Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: G1 universe. Warnings for fighting, mech-on-mech sex, and robots dropping the f-bomb.
ETA: Something (OpenOffice) ate my formatting! I'm an idiot for not having checked it. Fixed now, kind-of.
It was, in Skywarp's opinion, far too early to be out of berth, much less on his way to a briefing with his trine mates, but Starscream, shrilly punctilious with a mission to lead, had hunted him down the night before with no other purpose than to lecture him – rather unselfcritically, even Skywarp could see the irony in it - on responsibility and his presumptive lack thereof. "0800 joors exactly, Skywarp. Don't be late." And he didn't want Starscream after him any more than he was already, between the Coneheads' screeching for his afterburners over that last prank and the fact he'd crawled in late and hungover for three shifts in as many weeks. Well, he'd show his wingmates. His quarters were less than a breem's walk from the control room and he'd given himself almost twice that to get there, enough time to stop at the canteen for an energon ration on the way, and wouldn't Starscream be surprised when he showed up early...
CLANK.
He lurched, tripping forward when one leg painfully encountered something solid and unmoving, equilibrium stabilizers kicking in an astrosecond late. He had to put a hand out to steady himself against the bulkhead.
"Hey! Watch where you're going, slag face!"
That shook the confusion from his recharge-fogged CPU. Skywarp looked down at the angry little face glaring at him from mid-thigh level and smirked, "Rumble. I didn't see you down there."
"Yeah, well you might've if you didn't have your aft where your head's supposed to be!"
"Huh? What do you mean by that?"
From the place several paces away to which he'd stumbled – favoring his left side, Skywarp noted with nasty satisfaction – Rumble looked at him incredulously. "I knew you were stupid, but this takes the databank. Aft," he said, pointing. "Head. You. Want me to draw you a diagram?"
Oooh, but it was too early to take this from Rumble, of all the slagging mechs. He took a step toward him, fingers twitching.
"Say that again, you little - "
"Skywarp! Come on, mission briefing!" Thundercracker's impatient-sounding voice cut him off mid-threat, and he felt a brief tug of fingers on his wingtip as TC hurried by. When Skywarp didn't follow, Thundercracker turned an exasperated look on him – on him and Rumble both – and his voice crackled over Skywarp's private comm line. "He isn't worth it. Now hurry the slag up or we'll both be late."
"Yeah," Skywarp muttered, still glaring at Rumble, "Yeah, TC. I'm right behind you."
And with a final curl of his lip for the half-sized mech, he strode off after his wingmate – aiming a parting kick at Rumble for good measure.
Rumble bit out a curse as he jumped out of Skywarp's way.
Pain shot through his knee.
He'd been idly watching his internal chronometer tick off local times – London, Moscow, Dar es-Salaam - as he waited for TC in the hall outside Network Ops, electromagnetism rolling off the huge bank of screens inside what was more casually known as the TV room a subsonic hum through the bulkhead and a calming prickle on the sensors in his wings. Now, with a loud curse he lurched away from the strut he'd been leaning on, only to have to put his hand back against the bulkhead to stop himself wobbling.
"The fuck?" he said.
Rumble glared over his shoulder at him.
"Think you could take up any more of the corridor with your fat aft?"
It took all his very small reserve of self-control not to ask, "What do you mean?"
He might as well not have bothered, because Rumble was still gritting out insults. "...send your useless chassis through a trash compactor."
"Oh, now you're just asking to get your face smashed - "
"Try it!" The Cassetticon planted his feet, arms snapping out on their axles and starting to transform.
That was all the invitation Skywarp needed. He grinned viciously as he advanced on Rumble, hands balling into fists, and was too busy anticipating putting a heel thruster shaped dent in Rumble's skidplate to pay attention to whether or not the corridor remained clear.
But Rumble tilted his head to look past him before he could close in on the little glitch – was looking past him at something, and had stopped transforming, sequence only half-complete. A dark shape glinted in Rumble's ruby-red visor. He realized he could feel the tingle of another mech's field.
It was a distraction, and he glanced over his shoulder to see who the new arrival was. Either he'd be beating Rumble to scrap in front of an audience, or –
Soundwave.
So much for a brawl, then, slag it all to hell. Now it was just a question of whether or not the communications officer would hand him his aft for messing with one of the cassettes – it would hardly matter that Rumble had started it. Deciding that if that was the case, he'd rather see the attack coming, Skywarp faced Soundwave, turning his back on Rumble entirely and staring warily, waiting to see what the other mech would do. Soundwave wasn't moving, at least, just standing there at the bend in the corridor, silent and unreadable. Astroseconds went by, two, four, six, eight.
Finally, Soundwave spoke. "Vessel entering sensor range. Rumble: Report to the control center. Operation: monitor communications."
