Bingo Challenge Fic: Under Cover
For the second prompt in this set...
Title: Under Cover
Author: zea_taylor
‘Verse: G1
Rating: T/PG-13
Characters: Jazz/Prowl (established)
Warnings: None
Author’s Note: Written for the prowlxjazz community’s Anniversary Bingo Challenge. Inspired by a prompt posted by wicked3659, although I think I took the prompt a little more literally than it was intended! Quotations are from “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, written by L. Frank Baum, and from adaptations of that work.
Comments and suggestions for improvement are always very welcome!
Prompt: Under Cover
Prowl’s wheels slid sideways on the dusty earth, his front left quarter dodging the rain of Seeker-fire more by luck than judgement.
“Frag it!”
Jazz’s cry distracted the tactician for long enough for Dirge to catch him a glancing shot - a stinging black line scored across his rear bumper. He pushed the pain aside, shunting the error reports straight to memory, and ordering his processor to bypass them. His own hurts didn’t trouble him.
The pain and shock in his companion’s voice did.
Jazz should have been in his tyre-tracks. Prowl knew, even before he spun into a sliding transformation, that the Ops mech wouldn’t be there.
Prowl’s hood folded down, his helm emerging into baking sunlight, his acid rifle already raised and on target. He fired based on information from his door-wings rather than his still-adjusting optics. His first shot clipped Ramjet’s tail-plane. His second scattered the rest of the trine.
The respite would be temporary, but he seized it, running back through the corn rows to where Jazz’s alt mode had spun to a halt, smoking from radiator and tyre-well.
“How bad is it? Can you move?”
“Okay! I’m okay!” Jazz’s voice had lost its usual melodic ease, but the mech made an effort nonetheless. “Moving. Look!”
Standing over his partner, arms folded, Prowl raised a sceptical brow ridge. Jazz’s engine revved, faltered and revved again, a plume of blue smoke from his exhaust doing nothing to ease Prowl’s concern. At least the mech was mobile. The white racing Porsche edged forward. Jazz’s engine note was rough, his tyre leaking the gooey green sealant Ratchet insisted they all carry, but he was inded moving. Right now, that mattered more than securing a detailed diagnosis.
A howl rose over the echoing thunder of nearby Seekers. Prowl’s door-wings twitched, adding their own warning of the diving Conehead. Turning, Prowl snapped off a volley of rapid shots, not striking Dirge but forcing him to abort his strafing run.
Jazz was picking up speed now, his low-slung chasse giving him almost as much trouble as the injury. He bounced across the rutted farm-land, scalping the ridges, plowing into the furrows between them. Folding into his own alt-mode, Prowl tailed his companion, his front bumper almost touching Jazz’s rear fender.
“Frag it, Dirge.” Ramjet’s shout carried on the sun-heated air, his uncouth language assaulting the audials of anyone within a dozen miles. “Stop fragging around. We’ve got to get this done before Screamer’s trine arrives to muscle in!”
“Slagging glory hounds.” Thrust’s growl was probably not meant to carry. The Autobots’ Head of Special Operations and Chief Tactician, two of the most highly specced mechs on the planet, couldn’t help but hear him. “No way Lord Megatron’ll believe we got the Autobots if Screamer’s here.”
“You ain’t got us yet.”
Jazz’s sunroof slid back, his laser cannon folding out and firing a shot that scattered the regrouping trine. It was probably a mistake. Prowl’s door-wings caught the energy drop in his partner’s systems, and his audials heard the stutter in the Porsche’s engine.
“We need to find cover.”
“Sure thing, Prowler.” Jazz’s wry tone gave no hint of his distress. The saboteur yelped as his damaged tyre struck a tussock amongst the corn rows. Even he couldn’t keep the strain from his voice as he went on. “It’s called the Great Plains for a reason, y’know? Kansas ain’t exactly big on caves or convenient woodlands.”
Prowl couldn’t argue. He closed the gap between them, letting his bumper nudge Jazz as they hurried forward, knowing both would take comfort from the contact.
“Teletraan-1 acknowledged our distress signal. We can assume assistance is on its way.”
“Yeah.” Jazz didn’t point out how long it would take an Autobot party to reach them, just as Prowl didn’t quantify the probability that the Command Trine would arrive first. The unspoken scenario hung between them nonetheless.
“Wait.” The Porsche’s speed dropped. He slid back onto Prowl’s bumper, the tactician’s engine working harder as it tried to propel them both. They couldn’t afford to stop, not now, not when speed was the only protection they had from the Coneheads’ aim. Jazz had been slow since taking that hit, his systems hitting a sour enough note that Prowl could hear it even above the Seekers’ jets. “Kansas?” The saboteur’s tone had turned speculative. “Maybe…? Prowler! Scan for human residences - buildings, big barns, anything.”
There was no time to worry about the state of Jazz’s own scanners. Prowl focussed, trying to ignore the constant whipping of tall corn stalks against his door-wings and filter out the information his companion needed.
“Abandoned farm buildings. Bearing 80 degrees, range 1.3 klicks.”
Jazz coaxed a burst of speed out of his struggling engine. Another cloud of oil-choked exhaust followed it, spilling into Prowl’s vents and carrying the taste of energon mingled with its organic miasma. The tactician didn’t back off by so much as a mechanometer. He followed nose-to-tail as Jazz turned almost due east, running along the furrow that lay between corn rows.
His tactical processor complained almost before they completed the turn. It made them easy targets…. or it would if the Seekers adjusted before they reached Jazz’s target. Ramjet’s strafing run overshot their sudden turn, his rain of fire setting the golden corn alight behind them.
Dirge and Thrust screamed into a sharp turn of their own, almost standing on their wingtips. Prowl couldn’t conceal his gasp as Thrust’s ranging shots found their mark, leaving a gash on his bumper to mirror Dirge’s earlier shot. If Jazz heard, he didn’t let it slow him down. He led the way towards the distant building as if there was no room for any other goal in his processor. Activating his own cannon-mountings, warning the Conehead Seekers he was no easy target, Prowl followed.
The buildings they were headed for formed a small complex. The largest was a low construct, only two storeys tall, and that was if you counted a loft, tucked under the sloped roof. The walls appeared to be some form of mud brick, decayed and slumping under the weight of years.
“Jazz… why there?” It was an effort to keep his alarm out of his voice - alarm for the ailing saboteur rather than himself. “There can’t have been humans in this area for almost a vorn!”
“Good.” The weariness Prowl heard in his companion’s engine note had reached his voice now. The Ops mech’s answer was curt, tight with strain.
“There’s no cover!” Prowl tried again, his cannon firing as he spoke. “These buildings won’t shelter us from Starscream’s Seekers!”
“Trust me?”
Of all the things Jazz could have said….
His partner could be wearing Decepticon purple, leading Prowl into the depths of the rust sea and watching as he vented his last, and Prowl would still have only one answer to that question.
“With my spark.”
Jazz’s engine whined, coughing out more oil and the acrid sting of energon.
“Come on then.”
Not for the first time, Prowl cursed the predictive power of his tactical algorithms.
