Author's Note: So, I initially tagged this as a straight-up Aligned continuity AU, but... I've thrown out so many of the finer details of the (admittedly somewhat contradictory) Aligned continuity and grabbed so many characters from IDW for the sequel (yes, there is a 100,000+ word draft of a sequel to this story already it's called Midnight Run ffff) that I'd say it's more an Aligned/IDW crossover AU that I've wreaked full havoc on. Basically, just read the story and enjoy without worrying too much about it. :B
Chapter 12: In Which Starscream Goes on a Date
The last time Starscream had been on a first date with someone he was actually interested in, he was still a wet-behind-the-ears scientist studying for his first round of exams at the Altihex Academy (Skyfire didn't count as they'd never really had a first date or official start to their relationship in general). He couldn't remember much of it—not even the mech's name—and so found himself scrambling blind as he tried to prepare for his date with Megatron.
Since they were going to the opera, the question of how formally to dress at least was answered, but... What was Megatron going to expect after the opera?
Much as Starscream was loathe to admit it, Slipstream had been right when she had accused him of still having his seal intact. Thundercracker's asinine behavior of late had led him to more or less deciding to let Megatron break it for him, but the closer he got to the day, the more he started to doubt his decisions. After all, sex on the first date was a little... crass.
Wasn't it?
Just in case, he had dug out his lasic razor a few days ago—the one Slipstream had talked him into buying ages ago when she'd still thought her cousin might share her fondness for sleeping around—and gone to work removing every single stray hair on his body. If he did get caught with his trousers down on Friday night, then he would at least make the view as impressive as possible. He spent the next couple days figuring out how to walk so that his clothes didn't brush his suddenly very exposed nether regions too much.
And looking up articles about how to have a successful first date, most of which told him that sex should not be involved. However, as most of them also said that no mech would be attracted to you if you were a slobbering, overcharged mess in front of him within your first couple of interactions, he had to take everything with a grain of salt when applying it to Megatron.
The other issue was what to do with Skywarp for the evening. Due to the time difference between Vos and Iacon, Starscream wouldn't get home until early the next morning, even if he left by groundbridge as soon as the show was done. It felt like he'd called every single sitting service in the city-state, including the one that Slipstream had supposedly gotten on retainer for him, and none of them were available. This left only his aunt, and he knew she would be both available and willing, but then Slipstream would know that he'd gone out. Overnight. Was it really worth that?
But then he caught sight of Megatron's letter, which had been sitting in a spot of honor on his desk for the past two weeks and decided that yes, it was.
As he had predicted, his aunt was overjoyed at the opportunity to have her youngest nephew for the night. Said nephew himself was another matter.
"But I don't wanna stay with Aunt Dawn!" Skywarp whined when Starscream told him the plan on Thursday night.
"Why not? You can hang out with Slipstream. I thought you liked her," his brother countered.
"I do like Slipstream, but Aunt Dawn is annoying!"
"How so?" Starscream wanted to know.
"She always wants to hold me and she makes her voice weird and she only puts boring stuff on the TV."
Well, Skywarp had him there, but it didn't change the fact that she was the only person in a 200-mile radius other than Starscream himself who was willing to put up with the little stinker.
"Where are you even going?" Skywarp wanted to know the next morning while Starscream was trying to force him into his school uniform.
"I already told you! I've got some work in Iacon," the older Seeker grunted. "Will you stop squirming!?"
"I don't wanna go to school!" Skywarp whined, shoving and slapping at the fingers trying to do up his shirt buttons.
"Fine, then you'll just have to go to our aunt's right now!" Starscream snapped at him.
"NOOOO!" Skywarp screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Then put on your uniform so I can take you to school!" his brother shouted back. He'd thought that he and Skywarp were doing relatively well together the past week or so, and this was a frustrating step back.
"NOO!" the sparkling howled again, and this time he lashed out.
Starscream grunted as a rather uncoordinated little fist managed to clock him in the jaw.
