Trauma
Sometimes, he remembered.
The others assumed that just because he didn't say anything, he was back to normal. Terrorsaur had treated him strangely for a day or two, and Megatron had smashed him through a few walls out of frustration, but Blackarachnia, Scorpinok, and Tarantulas had each given him a disgusted glare and gone on their ways. He was Waspinator, bumbling Predacon extraordinaire; being possessed was just one new event in a series that got him dissembled at the end of the night. Starscream came and went, leaving nothing but ruffled tempers and property damage in his wake. The Predacons thought about Waspinator's brief stint as a traitor as being Starscream's fault.
Well, it was…but not entirely. The Decepticon had been very good at possession, throwing Waspinator out of control of his body, but the wasp was an old hand at being blown up, shot apart, and otherwise losing all feeling to his extremities. The jet kicked him out of the driver's seat, but Waspinator stayed conscious.
And he stayed quiet.
He could have struggled. He could have fought the Air Commander for each twitch of their fingers, each word that came out of their vocalizer, but he didn't. He stayed in the back of his own head, watching quietly as the Decepticon did what he'd always wanted to do. Starscream defeated the Maximals, betrayed Megatron, and had the power and cunning to actually hold on to his plans. He SUCEEDED. He accomplished what Megatron hadn't been able to do, then rightfully tried to take over the faction from that failure of a leader. In the end he failed himself, but up until the moment of Blackarachnia's betrayal, Starscream was victorious. No matter if he'd retreated to fight another day--he had the sheer power to win that fight. He was the Decepticon Air Commander. He'd lived millions of years and defied death. Even as a spark, he persevered.
Waspinator knew this because Starscream knew this, and that was the problem. Waspinator, unlike the others Starscream had possessed, had the ability to resist. He hadn't used it because he'd wanted the jet to win. In his shell, the spark of a Decepticon made him into someone he'd always wanted to be. Sometimes he envied Terrorsaur the courage it took to backstab and defy Megatron, and for once he had that courage. A traitor, yes, and a coward, but weren't all Predacons? They respected power and the audacity to seize it, and that's what Starscream did. And, quietly, Waspinator had explored the old Transformer's mind while Starscream had taken his place in the body shell. He hadn't fought, but he had to know who this 'bot was that had taken him over.
Mind to mind, he hadn't watched Starscream's memories. He'd lived them. He'd fired null rays on Optimus Prime, screamed out of the sky with his wingmates, shouted insults at Megatron. He'd hated and ached and feared. He'd been Starscream, a spark of fiery lust for power and chilling deception. Mind to mind, he'd slipped into the burning presence inside his body and ceased to be Waspinator.
Later, he wondered if that's what had caused some of Starscream's flawed reasoning, but as the jet ripped away and left him desolately in control again, all he'd cared about was that once again he was only Waspinator. Just a failed attempted at a Predacon warrior, too cowardly to ever walk away from a direct order or try to find power in his own right. The explosion hadn't hurt as much as that realization. The others had been relieved to have the old expendable, dependable Waspinator back. He'd let them think that because he'd made himself forget that wild flight of merging. He'd forgotten, and he'd gone back to normal. It was either that, or go insane.
Because sometimes, he remembered what it had been like to be Starscream. Something would whisper in the back of his mind of what he'd been, to be full of defiance and his own glory, and the confident power to back that arrogance up. It mesmerized him, that whispering, that feeling. He reveled in that memory, wishing desperately that he could be…could be, just once…
Waspinator knew he never could, and he hated himself for that.
But sometimes, he remembered.
.
I very badly wanted to get Waspinator's feelings down on this one. Being possessed must have been traumatic, but nobody ever seemed to care that Waspinator had been taken over. Later on in the series, Waspinator really does defy Megatron, and I kinda have to wonder where he got the courage from...