The thunderclap he’d been both expecting and dreading split the cloudless sky perfectly on cue. He didn’t dare take the time to turn and look for its source. He knew all too well the sound of a sky-blue Seeker, and that Seeker’s trine-mates. He couldn’t let it distract him now.
Jazz was bursting through the remains of a rotten fence, sending wood splinters under Prowl’s tyres even as he opened the path. The tactician needed all his concentration to pick out the path of least resistance. He didn’t need to turn and check to know that they now faced two trines - one of them with at least some semblance of skill and tactical knowledge.
Jazz spun right, Prowl left, as they spilled into the remains of a yard. Its hard surface lay buried deep under sandy grit, leaving their treads struggling for grip as both mechs tried to check their frantic speed.
Up close, the building looked even less substantial than Prowl had feared. Its walls were largely intact and thicker than he’d expected, but their compacted mud and vegetation would provide limited shelter. Its corrugated iron roof was curled at the edges, rusted through in large, discoloured patches. Here and there, sun-baked wooden rafters peaked through, offering little prospect of cover from a full two trines of Seeker elite.
Jazz didn’t seem to notice, or care if he did. The Ops mech struggled through his transformation, his side plating deeply gouged and his legs spilling a shower of sparks to fizzle out on the barren Earth. The most damaged limb refused to take his weight. Jazz staggered, falling to one knee with a low cry of pain. Prowl was already reverting to alt-mode, ignoring his own stinging injuries, his servos outstretched to support his companion.
Jazz shrugged off the attempt. The saboteur squirmed forward, dragging his legs behind him and twisting his shoulders to get, head-first, through a human-scale doorway. For a few klicks, Prowl wondered if his partner was suffering processor damage in addition to his obvious physical impairment. He shook off the question. Jazz had asked for his trust. If the situation was as bad as Prowl’s tactical computer estimated… if this was where they met their ends under Seeker bombardment… Prowl would not, and could not, deny the mech he loved that last request.
“Prowl! Get in here!”
His companion had vanished into the gloom within the human dwelling. A laser blast thudded into the wall on one side of the entrance, throwing up shards of baked clay and long-dead vegetation. Prowl’s door-wings flinched as a null-ray blast splashed past him on the other side. Any klick now, Starscream’s trine would be fully in range - able to target rather than fire blindly. There was no time for hesitation.
The tactician dived into the darkness, arms outstretched to guide him through the narrow entrance. Squirming forward on elbows and knees, he was almost through when a lucky shot hit his left pede. Not even Prowl’s trained systems could ignore the pain of that injury or its implications.
There would be no more running, for either one of them.
Gasping to force air through his dust-choked vents, Prowl hauled himself onwards, scrabbling for purchase. Black servos caught his, a grunt of effort from Jazz simultaneous with the heave that finally pulled Prowl’s legs, ruined pede included, into the shelter.
The building was surprisingly spacious. The walls were pale, lined with plaster and white-washed. Any internal divisions had crumbled to dust long ago. The entire space was open, from dirt floor to precarious-looking roof supports. Even so, there was barely room inside for two robotic forms, each many times the size of this building’s human designers.
“Turf walls.” Prowl had placed the material now, recognising the dried stalks visible where the plaster had cracked and fallen away. An effective building material, for a species so reliant on external thermo-regulation, and logical given the paucity of mature woodland in the region. “They’ll absorb some of the impact.” He let his processor run a few thousand simulations and tried not to wince at the result. “I imagine they’ll last longer than a rigid brick of conventional manufacture.”
Not long enough. Prowl didn’t voice the thought aloud, only watched in helpless concern as his partner scrabbled in the dirt on which they lay. Jazz seemed to be searching for something, his dark servos almost lost from sight in the shadows beneath them.
“Well, finally!”
Something gave, broken free by the force Jazz applied. The saboteur scrambled backwards, curled almost double in the confined space, pulling what looked like half the floor of their shelter with him. Another sheet of corrugated iron, dull but preserved by the arid climate, was fixed to a more rigid underlying structure. Dirt streamed from the dark shape, filling the air and leaving them both spluttering and coughing to clear their vents.
“Get down there, Prowler! Now!”
The roar of Seeker engines and the dull thud of laser-fire striking baked turf almost drowned Jazz’s instruction. Prowl slid forward, pulling himself with his servos and dragging his useless pede behind him. He tucked automatically, rolling as he fell helm-first into a surprisingly large void. The impact jarred, pain streaking through his injured pede and meeting the wave that spread from his damaged bumper. His processor was protected by his tuck, but it ached nonetheless, rattled by pain and anxiety. He rode out the discomfort, shaking his helm to clear some of the confused programme loops.
With a cough, he cleared the worst of the contamination from his vents, all too aware of the rain of dirt following him into the under-floor cavity… and of the mech who hadn’t.
“I’m down,” he managed the words between choked gasps. “There’s room.”
It didn’t occur to him until he said it that Jazz might have been uncertain of that, and had forced Prowl to go first in case he was also last. There was no time to process the thought, or rebuke his partner. Jazz tumbled after him without a word. Like Prowl had, he tucked his frame into a tight ball, his helm protected until he was certain how much space he had. Unfolding pained him. Stifling a yelp, Jazz clutched his side with one servo, reaching up with the other.
Grunting with effort, he jerked the cover a few feet over, not enough to close the opening. Twisting awkwardly, his door-wings tucked as tight as he could arrange them, Prowl reached up, adding what power he could as Jazz heaved at the heavy, wood-backed iron.
The cover almost took Jazz’s finger servos off. It dropped shut like the lid slamming on the Well of All Sparks, plunging the two mechs below into darkness. Jazz slumped back down at Prowl’s side, the heat of his frame the tactician’s only comfort in this pit.
Above them, the thunder had become continuous. Vibrations rippled through the ground on which they lay, and through their huddled frames. There wasn’t room to stand, or even sit upright without striking their helms. Both lay awkwardly, curled on their sides, their helms tilted up to the chaos above. The dim light cast by their optics illuminated the thick half-sawn logs that formed the hatch above them, picking out iron nails so encrusted with decay and mineral accretion that they were hard as concrete. The corrugated sheet topping the logs cut out most of the light from the world above. A little streamed through, and along with it trickles of dust, shaken loose from between logs that hadn’t moved in decades.
The roar surged, crescendoed. Prowl twisted in the confined space, pulling Jazz against him as best he could while the ground bucked under their back-struts. His companion allowed it, Jazz’s helm resting on Prowl’s chest-plates, his visor dimming and his helm turning to bury his faceplates over Prowl’s spark. Prowl let his own optics dim. The air was so full of dust now that they were little use in any case. He could barely see his own servo in front of his face, or the pale glimmer of Jazz’s visor.
Prowl never expected the thunder to end - not until they found ultimate peace in the embrace of the AllSpark. It came as a shock when the Earth gave one last convulsion, the thunderous roar rattling their processors, and… stopped.
