Chapter Text
Through a small window, one of the many construction sites that had been built up around Iacon was visible. Noisy evidence of the city’s continued post-war reconstruction. Evidence of a false, unquestionably temporary peace between Autobot, Decepticon, and NAIL; they all worked together, albeit through slanted optics and wary stances, on what was to become the first all faction accepting housing complex. How obnoxiously hopeful. Fights often brokered out between the workers, short, petty brawls that ended only when steel beams began to fall from the rafters. Such a brawl was currently ongoing, an unknown NAIL having shouted something at an unrecognizable Decepticon. The unruliness had delayed the project’s finish by double its original completion time. His derma curled and optics narrowed at the inefficiency—a different construction crew, one who would have railed at the incompetence and poor craftsmanship blurred at the edges of his mind; he flicked the nonthought away.
Control of the planet was at a precarious stage and sanctimonious notions of togetherness threatened every orn to turn the planet back into the battle filled wasteland it had been less than a century ago…but that was no longer former Autobot second-in-command's concern. It was time to get back to his own newly assigned mission.
The audial glitching screech of metal on metal echoed throughout the modest square room.
Prowl grunted as he dragged the berth along the studio apartment, its edges scraping loudly against the metal floor, and he grit his denta both in strain and against the noise. Despite what the plush mesh that made up its majority would imply; the furniture was extremely heavy. Weighing much more than a speed frame like Prowl’s was used to lifting. However, given the circumstances, he would endure the overstrain on his joints, and more pressingly take advantage of the distraction such a simple, if unpleasant, physical task provided.
In an uncharacteristic turn, Prowl was trying his best to ignore his tac-net and its calculations of what was to follow completion of his mission's first phase; packing.
A long, wide luggage cart waited just outside the door of the apartment, meant more for furniture than actual luggage; the simple machine had been too large to fit through the doorframe. Upon seeing the dilemma, Prowl had resigned himself to lifting (dragging) what few furniture pieces he owned across the apartment and out to the oversized cart. How he would lift them to place atop the cart was a problem he would determine a solution to at a later time. A much later time if his current progress was any indicator.
Not that the praxian was opposed to taking his time moving. Anything to delay the dreaded inevitable. Barely a solar-cycle on planet and Prowl had already been ordered to undertake an off-world mission that was decidedly both outside of and beneath his skillset. An acclaimed sparkling sitter at best; a thinly veiled punishment for circumstances Prowl had held no control over at worst.
Said green and purple circumstances entered his peripheral vision and Prowl grimaced.
“Hey boss,” Scavenger waved from the open door.
Without releasing the berth he held half-up the floor, Prowl turned his helm as much as he could toward the door, scowling. Five Constructicons huddled together outside his apartment, red optics and visors all staring at the Autobot in expectancy of acknowledgment or greeting. He gave them neither. He had also never given them the address to his apartment, either.
“Nice place you got here, boss, very…you,” Long Haul complimented, red visor no doubt taking in every square-inch of the room he and his kind had never been permitted to enter. The apartment, more akin to a single berth barracks' room than an actual habitation suite, was bare save the most essential necessitates. A desk, chair, and berth. All designed specifically to accommodate a winged frame—the only reason he had elected to replace the ship’s provided berth with his own. Not for comfort or luxury, but practicality. He would work more efficiently if his frame was not constantly stiff and sore due to inadequate recharge.
“For a mech who doesn’t have much, you sure don’t pack light,” Mixmaster commented, giving the struggling praxian a roving look, red optics lingering on his doorwings. Prowl refused to let them raise under the scrutiny.
“You know they got berths on the ship, right?” Hook asked. “We have a pretty big one ourselves, could fit six mechs easy.”
The Autobot curled his derma, not needing to verbalize just how distasteful he found that line of processing. He rarely vocalized anything around the Constructicons anymore, beyond the occasional do not touch me or go away.
“That looks heavy,” said Bonecrusher, the brute displaying his astounding powers of observation.
“Could probably help with that,” Long Haul added, faux casual. If the cons were capable, they would all be whistling their projected nonchalance. None of their little charade of calmness fooled the praxian, however. Prowl knew how badly they wanted into his apartment. Even as he had learned to clamp down on his end of the gestalt bond so they felt nothing from him, he had yet to master blocking them completely out. And they bled desire.
