Transformers © HASBRO
Motormaster's plating itched.
Boredom was his sole companion with his cell. Croft had insisted on keeping the Stunticons separated, for…
Frankly, Motormaster couldn't care less about whatever reason Croft had given him for their separation. She could have given the most banal explanation of their cells being too small for the five of them together and he wouldn't care. All the K100 wanted was to drive the roads with his brothers, to curl up and hold them during recharge, to—
"Motormaster."
Speak of the scraplet.
An irritated huff accented the semi shifting onto his side, his helm turning to the entrance to his cell. Croft was standing at his cell, her arms crossed where she glared spitefully at him.
"What?" Motormaster growled, though without any form of irritation as he stood and approached the entrance.
"Come with me," Croft ordered, a bite of venom to her tone that made Motormaster blink and tilt his helm.
The human was often irritated, that seemed to be her natural personality, but not so much with him. Motormaster listened and did as she ordered, there was little cause for the silver haired woman to snap at him. Even searching through his databanks provided him with little cause for her frustration.
Not wishing to aggravate the woman, Motormaster exited his cell and followed Croft dutifully. "What is wrong?" He asked, as he marched behind Croft. His optics shifted to watch Dead End and Drag Strip — both were in recharge, propped up on their berths with fields that felt… off — as she led him past his brothers' cells.
Breakdown was absent.
He was on a mission with Schloder.
Breakdown was safer—
Pain spiked through Motormaster's helm at the treacherous thought. His denta ground together as Motormaster rubbed at his helm with the palm of his servo, a movement Croft noticed immediately.
Scorn rumbled off Croft as she looked up at him, her mouth twisted into a sneer, "We need to discuss your team."
Motormaster frowned, his helm tilted as he looked back in the direction Dead End and Drag Strip were. His team hadn't caused problems that he could recall for the human. Breakdown was… gone?
Confusion sparked through the semi even as he nodded to Croft in agreement. Why was he unable to place where Breakdown was? He could sense all of his brothers but for the gentle Lamborghini through his muted bond.
That Breakdown was entirely absent worried him. Worried him nearly as much as the pain that continued to filter, unbidden, from Wildrider. How injured was the Ferrari that Motormaster could feel continuous sources of pain from his younger brother?
Was Breakdown's absence because he had been offlined—
No.
"Something the matter, Motormaster?"
"No," Motormaster answered Croft immediately.
Nothing was wrong. Nothing he could confirm.
Even when his spark told him to question Croft about Breakdown. To corner her with his immense frame. Pin her to the wall with his glare. Jab her in the chest with his digit.
He wanted to, but he couldn't.
He couldn't even lift a servo against her.
Because of—
"If something is wrong, you should speak up," Croft snapped, her irritation making Motormaster exhale an affronted puff of steam from his vents.
"No," he reiterated, his optics shuttering for a moment as he tried to cool the temper flaring under his plating.
Something itched at the semi's processor. A sense of wrong that pervaded his spark whenever he looked at Croft. He wanted to get angry at her, wanted to lash out at her, but some strong force prevented him — even when he thought about the mere desire, a sense of foreboding took over his frame until Motormaster could do little more than imagine himself being able to overpower Croft.
Why the desire was so strong that morning made little sense to the semi.
Motormaster cooperated with Croft because… he had to?
His optics flicked to the side, darting to Croft as she led him to a large room. A catwalk bordered the room, leading from the ground where a single slab of metal lay in the center of the room. Familiarity bred anxiety inside Motormaster. Now he knew what Croft wanted with him.
Not that he should have been surprised.
"Lay down," Croft growled.
Motormaster's chassis obeyed, while his processor disobeyed.
Heavy restraints locked his arms, legs and torso to the slab, before Croft sidled, slowly, to stand beside him. Something was off in the set of her countenance. An anger that he could practically feel as she laid a single hand on his restrained left arm.
She patted his arm, the condescension in her movement curling the corners of Motormaster's mouth into a sneer he could not prevent rumbling from his engine. A sound that made Croft's smile turn predatory.
Motormaster's engine quieted.
This wasn't how these sessions usually went.
The restraints were more often a formality. Croft knew Motormaster wouldn't touch her, no matter his inward desire to do as such at times. He wouldn't defy her. He couldn't.
"Breakdown abandoned his post," venom burned in Croft's words as she stalked from her position at Motormaster's shoulder and to the side of his helm. "I thought you could handle your team."
