Tracking Desire

His sensors picked up pursuit in his far-ranging system. Too far for them to have a lock on him. Jennifer struggled in his cockpit, banging against the canopy. “Hush,” he said, hovering until the two pursuit jets got in range. “I shall disable only.” He imagined that killing her kind in front of her would not further his aim of interfacing with her. He felt the jets lock on to him. Of course, he’d made it easy, hovering, a nice, still, conspicuous target. If they weren’t stupid, they’d have suspected it was too good to be true. He sent an EMP burst rippling through the air between them, tearing through their targeting and control systems. They spun wildly off course.

“And now,” he said, firing his thrusters and boosting into the night sky.

Because Jennifer was with him, he was cautious—he flew slowly enough that the g’s didn’t black her out, and settled in a quartz-lined gorge. The piezoelectricity of the crystals in the stone around them would scramble the human’s tracking abilities.

He transformed, placing her gently on a rocky outcropping at his eye level. “Are you all right, Jennifer human?”

“What the hell did you just do?”

“I informed you I would not kill them. I disabled their control systems. Now they will leave you alone.”

“No they won’t! They’ll be all over me.”

“They did not know that you were with me or they would not have target locked.”

She paled. “They what?”

“Jennifer human. I disabled their systems because they were preparing to fire. Did you think they were merely going to flyover and wave?”

She sat on the outcropping, hard. “This is—I can’t handle this.”

“You do not have to. I shall handle it.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“That is what is significant. Now.” Looking at her, his desire spun up again. It could barely be called combat, what had just happened, but his systems hummed with the charge of combat, fueling his desire. “I want you.”

“After what just happened?” She wrapped her arms around her chest.

“Especially so.” He bent to kiss her, pleased that she tilted her head up. He traced her shape with one talon. “Please.” His talon found the waistband of her sweatpants and tugged. “Please.”

“I can’t.”

He groaned. “Please.” His voice was harsh with need. “Jennifer.”

He pulled back, watching her. She shivered. “I can’t.”

“Why can you not?” He fought frustration in his voice.

Tears sparkled in her eyes again. “They’ll come after you. Because of me.”

His central capacitor tic’d up. “I have told you that I will handle that. But,” he brushed her cheek with one long digit, “I can see that you do want me. Deny it.” She said nothing. “Silence,” he added, “I shall take as assent.”

A brief smile flickered over her face.

“That is more acceptable.” He kissed her again, this time feeling her hands willingly brush his cheek flares, his audio receptors. He remembered the first time, when he lay injured, those same hands applying the analgesic gel. It had felt good, soothing, then. Now her touch inflamed him. “You were unhappy with my method of clothing removal last time,” he said, pointedly. She sighed, and peeled off her clothes. In the thin moonlight her body seemed to glow, catching the indentation of the bottom of her rib cage, the twin thrusts of her hip bones, and the small rise of her belly, the round swells of her breasts.

His ventilation caught. He reached for his module, tracing a long unwinding spiral down her body with his glossa, reveling in the feel of her warm skin, the shiver of her reaction, the way her own breath caught. She did want him. Her knees seemed to buckle. “Lie down,” he directed, catching her with one hand. She looked around at the cage of claws. Without fear. Unlike Optimus’s xeno, who had kicked with terror and hatred. Her hands sought purchase under the armor plating. He brushed her skin with his module. She tilted her head back against one of his thumbs, her long braid trailing out. He traced his module along her jaw, down her throat, under the arc of her ribcage. Down long sweeps of her thighs. She moaned. “God, really, we shouldn’t….”she gasped.

“Do you wish me to stop?” He paused, though he felt his own datastream snarl at him.

“No, but….” He waited for her to finish the sentence, hearing his supplemental coolant system kick on.

“I do not hear a reasonable objection,” he said, quietly, resuming tracing his module along the warm surface of her belly. He began tracing out words. His own name, symbol by symbol. She shivered.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” she said, finally.

“I shall not get hurt. You have seen the worst they have ever done to me, Jennifer human. I survived that.” His module kept pinging its readiness at his sensor net. As if he didn’t know. “And the future is no reason to refuse the present.” He bent over her again, teasing along her hairline and jaw with his glossa. “Please.”

