[rd][fic][Transformers] Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger 10/?
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
part 10: Wicked Game
by K. Stonham
prereleased 25th December 2010
Ironhide blinked. "You know that hellion?"
Michael rapidly scanned through the rest of the medical bay monitors and found the other face he recognized glowering at something off-screen, presumably the medic treating his brother's hand. "What the--" he started to ask, then cut himself off, knowing that no one but the brothers themselves would be able to his question: what they were doing at Cybercon.
"Prowl?" Jazz asked again, sounding more than a little concerned.
"Do you remember the twins I mentioned tutoring in college?"
Jazz shifted in his chair, sitting bolt upright as Michael sank back into his own chair, studying the monitors, disturbed. "Those twins?" he asked, sounding surprised.
"Sidney and Stephen Smith," Michael confirmed. "The last I saw of them, they were working toward degrees in business and art respectively, and planning to move to New York after graduation. So the question is... how did they end up working for Cybercon?"
*
The other question, Michael decided a few hours later, waiting in the observation room of the interview chamber, was why the data Spike had stolen listed the two simply as "test subject/employee"s. Ratchet's tests had turned up no abnormal chemicals in their bodies and they were also clean of any mechanical or cybernetic enhancements.
With no implants and no drugs in their systems, what were they test subjects for?
Michael looked through the window again, then nodded to Optimus and went out into the hall.
The twins were still young. Still gorgeous. And he still remembered their hands on him. But Michael found he wasn't in the least tempted. It had been up to that point and for many years afterward the most intense encounter of his life, but... they didn't get inside him and make him icy with fear at what they could do to him, with him. They weren't Jazz, either of them, and that qualifier made all the difference.
His lover was waiting in the hallway outside the interview chamber, stubbornly insisting on being the closest and most able to respond if things went badly. Michael's lips quirked in the flicker of a smile. He didn't doubt that jealousy was Jazz's primary motivation. It was... cute.
"You're sure about this," Optimus asked.
Michael nodded.
*
Flat white walls were boring. The oh-so-obvious mirrored window in one wall was boring too. Sidney wanted to stick his tongue out at it in pure spite, but instead leaned back in the crappy chair and counted the acoustic ceiling tiles one more time, unfocusing his eyes to see if he could make out any interesting Rorschach images in the dots. Stephen had deliberately picked the chair that put him with his back to the door and now lounged in it, insulting their "hosts" in a wonderfully subtle way that was uniquely Stephen.
This sucked, all of it. And his hand still fucking hurt too.
The door opened, but Sidney took a cue from his twin's method of insult and didn't even look at whoever came in. Fuck 'em all. He wanted meds or something.
"So what happened to New York?" a quiet, familiar voice asked. Sidney's gaze darted to the person who'd come in, nearly giving himself whiplash even as Stephen straightened up, twisting so fast that his chair legs screeched against the concrete floor.
*
Michael. It was Michael fucking Powell. No fucking way, thought Stephen.
"Mike...?" Sidney managed to croak out, just as stunned as Stephen.
"Michael," the older man corrected, crossing and taking a seat with the same economy of motion that had given him away to them years ago as someone who wouldn't mind a little extracurricular activity. "Detective Powell, if you prefer." He leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table, arms crossing flat on the tabletop. "So, care to catch me up with what's happened since we last saw one another? Stephen? Sidney?"
"You're working with them," Stephen realized.
A slight nod of acknowledgment to one side. "Police liaison to the military. I also do a bit of tactical work for this unit."
Wheels turned increasingly faster. "What do you want?"
"I want to know why you were working for Cybercon, and why you were listed as test subjects when there's nothing in your bodies to indicate such employ."
Stephen felt the blood drain from his face. Fuck. They'd hacked Cybercon's records.
*
Sometimes, Sidney thought, his brother was fucking useless. "Why should we tell you?" Sidney asked, taking charge. He leaned back in his chair again, perusing their one-time lover's face. It was hard to read, but damned if he wasn't going to give this his best shot. "What do we get out of it?"
Michael's expression didn't waver and Sidney had the absent thought that if he and Stephen got out of this, he wanted a chance to play poker with the man. "We might drop all charges. We might get you to New York, if that's still what you want." Not even a blink. "We wouldn't separate you."
A wave of cold fear slapped Sidney like an ocean wave to the face. "You wouldn't," he breathed, Stephen's fear suddenly bleeding cold into him. Michael knew. He couldn't know! How the hell did he know?
"I am perfectly capable of observing things and drawing conclusions from them," Michael told them. His tone was level, neither condemning nor triumphant. Just flat. He might have been making an observation on the weather. "Let's just say it's in the way you two move."
