Update.:)
Keep in mind, we jump in time again. From 100 vorns to 1000 vorns into the war. Starscream is older.
Warnings: None.
Have to take back words from the previous A/N. You will see why;)
Hope you can keep track of past and present, not much in the medbay is present mind you, even if i havent covered it in -Past-/-Present- notes. Just applied those to make a bit more sense. "" is present however.:)
Enjoy!
1000 vorns into the war:
Iacon:
Starscream lounged on the edge of one of the crumbled buildings in the now completely destroyed Iacon, looking at the sinister skyline showing all the broken and fallen buildings around him.
He had borrowed the device that they had invented for him to make him invisible for the decepticons when he was outside the hidden autobot base. Starscream had needed some time away from the hidden base which had begun to give him claustrophobic tendencies if being underground for too long.
He could feel when the need to get outside arose in him; black dots would enter his vision and would slowly cover more and more of his sight, while his venting would speed up like he was straining his systems, even if he just lay prone on his berth. But the most irritating symptom that showed when he needed to get out of the base was related to his wings, they would begin to crawl with an annoying itching feeling all over the sensitive plating that he just WANTED to scratch and the only thing soothing the feeling was to get outside.
It was like he needed the sky more than just to fly in, like he HAD to see it, to get it completely under his plating before he was able to get underground in the base again.
And if he ignored the need, the urge to get outside would just grow inside him, causing him to be unpredictable in the mood and act out more violently against his friends and family. There had been one time where he had ignored it, the very first time where the need had escalated because he didn't know what was happening.
It had caused him to enter a maddening rampart in the base, with his vision clouded in red, and before his optics friends had turned to foes, foes that he had needed to kill, to maim, to do something to. In his madness he had slashed at those of his friends and family that had been around him at that moment, reveling in their screams of pain and the scent of energon spilling from their frames. When they finally had managed to subdue him in his madness they had had to restrain him to a berth before Ratchet had been able to sedate him.
When he had seen the security feed he had been shocked to see how wild and bestial he had turned. They had had to fixate his frame from thruster to shoulder in straps to keep him on the berth he had been placed on to avoid his escape. After the incident he had needed some time to think about what had happened to him. The madness he had seen in his own optics on the security feed haunted the seeker and he promised to never let it get that far again. Luckily none of those he had attack had been damaged beyond repairs.
Ever since that orn he had maintained the need to get outside and flew as often as possible as well as spending time outside not necessarily flying. Studying his surroundings could be calming enough.
The need to get outside had just really begun to pain him the last few hundred vorns. He knew that his frame type was different than those of his friends and family, but still couldn't understand the need he felt as well as the claustrophobic tendencies that he now had to abide to remain mentally healthy. That no one else complained about being underground in the base annoyed him. He felt that he lately had addressed his creator with plenty of issues that seemed solely something he suffered from, and his creator hadn't provided useful knowledge, just guesses.
Another issue troubling Starscream was his height. In the last few hundred vorns the seeker had grown from only reaching the autobots to their hip to now come even with most of the autobots around him. Only Optimus still towered over the seeker. What worried Starscream was the fact that his systems didn't feel completely developed yet and that told him he wasn't done growing. He wondered how much higher he would end than the mechs in his surroundings.
The seeker felt he spent a lot of time lately comparing himself to his surroundings and found the results he got troubling. Was he really that different?
"Hey Starscream!" someone yelled at the hidden entrance to the base not far away jolting the seeker from his thoughts. They could not see him but they knew he was there.
Looking down he saw the well-known golden and red frames of his friends.
Rising from his relaxed position he let himself dump to the ground, landing on his thrusters with a shake of the ground.
He had during the many vorns passing since he got his thrusters learned that his frame was radically sturdier than those of his friends and family and of course he wondered why that was…
If Sunny had done the trick Starscream just did, the twin would crumble on the ground, his legs not able to handle the force of the impact. But Starscreams rather delicate thrusters accommodated the force easily...
Ratchet had tried to explain it, but whatever the medic said, Starscream felt that there was something his creator didn't tell him. He had smelled the unease with which Ratchet had gone into the topic and sensed some kind of lie in what the medic said or had left unsaid.
Walking towards his two friends, he could scent giddiness roll of the both of them. Their optics shone with eagerness and their smiles were ones he rarely had seen more wide.