Motormaster frowned, his optics narrowing onto Croft. Breakdown had left?
The small Lamborghini volunteering for a mission had surprised Motormaster, but he had been proud — and worried — all the same for it. For Breakdown to volunteer, his brothers would have had to been threatened, or Breakdown had a… plan.
A plan?
For what?
"I can handle them," Motormaster returned, his helm tilted to get a better view of Croft as she stared at him, arms crossed over her chest. "But I can't say why Breakdown would abandon his mission. He's reliable."
"That's what Swindle assured us as well. I tire of false platitudes on unreliable nutcases."
Motormaster stiffened at Croft's insult. His vents opened as heat began to course through his frame, the furious rumble of his engine echoing through the room. How dare she insult Breakdown.
Croft's chuckle silenced Motormaster. He shifted away from the woman without realizing he had. Her laughing at him was not what he'd expected. Their interactions never went this way. Croft would have him lay down, he would endure a round of invasive testing within his central processing unit and main system lines, then she'd let him go back to his cell. She never antagonized him, and Motormaster never argued.
Why are you okay with this, idiot?
Motormaster shook his helm at the droning inner voice. He did not need to suffer further confusion and deep thought than he already was by Croft's shift in their… The semi couldn't find a word to describe the compliance he gave the human.
Wrong.
"Your team has been a sharper thorn in my side than I planned," Croft muttered, before she turned to the nearest catwalk and scurried the steps to a landing that connected the two sides of the catwalk. The human looked down at him, her expression darkened by hate. "If you can't keep control of your team through our original methods, then it is time we approach other methods."
With a gesture of her hand, four more humans entered the room through a door at the end of one of the catwalks. Two walked down to the ground floor, where they stopped beside Motormaster, their hands busy with a computer that they began plugging into his central processing ports. Motormaster bared his denta and clenched his servos into fists, a warning snarl not deterring the humans as they finished plugging into his ports.
He snapped his gaze to Croft as the two humans beside him turned to her, one's reedy voice affirming that they had full access to Motormaster's neural net. Croft nodded, before she turned to the smaller human at her side.
"Turn off the control virus, and leave his pain receptors on."
Control… virus? What?
Motormaster's optics narrowed, darting from Croft to the humans surrounding him, then to the two humans perched above him on the catwalk. The one Croft had ordered around had turned to another computer, one stationed behind the three humans, where Motormaster could just see neural coding racing across the screen that was deeply familiar to himself.
"Get out," he spat at the humans, before he felt a sudden, overwhelming crash within his systems.
Pain was the first sensation his processor locked onto.
Pain and… awareness.
Though he felt himself restrained and trapped, Motormaster's processor was clear. Clearer than it had been in days. Or was it… weeks? A quick survey of his processor revealed no absent gaps or fogged, clouded memories.
Instead, he could see and feel everything.
Bright green cars and dark purple trucks surrounded him on the highway, harassing him as he tried to maintain his vehicular mode's cover. The vehicles fired stun blasts that bounced off his forcefield, until his forcefield could sustain little more. His unswerving restraint to stay in alternate mode as he tried to escape. Humans pouring from the vehicles as a well placed stun blast forced him out of his alternate mode. Restraints lashing him onto a large flatbed trailer as a large tarp covered his entire frame.
Croft peering down at him as he was unloaded from the trailer into the G.H.O.S.T headquarters. The scarred human — who stood beside Croft now, his arms crossed over his chest — commanding the other humans to cut Motormaster open. His pain receptors turned off as humans crawled over his entire frame, dissecting him plating by plating.
Croft's meticulous gaze watching him as Motormaster fought the restraints, a sense of desperation to escape from her as present then as he felt now. She was a threat.
Made ever more present as his memories churned up the humans hacking into his central processing unit. The very same that they had just done to him.
The humans released him, with knowledge of their actions stifled behind the control virus and removal of his memories by the humans' hacks, and Swindle hunting him down. His brothers found him…
Croft had waited until Motormaster was healed before she manipulated him with the control virus. Made him summon Menasor, whom her control virus infected as soon as they combined. G.H.O.S.T had known to target Menasor's torso component so they could wrest the easiest control over the Stunticon combiner.
Then Croft had forced Motormaster and his brothers to destroy Philadelphia after their first rampage in Oregon. She'd used them.
"You and your team will show the public that we can't trust your race. That we are safer without any of you around."
Croft had used them.
Hate flamed through Motormaster.