The noise subsided, the fusillade of laser fire replaced by clinks and thumps as the debris settled. The dust was still thick but, slowly, it was clearing. Prowl coughed, the demands of his systems for clean air insistent and impossible to ignore. The thick, acrid atmosphere, tainted with the smell of burning, did little to satisfy those demands. The cavity vibrated with heat, the spillover of the laser fire that bombarded the ruins above.
Against the background he almost failed to notice, but Jazz’s plating was hot too, his vents working double time and his frame making a futile attempt to dump the excess into their surroundings. The saboteur was still and quiet at his side.
Too still.
Prowl’s arms tightened, shaking his companion’s shoulders. It was a spark-stopping few moments before Jazz stirred in response. His helm twisted, the glow of his visor worryingly dim. Jazz’s vents flushed, the sound as rough and queasy as his engine vibrations. He didn’t try to speak, just turned up to meet his partner’s optics with relieved disbelief.
“I believe…” Prowl found speaking an effort. It meant acknowledging that they were still alive, and had at least a chance of staying that way. “I believe the building has collapsed above us.”
“Thought it might.” If it weren’t for the reports of Prowl’s door-wings and the way Jazz’s frame trembled against his, he might believe the calm tone. “Got to be a hundred tonnes of mud brick on top of that hatch now. Something tells me we don’t have to worry about laser fire any more.”
“Just the fact that we are injured, alone and trapped?” Prowl vented a sigh. “I cannot shift that much weight. Even if you were in a condition to help, it would be beyond the pair of us.”
“Hey, look on the bright side.” Jazz shrugged. “Nothing like an earth rampart for absorbing shocks. And with any luck the Seekers will think we’ve been crushed to splinters.”
“Luck has not been on our side thus far.”
Jazz didn’t dignify that with a response, just revved until his engine choked and spluttered back down to its standard level.
Prowl should probably leave it there. He couldn’t. “You knew the hatch cover would hold?”
“Stout wood beams like that? The climate here, and a few decades of sun baking and it’d give Cybertronium a run for its shanix. And that’s before it’s got iron plating.”
“Jazz… how the frag did you know this basement would be here?”
Jazz chuckled. “Not a basement. A cellar. A storm cellar. In Kansas.” He said it as if it explained everything. Prowl looked down at the mech huddled against him, none the wiser. Jazz’s visor cycled through a slow reset. “You’re seriously not getting the reference, are you? The Wizard of Oz?”
Prowl hummed an uncertain note. “I seem to remember an uncomfortably garish movie. Half a breem was more than adequate for the bright colours to give me a pounding processor ache. I saw no reason to prolong such punishment.”
“Ah, you didn’t give it a fair chance, Prowler. You’ve got to read the book. It’s an all time cla…ssic…”
Jazz’s vocalisor glitched, a burst of static cutting across the last word. Prowl’s arm tightened across his partner’s shoulders, his spark clenching. He’d been aware of the aroma of energon, hanging almost as thick as the dust in the air. He’d felt the slickness of it on his armour and hoped against hope that it was spilling from his own injuries. Now he was far from sure.
Twisting, he tried to see down the length of Jazz’s frame. The cellar ceiling was low, perhaps eight foot above the ground at its highest point, less than five where it curved down to meet the walls. Both Jazz and Prowl lay in an awkward twist now the chaos had settled, somewhere between flat on their backs and spooned together - the result of both their urgent, helm-first entry and the need both felt to be close to one another.
Only part of Jazz was visible from Prowl’s vantage point. Any damage on the mech’s legs was out of reach and, given the limited room for manoeuvre, likely to remain so. The leaking rent on his mid-riff was another matter.
“Prowl, what are you doing?”
“Lie still.”
Gentle as he tried to be, Prowl heard his partner gasp. Slipping out from under Jazz wasn’t an easy matter. Twisting to put his servos in reach both of his own subspace and the other mech’s frame was harder still, earning small grunts of pain from both of them. Prowl ended up with his damaged pede wedged up against a packed earth wall. The pain was worth it.
The damage from Ramjet’s lucky shot was worst than he’d thought. The Ops mech was leaking from a major line, his entire side in root-mode a mess of sparking wires, and all caked in energon and organic dust. Fixing this mess was a job for a doctor and not for Prowl’s limited field medic skills. Unfortunately he was all Jazz had. Working in the light of his own optics, Prowl patched the line as best he could, diverting those of Jazz’s functions he could reroute away from the damaged area.
The saboteur endured the discomfort stoically. He probably knew better than Prowl did just what kind of condition he was in. It was fifty-fifty that Jazz was leaking internally, his energon drowning the systems it was meant to fuel. Prowl didn’t ask, and Jazz didn’t volunteer the information. It wasn’t as if anything within their grasp would change the situation either way.
It was several breems before Prowl was finished with the little he could do. He ran the tips of his finger-servos down the plating to one side of the damaged area, checking the micro-welds he’d placed around his patch. His servo trailed onwards, across Jazz’s bumper, the caress earning him a shudder of mingled pleasure and pain from Jazz. That was warning enough for now. He let his servo fall away, recognising the fine line between hurt and comfort.
Prowl and Jazz had been partners for more vorns than either cared to remember. They knew one another’s frames like their own, and grieved at any injury. For all their apparent detachment on duty, they were devoted spark to spark. It surprised newcomers sometimes, to see the two together as officers and only later as chosen companions. That was fine by them. Neither mech was demonstrative - not about things that truly mattered to them. The fact that their relationship was mature, so deep in their sparks that frivolous display and effusive words could hardly touch on it, was a strength not a weakness.
Right now, that deep connection told Prowl just how much pain his partner was in. And how much effort he was putting in to hiding it.
“You know,” Jazz observed as Prowl squirmed back up to spoon his companion. “Working in the dark is romantic and all, but you could have just lit your headlights.”
Prowl bit back his first three replies, wishing he had a servo to spare to rub his helm and ease the processor ache there.
“There is a significant risk of escaping light betraying our survival to the Decepticons.”
Jazz’s expression made it clear just what he thought of Prowl’s ad-hoc explanation. His dim visor virtually radiated scepticism. Prowl raised a brow-ridge and stood by his assertion.
The sounds he associated with the general collapse and the cooling of the rubble after its bombardment had more or less faded. There were still occasional clangs and thumps in the debris, although whether they marked the investigations of frustrated Seekers, or just a settling amongst the ruins, was far from clear. Through three metres or more of hard-baked Earth, still radiating heat from the violent bombardment, not even Prowl’s door-wings could distinguish a spark signature from the general chaos.
They told him enough though. He could feel Jazz growing more distant beside him. The Ops mech was weakening, slowly but steadily, as the minutes ticked by. Prowl thought… hoped… prayed… that his injuries were treatable - nothing that would be of serious concern for a medic of Ratchet’s skill. But Ratchet wasn’t here. Jazz shouldn’t have been either.
“This is my fault.”
A chuckle escaped Jazz, the first sound the saboteur had made for a while. “Your fault that the humans wanted an Autobot in Chicago for their big day? Not every orn they turn on a particle-smasher that big.”
“Big? We have three proton accelerators larger than Fermilab’s new device in the Ark’s engine room.”
