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wyntir_knightTitle: Being Human - Chapter 2
Fandom: Transformers, MCU
Characters/pairing: Jazz, Mirage, Smokescreen, Bumblebee, Ensemble
Rating: T
Summary: The Autobots and the Decepticons have a tentative truce as they try to find their lost leaders. Their hope is to regain Cybertron. In reality they are about to stumble into something even larger than themselves.
(Link to chapter 1)
---
~Two years after the Battle of New York~
Jazz sat low on his suspension as he looked over the dam and attached buildings. He was surrounded by a soporific heat that bead down from above and was reflected back by the light concrete of the parking garage roof. It was incredibly pleasant and he was so very tempted to take a nap right then and there.
“You do know that we have a mission, right?” Mirage said as he pulled up next to Jazz. He had chosen a high end convertible Audi as his alt-mode. It was more than a little flashy, but reasonable for this area of Arizona/Nevada. Still, it was an unusual choice for a mech who claimed he wanted nothing more than to disappear.
“Yeah, I know,” Jazz replied. “I’m just scouting out the scene.”
“You’re a click away from napping,” Mirage said with a chuckle as he brushed his field against his commander’s.
Jazz sat up and fluffed his armour as best as his Porsche alt-mode would allow.
“What can I say? I like this place. We spent way too long without a sun on Cybertron. I’d forgotten how good it feels before we landed here. And the weather here is a damn sight better than out east.”
“Certainly dryer,” Mirage agreed. “I was almost tempted to transfer to the Combaticon base that first winter. New York has its perks, but winter is not one of them.”
“I dunno. Last Christmas was pretty,” Jazz said. “All those sparkling lights and the singing and the trees.”
“And the fake caring and the greed and the desperation and the underlying hatred in every Merry Christmas,” Mirage sneered.
“I really need to introduce you to Charles Dickens, there, ‘Raj,” Jazz said with a chuckle. “Next you’ll be saying bah, humbug!”
“I have no idea what any of that means,” Mirage replied, not reacting to the hated nickname. “So, Prowl’s sure that this is where we need to be. After two years it seems very convenient that the data we’ve been after was just handed to us.”
“Frenzy’s pretty sure the the intel’s good. And Screamer’s vouching for him. Apparently that’s enough for Prowl,” Jazz said, looking back out at the dam and the Visitor Centre. “As for easy, I think that all the pieces just fell into place. Looks like everything was set into motion when the Chitauri attacked. It was only a matter of time before both SHIELD and HYDRA imploded.”
“Right. And it took some human drug addict in body armour armed with a dinner plate blowing up a helicarrier for Frenzy to breach the security of a human trapped in a fifty year old computer,” Mirage said in aa tone drier than the desert around them.
“Well when you put it like that it sounds dumb,” Jazz replied. He reached out to brush Mirage with his field.
“And we’re supposed to believe that Orion Pax and Megatron have been held captive under a dam built by these primates almost a hundred years ago. You’ll excuse me if I find all of this a little hard to swallow. Especially since we only have the Decepticons’ word for it.” Mirage’s words were harsh, but he did allow his field to lean into Jazz’s.
“All we can do is go check it out. Just like the other teams are checking out the other locations Frenzy pulled up,” Jazz said. “I mean, you’re right this is all way too easy, but we still need to check it out. I’d never be able to recharge if I didn’t at least go look around.”
Mirage sighed and sank low on his suspension.
“Fine,” he said. “Fine. But I’m doing this under protest.”
“Aw come on, Raj!” Jazz said, bumping his field into Mirage’s in an affectionate nudge. “If nothing else, you’ll enjoy making fun of the primitive tech. I hear they’ve got a whole room that’s a single computer that can barely add a quartex and a shingle together. Makes one of their cell phones look like a cityformer processor.”
“Not helping my mood any, Jazz,” Mirage replied. “It’s going to be tight and filthy in there. And filled with stinking humans. You know that I hate the way they smell. And what with it being so hot they’re going to be even more stinking!”
“You know you don’t need to transfer your olfactory receptors over to your holomatter avatar, right, Huffer?” Jazz said teasingly.
“Huffer?!” Mirage snapped, aghast. “I am nothing like that misanthrope!”
Jazz laughed but quickly settled back down. “So, is everyone ready to head out on in for the tour?”
