Author's note: This was originally written for the "Dominant" part of the 28 Stunticons meme - it was long enough to be a separate story rather than a chapter - and posted on my LiveJournal. There's a sequel as well, "The Second Time", and since both of those are complete, I'll be posting chapters regularly. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1

Drag Strip had been online for only two weeks, but that was more than enough time for him to see that he was in the wrong team.

Though as far as he was concerned, he wasn't cut out for teamwork. He hated being dragged down by the Stunticons. When they lost a battle, he knew it was due to their neuroses. When they won, it wasn't much better. At best, the credit was split five ways; at worst, Megatron just commended Motormaster.

As if I didn't even exist. Drag Strip was looking forward to the day when he would no longer have Motormaster's fist constantly poised over his head. If he could just show Megatron how efficient and skilled he was – if he demonstrated how much he could accomplish without the Stunticons attached to him like lead weights – he would surely be allowed to operate on his own. Drag Strip savored the thought of that. Not just the autonomy but the recognition.

I'm sorry, Drag Strip, Megatron would say. I didn't see just what an outstanding fighter you are.

That's all right, Drag Strip would reply magnanimously. Even I found it difficult to be noticed with a gang of defectives continuously getting in my way.

Megatron would nod. It is a sad fact that the stupidity of others so often obscures your kind of genuine ability. But you are so much more valuable to the Decepticon cause than the Stunticons. You are therefore released from their subfaction and are now an independent warrior in the Decepticon Army. One who I know will bring glory to-

The radio pinged, cutting Drag Strip's fantasy short at once. Annoyed, he checked the frequency. Stunticon command channel. Great. Motormaster.

"What?" he said.

Motormaster's voice always gave Drag Strip a sense of unfathomable depth. As though he was looking into dark water that went down and down, endlessly. "Report to my quarters."

"But I have a target practice scheduled." Part of Drag Strip's plan to be noticed by Megatron was to hone his skills until they were sharp enough to cut steel.

"Now," Motormaster said, and cut the comm.

Drag Strip clenched his jaws. He dearly wanted to reopen the comm and tell Motormaster where to shove it, but he knew what would happen then. Two days – let alone weeks – had been enough for him to see that Motormaster could and would enforce commands with force, and Drag Strip didn't enjoy being slapped around.

Still, all that will change once Megatron releases me from this bunch of malfunctioning idiots. I just have to put up with them until then. He turned, transformed and zoomed along the corridors – slewing up the walls to avoid any 'cons in the way – until he reached Motormaster's room.

"I'm here," he called out sullenly. He never knocked, because it tended to scuff the paint over the knuckles. Drag Strip liked his paintjob very much. Compared to Dead End's subdued red, Wildrider's dull grey, Motormaster's black-and-purple – who does he think he is, Skywarp? – and Breakdown's plain white-with-blue, his brilliant yellow looked like a flash of flame, a sunburst.

The door slid open. Drag Strip stepped inside and it shut behind him.

His resentment faded temporarily as it occurred to him that he had never been in Motormaster's quarters before, and he looked around. The room was large, and seemed oddly empty; there was nothing in it except for a recharge berth and a workstation that looked a bit smaller with Motormaster hunched over it. For that matter, Drag Strip didn't have a lot of possessions either – he'd hardly had the time to accumulate anything – but his room looked neat and uncluttered. Motormaster's was stark in its bareness.

Motormaster looked up from the datapad he was reading and half-turned around, his chair creaking. Drag Strip wondered if he would be asked to sit down – that would indicate he would be there for a while, which meant he would definitely miss his practice session. But the only other place to sit was the berth.

"So you scheduled a target practice session," Motormaster said in a conversational way.

"Yeah."

"With Scavenger."

"Yeah." Drag Strip had heard the Constructicon was good with a gun, and Scavenger was always accomodating.

"From now on, if you're practicing anything, you do it with Breakdown or Dead End or Wildrider. They're your teammates, not Scavenger."

"But he's better at target shooting than they are."

"I don't care." Motormaster set the datapad down and stared at him. "Either you work with us, or you don't work at all. You'll be going into battle with us, not with the Constructicons. They have that much sense."

