A/N: Mash-up, sloppy, very Extra-y chapter to explain a lot of shite. Just... kinda sucks. Sorry.

I know that the break-up between Sari and Bee was very sudden, but in writing it from Bee's POV/scope, it kinda needed to be horrifically sudden. Also, this will be the very last time I write human Black-frikkin-arachnia AND I STAKE MY SPARK ON IT DAMMIT. Such a crazy bitch, and not even in the good way.

By the way, this week's Odd Couple update is on AFFnet, as is the last Partners update. Hope y'all are having a wonderful week thus far~

Characters: Sari, Bulkhead, Bee, Jet-twins, Wasp, Blackarachnia

Pairings: Sari/Bee finito, one-sided Twins/Sari, possible one-sided Bulkhead/Arcee (which I think is stupidly adorable and oh-god-wait-a-few-years flavored) and Blackarachnia/Wasp.

Warnings: Teenaged angst, hard decisions, twin cuteness, and some creepy, CREEPY-ASS seduction ala the last 'pairing'. She totally gets him addicted to drugs. No lie.

Teenagers

"He almost ignores me when we're not alone! He treats me like, I don't know—like a guy friend he can kiss when he feels like it! At his convenience! It drives me nuts!"

"Um, Sari?" Bulkhead peeked out from behind his easel with a hesitant expression on his face. When she looked back to him, fists clenched, he ducked his head, mumbling, "You're, um—you're moving again."

Sari looked down at herself, as if seeing for the first time the slightly ridiculous bed-sheet toga she was swaddled in, then swatted her forehead with her free hand (the other was occupied with holding a plastic apple they had spray-painted gold just that morning) and did her best to settle back into the stool. It wasn't quite the generous 3/4-angle Bulkhead had directed her into about half an hour ago, but it was close enough for color-blocking. Sari shook her head very, very shallowly, allowing herself one tortured sigh.

"I'm so sorry Bulkhead. I just haven't had anybody to talk to about it and… you know me."

Bulkhead nodded, then turned determinedly back to his palate and swabbed up a rust he was sure would fit the reds in his friend's dark skin. He did know Sari… and he would have been perfectly content to listen to her ranting about her troubles with Bumblebee if it meant she would stay in one place while doing it. He even felt a little bad asking her to hold back, but the art contest was next week and this was the only break he got from the station and school, and he had to make the best of it. He already had the best model, he thought shyly, now the only problem was doing her justice on canvas, which he was still horribly new to.

Thus chastised, the Indian girl sat still for at least five minutes with her head upturned regally, but all the while her pretty face contracted into a prickly pout, thoughts churning. In the end, she broke the silence so violently that Bulkhead, lost in contemplating the folds of her toga, nearly slashed a line of white all the way across her barely-rendered arm, which didn't much matter as the real arms were already tangled defiantly across her chest.

"I just—it's the same thing every time! I try to dress up for him once in a millennia and spend loads of time thinking about stupid stuff, like what I'm going to wear and where we're gonna go and how he's gonna be so impressed that I curled my hair which I almost killed myself doing—"

"Sari?"

"And he just doesn't even look at me and—and is like, hey, let's go to the arcade! Or the movies! Or even better, let's take the only free time I have from schoolwork to go play videogames with Blurr!"

Bulkhead winced as she hunched forward and shook her head violently, completely destroying both the drapery of the toga and the swept-back Greek hair-style they'd patched together with some twine and hair-pins.

"Yeah, 'cos that's real date-material, playing two-player videogames—which equates to me sitting there like a piece of furniture--with a guy I don't even like!" Growling, she chucked the Apple of Discord at the wall; her red hair poofed up in all directions as she threw up her hands, fairly yelping: "There! I said it! I don't like Blurr!"

"Gee, Sari. Guess it doesn't sound like you're… having much fun with him," Bulkhead said after a second of looking mournfully at the abused prop, which was already flaking. He put down his paintbrush with a sigh, having abandoned the hope of ever adding another brush-stroke with his model in such a state, and blinked down at her. "Have you talked to him about it?"

"Yes! Several times! And every time he acts like he gets it, I guess just to shut me up, and then he goes and does the same thing again."

The frustration of trying to pound anything through Bee's thick skull was evident in her expression and clenched fists, much less subtle things like paying attention to your girlfriend when she seemed perfectly fine a day ago, playing videogames alone with you. He just didn't take cues, or understand girls as a whole… and apparently he didn't care enough to change his tune.

