Ep 1.5 - State of Mind (Closed)

[Dart]

As the mech held his hands quietly out and merely offered up the tiniest smile, things bolted through the courier's thoughts.

Scent a ladder - what the heck did a ladder smell like in a place like this? The bottom of someone's foot, she supposed.

No matter how many times she'd been booted, Dart had never taken the time to stop and sniff an incoming kick. Mostly because anything that came towards her head meant she better duck quickly and not get her nose smashed in. So really, there was no way that Dart could even begin to track down a ladder. Wait, she could, but it was attached to Pyrotech and --

Dart threw that idea right out.

Second idea - turn around, stammer an apology and run like heck go to find a different, non-trackable ladder. While she was at it, she might find that Ark of the Covenant. Heck, she'd probably find that first.

However, the time it would take would leave Lord Megatron waiting, and he was still standing there with his hands extended, talons curled upwards in a non-threatening motion. He hadn't moved an inch, brought down his hands. He simply stood there with quiet logic.

They needed to get that tape down, and she certainly wasn't able to give him a boost.

When the leader of the Decepticons asks you something, you say---

There is no Lord Megatron, only Zuul.

Erk. No, not that. Oh boy, thank you Dr. Venkman, for your one liners. Good to know I'm still a plethora of utterly useless human trivia, but seriously it's not helping right now. Now's not a good time. Try again.

When Lord Megatron asks if you need a lift up, you say--

"Yes sir," Dart replied quickly. Her hand came up, fingers brushing the air over her sigil in salute. "It would be quicker, you're right, sir. I- I don't think I could scent a ladder in here and I have no idea how long it would take me to track one down."

A quick glance around them at the towering crates and then the courier sucked in a pull of air past her intakes with a tiny gulp in an effort to steady herself. Her spoiler rattled a bit, the tips splaying out to the sides of her shoulders, unsure. She glanced down at her toes, feeling the vibrations of the ship churning the air away underneath them. That made it worse. Hurriedly, she ducked her head and peered back up at the massive mech, blue optics shaded by her dark helm.

"I apologize, I'm filthy," the courier murmured. "I'll be careful, I promise, if you're sure about giving me a leg up there - I can do that, sir."

[Deleted]

"Not so filthy," the giant murmured with only a cursory glance at the femme's legs. It was almost humorous, in a troubling sort of way, how Dart reacted to the prospect of dirtying his hands with the same plate-seizing anxiety as she did being physically held aloft by her commander-in-chief.

It occurred to him that he ought to retract the offer, as she was clearly uncomfortable, but Megatron dismissed the thought as quickly as it occurred. Lessons were rarely comfortable, and he would not have her nervousness being responded to with a retraction of a practical offer.

Dart's nervousness, though palpable, was as least not contagious as Roulette's awkwardness had been...

Megatron did not need two hands to lift her, and had only offered both hands intertwined to make the meaning of the gesture clear. His left now dropped back to his side, and he considered her height a moment before lowering himself to one knee.

Even kneeling he towered over her, but his extended hand was now more of a step than a platform she would need to jump onto. The position itself was unfamiliar, which didn't surprise him given the impression Megatron had gained of his normal self these last two weeks. It didn't diminish him, however. To his core, he was a mech of brutal necessity; of what needed to be done. Pride was subordinate.

After waiting a few seconds in silence, Megatron finally twitched an eyebrow towards Dart. "I'm quite confident your sense of balance is up to the task, but if I'm mistaken, tell me before you fall."

[Dart]

Dart always considered herself fairly tall, in the scheme of things. However, having the mech kneel down brought that all back into perspective. He was huge; deep-chested, broad, heavy armor that covered every inch of him. Everything on Lord Megatron was built to take those vicious blows from an opponent.

As Lord Megatron settled, Dart's spoiler gave one final rattle and then slunk down on the hinges just a bit farther. The tips twitched and splayed out to the sides, and then drew back up and held position over her shoulders. She dug her heels into the unyielding floor and tucked her hands to the small of her back, straightened up as if that familiar gesture would ground her.

