Set mid-Drift miniseries. This is the first Transformers fic I've written in four years... wow.

"Every day, I'm going to give you a chance to prove I'm wrong," Wing says. "If you beat me, you're free to walk out of here. If you don't…"

"If I don't?"

"You're here forever."

It's still so strange being here. Everything is different than Deadlock has come to expect with the Decepticons. He even shares a berth with Wing without having to be on the lookout for a knife in his back. Of course, there are some downsides, like getting hit in the face by shoulder fins every time Wing rolls over. The thwap brings him half-online, grumbling muzzily at whatever had disrupted his recharge. That makes Wing wake up too. His laugh sounds like crystals singing in the light.

"Sorry," he mutters sleepily. "I'm used to more space."

"Then why don't you put me on the floor?" It wouldn't be the first time he's recharged sitting up, though his wiring doesn't like it.

"Nnno," Wing says, already slipping back into recharge with that maddening little smile on his mouthplates.

Deadlock doesn't know why all these Circle of Light bots are built so fancy. There's no purpose in all their curves and fins and filigree. All it does is give your opponent a handhold.

Not that he ever manages to get ahold of Wing in their daily sparring. Wing moves like gunsmoke, sliding out of his grasp and popping up behind him, and Deadlock never knows what's coming until he hits the ground and his vision breaks into static. Deadlock, an elite warrior with countless vorns of battle experience, has never managed to put Wing on the ground. Wing, who has never been in a real battle, with his pretty fins and his maddening smile.

Frag it. Wing is pretty. There's nothing wrong with admitting it. Deadlock likes to look at him. Maybe that's the point. These Circle types are all for show. Put them in a real fight and… and… and Wing would move like smoke, and probably give a few encouraging pointers to his enemies on the way.

Stupid pretty fins. Deadlock stares at them as he lies in the near-silence of Wing's quarters. Wing is still recharging. Deadlock doesn't know what takes him so long. Maybe he just enjoys it. Not like Deadlock, who's trained himself to recharge and return to action as quickly as possible. Wing's energy field pulses soothingly in and out, warm and slow, utterly relaxed.

Deadlock has never met anyone who lets his energy field express so much. Some bots talk with their hands, but Wing talks with his field, flickering in excited spikes, pulsing slow with intense concentration, flaring with angry static prickles. How can he leave himself so open all the time? How does he stand it? Even in recharge, Deadlock keeps his field pulled in right to his plating. Among the Decepticons, it was never a good idea to let the others know what he was thinking or feeling.

Just this once, Deadlock swears. Just this once, and nobody ever has to know. He reaches out, fingers passing through the sleepy energy field, and brushes tentatively against one of Wing's shoulder fins. When Wing doesn't move, Deadlock gets bolder, running his fingers along the faintly curving edge. Wing makes a little humming sound and presses the fin more firmly against Deadlock's hand. Deadlock snatches his fingers away, startled, but Wing's energy field is still slow and relaxed in recharge. Deadlock's fingers creep back to the fin as though magnetized.

This place is too good to be true. Wing is too good to be true. It all feels like a façade, all these high-talking white-painted mechs with their pretentious swords, and Deadlock feels that if he just digs in his claws, he could scrape away the illusion to expose the dark side he's sure must be here somewhere.

If he had claws. He'd forgotten they changed those.

"You know," Wing murmurs, "if you wanted to touch, you could have just asked."

Deadlock yanks back as though slammed by an electrical shock. Wing's mouthplates curve into that little smile (that Deadlock hates so much) and his optics flicker into dim golden light.

"Your EM field," Deadlock says. It still feels like Wing is in recharge. "How did you do that?"

Wing's mouthplates quirk a little more. "Practice." He shifts a little on the berth. Closer, to Deadlock's discomfort. "You don't have to stop." His voice is already slurring and just like that, to all appearances, he's back in recharge. But Deadlock doesn't know anymore. He can never be sure about Wing, because there's simply no way that he can be as straightforward as he pretends. He must be hiding something. Nobody is that selfless.

