Oracle 2/?
So yeah. Chromia didn't co-operate for this part. I kept having to insert and re-write bits to smooth out her personality. But I got my revenge on her by writing an interlude for her for farther into the fic. *muhahahaha*
Anyways. Feel free to point out any errors. Or comment on how uneven Chromia's character is. Or Ironhide's inconsistent accent.
Title: Oracle
Chapter: 2/?
Rating: T
Setting: Bayverse, pre-earth
Pairings/Characters: Ironhide/Chromia (sort of)
Summary: Ironhide really hated his job somedays. Mostly because he usually went above and beyond what was required of him, just because he felt he should.
---
"Alright. If we're gonna do this, you're gonna hafta learn some stuff before we get back to Iacon," Ironhide said later that day, as they paused for a rest inside a hollowed-out building, sitting on some of the remains of the upper floors and ceiling.
"You mentioned that, yes. Are we to begin now, then?" the newly-dubbed Chromia asked softly, and Ironhide nodded.
"Sooner the better," he said. "First off - y'gotta stop speaking like that. One word outta you and nobody would slaggin' believe you were in any security force, let alone Kaon's."
"How then should I speak?" she asked curiously.
"Drop the formal stuff. Use contractions. Slang. Smaller words over bigger ones. Curse, if you can," Ironhide listed off. "And you need to be fraggin' louder - more assertive." Chromia looked a bit overwhelmed.
"I a- I'm not certain how -" she stopped, frowning, and Ironhide gave her an amused look. "I don't know if I can do that." Her voice wasn't as soft, and the tone was definitely less formal.
"That was a good start. And ya don't need to be perfect," Ironhide said. "You just need to be good enough to fool everybody. You prob'ly don't even need to change everything I mentioned, so long as ya get two or three." Chromia thought about it, then nodded.
"I'll do my best," she replied.
"Good," Ironhide said, then pushed himself up from his seat. "We should get going. We'll talk about combat as we go." Chromia followed him, silently listening as he launched into a lecture on combat. He didn't know how much of it she understood, but she listened at least, and would occasionally ask a question. When they stopped for the night, he pulled out his spare rifle and handed it to her. She held it like it was going to spontaneously explode on her, and Ironhide couldn't help but snicker.
"It ain't gonna bite ya," he said. "Weapons are nothin' more than tools - and tools only do what you make them do."
"I have never handled a weapon before," Chromia replied, uncertainly tightening her grip on the weapon - she was still holding it entirely wrong, though.
"Wrong. You've handled a weapon for vorns," Ironhide corrected her. "And you're gonna have to be able to show it through actions, which means you're gonna need to be comfortable with them. You get to carry that rifle for the rest of the trip back to Iacon, where we can get you proper combat upgrades. They're gonna wonder why you don't already have them, but I think we can swing a story about you bein' injured when the 'Cons took Kaon, and getting repaired by neutrals. It'll help with the story of us bein' bonded - if you've been in stasis lock for the last little while, I wouldn't have be able to find ya."
"With the events at the Temple, however, you were able to come look for me when I finally woke up," Chromia supplied the rest, nodding in satisfaction. Ironhide frowned, eyeing her. He had a sneaking suspicion that she'd known the rest of the explanation from looking into the future. He couldn't tell for certain, though, so he nodded - he didn't care if she used her gift, after all. He just cared if she started spouting off about what she saw and blew her cover.
"'Xactly," he said.
"You are right, this cover does practically write itself," Chromia commented.
"Yes, well, all the better for us," Ironhide grunted. "Now. This is how you hold a rifle." They spent a few hours going over the proper grip on the rifle, as well as how a seasoned security officer would have relaxed that grip. Chromia still acted as if the rifle was going to explode sometimes, but that was ok - she had time to learn. Though Ironhide was grateful that he'd flipped the safety on without her noticing when he'd handed it to her, otherwise she would have shot him several times that night.
After a few breems he decided they'd done enough for the night, and suggested she go recharge as he set up his usual net of proximity sensors. By the time he finished, she was already deep in recharge, and he grunted slightly. A light form like hers, used to sitting in a temple all day and running off triple-refined energon - she'd probably been running on empty. Laying down a fair distance away - he didn't want a repeat of the night before - Ironhide got comfortable before slipping into recharge himself.
