A/N: This little drabble is set at the beginning of my story Entr'Acte, and was written to introduce an OC who walked into that story pretty much so I wouldn't have to kill off a canon character. But I kind of fell in love with him. Going back to write Halfback and Starscream now makes my heart hurt. They could both have had such decent lives. Instead, they're dead. Frag you, Megatron.
Groundpounding, With All its Forms and Uses
Halfback trundled contentedly along the roadway, humming a favorite tune and feeling well-disposed toward the world in general. There was nothing special about this particular orn or this particular trip. His heavily-armored transport alt meant that he was asked to make delivery runs between Altihex and the surrounding cities so often, that he could have driven the route blind. But the scattered lights of Cybertron twinkled in reflection of the glistening stars in the dark sky, the load was light, and the road was smooth beneath his heavy treads.
He sometimes wished to have a faster, lighter alt-mode on a night like this, when the highway stretched invitingly out in front of him. But Halfback was not a mech who wasted a lot of time bemoaning his fate. He had a job he loved in the Altithex lab, a comfortable place on Jetfire's research team, and a close-knit group of friends who all liked to hang out together at Maccadam's after work. His was a good fate; and he wasn't fool enough to dismiss it.
Although he would never have admitted as much to anyone, Halfback was conscious – and even a little proud – of the role he played in that little band of mechs. His black and brown color scheme and bulky, utilitarian alt-mode had been the butt of more than a few jokes from the flashier bots he knew. But there was an unspoken respect behind their teasing. Slow and steady Halfback was the hub around which the rest orbited, the linchpin that held them all together. And he liked the sense of worth and weight that gave him.
A jolting shift in the roadway lurched him from his reverie, and he chuckled as he caught himself indulging in a fit of introspection. He'd said it often enough, around the table after a few well-earned cubes of high-grade: "Why spend your time looking inward, when there are so many interesting things going on around you?" Life was just another roadway, he'd opined, and a mech might as well appreciate each bend and dip and even pothole for what it was. So right now, he would enjoy this starlit delivery run. It was a good night to be in transit.
There was always a low hum of sky traffic over Cybertron, of fliers whizzing back and forth and loop-the-loop on various errands. But now a single motor roared down out of the spangled darkness above him; and before his processor even realized what was happening, the sudden wash of a tetrajet's exhaust nearly blew him off the road. A familiar engine screamed mere astrometers above his cab, trailing a trill of mocking laughter in its wake.
Watch it, Starscream, he commed sharply. I'm carrying a load of raw energon.
Guess which Seeker was just given command of his own trine? the flier crowed. He flipped into a quick barrel-roll, then banked for another pass. Halfback watched his words of warning slide from his friend's form like the molecules of air he cut between.
Does Megatron realize that the only seeking you'll ever do for him is to seek attention? the brown mech commed, although he knew it was impossible to ground the passionate flier's energy with mere words.
He watched the speeding jet guardedly. Halfback had no desire to throw a fire-suppressant on his friend's enthusiasm. But a keyed-up Starscream was usually a stupid Starscream, and sometimes even a dangerous one. To that ambitious mech, the whole universe was a jewel waiting just out of reach; and he was by turns either giddy as a newling or dangerously homicidal under the influence of that assumption. For the hundredth time that cycle, Halfback regretted his friend's mercurial nature. The red jet needed a tether, or perhaps just a safe place to land. And it seemed that fate had given that job to Halfback.
The red and white jet bore down for a second pass. Raw energon here, the transporter reminded his friend sharply. Highly explosive!
But Starscream wasn't listening. In fact, he was laughing – that manic half-screaming frenzy that betrayed the turmoil beneath the surface which the flighty mech could never quite control. Halfback slowed and braced himself as the tetrajet zoomed down.
Poc-poc-poc-poc-poc! On either side of him, the road erupted into little fountains of dusty shrapnel. Starscream was actually strafing him! Halfback skidded to a stop; and this time the jet-wash did succeed in blasting him over onto his side. Enough was enough. This was getting dangerous. He tried not to think that something even more sinister might be instigating Starscream's erratic behavior. He tried not to think that his friend, the newly-minted Decepticon Seeker Captain, might actually be trying to harm him.
