Blackarachnia was woken from recharge by the sound of shouting. All four of her optics flickered online, and she groggily stood up, trudging out of her recharge berth so that she could find someone to bitch at.

The moment that she set foot outside her quarters, Blackarachnia stepped smack in to Blitzwing. The larger mech knocked her backwards.

"You've got four eyes, so VATCH VHERE YOU'RE GOING, you eight legged freak!" Hothead bellowed at her.

Blackarachnia moved closer to him, forelegs twitching, and Blitzwing warily took a step back. As she was still too tired to think of a snappy comeback, she just snarled at him, then rubbed at her temples. "What the frag is going on?"

Blitzwing switched over to Icy, who nodded in the direction of the ship's bridge. "Starscream and Megatron are having another, ah, disagreement."

"What, again? Ugh." Blackarachnia flinched as their conversation was briefly interrupted by a pained scream. It definitely wasn't Megatron's. "...Do they have to disagree so loudly?"

Blitzwing almost smiled. "If you vant to tell zem to keep it down, be my guest."

"I think I'll pass, thank you. It sounds like he's murdering him in there."

There was a whoosh as Icy changed to Random. "You get used to it after ze first five hundred stella cycles or so. Maybe we can help each other take our minds off it. SLUMBER PARTY!"

Blackarachnia gave him a withering stare. "Can I talk to Icy again?"

"You like Icy better?" Random-Blitzwing looked crestfallen. "DAMMIT. Wimmin alvays go for ze brooding, quiet type!" He switched back to Icy.

Blackarachnia peered at him. That's interesting. He's never changed personalities by request before.

She crossed her arms, and leaned against the wall of the corridor. By the sounds of it, it didn't seem like she'd be getting back to sleep any time soon. Starscream was yelling, "No, no, it was an accident!" over and over and over. Blackarachnia figured that his fight with Megatron must have started fairly recently, as Starscream was still in the 'denial' stage. That meant he had four more stages to get through: next came anger, then bargaining. Then it'd be depression, and finally acceptance. Oh joy. This could take a while.

"Why doesn't Megatron just kill him?" she muttered. At least then she might get some peace.

Blitzwing shrugged. "How many Decepticons do you know, other zan us?"

"Not many."

"Vell, zere you go. It's not as if Megatron has a line of mechs queuing up to take Starscream's place. Besides, zey've been fighting with each other since long before you joined us, and zey'll probably still be fighting until ze day zey go offline. It's a... habit zey have. Everyone needs someving that's constant and reliable in in zere lives."

Blackarachnia smirked slightly. "Who started it?"

The question caught Blitzwing off guard. "Vat?"

"I mean, who started their enmity? Something must've happened in the past to make them hate each other so much. Did Megatron do something to anger Starscream, or did Starscream do something to anger Megatron?"

Blitzwing's optics flickered in thought. "I... can't really remember. It's been so long."

There was a loud crash, and they heard Megatron shout a particularly colorful epithet. Blackarachnia would have guessed that his voice contained... say, 70 rage, and 30 pain. It sounded like Starscream was fighting back. His triumph was probably short-lived, though, as Starscream could soon be heard pleading and screaming again.

Blackarachnia didn't like the Autobots much, but at least when they beat the slag out of each other, they were discreet about it.

There was a second crash from the direction of the bridge, like something heavy had been thrown at a wall.

"What are you doing out here, anyway?" Blackarachnia muttered at Blitzwing.

He switched over to Random. "I like to sneak in to your room and vatch you sleep!"

Blackarachnia fixed him with a stare that would have struck a lesser mech dead. If she had eye lazers, Blitzwing would have been a smoking hold in the ground. "Oh, you had BETTER be joking."

Random changed to Hothead. "I AM joking, you humorless harridan."

She inched closer to him, standing on her toes so that she could look him level in the optics. "If you..." she began, then realized something. Blackarachnia canted her head to one side, and strained her audio sensors. "Huh. I can't hear Megatron and Starscream any more."

Hothead switched to Icy. "Starscream must be unconscious. You might as vell return to recharge before he wakes up and zey start making noise again." Icy then switched to Random, who waved at her. "Go get your beauty sleep. You NEED IT. Night-night!"

She glared at him. Without a word, Blackarachnia stepped back in to her quarters, making sure that the door was well and truly locked behind her.