Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The radio station had been abandoned for three years, which in human terms meant "recently" and in Cybertronian terms meant "still warm."

Blaster found it first.

"Oh yeah," he said, standing in the middle of the unusually oversized dusty broadcast booth, servos already reaching for the mixing board. "This is happening."

Eject popped out, transforming mid-air. "Boss, the equipment's ancient."

"Ancient means vintage." Blaster was already plugging into the main console. "Vintage means authentic. We're gonna make some beautiful noise."

Rewind emerged next, immediately scanning the room. "The broadcast tower still functions. We could reach a fifty-mile radius."

"Fifty miles of pure auditory excellence." Blaster grinned. "Fire it up."

Ramhorn and Steeljaw deployed, the former immediately charging through the lobby to test the acoustics, the latter padding toward the sound booth with predatory interest. The rhino's hoofsteps echoed perfectly thanks to the concrete floors, high ceilings, and minimal furniture. Natural reverb.

"Boss, this place is perfect," Eject said, already sorting through dusty vinyl records. "Look at this collection. Jazz, rock, classical. Mhm, humans knew what they were doing."

"Past tense being the operative word." Blaster powered up the mixing board. Lights flickered across the console, most green, a few amber, one concerning red that he ignored. "But their loss is our gain."

The tower lit up. Frequencies crackled to life. And somewhere in the electromagnetic spectrum, a signal bloomed that hadn't existed thirty seconds ago.

Seventeen miles away, Soundwave's visor flared red.

He was monitoring Autobot communications when the unauthorized frequency cut through every channel he had open. Just present and occupying space it shouldn't.

"Unauthorized broadcast detected," Soundwave announced.

Megatron didn't look up from his datapad. "Handle it."

"Affirmative."

Laserbeak was already airborne before Soundwave finished the word. Ravage materialized from the shadows like she'd been waiting for this exact order. Rumble and Frenzy exchanged glances that promised violence and property damage in equal measure.

"Finally," Rumble said. "I was getting bored."

"You're always bored," Frenzy countered.

"Yeah, but now I get to hit something that deserves it."

"How do you know it deserves it?"

"Unauthorized frequency. That's basically asking for it."

Soundwave transformed, cassette deck gleaming under the Nemesis' harsh lights. His team loaded up with the smoothness of mechs who'd done this thousands of times. And he departed like a noise complaint given legs, determined to shut it down at the source.

The radio station had no idea what was coming.

Back at the station, Blaster was three songs into his set when Rewind's sensors pinged.

"Boss, we've got incoming."

"Autobots?" Blaster didn't pause his mixing.

"Negative. Decepticon signatures. Ground approach, approximately two miles out and fast approaching."

"Huh." Blaster adjusted the bass. "Guess we're popular."

"Should we relocate?"

"And leave all this beautiful equipment? Rewind, I'm hurt. We just got the acoustics dialed in."

Eject looked up from the record collection. "Pretty sure they're not coming to appreciate our artistic vision."

"Then they're about to get educated." Blaster cranked the volume higher. The windows rattled. Somewhere in the building, a ceiling tile fell. "Let 'em come."

Steeljaw growled from the sound booth in warning. Ramhorn pawed the ground, ready to charge anything that came through the door.

The door exploded.

Not opened. Exploded. Wood splinters and metal fragments scattered across the lobby. Through the smoke came Rumble and Frenzy, pile drivers (and blaster) already active and humming with barely restrained violence.

"DECEPTICONS!" Frenzy announced, voice crackling with glee. "Ruin everything!"

"We don't ruin," Rumble corrected, surveying the station with the critical eye of someone about to destroy it. "We improve through aggressive remodeling."

Blaster spun, servos still on the mixing board, music still playing. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. This is a private session—"

Soundwave stepped through the wreckage, visor fixed on Blaster with laser precision. Behind him, Laserbeak swooped in through the hole where the door used to be, circling the ceiling and cataloging targets. Ravage prowled in last, golden optics sweeping the room.

"Unauthorized broadcast: unacceptable. Frequency: terminated."

"Terminated?" Blaster's field bristled, every frequency in his array standing up in offense. "You can't just terminate art, man. That's fascism."

"Observation: irrelevant. Order: vacate premises."

"Counter-offer." Blaster cranked the volume higher. The bass drop hit hard enough to rattle Soundwave's visor. "You leave, I keep spinning, everybody's happy."

Soundwave's visor brightened dangerously. "Negative."

"Then I guess we got ourselves a situation."

The cassettes didn't wait for permission. They squared off while their commanders faced each other across the broadcast booth, engaging in the kind of staring contest that had preceded every major battle since the war began.

Eject and Rewind immediately claimed the mixing board, digits flying across controls, trying to keep the music going while also preparing for inevitable combat. Rumble and Frenzy circled them like sharks, pile drivers and blaster humming their promise of destruction.

"You touch that equipment, I touch your face," Eject warned.

"Promises, promises," Rumble grinned, pile driver whirring. "I'm counting on it."

Frenzy was already examining the speaker system with the scrutiny someone planning to weaponize it. "Hey Rumble, bet I can overload these before you can."

"You're on."

"Wait—" Rewind started, but they were already moving.

In the sound booth, Ravage and Steeljaw locked optics. Feline versus canine. Predator versus predator. The glass between them wouldn't last. Both of them knew it, and both of them were calculating angles.

Steeljaw's growl was low and sustained. A warning. A challenge.

Ravage's tail flicked once. Acknowledgment. Acceptance.

The glass between them developed a crack.

Ramhorn charged through the lobby again, hoofsteps thundering, ready to ram anything that moved. Laserbeak dove at him, talons extended, turning the space into an aerial combat zone. They crashed through the reception area, scattering papers and office chairs.

