Chapter Text
Jazz knew Prowl’s schedule like the back of his helm’s visor. The workaholic mech was always in his office this late, even when his shift had long been over, as he tried getting more battle simulations and reports finished. Jazz knew that because the two of them worked closely together, despite working under different departments under Optimus Prime.
That’s why Prowl’s personal quarters were the perfect pranking spot. Jazz grinned. He loved pissing Prowl off, mostly because he showed no emotions otherwise.
Jazz hacked into Prowl’s door, and it slid open silently. Jazz made to take a step forward, but he froze at the sight in front of him.
Prowl sat upright on his recharging chamber, his optics staring at a frozen, projected image on his wall. Tears of coolant dripped down Prowl’s face, and his hands sat clenched in his lap.
Panicking, Jazz tried to quickly shut the door, but he was too late. Although Jazz had the best audial sensors thanks to his various mods, among other things, Prowl had door wings attached to his back that were great at sensing sound and air currents. Or, the more likely option, he got notified when his quarters were opened without his authorization.
Prowl twitched, and he whipped his head to look at Jazz.
Jazz leaned on the doorframe. “Oh, hey, Prowler!” He gave a half-wave. “Uh, I see you’re not in your office, slaving away. Good for you!”
Prowl leapt to his feet, and Jazz took off down the hall. There weren’t enough mechs wandering around the Autobot base this late at night to simply disappear among them. So he found a grate in the ventilation above his head, hopped up with his hand magnets turned on, and slipped inside the mech-sized vents.
Jazz stifled his breathing with ease (he wasn’t the Head of Special Operations for nothing) and held still.
Prowl stalked calmly down the hall, his face hastily wiped clean of any coolant. He stopped right below Jazz’s vent, transformed his right arm into a rifle, and pointed it right where Jazz was crouched.
“Come out, now,” Prowl growled. “You’re in violation of Code 17-B: Personal Sanctum Integrity, and I will not hesitate to—”
Jazz jumped out of the vent, using the grate and his weight to slam down on Prowl’s head. Prowl let out a loud grunt as he fell onto his back, and Jazz laughed, pushing off of Prowl to jump into the air and transform into his alt mode: a Martini Porsche 935.
“Sorry, Prowler, but I couldn’t quite catch that!” Jazz called as he sped down the hallway.
He heard tires squealing behind him, and he used his rearview mirror to watch as Prowl, now in his alt mode (a Ford LTD Crown Victoria police car) sped after him.
Jazz laughed as he cut a corner close, Prowl right on his heels. Two mechs out for a stroll dove out of their way, one yelling at them to watch where they’re going. Jazz was surprised Prowl was even giving chase; driving one’s alt mode inside the base was strictly prohibited.
Prowl was slowly gaining on him, despite Jazz’s speed. Jazz wasn’t surprised, considering Prowl’s enforcer background. Soon, he would be captured, and he’d have to face the consequences. Time to switch tactics.
There was a party going on in the base’s mess hall. That’s where Jazz had been most of the night, until he had gotten the bright idea to prank Prowl while he overworked. Well, was supposed to be overworking himself.
He probably shouldn’t have had that last glass of high-grade energon. Maybe he wouldn’t be in this mess.
But Jazz was having too much fun to think about that further. He transformed and jumped into the air, using his magnets to dangle on the vents above him. Prowl slid to a screeching halt and quickly transformed. Jazz dove back into the vents and made his way to the party, Prowl definitely on his heels.
Jazz slipped out of the vents in the mess hall, in a dark corner where no one was looking. The party was still going on strong, so Jazz easily joined a group of talking mechs and pretended like he knew what they were talking about.
The party had been thrown to celebrate their last victory in battle against the Decepticons. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker tried to throw as many parties as possible to hand out their homemade high grade energon.
The cafeteria tables that normally filled the room had been folded up and pushed to the sides of the large room. The mess hall was dim, save for a square light in the middle of the ceiling that spun and shot out bright, colored light every once in a while. A remix of both Cybertronian and human pop music pumped from the room’s speaker system. Jazz grinned. That was his work.
Mechs of all shapes and sizes mingled and chatted. Some danced in the middle of the area, others leaned on their friends, too drunk to notice just how drunk they were.
Thanks to his blue visor, he could keep an optic on things without anyone knowing exactly where he was looking. That’s why he immediately noticed Prowl walk into the room, a grimace on his face. Jazz grinned. He knew Prowl hated parties, large groups or gatherings, and anything similar or in between.
But instead of just giving up and dealing with Jazz tomorrow, when they had their regularly scheduled strategy meeting, Prowl’s grimace shifted to one of neutrality, and he stepped into the room.
A lot of mechs didn’t notice Prowl’s arrival. Some grimaced and pretended they were looking at their glasses of energon, others said a polite hello. Meanwhile, Prowl got slowly closer to Jazz’s little hiding spot.
Prowl wasn’t going to give this up until Jazz was captured, was he? Well, as the Earthlings said, shit.
Jazz hopped from group to group, asking them how they were doing and what crazy things had happened at the party so far. He slowly made his way back to the entrance, circling Prowl at a distance.
