Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was something altogether relaxing about going on-shift, Ultra Magnus dared to think as he settled at his desk at exactly 0700 joors with a mug of hot energon cradled in one hand.

It could have been the structure. Four joors of work, a half joor allotted for refueling and other personal matters, and then four more joors of work. A comfortable pattern punctuated by every tick of the chronometer. Or it could have been the paperwork itself, and how good it felt to do something meaningful and productive.

It certainly wasn't-

"Hey, Magnus!" Bumper greeted him from the neighboring desk as he sat down with a stretch, approximately 1.2 breems late to his shift. Unlike Ultra Magnus' own workspace, kept neat and tidy with minimal personal affects (that is to say, none,) Bumper had an assortment of gadgets and personal stills and decorative objects with inscrutable purpose, placed in such a way as to accommodate the room needed for him to prop his feet up on the desk in a brazen disregard for propriety and also the Greater Iacon Area Police Code. "What's shaking?"

That was a phrase that often meant: how are you? Equally inscrutable synonyms included: what's up? It was a ridiculous turn of phrase, and Ultra Magnus did not wish to reward it by responding in kind. "Good morning, Bumper. Have you reviewed my notes on your last patrol log? Station policy dictates corrections must be submitted by 0900." His extensive and frankly unnecessary social programs were rarely engaged, these days, to make way for his work-related processes. Other than perfunctory greetings, that was, which were more than sufficient.

Bumper sighed. "Good talk, big guy. Good talk. As always."

-it certainly wasn't his coworkers, who occasionally attempted to engage him in conversation, only for both sides to come away unsatisfied and occasionally uncomfortable.

(It was perfectly alright. Ultra Magnus didn't look forward to work every day because of the people there. That would be ridiculous and counterproductive. He looked forward to work because he liked the work.

It was the point of him, after all. Everyone had their function, and Ultra Magnus' function was to enforce the law.

He'd chosen to do so by filing paperwork, regardless of the Functionist senators who occasionally sent the department strongly worded memos along the lines of STOP MAKING YOUR VERY LARGE TRUCK DO YOUR PAPERWORK AND PUT HIM OUT ON PATROL, which Ultra Magnus was only aware of because Barricade had shown him one of them, once, allowing him to witness the file's swift deletion. Ultra Magnus could not approve of deleting memos until they had been properly replied to, and even then, records were important for the sake of transparency and future reference. It had been Barricade doing so, however, which gave him the leeway to simply be thankful for his superior's consideration of his preferences.)

Ultra Magnus turned back to the black box in front of him, pulling a data cable spooled in the back of his helm and connecting into the enforcer database. It recognized his digital signature and obligingly unlocked. He got down to work: organizing and tagging reports, reviewing patrol records, flagging inconsistencies, archiving information on emergency calls. His HUD glowed brightly as the text scrolled; information displayed using a custom font he'd designed himself in appreciation of the understated beauty of ninety degree angles.

"Hey, Mags! Guess who's up to his usual tricks?" Cadet Strongarm declared, and Ultra Magnus opened his optics to watch her approach and deposit a disappointingly familiar mech in the chair on the other side of Ultra Magnus' desk. The sight of it made his spark sink.

Oh no.

Swindle looked Ultra Magnus over with undisguised amusement. It felt a little like a cybercat eyeing a glitchmouse, despite the stasis cuffs slapped around his wrists and the many scuffs on his frame.

"Hey there, Maggie," Swindle said. He leaned back just enough to lever his knee over the edge of the desk. He nudged the stack of datapads at the corner towards Ultra Magnus until he had enough horizontal space to rest his crossed feet, with his chair tilted on its back legs at approximately 47.7 degrees. "Mags, Magnus my good mech-"

Ultra Magnus gritted his teeth, frustration simmering slowly higher. "What did he do this time?" he asked Strongarm, not even bothering to give Swindle the attention he was obviously begging for.

"C'mon, you don't even want to hear it from me?"

"What do you think?" Strongarm rolled her eyes in Ultra Magnus' direction. A possible gesture of commiseration?

"Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law," Ultra Magnus reminded Swindle, as though Swindle cared. He'd never made it to a trial before; his various connections weaseled him out every time.

Swindle, of course, simply laughed.

"I bet my fist in his faceplate would help him with that attitude," Bumper commented casually, as though simply observing the weather, and right there was the streak of cruelty that Ultra Magnus often noted amongst his peers. It was what made him question his chosen career the most— as much as he believed in the law, he had concerns over the way his station currently enforced them. Abusing the vulnerable, excusing those with power and influence and money… everyone was supposed to be equal under the law, on paper, and yet, in reality…

He wondered if any other stations were having the same issues.

Some days he wondered if he should have become a lawyer, but the entrance requirements for any kind of law degree were stringent, and he didn't have much of a background to support his application. Someday, perhaps, when he had a solid employment record.

He carefully transcribed Strongarm's report, ignoring the way Swindle leaned even further forward. "Hey, hey mech, hey Magnus, you interested in any-"

He'd never get to hear what Swindle was trying to sell him.

The front doors burst open with a metallic bang.

"Turn on the news!" Smokescreen demanded loudly, frantically, just as nearly every internal and external comm line in the place began to buzz, interference making them crackle and pop and cross-talk. From across the room, Ultra Magnus watched Barricade tense, optics growing wide, pushing himself to his feet. Something was wrong. Something was terribly, awfully wrong.

Someone wrestled with the remote for several moments amidst the rising fearful confusion in the room, a shared emotion growing strong enough for even Ultra Magnus' blunted EM field to sense. Then the big TV on the wall flickered to life, already set to the news, and the entire room grew still.

Onscreen, a reporter held his hand up to his face, speaking into a microphone embedded in his fingertip. Behind him, a familiar building burned. A wall collapsed in a puff of sparks and smoke and debris, to the sound of distant, muffled shouts.

Ultra Magnus felt numb.

"-officials have just arrived at the scene. I-I repeat, this is Scrounge with Iacon Central News, and as you can see behind me, there is nothing but chaos at the Iacon Senate building, as it appears someone has set off explosives-"

Nightstalker vented inwards, a sharp hiss.

In the midst of the cold panic pervading the room, Barricade stepped in front of the screen, expression flat. His EM field stretched as far as it could go, a heavy electric thrum of forced calm-focus-alert, and every 'bot in the room straightened their posture nearly imperceptibly. "Central needs reinforcements. All servos on deck, grab anything you can't live without for at least three cycles and notify anyone you need to notify, we leave in four breems." He pointed at various 'bots around the room. "Strongarm, Bumper, and Nightra remain here, call in anyone currently off-shift that'll pick up."

No one moved. It was as though the situation had welded Ultra Magnus to the floor, limbs heavy, as his processor struggled to wrap itself around the implications. If the entire Senate was, Primus forbid, gone in one fell swoop, what did that mean for law and order?

Barricade clapped his palms together, loudly. "Go!"

Everyone scattered.

For all that the Senate building was in shambles, the roads just outside were somehow worse. A crowd of mechs milling about at the fringes of the disaster swelled with each passing breem, trying to help or trying to gawk or trying to shout at someone else about what it all meant.

Scuffles were growing more and more frequent. No riots, yet, but it was only a matter of time.

While a number of his coworkers sifted through the rubble for survivors and bodies, Ultra Magnus was assigned to crowd control by virtue of his stature alone. Few wanted to mess with those wide shoulders or fists as big as an average mech's head. Most of the time, it was enough to simply loom over two shouting onlookers, letting his shadow fall across them both, to cut them off and rattle them into backing away.

If he had to physically tear them apart, it was usually a matter of clamping down on spoilers or wing bases or kibble and simply pulling. He wasn't entirely strong enough to scruff two people at once and dangle them above the ground, exactly, but the effect was close.

"That sicko wants anarchy!" the mech held back by his left fist insisted, with his fist still drawn back in preparation to punch, straining to lean forwards towards his opponent. "He's happy people died! What if they bomb your workplace next? Huh?"

"Bootlicker!" the other spat, coiled like a spring, something wild in his widened optics and sharp gritted teeth. "They ground us under their heel for so long, you've come to enjoy the taste of the dirt! Any survivors will be running scared! They'll have to listen to the people now! We're free!"

"Yeah, well, freedom don't mean much when everything's on fire!"

"Go home," Ultra Magnus rumbled, deep and commanding, refusing to budge. He would not let this situation devolve into a riot. "Both of you. You are in direct contravention of the Greater Iacon civil code, article 7-"

Both of them scoffed at him. "Like the law means anything, anymore," one of them interrupted. "Who's gonna make 'em? Who's gonna enforce 'em?"

Ultra Magnus narrowed his eyes. "Me," he said, dark and cold as the cellars of the Undercity in late winter. "I will enforce them."

The law had to mean something.

What did Ultra Magnus have, if not the law?

Who was he?

"Get your stupid cop hands off of him!"

Something heavy and solid knocked into his side, forceful and sudden enough to loosen his fingers in surprise, and the two mechs wriggled free and scurried in opposite directions as Ultra Magnus stumbled and overbalanced. As he fell, he caught the barest glimpse of his attacker; dirt streaks and deep scratches and stocky build indicating a laborer by trade. Forged or built heavy enough to knock Ultra Magnus on his aft before grasping one of the fleeing mechs by the kibble and scrambling into the crowd.

On the ground, Ultra Magnus vented in sharply. There was most definitely a scrape along the back of his left leg, deep enough to sting, and though he wasn't a particularly vain mech, he wasn't particularly used to pain, either.

At least those two troublemakers weren't likely to clash again.

As he twisted to press a hand on the ground and push himself up, a shout parted the crowd, and then a stranger stepped into the corner of his vision. Ultra Magnus looked upwards.

"Are you alright?" The mech held out his hand as though he had the strength to pull a mech of Ultra Magnus' size to his feet.

He was a blue and red vehicle frame of average height with an enforcer badge on his shoulder, square windshields on his chest suggesting a truck alt mode, narrowing concerned matrix-blue optics from above a solid silver faceplate. He looked familiar, though Ultra Magnus wasn't in the right frame of mind to place him.

Ultra Magnus reached for his hand, just to be polite. The truck heaved, stumbling only a little at the weight, and in a click, Ultra Magnus found himself back upright, surprised and a little impressed.

The two of them turned as one to look at the mess on the streets, the smashed glass and crunched metal and the frightened and angry observers hefting makeshift weapons as though preparing for war.

"Well, slag," the other mech commented flatly, sounding exhausted, staring down the barrel of a very long and arduous night trying to keep people alive and unharmed. "I'm Orion Pax, by the way. Central Iacon."

Ah. That was the blurry recognition that had been nagging at the edges of his attention, now clicking into place. He'd seen the mech in the spotlight of some official enforcer functions, accepting award after award for his service with the same humble bow. "Ultra Magnus," Ultra Magnus introduced himself. "Rodion branch."

In front of them, the noise of the crowd grew in volume and pitch, the collective group balanced on a knife's edge. Magnus could see the crowd devolving into at least two clear sides; one, ranging from expressions of joy at the carnage in the Senate to something tinged a little more manic. The other, afraid, and that fear curdling into a tangible teeth-gritting, wide-eyed anger. He could read it in their EM fields, something anxious and violent stirring, a tense thrum of rage Ultra Magnus could very nearly hear.

"Gentlemechs," Orion declared loudly, holding his hands out, palms face-down, a calming gesture. "We understand some of you have grievances. We understand you're concerned. This is neither the time nor the place. Go home. The news will provide more information on the situation here soon enough."

The crowd didn't look assuaged. No one turned to leave. A short distance away, Scrounge was still speaking into his microphone finger, optics wide.

And then, like a support in a dam creaking, snapping, shattering…

It all broke apart.

Ultra Magnus went on-shift at 0700 joors, 4th cycle 504, 2nd Chord. He never quite went off shift afterwards.

The cleanup at the Senate took cycles, and though Barricade had halfheartedly attempted to send people out as the long joors of the night cycle ticked back into day, they really did need all available hands and he was not in a position to refuse them, even as the military rolled in.

Ultra Magnus had seen someone pulling Barricade aside as the first soldiers set up a full blockade around the burning ruins, the two of them speaking in low tones for what felt like an eternity; Zeta, he thought he remembered from newscasts, though he didn't keep up with current events to the same degree after moving out of the House.

Barricade had broken the news to his team later that cycle, tired and soot-streaked and frustrated. He'd given them a choice, even though Ultra Magnus doubted he'd been instructed to do so.

If you don't believe in this, you can quit, Barricade had told them, frankly, quietly, off to the side. You signed up to be an enforcer, not a soldier or a— a pawn in their political game. Just because Zeta's pulling all this slag an' rolling us into the Autobots doesn't mean you have to comply.

As the fires of the Senate slowly cooled, Zeta had wasted no time in stepping forward and wresting control of the situation. He'd named himself Prime and publicly invoked several ancient policies that allowed a Prime in wartime to re-absorb local enforcement organizations into the military from whence they'd once, long ago, been an offshoot.

Ultra Magnus went back to his apartment to pick up his things; a maintenance kit, sixteen datapads, the few fuel additives he kept in stock for himself, and one star employee award for 'dedication.' He had never needed much, though he hadn't quite realized how little he had until he held it in a box under a single arm. The bits and bobs of his life barely filled the trunk in the Iacon military base that was now his.

This was the first time the Decepticon movement had gone on the attack, and with it, something fundamental had changed in both the atmosphere and structure of Cybertron. Fundamental and irrevocable.

Ultra Magnus had never been comfortable with physical altercations— for all his size and strength, he'd never wanted to have to resort to the sort of actions that required use of them. He'd always valued his mind above all else, believing that the power of words could accomplish what mere muscle could not.

His feelings on the subject no longer mattered.

He hefted the gun—built with mechs of his size in mind, because his sort of build was rare but slightly more common in the military—lined up a shot, peering through the scope

Ultra Magnus was determined to practice until he was, at the very least, acceptable.

Ultra Magnus usually took his energon alone, standing up in a corner because it was an uncomfortable fit for the fueling room benches, large as he was, and he couldn't bear to sit using any method other than the correct way for which they were manufactured. It meant he never had company.

That was fine with him. He was used to it.

The metal-on-metal clank of Orion Pax leaning up against the wall beside him was unexpected, and he stiffened in surprise, a clear counterpoint to Orion Pax's casual slouch.

"Orion Pax," he said, a question couched in a greeting. What was he doing there?

Orion Pax's optics crinkled, and as he retracted his battle mask, Ultra Magnus was subjected to the uncomfortably friendly, slightly lopsided smile underneath.. "Orion, please. All my friends call me Orion."

They had met once.

Did Orion Pax think that qualified them to be friends?

(What did make people 'friends'? Ultra Magnus had never been entirely certain of the process. He had always understood it to be an undertaking of significant time and effort on both sides, until… something distinct happened, or some particular level of familiarity and comfort was reached. Something more than a single helping hand.)

"Orion," he corrected himself. Then he took a sip of his energon, because he wasn't entirely sure what to say next. Did he need to say anything? Was companionable silence Orion's goal with this interaction?

He took another sip of his energon in lieu of further conversation.

"What did you think about yesterday's… engagement?" Orion asked after a moment.

And, well, wasn't that an interesting question. "I found both sides to be in direct contravention of several military acts and civil codes."

Orion froze for a moment, then loosened back up, taking another sip of his own fuel. "Both sides?" he asked, curiously. "Not just the Decepticons?"

"A number of actions taken by the Autobot military yesterday directly violated planetary law, beginning with the decision to undertake preventative maneuvers in a populated area without evacuation protocols in place." He'd been uncomfortable taking part in it— it was one thing to be dispatched to an area with confirmed Decepticon action, and another to be so proactive as to nearly invade a city and bring it into lockdown to prevent said actions from occurring.

"And you don't think that it's worth any price— bringing down these… terrorists?" Orion sounded almost hesitant. Thoughtful.

"If it comes at the cost of the civil liberties of the average Cybertronian citizen, then absolutely not," was Ultra Magnus' immediate, instinctive reply. "The law is very clear about who it applies to and in what situations, and for those in power to ignore the law at their own discretion is a quick slide into authoritarianism."

Orion hummed thoughtfully, tilting his head, still looking at Ultra Magnus with those piercing blue optics. "I don't think I've ever heard an enforcer say anything like that before."

"I wasn't particularly popular at my station," said Ultra Magnus, and for a moment it almost felt like a point of pride.

Orion outright laughed at that. "Fair enough!"

A distant ding alerted them to the end of the half-joor allotted to their fueling. Ultra Magnus cleared his vents, resisting the urge to shift self-consciously, aware of the empty energon mug in his hand and the recycling station several steps away and the next shift that had just begun. "My apologies. It's an interest of mine, you see; the legal system, and the application of such. I realize that most others find it rather dull."

Orion's optics crinkled further, even as his battlemask slid across his widening smile. "On the contrary! I found all of this to be enlightening."

Enlightening-?

Orion Pax certainly was odd.

Once he was in Orion's sights, it was as though Orion felt obligated to keep seeking him out for some inscrutable reason. Ultra Magnus wondered, sometimes: what was Orion hoping to gain from their interactions? It couldn't be because Orion enjoyed talking to him. No one enjoyed talking to him.

Orion would sidle up to him during shooting drills, giving him advice in such a calm, casual manner that it didn't feel like a correction.

He stopped by Ultra Magnus' habitation suite during their off-hours to drop off a copy of A Comprehensive History of Punctuation that he'd found at a secondhand datapad shop, then had acted surprised and utterly delighted when Ultra Magnus had done the same with some of Orion's hard-to-find additive cravings several orbital cycles later.

Orion was a busy mech, but he made time to respectfully schedule some evenings into Ultra Magnus' carefully-kept calendar for the two of them to debate issues of morality and of process. Orion's debate strategy wasn't polished to perfection, his words far from knife-sharp, and he bounced too quickly from topic to topic, but he was passionate and curious and didn't seem to mind the moments Ultra Magnus let go and allowed himself the luxury of a small informational ramble here or there.

Was this what Orion meant when he called them friends?

"..and U.M., you should get yourself to Medical. That was a hard hit you took."

Though he could barely hear the words over the piercing ringing, Ultra Magnus nodded and saluted.

You should wasn't an order.

The cycling of his spark had returned to resting rate, but the ringing in his audials never quite settled, and by the time Ultra Magnus had shuffled back to his quarters, ducking in through the door and bending his knees to fit himself in the uncomfortably small space, it had become quite clear that there was something wrong internally.

The noise, high-pitched and irregular, was a terrible bother, and he'd never be able to recharge while it stabbed itself ceaselessly into his processor.

He did not go to Medical.

He reached back to engage the lock on the door, waited a moment, and pushed a palm firmly against it to confirm the lock had properly initialized. Then he sat down in his habitation suite's single chair—they'd had to order one specifically his size because he couldn't quite fit inside the average chair in the barracks—and vented out, one curt exhale.

He disconnected himself from his head's sensory suite and processor and the world around him went dark and muffled. The ringing, too, stopped. Thank Primus.

It was difficult to touch something delicately with such large fingers, but he managed; a slight press underneath his chin released an invisible catch, and his head rolled backwards. Precise pressure on the right spot on the back of his neck, and his head came loose. He lifted it away from his shoulders and cradled it in his hands.

Within his chest, deep in the delicate internals, another release clicked, and his chestplates swung open. Leaning out from the Magnus armor, Minimus Ambus stared critically down at the head of Ultra Magnus, and reached for his toolkit.

Chapter Text

Dominus Ambus and Minimus Ambus had both emerged from the hot spot together; the blacksmith had turned to the House representative with one fluttery green ball of energy in each hand and an apologetic look on his face.

Their House had only ever wanted one.

The House of Ambus received everything they could have ever dreamed of in Dominus, whose clever mind and diplomatic turn of phrase could smooth the sharpest of edges and convince even the most obstinate to change their minds.

Minimus was average.

Worse than that; he had foibles.

Where Dominus took to the doublespeak of high society like a native language, Minimus struggled not to take things literally. Minimus floundered and failed, on many an occasion, to understand what others were feeling or thinking—or even himself, sometimes. He loved studying rules, and had no compunctions about letting people know when they were broken without regard to their social status or whether it was an acceptable setting or moment, though he'd been learning better over time.

While Dominus Ambus flourished in the spotlight, Minimus Ambus was, as he understood it, better seen and not heard.

The one insufficiency the two of them shared was their size and their alt modes; for the first five stellar cycles after their forging, the House of Ambus had fretted and dithered on whether either of them were worth the investment. Mechanimal alts were not easy to hide with fake kibble, and it did their House no good to have representatives that one had to bend down to speak eye-to-eye with.

In Minimus' earliest memories, they had both been the shame of their House.

Their loadbearing sparks turned out to be their saving grace, however—after their limits were tested, the two of them were granted outer shells with socially acceptable alt modes, and thus had begun Dominus' ascension into a lifetime of achievements and recognition.

(He had an inner drive that Minimus could scarcely understand. Whatever Dominus' optics settled on, he was already seeing beyond, always dreaming of more, never content to stay, to appreciate what he had. Learning excited him, possibilities invigorated him, and every opportunity was an opportunity to be better than who he'd been last cycle.

Next to him, Minimus always felt oddly small.)

It was during the testing phase that Minimus learned of the sole advantage he had over Dominus: his spark's animating force was many times stronger. If his House had spared the expense, his day-to-day shell could have been large enough for even average mechs to have to look up to converse with. He'd allowed himself to hope, just a little, that he'd be permitted this one difference, only because it would mean looking in the mirror and possibly seeing anyone but Dominus looking back.

Dominus' spark would grow in strength over time, stretching and adapting to Dominus' needs, but by that point they would have had attended far too many socials and been introduced to far too many people. There would be questions.

The moment he'd slid himself into the shell for the first time, Minimus had resigned himself to the knowledge that he was simply not allowed to be better than his brother.

To make the situation worse, Dominus was kind. He'd been patient with every one of Minimus' struggles.

He was simply distant. The more his accomplishments had grown, the more planets he'd visited and treatises he'd written and academic conferences he'd hosted, the more it felt like the two of them had begun speaking different languages altogether.

Then Dominus had started going off on longer and longer trips. A book deal had him on tour, an expedition hired him on as a long-term diplomat, he'd begun lectures at Iacon University that provided him room and board, to the point that he never needed to come back to the House of Ambus at all…

The few quiet afternoons that Minimus and Dominus had once shared, the few moments of commiseration between them across crowded halls or huddling behind a statue with hands full of snuck treats, grew fewer and far between until they vanished altogether. Dominus, piece by piece, disappeared from Minimus' life; his favorite energon additives gone from the cupboards, his favorite datapads missing from the House library, his room accumulating dust.

Leaving Minimus behind.

He'd received the occasional invitation to a lecture. He'd been an advance reader of The Ascetic Cybertronian and had provided such feedback as to encompass three times the book's word count. Still, Dominus drifted further, leaving his brother an occasional afterthought.

Minimus lived his life as spare heir to the House pacing the manor walls like a cage. He had little to do to occupy himself, and yet every time he appealed to be allowed to put his idle hands and his circling mind to work, he'd been rebuffed. It wasn't appropriate. It reflected poorly on his House that any member would seek any kind of gainful employment outside of the political sector.

Fine, then. Minimus Ambus would not be the one employed.

He collected his allowance, any monetary gifts and the few scattered favors he'd accumulated. He built up an account separate from any House finances.

He commissioned a custom suit of armor that he could integrate with.

He had it made quite large. He had a list of reasons as long as his arm (his future arm, that is) as to why, but he knew it had, in some quiet, secret way that he would never dare to voice, come down to spite. He'd been confined his entire life to Dominus' limits. He wanted to exercise his own.

(He could have gone even larger, in all honesty, but he'd scaled his new body down into something approaching reasonable. He had to fit through doors, after all.)

Faced with the opportunity to recreate himself, Minimus had been oddly jittery, something he eventually managed to place as excitement. He'd had so little to be excited about, before. He found himself eagerly anticipating every new message from the designer as a way to discover himself and his wants.

Blue, pure, statistically a calm color, had always been his favorite.

No crest of the House of Ambus rested on the armor's face. Nothing to prove. Beholden to no one other than itself. A truck alt mode, because it was either that or industrial equipment, and Minimus Ambus was not prepared to fall quite that far down on the societal ladder. A strong jaw, as suggested by the armor's crafter, to match the wide shoulders and large hands.

No one would ignore a mech of that size. No one would relegate him to sitting in elegant foyers and politely smiling in the corner of official functions.

When he'd seen the finished product, his processor had stalled in a moment of great mental disconnect. This is going to be my face, he'd told himself, but he couldn't quite make himself believe it. It was too large, too much, despite being exactly the specifications he had discussed with the crafter.

It took up space in a way that Minimus had never.

He couldn't even imagine what the world must look like from up there.

The first time he'd put on the armor in the private of his newly purchased private residence, carefully activating the forty-seven catches he'd familiarized himself with in the schematics and feeling the satisfying jolt of full integration, he'd immediately looked in the mirror. The electric, unfamiliar joy of not seeing Dominus Ambus' inadequate younger brother looking back had been enough to make him blink away momentary coolant welling from his optics.

(It looked different, streaking down a pale blue face. It felt different, too—Ultra Magnus' sensory suite was more extensive than Minimus' own, either in the body he was forged with or the shell he wore. There was a secondary processor built into the Ultra Magnus helm to manage it all and to avoid lag. Minimus was so much more, like this.)

His larger self hadn't been commissioned solely for stolen moments in a private residence.

For what Minimus had in mind, the armor would require an established second identity. While he would admit with no little lingering anxiety that the entire process had been dubiously legal at best, he had, in fact, filed all the correct paperwork using loopholes that had been entrenched in Cybertron's identification system since its inception and would be prepared to argue such in a court of law, if it came to it.

His obsessive interest in legal minutiae and official procedures had worked in his favor, for once.

With endless possibility spread out before him, his dreams were finally within reach.

He got a job.

His idle hands and idle mind now had something to do that wasn't sitting in the library all day, poring over the punctuation of people long passed. The paperwork he handled lived and breathed and changed, and that in itself was electrifying and stimulating.

It took more than a few stellar cycles to hear the name Ultra Magnus and instinctively recognize it as himself, but he got there eventually.

At the fringes of his work life, Minimus Ambus still kept in touch with Dominus and showed up to every social and political event as required by the House of Ambus.

He had, in any case.

Right up until the bombing of the Senate, and the shift that never ended. In the world born from the ashes of the burning government, no one needed Minimus Ambus. No, the world needed Ultra Magnus, so that is who he would be.

Occasionally, Ultra Magnus took shifts filing requisition requests. It was soothing to draft communications in a standard format for a necessary, useful purpose. It reminded him of his time working on reports at the enforcer's station; living documents, helping living people.

Requisition requests meant people got the supplies they needed.

It was an easier job than the normal day-to-day, which involved performing increasingly more suspect military maneuvers and knowingly violating several local laws while constantly trying to reassure himself that he was doing it under orders and continuing to send complaints and notices up the ladder as far as they'd go, hoping the next one would reach the right audial where the last one did not.

It all wasn't particularly pleasant.

No, he liked the rhythm of paperwork instead, filing requisition requests for certain non-energized fuel additives and correctly-sized furniture and the occasional broken appliance, and rejecting the requests that were clearly not up to standard in content or formatting with a joyful sort of prejudice.

[Minimus. Do you have some time to talk?]

Over the internal comm line, Ultra Magnus had two vocal settings he could utilize. One was the one he was forged with, higher and reedier, and the other was deep and brusque. He hesitated, unsure if he even wanted to reply, but engaged his Minimus Ambus voice. [Salutations. You called at a good time. I'm able to talk.] He only ever used his old voice to speak to Dominus during their occasional chats, these days, now that he'd moved beyond the need to attend any House events, and those chats had grown sparser and sparser the longer the tensions on Cybertron had risen.

Dominus sounded hesitant. [Good. That's… that's good.]

It was strange how much stayed the same, even with all the things that had changed. The awkward silence settled between them like an uncomfortably self-aware third party to the conversation.

Finally, Dominus found his words. [What have you been up to? Where are you now?]

Minimus Ambus had, by all accounts, joined an aid organization working to provide energon and housing to refugees from areas that had been hit hardest by the ongoing conflict. Their House begrudgingly approved (at least somewhat) the idea of charity, inasmuch as it could bolster their reputation in these increasingly unstable circumstances, and given the current state of Cybertron, it meant Minimus could report from various polities and not be expected to come back.

Ultra Magnus wondered, sometimes, if it was truly worth it to keep his former identity alive at all, and then he'd catch a hint of relief in Dominus' voice during their rare and brief calls. So long as one person cared enough to want to speak to Minimus Ambus, he supposed, Minimus Ambus would answer.

He rotated through a list of areas currently experiencing a high volume of people in need, always just too far away from Iacon, often on the opposite side of the planet from his actual physical location. Today, coincidentally, there was an area quite near to their current coordinates he could use.

[Everything is proceeding as usual. We're currently in Nyon.]

Dominus hummed, a surprised little sound. [Zeta Prime is calling a Council meeting in one of Nyon's outlying governmental buildings, an old relic of the Golden Age. Perhaps we should meet up, catch up face to face. It's been too long, Minimus.]

Oh dear Primus, no. [That would be acceptable.]

The other end was silent for a moment. [Wonderful. I'll be in touch, at some point soon, then.]

Minimus hadn't been out of the Magnus armor in eight-point-four vorns and counting.

(They never did get around to that face-to-face meeting, in the end.)

Ultra Magnus hated learning things he wasn't supposed to.

It meant he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, often because he was meant to be somewhere else, doing something else. It meant complicated feelings about whatever he'd accidentally overheard. It meant moral quandaries that were often not straightforward as to what to say to who, and how, that were far beyond even the scope of the extensive social protocols he mostly kept turned off these days. He had a policy of shutting off his audials and evacuating the area the instant it became clear he was hearing something he wasn't supposed to.

He would have engaged that protocol here, except for the way Orion turned to look at him with wide, horrified optics while Swindle's scream lingered in the air.

What the two of them had just discovered, from a videodisc pressed into Orion's hands by a concerned Senator's aide, a videodisc containing a covert recording of the Senate session earlier that day, which Orion had received in Ultra Magnus' presence and then proceeded to drag him around a corner into a vacant office and play in his presence despite his protestations:

Zeta Prime had ordered a series of weapons he called Omega Destructors, whose vamparc ribbons fed off of the energon inside living Cybertronians and fuel repositories alike.

He was intending to set them upon the nearby city of Nyon; a civilian city whose only crime was mounting its own ragtag resistance against the increased Autobot presence in the city. According to the Prime, the Nyon resistance had allied itself with the Decepticons, and the entire city was complicit, so really, the military advantage was worth setting the Omega Destructors on a so-called civilian population. (Orion's eyes narrowed at that, very nearly a sneer.)

Once the playback had finished, Orion had begun trembling a little, his electromagnetic field full of anger/frustration/horror/betrayal, and it took him a long vent inwards to find the words he wanted to say.

"I had a chat with one of the sabotage specialists," Orion began. "From the Nyonian resistance. Yesterday. It was pretty enlightening, actually. They're worse off than we thought. And the only thing they hate as much as they hate us is the Decepticons."

Ultra Magnus believed him, because Orion had a particular talent with people. He understood others in a way that Ultra Magnus simply did not. The situation became so much clearer then. "We need to tell him that he's received inaccurate information and that Nyon is innocent of the things he accuses them of. Even if they're allied with the Decepticons, this proposal violates the Helex Convention and should never have gotten far enough to be presented in the Senate at all. Do we send an urgent memo or do we request an audience?"

"No, no, this is deliberate." Orion paced. "I reported directly to the Prime after I got back from that little adventure. I told him. He knows. He knows and he's doing this anyways. They're vulnerable, Magnus. They're struggling to survive, and this will kill them all, and we'll be the monsters. It feels like we always are, lately, and now I know why. We have to stop this. It's them or it's him." Orion's feet ground to a halt. He stared at the wall. "The two of us won't make it. Not with the guards he always carts around with him."

Something cold crept up Ultra Magnus' back struts. "What- wait a moment, what are you insinuating we do, Orion? We can't- there is due process to this."

"You, of all mechs, know that what Zeta Prime is planning is wrong. There has to be a million and a half laws and—and statutes and codes that he's breaking by using civilians to fuel his war machine!" Orion hissed, throwing his arms out, gesturing to the building, to Nyon beyond, and to the Omega Destructors out there somewhere waiting to feed.

"That's why we collect evidence," Ultra Magnus insisted desperately, because the answer to illegal actions could not be further illegal actions, that didn't make any sense, it didn't bring back order to a disordered world. "If he goes on trial, and a jury finds him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt-"

"Even if we could manage to set up a trial before he puts all of this into motion, you can't put someone on trial if he owns the government!" Orion insisted. He vented in and lifted his chin, standing just the slightest bit taller. He was still more than a whole head shorter than Ultra Magnus, even with those efforts. "The only option we have if we want to save Nyon, if we want to stop the entire program before it eats any more cities, is to stop Zeta. Permanently."

That didn't necessarily mean to kill him. Capture, perhaps. Disable. Remove him from office and put him somewhere else from where he couldn't govern.

Whatever Orion's ultimate plan, one thing was clear…

"You're asking me to betray the Autobots."

"I'm asking you to stand with me," Orion Pax clarified, sounding for all the world like he wasn't suggesting treason. Framed by the flickering lights of the Council hallway, he held out a hand, offering it for a shake, and Ultra Magnus found himself transported back to the moment they'd met. The simmering riot in front of the burning remains of the Senate, with Ultra Magnus on the ground and Orion standing above him with steadfast confidence and a gentle concern, reaching out a hand to pull a mech of Ultra Magnus' size and weight to his feet like it wasn't a burden at all.

Taking Orion's hand this time would mean abandoning the Autobot military, and more significantly, the structure he'd grown his second life around.