“More than ready. I suspect they’re getting bored,” Mirage drawled, an edge of disgust creeping into his voice. “Bluestreak is talking the audials off of those twin menaces we were forced to take with us. And Bumblebee is showing off her new … kibble.”
Jazz chuckled softly. “So Smokey finally talked her into gettin’ those lashes, did he?”
“No, Ratchet did. I told you that keeping those two together was a bad idea,” Mirage said. “He is rubbing off on our good medic. And not in a good way.”
“Funny, I thought the problem was that they wasn’t rubbin’ off on each other,” Jazz said slyly as they drove away from the roof of the garage and toward the interior of the structure.
Jazz was sure that Mirage would be narrowing his optics at him had he been in root mode. “Do not encourage them any closer than they already are. I shudder at the thought of what viruses that mech is carrying!”
“Why ‘Raj! I didn’t know you cared ‘bout ole Smokes’ well-being!” Jazz replied lightly.
“You know full well who I meant,” Mirage sneered.
They were almost at the ramp heading further into the structure when Bumblebee drove up, followed by Smokescreen and Ratchet. Bumblebee had chosen a new model Volkswagen Beetle as her alt-mode, complete with large black eyelashes afixed around her headlights.
“Well now those are gonna be mighty interestin’ lookin’ in your alt-mode,” Jazz said slyly.
“They go in my subspace,” Bumblebee replied, rather sharply for the normally jovial mech. “We’ve got bigger issues than my kibble. The Batties are en route.”
The mirth completely left Jazz and he immediately turned on his communicator.
“Jazz to New York HQ. Put me through to either Prowl or Screamer, Red,” he said sharply. “Don’t care which one.”
“What is the problem,” Jazz,” Red Alert replied.
“We’ve got a potential SNAFU going on over here. Now get me either Prowl or Starscream. I need to check something with them and quell some rather nasty assumptions I’ve got rollin’ around in my head.”
There was a long moment of silence before Red Alert finally replied.
“One moment.”
Almost immediately Starscream came on the line.
“What do you want, Jazz?” he asked with an audible ex-vent.
Jazz supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that the Decepticon was in the Manhattan base. After all, their own base in New Jersey was hardly prime real estate and after over a year of being on Earth there was really no point in keeping up the pretense that they weren’t all actively working together.
“Tell me you pulled Ons and her group off their mission,” Jazz said darkly.
“What? No!” Starscream exclaimed, all signs of annoyed boredom gone. “Why would I do that?”
“Great. Then they’ve gone rogue, ‘cause they’re closing in on me an’ mine’s location right quick. And we don’t need their help on this. My mission’s purely stealth and they ain’t exactly stealthy. So call ‘em off!”
“Boss?” Smokescreen said in a low voice. “I’ve got incoming from Swindle. You’re gonna want to hear this.”
Jazz pulsed out approval with his field.
“Go ahead, Swin,” Smokescreen said into his radio and turned up the volume.
“We’re getting called in,” Swindle said. “Don’t know who it is but I think it has something to do with the chip. We were checking out our site when we got some kind of a pulse and we just got, I dunno, called or something. It's like a need. I don’t know where we’re heading but the others are acting like a bunch of drones about it.”
“And why aren’t you affected?” Prowl asked through Jazz’s communicator.
“The chip never worked right on me,” Swindle replied. “I’ve always been able to fight it better than the others. I guess I can see the loopholes in the codes.”
“Okay, do what you van to slow ‘em up, Swindle,” Jazz said tightly. “We'll move t’ intercept. Ratch, go grab Blue and the Twins. We're gonna need all hands to slow the Battles down.”
Ratchet was about to head out when Jazz's comm squawked to life.
“Jazz!” Bluestreak called out in a panic. “Sideswipe just started talking about Megatron and now he's heading to the dam and Sunstreaker's trying to stop him! What do I do?!”
“Okay, calm down, Blue,” Jazz said. “Just keep an optic on them and back Sunny up if he needs it. But I don’t want you between those two if it turns into a knock down drag out. I’ll get there with Zee and get you two backup. Ratch, you take Smokey and Raj to intercept the Batties. Distract ‘em, draw ‘em off, something. One way or another, we need ta keep ‘em away from that dam!”