And every day they fight. Deadlock improves. He learns to move the way Wing does, even if he can't keep up. Wing says he must unlearn his combat-forged skills, but Deadlock still feels that they will help him. When he learns Wing's way of fighting, at least enough to keep ahead of his attacks, he will strike back with combat forms that Wing never taught him.

Wing has never outright mentioned the awkward petting, probably to save Deadlock the embarrassment. But Deadlock wonders if he's imagining the somewhat more hands-on route Wing has taken in training, as the other mech shows him how to flip a charging enemy over his hip.

"Use your partner's strength against them," Wing says. "Their own momentum becomes their undoing."

Deadlock's back plating aches from hitting the ground the last three demonstrations, but he has yet to successfully pull off the move on Wing.

"Partner," he scoffs as he picks himself up. "Can't you just call it what it is? An enemy."

"Are we enemies, Drift?" Wing asks softly.

Deadlock scowls at him—why did he ever tell Wing his old name?—but doesn't answer. He doubts Wing could have enemies. He's that soft. "I forgive you," he'd say to them, in that insufferably gentle way of his. Deadlock wants to believe his manner is condescending, but that's not in Wing's character.

"Irrelevant," he grumbles finally, spreading his stance in preparation.

"As I showed you," Wing says, although there's a laugh hiding behind it. Irritation has always made Deadlock sharper, so when Wing comes at him in an easy, predictable lunge, he acts with purpose and focus: for once he doesn't brace himself, but lets himself turn with Wing's momentum, shifting his stance, and suddenly Wing sails over his hip and lands with a crash. Deadlock slips back into his combat training and comes down on top of him, a knee digging into Wing's chest plating to keep him down.

For a moment Wing looks startled. Then he gives that crystalline laugh. "Good."

Deadlock knows better than to assume he's beaten. Wing could turn this around at any moment, but for now he's humoring Deadlock. His vents whirr as his EM field ripples in contentment. Maybe he likes being underneath me. It's so un-Decepticon a notion that Deadlock can't believe it for a moment. Wing is biding his time. That's all he ever talks about, waiting for the right moment to strike at the right place. That's who Wing is: coming at things from a different angle, sliding away from direct force, turning his opponent's strength against its user. Teaching all the while, with that little smile.

It's a moment of clarity. Sitting on top of Wing, with the other mech's EM field soothing against his plating, Deadlock comes to a realization. There is no dark side, there is no hidden intent. It's not too good to be true. It is true. Wing was right all along.

"Is something the matter?" Wing asks. He must have seen something in Deadlock's face.

Me, Deadlock thinks. I'm the matter here. I'm all that's wrong with this place.

"You never fought in the war," he says. Wing doesn't say anything. He just waits, with an expression of patient encouragement. "You've never gunned a mech down on a battlefield, or crawled over the shells of your comrades to finish the mission. You've never had to claw your way to the top. I used to think that made you weak. I was wrong." He has to force those words out. They go against everything he's built himself to be. "It's easy to fight. It's hard to make peace. It's hard to trust." To trust me, he almost says, but he doesn't need to. Wing must hear it anyway. "It's hard to forgive."

This is as close as Deadlock will ever get to an apology for betraying Wing the night they'd met. There's that maddening smile again. It awakens things inside Deadlock that he doesn't know how to manage. Emotions he'd discarded long ago.

Wing doesn't say anything. But he does lean up on his elbows to press his mouthplates to Deadlock's. Deadlock is so startled it takes him a long moment to flinch backward. But if that smile did strange things to him, that kiss was even worse. Before he can think about it, he practically lunges forward, kissing Wing hard enough to send him back to the ground.

Wing's kiss had been almost chaste, but Deadlock's isn't so pure. Soon Wing is squirming beneath him, opening his legs to let Deadlock's knee slide between them. One hand is on Deadlock's helm, thumb rubbing the end of one of the new spikes. Deadlock pushes his head into the touch, vents whirring. His hand dips into the seams at Wing's waist, sliding over his wiring. Wing's free hand settles over his, guiding it further up—just as he has countless times in showing him the sparring forms.

