Chapter Text
The afternoon shift change was a bittersweet time of the day. Of course, Minimus, usually clad in his armor, was grateful for being relieved of duty, for the opportunity to go relax and wind down after his morning shift. On the other hand, that meant handing command over to Rodimus for the afternoon. At least, with Megatron pulling nights, most leftover nonsense from Rodimus’ command was handled before it became Minimus’ problem.
Ultra Magnus pulled up the punch-clock software on the wall console by the heavy blast door to the bridge.
The door, unfortunately, was broken and had been for weeks. More accurately, the automated sliding mechanisms were. They were stuck, constantly receiving a “door closed” signal. The door wouldn’t open on approach or with touch panels. For now it was propped open with a heavy crate full of batteries. Whenever the box shifted, either due to the ship being bumped on rare occasion or due to a poorly placed foot, the door would slam shut with a loud bang. The last time that had happened a few days prior, Megatron and Riptide had both been needed to pull it open again because of the blasted thing’s weight.
There were other problems with using a box of batteries, some of which he and Megatron had discussed with—or rather at—Rodimus previously. If they were jostled just wrong and were to be struck by the door, they could very well explode. Unfortunately, their options to keep the door propped were limited, given the door’s weight, and for now Ultra Magnus had placed retroreflective safety tape on the ground around the box to hopefully mitigate accidental kicking.
A work order had been placed for the door to be repaired nearly as soon as the issue was spotted. Engineering had been stalling on getting it fixed despite Minimus having issued the necessary approvals and provided budgetary allowances to source supplies. “Scheduling issues” they kept telling him, despite the fact that the work order had been stamped with “urgent,” given that the broken door was a safety hazard. What if someone got stuck in the bridge? Or outside of the bridge? Or, worse, got hit with the door when it slammed shut?
“Mags, I’m here!” Rodimus swanned onto the bridge through the propped open door, waving at his second-in-command as he bypassed the punch-clock entirely. Ultra Magnus sighed. Why did they even have this if not for accurate logs? What good would these logs be if no one actually entered their time correctly? At least he could count on Megatron to log time accurately.
“Good afternoon, Rodimus.”
The speedster paused partway to the unoccupied captain’s chair—a sign saying “Rodimus” had been taped to the chair’s back—stretching an arm high overhead and stifling a yawn. He always looked like he’d only just crawled off his recharge slab and, of course, today was no different. One more stretch and Rodimus flopped himself across the seat, ever irreverent of the inherent dignity of his position as he lazily kicked his feet in the air.
Minimus considered Rodimus a good captain, but sometimes… he had concerns about the methods.
“Anything to report?”
His finger hovered over the “clock out” button, not wanting to clock out while still technically handing over duties, despite the temptation of getting out of this armor and getting some refreshing, flavored fuel at Swerve’s…. Maybe he could even say “hello” to Ten.
After his report to Rodimus, of course. Maybe he’d be interested in the day’s findings for once, not that there had been much.
“It was mostly a quiet morning,” Ultra Magnus said, turning away from the punch-clock with a smile on his face. “Though Blaster did find an anomalous signal on the scanners. I haven’t seen the final results of his investigation yet but he’s placed a copy on your desk. Initial scans indicated it was most likely just a natural pulse from a nearby star—”
Rodimus hummed loudly, clearly not listening. Ultra Magnus stopped, smile falling. So much for that.
“No, captain, nothing to report,” he said, punching “clock out” on the panel.
On a ship of this size, there weren’t many places for mechs to congregate and socialize. Socializing wasn’t something Minimus did much of but in recent months he’d made more of an effort to go be at least present among his comrades. The best place to do that was Swerve’s, the one functional bar now that Visages was no longer in operation.
Seated on a stool at the bar, Minimus looked at the menu behind Swerve’s head and held a hand to his chin in thought. He did not often treat himself when he went to the bar, but on occasion he felt that he truly deserved it. Did he deserve it today? How had he performed his duties on the bridge during his shift? Of course, they’d been adequate and, at a minimum, a fun flavor—tungsten alloy, though Swerve called it “lime” which was apparently an organic fruit from Earth with a supposedly similar taste—in his fuel was certainly something he could say he had earned.
