Ep 1.5 - State of Mind (Closed)

[Feldspar]

Pyrotech was in a mood.

It wasn’t a good mood either.

The red mech strode through the Nemesis, his doors flattened back behind his shoulders. His hand was held low by his side, his wrist showing signs of bad damage. He’d been working on the outpost on enlarging the room that the generator they’d stole down in Portland was in. It had been just an unknown; there had been a large boulder in the soil, and the wall had suddenly given way. It had pinned him between a girder and the huge stone. Even with the Vehicons and Dart’s help, it had taken them nearly an hour to get him free.

Unpleasant wasn't a strong enough word.

Worse was the fact that there was no way he could repair it himself, and this took time out of other things he wanted to be doing. Pyrotech prided himself on being self-sufficient. He prided himself on being able to get the job done without help, because that’s what your superior officers took into account, and after the blasted debacle in Australia, he needed everything just so. He needed this to work, and work correctly, he needed to pull this off smoothly.

Redemption. No longer living in the dirt like the filthy organic things that populated this foul little planet.

Dart had been pacing just off of the glossy red mech’s shoulder. Her spoiler was sunk low, the tips splayed awkwardly out to the sides. She’d been focusing on the floor as they walked, trying to concentrate on the rivets beneath her toes. Not everything else. Not the stale mechanical stench in the dry, constantly recycled air. Not the corridors that pressed around them as they walked down the halls with their dull mechanical lighting.

Not on the fact that the floor was thrumming beneath her feet. The courier was lifting her toes a little high; she couldn’t help it. Each time she put her toes down it was on cold metal, and she could feel the vibrations of the great ship whirring up her relays. Her internals clenched and there was something creeping back up her throat.

Don’t think about it. Don’t think about where you are. Oh great, you thought about it. Didn’t you just tell yourself not to think about it?

They were in the air. Dart was utterly terrified. The only thing that kept her going forward was frankly that she was more scared of doing something to irk Pyrotech right now.

He’d been okay for a few weeks before that whole stint with the underground tunnels. Not great, but liveable. That’s what she’d call it. Liveable. Where he left her alone to patrol; when he sent her out and didn’t want to be bothered. However, he was agitated lately. Snappish and overreacting at even the littlest of issues he had to deal with. He’d left the base a few times now and ordered her to stay and guard...

When he'd come back he seemed even worse than before. Often he smelled of the human wrecking yards, of rust and decaying oil. Clean, yes - but there was that undertone that clung to him. Scent did that. He’d wandered those places for as long as she’d worked under him though; bringing back bits and pieces that he’d scrounged for his architectural projects.

“Stay here,” Pyrotech ordered abruptly, his dry voice breaking into her thoughts.

Dart startled and shied; there was a nervous sidestep before she came to an immediate stop. She hadn’t even realized that they’d come this far down into the ship. Her head lifted, and she sniffed at the air, her intakes whuffling at the scents. Oh. Repair bay. The courier could smell the tools, the chemicals. Energon. Even worse, a faint drift of bad things, of injury and mechanical death. It unnerved her.

Pyrotech turned his gaze on her. Dart only met his red optics for a second before she immediately turned her head away, looking at the wall across the hallway.

“Yes sir,” she murmured quietly, and brought her hand up to touch her mauled sigil. “On guard, sir. Understood.”

The red mech didn’t even answer. Instead, he moved to the door. Some quiet note passed between him and whoever was inside, a private comm. It slid open and then shut again, leaving the courier in the dark passage.

Quietly, she moved to take up a position off to one side of the door. She set her hands to the small of her back. Unsure, the lean femme lifted her nose and huffed in a soft draw of the air once more. It was an a invisible picture; who had been here lately. Who had passed by. Who had passed on and never come out...

The Nemesis grumbled restlessly under her toes, and the courier shuddered. Best not to think about that.

[Deleted]

<<OOC: Setting this thread Week 2, Day 1, if that's alright with you, Felds? =)>>

Fairwinds had gotten her foot stuck in the airvent. Apparently, the new scientist, Flatline, was going to be making new feet for her with an additional toe, and he'd given her some simplified prosthetics to see how she found their size and weight. Flying and landing had been fine, but when the cassette had tried to hook open the vent cover and duck inside, the prosthetic had bent and lodged around her curling talons.

Megatron had left her literally hanging from the ceiling for the better part of an hour, believing that this was a lesson that needed to be learnt, before he'd tired of her scrabbling and whinging. Then, Megatron had taken firm hold of her little body and pulled, figuring that the limb would pop out the same way it had gone in with the application of additional force.

Part of Fairwinds' foot was still in the airvent, and he'd left her huffing and whinging in her cupboard with some brightly coloured television program and a tiny cube of High Grade. She'd sulkily refused to go to the Medbay to see Knock Out, and wanted to have both her feet in good scratching order before she saw Flatline again and threw the rejected prosthetic at him.

