Chapter Text
“You feeling alright, kid?” Kup asks, tilting his right mirror to look back at Moonracer.
“Hm? Yeah. Why?”
“What do you mean, ‘why?’ You’re not hollering and doing flips like some kinda hot shot stunt-bot. You hit your helm or something?”
She fumbles for a quick explanation she can put in Hot Rod’s voice. “Met someone at camp who could actually keep up with me. Wore me out.” That still feels weak, so she tacks on, “You that bored without me, you old crankshaft?”
Kup mutters to himself before shooting back, “No, but the only time you’re this tired is when you’re sick. Gotta make sure you’re not about to bring some bug back to the Prime and his advisers.”
“Ah, you worry too much.” Moonracer scans ahead for a distraction and, spotting a well-shaped rock coming up on the side of the road, shifts speed and trajectory to use it to launch herself into the air. Time seems to slow as she flips, and she reminds herself that she’s done trick driving before, trying to keep her spark from racing. She lands neatly on her wheels. The relieved sigh she lets out is covered by the growl of her engine. “You happy now?”
“Happy? Kid, you try keeping your froward, egoistic aft in line and see how happy you’d be.” He doesn’t question her for the rest of the drive, though, so she takes that as a win.
For most of the drive to the palace, she lets Kup take the lead. It’s not like she knows the way, and letting on that she’s lost would draw more suspicion. She does, at one point, speed ahead just to loop and spin back to help sell the I’m totally Hot Rod thing, but overall keeps back until the grand gates are in sight and she feels confident hitting the accelerator.
Moonracer transforms into root-mode before she’s fully braked, skidding on her pedes almost right up to the gate. She straightens up and tries not to look too eager as she waits for Kup to catch up. She also tries not to make her awe too obvious, but it’s one thing to see the palace’s great golden spires and rainbow of crystal domes in pictures and another to be faced with the sheer scale of it in real life. She still has to be smiling too much, because Kup gives her an odd look as he reverts to root-mode and steps up next to her.
And as much as she has to force herself not to obviously examine every column and red running carpet and heavy, engraved door, it all goes completely out of helm when her optics find her sire on the dais of the great hall. There are formalities even here, she knows, and she tips her helm at the appropriate angle for a child of the Prime greeting their creator, as she and her twin practiced. Two bots she recognizes from the holos as Ironhide and Ultra Magnus stand at either side of Optimus, close enough to act against any threats, far enough for ceremony. Her sire rises from his throne and gently dismisses his council. Most bots leave the room, while Kup remains behind Moonracer, and Ironhide and Ultra Magnus take a few steps further out.
Optimus opens his arms to her, and Moonracer doesn’t need coaching to recognize an invitation for a hug. She doesn’t run. She wants so badly to run to him, but she forces herself to walk, albeit quickly, down the carpeted aisle and up the steps to her sire. She falls easily into his embrace. They don’t say a word, just stand with their arms around one another, letting how much they missed each other bleed through their EM fields. She knows he must be surprised by the intensity of her feelings, thinking that this is just the creation he sent off for much of the summer and not the one he hasn’t seen in stellar cycles, but he doesn’t comment, just pets the seams of her spoiler winglets with his knuckles while she buries her faceplate further in his windshield.
All too soon, her sire pulls back. His servos find her pauldrons and his optics find hers. “Hot Rod, I’m glad you’re home,” he says, and oh, the sound of his voice, so soft but deep and compelling…
“I’m glad to be—” Her vocoder crackles out as the image of her carrier rises back to the forefront of her processor. She clears it. “...Yeah.” She thinks she sees Ultra Magnus frown harder than before out of the corner of her optic, but something about it tells her that that’s actually a very Hot Rod response for her to use, if not for the same reasons.
Optimus, on the other hand, gets a little crinkle to his optics that suggests he’s smiling behind his mask. He squeezes her pauldrons before retreating completely. “I must review some reports on the progress of matters in Devisiun, but I will see you this evening for energon.”