“Yeah, but the humans don’t need to know that.” The Ops mech laughed again, the sound softer and marred by the irregularity of his vents. One servo came up, resting beside his helm on Prowl’s chest-plates. “Prowler, I wanted to come.”
“We didn’t have to drive the whole way.”
“Hey, I’m a mech who likes his wheels on solid ground - at least until ‘Jack gets our own shuttles sorted.” Jazz vented hard, the gust blowing a trickle of dust across Prowl’s door-wings. “If you hadn’t suggested driving, I would’ve. Besides, Prowler, it’s been too long since we’ve had time together.” His servo moved, grasping blindly for Prowl’s and finding it. “I wanted to be here,” he repeated softly.
Prowl squeezed the servo he held, alarmed by the weakness of Jazz’s responding pressure. Jazz’s engine note was coarse and deep, his peripheral systems shutting down. If the saboteur’s core functions dropped too low his processor would sink into stasis in self-preservation. Even if they got out of this pit and Prowl delivered his companion to Ratchet without delay, breaking an established stasis block would take time and more energon reserves than the Autobots had to hand. Prowl would be without his chosen partner - the mech he’d shared more than half his life with - through orns, or maybe even decaorns, of recovery.
He had to keep Jazz alert - and not just because the Autobots needed their Head of Special Ops.
“Tell me the story.”
“What…?”
“The Wizard of Oz. You said I should read the book. I do not have it to hand, but I suspect you have the text in your memory banks, so tell me the story, Jazz. I want to hear it in your voice - no unconvincing animals, or poorly disguised, singing humans dressed in primary colours. Just you and me and the picture your words paint.”
Jazz was silent for long enough that Prowl’s vents caught in fearful tension. The saboteur stirred, slipping his arm around Prowl, drawing them closer.
“Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies,” Jazz began. “With Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife…”
“…And oh, Aunt Em! I’m so glad to be home again.”
Jazz’s voice faded. He curled against Prowl, as best he could, sharing their mutual satisfaction in the completed story.
The retelling hadn’t been without interruption. Prowl had interjected comments where he saw fit, eager to keep Jazz engaged. The saboteur had added his own diversions in turn, taking the opportunity to include some of his favourite tunes from the many dramatizations this story had undergone.
Now though, the music was over. Dorothy was safe home, leaving the trapped mechs all too aware of their own predicament.
Jazz’s engine whined. The mech was waiting for his reaction, Prowl knew. Looking down at the dark helm and dim visor raised to him, he hummed thoughtfully.
“By my estimation, we are being invited to endorse several acts of larceny, more of animal cruelty, vandalism or fraudulent deception, one of culpable homicide and one of premeditated murder.”
The upkick in Jazz’s core systems was worth the planning that went into the comment. His companion’s expression was one of disappointed horror. Prowl chuckled, the sound vibrating through his frame and the door-wings trapped behind him. Straining a little, he planted a tender kiss on the front rim of Jazz’s helm before going on.
“We have also learned that tyranny, deception and evil must be defied wherever they are encountered. That wondrous things can come out of the hardest of times. And that true friends can be relied upon, regardless of the situation.”
This time the faltering in Jazz’s vents warmed Prowl’s spark rather than dimming it. The saboteur was looking up at him with an expression of open love and deep affection. Prowl returned it, tightening his hold on the other mech’s damaged frame.
Jazz flushed his vents, a sound of weariness combined with resignation. His plating had cooled now, his systems giving up all but the most vital of functions. He lay quiet for a moment and then rolled part way over, letting his visor rest on the hatch cover above them. It vibrated, dust streaming between the planks.
“So, what’s the odds on that being our friends, rather than the ‘Cons?”
It was the first time either acknowledged the thumps and clattering that had been working steadily closer for the last hour. Now that Jazz had voiced the question, Prowl couldn’t pretend not to have noticed, or not to have an answer.
“Too close to call,” he admitted, voice soft. “I do not have the data to speculate… so I choose to trust in our crewmates. Optimus Prime would not abandon us.”
“Sounds good to me.” Jazz sighed, his helm nuzzling Prowl’s chestplates almost too feebly to register. “Love you.”
“Frame and spark,” Prowl agreed softly. “Until all are one.”
They eased apart as the hatch trembled and shifted - just a few millimetres at first, and then with all the force of a Cybertronian-strength shove. Prowl had his acid blaster in servo. He knew Jazz was armed too - both with his laser pistol and with a rather more explosive device tucked between his frame and Prowl’s. The saboteur hadn’t consulted him about the latter. He didn’t have to. Both knew just what was at stake if the wrong servos reached through the uncovered entrance.
“Jazz? Prowl?”
“Prime!” Prowl didn’t manage much more than a whisper. He cleared his vents, reset his vocaliser and raised his voice in a yell. “Prime! Jazz needs medical assistance.”
“Huh, tattle-tale.” Jazz’s complaint lacked vehemence. He too raised his voice. “Don’t let Prowl escape the Hatchet either, boss!”
A gruff voice answered them, unimpressed. “Like that’s going to happen.”
Prowl dimmed his optics, relief almost overwhelming. Thank Primus… Ratchet was here.
Two sets of familiar finger-servos curled under the edges of the hatch. Optimus Prime and Ironhide heaved in unison, letting startling brightness spill down on the mechs beneath.
Ratchet leaned over the cellar, his scanners running over both, his expression mingling relief, concern and displeasure. His servos were already reaching for Jazz before the tingle faded.
“Prime! Lend a servo here.”
Jazz had been hauled out of varied disasters often enough to let his frame relax and simply give in to the manhandling. He hung from Prime and Ratchet’s grasps, his dim visor sweeping the piles of vitrified rubble, and the ruined crops burning in the fields beyond. Glancing down at Prowl, he managed a look of very-nearly-convincing bewilderment.
“Oh, Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more!”
“What?” Ironhide frowned. “Of course you are!”
Prowl resisted a smirk with an effort of will.
“There is one and only one circumstance, Jazz, in which ‘Toto’ may be an acceptable nickname.” He paused, for long enough that not only Jazz but all their friends gave him curious looks. Raising a brow-ridge, he pushed himself up on his servos and one functioning pede. Accepting Ironhide’s help with the climb, he smiled. “I am referring, of course, to the unlikely event that we find ourselves somewhere over the rainbow.”
Ratchet’s servos were inspecting the patch on Jazz’s side and the injuries on both. The medic’s optics flickered to the energon-stained ground where the two mechs had been laid buried. He shook his helm.
“We need to get this pair back to the Ark, Prime.” He tapped his helm significantly. “I want to get them checked out.”
Jazz did nothing for his case by breaking into giggles. For once in his life, Prowl abandoned decorum and slumped across his mate, sharing his near hysteria. Jazz reached out, making a satisfied sound when he was able to catch Prowl’s own outstretched-servo. Prowl held tight, worried by Jazz’s dim visor but knowing his partner was safe now in their medic’s care.
“Home,” Jazz whispered.
Shaking off Ironhide’s support, Prowl stumbled forward. He kissed his companion, revelling in the fact that they were still alive to worry and shock their friends with the public display.