There was never a moment where they didn’t transmit their sheer strength of want toward him through the bond. To be near him, to talk, to listen, to touch—platonically, lasciviously, in any manner they could get away with before he shut them down either through harsh words or harsher blows. Angry actions that the construction mechs eagerly accepted. Desperate as they were, the Constructicons didn’t care how their unwilling sixth acknowledged them, only that he did. Even now they did nothing to suppress through the bond how much they wanted to be in his apartment. To be with him in even the most mundane of settings.
Prowl pressed his derma flat, a refusal readying itself on his glossa. They were Decepticons, filthy sadist, murderers, scum of scum, five of the worst their vile faction had ever produced who had all personally wronged him—and the berth was very, very heavy.
“…Very well.” He slowly lowered the end of the berth he had been holding to the floor, scowl deepening as he felt five red stairs directed at his aft.
Degenerates, all of them.
“We got this,” Bonecrusher and Long Haul said as they pushed past Scavenger to get into the apartment first. They took their time once inside, helms swiveling to take in all the nothing that surrounded them.
Prowl stepped away from the berth, going as far as he could to get from the mechs in such a small space; he didn’t want the cons to think he actually wanted to be anywhere near them. They were a convenient means to an end, nothing more. He stopped close to a wall, watching as Bonecrusher and Long Haul elected themselves the main movers and stood at opposite ends of the berth.
“This is a real nice berth, boss, soft,” Long Haul said as he pushed large purple servos into the mesh, testing its give. And from the sudden pulse of desire that reached out to Prowl through the bond, imaging some lurid scene involving the Autobot it belonged to. Decepticon filth.
“Unlike me,” Bonecrusher tacked on, holding up a servo for Long Haul to high five. Which he did, very loudly. Prowl withheld a groan.
Filthy, Decepticon, gutter trash.
Not five klicks in and they were already making Prowl consider kicking them all out and restarting his solo-packing attempt, arduous as it would be. Of course, the tactician had already predicted he would come to regret allowing the five lumbering mechs into his quarters—they were the Constructicons after all—but even his tac-net hadn’t calculated it happening so soon.
The rest of them filtered in and Prowl came to the conclusion that continuing his pattern of ignoring the cons at every given opportunity—even as he begrudgingly allowed them to assist him—would be the best course of action. Wouldn’t want their expectations for his company to raise any higher than the microbe height Prowl had spent every moment after that first combine ruthlessly stomping it down to. After the second, it had been an exercise in maintenance. Willingly combining with them once, even when considering the extreme circumstances surrounding the decision, had given the combiner team the incorrect assumption that the Autobot had finally accepted them. He hadn't. He never would.
Hook, Mixmaster, and Scavenger made a beeline for Prowl—whose frown deepened with every step closer they took—excitement pulsing through the bond stemming from the close proximity he would typically never permit them.
Any close encounters he had with the cons came from their stalking, planned ambushes as a result of their stalking, or the ever-increasing petulant tantrums they threw at job sites when they incorrectly felt too much time had passed since they’d last seen the praxian. Leading to Optimus inevitably, frustratingly, ordering Prowl to intervene, which only served as an encouragement of the tactic as it got the Constructicons exactly what they wanted. Prowl arriving at their construction site, admonishing them for their sparkling like behavior, only for them to turn around and make inappropriate comments regarding his frame while lifting heavy objects and bragging about their bolt placement or some other ludicrous thing. Another way to describe the encounter was a complete and utter waste of the tactician’s time. Same as his every other interaction with construction mechs.
Two of which were gripping his berth on both ends, bending their knees and proceeding to…not lift it? They grunted, they huffed, Bonecrusher’s legs wobbled, and Long Haul shouted a nope before releasing his hold on the berth, then threw his helm back, ex-venting harshly. Bonecrusher let go of his end immediately after and rubbed his servos together, before squatting and regripping the berth’s headboard. Their behavior showed implicit signs of…strain? But that was impossible. Their red visors brightened and they began counting down: one, two, three, lift. The berth did not rise. Long Haul dropped his end, wiping his forehelm as if condensation had gathered there, as though his frame had overheated due to strain. Strain from lifting a berth even Prowl had managed to drag halfway across the apartment.
"What are you doing?” He asked, crossing his arms over his chassis. Their antics were unamusing as usual, but even more so when within his personal quarters.
“It’s heavier than it looks, boss,” Bonecrusher responded, a wheeze to his vents that had to be intentional.
“And it already looked heavy,” added Long Haul, rolling a shoulder.
Prowl cycled his optics, trying to make sense of the scene before him. The Constructicons never missed an opportunity to show off their relative strength in comparison to his own. Often going out of their way trying (and failing) to impress the tactician with their physical prowess.