Moonracer bites her glossa before she can mention information her twin wouldn’t know about the conflict between Devisiun’s native and transformer populations and fights the sinking of her spark at the loss of time with her sire. Hot Rod did warn her about the latter, after all. “...Right.”
She backs down the stairs of the dais. Optimus turns to leave, and Ultra Magnus and Ironhide start to follow. “Come on, Hot Rod,” Kup says. “Think you said something about being tired?”
That stops everyone in their tracks, and they turn back to regard her. Her spoiler hikes defensively. “There were a lot of races and hikes and archery competitions and whatever at camp, a-and there was this one bot who was at every. One. And I only got like...one clean win against her all summer.” Which would be true from a flipped perspective.
Ironhide leans back to mutter to Optimus, “‘N’ your Rodi would challenge ‘er to a rematch or five,” to which her sire clears his vents, though it sounds a bit like a laugh.
-----
Kup leads her up through the palace to the residential wing and stops at a door. It takes her a little longer than it should to notice they’ve arrived at what will be her room for the orbital cycle. She hopes she covers the way her pedes falter well. “Thanks, Kup.”
He looks at her like she’s grown a second helm. “Thanks?”
Scrap. “You know...For looking out for little ol’ me,” she says, trying for a teasing tone. “Worrying about me like I’m sick and scrud.”
“Well, one of us has to care about your well-being,” he grumbles, “when a whole system of planets would grieve if something happened to you.”
And just like that, it’s not just the enormity of the palace that overwhelms her but that of her status. Because no, she’s not the twin they need to think she is, but she is the Prime’s youngling nonetheless. Now she understands the pressure on Hot Rod on a whole new level. It’s not just what he does but how he fairs through it all. “I’m fine,” she says blankly.
Moonracer lets herself into Hot Rod’s room and closes the door behind her. While she’s tempted to head right for the berth—which is curtained with rich, flame-colored cloth and looks more plush than her own at home—she sees this as a prime opportunity to snoop on her twin. She has no doubt he is—or will be, when he arrives—doing the same in her place.
On either side of the berth, she finds a door, which a peek out of shows a balcony with a courtyard view she’ll want to check out sometime when she’s not trying to keep out of sight. There’s a little table in a corner that looks set for having treats and energon tea. Further back towards the door to the hall and pushed against the opposite wall is a wardrobe, which she opens to find several ceremonial capes. Back at the foot of the berth, there’s an unassuming trunk in which she finds a few trinkets: a ballobot, a signed cube, a small toolkit, a solar wave board, an untouched book of etiquette...
She’s about to leave it all alone until she spots something at the bottom of the trunk. She sets the other items aside and tugs at a ribbon peeking out of a crack. The panel lifts and unfolds, unveiling print after print of lobbing star Springer, mostly captures of him during a game, but more than a few promotional shots that tell Moonracer more than she strictly wants to know about her twin’s interest in the bot. She folds the expandable shrine back into place and quickly piles the trunk’s contents back inside.
Moonracer flops chestplate-down on the berth, sinking into the cushion a little. Saying she’s tired is mostly just an excuse for why she might not be acting at Peak Hot Rod, but she does actually feel a little worn out, between the work she and her twin put into getting ready, the drive to the palace, and the quality of the berths, though anything seems a downgrade compared to the primeling’s. Despite the creeping fatigue, she wants to stay alert and keeping track of her chronometer so she can comm. her twin when she’s sure he’ll have a moment alone. It’s a losing battle, though, and once she remembers the time difference between their locales anyway, it isn’t long until she slips into recharge.
-----
“You’re probably tired from the shuttle ride,” Elita says, giving Hot Rod’s servo a little squeeze. Instead of transforming and driving after they get free of the crowd like he expects, they keep strolling down a road lined with cafes and little shops. In truth, Hot Rod feels as energetic as ever, wishing he could let his motor run for a little bit.