"And the sad thing is, I think it's just the way that he is! He just doesn't think about stuff, and he definitely doesn't think about me until I'm right in front of him: then it's like Oh. Dur. I have a girlfriend."

"You guys have a good time together, most, um, most times. I've seen you. But… maybe you guys aren't… y'know." Bulkhead shrugged with some difficulty. "Supposed to be boyfriend and girlfriend."

Sari crumpled, like it wasn't the first time she'd heard it—be it in her own head or from someone else's mouth. She took a deep breath, drawing her skinny brown legs onto the stool and wrapping her arms around them.

"It's just… I don't even feel pretty around him, you know? I don't even feel like a girl most of the time. I thought I was okay with that, but… "

"But… you're so pretty, Sari. You're real pretty."

She shook her head like she didn't believe it, and Bulkhead's face fell. No more than a second later, however, his friend looked up at him with a teasing smile.

"Prettier than Arcee?"

Her chuckle turned into a full laugh when Bulkhead turned a mortified shade of rose and ducked down to busy himself with his canvas in whatever way would let him avoid her eyes. He muttered something about both of them being pretty in different ways—and he was right, one was bright and bandy and spunky and the other was pastel and sweet with thick lashes—and cleared his throat until he could find some more words for her.

He wanted Bee to be happy, and he wanted Sari to be happy. But he knew Bee—and he knew that Bee would never really be happy if he was away from Sari. At least, not for a long time. But if Sari wasn't happy in the first place…

Bulkhead frowned deeply, lost in trying to weigh out cost and gain with hearts and heads. If it was this difficult for him, he could hardly imagine how difficult it was for Sari, tied in so closely to his friend. He'd never had a girlfriend. He wouldn't know, but it sounded tough.

"Still, I mean… you can still be friends, right?" he said at last, round face anxious. "Because I really don't… you know, I don't want you to stop coming around just 'cos you're not dating Bee."

"I know." She pressed her face in between her knees, sad: because, somewhere, she had already made up her mind. "Whatever happens, I don't think I'll be around for a while. Bee won't want me here."

She was, of course, nothing but right.

Sari sighed and rolled over on her bed for the millionth time, freeing her face from the pillows she was half-suffocating in. Even when she couldn't breathe, she couldn't shake Bee from her mind: whether it was the grin he gave her when she got them tickets to their favorite band-show or the look on his face when he snatched his backpack from the back of her car for the last time and ran into the Project, slamming the huge door after him. She had wanted to chase after him so badly, but instead she just drove on.

It was hard to pinpoint the moment she realized that she was dating her best friend—and said best friend wasn't mature enough for her. It was the Sumdac heir's first time dating anyone in her entire cloistered existence, so the flutters of a first official seventeen-year-old romance—of dates and held hands, no matter with whom—overrode the logic that said she couldn't really rely on Bee on a daily basis. Yes, he had some amazing moments. Yes, she was sure that he still had feelings for her and what made it hard was that she returned those feelings, but she wouldn't ignore her gut feeling and end up hating him for the world. She couldn't survive on those little flashes of considerate male and keep abiding his thoughtlessness day-to-day.

It wasn't easy. She'd held her breath for days about it. He acted like it was out of the blue, which was the painful part—and the part that proved this was probably the right thing to do. If he hadn't noticed that she'd been drawing away, or wanting to talk to him about serious stuff, and he was completely clueless on why she wanted to break up with him? They weren't on the same page.

Growling, Sari heaved herself from her bed and started one of her many tower wanderings, if just to quit staring at her four-poster top. She trudged through hallways and stepped into waiting elevators, giving clustered employees a quick smile. They were used to seeing her around. She ended up on the fourth floor after a brief game of Sumdac Chutes and Ladders, staring at the machines churning beyond the glass of the observation deck without really seeing them.

Suddenly, she groaned again and smacked the wall, not even making a clang. She just felt that way: helpless. Helpless even to apologize to Bee, to make him forgive her so they could be friends again. She missed him already. She was so sure it could work, but Bee's reaction killed any hope she had. He almost went into shock, and that alone made her want to take it all back.

She hadn't been over to hang out at the Project in at least two weeks, and with that went any kind of social interaction. She'd been trapped at the Tower for thirteen straight days, which had done wonders for the whole getting-her-mind-off-of-breaking-her-friend's-heart thing. She couldn't even stop by after school to see the girls she was sort-of friends with, because she couldn't stand the thought of Bee seeing her and storming off.

