Chapter Text
As Scrapper predicted, all this song and dance around handing the Crystal City over to its new officials was even more tiring than building the blasted place. Good thing that Hook was handling all the PR stuff… The question remained when had he managed to get himself all buffed and shiny while the rest of them had barely found time to dust themselves, but at least Scrapper had something nice to look at. Not like he wouldn’t find his prized engineer attractive when covered with dust, paint, grease, tar, mud, crystal residue or glowing radioactive particles, or after pulling another all-nighter in the office (which he wouldn’t ever admit to him, of course) but, well, getting all shiny for a special occasion had quite a different weight to it. He kept reminding himself to keep his head upward to make it seem that he was looking at the city, the people, or something, and not shamelessly gawking at Hook’s crane shaft.
With his number two being all serious, proper and professional to boot, the crane shaft’s little shifts, jerks and sways were the only indication of its owner’s emotions. After knowing him for so long, Scrapper could decipher it effortlessly: Hook wasn’t just heroically shielding his dear foremech and remaining teammates from all those prying optics and invasive questions. It wasn’t a selfless sacrifice on his part to deal with politicians, sponsors, your typical stuck-up dignitaries and rich aftholes, some wanna-be experts, some well-meaning idiots, and the media, the dreaded media – no, far from it. He wasn’t even a bit nervous yet determined to carry on for his friends’ sake, quite the opposite: he was as pleased as ever. Basking in all the attention Cybertron could throw their way, the egomaniac he was. Well, great. Let him take it all. Scrapper could think of some creative ways how he could repay his foremech for getting the spotlight no other Constructicon wanted.
Always loyal, Hook never left room for doubt about who was their actual leader and at the same time, no one stood a chance to reach Scrapper over his overwhelming subordinate. The Constructicon leader only got to shake some hands, sign some scrap, pass over some scrap, accept some scrap in exchange, nod, thank, say they’re welcome, turn to the crowd, nod, thank, say they’re welcome, murder them all in his head, thank for the mask hiding his sneer, resume standing with the rest of his crew and being exposed to the public eye like some criminals during trial… Vector Sigma, how he hated such moments! His creations should speak for themselves, couldn’t the world leave him alone and let him work in peace?
Rightfully fragged off or not, he tried to keep his irritation to himself. They hadn’t been a gestalt even for a vorn and keeping strong emotions, thoughts, and feelings from each other could still pose a challenge sometimes but, self-conscious as he was, Scrapper tried his best not to broadcast his foul humour too much. He could feel through the gestalt bond that the others weren’t exactly sharing his sentiments. Bored and tired for sure, wanting nothing more than to grab the remaining credits and get themselves overcharged somewhere nice and far away – but they also felt pleased and proud, and Scavenger was positively ecstatic seeing how everybody loved their work. They were allowing the grateful officials and passionate crowds to praise and applaud them, up to a certain point at least, perfectly aware that they had earned each and every one of kind words, and more. Why, of course; let them have it then, they deserved it. All of them. Still, Hook seemed to focus mainly on their leader and his numerous talents and oh, didn’t he need a reprimand for that. Scrapper finally relaxed and smirked. Yes, he really should have taken care of it afterwards.
Eventually, all the official slag was over, credit was given, credits were handed, and they found themselves no longer needed at the official function. They sneaked through the back door at the first opportunity – they had built this city hall, of course they knew about all the back doors – to hurry to the most remote warehouse that had served them during construction (shouting in the passing to Omega Supreme that he didn’t see them). There, concealed, sheltered, in private, in the world yet not for the world, they could acknowledge that their long and hard labour had been finished.
“Urgh,” Long Haul rested his arms and head on the table. “Shove a crystal in my face and I’ll fraggin’ scream!”
Helpful as always, Scavenger produced a small sulphur crystal from his arm compartment and shoved it into his teammate’s field of vision. Then Long Haul, being a mech true to his word, screamed and nearly fell from his chair. This cathartic performance (which wasn’t actually a performance) was nearly as applauded as the Crystal City itself.
Laughing with others, Scrapper took out his datapad and skimmed its contents, ignoring the following crass crystal-related jokes.
“Alright, everyone,” he announced. “Our next gig-”
Expressions the remaining Constructicons gave him ranged from surprised to shocked; except for Hook who was simply annoyed.