As quickly as he could safely do, Halfback transformed where he lay on his side, carefully dumping the load of energon in a pile along the edge of the road. He looked up into the sky. Of course the crazy mech was coming back a third time.
No, he commed bluntly.
Yes, returned Starscream, his thin voice worryingly intense. Halfback stared into the rapier silhouette of a tetrajet's speeding prow. Yes-yes-yes-yes-
Halfback leaped.
Yes-yes- OUCH-YOU-FRAGGING-!
There was a long, deafening, tearing crash, as the red flier plowed nose-first into the ground, with Halfback's thick fingers clamped tightly around the front edge of his wings. Starscream was incensed. "That hurt, you stinking pile of lab-waste!"
"How do you think I feel, then?" Halfback retorted. Crushed between ground and flier, the big brown mech had taken the brunt of the crash.
Starscream transformed with a groan of pain, and stood, rubbing a hand over his battered, smoking plating. "What did you think you were doing?" he demanded. "Trying to get us both killed?"
"I might ask you the same question," Halfback replied grimly.
"I was in control! Everything would've been fine if you hadn't-" Starscream looked as if he'd like to take apart the heavy transporter; but he winced and drew back as his servos clanked and squealed.
"Really." Halfback looked down into his vitriolic friend's hot red optics. "Does your new boss want me dead then?"
"Megatron is a thug with a vision. He'll never be my boss."
"Oh? Well neither will Jetfire, if you keep skipping out on your real work," Halfback replied. "I stood up to him for you today. Again."
When Starscream said nothing, Halfback drew closer and laid a hand on the flier's shoulder. "Do you want me dead?" he asked seriously. "Is that what this is all about? Do you wish I wasn't here to hold you back?"
Starscream's intakes hitched. "No," he whispered. But he wouldn't meet the larger mech's gaze.
"I can't just turn you over to Megatron without a fight. You know that," said Halfback flatly. "You're my friend."
"I know."
"Friends don't feed friends to the Unmaker."
Starscream snorted a watery laugh, and scrubbed a hand across his face. "Megatron only wishes he were the Unmaker," he retorted.
He looked up finally, and put a hand on the other mech's arm. "But Halfback, he's the only one who can do what's necessary right now. Later, when he's worn out his usefulness, why shouldn't a wiser mech take over? A mech like me? This is my chance, Halfback. My chance to make things better. I don't understand why you still don't want me to take it."
Halfback stared down into the driven white face. Before, when things had been different and Starscream and the others had all been content to work their shifts and waste time at Maccadam's together afterward, he hadn't felt any closer to the red jet than he did to his other coworkers at the lab. But the longer he'd watched the high-strung flier's personality fray as he was drawn into the influence of that rabble-rouser Megatron, the more he'd felt he had to care. After all, who else would ever stand up to Starscream? Who else would have grabbed him out of the air like that, at risk of life and limb? It was crazy, he knew. But it was his responsibility. It was his fate.
"Help me reload the energon," he dictated. "I'll make up some excuse at my delivery point for the accident."
"You won't get into trouble?" Starscream asked.
Halfback shrugged, and hunkered down into his heavy alt-mode to drive back to where he'd left the faintly-glowing load. After a moment or two, Starscream lit up his heel-thrusters, and followed his friend.
They arrived, and Starscream set about mutely retrieving the scattered crystals of raw energon. Halfback folded back the wide upper doors of his cargo bay, and received them again without a word.
"All set," said Starscream, when the load was settled neatly back into Halfback's capacious trunk. He turned to go, but stopped, his face still turned away out over the twinkling lights of Cybertron. "Halfback?" he whispered. "I don't want to lose you."
"I know," the transporter replied. "But although I'm sure the bullet-trails look pretty, those shards of shrapnel really hurt."
Starscream said nothing.
"Are you going back tonight?" the big brown mech asked flatly.
"Yes."
"Then be careful," he replied heavily.
Starscream transformed abruptly, and took off into the starry sky. But as he did, he heard his friend call softly, "I don't want to lose you, either."