Work Text:
This was it – today was the big day, his first day at his new job. Thundercracker followed his friend Bumblebee, whom he’d heard about the position from, through the halls of the large building. He was grateful he had agreed to meet him out front, since he had only been to the office once before for his interview. Finding his way through the maze of suites in the old converted factory on his own would have been a daunting task.
“It’s no trouble at all. Really!” Bee reassured him when Thundercracker thanked him again for playing escort. “Besides, you don’t have your keycard yet.” He waved his own at the scanner when they reached the security doors between the public section of the building and the private offices. “Someone would have had to buzz you in anyway.”
“Still, I appreciate it. I haven’t made you late, have I?” Thundercracker stepped through the door and it slid closed behind them with a soft whoosh.
“Nope! Well, sort of, but it’s fine,” Bumblebee amended. “I usually start earlier, but I’m staying late today for a meeting so my boss doesn’t mind.”
“As long as you’re sure.”
Bee laughed. “Of course I am! Come on, relax! I know what it means when your wings twitch like that. You don’t need to be so nervous, you know. Optimus wouldn’t have hired you if he didn’t think you were right for the job.”
Thundercracker wasn’t as confident since he didn’t have any prior training or relevant industry experience – he almost hadn’t gone in for the interview, in fact – but Bumblebee was insistent. “Trust me, he’s really good at spotting a mech’s potential.” A small hand came up to pat Thundercracker’s arm. “You’ll be fine.”
They kept walking until they arrived at a small refreshment station tucked off the main hall under a skylight. There was a vending machine with assorted snacks and additives, as well as an energon dispenser, but the reason they stopped there was the door in the wall on the other side of the prep counter. A plaque beside it declared a suite number and the words ‘Prime Energy Consulting’ in plain but easy to read glyphs.
Thundercracker walked up to the door and reached for the handle, lingering under the skylight as he paused to look back at Bumblebee. “Will I see you later?”
“You can come find me during lunch if you need a familiar face,” Bee told him. “I’m just down the hall.” With that, the cheery yellow mech waved goodbye and continued to his own office, leaving Thundercracker with no further excuses to hesitate.
“All right. Here goes.” He opened the door and walked in.
The office was basically just one large open space. There were a handful of small rooms along the back wall that served as private offices for the CEO and COO and storage for office supplies and the network server, but everyone else worked at desks arranged along the walls of the main room, or in the middle behind a wall of filing cabinets. Or, they did when they were there. Except for the office manager behind her desk nearest to the door, the office seemed to be empty.
“Hello?” he said cautiously, hoping he wasn’t interrupting.
The femme looked up right away, recognition in her welcoming smile. “Good morning! You’re right on time! Ironhide is in his room waiting for you.”
“Thanks Arcee.” She had been at his interview, along with Optimus and the mech who was responsible for designing and maintaining their custom database. Prowl was the one that Thundercracker would be working most closely with as an analyst, though Ironhide as Optimus’s COO would be the supervisor he reported to.
He’d only seen him briefly on his way out last time, but Ironhide grinned at him like he’d already been working there for years when Thundercracker came around to his door. “Hey there! Go ahead and pull up a chair and we’ll start getting you oriented before you meet the rest of the team.”
Most of the others were out on a sales meeting that morning, as it turned out. Prowl was apparently in, but he was hiding in the server closet trying to correct a syncing issue with the backups. “With any luck he’ll have the problem sorted out by the time I was planning to hand you off to him,” Ironhide said. “For now, let’s just focus on the basics.”
They spent the next couple of hours on ‘the basics’, but it felt like they were just barely scratching the surface. Thundercracker was more than ready for a respite from all the new terminology and procedures Ironhide was piling on him by the time he declared it was time for a break. “Let’s continue this later, you look like you’re starting to glaze over,” Ironhide said, standing to walk around his desk. “I can hear the others getting back anyway. Time to meet the rest of your coworkers.”
Prowl was sitting at his desk behind the filing cabinets this time when they stepped out, Thundercracker ducking his wings slightly to keep from knocking them against the doorframe. He nodded as they walked around to meet the small crowd gathered at the front of the office, wrapping something up on his screen before standing to follow them.
“Hey everyone!” Ironhide called out. “The new guy just started today, so say hello! This is Thundercracker, he’s the analyst we’ve been needing for so long.”
“Thank Primus!” Another red mech, more streamlined in build than Ironhide, came over first. “You’ll be taking a real load off my shoulders, I’ve been struggling to fill in for Trailbreaker since he quit. With out giving notice, I might add.” The dark looks and muttering around the group made it clear what everyone thought of that. Thundercracker made a note to be sure he gave proper notice, if the time came. “I’m Sideswipe. Nice to meet you!”
“Nice to meet you too,” Thundercracker responded, shaking the mech’s offered hand. “It might take me a while to be able to take over all of those responsibilities though.”
“Nah, you’ll catch on quick, I’m sure of it. Prowl said you were smart.”
