t,” he sputtered, “ridiculous, I—” He clamped his mouth shut and discreetly fled before he could embarrass himself further.

“I was joking!” yelled Starscream, after him. “Come on, sweetspark, don’t be such a—”

Minimus slammed the door to his wing shut, cutting off his conjunx’s voice. He stood there with his back against it, shuddering a little as his simulation circuits conjured up disturbing images of him perched on Starscream’s knee. Of course that was what the mech wanted—someone small and sweet and biddable to fawn over his every word. Disgusting.

Clearly Minimus Ambus was entirely unsuited to this task. Other measures would need to be taken.

Minimus offlined his optics and called up Ultra Magnus’ calendar.

---

Ambustia Manor was an intimidating building, when viewed from the outside. Perfectly manicured crystal gardens led to a soaring edifice of copper. The aged green patina did not scream old money, but only because it would never do something so gauche as raise its voice. It murmured it humbly instead.

Mnemosurgeon third class Tumbler shifted uneasily on the front landing, in stark contrast to Detective Prowl’s ramrod-straight posture.

“I still don’t really understand why we’re here,” he said.

“It’s important to never interview a witness or a potential suspect alone,” said Ultra Magnus. His internal timer went off and he rang the doorbell again. “And it’s a good opportunity for you to learn proper interview techniques and informant management.”

“But you’re not from our precinct,” said Tumbler. “You’re not even in our chain of command.”

This was a valid point. Ideally, Ultra Magnus would have identified a qualified senior officer to mentor Prowl and Tumbler and guide them in the ways of ethical public service. It was unsettling to realize that no one sprang to mind.

But Ultra Magnus was more likely to meet the corrupt, the unprincipled, and the unsavory in the course of his work. Surely there were dozens—hundreds—of upstanding officers who would serve as good role models for these young mechanisms. It was purely Ultra Magnus’ failing that he couldn’t think of any.

“I’m not keeping you here,” he said, pushing away his discomfort. “If you would prefer to return to my office and continue filing your informant registry forms—”

“No,” said Prowl, quickly. “We’re very grateful for the opportunity, sir.”

Tumbler started to say something else, but Prowl trod on his foot in a furtive way that Ultra Magnus probably wasn’t meant to notice. He obligingly averted his optics and raised his hand to ring the doorbell a third time.

The door was yanked open before he got the chance. Starscream leaned out, wings held high, a trio of serving drones bumping against his heels. “Yes?” he demanded sharply. “What is it?”

“Winglord Starscream?” asked Ultra Magnus. “My designation is Ultra Magnus, head of internal investigations. My colleagues are Mnemosurgeon third class Tumbler and Detective Prowl of the Iacon Enforcers. May we come in?”

Starscream’s optics flickered over them. “That’s who, not what,” he said.

“We’d just like to ask you a few questions,” said Ultra Magnus. This was the sort of equivocating language that one used when there wasn’t a warrant to be had, and Starscream seemed to know it. But after a long moment he stepped to the side and waved Ultra Magnus in.

“My conjunx is still in his rooms,” said Starscream, leading the way to the second-best sitting room. “Lazing away the afternoon, as usual. I can send a drone to retrieve him.”

“There’s no need,” said Ultra Magnus. There was one mid-sized chair in this sitting room, which Starscream promptly took. Prowl and Tumbler crammed themselves into the minibot-sized chairs, which left Ultra Magnus with the choice between the chaise longue or standing.

He assumed an easy parade rest and turned to face Starscream. “This is a routine inquiry,” he assured Starscream. It was true, because he routinely investigated fraud cases. “Can you tell us a little about how you found yourself in Iacon?”

“Please sit down, Enforcer Magnus,” said Starscream, languidly. “I’ll strain a cable looking up at you.”

Reluctantly, Ultra Magnus sat. The chaise longue creaked a warning when he briefly attempted to rest his weight on it, so he widened his stance and locked his knees, hovering over the cushions in a deep squat. He hoped it didn’t look as awkward as it felt.

Starscream’s optics slowly tracked over Ultra Magnus’ frame, lingering on the broad thighs that Ultra Magnus could feel beginning to tremble. “What was the question again?”

“How you found yourself,” began Ultra Magnus, but then Starscream snapped his fingers.

“Right. Well, there was a revolution in Vos, I’m sure you heard of it? So there I was, fighting off a dozen rabid tradesmechs, each of them armed with the energon-stained mining picks they’d just used to cave in the helms of my closest friends and family—”

Ultra Magnus tuned out the (probably entirely spurious) story and focused on Starscream’s face. Some mechs claimed that you could spot a lie in the hue of a mech’s optic, but Starscream’s remained a brilliant crimson throughout. His gestures were expansive, his expression open and honest. His voice wasn’t low and sultry, the way he spoke to Minimus Ambus, but still smooth and pleasant to listen to. He never hesitated, stumbled, or repeated himself.

The consummate confidence mech, in fact.

“Do you know a mech designated Ulchtar?” said Ultra Magnus, interrupting Starscream in the midst of his thrilling tale of escape.

“Ulchtar?” Starscream tapped his lip. “What an ugly name. It doesn’t sound familiar, but—”

“He’s a Vosian felon,” said Ultra Magnus. “You—that is, the winglord—refused a parole request from him shortly before the revolution.”

“Did I?” Starscream’s expression remained open and honest. “It’s all a haze of bureaucracy, I’m afraid.”

“I see.” Ultra Magnus carefully leaned back until his armor brushed the backrest of the chaise longue. “You were telling us about your escape from the Mist Dungeons.”

“Oh, yes,” said Starscream, and then went off again. Ultra Magnus listened with half his attention, the other half being devoted to remaining in his squat and not crushing the chair. Beside him, Prowl was fidgeting in his seat—a bad habit, clearly learned from Tumbler. Ultra Magnus wasn’t surprised when Prowl abruptly stood up.

“Sorry,” he said. “I think—I have something stuck in my wheel well. Is there a detailing room I can use?”

“Down the hall, second door on the left,” said Starscream—which was the disused servant’s detailing room, Ultra Magnus noted. He wasn’t sure if it even had running solvent. 

“Tumbler, come help me,” said Prowl, grabbing Tumbler’s wrist.

“What?” said Tumbler. “I don’t—”

“I can’t reach,” said Prowl, firmly, and tugged him away. 

That left Ultra Magnus alone with a suspect, which was exactly what he’d been trying to avoid. He looked uneasily at Starscream, wondering how long Prowl’s problem could be expected to take.

“Are you going to fall?” asked Starscream, leaning back in his chair. “You can stand up if you need to, I’m not a monster.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Ultra Magnus, who at this point wasn’t sure if he could stand up at all.

“If you break the chaise it’s no great loss,” said Starscream. “It belongs to my conjunx. The whole house does, actually.”

“Oh?” Ultra Magnus tried to lean forward, but he’d have to unlock his knees to do so, and unlocking them would lead to falling. “What’s your conjunx like?”

“Mims?” Starscream produced a cygar from his subspace. He didn’t turn it on, just ran his thumb over it thoughtfully. “Beautiful, of course, money, wits, I’m very lucky. But…”

Ultra Magnus nodded encouragingly.

“Do you ever look at a mech,” said Starscream, “and think just how easy it is to waste away a life?”

Ultra Magnus felt—he felt like something was stuck in his throat, which was impossible. He cleared his intake, opening his mouth to say—he didn’t know what, but—

“Magnus!” yelled Prowl. 