Ultra Magnus thrived on structure, on knowing what was expected of him and performing to those expectations with the utmost dedication and focus. Obey the letter and the spirit of the law. He'd memorized all of the Occupational Safety Administration codes and read the intricacies of complex court cases in quiet moments before recharge long before his House had decided to make something of him and sat him down to learn every well-to-do 'bot in high society and each of their weak spots and what kind of fawning or bribes they preferred.

He knew Cybertronian and Iaconian law better than any 'bot alive, except perhaps those in the courts. He'd teased out meaning and intent in every comma and turn of phrase, and he'd come to the conclusion long ago that not every law made sense. They were made by fallible people in a fallible system. A system that had, in fact, succumbed to its fallibilities, if Zeta Prime was really as corrupt as he seemed, given what Ultra Magnus now knew.

Upholding the law occasionally meant doing something that was not right, but Ultra Magnus understood deeply that allowing anyone to flout the laws when they didn't like them was a one-way road to anarchy and societal degradation, and that truth was what kept his faith in the law so steadfast. Who was he, to decide what was right and wrong? Who was Orion Pax, to ask this of him?

Still. His conscience would never let him settle, not like this, not with Zeta Prime's gaze set on Nyon. If there was one thing he thought, perhaps, he could trust...

...it was that taking Orion's hand would mean doing what was right.

Ultra Magnus vented in, the distant echoes of a memory from years ago fading into soft nostalgia, and wrapped Orion's small hand in his own. Orion squeezed, the hint of a grin curving his optics, before he released Ultra Magnus, taking with him an odd, unexpected warmth.

"What do we—do, sir?" Ultra Magnus asked, suddenly on unsteady ground. Orion had to have a plan.

He was greeted instead with a shrug. Orion Pax swung his gun to rest it against his shoulder, looking for all the world like an action hero from theatre posters. "Stop Zeta Prime by any means necessary. Save Nyon. We'll work out the rest later." He tilted his head up to look straight into Ultra Magnus' optics. "You know what? I happen to know someone else who might want him out of the picture just as much as we do."

Chapter Text

It wasn't particularly comfortable, standing guard outside the room where Orion and Megatron were currently negotiating an alliance.

'Negotiating' was such a mild word, really; even through the closed doors, the raised voices filtered under the doors, bringing with them a mix of creeping anxiety (Orion was shouting at Megatron; how long would Megatron allow this?) and relief (Orion was shouting at Megatron, that meant he was still alive in there.)

To the right of him stood a young Autobot recruit named Bumblebee, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. Having experienced that particular inexplicable magnetism of his personality, Ultra Magnus felt no surprise that Orion had accumulated an assembly of Autobots more loyal to himself than to the military. Standing to his left, on the other side of the doorframe: a silent and still mech with a faceplate and visor who Ultra Magnus was fairly sure was Megatron's third, Soundwave.

…and of course, an entire underground faction prowled around the complex while they all sat deep in its heart.

Ultra Magnus had rarely felt so vulnerable.

Then his internal comm clicked on, and things became worse.

[Minimus, you need to get out of Nyon.] Despite internal comms requiring no vocal components, Dominus almost sounded breathless. [There's something—you need to get out, and you need to tell anyone you can to evacuate as well. Please.]

[Yes, yes, I understand,] Ultra Magnus stated with his internal Minimus Ambus voice, distracted by another shout by Optimus from beyond the door. He struggled to keep his venting even, to appear unbothered.

[I need you to promise me, and you need to depart immediately,] Dominus insisted, not assuaged in the least. [You don't understand, brother, and I don't have time to explain.]

Of course, Dominus would assume that Minimus Ambus could not understand. Dominus was always smarter than him. Minimus Ambus was always the one who struggled in his studies, and who lacked the interpersonal and intellectual aptitude that his brother had in spades.

Soundwave shifted his weight, nearly imperceptibly, and Ultra Magnus realized that continuing the conversation was increasingly risky by the click. [Then don't explain. Of course. Whatever you want.]

[Do not be dismissive. Not right now. I am ordering you, as the heir to the House of Ambus,] Dominus declared, tone—frustrated? Angry? [To- to stop this foolishness and come home. Immediately.]

A sudden cold anger flooded Ultra Magnus. He'd never heard Dominus speak in such a way, but- he should have expected it, perhaps. No one in the House ever believed he'd achieve anything. It was foolish to hope that Dominus would have been the exception. It was foolish to think that Dominus could have ever thought of them as anything close to equal. [You have no right to speak to me like that, Dominus Ambus.]

It sounded as though Dominus was speaking through gritted teeth, frustrated, and if Ultra Magnus were any less distracted and angry, himself, he might have even heard the worry in it. [I have a right to speak to you in whatever way will save your life, Minimus! Don't be stupid! I've just discovered things more terrible than you could imagine, and if you are in Nyon, you're going to be right in the firing zone. Just—trust that I know what's best for you, as always, and do as you're told.]

No one at the House could have possibly expected that Minimus Ambus would be standing here, taller and stronger than any of them, committing treason, fully believing that this was the right thing to do. And perhaps that was acceptable, even ideal on all sides; if this all backfired terribly but Ultra Magnus' true identity was not discovered, then no consequences would reflect back on the House. [You do not have to look out for me anymore,] Minimus Ambus declared, [I am done. With the House, and with you.] He knew his tone was cold, but before he could even consider softening the blow in some way, the door beside Ultra Magnus slammed open, and Orion stormed out first.

"Come on!" Orion declared, voice hard as steel. "We're joining the war council."

They tried.

There had been a moment of elation at successfully luring out Zeta Prime, but then reality had hit like a hammer to the helm. He'd clearly been expecting them. Orion and Megatron were unused to working in tandem, causing each other to stumble, though they'd both tried their best to wrestle him down. The Prime had knocked them both on their backs, and then-

Zeta Prime raised his hand, sent the command, and the Omega Destructors whirred to life, the vamparc ribbons descended, the whole city bathed in the glow of energon beginning to siphon, and someone on the battlefield screamed in rage, and-

Nyon exploded.

The Decepticons and Orion's Autobots lowered their weapons.

In the distance, the Omega Destructors stuttered to a halt, their vamparc ribbons fluttering uselessly in the air without anything to feed on.

The young rebel, Hot Rod, who had made Orion's acquaintance earlier and shown him around the slums of Nyon, who had spoken truth in Orion's ear and led them all to this moment, lowered his hand, slowly, staring down at the home he'd given everything for, the home now enveloped in flickering flames and collapsing rubble. There were no distant, muffled cries; the charges had been well-placed, and the behavior of the vamparc ribbons confirmed the lack of survivors.

The trigger slipped from his fingers. It landed on the ground with a thud.

So did Hot Rod's knees.

It didn't feel entirely real, this sudden loss of so many people. Up until that point, the Autobot-Decepticon conflict had taken numerous military lives but only a handful of civilian lives here or there, each one talked up on the news as some sort of innocent bystander victim of Decepticon terrorism, though according to Orion, many in the general public were aware that it was just as frequently Autobot offensives causing collateral damage.

In a single night, the Autobots had—indirectly or directly—caused more civilian deaths than throughout the entire Autobot-Decepticon conflict thus far.

It was everything they'd been trying to prevent, and Ultra Magnus felt nothing but hollow. All the desperation of the past few joors was still cycling through his frame like aftershocks.

Zeta Prime knew their faces. They couldn't go back to the Autobots even if they wanted to. They couldn't pretend as though this never happened.

"What's next, boss?" Sideswipe asked Orion quietly.

Megatron stepped forward with cold optics. "We take the fight to the Prime, of course—I have a very good idea of where the coward has scurried off to. And then we take it to the New Senate and all the Autobots. We burn it all to the ground." He tilted his head to survey the scene, and the rage in his eyes made Ultra Magnus want to shiver. "Just like Nyon. We build something new from the ashes."

Orion startled, tearing his eyes away from the burning city below. "That wasn't the plan, Megatron!" he insisted. "You're talking about tens of thousands of mechs who had nothing to do with this. Zeta Prime did this. We take him out, and anyone we know orchestrated all of this, but we stop there. The next Prime can be chosen by the people, or by Primus, and we can work with them to build a stable Cybertron." Orion exvented slowly. "I know what you fight for. I understand. I empathize. We have to think about what will cause the least suffering and death, and change has to come from the inside, from—from negotiations and legal battles and appealing to the conscience, and that change may come more slowly than you'd like, but it will come. I promise you."

A nearby Decepticon rolled their eyes.

Megatron scoffed. "Have it your way, Autobot," he sneered, turning on his heels to march away. He held up a hand, motioning to his militia. "To the Prime!"

Ultra Magnus had never felt anything quite so ominous as this sinking feeling in his fuel tanks.

Ultra Magnus swung his rifle, bracing for the moment the butt made contact with the nearest helm. The Decepticon at Ultra Magnus' back cackled, and someone out of his field of vision screamed loud enough to blow out her vocalizer.

"No unnecessary casualties!" Ultra Magnus commanded. "They're just following orders."

"Just following orders," Skywarp mocked through gritted teeth. "Just following orders is what got Nyon slagged, mech! Come on!" He punctuated that with a shot to the nearest High Guard chassis. The mech fell with a cry, his open wound leaving a trail of smoke as he collapsed, and Ultra Magnus reached up to wrap a hand around the barrel of Skywarp's weapon, squeezing. The metal groaned under his large, powerful fingers.

"I told you," he warned lowly. "Set this for stun. Or else. That was a condition of our collaboration."

Skywarp twisted, stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry right in Ultra Magnus' face, yanking his weapon out of Ultra Magnus' grip. Ultra Magnus watched out of the corner of his optics to make sure the settings had been properly adjusted.

It was certainly disconcerting to be fighting alongside mechs that Ultra Magnus had been shooting at not even a day previous. He had to focus much harder on who their opponents were, today, so that when Skywarp began teleporting around the battlefield, he could resist the urge to aim in his general direction. No, today they were not fighting Decepticons. They were fighting the High Guard.

Zeta Prime's High Guard.

It was only by virtue of being so close to the steps leading up to the door to the Senate floor, the one through which Orion and Megatron had entered not half a joor previous in pursuit of Zeta Prime, that Ultra Magnus and Skywarp noticed the doors swing open in the midst of all the chaos. Ultra Magnus had been keeping an optic in that direction, spark spinning anxious circles in its chamber as he waited to see who would emerge the victor. The rest of their forces had been spread thin enough just making sure the two of them had a clear shot to enter, that no one else had been able to—much less equipped to—fight with them.

One mech exited.

A mech with dull silver finish strode through, singed, one arm actively sparking, dripping energon from a gash in their side.

"Zeta Prime is dead!" Megatron cried, raising his fusion cannon to the ceiling and shooting it off. The boom echoed through the halls, and debris rained down on them all.

It took a moment, but disbelieving silence and stillness spread across the battlefield like a wave, spreading outward until everyone in the room was staring at the warlord standing at the top of the steps.

A torn-off, dented, energon-stained piece of Zeta Prime's armor fell from Megatron's other hand, bouncing down the steps, ringing like a tolling bell.

It was over. What did they do now?

And what else did they have to sacrifice to get here?

Sideswipe was the first to move, a halting, hesitant step forward. He didn't even need to say it; everyone and Megatron knew what he wanted.

Megatron raised his chin, looking all too smug, so fragging smug. "Orion Pax perished in the fight," he added, more quietly, but audible in every corner of the room in the echoing, dusty silence.

It-

No.

No.

Ultra Magnus could hear Arcee's sharp invent, even though the world around them had collapsed into muffled, distant ringing.

Megatron barely turned his head to watch them rush past, his optics dispassionate, the hint of a sneer across his faceplates.

Ultra Magnus had never wanted to punch someone more. He would have, he could feel the pistons in his arm starting to engage as he flexed, except he couldn't tear his optics away from-

"Orion!" Bumblebee cried, the crack of his knees against the ground echoing across the vaulted ceilings. He pressed a hand into the gaping hole in Orion's side, desperately trying to seal the many spurting energon lines, barely flinching at the sparks against his fingers.

Ultra Magnus' hands were too large to help. Even if he shed the armor right in that moment, it would do no good—Orion's frame was already greying at the extremities, a slow, horrifying creep towards his elbow and knee joints, and soon to the rest of his frame. It was over.

They'd taken out Zeta Prime, but they'd still lost.

"Is he…" Sideswipe breathed, taking a hesitant step forward.

He hadn't finished his question, but there was no doubt as to what he'd been trying to ask.

No one answered.

They watched the color leaching from Orion's plating in horrified silence.

From the hallway, distant and muffled, they could hear Megatron shouting orders. With Zeta Prime dead and no Orion to rally them, the Autobots were vulnerable, and the Decepticons were wasting no time. Megatron had left Orion's trusted to grieve because he wanted to grind it in, make it hurt. He'd already won.

Ultra Magnus had rarely felt so angry. He hadn't known he was capable of this kind of emotion, honestly—this cold burn, all-consuming, ringing loud in his audials, making him feel bigger than the already-huge body he was nestled inside.

Mechs died in active military service, in a war, even the sort that couched itself in terms like terrorist suppression and planetary security. Ultra Magnus had seen mechs he'd been talking to just breems earlier succumb to firefights and fistfights, skirmishes and ambushes.

Somehow, watching it happen to Orion was worse.

He wanted to turn, to find an acceptable target for his blooming fury, the unfamiliar strength of his feelings fueling the swing of his fist. He'd never liked hand-to-hand combat. He'd never been comfortable with it; too physical, too confrontational. He suddenly found himself wanting nothing more than to feel Megatron's faceplate crumple.

Sideswipe did it for them all, running out through the door to swing a forceful, furiously uncoordinated fist at Megatron and getting an almost dismissive backhand in return. The moment he landed on the ground with a grinding metal-on-metal skid, someone else roared in anger and every Autobot lifted their weapons, the few who had rushed to Orion's side standing and turning to join them. Out in the hallway, the two sides began to clash in earnest.

Ultra Magnus burned.

He made to leave, too, to join the fray, processor for once not concerned with whether or not they had any chance of winning against Megatron or all the Decepticons he'd brought with him, or whether they were fighting for the right thing; simply wanting something or someone to hurt. But just as he raised his gun and made to pass the threshold-

Elita screamed, a wordless intonation of grief. That must have been the moment that Orion Pax passed for good.

Something about the room behind him changed, then; for a moment, Ultra Magnus' vents stopped working, like all the air in the room had disappeared and taken the sound with it. Then came a rush of blue light, and a feeling of power so deep it suffused itself in every energon line and wire of Ultra Magnus' body—staticky and electric and almost warm.

Ultra Magnus was not a religious 'bot. But something about it all, the inexplicable nature of it, the feel of it, the suddenness of it… it felt a little bit spiritual.

All of the fury left him at once as though forcibly flushed from his systems. He twisted back just in time to see Orion—dead, gray-plated Orion, Orion who would never smile at him again—transform, plates twisting, color seeping back into him like he was suddenly dying in reverse. As each part of him shifted, he grew in size, gaining mass and height, the familiar planes of his body morphing into something uncannily different. The face, however… no matter how changed, Ultra Magnus would recognize it anywhere.

He couldn't hope. He didn't dare. And yet…

The blue glow coagulated somewhere in Orion's chest area, sinking down straight through his chestplates. Orion's vents blew open and he inhaled raggedly, blinked up at the ceiling, and Ultra Magnus could breathe again too, off-kilter with confused disbelief and that slowly rising hope. Orion moved to sit up, Elita moving with him, helping lever him upwards. She was so small compared to him, now.

Orion reached for his chest with oddly steady hands. The chestplates slid aside, and inside-

"The Matrix has returned to us," Orion said in a voice that was both irrefutably his and far too deep to be his. "Well then."

"Great to have you alive and kicking, Orion!" Jazz called. He slid between two Decepticons with grace, causing them to stab each other instead of him. "Thought you were a goner there for a klick."

"That's Orion Prime to you!" Sideswipe cheered between shots.

Ultra Magnus deeply understood the sort of disbelieving elation they must be feeling. It made him light, and almost dizzy, deeply confused and confusingly happy.

Orion twirled the axe in his fingers, deftly, as though he'd been forged for it. "Actually, they called me, uh, Optimus Prime," he called back, somehow a little bashful in spite of the deep bass of his new voice.

"Another Prime?" Megatron seethed loudly from somewhere in the chaos. The crowd parted as Megatron stomped towards the newly elevated Prime, and despite the jolt that ran through Ultra Magnus at the idea of Megatron getting that close to Orion again, neither side appeared the least bit cowed as they clashed in the middle, full strength on display.

Optimus Prime.

The idea of friendly, thoughtful, risk-taking, determined Orion Pax as a Prime was-

-he didn't know what to think of it.

It didn't feel entirely real.

Didn't this sort of thing only happen in films?

Quickly enough, Ultra Magnus' attention was dragged away by the VOP! of Skywarp's teleportation, a muffled crackle, sounded off behind him along with the usual flare of static against his plating, and Ultra Magnus made to turn, but he didn't quite move quickly enough.

The entire weight of Skywarp hit him in the helm and chassis, sending him reeling into the wall. Jets were made lightweight but solid, and Ultra Magnus could feel something inside of him fizzle, suddenly, like two parts had ground together that shouldn't have. He vented inwards, hard, trying to shelve the spike of sudden panic and focus on action.

That close-range attack involved a kick downwards at his gun, but it brought Skywarp in range of Ultra Magnus' other hand, and though he didn't prefer to fight in this manner, he was certainly capable of it. He curled his fingers together in a regulation-perfect fist and slammed it against Skywarp's helm. That clearly rattled his opponent.

Everything was happening so fast. Combat with the Decepticons had never been quite like this; vicious and desperate, hard to keep track of with everything going on in every direction.

Still, he caught snatches of the exchange across the hall:

"We could have peace! What you're fighting for, we can find a way to make it happen. With the power Primus just handed to me, we could make equality possible today," Optimus urged between every metallic shnk of their blades.

"There will be no peace while a Prime still stands!" Megatron declared in return.

Ultra Magnus winced, spark sinking.

"Frag you too!" cried one of the present Autobots from the sidelines, locked in a hold and struggling.

Optimus and Megatron continued to clash. They were equals in combat, the two powerhouses, more skilled than Ultra Magnus and less cautious about using their strength. Neither one gave an opening, until finally, Optimus' axe hooked into Megatron's own blade and with one forceful heave, he separated weapon from wielder. It flew into the wall, sinking deep.

With a growl and a glare of fathomless anger and distrust, Megatron disengaged, gesturing to his people. "We fight another day!" he roared, and one by one, each Decepticon pulled away from their opponents and transformed, driving and flying off, dodging a few stray shots.

And then, impossibly, the hall was quiet once more; only the sounds of heavy ventilation echoed across charred walls, shattered windows, the energon-stained floor.

"Magnus," Orion—Optimus Prime said, lightly, quietly, as he retracted his battle mask. Underneath, it was still Orion's face, just shaped a little differently, like Primus had squared up his jaw and lengthened his nasal ridge when he had scaled his newest Prime to a size more befitting his chosen Matrix-bearer.

"O-Optimus?"

Optimus grinned, that same friendly, lopsided grin he'd so often given to Magnus before. "Catch."

Then he collapsed.

Ultra Magnus jolted, just barely fast enough to wrap his arms underneath Orion in time to prevent his helm from slamming onto the floor.

Optimus Prime was heavy. Heavy enough to make him grunt under the unexpected strain. He shifted the weight so he could stand straight up with it, one of Optimus' arms dangling down, his plating—warm, shifting, alive—pressed against Ultra Magnus' chest.

His friend was alive.

As the last few distant gunshots chased away the remaining Decepticons from the administrative halls, Ultra Magnus stared down at Orion—at Optimus, feeling the rush of a full active systems flush washing away the terror and fear of the last few breems. It had all felt like an eternity.

"Is he…" Sideswipe started, again, this time with a dawning hope in his voice.

"Let's… get him to medical," Elita suggested, stepping hesitantly forward, then reaching up and pressing a hand to Optimus' shoulder as though to reassure herself that he was alive, alive, alive. Bumblebee, too, reached over and squeezed Optimus' dangling hand for comfort.

Medical.

He could do that.

(Only mechs that were alive needed medical.)

Chapter Text

One of Orion's friends was on duty at the medical center. Orion had a lot of those, as Ultra Magnus was coming to understand, and with all that had happened, they were crawling out of the woodwork.

The medic friend was a grumpy mech who turned up his nose at the assorted worried hangers-on. "Anyone who isn't actively bleeding, get the frag out of my medical center." Then, a little quieter, just a bit softer, "He's gonna be fine. Full-frame reworks take a lot out of a mech, but he's healthy, otherwise."

Bumblebee had pressed a hand to his side, then, his energon-stained fingers a reminder of the jagged hole that had very nearly killed Optimus before said full-frame rework had erased all traces of it.

Optimus remained in stasis over the next few cycles. In a way, he was lucky.

Optimus missed the tense conversation outside the medical center doors; the moment Sideswipe punched the wall, the moment Jazz leveled them all with a flat stare as he declared I've never trusted a Prime in my life but I'd trust Orion, the moment they all as one decided that they had agreed to follow Orion this far and would continue to follow him as a Prime, and really, wasn't this the best possible outcome? (Bumblebee's hands trembled. He hadn't yet washed them off.)

Optimus missed Ironhide challenging Zeta Prime's generals with words and, when those failed, fists. He missed Hot Rod's speech to the surviving members of the New Senate. He missed Ratchet—who had already been the personal doctor to several Primes—locking down the medical center and removing several of Zeta's loyalists and one or two Decepticon assassins with a firm hand. Optimus missed many of his closest confidants grasping onto the crumbling, disorganized establishment with all their might to keep it safe for him. Though Ultra Magnus was loath to overstep his bounds, the first time he'd heard Zeta Prime usually processed the approvals for this department, he'd found himself elbow-deep in paperwork and utterly delighted about it.

By the time Optimus awoke, he'd missed the worst, messiest parts of the transition to power.

He well and truly woke up a Prime.

"If he goes into stasis on you-"

"I will ensure he rests."

"You'd better," Ratchet growled, waving something that looked heavy and sharp in a way that was clearly meant to be threatening. "Too many people asking too many questions, upsetting my patient…"

"I was under the impression he'd requested my presence."

Ratchet made a sound like a disgruntled harrumph, sliding the door open far enough for Ultra Magnus to slip past, which was basically as far as the door would open, and then shoving the door loudly shut behind him.

Ultra Magnus pushed past the curtain around the Prime's medical slab, likely put there for privacy because not long after he'd affirmed Optimus to be stable, Ratchet had puffed out his chest and announced that just because he was treating the next Prime didn't mean he had to shirk his responsibility to his other patients. This had led to a short but noticeable rash of mildly scraped knee joints and supposedly-accidental dents until Ratchet had put his foot down about it.

(Ultra Magnus had been just down the hall, absorbed in reading a fascinating research grant request that had been formatted to utter perfection when he'd heard Ratchet's booming anger, gravelly voice rolling down the hall like thunder, declaring that the next mech to damage themself on purpose would be personally drop-kicked into the Pit by Ratchet himself.)

Past the curtain, Optimus turned to him with Orion's smile and lifted one hand to wave a greeting. "Magnus! I'm glad you could make it, my friend." He was seated on his own medical slab, 90 degrees off of standard medical slab positioning and with his legs dangling off the edge to better face visitors, though the only equipment hooked up to him at the moment was a spark monitor.

This was the first real look that Ultra Magnus had been able to get of Optimus Prime, untainted by slowly ebbing horror or the rush of battle.

He was larger, of course—Orion hadn't been tiny by any means, but Optimus Prime took up quite a bit more space. He seemed a little awkward with it, as though he wasn't quite comfortable with his new body's proportions and still trying to feel out what positions felt more natural with elongated legs and larger feet and a wider chest. Ultra Magnus could relate to that experience, actually.

His plating seemed healthy, no sign of any giant holes through his side or lingering injuries from the recent battle, and though it was occasionally hard for Ultra Magnus to tell if the warmth in others' smiles was genuine, he'd become familiar enough with Orion, with Optimus, that he thought this friendly ear-to-ear grin was honest.

Ultra Magnus stood straighter, hands folded behind him. "Of course. You asked for me."

"Yes, but you didn't have to- ah, well," Optimus seemed honestly bashful. "I suppose you did. You know, you really don't need to stand on ceremony—sit!" He motioned to one of the visitor's chairs.

Ultra Magnus looked at it, squinting a little in thought.

He could probably make himself squeeze into it, if that was a direct order.

"Hold on, wait, let me-" the new Prime pressed his hands to the medical slab and scooched himself over to one end, leaving the other end empty. The slab itself was large; in a supine position, Optimus Prime's new feet would of course spill over the edge of an average-sized one, so instead he had been treated on possibly the exact slab that Ultra Magnus himself would use if he'd ever dared to go in for repairs. Optimus waved to the empty spot. "Sorry. Forgot for a klick that regular chairs can be a bit of a squeeze for-" he paused. "…us."

Optimus was quiet as Ultra Magnus sat himself down. It was an egregiously off-book use of medical equipment and possibly a sanitary risk, but with no open wounds, and with a direct order from his Prime, he conceded just this once.

('His Prime.' Though he'd spent a number of years indirectly and then directly within Zeta Prime's chain of command, Zeta had never been his Prime. Not like this.)

"It's definitely weird, being as tall as you. I didn't realize how many doors I was going to have to duck through," Optimus began, the usual sort of small-talk that he often liked to begin their conversations with, and which Ultra Magnus always patiently sat through.

As tall as you was factually incorrect. Based on what he noted of their specifications, Ultra Magnus was still taller by a small margin. He forced himself not to bristle at the inaccuracy, and also forced himself to remain still rather than drag Optimus to a nearby measuring stick so they could be accurate about this.

"Are you well?" Ultra Magnus asked, for lack of anything else to say. Then he winced. Of course Optimus wasn't well. They were in the medical center. He'd collapsed. He'd died.

Orion huffed. "It's just exhaustion. I'm feeling alright, it's just that the last time I stood up, it took maybe three breems before the world started to spin. Ratchet's keeping me here 'under observation for my own health,' though that was at least half a solar cycle ago and I'm feeling a lot more solid, now, and I think at this point he's just being a worrywart."

"I heard that!" Ratchet grumped from somewhere beyond the curtain.

"You're not a party to this conversation!" Optimus called back. It sounded sharp, but there was a tilt to his mouth that made Ultra Magnus suspect that it was meant in jest.

Still— "Do you want me to ensure we're alone?"

"No, no. Ratchet's an old friend. Anything I can hear, he can hear. Besides, I think one of the problems with the—previous administration was lack of transparency, wouldn't you say?"

"I- suppose."

Optimus went to place his hands beside his hips on the slab, seemingly intending to shift his weight a bit more, to turn in Ultra Magnus' direction, but the movement was clumsy, under-practiced, like a newly forged mech still adjusting to having limbs at all, and he almost slid off of the slab altogether before catching himself. He hissed through his teeth. "Ah, it's going to take some getting used to, being… big." He eyed Magnus, up and down, just once. "You wouldn't happen to have any tips?"

"On…"

"Being big," Optimus repeated. "I already know about the door thing. And the chair thing. But in general… I don't know. I'm afraid I'm going to bump my head on one of those low-ceilinged hallways the first time I try and talk to someone important I'm supposed to impress, or look stupid crouching in front of a kiosk window. Everything is built for the average-sized mech, and I don't think I appreciated that enough before I lost it." He looked at his own hand like it was unfamiliar to him, and huffed out a laugh. "I don't think anyone can really help me, to be honest. It's going to take time for it to really sink in that this is the real me, now, rather than something I can peel off at the end of the day to go back to feeling like myself, at the right size. At my real size and shape."

He paused.

"This is my real size and shape," he corrected himself, though he didn't sound terribly certain of it.

Optimus' assumptions were off-base, of course. Ultra Magnus knew an awful lot about what it felt like to go from a small, familiar body to a large, unfamiliar one. He gave the issue the gravity it was due. "Spend some time in front of a mirror. Perform repetitive physical motions, such as throwing a ball against a wall so that it bounces back to you. Visit a detailing facility and arrange a repaint, because having some choice in your physical appearance will help it feel less incongruous to your sense of self."

"My colors are about the only thing I'm fine with, actually," Optimus grinned, if perhaps a little less brightly than normal. "At least Primus kept them close to the same."

Ultra Magnus hadn't been quite prepared to have that come up in conversation so blatantly. He jolted in surprise, unsure of if he should ask, but he very much wanted to know. "Primus—"

"I don't think I'm ready to talk about what it felt like to talk to god," Optimus cut in quickly, then switched topics with the grace of someone running desperately from something inside their own head. "So how are you, Magnus?"

Him? "Me?"

"To hear Bee tell it, you charged right into an actual mountain of paperwork like a gladiator into battle!" Optimus raised a fist, looking amused but proud. "I'm sure your processor needs a break after all that."

Well, yes, but— "I like paperwork," Ultra Magnus clarified, insistently. No one had ever understood, but Optimus just might get the closest of anyone he'd ever known. "It involves clearly defined expectations in a standard format. The ultimate goal of it is to communicate necessary information in the most efficient way possible from one party to another. Not every form is perfectly efficient, of course; most are a reflection of their creator, containing biases and assumptions about the user experience, but if one is able to strip that away, there can be elegance in the simplicity-"

He cut himself off, glancing away for a moment to allow his faceplates to smooth over, a little embarrassed.

"Sorry," Optimus said, not looking very sorry at all. He was smiling. Why was he smiling? "I just- you're really passionate about paperwork. That's- I'm glad. That you have something that brings you that much joy, even if I don't personally understand it myself. The world needs all sorts. And that actually leads me into what I'd asked you here to discuss."

Ultra Magnus straightened at that.

Optimus folded his hands in his own lap, squaring his shoulders and lifting his chin, settling into himself. For the first time so far in their conversation, Optimus looked the part of a Prime. "I know that none of us could have anticipated this," he motioned to himself, "when we set out. Stopping Zeta Prime, removing him permanently, is different than replacing him, obviously. None of us were thinking that far ahead in the moment. But despite this unasked-for promotion, or because of it, really, I can see how easy it could be to fall into similar sorts of pitfalls."

Optimus raised a finger, tapping it on the windshield glass across his chest. Below it, the Matrix glowed and hummed, a subtle noise in the silence of the room.

"Zeta Prime didn't bear the Matrix. Neither did most in the recent line of Primes. It means I was chosen, Magnus, but why me? I can't believe that there's anything intrinsically more- more in me than anyone else in the past hundred thousand vorns. I'm just… me. I'm not particularly wise, I'm not incorruptible-"

Ratchet snorted, somewhere out of view, and Optimus cut himself off, venting inwards slowly.

"And that's why I asked you here, Magnus. Because Zeta only served himself and his lust for power, but I think, in the time I've had to mull this over, sitting here on this medical slab, that a Prime should, above all, serve the people. From what I've heard, you all have done a wonderful job at that over the last few days—Bumblebee, Ironhide, Ratchet, Hot Rod... You all did your best on my behalf and on the behalf of the people of Cybertron who need a strong, stable government that won't sacrifice them to a war machine."

Ultra Magnus fought down a flush of pride. He hadn't done it to be recognized, of course, but the recognition felt good. When was the last time anyone had looked at his work with anything other than apathy? When was the last time he'd been able to do work he'd been proud of; paperwork, rather than violence?

Optimus tilted his head up, meeting Ultra Magnus' optics with something pleading in his own. "I know it's a lot to ask, but I'm hoping for that same support and perspective and compassion going forward from all of you, if you're all willing to work with me. And of all the people I know, I trust you, Magnus, to keep me answerable to Cybertron and to its rule of law. If I cross a line, I need you there to remind me. And, if necessary, to prosecute me."

The understanding washed over Ultra Magnus, freezing cold and unbearably warm at the same time. He'd already chosen to step outside the legal system when he took Orion's hand, when he dedicated himself to saving Nyon. Because it was the right thing to do, not the legal thing. Was he really the right mech to be tasked with this incredibly heavy burden?

Could he accept, knowing he had already been compromised once?

Not that long ago, it would have been his dream job to be official legal counsel to the Prime.

"I haven't actually been to law school," he said, feeling a little numb.

Optimus grinned. "Done."

Ultra Magnus flinched. He was sure it wouldn't be quite that easy, but being Prime would likely smooth the way. Probably. He wasn't exactly an expert on the influence a Prime exerted upon the rest of the world; he simply never ran in those kinds of social circles. He could imagine, though, that if Optimus simply looked in the direction of a door, he'd find it open to him and to those he associated with.

"I'm going to get in through the normal channels on my own merits," he countered.

That grin turned into an outright beam. "I wouldn't expect anything less from you, my friend."

In the battle in Nyon's council chambers, Ultra Magnus had received an unexpectedly solid blow to his chassis. It had knocked out his comms system. His internal comms system, that is. The one in his smaller self, not the one built into the armor.

The comms system that he and Dominus had been using to keep in touch.

In the process of attempting a repair, it became clear the component's memory had become corrupted. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't rescue most of the data. He'd also had to switch to the comm address built into the armor, as his smaller body's communications hardware required parts he couldn't source easily without arousing curiosity, and which he couldn't install himself. He needed a medic.

His new responsibilities allowed him little time to stop by the medical center for his own minor needs, and even if he could—what would he tell them? How could he possibly explain? This life he'd built was private, was his, and he liked it that way.

He could divide his previous address archive into two categories: the mechs he never interacted with since assuming the Ultra Magnus identity and with whom he did not particularly care about interacting ever again, and the mechs he now spent time with on a daily basis and could easily give him their comm address again upon request.

The only exception was Dominus.

He'd lost Dominus' contact information and the address at which Dominus had contacted him in one fell swoop.

Upon that realization, he'd started cycling through emotions that were so complex and interwoven that he could barely tell them apart. Something like guilt, and relief, and guilt at feeling that relief, and regret, for the part he'd played in their ultimate drifting apart, all mixed together in something that ranged from mildly good to excessively terrible, like a rock rattling in his fuel tanks.

