Reunion

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
Bayverse with borrowings from G1 and Dreamwave
Combaticons
ref to character death
After the Crisis Intervention Accords were put into effect, gestalt teams were not allowed to serve together, or even contact each other.  Except once a year....

(Backstory for this is Vetus, here on FFN loyalty and despair) 
for the gestalt_love  december challenge
Thanks to wicked3659  for beta.

 

Vortex commed a full decaklik before the appointed time, which told Onslaught that the copter was worried. Vortex wasn’t early. Ever.  He was too professional a soldier to be late, but too…Vortex to be early.

“You haven’t told them.” Onslaught didn’t really need to guess.

“I, uh…no.” The visor flickered. “I was figuring they’d, you know, find out some other way.”

Onslaught frowned, knowing that Vortex could probably see it behind his battlemask, or at least sense it.  When he wanted, Vortex’s ability to read others was downright uncanny. “Never took you for a coward, Vortex,” he said, smoothly, letting the words sink in and sting.

Vortex leaned away from the vid screen. “I just couldn’t think of how to say it. That’s all.”

Right. That’s all.  Onslaught tipped his head. “You tell them the truth.  I wrote the official account: you’re clear of any prosecution.  But you owe them the truth.”  They were still a team, dammit…even if they weren’t officially allowed to be. Even if, through Vortex’s rash action, they never could be again.

Vortex’s rotors shifted, restless, fighting an anger that had no focus—at Onslaught, at himself, at…everything. 

Onslaught gave a showy shrug. “I don’t see what the problem is—you’ve certainly gotten caught doing other…acts of dubious rectitude.”  Everything, he’d learned, from all his years as a commander, sounded better in longer syllables. ‘You fragged up good’ was a blunt instrument. That turn of phrase was a laser scalpel, cutting deep and without pain.

“Nothing…quite this bad,” Vortex countered.

“Oh, Swindle did plenty bad,” Onslaught argued, playing light.  This anniversary was going to be hard enough without a sullen, mopey copter. “That time he sold us?  Not to mention, the risk he took with Blast Off.” 

Vortex ground his mouthplates behind his own mask for a moment, weighing Onslaught’s words, and the meaning behind them. “Wh-what did you say in the official report, anyway?”

“You haven’t looked?” Surprising: Vortex was a bit of a sneak, especially when/where he thought things could be turned to his advantage. Which covered…almost everything, normally.

“I, uhhh, no.” Vortex suddenly found the side of the screen eminently fascinating.

Onslaught settled his gaze on the copter. Interesting.  And a hell of a time for Vortex to develop anything like a conscience. 

No, that would be a worst-case scenario. Perhaps this wasn’t that dire…yet. 

“It says he was hit by shrapnel from the explosion. An unfortunate accident, but, perhaps, poetic justice.”

“And they bought it?” A flicker of interest.  Onslaught could see the gears turning, trying to match the damage he knew Swindle had suffered with the lame cover story. Well, Onslaught wasn’t much known for originality. And he’d learned that with some types, if it’s in a report and you glare angrily enough about it, they let it pass without much scrutiny.

“They figured I was covering up for one of his…less-than-legal enterprises.”  He let the words sink in without accompaniment—let Vortex realize how much Onslaught had sucked up in the name of the team, how hard he’d had to twist his own principles to justify it.  And all…for Vortex.  “Besides,” he added, after a moment, when he was sure the message had penetrated, “the high command appreciates poetic justice.”

Vortex grunted. 

“Almost time,” Onslaught prompted.

“Yeah.” Vortex’s voice was dry, scratchy. “I’m ready,” he lied.  But it wasn’t Onslaught’s place, not right now, at any rate, to confront him. Sometimes the fragile structures of the lies we tell ourselves, Onslaught knew, are too fragile to bear any more weight.

Another light blinked on Onslaught’s console, then another.  “Here goes,” he said, keying the buttons, switching Vortex’s channel over to the multi-chan. Onslaught did obey orders, as much as he hated them. Because he expected the same from his mechs.

On the right side of the screen, a timer began counting down the cycle of time they were allotted.  “Ah,” he said, leaning back, his cannons resting against the back of his chair. “Blast Off, Brawl.  Timely as always.”  Brawl, like Vortex, was just too good a soldier to miss a time hack—Blast Off was just too much of a perfectionist.

“Hey, ‘Tex!”  Brawl waved, his cannon spinning on and off target-lock in happiness. “Haven’t heard from you in a while!”