Drag Strip was nettled. Going into battle with you… well, not for much longer. "This is my off-duty time. You can't micromanage that!"

"I just did." Motormaster spoke as indifferently as if he had been reading Decepticon history off the datapad, his voice flat and dismissive. "I've commed Scrapper, and he's agreed that none of his crew will practice with you. The training rooms have also been programmed so that you can only enter if another Stunticon is with you."

"What?" Drag Strip nearly said, You can't do that! before it occurred to him that Motormaster had indeed done that. What else did he tell the Constructicons? Did he make me out to be some kind of pariah who can't be allowed to interact with anyone? He had never felt so embarassed before, and swift on the wheels of that came fury.

Then he took Motormaster's greater height and weight in with a single, nanosecond-fast look and knew he wouldn't get away with starting a fight. His speed would only buy him a little more time before the inevitable end. No, the best thing to do was to put up with the latest injustice and work even harder at improving himself so he could leave the Stunticons behind for good. He was already better than the rest of them, so it wouldn't be too difficult.

The knowledge helped calm him, and he looked up to meet Motormaster's gaze. Cold purple optics were studying him with a look Drag Strip couldn't decipher, but he guessed Motormaster had been poised for defiance, eager for an excuse to hit him. Well, sorry to disappoint you.

"Fine," he said. "I'll practice with them from now on." He turned to leave.

"I haven't dismissed you."

Drag Strip turned back. He was starting to seethe now, but he controlled that; apparently Motormaster hadn't finished playing this stupid little game. Fine.

He waited.

Motormaster leaned back in his chair, arms along its armrests, legs stretched out before him. "What're you planning to do?" he said casually.

"What do you mean?" Drag Strip felt suddenly uneasy. His whole plan depended on Megatron realizing how good he was before Motormaster ever knew such a plan existed. Motormaster would definitely not approve of him wanting to leave the Stunticons.

Just because he's jealous of me. Just because he knows I'm better. But that felt more like a program he was trying to install in himself with rather than something he didn't need to say because he knew it deep down, because it was knowledge he had been created with.

Motormaster brought his hands together and began to crack his knuckles. "You were torqued off just now, but you calmed down. That means something's going on in your pathetic little processors. What is it?'

Drag Strip stared at him. "How… how could you tell?" he heard himself say, even though he knew he was admitting Motormaster was right. They could hear each other's thoughts when they merged, but they sure as slag weren't merged now. Had Vector Sigma created Motormaster with telepathy or something?

"Gestalt link. Comes in handy sometimes."

Oh, that, Drag Strip thought in relief. He'd overheard Breakdown and Dead End talking about it, but it was mostly useless. Not empathic in nature, thank Primus – he couldn't imagine anything more incapacitating during a battle than to feel Breakdown's paranoia or Dead End's depression dragging him down. Just more of an… emotional awareness (soppy slag, he thought) that went deeper than surface level. Being instantly aware if one of them was ever deactivated, for all the good that did.

What was unnerving was Scavenger's claim that gestalt bonds were a dynamic rather than static connection. Which meant that the different components of that gestalt might eventually share certain characteristics. Spillover, Scavenger had called it. A nightmare, Drag Strip had called it. The prospect of having parts of his mind slowly turn crazy or fatalistic would have been enough to make him join the Combaticons if they wanted him (which they didn't).

It hadn't occurred to him that Motormaster would be able to tap into that to guess what he felt. Motormaster had certainly never done that before. Maybe he's only able to do it now because I'm in the same room, or because I was so angry. But either way, that's all he can feel. He doesn't know what I've got in mind.

"So I calmed down," he said. "So what?"

Motormaster stopped cracking his knuckles – thank Primus, that was annoying – and tapped his fingers lightly along one armrest. "Whatever you're thinking, Drag Strip… if you're capable of thinking… forget it. I didn't ask to be given you lot as my subordinates. But now that I have you, I'll make sure we live up to Megatron's expectations if I have to beat the slag out of you to do it."

In other words, you'll keep Megatron happy by using me. Drag Strip was fuming now, his temper straining at the shreds of his self-restraint and caution. And that's your only way to handle a problem, beat it like an Aerialbot. No wonder you can't satisfy Megatron without me.

