Work Text:
Inferno liked to think that he was a good person. That despite his rash impulses and lauded history of fistfights— he wasn't unreasonable. He could even be a gentle sort of guy when the cosmos aligned and he could ease up on the accelerator. At least, that's what he had thought about himself before he turned toward the entrance of the security office just in time to catch a glimpse of Mirage practically draped over Red Alert's desk.
He turned away and took in a deep ventilation. It wasn't so bad—and it was inevitable that Red Alert might still have mechs hitting on him, considering that their relationship was so new. (This was not to mention that they'd made a point of keeping quiet about it.) Inferno understood, rationally, that he had no reason to be angry at Mirage… but it just wasn't fair! He turned back to see if the two were done chatting, and felt another sharp pang of frustration brewing in his tanks when Mirage continued to linger well past the point of any work-related justification.
What could possibly be this important, when Red Alert’s shift had already ended? Inferno had waited several hours for Red Alert to get off shift, and he— well, he would admit, in earnest, that he didn't like the idea of sharing. Mirage kept leaning over Red Alert's chair, his delicate face the very picture of sophistication as he monologued. Mirage wasn't receiving much more of a rebuff than an irritated wave of the arm; a tetchy gesture which Inferno remembered being on the other end of many times in the past.
Finally, after winding down his exceedingly verbose speech, Mirage produced a cube of Energon from his subspace.
It was nice stuff; you could tell just by the color of it. It consisted of a decent quality midgrade, with zinc and iron shavings to promote engine health. Inferno can't help but fume at the presumption of it all… even as he guiltily tucked away the dinner he'd brought for Red Alert. (He already knew that his wasn't nearly as good— just the same old stuff as always. Inferno had a lower quality ration card than Mirage or Red Alert, on account of his frame type and tank demands, but he tried to make it better by adding Red Alert's favorite mix-ins. Hot oil, and sugared agate crystals.)
Red Alert eyed Mirage with an intense air of suspicion and disdain, not wanting to reach out and take the cube at first. However, after an awkward pause, he took the cube in one servo and reached into his desk to retrieve a poison-testing kit. Mirage's face fell slightly as Red Alert tested the cube for poison directly in front of him, but he recovered with grace.
"Ah! Well… I hope you enjoy it." Mirage looked slightly uncomfortable, but he pressed on. "A lovely day to you, and to yours, Director."
Red Alert glowered as the other mech strutted off: stiff-backed, spoiler flared up and outward in a grand show of his own beauty and superior engineering. Once the other mech was clear of him, he inspected his cube of Energon a second time, wary of Mirage’s reputation, before taking a small sip.
Ugh. Red Alert grimaced slightly, and set the cube back down on the table. At this point, Inferno had wasted too much time watching anxiously for the other mech’s reaction— Mirage nearly stumbled into him on his way out of the door.
"You're late, Inferno.” Mirage scoffed. “You need to innovate a little if you want to get there first. That, and cease your spying at doorways. You’re no good at it. Take it from an expert, hm?"
Inferno was a bit taken aback at Mirage’s extremely direct approach. He shrunk inward.
"What are you saying? I-I always bring him a meal after his shift. Everyone knows that, including you. If anyone's failing to innovate—"
"It's not gotten you anywhere. You’re still stuck on the same tired routine for stellar cycles on end… have you ever stopped to wonder why? You're embarrassing him, because you have nothing tangible to offer, and no knowledge of the subtlety and craft required for a true courtship." Mirage attempted to sidestep Inferno. "The two of you are simply incompatible."
Inferno stepped back into Mirage's path to refuse him exit, temper flaring suddenly.
"Incompatible?" He repeated, a fine cloud of smoke pouring out of his vents. How could Mirage say something like that, even being as ignorant as he was?
"Incompatible. Yes.” Mirage’s spoiler flicked once again, because he was a know-it-all and a showoff above all else. “I wouldn't even have to know about your… clashing personalities, to determine that. It's something I could tell at a mere glance; a C6 should never bother forming close relationships with an E14 like yourself. It's a waste of time."
