Title: Patience
Authors: Dellykins and Chi Shiro
Rating: T
Verse: G1
Characters: Primus, Megatron/Starscream
Warnings: Gods behaving badly.
Other Notes: "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." - Friedrich Schiller. Written for TF Competition Fun where it took second place.
OoOoOo
Primus had always striven to be a merciful god. He was not now, nor did he ever intend to be, his brother. Unicron was a beast of chaos, bent on destroying all that they had created together. Primus was a healing light who wished to believe their creations were worth the effort imparted on them.
He did firmly believe this. They were fascinating, complex, and more than worth the effort. When backed into danger the better natures of all of them shown through. Megatron, for all that the mech pained him, had moments of nobility. Skywarp could be helpful. Thundercracker playful. Even Soundwave was fiercely protective of his symbionts.
Nothing need be said of the Autobots; who had risen above their stations, their ingrained class prejudices, even their own self-preservation to protect a relatively young species from an equally young planet.
And then there was Starscream. He was the best and the worst of them all. He had so much potential, and yet the flier seemed to do his very best to sabotage himself. It left the god shaking his proverbial head. The god wondered, not for the first time, nor the last, how his creation could have such a death-wish, because he clearly did. He provoked Megatron at every turn, and yet seemed surprised when his mate would bite him back.
Primus was baffled at the behavior. While he did not claim to be omnipotent he was privy to certain inner workings of the warlord and his second. Megatron was not so unreasonable as Starscream always claimed. Rarely, in fact. Nine times out of ten it was the seeker that provoked the other mech, no matter how loudly he would proclaim otherwise. And he did so quite loudly. Primus could not, for the life of him, understand the seeker.
Megatron offered to share power equally. Starscream wanted it all. Megatron demoted him to second in an effort to coax out better, more mately, behavior. Starscream would dream up more complex schemes. Megatron would finally lose his temper, exhausting the vast patience Primus gifted him with specifically for this purpose, and finally lash out. Starscream would react not in absolution but in vengeance. The flier never believed he deserved the consequences that rained down on his glitched processor.
They had been at it again. Megatron growling and Starscream hissing, sounding more like the organic animals that inhabited the planet they were on than Cybertronians. He had thought they would have long-since grown tired of such behavior, and yet they were still at it. It tried Primus' own infinite patience. He gave the larger mech a small nudge, not much but just enough. The god had learned long ago that there was no point in trying to impart patience or reason into the smaller of the two. Megatron gave one final growl and turned from his still ranting mate. Primus was pleased.
An energon cube flew through the room and crashed inches away from Megatron's helm.
Maybe not. If the god had eyes he would have rolled them.
Megatron spun around, aiming at his smirking mate. The smirk never left the seeker's face-plates as he dodged nimbly behind a monitor. Primus gave the grey mech another nudge, larger this time. Projecting the idea that he should put down the weapon, walk away, remember that Starscream was glitched.
It was working. The fusion cannon was lowered. Megatron huffed and began to walk away again. Primus dared to hope his will would be done this time.
A null ray fired from behind the monitor, hitting Megatron directly on the aft.
Fragging Starscream.