"Warped", Chapter Fifteen

[keaalu]

Title (chapter): Warped (15)
Series: Transformers, G1-based (“Blue” AU)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: In which we find out bathtime can be lethal.
Notes: FWAAAAAaaaaaaaa at laaaaaaast.

    Sorry (not!) for the lateness of this update. I have totally not been slacking off, or anything. :shifty eyes: There may be some typoes, because I have stared at this for so long I've gone a bit snowblind.

    Additionally! If you haven't yet seen it, please go send lovings towards JillDragon's ficbit:
    Unaccompanied Minors
    I plan on attempting to reference it somewhere in my own scrawlings, somewhere, because it says it better than I could have. ;)

Anyway! I shall shush and stop trying to distract you from my lateness...

---

Warped
Chapter Fifteen

A new sun had just peeked above the horizon when the Aerialbot guard got back, in remarkably high spirits. Air Raid and Slingshot fairly bubbled their way down the entrance hall, chattering excitedly and miming shooting, fighting actions as they went. The hubbub attracted half a dozen dozy-faced mechs out into the corridor; either disturbed out of work or disturbed out of recharge, they seemed evenly split between what’s going on? and please will you two shut the Pit up? They responded with musical jeers of you’re just jea-lous! Silverbolt followed at a respectable distance behind, apologising to the sporadic angry faces he encountered, soothing rankled moods and generally laying oil.

By the time the next set of voices finally became audible, a breem or two later, the quiet corridors that it would probably have been easy to slip unnoticed through had filled with machines all determined to find out what was going on. The voices were gradually getting louder as their owners advanced down the corridor – two were sufficiently smooth to be indefinable murmurs at this distance, but one was a scratching nasal squawk that couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else.

“…be damned if I’m going to watch you lurch your own way down here,” the deepest of the voices was saying, once its owner was finally close enough to be understood. “It’ll take you the whole orn just to cover the distance.”

“I don’t care! Put me down, damnit-!” the scratching voice countered, irritably. “I am not going to be watched by all those snouty Autobutts being carried like some precious little sparkling. Put me down, surgeon!” Beat. “Are you even listening to me?!”

“Hm? Sorry, I hadn't realised there were words in all that white noise.”

Forceps emerged from the entry corridor with a filthy bundle of Starscream-shaped parts in her arms – and despite his protests, the Seeker didn’t look too unhappy to be being taxied along the corridor. One leg looked like it was little more than a structural spar, and would snap clean through if he tried to put his weight on it. He silenced the twittering peanut gallery with barbed glares as they passed.

One was going to take a little more than just nasty looks to deal with, though. Sunstreaker was among the gathering that had heard something was up, and was lurking meaningfully in the corridor running up to the medical suite. Seeing and having his fears confirmed in full living colour didn’t seem to improve his mood, although he didn't get the chance to get much further than his initial outraged splutterings. “Don’t you think you’ve already gone far enough without bringing him in here…?!”

“Oh lay off, Sunshine,” Forceps growled, before he’d even finished speaking, and swept past him. “While you keep tweeting about imaginary conspiracies, we can’t get any work done.”

“Imaginary?!” He pursued her down the corridor. “Next thing you’re going to be telling me that’s actually a clever duplicate and not the psychotic leader of the Decepticon Air Force you’re carrying along, there!”

“Does paranoia like yours come naturally, or do you have to work at it?”

“I could ask the same about the levels of naivety you’re displaying! You think you can just… bring him in here, and he’ll actually go against all those thousands of Vorns of programming and hatred and not try blowing us all to the Matrix?!”

“…Because he looks in perfect condition to go rampaging around the Ark destroying things right now, of course.”

They were almost optic-to-optic by the time they reached the door to the repair bay. Ratchet gave them his best long-suffering look from his desk. “Do you think that just once you could try not causing a riot, Sunny?”

“Can you not see this, or something?!” Sunstreaker waved an angry hand at the new arrival. “Am I the only one with even the smallest smidgen of self-preservation?”

Ratchet just watched as Forceps deposited the grumbling heap of spare parts onto the closest berth and inadvertently scattered crumbs of mud all the way around it. “I seem to recall you saying much the same about Skywarp, and yet so far as I can tell he seems to have avoided causing the Ark to spontaneously implode.”