That left Megatron to undertake the repairs. It was a straightforward enough job, if a little fiddly, and they were only lacking two stem bolts, a C-size strut and nanite-enriched tape from the repair kit. Straightforward enough items to collect from the general repair bay, which he'd been meaning to take a look at in recent days. Megatron had walked the majority of the ship since discharging himself from the Medbay, and had found the processor-aches were significantly lessened for the stimulus.

This route from his quarters to a high-traffic quarter of the Nemesis had become familiar, and the diversion from the large corridor that would lead towards the ship's primary cargo groundbridge was a short one. Fewer mecha passed him, here; all of them Eradicons, and most of them unawakened drones.

Recall was still a problem, and he was still relying on the cobbled algorithm to identify his crew on the most simplistic level. Knock Out said that the resolution of his memory centers and personality matrix would likely take place simultaneously in a soft reboot. As the processor was finickity business, the doctor could only speculate that once the commander's autorepair was satisfied that the hardware had healed enough, it would reboot itself. If not, it could initiated manually in the Medbay.

Megatron hoped that it would happen on its own. Preferably in recharge. Rather that than have Soundwave (and probably Starscream) lurk about in the Medbay whilst Knock Out did things to his brain module.

Coming upon the doors to the repair bay, Megatron was pulled from his thoughts by a mecha decidedly not Eradicon. She was approximately Starscream's height and build, appearing even lankier for not having wings. Just a cursory look as he approached revealed a great deal of wear and tear, unrepaired minor damage, and every indication that she was not housed with a decent washrack.

Dart, his HUD informed him. A courier unit whom was currently assigned off-ship to Pyrotech. The names didn't stir anything in his memory bank, but she appeared unusual compared to the majority of the crew.

In no immediate hurry to return to a sulking cassette, Megatron stopped on the other side of the door, not close enough for the sensors to open it. He drew his field in a little when she twitched, a little concerned by the fluttering of her plates, and broached:

"It's Dart, isn't it?"

[Dart]

<< OOC: works perfectly, yep!! Thank you!>>

The courier was standing quietly off to one side of the repair bay door. Holding still - well, as much as Dart was ever able to hold still. She rocked slightly from foot to foot, weight shifting from one side to the other. Her spoiler was pricked over her shoulders; the tips flicking nervously as she turned her nose from side to side, drawing in the air currents through her olfactory sensors.

Scents lingered; and she picked lightly through them. Starscream's sharp scent; ozone and sky. Knock Out, sleek and fastidious, smelling of polish and shine. Breakdown had passed through recently. His odor was thick and solid and substantial like the rest of him. It didn't burn her nose, either, not like it had in Russia; his pain and fury and fear obvious in that cramped tunnel, splashed on the walls as he'd fought to tear himself free of the restraints.

She couldn't forget about that. MECH had ripped him apart down there. He'd been lucky. She herself gave the humans far more credit than the others did a lot of the time.

Dart traveled many long hours on the roads among them. Through Oregon and Washington. Montana, with the wide open sky and the stars. Trotting easily across Nevada; everyone seemed to have this picture in their head that it was one big state of well, cities. It wasn't. It was short little areas of blazing light and busy streets that melted into dark, flat plains with nothing but dry gullies and washes.

The courier had stopped though last time through, detouring just enough that she could place one more story into a hidden cache with all the other stories she'd peeked at over the years.

Honestly, that had been one of the things she truly missed about Australia. Pyrotech had been busy with his assignments. He had a crew. That had given Dart a bit of breathing room, to skirt the cities and slink close to the bustle of human lives. Alaska was full of wildlife; and she loved it, yes, but..

Scrounging through dumpsters had become an odd hobby for Dart throughout the years. It was easier during nasty weather, no one else was out and about.

Civilization allowed her to do this. Bookstores that stripped the covers of paperbacks and threw them by the armload into dumpsters. Donation stations where people would sneak up at night and dump cardboard boxes full of National Geographic magazines. Dart had wanted them badly, but had shied off and left them there a few times until she'd realized that the crews just threw away the periodicals- they had no value. Oh to her they had. All those amazing photographs, the long essays on wildlife and natural features all over the world. She also dug through trash cans to find newspapers with the world news and political situations.

In those rare moments she'd had to herself back at base, Dart had huddled under a scrap of tin in a filthy junkyard to read them. Later, she'd quietly return them to the back stoop of the local library instead. She was so careful never to keep things. No evidence. It- that was a habit. Learned that the hard way, you didn't keep anything anywhere anyone else could stumble across it. That never ended well.

She missed that part of the assignment though, that ability to read away those hours of the monsoon season, sheltered mostly from the pouring rain. It was funny how so many people thought Australia was this hot barren desert; sure, parts of it were. Just like the States. It had all climates, from snow and ice and mountains to lush tropical rain forests. Wherever she'd been stationed, the back country she was designed to run through was beautiful. Different, perhaps. Still beautiful.

