[ti]Ep 3[/ti]Washouts [Thunder]

[Windshield]

Episode 3 / Week 1 / Day 4 / Open

Three months had come and gone since Windshield’s introduction into the Autobot ranks. And while things started out rocky, in no small part thanks to Carbine’s intervention, all in all, it wasn’t so bad. Some Bots had taken to tolerating him, others even respected him, and few still deeply hated him, be it for his past as a Decepticon or his past as an inmate at Garrus 1.  

Either way, it certainly sucked a whole lot less than tugging at Starscream’s end of the rope. He learned all about that, alright. How the Air Commander took to the title of Lord, how he replaced Megatron in an opportunistic power grab, and how he buried some of his favorite Autobots under a metric shitton of rubble. As if he didn’t have enough reasons to hate that conniving backstabber already, the Seeker kept on giving. 

It was small wonder then, that thanks to Starscream’s crowning act of betrayal, he gladly shared with the Autobots everything that was asked. Windshield even regaled himself to scheduled scouting duty, scanning for Decepticon activity in his general area whenever he could. Of course, more importantly, it was also a very good excuse to take his altmode out for a spin.  

If there was anything Windshield loved more than being bloody good at his job, it was speeding. While Arizona wasn’t exactly a scenic choice of residence, it had a lot of empty space and a relatively low population density. In other words, Windshield had a run of the place. 

This lazy afternoon, the hacker was on his way home from just such a jaunt. The sky was a hazy pink shade and the vast swaths of desert descended into a boorish, quiet state. The only thing still loud and full of energy was Windshield himself, darting across one of the country’s less-traveled highways, quite possibly—and in all likelihood—well above the speed limit. But that didn’t bother him. He knew the cops rarely checked in on this backwater trail. That’s why he picked it, and why it was such a convenient spot for an Autobot. The whole road practically screamed low profile as much as Windshield didn’t. 

“Windshield to Omega, sending an all clear. No Decepticon sightings.” 

He called back to base via his comm link. It’s become quite a habit to report this exact message, no matter where in the US Windshield decided to patrol. Sometimes, it got lonely out here, and it wasn’t rare for the Autobot to be just a little bit hopeful for a Decepticon attack so he had something interesting to report. 

Even at over 100 MPH, the desert could only get so interesting. While being an Autobot certainly beat his career as a Decepticon, Windshield also felt that it wasn’t nearly exciting enough. Not in a good way, at least. 

Oh well, he was about to see just how exciting such a stupid afternoon can get when stupid bots are involved. 

Speaking of which... 

[Thundercloud]

Considering he had only just come back online after being on ice for months on end, Thundercloud would have been wise to take things easy for a while, give his systems time to adjust to being in full, working order again. Unfortunately the words wise and Thundercloud are nearly antonyms, so all of Ratchet's sage medical advice was going staunchly ignored.

After being inactive for so long, Thundercloud wanted nothing more than to stretch his wings and paint the sky with a metric fuck-ton of vapor trails - and what Thundercloud wanted to do, he generally did. Things like logistics, common sense, or his own health and well-being be damned.

Hence why he was tearing through the Arizona sky like a bat out of hell, engines roaring as he cut through the meteorological bodies for which he was named. Even this far out in the middle of bumblefuck nowhere, it was too risky to play around too low to the ground, where a random hiker or road-tripper might be able to make out his silhouette and realize it didn't belong in civilian airspace. The last thing he needed was to get a lecture from Fowler about another crazy conspiracy theorist harassing his division about UFO sightings - besides, it wasn't his fault his Alt didn't look like a commercial airplane. (Except it sort of was, because he could've scanned something a little less conspicuous than a goddamn supersonic fighter-jet, but that was beside the point.)

Anyway, flying. It was dope as shit and Thunder honestly didn't know how grounders didn't just spontaneously combust from envy every time they transformed into a dirt-kissing roller-cart instead of something with wings or blades. He was pretty sure if he ever got permanently grounded in some sort of freak accident, he'd just lie down and let the dirt claim him 'cause he wouldn't wanna live if he could never touch the troposphere again.

And wouldn't you know it, there was one of those poor miserable ground-pounders tearing down the highway below him, 'bout a mile off. What a coinkidink - except not really, on account of how Thunder had been looking for the guy for the better half of ten minutes.

See, as much as he had wanted to stretch his wings and get a few laps in, he also wanted to sate his burning curiosity and see whether or not Carbine had been messing with him when he said there was another inmate on the team - one with a face he'd recognize and a name he wouldn't. A guy like Thundercloud, you couldn't just tell him about a guy with a story like Windshield's and expect his morbid curiosity not to get the best of him. Carbine, he knew exactly what he was doing when he told Thunder all the grisly details, including a few likely embellishments which served only to paint an even less flattering image of the ex-con in his mind.

Thunder knew he was probably being played, that Carbine probably wanted him to seek the guy out and start a little trouble, but frankly, he didn't care - from the sound of things, trouble needed starting, and Thunder was always willing to be the one to light the dumpster fire.

