Title: Reboot – Toys and Games
Author: akisawana
Disclaimer: If you can recognize it, I didn't come up with it, and if you can't recognize it, you've still got betting odds it's not original either.
Characters: Aerialbots and Seekers
Continuity: G1 cartoon/IDW fusion
Rating: TV-14, my hand to God.
Warnings: Sexual imagery, gambling.
Summary: Everyone's been turned human. This leads to interfactional strip poker in Detroit. This was not what Prime had in mind when he told the Aerialbots to make friends with Starscream's trine.
Note the first: For the purpose of this fic, the Aerialbots were created as fully legal Cybertronian adults in 1987, and this fic takes place in an unspecified year after 2010, and therefore are old enough to take part in any and all age-restricted activities by both human and Cybertronian standards.
Note the second: Nearly everything these jet guys know about being human they learned from TV and Wikipedia. So please do not consider anything that comes out of their mouths to ever be factual in any way.
Note the third: self-indulgent crack, that's all this fic is.
A game is a form of art in which participants, termed players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal. -Greg Costikyan
Skywarp liked Starscream when he was in a good mood. He liked it more when Screamer was screeching and throwing things at Thundercracker. That was, well, not more familiar because Thundercracker was pretty good at avoiding Starscream's rages, but it was closer to normal. Skywarp wasn't even entirely sure Starscream had registered just who he was screaming at. It was yelling at whatever poor mech crossed Starscream's line of sight, and Skywarp wasn't nearly dumb enough to enter the danger zone, especially after the shattered coffee mug he was most emphatically not cleaning up. Starscream would just have to burn himself out on something else, now that Thundercracker had wandered out the door for his job interview with their wingleader still screaming obscenities at his back.
Starscream had been right, without the ability to teleport Skywarp couldn't get enough cash to cover the rent, much less buy or steal what Starscream wanted for the lab he was building in the back bedroom. Once away from airports, their cash influx had dropped sharply, and after three cars and the deposit on the apartment, Skywarp was reduced to raiding the communal laundry room even though he knew how dangerous it was to take from people you passed in the hallway. Barely anyone in Detroit carried cash, and Thundercracker had sat him down in front of a particularly explosive episode of one of his shows to demonstrate why using other people's credit cards wouldn't work.
They hadn't even managed to arm themselves properly yet, and Skywarp had no desire to sit in any sort of brig until Starscream felt like springing him. Hopefully Thundercracker would bring home enough money, or Starscream would want Skywarp to get some sort of job and then he'd have to find some way to steal stuff that didn't involve "smash, grab, warp out."
"I'm going out," Starscream announced, interrupting his thoughts.
"I don't care," Skywarp told him.
"If you get bored, go play with the Aerialbots." Starscream, selfish slagger, grabbed Skywarp's cowboy boots and pulled them on.
"I'm watching this fascinating documentary on home security," Skywarp said. "Shut up, I'm learning how to bullet proof a car with phone books."
Starscream whacked him on the back of the head as he walked out the door. "You couldn't bullet proof electrum armor as thick as your head."
Skywarp ignored him and turned the television up pointedly as Starscream left the apartment. He turned it up more when the rain started. It was an autumnal thunderstorm, the kind that Thundercracker used to drag him out in all the time, and Skywarp wasn't going to think about flying or he'd go as mad as his wingmate.
He wondered if Thundercracker and thunderstorms would still equal interesting times. Maybe they did, and Thundercracker was out somewhere hearing it in public, and now he wouldn't be able to hide his interest, and Skywarp wasn't around to help him out. Thundercracker was such a prude, he'd probably insist on coming home first, and then he'd try to act like he wasn't telegraphing what was going on to everybody within eye shot what the storm was doing to his pants. And then once nobody could see, he'd let Skywarp, well, Skywarp wasn't sure what he'd do with a mid-thunderstorm Thundercracker now, but after the last couple of nights he knew the basics, and he was ready to take a turn exploring...