Canting his helm he went by them and into the protection of the base before he removed the device and became visible to his surroundings again.
He didn't make it further before they pounced on him, grabbing hold of his wings and dragged him further into the base.
"We finally got clearance." Sideswipe cheered.
"So we wondered if you are in for some training?" Sunstreaker asked his voice not as unfriendly as it used to be.
"Are we talking ground or air combat?" The seeker asked, studying his two friends.
Sunstreaker, looking at Sideswipe nodded in understanding to whatever the red twin had said in their bond.
"Air." They voiced in unity, their smiles turning ferocious.
"You know that Ratchet will have my helm if anything happens to you." The seeker mock teased, before taking off towards the sparring arena.
Not able to keep up with the seeker, the twins just ran in their own tempo towards the arena and the match.
"Don't be so sure of the victory Screamer." Sideswipe crowed when they reached the sparring arena where the seeker was waiting.
Snorting, the seeker let out a lyrical sound from his vocalizer on his own language that the twins now knew was a mocking comment.
Sunstreaker growling at Starscreams cockiness moved to pounced at the slightly larger frame of the seeker.
Taking that as his queue, Starscream flicked his tail in a sweep making Sunstreaker back away, before he initiated his transformation.
The tail no longer needed to stabilize the seeker, since the growth of the wings had out leveled during the last many hundred vorns just folded into the frame of the seeker as the wings flicked into place finishing the seeker's transformation.
Then before any of the twins could manage to jump him, Starscream engaged his engines and shot into the air, hovering mockingly just above the helms of the two grounders.
"Get me if you can." The seeker singsongs as he began to gain altitude.
A look passed between Sideswipe and Sunstreaker.
::Ready Sunny?:: Sideswipe asked.
::Let's take him down!:: Sunstreaker growled in acknowledgement.
A curt nod followed that comment and they both ran into the middle of the sparring arena.
Stopping in the middle they looked up to gauge Starscreams flight path. There weren't much height in the room, but enough to make room for the seeker to maneuver in the air and keep them away from his frame.
As an opening revealed itself, Sideswipe was ready to hurl his twin into the air as a projectile towards the seeker before he engaged his jetpack and followed his twin in the air.
Around the large arena spectators gathered to watch the air combat.
It always drew attention when the twins and the seeker engaged in playful combat like this, and especially when the combat was in the air. The autobots had always had a sick fascination of the beings able to master the air, and that fascination wasn't culled by the war and the fight against the seekers.
Sensing the twins coming at him, Starscream waited for a klik before he decided which side to swerve to, to avoid their attempt to mount him in the air. Feeling the air current swirl to his right he banked to the left, and could feel Sunstreaker pass by his side a few inches away from his wingtip.
An unseen grin formed on his lips.
"You can do better than that!" the seeker mocked as Sunstreaker landed on his pedes down below, not having engaged his parachute yet.
The golden twin shot the seeker a heated glare as he shook off invisible dust from his frame.
No longer paying attention to the twin on the ground, aware that Sideswipe was on his tail, Starscream entered a looped dive, attempting to get behind the red twin. He knew Sideswipe was vulnerable if he could get behind him. His jetpack was sufficient to get him into the air, but its maneuverability wasn't good enough to act fast if the seeker got behind the twin.
As he almost touched the ground at the move to get behind the red frontliner, Sunstreaker tried to move onto him, the blunt digits scrapping at the plating of the left wing before Starscream began to ascend again.
Hissing at the faint sting of pain the scrapping caused in his wing, Starscream blocked out the feeling, focusing on the twin in the air.
Sideswipe seeing his move and knowing what Starscream intended, tried to intercept the move, making it useless for the seeker, by flying directly at Starscream, causing the seeker to have less room to maneuver in, in his attempt to get behind the twin.
Having to abort his ascend into the air for some precious kliks, to avoid a collision with the frontliner, Starscream cursed Sideswipe. Banking to increase the distance to the red twin, he made sure that Sideswipe couldn't make a move on him.
"YOU can do better than that." The red twin mocked back at the seeker. And he was right; Starscream should have been able to make that move a lot faster. But with the pain inflicted by Sunstreaker, it had taken a few nano kliks to block it and that had cost him his move.
Letting out a frustrated growl, Starscream hovered in the air, keeping the distance to the twin.
That left Sideswipe with the possibility to get Sunstreaker into the fight.
