Weeks, long weeks, dragged on for the warlord as he waited on Starscream to make a fatal mistake.
After Soundwave, the only being he appeared to trust, something Soundwave had worked for almost two million years to gain, had punished him, he had actually behaved.
But, Starscream being who he was, it did not last.
The first time he defied Megatron's orders, he cringed a bit and glanced at Soundwave, but when the TIC ignored him, he gain confidence and in a few days it was as though he had never been punished at all.
Megatron let all his misbehaving and insubordination slide, only occasionally throwing him against walls and yelling at him, punching him in the face every so often, but other then that withdrew any attention to the attention-craving seeker.
Soundwave was not happy, but did not question his master Megatron.
He never questioned Megatron; it was not his way.
Starscream quickly grew out of hand, even defying Megatron's orders in front of him and counter-commanding him while the overlord was standing there.
Megatron acted as if Starscream didn't even exist.
Starscream was getting desperate, wanting Megatron to notice him.
Megatron was waiting on Soundwave to snap, and take over the discipline, and he told his TIC as much.
The telepath was waiting on Starscream to do something that was so awful, he would have no choice but to punish him severely.
Soundwave knew this was what Megatron wanted, and even though he did not wish it, he would obey his master's unspoken desires.
Then one day, at long last, Starscream did it.
Starscream, through who knows what great luck, had managed to get Optimus Prime unarmed and badly injured alone.
But instead of terminating him, like Megatron screamed at him to do, he helped Optimus to his feet and half carried half dragged the damaged Prime to the waiting Skyfire, then held off his own troops while the shuttle flew away.
Starscream's insane ruby optics bored into Megatron's boiling scarlet ones, laughing.
He knew he had gotten Megatron's attention now, even though astroseconds later he was wishing he was still 'under radar' as he realized just what he had just done, and cowered in terror and regret.
As Megatron stormed towards him, the young seeker desperately wished he had blown Prime away while he had the chance.
He would have been a hero, and Megatron would have had to praise him then.
Starscream burst into tears as he desperately wished he could turn back time and do things right this time.
He honestly didn't know why his cold, insensitive spark had twisted in pity and warmth had flooded through his numb sensors when he gazed into those calm blue eyes.
Whatever had changed in him that klik, it was probably going to cost him his life now, and he tried to take off, flee, follow the Autobots.
They would give him shelter; he had just saved their leader's life after all!
But, as always, he was too late, and Megatron had him by the throat and was holding him above his head before he could even kick his thrusters into the ground.
Starscream's tears ran down his face and dripped into his master's optics, and Megatron just glared at him, quivering with rage.
The tri-colored seeker didn't care anymore if he lost every shred of respect he had ever been given, all he wanted was his life spared.
"Please!" he choked, grasping vainly at the strong fingers around his throat, "I'll do anything! Anything! Just please don't kill me! Anything! I swear-by my wings!"
Megatron pulled the terrified seeker to his face, glaring into his panicked optics from millimeters away.
"I won't kill you." He growled, low and menacing, "But you are going to wish I had."
Not releasing his grip on the jet, he stalked back to Soundwave.
"He's yours, for now." Megatron threw Starscream into the telepath, and Soundwave had an awful feeling Megatron was angry with him, too, for having waited so long to punish Starscream.
The flight back to base was silent, Starscream kept his arms wrapped tightly around Soundwave, his face buried in his shoulder.
Soundwave offered no comfort to the distraught jet, giving off a silent wave of displeasure that had the seeker shaking in repentance and terror, his wings folded back as tight as they would go.
Not a single Decepticon spared their former Air Commander a glance, and Thundercracker flew once more in his rightful place at his leader's side.
Soundwave would rather have seen Starscream escape and fly back with the Autobots, where the telepath knew he'd be safe and cared well for, but the panicky seeker had froze up, and was now fully in Megatron's grasp.
Even if he just didn't know it yet.
Once they were back at the base, Megatron snatched back his prize seeker and threw him on the floor.
"Go get ready in your quarters, Soundwave. Starscream will arrive shortly, I will send him." Megatron snarled.
Soundwave turned and left, ignoring the whimpers coming from the seeker on the floor.
"Do with him as you please." He heard Megatron instruct the others as he left, then he heard Megatron following him, and he felt his core still with fear.
Soundwave heard Starscream yelp, then the sound of metal on metal as what sounded like half the army attacking him, and Starscream started screaming.
Soundwave felt confident the other seekers would protect him, at least a little, as he had caught many thoughts from the jets wishing they had the guts to do that in front of Megatron.
He pushed those thoughts from his mind as he entered his quarters, Megatron right behind him.