"Ow! What the frag, Warp!" he yelped, jerking back.
"I'M NOT GOING!" the sparkling screamed, and Starscream lunged forward to catch hold of the back belt loop on his pants with practiced precision as he started to run toward the bedroom door.
"You are going to school today," he said forcefully as he dragged his struggling brother across the floor on his butt, "if I have to carry you there myself!"
There was no way that he was going to let a Skywarp tantrum ruin his chances at finally losing his virginity.
Starscream eventually gave up on getting his brother fully uniformed for the day (their father would have been appalled, but then he always did advise his sons to pick their battles), and managed to wrestle the sparkling into the back of a transport with him. Skywarp spent the entire ride to the Academy wailing and Starscream pointedly ignored him, knowing that attention would only encourage the behavior.
When they finally arrived at the school, Skywarp suddenly became unprecedentedly clingy, latching himself onto his brother like one of the deep space leeches that Starscream and Skyfire used to spend hours ripping off the hull of their ship every time they flew through a nebula. Luckily, one of the teachers was kind enough to help him pry the sparkling off himself.
"For Primus's sake, Warp! You'll be just fine!" he said, starting to edge toward the door. Skywarp was still struggling to escape his teacher's clutches and return to his brother.
"Nooooooo!" the Seekerling howled. "Don't goooo!"
"I'll be back tomorrow," Starscream assured him, but he stopped moving toward the door and fidgeted awkwardly with the clasp on his shoulder bag for a moment; he couldn't shake the feeling that he ought to be making more of an effort to calm his brother down himself. Most of the parents who were dropping off their children were watching him, including Senator Liftright, who was sending him one of the haughtiest looks he'd ever seen. What did they expect him to do, though? If he went back over there now, Skywarp would just latch onto him again and they would start the whole thing over again. No, the only thing for it was to rip off the metaphorical band-aid and make a hasty retreat.
"Alright, well... have a good day, Warp. Aunt Dawn will pick you up after school," he called as he sped out the door, his brother's screams echoing after him.
Starscream couldn't deny that a part of him found his brother's sudden separation anxiety flattering, but it was mostly just confusing. Literally never before had Skywarp chosen Starscream over any of their other relatives. He pushed it out of his mind as something to figure out later, though; he had enough things to stress about today already.
For instance, the fact that Glitterbug seemed to have forgotten that he had gotten permission to leave early a whole week and a half ago.
"You're just going to Iacon, aren't you? You can take the groundbridge and be there in two seconds," his boss pointed out.
"No, I was going to fly," Starscream told her, his face fixing into a glare. "I haven't gotten a good fly in weeks."
"But that's almost nine hours at full speed! You'll be too tired to do anything when you get there," the femme protested.
"I was an intergalactic explorer before this, Glitterbug; I'm used to endurance flying," he pointed out. Of course, he would also have plenty of time to sleep it off at the condo before he had to get ready to meet his date if he managed to get out of here at his originally intended time.
Fortunately, it seemed that the mention of his proper function had reminded Glitterbug that, even if she was currently his superior, he was (for most intents and purposes) still a member of a much higher social caste than she. The femme relented.
"But if you're going all the way up to Iacon anyway, I don't suppose I could trouble you to take these with you?" she wondered, pushing a box of holofile hard copies at him.
"This is my vacation time!" Starscream protested.
"It'll only take you a half hour or so," his boss chirped. "You can say hi to your cousin while you're at it."
Starscream wasn't sure how Glitterbug knew he had a cousin working in the Hall of Records, but imagined it probably had involved the two of them whispering about him over a buffet table at some boring work conference.
The flight to Iacon did Starscream even more good than he had expected. It was difficult to stress about anything when he was skimming over the Sonic Canyons and barrel rolling through cloud formations over the Acid Wastes. The negativity from Skywarp's end of their bond, his annoyance at being given such obnoxiously menial tasks from his boss, and even his anxieties about the fact that he was on his way to have a date with a gladiator he barely knew seemed to melt away behind him in the upper atmosphere.