Diving for the ground he reached out a servo and connected with Sunstreakers.
Hauling his twin into the air, his jetpack complained, sounding more like it would short out at the weight. But they knew it could take it, it had done it plenty of times.
However bringing Sunstreaker into the air with him, made him vulnerable to any move from the seeker, even if Starscream would face a rather mobile Sunstreaker if he dared to come closer. They had practiced jumping from Sideswipe and onto the back of the seeker plenty of times and mostly it worked out well for the twins, if Starscream gave them the opening.
Narrowing his unseen optics, Starscream contemplated what to do.
Calculating the risks and the chances for the twins to succeed in mounting him, he decided to take it.
Flying towards them in high velocity, he kept at a distance that would require for them to be precise when Sunstreaker decided to jump for the seeker. He didn't want to make it all that easy for them to get to him, and he wasn't one to stay idle out of trouble like the one he knew he was flying into now.
This was after all training, and if he didn't let them get a bit of him, they wouldn't get much out of it.
Seeing the seeker charge at them, Sunstreaker stiffened in preparation for the jump that would bring him onto the seekers wings. When he landed he would have little time to gain his footing before the speed would throw him off the seeker.
::3…:: Sideswipe began in their bond.
::2…:: focusing on the seeker completely Sunstreaker lessened his grip on the red twin.
::1…:: flexing his leg joints he began the pre-jump that would give him enough force to launch from his twin and onto the seeker.
::Jump.:: Sideswipe announced, and with that Sunstreaker was in motion in the air.
The jump wasn't graceful, but did what it was intended for, allowing for Sunstreaker to fly in an arch above the seeker as Starscream passed Sideswipe, and allowed for the golden twin to land securely on the middle of the seekers large frame, just between the wings.
Feeling the sudden weight on his back Starscream forced his engine to keep them at the altitude, while Sunstreaker found his footing on the seekers back. Feeling the weight shift and even out on his frame, he rolled a bit to the left and the right to test the twins footing.
Sunstreaker grabbed a hard hold of the seekers wing edge when Starscream began to roll to the sides, careful to stay on the seeker.
It was now that the real challenge began.
Either he got Starscream out of the air, or Starscream managed to throw him of his frame.
Down below the autobots had cheered at the twin as he had landed securely on the seeker. But now, when the first part of what had come to be name Jetjudo had been completed, they silenced again, waiting for the next step.
Who would get the better of the other?
At this phase betting had begun among the ones on the ground, some favoring the twins, some voting for Starscream to best the golden twin.
Uncaring of the voices of the mech down below, Starscream began his first true roll, forcing Sunstreaker to grab even harder onto his wing, leaving small dents at the underside. Ignoring the pangs of pain, he forced Sunstreaker to glue himself to the seekers frame to avoid getting thrown off by gravity until Starscream leveled out again with the twin on top.
"Still holding on?" Starscream asked as he leveled out.
"Yes, fragger." Sunstreaker responded, focused on staying on the frame, knowing that the seeker would push him again soon.
As he had predicted Starscream began to roll the other way around, slowly oh so slowly to allow the gravity to really pull at the twin.
Clenching viciously at the wings, he tried to dig his pedes further into the seam he had dug them into before the first roll. As long as they stayed in the seam the strain on his digits around the wing wasn't unbearable.
Leveling again, Starscream let out a hum of satisfaction. Sunstreaker was still with him, which meant more fun to be had. The twins had become quite good at staying with him during all their playing in the air and training in the arena.
"My turn." Sunstreaker growled, before Starscream could begin a new roll.
Digging his digits into the ailerons he prevented the seeker from rolling again, and got a better hold of the wing. He also knew that Starscream wouldn't try to press him too much if he had a hold there. The ailerons were one of the most delicate parts of the wings and hurt a lot when damaged.
Leaning to each side of the seeker, Sunstreaker would now be in control of which direction they flew. Had he had any intention of really damaging the seeker he would have forced Starscream either directly into the ground nose first or into any wall, making sure that the wings would take the brunt of the damage.
But with this being training and the seeker his friend he didn't do that.
Instead he played around, learning how to steer the seeker around and get a feeling of how much force needed to be applied to the sides to get Starscream to roll, loop or dive. Playing with the flaps he got the seeker to ascend and descend on will.
Satisfied he released the ailerons after pushing the seeker as low as was safe before Starscream would crash, and jumped off the seeker and safely onto the ground.
