#soundwaveweek

Soundwave didn’t reply, but he did cross his arms, which was just as good. The music died down to nearly inaudible, but the waveforms of Hot Rod’s song still danced across Soundwave’s shoulder display.

“So I was with ‘bee this morning, and we took bets deciding who would finish our rounds first.” Hot Rod began. “And I figured, I might as well pave new roads and take the newly-established shortcut between Neo-Peptex and Helex. Except! It turns out, the bots that created the shortcut were fliers! And didn’t know the ground was gonna give way the second a bot drove through the canyon. Weird, huh? So, I figured I might as well give you a call, and—”

“You are on the border of Decepticon territory.”

Ah. That was why Soundwave hadn’t come closer. Hot Rod had been patrolling the fence perimeter, but after an hour hanging upside down, he had gotten slightly turned around.

Hot Rod grinned.

“I won’t tell if you don’t.”

Soundwave strode forward. In one swift motion, he grabbed Hot Rod’s hand and yanked him free. Hot Rod tumbled to the ground, then sat up and surveyed the opening he had so recently fallen through.

“You will need to walk through these tunnels,” Soundwave said. “Climbing back to the surface will the ground is so fragile will only result in another fall.”

“I know.” Hot Rod tried to shake off the feeling of his protoform crawling under his armor. The tunnels were dark, but not pitch black. And even if they weren’t, Hot Rod, like all Cybertronians, was equipped with lights aplenty.

“Wanna come with?” He asked Soundwave, anyway.

He wasn’t surprised when Soundwave followed. For all Soundwave’s bluster about factions and enemy lines, Hot Rod had been nursing the suspicion that Soundwave missed working together just as much as Hot Rod did. Neither of them were suited to stagnant periods of awkward ceasefire—privately, Hot Rod thanked the stars he had been in stasis for the last few million years, rather than do…whatever Windblade and Perceptor and Bumblebee had been up to while the rest of the Ark’s crew slept. He and Soundwave preferred action. A concrete goal. An ending.

Even if that was just walking through a tunnel.

Hot Rod activated one of his lights. Soundwave tilted his head but said nothing.

“Is it too much to hope for, I dunno—a rockslide? Just to extend this meetup a little longer?”

Soundwave scoffed. “I will not remain once your Autobot friends are dispatched to rescue you.”

“My ‘Autobot friends’ were your friends once too,” Hot Rod sniped. “Or did you forget Whirl and Perceptor? Or Clobber?”

“I do not have friends.”

Ouch. Hot Rod stepped to the side and nudged Soundwave with his shoulder. “What about you and me, then? What are we?”

“Co-commanders.” Soundwave hesitated. “Allies.”

“Aw.” Hot Rod tried to keep his voice light. “I bet you say that to every bot you ‘face in a training simulator.” And in the caves outside Iacon. And at the far end of the planet, where no bot bothered to go unless it was for a patrol. And—

“Do not make me regret that.”

Hot Rod grabbed Soundwave’s arm and pulled him back. “Do you, though?”

Soundwave hesitated. Hot Rod scoffed and shoved him away.

“I can find my own way home.”

Hot Rod walked until he could no longer hear the music, until his sensors detected no trace of Soundwave—or Laserbeak, for that matter—before giving in and slumping against the tunnel wall.

Part of him had hoped that Soundwave was just playing hard to get; that his icy facade of apathy would melt in time, because he was Hot Rod, and because fire melted ice, didn’t it?

Hot Rod looked at the unyielding tunnels and wondered if he had mistaken ice for stone.

It was fine! It was fine—he hadn’t told ‘bee about what he and Soundwave had done. No one knew about them, except for the bots who’d been in the resistance, and they wouldn’t tell a soul. Whirl and Perceptor were too polite, Clobber was too loyal to him, and privately, Hot Rod wasn’t certain if Dead End knew anything had happened between him and Soundwave, considering how the only thing he seemed to pay attention to back then was Perceptor.

It was fine.

Hot Rod stood. He shone his light on the tunnel floor, giving in to the irrational fear that Cybertron’s revitalization might have missed this section of the planet in particular, leaving more toxic pools of energon in his path.

It was stupid. This whole thing was stupid.

“Hot Rod.”

“‘You’re stupid,” Hot Rod said, then realized he had spoken aloud. “Oh. Uh.”

“I will take that under advisement.” Soundwave moved to step forward, then thought better of it and remained in place. “We need to talk.”

“About what?” Hot Rod hoped he didn’t sound too upset. “About getting home? Or about regrets?”

“The latter.” Soundwave crossed his arms. The waveforms on his display fell flat. “I should not have said that.”

“Huh.” Hot Rod blinked. “I didn’t know you could apologize.”

“I am being serious.”

“So am I.”

Soundwave sighed. “I will walk you to the end of the tunnel. Back to your side of the planet. And later, we will talk.”

“Look—“ Hot Rod dared take a step forward. “Wait, how would we talk? Unless you’re coming over to the Autobot’s side.”

“Do not be foolish.” Soundwave tossed over a datachip. “My personal communications frequency.”

“Oh.” Hot Rod had Soundwave’s official frequency, but he had a lot of bots’ official frequencies. He tucked the chip into his subspace, half afraid it would dissolve into dust if he was too rough with it. “Uh, thanks.”

Without another word, Soundwave turned and continued down the tunnel.