She just had to… stay out of sight until he decided she wasn't a heartless she-monster. But then, how would he ever decide that if she wasn't allowed to talk to him? If he didn't allow her to talk to him…

"Dobryj dyen'! Sari Sumdac!"

Startled, Sari looked up from the orderly ruckus one floor down; two tall boys were galumphing toward her, waving manically as though she weren't just a few meters away. Jetfire and Jetstorm screeched to a stop in front of her, grinning their identical grins.

"Sari Sumdac, it is being you!"

"Sari Sumdac, are you to be taking tour too?" Jetstorm asked, nearly stamping his feet in glee. The two had obviously escaped from a guided tour of Sumdac industries and were more than excited to see a familiar face, much less one belonging to so tall and exotic a girl.

"A tour of her own company! Brother, you are being truly stupid," Jetfire scoffed. He raised a fist and bopped his twin on the head, earning himself a Russian curse-word and a dirty glare. Sari could only offer a listless half-smile, fighting the urge to look down at her feet or run back up to her room. She took a deep breath.

"No, guys, I—I kinda live here."

"You are living here?" Jetfire repeated incredulously, gesturing to the glassed-off research lab. "Funny! You are sleeping underneath the computers, da?"

Sari shook her head, about to say that there was a house upstairs with curtains and carpet, but Jetstorm laughed and waggled his finger.

"You and the Boomblebee, you are having very strange living spaces!"

Sari couldn't help it: her face fell. She looked away, rubbing at her scruffy pigtails.

"Yeah. I… guess we are."

She was expecting more blabber, or maybe an awkward exit because maybe she didn't want to see people right now, so Sari jumped when Jetstorm reached forward and took her free hand in his, expression worried.

"Sari Sumdac… you are not feeling nice?"

"I, uh. My boyf—Bee. I broke up with him," Sari stuttered after a moment, voice tight. Both of the twins looked at her in confusion—like breaking up with a boyfriend of five months wasn't something you had to deal with in Soviet Russia—then Jetfire tilted his head.

"And you are thinking you made a mistake?"

"No," Sari answered, knowing it was true. She shook her head sadly, drawing away to pick at the hem of her dress. "Maybe that's what was hard about it. It had to happen."

The two brothers looked at her for a moment, then muttered conspiratorially between themselves in Russian that was far too fast and soft for her to understand. Coming to some kind of conclusion, both straightened.

"Our host parents are to be taking us to something that is called a carnival. Mayhaps you are liking to come?" Jetfire asked her while his twin readjusted his visor almost nervously behind him. The ginger twin took her hand this time, bending down to meet her eyes. "You can be practicizing your Russian with us and it will be very fun."

"Yes, but you will have to be holding both of our hands and not just one!" Jetstorm put in before Sari could speak, suddenly stepping forward to steal her other hand.

"And sitting in the middle of the car!" Jetfire added, nodding at his twin as though all of this were regular fare.

"And riding rides with both."

"And we will be winning you funny little medved toys!"

Any shy feeling of being flattered puttered out and died: Sari looked at them, bewildered, as they wrapped an arm around each other.

"We are sharing everything!" they chorused by way of explanation. Even, apparently, girls.

Struck by the fact she was going to be divided like a candy-bar between two fussing brothers, Sari suddenly broke into ridiculous peals of laughter. It felt good after being reduced to muted sighs for so long, and it cleaned out something inside of her. When she quieted, wiping tears from her eyes, Jetfire and Jetstorm were still grinning at her expectantly.

Still, she shook her head. She knew Bee was going to the carnival, and he would be heartbroken to see her with two boys that he knew liked her. She couldn't risk it, because the one thing she wanted more than anything was to be back with him, laughing about zombies and playing video-games like nothing had happened.

"No thanks, guys. I don't think I want to go anywhere right now. Have fun, though."

She gave a sad smile and their faces fell in perfect tandem, looking at her with true concern—the kind she didn't know they had the concentration to sit still for. Sari shrugged and began to walk away, trailing one hand along the metal wall.

"I'm still getting over him."

"Hey, Bumbler."

Bee glanced towards the voice instinctively, then went back to his stooped position, eyes locked on the concrete of the side-walk. Wasp.

