Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Soundwave didn’t consider himself a religious mech by any means. He never prayed to Primus or any other god; any failure or misery that had befallen him he could always trace back to purely logical real-world happenings. Yet, when Bumblebee announced at one of the regularly scheduled meetings that the ship would be having a party “to celebrate everyone’s joint efforts and forget the stress for a few hours”, the communications officer wondered if this was a punishment by Primus for all the misdeeds of his past. Honestly, some cruel deity must have been playing a sick joke on him. This definitely was not the break he was asking for.

He wouldn’t say that his condition had gotten better over the course of the last weeks – it will never get better – but he was able to cope marginally better with its effects and with filtering out what was important; in no small part thanks to Laserbeak.

Nevertheless, he still dreaded having to be in the same room as literally everyone on this Primus-forsaken ship. He already convinced Optimus and Megatron to let him work during the off-cycle when most of the others recharged. It didn’t do much to ease his struggle, but it was a start. Although the thoughts and emotions of dreaming mechs were even more chaotic and vexing than when they were awake, they were muted in a way, dampened, like sound underwater. It was hard to describe.

With all of that, Soundwave was at least managing. But now, Bumblebee, sweet, innocent, insufferable Bumblebee, who apparently would not rest until every single living being in the universe was happy, just had to increase his suffering a little more.

But it was unfair to put all the blame on the scout. After all, everyone who agreed with the yellow menace was just as guilty. For the Vehicons, it was a no-brainer. Now that the fighting was done, all of them jumped at the chance of doing anything remotely exciting. Smokescreen and Knock Out were always down to party. The rest was cautiously optimistic and looking forward to an evening of fun and relaxation. Even Starscream – that traitorous glitch – supported the idea and even offered to help organize this horrible gathering.

And so it began. The whole mess hall was rearranged, Wheeljack even made a plan to put up a bar there so that it didn’t look so ‘military’ anymore. He and Bulkhead had been working on it for a week, sometimes Breakdown even joined in to help. He told them it was “because the bosses said so” but, truth be told, he just found it nice to do some actual handiwork again and not just play nurse in the med bay.

Knock Out offered to show how to distil high-grade to Bumblebee and Smokescreen. When Ratchet became suspicious and voiced his misgivings, the red racer just waved them aside. “Please, I’ve done this like a million times back at the academy.” Which did nothing to placate the older medic. In the end, Ratchet joined them. Maybe there was still some party ambulance left in him after all.

Starscream was practically beaming (only on the inside, of course) because, finally, he could demonstrate his impeccable leadership skills. Soundwave noticed that the seeker had experienced a bout of depression lately as he didn’t find there was anything meaningful to do for him now that the war was over. He had managed to hide it well but, since the two of them continued to work very closely together, Soundwave had been subjected to all the destructive thoughts from the seeker during that time.

To sum it up, there was even more mindless babbling going around the ship now plus the ear-piercing hammering and welding coming from the mess hall. Although, Soundwave had to admit that it was kind of nice to feel everyone’s excitement at the prospect of the celebration, instead of the usual poisonous mixture of uncertainty, distrust and anger that seemed to linger in their minds. Still, his dread at the prospect of a party overshadowed all the positivity.

A few cycles before the event, Soundwave noticed Bumblebee coming down the hallway. He seemed… Excited? A bit nervous as well. The bot stood in front of his hab suite and hesitated. Just before he could ping the door panel for access, Soundwave opened it. The yellow scout startled when the door suddenly opened and he was face to face with the tall spy, or rather face to chest.

“Ah! Hey, Soundwave! Funny, I was just about to-“

“What does/ Bumblebee/ want?” he interrupted. He did not have time for stammering excuses, he just wanted this conversation to be over as quickly as possible. There was enough going on in his processor already and he did not need for the scout to make his misery even worse by speaking to him.

He felt the excitement drain from Bumblebee’s field, so only the nervousness remained. One didn’t need to be an outlier to figure that out - it was clearly written all over his faceplates. And, to Soundwave’s dismay, it did nothing to speed up the conversation.

“Uhm- so, I was just talking to, uh, Knock Out and, and Starscream, you know? And uh-“

Soundwave felt the urge to bash his own head into a wall.

