Chapter Text
The night Drag Strip left, he lied to Breakdown's face.
He'd seemed hesitant, all clouded and miserable on his side of the bond, but that wasn't unusual for any given Stunticon and Drag Strip in particular had recently been the subject of another Motormaster Episode. Nothing about it had seemed suspicious at all to Breakdown—in fact, he had been certain their fragile equilibrium had been on the mend. Everything always fixed itself and went back to normal. No matter what happened, he could always count on the comforting predictability of his gestalt.
And then Drag Strip had gone and fragged it all up, like the selfish glitch he was. Somehow, even though they were missing a Stunticon, the apartment felt smaller than ever.
"You're the intuitive one," Motormaster spat as he squeezed Breakdown's shoulder. He sneered, as though having a sense for other people's feelings was something disgusting and not the only thing keeping their team from falling apart completely. "You should have known what he was thinking. This is your failure."
Motormaster's rough hand was as heavy as his turbulent EMF. Their shabby little apartment fell away, and world seemed to narrow down until the two of them were the only people in existence, poisoning the space between them with fury and unfettered hatred. Breakdown felt something in him give way, engine tumbling over itself in the ferocity of its snarl.
"My failure?" He whispered, because he was too angry to speak. Something in Motormaster's wrist audibly snapped. His face was screwed up, like maintaining his hold on Breakdown's shoulder required some amount of concentration. "Me?! I'm always doing damage control for you! We'd all get along just fine if you weren't always fragging everything up! You are the data-stabbing element!"
Motormaster just grunted. His plating was rattling, thrumming in synch with the pounding in Breakdown's audial receptors. One of his optics cracked.
"I think you mean 'destabilizing,'" Dead End corrected blandly, snapping Breakdown back into the real world. He was slumped on the couch, shuddering and radiating more spark-shattering despair than usual. "By the way, you're going to kill us all if you keep that up."
Above them, their antique light fixture winked out with a weak pop! Breakdown jumped, and very abruptly came to the realization that he had been the only thing holding Motormaster upright when the jolt knocked his hand off his shoulder. He watched, horrified, as their leader swayed gently in place. Backwards, forwards, backwards—
Motormaster collapsed, delicate wisps of smoke curling out of his seams. Breakdown's cooling fans screamed their grievances into the silence that blanketed their dark living room. There was a shuffling to his left.
"...Breakdown?"
His head snapped towards Wildrider, whose knees were pressed to his chest as he gripped Dead End's arm with the desperation of a mech dangling above a smelting pit. His optics were wide enough to swallow galaxies, tense plating clattering in the starlight that filtered in from the window behind him. It was weird—Wildrider didn't ever look that scared. And Dead End didn't usually let any of them grab him like that.
He looked down at Motormaster again. Their leader looked uncharacteristically peaceful, if a little half-dead. Probably stasis, he thought distantly.
"I'm calling Hook." Dead End's words buzzed in Breakdown's audial receptors like hungry gnats, bordering on unintelligible. "Breakdown, are you injured?"
"No," Breakdown replied from a million miles away. "We'd feel it if he died, right?" Dead End paused and turned his fussing towards Wildrider.
"Probably," was his reassuring answer. He tilted Wildrider's face this way and that, and was rewarded with frighteningly mute compliance. "Who can say? I suppose some of us are going to find out eventually, unless we all died at once." He seemed satisfied with what he found and stepped away. Breakdown watched them.
"I didn't hurt you, did I?" Dead End shrugged.
"Doesn't look like it." He looked to the side and stared at nothing, holding up a finger for a moment. Then, he nodded. "Hook says he's arriving shortly."
Breakdown looked at him, then at Wildrider, and finally back down to Motormaster. His cracked optical lenses glittered in the moonlight. Steam wafted from his joints, carrying with it the stink of hot motor oil and melted circuitry. It was weird, seeing their leader like this. Breakdown had watched him get stabbed, shot, and blown wide open on numerous occasions, but never had he looked so... Cooked.
