Chapter Four

“Prowl.”

“Pardon?”

Prime uncrossed his arms and turned from Teletraan’s main screen to look at his second-in-command. “Is there something amiss, Prowl? You haven’t answered any of my questions.”

The black-and-white glanced down at his data pad, which remained uncharacteristically blank. “I – haven’t?”

Optimus took a few steps and placed a heavy blue hand on Prowl’s shoulder. “No.” He studied the analyst a moment, clear blue optics filled with the wisdom of the Matrix.

“I apologize, Prime,” Prowl replied quickly, taken aback by this sudden show of weakness. “Might we go over it again?”

Whatever lay emotion that lay behind that battlemask did not make it to Prime’s optics. “Negative. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? You’ve clearly other things on your mind. Go to the city, or to the beach. I hear you had a good time with Solarflare a few weeks ago.” The Autobot’s leader paused, released his hand from Prowl’s shoulder. “What were you doing with Solarflare anyway?”

Prowl hesitated, caught between his loyalty to Prime and his wish that his excursions with the avian femme be kept to as few mechs as possible. It was bad enough that it had gone beyond he, Solarflare and Mirage – but for Prime to know?

Not one to outright lie to his commander, Prowl stuffed the last bits of his pride into his ankle joints and replied truthfully, “Being seen, sir.”

Optimus raised a hand to his chin and rubbed it thoughtfully, as he was known to do when rolling ideas over in his cortex. “Is that so. Why?”

The embarrassment was too much to bear, but Prowl pressed through. After this was over and done with he was going to stay a long way away from humans – for a couple thousand cycles. And burn all incoming mail. “To make the human women jealous.”

Prime was clearly unimpressed with his twins-like succinct responses. “Out with it, soldier,” the large red-white-and-blue mech demanded in his best parade tone, hands clasped behind his back.

Prowl could relay casualties with autonomic precision; he could give orders crisply and without guilt; he could come up with one hundred and ten ways to run a course – backwards. He could not, however, look Optimus Prime in the optic as he told his tale. To his immense chagrin, Prime could not contain the thin chuckle that escaped from behind the battlemask; it was the worse laugh-turned-cough Prowl had ever come across. After clearing his vocalizer, Prime unclasped his hands and crossed them back in front of his chest.

“Well, I see. What an … unusual predicament you have found yourself in. Are you sure that this is the best way to approach the situation?”

Too sophisticated and disciplined to retort “What else would you have me do?” Prowl shrugged. “It’s the best we could come up with.”

“Good luck then. You’re dismissed, Prowl,” Prime added when Prowl remained, data pad clutched in his hand. Optics blinking, the patrol car nodded and exited with a smart salute.

“Hey! Prowl! Prowl, baby!”

Indifferent and lost in his own cortex wanderings, Prowl kept walking until Jazz’s hand descended onto his shoulder. “Man! Didn’t you hear me?”

With a long-suffering sigh, Prowl turned to face the saboteur. “What?”

Smiling that insufferable smile, Jazz cocked his head back down the hall. “Got a plan for ya. There’s a big bang-up concert in the park. Wanna come?”

Frowning, Prowl declined. “No, thank you, Jazz. It’s appreciated, but no.”

“And why not?” he pressed. “Have you a better idea? I’m tellin’ ya, man, there’s gonna be chicks up the yin-yang there. Perfect spot.”

Really, he preferred to come up with plans involving his own sanity by himself. With a sigh that heaved his chest plate up and down several inches, Prowl turned back around. “What time?” he heard himself ask.

With a grin that bespoke that Jazz knew exactly what he was thinking, the saboteur winked. “Meet us outside at 6; concert starts at 8.” Jazz lifted his hand in an indolent wave and moseyed back the way he’d come, leaving Prowl clutching the data pad with uncharacteristic irritation.

When Prowl left the main hanger bay, he found not only Jazz and Blaster, but Solarflare as well. This was completely unexpected, and it threw his battle computer for a loop. The grey-black-white avian femme turned her head and spied him, lifting her hand in greeting, a warm smile crossing her sharp-planed face. Logic told him that he should have expected to see Solarflare there, especially since she was known to enjoy Jazz and Blaster’s company almost as much as she did the twins. However, her reaction popped a circuit or two; it was immediately followed by the rationale that she had come to terms with their “relationship”.

Prowl paused, hesitated but a parsec. It was too subtle for anyone without his training to notice, but it unsettled him. As far as he was considered, they had no relationship of which to speak – an unwilling partnership, but nothing that could come as close to the friendships she had with the other mechs. In any case, he had no desire to step between Flare and Mirage. The spy was still a wildcard as far as Prowl was concerned, no matter how hard he fought, nor the amount of good deeds he’d performed.

As he drew closer, he saw that Solarflare was winding several strands of glowing wire around her neck, waist and wrists. “You look like the Sears Tower on a clear night,” Blaster was quipping, flicking one of the bulbs that dangled from her neck. Solarflare laughed, her vocalizer touched with a hint of avian shriek.

