A/N: Merry Christmas @keferon! I could not stop thinking about your Jazzprowl Mecha Au! I am obsessed! And I could not stop myself from thinking how Sideswipe and Sunstreaker would fit into it! So feel free to ignore any of this for your own personal headcanons lol! It is your Au after all! I tried my best to fit this into the established au lore but there's a lot so I might've got some stuff wrong 😅. Anyway I hope you enjoy the fic! Xxxxxxx
Ao3
FF.net
It had been a no brainer, back then.
Spend another stint in juvie or fight in a giant metal robot.
Sunstreaker and Sideswipe hadn't even needed to share a look before they both said yes.
Shockwave had selected them specifically. Sunstreaker still didn't understand the science of it all but those early mecha that Shockwave built were too much for one brain to handle. However with him and Sideswipe not only being twins, but being identical down to their DNA, they were able to survive the neural load in a way that non of the scientists other test subjects had. Whenever he hocked them up they weren't Sunstreaker or Sideswipe or the mech anymore. They were just one.
Sure having their brains ripped apart and stuck back together over and over and over again hurt like shit. Still, Sunstreaker would take it over going back into foster care and being separated from his brother.
It helped that they were already a formidable pair of fighters, synched to each other's side in ways neither could explain that the neural link only made even closer. Sunstreaker could turn their left arm into a sword the same second Sideswipe stabbed it through a drone whilst both twisted their torso to gracefully glide over the electric fence Shockwave had flung at them.
And even when the aliens showed up, Sunstreaker couldn't complain. He knew he shouldn't, but he enjoyed cutting them up. He enjoyed the thrill of slicing the tentacles from their heads and their heads from their amalgamation of faces like they were cuts of meat. Having been told his whole that he would never amount to anything, Sunstreaker felt a sick sense of satisfaction that he had proved to the world that there was something he was good at.
Technically they had been working under Shockwave as an apprenticeship so whilst the tests themselves were shit the pay was even shitter. But they had their own room that they could decorate however they wanted. So Sunstreaker had covered his in paint from the window of the art shop they used to sleep outside of whilst Sideswipe built a wall out of every toy car he had ever wanted.
The pay got better when Swindle showed up with other pilots. And even more so when they were revealed to the public.
Sideswipe was a pro at talking to the press whilst Sunstreaker preferred to pose for the camera. As usual the pair perfectly balanced each other.
The only time they got into a true disagreement was over what colour the mech should. It had been grey originally but Swindle had wanted something distinct to put on posters. Sideswipe had voted for red whilst Sunstreaker wanted yellow. In the end Swindle settled it with a coin toss that Sunstreaker still wasn't convinced his brother hadn't bribed the result of. But at least his twin let him pick out the shade as Sunstreaker was not going to be seen in that gaudy cherry that Cliffjumper was somehow happy to walking around in. Instead opting for a shining crimson the same shade as blood.
They both decided on the name. They'd been calling it the Lambo anyway after the mech's resemblance to their favourite sports car. And after Swindle cleared it with their copyright team, it became official.
Sunstreaker wouldn't say that fighting the Quintessons was easy. And ultimately he'd rather countless amounts of people weren't dying due to the invasion.
But he couldn't deny that he enjoyed being a mech pilot. That he enjoyed the fame and freebies and fashion he finally had the freedom to afford. And that he and Sideswipe wouldn't have to worry about being starving or separated ever again.
Then as per usual, everything in their life went to shit.
Jazz disappeared. Then the base got blown up. Not that they had been aware, because they had been on the other side of the country, where for the first time, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe found themselves in a fight they could not win.
"Finally a fucking fight!" Sideswipe grinned, glaring up at the Quintesson ship the size of a city.
Sunstreaker had always known what his twin was thinking even before both their minds had melted into one. So he knew that under Sideswipe's bravado, his brother was scared shitless.
That didn't stop Sideswipe from smiling as they charged towards the ship.
With their shield, they blocked the incoming blasts, giving civilians time to escape whilst their sword slashed through the remaining fire.
