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“He’s avoiding me,” Brainstorm tells Chromedome, confronting him in Swerve’s while he’s officially briefcase-less, for the rest of his life. “And I’m not sure why.”
“What?” Chromedome’s optics furrow. “Who?”
“Perceptor,” Brainstorm starts, and Rewind sighs, scooting aside so that all three of them can squish into the booth together. “Duh.”
Brainstorm had thought they had… something. Not friendship maybe, but a certain begrudging admiration for each other. Ever since Brainstorm’s ‘trial’, Perceptor had been the only one who hadn’t accused him, of anything, Decepticon or not. The only one who’d stood up and clapped, who’d believed, and it had made things better. They work well together, they think well together --now that they're over their old antagonism, present from the days of Kimia-- and their gaps of knowledge are always complimented by the other, now that they’ve both seen the extent to the other’s abilities. Simpatico.
But now, Perceptor glances the other way at every second of eye-contact, is studiously never in the labs, avoids team missions even when Rodimus demands it of him (and by demands, that means get on his knees and pull a puppy-face) and all in all, Brainstorm notices these things. He’s a scientist-slash-inventor-slash-gun-enthusiast, he’s designed to.
Chromedome and Rewind exchange a look. Or maybe it’s a look.
“Well, um,” Chromedome scratches his cheek. “It wouldn’t really be the first time someone had avoided you, would it?”
Brainstorm hums, tapping his fingers along the table. “Why would someone avoid me?” He asks, near-rhetorical.
Chromedome and Rewind exchange --this time, definitely-- another look.
“Do you really want me to answer that?” Chromedome responds. Brainstorm scoffs.
“Pah,” he waves his hands. “Percy isn’t weak-minded, like that, though, that’s why it doesn’t make sense.”
“Well,” Rewind pipes in, glancing at Chromedome sideways. “It wouldn’t exactly be the first time you’ve misread a social situation, either.”
Brainstorm opens his mouth, closes it, is thankful for the faceplate.
“Maybe not,” he says, eventually. “But--”
Chromedome vents out a sigh. “Brainstorm buddy, I love you, but,” he glances at Rewind. “Take a hint.”
Brainstorm readjusts his optics, noticing the place where Chromedome’s hand is linked with Rewind’s, and the pointed expression on Chromedome’s otherwise expressionless face.
“Ah,” he says, in realisation. “Well, there aren’t many places where I’m not wanted, but--” He begins to slide out of the booth, leaving the two to their space, but Chromedome grabs his wrist before he can walk away with his only remaining hand.
“Brainstorm,” he says, seriously. “Just ask him about it, if you’re really sure he’s avoiding you. And if he says you’re being…” he trails off. “...Yourself, then tone it down a little, yeah?”
“Of course,” Brainstorm replies, shrugging off the grip subtly and bowing, over-dramatically. “Thanks for the help, my dearest friend.”
Chromedome mumbles, “I’m your only friend.” But Brainstorm’s far enough away that he can pretend not to have heard it, walking out of the bar with the image of Chromedome’s hand around Rewind’s caught at the edge of his brain, refusing to remove itself.
When they’d first met, all the way back on Kimia, things had been... difficult.
Perceptor, for all that he had been genius, had also been kind of a brat --and that’s coming from Brainstorm. Brainstorm had known Perceptor’s type because he’d been in the field long enough to; smart --genius, almost-- but at the price of an ego that overshadows any of his potential, held down by the laws of textbooks and tutors, thinking himself above all the others.
(Brainstorm hadn’t thought he was above all others --he'd known he was.)
It had been stifling, suffocating, and the kind of attitude that ruined Brainstorm’s mojo --enough to make him drunkenly whine into Swerve’s arms one night about how Percepter was too smart for his own good.
But Kimia is where the animosity had both started and ended, because before Brainstorm had even noticed it, eons had passed, he and Perceptor were working in their respective laboratories aboard the lost light, and if Perceptor had any complaints each time Rodimus partnered him up with Brainstorm, they were lost behind the hum of a quantum engine, the thick, tired silence that came alongside everything after the fading scars of the war, and the quiet chance at new beginnings that the ship had offered to all the passengers aboard it.