"This is my station!" Blaster declared, gesturing broadly at the equipment, the records, the perfectly calibrated acoustics. "I found it, I fixed it, I claimed it!"

"Correction: Decepticon station," Soundwave replied with the absolute certainty of someone who'd never been wrong about ownership in his life. "Discovery: irrelevant. Possession: Soundwave's."

"I was here first!"

"Claim: invalid. Strength determines ownership."

"Oh, we're going with 'might makes right'? Real original, Soundwave. You pull that line out at parties?"

Soundwave tilted his helm slightly. The gesture somehow conveyed both threat and confusion. "Parties: non-operational concept."

"Yeah, I bet they are for you." Blaster's optics blazed brighter. "You know what? Let's settle this the right way."

Soundwave's visor focused with interest. Query.

"Battle of the bands." Blaster gestured to the equipment spread across the station, at the mixing boards, turntables, the broadcast tower itself. "You and me. Best tracks win. Loser walks."

For a long moment, Soundwave said nothing. His visor dimmed slightly, processing. Calculating odds. Considering tactical implications. Evaluating whether this was a trap or just Autobot insanity.

Around them, the cassettes had paused their various combat preparations to listen.

Then Soundwave's visor brightened again. Autobot insanity it is. "Acceptable."

Rumble and Frenzy exchanged shocked glances. "Wait, we're doing what now?"

"Competition: musical superiority," Soundwave clarified. "Victory condition: opponent acknowledgment of defeat."

"Can we still hit things?" Frenzy asked hopefully.

"Authorization: conditional."

"Good enough."

The rules were simple, negotiated in clipped sentences between two commanders who understood each other better than either would admit.

Each side got the equipment for ten cycles. Best broadcast won. The cassettes would judge. However, they immediately started arguing about criteria.

"Loudest wins," Rumble declared.

"Complexity wins," Rewind countered.

"That's not even a real metric!"

"All metrics are real if you measure them!"

Laserbeak chirped something that sounded like a suggestion. Ravage responded with a growl that was probably agreement. Steeljaw barked once in dissent.

"Okay," Eject interrupted, "new rule. Whoever sounds coolest wins."

"Cool is subjective," Rewind protested.

"Yeah, but we'll know it when we hear it."

"That's not how judging works—"

"It is now."

The argument continued, but Blaster and Soundwave had already tuned it out. They stood on opposite sides of the mixing board like gunslingers, waiting to see who'd make the first move.

"Your set: first," Soundwave said, ever the picture of graciousness. It was a strategic calculation, of course. To observe before acting.

"Nah." Blaster grinned. "Ladies first."

Soundwave's visor flickered with something that might have been annoyance. "Gender: irrelevant. Designation: warrior."

"I'm being polite."

"Politeness: tactical delay. Proceed or concede."

"Fine." Blaster cracked his knuckles. It was unnecessary but satisfying. "Watch and learn, Soundwave. This is how you make music."

He started with something human, classic rock, pulled from the station's vinyl collection. But he didn't just play it. He remixed it, stacking Cybertronian beats underneath like industrial techno, adding harmonics that bent the sound past what human ears could process. The bass rattled the windows. The guitar riffs were aggressive, almost violent, but somehow still musical.

Eject and Rewind didn't need orders. They fell into formation, digits flying across secondary controls, layering effects and harmonies over Blaster's foundation. The result was a cross between human and Cybertronian. It was familiar enough to be music, alien enough to be weapon.

Ramhorn approved by headbutting a wall in perfect rhythm with the bass drops. The wall cracked but held. Probably.

"YEAH!" Blaster pumped a fist, riding the soundwave like a natural high. "That's what I'm talking about!"

The music poured out of the broadcast tower, flooding frequencies for miles. Somewhere in the nearest town, a teenager's radio picked it up and they nearly crashed their car trying to figure out what station it was. In a diner three miles south, the jukebox suddenly started playing something it definitely didn't have in its catalog.

Soundwave watched in silence, visor tracking every frequency, analyzing every layered beat. His tactical processor was tracking for weaknesses, patterns, repetitive structures. But a quieter part was just... listening.

It was good. Annoyingly good. Blaster had always been talented, but this was different. This was Blaster in his element, doing what he was designed for, and the result was almost beautiful.

Almost.

The track ended. Blaster killed the mixing board with a dramatic flourish.

"Beat that, Soundwave."

Soundwave stepped up to the console without a word. His servos touched the controls with the precision of a surgeon—exact pressure, perfect timing, no wasted movement.

Then he began.

The change was immediate. Where Blaster's set was chaos and energy and emotion, Soundwave's was exactitude. Each note calculated. Each frequency layered with mathematical perfection. He built the track like an equation, each element adding to the whole, nothing random, nothing wasted.

The result was hypnotic. A soundscape that didn't just fill the room but occupied it, claimed it, made it impossible to think about anything else. Beats that shouldn't work together did anyway, because Soundwave had calculated exactly how to make them cooperate.

Laserbeak circled overhead, adding occasional vocalizations that blended smoothly into the composition. Not random bird sounds but actual musical elements, timed and pitched perfectly.

Ravage's purr became percussion. A steady, rhythmic, the kind of bass that you felt rather than heard.

Even Rumble and Frenzy stopped their usual bickering to listen. They stood frozen, weapons powered down, optics fixed on Soundwave like they were seeing him for the first time.

"Okay," Eject admitted quietly. "That's pretty good."

"Pretty good?" Rewind looked genuinely offended on Soundwave's behalf. "That's engineered. He somehow built music!"

"I didn't say it wasn't impressive. Just... different."

"Different how?"

Eject gestured vaguely at the space where sound had been. "Blaster makes you feel. Soundwave makes you think."

