Chapter Two: Prodding
Starscream heaved yet another sigh as he flicked through the lines of his death droid's coding. He was supposed to be looking for grammatical errors in the parts that he'd written while half-awake last night, but all he could think about was Megatron and his bizarre behavior of late.
What was the warlord up to? There had to be some ulterior motive behind his sudden niceties. Perhaps it was like the traps of sugary substances they used to catch the various insects that entered the base via the many careless and unhygienic members of their crew. Megatron was trying to draw him in with sweetness and... what? What could he possibly gain from making Starscream like him?
The seeker groaned and shoved his datapad away from himself. He couldn't concentrate on this slag right now.
"You'd cut the truth out of him if I let you loose, wouldn't you?" he asked the not-yet-activated droid. It just stood there on its one spherical wheel, chainsaws dangling wickedly at its sides. Starscream tried to imagine Megatron's face when the thing lopped that bucket of a helm from his shoulders, but it didn't bring anything like the satisfaction that it had the first couple hundred times he'd pictured it.
With a huff of frustration, he got to his pedes and made for the lab door. A turn around the base might serve to clear his processor a bit, and then he could get back to work.
There was no one else in the halls as Starscream made his way around, which was surprising until he checked his chronometer and realized that it was already the middle of the recharge cycle. Well, that was just perfect. It gave him plenty of space to think.
He needed to peel back the layers of this Megatron situation and get to the core of it. Otherwise, he could be going into his latest assassination plot with insufficient information, which could in turn prove fatal.
Well, not really fatal because Megatron never did kill him no matter what he did, and what was with that, anyway? He'd always assumed that it was some small concession on Megatron's part that he was too valuable despite all of his treacheries, but what if it was something more? What if...
What if, though?
In the last few months, Megatron had stopped punishing him altogether, had started listening to him, had told him that he was missed! What if Megatron specifically was the one who had been missing him?
Starscream stopped short in his meanderings as his processor suddenly started to spin with the possibilities. Megatron... had a crush on him? It wasn't too terribly out of left field, he supposed. He was, objectively speaking, an incredibly attractive mech, after all. Not to mention brilliantly cunning and skilled in just about every area a Decepticon warrior should be. He would have a crush on himself too if it wouldn't have been a pathetically lonely thing to do.
Oh, but if this was true, then there was so much potential! He just needed some way to confirm it once and for all.
Gleeful curiosity pushed all other thoughts from Starscream's processor, like the reminder that confronting Megatron directly never ended well for him, and he found himself making his way straight for his leader's quarters, cackling under his breath all the way as an idea formed. He couldn't wait to see the look on Megatron's face when the old mech realized that he'd been found out. Pervert. Starscream was barely half his age.
Starscream had to hold down the buzzer on Megatron's door comm for a good five minutes before the warlord appeared bleary-optic'ed and hazy-looking in the doorway.
"What is it now, Starscream?" his leader yawned.
"I have a matter of some deep importance that I would like to speak with you about, my lord," Starscream replied in his most sycophantic tone.
"And it couldn't have waited four more hours?" Megatron grumbled.
"Would I be here if it could?" the seeker pointed out.
"Fine. What is it?"
Starscream huffed in annoyed impatience. "We cannot be discussing such things out in the corridors where anyone could overhear it! Invite me in already!"
Megatron's face darkened in response. "Starscream, if you are here to plant incendiaries or sea creatures in my quarters again..."
"I am not!" his second shrieked, and some genuine hurt must have crept into his expression because Megatron blinked in surprise and stepped aside without further argument. The seeker sniffed and made sure to clip him under the nose with the tip of one wing as he swept past into the quarters beyond.
He hadn't been in here since the squid fiasco (which, despite Thundercracker's disbelief, had had a very logical and well-thought-out point behind it), and things looked different in general when he was looking at them as more than potential obstacles to his attempts to sneak about his leader's personal space. For instance, he'd never fully noticed the writing desk in the corner, covered in half-empty data pads and scraps of holopaper that looked like they'd spent a lot of time in someone's subspace.
