Title: Reboot – Child of Five
Author: akisawana
Disclaimer: One day, I'm going to come up with an awesome disclaimer, and then I will go back and make it consistent across all chapters.
Characters: Aerialbots and Seekers. Special Guest Stars: Protectobots!
Continuity: G1 cartoon/IDW fusion.
Rating: I am clinging to PG-13 by the skin of my teeth.
Warnings: Tequila was a bad choice.
Summary: Everyone's been turned human. Starscream can explain that. Nobody else can understand the explanation, but he's not going to let such minor details get in his way. Now a bunch of ex-jets are getting on airplanes and experimenting with adult beverages. There is no way this ends well.

Note the first: I did tell you this is crack, right?


"One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation." - Peter's Evil Overlord List


"My mouth is tingly," Skywarp announced after his second tiny bottle of tequila.

"We're supposed to focus on the positive," Thundercracker reminded him, slumped in the airplane seat next to Skywarp with his back to the window. Starscream had claimed the aisle seat, and Skywarp had left the window for their third wingmate, figuring that the clouds would either cheer up Thundercracker or he'd lower the shade. Plus, then he had all of Thundercracker's bulk between him and it. It was bad enough he wasn't flying himself; he didn't need a reminder every five minutes.

"Tingly is good," Skywarp said. "Tequila is awesome."

"Can I trade with him?" Thundercracker asked. "Now that the bubbles are gone, mine just tastes like muddy battery acid."

"No," Starscream said, sipping his coffee. "You may try another flavor, but he is our guinea pig-o-tron for alcohol."

"I'd like to see you stop me," Thundercracker grumbled.

"I wouldn't," Starscream said archly. "I wouldn't stop either of you from doing anything."

As if Skywarp had never sat on Starscream until he sobered up and forgot about reversing the polarity on Megatron's fusion cannon. Skywarp wasn't going anywhere, but Thundercracker closed one of his hands around Skywarp's knee. Whenever Thundercracker had done that before, Skywarp had jerked away; half the time this body would read that as an invitation to interface, and he wasn't even sure how humans did it. Now the sharp edges of the squishy situation were wrapped in a comforting layer of tequila, and for the first time he could entertain thoughts of the bright side existing. "This is awesome," he said. "You know what would make this more awesome?"

"If your answer involves any combination of the words "chocolate milkshake," I will throw you out the window," Starscream said.

"Humans, um, connect, don't they?" Skywarp asked, not too intoxicated to remember they were supposed to blend. "I'm blending, do you know what I mean?"

"Is it supposed to happen this fast?" Starscream asked over Skywarp's head, making a note on his napkin.

"I don't know," Thundercracker said. "Did he eat lately? That can make it faster."

"I'm right here, you know," Skywarp reminded him. "I ate today."

"You had rice five hours ago," Starscream said. "You've probably digested it already."

"This is way better than rice. It doesn't even itch anymore. I can't even feel it anymore." Tequila may have tasted like desperation and gasoline, and it made his head all pitchy, but it made his chest stop aching and that was just really, really awesome.

"You're the expert on humans," Starscream said to Thundercracker. "Is he still supposed to hurt?" Skywarp hadn't realized he said that aloud.

"Until we get him some painkiller or for at least another week."

"Can I be overenergized for a week?"

"No," Thundercracker said. Skywarp was disappointed. He thought Thundercracker would take his side. "You'll get pregnant."

Starscream finished his coffee in one long swallow. "You're going to have to explain that to me," he said. "I thought humans reproduced sexually."

"They need chemical assistance," Thundercracker explained. "Alcohol or birth control."

Starscream paused, like he didn't quite believe Thundercracker. It was probably true; Skywarp himself almost never watched shows that touched upon the subject, but Thundercracker would watch literally anything and had neither reason nor imagination enough to lie. "That is strange," Starscream said, "but you're the expert. We are male, yes?"

"At the moment."

Skywarp swiped Thundercracker's soda. It did taste kind of like battery acid.

"Do I need to review the definition of "male" with you?"

"Hey, hey," Skywarp said, catching on. "Females are the ones who get pregnant. You just don't want me to be happy!"

