Title: The Past Presents the Future.
Author: Dellykins (with contributions by Chi Shiro)
Verse: Multi-continuity AU
Series: Pursuit-verse. Post-Pursuit, but reads alright on its own.
Rating: T
Warnings: Slash. Offspring.
Pairings: Megatron/Starscream. Thundercracker, Skywarp, Sentinel Prime, Optimus Prime, Ratchet, Sunstreaker, and Sideswipe are mentioned in passing.
Summary: Megatron has always kept many secrets...
Notes: If you're new to the verse all you need to know about the Pursuit-verse, for this story at least, is the Prime-kin. Prime-kin are the ruling class of Cybertron. Megatron, and his brother Orion (now Optimus), are Prime-kin and the current High Lord Protector and Prime. Sentinel Prime and Aileron, their sire and carrier, were the Prime and HLP before them. Other than that? The fact that I own nothing. Tweaking, Beta, and then even more Tweaking because her muses wouldn't leave her alone by Chi Shiro. Further notes at the end of the fic.
Prompt: January Jubilee: 10. MT/SS, TC. Revelations.
Words: 3522 (We kid you not, when this got posted to LJ the first time, before Chi's muses went tweaking bonkers, it was 801)
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Megatron watched the sparklings leave the room. Except, if he was being honest, they were not sparklings any more and had not been for many vorns. If he were only grateful for one thing that this tenuous peace with the Autobots had won him, it was that he was getting to re-know his progeny. There was a perverse sense of amusement that the offspring that he had thought dead so many vorns ago had turned up as the air commander of the Autobots' New Vos division and her second wing.
Megaera led the way, but she always did. Her trinemates, Arcturus and GalaxyReaver, fell into step behind her. Flanking her out the door in the same manner they would follow her in the air. He felt a swell of pride at that. She was strong, smart, took charge, everything a potential protector should be. Aileron would have been very proud of his grandspark, despite her seeker heritage. Arcturus, the mech half of the seeker twins, on the other hand, raised his ire. It was not the seekerlet's fault, never had been. He simply found it difficult to relate to the mechlet.
Megaera, his namesake and heir, had always garnered the lion's share of attention. Even as a newspark she had been loud, demanding, boisterous. And headstrong, one mustn't forget headstrong. It was as if Primus had seen fit to gift them with an offspring that was a mix of the very best, and very worst, traits of Starscream and himself. Arcturus, for all his love of his sister, was nothing like her. The mechlet had been quiet, contemplative, thoughtful. He radiated power, could most likely have challenged his trine leader for the leadership position, but he chose to do things a different way. He deferred leadership to Megaera and then steered her with his advice and calming presence. It was painfully apparent, even if he had not had him tested as a newspark, that he did not supply the coding for that one.
"Does he even know?" He rumbled, looking to his wayward mate. Starscream had been paying him no attention, per usual. For all his snark and snipe, the seeker was a surprisingly attentive parent and had been busy fussing over their youngest again.
He held the belief that MorningStar's attachment to him was the only reason Starscream was even agreeing to whatever it was they were supposed to be doing. The humans on the base had referred to it as "couples counseling". Trying to work through the misunderstandings, that had led to the abuse, that colored such a large portion of their relationship. It, perhaps, would have been more effective if their counselors were not their eldest offspring. But the only other Autobots on the base with even the smallest of qualifications were Ratchet and, surprisingly, Sideswipe. Starscream was quite adamant that neither his ex-lover nor his eldest spark have anything to do with this.
"Know what? I don't even know what you are talking about, Megatron." The seeker's snipping was nowhere near as venomous as it could have been, keeping his calm so as not to upset the little groundling in his arms.
"Thundercracker. Does he know Arcturus is his?" Megatron growled.
