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The problem had been eating at Ravage for weeks. It kept him occupied at his work, sparing several of his more disliked Senators from his acerbic wit. "Kitty's getting tame," Senator Cherys noted at one point, the sort of comment that Ravage would normally have taken as an invitation to plan some private violence that could not be traced back to him. But he was busy plotting something more important.
The Blackout was coming up. And while he and Buzzsaw and Laserbeak could ride out the worst of it in the ventilation shafts above the public oil baths, their new friend was simply too big to fit. And even the first few hours of celebration would likely be too much for Soundwave - he was achieving a delicate balance with his senses but Ravage knew how easily that balance could crumble. They were going to have to get him off the streets.
Buzzsaw and Laserbeak were deeply unhelpful, as was their habit. "The Senate hall would be empty during the Blackout," Laserbeak had offered.
"And how exactly would we get Soundwave past the guards at the door?"
Buzzsaw was even less helpful, if that was possible. "We could go in the drainage tunnels," he suggested.
"Ah yes, the drainage tunnels, well known for being warm and dry," Ravage said. "That will most certainly help us when the ice storms roll through."
So Ravage was on his own, as per usual. He'd always been the brains of their little operation. But epiphany came to him in a surprising form, in the eleventh hour. Senator Momus mentioned to a colleague that Senator Dite and Senator Themis would be travelling to Iacon together for the Blackout. "And I don't mean to gossip about it, but they certainly aren't being subtle about their new Conjunx status. The fact that they share an apartment in both cities...even for us, it seems a bit extravagant." And then, in a stroke of Primus-granted luck, Momus happened to mention what building Themis lived in. He had an in.
That night he sent a sullen pair of birds to follow Themis home - at a distance. He headed straight to their rendezvous point with Soundwave.
The kid was getting better, in fits and starts. He'd stopped with the babbling, instead retreating most of the time into his head. Only his perennial jitters revealed that he was still thrashing against his senses and the pains they caused him. Ravage was trying to teach him, but they were simply operating on different scales of sensation. Ravage could easily scent out a mech and follow them from across a room. Soundwave babbled conversations from across the city.
It would have been easier if they could live somewhere better than their current squat in Dead End's alleys, somewhere where they could mute the world outside with walls and padded blankets and Soundwave should've been in the institute. In his more charitable moments, Ravage imagined taking him there, forcing them to see his gift. But he was selfish and the idea of sending Soundwave away made his spark twist. Mine. You lost your chance and now you can't have him. The thought of Senator Shockwave listening to a mere mechanimal was laughable anyway.
"Ravage," the kid said as Ravage rounded the corner of the alley. Soundwave cocked his head and held out a hand to him. Even when he shuttered his optics to conserve energy usage, he could still identify Ravage at fifty paces.
Soundwave held out a hand and Ravage rubbed his head into it. "Made it another day. That's good," Ravage said, sniffing at Soundwave and checking him over for any obvious injury. Soundwave wasn't a small mech, but leaving him alone in Dead End always made Ravage worry.
"You're happy," Soundwave said, then shook his head. "You're relieved." He lifted his ragged heating tarp to let Ravage curl up underneath. He seemed to lose the thread of his own conversation for a long moment, stroking at Ravage's back with his head listing off to the side. He muttered under his breath insensible gibberish then finally pulled himself back. "I'm glad - you've been tense."
"Just worrying about you, boss," Ravage said, pushing back towards Soundwave's leg.
Senator Themis lived on the thirteenth floor of the Spinifex building and, according to the birds, did in fact live with Senator Dite. "I'm not saying it's charming," Buzzsaw insisted. "I would still rip their faces off if I could. But they are very affectionate."
"If they weren't senators it would be charming," Laserbeak said. "As it is, it's gross. We don't have to keep watching them, right?"
"No," Ravage said. "We have everything we need now."
"So when do we get to know the plan Ravage?" Laserbeak asked.
"As soon as I figure out the plan," Ravage shot back. "We've got two days to figure out how to steal a Senator's apartment."