Skywarp yelped when the power to the apartment abruptly cut off, plunging him into darkness.
It was really dark, too, even though the sun still had to be up. The rain beat against the window, loud as pelletfire. A flash of lightning illuminated the room, but was gone as soon as it came, and the wind shrieked through the parking lot's bedraggled trees below. This was not the kind of storm Skywarp would want to fly alone in.
Well, the television was out, and Skywarp wasn't about to brave Starscream's lab for the laptop, which left him officially bored. And Starscream had practically ordered him to go play with the Aerialbots if he got bored.
When Slingshot came out from dropping off the last application, Silverbolt was waiting in the freshly-repaired car outside. Fireflight was stretched out across the backseat, watching the rain through the moonroof, so Slingshot got in the front. "How'd dropping off the applications go?" Silverbolt asked. He still sounded pissed.
"Fine," Slingshot said. No matter how much or little Starscream had lied about Megatron, the Aerialbots still had to keep an eye out for him. More, now, because even if Megatron hadn't planned on coming to Detroit before, there was no way he wasn't coming now, either to join his second-in-command or kill him. Plus, Silverbolt couldn't wait until he didn't have to call Prime for money anymore. He'd already found a job."I got some new ones, too. They fixed the car up okay?"
"Yes," Silverbolt said. "Luckily, they had the parts in stock, or we'd be stranded without a car. Isn't that lucky, Fireflight?"
"Raider says the power's out," Fireflight said, oblivious to how angry Silverbolt was. "We'll have to use the stairs."
"We'll skip the courthouse then," Silverbolt said, "and go straight home."
"Why do we have to go to the courthouse anyways?" Slingshot asked. "Why can't Prowl just do his thing?" Slingshot wasn't really sure how Prowl dealt with Autobots that got traffic violations, but he didn't know about any of the grounders going into the courthouse and paying their fines.
"Prowl only "did his thing" because nobody fit in a courtroom," Silverbolt said. "You can take Air Raid to work tomorrow, and pay them on the way home."
Fireflight was watching the rain and didn't say anything.
"Fireflight?" Silverbolt said. "Did you hear me?"
"Prowl only "did his thing" because nobody fit in a courtroom," Fireflight repeated.
Slingshot's phone buzzed in his pocket, a message from Skydive. "The power is out," he had sent. "Is Silverbolt still mad?"
"Spitting nails," Slingshot sent back, "fireflight's not the least bit sorry ether."
"And what else," Silverbolt prompted.
"And I can try to see if I can take care of them online when we get home?" Fireflight guessed.
Silverbolt sighed. "No, you can go in and pay them after you take Air Raid to work tomorrow."
Whatever Fireflight said in reply was drowned out by a long roll of thunder.
"And," Silverbolt continued, "you really need to pay more attention. You can't just drive into trees and walk away anymore!"
"I just did," Fireflight pointed out.
"You could have been seriously hurt," Silverbolt said, after a minute. He didn't say anything more.
"Remember when fireflight was the well behaved 1?" Slingshot texted to Skydive.
"No," Skydive texted back almost instantly. "Do we have a deck of cards?"
The rest of the ride back to the apartment was silent.
Air Raid answered the door, flashlight in hand. It was a little creepy, how close it was to looking in the mirror. Air Raid seemed better at shaving, and his shorter hair was spiked with gel, otherwise Skywarp wasn't sure his wingmates would be able to tell them apart.
"Hey," Skywarp said. "Got an extra one of those?" He didn't really want one, but it was a good an opening as any.
"No," Air Raid said. "But come in. You can help us eat the ice cream." He stepped back to allow the Seeker to pass, and locked the door behind him.
"Ice cream?" Skywarp asked. He wasn't about to turn down free food, but surely there were more important things to take care of. He couldn't think of any right now, but they had to exist.
"We have to eat it before it melts and gets all over," Air Raid explained, opening the freezer and shining the light in. "You like ice cream, right?"
"Well, duh." Skywarp mentally shrugged and glided with it. Air Raid handed him a carton of strawberry ice cream and a spoon.
