Chapter Text
I have a plan," Kickback suddenly says, mid-bite on an energon cube.
The place is full of dried seaweed and whatever else has managed to seep in from the seawater after the hull cracked during one of Starscream's attempts to overthrow Megatron—again.
Bombshell is lying on his front, aft up and helm down, in a very familiar position that Kickback is pretty sure the humans he manipulates call a downward dog.
Shrapnel is behind the beetle insecticon, awkwardly twitching his two oversized mandibles as he tries to pry off a chunk of metal stuck to his aft after a bomb exploded.
Bombshell gives the grasshopper mech a look—well, as much as one can while folded in half—and his shoulders tilt down in a way Kickback easily reads as: 'What kind of plan are you thinking of?' and 'I swear, if you get us in trouble again, I’m throwing you into the nearest scrapyard.'
"Kickback, you do realize that—ow—we aren't—ow—exactly in the best place right now, right?" Bombshell manages to grit out.
"Our current base is some desolate storage room, ow. Our food source is barely two grains, ow. We're just barely earning back Megatron's favor after plotting against him, ow. And that recent raid didn’t exactly leave us unscathed."
Staring down at the other with a blank expression, Kickback simply rolls his optics.
"Yup, yup. Thanks for pointing that out again as if I'm not aware, Mr. Obvious."
"My aft looks like one of those spiky Earth organisms, and Shrapnel’s gonna be busy welding it shut so I don’t bleed out like a squashed tomato," Bombshell mutters, swiveling his helm.
"Ow, ow, ow! Frag it, Shrapnel, I’m going to yank your dentas out at this point!"
Shrapnel only shrugs.
"Then stay still, still. Would you like me to electrify you and knock you out, out, instead? I’m not even a trained medic, medic."
Pausing in his eating, the grasshopper glances down at his small energon cube with a frown. His tanks still churn with hunger, acid scratching at the walls.
Kickback’s HUD flashes warnings about his steadily dropping energy levels. He has to tear his optics away from the energon cube and look over at Bombshell.
A dubious amount of energon is pooling on the floor—enough that he’s sure it’s draining what’s left of the other’s already low reserves.
Shaking his helm, Kickback silently offers the energon cube to the rhinoceros beetle.
“Here,” he says. “I’m not that hungry. You have it.”
As Bombshell opens his mouth to protest, the stag beetle insecticon suddenly taps him from behind.
“Bombshell, shell,” Shrapnel says, a small spark of electricity crackling across his plating. “I’m gonna attempt to weld, weld, the wound, wound.”
“I’m fine—ow—it’s your... ow...” Bombshell trails off with a strange rumble in his throat.
Frowning down at them, Kickback huffs and shakes his helm.
'Stubborn aft,' the grasshopper internally groans. 'I swear, the fragger would let himself offline before taking care of himself.'
Even as he thinks this, memories he’d buried deep in his processor begin to resurface:
As far as he can see, insecticons of all shapes and sizes lie scattered across the dirty, sticky, foul-smelling streets.
Despite the many types of insects passing by him, Kickback can see they’re all malnourished. Their frames are sunken in, with metal slowly chipping away. Some bots’ optics are glazed over, hazy, and unfocused.
Huddling close to the cold frame of his brother, Kickback rests his chin against the side of the other grasshopper’s body, careful not to lean too much given how brittle the metal is.
“I’m hungry,” Kickback mumbles. “Do you think the queen is going to be back soon?”
His brother doesn’t respond, lying as still as stone—and just as cold as the dirty floor beneath them.
Snapping out of his memory, Kickback quickly shoves it to the back corner of his processor.
The grasshopper’s helm swivels back toward the other two insecticons. Bombshell and Shrapnel are arguing again—well, mostly Bombshell, who’s shouting a series of complaints, while Shrapnel mumbles something about holding still or he’ll accidentally weld both legs together.
Watching the scene for a moment, Kickback briefly scans his surroundings.
As if mocking him, the dirty, dreary floor stretches out in every direction.
'Trading one prison for another,' the grasshopper thinks, briefly resetting his optics.
Chewing down on his dentas, Kickback quickly pushes the thought away as determination floods through his lines.
Gently placing the remaining energon cube into his subspace for later, he instead pulls out a large whiteboard on a stand.
