The first thing Arcee registered, after the ink-blots of unconsciousness finally cleared from her stuttering HUD, was pain. Her helm echoed, the metal lining it vibrating stubbornly as if it'd been subjected to a sander, and her stinging wrists were damp with what felt like congealed energon.
As internal systems slowly slogged back online, a flashing circuit of aches and cramps started to fill in her sensor nodes. Her neck cables protested as she stretched them, angling her ringing helm up and only managing to support it against a cold wall at her back that pressed her winglets flat. The surface of her optics sparked, a dim firework show across her HUD as they tried to filter some light through the darkness. All she could clearly see was the numb blue glow around her hands- definitely energon, along with thin lines of something shackling them together- and the hefty outline of something clamped on her ped wheels. She felt herself frowning, forced her servos to shift and found them firmly anchored to somewhere above her by a noose of chain dangling from her manacles.
"Those restraints should look familiar to you, Arcee. After all, you had me clamped in them not so long ago." The painfully familiar voice was like ice being poured over her audios, encasing her processor and trickling down her throat towards her spark core. Like a fang-fringed shadow, Starscream slinked into view with lofty wings framing his grin.
"What the frag did you do to me?" Arcee's glossa burned, either from the acid in her words or the raw croak of her dormant vocaliser. Her neck snapped backwards, letting her look closer at the manacles around her wrists with clenched digits clawing into her hands, and sparing her from Starscream's eternally insufferable smirks. The cuffs themselves were certainly of Autobot branding, but it was the bulky lock around her wheels that confirmed the truth; they were the same clamps that held Starscream's wings together, only modified to stop her spokes turning even when she forced her engine power way past what her energon stores could properly fuel. The cuffs were stubbornly strong, and Starscream just laughed at the futile rev of her engine as it eventually flagged and died.
"I just did what any opportunistic Decepticon would do when faced with an Autobot wandering all by herself," he said, approaching just out of kicking range even when his chin was such a promising target, as he knelt down to drill his optics into her properly. When she refused to meet his glare, he forced her helm up with claws biting into her chin. "I used my initiative."
Her processor still struggled to keep up with the course of events, never mind recollecting those that had left her abandoned here- wherever 'here' was. Wrenching her helm away from him and his cold, snarling vents only made the talons scar and sting deeper into her faceplate, but the pain was worth at least being able to pretend he wasn't so close to her. He eventually let go, allowing her helm to sag and drip energon down her shuddering chestplates.
"Whatever you have planned, the Autobots will find me before you can do it," she hissed through clenched denta.
He laughed again, the soundwaves grating against every active node in her protoform. "Oh, they would find you... if Decepticon ships didn't mask all life signals inside their hulls."
The scufffed and charred black plating beneath her legs looked much more familiar now- she'd found Starscream trussed up and thrown aside on the exact same material, just before he'd pleaded Optimus for amnesty that they all knew he didn't deserve. 'The Harbinger...'
"Besides, now's not the time to be worrying yourself about rescues," Starscream said with all the sympathy of an executioner, pushing back onto his peds with his wings flaring up behind him. "I just wanted a little... talk with you, is all."
Arcee would have laughed if she wasn't sure her vocaliser would snap in half from trying, but her twitching winglets got her amusement across. "If you kidnap and cuff all your conversation partners, that's probably why you don't have any left around here," she suggested.
Starscream's shrug was hampered by the weight of his wings. "So blame me for having standards. I think you of all bots will be interested in what I have to say, though..."
She had to wait for him to lean against the wall opposite her, and his smirk spawned a grin while her impatience shot up like a fever. When he finally spoke again, she was on the verge of just cutting her hands off on the cuffs and pummeling him with her servo stumps.
"I'm going to destroy Megatron, and I require your assistance in doing it," he said.
His tone made the task seem as simple as getting on a Minicon's nerve nodes. Now Arcee couldn't hold back her mirth, disbelief bubbling up from her vocaliser in a snorting giggle. "Better bots than you have tried and failed."
His wings faltered and dropped a few inches, making his second shrug more obvious. "Every failure is just one more step towards success." As much as he tried to keep that confidence up, the cracks still showed through.
"In that case, shouldn't you already be in charge by now?" Arcee asked, intent on pushing the cracks wider. She was rewarded with a glare half-hidden by thin optic lids, and his wings lowering to become two bulky testaments to frustration astride his spinal strut.
"I see you're the type to use humour for dealing with trauma," Starscream noted, clicking his peds together before transferring the sound to the floor, again stopping just out of range of her shackled peds as his lips curled. "Cliffjumper was the same-"
"Don't you fragging dare!" she screamed, outrage burning as white-hot shards lodged in her vocaliser. Though she knew the attempt was worthless, her spark crackled with enough electric fury that her limbs shot out in a desperate need to claw that smirk into ribbons. The chain holding her servos up clattered against its links but refused to give into her thrashing, and her peds could barely lift from the ground from the weight of the bolt keeping them together. She could only imagine how ridiculous she must have looked then, but the rampaging rush of rage overloaded everything that made sense in her processor.
"I suppose you're not, then..." Starscream huffed, watching her throw her tantrum with a disinterest that only made her even more angry. Insistent 'low fuel' warnings eventually forced her to stop writhing against her bonds, and she was left breathless and boiling hatred while energon coursed from her wounds. The whole while, Starscream only moved to stop his peds getting in the way of a quickly spreading cyan puddle.
"My generous offer still stands, though," he said, with a teasing lilt turning his words into a mocking sing-song dedicated to her helplessness. "Help me detatch Megatron's helm from his shoulders and see if he actually does have a processor speak of; I assure you, the benefits will more than outweigh any cost to you."
Arcee didn't even have the strength left to pull her helm up. She had to let it loll sideways, with one fuzzy optic burning skeptically at him. "What makes you think you'll actually succeed this time?" she asked, hating how quiet and weak anger had made her words become.
"That's for me to know and reveal when I feel necessary," Starscream said, with a disturbing vocal void where smugness should have been. Even his smile seemed halfway genuine, though it was still like staring into a Scraplet's maw.
"And what happens to me after you take his place?" she asked, suspending all reason and proof that no-one, barring Primus himself, would be able to send Megatron to the Pit.
"Depends on my mood," Starscream answered, threading his claws together with piercing clicks. "I might let you go. Or I might hold onto you for a while and see just how important you are to the Autobots..." He huffed scraps of laughter at her energon-stained scowl. "Believe me, Arcee, I want this to be a mutually beneficial partnership," he said, fanning his equally stained claws over where his spark would be. "Just think of the aftermath; I finally rid the universe of its most murderous parasite, and your friends can enjoy a life free of Megatron."
"Assuming you won't carry on the tradition of trying to hunt us all down?" she spat.
"Like I said..." Starscream dipped low, forcing himself and his angling wing tips into her fading vision like a splash of crimson-studded quicksilver. "That all depends on your co-operation." He retreated again, clicking and clacking and humming away while she felt her spark sputtering in its chamber. There was a rustle of chains being pulled, and the pressure on her servo joints lifted suddenly. She blinked as her arms fell as dead weights in her lap, and as she tried to lift them up a a glowing ingot of energon was tossed at her peds. "Drink up," Starscream advised from somewhere in the gloom. "I'm sure you'll see the sense of it with a clearer processor."
Her digits struggled to grasp the cube, but when they finally pinched an edge she tore away the container with her denta and downed the entire contents. Most of it leaked down her faceplate, joining the silent tracks of coolant from her optics. She wondered when she started crying, just before stasis lock shrouded her.