But had he earned the extra lead sprinkles? Had he earned the sweetened whipped topping? Had he met the exceptional standards required for such indulgences? Minimus hummed in thought.
Swerve coughed, tapping his red fingers against the surface of his bar.
“Hey, I know you do this every time you come in here, but if you want my opinion—“ He didn’t, but it would be unnecessarily rude to cut Swerve off for that alone. “—I think you’ve done an excellent job today.”
How would he know? He’d been down here all day, not monitoring Ultra Magnus’ performance. Swerve did know people so perhaps he merely had an educated inkling—or he just wanted the extra couple of shanix that came with the more decorated beverage. That was more likely. Understandable, given that Swerve was, in fact, running a business. Thankfully legally after months of trying to get the bartender to sign the necessary licensing documentation.
Perhaps Swerve was incidentally right this time around. After some careful consideration, Minimus decided to give himself a grade of 95% for the day, more than sufficient for the 93% sprinkle and whipped topping threshold. Some points were deducted for failing to properly complete his shift hand-off report to Rodimus, but he could hardly be entirely faulted for Rodimus refusing to take it.
Minimus nodded, pulling out a credit chip which was then quickly slid over the smooth surface of the bartop to Swerve.
“I’ll have the ‘lime’ energon spritzer with the whipped topping and extra sprinkles.”
Swerve swiped up the chip before running it through the point of sale attachment on his mobile commlink. The commlink beeped cheerfully and a receipt notification popped up on Minimus’ HUD for the purchase.
“The usual coming right up!”
Taking a moment to look around the bar while he waited for his well-deserved beverage, he hoped to spot Ten. Neither plate nor rivet of him to be seen.
“Swerve,” Minimus said, turning back to face his fellow minibot, “do you know where Ten’s gotten off to?”
“Hm?” The barkeep looked up from his work, a green bottle in one hand and a still empty dainty glass in the other. “Oh, I sent him on an errand. He’s picking up more ingredients from the hold.”
In that case, Minimus supposed, he would just have to say “hello” to Ten at another time.
Minimus had closed and locked the door of the closet in his habsuite after putting the disarticulated Magnus armor away for the cycle. He usually did immediately that after his duty shift and he was, if anything, a creature of habit. The rest of the time, he did it after completing some sort of chore first upon returning to his quarters. He was certain he had locked the door.
Unfortunately, after a quick trip down to Swerve’s for a nonintoxicating treat for a long day’s work well done, now Minimus stood in front of a conspicuously empty closet, the doors gaping wide. Not a single blue or otherwise bit of the armor remained to be seen.
Perhaps Rodimus had taken it as a prank, an unintentionally malicious trick. As the captain, he had override codes for nearly every room on the Lost Light. While Megatron also had override codes, he wouldn’t use them on a whim, not for a joke at any rate. If anyone had come in here, it was most certainly Rodimus or someone who could convince Rodimus to open the door. That would still be quite the short list as, despite how impulsive he could be, the more exuberant of the ship’s captains respected how much Minimus valued his privacy and personal space.
Unfortunately, given the short list of who could possibly have access, there was little point in checking the ship’s access logs for his habsuite… or the cameras for this hallway. Misfire had somehow managed to break the cameras with his dart gun while playing “Shoot Shoot Bang Bang.”
However, external tampering seemed unlikely, he thought, chest starting to feel tight as he held onto the edge of one of the closet’s double-layered doors.
Even Rodimus couldn’t unlock this closet, not without damaging something.
Only Minimus had the code.
The doors were mostly undamaged so the closet hadn’t been forced from the outside but something about the inside of the doors drew Minimus' optics.
Most scrape marks on the closet's frame were easy enough to dismiss as wear and tear from use, but there were a few new ones that he hadn't recalled seeing before. Well above his head, at about waist height for the armor when fully assembled, white paint transfers streaked where something or someone struggled with the locked door.
The metal was deformed, more visibly on this side of the heavily armored door. The gap between the two layers of the door prevented the outermost layer from taking obvious damage.
Minimus slammed the doors of the closet shut once more, before bolting out of his habsuite and into the hallway beyond. He had to find the armor quickly, before… He didn’t even want to think about the consequences.
After years of dormancy, Ultra Magnus was once again trying to reassert control over his desecrated corpse.