Title: Backstage: Stage Hands

Warnings: Powerplay? Buncha helpless Decepticons? Reprogramming.

Rating: PG-13

Continuity: G1

Characters: Combaticons, Decepticons

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

Motivation (Prompt): R.E.M. – "Losing My Religion"

[* * * * *]

He'd been patient. Onslaught had a plan, Onslaught always had a plan, and Swindle had waited for it to go into motion.

He'd waited. And waited.

It had become clear that Onslaught was waiting for something, too. For what? Megatron to have a fit of mercy? Soundwave to take up English pentameter poetry in his spare time? Motormaster to declare undying love for Optimus Prime?

Actually, that last one had already happened. The Constructicons tackled him on the spot. The rest of the Decepticons pretended nothing had just happened. Nothing. At all. Wishful thinking, but they were fans of that when it came to the Stunticons. Hook spent four days searching for the crossed wires, combing through the Motormaster's head with a pair of toothpicks.

As far as criteria went, Swindle didn't have faith that the other two would be so easily met. Stunticons did crazy things every day. Soundwave would have to lose it to follow suit. But Megatron…yeah, that wasn't going to happen.

Onslaught needed an opportunity. He needed an opening, and his hands were tied in this situation. There were no angles of attack for prisoners; just the bars of their cage, confining them. The only one of the Combaticons with any degree of freedom was Swindle. Not much, because the Insecticons had them all on such short leashes it was hard to stand up straight most days, but he was allowed to work alone sometimes.

The humans got along with him. He could get contacts and items of sufficient stupidity to carry out the Decepticons' giant ploy against the Autobots on Earth, and there was even a weird kind of trade going through the spacebridge back to Cybertron. Oddball stuff from Earth was beginning to become collectors' items back on Cybertron. The Cabbage Patch Kids fad in the ground ranks really had to die a quick death in his opinion, but he still thought Megatron allowed him to sell the things through the space bridge just to get them out of the base.

But that was the kind of freedom Swindle had. He had to open his books to Bombshell whenever told to, but he had books. The other Combaticons had chains and various bits of debilitating control forced on them. They didn't resent him - well, much - but having them locked down was as effective as a collar around his own neck. They were a combiner team now, not just a combat unit. Crippling them crippled him, too. He had to help them to help himself. Kickback had made him seriously regret trying to skim enough off profit to buy Blast Off a set of Earth dictionaries.

Swindle had waited for orders, for even a hint of a plan that used his limited freedom, but Onslaught remained strangely silent. That was a first. Slowly, but surely, Swindle began to lose faith in Onslaught's hypothetical plan. He stood back, not the planner and not the strategist, and watched his team leader in fading hope. He waited for his cue, but it wasn't coming. The gestalt link hummed with constant tension, but there was no direction for the frustrated energy.

Swindle waited, and he…thought.

It was up to him. The one with the slack on his chains.

Onslaught knew tactics. He knew plans. Swindle knew opportunity like a shark knew blood in the water. He skidded through life half a credit ahead of target lock, creating black markets right under the noses of the authorities, and he rarely stopped to plan. Impulse and brilliant flashes of genius guided him where Onslaught's meticulous plans bogged down for lack of information or time. Swindle didn't have a strategist's mind, but he had intelligence. Far too much greed for his own good tempered his smarts, but it was still there, waiting.

The Combaticons combined. Bruticus fell. And Swindle stood among the ruins of his team and saw a direction.

It wasn't an opportunity, not yet, but Swindle ran with it.

If the Autobots weren't so Earth-mad and gullible, he wouldn't have had to be so flamboyant. But, really, selling his own gestaltmates? It was barely physically possible. He got continuous flashes of bewilderment, muzzy pain, and fury through the gestalt link as the humans he'd sold them to used the Combaticons' bodies like simple machines. It felt horrible, but he sold the other Combaticons anyway.

It was stupid of him, so stupid, because only Megatron could approve one of the grandiose plans the Decepticons on Earth used to distract the Autobots, and every bargain Swindle struck condemned him that much more. He'd known it, and he'd kept running with it. Onslaught needed this. The other Combaticons might end up dead from this, he might get killed, but someone had to take the risk. He was the only one who had the freedom to even try for it.

If Megatron had valued Bruticus just a tiny bit less, Swindle would have been shot on sight. As outrageous as the lone Combaticon's spontaneous act had been, however, there was no denying that Prime's group of morons had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. Swindle's character on Earth was that of the overly greedy Decepticon, and selling his team fit in well with that kind of mech. Megatron had decided to use the distraction – and allow Swindle to leave his presence alive. It'd been made very clear that his condition could be temporarily, however, if the Combaticons weren't reassembled.

Swindle had fled Megatron's presence and gladly screwed over all his Earth contacts without a shred of remorse. Meh, they were humans, and this wasn't about business, for once. This was survival and opportunity.