“No, you’re not.” He sounded as firm as if talking to an imbecile patient who wanted to run away before having their legs reattached. This in turn annoyed Scrapper.
“Yes, I am! After the crystals and all this public posing and aft-kissing we finally have a moment to sit and think of our next step.”
“But we already have!” Scavenger started and then withered a little under Hook’s glare. “S-sorry…”
“Yes, indeed,” Hook returned to their foremech, softening his gaze. “We already have.”
“What?” Scrapper’s visor brightened in surprise. “You decided what we do next?… Why, alright, just tell me what it is.”
If they really wanted to do something particular after the Crystal City he wasn’t the mech to stop them. Hook exchanged knowing smiles with the others and replied:
“Simple: we stay behind and clean the mess and you’re going to Altihex for the Grand Symposium on Modern Architecture.”
“Beg your pardon?” Dammit, all this slaving around had finally gotten into his systems; it wasn’t possible that he had heard what he thought he had.
His team only got more smiley.
“Tomorrow you’re going to the Grand Symposium in Altihex,” Hook smoothly repeated the loathsome words. “We’ve booked your transport, your hotel, all the events, everything; you don’t need to wor-”
“NO!!!”
His five subordinates flinched, and it felt like the building they were hiding in flinched as well.
“Fraag!” Long Haul collapsed on the table all over again, holding his helm. “I knew yer louder than workin’ equipment but mech, you just killed my audios!”
“You’ll see, they’re gonna find us now,” Mixmaster ostensibly looked around and made a seemingly unrelated remark.
“Now am gonna be deaf dump track…”
“Find us an’ drag us back to them festivities,” Bonecrusher murmured, not daring to say it louder. Terrified, Scavenger crouched behind his chair.
“Don’t let them take me!” he whispered dramatically, knowing that he would make an easy prey.
Bonecrusher turned from unpleasant events happening before him and patted his shoulder reassuringly.
“In times like this we shall stick together,” he said sagely. To add insult to injury, he was most probably quoting Scrapper.
“Why not claw my optics out when yer on it?… An’ my vocaliser’s quite close too…”
Hook in-vented and exvented deeply and approached Scrapper with caution.
“Was that really necessary?”
“An’ cut off my fingers, who needs ‘em any-”
“Of course it was!” Scrapper effectively silenced them all and even the building ceased howling with the wind. “What the frag do you think you’re doing?!”
“It’s… Our gift,” Hook clarified. “You’ve been working the hardest and you deserve-”
“Going to that Pit-spawned city for this blasted conference?” Scrapper was seething. “No, thank you, I’d rather work some more.”
“You need rest!” Hook started losing his patience. “As your medic, I strongly recommend you to go.”
“And as your foremech, I tell you that you don’t know slag!”
Seeing him like this, the surgical engineer remained quiet. None of them was courageous enough to speak to him right now as he angrily gathered his datapad and himself and seemed ready to leave. Well, almost none of them.
“Scrapper, please…” Scavenger slowly emerged from behind slumped Bonecrusher. “You deserve some vacation; something for your mind and your frame… We were sure that you’ll like it.”
“Vacation?” Normally aware that Scavenger should be handled with much more caution than your average mech, Scrapper spat it out with almost no consideration for who he was speaking to. “You call it ‘vacation’? Sending me to the poshest mechs in business and all those blabbering theorists to update them on our work? Give a lecture, or seven, or seventy, and answer their stupid questions? And you want me to have everything ready for tomorrow? Or maybe improvise? I’d sooner build this entire fragging city again than speak about it… Punch me in the tank and I’ll purge little crystal buildings!”
After this final confession, he calmed down as if it took this one outburst to burn off his long-built stress and frustration. Starting to consider that, perhaps, this time he came too far, Scrapper regarded his mechs who seemed shaken and shocked by these words.
And suddenly they burst into laughter – even Hook couldn’t stop himself from a delicate chuckle.
“Oh, Sigma, you’re just priceless!” Mixmaster wasn’t even trying to stop himself. “Just promise to… to… to never change!”
“What?” Scrapper stood awkwardly holding the datapad, completely clueless. Was his rage that funny? He almost backed up when gleeful Hook covered the small distance between them and put his hands on Scrapper’s shoulders.