His stride doubled and he hitched his ratty backpack further up, fingers already white on his straps. The bus-stop was half a mile away; Wasp would walk five miles barefoot just to torture him. He wasn't getting out of this.

"How's it going, Bumblebee?"

The other boy's sharp tone made something drop in Bee's gut. Wasp already knew how it was going. Bumblebee tensed, ears burning; he heard Wasp slide off of the school picnic bench he'd been lounging on, taking his cigarette-stub from his mouth.

"Hear Sumdac kicked your ass to the curb."

Bee nearly stumbled. Just the sound of her name made him go numb; made him remember why he was trudging to the bus-stop instead of hopping into a corvetta-duex and stealing a kiss. He walked a little faster, yellow tennis-shoes scraping louder and louder to drown out his heart-beat.

"She get tired of loaning you lunch money?"

The younger boy hissed something through his teeth, cheeks red. Dark, skinny and just as short as he was, Wasp suddenly entered his periphery, making him flinch and turn away like he'd been stung. Not so close, not so close.

"What was that, reject?"

"Shut up, Wasp," Bee breathed into his collar. A desperate heat rose in his neck, in direct rebellion to the cold January air.

"You should be happy, man! Someone pathetic as you never even had a chance with her: you with a fuckin' Sumdac? Now you've got a reputation." Wasp blew out and a blast of cigarette smoke hit Bee in the face, making him duck away and cough. "A loser whose luck ran out."

Rage clouding his sore head, a product of the hot acrid smoke and the cold of Sari's voice telling him I don't think this is working, Bee lost it.

He sucked in a deep breath and did what he'd always wanted to whenever Wasp set after him and he skittered off again and again: he turned and dug his hand into Wasp's green jacket, jerking the other boy close. Wasp immediately stiffened, grabbing the front of the blond's hoodie and glaring into his baby face. Five years of venomous tension and locker-slams crackled between the two, reflected by the sheer whiteness of their knuckles. For a moment, they only stared at each other.

"You wanna start somethin', Bumbler?" Wasp hissed at length, yanking tightly on Bee's hoodie in a way that dug into his neck and made him want to snap and kill him, leave him bloody for thinking he was so useless, such a loser, when Sari obviously couldn't find a reason to keep him around anyways and it was just a matter of time--

"Boomblebee! Be waiting!"

Both boys turned, hands still locked tightly in each other's clothes, when someone shouted far down the sidewalk. It was the two Russians, long strides eating up the side-walk as they waved their arms like windmills. Each had their backpacks swinging helter-skelter from their narrow shoulders, grinning sunnily.

"We are walking to the bus, as well! We are walking with you, da?"

When Bee looked back, adrenaline chilled his rough rage. Wasp was staring, dark eyes glittering, just waiting for the skinny boy to try and sock him. It didn't matter to him if there were witnesses to Bee's beating, because it would be his beating. He'd never thrown a punch before unless he had a controller in his hands, and that helplessness spread like a cold bucket of ice to his stomach.

Inwardly, Bee's spine crumpled. He didn't want to fight. He just wanted to be left alone, to feel useless and pathetic without having anyone breathing down his neck. Sari had left him. As far as he was concerned, his life was over. No one would date him now, and he didn't want anyone other than Sari.

Finally, the twins drew close enough that their slapping sneakers made him flinch. Suddenly, Bee growled and shoved Wasp away, ripping his own hoodie free and stumbling down the sidewalk.

"God, just get away! All of you!"

Jetfire and Jetstorm stopped and blinked at the little yellow boy dashing down the sidewalk, scruffy blond head tucked low. Only Jetstorm looked down in time to catch the scathing look Wasp sent the two of them before stalking off, then he tugged at his twin's sleeve.

"Come, brother. Boomblebee is being very far ahead."

"I am thinking we were told to go away," Jetfire reminded him, stopping Jetstorm in his tracks with a similar grip. The dark-haired boy frowned.

"And I am thinking that the Boomblebee is needing friends because he is sad."

"Okay," Jetfire huffed after a moment of squinting at his far more considerate brother. He sighed and shrugged his backpack back into place, expression dubious. "So long as this is not making Ms. Sumdac off-limits after she is finished with the getting-over of him."

"Brother!"

