Rent to Own

by Bibliotecaria.D

The Constructicons seem far more stable than the Combaticons, but their own power issues rise during the events of 'Lease or Buy.'

1. Chapter 1

Title: Rent to Own

Warning: Decepticons being Decepticons, power dynamics from their perspectives (no, this is not healthy), D/s, and references to petplay.

Rating: PG-13

Stage: G1, set within Lease or Buy (it'll make more sense to read it first)

Characters: Constructicons

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): Commission for Surefall; "the Constructicon drama that's going on behind the scenes in Lease of Buy."

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From the outside, combiner teams rarely made sense. There were interpersonal bonds that couldn't be easily explained by what observers saw. That tended to confuse outsiders looking for an explanation for who followed and who led.

Perhaps it was because physical strength didn't mean a mech commanded. Alone amidst a team, a single strong body had to be compensated for. An individual instead of shared strength threw the rest of the gestalt off-balance. A valuable resource when separated, yes, but one strong mech became one body part during the merge. What use was one overpowered leg?

It boggled some Decepticons' minds that Bonecrusher didn't lead the Constructicons. In fact, he ranked fourth in the Constructicon internal hierarchy. He had the strongest body but couldn't command those weaker than him inside the team. Combiner teams just didn't work like that, despite how the Decepticons as a whole functioned.

Mental capacity had its own value, but during the merge, the gestalt links brought the combiner team into one conglomerate mind. An individual who stood out too far, who possessed too fast or too slow a mind, served as a distraction instead of an asset. Staying aloof from the other minds in an attempt to control them disrupted the flow of data through the gestalt links.

It would snap somebody's sanity if it became common knowledge that Hook ranked sixth in the Constructicons. Long Haul wasn't even an officer, but he was a tall fifth above him. Scavenger, Bonecrusher, and Mixmaster were even further up. Relative military rank didn't matter. Internal hierarchy ruled the gestalt through bonds of the spark, not connections of body or mind.

That was something the cobbled-together combiner teams of Earth didn't seem to understand. Scrapper shook his head at Motormaster attempting to forge a team out of brute force. The newbie didn't seem to know what he'd been handed, much less how he should command it. A team of newbuilds, forged to combine, and not a clue among them what kind of social structure that meant. All Motormaster had to base his behavior off of was Megatron's example, because Scrapper's careful overture toward educating the Stunticon leader had been spurned.

He didn't bother trying when Starscream turned Onslaught's group of mercenaries into a combiner team. That was a train wreck of incompatible mechs packaged up in one tangled power dynamic Onslaught wasn't equipped to handle. Only time and experience would sort that mess out one way or another.

It was a circus. The Constructicons watched Onslaught try to run the Combaticons by Decepticon regulations, knowing it'd fail. They waited for exactly what happened: the strongest spark found a way to buck the system. An internal hierarchy based off of military rank could be weaseled around, just as a brute force system failed the second a tyrant faltered. The Constructicons wagered on how the Combaticons' internal ranking would settle out, but Mixmaster and Long Haul ended up conceded to each other when Swindle pulled his trick. The merchant managed to scheme his way out of Onslaught's control without assuming command. That was interesting.

It'd also been a sign of how divided the Combaticons were. Swindle separated himself out and chose independence over cooperation, refusing to tamely fall into line. Onslaught fought him on that at every turn, but military and physical might couldn't subdue someone stronger in the gestalt bond than he was. Swindle and Onslaught were at a screwed-up stalemate. Bruticus was a mindless powerhouse as a result of their conflict.

None of the Constructicons could imagine following Swindle's route. They weren't the Combaticons. They were too close, their minds and sparks used to working through the gestalt links and the bond. They were the oldest combiner team, pre-dating the gestalt technology. They'd adjusted to working as Cybertron's finest construction group long before the first merge happened. Their skills as individuals had become infinitely more valuable once the gestalt links clicked into place, but they'd been great even before connecting their intellects and body into the best build team on either side of the war.

More than that, their sparks had joined through the gestalt bond. They had become more. Turning their backs on the other Constructicons wouldn't mean returning to what they'd been, once upon a different career. Separating out would mean becoming less by dividing a whole into incomplete fractions. Functioning as an individual would require walling out the rest of the team, something they could only compare to gutting out vital systems and hobbling along as a wounded shell. Yes, they could technically do it, but the parts of their bodies corresponding to the gestalt links would be deadened and useless, and the gestalt bond in their sparks would dissipate into an empty impression of what had once filled and surrounded them. They would be buildings with the girders torn out and all exits sealed; still standing, but one jolt to the outside or an extra weight inside, and everything would come crashing to the ground.

Being a normal mech instead of a Constructicon would mean being...alone. Isolated inside and out from the constant presence and comforting support of the others. After so long, none of them could remember what that felt like. The concept frightened them, if they were honest about it. Their minds skirted around the idea with an instinctive aversion.

Their team functioned like a well-oiled machine under Scrapper's efficient guidance. He controlled them to a degree most Decepticons would be repelled by, but the Constructicons were used to it. He invaded their minds through the gestalt links, buzzed in their bodies where they joined to become Devastator, and curled around them as an ever-present constant through the gestalt bond in their sparks. He demanded obedience and enforced it, punishing challenges to his command swiftly, yet he was twice as quick to offer reassurance and support when a Constructicon needed him. He monitored their individual needs closely because he regulated their internal balance as a group.

Scrapper's control over them was why Hook didn't fight for a better rank. The surgeon held military rank as the head of the repairbay, one of the most influential and highest ranking officers among the Decepticon medics, but he came in dead last when it came to his own team. He knew his place in this internal balancing act.

That didn't mean he believed he deserved it, but his leader had a control built right into his spark through the gestalt bond. Arrogant confidence in his own importance didn't hold up against Scrapper. Devastator got noticeably stupider whenever one of the Constructicons took it into his head to rebel, and Scrapper ruthlessly squashed any such defiance as a result. Hook didn't enjoy his place at the bottom, but he preferred submission to the punishment dealt out while dragging him back under control.

None of Constructicons abused him or undercut his authority on the job, but they didn't spare his ego off it. He was at their beck and call. They said 'jump,' and his shock absorbers got a work-out. Hook: surgical engineer, head of the repairbay, officer in his own right - and humble subordinate the moment his team called him to heel.

There were times he'd be standing in the repairbay having a shouting match with some idiot who, alright, maybe outranked him, and Scrapper would walk in to give him a look. That was enough. Hook's pride careened out of control, but the other Constructicons didn't show up in the repairbay just to work, some days. Some days Scavenger casually called Hook into the spare parts storage in order to remind the surgeon he belonged to a team, not to himself. That towering ego occasionally needed to be toppled by the reality of the chain of command.

The only mercy was that the others didn't advertise that Hook followed their orders once they were in private. Something he was immensely grateful for, considering how the other Decepticons would probably react. It would do his position in the ranks no good if anyone found out how little authority he held inside his own team. Why would a Decepticon soldier obey the commands of a mere servant in the repairbay, after all?

Although he knew that Scrapper would be right there beside him to smack down any upstart Decepticon who tried to throw his lack of status in his face. The part that grated on his pride was that Hook didn't want to rely on his leader for support his own natural superiority should give him. He could deal with the common scum that walked into the repairbay. They were rank-and-file nobodies, or inferiors masquerading as the Decepticon Elite at best! He was the most talented surgeon left alive on or off Cybertron, Ratchet aside. He was no worthless Cassetticon to go running to his carrier mech for back-up because someone was mean.

But regardless of what he thought about his position, it didn't change anything. He remained at the bottom. Scrapper and the rest of the Constructicons had his back outside their quarters, and stood on it inside them.

"Here," Bonecrusher called the second he stepped into their shared quarters, and Hook had to stiffen his backstruts against the immediate wave of weakness that flooded down them.

Whatever his power and megalomania, Megatron never brought this instant, crawling submission to the forefront of Hook's thoughts. The immediate urge to obey made him want to duck his head meekly and trot over to sit on the chair Bonecrusher pulled out from the table. It was a deeply ingrained impulse, and one that Hook fought down.

Instead, he glanced in the demolitionist's direction. "Busy," he said, keeping it short and simple.

He kept his helm high, but Bonecrusher's narrowed visor didn't go unnoticed. It was a band of red in his peripheral vision.