::Guessin' there's no reflective surfaces where you're at, Con-squared?::

Get it, 'cause he was a con and a con - shut up he's hilarious.

[Windshield]

Yes, Windshield was a filthy, dirty grounder; and he fucking loved it. Being fast when you’re an ugly, loud, over-the-top jet? Easy-peasy. It took no skill, no class, no fineness. That was not his style, no. The ex-con loved flexing his skills and speeding on the highway. You know, the place where it’s actually hard to maintain momentum. Thunder could think whatever the hell he wanted, but Windshield knew better. He wasn’t biased, nope, not at all!

Now, imagine his surprise when one of those nasty-ass jets suddenly popped up on Windy’s scanners. And not just any old plane, a friggin' Cybertronian. Assuming the worst option—or rather what Windshield thought was the worst option—he jumped to the conclusion that he happened upon a stray Decepticon.

He was just about to patch through to Omega and update his status when the mysterious shithead contacted him via comms. At first, Windshield wanted to laugh it off. The Con had some nerve to think that he—of all bots—would just chat in the middle of the war. Cue the absolute surprise when it turned out that this was probably not a Decepticon.

I mean, surely a Decepticon wouldn’t dig through his empty brain to make such a half-witted insult, no? This had to be another Autobot, though not one Windshield was familiar with. He already didn’t like him, to the point he had half the mind to block his comms and just return home without paying him any attention.

But it wouldn’t be a Windshield thing to just quit on such a great opportunity to throw his life away. He’d entertain the mysterious prank-caller for a while, just on the off-chance that he was wrong in assuming his new flying friend was an Autobot trying to stick his greasy, crusty servos where they didn’t belong.

::Look who’s talking. Ever notice how most Bots are cars?::

He paused quickly as a ecstatic whistle shrilled through the comms.

::You ain’t a car, buddy::

Had Windshield only bothered the consider the individuals who were in stasis, he would be acquainted with Thunder’s face, altmode, and perhaps some other little factoids. Either this was a huge oversight on his part, or he just wanted to twist that mirror analogy back at him for shits and giggles.

::But hey, can’t blame a guy for having an identity crisis, right?::

The small mech wasn’t particularly mocking Thunder, but the sarcastic aftertaste his words left certainly was no small indication to the irony of Windshield, in particular, saying slag like this. Projecting much? After all, he was the bot who just went through a major identity crisis, not Thunder.

::Though, I wonder, whatcha up to out here? Arizona isn’t exactly a pretty shithole::

What kind of dumb question was that? Of course, Thundercloud wasn’t out here for the amazing vistas such as: red rocks and more red rocks, and cacti. It was plainly obvious that the little impish bot was the main attraction. And he knew it bloody well.

Windshield just hoped he didn’t have another Carbine situation underway. Or worse...

While thinking back on THAT, the Autobot subtly pushed his speed even further, trying to reach the nearest fork in his way so he could divert from the highway onto an old road less traveled. If this was another troublemaker about to check out the oh-so-scary Decepticon on their team, the deserter at least wanted to meet in a place where he didn’t risk human attention.

Truly, the last thing anybody needed at this point was Fowler on their ass-plates.

[Thundercloud]

Ooh, the guy was a smart-ass. Thunder might've vibed with that, except for the fact that he had already called dibs on being the resident smart-ass ex-con with a chip on his shoulder. Carbine would have probably argued that title belonged more appropriately to himself, which was fair. He was entitled to his wrong opinion - far as Thunder was concerned, it was no contest. Being a smart-ass was his thing, being lovably sleazy was Carbine's thing, and being the Goodest 'lil killing machine™ was Bolo's thing. This new guy would have to figure out a different gimmick if he ever wanted to integrate into the main outpost, which - ha. Yeah, no. Thunder couldn't imagine why he would, considering the sort of welcome he'd receive.

It was hard enough being an ex-convict, but being an ex-con on top of that meant the guy was in for one hell of a frosty reception if he ever set foot in the halls of Omega. Sure, most folks would be civil, or at least decent, but ain't nobody was gonna be happy to see him. Especially not Carbine, who had made his hatred of the mech abundantly clear for literal hours after Thunder had come back online, which was truly impressive considering he had never even met the guy face to face. Carbine just hated him on principle, which of course meant he wasn't too deep in Thunder's good graces either. 

'Course, Thunder had known Carbine long enough to know better than to take his words as pure fact. Like any good liar, Carbine knew how to decorate a lie with sprinkles of truth or mask a bias with misleading but accurate details. The way Carbine told it, Windshield wasn't just regular old Garrus-Trash - he was a whole 'nother animal entirely. A real heinous motherfucker, offensive to every sense and sensibility a person could have.

Cutting away all the embellishments and ignoring the gratuitous misuse of creative license, this said to Thunder that Windshield was probably just some garden variety douche-bag who just so happened to be wearing the face of the actual fuckin' devil like a statement piece.

Of course, there was always the off chance that the guy really was as bad as Carbine claimed, which meant he deserved someone showing him a hard time. Until he knew one way or the other, Thunder planned on pressing the guy for a little chat - the actual kind, with words and everything, not the prison kind with fists and shanks. (Not that those were entirely off the table either.)