Starscream sputtered. Megatron was obviously having an episode. While Cybertonian offspring could have more than two creators, recent testing had confirmed that Sideswipe and Sunstreaker shared coding with not just himself and Ratchet but Skywarp as well, he had been very careful not to accept coding from his trinemates when he sparked as Megatron's mate. The Megatron of pre-war Cybertron would never have allowed Starscream to have shared-coding offspring or, even worse, offspring he had no hand at all in coding. "No, he is not. He is Prime-kin. He's been tested for it. You know this."
"He is," Megatron agreed but pressed on, "but he is not mine. Thundercracker is one of Sentinel's bastards. Vosnians do not keep track of such things, but Sentinel did. He was a very busy mech, I had a plethora of half siblings, but he was meticulous in keeping track of every one of them. Any one of his offspring could have inherited Prime or High Lord Protector coding, after all, and it would not have done for the next to be called to step into those positions only for us to not be able to find them. He also had an optic for seekers, favoring them above all others he flaunted in my carrier's face plates. He took Orion and I to Vos on his little 'business' trips often enough."
Starscream shook his head. That was impossible. Prior to his bonding with Megatron Vos had cut off all ties to outside Cybertron for decavorns. The only exception being the city of Praxus, and that had only been given a pass because Praxians were seekerkin. He, and his trine, had been the first seekers to step pede outside of Vosnian territory since very, very shortly after his own sparking. Besides that, Thundercracker's carrier was a member of the Vosnian royal retinue. There was no way his own carrier, the Star of Vos before him, would have allowed one of her retinue to spark with Prime-kin, not with as much as she claimed to despise them. "You are-"
"Paranoid? Mad? Far from it, my love."
Starscream gave him a sour look. "Arcturus is your's. What will you accuse me of next? That MorningStar is Skywarp's?"
Megatron gave him an exasperated look. "MorningStar is a grounder. It is nearly impossible for two seekers to produce a grounder."
Starscream never could just let an argument die. "So are Sideswipe and Sunstreaker and they share coding with Warp. And Solarstreak has two grounder parents and came sparked with seeker coding. By your twisted logic Sunny and Sides should be seekers and Solarstreak should be a grounder."
"Sunstreaker and Sideswipe also share coding with Ratchet. It may be rare but it is not unheard of for seeker spawn who have a grounder as a co-creator to turn out grounder. There would have never been Praxians, our own little MorningStar among them, if that wasn't the case. As for your grandspark, he is your grandspark. His progenitors are one of your spawn and a Praxian. I may not have gone as far in my schooling as you did, my love, but even I understand the basics of coding." Megatron huffed and rolled his optics. His mate loved to throw his intelligence in his face and had been quick to point out that the seeker twins were so smart because of him. But that did not mean Megatron was as stupid as his less-than-better half liked to imply. "But back to the matter at hand. Arcturus is no more mine then ShootingStar is. I had my suspicions after witnessing his peculiar behavior and had his code tested when he was still a newspark."
Starscream growled lowly, then corrected himself when MorningStar gave him a worried look. The little grounder was amazingly sensitive and became very upset if he believed his progenitors to be fighting. "Even if that were true, why didn't you say something? Why claim him when you have never hidden your distaste for him?"
"Honestly? Megaera." Megatron shrugged. "She had the directive in her coding and was as bound to him as I was to Orion. Just remember, they both love on my sufferance as well. For all that I love her she has never liked me. Do you honestly believe she would not have taken every opportunity to throw that up at me? When she already was going on and on about how I, as a grounder, was beneath you and unworthy of being her progenitor?"
Starscream grumbled but could not argue. He had not been happy in his relationship with Megatron when the twins were sparked. He had allowed his other progeny to fill the femme's mind with talk of how bad her sire was, how unworthy grounders were in general, because of his anger at Ratchet for abandoning him and at Megatron for taking advantage of his moment of weakness. "And the rest of these supposed Prime-kin? If Thundercracker is what you claim him to be, if there were really so many others, what happened to them?"
