Chronic Interruptions

Clock out.

Rodimus’s favorite time of the day.

The time of the day when he was permitted to do absolutely nothing productive with complete impunity. The moment he was off the clock, not even the rules lawyers—even if Mags was a literal lawyer—could do nothing about it.

No reports, no responsibilities… unless it was an emergency like the ship catching fire or crashing into an asteroid or weird aliens from a weird subspace dimension trying to use them as weird living batteries for their weird machines like that one time, which Rodimus could only describe as “really weird.”

Hopefully no emergencies.

The timekeeping program sluggishly booted up on the console built into the arm of the captain’s chair, beeping coquettishly, promising Rodimus his freedom.

He rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

He could hand the keys over to Megs and let him deal with all the petty problems of leadership for a shift. While Rodimus had grown to appreciate his responsibility as a leader, it was still nice to take the hat off every now and then.

What fun activities would he fill his free time with?

He could play video games. He could take a nap. He could go for a solo race in the lower decks where his odds of accidentally crashing into someone was negligible. Or he could invite Drift and the crashing would be intentional.

All sorts of entertainment could be had, but if he were to be honest with himself, Rodimus knew he would almost certainly just end up lying on his couch, watching holonet reruns and snacking on salty bismuth chips.

Still not a bad way to spend his time.

The software, finally done lagging like Magnus without a warm morning beverage, at last allowed Rodimus to finish signing in to clock out for the day.

Grinning, he tapped the long-memorized sequence of commands that released him from his bondage.

“Rodimus.” Megatron’s voice sounded from close behind him, a reminder that his replacement was punctual as always. “There’s something I need to discuss with you.”

That was never a good sign.

He had noticed Megatron looking at him kind of oddly lately, for the past few weeks. Staring, almost.

He was probably mad at Rodimus about something stupid… or not so stupid that Rodimus had overlooked.

Better put off the lecture as long as feasibly possible.

“Can it wait, Megs?” he asked, cheerfully vaulting up out of his chair to pass the baton of “the ship’s your problem now” to his co-captain. Rodimus stuck the landing a few paces away, hands triumphantly resting on his hips.

Standing at the side of the captain’s chair, Megatron, unfortunately, didn’t look particularly impressed, but he rarely did.

Resting glitch face. That was the poor guy’s curse. Oh well. It didn’t detract from how pleasant he was to look at now that he wasn’t prone to wanton violence and destruction. A shame Rodimus didn’t have time to admire the aesthetics.

“No, I don’t th—“

“I’m off the clock now, buddy.” Rodimus shot him a playful fingerguns gesture, double-barreled at that to better ward off the growing disappointment on his pal’s face. “Gotta go! Don’t do anything with the Lost Light that I wouldn’t do!”

With the whir of a warm transformation cog and a roaring engine, Rodimus zoomed off the bridge and down the hall with no particular goal in mind than getting as far away from work as possible.

Several days later, Rodimus was surprised to show up on the bridge after having a look at one of Perceptor’s latest projects and find Megatron waiting outside of their shared office, arms crossed and tapping his foot impatiently. Probably impatiently. “Nervously” didn’t seem to fit his image of perfect stoicism.

It wasn’t even Megatron’s shift for another several hours.

Rodimus hadn’t gotten any urgent messages, so he doubted his co-captain had showed up for an emergency meeting.

Probably not overtime either otherwise he would have just gone into the office and quietly minded his own business.

Red optics glowered at him, flashing bright as soon as Megatron noticed Rodimus’s presence on the bridge.

“There you are, Rodimus.”

Shoot.

He’d been caught. Doing what? No clue, but he didn’t want to stick around and find out.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

Megatron was still mad at him about whatever it was the other day when Rodimus blew him off.

It must have really been something aggravating if Megatron was still letting it fester rather than “releasing it into the universe” or whatever it was that Drift said people should be doing with their unhappiness.

Or was it meditating?