He wasn't entirely sure where Dominus was, although he knew Dominus was alive. One of the many news clips Prowl shared with Autobot High Command had featured Dominus taking charge in evacuating the Senate building, refusing to leave until every 'bot of every social caste had been as accounted for as possible, from the most affluent Senator to the lowliest tool altmode.

It was better this way, in the end.

Dominus was always meant for better things than Minimus. This was just one more loose end taken care of, and though Minimus would miss their occasional conversations, they'd both grown in different directions, and it was time to make peace with it.

Ultra Magnus set aside the broken component, and his regrets and all the last remaining pieces of his life as Minimus Ambus with it.

Chapter Text

Several million years later…

"And another one bites the dust," Whirl commented cheerily, clacking his claws in a scowling Topspin's face. "Who do you think we're gonna get next? Pencil pusher? Drill sergeant?" Topspin gritted his teeth and pushed him aside with some force, and Whirl stumbled away on his spindly legs, elbowing Twin Twist in the gut and the face as he went.

Springer sighed, arms folded as he leaned against the wall, feeling as old as Kup in that moment, old and exhausted and maybe a little achy, though that could be the new welds on his leg. "Given what just happened to the last one…"

More than one set of optics in the room turned to look at the only mechs who could possibly give a first-hand recounting of the recent sequence of events before glancing away. So far, they'd both been tight-lipped (and they'd been through this rigamarole enough times that nobody bothered with the post-mission interviews to begin with,) though everybody knew what had happened, really. The list of suspects were short and the scrapes on Moonracer's knuckles were long.

"It wasn't me," Perceptor defended himself with a raised hand, as though to say see, I'm unarmed, despite the fact that it was very much a hand curled into a fist that had sent their latest commander flat on his back during their last disastrous mission, hard enough to knock his lights out and land him an extended stay in the medibay due to mild processor damage.

"Well, it wasn't me," lied Moonracer, looking more than a little smug as she leaned back in her seat. "You know, wouldn't be the first time somebody hurt themselves just to rustle up an excuse to get away from us."

Sure.

They'd all heard what that mech had been trying to say over comms before the telltale crunching noise. And though they'd seen feigned sprained ankle joints and even a couple suspiciously angled bullet wounds, bricks building into a multi-level story of deliberate injuries to get away from having to wrangle the Wreckers, it certainly wasn't every day someone punched themself in the faceplate hard enough to knock themself out.

No one was going to snitch, and Springer had made sure the audio records had conveniently disappeared by the time the investigation got underway. He could feel the drive sitting in his subspace. Something else to throw at the uncaring wall when he had time. Primus, was he exhausted.

The door at the other end of the room slid open, inch by inch revealing a Prowl with hands on his hips and narrowed anger-bright optics.

"Oh hey!" Whirl said, gangling up to the very unhappy 'bot. "Been a while. Always a pleasure to see your smiling face, sir." He poked Prowl right at the edge of his frowning mouth.

Prowl retaliated swiftly and unflinchingly, a rough, forceful push to the center of Whirl's chassis that ended in a smoothly executed metallikato throw. The abrupt clatter of Whirl's long limbs against the floor echoed through the quiet room. Twin Twist slouched in his seat, spreading his legs as far as they'd go, looking bored.

"You think I did something to annoy him or something?" Whirl asked, because Whirl didn't know how to shut up if his life depended on it. "I'm starting to get that vibe, maybe. Juuuuuust a little bit." He raised a claw and pinched the air between them to show just how little he meant.

"You all know exactly what you've done," Prowl growled, and that was it. Springer was done.

He stepped over Twin Twist's sprawled legs, around Moonracer's giant gun resting up against the table, and past Whirl's lanky, disjointed crumple on the ground. Once all of his team was at his back, he stopped, arms folded, face impassive. "Just taking out the trash, sir," he said, "though from what I hear, it's possible the trash took itself out."

Yeah, that wasn't gonna fly with anyone with an ounce of common sense, but it was fun to see the enraged tremble of Prowl's mouth as he said it.

"None of this is new to you, but: insubordination. Attacking a commanding officer. You're lucky he's not awake to press charges, yet, while High Command decides who to saddle you with next." Prowl turned to leave, but his hand lingered on the doorframe. "I shouldn't have bothered, clearly, but I came to warn you. Keep your heads down. You're on thin ice. More than thin. It's infinitesimally flimsy."

"Sir," Springer said, narrowing his optics, suspicious of Prowl's sudden concern. Prying him for details would get no one anywhere; Prowl divulged exactly what he meant to exactly when he wanted to and nothing on this planet or the next would drag anything more out of him.

Prowl shook his helm, still staring at the hallway beyond. "I'll be back when they've made a decision."

"Well, that was weird," Hot Shot commented glibly just a moment after the doors had slid closed behind their unhappy visitor.

Whirl wiggled on the floor until his long, inexpressive helm tilted just enough to see Hot Shot's face. "Wanna go spike the dining area dispensers? I got something that'll make 'em fizzy."

"Frag yeah!"

"No," Springer said, more firmly than he probably should have, given how Hot Shot startled. "We… need to lay low. We don't travel or recharge alone. No weapons discharges on base, no confrontations, no walking vaguely threateningly to get reactions. Hot Shot, you and Whirl keep on opposite sides of the room or… something."

Several of them groaned at the idea of being leashed and on alert at what should be their home base, though maybe a little less loudly than they would have if they weren't at least a little unsettled too. Something felt different, this time.

They'd be alright. As long as Springer was there to hold them all together, they'd find a way to ride the waves of whatever Prowl seemed to suspect might come their way. The burden settled heavy on his shoulders, a shiver down his back struts, but he didn't let it show in his face or his field as he turned back to the room.

"Anyone up for some fullstasis?"

Out of anything he could think of to occupy them all, that was one of the ones least likely to end in explosions, at least.

Probably.

The doors to Autobot High Command slid open and Ultra Magnus stepped through with the confidence of habit. He'd seen the room in the middle of meetings, full of mechs with raised voices and passionate speeches, and after terrible battles, grief and anger and regret and questions echoing about the space. They'd switched bases several times over the last few millennia, but this current iteration of High Command was a wide, round room with many chairs to give as many mechs as possible a seat at the table, where every sound carried, bounced across the curves, because everyone was supposed to be heard, here. It was a room meant to be filled with people.

It was unusual but not rare to see it quiet and nearly empty except for one Optimus Prime standing with his hands clasped behind his back, staring out at the wide, sweeping windows at the twinkling universe beyond. This was Optimus' thinking pose. It was also, based on the tension of his grip around his opposite wrist, the pose he assumed when he was steeling himself up for something.

They'd had a lot of time to get to know each other in the intervening years.

The near-silent swish of doors sliding closed prompted Optimus to turn, and Magnus, who had not been nervous when he'd walked in, though his circuits were certainly sparking with the slightest anticipatory nervousness now, stood at regulation-perfect attention, not a single degree off of standard, because that is what he did when he was steeling himself up for something. "Sir."

"Magnus," Optimus said, and despite the tension in his frame, it was warm. "It's good to see you."

"Likewise."

Optimus returned to looking back out the window. He vented inwards. Down to business. Ultra Magnus had never been a fan of small talk. "I've been made aware that the Wreckers are, yet again, in need of a commanding officer."

Ultra Magnus ran through his mental archives. "Crosscut hasn't had that assignment, yet, has he?" Cross-referencing the mech's qualifications… as well as what was on the record regarding his general temperament… he certainly couldn't be worse than some of the others Ultra Magnus had heard placed there throughout the vorns.

Optimus hummed. "I had someone else in mind, actually." Then he paused, one last hesitation. "How quickly could you reassign the bulk of your current projects to the rest of your division? I have a feeling the Wreckers will be a full-time job."

Ultra Magnus' internal HUD fizzled out of existence with a sad static noise.

It would have been impossible to be unaware of the Wreckers, not in the Autobot army and certainly not in the Decepticon army, and Ultra Magnus wouldn't be surprised if tales of their exploits had filtered their way through to even the most distant neutral settlements who rarely connected to the galactic network. They were utterly loud, disturbingly violent, unconscionably rude, cycled through commanding officers the way that vain mechs cycled through paint jobs, and had a penchant for shouting their team name in the midst of battle. To put it frankly, they sounded like loose cannons.

Of the current group roster, he'd only ever met Springer and Whirl in person. Whirl's work as an officer pre-war had led their paths to cross several times, each more unfortunate than the last. The institution had been just as corrupt as all institutions of power had been under the former Primes, with every bit of distance and hindsight Ultra Magnus had been able to gain, and Whirl had been one of the worst; angry at himself, at the world, and at his job, hidden under a thin veneer of joviality so slipshod that even Ultra Magnus had been able to see right through it.

Springer, on the other hand, had come across quiet and defensive in the several brief exchanged looks while passing in the halls and the one muttered verbal report that Ultra Magnus had been present for. If there was anything between them, it was a distant, apathetic distrust.

Ultra Magnus had, thankfully, never had to interact with them directly as a group. He preferred to keep the company of mechs who respected the hierarchy of command. Actually, he preferred to keep the company of mechs who had a modicum of respect for others in general, and he was under the impression that the Wreckers had none.

"Is this a punishment detail?" he asked numbly. If he hadn't been so taken aback, he might not have been so honest, and he found himself regretting it when Optimus flinched just the slightest bit.

"No!" Optimus insisted. He turned back towards Ultra Magnus with a hesitant half-step, arm outstretched. "Not at all, old friend. I promise. You know that I appreciate your insight. I think—I know it's needed here, for this."

"In what way? What makes you think-?" Ultra Magnus asked.

Of course, Optimus tapped his chest, indicating the glowing matrix beyond, and that was just as frustrating as it always was. Ultra Magnus had seen Optimus' matrix-born hunches turn out true far too many times for it to be a statistical anomaly, but they were often unreliable in frequency and vague in content.

It made it hard to refuse, no matter how much Ultra Magnus wanted to.

"I don't think the Wreckers are aware of exactly how dire the current situation is, but there was always a limited number of appropriately ranked mechs willing to work with them to begin with, and they've whittled the pool down so far that I had to bribe the last one with double the usual raise." Optimus paused, optics flickering to stare in the vague direction of the medical bay. "He's just now coming out of medical stasis."

Ultra Magnus had little time for gossip. He hadn't heard any of this, certainly not the part about the last Wreckers commander being left in medical stasis. Optimus wanted to throw him in with those turbowolves?

He tried not to feel betrayed. When the Matrix spoke, Optimus listened; there was a reason he was the Prime, after all, and it was Ultra Magnus' duty to follow wherever Optimus may lead. He'd made his choices long, long ago.

Still, he couldn't count the ways this was about to upend his life. He was comfortable where he was, doing what he did, every habit a groove well-worn after so many vorns. Paperwork was neat and tidy. Paperwork did not blow up things that weren't meant to be blown up, or talk in circles around him, or blatantly disrespect him. When he was needed on the field, which was more and more often lately as the war dragged on another vorn after yet another exhausting vorn, he had his real job to look forward to afterwards.

Decacycles in the trenches, too-large gun resting on his knees, daydreams of paperwork floating across his processor…

"I trust you, Magnus. I trust that if anyone can rein in their worst behaviors and come out the other side conscious, that you can. Because at this point, it looks like the only possible next step would be to move to disband and reassign them elsewhere, far away from each other." Optimus exvented long and hard. "The last time that they had so much as caught wind of that as a possibility, they—it wasn't good, from what I hear, though Prowl's been light on the details because he knows I don't approve of their methods any more than you.

"Not to mention, the few that have left the team tend to have issues integrating with the rest of the troops, I've heard, taking risks with themselves and the mechs around them that would be expected in the Wreckers but are irresponsible at best among the general populace… though if you ask me? If we tried to separate them, at this point they may just cut their losses and leave the Autobots altogether. I don't think I have to tell you how catastrophic that would be."

They owed a lot to the Wreckers. There were some Decepticons that wouldn't set foot on certain worlds because the Wreckers' reputation was so intimidating. There were certain battlefronts that would have almost certainly been lost if not for the Wreckers arriving just in the nick of time to drag out a victory from the jaws of defeat. Strategically, they were irreplaceable. Prowl had certainly been insistent on that, even if he seemed to grit his teeth through every word.

Well, if Optimus was giving him this assignment, he really had little choice in the matter, didn't he?

"How long do I have to disseminate my projects among my staff?"

Off in the distance, in the general direction Ultra Magnus was fairly certain the Wreckers resided, something akin to an explosion boomed, a ringing echo through the halls.

Optimus retracted his battle mask and grinned tiredly.

"Alright, what's next? I've got a unit transfer notification here, a science division. We good to put that through?"

"Who's on the roster? Oh. Uh… are they sure about this one?"

"What? Why?"

"Here. Ironfist. Isn't he that guy that does those datalogs? The, uh, Wreckers Unclassified, or something like that? Is it really a good idea to send him to the main base while they're operating out of it? I'd think that's a security risk or something."

"Ah. Yeah, no, everything in those is officially declassified. It's mostly personal stuff anyways. What they like in their engex, their favorite weapons, what it's like to see 'em on the battlefield, you know."

"Ah."

"What?"

"You're a fan, I see."

"Shut up. Anyway, they've got some kind of injunction thing to review his stuff before he publishes it. Officially. Though the datalogs are supposed to be unofficial. Officially unofficial, basically. And if you're worried he's gonna run around the base and bug 'em, well… do you think the Wreckers are gonna take that?"

"Bug on a windshield, more like. Splat."

"Exactly."

"Alright, whatever, send it."

"Cool."

Two cycles of trying to lay low, forcing everyone on the team to behave and be quiet while they waited for whatever proverbial axe was about to drop, and Springer was at his wit's end. He hadn't recharged for more than a joor at a time, leaving him frazzled and deeply frustrated.

This certainly wasn't helping.

"If you break this one," Prowl said, nose-to-nose with Springer, a conglomeration of steel and stern rage in the shape of a bipedal vehicle, "then I can't save you from the Prime, you hear me? They're friends. Ridiculous sentiment aside, several entire percentages of Optimus Prime's processing reliability are tied up in his closest friends' health, and thus it becomes my job to keep an eye on all of them and ensure they stay in relatively good condition."

"And you're giving one of them to us?" Moonracer blurted, and Springer had to bite back a roll of the optics. United front (plus Whirl,) after all, was the rule he tried to live by. Not that it wasn't an honest reaction, of course. He'd been wondering the same thing.

Prowl ran a hand down his face, stepping away. "Primus help me. Yes. Not by choice."

So this mech… he—or they, or she—was delicate and breakable enough for Prowl to growl at them all defensively about it. And important enough to be best friends with Optimus Prime, who was famously friendly with everybody but genuinely close with only a few.

Springer couldn't for the life of him think of anyone who fit that description. "And when are we going to get the grand introduction?"

"Right now."

The voice from the doorway across the room was deep and smooth, a baritone rumble that would have had any average soldier standing at attention, and probably most officers. Springer turned, fists clenched, only for them to drop a little in surprise as he realized exactly who was standing there, ramrod-straight, expression impassive.

'Delicate and breakable.'

Ha.

This mech stood taller than anyone else in the room. His legs were like solid steel girders, his shoulders wide enough to stop traffic. His fists were the size of some mech's heads. His frown was a chasm, deep and dark and unmovable.

He was…

"Ultra Magnus," Topspin breathed, awe in his voice.

"Are you kidding?" Twin Twist grinned, "we get Ultra Magnus? We should've punched- I mean. Uh."

Moonracer elbowed him in the gut. "Shut it," she demanded through gritted teeth.

Ultra Magnus stared at them all, one by one, measuring them up to some sort of invisible, unknowable metric and clearly finding each and every one of them wanting. Whirl got the longest linger, like Ultra Magnus knew exactly how much trouble Whirl usually got into and was carefully considering how to drop him out the nearest airlock.

"I look forward to working with you," said the legendary Autobot warrior, somehow more flatly and ingenuinely than the commanding officer who had said those words while being shoved into the job at literal gunpoint, and Springer reached up to pinch between his brows, already fighting back a processor ache.

Whatever Ultra Magnus' initial expectations were for the Wreckers and their purportedly disrespectful behavior, he still managed to find himself disappointed. None of them had bothered to so much as stand up, much less salute, and that was only the beginning.

The room they were in, which Prowl had described as the team's base of operations, their so-called 'common room,' set Ultra Magnus' teeth to itching just looking at it. How could anyone hope to be productive when endlessly distracted by everything out of place or partway destroyed, without even mentioning the mechs themselves who slouched, sprawled on the floor, or folded their arms and leaned up against the walls with their legs at twenty two and a half degree angles from vertical?

Nothing about this was encouraging.

Prowl had, of course, expected Ultra Magnus' strong feelings about the entire situation, because he turned his head a perfect ninety degrees and shot Ultra Magnus a thin smile. "The Prime expects you to spend at least the next two joors getting to know each other," he said firmly. "Don't worry about a meal; I've scheduled an energon delivery to arrive at exactly 1100 joors."

Prowl and Ultra Magnus had known each other for just about the entire length of the war, and Prowl had perhaps adapted to Ultra Magnus' specific preferences the most easily out of anyone Ultra Magnus had ever known. Ultra Magnus had seen Prowl interact with others, and knew the mech didn't always care about round numbers and rules and other such particularities—in fact, out of sight of Ultra Magnus and anyone who could take him to task, Prowl often flaunted parts of the Autobot Code in ways that would always set Ultra Magnus' teeth on edge. He could never call someone like that a friend. Not with the things he'd seen him do, or known him to do. He'd advocated directly to Optimus for Prowl's expulsion from High Command more than once.

However, Prowl's surface-level adherence to the behaviors outlined in the Autobot code, round numbers and right angles, and always setting clear expectations up front, made interacting with him mech-to-mech much easier. It was almost certainly a manipulation tactic, but Ultra Magnus had to admit that it was a very tempting one.

Unfortunately, in this instance, it just made Ultra Magnus feel worse. Now he couldn't simply retreat back to the new office they'd just allocated for him down the hall and ignore his problems for the time being; he was trapped here for two joors. Because Optimus expected it of him.

"Good luck," Prowl said, and then he abandoned Ultra Magnus to his terrible fate, and then all the Wreckers stared at Ultra Magnus with wide optics. All except for Whirl, of course.

"Oh come on, guys," Whirl whined. "This guy's a total spikebag too. He's got a stick up his aft the size of—well, something really big. And stupid." Ultra Magnus seethed a little inside. The mech was eloquent as ever.

"It's an honor to meet you, sir," said Twin Twist, holding out a hand for what could only have been a handshake. It may have looked clean, but hands carried an inordinate amount of dirt, corrosive materials, and other such contaminants, and Ultra Magnus would have to leave the room to wash his hands, and he had been instructed to remain in the room for two joors. So he just looked at the hand until Twin Twist put it down.

It didn't seem to affect Twin Twist's mood. Or, rather, Twin Twist seemed to brighten up at the gesture, as though Ultra Magnus had done something he found exciting or admirable in some inexplicable way. "I'm sure you've got all kinds of stories to tell. You know, you were kind of one of the reasons I joined up in the first place? You were just so badass, all-" he motioned, hands waving through the air, "-you know? And I saw the broadcasts, and I thought, I wanna be that guy."

Ah. This wasn't the first time Ultra Magnus had encountered a… fan, as it was.

It made him uncomfortable every single time.

No one ever seemed to look up to him for the way he filed forms, or arranged budgets. He was never praised for the things that he liked to do, only the things that he had to do. "Hm."

Ultra Magnus made the mistake of looking out at the rest of the room, because it was then that his optics locked on to Springer's own. The mech was staring back, expression hard.

"Come on," Twin Twist said, motioning towards one of the chairs. It had a broken leg and a chunk of rock had been wedged underneath to keep it stable. It was terrifying in several ways. "Sit! I've got, like. So many questions."

"I will stand, thank you," declared Ultra Magnus quickly. Possibly too quickly.

Twin Twist shrugged, folded his arms, shuffled his feet a little. "Okay! Sure. So, uh, stories! Tell us everything. I wanna hear about Eskabar, you know, during the Decepticon incursion, when you guys fought for four cycles straight without fuel or recharge and you punched Soundwave in the jaw so hard his faceplate fell off."

Moonracer cleared her intake, but at the same time seemed to be trying to speak. It came out as a very muffled, very staticky, "Fanbot." Perceptor, next to her, rolled his optics and sighed.

"No," Ultra Magnus said flatly.

"How about-"

"I'm more interested in your leadership style," Springer interjected. "What are you gonna do the first time one of us frags up?"

"My expectation is that you will not," said Ultra Magnus honestly but with dwindling hope. "In such instances, according to the Autobot Code, section XV, sub-section twenty-one-"

"I'm not asking about the Autobot Code," Springer interrupted. "I'm asking what you're going to do. Sir."

"I am going to follow the Autobot code," Ultra Magnus insisted.

Springer scoffed, optics narrowed further. "Sure."

"I am going to follow the Autobot Code," Ultra Magnus replied. It probably came off snappish, but he'd been having a fairly terrible morning and had no expectations of it improving any time soon. "I am going to follow the Autobot Code to the absolute letter and I expect all of you to do the same for every moment the Wreckers are under my leadership. Stand up straight," he demanded, pointing at Springer. "Salute when a superior officer enters the room," he declared to everyone present excepting himself. "Fix the damn chair," he said, pointing to the death trap. "I have noted sixty-three violations to the Code in the last ten breems and if they are not all rectified within the next cycle, I will be reporting every single one of you for every single one of them."

The room grew silent.

Twin Twist sat, hard, into the terrible chair.

"Told you guys he's an aft," sing-songed Whirl. "Guy's never been able to relax in his life. You think Prowl's bad? Ultra Magnus is worse."

Perceptor tapped a crooked finger against his chin thoughtfully. He hadn't spoken a single word since Ultra Magnus had entered the room, just watched everything with an analytical eye. "Ambitious expectations aside, from reports and what little I've seen of him, he always struck me as someone… consistent, at least. He was quite honest about what he wanted from us."

"Yeah, and when we don't measure up to his ridiculously high standards?" It was an inevitability, they all knew. No way they were going to fix even one of the sixty three—sixty three??—'violations' Ultra Magnus had noticed. After an incredibly awkward refueling and the clock ticking down on those two joors, he'd left them with a list, and they were all stupid stuff like… fixing this chair. Fixing that chair. Fixing their posture. Fixing their attitude. If they did all these things, what would be left of them? They might as well be mindless automatons at that point. Frag that.

"I assume he will punish us according to the appropriate sections of the Autobot Code. He may be filing a lot of reports in the near future."

Topspin chuckled. "Big guy like that, can you picture him sitting behind a desk? Nah, I think he was just trying to throw his weight around a little." It wouldn't be the first time someone had stepped into that position and immediately talked big about putting the pressure on them just to feel like a big mech. Most commanding officers did that, actually—thought that they would be the one to put the Wreckers in their place, and earn some kind of reputation points or career jumpstart from it, so they came out of the gate treating the group like slag, threatening them and—worse.

Ultra Magnus didn't strike Topspin as a mech concerned with his career, even with what little he knew of the guy.

So what was his angle?

Springer had been nursing the last of his energon for the last joor and a half, but he finally stood up, lifting the mug to his mouth in one smooth motion and downing it. "Whatever. He's temporary. They all are. We just have to live with whatever this is for as long as it takes him to give up and walk away, just like everybody else." He looked out across the room, optics alighting on everyone in turn. "Nobody talks to him alone. Complain directly to me. You know the drill."

Yeah. They did know the drill.

A datapad slid across the table. Optimus raised a single eyebrow.

"Five hundred and seventy-six reports, Magnus?"

"Of course." Ultra Magnus nodded once, curtly. "Would you like to review them alphabetically by the subject, by timeframe, by severity, by the subject's position within the Autobot Code, or by the mech in question?"

Optimus exvented slowly, though Ultra Magnus could tell he was trying not to smile. "You've been in command of the Wreckers for one and a half solar cycles."

"Yes."

"And you've filed five hundred and seventy-six reports."

"Yes." Wait. Ultra Magnus pulled out another datapad and scanned the contents before tapping the submit button. Optimus' own datapad dinged with an incoming mail. From its position on the desk, Ultra Magnus could see the screen light up with the notification. "Apologies. Five hundred and seventy-seven."

Optimus exvented again. He folded his fingers together and leaned forward on his elbows. "Reports aside, how are you integrating with the team? Is everything going—well, I guess not well, that would be too much to expect, but is it as rough as you thought it would be?"

He'd been exploded twice, luckily with only minor plating singes both times. Springer kept glaring at him. Perceptor would barely interact with him. Topspin and Twin Twist cycled between some kind of hero worship and some kind of severe hero disappointment, to the extent that they would be deferent to him one minute and obstinate the next. Moonracer tried to ask him questions, horrifyingly enough. Hot Shot didn't listen to him at all. Whirl… was Whirl.

"Yes."

Optimus winced. Then he exvented for a third time. "You're their commanding officer, Magnus. Their behavioral reports should go to you. You should be determining appropriate consequences and only escalating as needed, and I know you know that." He gave Ultra Magnus a wry look. "If you want, I'd be happy to receive a summary every—can we say every two orbital cycles? But aside from that, if you can, I'm asking you to… try, to stick with it long enough to give it your best effort. That's all. If you decide that they're really beyond hope, in the end, then I'll start working on the next steps for the Wreckers. But I don't want to do that because that would be a bad thing for the Autobot faction as a whole, you understand."

Ultra Magnus did not want to try. But it was Optimus asking. He could never find it in himself to refuse his oldest friend. "I'll… try."

Optimus leaned back, looking a little more at ease. "Thank you. So what is this I hear about new ammunition registration forms?"

Ah! Finally something fun.

Chapter Text

"And what, exactly, does the brass think we can do about that guy?" Hot Shot asked, plastered against the ship window, staring down at Devastator, who was currently stomping his way through an auxiliary Autobot base like tissue paper. Ultra Magnus and the Wreckers had been en route to another assignment, until Ultra Magnus had received a coded transmission.

"Distraction," Ultra Magnus said, "until the Aerialbots arrive."

He was hesitant to pit them against a combiner at this stage, given that he didn't entirely trust in their coordination with himself at the helm, yet. But orders were orders.

"Devastator, as with most combiners, is known to be top-heavy. Focus on the ankle joints," Ultra Magnus ordered. "We'll trip him up. Topspin, Twin Twist, get to the ground and batter him from below. Moonracer, Perceptor, keep him off balance from a distance. Everyone else, focus on distraction."

Topspin waved a hand through the air, and Twin Twist didn't even look in his direction. It didn't seem like any of the team had been listening. This was already off to a great start, Ultra Magnus thought to himself in what he was pretty sure was sarcasm.

The hatch slid open.

"Wreck and rule!" Twin Twist yelled as the team jumped out of the ship, letting gravity slam them onto the combiner's shoulders with some force.

(Someone had spray painted that onto the wall of the Wreckers' common room as well. He made a mental note to ask about it later.)

While the twins began punching Devastator in the face, causing him to stumble and roar, scratching at them with fingers nearly half the size of their entire body, Springer and Hot Shot attacked the transformation seams, and Moonracer and Perceptor each settled on a nearby building, scope in hand. Whirl seemed to be trying to shove something—a grenade?—up the combiner's nasal passage.

The group proceeded to ignore every order Ultra Magnus attempted to give. They didn't backtalk, didn't so much as glance in his direction… they simply pretended that he didn't exist, and fought independently, as they always did.

It was aggravating.

One large swipe of a hand threw Ultra Magnus against a building, giving him a surprisingly good vantage point to see-

"Perceptor, move!" Ultra Magnus ordered, and Perceptor, shockingly, did not move, focused as he was through his scope.

Was this how it was going to be for their entire acquaintanceship? Ultra Magnus talking into the void, while the mechs he is put in charge of disregard and ignore him? This had to be deliberate. Insubordination.

Ultra Magnus vented out sharply through his teeth, transforming into his altmode and flooring it; through desperation and determination, he gained barely enough speed to drive vertically up the building for a quick spell before transforming back, rolling onto the rooftop and bodily pushing Perceptor to the side just in time to miss a series of bolts from Devastator's giant blaster.

With a sonic boom loud enough to rattle audials, the Aerialbots flew in overhead, bringing with them an accompaniment of cheerful radio chatter.

Ultra Magnus grit his teeth. "We're leaving."

One of the most important parts of any successful operation was the paperwork, of course; if a mission achieved its physical objectives but it was not properly documented, then did it really happen at all?

(Ultra Magnus was sure he was not the only one to live by these principles; he'd seen Prowl abscond with data slugs before and seen mechs, squads, and even entire campaigns vanish from various databases in the past as a result. Each time, he'd brought formal complaints all the way up to the highest reaches of the faction, and in some successful cases Prowl had been appropriately punished for his actions. Even then, however, the data never reappeared, to Ultra Magnus' eternal consternation.)

Ultra Magnus handled an inordinate amount of the entire faction's paperwork. He had handled the paperwork, to be more precise; most of his day-to-day tasks had been handed off to various subordinates upon his reassignment. Still, Ultra Magnus had a very good idea of the ebb-and-flow of paperwork from one point of the Autobots to another, an ever-pulsing web of information.

He had never personally handled the Wreckers' paperwork.

He knew it existed; if there was one thing the many previous commanders of the unit had done right, it had been making sure to file the paperwork on time. Ultra Magnus was as painfully aware of the presence of paperwork as he was its absence. When paperwork wasn't filed, there was a certain hitch to the flow of operations that was obvious to someone as entrenched in all of it as Ultra Magnus had been, and there was no hitch with the Wreckers at any point in their history.

Despite the rough resolution to their first mission, Ultra Magnus had been looking forward to writing the report, if only because it was something familiar. With the press of fingers to keypad, any embarrassment about the actual contents of their mission fell away, leaving behind a professional, analytical distance.

Yes, writing reports was certainly satisfying.

"Read this carefully and sign at the bottom," he ordered, holding the datapad with the mission report out to Springer, who was clearly the one the group looked to for leadership in the absence of a consistent commanding officer, "then pass it along to the rest of the team and ensure they read it before signing. If you have any revisions to suggest, notate it on the side. You should be familiar with this process."

Springer took the datapad, confusion deepening the furrow of his brow. "Uh, what—"

"I need this back on my desk by 0900 tomorrow," he said, which was generous, but he wasn't entirely sure if Whirl knew how to read.

Springer's fingers tightened on the datapad. "Understood. Sir."

Ultra Magnus could feel Springer's stare on the back of his helm as he exited the room. He wasn't certain why. All of the previous reports he'd skimmed as part of preparations for his reassignment had contained the entire squad's signatures; there was nothing that should have been strange about that order.

Perhaps Springer was simply surprised at the efficiency of it all.

There was a pinched wire in his shoulder. A minor injury, all told, because the active nanites had slowly buffed away scratches and scorch marks across his plating over the course of the last few joors until this was all that was left. Still, it bothered him. Hooked up to the sensory suite as he was, any damage to the armor felt like damage to himself, because for all intents and purposes, it was.

He could go to the medibay.

The repair would be a simple matter of popping back a piece of plating and tugging a wire back into position. Even the most junior medic would have no problem doing it, and would not have reason to delve any deeper into his internals or coding for something so minor. It was a safe repair to have done by others in a registered medical facility.

(And, truly, the attention deflectors installed in the armor should make even major repairs possible without risk of detection. They were top of the line at the time of the armor's construction, and numerous.)

Still, he had the knowledge and hated to waste the resources, so he much preferred to take care of his repairs himself, ensuring his hab suite was locked and checking several times before disengaging from the armor and crawling out.

Ultra Magnus' habitation suite was as tiny as it had always been, no matter what base High Command moved to operate out of. He'd never wanted for anything larger, could never justify the expense or the extra burden on the paperwork system, because he so rarely spent time in it outside of the standard recharge cycle. It had a recharge slab big enough for the armor to lay out flat without hanging over any edges, but the legs of it were awfully tall and it was pushed against the wall, and Minimus Ambus often struggled to reach the correct spots for repairs when he started out with the armor atop it. As unsanitary as it was, he often left the armor sprawled out on the ground as he climbed over it to work, with its knees pulled up and its arms at odd angles to fit the small space, or sometimes on its side if he needed the access.

The first few steps as Minimus Ambus were always a little shaky; he often went long periods without putting weight on his joints, and dust often accumulated in the cracks. He had to recalibrate a lot of his internal systems, such as his gyroscope, if he spent too long inside the armor and accidentally flushed the settings for his mid-sized body.

(He didn't even want to think about what it would be like to experience his irreducible form, at this point.)

Crouching behind the armor, steadier by the click, he popped the panel open. The repair was easy, as he'd thought.

Honestly, given the Wreckers' reputations—and the state of their last commanding officer—he'd certainly anticipated worse.

The returned datapad in the morning did, indeed, have the entire squad's signatures, and no notes on the side.

Springer hesitated as he placed it directly in Ultra Magnus' hand, looking at Ultra Magnus with an expression he could not interpret at all. "Are you… planning on turning in all of our reports?"

The question was so ludicrous that he cycled his optics several times. "Of course. The one consistently commendable thing that your previous commanding officers have done, without fail, is to file reports on every mission." It was the first and most significant reason he respected all who had come before him in this role. No one who cared enough to complete reports to that standard could be anything but upright and decent, in his experience.

Ultra Magnus had skimmed records of previous paperwork filed for the Wreckers upon reassignment. The documents were consistent, detailed enough to be helpful, and filed in a timely manner.

It was no wonder they'd never crossed his desk, specifically, to the point that he was generally unfamiliar with the team; each commander had gone to great lengths to keep their paperwork up to specs enough that it never raised any sort of flags and never needed Ultra Magnus' specific attention. Any junior member of his department could have, and likely did, handle it. In fact, from his skimming, each Wreckers commanding officer appeared to have tried their best to keep everything similar enough even in simple formatting from one commander to another such that the entire transition had been nearly seamless each time.