Sidney met Stephen's eyes. After a moment they looked away from one another. "I'll make you a deal," Sidney spoke, for the both of them, bargaining. He was better at it. "You don't separate us. You want what we know on Cybercon, fine. We'll give it to you. In exchange," he said, leaning forward, "you and those people help us with what we went to Cybercon for in the first place. That's the deal."
"I can't make deals without knowing the full extent of the request," Michael replied, reasonable as always. "You'll need to give me more than that, Sidney."
The feeling in the pit of his and his twin's stomachs was probably best described as lead weights, Sidney decided, terrified. He was damned if he'd show it, though. "Can we trust you and the people you work for?"
"More than you can trust the people you were working for," Michael responded, which wasn't a yes but wasn't a no either.
And this was the tipping point, Sidney and Stephen knew. On one hand they were going to be so screwed if it turned out they couldn't trust Michael and his military people behind the glass... but on the other hand, Michael'd never done anything they couldn't trust him on.
They decided.
"I'll need a knife," said Sidney.
*
"No way," Jaysen said when Prowl opened the door.
His lover just looked at him. "I know you have one. Give it to me."
Jaysen had a dozen. That wasn't the point.
"Trust me," Prowl said.
Jaysen looked beyond him, at the cuffed twins, his lover's exes. It wasn't Prowl he didn't trust.
"Trust me," Prowl repeated, looking at him.
Jaysen had no choice.
*
Michael returned from the guard at the door carrying a wicked looking six inch long blade. He handed it over to Sidney handle first and crossed his arms where he stood. "Impress me," he said, which would have won a smile out of Sidney if the circumstances had been any different; it was what Michael had used to say to them regarding calc problems.
Stephen closed his eyes and drew a low breath. His steadying himself helped brace Sidney.
He flipped the knife he held in his bandaged right hand and drove it through his uninjured left.
Michael started, his eyes going wide. Well, what did he think the knife was for, Sidney wondered, his left hand beginning to throb worse than his right. With a hiss of air through his clenched teeth, he tugged the knife free--it hurt worse coming out than it had going in--and dropped it on the table. He flexed his fingers experimentally, watching the blood flow increase for a moment. There were drops splattered all across the table, and he wondered who would have the job of cleaning it up before the next interogee was dragged through the door. Or if they'd leave it as intimidation.
"Good cut," his twin said conversationally, probably managing to hide his roiling stomach from anyone who wasn't Sidney. It wasn't obvious in his voice, anyway.
Getting injured in a fight was one thing. Poking and prodding by Cybercon's squints was another. This, though....
"Shut up, fuckwit," Sidney snarked back. Michael was still looking shocked. "Next time you do this."
"There isn't going to be a next time," Stephen retorted. His expression softened, though, looking at the red running down the palm and back of Sidney's hand and over the metal of the freaky cuffs.
"Why did you do that?" Michael asked.
Sidney looked up at the police officer. "Got a handkerchief?" he asked, extending his cuffed arms toward the cop, bloody hand open, palm up.
Wordlessly Michael took one out of his pocket and wrapped it around the bleeding hand, dabbing away the blood. Sidney and Stephen's eyes were on him, watching, weighing, when he froze, discovering the untouched skin. Blue eyes flickered up to meet theirs. "How is this possible?" he breathed.
"That," Stephen replied for the both of them, "is what we were at Cybercon trying to discover."
*
It hadn't been hard to figure out, once he'd put his mind to it, that the Smith twins were... not normal. And not in the way that Michael himself was not normal. No, their lack of normality was given away in the way they moved relative to one another, the way they didn't need to talk or even look at one another to communicate who was going to get up to get the textbook, or get drinks. It was in the way they had touched him, arranging him as of one mind with ropes and hands to be exactly as they wanted him. It had spoken partly of vast experience, but even more of an understanding of one another so deep that it was subvocal. Normal twins weren't like that.
Then, when he'd woken in the small moon-silvered hours of the morning and seen one twin pressing into another, he'd wondered if their lovers were partly just an excuse. Because Stephen and Sidney Smith overlapped one another in a way he'd never seen before or since, and now they sat in separate rooms confirming this to Ratchet and Perceptor's satisfaction, cuffs removed as one was shown cards and objects and the other listed them off in a bored tone, twins reading one another's minds and seeing through each other's eyes.
He had known they were singularities, but had respected their privacy. He'd known even then that he was a one-night stand to them; pleasurable, fun, but ultimately no commitment. They weren't ready, or perhaps even able, to commit to anyone but each other. He hadn't guessed--how could he have--that they were more than that. Their healing abilities were remarkable, and until Stephen had snapped about the sensors attached to his fingers as Perceptor measured the rate of healing of tiny nicks, off the charts.