---
When Ironhide woke the next morning, it wasn't to his alarm, or to the alert of the sensors. Something inside of him ached, and looking over at Chromia, he knew what it was. She was shuddering in her recharge, and through the bond, he could sense that she was distressed. Frowning, he got up and went over to her. He'd heard of mechs and femmes that saw things in their recharge - mostly the ones with something traumatic in their past. Chromia had certainly had a very recent traumatic experience, but considering who she was and the war going on around them, it was just as possible she was seeing the future. Either way, it was disturbing her recharge, and unsettling him, so he shook her gently. Her optics snapped on almost immediately, glancing around widely before locking on him.
"Ironhide!" Said mech suddenly found himself with arms full of femme as Chromia latched onto him.
"Easy there," he rumbled as he tentatively wrapped his arms around her. He was used to soothing upset femmes from his time on the security forces, but disconcerted by this being one he knew for once. "Everythin's fine, no need to be upset." He murmured calming statements like that for the next few minutes until she calmed down. When her grip on him relaxed, he let go, sitting back and pulling two cubes out of subspace. "Here," he handed one to Chromia, and she took it gratefully.
"Thank you," she said, and from the look she gave him, he knew she wasn't just thanking him for the energon. He just shrugged uncomfortably - he could comfort an upset femme, sure, but he wasn't good with anything after that. They drank their energon in silence, and then Ironhide went and dismantled his sensor net before they headed out - after he reminded Chromia to grab the rifle she'd been about to leave behind.
An eerie silence had fallen between them then, making Ironhide uncomfortable. He held out for as long as he could, then started talking about weapons again. When they stopped for lunch, he had Chromia take a few practice shots with her rifle - she missed horribly. Ironhide frowned, hoping she learned quickly. The most important part was getting her comfortable with weapons, but he really didn't want to go back to Iacon before she could at least shoot straight. He had enough energon for the two of them for a few weeks, but he didn't relish the thought of letting his friends worry that he was dead for that long. By now, the massacre at the Temple would have been discovered, and though the Autobots would know from the lack of a giant smoking crater that he was still alive, they'd have no idea what happened to him.
In the afternoon, Ironhide simply talked to Chromia, forgoing combat as he tried to get her to practice speaking more normally. Since her experiences were entirely in the Temple, he had her tell him about the funniest predictions she'd ever been asked to make, and the silliest things she'd ever seen in the future. She was a bit reticent at first, but gradually warmed to the topic, and was constantly correct her language as she went, much to Ironhide's satisfaction.
"One thing I'm not sure I'll get the hang of," she said near the end of the day. "Cursing. I simply do not - don't understand it. Why add extra words that do nothing but offend? Why not just...be creative with your word choices?"
"By all means, be creative, too," Ironhide said with a chuckle. "But cursing ain't about offending, usually - it's about adding feeling to your statement. 'Pit no' has a whole lot more feeling to it than just 'no'. Sure, ya could also say 'not even if Megatron had his fusion cannon pointed at my spark', but it doesn't have the same umph." Chromia frowned.
"I still don't understand," she said.
"Alright. How badly do ya not understand?" Ironhide said.
"What do you mean?" she asked in confusion.
"Do ya still not understand, or do ya still not fraggin' understand?" Ironhide asked, and Chromia considered that.
"I still don't fragging understand," she finally said, then seemed disconcerted at what she'd just said. Ironhide chuckled.
"You'll get used to it. Whenever you want to emphasize something, just add a fragging curse in," he said. Silence for a few moments.
"I should probably ask you what some decent curses are, then," she said finally, and Ironhide stopped, gaping at her. "What? Voices are never clear in my visions, and who would dare to curse around the Oracle? Except you, of course. I'm not sure you even thought about it." She looked amused at that.
"Nope," Ironhide confirmed with a chuckle, and they continued walking as he began listing off every curse word he knew. She listened in fascination, asking for definitions when she didn't immediately get them, and often trying them out in simple statements or phrases to be sure she understood how to use them. Ironhide found himself amused - he'd never had such a serious, curse-filled discussion before.