Not hate in defense of himself and what Croft had done to him, but hate for how she'd used and hurt his brothers.
"The subject is unusually docile, sir."
Motormaster's right optic flicked to the side at the human's comment, a deep loathing burning at his spark as he watched the human tinker with the computer plugged into his ports. But he did not move. He did nothing but watch, his optics kept carefully neutral as he shifted his gaze to watch Croft.
She had moved closer to the scarred male, their heads turned to each other as they whispered in tones too low for Motormaster's audials to pick up. At the comment from the human beside him, Croft turned away from her companion, her narrowed eyes watchful as she peered down at Motormaster.
"Monitor him," she ordered, before she placed a hand on her companion's shoulder. Motormaster saw her meet his optics before she scowled, displeasure written so firmly into the lines of her face it made Motormaster almost sneer. Whatever Breakdown had truly done when he'd abandoned his mission had affected the human more than she wanted to let on. "Keep him intact enough that we can salvage their combiner, Bishop. Call me when he fights you."
Bishop nodded before Croft departed the room through the entrance Bishop and the other humans had entered through. The moment the door closed behind her, Bishop walked down the stairs, where he stopped on a raised platform near Motormaster. Motormaster watched the man warily as he bent down to observe the semi's chassis.
This human was different from Croft.
She was cold and calculating, but she seemed quick to temper and saw Motormaster and his brothers as a means to her goals. Bishop watched him with a predatory hunger that finally broke the restraint Motormaster had on his hate. Anger rumbled from his engine as Motormaster shot Bishop a cold stare.
Bishop only smiled.
He said nothing to Motormaster as more humans appeared in the room, ones that his clear processor recognized. These were the ones who had cut him open — had they done the same to his brothers? — when he'd first been captured by G.H.O.S.T.
They'd turned his pain receptors off then.
Now, Motormaster realized as he gave Bishop and his men a defiant snarl that reverberated as if from a thunderclap around the room, they'd left them on. Whatever message Croft wanted to send to Motormaster would be one he'd be forced to feel. Bishop and Croft would want him to react. He would not even entertain giving them what they wanted.
After all, Croft already had gotten everything else she'd wanted from the captive Stunticons.
The least he could do was fight her through what little defiance his position offered him.
Anger kept his denta ground tight as Bishop ordered his men about. Only his optics moved, tracking Bishop's every move as the humans brought in large equipment — drills, saws, welders, and more — which they positioned at different points in the room around Motormaster. Bishop deactivated Motormaster's field with a simple command from the connection to Motormaster's neural ports. When the first saw cut into the plating of his forearm, Motormaster merely sneered at Bishop.
Megatron and Vector Sigma had made him stubborn.
He'd been far too compliant — not that that had been his choice — already with these humans. They'd drug his brothers into a mess that he feared, deep down, his brothers would not escape from.
They are here because I forced them to follow me.
Motormaster knew his brothers' trust in him was implicit. Enough to have had them follow him into the hands of humans that sought to use them until she deigned to discard them. Even after he'd…
Primus.
Drag Strip's visor sparked with horror as Motormaster's fist slammed into his faceplate. The sobs he couldn't stifle as Wildrider tried to reassure his younger brother.
The humans hadn't simply made Motormaster turn his brothers over to them, they'd made him hurt Drag Strip thanks to their control virus. It wasn't simply hate that consumed Motormaster as he sent Bishop, who was observing Motormaster's dissection with a pensive expression, but a deep, raging wrath that took all the semi's might to suppress.
Heat churned off his frame as Motormaster's engine rumbled to life. Hatred radiated off his field, pointless though he knew it was to expect the humans to be able to pick up on the electromagnetic field emanating off him. He flexed his left servo as one of the humans left their station next to a drill they'd been using to expose his protoform. The human had strayed close to his digits earlier, when they had needed to adjust the drill to a new position.
All he needed was for them to move a few inches closer.
But it was not that human which returned to the drill, but Bishop. Motormaster froze, his digits extended as he watched Bishop stop at the drill. The man directed the drill over Motormaster's exposed chest plate, then moved sideways to investigate his—
Motormaster lunged. The restraints bit into his wrists and arms, straining to stop him, but he would not allow it.
Bishop did not have the chance to evade.
Not before Motormaster grabbed the human, his digits squeezing around Bishop—
A drill pierced through his spark chamber, wrenching a scream he could not stop from his vocalizer, and forcing his digits to release Bishop. Motormaster thrashed under his restraints as the drill bored through reinforced metal until it broke through his spark chamber.
