Chapter Text
They sat on the filthy floor of the Decepticon brig, not quite close enough to be touching, but near enough it wouldn't take much movement to do so. It was dark and grimy, lit only by a single old-fashioned bulb somewhere down the hall of their cell block. More of the cell was lit by their dimly glowing biolights than the bulb, honestly. Unlike Sunstreaker, who sat with his legs stretched out, Sideswipe had his folded like a youngling, leaned foward with his elbows on his knees. With one battle scratched hand, he picked at loose flakes of rusted sheet metal, the floor showing marked corrosion. Maybe it would give out below them and give them a chance at escaping before the higher ups managed to set up a prisoner exchange.
Ignoring the eccentricities of his twin, Sunstreaker carefully observed his own plating with a grimace twisting across his mouth. His paint was scratched all to hell. In more than one spot, bare metal showed in larger patches than his carefully chosen flashy golden yellow. The longer they were stuck in the hands of the Decepticons, the worse his appearance was going to get, too.
"Did you know the answer is two?"
Sunstreaker cycled his optics before turning a look of frowning confusion on his red armored twin. "…what?"
He didn't have to see the grin that stretched across Sideswipe's always expressive face to know it was there. The slight and nefarious narrowing of those blue optics that matched his own told him everything. "The answer is two," Sideswipe repeated, making no more sense than the first time he'd said it. He held up the hand that wasn't picking at the floor, index and middle fingers extended, again barely visible. "One to take out the light and camera and the other one to punch a big hole in the already half gone floor."
Sighing, Sunstreaker pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers, optics closing as he let those words slip through his processor. "Let me guess, the question is how many Autobots does it take to change a light bulb."
"Nope," Sideswipe said with an irritatingly loud pop, his grin going crooked, his helm tilting. "The question is how many twins does it take to break out of the rotting ship the Decepticons call home."
Dropping his hand, Sunstreaker snorted. "We're not only in the middle of an ocean, Sides, we're also under it. How are we getting back somewhere friendlier to our alts?"
"Eh, we'll figure it out as we go," Sideswipe replied, shrugging. "So, on three?"
"Are you serious?" Sunstreaker asked, already shifting to rise to his pedes. He scratched up a few of the larger pieces Sideswipe had freed from the floor and weighed them in his hand before moving to judge the distance down the hall. "Two is a better number."
A bright laugh preceded the sound of Sideswipe's hands transforming away to be replaced by his piledriver mods. (The 'Cons never took the time to deactivate that sort of thing. Sunstreaker had to wonder if they even knew about them.) "I guess it is," Sideswipe said, looking from one piledriver to the other before grinning even more broadly. "So, let's do it. One. Two—"
Kzzzt!
Darkness fell and a heavy bang turned into a flood of saltwater around Sunstreaker's ankles that was making quick work of rising higher.
"What the frag?!" Sunstreaker complained as Sideswipe grabbed his arm, alarms blaring through the disappearing air around them.
"There's gotta be a hole somewhere else in the ship," Sideswipe said, changing to comms as he pulled them under the water and through the barely large enough hole he'd created. ::Let's find it and get out of here!::
Biting his glossa, Sunstreaker swam after him. His finish was destroyed, his paint was going to need to be entirely redone—and that had been before his idiot brother introducing them directly to the ocean.
He was smashing in the face of the next Decepticon he saw the moment they came into view.