They ran into a bit of a problem when he got to using Primus or Unicron as a curse, though.
"I will not use them that way," she said firmly. "It is disrespectful."
"It's pretty common these days," Ironhide said.
"Yes, and believe me, I am not please about it," she said, optics flashing.
"I thought you didn't get to hear many curses around the Temple?"
"The priests talk, and using the divines' names as a curse is one of the issues they have - had - been debating hotly recently. Most of them wanted to publicly condemn it, but others argued that they wouldn't be able to stop it anyways," Chromia said irritably.
"Alright. Most mechs have a favourite curse - ain't too strange to have one you'd refuse to use," Ironhide conceded.
"And you are not to use their names that way, either," Chromia added, and Ironhide spluttered.
"Like frag!" he protested.
"If you are to be my guardian, then I don't want you speaking disrespectfully of the divine," she insisted.
"I ain't gonna change the way I curse for ya, femme," Ironhide said irritably. There were limits to how far he would go - he'd already given up a rather large potential chunk of his life for Chromia.
"I'm changing the very way I speak and act. It's only fair that you return at least part of the gesture," she said with a glare.
"I've been usin' their names as I please fer forever, the others will notice," Ironhide snapped.
"The slag they will," Chromia retorted, and looked momentarily pleased at her correct usage of the curse before plowing on. "I very much doubt any of your friends are observant enough to notice when you stop using a particular curse."
"You never know," Ironhide growled, glaring at her as he thought of Prowl.
"I do," she said firmly, with such certainty in her voice that Ironhide knew she'd thoughtfully checked the future to see.
"I thought I told you to stop spitting out the words of Primus," he said, stopping short and glaring at her, irritated.
"I did not 'spit' them out, and what does it matter when we're the only ones around?" she retorted.
"It matters cuz you're gonna get used to doing it, and then you're gonna slip up in front of someone else," Ironhide growled. "You can't afford even one slip."
"I will not slip up," she said.
"Yeah? And how do you know? And don't you fraggin dare look," he said, glaring. She glared back defiantly.
"I'll look if I want to, you can't stop me," she said.
"No, but if you keep mouthin' off about the future, I will be forced to take action," he warned.
"Like whaaaa -" Chromia's yelp was cut off as the vocalizer suppressor Ironhide had just slapped on her throat took effect. The device was a leftover from his security forces kit, and had turned out to be just as useful in a war as it had been in law enforcement. Chromia glared at him, trying to pry the device off - futile, as it could only be removed by transmitting an encoded sequence that only he knew.
~I thought you said I needed to practice speaking differently.~
Ironhide growled as he realized he'd forgotten about the sparkbond, and did his best to block it.
"Your speech ain't gonna matter if you give start talking 'bout the future and blow yer cover," Ironhide snapped. He heard her try to continue arguing over the sparkbond, but he ignored her. "Now, when you're ready to promise that you won't pop out any more pretty little predictions, I'll take that off, but not until then." They stood there, glaring at each other, for several long minutes. Finally, grudgingly, Chromia nodded, and her voice drifted through the bond they shared, even with his blocking.
~I promise,~ she said, sounding sulky. Satisfied, Ironhide transmitted the code to removed the suppressor, catching it as it fell away from her neck.
"That is a vile device," she spat.
"Useful when you're dealin' with someone glitching out, though," Ironhide said flatly, then continued walking. Behind him, he heard Chromia put her new knowledge of curses to good use.
---
"It occurs to me that I should thank you," Chromia announced out of the blue the next morning, as they set out for the day.
"Fer what?" Ironhide asked, somewhat surprised at the chosen topic - they'd been ignoring each other since their argument the day before. Apparently Chromia wanted to smooth things over, however.
"For agreeing to be my guardian," she explained. "You didn't have to. You could have left us, me, there."
"Like frag," Ironhide said with a snort. "I ain't no 'Con, to leave defenseless mechs and femmes to die when I could do something about it."
"But you couldn't do anything about it," Chromia said softly, and Ironhide stopped abruptly, turning to give her a hard look.
"See, that's something I don't understand. You can see the future - you had ta know what was gonna happen, and those priests hung on yer every word. They didn't do a slagging thing until you spoke up," Ironhide said. "So why didn't ya speak up earlier? Why didn't ya help me get them all outta there before the fragging 'Cons showed up?" Chromia looked away, her optics dimming.