He arrived at the Iaconian customs feeling windswept and giddy, and even laughed at some of the terrible jokes that the femme who scanned his documents made.
With the time difference, it was technically only an hour later than it had been when he'd left Vos, leaving him with most of the day to sleep, as he'd originally planned. When he woke, he'd still have plenty of time to make himself as devastatingly attractive as possible before dropping the documents at the Hall of Records and heading to meet Megatron for dinner. He might even go a little early so that he could visit Slipstream while he was at it—she would already know he was out overnight anyway, so he might as well make use of whatever advice he could get out of her.
For once, things just might have been going according to plan for Starscream.
Megatron was aware that most mechs would consider it a bit extreme to take a 14-hr flight just for a date with a mech he barely knew, but he supposed most mechs weren't attempting to woo the world's most beautiful Seeker from nearly the complete opposite end of the social hierarchy. An evening halfway across the globe was standard fare to the Vossian nobility, and Megatron would have to show Starscream that he could meet him at his own level if he wanted even the smallest hope of keeping his attention.
Switchback was less than pleased about him taking another weekend off so soon, but Megatron didn't especially care. It wasn't as if his manager could actually fire him, after all; who would bring in spectators for their ring?
Plus, the trip would give him a chance to meet up with the only significant sponsors their cause had garnered so far—a retired Air Command general by the name of Rampant. A few years ago, Megatron had liberated a few younglings from a brothel in Kaon and one of them had happened to be the grandson Rampant had been missing for several years. The old general had been very generous with his thanks, and Megatron had found him to be a surprisingly like-minded spark.
Unfortunately, he and his mate had moved to Iacon recently to be closer to their recovering grandson, and thus Megatron's chances to meet with him had decreased. On the other hand, he now had someone in Iacon who was willing to pull favors for him like securing box tickets to the opera, or getting him into the Hall of Records.
Rampant was waiting for him by the front steps of the Hall, customary gold walking stick in hand. He didn't need the stick, despite being well into his 30s, but he always carried it anyway, citing that it put potential enemies off guard. How any enemies could think a mech nearly as tall and broad as Megatron himself was anything like frail was anyone's guess, though.
"You're looking healthy, Megatron," the Seeker observed when Megatron was in hailing distance. "Then again, it's probably hard not to with a genetic blend like yours."
Megatron gave the Seeker a wry half-smile, and Rampant's own smile faltered slightly.
"I apologize. I'm unaccustomed to being around people who aren't overly eager to announce their heritage to the whole world."
"Don't worry about it," Megatron waved the minor faux pas aside. "And, for the record, I take quite a bit of pride in at least half my heritage."
"You do, don't you?" Rampant agreed, his smile returning full force. "See, that's what I respect so much about you, Megatron: you're not afraid of where you come from. Every other so-called reformist I've run across really just wanted to escape is own station in life, usually by trampling over everyone else who shared it. You were the first who earnestly wanted to make things better for everyone."
"Well," Megatron coughed, fighting back a blush. He didn't know what it was about Rampant, but he always felt a strange sense of giddiness when the older mech praised him.
"So, I assume you had some ulterior motive in asking to meet here," Rampant continued, glancing up at the building behind them. "Probably one involving my unlimited records access. What rare ancient poetry are we dredging up today?"
"Not poetry—not today," Megatron told him. "Someone recently recommended I research the post-Quintesson restoration.'
"Did they now?" the Seeker's eyebrows went up. "To be honest, I'm not so sure I want you to. There are some incredibly unflattering holovids of me hanging around from back then, I'm sure."
Megatron let out a bark of laughter. "I promise not to look too closely, if it makes you feel any better."
"Well, that's alright, then," Rampant said, his own eyes crinkling in amusement as he waved for Megatron to follow him up the building's front steps. "Are you looking for inspiration on how to start a new Golden Age, perhaps?"