“He’s avoiding me,” Brainstorm tries again, putting different emphasis on the syllables and hoping for a different response, this time. Nautica --unlike somebody-- should offer logical advice --a scientist’s advice-- rather than the blah blah confront him blah blah stuff.
Also, she’s too polite to tell Brainstorm that he’s being annoying; always a plus.
“I--” she frowns. “I’m sure he isn’t?”
Brainstorm rolls his optics. “I’m a scientist, Nautica, I’m only making the most logical conclusion.”
Nautica smiles softly. “And I think you’ve only made a hypothesis,” she says, and reaches for the screwdriver in one of Brainstorm’s cabinets. He’s never going to get used to this --having his lab always occupied, having someone be familiar with his space --and if only due to Rodimus’ orders. “And you’ve yet to do proper observation and evaluation before making your conclusion.”
Brainstorm sighs, if only because he knows she’s kind of right. Maybe.
“Besides, I…” Nautica frowns. “I thought you hated Perceptor, why do you care what he thinks?” The unspoken you’ve never cared what anyone else does hangs in the air --Brainstorm’s been around other mechs enough to know that it usually is.
Brainstorm pouts. “I never said that I hate him.”
Natuica fidgets. “Well,” she starts. “You told Swerve that you did, who brought it up with Chromedome, who told Rewind, who accidentally told Whirl--” she counts the bots out on her fingers. “--and Whirl kind of told everyone? Even Cyclonus?” She places her hands down gently, and smiles weakly. “I think he was hoping it would start some kind of fight.”
Brainstorm freezes at the memory, of telling Swerve something behind a muffled hand all the way in Kimia. “That was years ago,” he says, waving his hands. “I reevaluated my conclusion after thorough observation.”
(Even back then, Brainstorm’s not really sure if it had been hate, because it had been more like this dreading, hanging thing that had curled around his spark and sunk. It reminds him of how he’d felt when he’d first met Quark, even now --jealous, slightly offended, and intrigued; despite his best wishes. The sinking had stopped, over time, but the intrigue had never gone away, not really --Brainstorm is naturally curious, and something about Perceptor begs to be torn apart.)
“If you say so,” she says, and Nautica is probably the only person on this entire damn ship who doesn’t sound sarcastic when she says something like that. “But that doesn’t answer my original question…” she bites her lip-plates. “Why do you care?”
Brainstorm pauses, idly juggling the bolts in his hands. “Because I’m always looking for a good way to show Perceptor up,” he turns his face away from Nautica’s view. “And I can’t exactly do that if he’s not around, now can I?” Brainstorm chuckles. “Perhaps he finally realised my intellect was superior and made a tactical retreat.”
Nautica frowns, and Brainstorm only catches the motion from the corner of his eye, as he focuses on the gun in his hand. The aim is to have this one make the recipient register all forms of energon to taste like rust. He’s struggling.
“And, you know,” Brainstorm continues, unsure of why he does. Maybe it’s the way Nautica’s looking at him, like she’s trying to take him apart --just like Perceptor does, just like Brainstorm wants to. “I miss his ugly mug around these parts, because he offers the occasional good idea from time-to-time, and…” the words won’t stop flowing, even though Brainstorm wants them to. “... and I miss the noise he makes when I ‘accidentally’ bump into him with my wings, and the way his nose scrunches, when he’s angry --it’s kind of cute, actually, have you ever--”
“Oh my Primus.” Nautica blinks. “You like him.” She states, somehow matter-of-factly, like all good scientists --reason above all else. “Perceptor, you…”
Brainstorm opens his mouth to argue, closes it. She’s not exactly wrong , per se, and somehow the image of Chromedome and Rewind’s hands being stuck in his head, sort of makes sense, in the scheme of things.
