And We Shall Overcome, an Avalon AU ficlet
Title: And We Shall Overcome
Universe: G1, Avalon AU
Rating: PG
Warnings: none really
Characters: the Constructicons
Notes: written for gestalt_love’s First Anniversary Challenge, for the prompt “the first year together”. this is... not the fic i set out to write, and it took me so long to finish that i kind of hate it. but, wicked3659 assures me that it's good and it works, so here it is.
They hadn’t asked for this. They hadn’t wanted it. Hadn’t volunteered, no matter what the “official” documents said.
They had been, simply, kidnapped from their work zone one cycle and subjected to the experiment. Before being forced into stasis they had been six separate mechs. After the stasis, they had been six mechs living inside each other’s minds and sparks. A gestalt team, the researchers called them. A team so intimately connected that they could never be alone again, designed to combine into another, larger mech for… whatever purpose they decided.
They were not designed to handle this sort of merging. Their processors not properly calibrated for sharing themselves so completely, personality sub-routines not set up for this sort of suppression of self.
Scavenger took it the hardest, though they all suffered. He had always been the most emotionally fragile of them, as easily hurt or cheered up as a new-spark and almost as prone to crying fits. That had gotten much worse once the combiner programming was installed and been coupled with feelings of inadequacy and inferiority. Even though he had always been a part of the team before, Scavenger went out of his way to prove to himself that he belonged and contributed-sometimes with disastrous results.
Mixmaster buried himself in his chemicals and formulas. He had been introverted before the experiments, and the lack of true privacy drove him mad in tiny steps. He mixed things to keep himself grounded or to keep himself distracted. He made his own system-altering compounds to deaden the sensations coming from the other team members. He locked himself in his laboratory, often without the proper safety protocols in place, and hid until he was driven out of the room by the level of worry he could feel through the gestalt link.
Bonecrusher went blissfully mad. He had a temper before the experiment, but afterward there was little left of his personality and the remains were always drowned out by the unreasoning anger he was consumed by. Honestly, none of the others had been able to blame him for that, for all that it unbalanced them; sheer rage was certainly the proper response to what had happened to them.
Hook’s perfectionism increased tenfold. He had always had exacting standards before, but now he felt that he had to make up for the inadequacies of the rest of the team. He spoke down to the others constantly-especially Scavenger-and went far out of his way to ensure that everyone knew he was the best at what he did. Nothing that was less than perfect could leave his hands, and since absolute perfection was impossible they were still working on the first project they had started when they were let out of the laboratory a meta-cycle ago.
Long Haul complained. He’d always griped a bit about his lot in life-being destined to haul around tools, supplies, scrap and refuse was not the ideal any mech aspired to, after all-but it was as increased now as Hook’s perfectionism. It was wearying and grated on the already stressed team, but nothing anyone else said or did relieved the complaints.
And Scrapper found himself at a loss for how to lead them now. He had been so good at it before, so sure of his position and place and how his team would respond. Now he lacked that confidence, because none of them responded as predictably anymore. His neatly ordered world had been knocked askew and he didn’t know how to get it back-and wasn’t sure if he ever could. He sunk into a spark-deep depression as a result, and he didn’t recognize the mech he saw in the mirror anymore.
And yet, somehow, they had managed to survive and possibly even thrive during the last meta-cycle. Stripped of their former identities and many of their core programs, they had rebuilt themselves into something that was new and yet still who they had been before. They had muddled through and learned how to function as something that was more than just a team and they would get better. They had proven that they could be more than just a hidden experiment with untested technology.
Yes, the first year combined had been the hardest, but as Scrapper turned back to look at the sculpted beauty of the Crystal City he knew it had also been the year where they had truly been forged and tempered.
Universe: G1, Avalon AU
Rating: PG
Warnings: none really
Characters: the Constructicons
Notes: written for gestalt_love’s First Anniversary Challenge, for the prompt “the first year together”. this is... not the fic i set out to write, and it took me so long to finish that i kind of hate it. but, wicked3659 assures me that it's good and it works, so here it is.
They hadn’t asked for this. They hadn’t wanted it. Hadn’t volunteered, no matter what the “official” documents said.
They had been, simply, kidnapped from their work zone one cycle and subjected to the experiment. Before being forced into stasis they had been six separate mechs. After the stasis, they had been six mechs living inside each other’s minds and sparks. A gestalt team, the researchers called them. A team so intimately connected that they could never be alone again, designed to combine into another, larger mech for… whatever purpose they decided.
They were not designed to handle this sort of merging. Their processors not properly calibrated for sharing themselves so completely, personality sub-routines not set up for this sort of suppression of self.
Scavenger took it the hardest, though they all suffered. He had always been the most emotionally fragile of them, as easily hurt or cheered up as a new-spark and almost as prone to crying fits. That had gotten much worse once the combiner programming was installed and been coupled with feelings of inadequacy and inferiority. Even though he had always been a part of the team before, Scavenger went out of his way to prove to himself that he belonged and contributed-sometimes with disastrous results.
Mixmaster buried himself in his chemicals and formulas. He had been introverted before the experiments, and the lack of true privacy drove him mad in tiny steps. He mixed things to keep himself grounded or to keep himself distracted. He made his own system-altering compounds to deaden the sensations coming from the other team members. He locked himself in his laboratory, often without the proper safety protocols in place, and hid until he was driven out of the room by the level of worry he could feel through the gestalt link.
Bonecrusher went blissfully mad. He had a temper before the experiment, but afterward there was little left of his personality and the remains were always drowned out by the unreasoning anger he was consumed by. Honestly, none of the others had been able to blame him for that, for all that it unbalanced them; sheer rage was certainly the proper response to what had happened to them.
Hook’s perfectionism increased tenfold. He had always had exacting standards before, but now he felt that he had to make up for the inadequacies of the rest of the team. He spoke down to the others constantly-especially Scavenger-and went far out of his way to ensure that everyone knew he was the best at what he did. Nothing that was less than perfect could leave his hands, and since absolute perfection was impossible they were still working on the first project they had started when they were let out of the laboratory a meta-cycle ago.
Long Haul complained. He’d always griped a bit about his lot in life-being destined to haul around tools, supplies, scrap and refuse was not the ideal any mech aspired to, after all-but it was as increased now as Hook’s perfectionism. It was wearying and grated on the already stressed team, but nothing anyone else said or did relieved the complaints.
And Scrapper found himself at a loss for how to lead them now. He had been so good at it before, so sure of his position and place and how his team would respond. Now he lacked that confidence, because none of them responded as predictably anymore. His neatly ordered world had been knocked askew and he didn’t know how to get it back-and wasn’t sure if he ever could. He sunk into a spark-deep depression as a result, and he didn’t recognize the mech he saw in the mirror anymore.
And yet, somehow, they had managed to survive and possibly even thrive during the last meta-cycle. Stripped of their former identities and many of their core programs, they had rebuilt themselves into something that was new and yet still who they had been before. They had muddled through and learned how to function as something that was more than just a team and they would get better. They had proven that they could be more than just a hidden experiment with untested technology.
Yes, the first year combined had been the hardest, but as Scrapper turned back to look at the sculpted beauty of the Crystal City he knew it had also been the year where they had truly been forged and tempered.