Lost in those better thoughts, the courier shifted her weight and blew a bit of air out of the corner of her lips before drawing it back in. Immediately the scents here snapped her back to the present; the dry air, the oily residue of filter systems that cleaned out impurities and sucked out any moisture.

It was cold and overwhelmingly metallic. Dart realized had been a while since she was up here, and--

Oh great, you thought about it again. Stop doing that.

Dart swallowed the morass that immediately began creeping back up her throat.

Footsteps broke through and reset her attention. She concentrated on that, oh thank someone, something else to focus on. Dart took that offer gratefully. Whomever it was had a heavy mechanical tread. A big mech then, but the ship bounced sound around it so oddly compared to the outside world- argh, no, quit thinking about the ship. The courier turned her nose towards the footsteps, blue optics peering from under the brim of her helm.

A push of air from the ventilation pushed the mech's scent before he even appeared around the corner.

Wait. That- that smell. That smell that she did not forget, had not forgotten. To her, it was that undertone of something infected, sick, like the bubbles of desperate saliva drooling laced on the jaws of a rabid fox. That smell brought her up on her toes; because there was only one mech who smelled like that to her. Dark Energon. She'd yet to find it in her travels, but she knew exactly what it was.

Lord Megatron. Her nose didn't lie to her. A moment later the mech appeared, his tread steady and measured. Recently repaired. Cleaned up and cared for. Her nose verified this even as she flicked her gaze hurriedly over him- oh, there. His helm showed scarring and scorch marks around his optic.

The lean femme hid a wince. She'd heard the rumors, thanks to Pyrotech, who kept tabs on all the little things recently he could. Injured. MECH had been involved. He had taken damage, but Pyrotech had nothing but agreement with whom he'd been speaking with. Lord Megatron would be fine. A hit from the humans was merely an inconvenience, not a danger.

The warlord was walking towards her where she waited. Dart lowered her gaze politely to the ground. Quickly she laced and re-laced her fingers at the small of her back. She did not expect him to stop and so when he did, her surprise was obvious. Her spoiler rattled and then the tips crept up over her shoulders, framing the huge mech.

"S-Sir?" she replied, and squared herself up immediately. Her left hand came up and touched her burned sigil, a quiet, respectful salute. "Yes- Yes sir. It is, sir."

[Deleted]

Everything of her body language was uneasy, and the degree of fidgets and rattles put Megatron on edge and drew a weary rattle from his vents. Knock Out's directive to 'interact with the crew' was somewhat difficult when the majority of them were (respectfully) terrified of him, and the short list of those who weren't were mute, frustrating within five minutes, or Starscream.

This was not the first nervous subordinate he'd encountered, but he felt he'd managed to make some headway with Roulette with some... persistence. Dart was clearly unsettled, and Megatron wondered for a moment how best to proceed.

In the absence of any inspiration, he settled for simply asking. The corridor around them was quiet, but he still lowered his voice to a softer timbre. "Why are you afraid, Dart?"

The question could have been interpreted as barbed, mocking or threatening somehow. Megatron wondered once again what his history was (both with this femme and in general), and if there was some precedent for such an interpretation to be likely.

He drew his field down as calm as he could, as if confronting a nervous youngling. Or a wounded turbofox that had wandered into a mine shaft.

Inclining his helm, Megatron added: "This is the flagship - shouldn't you feel safe here?"

[Dart]

It was one of those things that mechs who were around Dart for any length of time came to realize. While she was a keen observer of body language and keyed into every scent and sound...

The courier didn't react to fields at all. It was as if they were a whistle pitched to a frequency she couldn't hear. It was a quirk that didn't serve her well among her peers; she simply had no ability to read them, to sense them. They were not tangible things to her, not like scent and sound.

Where the other mechs around her were mostly nose-blind, Dart was utterly deaf to this Cybertronian method of non-verbal communication.

This might have stemmed perhaps from the fact that Dart was so specialized; that she'd been so well-redesigned for Earth and the planet's idiosyncrasies. Translating all the non-mechanical reactions of this organic world was easy for her. Or maybe it was that the mental damage that had occurred to the femme had been too great to overcome and she'd misplaced those paths of understanding along with her memories.

However she didn't project a field either. Well, not much of one. When she did it was an afterthought, a tiny flicker of it way after she'd already expressed her feelings in motion; a nervous sidestep, a paw, a rattle of her spoiler. Or even audible ones, like a snort or a yelp of surprise. Crude, baseline cognition from Cybertronian standards - but what the courier was able to do.

It wasn't his field that settled her; it was the draw back of the plates of his massive shoulders, the soft angle and tip of his helm. It was so out of place for him; Lord Megatron was deliberate in all motion. He did not turn his head away from anyone; he looked you in the eye every time. Shoulders back, stride powerful; he didn't have to yowl his position to anyone, scrabble and shove and snap at the others constantly.