Prowl grabbed a glass of plain energon from a buffet table filled with drinks and snacks, downed it, and sped walked to the entrance. Jazz grinned and took off running, sliding under mechs and squeezing past them to make it to the entrance first.
He barely managed to duck Prowl’s grasping servos as he slid through the open doorway of the mess hall. He walked backwards, continuously dodging Prowl’s near reaches and grabs, as he led them away.
“Just. Stand. Down!” Prowl hissed as Jazz swatted another grab. He tried to transform his arm into his rifle again, but Jazz kicked his arm before it could get too far.
Jazz laughed. “Tired, Prowler? You could go back to your quarters, and we could pretend this was all just some bad recharge.” He continued leading them down the halls of the base, until they were in a less trafficked area. He knew of a blind spot in the cameras here, so he came to a halt.
Clenching his jaw, Prowl pounced on Jazz. Jazz just stood there and took it, both of them tumbling onto the floor.
Jazz held up his arms, ready for the punching to start, but Prowl simply grabbed Jazz’s arms and pinned them to the floor, his legs straddling Jazz’s middle.
“Why were you sneaking into my quarters?” Prowl asked. His doorwings flared with irritation, his usual scowl on his face.
“Oh, you know. A little of this, a little of that,” Jazz said with a shrug. Both Prowl and Jazz knew how easily Jazz could escape from Prowl’s grasp. Jazz decided not to mention it.
Prowl’s blue optics darkened. He likely had an idea of why Jazz was sneaking into his room, from past experience. He dipped his helm forward, the two red crests on his helm reflecting some of the hallway’s light. “What do you want?”
Jazz tilted his head. He smirked and rubbed his fingers along Prowl’s thighs, which were squeezing his midsection. “Well, now that you ask, I could—”
Prowl dug Jazz’s arms into the ground hard. “Not what I meant, and you know it.”
Jazz huffed out a laugh and let go of Prowl’s legs. Jazz couldn’t help it; he always was a huge flirt with everyone on base. “Nah. I’m a little too tipsy, Prowler. You gotta spell it out for me.”
Prowl stilled. He looked away from Jazz, his doorwings drooping.
Jazz frowned.
With a grimace, Prowl murmured, “For your silence.”
Jazz’s optics brightened in surprise, not that Prowl could see it from behind his visor. He tapped an unknown rhythm onto the floor with his fingers.
“While I could order you not to tell anyone, you and I both know that won’t be enough.” The two of them were basically of the same rank, anyways. “And I could report your code violation, but you could simply retaliate by…” Prowl’s voice broke off into static.
Finally, what Prowl was getting at clicked in Jazz’s alcohol-muddled mind. He sat up, gently pushing Prowl off of him. Prowl remained seated on the floor, his gaze still on a nearby wall.
“I won’t tell anyone, Prowler,” Jazz said quietly. He tried to shoot Prowl a reassuring grin, but Prowl’s frown just deepened.
“Because your word means so much.” Prowl still wouldn’t look at him.
“Come on! I’m basically the Head of Keeping Things A Secret around here. Nobody will hear about… uh…”
Prowl slowly turned to look at Jazz, his optics dim.
“Okay, fine. How about this? You tell me why you were leaking, and I’ll drop it. Special Ops honor!” Jazz drew an “X” over his chest with his finger, much like the humans liked to do. Then he remembered who he was talking to and realized Prowl probably didn’t know what “cross your heart and hope to die” meant.
“And give you double the ammunition to spread into mechs’ audials? I am not a fool.”
“You asked what I wanted in exchange for silence.”
“I thought you’d request a bottle of high grade or for me to take over one of your patrol shifts. Not more fragging evidence to condemn me.”
Jazz laughed. “And now you’re swearing? You really are tired, Prowler.”
Prowl rubbed his face with his hand. He leaned in close to Jazz and, luckily Jazz had audial mods or he wouldn’t have been able to hear him, whispered, “A… character died in the show I’m watching. It’s a human one, called Avatar: The Last Airbender.” He leaned away and stood up. With one last look at Jazz, Prowl brushed dirt off of himself, turned, and walked back the way they had come.
***
“Heh, you look like slag,” Mirage said, sitting across from Jazz’s seat. “Party too hard last night?”
Jazz groaned and raised his head from his crossed arms. The two of them were in the cleaned mess hall. The usual murmur of conversations filled the room from other mechs sitting at cafeteria tables; Jazz normally found it comforting, but today, it just grated on his audials.
“You could say that,” Jazz hummed. The truth was… he couldn’t recharge last night after his encounter with Prowl. He kept replaying Prowl’s whispered words, wondering if they were some sort of bluff. But then his processor would remind him of the memory of Prowl crying on his berth, and he itched to know more.
He had even tried finding the show Prowl had mentioned, but the base’s and his own personal library of human culture was extremely limited. He could use the human internet, but the base tried to limit any outgoing signals to avoid getting noticed by Decepticons. They were in the middle of a war, after all, on Earth itself.
Mirage chuckled. He slid one of the two glasses of energon in his grasp over to Jazz, and Jazz caught it smoothly. Jazz drained it in one go.