Some unknown reserve of energy propelled Ultra Magnus forward, out of his squat and into the corridor. Prowl’s voice was coming from the second floor, and Ultra Magnus thundered up the stairs, Starscream close on his heels. 

“I’m here,” said Prowl, waving a hand from where he and Tumbler were—were standing at the open door to Minimus Ambus’ bedroom.

“You’re not allowed up here without a warrant,” said Starscream, at the same time as Ultra Magnus said, “this is an illegal search.”

Prowl waved them both off, looking grimly triumphant. “I thought it was suspicious that the homeowner was still asleep in the middle of the day, so I asked the drones to take me to his rooms. Tumbler scanned for EM signals, but there weren’t any, so I broke open the door.”

“You broke open a locked door in my house?” demanded Starscream. Tumbler had the grace to look embarrassed.

“Yes,” said Prowl, meaningfully. “A door to an empty room, locked from the inside.”

The four of them looked in. The bed curtains were pulled back, displaying the neatly made covers. Silicate blew in from the open window.

“Minimus Ambus,” said Prowl, “has been kidnapped.”

Chapter Text

Prowl took charge with the cheerful rapidity of someone who was finally doing the job he’d been trained to do. He found scratches on the windowsill; broken wires on the crystal trellis along the southern wall; a paint chip on the rough path that led to the tram station.

It would be impressive, Ultra Magnus thought, if Prowl was actually investigating a crime and not Ultra Magnus’ own daily commute.

He himself was hard at work determining how to rectify the matter. If he could slip away, it would be easy for Minimus Ambus to reappear from somewhere in the house and demand to know what Prowl and Tumbler were doing in his rooms. But then Prowl would surely wonder what happened to Ultra Magnus—might even search for and find the dismantled armor with its suspiciously minibot-shaped cavity inside.

“He’s not answering his comms,” said Starscream, who was the source of the internal pings that had plagued Ultra Magnus until he’d finally shut off Minimus Ambus’ frequency. He couldn’t answer in public without revealing himself, and if he excused himself and then Minimus answered… Well, Prowl was clever enough to put two and two together even when it produced an absurd result.

He could simply explain himself. Come clean about the whole thing. There had been no kidnapping, he was right here. Ultra Magnus did not exist. He’d obtained government employment under false pretenses. He’d abused his position in order to interview his own conjunx, whom he suspected of malfeasance.

Ultra Magnus’ vision swam. He thought he might faint.

No. No, he’d just wait until he could get away. The end of his shift, perhaps. He’d come back as Minimus Ambus, make up some story, answer Prowl’s inevitable questions, and dismiss any thoughts of a kidnapping. It would be fine.

“Sir,” said Prowl, “can I have a word?”

Ultra Magnus followed Prowl around the corner of the mansion, out of sight of Starscream and Tumbler. This, apparently, wasn’t enough privacy—Prowl gestured Ultra Magnus to lean down so Prowl could whisper in his audial.

“Tumbler and I are going to follow the trail, see if we can find any more clues. I’ve already reported to the precinct, they’re starting the mech hunt. Can you reach out to the family?”

“Is this really necessary?” asked Ultra Magnus, hiding the despair that he felt. “There’s no evidence of foul play.”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure one of the wealthiest mechs in the city just decided to take a stroll out of a third-story window,” hissed Prowl.

Ultra Magnus thought that characterization was inaccurate—he barely cracked the top one hundred in Iacon—but he doubted a correction would change Prowl’s mind.

“Stay with that Starscream character,” added Prowl. “Don’t let him out of your sight. He’s obviously the prime suspect.”

---

“I’m absolutely devastated, of course,” said Starscream, as he and Ultra Magnus made their way across the gravel paths to Dominus’ matching mansion. His voice had changed again, gaining a breathy, vulnerable quality. “My dear, dear conjunx, obviously kidnapped by a gang of unknown ruffians.”

“Mm.” Ultra Magnus wasn’t especially looking forward to questioning the ‘family.’ Dominus wouldn’t notice anything that wasn’t spelled out for him in triplicate, but Ultra Magnus had an illogical certainty that Rewind would be able to see through him at first glance. 

“Devastated,” repeated Starscream, inanely, and then stumbled on what, as far as Ultra Magnus could see, was nothing at all. He reached out to steady the other mech, and Starscream immediately latched onto his arm.

“Oh, you’re so strong,” said Starscream, looking up at him with wide optics. “I bet you have criminals falling at your feet all the time.”

“No,” said Ultra Magnus, confused by the abrupt change in topic. “Not in internal investigations. It typically takes months to bring a suspect before the ethics board, although obviously I am authorized to levy fines for minor offenses.”

“Do tell,” said Starscream. It was odd, Starscream encouraging Ultra Magnus to talk more instead of seizing control of the conversation himself. Ultra Magnus obligingly told him about a recent prosecution, an enforcer with a protection racket. Starscream gazed fixedly at him and clung onto his arm like he was worried about tripping again.

He was very warm, thought Ultra Magnus as the story wound down. An odd thing to notice, clearly irrelevant. It was just that high-performance jet engine. He dulled his external sensors so that it wouldn’t distract him further. Doing so left him feeling uncomfortably disconnected, hyper-aware of the fact that ‘Ultra Magnus’ was just Minimus Ambus in an armor shell. It was still preferable to reflexively cataloging the way each of Starscream’s fingers exerted a slightly different degree of pressure on his bicep.

He’d been silent for too long. Starscream was still looking up at him with strangely bright optics. “Are you interested in regulatory law?” Ultra Magnus said, quickly. “Or civil liberties legislation? You were admirably aware of your rights against a warrantless search.”

“Hmm?” Starscream seemed to be staring at Ultra Magnus’ mouth for some reason. “Oh, you’re too kind. I simply believe that anyone should understand the limits of the government wherever they happen to live.”

“Very true.” Ultra Magnus slightly upgraded his assessment of Starscream. The mech clearly contained hidden depths.

“When I was making policy,” said Starscream, and Ultra Magnus downgraded him again.

He thought it fairly unlikely that this so-called Starscream had ever served as Winglord of Vos. He’d found archival holos of Winglord Starscream from before the revolution. The paint colors matched, but that was as far as the resemblance went. The winglord’s mouth had seemed perpetually set into a pout, rather than a smirk, and his nose was perfectly aquiline. A repainted and lightly-reframed Ulchtar seemed a much better match for the Starscream that was now before him.

It could all be explained away, of course. New expression software, a nose broken in the fight against the much-reviled rabid tradesmechs and kept that way as a badge of honor. Seekers were all built to the same mold, which increased their visual similarity and was very rude to mention. Still. If ‘Starscream’ was actually Ulchtar, intermetropolitan con artist and mid-tier criminal, what did he stand to gain by conjunxing a minor aristocrat like Minimus Ambus?

Starscream had wrapped up an actually quite persuasive critique of the Iaconian visa program and was looking at Ultra Magnus expectantly again. Ultra Magnus glanced at the nearing mansion and estimated that they had five minutes more conversation time. Another odd reaction: he felt a little disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to walk with Starscream any longer. Normally he’d be counting down the moments until he was able to free himself from what was objectively an extremely awkward social situation.

“You must be very worried about your conjunx,” he said. This seemed the most relevant topic of conversation.

“Yes, very,” said Starscream, nodding eagerly. “I hope you don’t waste time considering me a suspect—I’ve absolutely nothing to gain from his disappearance. I’m not even in the will yet. A gang of ruffians did it, I’m sure of it.”