Heat and indescribable pain ripped through Motormaster as the tip of the drill pierced—
"Enough."
Heavy vents rattled from Motormaster as he watched the drill retract from his spark chamber, an urge to protect his vulnerable spark driving panic through him without control. His optics snapped to Bishop, who calmly brushed himself off before he stepped closer to the semi, the human's approach driving a plating deep flinch through Motormaster that had him pulling as far away from the human as his restraints would permit.
Bishop leaned his face close to Motormaster, enough so that Motormaster could not help the way he jerked his helm away from the human with a strained hiss of air he couldn't stop, and smiled, loathsomely slowly. "So we can break you. You shouldn't fear death, Cybertronian, we have use of you yet."
Motormaster swallowed, the sound drawing too much of Bishop's attention. Hot shame burrowed into Motormaster as Bishop leaned closer to his faceplate, and grinned.
"What do you fear more? Your own death, or that of your team?"
Motormaster stilled, his panic evaporating at the daggered threat in Bishop's tone. Anger simmered where he'd been scared moments earlier, a growl escaping through clenched denta as he snapped a hate filled glare onto Bishop.
Which made the man's smile extend. "The latter, then."
Before Motormaster could think of a retort — the human had trapped him multiple times, how was he so stupid —, Bishop walked up to the middle of the catwalk, then allowed Motormaster a better view of the monitors behind the human.
"Who of your subordinates would be the most effective for us to target?" The screen shifted to Drag Strip's cell, where the second youngest of the team was laid out on his berth with a bored expression and a model Tyrrell in his servos. "Your voice of challenge? He's the most aggravating, you will forget him once he's out of your hands."
"Shut up," Motormaster spat, his servos clenching together — the humans had moved far away from his grasp by this point — as he glared at Bishop.
Bishop raised an eyebrow, then changed the display to that of Wildrider. The Ferrari was restrained, in a room that wasn't his cell, helm hung and optics offline. The sight made Motormaster's spark plunge, his clenched digits digging furrows into his palm as he opened his mouth to threaten Bishop.
"He's alive," Bishop dismissed, "but I see you care about him. How will you function if we take the insane one's spark? I understand a single spark can power human technology nearly without limit."
"Don't you dare," Motormaster hissed. He pulled at his subspace, calling his cyclone gun to himself—
An error message was all that returned. His subspace was empty, or the humans had disabled his access to it. Anger flooded through him as Bishop chuffed at his attempts, drawing Motormaster's gaze back to the human.
"We aren't fools, Motormaster. We know about your biology. Your species is easy to dissect." Bishop turned, disinterested as he flicked the monitor to another display.
Dead End looked listless in the camera view, his iris purple visor dull. The books G.H.O.S.T had given him were discarded to the side, untouched even though Motormaster knew the titles were ones Dead End had always desired to read.
"He is your second in command, is he not?"
Motormaster simply growled, unable to stop himself from rising to the human's bait.
Bishop nodded. "If he deactivates, wouldn't he be happy? We would simply be doing him a favor."
"I will kill you if you try." Hate warred with the fear Bishop's utterly casual threats brought to life inside Motormaster. This was because of his compliance.
A fraction of relief hissed through him as Bishop turned off the monitor. They didn't have Breakdown.
Only that trace of hope kept Motormaster's glossa restrained, as he glared at Bishop. "If you want cooperation, you already have it. I won't allow you to hurt my team because I defy you."
Bishop hummed, then flicked his hand with an order for his men to continue with Motormaster.
One human climbed onto his chest plate with a camera, the click of its shutter producing a warning growl from Motormaster. But he did not fight. He looked away as the humans pulled him apart, his servos clenched into tight fists as he stomped down his weakness and simply glared through hooded optics at the humans.
Finally, the humans stopped.
Energon pooled across the floor from the innumerable cuts that bore into Motormaster's plating, traces of the blue energon stained into his black and purple metal. Numbness coursed through his chassis as the humans began patching the most severe wounds in his plating. Motormaster flinched as one human approached his drilled open spark chamber, but their hands were gentle as they began repairing him.
Eventually, every human, including Bishop, vacated the room. The drills and saws were gone, wheeled away by the humans as they finished with Motormaster. Motormaster hated the relief he felt with them gone. Hated the guilt that gnawed at his core without pause.