Soundwave turned to face his leader as soon as the door closed. "I accept full responsibility for Starscream's actions." He informed the cold gray mech in front of him, and bowed his head.
"You do, do you?" Megatron sneered. "Well, good, because all the punishment is not his alone."
Soundwave had foreseen that, even though Megatron was reluctant to hurt his only friend, the harsh mech could not allow what he considered partly Soundwave's fault to go unpunished.
"Accepting punishment." Soundwave followed his master as the warlord stalked into his bedroom.
Megatron stalked to the bed and threw a smallish whip onto it. "There." He snapped. "Use that to punish that, that," Megatron was rendered wordless with his rage. "Just beat his aft with that, got it?" he glared at Soundwave, who understood his punishment now.
"As you command, Lord Megatron." He bowed his head once more.
"Very good, Soundwave. At least I can count on you to follow my orders, even when they are to punish you." Megatron chuckled darkly, spun on his heels, and marched out of Soundwave's room.
Soundwave settled himself on the edge of his bed to wait on Starscream's arrival.
He did not have to wait long; shortly after Megatron had left, he came back, carrying a limp Starscream in his arms.
A disbelieving and appalled, revolted look was on the warlord's face, and he gazed at Soundwave wordlessly, actual agony on his face.
Soundwave gently took Starscream from him, and a chill went through him as Megatron parted the seeker's legs, moved aside the sparking panels, and lifted the metal from his back while holding up his wrists.
Starscream had been raped in every sense of the word; horrifically raped, and from the amount of scarring on his body it was not the first time it had happened.
Soundwave had never seen any of the interface units on Starscream, and he never had any desire to.
But now he wished he had, so as to have a better picture then what he was seeing.
The cords in their wrists seekers used to tie their mates to themselves, data-link, and bond were shredded, and many of them were ripped completely out.
They needed those cords so they could stay linked together.
Seekers plugged into their trine mates while they re-charged, used them to configure data when mating, and to strengthen their trine bonds.
Without them a seeker would slowly be cut off from his own trine, and would eventually die from lack of data uplink.
Warlord and telepath stared at each other in shock and horror.
Things were starting to line up in Starscream's behavior patterns.
Megatron had caught Starscream more then once trying to plug his prongs into some of his own ports, and had wondered why he did that when he was trined.
Now he knew Starscream was trying to re-start a cord-recovery program that was missing in his system files for some reason.
From the look of the scarring in his wrists, it was a seeker who had torn them, and Megatron silently swore to find whoever had done this and turn them into scrap.
They moved from his wrists to his back, where almost every port was clawed wide open and smoking.
Once more, there was evidence of very specific ports being clawed long ago into oblivion, and Soundwave offered Megatron a hint to discuss this with Thundercracker and Skywarp, who had to have known what had happened to their third seeker.
Third seekers were notoriously well-protected in a trine, as only the weakest of the trine occupied that position.
Megatron shook his head when Soundwave suggested that, and sent back a wordless message on Skywarp's complaining eons ago about Starscream never letting anyone touch his back or wrists anymore, and how it was straining the bonds.
Megatron had ignored it, and never heard about it since.
Soundwave sent back that they had probably discover this by now, and they still needed to be questioned.
Starscream's interface ports were a melted mess, and they moved on quickly, leaving his legs spread so as not to jar them anymore.
His spike, well, it… wasn't there anymore.
This was a fresh wound, still spurting energon.
Some con had just torn, er, bitten, it off.
Starscream's mouth had something stuffed in it, and Megatron pulled it out.
His own spike had been shoved down his throat.
Soundwave nearly purged, and Megatron caught him gently as he swayed violently.
Starscream's face was covered in lubricant and energon, and as both the warlord and the telepath gently cleaned it, they were horrified to find some of the freshly ripped cords stuck to his face, prong stabbed into the corners of his optics, which were still spilling tears, helping to clean the mess from his face.
Megatron forced Soundwave to look at the seeker's spark.
It was chipped, pieces missing, smoking, and a dirty, sickening gray color instead of the blinding white it should have been.
The holding clasps were burned and some broken and missing, and his whole chest had melted components inside.
Soundwave scanned the fine sensors on the edges of Starscream's wings, and was not surprised to find they were shredded.
"I am going to find out how long Hook and Knock-Out knew about this." Megatron snarled, startling Soundwave. "And that useless command trine. The Coneheads are already dispatched to capture the Autobot medic Ratchet, as I know his skill far exceeds my own medics' skills."
"And what of his punishment?" Soundwave asked.
"When he is capable of receiving it, give it to him." Megatron snapped, whirled around, and stalked out.
Soundwave cradled the damaged seeker in his arms, and, even though he doubted very much that Starscream was even conscious to hear it, played his favorite song.