“I prefer the term ‘reluctant fanboy’.” Brainstorm decides on eventually, aiming for nonchalant and missing by a few hundred kilometers.
“I.” Nautica falters. “Wow.”
Brainstorm swallows the words in his mouth, and turns around, laughing nervously.
“The spark wants what the spark wants,” he says, aiming for that same, easygoingness, but feeling like his entire body is made out of solid lead rather than titanium and steel. “Who am I, a mere scientist, to question it~?”
“I just--” Nautica vents out a breath of air. “I didn’t know you could… feel… that.”
“Pah,” Brainstorm spits, and thinks of Quark, a million years ago. “He’s not my first, and he’s not my last and that’s not important, what’s important is--” Quark, four million years ago, brilliant, arrogant, capable of turning into a microscope. “--Oh my god,” Brainstorm blurts, suddenly, in a total eureka moment. “I have a type.”
Nautica frowns. “That’s what’s important?”
“No I--” Brainstorm shakes his head vigorously. “Nevermind. What’s important, is that my feelings aren’t relevant, and it doesn’t change the fact that Percy is--”
“How are they not relevant?” Nautica asks, frowning worriedly.
“Well, you know,” Brainstorm twists a screw in so tight he can’t reverse the process, flipping the screwdriver between his hands. “It’s not logical that he would ever return them, since I’m a certified nuisance, and--”
“Brainstorm,” Nautica says, shoulders falling. “Don’t sell yourself short like that, you’re…”
“Brilliant, I know,” Brainstorm whistles while he tinkers, but feels Nautica’s gaze, burning into the back of his head. “It’s not a surprise that dear Percy is jealous, but we really need him to get over his compensation tactics, because we need to get working on that--” Brainstorm’s cut out as Nautica just wraps her arms around his chest, metal scraping against metal.
“Um.” Brainstorm says, trapped. “What is this?”
“A hug,” Nautica replies, and squeezes tighter. “Because you needed one.”
Brainstorm tries to shift, and it just makes her grip harden. “Well.” He says, at a loss for what to do. “That is a baseless assumption.”
“Not everything has to be logical,” Nautica mumbles, sound lost to Brainstorm’s shoulder.
“On the contrary,” he says, a little winded from her ‘hug’. “I relish in the illogical brought to reality.” He smirks despite himself. “I’m not Percy.”
“Then maybe you should tell him how you feel,” Nautica replies, tilting her face so that they’re eye-to-eye, even though her arms don’t move. “Because you say it isn’t logical for him to like you back, so maybe the illogical can be brought to reality when you tell him the truth. You won't know unless you try."
Brainstorm sighs, and this time, Nautica smirks. She really is putting too much faith in Perceptor’s ability to experience romantic attraction, and Brainstorm’s ability to be attractive romantic-wise, though.
“Alright,” he relents. “Fine. I’ll do it --once he’s no longer running away from me.” It’s a lie as far as Brainstorm’s ever concerned, but it somehow hurts, too, because he’s always lived life regardless of the well-calculated risks, but there’s something about this one that he just doesn’t want to lose.
Apparently, Rodimus has really worked on his puppy look.
Perceptor hums, mouth twisted, hand on chin. “I’ve… never thought about it like that.”
He still refuses to meet Brainstorm’s optics, for some unknown reason, but they’re in the same room together, which is a start, if only because it takes more than one mind to work out quantum physics properly, and Rodimus is three-point-three-recurring times more annoying when he wants something.
Also, no one trusts Brainstorm alone, anymore --not that he blames them.
Besides, Perceptor and Brainstorm have always made a good team. Brainstorm, with his need to put things together and make them work, Perceptor, with his need to pull them apart and see how they work --they’ve always complimented one another, in the strangest of ways. Silver and gold, red and blue.
Something inside Brainstorm flutters at the indirect praise --he’s learned to take what he can wherever he can-- and he zips his field in tight against his body, careful not to rub his over-cheeriness in Perceptor’s face. If there’s anything Brainstorm has learnt about the other autobot, it’s that his praise is few and far between, unlike Nautica’s --or any of the other bots on the ship who don’t even know what quantum means, for that matter. But Brainstorm enjoys a challenge, arguably, and Perceptor admitting that Brainstorm has taught him something, well, that’s a win.