"Can't it be both?"

"I don't think Soundwave does 'both.'"

But they were wrong. Because buried in the mathematical precision, in the calculated harmonics and perfectly timed drops, was something else. Something that Soundwave probably didn't even know he was putting there.

Echoes of something older. The faint memory of Cybertron’s soundscape before the war: markets, concerts, parades the hum of a living world. Noise that wasn’t tactical, but simply alive.

The track ended. Silence fell like a physical thing.

Blaster stood very still, field completely neutral, processing what he'd just heard.

"Huh," he said finally.

"Assessment?" Soundwave asked.

"You've been holding out on me."

"Negative. Full capability: demonstrated."

"That's what I mean." Blaster's optics brightened. "All these stellar cycles we've been jamming each other's frequencies, and you never once showed me you could do that."

"Tactical advantage: maintained through concealment."

"Yeah, well, advantage noted." Blaster grinned. "My turn again."

They traded sets for three mega-cycles, and somewhere along the way it stopped being a competition and became something else. A conversation, maybe. Or an argument. Or that space between combat and collaboration where warriors who respected each other forgot to maintain proper hostility.

Blaster went loud, anthems, power chords, beats that made you want to move, fight, celebrate being alive. Each track was a celebration of noise, of existing in a universe that was too quiet without music filling it.

Soundwave went complex, layered harmonics, notes that shouldn't work together but did, compositions that felt like math given sound and soul . Each track was a statement of control, of order imposed on chaos, of meaning carved from noise.

The cassettes stopped pretending to judge and started participating. Rumble's pile drivers became bass drops. He'd slam them into the floor in perfect rhythm, adding physical percussion to digital beats. Frenzy discovered he could manipulate feedback loops, turning what should have been errors into rhythm sections.

Steeljaw's growls were sampled and remixed, turned from threats into sustained bass notes. Laserbeak's screeches became high notes, perfectly pitched and impossibly clear.

Even Ravage contributed, her purr becoming a sustained drone that Soundwave layered underneath everything else like a foundation.

"Wait," Eject said during one of the brief pauses between sets. He looked at Rewind, then at Rumble and Frenzy. "Are we... collaborating?"

Rumble looked at his pile driver, then at the mixing board where his seismic impacts had been incorporated into the current track, then back at Eject. "I think we are."

"Huh."

"Weird."

"Yeah."

A pause. Then Frenzy: "Wanna keep going?"

"Obviously."

They kept going.

The broadcast tower was now sending signals across three states, getting stronger with each set as Blaster and Soundwave both figured out how to optimize the output. The signal was no longer just unauthorized. It was impossible to ignore.

In a truck stop outside Las Vegas, a long-haul driver picked up the frequency and nearly drove off the road. "What the hell kind of pirate radio—" They fumbled for their phone, trying to record it, but it cut out before they could capture more than ten seconds.

In a college dorm in Arizona, someone managed to record thirty seconds before their equipment overloaded. They'd upload it to Reddit later where it would spawn three conspiracy theories and one very heated argument about whether it was aliens or just really good bass.

In NEST headquarters in Nevada, Lennox listened to the report with his head in his hands. "It's them again, isn't it?"

"Unknown entities utilizing abandoned infrastructure for-" the analyst checked his notes, clearly struggling with how to phrase this, "-what appears to be recreational purposes, sir."

"Translation: the Cons are having a dance party."

"That is... one interpretation, sir. The other possibility is Autobot involvement."

"Because it's never just one faction when chaos happens." Lennox reached for the comm to call Optimus, then stopped. His hand hovered over the button. He looked at the ceiling. He thought about the last seventeen incident reports involving Cybertronians and human infrastructure.

Then he closed the channel without calling anyone.

You know what? Let them have this one. The world could survive a few hours of alien pirate radio. And honestly, after the week he'd had—the incident with Starscream and the F-16s, the thing in Colorado that nobody wanted to talk about, the ongoing logistics nightmare that was keeping two factions of alien robots from accidentally conquering Earth—he needed the break as much as they apparently did.

"Log it as 'unexplained audio phenomenon' and move on," he ordered.

"Sir?"

"You heard me. Unless they start blowing things up or the President calls, we're ignoring this one."

The analyst looked relieved. "Yes, sir."

At the Autobot base, the signal hit Jazz's audio receptors like a gift from Primus himself.

He was supposed to be running patrol routes. Instead, he'd been sitting in his alt mode in the rec room, systems idling, when the frequency cut through the usual radio chatter.

His engine revved involuntarily.

"Oh, now that's what I'm talking about."

He transformed, already reaching for the console to isolate the signal. The music poured through—raw, aggressive, and perfectly imperfect. Human rock with Cybertronian beats layered underneath like someone had finally figured out how to make both species' music talk to each other.

"Prowl, you hearing this?"

Prowl's voice came through the comm, already exhausted. "Yes. I'm attempting to triangulate the source."

"Man, don't triangulate. Listen."

"Jazz, that's an unauthorized broadcast on multiple civilian frequencies—"

"That's art, Prowl. That's somebody out there making beautiful noise."

A pause. Then, with the patience of someone who'd had this conversation too many times: "It's a security breach."

"It's a jam session."

"Those aren't mutually exclusive."

The track shifted. The style changed completely. It was still good, but different. Mathematical. Like someone had taken music apart and put it back together with a blueprint.

Jazz's field rippled with recognition.

"Hold up. That's Soundwave."

"Confirmed," Prowl said. "Which means—"

"Which means Blaster found himself a radio station." Jazz was already moving toward the door. "And a jam session partner. Prowl, this is the best thing that's happened all month."