“Hey,” Vortex returned, flatly. “Been…uh, busy.”

“Onslaught,” Blast Off acknowledged, dipping his head. “I appreciate the favor.” Light gleamed in that ‘slightly too new’ shine off his chassis.

Onslaught shifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Least I could do. Some of those distant bases don’t have the best repair facilities.”  It went with the territory: he was their leader, even now, even after the Crisis Intervention Accords had forbade gestalts from being within a kilomechanometer of one another.  And, he’d never admit it, but it fed something in him—that they needed him. That he could still do things for them.  That he still mattered, even not as their line commander.  And that was his weakness, one that he’d never show them.

“Well, thank you anyway,” Blast Off said, stiffly.

“So, where’s Swindle?” Brawl blurted, in that gleeful tone Onslaught had long ago dubbed Getting Someone Else in Trouble.  “Late, as usual.”  His beetly face pushed into a caricature frown.

“One imagines he’s found something else better to do,” Blast Off muttered. “A shame, really.”

“About that.” Onslaught prompted.  They all waited, looking at him—Blast Off vaguely annoyed, Brawl eager to hear something juicy, and Vortex…like he was wishing Onslaught would explode.   “Vortex has something he’d like to tell us.”

Vortex’s gaze added accelerant to the explosion he wanted to make of Onslaught’s head.  “Um, yeah. About Swindle. He…he won’t be joining us.” 

“He’s in the brig?”  Brawl bounced, excitedly.  “Oooooh, Onslaught, what’d he do?” 

Onslaught tipped his head toward Vortex. Who glared back. 

“Swindle’s…kind of…well….”  Vortex winced. “Dead. Yeah. Um. A little. Okay, a lot. Dead. You know.”  His rotors twitched. 

Behind his mask, and despite the seriousness of it, Onslaught’s face twitched into something like a grin.  Ah, Vortex.

“Dead?” Brawl blinked.

“Permanently offline,” Onslaught said.  Brawl occasionally needed translation.

“What a shame,” Blast Off muttered, flatly. “That auspicious event must have happened during my…incapacitation.” 

Onslaught stared pointedly at Vortex.  “Vortex,” he asked, a little too patiently, “You have some details you’d like to share?”

Vortex’s visor flared.  “Fine.  I…kind of…killed him.”

“Fraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag,” Brawl said, open-mouthed.  “They give medals for that? ‘Cause they should totally give you a medal for that.  Totally.” 

“Oh, yes, Brawl,” Blast Off said, acidly, “They give all sorts of awards for killing Decepticons.  ‘They’ being the Autobots.” 

Onslaught rolled his optics. “You should know that kind of sarcasm is entirely wasted on Brawl,” he admonished. “Brawl. Think about it. Swindle’s dead.”

Brawl’s smile grew almost beatific. “I know! It’s awesome!”

Vortex looked like he wanted to reach through the vid screens and strangle Brawl.  And to be honest, Onslaught would gladly have joined him.  Sometimes there was no other way through to Brawl’s cortex save with pummeling. “No, Brawl,” Onslaught said, patiently. “It is not ‘awesome.’ Think about what this means—“

“We know how hard thinking is for you,” Blast Off cut in. 

Not. Helpful. Onslaught continued, “Suppose one day they lift the Accords.” 

“Yeah?  Suppose one day I get the power to shoot fire out of my turret gun.  Change dirt into energon, or something.”

“Primus help us all,” Blast Off muttered.  He looked down at his new chassis, rubbing ostentatiously at a smudge, so he could ignore the latest salvo of glares Onslaught and Vortex sent downrange at him.

“You’re an idiot,” Vortex snapped.  “Point is, we’re fragged as a gestalt.”

Brawl shrugged. “Fragged as a gestalt as it is, ‘cause of this stupid Accord thing. One of us could slaggin’ die any day, any time.  Always been like that.”  Brawl beetled his optics further, squinting at each of them in turn. “Dunno about you, but if one of us had to go and the rest of us got to outlive him? I’m glad it was Swindle. Fragger.”

Onslaught sighed, but…the idiot did have a point. And he could see that Vortex thought so, too, in the way the rotors straightened slightly from their disconsolate droop.

“So,” Blast Off said, bored, probably resentful of the fact that Brawl had actually had something approaching an insight, “How’d it happen? You not have the money to pay some gambling debt?”

Vortex snarled. “I did it because of you, you filthy fragger!”

Blast Off jerked back, but recovered with a fastidious gesture of his hands, as if erecting a barrier between himself and Vortex’s salty language.

