#ut writes

There was a harsh sigh, in front of them.

This was the third time this month, they'd found themselves back here, stood in the middle of their leader's office. They could tell he was already getting tired of having them returning.

Their biggest concern was that the blame would be turned onto their mentor at some point for the persistence of the problem.

Beside the whole "frame not feeling like their own anymore" thing.

But at the moment mostly that Starscream would receive accusations when he hadn't done anything. It wasn't his fault they were feeling this way, and ending up here over and over again.

"Nacelle," Megatron finally began, obviously trying quite hard to keep his voice level. "what in Primus's name is going on?"

They didn't have an answer. They didn't think that their frame not feeling like their own was a reason to be here over and over. Those were precious little feelings. Those were excuses. They knew that him and Soundwave alone had been through far worse experiences of this sort of thing, with people treating them like nothing more than action figures. They could handle this small bout from their processor, that was absolutely nothing in comparison to whatever hell they'd probably been through.

"It's..." he paused, probably combing through his mental dictionary for a word that wasn't 'aggravating as frag'. "...concerning." He told them.

"I'm sorry, sir." They responded, keeping their helm down, optics boring a hole in the floor. "I'll make sure this doesn't happen again."

They could hear him suck in air, and must have been recalling that they'd said the same thing last week, and yet here they were. Again.

"You know, if you're really getting so twitchy that you're digging into yourself instead of a training dummy, I can easily arrange with Starscream to move you out from his tutelage into my own, so you can properly take care of that urge."

They felt the blood in their lines turn to straight ice, and their spark crash down to the floor, how quickly their blood ran cold and spark dropped suddenly.

There was no need to punish Starscream for their recent fuck-ups– he didn't even know this problem existed, they hadn't wanted to tell him.

"That won't be necessary, sir." They said quickly, hoping they didn't sound too desperate about it. That wouldn't help. "I can handle it myself."

It was silent for a moment, before he responded. "You're sure about that?" He asked, picking up a datapad on his desk. "Three weeks now, you've had this problem. Three times we've had this intervention about you clawing at your plating, getting close to vital lines. Three times you've told me that, and after the first two, I'm not expecting anything to change, when nothing already has." He told them plainly. "Usually the information of how close you are to nicking a vital line is enough to deter or at least grant some sort of epiphany, but it didn't even seem to dent you, given your damage is the same as last week, almost worse." He said, and the datapad smoothly scraped against the desk as he picked it up, and clacked as he put it back down.

It was interesting to them how the datapad scraped against the desk so smoothly. How everything he had did. It wasn't an overly fancy desk, or even that much better than cheap tin. Starscream's was better, - even if not by much, and probably because of lack of use rather than quality - and he couldn't achieve that. The sound of such a smooth, not grating scrape against the desk was incredible. Perhaps it was simply in technique? They'd have to observe that–

"Nacelle."

They looked up, surprised by the call of their name – and were brought back to the present, by a deeply irate look from Megatron. They turned their helm back down with embarrassment and shame for zoning out.

"There's a problem here, Nacelle." He said, and they remained still. They didn't say anything. "You're getting twitchy, and impatient with need for combat."

"I'm not twitchy." They weakly retorted.

"Oh?" He asked. "Really, because it looks to me, the same as you're doing now, your digits are twitching and you're allowing them to dig into your plating." He told them.

They went to say something in their defense, say that no they weren't doing that right now, but noticed - he was right. Their digits had began to dig into their plating again. They didn't even notice they'd started doing that. The words died on their tongue and they tightly pursed their lips, not trusting themself to say anything.

He spoke again, once their mouth had shut. "If you're not twitchy, then why in Primus's name else, would you be doing–"

"I think I may be a femme." Nacelle blurted, before they could stop themself.

The regret hit them like a train and it took every single ounce of restraint to stay still, remaining stood there in front of him, rather than slapping their hands over their mouth and taking off in a dash out of there to hide, and later pretend they'd never said anything at all.

They knew their vastly too large wings drooped, and tucked against their ridiculously square back, and they kept their optics firmly on their peds, hoping maybe that the lecture they were about to receive would all be over fast.

It was after a long moment of silence that Megatron finally spoke again.

"...I, don't see what that has to do with you damaging your own frame." He said, the "I" a bit drawled out, obviously a bit confused from his tone. "Clarify that for me?"

They swallowed the lump of dread.

"I– I just– don't like my frame. It doesn't feel like mine, anymore. Not like when I was a youngling." They mumbled. "My wings feel too big, everything does, and it all looks so... not me. Not what I imagine myself looking like."

It was silent again. He didn't speak for a long time - it felt like an eternity, but their chronometer said it had barely been a few kliks.

"Alright." He said, slowly. It was neutral, or at least they couldn't pick up any sort of a tone. "Divulge more, about this problem." He followed up.

They hesitated. They were definitely in for a lecture and a half now.

"You're sure?" They asked, daring to look up. "It's extensive." They divulged, just in an attempt to dissuade him from it.

From where he was now sat in a chair - they hadn't noticed that he'd moved one of them, and sat down - he only hummed with displeasure, and his expression took on a slightly more stern appearance.

"Yes." He said finally, still stern.

They nodded, still hesitant but understanding they didn't exactly have much of a choice. He had specifically requested. So they just took a deep breath, and began to list.