(Perceptor’s field radiates skittish even when it’s pulled against his skin --Brainstorm doesn’t want him to run any farther than he already has, for whatever reason.)
Plus there’s the whole thing of Perceptor being smarter than him. Sometimes. Occasionally. Kind of kills the self-confidence.
“That’s because you’re so --” Brainstorm makes a vague gesture, waving the wrench in his hand about. His mouth twists beneath the faceplate. “It’s just a quantum engine, not rocket science, you don’t need to think about it so straightforwardly.”
Perceptor furrows his optics, still averting his eyes. “It’s quantum mechanics. That’s far more difficult than rocket science.”
“Pah,” Brainstorm spits. “Subjective.”
“Is it fixed yet?” Rodimus asks, bay doors sliding open as Megatron follows behind, impassive. “Got your little--” he wiggles his fingers. “--Magic thing going on?”
Nautica vents out a little huff, hands on her hips. “Just an overheating problem,” she explains, tapping on the hull of the engine. Shock --or is it Ore?-- watches over them creepily --or er, dead-ily. Is that a word? Brainstorm frowns. “The thrusters have to expel plasma from the reaction of anti-matter, so--”
“It’s all magical and fixed!” Rodimus finishes for her, clapping his hands together and grinning, Megatron swiftly pressing his hand against his own face behind him. “Anyway, jump or no jump?”
“Jump,” Brainstorm says, at the same time Perceptor and Nautica say, “no jump.”
“We fixed it!” Brainstorm exclaims, patting the engine pointedly. “Why wouldn’t we see if it works?”
“Because we just fixed it,” Perceptor replies, squinting. “We need to run some diagnostics before we’re travelling through a quantum vortex--”
“Diagnostics-schmostics--” Brainstorm waves his hands. “It’s ready to go so let’s go.”
“Have you ever been careful? Even once? Or do I need to define that word for you.” Perceptor looks up at where Brainstorm’s hanging and scowls, and if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s the first time he’s looked at Brainstorm in months, Brainstorm might have felt a little hurt. “We need to be careful with something as dangerous as a quantum engine--”
Brainstorm smirks beneath the mask. “We can’t all live life by a series of well-calculated risks, my dear Percy.” He swings a little bit so that they’re properly facing each other, Brainstorm upside down, Perceptor the right-way up. “The best science happens by accident.”
“The best science happens after years of research and trials and experiments--”
Rodimus yawns. “Are you guys like done or?”
“-- and careful calculations and --”
“Translation: give it a day or two.” Nautica smiles at Rodimus weakly while Perceptor continues rambling on, Brainstorm isn’t paying attention to any of it, really, caught up in the way Perceptor looks when he’s irritated. “We’ll be done with diagnostics soon, I hope.” It's almost be cute, the way his optics furrow, the twist of his mouth --if cute could be applied to ginormous robot with a sniper rifle attached to his back. The metal plate of Perceptor’s nose twitches with every elongated vowel. Adorable.
(Brainstorm is totally screwed.)
“So if you two are done bickering like an old conjunx endura couple, then--” Perceptor stops speaking at Rodimus’ tease, and he goes rigid. “--you can get this diagnostics show on the road, right?”
“Of course,” Perceptor replies, too quickly, too stiffly, and Nautica gives him skewed glance while Brainstorm just shrugs, lowering himself. The way Perceptor looks so caught off-guard and dejected would also almost be cute, if it didn’t make Brainstorm’s spark feel like it’s made of lead.
(He’d told Nautica he’d try to make the illogical a reality, but that seems foolish now, in hindsight, with Perceptor finally managing to look Brainstorm in the optics, and the latter thinking that this --this; friendship or any word otherwise-- would be enough. )
Now that Perceptor’s done… doing whatever he had been doing, Brainstorm has a problem.