"When I look into the future, I see one of two things," she said. "What might be, or what will be. What will be is simple, easy - the decisions leading to that future have already been made, the path has already been set. This war was destined to happen from the moment the last one ended, for example. No prediction I could make could stop it. What might be, on the other hand, is...difficult. When I see futures that are not yet set, I must find the decisions that will turn them one way or another, and the factors that might effect those decisions, in order to make an accurate prediction. When you came to the Temple, there were a multitude of 'might be's. I could not make a prediction off so many possibilities - I had no idea what would result from anything I said."
"But when things got down ta the wire, yer options lessened," Ironhide concluded thoughtfully, and Chromia nodded, looking back at him.
"Perhaps I could have spoken sooner, saved some of my priests, but..." she trailed off, smiling faintly.
"But...?" Ironhide asked when Chromia didn't continue.
"Forgive me. There are some futures I keep to myself, even after they are set," she said with a sudden grin, then started walking again. Ironhide snorted, but headed after her, correcting her path as she starting heading the wrong way, and striking up a conversation to help her work on her speech pattern. With her limited experiences, it was difficult to find anything other than her predictions that she could talk about at length, and Ironhide had had enough of that topic for the day, but eventually he found something for them to talk about - the shenanigans of the priests.
"They really were qu - slagging ridiculous," Chromia said with a shake of her head. "They liked to put on this front of serious, religious mechs and femmes, but in the back rooms of the Temple, where no one but they could see..." She chuckled. "Pranks, gossip, drama - sometimes I would think that they were there more to keep me from being bored than to be my guardians."
"How so?" Ironhide asked with amusement.
"Well, for one thing, they weren't celebate," Chromia said dryly, and Ironhide spluttered.
"But, with the bond -" He stared in shock.
"Yes, interfacing with a group sparkbond was a bit...interesting," Chromia said with amusement, then frowned. "Also a bit frustrating for me. They could block each other out, but they could never block me. I don't think they ever realized it, either, or they may have become celebate after all."
"So every time yer priests started exchanging data packets, you felt it," Ironhide said incredulously.
"In vivid detail," Chromia said dryly.
"An' you never jumped one'a em?" Ironhide asked, still not quite able to believe it.
"I was the Oracle. I couldn't," Chromia replied.
"Primus, femme, that's some slaggin' amazin' self-control," he said with a shake of his head.
"Language," Chromia just replied.
"Yeah yeah, whatever," Ironhide said dismissively. "What else did they get up to, besides crossing circuits?"
"Well, there was a nest of turbo-foxes in the gardens somewhere, and some of the priests had a way with the creatures -" Chromia began, and from there, launched into story after story of ridiculous hijinks. Ironhide was guffawing for most of the day, and most importantly, Chromia's speech pattern slowly began to even out. A touch of the formal tone was still there, but it was enough to pass as her unique way of speaking, and not to give people trouble thinking of her as a security officer.
In the evening, Ironhide decided it was time to get serious about improving Chromia's combat skills. An hour of target practice later, they were both frustrated at her lack of progress, and gave up for the night. Their frustration carried over into the next day, and they found themselves bickering as they walked - Ironhide trying to give helpful advice about their practice the night before, Chromia trying to explain the problems she'd been having, neither doing much of either. They didn't get far that day, between the bickering and the constant pauses for a physical demonstration - which served to only make Chromia more sour, as she usually ended up on her aft during them.
"This is ridiculous," she grumbled when they finally stopped for the evening. "You can't expect me to learn to fight like a seasoned security officer in a week."
"Y'just need to know enough to fool them initially," Ironhide snapped in reply. "If you can get that down, I can teach you the rest in private at the base."
"Why? Are they going to demand to see me fight before they let me on the base or something?" Chromia asked sarcastically.
"A fighter moves differently than a civilian," Ironhide growled. "Most of them might not notice, but Prowl's a master of Diffusion - he'll spot the discrepancy in a nanoclick."
