722A/N: This is utter crack and nothing but feel-good stuff for me :D
A little serious/fore-shadowy at the end (if/when I come back and write the secondary ending I've always had planned), but yeah.
Another Time
After so many centuries with one very habit-driven mech, anyone would think that Prowl was incapable of being awed by any facet of Lockdown's personality—but it was still absolutely astounding how puppy-like the old mech could be when he wanted something.
Time and again, Lockdown wandered into his chambers and wordlessly set to something utterly distracting, like insistently rubbing Prowl's excruciatingly sensitive fairings. No matter the timbre of the ninjabot's irritated rebukes, the musclecar would rumble and playfully nudge at his smaller partner in various ways, the very image of a pet obstructing the view of a datapad so they would be the center of attention. Even Bradbury, so far gone and so fondly remembered, had behaved a good sight more decently than Lockdown when he wanted to be petted.
Unfortunately, when Prowl had work to do (he had begun taking programming jobs from other neutral 'bots a few decades ago, to supplement their downgraded hunt schedule), he hated the interruptions and sent the far larger mech on his way with a strict glare. If only it worked. If they had been en route for more than six solar-cycles, Prowl could expect Lockdown back within the megacycle, who wouldn't stop until he'd gotten either a conversation or an interface out of him. Anyone could guess which was more preferred.
One such solar-cycle, Lockdown had settled in Prowl's quarters and brought a gun with him to shine, so the ninjabot knew it was going to be a long visit. Unnervingly like an old bonded couple, much of their limited conversation had taken a turn towards such domestic preoccupations as housecleaning and improving the ship. They would argue over whether a barnacle scraping was overdue or premature and remind each other to defrag Moot's harddrive if she had been acting stuffy (in the end, Prowl always sighed and instigated both of these chores only to have Lockdown huff and fall guiltily into line with much dental-clenching and pede-scuffing). That solar-cycle, Lockdown was uncharacteristically chatty, throwing out ideas for the workshop.
"Figure I can throw together the frame myself outta scrap but I'll have to buy the kit. Have to mod some'a the slots too, specs say it's only built for G4 ranked armory."
Prowl, with all the respect and love he could muster, couldn't care less. A deadline was approaching for an on-the-fly, high-cost, confounding job he had taken and he needed complete silence to program to the best of his abilities. Unfortunately, the rumble from Lockdown's vocals was enough to make him look up every three nanokliks even if he turned off his audios. When the old mech started humming, the ninjabot glared furiously into his datapad, digits curled into claws on the holographic keyboard.
Then, like a switch had been flicked, Prowl suddenly calmed like a scratch covered with fresh silky wax. The entire, somewhat startling change went unnoticed by Lockdown, who was currently admiring the shine of one of his favorite stun-guns.
"A change or two around the ship would be welcome," Prowl spoke up after a moment, watching his partner out of the corner of his visual field. His vocals were expertly casual. Lockdown blinked up at him, as though surprised to see him respond, then scratched lazily at his neckspikes.
"Yeah? Like what? I was turnin' over the idea of a new chair for the bridge. Old one's gettin' too many sharp edges to file down, nearly cut a wire on it the other solar-cycle."
"Really," Prowl said pensively, blue visor tied up in the lines of coding on his data-pad. His digits tapped away, perhaps making sure he had Lockdown's full attention before he hmm-ed and tilted his helm. "I was thinking… a protoform."
The tiny room had never been quieter, even with Prowl gone a millennia earlier. Anyone could have heard a molecule drop. Prowl finished another line of coding, opened a test file and ran it, frowning when it cut off halfway through. Lockdown looked up at the ninjabot, then blinked, rebooted his processor and realized he wasn't having a stasismare. Visor still down-turned, Prowl closed the test-file and continued easily:
"We are stable enough to support one. I could write the coding and you could teach it combat. Within a few dozen stellar-cycles we would have a functioning member of a team. All it requires is Sparking it, which is moderately outdated but I have researched the process: both of our Sparks are healthy and viable. We need only contact Tipper for a secondary check."
Across the room, Lockdown rose to his pedes. Carefully, he put one out. Then the other. Then another. All the while, his wide, wide optics remained locked on his seated partner, filled with a fear unmatched by anything as he carefully, with all the possible silence in his big frame, edged toward the door.
"Of course, our criminality notwithstanding, they will never let us walk in and ask for a protoform at Nexus. We don't exactly fit the criterion for a healthy family unit. We can supply the Spark, but the shell?"
The door slid shut with a gentle scrape.
"I believe we shall have to steal it," Prowl mused. "That should not be extraordinarily difficult, should it? …Lockdown?"
Prowl looked up with a mild smile to find an empty room—then smiled wider and went back to his datapad, humming along to the tap of his digits.
"Prowler, prowler! You are utterly shameless."
"Only hideously inventive," the ninjabot corrected her, smug smile betraying his modest tone as Torque fairly rolled on the floor of her ship. "He was being unbearable. It is only lamentable that I was driven to something so outrageous to fend him off."
"Sweet Primus, I'm surprised he hasn't commed me in a panic," Torque chuckled to herself, righting herself in her navigator's chair and rubbing at the crest between her optics. "Suppose he doesn't want to admit that it happened at all."
"I should think not." They eyed each other knowingly. Both of them knew Lockdown's style: if you don't speak of it, it might go away. "He has not spoken to me for two solar-cycles. I… regret it slightly. The quiet is dull."
"You never know what you have until it's cowering in the corner," she laughed, then quieted some, a bemused expression on her heart-shaped facial plating. "Still, darling—have you ever thought about one?"
"A protoform?" Prowl clarified, visor angled somewhat incredulously. Seeing her nod, he frowned and shook his helm. "Once, and only in a forgivable context. I do not believe Moot would be the correct environment to raise a Sparkling—too little opportunity for socialization and far too much uncertainty. Lockdown would view it as a hindrance."
"Well… I do know about Lockdown, you're right. He would probably crush the poor thing if it angered him. That mech has so little patience," she admitted with a tired gust of air, then looked at the small mech adoringly, chin in her servo. "But you, Prowl. You would make a beautiful teacher. Patient and kind."
She spoke so wistfully that he felt somewhat embarrassed, or at least a little melancholy. He couldn't help but instantly gather how badly she wanted—had always wanted—to be a creator, whereas the thought had barely occurred to him and was accompanied with no small amount of uncertainty, trepidation and healthy cynicism. The fact remained that Lockdown would simply not tolerate anything that couldn't defend itself and would resent anything that pulled Prowl's attention away from him. The coding job had already stirred the waters enough: a protoform would be grounds for a dissolution of their partnership.
Besides, Prowl wasn't nearly worldly enough to trust himself with a life. That was a job for others. He was content to live—and mess up, in turns—his own function and that of his partner's.
"I am flattered," he managed to say, deferring to her with a nod and a wan smile. "Another time, perhaps."
"Another time," she repeated for the thousandth time, smiling back.