better off alone

He smiled, he couldn’t help it…if there’s one thing he took pride in outside of his skills in the cockpit, it was his inventions. He pulled out a small projector from his subspace and turned it on, revealing schematics in Kaonese for his first model of the miniature space bridge he invented. “So long as you remain mute on what I show you, nobody needs to know of your additional field of expertise. This is one of my prized inventions, if not my finest accomplishment. A space bridge, small enough to be mounted on a fighter and even suitable for a warship like the Nemesis.”

He hit another button to turn off the projector after a few more moments and stashed it, withdrawing a canister of green energon and held it up.. “This came before that. Weapons grade Synthetic Energon, made by yours truly. Ammunition for fighters, explosive compound material, fuel for fighters and shuttles, suitable for things like that. This would probably kill you medically speaking, energy coefficient double that of high grade.” Wheeljack chuckled, “That’s not counting four fighters I’ve built myself.”

Surprise. That had been the very first thing that the engineer had felt, optics scanning over the schematics and soaking it in as quickly as he could. “This is brilliant,” he praised, genuinely and with excitement. Little winglets were twitching too. It was embarrassing, if Wheeljack had noticed it at all. “Have you built it yet? Given it a test run? Do you think I could get a copy? I mean, it would really help with the whole--see we’re working with colonies right now, particularly Velocitron. It would make getting supplies and people to those colonies much easier.”

“A fancy certified alternate! How about that!” He couldn’t help but laugh a bit. “You also recognize my language, something to your credit, as well as knowing a bit of my home. Medicine too? I must admit, you have more of an education than I. I was an engineer, self taught aerospace engineer, and a scientist. I…have a couple amazing inventions to my credit. I don’t want to show up my alternate, unless…” Wheeljack smirked, “you want to compare credentials.”

“Ah, yeah. I... nobody knows, not really. So let’s keep it between you and me, alright? Last thing I need is to give ‘em more ammo to use against me. Ya know how it is.. probably.” Another shrug, he grinned a ghost of one, “and I picked it up. Whirl used to say my accent was horrific, so I’ll save you the cringe and not give it a try.”

“Yesli vy iz Kaona, kak ya, i vy proshli cherez to, chto u menya yest’, vy poymete, pochemu.“ He enjoyed speaking his native language. It rolled off the glossa for him. “Proshche govorya, s nami plokho obrashchalis’, i ya ne khotel predavat’ svoikh lyudey.”

“Even if the other you you’re talking to is a Decepticon? Maybe I had a bad encounter with another alternate that makes me…suspicious. Though I do share the sentiment.”

“You’re not fat and if I wanted to flirt with Optimus, I’d flirt with Optimus. But Mags, Sir, I don’t and I’m not. I am flirting and speaking with--” Wheeljack made a point to raise a servo, extending a digit and tapping it against the Commander’s plating, “--you.”

“Go ahead. What are they gonna do? Judge me for flirting? Think I’m trying to sleep my way to the top? Oh no. The horror.” His optics near rolled out of his helm at this point. He’s still grinning though.