CHAPTER SEVEN: Love in Disarray
There was no balm for depression quite like having a recharging newspark sprawled out across one's chest, Starscream had decided. Skywarp had gone out several hours ago now for what his trinemates had agreed was a well-needed flight, and Starscream had been all too eager to take over the care of his son in his absence.
The both of them were currently laid out on the living room floor, Nubby splayed across the adult seeker's cockpit with one chubby servo in his mouth, a trail of drool running down onto the glass he was resting on. Starscream was alternating between staring at him and reading a datapad he'd swiped from Megatron's personal library a few weeks back. At the moment, he was doing the former.
It would never cease to amaze him how this beautiful little creation had come from his idiot of a trinemate and an Autobot of all people. Skywarp hadn't even tried; it had been a total accident. Perfection from happenstance... Who'd have thought?
How much more beautiful would his and Megatron's sparkling be?
He shook the thought from his helm because it was pointless to even wonder—it was never going to happen.
He'd never thought any of this would happen, if he was honest. Sure, he had joined the Decepticons all those millennia ago full of fantasies involving a charismatic ex-miner with thighs as thick as his waist, but it had quickly become clear that however much Megatron appreciated his capacity for creating chaos, he had no time to be entertaining younglings. And so their relationship had turned sour, and Starscream had honestly thought for a while that the mech who had once been the subject of nearly all his wet dreams was seriously going to be the mech who killed him one of these days.
Until something changed. Starscream still wasn't sure when exactly it had been, but sometime maybe two years ago now, Megatron had just... stopped. When Starscream actively rebelled against him, he just gave him a disappointed look and moved on. When Starscream messed up, he was almost understanding. It had been disconcerting, and a sense of terror had flooded the seeker. Had Megatron decided he was so beyond hope that he wasn't even worth disciplining anymore?
It was not long after Skywarp found out he was carrying that Starscream had downed a bit too much high grade and broken into Megatron's quarters, initially intending to assassinate the dunderhead, and ended up confessing his lifelong crush on him instead. And so their weird, undefined relationship had begun.
And Starscream had deluded himself into thinking that it would continue indefinitely until about a week before Nubby was born. Megatron had been lying on top of him in their berth at the time, his face resting against Starscream's cockpit, and Starscream had been thinking how utterly sublime it was to lie beneath such a powerful mech while knowing that he owned him completely, when Megatron had turned to look him straight in the optic and said:
"Bear me a sparkling, love."
And everything had started falling apart.
"Are you planning on getting off the floor anytime soon?" Thundercracker's voice came from the berthroom doorway, and Starscream twisted round to look at him upside down.
"He's sleeping," he said by way of excuse.
"You should talk to Megatron," the other seeker said, moving to flop down on the floor beside him.
"No, I should not," Starscream snapped, resting a servo over Nubby's back so that he could feel the tiny sparkbeat there as well as in his cockpit. "I've already talked to him several times, and it just gets worse every time."
Thundercracker heaved a sigh and rubbed his own servos over his face.
"Fine, don't talk to Megatron, but at least talk to me."
"I've done that, too," Starscream sniffed, turning away from him.
"No, you've cried at me. You haven't actually talked to me yet," his trinemate pointed out.
"I don't want to talk."
"You never do."
"So, stop pushing if you know that."
"I also know you always feel better if you get over that and actually do it."
Starscream didn't answer him this time, choosing to focus his attention on the way Nubby's upper lip puckered almost into a perfect point as he sucked subconsciously on his fist.
"Reckon he's dreaming it's a feeding tube," he murmured.
"You want a sparkling, don't you?" Thundercracker said finally, and Starscream felt the words twist in his spark like talons. "So, what's the problem? You don't want Megatron's sparkling?"
Starscream bit into his lower lip as it started to tremble. He didn't want to cry; he'd done enough of that last night.
"Star?"
Thundercracker rolled over onto his stomach and scooted himself closer until their helms bumped together.
"I'm not going to talk about it, T.C.," the other seeker told him, his voice shaking.
"But you love Megatron," his trinemate rumbled by his audial.
Starscream slid his servo up to cup the back of Nubby's head.
"He is old and stubborn and doesn't know a black hole from a neutron star," he huffed.
