Disclaimer: Even though my collection of memorabilia continues to grow, I still do not own the characters. Hastak is exceedingly lucky. The slaggers...
A/N: Hanging around the tfbunnyfarm is very dangerous to my health and social life. I adopted a bunny from femmeside there, which proceeded to eat my face. It's been festering in notebooks and the dark recesses of my brain since January. Only recently have I gotten the nerve to actually write it. Hence this posting. Un-beta'd, though not for lack of trying. ;-)
Warnings: This will be AU. There is a very small possibility of slash (if you believe that our buddies have a 'gender', that is) occurring later on. Last, but probably most frightening: I use British spelling.
I. The Setup
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They were losing.
All right, perhaps that wasn't the exact term to use. What to call it though, when the ragtag army was scrambling to hold onto even their most meagre defences? Prowl stretched briefly before diving back into the pile of his datapads. The problem was that the majority of their troops simply weren't military material. Too many scientists and civilians forced to make sudden and abrupt changes into an armed force. They learned eventually, for it was learn or be offlined, but those first few vorns as the Autobots struggled to get adjusted still resonated deeply. They'd lost a lot of good mechs and femmes, and their depleted numbers were still causing them to scrabble to gain even a semblance of a win.
In other words, the Autobots were in desperate need of a miracle.
The late afternoon light glinted off the edge of the datapad as the door hissed open and Prowl glanced up sharply. There hadn't been anything else scheduled for the cycle and he had been hoping to start work on some of the newest reports which had begun trickling in from the latest round of patrols. Hoping against all hope in fact, that they contained something other than the news of more dead.
Two mechs strode in, steps firm and purposeful. One was red, the other yellow, both streamlined and sleek despite their large frames. Light played across their armour and faces, managing not to soften their sculpted features but showcase the clean lines. More to the point, they were completely unfamiliar. They'd never set foot on this base before.
Prowl stood, wary for all that he hid it quite well. The newcomers were not particularly tall, though still several feet taller than the tactician himself. Their advantage in height was not what had him on edge however; he'd seen mechs far larger. No, it was the sheer sense of competence roiling from their forms. These two were obviously fighters. It was clear from their graceful steps and the heavy armour that was dented and scored with recent laser-fire.
"Can I help you?"
"You Prowl?"
The tactician levelled a firm stare at the red mech. "I am."
"We're here to sign up," said the yellow one shortly. "This is the only base we know of for a hundred kilos, and some minibot told us to come in and talk to you."
Prowl cycled air wearily and resisted the urge to rub at the bridge between his optics. Security was extremely lacking if two unknowns could just waltz straight into his office. He would have to remind everyone of the need for secrecy and caution.... again. At least these two didn't seem inclined to shoot him. Without looking away from the brightly coloured pair, he reached into his desk and withdrew two datapads. "Sit. You'll have to fill these out and answer some questions. I'll also need proof of identification."
The strangers settled their gleaming bulks into the chairs he indicated and simultaneously set their identification chips upon the table, where they seemed quite small next to the towering piles. Prowl made no move to pick them up. "Names?"
There may have been an instant where the pair glanced at each other for confirmation, but if there was, the tactician missed it. The yellow mech subspaced two stylus pens and set one of them in his companion's hand before the red could even hold it out. He bent instantly to his task, appearing to read through each of the questions carefully before filling the fields in with an almost graceless script.
The red mech allowed a disarming grin to cross his face. "'M Sideswipe."
"Sunstreaker," the other allowed, not bothering to look up.
Prowl's optics narrowed and he looked a bit harder at the bowed golden head: that name rang a distant chime, but nothing more. He put the matter aside and instead drew the chips closer for an inspection. The creation dates listed them both as just over 80 vorns, older than he would have thought. He scanned the rest of the information quickly, noting that Sunstreaker had had a minor infraction concerning violence but no major injuries for any of the parties concerned. Other than that, his record was clean.
Once he'd reassured himself that he didn't have a pair of criminals on his servos (and had scanned both chips to ensure that they were not forgeries), he placed the chips back onto the table. "If you don't mind my asking," he said in a tone that clearly meant he was not at all concerned about how they might take it, "why haven't you joined a side yet? You're listed as civilians, and to be honest, most civilians have long since gotten involved somehow."
This was an understatement. There was no longer a city on Cybertron that could properly call itself 'neutral'. There hadn't been something like that for deca-vorns now. Small sub-vectors in certain cities were comprised of Neutrals but even so, depending on the city, those particular mechs and femmes tended to be inclined to lean favourably in direction or the other. Optics once more lingering on the dented armour, he was rather relieved that these two had been of a processor to join the Autobots.