“More by luck, I’d say,” Sunstreaker countered, matching glares with the teleport. “At least tell me you’re not going to let The Screamer stay armed.”

“I think Optimus should have the final judgement on that, don’t you? Go take your concerns to him, if you’re so worried.”

Sunstreaker didn’t sound impressed, but went obediently; Skywarp watched him leave, warily. “Shouldn’t someone be keeping an eye on him?”

“The fact you raise the Pit when you’re unattended doesn’t mean all unruly machines need a constant watch on them,” Starscream deadpanned, tiredly, accepting a flask of energon from the Autobot medic.

“Yeah, but that’s one of the twins…!”

“Congratulations, air commander,” Ratchet deadpanned, doing a brief orbit of the berth and trying to work out which was the least filthy place to use as the diagnostic’s start point. “You’ve managed to get yourself even dirtier than Skywarp was when we dragged his aft in here.”

Skywarp smirked at him from a distance and thumbed his nose; Starscream glared daggers back in reply, but didn’t argue the fact. Under the stark white artificial lights of the Ark, and against the scrubbed-clean surfaces of the medical suite, it only emphasised just how filthy his plating really was. “I think you’ll find that wasn’t actually my fault,” he defended himself into his energon, sulkily. “If I could have avoided all the wallowing in the mud, I would have. Unfortunately, certain people,” he shot a barbed look at Skywarp, “have trouble keeping their mouths shut.”

Skywarp’s grin promptly inverted into a glower. “I told you already-” he started, but Footloose was just in the right place to plant a tiny hand onto his lips.

“Not make angry?” she asked, giving him that wide-eyed look that seemed designed solely to melt a machine’s resolve. “Need to make fix, not unhappies.”

He sighed and settled on the worktop. “Yeah. Not to mention, those Autobutts will love to watch us fighting…”

If nothing else, we’ll have to keep the little one around purely because she has the knack of getting Warp to shut up, Starscream considered, uncharitably, finishing his energon and cycling cool air to keep his pumps from overloading in the frantic way they pulsed it through his body. So long spent so exhausted, it was like the fuel itself had a sparkle and clarity it usually lacked.

Energon was only one of the matters that needed resolving, however. Yuck. He wrinkled his face into a moue of displeasure. “Sepp?” He used a thumb to attempt to rub some of the dirt off his forearm, and only succeeded in spreading it further around him. “Before you get too set in with the repairs, do you think you could make it possible for me to have a bath first?”

“You’re covered in little fractures,” she argued, shaking her head and not looking up from her careful manipulations to release connectors that held the remains of his left thruster in place. “You’ll probably short out if you get wet.”

“I will and I have,” he confirmed. “But a little silicone should seal them off, right?”

She glanced up, as if trying to gauge his honesty, and narrowed her optics at him; he managed to pull off a sufficiently beaten-puppy expression that her shoulders sagged and she sighed, defeated. “All right. Just let me finish this and get a temporary replacement attached, and I’ll see what I can sort out. If these two troublemakers are anything to go by? You’re at your most unbearable when you’re dirty, so getting you bathed will help me in the long run.”

Starscream shot Skywarp a look. “What exactly does she mean by that, Warp?” he wondered, dangerously.

Footloose replied for him, from her usual perch on Skywarp’s shoulder. “Said how likes to make bath, Unnol,” she chirped. “Am silly.”

“Silly for valuing my personal hygiene?”

“Yes! Makes much time wasted.”

Skywarp was nodding sagely in agreement.

“Because our lives are ephemeral enough that spending a little time looking after what we look like makes a single iota of difference, of course,” Starscream growled, but let it drop. He probably did obsess over cleanliness just a little bit. Besides, arguing over the merits of bathing meant he didn’t have to look too hard at the shredded remainder of his thruster complex as Forceps finally succeeded in untangling the broken cables and placed the filthy component down on the trolley next to the berth. There really was very little of it actually left. He set his jaw, angrily. Slagging Ramjet. He was so going to reap the whirlwind for that.