It signified Sunstreakers victory.
However, Starscream wasn't completely done.
Swooping down after ascending he transformed and grabbed Sunstreaker before he engaged his thrusters and shot to the air.
Reaching the highest spot in the room, Starscream gave the golden twin a smile of mischief before he let go.
Growling at the seeker and shooting Starscream a glare Sunstreaker fell towards the ground below.
Sideswipe flew by him, laughing at his twin.
Engaging his parachute Sunstreaker landed with a thud on the ground once more.
When Sideswipe landed, Sunstreaker pounced on his twin, and the two began to brawl on the ground, throwing punches at each other.
A bit from the two, Starscream landed silently on his thrusters, a wide grin showing on his lips as he looked at the fighting twins.
First when Ratchet entered the arena and flung wrenches at the two brawling figures did Sideswipe and Sunstreaker stop.
"You know the drill. Medbay. Now!" the CMO ordered.
Even if it hadn't been one of the most damaging training sessions the three had engaged in, Ratchet wanted to make sure that nothing had been damaged by their recklessness.
Starscream just favored his creator with a grin, before he dutifully followed the twins out of the arena and towards the medical wing.
Entering the medbay less than a breem later, the twins and the seeker was happily talking about the clearance Sideswipe and Sunstreaker finally had received from the autobot command. They were now allowed on the battlefield with the other frontliners.
Ratchet just shook his head. He wasn't sure if it was such a good idea to let the two onto the battlefield.
They didn't know of the seekers, just like Starscream didn't know. And Ratchet had a feeling that when they finally knew it would be their death.
They might be skilled at their Jetjudo, but put them out into reality against seekers who actually intended on killing them the first chance they got, he feared that he would have to collect their dead frames after their first fight.
Ordering the three onto berths, he called for one of the other medics, Triage, to take care of the twins, while he himself examined Starscream. From knowledge he knew that it often was the seeker that took the most damage in their scuffles.
As Triage joined the CMO, Starscream growled a warning and sent the other medic a heated glare.
Triage was new in their faction.
He was a decepticon deserter from when the autobots began to go into the offensive a few hundred vorns ago. The medic had defected the instant the autobots had attacked his city state, eager to help the autobots in their struggles. When asked why he wanted to defect, he had revealed that he was nothing more than a prisoner among his own people. Accepting his claim, based on the amount of decepticons that had been guarding the building in which the medic was found, the defecting decepticon had followed the attacking autobots back to their base, when scouts informed that the seekers were on their move to stop their advances.
It was imperative for the autobots to avoid the seekers in their attacks and they had turned to guerrilla warfare in their attack on the decepticons, with scouts keeping optics on the seekers and warn when the seekers began to move. With the strategy of hit and run attacks on the decepticon strongholds, the strain on the autobot bases around the planet was relieved.
When the defecting medic had arrived at the autobot headquarters in Iacon, the first meeting between the former decepticon and the young seeker had not been a good one.
Starscream had been irked at the stare the medic had sent him, when he saw the seeker for the first time. It had made the seeker feel like he didn't belong… and that clearly wasn't true.
Ever since that orn the seeker had hated the new medic for that feeling of not belonging. It had stirred the other uncertainties he now and then got.
"Shush Starscream! Not now." Ratchet admonished. He knew of the seeker's dislike of the other medic, but the seeker just had to accept the other medic at the moment.
Scanning the seeker, he instantly found the dents on the wings.
Examining the wings further he cursed and shot a glare at Sunstreaker. The twin had made a hole in the delicate plating on the underside of the wings.
"I don't know why you accept this Starscream. It must hurt." Ratchet commented the damage with an exasperated sigh.
Shrugging Starscream just ignored his creator. He had heard this speech so many times.
Seeing that no matter what he did or said, it wouldn't get through to his creation, Ratchet just began the repair.
While he worked he couldn't help thinking back to when the three troublemakers had been smaller troublemakers.
-Past-
With grounders becoming playmates to a seeker, the usual rules changed and had to adjust to new scenarios when the playing field suddenly could be the sky and not the safe ground.
It had been safe enough for the red twin to play with Starscream in the air; having coding for a jetpack that he had gotten at the upgrade shortly after they had found the twins in the basement. Sunstreaker however didn't have the security in a jetpack able to carry him if anything went wrong.