::Eh. Worse places come to mind::

His tone was casual, almost dangerously so.

::G-1, for example. A l'il bird told me you might be familiar::

[Windshield]

If Thunder thought he was here to give Windshield a bad time, he was in for a bloody disappointing surprise. The little shite was not phased for even a second and quickly jumped at the opportunity to play into his antics. It took more than isolation, more than playing a smart-ass wiseguy, and more than cracking terrible jokes to phase him.

::Well, well…::

Windshield purred in a manner that quite literally beamed smug energy, a really shitty, malicious vibe. He so expected somebody to bring it up eventually, just not so soon, not like this, and definitely not out here in the middle of nowhere. Well, at least they were alone. He wondered how many Autobots already knew about Garrus-1, and who snitched. That was always the most important. Who was the fragger that told?

There was an old saying from ye old prison days that suddenly rang familiar.

Snitches get stitches.

::We’ve got a fellow jailbird over here::

His voice trailed off for a second as he began to think. It was possible and likely, that his new friend in the skies was a convict like him, but just to add insult to injury, and to test the waters, Windshield entertained the thought that he was one of the personnel, even though if that were the case, he could probably smell his snotty chassis from miles and miles away. Oh well, it didn’t hurt to have a little fun, right?

::...Or were you one of the crooks running the joint?::

With that little jab, which was completely clever and could in no way whatsoever backfire, Windshield diverted to a dirt road leading towards an abandoned landfill a good few miles away from where the two Autobots were now. After all, what better way for two pieces of trash to throw hands than in a literal garbage patch.

He shifted gears, creating a thick cloud of red smoke around his tires as they rolled over a forgotten trail etched into the desert with heavy, industrial machinery a few decades prior. It was kinda gross how humans could do so much in their pitiful, meaningless, little lives, but somehow keeping infrastructure from being obsolete wasn’t one of them. What drab little creatures they were at times, forcing a perfectly good Cybertronian to trudge through filthy soil.

Oh well, at least their songs were good. Which reminded Windshield to play some of his favorite music. Highway to Hell felt especially topical right about now, and so, he put it into his stereo without thinking twice, blasting it at full earrape volume, either omitting from memory that his comms were still open or intentionally keeping them up to spite Thunder...or test his taste in music.

It was really hard to tell with Windshield sometimes.

[Thundercloud]

Credit where it was due: the fragger had good taste in music. That didn't make up for him being an absolute shitheel, but anybody who appreciated AC/DC enough to have their hits on hand for purposes of fuckery couldn't be all bad.

That didn't mean Thundercloud was about to give the guy a pass, though. He was still a sketchy dude that Carbine hated for plausibly legitimate reasons, which meant Thunder was gonna be petty as hell until the guy gave him damn good reason to behave like a reasonable adult - which Windshield definitely wasn't doing by insinuating he might have been something as detestable as a goddamn prison guard.

::Bruh. Do I sound like a fuckin' C/O to you?::

Thunder was glad for the distance between them; if they had been standing face to face, Windshield definitely would have heard his engines rumble in indignation at that snide little comment, revealing just how easy it was to get him riled. The last thing he needed was somebody he already kinda wanted to rough up knowing how quick he was to aggro - that was just asking for trouble, and not the mildly consequential kind.

::Seriously. The 'Cons pull out of the block or the ding-wing?::

Not that G-1 really had a legitimate mental health ward; it was more like a designated crazy space, a little out of the way section where they put all the folks who were too fucked in the head to be in gen-pop. Thunder wasn't sure what the actual qualifications were for being sent there, he just knew that the mecha who were weren't people you wanted to cozy up with. You couldn't trust anybody worth a damn, not really, but the folks they sectioned off were especially unpredictable. At least with Carbine, and (relatively) mechs like him, you could tell when they were gonna shank you 'cause their actions followed a logical pattern of progression. With the crazies, they could put a knife in your optic and you wouldn't even know why, and they probably wouldn't either.

::Can't be too crazy if you vibe with Bon Scott::

Thunder internally grimaced, immediately regretting how almost-civil that comment sounded. He didn't wanna give Windshield the impression he was a reasonable guy that didn't irrationally hate his guts, because he wasn't. No, seriously. Don't look at him like that, he wasn't reasonable and he totally didn't just dislike the guy on principle, shut up.

Following Windshield's lead, Thunder panned a bit to the left, his nose tilting slightly towards the ground as he gradually dropped in altitude. He saw the landfill in the distance, could tell that's where Windshield was going and figured he didn't need to wait for him to give him an invitation before heading there himself.

[Windshield]

Thunder had the right of it. When Windshield finally arrived at the inglorious pile of dogshit and scrap, the blue mech would very likely be there way ahead of him. But being fashionably late never stopped Windshield from making a grand entrance. As the music ground to a halt, his body popped open with the audible snapping of transformation. Spinning around its own axis at multiple points, breaking apart and rearranging where it was needed, his form swiftly changed from that of a car to that of—by his own admission—a very handsome, and sleek devil. The whole motion likened to that of a human stretching out of bed and inclining into a prim and proper bow to top it all off at the end.