The temporary replacement part Forceps had cadged off Ratchet was reasonably well-matched in terms of size and colouration, but that was as far as it went – roughly the same weight, and a slightly more purplish shade of blue than his regal tones, but just short enough that it’d give him a slightly lopsided walk, and very ground-pounding in looks. It had not been designed to complement the flier aesthetic, with its heavy-looking alloys and solid, blocky angles.

“You are trying to turn us Autobot by stealth,” the red Seeker observed, dryly, watching as the surgeon carefully fixed it into place. “What’s next, a nice lumbering pair of wheels to go along with it?”

“I would say you could at least attempt to be grateful that we’re wasting good quality spare parts on you,” Ratchet groused. “But I know it’s not in your nature, so instead I’ll just offer to remove it again, with a blunt saw.”

Starscream wrinkled his nose, but backed down. “Not necessary. I suppose I appreciate being self-mobile again enough to mumble my thanks, when you’re not listening,” he replied, airily, testing his weight on the repair. It was clumsy, but serviceable. At very least, it beat using a bit of wood as a crutch any day.

“All right, well, park your aft so I can unclip these…”

A hand brushed almost absent-mindedly across one null-ray, but the reaction was like someone had stabbed a heatlance down between armour plating and into a sensitive joint. Starscream virtually leaped around, hands flexing into fists. “You’re not taking my weapons off,” he hissed, darkly, unconsciously shrinking back into a slight crouch, ready to fight.

“Only for the duration of your bath,” Ratchet promised, hands up in surrender, startled at the unneeded severity of the reaction. “Null-raying yourself because they short out while you’re getting clean sounds like a pretty stupid thing to do just because you were too proud-”

“Too self-respecting!”

“-too proud to let me take them off you for a few breems.”

“How do you expect me to defend myself?!”

“I don’t expect you to need to! You’re going to have a bath, for Primus sake, not going into a warzone.”

“For Screamer, the two are one and the same,” Skywarp quipped.

“No, Warp, you’re mixing up my bathtime and those few times TC and I have foolishly attempted to bath you,” Starscream cut back. “It’s a point of pride, for you, isn’t it? The ability to be a living dust-trap.”

“Pssh. Just because I have better things to do than spend all my time trying not to drown my temperature regulator…”

0o0o0o0o0

Footloose had never really understood the obsession certain mechs had with making bath. It seemed an unnecessary waste of both time and resources – being a little bit grubby didn’t hinder a machine’s ability to do stuff, after all. So long as all your joints moved freely, so what if your exterior was a little smeary?

Most machines “bathed” with a solvent-based cleanser or sonic devices, or both – water was rare on Cybertron, to start with (although Ausep always managed to find enough when it came to bathing naughty sparklings), and quick-drying solvents were better on sensitive surfaces, didn’t lead to rust. Starscream was so caked in filth, however, the only way he was going to make any headway was to use soap and water; he was in the low tub, right now, using a foaming detergent to wash most of the caked-on mud off.

Footloose was perched on the rim of the pool like a brightly-coloured gargoyle, using a long brush to help scrub the grime out of Starscream’s least-damaged calf. At least, that had been the original idea, she had rapidly lost interest in helping and was instead splashing him with foaming handfuls of detergent, seeing how much she could get onto his faceplates before he got annoyed and swiped it off.

…predictably, he was not tolerating her silliness very well. “Look, if you don’t stop splashing me, I will dunk you,” he threatened, waving a large blue finger under her small nose. “And I know how much you love baths.”

She eyeballed the finger, closely, and gave it a little scrub with her brush. “Is better?”

“Nnngh.” He cast his gaze skywards and went back to working over his shoulder-vent. “Doctor, how much longer?”

“Does it really matter?” Ratchet wondered distractedly, from behind; he was trying valiantly to assess the new seals they’d installed purely so the scarlet ingrate could get clean without shorting out, and all the water that was getting splashed about was interfering with his scans. “You know, if you just sat still for thirty astro-seconds… Huh. Shouldn’t be much longer.”

“Good. Then you can take this troublemaker away with you.”

“Hm? No, I don’t think so,” Ratchet argued, distractedly. “She’s just being helpful, and of course, if she’s with you, she’s not getting under my feet and disrupting all my work.”

