The Start of Something Interesting...

[lastonepercent]

The day was calm, with no recent Decepticon attacks, and none suspected to be incoming for some time.  The cons were too busy licking their wounds from the last battle, one that the Autobots had decidedly come out ahead on.  The celebrations had gone on long into the night and the recreation room was already a mess.

Thus, it was the perfect chance for a lone Autobot to slip casually outside.

Mirage had no shift currently scheduled, so he was free to spend his time as he pleased.  He certainly made no move to hide his departure, greeting his comrades in the halls on the way out, but the box in his hands remained unopened despite any passing curiosity.  It was quietly shifted into subspace before long, and  the former noble shifted into alt mode just as smoothly when he reached the doors.  Despite the completely inappropriate earthen race car mode, the mech had little trouble self-adjusting before driving off into the forest covering the mountain, for business unknown...

Comments

[cliffjumper]

"Gah!" Jerking upright and almost dropping the datapads he had, in fact, thrown against the wall (it was a good thing they were not overly fragile), Cliffjumper stared at the door in startled incomprehension at first.

It couldn't be Jazz again, right? What'd he even want, if so? Cliffjumper was pretty slagging sure it wouldn't be Bumblebee or any of the other minibots - they'd have pinged him first, and not many others would come seek him out while he was in his quarters.

Realising he was still staring at the door, Cliffjumper belatedly put the datapads in one hand and reached out to key it open, ending up staring at white and blue armour (and not the darker crotch, nope).

"Uh---" looking up to meet Mirage's optics, Cliffjumper felt the tell-tale heating up of optical components straining slightly as he blushed and scowled, looking away.

Of course it had to be Mirage.

"What'd you want?"

A moment too late he remembered to throw a glance behind Mirage (even if the Paradronian entourage doubtfully knew who was Mirage's (supposed) bonded yet) to check the corridor, but it was empty.

Probably just as well, considering the sharpness of his voice.

[lastonepercent]

Flickering back into the visible spectrum the moment before Cliffjumper opened the door, Mirage stared down at the smaller mech.

This was the 'bot he'd be stuck living and working with for the next month or so.

Primus help him.

"We need to talk," he huffed, pressing his way past the minibot into the doorway - if only to keep it from being slammed in his face.

"But not out here. Inside."

[cliffjumper]

"Hey---" Scowling, Cliffjumper scuttled aside if only not to have to be pushed aside when Mirage just barreled inside. Cliffjumper smothered the urge to throw one of his datapads at him, but if he did that, who knew if they'd be okay since he'd already tossed them once.

He didn't actually have a single thought of forcing the door closed - partly because he was too distracted and surprised, partly because... well, he wouldn't do that unless he was actually really angry.

Which he wasn't.

So with Mirage out of the doorway and Cliffjumper having hopped aside from the same, the door slid closed.

"Couldn't this have waited until tomorrow, slag it?" Cliffjumper was aware he sounded plaintive - almost but not quite whining. It wasn't hard to guess, now that he'd had half a moment to think about it, what Mirage wanted to talk about.

Well, not that he knew exactly what it was about, but it obviously had to be about going to Paradron.

As a couple.

He almost blushed again, especially when he looked back from throwing a frowning glance at the door as if it'd somehow fix everything, and looked up at Mirage.

Who was in his room.

... Why the frag did Mirage have to come talk to him here!?

[lastonepercent]

"Not really, no."

Mirage gave the hallway one last glance as the doors slid home; the room he only gave a perfunctory glance, to assure himself that no one else was inside. Curiosity could be sated later.

Staring down at Cliffjumper's glaring, flustered face for a long moment, Mirage suppressed a sigh and began.

"...So. I hear that Jazz has fully briefed you on the...situation?"

[cliffjumper]

"Yeah, he did, so you ain't got anything to fraggin' worry about, I already said I'd do it!" Cliffjumper grumbled and stomped across the room to put the datapads down on the desk. He then shuffled them around until the one he'd been given by Jazz was beneath the other one.

Not from any sense of that he should hide even vaguely sensitive material, but rather because he didn't want Mirage to know it was there. For some reason. Also the fact that the mech could now see what his room looked like (despite that it hardly looked much different from anyone else's) made him want to squirm.