Already done with their antics, he commanded, “lift the berth.”
They collectively groaned.
“C’mon boss, you’re gonna blow out our backstruts here,” Bonecrusher complained.
"Unless that's what you want?" Long Haul's visor impossibly waggled at him.
But before even a snicker could pass their vocalizers Prowl pointed a digit at them. “No, no more of this buffoonery.”
“Woah, good word boss,” Long Haul admired. Bonecrusher nodded in agreement; a single blue optic twitched.
His engine revved once before he could stop it, low and growling his irritation. Prowl gestured toward the berth. “Are you going to take this seriously or are you only here to waste my time?”
“Course we’re taking this serious, boss. We’re always serious about you,” Bonecrusher assured as though he was assuaging a real doubt of the Autobot’s. Which he wasn’t because Prowl did not care if they were serious about him. Only if that they took him seriously.
“Serious as a facing virus,” Long Haul tacked on.
Prowl’s shook his helm, optics pinched, “have you had a—no, don’t answer that. Just lift the berth, it is not that heavy. I know it’s not. Lift it now and get out of my apartment.” Prowl’s servos clenched around nothing, the urge to flip something large, green, and purple over filling his processor. An urge that he knew he could not carry out because the Constructicons would enjoy it.
“Uh, yeah it is,” Bonecrusher rebutted, now carrying out a full-frame stretching routine. “And, you know even if we did ever have anything like a facing virus—”
“Which we didn’t,” Long Haul chimed in.
“—It would be all cleared up now, least a million stellar-cycles gone.” Bonecrusher finished.
Prowl clasped his servos together with two digits pointing up and pressed flat against his mouth, searching for a patience buried deeper within him than Earth's Mariana trench. “Lift the berth or leave. Now.”
Sensing the snap of Prowl’s very short, frayed tether of tolerance for their particular Constructicon nonsense, they both nodded.
“Whatever you say, boss. Couple klicks, that’s all we need,” Long Haul promised, tone sincere.
“…Fine,” Prowl conceded, vocals clipped. If the berth weighed any less he would never have yielded his anger over their inappropriate jokes at his expense so easily. But then if the berth were any less heavy he would never have accepted their help in the first place. This was their last chance. Whatever moronic plan the Constructicons had likely concocted for their encroachment into his quarters would reveal itself in time. And then—
“So…,” Mixmaster trailed off, standing to the praxian’s left.
“While we’re here….” Scavenger stood at Prowl’s right, rocking on the heels of his peds.
“Think it’s about time we had a proper conversation about the upcoming journey. Expectations and all that,” Hook said standing in front of him, uncomfortably close. While distracted by Long Haul’s and Bonecrusher’s show of idiocy, the other three Constructicons had used the opportunity to move closer and now they stood only an arm’s length away from the praxian. Closer than he had allowed them since their last combine. And now they were in his quarters pressing for a talk Prowl had refused them at every encounter.
Opportunist glitches.
“There is nothing worth discussing,” Prowl said, tone cold enough to ice-over an engine. “I will be boarding the Lost Light to observe a criminal and report back to Optimus any suspicious behavior.”
“And we’re going with you,” Scavenger piped up, sounding enthralled by the idea of it.
“No, you are not,” Prowl firmly corrected him. “You are traveling aboard the Lost Light as passengers indulging Rodimus on his ridiculous quest. You are not going anywhere with me.”
“But we are?” Mixmaster rebutted, sounding of all things, confused.
“No, you are not.” Prowl reasserted.
“We are,” Hook said as he took a step closer to the Praxian, the two others mimicking his movement. “We’re going together.”
“There is no together.” Prowl backed away.
“Yes, there is,” Hook insisted; they all stepped closer.
“No, there is not.” Prowl stepped away.
“Aw, don’t be like that, Prowl. You know that’s not true,” Mixmaster cooed.
Another step back; his doorwings pressed against the wall behind him and his optics widened. The cons had surrounded him, blocking off any exit that didn’t involve pushing past them. Touching them.
Prowl vented heavily, vocals raising, “we are not—”
“—Ah-ha, got him! He said we,” Scavenger exclaimed, clapping his servos together once in a loud clang.
“Told you we could do it,” Bonecrusher praised, finally ending his pretend struggle with the berth and hoisting the entire thing up and over one of his ridiculously wide shoulders.
“It’s not much,” Long Haul shrugged, walking away from where he and Bonecrusher had been holding the berth to join the three Constructicons that had entrapped Prowl. His shadow loomed over them all and Prowl tensed when the ludicrously large mech stopped just behind his fellow cons.
