Author's Note: I have a new list of terms, though some of them don't correlate with the common use of Transformer's terms. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the plot.

Chapter 4

"Normal speech."

Inner personal thoughts.

"Comm chatter."

:Bond Speech:

Astrosecond: 2 seconds

Klik: approximately five minutes

Breem: nearing one hour

Cycle: meanings vary; most often half a solar cycle

Mega-cycle: one human day

Solar cycle: one Cybertronian day

Vorn: approximately two months

Orn: five years

Mega-vorn: nine years

Mega-orn: twenty years

Sideswipe yawned, stretching the stiff intricacies of his mouth. His blasters aimed unerringly toward the humming energy shield of his cell, useless against the mechs on the other side until the barrier was deactivated. His aft felt sore where it had collided with the cold metal floor, and his legs ached with rust and the friction his scars caused when he moved. He was sitting with his back to the cell wall, one leg bent against his chassis, the other splayed crookedly out before him. On either side of him steel loomed tall and dark, almost smugly defying escape. Before him, the purple field crackled and spat, sizzling against the floor not two servo-lengths from his pede in violet sparks of light.

Sunstreaker was conscious. His twin's own careful assessment of their surroundings, broadcast almost unintentionally into their bond, plagued the red twin's processors.

Beyond the purple field, Sunstreaker could see Lord Megatron and the strange mech were talking animatedly, but could not hear their words. The audio into the prison had been silenced long ago. Sunstreaker's optics flicked over faceplates and masks, roaming gleaming, clean armor with a stab of envy that ached in their sparks and caused Sideswipe to chuckle. A promise was made between them, and Sunstreaker continued to examine, warm satisfaction and quivering expectation providing a steady rhythm through them both.

Megatron was silver, black accents peeking out from beneath heavy plating. Large shoulders and arms; a thick chassis; the waist slimming into heavy hips and flat, wide pedes. He stood almost at attention beside a mech who neared his height but not his mass, his scarred armor flared impressively. Sunstreaker found that detail interesting, and Sideswipe sent a query.

:He's a gladiator,: A symbol cut in a clean, circular line into Lord Megatron's back, beneath a broad left shoulder. It was worn, as though he had tried to have it ground away, but claiming signs like that were branded into a mech's programming, growing naturally in the armor as it healed and improved. A new back-plate would only be indented and carved into over time by the mech's own systems.

:So?: Sideswipe wasn't seeing the intrigue. :So he's a gladiator. What's caught your eye? His good looks?:

A mental thwap and the vague, snide thought that Sunstreaker found very few things attractive beyond a mirror was the only response he got.

His golden twin reexamined the flared armor for Sideswipe's benefit. :Gladiator mechs have heavy armor. Why's he lifting it all?:

:Showing off?: An image of Lord Megatron as he had been in the corridor where he discovered them was reintroduced into the bond. Tall, confident, utterly in control, red optics gleaming consideringly. In the image, the mech's armor was flatter than a scraplet among warframes.

:Hmph.: Sunstreaker was even more intrigued, but his examination continued grudgingly.

Red armor glistened almost wetly beneath dim lighting, and again the jealousy resurfaced. The mech was handsomely shaped, but had that look that suggested he had been remodeled for war rather than born into it, as the gladiator looked to have been. Again, the shoulders were broad. They flowed in sculpted form into thick forearms and down relatively thin wrists, before ending in comparatively small but sturdy servos and digits. Glass decorated a blocky chassis in neat squares, and beneath, angular pelvic plating rested on silver hips. The mech's pedes were thick and square, decorated a dark blue like his shins. Sunstreaker approved; it accented silver and red well.

Sideswipe smirked to himself; Sunstreaker's knack for spotting beauty had gotten them into some trouble, in recent cycles, but he couldn't help but delight in the fact that his twin was expressing himself again, rather than sinking into the cold, expressionless mech he had been-

He cut off the thread of thought with an angry burst of static, instantly wary. He felt through the bond, and came up against what he had feared.