Vortex was having none of it. “Yeah, you!  I was on that fraggin’ landing pad.  Right next to him when you blew.” Vortex’s optics blazed across the vid screen.

“You were…there?”

“Yeah, probably same as you—sucked in by some stupid ‘old time’s sake’ reunion slag,” Vortex snapped, defensively.  “Only I wasn’t the one dumb enough to haul cargo for him.”

Blast Off flinched, visibly. Vortex had pressed the magic ‘dumb’ button. Great.

Brawl gaped at Blast Off. “You didn’t tell me you did Swindle any favors,” he accused.

“No one does Swindle ‘favors’,” Blast Off corrected, tightly, glaring at Vortex.

True enough: Swindle didn’t win anyone’s generosity, not even Onslaught’s.  But he did call in debts, and sometimes the sources of those were…things Onslaught needed to know. 

Vortex chortled, regaining his composure.  “You must have owed him good for something. Or did you not even check the manifest?”  The ‘dumb’ was implied this time. And unlike Brawl, subtlety was not wasted on Blast Off.

Blast Off looked ready to boil over. Right. Time to step in.  And to think, Onslaught thought, 99% of the orbital cycle, I actually miss this. “Combaticons!” he barked. “Shut it. We’re a team.”

“Huh,” Vortex muttered. “Some team.”

“Wow,” Brawl said. “No one’s ever killed anyone for me.”

“I thought he was already dead!” Vortex cried out—as if that somehow made more sense. Well, possibly it did—Vortex-sense. Which was one step ahead and one step to the crazy of Brawl-sense.

“Wait.” Blast Off shifted, tilting his head, examining Vortex as if he’d never seen him before. “You killed Swindle…for me.”

“Frag, SHUT UP!” Vortex howled, clamping his hands over his audio.  “I hate all of you!”

Onslaught couldn’t stop the grin from creeping into his own voice. “No, you don’t, Vortex.”

“I hate all of you, too,” Brawl said. “But it’s different because I like hating you. I just plain old hated Swindle.”

“That’s…really fascinating,” Blast Off deadpanned.

Vortex’s gaze met Onslaught’s, with a strange flash of relief. Onslaught shook his head.  His team, bickering, arguing, sniping at each other, filling the screens with noise and rude gestures and a thousand minute facial expressions and chafing against each other, just as if the intervening kilocycles, the Crisis Intervention Accords, as if none of that had ever happened.  Only for a cycle, only on this anniversary were they allowed to even contact each other, all at once.  His team: crazy, dysfunctional, vibrant, alive.  And he wouldn’t have them any other way.

And he tried, as hard as he could try, not to look at the cycle counting down on the right of the screen. Always too fast.

 

Comments

[ultharkitty.livejournal.com]

Damn, that almost made me cry.

I love how you write their interactions, and how you write Onslaught's POV as well, and his observations of his team. Beautifully done. And with a wonderful set of humerous touches that are the reason I'm not sitting here blubbering :)

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

I'd actually intended it to be kind of more depressing, but...apparently I can't write gestalts without a bit of crack.

(You realize you'd partially be crying over...Swindle's death?)

Thank you for reading!

[ultharkitty.livejournal.com]

Didn't come across as cracky to me, just humourous in parts. Which is great, because the humour works so well with the tragic elements.

Also, the almost crying totally wasn't for Swindle. The depressing (and haunting, because it's stuck with me all day) part for me is in the restrictions on their lives and associations. It's genuinely frightening, and I love that it's a part of the worldbuilding for these fics.

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

When I came across the Crisis Intervention Accords stuff in Dreamwave, that's always bothered me. Like...you have this team and now...they have to choose between being neutral or not being a team and...I just can't see these guys not fighting.

[ultharkitty.livejournal.com]

I clearly need to get around to reading the Dreamwave comics.

[mewsing.livejournal.com]

"Crazy, dysfunctional, vibrant, alive." You write that SO well. :)

eta: The above commenter said: "Didn't come across as cracky to me, just humourous in parts. Which is great, because the humour works so well with the tragic elements." Agreed!

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I do love the combaticons! (And it's probably clear I have a major thing for Onslaught!)

[mewsing.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! They definitely sound like family. XD (probably, maybe! ;))

[playswithworms.livejournal.com]

With all the bickering I'd usually want to beat them about the helms, but instead I just wanna hug 'em all, even Vortex :) Stupid Accord thing - what a major suck for a gestalt team! D: