Chapter 4 - Meals
"What do you just think you're doing?" Onslaught asked barely containing his rage. Vortex shrugged and looked the taller mech over "I was just getting to know her, how was I supposed to know it was a touchy subject" he defended himself. "Vortex" Onslaught growled not buying the interrogator's lies.
"WHAT! Come on Onslaught! Don't choose the human's side in this!" the 'copter yelled, his hands turning into fists.
"I am not choosing anyone's side in this" the commander said, crossing his arms. "But I want you to leave the human alone, I know what you're trying to do."
Vortex huffed and turned away "but Onslaught! We don't need her!"
The doors opened behind them and the tank-former entered again. "It's angry as hell, what did you now do 'Tex?" He asked.
"She, Brawl, the human is a 'She" Onslaught said, signing heavily, before whipped back around to the 'copter as the tank just shrugged. "Well, what did you do?"
Vortex shuffled his feet, looking like a sparkling who had just been caught with his servo in the energon jar. "Well I…might have talked with her about her file" he said innocently. "I hardly believe that's what got her so upset" Brawl yelled, charging into the 'copter and lifting him above the ground.
"Relax Brawl! I am just doing what all of you are too afraid to do!" the helicopter yelled back, struggling to get free. The tank roared at him "I'm not afraid of anything!"
Onslaught sighed heavily before separating the two. "Okay, okay, I might also have threatened her a little, but it was nothing big" the 'copter said giving in. Onslaught starred at him for a moment before dropping his head in his hand "I'm surrounded by idiots…" he muttered silently.
"You!" the commander pointed at the interrogator.
"Are to stay away from the human, unless you want to cease functioning" Onslaught growled threatening and vortex stiffened "yes sir" he whispered.
"And you" the commanders voice went back to its normal volume. He pointed at Brawl "You are in charge of Vortex, make sure that he does as he is told" the commander added before leaving the room. Brawl looked angry at the 'copter, "thanks for getting me caught up in this" he sneered before leaving as well.
The violet datapad clattered along the floor, landing somewhere near the others. "That stupid, moronically machine!" the human cursed throwing in some more swears as she threw a new datapad at the wall. Heavily she sat down on the edge of her mattress, "why me, why does he fucking hate me" she asked hopelessly, hugging her knees.
She looked up but didn't move when the door whooshed open. The drone stood there looking down at her, he was not doubt checking up on her. Seeming satisfied he turned to leave "wait!" Marie stood up and walked over to him. "Come on in" she invited, the drone stopped not sure what to do.
"It's okay, if you are here with me you are still keeping an eye on me, right?" the redhead justified. With a quick nod the drone entered. It scanned the room and starred down at her, waiting for further orders.
Marie sighed heavily "and to think you are my only friend here" she shook her head disappointed and sat back down on the mattress. "Sit down" the human ordered and pointed to the clean spot on the floor in front of her.
She cringed at the sound of metal meeting metal, the drone was clearly not very careful with his body.
The silence straitened between them, and filled the room. "Okay this is getting awkward" Marie rubbed the bridge of her nose "say something" she ordered looking hopeful.
The drone sat for a moment looking blank "request: denied."
Marie starred at it, not believing it "but you can't do that!" she suddenly yelled, standing up. The drone didn't move, nor did he flinch.
"Take a name" the redhead ordered, again the drone went silence but this time he didn't speak up.
The human settled back into a relaxed position as realization dawned on her, "you have no idea what to do, do you?"
The drone shook its head, looking puzzled. A heavy sigh left the human "shall I give you a name? It feels odd to call you drone" the mech sitting before her simply starred back at her, not saying anything.
The redhead looked sadly back at him, realizing that he couldn't answer her questions, because he didn't think like that. He simply didn't understand her.
"This is an order" she said harshly.
"I am going to give you a name, and you will response only when I call you by this. To others you will be drone, but I will name you…" she looked around her room and saw the beer can in the corner "Merlot, your name will be Merlot."
The drones eyes flashed a lighter red and it nodded its head "Merlot, stand" she ordered and stood herself.
Merlot? Not so much. The drone just looked at her, clearly understanding her, but not reacting. "You're doing it wrong" the girl facepalmed.
"I told you to STAND" the dark blue drone got off the floor, like nothing was wrong.
Marie sighed again "this is going to take some time…"
"Why can't we make that drone do this? This is not a job for a ranked officer" the yellow-purple 'con complained.
"Nobody could find him" Blast Off answered not even looking at his gestalt mate. "This is Vortex fault you know, if he had just left her alone, then we didn't have to waste our time with this"
While Blast Off was quiet, accepting the task of taking the human's food to her, Swindle did not approve. He had been in the middle of a transaction and was sure to let everyone know that it had been broken off. It was still early morning so he had been able to move the appointment to later, but his client had not been pleased.
As the two gestalt-mates neared the human's quarters, they could hear the little organic talking to herself. Unsure they looked at each other.