“You’ve said.” Ultra Magnus allowed himself a small sigh. “Perhaps he’s just visiting friends.” 

Starscream made a stifled noise. When Ultra Magnus looked down at him, it was clear that Starscream was laughing.

“You find this situation amusing, do you?”

“Of course not,” said Starscream. His lip wobbled, and he let go of Ultra Magnus’ arm with one hand long enough to wipe a few invisible tears of coolant from his optics. “I’m hysterical with grief, that’s all, and you can’t judge me for any of my words or actions. But Minimus doesn’t have friends.”

Ultra Magnus forced himself to keep walking towards Dominus’ mansion, posture straight, arm at a comfortable angle to offer Starscream support. Ultra Magnus, head of internal investigations, would not be offended on behalf of someone he only knew by name.

“How long have you been conjunxed?” he asked, keeping his voice cool and measured. “A few days?”

“Three at least.” Starscream waved a hand. “But I talked to absolutely everyone before I agreed to the happy union. Minimus doesn’t have a crowd, or a circle, or even a confidant. He just shows up to parties, stakes out a place on the wall, and makes his goodbyes very properly after about an hour. Sleeps half the afternoon, no hobbies, no work—it must be a very boring life.”

“He keeps turbofoxes,” said Ultra Magnus, before realizing that he shouldn’t know that.

“Oh, did you see the kennels?” Starscream shrugged. “The groundskeepers keep turbofoxes. Minimus just tosses them a few treats and ruins their diets.”

Ultra Magnus digested this. It was difficult—the words stuck in his throat and fell heavily into his tank. He agreed, didn’t he? Minimus Ambus’ life was very boring, which was why he went away to be Ultra Magnus every day instead. But hearing it laid out like that…

“Enough about him,” said Starscream. “I’d like to hear more about you. Do you have a partner?”

“No,” said Ultra Magnus. “I work alone.”

“I meant—” began Starscream, but they were at the door. Ultra Magnus knocked.

---

Tumbler trailed after Prowl as his partner (purely in a professional sense) fiddled with the spark tracer. They hadn’t been able to use it back at the mansion—obviously everything there had Minimus Ambus’ spark signature all over it. When they’d tried, the tracer kept pinging uselessly at Ultra Magnus. Mech had probably sat in Ambus’ favorite chair or something.

But now the tracer was pinging at neat, satisfying intervals. The path they were on seemed well-worn. The kidnappers, whoever they were, must have scouted out the exit routes ahead of time. Funny how the tracer wasn’t picking up their spark signatures—it was like Minimus Ambus had simply walked himself out.

“Maybe we should call for back-up,” said Tumbler. He wasn’t exactly trained for action, unless the violent kidnappers would turn around and bare their necks for him. “Why’d you send Ultra Magnus away?”

“Because he’d just interfere and slow us down.” Prowl didn’t look up from the tracer. “He’s obsessed with pointless rules and regulations and he’s hiding something.”

“Hiding what?”

Prowl shrugged. They rounded a bend and they were at a little lightly-dilapidated station. A few monoformers and minibots were standing around, waiting for the next tram.

“Damn,” said Tumbler, hiding the little burst of relief. “They could be anywhere by now. Well, guess we oughtta go back—”

Prowl pursed his lips and looked up at the camera hanging under the station’s acid shelter. “They have those on the tram cars, don’t they?”

“Yeah,” said Tumbler. “But all the footage goes back to Grand Station, and we’d definitely need a warrant for that. Maybe Ultra Magnus could help us with—”

“No time,” said Prowl. He flipped down into his alt mode, his transformation ruthlessly fast and unfortunately attractive. Tumbler sighed and followed suit, chasing after Prowl’s tail lights as he drove toward the city.

---

Rewind opened the door of the mansion. His mask and visor didn’t betray any particular emotion, but Ultra Magnus fancied he detected some glimmer of suspicion.

“Greetings, citizen,” he said, resisting the urge to disguise his already-disguised voice. “I’m Ultra Magnus, internal investigations. Is your conjunx at home?”

“No.” Rewind looked between them. “What’s going on, Screamy?”

Screamy. Ultra Magnus cleared his vox box. “It would be best if we sat down in—”

“Minimus has been kidnapped,” said Starscream, in a tone that suggested he was barely suppressing tears. He was wringing his hands too.

“Kidnapped?” repeated Rewind. Now he was looking at Ultra Magnus. “But—”

“Disappeared,” said Ultra Magnus, quickly. “Perhaps he went somewhere with Dominus Ambus?”

“I don’t think so,” said Rewind. “Dom’s out, mm, procuring some documentaries for my collection. Not really Mims’ thing.”  He tapped his foot for a moment, considering. “All right, come in. I’ll comm him.”

Good. Ultra Magnus could finally see the path that led to a simple resolution. If he could just—

“May I use your detailing room?” he asked. “I have some. Gravel.”

“You’re welcome to it if you can fit,” said Rewind, and waved a hand at the left hallway.

“Do you need any help?” Starscream flickered his optics at Ultra Magnus in a way that suggested he might have a processor glitch. “I have very delicate fingers. If you open up your seams for me I’m sure I can—”

“That’s not necessary,” said Ultra Magnus, and hurried away before his fans could kick in. Surely Starscream wasn’t implying what he thought he was implying. That would be indecent.

He did have to squeeze up small to fit inside the detailing room. Dominus and Rewind had gutted the malachite-age mansion when they’d moved in, and refitted everything to minibot height. Minimus had thought it excessive at the time, and Ultra Magnus found it nearly unworkable. He crouched on the floor, and folded his arms in tight as he pulled the door shut. Pulling off his helm was tricky, without the ability to lift his arms over his head, but he managed it with only a little banging.

Finally, trying to avoid his undersized red optics in the mirror, he commed Dominus.

“Bit busy, Mims, call back later,” said Dominus, immediately. 

“This is important,” said Minimus, in his own reedy voice. “Listen. Rewind is going to call you in a moment, and I need you to tell him I’m with you. All right?”

“With me?” said Dominus. “I really don’t think—I mean, you aren’t one to break into government buildings, are you?”

“You’re breaking into—” Minimus pinched the bridge of his nose—or tried to, except that his hands were currently three times the size of his face, so he nearly smacked himself in the mouth instead. One thing at a time. “It doesn’t matter. Tell him I’m with you, and we’ll sort the rest out later.”

“If you’re sure,” said Dominus, dubiously. “Is everything all right, Mims?”

“It will be,” said Minimus, and hung up. There. Everything sorted out. Dominus would vouch for him, Rewind would report it to Ultra Magnus and Starscream, and they’d call off Prowl and Tumbler. Minimus could turn up later that evening and go back to living his boring, wasteful life.

Minimus picked up Ultra Magnus’ helm and looked into the blank optics. He felt, ironically, as if he was the one who was hollow inside. The emptiness yawned up, clutching at his throat, and threatening to—

“Hello,” cooed Starscream, opening the door and banging it against Minimus’ knee. “You’ve been in here forever, do you need any hellllll what the frag.” 

---

They’d broken into the surveillance room at Grand Station. They’d broken into the surveillance room at Grand Station. They’d broken into the surveillance room at—

“I’m aware,” said Prowl, testily. “You’re making it difficult to concentrate.”

“My career is over,” said Tumbler, holding his helm in his hands as he slowly spun in his chair. “I’m going to be lucky if they stop at firing me. Do you think they empurata for this kind of thing?”

“You’re going to get a medal.” Prowl didn’t stop typing rapidly into the command terminal. “We’re in hot pursuit of the missing scion of a noble house.”

“In hot pursuit of his kidnappers, you mean,” said Tumbler. He had to hold onto that. At least they were trying to rescue someone.

“Hmm.” Prowl hit one more key, and suddenly the display screen on the opposite wall was filled with videos of Minimus Ambus.

He was alone in all of them. Sitting primly in a tram car, getting out at his stop, walking across the street to a storage building. Each of the videos was more or less the same, and each had a different timestamp. He’d been doing this for months.

“What’s in the storage building?” asked Tumbler, then cringed as he heard footsteps outside the door.

“Good question,” said Prowl. The screen went black, and he yanked his cable out of the input slot. “Why don’t we go find out?”

---

Minimus dropped Ultra Magnus’ helm, which made a concerning noise as it hit the polished steel floor and bounced. It rolled to a stop against Starscream’s foot, clear and unignorable evidence of Minimus’ deception. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, completely unable to think of anything that could explain the situation he currently found himself in. While he was trapped in this moment of indecision, Starscream squeezed underneath his arm, pulled the door shut, and squirmed his way to a seat on the edge of the sink.

“Well,” he said. “This is unexpected.”

Minimus nodded. It was an apt summary.

“Are you a big guy pretending to be a little guy?” asked Starscream, running one finger along Ultra Magnus’ collar, where it gave way to Minimus’ neck. “Or the other way around?”

“I’m sorry?” Minimus felt an odd tingle where Starscream touched—not just at his collar, but everywhere. The washroom was far too small for either one of them, let alone both. In order to wedge himself in, Starscream was sitting with his legs spread, his thighs pressed tight against Minimus’—Ultra Magnus’ hips. His cockpit brushed against Ultra Magnus’ chest, and Minimus could feel warm air from Starscream’s vents being sucked into his own intakes.

“I’m asking,” said Starscream, softly, “exactly what kind of fraud you are.”

“I’m not,” began Minimus, startled into outrage, and then had to swallow it down. He was, in fact. He’d always known he was serving his city under false pretenses, that he would deserve any consequences if it ever came to light. “I was forged Minimus Ambus,” he said, stiffly. “You needn’t have any concerns about the validity of our conjugation or my right to my fortune.”

“Mm, I see,” said Starscream. “This is how the Iaconian elite entertain themselves, is it? Playing enforcer?”

“I am not an enforcer,” said Minimus. “I conduct internal investigations into bureaucratic abuse and malappropriation of—”

“Yes, fine, whatever.” Starscream waved it away. “Anyway, you’re obviously not kidnapped, so we can just tell Rewind and—” Starscream was slipping off the sink as he spoke, hand already reaching for the doorhandle, and Minimus shocked both of them when he reached out and stopped Starscream. His hand wrapped nearly around Starscream’s waist, holding him in place.

“Oh,” said Starscream. “He doesn’t know. Does anyone, Mimsy?”

“Don’t call me that,” said Minimus. He forced himself to unpeel his fingers from Starscream’s plating.

“Yes sir, Ultra Magnus,” said Starscream. Somehow, even delivered with a smirk, the words sent a shudder down Minimus’ spine. “Well, I suppose a good conjunx would keep his dearest one’s secrets, hm? And do you know what else a good conjunx would do?”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t know, Ulchtar,” said Minimus.

Starscream scowled at him. “Yes, yes, you caught me, amazing work. Look, if you tell anyone about me, I’ll tell them about you. I was going to say, good conjunxes share their bank accounts. I’m not sure a measly allowance is worth hiding such an important secret.”

“Staying out of prison isn’t enough?” asked Minimus.

“You wouldn’t put me in prison.” Starscream wrapped his arms around Ultra Magnus’ shoulders, pulling him close. “You’d try, I’m sure. Maybe turn me in to that little pet detective of yours? And when he came with the stasis cuffs, he’d find your house empty, stripped bare but for a little datachip with everything I know about your life of deceit.” He pushed Minimus back again. “But I already had your dining service assessed and half of it’s just plated brass. Did you pawn the solid electrum stuff, or was it one of your ancestors?”

“Probably my mentor,” said Minimus, his processor spinning a little.

“Figures.” Starscream sniffed. “Anyway, better for both of us if you just pass me a little—a lot of—hush money and we play happy families for a month or two until we can gracefully establish separate residences or whatever it is you people do when you’re sick of each other.”

Starscream’s voice had changed again, Minimus realized. It wasn’t smooth and deep or breathy and overawed any longer. It sounded, in fact, like someone straining their voice to be heard over a struggling garbage disposal. He wondered what sort of effect this was supposed to have on him.

“You know,” said Starscream, swinging his legs a little and kicking his thrusters against the backs of Ultra Magnus’ knees, “I almost decided to cut my losses and run. Skywarp and Thundercracker already left to scout the next citystate. I didn’t know you’d dug up my sordid past, but you’d already made me as a golddigger on our wedding night.”

“If you didn’t want to seem like a golddigger,” said Minimus, stiffly, “you shouldn’t have transparently schemed your way into marrying a rich conjunx.”

Starscream actually pouted at him, his lower lip dimpling. “Some mechs would love to have a pretty seeker to spoil. Anyway, I was so sick of winning a few shanix at a time from idiots who don’t know how to count cards. Being Winglord wasn’t getting me anything but party invitations and dull conversations about politics.”

Well. Today might not have gone exactly as planned, but at least Minimus was getting some of the answers he’d been looking for. “What happened to the actual Winglord?”

“Oh, haven’t you heard?” Starscream flashed Minimus a grin. “So there I was, freshly escaped from prison, part of a horde of rabid tradesmechs armed with the energon-stained mining picks we’d just used to rid ourselves of the shackles of a bloated aristocracy…” He examined his talons, as if checking that he’d cleaned off any flecks of energon. “Suffice it to say, the position was vacant.”

Minimus suppressed a shiver. “I suppose I should count myself lucky that you only wanted my money.”

“Yes,” agreed Starscream, “you should. Anyway, did you already have a plan to get out of this mess?”

“Oh.” Minimus coughed and tried to inject confidence into his voice. “Yes. Dominus is going to vouch for me. I can return the Ultra Magnus armor to storage, return as Minimus Ambus, and tell Detective Prowl to call off the search.”

“Nice. Simple,” said Starscream. “Let’s get to it, shall we?” This time Minimus didn’t stop him when he wiggled off the sink. 

This was… fine. Everything would still work. Starscream wasn’t exactly the ally Minimus would’ve chosen, but it was better to have his skills on Minimus’ side rather than arrayed against him. If he could be appeased with nothing more than money, all the better.

“Here,” said Starscream, picking up Ultra Magnus’ helm and offering it up to Minimus. “You’re much nicer to me when you’re being Ultra Magnus, by the way.”

“Ultra Magnus,” said Minimus, locking the helm back on, “isn’t constantly being patronized and told to sit in your lap.”

“Little mechs love that kind of thing,” argued Starscream. “Having their hands kissed and smoldering glances as you loom over them and being picked up and so on.”

“Really,” said Ultra Magnus, now complete, as he stretched his neck cables. “Would you like it if I picked you up?”

Starscream made an odd sort of gurgling noise, and then coughed. “That’s not the point.”

He opened the door, and made it about four steps before nearly running into Rewind coming from the other direction. Rewind stopped, and watched with narrowed optics as Ultra Magnus untangled himself from the detailing room.