“Wait—how did you even stuff that thing inside your tiny subspace?” Bombshell asks, somehow not wincing through the pain. “And when did you even have the time to steal—”
“That’s not important,” Kickback snaps, already setting the board down. “Listen closely, because I’m only explaining this once.”
As the other two insecticons turn toward him, the grasshopper begins rubbing his servos together.
“Alright, so here’s the plan,” Kickback says, holding up the first page. It shows a stick figure drawing of himself next to another random stick figure. “Like some of those humans we ran into before, I’m going to manipulate them.”
Flipping to the next page, he continues, “First, I find some high-ranking Decepticon suckers.”
He flips to another page. “Then I befriend them—suck up to them or something.”
Another flip. This one has a chaotic mess of doodles, illegible flip notes, and a stick figure in a badly drawn white coat and stethoscope.
“I become a doctor. Wait, what?” Kickback blurts, swiveling his helm back toward the whiteboard.
Before he can blink, a blur of wings slams into the board, tackling it to the ground.
'Bam!'
Slowly staring down at where the board had fallen, Kickback sees Shrapnel sprawled on top of it in a spread-eagle position.
A long silence follows as the grasshopper keeps staring at him—Shrapnel, who Kickback could swear looks like he’s sweating, if that were even possible.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, am I really the only one who didn’t know Kickback stashed a fragging whiteboard in his tiny aft subspace?” Bombshell mutters, finally breaking the silence.
“Okay, back to the topic,” Kickback continues, ignoring the waves of embarrassment practically radiating off Shrapnel. “My point is—I’ll suck up to some dumb ‘Cons. Then, once they trust me, I’ll get them to do a few favors.”
At that, Bombshell’s optics narrow slowly.
“Small favors, of course,” Kickback quickly adds. “Nothing outrageous. Like… asking for a bit of extra energon.”
'Because the Decepticons are penny-pinching vermin who apparently prefer keeping a backstabbing traitor on their roster over feeding three loyal insecticons.' Kickback grinds his dentas, then forces himself to relax.
'Whatever,' he thinks. 'As long as I get the energon, that’s all I care about.'
Turning back to Bombshell, he notices the other’s optics narrowed into slits, a deep frown tugging at his faceplates. The effect would be more threatening if his aft wasn’t still raised in a humiliating position.
“There are too many holes in this plan,” Bombshell says flatly. “Who would you even convince, anyway?”
“I have a list,” Kickback replies without missing a beat.
“And how would you even befriend them?”
“Same as I did with the humans. Sweet-talking, flattery, a few honeyed words.”
“And what happens if the plan falls through?” Bombshell presses. “What if whoever you’re sucking up to decides to toss you out like trash? May I remind you, insecticons aren’t exactly loved by the rest of the army?”
Before Kickback can reply, Bombshell suddenly stands up.
“Nope. It’s too dangerous,” he declares, limping toward the room’s exit. “It’s better if I go out there and mind-control some fool instead.”
“Stop right there, you sacrificial aft,” Kickback says slowly, placing a servo on his shoulder. “The only thing you’ll be doing is the downward dog while Shrapnel tries to pry bomb pieces off your posterior.”
Before Bombshell can respond, Kickback gets right in his face and stares up at him.
“Remember—I’m leader this week,” he says. “That means you follow my orders this time.”
It’s a rule the small group of insecticons made for themselves, ever since they found each other without a queen. A way to see if anyone had potential as a new ruler. In truth, it was mostly just a convenient excuse to throw enemies off with inconsistent leadership styles.
Bombshell’s shoulders sag, and he glares down at Kickback. Even without reading his processor, Kickback can tell the other is debating whether to whack him on the helm and go anyway.
After a long pause, Bombshell finally sighs, reluctantly relenting.
“Fine,” he mutters, rubbing the bridge of his nasal ridge. “Do what you want. But if you come back missing so much as a limb, I will deactivate you myself.”
“Look, just trust me, alright?” Kickback says, offering a faint grin. “I promise to come back with all my limbs intact.”
As he heads toward the door, he pauses, glancing back over his shoulder.
From here, he can see two pairs of worried optics locked on him. His spark clenches a little tighter.
“I promise to come back,” he says softly, pressing two fingers to his sparkchamber. “Cross my heart.”
“Actually, actually,” Shrapnel chimes in, raising a digit while still staring at Bombshell’s rear, “We don’t, don’t have a heart, heart. But it’s very, very interesting how—”
“WE KNOW!!!” both Kickback and Bombshell shout in unison.