Work Text:
Sideswipe was a peculiar bot. Not because of any of the usual traits you’d suspect, even if there were many.
Was it his obsession with pranks? Plausible, but not. Even if sometimes they could derail work for days, if not weeks, worth of time, at the end of the day, they were always just childish antics the Ark got used to and, over time, came to enjoy.
When everything seems so bleak, with more and more rooms emptying due to their residents never returning from the battlefield, a simple glitterbomb and Prowl’s angry yells could really bring a smile to anybot’s faceplates.
Maybe it was his ability to create high-grade seemingly out of nowhere? That could be it. Anyone who ever planned a party abroad the Ark knew there was just one bot to trust with supplying the party full. Everyone drank what he created, everyone liked it, or could at least admit it was good.
No, it must’ve been how easily he made friends. It seemed like everybot he came across, no matter how much he annoyed them, seemed to end up in his corner. Ironhide, who went from kicking him out of the training range just to have some peace, to sparring with him regularly with a smile on his faceplates. Prowl, who even when he groaned over all the chaos the red warrior spread whenever he went, couldn’t bring himself to give him truly serious sanctions for his actions, letting him slip away with a slap to the wrist, some brig time and extra monitor duty.
Ratchet, who raged and threw more wrenches at Sideswipe than all the other mechs aboard the Ark combined, yet who worked the hardest when it was the red warrior needing him. Who, when given a chance to save a patient with higher chances for survival and Sideswipe in critical condition, would save the other every time. Who grumbled and complained, yet let the young mech stay by his side during calmer hours, watching his work, even helping in the rare times he wasn’t injured himself.
The last part definitely connected to another of his oddities, the strange gentleness he could possess in moments that needed it. Really, watching someone capable of bashing a decepticon to a blue pulp in seconds help put nanite paste on smaller scratches after battles while medics aided the grievously wounded was quite the sight.
Maybe it was years spent with his brother which taught him that. Sunstreaker, the sun to Sideswipe’s moon, words that the crimson warrior once said himself. People thought of them as opposites, and in many ways, they were true. Split-sparks were both two halves of a whole, completing each other in ways others could only imagine. Maybe there wasn't a sun and moon, but two suns shining brightly, or two moons illuminating their surroundings. Maybe they were just two stars, bound together by a bond deeper than what anyone who wasn't them could even begin to understand.
But sometimes, others seemed to forget one thing. One thing that separated Sunstreaker from everyone who claimed to know his brother.
For two halves to connect, they need to fit first. They need to share the same edges that can connect into a whole. Once, there was a time when Sunstreaker was Sideswipe, and Sideswipe was Sunstreaker. Once, there was a time where there weren’t two halves, but a whole.
They may be two now, but deep inside, they still share that connection that makes them the exact same. Only later in life did their personalities develop enough to properly distinguish the being that was once one into two.
But the core truth remains. They are more similar than they are opposites.
Sideswipe is just the better liar of them both.
Because maybe the strangeness lies in how decepticons would flinch when noticing crimson on the battlefield.
Or maybe how the bombs usually filled with glitter exploding on the battlefield left decepticons screaming in agony as acids splattered over their bodies.
Perhaps it was the rumors, the ones that even autobot intelligence had trouble distinguishing whenever they were true or not.
‘I heard he once sneaked into a deception base and left a bowl of rust sticks infected with cosmic rust!’
‘I heard he can hack systems better when he's overcharged than when he's sober!’
‘I heard he's the one responsible for the last blackout in sector 8! He dug into the ground to get to our underground power cable. How horrific, that was our largest medical wing, so many mechs died…’
Rumors. Some were greatly exaggerated, sure, but they kept the ‘cons on their toes, as the human idiom goes. They'd explain the fear in red optics every time they caught a glimmer of the crimson that wasn't on their side.
The fear that they'd end up like the others was too permeating to try anything. The others who were only spoken in hushed whispers in the privacy of one's room, between bots either too overcharged to feel fear, or huddled together so closely it was hard to decide who even uttered the words first.
A body so mangled the scout who found it had to excuse themselves to throw up, littered with puncture holes so deep most went clean through.
A mech, tasked with just some surveillance suddenly disappearing, only for some remains of his parts to show up.
The yellow autobot twin, who supposedly suffered great injuries in the last battle, who needed so many replacements the autobot medics struggled to find all the right parts, reappearing at the next battle shining as if brand new.
The crimson autobot twin, smiling just a tad too wide, just a tad too sharp whenever anyone caught them together, causing shivers to go down decepticon spinal struts whenever someone caught his gaze.
The autobots never seemed to address this and it made decepticons wary. Did they know? Did they purposefully stay oblivious?
Or were they just like them at first, fooled by the exterior to truly see what lied underneath?
And Sunstreaker? He could only chuckle, both when overhearing others talk about his peculiar brother and when someone asked him outright.
The autobots always thought it was Sideswipe keeping him in check. The handler to his violent tendencies, the bridge between his asocial loner of a brother and the rest of the cast. The leash that kept the wild card on board.
They could never imagine the truth was the complete opposite.