Title: A Handful of Trouble, Pt. 2

Warning: Prowl is a jerk. The Constructicons aren't any better.

Rating: G

Continuity: IDW

Characters: Prowl, Constructicons, Jazz

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): Commission for SICProwl, who really needed this.

[* * * * *]

This was clearly the best use for the last of Scrapper's credit account.

Brainstorm rolled out of sight and began breaking down the shrinkray with quick, efficient motions. The scientist had an ego the size of the planet, but he was an amoral maestro of weaponry, no lie. They had to admire that in a mech. Especially when he was mercenary enough to agree to a bribe.

Sure, they'd sworn up and down it would be harmless fun, and no damage would come of it. He wouldn't be involved further until a 'cure' was needed. They'd pay him a lot. Like, a lot. That still didn't cancel out the sheer surprise of an Autobot agreeing to their proposal. He hadn't even charged extra for modifying his invention into a sniper rifle frame for long-distance use. He might have cut the price a bit for that part, honestly.

"Remember, I wasn't here. I'm clear across the planet flying a long-range expedition documenting Cybertron's recovery process. My transmission's never hitched, and I have four mechs willing to swear you're lying sacks of scrap if you say otherwise. Got that?" Brainstorm barked while packing away the last of his gun. It and the blueprints for it would be conveniently traveling with him to prevent Perceptor from undoing what he'd just done.

Bonecrusher threw him a lazy salute. "Got it."

"And if anyone traces this to my invention - "

"Whirl did it."

"Good mech." He slammed the lid shut and hefted the case onto his back. A curt nod to the Constructicons, and he turned to sneak off through the rubble of Iacon. Time to actually take up that expedition he'd supposedly been on all this time.

"Hey," Long Haul called after him. "I gotta ask. How do we know you ain't going to rat us out? I mean," he gestured at the chaos far in the distance, "that's your officer down there."

"Heard he was your boss or something," Hook added.

"Yeah. Seems a little weird that you'd shoot him in the back like this. Not that anything's going to happen," he hastened to tack on. "He'll be fine. But…just saying."

Brainstorm stopped but didn't look back. He turned his head just enough that they could see one narrow optic, but he was glaring at the ground as if he were trying to set it on fire. "I won't be saying anything. He's had this coming for a while, now."

The scientist shook his head and started walking again, muttering something under his breath as he went.

Hook and Long Haul watched him go. "Who's Tumbler?" Long Haul asked no one in particular.

"Who cares? Look at him!" The Constructicons clustered low along the piece of wreckage they were hiding behind. "I get why people reacted like that to us, now. He's so - so - "

"Tiny!"

"Cute."

"Indignant." Hook shrugged when they looked at him. "You can't tell me that's not part of why you want to pick him up."

Point for the surgeon. "He's going to hate every second of this." And not one of them denied they were looking forward to it.

Off in the distance, a shrunken Prowl seethed in Optimus Prime's hands.

This was turning into an exercise of belated realizations. "Why the frag didn't we think of that?"

Prowl had too much control to speak in squeaks, apparently. Five bemused Constructicons stood around the desk and watched their tiny sixth do the dance of communication, a ballet of grace and coordination their frames probably couldn't have pulled off. It still made them feel stupid that none of them had even tried. More than one Constructicon shifted, giving their feet speculative looks. Prowl had the feet for delicately hopping from key to key on the touchpad screen. The rubber of his heels worked to both key the pad and keep him from skidding.

It was a fascinating thing to watch, because while he was doing it to keep from undignified high-pitched nonsense noise from his pinprick vocalizer, he lost himself in typing. He whirled and jumped, sweeping his weight onto one foot and pivoting to hit punctuation marks with quick taps of his feet. He looked like he was some kind of critter chasing moving dots on the screen. He'd have been mortified to see himself as they did: a concentrating, frowning, toy-sized mech playing at serious work.

Although he might not have cared as long as they got the message. Standing back, he crossed his arms and huffed, indicating that they should read what he'd written. Jazz didn't even wait to read before grinning.

The five Constructicons ignored him in order to cluster around the datapad to read. 'GO AWAY. NOW. YOU'RE NOT WELCOME HERE.'