Skydive wandered out of the bedrooms, lantern in one hand and a deck of cards in the other. "Who are you talking to, Raider?" he asked. "Oh, hey, Skywarp. Do you know how to play poker?"
Skywarp had something of a reputation for bewildering any and everyone in the Universe he came across. His transformation didn't break his streak, adding Slingshot and Fireflight when they came home to find Skydive,
Air Raid and Skywarp huddled around a lantern and a deck of cards. "Why is there a Decepticon in our living room?" Slingshot asked.
"He's helping us eat all the ice cream before it melts." Air Raid said without looking up. "Where's Silverbolt?"
"Out in the storm," Fireflight replied, lighting a candle. "Where else would he be?" He took a spoon from Slingshot and sat between Air Raid and Skydive to more efficiently steal bites from both their boxes of ice cream.
"Wait," Slingshot said, sitting down on Skydive's other side. "Isn't that my ice cream?" He pointed his spoon at the carton in front of Skywarp. Skywarp shrugged and slid it halfway over.
Skydive gathered up the cards and shuffled them clumsily. "Sixes wild okay with you guys?" he asked. No-one had a problem with it, and he dealt out five hands. When they laid their hands down after trading out cards twice, Skydive had nothing. After a bit of discussion, Air Raid and Slingshot smirked at him.
"Off with it," Air Raid said.
"Off with what?" Skywarp asked.
"Low hand loses an article of clothing," Slingshot explained. "It's in the rules." Air Raid and Fireflight nodded agreement.
Skydive groaned. "There's something wrong with you. All of you," he said, peeling off a sock and dropping it in the middle of the circle.
"We didn't make the rules," Fireflight said innocently.
"But you're playing the game," Skydive pointed out.
"So are you." Air Raid gathered up the cards and shuffled them expertly. "What's wild, 'Shot?"
"Threes."
The game went on, the deal passing to the left and the winner picking wilds. They let Skywarp have his turns, though it wasn't worth it to try dealing from the bottom of the deck after so long without practice. Slingshot refused to take off his sunglasses, and held his cards at nearly arm's-length, allowing everyone to read his hand in his lenses. Nobody knew what was higher, a straight or a flush; Air Raid wanted to look it up but Skydive wanted to save their phone's batteries, so they decided a straight was higher based on the fact that the two together were a "straight flush" and not a "flush straight." The game was decided mostly by luck; none of the babies had any poker face to speak of, but the darkness and unfamiliar body language robbed Skywarp of the advantage. After losing the first hand, Skydive managed to keep all his clothes. Fireflight, constantly distracted by his candle flame, was not so lucky.
Once Fireflight lost his shirt, Skywarp's human body demanded he notice his breasts, and how soft they looked, and wondering what they would feel like. Human males seemed to be obsessed by them, and Skywarp wondered, idly, if Fireflight would show him what was so great about them. Their power was a little scary, once Fireflight had lost his bra as well, to occupy his mind so fully -he'd want Thundercracker there to help him resist their pull. Thundercracker would probably be interested on his own, too. He would wait for him, and in the meantime, think of a way to get Fireflight to allow them to explore the mysteries of the female chest; that's why he was almost naked when the rain stopped and the power came back on. Maybe the bits that were a different color tasted different? They didn't on the male chest, but Skywarp found himself wanting to confirm one way or another. For science, yeah, for purely scientific reasons. Was this why Starscream used to do so much with xenobiology back before?
"Uh, Skywarp?" Fireflight said quietly. "You dripped." He pointed at the bit of ice cream running down Skywarp's bare chest, the beginnings of a blush staining his cheeks. Neither of them noticed Air Raid and Slingshot exchanging glances behind their brother's back.
"Oh?" Skywarp looked down. If Thundercracker was there, he would have asked him if he wanted to lick it off, just for the reactions everyone would have when he did. He almost asked Fireflight anyways, but it had been a real nice time so far. The Aerialbots weren't so bad once they stopped shooting at you, he thought. No point in angering them when this was the first time he'd had fun without having to take a shower after since the tequila. He wiped the ice cream off with his thumb and licked it.
