Title: nothing you can say
Prompt: Schwellenangst - (German, n.) Fear embarking on something new; fear of crossing a threshold. (Prompt #3- Written for tf_speedwriting)
Warnings: None, unless you count Vortex being a supreme ass.
Rating: K+
Summary: Caring is not an advantage, and Vortex strives to keep it that way.
The very first time he drags Brawl back to Blast Off, and waits to hear how the mech fairs under Hook's meticulous care, he only has an inkling. By the time he's sitting beside Swindle in his room, waiting for him to wake up, Vortex knows.
This is why he doesn't wait, and lets the door slide close without looking back.
His mind is telling him to bolt for find the nearest piece of slag he can get his hands on and rip him apart, inside out. Vortex tries to deny it, but he is Onslaught's teammate and will never play the fool, but because there is just enough of Blast Off in him, he sits down and thinks.
To care is to hinder, to become prey, to be vulnerable, to be careless, to be thrown wide open into unfamiliar land that Vortex doesn't want cross into, because he's never known weakness and doesn't plan to start.
The part of him that's Brawl urges him to rush the problem head on, but Swindle is pricking at the edges, telling him to weigh the benefits and consequences. What's left that belongs to him doesn't know what to do—irritating him beyond belief—so he stays there until he does.
He leaves to go back to Swindle, who is just waking from a missile to the chest. The salesmech has this glazed yet calculating look on his face, which Vortex always suspects means he was checking his accounts. To some a false god, to Swindle, real cash.
"What do you want?" his tone is controlled and neutral, because frag if Swindle hasn't learned that hanging around his teammates. Vortex gives him a disdainful onceover, not realizing what he's picked up from Blast Off.
"We should've left you there you know" he says. He casually scratches his leg.
"Of course you should've" his purple optics narrow in perception of a mind game.
"It's your own slagging fault. Going after that stash"
"Mhm" Swindle takes out a data pad.
"You've never contributed anything useful"
"Yep" he stares intently at the pad, and Vortex amps up his game.
"You ever think about why I'm a raging sociopath, and you're the most hated one in the team?"
"All the time" he knows the complex Cybertronians scrawl isn't that interesting.
"Brawl only hangs around, cause he's too stupid to be with anyone else"
"Don't I know it"
"You should've stayed in the detention center"
The data pad cracks under a grip Vortex is unaware his teammate has. Somewhat impressive. Swindle glares at him, optics purple, but blazing white heat at the copter. He leaves, pushing roughly past, and Vortex stays for a moment contemplating.
There's only a slight waver in that hidden, calculating mind of his, and he decides the current line is acceptable enough.
-u-
He still pulls the businessmech back from walking into a trap the week after. He doesn't receive a thank you, and prefers it that way.
-u-
It's not that he willingly hangs out with Brawl, the tank just tags along. He's sure the tank views him at the very least a companion, but while he isn't a loner—that position was held by their lovely shuttle—he doesn't do the whole 'companion' thing.
It's still fun though, because you can never underestimate the stupidity of a tank.
"Just do it, Brawl"
"You're sure about this?" he looks nervously at the copter, who sighs. Primus, his teammate's stupidity makes it harder to mess with him at times.
"Just shoot it. It'll break, flood, and we'll have tons of dead squishies after. Big fun"
Brawl still looks at the pile of rocks just barely containing the white rapids of the river above them, like an omen. It isn't like Vortex was actually lying.
"You're sure"
"Positive" he leaps up in the air, ready to fly away once the makeshift dam breaks.
"Really sure?"
"Brawl" he puts on a dangerous edge that usually get his prisoners talking, and the tank shoots. The water comes pouring out, and smashes into Brawl sending him careening with the rapids down the canyon. Vortex lets out a great big guffaw. Like he said, big fun.
When he finally goes to look for the tank he sees him lying dazed in wet mud and sunken rocks. He lands, smiling behind his mask, and peers down at his teammate.
"You okay there Brawl?" the tank doesn't answer, and when he finally does it's the quietest Vortex's ever head him.
"You really are a real fragger. You know that Vortex?"
This affects him somewhat, because Brawl has disrupted his carefully calculated formula. Talk to tank, convince tank to do something stupid, tank faces consequences, and gets madder than Starscream after a failed coup. Not, tank acts sad and places a temporary guilt complex on the copter.