That seemed fairly straightforward. "Aww, but he took care of us while we were bitty," Scavenger said. He spread his hands and gave Jazz an amiable look. "Only seems fair we do the same in return."

"He doesn't seem keen on the idea." Jazz's charm was only matched by his danger. The Constructicons had swept into Prowl's office like they belonged there, but Optimus Prime had delegated Prowl-sitting duty to someone who could actually hear the teensy squeaking. Dialing up his audios all the time could blow them out if he wasn't careful, but a day and a half of translating for Prowl had given him the trick of it.

Hook snorted and leaned down to give the shrunken Autobot a smile that only looked harmless on the surface. There was something sharp there that Jazz didn't like at all. "He took such good care of us. He has nothing to worry about. We intend to return his care in kind."

Nope, Jazz didn't like that at all. He didn't like the self-satisfied look in red visors and optics around the desk, and he didn't like the way Prowl froze for half a second. That only sounded like a threat if he believed some things about Prowl that he really didn't want to believe.

Prowl shook off the reaction almost before it could be seen, but they'd seen it. "We even made you a box!" Bonecrusher said brightly as Prowl began a furious little hop-dance across the datapad.

The dance paused, and teeny-tiny suspicion glared up from the desk. A squeak got out before Prowl caught himself, but he silenced himself before Scavenger and Long Haul could do more than titter at him. So cute!

Also liable to slit their fuel lines during their recharge if they told him so.

They kept it down to quiet, giddy grins under his glare. The gestalt bond vibrated from the depth of their silent squeeing.

Prowl buzzed his engine at them. He was. Not. Cute. Got it?

Hmmph.

The dance of communication began again. A minute later, it produced, 'A BOX IS UNNECESSARY. I AM FINE HERE.'

Jazz tipped his head to the side and looked behind Hook, suddenly seeing the box they'd brought in with new optics as Bonecrusher and Mixmaster unpacked it. "Whoa, Prowler. Might not want to be so hasty about that." Prowl gave him a betrayed look, but he jerked his chin at the model being lifted onto the desk. "There ain't a chance in the Pit you mechs made that in less than two days."

Five identical blank looks turned on him. "There's five of us."

"I'm a surgeon. I can rebuild a fuel pump from wreckage in less than an hour."

"It's just molded plastic and metal."

"The hardest part was putting in the plumbing tanks, but those were easy enough to design."

"Installation was a bit tricky."

"Yeah, well, I didn't expect it to pressurize so quick."

"You know how hard it was to make a desk and a berth his size without having access to him for measurements? Now that took time."

"Heeeey, hey, okay!" Jazz's hands went up. "You're good at the construction part of Constructicons, got it! I'm just sayin', the timing's a bit - "

click

They looked down.

One desk, empty of tiny Prowls. One miniature office/living quarters box, door firmly shut. Even as they stared, another click came from the door.

"…did he just lock us out?"

He really had locked them out, which only made him all the angrier, later. The windows in the office and washrack - even Jazz had given them a scandalized look for that - were promptly plastered over from the inside as the tiny Autobot found new uses for the fully-stocked supply closet. Miniaturized as they painstakingly were, office supplies could still be repurposed. The windows were covered.

Finally, some privacy.

Then Mixmaster lifted the top off the office, and Prowl flipped his desk. He stood there among the scattered bits and pieces, venting hard, and let out a shrill squeak of utter frustration.

The Constructicon stared down at him, dumbfounded. "Uh, I, uh. Made you a blend." Using tweezers, he gingerly deposited three miniscule cubes of energon on a side table. He was going to put them on Prowl's desk, but the desk was currently tipped up on its end against the far wall. "It's slower burning, so it should keep your levels up. I, uh," he watched Prowl shriek another angry squeak at him and storm toward the door into the living quarters part of the box, "didn't want you to have to keep refueling all the time? Like we did?"

The door slammed.

"What'd I say?"

Half a minute later, while Mixmaster was still staring down into the mess, Prowl opened the door in order to stomp out, grab the cubes, and stomp back in.

The door slammed again.

The high-pitched noises and confusion over the gestalt bond brought Long Haul in to see what was going on. He looked at Mixmaster, looked in the box, and shook his head. "He didn't like it?"

"I have no idea…"

"Is he okay?"

