If you're curious, I adhere to G1 Cartoon colors. So in my little world FIRRIB. (Though really – FIRRIPURPLE).

I haven't figured out if I like this chapter or not. I'm rather indifferent really (it does not help that I'm itching to write something involving Starscream, Skyfire, Megatron and a sparkling but really can not afford to start another fic until this is finished…) , but I hope you guys like the update! Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Chapter 17

Rumble was proving to be a bit of work on Starscream's part. The challenge might have been appreciated if he wasn't so busy being frustrated. Sure, Rumble's mood had lifted and his feet moving as they exited Soundwave's quarters, but as they headed down the hallway the little brat's feet began moving a bit slower and his face started to scrunch into a contemplative pout. And it was grating on his nerves so he of course inquired as to the problem: "What is it now?"

"Just, just thinking about some things my bro said."

Rumble had replied softly and Starscream snorted. "What? He doesn't like me either?"

"Uh," Rumble hesitated. "More like he notices stuff I don't, like Megatron and stuff."

"Megatron? What does he have to do with anything?" Starscream opened the door to his lab and waited for the cassette to go inside.

Rumble gave a sad little laugh. "He thinks Megatron's going to slag me for fraggin' ya."

Starscream stared. Something in that sentence clicked with a teeny bit of logic, but was flawed in one big way. "Why would he slag you? If anything he'd accuse me of trying to overthrow him by seducing Soundwave's minions." Rumble had been a bit confused (as the expression on his face dictated) by how quickly Starscream had come up with that explanation, but moved on well enough with a blank 'Huh?' Starscream waved him off knowing full well the complexity of his relationship with Megatron was too much for his processor. "Don't worry about, Megatron."

"Yeah but-"

"He doesn't give a damn about the guy I'm fragging, just that he thinks I'm using it to overthrow him." Starscream chuckled before carefully leading Rumble by the shoulder towards the desk. "In this very rare case, I'm doing nothing of the sort so there's nothing to worry about."

"Yeah, but what if they're right and-"

"Rumble." Starscream cut him off again and knelt down to rub the tip of his servo on the cassette's little chest plate. It was time for a distraction. "Stop worrying. It's not very becoming of you. Scrunches up your faceplate."

The seductive tone seemed to have done its job (naturally) and Rumble found himself thoroughly distracted, data transferred and wires interconnected in the blissful connection of processors.

And then Starscream's current predicament arrived.

"You're fragging the pipsqueak!" Skywarp repeated for the fifth time.

Starscream groaned and held his head, still feeling the lowered pulse from Rumble's active systems. It was difficult to make rational decisions when over half of your processes were dedicated to other things. "So I am, are you leaving now or are you going to watch?"

Both Rumble and Skywarp reacted this time with faces of disgust and a respective "Ew!" and "Slag no!." Starscream was not impressed with the maturity level. "Skwarp," The Air Commander growled. "Unless you need something I suggest you leave us be, now."

"How long has this been going on!" Skywarp pressed forward ignoring the dismissing tone of his commander, flailing his arms as if the movement would help him comprehend just what the slag he was seeing. Starscream didn't frag just anybody. And that was that little, little twerp! 'Screamer had better taste than that didn't he? After all, he fragged – "Oh Primus!" Skywarp gasped and felt a shudder travel his entire frame. "You weren't fraggin' him the same time you were me and TC were you! Primus! I could have bits of his data floating around in my processor right now!"

Rumble at this point and time finally found his voice to speak up. "You frag the idiot and his brother!"

"On occasion." Starscream decided any attempt at continuing earlier actions was now completely pointless and took in a breath to start the disconnecting codes. Rumble pouted a bit but came to a similar conclusion as he started to pull out and replace wires to their proper locations much like a petulant child being forced to put his toys away against his will. "Usually there was copious amounts of energon involved."

"Hey!" Skywarp defended. "That's not true and you know it! There was only overcharging involved when it was the three of us at once!"

"What?" Rumble shouted snapping the last of the interfacing wires back into place. There was something new welling up in his spark he hadn't really felt before. Sure he knew 'Screamer had messed around with a few mechs but he didn't realize it was recent. In fact, it felt very familiar to the emotions plaguing his processor when Soundwave was playing favorites. "Two at once!"

"For the love of Primus." Starscream held his head and comm'd Thundercracker. He was not suffering this alone.

"Boss, come'on. Keep yer' head!" Frenzy stumbled as he trailed after the very fast moving Soundwave. The control room had been boring and Frenzy had been extra restless after this whole Rumble thing so he was out and about for once. And as such he was there to read a certain message left behind for them by the Decepticon Air Commander. Opening the door revealed Rumble was indeed missing and it seemed Primus was looking down on him because being out and about for once meant Frenzy had a chance to try and calm the Boss down before he got his hands on his wayward twin.

Soundwave was fragged off.

"I'm sure he wasn't uh, thinkin' ya know? Rumble's not all that bright, Boss!" Frenzy nearly pleaded. Soundwave's stoic persona was in full force and even his internal comms were silenced. Things were not boding well for Rumble and Frenzy was really wishing Ravage or Lazerbeak or ANYING of his fellow cassettes were out of his chest to give Frenzy a hand. "Boss! Please!"

"Silence." Soundwave replied, mission in full force. He was going to ground Rumble until the Autobots were destroyed and then rip off Starscream's head, stick it on a post and give it to Optimus Prime as a present. Soundwave wasn't sure what he'd do with the rest of the body but he was sure it would involve the Space Bridge and a nagging report from Shockwave to stop sending him useless junk. It was at this point of the planning, that Frenzy started to try and physically restrain him. Brotherly bonding was usually a good thing, but at the moment it was proving aggravating. "Desist."

