Title: Attitude Adjustment

Warnings: Real BDSM (can be embarrassing and misunderstood, even to the people involved. Or maybe especially.)

Rating: PG-13

Continuity: G1/IDW/WTF AU (post-script of "Deconstruction" round-robin)

Characters: Hook/Kup, Ratchet

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

Motivation (Prompt): Shibara drew a doodle, and Hook looked far too happy in it.

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Pt.1

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He'd known he'd screwed up as soon as Ratchet frowned. His arrogance had gotten away from him again. Well, Hook tended to regard it as innate superiority, but the feeling that sank his tanks to his knee joints wasn't superiority. It felt more along the lines of 'Oops.'

He wasn't afraid of repercussions from Ratchet. The head medic might haul him aside for another lecture on professional conduct, but in the deca-vorn since the Autobot had taken over as his parole officer as well as job supervisor, the mech hadn't abused his position. He was strict, but not to the point that Hook feared him.

No, not him.

The surgeon turned back to his work immediately, cutting himself off mid-word and proceeding to ignore the labtech he'd been berating. The idiot shouldn't have brought him a misaligned calibrator in the first place, for Primus' sake! He was hardly going to let something that was basic medbay procedure slip past him. That would lead to shoddy repairwork further down the road. Letting some gearless technician get away with messing up standard procedure in the name of sparing the little twit's 'feelings' would be that one step down the road of good intentions that eventually killed somebody.

Hook was so busy justifying himself that he didn't notice his doom entering the infirmary until Kup cleared his throat from behind him.

Whipping around, the Constructicon's visor reset a few times in shock. Then surprise. Then disbelief that slowly, inevitably slid into queasy realization that, yes, somebody had ratted him out, and yes, that was actually a gag dangling from the Autobot's hand.

His head jerked up. Kup met his pleading gaze with a steely glare.

"I..."

"You know why. You deserve it and you know it, so put it on."

Dead silence filled the whole room. Even the patient with the dislocated shoulder and front axle had shut up in order to stare in half-horrified fascination at the tableau of a short, old Autobot calmly backing a tall, bulky ex-Decepticon up against the repair berth. Talented surgeon's hands rose, defense and supplication in one as the palms opened as if to fend off the smaller mech. Hook's head shook back and forth, but this was the same kind of reality victims of gravity denied: they were going to fall, they were going to hit bottom, and oh frag it was going to hurt.

That didn't mean he wasn't going to flap his arms on the way down. "Sir, wait…" The normally confident voice had gone quiet and acquired a low, strained note. The rest of the room turned up their audios to eavesdrop. "This isn't necessary. I didn't intend - I mean, I made a mistake, but it's been so long. Surely a warning is sufficient - "

"Hook."

Ratchet started laughing, back by his office. He'd heard the busy medbay stop in its collective tracks and had come out just in time for his old friend to shut the ex-Decepticon fragger's trap with a single word. Whatever Hook heard in Kup saying his name, it made the mech flinch where he stood. His arms dropped to his sides like lead balloons.

Kup shoved the bit-gag up at his chest, and Hook's shoulders hunched as he arched back a little from the aggression. His visor averted, as if the Constructicon couldn't meet the Autobot's optics anymore.

Visor trained to the floor off to one side, Hook raised one hand and accepted the bit being pushed at him. Kup held onto it for a moment more, until Hook looked up just enough to meet his gaze for the briefest second and dip a shallow nod of acknowledgment. Acknowledgment of and obedience to the Autobot's order.

His embarrassment was an almost visible thing. In fact, it was visible: his hands shook fractionally as he slowly took the rings in both hands and brought the bit up to his lips. Close observers - to be honest, the whole slagging staff at this point, because anyone who wasn't on-shift had been called out of the breakroom by the breathless silence and Ratchet's gleeful giggles - noticed the nervous, shaky swallow that worked his throat tubing for an endless klik. It looked as if he were trying to scrape up the courage to open his mouth.

Kup folded his arms and met Hook's visor as it flicked up with the last, fading hints of hope bleaching the red to a pathetically pale, begging hue. Chill blue took that hope, bent it over one knee, and broke it into little pieces. Then it stomped about and crushed those pieces into even smaller bits, because Hook wasn't going to find even the tiniest shred of mercy in this Autobot.

Hook all but cringed from that cold gaze, lowered his visor and his head, and silently opened his mouth to gag himself. The bit slipped between his lips, and his tongue was visible for a split second as it fought the bar, almost involuntarily trying to thrust it back out. Another swallow, however, and the rings settled on either side of his mouth, holding the bit in place and stretching his lips around it. His fingers fumbled as they never did during surgery, but he managed to buckle the straps behind his head.

The room sighed, oddly satisfied when the buckle snapped closed.

The surgeon seemed to shrink in his armor as the sound swept over him. Ratchet's gasping laughter was just one more whip-sting of degradation amidst the wider scope of his punishment. Hook locked his visor on the floor at his feet and straightened up to stand reluctantly before Kup, awaiting judgment.

The Autobot reached up and looped his finger through one of the rings, tugging experimentally to test the buckle. The larger mech staggered slightly, easily pulled by the tug as the bit put pressure on the sensor-laden corners of his mouth. A ripple of muffled laughter went around the infirmary at the sight. It was transparently, hilariously clear that everyone's least favorite stuck-up surgeon would follow their favorite story-telling sergeant wherever he was led, exactly like a meek little petrorabbit on a leash.

Kup smirked and let his thumb linger momentarily on the ex-'Con's unprotected bottom lip. "Good." His hand dropped away. "Now. You don't touch that."

The ex-Decepticon's visor never left the floor. He shook his head. 'No, Sir; of course not, Sir.'

"It stays on all shift, Hook." The old mech's voice could have stripped plating down to bare metal. That was the kind of tone that drove fresh recruits into battle - or really hammered home that nothing but complete submission would be tolerated. "Got it?"

Hook's body shivered in utterly mortified humiliation, but his head dropped further in blatant surrender to the smaller Autobot's will. 'Yes, Sir; your orders are law, Sir.'

"Maybe I'll take it off afterward. Maybe I won't. Either way, you don't so much as adjust it until I decide." The growl of Kup's engine was distinctly displeased, whatever the light smirk on the old clank's face said. The ultimatum had been issued a deca-vorn ago, but the Autobot's memory was as long as his tolerance for misbehavior was short. "For now, get back to work." The Constructicon's downcast gaze flicked up, trying to humbly appeal for leniency, but a stern huff made him quail. The visor went down again, and Hook hesitated only a moment longer before turned back around to continue what he'd been doing.

The Autobot looked over to where Ratchet had actually fallen over by now, still wheezing with giggles whenever he could catch a full vent. "Hey, Ratchet?"

"Y-yeah?"

"Keep an optic on him for me." One thumb jerked casually over his shoulder at the Decepticon, who stiffened into a huge-visored statue of shame. "Lemme know if he gets uppity again."

That earned a wheeze that sounded suspiciously like, "I love my job," but Ratchet managed an affirmative nod.

Kup gave the whole room a genial nod. "Sorry for interruptin' you, folks. This has been an emergency application of Operation: Ego Control." He strolled toward the door, practically riding the rising tide of laughter. "Thank you for your cooperation."

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"Attitude Adjustment" pictures #1-4 by Shibara, available on Ao3

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