“There’s no place like it,” he agreed.
The End
Title: Under Cover
Author: zea_taylor
‘Verse: G1
Rating: T/PG-13
Characters: Jazz/Prowl (established)
Warnings: None
Author’s Note: Written for the prowlxjazz community’s Anniversary Bingo Challenge. Inspired by a prompt posted by wicked3659, although I think I took the prompt a little more literally than it was intended! Quotations are from “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, written by L. Frank Baum, and from adaptations of that work.
Comments and suggestions for improvement are always very welcome!
Prompt: Under Cover
Prowl’s wheels slid sideways on the dusty earth, his front left quarter dodging the rain of Seeker-fire more by luck than judgement.
“Frag it!”
Jazz’s cry distracted the tactician for long enough for Dirge to catch him a glancing shot - a stinging black line scored across his rear bumper. He pushed the pain aside, shunting the error reports straight to memory, and ordering his processor to bypass them. His own hurts didn’t trouble him.
The pain and shock in his companion’s voice did.
Jazz should have been in his tyre-tracks. Prowl knew, even before he spun into a sliding transformation, that the Ops mech wouldn’t be there.
Prowl’s hood folded down, his helm emerging into baking sunlight, his acid rifle already raised and on target. He fired based on information from his door-wings rather than his still-adjusting optics. His first shot clipped Ramjet’s tail-plane. His second scattered the rest of the trine.
The respite would be temporary, but he seized it, running back through the corn rows to where Jazz’s alt mode had spun to a halt, smoking from radiator and tyre-well.
“How bad is it? Can you move?”
“Okay! I’m okay!” Jazz’s voice had lost its usual melodic ease, but the mech made an effort nonetheless. “Moving. Look!”
Standing over his partner, arms folded, Prowl raised a sceptical brow ridge. Jazz’s engine revved, faltered and revved again, a plume of blue smoke from his exhaust doing nothing to ease Prowl’s concern. At least the mech was mobile. The white racing Porsche edged forward. Jazz’s engine note was rough, his tyre leaking the gooey green sealant Ratchet insisted they all carry, but he was inded moving. Right now, that mattered more than securing a detailed diagnosis.
A howl rose over the echoing thunder of nearby Seekers. Prowl’s door-wings twitched, adding their own warning of the diving Conehead. Turning, Prowl snapped off a volley of rapid shots, not striking Dirge but forcing him to abort his strafing run.
Jazz was picking up speed now, his low-slung chasse giving him almost as much trouble as the injury. He bounced across the rutted farm-land, scalping the ridges, plowing into the furrows between them. Folding into his own alt-mode, Prowl tailed his companion, his front bumper almost touching Jazz’s rear fender.
“Frag it, Dirge.” Ramjet’s shout carried on the sun-heated air, his uncouth language assaulting the audials of anyone within a dozen miles. “Stop fragging around. We’ve got to get this done before Screamer’s trine arrives to muscle in!”
“Slagging glory hounds.” Thrust’s growl was probably not meant to carry. The Autobots’ Head of Special Operations and Chief Tactician, two of the most highly specced mechs on the planet, couldn’t help but hear him. “No way Lord Megatron’ll believe we got the Autobots if Screamer’s here.”
“You ain’t got us yet.”
Jazz’s sunroof slid back, his laser cannon folding out and firing a shot that scattered the regrouping trine. It was probably a mistake. Prowl’s door-wings caught the energy drop in his partner’s systems, and his audials heard the stutter in the Porsche’s engine.
“We need to find cover.”
“Sure thing, Prowler.” Jazz’s wry tone gave no hint of his distress. The saboteur yelped as his damaged tyre struck a tussock amongst the corn rows. Even he couldn’t keep the strain from his voice as he went on. “It’s called the Great Plains for a reason, y’know? Kansas ain’t exactly big on caves or convenient woodlands.”
Prowl couldn’t argue. He closed the gap between them, letting his bumper nudge Jazz as they hurried forward, knowing both would take comfort from the contact.
“Teletraan-1 acknowledged our distress signal. We can assume assistance is on its way.”
“Yeah.” Jazz didn’t point out how long it would take an Autobot party to reach them, just as Prowl didn’t quantify the probability that the Command Trine would arrive first. The unspoken scenario hung between them nonetheless.
“Wait.” The Porsche’s speed dropped. He slid back onto Prowl’s bumper, the tactician’s engine working harder as it tried to propel them both. They couldn’t afford to stop, not now, not when speed was the only protection they had from the Coneheads’ aim. Jazz had been slow since taking that hit, his systems hitting a sour enough note that Prowl could hear it even above the Seekers’ jets. “Kansas?” The saboteur’s tone had turned speculative. “Maybe…? Prowler! Scan for human residences - buildings, big barns, anything.”
There was no time to worry about the state of Jazz’s own scanners. Prowl focussed, trying to ignore the constant whipping of tall corn stalks against his door-wings and filter out the information his companion needed.
“Abandoned farm buildings. Bearing 80 degrees, range 1.3 klicks.”
Jazz coaxed a burst of speed out of his struggling engine. Another cloud of oil-choked exhaust followed it, spilling into Prowl’s vents and carrying the taste of energon mingled with its organic miasma. The tactician didn’t back off by so much as a mechanometer. He followed nose-to-tail as Jazz turned almost due east, running along the furrow that lay between corn rows.
His tactical processor complained almost before they completed the turn. It made them easy targets…. or it would if the Seekers adjusted before they reached Jazz’s target. Ramjet’s strafing run overshot their sudden turn, his rain of fire setting the golden corn alight behind them.
Dirge and Thrust screamed into a sharp turn of their own, almost standing on their wingtips. Prowl couldn’t conceal his gasp as Thrust’s ranging shots found their mark, leaving a gash on his bumper to mirror Dirge’s earlier shot. If Jazz heard, he didn’t let it slow him down. He led the way towards the distant building as if there was no room for any other goal in his processor. Activating his own cannon-mountings, warning the Conehead Seekers he was no easy target, Prowl followed.
The buildings they were headed for formed a small complex. The largest was a low construct, only two storeys tall, and that was if you counted a loft, tucked under the sloped roof. The walls appeared to be some form of mud brick, decayed and slumping under the weight of years.
“Jazz… why there?” It was an effort to keep his alarm out of his voice - alarm for the ailing saboteur rather than himself. “There can’t have been humans in this area for almost a vorn!”
“Good.” The weariness Prowl heard in his companion’s engine note had reached his voice now. The Ops mech’s answer was curt, tight with strain.
“There’s no cover!” Prowl tried again, his cannon firing as he spoke. “These buildings won’t shelter us from Starscream’s Seekers!”
“Trust me?”
Of all the things Jazz could have said….
His partner could be wearing Decepticon purple, leading Prowl into the depths of the rust sea and watching as he vented his last, and Prowl would still have only one answer to that question.
“With my spark.”
Jazz’s engine whined, coughing out more oil and the acrid sting of energon.
“Come on then.”
Not for the first time, Prowl cursed the predictive power of his tactical algorithms.
