Flashback - 'Learning to Love Your Cassette' - Closed

[Deleted]

<<OOC: Set a century after the Exodus>>

Overlooking the star Epsilon Eridani, the Nemesis was lying in wait in an asteroid belt. The celestial body was young and glowed vivid orange, and given its age, its electromagnetic activity was more than suitable to disguise the warship's presence. In a sudden display of gall, Optimus Prime had turned on the offensive, and there were rumours of some valuable outpost or powerful relic hidden in this infrequently-visited system.

Autobot convoys had been passing by the star in sporadic intervals, obviously utilizing the same sensor-distortion. Reconnaissance and one Infiltrator were combing the area, leaving the Nemesis to nurse overdue repairs whilst waiting for a more concrete report. Though they were still on alert, it also granted the crew some modicum of 'down' time.

Megatron had taken advantage of the lull to request Soundwave's aid. His 3iC had become a highly competent officer, invaluable data technician and most trusted confidant over the years, but it was something quite different that the Decepticon Commander now wanted.

They stood in the office adjacent to the bridge, the security screens raised against any possible spy. It was the smelting shift, there were cameras overseeing the almost-empty corridors, and no mecha with any sense would attempt to eavesdrop on this room, which made the additional security a touch paranoid. Megatron thought it just enough. It had been a long time since he was not at peace with his mind.

Though he had been utilising Fairwinds extensively since Switchback's deactivation, almost a century of growing familiarity had not prepared him for the sheer familiarity in forming a cassette/carrier bond. The hardware and software modifications had taken place weeks ago, but Knock Out had advised that there would be a 'fine tuning' phase that would last as long as it needed to.

Lord Megatron did not feel that 'fine tuning' truly covered the sensation of a hyperactive shadow in his mind, or the flickers of another's feelings that cut into his psyche like barbs. He had conveyed as much to the doctor earlier in the day, and then resigned himself to venturing into unknown territory.

Soundwave didn't really 'talk', and Megatron was not one to air his uncertainties. As the only Carrier on board that he trusted, however, his options on who to turn to for advice was limited. Hence the late meeting, security screens, and rare use of the chairs on either side of the desk. They worked standing, and would speak off-duty sitting: It felt better to make a distinction.

"I'm aware that your experiences with your cassettes are markedly different to what I have established with Fairwinds," he said, watching the dark screen of the mech's face carefully. "But any patches or, techniques for better adjusting to a cassette bond would be of value to me."

Soundwave was sparked a Carrier; Megatron elected to be modified to become one. He hoped there was enough overlap for some beneficial insight.

[Deleted]

Contrary to popular belief, Soundwave didn't spend his every waking moment plugged into the Nemesis' systems. There was only so much chasing of data through familiar electronic corridors he could do before it became about as useful as beating a faulty console with a wrench in the hopes that it would fix it. While there may be many things wrong at current with the great warship, wrench-beating was neither Soundwave's area of expertise or productive overall.

He contented himself with maintaining several remote uplinks and monitoring damage reports being filed; it hardly took enough of his attention away and remained as a background function on a slightly lower priority level than his ever-present watch of the Nemesis security systems.

Most of his attention, however, was on Megatron. Soundwave, with a wry sense of amusement at himself, would admit that he used many of his old skills in dealing day-to-day with the mech that commanded so much of his loyalty. That he'd been asked to meet in this small, private space meant Megatron wished the matter to remain equally private. The butler-turned-spy would have also wagered the matter to be personal and outside the purview of war.

Perhaps it would have boggled someone else's processor, to think of their Lord and General as having any thought not directed to Decepticon victory, but Soundwave believed such thoughts to be not only present, but needful. They brought the war into that much sharper a focus.

All this conjecturing left him no nearer to anticipating what Megatron might wish of him. When the request did come, it surprised him briefly and he was left to chide himself for it.