"It can happen. They call it Mister Seahorse," Thundercracker said, "and the way our luck on this planet is running, do you really want to risk it?"

"Someone would have to have sex with him," Starscream pointed out, waving to the flight attendant. "I'm sure he can abstain for a week."

Skywarp realized that Starscream was trying to talk Thundercracker into letting him do something fun, and that was just so backwards he couldn't help but laugh..

"And then comes the hangover," Thundercracker said. "I'm not sure it would be survivable."

That was something Skywarp could wrap his head around. Thundercracker was just looking out for him, like he always did. "Keep the other two alive" was his assignation and nothing could keep him from doing it. Not even being trapped in a small metal tube and unable to fly himself. He deserved a medal and a, how did the saying end? It was something physical. "You're the best, TC," he said and launched himself at his wingmate, slammed hard into the armrest, and doubled over in pain. He did not whimper. Skywarp was a warrior and a Seeker and had survived the worst of everything Wheeljack had ever cooked up and that meant, by shiny Cybertron, he did not whimper.

"Are you okay?" Thundercracker asked him, tugging at his shoulder. "Lemme see what you've done to yourself now."

"'M fine," Skywarp said to his feet, gyros spinning.

Starscream ignored him and ordered more drinks for the three of them.

Thundercracker pulled the armrest between them up. "Are you bleeding?"

Skywarp wasn't really sure, so he sat up slowly. Thundercracker slipped a hand under Skywarp's shirt, but he wasn't punctured or ripped. "Said I'm fine."

Thundercracker just grunted, in that way that meant "I don't believe you but I'm going to humor you because you're Skywarp." It was subtly different from "I don't believe you but it's not worth arguing about" and "though I can't prove it, I know you're wrong," but Skywarp was the expert on Thundercracker's whole grunting language.

Starscream rolled his eyes. It didn't matter that Skywarp couldn't actually see his eyes, he knew Starscream was rolling them. He made a rude gesture in his wingleader's direction and let Thundercracker pull him back.

It was really weird to have one of Thundercracker's arms so high around his waist, and the other one over his shoulder where vent usually blocked it, and to not have a cockpit propping him up but to press his back flush against Thundercracker's chest from shoulders to hips. It was really, really weird, but it was almost kind of nice to fit together so tightly. There weren't many things Skywarp had stable enough to lean against; only Thundercracker anymore. Thundercracker was the steady one, and that was okay, because he'd given up all sorts of things Skywarp was good at.

Skywarp was good at lots of things. Some things all three of them were good at, like flying and shooting Autobots and being funny, and some things only he and Starscream were good at, like entertaining themselves and making friends and fighting dirty, and some things only he and Thundercracker were good at, like ducking and being sneaky and cutting losses, and some things only Skywarp was good at, like thinking sideways and stopping fights and pushing people down the stairs and he was really overcharged.

He was far too overcharged to notice the dirty looks other passengers were giving him and Thundercracker, but he saw Starscream look at each one in turn, and eviscerate them with his optics. Starscream should totally have eye lasers. Skywarp had been trying to talk Starscream into them for years.

One of Thundercracker's hands was rubbing little circles over Skywarp's chest where Starscream said his spark was now. The former scientist had explained, with lots of huffing, that while the metal to organic matter transmogrification was the most visibly dramatic change, it was far behind whatever Shockwave had invented to shrink their sparks. Starscream assumed all three Seekers had the same miniaturized spark housing embedded in the bones of their chests; though he had only seen Skywarp's. They were close enough in construction outwardly he felt safe assuming their internals were the same as well, especially since human bodies didn't offer much in the way of variation.

None of it made any sense to Skywarp, except for the part where Megatron shot him and then Thundercracker had to, and Starscream had, and he didn't want to think about any of that. If nothing else, tequila was really good at distracting him from that. "And I said that out loud, didn't I?" he asked, when he saw the look on Starscream's face. Starscream couldn't lie with his face anymore.

"If you are going to be like this for the next ten hours," Starscream said, "someone is going out the window."

There were three more tiny bottles of tequila on the tray in front of him, though, and he didn't stop Skywarp from leaning forward and picking them up. Thundercracker pulled him back. "You said you'd only throw me out the window if I said chocolate or milkshake," Skywarp reminded him, fumbling one of the bottles open.