"I think so."

That got a grunt, and Long Haul pushed his fellow Constructicon aside. "He's got a temper. We knew that."

"Yeah, but what'd I do to set him off?"

Long Haul shrugged, most of his attention in the tiny, scale-model office. His fingers were still weirdly large, but he stole Mixmaster's tweezers to set the place to rights. The desk went back where it started, and this time he wedged the side table and a filing cabinet against the side and front to make it harder to move around. Personally, he didn't care if Prowl wanted to fling furniture around, but Bonecrusher and Hook would get their kibble in a twist if Prowl mucked around with their design. They were already ruffled over him blocking the windows, and not just because it meant they couldn't use them to check on him. He was changing their design vision.

Something he kept doing. Anytime they lifted the top off his office to give him a new blend of energon or even some high-octane engex, he got mad.

First he flipped the desk. Long Haul tried to make that more difficult a second time, but it seemed he'd only challenged the little bugger.

Prowl not only flipped the desk again, but he went around and flipped the side table and the file cabinet, too. Well, more like he tipped the cabinet over, but the self-satisfied sense of accomplishment he radiated as it did it made his intent clear. He put his hands on his hips and broadast smugness at the speechless Constructicons gaping down at him.

"Why you little - !"

Scavenger caught Hook's hand midway into the box for a well-deserved squashing of the impudent pipsqueak. "Don't!" he hissed at the surgeon.

Not that it mattered, because Prowl had already dodged under the safety of the upended desk, staring up at them more warily from its shelter. Oh yes, he remembered teaching them manners that way. No squishing for him. He'd squeak complaints to Jazz, who'd report it to Optimus Prime, and the Constructicons were too aware of the fact that they'd been given care of this vulnerable mini-Prowl as some sort of trial.

Hook glared. Prowl watched him. When it became clear that the Constructicon wouldn't touch him, he smirked.

"Flip this," the surgeon growled as he meticulously reset the office back the way he'd designed it. This time, he outright glued the side table and filing cabinet to the desk. He tossed the datapad transmitter Scavenger had designed onto the desk as an afterthought. "Ungrateful anklebiter."

As if to spite him, two minutes after he replaced the top on the box, the datapad linked to the transmitter lit up. 'THANK YOU VERY MUCH.'

They looked at it. According to the files flashing up on the screen, he'd promptly gone back to work on the upcoming trial as soon as he figured out what the transmitter did. The mech didn't know how to relax.

"He's trouble," Scavenger said.

Hook chuffed a reluctant laugh out of his vents. "No wonder we like him."

Despite the glued conglomerate of furniture, Prowl managed to get his revenge. The next time they took the top of the box, he didn't try to flip the desk. He must have already figured out it was too much mass for his bitty body to handle. Instead, he ignored the Constructicons looking down at him and hooked a length of wiring around the ungainly piece of furniture, then transformed.

Still ignoring them, the tiny car towed the thing out the door of the office, across the surface of his (normal sized) desk, and -

"No you don't!"

- pushed it off the edge. Three sets of hands made a grab for it, but too late.

"Fragger!" Long Haul took his turn restraining Hook this time.

Prowl transformed and looked down at the broken desk on the floor far below. He lifted his chin and stalked back toward his box.

"What's his problem?" Mixmaster muttered.

"Got me. Hook! Stop it! You can't throw him into the trash bin and you know it!"

It took a while for the Constructicons to figure out Prowl was objecting to the lack of privacy.

Actually, it was Jazz who figured it out. They probably would have never gotten on their own, because it wasn't something gestalt cared about.

"Okay, okay! I'll knock next time!" the saboteur laughed after being yelled at. He'd pulled open the top and peeked into the model office, and Prowl wasn't happy. Indignant squeaking continued to scold him. "At least I didn't look in the washrack, right?" A mote of light soared up and bounced off the front of his visor, and he laughed harder, putting up his hands in surrender and defense against any more flung energon cubes. "Gah! Prowl!"

Ohhhh. The Constructions exchanged stunned looks. Was that it?

They started knocking. Prowl stopped flinging furniture around.

Until he found out about the cameras.

He insisted on driving everywhere.

Of course he did. Being picked up and carried would have been faster, but Prowl wouldn't submit to being handled. For Primus' sake, he had his dignity.