"Can you put clothes back on now?" Skydive asked. "Regardless of what Prime said, I'd rather not explain to Silverbolt why we have a half-naked Decepticon on the floor."
"Yeah, the game's on," Slingshot agreed. He got up off the floor and sat on the couch, turning on the TV. The other Aerialbots and Skywarp pulled their clothes back on. Skydive sat at the desk and booted up their laptop. Air Raid and the remaining ice cream joined Slingshot on the couch while Fireflight claimed one of the chairs.
"Guess I'll just get going then," Skywarp half-muttered as he stood.
"What's the rush?" Air Raid asked. "Stay and watch the game."
Silverbolt did not come inside with them. Fireflight thought he wanted to watch the lightning. Slingshot thought his brother had all the self-preservation instincts of Starscream. Less, because Starscream at least usually knew when Megatron was seriously torqued. Slingshot yanked the door open, ashamed that he'd just compared his brother to Megatron, of all mechs, and that he was glad Superion couldn't rat on him (not that Supes had ever intentionally gotten him in trouble, but sometimes the big guy had a strange sense of humor,) and that he really wanted to shake Fireflight until his teeth rattled and he understood that the shattered headlight and crumpled fender could have been his skull, no wonder Silverbolt was off doing paperwork or whatever excuse he'd come up with later.
Fireflight at least didn't say anything as they climbed the stairs. Slingshot would never claim to have his big brother's patience, and Fireflight was really racking up space cadet frequent flyer miles today. He'd forgot his key, too, so Slingshot unlocked the door, and was greeted by the sight of Air Raid, Skydive, and a second, scruffier, Air Raid -Skywarp- sitting around a lantern. Air Raid was holding a deck of cards. "Why is there a Decepticon in our living room?" Slingshot asked, though he was pretty sure he didn't want to know.
"He's helping us eat all the ice cream before it melts," Air Raid said, stressing the pronoun a bit. At least there weren't more Decepticons hiding in the gloom. "Where's Silverbolt?"
Fireflight went right, fetching one of his candles from the shelf. "Out in the storm," he said, lighting it. "Where else would he be?"
Slingshot grabbed two spoons from the kitchen, handed one to Fireflight, and sat down in between Skywarp and Skydive, just in case. He'd play nice with them, for Prime's sake, but that didn't mean he had to trust them. "Wait," he said. "Isn't that my ice cream?" He pointed the spoon at Skywarp, who didn't argue and slid the carton halfway over.
Skydive gathered up the cards and shuffled them. "Sixes wild okay with you guys?" he asked. Nobody had a problem with it, and he dealt out five cards to each person, one at a time.
Slingshot squinted at his cards. He had two cards with red blurs on them, one four and one seven, and two cards with black blurs on them, both sevens. The last one had some sort of picture on it, and he held it out away from him until the blur in the corner resolved itself into a K. He put down the red four, and Skydive gave him another picture card with a K in the corner, so he didn't put anything down the second time. "I have two pair," Air Raid said, laying down his cards and looking at Fireflight.
"Ace high," Fireflight said.
"Cold slag." Skydive laid his cards down. "Slingshot?"
"Full house," Slingshot said. He did not add "read 'em and weep," because this was not the time to quote stupid movies, not with a Decepticon sitting next to him.
Air Raid said it anyways.
"What do you have?" Fireflight asked Skywarp.
"I have," Skywarp paused, "a little man stabbing himself in the head and four little red blobs."
"That's a flush," Fireflight said. "That's actually pretty good."
"Better than my hand," Air Raid said. "But Slingshot still wins, and Skydive loses." Slingshot smirked, not bad considering he could barely read the cards. Air Raid did too, for an entirely different reason. "Off with it," he said.
"Off with what?" Skywarp asked.