It’s sort of weird, in the scheme of things; ever since working on the engine together, Perceptor is back in the lab and clicking his tongue at Brainstorm like they hadn’t spent over several weeks not seeing each other. Brainstorm would almost ask what had happened, but that both crossed a silent line in… whatever their relationship is --was?-- as well as reveal the fact that he had indeed noticed the avoidance to begin with.
And that -- that -- in and of itself, is a line that Brainstorm would be crossing with himself.
Infatuation is a tricky, fickle thing that Brainstorm is all-too familiar with, and it’s the price that comes with pushing everyone away, yet desperately wanting to be pulled in return. The slightest synergy, the slightest tug, and Brainstorm is falling, spiralling over the edge of a chasm he hadn’t seen coming, and suffering.
And Brainstorm doesn’t feel anything in parts, his feelings are always the whole thing, put together and functional, or nothing at all. There’s no buildup, no sudden, slow burning in his chest, there’s just a before and after, and the signs are all too similar.
He scrubs his hands across his optics in an attempt to clear his thoughts. Perceptor notices this, though, turning and raising an optic-ridge, slightly, and Brainstorm opts to ignore him as he tunes back into… whatever Megatron is saying. He’d stopped paying attention midway through tuning back in.
“And that concludes the briefing.” Megatron ends, with a tone of finality before the autobots on the ship can question why they’re taking orders from Megatron, and why the decepticons can question why they’re taking orders from Megatron on a ship with autobots on it. War never changes, even if it’s slightly down-sized.
Nautica bumps Brainstorm’s wings lightly with her wrench, nudging her chin at Perceptor across the room, who frowns at a smirking Nightbeat.
“Have you told him yet?” She asks, barely above a whisper.
Brainstorm laughs nervously. “All in good time,” he says, and smiles widely enough that she’ll see it in his optics. Funny to wear a mask beneath the one already there.
Nautica frowns, unconvinced. “You’re putting it off.” She chastises, lips still curved downwards.
Brainstorm shrugs, waving his hands. He doesn’t bother explaining that he only does things that benefit him, things that he wants to do, because Nautica of all mechs would know this. The problem at hand is justifying why telling Perceptor about his reluctant admiration is something he does not want to do, which, for some god forsaken reason, Nautica doesn’t understand.
(If there’s anything I’ve learnt aboard this ship, she’d told him, a little over a cycle ago, it’s that honesty really is the best policy.)
“I’m not ‘putting it off’,” Brainstorm replies, complete with air-quotes. “We just haven’t had any time to ourselves, unfortunately.” Instead of walking towards the hallway Perceptor is near, Brainstorm quickly turns the other way. “He’s occupied or I’m occupied or both and-- it’s all very busy, you know, being a genius, being one of three who understands what a quantum generator actually does--”
“Oh dear,” Nautica interrupts, venting out a sigh. “Now you’re avoiding him, seriously?”
“What?” Brainstorm blinks. “That’s… That’s preposterous, outrageous, completely out of line. You have no right to accuse me of such vilification, such… unnoble actions, such--”
“You’re avoiding him.” She states again, unimpressed.
“No I’m not.” Brainstorm replies.
“Yes you are.”
“No I’m not.”
“Yes you are.”
Brainstorm pauses. “... You have no evidence.”
Nautica looks at him. Brainstorm smiles weakly. She sighs in defeat.
“Why is it so hard for everyone on this darn ship to just talk about their feelings!?” Her childish stomp is cute except for the fact that it turns the head of every nearby mech in the vicinity. Uh-oh.
“Nautica--” Brainstorm tries, in an attempt for her to not yell but is swiftly cut off.
“Aw, don’t be so harsh,” Whirl inputs, appearing from nowhere. “Cyclonus is right there,” He stage whispers, and somehow, despite having only one eye, winks.
On cue, Cyclonus shoots the three of them a dirty look, or maybe it’s just aimed at Whirl --or maybe that’s his natural face. Impossible to tell, these days.
