Disclaimer: In no way do I own Transformers or anything affiliated. I do not gain any money from these in any way.
Author: VectorSigma3441
Rating: K
As soon as Sideswipe had heard Optimus yell, he decided to put plan B into action. Originally, he was just planning to take the punishment the Big Guy was inevitably going to dish out, bless his blackened intakes, but after the tone he'd heard Optimus in, he decided against it.
So now it was time for Sideswipe's second favorite thing to do besides pranking the poor residents of the Ark, espionage. He'd once been a merchant on Cybertron years before and had gotten very tricky in the art of blackmail. As the saying goes, old habits die hard.
So the only option left was to frame someone else. He paced around his room, zigzagging to avoid the candles, oh wait that was suspicious evidence. He quickly gathered up the candles and hid them in his subspace. This was definitely going to be a tricky business. Who was going to bear the brunt of Prime? It had to be someone he didn't like otherwise it wouldn't be worth it at all.
But who though? Scratch that it had to be someone he didn't like, it was going to have to be someone Sunstreaker and him both disliked in a high degree. Suddenly, a leering red face popped in his mind, it had to be Tracks.
For now, Sideswipe was going to go to the rec. room to prance around as innocently as possible. It didn't pay to look guilty. Tracks was going to suffer. There was a large and long history between the twins and red face, which had originally started over some high-grade. Sideswipe thought that both Sunstreaker and Tracks were pansy-bastards when it came to anything, because everything had to be done to perfection.
If anything, it was going to make Sunstreaker happy. Sideswipe stopped pacing around the room and headed out the door. On his way to the rec. room, he passed the med bay where he heard Ratchet braying like a donkey.
"This is outrageous!" Ratchet was yelling. He heard a muffled 'thunk' and a cry of vehemence.
"Ratchet, do you think I did this to myself!?" Optimus roared right back at him.
The Med bay quieted for a second and Sideswipe heard Ratchet digging through something, probably a box of tools, and the noise of footsteps.
"Well, no, I don't. Putting permanent ink in energon isn't something I would inflict on anybody. How could you not notice the black ink in your energon cube?" Ratchet muttered hotly.
"Well I usually don't have to worry about somebody poisoning me in my own quarters." Optimus replied stiffly. "It's not going to take much ingenuity to find out who did it either. I already have my suspicions. Who else besides Sideswipe would actually bother to try an April fools day prank on me?" Optimus asked Ratchet.
"Quit being so dramatic. It's going to take me forever to clean out that stupid ink out of your intakes and tanks, but it isn't going to kill you." Ratchet seemed to ooze the word, unfortunately. "Besides, the black ink mustache is a real identifying attribute." Ratchet added seriously. Sideswipe heard another muffled noise.
Beating a hasty retreat, Sideswipe quickly ducked back around the corner and headed for the rec. room. He walked in a sedated pace towards the lounge and, speak of the devil, ol' red face was walking towards Sideswipe on the opposite of the hallway. Red face sneered at him as he walked by.
Sideswipe ignored the bait; he didn't want to get in trouble already. He entered the lounge and grabbed himself a cube of energon. He looked around the room and spied Sunstreaker in a corner booth with Bluestreak. The yellow bot motioned for Sideswipe to come over.
"Hey, Sideswipe!" Bluestreak greeted, happy as usual. The mech sometimes got on Sideswipes nerves, but mostly he put with it because of Sunstreaker. The two were an item currently.
He looked over at Sunstreaker and wasn't the least bit surprised to see his facial expression in the low zone.
"You wouldn't have any idea how much pain you're going to be in soon." Sunstreaker told his twin.
"Aww, Sunny, don't get like that." Sideswipe said after taking a gulp out of his cube. "besides," he continued, "I've got this all worked out."
"Right." Sunstreaker muttered noncommittally, "you're going to be deader than most of the stuff in Wheeljack's lab."
"Nope."
"Yes."
"Hey," Bluestreak finally cut in, "What's this all about?"
"A simple joke taken way too far." Sideswipe told him. The silvery blue bot adopted a look of concern.
"Well, I think I'm going to leave now." Bluestreak announced. "I'm not getting involved with you." he stood up, ignoring Sunstreaker's protests, turned tail and fled.
"I'm going to frame this entire thing on Tracks, dear Sunshine." Sunstreaker stopped in the middle of hitting his brother for saying his hated nickname.
"Tracks, you say?"