“I was just helping Ultra Magnus clear his seams,” said Starscream.

“Really,” said Rewind. He was looking at Starscream now, and Ultra Magnus realized that some of his paint had scraped off onto Starscream’s inner thighs when they’d been wedged together. Undoubtedly he had paint transfers of his own in some awkward places.

“The Winglord was a great assistance,” he said, trying not to let mortification overtake him.

“Well,” said Rewind, with another hard look at Starscream, “you’ll be happy to know that Minimus is fine. Apparently Dom took him on a phishing trip. Didn’t tell me about it, but you know those Ambuses and their secrets.”

“Don’t I just.” Starscream reached back and took Ultra Magnus’ arm. “So glad it’s sorted out. I’ll just send Ultra Magnus on his way and then settle in to wait for my dear, dear conjunx. Thanks ever so.”

“You’re welcome,” said Rewind. He might have said something else, but Starscream was already tugging Ultra Magnus away.

---

They’d broken the lock. Prowl had traced Minimus Ambus’ spark signature to one particular storage unit, and then he’d just broken the lock and pulled the door open.

Tumbler wasn’t really sure why he’d expected anything different. But now what they’d found wasn’t admissible in court, and what they’d found was—

“It doesn’t matter,” said Prowl, standing over a box of severed limbs and internal wiring. “This case won’t go to court anyway.”

“You think Ambus is going to wriggle out of it?” asked Tumbler. The mech certainly had the shanix for it. Pass enough bribes around and even a murder charge would go away.

But Prowl barked a laugh. “Oh, I’m not letting him get away with anything.” He smiled down at the gruesome remnants of what must be Ambus’ victims. “He’s going to pay for this for a long time.”

“It’s creepy when you do that,” Tumbler told him. “Your face wasn’t built for those expressions.”

If anything, Prowl gloated even harder.

---

“So it’s a secret because your house thinks idleness is a sign of nobility or whatever,” said Starscream, out loud, for all and sundry in the tram to hear.

“No one’s listening,” said Starscream, when Ultra Magnus pointed this out. “Anyway, conversations don’t make sense without context. For all they know, we’re talking about your side hustle as a cambot.”

The mech sitting across from them leaned subtly closer, his optics fixed on the map above Starscream’s helm. Ultra Magnus glared at him until the mech leaned back again.

“If a noblemech seeks common employment,” said Ultra Magnus, in a low tone barely audible over the screech of the tram car, “it must be because their house cannot or will not support them. Either implication is shameful.”

“But you just couldn’t stop yourself from filling out forms and giving people fines and memorizing five million regulations,” said Starscream, which was a very unfair summary of the involved description Ultra Magnus had provided. “Did the armor come with the job?”

“No, I commissioned it before I applied,” said Ultra Magnus. “The general design honors Magnus Cartus, who was one of the bureaucrats who wrote the first—”

“Was he a war frame or something?” Starscream pursed his lips. “I’m still trying to figure out why you’re so big.”

What a ridiculous question. “Larger mechs typically garner more respect due to their imposing physicality.” For some reason this made Starscream’s optics brighten a little, but Ultra Magnus refused to be distracted. “I conducted extensive research into making Ultra Magnus a powerful regulatory force. Blue was ranked as the most intimidating color by seventy-four percent of—”

“But do you enjoy it?” Starscream interrupted again. “It seems like a lot of trouble if you don’t enjoy it.”

“I—” Ultra Magnus hesitated. “I suppose I do.”

It wasn’t a crime, surely. He had done the research. If he’d been quietly pleased that it was guiding him to a tall, powerful frame with arms the size of Minimus Ambus’ full body, then that was just a happy accident.

“Why not do it full time?” asked Starscream.

Ultra Magnus looked at him sidelong. “What?”

“There have to be lots of cities that need regulatory watchmechs.” Starscream’s wings flicked up as his tone grew more excited, banging against Ultra Magnus’ back. “You could, I don’t know, fake your own death, leave everything to your dearest conjunx in your will, move to Tesarus or Kaon or somewhere, start a new life. No need to skulk around looking miserable in a bathrobe all day.”

“Dressing gown,” said Ultra Magnus, absently. He was reeling from the vividness of it, so quickly realized in Starscream’s words. He could live on his own merits, with no need to attend parties or speak to vacuous, vicious socialites. He could get an apartment, with a door big enough that he didn’t have to stoop. He could find friends and hobbies as Ultra Magnus, for his own enjoyment, not for a cover. He wouldn’t feel as if he were lying, all the time, just by living.

“No,” he said. “No, it’s impossible.”

“Okay, don’t leave me everything,” said Starscream. “I’ll settle for two thirds. No? Half?”

“No, it’s not that.” Ultra Magnus hesitated, trying to locate the reason. “I couldn’t leave Iacon.”

Starscream snorted. “I know it scandalizes every true-sparked Iaconian to hear it, but this place sucks. Even the street cleaners are snobs, and you can’t even get a parking permit without bribing an official. You can’t possibly think you’ll fix it all on your own.”

“It isn’t that bad,” said Ultra Magnus, but it was weak even to his own audials. He didn’t really know what other citystates were like—he’d always assumed Iacon was the beacon of civilization the Senate said it was. But— “I was forged here. This is my home, and this isn’t my frame. You understand that, don’t you?”

“No,” said Starscream. “I’m buying a new frame as soon as I have the shanix for it, and it’s going to be twice this size, with built-in missiles and turbo engines. Who cares about where you were forged? I’ve got a dozen warrants out for me in Vos, I’m not going back there.”

Ultra Magnus shook his head. “I’m not a criminal like you, Starscream.”

Starscream puffed out his cheeks in annoyance, but he didn’t say anything else. Ultra Magnus looked up and caught the mech across the tram staring at him. The whole tram car felt stifling with awkwardness.

“Which one is the real you?” he asked, breaking the rumbling silence.

Starscream looked up from scraping at one of the paint transfers on his thigh. “Hmm?”

“You were very different,” said Ultra Magnus. “With Minimus, with Ultra Magnus, with…” He waved a hand, unable to articulate how both the Winglord’s high-handed arrogance and Starscream’s simpering had melted away, leaving something sharply clever, grindingly loud, and a little unsettling in their wake.

“Oh, darling.” Starscream put his hand on Ultra Magnus’ knee and leaned into him, his face tipping up as he smiled. “There isn’t a real me.”

They were very close. If Ultra Magnus bent down, he could—everyone would be watching, but he could—

The tram screeched as it began to slow down. Ultra Magnus gently nudged Starscream back and stood up, grateful for the distraction. “This is our stop,” he said, and offered Starscream his hand. Starscream looked down at it for one long, unreadable moment, then took it and allowed himself to be tugged to his feet.

---

The walk to the storage unit was soothing, made easy and familiar by routine. Ultra Magnus allowed himself to squeeze Starscream’s hand as they turned the last corner, before he forced himself to let go.

“This is it,” he said. He reached out to enter his access code, and then stopped. The lock was broken. The door was open a crack, a light was on inside, and—

Tumbler yanked the door open. “Ultra Magnus, sir! Oh, it’s so good to see you—Please, come in, we’ve found some pretty shocking things.”

Ultra Magnus stepped in, moving in a daze. “How—How did you get here?”

“Simple detective work,” said Prowl. He was flipping through a maintenance log, sitting on the stool Minimus kept for when he needed to do repairs to the armor. He looked up, and met Ultra Magnus’ optics with a knowing smile, his face made uncharacteristically elastic by triumph. “It was quite easy to put all the pieces together.”