“We’ll see just how crazy we’re talking, alright,” Windshield continued their little chat with a smirk, standing somewhere part-way between coy, flirtatious, and spiteful. He sure as hell had it figured out by now that Thundercloud was no authority figure, and that he was probably not a half-way decent person either. No Autobot worth shit opens like this. That’s to say with stalking and asking nosey questions.

So maybe Thunder was just another asshat like Windshield. If that were the case, proper introductions were in order. Which either meant a lot of cursing, drinking, fighting, or some drug-fueled combination of the three when it came to the old prison crowd. Suddenly, it started to click into place why Windshield stopped hanging out with his Garrus buddies when he made it with Decepticon Intelligence.

“Let’s start with the basics. Who? Why? What?” He continued, crossing his arms and cracking his neck laxly. Though, just in case the blue jet was smarter than he let on, the air of ease around Windshield had that fake “I’m ready to stab you at any moment in multiple ways” patented aftertaste.

This place has no witnesses, and Windshield was still very much cutthroat enough to remove undesirables if they decided to not play nice. Of course, he had no idea that Thunder was one bad glitch as well—probably even worse when it came to getting physical. On that note, it would most likely be for the best if neither of them started out with a shivvie in their guts.

Windshield was smart enough to play it safe even when he was on edge and ready to stab a glitch.

The question was: What about Thunder?

[Thundercloud]

To no one's surprise, Thundercloud arrived first at the landfill, transforming mid-air and landing with an almighty clatter on one of the more stable-looking mountains of refuse. Several somethings crunched beneath his boots, old cans and moldy bottles rattling down the garbage slope and into the valley of trash below as they were dislodged from their age-old positions within the mound of waste. The smell was something else, bad enough that Thunder was pretty sure he'd need a shower when all was said and done, but at least it was just organic rot. Landfills and garbage heaps he could deal with, it was nasty but whatever, so was Garrus. It was scrapyards he had a problem with.

Rot and mold and ferment he could handle, but corrosion and rust? Nah, fam. Miss him with that shit.

While he waited for the ground-pounder to get his slow ass to their impromptu rendezvous point, Thunder busied himself with a few pre ass-kicking stretches. He rolled his shoulders, flexed his fingers to make sure they were all still hanging on and in prime fist-forming condition, which was something he had to manually check on account of his arms being mostly nerve-dead and all. It was a pain in the ass, having to periodically check to make sure parts of his body weren't just falling apart without his knowing, but he hadn't lived all that long before his neural network got butchered so it wasn't like he could really miss having normal arms. Besides, it was a pretty fair trade, far as he was concerned - yeah, he could barely register temperature or pressure or texture, and he couldn't tell if anything was wrong with him from shoulder to fingertip unless he looked, but not being able to feel pain was pretty handy.

Made it a whole lot easier to bash skulls in, not having to stop mid-beatdown 'cause he snapped off a finger or his tasers were going buckwild.

It was probably something people would wanna know before getting in a scrap with him, the whole "I can beat you till my arms literally fall off and not even flinch" thing, but that wasn't info Thundercloud was keen on disclosing to people he planed on beating till his arms literally fell off. Whether or not Windshield fell into that category was yet to be determined, but Thundercloud was gonna go ahead and prepare himself to put a check in that box.

Eventually, the man of the hour dragged his sorry ass into the lot, all confidence and swagger, like he didn't have anything to be afraid of despite being alone in the middle of nowhere with a convicted felon. Granted, that was the exact same circumstance for Thundercloud as well, but the convict he was alone with was like a third of his size so he wasn't all that intimidated.

At least until Windshield transformed, and Thunder got a good look at his face.

Only it wasn't his face. Couldn't have been, 'cause only batch builds like Thunder had identical goddamn clones running around, and the guy who'd been running Garrus wasn't no batch build. Either Windshield had gotten himself some serious cosmetic surgery, or he had another mech's head on his shoulders.

Thrown by the sudden reappearance of a face he never thought he'd see again, Thundercloud stood there in quiet shock, the witty retort he had been prepared to give dying a slow and painful death as he stared and stared and stared.

Thunder knew he was supposed to say something witty in response, something sarcastic and dismissive and vaguely threatening, but he couldn't latch on to a single cohesive thought. Either his thoughts were racing or there weren't any for him to grab onto, because when he opened his mouth to speak no actual sound came out. He seemed to notice this, on the very periphery of his awareness, because he soon after closed his mouth and swallowed like that might somehow dislodge the words stuck in his throat.

He found his voice after a moment, after his brain finally caught up with the situation at hand instead of sputtering uselessly like a bad car engine.

"Dude." He began, eloquent as ever. "What the fuck."

[Windshield]

Windshield was obsessed with a great many things: perfection, and perhaps more importantly, keeping everything nice and clean. When looking at it from that angle, maybe a dump was not the best place to meet Thunder. But it was close, and it was abandoned, so it more than filled the purpose it needed to. Windshield would push through the affront to his style and senses for now, if only to not betray any weakness. Still, he was haunted by little details, and the sight was not pleasant in the slightest to one of his creed; organic filth spewing methane and other ghastly fumes from piles of rancid rubbish. Gross, gross, gross. Super gross.