Nevermind that he'd inflicted carrying on the Constructicons anytime they'd had to go anywhere, and their opinion on the subject had never been asked. It hadn't mattered to them. They hadn't minded being carried by him because he was their sixth, but they suspected he was making a point about his individuality.

Either that or rubbing in that his altmode was far faster than any of theirs. Even smaller than one of their hands, he could out-zoom their walking pace now.

Bonecrusher shook his head at the bitty car idling up ahead. "Yeah, we get it. You're fast, we're slow. It comes with the mass, short stuff." A beep sassed back at him, because Prowl had found a weak point in their pride as Constructicons and wouldn't be laying off it anytime soon.

"Construction crew," Hook said more sharply. The needling had gotten on his sparkplugs before they'd gotten out of the building. By now, he was fuming. "We are made for heavy labor, not speed. Speed can be done by any lightweight. It is precision and heft we look for when we scan our altmodes."

Headlights flashed visual code, giving Prowl's opinion on that. Hook glowered. Bonecrusher coughed and stared off into the sky, trying not to get in trouble with his own gestaltmate for the amusement he felt. Prowl claimed not to know them, not to want them, not to be one of them, and yet he navigated the team's internal dynamics like he'd been doing it all his life.

Hook needed someone to bicker with and challenge, as well as be challenged by. Prowl fit the bill. The rest of them had gotten along as they were, but Hook had been the one left the most adrift by Scrapper's death. Now he had someone to match wits with again.

Bonding with an Autobot hadn't been what any of them had wanted, but it'd worked out well for everyone's plans in the end.

"Don't get too far ahead," he called when he could talk without laughing in Hook's face. "We might not be fast enough to pry you out of a turbofox's jaws, right?"

No beep.

Bonecrusher looked around. Uh, no beep because there was no car.

"Oh frag. Hook?"

"What?!"

"I think we lost Prowl."

It was okay. It was fine. Everything was just peachy-keen.

Sure, Prowl had fallen through a crack in the surface and ended up far below Iacon's ruins in the sub-basement of some prewar structure. Sure, he'd been dinged up, scuffed to the Pit and back, and unable to move for fear of triggering a long-abandoned trap that he'd landed square on. Yeah, getting down there had been an adventure in and of itself.

There had been a tense moment there while Hook weighed the bag of bolts in one hand and tried to judge if it was the exact weight of the tiny mech standing, paralyzed with tension, on the pedestal in the center of the room. He'd done it, of course. Hook had good judgment for winging substitutions on the fly. So he'd swiped Prowl off the trigger with one hand and set the sack on it at the exact same moment.

He insisted he had, anyway, but the boulder that'd almost crushed them all said otherwise. Oh well.

The Constructicons had discovered they could actually run far faster than they'd previously known, and Prowl had gotten over the indignity of being carried. A bonding experience for all! Running and screaming for their lives served to bring them closer to together. Some day, they'd look back at nearly dying, laugh nervously, and change the subject.

But Hook and Bonecrusher had gotten him out, and that was the important part.

That left the unfortunate aftermath, which consisted of how badly damaged Prowl was. "Cosmetic, mostly," Hook said as he peered through a series of magnifying lenses over his visor. "Your chestplate needs to be counterbalanced before it falls right off. You're used to back-mounted doors, aren't you? We can use a wire structure to hook over your shoulders, then. Turn."

A lens clicked. Prowl drew himself up and refused to be intimidated by the face getting closer to him. Stiff but grudgingly obedient, he turned around.

Hook didn't even notice, he was so focused on studying the damage. "Superficial damage on your legs, but there's lot of it. I want to reinforce the armor until your self-repair systems start filling in the cracks. Same with your forearms." He straightened finally and looked down at the miniature mech. "You'll live."

"That's good to know." Bonecrusher's hands curled gently around his tiny burden. He'd refused to let the little guy down since rescuing him, and Prowl had yet to object. "So here's the big question." Both Hook and Prowl cocked their heads at him. "We going to take him back to let that cranky old medic repair him? 'Cause I guarantee we ain't getting him back if any of the Autobots see him like this."