"Low hand loses an article of clothing," Slingshot explained. "It's in the rules." Fireflight and Air Raid nodded.
"There's something wrong with you. All of you," Skydive complained, tugging off a sock and dropping it in the middle.
"We didn't make the rules," Fireflight said with his fake-innocent voice.
"But you're playing the game," Skydive replied.
"So are you." Air Raid collected the cards and shuffled them, better than Skydive had. "What's wild, 'Shot?"
"Threes."
And so the game went, passing the deal to the left and winner picking the wilds. Slingshot did fair enough, considering he couldn't read the cards in the dimness and that he was too padlocked to pay much attention to the actual game. Skydive was counting cards. Slingshot could tell because when he tapped against his knee, half the time he hit Slingshot's. The rain let up eventually, but the power didn't come back on right away. Fireflight kept getting distracted by watching Skywarp, but Fireflight had been getting distracted watching one Seeker or another since the day they'd first met, so Slingshot didn't think too much of it. Air Raid was grinning far too widely to be from simple fun, Slingshot wondered if he'd be helping or stopping him later. Skywarp was really terrible at poker.
It wasn't that he couldn't remember which hands were better. None of them could, really, except for Skydive, and even he got confused when it came to straights and flushes. No, Skywarp seemed to not be able to remember what made a hand. Twice, he attempted to make a hand of one card of each suit, only to forget that there were only four. Several times, he just laid his cards down and asked what he had. Once, he ended up with six cards and lost his pants. Only sheer luck kept him from losing more often than Fireflight (nobody had luck like Fireflight, not even Slingshot and he deserved it,) and he still ended up sitting there in his skivvies when the power clicked back on.
Uh, Skywarp?" Fireflight said quietly. "You dripped." He pointed at the bit of ice cream stuck to Skywarp's chest, clinging to a pink dip of scar tissue. Behind his back, Air Raid looked at Slingshot. Slingshot shrugged at his brother. Yeah, Skywarp had been trying to shoot them for the last twenty-something years, but he'd voluntarily walked into their base unarmed, played their game and shared their ice cream. Maybe Prime wasn't so off the mark thinking they could learn from him.
Okay, maybe not learn from him, because he was just as air-headed as everyone said Fireflight was, without any of 'Flight's perceptiveness, or ability to reach his own conclusion. But maybe they could play nice with him, and then Thundercracker (and Slingshot was not making any sort of friends with Starscream ever, did no-one else remember the chronosphere?) could teach them whatever it was that Vos had kept secret from the Autobots Prime thought was so slagging important.
The point was, none of the Seekers had offered them anything more dangerous than pie, and they'd sought out the Aerialbots where before they'd actively avoided them. Slingshot couldn't quite parse it, but Prime had expected this to happen, which begged all sorts of questions he wasn't going to ask, and told them to try to make friends! Slingshot didn't know what was stranger, Prime's idea or that it was turning out to be right.
Then again, Prime had thought that if the Aerialbots fed the Seekers, they'd be able to poach one or two.
"Can you put clothes back on now?" Skydive asked. "Regardless of what Prime said, I'd rather not explain to Silverbolt why we have a half-naked Decepticon on the floor."
Slingshot didn't want to explain to Silverbolt why there was a Decepticon on the floor in any state of undress. He wanted to kick the Seeker out of the apartment and their lives on general principle, no matter how harmless he was on his own. "Yeah, the game's on." Slingshot pulled his shirt over his head and moved to the couch, turning on the football game for Silverbolt. His big brother loved football, for reasons not even a gestalt-link could explain. They were out of pretzels, but there was still a beer or two in the fridge, hopefully two out of the three would cheer Silverbolt up.
Skydive sat at the desk, in front of the laptop. The other Aerialbots and Skywarp pulled their clothes back on. Fireflight sat in the chair he'd claimed as his, and Air Raid dropped on the couch with what was left of the ice cream next to Slingshot.