"I can throw you out the window for anything," Starscream informed him.

"The windows don't open," Thundercracker pointed out. "Even if they did, he's too big." Skywarp giggled.

"I should just put you both out of my misery." Starscream retreated behind a magazine from the pocket in front of him.

"You won't let him, right TC?" Skywarp asked.

"Mmm, you are pretty annoying."

"I'll give you tequila." Skywarp held up his last two bottles.

Thundercracker laughed. "And mess up his experiment? You drink them."

"But if I drink too much, I'll cry myself to sleep," Skywarp said. "Like in your tv. And then you'll be alone with him and then he'll throw you out the window." Skywarp thought about that for a minute, then added, "Tequila makes me cold. And hot. At the same time. That's weird."

"I should tape this," Thundercracker said. "It seems safe to say tolerance did not transfer."

"Huh?"

"You're a hell of a lightweight."

"Yeah, well, I bet you'd be worse," Skywarp sulked, drinking another bottle because he was the only one of the three who could hold his high-grade. "I bet you'd be worse than the guy. The baby. Whose name I can't say because he doesn't have a micknane. Why are you the only one with a mickmame?"

"Who are you talking about?" Thundercracker picked up his soda, which meant he wasn't hugging Skywarp anymore, and that decided Skywarp on the whole new kind of hugging issue. He was strongly in favor of it.

Skywarp took Thundercracker's hand and put it back across his hips where it belonged. "You know who," he said, trying to find a way to identify Air Raid without saying his name and blowing their cover. "He's my twin and he's black and sometimes he's a leg and sometimes he just runs into you first head and sometimes he shoots you and sometimes he just washes."

Thundercracker was silent for a moment, trying to make sense of that. "How do you know what the Raider's like when he's overcharged?"

"I'm pretty sure he's always overcharged. That's the joke. You're awesome, do you know that? You're awesome because you always know what I'm saying even when I don't know what I'm saying about legs and babies and not-twins. And you're awesome because you're keeping me from falling over and you always keep me from overfalling," Skywarp amazed himself with his ability to be, what was the word, self-aware when he was so overcharged he could not stop talking. "And you're awesome because you haven't punched Screamer yet once and I know you want to because I kind of want to but we can't because we need him more than he thinks he needs us but he needs us because he's that really smart kind of idiot that he is and needs people not like him to do the stuff he doesn't do."

"You're monologuing," Thundercracker interrupted him. "Just like he does."

"Yeah, well, that's cause we're awesomer than you," Skywarp said. He expected Thundercracker to protest or something, but his wingmate just shifted behind him to free his foot from under Skywarp's leg. "Are you sure you don't want to drink the last battle? This is way better than not-flying. I don't even care about the flying. You could not care about the flying."

"I'm not entirely sure you should," Thundercracker said. His voice rumbled through Skywarp's chest, and it wasn't like it used to but it was kind of close and very nice.

"Not even for science?" Skywarp asked, spinning the last bottle in his hands. He thought he heard Starscream snort, but the Air Commander was still hiding behind the magazine. "Open it for me?"

"If you can't open it, you really shouldn't drink it," Thundercracker said, because he was a complete and total kill buzz.

They could take his wings, and take his warp drive, and take his everything but there wasn't a power on a planet that could stand between Skywarp and high grade when he put his mind to it. He crowed in victory when he got the bottle open, and downed the contents.

Behind him, Thundercracker rested his head on Skywarp's shoulder and sighed. "This is not going to end well. Next time, he gets the soda and I get the alcohol."

"On an airplane, I can deal with him sober or you not. I can't deal with both at the same time," Starscream said without looking over.

"Yeah, well, since when did the universe revolve around you?" Skywarp started to say, but the fifth shot snuck up behind him and hit him in the face with a space shuttle. "Did everything just tilt left and go black for a minnit?"

Thundercracker's hands tightened on him. "Black?"

"Just for a minute," Skywarp said. The world was still sliding left. He tried to grab the seat back to his right, but missed.