The door to their apartment swished open. Hook bustled in with an emergency medical kit, trailed by Bonecrusher and Long Haul, carrying a stretcher between them.
"Slag," Hook muttered, descending upon their broken gestaltmate immediately. He worked in silence, taking scans and plugging into ports and checking under plating in a flurry of incomprehensible activity that refused to be processed in Breakdown's numbed out brain module.
After a few minutes, Hook seemed satisfied with whatever it was he'd done, and Breakdown experienced a brief moment of cold dread at the prospect that that would be all it took to get Motormaster back on his feet and ready to scrap him for the entire ordeal. It was broken as soon as Hook motioned for Long Haul and Bonecrusher to load him onto the stretcher. He fussed over them the entire way, correcting their grip and ever so slightly re-positioning Motormaster once they had him laid out and ready to go.
"I'm going to have to file an incident report about this once he's stable," Hook said, looking pointedly at Breakdown, who flinched before he could stop himself. "It almost looks like he grabbed a live power cable, but I don't actually know. I wasn't here when it happened. It's up to the three of you to tell me what he did to wind up like this." Breakdown wrung his hands and worried the inside of his cheek mesh.
"I—"
"I don't have time to take a statement right now," Hook interrupted as his teammates hoisted up the stretcher, "but I wouldn't be surprised if he put his hands somewhere they didn't belong and fried his own circuits. Maybe he'll think twice about trying that again in the future."
"Might give you a little less work now that he's laid up, unless anyone else goes around touching live wires," Bonecrusher muttered, sending a pointed glance Breakdown's way. "I don't think that'd be a step up from 'crashing into walls' or having 'training mishaps.'"
"'Crusher, shut the fuck up," Long Haul growled. Bonecrusher shrugged, jostling the stretcher a bit.
"Just puttin' it out there."
Hook shot his teammates a thin-lipped look, then turned back to the Stunticons.
"I'll comm you when I'm ready for your reports," he said tightly.
Breakdown felt like his spark was melting out of its casing. Dead End put a hand on his shoulder and nodded at Hook.
"We'll do that," he said. "Thank you for your help."
The Constructicons left, taking Motormaster with them. Dead End gave Breakdown's shoulder an encouraging squeeze.
"That went better than anticipated," he murmured. "Don't listen to Bonecrusher. He doesn't know anything."
Breakdown felt his lips begin to tremble.
"I didn't mean to," he croaked. "I didn't mean to, I'm not like him."
"No," Dead End said, "you're not." Breakdown felt the corners of his optics spark and singe his faceplate.
"He's gonna die, isn't he?" He replied weakly. Dead End shushed him and grabbed his cheeks.
"Breakdown, it's alright." He wiped at a soot track with his thumb. "They're going to fix him. He's going to be just fine."
"I don't want him to be okay," was Breakdown's static-laden confession. "I want him to stay down. I hope I hurt him so bad he has to stay in the medbay forever!" Dead End paused, then produced a polishing cloth from his subspace.
"I can't fault you for that," he said, wiping at the areas around Breakdown's optics. "With any luck, he'll wind up in a coma. Or maybe he'll be paralyzed for life. I think you've more than likely managed to do him permanent damage, at the very least."
Breakdown imagined that, for a moment: Motormaster, on life support, forever. Motormaster, laid up in his berth, being spoon-fed his rations. Motormaster, miserable for the rest of his life. He choked on a sob.
Dead End shushed him again, wiping at his face with more urgency.
"Slag, I'm bad at this." He looked to Wildrider, who had been watching the entire display with uncharacteristic silence. "Could I get some help over here? Comfort him, tell him to stop being so distraught."
Wildrider seemed to think about that for a moment.
"...Does this mean that we all get our own rooms, since Dragster and Motormaster aren't coming back?" Dead End's hand stilled and dropped to his side.
