The foreman is the head of construction, or the head of the Constructicons. Either way, Prowl's in charge.


Script Title: Foreman

Warning to Audience: Coercion via forcible gestalt bonding and power dynamics. Manipulation. Vague references to sex. Donuts. Spoilers for RiD, MTMTE, and Dark Cybertron. If you can't take it, don't read it.

Show Rating: PG-13

Continuity Stage: IDW, Robots in Disguise

Characters: Prowl, Constructicons

Theatre Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

Acting Motivation (Prompt): Kinkmeme prompt and Shibara. She keeps drawing things. Prompt: Prowl, Constructicons – Donuts


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Part Three

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"This will work." Mixmaster had all the confidence in the world.

Which was fortunate, because Hook didn't have confidence in anyone but himself. Well, maybe Prowl. "This is ridiculous!"

"This will work," Mixmaster repeated, concentrating on his work. It had taken a combination of intimidation, persuasion, and a few discreet break-ins to get him the supplies he needed, but it'd be worth it. It would work, and Prowl would be so impressed.

Who else could do this? No one, that's who. He was the only one who could possibly do this. Even if anyone else had the skill, he was definitely the only one with the supplies to do it, since everything he needed had been procured by four gestaltmates on a mission. Any place even suspected of having what he needed had been raided.

It'd been easy to get in and out of most targets. Blurr's bar was still a wreck. Scavenger had swiped most of the energon and equipment on Mixmaster's list when the speedster had his back turned. Of course, getting Blurr to turn his back had taken picking a fight with the Dinobots again, and thus the Constructicons had been banished from onboard Metroplex. They were currently dwelling in disgrace on the outskirts of Iacon. It'd turned out for the best, as stealing from Wheeljack's lab was easier that way.

Their favorite Autobot would be all colors of pissed off if he found out they'd messed around in Wheeljack's stuff, however. Doubly so if he knew why. The plan was to impress him to the point he didn't ask where they'd gotten their supplies.

"This is never gonna work," Long Haul predicted glumly. He was still nursing some scorched plating from Snarl. His outlook on life was correspondingly grim.

Mixmaster glared at him from the corner of his optic but didn't turn from working. "Stop saying that. This'll work fine. Better than fine. You saw it, I saw it, frag," he snorted air out his vents and tossed his head in Hook's direction, "even he saw it. Prowl likes things like this. He just won't relax enough to indulge."

"That, and they ain't exactly been available. War, y'know." Bonecrusher leaned over Mixmaster's shoulder and swiped a finger through the bowl of pale pink gel on the workbench.

The chemist had worked on it for the last fifteen minutes and had set it down beside the separate bowls of dark green and delicate lavender frosting he'd already finished whipping. Three different minerals for flavor, three oils for the colors, and three different metals for the density and texture. One metal was flaked, another ground extremely fine, and the third crumbled into a sandy grit. It'd taken repeated experimentation, but Mixmaster thought he'd gotten the combination right this time. Pride for that suffused the gestalt bond. He'd bet there wasn't a scientist left on Cybertron who could take a passing memory of a treat, backwards engineer the recipe, and have the skill to pull it off. Not many mechs could distill decent engex any more, much less make frivolous treats. Solid energon chips had been one of Blurr's featured specialties simply because making the blasted things took time and talent the war had killed off.

And then there was Mixmaster, who'd dredged up a hazy impression of Prowl's most hidden desire and decided he would make them. Supplies and equipment were mere speedbumps on the road to slow him down. No lack of previous experience in energon formulation could stop him. He was a chemist. Surely recipes couldn't be that different.

Now he irritably batted Bonecrusher's hand away because he was down to his last vial of flavoring. It turned out that recipes weren't that different than chemical formulas, but tweaking the taste to match someone else's memories of chemical receptor levels had been…trying. His temper couldn't take much more of this.

Bonecrusher shared his fingerful of frosting among the others, and a pleasant hum purred along the gestalt bond. Huh. Yeah, that brought back old memories.

Also a newer memory, although it was also old. Just new to the Constructicons. Their optics and visors went blank as they compared the current taste to the remembered one.