He'd never been overcharged enough to miss whatever he was grabbing for support before. That didn't happen until the charge started burning wires out. He blinked, and then he was seeing two Starscreams lowering their magazines. That was just a nightmare. And not optically possible except he didn't have optics he had eyes. "TC," he asked, hesitating. "TC. Something's wrong. I don't, I can't. This isn't fun any more."

"Alcohol's a depressant, idiot," Thundercracker said, smoothing a hand down his chest. Skywarp hadn't realized he was depressanted. He picked his feet up off the floor and braced them against the armrest between him and Starscream. He couldn't exactly feel them, and he didn't want them to run away like his wings.

"Alcohol did this," Starscream said. It wasn't a question. The tequila had crawled in Skywarp's head and was gleefully stomping on switches for...stuff. It was clogging up his tubes and he couldn't finish his thoughts and it was just like no time ever because Cybertronians may get overcharged but it never threw their emotional dampers out the window like this. He covered his face with his hands, wondering if he could just pull the alcohol out of his ears. There wasn't even anything wrong! At least nothing that hadn't been wrong before the drinking.

Thundercracker shrugged, and the motion did things to Skywarp's midsection, things he didn't have words for. Unpleasant things. "Increased chemical sensitivity," he said.

"Only five little bottles, though?" Starscream asked, sickly fascinated. "He looks ready to cry."

"Fizzit," Skywarp said, trying desperately to regain some sort of control over himself. Any sort.

"You're gonna have to sleep it off," Thundercracker told him, tracing circles on his chest again. "You're fine. Just a little drunk."

"A little?" Starscream asked as Thundercracker helped Skywarp rearrange himself into an almost-comfortable position. Skywarp's numb feet ended up in Starscream's lap, which he thought was important, because of the time with the tiny blue lights, but the tequila jumped up and down inside his head and reminded him that Starscream was an evil little glitch who kept him around to hurt. Look at all the terrible things that happened in the general area of Screamer. Skywarp couldn't think of any specific ones, because Thundercracker was conspiring with Starscream and humming, which was totally not fair. Humming and rubbing and he'd been putting Skywarp to sleep whenever it was convenient for Starscream forever because they were both utter jerks who Skywarp didn't deserve.

On the other hand, if he was asleep, he'd miss the greater part of the not flying himself.

"I really hate this," was the last thing Skywarp said before dropping off into blackness.


The airport was all slick chrome and smoky glass and strange people. The Aerialbots and the Protectobots, the first wave of the Autobot rapid-alert network, blended right in. The ten of them were a little odd, yes, but they were much better at adapting to any given change than the rest of the Autobots. Opinions on exactly why were divided. Some shook their heads sadly and said that children were so flexible, still learning how the world worked, that it was a terrible shame their innocence had been stolen from them and now they were being sent out among the natives without really understanding how wrong the very idea was. Some thought that with the loss of the gestalt, they were so traumatized that they were still in shock, not grasping the full implications of anything other than suddenly finding themselves alone.

Air Raid could have told everyone they were wrong, that they just had better things to do than sit around and feel sorry for themselves while the science team fixed this. Like finding Fireflight, lost in the human sea. He had gotten distracted by something, Air Raid wasn't sure what, and then he had gotten turned around, and now he was...there!

"Found you," Air Raid said across the line, coming around the information board.

Fireflight hung up his phone. "I could have found you. There's a map," he said.

"I know," Air Raid said easily, taking Fireflight's arm and steering him towards the nearly-empty restaurant where the others were. "I don't mind coming to get you. We're testing out the aliases Jazz got for us."

"Do they work?"

Air Raid shrugged. "Well enough to get beer. I got you one, if you want to try it."

Fireflight was quiet for a minute, then said, "The sunglasses didn't fix Slingshot. You should hug him. You're the only one whose hugs he likes anymore."

"I like my arms attached."

Fireflight smiled at him. "Then we'll have to get one of the Protectobots to do it. Except Hot Spot, he'd make Slingshot cringe like Silverbolt does."

Air Raid couldn't follow Fireflight's logic, but he'd seen Slingshot try to pretend he wasn't suffering through the others hugging him. "There's where the others are," he said, pointing to the restaurant. "You can try to talk them into hugging him."