Starscream moved over to glance at one of them and caught the words, 'I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.'
"Still composing ballads in your spare time, I see," he sneered, reaching for the paper to read the rest of it. Megatron snatched it up off the desk before he could.
"That's, uh... No, that's one that I was... studying," the warlord stammered. "It's not... Don't read it."
A smile crept across Starscream's face. He did love it when he managed to catch his leader off guard. There was nothing quite so satisfying as the sight of a faint blush coloring the cheeks of a mech with Megatron's age and experience.
"So? What did you want to discuss?" Megatron asked gruffly to hide his embarrassment.
Well, Starscream supposed, here went nothing. He stepped forward enough that he had to look up past the rim of his helm to see his leader's face.
"Actually," he said in his sultriest voice. "I wanted to discuss us."
Megatron froze, and Starscream could practically hear the gears in the old fool's processor grinding to a halt. Give it a minute though, and he was sure they would come back on in full force, along with his cooling fans and whatever passed for an interface array on a mech his age. Or at least, they'd better. Starscream was going to rip his interface array clean off if they didn't.
"I know that we've had our... differences in the past, Megatron," the seeker continued, inching a bit closer. "But I can't help feeling that something's changed about you lately, and... Well, do you not find me attractive?"
The warlord managed to unstick his jaw at last.
"Starscream, I have had enough of your trickery and games for one evening," he growled, taking the seeker roughly by the shoulder vent and starting to drag him back toward the door.
"Ow! It's not a trick!" Starscream squealed, and then stopped short as he realized with a sense of overwhelming dread that that was far more true than he wanted it to be. This wasn't a trick. He wanted this. He needed to know this once and for all.
Megatron had stopped too and was looking at him curiously, searchingly. Starscream turned away, hiding a blush of his own now. He couldn't believe this was happening—that he had managed to walk right into this. Skywarp was right: he did turn into an idiot when Megatron was involved.
"Actually," he mumbled, "never mind. I was just playing around. I'll... I'll leave now."
The large, black servo still resting on his shoulder stopped him.
"Starscream?"
He didn't want to look, but Megatron's servo turned his face up so that their optics met.
"You are a frighteningly intelligent mech," the warlord said, his voice low but clear. "I think you would know well what I think of you if you were able to cast aside your own pride for more than two seconds."
Starscream swallowed and felt his spark starting to speed up.
"Assume I don't," he whispered. "I refuse to believe anything until I hear it from your own mouth."
"While I have a hard time believing anything that does come out of your mouth," Megatron challenged.
"I hate you," Starscream hissed, more to test out the feel of the words right now than for anything.
"See what I mean?" the other mech snorted. He pulled his hand away from Starscream's face, withdrawing to sit on the couch. "I have been aware of your feelings for me and the true motivations behind most of your failed coup attempts for some time now."
"I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about," the seeker assured him, panic starting to rise. He'd known? But how could he know? Not even Starscream's trine knew! He had to be bluffing.
"I can't say that I didn't find them frustrating and inconvenient for a good long time," Megatron continued as if his second hadn't spoken at all. "But I find my perspective shifted of late."
"I... what?"
Megatron leaned back on the couch, smirking at his second's growing bewilderment.
"You're right, Starscream," he said. "I cannot deny that I find you highly attractive, and not just your physicality." His optics trailed up and down the seeker's form, lingering on his narrow waist and the expanse of his wings.
"Primus!" Starscream breathed, resisting the urge to shield his more intimate areas from view. "You really were trying to catch me!"
"Guilty as charged," Megatron confessed, starting to get up. "But let us continue this conversation in the morning. I believe it would be wise for the both of us to get some rest for tonight."
But Starscream had waited 4 million years for this moment, and he wasn't about to give it up just for Megatron's aging gyros and their need for recharge. The warlord should have thought of that before making him wait this long in the first place. He crossed the room in two easy strides and planted his servos firmly on Megatron's broad shoulders, shoving him back into the couch.