"Jazz, we have patrol schedules—"

"Reschedule 'em. I gotta see this."

"You are not abandoning your post to watch—"

"Not watching. Observing. Tactical reconnaissance. I'm gathering intelligence on Decepticon recreational activities."

"That's not—Jazz, get back here—"

Jazz killed the comm and transformed, tires already burning out of the base.

Behind him, Prowl's voice echoed through the empty rec room: "I'm adding this to your file."

"Add it twice!" Jazz called back, already gone.

On the road, he cranked his radio higher, letting the music flood his systems. Blaster and Soundwave. The two best communications officers in the war, finally doing what they were actually built for instead of just jamming each other's signals.

This was gonna be good.

His GPS pinged. Seventeen miles northeast at abandoned radio station with energy signatures consistent with way too many Cybertronians in one place.

Jazz grinned and hit the accelerator.

At the Nemesis, docked in a canyon somewhere in Nevada, the signal hit every monitor simultaneously.

Starscream noticed first because he was monitoring Autobot frequencies, looking for intel, finding instead what sounded like a rave.

"What is that?" He stood from his station, wings flaring. "Broadcasting without clearance?"

Thundercracker glanced at his console. "Looks like Soundwave's frequency signature."

"Soundwave is making noise?"

"Appears to be music," Skywarp added helpfully.

Starscream's optics brightened with opportunity. This was perfect. Soundwave, absent without permission, engaging in frivolous activities, completely abandoning his post. Megatron would have to acknowledge this failure, would have to see that perhaps his oh-so-perfect communications officer wasn't quite as indispensable as everyone thought.

"Lord Megatron!" Starscream spun toward the throne with theatrical urgency. "I must bring to your attention a serious breach of protocol—"

"I'm aware." Megatron didn't look up from his datapad.

"Soundwave has abandoned his duties to engage in—"

"I sent him to handle an unauthorized broadcast."

"Yes, but he's participating in it! Listen to that frequency modulation! That's not reconnaissance, that's—"

"Handled." Megatron's voice carried that particular edge that meant the conversation was over. "He's handling it."

"But—"

"Starscream, you have two choices. Sit down and monitor your assigned frequencies, or explain to me why you're so concerned about Soundwave's activities instead of your own duties."

Starscream's intake clicked shut. His wings drooped. He sat down.

But he was absolutely filing this away for later. This was leverage. This was ammunition. This was-

"I can hear you scheming from here," Megatron said without looking up.

"I'm not scheming, I'm thinking—"

"Then think quieter."

Megatron's attention returned to his datapad, but his processor was elsewhere. The broadcast had expanded. What started as a minor frequency dispute was now registering across multiple states. He could see the energy signatures spiking, the power draw increasing, the whole situation escalating in exactly the way Soundwave's missions never escalated.

He set down the datapad.

This was going to require intervention. Not because Soundwave couldn't handle it, but because whatever was happening had stopped being tactical and started being... something else. The frequency patterns were too complex, too artistic, too deliberately structured to be simple jamming or interference.

Soundwave was competing. Possibly enjoying himself. Definitely not following standard engagement protocols.

Megatron cycled a ventilation. Four million years of war, and somehow his most reliable officer had found a way to turn a routine suppression mission into a performance.

He'd let it play out. For now. But he was absolutely having words with Soundwave about appropriate mission scope when this was over.

Thundercracker and Skywarp exchanged glances. Skywarp grinned. "Twenty shanix says Screamer brings this up during the next command meeting."

"No bet. That's guaranteed."

In the medbay three levels down, Hook was reorganizing his surgical tools for the fourth time that cycle when the music hit the audio sensors.

He paused mid-sort, wrench in servo, and listened.

"Is that Soundwave?"

Knock Out looked up from his buffing station where he'd been doing absolutely nothing productive for the last mega-cycle. His optics brightened immediately. "Oh, that's definitely Soundwave. And if I'm reading those frequencies right—" He tilted his helm, analyzing. "That's Blaster's signature too."

"Why are they—"

"Who cares?" Knock Out was already moving, setting down his buffer. "This is the most interesting thing that's happened all week. I'm going."

"Going where?"

"To watch, obviously. You think I'm missing whatever chaos is happening out there?" He transformed halfway to the door, engine already revving.

"You are not abandoning medbay duty again—"

"I am." Knock Out's voice echoed from the hallway. "Besides, you're here. You can handle any emergencies."

"That's not how medical staffing works!" Hook shouted after him.

"It is now! Later, darling!"

The sound of tires on metal faded into the distance.

Hook stood alone in the medbay, surrounded by perfectly organized tools, empty medical berths, and the distant sound of what was apparently a musical confrontation happening somewhere in the Nevada desert.

He looked at his wrench.

He looked at the door Knock Out had just disappeared through.

He looked at the ceiling and begged for Primus to take him now.

Then, the comm crackled with Breakdown's voice. "Hey Hook, you coming? Knock Out says there's a thing happening—"

"NO. I am NOT coming. Someone needs to maintain medical readiness on this ship, and apparently I'm the only one who takes that responsibility seriously—"

"Your loss. Sounds pretty cool from the scanner readings."

"I don't care if it sounds like the Allspark itself singing opera, I have STANDARDS—"

The comm closed.

Hook returned to his tools with the grim determination of someone who'd been abandoned by every colleague he'd ever had and was absolutely keeping a list.

He picked up a scalpel. Put it down. Picked up a different scalpel. Realized it was the same scalpel. Put it down harder.

From the corridor outside, he heard Scrapper's voice: "You hear about Soundwave?"

"Yeah, apparently he's having some kind of musical duel with the Autobot communications officer—"

"We going to watch?"

"Obviously."

Footsteps faded away.

Hook was now completely alone in medbay.