"We wanted to stay uninvolved for as long as possible," Sideswipe said, retrieving both identification chips and subspacing them. "It worked, to a point anyway. There was enough money all right, there's still enough. Our jobs were pretty, shall we say, lucrative."
"And what exactly were they?"
The red mech settled into his seat, somehow managing to lounge in a straight-backed chair. "My Creators always said that I could sell Primus an empty crate and have him think it was a great bargain. All I did was put my... skills to use."
Prowl raised an optic ridge. That could be taken any number of ways, and he said as much.
A huff of air expelled from Sunstreaker's vents in something that could probably be called a snort. Sideswipe jostled his arm in playful retaliation. "You're hilarious, Sunshine." To the tactician he grinned and elaborated. "Merchant. I had a number of warehouses and contacts over the entire planet before it all went up in a fiery explosion thanks to the 'Cons. I'd done pretty good for myself up 'til then but even so, Sunstreaker did better."
A golden hand lifted the stylus from the datapad and tapped out a staccato rhythm on the arm of the chair. For a klik, it seemed as if he would say nothing at all, until another jab from his companion forced him to speak. "An artist." Blue optics glared, first at Sideswipe who merely shrugged off the dark look, then more challengingly at Prowl.
The tactician barely noticed: the extra information was enough to jostle his memory banks into recognition. "Yes, that's why your name seemed familiar. You painted the piece depicting Praxus at twilight that hangs in the main gallery there." He eyed Sunstreaker speculatively, noted the heating of the facial plates that indicated slight embarrassment. "You're very good."
Sideswipe grinned widely and his companion turned slightly to say, "If you poke me one more time, I'll weld your servos to your aft and sell you as a new piece."
"Like Pit you would."
"'Course, I'd probably have to weld your mouth shut too," Sunstreaker mused, a contemplative look stealing over his face.
Deciding that it might be prudent to head off such activities, Prowl continued hastily, "These jobs have sustained you up until recently?"
"Not for the past five vorns," Sideswipe said, sobering. "The 'Cons made it difficult to find... eh, 'legal' forms of work after awhile." There was a pause, and Prowl got the distinct feeling that he was struggling to decide exactly how much he should reveal. "I admit to getting mixed up with some illicit things. Some of my previous contacts knew others, and I worked with a number of different mechs before giving up on that line of business altogether. I ended up with a number of new talents, though."
The self-satisfied smirk accompanying this admission was enough to make Prowl want to demand to see the identification chips again. He was now harbouring a sneaking suspicion that they weren't quite as accurate as they had first appeared. However, he allowed the moment to pass. As he was not particularly in the habit of lying to anyone, much less himself, he was willing to admit he was actually rather interested. "Then what have you been doing since?"
Surprisingly enough, it was Sunstreaker who responded. "After the Towers fell, there wasn't any work for us at all. Even the black market lost its edge once there were no nobles willing to unload credits. We talked a bit and decided to leave the northern sectors for awhile. We ended up in Kaon in the gladiator pits. Been there until just a few cycles ago."
Prowl's optic ridge rose a bit in spite of himself. Impressive, if they'd managed to last in the pits that long.
"There's a lot of pressure to join up with the Decepticons there. Especially when you win as much as we did." Slouching even further, so far that the tactician wondered how the pit his aft was even still on the seat at all, Sideswipe shrugged. "We might of been Neutral for as long as we could, but we never meant to side with them. We decided a long time ago that if it ever came to it, the Autobots would gain two new members. So here we are."
Prowl cycled air through his vents as he considered this. Had the pair been simple civilians, he may have discarded them entirely and sent them somewhere else to fill out their forms. Gladiators, on the other hand... The Autobots were in desperate need of fighters. There were always heavy casualties on the field, but where most mechs were continuing to get themselves slagged was the frontlines.
The officers, Prowl and Optimus Prime himself included, were hesitating to send the less experienced and the scientifically inclined out where the fighting seemed thickest. This was common sense, but the crux of it was that they were fast running out of competent mechs who were good with both weaponry and hand to hand combat. It took a lot of time to train mechs to these skills, and less than half a nano-klik and a well-placed laser bolt to bring them down forever.
These two might be just the turn around they needed.
The tactician remained frozen for a good long while, long enough for the two recruits to begin fidgeting. When he did speak, it was quiet, and the topic made both Sunstreaker and Sideswipe lean forward in surprise.