"Starscream—" Megatron began.
"Shut up!" the seeker snarled, leaning down to clamp his lips over his leader's. Megatron stiffened for a moment, and then kissed back, humming in delight as his servos came up to grip Starscream's hips and pull him into his lap.
"I shouldn't..." Megatron murmured as he broke away from their kiss, but he was already sliding his servos up to sweep over the backs of Starscream's wings. "This is another one of your plots, isn't it?"
"If it is, then you're just going to have to make sure that I can't focus on anything but you," Starscream hummed in his audial, and as Megatron gave a low rumble of amusement at the challenge, he knew that neither of them was going to be getting much recharge that evening.
Starscream woke with his helm pillowed on his arms, his frame warm and comfortable despite an unfamiliar ache in his hip joints. There was a weight across his lower back, which didn't move when he shifted. His processor buzzed, trying to catch up with the rest of what was going on, and he opened his optics.
The seeker jolted violently as he found himself almost nose to nose with an unconscious Megatron. And then the memories started returning. He settled back into the berth, now recognizing the weight on his back as his commander's arm, and watched the warlord's face twitching slightly as he continued to recharge.
Starscream was still trying to make sense of what exactly had happened last night. He and Megatron had... And it was good, but... Why?
He reached out a tentative servo and brushed a digit down the length of the older mech's nose. He'd always liked Megatron's nose—the way it looked like he could practically use it as a battle axe. He liked those stupid glasses of his, too, for whatever reason. He had been giving himself servo cramps for years making his handwriting so tiny that Megatron would have no choice but to break out those glasses to read his reports. He had been nose to nose with Megatron so many times in the past while the warlord screamed at him for some offense or other, and he had always wondered how it would be to find himself in this position instead.
Megatron shifted in his recharge, the arm around Starscream's back tightening to pull the seeker a little bit closer. Starscream allowed it, burrowing into the warmth of his leader's broad chassis.
He stayed that way a few more minutes, listening to the beat of Megatron's spark beneath his thick armor, before deciding that he had things he needed to do before Megatron woke up. Ever so carefully, he started wriggling his way out of the warlord's clutches, doing his best not to disturb him in the process. He was halfway out when his bedmate shifted again and his optics cracked open. The seeker froze.
"Starscream?" Megatron mumbled, still half in recharge.
"Is there anyone else you'd expect to be waking up next to?" the seeker asked, sickly sweet and dangerous.
His commander chuckled—a deep, sleepy noise that shook the berth beneath them, and started pulling his second closer once more.
"Thought maybe it was a dream," he said, nuzzling into the top of the seeker's helm. "I've had this dream so many times before..."
Something hot squeezed at Starscream's spark, and it took him a moment to get the next words out.
"Then why did you always hurt me?" he wanted to know.
"You kept trying to kill me," Megatron reminded him. "And I did stop."
Fair enough, but still... Starscream pushed his helm up under his commander's chin, burying his face in the other mech's neck cables.
"You smell nice," Megatron told him.
"You smell like a retirement home," Starscream returned.
"Nice try, but it'll be a while before you get me into one of those," his commander assured him, pinching the seeker's aft.
Starscream yelped and slapped at him. Megatron just started finding more places in which to pinch him.
"Stop! That!" the seeker squealed, slapping and struggling his way out of the warlord's grasp. "I have things I need to attend to," he announced when he'd gotten himself back to his pedes beside the berth, his wrist still captive in Megatron's servo.
"Stay a little longer?" his leader offered, optics smoldering hopefully.
"I've got things to do, you insatiable bolthead!" Starscream snapped, wrenching himself free.
"Another time, then," Megatron said, his gaze fixed on the seeker's retreating aft.
"Maybe," Starscream sniffed, knowing full well that 'maybe' was definitely 'definitely.'
Starscream stared up at his death droid and sighed. What was he going to do with it? Megatron already knew that it existed—he'd seen it clear as day when he was in here yesterday morning. Perhaps Starscream could reprogram it and present it to his new fling as a gift? He could just play the whole thing off.