"Oh, great, so I have to fool a master of a discipline known to focus around observing the moves of your opponent," Chromia said. "That should be no problem, hey, a week might actually be more than I need to learn to do that." Ironhide growled, but chose not to reply.
Anyways. Feel free to point out any errors. Or comment on how uneven Chromia's character is. Or Ironhide's inconsistent accent.
Title: Oracle
Chapter: 2/?
Rating: T
Setting: Bayverse, pre-earth
Pairings/Characters: Ironhide/Chromia (sort of)
Summary: Ironhide really hated his job somedays. Mostly because he usually went above and beyond what was required of him, just because he felt he should.
---
"Alright. If we're gonna do this, you're gonna hafta learn some stuff before we get back to Iacon," Ironhide said later that day, as they paused for a rest inside a hollowed-out building, sitting on some of the remains of the upper floors and ceiling.
"You mentioned that, yes. Are we to begin now, then?" the newly-dubbed Chromia asked softly, and Ironhide nodded.
"Sooner the better," he said. "First off - y'gotta stop speaking like that. One word outta you and nobody would slaggin' believe you were in any security force, let alone Kaon's."
"How then should I speak?" she asked curiously.
"Drop the formal stuff. Use contractions. Slang. Smaller words over bigger ones. Curse, if you can," Ironhide listed off. "And you need to be fraggin' louder - more assertive." Chromia looked a bit overwhelmed.
"I a- I'm not certain how -" she stopped, frowning, and Ironhide gave her an amused look. "I don't know if I can do that." Her voice wasn't as soft, and the tone was definitely less formal.
"That was a good start. And ya don't need to be perfect," Ironhide said. "You just need to be good enough to fool everybody. You prob'ly don't even need to change everything I mentioned, so long as ya get two or three." Chromia thought about it, then nodded.
"I'll do my best," she replied.
"Good," Ironhide said, then pushed himself up from his seat. "We should get going. We'll talk about combat as we go." Chromia followed him, silently listening as he launched into a lecture on combat. He didn't know how much of it she understood, but she listened at least, and would occasionally ask a question. When they stopped for the night, he pulled out his spare rifle and handed it to her. She held it like it was going to spontaneously explode on her, and Ironhide couldn't help but snicker.
"It ain't gonna bite ya," he said. "Weapons are nothin' more than tools - and tools only do what you make them do."
"I have never handled a weapon before," Chromia replied, uncertainly tightening her grip on the weapon - she was still holding it entirely wrong, though.
"Wrong. You've handled a weapon for vorns," Ironhide corrected her. "And you're gonna have to be able to show it through actions, which means you're gonna need to be comfortable with them. You get to carry that rifle for the rest of the trip back to Iacon, where we can get you proper combat upgrades. They're gonna wonder why you don't already have them, but I think we can swing a story about you bein' injured when the 'Cons took Kaon, and getting repaired by neutrals. It'll help with the story of us bein' bonded - if you've been in stasis lock for the last little while, I wouldn't have be able to find ya."
"With the events at the Temple, however, you were able to come look for me when I finally woke up," Chromia supplied the rest, nodding in satisfaction. Ironhide frowned, eyeing her. He had a sneaking suspicion that she'd known the rest of the explanation from looking into the future. He couldn't tell for certain, though, so he nodded - he didn't care if she used her gift, after all. He just cared if she started spouting off about what she saw and blew her cover.
"'Xactly," he said.
"You are right, this cover does practically write itself," Chromia commented.
"Yes, well, all the better for us," Ironhide grunted. "Now. This is how you hold a rifle." They spent a few hours going over the proper grip on the rifle, as well as how a seasoned security officer would have relaxed that grip. Chromia still acted as if the rifle was going to explode sometimes, but that was ok - she had time to learn. Though Ironhide was grateful that he'd flipped the safety on without her noticing when he'd handed it to her, otherwise she would have shot him several times that night.
After a few breems he decided they'd done enough for the night, and suggested she go recharge as he set up his usual net of proximity sensors. By the time he finished, she was already deep in recharge, and he grunted slightly. A light form like hers, used to sitting in a temple all day and running off triple-refined energon - she'd probably been running on empty. Laying down a fair distance away - he didn't want a repeat of the night before - Ironhide got comfortable before slipping into recharge himself.