He looked at his tools one more time. Then at the door. Then back at his tools.

"No," he said firmly to the empty room. "Someone on this ship has to be responsible. Someone has to maintain medical readiness. Someone has to—"

His comm pinged. Incoming message from Knock Out: You should see this. Soundwave's actually GOOD.

Hook's optic twitched.

He looked at the door one more time.

"No," he said again.

Another ping. Breakdown this time: Hook seriously you're missing it. They just blew out three windows.

His optic twitched harder.

"I have principles," he told the empty medbay. "I have standards. I have—"

Ping. Scrapper: Medical standby might be needed soon. Just saying.

Hook grabbed his field kit with the resignation of someone who'd just lost an argument with himself.

"This is a professional response to potential casualties," he announced to nobody. "Not because I want to see what's happening. Purely medical preparedness."

He stalked toward the door.

"I'm adding this to everyone's files," he muttered. "Dereliction of duty. All of them. Including myself apparently."

The medbay doors closed behind him, leaving the space empty, organized, and perfect.

Exactly how Hook liked it, except for the part where he wasn't there to appreciate it.

Chapter Text

Back at the station, chaos continued its evolution into something resembling art.

Jazz arrived first, tires screeching to a halt outside what used to be a door. He transformed, took one look at the smoking wreckage and the hole in the wall, and grinned.

"Now this is what I'm talking about."

He stepped through the debris just as Starscream and Skywarp materialized inside. The Seeker took one look at the scene and his wings shot up so high they nearly hit the ceiling.

Blaster and Soundwave were at the mixing board, aggressively flipping switches and nudging sliders. Cassettes everywhere, some fighting, most making music. Equipment smoking. Windows cracked. The whole building vibrating with bass.

"What is happening?" Starscream demanded.

"Battle of the bands," Rumble explained without pausing his pile driver percussion.

"Current score is tied," Frenzy added, manipulating feedback like an instrument.

Jazz whistled low. "Blaster, my mech, you've been holding out on me."

"Jazz?" Blaster looked up from the mixing board, surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"Heard the broadcast. Had to see it for myself." Jazz leaned against the wall, settling in. "Don't mind me. Keep doing your thing."

"This is the most tactically pointless—" Starscream's wings hiked higher. Then he noticed the acoustics. The way sound bounced perfectly around the space. The resonance. "Although the resonance is... adequate."

"See?" Skywarp materialized beside him, grinning. "It's fun."

"I don't do fun. I do strategic superiority and tactical excellence."

Jazz caught Blaster's optic and grinned. "He loves it."

"I do NOT—"

A feedback screech rattled the remaining intact windows. Everyone flinched.

"UNACCEPTABLE ACOUSTICS!" Knock Out's voice crackled over comms. He wasn't even present, had to be miles away, but he'd heard it and felt personally attacked. "Whatever you're doing, tune it down before you damage something important. Like my auditory sensors. Which are very expensive."

"Negative," Soundwave said at the exact same moment Blaster blurted, "No."

They looked at each other, both commanders pausing mid-mix. A moment of perfect synchronization, accidental and uncomfortable.

Huh.

Soundwave returned to his mixing. Blaster did the same. But something had shifted in the room, subtle as a frequency change, significant as a key shift.

"Is anyone else noticing this is weird?" Eject asked.

"Define weird," Rewind countered, currently helping Laserbeak time his vocalizations.

"Our bosses. Not fighting. Making music. Together. Ish."

"Oh, that weird. Yeah, I'm trying not to think about it too hard."

Jazz was thinking about it plenty. This was unprecedented. Historical, even. He started recording directly to his internal memory banks, purely for posterity, of course.

Steeljaw plodded over to Ravage. The two predators had declared a temporary truce, united in their shared confusion about what their respective commanders were doing. They sat together, watching Blaster and Soundwave trade increasingly complex sets, and communicated in the way that feline and canine warriors did, mostly through judgmental silence.

Ramhorn had given up on combat entirely and was just enjoying himself, charging around the lobby in rhythm with whatever was playing. He'd found a wall that echoed perfectly when hit at the right angle and was exploiting this discovery with joy.

Starscream stood in the corner, arms crossed, trying very hard to project disapproval while also, despite himself, analyzing the musical structure with the same intensity he brought to tactical planning.

"The frequency modulation is actually quite sophisticated," he muttered.

"Nobody asked," Skywarp said cheerfully.

"I'm simply observing that if one were forced to engage in such frivolous activities, this would be an acceptable approach..."

"You like it."

"I do not like it. I'm objectively assessing..."

"You're tapping your pede."

Starscream looked down. His pede was indeed tapping in rhythm with the bass. He stopped immediately. "That was involuntary. A servo malfunction. Completely unrelated to the noise."

"Sure, Screamer. Whatever helps you recharge at night."

Outside, engines approached. Multiple vehicles. Hook arrived first in his alt mode, transforming with visible reluctance. Behind him came Scrapper, with Breakdown bringing up the rear.

"This is a professional medical response," Hook announced to no one in particular.

"Sure it is," Scrapper said, already moving toward the building. "That's why you're recording this."

"Documentation purposes!"

"Right."

Knock Out pulled up seconds later, transforming in perfect synchronization with Breakdown.

"Did we miss it?" Knock Out asked, then paused. "Wait, is that Jazz?"

"In the finish," Jazz called from inside. "Nice of you all to show up."

"Autobot presence," Breakdown said warily. "Should we..."

"Do nothing," Hook interrupted. "We're here for medical observation. Not combat."

"Since when?"

"Since I said so. Now get inside before you miss the rest."

They filed in, Decepticons and one Autobot, all standing in the wreckage of a human radio station, watching two communications officers create something that shouldn't exist.