Sunstreaker's attention was focused intently upon him, carefully blank. The examination had been cut short; his twin was now concerned only with him. It was as though the entire being of Sunstreaker was hanging on his thoughts, waiting for those next words with a carefully modulated hatred that was wires short of bursting into the biggest slaughter the golden twin could contrive. Sunstreaker hated what they had left behind. The weight of his attention made Sideswipe uncomfortable, but a flicker of something…else flitted through his circuits. Sunstreaker was picky about the things he allowed to hold his interest. If it wasn't worth it, it didn't get his time. That Sideswipe could distract him from all else at a time like this was…exhilarating, despite the (slight) guilt he felt for doing so. They were in a dangerous position, after all, and he had let his guard down, pulling his twin with him…

:You're thinking too much.: Sunstreaker interrupted bluntly, unexpectedly, and within their bond Sideswipe could feel the black and gold helm tilt, his own optics twitching as Sunstreaker's narrowed with a mix of diverse emotions, the most prominent of which was dark amusement. :They've stopped talking.:

Sideswipe sent back a grateful acknowledgement, and opened his optics. He didn't remember closing them, but the difference between watching the world through his twin's eyes and seeing through his own was startling.

He saw the gleam of scarred grey armor, as well as the glitter of red, but he didn't see the detail Sunstreaker noticed. It was all almost instinctively ignored as he examined faceplates, looking for expressions and indications of action where his twin saw shape and texture.

The two mechs were watching them carefully - him in particular, it seemed. Their expressions were neutral, and they showed no signs of aggression. Sunstreaker relayed that he had curled against the wall, conserving warmth and protecting his repairs, possibly causing them to turn their attention to the more active prisoner for questioning.

The purple shield flickered as changes to the cell environment were made, and Sideswipe heard as the red giant spoke.

"Greetings. My name is Optimus Prime. What is yours?" His vocals were a deep, stately rumble that instantly demanded respect. Sideswipe cheerfully denied it any.

The red twin frowned outwardly, honestly confused. "My what?"

"Designation." Megatron growled, arms folding across his broad chassis, pedes shifting into a more relaxed stance.

"Yes." The red mech looked a bit more intrigued, and Sideswipe didn't know why. True, the twins were relatively ignorant, but no bot had found that interesting before. He frowned, deciding to show a pleasant front since the mech was obviously trying to approach this diplomatically.

"My, uh, name is Sideswipe. How're you?" Sunstreaker's cruel humor hummed into his spark as the red mech blinked, apparently not expecting such concern for his wellbeing. Sideswipe forced his customary smirk into a wide, warm smile, waiting politely for a response.

"I am well." To his credit, the mech recovered fast. "And you?"

"Can't complain."

:'Cause if I did I'd get shot.: He added. In the adjacent cell to his right, Sunstreaker's systems ground together in an angry cacophony. "Optimus Prime's" optics flicked curiously between them, and beside him Megatron grunted as though only just realizing something. Sideswipe didn't like that combination; these mechs weren't stupid. He turned up the charm, subspacing his blasters and reclining in a languid sprawl against the wall behind him, legs crossed, servos behind his helm.

"So, uh, what do you want?"

The two mechs returned their attention to him, and Megatron's brows jumped upward in disbelief. Optimus Prime's optics showed nothing but polite interest, though they narrowed slightly.

"We were wondering if you could answer that question yourself, actually."

"Well, how about a cube of high-grade and a couple of femmes to start off?"

The silver mech snorted. "Watch yourself, brat."

Okay, there was definitely something strange going on. "What's a "brat"?" Sideswipe asked coldly, irritation battling with curiosity. The sounds were unfamiliar; definitely not Cybertronian in any sense. Alien languages weren't often used in common speech on the home planet, or so he'd been told, but regardless, he didn't know it.

"Something unpleasant on a distant planet. Which you will be if you aren't careful." The gladiator was remarkably cool for the acidic remarks he was making. As ever, his optics were calculating, but there was an almost too calm looseness to his limbs. The red mech beside him seemed stiff and cautious by comparison, blue optics watching his companion's every move as though prepared to take him down at a moment's notice. Strange, for apparent allies.

Sideswipe decided to rev the charm again, so things settled down enough for him to…evaluate. That sounded good. He smirked. "If it'd get me away from you, I'd take any chance." Okay, so it wasn't the most charismatic thing he'd ever said. He hadn't really meant to say it, either, but somehow his glossa had played away from him. That too had gotten them into trouble before.

"Even if it removed you from your twin?"

Cold fear bit into his spark; his smile stiffened, withered, and died. There was a triumphant emphasis on the last word. His tanks toiled with unease, and he swallowed his next insult, which was a pity since it'd been a good one. But deference came before revenge, since the silver mech seemed very capable of separating them further than a single cell.

