Author's note : This was written for the 28s meme (Angsty), but turned out to be long enough that it became a story of its own.

Chapter 1.

Wildrider waited to be punished.

He'd slagged up an assignment, and he knew it. Ordered to hold a position and provide backup when it was called for, he'd forgotten that when one of the Autobots began taunting him from cover. Wildrider didn't even remember what the Autobot had shouted to him, only that his wheels had itched to spin, his chassis trembling with the denied thrill of the chase.

He was a terrorist, not a sniper. Patience was not his strong point; causing mayhem was what he had been created for. And so his engine had roared a response as he shot out into the open with a wild laugh, smashing into the Autobot lines. The next thing he knew, the Decepticon channels had gone equally wild, and the fury thudding through the gestalt link was all for him.

He had managed to get away without any injury more serious than a few scrapes, but he knew that wouldn't last for long. They'd returned to the base in a stony silence and Wildrider knew he was going to face Motormaster's brand of discipline at any moment. His only consolation was that Motormaster was rarely turned on by a mission falling through, so chances were he would only have the slag beaten out of him.

It had happened before, and it would happen again. Wildrider shifted on his berth, wishing that Motormaster would simply comm him and get it over with. The anticipation of waiting was worse than the actual beating.

He checked his internal chronometer, wondering what was taking so long. Was Motormaster thinking up some means of punishment that was even worse? Wildrider couldn't imagine anything more painful unless it was out-and-out torture, the kind of thing Vortex would get a kick out of. Motormaster simply didn't go in for that, though – mostly because it would damage his troops to the point where even the Constructicons would lodge complaints about the amount of repairs.

And Motormaster prided himself on not needing devices or instrumentation of any kind to chastise his troops.

After what felt like an hour of fidgeting miserably, Wildrider decided he couldn't bear the silence any longer. He reached up to the shelf above his berth and turned on the stereo, though for once he didn't push the volume up as high as it would go. This was part of the punishment, prolonging the wait, and he looked around for something – anything – to do that would distract him from it.

No such luck, he thought glumly. His room was crammed with all sorts of things, from a set of drums to a stuffed kangaroo he had taken from a museum – he loved collecting anything musical, destructive, oddly-shaped or just plain shiny. But none of it really appealed to him at that moment.

Maybe I should comm him instead.

He thought that over. It would be stupid to antagonize Motormaster further, but what if doing that made him hurry up and get the punishment over with already? Then at least it would be over and done with, and he could spend his time recovering rather than worrying in his room. Wildrider brightened up at once. That's a good--

His door beeped, then slid open.

For a moment Wildrider wasn't sure how that had happened, and then Motormaster stepped into the room. Oh, right. As his commander, Motormaster could override his access code. But… what's he doing here?

A single cold shiver ran down his back, like a drop of liquid ice tracing the length of his spinal strut as the door hissed shut.

Motormaster stood there, watching him out of flat purple optics that gave nothing away, and Wildrider found himself hoping fervently that he wasn't going to be interfaced. He was used to that – all the Stunticons were – but he didn't want it to be done on his berth. He supposed the berth might be able to take Motormaster's weight, but he didn't want to be reminded of the experience each time he tried to recharge.

Maybe I'll forget it somehow, he thought. He knew his memory wasn't very good – that was a side-effect of being insane. Problem was, Motormaster knew that as well, and Wildrider had a feeling that Motormaster was going to mete out some punishment he would remember for the rest of his life, whether his mind was slagged-up or not.

"You cost us an energon shipment," Motormaster said finally.

Wildrider said nothing, because there was nothing to say. Motormaster hated excuses and despised apologies, so he only looked down at his feet and braced himself for a blow.

"Sometimes I think I should get all your processors wiped and reprogrammed," Motormaster continued. His voice was so matter-of-fact that it made Wildrider's internal components clench. "Slag, why bother with the reprogramming? A drone would be more reliable than you are. Wouldn't make so much fragging noise either."

He wouldn't. It would break the gestalt bond and hurt all of us. Wildrider held on to that conviction desperately and said nothing.

Motormaster crossed the distance between them, slid a finger under Wildrider's chin and tilted his face up. Wildrider fought not to react to the closeness, to the way his dermal plating felt as though it would crawl from the touch. "But then I thought I'd give you another chance."

He smiled, and Wildrider felt sick with dread. Don't show it. Don't show anything. Motormaster loathed it when the Stunticons exhibited any sign of weakness, and although there had been a few times in the past when Wildrider had begged for mercy, he'd learned fast enough that that was a good way to simply worsen the ordeal.