"Relax and stop fidgeting," Ravage hissed, pressing his body close to the wall so passers-by wouldn't be able to see him around Soundwave's bulk. Soundwave was fairly anonymous - all anyone was going to remember was 'big' and 'blue'. If word got back to Themis that there was a suspicious felinoid lurking about the night of the break-in it'd be his hide it was coming out of. "They'll buzz us in in a moment."
In the end it turned out to be simpler to get into the Spinifex than Ravage had imagined. Themis had probably picked the place for its privacy - there wasn't a building manager or a doorman to usher in guests. Instead the residents used a control pad within their apartment to unlock the front door for their guests. And when you were friends with a pair of birds who could sneak in through the building's exterior vents, getting into the building turned into a cakewalk. Their real challenge was getting up to the room without anyone seeing them; Ravage had convinced Soundwave to discard his tarp-cloak but there was nothing they could do about the smell or his battered plating and doubly-nothing that would make Ravage not a memorable sight in a high-class apartment building like this.
"Okay, focus," Ravage said. "Start big. Is there anyone in the building?" His nose said yes but he needed them on the same page.
Soundwave crossed his arms across his chest and ducked his head. "...yes," he gritted out.
"Good, good," Ravage said brainlessly. "Okay, is there anyone on the elevator at the end of the hallway?"
Soundwave focused digging his hands into his plating, then shook his head. "No, nobody."
The doorchime next to them buzzed, the light for Senator Themis's apartment lighting up. Ravage poked the door controls with his hose, getting the door open just a crack. The hallway smelled clear. "Okay, keep your hand on my back and we're going to hustle for the elevator, okay? Nice and quick. Nice and quiet."
Soundwave complied and Ravage nosed the door the rest of the way open. A glittering and opulent hallway spilled out before them. Dizzying patterns on the luminescent tiles reflected back the overhead lights in a maze of refracted shards of light. "Fragging tacky," Ravage muttered. "Let's go, boss," he said. He hurried them down the hallway, trying to ignore the clicking noises his paws made on the tile. Stay closed, stay closed he prayed as they passed the long line of doorways. The elevator loomed up ahead and Ravage snaked out his tail to enter their desired floor number. The elevator was their one blessing - since the Spinifex was a building for the absurdly rich, the elevator was built with privacy in mind. No one would expect the residents to have to ride with their neighbors so once they got on the elevator they'd be safe.
The doors chimed and Ravage stiffened. Soundwave couldn't have stiffened any more than he already was, a taut mess of tension. I'm gambling on you, big guy. Let's hope you're right.
The doors opened on an empty elevator and Ravage dragged them inside. The doors closed behind them and Ravage realized there was music playing. He rolled his optics. How relaxing. The mirrored surface of the walls ended at waist height so Ravage wasn't surrounded by thirty off-kilter mirror images of himself, just thirty overwhelmed Soundwaves. Ravage wound his way around Soundwave's legs to catch his attention as the elevator quietly chimed it's way towards the thirteenth floor. "Relax, boss. We're almost there. You did it, now I just need you to do it one more time."
He gave Soundwave a quick squeeze with his tail, then snaked his tail over to the 'hold door' control as the elevator announced their arrival in a sonorous voice. "Is there anyone in the hallway?" He asked.
Soundwave reached out for the door, setting his grimy hand against it as he dug himself deep into his concentration. Ravage waited, tail poking at the 'hold door' button as the elevator insistently chimed at them. Soundwave shook his head. "No. Someone leaving soon, end of hallway-"
"Then let's go," Ravage said, releasing the door and ushering them out in one motion. The hallway loomed large, more distracting and dizzying tilework patterns to overwhelm Soundwave as Ravage hunted for their door, claws skittering across the smooth floors. "Ping the birds," he hissed.
Soundwave grunted in response, hopefully an affirmative.
A door threw itself open to their left and Ravage threw himself in front of Soundwave. He flattened himself to the ground, fangs bared, ready to spring...and then recognized two stupid birds hopping up and down in the doorway. They chittered in amusement at him as he shook off the indignity and led Soundwave into the room, pushing the door closed behind him.