"Too gritty."

"It's supposed to be gritty. The pink is for decoration and texture, not flavor."

"The others are firmer."

"That's because they're powders in suspension. As soon as they cooled and I stopped agitating them, they set."

"So this will run?"

"No. If I measured it right, this one will bond with the other two."

"Can I try?"

"How about you try shutting the frag up and letting me work?"

They shut the frag up and let him work.

The recipe called for heat-tempering, so while the frosting cooled, Mixmaster shoved the molds he'd prepared earlier into the oven. Time to discover if he or Hook were right - would it work, or would it fail?

Preheated, the oven immediately baked the molds red-hot. Tempering energon took carefully applied but high heat, especially tempering energon mixed with metals and minerals of various melting points. Direct heat would cause a fire and probably an explosion, but if the correct temperatures weren't reached, the energon wouldn't set because none of the additives would integrate. Mixmaster's first and third attempts at baking had poured out of the mold, still liquid inside. The second attempt had resulted in hard little bricks, the energon's energy burnt out to leave behind an inedible crust of slag caked into the molds.

The fourth time, he'd gotten the temperature and timing right, but he hadn't realized it was necessary to grease the molds. The results had been tasty but pried out of the molds in broken pieces.

This time, everything seemed promising. The heat created reactions as the additives melted or evaporated, sending bubbles up through the energon. Trapped by a surface skin baked on by the heating coils, the gas expanded. Mixmaster stood stock still, watching in total focus as the mixture puffed up in the molds. A messy explosion could happen at any moment if he'd missed one ingredient, or even if the ingredients were contaminated somehow, or if the heating coils glitched and didn't bake the surface of the mixture into a thick enough skin before the reactions started. Anxiety zinged through the bond as he stared intently.

Far and distant, suspicion prickled in response. Just what were the Constructicons up to? Prowl had been feeling flashes of excitement, frustration, and anxiety for the past four days. Except for the brawl with the Dinobots, he had no idea what was causing any of it. What was going on? What were they up to? He cautiously opened up his end of the gestalt bond and probed through it like a mech with a stick poking a spark-eater. Answer him. Hello? Hey. Hey, answer.

The Constructicons ignored him for once. They were busy watching Mixmaster finally succeed. Inside the makeshift oven, the mixture set, bubbles baked in, and the chemist took the molds out right on time. He sighed in relief when a quick temperature scan came back in the right zone. What had been a liquid paste tipped out of the molds in soft, slightly squishy rings and disks, firm instead of mushy. Mixmaster immediately broke one apart and shared it among his team, who started out wary and ended up silently savoring what none of them had had since the beginning of the war. Before that, even. These hadn't been commonly available where they'd worked. Excess refined energon for confectionary formulation hadn't been something the working class got ahold of often, if at all.

Suddenly in a much better mood, Hook took over. He had the hands for detail work, although he didn't have much of an optic for decorating. It would have to suffice. The things just had to be pretty, not perfect.

Green and lavender frosting smoothed over each and every one of the treats, applied by a palette knife as Hook balanced the treats on his fingers. He scrutinized them from every angle before grunting approval and passing them on. Scavenger got them next, dabbling with the pink frosting. He swirled and streaked and speckled in whimsical patterns. Orange outlined the pink as it touched green and lavender, heat sizzling, but the reaction finished in a few seconds.

When Hook and Scavenger finished with the last one, Long Haul reverently laid it in the clear-topped box with the others. The Constructicons stood back and looked at what they had made, triumphant and relieved. It looked great.

By now, Prowl was pulsing signals of alarm and immense suspicion through the bond. Inquiries hammered at them nonstop. What were they doing? What had they done? Where were they? He was coming for them, and he wanted a full report on what trouble they had been causing, or so help him - !

Satisfaction purred back at him. Yes. Come find them. They had been bad, bad Constructicons. They needed close supervision. Come supervise them, Prowl, if he dared.

A trickle of apprehension leaked from the other side of the bond. That was not reassuring in the least.

Bonecrusher tied a string to the corner of the box, and then they hid, snickering quietly and almost buzzing with anticipation. Time to go fishing.


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