"Boss!" Rumble whined, but Skywarp heard his arms snap back into place. Soundwave waited for him.
"You're lucky," Rumble hissed, low enough so only Skywarp heard it.
"Yeah, run along with mommy."
Rumble's elbow hit his knee again as he stalked past.
He was looking for Starscream - TC was better company, but TC was out on patrol, while Starscream was on base, off shift, and ever one to take advantage of a comrade bored enough to let him run his vocalizer unchecked for a few joors. But Starscream, the elusive prey, had not been in his quarters, and Skywarp had set out through the mostly empty corridors, searching – if not for Starscream, then for anything to do. He amused himself by switching on his targeting computer as he poked his head into the TV room. Optics zeroed in on Ramjet: target lock.
He ducked back into the corridor when the Conehead flashed him a glare and wandered off in the direction of the canteen.
If nothing else, he could grab some energon.
And the door hissed open on an apparently empty room, but a muffled clanking was coming from somewhere off to one side. His head turned, his targeting computer pinged. The access panel cover was off an air filtration unit with a glitchy compressor, and peeking out of the aperture were two little feet attached to two little legs attached to Rumble's lavender aft.
Well, this had potential. Skywarp grinned.
Then he walked straight over to Rumble and kicked him.
"Oh, sorry, Rumble. I didn't see you down there."
There was a muffled curse and the sound of a tool slammed down, then Rumble came out of the crawl space punching and kicking.
"Hey, little buddy - "
"I'll give you little buddy," Rumble snarled, then he was on his back on the floor and not entirely sure how he got there, and Rumble was straddling his cockpit, pounding on him with both fists. On some base-level of his programming, he knew it must have looked ridiculous. Rumble, at least, looked ridiculous, tiny little face screwed up in anger, and Skywarp was too entertained by the situation to bother making any serious attempt to shove Rumble off -
Until Rumble managed to pin one of his arms, his other fist cocked back like he meant business, and Skywarp remembered that for such a little mech, Rumble was slagging strong.
In the pause before Rumble let his fist fly, Skywarp envisioned Starscream laughing and Thundercracker just standing there, giving him that long-suffering look he hated while he tried to explain how he'd gotten a cracked optic or a broken jaw.
Slag that shit. He saw the gap at the top of Rumble's thigh armor, and jammed his thumb in, hard.
It was just enough to throw Rumble's aim off. He yelped, a sharp, strangled sound, and lurched forward. Skywarp all but thrummed with glee when Rumble's fist slammed into the floor next to his head.
"That's how you want to play, you slagging exhaust port?" Rumble gasped. His voice was strained, overlaid with static.
Then, before Skywarp remembered to wrench his wrist free, he gathered himself with a hard set to his jaw and reached for an aileron.
"OW! Ow ow ow ow ow! If you don't fucking let go of my wing - "
"I thought you jets like it..." And the rest of Rumble's taunt was swallowed in crackling static as vision and audio went lo-fi. Sensitive wires stretched to the point of snapping. For about an astrosecond, it only hurt like the pit.
Then it felt in-slagging-credible.
One hand – and he wasn't about to wrench it out of Rumble's grasp now – clenched tight. With the other, he was gripping Rumble's hip so hard he could feel the metal denting under his fingers. Involuntarily he twisted his thumb even deeper into the armor gap. Something had changed, he didn't know when or why or how, couldn't be bothered devoting the processing power to think about it.
Rumble hitched around the intruding digit with a hot little whimper. There was a tremble to Rumble's lip that made Skywarp's core pulse suddenly with want.
Yeah, processing power would definitely be wasted on thinking.
He curled his fingers around the back of Rumble's thigh and gave a bundle of cables buried deeply in the smaller mech's groin a long, deliberate stroke.
Skywarp's optics came online, taking in the expanse of ceiling, a smear of dried energon, table and chair legs reaching up in his peripheral vision. It was 13:41 in Honolulu, 05:11 in New Delhi.
Rumble, perched on his hip in a careless half-straddle, sneered at him.
"You screech like an ungreased gear when you overload."
He was pretty sure he'd been wearing a scrap-eating grin until Rumble dropped that bit of information. Then, thoroughly annoyed to be pulled so quickly out of post-interface laze, he lifted his head just enough to glare at Rumble. "Got me mixed up with Screamer?" he asked, and let his head fall back to the floor.
"As if," Rumble snorted pissily. He levered himself off Skywarp, then leaned down near his audio receptor. A nasty smirk tugged the corners of his lips. "He's a better lay."
It took Skywarp several astroseconds to process that, in gaping silence, by which point Rumble was halfway to the door.
"WHAT? WHAT THE SLAG DID YOU JUST SAY?"