Starscream glared irritably down at Footloose; foiled. She squeaked up at him and splashed water into his face again, so he put out a hand and flipped her casually into the bubbles at the far end. She surfaced spluttering water out of her vents and indignantly squawking no bath, no bath!

“I told you I’d dunk you, so stop misbehaving,” he told her, as she scaled his knees, dripping wet. “Now be quiet and let me talk to the doctor.”

She vibrated air over her vents in a disgusted raspberry, and teleported herself up to the drying rails. “No bath,” she huffed, snuggling into a corner and folding her arms sulkily.

“All right,” Ratchet allowed, at last, grudgingly. “Those water seals we replaced all look fairly patent, and the silicone is keeping the water out of everywhere else. You should be safe to use the solvent cleanser once you’re done playing.”

“Does this mean I get to finally have my bath in peace?”

Ratchet gave him a dirty look. “Yes, it does,” he confirmed. “Ingrate.” He sneakily flipped a handful of bubbles into the Seeker’s face as he stood, and smiled, satisfied at the spluttering indignation that followed him out of the bathing suite.

Peace reigned for a full three breems. There were plenty of double-takes from the Autobots at seeing the (former) Decepticon aerial commander in their washracks, but nobody outright challenged him – not many even went near him, and those who did get as far as entering his field of vision got glared at sufficiently hotly to want to make a fairly speedy departure. He might not be armed but no-one considered he’d be any less dangerous. Well, no-one except…

“Hello Sighswipe and Suneaker!” Starscream heard Footloose chirp, from somewhere in the background. He paused, instantly suspicious, and focussed his hearing behind himself. Were they sneaking up on him? He’d not heard any footsteps-

He knew he should have moved the instant Footloose had spoken, but guessed even that millisecond of warning wouldn’t have quite been enough, particularly not in this run-down state. Even as he was turning his head to challenge the approaching Autobots, two pairs of hands planted firmly down on his shoulders and shoved him under the surface.

0o0o0o0o0

Footloose was anxious. Thus far she’d gone fairly well unnoticed in her little corner, up by the big dessicators and the warm air vents, and had quickly got herself comfortably dried out. As an added bonus, the drying rails were cosy and nicely high up, even if they were warm enough to make her feel sluggish. She could sit here and watch the other machines come and go; Starscream had been given a fairly wide berth by everyone, thus far, but he ignored the slight and just got on with scrubbing mud out of his venting.

Thus, Footloose had sat and watched as the Autobot twins approached through the doorway. They were jostling at each other, like her uncles did when they were winding each other up, but this didn’t look like friendly shoving. And they were glaring and gesturing silently at each other, which made her think they were arguing over their internal pings. What were they upset about? They made their stealthy way to the pool, ignoring her friendly little chirp of hello, crouched behind Sta’zim, then dunked him, just like he’d done to her a few breems before.

At first she thought – hoped – they were just being silly. It was the only way making bath was tolerable, after all, having someone around to lark about with! Even if Starscream was a bit of a stuck-in-the-mud (literally) and got grumbly when she tried to play in the bubbles. She waited for them to step back and let him up, and the Seeker’s usual growly scolding. And waited. And waited.

She hummed an increasingly-anxious little harmonic to herself, and fidgeted. This didn’t look playful, the two Autobots had serious faces and were quiet with effort. And Starscream was certainly not playing – he’d turned the bath into a threshing maelstrom of frothing water in his efforts to fend them off, his feet kicking out at nothing and his clawing hands flailing for purchase down the sides, but he was still weak and all his efforts were just going towards adding more striking blue paint transfers all down the tiled surrounds of the bath.

Better get help, she decided, at last, frightened. The thrashing was getting weaker, and they still hadn’t let him up-… She stepped off the rails and into a teleport mid-fall, landing with a muted thump on the padded floor.

There was Ausep, frowning and studying a ski-… schee-… picture of a Seeker leg. Wasn’t doing anything important, she could help! She ported herself urgently all the way up to the surgeon’s big shoulder.

“Ausep? Ausep! Come, come!” she pleaded, yanking at the sides of the big femme’s air-filters. “Must help, must help!”