Prowl blinked and squeaked a question. Apparently he hadn't thought of that. Jazz would have the Constructicons out of the building so fast they'd break their new speed record, and Prowl - well, Prowl would likely be put in his model-sized office and trapped there for his own safety until he could be restored to his normal self. No matter how long that took. And the box would probably be relocated to the main medibay, which was out of the way for any of the official business, including the trial that he was preparing for. Out of sight, out of mind. He'd be forgotten within a few days.

He gave a more empathic squeak this time. Pronounced as clearly and loudly as he could, it still sounded like a squeak. He shook his head when Bonecrusher just looked at him. No, he didn't want Ratchet to repair him.

Hook, being Hook, agreed on entirely different grounds. "There's no reason to involve Ratchet. I'm perfectly capable of repairing him!"

"Uh, but, I mean, we've got to bring him back without everybody going, 'You 'Cons broke him!' at us."

"Tsk. That's easy enough."

The surgeon preferred a surgical suite, but he'd been doing battlefield repairs too long to not know how to use what he had on hand. Thus the reason Prowl ended up painted a lovely iridescent white from the waist down, forearms the same shimmering color. It really was a beautiful color. It broke light into reflected glimmers of blue, orange, and red. The fact that it was the only paint they could find out there in the ruins didn't detract from how pretty it was. It covered the ugly temporary solder Hook put on the bitty tactician's legs, but it looked good while doing so.

Prowl still glowered at them for painting up the counterweights they hung off his back. That was unnecessary, in his opinion.

"They're already going to attract attention," Hook hissed down at him as they definitely didn't sneak back toward the central buildings. "At least now they look decorative instead of like a medical necessity." An angry squeak questioned how exactly this was decorative, of all things. "I don't know. Say they're wings! Wings on a grounder are whimsical enough." Prowl didn't look convinced. He looked mad. "Oh, just act cute. Nobody will care as long as you're cute."

That didn't make him look any less mad.

Constructicons weren't made for stealth any more than they were made for speed. Something about the bright green and purple paintjobs made sneaking difficult for them. Bonecrusher and Hook put on their best impatient expressions and acted like they had places to be. Busy Constructicons were common enough around these parts that they hoped to pass casual inspection.

They were doing okay until they rounded the last corner and almost ran smack into Sunstreaker. Bonecrusher clamped his hands shut a little too late, and Hook pasted on a slightly too-wide smile as he stepped in front of his larger teammate. The freakish pet Insecticon the Autobot had snuffled about, beady optics fixed avidly on the hands holding something interesting out of his reach. He could tell it was interesting. It was squeaking.

The three of them stared at each other. Bob looked back at his master and whined, tail end wagging eagerly.

Sunstreaker bent to the side and peered around Hook. "Is that who I think it is?"

Bonecrusher stared back at him. "…maybe. Might be." Probably was. "Who do you think it is?"

"Uh-huh." The golden fighter nodded, then shook his head and pushed past both Constructicons. "Nope, I'm not doing this. C'mon, Bob." Hook and Bonecrusher turned to watch him go, and they heard him mutter as he went, "I don't even want to know why the Tooth Fairy's on Cybertron."

They stared after him. "Okay, then," Hook said softly. "Inside, before some other crazy mech shows up."

It was as simple as that. There might have been a few rumors, but nothing serious. Hook and Bonecrusher pretended to know nothing when mechs started checking that there really wasn't some kind of micro-sized human magic creature hanging around waiting to steal parts from people's mouths. Jazz looked suspicious over the new paintjob, but Prowl hid his limp and fed the Autobots some scrap about Mixmaster testing heat-resistant paints on him.

Later, once the cracks mended, he let Hook repaint him back to his regular colors. That involved letting the Constructicons clean and handle him, clustered together around him in a grinning, cooing crowd that embarrassed and enraged him, but it got the job done. They insisted on him recharging with him in a pile after that, but fine. Whatever. He could indulge them one time.

The shrinkray was eventually pried out of Brainstorm's hands after the scientist returned, and Prowl was zapped back to normal. That was the important part. Everything that happened while he was small was unimportant. Prowl only cared about getting back to normal.

The model box stayed in a corner of his office, however. The Constructicons never asked him why, and he wouldn't have told them if they had.

They didn't really need to ask.

[* * * * *]