"So if that's what ya wanted to ask about..." Cliffjumper shrugged and wasn't sure if he'd rather have wanted that Jazz make it an actual order instead of just threatening it.

A potential month, living with Mirage? On an alien, possibly hostile planet?

... On the bright side, maybe his crush would finally get squashed by getting to know Mirage better.

[lastonepercent]

"Actually, that isn't why I'm here."

Mirage raised an optic ridge at Cliffjumper's reaction. "Jazz already told me you agreed, after all."

And he wasn't blind to the thought of what Jazz probably did to get Cliffjumper to agree, but the agreement was still there. And now Mirage had to plan around it. He gave Cliffjumper a long look.

"I've...come by, because we now need to figure out how we will be going about this."

[cliffjumper]

He couldn't quite help the grimace when Mirage mentioned the whole thing as well, and briefly he wondered if Jazz would've told Mirage how it had gone down... but no, he wouldn't do that.

"You... what for?" Cliffjumper looked up at Mirage, optics flickering a little in his confusion. He felt, vaguely, like he wanted to be annoyed or frustrated, but since he couldn't even figure out what Mirage meant, what was necessary for them to figure out, Cliffjumper just frowned.

They had to act like a couple, what else was there to figure out?

... Well, besides him having to spend at least a week and up to a month playing at something he wanted but couldn't have. It was almost enough to make him flush with frustrated embarrassment.

[lastonepercent]

Mirage stared for a long moment, internally shaking his head and trying not to be annoyed. Cliffjumper was not special operations - it wasn't fair to expect him to know what he needed to do and how to prepare for such a mission.

But that didn't mean he was immune to the aggravation.

"Planning? You do realize we need to come up with our supposed story ahead of time, correct? We cannot make up the lies and 'history' on the fly, Cliffjumper."

[cliffjumper]

To be honest, Cliffjumper wasn't just not special operations, he also sometimes needed things to be spelled out for him.

"Planning..?" Staring up at Mirage, even if what the mech was saying now made sense, Cliffjumper suddenly felt ill and had to resist the urge to yell at Mirage to just get out.

Or storm out of the (his own) room himself.

"... Fine," Cliffjumper said, growling out the single word as he substituted stomping out to to stomp across the room to throw himself to sit on the berth. Not that he wanted to sit on the berth with Mirage in here, but he wanted even less Mirage to sit on it.

That was just inviting trouble - trouble his processor was already latching to with an eagerness that was just shamefully embarrassing.

"I guess you should sit down," Cliffjumper said, jerking his hand to the chair at the desk. It was adjustable, so all Mirage had to do for it to fit him was to adjust the height setting.

Cliffjumper and the other minibots had been relieved the Ark had those "amenities", mostly because as the war went on, they became less and less usual when resources dwindled or just got harder to access because the other faction was fighting just as hard to get at them or stop them from accessing or processing them.

[lastonepercent]

"...Thank you."

Startled- but pleased by the easy agreement, Mirage carefully took the offered seat. It only took a moment to adjust, and Mirage was pleasantly surprised to find an adjustable seat at all in a minibot's apartment. It would be rather undignified to be giving this discussion with his knees up by his face, squashed into a mini-scaled chair. Once they were both settled, he began.

"Now then. In my experience, the easiest lie to keep is one that isn't a lie at all - or is, at least, as close to the truth as possible. With your...inexperience in this, it would be for the best. The fewer lies to accidentally get tangled in, the better."

He waved a hand erratically, implying the general explosion that could result.

"Now, we certainly don't need to go into exaggerated detail, but covering the basic facts that may come up in conversation - where we met, how long ago, why we -ahem- 'bonded', a few mutual hobbies, etc - should suffice. Do you understand?"

[cliffjumper]

He really didn't want to have this discussion.

Mirage's gratitude slithered down somewhere, and Cliffjumper wasn't sure if he was pleased by it, or if it was just acid in a wound at this point, and briefly looked away.

He really, really didn't want to have this discussion, which became even more clear when Mirage elaborated. These were not things he wanted to have to hash out artificially, and it felt sort of mocking.