His brothers…
Recharge claimed him, though it was anything but peaceful.
Nightmares bit at the edges of his processor, keeping him startling out of recharge every few minutes. Motormaster couldn't remember what each nightmare was, but he woke with a cold shiver rattling through his chassis and heaving vents each time.
It was during one of these nightmares that Motormaster was woken, not from his own instincts, but from a human prodding him awake.
Motormaster woke with a glare aimed at—
Croft.
Of course.
Croft kneeled down on his chassis, too close to the incisions Bishop and his men had made in Motormaster's torso. Hate spilled over his field as he felt her hand pluck exposed torso wiring in her grasp. She rubbed the thick wiring between her thumb, pointer and index finger with a contemplative hum.
"What?" Motormaster growled.
Croft hummed again before she replaced the wiring and folded the housing plating over its place. Motormaster couldn't help the shudder that ran through his chassis at the sensation of her fingers lingered over him. It made him want to purge, to rip the wires out of his chest so he never had to remember how she had touched him.
Instead, he kept his helm turned away from Croft as she walked up his chest plate, over his throat plating and stopped at his chin. She patted the side of his helm, and let her hand linger on his purple faceplate as she looked Motormaster directly in the optics.
"You are going to assist me in testing out an upgrade to a previous technology we have utilized," Croft explained.
Motormaster bared his denta at her, allowing a low rumble from his engine as his sole protest. Bishop's threats against his brothers lingered, taming his desire for destruction and hate to a bubbling brook.
"How?" Motormaster questioned, the slow shift of his helm allowing him to glare with all his spark at Croft.
"Oh, you merely need to behave. No trying to break your restraints. We will know if you try. Dead End could stand to lose an arm or optic or so and still survive."
Motormaster ground his denta at Croft's threat but vented, knowing he had no other choice but obedience. Whatever kept his family safe.
"No need for threats. I'll do it."
Croft smiled, her enjoyment forcing Motormaster to look away, shame and self hatred seething at his core. She climbed off Motormaster at his agreement, where she walked to the restraints on his arms.
"I am going to release your upper torso restraints," Croft explained as she unlocked the restraints around his wrist and arm. "If you fight this, then your team will pay for your rebelliousness."
"I won't," Motormaster snapped as he pulled his released arms close to his chest plate, the absentminded rubbing of his wrists an act of calming himself.
He stood as directed by Croft as she stepped away from him, her back turned to him with a casual indifference that made Motormaster snarl inwardly. The control virus had given Croft no reason to fear Motormaster, to even see him as a remote threat. He hated her more for it.
Electricity buzzed at his ankles, where the leg restraints kept him chained to the far walls, though with a considerable length of leeway. Motormaster paced back and forth as Croft left the room without explanation. A jolt of electricity stabbed through him as Motormaster reached the end of the ankle restraints' limits. Anger ruffled his plating as Motormaster returned to his previous place, where he paced and waited.
Waited for the rest of Croft's game to reveal itself.
The semi had paced the room enough times to practically wear a path against the metal floor when he heard approaching voices — and the thud of pedes. His audials perked as Motormaster tensed, arms crossed stiffly over his chest plate as the door he'd entered through opened. Motormaster turned, denta bared as Croft strolled inside with that persistent smile on her face.
"I'm glad to see you didn't destroy anything while I was gone. I'm surprised by the lengths you have gone to control your sadism."
Motormaster reeled back.
How did she know that about him?
His optics narrowed with fury as Croft turned away from her, then signaled to the open door with her back purposefully turned to him. Motormaster stepped towards Croft before he could stop himself — until he heard a familiar engine hiss at the door's entrance.
Motormaster watched, horrified, as Croft's men drug Wildrider into his view. Wildrider's faceplate was scarred, some deep while others were shallow blemishes on his red faceplate. Scuffs covered his chassis, though not enough to mask the weld lines that dotted Wildrider's plating.
"Wildrider?" Motormaster stepped towards his brother, all around him but for his brother forgotten.
Only a human hand on his pede stopped Motormaster, his helm snapping to glare down at Croft. The woman retracted her hand from his pede with a warned "stay back" which Motormaster heeded — albeit with a worried look towards Wildrider.
The humans surrounding Wildrider released the Ferrari from their restraints. Wildrider straightened his backstrut, his optics peering past Motormaster without a hint of recognition.
::. Wildrider? Little brother? .:: Motormaster nudged at his brother's gestalt bond gently, his spark plummeting when he heard nothing but silence.