Inferno’s engine honked, faintly, in surprise.
"I— how would you even know if that was my caste or not? Surely, you can't be telling me that you've memorized every single Cybertronian frame mold! You don't know anything about me!" He protested, careful to keep his voice down… as they were still somewhat close to Red Alert’s office.
"I don't have to know you personally. I know you're built to work, Inferno, and you're good enough at it to earn my respect… don’t misunderstand me. The issue here is that Red Alert was built for bureaucracy, for ruling, which makes him entirely out of your league. You don't have the intellect to court him, even if he'd have you."
Mirage was able to push past Inferno at this point, as the other mech’s stance had fallen slack. Inferno… hadn't courted Red Alert, at least, not with any of the additional procedures and extra stages of Ritus each more complicated than the last. Not as Mirage clearly intended to! Inferno was not one to doubt Red Alert, but he found himself spooked by the prospect of falling short.
He waited a little bit longer to gather his strung-out nerves, before entering the office. Red Alert immediately looked back at Inferno and grinned, before slipping off his headset as he prepared Teletraan to enter its self-monitoring mode.
"You wouldn't believe the day at work I've had… it feels like every person in the world wanted to bother me, or ask questions about things that don't even make sense." His optics crinkled. "I'm so glad to see you here. Did you… bring dinner, by any chance?"
Inferno nodded (however hesitantly, not wanting to dredge up what he already knew) and took out his own paltry offerings. Red Alert immediately tossed the cube Mirage had brought him into a waste container.
"Oh, thank Primus! I think one of the spec-ops guys was trying to sell me an experimental juice cleanse… or maybe it was for some kind of in-house experiment, slag if I know."
Inferno felt bad for Mirage, despite all the reasons he had not to.
"Oh, I'm sure it's not so bad… there’s no need to waste it," He reached towards the cube, intending to drink it himself if Red Alert insisted on discarding it. (It was still a gift, after all!)
Red Alert took a sip of his dinner and slapped Inferno’s servo away from the trash.
"I'm serious, you'll find it even more intolerable than I did! He got me racing fuel… I know it’s meant to be good for engine health and all, but it’d burn your intake. Not to mention the awful aftertaste; just don’t bother. I’ll get you something better.”
Inferno didn’t know what to think of the situation at first. The first few days passed very quietly, and Mirage’s social intrusions were subtle enough that Red Alert didn’t seem to pick up on the flirtatious aspect at all. He responded as blandly as ever, occasionally arching an optical ridge at a compliment that he found excessive or out of character for Mirage. (Red Alert was considering the possibility that Mirage may have committed a small crime, of sorts, and was buttering him up for the coming inquisition.)
It wasn’t out of the ordinary for Red Alert to see him in the command center, or for Mirage to deliver messages from spec-ops— sometimes at frequencies just as elevated as this decacycle. Inferno assured himself of this several times as he paced the floor of his habsuite. He didn’t want to add any additional problems to Red Alert’s already stressful week, between schedule fluctuations and High Command’s preparations to mount an offensive campaign in Sierra Nevada.
Inferno knew Red Alert was happy with the things the way that they were. They’d waited a long time to finally get over themselves and talk about their feelings. Inferno knew he had loved Red Alert for the better half of his lifetime… but he’d never been sure about where it all started for him.
Yet, Inferno was sure that he’d always mattered to Red Alert. That was all he ever cared about; standing beside him, fighting with him, chattering over their commlink for the rest of eternity.
Inferno sank to his knees in front of his creaky, pathetic excuse for a bunk. He was alone; almost everyone else he shared with was out on night patrol or drinking. He rested his helm against the steel surface, vents shuddering slightly. When had his priorities gotten so out of tune? When had Inferno begun to let himself be so selfish?
It bothered him. Despite all his best efforts, it really bothered him, and he was miserably jealous. Mirage was always straying so close to Red Alert, and had taken to showering him with the kind of flattery that Inferno wasn’t permitted when they were in public. They looked nice together... of a kind, so to speak. Mirage wasn’t as pretty as Red Alert, of course, but there were base similarities— sleek doors, delicate faceplates, and powerful engines.