"If you want to take Motormaster's room, I'm certainly not going to stop you," he replied flatly. Wildrider nodded.
"Neat." He wandered into Motormaster's room and closed the door behind him without another word. The churning whirlpool of panic in Breakdown's fuel tank dropped into despair.
"He's broken," he whimpered. "I broke Motormaster, and now Wildrider is broken, too." Dead End patted his shoulder awkwardly.
"...There, there?" Breakdown heaved a broken gasp and shuddered violently, clinging to his teammate's arms. Dead End heaved a sigh. "For fuck's sake, Breakdown, you were acting in self-defense! Motormaster started it, and you ended it so thoroughly that I doubt he'll ever lay hands on you again. You did a good thing. You've given yourself immunity!"
Something clicked into place.
"Us," Breakdown blurted before he could think about it. "I gave us community—"
"Immunity."
"Shut up and listen!" Breakdown pulled free of Dead End's arms and began pacing the living room. "He's—I never thought I could hurt him that badly, but I can!"
"Breakdown—"
"Drag Strip left because Motormaster was out of control," Breakdown continued feverishly, smoothing his shaking hands down the back of his helmet. "But I've got him on a leash now! I just have to find Drag Strip and tell him it's okay to come back, and we can be a normal gestalt!"
"Breakdown, nothing about this is—"
"—And Wildrider will be happy again, and you'll be normal, too, and everything will be fine!"
"Breakdown," Dead End snapped, "that's not going to fragging happen! This isn't fine, it's never going to be fine, and we need to plan our next steps forward instead of trying to put everything back the way it was!"
Breakdown stopped his pacing.
"...What?" He asked, voice almost too small to be audible. Dead End sat down heavily on the couch and pinched the space between his optics.
"Drag Strip made his choice. If he wants to get away from us so badly, then fuck him, but we can't stop him. We need to agree on a cover story for what happened to Motormaster and—"
"Just leave Drag Strip?!" Breakdown asked incredulously, triple-checking his audial receptors to be certain he'd heard correctly.
"Yes!" Dead End snapped. "Leave Drag Strip! It's out of our hands now!"
"You would think that, wouldn't you?" Breakdown fumed. "You never want to solve any problems. None of you do. You want to complain, Drag Strip wants to run away, Motormaster is always a crankshaft for no good reason, and—I don't even fragging know what Wildrider is doing! It's always down to me to keep everything together."
Dead End stared at him like he was crazy.
"I—what?" He shook his head. "That's not true. That is absolutely not true, and you know it. Where is this coming from?"
"Why don't you care about Drag Strip?!" Breakdown countered hotly. "If I went away, would you just shrug and go 'Oh, well?' What is wrong with you?!"
"That is not what I said!"
Silence once again descended over the apartment. Breakdown trembled, anger and fear and exhaustion tangling together into a complicated knot in the pit of his fuel tanks. Dead End's ventilation systems were screaming, and his hands sat in tight, perfectly still little fists at his sides.
"I understand that you're hurting. But relationships must be reciprocal—"
Breakdown saw red.
"He does want us!" He shouted. "He told me so! He wants to come back, he's just scared!" Dead End threw his hands in the air with a huff.
"What, did he just beam that into your brain module?! If you knew him that well, we wouldn't be having this argument. Face it: you don't know what he's thinking!"
"Yes, I do!" Breakdown replied. "I'm gonna bring him back and prove it to you!"
"Wait—!"
He stormed off before Dead End could get another word in edgewise, smacking the door panel hard enough to crack it on his way out.
Later that night, Dead End found himself lying awake on his recharge slab, staring at the ceiling. Drag Strip's comm channel was open on his HUD, displaying the last conversation they'd had before everything had gone straight to hell.
(11.279.48956245 14:78 KST)
DS: race u to the energon depot
DE: I am not interested in racing with you.