"I think we both know I have little patience for the kind of Golden Age that Sentinel Prime gave us after the Quintessons left," Megatron grumbled as he started to climb. "No, actually, a particularly well-informed femme insinuated that researching the time period might grant insights into some of the reasoning behind the less reasonable sides of Form and Function."
"While you're at it, you might be interested in looking at the hearings where the Patterners managed to make hysterectomies illegal, too. I know you were talking about trying to counteract that legislation somewhere down the line," Rampant advised. "I think more than low-caste femmes would thank you if you managed to succeed. Those Patterners were just plain spiteful, I'm telling you! Forget the whole business of whether or not it's ethical to permanently take away a femme's Primus-given powers of procreation, what about us poor mechs who have to deal with cycling?"
Megatron grunted in agreement. Mechs hadn't been able to conceive since the prehistoric times before the Great Cataclysm, but that didn't stop some one in every ten mechs' bodies still stubbornly continuing to plague them with a round of fertility cycles every couple thousand years. Megatron had gone ahead and had his gestation chamber removed at a back alley chop shop ages ago to take care of it, and had almost died of infection as a result. He didn't recommend the option to anyone who had others.
"Speaking of which, are those contraceptives we sent for your district working out?" Rampant wanted to know.
"They seem to be," the gladiator replied. "We've had a marked reduction in pre-natal mortalities this last year."
"Lovely! So, for now, it's still just a matter of figuring out what to do with that one sparkling you've got on your hands already. What's his name again?"
"Knock Out."
"Ah, yes." Rampant seemed to think for a moment. "You know, I could probably figure out who his father is, if you wanted.
"No!" Megatron said quickly. "No, you don't need to do that."
"Oh, it wouldn't be difficult. I'd just have to—"
"Rampant," the gladiator interrupted him. "I have seen firsthand what happens when those in high places find out their lives are about to be derailed by something as easy to dispose of as a sparkling. There is no way I am letting any of them find out we've been harboring their potential social downfall."
"I see," Rampant remarked after an awkward pause. "One of these days, you really are going to have to tell me more about your past, Megatron. I get more and more curious every time we talk."
Megatron smiled drily. "One day," he agreed.
It didn't take long to find the section of the archives for the time period Megatron was looking for, but it did take an inordinate amount of time to convince the desk clerk to let them access the files.
"I've been told not to open them to anyone without Council clearance," the femme kept insisting.
"I'm in half of these files!" Rampant protested. "Only superficially for a good many of them, but I am there; Maelstrom and I were bodyguards for the Council when it was first organized."
"Doesn't matter, sir. I have my directives," the femme yawned. And then her gaze focused on Megatron, and her entire demeanor changed at once. "I know you! You're the gladiator what ran his sword through Cutthroat at that match a couple weeks ago! I loved that match—was on the edge of my seat the whole time. What was your name again?"
"It's Megatron," the gladiator informed her, pushing forward to her desk and turning his charm up all the way. "I wouldn't have expected such a refined gem as yourself to be interested in blood sports."
The femme shrugged, a small blush creeping into her cheeks. "Can't argue with the sight of a couple fine specimens of mech grappling it out to see which is... superior." Her eyes tracked unashamedly over Megatron's form.
"I always appreciate someone with an eye for quality." Megatron winked and thought he heard Rampant make a small noise of something between amusement and disbelief behind him. "I'm fighting a tag team match next month: me and Soundwave (you'll remember him—the one from my ring with the feelers) against Chainlink and Grinder from the Slaughter City circuit. What would VIP tickets be worth to you?"
The femme narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
"You aren't just playing me, are you?" she asked.
"Do you have a personal datapad on you?"
She handed him one, and he tapped a few links, input a couple of codes, and passed it back to her. There was a moment in which she just stared, open-mouthed at the screen, and then she looked up, her face now all warm smiles and invitation.
"I'll have those files right out for you. Was there a particular topic you were interested in?" she chirped.
Ten minutes later, Rampant was chuckling as they made their way back toward the main entrance, the inner compartments of Megatron's bag happily laden with data chips.
