Cleaning Up

Engine growling, the familiar blue truck rolls up to the crappy little apartment in Ibex, grumbling all the way until he ticks over to a stop at the door, transforming smoothly back into root mode as he shoulders his way in. He does not generally take as good a care of his chassis as Knock Out, because who does, but the sheer number of scrapes, minor dents, scratches, chips and nicks to his paint that he presents on clanking inside make him -- well, he suits his dilapidated surroundings better than usual. 
Breakdown locks the door behind him and then, briefly, hits it with his head.
It is not particularly unusual for Breakdown to find his partner twisting in certain body-bending fashion in an attempt to buff out a hard to reach spot, although he /usually/ waits to have some hands-on assistance. "Where have you been?" he complains before he's even looked over towards the door. "I've been trying to get this spot out for--" He finally gets a good look at Breakdown and frowns, the expression somewhere between protective and disapproving. "What happened to you?"
It is not particularly unusual for Breakdown to find his partner twisting in certain body-bending fashion in an attempt to buff out a hard to reach spot, although he /usually/ waits to have some hands-on assistance. "Where have you been?" Knock Out complains before he's even looked over towards the door. "I've been trying to get this spot out for--" He finally gets a good look at Breakdown and frowns, the expression somewhere between protective and disapproving. "What happened to you?"
"Heh." It's a reassuring first noise for Breakdown to make, maybe. His feet thunk across the floor, lumbering over the brief distance between them. He sets something small and innocuous, a data slug, down on their nearest surface with an unusual care to ensure it stays put, pointed fingers framing it in place for a moment as he looks down the length of his arm at it. He straightens up, pauldrons shifting, and holds out his hand for the buffer. "You're gonna have to help me with some of this," he says. "You know that Autobot with the missing femme where I wasn't gonna do anything?"
Knock Out opens his mouth, closes it, and sets down the buffer so that he can cross his arms and glare at Breakdown. "This sounds an /awful/ lot like a story that's going to end with, 'I went and did something,'" he says with just the /mildest/ hint of accusation.
"Uh-huh, yeah." Breakdown closes his hand, widening his stance on the set of his heels. He smiles, just a little, into Knock Out's glare -- counterweights upon the same fulcrum, one frowns, the other smiles. It's just usually more likely to go the other way, at least if smirking counts as smiling. "Flame-out kid was there, too. Saved my gears at least once. Let me tell you, Knock Out, that's just /all/ kinds of embarrassing."
"/Why/ are you /hanging out/ with him," Knock Out says, a hint of a whine grating his voice. "Why are you doing things with him! We hate him!"
"I didn't /invite/ him," Breakdown points out, reasonable counterweight to that edge of whine, and he spreads his arms wide, "but I need you to pay attention to the part where there's incredibly creepy scrap going on underneath Dead End. Okay?" His weight shifts back onto the heels of his feet, a grinding noise made in the depths of his chest. 
"Because we went in through this relinquishment clinic but underneath there was ... it was basically /a building/ full of chambers of horrors, and I expect you'll find out what kind cause we ended up letting them all out to ransack the city. And we found the femme in this lab where this /creepy guy/ with a bunch of /extra arms/ was tryin' to move her spark to this weird arachnicon looking frame, right? And that idiot Blurr showed up and I swear I'da killed him if he'd wrecked it any worse."
This story is a little difficult to parse. Breakdown is fiercely angry about a lot of it, though: that much is extremely clear.
"I--" The irritation eases to a more generalized sense of confusion as Breakdown hops his verbal way through his story. For a long moment after the end, Knock Out just looks at him. Blinking. Then: "Well. That all sounds -- unsettling." He cants his head, considering his partner, and then sighs a long-suffering sort of sigh. "Perhaps you should try explaining a bit more -- more."
"But it matters more when you kill somebody like Blurr," Breakdown snarls, a little like he's grinding into higher gear in a sputtering growl of engine. He pounds his fist into his palm and then twists his arms up to brace knuckles against his forehead, glowering down at Knock Out, or not so much /at Knock Out/, as glowering generally while looking at him. He turns and punches the wall with shuddering force. The wall bears other signs of earlier impacts that they haven't yet bothered to fix. Their neighbors hate them. 
"Jazz, Hot Rod and I went to the clinic in the Dead End, where people go to sell their bodies or trade in alt modes or whatnot. Underneath it, there were dozens of labs. Outliers an' low caste folks being experimented on. You know. People nobody'd miss. Probably all funded right out of the Senate else I don't know why the Autobot knew so much. I ain't got the time of day for those badgey puppets but he took us down there. Maybe sometimes when you're in the thick of how much scrap there is, just how corrupt and garbage the entire system is, maybe even a puppet can't keep his eyes closed forever."
