Chapter Text
“Relax already. He’s an athlete which is already a knock against his intellect, but being an athlete while looking like that?” Swindle insisted with a short laugh, lifting a servo to tap against the side of his helm. “He’s not gonna figure anything out because there’s not a single circuit firing in that pretty little head of his.”
Not even the sudden rattling of shipping containers – no doubt Brawl’s indelicate handiwork – seemed to catch Onslaught’s attention as he stared Swindle down. Onslaught didn’t look convinced so much as resigned as he crossed his arms over his chest.
“If it wasn’t such a major component to your success rate, I’d be worried by how much you enjoy robbing mechs blind.”
“What’s there to be worried about? That we might actually make more credits than we need? That not only can we finally strike out on our own, but do it comfortably?” Swindle asked teasingly.
Onslaught wasn’t moved.
“How long would you wait to sell my cold, lifeless frame?”
“Oh, it wouldn’t even be cold yet.”
From somewhere deeper in the warehouse, Vortex began cackling, only quieting a hair when Blast Off and Brawl hushed him.
With a heavy, rattling ex-vent, Onslaught warned, “Just don’t get yourself in too deep. The last thing we need is Starscream getting tipped off about our stash.”
“You insult me. I’m already twice the con-man he is with a fraction of the funds.” Swindle gestured pointedly at where the others were following Starscream’s orders, swapping out the illegal mods snuck into the shipment containers for more mundane ones. Profiting off his above the table business while making a little extra under it was all well and good, but Swindle had bigger plans than anything Starscream would dare to try pulling off.
He just needed the right opportunity.
Finally, after a moment of quiet contemplation, Onslaught uncrossed one arm to wave Swindle off.
“Fine. We’ll handle the rest of this. See what you can get out of him and then get out, understood?”
With a lazy salute, Swindle took a couple steps away, grinning.
“Have I ever disappointed?”
“Yes.”
Swindle’s salute shifted to a rude gesture as he made his escape.
Truthfully, he’d been looking for any excuse to get out of doing grunt work for Starscream, and they all knew it. Swindle hated having to follow orders for credits he’d never even see as they were just dumped into their bottomless pit of a debt. For all that Swindle hated Starscream, he couldn’t deny that he had a way with numbers. Specifically, numbers that look alright on paper, but in reality lead to debt that grew faster than it could be paid off.
Which was why, while Onslaught disapproved, he could be counted on to look the other way when Swindle found a target to sink his teeth into.
All they needed was to discretely save up enough credits to pay it all off in one go and they would be free.
More specifically, Swindle would be free to live up to his full potential and blow Starscream’s business out of the water.
He just needed the opportunity.
And Blurr could very well be it.
“Oh, sorry!”
The extra stumble Swindle did was for show – a well-practiced piece of choreography – but it was possible that under Vortex’s less pleasant ministrations, Swindle might admit that the struck expression on his face as he looked up at Blurr was embarrassingly genuine.
Damn, but he was so fragging hot up close.
It was rare that Swindle was actually attracted to his targets. Not that it ever mattered if they were handsome or not when all Swindle really wanted from them was their credits. It rarely factored into the equation except as maybe a self-esteem issue to take advantage of.
But Blurr was sleek and shiny and beautiful, which made it all the goofier when he looked down at Swindle with actual concern on his pretty face.
And when their optics met, Swindle couldn’t help the skipping of his spark.
“Hi,” squeaked out from Swindle’s vocalizer much more genuinely than his usual routine. With a quick clearing of his throat he continued, “I mean, sorry, didn’t mean to make a tripping hazard of myself. You ok?”
And concern melted from Blurr’s face and into a small little smile.
“Yeah, I’m good. Great even. But again, I’m the one who should be sorry since I nearly ran you over and all. Are you--”
Blurr had barely started to reach out his servo before the older racer frame who had been walking with him – no doubt his couch, though perhaps just a handler – was at Blurr’s side with a frown, saying, “Sorry kid, but Blurr doesn’t have time for talking with fans right now. You can pay for a meet-and-greet like everyone else.”
“Right, of course,” Swindle relinquished, lifting his servos in a small gesture of surrender. “I totally get it and I’d hate to make anyone late. Can I just – one real quick question? Then I’m out of your circuits.”
The couch/handler exvented as he crossed his arms, clearly ready to stonewall Swindle, but Blurr beat him to the punch with, “Yeah, fire away! I’ve got a couple seconds.”
“No, you don’t—”
“What’s your sparkmark?”
“Ugh, seriously? Blurr—”
“No, no, listen, I get that’s forward, and ‘oh, sorry’ isn’t an uncommon phrase, but you know, just in case—”
“Let’s go—”
“Mine does actually say ‘Hi’!”
