Soundwave is sitting in the medical ward, on-duty. He doesn't draw too much attention to himself, he simply sits down and organizes and files reports and schedules, ensures damaged troopers are receiving the correct levels of energon, and so on. Occasionally one of the rostered-on medics approaches where he is sitting and places a medical screen on the table, before leaving in a hurry, not saying a word.
"I'm tellin' ya, we don't have any of that in stock! Anywhere!" shouts the Supply Officer. "I'd get it for ya if we did, but I can't just pull it outta thin air!" Sure, Scrapper was both High Command and the leader of Long Haul's gestalt... but he was also Long Haul's brother, which naturally granted him shouting-at and backtalk rights. He crosses his arms and waits belligerently for the response.
Scrapper stares at Long Haul petulantly and sighs, long-suffering. He drums the fingers of one hand against his helmet - the backbeat of Songweaver's Second Cantata in E Minor ? - and insists, "Then you can at least get me the component parts and I'll assemble the rest myself, yes?"
Soundwave looks up from his desk... the brutish green ones may not have noticed him but he certainly did pick up their assault on his sensitive audio units. "Patients are recuperating here." he drones to the pair, uncaring of whether or not one of them is actually his peer or not.
"Well, if y'get me a list!" Long Haul replies to his brother before Soundwave's comment catches his attention. He turns his optic band towards Soundwave. "Yeah? And?" So intent is he on this latest bicker session with his brother that any connection between the tape-player-con's comment and the current situation seems to have been lost.
Scrapper snorts. They're Decepticons! If a little noise is all it takes to make the patients keel over, maybe they deserve to be dissembled for parts. Scrapper didn't so much take the Hippocratic Oath as he did the Hypocritic Oath, so to speak. Before he can snap at Soundwave to that effect, his brother grabs his attention. Scrapper bemoans, "You don't know what goes into a...oh no, you don't. Sigh. I'll write up a list for you. Do you want illustrations, too?"
Yeah, illustrations, not an oral frikking presentation. "Your continual arguments are offensive." He says. A small green tape - Bead-Blast - was going to approach Soundwave with yet another data screen, but he changes his mind and edges away.
Long Haul stares at Sounwave incredulously for a moment. He's /offended/? Since when did the Decepticon Empire go politically correct? "Well, /excuse/ me!" the dump-truck-former replies sarcastically before returning his attention to Scrapper. "Just the list'll be fine! I'm not an idiot, y'know!" This last said almost defensively, although he really isn't. He's a dull average intellect cursed to associate on a regular basis with frigging /geniuses/.
Oh, for the love of little cotter pins, what is Soundwave doing in the med bay, anyway? Doesn't he have Seekers to blackmail or something? Scrapper looks genuinely annoyed that Soundwave insists on distracting him from his very important conversation with his brother! He waves dismissively to the tape commander, a 'not now' gesture, and instead answers said brother brightly and a bit patronizingly, "Oh, of course not. You're just special. Now about that list..." The Constructicon stalks over to a supply cabinet and loudly rummages through it, in search of a data pad on which to write out the list. Gee, these aren't organized very well. Who ever could be in charge of them?
Waving your hand? In front of SOUNDWAVE?! Oh no you don't.
"SCRAPPER." He says, still in his monotonous voice, but hopefully loud enough to drone over the sound of the two brothers green. "You can argue in your own time. Discussion about Arachnae is required."
Long Haul fairly seethes at being called 'special' in that way. It's really amazing how well the faceless Decepticon can seethe. He's about to respond with a comment that he, no doubt, would have viewed as witty when Soundwave butts his way into their quality family time together /again/. He turns once more to Soundwave, managing to indicate vague puzzlement despite not having a face. "Why? What's wrong with Arachnae?"
Scrapper puts his hands on his hips, and given that even Long Haul, the bad little dump truck, has been distracted from their vital family discussion, finally pays some attention to Soundwave. He scolds, "First you tell us to be quiet; now you want to talk about Arachnae. What's the deal here?"
"It appears silence is impossible and noise inevitable." Soundwave responds. "Therefore it will be productive. I requested that Arachnae keep the Autobot corpses intact. She failed to respond. I later discover that she delivered to Scourge, to assault Autobot morale. This is unacceptable."
"Whadaya mean productive? We /were/ bein' productive!" Long Haul protests. He really doesn't have any commentary on the subject of Autobot corpses or some such, except to wonder why Scrapper didn't get first dibs anyway, so he just picks out another point to be argumentative on instead. After all, every minute in here bickering with /someone/ is another minute he's not actually lugging stuff around!
Scrapper arguing with Long Haul is very productive, though! How else would he get Long Haul to do anything around here? And slaggit, why *didn't* he gets first dibs on those corpses? Art supplies don't grow on trees. So he just comments vaguely to Soundwave, "Yeah, that's a bit of a shame. Do you have any idea how many end tables I could have made if we had those corpses still around?"
"Your side-ventures are tolerable, not something to be nurtured." Soundwave says, standing up to full height. "This is a genuine concern for high command. It is not merely a shame. Control your subordinates. Failure shall result in measures taken." Soundwave knows Galvatron holds him in higher favour than Scrapper. Soundwave knows Scrapper knows this. Soundwave doesn't like having orders abused so thoroughly.
Long Haul has little to say about general disobedience or disrespect to High Command, except perhaps to mutter something about uppity Seekers and face-ripping, which he does as he crosses his arms and waits for Soundwave to finish his annoying interruption.
Scrapper also knows that Soundwave is an uncharismatic philistine, but that's beyond the point. He finally find a suitable data pad and starts keying in his list. With a sigh, he acknowledges, "I'll have a talk with Arachnae next time I see her." Of course, Scrapper was going to do that anyway.
Soundwave will have to accept that as a result... for now. "Do not disrupt my schedule further than Arachnae already has." is all that the Tape Lord has to say in response, before departing from the medical ward. :will have to accept that as a result... for now. "Do not disrupt my schedule further than Arachnae already has." is all that the Tape Lord has to say in response, before departing from the medical ward, leaving the two brothers to the denziens of damaged units contained within.