He would cringe if he wasn’t so preoccupied with the surly frontliner’s reaction. And, Primus be good, was it priceless. It was true that Windshield was not intimidating in stature nor in demeanor, but it was his history that gave a pause to those “in the know” on what he has done.

Sometimes it was a blessing. Today, it was a curse.

Oh, how nice of Thunder to remember that face. And how tragic as well. This meant others knew—and while the jet was by no means friendly, Windshield dreaded different names knowing about this far more. His credibility would be at stake if the demons from Garrus-1 came back to haunt him. He was lucky only in that folks who made it to G1 weren’t prone to chatting it up with authorities. Wanton vigilantism was more their speed.

Usually, he tried to play it safe, tell people that his face was a common model and that they must be mistaken. The only time he disclosed the truth was if he wanted to intimidate an echo from his past. Few people would understand, but those who did were either shocked, afraid or filled with rage. It worked for the most part. Not many Decepticons cared enough to punch his little face in. Meanwhile, it kept prisoners on edge during interrogations. That tends to be the case when you work for Intelligence.

But now, Windshield was among the Autobots. He wasn’t the freaking secret police anymore. He was a new recruit, simply an addition to their numbers. There was no credit nor rank to his name. And because of that, he was left exposed and vulnerable to teammates that would do him harm. This was a difficult predicament, and he could tell already that it would cause problems in the future should he not take proper contingencies into account.

Fortunately, Windshield was all about contingencies.

If he managed to survive Thunder, he would come out brighter for the experience. Not that he always acted smart, no. But if he made a mistake, he learned from it and adapted to the new situation his failure had created. Somehow, he always came out on top. Or at least he liked to think he did. Truthfully, Windshield’s downfall was simply a matter of time. A tragedy millions of years in the making.

Well, he wasn’t gonna let the past cave in on him today.

“What? This old thing?” He chuckled softly with a devious quality to his inflection, tapping the side of his helm with a dainty, elongated talon. Sometimes it was not obvious if individuals knew, but that was very much not the case here. The brute didn’t phrase his reaction in a way that left any room for interpretation. Clearly, there was no bullshitting Thunder. He knew.

“Call it a souvenir from the shitty old days.”

Windshield took a step closer towards the big-framed Autobot.

“Now, I would love to know who I have the pleasure of dealing with. Unless you want the gory details,” Windshield teased and then ran his skeletal hand over his smooth, metallic cheek, caressing his features gently, feeling them real good for Thunder’s courtesy.

It did not matter that he acted like a complete asshole right now. Like anybody would believe this sorry excuse of an Autobot. Of course, he had no idea Thundercloud and Carbine were buddies, so perhaps his confidence in this moment’s privacy was misplaced. But that was a problem for another time.

[Thundercloud]

Thundercloud had seen some real messed up stuff in his day, even before the war, even before Garrus. If you lived the sort of life he did, ran in the sort of circles he had, it was par for the course. You got your hands dirty, you saw slag you couldn't unsee, and you kept your goddamn mouth shut about all of it. Still, every now and again somebody would invent a whole new flavor of messed up, and Thunder would be rudely reminded that he had seen a whole hell of a lot, but he hadn't seen everything.

This was one of those times, and Windshield was one of those people.

He had questions, of course. About a hundred of 'em, and at least half were just WHY. You had to be a special kind of crazy to wear a dead mech's face, especially the face of a dead mech who was, himself, a special kind of crazy. It might not have been so bad, y'know, if Windshield hadn't been an inmate, if he didn't know perfectly well whose face he was wearing like a morbid piece of jewelry. It was no coincidence, him having that specific mech's head on his shoulders - it wasn't something that happened by chance. It wasn't like Windshield got hit with the business end of a mace and they just happened to have the fuckin' Warden's corpse lying around. It had been a deliberate choice, it had to have been. Thunder was sure of it.

This guy - for whatever reason, he decided to decapitate the guy who had made Garrus a living hell and somehow he was able to look at his stolen face in the mirror and not feel repulsed by himself.

Thundercloud grimaced, his lip curling slightly as he instinctively glanced to his side to see if Carbine was seeing this shit too, and if he was just as disgusted as he was. He realized his mistake immediately, having forgotten for a moment that Carbine wasn't there - it was just him, alone with the nutjob. 

Great. Gucci.

Thundercloud turned his gaze back to Windshield, despite the garbage being a much more appealing sight to both his senses and sensibilities. He just couldn't get over it, the face. He never thought he'd see it again, never wanted to. It was disquieting, jarring, really. For all the obvious reasons, and because he wasn't used to looking down at it. That helped with the discomfort a bit, Windshield being smaller than the Warden had been. It made it easier to recognize that he wasn't the same guy, that he was just a sheep in wolf's clothing -

Something that was hard to remember that when Windshield smiled, when his mouth pulled back into a smug, familiar grin that made the temperature outside drop by about twenty degrees.