Skydive and Streetwise had opted out of the alcohol experience and were sharing a plate of nachos at their own table. Slingshot, Blades, Groove and First Aid squished around another table with two empty chairs, a bigger plate of nachos, five beers, and one soda in front of the medic. "Where'd Silverbolt and Hot Spot go?" Fireflight asked.

Slingshot shrugged and moved over so Fireflight could sit between him and Air Raid. "They said they'd be back. Probably-"

Air Raid stepped on his foot. "So how do we do this?"

"First we clink," Groove said. "Then we drink, man."

"You shouldn't have more than one," First Aid told them. "I don't think it would be a good idea to actually get drunk."

"I am not picking up anyone from Mexico with no pants and a purple tattoo on their aft," Streetwise said.

"That's tequila," First Aid said. "I've cleaned up after tequila. Nobody should ever drink tequila."

"So as long as we keep our pants on, we're good. Gotcha." Air Raid lifted his glass and the others, even First Aid, clinked theirs against it.

"People do this for fun?" Fireflight asked, grimacing at the taste.

"It's not so bad," Slingshot said.

Air Raid didn't think it was all that great, but the nachos were spicy and it was nice to have something to wash the taste out with. "So what are you guys doing in Los Angeles?"

Blades swallowed his nachos and said, "We're going to look for Decepticons hurting each other," First Aid raised his hand, "breaking the law," Streetwise raised his glass, "and setting things on fire."

"That's Hot Spot's job," Groove added.

"I wonder if they would call for help from humans?" Fireflight wondered, pulling the green peppers off his nachos and trading them for Slingshot's onions.

"Maybe if Starscream got shot and stormed off in a huff," Streetwise said. "What are you guys doing?"

"We're going to work places where lots of people pass through," Skydive said proudly. "Fast-food, retail, that sort of invisible thing."

"That's cool," First Aid said. "Our way will take longer, but we can't stop helping people."

Air Raid was ninety-five percent certain First Aid's programming didn't allow him to give offense. He probably meant that he was sorry they were less efficient or that their first priority wasn't the bunch of crazy killers wandering around. Or something equally innocuous.

Slingshot had other ideas. "Ours is better than sitting around waiting for the Decepticreeps to wake up one morning suddenly civic-minded."

"You should know," Blades said. "You're more than half one yourself."

"Yeah, well, at least I can keep up with them!" Slingshot said, as if Blades hadn't called him that and worse in the car. Though, in the car, it had been the friendly sort of insult-trading that left First Aid out of it.

Blades jumped out of his seat, knocking the table and causing everyone to grab their drink; Slingshot half a second behind him. "You're not half as tough as you think you are," the Protectobot said.

"Wanna bet?"

Fireflight threw himself between the two and pushed Slingshot back into Air Raid. Air Raid wrapped his arms around his smaller brother and didn't dare let go. "Slingshot, let it go," he said. Blades and Slingshot fighting was nothing new. Pulling Slingshot off of Blades was nothing new. Slingshot so furious at his friend he was shaking, that was someone Air Raid hadn't had to restrain since 'ninety-five.

"Hey, let's all calm down now," Groove said. "There's no need to fight."

"Right, there's never a reason to fight, is there?" Slingshot asked. "I mean, we could all just sit down and let ourselves get hit. Or shot by Decepticons. Yeah, let's find some 'Cons and see how well not fighting works." Air Raid should have covered his mouth or stuck a sock in it or something.

"Have you ever even given it a shot?" Streetwise demanded.

"That would be suicide," Skydive said. "Did you know they have an official game built around shooting pacifists? Medics are worth double points." Air Raid felt his jaw drop. Skydive should be heading out to get Silverbolt, not making it worse.

"How about we all give beer a second chance?" First Aid suggested, tugging on Blades' collar. "I want to try it now. Let's all try it again."

"Yeah," Slingshot agreed, "Maybe I'll be able to stand you if I'm drunk." First Aid dropped his brother's shirt and looked away. Air Raid tried not to roll his eyes. Slingshot was just blowing off steam, obviously. He loved First Aid like a medic who didn't judge and knew how to keep a secret.

Blades tried to shove Fireflight out of his way, but Fireflight had four inches and forty pounds on him. Air Raid couldn't see his expression, just the confused tilt of his head. "Maybe we should do what First Aid says," he said.