"But there's something you have to learn." Motormaster let his hand drop. "You lost us a good opportunity to prove our worth to Megatron. Not to mention a lot of energon. So you're going to lose a few things as well."

Wildrider looked at him blankly. Lose a few things? That made him think of something falling out of a subspace pocket or his passenger compartment; what did Motormaster mean by--

Motormaster stepped back and drew his sword.

Wildrider flinched instinctively, but the weapon wasn't aimed at him. Motormaster swung it in a hard, gleaming arc and the blade smashed into Wildrider's stereo system.

The music ended in a crunch. Shards of hot metal and molten plastic flew everywhere, but Wildrider couldn't have moved if he wanted to. He stood frozen. Motormaster swept a row of geodes off a lower shelf into his free hand, gathering them up, then closed his fist tightly. There was a low grinding sound, and when he opened his fingers, quartz fragments fell like glittering rain to the floor.

Wildrider felt his mouth components move, but nothing came out of his vocalizer. No, he thought.

Motormaster didn't even pause to look at the remains of the geodes. He turned and drove a foot into the drum kit. The huge bass drum crumpled as though it had been made of paper, and the frame of the floor tom snapped.

Don't smash anything else. Please--

Motormaster slashed a box of DVDs in half without even opening it, then tore the dragon-shaped fighter kite from the wall. It dropped in a heap of shreds as he turned, looking slowly around the room. His stare stopped on the kangaroo.

Wildrider felt as though an invisible vise around his throat had opened, just enough to let a word through. "No!" he said.

He'd had the kangaroo for years, ever since he and Drag Strip had broken into a museum at night to steal some component for Megatron's latest weapon. For some reason he'd driven through the wrong wing, but he'd pulled up with a screech of brakes when he saw the stuffed and mounted kangaroo. Patchy though his memory often was, he still remembered the reflections of headlights in its black glass eyes. He looked down to see the smaller kangaroo poking its head out of a compartment in the larger one's abdominal fur.

Just like Soundwave, only cute! He transformed at once and checked the compartment to see if there were any other midgets inside, but there was just the one. Still cute, though, he thought and took the kangaroo home. It had sat in a corner of his room from then on, with the little one looking up from its belly.

Motormaster grimaced in disgust and took a stride towards it, raising his sword.

Without thinking, Wildrider flung himself at Motormaster, grabbing his sword-arm and pulling it aside. Motormaster turned on him at once, closing his free hand around the upper edge of Wildrider's chestplate, fingers digging painfully into the gap between plates of armor. He wrenched his arm free and flung Wildrider away with a contemptuous flick of his hand. Wildrider's shoulder slammed into a funhouse mirror so hard that it shattered the glass and left a deep dent in the mirror's backing. He slumped to the floor, half-dazed.

The sword swung for the last time. As if he was watching it all in slow-motion, Wildrider saw the kangaroo's head tilt to one side. The dark eyes gleamed once before it struck the floor and rolled away.

Motormaster subspaced his sword and turned to Wildrider. "Were you fond of that… thing?"

Wildrider couldn't speak. His shoulder throbbed, but the sensation didn't seem to penetrate the cold emptiness that filled his chest. He lay with his back to the wall and thought, Just let it be over.

"I'll take that as a yes. Finish it off."

Huh? Confused, Wildrider looked up and met Motormaster's optics.

"Finish it off?" he repeated.

"With your gun, idiot." Motormaster prodded the kangaroo's body with his foot. "Get rid of the rest of it. Learn to obey orders for once."

Wildrider looked at the kangaroo's decapitated body. I could have put its head back on after Motormaster left – it wouldn't have been the same, but I could have salvaged it. The smaller kangaroo seemed to look back at him, little paws on the edge of the compartment as if it was ready to hop out at any moment.

"Or all the rest of the useless slag in here goes as well," Motormaster said. "Now."

With an effort, Wildrider drew his scattershot gun and adjusted the settings so that the lasters would emerge in a tight concentrated beam. For a moment – a moment only – he imagined turning that on Motormaster, shooting straight into his face.

He fired at the remains of the kangaroo instead. There was a soft phht and the body exploded into a cloud of dust.

Motormaster's engine rumbled with satisfaction. He turned and left the room without a backward look.

I hate you, Wildrider thought dully. I hate you. The sentiment was useless too – Motormaster knew it and didn't care – but he couldn't help saying it silently, and the words were like a litany that meant he wouldn't need to think about anything else.