"And you love him."
"What does that word even mean, T.C.?" Starscream snapped, turning to face him so that their noses were practically touching. Thundercracker nudged forward to bridge the gap a moment before sitting up and resting on one elbow over the other seeker.
"I dunno. I always thought it was the sort of thing you'd just know if you felt it," he shrugged.
"I refuse to label any of my emotions with such a flippant word that has no real quantifications," Starscream sniffed.
Thundercracker opened his mouth to say something to that when there was a sudden vvop of displaced air and Skywarp appeared almost right on top of Starscream in a flash of purple light.
"Oh. Hey, guys," he said, sounding strangely breathless. "I, uh... missed the washroom by a few feet..."
"Skywarp, what the pit!" Starscream shrieked, momentarily forgetting about the newspark resting on his chest. Nubby started to fidget, his face screwing up.
"Oh, I can take him now," Skywarp said, diving forward to grab his son.
"Not until you've showered you won't!" his trine leader declared, shielding the newspark from his creator as he sat up.
"Warp, is that transfluid?" Thundercracker demanded, optics tracking up and down his trinemate.
"I'm not... I have needs!" Skywarp spluttered, looking unusually flustered at having been caught in the middle of a warp of shame.
"Who in the Pit have you been 'facing?" Starscream wanted to know. "You look like you got run over by Optimus Prime."
For some reason, Skywarp's face flushed bright pink at this.
"I... See you later!"
He disappeared in another flash of violet light. No sooner had he vanished than Nubby woke up properly and started crying.
Starscream exchanged a look with Thundercracker as he rocked the sparkling, trying to quiet him once more. The blue seeker just shrugged.
Skywarp had intended to warp straight into his trine's washroom and scrub himself of all incriminating evidence before they had a chance to scrutinize him, but had missed in his post-overload haze. Fortunately, the communal washracks were empty when he zipped over there, which was only to be expected. There were precious few Decepticons who bothered to keep up with such frivolous things as hygiene, so the washracks were generally a safe bet for privacy any time other than right after flight maneuvers or a battle.
He felt some guilt at hiding his rendezvous with Sideswipe from his trine, but how was he supposed to explain it? If he told them who Nubby's sire was, then Starscream was liable to do everything in his power to exact some misplaced revenge on the Lamborghini. And if they found out that he had willingly 'faced an enemy soldier this time round... Well, they'd probably start making him wear a warp inhibitor and a tracking device. It was better this way, even if it did mean lying to them.
After all, he might want to pop out for future rendezvous. Who'd have thought that those repressed little Autobots could be as good at fragging as they were at fighting?
Normally, Skywarp would have taken time to enjoy the feel of the hot solvent running over his frame, but today he was in a hurry to get back to his son. This was already the longest he'd been away from Nubby since... Well, technically since the last time he and Sideswipe had met up, he supposed. At any rate, it was making him anxious not knowing what his newspark was doing.
Not that the outing hadn't been worth it. He'd answered a couple of vital questions and relieved even more stress than he'd realized he had. His whole frame felt warm and loose, and he found himself humming as he scrubbed the red paint transfers off his inner thighs.
It was a relief knowing that Sideswipe was his sparkling's sire, really. So many of the Autobots were just so... ugh! At least Sideswipe had a handsome face. For a grounder. Skywarp wondered if Nubby was going to take after his sire's brash personality at all. Suddenly the image of a full-grown version of his son engaging in a bull-headed argument with Starscream popped into his mind, and he couldn't help but giggle.
"Well, someone's in a good mood," a deep voice spoke up from behind him.
Skywarp rolled his optics, but didn't even bother turning around.
"What do you want, Ramjet?" he demanded, scrubbing some dirt and grass stains off one of his arms.
"Geez, no need for the hostility! I'm just here to wash," the conehead protested. "Although... Don't suppose you could use some help with those wings, eh?"
"Not today," Skywarp told him, flicking one in irritation. He went on scrubbing until he felt a tingling on his back and wings, suggesting that another mech's energy field was creeping up on his own.
"Can I help you?" he snapped, spinning around so that one of his wings caught Ramjet right across the face.