"I could live up to Megatron's expectations by myself," he said. "If I didn't have the lot of you dragging me down."

"Dragging you down?" Motormaster raised an optic ridge, but his voice was calm and his relaxed posture never changed. "Your teammates might be fragged in the head, but at least they don't go around thinking they're better than you."

"Because they're not." Drag Strip would never have spoken so freely under other circumstances, but Motormaster didn't seem angry and he had been pushed too far. "What the frag have they got? Wildrider's crazy, and he'll only get crazier if it's quiet. Dead End's pretty and pompous and that's all there is to him. He's so busy moaning about how we're all going to die that he won't even fight unless you kick his aft into gear. And Breakdown… if a squishy stares in his direction, he'll leave skid marks. Good luck getting anywhere with them, but I won't waste my time trying."

There was a long pause before Motormaster replied. "So that's how you see the team," he said, as quietly as if he was thinking to himself.

"That's how they are."

"And what about you? What have you got?"

That wasn't a question Drag Strip had expected, but he wouldn't let it faze him. "I'm the fastest," he said. "I have the best reflexes. I'm a good fighter. And I'm not crazy or afraid of anything or a neurotic mess."

Motormaster heaved himself to his feet. "We'll see about that."

A small cold shiver ran down Drag Strip's back strut. He'd known Motormaster was vicious when it came to discipline – he'd learned that from a punch or three – but until then he hadn't been afraid that Motormaster would do more to him. The words if I have to beat the slag out of you to do it were suddenly not an idle threat.

"What are you talking about?" he said, trying to speak calmly.

"I think it's time to find out just what you've got."

"If you want a session in the training room-"

"No, a session here will do just fine."

Drag Strip would have taken on nearly anyone without qualms, but fighting Motormaster was another thing entirely. The room wasn't large enough for him to bring his speed into play, and all he could do would be dodge until Motormaster eventually caught him. And he'd done nothing to be beaten up for – not yet, anyway! Surely Motormaster wasn't going to slag him for telling the truth about the Stunticons?

Without taking his optics off Motormaster, he reached behind him for the door. Instead of a beep to signal that it was active, he heard a soft buzz instead. Locked.

"Let me out," he said.

Motormaster took a pace towards him. "Get on the berth."

"What?" Confused now as well as afraid, Drag Strip backed up when Motormaster took another step forward. His spoiler pressed against the door, which felt cool and unyielding. There was nowhere to retreat.

"You heard me."

The frag is he trying to do? And then suddenly he knew. He'd heard crude jokes from other 'cons about interfacing, but it had always seemed like some bizarre foreign activity that other mechs did.

Even when he overheard noises from behind the doors of Dead End's or Wildrider's rooms, he'd been indifferent at best and faintly repelled at worst. Drag Strip had no interest in being touched by anyone unless they were giving him medical attention or polishing his plating, so getting intimate with Motormaster was out of the question.

"No way," he said.

Motormaster grinned, and with a sinking feeling, Drag Strip realized his expression of uncertainty giving way to disgust had been noticed. "You've never done it before, have you?" he said. "I should've guessed. You've been driving around with your head in the air, thinking your exhaust is energon fumes. No wonder your teammates haven't wanted to hit the berth with you."

"I haven't wanted to hit the berth with them!" Drag Strip snapped. "And that's right, I haven't done it before because I don't want to. I've got better things to do with my time. So can I go now?"

Motormaster's grin faded. Instead he just looked at Drag Strip, his gaze moving slowly down and then up again, intense and invasive. Drag Strip had never had anyone stare at him like that, and he nearly cringed back against the door.

Stop it! You're not Breakdown, he thought angrily. That helped him to stay standing and straight.

"Get on the berth." Motormaster's voice was quiet, and his face utterly without expression. He took another deliberate step forward.

Drag Strip couldn't move. He didn't know what was going to happen next – what interfacing involved besides touching and loud incoherent noises – but he knew that if Motormaster was using it as a punishment, it was going to be worse than just a beating. And would he be the one the other 'cons made jokes about afterwards, if they ever found out? Every self-preservation instinct he had screamed at him not to let that happen.

Without thinking, he drew his gun.