Chapter 54
-0-Hearing, Disciplinary Action: Sideswipe/Sunstreaker
"Then tell me something," Prowl asked as he looked at Sideswipe. "Are you in love with my son?"
Sideswipe looked at the mechs in the room with pained emotion. It was so still he could hear the sound of their own internal systems working as the optics of everyone in the room staring at him nearly unnerved him. He nodded slightly, lowering his own as Sunny shifted in his chair, shaking his head with aggravation.
"Well," Prowl said as leaned back with a sour expression on his face. He shook his head. "For the sake of argument, Bluestreak told me that this might be because you're both twins. I would entertain more information."
Sideswipe glanced up to catch Prime's gaze. It was sympathetic and attentive, waiting for them to tell their side of things. It was his glory, Sideswipe thought, Prime's decent fairness. He glanced at Sunstreaker, then sat back uncomfortably. "We're joined, half and half make the whole. What he feels, I feel. And the same is for him as it is for me. It helps us win in battle and it helps us find each other when we get separated. I'm his mirror and he's mine. Mostly."
"So you're not even really in love with Bluestreak. You just feel what Sunstreaker feels," Prowl said as his frown deepened.
Sideswipe glanced sharply at him then shook his head. "No. Its not like that. He's loved other mechs and so have I but we didn't cross over like that. I felt nothing for them. But I do for Bluestreak because he's lovable. Totally lovable."
"He is," Prowl agreed. "And he's a special case. He lost his family and half his processor in the worst possible way. He spent 600 years with Rung going over his psyche, trying to put the idea of his mother's energon all over his face into some kind of halfway decent form. He's spent his childhood in the army fighting in a war that destroyed his life. He's not the same as a youngling growing up in a normal life. He's vulnerable."
"We know," Sunstreaker said looking up to fix Prowl with a sharp expression of emotion. "We'd never hurt Bluestreak. We love him." He leaned back, his disquiet with personal disclosure of any kind let alone in the presence of others showing in his irritated posture and manner.
Prowl sat back again, tossing the stylus he had worried in his hand onto the table. He looked at Prime. "What a mess."
Prime looked at the twins, then Ironhide who raised his optic ridges and offered nothing more. Then he looked at Prowl. "This is your son. You have registered a formal complaint according to Praxian law. What do you want to do, Prowl? I do not have standing in this beyond a review for appeal hearing and one so far has not been offered."
Prowl looked at Prime as his wings drooped slightly. He considered his options, the painful conversation he'd with Bluestreak before the meeting and his underlying angst that his son was involved with one let alone the possibility of two of the biggest pains in his aft in all the Autobot Armed Services. "I want the complaint to stand. I want them to prove to me, because I … because Bluestreak has interests in this that have weight and might mean more than my fears for him, they should prove to me that they aren't going to do wrong or be hurtful for him." He looked at them with a dark expressions. "This isn't one of your many pranks is it? Stringing him along?"
Both of them tensed as they sat up straighter. "No," Sideswipe said as Sunny nodded. "Its not that, Prowl. Believe me."
Prowl stared at them, then made up his processor. "I want them to follow our law to the letter." He looked at the twins with a slight grin. "Lucky you to love a Praxian. Bluestreak is Praxian so he has to follow the rule. His family would insist as well if they hadn't been obliterated in front of him as a child."
"Which means?" Sunny asked.
"It means, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, that you can't even be in the same room with Bluestreak unless I'm there or my designated representative. You can't speak with Bluestreak unless those conditions are met even if you pass in the corridor. If you see Bluestreak and they aren't met you have to turn around and leave. It's up to you to prove to me that you have Blue's best interests at spark even when you're off line. And I will tell you, I'm not convinced you do. This is my son and our cultural expectations as strange as they might seem to you mean something to us. They would mean the same thing to Blue's family if they were alive and you would have to follow them as well. It might not be Cybertron but its the law. Do you understand?"
They nodded.
"You understand that if you break any part of this you'll be in the brig. It's binding Cybertronian law, carries the full force of it and there will be penalties of brig time if you do." Prowl looked at both of them.
They nodded albeit reluctantly.
"How do we get to see Bluestreak?" Sideswipe asked.
"You have to ask me or my designated representative if they're available and then it can be arranged. You have to be in audio and visual range of me or my representative the entire time or no dice. Oh," he said with a slight grin. "No touching of any kind."
They looked at Prowl with varying emotions on their handsome faces, then finally nodded.
Sunny glanced at Prime who was watching with a neutral expression. "Then who is your designated rep?"
"The only other Praxian on base. Ironhide."
They both glanced at Ironhide. He sat looking back. Then he grinned.
"Slag," Sunstreaker said glancing at his brother.
Sideswipe nodded.
-0-Ops Center
They stood around the big table in the middle of Ops Center where information and datapads littered the top of it as they began to piece the puzzle together. The emails that they'd detected from the Intel-Martin servers were analyzed and the information gleaned showed that Starscream was using an anonymous account to find out intel from the company and its employees through a listserv called First-Strike-Warriors. They also tracked him to other lists and emailing groups, all of them elite and exclusive.
They also concluded that Starscream was using dormant or criminal bank accounts to finance his rise in that shady side of the world. Criminals and thieves who couldn't contact police were losing their ill gotten funds and a few bankers here and there were losing their lives in 'mysterious' violent deaths tied to disgruntled clients.