Then her grey fingers slipped to her sides before curling over the panniers on her hips as if she'd been given a message to carry, something incredibly important.

It was. It was that the leader of the Decepticons was kneeling on the floor and offering her a boost with his hand. Even as short as her memory was it didn't matter. This was something she never would have thought would happen in her life. His posture was patient, but formal, and he waited but didn't move.

A quiet thought nudged through Dart's head again that this place he was in right now was one where humor slunk through and gently laughed a little at them both for how awkward it was to reach something so simple. Both of them. Not at her. Not at himself. At the situation.

That was so unexpected and so appreciated, because it was a rare moment in Dart's world lately.

Slanted blue optics eyed him for a moment from under that shaded brim of her helm.

"Yes sir," she replied, with a nod. "I will."

With that, the courier stepped forward. She lifted her foot, hesitated just a brief moment, and then swung up onto her hand, pushing off the ground. At first it was a bit of an awkward gesture, maybe as if she still didn't want to touch him, mar his clean plating with Earth grime and dust. However, her back foot didn't leave the ground either; a brace, caught between the plating of the deck and nothingness.

Then her spoiler flicked up and over her shoulders and accentuated her focus on that spot in the crates; given a job to do, a place to point at and say 'go there' the courier could focus and do just that. The posture, the pose, up you go now was coupled suddenly with a ghosting memory which she hadn't thought about in years.

Dart's lean and light frame responded with instinct; she pushed off the floor with surprising power, swung up onto the platform of his hand with smooth ease, weight on his hand...

Which wasn't much at all. In the grand Cybertronian scheme of things she weighed very little, everything about her stripped and geared to sprint and lope over rough terrain. Not fragile or delicate, perhaps, but all function and that one function she was perfectly specialized for.

Her intakes whuffled, as she balanced herself carefully. She'd managed to rest the foot not in his hand on a short ledge of crate. Immediately, the courier began to search, digging through this and that in an effort to find the adhesive, which proved to be -

Dart angled her jaw and drew the air deep, pinpointing immediately. Her nose swung to point it, and across her shoulders, her spoiler clicked forward, tips pointing to the source as well. She stretched out her arm, her body, easily shifting her weight to balance herself. It got her closer, but not close enough.

"It's up higher, unfortunately," she told him. "I can't reach it, but I can smell it, sir."

[Deleted]

Of course it was still out of reach. Megatron was mindful to suppress any sign of his mounting exasperation in his field, but it was obvious on his faceplate - mercifully hidden from Dart's view.

This whole endeavor to repair his cassette had begun as an act of goodwill, and steadily descended into ridiculousness. Asking for help to find 'sparkly tape'; actively seeking sparkly tape with someone so acutely socially awkward that it made him a little uneasy; picking up said socially awkward mecha and holding them aloft in a manner that reminded him far too much of Roulette and the helmet-finger debacle.

Megatron lifted Dart from his shoulder before straightening his arm, narrowing the gap between his helmet and chassis in the process.

She had remarkably good balance, and Megatron suspected that she could have stood perfectly straight on his hand without holding onto the shelving for support. He would rather they not test that theory, however, and kept his elevation in pace with her careful exploration of the racks as she ascended.

"How's that?" he asked when her heel was above his helm, glancing up briefly to check her progress. He kept his gaze lowered not out of some sense of propriety, but because knowing his luck he'd end up with something sharp falling into his optic.

[Dart]

Dart wasn't about to look down.

It had nothing to do with the fact that Lord Megatron was lifting her dirty filthy self up to dig through a series of crates taller than both of them. It had nothing to do with embarrassment, because really, she wasn't embarrassed about the situation as it stood; he needed her to get that tape and this was the most logical way to do it.

No, it had to do with the fact that she was trying not to shake in terror. Not because of the mech's massive talons curled by her foot.