The gun slipped from his fingers and he drew his legs up to his chest, wrapping his arms around himself as if to make a smaller target. He knew he couldn't just sit there for long, but he told himself that he would only need to wait until the dust settled.

Then he would decide what to do with the ruins in his room.

There was a quiet knock on the door. Wildrider's optics onlined involuntarily, but he knew at once that it was his teammates – he didn't even need a gestalt link to tell him that. Who else would it be?

"Wildrider?" Drag Strip's voice said.

Wildrider just wanted to be left alone, but he also knew he couldn't simply ignore his teammates if he wanted them to go away. So he dragged himself to his feet and went to the door, trying to ignore what had once been his belongings.

He didn't want his teammates seeing what had happened – somehow, that would make the destruction even more real. So he slid the door half-open, keeping his frame in the doorway to block anyone's view of a room that looked as if Motormaster had driven through it in alt-mode.

Breakdown and Drag Strip were outside. Drag Strip looked him over, but Breakdown seemed to have caught a glimpse of something behind him, because he angled his head for a better look.

"You okay?" he said tentatively.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Wildrider's voice came out a little staticky, and he forced himself to smile to compensate for that.

"What happened in there?" Breakdown stepped to one side, still trying to see around Wildrider.

"Nothing." Wildrider twitched his uninjured shoulder in a shrug. "The boss just broke something, that's all."

Breakdown still looked concerned. "D'you need some help--"

"No, 'course not." Wildrider attempted a cheerful laugh. It must have sounded less than cheerful, because they both looked at him as if he was choking. "I just need to clean up a little, that's all. You guys don't need to waste your time." Slag, I have to distract them somehow. "Where's Dead End?"

Breakdown tilted his head to one side, in the direction of Motormaster's quarters.

"Oh." That made sense and wasn't entirely unexpected – Motormaster had been kind of revved up after the session – but Wildrider still felt a twinge of guilt, as if Dead End was taking a punishment that should have been his.

"Well, if you're sure you're all right…" Breakdown said. Wildrider nodded emphatically, but his fingers, on the inside of the door where no one could see them, locked around the doorgrip so hard that they hurt. He fought to contain himself, clamping down on his emotions before they could feed into the gestalt link.

"We'll be in the common room," Drag Strip said. "I want to watch The Fast and the Furious."

"Have fun," Wildrider said, and closed the door. Then he let his knees fold, leaned against the smooth metal and offlined his optics.

"Something's wrong," he heard Breakdown say, voice muffled by the door.

"Oh, he's okay," Drag Strip said. "You saw him – he just had a dent or two."

"Yeah, but he said Motormaster broke something--"

"So? You know Wildrider – he loves smashing things up. He'd have broken whatever it was himself sooner or later. And he doesn't even need repairs, the lucky slagger." Their voices faded into the distance.

Lucky, Wildrider thought, optics still offline. Yeah, I guess I am. Compared to some of the punishments Motormaster's handed out, this is nothing. He didn't beat me into stasis lock, did he? He didn't force me to 'face either.

I'm so lucky.

He could avoid looking at the remains of his things, but his olfactory sensors picked up the smell of scorched organic material and molten plastic. And the silence was even worse, until a ping on his radio interrupted it, and he accepted the transmission automatically.

"Wildrider?" Drag Strip said. "If you're cleaning up, I found something you could use. I'll leave it outside your room."

"Okay," Wildrider said tonelessly, too tired to even wonder what it was. He wasn't too surprised at the offer; Drag Strip was nearly always indifferent and dismissive in public, afraid of appearing in the least soft, but he could be nicer when he was sure no one would know about it.

He heard a soft scuffling sound outside, then more silence. He thought of Breakdown and Drag Strip curled up on the couch watching the film, and hoped Dead End wasn't having too bad a time of it.

After a while he got up and opened the door, not knowing what else to do. Outside, in the empty corridor, was a box.

No, a crate, an empty crate. Wildrider looked down at it blankly, wondering what to do with it, and then saw the words TRASH DISPOSAL on its side.

It's for my things. The thought swam slowly up from his processors, like a bubble rising from the depths of the sea. I can put them in it and take them down to be recycled or incinerated. This morning they were my belongings that I collected and kept safe, and now they're trash.

He picked the crate up, carried it into his room and closed the door. He set the crate down on the floor and reached for the kangaroo's decapitated head. That was going in first, so he wouldn't have to look at the black glass eyes watching him, asking silently why he had destroyed its body, why he had let it all happen.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

"It's okay," the kangaroo replied.