Of course Megatron would be having issues, however minor they might be, with Fairwinds' connection. It was one thing to go through life used to sharing one's mind, in almost every layer, with the wraith-like presence of a companion. It was quite another to be suddenly forced to accept the imposition of that presence, all the more so with a fairly private creature such as the General.

Soundwave did not think the partnership poor; in fact, he believed both Megatron and Fairwinds could greatly benefit from it, gaining lacking features in both their emotional and mental make-up from one another. That, however, would imply that either would accept that they were missing something to begin with. Uphill battle, that one.

His head tilted in an unmistakable query, a baseline blueprint of Fairwinds appearing on the screen, along with a gist of whatever latest information the medbay could offer on her condition; as far as Soundwave knew the cassette was fine, but it didn't hurt to ask.

Simultaneously, the delicate fingers of one hand came to touch the angles and edges of his chest, where it became almost impossible to tell where he ended and Laserbeak began. Physical contact was the first and most obvious bond established between carrier and cassette, and he wanted to make sure of where, if at all, Megatron felt he'd found a hurdle in the bonding process.

[Deleted]

"Fairwinds is operating within normal parameters," Megatron replied carefully, with obvious restraint. 'Normal parameters' was a tactful way of saying that she was still buzzing around the ship, chattering and prying whilst making off with any little trinket that caught her fancy. He had assigned her a cupboard to keep the scrap she kept bringing home in, and more than once he'd found her recharging inside in a pile of it.

He had not met any other creature so endlessly joyful as the red cassette. If not for her cunningly malicious streak, he would have found her intolerable. As it was, there was something calming in her cheery presence amidst the battles and strategy meetings and casualty reports. Fairwinds knew when to stick a wrench in it and sit quietly, mindful of the simmering haze of his anger, and when to remind him, in her own way, of his origins. That he was still just a mech.

His optics tracked the outlines of Laserbeak's form, cradled around Soundwave's chassis so seamlessly that they seemed of one frame. When Fairwinds was docked, she did not blend in at all. Folded beneath the overhand of his chassis, she appeared as a red chevron underlining his armor.

"There are no physical issues with docking," he said when Soundwave's question became clear. "Knock Out ensured our compatibility."

[Deleted]

So the two most obvious problems, both of them within a purely physical realm, were addressed and dismissed.

Soundwave had not expected anything to be wrong with the docking itself. Many things though Knock Out was, it was a tacit given that the medic would do his level best. Appealing, really, considering how many outright psychopaths and apathetic dead weight could be found in the profession, burnt out or broken by the strain the war had brought to bear upon them. Pettiness could alter that behavior in Knock Out, among a few other, mostly self-serving factors, but Soundwave did not think any of them had a bearing on the matter.

Which bore out Soundwave's suspicion and came back, somewhat squarely, to the fact that Megatron was a fairly private creature. It was entirely possible to be either overwhelmed by the link... or to expect too much of it that would not actually come for a long time yet.

Soundwave lifted one hand, the gesture an elegant query. Simultaneously he played a brief snatch of sound, a cacophony of voices, shouts, commands and machinery as could only be found within the cargo bays of the Nemesis when she was being fully loaded, drone squadrons rushing this way and that; the flatness of his screen was a kaleidoscope of sound tracery - he could isolate and track every sound, but that was a skill acquired from long practice. Given enough input, anyone could be overwhelmed... and Fairwinds did have a reputation for being chatty.

The sample lasted only a few moments, and Soundwave lifted his other hand. This time his sonic example was a radio transmission, as badly mangled as the equipment that had once tried to fish it out from deep space, full of hiccups and hissing static. He gestured inquiringly a second time.

It was possible that Megatron and Fairwinds were having absolutely, utterly no problem whatsoever with docking. It was possible that they might have an issue that was neither physical or communicative. They could, in the worst possible scenario, be wholly incompatible. But Soundwave did not believe they were. Megatron was concerned; not irritated, not impatient. Concerned, not just over his part on the equation, but Fairwinds' as well. That alone spoke volumes, and piqued his interest.