He was who he was and where he was; he had that presence that commanded the space around him. It was the natural order of things in a group; a pack, a herd, a group, even humans, one of them just carried that extra spark, that extra drive. They led. You followed. It wasn't tangible.

It simply was.

The courier whuffed out a bit of air; her spoiler tilted. She didn't meet her Lord's optic because that was downright rude, but she could admit, this was out of place. Something wasn't right with him. Well, okay, the fact that he smelled of Dark Energon to her was not right in the slightest, but this was something else. Something that she didn't quite understand, but was... different.

Dart hesitated. She tipped her chin at him, and her confusion settled into her frame as her spoiler tips lowered, one tiny notch at a time.

His body language was off. Quiet. He simply was asking.

Dart responded to that, equally honest. No lie. No dodge. He knew her roster, it was what it was.

"I'm- ah, I'm... Ah. Yes, sir. It's the flying, sir," she admitted, and tucked her hands tighter behind her back while she did her best not to think about what she was saying because if she really thought about it she might be leaping in a panic back down the corridors, finding the space bridge and begging on her knees to be set free. Heck, she'd go back to Australia, right now. "I don't fly sir."

"It's not the flagship, sir. I promise, sir. It's- it's just me," the courier apologized, knowing that he prided himself on this ship, and how well it was run.

Starscream would no doubt beg to differ and offer her up a little disdainful sniff as to who did all the daily work of running it, erk , but right now, uh, he wasn't here. Lord Megatron was.

[Deleted]

Megatron rumbled understanding, pleased with her answer. That, certainly, was common ground.

Since coming out of surgery a week ago, he'd been acutely aware of the faint vibration that ran throughout the ship; of the deep, powerful murmur of its engines running constant and tireless as it kept them tracking through the planet's atmosphere. Megatron knew, factually, that the flagship had been 'home' for centuries now, but it didn't feel remotely comfortable. Echoes ran through its corridors tinny and loud, the recycled air felt chemically tainted inside his filters, and he was constantly aware that there were miles of empty air below and enough natural gravity to pull them down.

It hadn't felt... prudent to mention his discomfit in being (trapped, under medical orders) on the ship he was commander of. Now that Dart had volunteered this information about herself, it felt more acceptable to make the confession.

Megatron's voice, softly pitched, was conspiratorial. "I don't much care for it, either. Being inside a flying vessel, that is. Perhaps I have come to not mind it. It's likely, actually, given my alt. mode, but after this," he motioned with one claw to the still-healing mesh around his optic, "it is an adjustment. I'm used to solid walls all around, at the very least under-pede. Resisting gravity like this is, disconcerting on some very fundamental level."

He glanced to the door she was standing sentry at. Either there was a queue to be served (which he'd be able to jump, most likely), or she was waiting for someone to come out. The repair bay was mostly a storage area for common parts and equipment to install them, with sophisticated repairs and kit reserved for the Medbay.

Megatron had to wonder who would have someone so obviously unsuited to being on board a ship trail them along to pick up such common supplies. Dart had not been sent to collect them herself, in all likelihood, and wasn't assisting in grunt work carrying things. Even if he knew the name of her direct superior, however, it wouldn't mean anything to him right now.

He almost left the femme, then, to enter the bay himself. Instead, impulsively, he asked, "Will you have to remain on board long?"

[Dart]

Dart had to give a lot of credit to her years of being the bottom of the rung when it came to so many things. She'd learned to stand there absolutely quiet in front of a commanding officer who was discussing something under all circumstances.

You didn't question them, you didn't go, 'gee sir, I think it's a really bad idea to build yourself a space laser to shoot at the earth' or 'no sir, I'd recommend not attempting to attack Optimus Prime in the back with a pen-knife.'

You honestly didn't show any surprise when someone who was absolutely in charge said anything that was flat out a -- er, yes, Dart, you can use a rather overused Earth slang in your head, that's totally acceptable -- a wtf moment.

This was oh so one of those moments.

Lord Megatron, leaning forward slightly in the hallway between them. A rumble; not a growl - almost as if it was a chuckle of empathy, careful not to expose pointed teeth. His words soft and meant only for the two of them. What was even more confusing to the femme was not so much the admission he offered after, but something else, a fleeting brush of it along his massive frame, the angle of his helm.

Everything read to the courier as quiet wry, dry humor.

Not even at her. At himself.

Flying was a badge of honor among the Decepticons. Some of the fliers took it to extreme levels of sneer. A Decepticon who couldn't fly, who wouldn't fly was not much more than a glorified groundpounding barely sentient Vehicon to some of them... and treated as such. She was floored by his admission that he didn't like this feeling much either.

"Yes sir," she offered with a nod, the silver sweep on the back of her helm bobbing. "It's- yes sir. Exactly, sir, that's it, sir. Ground under your feet and not ah, er..."