“All right, Button, easy with the tugging,” Forceps winced and plucked the sparkling off her shoulders, setting her down on the workbench; Footloose promptly wrapped herself around the surgeon’s arm and tried to pull her along after her. “What’s got you so upset? Has Starscream sprung a leak?”

“Sighswipe and Suneaker not making play!” Footloose mewed, frantically, still trying to drag her along. “Want to make hurt, Ausep, must stop!”

“Wait, wait. Say that again, Footloose?” Forceps put on the brakes, and leaned down a little closer. “Slower, all right? What is going on?”

“In baths.” Footloose pointed in the vague direction of the washracks. “Must come now, Ausep-”

Sending the little one back was risky – but the surgeon had faith it was Starscream and him only that the twins were after. Besides, if they knew they had an audience, they might just rethink things… “All right, Button, you go keep an eye on things, I’ll get Day. All right?” she suggested, carefully. “We’ll be along in just a moment.”

Footloose didn’t need telling twice; she nodded and was gone in a flicker of violet. Instantaneous relocation didn’t help a machine be more patient, however…

Where was Ausep, where was she?! Footloose hopped from foot to foot in the doorway, anxiously, and stamped a foot. She was being too slow, too slow!

…there was only one thing for it. She was going to have to use the best weapon she had.

Herself.

0o0o0o0o0

The thin streamers of bubbles coming up to the surface had slowed almost to stopping when Sideswipe removed his hands from the tub and sat up.

Sunstreaker shot him a glare. “What have you stopped for?! This might be our only chance to finally get rid of him, here… We’ve avoided getting any of his paint transferred to us, and if anyone asks, we knew nothing-”

The blue fingers had slowed their frantic scrabbling against the sides of the tub but were still moving, feebly, and there was still a very thin sporadic stream of bubbles coming to the surface. If they flooded his insides with enough watery detergent, his temperature regulator would overheat and he’d pass out; if he stayed underwater for long enough, relays would start to burn out, pumps would seize, his spark would destabilise…

“Well, uh, you know,” Sideswipe replied, almost apologetically. “I was, uh, trying to think how to explain what murder was, without it sounding too bad.”

At last, Sunstreaker glanced up, and found Sideswipe had his arms full of sparkling. Correction, arms full of very upset, leaky-optic’ed, whimpery sparkling. Slag; his shoulders sagged. Killing the fragger was one thing, but doing it in full view of the little one? That’d mess her up even worse than having these psychos for family, the memory of seeing him killed right in front of her. He finally relaxed his hold and after a moment their intended victim emerged from under the water in a spluttering rush of soapsuds, vents whooping for air.

“Why doing that?” Footloose asked, at last, making sure her best, largest, most appealing eyes were turned full on the yellow twin. “Making hurt?”

“Aw, we were just playing, right, Screamer?” Sunstreaker gave the Seeker a ‘friendly’ pat on the shoulder vent that almost sent him sprawling straight back under the water. “No harm done!”

“Right,” Starscream spluttered, gasping to get air back into his temperature bellows and all the water out of his fuel lines. “Just like I’m going to be ‘playing’ when I switch all your energon for liquid explosives.”

There was a flicker of molecules and Skywarp finally appeared – too late to help, but eager to make up lost time. He had barely materialised fully before launching into the offensive – arms up, fingers curling into claws, roaring his engines and crashing into Sunstreaker before the other machine could scramble to a counter-offensive. His weight sent both sprawling across the floor, plates grinding together with a hideous squealing noise.

“You like it so much in here, how about I make sure your last sight is of the place?!” Skywarp snarled, and applied his thumbs to Sunstreaker’s optics, dropping his weight square down on his arms.

Sunstreaker howled and thrashed under the jet’s weight, gouged a set of brilliant yellow lines down his arms in his attempts to throw him off before he blinded him altogether.

Sideswipe had been startled into temporary immobility by the suddenness of Skywarp’s attack, but was finally bringing himself to what looked like a response, ejecting Footloose from his arms and gathering his feet underneath himself. Starscream narrowed his optics, not about to let the pair of them trounce his wing-mate as well, and made a weak but determined lunge at Sideswipe, while the red twin’s attention was elsewhere; they clattered to the floor, the jet’s greater mass giving him just the advantage to keep his target pinned.