He looked around the room and let out a low whistle. There were low couches draped in blankets, oblong reflective tables with bowls of glittering spherical energon goodies piled high, shelves up to the ceiling filled with datapads. There were draperies over the ceiling, swathes of star-spattered scintillating fabric. There was a door open to another room where he could see a berth big enough for five mechs and another closed door that must have led to the washracks, presumably similarly opulent. There was a glass doorway that led out onto the balcony, full of tiered planters of exotic twining and branches of faceted crystal vines. It was beyond luxury - this apartment was simply unbelievable.
"Boss?" Buzzsaw said, twitching his head to the side and stopping his excited hopping. "You okay?"
Ravage tore his eyes away from the glitz and back to Soundwave, who had sunk down onto the floor and was hiding his face in his knees, arms wrapped tight around his legs to make his huge frame seem smaller.
Ravage nosed his way under Soundwave's arm to get a look at him. Poor thing was shaking. "Hey, big guy, it's okay," Ravage said senselessly, crawling across his legs to curl up close against his chest. "We made it, you did great."
"'s he okay?" Laserbeak asked, flapping over to land on Soundwave's knee, clucking gently with concern.
"He's just overwhelmed," Ravage said. "Give him a few minutes."
Laserbeak and Buzzsaw took that as an invitation to take off for Primus-knows-where, strutting out onto the balcony and then take off. Ravage kept an eye on them out of the corner of his eye as they flitted out of sight and then back again. They swooped around each other in the air and Laserbeak gave chase and he really should go and yell at them, tell them to cool it - they were supposed to not be attracting attention. But Soundwave had started petting him and Ravage figured the repetitive motion was probably grounding him.
Eventually the shaking stopped and Soundwave uncurled a bit. "You okay?" Ravage asked.
Soundwave made a little 'hmm' noise that sounded like an affirmative. This was a big step, Ravage reminded himself. They'd gone from dissociated babbling to Soundwave walking the streets pretending to be normal in just a few months. That growth of control came with a pursuant mental toll and asking Soundwave to play lookout for this adventure had been asking a lot so soon.
"Okay, kit," Ravage said. "We've got this place for three days, so why don't we keep it simple for tonight? Let's get cleaned up and recharge early so we're ready to celebrate tomorrow. I'm going to go run a bath, alright?"
He slipped away and, with some difficulty, got the washracks door open. Damned sliding doors. He inspected the place, admiring the large soaking pool the senators had installed. Plenty deep to fit Soundwave but with a nice shallow lip the birds could splash about in. The spigot for filling the tub was also deeply unsuited to people with paws, but he made it work. While the soaking tub was filling, he investigated the rest of the place. A couple hoses for sluicing off muck and a nice warmed bench to sit on while bathing, a whole kit for doing polishing...they probably shouldn't play with that, last thing he needed was the Senator recognizing his personal high-gloss polish.
In the next cubby he found a whole set of soak additives, most them foul-smelling fragrance oils. He sorted through them with his paws, giving each a sniff test. Disgusting. Disgusting. Repulsive. Perfect - just right for when you want to smell like you fell into a vat of chemicals! Offensive. Disgusting, but memorable; must have been the Senator's favorite. And, hmm, not that bad. He checked the least objectionable of them over - "unscented". Well that'd do it.
In theory, Ravage couldn't read. Well, in theory, Ravage wasn't really sentient and thus couldn't think at all, let alone read. In practice, all those bots could take their theories and shove it - Ravage could read perfectly. He was self-taught and it was slow going, but he made a point of learning to do absolutely everything he'd been told disposables and mechanimals weren't capable of doing. He pored over the label, absently scraping grooves in the flooring as he concentrated. "Unscented - Effervescent Iridescent Bubble Formula." Sounded like something the birds would enjoy. There were instructions on how to add it to the soak, but they were mostly pictographs. Something about measuring that would have required more thumbs than Ravage had available. He used his claws to slit the package open and sunk it into the bath, shaking it a bit to empty it into the oil.
