Chapter Text
Breakdown was in a dark mood. Which is why he shoved Hardtop to the side as he entered their shared quarters. The purple and teal jeep was just about to leave the room, but after being pushed like that, he spun around and growled: “What crawled up your tailpipe and died?”
Breakdown snarled a half-sparked: “Can it, Hardtop!” After that the speedster collapsed on his berth and buried his faceplates in the covers.
“If I had to guess, I’d say it was a bug,” Swindle answered his brothers question with a cheeky smile from his place by the single table in the room. He was tinkering with some scrap he got from the junkyard.
Breakdown snarled again. He had half a processor to toss his pillow – a tarp stuffed with human clothing he pilfered from a shop in Witwicky – at the annoying jeep, but knowing Swindle he would likely never get it back. Not for free that is.
Whatever it was, that Hardtop wanted to do outside of their quarters, he seemed to have forgotten all about it, as he took a seat at Breakdowns berth next to the pouting racer. “Trouble in paradise~?” he asked in a mocking tone.
The white and blue mech had it with the nosy jeep and made attempts to wrestle the other away from his berth. The crashing and clanging from the brawl summoned Bombshell, Shrapnel and Skullcruncher.
Since the treaty, there wasn’t nearly enough fighting going on any more. A brawl between teammates was the next best thing in terms of entertainment they had. Finally, Breakdown managed to kick Hardtop away from his berth. “I said: Can it, Numbnode!” he yelled at the jeep.
“Not my fault you and your Autobot sweetspark can’t get it on!” the other growled as he picked himself up from the ground.
Several `Ooooh!s´ came from their audience. This was the perfect sequencer for a round 2.
But instead of continuing the fight, Breakdown just collapsed on his berth once more. Sitting down heavily he burrowed his faceplates in his servos and gave a frustrated growl. That sure was anticlimactic.
But then again … juicy gossip was almost as entertaining as a brawl. After some probing and prodding from the other cons, Breakdown finally admitted, that his relationship with Bumblebee was practically dead in the water.
“I just don’t get, what I’m doing wrong!” Breakdown complained to no one in particular and hit the wall behind his berth. By the number of dents in it, it wasn’t the first time he vented his frustrations like that.
Shrapnel asked from his spot at the floor in front of Hardtops and Swindles shared berth: “So … are you guys courting now? Or what?”
Skullcruncher, who now sat at the table Swindle previously occupied, gave a huff at that. Courting a puny Autobot? And the annoying yellow one at that! Pathetic. But to each their own. He didn’t comment out loud.
“I thought so,” Breakdown answered and rubbed his servos down his faceplates. He looked a million stellar cycles older all of a sudden. “I gave him The Gift and he accepted, so…” He ended his sentence there.
All around his comrades nodded their helms. Accepting The Gift meant accepting the courtship. They looked at the racer with big optics. There had to be more to the story. In a rare occurrence of generosity Swindle produced two unmarked bottles of highgrade from underneath his berth. If Breakdown continued to tell the story at this pace, they would still be sitting here next millennium. Hopefully the fuel would loosen his glossa. The merchant gave one bottle to Breakdown, who drank without hesitation and let the other one wander around.
“Well? What happened then?” Swindle prodded.
Breakdown looked at the highgrade in contemplation, before drinking some more. “Well … we talked … a lot,” he finally admitted.
The cons around him groaned in frustration. Some threw their servos up in disappointment at how boring this revelation was.
Hardtop suggested: “You guys probably can’t get it on, because the both of you are boring geargrinders!” It earned him a kick from Breakdown but the highgrade made him miss Hardtop and hit Swindle instead. Suddenly one jeep started to look like the other. Regardless, Breakdown kept drinking from the bottle.
“During the war we only met during missions,” the racer finally told them, “It was always in the heat of the moment. Always with the possibility of being spotted, or shot at, or getting captured. There was never any time to really talk. Just tease a bit. And that was fun! Primus, I love seeing his stupid, blushing face!” Breakdown got a dreamy look in his optics and a dopey smile on his face. Swindle smiled as well. Seemed like the highgrade did its job.
Breakdown continued: “The frustrated little pout, when he was too slow to catch me. The way his vents stutter, when I call him `slowpoke´. The kinda sad look he gave me when tha retreat got called an’ we had to go our separate ways.”
While the Stunticon talked with this dreamy look on his face, the jeep brothers started snickering. Skullcruncher rolled his optics so hard they felt like rolling back into his helm. Shrapnel mimicked purging while Bombshell tried not to laugh out loud at the display.
“What went wrong then?” Hardtop pressed.
“I DON’T KNOW!” Breakdown wailed and swung the bottle around. He nearly hit Bombshell with it. “It t’was nice for a while. Talkin’ without having ta fear ta be put on The List for fertilizing with the enemy. He even lemme be around his kids!”