Hook's spark compacted inside him and sent a tendril of apology through the gestalt bond before he could stop it. The reflexive submission left an aftertaste of regret, and he used it to shore up his willpower against his stronger teammate's disapproval. His pride withered, but he firmed his resolve. For Primus' sake, how ridiculous! Perhaps he had been a tad disrespectful, but a curt answer didn't merit this kind of censure! He certainly didn't need to apologize for not jumping to obey every single whim shot his way. He was a surgeon, not a menial worker. Bonecrusher could polish his own armor.

The narrow red glare darkened. Hook faltered halfway across the room, coming to an awkward halt as the end of the gestalt bond transmitted a thick sensation much like pressure that spread over him. Stubborn refusal pushed back at Bonecrusher, but the demolitionist's spark absorbed Hook's efforts with laughable ease. Hook couldn't step forward under the heavy weight of Bonecrusher's frown, but neither would he turn back.

Scrapper and Long Haul watched silently from the table as well, their disapproval plain. A blank expression couldn't hide Hook's spark from them, and they leaned on him through the gestalt bond. Hook's ventilation system cycled long and slow as he forced himself to remember that it wasn't real. A weight didn't press down on him, ironing his spark into a flattened disk.

Thinking rationally didn't ease the pressure, however. His fuel pump thudded as anxiety climbed up his back, and keeping his crane arm relaxed took concentration. Everything in him wanted to clamp his armor close in self-defense despite knowing it wouldn't help in the slightest. Disapproval dripped in slow tsk tsk tsk drops down the back of his mind. The three Constructicons at the table had had it up to their helms with his conceit, and they were bringing their far stronger sparks to bear on him.

The need to apologize, to obey, built up like a fuel purge in Hook's throat. He held out for a minute longer, but the visors turned on him could see right through his defiant spark. They didn't approve. That pride of his was getting out of hand again, and the longer he thumbed his nose at them, the worse the consequences of this little rebellion would be.

Hook shifted nervously as the feeling of being hemmed in intensified. The gestalt links gave a warning hum, buzzing at the edges of his mind and throughout his body, and his mouth twisted into a grimace. The attempt to hold out collapsed under another push from the gestalt bond. Okay, fine. Bonecrusher didn't like his orders ignored, especially when it came with an undercurrent of borderline insolence.

A muted grinding sound came from his jaw as he gritted his teeth. Sullen but resigned, the surgeon dipped his chin and lifted his hands to show the vials he carried in wordless explanation for the brush-off. That wasn't enough to make up for the disrespect, but he also opened his side of the gestalt bond all the way. He couldn't shut it off, not with the way the others were woven into him, but voluntarily opening up full access stood in for an apology. Lesson learned.

Apparently not to Bonecrusher's satisfaction. Hook's visor popped wide as his teammate's spark crashed against his, a surge of energy elbowing through the gestalt bond to shove inside him. Before he could even think to fight back, his teammate found the poisonous kernel of resentment Hook had tried to hide behind surrender.

Fragging Pit. Ah...so. Lesson not learned. The surgeon had tried to play him for a fool and smooth over the incident by acting a part, and he'd been caught red-handed.

The invading spark snapped a lash of energy at the core of the weaker spark now shrinking away from it. There was nowhere for Hook's spark to hide. Disapproval radiated from every connection he had to the team. A flash of temper from the surgeon - how dare they pin him this way - sputtered and died a quick death as it ran up against the wall that was Bonecrusher's roused anger.

The demolitionist was eternally angry. Giving his rage direction was Hook's real mistake.

Hook's chin tipped down further as the bulldozer's heavy-duty engine gave a furious growl. "Here, Hook."

The cables in his neck creaked as he turned his head enough to look where he was bidden. Kicked out from the table, the chair waited. Bonecrusher's fingers drummed on the seat impatiently. Sit. Stay. Bad subordinate.

The handful of vials became his defense, a way to delay the inevitable. He knew he was pushing his luck from the way Bonecrusher's engine snarled, but he didn't want to sit down at that table yet. He would rather not sit down there at all, but there was no getting out of what was coming to him, now. The longer he kept some distance between himself and his bad-tempered superior, the more time it gave Bonecrusher to cool down. Out of sight, out of mind sometimes worked.

Hook lifted his hands and smiled weakly. "Just a moment. Mixmaster wanted me to bring him these." Primus, he hated how his voice automatically pitched up into an ingratiating whine. The feeble smile plastered on his face felt oven-baked and crumbly. It was an appeasing gesture he never quite got right, and he knew it. His lack of practice placating those he offended showed at the worst times.

His vents closed as the silence drew out, really emphasizing how graceless his excuse was. All the self-confidence in the world couldn't stand up to that silence. It forced him to reflect on what he'd done and judge his own behavior. He really had brought this on himself tonight.

Inside him, his spark made tentative overtures toward the dark cloud of anger pressing on the gestalt bond. Look, he was sorry. He'd be good. He'd submit.

The sense of crushing weight increased suddenly, driving the air from him. Real or not, Hook's fans spun as he wheezed under Bonecrusher's rage. Vials clattered in his hands. His spark sniveled under the punishment, but he didn't attempt to strike back. It wouldn't do him any good. It'd likely just make the stronger mech angrier. Besides, staying on his feet was taking everything he had right now. It didn't hurt, exactly, but the feel of his spark squishing caused his body to react as if a physical weight had dropped on top of him.

After long enough to make a point about who was in charge here and he'd better remember that or else, Bonecrusher let up. The surgeon gasped, spark wobbling, and one hand pressed to his chest as if to reassure himself that he still functioned. The vials clacked against his armor. A low, ominous rumble shook the gestalt links, making Hook's visor pale, but the threatening presence on the gestalt bond subsided. He looked over at Bonecrusher apprehensively.

That narrowed visor glared at him. Hook dropped his gaze to the floor again. Yes sir, remembering his place on the team sir, right away - sir!

A timeless, judging minute later, a disgusted snort dismissed him.

The tension in his fanbelt eased, but his armor stayed clamped close. Permission to complete his task didn't mean forgiveness. It meant Mixmaster outranked Bonecrusher. Visor still downcast, Hook shuffled by the table. He told himself it was because the appearance of submission was cheap. Looking like he accepted his place didn't mean he had to believe he deserved it.

And maybe his spark kept sending little wavelets of remorse in the 'direction' he associated with Bonecrusher's end of the gestalt bond. Maybe he walked slow because his knees felt suspiciously rubbery. Maybe he was going over how he'd walked into the room and regretting his behavior now.

Maybe, but maybe not. He wouldn't admit it, either way.

He tried to keep his thoughts as neutral as possible. Bonecrusher's attention stung from back of his spark chamber, and exasperation prickled from Long Haul's end of the gestalt bond. Hook's body and mind buzzed at the extremities, gestalt links on high alert as they kept close watch over his attitude. That was enough of a warning to watch his step, but what had him policing his thoughts so cautiously was the presence observing him as if standing right behind him, peering over his shoulder. There was no 'direction' to that end of the bond. It was the bond.

Scrapper hadn't interfered in the spat beyond projecting silent disapproval, but Hook could feel his leader's spark monitoring him like it had him surrounded. In a very real way, it did. Bonecrusher's spark was stronger than Hook's, but Scrapper's spark held more strength than the other five Constructicons' sparks combined.

The thing about power within a combiner team, or at least a functioning one, was that it was based off of more than physical strength. Bonecrusher was physically the strongest Constructicon, with Long Haul a close second. However, the Stunticons proved daily that keeping control based on physical strength only worked so long as Motormaster had his hooligans within arm's-reach. Worse, the merge negated any advantage one mech might hold as their bodies became one.

Intelligence, in much the same way, didn't mean much across a gestalt link. Who was smarter came down to a toss-up between Hook and Scrapper, but that changed depending on the circumstances. Mixmaster schooled both of them in his area of specialty. Scavenger buried the whole team when it came to social intelligence. He came off as an awkward, self-conscious mech, but he knew the ins and outs of dealing with outsiders better than anyone. When the team combined, it all became a shared conglomerate of cerebral circuitry.

So what leadership came down to among the Constructicons was strength of spark. Unlike Onslaught and Motormaster, Scrapper hadn't started out as the pre-determined leader. He'd been selected as the torso of Devastator because of the almost mutant power of his spark. Emerging as the head of hierarchy had been the natural result. His spark supported the rest of Devastator's components during the merge. They depended on him.

Unlike the other two Decepticon combiners on Earth, merging didn't create conflicted chaos in the team by equalizing Devastator's multiple minds and systems. Negating the external hierarchy of physical strength, military rank, and separate minds only enforced the Constructicons' internal structure. Pared down to their cores, there was no question of who was in charge. Scrapper's spark could run Devastator on its own. There were no equals when the Constructicons merged: only varying levels of strength that Scrapper's spark had to compensate for.