Felt nothing but that same fog which Croft's control virus had pervaded through the semi for so long.
"What did you do to him?" Motormaster shoved his faceplate into Croft's space, a single digit jabbed against her torso as he met her eyes.
"You are witnessing the full scope of the technology we borrowed from an old colleague of ours. We've advanced it with help from the business partner who told us about your team."
Croft's tone was dismissive, even as Motormaster continued to push himself into her space. If he had wings, like Silverbolt or the Seekers, Motormaster knew they'd be pinned to his backstrut, quivering with rage. The wheels in his cab spun as Croft gestured towards Wildrider, venom in her gaze.
"Why don't we test the effectiveness then?"
Croft tapped a button on the remote, her face marred with a sneer as she looked up at Wildrider. Motormaster watched, bewildered, as his brother's backstrut stiffened with ramrod fury. Wildrider's orchid purple optics turned on him mechanically, a snarl tearing from the Ferrari as his optics turned eerily white.
Wildrider's field was empty of emotion as he stalked towards Motormaster. Gray, clawed digits snapped open, the deadened blankness of the gestalt bond mirrored by the emptiness in his optics.
Motormaster stepped back from his brother, until the restraints on his lower legs stopped him. A withering glare was given to the restraints, then Croft, who merely smiled back at Motormaster with intense loathing.
"Wildrider." Motormaster warned, a bristling of his plating an attempt to deter his brother off.
Wildrider did not acknowledge either warning.
Gray flashed in Motormaster's vision — followed by a spray of energon, and pain.
Motormaster blinked, his gaze trailing down to where energon slipped from torn plating on his chest plate.
Wildrider had attacked him.
Motormaster stood there, stunned.
Wildrider paced back a short distance, his helm shifted to the side as he observed Motormaster.
The semi only stared back.
A fact Wildrider seemed to exploit with immediate speed.
Wildrider's claws slashed across Motormaster's stomach plating, cutting through the thick plating as the semi stared down at him in bewilderment. Another slash of the gray claws exposed parts of Motormaster's wiring. He did not stop there.
With intense quiet, Wildrider raised his left servo, digits tucked together into a lancing jab, then plunged it towards Motormaster's weakened plating.
Motormaster grabbed his brother's servo, a deep preservationary urge reacting where Motormaster's spark couldn't. Wildrider yanked at his grasp, angry spits expelling air from his vents loudly.
::. Wildrider, .:: Motormaster pleaded, his right knee shifting as he lowered his frame to be optic level with the Ferrari.
Wildrider hadn't always been the second shortest of the Stunticons, solely above Breakdown, until he, Dead End and Drag Strip had upgraded their alternate modes. Motormaster's height meant that he had to practically crouch to look into his brother's white optics.
The Ferrari hissed at him, desperate yanks of his captured servos producing little budge against Motormaster's strong, single servoed grasp.
::. I'm sorry I drug you into this, .:: Motormaster vented as he raised his free servo to cup Wildrider's helm.
Wildrider froze. His expression shifted, minutely. Motormaster sent another quiet thread through the bond, then pulled the Ferrari into a hug.
If he had been able to fight some of Croft's control, Wildrider would—
Agony punched through Motormaster. His grip on Wildrider loosened as the semi's processor registered that his right optic had been speared through by Wildrider's helm horn. Staggered, Motormaster reeled back from his brother, his right servo rushing to his faceplate as he staunched the flow of energon from his broken optic.
Movement shifted into his blind spot, which he tracked with a heavy snarl from his engine—
"Stand down, Wildrider. We have enough with this demonstration."
Croft's command, calm and unbearingly neutral, stopped Wildrider. Motormaster could feel his brother's field hovering inches from him, before a droned "yes, ma'am" was followed by the fall of pedes leaving the room.
"Repair Motormaster, Bishop, and install the new control chip into his mainframe. We don't need him to be vulnerable, or against us."
Motormaster flinched as human hands brushed his lower legs, a strange, sedate sensation consuming him—
An ear splitting crash of metal against metal was the last thing he heard as his frame crashed to the ground.
"Checkmate."
Silverbolt smiled at him as he reached across the chessboard, took Motormaster's king, then gently laid it down to the side of the board.
Motormaster glared, first at the board, then at Silverbolt. "I'm done."
"Would you like to play Yahtzee instead?"