Frenzy stopped trying to push on Soundwave's leg but refused to let up on the pleading. "Come on,' Boss. Is, is Rumble seein' Starscream really that big of a deal? I mean, it's not like he's doin' anything ta' Rumble he ain't asking for." Soundwave merely glared and kept walking. "Boss! Wait! Listen! I know Rumble's disobeyin' and stuff but he really, really likes Starscream! He can't help it!"

Soundwave paused midstep about three corridors from that Seekers' retched lab and looked down at the frantic twin. "Repeat."

"Rumble," Fenzy took a tiny breath and tried not to bite his lip. "He likes Starscream. Like, uh, like…" Frenzy had to stop and think of another Decepticon couple. There had to be one. Somewhere. "Like Astrotrain likes Blitzwing…maybe?"

Soundwave continued to stare down his subordinate. The communications officer did not like where this was going. Worse still, he wondered how he could have missed Rumble having feelings past lust. "He admitted this?"

Frenzy nodded. "Yeah, yeah." Frenzy tried to smile. "Even admitted he liked just hanging out with the flyer instead of uh, ya' know."

This brought Soundwave to pause. If what Frenzy was saying was true, than this was more than just a matter of Rumble being rebellious and required a slightly more finess tactic than busting down the door and spilling energon. He was supposed to be taming Rumble back into submission; not breaking him. So for now, perhaps, the Seeker would get to live another day.

Frenzy sighed in relief when Soundwave turned to head back the other direction. The cassette spared one last look down the hall towards Starscream's lab and rubbed his cheek with a hand before turning to follow at Soundwave's heels. He huffed to himself on the long walk back to quarters and hoped Rumble had enough sense to return soon. "I hope you know what yer' doin' Bro."

Thundercracker was positive when he heard from Megatron that Starscream was fooling around with someone new, that none of Soundwave's cassettes even crossed his minds as possible applicants. And yet, here he was sitting in Starscream's lab watching his Air Commander sit in a corner mumbling about idiocy while Skywarp and Rumble growled at each other. At least it was better than all the shouting they were doing earlier. It was times like this Thundercracker was actually grateful that Starscream's lab was hidden off in the corner of the ship away from everyone.

But back to the matter at hand.

Thundercracker had an assignment that now had an answer. Rumble. Thundercracker had to somehow tell Megatron that Starscream was fragging with Soundwave's cassette. It was all consensual granted, but that didn't excuse the fact that this was going to be a mess if Soundwave figured out what was going on. It was no secret that Soundwave barely tolerated Starscream.

Then again, he might already know. The mech was a freaking telepath and it was unlikely his team could hide anything from him. Unlike Starscream who, actually, probably didn't even know that Thundercracker had this mission from Megatron in the first place. That could go good or bad either depending how Megatron took this news. If the warlord took it badly and reigned down on Starscream with full force of fury, Starscream would demand to know who told and then proceed to beat said snitch. If it turned out their leader could care less, Starscream would be none the wiser and Thundercracker scot free.

Decisions, decisions.

"You wanna' say that to my face, fly boy!"

"I can't, it's too close to the ground for me to stoop!"

"Oh don't worry! I'll knock ya' down ta' size plenty!"

"Try it half pint!"

Starscream looked up and snarled at the two idiots engaged in an almost literal lubricant contest. "No pile drivers in the lab!" The two still to look over at him, but remained tense. And Starscream's head was hurting so enough was enough. "The both of you sit down and shut up. I'm thinking."

Thundercracker watched on as the two complied, be it reluctantly, and filtered air through his intakes. Good as time as any really to see what their great Air Commander had planned. "How are you planning to handle this one?"

Starscream snorted and started to motion with his hands. "I'm giving Skywarp to you and keeping Rumble and we'll just keep them separated at all times."

"And when Skywarp wants his share of quality time?" Thundercracker muttered.

"Then he can have it when Rumble's off with Soundwave." Starscream threw his arms up in almost an offering to Primus to save him from this idiocy. Really, there was a war going on. He shouldn't have to deal with such petty problems. "It's not like anyone's exclusive in this room."

There was a loud clank in the room and all optics turned to Rumble who had hit the metal table beside him. He hadn't meant to jerk but that statement hurt. Rumble knew there wasn't anything special between the two of them right now, but he had at least hoped, maybe Starscream was considering it. This whole thing with his brothers was slag. "What? What'cha lookin' at?"

Starscream shrugged. "Nothing, I suppose. Are you two done fighting over me like little organic mongrels yet?"

They both flinched this time and remained silent."

"Good." Starscream stood up. "Now then, Thundercracker, take Skywarp off to do your scheduled patrols while Rumble and I have our own discussion."

Not one to argue, Thundercracker stood up and walked beside Skywarp as they left, noticing the usually energetic Seeker was strangely contemplative. He wasn't sure he liked it. Just as Thundercracker hadn't been entirely sure why he was ordered to come to the lab in the first place if he was just going to sit in a corner and watch.

Rumble watched as Starscream's brothers left and listened for the soft swish of the door closing. He was glad he was alone with 'Screamer again, but just couldn't seem to work up the same excitement as earlier. The thought of sharing the Seeker just rubbed him the wrong way. Rumble looked over and saw that Starscream had already crossed the room and was leaning on the table behind him. Rumble for once, was hoping they weren't going to pick up where they left off earlier. He just, wasn't in the mood right now. "So, uh, what now?"

"I was thinking of getting the pit out of this base and flying around." Starscream mumbled and covered his optics. "I think we could use the change in atmosphere, don't you?"

Rumble smiled just a little bit realizing he and the Air Commander were on the same wavelength. "Yeah, that sounds good."

Maybe there was hope for them yet.