#st3v3

— He knew he wasn't supposed to, ST3V3 knew damn well he was never supposed to but how couldn't he? So what if you're a higher ranking bot and he's just an expendable clone! You technically don't have a rank though… You're just a mercenary-for-hire Megatron calls upon when everything's gone to slag. You make it clear you don't work for the tyrant and that you're only here because he has you on his payroll which all the vehicons are jealous of. But they respect it too. It makes you admirable in a way.

— And your lack of an alignment does make you a gamble for his benefactor but ST3V3 couldn't resist, even if he shouldn't. It was pathetic really, how, Pit, not even kindness but basic decency had him so utterly smitten. Only other mech was Breakdown but Breakdown was more of the pleasantries and conversation kind, you were actively saving their lives and from a trip to the medbay.

— It was the little things that really got to him. The fact that you bothered to remember the codenames of all the Vehicons you met, the way you actually tried to make sure none of them got hurt when you're one-on-one against an Autobot… And you get real violent.

— But he'd be lying if he said seeing you covered in energon wasn't ominously attractive in some strange kind of way. Maybe he's sustained too much blaster damage to his helm…

— He kinda also wants to be in the same position as those sorry Autobot troopers beneath you but in a different context.

— There's something about being treated like an actual individual that gets to him a lot. While you certainly aren’t a conversationalist, your cautiousness to make sure more Vehicons don't get terminated and the way you acknowledge their existence is sparkfelt to him. You somehow even knew who was who despite all of them looking almost alike!

— ST3V3's spark skips a beat every time you actually address him by his designation, the name he chose for himself— “Steve”. It's a bit monotone and dare he say, almost in the manner Shockwave would've said it in but even then, it gets him all giddy. Secretly of course.

— But… turns out, most of the Vehicons felt the same way about you. You are certainly a popular subject amongst them, they talk about you at least once a day. However, most of them admire only from a distance. Also, sometimes their talk about you is… less than savoury. It’s like in those movies where they go; “check out that babe over there”, cue someone whistling, “ohhh, i see that alright…”. Basically, they talk like old perverts. And they do envy ST3V3…

— Because he gets to talk to you a lot more than the rest of them. ST3V3 is known for his horrendously bad luck so you end up saving his tailpipe from more damage. Of course, you're doing this as a professional courtesy.

— They don't realize that you see them as individuals because you've never really been around drones before, you genuinely think of them as people and so, you think of them as being on the same team which is the only reason you look out for them.

— Now, ST3V3 and the other Vehicons get more reckless when they're assigned to help you out on missions you're hired for. They're endangering themselves on purpose so you could be their hero. You're like their angel. Even though you are far, far from one.

— ST3V3 still gushes thinking about that day when you held him in your servos for a brief moment when he was about to land flat onto his faceplate because of an explosion.

— At some point, you even have a chat with Megatron about how improperly trained his Vehicon troops are. Having the ball bearings to, respectfully, ask him if the Vehicons have had their combat programming curtailed. Lord Megatron could've blasted a shot right through your chassis for that one! ST3V3 is impressed by your courage. Megatron keeps you around because you're useful.

— ST3V3 is the number one culprit, he's already got terrible luck without even trying. So when you mention ST3V3 to Megatron, he's… he's confused. He has a ST3V3 in his ranks? What? Since when? Why an Earth name? And you just blink in confusion at his confusion. There's an awkward silence between the two of you. Megatron thinks you've gone off the rails by bothering to remember the names of drones. But he doesn't say that to you, judging you in silence but you can feel his judgement, heavily.

— You keep your optics peeled for ST3V3 and try to make sure he's not in a position where he's in trouble but even then, somehow, by some spark-forsaken curse or something (you're starting to believe he may actually be cursed), he still ends up in trouble! Under blaster fire, under debris, under falling Autobots. He hopes maybe someday he'll be under you instead.