“As long as they don’t try to find the elevator to the top, I think I’m good,” she shot back, then turned to Prowl. “Want some?”

Prowl eyed the glows with a certain amount of contempt. “No, thank you.”

Solarflare merely shrugged and walked over to Jazz, looping the strand around his pronged helm. “Heh-heh, baby doll. Well, looks like we’re all accounted for, let’s get going.” Like a well-oiled machine, Jazz transformed; a second later, so did Solarflare and Blaster, the former picking the later up in her strong black talons and pushing him through Jazz’s open window. Acutely, Prowl realized that he was the odd-one out in this little triad – the straggler on the edge of society, the awkward loner who was invited for sympathy. Nevertheless, he had initiated the events that had led up to this moment, and his own personal thoughts be damned, he was going to follow it through. A moment later, he transformed and was following Jazz down the rocky road, the dark shadow of a massive metallic avian coating his hood.

Throughout the drive, Prowl kept silent, listening to the comm-chatter of the other three. When they finally reached their intended destination, he was only too happy to relinquish his alternate form and mingle with the humans. Almost shyly, he found Solarflare slipping up to her post on his arm. “What do you think?” she asked conversationally, looping her hand through his, lacing silver fingers and black. Prowl coughed, for the first time since their arrival actually taking in his surroundings. He was not impressed whatsoever.

They were in a park, standing quite a ways away (by human standards) from the main stage, which appeared to be cobbled together only moments before and seemed held through spit, gum and a prayer. The breeze picked up the foul odors wafting from the stage front and passed them under Prowl’s olfactory sensors. “Primus!” he exclaimed, shaking free of Solarflare’s light grasp and waving his hand under his nose component. “Marijuana!”

Heads turned at his rather loud omission and Flare quickly grabbed his arm, hauling it down. “Prowl,” she hissed, standing on her tip-toes and placing her mouth close to his audios. “Not so loud! Yes, there’s drugs here, but let it go. I know you’re inner cop rebels against it, but just do us all a favor and let it slide.”

Gears clicked and whirled in Prowl’s cortex. Again with the programming! He turned his head away from Flare’s and looked over at Jazz and Blaster. Porsche and boombox were down on the ground, chatting with a gang of black-clothed humans as blue-tinted smoke wafted all around. Sighing, Prowl shook his head, running the tips of his fingers over his chevron, seeking inner peace.

“Prowl,” Solarflare repeated more firmly. “Chill, okay? Come on, it’s almost time.”

“Chill, Prowl,” she says, he thought. How could he, when there was chaos reigning all around him?

“Prowl,” she repeated more firmly over their internal-commlink, talons sliding out of their sheaths and digging into his plating as a reminder. “The façade can’t be properly maintained if you look like I’m about to remove your laser core.” She tilted her head to the side, looking at him expectantly.

The analyst sighed, his doorwings shifting over his shoulders. Nothing seemed to be going his way, not since he proposed this ludicrous plan to Solarflare in the first place. Perhaps, he thought sullenly, because he had too high of expectations – and perhaps, he didn’t know what to expect in the first place.

“Flare!” Blaster called out as a thick drum riff shot out over the crowd. The boombox came bounding over, a slight ring of smoke around his horned head, hands outstretched, reaching down for the avian femme’s waist. “Dance!” he shouted as the music picked up, drowning out whatever else he was going to say as the band took to the stage and a few thousand organic voices began to roar in appreciation. And just like that, the communications mech plucked Solarflare from Prowl’s arms – and the analyst couldn’t believe that he felt shafted.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but if some dude stole my chick from me, I’d be pissed off.”

“Pardon?” Prowl turned his head and looked down, locking onto a short, scruffy-looking human male whose hands were stuffed into the pockets of an overlarge black trench coat.

“She is your girl, isn’t she?”

It took a millisecond for Prowl to run the human’s strange vernacular through his processor, not long enough for the male to suspect anything, though. “Well, yes,” he replied after a short pause, lifting his head and peering out from under his chevron at the odd motions Blaster and Solarflare were making. The grey femme had her wings slicked close to her central line, glowing sticks swaying about her as she moved. “She is.” The man just settled a long, measured and knowing look upon the black-and-white cruiser before turning away and melting into the gyrating crowd.

Prowl was too smart not to know what the human was trying to tell him. Raising his doorwings, he walked through the slew of humanity and took Solarflare by the arm. “You’re with me, remember?”

Flare’s optics widened considerably and she flicked glances at Jazz and Blaster. Both mechs shrugged and moved on to entertain themselves with some human females dancing atop a truck bed. Then her gaze swept across Prowl’s impassive grey face, trying to discern the source of this madness. She found none.

“Dance with me, Solarflare?”

She smiled softly. “You lead, or me?”

The corners of Prowl’s optics glowed a faint rose. “You.” And so she did, moving with a fluidity Prowl hadn’t thought they were capable of – Solarflare’s hips swung, her legs moved and her arms wrapped around his neck.

“Let go,” she whispered. And surprisingly, he did.