"Here," he whispers, then chirrs happily when Deadlock's fingers pinch sensitive wiring. "Or h-hh-here." He steers Deadlock's hand to the bottom of his shoulder fins. "D-Drift."

He's never heard his old name said like that before. He'd been all-too-pleased to stop using it after Megatron named him Deadlock, because Drift had too many bad memories associated with it. Alleys, gutters, starvation. But when Wing says it, he feels like he's been set on fire. He'll do everything he can to make him say it again. Maybe, he thinks with no small anticipation, even scream it.

Wing's clever fingers are getting under his plating, finding brand-new wiring that has never been touched. And suddenly it's a competition, like a sparring match. Wing's sharp little fangs chew and tug at the plating of Deadlock's jaw, but Deadlock knows who wins this round. It's only been a little while and Wing is squirming and eager, begging for more with little gasps and chirrs. Deadlock checks the area around them is still deserted.

"Maybe we should move," he says.

Wing's finger hook into his back plating, dragging him down. "Don't you dare."

There will be plenty of time and privacy later. Besides, this won't take long—Wing is so close to overload already, his EM field skittering and fizzing over Deadlock's plating.

"Drift," he whispers—every time he says it, Deadlock feels that he is growing, changing. Deadlock is his past. Drift is his future.

Drift presses his forehelm to Wing's chest plating, soaking in the warmth. Wing actually whimpers when Drift kisses the spot just over his Spark. His knees press hard against Drift's hips. His movements pinch Drift's fingers between his plating, but Drift is far past caring. He just keeps stroking his fingers along sensitive circuitry until Wing's helm clacks hard against the ground and his hips arch high. His golden optics flare bright as his voice breaks into static and his EM field goes supernova.

Drift waits patiently for him to reboot the overloaded systems. He can't help a smug smirk—that sounded like a damn good overload.

It occurs to him that he's beaten Wing. Sort of. This might not count. But if it does—if it does, Drift can leave if he wants. That was their bargain.

Before he can consider the most important question—does he want to?—any further, Wing's optics come back online and his smile lights up his face.

"Drift," he says, sighing it as though he loves the sound. "You didn't?"

"Plenty of time for that later," Drift says. He may have left Deadlock's name behind, but not the vorns of personal training that taught him some things were better done in privacy and security. Wing hums in something that might be approval.

"Good. Because now… you're crushing me."

He's got to be the most beautiful thing Drift has ever seen, and that's enough to finally pull a real smile out of him.

Safe in Wing's quarters after more enthusiastic interfacing than Drift's had the chance for in a long time, they're both sprawled facedown on the berth. Wing has his optics shut off as he recovers, giving Drift plenty of time to examine every line and curve of his face, and to wonder.

"Do you still want to leave?" Wing says, without onlining his optics. It's as though he knows where Drift's thoughts have traveled. Drift makes himself look away.

People seldom ask him what he wants. It's rarely relevant. He hadn't wanted to be poor and starving on Cybertron. He hadn't necessarily wanted to become a Decepticon soldier and fight an endless war—it had been the logical way to turn, and Megatron had made him feel valued. He hadn't even wanted to be here. He is essentially a prisoner, even though Wing never treats him like one.

So he has to push aside the soldier in him, who waits for orders. What does he want?

"I still want to end this war," he says. Maybe he could try a new direction after leaving here. Something Wing would approve. But it's ironic, to consider leaving now when he's finally found something worth staying for. Someone.

Wing nudges Drift's shoulder with his helm, nuzzling him. He murmurs something too quiet for Drift's audios to catch.

"What?"

"Nothing," Wing says. His EM field washes over them both, warm and content, and faintly longing. "It's nothing. I'm going to recharge. Unless… you want to go again."

Drift grumbles. "Nnno, you wore me out. Just try not to roll over too much."

Wing flicks his shoulder fins playfully, then wriggles right into Drift's plating and relaxes with a contented huff from his vents, as though he's wanted nothing more than to recharge curled up against him for cycles. It's infectious. For the first time since coming here, Drift feels safe.

"I'd go with you," Wing murmurs.

"What?"

"Nothing."