DS: only bcuz u know u wont win
DS: pussy
DS: who would even want to race w/ u anyway
DS: c u never loser
DE: Don't threaten me with a good time.
He shouldn't have been upset. Drag Strip's impending defection had been obvious, in hindsight; out of all of them, he had always been the least enamored with the idea of teamwork. When the war's end had removed both the possibility of the reward of triumph in battle and the threat of punishment if he stepped out of line, it was really only a matter of time before Drag Strip disappeared. Anyone who knew him could have figured it out, if they'd spared it a second thought.
The mech was a pest anyway. Always poking, and bragging, and stealing the datapad you were reading when he wanted attention. He'd made it his personal mission to ensure that Dead End never had a peaceful moment to himself. Really, they ought to throw a party about it, and wonder why they hadn't kicked him out before he'd had the chance to abandon them all like this...
Every scuffle, every screaming match, all the heaps and mountains of smashed belongings they'd all left in their wake when they were angry with each other had been replaced with an eerie silence.
Don't threaten me with a good time.
Drag Strip hadn't blocked him. He wasn't sure if Breakdown or Wildrider were receiving the same treatment, and he certainly wasn't in the mood to speak to either of them long enough to ask. What a nightmare. It was just like Drag Strip, to prance off and and leave them all in this mess.
Don't threaten me with a good time.
Perhaps he thought that Dead End wouldn't care enough to message him. Perhaps it was an act of trust, one final avenue of contact left open as a contingency plan with the one teammate who wouldn't accost him with pleas and profanity in a clumsy attempt to reel him back in. Perhaps he'd left it open as a taunt to do just that. Clearly, Dead End didn't know him well enough to make an educated guess.
The prospect of unloading his frustrations onto Drag Strip was a tempting one.
Better not to give him the satisfaction, he thought, and then, why should he get to evade all the consequences? He mulled it over for longer than he was proud to admit, before the sound of muffled sniffling from Motormaster's room made his mind up for him.
Finally, he capitulated to the petty urge to message his errant teammate.
(11.282.48956245 20:54 KST)
DE: I do hope you're happy.
He kept his sub-glyphs as cold and professional as he possibly could.
You've hastened the inevitable and thrown everything into complete disarray. I always thought one of us would have to die first to accomplish that, but you were so eager to abandon us for complete strangers that you exceeded even my most pessimistic expectations.
The glyphs were coming faster now, flowing out onto his hud like steam escaping from a pressurized container.
I shouldn't be surprised—you always were too self-absorbed to see past your own nose. Do you honestly believe that your quality of life is going to improve? Space is cold, and perilous, and you won't have us there to save you from your own stupid decisions. There's no future for you without us. By my estimate, you'll be dead within the year. Have fun, Drag Strip. Do us all a favor and don't come back.
He sent it before he could think about it any further.
A second later, he received a notification that Drag Strip had blocked his comm code.
Dead End had spent his entire life preparing himself for the inevitable. He'd imagined pain, and loss, and desolation, and eventually his own bitter, agonizing end. He'd known that there was a four to one chance that he would have to mourn one of his teammates before he, too, shuffled compliantly off his mortal coil, and he'd embraced that impending pain with a grace he'd never truly felt in earnest.
He had imagined these things, and somehow a part of him was still naïve enough to believe that he'd never actually feel it. He always thought he would be able to meet life's deepest agonies with dignified acceptance. That he could anesthetize himself if he never indulged in enough hope to know what he was missing.
Sparks collected in the corners of his optics.
A lifetime of fortifying himself against the sharp bite of loss, and he still felt like there was a knife lodged in his spark chamber. Wildrider had closed himself off. Motormaster was half-dead. Breakdown had run off into the night on some quest for an imagined silver bullet. Drag Strip had rejected them, and he was never coming back, and Dead End had just severed his last avenue of contact in a fit of pique.
"Fuck," he croaked into the dark, staring at nothing.