Not that Mirage meant it that way.

"Yeah, sure," Cliffjumper said with a huff, and then had to bite his lower lip and reset his vocaliser in the hope to control the snappishness of his tone. They sort of needed to be on good terms with each other, and it wasn't like he wanted Mirage to dislike him even more just because he apparently couldn't be reasonable.

"Don't see why we can't just go with how we actually met," Cliffjumper said with a frown, crossing his arms over his chestplating, "sure, that ain't very long ago, but I don't see how it matters."

Well "not very long ago" was still over four million years ago, considering their "nap", but if Mirage wanted them to keep as close to the truth as possible... keeping their meeting from when the Ark mission first was assembled should be a pretty good place, right?

There was even two vorns between that and the Ark actually taking off to use as basis for their... relationship.

[lastonepercent]

Surprisingly, Mirage actually smiled faintly, though the gesture was somewhat wry.

"Exactly. I admit, I'm surprised you remember-" Mirage was surprised he himself remembered - "but yes, we can."

Even if their first meeting seemed to set the tone of their future interactions: bumping into each other constantly on their shared patrol, ending in conflict before the shift was even over...

"They already 'know' we...don't always see optic-to-optic. Such a start seems fitting enough. Which should nicely cover up any disputes we may have within their hearing."

[cliffjumper]

"As if I could forget," Cliffjumper muttered, looking away not so much from annoyance as to avoid that smile. Wry or not, it was embarrassing how much he liked the expression on Mirage's face.

It softened up the narrow angles - Mirage was handsome, yes, but it was also a very clean, distant sort of beauty. Smiling made him seem a bit more... approachable.

Real?

Cliffjumper grimaced and shook his helm.

Frag it all.

"I know some people would think it'd be fraggin' hilariously ironic." He refused to say 'romantic'.

[lastonepercent]

Really now? Wasn't that...surprising. And a little disheartening. But really, the spy shouldn't have expected anything less. The mech had seemed to have it out for him for some time, after all...

"Quite so," Mirage agreed with a shrug. "So it should work in our favor." He decided to leave the rather painful discussion of 'bonding' for last. He pulled out a datapad, deciding to take notes just in case.

"Hobbies, then? I suppose we can compare a list and come up with something shareable."

[cliffjumper]

Mirage would probably feel less... disheartened if he knew why the meeting had stuck with Cliffjumper. Or rather, how the reason it'd stuck had changed.

Of course, Cliffjumper also wouldn't want him to know.

"Ugh..." shifting on the berth, Cliffjumper scowled at the floor and didn't at all like the warm awkwardness that bubbled up. He didn't want to talk to Mirage about this.

Not because it was particularly embarrassing or anything (well, hopefully), but because it was such an awkward way to share interests.

And not for any fun reason, either.

"... racing," Cliffjumper finally said, still staring at the floor. That was something safe to start with. No way for Mirage to judge him for that one.

"Wresting, though I doubt ya like that one," Cliffjumper shrugged - he knew it was mostly a minibot thing, "Action, adventure and... uh. Mystery holos..."

Trailing off, Cliffjumper was now staring very hard at the floor, and couldn't help the blush. He even liked the type of action favoured by the military coded mechs - but mostly for the energy of them, they very quickly got... a bit too real, even for Cliffjumper.

Mystery, however... He'd quickly found human 'mystery' books or movies weren't quite the same as cybertronian ones, where there was a seamless blend of thriller, who-dunnit type of plot (though quite often with a different thrust than murder, which seemed very popular among humans), treasure-hunts and similar things.

He was also pretty aware most people didn't think him the type to like that sort of thing. Cliffjumper had quite often been vaguely relieved he didn't like the more relation-centered ones (once again, a blend of what humans would consider different genres) between romance, drama-focused slice-of-life and very often workplace-focused holos.

[lastonepercent]

"Racing is a good place to start. I certainly can't argue against that," Mirage gestured down at his own racing frame, amused.

He made a note on his datapad, trying not to make a face at the idea of wrestling outside of combat for fun. That one was probably not for him.