Heck, Rodimus couldn’t remember. Not remembering something debatably important was probably what had gotten Megatron mad at him in the first place. The obvious failure point of “not remembering what he had forgotten” did him no favors either.

“Uh….”

Rodimus’s mouth hung open, arms awkwardly out to his sides like a poorly timed freeze frame.

“Privately, please.” Megatron gestured to the closed office door at his side.

Even if Megatron wanted to spare Rodimus’s dignity by not giving him a dressing down in front of the crew, Rodimus still wasn’t exactly keen on getting that dressing down.

At all.

Well, not the verbal kind about bad behavior anyway.

It was a shame, Rodimus thought, that he was always getting on Megatron’s nerves.

“So, I’m actually—“ he started, only for one of the Pyrobots to burst onto the bridge, smelling strongly of burning oil and stumbling over himself.

After finally coming to a stop, Kindle panted, leaning forward with his hands on his knees.

“Captains!” he gasped. Wordless mumblings accompanied by vague gestures as he tried to catch his breath were all the story they got.

“Someone pushed Fervor into the oil reservoir and now it’s on fire?” Rodimus suggested. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Although, technically last time Kindle had been the one to end up in the greasy drink and Fervor had been the one to run for help.

Kindle nodded frantically, unaware that he was not just Fervor’s lifesaver right now.

“You should have called!”

Opening the comm panel on his wrist, presumably to summon Ultra Magnus and other backup, Megatron made for the door.

Rodimus swerved around him just as he reached the threshold into the hallway before flipping into his alt-mode to beat him to the reservoir.

He owed Kindle one for his well-timed intrusion. Megatron wouldn’t have time to complain at him during an emergency.

Lying on the couch of his habsuite, Rodimus watched as reruns of some goofy old cartoon about two opposing factions of organics that turned into weird fleshy monsters flashed on the holonet. It was cheesy and the animation was often awkward or outright bad. It was so earnestly silly despite the garbage quality, Rodimus couldn’t help but find a measure of glee from watching it on his downtime.

Also, he didn’t want to bother trying to find anything else to watch today. If he didn’t want to get up, he didn’t have to, and no one would stop him.

The tin of bismuth chips he had been shoveling into his face seemed oddly light.

Rodimus stuffed his palm into the tin, only to discover that the salty, crunchy goodness that had brought both tactile and gustatory joy to his bingewatching experience was no more. He’d eaten the entire thing.

Damn.

Fine. He’d get up for more chips.

He chucked the tin into the pile of discarded snack packaging on the floor. The lid from the tin was already lost in the ether of the mess, but that was fine. The whole lot would end up in the recycler anyway. When he got around to it. He’d get around to it soon.

Hm.

He’d get around to it.

Maybe he could get Drift to do it by trading bridge shifts with him or something.

Rodimus grumbled as he got up from the couch, joints protesting because he’d stayed in the same exact posture for the last three hours.

Just as he got to the cabinets where he typically stored his goodies, the comm in his wrist started buzzing, an alert popping up in his internal HUD.

Megatron was calling.

While Rodimus often let direct comm calls go to voicemail, since he was already up, he decided to answer this one.

“Hey, Megs, what’s happening?” he asked, pulling open the cabinet doors.

Empty.

Damn.

Time for a snack run to the cargo hold.

“Do you have a moment, Rodimus?”

A red flag began to wave frantically around in his processor. His spark sank in his chest, cold with the anxiety that he had royally screwed something up.

While on a normal day, when Megatron wasn’t being a know-it-all, his voice was actually pleasant to listen to. Rodimus had recently started tricking him into telling stories of the war and life before it by asking leading questions. This was both to waste time and to hear him talk more without being nagged at.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure he could make much headway with that tactic today. It rarely worked when Megatron had a discrete goal in mind.

“Uh—“

Wait.

An idea.