Crashing into it. Dying. No way out. No frantic scramble, no leap, no desperate lunge of your body. Gravity wins. Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't-

"You know," she finished, and even to her it sounded lame, but she was attempting to concentrate on something else. Anything else, just so she didn't have to feel her relays crawling again at the proximity of the ship, at the way the decking under her feet shiverered constantly like a low-level seismic tremor.

Focus. Focus, find some other thought to follow, Dart.

Motion from the mech and her mind gratefully grabbed onto that. Motion she knew, she understood. He'd touched a claw to his face and... oh, that damage.

The tips of her spoiler came up carefully over her shoulders and pricked forward. Her nose led her automatically to sniff the damage, to understand it. How bad was it. How deep. Was it healing or not- but she caught herself immediately, abashed. Space. Dart respected the space around others, careful not to intrude or pry on it, keeping a polite, correct distance at all times.

Honestly, most mechs didn't appreciate being sniffed at. Not that she blamed them for that. Who in their right mind wanted some glitchy femme's nose in their personal space.

"That- that looks like it was an awful hit, sir," she murmured after a moment, but did not ask what or why it was like it was. "We- we heard you'd been hurt badly. Are- are you all right?"

Oh the other question. Right. "I don't know how long, sir. My field officer was injured. Couldn't fix it down below. We were lucky to get him free, actually, sir. He's- ah, he's in there speaking to Knock Out, sir."

[Deleted]

"I hope your officer recovers swiftly, and that you don't need to be here for long," he replied, sincere in the sentiment.

As to her qestion, Megatron's answer was simple and succinct. "I'm experiencing some temporary memory loss." He did not wish to engage in a prolonged discussion on the nature of his injury and slow recovery, and he sensed that such a topic would make Dart just as uncomfortable. "Otherwise, I'm fine. Just a little lost. "

Which reminded him of why he'd come here. Hopefully the repair bay wasn't too disorganized, though if Knock Out was inside, he could always ask should he need some directing to find the parts for his cassette's repair.

Megatron straightened from the hunch he'd adopted to speak to the much shorter femme, though there was still a heavy curve to his neck and shoulders. An ingrained habit in his struts that went back to his forging. "Excuse me, Dart. I've left someone waiting for parts, and I had best find them."

Dart made a polite motion of her head, uttering a soft, "Yes, Sir". Her optics were already facing forward by the time Megatron stepped close enough to the sensors for the doors to open automatically.

The warlord stepped inside, and the doors closed.

Six seconds later, they opened again. Megatron reappeared in the doorway appearing... unsettled.

"It would appear," he began with a slight but undeniably present note of hesitation, his optics settling on Dart, "That I have underestimated the size of the repair bay. And the parts I need are very small."

Megatron's mouth was scarred, the plates brittle and pitted from innumerable blows to the faceplate, chemical attacks, serated weapons cutting up through his mesh. It made the slight, wry smile seem awkward and out of place. "If you could, I would appreciate some help."

[Dart]

When he stepped past Dart and the door hissed shut behind his massive bulk, Dart had a moment to just... stand. Her spoiler slowly ticked back one notch at a time with dawning understanding.

That was it. That was what it was.

Body language came with time, it came with age. Day to day things, your dealings with others, each little touch of life on your whole story. Some was instinctive. Dart had seen it. No matter how many thousands of times it played out in front of her, the courier held quiet amazement at caribou fawns getting to their feet on the tundra a few minutes after they'd hit the ground and taken a breath. Wet and wobbly, but determined to walk.

It was the nuances though, that created the individual from that point on. At first mostly through observation on how and what you were supposed to be, what you were supposed to do with those of your own kind.

Then what you were ultimately created and trained to do, both animal and mechanical.

Time and personal experiences however turned these responses into something else. Individual expressions. Your greatest achievements. The desperate moments where you just barely survived, ingrained in your behaviors. A roadmap of life settling onto your frame.

When you lifted a hand and turned it to point a finger, did you do so with the air of command? Or did you do it quietly, hoping that eyes would slip over and pass you by, dismiss you? The way you turned your head or how your stride was short and choppy or long and smooth.

All the miriad of ways you learned to interact with the world around you, with the people themselves. Ones you disliked, ones you were friends with... and those you loved dearly, with all your heart.

The courier didn't seem to realize that her own posture had shifted with her thoughts. Where she had left her hands tucked to her back; now they fell to her sides. Her fingers slid to the two panniers set on either side of her hips; fingers curled protectively across the top. Her thumb toyed with the lock; clicking it softly.

He'd lost memory. Experiences, gone. Lord Megatron without the weight of a command, without the years. At least that's what Dart was reading, and yes... she understood it, because - well, because she did. Her memory was - ugh, well, her holo unit worked better, sigh. At least he remembered Cybertron. That just was a pretty big hole in the head, and not even a...

The door swished back open. Dart startled and hastened to reset her hands behind her back, glancing over, drawing herself back on her toes to quickly set herself into that guarding position once more; but-no, not Pyrotech.