The thunderclap he’d been both expecting and dreading split the cloudless sky perfectly on cue. He didn’t dare take the time to turn and look for its source. He knew all too well the sound of a sky-blue Seeker, and that Seeker’s trine-mates. He couldn’t let it distract him now.
Jazz was bursting through the remains of a rotten fence, sending wood splinters under Prowl’s tyres even as he opened the path. The tactician needed all his concentration to pick out the path of least resistance. He didn’t need to turn and check to know that they now faced two trines - one of them with at least some semblance of skill and tactical knowledge.
Jazz spun right, Prowl left, as they spilled into the remains of a yard. Its hard surface lay buried deep under sandy grit, leaving their treads struggling for grip as both mechs tried to check their frantic speed.
Up close, the building looked even less substantial than Prowl had feared. Its walls were largely intact and thicker than he’d expected, but their compacted mud and vegetation would provide limited shelter. Its corrugated iron roof was curled at the edges, rusted through in large, discoloured patches. Here and there, sun-baked wooden rafters peaked through, offering little prospect of cover from a full two trines of Seeker elite.
Jazz didn’t seem to notice, or care if he did. The Ops mech struggled through his transformation, his side plating deeply gouged and his legs spilling a shower of sparks to fizzle out on the barren Earth. The most damaged limb refused to take his weight. Jazz staggered, falling to one knee with a low cry of pain. Prowl was already reverting to alt-mode, ignoring his own stinging injuries, his servos outstretched to support his companion.
Jazz shrugged off the attempt. The saboteur squirmed forward, dragging his legs behind him and twisting his shoulders to get, head-first, through a human-scale doorway. For a few klicks, Prowl wondered if his partner was suffering processor damage in addition to his obvious physical impairment. He shook off the question. Jazz had asked for his trust. If the situation was as bad as Prowl’s tactical computer estimated… if this was where they met their ends under Seeker bombardment… Prowl would not, and could not, deny the mech he loved that last request.
“Prowl! Get in here!”
His companion had vanished into the gloom within the human dwelling. A laser blast thudded into the wall on one side of the entrance, throwing up shards of baked clay and long-dead vegetation. Prowl’s door-wings flinched as a null-ray blast splashed past him on the other side. Any klick now, Starscream’s trine would be fully in range - able to target rather than fire blindly. There was no time for hesitation.
The tactician dived into the darkness, arms outstretched to guide him through the narrow entrance. Squirming forward on elbows and knees, he was almost through when a lucky shot hit his left pede. Not even Prowl’s trained systems could ignore the pain of that injury or its implications.
There would be no more running, for either one of them.
Gasping to force air through his dust-choked vents, Prowl hauled himself onwards, scrabbling for purchase. Black servos caught his, a grunt of effort from Jazz simultaneous with the heave that finally pulled Prowl’s legs, ruined pede included, into the shelter.
The building was surprisingly spacious. The walls were pale, lined with plaster and white-washed. Any internal divisions had crumbled to dust long ago. The entire space was open, from dirt floor to precarious-looking roof supports. Even so, there was barely room inside for two robotic forms, each many times the size of this building’s human designers.
“Turf walls.” Prowl had placed the material now, recognising the dried stalks visible where the plaster had cracked and fallen away. An effective building material, for a species so reliant on external thermo-regulation, and logical given the paucity of mature woodland in the region. “They’ll absorb some of the impact.” He let his processor run a few thousand simulations and tried not to wince at the result. “I imagine they’ll last longer than a rigid brick of conventional manufacture.”
Not long enough. Prowl didn’t voice the thought aloud, only watched in helpless concern as his partner scrabbled in the dirt on which they lay. Jazz seemed to be searching for something, his dark servos almost lost from sight in the shadows beneath them.
“Well, finally!”
Something gave, broken free by the force Jazz applied. The saboteur scrambled backwards, curled almost double in the confined space, pulling what looked like half the floor of their shelter with him. Another sheet of corrugated iron, dull but preserved by the arid climate, was fixed to a more rigid underlying structure. Dirt streamed from the dark shape, filling the air and leaving them both spluttering and coughing to clear their vents.
“Get down there, Prowler! Now!”
The roar of Seeker engines and the dull thud of laser-fire striking baked turf almost drowned Jazz’s instruction. Prowl slid forward, pulling himself with his servos and dragging his useless pede behind him. He tucked automatically, rolling as he fell helm-first into a surprisingly large void. The impact jarred, pain streaking through his injured pede and meeting the wave that spread from his damaged bumper. His processor was protected by his tuck, but it ached nonetheless, rattled by pain and anxiety. He rode out the discomfort, shaking his helm to clear some of the confused programme loops.
With a cough, he cleared the worst of the contamination from his vents, all too aware of the rain of dirt following him into the under-floor cavity… and of the mech who hadn’t.
“I’m down,” he managed the words between choked gasps. “There’s room.”
It didn’t occur to him until he said it that Jazz might have been uncertain of that, and had forced Prowl to go first in case he was also last. There was no time to process the thought, or rebuke his partner. Jazz tumbled after him without a word. Like Prowl had, he tucked his frame into a tight ball, his helm protected until he was certain how much space he had. Unfolding pained him. Stifling a yelp, Jazz clutched his side with one servo, reaching up with the other.
Grunting with effort, he jerked the cover a few feet over, not enough to close the opening. Twisting awkwardly, his door-wings tucked as tight as he could arrange them, Prowl reached up, adding what power he could as Jazz heaved at the heavy, wood-backed iron.
The cover almost took Jazz’s finger servos off. It dropped shut like the lid slamming on the Well of All Sparks, plunging the two mechs below into darkness. Jazz slumped back down at Prowl’s side, the heat of his frame the tactician’s only comfort in this pit.
Above them, the thunder had become continuous. Vibrations rippled through the ground on which they lay, and through their huddled frames. There wasn’t room to stand, or even sit upright without striking their helms. Both lay awkwardly, curled on their sides, their helms tilted up to the chaos above. The dim light cast by their optics illuminated the thick half-sawn logs that formed the hatch above them, picking out iron nails so encrusted with decay and mineral accretion that they were hard as concrete. The corrugated sheet topping the logs cut out most of the light from the world above. A little streamed through, and along with it trickles of dust, shaken loose from between logs that hadn’t moved in decades.
The roar surged, crescendoed. Prowl twisted in the confined space, pulling Jazz against him as best he could while the ground bucked under their back-struts. His companion allowed it, Jazz’s helm resting on Prowl’s chest-plates, his visor dimming and his helm turning to bury his faceplates over Prowl’s spark. Prowl let his own optics dim. The air was so full of dust now that they were little use in any case. He could barely see his own servo in front of his face, or the pale glimmer of Jazz’s visor.
Prowl never expected the thunder to end - not until they found ultimate peace in the embrace of the AllSpark. It came as a shock when the Earth gave one last convulsion, the thunderous roar rattling their processors, and… stopped.
The noise subsided, the fusillade of laser fire replaced by clinks and thumps as the debris settled. The dust was still thick but, slowly, it was clearing. Prowl coughed, the demands of his systems for clean air insistent and impossible to ignore. The thick, acrid atmosphere, tainted with the smell of burning, did little to satisfy those demands. The cavity vibrated with heat, the spillover of the laser fire that bombarded the ruins above.