Streetwise stepped up behind Blades. "Hot Spot's not answering his phone," he said with a hand on his brother's shoulder. "People are starting to stare."

Skydive wasn't volunteering to go, Slingshot wouldn't retreat from the field, and Fireflight would get lost. "We'll go find them," Air Raid said, dragging Slingshot with him. He hated retreating, but he figured it was better to go find his big brother than to lose this exciting opportunity to go to Detroit. Plus, this wasn't a real battle. This was the Protectobots. They were sort-of half-brothers and fighting them left a bad taste in his mouth.

Silverbolt and Hot Spot hadn't gone too far; there was a pillar and a baggage cart blocking their line of sight to the restaurant and giving them the illusion of privacy. Silverbolt was laying with his legs thrown over one arm of the bench and his head in Hot Spot's lap. Hot Spot was.

Hot Spot was tickling Silverbolt's nose with the end of the Aerialbot's braid, and that was just really. Awkward.

"-walked into a door," Silverbolt was saying. "A door. And I'm supposed to take him to Detroit."

"What's he going and whining about 'Flight for?" Slingshot bitched in Air Raid's ear. Air Raid grabbed him and pulled him back.

"Let them do their thing," he said. "You want Silverbolt twitchy all the way across the country?"

"He'll be fine as long as he doesn't look out the window," Slingshot pointed out, waving in the general direction of the gestalt leaders. Air Raid grabbed his hand before he actually caught their attention. This time, he didn't let go.

Let it not be said he didn't learn eventually. "Let Hot Spot do his Hot Spot thing. When's Silverbolt gonna see him again? He's allowed to have friends just as much as you."

"I am not friends with Blades like that," Slingshot said.

"Yeah, well, maybe you should. It'd make you easier to live with," Air Raid muttered.

"Nothing would make you easier to live with," Slingshot said with a huff, leaning against the pillar. Air Raid squeezed his hand and thought about hugging him. Slingshot looked to be in a punchy mood, though.

"Jazz got us an apartment all set up," Hot Spot told Silverbolt. "Did he do the same for you?"

"Yeah," Silverbolt said. "He even arranged for us to have a car waiting, Detroit's not big on public transportation."

"Sounds like we're both good then." Hot Spot wrapped Silverbolt's hair around his fist. Where they couldn't see, Air Raid mimed gagging at Slingshot. "You'll be okay?"

"I'll have my brothers." Silverbolt gave Hot Spot a wry smile and sat up. "They'll keep me busy at least."

"You love the little vegetable cakes, though," Hot Spot said.

Slingshot spread his hands at Air Raid, silently asking what Hot Spot meant. Air Raid, having no clue, shook his head.

"Yeah," Silverbolt said, "we'll be fine. Will you be okay?"

"I'll have my vegetable cakes." Hot Spot stood up, and helped Silverbolt to his feet, then hugged him. Great. Now they were kissing. Air Raid knew they did that, of course, but he didn't need to see it. Ever. He averted his eyes and wished for sunglasses like Slingshot. At least all four hands were visible.

"I'll call you," Silverbolt promised, and Air Raid peeked around the pillar. "Every Friday."

"I'll answer, come hell or high water." It figured Hot Spot would get that one right.

Air Raid gave them thirty seconds, then when they just kept holding hands and staring at each other like dorks, came around the pillar. "Hey, guys," he said. "We got a bit of a situation. With Blades."

"Of course," Hot Spot said.

"And Slingshot?" Silverbolt sighed. At the look on his face, Air Raid felt the very unfamiliar feeling of regret welling up. Would it really have killed him to let the two of them say goodbye on their own terms?

"I didn't do anything," Slingshot protested. "I tried to apologize to First Aid and Blades tried to hit me."

Silverbolt and Hot Spot gave Slingshot identical looks of disbelief, then headed back to the others.

"Was that what happened?" Air Raid asked, trailing after them. "Because, I didn't see that. I saw Blades call you a Decepticon and try to knock Fireflight over, but I really think I would have noticed you apologizing to First Aid."

"I was going to drink with him, dummy," Slingshot said. "That's an apology."