Together, they were the perfect balance of stealth, speed and strength. And eventually, miraculously they actually made it within touching distance of the ship.
Out of the corner of his scope, Sunstreaker saw a Quintesson soldier strike. He didn't even have to think to ask before Sideswipe had slammed their shield into its neck. At the same time Sunstreaker soared themselves over the now dead soldier, striking the sword into the side of the ship. Sunstreaker felt the air shake as something inside it shrieked then blew up.
"Think we might actually succeed in shish-kebabing these shitheads!" Sideswipe smiled, surrounded in the smouldering embers of the burning alien spaceship.
Then a tentacle shot out of the ship, slamming into their side like a skyscraper. Sideswipe didn't even have time to scream. But Sunstreaker did as he experienced his brother's death. He screamed as his soul was stretched and squished and shattered between himself, his mech and his twin. He shot and sliced and screamed until something finally snapped and everything went black.
The next thing Sunstreaker knew was shouting. He opened his eyes, to see the blurred shape of grey and ginger hair next to his bed.
"He was a child!" The blur yelled and Sunstreaker belatedly recognised the voice as Ratchet even though their injuries hadn't been severe enough to see the head medical officer before now.
"Sunstreaker is twenty-one." Shockwave replied in his usual monotone, apparently unaffected by the fact that one of his pilots was now dead.
"And you've been fucking with his head since he was FIFTEEN!" Ratchet screamed. The entire med-bay silenced at the outburst, not even Shockwave daring to make a sound until Ratchet spoke again.
"Once I've fixed him up, I am done. I will not be apart of this anymore."
But Sunstreaker barely registered the words. All he felt was the emptiness of his brother being gone.
He had felt the feat and the pain and the nothing of his brother's death. He had experienced what no living human could and his head could not comprehend it. All it could do was hurt.
Shockwave had ordered him to pilot the Lambo again, to compare how it functioned with only one twin instead of the set. Sunstreaker tried to strangle him, only being held back by the combined force of Brawl, Blast-Off and Onslaught. Even Swindle told Shockwave to fuck off.
But in the end, Sunstreaker couldn't blame Shockwave for his brother's death. They had both signed up of their own free will after all.
Sunstreaker had been in it for the fight and for the fame. Sideswipe had been the one with heroics in his heart. It should have been him who had lived. He would have stayed because it was the right thing to do. Whilst Sunstreaker stuck around because he had nowhere else to go.
Blurr was still around, even more broken than before but still posing for the camera and doing PR. Sunstreaker couldn't do press anymore without his brother.
He couldn't do anything anymore with out his brother.
And if it weren't for the nothing that he knew was waiting for him that no one else could ever understand, then he would have joined his brother in death.
Stuck in stagnation, he did Shockwave's stupid experiments and signed his name on posters he couldn't even look at and tried and tried and tried mech after mech after mech. But he couldn't even sit in one without being sick, the melding of his mind with the mechs making his skull split in half. Each day bled into the other until eventually Swindle came to see him.
"Look kid, I know you don't want to hear this and I hate to he the one to tell ya. But we've tried every pilot we got left and the Lambo ain't working for anyone. So if you don't give it a go, then I got no excuses left to not strip it for scraps."
So Sunstreaker forced his feet into the hanger he hadn't been in since the day his brother died.
They had repaired the Lambo's right side. It's crimson coat as clean as the day Sideswipe and Sunstreaker had spent painting it.
Sunstreaker touched the tips of it's pedes. For some reason, he had been expecting it to be cold. But it felt as warm as before, the thumping pump of machinery pulsing away underneath the metal.
Something snapped inside Sunstreaker's head. But instead of it all falling apart, it felt like the pieces of a picture snapping into place.
Sunstreaker could not save his brother. He might not be able to save the Lambo either. But he had to try.
Besides the single chair, the cockpit was the same as ever. Someone had even kept their stickers.
Sunstreaker hocked himself up to the neural net and instead of being sick all he felt was a sense of serenity. Suddenly the pain in his head was gone, replaced with the sound of Sideswipe's voice that snorted "Took you long enough."