He would help, of course. He would always help, as best he could. But he could not give Megatron false reassurances; he would not give him techniques or explanations that would most likely ring hollow. He could... suggest, if he found out what part of the process had caused the warlord's unease. That never meant the suggestion would be automatically accepted, as so many mechs believed. That only meant Megatron had taken Soundwave's two credits to rattle around in a cup. One could only hope he'd like the sound of them.

[Deleted]

Soundwave's gestures were elegant, subtle, in contrast to the cacophony of noises he put forth into the room to illustrate his query: was the mental link raucous, or distorted?

Megatron was silent, and he sat whilst taking a moment to analyse that. There was no rush to answer; doubtless his Third might occupy himself with several dozen data streams, encryptions and system reports during a conversational lull. Though, he would not have been surprised if Soundwave was as silently focused inside as he appeared outside.

The smaller mech had a carrier's skill for complexly tiered multi-processing. Quantum links with his cassettes necessitated the ability, lest the multiple minds blur together. It was something that Megatron had been expecting, and expecting a period of adjustment for.

He had built up to the cassette-carrier modifictions over a period of months, spending longer periods directly linked to Fairwinds outside of functional uplinks. Direct jacks were the most secure way of passing information, and they had done so for years, but becoming comfortable with sitting within one another's fields had taken some time.

The deeper neural link between cassette and carrier was more secure, still, and made possible an intuitive understanding of one another's well being, distance and actions. All valuable for the Decepticon Commander's personal spy. With it also came a more intrinsic awareness of one another's moods and thoughts, though as a modified rather than naturally-sparked carrier, this was lessened.

It was still somewhat overwhelming, though. At times, utterly deafening. Megatron was a robust creature; inured to long stretches of solitude and periods of heightened stress and combat. he was not used to having a throttled chatterbox rattling around the edges of his mind. Fairwinds, it turned out, never actually shut up. Most of the time, she just hadn't engaged her vocaliser.

Megatron's hand came to gesture at his temple as if to tear out a disruptive chunk of his CPU. "She is... Constant. Unfiltered. Her mind, her inane prattling, runs against my thoughts from the moment she comes out of recharge to when she shuts down again."

He sat back, fingers closing around the armrests of the chair. "I had anticipated and prepared for a more... intimate connection, but I had not expected it to occupy so much of my mind."

Fairwinds' boundless cheer, punctuated by brief-but-catastrophic bouts of sulking, was also a constant sticky glow atop his processor. He hoped Soundwave would intuit as much.

[Deleted]

Constant.

Soundwave's head tilted fractionally. It was a gesture that could mean half a dozen things, though more often than not it was reserved to address a recalcitrant bit of encryption.

In this particular case it meant nothing much except a touch of wry amusement. Megatron had, more or less, hand-picked a throttled chatterbox of a cassete, and yet her constancy was the issue?

And still, Soundwave knew Fairwinds was only half the issue; just as critical was the solitude, the privacy that Megatron had likely grown used to. In all the lives he'd lead, the Decepticon leader had always had the quiet of his mind, if nothing else, to himself.

He wondered how that was working for Fairwinds; how it would feel for the cassette to seemingly speak into a void without echoes, except for whichever time she caught Megatron's interest. And that didn't even begin to cover the emotional struggle between the two. From endless observation Soundwave knew that emotionally active mechs tended to crash-and-burn at fairly reguar intervals, while those who maintained an even emotional keel could neither understand, nor relate, to such abrupt cycles.

Soundwave shook his head slightly, lifting one talon before he offered his right hand, palm up. Above it he projected the simplest of holoprojections, a tiny red outline of Fairwinds, swiftly converted into a very busy sine wave. With a similar gesture, his left hand offered the tiniest of outlines of the Decepticon General, just as swiftly transformed; his wave was in deep violet, and it had long, sedate, deep swells that went on forever compared to the tightly packed quasi-band in his opposing hand.