Bubbles spread across the surface of the oil and then began to foam, creeping upwards in a spatter of pips and pops. Ravage stepped back to watch as iridescent foam split off from the surface and floated away in little clumps of bubbles. He turned off the spigot and popped an errant bubble with his tail. The surface of the foam settled and stopped rising a few inches above the surface of the lip of the tub. Ravage left it to fetch Soundwave.
He'd worked his way out of his head and was now standing standing by one of the mirrored panels on the wall, swaying slightly as he watched his face in the reflection. Like a kid seeing a mirror for the first time, Ravage thought. "Come on, Soundwave," he called. "I've run up a bath, let's get you warmed up."
Soundwave turned towards him, visor gleaming. "It's warm here, Ravage."
"Yeah, I know. That's what heating's for."
"I like it," Soundwave said. He considered for a moment. "It's quieter here too."
"That's because we're so high up," Ravage said. "Farther away from most folks."
Soundwave wandered over to him, running his hand along the wall and leaving greasy streaks as he went. "It's easier to concentrate up here," he admitted.
"Of course it is," Ravage agreed. "Why do you think rich bots live like this? Come on."
He got Soundwave to hose himself off and then Ravage, taking advantage of Soundwave's comparatively numerous thumbs. Soundwave made a sound that sounded remarkably like a giggle as he watched Ravage roll onto his back and wiggle his legs to get his belly cleaned off. But Ravage must have simply been mishearing, because giggling was most certainly outside of Soundwave's emotional repertoire. Once they were marginally clean Ravage led them to the tub and it's towering mountain of bubbles.
Soundwave reached out a finger and lifted a handful of the stuff, examining it with great gravitas. "What is its function?" he asked.
"Distracting small bots who like pretty things," Ravage said dismissively.
"Ah," Soundwave said, shaking the clinging bubbles off his hand and watching them float through the air as they wafted back towards the floor. Ravage pointed him towards the steps that led into the tub and Soundwave descended carefully into the oil, bubbles nearly up to his chin once he sat down on the bench. He made a small pleased sound, sinking deeper as he relaxed into the hot oil. Ravage stepped gently into the shallow end and paddled through the all-enveloping foam over to Soundwave to perch on one of the shallower benches. It felt good, the oil soaking in through his plating and suffusing him with heat. It filled him with a foggy, sleepy false assurance that he'd never be cold again. A lie, but a pleasant one. They soaked in quiet silence for a long while; Soundwave softly running his hands through the bubbles to form little currents that wafted them in gentle circles.
Then the hellions got back, zooming through the open door in a stream of babble, sniping back and forth at each other as they circled the room. "What's this?" Laserbeak asked, catching sight of the opalescent bubbles and breaking off to land by the water. He reached out with one foot and poked a bubble, popping it in a spray of foam. He jumped back in surprise, plating ruffling up. Buzzsaw banked in for a landing behind him.
"It's a bath. Get in." Ravage jerked his head to wave towards the shallow bit.
Buzzsaw worked up the courage first, stepping into the shallow oil and stomping a bit. He paused and considered this. Then he flopped over into the bubbles and rolled over, wiggling his wings to roll back and forth in the bubbles. Laserbeak hopped in after him and skipped about, splashing the oil out of the pool as he chased after little floats of bubbles.
Gravely, Soundwave lifted a enormous handful of bubbles and set it on Laserbeak's back. He squawked in displeasure and shook the bubbles off in a spray, looking over his shoulder to glare at Soundwave accusingly.
"Supposed to be bathing," Soundwave said.
"Is that so?" Laserbeak said, stomping a splash of oil. Then with a dive, he disappeared under the surface of the oil, popping up on the other side of the pool with a tower of bubbles atop his head. Buzzsaw darted after him and they were off, scooting around under the bubbles and sending huge splashes of oil over the edges of the tub each time they broke the surface.
"Making a mess," Soundwave observed, watching them in amusement.
"Oh, buddy," Ravage said with a devious glint in his eyes. "I intend to destroy this apartment before we leave. Frag the senate. They don't deserve all this."
"Do we?" Soundwave asked.