Hook knew he had the weakest spark. Scrapper had to expend the most effort to prop him up during the merge as Devastator drained energy from him. That massively overpowered spark also fueled the gestalt bond, which usually meant Scrapper was a steady, calm presence around his spark. It sounded as supportive as it was restrictive, because the bond put them under their leader's observation every moment of every day. Such was the glorious life of a Constructicon.

Apparently not the life of a Combaticon or a Stunticon, but look at the mess those teams were after every merge. The price of clinging to independence was an unbalanced tangle of a combiner team and a dumb brute combiner as a result.

Hook kept his body language submissive and his thoughts neutral because he knew Scrapper was watching him. Because Scrapper knew their relative strength, from strongest to weakest, and the weakest spark was currently toeing a line it didn't have the power to step over. Bad things happened when Hook overstepped his bounds. Bad things as in sneering at Megatron, kicking Rumble, or sniffing disdainfully at Starscream when the Air Commander came in dented from Megatron's fists. The sniping, arrogant comments at all and sundry offended a lot of Decepticons the other Constructicons then had to mollify.

Without them at his back, Hook's imperious, insufferable attitude was so much hot air. Surgical talent didn't make someone like him anything important, not when the medical abilities required putting up with him outside of surgery. Or even in surgery, because the mech could be unbearable if he weren't reined in. Before the war, hospitals had lists of personnel complaints against him, and he'd been fired more than once when he hadn't up and left on his own out of flouted pride that they asked him to tone the attitude down. The other Constructicons hadn't been quite that bad, but it'd taken being a team to achieve an untouchable level where they were just that good.

Except for Hook. The mass benefits of their package deal made it worth tolerating the individual quirks of the Constructicons by themselves, but the surgeon pushed that tolerance. He got on everyone's last nerve.

Scrapper's internal balancing took that into consideration more than any other outside influence. Hook ranked last in spark strength, but he'd also been put down at the bottom where the rest of the team could stomp him into shape periodically. Frequently. More often than any of them liked. They ensured he knew his flaws, the reasons behind their strict discipline, but facts didn't make him any less blind to his faults.

"This is absurd," Hook muttered into the gestalt frequency, infuriated as always by this - this servitor role he was made to assume.

The line hissed static for a second before Scrapper sighed back at him. The response stayed on internal commlink to keep the conversation private, but that's as far as coddling Hook's dignity went. "Control yourself, Hook. You're acting like a spoiled Towers noblemech denied the latest tech-toy."

"I am not!" Scrapper's care for his dignity went unnoticed, since the surgeon wasn't permitted to disconnect from the gestalt's frequency. Using the private channel only reminded him of his lack of control and rubbed rust into the wound. Hook couldn't block out any of the other Constructicons, on commlink or gestalt link.

"And now you're pouting. If you don't knock it off, then yes, we are going to take control of you. How many times have we had to pull your tires out of the fire because you're unable to sense the heat?" Private as the conversation was, a hard blink over the gestalt link sent a rapid upload of select memory files. They transmitted directly into Hook's queue to play, one after another in a flickering instant replay of humiliation right in the forefront of his mind. A hundred memories of the trouble his overinflated ego got the team into burnt shame and clearly remember regret straight into the surgeon's mind.

He flinched, and the commlink crackled white noise because he had no way to respond to that. His processors pounded as the gestalt links raced. Scrapper kept forcing through more data, all skimmed from the other Constructicons' memories so Hook couldn't help but see himself through their visual feeds. The accompanying tidal wave of exasperation and anger slapped him around to live their perspectives, and his mind winced away from the traces of frustration, sadness, and even disassociation when each mech reached their limit of dealing with his slag. Scrapper had sorted out more challenges to his position because of Hook than any other Constructicon, and he couldn't count the number of times he'd had to punch through Hook's bloated pride to make him see the truth.

The surgeon's crane line twitched. Choosing to keep his complaining silent to the rest of the team meant that Scrapper could and did use wordless tactics to cut him off at the knees. The relentless cascade of memories was brutally honest, and it pierced his arrogance the way nothing else could. Truth hurt because he couldn't deny it. Waving it off was impossible, and Scrapper used it as a club to beat his oversized sense of entitlement into place more often than not. That didn't make it any less painful the next time, or the time after that. Swallowing down sizeable portions of humility hurt his mind instead of his intakes, but damage was damage. Ouch.

Scrapper stopped force-feeding the gestalt links and pointedly waited for an objection.

It didn't come. Both of them knew who'd won, no contest.

Hook let the commlink frequency lapse, more chagrined than when Bonecrusher had dismissed him. The other Constructicons put him at their collective feet to reconnect him to reality. He pulled rank on any Decepticon he could and some he shouldn't, and if his team didn't deflate his ego somehow, he'd march headlong up against someone who'd do more than take offense at his attitude. It'd happened more than a few times - more than a score of times - back on Cybertron. Working this closely with Megatron and his top officers here on Earth, it could very well get him executed for insolence. Him, and probably the rest of them in the bargain. So they were going to make him behave, and he couldn't claim ignorance as to why.

Primus alive, he fragging hated that. Taking responsibility for his problems felt like swallowing acid.

The brief conversation took less than a minute. Hook tucked his spark in small and bitter to brood, drawing back from the gestalt bond as much as he could. He kept his head turned away from the table while picking his way through the passage to the other room. He'd rather not face his judges at the moment.

The Constructicons had knocked down the wall between their assigned bunk rooms as soon as it was clear the Nemesis couldn't lift off ever again, and now they had things set up how they liked it. The back room had six bunks lining the walls, three berths stacked up on each side, with enough room to walk between them. Cramming six mechs into one room might have felt claustrophobic for other Decepticons, but other Decepticons didn't understand how close a combiner team lived. The casual way the Constructicons relied on each other baffled the rest of the faction. The team trusted one another so completely that they preferred clustering together over spreading out if given the option.

When they felt like freaking out the rest of the Decepticons, the Constructicons would meander into the common room and touch each other. Nothing sexual, but it didn't need to be. Decepticons didn't touch each other. The everyday, normal gestures the Constructicons used were utterly foreign to the rest of the faction: crammed onto the couch with their arms snug against one another, propping a chin or elbow on a convenient shoulder, leaning across a lap or three to ask a question, or simply one mech sitting down on the floor, using someone else's legs as a backrest. Cramming their bunks into one room like this gave them the closeness they desired.

Plus, it freed up one whole room for other activities, which was more than any Decepticon but the top officers had. Shipboard space for personnel didn't have high priority over things like weaponry, hyperspace drives, or energon storage. Anyone who wanted extra space to do anything had to find an empty storage room and hope not to be interrupted, or go hang out in the common room. The Constructicons had their own private room. They stuck to it, most of the time. The privacy gave them a far more relaxed atmosphere, and definitely fewer weird looks from the rest of the Decepticons on Earth.

Scrapper's latest maze of a 3D blueprint filled the passage between their rooms at the moment. It looked like a worldbuilding-based gameboard. Since building things was the Constructicon go-to social activity, that wasn't a bad description for it. Hook picked his way through the holograms, placing his feet with care for the projectors while studying the changes made since this morning. Whoever had put that swivel into the base of Megatron's newest superweapon was going to get a blistering audio-full of the surgeon's opinion when he got a minute to himself.

Something not likely to happen anytime soon, unfortunately. He had a date with a scathing reminder of his place, tonight.

Hook edged past the blueprint into the bunkroom, and the two mechs sitting on one of the bottom berths looked up from their work. Scavenger's shovel was a marvel of materials detection technology, but the shovel arm twisted out of alignment easily, and the shovel sensors required frequent tuning. Scavenger didn't spend half his time fussing for attention just because he had low self-esteem. He needed repairs more often than not.

Right now, Mixmaster seemed to be trying to find a crimped line in the excavator's back, but his optics lit up in excitement when he peered around the shovel in his face. "Are those mine?" The chemist pushed the shovel aside impatiently and reached greedy hands toward the vials Hook held. "Yes! Good. Give me those."

It didn't take much to change an order to a request, but they were in the privacy of the Constructicon's shared quarters. He didn't bother. The chemist outranked him, here. Mixmaster beckoned impatiently, and Hook obeyed the order. Still brooding over Scrapper's scolding and dreading whatever disciplinary duty Bonecrusher would assign him, he held out his handfuls of vials without even a grumble of his motor. Menial tasks were part of the job.