Scrapper took up position near the back. Knock Out immediately started complaining about the dust. Breakdown told him to shut up. Jazz was recording everything to memory with the glee of someone who'd just found the best story to tell at the next gathering.

The turning point came during cycle eight, though nobody realized it was a turning point until afterward.

Blaster dropped a beat, something heavy, layered, with over and undertones that reached into frequencies most Cybertronians didn't even process consciously. Soundwave countered immediately. A complementing harmony that tied Blaster's chaos together.

Their frequencies collided in the middle of the room and, instead of canceling out or creating interference, they synchronized.

The entire room went silent except for the music. Even the cassettes stopped moving. Even Starscream shut up. Jazz's internal recording captured everything in perfect detail.

It was perfect. Absolutely, mathematically, spiritually perfect. The kind of sound that made you forget you were made of metal and war and millions of years of stupid grudges. The kind of sound that remembered what music was supposed to be before anyone weaponized it.

For four point three seconds, Blaster and Soundwave created something that transcended faction, transcended purpose, transcended everything except the pure fact of existing and making noise about it.

Then the mixing board overloaded. Sparks flew. Something important exploded. The music crashed into silence so complete it felt violent.

Nobody moved.

"Did we just..." Eject started.

"Yeah," Rewind finished, voice quiet with something like awe.

"That was..."

"Yeah."

"Tell me somebody got that," Jazz said into the silence.

"Affirmative," Soundwave said quietly. "Recorded."

"Same," Blaster confirmed.

"Good." Jazz looked around the room. "'Cause nobody's gonna believe this happened."

Blaster and Soundwave stood on opposite sides of the smoking mixing board, both staring at it like it had personally betrayed them. Which, technically, it had.

"Okay," Blaster said finally, voice rough. "That was pretty fragging good."

"Agreed," Soundwave replied. His visor was dimmed, probably running diagnostics on what had just happened and coming up with no adequate explanation.

"You got skills, Soundwave."

"Acknowledged." Pause. "Reciprocal assessment: capability confirmed."

They looked at the wreckage. Three years of human equipment, formerly lovingly maintained by underpaid radio station employees, reduced to slag in under four mega-cycles. A new record, probably. Definitely not something to be proud of.

"Draw?" Blaster offered.

Soundwave's visor flickered. Calculations running. Pride warring with pragmatism. "Acceptable."

Jazz let out a low whistle. "Man, I'm glad I came out here. This was art."

"Art doesn't repair structural damage," Hook muttered, already scanning the cassettes for auditory damage.

"No, but it's what makes being alive worthwhile."

Hook stared at him. Then at his scanner. Then back at Jazz. "I'm not qualified for this conversation."

The cassettes collectively collapsed in various states of exhaustion and satisfaction. Rumble sprawled across a chair that creaked ominously under his weight. Frenzy draped himself over a console, pile drivers finally silent. Laserbeak landed on Soundwave's shoulder and immediately powered down. Ravage curled up in a corner, Steeljaw settling warily nearby, not touching, but closer than they'd been at the start.

Eject looked at Rewind. "That was insane."

"Completely."

"Wanna do it again sometime?"

"Absolutely not."

Pause.

"Maybe."

"Yeah."

"If we find another station."

"With better equipment."

"That can handle actual power."

"So, never."

"Probably never."

"But maybe."

They grinned at each other.

Megatron's voice cut through the aftermath like a blade through hull armor.

"SOUNDWAVE."

Everyone froze. Even Starscream, who'd been about to say something snide, snapped his intake shut so fast his denta clicked. Scrapper and Hook looked at each other. Knock Out took a subtle step back.

Soundwave straightened immediately, field snapping to attention. "Lord Megatron."

"Explain yourself."

"Frequency dispute. Resolution: achieved."

"The resolution involved how much property damage?" Megatron's voice had that particular quality that preceded very bad things for everyone involved.

Soundwave calculated. "Minimal."

"The humans are calling it an 'unexplained audio phenomenon.' Three states, Soundwave. You broadcast across three states. I am receiving complaints from NEST. Complaints. About music."

"Unintentional side effect."

A pause that felt approximately three centuries long.

"Return to base. Immediately. We will discuss appropriate outlets for recreational activities that do not involve international incidents."

"Compliance."

Megatron's attention shifted. "And the rest of you. Explain why half my command structure is present at this unauthorized gathering."

Silence.

"We were..." Starscream started.

"Surveillance," Hook interrupted. "Medical surveillance. Ensuring no auditory damage occurred."

"With the head construction engineer?"

"Backup," Scrapper supplied. "Structural assessment backup."

"I see." Megatron's tone suggested he saw through every word. "Return. All of you. Now."

The channel didn't close. Megatron was waiting for movement.

Across the room, Blaster was getting a similar lecture from Optimus. Quieter, disappointment-tinged, somehow worse than Megatron's fury.

"Blaster, I understand the appeal of cultural expression, but there are protocols..."

"Yeah, boss, I know, boss, won't happen again, boss..."

"See that it doesn't. And please explain to me why three different government agencies are asking about alien broadcasting regulations."

"That's... that's a longer conversation."

"I have time."

"Actually, you don't, because I'm losing signal, lots of interference, can barely hear youuuu—"

"Blaster."

"—be back soon bye!"

He killed the comm before Optimus could respond.

Then another voice, calmer but no less authoritative: "Jazz."

Jazz winced. "Hey, Prowl. Funny running into you on this frequency."

"Return to base. We will be discussing your interpretation of 'tactical reconnaissance.'"

"It was tactical! I gathered valuable intel on Decepticon recreational—"

"Now, Jazz."

"Copy that. On my way." Jazz looked at Blaster. "Worth it, though."