The air was tense; he could almost feel the aggression washing over his armor. Optimus Prime watched silently, allowing Megatron free reign of the interrogation, though his expression was faintly disapproving. Sideswipe could use that; appeal to Optimus' obviously more charitable nature. A prime was equal to a lord, right? He thought he'd heard that somewhere. Maybe the Prime could override Megatron, if Sideswipe played his cards right and touched the mech's pitying spark with their tragic history-

"Medic." The single word did not come from him. It spread icy dread through his circuits. He choked, something lodging in his vocalizer. The firm, condescending hiss of Sunstreaker's voice rang out in the sudden silence, but inwardly the golden twin's side of the bond shivered with barely controlled fury born of terror. Seperation. Sunstreaker's worst nightmare, though he would never explain why. His fear drove him out of sullen silence.

"What?" Megatron's expression suggested he'd been presented with a living mech and told to use him as a paintbrush. Obviously, he hadn't expected Sunstreaker to move, let alone speak. Well, that wasn't exactly unreasonable, since Sideswipe hadn't expected it either.

Sideswipe felt his twin's unease to continue the conversation, and immediately conformed to his twin's plan. Whatever it took to take their attention away from the increasingly uncomfortable Sunstreaker, at this point. He could do honesty, on occasion. He just didn't think it would work, this time.

"We needed a medic, as you saw. Somebot repaired us to partial functionality in the city outskirts, but the job was patchy at best and attended to only the worst of our injuries."

"How did you get aboard?" Simple and to the point, now that honesty was forthcoming. Just as he had been in the corridor. Sideswipe still didn't like him.

"Same bot brought us; got a couple of seekers to shift our plating up into the science lab you call a medbay."

"Actually, that was the science lab." There was a definite smirk to the silver lips.

Sideswipe gaped, stunned. "Why were we in the Science lab!? We had injuries!" He shrieked, barely noticing the two mechs flinch under the audial assault. He had jolted onto all fours, staring up at the two interrogators from the cell floor. It was less than dignified, but he didn't care.

"Because you let Scalpel find you." Growled out as though it explained everything. It really didn't, and his bewilderment turned to anger.

"Oh, yes. That makes sense!" He spat, already rising from the floor, taking a battle stance out of habit rather than intention. His servos clenched, and he grit his dentas as rage continued to broil, each throb intensified by his twin as his feelings awoke Sunstreaker's. "With our injuries, we let him find us. What mech would bring a wounded bot into a science lab?" It stung. Their plan, hazy as it was, tangled with their agony and born in a brief moment of clear thinking in a dreamlike fog, had consisted of barely more than relying on other's charity. Their pride had been nettled, but it was survival, so they could bear it. The fact that even that plan had failed was too much.

Sideswipe could control himself. It was Sunstreaker who hid his feelings because he could not channel them. It was Sunstreaker who lost his temper, relying on Sideswipe's relatively unflappably warm character to distract himself. When Sideswipe lost his control, driven beyond caring who he hurt and why, he had no one to rely on; no one to sink into and simply feel, to wade into calming, soothing murmurs of "wait" and "think". His bursting emotions drove into Sunstreaker, who was helpless against them. The golden twin's rage was instantly ignited against whatever had incurred his brother's wrath, and Sunstreaker was roused from his reserved dormancy.

It was always beautiful to see, in the moment. The way golden armor sleeked down flat against silver protoform; the way yellow eyes flashed and speared their target through. The way he prowled, each step languid but filled with intent, servos relaxed until they began to rip and tear. Energon flowing over glossy gold, a kind of protective fury few discerned in the golden twin bared for all to see, if they could only understand. Warmth seeping between them, as it was always meant to, without walls to hide behind or careful dodging of dangerous topics.

He could only imagine he looked like a lovestruck fool when Sunstreaker went to work, but the energon on his own digits after the fact said otherwise, though he couldn't remember which mechs he had torn apart, or when, or why. That was when the beauty inevitably faded, and Sideswipe, as the more balanced twin, saw the gory carnage and suddenly felt disgust instead of admiration.

It was happening again, this mirroring and strengthening of rage, this descent into bloodlust; the berserker fury that had proved their greatest asset in the past. Sideswipe could feel his internals roasting with heat, and his vision was flickering with notations for battle; marking weaknesses and cataloguing possibilities. Sunstreaker was deathly quiet, but he too had risen, leaning against his cell wall with a terribly fake nonchalance. Sideswipe could feel it through their bond; a ghost of sensation along his left side where his brother's body pressed against steel.