“No! It says ‘Hello’, so that’s enough nonsense—”
“Actually, sparkmate markings are written in basic cybertronian, back before we as a race started spreading out and creating our own individual cultures, so any sort of variation that was born from ‘Hello’ like Hey, Hiya, Howdy – they’ll all show up as ‘Hello’ on the ol’ spark chamber.”
“What a load of slag.”
“Actually, he is right,” Blurr corrected, and it was around then that Swindle realized the racer hadn't taken his optics off Swindle to talk to his coach/handler. “Which sure makes it real difficult to tell, huh? Makes a mech wish they had something real specific, cause how else would I know if it's you?”
In fact, his gaze hadn’t left Swindle even once. Blurr’s smile was wide and cheery, like an eager turbofox, but the way those bright blues focused in on Swindle, shifting ever so slightly to follow each sway of Swindle’s frame, like a predator locked on and ready to pounce?
Frag him running, it shouldn’t have been hot, but it really, really was.
“Well, maybe we could see if something sparks? Judge if it's real for ourselves?” Swindle suggested, tentatively holding out his servo again for a shake. “I'm Swindle.”
“Enough of this, Blurr, let’s—”
“I'm Blurr.”
Blurr’s servo was smooth as silk and solid as steel as he took Swindle’s. Quick as lightning, his commlink was in Swindle’s contact list.
And he smiled like he’d just won a grand prix when Swindle gave him his burner commlink in return.
Oh, this was going to be easy AND fun.
Swindle hadn’t meant to let his shrewder tendencies show. Even he could admit they weren’t exactly attractive traits. Nobody dreaming of meeting their sparkmate thought to themselves “Wow, I sure hope he can talk circles around the most self-confident of business mechs to snatch the best deal possible.”
And besides, Swindle never wanted to tip his hand and leave any possibility of his targets putting two and two together. Easier to bleed a target of credits when they thought him dumb and sentimental.
But Primus below, this moron was getting on Swindle’s nerves.
Blurr had finally found time for the two of them to go on a proper date after a full week of just messages and one quick video call, and he had taken Swindle to the ritziest restaurant in the city. Blurr had even already insisted it would all be on his credit chip ahead of time, which Swindle wasn’t about to argue about.
And oof, when they met outside the building and Swindle could take in the racer in all his gorgeousness in person again? He had to congratulate himself on what a spectacular target he had picked.
Things were going wonderfully.
But then as they were looking over the drinks menu and debating the merits of their favorite engex blends – a topic Swindle had been surprised that Blurr had strong opinions on until the racer started to explain his plans for his retirement ages down the line, and the idea that Blurr was interested in becoming a business owner was fascinating – the sleeziest business mech Swindle had seen in quite some time came sidling up to their table.
And Swindle worked for Starscream.
Spinmaster, or so he called himself, wasn’t sleezy by most mech’s standards. His paintjob was immaculate and professional, his wax recently applied, the cadence of his voice and every word out of his mouth pure Iaconian business mech through and through. He acted just well enough that it would have been considered rude of Blurr to call him out for the clear farce he was weaving about it being a coincidence they should run in to each other. And the day before their big meeting about Blurr’s upcoming partnership with his company, what were the odds! His dentae were flawless as he laughed, said oh, it was just so funny, since Spinmaster had just put the finishing touches on the final draft of the contract they’d be looking over tomorrow, maybe Blurr would like a sneak peek so they could save a little time, jump straight to celebrating sooner?
Swindle would take a grimy ol’ backstabber hawking counterfeit goods in a back alley over this slag any day of the week. At least they minded their own business, let you come to them to haggle it out like gentlemechs. They respected another mech’s business.
But this half-wit goon had come barging in on Swindle’s first chance to wine and dine Blurr, grinning all the while like Blurr wasn’t visibly deflating and his own smile falling as he finally took the datapad shoved into his servos to look over, and Swindle couldn’t help himself.
Blurr was his mark and he wasn’t looking to share.
(Especially when Blurr glanced over at him with a look that practically begged Swindle to intervene.)
“Let me look at that,” Swindle said, reaching out to snag the datapad before Blurr even had a chance. Blurr didn’t even pretend to fight him for possession of the blasted thing.
Spinmaster protested, of course.
“I’m sorry, but who are you to—?”
“Careful,” Blurr interrupted. “That could be my sparkmate you’re speaking to.”
Spinmaster did pull back a bit then, shifting to apologetic but insistent, an honestly pitiful display as he tried to convince Blurr to stop Swindle from looking over the contract.
But it was too late. Swindle had already skipped the fluff at the top of the contract, swiping quickly through the pages to discover the true story laid out neatly between all the legal jargon.
Even the most Iaconian of sneaky contracts weren’t a match for the fastest speedreading mods a mech could get from grimy ol’ backstabbers.