"So it was one of those," Silverbolt said tiredly.

"Hey, look on the bright side," Hot Spot said. "At least they'll stop fighting when they're on other sides of the country,"


Skywarp woke up with something that resembled a headache in much the same way a supernova resembled a sparking wire. And someone was shaking him. "'M up," he mumbled, then retched. Dimly, he registered a paper bag being shoved over his mouth, and bile rising over his throat, but next to the pounding in his processor that was a minor distraction. Hands, probably Thundercracker's, pulled him upright and buckled him down. "Dying," Skywarp croaked. "Don't need no seatbelt."

"You're just hungover," Thundercracker said, stroking his hair. Skywarp thought about punching him, but elected to just squeeze his eyes shut to keep them from being forced from his head. "TC? Remember the time Devestator accidentally stepped on your head?"

"That's not really something you forget."

"Stop touching me."

"We're touching down," Starscream said. "Why did you drink so much?"

There was something wrong with Starscream's memory chips. Too much blunt impact trauma, or maybe not enough. Skywarp made a rude gesture.

"I suppose on the grand list of poor life choices you've made, this isn't very high."

"I don't know," Thundercracker said, far too amused by the whole thing but at least keeping his hands to himself. "He looks like he's suffering."

"I hate you both," Skywarp declared, even as Starscream ordered him to drink a bottle of water. He ignored them steadily all through the touchdown, all through them guiding him by the arm through the airport, and that took a while, and even all through them putting him in a taxi, pulling him out, and pushing him down to sit on a bed. He'd never ignored them for that long before, but they ignored him all the time, at even more inconvenient times, and anyways, he wasn't sabotaging them. Just focusing on not throwing up again or having the contents of his head slide out his audios. Yeah, that was difficult enough to do, especially for hours and hours and hours, when they kept talking to him and touching him and not really giving them a reason to get mad. He counted Starscream giving him five bottles of water and one hand on top of his head to keep him from banging it on the car roof; Thundercracker put his arm around Skywarp's shoulders for a hundred forty-three stair steps. He also counted them calling him an idiot fourteen separate times, questioning his ability to maintain his balance five, and in a surprisingly clean rant Starscream called him a sulky child, so he probably would survive this. He thought about pushing Starscream down the stairs once, but his gyros hadn't leveled out yet and he didn't want to follow him.

All those numbers left a good part of his mind unoccupied, though, and he used it to calculate the amount of gelatin he would need to fill whatever space he found himself in, ambush sites, the warp vectors from door to door, choke points, the exchange rate between American dollars and Renminbi, and the odds of Thundercracker getting caught picking up somebody else's bag.

Thundercracker was terrible at stealing.

The security forces were even more terrible at catching people, though, and so they acquired enough cash for a two-bed room in some motel Skywarp couldn't be bothered to pinpoint beyond "Texas," and it was only when Starscream warned him the coffee was hot that he acknowledged his presence.

"I hope your experiment was worth it," Skywarp told the ex-scientist.

"Your sacrifice in the name of science is greatly appreciated," Starscream said, sitting at the table and writing something down.

The coffee smell made his throat constrict, and the liquid was too hot to drink anyways. Skywarp dropped the paper cup on the nightstand, flopped backwards, and promptly regretted it. Once his gyros stopped spinning, though, the bed was cool if a little scratchy, and at least the colors didn't make his eyes bleed. Maybe he would live after all.

The room had only one outside door, barricadable, but also the only exit. The beds would give them some cover, and the bathroom door wasn't immediately visible from the entrance. Of course, they hadn't been able to take their weapons on the plane, which seriously limited their defense options, but there were walls and a roof. He'd been trapped with Starscream in worse places.

"Shopping list," Starscream said, handing the paper to Thundercracker.

"You're going to have to learn how to do this sooner or later," Thundercracker grumbled, putting his shoes back on.

"Not as long as I can send you." Starscream booted up the laptop. "Leave me Skywarp, I need his brain module."

Thundercracker folded the paper and tucked it in a pocket. "This list is vauge."

"I trust your judgement."

"How many days are we going to stay here?"

Starscream shrugged. "At least until I can get us proper IDs mailed."