Inferno couldn’t help but feel inferior. He prided himself on being strong enough to protect, and brave enough to get hurt, but he knew his limits just as well. He knew he wasn’t smart. He knew he wasn’t elegant, and that sometimes he couldn’t understand the world as Red Alert saw it; that he was susceptible to hot and cold moods, without the ability to compose himself as a bureaucrat would.
“You'd embarrass him.” Even after all the ridiculous and markedly untrue things Mirage had said, almost in the same breath, the comment had stuck.
Inferno thought about it every time he kept quiet about Mirage’s attempts at courtship. He thought about it every time he felt the fluttering, exuberant urge to prattle inanely to one of the others about something mundane Red Alert had done… only to be forced to reconsider, and assess whether or not the omission would constitute a social overstep.
After all, it had been made very clear to Inferno that they didn’t even want mechs speculating about their relationship, and that implying it was just as bad as telling. Inferno still couldn’t see what was so wrong about telling. Everyone loved love, and they weren’t going to get in any trouble with the other mechs, not with how long they’d already been inseparable. His spark fundamentally rejected the (long-winded, circular, and confusing) reasons Red Alert had given for going through all of this extra sparkbreak, which left him with few other means to tell himself ‘why.’
Mirage’s answer was very easy to understand. It was necessary… to save Red Alert from unnecessary humiliation.
Which begged the question: if Red Alert actually bothered to get to know anyone else aboard the ship, would he want them to keep quiet about a potential relationship? Would it bother him so much if Mirage ‘boasted,’ as he practically already was, with all his showy gifts and flowery greetings?
Inferno buried his face in the threadbare mesh blanket. He knew already that he was being childish, and swore from that point onward to stop dwelling on Mirage’s courtship rituals.
At least, that was what he’d insisted upon until the situation devolved to the point that he couldn't stop running into Mirage. It seemed as if the other mech had begun to schedule his 'courtship attempts' at times where Inferno would normally visit Red Alert. Which, to be fair to Mirage, was quite literally all the time. It didn’t make it any less frustrating!
During a rare overlapping break on their Tuesday evening shift (one which was usually spent playing a space colony-building RPG together), Mirage had accosted Red Alert in the monitoring room for the purpose of convincing him to take a “walk along the promenade.”
When this attempt at socialization failed, Mirage mistakenly suggested that they needed to check the entire hull of the Ark for potential radar 'blindspots' that only Mirage could see because of his 'unique ability.' It was a ridiculous cover for a fumbled courtship, but unfortunately effective… as it immediately sent Red Alert into a spiral which resulted in thirty-eight consecutive megacycles of overtime.
A solar cycle or two later, Mirage foiled Inferno's plans to take Red Alert for a morning drive— because Primus could the office-bot use some fresh air— by misguidedly offering Red Alert a container of specialty car wax.
This would be a harmless enough gift, if not for the fact that the Ark didn't stock that particular brand. Naturally, this led to a half-megacycle interrogation, during which Red Alert finally got Mirage to admit that he'd purchased the stock off of Swindle.
As this was considered a misdemeanor and a significant risk to their security, Red Alert immediately reported him to the spec-ops division for punishment. (He would not admit to the fact, but he strongly recommended that Mirage be sent to the brig for a negligible amount of time, all because he wanted a few moments of peace.)
Inferno wouldn't have been aware of any of the details of this particular situation, if Jazz hadn't shown up to his part of the barracks to offer up unsolicited advice on how to handle the 'problem.' His suggestions were as followed:
"Why not take the opportunity to tell him about your feelings? If you do it now, I'll still win the office betting pool…" (Inferno did not appreciate being reminded about the betting pool, and he insisted that Red Alert had every right to privacy.)