The chemist selected a vial and shook it, one optic full of white outlines as he ran a scan. "No." Pushing it back at Hook, he picked another one and tried again. "No."

Hook deftly slipped the rejected vials between the fingers of his other hand, accepting one after another and doing the juggling act required to transfer them from hand to hand. He kept track of which ones hadn't been inspected yet and kept them proffered as Mixmaster worked his way through the collection. From surgeon to mobile shelf in the space of five minutes. Amazing the difference walking into these room made.

Sometimes he wished he never had to come back here. He was better than this. Why did he subject himself to this treatment?

Standing here in the aisle between the bunks, however, a dull ache from his gestalt links reminded him why: for the same reason his teammates put up with the way he treated them. They were one. More than they were apart. Never returning here meant turning his back on being more than he could ever be on his own. It meant losing what made him a Constructicon instead of just plain Hook.

No matter how much he detested being a subordinate in a team, he actively avoided remembering being only and just Hook.

None of the others dwelled on their individual histories before joining the team, but he was the only one who found his past actually painful to remember. All the skills he'd honed, all the talent he'd possessed, and still he'd been nothing more than one more unwanted, unneeded, wholly replaceable mech in the system. Hospitals had dismissed him. Colleagues stopped soliciting his opinions. Organizations put him on blacklists. And for every insult, he'd carried his head higher and looked down on them more because he didn't need them. He was above such trifles. He didn't feel like an insignificant nobody who could be swapped out for any experienced medic with half a vorn's surgical studies. He didn't.

Why did he put up with being a servant to his team, an extra pair of hands for Mixmaster? Because he was part of the team. Buried deep within the conceit, hidden underneath the contempt for lesser mechs, the insecure little core of him clung to that because being a Constructicon made him unique. Made him special. Made him irreplaceable.

The alternative was unthinkable.

Only three vials met with a satisfied nod. The last reject was thrust into his hands, and then Mixmaster upcapped one of the approved vials to shove at him. "Drink this." Excitement bubbled at the edge of Hook's mind in the 'direction' he thought of as Mixmaster's. That rarely boded well for anyone.

So Hook was justified in responding with caution instead of obedience. "What is it?" Vials clinked as the surgeon freed up thumb and forefinger to grab the vial pushed at his face.

"Just drink it!"

"Tell me what it is, first." He knew to be suspicious of strange experiments from Mixmaster. His exhaust had been orange for a week after the last batch of high grade the chemist made him taste-test. The overcharge buzz hadn't even been worth; the taste had been horrible. His complaints had been welcomed originally as Mixmaster took notes on what Hook had disliked, but that went away quickly when he kept complaining about the after-effects. The chemist wanted feedback, not harping.

Hook had hoped the bitching would discourage him from inflicting future experiments on him, but it seemed he wasn't that lucky. He ran his own scan over the vial while Mixmaster was distracted slinging an arm over Scavenger's shoulder. It came up clean of everything his hand sensors were programmed to detect without a chemical sample, but that didn't mean the brew was clean. It just meant he couldn't detect what Mixmaster had cooked up this time.

Scavenger looked interested as the chemist dangled a second vial in front of their fellow Constructicon's mask. "It's good for you. Now drink it."

Yeah, no. Not likely. He was already going to spend the rest of the night miserable as Bonecrusher ground his face into his mistakes like someone sticking a cyberpup's nose in its waste spill. Adding an upset fuel tank to the mix didn't sound appealing in the slightest. Hook gave a noncommittal grunt and turned back toward the other room without drinking. He casually let his hand fall to his side, thumb stopping up the vial. He'd unstop it while picking through the projectors again, and the blueprint hologram would hide the spilt liquid until he cleaned the floors next. That fell into the category of mundane chores he normally had to be ordered to stop avoiding, but he'd start scrubbing of his own initiative this week.

That was the plan, but the excitement bubbling at the edge of his mind turned flat. His spark threw up a brittle front of innocence even before Mixmaster snagged him by the crane arm.

"Hook."

He stopped but didn't turn around. It was easier to hide guilt that way. "Yes?"

"Drink it." The little hope that he'd fooled anyone died a quick death. The chemist's voice had gone stern. "I said it. You do it. Got that?"

Mixmaster's hands weren't the specialized tools Hook's were. They were far more heavily armored in case of spillage while the chemist worked. The heavier plating came paired with thicker cables and struts in the hand structure. Hook winced again as pressure warnings started bleating in his processor. His crane arm had a high rating for load-bearing, but that didn't protect it from crushing damage.

Worse, Mixmaster's strong grip came through the gestalt bond to seize his spark the way he had his crane arm. Hook's spark screwed into a knot in his chest under the thick fingers of disapproval threatening to crush him. Bonecrusher had leaned on him, but Mixmaster didn't apply pressure. His spark was stronger yet, and he had better control over that strength. The chemist could mush Hook's spark into a flickering mote of regret without even exerting himself, and he'd do it. Hook could feel that. The mech was in no mood to put up with him dodging orders.

The resentment and discontent he'd brought into their quarters tonight had been felt by the whole team. Bonecrusher had squashed the rebellion before Hook could let it fester into a full-on fight with one of them, but the surgeon hadn't been subdued. Yes, he knew where he belonged. Scrapper had ensured that. However, the Constructicon leader still watched him closely for any last flare of that rogue ego, and he wasn't the only one. Wounded pride tended to strike out against better judgment, and Hook's pride had been wounded.

Mixmaster had his crane arm in a hard grip because the surgeon wasn't going to get the chance to strike out, not with the team keeping their feet on the back of his neck. They were his better judgment, and he wouldn't be allowed to get away with scrap all tonight.

Hook's shoulders drew up, frustrated anger packing into a seething ball under his fuel pump as he tugged loose of Mixmaster's hand. It was directed as much at himself as the rest of his team, but he put the blame square on them anyway. "Got it," he said curtly, turning to face the chemist again.

He wanted him to drink it? Fine. He'd drink it. He just wouldn't give Mixmaster the satisfaction of a reaction. Glaring, visor red-hot and angry, he met the chemist's optics before bringing the vial up to his lips and tossing the liquid back.

It took every bit of self-control he had not to gag on the instant boil of sourness that curled his tongue. Ugh! That was - why on or off Cybertron would Mixmaster want to inflict that on him?! How could it possibly be good for him? It tasted like straight washer fluid and had the texture of coolant curdled to clumps. He clamped down on his end of the gestalt links as hard as he could and thrust through a scramble of sensor feedback from the rest of his body - fuel levels at 54%, temperature in the yellow, audios tuned to 78% - to cover up the data rush from his chemical receptors. Like the Pit would he hand over the raw feedback of what he tasted! He even managed to pinch the gestalt bond, muting the revolted backlash from his spark down to a jumble of sullen rage and stubbornness.

He didn't let his reaction leak through. He refused. His visor's lower edge blurred as he swallowed, but swallow he did. The wash of oral fluid that flooded his mouth immediately after nearly broke his neutral expression from the sheer relief of it. Primus, that had been awful!

Mixmaster's optics stayed on his face. A frown pulled the chemist's mouth down when he merely twitched in reaction. The third vial held at the ready to hand him next was placed carefully on the berth. Then both hands slammed down, catapulting Mixmaster off the berth to storm forward.

"I'm…done with this. Done." Hook refused to back away when confronted, but the chemist stepped forward to press their chests together so the irritated howl of his engine rattled Hook. The surgeon did step back then, but Mixmaster only followed him until his back came up against the bunks on the other wall and he was trapped. Meanwhile, Mixmaster's engine revved as he lost his temper, voice climbing to be heard above the snarl of anger let off its chain. "Do you hear me, Hook? Are you listening, for once? Can you hear me? I mean, do I exist in your world, or do you just blank me out whenever you don't need something from me? I'm done! I'm done with this rust-poor excuse for - oh, never mind. I'm not going to waste any more time on this."

That was alarming, but Hook didn't have time to do more than reset his visor and realize the only legitimate answer to Mixmaster's tirade was an abject apology. For what, he wasn't quite sure. He hadn't done anything wrong! Had he? Well, maybe he'd been a bit defiant and pushed things further tonight than he should have, but he hadn't done anything wrong! What was going on, here? Had Mixmaster totally lost his senses?