“Oh? And you listened to something I said, did you?” Black and white doorwings flicking teasingly at Sideswipe as Prowl offered his hand to Thundercracker next. “It’s good to see you again. I was glad to hear you accepted the offer,” he said pleasantly. “I need someone who is willing to take the time to do things right, not just rush to get them done.”
“Sometimes things do need to be finished within a certain timeframe,” Thundercracker said in Sideswipe’s defense, but the mech started laughing rather than getting offended.
“Prowl will tell you that’s no excuse,” he said cheerfully, heading over to a desk littered with datapads, printouts, and personal items all in a disorganized jumble. “And I actually agree with him, in principle. I’ve just got too much going on to verify every single record in a table when I only need a subset of the data for a report.”
“And what happens to the report when the data you pull was entered incorrectly and not checked for accuracy due to precisely that kind of lazy thinking?” Prowl countered. “Data integrity-”
“-is critical, we know,” a smaller black and white mech with a bright blue visor interrupted. “Hi. Name’s Jazz. Sideswipe’s supposed t’ be my backup on contracts ‘n sales, but Prowler’s been stealin’ him from me the past several weeks. Lookin’ forward to havin’ him back, and to workin’ with you.”
“Likewise,” Thundercracker said a bit slowly. He’d expected the mechs in a small office like this to have a close camaraderie, but it was still a little bit hard to follow, and intimidating as an outsider to try to imagine a place for himself among them. He felt awkward, despite how welcoming everyone was being, and hoped it wasn’t too obvious.
“Did anyone show you the kitchen yet?” a friendly sounding green mech asked, distracting him from his thoughts with the abrupt change in subject. “Hound, by the way. I work part-time helping Arcee keep the place from flying apart.”
“He’s good at it too,” Arcee said over the counter surrounding her desk. “And no. I was going to earlier, but Ironhide put his claim on him as soon as he walked in.”
“Well then allow me!” Hound smiled and gestured toward an alcove near the entry that Thundercracker hadn’t noticed before. “We’ve got a refrigeration unit and our own dispenser so you don’t have to use the one in the hall. That’s for the whole building, while this one’s just for us.”
“I order additives for it based on everyone’s preferences,” Arcee told him. “Let me know if there’s something you’d like and I can see about getting it, as long as it isn’t too expensive and it’s compatible with the dispenser.”
Thundercracker was surprised by the offer, as well as a little bit confused. “Compatible with the dispenser?” he asked Hound quietly, embarrassed.
Hound took pity on him and answered just as quietly. “You’re probably one of the only flyers in the building, and the only one in this office,” he explained delicately. “None of the dispensers have an option for jetgrade, so you’ll need to keep that in mind if you want to use them instead of going out to refuel. You’re perfectly welcome to what’s here, but it might be denser than what you’re used to, and certain compounds can’t be put through the machine because it’s not calibrated for them. You can still stir them in yourself though.”
That little inconvenience hadn’t occurred to Thundercracker when he’d applied for the job here, though in hindsight it made perfect sense given the demographic of the area. It didn’t really bother him though, he decided. There was asking for reasonable accommodations, like a chair that wouldn’t be problematic for his wings, and then there was being unreasonable, like expecting a small business to install and stock and entirely different dispenser for a single employee.
“Got it, thanks,” he said to Hound, who he noticed relaxed when he didn’t complain. “Anything else I should know?”
“About the office, or us?” Hound asked. “Give them enough time and I’m sure Sideswipe and Jazz will catch you up on all the gossip as far as the latter is concerned.”
“Ohhh, you know we will!” Jazz appeared at Thundercracker’s elbow, grinning mischievously. “Have we ever got stories to tell you!”
He looked so excited by the prospect of being able to regale a new audience with his tales that Thundercracker couldn’t help but chuckle. “Such as?” he asked, honestly interested. “What kind of adventures could possibly happen in a nice, quiet office like this?”
Jazz’s answering grin matched Sideswipe’s cackle behind him at that. “Quiet? This place? Mech, you’re gonna learn that we don’t do ‘quiet’ around here.”
“Regrettably that does seem to be the case,” Prowl sighed, interrupting to break up the conversation. “You can all tell him more later. For now, I would really like it if you would let him get to work?”
“Pfft. Work. We don’t do that, either,” Jazz laughed, even as he backed off and headed over to a desk in the corner beneath walls plastered with pictures and memos.
“Yes we do,” Ironhide said firmly, though he was smiling too. “And it’s time we got back to it! Jazz, I want to go over the outcome of that meeting with you after you get yourself settled, and Sideswipe? Send a request for updated contracts to Grapple, the details are on your terminal.”
“Yessir!” Sideswipe saluted smartly, spinning in his chair until he was facing his keyboard to start typing away merrily.
Prowl lead Thundercracker back to his own desk, waiting until they were seated and the others were all absorbed in their tasks to smile and whisper conspiratorially, “They do very well at their jobs, even if their methods leave something to be desired at times. It is my job – and yours – to try to maintain some semblance of order in their chaos.”
