A/N: I completely forgot I never cross-posted this- turns out I never even titled it. Not terribly keen on the title I finally settled on, but I wanted it crossed before the new year and so here we are. I can always change it later, I guess... Anyway, enjoy!

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"What we need," said Anode as she stared across the bar at a map to their latest objective, "is a diversion."

"What we need," said Lug as she stared across the bar at the heavily-armed– and multi-armed– behemoth of an organic who was currently in possession of the map to their latest objective, "is a new job. In a nice, quiet part of town on some nice, quiet planet."

Anode scoffed as she always did when Lug suggested settling down and threw back a swallow of her drink, face screwing up when she failed to get all of it past her tongue and directly into her throat. She gagged a little but kept it all down, leaning heavily on the table. Lug frowned at her, concerned but without sympathy. Still sputtering, Anode leaned heavy across the table and demanded, "Name one job that would fulfill us the way this one does."

Lug leaned back and crossed her arms, suggesting, "One that keeps fuel in our tanks and doesn't get us nearly killed on alternate weekends, is what I was thinking."

"We'd both be bored into stasis within a week, and who would feed us then?" Anode asked, practically crawling onto the tabletop to make up for the distance Lug had put between them. She shot a look back at their mark, who seemed to be haggling with a potential buyer, before settling her attention back upon Lug. "Listen, we've discussed this– this job will keep us in energon for weeks, and that's after we've fixed our ship's engines– or at least one of them. Or at least most of one of them. But not if we don't get our hands on that map!"

Making a disgusted noise, Lug leaned back even further and threw her hands up in the air, clutching for patience she didn't have. For the umpteenth time, she kicked herself for not grilling Anode about the job before going along with it. She was prepared to go into the umpteenth, "Then you shouldn't have taken the job!" lecture in lieu of having done the smart thing the first time, but cut herself off with a start when one hand collided with warm metal behind her.

Craning her neck around and then up, Lug flinched to find a glare cast down on her from a heavy-duty mech who looked as though he'd at least doubled his already substantial weight in additional armaments.

"Sorry," she sputtered, trying to scoot her chair forward and away from him but not making much headway with her feet so high off the ground, "I didn't–"

"Watch it, runt," the large mech snapped, shoving Lug so hard that she felt her back plating buckle under his hand at the same time her chest got dinged up on the table edge.

Anode's reaction seemed to happen in slow motion. She knocked back the rest of her drink without so much as a wince and tossed the glass aside to land where it may. In one smooth, fluid motion, she stood, took up her chair by its back and swung it over Lug's head. Lug didn't turn quickly enough to see it connect, but she did see the stranger stumble and fall to a knee, clutching at the new dent in his lip and pulling his fingers away pink.

Staring down at him, Lug couldn't help the thought, The furniture here sure is sturdy. Still in shock, she also couldn't help a short squawk of laughter, loud in the suddenly quiet bar.

As if she'd given a command, time sped back up. The stranger snarled, mostly engine, and lunged at Anode. The rest of the bar dissolved into chaos as though all they'd been waiting for was for someone else to strike the first blow. Lug hit the ground, careful not to look Anode's way lest her concern distract her, and hurried on her hands and knees. It was a good time to be so small, as she easily made her way between and around the feet of the other bar patrons towards the booth where their mark had been positioned.

Said mark was standing proud in the midst of the fight, two fists pounding their chest and two more holding aloft their struggling buyer while yet two more that Lug hadn't even seen punched said buyer in the head. Lug supposed that their negotiations hadn't gone well. In any case, she was far more concerned with the datapad still resting on the tabletop behind them, containing the map which Anode had started what was shaping up to be a full scale riot to secure. Trying not to pay too much attention to which pained grunts and shouts behind her sounded like Anode's, Lug risked getting her feet under her and, when the mark howled up at the ceiling in what she took to be glee, dashed forward and around them to snatch the datapad off the table.

If she'd realized they had eyes in the back of their head, she'd have been more cautious. As it was, she glanced around just in time to see those eyes narrow at her before they turned their head one hundred and eighty degrees and glared with their primary eyes.

"Excuse me," she blurted, scrambling back into the protection of the brawl.