Whirl walks away, cackling. Nautica points her wrench at Cyclonus’ natural/possibly-glaring face, allthewhile looking directly at Brainstorm.
“That,” she says, gesturing to Cyclonus' sour lemon face, “is the exact reason why you should tell him how you feel.”
Brainstorm spares a glance at Cyclonus’ constant face, stuck in its perpetual-glare like he’s trying to pass a boulder through his system and failing.
“Huh.” Brainstorm says, as something in his chest curls up at the prospect. Cyclonus just rolls his eyes. Nautica vents out a huff, and walks away in her near-frustration.
“I can hear you, you know.”
This, Brainstorm decides, is a good time to go back to the lab. Tactical retreat.
Don’t tell Perceptor, and suffer through endless possibilities and an insatiable curiosity, as well as the consequence of looking like there’s a stick up his tailpipe, apparently.
Do tell Perceptor and… and what? Suffer embarrassment, ruin the closest thing Brainstorm’s ever had to a partnership? Face his over-crippling fear of rejection? Far more momentary than the alternative, but also, somehow, far, far worse.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Brainstorm groans.
“Everything alright?” Chromedome asks, bay-doors sliding open. Brainstorm’s optics blink in surprise.
“Oh my,” he says. “You really do care.”
Chromedome sighs. “I take it back.” He says.
Brainstorm waggles a finger. “Uh-uh,” he says, and feels his mouth slip into a grin. “You asked me how I was, that implies that you care about me . Oh gosh, I’m so flustered, you should have said something sooner, Chromedome, I would’ve gotten a congratulations you care cake or--”
Chromedome shakes his head. “You are so unbearable,” he mumbles, sighing. Brainstorm grins. “But you still haven’t answered my question.”
“Well,” Brainstorm starts earnestly. “I was struggling to get this gun to fire, but then my favourite Chromey-domey showed he does care, so now I’m absolutely-- ”
Chromedome walks out of the room, but something about his slow, fond, shaking head makes Brainstorm feel reassured, in the strangest of ways.
Despite Brainstorm’s best efforts over the next few weeks, burying himself into his lab and lamenting over his own self-pity, avoiding nearly everyone --Nautica in particular-- Perceptor does find him, eventually.
Brainstorm looks at him, dumbstruck.
“You found me,” he blurts, accidentally admitting to the fact that he’d been hiding in the first place. Perceptor raises an optic-ridge.
“You’re not supposed to be in here unsupervised,” he says, pointedly, mercifully sparing Brainstorm the embarrassment of the hiding thing. “And it’s your lab. Where else would you be?”
“I’m not alone,” Brainstorm replies, ignoring the latter half. “You’re here.” At this, Perceptor’s optics widen just a fraction of an inch, and Brainstorm, in an attempt to backpedal, tacks on a “duh.”
“I don’t understand you,” Perceptor says suddenly, and all the frustration, all the dancing around each other and the old hatred --all of it-- comes bubbling to the surface. “You avoid me for cycles , and now you’re--” he makes a frustrated hand gesture, and it’s so undeniably un-Perceptor that Brainstorm is blinking trying to make sense of the way his brain attempts to justify it. “Pretending like you're fine, or something. Ugh.”
“You avoided me first,” Brainstorm replies, pointing a finger, and immediately regrets it as Perceptor flinches, wincing. But he’s not done, because frustration is nothing if not contagious. “And I thought maybe it was me, like it always is, but then you start pretending like nothing had ever been wrong and now I don’t understand you.”
Perceptor huffs, unamused. “It was because of you, in a way,” he starts, and Brainstorm feels every single inch of him wilt, over and over again. “But not because of you, but because of what you… what you do.”
“What?” Brainstorm asks, optics furrowed. “You got a problem with my gun-making? Because you know you have a giant sniper rifle attached on your back, right? Like, that sort of--” Perceptor makes a frustrated noise.
“Not what you do,” he clarifies, struggling to find the words --also very un-Perceptor. Suspicious. “But what you do to me.”