The other mech stepped back a bit, rubbing at his nose and regaining his composure before he continued.
"Been a whole month since you popped out that sparkling," he observed, gaze tracking up and down the smaller Seeker's frame. "Seems to me it's about time you put yourself back on the market."
Skywarp scoffed, reaching over to turn off the solvent spray. Even if he had been of a mind to entertain Ramjet right now, he'd had plenty enough fragging for one evening, thank you very much.
"I might be easy, but I'm not going to 'face you in the public washracks, if that's what you're after," he said. "If I was into that sorta thing, I would've become a porn star."
The other mech huffed in irritation and reached a servo toward one of Skywarp's wings anyway. The Seeker smacked him away.
"Do you have lead in your audials?" he demanded.
"If you really didn't want it, you'd have warped away by now," the conehead pointed out.
"I'm not done washing," Skywarp retorted. "Go away and let me finish in peace."
"Could've used the washracks in your quarters if you wanted to wash in peace," Ramjet countered. "Seems to me you wouldn't'a come down here 'less you were looking for something."
Skywarp growled in irritation and turned away, trying to think what Starscream would do in this situation. His trine leader was always so much better than he was at being authoritative. It was true that he could just warp back to his quarters, but that would mean leaving behind the impression that he could be bullied out of places anytime Ramjet liked.
Before he could think of anything, a pair of servos was gripping his hips and tugging his aft back into a warming codpiece.
"I said no, you incontinent boob!" Skywarp snarled, shoving the other mech away.
Ramjet's face turned dark, and the seeker was mentally preparing himself for a fight when the sound of raucous laughter rang out from the corridor.
"No, no! Don't tell him that or you'll get stuck on monitor duty for a month!" Blitzwing's obnoxiously exuberant voice came through the door of the wash racks moments before the mech himself did with Long Haul and Bonecrusher trailing behind him. They stopped short when they saw the two fliers already occupying the space, and then Blitzwing's face broke out into a broad grin.
"Warp!" he boomed. "Where's the bean?" He started peering around the room, as though expecting to find the newspark tucked away on a shelf of polishes.
"He's with my trine," Skywarp explained, taking advantage of the distraction to step farther away from Ramjet. "I needed some alone time."
"Yeah, that's what my sire said before she disappeared for about a million years," the triple-changer chuckled. "Well, hey! You gotta bring 'im around more often. He's gonna get weird if he spends too much time with Screamer."
The constructicons nodded in agreement.
"I dunno. He's kind of shy about strangers," Skywarp shrugged, moving to turn on a new solvent shower so that he could finish washing his wings. He could feel Ramjet still glaring at his back as he did.
"He knows me, though," Blitzwing insisted. "He won't mind being around me, will he?"
"Maybe," the seeker conceded, though really he was far from willing to share his son with anyone aside from his trine. Which made it even stranger that he was actually considering bringing Nubby to meet Sideswipe, but somehow that just felt... right.
"Ah, but hey!" the triple-changer continued, coming over to the spigot just beside Skywarp's. "If you do feel like you need some adult time, a bunch of us are havin' kind of a little shindig tomorrow evening. You ain't had a chance to get overcharged in a while, have ya?"
No. No, Skywarp had not. Technically, he wasn't supposed to drink while Nubby was still feeding off him, but he was pretty sure he had enough stockpiled fuel that he could keep Nubby fed until he'd siphoned and dumped anything contaminated.
"Is this an approved shindig, or is Megatron gonna come storming in halfway through and throw a bunch of us in the brig for a week?" he wanted to know.
"It's approved!" Long Haul announced. "His lordship said we can do it as long as we don't go over a certain amount of the high grade rations."
Skywarp made a face. "How much? Two cubes each and then we go home?"
"Nah," Blitzwing assured him. "See, he said we can't go over on the high grade rations. No one ever said anything about how much contraband we can have."
A grin crept across the seeker's face.
"Okay. I see what you did there," he said. "I might have to see if I can make it out."
"You could leave the bean with Starscream or something again," Blitzwing suggested.
"Yeah, or T.C.," Skywarp mused.
"Or Starscream," the other mech repeated.
"Eh... He could use some time out, too," the seeker said apologetically.