He brought them slowly together, hands even with one another; as he'd expected of such simple projections, they began to degenerate into a busy haze of static almost at once. Megatron's one gesture spoke volumes, and Soundwave was being as practical as he could: Fairwinds' presence, voluminous as it may be, had come to stay, and Megatron would only waste time and build up emotional stress on both of them by trying to fight it.

Pulling his hands apart, Soundwave let the Fairwinds sine wave stabilize; slowly, with utmost care, he lowered his left hand onto his right, until the waves were just touching. He kept the projection from degrading this time (as that would have been somewhat counter to the point he wanted to make), pushing his hands down until the violet wave was superimpossed onto the red; in this more gradual overlap, both waves gained something from one another, until one was calmer, while the other one picked up energy. Eventually they were matched, and Soundwave dropped his hands.

Megatron could not go back to the silence and solitude of his mind. Fairwinds was not likely to ever to shut up, not unless something radical was done to her. Soundwave mimicked Megatron's tearing gesture and shook his head; he tapped with one delicate-seeming talon on that spot on his helm again, cupped his hand and brought it close to his chest, then discarded whatever imaginary bit he'd carried in the other direction with an elegant talon-flick. There would come a time when Megatron's mind would learn to automatically sift through his cassette's informational deluge, much as he gathered information from his surroundings and judged it to be a threat or not: by instinct. With Fairwinds the process promised to be a little more... of a crash education, but it would happen nonetheless, if he could learn to first let the wave of emotional and conversational input simply go through him.

For the moment, he would have to learn to focus, as hard as he could, on everything else; Soundwave pointed at him and then tapped the center of his own smooth helm before gesturing to the Warlord's busy desk, to the door separating them from the 'Nemesis'. The blank screen of his face lit up with a rolling list of two dozen problems that normally would have never been brought up to Megatron's attention as any of a double-handful of other officers could handle them if he did not wish to. Soundwave's advice would have normally covered both cassette and carrier, but Fairwinds was... what she was. The effort would have to be Megatron's, to keep his mind forcibly occupied until such a time as he had learned to sift through her emotional and conversational input.

Soundwave lifted two talons, though he was not sure as to how his second option would be received; he tapped on Laserbeak, then on his own shoulder, where a small cassette was usually to be found on the average carrier, then pointed out of the nearest viewport: Megatron's time was exceptionally limited, yes, but actually going out, on whatever mission might call for his presence, and having Fairwinds with him, would force them both to deal with one another at their most active, both physically and mentally. It would teach them as nothing else where their boundaries and limits were.

His piece said, the 3IC leaned back and waited politely.

[Deleted]

Starscream felt that volume and repetitive persistence would demand the General's attention, but in actually he often drowned himself out and stoked his Commander's ire to such a degree that he was shouted down, dismissed or threatened into silence. By contrast, Soundwave did not speak or act until he had satisfactorily distilled the data into patterns and results, his hypotheses should they be required, and waited until he'd determined that Megatron required his input. It meant that Megatron paid attention when he finally 'spoke', though the translation of his particular manner of communication required even further concentration.

The meaning of the sine waves was clear enough - harmony was essential in any bond connected to the spark. Knock Out had ensured that he and Fairwinds were compatible on a mechanical and quantum level, but it had been up to them alone to determine if they would find a harmony between their distinctive personalities. If they could tolerate and ultimately accept on the deepest level a constant connection between their minds and sparks that distance would have little bearing upon.

Prior to the bond being established, Megatron had been confident that they would. They were binary opposites in many ways, but utterly unified in core values, and where they differed they had bolstered one another. Fairwinds had found security and confidence in the gladiator's certain presence; and Megatron had found a rewarding degree of peace in sharing time away from the war room in Fairwind's company. The little cassette had observed that she kept him from brooding too much, and whilst Megatron had been rankled by the summation, he'd privately admitted some truth in that. They could, potentially, temper one another's extremes of character in harmonising, in addition to the practical benefits in communication found in the deeper connection.