It was too much. Anger, agony, regret, mourning, sadness; it all reverberated between them, and they fell into the pit of emotion gratefully, eager to escape the disappointment and pain that constantly plagued them since their desertion.

:We ran away.:

:We had to.:

:Nothing is better.:

:Nothing could ever be worse.:

:We ran away…:

:…We had to.:

"The Prime thinks me a soft-sparked sparkling lover with angst issues."

Thundercracker blinked. "Why?"

Starscream's rasping drawl was very near now, directly in front of and above him. "Possibly because I acted like one."

"I repeat: why?"

The elder seeker sighed, and Thundercracker heard the screech of a chair being dragged over to his berthside, then the clanking clatter of a mech seating himself. He didn't look up; the reports on the data pad he was reading were due for review by the end of the cycle. He had read only a few of the twenty-seven monstrosities, and the cycle was nearly finished. Starscream would have to be content with only part of his attention.

The blue seeker lay flat on his stomach in a languid position few Decepticons would believe he was relaxed enough for. He had a reputation among the ranks of being stiff, professional, and efficient, and he liked it. Among his trine members, however, in their personal trio of connected quarters, he could allow himself a little relaxation; a little freedom. Hence the decorative artifacts and paraphernalia of knick knacks that littered his cramped quarters. They all had a purpose for being there, unlike the baubles Skywarp often collected; Thundercracker liked to collect memories; things like a vidfeed he'd watched as a youngling, or a still pic of a mech he had known. Even classic sparkling games such as Tumbling Mat or Dance Studio found their place beneath his berth, where they would be protected from roughhousing trinemates or groggy Thundercrackers pulled without warning from recharge.

The data pad in his servos was his favorite. He didn't know why, save that it had been with him since his entering into the Decepticons. It was his first tool, on which warnings, alerts, pings, and personal messages would appear from officers, fellow grunt soldiers, and the like. Now, he downloaded all the workload he could afford to bring home with him onto its relatively cramped drives, such as the reports from fellow security enforcers he was now reading.

The text scrolled by beneath his touch. To his right, Starscream gave a snort; the one that usually indicated he was disgusted with something. Given his recent admission, it was probably himself.

"He told me the sparkling cannot speak."

Thundercracker paused, claw poised over the delicate glass screen that contained his workload. With a groan of his joints, he rolled smoothly onto his back, rearing into a sitting position so as not to remove pressure from his wings. The datapad clinked lightly as he set it on his small desk to what had, only astro-seconds ago, been his left, digits withdrawing to entwine with his other servo between his knees.

"How is the little one?" He asked, honestly curious, but also wishing to introduce a less painful aspect into the discussion he knew Starscream was about to initiate. His trinemate rarely approached him for any serious conversation involving anything remotely personal. When he did, it was always important and likely volatile, so something pleasant to revisit later would be useful in ending the matter without any bitterness.

"Apparently happy. The Autobots do not relinquish him until a quarter vorn has past, so I won't know for sure until that time."

"You could always visit. Skywarp and I would be glad to accompany…"

But Starscream was shaking his head. The seeker sat heavily in Thundercracker's single chair, servos clenched between his knees, spinal bent and head bowed down. His wings were carefully upright, but if they were to express honest emotions, as they were meant to do, they would be drooping too. Irritation and frustration played for a moment in the scarlet optics, but were gone just as quickly.

"The truce is precarious. Prime all but pulled his weapons on me in the lift, though I can hardly blame the fool since I was astro-seconds away from doing the same. If I were to 'visit' the Autobots now, we might be shot for suspected machinations."

"Cliffjumper is dead." Thundercracker reminded.

"Others who share his suspicions and beliefs remain. It would upset all that we have managed to achieve. The Neutrals are anxious for peace; they will not tolerate another war."

Thundercracker frowned, shifting his legs and crossing his pedes beneath him as the joints began to ache from prolonged stillness. Seekers were meant to move, often, and he had been reading for half the solar cycle. "Have they acquired a means of threatening us now?"

"The neutrals are well capable of destroying either the Autobots or the Decepticons. They cannot rid themselves of both. That, and our helpful assistance and resources, is the only reason why we are allowed to remain here, on Cybertron."