There was nowhere to run to when you were up in the air. No way for her to escape. There very few mechs that Dart trusted to lift her up. Very, very few, and the mech here was not one of them. The only thing that was keeping her from spinning and leaping off his hand was the fact that if she brought these crates crashing down on them by her panic...

It would be an embarrassment to Pyrotech in this matter. Dart knew beyond all certainty that if that happened, he would absolutely take her behind the proverbial human woodshed.

One of these times...

As the mech below her watched, her spoiler flattened down, the tips pinning back in frantic determination. Then it twitched and lifted, the sides swinging. That was the use of that strip of metal; counterbalance for every single motion. In full gallop, the shift of it helped her make a tight turn, flattened when she leapt. Instead of using heavy weight to keep her down when she sprinted, her spoiler generated enough downforce to keep from skidding out on a straightaway.

As Lord Megatron lifted her higher, she threw every little scrap of herself into focusing on that faint scent of adhesive. Her attention narrowed down to the thinnest threads of scent; she picked apart mollecules. Grease. Oil. The last mech to touch this; was that Knock Out, or some other medic. It was a medic, there was faintest tinge of astringent cleaners, the sort used to wipe down tables after a mess.

Open bin, her fingers searched, curled around something. There. There. Yes.

The courier grabbed it, holding onto it as tight as a lifeline. "Perfect, sir," she said. "Perfect, I've got it, I've got it. Thank you, thank you, we've got it, promise."

She managed to sneak a glance the tape in her hand.

The tips of her spoiler fell.

"Er, it's not sparkly though," she apologized. "It's not even pink. Actually, it's uh, just kinda drab purple, sir. I'm sorry, do you want me to try finding a different roll? There might be another one up here."

[Deleted]

Her disappointment was palpable. Her field felt like failure - as if she now feared disappointing him, and was desperately seeking to appease him by continuing her search for the prized sparkly pink tape.

Megatron's optics tracked back from Dart's ankles, beyond her spoiler and up to the high ceiling and the strip lights that illuminated the barely-organised chaos of this parts-hell.

He wondered, in an abstract sort of way, what had become of his life that he was receiving 'not sparkly enough' as disappointing news that was also integral to his next decision.

No, he did not want to reject perfectly usable tape to continue searching for sparkly pink tape. He did not want to continue in this ludicrous vein any further.

But he did not want Fairwinds to sulk any more than she already was, and it was by his impatience and temper that she'd been damaged and necessitated this chore in the first place.

"Just..." Megatron cut himself off, literally biting back the terse words. Already Dart had tensed, and he had no desire to intimidate or alarm her further.

He shuttered his optics, ventilated a fresh pull of recycled air, and measured his tone as he spoke. "Bring down whatever you can find. The whole box, if you need. Perhaps there's something, acceptable inside."

[Dart]

"Yes sir," she replied instantly. "I'll get the box, one moment."

The courier reached for the box that was wedged in between the other ones. Briefly, she attempted to pull on it with one hand- the other was still clutching the found roll of nanite tape as if it was one of those fairground prizes you got chucking darts at innocent balloons.

The other kind of darts. Personally, she didn't want to be chucked at anything if she could help it.

Tucked in between other boxes, the container the tape was in didn't budge. The courier tugged at it again, leaning slightly back in Megatron's grip as she worried at it for a moment. Finally she realized this wasn't going to slide out one handed; in a quick motion, she lifted her wrist and slid the roll of tape over it. It slid a bit down her forearm and then stuck partway down.

Immediately, she was able to reach out with both hands and worry the box free of the tight space. Casting a wary optic up at the tall stack, she mumbled a small sigh of relief as it came loose in her grip and the rest of things stayed put where they were supposed to without tumbling down on them. Clutching it tight against her lean chest, the courier turned --

To look right down at the floor. The ship rumbled.

There might have been one fraction of a second where she froze. Maybe. Her intakes gave a whoosh-snort, the courier suddenly realized she was in the air. Up. Off the ground. The sensation hit, it snatched at everything that was common sense about not doing anything stupid in front of the Warlord and tossed it carelessly aside.