“No, Megs, I’m actually super busy right now. I was waiting for a phone call from….” Who to throw under the bus? Someone random, someone who didn’t get into trouble that wouldn’t be an immediate target for Megatron’s pacifist wrath. Sure, the mech wouldn’t resort to physical violence, but verbal violence was still very much on the table. “… Doubletap.”

“Really—“

Megatron was doubting his admittedly flimsy story.

Time to bail.

“Gotta go, Megs! I need to keep the line open. Talk to you later, okay? Bye!”

Rodimus hung up, breathing a sigh of relief at the sound of disconnected radio static mingling with the melodramatic noises of cartoon violence from his holonet screen.

The early morning was the best time to sleep, in Rodimus’s humble opinion.

An excellent time to be curled up under heavy quilted tarpaulins in a nice pocket of warm air, one foot and the opposite arm sticking out of the pile for carefully calculated temperature regulation. A time where all dreams were just short of real, blending with the material universe whenever his processor surfaced for a breath of consciousness to debate the costs and benefits of truly waking up.

“Rodimus.”

The voice was familiar but distant, like it was behind a wall.

Megatron sometimes hung out in his dreams, he thought, rolling over in his comfy pile.

He used to be signifier that Rodimus was having a nightmare, a hulking purple and black menace intent on consuming his spark for some cruel purpose. Or sometimes he used to laugh at Rodimus, telling him he was too late to save his friends… or that he had forgotten to close his panels after a wash and how embarrassing that was. A real leader wouldn’t show up to save the day with their bait and tackle out like some sort of dumbaft.

But after getting to know Megatron, Rodimus mostly encountered him in dreamland as a boring, but good-looking reminder to do his work or fulfill some silly task or some stubborn, unhelpful companion on a quest. The time Dream Megatron had refused to the flip the “Save The Day Switch” that he had been standing right next to had been an exercise in imaginary frustration that had nearly driven Dream Rodimus to choke the life out of his phantom co-captain.

“Rodimus,” the voice repeated.

He rolled over again, flopping onto his back.

The tarpaulins slipped down slightly, revealing his optics to the ceiling he had painted matte black last month, the dark swathes flecked with “stars” where the unsealed paint had started to chip away.

If he squinted and let his focal rings go lax, Rodimus could imagine Megatron standing there amidst the infinite field of the cosmos as he sunk away from consciousness. Waking up wasn’t worth it right now.

He would never admit it, even on pain of torture or death, but sometimes Rodimus enjoyed ogling Dream Megs. Big, strong mechs had a special sort of appeal, even the ones that liked to paint themselves like dead metal. It was a style, even if it was one he personally wouldn’t want to wear.

Sometimes Rodimus even liked to think about grabbing onto the heavy plating and climbing up. Unfortunately, those sorts of dreams tended to be the sorts of dreams that gave intimate parts of his frame the warm fuzzies that he was glad to be in the privacy of his habsuite for.

Shame the real Megatron was a boring stick in the mud, who only struggled marginally less than Minimus to have genuine fun. Maybe one day. He’d already made a lot of progress on being less dull.

“Rodimus!” Dream Megatron’s voice was getting insistent. He was even knocking on the door now.

Door.

He wasn’t dreaming a door, was he?

No, he didn’t think so.

His focal rings spiraled close, sharpening his vision in an instant. The hazy image of Megatron against a field of stars vanished, replaced by Rodimus’s chipping ceiling.

He sat up, the knocking on his very real habsuite door continuing unabated.

“I’m coming!” he hollered, throwing the tarpaulins to the side, a slapdash attempt at disentangling himself. Maybe that would hold off Megatron from ripping his door off to get his attention—Megatron wouldn’t rip his door off.

Probably not anyway.

A shame. Might be fun with Dream Megatron.

The knocking, however, did stop by the time Rodimus smacked the access panel for the door.

The door slid back into the wall, revealing his large, very concrete visitor… who was scowling at him. Or… at least frowning. It was sometimes difficult to read the minute differences between the various frowns immediately after waking up.