---
When Ironhide woke the next morning, it wasn't to his alarm, or to the alert of the sensors. Something inside of him ached, and looking over at Chromia, he knew what it was. She was shuddering in her recharge, and through the bond, he could sense that she was distressed. Frowning, he got up and went over to her. He'd heard of mechs and femmes that saw things in their recharge - mostly the ones with something traumatic in their past. Chromia had certainly had a very recent traumatic experience, but considering who she was and the war going on around them, it was just as possible she was seeing the future. Either way, it was disturbing her recharge, and unsettling him, so he shook her gently. Her optics snapped on almost immediately, glancing around widely before locking on him.
"Ironhide!" Said mech suddenly found himself with arms full of femme as Chromia latched onto him.
"Easy there," he rumbled as he tentatively wrapped his arms around her. He was used to soothing upset femmes from his time on the security forces, but disconcerted by this being one he knew for once. "Everythin's fine, no need to be upset." He murmured calming statements like that for the next few minutes until she calmed down. When her grip on him relaxed, he let go, sitting back and pulling two cubes out of subspace. "Here," he handed one to Chromia, and she took it gratefully.
"Thank you," she said, and from the look she gave him, he knew she wasn't just thanking him for the energon. He just shrugged uncomfortably - he could comfort an upset femme, sure, but he wasn't good with anything after that. They drank their energon in silence, and then Ironhide went and dismantled his sensor net before they headed out - after he reminded Chromia to grab the rifle she'd been about to leave behind.
An eerie silence had fallen between them then, making Ironhide uncomfortable. He held out for as long as he could, then started talking about weapons again. When they stopped for lunch, he had Chromia take a few practice shots with her rifle - she missed horribly. Ironhide frowned, hoping she learned quickly. The most important part was getting her comfortable with weapons, but he really didn't want to go back to Iacon before she could at least shoot straight. He had enough energon for the two of them for a few weeks, but he didn't relish the thought of letting his friends worry that he was dead for that long. By now, the massacre at the Temple would have been discovered, and though the Autobots would know from the lack of a giant smoking crater that he was still alive, they'd have no idea what happened to him.
In the afternoon, Ironhide simply talked to Chromia, forgoing combat as he tried to get her to practice speaking more normally. Since her experiences were entirely in the Temple, he had her tell him about the funniest predictions she'd ever been asked to make, and the silliest things she'd ever seen in the future. She was a bit reticent at first, but gradually warmed to the topic, and was constantly correct her language as she went, much to Ironhide's satisfaction.
"One thing I'm not sure I'll get the hang of," she said near the end of the day. "Cursing. I simply do not - don't understand it. Why add extra words that do nothing but offend? Why not just...be creative with your word choices?"
"By all means, be creative, too," Ironhide said with a chuckle. "But cursing ain't about offending, usually - it's about adding feeling to your statement. 'Pit no' has a whole lot more feeling to it than just 'no'. Sure, ya could also say 'not even if Megatron had his fusion cannon pointed at my spark', but it doesn't have the same umph." Chromia frowned.
"I still don't understand," she said.
"Alright. How badly do ya not understand?" Ironhide said.
"What do you mean?" she asked in confusion.
"Do ya still not understand, or do ya still not fraggin' understand?" Ironhide asked, and Chromia considered that.
"I still don't fragging understand," she finally said, then seemed disconcerted at what she'd just said. Ironhide chuckled.
"You'll get used to it. Whenever you want to emphasize something, just add a fragging curse in," he said. Silence for a few moments.
"I should probably ask you what some decent curses are, then," she said finally, and Ironhide stopped, gaping at her. "What? Voices are never clear in my visions, and who would dare to curse around the Oracle? Except you, of course. I'm not sure you even thought about it." She looked amused at that.
"Nope," Ironhide confirmed with a chuckle, and they continued walking as he began listing off every curse word he knew. She listened in fascination, asking for definitions when she didn't immediately get them, and often trying them out in simple statements or phrases to be sure she understood how to use them. Ironhide found himself amused - he'd never had such a serious, curse-filled discussion before.
They ran into a bit of a problem when he got to using Primus or Unicron as a curse, though.
"I will not use them that way," she said firmly. "It is disrespectful."