There had to be something about the team that, despite everything else about it, prompted good paperwork habits. Ultra Magnus recognized a few names on the list who often balked at filling out the proper forms, considering them a waste of time when anyone (and especially Ultra Magnus) could easily explain how necessary record-keeping was. He'd personally sat several of them down and stood, arms crossed, frown chasm-deep and looming menacingly at the door, until they'd completed forms to his satisfaction.

…was the Wreckers' stellar record actually an indication that there was something to hide, behind the veneer of perfect paperwork?

He'd have to look into it.

Springer still hesitated, looking at Ultra Magnus with an emotion he still couldn't decipher. Finally, he spoke. "I wasn't expecting you to care so much about dotting the Ts and crossing the Is, sir."

That phrase was certainly inscrutable. He was almost offended at the thought that he would not do such a thing. "I assure you that every character that I write has every necessary stroke in every font. Legibility is a personal priority of mine."

"That's not—I'm just a little surprised that, you know," he waved at Ultra Magnus from his helm to his pedes, that same furrow to his brow, "that you care. About filling out all the paperwork the right way. Given that you're…"

Ultra Magnus had no interest in whatever reputation and rumors seemed to be going around about him, neither in learning about them nor in publicly dispelling them. "Paperwork is an essential part of the processes that keep the Autobot cause together. Without it, the disorganization and misinformation would bring the Autobot faction to its knees in cycles." The obviously was left out, but implied.

"Huh. O…kay," Springer said slowly. Then he straightened his posture, coming to some sort of internal decision. "I want to read them," he declared. "Before you file them. Anything you have on the team. Please." The last word was ground out between gritted teeth.

Ultra Magnus was curiously intrigued. What was it that caused Springer such concern? "You do have a right to see most documentation containing your personal designation, so long as it is not marked confidential," he mused. "We can arrange that going forward; I don't believe you have a personal transparency access request on file, so if you are looking to view records prior to today's date, that would be the next step to take. Let me know if you need a copy of that."

Something about the easy acquiescence—and even offer of assistance—seemed to throw Springer off-kilter. He rocked back on his heels, staring at Ultra Magnus like he was an unsolved puzzle. "I don't care about older records," he insisted. "I just need to know what you're saying about us right now."

"Certainly," Ultra Magnus replied. "Some files will contain necessary retractions, of course, for security's sake, but I'll comply with your request to the best of my ability. Will that suffice?"

Springer paused, then nodded curtly. "Yes sir."

As Springer left the room, Ultra Magnus stared after, his fingers tightening on the datapad.

Yes, there was definitely something odd there.

Ultra Magnus stayed working in the office near the Wreckers' common room for the rest of the cycle. There were many things a commander of such a unit had to concern themself with, he was learning; between budgets, and battle plans, and the feedback he was drafting up of each mech's performance, he had enough on his plate to keep him satisfactorily busy.

Then the pad next to the door beeped.

He did not appreciate visitors without a scheduled appointment, and his first instinct was to refuse entry, but he was meeting them in the middle—he had to keep reminding himself of such. He pinged the door to open.

"Hello. Please submit a request in my schedule next time you would like to stop by," he greeted Perceptor.

"Noted," Perceptor flatly replied, coming to stand near the door with his hands folded behind his back, shoulders straight. It was a decent posture, belied only by the way Perceptor kept looking around the room. Ultra Magnus couldn't imagine why; the walls were bare, and there was only a standard issue set of chairs and desks. The only thing Ultra Magnus had of his own in this office were the datapads.

Ultra Magnus set down the pad in his hands to give Perceptor his full attention. "What would you like to discuss?" he asked.

"I wanted… to thank you," Perceptor said hesitantly.

"Thank me for what?"

"We made every effort to ignore you." Oh, so they had been doing that on purpose. Ultra Magnus had been wondering. "And yet you risked yourself to pull me from danger. I don't understand why."

"You're my responsibility," Ultra Magnus explained. Should it not have been obvious? "I have a duty to you. If you are not holding up your end of the contract, that does not give me leave to abandon mine."

Perceptor squinted at Ultra Magnus as though he were a mystery to solve. After a long moment, he nodded to himself. "I see. Well, I still wanted to thank you, in any case."

Before Perceptor left the room, Ultra Magnus called to him. "That phrase Twin Twist used. 'Wreck and rule.' What does that mean?"

Perceptor stopped and turned, shrugging, blinking his optics. "It's a battle cry."

"Yes, but… what is the purpose?"

"Team… morale, I suppose? You hear it and you feel… proud?" He honestly sounded as though he'd never thought about it before.

How ridiculous and nonsensical.

"Okay, and… we're rolling."

Ironfist had no visible mouth to smile, and yet even Ultra Magnus could tell that he was delighted to be there based on body language alone. He wiggled his hands back and forth and rocked on his heels with barely restrained energy.

"What is rolling?" Ultra Magnus asked, squinting at the setup.

"Oh, no, it's a—it's a saying, is all. 'We're rolling,' like—you remember videotapes? Physical reels? Anyways, it's a saying. It means we're recording."

"I just-" Ultra Magnus interrupted, then cut himself off, realizing he was about to dig himself into a bigger hole but still unable to stop. "For accuracy's sake. Nothing is rolling. You have a microphone hooked up to flash storage. There is no rolling involved."

"Exactly!" Ironfist blurted loudly, then shuffled himself into the seat across from his interview subject. He steepled his fingers together as he straightened into a pose only 4.6 degrees off of correct posture, a significant improvement from his previous 9.3 degrees. "Anyways, uh, thank you for coming."

"You submitted a proper appointment request to my public calendar. Of course I came." Most mechs just barged right in to his office and started talking, an all-too-common circumstance which he hated passionately every single time. Either that, or they sent him emails. It was better but certainly not ideal when he received appointment requests via email because they were never properly formatted and thus never contained all the pertinent information, always missing a where or a when or a who or a what. The appointment request sent by Ironfist, politely worded and correctly formatted, every field filled in, had honestly warmed his spark, despite the subject matter being 'Interview.'

"So that's really all it takes for someone to get an audience with the Ultra Magnus?" Ironfist asked, already settling into a sort of cadence that was likely quite familiar for him. This was all in service of his datalog series Wreckers: Declassified, which Ultra Magnus, upon realizing its existence, had spent far too many hours combing for any hint of information that was not, in fact, declassified. He'd flagged a lot of information that seemed suspect, but nothing that pointed to a notable information leak. "A request to your appointment calendar with the right formatting?"

Yes. Probably. "No, of course not. I review all of my appointment requests vigorously."

Ironfist nodded thoughtfully. "Of course. You're already so high-up, and with your new assignment, your schedule is probably packed. It's an honor. Speaking of, you were just assigned command of the Wreckers! How do you feel about that?"

Frustrated. Resigned. Apprehensive. Nothing that Ultra Magnus would reveal to a stranger and his audience of thousands. "Fine."

"Were you familiar with the Wreckers before?"

"By reputation only."

Ironfist tilted his head. "And what kind of reputation do the Wreckers have in Autobot High Command?"

"No comment."

"Okay. After meeting them, what do you think of the Wreckers now?"

Impulsive. Reckless. Stupid. Utterly frustrating. What could he say that wouldn't represent the entire assignment in an inappropriately negative light, poisoning the well against any amount of neutrality they may still feel towards him after the events of the past cycle? "No comment."

"You just came back from a mission with them. Your first. Do you feel you work together well, or is there a lot of room for improvement?"

"We achieved our ultimate objective."

"Okay. Great. That's great. What about- what about you, can you tell me a little about yourself?"

"Such as?"

"Likes. Dislikes. Hobbies. There isn't a lot of information about you out on the galactic datanet, you know. You're kind of this big, shoot-y, loom-y enigma that just shows up on a battlefield, shoots in the direction of the enemy, and disappears back to the depths of the command base until the next time Prime needs a really big guy to go do really big guy things."

Well, dislikes was certainly easy. "I dislike talking about myself." He liked his non-Wreckers job, but he wasn't sure he should talk about that. He liked the idea of his private business staying private, and if information about his regular role and department wasn't readily available on the datanet, then he rather preferred the idea of it staying that way.

Ironfist paused. He drummed his fingers against each other thoughtfully, then tapped them against his chin. "Is there anything you feel you can tell me?"

Ultra Magnus stared at the microphone, trying to formulate a good sound byte, though he, himself, rarely listened to datalogs or newscasts. He found it all too sensationalized. Whatever was worth knowing could be communicated in a properly formulated memo in his inbox. "The Prime has assigned me command of the Wreckers, and I will endeavor to live up to his expectations."

He looked at Ironfist for confirmation that that was sufficient. Ironfist gave him a thumbs up to signify approval, though it was a little slow in coming.

Fantastic.

That went rather better than he'd expected.

"So… what do you think?" Elita asked, leaning forward to blow on her mug before taking a sip, elbows on the corner of Ultra Magnus' desk in a spot that he'd long ago allocated for her. She never took more space than she needed, and for that, she had his respect.

She was no stranger to Ultra Magnus' small office back in the paperwork division, to which he'd retreated after the interview with Ironfist. Ultra Magnus wasn't entirely certain as he'd never asked and she'd never offered the information, but he assumed she came to visit whenever she needed somewhere quiet to hide. Very few mechs came to visit him, sequestered away as he was, and no one would have expected her to be sociable enough with him to seek him out. That was their folly; though Ultra Magnus was certainly closest with Optimus Prime, the other members of High Command were all, at a minimum, willing to hold an amicable conversation with him when necessary. Several of them, Elita included, even fit all the benchmarks for what his long-deprecated social programs considered a distant-to-moderate friendship, though their duties kept them all far too busy to spend time together frequently.

"What do I think of what?" he asked. He didn't bother looking up from perusing communications to and from Gaia VII, the next planet the Wreckers were slated to visit. The files on the flora and fauna were embarrassingly scant, one of the reasons the Wreckers were being considered for protection detail.

Ultra Magnus was hesitant to take them anywhere with such uncertainties when he, himself, was still struggling to integrate with the team, as evidenced by their first mission.

"Your new team, obviously. The Wreckers."

"They are… as expected," he tried, neutrally. "I understand why Optimus assigned me to the group. I appreciate his faith in me."

"Optimus said you weren't exactly happy. I told him you wouldn't be," she said wryly, but more than a little fondly. "If it were up to you, you'd live in a castle made of paperwork and only come out for regularly scheduled walks so your joints didn't gum up."

He didn't dignify that with a response. A castle made of paperwork would be highly inefficient; the organization of the stacks alone would be a logistical nightmare, not to mention structurally unsound. He knew Elita was prone to hyperbole, however, and the best response to those statements was often no response at all rather than to point out the flaws and risk her laughter.

(It was, at one time, offense that he risked, but he believed they knew each other well enough by that point to avoid truly hard feelings.)

"You know, we've got the training simulator," she suggested once she'd finished her mug. "If you really want to work on your coordination. Beats making those mistakes out on the field."

To that, he grabbed a datapad and flipped through the file system, scrolling to the exact data he was seeking. "Expense reports—Five thousand, seventy-six galactic credits for repair of the training simulator," he recited pointedly. One of the personal goals he'd set himself upon assignment was to limit the team's honestly outrageous and unnecessary expenses by at least twenty five percent in the first three Cybertronian orbital cycles. Forty percent was his stretch goal.

Elita just grinned, pointing at him. "There you go, then. Make it part of the conditions for victory: don't destroy the simulator. I heard they like a challenge."

Did they?

Ultra Magnus considered the thought for a few seconds. Then he considered it for a few more, so lost in thought that he began tapping the datapad against the desk in a regular rhythm. "Elita, I think you may be, as some say, 'on to something.'"

Her smile grew sharp and she winked.

Chapter Text

"I haven't used the training simulator in… Primus, four decavorns? Was that when we totally trashed it?"

"Not my fault."

"No, it was definitely your fault, I remember clearly-"

Something thumped loudly behind him, and someone screeched. Ultra Magnus tried not to wince as he finished programming the simulator, turning to face the group. Somehow, in the short span he'd had his back turned, Whirl had wrapped his spindly self around Topspin, who was angrily trying to throw him off. Hot Shot had attempted to climb on top of the weapons rack for some reason, and it was tilting precariously despite Moonracer's exasperated efforts to steady it while Twin Twist was perusing the rack's contents, paying little mind to the way it kept swaying back and forth. Perceptor sprawled in a nearby chair, one knuckle pressed against his lips in thought, having pulled out a datapad to read.

Springer, on the other hand, hadn't moved a single centimeter; he stayed exactly as he was when they'd first marched there, arms folded, looking almost defiantly back at Ultra Magnus as though daring him to say something about the group's frustrating lack of cohesion and discipline. In the limited interactions Ultra Magnus had thus far had with the group, he observed that to be Springer's favorite spot: facing Ultra Magnus, his back to the Wreckers.

It felt oddly defensive.

When Ultra Magnus raised a brow, unimpressed at the group's antics, mentally preparing his upcoming reports, Springer whistled, once, and everyone on the team immediately snapped to attention. Hot Shot climbed down, Topspin got a grip on Whirl to throw him to the side like a particularly annoying insect, and Perceptor slid to his feet, stowing his datapad somewhere.

"I've set the simulation to the same difficulty level that the Prime and his cohorts use," he announced, "which is one of the highest difficulty levels currently programmed into the machine, and certainly one of the most complex, necessitating both strength and strategy." He watched the way their attention sharpened, interest brewing. "Knowing the Wreckers' particular reputation, I do not believe this will pose an insurmountable challenge, which is why I am adding another condition: the moment the simulator sustains one-point-five percent damage, it will shut down and the simulation will end in a loss. Consider this a test of precision, rather than a test of power."

Twin Twist bristled. "What the frag-"

"-fantastic," Topspin interrupted, cracking his knuckles. "Let's do this."

"Attacking the simulated opponents will not damage the simulator," Ultra Magnus continued determinedly, "nor will damage to the standard structures within the projection such as buildings, obstacles, or other objects which are projected as part of the scenario. Do not attempt to go out of bounds horizontally or vertically, as damage to the walls or ceiling or the floating projectors will affect the simulator, and thus disqualify your progress."

"You're treating us like newsparks," Hot Shot complained.

"I'm treating you like experienced mechs who know how to take care of their equipment," Ultra Magnus countered sharply. "I will be evaluating what this team is capable of and areas of needed improvement and presenting that analysis in individual performance reports, and I can't do that if the simulation stops working in the middle of the evaluation. I have high expectations of all of you because high expectations were given to me. Do you understand?"

Hot Shot shifted on his feet, looking away. "Yessir," he mumbled eventually.

Ultra Magnus almost missed the way Springer turned, a fraction of a fraction of an inch, in Hot Shot's direction during that exchange. Interesting.

"Moonracer!" Ultra Magnus commanded, pressing a finger to his external comms. "Do not engage! We require ranged support!"

[Yeah, yeah.] He watched her swing back up to her perch from where she had been stationed since the start of the simulated battle. Below, her opponents who she'd kicked in the face hard enough to take out permanently dissolved into scattered holographic pieces. It appeared that attacks to the face were a particular preference of hers, given what Ultra Magnus knew about their prior commander. [They were venting down my neck, give me a break.]

"That's why Hot Shot was supposed to cover you. Where is he?"

The comms were silent. Ultra Magnus stifled an exasperated exvent, looking around the corner. For all that the group was spectacularly unsubtle, Ultra Magnus was equally so, given his size and presence, but he braved a few dozen shots to get a clear look at Hot Shot, who had ignored his post to jump right into the fray, helm-first, a spray of bullets and an elbow to the face to show for it.

"Hot Shot!" Ultra Magnus called into his comm. "Return to your post!"

[Yeah, no,] Hot Shot said as he slid in front of a particularly large virtual opponent, a mech nearly three times his size with indistinct features, [none of these losers are making a dent. It's time for someone better to step in.]

[Tell us how you really feel,] Twin Twist interjected.

Ultra Magnus gritted his teeth.

[Frag this,] Whirl declared, pulling an exceptionally large gun from somewhere and aiming it at the next wave, [they can fix the stupid machine, this is what they made it for, I wanna win this my way. These guys aren't even real so I don't care.]

[No! Whirl, no, put that down,] Springer demanded, but it was far too late. Whirl pulled the trigger, the implausibly large weapon made a terrible whining noise, and the resulting explosion nearly blew out everyone's audials.

The floor had a giant smoking hole in it. The simulation machine fizzled and popped, and the simulation disappeared, piece by piece, along with every piece of Ultra Magnus' already waning patience and faith in the team.

"…great," Springer groaned. "Good going, guys."

Ultra Magnus could feel his frustration mounting. As they cleaned up and cleared out of the room, he tapped a spare datapad against the room's control module to initiate a data transfer, shut the doors and performed the standard lockout-tagout procedure with High Command credentials, and then turned to Hot Shot. "You're coming with me."

Hot Shot winced, twisting to look at Springer for some reason, which did nothing to soothe Ultra Magnus' rising aggravation levels. Springer scowled, offering a sort of shrugging motion that Ultra Magnus had no way to properly interpret, before moving forward to stand beside Hot Shot, facing Ultra Magnus with a determined set to his shoulders.

"I am speaking with Hot Shot," Ultra Magnus said.

"You're not speaking to any of them alone," Springer insisted.

Ultra Magnus was incredibly ready to cite policy and procedure, but something about the tension in Hot Shot's frame gave him pause. It was as though Hot Shot was trying hard not to shrink back from him as he loomed overhead. He was suddenly aware of his size, and Hot Shot's own smaller stature, and took one step away so they all could vent a little easier during this encounter.

"Fine. Follow me."

It was a somber parade that marched through the halls of the Autobot base; Ultra Magnus leading the way with a flat, unimpressed expression, Hot Shot in the middle, looking a little nervous and sheepish but clearly trying to hide it, and Springer bringing up the rear with hands balled into fists but otherwise pulling on a veneer of careful neutrality.

Hot Shot expressly disobeyed orders. Whirl was an even bigger loose cannon, but there had been a lot of space between Ultra Magnus' initial instructions and the moment Whirl had pulled out that gun. As frustrating as it was, Whirl's patience and self control were things to be worked on.

Somehow.

He'd do his best to figure it out.

Hot Shot, however, chose to directly disobey orders as they were being relayed to him, and that could not go unaddressed if Ultra Magnus was to lead the Wreckers as Optimus Prime intended.

"Sit down," Ultra Magnus ordered once they'd arrived at his office—the one closer to the Wreckers' living areas, of course, the new one that had been allocated to him for his duties. He was not going to lead any Wrecker to his real office, the one he'd built into a refuge over vorns and vorns, from base to base always within his department, which was still sitting open for him in the hopes that this assignment would be somehow temporary.

Hot Shot sat, looking almost a little pale.

Ultra Magnus turned on the datapad in his hands and skimmed through the information. Through some uncanny luck, the damage appeared to be minor. More than the disqualification limit of 1.5%, certainly, but nothing that a repair team couldn't fix in the span of a joor or two. That was a relief; it wouldn't cut too much into his ultimate goal of budget reduction. He handed the datapad to Hot Shot, who handled it with the expression of someone being given a potentially explosive device.

"This is the incident report I have to file to get a repair crew in," Ultra Magnus explained after shuffling through his stacks and handing Hot Shot another datapad. He now had two datapads, one in each hand, and he was staring at the both of them in dawning confusion, which was certainly better than his shrinking nervousness of two breems ago. Springer just looked skeptical. "I will check your work, obviously. Get writing. Spare no detail."

"So what did the big U.M. do, exactly? The 'you are a cybermaggot' speech? Planks?"

"Hmm. You don't look tired enough to have done five hundred sit-ups, and your paint looks fine so you weren't on scrubbing duty, clearly. What new horrors has our newest commanding officer unleashed?"

Hot Shot sat down, cycling his optics slowly in disbelief.

"He… made me do… uh, paperwork?"

"They're aggravating," Ultra Magnus complained to Elita, because that was many times better than facing Optimus and complaining.

He rarely had reason to complain to Elita. He had been rather content with his lot in life up until this moment. It wasn't perfect, but it was stable. And boring. He liked boring. He liked boring a lot. He liked not having to talk to people, or be responsible for them, or have his own performance possibly judged by how well he could wrangle a bunch of hotheaded… slagheads.

"They're a bunch of hotheaded slagheads," he said impulsively.

Elita snorted, turning to stare at him with wide, delighted optics. "A bunch of what?"

"I will not repeat it. That was rude and inappropriate."

"No! No, no, repeat it, please. Please. Come on, Magnus."

"No."

Gaia VII had several potential energon deposits deep within its core, but the mining facilities were inaccessible from the air due to the rugged terrain and unreliable—and often corrosive—weather patterns, as well as the desire to disguise their presence from Decepticon scouts in the galactic sector. To visit or attend a posting there, one had to land in a disguised landing spot about one local cycle's walk from the mines.

The region's flora and fauna were poorly documented. Several parties had disappeared on their journey between the two locations, with signs of damage consistent with a large predator.

That was uncommon, as one might imagine; most creatures found Cybertronians to be unpalatable for a variety of reasons. Few could digest the inorganic components of a Cybertronian, and those that could obtain sustenance from the sentio metallico that made up their inner protoform often found it difficult to reach it beneath layers of armor.

With a science team landing in two joors, assigned to study the refinement of the energon from the mines in an attempt to stretch the Autobots' already dwindling resources as far as they could possibly go, they needed a guard to escort them, and the Wreckers had been suggested for the task.

Ultra Magnus considered it a good opportunity to observe the team's dynamics further. Given the training sim had been cut short, it would be good to see them out on another actual assignment, especially one that may introduce unexpected elements to see how they worked in a pinch.

"So we might be here for two fragging cycles and, what, not fight anything at all?" Whirl whined, collapsing on the ground. It was soft dirt, so it didn't clank dramatically the way he clearly wanted to. "This is agonizing. Aggravating. Annoying. And that's just the ones that start with 'a'. Wait till I get to 'f'."

"I'm actually kind of impressed that you know the alphabet," Perceptor says, looking just as unenthused about the whole situation.

"I can use it to spell and everything! F-R-A-G, Y-O-"

"If you have time to talk, you have time to set up camp," Ultra Magnus cut in curtly. The planet's acid rain made cover a necessity.

"With these?" Whirl clacked his claws. That was, unfortunately, fair. It wasn't the first time Ultra Magnus had wondered why Whirl kept his claws instead of replacing them with readily available alternatives with opposable thumbs. Whatever he'd done to warrant the empurata—and there was certainly a lot of things Ultra Magnus could suspect as the reason after being in Whirl's presence for any length of time, though actual accurate records from that period were scarce and also it was Whirl's personal business until and if it became relevant to the Autobot cause in a legal sense—he seemed to have little drive to take back the parts that had been taken from him. It meant he couldn't participate in many standard activities in the same way, and Ultra Magnus was still considering the kinds of accommodations that would be necessary for such. A tent kit, for example, that could be handled in large, sharp claws with a different dexterity than hands.

While he was a little tempted to state his case on the subject of opposable thumbs, he decided not to push. He was trying this thing Elita had suggested to him called meeting them in the middle. It involved conceding some ground on subjects that Ultra Magnus was willing to compromise on, in exchange for raising his expectations in other matters, in order to foster a relationship of mutual amicability. Or something.

He was skeptical, but reluctantly willing to give it a try. He was still figuring out what he was willing to compromise on. He'd never wanted to compromise, and never tried to. He'd built a lot of himself and his reputation on not compromising. He was sure this would be an uncomfortable learning experience all around.

The escort mission went well. Ultra Magnus only had to stop Whirl, and of all mechs, Perceptor, from getting into a fistfight with the otherwise mild-mannered science team.

It was only on the way back, nearly within sight of their ship, that they discovered that the planet did, in fact, have hostiles. Large ones, with rows upon rows of sharp metal-shearing teeth and some kind of heavy organic natural armor, who barely flinched at gun blasts. All except Whirl's, which brought one down with an absolutely disproportionate amount of firepower.

Topspin and Twin Twist brought the second one down via strangling. It thrashed, sending Twin Twist crashing against a tree, throwing its head back and banging its skull right into Topspin's faceplate. As soon as it fell, Ultra Magnus called for retreat.

Twin Twist pulled himself to his feet and seemed to be moving without pain. Energon dripped out of Topspin's nasal cavity as he climbed in behind Moonracer, spilling over his teeth bared in a grin, pooling in the grooves between. It was an absolutely ghastly look.

"Go to medical as soon as we land," Ultra Magnus instructed.

"Frag you," he replied cheerily.

That was not in Ultra Magnus' available conversational lexicon of responses to this command, and especially not in such a cheery voice. Thus, it took him a moment to process and formulate a further response, in which time Topspin had pushed past him, holding a palm against the source of the drip.

"An open energon line so close to the processor is not a risk I'm willing to take," Ultra Magnus said. There were far too many components in the interior of the helm that simply should not be exposed to liquids, especially ones as corrosive as energon.

Hot Shot leaned over and peeled away Topspin's palm long enough to hiss sympathetically. "Yeah, that's a gusher, mech. Ouch."

The rest of the ride home was fairly silent, which was a bit odd for the Wreckers.

"Any chance you could fill out a requisition form on our behalf?" Springer asked Ultra Magnus as they disembarked. "I've got a squeaky chair in the common room, and I think the bolt on it's stripped."

"And why can't you fill one out yourself?" Ultra Magnus asked, turning to look for Topspin.

"Because our requisition requests are set up to be auto-denied," Springer replied casually.

And that distracted Ultra Magnus fully. "Excuse me?"

"Anyone done an interview with that Ironfist guy? Or Fisitron, or whatever he calls himself?" Moonracer asked before collapsing onto a chair in the Wreckers common room.

The place was pretty well, er, wrecked- years of weapons discharges, judicial applications of fire, and some suspiciously energon-colored stains had certainly seen to that. Most of the chairs and benches were at the very least creaky and loose—the ones that weren't outright missing legs or arms or large chunks out of the backs, that was. After it started cutting into important budgets, any requisition requests that had been submitted on the team's behalf to replace said furnishings had been automatically rejected for a long, long time, which had actually done wonders for the team learning to appreciate what they were given and not treat all their belongings as disposable.

(Most of the team, that was.)

"Of course!" Whirl exclaimed. "We do an interview at least once a decavorn. Gotta update my list of known weaknesses, of course." He popped his head up from where he was fiddling with something ridiculously sharp and probably deadly. It still had some energon stains on it. Where did he get it from? "Still zero, by the way, in case anybody was wondering. I also share some home videos of my goriest fights; he loves that slag. I made a supercut to some Vosian shrieking screamo last time, anybody wanna see?"

"Anybody who isn't Whirl?" Moonracer asked again.

Hot Shot raised his hand.

Everybody looked at him with varying degrees of skepticism and judgment.

"What? He asked nicely," Hot Shot shrugged. "It's just talking about myself. I could talk about myself all day. He even had me sign some, uh, promotional stills, I think? I don't remember taking those, but he sure had 'em! Guy's passionate. About us. That's pretty neat."

Moonracer made a skeptical noise. "He's not weird about it?"

"Oh, he's totally weird. He collects all kinds of slag; I saw at least one spare leg from, I think, you?" Hot Shot pointed to Topspin. "Could've been Twist, I don't know, I didn't get a good enough look. Plus it had a huge hole in it. And I saw one of your lucky bullet casings on his wall, Moonracer."

She shot to her feet, instantly up in arms. "Is that where it went?!"

Hot Shot waggled his hand in the air. "Chill, it's not going anywhere. He's got it all polished and everything, hanging in a frame. Better than how you take care of 'em, even."

"Still." Moonracer's optics narrowed. She sat back down. "Guess I will be going in for that interview after all."

"He'll be happy to hear that, I'm sure," Topspin drawled. They all winced. The mech had been trying to book them for orbital cycles now, ever since he'd arrived at base, and if nothing else, he was determined. He'd go scurrying away if Twin Twist or Topspin folded their arms threateningly, or if Moonracer's hand strayed towards the gun on her back or her fingers curled into fists, but he'd be right back the next day trying a different approach.

Please sign this, what do you think of that, what are your physical stats…

"What do you guys think of Ultra Magnus as a commanding officer?" Springer asked abruptly. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, face impassive.

Every other mech in the room looked at each other, daring each other to speak first.

"Uh, he made me do paperwork," Hot Shot said. "Several times. But he hasn't made me scrub the floors, or run sprints until my ankle joints squeak, or… yeah. I like him, I think." At Topspin's raised brow, Hot Shot shrugged.

"I think he's a weird guy," said Whirl, the resident weird guy. "I don't trust those beady optics of his. Or anybody with multiple optics, really. You never know what's going on behind 'em."

"He's consistent," Perceptor spoke up. "That's a good quality to have in a leader."

"Consistent, yeah," Topspin concurred. "Feel free to laugh at me for this, but I think he might actually be trying. Which is more than I can say for most of the guys we've had."

Moonracer tilted her head in Topspin's direction in acknowledgement. "Actually, you know what? I think you might be right. I'd like to get to know him a little more, personally. Seems like every time, he just walks in, gives orders, we do whatever it is, and he's gone, leaving behind a list of everything we're dong wrong. Hard to get a read on him. He's like a brick wall covered in unspecified neuroses."

"And you?" Hot Shot turned back to Springer.

Springer hummed thoughtfully. "I don't know."

"Excuse me, I need you to stand up for approximately three breems," Ultra Magnus said, standing in front of Perceptor, who appeared absorbed in a datapad as usual. Every moment in the Wreckers' common room felt like gravel against sensitive struts. The walls were stained. The furniture was broken. Some of the lockers failed to close properly. Nothing—absolutely nothing at all—was aligned to a neat 90 degree grid as per Autobot Code standard.

It was absolutely horrifying.

He'd managed to let it sit for several solar cycles before finally losing the struggle against his needs to set everything to order. Optimus and Elita would be proud. Most likely, anyways.

Perceptor's gaze lifted from the datapad. "Why?" he asked, which was not the answer Ultra Magnus expected or wanted.

Optimus had asked Ultra Magnus to try. That was what repeated in his processor every time he interacted with a Wrecker; he was expected to try. That meant not shutting down or becoming defensive or leaving at every little bit of disrespect. "The manufacturer's tag or stamp on furniture is often on the underside," he explained as patiently as he could possibly manage. "It will state the company of origin, as well as the product code. I need both pieces of information for requisition forms."

"You're getting us new chairs?" Hot Shot interrupted from across the room. "Good luck with that. We're not 'allowed.'" He raised his hands and bent both sets of index and middle fingers, physically indicating so-called 'air quotations'.

"I'm aware of the automatic denial for accessories and furniture that was set up on all of your profiles," Ultra Magnus assured him. "Given the amount of time that you all have had to live in squalor, I believe that you have more than served your punishment for mistreating Autobot property. I've lifted the restriction personally, though if I see it affect the team budget drastically, I may re-evaluate." Ultra Magnus could not possibly have imagined such a terrible punishment himself if he'd tried. These conditions were akin to torture, clearly, and the Autobot faction did not approve of torture.

"You… really do care about the paperwork, huh?" Hot Shot said, eyeing him curiously. "Just in general."

"Of course." Why wouldn't he?

Perceptor hummed, lifting himself out of the chair and stepping aside, and Ultra Magnus lifted it for a better view. He took several pictures in case the first one was blurry. When he set the chair down, he did so at a perfect parallel to the wall, with a standard distance away that was a friendly round number.

He worked clockwise around the room, doing the same to all the furniture as he recorded the information, subtly setting the room to rights despite the many things he could not immediately address, and by the time he'd made it to Hot Shot's raggedy, oddly-angled and saggy sofa, Hot Shot jumped off of it and swept his arm to the side, a dramatic invitation to proceed.

"Thank you," he said, and Hot Shot actually seemed to brighten up a little bit at that.

Not all of the exchange went quite so smoothly, however.

"Hey, that's my emotional support wobbly chair," Whirl declared defensively when Ultra Magnus tried to approach him.

"You'll get a better one," he countered. "One that is up to regulation. One that does not wobble."

"I want it to wobble!" Whirl cried. "It wobbling is a cornerstone of my mental health!"

"Relax," Perceptor sighed, "it's not as though he's getting rid of the posters, or the table. Or the locker that doesn't close. Or the stain in the corner. You can keep your emotional support broken things that don't interfere with daily functions."

The posters were inappropriate and none of them were plastered to the walls with appropriate fixatives, or at the correct angle. "Actually, I'm getting rid of all of those things."

Whirl wailed, draping himself over the table with one wrist over the top of his helm as though he was about to faint.

Perceptor looked up at Ultra Magnus, then. "One thing at a time, perhaps," and he sounded rather aggrieved himself.

"Fine," Ultra Magnus said flatly, not wanting to give in but reminding himself to try. "Spreading out the budget over a longer period of time will look better on a quarterly evaluation." He finished notating all of the necessary information for the claim and turned to leave, eager to get away from the stains on the walls.

"Magnus!" Moonracer called, raising her arm.

He turned, bristling just a little bit, though he was certain no one could tell from his bearing alone. "Moonracer. Please refer to me as Ultra Magnus, if you must."

Her face didn't fall even a fraction at the lukewarm response. "Ultra Magnus. Sir. Would you, uh, hang with us for a while when you're done? It's just- we've been working together for some time now and we still don't know anything about you. It'll be fun! We've got-"

"Shut up shut up shut up," whispered Twin Twist at her side, jabbing at her with an elbow, clearly unhappy at her for suggesting it. Ultra Magnus could relate. The idea of socializing in large groups was patently uncomfortable. He didn't know why anyone willingly subjected themselves to such.

Springer didn't say anything, but he didn't shut down the offer, just watching Ultra Magnus expectantly.

There was only one possible answer for this situation. "No."

She did falter the slightest bit at this, clearly expecting it but not happy about it. "Ah. Well-"

"Have a good day."

The team was slowly letting down their defensive walls around him, Ultra Magnus thought hesitantly as he made his way back to his new office. If not in battle, or trusting his leadership, then at least in a more interpersonal sense, which was in all likelihood a first step in the right direction.

That was certainly encouraging. He'd have to tell Optimus the next time they met.