"Long since dead. I courted most of them over to the Decepticons by pointing out how Sentinel never acknowledged them for what they were. He only kept track of them in case they turned out to be something he needed. It was not hard to feed such resentment. The seekers I need not approach at all as they all either followed you or went neutral." Megatron looked almost ashamed at his next words. "I made sure to send them out into the front lines, the suicide missions. They went gladly, thinking I was honoring them by telling them that their assignments were 'important' and couldn't be trusted to lesser mechs. There might be one or two who escaped my notice on the remaining neutral colonies, but I know of none. I spared Thundercracker solely because he was important to your trine. I could not afford to have my elite taken down when your air support kept the tide of the war as much in our favor as it did."
"If you hurt them, either of them..." Starscream said in a strained tone.
Megatron let out a long suffering sigh. Starscream never got it. "What use would it be to me to dispose of Thundercracker now? What would I possibly gain? The mech I was trying to hurt with the deactivations of my half siblings is long since gone. Sentinel's spark ceased to thrum vorns upon vorns ago. All doing anything now would get me is your ire. I would lose what little progress I have made with you. Do you think me such a fool that I would sabotage myself? No, I hold no grudge against my brothers, not anymore at least. As for Arcturus, I helped in his raising, claimed him as my own. He is my son in everything but coding. Even if that were not the case, he is your's. Do you really believe I could kill one of your own now?"
"I don't know. You had no trouble in ordering the deed done in the past." It took all of Starscream's will not to be back there for a moment. Not to hear Megatron order the deactivation of Nebuladust and his trine for treason. Or to be told Swiftwind, Solarnight and their trines had been found deactivated in their quarters, that it was self inflicted. To see ShootingStar and his trine fall in battle. Even though it turned out that ShootingStar and his trine had faked their deactivation in order to defect to the Autobots and were alive and well. Even though it had come out that Soundwave had ordered Swiftwind and Solarnight's deactivations on his own accord and covered it up. It still did not absolve Megatron of all the guilt. Soundwave had been acting to please him and ShootingStar had done it out of fear of him.
"Think what you will, Starscream. I'm sure you will anyway." He gave Starscream a cagey look, not knowing how much he should reveal. How well his high-strung mate would react to what he had to tell him. "We took many trips to Vos in my youth, you know. Before the split between our family and your own. On the last trip I remember a certain little, newsparked seekerlet following me around. He could barely toddle after me, still better at flying on those comically over-sized wings of his than walking. But he seemed to figure that if I didn't fly then he shouldn't. It was actually sort of endearing. I made the mistake of holding him when he first begged for my attention. It only cemented in his processor that I was his new best friend. He wouldn't leave me alone after that and I spent most of the visit sparkling-sitting the little thing."
Starscream glared. Something inside of him bristled in jealousy at the thought of Megatron giving attention to another seeker like that. Even if it had been only innocent interaction with a sparkling. "What are you playing at? I thought we had agreed-"
"You were so much smaller than MorningStar is." Megatron's voice was fond, obviously remembering the past and a Starscream that had looked at him with nothing but adoration. "A little scraplet of a seeker who begged me for stories and lullabies. Sentinel was enraged, since it was so obvious you had imprinted and decided I was part of your retinue. At the time..."
"WHAT?" Starscream jumped from his chair, advancing on his mate. For once he was uncaring of MorningStar's unhappy whimpering. "You...you..."
Megatron chuckled, not fearful of his mate's show of agitation. Instead reaching out to scoop the unhappy spark out of his mate's arms as soon as he came into reach. The little one nuzzled against his hand as he soothed it but he never took his optics off his furious mate. "I was little more than a child myself, barely into my youngling stages. I had no ill designs. There was no master plan against you. I honestly had no thoughts outside of Orion and Aileron then. I was still young enough that my brother and my carrier were my world. Polaris had not even been sparked yet, for Primus sakes, and he was not that much younger than you. No, Starscream, even if we had not been Primus ordained sparkmates you seemed determined to have me."
Megatron's face plates turned down, obviously becoming upset about something. The little spark in his hand whined mulishly, unhappy that the stroking of his head had stopped. "We were not welcome back after that. Not when Sentinel refused to let me stay. He might not have held any regard for the position of High Lord Protector but he favored Orion greatly. He would rather deny himself the company of his own favorite seekers then deny the future Prime his Protector.