Lord Megatron. His words cautious... and the awkward smile even more so. So lost in in his own places, his own domain and the courier was utterly sympathetic. Dart's spoiler pricked up again at his hesitation. That- that was the oddest look on this particular mech, the little smile that softened his features and dropped ages from his face and -- oh.

Blue optics shuttered in a blink.

"Oh," Dart echoed, and then drew her fingers up to touch her torn sigil in salute. "I understand sir, that- that place is huge, isn't it, sir? Help you..?"

Something to do, something to do, a little voice in her head breathed, besides standing here and hoping that this place doesn't lurch suddenly to the left. Task. Set me on task, yes, please give me a job and give me a reason to move, oh, yes -- wait no, as long as it's not finding you Dark Energon because that's ugh, I -- whoa, Dart, whoa. Steady there.

"They must be in there pretty far back if you didn't see them, sir," she said quietly. "That place is huge. I was- I was in it once. A long time ago, though. I bet there's more stuff in it now, sir. Hang on, one moment, sir, I will absolutely help. Let me let my field commander know you need me, sir, just- he'll be fine with it, I'm sure."

Dart cocked her head to one side, connected a comm with a small, light query.

Less than a second later, Pyrotech's utter surprise drifted over that private link between them.

"You are serious?"

Dart could almost picture the look on his face. She'd seen it a lot over the years.

"Yes sir," she replied and tried not to fidget. Now that she'd been offered motion, all Dart wanted to do was well, get moving. Sooner the better. "Absolutely. He came down here for parts, I think. He's a bit... well- he needs me to help him find them- too much space in there, sir."

"You are serious," Pyrotech replied again, as if he couldn't wrap his mind around this fact.

"Yes sir. He- he's ah- a bit disorientated," she offered.

"Now, that I've heard," the red mech agreed. "Send him my regards. Go help him, Dart. Now. Find what he requires. Let me know when you are done."

"Yes sir," she replied, even as the line clicked off between them. That was... better than she expected, she supposed. Then again, he still hadn't gotten a decent desk. Dart had heard him snarling about that the other night while he was trying to hold blueprints down with rocks.

Immediately, Dart looked up at Megatron and then inclined her head. Her spoiler had lifted up again, the tips framing the big grey mech between them.

"Pyrotech sends his regards and says I'm to help in whatever capacity I can, sir." she offered, letting her hands relax and fall to her sides once more. "What do you need to find?"

[Deleted]

Megatron waited the few seconds it took for her to speak to her handler, watching the tick and twitch of her spoiler. It was highly expressive - unusually so, moving with the same kind of unconscious whim as the long, tapering plates falling back from Fairwinds' helm.

When her optics clicked back into focus, the lens crystals spiraling a fraction tighter and the light glowing through them that bit brighter, he raised his hands and formed small, fiddly shapes with his claws. As a rule he didn't like handling small, easily breakable things - his temper didn't always marry up with the control required.

"A C-size strut," Megatron replied, holding thumb and forefinger a scant few inches apart. "Two stem bolts, and nanite-enriched tape to bind it temporarily whilst autorepair has time to work."

The parts as named were generic, doubtless coming in a wide range of sizes and specs. What he needed was cassette-sized. He should, Megatron realized, have brought them with him, in case he had the wrong specs in mind. Fairwinds... hadn't been much help when he'd asked what bits of her foot he needed to fetch.

He glanced to the side, the overhanging plates above his optics drawing together in resignation as the final part of Fairwinds' technical request/demand crossed his processor. The warlord did not speak directly to Dart, as if not looking at her made the admission that bit easier to say. "Shiny or sparkly tape, specifically, if it has any properties other than aesthetic. Frankly, she will accept what she is given, but if she can be accommodated and thus made less insufferable..."

Very few understood the relationship between Megatron and Fairwinds. Currently, Megatron was not one of them, though Fairwinds assured him that the cassette/carrier bond had been his idea in the first place. So.

[Dart]

The courier nodded as he offered up what he was looking for. She stretched her neck slightly and angled her nose; she was focusing on his fingers and the gestures and put his query to memory. A strut, okay, she knew what that was, two stem bolts, check. Ah, and nanite tape! Dart had seen all those things, and so yes, finding and retrieving she should be able to do, whew...

Then he got to the sparkly bit. Sparkly nanite tape...?

The courier decided then and there that she needed some more Cybertronian points of grounding sometimes. She knew lots of human things, and some pretty stupid human things.

Running through Dart's head right now was that the leader of the Decepticons seemed utterly overwhelmed by the request. It was as if she was watching one of those sitcoms where big burly human guys were sent down the Barbie aisle with a list to buy tiny shoes and other hot pink and glittery fashion accessories.

Or worse, where they found themselves standing in those places that had the words maxipad and full coverage. Dart was pretty sure in that case it didn't relate to car insurance.

Okay, not anything she'd have ever thought would come into her head in a conversation with Megatron, and he was doing the thing where he turned his head in an effort to not make eye contact. A huge mech with massive amounts of firepower and the leadership of the Decepticons, and he was asking for sparkly tape.