"Yeah. Yeah, nah, I don't shake hands with folks who wear other people's heads as trophies."

He shook his head a bit, not liking how his tone lacked its intended heat. His words still sounded vaguely hollow, like he was still reeling from the entirely unwelcome blast from the past - which he was, but he hadn't thought he was being that obvious about it.

"The big guy know 'bout that, 'fore he let your sorry ass switch sides?"

He titled his head, not bothering to give Windshield time to respond to his rhetorical question.

"Nah, can't see him bein' too jazzed 'bout Ed Gein tryna join his crew. Wonder how quick his bleedin' spark would dry up if he ever found out what kinda mech you really are."

If that curious remark sounded more like a threat than a question, it's because it was.

[Windshield]

It didn't take long before Windshield figured out that Thunder was dense on top of being a crook. Though the mech tried to disguise that he was still processing the situation, the attempt seemed rather piss-poor in the eyes of somebody whose job was to deal with secrets and details. At the sound of his first sentence, Windshield suddenly shifted his attention from the blue jet, scouting the area for a few seconds with an almost insulting disregard for the insults fired at him. He then noted a defunct dump truck in the distance and chose to focus on that for a while as the other bot stopped talking.

He waved him off flippantly after Thunder was finally done ranting and darted towards the vehicle. When he was but a few feet away from it, Windshield leaped into the air and landed on its cab with a remarkably soft thud. He then turned back towards his honored guest and seated himself into a casual squat, placing his arms and hands between his bent legs in a manner alike to felines.

"Not sure where you are leading with this. We've all got our dirty laundry," Windshield dismissed Thunder's attempt at blackmail with a light shrug and a soft, friendly smile. There was a strong feeling of dissociation there; Windshield either not understanding or not wanting to admit just how shocking the entire debacle surrounding his body parts was.

"Besides, I'm just misunderstood, you know?"

A semi-serious response.

"But hey, at least my dirty laundry is easy to explain. It's not like you can quickly produce new kissers and grabbers for every camera-head that asks."

Windshield tilted his head to the left ever so slightly before narrowing his eyes and vaulting down from the dump truck towards Thunder. After jumping the impressive distance, he straightened out, now far closer to the other Autobot than ever before and very much within punching distance should the felon feel so inclined.

"Next time you see one of your hazbin one-eyed friends, ask them where their hands and faces came from."

He angled his large eyebrows inwards, keeping alert for any signs that Thunder might suddenly go aggressive. Windshield could never tell when meeting new people, how many buttons he could push, how far he could take it before somebody got hurt. But the risk was well worth it. Knowing what made people tick has proven useful in the past.

Of course, the side effect was quite a lonely existence. Windshield had very few friends—if any. Even among the Decepticons, most simply let him be out of obligation for his position in Intelligence. Nobody wanted to have "killed a Decepticon Agent" on their record and for very good reasons. The Cons were structured less like an army and more like a hermetic police state, with Soundwave and his minions listening in on every corner, stopping sedition and unrest in its tracks, holding considerable sway even over Megatron's most trusted confidants.

[Thundercloud]

So there the guy was, posturing and posing and making a whole lil' show and dance out of himself, trying to make out like having a sob story somehow excused him doing some freaky psycho serial-killer shit. So what if the guy had his face repo'd by the senate - that didn't excuse what he did to get his shiny new replacement. Having the warden killed, that was one thing - plenty of people wanted him dead, Thundercloud included, but what happened after crossed a line. Killing people was one thing, some folks needed to be forcibly unsubscribed from Life, that's just how the world worked. But desecrating their corpse afterwards, turning 'em into a thing... that said a lot about a person, and not any of it was good.

Far as Thundercloud was concerned, you had to be a special kind of bastard to do something like that to somebody, reduce them to parts, deny them the basic dignities of person-hood. Just the thought of it set him on edge, made his fists clench till his fingers creaked, which should've hurt but didn't 'cause he hadn't always been a person himself, he hadn't always owned the arms he was born with. They were his in the sense they were attached to his body, but they didn't belong to him. None of him did, not his arms or his legs or his brain or even his spark - he didn't have any kind of say in what happened to any part of him 'cause that's all he was: a collection of parts.

Thundercloud could tell this guy didn't get it, didn't see what was so wrong about what he'd done. On the surface, it probably seemed to Windshield like the Warden got what was coming to him. He had hurt so many people, it was only fair he get a little bit of that hurt back. But that was the thing - you can't hurt a dead man. A corpse can't feel pain, or shame, or outrage. What he did to the Warden wasn't done to hurt him, it was done to degrade him, make him a thing. Spare parts, that's all he was. That's what what he was reduced to.

Thundercloud's optics moved from Windshield's face to his hands then back again, and he found himself wondering how they did it. Did they rip 'em off, give 'em a hard twist and pop? Was he still alive when they did it, or did they have the decency to put him out of his misery first? The amputation looked neat enough, from what he could see. Probably used a saw. No, they definitely used a saw. Thunder could practically see the sparks flying off the circular blade, hear the whirling, staccato beat of jagged teeth cutting through mesh, taste the hot flash of blood welling in his throat and flooding out his mouth -

He blinked and suddenly Windshield was in front of him, standing there with his smug look and his stolen face and for the life of him Thundercloud could not look away. He just stood there like a jackass, staring and staring and staring because all he could think of was how a saw had gone through that neck, how that head belonged to someone else, how a person had been taken and turned into parts, how all these ugly truths were staring him in the face and he couldn't look away because they demanded to be seen.