"Nobody deserves to live with all this," Ravage said. "But for three days? Why not? It's the holidays."
After their bath, everybody trooped into the enormous berthroom, dragging blankets off couches to build a nest in the center of the couch to curl up in. "Didn't eat," Soundwave said, optics already dimmed low and making no motion to get up and get some fuel. Ravage was nestled up against his chest and he was feeling more sleepy than hungry and feeling generally disinclined to get up. The birds were already conked out, Buzzsaw curled into the space at the crook of Soundwave's neck and Laserbeak flopped over Ravage's back.
"We'll eat when we wake up," Ravage promised. Soundwave didn't answer him. When Ravage lifted his head to look and see, Soundwave had already sunk into recharge mode, sleep loosening the ever-present tension of his body. Ravage wormed a little deeper into their blanket nest and slept.
When he awoke the light was already dimmer than it should have been for that hour of the morning. Soundwave had woken him by uncurling out of their nest and was now sitting on the side of the berth watching Buzzsaw and Laserbeak sleep. They'd migrated closer together over the night, Laserbeak somehow ending up on his back with his legs twitching in the air. Ravage extricated himself, careful not to wake them, then migrated out into the living area. As he'd expected, Soundwave wandered out after him, still keeping a hand on the wall as he walked. Ravage lifted one of the candy-colored energon goodies from a display table and gulped it down. Too sweet for his tastes, but rich enough for a prime. Moving on, he began to nose open some of the cabinets, looking for something more appetizing for an early morning fueling. Soundwave drifted to the couch and sat down, watching Ravage.
Eventually he located a cabinet of gelled energon cubes and went back to get Soundwave to fetch it for him. Soundwave was still sitting there, looking out the window at the slightly copper-toned light spilling through. "Hey, I need a hand," Ravage said, propping his paws on Soundwave's lap to get his attention.
"The light looks wrong," Soundwave said.
"It's the start of the Blackout; Luna II is starting to cross over the sun," Ravage explained. "You can hear people talking about it all over, right?"
"Mm," Soundwave hummed. "Bits and pieces." He put his hand out to catch the golden light across his palm. "This doesn't feel real. It feels like a dream."
"It'll feel more real once you've gotten some fuel in you," Ravage said.
They fetched out the trays of gelled energon and Soundwave retracted his faceplate to eat. They had made it most of the way through the tray before the birds spilled out of the room to alight on the table and join them. "Thought you'd start without us?" Buzzsaw snipped.
"There's more food here than we could ever eat in three days," Ravage said.
Laserbeak was already happily pecking at the wobbling cube Soundwave had pushed his way. Gelled energon was much easier for them to eat than the liquid stuff, though the crystallized stuff would be even easier. They'd have a look around and see if they could find any later. Once they'd all finished stuffing their faces.
"How is one meant to celebrate this holiday?" Soundwave asked as they were finishing up, licking the remains of the last energon gel off his fingers. "What I'm hearing...it does not seem to add up or make sense. Is it religious?"
"Not so much," Ravage said. "It makes sense that it would seem...confusing. There's not really any official sort of celebration. But when Luna II covers the sun, the planet goes dark for several hours every year - in that time there's no productive work that could get done. Especially since the sudden cooling of the planet's surface brings extremely cold winds sweeping through and freezing everything in its path. So people have time off and the time is dismal and cold, so people try to make it something better by celebrating. I'd say things have mostly segregated into two camps - the rich and poor celebrations."
Ravage nodded his head at the window. "Down there people are either squirreling themselves away to avoid the cold or they're pouring out into the streets where they're going to dance and sing and-most of all-drink until the sun comes back. It's chaos, but lively chaos. Rich bots? They watch the poors as spectators from up on high, they play little fiddly games with knick-knacks, they put fancy powders in their energon to make it glow, maybe they sing along a bit. Mostly they just feed off the festive energy down below without having to get out of their blankets."
"And that is now us," Soundwave said.
"Naw, we're the first group - the common folk squirreling themselves away to keep warm. We've just cleverly squirreled us away in some rich bot's apartment. It's not like we have any of that fancy stuff to do a rich bot's celebration - since Themis and Dite were planning on celebrating in Iacon, they wouldn't have kept the apartment stocked."