"It's pretty common these days," Ironhide said.
"Yes, and believe me, I am not please about it," she said, optics flashing.
"I thought you didn't get to hear many curses around the Temple?"
"The priests talk, and using the divines' names as a curse is one of the issues they have - had - been debating hotly recently. Most of them wanted to publicly condemn it, but others argued that they wouldn't be able to stop it anyways," Chromia said irritably.
"Alright. Most mechs have a favourite curse - ain't too strange to have one you'd refuse to use," Ironhide conceded.
"And you are not to use their names that way, either," Chromia added, and Ironhide spluttered.
"Like frag!" he protested.
"If you are to be my guardian, then I don't want you speaking disrespectfully of the divine," she insisted.
"I ain't gonna change the way I curse for ya, femme," Ironhide said irritably. There were limits to how far he would go - he'd already given up a rather large potential chunk of his life for Chromia.
"I'm changing the very way I speak and act. It's only fair that you return at least part of the gesture," she said with a glare.
"I've been usin' their names as I please fer forever, the others will notice," Ironhide snapped.
"The slag they will," Chromia retorted, and looked momentarily pleased at her correct usage of the curse before plowing on. "I very much doubt any of your friends are observant enough to notice when you stop using a particular curse."
"You never know," Ironhide growled, glaring at her as he thought of Prowl.
"I do," she said firmly, with such certainty in her voice that Ironhide knew she'd thoughtfully checked the future to see.
"I thought I told you to stop spitting out the words of Primus," he said, stopping short and glaring at her, irritated.
"I did not 'spit' them out, and what does it matter when we're the only ones around?" she retorted.
"It matters cuz you're gonna get used to doing it, and then you're gonna slip up in front of someone else," Ironhide growled. "You can't afford even one slip."
"I will not slip up," she said.
"Yeah? And how do you know? And don't you fraggin dare look," he said, glaring. She glared back defiantly.
"I'll look if I want to, you can't stop me," she said.
"No, but if you keep mouthin' off about the future, I will be forced to take action," he warned.
"Like whaaaa -" Chromia's yelp was cut off as the vocalizer suppressor Ironhide had just slapped on her throat took effect. The device was a leftover from his security forces kit, and had turned out to be just as useful in a war as it had been in law enforcement. Chromia glared at him, trying to pry the device off - futile, as it could only be removed by transmitting an encoded sequence that only he knew.
~I thought you said I needed to practice speaking differently.~
Ironhide growled as he realized he'd forgotten about the sparkbond, and did his best to block it.
"Your speech ain't gonna matter if you give start talking 'bout the future and blow yer cover," Ironhide snapped. He heard her try to continue arguing over the sparkbond, but he ignored her. "Now, when you're ready to promise that you won't pop out any more pretty little predictions, I'll take that off, but not until then." They stood there, glaring at each other, for several long minutes. Finally, grudgingly, Chromia nodded, and her voice drifted through the bond they shared, even with his blocking.
~I promise,~ she said, sounding sulky. Satisfied, Ironhide transmitted the code to removed the suppressor, catching it as it fell away from her neck.
"That is a vile device," she spat.
"Useful when you're dealin' with someone glitching out, though," Ironhide said flatly, then continued walking. Behind him, he heard Chromia put her new knowledge of curses to good use.
---
"It occurs to me that I should thank you," Chromia announced out of the blue the next morning, as they set out for the day.
"Fer what?" Ironhide asked, somewhat surprised at the chosen topic - they'd been ignoring each other since their argument the day before. Apparently Chromia wanted to smooth things over, however.
"For agreeing to be my guardian," she explained. "You didn't have to. You could have left us, me, there."
"Like frag," Ironhide said with a snort. "I ain't no 'Con, to leave defenseless mechs and femmes to die when I could do something about it."
"But you couldn't do anything about it," Chromia said softly, and Ironhide stopped abruptly, turning to give her a hard look.
"See, that's something I don't understand. You can see the future - you had ta know what was gonna happen, and those priests hung on yer every word. They didn't do a slagging thing until you spoke up," Ironhide said. "So why didn't ya speak up earlier? Why didn't ya help me get them all outta there before the fragging 'Cons showed up?" Chromia looked away, her optics dimming.