"Is he fighting with Megatron again?" Long Haul called from the other side of the room, sounding eager for gossip.
"Give it a rest, Hauler!" Blitzwing told him.
"Anyway"—Skywarp finished washing the last bit of his wings and turned off his shower—"we should be able to make it."
He stepped over to the drying vents, making sure to throw a haughty look in Ramjet's direction as he did. The conehead sneered at him and quickly turned away.
The sound of Nubby's cries were the first thing to hit Skywarp's senses when he warped back into his quarters—just before the sound of his trinemates yelling at each other over the top of him.
"No! You wrap it the other way! That's why he's upset!" Thundercracker was insisting, while Starscream yelled right over him:
"I know what I'm doing!"
Skywarp frowned and headed over into the berthroom where the other two seekers were both crouched over the bed with their backs to him.
"What are you doing?" he asked, striding forward to elbow them away from his newspark.
Nubby was lying on the berth, flailing his little limbs in an apparent attempt to extricate himself from the insulation sheet his caretakers had been attempting to trap him in. Skywarp reached down and scooped him up.
The second the little bundle of armor was back in his arms, it was like a piece of him had been replaced. Nubby apparently agreed as his cries subsided and he settled against his creator with small, worried-sounding noises.
"We were just trying to swaddle him," Thundercracker explained, "but we couldn't quite figure it out."
"He was perfectly fine until Thundercracker tried to make his legs fit," Starscream sniffed, folding his arms across his cockpit.
"Well, that insulation sheet is too small, for one thing," Skywarp told them, pressing a kiss to his son's helm. "You want the gold one if you're going to swaddle him."
"That explains a lot," Thundercracker remarked. "Where's that one?"
"I just cleaned it, so it should be in the pile of fresh ones in the living room," Skywarp told him.
While Thundercracker went to get it, the purple seeker sank down on the edge of the berth, shifting Nubby to sit in his lap, reclining against his servos. The newspark blinked up at his creator, and then made one of the weird little faces he did when he had bubbles moving around in his fuel tank. A bit of Skywarp's spark melted.
"Where were you all day, anyway?" Starscream demanded, taking a seat next to him.
"Just flying around," Skywarp told him.
"Find a lot of people to 'face while you were 'flying around?'" his trine leader asked.
"Oh! No, that was... Um... I, uh, ran into... Dirge when I got back, and... you know."
Starscream's optics narrowed in suspicion, but he didn't press the matter.
"How are you?" Skywarp asked to distract him.
"The same as when you left," the other seeker grumbled, reaching over to let Nubby curl a tiny servo around one of his digits. "He'll probably want more fuel soon."
Skywarp hummed in acknowledgment, stroking a digit over a sparkling-soft cheek. Nubby opened his mouth wide and flailed his limbs before pulling Starscream's digit into his mouth to suck on.
"I don't think I'll ever get over how beautiful he is," Skywarp sighed, leaning over to rest his helm on his trinemate's shoulder.
Now that he knew what he was looking for, he could see a surprising amount of evidence that Nubby was Sideswipe's son as much as his, especially in the shape of his still rather blobby helm. Skywarp noted the two bits on top that looked like they would grow into the same sort of fins that Sideswipe had on his helm, and the more rounded shape to the side panels that he had previously assumed was just because his son was still so young. His coloration—which Skywarp had thus far been seeing as just his own with red instead of purple—was also exactly Sideswipe's.
A sudden thrill went through Skywarp as he imagined presenting his sparkling to the Autobot in a couple of days. Surely, Sideswipe would be just as enamored with their son as he was, perhaps even enough that he might switch sides so that he could see Nubby whenever he wanted. If that happened, then Megatron would also praise Skywarp, and maybe he would be permanently taken off of cleaning duties. Wouldn't that be nice? It would be like one big party with the world's cutest sparkling at its center.
"Oh, hey!" he said, sitting up again. "There's a party tomorrow night in the mess hall. Megatron approved it if we don't break out too much of the high grade stock. You wanna come?"
Starscream seemed to consider critically for a moment.
"Megatron probably wouldn't like you being there," Skywarp pointed out, and the other seeker smiled slightly.
"Alright, let's do it," he agreed.