Windshield leapt forward, and Thundercloud had forgotten how to move, how to breathe.

Windshield kept talking, or at least his mouth kept moving, but Thundercloud couldn't hear a word over roaring in his audials. Windshield was talking and that stolen mouth was moving and Thundercloud was staring into the accusatory eyes of a dead mech that had been hacked to pieces and turned into spare parts.

It wouldn't have been so bad if it were the first time that had happened, but it wasn't. It wasn't the first time he had looked into a pair of secondhand eyes and felt them stare back at him, felt a dead mech boring holes into his soul because look what I've become, what has been done to me, see what you've allowed.

Thundercloud opened his mouth to speak, to offer an apology to mecha who weren't even there to hear it, but he couldn't get the words to come, he couldn't make a sound. A breath of steam is all that past between his teeth, a jarring sign that his internal systems were badly overheated - probably because for the past three minutes he had forgotten how to cycle atmosphere. Or maybe because his spark was pulsing out of its casing and all his internals were losing their collective shit over it.

He raised a hand, fingers splayed in the universal gesture for time out.

"Hold up, man - I need a minute."

His voice was rough, breathless, like it had only been a few days since he got his throat cut out, not a few centuries.

He turned away from Windshield, taking a few unsteady steps as he struggled not to double over. It was a battle he quickly lost thanks to a sudden wave of nausea, and he was forced to brace his hands against his knees to keep himself from toppling over.

He closed his eyes, willed the world to stop spinning so goddamn fast beneath his feet, and dragged in a deep, ragged cycle of air.

Breathe in, breathe out. cool off, calm down, get your shit together.

[Windshield]

Ah. And all that stupor over a couple of things Windshield might've said or might've done. Tsk, tsk, tsk. He had Thunder figured for a heavyweight, a guy who could take a hit or two. And so he waited, and waited, and waited. And for what?

The punchline.

But it never came. Instead, the other Autobot was...nauseous?!

Windshield's coy expression quickly turned sour. He had seen people scoff at what he's done, he had seen them fear him, hate him, laugh at him, but somehow, in all his centuries, he seemed to have escaped the presence of somebody with half a conscience and enough reason to realize that what he did was inexcusably petty and insane.

Not to mention, he was by far the last person to ever take a step back and realize just how many of his species experienced trauma and hurt that could easily be brought to the surface thanks to his guilt-free powertrip. In a cruel, ironic way, Windshield himself had baggage that was rather easy to reveal—if somebody knew how to trigger an episode. But he wouldn't be compared to a scrub like Thunder even over his cold, ash-gray body.

Speaking of which, he didn't know how to deal with him. Play the sympathy card? Ask him if he was okay? Pretend he felt guilty? He already tried the first one and, well, the bluebird didn't even listen or react to what he had to say—instead, demanding a timeout.

Perhaps he should go easier on him?

Naaaah. Who even cared about what this piece of shit was thinking?

Not Windshield, that's for sure.

"Oh, boo-hoo," he taunted instead, wiping away a nonexistent tear from his optic with a pointed index finger.

"Don't tell me you think it's disgusting or something...You know the guy deserved it. Hell, even Optimus would probably think the guy deserved it."

Windshield pointed his chin upwards and laxly threw his arms behind his head, regarding Thunder with a dangerously offhand, haughty tone that wasn't all too different from how the hacker talked down to his enemies.

"I don't do pity parties, buddy."

He passed Thunder, looking towards the horizon—or, to be more accurate, towards as much of it as could be seen beyond the rubbish.

"The name's Windshield, by the way. In case you care. Not that I expect you do."

Soon enough, Windshield dropped the conceited and uppity sarcasm in favor of a more curt and affable inflection.

"And since you were eavesdropping on my comms, I'm guessing you overheard it too...So, meh. Can't even have that, I guess."

It was almost unnatural how unabashedly he slipped back into completely casual, innocuous chatter. A lot of other bots—that is to say, a lot of cunts—would probably use this as an opportunity to give air to some of their frustrations, to wax poetic about how the war changed them and how their horrible crimes and dark history make them what they are. Windshield always thought that was a load of scrap and didn't give a damn about some random frontliner's sob story.

That aside, he was willing to entertain Thunder for a while longer. Lazily, he plopped down on a small patch of clear ground and continued to stare off into the distance, waiting for the other mech to get his shit together and then maybe continue where they left off.

[Thundercloud]

There was a word for it, the thing that was happening. Thundercloud knew what it was but he wasn't gonna acknowledge it, wasn't gonna give it a name because that would give it power, make it real. Slag like this happened to other people, not him. Never him. He wasn't wired that way, he was a tough son of a glitch who didn't flinch. If he got hurt, he walked it off. If he saw some messed up slag, he found a way to joke about it. If he survived something so horrendous he couldn't even talk about it, he found someone as screwed up inside as he was so his baggage didn't seem so heavy when he weighed 'em side by side.