"Heads up!" Twin Twist called as he grasped one of their virtual opponents by the arm and swung it into several more, all of them screaming as dictated by their programming. As all of the bodies collapsed, conscious but struggling, Twin Twist vented in for a moment, reaching over his shoulder for his gun, only to freeze at the whine of an electric charge behind him.

Ultra Magnus moved in, then, having vacated the immediate area as per Twin Twist's warning but returned swiftly upon recognizing the hole in his guard. One giant fist to the side of the aggressor's face, and Twin Twist was no longer being threatened.

"Thanks, Maggie," Twin Twist drawled as he continued reaching over his shoulder for the giant gun holstered on his back, pulling it out and lifting it and shooting it off in one smooth motion. "That was a close one."

Ultra Magnus was very happy to tell Twin Twist exactly which Autobot Code section and paragraph he was in violation of with that terrible, awful nickname. How disrespectful. How utterly rude. He thought he had left behind such indignities long ago. As he berated the Wrecker, he expected the optic roll. He did not expect the upwards tilt to Twin Twist's mouth, just the tiniest movement, only noticeable because he was watching, gone in the very next click.

Then Moonracer came flying through the air, feet-first, bowling over the next wave of opponents. From her point of origin, Topspin raised a hand to shade his optics and whistled. "Wow. Yeah, we're putting that one in the official Wrecker book of super awesome moves."

"We are not," Ultra Magnus insisted. That book didn't exist, for one. He would know.

Chapter Text

"Ultra Magnus!" Optimus Prime greeted as the door slid open. "Thank you for joining me, old friend."

"Of course," Ultra Magnus replied with a respectful dip of his head. "You wanted to see me."

Optimus sat himself behind his desk and made a motion for Ultra Magnus to take a seat in a chair opposite. The Prime made it a point to have several chairs available for different frametypes, with each of them being further adjustable to accommodate for a range from the smallest cassette to the largest- well, the largest Ultra Magnus. The only mechs that were larger than Ultra Magnus either wouldn't fit into the room altogether (as in the case of Omega Supreme,) or were counted among the Decepticon ranks (as in phase sixers.)

"I hear your integration with the Wreckers is going well," Optimus began, folding his hands on the desk. "I know it hasn't been that long, but I've been told the number of insubordination reports from other officers, as well as damage reports, has already started on a much more encouraging trajectory since you've stepped in."

"We are making progress," Ultra Magnus admitted hesitantly. He clenched his fists, pressing them against his knees. "I believe that they have, what is the phrase? 'Begun to warm up to me.' I was even invited to spend time with them in their common room outside of missions."

Optimus' optics were glowing brightly with joy. "Excellent! And did you take them up on it?"

"Obviously not. As for some of the metrics I have highlighted as targets for improvement: I do believe we've made progress on collateral damage. At the end of this first quarter, as you've noted, my goals for expense report reduction have been met and exceeded. On the topic of insubordination…" he vented slowly. "I am still working on gaining their trust and respect on the field; while most other Autobot squads follow orders from their commanding officers as a matter of procedure, the Wreckers are… defensive, for some reason I haven't been able to clearly identify. They often take actions that directly conflict with orders given, moving independently, making choices that simply do not make sense." He stopped there before he started ranting. He would not rant to Optimus about the mission Optimus entrusted to him.

"I may have a solution for that, actually," said Optimus, leaning forward a little, the crinkle at the corners of his optics belying the grin beneath his faceplate. He slid a datapad across the desk. "A tactical communications specialist recently requested a transfer to base. If we want the team to be coordinated, the next step is to give you the tools, I think. Not only that, but the next mission we have lined up for the Wreckers is on a planet that this mech spent extensive time on in the past."

Ultra Magnus reached for the datapad curiously.

He turned it on.

He-

He saw the specter of a life he left behind, while all the energon in his lines turned cold.

The shock was enough to disconnect him fully from the armor for a fraction of a click, leaving Ultra Magnus' faceplate frozen in a ponderous frown. Deep inside the dark cradle of the armor, Minimus Ambus wheezed. Then the linkup reinitialized, and Ultra Magnus set the datapad back down on the desk. Very deliberately.

After pressing the power button and watching the mech's frozen face wink out of existence, of course. A datapad left on was wasteful.

"I am—not certain that a tactical communications specialist is what the team needs," Ultra Magnus very nearly stuttered. "Perhaps—" his vocal component failed him, and so did his processor.

"I know it's a bit of a shakeup, given that you've just established rapport, but the timing works too well to let it pass by. I'd like to give him a chance, put him in the position and see what he can do to further improve team coordination," Optimus insisted. "This is coming from Prowl, who has extensive history with the team, and you know I trust his judgment. And the mech himself comes with a solid resume; his list of accomplishments is quite impressive. Did you know he-"

"-I don't care what he's done," said Ultra Magnus' mouth.

Optimus froze, clearly taken aback. Ultra Magnus did not interrupt other mechs like this, especially not superior officers. It was a terrible breach of protocol.

"I'm sorry," Ultra Magnus tried to backtrack. "I just don't believe this is the right time. If you want to add a communications specialist, what about…" he searched his memory banks for anyone applicable. Anyone at all. "…Blaster?"

Now Optimus was looking at him oddly. "The Blaster who runs communications for the entire Autobot faction? You want to take him off of that and put him on the Wreckers?"

"No, of course not. I just wanted to be clear that there are options. Options other than this."

"Magnus, I trust you, you know I do. But If you don't have any specific objections to this mech in particular," Optimus picked up the datapad and waved it a little, something confused and a little concerned in his brow, "then this mech is who you'll be getting. He's qualified, he's available, and he's interested."

"I- no," Ultra Magnus said, quietly drowning. "No specific objections as such."

"It's settled," Optimus declared, setting aside the datapad atop a stack. "Let the team know that they'll be getting a new communications specialist. I'll ping you when Dominus Ambus' ship sets down."

After several million years, Ultra Magnus' feelings about Dominus Ambus were, somehow, even more complicated than they'd been the day he'd decided to shed the Minimus Ambus identity altogether.

They had rarely crossed paths with each other during that entire near-endless span of time, as unlikely as that sounded. Always a passing acquaintance. Each time, Ultra Magnus had spoken the fewest possible words and left quickly.

(He was known for being rather taciturn, anyways. No one would have known the difference.)

It was strange to interact with his brother as though they were strangers. Their interactions always felt so one-sided; Ultra Magnus' words and actions towards Dominus, short as they were, always had a depth and complexity behind them, hidden behind his usual brusqueness, while Dominus's own demeanor had been quietly respectful but incredibly distant. It was incredibly uncomfortable to know and not be known in turn, almost as uncomfortable as Dominus' deference. Ultra Magnus had never expected to outrank his brother, and had only managed it due to proximity and Orion's friendly overtures, being at the right place at the right time and managing to somehow make the right decisions.

The other option, however-

Ultra Magnus did not want to tell Dominus who he was.

Millennia and galaxies of distance had only sharpened the edges of their last conversation. Minimus Ambus had never apologized. He'd never had the opportunity, before his comms had scrambled for good. That lingered between them in a way that would no doubt sour any eventual reunion. And explaining that he'd built the armor would necessitate an explanation as to why he'd thought the armor necessary in the first place, the alienation and entrapment he'd felt, the way it was an escape into a better life.

Dominus had had time to move on, as well, and it was more than likely he hadn't spared much thought to his wayward sparkbrother in a good while. Minimus Ambus had never been that important in the grand scheme of things. Dragging up old feelings would do nothing to help a mech who'd already moved on.

Additionally, Minimus Ambus had become comfortable in himself as Ultra Magnus. When he had recharge fluxes, he was more often than not in his large blue body, and any dreams otherwise were usually the result of stress or poor recharge. Any risk of discovery was a risk of losing the reputation he'd built, the life he'd made with his own two hands, and the trust that his compatriots held for him. He had never known Dominus well enough to truly, confidently know what he'd do with a secret like this. They just… weren't ever that close.

Ultra Magnus was a mech of habit. He had a life he had long ago settled comfortably into wherein he felt secure, despite his assignment to the Wreckers having rocked the boat more than a little. Anything that threatened to upend that stability was to be avoided at all costs.

There was also something utterly, ridiculously selfish in there as well—this life and his coworkers were his, and Dominus had a tendency to take everything of Minimus Ambus' for himself, even if unintentionally. Everyone flocked to him; he shone far too brightly for anything less.

So, no, Ultra Magnus did not want to work with Dominus Ambus.

Even when not speaking, which was a rarity in and of itself, the Wreckers were loud.

No matter if he was seated, standing, or in motion, Twin Twist kept twisting his shoulder in its socket in an almost reflexive manner, which made an unsettling click-thunk every time. The noise was sharp and irregular, and Ultra Magnus couldn't help but wince every time. He considered sending him to medical. Then he recalled the last time he'd tried to send a Wrecker to medical and decided to refrain from pushing on that particular front until absolutely necessary.

If it were just that particular sound, it would be terrible enough, but Hot Shot seemed to gravitate towards tapping his fingers on any available surface, and bouncing his knees whenever he was in a position that allowed for it. Moonracer hummed under her breath. Topspin played music over his internal speakers loud enough that it could be heard externally, a low buzz that made Ultra Magnus more than a little concerned about the state of Topspin's audio receptors. Whirl liked to pick at his paint with his claws.

It was a cacophony of discomfort.

Still, he tried his best to ignore it all, folding his hands in front of him as he sat in the just-a-bit-too-small chair which creaked under his weight as he shifted. "I have something to announce."

"We've barely broken in the one," Topspin groaned over morning energon. "And they're putting someone else in here now, too, to watch over our sorry afts?"

"Yeah, I don't like it," Hot Shot murmured, slowly cycling his optics as he struggled to boot up. "Changes so fast, all at once- we sure everything's cool on the corporate level here?"

Moonracer mumbled something into her crossed arms.

Perceptor stared into his own mug of energon, flatly, like it held the secrets of the universe.

Twin Twist was just finishing up a shower in the racks across the hall; Topspin could feel phantom rivulets running between his brother's seams, the relieving stretch of heat-loosened gears and slowly warming motors. He'd be along in a moment, once he dried himself off. The temperature was soothing, enough to make Topspin drift a little in his own head.

The doors to the Wreckers common room slid open to reveal a disgustingly cheery Whirl. Which wasn't new; Whirl was disgustingly cheery all the time. Cheery and disgusting and disgustingly cheery. "'Sup, losers? Ready to relentlessly hassle the new guy? Or girl, or whatever, of course—I'm an equal opportunity hassler. I'll hassle all of you. I'll hassle myself."

"There will be no relentless hassling," said the large looming shadow behind him. "Hazing and other such activities are expressly forbidden under Autobot Code section…"

…and that's about where Topspin stopped listening.

He took another sip of his slowly cooling energon, glancing around the room, feeling Twin Twist set down the towel and press a hand to the washracks door, heading their way, movements still a little sluggish from recharge and heat. If the top brass wanted to introduce the Wreckers to someone new, this was honestly a pretty ideal state to do it in; most of them were too tired to be too rambunctious this early in the cycle. Prowl had used that tactic before, for some of the more skittish commanders. The Wreckers had chased them all away eventually, obviously, but this early-morning bleariness was certainly a way to lure them into a false sense of security.

Springer was the last to show up; mouth pulled into a thin line, he'd slid into the room quietly after Ultra Magnus and Whirl, leaning up against the wall at the front of the room with his arms crossed. Protective, that guy. No one could ever say he was anything more than a hundred percent dedicated to the team, and each one of his teammates' wellbeing. It was a load off of Topspin's shoulders to know someone would always have his back.

Then the doors slid open and everyone's optics snapped to the front.

Unlike with Ultra Magnus, or many of their other commanding officers as of recent, Prowl didn't give them any sort of shovel speech or threats about getting along. He seemed almost in a good mood, actually, which was weird because he was never in a good mood when forced to talk to the Wreckers. Huh.

The mech himself was maybe a little taller than average height, with elegant lines to his frame that spoke of money. Old money, probably—the colors were a little outdated, a little worn, not the kind of thing a younger wartime mech would buy if they happened to come into some cash. Something odd on his face too; an insignia of some sort? Old money indeed. A House.

Topspin wasn't particularly impressed.

"Your new communications officer, Dominus Ambus," Prowl introduced curtly, motioning at the stranger.

The mech smiled at them, rather neutrally.

Yeah.

Topspin definitely wasn't impressed.

Being in the same room as Dominus for extended periods was distracting. Ultra Magnus felt it like an itch on his protoform; Dominus' presence, Dominus' attention every time he turned his helm in Ultra Magnus' direction. His armor was larger, now, than it had been in the past; it seemed that every time they crossed paths, Dominus' spark had grown strong enough from regular exercise to upgrade his shell another degree in size - subtly slow for anyone not looking for it. He looked average-sized now, in fact, tilting his head up to look at Ultra Magnus without craning his neck.

Ultra Magnus had never minded attention. He had not commissioned the armor with the intent to fade away into the background, after all. He'd made himself almost spitefully large so no one could ignore that he was there, that he mattered. He'd rarely ever regretted his choices.

He almost regretted them now.

"-lastly, Whirl, if you damage the simulator one more time, I will take the cost of repairs out of the Wreckers' weapon acquisition budget and force you to use only the guns you already own for the next two and one third solar cycles. I will tell Wheeljack personally not to deal with you, even under the table, for the entire probationary period. Do not test me on this."

Whirl folded his claws underneath his chin and rapidly blinked his single optic. "Aw, Mags, you and your jokes."

"My name is Ultra Magnus, as you well know, and I have never told a joke in my life."

Upon that last statement, Dominus had gained an odd expression, opening his mouth and then closing it without saying a single word, so Ultra Magnus turned to him next. "Did you have anything to add about the upcoming exercise?"

Something startled flashed across Dominus' face then and he chuckled. "No, I'm sorry. You just—kind of reminded me of someone, that's all. Only a little bit."

Oh. He was certainly not going to think about that any time soon. Ultra Magnus cleared his intake. "If that is all, then let's proceed."

The group's first attempt at the combat training simulator ended exactly the way the last few had; someone making an irresponsible move with a too-powerful weapon, something sparking and igniting in one of the walls of the projector, the projections fizzling sadly out of existence before the team could successfully complete the objectives. Whirl looked a little droopy after that, as though he really had been hoping to get away without damaging anything so as to preserve his precious experimental weapons budget. It was unfortunate that that his self-restraint seemed to have a fairly solid limit to it.

Dominus was strictly there to observe the group's movements, learning their habitual roles and the way they moved in synchronicity—or out of synchronicity, as it often seemed, especially when Ultra Magnus was involved. Ultra Magnus couldn't help the shiver down his back struts at the idea of being watched and judged by Dominus in particular.

When the exercise had ended, however, Dominus' gaze had skipped right on over Ultra Magnus altogether, to settle on the rest of the team.

Everything he'd pointed out, then, in his brief verbal summary, was something Ultra Magnus had noticed as well, and it was strangely vindicating to know that the intelligent and tactical mind he'd looked up to his entire life was on the same wavelength, had noticed the same things, as though their processors really did work the same.

It felt like he'd finally, in some small way, caught up to Dominus, walking in-step instead of leagues behind in his shadow.

If there was one thing that intrigued Ultra Magnus, it was a paperwork mystery. It embodied two of the most intellectually stimulating things in existence: paperwork, obviously, and a puzzle.

The puzzle was this: the Wreckers' paperwork was clean. Too clean.

He'd attributed the consistency to diligent commanding officers, initially. He could imagine that any officer assigned to the team would have wanted to prove themself by continuing the group's long and consistent history of uploading their reports on time, formatted correctly, submitted to the correct inbox. He, himself, had been quite honored to be given that opportunity—even if nothing else about the assignment had felt like an honor—so obviously everyone else had experienced the same feelings upon research into their new role.

And yet, looking back through on his self-assigned quest to understand the group's behavior, the consistency of said paperwork felt almost… unnatural.

Ultra Magnus was familiar with how other mechs filled out forms. Most of them did not complete them with the full care and consideration they were due; it simply wasn't a priority to others in the same way that it was to Ultra Magnus. He'd picked those in his department carefully, finding diligent, detail-oriented mechs who liked to keep to themselves, but beyond the walls of his department? Statistically speaking, not every one of these commanding officers could have, or would have, been quite so diligent.

Something was wrong.

He didn't want it to be wrong.

He pulled up an old report at random.

The report was quite nearly word-for-word compliant with the original assignment, as though they'd followed the instructions to the letter with little to no deviation worth mentioning. Knowing what he knew about the Wreckers, that could not possibly have been the case. He briefly considered requesting medical intake records for the immediate cycles post-mission, but given the invasive nature of that route, decided that he wasn't quite ready to throw his command weight around quite yet for something that could be nothing.

It didn't feel like nothing, though.

What was someone trying to hide?

When Minimus Ambus had commissioned the Ultra Magnus armor, he'd paid for the best possible attention deflectors; an entire slew of them along the entire interior lining, complete with backup power sources. Even a mech with the most top-of-the-line processor would struggle to see anything other than what they expected to see behind Ultra Magnus' chestplates. Even so, if the armor took damage beyond its self-repair capabilities, he preferred to repair it himself whenever possible, just to be on the safe side.

(Twenty-two and a half percent of all of the datapads on his shelf were medical texts at this point.)

When attached to him, his armor was animated by his own spark force. It was essentially a second skin, living and healing and transmitting pain signals as appropriate. Sometimes an injury was dire enough to require complete armor removal to avoid entering stasis. Other times, the injury was in a difficult-to-reach place, such as on the head or the back.

These were the only occasions Minimus Ambus ever existed, these days; quiet moments in his own habsuite with the door firmly locked, surrounded by stagnant air and unfurnished walls, elbow-deep in energon and sparking wires or fiddling with a particularly malfunctioning circuit board.

He checked to ensure the door was locked every time before initiating self-repairs. Multiple times.

He checked.

He did.

He was sure of it.

Except for apparently this singular occasion, when the whine of engaging electronics broke the stifling silence, and before he could even begin to panic or try to disguise the way he, laser scalpel in hand, crouched over the larger suit of armor with its knees bent to fit uncomfortably on the floor in the tiny room, its chestplates open and a dark, gaping hole where the spark chamber should be, and a gash along its side still dripping energon onto a carefully-placed tarp-

"Oh," said Ironfist, optics wide, frozen like a robo-deer in headlights. Possibly not even cycling his vents, from the way he started going a little red in the face. "I, uh. This isn't my hab."

"No it is not," said Minimus Ambus faintly.

Ironfist was about as difficult for Minimus Ambus to read as any other mech, which is to say that a solid ninety percent of his actions and interior motivations were about as clear as a windshield after a four-wheeled romp in the mud.

He was being particularly inscrutable now, perched on the edge of Ultra Magnus' recharge slab, staring down at the open chestplates of the armor that Minimus Ambus had crawled out of mere breems before his accidental entrance. Minimus had shuffled him inside as quickly and forcefully as possible. It might have involved actually picking him up and depositing him there so he could slam the door shut and lock it and then proceed to confirm its locking eleven times in a row while fighting down an unseemly urge to scream.

"You're Ultra Magnus," Ironfist said. "You. You're a little green guy."

"Minimus Ambus," said the little green guy who preferred not to be referred to as a little green guy ever again. He wasn't even in his irreducible form. Like this, he at the very least towered above eighty-seven percent of minibots.

"I'm Ironfist," said Ironfist numbly.

"I know."

The room was quiet.

Ironfist vented out, long and near-silent.

It seemed like he was processing.

Every click that ticked by sent another prickle of shame, discomfort, and uneasiness through Minimus Ambus, who could barely stand to look at Ironfist, and was instead staring at the familiar blank walls of his own living space as though they were entirely unknown and fascinating.

Finally, Ironfist opened his intake. "Do the, uh, the Wreckers know? About you? Little gr- Minimus Ambus you?"

With little else to do and nervous hands, feeling far too overexposed, Minimus Ambus began busying himself with continuing the armor repairs, releasing the armor's shoulderplate to inspect the sparking wires. "No. No one knows."

Ironfist whistled. "So I can expect Prowl to be rolling up anytime now with an NDA, I guess?"

Minimus Ambus startled, optics shuttering for a moment in surprise as he glanced upwards at Ironfist, who was still seated on the bed. "No, I think you misunderstand the situation. No one knows."

Ironfist tilted his head, steepling his fingers together. "Except the Prime?"

How many times did he have to repeat himself? "No one knows."

"Oh. Oh! Oh. Ohhh." With that, Ironfist went through what appeared superficially to be the five stages of grief, or possibly elation, or possibly just straight up confusion. "Can I… ask… why?"

Minimus Ambus resisted the urge to sigh. "Are you asking why no one knows that I'm the mech behind the Ultra Magnus armor, or why I created the Ultra Magnus armor in the first place?"

"Uh, both, I guess."

He wasn't entirely sure where to start. To be honest, he wasn't entirely sure that he should start. Ironfist was known for his propensity for sharing sensitive information, after all; that was his hobby. He'd very nearly made a profession out of it. Could Minimus Ambus afford to have someone like that privy to all of his secrets?

Beyond that, how could he possibly vocalize all of his reasons when they were so complex and mired in emotions he wasn't quite sure he could properly untangle into coherency?

It was lucky, then that that very moment, the lights overhead changed hue.

"Night cycle," Minimus Ambus said unnecessarily, firmly. "You should go back to your hab suite, Ironfist, to ensure that you attain the correct amount of recharge for your frametype. I refuse to be responsible for a fellow Autobot's defragmentation issues due to a personal matter on my part." Ironfist just blinked at him through his visor, almost dumbfounded at the sudden turn of the conversation. "As for the matter itself, I strongly dislike using my authority in such a way, but," Minimus Ambus stood above the collapsed armor with its open chestplates, holding the lit laser scalpel in his hand in a way that he distantly realized could possibly be misconstrued as threatening, though his current small stature certainly was not, "do not speak of this ever again, to anyone."

"I won't tell anyone! I swear. But… listen… I have questions. Burning questions. And I don't think I'm gonna be able to stop thinking about this until I really wrap my processor around this whole… situation."

Ironfist stiffened at the look Minimus Ambus gave him, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender, but also a little beseechingly.

"…can I have another interview?"

"No."

"I won't tell anyone anything, ever, if I just get another interview. I promise. Swear on my life."

Minimus Ambus was not prone to hyperbole, but he thought the situation rather warranted it: everything was awful.

Chapter Text

It seemed that Dominus' tendency to excel at all things was still in full effect, even after all this time. Merely a few cycles after their introduction, Topspin had entered a room and slapped Dominus on the back in a movement that Ultra Magnus had often observed other Autobots performing to indicate their mutual amicability. Dominus had stumbled under the weight of the blow, and for a moment, Ultra Magnus had been hesitantly drawing up an incident report in his processor and weighing what sort of punishment would be appropriate. Then Dominus had grinned, a cautious little grin, which looked a little out of place underneath that House of Ambus crest on his face.

Not long after that, Ultra Magnus had been routinely obtaining his morning energon, only to startle at Dominus' voice from across the hall. He had approached as subtly as possible, weaving through and past many dining 'bots, straying just close enough to see Dominus and Perceptor deep in discussion. There were several datapads laid out between them, displaying some sort of schematics.

Perceptor had been gesturing widely, shoulders relaxed, smiling.

Ultra Magnus could not remember ever seeing Perceptor smile that freely. Of course it was Dominus who had managed it, so soon after arriving. He should not have anticipated anything less.

The moment that lingered in his systems like spoiled engex, however, had occurred a solar cycle after Dominus' arrival. Ultra Magnus had spoken harshly in Dominus' direction, just once, unintentionally, and Springer had, without hesitation, shifted to stand between the two of them, scowling defensively.

Jealousy was an irrational and ridiculous emotion that served no productive purpose. He was not jealous.

"And… we're rolling."

"Please stop saying that," Minimus Ambus insisted.

It was strange, and exposing, sitting here in a location that was not his habitation suite as himself. His smaller form, though certainly not his irreducible self—as oddly embarrassing as it was to be here like this, at least he still had one secret left to keep.

He hadn't heard Minimus Ambus' voice come out of his own vocal processor in this small body in a very long time. The component had accumulated some amount of dust, actually; he could feel the tickle as he spoke.

"We're recording, then." Ironfist steepled his fingers together. "I'd like to begin by reiterating, for the record, that I, Ironfist, do so swear not to divulge the contents of this recording to any persons unauthorized by the subject, Minimus Ambus, and if anyone is to interact with this recording or any transcription of such without due authorization, they are hereby legally obligated to destroy said recording and/or transcript and not listen or read further than this point." He set down the datapad he was reading off of without powering off the screen. That was a little annoying, of course, though not as annoying as the entire scenario felt.

They were sitting in the same chairs as before, though the dynamic certainly felt a little different, now; Ironfist wasn't looking upwards at Ultra Magnus, but downwards at Minimus Ambus.

Minimus Ambus hated being looked down upon, even in this very literal sense.

Why in Primus' name did he agree to this?

He had to fight the very unseemly urge to fidget. This body was strange to him, now, in a way he hadn't quite expected; he kept reaching for internal systems that didn't exist, kept moving in such a way as to accommodate the movement of specific joints that moved differently in this form… not to mention, everything in the world was simply larger, to an almost absurd degree.

His processor kept telling him that he should be moving down into a chair, or looking down at a table, only for the opposite to be true. It was uncanny.

Behind him, the armor sat empty.

It was strange to look at it like this, from half a room away, because his first instinct was to think, that is me. Why am I in stasis? Why are my chestplates open?

The armor certainly felt more like himself than this smaller green form after so long.

It had been different whenever he had been stuck in that small room, crouched over it with repair tools in hand; he'd had a task, he'd been focused, it had been all business. As soon as possible, he'd folded himself back inside, every time. He'd never had to live in this body for any significant length of time, not since before the war had truly broken out.

"So let's get the big questions out of the way first," Ironfist began after a significant pause. "Why wear something that big? And how? Because—and don't take this the wrong way—you're pretty small. If I were to put something on that proportionally big, I don't think I could move."

"You would not be able to move because you're not a loadbearer," replied Minimus Ambus, because it was always important to be clear and correct. "I was born with an abnormally bright spark with a strong animating force."

"A loadbearer, huh? Is that-"

"It's not an outlier ability," Minimus Ambus clarified quickly, anticipating the train of thought. "It's an uncommon sparktype, but not unique. I know of at least one other in my batch, and several others by word of mouth. For more details, I would seek out a medic and ask, as information on the galactic web about the… condition tends to be more speculative than factual."

Talking about himself like this was odd. He almost slipped back into old habits, much older habits, hearkening back to his days in the House of Ambus, when poise and decorum and saying many things without saying much of substance was the way of things. He'd hated that; why say anything at all if the intent was not to communicate information or urge another party to take some specific action?

In this strange half-state between what he once was and the him of now, he spoke his mind more than what he'd perhaps intended upon starting the interview. Minimus Ambus had intended to sit for the interview, say as few words as possible to satisfy Ironfist's curiosity and ensure his agreement of continued silence, and then do his best to erase the entire interaction out of his memory banks.

Instead, he had already said more words than he'd intended speaking for the entire conversation.

"I guess that answers the how. Why, then? Why wear something so big? So… imposing?"

Because when I don't, people look at me like you're looking at me right now, Minimus Ambus didn't say. "The shape suits my purposes," he explained instead. "I was not content with the trajectory of my life, so I commissioned a suit of armor that would allow me to live according to my own wishes."

"And have you?"

"I'm not sure I understand the question."

"Have you 'lived according to your own wishes?' Are you happy with where you are, right now? With what you're doing?" Ironfist shifted a little, then, in his seat. "Other than, y'know, the whole war thing. I mean in a more general sense."

A handful of cycles ago, directly after his change in assignment to the Wreckers, Minimus Ambus' answer would have been different, perhaps. Then he'd started to find common ground, in an odd way, and his answer would have yet again been different. Then Dominus had been assigned to the team.

Now… "I don't know."

Ironfist waited, presumably for clarification.

Minimus Ambus had none to give. Perhaps one day, when his own thoughts came to some greater semblance of order, but certainly not to Ironfist.

Finally, Ironfist nodded, moving on to the next question. "And who is Minimus Ambus, exactly? The mech behind the armor?"

Minimus Ambus motions towards his interviewer. "Exactly. Minimus Ambus is the mech behind the armor." That was the only relevant information here, to be clear. He wasn't about to delve deep into his associated foibles and flaws.

"Yeah, but… okay, what is Minimus Ambus like when he's not wearing the armor? Er, what are you like, I mean, when you're not wearing the armor? Hobbies, friends, favorite engex supplement, career before the war?" Minimus Ambus shifted in his seat just a bit. "Anything?"

Ironfist was clearly laboring under a misapprehension. "All I am is Ultra Magnus. I," and he splayed a hand across his chest, "don't exist anymore, except in the moments when the Ultra Magnus armor needs repair. Then… I am a repair technician, I suppose."

Ironfist froze. Then he seemed to shake himself. "Alright, moving on. Uh, any relation to the Wreckers' new addition, Dominus Ambus?"

No. No, that was quite enough. The question was inevitable and yet it somehow managed to hit Minimus Ambus with the force of a freight train. He stood up, moving towards the armor. "I believe we are done here."

"Wait! I, uh-"

When Ultra Magnus had appeared for the interview a joor earlier, Ironfist had insisted on conducting it without the armor, practically begging to the point of embarrassment on both of their parts, and had proceeded to watch Minimus Ambus climb out of it with no little fascination. Now, he watched the same process in reverse, similarly in awe. When Minimus Ambus slipped into the empty chest cavity and the armor fully synced, Ultra Magnus stood up on his own two feet, towering over Ironfist. It was clear from his body language that Ironfist found him just as intimidating as always, even knowing the disappointing core beneath.

"If the interview did not suffice, then schedule a follow-up appointment," said Ultra Magnus, who intended to never approve an interview appointment block in his schedule for the rest of his very long life.

And who is Minimus Ambus, exactly?

This was never a question he'd ever bothered to ponder with any sort of depth, because in his life he'd done nothing but try to leave behind whatever Minimus Ambus could have been, for whatever Ultra Magnus had become.

Who was Minimus Ambus? Who was Ultra Magnus, except the construct that Minimus Ambus wore? Was Ultra Magnus a disguise? There was nothing to differentiate the processor, the spark of Minimus Ambus from that which powered Ultra Magnus' own actions. The only real, tangible difference was in physical size and the role he filled within the Autobot faction.

All I am is Ultra Magnus, he had told Ironfist.

Ultra Magnus was- in reality, a tool, perhaps. A way for Minimus Ambus to live the life he preferred. But Minimus Ambus was a tool as well, to keep Ultra Magnus functional.

He was both and he was neither.

If he had to live fully as one or the other, he would choose being Ultra Magnus every time. He preferred to fill that social role, of course, Ultra Magnus' duties and responsibilities brought him immense sensations of fulfillment and he enjoyed being seen as Ultra Magnus, but he also felt more present, more real, in that body, after so long inhabiting it without end.

And yet… living as Minimus Ambus had never felt fundamentally wrong. What had made him uncomfortable was the many boxes he'd been forced to fit into (to borrow a metaphor) when all he'd wanted to do was something else entirely, as well as the way others regarded him which was as much to do with his original body's size as it was to do with what they wanted and expected of him.

Without those constraints, who was Minimus Ambus? Who did he want Minimus Ambus to be? Did he want Minimus Ambus to be anything at all?

The distant boom of an explosion in the Wreckers' quarters was a welcome distraction.

The Wreckers went on a reconnaissance mission at a secret weapons factory. They destroyed all the prototypes, as ordered, but came out of it terribly singed and angry due to several miscommunications, despite Dominus' desperate attempts to keep everyone coordinated.

They were deployed to secure a supply point on the warfront before the rest of the Autobot forces could arrive, a satellite out in space, and ended up punching a hole in the wall which, due to the resulting vacuum, damaged it beyond use to either side.

Their missions were destructive and messy and frustrating.

If even Dominus' assistance wasn't sufficient, what would be?

Ultra Magnus could feel the impending failure pressing down on him like a heavy weight, churning in his spark chamber, keeping him awake past the designated recharge time. Optimus had been counting on him. He couldn't just give up without pursuing every option.

Every option.

If knowing more about the Wreckers would help him understand how to communicate more effectively with them, and manage their more frustrating behaviors, Ultra Magnus knew just the mech who could help.

Unfortunately.

After their last conversation had ended so abruptly, Ironfist had requested more appointments in Ultra Magnus' schedule, and Ultra Magnus had denied every single one, though it pained him to punish someone who bothered to follow the processes so precisely.

That kind of behavior should be rewarded. Encouraged, in the hopes that others would see the example and replicate it in the future. It was unfortunate that such diligence was being utilized for something so uncomfortable. A tragedy, really, as much as Ultra Magnus dislike hyperbole.

And uncomfortable it certainly was, to sit here and subject himself to Ironfist's scrutinizing eye.

"Can I say something that you might not want to hear?"

"Of course. That's… what I'm here for, I think."

"If you don't like something, you tend to shut it down and get out of dodge," Ironfist said cautiously, head tilted. "Sometimes you have to sit through a little discomfort to get to the stuff that's meaningful, you know?"

"I don't do that," said Ultra Magnus, who definitely did that.

Ironfist ex-vented a little, leaning back in his chair. "Okay, sure. We don't have to get into all that, that's cool. That's not what you came here for. I mean, if it was, I'd be happy to talk about it—I have, like, maybe a handful of examples—did you know that most of your pre-Wrecker missions are just… really super classified?"

At Ultra Magnus' flat, unamused look, Ironfist cleared his intake.

"Who would you like to start with?"

A sudden jolt woke Whirl from a dead stasis, and it took him a moment to realize he was lying on his back, all limbs askew and draping messily off of the edge of the table in the middle of the Wreckers' common room. He lifted his helm just enough to observe that someone had been using a bright pink marker with sparkles in the ink to tally scores from the card game the rest of the Wreckers were playing over his unconscious body.