Onslaught and the others had rebooted fine, but Brawl had caused trouble. Of course he had. Rage kept coming through the tenuous gestalt bond, so the bruiser wasn't dead, but Swindle cursed up a storm at his mind-absent teammate as he tried to think of a way out of this self-made dead end. The rest of his team had stood before the other Decepticons incomplete, and there had been nothing but wary confusion standing at Swindle's back. They knew he wasn't unreasonably greedy, not greedy enough to sell them, but they didn't dare ask what was really going. Not in front of Megatron. Drawing the Supreme Commander's wrath at that moment would have been most unwise.

If Swindle's impromptu dramatic play hadn't been working so well at distracting the Autobots from the spacebridge opening that day, the other three Combaticons would have left Megatron's presence two mechs down instead of just one. Instead, Swindle got a knee-shaking second chance at surviving the day. The bomb installed into his head hadn't even been all that unexpected, although, frag yes, he'd been shivering with terror when Megatron laid down his ultimatum: restore Bruticus, or die.

He'd left to find Brawl's personality component, and in the back of his mind had glittered the faintest flicker of comprehension.

Onslaught.

By the time Swindle returned, the glitter had become a hard glow. The Decepticons had obviously filled the other Combaticons in on how badly he'd violated the probationary rules laid on their team while he'd been gone, and Vortex and Blast Off stood far back from him as if sheer gall were catching. The looks they gave him were either admiration for the size of his ball bearings or apprehension for what the Insecticons - and Megatron, oh by Primus - were going to do to him. Swindle delivered Brawl's missing component and dropped his knees before the ruler of the Decepticons, cables cramping with utter panic -

- and Onslaught grabbed what he'd been given. What Swindle had given him.

"Lord Megatron, let me punish him!" Onslaught strode forward, anger practically vibrating his frame, and Megatron actually paused. Whether at what had been said or at the foolish choice to interrupt him with those words was questionable. Onslaught went on before the Supreme Commander decided. "He sold us," the Combaticon team leader growled, and behind him came an echo from Brawl. Their anger certainly was genuine. Swindle could feel it snapping at the borders of his mind as if Brawl would hit him mentally if he could. "He sold me. He sold my team. I have the right to discipline him!"

Dead silence.

The other Decepticons seemed to have been shocked out of their humorous moods, suddenly watching the free entertainment with intent optics instead of amused. The other Combaticons, even Brawl, went still as statues. Swindle froze, drawing inward and trying to disappear. 'Not wise, Onslaught,' he thought. 'Not a good plan.' Where was the strategy? This was a blow to their chains, blunt as a brute force, and it would never work. They needed lockpicks, not clubs.

Prisoners did not have rights. That was a basic tenet. It was so obvious it was painful. For Onslaught to demand a right…

Shrill laughter broke the moment, and Starscream turned to Megatron. "Oh, let him, please! This ought to be good!"

Optics bright with sadistic hilarity savored Swindle's upturned face as the conmech stared at the Air Commander. Disbelief and alarm mingled there, and Swindle glanced fearfully over his shoulder at his stony-faced team commander. A funny sound, half whimper and half plea, came out of Swindle's mouth. Starscream only laughed harder. It caught on like an oil refinery fire, roaring through the room until the other Decepticons were clapping each other the backs and wheezing.

Even Megatron had a smirk on his face. His gaze pressed heavily on the humiliated combiner team, weighing them, judging them one at a time as laughter filled the room. Giggling Vortex, standing beside his larger shuttle teammate. Blast Off, who had his visor trained distantly on the wall behind Megatron as if it held more interest than the current circumstances. Brawl, standing at Onslaught's shoulder with his fists clenching and unclenching furiously. Swindle, cringing on the floor as if it would swallow him up, trapped between a rock and a hard place: team and Supreme Commander. And finally, Onslaught. Insistent but respectfully not pressing, well aware what he asked for was a monumental change.

Give a prisoner one right, and it set precedent for granting another. Privileges could be granted, but they had to be earned.

Megatron considered. He glared at the Combaticons. His Air Commander snickered.

He could afford to be gracious. "Very well, Onslaught. Discipline him." Earn it.

Swindle stayed on his knees, feeling curiously numb. Back at the Combaticons' base, there were chains set into the middle of the helipad. He knew that Onslaught would chain his wrists there for the beating, in full view of the sky. In full view of the spying Autobots and observing Decepticons, and there would be no way to hide any of it. There could be no mercy, and no pulled blows. It wasn't as simple as a discipline beating. It had to be an example. Earn it.

Swindle wasn't just taking one for the team. He was giving them the chance to be a team instead of prisoners. He was paying for the basic rights prisoners didn't get with his body, and it was going to - had to - hurt.

Onslaught had a plan.

Earn it.

Swindle huddled on the ground, and he waited.