Jazz released from Med Bay was standing beside Mirage going over the diagram that they were building. "He has his tentacles in a lot of legitimate pies," he said grinning at Mirage. "Won't they be surprised to find out that they're schmoozin' with a 'Con."
Mirage smiled with a certain malicious disdain. "You can't buy class, Jazz. You either have it or you don't."
"Do I?" he asked smiling at the complex figure beside him.
"Do you have to ask?" he said arching an optical ridge as he squeezed Jazz' arm.
Jazz smirked. "I think we have enough here to turn the tables."
"I agree," Mirage said with his own smirk. "Time to make Starscream live up to his designation."
-0-Prowl
He paced in his office, the hearing ending in the way he felt it probably would when he had finished talking to Bluestreak just before. He'd come to Prowl's office uncertain, concerned about being trouble and concerned over the twins' fate as the ghost of old times resurrected itself in his processor. They sat down and Prowl had explained the law, telling Bluestreak he wanted his cooperation on the conditions of it because he was going to enforce it anyway.
Blue had nodded tensely.
"I don't do this to hurt you, Bluestreak. I do it to protect you," Prowl said hugging the youngster to his chassis.
Bluestreak hugged him back. "I know. I just hate all of the turmoil and Sunny being mad and Sideswipe is really a nice mech and Sunny seems to think that this is a thing we all three need to discuss."
Prowl listened a moment as Blue's unfortunate tendency to rattle on, filling space with words became more pronounced when upset. He sat back then affixed Blue with a firm expression, one he used on many a bad night in a place far away when the demons came over the kid. "I'm doing this so there won't be pressure while everyone thinks this out. You know the conditions, right?"
Bluestreak nodded. "My best friend's genitor had to do this with their oldest youngling when he fell in love with an older mech and they didn't think it would work out so I know I can't be around them without a guardian or you present."
"How did that time work out? Do you remember?" Prowl asked.
"He didn't see that mech anymore. His genitors wouldn't relent and let the complaint drop so they couldn't be with each other. It was sad and I remember a lot of yelling coming from next door."
"Did he obey the rules?" Prowl asked.
"He did," Bluestreak said simply.
"I expect you to do the same," Prowl said feeling a tiny pinch of relief at Bluestreak's nod. "I don't want you to enter into something without being sure. I want you safe and happy. Your family would want you to be Praxian and observe their culture as much as I do. We're Praxian, Blue, even if we never go home again. That's what this is all about, remembering what's important."
"I know. I love you so much. You saved me when there was no one left. But I hope you know that Sunny loves me and wouldn't let anyone or anything hurt me. He was going to beat up the mercs that time they ..." Bluestreak stopped as he looked at Prowl with big optics.
"What time?" Prowl asked, his optics narrowing.
Blue told him.
A short time later ...
He paced his office angry at the entire world. He would be calm enough later but he was seething now. First, the trine business with the twins. Then the mercs interfering with Bluestreak at the firing range. Prowl wasn't surprised Blue hadn't told him but it rankled. His son was his and he was devoted to him, as devoted to Bluestreak as he was with Optimus and the Autobot Cause.
No one and no THING would harm Blue ever again. Images of a small terrified little mech covered in his mother's energon crying and wandering helplessly alone in the wasteland that once was their home, serious injuries of his own evident, came into Prowl's processor. He felt the sickened feelings again as he filed them away with effort. He stilled his processor, taking control of his emotions, beginning relaxation techniques so he wouldn't put a servo through the wall.
At last calming, he looked at his desk. Bluestreak was going to be fine he told himself. Bluestreak would decide for himself if he wanted to be with Sunstreaker and Sideswipe but Prowl would be there with his conditions and his fists if necessary.
Moving to his desk, he sat and began to make the world turn.
-0-Med Bay
Ratchet sat in his office with reports stacked to the side, physical exams scheduled and the like undisturbed. He was reading up on sparklings and carrier health issues. Wheeljack and Perceptor were coming in the later afternoon and they would discuss protoform designs. Ironhide would be there then. Right now, he was helping lambaste the twins' afts in the meeting he'd just left.
He leaned back remembering his incredulity when Ironhide explained the 'Parental-Cultural Law, Declaration 19, Section 2'.
"That kind of law exists?" he had asked.
Ironhide who was massaging Ratchet's peds because the article he'd read somewhere about carriers indicated that this would help their energon circulation nodded. "It keeps families from going to the Pit. No mech or femme can object no matter if they want to because genitors and family have an overriding interest in their welfare no matter how old they are."
"What about abuse, Ironhide," Ratchet said moving his other ped within reach of Ironhide's until now unknown talented servos.
"Its very rare, Ratchet. I only remember seeing it happen twice, once to a relative. They were going to get into trouble and their genitors put an end to it. Mostly its through negotiation and then there's the chance for the youngling to see their 'true love' through a different perspective."
"The guardians and parents."
"Yep."
"Would you do that to our sparkling? When they're an adult?"
"Yep."
[Silence]
"Good." Ratchet grinned at the big lug rubbing his peds.
Ironhide smiled back. Life was good in his world.
-0-Sideswipe and Sunstreaker
They stood on the tarmac watching the troops moving toward Silverbolt and a routine patrol in Australia. Bluestreak going along as the shooter looked at them as he walked past. He smiled weakly, his wings drooping low on his back. They nodded, their expressions filled with longing and sadness.
The troops loaded and Silverbolt lifted off heading into the sky and lands faraway. The twins headed back into the building.