"I don't like my voice, I hate looking at or being reminded of my frame's appearance, I feel like I'm wearing a clown outfit three sizes too large all the time, and yet it still feels like it's actually three sizes too small– either way it's an ill fitting clown get up, sometimes I just want to stay in bed, go back to sleep, and not be perceived, other times I want to rip my own plating off and simply be a horrific wire monster that's only conceivable in concept because at least I'm not this, it feels like any amount of joy is impossible to achieve because I'm always reminded of my frame–"

"Alright, that's enough." He cut them off. "That is certainly extensive, and I assume there's more on top." He said.

They just nodded, and went back to staring at their peds again.

It was silent again, for longer. They only dared to lift their helm up just enough to glance at him. He was sat in the chair with one leg rested on the other, the joint connecting his ped to his lower leg settled just above his knee. His optics' pupils being slightly blurry at the edges with occasional bolts of coding like lines passing through the circuitry told them he was doing something on his HUD, likely comming someone, given the static coming from him.

Great. He was probably telling Starscream, and numerous other people about their dumb, pathetic little problem. Now they were just going to be utterly humiliated.

They heard his ped hit the floor as he moved to stand up. They heard the low noise, and felt the deep reverberations of each pedfall as he came over to them.

He shifted their helm up to look at him with a hand, and used his thumb to wipe something wet off their face, that they now realized was tears. They did their best to avoid making optic contact with him.

"Go clean off your face, and pick up your ration. Be certain to get some rest." He told them, his voice level and tone soft. "You are dismissed."

He removed his hand, and they nodded, before turning and walking out, trying hard to keep their helm up and wings in proper place rather than drooped low enough to probably hit the floor, and ignoring the way they felt Megatron's optics on their back the whole way down the hall.

"Nacelle, you're going to head up to the top of the Nemesis. Megatron will be waiting for you there."

They stopped cleaning the dried blood from their claws, and looked up.

"What?" They asked, their spark about to burst out of their chassis.

"Did he do something?" Bitstream asked, and they most certainly, completely and utterly, very definitively ignored the way they felt as though being shot in the gut would have been nicer than being called a 'he'.

"No, there's just been a change in operations to properly adapt to new needs." Starscream answered, not elaborating further, tone entirely unreadable.

They felt shame run through them for having made this an all of them problem, by saying something, now feeling the way Bitstream, Hotlink, and Sunstorm all looked at them.

"You'll meet back up for the normal flight, and aerial training after midday ration." He continued. "So that's really the only change at the moment, though it is to be seen whether things may or may not change a little more."

Primus, they fragged up big time.

"You had ought to get up there, he's not known for a legendary patience like Prime has." Starscream said.

They nodded mutely, and got up from their seat, and quickly headed for the door, trying to be out of his office as soon as possible.

"And Nacelle," he called, and they stopped, and turned, trying to avoid the feeling of the other three's optics on them. "you can come talk to me if something's up. You have my urgency code, and my office door is always open for you four." He told them, looking them dead on in the optics.

They just nodded and fled.

When they got up there, Megatron simply stared at them, as they approached, crossing the expanse of the top of the ship.

"I see you were able to find your way out of his mess of a living space, after all." Was the first thing he said.

"I apologize for the lateness." They apologized to him.

Before they could continue he waved a hand dismissively. "It's not a fuss. He sprung it on you suddenly, and I know that he holds preference for his surroundings to be a maze. Truly like a sphinx."

They refrained from telling him Starscream usually convened them in his office, which as far as they knew, outside of the usual bout of paperwork, rarely saw any actual use, and thus, was far more neat than he thought, so they really had no reason to be late. They just simply nodded, instead.

"Now, before we begin, I would like to apply something to your plating." He said, and they stood stock still, confused and nervous.

He moved to their shoulder, and pulled out a little cling decal. It was a little rectangle thing, and Nacelle supposed it was just temporary until he figured they'd gotten their destructive streak taken care of. They weren't known for permanence, and they only lasted particularly long if applied on completely fresh clean plating after a proper cleaning. Nevertheless, he gently stuck it onto their shoulder, making sure to be firm so it would actually stick, but not rough as to hurt or manhandle them around.

Once he had, he stepped back and looked at it for a few nano-kliks, and then huffed with satisfaction at the job, so they properly looked at it. It turned out there were two: the first one they'd originally seen was still a rectangle, but just a couple stripes of color: sky blue, bubblegum pink, and white, going blue, pink, white, pink, blue. The other was the same Decepticon sigil as on their wings, but slightly more elegant, and had streaks throughout it like the engravings on his chassis. They didn't quite get the purpose of it, but they supposed Starscream would clarify things up for them when they asked later.

"Something a touch more permanent will be applied after a proper cleaning, however for the moment, that will do." He said, walking away. "Now, come along femmeling, we have basics we need to run through, and we're already behind, today."

Hearing him call them "femmeling", over mechling... there was something euphoric to it. It felt good. They liked it.

"Well?" He called, now standing by the edge. "Come on, we don't have all day. Starscream expects you back by midday."

"Right." They– she softly emitted, and jogged over to be next to him, a soft smile on her face, feeling just a little bit better than she had for a long time.

Okay so maybe not the best?? I tried. Again, advice is appreciated. Hope you all enjoyed regardless, tho. :)