Bumblebee was getting more and more anxious by the nano-klik, his optics darting left and right, looking anywhere except Soundwave. His thoughts were racing a million lightyears per cycle. “And we were, like, talking about the party and were discussing the music and stuff, and Megatron came by and he, like, mentioned that you were kind of into mixing music and remixing songs as a pastime when the two of you where gladiators and-“

Wait, where was this useless exposition going? And why would Megatron just casually tell them something like this?

“So, long story short,” Bumblebee exhaled deeply as if to prepare for something difficult. “I wanted to ask you if you- if you would like to DJ for the party?” He smiled up at Soundwave, waiting for an answer.

Soundwave just stared at him, dumbfounded. Was he understanding this right? A short affirmation from Laserbeak confirmed that yes, Bumblebee did indeed ask him to play music for the party.

Again, Bumblebee’s smile was slowly melting off his faceplates at the silence he was met with. “Megatron said your songs and mixtapes where, like, super rad and that even Jazz liked to dance to them, so, uhm…” He held up his hands in a placating manner, “it was Megatron who suggested I ask you and-”

“No!” Soundwave boomed using Megatron’s voice, “I will not take part in/ this.” He specifically chose sound files from Megatron and Starscream to really get his point across. Just hearing that designation still made him furious.

Bumblebee flinched at the sudden outburst and Soundwave could sense a tinge of fear in his field. He immediately felt Laserbeak’s displeasure at his response. She was right of course; the yellow bot couldn’t possibly know what went down between him and the Autobot commander. Megatron, however, did. No matter if the war was over or not, maybe he should have a talk about the value of privacy with him.

Bumblebee took a step back, put a servo on the back of his neck and looked to the side. “Hey, if you don’t want to then no pressure, ha. Thought it was worth a shot. We’ll find someone else or think of… something, don’t worry.”

Soundwave could feel the scout’s dejection and disappointment. “Anyways, uh, see ya!” And with that, Bumblebee hurried down the hallway. Soundwave looked after him for a few nano-kliks, before closing the door again. He felt conflicted about the encounter – He wanted to make it clear that he was not in the least bit interested in any such endeavour. He had enough stuff to deal with as it was. But he didn’t mean to scare the mech.

An emotion he has not felt in a long time swelled up in him. It’s called remorse, Laserbeak oh-so thankfully reminded him. He wouldn’t go that far. However, Bumblebee’s lingering despondence in his mind said otherwise.

Soundwave made a resigned noise and sat at his desk. Scrap that stupid cheery Autobot and his stupid innocent smile, he thought as he searched through some old files on his personal console. That blasted Bumblebee and his big blue optics and his childish-looking pout. He fetched a blank data disc from a shelf with one of his cables and inserted it into the console. Honestly, such an annoyance…

On the next cycle, after his shift, Bumblebee would find three discs full of original songs and remixes with the title ‘Super Rad Party Music’ on his desk.

It was weird hearing his own music like this, blasted out of some mid-quality speakers in a room that was not at all designed to reverberate such acoustics. It was the first time, actually, that his music was transmitted on this scale. Soundwave never intended for his songs to go public if one could call it that. For him, mixing music had been a relaxing past-time during his days in the Pits, a quiet escape from all the death and bloodshed. With the exception of his mini-cons, only three mechs were privy to his hobby; two of which were in this room with him just now and gave him a knowing (and appreciative?) smile once the music came on, and the other was Primus-knows-where, if he was even still alive.

Thinking about Jazz made Soundwave even more miserable than he already was. The room was full of mechs whose cheerful excitement filled the room and yet here he was, stressed and on edge and barely holding it together, gripping his cube of self-made engex, that had been handed to him upon entering the mess hall, and standing at the far end of the recently finished bar.

He did not have to look around the room to know that everyone was in good spirits; Bots and Cons were chatting amongst each other, clinking their cubes together, recounting stories from old times and some were dancing. Starscream was among the dancers, and he basked in the attention of the Vehicons – this really was the ego-boost that he needed. Megatron and Optimus were chatting amicably with everyone they came across – even Ultra Magnus and Dreadwing seemed to enjoy themselves for once, the former had taken a liking to the high grade and became more talkative with every drop, and the latter was swinging to the music hoping nobody would notice him.

