My very first commissioned fic for Valong on deviantart... started way back in February and only just finished up. I put off uploading it here until it was completely finished, so I wouldn't be left with huge gaps in between chapters. This was definitely one of the hardest fics I've ever had to write (especially considering I'm not at all a fan of Starscream, the comics, or even Windblade recently...), but the challenge did me some good :)
The main pairings will be Starscream/Windblade and Chromia/Ironhide, but there'll be hints/cameos of a few others as well later on.
xx
"Five whole klicks and our drinks still aren't here. That's it, I'm leaving."
"Sit down, Chromia, the waiter's barely just made it to the bar," Windblade said with a sigh, pulling the blue femme back down on her booth seat by her servo. "Anyway, you get a sparkday discount. You don't wanna waste it, do you?"
Chromia huffed through her scowl, crossing her servos over her chest and legs under the table so she could resist the urge to trip someone up. "I guess not." She glared all around at the other natives of Maccadam's celebrating the miracle of peace- however temporary it might be with a mech like Starscream orchestrating it. "Surprised this dump of a planet even has sparkday celebrations," she remarked. "Thought they'd be too preoccupied with blowing each other up to make it past the one stellar cycle mark intact."
Nautica snapped her optics away from a spot of rust on one of the roof beams to stare offended at her friend. "This dump was home to our ancestors, and it still is to us-"
"At least until Thunderclash comes to his senses and hauls aft back to Caminus." As usual, Chromia's sourness was like a Decepticon army; intimidating, disheartening, and near impossible to budge without some hefty weaponry that both other femmes lacked. At least some high-grade usually managed to sweeten her, but with how busy the Oil House was it would be a while before any liquid savior was delivered to them.
"Well, this is the only place on Cybertron that's totally neutral, and we all deserve a break anyway," Nautica chirped, twirling her wrench idly. "Not to mention that Windy here needs to talk to some bots that aren't the size of a moon-" Windblade's protest was covered by the purple femme's continued voice. "And you could do with some social practice as well, Mia."
Chromia scoffed in disgust, as if she'd just suggested sharing her berth with a scraplet. "Oh, please. Just cause you flirt with every spike-bearer in the vicinity-"
"Not every one, just the cute ones!"Nautica protested with a pout.
"-doesn't mean I'm up for settling with some Cybertronian hick. What's a point of getting a bot to like me when I'm just gonna put a bullet between their optics a few klicks later?"
Nautica shrugged, closing her optics and throwing up her wrench to catch it blind with one servo. "No wonder a certain red mech is a little too scared to talk to you..." She opened her optics just in time to see Chromia's widen in what was unmistakebly worry.
"Ironhide said that?" She only remembered to wring the question of all distress and make it casual after it left her vocaliser, and by then it too late to change it. Regardless, she pretended she never said a thing and slumped down in her seat, the spitting image of a pouting sparkling. "What do I care what some Auto-butt thinks about me?"
"You tell me, Mia," was all Windblade cared to say on the matter, not eager to get into a brawl so early in the evening. She couldn't blame Chromia for feeling so sulky at the mention of her not-so-secret crush. Especially when there was a 'certain red mech' in her life as well, though at least she didn't have to fake her distaste for him.
Nautica sighed, leaning on the table and tapping digits against her faceplate, succumbing to the surly air that was filling the femmes' space. It didn't last long though, as her wandering optics caught sight of some fateful glyphs scrawled near the teeming bar. She perked up instantly and grinned at her companions. "I know something that might lighten the mood," she lilted, drawing an immediate groan from Chromia.
"Unless it's a Con I can kick around or a tall glass of Turbo, not interested."
As to be expected from her, Nautica's joy was completely unhindered."Karaoke night!"
Even Windblade shared Chromia's confusion, but unlike her she opted to keep it silent. "The pit is 'karo-key?' Sounds like some kind of rivet infection."
"It's an Earth thing one of the Autobots brought over here," Nautica explained, remembering how Nightbeat explained it to her when she was grilling him about his missions. "Nothing better to bring everyone together. You sing along to songs-"
"And what d'you know, it sounds about as much fun as a rivet infection," Chromia muttered, muffled further by the table as she slumped face-down on it.
"-and everyone joins in!" Nautica clasped her hands together, still grinning and looking at each of her friends in turn. "How about it?"
"Absolutely fragging not," was Chromia's obvious sentiment. Nautica only rolled her optics before turning them on Windblade, who nervously threaded her digits together while trying to think of a politer answer.