An oracle from the Vosnian temple of Primus came to your carrier during our visit and told her that you and I were sparkmates. That Primus had ordained that I stay with you there in Vos or tragedy would befall us all. And Starshine was nothing if not religious, if you'll remember. She demanded it of Sentinel that I be turned over to her or she would cut Vos' ties with the Prime-kin. We were packed up and out of the city by the start of the next cycle. There was a Vosnian delegate in Iacon within an orn to deliver the message formally severing the ties."
"You wait until now to tell me this? Glitch! Slagging-STUPID-Glitch! You could have told me. How many vorns have we been bonded and you never said anything until now? You could have sought me out. You knew," the seeker howled in fury. "You knew, or at the very least suspected, who I was when we met at that university fund raiser and you said nothing!"
"What would you have had me say? You were with Ratchet then and seemed to not know me. I didn't understand it. My spark ached when I spotted you at that fundraiser. Even though you now had your adult upgrades and paint job, even though the red and white seeker standing across the room was an award winning scientist, all my spark saw when I glanced at you was the silver seeker sparkling I had been promised to in my youth. I didn't understand how I could be so affected and you could feel nothing. I thought it was because you had formed a bond with Ratchet and that had blocked off your side of the bond with me. When I was informed that you two were not bonded I made my intentions, to take up what had been ordained, known. But you only ever came to me, under the guise of alleged friendship, to seek funding for your projects. What did you expect to feel about that? How was I to act? What was I to say? You were making it very clear that you were happy with him and convinced me for the time that the oracle had been wrong. Surely we could not be sparkmates when you seemed to feel nothing." Megatron rose to his own pedes, suddenly so very tired and ready to retreat from this moment, from his mate's accusing optics. MorningStar seemed to mirror his feelings, the little spark ex-venting like a yawn and curling up in his palm as if to go into recharge.
Starscream would have none of it, grasping his arm when he went to move away. Still careful not to jostle the little mechlet but pitbent on keeping Megatron there until he had said his piece. "I always knew you were a fool but this just confirmed it. Do you honestly think I was not affected? Did you see me trailing after my other benefactors the way I did with you? I was as confused as you were and trying to figure out why my spark automatically identified you as retinue. If you had said something..."
"You are as much to blame as I. You never thought to ask about your peculiarities. To see if there was a reason behind them. A seeker who left Vos to live among us lowly grounders? To work among those not your own, to love among them? I know Ratchet wasn't the first grounder you welcomed into your berth, just the one you felt the deepest connection to." Starscream opened his mouth to retort and then quickly closed it. That much was true. Megatron took this as permission to continue. "Oh yes, dear mate, I will admit to prying around for your history. When you first arrived in Iacon you left a string of broken sparked, high-born Senators and top scientists in your wake. Ratchet might not have been high born but he had managed to claw his way into politics, becoming a senator, before he became sick of it and moved to science. You might not have even realized what you were searching for, I will give you that. But even if you ignored all of that, did you ever stop to question why you dance so gracefully on the ground when other seekers can't stand to do it unless they are in the air? Why you knew a Prime-kin lullaby before you met me?"
"That's all you have to say for yourself? To foist it off on me?" Starscream was quieter now, his incredibly swift mind still having trouble processing all this new information. What Megatron had said was true. When he came to Iacon he had done so because his spark assured him he would find something there. Would find someone there.
"For now that will have to do. You will never understand until you are ready. And you will never be ready as long as you are angry." Megatron turned away once again, resolving that he would not fight with his mate any more that night. He would head to his berth and put himself and MorningStar into recharge and worry about the fallout of this in the morning. But some perverse part of him couldn't keep from glancing over his shoulder to add one last thing. "If it means anything to you now, I would have stayed if given the choice. In Vos, I mean. The directive was not very strong and there was a chance it would have weakened if I was not constantly exposed to Orion. If they had asked me what I wanted, if I had to choose between him and you... I always have and always will choose you."