Dart spang off his hand, towards the to the deck below. All limb and leg, she landed, knees bent to hold the shock. Somehow she managed to hold the box and not spill the contents, but she had to take a quick sidestep to steady herself. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, staring at the deck-- and then back up at Megatron with obvious apology as she regained herself and held out the box of stuff she'd brought back down with her.

"Ah, here," she swallowed, struggling to regain herself. Please don't move, ship. No, move. Keep moving. Just don't move suddenly. She dug her heels into the floor and tried to come up with something else to concentrate on that was not flying. Oh boy, now you said it, no you thought it... Think, think, something. What happens if you lose yesterday's fuel on Lord Megatron's foot - oh that's bad. That's really bad. Don't do that. Think of something, Dart. Something else, ahhh--

Anything.

Weight on her wrist. The tape slid back. Dart shifted her hold on the box and looked down at it.

"Oh. Now that I can see it, sir, it's kind of a nice shade of purple," Dart murmured. She shook herself and then held her forearm politely out between them.

It really was. Like that color the Vehicons all sported, that deep indigo that shimmered in certain lights. It wasn't doing much in the stark overhead lighting of the Nemesis, but she was pretty sure that in natural light it would be flashy. "I mean, er I think it's nice maybe she will?"

[Deleted]

The nimbleness of Dart's dismount caught Megatron off-guard, and his hand remained held aloft for a second after she'd jumped before he brought it back down to his side. He listened to Dart's analysis patiently, feeling rather out of his depth on the merits of coloured tape, and shifted a little when the upward lilt of her voice turned her statement into a question.

It was illogical to ask Megatron's opinion on Fairwinds' tastes at the best of time (should that exceptionally rare circumstance when such a question was appropriate ever arise), but he could usually make an educated guess. If it was in some way ridiculous and offensive to his tastes, then she would probably approve.

Right now, Fairwinds was a particularly illogical, very clingy individual whom he had no memory-based insight into. It was only the carrier/cassette bond that had him care at all for her happiness.

That and a touch of guilt for mangling her foot in a brief fit of temper, but Megatron would always rather point to a quantum spark-bond than affection-based regret.

"I don't feel qualified to make an aesthetic evaluation," he finally admitted, tilting his head at the tape Dart was showing him like a bangle. He sighed in a long-suffering sort of way. "It isn't black, or grey, or any mundane perfunctory, which I presume is a qualifier for 'nice' in Fairwinds' mind."

The large mech held out a single hand for the tape, talons curled in a relaxed pose. "It will do. And I will put the box back."

[Dart]

The courier brought up her hand, and then put her fingers together to slide the roll of tape off of her wrist. Underneath them both, the ship's engines rumbled. The soft thrum of sound rose through the deck plating under their feet. didn't jitter or shift her weight as if she was nervous. Her frame held a moment of confidence, shoulders back, her spoiler pricked up and over her shoulders.

A missive, an item carried and handed off to a commanding officer. Something Dart knew how to do, trained into her until it was as much part of her instincts as sniffing danger. She did not shy at the curving talons that could rip through most Cybertronian metal with ease. Her hand slipped past them and set that roll of purple tape just so on the Warlord's palm.

Then she realized something. He had offered to put the box back. There was not a suggestion that she climb back up to do it. No pointed remark about her behavior, no rebuke, not even a bit of a raised brow at her leap. Instead the conversation had sidestepped gently, calmly; a tilt of his head at her offer of the tape, acceptance of the item.

That queasy roll somewhere deep in her mid-section settled and puffed out a little bit of air she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"Thank you," Dart murmured gratefully.

It was the humor though, that caught her off guard. Her smile was as quick and fast as the rest of her.

"It's totally a fair evaluation," she agreed. His sigh held a note she was oddly familiar with, and she lifted a hand in reassurance, grey fingers smudged with the dust from the boxes. "You understood perfectly, sir. It qualifies as nice. At least it would to me. Er, not that I know a lot about what's fashionable either. But it's practical and pretty. I like that. Two down, one last thing to go? What's left, I'll see if I can get a nose on a good direction..."