"Okay, whatever, you do you… but have you tried telling Red Alert that he’s being a class-A jerk to you? I mean, I don’t think the mean old fragger is picking up what Mirage is putting down, but I bet he'd be more inclined to chew Mirage out if he knew." (Inferno disliked this option even more than the last, as he thought it made him look pathetic. It was embarrassing, too.)
"Fine, fine!" (Jazz had been irritated at this point.) "What if you walk up to lover boy, and pick him up by his puny little arms? See— okay, stay with me now, you lift him up to meet your eyes… poor guy's gonna be dangling around, totally emasculated. Just… feet swinging, he’s scared scrapless, but you're not saying anything or throwing punches so what's he going to do about it? Then you set him down, pat him on the head. Boom! Mirage suffers ego death; you win… and I win too."
(Inferno then accused Jazz of having an ulterior motive, in wanting someone else to 'humble' one of the spies that he was unfortunate enough to be in charge of.)
"Well, I can't do it, for crying out loud! Take pity on me, big guy. Fine… if you don't like that idea, you could always challenge him to a race."
That had been the end of productive conversation. They'd both laughed at the joke, Inferno had cried a little, and afterward Jazz felt sorry enough to buy Inferno a few ‘drinks’ at the finest Exxon in the city.
None of that could matter right now, as Mirage’s very temporary imprisonment had given them both a prime opportunity to spend time together. Inferno was determined to relax and enjoy a quiet evening with Red Alert, as they sat down together to watch the sunset from atop the Ark. It was a beautiful view, and Inferno liked having a few moments out of the solar cycle where he could hold Red's hand and lean against his pauldron without fearing detection.
Except…
"Is that a fucking carrier pigeon?" Red Alert snarled, his grip on Inferno's servo tightening as he reached out with his other arm to wrench the missive from the mechanical bird's claws. "Are you out of your MIND?"
Inferno's jaw dropped, as he hadn't thought that Red Alert was so adjusted to human pop culture and slang. Maybe he listened to the radio more than he let on…
"You don't think it's…" The bird fluttered to sit on one of Inferno's winged audials, and he pet it reluctantly. He glanced over Red Alert's cannon to try to read the letter.
"Dearest Red Alert,
My imprisonment has only made me think of your shining countenance more fondly; of your sweet disposition and gentle grace, which contrasts so sharply with the cold dark and gracelessness of my current surroundings. Surely none have suffered such as I, for—"
Before either of them could read any further, Red Alert tore up the datafilm with surprising violence. He hurled the shreds of metal down the cliffside, vents heaving. His pale face was now increasingly red, and growing puffy with poorly circulated Energon.
"How… many… times, do I have to tell him I'm not interested in his ridiculous social experiment?" He gestured wildly. "Stupid, stupid, stupid! I've told the guy to frag off so many times, it’s like he’s trying to make me snap!"
Inferno opened up his arms, to offer Red Alert the possibility of a hug. He accepted it gladly, slumping over the firetruck’s cabin.
"I don't think he's trying to frustrate you… he's just… er. Courting you." Inferno struggled to put the situation to words. “Badly.”
"Oh, evidently he is!" Red Alert laughed, not taking Inferno’s words entirely seriously. He’d heard plenty of Mirage’s prattle, and the intensity of it all made Red Alert increasingly suspicious of his ‘true’ motives. "If I didn’t know better, I would suspect that every single one of his actions were crafted with the sole purpose of causing me immense distress! However, I must generously give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that at least half of these disasters are accidental."
Inferno rubbed his back.
"He'll lose interest eventually… I promise."
For the first time since the incident had begun, Inferno was sure of the fact. He wasn't going to leave Red Alert to handle it alone any longer. As much as he wanted to be trusting and avoid picking Red Alert’s battles for him… this was a step too far. Inferno didn’t like bullies of any kind, and Mirage’s advances had begun to blur the line between courtship and outright harassment.
"You're being very immature," Mirage announced coldly the first chance he got to corner Inferno. "Not just that… but a complete brute. This is not how mechs of Red Alert’s caliber court."