Against the background he almost failed to notice, but Jazz’s plating was hot too, his vents working double time and his frame making a futile attempt to dump the excess into their surroundings. The saboteur was still and quiet at his side.
Too still.
Prowl’s arms tightened, shaking his companion’s shoulders. It was a spark-stopping few moments before Jazz stirred in response. His helm twisted, the glow of his visor worryingly dim. Jazz’s vents flushed, the sound as rough and queasy as his engine vibrations. He didn’t try to speak, just turned up to meet his partner’s optics with relieved disbelief.
“I believe…” Prowl found speaking an effort. It meant acknowledging that they were still alive, and had at least a chance of staying that way. “I believe the building has collapsed above us.”
“Thought it might.” If it weren’t for the reports of Prowl’s door-wings and the way Jazz’s frame trembled against his, he might believe the calm tone. “Got to be a hundred tonnes of mud brick on top of that hatch now. Something tells me we don’t have to worry about laser fire any more.”
“Just the fact that we are injured, alone and trapped?” Prowl vented a sigh. “I cannot shift that much weight. Even if you were in a condition to help, it would be beyond the pair of us.”
“Hey, look on the bright side.” Jazz shrugged. “Nothing like an earth rampart for absorbing shocks. And with any luck the Seekers will think we’ve been crushed to splinters.”
“Luck has not been on our side thus far.”
Jazz didn’t dignify that with a response, just revved until his engine choked and spluttered back down to its standard level.
Prowl should probably leave it there. He couldn’t. “You knew the hatch cover would hold?”
“Stout wood beams like that? The climate here, and a few decades of sun baking and it’d give Cybertronium a run for its shanix. And that’s before it’s got iron plating.”
“Jazz… how the frag did you know this basement would be here?”
Jazz chuckled. “Not a basement. A cellar. A storm cellar. In Kansas.” He said it as if it explained everything. Prowl looked down at the mech huddled against him, none the wiser. Jazz’s visor cycled through a slow reset. “You’re seriously not getting the reference, are you? The Wizard of Oz?”
Prowl hummed an uncertain note. “I seem to remember an uncomfortably garish movie. Half a breem was more than adequate for the bright colours to give me a pounding processor ache. I saw no reason to prolong such punishment.”
“Ah, you didn’t give it a fair chance, Prowler. You’ve got to read the book. It’s an all time cla…ssic…”
Jazz’s vocalisor glitched, a burst of static cutting across the last word. Prowl’s arm tightened across his partner’s shoulders, his spark clenching. He’d been aware of the aroma of energon, hanging almost as thick as the dust in the air. He’d felt the slickness of it on his armour and hoped against hope that it was spilling from his own injuries. Now he was far from sure.
Twisting, he tried to see down the length of Jazz’s frame. The cellar ceiling was low, perhaps eight foot above the ground at its highest point, less than five where it curved down to meet the walls. Both Jazz and Prowl lay in an awkward twist now the chaos had settled, somewhere between flat on their backs and spooned together - the result of both their urgent, helm-first entry and the need both felt to be close to one another.
Only part of Jazz was visible from Prowl’s vantage point. Any damage on the mech’s legs was out of reach and, given the limited room for manoeuvre, likely to remain so. The leaking rent on his mid-riff was another matter.
“Prowl, what are you doing?”
“Lie still.”
Gentle as he tried to be, Prowl heard his partner gasp. Slipping out from under Jazz wasn’t an easy matter. Twisting to put his servos in reach both of his own subspace and the other mech’s frame was harder still, earning small grunts of pain from both of them. Prowl ended up with his damaged pede wedged up against a packed earth wall. The pain was worth it.
The damage from Ramjet’s lucky shot was worst than he’d thought. The Ops mech was leaking from a major line, his entire side in root-mode a mess of sparking wires, and all caked in energon and organic dust. Fixing this mess was a job for a doctor and not for Prowl’s limited field medic skills. Unfortunately he was all Jazz had. Working in the light of his own optics, Prowl patched the line as best he could, diverting those of Jazz’s functions he could reroute away from the damaged area.
The saboteur endured the discomfort stoically. He probably knew better than Prowl did just what kind of condition he was in. It was fifty-fifty that Jazz was leaking internally, his energon drowning the systems it was meant to fuel. Prowl didn’t ask, and Jazz didn’t volunteer the information. It wasn’t as if anything within their grasp would change the situation either way.
It was several breems before Prowl was finished with the little he could do. He ran the tips of his finger-servos down the plating to one side of the damaged area, checking the micro-welds he’d placed around his patch. His servo trailed onwards, across Jazz’s bumper, the caress earning him a shudder of mingled pleasure and pain from Jazz. That was warning enough for now. He let his servo fall away, recognising the fine line between hurt and comfort.
Prowl and Jazz had been partners for more vorns than either cared to remember. They knew one another’s frames like their own, and grieved at any injury. For all their apparent detachment on duty, they were devoted spark to spark. It surprised newcomers sometimes, to see the two together as officers and only later as chosen companions. That was fine by them. Neither mech was demonstrative - not about things that truly mattered to them. The fact that their relationship was mature, so deep in their sparks that frivolous display and effusive words could hardly touch on it, was a strength not a weakness.
Right now, that deep connection told Prowl just how much pain his partner was in. And how much effort he was putting in to hiding it.
“You know,” Jazz observed as Prowl squirmed back up to spoon his companion. “Working in the dark is romantic and all, but you could have just lit your headlights.”
Prowl bit back his first three replies, wishing he had a servo to spare to rub his helm and ease the processor ache there.
“There is a significant risk of escaping light betraying our survival to the Decepticons.”
Jazz’s expression made it clear just what he thought of Prowl’s ad-hoc explanation. His dim visor virtually radiated scepticism. Prowl raised a brow-ridge and stood by his assertion.
The sounds he associated with the general collapse and the cooling of the rubble after its bombardment had more or less faded. There were still occasional clangs and thumps in the debris, although whether they marked the investigations of frustrated Seekers, or just a settling amongst the ruins, was far from clear. Through three metres or more of hard-baked Earth, still radiating heat from the violent bombardment, not even Prowl’s door-wings could distinguish a spark signature from the general chaos.
They told him enough though. He could feel Jazz growing more distant beside him. The Ops mech was weakening, slowly but steadily, as the minutes ticked by. Prowl thought… hoped… prayed… that his injuries were treatable - nothing that would be of serious concern for a medic of Ratchet’s skill. But Ratchet wasn’t here. Jazz shouldn’t have been either.
“This is my fault.”
A chuckle escaped Jazz, the first sound the saboteur had made for a while. “Your fault that the humans wanted an Autobot in Chicago for their big day? Not every orn they turn on a particle-smasher that big.”
“Big? We have three proton accelerators larger than Fermilab’s new device in the Ark’s engine room.”