“There’s a lot of pieces,” said Tumbler, his voice shaking. “Boxes of them. Sir, I think—I think Minimus Ambus might be a serial killer.”

Ultra Magnus’ gaze jumped to Tumbler. Behind him, Starscream only half-smothered a laugh.

Prowl dropped his casual pose and glared at Tumbler. “What are you talking about?” he snapped.

“Isn’t that what we found out?” Tumbler gestured at a box of spare parts that had been tipped out onto the floor. “Internal wiring, fuel pumps, t-cogs—there’s components for dozens of mechs here.”

“No, you idiot,” said Prowl, “there’s components for one mech shell. All of the parts are the same size, and all of the paint is the same color! These are Ultra Magnus’ parts!”

“Ambus can’t have killed Ultra Magnus,” said Tumbler, reasonably. “He’s right here.”

Prowl clutched the back of his head. “Ambus didn’t kill anyone. He is Ultra Magnus!”

Tumbler looked at Ultra Magnus. Ultra Magnus swallowed.

“That’s ridiculous,” they both said, at the exact same time.

“Is it?” Prowl picked up a laser cutter from Minimus’ tool shelf and stood up. “Can I see your arm, sir? I’d just like to test my theory.”

Ultra Magnus took a step back. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“Also, I’m sorry, do either of you have a warrant?” said Starscream, stepping around to Ultra Magnus’ side. His wings were raised high and oriented outward, making him look every inch the formidable aristocrat that he assuredly wasn’t. “I gather that this is one of my conjunx’s storage units? If so, I’d like to ask you to stop handling his property and leave the premises.”

“He can ask me himself.” Prowl smiled up at Ultra Magnus again. “You know I’m not going to let this go, sir. I don’t let things go. We can talk about this later, or we can handle it now. It won’t be difficult to come to a mutually agreeable arrangement.”

Tumbler sucked in a vent. “Are you blackmailing Ultra Magnus?”

Prowl didn’t look away from Ultra Magnus this time as a look of exasperation flickered over his face. “Yes! Obviously! What did you think I meant when I said this wouldn’t go to court?”

“I thought, you know.” Tumbler shifted uneasily on his feet. “There’s that thing in the old mystery dramas where an aristocrat is revealed as the murderer and then they quietly go into another room and hit their self-destruct so they won’t be an embarrassment to the House…”

“This is real life, not a holodrama,” Prowl told him. “And Minimus Ambus isn’t going to self-destruct. He’s going to go on playing bureaucrat to his spark’s content, and all he’ll have to do is stop pestering me about every little missed form and unreported informant. And perhaps… a few other things.”

“This is outrageous,” said Starscream. “Unbelievable. Extortion? I’ve never heard such blatant corruption in my life. I’m sure your commander will be interested to learn about this.”

Prowl huffed a laugh. “Commander Barricade knows all about extortion. The only thing he’d be interested in would be that you can use it for other things besides shaking down shopkeepers for protection money.”

“Prowl,” hissed Tumbler, “you can’t just—”

“Shut up and keep an optic on the seeker,” said Prowl, gesturing at Starscream. “I’m in the middle of a conversation.”

“That’s illegal,” said Ultra Magnus. His mind whirred, calling up dozens of relevant codes. “Subsection twelve, paragraph five of the—”

“I know,” said Prowl. “Everyone knows. No one cares, that’s all. The whole government’s corrupt, and you’re just flitting around handing out fines.”

“I’m not flitting,” said Ultra Magnus. But… of course, there had been times when he’d been encouraged not to press a matter too far. Times when an ethics violation had been taken out of his hands, or declared outside of his jurisdiction. It was frustrating, but he’d never taken much notice of it—there was so much to do, after all, there was no need to fixate on any particular case.

Why was there always so much to do? Why didn't he have the staff he needed to do any of it?

“This is a game to you, isn’t it?” Prowl's voice cut through Ultra Magnus' dawning horror. “You go home to your mansion and you can forget about what’s happening when Ultra Magnus is in storage. But this is my life, my city, I was constructed to see justice done. And you can help me with that. Just sweep away all the red tape and let me deal with the rest.”

There was a gleam in Prowl’s optics as he said that. Deal with the rest. Prowl clearly had strongly held views of right and wrong, even if Ultra Magnus disagreed on the details. He wouldn’t ask much from Ultra Magnus at first. Look away from an unregistered informant, sign off on a few warrantless searches, help Prowl ferret out the corruption that was a blight on Iacon. But then it would be wiretapping, intercepted communications, investigations of Prowl’s opponents. There would always be a justification. There would always be a reason, a need, a calling. Until the only thing that mattered was the ends, and the less said about the means, the better.

“I’ll resign,” said Ultra—said Minimus.

Prowl froze. “What?”

“I’ll resign,” repeated Minimus. “I’ll give up the Ultra Magnus armor, I’ll go home to my mansion, and I won’t bother you again. Maybe the next head of internal investigations will be more to your taste.”

“You can’t,” snarled Prowl. “You—I calculated this, there was a ninety-five percent chance you’d agree. Listen to me, I—”

“I’m not doing it,” said Minimus, and reached up to pull off the Ultra Magnus helm. He triggered the chest to release, and stood there inside it, revealed, a small mech in a big mech’s armor. “Take a few image captures. Tell everyone, if you like. I’m not going along.”

Prowl gaped at him, the laser cutter held limp and forgotten in his hand. His mouth opened and closed a few times, as if he were uncertain what to say.

Then there was the sound of a blaster powering up.

“Right,” said Starscream. “This has all been very touching, but I’m not actually interested in letting you win.” 

Minimus and Prowl turned to find Starscream holding Tumbler still with an arm around his throat and a humming blaster pressed to his helm.

“Ultra Magnus and I are going to walk out of here,” said Starscream. “We’re going to walk out and you’re not going to do anything about it, or your friend here is going to have a few new holes in his frame.”

“Tumbler,” said Prowl, with great irritation, “you had one job.”

“It’s not my fault!” Tumbler tried to lean away from the blaster. “He’s fast—and strong—and I’m not even supposed to be in the field anymore, this morning you said we were just going to ask some questions—”

“Ah, rookies.” Starscream clucked his tongue. “You really should search a mech’s subspace before you start throwing around threats of blackmail. I mean, you’re already doing wildly illegal things, why not add a quick invasion of privacy? Ah, no, no sudden movements, the safety’s off and my fingers might get twitchy. Close yourself up, Magnus, there’s a dear.”

Prowl stilled with his hand halfway to his subspace. Minimus slowly sealed the armor’s chest again and replaced his helm.

“Now,” said Starscream, “we’re going to walk out of here. Nothing complicated. Just a nice little stroll…”

Minimus took the hint and opened the door, stepping out into the corridor and then waiting as Starscream backed out after him. 

“Prowl.” Tumbler’s face scrunched around his visor. “You can—I’ll be okay, you can’t let them—”

“Don’t be an idiot,” said Prowl, tightly. “You’re my partner, you’re not allowed to get shot.”

“Aren’t you sweet,” cooed Starscream, and then shoved Tumbler back into the room before slamming the door closed. He fired the blaster, but only at the storage unit’s broken lock, melting the metal and fusing it closed.

Minimus looked at Starscream. Starscream looked back. For a moment everything was quiet, except for the sharp ring of panic in Minimus’ audials.