His teammate didn't give him time to respond with more than a sense of confusion through the gestalt bond. One armored hand seized his chin, and combat protocols spun up. He jerked his head back before surprise gave way before ingrained reflex. Mixmaster's fingers tightened in warning, however, and he flinched as the gestalt links stung throughout his body as if shocked by an electric surge. Ah. Right. Submission ended the attempt to break free, and he surrendered to his superior as a good subordinate Constructicon should. He hoped the moment of struggle would be overlooked, because otherwise he'd spend all of tomorrow hiding the dents on his face until self-repair popped them out. Mixmaster's hands were strong.

He was trying very hard to be properly meek before Mixmaster's bizarre behavior, which meant he suffered being dragged behind the chemist toward the other room like a reluctant display mannequin. The interactive guide to a Constructicon gone bonkers, now including Hook in the role of punching bag! Watch as Mixmaster became highly irrational and unreasonable, complete with an accusative finger stabbing toward Hook's face. Marvel at the lunacy!

"This!"

Hook's visor flicked between that finger and the three mechs at the table who were now looking at him. Bewildered, he unfurled a questioning tendril through the gestalt bond at them, asking for help. He tried to step away from Mixmaster only to have the pointing become more aggressive, jabbing him in the side of the face as the chemist's launched into a strident complaint.

"I'm done with this! Look at him. Just look at him. I'm done with this, I'm done with him, and you've got no reason to keep turning down my requests." The accusing finger redirected to point at Scrapper.

Who sat back in his chair, visor troubled. "It's not that simple. You know that."

"Give me one blasted reason I have to keep putting up with this. One." Mixmaster's motor roared, heat pouring off him as rage and frustration overflowed the locked box he'd apparently been stuffing it into. Hook's spark winced as it threw anger through the gestalt bond at him, but the part that hurt was how Mixmaster's spark cut away a moment later, replaced by a cold wall of nothing. "I want something I'm not getting here. That's simple enough. I can't work with this," the finger stabbed back toward him again, "any more!"

They were all looking at him: chin caught in Mixmaster's hand, bent forward with the way the chemist pulled him down, and still holding a handful of vials. This was not Hook's finest hour. He cycled a long ventilation and tried to find some way to save his dignity. He had the sinking feeling that dignity should be the least of his concerns right now. His spark felt along the gestalt bond in Mixmaster's 'direction' and came up against something that was definitely there but was just as definitely keeping him from sensing more than that. Mixmaster had chopped off his end of the bond, and even the gestalt links were transmitting nothing more than a baseline status. Usually, Hook had stats on all of his team telling him their physical condition, if they were in pain or needed fuel. Mixmaster was alive, and that was the only information Hook was prying from the links.

He was trying to dig for more. Trust him, he was trying. The trickle of confusion leaking from his end became a flurry of request pings that bounced off the closed-off portion of the links without even a receptor click acknowledging they'd been heard. It was like suddenly looking down and discovering his arm was missing. It was there, he could see it, but it wasn't part of him.

Meanwhile, Mixmaster ignored his efforts and went on ranting. "Just once, I'd like to get an honest reaction out of him. It's not too much to ask in return for what I put up with for him, right? No. I put up with him talking down about me to Soundwave - don't think I didn't hear that!" Hook's chin got an extra squeeze, and the surgeon shut his mouth on a protestation of innocence. "I was right there, you fragging glitch! I don't stop existing when you dismiss me from your illustrious presence." He huffed his vents and looked back to Scrapper. "See? See?! He always does this! There's no give to him, it's always take, take, take. I don't have to put up with the scrap I do, but have you heard me complaining about him modifying my formulas for use in surgery? Have I complained about that? No. And you know how I feel about mechs tampering with perfection!"

Hook blinked as he was shaken vigorously. Part of him was listening to Mixmaster's words, but most of him pounded at the empty wall blocking him off from the chemist's mind and spark. This was wrong. This was bad. No.

"He claimed he made that solvent he gave to Starscream to use on his nullrays, did you know that? He stole my credit. Blatantly! He didn't even try to include me. He didn't say we made it, oh no, he said he made it. It's always him. It's always got to be about him, because of him, around him, to do with him. Well, my filters are full up! Clogged!" The surgeon winced, half his visor dimming and his hands making aimless twitches toward defending himself as Mixmaster leaned down to shout right in his face. "I'm done with you! All I asked for was one slagging reaction!"

The chemist thrust him away, and Hook stumbled back a few steps from shock more than from the force of the push. His jaw worked, popping a dislocated gear back on track, but no words came out when he opened his mouth. Visor wide, he stared at the mech he could see but not feel. No. He had not expected this. Mixmaster had manic and depressive phases. He rarely got angry like this, and Hook's spark stung inside his chest from the fuming heat burning off the open ends of the gestalt bond. The eerily silent wall upset him more than the building anger from his other teammates.

Mixmaster didn't look at him. He waved a hand as if he were finished with the surgeon. "I want to hire Swindle, Scrapper. I need feedback, and I want honesty. He sent me a copy of his session purchasing guidelines, and we can put it under the budget for the repairbay without Megatron noticing. It's not that pricey. Compared to me having to deal with this every single time I run a test," another wave toward Hook, "it's worth the expense. Give me a blasted reason for refusing, or sign off on it. I'm done with this slag."

Hook turned to watch Mixmaster storm back toward the berths, horror dropping the bottom out of his tanks. It came out his mouth in a scandalized squawk instead of a gasp, because Mixmaster couldn't be serious. "You can't replace me with that low-life dealer!" That was impossible. The chemist was upset over some incidents blown way out of proportion, and he wanted to make Hook react. That was all.

Mixmaster sat back down behind Scavenger without answering. His ends of the connections were nothing but a blank slate, cold and hard.

"Swindle's no one! The very idea. A - a what, pet? You want to replace me with a pet?" The attempt at derisive laughter came out too fast, almost hysterical. "He's a money-grubbing merchant. A conmech. He'll swipe every credit you have and leave you with nothing!" His voice was pitching upward, and Hook shut himself up before his mouth ran away with him. Now more than ever, he had to uphold his appearance of uncaring disdain. He couldn't show the panic growing inside him.

No, no, Mixmaster couldn't replace him, even for taste-testing. Of course not. How ridiculous. Swindle belonged to another combiner team, for one thing. True, the merchant had a strong, independent spark, and he got along with Scavenger, and evidently Mixmaster had been researching how to hire him - but that didn't mean Hook could be set aside. Mixmaster couldn't do that. Hook was a Constructicon. They were a team. They needed him. Ha! Just let them try! Where would they be if he just walked out right now? Without him, they were…they were…

They were famous combiner team and collection of specialists. A merchant who could get anything would be a better asset to a construction team than a surgeon. He'd always been the odd one out. He'd had to learn the most to work on build sites with them. True, he brought the most skill to a repairbay, but the Constructicons weren't called the Repaircons.

A better question would ask where he would be without them?

Hook swung around to look at the table, ready to launch into a scornful diatribe against the Jeep Combaticon, but he didn't get a word out. His stinging spark attempted to plaster itself to the back of its casing in a poor attempt at hiding, instead.

Scrapper had stood up.

Hook took a small step back and swallowed, averting his visor. Meeting Scrapper's gaze was impossible. He didn't bow his helm before his leader, but it took willpower. His weak spark cowered in him because it knew it couldn't compete. At all. Ever. It was dependent on Scrapper's massive spark during merges, and outside of combining, well...Scrapper kept the team balanced. Right this moment, the team was badly out of sync. As much as Hook wanted to deny it, he couldn't wriggle out of responsibility for that. It could only be pinned on Mixmaster if the things the chemist had accused him of were false.

Scrapper picked his way through the blueprint and stopped in front of his wayward teammate. "Is what he says true?" The question came out mild. Mixmaster's cement drum made a grinding sound from behind Hook, but one hand went up to stop any comments. The engineer kept his visor on Hook. "Well? Have you been modifying his formulas?"

There was a bolt loose in one of the wall panels. Hook itched to tighten it. He kept his visor locked on it and tried to focus on the distraction. "Only as necessary," he said, choosing his words like surgical instruments. There. A surgeon adjusting needed chemical compounds on the fly during surgery. That wasn't too damning.

"Why didn't you ask Mixmaster to change them for you?" Scrapper sounded so Primus-fragged neutral.

Red flags popped up all over inside Hook's mind. He picked his words carefully, no longer caring if he sounded confident. He'd rather have the right words and sound strained. "It didn't occur to me. He's a busy mech, anyway." Trying to imply that he hadn't wanted to bother the chemist.