“You didn’t really think this would work, did you?” Swindle asked with a laugh, looking up from the pad to Spinmaster’s optics.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You couldn’t have really thought Blurr was going to sign this.”
Spinmaster’s face twitched and Swindle could see where he was grinding his dentae to keep the smile on his face.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“Spinmaster, right? That’s your name?” Swindle didn’t wait for him to confirm before continuing, “You know, I didn’t even really need to read this to know what’s going on here. Not when you’ve so obviously tipped your hand. You happen upon the celebrity your company is trying to strike a commercial deal with when he’s lawyer-less and possibly a drink or three in? And then what was the next step, hm? Hope he just sees that first page, maybe the second, buy him another drink, and then suggest he sign it here and now?”
Swindle could hear the shrill grinding of dentae and it only made him smirk.
“I can respect a high risk, high reward maneuver, but Unicron above, you really didn’t think through just how bad the risk was, huh? You clearly have much more to gain from this deal than Blurr does. A lot more if your company was desperate enough to try a stunt like this.” Finally, Swindle held the datapad out to Spinmaster, and let himself take on a mocking impression of the businessmech’s speech pattern. “After giving this a thorough look over, I’ve gone ahead and deleted it for you. Better to start fresh when you make your draft for tomorrow and sweeten the pot for Blurr here if you want him to even consider working with you further. Understood?”
The datapad was snatched up and Spinmaster managed a strained “I look forward to working with you tomorrow, sir” to Blurr before turning on his heel and stomping away.
Swindle gave himself just a moment to bask in his self-satisfaction before leaning back in his seat again to recalibrate. Alright, maybe that wasn’t his smartest move, but he could make this work. He could start with an apology and improvise from there, spin what he’d just done based on if Blurr was annoyed with him, upset, suspicious--
However, just as Swindle was opening his mouth, turning his helm back to Blurr, a servo was sliding between his thighs and Blurr’s lips were nearly against his audial.
“The second we’re alone, I’m going to swallow your spike to the base and suck you dry.”
Swindle shuddered in his seat as the rush of a successful negotiation turned molten hot with helpless arousal.
And Swindle found himself giggling, sounding breathless even to himself.
“Talk about sweetening the pot,” he joked as Blurr finally pulled back enough that their gazes could meet. It was back again, that intensity in how Blurr looked at him, and that combined with the smooth, strong servo stroking his inner thigh sent his spark spinning giddily. “I take it you’re not mad then.”
“Are you kidding? I hate that guy, and all that contract negotiation slag, it’s boring and fake and I prefer to leave it up to Kup and the lawyers most of the time. And honestly, that was pretty hot. Like, really hot. Thus why I’m going to swallow your spike to the base and suck you dry.”
Well, frag him running.
“Primus, maybe we really are sparkmates,” Swindle said a little too sincerely for his taste.
But it made Blurr’s smile soften, and his servo finally left Swindle’s lap to cup his face so they could share a surprisingly soft first kiss.
“Moving quickly with that one, aren’t you?”
Swindle scoffed at Vortex as he slapped the ‘cab fare’ Blurr had given him into Onslaught’s servo. Even for how long a ride it would have been if Swindle really had called for one, this was the sort of money one used for luxury transportation. He could have afforded sentient transportation with a hefty tip for how much was on the chip. Needless to say, it made for a nice little first deposit when Swindle simply drove home himself.
The overloads Blurr had given him had burnt off most of the engex anyway.
“I turned my end of the bond off. If you got anything, it’s because you decided to go digging around for whatever secondhand crumbs slipped through, you pervert.”
Vortex just cackled in the background while Onslaught considered the chip in his servo.
“Not bad,” Onslaught finally said as he slipped the chip into his subspace. “Tex is right though. You usually lead them on longer.”
“What can I say? He offered, and I wasn’t about to say no to a chance to ‘face with Blurr.” Swindle shrugged as he started towards their sleeping quarters.
“I wasn’t referring to the interfacing.”
Swindle paused but didn’t look back at Onslaught. Even Vortex had quieted down. Over in the backroom, Brawl and Blast Off had stopped whatever bickering they’d been doing in the background since Swindle’s return.
The walls were thin in their apartment. Thin enough that Swindle knew he had the attention of his whole gestalt now.
“I know what I’m doing, boss.”
“You sure?”
Swindle in-vented slowly, working his mouth until it settled into an easy smirk, and finally looked over his shoulder.
“He’s a mark, Onslaught. Just cause we get on better and faster than the marks that came before him doesn’t change the fact that he’s a mark. When have I ever let something like feelings get between me and shanix?”
Onslaught was unmoved, but after another moment of tense silence between the five of them, he ex-vent audibly.
“Get some recharge. Starscream has a job for you tomorrow.”
Swindle’s smirk faltered, but he took the dismissal for what it was.