"I must say, I didn't have you pegged as the sort who went for femmes, Megatron," he remarked.
"I'm not," the gladiator assured him, "but she doesn't need to know that yet."
"I thought you were against exploitation."
"If she's going to use me for her own personal entertainment, she can't complain if I'm going to use her for more savory gains."
"I suppose that's one way of looking at it."
"What about you, though," Megatron said, eager to change the subject. "I knew you must have known the former Air Commander if you were one of his generals, but I didn't realize you went so far back." He was very much suspicious that his sponsor just might have a more or less avuncular relationship with the mech he was currently trying to get in bed with, and wouldn't that be awkward?
"Oh, have I never mentioned? Maelstrom is... was. He was a dear friend," Rampant explained, a hollow sort of sadness creeping into his eyes. "We fought the Quintessons together when we were barely old enough to scan alt modes."
"Ah," Megatron commented, his fears confirmed.
"He was a good one; kept a lot of idiots in line. I'm worried for the future of Vos now he and Daybreak are gone," Rampant continued. "He was interested in you, you know. We talked about your work once or twice before the accident and he was interested in meeting. Never got around to it..."
"Pity," the gladiator remarked, though his true feelings on the matter were more conflicted. The Vossian Air Commander and his wife would have been the kind of allies who could have taken them places, but he counted himself lucky he hadn't met Starscream while the Seeker still had parents to disapprove of who he was going on dates with.
"If the Air Commander was interested, though," he continued after a moment, "then I can't help but wonder if..."
Megatron stopped talking as the sound of voices came drifting around the next bend in the corridor.
"I'm sure he's settled down fine now he's actually there," one of the voices was saying, and there was something surprisingly familiar about it now that Megatron was actually listening. "I mean, he spent the entire first two months after I started taking care of him complaining about how much he wanted to go back to your place."
A pair of almost identical Seekers rounded the corner, and Megatron's spark gave a little jump as he realized that they were none other than Starscream and Slipstream. Of course, now that he thought of it, Starscream technically worked for the Hall of Records and had every reason to be there, but... he just hadn't thought about it.
The two cousins were walking excessively close to one another with their hands intertwined and their heads bowed together conspiratorially. It was a posture a lot of Seekers assumed with close relatives, whether they got on with them or not, Megatron had noticed. The gladiator also couldn't help noticing that Starscream in particular looked far more relaxed than he'd seen him on any of their previous encounters. There was something almost unbearably endearing about the sight.
"I dunno, Star," Slipstream was saying as they approached. "He's probably grown attached to your love of chaotic living situations. How long has it been since you cleaned anything at your place now?"
Starscream made a hissing noise and tugged on a bit of his cousin's hair. The femme laughed as she smacked his hand away, and then noticed the two mechs standing in the hallway in front of them. She stopped short, her face going from amusement to surprise to what Megatron could only classify as "manic glee" in the space of about two milliseconds. Her cousin noticed the halt and looked up to see what had caused it.
He actually screamed, both hands quickly flying to his mouth to stifle the noise.
"Well, I know he's a bit startling, but you don't have to be so rude about it, Starscream," Rampant chuckled, stepping forward. "How are you, bitlets?"
Megatron couldn't help but envy Vossians and their culture of physical affection as his friend pulled first Slipstream and then Starscream into bone-crushing hugs, which Slipstream returned wholeheartedly and Starscream endured with stiff-backed politeness.
"Rampant, I didn't realize you were in the habit of making friends with gladiators," Slipstream commented when they had separated.
"Megatron here is much more than a gladiator, dear," the general informed her, turning as if to invite said gladiator into the conversation.
"Oh, we know," the femme assured him. "Don't we, Star?"
Her cousin, who had thus far been staring very determinedly at the wall, jerked and shot a glare at her.
"You're acquainted?" Rampant wondered.
And now Starscream was starting to look like he might make a run for it at any second, so Megatron decided it was time he added some input.