“Yeah, but the humans don’t need to know that.” The Ops mech laughed again, the sound softer and marred by the irregularity of his vents. One servo came up, resting beside his helm on Prowl’s chest-plates. “Prowler, I wanted to come.”
“We didn’t have to drive the whole way.”
“Hey, I’m a mech who likes his wheels on solid ground - at least until ‘Jack gets our own shuttles sorted.” Jazz vented hard, the gust blowing a trickle of dust across Prowl’s door-wings. “If you hadn’t suggested driving, I would’ve. Besides, Prowler, it’s been too long since we’ve had time together.” His servo moved, grasping blindly for Prowl’s and finding it. “I wanted to be here,” he repeated softly.
Prowl squeezed the servo he held, alarmed by the weakness of Jazz’s responding pressure. Jazz’s engine note was coarse and deep, his peripheral systems shutting down. If the saboteur’s core functions dropped too low his processor would sink into stasis in self-preservation. Even if they got out of this pit and Prowl delivered his companion to Ratchet without delay, breaking an established stasis block would take time and more energon reserves than the Autobots had to hand. Prowl would be without his chosen partner - the mech he’d shared more than half his life with - through orns, or maybe even decaorns, of recovery.
He had to keep Jazz alert - and not just because the Autobots needed their Head of Special Ops.
“Tell me the story.”
“What…?”
“The Wizard of Oz. You said I should read the book. I do not have it to hand, but I suspect you have the text in your memory banks, so tell me the story, Jazz. I want to hear it in your voice - no unconvincing animals, or poorly disguised, singing humans dressed in primary colours. Just you and me and the picture your words paint.”
Jazz was silent for long enough that Prowl’s vents caught in fearful tension. The saboteur stirred, slipping his arm around Prowl, drawing them closer.
“Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies,” Jazz began. “With Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife…”
“…And oh, Aunt Em! I’m so glad to be home again.”
Jazz’s voice faded. He curled against Prowl, as best he could, sharing their mutual satisfaction in the completed story.
The retelling hadn’t been without interruption. Prowl had interjected comments where he saw fit, eager to keep Jazz engaged. The saboteur had added his own diversions in turn, taking the opportunity to include some of his favourite tunes from the many dramatizations this story had undergone.
Now though, the music was over. Dorothy was safe home, leaving the trapped mechs all too aware of their own predicament.
Jazz’s engine whined. The mech was waiting for his reaction, Prowl knew. Looking down at the dark helm and dim visor raised to him, he hummed thoughtfully.
“By my estimation, we are being invited to endorse several acts of larceny, more of animal cruelty, vandalism or fraudulent deception, one of culpable homicide and one of premeditated murder.”
The upkick in Jazz’s core systems was worth the planning that went into the comment. His companion’s expression was one of disappointed horror. Prowl chuckled, the sound vibrating through his frame and the door-wings trapped behind him. Straining a little, he planted a tender kiss on the front rim of Jazz’s helm before going on.
“We have also learned that tyranny, deception and evil must be defied wherever they are encountered. That wondrous things can come out of the hardest of times. And that true friends can be relied upon, regardless of the situation.”
This time the faltering in Jazz’s vents warmed Prowl’s spark rather than dimming it. The saboteur was looking up at him with an expression of open love and deep affection. Prowl returned it, tightening his hold on the other mech’s damaged frame.
Jazz flushed his vents, a sound of weariness combined with resignation. His plating had cooled now, his systems giving up all but the most vital of functions. He lay quiet for a moment and then rolled part way over, letting his visor rest on the hatch cover above them. It vibrated, dust streaming between the planks.
“So, what’s the odds on that being our friends, rather than the ‘Cons?”
It was the first time either acknowledged the thumps and clattering that had been working steadily closer for the last hour. Now that Jazz had voiced the question, Prowl couldn’t pretend not to have noticed, or not to have an answer.
“Too close to call,” he admitted, voice soft. “I do not have the data to speculate… so I choose to trust in our crewmates. Optimus Prime would not abandon us.”
“Sounds good to me.” Jazz sighed, his helm nuzzling Prowl’s chestplates almost too feebly to register. “Love you.”
“Frame and spark,” Prowl agreed softly. “Until all are one.”
They eased apart as the hatch trembled and shifted - just a few millimetres at first, and then with all the force of a Cybertronian-strength shove. Prowl had his acid blaster in servo. He knew Jazz was armed too - both with his laser pistol and with a rather more explosive device tucked between his frame and Prowl’s. The saboteur hadn’t consulted him about the latter. He didn’t have to. Both knew just what was at stake if the wrong servos reached through the uncovered entrance.
“Jazz? Prowl?”
“Prime!” Prowl didn’t manage much more than a whisper. He cleared his vents, reset his vocaliser and raised his voice in a yell. “Prime! Jazz needs medical assistance.”
“Huh, tattle-tale.” Jazz’s complaint lacked vehemence. He too raised his voice. “Don’t let Prowl escape the Hatchet either, boss!”
A gruff voice answered them, unimpressed. “Like that’s going to happen.”
Prowl dimmed his optics, relief almost overwhelming. Thank Primus… Ratchet was here.
Two sets of familiar finger-servos curled under the edges of the hatch. Optimus Prime and Ironhide heaved in unison, letting startling brightness spill down on the mechs beneath.
Ratchet leaned over the cellar, his scanners running over both, his expression mingling relief, concern and displeasure. His servos were already reaching for Jazz before the tingle faded.
“Prime! Lend a servo here.”
Jazz had been hauled out of varied disasters often enough to let his frame relax and simply give in to the manhandling. He hung from Prime and Ratchet’s grasps, his dim visor sweeping the piles of vitrified rubble, and the ruined crops burning in the fields beyond. Glancing down at Prowl, he managed a look of very-nearly-convincing bewilderment.
“Oh, Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more!”
“What?” Ironhide frowned. “Of course you are!”
Prowl resisted a smirk with an effort of will.
“There is one and only one circumstance, Jazz, in which ‘Toto’ may be an acceptable nickname.” He paused, for long enough that not only Jazz but all their friends gave him curious looks. Raising a brow-ridge, he pushed himself up on his servos and one functioning pede. Accepting Ironhide’s help with the climb, he smiled. “I am referring, of course, to the unlikely event that we find ourselves somewhere over the rainbow.”
Ratchet’s servos were inspecting the patch on Jazz’s side and the injuries on both. The medic’s optics flickered to the energon-stained ground where the two mechs had been laid buried. He shook his helm.
“We need to get this pair back to the Ark, Prime.” He tapped his helm significantly. “I want to get them checked out.”
Jazz did nothing for his case by breaking into giggles. For once in his life, Prowl abandoned decorum and slumped across his mate, sharing his near hysteria. Jazz reached out, making a satisfied sound when he was able to catch Prowl’s own outstretched-servo. Prowl held tight, worried by Jazz’s dim visor but knowing his partner was safe now in their medic’s care.
“Home,” Jazz whispered.
Shaking off Ironhide’s support, Prowl stumbled forward. He kissed his companion, revelling in the fact that they were still alive to worry and shock their friends with the public display.
“There’s no place like it,” he agreed.
The End