Then the word 'insufferable' trailed out of him and Dart looked back up.

"Sparkly tape," the courier echoed. She cocked her head to one side and looked thoughtful. No judgment or laughter. Not even a snicker. Sparkly tape it is, and she'd never question why it was wanted or needed. Just do her job, and - huh, okay, one little question, not to be asked out loud but quietly processed in her own thoughts.

She? Oh, right, oh, that's right- his partner. Dart had seen Fairwinds from a distance, but never right up close in person. She figured Megatron sent her out on far more important things than she herself had ever been involved in.

"Well, I'm sure in a place this big, sir, there's got to be at least one roll of something available that will work well for both of you..." she offered and then glanced at the door he'd just come out of. "Honest."

She shifted her weight back and forth over her toes, waiting for him to reopen it and lead them back in. Then she appeared to consider his words once again, blue optics shining under the dark brim of her helm.

"Er, is there a color she prefers, sir?"

[Deleted]

Megatron's optics snapped back to the femme, his mouth tightening into a thin, resolved line. His ventral plating flared minutely. "Fairwinds will accept what she is given."

Because, honestly, he didn't know what her colour preferences were. And that was such a simple thing he felt he ought to know about his own cassette.

The inside of the cupboard Fairwinds lived in inside of their shared quarters showed no particular preference. She had decorated it with multi-coloured fairy lights and hoarded her treasures on every one of the floor-to-ceiling shelves that covered two of the three walls (the third was dominated by eight television screens, mounted atop one another and constantly tuned into different (though invariably colourful) channels), and so far as he could determine, she loved all colours equally. But anything shiny most.

At least Dart was going with it. He hadn't thought that she might smile, smirk or otherwise display humour in his (throttled bird's) specification - she had demonstrated far too much submissive fealty to so openly convey such a reaction. Or perhaps she simply knew of Fairwinds, and sparkly tape fell neatly into her expectations of the cassette.

He'd broken Fairwinds foot, when the cassette had been nothing but helpful and eager to help in any capacity, and it felt called for to get the requested sparkly tape. If his memory core wasn't disconnected and his mind intact, Megatron suspected that he perhaps wouldn't feel this way, but right now, the task was just.

If by some miracle the store room had rainbow coloured sparkly nanite tape, however, he was palming that without Dart's notice.

The agitation had eased out of his frame as quickly as it had flared, and Megatron regarded Dart calmly once more. He indicated the door. "Lead the way."

[Dart]

At the tightening of Lord Megatron's plating, the line of his jaw and mouth, Dart's gaze immediately dropped right back to the floor between her toes. She focused on the plating, on the rivets there. The ship thrummed and vibrated in the silence between them for a moment. The courier's shoulders sloped slightly.

"Yes sir," she said. "Understood."

She did. Accept every scrap that was given to you and be grateful it was yours. Normally it really didn't bother her, it was just the way of the world when it came to some positions of power. If you weren't an officer or a skilled fighter, or you just had a job or a skill that was needed daily, you weren't as high on the list when it came to repairs or fuel.

For some reason that Dart couldn't quite put a finger on, this did. Not for herself, not at all. It was for the femme on the other end of the situation. His partner simply wanted sparkly tape. Not world domination, or a pass to the movies. She wanted something pretty over some damage, like a... Like a bandaid on a road-rashed knee.

I want the Hello Kitty ones, darnit.

Er, okay... Hello Kitty bandaids? Seriously? Isn't that for -um, kids? Right? Kids?

Pshaw. I told myself years ago, after my surgery, right? I wear bandaids ever again, I'm going for the cutest ones I can possibly buy.

Okay....

Want one?

Um, I have no idea what I'd do with a Hello Kitty bandaid.

Look fashionable. Be awesome. How about Sponge Bob? Spider Man? Heh, wait, I've got it, you want a Cars bandaid! Lightning McQueen, haha, kachow!

Words. Dart shook herself out of them. No, maybe that wasn't the reason either. It was because... because Fairwinds was not a pet. Dart just- that didn't sit well. It never had, and it never did. Ugh.

As Megatron resettled himself, she simply stood and waited, and when he indicated that she should go first, there was a quiet bit of resolution and determination from the courier. Her spoiler lifted and pricked over her shoulders slightly, the tips focusing forward as much as her nose did. She'd been set on assignment - find this - and appeared far more comfortable with a direction to go forward in.

Dart was. Task set, and she was going to give it her best shot to hunt down the prettiest, sparkliest tape that this med bay had to offer. Preferably in neon blazing purple with shooting gold stars all through it, because hey, that sounded pretty awesome to her.

"Yes sir, taking point," she replied, with a quick brush of fingers to her sigil before she nodded and turned to the door. A step, two, it opened, and the courier fell immediately and correctly into place just so in front of the big mech as she led the way into the massive room. Her footfalls were light on the decking, barely audible, but the sound of her drawing air past her olfactory sensors was. Sniff sniff. Where to go...?