He couldn't even remember why he'd been unconscious. He hoped whatever the reason was, it was awesome.

Still, something had to jolt him out of that deep, deep sleep… he sent the signal to narrow his single optic's display suspiciously. "You ever get the feeling someone's talking about you?"

"Whirl's got a lot of energy, right?" Ironfist started, waving an arm in the air as though a single gesture could possibly encapsulate everything that Whirl was. "In battle, he tends to do this kind of-" and he rambled on about this fight and that, specific battles the Wreckers had undertaken long before Ultra Magnus had been assigned to the team, statistics from biographies that Ironfist had come across in his research—or possibly created? He moved on too fast for Ultra Magnus to quite follow—as he painted the picture of a hyperactive attention seeker who purposely sought to disgust others because he'd internalized the idea that disdainful attention was better than no attention at all and believed those to be his only two options, especially from those placed in positions of power above him.

…most of which Ultra Magnus already knew, or at least inferred. Perhaps he was better at this people interpreting thing than he'd thought.

Still, he sat through it all, because it was polite, because there was likely some thread of information in there that could be useful, and because it felt disrespectful to not pay attention as Ironfist rambled about what was clearly a special interest of his after Ultra Magnus had sought him out specifically to utilize said special interest.

"-so if you're trying to get him to do something, I'd think positive attention is a start? Not just positive reinforcement, which obviously would be a part of it, but attention in general. Compliment him on stuff other than mission-related stuff, for one. Ask him how he's doing every so often, maybe. But not too often- I think he'd probably find that weird and like… start getting really defensive about it, probably."

That… made sense.

Ultra Magnus had taken his cues from the rest of the Wreckers on how to manage Whirl's behavior, and most of them were firm with him, speaking to him like a mix between a misbehaving newspark and a disgusted, long-suffering coworker. Positive attention was probably uncommon for him.

This was all surprisingly insightful.

"Whirl seems to have self-control issues. The worst thing he can possibly do is become bored. Do you have any suggestions on that front?"

Ironfist waggled a hand. "I think he's also got a lot of energy to work out. Maybe if you gave him a little extra stuff to do to keep him busy? Made him run around a little bit before you send him out to do something? And, oh, actually!" He jumped to his feet, rummaging around in a nearby box. "I've actually been holding on to this for a while, but I haven't managed to get up the nerve to give it to him myself, you know? I really, really don't want it to come off as insulting or something. He's kind of intimidating."

He was? Whirl was many things, but Ultra Magnus had never found him intimidating. Perhaps it had something to do with all of those experimental guns, or his unpredictable behavior, or possibly both in combination. That could be volatile for someone who wasn't Ultra Magnus' size.

The object in question was a box with levers and knobs and switches all over it. Ultra Magnus flipped one experimentally. It gave a satisfying resistance and a quiet click when it moved positions.

Hmm.

"It's a fidget device," said Ironfist, wringing his hands, seeming almost embarrassed. "I know his claws can-" and he started off again, rambling about the strength of Whirl's claws and how he'd personally measured the crumple of this or that to gauge it as accurately as possible, as well as the sharpness of their edge, to ensure that the device could withstand Whirl's more destructive impulses. There was a lot of technical specification there that was unnecessary, so Ultra Magnus dumped the information from his processor about as fast as Ironfist could state it.

"So I thought, you know, when he needs something to do with his hands, he could play with this instead of with the trigger of one of his guns."

"This is a good idea. You should give this to him," Ultra Magnus said honestly. Did he assume Whirl would refuse it because it was Ironfist offering? He thought they had a rapport, or… something. He was fairly sure he'd overheard Whirl mention something along those lines, at least.

Ironfist shook his head, backing away. "Nah, you know what? I'd rather you do it. Really. I think it might be better coming from you—he's a little weird about people giving him stuff, but he might like the idea of taking something from you because it would mean you didn't have it. If that makes sense. Also he still kind of scares me," he added quietly.

Ultra Magnus would take that under advisement. Whirl's moods were mercurial, his reactions unpredictable. And Ironfist claimed to know them all best…

Well, this device certainly was worth a try, he supposed. Along with the other ideas he'd been given.

"If you're gonna pick on me, do it to my face, coward, so I can run through my dictionary of rude gestures that can be done with claws," Whirl demanded as he finished running the lap around the base as Ultra Magnus had instructed he do as a condition to start their next training simulation, the second of such with Dominus and the first in which Dominus was actively aiming to run communications.

With part of his attention on the rest of the Wreckers and their idle discussion as they waited to start the next training simulation, Ultra Magnus had simultaneously used his credentials to observe Whirl as he progressed through the building, pinging him wordlessly any time he chose to stop to antagonize someone. It was a painless, unobtrusive notification, not a punishment but a reminder, and it had worked for eight out of eleven of Whirl's distractions. The room he was having redone into an obstacle course of sorts would likely turn out to be a useful investment.

"Good job," Ultra Magnus replied instead, trying hard to remember to stay positive. "I am pleasantly surprised that you made it back with minimal detours, despite needing a few reminders to stay on track."

Whirl froze, then shivered, a full-body motion from the tip of his helm to the bottom of his pedes. "Ew. Don't… do that," he complained. "Gross."

(He did, however, seem to relax the moment that the bulk of Ultra Magnus' attention moved away from him, and out of the corner of Ultra Magnus' optics, he seemed… oddly tall? As though he was actually trying to stand up straight, for once?

Perhaps Ironfist was indeed, ah, 'on to something.')

The simulation was… more successful than the past few, certainly, though Ultra Magnus couldn't quite say they'd done well. The Wreckers' distaste for authority seemed to extend towards the voice in their audials telling them which way to move, or what to pay attention to, even when it wasn't coming directly from their commanding officer. Whirl delighted in doing the exact opposite, in fact, often to his own detriment.

By the end of it, Ultra Magnus could hear the frustration in Dominus' voice—could anyone else? Anyone who didn't know him the way that Ultra Magnus did? Perhaps not.

"Alright, mechs, time to hit the showers," Twin Twist sighed, rubbing a particularly scorched bit of plating. It was, unfortunately, a consequence of friendly fire. Not enough to warrant medical, at least, not enough for Ultra Magnus to be prompted to go to medical.

"Not quite yet," Dominus said. "With Ultra Magnus' permission, I would like to discuss with you more in-depth on how this went, and some suggestions for our cooperation going forward."

And Dominus looked at Ultra Magnus, as though Ultra Magnus was the one with higher authority here… and he was, wasn't he? Somehow that had never felt so odd when other mechs looked to Ultra Magnus for permission or praise, but when it was Dominus… it felt like the natural order of the universe had gone inside out.

Still. He pinged the nearest conference room for its schedule, seeing the next few slots open. He booked it quickly and sent the packet to Dominus, who nodded in acknowledgement and possibly thanks.

"Conference room 4B," Ultra Magnus declared, and when the Wreckers looked at each other in some mix of bemusement and confusion—had any of them ever been summoned to a conference room before? They had to have been, there was no possible way they hadn't—Ultra Magnus pointed towards the doors down the hall.

"Do we have to do this?" Whirl whined, plopping down in a seat at the conference table. "This feels like work. I hate work. If I have to see all of your miserable faces any more than I already do…"

"I want to know what he thinks about us," Springer cut in calmly, and Whirl immediately shut up. What was it about Springer that made all of the Wreckers snap to attention, while Ultra Magnus had to play complicated mind games?

"I think you're a great team with some coordination issues that can be worked out with some effort, discipline, and trial and error," Dominus replied matter-of-factly, sitting down beside Whirl as though Whirl wasn't some kind of randomized ticking time bomb. "I would like to review the current roles on the battlefield that each team member occupies, and what I've noted of strengths and weaknesses. Ultra Magnus, I hear you've been accumulating some notes as well; if you have them handy, perhaps we could perform a joint review?"

"Certainly," Ultra Magnus said, pleased at the idea of Dominus asking for his thoughts on something.

Beside Dominus, Whirl stretched, shifted in his chair, changed his leg positions, started tapping on his own knee. He seemed unable to get comfortable, or simply just unable to settle. Either way, one particular shift caused him to elbow Dominus in the side of the head with some unexpected force. "Whoops!" Whirl exclaimed as Dominus rubbed the spot, not sounding sorry at all.

Time to see if Ironfist's other idea had any merit.

Ultra Magnus pulled the fidget device out of his subspace and tossed it to Whirl, who caught it in one smooth motion. Whirl started investigating it immediately, flipping switches, turning gears, and pressing buttons, and the device made a corresponding muffled clicking noise with each gesture. Ironfist had been correct; the device held up to the crushing force of his claws just fine.

"Uh, what is this?" Whirl waved it in the air. "If it doesn't go boom, you should see if you kept the gift receipt, because I don't give a slag."

"If you don't want it, I will dispose of it," Ultra Magnus offered.

In a fraction of a click, Whirl puffed up his spindly body, incensed. "It's mine!" he yelped. "Don't you fragging dare!"

He kept pushing the buttons.

Ultra Magnus considered this a tentative success, especially when Whirl successfully refrained from fiddling with any of his guns during the debriefing. The quiet clicking was a worthy trade-off for that, indeed.

Dominus pulled him aside afterwards. "Thank you for that," he said honestly, smile broad underneath his House insignia, and that approval made Ultra Magnus feel ridiculously, unexplainably happy.

Chapter Text

Hot Shot flourished under positive attention, and though it wasn't one of Ultra Magnus' stronger skills, he certainly tried his best. Moonracer needed someone she could trust at her back—having a direct feed to Dominus helped a lot with making her feel more secure and able to focus on the world through her scope.

And as for the twins…

"Topspin and Twin Twist probably thought it was cool as slag when you first showed up, right? They appreciate strength, and nobody's stronger than you around here. I bet if you tried wrestling with them on a regular basis-"

"No," he said, cutting that train of thought off immediately. He did not enjoy such physical pursuits.

"Okay, uh, hm. That was my one big idea. You know anybody else you could introduce them to that wouldn't mind? Giving them a new friend to play with has gotta count for something, right?"

A new… friend to play with.

Someone who enjoys wrestling.

Ultra Magnus hummed. "I think I know just the mech."

"Waitwaitwait," Hot Shot breathed. "You can just ping Elita whenever you want?!"

"Obviously," Ultra Magnus replied. Did they not realize what being a member of Autobot High Command entailed? "Elita, this is the Wreckers, as you know. Wreckers, meet Elita."

"Pleasure." Elita cracked the joints in her knuckles, and seeing her hands come together at that familiar angle, Ultra Magnus braced himself so he wouldn't flinch at the noise.

Every single Wrecker perked up at the motion, Topspin and Twin Twist especially, with Moonracer not far behind.

His team really was strange.

It was incredibly therapeutic to watch Elita, one by one, beat up the mechs who had been causing him so much stress lately.

It was slightly less therapeutic to watch the way they seemed to delight in it…

"Did you know Perceptor was a scientist? Before the war, I mean." Ironfist tapped his fingers on his own knee as it bounced. Ultra Magnus was finding himself less and less bothered by the noise the more he became exposed to it through the Wreckers and through Ironfist, and he wasn't entirely sure what to think of that.

Ultra Magnus had memorized each of the Wreckers' profiles upon reassignment. Of course he knew. "Specializing in engineering," he replied. "Of course."

"He hasn't published many papers since the war began, and none since he joined the Wreckers," Ironfist added quietly. "Not even under a pseudonym, I think. Not that I- I haven't been looking for pseudonyms, they just all used to be obvious ones, you know? I don't run in exactly the same scientific circles, I'm more down the chemistry route, but I've read his papers. They were really good." He pointed to a framed and printed schematic on the wall, with a signature that was easily recognizable as Perceptor's in the corner, between a signed poster of Topspin and Twin Twist to the left and a poster of a significantly older Wreckers roster to the right, of which Ultra Magnus could only recognize a young Springer in the background, grinning from ear to ear in uncharacteristically good spirits. "Some of the stuff he used to make was brilliant. I'd call it groundbreaking, even."

Ultra Magnus hummed noncommittally.

"Making friends usually involves learning about, and asking about, other people's interests," Ironfist said meaningfully, leaning forward and widening his optics underneath his visor as though to punctuate his point.

Oh no. "I am not 'making friends,'" Ultra Magnus clarified quickly and firmly, disdainful at the very thought. "I am seeking advisement on methods to better manage the behaviors of my team, not to bond with them." And besides, he wasn't smart enough to read scientific papers or understand schematics other than for armor specifically. Give him a treatise on the use of the comma any day.

"Oh, yeah, of course," Ironfist waved a hand in the air, sitting back quickly. "I was just saying, I think something happened back when he was first assigned to the Wreckers, something back when he first got pulled from science because, as Kup put it, 'his sharpshooting talents turned out to be too valuable to go to waste.'" He even raised his hands and used air quotations at that, which were very helpful, as usual.

Ultra Magnus felt far too seen anytime he interacted with Ironfist.

"At that point, he lost touch with Brainstorm, or they fell out—he's an engineer that used to co-author with him all the time—and… yeah, I don't want to speculate, I mean I do, but it's different if I'm speculating to my subscribers and speculating to you. But… I like to think that whatever happened when they split was more a situational thing than a breakup, if you know what I mean. I mean, I never heard of a fight happening between them around then, not from anyone willing to talk to me, and I heard their fights could get loud. He just got sad."

Ultra Magnus' processor tangled itself into knots trying to untangle that particular ramble, and he shook his head to clear it. "You suggest that he is so reserved because he hasn't indulged in his preferred hobby in a significant amount of time," he reiterated simply, deciding to mull over the Brainstorm aspect separately. It made some amount of sense; Ultra Magnus found himself in a better—and dare he say, more sociable—mood after spending some time in his real office, filing away that solar cycle's transfer requests and mission reports. Perceptor could very well be the same.

Ironfist tried to raise finger guns at him, but aborted the motion, clearly thinking better of it. "Exactly! I think. I think. This is all an 'I think,' you understand."

"Hmm."

"You were an engineer before the war," began Ultra Magnus, and Perceptor looked up from his datapad to regard him with a bland sort of curiosity.

"I was," Perceptor said evenly. If he was surprised at Ultra Magnus asking about his interests all of a sudden, he didn't look it.

Small talk was so difficult. Why did he put himself through these trials? "Do you still… do that?"

Perceptor's optics narrowed, almost imperceptibly. "I dabble sometimes. Only theoretically. Never in production. I can promise you that it's not affecting my combat performance, if that's what concerns you; my focus is, as always, on the team." Something about his response seemed oddly defensive and rehearsed.

Had previous commanding officers discouraged him from pursuing his own outside interests? Or was it someone else—Prowl, perhaps? Or maybe he was reading too much into it.

"No, no—I was," what should he say, "curious. Studies have shown extracurricular activities to be beneficial to one's emotional stability and focus, especially activities that stimulate the processor." It was good that Perceptor retained an interest. That boded very well for Ultra Magnus' plans.

After looking him over for a long moment as though gauging his sincerity, Perceptor actually perked up, at that. "If you would like, I could show you a few of the theoretical projects I've been working on in my spare time."

This was the most Perceptor had spoken directly to him in quite a while, and that, in itself, made Ultra Magnus feel as though he was likely on the right track. Recalling the way he'd seen Perceptor and Dominus hunched over a table in the dining area, looking over a datapad happily, he suddenly had the urge to agree. It felt wrong that Dominus had been granted that connection and Ultra Magnus had not.

Perceptor's optics flickered downwards and he started flipping through files on his datapad, pulling up something that Ultra Magnus suddenly recognized as the same kind of program he often appeared to be fiddling with when sitting quietly in the background. He started describing the scope of his thought experiments, growing prouder by the click as he spoke, and Ultra Magnus immediately lost the ability to follow along, though he nodded and hummed encouragingly enough, he hoped.

"I don't understand much of this," Ultra Magnus said honestly, cycling his optics as he stared down at the schematics, which made no sense to his limited processor, though he had no reason not to believe they were advanced as Perceptor claimed them to be. "But I know someone who likely would."

Perceptor frowned, turning off the datapad and tucking it under an elbow. "I've no interest in the R&D department here, if that's what you're implying."

"Not quite. Follow me," Ultra Magnus declared, and headed down the halls without bothering to confirm if Perceptor had deigned to follow him or not. Of all the Wreckers, Perceptor was the one he was perhaps least worried about, behavior-wise.

They headed for the docking bay.

Though most Autobot movements were not shared publicly so as to reduce the risk of targeted attacks, as a member of High Command, Ultra Magnus was privy to the ever-changing roster of the main Autobot base where he was stationed. He was also notified of, and on the approvals committee for, construction projects and remodeling of said base.

He was thus one of the first to be aware of this particular mech's scheduled arrival, and had, in fact, specifically requested it when coming across news of the destruction of the base where he had previously been stationed; a casualty not of war, but of an unmonitored experiment by another science department employee that had reportedly turned explosive. Breems ago, Ultra Magnus had pinged the bay logs to confirm, and it appeared that he had arrived on time as expected. Still, it was always a relief to have true confirmation, which came in the form of a distant voice performing a scolding.

"Hey, easy now, that one's delicate! Don't you see the arrow? Arrows go up," a voice instructed sharply.

The quiet rhythm of Perceptor's gait faltered, and Ultra Magnus turned to see him wide-eyed and startled, frozen in the middle of the hall. Ultra Magnus raised a brow, and Perceptor's optics flickered to his own and then he seemed to undergo a full-body shiver, jolting back into motion, stepping forward and through the double doors.

The bay was full of boxes and carts and mysterious piles of things Ultra Magnus couldn't even begin to identify, being unloaded off of the small ship by a scattering of base staff. It all looked very bulky and very scientific, in his admittedly limited opinion.

Perceptor looked past all of it, straight at the mech Ultra Magnus had been hoping to connect him to, unerring and instant. The mech in question was buried up to his head in some kind of rubber tubing which made a strangely zippery noise as he squirmed.

Perceptor looked, frankly, a little timid. "Brainstorm?"

All of the hoses slid off of the new mech in a slithery, zippery mass as the mech stood straight up, so fast that Ultra Magnus could have barely caught the motion, fast enough to send a short tube flying through the air to slap the face of one of the mechs carrying boxes. "Uh?"

"It's been a while," Perceptor continued. "Are you-"

Brainstorm stared at them both with wide optics for an almost awkwardly long time, even for Ultra Magnus. Then he shook himself free of the last of the hoses and bounded over, grasping one of Perceptor's hands in both of his and shaking it vigorously. "Percy! Holy- it's you! How long's it been?"

"You're not-"

"Pssh, no. Water under the bridge!" Brainstorm still hadn't let go of that hand, opting instead to turn and begin tugging Perceptor over to one of the many boxed-up devices. "They had me on warp drives for a while, got wrapped up in some experimental power sources, and believe you me, I was dying to get your opinion on this. Listen to that baby hum!" He let go of Perceptor's hand to plaster himself against some machine which was, indeed, humming.

Perceptor looked flabbergasted, but certainly not displeased.

As the other mechs in the area continued to bustle around, loading boxes on to carts and wheeling them in wide circles around Ultra Magnus' static bulk towards the workshop in the R&D department where Brainstorm had been officially assigned work for the next four vorns, and Perceptor and Brainstorm seemed to have forgotten he was ever there, Ultra Magnus decided that he was superfluous to the situation and departed, with a lingering sense of satisfaction.

("Thank you," Perceptor told him afterwards. He looked… it was a rather figurative phrase, but he looked somewhat lighter, the hint of a smile at the edge of his mouth, the plating around his optics relaxed in a way that Ultra Magnus had never seen on him before.

"You're welcome," he said back, and they never needed to speak of it again.)

"I think Perceptor likes his new science buddy better than us," Hot Shot said miserably. Abandoned at the first sign of greener pastures! Hot Shot would have to complain to Ultra Magnus later. How dare he.

"Well, of course," Whirl replied. "Who'd wanna hang with us idiots? Good riddance, I say." He lifted his claws and let the bouncy ball pinched between them fly at the flick of a wrist. It bounced against the floor and then the wall, right next to the door that had just slid open and Perceptor's head that had just started ducking through.

He had something in his arms.

Warmed by the sudden realization that Perceptor still remembered his Wrecker buddies existed, Hot Shot grinned.

Whirl was even more delighted to see Perceptor, though… or rather, the thing he was carrying. "Aww! You shouldn't have," he simpered, rolling to his feet and skipping over to Perceptor to look at the Big Fragging Gun he'd just brought them. "Ah, it even has new gun smell! Come to papa, kiddo. See, I knew Perceptor hadn't abandoned us, right guys? You all thought he'd left us for his new science best friend and they'd go off on their romantic science honeymoon, but I told you."

New gun smell, huh. Whirl had no olfactory receptors, Hot Shot was pretty sure, but whatever.

Perceptor cleared his intake. "I didn't-" but something about his faceplates was shifting at that, like he was almost-

"Wait, are you blushing?" Hot Shot blurted.

"No," Perceptor insisted quickly.

"Guys, I think he's blushing," Hot Shot declared dumbly, caught off guard. Since when did Perceptor blush? Since when did he have feelings?

"Cute," said Moonracer dryly.

Whirl looked up from his new weapon long enough to make a few teasing kissy noises in Perceptor's general direction. How he could do that with no lips, Hot Shot couldn't begin to imagine.

"I loathe you all," Perceptor declared flatly, pushing past Whirl and further into the room in spite of his harsh words and settling down in his usual chair.

Anyways, this was great. This was teasing fodder for decacycles. Hot Shot would have to thank Ultra Magnus later.

Chapter Text

If Ultra Magnus hadn't been back in his real office at the time, the one back in his old department, the one he retreated to whenever the Wreckers became too boisterous for him to be comfortable with, then he would never have been there at the right time to see it, and may not have known it had happened at all.

(Optimus wouldn't have been happy to know that Ultra Magnus was pulling a bit of double duty in both his old and his new job, but there were things that his former coworkers just couldn't—or didn't want to—handle themselves, which Ultra Magnus was very much amenable to tackling in the time he had between strategizing, discipline, meetings, and so forth. It wasn't work so much as a chance to center himself, in all honesty. It was meditative.)

Of course, the joors he worked were at odds with the rest of the department, now; a joor here or there in the evening, or early morning, long before anyone else filtered into the office. His employees were… or, well, had been dependable and consistent, arriving quietly and leaving equally as quietly, and if anyone dared to hover around the heated energon dispenser and gossip, they were soon dissuaded of that habit by a scowling Ultra Magnus.

He was only now starting to realize that he'd spent an inordinately long time in proximity to all of these mechs and yet knew nothing of them but their names. He was only now starting to realize that he could—and should—want more out of his interpersonal interactions with others besides Optimus and his inner circle.

A soft noise in the silent office space brought him out of a data entry trance, and he disconnected from his desktop box and onlined his optics to lights in their half-dim state as they automatically turned in the joors between shift end and night cycle, if no one in the office triggered the motion sensors. He should probably move a little more often to prevent that. An internal timer to take a short walk every half joor, perhaps?

It was odd that he'd heard a shuffling sound, as though someone were out there. Perhaps the motion sensors weren't working.

He should say hello. Perhaps even attempt some of that small talk. A more amicable relationship with his coworkers had to start somewhere, right?

He stood up, stretched, and peered out through his office door to see which of his employees had decided to stay past shift, only to freeze, a sudden chill passing through him.

Someone was at the terminal.

The Autobot base on the whole was connected to the datanet; a wireless network that spanned the base, and which was constantly updated to the wider galactic network through scheduled databursts and files brought in by arriving and departing ships. It wasn't completely secure, and in fact, all Autobots were advised that anything they shared on said network could be assumed to end up in Soundwave's lap at some point. Mechs accessed it through wirelessly enabled datapads as well as direct connecting to desktop boxes, for those that had desk jobs.

There were a few touch-enabled terminals in the base, however, which directly connected to a separate, deeper database. After millennia of war, the Autobots had accumulated a not-insignificant amount of information that was too risky to store on a device that could connect to the wireless datanet, information that could be catastrophic in Decepticon hands for one reason or another. These terminals could only be accessed by Autobot High Command. There was a backup somewhere which only Optimus Prime and Prowl knew the location of.

Ultra Magnus had a terminal in his department for the purposes of updating it from the particular files he handled on secured datapads, the ones that were so often marked confidential.

No other mech should be accessing it, and especially not-

Ultra Magnus did not move quietly, especially in the dark of an otherwise abandoned office. And yet, the figure in question was so absorbed in their task that they didn't seem to notice the heavy footfalls, or the deep pull of Ultra Magnus' vents as he approached.

While most of the relevant information was being fed directly into the mech's HUD, the display screen was clearly lit up, showing that the mech had managed to hack in and gain a level of access not permitted to-

"Dominus Ambus, you are under arrest."

Dominus froze, fingers hovering above the panel. Slowly, he turned, looking up into Ultra Magnus' optics with a regretful look in his own. It felt deeply wrong to see him so suddenly nervous, almost frightened of Ultra Magnus. Or of the consequences of being in unauthorized systems?

"Do you have anything you would like to state, for the record?" Ultra Magnus demanded, voice deep and flat, not caring, suddenly, if his larger stature meant he was looming. He'd-

He held no connection to Dominus while in this body. He had no right to feel quite so betrayed. Certainly, he'd thought Dominus was better than this, that he'd always been a better person than Ultra Magnus, than Minimus Ambus, that all of those awards and accolades and accomplishments had meant Dominus was a decent person, someone admirable, and not-

Whatever had led him to do this…

Ultra Magnus couldn't understand. It made no sense. It made no sense.

Dominus kept silent, clearly understanding that not even the best excuses were going to save him from severe consequences. He had a resigned expression on his faceplates, something that inexplicably made Ultra Magnus even angrier.

"To the brig, Dominus Ambus," Ultra Magnus said with a dark finality, reaching over to close out the terminal, oddly wishing that he hadn't decided to do some evening paperwork, that he hadn't been here to see this. It made no logical sense, because whether he was here to see it or not, it would have happened anyways, and Dominus would have gotten away with—whatever it was he was trying to do—if he hadn't.

This was not going to earn him any points with Springer—Ultra Magnus could already tell.

"He's not staying in there," Springer declared, predictably.

"He illegally attempted to access sealed personnel files," Ultra Magnus retorted, still frustrated and upset by Dominus' unexpected betrayal. Still stuck in the recursive loop of needing to understand why Dominus, of all mechs, would have committed such a crime, and of firmly believing that a crime was a crime no matter the reason, else why have a code of conduct at all. "We have no idea who he may be communicating with, or who he might have been targeting and for what purpose, and until we have a decision from the Prime himself, we have to treat him as a potential enemy. He can't simply go about his day as though he didn't commit imprisonable offenses."

"He's still not staying in the brig," Springer said as though he had any say in the matter, optics hard. "Give him some probationary labor, whatever. Make him scrub the floors. You watch him. It has to be you. I don't-" his teeth clamped together, he started working the joints of his jaw. "I don't trust the mechs that run that place, with Dominus in there alone, cuffed up. When he can't defend himself." That admission had been so halting, it almost sounded like it hurt to grit out.

Like a sudden cold drip through the seams of his armor, Ultra Magnus had a sudden recollection of his time in the enforcers, most specifically the rotten core of so many of his coworkers that had them relishing in their power over others, regardless of the laws they were so often breaking and the code of conduct they were violating, barely punished for every meticulously-formatted complaint Ultra Magnus had dutifully submitted to their supervisors. The enforcers had rolled into the Autobots so long ago… how much of that culture had rolled in with them? Not in High Command, or Optimus with Ultra Magnus at his side would have quelled that with prejudice, but in the lower parts of the command structure?

(And what had happened, specifically to put that expression on Springer's face?)

"If you are aware of officers who have abused their power over others-"

"-I'll put it in the complaint box along with everything else that gets ignored," Springer intoned flatly.

Investigating this would go on his to-do list for quite soon after this immediate crisis was handled. High priority. Ultra Magnus exvented through his teeth. "Fine. I'll make sure he's put on rivet duty immediately."

The way Springer sagged in relief at that did not make Ultra Magnus any less concerned.

The current Autobot main base was on small satellite planet rotating around a larger former planet-wide battleground between Autobot and Decepticon forces, vorns and vorns ago. Both sides had abandoned the planet after the destruction of all of its natural resources made it worthless in a strategical sense, though the Autobot faction had pushed the warfront much further over time and swallowed the planet within its generally held space, at least for the current leg of the war. Vorns later, when the then-current Autobot base had been destroyed by a combiner, they'd retreated back further into safer territory and rebuilt the new High Command out of the old moonbase on the old warfront.

It was a nice central location for many of Autobot operations; a solid handful of cycles' travel in multiple directions would bring one to a current front of the war. Forces such as the Wreckers could be easily dispatched from it as needed.

This moon was tidal locked to its planet: it rotated on its axis at the same speed as it rotated around its planetary partner, and the Autobot base had been built on its dark side to limit visibility from incoming Decepticon forces. What that meant was that most of the time, working on the exterior of the base meant working in near-pitch dark under the light of distant stars, forcing the mechs assigned to rivet duty to use flashlights or adjust their optics to the best low-light settings they had. For Dominus and Ultra Magnus, who each had expensive optics built into their respective armor, that was a simple task. Other mechs such as Whirl, for example, would have had to use an external light.

As Ultra Magnus exited the hatch, he adjusted his optics in such a way to accommodate for the near-nonexistent light. As he did so, the light intake caused the galaxies above to illuminate accordingly, brilliant spots in the deep blackness trailing off in every direction and glowing a multitude of colors.

There was just enough atmosphere here to make his magnetized footsteps sound off in the otherwise dark vacuum as he approached Dominus, who was leaning over, rivet gun braced in his hands, gaze locked on to the weld line.

He'd been on rivet duty for three and three-quarters joors by now, and by the straight line of textbook-perfect rivets, appeared to be performing the task admirably despite the steady ticking of the clock and what had to be a slight stiffness in his joints from the repeated strain of the motions.

(If only he could have performed all of his tasks admirably, Ultra Magnus carefully did not think.)

He stopped right in front of his brother-who-was-not.

"You know the formal inquiry is going to be held tomorrow," said Dominus. "If you have questions, ask them then, on the books."

He wanted to, but there was a pressing matter he couldn't ignore. Not to mention the betrayal coursing through his fuel lines, which bothered him more than he could properly explain, and words were usually something he was quite skilled at. The anger felt corrosive. The confusion was downright painful. "The forensic investigation indicated you'd been looking through personnel files," Ultra Magnus said after a moment. "If you are threatening the safety of anyone specific on base, I need to be made aware now."

Dominus exvented, and the rivet gun popped. "It's not-" He paused in his work, looking up at Ultra Magnus, and then shifting to stare up at the bright stars of deep space. "I swear to you, and I'll swear on the Autobot Code and everything else you and I hold dear, I am not attempting to threaten anyone. I was…"

Ultra Magnus waited.

He waited quite a bit.

He was not going to give up on this. He couldn't. He was rooted to the ground, to the hull of the base, by this complicated tangle of dark emotions.

Dominus seemed to be struggling to find his words, looking almost vulnerable, which was strange, strange and uncomfortable to watch, when Ultra Magnus had spent the whole of his life thinking of Dominus as… unreachable, untouchable, utterly knowledgeable and a little egotistical. Distance and time had done nothing but polish that mental picture, make it stronger.

"I was looking for my brother," Dominus finally admitted. "His name is Minimus Ambus."

Ultra Magnus' spark jolted in alarm and what just might be horror.

The sharp, regal line of Dominus' shoulders turned into an almost dejected droop, and after he exvented slowly and quietly and arranged himself to settle on his knees on the base hull, setting the rivet gun aside. He leaned back a little on his heels and looked up at the sky, instead of meeting Ultra Magnus' optics. Ultra Magnus wasn't entirely sure what he'd have done if Dominus did want to look right at him in that moment. He wasn't entirely sure what his faceplates were doing.

"We both came out of the field together," Dominus began quietly. "Sparked for the House of Ambus. While we both underwent the same education, I as the first-forged inherited the titles and the responsibilities thereof. And the benefits. The support. It helped that I took to the social aspects very well, of course; my brother had a strong aversion to the trappings of high society." His upturned face tilted minutely in Ultra Magnus' direction. "We grew distant. I'm afraid that it was my fault."

This was mortifying.

Ultra Magnus had no idea what to do with himself, here, now, in this situation, in this conversation; he could by no means settle next to Dominus and encourage this- this gossip. This…

He silently disengaged from the armor just enough to force the faceplates to settle into a neutral position. He still had the sensory linkup, however, and when he went to shut off his audials to avoid hearing the words, some incredibly selfish, churning part of him simply didn't want to, for reasons he could not have named if he tried. So he listened.

"My brother and I had a… a disagreement," Dominus actually stumbled across his words at that, "and that was the last time I ever spoke to him. It was just as war was breaking out, in fact."

Ultra Magnus' vents stalled.

"I was sent as an ambassador to court potential allied planets, due to my extensive history and prior successes in that field, and it took much of my attention. It took a long time for me to find myself on the actual warfront, and when the time finally came and I held a gun for the first time… I couldn't help but think of Minimus. Had he become a soldier, too? Had he been fighting somewhere all of this time, or taken on administrative tasks as I believe would have been his preference? My only hope is that he didn't deactivate somewhere, unknown and unacknowledged. And so I started looking for him, asking around, hoping someone knew of his fate."

"You should have gone through official channels," Ultra Magnus insisted. "It would have been reasonable to file an information request. You have grounds, if you were both from the same associated unit at forging." He tried not to think about the fact that he was encouraging his brother to… look for him, or what his feelings were on that idea. It was about the proper process, that was all. He would not have found anything of use, in any case.

Dominus winced. "I tried, once. Several times, actually."

"And?"