One of the many, many justifiable reasons Prowl avoided close proximity with the Constructicons was, as a group, he knew he couldn’t defeat them in a fight. They knew it too. And he never knew when their reactions to his repeated rejections would take a more…traditional Decepticon like direction.
“It’s a start,” Hook said pragmatically.
“Better than nothing,” Mixmaster agreed.
“Next he’s going to say together, and us, and Scavenger please frag me through the floor,” Scavenger bounced excitedly, his excavator bucket waggling behind him. It came to a stop when Long Haul swung a large fist at the back of his helm, causing the smallest Constructicon to jump and yelp.
“Enough of that,” Hook scolded.
“Yeah,” Bonecrusher called from where he was placing the berth down on the cart. “If anything he’s gonna be saying Bonecrusher, frag me ha—”
“—Enough!” Prowl fumed, baring his denta. “What glitch has infected your processor for you to… for you….” Prowl’s helm burned hot as he tried to gather words to describe the shameless degradation he was being subjected to. But he had never been so thoroughly disrespected in his entire function—and he had been punched in the face by members of the same faction multiple times. Words failed him and with his very flippable desk on the opposite end of the room, he took to glaring, blue optics blazing.
“For us to…?” Hook prompted with a tilt of his helm.
“There is no us, there is no we.” Prowl took multiple deep vents, letting them out slowly as he attempted to regain his composure. He pointed toward the open door. “Get out, allowing you in was a mistake.”
In every conceivable way.
“C’mon Prowl, you know we’re just kidding around,” Bonecrusher’s deep vocals soothed from outside the apartment. “You really wanna haul all this to the ship yourself? We still gotta load up the desk and chair, too.”
In one great heave Bonecrusher had placed the berth on the cart, patting its headboard once before leaving to join his fellow Constructicons.
“Maybe the berth is all he’s taking, unless…,” Long Haul trailed off, then with a snap of digits. “This is an excuse for us to build you new furniture once we’re on the ship—you sly bot!”
“Makes sense,” Mixmaster agreed. “He knows we’re the best.”
“Could make it fit just for his frame,” Hook nodded. “Of course, we would need to take some measurements….”
Scavenger tilted his helm. “But don’t we already have the specs on Prowl’s fra—” Bonecrusher slapped his servo over the excavator’s mask and Long Haul had the audacity to actually say shush.
Prowl was a logical mech. He understood that while not believing in their divinity, Unicron and Primus existed. That he had witnessed near inexplicable, incomprehensible, bordering on mystical events ever since becoming the Autobot second-in-command. All due to his close proximity to the matrix bearer. Yet none of that prevented him from trying to fathom, tactical network providing no results, just how he had been cursed to share a gestalt bond with five of the most idiotic mechs he had the misfortune of ever knowing. Because that’s what the Constructicons were. A bright green cursed blight on his life.
“Do you think you can conduct yourselves—or at the very least pretend to be respectable members of the Cybertronian race while in my presence?”
Five mechs chorused, “anything for you, boss.”
He would offline them. He would offline them and there would be no witnesses and the greyed bodies would never be found. That is if they didn’t trip over their own stupidity directly into a smelter first.
“We can do that, boss.” Long Haul assured him.
“Yeah, yeah,” Scavenger nodded excitedly. “We just wanted to talk.”
“And we noticed you hadn’t unpacked anything into your room back on the ship,” Long Haul added, which earned a scowl from Hook.
“Not that we went into your room or watched for you at the dock or anything,” Mixmaster quickly added palms of his servos raised in some serious attempt to dissuade Prowl from the notion they had been stalking him—again. An insult only in that it meant they must have thought the Autobot as moronic as themselves for him to believe such blatant, pandering lies.
“Enough, place the furniture on the cart and push it to the ship; you have two sentences to say your peace and not a word more. Any more and I walk—alone,” Prowl said as though carting the furniture to the ship without the aid of the cons was a threat, because to the desperate mechs, it was.
The cons looked between one another, sharing a private conversation Prowl was certain he didn’t want to be privy to. They huddled, nodded amongst themselves, then got to work.
“We like you a whole lot, boss,” Mixmaster said, holding the chair in front of himself as he carried it out to the cart. The other Constructicons, Long Haul having lifted Prowl’s desk to bring out to the cart, nodded and hummed their agreement.
“That’s one,” was Prowl’s only response.
“And you’re gonna like us too!” Scavenger exclaimed brightly before leaving the apartment to place himself behind the cart, servos holding the handle.
