1.5 AR - Knaves and Rogues. (Closed)

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Having lost track of the spook inside the pod, Wheeljack turned his attention back to his work, thinking that would the end of it. As he examined the internal wiring of the thruster, the Wrecker was...displeased, to say the least, to suddenly have Rook go on, asking personal questions about him. The offer to help was appreciated but the dig into his personal business was not, no matter how politely worded.

All of a sudden, Wheeljack was reminded that he was dealing with a spook. They had the annoying habit of collecting and hoarding information people would rather keep to themselves. Who knew, maybe this whole demure thing the spook had going on was just an act.

The Wrecker didn't respond well to direct inquiries about himself. Wheeljack spoke about himself only a time of his own choosing, under circumstances he felt comfortable enough to air details of his past or his inner thoughts. Rook however had been the one to initiate this entire little encounter. That had already made most of the Wrecker shut down defensively. It had only been because he understood the feeling of missing being able to work metal, of having a workshop again and being able to exercise his old skills this way that he'd put up with Rook for so long.

The Wrecker's optics narrowed. He didn't mind Rook being here, he really didn't because he understood the necessities of war. Since signing on with the Autobots it had been rare for him to have a workspace like this. Sometimes he intruded on others, sometimes he'd shared space. And Wheeljack knew he was leaving soon, so it was reassuring to know that there would be someone who knew what to do with all his equipment and could look after it.

Wheeljack vented sharply. Now how to make all this clear without upsetting or scaring off the spook.

"Look. This space I've got going here? Its mine true, but only so long as Optimus decrees it," and was that bitterness in his voice? No, surely not? "I have no problems with sharing it, feel free to make use of anything you want, to do whatever you want. Anything that's truly mine gets stowed away on the Jackhammer, unless its too big. If you want to help out, that's great. But don't going feeling that's all you can do in here. This workshop is for the Autobots, so it'd be unfair and inefficient of me to restrict its usage when there are other trained mecha on base that can make use of it."

Wheeljack paused and glanced at the general direction of the pos and where he'd last heard Rook's voice. "That being said, I'm fine with talking shop all day long. Inquiries into my personal business are not only rude but will be soundly ignored. I'm not here to fulfill your curiosity, I'm here to work."

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Inside the pod, Rook went very still.

He'd forgotten. He would be the first to admit it was his fault; it had been an absurdly long time since he'd spoken to anyone other than a commanding officer delivering orders, another spook sniping for intel or a comptroller - long enough that he'd flat out forgotten how to speak to anyone not under those headings. From Wheeljack's response, it had caught up with him at last.

He had gotten only short, flat responses from the Wrecker since he'd crossed the door. At first he'd ascribed them to... well, to his dealing with a Wrecker, in said Wrecker's space. Now Rook had to second-guess their entire interaction, wondering if the only reason he'd not been sent packing with blaster fire at his heels was the apparent injunction from the Prime that the workshop was to be shared. All he had to go on for that reassurance was Wheeljack's word, though; he'd have to look into the records and see what they had to say about that.

It didn't change the current situation, though. By the sharp emotion in the Wrecker's voice and his equally sharp reaction to the question Rook had to conclude he'd grossly misjudged the situation; he'd had shouldered through both for the sake of his old skills, his old loves, but Wheeljack had limited his answers there to neutral commentary.

Every sense Rook had was telling him he was being played, and played for a spook, not a scientist. It was nothing new, but it was... tiring, and it was his own fault. He'd forgotten how to not be a spook, Primus knew.

He finished digging up the bypasses with the same sort of quiet care he'd have given to sabotaging a chemical purification system, and snaked out of the pod, dropping to a soundless crouch. He'd seen an empty tray before he'd gotten himself eaten by the pod, and that he went to catch, sliding the bypasses into it with utmost care.

There was nothing of his initial uncertainty in Rook's motions; he was even more noiseless than the muted patter of the bypasses rolled onto the plastic tray.

"I've bothered you while you work." There was also no hesitation to his voice, no tone to it. It was cool, bland, perfectly even. "And I've forgotten social interaction so utterly I could not even tell. I apologize." From his subspace he drew a small stick. Modeled after a human thumb drive it was as comparable to a datapad as a candle was to the sun, but their tiny size made them ideal for passing hard data undetected.

Or leaving behind calling cards. He set it lightly on the tray along with the bypasses and headed for the door; it had an old commfreq he no longer used, but monitored regularly. "If you feel I can be of use at some point, that frequency should do. Also, you can get grade A isotopes on the web. And you have the room here for a small particle accelerator. Just a thought."

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Primus on a piston...

Wheeljack's optics had narrowed to thoroughly displeased slits. He could not tell what had set Rook off, only that he had the very strong feeling that he was having one conversation and Rook another. He'd tried to make things clear without upsetting the mech, had he really seemed so annoyed at Rook? And while Wheeljack could not care less about upsetting Prime or some other command officer, he did not like the idea of someone thinking he'd told them to shut up and leave unless he'd specifically asked them. Normally he was all for not having company but everything about this situation rubbed him the wrong way. The Wrecker had made what he considered a friendly overture, he'd offered up his lab space in acknowledgment of the other mech's training only to have the offer rejected. He wasn't really looking for an assistant, Wheeljack preferred to handle his projects by himself. Partly because if they blew up in his face, at least he was limiting the damage to himself and his armour could handle it for the most part.