There was a clatter of sound from the corridor and finally the pursuing groundlings caught up with the maddened teleport. Red Alert led the pack, followed by Bluestreak and Ironhide, then Ratchet, and Forceps at the back of the group, cursing her lack of speed.

“Oh, please not another riot-” Red Alert groaned, dragging Bluestreak behind him. “Whose idea was it not to keep them all locked in separate rooms?”

Taking an arm each, Red Alert and Bluestreak managed to wrestle the Seeker off his prey before he could punch his thumbs right through Sunstreaker’s optics. Skywarp wailed inarticulately in anger and thrashed about, but they’d got a good secure hold on his arms and trapped them against his wings, so the only thing he had to fight back was his feet, which he was already tottering unsteadily on, pulled back over his centre of gravity and off balance.

“…you are so gonna pay for that,” Sunstreaker swore, softly, under his breath, tottering to his feet, fists balled.

Skywarp looked unimpressed. He set his jaw and tensed his arms, and the instant his opponent was close enough used his captors as a launchpad for a kick; both thrustered heels came out like a piledriver and planted solidly into Sunstreaker’s chest, sending him staggering backwards, doubled over.

“Primus, Red, are you slagging well helping me or him?” Sunstreaker howled, his voice a twisted mixture of anger and pain.

“Stand back, Sunny,” Ironhide suggested, pushing past. “Show you how a real mech does it.”

“Whatsamatter, Arnhaard?” Skywarp jeered, still trying to free his arms. “Not had enough chances to punch the defenceless among you, yet? Want another chance at it?”

“Why you-”

“Enough,” a new voice boomed, softly, and the room fell still.

Well, everyone except Skywarp. The teleport seized his chance and straightened his legs, delivering a single piledriver kick to Ironhide’s throat; the big Autobot’s groan was horribly loud in the sudden silence, and he crumpled backwards, clutching his jaw. Murky grey-green joint lubricant quickly pooled at the top margin to his chassis and drew a smeary line down his windscreen.

“I said enough,” Optimus repeated, evenly, but lowering his voice, which only made him sound angrier. Like a volcano, seething quietly inside.

This time, even Skywarp took heed of the command. He glowered and stopped struggling, slumped his weight down so Red Alert and Bluestreak were suddenly supporting his entire bulk. Their oof!s of surprise were almost as satisfying as the shock in that big red idiot’s expression when his heel had connected with his big ugly face.

“This is ridiculous. You four,” Optimus waved a hand to encompass the two Seekers and the Autobot twins, “will remain here. The rest of you? Just…” He shook his head, irritated at all the twittering observers. “Out. I’m quite capable of dealing with this without needing input from every single resident.”

Bluestreak went without too much complaint; Red Alert took more persuading, but finally backed out, unhappy with the situation but obedient. Ratchet got himself under the groaning Ironhide’s arm and helped him out, giving the two fliers a collective glare as he passed.

The remaining four – five if you counted Forceps, who was trying to check the mostly-flooded Starscream – settled disgruntledly and quietly and awaited their lambasting. Sunstreaker had thin streamers of fluid trailing down from his fractured optics; although it was simply visual cleanser leaking from the damaged substructure, it did look a lot like tears, and that was making the Autobot doubly infuriated.

Skywarp canted sideways and murmured in Sunstreaker’s audio, just loud enough for everyone else to hear; “Hey, Autobot? Listen, I’m sorry I made you cry. I can ask Screamer to lend you his towel if you need a hankie.”

Sideswipe managed to grab hold of him just in time; Sunstreaker gave a strangled noise of fury and struggled in his twin’s restraining hands.

“All right. I was hoping it wouldn’t have to come down to this, but since all four of you are behaving worse than the actual sparkling…” Optimus sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “If I hear of one more riot – and I don’t care who started it – whoever is involved will find themselves sharing habitation in the brig. Whoever survives can come out after ten orns. If you manage to succeed in killing each other, well, at least it’ll save Prowl some headaches. Is that understood?”