Temporary being the key word, because Vortex doesn't let is become anything else.
-u-
It does transfer from temporary to long-term, he finds. The proverbial itch he can't scratch, he finds himself annoyed at all parties—himself included—that he feels the need to actually be politely curt with Swindle long enough for him to collect all ten seasons of X-men to appease the tank. Brawl accepts it with a surprised happiness, and Vortex finds things back to normal.
-u-
By now he's accepted himself as a subject to the mad whims of the gestalt bond, to ensure optimal teamwork, but it doesn't mean he given up his old habits.
"Don't touch that" he stops just shy of pressing one of Blast Off's biggest and shiniest buttons.
"Oops" it's a sinister innocence.
"Sit back down, or I'll eject you into space"
"Sure you will" they both know it's an empty threat until they break the atmosphere.
It's quiet for a time, but Vortex hears what sounds like an exasperated and irritated huff through his teammate's cargo bay, and homes in immediately.
"Something wrong?"
"What the frag is wrong with you?" it wasn't an unheard question, but out of place though Vortex doesn't show his surprise.
"Tons of things. I'm sure you and everyone who's ever met me can get together and make a list"
"What'd you think it would accomplish?'
"You haven't told me so I can't know"
"What you said to Swindle"
"Aww, Blast Off you really do care" he swears he see the shuttle's frame constrict. Thinks that maybe he might just throw him out into the void.
"I don't. We need to be united to survive, and any conflict coming from within the team is always between you two"
"Onslaught put you up to it?"
"You're lucky it wasn't him"
"Brawl then"
"For some ridiculous reason he thinks I can talk some sense into you"
"Don't ask me" if he were truthful he'd admit that only Blast Off and Onslaught could really have an effect on him. The latter through sheer force and enough threats of bodily harm that he'd at least make an attempt to be sneaky, and the latter because Vortex actually kind of likes him. Shamefully enough.
"Well what the frag do you want me to do?" the shuttle rumbles at the tone.
"What do you think?"
-u-
He will never say he's sorry. In the end he actually robs one big aft bank and chucks all the money in front of the salesmech's door telling him, "Go, jump around, be merry, roll around in that stuff or whatever it is you do."
Swindle doesn't do any of that, but Vortex figures that getting their conversations beyond one word sentences is close enough.
-u-
When it comes to his commander Vortex isn't sure, because he never likes authority figures on principle, though he's stuck with this one for the rest of his life. Frag, this one got him put in a box for a couple thousand vorns and that at the very least warrants a firmly held grudge.
He doesn't find himself that angry though, and he won't bring himself to pretend. Gestalt bond—again—but he thinks part of it might be because he'd flung himself into the plot as hard as Onslaught had.
He figures that making the mech fish him out of his messes all the time, is revenge enough anyways.
"Tell me why," Onslaught's fingers are drumming against his desk, "I shouldn't throw you in the brig to rot for the rest of eternity"
"Because you'd miss me?" there is a definite rhythm in his fingers. Tap, tap, tap.
"No I wouldn't"
Tap, tap, tap.
"I'm hurt Ons, really"
Tap, tap, tap.
"No you aren't"
Tap, tap, tap.
"Well really if you look at this in retrospect to that whole mess with Shockwave, you've really done worse than I ever have"
Tap, tap, crunch.
The table bends under Onslaught's iron grip, and Vortex knows he's gone too far. He's already cataloguing the number of injuries, he'll be sent to the medical bay for, but Onslaught never moves from behind his desk.
"Dismissed"
-u-
This one irks him more than the rest, because it causes him the most trouble later on. Onslaught is brick wall for the next few weeks, and he finally thinks Frag this and jumps him in the hallway.
"I'm an aft okay, I'll admit it" it's awkward to say, because he's in a chokehold, while a knife points precariously at his commander's throat.
He's let go though, and Onslaught starts acknowledging his existence again. Vortex is oddly pleased by this.
-u-
Uncertainty in crossing a line was itself a weakness, and Vortex finally succumbs. He still never admits it in public. It's a tenuous balance, being in a gestalt and a Decepticon. One is going to win out over the other.
Vortex knows which one.