Courtship Dances

[heliopauseentertainments]

More TaraProwl requested by @tangentially-displaced. A quintuple drabble.

Continuity: IDW1

Rating: Teen

Relationship: Tarantulas/Prowl

Characters: Prowl & Tarantulas

Warnings: Suggestive themes, spiders, comedic cannibalism mention

Summary: In which Prowl dances to keep his "favorite" mad scientist happy.

Note: Inspired by the courtship dances of male peacock spiders (Video); we’re also ignoring the timeline for when Tarantulas got his spider-form.

Crossposting: AO3 | Tumblr | Pillowfort

Fic below cut

 

“You never dance for me anymore.”

That’s what Tarantulas had said the other week when Prowl had visited last. Meaningless whining. That was all.

Unfortunately, the words had stuck with him. Usually, he paid little attention to Tarantulas’s ramblings unless it was particularly useful for the war effort. That tended to work.

However, this time the words stuck around in Prowl’s processor long after he had left the workshop that doubled as Tarantulas’s living space. It was as though they’d been forcibly assigned a higher priority than whatever other random babbling fell out of Tarantulas’s vocalizer.

Well, it wouldn’t do to let Tarantulas become… dissatisfied with their arrangement. Funding, housing, and the freedom to work on projects with the bonus of warm company…. All of these were part of the deal to keep Tarantulas working for the Autobots. Prowl couldn’t let a brilliant, if unsettling mind like that fall to outside of his sphere of influence or, worse, to the Decepticons.

Or at least that’s what he had told himself when developing a solution to the scientist’s complaint.

So, now, Prowl stood in the middle of the largest room of the workshop, where Tarantulas spent the bulk of his time, with all manner of brightly colored decorative paneling, bedecked with retroreflective strips stuck to his own plating. One that lit up like a red light district advertisement nestled between his shoulders was even jury-rigged to raise up like a banner when he flexed his doors just right. In his hands, carefully hidden behind his back, he held short poles that emitted a cycling rainbow of colors when turned on.

Prowl knew he looked stupid; he had known every previous time he’d done this for Tarantulas that he looked like a complete idiot. Still, he had to put his dignity on hold for a little while. Just a little while, just long enough to appease Tarantulas.

“Taran—“ Prowl’s voice was full of static. He cleared his vocalizer with a cough. “Tarantulas!”

The sound of way too many feet scuffling about on the ceiling of a nearby hallway signaled that any moment the scientist would arrive for his present.

A sensor was tripped by one of those feet, dimming the lights and beginning the playback of a bouncy, upbeat tune.

That was his cue.

“Oh, Prowl!” Somewhere above him as he flipped the switches on the light poles, he could hear Tarantulas’s voice gushing with glee. “You did this all for me!”

Fortunately for Prowl, a few moments after he started bouncing around like a fool, waving his limbs and accessories suited for a rave party, a weight with an excess of legs crushed him like the realization of a grave mistake. He crumpled to the floor under the burden of Tarantulas’s affections.

He was either about to get laid or get eaten and at this point, covered in retroreflective kitsch and dizzy from both the impact and the continuous boisterous background music, Prowl wasn’t sure which one he was hoping for.