There were reluctant mutterings of agreement from both parties, and more of those angry if-looks-could-kill faces, but the twins departed without any further argument. Skywarp glared after them and managed a single step after them before a wall of red and blue blocked his way.

“As for you,” Optimus faced the smaller machine down. “You are already on shaky ground. The fact I spoke up for you in the past few days does not absolve you of a need to behave yourself. And damnit, if I hear you are the instigator of any more riots? I will personally see to it that you are put into stasis for the remainder of your stay here. Is that understood?”

“Be nice if there was a little consistency in command, here,” Skywarp sniped back, sourly, folding his arms. “Your idiot twins try to murder Starscream, and get let off with a bit of nagging. I try to defend my wingmate, and ooh look, lucky me, threatened with the brig and being offlined again-”

“I understand that you’re angry, and I understand why,” Optimus interrupted, irritably; he looked like he was struggling not to give in to temptation and smack him one. “That doesn’t mean you have the free licence to do what you like in vengeance. As I understand it, Starscream was already out of danger when you ploughed in. So all your actions have done is mean that instead of having to punish two unruly mechs, I have to somehow work out how to discipline you four, and the other five or six you dragged into this mess, without looking like I’m playing favouritism either way.”

Skywarp muttered quietly.

“Do we understand each other?” Optimus pushed.

“Yes, sir,” Skywarp overemphasised the latter part and made it abundantly clear he wasn’t remotely happy or prepared to respect him, but the affirmative seemed to satisfy Optimus for now. The teleport made faces and used his hand to make blah-blah gestures behind his back, before turning back to his wingmate.

“Are you all right?” he wondered, uneasily, absently gathering Footloose up off the floor before she could trip him up, and watching as Forceps tried to manipulate the red Seeker into the best position to drain himself.

“Of course I’m… hcck… of course I’m all right,” Starscream spluttered, angrily, although the dirty water and foam that was still frothing from his vents rather spoiled the illusion. “Silly idiot, piling into the fray far too late-… hcck!... to be useful. And as for you, just-… get off me, surgeon.”

Forceps kept her hands on his shoulders, anyway, until the steady trickle of water from his vents slowed to just drips, and the bubbling wheeze was gone from his air-conditioning. “Are you too badly flooded in there?” she probed, gently.

“Nothing an orn or two in the drying racks wouldn’t fix,” he grumbled, darkly, spitting out another cupful of water. “Ugh. And a half dozen sachets of dessicant.”

“See, making bath is dangerous,” Footloose whispered to Skywarp. “Not to have any more please…?”

0o0o0o0o0

Siphon had made a big point of vanishing away to run one of his mysterious errands when Deuce slipped through the doorway with the usual two murky brown cubes of doctored energon. “I tried not to put too much sedation in them,” he said, quietly, as Thundercracker came up alongside to take one of them. “He at least trusts me to do that much, but if you let on that you’re not so out of it as you should be? He’ll go back to doing it himself.”

“Thank you.” Thundercracker stared down into the tainted fuel, and wondered exactly what he was thanking him for; it looked more like a cube of polluted river water than energon, and was about as good for them.

Deuce nodded, and moved back towards the doorway.

“One last thing.” Thundercracker put out a hand and caught the truck’s arm before he could vanish altogether.

Deuce made a valiant effort not to look as scared as he felt, but still cowered back, away from the restraining fingers around his wrist. “Wh-what?” he squeaked.

“While Siphon’s not here. Can you get her out?”

Deuce followed Thundercracker’s gaze to the broken femme curled and silent in the corner. “…beg pardon?”

“Pulsar. Can you get her out?” Thundercracker gave him a hard look. “I think you know how the collars work.”

“I can’t, I can’t-” Deuce’s words had shrunk to little barely-audible whimperings. “Siphon will know it was me-”

“You and I both know,” Thundercracker said, softly enough that the subject of conversation wouldn’t be able to hear him, “that if we don’t get her out within the next few orns, it’ll be too late. I can look after Seem, I know Siphon doesn’t intend any harm towards him, because he’d have done it already if he did – but you have to get Pulse out.”

