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The problem was that Brainstorm reacted to compliments the way Multicellular Carvassian Slimes reacted to metal. His ego digested them instantly and grew stronger. And that ego was already threatening to develop its own gravity."Hey, Perceptor!" No, Perceptor corrected himself, that wasn't the immediate problem. "Over here now! See, it'll be great when we get the kinks ironed out." That, Perceptor reasoned, was the greater scope problem he'd have to bear in mind while dealing with the immediate problem, which was that Brainstorm was currently blinking in and out all over the lab like Skywarp on Nightmare Fuel. It would be impressive if he could control it, and Perceptor kind of hated how impressed he already was. "So the idea," Brainstorm chirped as he appeared sitting on a lab table, "is that based on scaled-down space bridge technology-" A flash of light, and he was standing on a crate on the other side of the room hastily labeled 'Brainstorm's, Do Not Touch, Esp. You Whirl.' "We can fire it at a target and send them anywhere within a range of-" Flash, and he was on the floor in front of Perceptor, upside-down with his kibble folding back as far as it could. It looked uncomfortable. "-Well, still have to work out the range." With a little sigh, Perceptor reached forward and gave Brainstorm his hand, helping the flier right himself. He wasn’t all that heavy for his size. “So you tested this on yourself.” “That’s right! Can’t wait around for someone to volunteer. I mean I could. But I didn’t. To me it shows-“A flash of light, and then he was hanging amid the wires suspended from the ceiling, not a rare place to find Brainstorm outside of these circumstances. Somehow, Perceptor observed despite himself, he managed to make it look elegant, wing kibble out and one leg bent like a dancer. "Ahem. To me, it shows dedication to scientific pursuits! Also Grapple wouldn't have anything to do with it." Brainstorm imitated Grapple's upper-class lilt. "That's ridiculous, Brainstorm. You pushing things too far, Brainstorm! I'm not going to let you risk reducing me to a mass of unstable atoms, Brainstorm. You know him." Perceptor genuinely had to stifle the urge to laugh at that, and he wasn't sure what to think of it. Even when he was at his most...Brainstorm, there was something about Brainstorm that a mass of what. "Brainstorm." Perceptor let his vents circulate. "You realize a mass of unstable atoms onboard the Lost Light could cause a massive chain reaction with the quantum drives. Also, you would die." "Yeah, but I'm not a mass of unstable atoms, right? It's working-" Brainstorm blinked onto another workbench, just avoiding squishing a vial of something bubbling. "Mostly as intended." Running his hands over his face, Perceptor looked at that little line on his HUD labeled 'Patience.' It was starting to dwindle. That wouldn't do, letting stress affect his work."Do you need my help?" Best to ask outright, Perceptor figured. "What? Help? From you? Please, when do I-" Blink. "Ever-" Blink. "Need help from another scientist? That is not in the job description of Ship's-" Blink. "Genius," The little Patience meter went down one small tick. Right. Best not to ask outright. He'd never been good at navigating the quirks of others; they tended to get in the way of his studies. And for all even some fellow Wreckers complimented him on a 'poker face,' he really wasn't much of a liar. "My apologies." He kept his voice level. "Might I join in on the experiment? I can handle the stabilization and grounding. I promise you'll get credit for it," he added carefully. He wasn't sure what to think of the way Brainstorm's big, gold optics flickered and flared at that. Brainstorm tended to express himself with his words and his gestures, not his masked face. But there was something in it, something maybe a little enthusiastic and even a bit warm...? Reading people was also not Perceptor's strong suit. "If you wanted in it you could have just said so from the start, Percy! When have I ever turned you down?" Perceptor pointedly did not bring up all the times he'd been brushed out of Brainstorm's lab with a brusque 'I'mworkingonsomethingimportantleavemealonealready.' Instead he just pulled out a datapad, sat down at a console and started looking at Brainstorm's hastily typed up notes. It really was impressive. Everything Brainstorm did was, Perceptor had to admit, although sometimes it was impressive in the same way a galactic storm was. Where Perceptor preferred controlled, in-depth explorations of the limits of Cybertronian technology, Brainstorm approached those limits as if they were a pesky nuisance to be overlooked or eliminated whenever possible. It was probably for the best that Ultra Magnus didn't spend a lot of time looking over Brainstorm's non-encrypted files. As for the encrypted files, Perceptor knew better than to touch those. A scientist simply didn't do such things. There was a silent agreement on the Lost Light of 'leave my secrets alone and I'll let you have mine.' Besides, he probably didn't want to know. It didn't take him long to work out a solution, one Brainstorm might well have worked out on his own if he could stay in one place long enough to work through the data. "You're continually falling through a sort of temporary spacebridge forming around your body," he explained to the teleporting flier, "one that's so far just containing itself to the lab. We might be able to disrupt it if you can get something or someone to serve as an anchor." "Oh, I knew that! Of course I knew that," Brainstorm said with a little huff. "By anchor, of course, you mean...""Someone rooted here, pulling you out when you start to slip through space," Perceptor finished. "Of course, if it fails we're both going to be destabilized in some way." "And Grapple gets the lab! Can't have that." "Yes," Perceptor nodded slowly, "can't have that." He paused. "You...you knew this, didn't you? There's no way you didn't figure it out, so why didn't you ask me to-" Before he could question further, Perceptor grabbed Brainstorm by the hand, and he held on tight as he could as the light that engulfed Brainstorm in seconds blinded him. A current of sparkling energy ran down his arm and through his body, harsh and hot but strangely painless. The two of them floated briefly in a void, a distorted version of the lab looking stretched and warped through a film of grey dotted with lights. They were in some manner of subspace pocket, Perceptor realized, or perhaps a tiny tear in reality, or something akin to the miniature, localized spacebridge Brainstorm was trying to create. It was strange, haunting, beautiful. And Brainstorm hovered above him, surrounded by a bright glow as it tried to pull him towards one of those points of light, looking at Perceptor with wide optics. There was fear in his eyes, momentary panic, the sort Brainstorm always seemed to hide beneath that mask. Even as the heat running through his frame began to sting and burn, as he heard the hiss of circuitry starting to melt, Perceptor held onto that hand and pulled. He held as if they were welded together, Brainstorm's anchor in space-time stability. And then the lights went out, Perceptor was on the floor of the lab, and Brainstorm was lying on top of him, forehead to forehead. Feeling heat rush to his faceplates, no doubt due to how rarely he was used to being this close to, well, anyone, Perceptor discreetly turned away. "Brainstorm, if you might..." Brainstorm smiled with his eyes, sat up and rolled right off Perceptor with as much agility as one might expect of a kibble-heavy plane, and poked Perceptor in the forehead. "Sure I knew that. But I wanted to make sure you did." His wings wiggled. "Ship's Genius does not ask for help." Perceptor just sighed and remained on the floor.