"Always is," Blaster agreed.

The comm channels closed, leaving everyone in awkward silence.

Then Starscream, because he couldn't help himself: "If we're finished with the recreational activities, some of us have actual duties—"

"Starscream," Megatron's voice returned, having apparently kept the channel open specifically for this moment. "Shut. Up."

"I'm just saying that some of us take our responsibilities seriously..."

"Your input has been noted and rejected. You may now be silent or explain to me why you were present at this unauthorized gathering."

Starscream's wings drooped. "I was conducting surveillance."

"Of course you were."

"Strategic observation of Autobot activities—"

"Starscream. Your lie is bad and you should feel bad."

Starscream's wings drooped further. "...no further comments."

"That's what I thought."

The comm closed for real this time.

Starscream glared at nothing in particular, plotting seventeen different ways to salvage his dignity. None of them would work, but that wouldn't stop him from trying.

The Decepticons filed out first. Starscream and Skywarp vanishing in a teleport, Scrapper transforming and rolling out, Hook muttering about medical documentation the entire time. Knock Out and Breakdown left arguing about whose fault it was they'd missed the good part and arrived after Hook despite leaving first.

Jazz gave Blaster a fist bump. "Same time next stellar cycle?"

"Man, after that lecture? Probably not."

"Shame. You two made something special."

"Yeah." Blaster looked at where Soundwave had been standing. "Yeah, we did."

Jazz transformed and rolled out, already planning what he'd tell Prowl. It would be heavily edited. But the important parts, the four point three seconds of perfect harmony, the moment when two enemies became something else, those parts he'd remember exactly.

The station fell silent.

Blaster and his cassettes were the last to leave. He took one final look at the destroyed equipment, the shattered windows, the scorch marks on the walls.

"We did good work here," he said.

"We destroyed everything," Eject pointed out.

"Yeah, but we created something first. That counts."

They departed, leaving the radio station to its fate.

The humans would talk about the pirate radio incident for weeks, though most would dismiss it as equipment malfunction or weather phenomena or, in one particularly creative Reddit thread, "evidence of underground punk stations operating outside FCC jurisdiction."

Conspiracy theorists blamed aliens, which was correct, but they blamed the wrong aliens and for the wrong reasons. Radio enthusiasts blamed equipment malfunction, which was technically correct but missed the interesting part. One college student uploaded their recording to SoundCloud where it got exactly forty-seven listens before being copyright-struck by an algorithm that couldn't identify the source material because it hadn't been created yet according to any human timeline.

NEST filed it under "Cybertronian Recreational Activity" and moved on. They had a whole filing cabinet for Cybertronian Recreational Activity now. It was getting concerningly full.

Optimus mentioned it exactly once during the next strategy meeting: "Perhaps we should establish guidelines for cultural expression."

Jazz's response was immediate: "Nah."

Everyone looked at him.

"What?? That was art. You can't put guidelines on art."

"Jazz," Prowl said with strained patience, "you abandoned your patrol route..."

"To witness history! Blaster and Soundwave, mech. Making music instead of war. You really gonna regulate that?"

"Yes," Prowl said flatly.

"No vision," Jazz muttered.

"Seventeen incidents of property damage this quarter," Ratchet interjected, pulling up his list. "Seventeen. We need guidelines before they destroy something important."

"The vibe was important," Jazz protested.

"The vibe," Prowl said, in the tone of someone who'd just aged a century, "is not tactically relevant."

"The vibe is everything!"

Optimus held up a servo before Prowl could respond. "Blaster."

"Oh no." Blaster, who'd been trying very hard to be invisible in the back of the room, slouched lower in his seat.

"Agent Fowler messaged me at three in the morning asking if we'd 'declared war via frequency modulation.'"

"In my defense, Soundwave started it—"

"You're not a sparkling," Ratchet interjected. "The 'he started it' defense stopped working approximately four million years ago."

Blaster slumped further. "So... guidelines."

"So many guidelines," Prowl confirmed, already typing.

Optimus continued. "Perhaps we can compromise. Jazz, no more unauthorized reconnaissance of Decepticon activities. Prowl, no regulations on artistic expression. Blaster, please inform your commanding officer before generating international incidents. Everyone just... try not to destroy human infrastructure

"Wishful thinking," Prowl said.

"I'm aware."

Megatron, monitoring the Autobot channels, made a noise that might have been agreement or might have been acknowledgment that leading was suffering and they were all suffering together.

****

Three cycles later, Soundwave received a data packet.

Unmarked. Encrypted with Autobot protocols but nothing standard. Source: Autobot frequencies, civilian band, traceable to Nevada.

He opened it with appropriate caution, running seventeen security protocols first.

Inside: a single audio file. The four point three seconds of perfect harmony, cleaned up and isolated and somehow even better than he remembered it being.

Attached note: Not bad. -B

Soundwave's visor flickered. He stared at the file for longer than tactical assessment required. Played it once. Twice. Seventeen times, analyzing each frequency, each layered note, looking for hidden messages or tactical data.

There was nothing. Just music. Just the moment where two completely different approaches to sound had collided and, impossibly, worked.

He saved the file. Encrypted it with his personal protocols. Tagged it [PERSONAL] and [ARCHIVED] and [REFERENCE_MATERIAL] because calling it anything else felt too revealing.

Then he composed a response: Adequate performance. Repetition: inadvisable.

He sent it before he could reconsider.

Three seconds later, Blaster's response: Yeah yeah. Same time next stellar cycle?

Soundwave's servos hovered over the keypad. The logical answer was negative. The practical answer was negative. The answer that avoided future lectures from Megatron was very definitely negative.

His response: Negative.

Pause. His digits still on the keys.