“But he’s not going to kill-”

“That’s not the point. Just look.” The Seeker sounded like he was at the point of losing patience. “Look at what the three of us have done to her already. What else do you imagine he’ll have me do, while I’m too drugged up and insensible to know the difference?”

“D-does it matter to you, Decepticon?” Deuce stammered, cringing. “I’m s-sure you’ve done worse-”

“So tell me, you miserable, snivelling excuse for sentience,” Thundercracker snarled, his voice a harsh whisper to avoid disturbing the others, keeping the truck pinned by his shoulders. “What exactly is your damn motivation? It’s not loyalty to your employer, and it’s not any misplaced concern for any of us. It’s certainly not any affection for her, and you almost had me tricked into thinking there was a teeny, tiny spark there between you! So what is it, huh? Just want to make sure you’re guaranteed your next fix?”

Deuce cowered away. “That’s not fair.”

“So tell me. Primus! And they have the nerve to call me indecisive,” the jet glared down on him. “We can’t help each other if we don’t know what each others’ problems are.”

Deuce hesitated for several long moments before finally speaking; it was as if he saw Thundercracker as the far more immediate danger than Siphon. “I got d-dragged into this by b-being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he protested, shakily. “M-my personality has always led me into bad d-decisions, and now I can’t g-get out of this one. D-do you think I want to see what Siphon is doing to you three? I want-… he just-… he has my medicine, and he scares me more than you do.” He hesitated, refusing to meet the hostile crimson glare. “I was well-controlled at the hospital. I even felt-… normal, sometimes. Then along came Siphon… and I’m back to teetering on the edge.” He finally glanced up, pleadingly. “I don’t want to go back to prison, and I don’t want to go back to being crazy, so I just… I do what he tells me. I don’t want to, I just… what other choice have I got?”

Thundercracker stepped back, and let the other machine up. “I know you’re scared,” he accepted, more gently. “But we’re not going to get out of this unless we all pull in the same direction. And we have to get a message out. You little comms wafer isn’t strong enough to get a long enough signal out for the guys to pick up before that crackpot tanker squelches it and sedates me back into an incoherent mush, so we’re going to have to get a somebody out.”

“And you th-think she’s the best choice?”

“I don’t know,” Thundercracker admitted, sadly. “I want to get Seem out, but if I do? I know Siphon will take it out on the weakest one here – and that’s Pulsar. She stands half a chance at surviving, if we can get her out in the next few orns.”

“I don’t know if I can get her collar off,” Deuce admitted, defeatedly. “But I can see if Siphon has any schematics anywhere…”

Thundercracker settled in the corner and gathered Pulsar into his lap; she struggled very feebly, tried to push him away, but she was barely strong enough or awake enough to lift her own limbs, let alone fight him off. “Ssh, steady,” he soothed, manipulating the smaller cube to her mouth. “I just want to get some energon into you. All right?”

She spluttered weakly as the first sip went into the wrong intake, but soon settled.

“That’s a good girl. Easy does it…” He glanced up to find Deuce had frozen in the doorway. “Now what?”

“Field won’t go down,” the truck observed, hollowly, putting out a hand and watching the lilac forcefield fizz painfully against his palm.

“Is that so important? Siphon will be back soon enough.”

Deuce gave them an anxious look and rubbed his arms. “I need my medicine,” he argued, hollowly. “He tricked me. He tricked me! I don’t know how long he’s going to be gone but it’ll have worn off by then, for definite…”

-------

Edit: Owwwwwww heelblisters.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_silverfox/]

Sighswipe! LOL!

Footloose is quite a powerful weapon it seems and she knows how to use herself.

[jill-dragon.livejournal.com]

I've had some time to think this over and I think Optimus's reaction was a bit tame when you consider the fact that someone could very easily have died (and I don't just mean Starscream either).

I'm also surprised that he didn't say anything to Starscream. Strategically-speaking having the 2IC of the whole frickin' enemy army (apparently) defect is a major coup. The information Starscream has about the Nemesis, about the Decepticon Army back on Cybertron, and about Megatron himself, have the potential to end a war that's been going on for a gazillion years. In light of that, it's in Optimus's best interests to keep Starscream alive and (relatively) sweet.

Of course Optimus probably isn't as cynical as I am. ;)