"Starscream and I recently struck up a professional relationship," he explained. "He's been investigating our efforts in Kaon."
Rampant nodded in understanding, and some of the tension left the younger Seeker's body. Megatron flashed him what he hoped was a warm smile, and felt another jolt of giddiness run through him when the other mech returned it with a hint of shyness. Starscream's smile was every inch as beautiful as he had remembered, and Megatron was suddenly overcome with the realization that Starscream was small enough for him to scoop up in one arm and carry like a sparkling. He wanted to. He really wanted to.
"Is the Hall of Records investigating your work now?" Rampant wondered, pulling Megatron out of his somewhat inappropriate urges.
"Not very aggressively," Starscream replied for him. "They sent me to do an investigation that I wasn't able to complete, and we've heard nothing of it since."
The older Seeker hummed thoughtfully at this news.
"Rampant," Slipstream spoke up suddenly, "would you actually be able to help me out with something perhaps? I'm working through a list of topics we got for our investigators that are all from around the middle of the Golden Age, and I just can't figure out how to prioritize them. I thought it might be best to ask someone who lived through it."
"Oh, well..." Rampant's turned to Megatron.
"I'll be in town until tomorrow evening if you'd like to meet up again at some point," the gladiator told him, sending silent thanks in the seeker femme's direction for reading into the situation so perfectly.
"Well, I should have some free time tomorrow. I'll let you know. Enjoy the rest of your evening!" Rampant gave him a pat on the shoulder before walking off with Slipstream, leaving the other two blissfully alone at last. Starscream instantly began fidgeting with some imagined dust on his suit front.
"So," Megatron began after a moment of awkward silence. "It's unexpected, but it's good to see you so soon."
"Um, yes. Yes, it is," Starscream agreed, raising his gaze to somewhere around the gladiator's midriff. "What, uh... What brought you here? And... I didn't realize you... Rampant is an old family friend. You know each other?"
"Oh. Yes. I happened to rescue his grandson from a rather unfortunate fate in Kaon a while back, along with some other younglings," Megatron explained. "Rampant has been generous with his appreciation."
"Oh." Starscream's eyebrows came together like he was trying to figure that out somehow.
"I could tell you about it over some energon, if you like," the gladiator offered. "Regular grade, of course."
He had been trying to make a joke, but Starscream's expression soured slightly; Megatron made a mental note to avoid Starscream's past foibles as potential conversation topics.
"I avoid high grade on first dates as a rule," he added quickly, trying to save the situation.
"Yes, well... I avoid first dates as a rule," Starscream muttered, his gaze turning askance.
Megatron's smile faltered slightly. "If you don't actually want to do this..."
"No! No, I just... running into you here... threw me off a little," Starscream blurted hastily, a hand going up to fidget with his hair, which Megatron now noticed had the ruffled look that 'bots tended to get when they'd been mechanized for a while. "I thought I'd have more time to get ready."
The grin returned to Megatron's face, and he reached out to tug the Seeker's hand gently away from his head. "You look exquisite," he assured him, and he could practically hear Starscream's spark skipping a beat as the Seeker's face filled with color.
"Um... Thank you," the younger mech said, his mouth curling in an embarrassed smile.
Megatron made another mental note to compliment him as often as possible.
"So... fuel?" he suggested, shifting his hold on the Seeker's slender hand to twine their fingers together.
"Yes. Good idea," Starscream agreed, giving the gladiator a small squeeze in response.
Author's Note: Onwards to fluff! Also, thank you to everyone who's read and left comments so far. I really appreciate it and apologize if I never got around to replying to you. I'm more likely to remember if you drop me a comment on AO3 instead, since their comments interface makes it easier to see which ones I've already replied to. It also lets me reply to guest comments, which FFnet does not, so you don't even need an account to leave one. :D I love FFnet for their mobile app, but AO3 is so much easier to connect with you guys on!
Thanks, everyone, for indulging me and my overly complicated Megastar AU! Lol