"When I look into the future, I see one of two things," she said. "What might be, or what will be. What will be is simple, easy - the decisions leading to that future have already been made, the path has already been set. This war was destined to happen from the moment the last one ended, for example. No prediction I could make could stop it. What might be, on the other hand, is...difficult. When I see futures that are not yet set, I must find the decisions that will turn them one way or another, and the factors that might effect those decisions, in order to make an accurate prediction. When you came to the Temple, there were a multitude of 'might be's. I could not make a prediction off so many possibilities - I had no idea what would result from anything I said."
"But when things got down ta the wire, yer options lessened," Ironhide concluded thoughtfully, and Chromia nodded, looking back at him.
"Perhaps I could have spoken sooner, saved some of my priests, but..." she trailed off, smiling faintly.
"But...?" Ironhide asked when Chromia didn't continue.
"Forgive me. There are some futures I keep to myself, even after they are set," she said with a sudden grin, then started walking again. Ironhide snorted, but headed after her, correcting her path as she starting heading the wrong way, and striking up a conversation to help her work on her speech pattern. With her limited experiences, it was difficult to find anything other than her predictions that she could talk about at length, and Ironhide had had enough of that topic for the day, but eventually he found something for them to talk about - the shenanigans of the priests.
"They really were qu - slagging ridiculous," Chromia said with a shake of her head. "They liked to put on this front of serious, religious mechs and femmes, but in the back rooms of the Temple, where no one but they could see..." She chuckled. "Pranks, gossip, drama - sometimes I would think that they were there more to keep me from being bored than to be my guardians."
"How so?" Ironhide asked with amusement.
"Well, for one thing, they weren't celebate," Chromia said dryly, and Ironhide spluttered.
"But, with the bond -" He stared in shock.
"Yes, interfacing with a group sparkbond was a bit...interesting," Chromia said with amusement, then frowned. "Also a bit frustrating for me. They could block each other out, but they could never block me. I don't think they ever realized it, either, or they may have become celebate after all."
"So every time yer priests started exchanging data packets, you felt it," Ironhide said incredulously.
"In vivid detail," Chromia said dryly.
"An' you never jumped one'a em?" Ironhide asked, still not quite able to believe it.
"I was the Oracle. I couldn't," Chromia replied.
"Primus, femme, that's some slaggin' amazin' self-control," he said with a shake of his head.
"Language," Chromia just replied.
"Yeah yeah, whatever," Ironhide said dismissively. "What else did they get up to, besides crossing circuits?"
"Well, there was a nest of turbo-foxes in the gardens somewhere, and some of the priests had a way with the creatures -" Chromia began, and from there, launched into story after story of ridiculous hijinks. Ironhide was guffawing for most of the day, and most importantly, Chromia's speech pattern slowly began to even out. A touch of the formal tone was still there, but it was enough to pass as her unique way of speaking, and not to give people trouble thinking of her as a security officer.
In the evening, Ironhide decided it was time to get serious about improving Chromia's combat skills. An hour of target practice later, they were both frustrated at her lack of progress, and gave up for the night. Their frustration carried over into the next day, and they found themselves bickering as they walked - Ironhide trying to give helpful advice about their practice the night before, Chromia trying to explain the problems she'd been having, neither doing much of either. They didn't get far that day, between the bickering and the constant pauses for a physical demonstration - which served to only make Chromia more sour, as she usually ended up on her aft during them.
"This is ridiculous," she grumbled when they finally stopped for the evening. "You can't expect me to learn to fight like a seasoned security officer in a week."
"Y'just need to know enough to fool them initially," Ironhide snapped in reply. "If you can get that down, I can teach you the rest in private at the base."
"Why? Are they going to demand to see me fight before they let me on the base or something?" Chromia asked sarcastically.
"A fighter moves differently than a civilian," Ironhide growled. "Most of them might not notice, but Prowl's a master of Diffusion - he'll spot the discrepancy in a nanoclick."
"Oh, great, so I have to fool a master of a discipline known to focus around observing the moves of your opponent," Chromia said. "That should be no problem, hey, a week might actually be more than I need to learn to do that." Ironhide growled, but chose not to reply.