The others, though...

"'Mystery holos'?" He probably sounded more incredulous than intended, but he perked up noticeably in interest.

"Any in particular?"

[cliffjumper]

Racing was, really, an extremely safe option, regardless of whether the interest lay in participating or watching, amateur or professional races - nearly any given cybertronian (well, except the aerials) would have an interest in it, and Cliffjumper flashed a brief, lopsided grin at Mirage's comment.

The incredulity after that was enough to make him look away with a scowl and squirm though, optics brightening in embarrassment.

"Do ya actually need to know that?" Cliffjumper muttered, not sure how to take the apparent interest. The worst thing after being judged for liking it would be finding a shared interest and then ending up revealing he liked movies Mirage didn't.

Reluctantly, though, the recounted a few of the ones he liked and one of his favourites. He wasn't going to give them all up, because this was embarrassing enough.

"What about you?" Cliffjumper glanced back at Mirage, pushing the question over to him not just to put the spotlight off him, but also because he was curious.

Of course, most of the things Mirage liked would probably not be things they shared. Or could share, given the differences in background and (former) class.

[lastonepercent]

"Why not?" Mirage countered, helm tilting. "Perhaps I might want to see if I have already viewed them, or may want to watch them in the future?"

He shrugged casually, hiding any feelings of insult behind politeness, before gesturing down at himself.

"Me? Well... Racing as well, of course. I prefer racing on the hunt, but that... isn't something that is much of an option these days - unless a Decepticon is involved." His smirk was wry and a little vicious at the thought, before smoothing back out.

"In my not very considerable free time, I enjoy rereading and viewing some of the classics, both Golden Age and...newer fare. Mostly drama and serials."

Another shrug, though Mirage wasn't quite meeting Cliffjumper's optics. He didn't really want to confess his undying love for the Cybertronian equivalent of 'soap operas', but it was something a dear lover would honestly know, more the pity.

At least he was not alone. He knew for a fact Optimus followed them just as religiously, and they both occasionally met up to watch (and violently critique) the unofficial continuations the more dramatically inclined Autobots in other bases filmed independently.

[cliffjumper]

"I guess," Cliffjumper said, still giving Mirage a narrow look. He wasn't sure he believed him, but if he was being serious? Well that was... well, it'd be interesting if they actually shared some interests, wouldn't it?

The racing thing wasn't unexpected, though the particular way of it... Cliffjumper would've said something, except that that brief flash of viciousness caught him and he ended up staring.

Since he was already staring, he did catch Mirage not quite meeting his optics, and while there was an ugly little flare of smugness that Mirage had, probably, similar feelings of not wanting to reveal certain things, it was also just... nice, that Mirage had things he felt the same way about.

He couldn't quite help raising his optic ridges at first, but then he snorted and grinned faintly.

"Well, you ain't alone in that on the ship. Not my favourite thing though. Too much... drama." He waggled a hand to try an encompass what he meant. Complications, more like. It was enough to make him frustrated, the times he tried to sit down for Bumblebee's sake. He preferred his plot-related obstacles to come from outside sources, not from people.

"... and hey, maybe they've got fox huntin' on Paradron, if that's what ya... uh, meant," Cliffjumper added after a moment, looking up at Mirage and then glancing away, feeling decidedly awkward for having suggested it.

[lastonepercent]

Well. At least it seemed like Cliffjumper wouldn't hold his viewing preferences against him. Surprise, surprise!

"Fictional drama is so satisfying, though!" Mirage argued, amused. Much better than the real thing, that couldn't be escaped from or caused lingering problems when the slag hit the fans.

He perked up in surprise at Cliffjumper's suggestion, both at the idea and the person who suggested it.

"...now that is something to look forward to," Mirage said with a smile.

[cliffjumper]

He'd only hold them against Mirage on the ground that he couldn't get what the attraction was in general, but that was the same sort of thing he had against Bee liking it as well.

"If you say so..." Cliffjumper said, shaking his helm, "Bee says the same." He just didn't get it. It didn't matter who it was who liked them, to Cliffjumper it was all incomprehensible. But it wasn't something you could judge someone for, really... He knew they were popular.