— You're not an easily frustrated individual. You never really were one. So you scold ST3V3; the nicest, most polite, well-mannered and sparkfelt (his definition of sparkfelt is basic decency) way any bot as ever dared to speak to him in and he swore he fell even harder. The other Vehicons are seething in jealousy.

— Sometimes, ST3V3 fantasizes about being taken away to your world— wherever it is that you go in your spacecraft after you're done with what you were paid to do. Would you take him there? Primus, he hopes you do. But he knows it will never really happen.

— He gets easily distracted in a fight when you're there so his natural talent for finding trouble comes to him. But you're giving him a mouthful afterwards so… it's still a win in ST3V3’s book! He gets to be saved by you AND gets to hear you talk to him.

— You give ST3V3 a look of acknowledgement in the hallway once and he's been boastful about it to the other Vehicons since. His visor makes it hard for you to discern what he feels so you can't tell his excitement. They're all incredibly jealous.

— One time, he actually did something right for once and you applauded him. ST3V3 has had that memory engraved into his databanks and he's been clinging onto it for cycles.

— ST3V3 gets so awkward around you but you can't really blame him! You're intimidating. From your dark aura to the way you are on the field, it really makes you attractive and scary. Sometimes you crack a joke every now and then, it surprises him a bit but he laughs a bit. He's trying not to laugh out loud and look like a total idiot though‐ He doesn't want you to think he's even worse of an awkward clutz.

— You call him many things; trouble magnet, auto-bait, autobot detector (he's the first one to get shot at), adrenaline junkie, the world's worst good luck charm... many notable names. It's.. kinda funny though so he tries to not let it get to him. But the other Vehicons tease him with it too. Call him an actual pet-name and he will melt though. Something like 'sweetspark' and he's on his knees.

— He's so into you, it's not even funny at this point. ST3V3 wants you badly. So very badly. He gets extremely jealous when he sees Knockout try and shoot his shot at you, he doesn't really do anything about the jealousy he feels nor does he blame Knockout for even trying. He would too if he had a higher rank.

— He wouldn't actually try pursuing you though. ST3V3, as well as the other Vehicons know that they don't have a chance here. They're just Vehicon drones and they'll terminate as Vehicon drones… No matter how much they dream otherwise, the dark struggles of being a Vehicon are endless.

Soundwave: You can never tell what was going on behind that visor, but you knew whenever you were laughing, he was also enjoying himself - in his own quiet and private way. Knockout once told you how nicely you complimented one another, and that the sight of you guffawing next to the silent mech was the funniest thing to come out of it. Albeit, you would be laughing over little things, such as a random meme on your feed or the sight of Vehicons arguing with one another - it almost made you feel guilty for being so loud and obnoxious. Until you wake up in the middle of the night to hear Soundwave listening to an audio clip of you snorting by his desk, and it made your heart flutter to know that it was his go-to mood booster when things were hectic.

Knockout: Laughing by yourself was already chaotic enough, laughing next to Knockout was borderline dangerous. You would always start first, showing him a picture or telling him a joke and it would escalate to him making a witty quip that has you hunched over the table. You both also love to shove one another and it would sometimes get carried away, considering that when you shove knockout he barely moves but when he does it you’re sent flying off the chair. Whenever Megatron passes by the medbay he would always make it a habit to make sure that the doctor was actually doing work and not fooling around with his ‘pet.’ Thankfully, both of you can stop for several minutes, but one look will be enough to dissolve you into laughter once again.

Breakdown: Your good-natured attitude and humor were one of the things that drew him to you. Your laughter was contagious, and with a guy like Breakdown, you can almost turn anything sour sweet with a couple of quips and jokes. He gets a little impatient from time to time, his temper wearing thin, but you’ll always be there to diffuse his anger - acting like some kind of catalyst unconsciously pacifying his anger with a single smile. You once joked that he only keeps you around because you acted as some kind of stress-ball, but little did you know that your jokes and laughter have the ability to make him forget that there was a war going on. And it was one of the things that nearly made him consider what to truly fight for.