An implication that didn't work, if the flash of light in Scrapper's visor indicated anything. "It didn't occur to you to ask Mixmaster to modify the formulas he'd made for you. Because he's busy. Busy doing his job, which includes mixing your formulas according to what you need, when you need it."

It did sound rather stupid when parroted back at him. Hook stopped sneaking glances as his leader and stared fixedly at the loose bolt. "It was faster for me to just change them on my own."

"Oh, and now he's slow? And here you said you hadn't even thought to ask him to do it. Which is it, Hook? Did you not think of asking, or did you think he was slower than you?" A chemist dealing with his area of specialty, slower than a surgeon? The contradiction stood out like a warning sign. The surgeon's lips parted as he searched for a better excuse, but Scrapper shook his head. "I see. And what's this about speaking to Soundwave about him?"

This was not good in any way, shape, or form. "I, ah. Well. I may have said something I shouldn't have." Hook's spark scrabbled at the wall cutting him off from Mixmaster; a small retrorat frantically seeking shelter as the gyrofalcon swooped in on him. He swallowed his pride in one large, lumpy chunk and flung apologetic humility toward the end of the gestalt bond. It didn't respond.

Scrapper folded his arms and drummed his fingers. The shadow of predatory wings closed in.

Hook cycled his vents, trying to calm his pounding fuel pump. "Perhaps I should apologize." Scrapper's fingers clicked down all at once, and the surgeon cleared his throat nervously. "I…yes. Of course." His voice fell to a shamed murmur. "I'll apologize. I was wrong to have spoken about him that way."

He almost said, "spoken to Soundwave about him," but this wasn't about talking to outsiders about Mixmaster. This was about how he'd spoken. He hoped, in the wild, flailing way of someone who had no idea how to set things right, that the admittance would earn some reprieve. He'd admitted he was wrong! He owed Mixmaster an apology, and truly, he would take the opportunity to go over and persuade the chemist that this was all a mistake. Surely they could talk this out. If Mixmaster would just lower the wall between them, he'd show how sincerely he regretted how he'd acted, and he'd do better to stay in the team's good graces in the future. He would.

Except that Scrapper wasn't pressing him back, one shuffled half-step at a time, because he wanted Hook to apologize. The surgeon kept his visor turned to the side, but he retreated from his leader until Scrapper had him backed up against the wall, unable to evade him. Fingers snapped in front of his face, making Hook start in surprise. One finger stayed in front of his visor as a silent command to watch it. His fans spun uselessly as he obediently followed the finger around until it stopped between their faces, and he couldn't help but meet Scrapper's gaze. He pressed back against the wall even as he did. Nowhere left to go. Nowhere to flee.

His gestalt commander looked into his visor as if he could see right through him. "Did you tell Starscream you manufactured the solvent?"

The question had no wiggle room: yes or no. There was no way to soften the answer, but by Primus, Hook tried. "Starscream can hardly tell us apart to begin with - "

If Mixmaster had a general 'direction' Hook felt through the gestaltbond, Scrapper was the stable platform under him, the ceiling above him. No matter where he went, they stretched on endlessly above and below him, as inescapable as the bond itself. Normally, that background presence was support, but then there were times like now.

Scrapper's visor narrowed a fraction, and Hook's words cut off in a strained groan as his spark squeezed.

An arm came to rest on his shoulder, palm flat against the wall behind him as he gasped and shuddered, spark fluttering in distress. That brought Scrapper in close, head bent to watch Hook curl forward into his chest. The surgeon pressed his face into his leader's shoulder in a pathetic attempt at hiding, but two fingers under his chin forced him to straighten up and face Scrapper again.

"I did not ask for excuses," his leader said quietly, resting their forehelms together. "I asked you a simple question, Hook, about whether or not you deliberately took credit away from one of your teammates, thereby undercutting his value in the optics of our esteemed Second-in-Command. Is it true?"

Face to face, visor to visor with Scrapper, spark cringing in an ever-shrinking cage, Hook couldn't hide the strained whine of his internal systems. He also couldn't avoid looking into that judging gaze that was evaluating every panicked flicker of guilt felt over the gestalt bond. But did he try, oh, did he try. The surgeon shifted and fidgeted, crane arm scraping along the wall and hands sliding back as if feeling for an escape hatch. He didn't quite fighting the arm on his shoulder, but his head cocked and tried to draw back, away from Scrapper's forehelm. His hands left the wall to hover uncertainly at his sides, wanting to push against Scrapper's chest, but he didn't dare.

The spark wrapping around his own through the gestalt bond was pleasantly warm. A comforting strength that would go to any length to protect him, but the scary side to that coin was that it would to the same for every member of the team. Scrapper tolerated a lot because he listened to all of them. His patience was as long as the team's. That didn't mean he wouldn't crack the whip once their limits were reached.

Hook had overstepped his bounds, and Scrapper's patience wasn't infinite. "Answer the question," his leader said, gentle. As unforgiving as Megatron at his most furious, harder than any alloy made by mechs, but gentle. The spark wrapped around Hook's held the threat of punishment in its tight hold, but it used that to nudge him toward the correct course of action.

The correct action being to surrender and be guided through the formalities of admitting what everyone in these two rooms already knew. Hook's shoulders slumped, and his visor dimmed. Mixmaster's end of the gestalt links transmitted nothing, and he couldn't help but send a few more pings in his direction in vain hope for a response. There was none. There wouldn't be, not until the chemist decided to forgive him. Which wouldn't happen until Hook admitted his wrongdoing and redeemed himself somehow.

The outcome of this confrontation hadn't ever been in question. The only question was how much Scrapper would be forced to push him to confess, and then what punishment would satisfy Mixmaster. At this point, Hook was willing to pay for his infraction. The longer Mixmaster stonewalled him, the more his imagination took the idea of Swindle replacing him in the team and ran rampant. Anxiety over the rapidly multiplying scenarios had his spark vibrating more than fear of Scrapper's threat.

So Hook brought his visor back online, looked into his leader's visor, and confessed.

"Louder, Hook." Scrapper patted the surgeon on the cheek. The engineer was patient and gentle, but he was a Decepticon. He wasn't even remotely kind. "We can't hear you."

His vocalizer screeped painfully in his throat when he reset it. "It's true, Scrapper."

"What's true?" Another pat, and Hook squirmed on a spear point of humiliation. Scrapper didn't need to compress his spark a second time. He didn't have to. Hook's sense of shame was a weapon in his hands, and he used it to poke and prod the writhing thing inside Hook's spark chamber.

The surgeon sank down the wall a bit, shoulders rising around his helm. Sorry. He was sorry. He'd apologize. He'd be good.

Scrapper just looked down at him, and the grip around his spark had less give than steel.

He reset his vocalizer again and made certain his voice projected loud enough this time. He didn't want to have to repeat this. "It's true that I claimed Mixmaster's solvent as my invention and told Starscream I had manufactured it." His tone turned waspish. "There, happy?"

As soon as it slipped out, he regretted it. Scrapper tensed, and Hook's visor dimmed in a flinch as he braced for the blow.

But his leader's voice stayed calm. "Why did you take credit from your teammate, Hook?"

There was no way to brace against that question. Oh no, no no no. He didn't want to go down this road. His whole body jolted, and he couldn't stop his voice from sliding into that horrid whine, trying to plead and promise. "Scrapper..."

"I asked you a question, Hook. You will answer me." An unsubtle ripple of fire washed over the surgeon's spark, and Hook's wide, silently begging visor went wider and scared as he looked into the stirring anger in Scrapper's gaze. The engineer had a slow temper, but it could be roused by enough stubborn pride.

Frag his life.

The intakes of his throat skreeled shut, and Hook shrank inside his armor. The arm over his shoulder kept him pinned to the wall. He couldn't draw away. In fact, Scrapper leaned closer, pressing their forehelms back together and looking down into his visor. Hook's systems made audible clicks as tiny moving parts throughout his body responded to the queasy wave of nervous fear that drenched him. His gestalt links appealed to the silent watchers on the other ends, but the rest of the team stood apart from the two of them like witnesses.