"I received a denial. There was nothing to indicate if the denial was due to a refusal on my brother's part to have his records released to me, or if his records were sealed for one reason or another—a safety measure, I'm sure, for unsavory characters who would attempt to use the system for inappropriate behavior, and a further obfuscation of the nature of the sealing of records. I saw that response and realized he had, in fact, joined the Autobots at one point, which was certainly more information than I'd started with—but I would have no way of knowing if he had offlined somewhere, no way to know if I should be actively mourning him, and I found myself wallowing in a terrible guilt."

Ultra Magnus could faintly recall having established that procedure a long, long time ago, with counsel. While personnel records, spotty and decentralized as they often were, were open to anyone duly authorized by High Command for very specific reasons and tasks, there was a form many Autobots filled out upon recruitment allowing for release of their records upon certain conditions, and many had done so for the sake of closure for their loved ones and coworkers, while others declined to do so due to prior stalking or harassment. Ultra Magnus, whose only friends were in High Command and thus had access to his records in all cases, saw no need to fill out the form. Minimus Ambus, on the other hand…

It was true, Minimus Ambus had never officially been a part of the Autobot faction, but records of him on the roster existed. They were sealed.

Ultra Magnus had entered his original self into the Autobot database and requested and approved the sealing of Minimus Ambus' records, all following the strictest of Autobot policy, following a particularly grievous injury in which keeping himself connected to the armor put himself at risk of offlining. He'd been lucky enough to receive emergency medical care, then, that stabilized the armor before he had to make the choice to eject.

It was in that moment, with the possibility of suddenly becoming a stranger crawling out of his own corpse in the middle of Autobot command, that he'd become darkly aware that Minimus Ambus having sparse but firmly established records to pull showing him clearly belonging to the Autobot faction was perhaps going to be the difference between being accused of being a Decepticon spy and executed on the spot, and being given the opportunity to explain himself.

He had never expected anyone to actually request information from Minimus Ambus' records. He had not expected anyone to remember or care that Minimus Ambus had once existed. He had not expected Dominus. Perhaps he should have; his brother always did surprise him, unpredictable and perfect as he was.

Dominus huffed, the hint of a sardonic smile flashing across his faceplates as he looked up at the distant galaxies spread out above them, bright and brilliant in the dark. "I thought I could live with not knowing, after that, but it bothered me more and more until I simply couldn't bear it. Moreso, the fact that I'd never had the opportunity to apologize for the words we exchanged. It's quite possible he died early on in the war… but there is always a chance he did not. My brother was strong, more than I can explain. If I found him alive and he never wanted to speak to me again, I would accept that without complaint and leave him alone for the rest of our existences."

"And so you requested a transfer to the main base, where the personnel archives are stored. This was premeditated," Ultra Magnus said slowly.

Dominus smiled up at Ultra Magnus, more than a little sadly, and it made Ultra Magnus want to squirm, despite not usually being prone to those sorts of urges. "He was a quiet, reserved mech. A lot like you, actually. Sometimes you'll do or say something, and I feel like my brother is here with us, just for a moment. I know it's not appropriate!" he added quickly, voice lowering as he grew serious. "Of course, you're my commanding officer, and I hold the utmost respect for you. I should never have said anything to begin with. But I suppose spending some time with the Wreckers has made boundaries feel a little less strict than they should." Dominus threw back his head and huffed a laugh, and it held very little humor. "They're quite bad influences."

"I know what you mean," said Ultra Magnus distractedly, as he tried his best not to think about the first part of Dominus' words, or anything at all that preceded that. "I feel like I've become… different after knowing them. Slipping into poor habits. Allowing things that I would never have allowed before being assigned to this post."

"Indeed," Dominus said firmly, commiseratingly.

And then they both exvented slowly.

Minimus Ambus had been wrong.

He was more than the spark that powered Ultra Magnus. More than a tool to keep Ultra Magnus maintained. Minimus Ambus was a mech with dreams and anxieties and a brother who somehow, incredibly enough, missed him. Ultra Magnus was how he interacted with the world, these days, but that didn't mean Minimus Ambus ceased to exist.

Deep inside the Magnus armor, Minimus Ambus stirred, pressing a hand to the inside seam of the chest compartment.

It would be so easy to initiate the unlocking sequence. To let the panes slide open, and to exit. To look at his brother as himself, and to admit that he was alive, and more horrifically, that he had been acting as Dominus' commanding officer for orbital cycles while he had been unaware and planning to commit several violations of the Autobot Code to find him.

He'd been interacting with Dominus for so long as Ultra Magnus. Would this feel like a betrayal, for Dominus to realize that his brother had been speaking to him behind another face, out of—of fear? Would that concern turn to hate? What would Dominus do if he knew? Who might he tell?

How could Minimus Ambus possibly apologize for his words after so many years?

Was this even the right moment; right before Dominus was about to undergo an investigation about the actions he undertook to try and find him, after which they may not be able to interact for an indeterminate amount of time afterwards depending upon Dominus' punishment and—though it was inappropriate to speculate—potential reassignment or imprisonment?

He could feel the possibility balance on a knife's edge. After a long moment, he dropped his hand.

Dominus had always been braver than he.

The investigation did, indeed, find that the only files Dominus had illegally attempted to access were the sealed records of his brother Minimus Ambus. Cross-examination revealed Dominus' motivations as being concern and guilt over Minimus Ambus' fate.

Normally, a data breach would be grounds to expel an Autobot from the ranks, or at least to put them somewhere far away from the presence of records of any sort and keep them under supervision—distant reconnaissance missions, drudgery work, et cetera. However… Optimus, as Prime, had some leeway to choose an appropriate punishment. Dominus agreed to give up the contact who sold him the hacking equipment in exchange for a potentially lighter sentence. And Ultra Magnus knew Optimus well.

This concern over a family unit was exactly the sort of emotion that Optimus was soft to.

Ultra Magnus knew he'd be seeing another access attempt on Minimus Ambus' records in the near future, this one much more successful, given that it was coming from the highest office and fully authorized for such. Good thing there was nothing to find. Minimus Ambus' last known location was identical to Ultra Magnus many, many vorns ago—but there had been many mechs there, and if any questioned did not remember a small, green mech present at the time, it would have been quite understandable. Information decayed after all, memories were written over. Optimus Prime could never give Dominus the closure that he craved.

Ultra Magnus could.

Was Ultra Magnus ready to?

The thought kept him awake long after the ping of the night cycle reminder, long after the lights had dimmed.

When Optimus asked Ultra Magnus if, in his professional opinion, Dominus should be reassigned elsewhere… Ultra Magnus declined the suggestion. Better to keep an eye on Dominus' behavior himself, as he would be nothing but fair and stringent in assuring Dominus completed his punishment duties, and while he would also be monitoring Dominus' behavior outside of those tasks for an extended probationary period, there appeared to be little risk of re-offending. Dominus was already integrated well into the team, and Optimus should be well aware of how difficult it can be for new assignees to gain the trust of the Wreckers, if they were to look for another communications specialist.

No, Ultra Magnus would see Dominus' punishment through, while allowing Dominus to continue working as Wreckers tactical and comms.

If he was still interested, that is, given that his entire reason for joining had apparently been to gain access to the base, and that had failed spectacularly.

(He did, in fact, appreciate the continued job offer. I've grown rather fond of this group, he said when Ultra Magnus asked him directly. I'd be honored to continue. He accepted all the conditions; outgoing communications monitored for the next ten vorns, random searches of his habitation suite, no unmonitored travel outside of the base except on official Wreckers' missions. He soaked up what little Optimus was able to offer him in return: Minimus Ambus had indeed joined the Autobots at some point, and the last known battle that Minimus Ambus had been listed as participating in.

Ultra Magnus knew that a conversation needed to happen, and soon. He simply wasn't sure how to start it.)

Chapter Text

Sorting out Dominus' situation took some time, and in the meantime, the Wreckers had continued to go on missions, sans Dominus for the time being, and Ultra Magnus continued to notice significant friction from a single direction… other than Whirl, of course, who could be reliably depended upon to be insubordinate in most cases even when on his best behavior.

Ultra Magnus had saved one particular mech for last when it came to turning to Ironfist for advice, because he had hoped that finding a way to manage and support each of the other Wreckers would be enough to bridge the gap between himself and their staunch protector. Earning their favor should have been the way to earning his. And yet, there was still something missing, something that refused to slot into place, something keeping Springer's optics hard and his shoulders squared even after Ultra Magnus had made deliberate strides to connect with each of the people Springer felt so protective over, to prove to him that that protectiveness wasn't necessary where Ultra Magnus was concerned.

It didn't feel as though it was just the tension that Dominus' recent legal troubles had brought to the surface. There was something deeper, something that Ultra Magnus couldn't read because he was terrible at reading people.

"Springer…" Ironfist said thoughtfully, while painting a couple of miniature metal figures that looked suspiciously like Hot Shot and Moonracer, "he's been through kind of a lot, hasn't he? I mean, I heard some of their commanders rage quit, and a couple others went out all banged up, but before that started, some of the things I've heard—I interviewed Wheeljack, after he left, and he had a lot to say about some of the mechs that got put in charge."

"I've been looking at the mission reports," Ultra Magnus said. "There is nothing to indicate any wrongdoing on the part of either the Wreckers or the officers that were assigned command, not in any recent history." He frowned, feeling that same confused, curious frustration welling up in him that had become a familiar sensation since he'd first started looking into the Wreckers' file history. "Even the last mission before my own assignment, in which the officer in question ended up in medical. If one were to look at the reports in isolation, they would have assumed that the injury was barely of note."

Ironfist snorted. "I can't say I've read 'em, personally (though I have put in a request multiple times, for the record,) but that does not seem accurate, coming from your local Wreckers expert."

"I know." Ultra Magnus rubbed his temples, at the spot where a pressure had been growing all afternoon. "I don't know what to make of that. I don't know whether he apparently struggles to trust me because of something inherent in me, or if he exhibited this behavior with every previous mech in charge of the team. The strides we've made have been minuscule. It feels as though nothing I do is enough to make him respect me as a commanding officer."

"Then I guess you'll have to figure out what he does want from a commanding officer. Have you ever just… asked him?"

Ultra Magnus had not.

I'll file it in the complaint box along with everything else that gets ignored, Springer had said before.

He wasn't aware the Wreckers had a 'complaint box.' He didn't remember hearing of any concerns from the Wreckers themselves in the general complaints inbox address, though he'd certainly heard about the complaints others lodged about them. It could have been hyperbole. It likely was.

But something about the way he had said it…

Ultra Magnus found himself unable to let the thought go.

"Slag slag slag," Moonracer hissed as she curled up on herself the moment that the Decepticons fully retreated. She had one hand in her midsection, several open lines pinched between her fingers, something wholly grotesque in the crumpled and darkened look of the plating. "That hurts."

"You're one to talk," Whirl said, vocalizer blown out and staticky. "At least you've still got legs!" His torso—thankfully well underneath the spot where the lower end of his spark chamber likely sat—now ended in a dripping, gaping mass of floppy wires and coagulated energon dripping sluggishly from severed lines. A sighing Perceptor had, nearly nonchalantly, kneeled down to pinch and seal off whatever he could so that Whirl wouldn't end up with catastrophic energon loss.

It still made Ultra Magnus' spark twist and spin in its chamber, seeing anyone under his responsibility injured and in pain. No matter how much he felt endlessly exasperated by them all as individuals, no matter how much he didn't want to be in charge of them in the first place, the fact was that he was, and their wellbeing was his responsibility.

[Sound off,] Dominus requested, and all of them in order of rank and then serial number began to curtly describe their physical condition, a supplement to the automatic vital statistics that were fed to Dominus' screen. For once, no one added any ridiculous flourishes.

Ultra Magnus had come away with a nick in his helm, but nothing even close to life-threatening. He could feel a thin drip of energon trailing across his cheek and down his shoulder, finding a seam and slowly soaking in. He could patch it later. He stared stubbornly downwards at Whirl instead.

"I'm taking you to medical," he demanded. Whirl didn't seem to share quite the same aversion to medical that the rest of the team displayed, and had in fact been the only one willing to limp to repairs in the past upon receiving various life-threatening injuries, but he wasn't willing to risk it given the severity. Sometimes it took Whirl entire solar cycles of whining and bleeding out on any available surface to 'get around to going.'

"C-"

"I'm taking you to medical," he insisted, using the depth and reverb of his very large vocal component to its fullest, letting his voice fill the space in the way that made so many Autobots snap to attention over the orns. "You don't have legs."

There was a limit to what injuries could be nursed in the quiet solitude of a habitation suite. He would know.

"You will accompany us." He glared at Moonracer, unflinching, cold as steel and twice as unbending, until she glanced away, a halting acquiescence. Two severely injured team members would be signing into medical today if Ultra Magnus had to carry them both there himself.

When Springer attempted to step forward, Ultra Magnus raised a hand. "Report in to Dominus Ambus. Ensure the rest of the team is settled. I will remain until Moonracer and Whirl have been treated and will sign their discharge paperwork."

Springer's mouth settled into a thin, flat line, eyes narrowed, but after a long moment he nodded once.

"Don't worry," said Whirl, waving a claw at Moonracer as a medic wheeled him through the halls a few breems later. "Happens to me all the time. I'm sure they've got extra legs on hand. I should see if they'd weld on a few more, maybe, just 'cause I'd be so much better at jumping. Hey, they could probably build a whole 'nother me with their closet full of Whirl-parts. If I put an AI into it, would you be able to tell us apart? Could I make it attend those slagging meetings so I don't have to?"

Moonracer simply gritted her teeth, pressing her hand against the gaping wound in her side.

When they got to medical, Whirl was taken back for immediate surgery, while Moonracer laid back on a medical slab, watching the medics warily as they poked and prodded, wincing when they hit something that sparked. She was clearly not comfortable to be here, beyond simply the injury itself—it was such a stark contrast to the way she so casually slouched in the Wreckers' common room that even Ultra Magnus could see it.

Ultra Magnus kept a watch on her while simultaneously observing the the medics work on Whirl through the big glass windows. Springer clearly had concerns about Wreckers being left alone in vulnerable situations, and though he couldn't possibly imagine harm coming to them in the medbay of all places, if there was any chance at all of those fears being grounded in reality, he would gladly supervise any and all repairs done to his team.

Nothing any of the medical team had done so far had come across as worthy of suspicion yet, certainly. He'd make sure that remained the case.

He was so absorbed in this task that he didn't notice himself being approached until a voice next to him piped up. "Ultra Magnus, sir?" one of the medics asked, almost hesitantly, holding up a laser scalpel. "Please duck a little lower, I can't reach your helm. Are you experiencing any issues with cognition? Memory read/write access, proprioception?"

It took him an embarrassingly long moment to remember the small head wound. He had done the math, and was certain he could experience the same slow, steady drip of external energon loss for two solar cycles before it would become an issue. His nanites were already in the process of sealing up the line, in any case. "I'm fine," he said dismissively. "I will deal with it later." He always had, after all.

"You're actively bleeding in the medbay," the medic said, a little more forcefully. "It's a sanitary risk."

Ultra Magnus opened his mouth to protest. If he had not been watching Moonracer so closely, he would likely have missed the way she tensed and started listening to his exchange with the medic, watching the two of them out of the corner of her optic as subtly as possible.

Ultra Magnus was trying to lead by example.

"Fine," he said. "Do what you must."

Seeing him reluctantly accept care, Moonracer appeared to relax as well, inch by inch, until another zap to her side made her wince again.

And Ultra Magnus continued to think.

Springer slid brusquely into the chair opposite Ultra Magnus, in his rarely-used office near the Wreckers' rooms, twelve and a half breems late to the meeting invitation that Ultra Magnus had sent him and he had accepted earlier that solar cycle. "Sir," he said, and let that hang between them.

Ultra Magnus set the datapad in his hand flat on the desk. "You're twelve and a half breems late," he said for the record.

Springer shrugged. "You wanted to see me," he prompted.

Ultra Magnus exhaled. He slid the datapad across to Springer. "I take it you recognize these," he said. It wasn't a question. He knew Springer would recognize them. His name was all over them.

Springer leaned forward to take the datapad and began to peruse the contents, scrolling downwards and flipping between them occasionally, frown growing deeper with every flick of his optics. After several breems of studious silence, he set the datapad back down. "I do." His tone was ice cold. What of it? seemed to underly his words.

Ultra Magnus folded his hands where they rested on the desk, leaning forward just slightly. Earlier, his hands had been trembling. Even now, he was still a bit shaky and overwhelmed. He was not used to feeling this way, and he hated it. "Sometimes, when a particular subsection of the Autobots sends in enough messages of a certain type to a specific inbox, such as the general complaints inbox, the system creates an auto-router that deposits them in a specific folder. Sometimes those new folders are overlooked, or the mech assigned to monitor them is reassigned, takes time off, ends up with a workload they cannot handle, or simply does not perform their job duties sufficiently. I've dealt with many a backlog in my time. This was an egregious example."

"I figured no one was reading them," Springer said with a forced casual air. "Because no one cares about whatever complaints the Wreckers might have. Like how they stopped letting us order stuff."

"No," Ultra Magnus said, "that was a temporary restriction in response to a misuse of resources that shouldn't have gone on for as long as it did. You all had clearly learned your lesson long ago. This? This was a failure. Autobot leadership had a responsibility to you, to be worth the trust that you put in us by fighting for our cause. We failed you."

Looking through the complaints had been enlightening, certainly, as well as uniquely horrifying. If one were to read a selection of them in order from the earliest to the most recent, one could easily reconstruct a story of a team assembled of some of the faction's most violent, powerful, and creative members, which had initially struggled due to lack of coherence, been assigned several incompetent commanders in a row by the unfortunate luck of circumstance, and consequentially, while attempting to endure said treatment, thus been saddled with a reputation for disobedience and violence which only exacerbated the command issue. Any officer looking for a promotion would see gaining control of a powerful rogue element as a career boost, and any officer looking to indulge in more sadistic tendencies would not hesitate to treat them all as expendable, which their reputation only contributed to.

While commanding officers were certainly the main culprits, there were others.

Wreckers mistreated while alone in the brig by guards who, as one previous Wrecker speculated in bitter words, wanted to 'feel tough' by taking out their misplaced frustrations on mechs with a reputation for strength and skill. A medic who sought to abuse their power in a similar way.

Ultra Magnus was collecting names. He had a list. It wasn't a long list, but it was an important list.

No wonder Springer never wanted any of the group to go anywhere alone with anyone of authority.

"I cannot promise that anything will happen immediately," he said, "because Prowl will need time to gather evidence, and for the prosecution to take place. Most of these mechs aren't on this base. That will not prevent us from pursuing justice."

Springer's jaw flexed, but no words came out; he stared at Ultra Magnus as though he wasn't comprehending what was being said at all. It was likely a little overwhelming, Ultra Magnus thought, to have all of your complaints go unheard for thousands of vorns, likely losing faith that they ever would, only for them all to be addressed in one fell swoop. Ultra Magnus would be sure to send him the meeting minutes afterwards just in case.

Unfortunately, the conversation could not end there. And this would likely be even more difficult to swallow.

"I have another question for you," Ultra Magnus continued, leaning forward. He took the datapad once more and tapped to navigate back to the parent folder, opening up a different set of files. "Do any of these look familiar to you?"

Springer glanced at the pad once, seeing the perfectly-filled-out mission report and the meticulous signatures at the bottom, and then looking away. Nothing in his body language gave him away, but that was fine. Ultra Magnus knew.

That was fine.

"I analyzed word and phrase use across two hundred reports filed under seventeen different commanding officers, and have come to the conclusion that they were all written by the same hand. Your hand."

"I didn't-"

"I'd be happy to requisition your datapad and have forensics take a look at it, if you want to go that route," Ultra Magnus cut in, and Springer's mouth snapped shut. "But we also do have a statement from two-" he checked his own datapad, "-make that three officers assigned to the team, who have now admitted to offloading their paperwork onto you by request, including classified information. Prowl is very thorough, as you know."

Springer looked downright pale.

"I'm not doing this to seek to punish you for it," said Ultra Magnus, who had once made an entire career out of punishing people who broke the rules. "In fact I-" he choked on the words, but he had to get them out. "-in some very specific ways, I… admire you… for your efforts."

"For my- what the frag?" Springer said, leaning forward, optics wide. "Why am I not in the brig? Why-"

"Because of the unmonitored complaints inbox as a mitigating factor," Ultra Magnus explained. "The pattern is obvious when one knows what they're looking at. Prior commanding officers had been negligent in their reports, in some cases deliberately misleading or, I suspect, creating outright fabrications to make themselves look better or the team look worse; by controlling the immediate narrative and the permanent record, you could control to some degree the methods and severity of punishment. The ideal situation being for reports to be filed on time, perfectly formatted, in such a way as to go under the radar—accurate enough that if Prowl or another officer were to pull them, they would not find anything too amiss."

Some of that was certainly speculation, but between Optimus and Prowl and himself in a long discussion late last cycle, he was fairly certain it was close to the truth. It would all come out in the official investigation.

"You went above and beyond your station to keep your unit functional. In doing so, you knowingly and repeatedly committed a severe breach of protocol, one which, according to the Autobot Code, could in its most severe cases mean immediate expulsion from the Autobots." Springer was clearly not venting at this point, frozen in a pose of tension and fear. "…but knowing Optimus Prime as I do, and understanding the circumstances involved, I know he will attempt to intercede on your behalf. The two of us will be arguing for a thorough review of every report you forged. It will be time consuming. It will be fun for no one but myself. But I can say with near certainty that you will be remaining with the Wreckers, as long as you still want to do so, if you will put in the work to assist us in this matter."

"Optimus Prime," Springer repeated, as though that was surprising in some way.

"He would like to meet with all of you in person, to apologize for the way you and your team have been treated due to negligence on the part of Autobot leadership."

"Optimus Prime. Would like to apologize. To us."

"If there is something or someone else-"

Springer blinked his optics, looking confused. "I just didn't think he'd care?"

That left Ultra Magnus blindsided. "You thought Optimus Prime wouldn't care?" Optimus? One of the kindest mechs he knew? "Well… he does. A lot."

Springer made a noise of confusion, sounding utterly overwhelmed, and Ultra Magnus decided that was likely enough for today. He didn't think Springer was a flight risk, but he'd be confined to his quarters for the duration of the investigation just in case. The Wreckers would be grounded for the time being.

But right now, he'd let Springer vent in and out until he got a little color back in his faceplates.

"I have to commend you for filling out form 113-11-5 properly," Ultra Magnus said offhandedly, flipping idly back through the datapad to find a good example so that he could admire it. "I'm not surprised that none of the Wreckers reports landed on my desk, if even those were completed with no issue."

Springer pressed both his hands over his face, palms digging into his orbital sockets, groaning. "I hated form 113-11-5."

"I've been trying to amend that form for vorns," Ultra Magnus commiserated. "Unfortunately, it has to pass an approvals committee due to the cross-departmental nature, and neither side can agree, out of what I'm almost certain by now is just sheer spite. I've made up several versions that are much more streamlined, with wording in the middle section that could greatly reduce the confusion we find end users struggling with. It's the form we have to send back for correction the most out of any, and there are, as you can imagine, a lot of forms."

"Please," Springer said. "I'd give my left arm for something less repetitive-" then he froze once more, and tilted his head up to stare at Ultra Magnus' face in what seemed like utter bewilderment.

Ultra Magnus wasn't much better, honestly. Was this really what it had taken to break through to Springer? Bonding over paperwork? He'd never…

Springer snorted. "Well, this is weird," he said, but he was smiling.

"Indeed," Ultra Magnus concurred.

Chapter Text

The cave system near to the Autobot base on Shanrigia IV was complex, multi-leveled, and connected via a system of tunnels just a little too small for an average-sized Cybertronian to walk through comfortably. That was clearly why a unit of Decepticon minibots had set up camp and started hassling everybody. What was less clear was why, of all the possible teams, the Wreckers had been the ones handed the mission, rather than some crack team of cassettes or minibots or something.

To be fair, there was no such team of tiny badasses currently operating in the Autobot ranks. To be extra fair, the Wreckers—bar Ultra Magnus and Dominus Ambus—spent the entire ship ride here arguing over who should be on the roster for that kind of thing, and instead of coming to a consensus, they almost came to blows over it. To be extra extra fair, this was a team of Decepticons who had been living in this cave system for several orbital cycles, for whom this could be considered their home turf, basically, and anybody whose armor wasn't reinforced like the Wreckers' was bound to be in for an unpleasant time, what with all the ambush potential.

So here they were, squeezing into the tunnels and the high-ceilinged corridors, many of which were just fine and dandy, but some of which were so narrow that their shoulders and hips and knees were going to need so much buffing when this was over. It was even worse to feel the doubled-over physical sensation of his brother's own adventures through the tunnels—a twice-scraped knee hurt twice as much.

"Times like this, I remember why I have claustrophobia," Whirl said as he twisted the top half of his body around a corner to shoot off an impressively sustained scattering of well-aimed shots at the 'bots in the next room.

"You don't have claustrophobia," Twin Twist countered, shouldering impatiently past him to sprint into the small cave, shooting with one hand and swinging his opposite fist, casual as anything. "You squeezed yourself into that air vent to scare Swerve literally the cycle before we left. That was so much smaller than this. I didn't even know you could twist that way without breaking something."

"Well, I didn't remember I had claustrophobia then." Whirl's tone clearly communicated a duh.

Looking down at the various slumped Decepticon forms with a sneer, Twin Twist initiated his internal communicator. "Room's clear," he reported. "Five more Decepticons down. I think that makes our tally, what, sixteen? We better be in the lead."

[Excellent. There should be a tunnel opening to the west. Can you confirm?]

"Yeah, looks like."

[Continue through that one—the two of you should cross paths with Moonracer's team soon.]

Twin Twist could feel his brother's general direction, a subtle magnetic pull like an awareness of true north, and nodded to himself. "Sure thing."

[Just-] and the broadcast cut off with a sudden deep, low noise and a startled shout.

"Dominus? Ambus? Hello?"

Ultra Magnus' vocal component let out a burst of static, a wheeze that was as much shock as it was pain. He twisted as much as he was able, an instinctive squirm to get away, pressing a hand against a particularly large boulder that had settled on his chest and pushing, feeling it shift just a little. He'd definitely heard—and felt—a cracking noise when that one landed. If he were prone to swearing, now would be the optimum time.

When the initial feeling of alarm waned and the rest of the world rushed back in, he could hear Dominus next to him, clearing his vents from the clouds of unsettled, chunky dust. "Ultra Magnus?" Dominus managed to choke out, and through the clouds and the darkness, he stumbled forwards on shock-shaky legs, clearly uninjured, thank Primus. The moment he saw Ultra Magnus, and the boulder on his chest, his optics widened.

He quickly joined Ultra Magnus in pushing off the obstruction, and the relief was instant; something in Ultra Magnus' internals had begun pressing down into his second shell's legs. Beyond the damage itself, it was so strange and frustratingly distracting to have input from two forms at once. He was certainly functional enough to finish the mission, however—and didn't have much of a choice if he was not. Their way out had just collapsed.

Now freed and venting much easier, despite his spark still churning in its chamber, Ultra Magnus pulled himself vertical in the middle of the rubble, waving away Dominus' attempts to help him to his feet. When he flexed and stretched just so, he could feel a part of his armor pressing inwards, and braced himself against a wave of anxiety. He'd have to submit himself to medical after this. He very much did not want to go to medical, not with everything else he was currently working through in his life, not with the sharp jolting of something digging into his middle shell's left ankle and the slowly growing spot of heat of struggling self-repair nanites crawling up that leg, which was going to necessitate something very invasive if the attention deflectors didn't do their job. But he couldn't worry about that now—he had responsibilities. Priorities. "The others," he prompted, and Dominus immediately turned his head away to visually indicate his break from the conversation in favor of reaching out to the rest of the Wreckers.

"I need a status report from all of you," Dominus spoke aloud, rather than simply into his internal communicator. "If anyone can hear me, respond." He tapped the side of his head, right where the radio module sat, turning to set his piercing optics on Ultra Magnus instead. "I'm not getting through. What about you?"

Ultra Magnus sent a few wordless pings off. None of them returned. He shook his head.

Dominus hissed a quiet angry vent through his teeth. "Is there anything I should be imminently worried about in regards to your health?"

"No. I'm functional enough." He stared at the pile of rubble separating them from the rest of the tunnel system and, more importantly, from their team, spark sinking, still gritting his inner form's teeth against the pain. It wasn't too terrible, really. "I could-" he began, reaching one of his large hands towards the nearest loose boulder. If anyone had the strength to dig out a cave-in, it was him, built the way he was.

"No!" Dominus declared, stiffening, setting a hand on Ultra Magnus' wrist without actually holding him back. "This area is too unstable. I wouldn't be surprised if the Decepticons had trapped this area to deliberately cave in on unwary travelers. And we're far too exposed, if there are any Decepticons remaining on this side that may choose to investigate the noise." His optics trailed across the open cave behind them, the cavernous ceiling, the corridors beyond that could hide any number of enemy forces who could easily sneak up behind them while they tried to reopen the tunnel.

"Official Autobot policy states that when cut off from the wider group, one should stay in the same location until found."

"Official Autobot policy also dictates that one must find cover or evacuate an area if one finds oneself potentially surrounded by an unknown number of hostiles, and in uncertain terrain." Not entirely word-for-word accurate, but Ultra Magnus was impressed nonetheless—he still wasn't used to having someone who could counter him with actual citations instead of an optic roll or a frag you too. And he had a point. They'd done what they could to secure the area, but Dominus was correct, the cave-in would be a beacon for curious parties. "We need to find another way out. The team, as instructed, will continue the mission and rendezvous back at the meeting point, and we will join them there." He seemed so certain that the Wreckers would follow a plan. Ultra Magnus wished he had that faith.

They could worry about the rest of the Wreckers later, once they had managed to free themselves.

Very few of those passages would fit Ultra Magnus. At the start of the mission, after some brief reconnaissance, the two of them had camped out in a wider anterior section of the cave system, as their comms signals did not reach well enough outside of it for Dominus to run comms. With Ultra Magnus as his guard, Dominus could focus on directing the Wreckers through the old, faded paper map the Autobots had obtained from the local populace which had thus far proven to be about 97% accurate. Unfortunately, they were rather close to the map's edge, and most of the passageways to the east ran off the page long before they ended in reality.

"This one seems rather promising," Dominus mused as he eyed a particularly thin passageway. If Ultra Magnus slid sideways, shoulder-first, he should be able to fit. Just barely. "It goes in the right direction, at least. It's a squeeze, but I'll be a bit more mobile—I could move ahead?"

"Don't leave visual range. We are not splitting up," Ultra Magnus said firmly. "Not with the enemy in the area." Ultra Magnus was sturdy enough to be considered a warbuild, after all, while Dominus' outer shell was clearly designed with aesthetics in mind, and he'd never bothered with reinforced plating. Of all the Wreckers, Dominus was the most physically vulnerable.

And so they started moving.

The passage was fairly straight, only a few turns, widening at parts to give Ultra Magnus a little more room to stretch and vent.

A bright flicker appeared and vanished in the relative darkness as Dominus glanced backwards. "I'd imagine that being so large is advantageous on a day-to-day basis, but in times like these… it would be rather nice to be small, wouldn't it?" There was some humor barely hidden in his tone, as though it was a private joke. Perhaps it was. Ultra Magnus didn't know that Dominus was secretly a smaller mech in larger armor, of course.

However, likewise, Dominus wasn't aware that Ultra Magnus was also a smaller mech in larger armor. Ultra Magnus hummed in acknowledgement, feeling both uncomfortable and amused. "Indeed," he said with no little irony, though Dominus was unlikely to read it in his tone as it was flat as usual. "I do rather enjoy being large." His shoulder scraped against a particularly sharp edge and he could feel paint and a little metal coming away with it. He winced. "Most of the time."

Dominus huffed in amusement.

They continued to shuffle down the corridor, Dominus carefully staying within visual range, until he stopped, rocking back on his heels, one hand raised in the air, the highly attuned sensors on his fingertips analyzing something. "I think I feel a breeze."

That was a relief. Ultra Magnus hadn't believed himself to be claustrophobic in the past, but after spending enough time wedged between two heavy slabs of cracked, crumbling rock, with an ominously echoing cavern somewhere far above, he was starting to believe he could become claustrophobic if they didn't get out of here soon.

"Sunlight," Dominus confirmed after another few breems, relief in his voice. "And the passage opens wider ahead."

Sunlight was a welcome sensation on his plating after so long in such confined spaces, but as he stretched and flexed and stumbled a little, joints stiff from the odd position he'd been forced in for the last half joor, he leaned back against the mountainside, venting deeply for the first time in several breems. Something shifted against Ultra Magnus' back that his sensors registered as strange and inconsistent, a vibration that shouldn't be present on an otherwise sturdy rock face, and he recognized with an electric jolt of alarm that the structure around them was looser than he expected; it was quite possible the Decepticons had trapped this area as well, or it could just have been made more unstable by the footfalls of large, heavy mechanical beings. "Move!" he ordered.

Dominus, as many mechs did when faced with sudden, unexpected danger, turned to face it, to understand the nature of it, just as a heavy metal-laden rock tumbled downwards, and instinctively, almost faster than thought, Ultra Magnus had stumbled forwards.

He shouldered Dominus out of the way, sending him stumbling back, because any impact damage would certainly be less than being crushed by a giant chunk of stone. That movement put Ultra Magnus right in the path of a rockslide for the second time that day and a body too injured to leap in any direction and a brother to protect besides—and with a larger rock, a bigger crushing force, a chest already crumpled from the earlier impact… he reached out his arms to try and catch it, deflect it.

This was, perhaps, the most ill-advised maneuver he could have possibly performed, injured as he already was.

The weight hit his palms, and his wrists and elbows groaned under it, joints snapping and popping. His arms gave way almost instantly, and despite his best efforts, the rock slammed against his chest, sending a few painful sparks popping across his plating as it groaned and crumpled further, already-weakened metal tearing in the process.

As Ultra Magnus stumbled and fell, hoping that at least Dominus had gotten out of the way in time, Minimus Ambus pressed both of his arms against the caving metal, as though he could hold himself together from the inside-

And something ripped and tore, and with all of his senses still hooked up to Ultra Magnus' systems, the waves of agony flashed white-hot and sharp, blinding him.