However...it would useful, having someone to assign the more mundane and boring tasks. Like dismantling wrecks...Rook had been a chemist, hadn't he? His skills would be useful salvaging chemicals that would be otherwise difficult to obtain on Earth, perhaps even better than Wheeljack was capable of. At Wheeljack's core, both as engineer and Wrecker, was a strong streak of pragmatism. He was not so territorial of his lab that he would ignore a useful resource, especially one that could increase efficiency.

But first-

The spook was not kidding about his inability to read social situations.

Wheeljack's optics tracked Rook's path, the small stick he left behind before the spook began to make his way out. The Wrecker made quiet note of Rook's suggestions then Wheeljack locked the door with a ping, though he doubted it'd stay shut very long for a Spec Ops agent.

"You," he growled, "are going to sit and stay and we," Primus he could not even believe he was going to say this, "are going to talk. Because something tells me that you completely misunderstood everything I just said to you. You really are terrible at reading social interactions."

The Wrecker wanted so very badly to throw something at Rook for making him crawl through this. For making him go and talk about personal matters only moments after he mentioned not wanting to discuss anything

"Let's get one thing straight. If you were bothering me in my workspace, I'd have told you to get lost without hesitation. I meant what I said, my private business remains my private business, but that is my general policy for most interactions with just about everyone who isn't a Wrecker. I'm willing to talk science all cycle long if that's what you want. Happy, even, not like there are a lot of mecha left with the training or knowledge, these cycles."

Wheeljack frowned to himself. Rook has come to him, to offer his assistance. The Wrecker wasn't certain what the mech got out of it, aside from the opportunity to put his old skills to work. Wheeljack, however, enjoyed his own independence and ability to pursue whatever project had caught his own fancy. He would not accept the spook's help unless it was clear to Rook that he wasn't limited to whatever odd jobs Wheeljack could find.

"There might be some work for me that you can do around the lab. But even if I don't have anything that I need your help on, the resources and equipment are free to use for anything you want to work on. Anytime. Just...ask if there's a machine you don’t recognise how to use, that's probably the only rule I have."

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The Wrecker had locked the door.

Rook had only to set a hand on it to become immediately aware of it. The change to the spook was instantaneous, and depending on the mech, startling in its visibility. The wispy thing that was his field, thin and barely perceivable in uncertainty and (lately) cool stress, vanished. His posture, stiff and defensive, shifted seamlessly to a sort of strutless, almost languid passivity that gave away nothing: no emotion, no thought, no signals whatsoever of what might be going through his mind. His optics dimmed, his expression went completely neutral.

But for the fact that Wheeljack likely had a direct line of sight to him, to the frame standing right there and (if he so scanned) to the spark pulsing inside it, Rook might as well not be there.

He was mentally trying to listen to what the Wrecker had to say. Rook was desperately trying to focus on those words because they were, they had to be, the only thing reminding him that he was not among enemies. The problem with that was that in the assassin's world there were no friends. Each and every one of the Autobots around him might be a spy, a traitor, a long-term infiltrator. No one was above suspicion.

No one who locked a door on him was safe company. In Rook's rather checkered education he'd never heard of the Wreckers being infiltrated - their casualty numbers were likely too high to merit it. But just because he'd never heard of it didn't mean they hadn't been. Right in that workshop. Right there. Right at that moment. Nothing good comes from a spook having a door locked on them. That's how traps go off. That's how you know you're in a cell or worse, an interrogation chamber.

It was with tremendous effort that Rook caught even part of what Wheeljack was saying. He knew he should talk, say something: delaying a confrontation was kind of Lesson 1 on survival. He could only find himself, however, after he ran a swift mental count of just how many sharp things he had stashed on his person, where, and what kind.

He took three smooth steps away from the door, but he did not turn completely back to Wheeljack, choosing instead to present the most narrow part of his profile to the Wrecker. His tone of voice had shifted to a pleasant, neutral burr, perfectly calm. "I'm sorry if I misunderstood the conversation. I'm happy to assist in the privacy of the workshop and I'm sure its resources will come in handy for my own work." Rook inwardly berated himself for having let scientific withdrawal, as it were, drop his guard. He should have never let himself think of the mech as anything but a blank slate, to be filled with his potential to become a danger to the cause.

"I will avoid touching dubious-looking equipment. Is there anything else or..." The barest tinge of something, coiled tight as a bomb's trigger, flashed through the spook's tone. "... am I allowed to leave now?"

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Wheeljack might project an air of 'No Frags Given' when it came to other Autobots but that didn't mean he was blind to the sudden tension in the room. The spook was doing his level best to turn invisible right in front of the Wrecker's optics. Was it possible to feel sympathetic stress because Wheeljack was feeling irritable just by observing the other mech in his lab. And if there was one thing he didn't appreciate, it was being made to feel antsy in his own territory.

When the spook finally spoke, Wheeljack straightened, his optics narrowing as his finely honed battle instincts caught the almost imperceptible hint of danger in Rook's neutral and incredibly bland voice.

"That's all I wanted to say," he shrugged, unlocking the door and deliberately forcing himself to relax. "You can go. I'll see you around presumably. Or not," Wheeljack added dryly. You only tended to find spooks when they wanted to be found, after all.