#mating behavior

Imagine, this Soundwave gets one whiff of a carrier in heat, and he's fighting for his damn life.

The suppression codes fail. Inactive protocols roar to life and made more potent with the long dormancy. Baser frame-instincts meld together to claw at his rationality.

Soundwave would be in a race against time between self-control and an overpowered rut. There is no tactic to truly leash it and lull everything back to slumber. His own frame betrays him further as it forcibly stops the paltry relief from his own hand or a rigged device in a demand to fully dedicate to search, hunt, hide, claim.

It gets to the point he needs to frag or fight as his spark surges constantly, temperature spiking, datacables writhing with the urge to constrict, mouth parched with denta aching, his panel is only closed by the sheer force of will-

Imagine its not poetics or gifts or even battle prowess that wins miko over no. its his fucking musical ability!! Tarn gets it in his head to serenade his beloved with someones freshly removed head as a gift for good measure and for some reason that's what does it for miko who pounces him once the song is done. The next day tarn is walking with a limp hanging off her arm like a pampered trophy wife looking like he got mauled by a bear and miko looks far to pleased with herself.

It's funny because Tarn exhibits many qualities her kin appreciate, and frustrates her even more!

Her cousins would definitely roast her in a good-natured way because of the mysterious mech's dedication with fresh kills and lovely courting gifts.

Oh, and they match, too. Pink and purple complement each other!

Miko is sulking underwater because Cybertronians like to stay from it.

Of course, Tarn plants himself on the beach, bank, pier, or rockside to wait for her. If there's wide space, then he's writing scripts into the dirt and sand via his tank treads or using pretty rocks.

I don't know if it's funny or terrible if Tarn's ability doesn't injure Miko. Not out of fated bondmate bullscrap, but because her seablood heritage came out and sees it as not only a siren-like potential mate but entwined in the words are the undeniable score of her other half of a Soulsong.

Instead of pain, it enraptures.

Think of it as some sort of seablood catnip to the average seafolk, but on Miko? She can't tamp down the instinctual urge to warble out her own part.

Tarn is delighted over the fact that they'll have a private duet. Meanwhile, the others (minus Raf, Jack, and June) are increasingly disturbed by the haunting, ethereal noise that is enemanting from everywhere and nowhere as Miko gets back into singing in sea-tongue.

Not even the exquisite temperatures of a hotsprings could overcome their collective anxiety over it.

Jack and Raf calls them out for it because they managed to go against robot Satan and hordes of the undead, and yet a mating call is what spooks them the most.

It's the ambiance, they said. It's the middle of wild nature with an eerie back-and-forth echo of lovely yet haunting notes. Nothing else is disturbed by their sensors. Where is it coming?

It's Miko. Underwater. She knows how to suppress herself and hide her presence. She's enjoys hunting.

Probably culminates into this:

Miko: "What if I fuck him?"

Jack: "Don't do it."

Miko: "But I do it in a way he wouldn't expect it."

Jack: "Miko, I love you, and we spent lifetimes together, but I'm finding out things I don't know if I want to know."

Miko: "I'm gonna peg his ass."

Jack: "... What if he likes it?"

Miko (not listening): "I always wanted to peg an ass."

Jack (giving up): "Find a good harness then."

Raf (who's been there the entire time): "Ask about lube. You'll need it for aft ports."

Miko: "Ratchet’s been running away from me. I'm gonna need a trap because I need more info."

The giant robots don't have hormones like humans, so anyone who's afab or going through hormone therapy will be like, "Hey, no more pms-ing symptoms, endocrine dysfunctions, or related conditions? Neat!"

The thing is, the Autobots and Decepticons went through a massive, catastrophic war that they're still reeling from the widespread health impacts, but any random human-into-a-Cybertronian-via-magic-tech-bullshit... didn't. They're healthy. They didn't enter a starvation mode or constantly function at the dregs for countless millennia.

Imagine that human-into-Cybertronian going into a heat because of that. Even the non-Seekekin or beastformers because the conversion is trying to make heads-and-tails with old human body and new Cybertronian frame. So reproductive heat it is.

I know heats are generally seen as "Help me uwu," but we're sleeping on aggressively raging cat/FIGHT ME COWARDS

Imagine that slow, creeping irritability and frustration. That deep yearning for things you can't have anymore, even when it's dangled in front of you. A strange, persistent "itch" all over the body. (They have already been cleared of a potential rust infection by the medbay. Multiple times. And their diagnostics are running as a mocking clear.) Temperature every so slowly increasing until they have to occasionally step away to just steam out like a self-made sauna. And enough frustration/anger to power a few cities.

Imagine the relatively mild-mannered or relaxed civvie, just suddenly breaks the basketball pole -as in the one that was built for giant aliens- to use it as impromptu swatter and yeets it into an incoming raid or does it to clear space between them and everyone else.

The resident Seekerkin: Alright, I see where this is going...