"You really want them?" Ironhide groused to Optimus. His bruised cheek was going to take a good deal longer to heal than Sidney's hand had.
"They could be invaluable," Optimus said quietly. "And better in our hands than Marshall's. Besides," he pointed out with a small smile, "Prowl did give them our word."
"I still don't like it," Ironhide bitched.
"You don't like anything," Jazz drawled from where he leaned against a wall.
Ironhide stiffened, but remarkably did not lunge for the slighter man.
"I'll release them into your custody, Prowl," Optimus told Michael. "They seem to like and respect you."
Now it was Jazz's turn to stiffen.
Michael resisted the urge to sigh.
*
To say that it was not the most comfortable of family reunions would be an understatement.
"Judy," Ron said, throat choked up, to his wife. He didn't know what else to say. She looked much as she had three years ago. Only a few fine crow's tracks by her eyes showed that time had passed. Their son, however, had gone from the last dregs of childhood into a full-blown teenager, shooting up at least six inches in the process.
"Ron," she replied, voice wavering only a little. Buster just stared fixedly at a spot on the wall somewhere behind and to the left of Ron's head.
"Are you... feeling okay?" Ron sallied, trying. "Ratchet wasn't sure about any long-term results from removing the chips...." The two of them had been among the first to be restrained and have the hypno-chips carefully taken out of their heads. Their hands, however, were still bound.
"A little nauseous," his wife replied, swallowing. "Not too bad."
"Buster?" Ron asked.
"Ben," his son corrected, still not looking at him.
"Ron," Judy said, directing his attention back to her, "what do you want to happen?"
"I want," Ron said, stopped, swallowed. "I want you to come home. Both of you."
"And what?" Ben asked. "Pick up where things left off? That was three years ago, Dad."
Ron stared at his son, mouth dropping open.
"Ben, don't," Judy started, but his mouth ran over her voice.
"Maybe I don't want to go 'home.' Or back to school, or whatever you want me to do. Maybe I want to get back to my real life."
"This is your real life," Ron managed.
"No," Ben replied, "it isn't."
*
"I don't want to go in there," Sam said, looking at the door.
Bumblebee sighed and ran fisted knuckles down his back, rubbing here and there in comfort.
"It's stupid," Sam said. "I know it's stupid. They're my mom and my brother and I'm going to have to deal with this eventually. And Dad's in there... and it can't be easy for him, I know that. I should go in."
//So?// Bumblebee projected, blue-white letters at the edge of Sam's vision.
"What if...." Sam's voice dropped out then started again, barely above a whisper. "What if the reason she didn't take me was because she wanted me less? Or what if they blame me? Either for finding them, or for not finding them sooner? What if...."
His best friend turned him around to look into 'Bee's baby blue eyes. Leather-clad fingers threaded through his hair. Bumblebee's thumbs touched his forehead, then brushed slow mirrored paths down from Sam's hairline. He closed his eyes as they brushed over his lids. His pulse came faster and breath slower as the leather-clad digits brushed a swirl around his cheeks. He could feel the cybernetic hum and whirr of Bumblebee's body so close to him. It was less than noise and more than heat; it was the shimmering electric pathways that simulated nerves, the mechanical tension that moved like muscles, the scent of the metal alloys that had transformed a body crushed in a wreck into the incredible, brilliant person who guarded Sam's back at every turn.
The fingers stopped just at either corner of his mouth.
And then a warm, dry pair of lips touched Sam's in a gesture as delicate as the brush of butterfly wings.
It was only a moment, then Bumblebee stepped away, Sam opening his eyes.
The other teenager looked almost as nervous as Sam felt. For a moment there was no movement between them, then Bumblebee spelled out, slow and hesitant, in ASL, "My name is B-R-I-A-N."
"Brian," repeated Sam. He'd already known that--he knew everyone's real name--but being told it was something different than simply hacking it out of the databases. He swallowed, then smiled. "I'm Sam," he said, feeling breathless. And no longer scared. He had absolutely no idea what would happen, but somehow that no longer seemed important. "Will you come with me?" he asked, holding his hand out.
Bumblebee's--Brian's--smile needed no interpretation.
*
Peter signed and stamped yet another of the release paperwork forms. Over half of the prisoners were scientists and technology specialists who had been coerced into working for Cybercon via hypno-chips. Their reactions to having the chips removed had ranged from shock to anger to, in a few cases, complete breakdowns. While sorry about the disruptions to all of their lives, Peter was just as happy to pass them on to Smokescreen and his cadre of psychologists. They would make sure Cybercon's kidnapping victims were duly assessed, treated, and provided assistance in returning to their former lives, with the caveat that they might be called on in the future by military and civilian tribunals once those responsible were brought to trial.