But he figures that if his carrier says it, it’s probably what she expects of Moonracer. “Oh, oh yeah. I am. Camp was really fun, but there was so much to do.”
Chromia gives him a strange look. “Probably not that much more than you do usually.”
“Well.” He braces his servos behind his back and tries to think of how to backtrack without raising more alarm. “No, that’s true. But there was this bot at camp who...really drove me up the wall. We made peace eventually, but I think it was the most difficult diplomatic challenge I’ve ever faced.”
Elita huffs a laugh. “We all face bots like that sometimes.” She leans in a little closer and lowers her voice as she adds, “And unfortunately, not all of them can be handled with martial diplomacy.”
“Speak for yourself,” says Chromia. “I’ve found that most problems can be solved with a swift kick to someone’s skidplate.”
“If you can stay awake a little longer, I’d like to take you to Safety, just to be sure that spoiler was installed right. Then, you can take a nap when we get back.”
Hot Rod feels the suggestion roil in his tank. He doesn’t want some strange medic poking around in connections he knows were set up properly, ages ago, but that feels like a protest that would be too suspicious to make. “I don’t think I’ll need a nap,” he says eventually. He racks his processor for an excuse. “Camp and here are in different time zones. If I recharge now, I’ll get my on cycles and off cycles confused. I could go for a shower, though. Some bolt-helm at camp messed with the showers, and they never worked exactly right afterwards.” Still not his worst prank of the summer, but maybe something he could’ve thought through a little better.
“Bolt-helm?” As soon as the words leave his carrier’s intake, Hot Rod knows what a mistake that simple, compound word is. Moonracer would dress up the phrasing, wouldn’t she? Treat it with something she’d call delicacy and he’d call beating around the Langton’s loopbrush? But Elita just continues, “My, that bot really must’ve frustrated you.”
“Yeah. But, strangely, I think we might become really good friends. Maybe even someone I could call a sibling.”
-----
Safety, of course, clears Hot Rod completely, saying that the spoiler was installed expertly and that he would almost think it had been on his frame for stellar cycles, if he didn’t know Moonracer so well. Hot Rod is just thankful that being twins means that his spark resonance and Moonracer’s are too similar for even medics to notice the difference unless they know they’re supposed to be looking for it, or else this plan would be out the window before the sol is through, let alone the orbital cycle.
Just as they walked to the clinic, Hot Rod, Elita, and Chromia walk the rest of the way to their residence, a building with an office on the first floor and housing on the two above it. The office floor has a reception area at the front, with couches and chairs that look comfortable but not especially expensive, though Hot Rod isn’t sure it’s fair to compare anything here to the ornate pieces in practically every room of the palace. A desk with a computer suggests where the end of the reception room lies and where the workspace beyond begins. The tech inside is not state-of-the-art, but it’s better than functional, with a long-range comm. hook-up and more than a couple computers with deep database connections. The stairs to the upper floors are towards the back on the left.
The shower turns out to be a relief, though he’s missing all his favorite cleansers and waxes. It takes him a klik to adjust the solvent pressure, but then the warm liquid washes out all the tension and grit from his frame, along with the feel of an unfamiliar bot prodding around his plating. When he steps out of the shower and sees himself in the mirror, though, he gets the fleeting sensation of being out of one’s own frame; it had been one thing to see himself and Moonracer in each other's helm and colors when they were together, but it’s another to see himself in her colors and her home. As he towels himself off, though, the motion and the feel of it helps ground himself in his own frame.
This is still his own frame. He’s just made some temporary changes to it, and he’ll be back to himself in an orbital cycle. It’s worth it to spend some time with his carrier.
And looking like Moonracer in her home also gives him the opportunity to snoop on her. He knows she’ll probably do the same in his room, if she hasn’t already. And honestly, doesn’t it technically count as further research into their roles? Thus justified to himself, he heads for the room he’s been able to reason must be Moonracer’s from context clues like which way Elita went and the fact that the door says Moonracer on it.