"I feel obliged to warn you that what you're getting into is dangerous. I know you're well aware of the fact, but the point remains. Going into a war bonded will probably not end well for any involved. I assume you have taken this into consideration?"
"Bonded?"
"Bonded?"
They spoke at the same time with such identical tones of disbelief that he was forced to consider that perhaps (just perhaps), he'd arrived at the wrong conclusion.
"Why in the Pit would you think that?"
The tactician levelled his gaze first at Sideswipe, who'd straightened up in his chair out of shock, then at Sunstreaker who met the look with one of his own, cool and unreadable. "You are uncommonly aware of each other." He rested his elbows on the table and pinned the pair to their seats with his optics. "When one of you moves, the other compensates for it. You do not need to look at or talk to each other before you make any concerted motions. You have obviously been together for a very long time. Add this to the fact that you have stuck together throughout this war thus far, and it is natural that I come to that conclusion."
Sideswipe laughed easily. "Not qui—" and he went silent as suddenly as if someone had shouted his name or deactivated his vocalizer. He shot a slightly aggrieved glance to his left.
Sunstreaker was staring very steadily at Prowl, deep blue optics narrowed in grim study. The tactician straightened under this intense stare, door wings sweeping lower behind him in an unconscious effort to appear less imposing. He was no fool, hadn't been recently promoted to Third in Command because he had a rusting CPU. He knew perfectly well that the yellow gladiator was deciding how much to reveal, how much was prudent.
The staring match lasted less than three nano-kliks before Sunstreaker reclined back into his chair apparently satisfied, and Sideswipe took up the narrative as if nothing had happened. "We aren't bonded, 'least in the traditional sense. Me and Sunstreaker are twins. Split spark."
Well, that certainly gave him pause. Pros and cons began to flash through his processor. Twins had notorious tendencies towards instability, though things didn't always turn out that way. They had a bond, yes, something that allowed one to feel what the other did. Some pairs could block it out, some could not. Either way something like that was dangerous and distracting on the battlefield. If one was killed the other would follow and that too was dangerous, potentially leaving others at risk. Yet twins also tended to be unswervingly loyal to those they trusted. And out of the organized chaos in his processor, the faint glimmer of a very risky idea began to take place.
"Hey!"
Startled from his thoughts, he regarded Sideswipe in a new light. "Yes?"
"Is this gonna be a problem or something?"
A quick check of his internal chronometer told him he'd been musing for nearly half a breem. No wonder they looked like they were going to bolt. Raising his servos in what he hoped was a placating manner, he was quick to reassure them it would be no problem at all. He then encouraged the pair to finish out their forms and to be as accurate as possible (this was said with a specific glance at the red gladiator) so that he could finish some reports.
They obeyed and he busied himself with a blank datapad while his CPU flicked through a multitude of scenarios and the likelihood of success for each. It was a huge risk for all of them, placing an enormous amount of trust in a pair of mechs who were virtual strangers and probably hadn't been all that truthful to begin with. Something like this could be a key point in winning or losing this war. Prime would never allow it. And that, he realized in growing dismay, was the exact reason Prime could never find out.
He watched them for a moment, the red and yellow hands moving in near perfect unison. Twins. Amazing. Rare on all accounts, the fact that a set had walked into his office and requested admittance into the army was somewhat amazing. The fact that he was willing to instantly place them into a situation that could all too easily take them both offline unnerved him. The power he wielded as the TIC frightened him on occasion, and though he always made choices based on the purest logic and the lowest possible risk to his soldiers, any losses occurring under his orders shook him.
If something were to go wrong, he would be responsible for their deaths as surely as if he'd put a laser rifle to their cranial casings and pulled the trigger himself. But on the sixty-five percent chance that all would go well, he would take that risk. It was that important.
When the last blanks had been filled and two sets of optics were firmly fixed on him once more, he accepted the files and gave them all a cursory once-over. As a preliminary entry form went, it was fairly standard: detailing personal information, brief medical history, and serving as a contract all in one. Further paperwork would be required (didn't it always, he grumbled to himself), and a medical officer would have to check them out, but for all intents and purposes, save for a formal oath, the Autobots had gained two new warriors.
Prowl cycled air through his vents and sent a prayer to Primus that what he was about to say wouldn't cause them to turn against him on the spot.
"Sunstreaker," he said, and the two heads turned as one to eye him speculatively, "I want you to join the Decepticons as a spy."
The whine of a cannon powering up filled the small room, and the tactician suddenly found himself on the receiving end of two glares: one incredulous, and one entirely enraged.
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TBC