He had to swallow repeatedly to get the intake above his vocalizer to open and allow sound out of his throat. Scrapper's hard glare didn't waver in the slightest when he finally got his voice working. "I - I didn't exactly mean to take credit for it. Ah, that is to say, it wasn't my intention that Starscream believe I alone had produced the solvent for him. I thought perhaps to ingratiate myself with a member of High Command, as could only benefit us as a group - "

Scrapper didn't believe a word of that. Hook's desperate assurance through the gestalt bond couldn't cover the pit of knowledge under it. He knew his error, and Scrapper's spark twined through his. He knew the truth, and Hook's coolant froze in his lines as he waited to be punished for the lie. He'd lied. He was still lying. But he couldn't stop himself from digging himself further into the hole, because admitting his guilt meant facing his past actions. The truth would roast him slowly, and the intense, earned disappointment from one and all would be the flames.

After a few minutes of listening to him babble transparent excuses, Scrapper rested a finger against Hook's lips to interrupt him. "And why did you put yourself forward as the creator instead of Mixmaster? If your intent was to promote us as a group, then surely pointing out that our soldiers can pull their weight as well as our officers would serve us better."

Hook's mouth stayed closed a long moment after Scrapper's finger left them. The fire building around his trapped spark grew painful, and his leader's level glare had him pinned. Words didn't come easily under that pressure. "I...but I'm...they're familiar with me, so it stands to reason I represent us - "

The reminder of who had control here hurt this time. Scrapper's spark constricted around him, a suffocation and compression that he had no way to fight. The other four Constructicons watched, impassive or impatient, as the surgeon collapsed forward against their leader. His collapse was quiet, shivers and shuddering gasps instead of outright screams. The gestalt bond resounded with the noise he didn't make, however. Hook's spark squealed through it, pleading for their support or pity at the very least, trying to project his pain on them but coming up against a wall of refusal in every direction. Splattered to the metal of his spark chamber, Hook's spark wailed as his leader and keeper dealt out discipline for the lies and slick-worded attempts to bypass the truth.

Scrapper's much stronger spark spanked him with pulses of heat and pressure, and he debased himself in front of the team in a groveling, apologetic rush of regrets through the gestalt bond and links. The way they didn't interfere struck cold terror through him in counter rhythm to Scrapper's punishment on his spark. It was too much like the blank space where Mixmaster should be, and his spark abandoned all dignity under their chilly regard. He couldn't stand it. On the outside, he only panted quietly, but he sobbed on the inside.

Don't do this. Don't stand by and act like he wasn't one of them. Don't discard him as too much trouble or too arrogant or whatever he done too much or too little of. He'd learn better. He'd improve. He was sorry, please stop, please forgive him, please.

The punishment stretched on for an endless minute.

Scrapper waited until the surgeon's heavy venting tapered off this time. Hook's fans rattled badly on their hubs, and he'd fallen forward, most of his weight supported by his leader. Scrapper had to push the wobbly mech back onto his feet and hold him upright until his knees could support him again.

Still cycling shallow, quick breaths, Hook swayed back and forth. He bowed his helm before his leader, now. When Scrapper used a hand on his cheek to make him look up, he made a soft, broken sound before meeting the engineer's visor.

"Why did you take credit for Mixmaster's formula, Hook?" Scrapper's voice held so much of that terrible gentleness. It coaxed as much as it commanded that Hook surrender. It told him to let Scrapper guide him. It ordered him to listen to his leader's voice and obey as he should have in the first place.

Hook quailed under it. "Scrapper, don't. Don't." Static nearly blotted out the words, spitting from his stressed vocalizer.

The unspoken plea not to be made to do this went ignored. His reaching spark was smacked down like a bad cyberhound climbing up on the furniture. A shudder wracked Hook from helm to foot, and his visor bleached pale. The Constructicon leader did not keep the balance through mercy, nor sympathy. Patience and understanding did not mean compassion.

Scrapper's thumb stroked across his cheek under the bottom edge of his visor. "Tell me why."

He'd brought this on himself. Hopeless and helpless, he whispered, "Because I deserve it."

It sounded as ridiculous as it really was once he said it out loud. The words swelled to fill the room, echoing from wall to wall, reverberating through Hook's helm and growing large enough to crush him where he stood. He deserved it. He deserved credit for the labor and brilliance of another member of his own team. He'd stolen Starscream's moment of gratitude from Mixmaster not because he believed the chemist didn't deserve credit, but because he believed he deserved it more.

A sigh came from the watching Constructicons, ex-venting in one whoosh, and it joined the silent repetition until he crumpled inside his armor. He deserved it more. He deserved it more.

Didn't he?

"Do you?" Scrapper said as if the teensy doubt had been plucked straight from his head. "It seems odd that you'd think that. You're a surgeon, not a chemist. You didn't even do the scans of the null-ray beforehand, much less do the research on what would clean it best without corroding the interior parts. Were you in the lab when Mixmaster was working? Did you help him during the distillation process? How about testing? Did you volunteer as an experimental subject for the original washes?"

Hook's fingers curled against the wall behind him, and he tried to lower his head humbly. The hand cupping his cheek wouldn't let him look away. Scrapper waited patiently for answers, and he eventually forced out a choked, "No, Scrapper."

"No…what?" An exaggerated, chiding Tsk!, and the engineer patted his cheek in a supremely condescending gesture that had Hook humiliated to the core, because this? This he deserved. He deserved so much worse, and he knew it.

His mouth shaped two or three answers before he finally found his voice amidst the heap of shame burying him alive. "N-no, I wasn't involved." Scrapper just kept looking at him, so he made himself keep going. "I didn't help. Mixmaster did everything."

The words singed his already tender, fragile spark and ripped apart the idea that he deserved anything. His mind cringed from the unflattering light of the truth, but he couldn't scurry back into his self-delusion. Hook was a cockroach exposed to light, ugly and tenacious. No matter how many times he'd been stomped on before, here he was again, skittering this way and that in a frenzy as the boot came down.

"How many surgeons were there on Cybertron, Hook?"

The numbers were a muddled blur in his mind. Panic drained his ability to think, and even if he could, he didn't want to remember the answer to that question. "I don't know," he said hoarsely.

"A lot?"

It almost couldn't be heard past the static filling his voice. "Yes."

"And you were one of them. Did you stand out in some way?" Scrapper's pat to his cheek kickstarted the negative headshake, because Hook had gone numb in horror and fear. The engineer sounded mildly annoyed but perfectly factual, as if they were talking about a minor set-back at a build site. "No, I didn't think so. You were one of a great many surgeons on Cybertron. Talented, I'm sure, perhaps one of the best, but nobody special. Not one of the greats that the major hospitals fought to hire. No, the only way you stood out was by your insufferable assumption of authority beyond your actual position. Isn't that right?" His hand nodded his rebellious subordinate's head for him, and Hook made a tiny noise in that might have been a whimper. "What changed, Hook?"

Gentle guidance, but not kind. So very unkind. Scrapper knew exactly how to punish him. The truth hurt far more than anything else.

Hook licked his lips and croaked, "I joined a team."

"Ah, yes. A team. A team made of the best in their industries. Exceptional mechs, all of us." A warm flush of approval filled the gestalt bond as Scrapper's oversized spark stroked through the team. Then it swept around to focus on Hook again, and the warmth turned bitter cold. "Together, we've come a very long way by relying on each other, by melding our talents and skills into a united team where we have equal abilities, equal opportunities, and equal credit. None of us valued more than the other, because when if one of can't contribute, he can support. When he can't support, he can learn, and his turn will come. I'm sure you can remember the many, many times teamwork has kept us alive." Even if Hook didn't remember on his own, Scrapper send a devastating hail of memories across the gestalt link. A thousand memory files clamored to open, replaying in a mass reminder of how the Constructicons had pulled through where other mechs failed. Why? Because those mechs weren't part of a team. Because the Constructicons were a team.

Becoming part of the Constructicons had changed everything. They'd become more than parts slotted in and disposed of once they were no longer useful, replaced by another part that fit the system. Hook had become more than a surgeon. He'd become a Constructicon, unique and irreplaceable.

"How many times have I saved you, Hook? Or Long Haul's taken a hit for you? Scavenger? Bonecrusher? Hmm?" Scrapper leaned in close while the surgeon's visor dimmed in abashed remembrance under the merciless barrage of memory files. "But what do you care if you owe Mixmaster your life so many times over we've lost count? He's only your teammate. Less than you." The faint protest Hook tried to interject was shushed. "What do you think it means that you believe you deserve credit more than he does? They're his skills, not yours. He's never begrudged them to you, but you take what he earns as your own like the selfish glitch you are."

That hurt. Not just having his leader's blunt, brutally honest reinforcement of the accusation boring into his spark, but being made to see himself from that angle. From the team's perspective, really. Scrapper's hand on his cheek held him still for the harsh rebuke he couldn't block out, and the surgeon shriveled inside as he saw himself as they saw him.