But on the other hand it wasn't odd that Mirage was feeling somewhat embarrassed over having to admit it, either, considering who he was.

Looking back at Mirage when he spoke again, mostly for the tone he used, Cliffjumper was drawn into a smile, and surprised to find himself smiling, but Mirage looked happy, and he was pleased he'd been right to point it out when the thought popped up.

"That's... er, good." And then he looked away again, blushing briefly and flustered that he blushed because frag it all, there was no reason to do that!

"Anything else we need to figure out?" Better to say something than sit there in awkward embarrassment.

[lastonepercent]

Chuckling, Mirage nonetheless shook his head.

"I'm sorry, but it's hardly that simple."

He made a note on his datapad, ticking his way down a list.

"We should go into more detail about things we may supposedly enjoy together. Various holos may do the trick, but we should probably find others. And we will have to go into the nature of your...sensitivity eventually."

And their supposed bonding. He wasn't yet sure which would be the most difficult.

"But for now: you do go to the shooting range often, yes?"

[cliffjumper]

Grimacing at Mirage's very unwelcome denial of things being over and the mention of his... 'sensitivity' again, Cliffjumper huffed and leaned back, crossing his arms over his chestplates.

"Uh... yeah?" then, pausing, Cliffjumper scowled and looked away before he met Mirage's optics again, expression mulish but strangely insistent, "it ain't the only thing I do to relax, but it... helps, ya know? And I'm trainin' at the same time, so..."

He hated the digs where people thought he loved weapons so much he lived in the shooting range or had no other ways to unwind. He wasn't sure if Mirage was of that opinion as well, so he wasn't... quite defensive, just a bit frustrated.

He didn't actually like guns much. He liked the big ones because they could finish battles far more quickly in his opinion, and he liked that he could defend himself and others and was determined to do so, and while he probably would never feel comfortable again without a gun nearby... he wasn't precisely obsessed with them either.

"And why go we even gotta talk about my... sensitivity?" pure confusion, if a bit grumpy, as Cliffjumper looked to Mirage, helm tilting, "it ain't like it matters more than that it's what's needed for you to be slaggin' bonded according to the religious nuts."

[lastonepercent]

"Because it will come up, whether we like it or not. We can delay the discussion, but we will have to go over it before we ship out on this mission, just to be on the safe side."

Mirage wanted to deal with it now, but pushing Cliffjumper too much all at once seemed like a bad idea; so he shrugged and let it pass for the moment.

"And shooting is another thing we can 'share'. As you seem to know about turbofox hunting, it should be little surprise that I enjoy keeping my aim sharp. The range is good- hunting would be better. Even if there are no turbofoxes involved."

[cliffjumper]

He grimaced again at that, but the implicit promise that talking about that could wait a bit was enough to make some of the tension in Cliffjumper's frame bleed out. Sure, they couldn't postpone all of the (other) difficult topics to right before they left or something, but at least that one shouldn't be an issue, right?

"Well, that and we are in a slaggin' war," Cliffjumper couldn't help but comment, rolling his optics. Mirage might never have been too enthusiastic about it, but he'd done his part, and especially on Earth he'd certainly had to participate in full-on battlefield combat.

"Not that I know much 'bout fox huntin', but I guess we..." had to pause there, forcing his field to still over the flustered wiggle it wanted to do when he said 'we'. There was no we, except for this... this pretend thing, so that his stupid fragging frame would react like that...

Somewhere, there was that sick twist inside, and Cliffjumper pushed it away and shook his helm.

"Uh, I mean, could've been doin'... something, like it? We've got a lot of space 'round the Ark, after all." Shrugging, Cliffjumper frowned. He'd never understood why fox hunting would be one of the things the nobles kept secret.

It wasn't the only thing, of course, and there were probably a lot most people didn't even know the nobles kept very quiet about their traditions and whatever else slag, but you'd have to have been newly sparked to not know about nobles and turbofox hunting.

Not that anyone, and of course not Cliffjumper either, knew more than that. He wasn't even sure if he should feel annoyed about it, or if he should think it was terrible... so he usually settled on his usual vague disdain over the nobles.