A third of those remaining were simple day workers at the company, file clerks... receptionists. They were being released outright with the least information about what had happened.
His pen stilled. Peter looked unseeingly at the stack of paperwork for a moment, then let out a held breath and continued writing.
Robin... was an adult now, with her own life. Much as he might want some way to keep her close to him, Peter knew he had no legal right.
The rest of the prisoners were to be detained, and likely brought to trial for their actions. A few, most notably Prowl's pair of twins, had already chosen parole with his unit rather than undergo further investigation and proceedings. Whether or not the trials of the rest would include plea bargains in light of the information they could provide, Peter did not know, not did he allow himself to much care. They were out of his hands now and in those of the criminal justice system. He was neither judge nor jury; the rest was in God's hands.
Continuing to make inroads on the paperwork, Peter barely even noticed as the lighting automatically clicked on.
*
"So," Isaac said conversationally, zipping the key down the blonde's arms. The metal cuffs melted away and would have clattered to the table if he hadn't caught them with his other hand. "You're the boss's niece, huh?"
The pretty young woman looked at him. "If by 'boss' you mean Uncle Peter, then yes."
Isaac nodded. "He's my kenjutsu sparring partner."
"Really."
He eyed her. A mere slip of a thing. "Can't see you picking up a sword," he admitted. "Other side of the family?"
She nodded, cautious. "His wife is my mother's sister."
Isaac set the cuffs carefully down. "Now, you're free to go," he told her. "We may be in contact--our scientists are interested in examining your prosthetic. In the meantime, if you'd like, we'll provide a military transport back to your home."
She was watching him. "Or...?" the girl prompted.
Isaac smiled a little, pleased with her astuteness. He leaned back against the wall. "Well, if for some reason, someone offered me a bet that your uncle thinks you'd be better off with him out of your life, now that you're an adult and all... well, I wouldn't take that bet."
"Oh really." Her tone was as sweet as sugar and as flat as the floor.
He nodded. "For some reason--can't imagine why--he seems to have something of a martyr complex."
"I see." She looked pissed for a moment before the expression vanished. "I should tell him goodbye before I leave," she said, her tone pleasant. "Would you be willing to tell me where I could find my uncle?"
"Elevator at the end of the hall," he told her. "Third floor. Turn right. Second door on the left."
"Thank you," she told him. The young woman closed the door behind herself, and Isaac couldn't help grinning. He decided that he liked her. She was just what Prime needed.
*
The elevator took forever to arrive, and its movement seemed even more glacial as it inched upward to the third floor. Robin fumed every second, letting her ire build until the bell pinged and the doors opened, revealing the same two guards who had spoken with her on the truck.
"Um," said the red-haired one as she stepped out of the elevator.
"I'm sorry, you're not cleared for this floor," said the brown-haired one.
The doors closed behind her as Robin smiled her most brilliant, charming receptionist smile at the two of them. "I will only say this once," she told the pair. "My uncle, whom I have not seen since I was kidnapped as a child, is down that hallway," she said, nodding to the right. "For some reason, probably for my own good, he thinks he could, should, and will just send me away again without so much as a goodbye or a by your leave. Do you really think, gentlemen, that the two of you are going to stop me from knocking on his office door?"
The redhead--Rodney--glanced once at his friend. "We could," he allowed.
"Let me rephrase," Robin told them. "I am a third-dan black belt in karate and a competative gymnast. The two of you have guns. The only way you are going to stop me from talking to my uncle involves putting lots of holes in me, and somehow I can't imagine he would be too pleased about that. Now, are you going to let me pass or not?"
Rodney looked again at Matt, then sighed, stepping aside.
"Roddy!" protested his friend.
"Well, she's right, Springer," he said.
After a moment's visible internal struggle, Springer sighed and stepped back too. "Go ahead," he said.
"Thank you," Robin told them, and gave them each a kiss on the cheek as she went.
*
The key turned in the lock and Michael pushed open the door to his apartment, flicking on the light as he stepped inside. "This is my home," he told the twins. "You'll be staying here until further arrangements are made."
"Nice," said Sidney, polite if not overly enthusiastic.
"Coats go here," Michael said, unwinding his scarf and draping it atop the black trenchcoat he'd already set on the tree. His fingers released the scarlet cashmere reluctantly. It had been a gift from Jazz, and he already knew his lover wasn't best pleased with these temporary arrangements. "Kitchen's through there," nodding past the living room. "Your room is around the corner. I assume you won't have a problem with sharing?"