By this, he meant that he disapproved of Inferno's newfound method of diverting Mirage's courtship attempts. Every free moment that Inferno had, he spent right beside Red Alert, ideally draped over his back like a dusty old cloak; shifting tactics on occasion to sit chastely side-by-side whenever Red Alert became too self-conscious.
"Is it your business?" Inferno asked, not allowing Mirage to provoke him.
"It is! You can ‘court’ any commoner aboard this ship… but my options are more limited. There are very few mechs on Earth compatible with someone of my own rank, and fewer still who are yet to be bonded." Mirage crossed his arms. "Red Alert is my only viable option. He’s a full step down in the caste, but a respectable decision, at the very least."
This irritated Inferno more than he could truly put to words. Of all the reasons that Mirage could have taken an interest in Red Alert— shared experience in clashing with the Autobots, for one— this was the worst he’d ever conceived of.
"That's not very romantic," He gritted the words out as neutrally as possible.
"It's not supposed to be!" Mirage hissed, his fury hitting its most dignified peak. "You may not understand it, but I assure you that Red Alert knows the difference. Just give up already!"
A creeping itch of self-doubt sank into Inferno's plate once again, but he shook it off. This was all completely ridiculous; he had nothing more to worry about, in regard to his relationship, save for yet another date being ruined. If Mirage was going to peacock around the ship and get competitive— why not stoop to his level? Why shouldn’t Inferno show Mirage that he wasn't the only mech aboard the Ark that was allowed to speak his mind?
"You keep harassing me, 'cause you know I'll 'win' if I don't." Inferno leaned down to look Mirage directly in the optics. "He hated every last one of your attempts at courtship. He prefers mine. He prefers me."
Mirage's plate was actually rattling with fury. For some reason, that's what snapped Inferno out of his irritable mood. He leaned back, audials pinning to the side of his helm in humiliation.
Did Inferno look just as foolish as Mirage, at the moment? Red Alert would make him drop and do twenty pushups, if he heard that Inferno was speculating so decisively on their relationship… it was all meant to be a secret, and he didn't like being talked about, either. Red Alert thought every form of gossip was just as bad as the others.
"A-as a friend! As a colleague— which we are!" Mirage protested weakly, as his face flushed with anger once again.
Inferno laughed, trying to play it off; he knew by now he shouldn't have encouraged this, but he wasn't willing to back off, either.
"Well, you can think whatever you want, but I'm not gonna quit courting him. I hope I have the chance to do so for the rest of our lives." Inferno meant every word. He hoped to do the Ritus, (as he knew them: in four simple steps) every day for the rest of eternity. “As you said, I could court anyone aboard this ship, but he's the one I want. It's not our job to worry about your marital prospects."
Inferno would listen to no more of Mirage's complaints. He walked away, and left Mirage to seethe on his own.
Two solar cycles later, Inferno was still doing his best to hang around the office and deter unwanted company. In a strange change of fortune, Prowl had stopped complaining about his 'loitering' and instead began assigning him menial tasks such as entering large lists of numbers into spreadsheets. (Of course, the monitors were all designed for much smaller digits than Inferno's, and ten of them at that, but he couldn't complain too much about any form of leniency from the living calculator.)
Inferno suspected that he was only getting a pass because Mirage visited the command center less when he was around, which meant less interruptions overall. He was a quiet guy despite his size, which made him infinitely more tolerable in the short-term than a sports car who wouldn't quit revving his engine, dragging in elaborate oversized gifts, or 'serenading' Red Alert until he was escorted out of the room and reprimanded for pretending to deliver imaginary reports from Spec-Ops.
Red Alert had become increasingly neurotic over the past two weeks; he was in a worse mood than Inferno had seen him in a long time, on account of lost stasis. The other mech would've undoubtedly tucked himself away into his isolated security room… if he weren't needed to monitor and approve of strategy in the command center this shift.