Link to Chapter 3
(x-posted to Pillowfort)
Fandom: Transformers, MCU
Characters/pairing: Jazz, Mirage, Smokescreen, Bumblebee, Ensemble
Rating: T
Summary: The Autobots and the Decepticons have a tentative truce as they try to find their lost leaders. Their hope is to regain Cybertron. In reality they are about to stumble into something even larger than themselves.
(Link to chapter 1)
---
~Two years after the Battle of New York~
Jazz sat low on his suspension as he looked over the dam and attached buildings. He was surrounded by a soporific heat that bead down from above and was reflected back by the light concrete of the parking garage roof. It was incredibly pleasant and he was so very tempted to take a nap right then and there.
“You do know that we have a mission, right?” Mirage said as he pulled up next to Jazz. He had chosen a high end convertible Audi as his alt-mode. It was more than a little flashy, but reasonable for this area of Arizona/Nevada. Still, it was an unusual choice for a mech who claimed he wanted nothing more than to disappear.
“Yeah, I know,” Jazz replied. “I’m just scouting out the scene.”
“You’re a click away from napping,” Mirage said with a chuckle as he brushed his field against his commander’s.
Jazz sat up and fluffed his armour as best as his Porsche alt-mode would allow.
“What can I say? I like this place. We spent way too long without a sun on Cybertron. I’d forgotten how good it feels before we landed here. And the weather here is a damn sight better than out east.”
“Certainly dryer,” Mirage agreed. “I was almost tempted to transfer to the Combaticon base that first winter. New York has its perks, but winter is not one of them.”
“I dunno. Last Christmas was pretty,” Jazz said. “All those sparkling lights and the singing and the trees.”
“And the fake caring and the greed and the desperation and the underlying hatred in every Merry Christmas,” Mirage sneered.
“I really need to introduce you to Charles Dickens, there, ‘Raj,” Jazz said with a chuckle. “Next you’ll be saying bah, humbug!”
“I have no idea what any of that means,” Mirage replied, not reacting to the hated nickname. “So, Prowl’s sure that this is where we need to be. After two years it seems very convenient that the data we’ve been after was just handed to us.”
“Frenzy’s pretty sure the the intel’s good. And Screamer’s vouching for him. Apparently that’s enough for Prowl,” Jazz said, looking back out at the dam and the Visitor Centre. “As for easy, I think that all the pieces just fell into place. Looks like everything was set into motion when the Chitauri attacked. It was only a matter of time before both SHIELD and HYDRA imploded.”
“Right. And it took some human drug addict in body armour armed with a dinner plate blowing up a helicarrier for Frenzy to breach the security of a human trapped in a fifty year old computer,” Mirage said in aa tone drier than the desert around them.
“Well when you put it like that it sounds dumb,” Jazz replied. He reached out to brush Mirage with his field.
“And we’re supposed to believe that Orion Pax and Megatron have been held captive under a dam built by these primates almost a hundred years ago. You’ll excuse me if I find all of this a little hard to swallow. Especially since we only have the Decepticons’ word for it.” Mirage’s words were harsh, but he did allow his field to lean into Jazz’s.
“All we can do is go check it out. Just like the other teams are checking out the other locations Frenzy pulled up,” Jazz said. “I mean, you’re right this is all way too easy, but we still need to check it out. I’d never be able to recharge if I didn’t at least go look around.”
Mirage sighed and sank low on his suspension.
“Fine,” he said. “Fine. But I’m doing this under protest.”
“Aw come on, Raj!” Jazz said, bumping his field into Mirage’s in an affectionate nudge. “If nothing else, you’ll enjoy making fun of the primitive tech. I hear they’ve got a whole room that’s a single computer that can barely add a quartex and a shingle together. Makes one of their cell phones look like a cityformer processor.”
“Not helping my mood any, Jazz,” Mirage replied. “It’s going to be tight and filthy in there. And filled with stinking humans. You know that I hate the way they smell. And what with it being so hot they’re going to be even more stinking!”
“You know you don’t need to transfer your olfactory receptors over to your holomatter avatar, right, Huffer?” Jazz said teasingly.
“Huffer?!” Mirage snapped, aghast. “I am nothing like that misanthrope!”
Jazz laughed but quickly settled back down. “So, is everyone ready to head out on in for the tour?”