He hoped it wasn’t a scowl.

He hadn’t even been awake long enough to mess something up. Unless he had been thinking vaguely naughty thoughts a little too loudly and by some curse, Megatron had telepathically caught him.

“Yeah, Megs?” Rodimus asked, blinking up at him and rubbing one drowsy optic with the back of his hand. “It’s kind of early, pal. What’s the emergency?”

Megatron opened his mouth but didn’t say anything. Instead, he hesitated, like he almost hadn’t expected Rodimus to open the door.

Maybe it wasn’t an emergency, but Megatron didn’t often look unsure. That was weird.

“No, I wouldn’t say so,” he finally said, nodding as though assuring himself that was the right thing to say. The low volume was at once unsettling and attractive. Rodimus didn’t know what to make of it… or this visit.

“Okay, then… what?”

Rodimus raised a curious optical ridge at his guest.

“There’s been something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you, but….” Megatron trailed off, bringing a hand to his chin in thought. “How do I put this delicately….”

“Megs, you’re as delicate as a blaster shot to the forehead, so, uh, don’t worry about that. Just, uh, give it a go.”

Rodimus wondered if he would regret the encouragement. He didn’t want to take a double-tap of criticism pointblank to the face right after waking up.

“You’ve been avoiding me lately and if… you would prefer, I’ll never mention it again.”

That didn’t sound like impending criticism.

It was something worse, wasn’t it? Rodimus didn’t know what was worse.

His jaw dropped open, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Maybe a complete disavowal. Maybe Megatron hated his gears now and couldn’t stand the sight of him. He’d been an annoying bastard one too many times and now Megatron was going to tell him to get lost and never come back—Wait, no.

They were the only Cybertronians in this universe and this was their ship. He didn’t really have a place to go. Megatron also didn’t have the authority to exile him.

“I, uh….” Rodimus found himself stammering.

“This is difficult to say; I must apologize.” Megatron wasn’t making any sense. “I’ve spent hours planning what words to use, the order and rhythm to their pronunciation, and… now that I’m here, I’m finding myself at a loss. The entire situation is rather unorthodox and not something I’ve ever been particularly familiar with.”

“Just, uh….” His tongue felt thick and heavy, completely taken aback by Megatron’s rare lack of confidence. Admitting a gap in knowledge was quite the show of vulnerability. “Uh, spit it out then? You got this.”

At least they both felt stupid. A solidarity Rodimus didn’t really want but appreciated all the same.

“So be it.”

Rodimus blinked expectantly, optics wide. Where the hell was this going?

“I think I’ve—No. I’m certain that I’ve fallen in love with you.”

That was not what Rodimus had been expecting at all.

“Uh, thanks?”

But that was also the wrong thing to say in response to someone confessing tender feelings and Rodimus knew it the moment the words reflexively came out of his mouth.

The light in Megatron’s optics dimmed a fraction, enough for Rodimus to feel the sick chill of failure in his own spark.

He had to salvage this.

“No, wait!” Rodimus jumped up, reaching out and grabbing Megatron by the collar plating to stop him from walking away. He hadn’t made a move to go yet, but Rodimus couldn’t risk it. “That’s not what I mean.”

What was he supposed to say now?

Megatron hadn’t been mad at him all those times lately. He’d been… he’d been trying to tell him how he felt. Each damn time.

Rodimus felt like a heel, brushing off all of those attempts at a genuine connection, even if Kindle’s interruption was a emergency outside of his control.

“I….”

Megatron stared down at him, his own optics wide in bafflement as Rodimus babbled and hung off the front of his armor like an idiot.

“Look, I—“

It wasn’t as though he wasn’t interested. He’d just… never… thought to ask.

Primus, Rodimus was a moron, assuming Megatron just wasn’t into those sorts of relationships.

“You want to come in and, uh, stare at my ceiling?”