She didn’t say anything, but as he traced a long slow line down her thighs, her legs drifted apart. He murmured to himself, enjoying the different responses—arousal from the inner thigh, relaxation from the lower leg, and the twitch of ticklishness at the sole of her foot. He pressed his module into her, fascinated by the wave of shudders that washed through her body. Her fingers clenched around the plates of his hand.

His datastream pulsed hard, high and fast. Jennifer’s breath struggled, almost panting, small sounds skirling in her throat. He restrained his datastream’s pulses by sheer force of will. “Are you enjoying this? Shall I stop?” His whole sensor net ached with the force of restraining his datastream. She rolled in his hand, pulling at him, pulling him into a desperate kiss, her hands gripping the plates of his face, her mouth almost feverish around his glossa.

His turbines cycled. He would not give in. He would get her permission. He would not force her. He didn’t know where this new desire arose from, just that suddenly getting her approval was more important than the physical sensation. He pulled away, grinding his teeth, tasting sparks. “May I?” His whole sensor net throbbed with pain, just like when Megatron denied him release. But this…he was a warrior. He could withstand this. For her. “I shall stop,” he grunted, “If you want.”

Her hands were hard on him, one gripping the cage in front of his left eye. “No, please,” she pleaded. What did that mean? Had she wanted him to stop? Or not?

“Jennifer human,” he began. His datastream slipped his control, sending a flurry of hard pulses through her. She writhed in his hands.

“Please,” she said. No ‘no’ this time. He cupped both of his hands around her, closing his eyes, and relaxed, allowing the sensor net to cascade the pain down through his interface system and force an overload. He heard her cry out as he faded out.

She had disconnected herself when he faded back in from the overload, shivering on her flimsy t shirt. She was blading his energon off her thighs. Her hesitance disturbed him. Would she refuse him one day? Was it only in the throes of the interface did she desire him? Did she find it distasteful? Watching her hands scrape down her thighs, he had to wonder. Did she find this disgusting? Barricade had dealt with this in himself. Starscream hadn’t, but the idea that Jennifer, of all people, might find it…repulsive….. He had to know. His hand closed around her. He settled back against the ravine’s wall, pushing his still cycling jets into the hard earth. He dropped her on his chest plating. “There is something,” he said, “I want to show you.” Quickly, before he lost his nerve.

He retracted the armor, and then some of his supplemental systems, baring the top of a small hexagonal cell. “Spark chamber,” he explained, hearing his voice shake a little bit. “Touch it?”

She brushed her fingers against it, gingerly. He shuddered. The spark chamber’s metal was exquisitely sensitive. Even her light touch sent ripples of electricity through his sensor net. “Why?”

He didn’t want to answer that. He did a quick-cycle ventilation to gather his nerve, and, concentrating, retracted the cover. The night was filled with the blue-gold swirl of his spark’s core.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “Do they all look like this?”

“No. Each has a unique spark.” He thought of the few he had seen. All different, all strangely characteristic of their possessor. Suddenly he lost his way. He had no idea if this would work. In his kind, two sparks, exposed, would join automatically. But, stupid, his mind yelled at him, humans don’t have spark chambers.

She brushed the air over the chamber. A groan was ripped from his throat, right on that line between pleasure and agony. She froze, mouthing an apology. It was…unimaginably good. He didn’t want her to stop. Completely different from the interface. He got control of his ventilation. “Again,” he breathed.

Her hands were more tentative, now, pushing against the radiation of the spark. One hand brushed the rim of the chamber. His whole body jerked in response. She froze again. “No,” he said, hearing his voice plead, “Again. Please.” Oh Primus please. His spark flared up at her touch. She continued, stroking the air above the chamber. His spark pulsed faster and brighter as if in response to the circles she drew.

And then…it happened. His spark flared out white and…they were linked. For a long moment, they were connected—he could see through her eyes, feel through her body—the strange sensation of muscle and blood, the delicious ache of their previous joining--and think through her thoughts. He pushed his name at her in the link, letting her response ripple up. And he felt her feelings—the warm open well of sensation that held his name. She did want him. And more. He knew. He knew with the same sensor net knowledge he had of his own thoughts, his own feelings.