Inside, he finds a berth with thinner padding than his own but still blessedly thicker than a camp bunk’s, surrounded by assorted knickknacks cramped into a space about half or less than he has at the palace. Over in a corner, about where he thinks his tea table would be, Moonracer has a mechano-meditation mat rolled out and, next to that, a forked branch on a stand with a complicated web woven between the forks. There are clear crystal beads on some of the lines of web, like little dew drops, and when he pokes one, it rings a little chime through the room. Another corner of the room has a kind of sled propped up against it, painted zig-zagging lines of red, green, and brown. And while the various sculptures and instruments and everything look cool, very little of it looks to him like Moonracer.
That changes as his attention is drawn to about a dozen pictures hanging on the wall above the berth. He has to climb on top of the berth to get a close enough look, but when he does, he can see that most of them are of Moonracer and their carrier, all on different planets—one with massive Cybertronians, one with tiny Cybertronians, one with technoorganics, one with bots shaped in ways Hot Rod has never seen before. There’s one with Moonracer and Flareup gagging in the foreground while Powerglide, behind them, makes out with some yellow Seeker. Another with Blurr looks so much more tender than the one she’d shown him at camp, Blurr sprawled on the ground with an open, sparking stabilizer and Moonracer seated next to him, gently examining the damage.
He tears his optics away from the pictures before he can get too absorbed and heads back down to the office. He told his carrier that he doesn’t need to sleep yet, after all, and she’s bound to get curious about what he’s up to if he disappears for too long.
-----
Moonracer boots up to a rap on Hot Rod’s door. There’s more of a lag than usual for her processor to catch up with her frame, but then she slips out of berth and over to the door. She finds Kup on the other side. “What’s going on? Why’d you wake me...you, uh, old grump?”
“Thought we’d get some shooting in before you need to shower and meet up with your sire,” he says.
“Maybe I should just skip straight to the shower and—”
“That’s not a request.”
Her vocoder feels sticky. She nods.
The walk down to the archery range and the cooling air of the evening does something to reinvigorate her heavy helm, and by the time she has Hot Rod’s custom bow in servo, testing its weight and string, she’s feeling very lively. Kup sets up a trio of targets and sets them back far down the courtyard from her.
Moonracer isn’t daunted by the distance; she thinks they’re only a little further out than the camp targets. She nocks three arrows in quick succession and lets them fly. As each nails center target, she hears Kup let out a low whistle behind her. “I think that’s the best shooting I’ve seen since the Quints were wriggling everywhere.”
She shrugs, though she can’t let go of the swell of pride that rises within her, her spoiler flicking with joy. “...Like I said, they had archery at camp, and Poptimus is known for his sharpshooting skill. Can I even call myself his creation if I can’t live up to that?”
“There’s just one problem.” Before she knows it, Kup has her servos trapped between her back and his chestplate and a vambrace tight at her throat. She drops the bow. “You’re not Hot Rod.”
“What? Of course I—” She cuts herself off as he tightens his grip. While she doesn’t need to breathe, it still shoots agony up her sensors, and she has no doubt that he could disconnect something vital between her helm and chassis if he wanted.
“Try again. See, your spoiler keeps wiggling like it’s freshly installed, and you aren’t moody or reckless enough to be our primeling. You and your EM field flinch every time you throw an insult. But on the other servo, you seem a little too naive for an assassin. You don’t know the layout of the palace, which is weird for a thief, who should have some kind of map or have scouted ahead. I’d say you’re just some kind of royalty fanatic, but our real Hot Rod is missing. So who are you, exactly?”
He squeezes just that little bit more that makes her finally blurt out, “Moonracer! My name is Moonracer.”
All at once, the pressure retreats and she’s spun around so fast she feels her helm whip. She reaches up to soothe the overtaxed pain-receptors in her neck. Kup grips one of her pauldrons, pinches her chin with his other servo, and stares intensely into her optics. After a moment, his grip loosens as he curses deeply, and then he can’t seem to stop cursing for a good, long while.