Starscream: When you first showed him that you can’t control your laugh he got irritated pretty quickly, berating you for being so loud. But you can’t help it, and so you kept on laughing - throwing your head back, falling onto your chair, crying as you massage your cheeks. Eventually, you thought Starscream just grew tired and decided to do nothing. Turns out, while you had your eyes shut in laughter, he would be admiring you from the corner of his eyes. He’d be smiling, wishing that he could join in - but he has a reputation to uphold, and he’s still trying to convince himself that he’s not overly attached to you. That’s why he would rather be caught dead than laughing with you because once he does it’ll be a sign that he’s gone soft - for an organic. He can’t ignore the sadness that would follow after every laughter, but it was also one of the few things keeping him sane within the Nemesis. And from time to time it’ll make him consider deserting this war for a life where he could just smile with you. Humans, he thought, how scary is it that you could simply tempt him to give up everything with a single smile?

Shockwave: Whenever you’re around Shockwave, you make it an effort to keep laughing at a minimum. You know he wasn’t one for distractions, and so you’ve tried to act as professional as you can around him. Yet, one time St3v3 had come to deliver some test tubes and ended up falling on the floor. You would have helped him if he didn’t knock over T0m, who knocked over Fr3d, and three other Vehicons. At the sight of the bickering soldiers on the floor, you had squatted on the floor to laugh, howling as you cradled your red face. It took you a while to realize that Shockwave was staring at you, red-eye piercing as they observe your tears and wheezing. He then proceeded to ask you about ‘ the physical reaction in humans consisting of rhythmical, often audible contractions of the diaphragm’, followed by a dozen of other questions about your biology. The next few days, you had no choice but to participate in one of his side projects regarding humans and ‘laughing’. You thought it had been a serious project until Breakdown dropped by to say how he’s been obsessed with studying your laughter specifically, and that he was starting to think it was more of a personal fascination rather than a scientific inquiry. You didn’t want to believe it until Megatron himself told you this. After that you couldn’t look at him properly, knowing that your laughter affects a mech once believed to be unmovable.

Dreadwing: You were hesitant to laugh around Dreadwing, knowing that the commander was against any form of nonsense and was very straightforward. Yet, you had caught him watching you when you were sharing a laugh with Knockout. Then you caught him again when you were double over in the mess hall, and when you were clapping with ST3V3 in the hallways. You assumed he found it annoying and began to be more careful of where you laugh until you watched as a butterfly landed on the crown of his head once. It’s safe to say that he was smiling at the way you were grinning and that he would have said something earlier if it wasn’t for his fear of growing fond of you. It was a nice change, you thought, to see him so shy and in awe. He does need to relax from time to time, and what better way than to spend it with you - even if your laughter sounded like a dying seal.

Predaking: He was always brooding, always so serious and angry that you had steered clear of him. Yet, he was once awoken from his nap by your laughter down the hall, the sight of you hollering by yourself as you scrolled through your phone nearly concerning if it wasn’t for how happy you looked. After that, he grew interested in you. When you formally met he pretended to hate your laughter, looking annoyed and irritated when it’s actually under the guise that he's jealous. Jealous of the fact that he was never the one to make you laugh. He wanted to be on the receiving end of your smile, and so his frustrations have led to a series of arguments with you, one resolved when he told you to stop laughing and you responded with “ make me.” He took the witty quip as an invitation, which was surprisingly something you had wanted to, and when you were both lying together you had laughed at something he said. That was the first time you’ve seen Predaking smile, and it made you so happy that you made it your responsibility to remind him to laugh from time to time.

ST3V3: Don’t get me started on this. There’s a lot of shoving, table banging, head throwing, and screaming when laughing with ST3V3. He’s an archive of jokes, puns, memes, and even ridiculous screenshots. Sometimes you even purposely avoid him knowing that he’s about to show you something funny when your cheeks have barely recovered from the last joke. There’s not a day where you’d feel sad with ST3V3, but there won’t be a day where you won’t have tears streaming down your face too - and you’re genuinely surprised that you now have abs from all the laughing you’ve done with him.