Bumblebee plopped onto the chair next to Mirage, a bright smile on his face. “What we talkin’ about?”
Mirage shook his head. “Nothing much. Anything interesting on your end?” Mirage slowly sipped on his morning energon.
“Not much. Just the usual.” That meant Bumblebee, Bluestreak, Sunstreaker, and Sideswipe were going to get together and play videogames after their shifts. “What happened to Jazz?”
Jazz waved off Bee’s concerns. “Too much high grade. Just need to sleep it off… after I get through a long day of boring meetings.”
Mirage smiled, stood, and patted Jazz on his back. “I don’t envy you, my friend.” He walked over to the energon dispenser and stacked his glass with the other used glasses. Then he left the room.
A ping went off in Jazz’s processor. He sighed. If he left now, he’d only be a few minutes late to the meeting. With Prowl. And the rest of Optimus’ officers.
Bee waved to Jazz as he left. Jazz waved halfheartedly back at him and tried to massage the headache in his processor away.
***
Optimus, Ratchet, Red Alert, and Ironhide prattled on about energon levels and missing inventory. But Jazz couldn’t keep his optics from straying to look at Prowl as they all sat around in the conference room.
Prowl steadfastly ignored Jazz’s gaze, which was definitely on purpose. (Prowl’s doorwings twitched too much to indicate otherwise.)
As soon as the meeting was over, Jazz sauntered over to the entryway of the room, saying farewells to everyone as they left. When only Jazz and Prowl were left, Prowl sighed and stood from his seat. He kept his face impassive as he approached Jazz, a datapad in his hands.
Jazz tilted his head and grinned. “So, tell me more about this show you mentioned.”
Prowl’s optics darkened. “No.”
“Aw, come on. It’s like I said: your secret is safe with me. I just didn’t take you to be the type to be interested in Earth culture. Only a few other mechs in the base are even remotely interested in that stuff.”
With a snarl, Prowl leaned forward and hissed, “Our bargain was that I would tell you the truth about what you saw last night. And in return, you’d never bring it up again. To anyone. Ever. So leave me alone.” He shoved past Jazz, and Jazz let him.
Didn’t mean Jazz wasn’t going to follow. He tailed Prowl to his office, keeping a far enough distance that he’d have enough reaction time if Prowl decided to throw that datapad at him.
Prowl tried to squeeze into his office and shut Jazz out, but Jazz stuck a pede in between the door. “Heh. You know I can just hack into here if I wanted to, right?” Jazz said with a snarky grin. He pushed open the door, Prowl moving out of the way. “I just want to talk.”
“And I just want to get my work done, unlike other mechs around here.” Prowl walked behind his desk and gracefully sat down on his chair. He pulled various datapads out from his subspace and started reading through them.
Prowl’s office was as bare as they came. Nothing hung on the walls, and his desk was perfectly clean and tidy. The walls were made of gray metal, just like the rest of the base.
Jazz plopped down into the guest chair sitting across from Prowl. He spun around in it for a moment, before slowly coming back around to face Prowl.
Prowl stared at him, looking like he seriously wanted to strangle something. Probably Jazz.
Jazz leaned forward, putting his elbow joints on the desk. “You know, I could’ve told everyone in the base about your little secret by now.”
Tap. Tap. Tap. Prowl pointedly tapped away on the touch screen on the datapad, likely adding his own notes into the device.
Jazz tapped an alternate rhythm on Prowl’s desk, until Prowl let out a frustrated groan and cried, “What!? What do you want to talk about? Spit it out!” His doorwings were drawn back into a “V” shape.
Jazz grinned. “I want in on your little human show.”
Prowl froze. His doorwings twittered. “What?”
“If an analytical, soulless mech like you deems this human show worthy of your perusal, then it must really be something. I want to watch it with you.”
“You just want to study me for your own entertainment, to satisfy your own curiosity.”
Jazz shrugged. “There’s… a little of that, too, I won’t lie. But the fact that you’ve been keeping this hobby of yours a secret means it must really be valuable. I want to see it for myself.”
“And if I say no?”
“I don’t push anymore. For good, this time.”
Prowl’s optics brightened in surprise. His doorwings slowly lowered, not quite to a relaxed height, but lower than what they were before. He looked at the wall next to him, his processor whirring in the silence of the office. Finally, he met Jazz’s gaze again, his usual scowl on his face.
“I watch it every other night, after my shift is over.”
Jazz leapt to his feet and cheered. He tried reaching for Prowl to hug him, but Prowl leaned away in his chair. “Hell yeah! So would that make it tomorrow night?”
“Yes. Don’t tell anyone. And don’t make me regret this.”
Jazz waved away Prowl’s concerns. “No one will know a thing. Any snacks you like?”
Prowl settled himself back into his chair. “Magnesium sticks.”
“You got it!” Jazz said, shooting finger guns at Prowl.
Prow tilted his head, before Jazz remembered Prowl didn’t quite get human customs (but he liked human shows? So maybe that wasn’t the case?). Prowl looked back down at his pile of datapads. “Great, whatever. Now get out.”
Jazz chuckled and slipped out of the room. He walked down the hall with his arms resting behind his helm and a light feeling in his spark.