“Somehow I’m getting the impression that’s the hardest job of all,” Thundercracker said shrewdly, trying to adjust his chair to a comfortable position. Yes, he would definitely need to request a different one. Maybe one like Prowl’s, which didn’t interfere with the mech’s doorwings.
“On some days, it is an impossible one,” Prowl admitted. “But that just makes it all the more important to try. Ah, please be careful of that,” he said as Thundercracker nearly hit a box under the desk with the edge of his foot. “I don’t want to have to collect them all again.”
Thundercracker froze in place. “Them?” he asked, wondering if he should be worried.
“I want those back!” Jazz called out across the office from his corner, unashamedly eavesdropping on their conversation with no difficulty.
Prowl rolled his optics. “You may have them back, after you have gone an entire week without lobbing any more projectiles at anyone!” he shot back.
Jazz muttered something unintelligible and went back to his work. Thundercracker looked back and forth between the two black and whites, curious. “What was he throwing?” he asked.
“Not ‘throwing’, ‘bouncing’,” Prowl said, the distinction clearly one Jazz had made, not him. “He gets packages delivered here rather than to his apartment after a few things went missing on arrival, and this,” he indicated the box, “is the latest.” He reached down to pull it out enough for Thundercracker to peer in. The box was filled with what had to be dozens, if not hundreds, of brightly colored rubber balls.
“What could he possibly need those for?” Thundercracker couldn’t think of a use for even one of them, let alone that many.
“I do not know, nor do I want to know,” Prowl said, sliding them back. “Although I suspect the answer is he simply wanted to bother everyone in the office with them.”
“And the boss lets him get away with things like that?” Thundercracker looked over his shoulder at the currently empty office next to Ironhide’s where he had interviewed. The lights were off and Optimus wasn’t there, but no one seemed to find that unusual.
“He comes in late every third day,” Prowl answered the unspoken question before moving on to the one Thundercracker had actually asked. “And yes, he does. Provided the distractions remain minor, do not unreasonably irritate anyone, and work continues to be done on time. It is in the nature of the business to have lulls in activity, and Optimus understands this. Now,” he said, directing the conversation back towards more technical topics. “How familiar are you with this query structure?”
Before Thundercracker could answer, everyone was interrupted by the office door opening loudly and banging into the wall. “Package-delivery-for-Ironhide-is-he-in-today-I-need-a-signature,” the slender blue courier rattled off without a single pause between words. He had an unwieldy looking narrow box in his hands almost as long as he was tall, which he propped against Arcee’s desk with one hand to free the other for the datapad clipped to his side.
Arcee had already stood to get Ironhide when the mech emerged from his office, having heard the commotion. “For me?” he said, walking around Prowl and Thundercracker to take the datapad and sign for the package. “This is great! I wasn’t expecting it to arrive so soon.”
“Thank-you-for-using-our-services-we-appreciate-your-continued-business,” the mech said quickly, and no sooner had he finished speaking than he was out the door again.
Thundercracker blinked slowly. “What just happened?”
“That was Blurr,” Arcee said fondly. “You’ll see him a lot, with all the packages that get delivered here for Jazz, Ironhide and Optimus. If no one else is here when he shows up, please just sign for them, all right?”
“Sure,” he agreed, getting up with the others as they all gathered around the front desk once again to investigate as Ironhide set the box up on the counter. He wanted to ask what was in it, but wasn’t sure if it would be rude to do so.
Sideswipe didn’t seem to care if it was. “So what’d you get this time?”
“This,” Ironhide said proudly, opening it and lifting up his purchase, “is a high powered, semi-automatic, self-reloading air rifle with silencer and laser-targeting.”
“Sweeeet,” Jazz and Sideswipe said in stereo while Prowl just shook his helm and walked back to his desk, no longer interested.
Thundercracker couldn’t help himself. “Why?” Why buy something like that? Why ship it to the office? Just...why?
“Turborats,” Ironhide said simply, as though that explained everything.
Hound sighed. “I offered to help you remove them without killing them,” he said, sounding both sad and resigned.
“Checked the local regs, says I can’t set traps in my neighborhood, or put down poison,” Ironhide said, hefting the rifle in his hands.
“How is shooting them okay if traps and poison aren’t?” Thundercracker asked incredulously, stepping back to give him plenty of room.
“It’s not,” Sideswipe snickered. “That’s why he had the gun shipped here instead of his home address.”
“So they can’t connect it directly to ‘im when he shoots the whole nest dead, see?” Jazz was rocking on his heels, clearly eager to try holding the rifle himself. Ironhide held it out of his reach, not ready to relinquish it yet.
“I still wish you would give me a chance to relocate the family,” Hound argued, and Thundercracker left them to it. He walked back to Prowl and sat down next to him, staring blankly at the monitor in front of him in shock.
“Welcome to Prime Energy Consulting,” Prowl said drily. “You get used to it.”