Megatron knew this, realised the potential benefits of such harmony, but that did not help him when the fluctuating currents of Fairwinds' moods and childish diatribes were cutting through his thoughts. Time would help, time and practice would train his mind to filter out what was hers so that it was a decision to consult her thoughts rather than an ongoing state.

It escaped him how Soundwave did this with more than one cassette, and he knew of Carriers with five or more! Megatron sat back, drawing his pointed knuckles against the hard line of his jaw in thought.

"Whilst I appreciate your point that time and... exposure, are certainly required to achieve a balanced and functioning partnership," Megatron uttered, looking back to the impassive screen. "Time is a precious commodity, and I need to adapt to the intrusion of her mind quickly."

His expression turned pensive, edged with an uneasy kind of uncertainty. "Is there a technique, or a patch, that will enable me manage her sooner?"

[Deleted]

Soundwave would be the first to admit that what Megatron had achieved in his lifetime was nothing short of mind-boggling. An entire society, uprooted from caste-ridden stagnation by a miner's sheer force of will. Megatron was himself living proof of the tenets by which he lived and warred.

But he also had a tendency to hold everyone and everything else to his own unprecedented... efficiency. Soundwave valued it as much as the next mech, but some processes just could not be rushed. Of course, telling that to Megatron was likely to release him as a thunderstorm on the hallways of the 'Nemesis', and that would just not do. Not when the warship had finally found the time and place to undergo much-needed repairs, not when her crew had at last the opportunity to restore themselves from damage and weariness to full fighting preparedness. No, he couldn't just tell Megatron to be patient. That would be akin to asking himself to forego snooping; it was a thing that might no longer be even part of their make-up. Megatron could be patient, as long as the goal were in sight, a timeline planned. Something as vague as being patient until such a time as things clicked between him and his cassette... no. Soundwave was not about to even try that.

His head shifted upwards minutely. A single projected thread passed through the screen and Megatron's voice returned to the space between them. "Time is a precious commodity." There, then, was the crux of the matter. Coupled with his expression, with the carefully chosen words, with the very fact that Soundwave had been brought in, the 3IC could only conclude that Megatron knew the link would eventually become settled; he just needed it settled quicker.

Efficiently. He wanted efficiency from a throttled magpie chatterbox.

By no stretch of any sort of imagination was Soundwave going to tell him what he thought of that, either. Not even a little bit.

Instead he lifted a single, elegant talon; it was a slow motion, the hesitation of it reflecting the doubt that the slender mech felt on even offering the possibility. There was one way, one technique that was true and tried and, actually, developed for this kind of snap'n'clack situation, when a bond had to be strengthened hard and fast. But it was also dangerous. Soundwave did not like to suggest risky solutions to Megatron; not just because in a very real sense Megatron was the Decepticons and his loss could easily become more than the side could bear... but because Megatron liked to pick up that kind of risk at entirely unpredictable intervals.

He could not convey his hesitation any more clearly, and if Megatron wished to let the matter pass, now would be the time. Nonetheless Soundwave moved to one of the holo-screens on the desk; he did not touch it, and he figured the data for it would be protected, but then again he had no intention to go snooping here - he merely needed the screen itself.

He gave Megatron one last look, such as it were, the empty screen turning inquiringly towards him. A single line appeared on it, a single soundbite from a speech delivered a very long time ago, one of the few from its time that Soundwave had only been able to record remotely; the message was grainy and short, but delivered with impassioned, unflagging belief. "There are no shortcuts for what is worthwhile."

His talons poised over the controls of the holo-screen, and he waited, watching Megatron. He would give him what help he could, if he really wanted it. And then hope he wouldn't take it.

[Deleted]

Soundwave's caution was explicit - his Third was no coward when it came to expressing his learned opinion should his commander want it, only mindful of the chain of command. This uncharacteristic hesitation communicated, with the mech's usual discretion, that he did not approve of this alternative option.