It was a surprising and slightly disturbing revelation. The thought of leaving their planet, so recently revived, made Thundercracker's tanks roil unpleasantly. He frowned. Yes, to be cast out was a horrible thought, but…

"I suppose we shall have to wait for his arrival, then." He remarked cooly, decided. Starscream's helm lifted slightly, and he felt the other's suspicious gaze scouring his plating. "After all, political boarders and concessions always come before the rights of individual Cybertronians."

"This isn't about that." His trine mate snapped, and Thundercracker turned his glare into scarlet optics.

"It seems so to me." He asserted. He had joined the cause for freedom, not for peace. He desired peace strongly, but at the cost of that which so many had died to achieve? Not a chance. He would gladly enter 'enemy' territory to prove that freedom had been won, political dangers or no. "You want to see the one who ended the war; who revived our hopes and solidified so many dreams. You have that right. Don't hide your fears behind political excuses."

"You assume much." Starscream's voice had darkened to a hiss, and his gaze had narrowed.

"You came to me." He paused. "Accept my perspective, or leave."

"I did." The elder seeker did not acknowledge his silent comm.

"Take my advice and visit. The way things are progressing, it won't do any harm-"

"I refused to assist in his repair." There it was. The real reason Starscream had come to see him.

Thundercracker nodded, turning away. "A reasonable decision."

"But one the Prime did not, and cannot, understand."

"He is ignorant of the circumstances."

"My decision aches, and my position in the eyes of others suffers for it." Starscream became somewhat poetic when he allowed himself to be honest. When he opened and unfurled in the minimal way he did before Thundercracker's optics, revealing shards and slivers of the mech beneath the mask. The mech Thundercracker was not ashamed to say he admired.

"You think he thinks you weak?"

"Yes." Without hesitation.

"And his opinion matters because he is the Prime?"

"Yes."

Thundercracker considered. Starscream needed the respect of others to enforce his authority where his talents and capability could not. He could no longer use the fear of his enemies as a substitute, since those enemies were now allies.

"Perhaps," He began slowly, carefully weighing and tasting his words. "It is time for a different approach?"

Starscream's profile, dark and shadowed in his peripheral vision, stiffened. There were a few seconds of silence during which neither of them moved, and Thundercracker wondered if he had gone too far.

Then Starscream spoke. "I suspected as much. I…wished to have your opinion before I…proceeded." The words sounded like smashed glass bits the air commander was being forced to cough up.

Thundercracker nodded silently, not wishing to say anything more. He didn't like these conversations, though he knew they were of great help to them both. He hated his objectiveness; wanted the opportunity to be as immature and companionable as Skywarp; free from the difficult responsibility that accompanied being a friend to the air commander. But it was precisely because his words were objective, spreading his friend's and his own faults out for both to see, suggesting possible ways for improvement, that he had reached this level of intimacy; of friendship. A place that only precious few mechs could claim to have experienced from the second in command.

He expected his commander to leave quietly and bitterly, as was his custom. The attempt to soften the discussion had failed abysmally, and now that the solution was plainly in sight, there was nothing left to discuss. Nothing left but to retreat and absorb the painful reality. Thundercracker swallowed, imagining that it was his resentment and disappointment in himself that he was choking down.

Warm digits found his shoulder. He froze, optics wide, vision fizzling with shock along with the static that bleated from his lips. Starscream's servo trembled slightly, minutely, before sliding further down his back, to the base of his left wing. Sensation buzzed and feathered into life at the five points of contact, and Thundercracker gulped heavily, steadfastly gazing at nothing, his focus entirely on the place where the tips of sky-blue servos met dark plating. There was a caress; a gentle, almost tentative companionship that tickled over his wingspan.

Then the touch was gone. Starscream's frame was silhouetted in the open door of his quarters for a brief second before the panels slid shut. The sound of their collision echoed in the dim stillness; a metallic hiss and clatter of old porthole mechanics that ended in a definitive shink.

Thundercracker's vents released air with a slow, tremulous breath. Trembling black digits found the smooth metal of his datapad, removing it noisily from his desktop, and he settled back down to finish his reports.

Author's note: Okay, I was very excited about that scene. For those who were wondering, Thundercracker doesn't think it's romantic. It may seem so from his perspective, but there's a reason for that, as, currently, there is for all the strangeness you might see. For example: the twins, or Optimus. They may seem "off" to you, but there is a method to the madness, I promise.
Hope you enjoyed!

Please review! Feedback is very helpful with the construction of the story, and also motivates me to post more chapters. :)