[Deleted]

Megatron watched her tip forward on her toes, drawing air through deliberate channels into her body that must have been related to her olafactory sensors. As she walked, Dart wasn't looking as if seeking, nor was she making any moves towards accessing whatever inventory may have been available to form an educated guess as to where the tiny parts were.

Was she, could she smell them?

'Take point'? Not likely. Megatron's curiosity had been piqued and he wanted to watch.

The concept of using scent molecules to locate and investigate was foreign to him, but not truly so strange. Though his systems told him that the panels had been unused for centuries, Megatron could still send the energon in the walls. The raw, unprocessed crystals stored near the energon vault. He would lay good credits on still being able to find a vein in solid rock with enough precision to lay a hand on it. There were others ways of seeing, and he was curious to see her unique way of operating.

It took half a faster stride to come alongside Dart, and Megatron adjusted his pace to suit her smaller frame. The slower walk was ponderous on his frame, but made the femme appear light and quick on her pedes. She seemed captured on her task, now. Focused.

Megatron felt gazes on him and studiously ignored them, following Dart into the labyrinth of shelves and storage racks. The walkways were just wide enough for them to remain alongside one another.

It occurred to him that staring at her whilst she, literally, sniffed out parts for him was doing little for his medical directive for interaction. It was also, he knew Fairwinds would be quick to point out, 'a bit weird'.

"How are you differentiating?" he asked, deciding that satisfying some of his curiosity was topic enough for now. He glanced about the innumerable parts, boxes of parts and bottles of fluid that filled every shelf. "There's so much... stuff."

[Dart]

The whole warehouse was full of things. Crates. Bins. Boxes. Liquids in beakers. They were stacked on shelves, on each other, towering over her head, and even that of the warlord. There was the blue tone of artificial light stippled with dark shadow. It was organized in some matter that Dart had absolutely no idea about.

When the bulk of the mech stepped up alongside of her, the courier glanced at up at him. She started to sidestep and trot forward in an effort to keep that proper distance between them. The sort that if she landed on a pressure plate or a tripwire that he would at least have a chance to react to the situation...

He kept up with her motion though. Dart seemed baffled for a moment, and then her spoiler flicked as she suddenly dropped into position just off of his left shoulder. Her speed immediately matched with his; his strides would determine how fast they continued on, not Dart's.

It was usually where she walked; a few inches behind Pyrotech or even Starscream, holding position, nose tilted into the breeze. The gesture was automatic, smooth, utterly instinctive, the courier easily moving from scout point into a guarding heel.

I bet something in here has the power to melt Nazis, the courier thought as she picked her way past a series of large containers. Then she realized how silly that probably was, because most things in here probably had the power to melt Nazis. There was a faint whiff of something dangerously acidic to reinforce that feeling.

A pause in front of one of them, and a quick sniff - she could scent the contents.

Her spoiler clicked up a few notches. On her back it twitched on the hinge, one side higher than the other, moving slowly back and forth as she sorted through the odors drifting. She could feel the gazes of the Vehicons they passed on the way. Their red optics slipped from her to Lord Megatron, focused on the thing that they were more unsure about.

When he said nothing to them and tried to avoid them quietly, Dart could sense their confusion in their stiff frames and the way their hands curled around the edges of the crates they were shuffling. They expected to be overlooked, but they didn't expect to be... overlooked. It made utter sense to her; you wanted to be ignored, but normally. It's when you got ignored in a different way that you started to expect trouble.

When Lord Megatron spoke, she startled and shifted her weight over her toes, obviously not expecting his question.

"How am I...?" she echoed, and glanced back over her shoulder at him before comprehension dawned. For a moment, the courier looked a bit awkward - well, more so than usual. Perhaps even embarrassed.

"Oh. Oh. You mean how am I telling the difference with scent," she mumbled. Yes, you're different. How weird is that. "It's- let me try to explain it, sir. Every single thing in here has an odor, right? Well, mostly, I suppose. Most things give off molecules all the time and they are chemically different. I just - my sensors sort it constantly, and it's like -- well..."

The courier hesitated and then tucked her hands behind her back. Her optics half shuttered under the brim of her helmet as if she was repeating a lecture. "See, sir, over a time, scent comes up from a location, up and out. It forms a cone shape. But it distorts and is influenced by heat, moisture, air currents, sunlight, shade, ozone, and the terrain and location. It's an actual exchange of molecules, scent is, not a gas or vapor or anything like that. It's just the detectable evidence of molecule movement from solids and liquids into the atmosphere."

Dart trailed off and glanced around them at the huge room.

"At least that's what Ravage told me once," she explained.

"A picture ends up in my head of the spaces around me. Mech, human, animal, who or what touched this and who has been in these place."

A pause. "Er, does that help, sir?"