Megatron, having spent vorns toiling in the mines of Tarn and Kaon, vorns honing his skills and reputation as a gladiator, and vorns nurturing an idea of a free Cybertron emerging from the fertile ashes of the old, was no stranger to the notion that the largest obstacles and the most significant goals required time. Perhaps moreso than strength and conviction.

But time was difficult to find in war. The fact that this meeting had been delayed for far longer than Megatron would have liked was testament to that. And though he was no master tactician, the General was a strategist and preferred to know all the options.

"Show me," he intoned, optics narrowing upon the holo-screen with interest. "I take your counsel, but I will also make an informed decision."

[Deleted]

Soundwave was unsurprised; of course Megatron wanted to know. Even if the risk were insurmountable, the spy didn't think that his General would ever accept anyone's judgment but his own on such matters.

But he also rather believed that if the 'Nemesis' hadn't been sitting still in the middle of maintenance, that if there had been immediate combat goals for the ship, the crew and (more importantly) Megatron to actively follow after, the connection between cassette and carrier would have grown smoothly, and without overtly worrying either of them: they would have simply had too much else to focus on.

Well, it wouldn't be the first time a partner/casette team was forced to bond in a trial-by-fire situation, and if that was what it took, so be it.

Finely pointed talons played over the holoscreen, and a delicate outline projection of the 'Nemesis' appeared. Within it, Soundwave flicked his hand and created a support pyramid made of glyphs: Megatron, supported by his senior command, supported by their junior officers, supported by tiers and tiers of glyphs. In the tremendous cloud of glyphs, Megatron and Fairwinds were all but lost.

With a careful swipe, Soundwave seemed to gather those two glyphs; his free hand wiped the projection clean and called up a new image: a topographical map, coordinates off to one corner, with one blinking glyph dead center of what looked to be a crater of some sort.

The site was one that was both prioritized and, paradoxically, set to the backburner for one simple reason: another elegant gesture from Soundwave riddled the entire map and a decent section beyond what the holoscreen could project with Autobot sigils. It was a weapon-production facility, one of the few Decepticon intelligence had been able to pinpoint, and while secrecy was its main protection the Autobots were not stupid; the forces stationed permanently around it were... considerable. There had been no one, no team or lone mech, that Soundwave felt could be successfully deployed to deal with it, until now.

With an entirely careless gesture he threw Megatron's and Fairwinds' glyphs into the Autobot sea. There, they shone like solitary beacons, with nothing but each other for company amidst an entirely hostile universe. Almost idly Soundwave tapped on the blinking target beacon, the holoscreen making it seem as if it were a casual stone throw's away. He lifted his other hand, talons curled, towards the side of his helm, and flicked them open towards Megatron in a casual gesture.

There were his two credits. Now to see what Megatron thought of the rattling in the cup.

[Deleted]

No mech could foresee what they would become.

Mining unit D16 had not toiled with a dream of commanding a warship and an army, his future prospects narrowed entirely by his frameclass and designated function.

Megatronus could not have foreseen striving for the killing blow against the archivest he called brother, who shared a dream of freedom and equality for all Cybertronians.

Megatron could not foresee a life of self-imposed stoicism and solitude for the sake of morale and presenting an indomitable figurehead, further infused with the blood of Unicron the Unmaker himself.

It was early in the war, in a peaceful lull between battles, and in the sole company of one of his most trusted. The dumbfounded bewilderment was painfully clear on Megatron's faceplates. One large, angular brow lifted up and he fixed his stare on Soundwave's facial screen.

"Your solution is to have me, the Decepticon Commander, abandon my ship, retreat from the front line and take on a fortified Autobot manufacturing facility with a throttled chattering unfiltered waves through my processor?" he asked slowly, sitting forward with his elbows against the long tips of his shin plates. "Have you blown a fuse or an entire circuit?"