"No," Motormaster snapped, his anger driving him to his pedes. Silverbolt looked up at him, his expression soft — it always was when they spent time alone — before the Concorde began packing up the chessboard. Awkwardness had Motormaster help, though he did not use his usual forced gentleness with the pieces he flung into the container Silverbolt was holding.
Silverbolt said nothing as they finished. Motormaster transformed and sped off, anger cycling through him until he stopped at a forested cliff. He transformed back to his root mode, stomped to the edge of the cliff, where he flung himself down to sit then crossed his arms over his chest plate with a growl.
Pede falls stopped behind his back, a high, jet engine rumble telling him he'd been followed.
"It wasn't our game that upset you, what is wrong?" Silverbolt's question forced Motormaster to look away from the Aerialbot as he maneuvered his large frame to sit beside the semi.
"Go away," Motormaster grumbled, aware of the hot flush of embarrassment that warmed his plating at Silverbolt's closeness. The Concorde always seemed to know Motormaster's shift in mood even before himself.
"Is this about Megatron?"
Motormaster jerked his helm away, a warning rumble from his engine preceding his shoulder plates hunching uncomfortably. Optimus had contacted the Stunticons personally a few days ago, explaining that Megatron had turned on the Decepticons. Motormaster hadn't believed it until Optimus had shown him video tapes of the Decepticon leader fighting against the Decepticons, then turning himself into the American military. He hadn't seen Megatron since before the Autobots had taken in the Stunticons after Megatron had attacked them. Motormaster's thoughts spiraled as if a waterspout, with memories, emotions, loyalty—
Silverbolt's servo on his shoulder plate silenced Motormaster's thoughts. He turned his helm to face his friend, a frown appearing across Motormaster's purple faceplate at Silverbolt's concerned gaze.
"You can talk to me," Silverbolt urged.
Motormaster opened his mouth to protest, but stopped at the pleading concern in the Concorde's aquamarine optics. Silverbolt always got what he wanted from the semi. With a cooling vent of his fans, Motormaster turned away from Silverbolt. He busied himself with throwing rocks off the cliff before he finally answered.
"I don't know what to think of him joining the Autobots. He… hurt my team. Hurt me." The last words came out in a whisper. His arms wrapped around him as he hugged himself, a stressed whine hissing from his engine. "I can't stop thinking about what I did to my brothers because of him."
"That was practically twenty years ago," Silverbolt frowned, his brow ridges furrowed, "have you once raised a servo against your team or thought about hitting them?"
"No!" Motormaster snarled, his servos clenching into fists as he whipped a glare on Silverbolt.
Silverbolt didn't flinch.
Instead, the Concorde moved closer to Motormaster. "Do your brothers express doubts about your change? About you?"
"No," Motormaster vented.
Silverbolt peered at him, his blue optics unwavering even as Motormaster hunched his frame ever further over the edge of the cliff. "How long are you going to beat yourself up for the past, Motormaster?"
Motormaster worked at his jaw, his servos fiddling with the other as he tried to find a response for Silverbolt. The Concorde hummed at his reticence, then pressed against Motormaster's side. Sharp, downswept wings curved around the semi's backstrut, a hug in Aerialbot wingspeak, Silverbolt had once explained. For a moment, Motormaster almost shoved his best friend away, but Silverbolt's servo interlocking with his own stopped him.
"You aren't that Motormaster any longer. We have all seen how much you don't resemble him. Your brothers can see it too." Silverbolt's voice rumbled through the semi at their shared proximity, the Aerialbot's field a warm reassurance Motormaster turned his helm away from. "I trust you."
I trust you.
Silverbolt trusted Motormaster more than Motormaster trusted himself.
A vent escaped from the semi as he leaned against the Concorde. He was glad that Silverbolt had pestered him so thoroughly with open friendship when the Stunticons had first become allies to the Autobots. Motormaster had pushed Silverbolt away, over and over, until his persistence — and Breakdown's imploring, pleading talks to trust the Concorde with Motormaster — wore the semi down.
Peaceful silence stretched between both combiner team leaders. Motormaster felt his processor quiet as his friend's unwavering presence engulfed his field.
"Silverbolt?"
The Concorde turned to him, his pedes kicking leisurely over the sheer drop of the cliff. "Yes?"
"Thank you."
If Silverbolt trusted Motormaster so completely that the Concorde willingly relaxed beside him, and his brothers' trust in him had not wavered in years, Motormaster had to trust himself the same.
He only wished it was so easy.