Skywarp stood awkwardly between the Aerialbots and the door. "Guess I'll just get going then," he said quietly. And, damn his optics, he looked lost and helpless, like he always did when an Aerialbot found him alone. The general opinion of the Ark was that particular Seeker had a warp drive in the place of a brain module, and yeah, he wasn't the brightest flash of laser fire, but the Ark didn't understand what it was like to fly faster than sound, where the slightest miscalculation ended in fiery crashing. There was a difference between being stupid and being obedient, and if the Autobots thought they were one and the same, well, that explained a lot about their attitude towards the Aerialbots.
Silverbolt had once fantasied about trading Air Raid for Skywarp. Superion had thought that the funniest thing he'd ever heard, and told the rest of the Aerialbots. Sometimes, Slingshot just didn't understand the big guy. "What's the rush?" Air Raid asked. He hadn't minded Silverbolt's harmless fantasy; he'd wondered aloud how long it would take the other two to notice, and if they'd let the Aerialbots keep Skywarp. "Stay and watch the game."
Skywarp, who had no intention of leaving, sat on the floor next to the couch. "What did Prime say about half-naked Decepticons on the floor?"
"That as long as you're not killing us back," Slingshot said, "we're not supposed to kill you." Slingshot was still wearing his gun under his shirt, but he'd been wearing it since he walked in the door, and no other Aerialbot was armed. "Like you could."
"I could," Skywarp said. "I'm a frightening Seeker warrior."
"Not two minutes ago, you were losing your pants and eating our ice cream," Air Raid said, waving a spoon at him. "Once you've seen someone in their underwear, he is no longer scary."
"But we've seen him naked before," Fireflight said. "I've seen Skywarp naked lots of times."
Of course Silverbolt chose that moment to come in, his expression instantly transforming into an attempt to electrocute Skywarp through sheer willpower.
"Naked is different," Air Raid clearly wanted Skywarp dead. "Naked is scary. BVDs are just sort of sad."
"Hi, boss," Skydive said, alerting the others to the fact there was a very unhappy Autobot Air Commander in the room.
"I turned the game on for you," Slingshot said, shoving Air Raid over to make room on the couch.
"Fireflight," Silverbolt said, stepping around Skywarp and sitting in between his brothers, "would you like to explain why Skywarp was on the floor in, apparently, his underclothes?"
"He's heading the cliff list already," Air Raid leaned down to whisper to Skywarp, "'cause he crashed the car this morning."
"Oh, so I'm dead then?"
"I give you even odds."
"Well," Fireflight began, worrying at the hem of his shirt, "uh, the storm knocked the power out? And then all the ice-cream was gonna melt, and we had a lot of ice cream, you know. So Skywarp came over to help us eat it. I don't know if that's why he thought he was coming over because he was already here when me and Slingshot came in, and helping them eat all the ice cream before it melted and got all icky inside of the freezer and went to waste. And since we didn't have any power we didn't have any television so we were playing cards but we didn't have any poker chips so we used our clothes. First Skydive lost a sock and then I think he was counting cards because he didn't lose anything else but Skywarp lost everything -even his pants- and it's a good thing the power came on when it did because it would have been really embarrassing if he kept losing. You would have come in to a naked Decepticon in the middle of the floor and you weren't really specific on that but I don't think you would have been happy about that. We've spent lots of times with naked Decepticons, though, they just were the real thems at the time so they didn't have any clothes to take off and be naked so I don't think they'd count as naked? Except maybe for the time Superion was stripping Dirge but that wasn't the fun kind of naked? This wasn't really the fun kind of naked either, it was the betting kind of naked that teaches lessons. Anyways he dripped ice cream all over his chest so it was a good thing he wasn't wearing a shirt. And if you're still mad at me you shouldn't take it out on him because he didn't actually do anything wrong, he wasn't cheating or anything."
"So he lost his clothes in a poker game?" During Fireflight's impression of, what was his name, the Prowl repaint with the gun, Silverbolt expression's had faded from irate to merely annoyed. "I suppose that works. But why," he looked down at Skywarp, "are you here?"