...maybe.

Send.

In the Nemesis rec room, Rumble and Frenzy were already planning, despite multiple warnings, several threats, and one very explicit order from Soundwave himself.

"Okay, so next time..."

There's not gonna be a next time, Laserbeak chirped from the ceiling where he was resting.

"There's always a next time," Frenzy countered with the confidence of someone who'd never learned from past mistakes. "That's how rivalries work."

Rivalry? What rivalry? It's a territorial dispute at best.

"Same thing."

Laserbeak chittered, a noise that landed somewhere between static and a very unimpressed snort.

Soundwave entered, visor sweeping the room. His cassettes immediately straightened, trying to look innocent and failing completely because none of them had ever successfully looked innocent.

"Status?" he asked.

"Functional!" all four chorused.

"Damage?"

"Minimal!"

"Fatigue levels?"

"Acceptable!"

Soundwave regarded them for a long moment. His visor dimmed slightly, the closest thing to a smile he ever gave, which meant he was either pleased or planning their next training exercise. With Soundwave it was hard to tell.

"Performance: adequate. Loyalty: noted. Recharge: recommended."

They relaxed fractionally.

"But Boss," Rumble ventured, because he'd never learned when to stop talking, "if there was a next time, hypothetically..."

"Negative."

"But..."

"Cassettes: valuable. Risk: unacceptable. Station: destroyed. Conclusion: sufficient."

Frenzy deflated. "Yeah, okay."

Soundwave turned to leave, his point made, his authority reestablished. Then he paused in the doorway, dramatic timing, learned from watching too many human films during surveillance missions.

"However."

Everyone perked up.

"Archived audio: available for review. Educational purposes."

He left before they could respond.

Five seconds of silence.

Then Rumble: "He saved it."

Frenzy: "He totally saved it."

Laserbeak: Of course he did. Did you think he wouldn't?

Ravage's just purred, which in feline warriot language meant "I told you so."

****

On the Ark, Blaster's cassettes had the same conversation, just with better acoustics and fewer threats of violence.

"Think Soundwave kept the recording?" Eject asked, organizing the vinyl records they'd borrowed (stolen) from the radio station.

"Definitely," Rewind said, backing up his own copy of the audio file for the third time. "Question is whether he'll admit it."

"Soundwave doesn't admit anything. He just does things and pretends they're strategic necessities."

"That's... actually a really good point."

Blaster walked past, humming something that sounded suspiciously like one of Soundwave's harmonics, the complex mathematical ones that shouldn't work as casual humming but somehow did.

The cassettes exchanged looks.

"Oh, he's got it bad," Eject said.

"It's not like that," Blaster called back without breaking stride. "It's professional respect between fellow communications specialists."

"Sure, boss."

"It is!"

"Whatever you say."

"Mutual acknowledgment of technical capability."

"Uh-huh."

"Recognition of artistic merit."

"We believe you."

"I'm ignoring you all now."

Steeljaw padded over, settled at Blaster's feet, and made a noise that sounded distinctly judgmental. Dogs, even mechanical ones, always knew.

"Oh, not you too."

The radio station was condemned two weeks later. Structurally unsound. Equipment destroyed beyond repair. Mysterious scorch marks that didn't match any known accelerant and that the fire marshal had decided he didn't want to think about too hard. Insurance adjuster took one look and marked it as total loss.

The humans sold it for parts. The broadcast tower came down three months after that. Within a year, it was like the station had never existed, just another abandoned building in a country full of them, erased and forgotten.

But sometimes, late at night, if you drove past that exact spot on the right frequency, and you had to be on exactly the right frequency, had to have your radio tuned to the precise point between stations where static lived, you could still hear something.

Not music, exactly. More like an echo. A ghost of perfect harmony that existed for exactly four point three seconds before reality had remembered it was impossible.

Nobody could explain it. Electrical engineers had theories about resonance and electromagnetic fields. Paranormal investigators added it to their lists of unexplained phenomena. The internet argued about it for six weeks before moving on to the next mystery.

The Cybertronians didn't try to explain. Some things were better left as mysteries.

In his quarters on the Nemesis, Soundwave reviewed the audio file one more time before his scheduled recharge cycle.

Four point three seconds of absolute synchronization. Mathematical perfection. Artistic achievement. The intersection of chaos and order, emotion and logic, Autobot and Decepticon.

He'd spent three mega-cycles analyzing it. Frequency by frequency. Note by note. Harmonic by harmonic. Looking for patterns, for meaning, for ways to recreate it.

Conclusion: unreplicable. That moment of harmony existed because of chaos, not despite it. Because two completely different approaches, opposite philosophies, opposite factions, opposite everything, had collided and, for one impossible instant, worked.

It wouldn't happen again.

Couldn't happen again.

He saved the file one more time, triple-encrypted, and filed it somewhere even Megatron wouldn't think to look. Then he returned to his duties, visor bright, purpose clear, war continuing as it always had.

But in the back of his processor, in the space where he kept things that mattered, the harmony played on loop.

Adequate, he told himself.

More than adequate.

He didn't delete the file.

That was progress.

In the Autobot base, Blaster did the exact same thing, though he'd never admit it. He filed it under "tactical audio analysis" and "enemy capability assessment" and told himself it was purely professional interest.

Great minds think alike.

Or in this case: great rivals archive their victories and call it professionalism because admitting it meant something more was too complicated for warriors who'd been fighting for millions of years.

Either way.

The recording existed. The moment was preserved. And somewhere in the space between Autobot and Decepticon, between rival and equal, between chaos and precision, between war and whatever came after...

Music happened.

It would happen again.

Eventually.

When they were ready.

Or when another radio station needed aggressive remodeling.

Whichever came first.