"Minimus?" Dominus choked.

And the world went dark.

When the darkness melted away into bleary, aching consciousness, it was to Hot Shot's face, larger than he expected it to be, leaning over him at a rather odd angle. His vision continued to be more than a little smeary, as though a film had settled over the lenses of his optics.

"Hey, guys!" Hot Shot called loudly, far too loudly for what was likely a medbay, a private room of some kind, hopping to his feet after a long moment of staring back at Ultra Magnus in what appeared to be shocked disbelief. "Maggie's online!"

"Finally!" Topspin replied from somewhere outside of the door to the room and down a hall.

"Do not call me-" Ultra Magnus' oddly-pitched voice died in his vocalizer as he brought a hesitant hand to his throat. It felt like gargling loose gears, like trying to run a component that had long ago gone dry and dusty. Painful, that is.

His limb did not cooperate the way he expected it to; instead of gently pressing fingers against his neck, it flopped, smacking him in the upper chest. The contact felt strange and almost unfamiliar, jerky and uncoordinated.

It wasn't until he managed to lift that hand again, clumsily, that he realized why.

He hadn't seen those fingers in—his processor struggled to calculate, heating up to a degree that sent a few monitoring machines to beeping. That was inadvisable. He stopped that thread in its tracks, wanting that specificity but also wanting to avoid frying himself into a worse condition. Revised statement: he hadn't seen those fingers since a vorn or two after his initial onlining. Since the moment that the House of Ambus had stuck himself and Dominus into larger armor and sealed them both away.

This was his irreducible self. The body that he had been forged into. His original, smallest form. He couldn't stop staring at his fingers in fascination and possibly a little horror, trying hard not to think of who exactly had likely seen him like this, from the battlefield to this medical berth, and how completely and utterly his reputation and interpersonal relations would be in tatters going forward. That dread crept into the background, eating away at his churning spark. "Well," he said again, testing out the vocalizer. No wonder it was so painful. It hadn't been used in so long, it was a miracle it hadn't degraded more.

"Is it anywhere near as weird for you as it is for us?" Springer asked wryly, from the place he was leaning up against a wall, arms folded, a singular brow raised.

Minimus Ambus exvented slowly. Was that a rhetorical question? How would one quantify such a thing? Should he-

Springer pushed himself off the wall, looking suddenly concerned. "Do you need me to call a medic? You look like you're in pain. I think. I'm not, uh, used to that face, but."

Minimus Ambus braced himself to speak, against that horrible grating feeling. "I haven't used this body since long before the war," he explained quietly, a near whisper, and Springer's optics grew wide.

"Slag, okay, yeah, we're gonna get you the good stuff. Hold on. Let me-"

As Springer tried to exit, what appeared to be most of the rest of the Wreckers were piling into the room. It looked ridiculous, actually, the way Springer was trying to bat all four of Whirl's limbs back, Twin Twist's bulk, and Moonracer's jabs to his side, all to try and slip out the door so he could presumably summon a medic. Obviously the solution was to step aside and let them all in, but even Springer lacked common sense at times, usually when he was too absorbed in trying to do right by his team.

Minimus Ambus couldn't help but hope, given the circumstances and the way he'd switched so immediately to worry over Minimus Ambus' health, that it meant Springer wasn't taking his deception too hard. It had to be disappointing, seeing the commanding officer that they'd looked up to in a literal sense, if not figurative (though he'd held on to some hope in that regard as well) suddenly reduced to someone so… small and insignificant.

"Outta the way! Let me at 'im!" Whirl barked, poking Springer in the optic, though Springer ducked back just in time to avoid any real damage, which was exactly what Whirl had been truly aiming for to begin with. Several mechs tumbled into the tiny room together in a tangle of limbs and startled yelps.

It shouldn't have been funny, but it was, somehow, and Minimus Ambus let out an amused huff from his rusty vocalizer without quite meaning to.

It was lost in the clamor, of course. He found he didn't quite mind. The Wreckers wouldn't be the Wreckers if they weren't loud, obnoxious, and causing some amount of property damage.

Whirl popped up first. "Mags! Magster, Magnus, look at you all shrimpy and green! You're fun-sized! If you rolled up into a ball, I bet you'd fit in a cannon and I could shoot you off at various Decepticon faces and they wouldn't know what hit 'em until you unrolled and punched 'em like pow! Should I get Percy on that?"

Before Minimus Ambus could so much as shake his head, Moonracer leaned over him, looking him up and down. "Wow, you look like fresh garbage."

"He's under watch for spark strain after catching a tumbling stone almost as large as his outer armor, what did you expect?" Perceptor sighed as he stepped up beside her, giving Minimus Ambus a respectful nod.

Minimus Ambus' spark seized at the casual reference to- "My armor?" he asked, and the way the words struggled to come out was partly due to his vocalizer issues and partly because the idea of speaking about the armor, to these mechs, to anyone other than perhaps Ironfist, was so wholly strange.

"Yeah! Your armor. When were you gonna tell us you're actually a little guy in a big guy suit?" Hot Shot asked eagerly, popping back up at his bedside. He now had several Wreckers all staring down at him curiously. He didn't like it. He also didn't blame them. That didn't mean he liked it.

"Ideally never," he said with perhaps too much honesty. Several of them flinched, either at his ragged voice or the curt frankness of his response.

A medic came in, then, asking him a few questions and giving him some additional pain blockers—he didn't have an auxiliary sensory system he could simply disconnect from if the pain grew to be too much; this was his body. His real one. Topspin and Twin Twist had to leave the room to make room for the additional body. The room was far too tiny for all of these mechs to be crowded in together as they were. As soon as the medic departed, the Wreckers filled the void they left behind, already talking over themselves again, mostly to each other.

Springer exvented, somewhere behind the growing throng. "You sound like a trash compactor. Why not switch to internal communications?"

That was a good point. Minimus Ambus took a moment to check his internal components, only for the communications system to come back as down, still. The same result since he'd first broken it. "Broken."

"The medic said that your littlest guy form didn't get squished, though, you're just a little rusty," Twin Twist joined in the hovering. Minimus Ambus definitely wanted to squirm with all the attention. (Also, he wasn't rusty, that would have been a health risk! Accuracy was important. He should find out what the medic actually said, sooner rather than later.)

"Broken for twelve thousand vorns." He raised another hand to his throat, this time managing to aim with more accuracy and the right amount of pressure to rub lightly along the exterior plating, trying to soothe the pain as best he could. His processor was quickly retraining itself to accommodate the new shape he was inhabiting. He really had spent so little time in this body, overall. It nestled so perfectly within his middle shell that many of the same joints were exercised when he moved, but not all, and not with the same amount of weight, the same limb length.

He dreaded the idea of walking in this form for the first time in a lifetime. He hoped that, if it became necessary, he could attempt that privately.

Somehow, he doubted Springer would allow that.

(And he could likely exercise his authority to send them all away, but… if they truly wanted to stay, he didn't think he could make himself do so in good conscience. And they never had been good at listening to authority in the first place.)

Speaking of… everyone was in the room except-

"Dominus?"

"I saw a medic head into his room," Springer said, curling his fingers into his palm and pointing a thumb over his shoulder. "He got hit with a couple stray rocks and stuff, but he's okay. All limbs still attached. No dents a magnet couldn't fix. Just… really sore."

That was an incredible relief. He vented outwards, letting his head roll back on the medical slab for a moment.

"So… despite the, uh, identity fraud, you're still a Wrecker, right? They're not kicking you out of the Autobots or anything?" Twin Twist asked hesitantly. Like he was hoping that the answer would be no. Like Minimus would even have any idea as to the answer, given his relative unconsciousness up until now.

If Minimus could talk, he might say something like I'm not sure, but as it was, he mirrored their own behavior and shrugged, hesitant and awkward. He wanted to stay with the Autobots. He wanted to keep the life he'd been living. He wanted it terribly.

"Of course he's still a Wrecker! If they kick him out, we're going with him! Duh," Hot Shot turned to him. "You're a Wrecker, even if you're small. We'd still care about you even if you were a cyberworm," he said earnestly. Where he got those ideas-

"Especially if you were a cyberworm!" Whirl added. "Then we'd be the only unit with a worm commanding officer. We could put you in a tank and poke you with sticks, and see what happens when we cut you in half…"

"We're not cutting our commanding officer in half," Springer cut in dryly.

"Pardon me," a quiet, refined voice filtered in through the chaos.

Minimus Ambus vented in sharply, demanding that his elbows coordinate long enough to sit him up properly. Dominus, his mouth formed around the letters, because his voice failed him. Springer noticed, sharp-eyed watcher that he was.

"Hey!" Springer said sharply, and he whistled. It was almost uncanny; as they always did, the Wreckers quieted and stood at attention under Springer's command, the way they never had under Ultra Magnus, the way they definitely never had under any other commanding officer. Springer motioned to Dominus with a tilt of his head. "Let the guy through."

"Thank you," Dominus smiled, then limped through the open space towards Minimus, who watched him move with nervousness and concern. He was limping. He shouldn't have been limping. Ultra Magnus had pushed him out of the way. "A moment alone with my brother, please?"

Minimus felt the rotation of his spark increase, as it sometimes did when he was anxious. Dominus didn't look angry… he thought. Either way, it was far past time for the two of them to talk without any pretenses in the way—as much as they could, given the current state of Minimus' vocalizer, at least.

Springer appeared as though he was searching for something in Dominus' expression, only to nod. Hot Shot groaned, getting to his feet, and Moonracer patted Minimus' ankle, all of them "His vocalizer's rusty," Springer warned inaccurately before he rounded up the rear, letting the door slide shut behind him.

Then it was simply the two of them.

Dominus opened his mouth, then shut it. He seemed… uncertain.

Both of them were.

The room had a single chair, pushed to the corner, which Dominus glanced at before fetching it, rolling it back towards Minimus' bedside and settling himself down in it. He folded his hands in his lap and stared down at his own fingers, brow furrowed, the corners of his mouth turned down thoughtfully under the crest of the House of Ambus.

"Dominus," Minimus tried, and once more it felt, and sounded, like gargling loose gears. He coughed, trying to clear the airway past an obstruction that didn't quite exist.

"If you can't talk, then allow me," Dominus said, haltingly. "Thank you. For saving my life. And for… everything else." He vented inwards, sharp and painful-sounding. "I'm just thankful that I found you alive after all this time, Minimus," Dominus choked. "And I'm proud of you, brother. For all that you've accomplished."

Minimus Ambus shut his optics tightly against the rush of emotion that those words prompted. The complicated flood of it felt too strong, like it couldn't be contained in a self so small.

"I don't-" Dominus exvented slowly, laying his outer shell's hand on Minimus' smaller one. There was still some disconnect in Minimus' processor—for a moment, his mind believed that Dominus must be huge, for him to dwarf Ultra Magnus' hand in such a way. But no, it was Minimus who was absurdly tiny. "I don't… know what to call you now. I don't know what you want to be called. Ultra Magnus, or Minimus Ambus?" He sounded vulnerable in a way that Ultra Magnus had never heard him before. A way that Ultra Magnus would never have imagined Dominus speaking, in all those long years. It felt so wrong. And yet, for the Dominus that Ultra Magnus had come to know… perhaps there was a place for those feelings in him, now. Perhaps he was afraid of losing his brother when he'd only just found him.

As for the question, Ultra Magnus had had so long to think this over, and yet when he opened his mouth, he wasn't entirely sure what was going to come out.

He'd spent millennia as Ultra Magnus without sparing a single thought to the Minimus Ambus curled up inside of him. From the moment that he'd interacted with Ironfist as Minimus Ambus, he'd gained a little of that old perspective back, a sense of self he'd long thought dropped to the wayside, and the thought had been churning through his processors ever since.

In the end, neither form of his had ever felt truly wrong, even if Minimus Ambus at times had not felt right. His thoughts and feelings in either form were the same.

He was small and large, blue and green. He wanted his team to look up to him when he was Ultra Magnus. He wanted them not to look down on him when he was Minimus Ambus. He wanted everyone to know the whole of him so he no longer had to feel like he was hiding anything. He wanted-

"Both," he croaked. "I want to be both."

Dominus stared at him with wide optics, then squeezed his hand. "Okay," he said. "I can work with that."

Chapter Text

Before the war began, Orion Pax had met Ultra Magnus. He'd been an average-sized mech at the time, and had to tilt his head up to look him in the optic. Ultra Magnus had been broad-shouldered and tall, stone-faced and serious, and Orion had taken one look at the bigger mech and decided to make friends despite it all.

Then Orion had become Optimus, and the two of them were of a similar height; two large 'bots in a world meant for those of average size, commiserating over short doorways and too-small chairs.

Now, several cycles after Minimus was finally allowed to leave medical, newly cleaned internals and functioning voicebox and all, Optimus Prime tilted his head downwards, far, far down, to regard Minimus Ambus with his battle mask retracted and a warm expression on his face, studying him as though seeing him for the first time. In some ways, he was. In other ways, they had known each other for a very long time.

"It's nice to finally meet you, Minimus Ambus," Optimus rumbled, somewhat wryly, as he extended a hand. He didn't have to extend it very far or else Minimus Ambus wouldn't be able to reach. The difference in their sizes truly was ridiculous.

Minimus Ambus tried to smile as he took the larger bot's hand in his own and shook.

He'd never allowed himself to think about what he'd say or do if Optimus were to ever look upon him in this body. If he had, he'd expected it to be a little awkward, perhaps, given their long association under a different face.

Optimus was forgiving, of course. In his worst fantasies, even when he'd be ejected from the Autobots over concerns of espionage or identity fraud or something along those lines, he'd never been able to picture Optimus treating him poorly for the revelation of his true irreducible self. Optimus always tried to hard to see the good in others.

"I'm sorry," Minimus Ambus said impulsively.

Optimus' brow furrowed, confused. "For what?"

"When you first became Prime, you underwent a period of frame dysphoria. If I had been honest with you at that point, we could have… confided in each other. You would not have had to process that experience alone."

"Perhaps. But I remember you giving me suggestions on how to adapt. Specific suggestions that make a lot more sense, now, given the," Optimus waved a hand through the air, grinning a little. "And you were there, and you were patient with me, and you listened, over the following cycles. It may not have been the ideal, perfect way, in hindsight, but it matters the most to me that you were there and that you tried, old friend," he concluded, genuinely, giving Minimus Ambus a fond look that he'd become so familiar with over the years. If Minimus Ambus had been laboring under the apprehension that Optimus was struggling to reconcile his very large friend with this very small body, that expression alone eased his fears.

"I knew how strange it feels, suddenly seeing the world from a different angle," Minimus said. "For me, it had been a wanted experience, something I specifically designed and looked forward to, but for you, it happened without warning, and you hadn't sought it out or secretly wished for it. The difficulty you had in adjusting was understandable."

"And now, after all this time and the effort I've put into feeling at home in it, I could never imagine living in any other body," Optimus said thoughtfully. "I can understand why you wanted to be big. People pay attention to you, like this. Even aside from the Prime thing, there is some amount of—of unearned respect, as though anyone has any say in the natural shape and size of their frames."

Minimus Ambus exvented, so glad that someone else recognized it too. "Exactly," he complained. "You're seen differently when mechs have to look up to look you in the optic. My House certainly reinforced the idea that respect was paramount, and that size played a key role in such, from the moment they realized I was a loadbearer and provided me with my first outer shell. That wasn't my biggest motivation in commissioning the armor, but it certainly was a factor."

"What was your biggest motivation?" Optimus looked genuinely curious.

That was certainly a novel question, in these cycles immediately following his medical rest. Most people wanted to know how. How he had managed to live in a constructed identity for so long, how his loadbearing ability worked, how he could have let his inner self degrade to such a degree without proper maintenance (the last asked mainly by his medic.)

As for the why: "I enjoyed the feeling of choice. Designing myself from the ground up was appealing—I spent a long time thinking about who I wanted to be, and what would be most fulfilling to me. But mostly…I had a vision of the life I wanted. It wasn't what Minimus Ambus was allowed. So I chose to become someone other than Minimus Ambus. The path of least resistance." He grinned around a sudden swell of dry humor, recalling what Ironfist had said once. "When I don't like something, I'm told I tend to 'shut down and get out of dodge.'" He hoped he was using those air quotations correctly.

"Not always," Optimus countered. "You stood against Zeta Prime, when you certainly could have ignored the problem or found a way to quit. You took on the Wreckers despite your own misgivings. You stay when it counts the most."

Ah. Well, that was… Minimus Ambus couldn't help but smile, genuinely. "I have no regrets on either of those counts, not even the Wreckers. Don't tell them that, though, or I'll never hear the end of it."

Optimus smiled back, winked once, then cleared his intake and straightened his posture back to something a little more official. "So, going forward, will you be continuing your work as Ultra Magnus, or Minimus Ambus? I can promise you that there will always be a place for you in the Autobots, in whatever form you prefer. And that was the case even before every single member of the Wreckers approached me or Elita, independently, to tell me that if you were kicked out, they'd be right behind."

And they couldn't lose the Wreckers; that was the entire reason Ultra Magnus had been assigned to them to begin with, Minimus finished the unspoken thought.

Ultra Magnus was currently in the R&D department, being repaired under Brainstorm's far-too-excited fingers and Perceptor's trustworthy supervision. He was sure the armor he'd once carefully designed and lived within for endless vorns would come back with some unexpected new features. It made him somewhat nervous, allowing that body to be turned into something a little less familiar, but he had faith in Perceptor to keep the alterations reasonable.

"Once the armor is repaired, I would like to do both, if that is acceptable," he said cautiously, but firmly. "I commissioned the Ultra Magnus armor to have choice, and after some thought, I find I like the idea of leaving both options open to me in the future, now that the reason I left behind my original self is no longer an issue. I am the same person no matter what form I take, after all, and I've neglected this one long enough." He almost smiled. "Truly, I don't think First Aid will allow me to spend vorns sealed inside the armor even if I wanted to. And I don't, for the record. But I also enjoy being Ultra Magnus. I have spent the majority of my lifetime in that form, and it does have some uses, both on and off the battlefield. I don't think Minimus Ambus could do all of the things that the Wreckers demand of Ultra Magnus. Though I would like to keep this face private, for now," he added quickly. "I enjoy my anonymity and don't wish to become a spectacle until circumstances are forced. I will submit to a lengthy discussion with High Command, however; I don't want to lie to anyone. Not anymore. But it wasn't as though anyone ever asked if Ultra Magnus was a suit of armor and a secondary identity, so it was only ever a lie by omission."

Optimus carefully, but not carefully enough, suppressed a wince.

And Minimus Ambus understood, then, that Optimus was still nursing a few lingering hurts over the many thousand vorns of passively lying, it was simply that Optimus was kind enough to work through those feelings privately, so that he could support Minimus Ambus through his current transitionary period. It was utterly kind of him, and utterly Optimus of him.

He was so grateful to have Optimus' friendship. Sometimes, he still wondered how he had gotten so lucky to somehow catch Orion's attention, to have been pulled into his orbit in such a way.

"Whatever you need, whoever you want to be, in whatever circumstances," Optimus said with all the confidence of a Prime, "I'll do everything in my power to make it happen. Minimus-"

"If you want to call me Magnus," said Minimus, said Magnus, "then please. I told you, I'm the same person, no matter what form I take, and you know me. You've always known me."

Optimus stared at him for a short, searching moment, then nodded. "Magnus," he said, and though Minimus Ambus was small, and green, it was still his name—or the friendly shortening of it, at least—and it felt right hearing Optimus say it as he'd said it for vorns; fond, and so sure that it was welcome. Minimus Ambus certainly felt more settled in himself, after that long overdue conversation. More seen.

Sometimes, it felt like all he'd ever wanted was to be seen.

Between isolating Ultra Magnus' recovery in a private room and only allowing a select roster of Wreckers and High Command access, and the strict assured confidentiality of the medics involved… Ultra Magnus' secret had been assured, at least for the time being.

Once a secret was out to some, it was inevitable that it would be out to more. It was only a matter of time. The only thing that could be done now would be to get ahead of it and be ready to control the narrative. And though that certainly wasn't Ultra Magnus' strength, he knew who could assist with this.

"The note you wrote in the appointment request felt kind of vague to me, which is weird coming from you, but I'm down for talking about whatever, sir! Literally anything! But before we start… if you could give me a few comments about this last mission, I'm sure people will be happy to hear you're doing okay, because there were some rumors, you know? And it's been a while since you were seen in public. But anyways, yeah, what's up?"

"I have a request."

Ironfist shifted from foot to foot. "Uh, sure?"

Ultra Magnus, finally fully repaired—and upgraded, though Perceptor had only smiled and said try it and find out when Minimus inquired about the changes, which was honestly a terrible way to handle upgrades in the military, but he was certainly intrigued to learn what they'd done with it— sat down on the floor in the corner, the same place that he'd shed the armor the last time he spoke with Ironfist as Minimus Ambus. And just as before, his chestplates opened to reveal the mech within. Instead of the Minimus Ambus that Ironfist was familiar with—small compared to an average-sized mech, perhaps, and drastically smaller than his Ultra Magnus form—this was his irreducible self, who was even smaller yet.

For all that he didn't have a mouth, Ironfist gaped.

Minimus Ambus vented inwards, steeling himself. "I have reason to believe that my identity will become a matter of public record sooner rather than later. And when that happens… I'd like you to have a datalog ready, to be held until such a time. I'd like any interested parties to understand the situation in my own words. You and your publication would have the exclusive, of course."

Ironfist's excited shriek could likely be heard through the closed doorway and down the hall.

"Hi nerds! Bye nerds!" Whirl shouted as he darted through the quiet row of cubicles on his way to Ultra Magnus' office. His original office, that was—the one that had once been his quiet refuge, his hiding place. The one that he was currently moving out of because Optimus had finally approved someone to take his place.

Ultra Magnus couldn't help feeling a little bit nostalgically sad at that. He'd built this department from the ground up, long ago, and every part of it had the imprint of his hands, his processor, his passion.

At least he had somewhere safe to land. The office near the Wreckers' common room—which he was officially using as his main office moving forward—was certainly louder, with mechs who enjoyed barging in without requesting an appointment or even knocking in some cases, and if anyone outside of his current work and social groups wanted to speak to him he'd certainly be easier to locate, but somehow it all didn't seem that terrible these days.

"Are you sure this is it?" Springer asked skeptically, eyeing the boxes they'd brought and the few items Ultra Magnus had once used to furnish his office, which consisted mostly of his favorite datapad organizers, a charging station, his favorite styluses carefully arranged by size, weight, and balance, a mounted printout of the Autobot Code, a copy of the Tyrest Accord signed by Tyrest himself, and a digital picture frame which had once been a gift from Elita and Optimus, pre-loaded with photographs of those he associated with within High Command, occasionally with himself in the frame, often scowling.

This entire charade was unnecessary. Ultra Magnus could have very easily carried all of it out in one singular box. And yet, he had only managed one token protest before the whole team had grabbed an armful of boxes and followed him down the hall like a disorganized parade. Only a token protest, because the idea that he didn't have to do this small task alone was actually quite nice, though he wouldn't say it aloud.

"This is it," he confirmed.

"Huh," Springer said. Though he declined to elaborate, there was a thoughtful furrow to his brow.

Less than two solar cycles later, objects started spontaneously appearing on Ultra Magnus' relocated desk in the office near the Wreckers' common room. They were all deposited in the same spot, a consistency he appreciated even as the objects themselves were unexpected and varied: a spare bullet casing with Moonracer's designation carefully carved into it, a new green-and-blue stylus, a chronometer that worked reliably despite a few scratches and dents in the shape of Whirl's claws, a small but highly advanced cleaning robot with a sticky note assuring that it was 'definitely not a weapon of mass destruction we swear,' and so on and so forth.

With those and more, placed carefully on brand new shelves after Springer had slipped in one late evening with a drill and a leveler at the ready, turning that sharp focus on ensuring the new wall fixtures were perfectly spaced and level, Ultra Magnus' new office looked more lived-in and personal than any office or living space he had ever had.

It was odd.

Ultra Magnus couldn't quite describe what was missing, but there was something downright disconcerting about the Wreckers common room.

He shifted in his borrowed chair, and a slightly loose screw complained in the ringing quiet, and-

-ah.

Hot Shot was in medical, along with his bouncing leg and tapping fingers, after their most recent mission. So was Twin Twist, who had finally asked for someone to take a look at that loose joint. They'd finally begun trusting the medical team with their minor injuries.

Of course it would feel quiet.

He wondered when he'd become so used to the constant noise.

The House of Ambus back on Cybertron was a crumbling mess of rusted metal, dark and gutted.

Minimus Ambus stared up at it and didn't know what he felt, in that moment. Something a little sad, a little spiteful, a little relieved. He'd achieved something he hadn't imagined possible; he'd survived long after the House was gone, and now no one could ever make him be anything less than he was, ever again.

Dominus looked sad, too. Minimus Ambus could only speculate on his brother's feelings, but he wouldn't be surprised if they were equally as complicated, possibly even a little more nostalgic, given that the House had provided him so many advantages in life and paraded him around as their pride and joy, once upon a time.

They didn't enter the House proper. It would have brought up too many unpleasant memories. Anything that had made it feel like a home to Minimus Ambus—the books, the few personal items he hadn't brought with him when he'd originally left—would have long ago been sold as the House's fortune crumbled under the weight of war. Instead, they went around to the back.

Minimus Ambus took one and a half steps for every stride of Dominus', given that he was in his irreducible form while Dominus remained in his outer shell. Minimus found it unlikely that Dominus would ever truly feel comfortable in his irreducible form, but that was alright. He had the option, the freedom to choose, and Minimus was simply happy to have his brother at his side in any form during this reluctant visit.

It had once been a particular quirk of high society to build mausoleums and memorials for the dead instead of recycling or space burial. Minimus Ambus had been quite familiar with the winding pathways of the Ambus Memorial Garden—one of his chores had been to tend to various spots in it, polishing the metal, removing any detritus that had blown in, and on occasion to set up decorative plants or offerings, especially when the House was expecting visitors.

As they turned around the corner of the building and the entrance to the Memorial Garden spun into view, Minimus saw, with a slightly sinking spark, the effects of long neglect on the stones and towers and staircases.

Dominus shivered despite the perfectly temperate climate, increasing his pace. "We won't be here long," he promised, as his optics wandered from pillar to plinth to sinking gravestone, looking discomfited.

Minimus had never thought of the Memorial Garden as a particularly spiritual place despite his lifelong awareness of the slowly rusting bodies of several of his forebears in marked spots below the surface. He wasn't particular religious, to be honest. The only significance to this place was the significance that other mechs decided to bestow upon it. He'd performed his occasional maintenance for the benefit of the living, not the dead, though mostly because it was an assigned chore and he did not tolerate dirt and dust.

He hadn't expected Dominus to be any more spiritual than himself, but he respected his brother's feelings if that was the case. He moved a little closer to Dominus to convey his offer of emotional support.

Few things had changed in the Memorial Garden since the last time Minimus Ambus had tended to it, other than the passage of time wearing everything down in ways he should have expected. It wasn't until they passed into a previously-empty corner and he saw a more recently erected memorial, one that definitely was not there the last time he was there, that he finally, finally understood.

Dominus looked nervous, turning to Minimus Ambus and walking backwards, sweeping out an arm to gesture to the memorial.

To his memorial.

"I insisted," Dominus explained, when Minimus had stared at the construction for several breems, confused. It was only slightly less worn down and crumbling than the rest of the House and the Garden, as though someone had tended to it on occasion, which made no sense. None of this made sense. "No one knew what happened to you, and I thought… this was what you deserved, at least. If you were ever found alive, you would know that someone remembered and respected you. If you were confirmed dead, then you deserved to be memorialized. It was your birthright."

"My birthright never meant much," Minimus Ambus murmured, almost without thinking.

Dominus winced. "I'm aware." He must have read the disbelief on Minimus' face, because he looked away for a moment. "After I realized you had my identifier blocked, but before I was called off-planet, I reached out to the relief group you claimed to be working with. No one recognized your designation, or an image of you."

"My internal communicator broke in a scuffle with Decepticons during the breakout of the war," Minimus Ambus explained quietly. "I lost all of my contacts and my own number due to corrupted data, and I couldn't arrange for a repair attempt without revealing more than I was comfortable with, at the time. I didn't block you, specifically." They shared a long look, and Minimus Ambus imagined that possibly, maybe, they could heal more than a few shared hurts this way.

"Seeking your last known location, I decided to backtrack," Dominus continued, "and asked about your life at the House, really asked, and after that, I no longer had to wonder why you'd left without a word." He shifted from foot to foot, which was an oddly uncomfortable gesture for him, expression growing pinched. "Honestly, it sounded like you were little more than a prisoner there, to put it kindly. Of course you wanted to escape to somewhere they couldn't track you and drag you back, if they would have cared to do so beyond the mere motions of it, which I honestly doubt." Dominus scoffed.

"It wasn't…"

"Don't defend them," Dominus cut in sharply, looking increasingly angry. Angry in his defense, which was… Minimus struggled to believe it, even with all the signs of it right in front of his face. It almost made him want to laugh, which was a highly nonsensical reaction. "When I asked around, no one could recall the last time you'd been in contact. I asked where you might have gone, and they couldn't so much as name your favorite places; the shops you frequented, the hobbies you enjoyed, any friends you had. If you had friends. It was as though you were a ghost. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized how little I knew about you, as well."

Dominus scrubbed a hand over his face, uncharacteristically rough, lacking his usual poise, and yet this felt like the most honest look at his brother that Minimus Ambus had ever, in his entire life, managed to get.

"I was angry, at first. I blamed you for not talking to me about the things that bothered you. If I'd known, if I'd truly known and understood, I told myself that I would have gotten you out of there. You could have been- I could have taken you on as an assistant, or something along those lines, something they couldn't have possibly taken umbrage with, and left you to your own devices to do as you pleased. But did I ever ask? Did I take the time to get to know you, so you would feel comfortable reaching out to me with your needs? You were my brother. The relationship goes both ways, and you were the one struggling, while I had everything, and of course you didn't feel comfortable saying anything. If you had, I might well have treated you as terribly as they did, for all you knew."

"I didn't- there was pressure on you, too," Minimus said quickly, because he'd understood that, even then. "If you hadn't performed to their unreasonably high standards, you, too, would have been cast aside, or pressured. I understand your focus on your career, and in your position I certainly can't say that I wouldn't have done the same. It went both ways," Minimus said firmly. "I should have said something. You should have reached out to me. Neither of us did either of those things, and thus I took the completely reasonable action of creating a separate identity and body to live out my dreams somewhere else and functionally faking my death."

Dominus huffed out a startled laugh, smoothing out of the few anger-sharp lines in his face. Good. Let it be known that Ultra Magnus could make a joke if he tried hard enough.

Speaking of Ultra Magnus, "If we are arguing over who has done the other worst, I would like to contribute that I should have told you when you were first assigned to the Wreckers. Instead, you went so far as to commit an incredibly egregious crime while trying to locate me, when I was right there, all along."

"Why didn't you?" Dominus' question was spoken softly, but Minimus flinched anyways.

"I-"

"-you don't need-"

They stopped, staring at each other for a long moment.

Dominus spoke up first, quick to clarify. "You don't need to tell me. I may not know you as well as I'd like, but know you're a private mech. I'm not owed an explanation, or your feelings."

"I want to," Minimus replied, because he really, really did. "And I believe you know me better than you think you do, after working together for some time. I wasn't pretending to be anyone other than myself, no matter the body. I'd… just rather have this discussion in a different setting." Somewhere that didn't quite feel so public, perhaps. Somewhere without the afterimages of a life they both regretted.

"I'd appreciate that." Dominus tilted his head and looked him directly in the optics, something determined but nervous in the lines of his face. "If you are amenable, Minimus, I want to try again. At being a family unit. At finding out what that means," Dominus said hesitantly, as though he at least halfway expected Minimus Ambus to deny him.

"I would like that," Minimus Ambus replied honestly, "very much."

Dominus smiled, and the last of the lingering tension in his frame slowly began to melt away, and Minimus felt himself do the same.

He jolted at a sudden buzz at the side of his head. "One moment, I have an incoming call," he said, holding a finger to his ear. The medical team had repaired his internal comms during his long convalescence, thankfully, though with the data on it still unrecoverable he'd asked them to tie it in to his address as Ultra Magnus.

Dominus took the moment to set something new down at the memorial; two small chunks of metal, worn smooth with time—one small and green, the other larger and blue. If Minimus Ambus hadn't been so distracted by what he was hearing on the call, he likely would have become emotional over it.

He still might, when he got a chance to reflect back on it.

"The Wreckers are needed on assignment," Minimus Ambus reported back after a brief conversation with the dispatcher at the other end, just as Dominus straightened back up. "Pickup in eight breems, out by the front road."

Dominus collected himself, shoulders back, back strut tall, all of his anxieties left behind in the face of a task to do. "Well then. Let's be off, shall we?"

Behind them, the House of Ambus continued to crumble.

"Wreckers, stand by for launch," Minimus Ambus declared.

"You got it, boss!" Moonracer replied cheerfully, gun already in hand.

"Yes, sir!" Springer grinned.

The Magnus armor sat with its chestplates open just beside him, and in a matter of clicks, Minimus enclosed himself inside of it and initiated the sync.

Minimus Ambus turned off his optics, and Ultra Magnus' brightened in turn.

The ship's onboard computer system pinged an alert; they'd reached the drop point. The team braced themselves. At the end of the ship, the hatch rolled open, the unfamiliar rivers and lakes winding endlessly below, and somewhere down there, a key Decepticon base was ripe for the storming.

"Be careful… brother," Dominus said quietly as he settled into the comms chair, and the two of them shared a brief smile before Ultra Magnus turned to step off the ledge and into the air, certain that his team would follow.

"Alright, team," Ultra Magnus said amidst exhilarated whoops as the ground rushed to meet them, "Wreck and rule!"