"What's wrong with the ones from Swindle?" Skywarp asked. "They worked well enough."

"They're from Swindle. Do you really want him to be able to track us?"

"I thought you trusted the Combaticons," Thundercracker said, with zero emotion.

"I trust them to do whatever they feel serve them best," Starscream said, with that same flat tone.

Skywarp sat up and leaned on Thundercracker, hard. "Did you hear? He needs me."

"I need your brain module," Starscream specified.

"So you admit I'm smarter than you?" Skywarp asked.

"There are Stunticons smarter than you."

"Name one," Skywarp challenged.

Thundercracker laughed. "He's got you there."

"Or he's lying about the brain module. Are you lying about the brain module?"

"Yes," Starscream said without looking up. "I really need you for passionate interfacing. I'm looking it up," a strangled laugh escaped from poor Starscream, unable to keep a straight face without a gun pointed at him, "I'm looking up the mechanics as we speak."

"But I've been drinking. You'll get me pregnant," Skywarp cackled. "Unless, unless, that is your master plan. I don't know how that would help, but I never understand, I never, oh frag."

"Please don't impregnate him," Thundercracker said, pulling Skywarp off the floor. "We don't need more of either of you."

"Aw, TC, don't be like that. You make it sound like you don't like us."

"Well, take notes on what he finds and we can compare them later." Thundercracker left, shaking his head.

Starscream typed on the computer for a minute. Skywarp drank the coffee. It was sweeter than he'd been lead to believe. "Whatcha doing?" he asked Starscream.

"Creating us new identities," Starscream said. "Ones nobody else knows about. Give me three names. Believable ones."

"What does it matter? It's not like we'll be spending tons of time with fleshbags."

"We're getting jobs." Starscream looked over at him. "Legitimate ones."

"Can't you just do the thing with the moving the numbers?

"If you want to get caught and sit in jail until Soundwave comes for us. Do you want Soundwave to come for us?"

Skywarp had to admit, he did not. "But I could get us cash. I'm much better at it than TC."

"Without warping?"

"Oh yeah. That makes it harder." Skywarp fell back on the bed again. "There's gotta be another way."

"There probably is." Starscream gently closed the lid of the laptop the frustrated way he did when he wanted to break some irreplaceable thing. "Working for humans is the last thing we'd do. So anyone with an employment record Soundwave will assume is not us."

"I hadn't thought of that," Skywarp admitted. "It's still really gross. We'd be taking orders from insects. Fungi. What comes before insects and fungi?"

"Besides," Starscream said, crossing to the other side of the room, "it'll make Thundercracker happy to do honest work. I think we can both agree he's more bearable when he's happy?" He almost managed to keep a straight face.

Skywarp snickered and hung his head off the side of the bed to watch Starscream make coffee upside-down. "You should be Steve Stark." The s-ts would help Starscream remember those names referred to him; even though it was a bit of a giveaway, having familiar sounds made fake names easier to use. "I want to be Sam Winchester."

"No TV characters I've heard of."

"Sam Wesson?" Skywarp tried.

Starscream went back to the table, opened the lid and hit some keys. "That's one of Sam Winchester's aliases. You need your own."

"S-k is way harder than S-t," Skywarp said. "S-k-something-w isn't even a thing. How about Keith Moon?"

"Will you remember to answer to it?" Starscream asked.

"I've gone by "Moon" before."

Starscream went back to the coffee maker. "Fine. Thundercracker?"

"Thor Cullen," Skywarp smirked.

"Thor doesn't sound like it would blend."

Skywarp sat up. "It sounds like a stupid name, and then everyone will call him TC, and then he'll actually answer to it."

Starscream poured two cups of coffee and tilted his head. "You're being logical. He's going to hate the name, isn't he?"

"It means "thunder," he'll totally love it." Skywarp accepted one of the cups and added four of the little sugar packs to it, like he'd seen on the television. He supposed they would have to start watching as much as Thundercracker did, to learn how to blend in. "Where's the remote?"


Notes the end: Don't do tequila shots 1.) on an empty stomach, 2.) on an airplane, 3.) if you've never had alcohol before, or any combination of the three. Especially don't do five in short order.

Thank you for reading.