“And they said that there are no misunderstandings between gestaltmates,” he reminisced, visibly relieved. “Scrapper, we know. We know it all. We would never make you do this. You’re going there as an external guest – you’ll have access to everything but nothing can be demanded from you. No lectures, no readings, no answers, no press; I promise. You’re going to look at some specimens, and hear some delusional simpletons striving to follow in your steps and failing pathetically; feel free to mock them mercilessly for all of us.”
The information proved almost too much for Scrapper to process, but when he finally did he didn’t like it.
“You mean I’m not a Guest of Honour but a normal attendee?” he finally put his datapad down and gently freed himself from Hook’s grip. “It’ll cost tens, no, hundreds of thousands… I can’t accept this.”
“Well, too late!” Bonecrusher shattered his hopes cheerfully.
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Hook agreed with their overwhelmed leader. “But now you have no choice – everything is already booked. Tomorrow morning you’re having a flight to Polyhex and from there to Altihex and I won’t hear anything about it. This is your plan; and today you should go to berth early and have a good rest.”
“Yeah, like you’ll let him,” in spite of his visor Long Haul winked knowingly. Yes, Scrapper’s sentiments exactly.
“Of course I will,” Hook stated firmly. Too firmly. “He needs to be in good shape in the morning.”
As often with the Constructicons, this perfectly reasonable plan failed.
* * * * *
With all their initial misunderstandings resolved, Scrapper gladly took his righteous place among his crew and had no intention of leaving them. Drinking through their high grade stash they’d gathered for the occasion, trading jokes and most embarrassing anecdotes from their latest site, once again making fun of idiots who wanted their city built entirely of crystal – this was what he should be doing, this was where he belonged. This night was theirs and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Almost…
“Scrapper…”
Much like Scavenger, Hook was considered a lightweight amongst the Constructicons. With clear obligation in mind, he wasn’t drinking much and, in lieu of being fun to be around, he resolved to hanging on Scrapper’s arm in fruitless attempts to move him from his preferred place.
“Come on, you need to wake up early…”
Breems and joors were passing, their horribly potent fuel turning more and more palatable, jokes turning increasingly crude and anecdotes becoming repetitive. It was getting harder for him to remember why exactly he hated dealing with laymechs but he tried to explain it to his team again nevertheless. Emboldened by high grade, Scavenger heroically declared that from now on he was going to deal with laymechs for him. The four of them couldn’t stop laughing, while Hook was shaking his head.
“Scraaappeeer…”
Finally, after he downed his fourth cube and listened to Long Haul’s another bitching-riddled anecdote to the end, Hook managed to pull him to his feet and drag him to a narrow side corridor connecting all the main rooms in the hangar.
“Sleep tight!” Bonecrusher called after them as a way to bid them good night. The door slid shut, cutting off the remaining four Constructicons sniggering knowingly.
Not deigning to acknowledge them, Hook continued dragging Scrapper’ seemingly intoxicated self to the other end of the building with their on-site living quarters. The quarters weren’t anything fancy, of course – with their busy schedule for, oh, too many stellar cycles to admit now, the Constructicons were using them only for recharging. Well, recharging and recharging-related things. Scrapper was smirking. Unbeknownst to him, so was Hook as he was punching in the code to open the door to Scrapper’s room. As soon as it opened, all the rules were off.
For Scrapper, it was the end of a long, long day of keeping his hands to himself. And so, Hook found himself backed into a corner, his foremech all over him.
“Scrapper, weren’t you supposed… O-oh… Never mind.”
He didn’t mind indeed, grabbing him firmer and pulling into a passionate kiss. Possessive. Long. Breathtaking. Angry.
“You fragging bastards,” Scrapper snarled when finally breaking from him. “How dare you pull something like that behind my back?!”
Hook onlined his optics and reset his vocalizer, so submissive to his advances and yet so, so defiant.
“We just do.”
“Then. Don’t!”
“N-no, I don’t think so.”
Scrapper pulled him to himself by means of grabbing Hook’s crane shaft. Hard.
“Do it again, matrix-fraggers, and I’ll let you have it!”
Hook smirked and whispered, neither innocent nor altruistic:
“Good. Then take it all out on me, foremech, and leave my poor teammates out of it…”
Needless to say, he obliged.
Ultimately, Scrapper got to spend the rest of the night in his berth. Not alone, and doing much less in terms of recharging than he was supposed to, but to Pit with it. Precise plans and schedules were reserved for construction, and he was done with it for now.