It was Jetstorm's turn to swat and he didn't waste the opportunity. The crack could be heard across the school-yard, as could his twin's answering curse. Jetfire could be a dick sometimes, but Jetstorm loved him anyways. He found more reasons to have faith in his rougher half when the skinny redhead sat next to Bumblebee on the bus and told him dirty Russian jokes until the small boy smiled into his wet hoodie-sleeve.

They would be sad to go home.

By the time Bumblebee had managed a watery smile, Wasp had long headed the other way, towards his house.

He cut through the playground of the nearby elementary school, vaulting over the low fence just for the satisfaction of his feet hitting the ground. He strolled through, kicking sand in the jungle-gym pits. He had just coaxed his MP3 player into relinquishing just one song—it was an antique yes, but it worked—when he looked up from the cracked screen to see a tangled black form on the metal wheel-thing that spun. He forgot the name of it. It was a woman, half-dressed in fishnets and ratty black clothing.

Wasp popped the earbuds free and scowled at her. She was creaking to and fro on the playtoy with little pushes of her high-heeled boot and humming to herself. 'The itsy bitsy spider'.

This was his way home. What the hell would a crazy chick be doing in a playground?

The young man snorted to himself, pushing at the MP3 player that chose that moment to fritz out. He shoved it back into his backpack and stalked toward, seeing only fish-netted legs from the corner of his eye.

"Hello."

Her gravelly voice stopped him, but only for a second. Her tattered black skirt was awfully high. He jostled his backpack and tried to move on.

"That little boy you were teasing… what is his name?"

Wasp's mouth popped open. How could she—he looked over. Yes, the front of the school was fully visible from the playground, but so distant, it would be difficult to read even gestures… He glared suspiciously at her.

"Why do you wanna know?" Wasp demanded snidely, already impatient that he wasn't just moving on—that she had caught him somehow and he had to answer.

"Curious," she said with a shrug, giving a strong push that had her clicking to the right, hinges squeak-squeak-squeaking. Wasp stared at her in disgust.

"Freak," he muttered, definitely loud enough for her to hear. She snatched his hand when he moved past her, looking up from her splayed position—dyed black hair fanned around her head like some sort of black papal hood, blonde roots showing through—with a pleading expression.

"Oh, please don't go. It's nearly dark." Her tone—a scratchy, indulgent purr—nearly made his ears go red. It was broad daylight outside. Before he could react, throw off her hand, it was gone with a slither of skin against skin. "It's… Bumblebee, isn't it?"

"Were you…" Wasp grimaced, and shook his hand as though it prickled, stung or poisoned by her black nails. Her skin had been cold, really cold. "What the hell are you doing out here?"

"Lying. Waiting," she murmured hazily, drawing her fingers along the rust-spotted bars of the playtoy. "Tell me, why were you teasing him?"

"His girlfriend dumped him," he said at length, voice hard. "We all knew she would."

She smiled, as if that was the way it should be. Because the girl was too good for him and she knew it. She didn't allow her heart to be broken by some stupid boy, and thus 'Bumblebee' got what he deserved. If only his cousin's plight were so concise, so simple. Blackarachnia sighed.

"You are a very handsome boy."

Wasp gulped, because, suddenly, the freak wasn't a pair of strangely spread, dislocated legs any longer. She sat up and became a woman.

Stunned by her criss-crossed legs and full breasts, Wasp felt his mouth go dry. To even have her looking at him with her dark eyes, radiating that smoky, predatory something that bony sweater-clad high-school girls couldn't have—he couldn't look away. She knew her every curve. Any unease he felt didn't exactly disappear but became little more than a quivering undertone to the feeling she provoked in him.

"Aren't so bad yourself," he grunted, throat tight. Head tilting, she smiled at him like he had ceased to buzz and wiggle on her web; his gut flopped. The prickly spider necklace peeked out from between the white of her breasts.

"Come here."

He looked around to see if there was anyone watching, then approached her with slow steps, conscious of every crunch of grass underneath his new sneakers. When he got close enough, she motioned him closer with a black-nailed finger. Dumbly, he waded the last few inches of grass towards the insane woman and those same nails scraped along his hairless chin, making him make a dumb humming noise—an expression of his flat-lining brainwaves. She cupped his chin and leaned close, perfume flooding the air between them, and he lost any will to see sense.

"I sit here because I get lonely," she whispered in his ear, black lips pursed in a secretive smile Wasp never saw. "Would you be willing to… keep a lady company?"

Crazy or no, she was still the sexiest thing he had ever seen.