What he didn't do – what he never did – was this. This...dwelling bullshit. He didn't think about slag so hard it came rushing up to the forefront of his mind, standing in front of his optics, making him see shit that wasn't there. Thundercloud would've sooner accepted the idea that he had just glitched, that his processor was throwing around old memory-files because he slept like shit the night before and didn't de-frag right. It seemed a lot more plausible than him having a fraggin' flashback like some kinda shell-shocked infantry washout who couldn't handle their first real combat experience. It wasn't right. It didn't make sense, that wasn't the sort of person he was. That wasn't how he worked.

He rolled with the punches, he took it on the chin and moved the hell on with his life. That's how he rolled. That's what he was built to do, what he'd been doing his whole life. Now all the sudden he was seeing shit and getting all worked up over nothing, over some prick with a nightmare face getting all up in his business and unintentionally pulling all these dusty ass skeletons out of his closet. That was the worst part of it all, that the guy hadn't even done it on purpose. Yeah, he had been swinging his metaphorical dick around, but there was no way he could've known having a dead mech's face would've keysmashed just about every button Thunder had. That didn't make him any less pissed that it had happened, it just meant he couldn't attribute malicious intent to what was clearly a total fluke.

Yeah, that was a good word for what that was. A fluke. A one-off thing. Totally not a lifetime of repression surfacing to bite him in the ass.

He shook his head, blew a heaving gust of air out of his vents as he gathered himself together.

“...Goddamn.”

He put a slight emphasis on the last syllable, almost like he was impressed by the absolute, spectacular fuckery he had just experienced.

“That happened.”

He blinked, resetting his optics just in case they tried to pull any more of that seeing dead people shit, before shifting his gaze to Windshield. His dignity had taken a pretty heavy hit, what with the other mech witnessing him have a moment and all – something which could easily be corrected by killing the smarmy waste of space so the secret would die with him and nobody would know but Thundercloud and Primus.

It was a tempting thought, one Thundercloud entertained for a second or two, just to indulge himself, but didn't consider with any degree of seriousness. Despite how he liked to pretend otherwise, he wasn't a stone-cold sparkless bastard who could kill someone as soon as look at them. He was a killer, sure, but he wasn't a murderer.

“Appreciate you just pretendin' like it didn't. For a face-stealin' psychopath, you're a real bro.”

It was joke, obviously – not just because Thundercloud's go-to response to dealing with any sort of unpleasantness or discomfort was to make a mockery of it, but because he would never give a POS like Windshield a sincere compliment.

“Maybe that'll keep the Big Guy from kickin' your ass to the curb soon as you start pushing old ladies into traffic and burnin' down orphanages or whatever else you do for fun 'sides mutilate corpses.”

Primus, but it was still hard to look at the guy. As tough as he talked, as sure as he was that he could beat the everliving shit out of the weasel little bastard if it came to blows, just looking at the mech made his plates crawl. It was impossible to ignore his face, impossible not to think of where it came from, who it belonged to, what that person did. He was already feeling vaguely nauseated from the smell of the rancid junk pile that was their rendezvous point, he didn't need something that was even more disgusting visually to exacerbate things further.

[Windshield]

"I appreciate the vote of confidence, truly," Windshield shook his head with a smug smile, sarcasm dripped from his voice while he only loosely paid attention to Thunder and how he behaved. Either the small Autobot was completely clueless and unaware that Thundercloud could be dangerous, or he was so sure that he wouldn't try anything funny. Yes, it occurred to Windshield that it would be easy to get killed right here. But people would ask questions, and eventually, somebody would find out the truth. He was as much safe alone as he was in the presence of cameras and witnesses. A little part of him hoped that Thunder had the foresight to understand that as well, but one could never be too sure with Garrus types. People wound up in prison for different shit. Some of them were spectacularly bad at understanding causes and consequences.

Then again, this guy totally did not have the same guts like all the other nasty killers and freaks Windshield knew. Most of his old entourage would shrug, wave, and marvel in the universe's capacity for ironic punishment with a mild chuckle when facing this reality. Not Thunder. He wasn't like them. He might've been a terrible person, but it was clear that this guy still had some lines he wouldn't cross.

Windshield, on the other hand, was just about now learning how to not cross those same lines again. The thought of it kinda set him back, made him snap out of his awful trip down the memory lane. This was not Garrus. He had no lackeys to depend on, no blackmail material, no support group. And he was an Autobot for crying out loud. He couldn't behave like this. Not anymore. There were rules here.

"So, how did a loser like you end up in G1? Takes all kinds of people." He continued in that tonally dissonant, casual tone. It's like Windshield didn't even think his whole body-looting episode was a big deal. Well, either that, or he was too stubborn to explain himself right now. Getting into ancient drama was not a good look for the newest Autobot on the block. He was supposed to be getting better, not worse. It'd take more than one overreaction to get him properly talking about what really happened back then.