Brainstorm, for once in his life, is very, very quiet.
“I don’t understand it , and least of all I understand you, but I had constantly been overwhelmed with the need to figure out what makes you tick but also…” Perceptor’s face scrunches as he stares at his hands, focused. “Something else. I’m not sure yet, but it made me… it made me…” he grunts. “Well, it made me stupid.”
After what feels like millions of years, Brainstorm squeaks out another, “what?”
“I don’t know! And I don’t like not knowing!” Perceptor half-yells, almost frantically. “That’s why I-- why I tactically avoided you, because I needed to work out whatever it was about you that made my spark clench and--”
“Oh my Primus.”
“--my mouth lose words and my brain fill with static and--”
“Oh my Primus.”
“What?” Perceptor snaps, scowling. “For the love of Primus, Brainstorm, what?”
“Percy,” Brainstorm says, and he’s not in his alt-mode right now, but he’s definitely soaring. “That’s called a crush. You have a crush on me." He let's out a sufficient aw. "Cute.”
“I--” Perceptor freezes. “I have a what.”
“A crush,” Brainstorm elaborates, matter-of-factly- and smirks. “On me, specifically. That’s why I make you--” he raises his fingers to the air, “--’stupid’.”
“Oh my Primus,” Perceptor mumbles, in a mixture of shock and horror, and drags his hands down his face. It would almost be funny if it wasn’t sort of depressing at the same time. “Oh my Primus you’re right.”
“I’m-- I'm what.” Brainstorm says. “Did you just say I’m right, where the hell is Rewind--”
“I just found out I’m in love with you and you want to record it!?” Perceptor is growing frantic.
“Honestly? Yes.” Brainstorm answers, smiling. “You know how it is with universal phenomena, a lunar comet only happens every thirty-six point seven million years, you only admit I’m right once in a lifetime--”
“Brainstorm,” Perceptor says. “Can you please be serious just this once ?”
“Pah,” Brainstorm waves his hands, but they’re shaking, so he shoves them down before Perceptor sees. “What do you want me to say? Congratulations, welcome to the woes of love. Or maybe congratulations, you’re not the first mech to fall head-over-heels for yours truly--” at the look on Perceptor’s face, he cuts off. Brainstorm feels his entire body stiffen. “What?” He asks.
“If you’re going to reject me, at least have the decency to be nice about it.”
“Oh?” Brainstorm replies, suddenly irked despite himself. “I hadn’t realised you’d confessed. As far as I’m concerned, I just made a scientific discovery on your behalf. So you’re welcome, you know~”
Perceptor’s face does that adorable little scrunching thing it does when he’s confused --curse Brainstorm’s spark and his damned type.
“Oh come off it Percy,” he says. “You didn’t even realise you liked me until eighty-nine seconds ago, are you really ready to confess? I can wait, you know, pretend like this never happened, brush it off. You can come back with flowers and chocolates and then--"
“Your treatment of me is cruel,” Perceptor analyses, cold and distant, but cutting enough that Brainstorm freezes up. “And yet you have made no moves which imply outright rejection.” His optics furrow. “I don’t understand you.” He repeats, like it’s the catchphrase of the day.
Brainstorm relaxes, shoulders slumping. “Well, why would I want to reject you?” He suddenly finds the corner of the ceiling very, very interesting to look at. “I mean, for someone named Perceptor you’re not being perceptive, because, logically --you see-- if you avoided me from fear of your own feelings, then surely one could hypothesise that my avoidance was--” he chances a look at Perceptor’s face, and swallows.
Perceptor is smirking.
“Ha,” he says, drily. “You like me.”
Brainstorm makes a strangled noise, settling on an eventual “unfortunately.”