Then Starscream threw his hands up in the air. “Primus, I feel so alive. I haven’t pointed a blaster at anyone in months! It’s been all polite conversations and card games and sneaking rings off of people’s fingers—I’ve been fragging suffocating!”

Minimus winced. “Please don’t wave weaponry around like that.”

Starscream huffed, but the blaster disappeared into his subspace. “Thank you, Starscream,” he said, his voice dropping into an unflattering imitation of Ultra Magnus’ deep voice. “You saved me from that horrible little gremlin when you didn’t have to do anything. Let me show you my undying gratitude and cover you with kisses. Honestly,” he continued, in the screeching tone Minimus was beginning to think of as his normal voice, “you stick your neck out for a mech and they treat you like—”

“Thank you, Starscream,” said Minimus. “You really didn’t have to do anything.”

“Oh.” Unaccountably, Starscream flushed. “Well, I couldn’t let you lose your frame. You’d mope all day and it’d be unbearable. Now you can—I don’t know, go off to Kaon or Tesarus or whatever and be big and boring to your spark’s content.”

Something slammed against the door of the storage unit, shaking dust from the ceiling above them. Minimus could hear the furious revving of an engine, and then the whoop of Prowl’s siren.

“Get out of here, anyway.” Starscream caught Ultra Magnus’ hand and tugged at it. After a moment Minimus realized he was being urged down the corridor, and he stumbled along, his mind whirling. Leave? He couldn’t leave. They’d discussed—Could he leave? He’d just—he’d given it all up, he’d known he was giving it up.

“If you stay here, you will get caught up in that pest’s schemes,” said Starscream. “I mean, if you want to tell all your secrets, resign, and waste all my hard work, be my guest. But if I were you—”

Minimus—Ultra Magnus stopped dead in the corridor, picked a squawking Starscream up by the shoulders, and kissed him. Covered him in kisses, in fact, his lips pressing first against Starscream’s forehead, then his cheeks, before finally finding his lips.

“Thank you,” he said, muffled by Starscream’s mouth. “Thank you, Starscream, thank—”

Starscream swallowed the rest, his hands wrapping around the back of Ultra Magnus’ helm and pulling him in tight. 

It was their first kiss. They hadn’t, at the wedding. Minimus hadn’t thought it worth the trouble.

Ultra Magnus was finding it more than worthwhile. Starscream’s hands ran down from Ultra Magnus’ helm to tease at the seams of his shoulders, and his legs clung to Ultra Magnus’ hips. Kissing Starscream wasn’t soft and easy—he bit and sucked at Ultra Magnus’ lips, sending sparks of charge down his lines. Ultra Magnus wanted to do this for hours, forever. He wanted to lose himself in sensation, this moment of feeling perfectly comfortable and right in his frame. 

Prowl’s siren whooped again, and this time there was an answering siren in the distance. 

Starscream pulled away. “You should go,” he said, breathlessly. 

“Come with me,” said Ultra Magnus. His lips were tingling.

Starscream froze, suddenly dead weight in Ultra Magnus’ hands. “No. What? No. No, I don’t—You’re just a mark, I can’t go running off with every—I’m not done, anyway, I’m going to play grieving widow next, that’s very lucrative—”

His legs had started to kick, and Ultra Magnus reluctantly set him down. “But when Tumbler and Prowl get out—”

“No one’s going to believe that Minimus Ambus was secretly a gigantic bureaucrat,” said Starscream. “If they’re clever they won’t even try that story. I’ll be fine.”

Ultra Magnus lingered. Starscream would be fine. Probably. Undoubtedly. But… Ultra Magnus wanted, and he wasn’t used to wanting.

Starscream crossed his arms and looked up at him sidelong. “Maybe next time,” he said quietly. “Now get out of here.”

“Next time,” agreed Ultra Magnus. He took one last look at—at his conjunx. Then he transformed into his rarely-used vehicle mode and sped away, down the corridor, out of the building, and away from the flashing enforcer lights.

---

Rewind reclined on the divan, his helm resting in Dominus’ lap. “It’s been a very confusing day.”

“Mm, I daresay it has.” Dominus sipped from his glass of coolant. 

“Should we just tell Minimus that we know?” asked Rewind. “I don’t want him coming here in that big armor and having weird roleplay sex in our washrooms again.”

“I really can’t imagine that Minimus would do that,” said Dominus.

“You didn’t see those paint transfers,” said Rewind, darkly. “I’m having that whole wing sonic cleaned.”

"Well, at least I've been vindicated in my choice of conjunxes for him. If you'd heard half of his complaints on his wedding day, you'd—Hold on.” Dominus put a hand to audial. “Minimus? Yes, I—No—You can’t be—No—Well, really. Minimus Ambus, you can’t just abandon your House, and by your House I mean your dearly beloved brother who will be utterly lacking in intellectual companionship if you fake your death and run off to parts unknown. If you have a fraternal strut in your frame, I demand that you—Well. Yes, all right, I did do that. Yes, that’s true. I do see your point of view. But what you’re failing to acknowledge is that—” Dominus dropped his hand. “He hung up.”

“Utterly lacking in intellectual companionship?” said Rewind, immediately seizing on the most important part of the conversation.

“A shameless fabrication in a fruitless attempt to stop Minimus from making a fool of himself,” said Dominus, smoothly. “Anyway, you’re far too clever for me—I need someone who can descend to my level. Can you help me forge some documents later? Minimus wants all of his worldly possessions left to his conjunx, backdated to the marriage, despite spending ages negotiating the pre-nuptials. And we’ll need to find an old frame to toss in the ravine, the waiting period when someone’s simply declared missing is excruciating.”

Rewind sighed. “Can it at least wait until tomorrow?”

“Of course, darling.” Dominus bent and kissed Rewind’s helm. “Would you like to watch some of the films I brought back with me? I found some industrial accidents the government covered up. We’ll leak it to the press tomorrow.”

Rewind snuggled back into Dominus’ thigh. “You always know the perfect thing to say.”

Chapter Text

After a few months in Kaon, Ultra Magnus was settling in.

It was an odd sensation, and Ultra Magnus hadn’t come up with a name for it yet. It was different from the satisfaction of filing a report, or the anticipation of going on shift. It was waking up every morning thinking of what new things he could do, not just at work, but in his free time. It was exploring the city, and trying new blends of energon just to see if he liked them. It was greeting his neighbors on the street.

His neighbors often seemed discomfited by his cheerful wave, but lately sometimes they nodded back instead of shaking their fists at him. Ultra Magnus had carefully recorded this progress.

Kaonites treated everyone with suspicion and not-particularly-veiled hostility. When Ultra Magnus had first presented himself to the governing collective and offered to take over the licensing and permits division, they’d peppered him with questions. “What licensing and permits division? How did you get in here? What’s your name again?” Not an entirely auspicious start, but Ultra Magnus had prepared a three hundred slide presentation on his qualifications for this very eventuality. He’d only gotten a third of the way through before the governing collective called a snap vote on whether to ‘give the mech what he wants so he’ll go away.’

This had also been duly recorded as progress.

His services were sorely needed, of course. No one in Kaon seemed to have a license or a permit for anything, from constructing a building to converting a mech’s alt mode. You needed to ensure these things would be structurally sound before you started breaking the foundation—in both examples, actually. Ultra Magnus was willing to concede that Kaon didn’t need the massive, corrupt bureaucracy of Iacon, but one problem Iacon didn’t have was buildings or mechs accidentally imploding due to a missing support.

“Right,” said the little red minibot behind the bar counter. “Yeah, I get that, but I’m not performing surgery, I’m just mixing drinks.”