Laserbeak interrupted. "Actually-"
"We squired-" Buzzsaw interjected.
"-found some things yesterday. So many rich bots leave their windows open!" Laserbeak continued.
"So many shiny things!" Buzzsaw added, practically hopping with excitement. "We were going to show you yesterday but then there was the bath and the bubbles and then you guys went to recharge so we kept it a surprise."
Ravage rubbed his head against his paws. "That's not terribly low-key, you two. I said subtle, don't attract attention."
"Patrol has better things to deal with than petty theft on the Blackout," Laserbeak said. "Lotsa crimes in the dark. They're busy busy, too busy for us."
"Well, you might as well show us," Ravage said. "Care to disgorge your treasure?"
"We didn't swallow it!" Laserbeak protested.
Buzzsaw stomped his foot. "That was only once."
"We're not stupid," Laserbeak added. "We put it under the berth."
"Very well," Ravage said. "Lead the way."
Golden light was spilling copper across the berth when they went to retrieve the birds' loot. Buzzsaw and Laserbeak hopped underneath and then backed out slowly, pulling a blanket out with them, covered in little golden spheres and foil-wrapped packets and boxes. Laserbeak happily jumped up onto the blanket and nudged some of the treasures closer to the center to make them into a pile. "Dunno what you do with them but they're pretty," he said, poking at one of the foil wrapped toys.
"We'll have to experiment," Ravage said, nosing at one of the golden spheres and trying to scent it out. "This might be an energon additive."
They poured off a cup of energon and dropped the golden sphere within. It fizzled and foamed, dissolving rapidly to color the energon gold and luminescent. It looked like liquid gold, glowing even brighter than normal fuel. "Weird," Ravage said, lapping at the surface to get a taste. It tasted weird, sure enough, rich and spicy and warming his tank up from the inside. He wasn't sure he liked it.
They moved onto the other treats. The foil-wrapped packets turned out to be packets of crystallized energon, which had Laserbeak and Buzzsaw sidetracked in an instant feeding frenzy. The rest of the shapes turned to be little decorative crystals and what looked like playing pieces for some game Ravage had never seen.
Soundwave crumpled one of the discarded wrapping foils in his hand and shook his head. "What a waste."
The light was growing truly dim now, the glow of their doctored golden drink the main source of light in the room. "Come on, let's all get out on the balcony and watch the show," Ravage said. They piled Soundwave with blankets and trooped out to watch the sun disappear. On the balcony they could see the lights on the street below wink out one by one as the light over the horizon did the same. There was no law that streetlights were forbidden during the Blackout, but the common bot's reaction to seeing lights on during the Blackout tended to be gross sabotage. A crowd that size tended to develop a mind of its own. Slowly, the assembled crowd below lost their features and colors to the darkness and transformed into a mass of moving shapes and brightly lit biolights.
The stomp of feet became a rhythm, the first heart of the music. The birds nestled on Soundwave's shoulders and under his blanket cape as they watched. The individuals in the crowd spun and whirled seemingly at random, and a second beat in counterpoint started up. The last of the light was swallowed up and a roar went through the crowd, stretching far into the distances. Soundwave clutched his blanket tight and watching the dancers, transfixed.
A low voice started up the song, a murmur of Old Cybertronian that bounced up and down the crowd in snatches. More and more of the dancers picked up the song and the multi-part harmony began to fill out. Soundwave rocked gently in response to the pull of the music, the technicolor crowd below writhing and whirling as they belted out a song almost none of them could understand. Ravage sat down and curled himself into the blanket at Soundwave's feet and settled in to watch the show.
Soundwave wasn't wrong. It did feel like a dream. One that would end all too soon. But...Ravage looked up at his people. They'd still be there when the light returned. He'd keep on keeping them safe, as long as it took. His people...he wondered when he'd stared to think of them that way. When he'd started on counting on anyone but himself.
He wasn't sure, but he didn't plan on stopping.