“I--” Perceptor shakes his head in disbelief, but his grin is wide, blinding. “I can’t believe this, I mean, you of all people, why--”
“I have a type,” Brainstorm admits, almost uncomfortably, and Perceptor of all things, laughs. It’s not a rare sound so much as it is a full one, stretching out to every crevice of the room and filling the hollow spaces in Brainstorm’s chest like nothing else had ever meant to be placed there. Perceptor’s face lights up with the motion, and his hand raises to cover his mouth, and Brainstorm, in all his dim-witted realisations, knows that he could reach out, now, and just--
Perceptor looks at him, catches the glint in his eye, and Brainstorm’s thoughts fizzle and die out in their tracks.
“Quite honestly,” Brainstorm starts, barely above a whisper. “It’s your liking me that doesn’t make any sense here.”
Perceptor grunts in agreement. “I know,” he says, and Brainstorm just stares . “But I can’t reason with my spark --which explains why I was so adverse to this… thing--” Brainstorm resists the urge to snort. “--but I suppose I too have a type for arrogant, big-mouthed brats that wouldn’t know the meaning of safety if it hit them in the face and have wings that hit everyone else in the face.”
Brainstorm batters his optics. “Is that all~?”
“No,” Perceptor replies, stepping forward. “I suppose I also like mechs who are… intellectually stimulating, and stubborn, and… and caring beyond anything they’ll ever pretend to show, and --I can’t believe I’m admitting to this-- but… Primus-forbid, witty.”
Brainstorm feels his field burst outwards in a swell of pure happiness that he can’t keep contained, brushing against Perceptor’s hesitant, but warm field in return. “Is that all?” He eventually squeaks out, far less vindictive than the first time.
“I--” Perceptor makes a disgusted noise, and scowls. “I am not here to fuel your ego, god knows it doesn’t need to get any bigger.”
Brainstorm laughs despite himself, and Perceptor throws a wrench at him. (Which he swiftly dodges, if only just.)
“It’s not my only asset that’s big,” Brainstorm bites out, with a wink, and mech’s can’t blush since they don’t have a cardiovascular system, but damn if Perceptor’s not doing a pretty good job of imitating it.
“I hate you.” He says, cleanly, and it reminds Brainstorm of a night hundreds of years ago, whining into Swerve’s arms about his fellow scientist.
“You like me,” Brainstorm teases, with conviction , and the look on Perceptor’s face is so cute he can’t help himself but laugh, with the sick, satisfying feeling of having brought the illogical to reality curling in the pit of his chest, warm and fulfilled.
Later, Perceptor will enter the lab, and he’ll say, “I’m ready now.”
“It’s been like. A Day.” Brainstorm will reply, but he finds Perceptor’s conviction as adorable as the rest of him, in a weird, fuzzy way that he’s not used to. Not yet, anyway.
“My feelings have been thought out and processed properly,” Perceptor says next, in his scientific-evaluation voice that shouldn’t make Brainstorm shiver like that. “And I have come to the conclusion that I am ready to admit that I like you, and I....” He fidgets for a few seconds, and then, losing all sense of formality, “...scrap, can I just kiss you now?”
Brainstorm slides off his faceplate and before he can even give an answer, Perceptor is pressing against his mouth, awkward and fumbling, lack of practice --if any at all. It’s cold and rough and somehow painful but Brainstorm is nothing if not stubborn.
“Damnit Percy,” Brainstorm mumbles, forehead-to-forehead, smiling despite himself. “We are scientists, and we are going to keep kissing until we get this right.”
Perceptor swallows, and there’s something in his eyes that makes Brainstorm feel… bare.
“I told you the best science happens after years of trials,” he croaks out, eventually, and Brainstorm can’t help but laugh, kissing Percy again, swallowing any arguments of he and Perceptor being the best kind of accident.
In all the time that they’ve known each other, Brainstorm has always been jealous of Perceptor’s brain and his abilities --even his capability in kissing, or at least, working out how to kiss, is something Brainstorm can’t keep up with, and finds himself a little green over how quick he picks up on what Brainstorm likes and doesn’t, technique sharpening in mere minutes.
But this, here, in the hard light of Brainstorm’s laboratory and the soft sounds of their mutual appreciation… well, being jealous of Perceptor is one thing, but being this, is somehow much, much worse.