Identical gazes locked on him. He met them one after another, giving away nothing. He wasn't sure if the term incest would apply in their unique case or not, and either way he didn't care.
They blinked first.
"Ooh, pretty!" Sidney said, bouncing over to the mantel and the prominent framed picture there. "Who's she?"
"My sister Carly. She's away at college."
"Not going to warn us off her?" Stephen asked.
Michael allowed himself to smirk. "Why should I?" he asked. "She's out of your league."
*
The door opened and a tall, skinny young man with short-cropped dark hair stepped through, shadowed by a slightly shorter, stockier young man with blond curls. It was the first, though, that caught and kept Judy's gaze.
He was.... Her breath caught as she met his eyes. "Sammy?" she asked, almost unbelieving.
"Mom," he said. His gaze darted beyond her, to his brother. "Buster."
"Ben," he corrected sourly.
"You've gotten so tall," Judy said, stepping forward. Then she gave in to instinct and grabbed him, hugging hard. Her baby...!
"These things happen, Mom," he said, voice muffled by her shoulder.
Her heart hurt now in a way it hadn't for years. She'd missed so much. Growth spurts, high school, probably even his first date--
"Mom, that hurts," he said as her grip tightened. Judy breathed a laugh and let him go. She leaned back to look at him.
"I never wanted to leave you, you know that?" she asked him.
He nodded. "Yeah. I know, Mom." He worried his lower lip briefly, then smiled at her. "I'd like you to meet someone." He drew the blond boy forward. "This is my... this is Bee." Sam's gaze flicked from her, not to his friend but to Ron for just an instant. "He helped us get you back."
Judy smiled at her son's friend. "Any friend of Sam's--" she started, but was cut off by her other child.
"He's not a friend, Mom!" said Buster. His face was twisted, contorted with anger and pain and upset. Like everything in what had admittedly been a very, very stressful day was hitting him tenfold. "He's a fucking boyfriend and Sam's a faggot and I want to go home!"
Sammy, she noted distantly, had gone still and white, his breathing seemingly cut off by his own brother's unexpected vitriol.
Buster looked around, then rushed past all of them, yanking the door open and running out into the hall. The door slammed closed behind him.
Sammy's friend... boyfriend... whatever, looked at that door and his expression slowly morphed into something like anger. Without a word, he hauled the door open and went after Buster. Just seconds later, there was a thud and a pained yelp from the hallway. Looking at each other, Judy and her husband and elder son followed.
Buster was lying facedown on the floor. Bee sat on his back, pinning him, holding one of Buster's arms against the floor, twisting the other up behind the younger boy's back. Bee's back was to them, so Judy couldn't see his expression. She started to step forward, but Sam's arm barred her way. He turned toward her, serious expression lightening just slightly. "I got this, Mom," he said.
Sam walked forward and knelt down by his brother, tilting Buster's chin up with gentle fingers. He leaned down and whispered something in his brother's ear. Judy couldn't hear what he said, but whatever it was, it caught Bee by surprise.
And as her son straightened up and looked back at her and Ron, Judy realized something.
Her boy was a man now.
And somehow, she didn't know quite how, he was dangerous.
*
The door swung open almost silently.
Blinking, Peter looked up.
His niece, her rose-colored outfit slightly rumpled, regarded him from the frame.
"Robbie?" he asked, slightly surprised. He had thought she would already have left the base.
"Do you really think," she asked, "that I'm just going to leave, now that I've found you again?"
Closing the door behind herself, his niece took a seat before his desk.
"I--" he said.
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Mama Ari always said you overthought things," she told him. "So. How are we going to get her back?"
*
The knock on his door wasn't entirely unexpected. Amused, Michael opened it.
"Pizza delivery!" Jazz said, beaming, from the other side.
Giving his lover a sardonic look, Michael undid the chain and opened the door wider.
Jazz sailed in. "Thought you might not have plans for dinner, so I took the liberty."
"As you wish," Michael said, hanging the shed coat and scarf, then following in Jazz's wake. The scent of the pizza lured the twins--Sidney from where he sat flipping through the television channels, Stephen from the bedroom he'd retreated to with a book from the shelves--into the dining room as well.
Bemused, Michael got plates and glasses as Jazz flipped open the two boxes, revealing a plain pepperoni and an everything special, and laid the table.
He would, he decided, see just how far Jazz's instincts to mark his territory would take the Project agent.
*~*~*
A/N: So, over a year and a half since the last chapter, here this is. Merry Christmas, all. And thanks to gundamangel for catching my errors!