The link faded, slowly, more slowly than an overload. She lay on his exposed chest plating, limp. Unmoving. He could still, faintly, feel her breathing. She was all right. She had…been overwhelmed.

“Jennifer human,” he said, hearing his voice through his own audio and still, dimly, distantly, receedingly, through hers.

She shifted, opening her eyes slowly. She looked up at him. “What…the hell…was that?”

“A spark-link. Or something like that,” he said. It was different from the ones he'd done before--but he couldn't describe exactly how. “Are you unwell?”

She rubbed her head. “Have a headache, but I can’t tell if it’s from..that,” she looked at his spark chamber with renewed respect, “or if I hit my head.” He could, if he strained, dimly feel this ‘headache’. The connection was fading.

“You will recover?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Jennifer human, did you…see anything? During the spark link?”

“I don’t know. It was weird. It felt like I died. I was…looking at me. And I was feeling strange things.”

“Unpleasant things?” He froze. If she had felt the link the way it was intended, she would have…linked with him too. If he hadn’t been so caught up in his obsession with what she felt about him, he might have foreseen this. What had she seen?

“No, not at all. Just…weird.”

“Ah,” he said. Weird. He didn’t know if he liked being called ‘weird’.

“What’s supposed to happen? I mean, during a real spark link.”

He ducked his head, her curious eyes weighing on him. “The two sparks are momentarily joined. There is…union.”

“Union.” She caught on more quickly than he wanted. Of course, he had not wanted her to catch on, ever, to this. “So..that was you I was feeling?”

He looked down at his hand, that had held her just a few minutes ago. Why hadn’t he stopped himself then, just with the interface? Why had he pushed her? A spark link. With a xeno. Even Barricade hadn’t gone this far. And for what? Because he had to know that she felt more for him than it appeared. He wanted to know, with a force that was a weakness. And this weakness had done this to him. And to her.

“Yes.”

He waited, almost trembling with shame, at his weakness. His stupidity. Some great leader he was. So weak he couldn’t stand the uncertainty that she might one day refuse him; after he had told her to accept the uncertainty that he might be damaged by the Autobots. He dragged his gaze up to hers, waiting to see the contempt, the disdain, the hatred at his violation. The human expression ‘I am sorry’ shaped itself in his vocal processor, but he didn’t have the strength to push the words out.

“Oh,” she said, simply. She picked her way up his exposed mechanisms, perching herself on one of his ailerons. She threw her arms around his head, pressing her face against one of his cheekflares.

“Jennifer,” he dropped the teasing particle, “how grievously have I offended you?”

She looked up at him, so close he could see her with only one optic. Her own cheeks were wet with tears. "I just don't want you to get hurt, for me."

"I would," he said, "for you. But you should not waste your concern on me. After what I have done to you." One hand stroked the scar on her shoulder.

"But...after tonight. You can't."

He reached behind his primary, to his secondary audio, and yanked off his supplemental comm node. Her hands took it like a gift. "What is it?"

"Communications node. Your own communication is compromised. This is a direct link," he tripped over the word, "to me. Personal frequency." Strange: a few minutes ago he'd be agonized over whether or not she would refuse a gesture. He felt a sudden assurance--she would accept it. That assurance grew like a bubble as she closed her fingers around it. "I am afraid you shall hear many rather tedious conversations if you listen in," he said, indicating the comm switch. "If you need to contact me or speak, this." He depressed the switch. "And I can contact you. This will not be the last time. If you do not wish it to be." The bubble of self assurance swelled a little higher.

"But...if this is yours?"

He shrugged. "Redundant system. Besides, I can claim to have been injured. It should not be too difficult after returning you home to find a few humans willing to take shots at me." He smiled.

"Don't even joke about that."

"Jennifer human, I shall be fine." He pulled her against him, letting his chest plates slide into position. "And I shall handle these matters for you. After returning you home. Which will not be...quite yet, if you do not mind." He settled his arm around her.