"I think she's busy, maybe we should come back later" Swindle suggested, clearly stating that the human was mentally unstable. Blast off huffed annoyed before grabbing the smaller con's arm and dragging him towards the door.
Marie instantly shut up when she heard someone knocking at her door. She motioned for Merlot to sit and first when the drone was still did she speak.
"Come in" she said loud enough to make sure she was heard. She already knew that it wasn't Brawl or Vortex, or else they wouldn't have knocked but just burst in. She expected it was Onslaught, so guess how surprised she was when she saw the con-man and space shuttle at her door.
Both robots scanned the room before stepping in, halting a bit as their optics landed on the drone in the corner.
Marie stayed quiet and they ended up looking awkwardly at each other before Blast off finally broke the silence.
"We were ordered to bring your food since you hadn't had any yet" he carefully placed the tray down, surprisingly gentle for someone his size.
"Thank you" she said before the awkward silence fell over them again. "What's the drone doing in here?" Swindle asked, genius curious. Marie looked at the still bot before turning back to the con-man. "Well, he's keeping me company, I think." She said raising an eyebrow, like she was trying to convince herself of that.
She wasn't quite sure anymore, she had finally gotten him to react and obey when she called him by name, that had just taken all night.
"Hmm.. well but that was all, someone will come fetch you when Onslaught has calmed down" Blast Off said and nodded to Swindle that they could leave. That didn't take long for Swindle to process, and he was the first one out of the door.
"How long will that take" the redhead asked just as Blast off turned around. He stilled, like he was thinking of an answer, but instead he ended up leaving.
Marie sighed and looked at the food "go get something to eat, I want to be alone" she ordered and picked up the plate. This was going to be a long day.
It had almost been two days, since Onslaught had confined her to her quarters and Marie was sure that if she didn't get out of this room soon she would go crazy. The only thing keeping her mind occupied was Merlots' visits and the datapads lying around.
It was around evening that Onslaught came into her room, Marie had been tense at first but her commander had seemed to be in a very good mood and was very understanding. He escorted her to the recreation room where the others seemed to be waiting. Most didn't look too happy about being denied their meal unless the human joined them.
Marie looked knowingly up at Onslaught already understanding what he was doing.
Onslaught looked up at his gestalt and the redhead swore that she could hear the smirk in his voice as he addressed them.
"Duo to our latest incident" he looked Vortex in the eyes but the helicopter just shrugged. "I have decided that from now on we will all be eating our meals, together." It took a moment for the words to sink in, but the moment they did chaos broke out.
"You cannot be serious Onslaught!" Swindle said angrily standing up, Brawl was not far behind, cursing loudly and slamming his fist into the table, he was shouting at Onslaught about how he couldn't deny them their meals like this.
Vortex was completely silent, but his eyes found Marie's and she knew that he was blaming her for this. Blast off glanced warily up at his commander but didn't argue with the decision. Marie took a step back as Vortex refused to look away, his mere presence was intimidating.
All the while Onslaught stood completely still waiting for his team to settle down. Onslaught motioned for Marie to find her seat and only when she had sat down, glancing at the other bots nervously did he continue.
"This means that if anyone, anyone at all, is missing. The entire team will lose their ration." The cons growled angrily, looking accusingly at one another before their gaze landed on Onslaught again. Marie looked up at Vortex discreetly; she knew that he could go way longer without food than she could, and the thought made her glare at him in distrust.
Marie could have understood it if it had just been this time, but all meals? They were going to spend time together whether they wanted to or not. Marie knew that this could end two ways; either they all ate together and actually got along, or someone would try to kill her soon enough…Marie put her bets on the latter. But it didn't matter, quite frankly? Marie had had enough; she was taking the next supply ship back to the Nemesis.
"If someone feels lucky and wants to smuggle their ration to their room, don't even bother, you won't get your ration unless you got the code to make the machines work" The commander said sternly knowing his team a little too well.
After that, they had gotten their rations. They had eaten in silence, no one wanted to look at anyone. Marie was the last one to finish and by then everyone except Onslaught had left.
Marie sort of appreciated the idea, but she couldn't understand why.
Why in the world would the Combaticon commander go to these lengths to make them accept her? "Permission to speak freely sir?" she asked, not really looking away from her empty plate. "Permission granted" he seemed pleased that she wanted to talk to him after all that had happened.
"…why are you doing this sir?"
Onslaught was silent for a moment before crossing his arms. Neither was looking at the other. "Well, I think that my team might have a bit too much leash lately. They do as they please and even though I value the will to think for oneself, I am still their commander" he finished.
Marie put her elbows on the table to support her head as she stared into space. "I think it might be best if I take the next supply ship back to the nemesis…" she said a bit ashamed of giving up so easy, but she valued her life.
Onslaught nodded, strangely enough understanding why, not everyone was capable of taking on a team of unstable warriors. And that was just that, because the commander knew very well that all of the combaticons was scarred and half crazy. "I think… that might be a good idea."