#wingthing

(Ravage POV. If you are up to date on this fic, you know that Bill Fowler has rescued Soundblaster, who is, of course, Viridian aka Blackcat's brother.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “Things are different now,” said Soundwave, before it could get more awkward.

“Indeed they are,” said Fowler. “So when are you coming to get your boy? We’ll want to wake him up before you get here.”

Viridian tensed, looking up at me sharply. She wanted him back at once, and she wanted to go with whoever went to Nevada to get him; so did I, but I knew the risk.

“We’ll get him back today,” I said. “We’ll send the W.A.P.—”

“The what?” Fowler looked at us as though he were shocked. “Did I mishear you?” I had no idea what he’d thought I’d said.

“The Weak Anthropic Principle,” Jazz explained, laughing; he understood what else the letters had meant that I didn’t. Soundwave must have understood it as well, because he covered his face. I wondered what they thought I would say if they shared it with me, but I gave them the side-eye and shrugged it off.

“It’s the ship that I came home from the Lost Light on,” I told Fowler. “Do you want them to come direct to the base in Nevada? The quicker we get off the line, and the quicker our ship gets in and out…the less likely it is that Thunderblast will notice we’ve got an encrypted connection going and tell Galvatron that she thinks we’re up to shenanigans.”

“I’ll send coordinates,” said Fowler.

“Thank you again; we are unbelievably grateful.” I sighed. There was a lot to do to prepare—like fixing his room up, for one thing.

“I’ve got kids. They’re all grown now, but I absolutely believe you. EDC out.”

Viridian jumped off my lap and headed off to her own room.

I started thinking about the logistics of adding Wingthing to the household; once she was fully manumitted, she would probably want to move out, but that would be a transition we couldn’t make until she and our son were ready for it. They’d both had a lot of shocks recently.

Soundwave and I had deliberated the optics and ethics of the issue, but the three of us had taken the larger habsuite the Housing Committee had offered us after Jazz had been with us for several months without incident. That meant that Viridian had a room of her own at the opposite end of the hab from the room that Soundwave and I shared (and also shared with Jazz most nights) and there was a room next to ours that Jazz recharged in when he chose to, instead of Viridian being in the tiny room that my birdsibs had shared before they moved out and Jazz having slept every night in our berth until Frenzy moved in with some new friends she’d made after deciding that she was a femme. There was another room across from Viridian’s, but only the one, and Wingthing would need to stay there as well…

I started writing up requisition forms for a recharge perch, and a few other things I thought Wingthing might need. Jazz was in the kitchen with Soundwave, who had been working a recipe out in his mind when they had gone in; he wanted to make something special for Soundblaster.

“C’mon, Princess, you know there’s some whores in this house,” Jazz said, giggling. “I can think of at least three.”

“Shut up,” Soundwave grumbled, but he was still laughing inside. And still keeping it under surface thought level. Was it really going to offend me? After living with Drift in Rodion, and the entirety of the Conclave in Kaon?

I looked up from the desk and into the kitchen. “So what was so funny? Come on, you two.”

“It wasn’t that funny,” said Soundwave, but he still made a snorting noise.

“It was funny!” Jazz protested. “When I told him that the phrase those letters refer to is one that I think of sometimes in connection with you…”

And there it was, because Soundwave couldn’t keep it off surface anymore. He had once heard Jazz sing the whole song at a karaoke bar, to the enthralled amusement and horrification of numerous humans who had been present at the time (and possibly hadn't known that Jazz has a valve just like everyone else).

I was almost offended, because some of the Autobots who had served on Earth had used that word (which also meant ‘cat’) to refer to me in a way I had really disliked…but I caught myself laughing, so I just threw a wadded up sheet of flimsy Viridian had left on my desk at them both.

{Gross.}

That was Viridian, reappearing from out of her room with a bag in her mouth. {Put these in Blast’s room.}  She dropped it at Soundwave’s feet.  {This is stuff that I knew he would like that I’ve saved for him.}

“You can do that,” I told her, but Soundwave did pick it up and go into the room with her.