“That’s two.” Prowl said as he left the apartment to join them in the hallway. There wasn’t enough room for the Constructicons to cluster as they so liked to do, instead they stood in twos, Hook and Long Haul ahead of Bonecrusher and Mixmaster, with Scavenger pushing the cart ahead of their garrulous green pack. Of which Prowl was not a part of. He would walk in the same direction as the Constructicons toward the same destination, but he was not walking with them, never with them.
That they had wasted their only words on inane drivel he had heard before was not his problem.
“That only counted while we were in the apartment, right?” Long Haul asked, turning his helm look at the praxian filling out their rear.
“That’s how I took it,” Bonecrusher answered with a quick shrug.
“I think this will be good for us, you know?” Mixmaster turned to walk backwards; servos clasped behind the green paneling his nozzles were attached to.
“I said not a word,” Prowl ground his denta together. They were calling his bluff. A bluff even tactician hadn’t known he’d made until he was furiously walking behind Constructicons who continued to talk even after he’d threatened them against it. Once the five laborers had arrived they had correctly assumed Prowl was never going to carry his own furniture. The benefits of their strength, for once, would outweigh the negatives of their company and he would endure their presence for however long it took to complete the burdensome task Prowl had never wanted to do (to join the Lost Light as its overqualified, unofficial sparkling sitter). But the numbers that tilted in the Constructicons' favor were rapidly shifting in the opposite direction the more they prattled on.
“A great bonding experience,” Mixmaster continued, waggling his optic ridges at the Praxian. Constructicon laughter followed the horrible, horrible pun, Bonecrusher going so far as to slap the cement truck on the back.
“Good one,” Long Haul commended.
“Funniest Constructicon right there,” Bonecrusher praised, grinning.
Prowl stopped walking, bringing both servos up to cover his face plate as he searched deep within himself for the cold composure the former enforcer was known for—it came to him in the single, gratifying thought of tossing five green and purple nuisances out the ship’s waste disposal once they breached Cybertron’s atmosphere.
An amused smile spread underneath his servos at the mental image.
“You coming, boss?” Bonecrusher shouted after him.
Snickers followed the innocuous question and Prowl’s smile dropped along with his servos; whatever brief amusement he had felt instantly gone.
How such immature mechs had survived their millenniums long war when there wasn’t ten percent processing power between them would forever remain a mystery. One Prowl had zero interest in unraveling. There was, however, one discerning question the praxian pondered as he took time to more carefully consider the five mechs before him.
The Constructicons were being more forward with their humor during this one encounter than in all the time Prowl had grudgingly known them. Yes, they had made inappropriate jokes around him before, but never so ardently or repeatedly in such a short amount of time. The most they ever managed where a few shouted catcalls whenever the praxian visited or passed their construction sites.
Within Iacon the Constructicons had been, not content, but willing to endure Prowl’s stern rejections and strict denial of the bond. Of them. The Autobot held a high enough position of authority even post-war, post-bombshell, post-Devastator, to enforce serious consequences had their persuasion attempts taken a more active, tactile approach. And while not a wide pool of allies supported him, it was just deep enough that had they tried for more aggressive tactics, Prowl would have been aided and abetted with any retaliation, legal or otherwise, he chose to enact against the Decepticons.
The same could not be said for the journey they were soon to embark on.
He had been granted no such authority on the Lost Light beyond being exempt from its new, undeserving captain’s. He would be aboard not as a crew member, but as a neutral observer. There would also no longer be a lethal pink wall between himself and the Constructicons whenever they tried to approach him on duty. Prowl would be completely alone once they left on their voyage. He would have no external protection, for lack of a better description. The Autobots and Decepticons that counted among the Lost Light crew were at worst openly hostile toward the praxian and at best wholly apathetic to his presence.
Not for the first time, Prowl considered refusing to board the Lost Light. For once again arguing his case against the need for the tactician to be aboard a ship of delusional, dangerous, incompetent miscreants. Megatron needed watching, but that was a job for spec-ops, not the former second-in-command. It would be a waste of his time and Autobot manpower. Prowl also considered not arguing his case at all, but simply not boarding the ship and only announcing himself once it was too late for it to return—he had gone against Optimus’ orders before and with less reason for refusal than he currently had.
Which in that moment came in the form of five, red, leering stares.
“Let’s go, boss.”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
Prime’s order had the domino effect of stripping Prowl of his carefully crafted defenses against the Constructicons’ ever building offensive—and they knew it.