“More than ready. I suspect they’re getting bored,” Mirage drawled, an edge of disgust creeping into his voice. “Bluestreak is talking the audials off of those twin menaces we were forced to take with us. And Bumblebee is showing off her new … kibble.”
Jazz chuckled softly. “So Smokey finally talked her into gettin’ those lashes, did he?”
“No, Ratchet did. I told you that keeping those two together was a bad idea,” Mirage said. “He is rubbing off on our good medic. And not in a good way.”
“Funny, I thought the problem was that they wasn’t rubbin’ off on each other,” Jazz said slyly as they drove away from the roof of the garage and toward the interior of the structure.
Jazz was sure that Mirage would be narrowing his optics at him had he been in root mode. “Do not encourage them any closer than they already are. I shudder at the thought of what viruses that mech is carrying!”
“Why ‘Raj! I didn’t know you cared ‘bout ole Smokes’ well-being!” Jazz replied lightly.
“You know full well who I meant,” Mirage sneered.
They were almost at the ramp heading further into the structure when Bumblebee drove up, followed by Smokescreen and Ratchet. Bumblebee had chosen a new model Volkswagen Beetle as her alt-mode, complete with large black eyelashes afixed around her headlights.
“Well now those are gonna be mighty interestin’ lookin’ in your alt-mode,” Jazz said slyly.
“They go in my subspace,” Bumblebee replied, rather sharply for the normally jovial mech. “We’ve got bigger issues than my kibble. The Batties are en route.”
The mirth completely left Jazz and he immediately turned on his communicator.
“Jazz to New York HQ. Put me through to either Prowl or Screamer, Red,” he said sharply. “Don’t care which one.”
“What is the problem,” Jazz,” Red Alert replied.
“We’ve got a potential SNAFU going on over here. Now get me either Prowl or Starscream. I need to check something with them and quell some rather nasty assumptions I’ve got rollin’ around in my head.”
There was a long moment of silence before Red Alert finally replied.
“One moment.”
Almost immediately Starscream came on the line.
“What do you want, Jazz?” he asked with an audible ex-vent.
Jazz supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that the Decepticon was in the Manhattan base. After all, their own base in New Jersey was hardly prime real estate and after over a year of being on Earth there was really no point in keeping up the pretense that they weren’t all actively working together.
“Tell me you pulled Ons and her group off their mission,” Jazz said darkly.
“What? No!” Starscream exclaimed, all signs of annoyed boredom gone. “Why would I do that?”
“Great. Then they’ve gone rogue, ‘cause they’re closing in on me an’ mine’s location right quick. And we don’t need their help on this. My mission’s purely stealth and they ain’t exactly stealthy. So call ‘em off!”
“Boss?” Smokescreen said in a low voice. “I’ve got incoming from Swindle. You’re gonna want to hear this.”
Jazz pulsed out approval with his field.
“Go ahead, Swin,” Smokescreen said into his radio and turned up the volume.
“We’re getting called in,” Swindle said. “Don’t know who it is but I think it has something to do with the chip. We were checking out our site when we got some kind of a pulse and we just got, I dunno, called or something. It's like a need. I don’t know where we’re heading but the others are acting like a bunch of drones about it.”
“And why aren’t you affected?” Prowl asked through Jazz’s communicator.
“The chip never worked right on me,” Swindle replied. “I’ve always been able to fight it better than the others. I guess I can see the loopholes in the codes.”
“Okay, do what you van to slow ‘em up, Swindle,” Jazz said tightly. “We'll move t’ intercept. Ratch, go grab Blue and the Twins. We're gonna need all hands to slow the Battles down.”
Ratchet was about to head out when Jazz's comm squawked to life.
“Jazz!” Bluestreak called out in a panic. “Sideswipe just started talking about Megatron and now he's heading to the dam and Sunstreaker's trying to stop him! What do I do?!”
“Okay, calm down, Blue,” Jazz said. “Just keep an optic on them and back Sunny up if he needs it. But I don’t want you between those two if it turns into a knock down drag out. I’ll get there with Zee and get you two backup. Ratch, you take Smokey and Raj to intercept the Batties. Distract ‘em, draw ‘em off, something. One way or another, we need ta keep ‘em away from that dam!”
Link to Chapter 3
(x-posted to Pillowfort)