[Deleted]

Megatron took the tape between his claw tips and twisted his hand as he withdrew, palming the item into his subspace. Then, he set the box back roughly where it had come from. He had to reach to put it onto the shelf, the hydraulics in his arm and side stretched, and when he tapped it back there was a clunking sound as if he'd dislodged something from a neighbouring container.

No matter. The area was an organisation disaster anyway.

He took Dart's reassurance that the tape would be likable, and was glad over again that he'd fetched her out of the corridor to help. If he'd attempted all this on his own, he'd by now have certainly overturned most of the shelving units out of sheer frustration.

When Dart asked to be reminded of the final item to be found, he canted his helm to her. "A C-size strut."

Before he could speculate that a strut couldn't offer much by way of distinguishing scent particles, his comm.s chirped. They'd been reset to some degree during his repairs, and now there was a sound every time he received a transmission. It was irritating, and he hadn't thought to fiddle with it yet. In truth he was wary to lest he somehow inadvertently set his autorepair back.

"A moment," he said to Dart, then frowned when he saw who the message was from.

:: Dear Master,
I hope this message finds you well, even if you are totally brain damaged. Not zombie-level, but not at awesome operating level. You've been gone a super long time, and I was worried that you might have maybe glitched and forgot how to open doors, or opened an outside door and gone falling to your doom. Or Disney World. If you're in Disney World, I am totes jelly and want the gift shop. Btw - if you can't find the bits and bobbins for fixing my foot, I would accept a ballpit in lieu of repairs.
Lots of non-mushy, totally hardcore love,
Windy <3<3::

Megatron stared blankly for a long time, rereading the message. He had a lot of questions about the message, and his bizarre cassette in general, but only one was actually uttered by his vocaliser.

"What is a ballpit." His lips curled, exposing his teeth in a grimace. "And why would Fairwinds want one?"

[Dart]

"C-sized strut," the courier repeated, looking thoughtful. "I don't know what--"

Then as he addressed her and asked for a moment, the femme nodded. There was always that slight distance on someone's face while they took an internal comm call. Like humans on a Bluetooth or a cell-phone.

"Yes sir," she replied quickly and reset herself. Dart's hands went to the small of her back again; the courier seemed to drop into that at-attention parade stance naturally. A good eye though would know it wasn't at all natural; she appeared more comfortable when her hands were at her sides or even curled over her hip panniers. Perhaps because it was far easier to kick off into a run like that in either direction, adjust yourself, balance correctly.

The femme had obviously been well trained by someone at some point. Where she stood, how she automatically shifted out off of someone's shoulder to take the point.

It was the curl of his lip that startled her for a second.

Snarls, teeth exposed. There was a brief moment of alarm; Dart's chin tipped back slightly, exposing a clean strip of pale grey throat - but then she steadied in an instant. Nothing else; no clenched talons, no rolling up on the tips of his foot and ducking his jaw. It was not aimed at her, that flash of teeth - no, it was confusion perhaps, not anger, not preparing to lash out at an underling close just to relieve some personal stress.

Then she blinked.

"A... uh, ballpit?"

Dart cocked her head to the side, back and forth. Had she heard that right? Not the question she'd ever expected Lord Megatron to ask. Okay, not a question she'd ever expect someone to ask him so he could ask her.

Maybe it's some Cybertronian slang I've never heard about for a repair bay or a station or some secret code for some sort of weird mechanical drug, because my only frame of reference isn't right, it can't be--

"Like a human one?" she blurted before she could stop herself. Her accent touched her words, a little thicker than usual. "That a big container that's full of colored plastic balls that kids play in, well, and adults too, sometimes. Like a pool, right, but they fill pools up with water to go swimming, this is a pool you fill up with balls instead of water and go diving around in it. In your clothes. It's dry. You see them a lot at fast food places or at carnivals or playgrounds-- they're fun. To watch I mean, I er, never have jumped into one..."