"Oh," Skywarp hunched in on himself a little, trying to ping Silverbolt's wing cover coding without being too obvious about it, "well, when the power went out I was all by myself and it was..." he trailed off. Silverbolt's expression didn't soften. "Usually when it storms like that me and TC go play," he offered, "but TC's out."
"He left you alone with Starscream, after what we heard?" Air Raid asked. "That's harsh."
"Starscream wasn't there either," Skywarp said, biting down on his instinctive defense of his wingleader. Starscream had been throwing a tantrum this morning, and he'd play a lot of cards but he wasn't about to throw Starscream out of the shuttle. He was a better mech than his wingmate that way. "And, he didn't have a choice. He's got a job interview."
Five Aerialbots looked at him like he'd said Thundercracker had volunteered to take small children deep-sea diving. "I knew it was too much to expect you to actually stay out of my hair," Silverbolt sighed after a minute.
"That implies him being annoying, and he's really no worse than Air Raid," Skydive said. Air Raid made a rude gesture at his brother.
"C'mon, boss," Slingshot said. "If he's here, we've got eyes on him, right?"
Silverbolt fixed Skywarp with the same sort of look Starscream got when Skywarp was thinking too loudly. How that managed to happen when Starscream swore up and down Skywarp didn't have a thought in his head, Skywarp didn't know. "I believe you," Silverbolt said. "Don't make me regret it."
"I'm thirsty." Air Raid jumped off the couch. "Is anyone else thirsty?" He retrieved from the kitchen water for Skydive and Fireflight, beer for Slingshot and Silverbolt, and two cans of soda for himself. He didn't sit back on the couch but next to Skywarp, and handed him one of the sodas. "So okay, have you ever seen football before?"
"Blitzwing watches it sometimes," Skywarp said. "He tried to explain it once, but we were all kind of distracted by Starscream being defeated by a door."
"That is a story we need to hear," Slingshot said. "During the commercials."
"So, okay," Air Raid said, "you see the guys in the blue and grey? Those are the Lions. Their job is to throw themselves under the tires of victory and snatch defeat from its jaws."
Above them, Silverbolt sighed again. "If you're not going to explain it to him right, let me." Skywarp didn't give a bent screw about football, but if Silverbolt was going to look at him as "the guy to explain stupid Earth games to" and not as a danger, that was better than he expected when he came over. Even Fireflight's staring felt less like being target locked than usual.
Twenty football minutes later, Skywarp was in the middle of describing one of Starscream's schemes designed to make him look harmless (or at least that's what he claimed later, harmless and not more trouble than he was worth,) when Thundercracker knocked on the door. "Thank you for babysitting Skywarp," he told Firefight, "but I can take him off your hands now."
Fireflight let him in, but Thundercracker hovered near the door, attempting to comm. something to Skywarp with his eyebrows that Skywarp just didn't understand.
Air Raid threw his arms around the Seeker, and it took everything Skywarp had to not slug the mech suddenly attached to his back. He sternly reminded himself that one, he was under strict orders, two, Slingshot would certainly shoot him for it, and three, Air Raid wasn't actually attacking. To his credit, Air Raid let go almost instantly when he felt Skywarp tense. "We're keeping him," he said.
Thundercracker's face did some real interesting maneuvers as he fought his own internal battle against all Air Raid was pinging. "As much as I'd like to dump him on you, I'd feel bad about it later," he said, jamming his hands in his jacket pockets casually. Skywarp wondered what he was preventing himself from doing. "Did he behave for you?"
"I'm right here, you know," Skywarp said, leaning against Air Raid.
"He was fine," Silverbolt said.
"How is losing your pants in a card game fine?" Slingshot asked. Skywarp was pretty sure he was just being an afthead, though.
Thundercracker looked at Skywarp. "You lost your pants in a card game."
Skywarp grinned and shrugged. "They gave them back."
"You lost your pants in a card game and this somehow falls under "behaving." There are so many questions in there, I don't know where to start."