The command center in which Red Alert spent half of his working hours was as far-off from a nice dark closet as it got. It imposed and spoke for itself, sprawling across the Ark in grandeur, with every inch of the space crammed full of desks and monitors, where dozens of Autobots tapped away in unison at logistics calculations and strategy simulations. The walls were a bright, shining steel which almost hurt the optics, and in their periphery flashing messages constantly filtered in and out on enormous wall-mounted screens. It was as glorious as it was overstimulating, particularly for someone like Red Alert.
Inferno had taken pity on him today and plopped their oversized alleycat into Red Alert's lap. Though the Security Director insisted that Amber was a 'nuisance' and that she ought to be 'locked up at all times' … he had tucked his legs under the desk such that she would be shielded from view. Every once in a while he would reach down to gently scratch at her ears with two digits, and the relief was palpable enough to radiate through his entire body.
Despite being a crotchety old beast, Amber made a decent therapy animal. She didn't move an inch the entire time, flopping her oversized body all the way across the full breadth of Red Alert's legs. (No amount of insisting upon his 'disgust and weariness' towards organics would convince Inferno that Red Alert was anything but ridiculously fond of cats.)
Of course, someone had to eventually break Red Alert’s shallow and weary peace by bothering him. The identity of said person need not be explained.
It began with an ominous wet squeaking noise. Then came the even fainter accompanying sound of blood dripping on tile as Mirage wound his way around the office, walking swiftly towards the two of them. Inferno's audials flared in horror and surprise, and he quietly scooped Amber up into his arms, before tucking her away into his truck cabin for good measure.
"What is that?" Red Alert shouted indignantly at Mirage when the spy finally presented the ‘gift’ to him. Blood splattered the nearby monitor. Mirage puffed up the armor on his chassis proudly as he displayed what had once been a wild fox.
"It is a gift of my conquest…. a conquest over nature itself!" Mirage stepped closer than anyone was comfortable with to wrap the corpse around Red Alert’s shoulders. “Now, if we had been on Cybertron, I could have gotten you a real turbofox coat to wear, and it would have suited you better… not to mention the issue of, er, viscera.”
(Mirage had done a poor job of scooping out of the carcass, despite his best efforts.)
Red Alert was very pale. It had not been so long ago that he had been frightened to even touch Amber— on account of his extreme distaste and lack of trust towards organic matter. The prevalence of disease especially troubled him. The liquids seeping from the fox’s coat made Inferno a bit sick to look at, as well, and he pushed himself slightly away from the desk, not wanting Amber to see it.
“Where… did you get this?”
“I hunted it, of course! I first engaged it in a race to the death, which was unfortunately not as much of a challenge on Earth as it is in our homeland, and thereafter I struck it down by force. Are you… dissatisfied?” Mirage stepped backward, perhaps a little more cautious than he had been in the week prior. He knew Red Alert was not happy with him so far. “I too wish I could offer you better, but I beg your forgiveness.”
Red Alert peeled back the pelt and hurled it to the floor, trembling slightly with disgust. Inferno was halfway out of his seat before he could even name what he wanted to do.
“Inferno!” Red Alert snapped at him. “Sit down. This is not your score to settle.”
Inferno obeyed.
“I don't understand why he needs to be here at all—” Mirage muttered disdainfully, as if that would help his case. Red Alert turned sharply to face him.
“You’re going to get out of my dispatch center right now.” Red Alert drew his blaster from its holster. “You’ve harassed me several times now while I am trying to work, and I know that you’re smart enough to pick up on how I feel about it.”
“Er… yes… but a bit of ‘wooing’ is to be expected with the courtship process. Not everyone is ready to say yes the first time around!” Mirage interjected, with false cheer.
“I’ve given you my formal response,” Red Alert nudged Mirage’s chassis with the barrel of the gun. “That’s a ‘no,’ for you, and it’s the last one I’m giving.”
Mirage shrunk back, shell shocked and completely mortified. His beady optics fell on Inferno, and his spoiler flared angrily.
“This is all your fault!” Mirage began to accuse Inferno, miserably, stopping and starting as if unsure even of his outrage. “You’re a common, brutish, conniving—”
Red Alert’s optics blazed. He set a servo firmly on Inferno’s pauldron, and spat back at Mirage:
“He’s mine.”