Again, the collected cons nodded along. To be accepted by your partners family was important for the courtship. Swindle cracked a rueful smile as he remembered how much the brothers of his love interest had loathed him. In the end however, it was the war that nipped the relationship in the bud, not familial resentment.
Breakdown didn’t have a family with him anymore. Motormaster and Wildrider were gone. As for Dragstrip and Dead End. He didn’t really know what happened to them. They had been deployed on a mission ages ago and never returned.
He did bring Bumblebee along to the Safehouse though to meet his brethren. Probably the last Decepticons left in the universe. It didn’t go over well, however. As soon as Bumblebee had realized, that Breakdown shared his quarters with the jeep brothers, he had excused himself and returned to his own base. Didn’t help the fact, that by that time, the room was still filled with earth from the tunnel.
Breakdown had been crestfallen then. Bumblebee was high-caste. He was probably used to have his own private quarters. But at the Decepticons that was the privilege of the officers. One that the Stunticon couldn’t offer. At the memory, Breakdown took another swig.
“What else have you tried?” Shrapnel quipped in.
Breakdown shrugged. “Wrecked a buildin’ fo ‘im,” he slurred and transformed the servo that wasn’t holding the bottle into a hammer.
Skullcruncher harumphed in approval. “Showing off what you got is a good thing. Let’s the other know how strong you are.”
Breakdown swung his hammer around, once again nearly hitting Bombshell. “He hated ‘t!” the Stunticon yelled.
His brethren looked scandalized. “What do you mean ‘He hated it´? Did you miss the fragging building or what?!” Hardtop shouted.
Breakdowns hammer swung again, and again Bombshell ducked. “NO!” the racer roared, “Ah wrecked tha thing wit one swing! It came down like a hous’a carps!”
The Decepticons were shocked and stared at their comrade with open intakes.
“And he wasn’t impressed?” Skullcruncher asked incredulously. Back in the day he had mechs and femmes alike swooning left and right when he brought down the supporting bulkheads of a building with the tail of his beastmode. Everyone wanted a piece of him, and this puny Autobot wasn’t impressed at all?!
“He said: `Do ya have ta?´” Breakdown tried to imitate the other, but by now he was too drunk to be very coherent. The others winced. Annoyance was about the worst reaction you could get when showing off your strength. Right after indifference.
“You tried fuel yet?” Shrapnel asked. Fuel always worked. He still remembered how their Alpha would share the Energon he secured with the hive. By the bobbing of Bombshells antennae, the other remembered, too. Or maybe he just wanted to figure out when Breakdown would swing at him again.
However, the mentioning of fuel did it. Breakdown slumped to the side in defeat. The others took his reaction as confirmation for their suspicions. Bumblebee rejected the other at every corner.
“Well. He doesn’t like your place, your roommates, your skills or your fuel. Guess that courtship is over and done with. At least you can still frag him,” Swindle summed up from his berth. The bottle had found its way back to him and he emptied the last dregs.
On his own berth Breakdown whined even harder and buried his face in his pillow. His now empty bottle slipped from his grasp.
The room went awfully quiet. “You guys have been fragging, right?”
Breakdowns muffled voice could be heard saying: “Gullcrusher … if you jushh …” With that the Stunticon pointed at his helm without lifting his face from his pillow.
His teammate had half a spark to actually fulfill the others request and just end his suffering. Why the frag would you court someone you didn’t even interface with? Perhaps it was this when people said that someone was stupid in love.
“So, it’s over then,” Hardtop summed up.
From his position on the berth Breakdown whimpered pitifully. Somewhat incomprehensible because of the pillow he mumbled: “He gave The Gift to someone else.”
The assembled Decepticons erupted in shouts. Swindle hit Bombshell in the head as he threw his bottle in affront.
It was clear that Breakdown didn’t want things to be over with, but racing and talking to each other wasn’t really what you could call a fulfilling relationship. Maybe going back to being rivals was the only way to somehow safe at least their friendship.
It took a while for the assorted cons in the room to quieten back down.
“Or ya know … You could always ask Starscream for help. He hangs out with the bots all the time these days. He ought’a know what they like,” Hardtop suggested. Every mech in the room looked at the teal jeep as if he had just suggested to smooch Megatron right on the lipplates. Even Breakdown turned his helm away from the pillow to stare incredulously at him.
The unspoken question of `Why?´ hung in the air like the smell of gas. Asking Starscream for a favor was like striking a deal with Unicron himself. The seeker ultimately got you what you wanted, be it fuel, medical supplies or time off from the duty roster, but you had to pay a very, very high price for it.
So, the real question was: Was Breakdown willing to go to Starscream in order to safe this courtship with Bumblebee?