"Honestly, Nautica, I'm with Mia. It seems-"
"Like a blast? Just what we need to kick off our vacation?" Nautica jumped out of her seat at this point and leaned over the table, digits held under her chin.
"Like a one-way trip to pure humiliation," Windblade eventually managed to get through.
"Oh, come on, Windy, I'm not going up there myself," Nautica whined. "Most of the songs are duets and I'm not getting stuck with some random audio-impaired drone."
"For all you know, that'll be an improvement over me," the red femme muttered, drawing an idle circle in the table with her digit.
"Nonsense, come on! It'll be fun, I promise." In the end, Windblade wasn't given much choice as she was practically hauled over the table and through a makeshift path to the stage (most bots weren't drunk enough yet to be getting in the way of an over-excited wrench-wielding hovercraft, apparently). When she looked back wistfully at their booth, their drinks had arrived and Chromia was helping herself to all three of them through a straw. She laughed and waved at them, already half drunk by the look of her.
"Have fun, girls! Sing a sparkday one for me, will you?"
'I might as well be singing my funeral music...' Windblade grimly contemplated, the metal of her peds groaning as they dragged along the floor. Nautica, on the other servo, practically bounced up to the stage like a petrorabbit and catapulted herself to the front microphone. By the time Windblade summoned the resolve to limply hold the second one Nautica had already chosen a song and was prepping her vocaliser for the first few words appearing on the screen suspended in front of them.
'Primus, just do me a favour and drop me into the Pit right now.' It didn't help that Windblade's singing partner had chosen one of the worst songs possible- an old and unfortunately popular love song on Caminus that was favoured by teensparks. After having to hear it blaring through Nautica's quarters for most of the journey on the Vis Vitalis, she couldn't bear to listen to more than five nanoklicks of it before turning her audios off.
Still, at least all the repeated listening made her singing voice almost half-enjoyable as she trilled about meeting a mech at midnight. The crowd seemed to approve as well, from how they threw up whichever servos weren't occupied with high-grade glasses and cheered Nautica on.
"Your turn, Windy!" Nautica whispered, nudging her friend's side. Windblade only had time to glance over her verse before the words were highlighted, and she forced her glossa to stumble along to the bubbly tune of the music. She tried not to enjoy herself too much, feeling her faceplate burning as she crooned to strangers about a pretend unrequited love, but the standalone calls and cheers of encouragement from the bar crowd were infectious on her mood. A proud smile threatened to break past her nervous frown when she finished, vocaliser throbbing from hitting notes higher than she used when just speaking. If Nautica noticed Windblade's shift in demeanor, she didn't show it before soaring off on her own lines, dramatically grabbing her microphone and dancing across the stage. For her sake, Windblade hoped Brainstorm wasn't watching from some tucked away corner, though she couldn't check with her attention focused stubbornly on the lyric screen, not daring to look at everyone laughing at her below. Not even hearing what she swore was Chromia's own voice slurring a spontaneous harmonisation tempted her to glance over at their table, or Nautica winking in the direction of the bar.
It seemed like a long breem before the last few notes finally rang out from the speakers, and she and Nautica were free to go with sizzling faceplates and aching vocalisers while applause echoed behind them. Luckily Chromia had managed to save some of their own drinks for them while she was surrounded by her own empty cups, and Windblade gratefully downed her glass before sitting down at the sanctuary of their table.
"Not bad," Chromia hiccuped, blowing air idly through a straw. "Even had me joining in. You ever think of releasing an album?"
"Don't push it, Mia," Windblade sighed, suppressing a bubble of air that threatened to rudely burp past her throat. Nautica had gulped down her own drink and was flushed with its effects, as well as her own tingling excitement. "That was so amazing! When we get back to Caminus, I'm not gonna rest until every bar has karaoke, even the strip ones!"
"Well, if you succeed, that'll be the only thing that'll make me happier to be here instead." Despite her outward shudder at the thought of Nautica's wish and drunkenness, Chromia managed to raise her glass in a toast. "To a not-so-terrible performance, and a not-so-terrible bar."
"And to all the audio receptors we didn't destroy this evening," Windblade laughed as she raised her own, already feeling her self-consciousness shed as the high-grade took grip. Nautica clinked her one against her friends', tipping it back to get the last dredges of liquid.
"...And to Ironhide," Chromia mumbled to herself, seemingly letting her processor loose to the drink. "I heard rumours that that song's one of his favourites."