Then it was Red Alert’s turn to stop, and second-guess himself. His face went a bit pink with embarrassment. He didn’t back down on it, though, and glared Mirage down until the noble picked up his bloodied fox corpse and shuffled away, chastened.
Jazz had finally made it into the doorway of the command center (as he received a summons several minutes before, when Mirage began tracking blood through the halls) and was standing with his servos on his hips. He looked displeased.
“Come on, mech.” He sighed. “We’ve got a lot to talk about, as far as appropriate behavior goes… I really thought you’d learned your lesson the first time.”
Red Alert took Inferno back to his private officer’s quarters later that evening. To Inferno’s delight, he didn’t make nearly as much of a deal about being secretive as usual. Of course, Inferno still expected to be woken up and told to leave at dawn, if not earlier— but that was just fine with him. So long as Red Alert wasn’t anxious about him being there.
The recharging slab was still kind of tiny. It had been intended for Red Alert, after all; Inferno had to wiggle in on his side and press up against the wall so that Red Alert could lie down with him.
“You look proud of yourself,” Inferno teased. “You reckon Prowl’s going to be mad about you waving a gun around in dispatch?”
Red Alert rolled his optics.
“No. Prowl would’ve done it himself if I didn’t. He gets all kinds of geeked out when his response times are off… Mirage was lucky that it was me.”
Inferno smiled. Damn straight, he was.
“I’m sorry for trying to get involved.” He threw an arm over Red Alert, shuffling closer. “I… didn’t know how to react to something like that, without doing too much or too little.”
Red Alert bit the inside of his cheek, anxiously.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. I… I’ve asked a lot of you, these past few weeks. I know that well enough, because Primus, don’t I always?”
Inferno hesitated to agree.
“Not always. You don’t need to talk down on yourself, like that. This has been hard— seeing you get so upset, and him crossing lines that I… that we can’t… without being able to say much about it.”
Red Alert looked thoughtful.
“I only wanted to avoid people talking poorly about you, and speculating on things they didn’t know about. Though, it seems that I accomplished the exact opposite.” He reached out, to gently card his digits through Inferno’s audial fins. “I didn’t like hearing him speak to you that way. Even if he was unaware of our relationship, he should still know better. You’ve been my partner a lot longer than a month.”
“Pshaw,” Inferno hid his face by tucking it into his cabin. “You’re real important to me too, Red.”
Red Alert leaned in to kiss his forehelm, then his cheek, then right under his jaw at the apex of his neck.
“Maybe… it wouldn’t be so bad for them to know about us. It could have saved me several helmaches, to begin with.”
Inferno sat up, suddenly, nearly knocking Red Alert off the recharging slab. He had to flail slightly to grab the back of Red Alert’s collar farings, and held him close to avoid disaster.
“Really? You wouldn’t be embarrassed?”
Red Alert looked away, flustered.
“Well… I… it depends on the questions they’re all going to want to ask,” He shifted awkwardly. “It would be an honor for them to know that you love me. Even though I boss you around more than most, and complain a lot, and I’m…”
He didn’t want to finish the sentence, but Inferno knew what he meant. Defective. That, or any of the other horrible things mechs had to say about Red Alert in the past. (Any of the other reasons why Mirage expected it to be easy to court him.)
“Perfect.” Inferno finished the sentence for him, before flipping their positions so that Red Alert was sitting more securely over his frame instead of half-dangling over the edge. “I’m so lucky!”
Red Alert huffed exasperatedly and lay back down, curling up with his helm resting on Inferno’s truck cabin.
“You’re going to want to brag to everyone now, aren’t you?”
“Just my close friends!” Inferno giggled, still blushing. It’d really pained him not to tell Firestar, or Jazz, or Grapple, or Hoist, or…
“All fifty of them?” Red Alert cut in, sarcastically, interrupting Inferno’s internal monologue.
They both laughed, knowing that Red Alert was by far the most jealous mech between the two of them.