One thing that was for sure was that he had suddenly lost all desire to watch it tear his commander apart. A 'facing partner as good as Megatron wasn't something to be taken lightly, after all.
And that's all they were going to be—colleagues with benefits, so to speak. There would be no...deeper meaning to their times together; he wouldn't let it be like that. No matter what his stupid post-coital programming was begging him for.
"Of course, I could keep you around in case things ever go south," he mused, running a digit along the edge of one of his droid's chainsaws. "He might be surprisingly useful in the intimate arena, but he's still a pin-headed moron."
The robot made no reply, as usual, and Starscream just sighed again. He just couldn't be bothered with anything today. His whole processor was full of an insipid golden cloud with the word "Megatron" lurking at its center.
A pop and momentary flash of purple alerted him to his trinemates' arrival, just before Skywarp's voice rang out with, "Wow, that thing's intense, Starscream!" from behind him.
"Don't compliment it, Warp. You'll only encourage him," came Thundercracker's disapproving tones a moment after.
"What are you two after?" their trine leader griped turning to scowl at them.
"Just you," Skywarp assured him, moving forward to drape an arm over his shoulders. "We wanted to take a flight with you."
"I'm busy," Starscream told them, though he was in a good enough mood at the moment that he didn't shrug Skywarp off of himself.
"You're always busy," Thundercracker pointed out. "Why not take an hour or two off from being busy for once and do something more constructive with your time?"
"I am being constructive," Starscream sniffed, certain that Thundercracker was implying that his projects were doomed to failure and therefore not worth spending time on.
"Well, you certainly are constructing something for once," Skywarp agreed, leaving his trine leader to inspect the droid more closely. "What do you call it?"
"It's just 'Unit One.' It doesn't need a name," Starscream replied. "Don't touch it. You always manage to break something."
"He didn't name it because then he'll be too attached to it when Megatron has Hook break it down for parts," Thundercracker snorted.
Starscream just glared at him. The other seeker smirked unrepentantly back.
"I'd call it 'Ole Slashy,'" Skywarp announced. "You know, because of—"
"The chainsaws, yes. Your innovation and creativity will change the world someday, Warp," Starscream interrupted him.
"No, I think it's pretty apt," Thundercracker put in. "It can slash, can't it? Or will it just flail pointlessly and explode?"
Starscream had had just about enough of Thundercracker's attitude.
"It works," he growled, stepping over and hitting the power button on the side of the robot, "just fine!"
There was a whirring, whining noise, and Ole Slashy straightened from the slump it had been standing in for the last few months, its optics spluttering and coming online.
"Woah!" Skywarp exclaimed, jumping back. "That's cool, Star! How's it work?"
"Voice commands," Starscream explained, his annoyance growing at the continued look of concerned disbelief on Thundercracker's face. "Watch this: Unit One, physical functionality. Provide proof."
"UNIT ONE FUNCTIONAL," the droid announced in a monotone even more grating than Soundwave's. Starscream winced. He was going to have to fix that.
"Provide proof," he reminded it.
The droid then went through a full range of its motor functions: bending over in every direction, straightening, wheeling around in a couple of circles, spinning about at the waist, and a full flex of its chainsaw arms.
"PHYSICAL FUNCTIONALITY EXCELLENT," it reported when finished.
"You see?" Starscream said, gesturing to it proudly. "It works just fine."
"Yeah, but can it kill Megatron?" Thundercracker wanted to know.
Starscream was just opening his mouth to answer that when his pet project did it for him: "COMMAND: KILL MEGATRON, RECEIVED."
"NOO!" Starscream shrieked. "Abort command!"
But his robot was already rolling toward the door.
"Abort command! Abort command!"
"Aw, just let it go try," Thundercracker laughed as his trine leader flung himself forward to grab the robot around its waist.
"I am your creator!" Starscream screeched at it. "You will obey me!"
"OBSTACLE TO PRIME OBJECTIVE DETECTED," the droid replied, and then it swung a chainsaw back at its cling-on, catching the end of one of Starscream's wings and slicing a good foot of the tip off.