"Now, I want you to tell me one little thing, Hook. Are you listening?" Hook shook his head, not because he wasn't listening but because he didn't want to hear whatever came next. Scrapper's words had already turned his blind arrogance back on him and skewered his spark on the sharp, hot points. He'd rather take a beating than this slow, twisting breakage, but his leader held him still as he said, "Tell me precisely why you deserved that moment of Starscream's gratitude more than Mixmaster."

He stood there. He just stood there. Trembling faintly, visor wide in unconscious pleading, Hook stood there against the wall even after Scrapper let his hand fall and stepped away from him. The surgeon's spark flickered in his chest like a fitful candle flame, and his fuel pump thudded in dread so deep it shook his struts with every thump. He'd been put on the spot. From every direction came an expectant hush. They were waiting for him to answer. Their optics drilled into him from all around.

He had to answer. Scrapper's words would have been enough pressure without the threat of further punishment looming over him. Shame had grilled Hook's justifications and poor excuses for logic down into a fine repast, and now it was time to eat his own mortifying, humiliatingly self-centered words.

He shut off his visor and clenched his hands into fists. The vials had long since been dropped to the ground, strewn around his feet.

"Because I'm more important than he is." It was a struggle to get the words out through the hitches and hiccups of his straining ventilation system, and his vocalizer sounded like he'd been tortured for days instead of merely verbally flayed.

Scrapper didn't say anything. None of the other five Constructicons said anything. They only sat and watched him. Even Mixmaster had turned to look.

The silence brought his words back to recycle over. And over. And over again.

Hook stared at the scattered vials on the floor. His words rang false in his audios, but he couldn't stop hearing them. Every repetition made him listen to himself again, made him really hear what he'd said, in the context of where he stood right this minute and who was here with him. His crane arm screeched against the wall as he pressed back into it as hard as he could, but there was no escape from his own judgment. Inside Hook, his spark coiled into a tormented ball of pitiless self-analysis. He pored over every action and word, stripping the conceit away to reveal how much he'd deluded himself, and misery drowned him as reality cruelly whipped him to ribbons. The most effective punishments were those inflicted by a mech on himself.

That didn't mean Scrapper wasn't going to make him suffer for what he'd done. When the silence ended at last, it ended via the normal sounds of life resuming. The other Constructicons spoke amongst themselves. Scrapper turned his back to the surgeon and went back to the table to pick up his conversation with Long Haul as if nothing had happened. Mixmaster continued repairing Scavenger's back. The constant, low sound of metal-on-metal permeated the room again as mechs brushed hands, touched arms, let their legs rest alongside each other. Bonecrusher got up to fetch everyone's ration cubes from the dispenser, assuming one of Hook's regular duties as his own as if it were completely natural that he did so. It was. He was the lowest ranking Constructicon in the room, so of course he was the one who fixed up Scavenger's cube with an extra mineral packet and dusted the surface of Long Haul's cube with iron filings. Without interrupting anything the others were doing, he delivered their cubes and waited for their approval of his doctoring before going back to his seat.

The night went on as if Hook had never entered the room, as if he didn't exist. He wasn't standing there in the middle of their quarters stripped of his illusions and exposed for the individual he thought of himself as. The Constructicons didn't see him. They looked right through him. Let him be an individual, if that's what he wanted. After what he'd admitted, they were willing to oblige that fantasy. If he wanted to think himself as better than all of them, as above them in every way, then he wasn't one of them. The gestalt bond powered by Scrapper's massive spark wasn't easy to shut out, as Hook knew full well, but Scrapper could choose to close it off.

Which was what he did, and Hook stood there separated out, spark abruptly cold. Every gestalt link he had went dead. The gestalt bond became a smooth box as he was suddenly confined to his own body and spark chamber. He was blinded, deafened, stunted, and crippled. All he could hear, see, feel, and touch was what he sensed, by himself and alone. He was Hook, only and just Hook, standing there against the wall.

He wasn't part of the team, and therefore he was the least valuable, least important mech in the room. He might as well not exist for how much he meant to them. And what was he worth outside the Constructicons? He was one surgeon on his own among the Decepticons. He'd seen how long medics lasted in this faction if they didn't gang up together. Their positions didn't protect them, and their deaths simply meant that another medic had to be found to slot into the empty spot. They didn't matter. They were replaceable, faceless mechs; pieces of the system, used up and discarded.

Without the Constructicons, he was nobody. Without Mixmaster, he was nothing. Important? Hardly. Deserving? Not in the least.

Hook had never felt smaller in his life. Head down, shoulders hunched, he stood in disgrace against the wall for the rest of the evening, coldly ignored. It was agonizing to stand silently through the discussion of Scrapper's design, but he wasn't part of the team. He had no right to speak up, and they had no reason to listen to his opinion. What did a surgeon know about a build team's work?

He endured the discussion, the tweaks to the blueprint, the argument over which project to start next, even the mutual polishing session held after the group trekked to the washracks and back. He fidgeted in place, hands opening and closing helplessly behind him, but he kept his silence. He was no one. He was nothing. He was a lowly Decepticon surgeon, good enough to be an officer but not even fit to run a polishing cloth over a Constructicon's plating. What did he have to be proud about? His skill? These mechs didn't care.

After the lights dimmed and everyone settled themselves for recharge, he dared move. It was difficult to walk what with how hard he shivered in misery and withdrawal. Being alone did things to his processors that they weren't meant to handle anymore. The room spun, and he had to cling to a bunk corner to stay upright when a wave of vertigo nearly floored him. Oh, Primus. He couldn't deal with this. His spark whirled in his chest, clawing desperately at the boundaries confining it, and he was sorry.

He fumbled clumsily boosting up onto the second bunk up on the wall, but Scrapper didn't react to the surgeon clattering onto the berth beside him. He didn't even react when Hook leaned over him to stare down, visor starving and needy. Hook bit his lip and risked jostling him. His fuel pump seized when the engineer didn't react for a long moment.

A cycle of air pent-up by his closed vents rushed out as a second careful jostle brought the mech out of recharge. The red visor lit to stare up at him, impassive. The gestalt links stayed dead. There wasn't even a hint of what he thought, seeing Hook hovering over him like this.

He tried to say something, Scrapper's name if nothing else, but his vocalizer wouldn't work. Hook glanced away, then brought his visor back. Scrapper stared. Hook had to look away again, unable to meet his gaze, but sight was a connection. Nothing but an acknowledgement that yes, Scrapper saw him, but that was more than nothing. If that was all he'd be allowed, then he'd use it. Frag, he'd treasure it. Something was better than nothing.

Hook ducked his helm and looked at his leader from the top edge of his visor, submitting. Demonstrating his subservience to his superiors through basic body language was all he had left, and he wanted to do it. He wanted to obey. He met Scrapper's gaze and did his level best to communicate abject apology through that look before he had to drop his head.

A few more repetitions of the meek, apologetic act, and the engineer puffed air out his vents. He shook his head, but not angrily. He seemed more resigned than anything else. Hook's tanks lurched sickly as Scrapper scrunched about on the berth, turning onto his side, but the change in position left half the berth open. Since Scrapper immediately cycled back down into recharge, that left the surgeon without instructions.

Did he dare..?

The surgeon cautiously laid down, tensed all the while. He halfway expected to be angrily shoved to the floor for presuming any sort of forgiveness had been earned. After half an hour of waiting, shaking slightly, he inched close enough to press along Scrapper's back kibble. His vents crimped closed, expecting a sudden explosion, but nothing happened. Cables throughout his body released, like springs abruptly uncoiling, and his hands grasped for whatever they could hold onto. He had no intention of letting go.

It wasn't the intertwined support of the gestalt bond. It wasn't the physical presence of the gestalt links. But it was plating against plating, and the living thrum of his teammate permitting him to believe he was important enough to touch, deserving enough to be allowed this much contact. Anything more than that, he'd have to earn in the morning. Perhaps even over the course of an entire day, and Hook shuddered to imagine being deprived of the team that long. No, Scrapper wouldn't do that to him.

Although…Mixmaster had been extremely angry. He'd wanted to replace him with Swindle.

Hook managed to glue himself closer, visions of rejection running through his head. Internal balance had to be maintained, but only Scrapper knew what it would take to bring the Constructicons back into sync again. Hook could only imagine the price he'd have to pay to be allowed to stay.

It was a very long night.

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[ A/N: Thank you, Surefall!]