"Wait." Knock Out lifts a hand as he tries to parse all of this. "You're telling me that there's a whole /mad scientist lab/ underneath the clinic where they're just -- taking bots off the street to do whatever they want to? They're just--" Knock Out's anger is of a considerably different type than Breakdown's: it's colder, more seething, and more contained. He does not punch any walls, but he fails to look shocked or surprised when his partner does.
"I don't know where they got them all," Breakdown growls. "I mean, some of them were clearly the suicidal miserable walking shells that walked into the relinquishment clinic to die." He shifts into motion, prowling through the narrow strip of room between them all restless and undirected. "At least one of 'em they got by abductin', though, I guess. Feint. Blurr's ... whatever. Most of what I saw of her was her /spark/ gettin' thrown around like it was a toy and then shoved in her frame like it was trash into the scrap heap, though." 
Things Breakdown is mad about: apparently, the list is very long, and includes mostly everything.
"You'd think they'd be smart enough to not go after the -- whatever -- of one of the most famous bots on Cybertron," Knock Out growls. "If they can't even keep their high caste happy--"
"I dunno the details. Guess she left him or somethin'. Don't really care, frankly. Wanted to crack his head, but that's--" Breakdown dismisses it as he stomps back the other way again. "Took all the data we could, from Jazz. Hot Rod's got it too. Want everyone to know what we found down there. I don't know what /he's/ gonna do with it, but I want all the Decepticons to know. Everyone should be gettin' mad about this."
Knock Out looses a string of colorful but efficient Cybertronian curses. "They think they can do /anything/--" he starts to say, before he stops himself. "So you're taking it straight to /him/, then?"
"I don't know what else to do," Breakdown says, weight creaking back and forth between his feet. "Took down a bunch of the guards. Set loose the prisoners. You know, they were all crazy or wantin' to die but they got out. I don't know if it was a good idea. Not sure how we did that part, honestly. Think it was Hot Rod."
"No, I think you're right," Knock Out says, voice quieting with thoughtfulness. "He'll be the one who will have the best channels for distributing it. Rallying everyone." He wanders a few steps closer to Breakdown, agreement and support through -- proximity.
"You've really got to help me look less like a walking accident if I'm gonna do that," Breakdown says, turning to face him with shoulders squaring and fist resting against palm. He snorts, glow-bright optics narrowing in his face.
"/Well/. Fortunately, /that/ is something well-within my expertise." Knock out moves past him, reaching to spin one of the tires on his back on the way past, to gather up to his equipment. Tools. /Medical things/.
"Yup," Breakdown says with the shadow of a smile. It fades quickly; lumbering in Knock Out's wake with a frown writing itself between the bladed prongs that frame his features, he says, "You woulda hated it, but I was real sorry we didn't have you there when we got to the lab, cause ain't nobody in that room knew what was going on with the creepy guy with all the arms or what he was doin' to Feint."
"Good to know that Flame-Out is just as stupid as I think he is," Knock Out comments, pleased. (Breakdown gets to be smart about other things. Hot Rod is dumb about EVERYTHING!!) "Sometimes I /do/ think it would be helpful to have more than the two arms." He affixes a light to the side of his head and flips it on to wash Breakdown's paint in ultraviolet, making the dents and dings all the more clear. He is serious about his work, guys. He then gets to work on the process of painstakingly smoothing and repairing each little mark with even more attention that he offers his professional repairs.
Breakdown fails to leap to Hot Rod's defense, though he does keep frowning. "I can't imagine that you would /want/ to have more than two arms. He was pretty hideous-looking, Knock Out." He is fairly good about holding still for Knock Out's work, despite the low grumbling that echoes from his engine.
"I didn't say it wouldn't be difficult to reimagine my look," Knock Out says with a dignified sniff. "I'm sure that anyone /else/ sporting more than one pair of arms looks hideous." Ding ding ding. That is -- apparently the sound of removing dents? Idk.
Breakdown considers for a beat, but apparently is clever enough to realize not to argue with Knock Out under these circumstances. He says, "Uh-huh." After a long moment he adds, "You should look at the data, too. We should all look at it."
"I will," Knock Out promises, but his voice is growing a bit distracted as he expends most of his focus on the task of making his boyfriend perfect again.
Breakdown falls quiet finally, at this, and leaves him to work his magic on the canvas, so to speak.
Category:NC Institute