Behind her, they roared, and the next thing she knew, the would-be buyer was sailing over her head to crash at her feet, stopping her short. Plating pulled so tight that it didn't rattle even as she shook from her engine outward, Lug half-turned to see the mark coming at her. Time seemed to slow down again, their every motion clear, but she was moving just as slow, she was too slow–

"Lug!"

And just like that, just like earlier, time sped up again. A green blur darted at her out of the crowd and then she was airborne, tucking the map away in her chest compartment and transforming on instinct. She bounced off Anode's back, systems hiccuping, before settling in properly and winding her straps tight around Anode's shoulders. She didn't have a good view of what happened next, but she sure felt it when Anode threw herself into a backflip and she felt the impact of Anode's heels on what she assumed from the grunt she heard to be the organic's chin. The world spun around her as Anode followed through, momentum not so much as hitched by the blow.

Then they were running, dodging around and jumping over the other combatants. The exhaust-thick air of outside was a blessing as the door slammed heavy behind them and they kept running. Anode twisted through back alleys and over fences with no apparent destination in mind. When at last she came to a stop, she skidded through trash and ducked into a shadow, tugging at one of Lug's straps to indicate she should get off.

"Did we lose them?" Lug gasped as she found her feet under her once again. "Did they follow us?"

"Where'd you run off to?" Anode spoke right over her, grabbing her close and looking over her for injuries. "You just disappeared– in the middle of that mess! And you call me reckless!"

Lug gaped, then shook Anode off, indignant. "What do you mean, where'd I run off to? I was making good use of your diversion, wasn't I?" As if to prove herself, she pulled the map out and waved it under Anode's nose. As an afterthought, she added, "And you are reckless!"

"You got it?" Anode's eyes went bright and she snatched the datapad, switching it on and flipping through its contents to confirm. "This is what you ran off for?" Her smile went sly as she looked over it at Lug. "There's the adventurer in you!"

Lug's jaw worked around her bewilderment and she wondered if maybe she'd suffered some processor damage without realizing. More likely, she decided, it was Anode whose processor was on the fritz, after that brawl. She demanded, "What are you talking about? Wasn't I meant to get it?"

Anode's optics blinked through a reset and puzzlement lined her face, like it was Lug who wasn't making sense. There was no visible damage to her head, but then Lug could only see half of it and she'd always said Anode was hard-headed anyway.

"When you swung your chair at that jerk," Lug said slowly. "When you started the fight– our diversion?"

"Diversion?" Anode muttered, then realization lit up over her. "Oh, right, our diversion!" She paid too much attention to turning the datapad off again before handing it back, stood too quickly and didn't look at Lug. "Right, of course, that's what I did. Good teamwork back–"

"Hold it," said Lug, who was no fool despite what the company she kept– and what that company talked her into doing– suggested. She tucked the datapad away and put her hands on her hips. "If that wasn't meant to be our diversion, just what did you think you were playing at?"

"Well–"

"It hasn't been that long since you got into a fight," Lug insisted, "and you're not drunk–"

"He shoved you," Anode cut in, plating rippling even as her voice went hard. Her hands drifted back to Lug's chest, fingers skimming over the fresh ding and then walking around her sides and finding the newest dent in her back by touch. She leaned forward, tucking Lug against her chest, to peer at it over her shoulder. Quiet, intimate in their dirty little hiding place, she said against Lug's audial, "He dented you. You can't think I'd let him get away with that."

Unsure what to say, Lug wrapped her arms around Anode in turn, nuzzling reassurance against her shoulder. She felt Anode's fingertips open at her back, medical instruments assessing the damage. She could tell for herself that it wasn't that bad– she just needed the dents popped out, really– but still Anode's engine growled the low note of a predator. Lug tightened the embrace, silently imploring Anode not to dash back and finish what she'd started, before pulling away and shaking her off again.

"Come on," she said, taking Anode's hands in hers, the retreating instruments tickling her palms, and urging Anode to her feet. "Let's go to work."

Anode nodded and rolled her shoulders, casting a glare back in what Lug supposed was the general direction of the bar before twining her fingers in Lug's and heading off in what Lug hoped was the general direction of their ship. The fight they'd left behind echoed in the air, or maybe it was just that bad of a neighborhood.

"For what it's worth, if someone had struck you," said Lug, grinning at the eye ridge Anode quirked at her, "I'd've cheered you on so hard while you beat them silly."