Dreadwing advanced, his blade gleaming silver, his optics bright with fury. Starscream scrabbled back, frantic to evade the sword's strike.
He'd been threatened with death before. But he'd never feared for his spark. Not like this. Anyone else, he could convince. Or cajole. Or beg. There were thousands of ways to manipulate a mech, and Starscream had had centuries to learn them all.
But Dreadwing wanted revenge, and even Starscream could neither reason with nor trick a mech who wanted that.
He threw up his claws in a futile, desperate attempt at defense, all his warrior training forgotten as he watched Dreadwing draw back his arm, raising the glittering weapon high.
Its wielder roared with rage and grief. Starscream shrieked before the blade even came down, crying out in terror and dismay.
His attacker wailed with him, a deep, reverberating bellow of agony.
Starscream's optics widened. He knew that Dreadwing was grieving for his brother, enraged at Starscream's desecration of his twin's body. But Dreadwing's cry wasn't a roar of anger or a moan of despair. It was a scream - a simple scream of physical pain.
Then Starscream saw the hole shot clean through Dreadwing's chest, the molten metal of Dreadwing's internals still red-hot. He watched the massive mech's optics dim as he fell, the mouth still open in a soundless cry, the blade landing just beyond where Starscream crouched, scoring an angry line in the metal of the floor.
"I - what - I -" Starscream stammered, twitching his wings and running his hands over his frame, still half-convinced he would find some deadly wound, pain rushing through his sensornet at the discovery.
None came.
"I lived -"
He heard a laugh in response to his voice, a cold snarl of amusement. Hearing it, he lifted his head, his eyebrow ridges still furrowed with the last of his fear.
Megatron's silver frame stood in front of him, towering and broad. One arm was still raised, the cannon atop it still glowing with energy, lavender smoke wreathing it. Starscream stared at it a long moment as though hypnotized. Then he looked back at Dreadwing, at the still-smoking hole in the massive metal body.
"You chose me," Starscream murmured, scrabbling closer, one clawed hand reaching for Megatron.
His thin fingers coiled around Megatron's leg, their sharp tips scratching at the plating. Megatron shifted, his frame rumbling again, but did not move away.
Starscream's claw traced over the scars and pits in the warm metal under his hand. His other arm reached out and he grabbed at Megatron, pulling himself up to his knees, pressing himself to the larger mech's warm frame.
Megatron stared down at him, optics wide.
"You chose me," Starscream repeated, hissing the words. "You could have let him kill me, right then and there. You could have - you could have terminated me yourself. And yet - you -"
His speech dissolved in a burst of laughter, his frame twitching wildly as though wracked with sobs. "You - saved my life -!"
Megatron smiled, all fangs, and wrapped his own clawed hand around Starscream's head. "Don't act so surprised," he snarled, forcibly tilting Starscream's head up.
Starscream's frame quivered with the last of his laughter. Then he stilled, giving Megatron another too-wide smile. "After all these months, all these rejections, all this - rooting around inside my head -"
Megatron leaned down, bringing his scarred face almost close enough to touch Starscream's. The Seeker shuddered.
"Rooting around inside your head," Megatron repeated. "Uncovering your lies, your treacheries, your true intentions -"
Starscream shook his head. Megatron's massive claw tightened around his chin, forcibly stilling it. Starscream snarled, his wings fanning out in anger or indignation.
"Well, if you're so certain I had nothing in mind but betrayal, then why in the galaxy -"
Megatron held Starscream's gaze, his optics blazing embers. "Because I never let go of what is mine."
Starscream scowled, drawing his hands away as though burned by the hot plating of Megatron's legs. "Then all this was about nothing more than your - ownership of me -"
Megatron's grin only widened. "In the space of one evening, you did what all of my forces could not. You found your way into the core of our enemies' base and stole not one or two of the Omega Keys, but all of them."
He let go of Starscream's chin. Starscream shook his head, the gears in his jaw clicking as he opened his mouth to ease the soreness.
"Why yes, I did do that, didn't I? It seems your foolish little minions weren't up to the task." He preened, his wings clicking as he twitched them. Megatron stared.
"Do go on," Megatron said, wrenching his gaze away from Starscream's wings with obvious difficulty. "What did you do when you found them?"
Starscream stopped, freezing as he felt Megatron's claw wrap around his back, resting too lightly just below his wings. "I - what are you -?"
"You held the fate of Cybertron in your hands, Starscream," Megatron said, the blades tipping his fingers moving inexorably upward.
"I -" The Seeker's voice died in a burst of indignant static.
"You brought them to me," Megatron finished, his voice a dark purr. The tips of his claw skipped along the thin plating of Starscream's wing. Then, fixing Starscream with another intense stare, he tilted his claws inward, poised to tear through the sensitive metal if he chose.
"Master -" Starscream gasped, his voice suddenly pleading. "Yes, I - I brought them to you - don't -"
"Do you really expect me to believe that you didn't want to?"
With a grin of triumph, he drew his hand down, the tips of his claws scoring lines in the thin metal beneath, deep enough to draw energon but no deeper. Starscream wailed in surprise and pain as it welled up, glowing blue and dripping down his wing.
He opened his mouth to cry out, but Megatron silenced him, pressing his mouth to Starscream's in a brutal kiss.
Starscream shuddered, his cooling fans roaring as Megatron held him there, trapped by his actions just as he had been trapped by the Decepticon leader's relentless probing of his mind.
There was nothing to do but confess, and Megatron's kiss had stolen even his voice. Left no option but surrender, he relaxed into the fierce embrace, his cooling fans roaring as he pressed his damaged wing against the very hand that had rent it.
He moaned, Megatron's mouth swallowing the sound, the pointed fangs worrying his lip plates. His own hands locked tight around Megatron's legs again. His claws dug in deep, and he could tell by the growling roar they elicited that he'd given back everything he'd got.
He felt the warm wash of energon flowing over his hands and saw Megatron draw back, snickering.
They held one another's gaze, each poised to do worse if needed, each ready to abandon himself to the other's desire.
Neither one of them moved for a long moment, and neither one knew, later, who broke the tension with his laugh, sharp and contemptuous. But once one began it, the other followed, their laughter shot through with static, air cycling heavily through their vents.
"So this is how it's going to be," Starscream said finally, untangling his claws from Megatron's legs. He brought one to his mouth, Megatron's energon glowing blue against the metal, and extended his glossa to lick.
Megatron's other hand reached to touch Starscream's chest, resting over the symbol branded there. Despite his many months away from the Decepticon warship, he'd never removed that mark, nor even attempted to deface it.
Starscream froze, one energon-stained clawtip still pressed to his lip plates. Megatron wrapped his claw around the edge of Starscream's wing and clenched it, his grip slowly tightening around the damaged metal. His optics glowed, avid and greedy.
"Just don't go - looking through my mind again - to find out what I meant by all of this," Starscream panted. He tilted his head back, his optics narrowed in something between pain and pleasure.
"Starscream," Megatron murmured, his grip tightening all the more, "haven't you heard a word I said?"
Static crackled across Starscream's field of vision. His spark whirled, its energy pulsing madly, a whirlpool of heat inside his chest. He could hear that Megatron was speaking, but for a long moment his processor could make no sense of the words.
"I -" he stammered when reason returned. "You don't - you can't know - can't possibly understand -"
He felt Megatron's optics on him, searing as his own spark's heat. Then his audio receptors filled with Megatron's laughter, deep and irresistible as thunder.
"My dear Starscream," Megatron said finally, his grin a ring of sharpened razors, "that is the one thing I don't need to look into your mind to understand."