"He accepted the consequences of his actions." Silverbolt didn't look away from the game. "We can live with that."
"Does that mean Air Raid can keep him?" Skydive asked.
"Isn't one of him bad enough?" Slingshot asked before Silverbolt could answer.
"You can't keep people," Fireflight said from the door. "Can you? If we can, I vote yes."
Skywarp grinned at Thundercracker. He couldn't remember the last time his wingmate had come to collect him from somewhere and they argued to keep him. Or at least argued to keep him because they liked him.
Thundercracker sighed. "If I promise to return him, can I have my own wingmate back?"
The TV cut to commercial and Silverbolt tore himself away from it. "We're not holding Skywarp against his will, guys."
Skywarp looked up at him and made his eyes as big as he could get away with. "What if I want to stay."
"You can't," Thundercracker said. "We have important trine business now."
"If you have a thing, you can come back," Silverbolt told him. "The Lions are going to lose, you're not going to miss anything."
Skywarp didn't give two bolts for the game, but Thundercracker was wound extra-tight, which did not mean this would be the fun kind of trine business. Like there ever was fun trine business. "Skywarp," Thundercracker said. "Very important trine business. Move."
"You're kicking me out?" Skywarp asked Silverbolt.
"Is that actual smoke coming out of his ears?" Skydive asked.
"I dunno," Air Raid said. "At this point, maybe we need to keep Skywarp for his own protection."
Silverbolt and Thundercracker facepalmed at the same moment. Three Aerialbots giggled. "I am not getting in between you two," Silverbolt said from behind his hand. "Stay or go, but choose now so we know how many are here for dinner."
Skywarp estimated he had about four nano-kliks before Thundercracker's head exploded, so he dragged himself up. "Alright then," he said, "I'll be back. For a rematch."
"I look forward to retaking your pants," Air Raid called out as the door closed behind the two of them.
"Seriously, you lost your pants in a card game," Thundercracker said, turning the knob and discovering the door was locked. "Pride of the mighty Decepticon army, and you lost your pants."
"Oh, like you've never lost a bet," Skywarp groused.
"I know when to fold 'em," Thundercracker said, leaning against the wall, "and usually you do too, so where are your shoes?"
"Starscream took them. And I lost the pants on purpose."
Thundercracker folded his arms and looked supremely unconvinced.
"I was setting them at ease," Skywarp explained. "Now they're not afraid of me, I'm just stupid Skywarp who lost his pants in a poker game with a bunch of babies, not Skywarp who pops out of nowhere and once did something very painful to Fireflight with a heat-seeker."
Thundercracker grunted, not believing him.
"It was totally, completely, on purpose!" Skywarp protested. Technically, it was a lie, but it worked out to the same thing, so who cared? "Are you going to open the door?"
"You go ahead."
Skywarp frowned at his wingmate. "Did you forget your key?"
"No, I just want to see if he's still in a throwing mood."
"He might not even be home yet."
"In case he is, you go in first," Thundercracker said. "He likes you better."
"No way. He was yours first, you go first."
"I already was his target once today. It's your turn."
"Is this the very important trine business you were talking about? Using me as a shield?" Behind them, the Aerialbots' door cracked open.
"Do you guys need help?" Fireflight asked. Below him, Air Raid, Skydive and Slingshot peeked around the edge of the door.
"I don't know," Thundercracker said, because he was a big fat jerk, "Skywarp, do you need help opening the door?"
"I can open a fragging door," Skywarp said, demonstrating his superior door-opening abilities. Then he pushed Thundercracker through, waiting to make sure there were no more projectile coffees before following.
Note the end: Every TV episode referenced in this fic is an actual episode I've seen, including the bullet-proof phone book car. I cannot believe this chapter still counts as TV-14, whoever is in charge of setting the ratings needs to be fired. Mejiers is kind of like Wal*Mart only better. The movie quoted is the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. "Padlocked," in this context, means, "staring at Skywarp waiting for an excuse to shoot him."