Starscream didn't know what to say to that, letting Megatron retreat from the living area to the berthroom in silence. It was not until he was heading back to his trine's shared quarters that he even realized that Megatron still had MorningStar. He supposed it spoke of their growth that he did not immediately turn around to retrieve his mechlet. MorningStar was not as dependent on him as he had once been and the little one liked his progenitor well enough. Megatron had not spoken false, he did not let any harm come to his children, so the seeker supposed it would not hurt to leave him where he was and pick him back up in the morning.
Besides, his mate had given him much to think on. So many times they had just missed each other. So much that could have been different. But there was nothing they could do to change what happened in the past. They would, if they were ever going to even remotely repair this thing between them, have to live in the now. Work with what they had. And that would have to be good enough.
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Additional Notes: The Pursuit-verse is a multi-story universe started in "Pursuit". It's the bastard child mash up of Bayverse, G1, and TF: Prime. With additional minor elements and characters from other verses. The Pursuit-verse includes stories like "Spindizzy Sonata" and "When a Grease Monkey and a Bad Cop Fall In Love". Everyone is related to everyone else in some way in Pursuit. I'm not even joking. You can't throw a bolt in Autobot City or on the Nemesis without hitting someone who's got ties to the other side. If you've already read Pursuit, we're overhauling it. If you haven't read it yet, hold off. We're overhauling it.
Retinues: Seekers in the Pursuit-verse seem to be fond of big families. A retinue is a seeker trine plus any additional, non-trine, mates. A retinue can consist of more than one trine. Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp were raised by a retinue consisting of 12 seekers from 4 different trines. Offspring born into retinues consider all members of the retinue to be a parent. Offspring who share the same carrier are siblings. Anyone else born into the retinue is a "cousin". For example: Star, TC, and Warp are "cousins" even though Star shares no coding with either of them and TC and Warp are actually half brothers (TC's carrier is Warp's sire).
Meet The OCs: In case we confused you with anyone, here's a list of the OCs that were in this story and how they fit into the Pursuit-verse. Listed in order of appearance.
Megaera: Femme. Air commander and second in command of Autobot forces on the seeker colony of New Vos. Sire: Megatron. Carrier: Starscream. Twin to Arcturus. Seeker. Trine leader.
Arcturus: Mech. Autobot. Sire: Thundercracker (though most believe him to be Megatron's) Carrier: Starscream. Twin to Megaera. Seeker. Second wing.
GalaxyReaver: Mech. Autobot. Mate to Megaera and Arcturus. Seeker. Third wing.
Aileron: Mech. Carrier of Megatron and Optimus Prime. Former High Lord Protector. Deactivated before Megatron bonded with Starscream.
MorningStar: Mech. Sire: Megatron. Carrier: Starscream. Grounder. Baby of the family. Sparked on Earth. Speaks only English so far, when you can get him to speak at all. Also prefers human honorifics. Calling his carrier "mommy" and sire "daddy".
Starscream's progeny mentioned in passing: Nebuladust (sparked 5th), Swiftwind (3rd), Solarnight (4th), and ShootingStar (6th, shares coding with Thundercracker). Ratchet is the sire to all four. In case you didn't catch it; Ratchet and Starscream are also the creators of the split-spark grounder twins, Sunstreaker (2nd) and Sideswipe (1st) (they share coding with Skywarp as well).
Starshine: Starscream's carrier and the former Star(leader) of Vos.
Polaris: Sentinel and Aileron's third offspring. Fun fact: Polaris is Bumblebee's sire, making Optimus and Megatron Bumblebee's uncles. We warned you everyone in Pursuit is related.
Thank you for reading! We hope you enjoyed the ride. If you'd like to see more of this 'verse feel free to peruse Dellykins' bio or keep watch for future fics.
- Dellykins & Chi Shiro Started 1/17/2012. Finished 1/18/2012