“Do you know which antioxidants can be safely mixed with nitromethane without causing an explosion?” asked Ultra Magnus.

“Nnn—Most of them? Probably?”

Ultra Magnus looked pointedly at the ‘specials’ board, which listed a particularly illegal concoction of nitromethane and ethylene diamine.

“Nothing wrong with some trial and error!” argued the minibot. “That’s how all great discoveries are made, right?”

“Here,” said Ultra Magnus, writing on a pad, “is your ticket. The fine is payable to city hall—the new one, not the one that collapsed last week—and will be waived if you enroll in one of the eligible courses provided by Kaon Community Education—”

A distinctive grating laugh floated over the hubbub of the early evening crowd. Ultra Magnus paused.

“That’s not so bad,” said the minibot, reluctantly.

Ultra Magnus pulled his attention back to the task at hand. “And please refrain from any cocktail experimentation until you have completed your certificate and received the appropriate licenses. I would prefer that you didn’t discover a new way to accidentally explode.” He signed the ticket, put it on the counter, and promptly ended his shift before turning and wading into the crowd.

He could hear a voice, now. He followed its familiar rise and fall until he could see a table up on the balcony, ringed by three seekers. The paint was different, but the faces were familiar. Skywarp, Thundercracker… and Starscream.

One of the things Ultra Magnus liked best about Kaon was that no one knew about Minimus Ambus here. No one stumbled over his name, or tried to make optic contact with his chest, or did any of the other things that had kept him from ever speaking to Dominus about his alternate—his true identity. And it would be easy for Ultra Magnus to keep it that way. He could just turn back into the crowd and make his way to his comfortable, one-berth apartment. Alone.

He found the stairs instead.

“—Can’t believe the state of this city,” said Starscream, waving his arms, his back to Ultra Magnus. “You used to be able to get your whole frame rebuilt by any mech with a spare wrench, and now it’s all ‘oh, I’m sorry, I don’t have a license.’” 

“It’s not like you had much luck last time you just paid some mech with a wrench,” said Thundercracker, drawing idle designs in the sticky spills of energon on the table. “Look what they did to your nose.”

“I like my nose.” Starscream’s tone turned poisonous. “I designed my nose. Do you have something to say about my nose?”

“Well, it’s—” Thundercracker tilted his head to one side. “It’s—” His optics caught Ultra Magnus making his way across the balcony towards them, and he stopped with his mouth hanging open.

“It’s a statement,” snapped Starscream. “Anyway, do they expect me to go to an actual medic? I’m not made of shanix.”

Skywarp sipped his drink and nodded along, then followed Thundercracker’s gaze over Starscream’s shoulder. His optics flared. “Uh, Screamer?”

Starscream held up a finger. “I’m talking. You don’t need a medic to replace a fuel tank, it’s barely even surgery.”

“Screamer,” hissed Thundercracker, urgently. “Behind you!”

“Oh, what is it,” said Starscream, and turned just as Ultra Magnus reached him. They stared at each other. Starscream was red now, the crimson of his paint matching the glitter of his optics. His helm was black, making the rest of him glow with the contrast. His nose was still crooked.

“What are you doing here?” demanded Starscream, in the sharp, difficult voice that Ultra Magnus thought of as the one that was really his. 

“You told me to go to Kaon,” said Ultra Magnus.

“I didn’t think you’d listen,” said Starscream. “This city is an anarchic trash heap, you can’t be happy here.”

Oh. That was it. “I’m happy,” said Ultra Magnus, testing out the word. “I’m very happy.”

Starscream peered at him for a long moment, and then his mouth curled down. “You! You’re the one ruining this place! With your, your licenses, and your fragging health and safety standards, and—”

“I think you’ll find the medics’ rates entirely reasonable,” said Ultra Magnus. He felt a little light-headed. He’d never expected to see Starscream again. “Anyway, you should be able to afford it. Didn’t Minimus Ambus leave you everything before he… died?”

“Ye-es.” Starscream shifted in his seat and pointedly failed to clarify.

“Yeah, that sucked,” said Skywarp, helpfully. “We were rolling in it for a whole three hours and then this complete nobody came forward with some story he’d heard on a tram about a mech faking his death and leaving all his money to his conjunx, and it turned out he had a tape and then we kinda had to skip town with nothing but the dining service. And half of that was electroplated brass—”

“Shut up,” snapped Starscream.

“Why don’t we get another drink,” said Thundercracker. “C’mon, Warp. Give them some privacy.”

“Well,” said Starscream, once the others had disappeared into the haze of the fog machines. “Let’s hear it, then. Tell me all about carelessness, and how crime never pays, and so on.”

“Let me pay for the medic,” said Ultra Magnus.

Starscream startled back. “No. What? No.”

“I want to,” said Ultra Magnus. He realized he was looming over Starscream, and went down on one knee. “I have a salary. I believe we made some oaths to each other?”

Starscream turned his helm to the side, but there was a gleam in the corner of his optic. “No, my conjunx was Minimus Ambus, and the poor dear’s long gone. I can’t go around letting important mechs like Ultra Magnus sweep me off my feet.”

Ultra Magnus swallowed. “Can’t you?”

“We-ell,” drawled Starscream, and then shrieked as Ultra Magnus got to his feet and picked Starscream up in one smooth motion. His hands clung to Ultra Magnus’ shoulders as Ultra Magnus sat down in his now-vacant chair and settled Starscream astride his lap.

Starscream glared at him, venting hard and incidentally pressing his cockpit close against Ultra Magnus’ chest. “You can’t just—”

Ultra Magnus took Starscream’s hand and raised it to his lips. Starscream’s mouth hung open for a moment before he snapped it closed again.

“Still Starscream?” asked Ultra Magnus.

“Yes,” said Starscream. “It suits me, and it’s not like the Winglord is using it. But you’re not Minimus anymore.”

“No,” agreed Ultra Magnus. “We’d have to get conjunxed again. I mean, if you wanted—it’s not contingent on—”

“Did you miss me that badly?” said Starscream, coyly. “Fell in love after a couple days and one little kiss?”

“Yes,” said Ultra Magnus, honestly. Starscream looked stunned. He kept shifting like he was about to say something, then flicking his wings and remaining silent. He was so warm. He felt so right, sitting in Ultra Magnus’ lap.

“I have been happy in Kaon,” said Ultra Magnus. “I don’t have a mansion to offer, but perhaps—perhaps you might like to see if you’d be happy here too?”

“I wouldn’t stay forever,” said Starscream, a little hoarsely. “I’m very busy.”

“I’d be here when you got back,” said Ultra Magnus.

They looked at each other. This close, Ultra Magnus could see the smudges of black liner at the corner of Starscream's optics, the way his nose crinkled as he thought. He wondered what Starscream saw in his face—whether Starscream saw anything in him.

As if he could hear his thoughts, Starscream leaned in close, one hand wrapping around Ultra Magnus' helm. “Do they have conjungal licenses in Kaon now?” he asked, with a heavy dose of his natural snideness.

“Oh, no,” said Ultra Magnus, and felt hope blooming in his chest. “They’ll let any old fools do that.”

---

Rewind looked down at the fancy engraved hard-copy message in his hands.

Starscream and Ultra Magnus invite you to celebrate their ritus renewal at: 
Swerve’s 
Kaon 
27:00 33/59
Please comm your RSVP.
Gifts are not required.

“This roleplaying is getting out of hand,” he muttered. “Dom!”