Dart trailed off.

"That's the only kind I know," she admitted, shifting over her toes a bit. "Does-does it mean something else on Cybertron maybe, sir? Maybe that's what she's looking for?"

[Deleted]

Megatron's plates had flared in irritation at the message - at being checked on like some invalid that couldn't go unmonitored for more than a few minutes. Exaggerated as Fairwinds' list of possible mishaps he could have befallen was, the core concern of it was genuine and had been ruthlessly matched by Soundwave.

It was easy to hold a simmering resentment towards the mysterious mech. Fairwinds, through a combination of the cassette-carrier link and the semi-divine ability to charm at the exact edge of his patience and tolerance, was more difficult to begrudge.

"No. No, that description sounds like something that Fairwinds would want." Megatron sounded extremely wearied by this fact. He drew two claws between his optics, closing them for a moment.

Then, with a rough sigh, his shoulders dropped and the last sparks of irritation seeped out of his field. He gave Dart a sideline look, noting her waiting posture and carefully directed optics.

"Fairwinds is overly concerned by how long this is taking," he said, inclining his helm to her. "Clearly she doesn't appreciate the state of the place."

His brow plates twitched downwards in a frown, and what had been the start of a wry smile withered into an expression of embarrassed annoyance. "The ballpit was an, unusual aside. Regrettably, I'm starting to get used to them, even if I don't understand all the references."

[Dart]

"Really?" the courier echoed in surprise. It had been the right thing? She had been fully expecting an optic rolled in her general direction or even a bit of a flattened look. Usually when she cross-referenced something in the human world there was... well, there was a lot of silence and then a very firm 'not even close,' from someone around her.

Then Dart's totally unhelpful next thought was- where would you get those sized balls to fit in the ballpit? Maybe those horse ones that you threw out in the arena to amuse yearlings with or... maybe not. That would be an expensive venture. Then again, they were Decepticons, she had no doubt if they'd wanted them, they'd just steal them. That would be a heck of a mission to get sent on, one of those things you could laugh about later. No quest for energon or metal or parts, nope, we need horse Jolly Balls for a ballpit.

"Oh," she replied, and a brief touch of sympathy touched her tone as the big mech in front of her tapped his claws to the bridge of his nose. Dart wondered how many things like this he dealt with right now; were others taking advantage of his lack of memory to see how far they could take things?

No, it seemed Fairwinds would have said this anyway.

The courier lifted her head quickly. Instantly she fidgeted once more; shifting her weight. Lord Megatron didn't seem upset, but the fact that there were other folks waiting on him and they'd spent too much time -- time was her point. Carry things as fast as possible, retrieve thing, bring it back to me now.

"It's- it's pretty bad," she said quietly. "The place, I mean, not the ball pit, sir. I don't even know where you'd find a ball pit in our size though, I gu-"

The courier stopped in mid-word. Her nose had come up, her foot lifted slightly, as if she was on point. Over her shoulders, the tips of her spoiler came sharply forward, and then immediately slid back.

Less than a second later, footsteps echoed and grew increasingly louder, headed towards them. Two mechs, their strides slightly off as they picked their way through the maze of crates and supplies.

"Like I said," one of them offered in a dry and measured accent. "It's been a bit of a mess lately."

[Deleted]

Megatron had tensed in response to Dart's shifting posture, taking the cue of someone who had sensed something precious moments before he did. Where the femme merely went on alert, his vents twitched open and hydraulics stiffened with readiness to exertion.

It was ingrained in him to anticipate violence (receiving or the need to inflict) at the slightest provocation. Time and experience had trained his response to be near imperceptible, strengthening his image as insouciant, confident and impenetrable. At present, however, that long-cultivated self-discipline was not there to mask the reaction.

Two mechs - small - both with a casual stance and stride.

He looked back down to Dart and said quietly, "Let's move on." A glance at the two mechs, now stood quite still ahead of them in the narrow (to him) corridor. "Perhaps they can narrow down the location of the strut."