All three seekers instantly fell silent, right up until the moment that Starscream's pain sensors caught up to what had just happened.
"YOU SPIKE-SUCKING PIECE OF SCRAP!" the seeker howled, staggering back from his invention and flicking energon around the lab from his injured wing. "I'M GONNA BLOW YOU INTO SUCH TINY PIECES THE PLANKTON WILL BE CHOKING ON YOU FOR THE NEXT HUNDRED YEARS!"
"Starscream, don't—" Thundercracker tried, reaching out to stop his trine leader just before the enraged Air Commander let loose a volley of nullray blasts on the droid.
Every single one of the blasts ricocheted off the ununtrium plating. The seekers dove for cover behind various shelving units and lab tables, Thundercracker and Skywarp on one side of the room and Starscream on the other. As the shooting subsided, the droid spoke up once more.
"THREAT TO FUNCTIONALITY LOCATED. PRIME DIRECTIVE DIVERTED."
"What!?" Starscream shrieked, ducking his head out from behind his table in fury. "When did I program you to do that!?"
"Starscream, stay down!" he heard Thundercracker shout somewhere through the dust.
"Don't let it get him, T.C.!" Skywarp's frightened cry cut in.
Starscream rolled his eyes at his trinemate's concern. He had programmed and built the droid himself; it would be no problem to dodge its maneuvers and reach the fail safe power down switch on its back.
The fail safe power switch that he had been too distracted to install last night.
"FRAG!" he declared, ducking back around the lab table.
"TARGET LOST," Ole Slashy announced, and Starscream realized that he also had not yet gotten around to installing a heat-sensing routine. The thing was relying on light alone.
"Ha! Loser!" he cackled.
"NEW TARGETS ACQUIRED," Ole Slashy intoned, and the seeker poked his head back up curiously, just in time to see it hurtling toward his trine mates on the other side of the room.
Starscream shrieked, and looked around for anything he could weaponize. There was a bottle of hydrofluoric acid on the shelf next to him. He chucked it as hard as he could at the drone's back.
There was some part of him that was proud of his own ingenuity when the caustic acid had no effect on his invention whatsoever, but it was eclipsed by the utter horror that flooded him as one of the robot's chainsaws nearly decapitated Thundercracker. It would have succeeded, had Skywarp not grabbed hold of his trinemate and warped them both to stand beside their leader.
"What in the Pit, Star!?" Thundercracker roared when they had popped back into existence at his wingtip.
"It's not supposed to do that!" Starscream wailed in explanation.
"Oh, well, that's great!" the blue seeker snarled. "I feel real assured now!"
Skywarp just made a whimpering noise and shrank behind his trinemates as the robot started to spin in place, searching for its lost quarries. Its arms swung out wildly on either side of it, slicing through shelving units and walls.
"SEEKING TARGETS. SEEKING TARGETS..." it droned, and it began to roll about the lab. It hit a bulkhead and kept going, hacking and slashing at the metal like so much tissue paper until it had given itself a sufficient hole to slip through.
"Oh, scrap!" Starscream breathed as his experiment disappeared out into the hallways of the Nemesis.
"What do we do?" Skywarp whined. "Whaddowedowhaddowedowhaddowedo?"
"We need to sound the alarm," Thundercracker concluded, reaching a digit up to his comm link.
Starscream grabbed his wrist and tugged it back down with a panicked squeal.
"Megatron will be furious at me if he finds out!" he shrieked.
Thundercracker just gave him a look that said, "And that's my problem how?" in no uncertain terms and wrenched his servo free.
"Thundercracker to Soundwave, we have an emergency," he said, turning away from his trinemates. "Yeah. Yeah, a Starscream-level emergency."
Starscream hissed his annoyance, but was cut off by the sound of a long, drawn-out scream and rending metal from out in the hall.
Ole Slashy had found his first victim.
"We're all gonna die, aren't we?" Skywarp concluded.