Soundwave’s eyes darted around the room. There were so many different impressions, so many words mashed together and chaotic noise reaching his sensors that he could feel his sparkrate rising by the klik. He didn’t want to be here. Why was he forced to do this? First, Bumblebee was guilting him into mixing him music and then Megatron pressured him into attending this awful gathering. “You have been working ceaselessly since we’ve started this journey” Megatron had said to him as if he hadn’t done so before. “Even you need to take a break from time to time, old friend. Besides, a bit of socializing won’t hurt you”. Oh, he had no idea how wrong he was.

Soundwave was so distracted by everything that he barely noticed Knock Out and Breakdown, who were just happily dancing together, now standing off to the side, quietly talking to each other. The spy threw a clandestine glance in their direction. Through all the noise, he couldn’t make out what they were saying but Breakdown seemed nervous and concerned. He could also make out that Knock Out felt uncharacteristically anxious but tried to appear confident, stroking Breakdown’s cheek with a reassuring smile before turning to the room again.

The red racer held his cube of engex high in the air and clinked on it with his digits. “Everyone,” and once again all attention was directed at the red medic who stepped into the middle of the room, Breakdown close behind him, while everyone slowly ceased whatever they were doing. “Breakdown and I have an announcement to make.”

Confused curiosity permeated the mess hall with the exceptions of Ratchet and Starscream who rolled their eyes at Knock Out’s never-ending dramatics.

Once he was certain he had everyone’s attention, Knock Out continued. “So, now that that stupid war is finally over and we all have settled down quite well here,” he took Breakdown’s hand in his, who still eyed everyone nervously, “Breakdown and I have been thinking, and we have decided that… we want to bond. We’re going to be conjunx!”

There was a brief nano-klik of complete nothingness in everyone’s minds. Then the whole room erupted into cheers. The Vehicons were all clapping and wooing, Bumblebee and Smokescreen were excitedly hugging Knock Out, Starscream was shaking his head with a smile on his face, saying something along the lines of “about fragging time”, even Bulkhead gave Breakdown a congratulatory pat on the back.

It was hell. Soundwave wanted to feel happy like the others, wanted to look the two mechs in the optics and gave an appreciative nod, they deserved their happiness, they deserved all of that. But for him, it was as if Unicron himself had just entered the room. He felt his body beginning to shake, Laserbeaks attempts to soothe him over their bond were fruitless at this point. His sparkrate increased tenfold and he gripped his cube so tightly that he felt it cracking already.

“Soundwave, is everything alright?” It was Megatron, coming up in front of him and eyeing him with that worried look again.

He had no time to answer, because his cube finally cracked under the pressure, spilling engex on the ground in front of him while the rest of the glass shards also fell to the ground with a sharp clink. It attracted the attention of a few mechs around them. He felt Ratchet and Optimus eyeing him cautiously. Soundwave, however, barely registered anything anymore. Starting to hyperventilate, he gripped his head, his face scrunched up in pain.

“Soundwave!” Megatron exclaimed, alarmed. He rested a hand of Soundwave’s shoulder. The rest of the mechs in the room finally noticed the commotion, all staring at them.

“Ah!” A sharp pain ran through his processor, when Megatron touched him, and suddenly every mech in the room was holding their heads in pain. Even Megatron flinched, releasing Soundwave’s shoulder to reflexively touch his temples.

Soundwave stumbled back and looked around while everyone tried to process what had just happened.

“What the frag was that?!”

“Urg, I didn’t drink that much!”

“What is going on here?”

“Was everyone feeling that?”

“Scrap, I feel like someone bashed my head with a hammer.”

“Was that Soundwave’s doing?”

“What in Primus name did that creepy fragger do to us?”

“What in the world is wrong with Soundwave?”

The voices, the judgement was crashing down on him and he could do nothing to stop it. He watched in horror as everyone slowly recovered and was staring at him as if he had grown a second head.

And then, Soundwave ran.