The screen gave nothing back, which was certainly part of Soundwave's power. More than once, Megatron had found his thoughts reflected back at him at such angles and intensities as to see the path forward or the answer to a quandary without Soundwave activating his vocaliser.

Megatron sighed and drew his hand down his face, regaining his composure. Soundwave had hesitated before presenting this option to him, and it was clearly the ill-advised choice. It was almost tempting on that front alone, but Megatron was aware of his bullish nature and working on not reacting to every red flag flashed at him. The challenge and massive pay off, both in the destruction of the facility and in accomplishing greater harmony with his new cassette, were not so tempting as to overcome the fact that he was one mech, and Fairwinds was one cassette.

Strong and cunning as he may be, they would likely be stranded for most if not all of the assault, and he could not command his generals from an Autobot-infested moon. Fairwinds's suggestion that they camp out in their shared quarters with energon and holovids for three days was about as acceptable, which was to say not very.

He had approached the carrier in the hopes that there was some digital or hardware hack that could accelerate the bonding process. Forced reliance and trust were not what he'd been hoping for in answer.

Megatron sat back, physically withdrawing from the map and the suggestion with it. "No. We shall do this the long way. The right way."

His optics narrowed on the weapons factory, his processor settling into a more comfortable thought-thread. "Though, we should make moves towards ultimately destroying that facility. Begin compiling a list of suitable agents who may be able to infiltrate."

[Deleted]

"Have you blown a fuse or an entire circuit?"

................. Really? Really?!

Since the very moment he had been granted life, Soundwave had been bound into service. His was a duty to anticipate needs, whims and moods. His had been the job to ensure any request, no matter how outlandish and impossible, were not just fulfilled, but fulfilled promptly and in a pleasing manner. He hadn't just done his job, he'd had to learn to do it with grace and intelligence, sometimes in the face of rampant, sheltered ignorance, greed and downright stupidity. Through it all he had never faltered; his temper had never risen beyond his ability to function and serve whatever interests had been made his own at the time.

Leave him alone with Megatron five minutes and all those millennia were gone like smoke in the wind. Most of the time the Decepticon commander was exactly what he appeared to be: a warrior beyond compare, a pillar of strength and leadership, a nearly faultless tactician. And then there were times, like the current, when Soundwave had to resist an urge to shake him because he was the Decepticon commander.

He snapped the projection off almost as an afterthought as he straightened up. The talons of his free hand gestured sharply to his own helm, as if drawing something from it. One almost-accusing talon stabbed towards the big, incredibly irritating lump accusing him of glitching. It was a gesture only Megatron would see from him, at least in such sharp measures. And only in private. A barely perceivable frisson passed through his field; it was not irritation, but indignation.

It was that very frisson that brought him back to his senses. His head dipped; his field went back to that even keel that made it practically background noise. It was akin to any other mech venting excess heat to try and metaphorically cool down, except Soundwave engaged none of the behaviors that commonly went with it. They didn't help. Nothing helped, not even knowing why Megatron got under his plates: in the exceedingly rare occasion when his efforts had failed to please a Noble, he'd been accused of ineptitude or stupidity - they were interesting accusations inasmuch as they implied that his Masters knew the task was itself unlikely.

Megatron, on the other hand, seemed to promptly forget that he had asked for the unlikely. At least for an astrosecond or two, enough to say things like that. It was the most bizarre and insulting of compliments, really: apparently Soundwave was expected, nay, guaranteed, to come up with reasonable solutions to unreasonable problems.

He saw sense come back to Megatron's features and frame before he voiced his decision; his nod of acknowledgment was as steady as his field and his mood were once again. His posture shifted subtly with the added request, recognizing the change in tone and inwardly pleased by it: though he had not expected it, apparently he'd found something to occupy his commander's mind, if only for a little while.

He made a mental note to have that list, and further small projects here and there, rerouted towards Megatron's desk. At least until things were a little more... settled between Fairwinds and him. It was the least he could do.