Chapter Text
With one last musical wave from his guitar, Optimus Prime passed out, too injured to continue fighting Soundwave, forcing the Autobot medic to have to grab the Primeling and leave the AllSpark shard vulnerable enough for Soundwave to steal back.
Upon grabbing the crystal, Soundwave felt a rush of energy go through his entire form before his hearing became better. It was good that the crystal’s only power was to enhance hearing as it helped him defeat the Prime; though it did strain his processor a bit as he could hear a lot more than what he was normally used to: grunts, metal bending, wires snapping, humans screaming miles away and constant barking from the pound nearby.
If he could, he would have thrown the crystal away as it was giving his helm an uncomfortable pain, but unfortunately for him, the crystal was too important to get rid off, though he didn’t really understand why - just that it was a powerful and sentimental object to his species.
Storing the crystal away in his subspace, Soundwave released Laserbeak from his hold, sending her to annoy the medic before grabbing Ratbat in his keytar form, readying himself to strike down the flying Autobot twins when he spotted something big and green moving towards him from the corner of his visor. Turning to not to be left blindsided, the musical Decepticon found himself confronted by Bulkhead, the bot who smashed him to bits instead of the human and the one who refused to become a Decepticon a few months back.
Just looking at him made him feel the tendrils of bitterness rise up in his spark, with something sharp poking at it. It was painful, and it made his voice box clog up and his code try to activate something in his optics, but he cancelled it before it reached its destination.
After making sure that his voice wouldn’t waver, he decided to speak sharply to the traitor. “Bulkhead: retreat before Soundwave commands Laserbeak”. He hoped that vague threat would warn the mech into leaving him be, as he was still angry from the last few times they met.
Thanks to the crystal in his subspace, he could also hear the Autobots’ human cheering Bulkhead into plummeting him to bits and to “kicking his ass into space”. He really just wanted Bulkhead and his ‘friend’ to leave him alone, images of what had happened last time repeated themselves all over his helm, it was honestly making him feel sick with the helmache he already had.
“Umm, actually Soundwave, I wanted to talk, well, more like ask if you wanted to come with me to this human art gallery next month?” Bulkhead sputtered, his face plates turning a bit pink from the stuttering.
Soundwave froze, his processor stopping all processes for a moment, even ignoring the little commotion between Blitzwing, Lugnut and the minibot happening behind him.
When his processor finally went through and examined what Bulkhead had asked, and before he could stop it, the many engines that made up his body revved, pink rapidly rising all the way from his neck cables to the top of his helm.
Both bots fell into an awkward silence that lasted but a couple of seconds before Soundwave responded with a staticky “yes”. His spark almost jumping with joy and happiness for reasons beyond him, though he felt it still a bit guarded, cautious as the last time he trusted the green mech ended with him barely surviving and having his cassettes reconstruct him in some junkyard (not Wreck-Gear’s junkyard, fortunately, but still a big stab to his barely established pride at the time. Especially after Megatron didn’t allow him back until he had a bigger, more powerful, functional body).
“O-oh, that’s good! Umm, it starts at 10am at the square, one month from now, should- should we meet up there?” ‘Wave was about to force another ‘yes’ out, his spark wanting to answering for him while his processor wanted to refuse.
But before he was able to Laserbeak screamed at him to move through his bond and quickly she and Ratbat flew out. Bulkhead’s optics widened as he started backing away a couple of steps. Soundwave, unfortunately, didn’t have the time to react to anything as a shadow started forming over him. He tried to turn to see what was blocking the sun but before he was able to his body was slammed by a heavy, giant mass of metal that shoved him to the ground and crushed a few of his components, cracking his vizor in the process; for his troubles he also obtained a few dents he knew where going to be a pain to pop out.
The sudden attack startled him enough that not only did his subspace open up and release the AllSpark fragment. It falling onto the hands of the ninja who quickly disappeared. But to also accidentally activate his radio, which unfortunately for him, was connected to the emotional part of his processor.
With a sudden “What the hell ‘s going on, can someone help me plea-” Soundwave was able to straighten himself enough to shut off his radio and try to shove Lugnut off of him.
“Lugnut: Get off of Soundwave” He spat at him while trying to claw and kick his way out of Lugnut, barely even scratching his paint in the process.
“Hahahaha, you look like an angry kitten hiding under their mother” The crazy personality of Blitzwing laughed out while landing next to them, poking Soundwave’s helm and embarrassing him even more in front of Bulkhead.
“Blitzwing: Get Lugnut off of Soundwave” He tried to demand again, feeling Lugnut try to lift himself up, only to fall back down on top of him, further straining his cables and cracking his armour. He could see Bulkhead wincing at the sound his body made when Lugnut was finally able to get up with Soundwave’s paint all over Lugnut’s back. This all happening while Crazy was just laughing harder than ever before, vents making ugly sounds with how hard they were working, and toppling himself over and face-planting onto the dirty cement with laughter.
After checking that his cassettes were okay through their bond and seeing that the ninja escaped completely, he told the other Decepticons to retreat, no point in staying if the crystal wasn’t there. However, when he turned to ask one of them to lift him back (as Lugnut’s weight crushed his makeshift thrusters completely) he discovered that they had already flown away without him! ‘Jerks’ he thought to his cassettes who decided to land on his shoulder pads and rub themselves onto his helm, trying to calm his racing spark and thoughts down before he had a breakdown that they were starting to feel through the bond.
“Hey Soundwave, are you, umm, okay?” The Autobot asked him. Not wanting to embarrass himself any longer, he just nodded his helm. He would just have to walk back to the base from the looks of it, or turn into his cassette player form and have his cassettes fly him back.
“Look, I’m sorry this happened to you. I know we’re enemies, but would you feel better if I made a painting of your cassettes?” His cassettes trilled, both flapping their wings and begging Soundwave to accept the offer. He was still going to refuse but his cassettes started talking to him through their bond to get their point across.
‘C’mon Soundwave! This is the opportunity of a lifetime! Not only do you get to become closer to your boyfriend, but we also get a bit of recognition from him. Do you know how hard it is for a partner to integrate and accept someone else’s kids (or cassettes in our case)?’ Ratbat cheered at him.
He was going to complain that the Autobot was NOT his boyfriend, just a misguided bot he needed to correct when Laserbeak piped up.
‘Yeah Sounds, did you know that 68% of human re-marriages end with a divorce due to the couples incapability of accepting someone else’s kids? Bulkhead is accepting us, trying to make amends from a couple of months ago AND is trying to get you on a date, that you accepted, so you better accept this too Music-Man’ Laserbeak practically beamed at him, knowing that they had defeated him.
“Soundwave: accepts offer. Insisted upon by cassettes” Soundwave turned to each side and glared at both of the smug cassettes, brewing harder when they started laughing at his face.
“Oh, well that’s okay too buddy. At least you have some friends that can support you through hard times. Welp, I have to go before Ratchet blows a casket, I’ll see you another day my Main Machine!” Bulkhead waved out before turning into his alt mode, a van.. a really big van with six wheels and nice, shiny rims… with it hiding his strong arms that he knew could easily pick him up and-
‘Ahem, ummm, Soundwave, remember the bond between us three?’ Laserbeak interrupted. With pink now glowing from his finials on his pink face, Soundwave snapped the bond closed and grumply (and painfully) transformed into his cassette player alt mode and got his cassettes to fly him back to base while they laughed at his expense.