And wrong it went one orn.
It was simply pure luck that Starscream managed to slow Sunstreaker in his fall and instead of falling to his death, Sunstreaker had only suffered damage on the larger structures in legs and arms as well as having a huge dent in his helm. But if the fall had been just a bit more forceful the dent would have crushed vital parts in the golden twin's helm.
With that experience Ratchet had installed parachutes in both the twins, and just hoped that the near fatality would calm them a bit in their play in the air.
However the parachutes if anything just made them more reckless and any lectures following had been to deafened audios.
Then one orn, vorns after the incident, the twins had become more skilled when playing in the air and for the very first time they managed to best Starscream in his element.
It had almost caused Ratchet to have a spark attack when he saw it.
The sight of his creation suddenly entering a uncontrolled spiraling descend from high in the sky, after one of Sideswipes moves against the seeker's engine, had filled the medic with fear.
In his bond with the seeker he had he felt a slight fear mixed with a strange giddiness coming from Starscream as the seeker fell towards the ground.
As he watched the falling form from a distance he could calculate that the speed Starscream fell with slightly increased and Ratchet was sure that it was the end for the young seeker.
With only a dozen feet between the seeker and the ground, the CMO had fought the urge to look away from what he felt was his creations death. Apathy had filled him with the realization that it would be impossible for Starscream to survive that fall. He had felt useless with all his medical knowledge and not being able to avoid his creation getting hurt.
He had seen the wild seekers fall from the sky plenty of times during the vorns of war, and knew that even those mature seekers was crushed against the unforgiving ground.
Just before the impact, the youngling seeker managed to fold his wings around his frame like the medic had seen done countless of times by the wild seekers and he had for a moment wondered if it was pure code in the seeker making it do so, at least if it was conscious in its fall.
When the shake of the ground announce the impact, Ratchet was on the move instantly, locating the area of the impact.
Reaching the area of the impact, Ratchet had been shocked first to see so much damage done to the surroundings and feared the state of Starscream if the destruction around the crater was anything to go by.
Optics locating the seeker after the debris in the air slowly settled, his gaze fixed on the prone frame of his creation.
To his relief the seeker at least was venting. Not death, venting. He had had to tell himself as he stared at the seeker in disbelief.
Before he managed to do anything but stare, Starscream began to move.
That was even more of a shock to the CMO.
Not listening to the protests from his creator for the seeker to lay still, Starscream rose from the crater, and just shook his frame and vibrated his wings.
Ratchet had been greatly bemused that the seeker didn't look more damaged.
Then when Starscream had moved to take to the air, Ratchet finally had made it out of his stupor and had in high tones ordered the seeker back to base before he even thought about doing anything.
Following the seeker back to the base, Ratchet hadn't been able to not shoot the twins an angry glare. And to his satisfaction they both looked sheepish when they followed the departing frames of their friend and his creator to the medbay.
Not that it had stopped them from their dangerous game. Ever since that orn they had upped the stakes and played even more recklessly in the air.
-Present-
Looking to see how Triage fared taking care of the twins, the CMO wondered how strange it must be for the former decepticon to be among autobots and live with the suspicious glances that Ratchet had observed the former decepticon now and then received from some of the autobots.
Starscream wasn't the only one disliking the medic.
But Ratchet and the autobot command knew that Triage was sincere in his defection.
The former decepticon had provided them with extremely valuable decepticon Intel and especially knowledge of the seekers. When Triage had told them the knowledge he possessed they understood why he had been kept like a prisoner among his own.
The former decepticon had been able to answer a question which they had wondered about and tried to get an answer to ever since the war began: How was Megatron able to control the seekers.
What Triage had told them had been some of a surprise.
He had begun with in-depth explanations of seekers and their society, sharing knowledge he had received from Megatron himself. The interrogation of the former decepticon had turned into a lesson favoring seekers from Leadership over their advanced society before Triage had explained his own knowledge about their health and healing abilities as well as their reproduction.
Then he had in very vivid details described the way Megatron had planned the ambush on the leader of the seekers and its mate using that very knowledge. To learn that the large blue monster of a seeker was the leader came with little surprise. They had through the vorns fighting the aerial transformers watched the interaction between the blue seeker and the rest of the fliers with wonder. It was clear that it held importance. With that new knowledge came also the understanding of why the black and purple seeker always was seen with the blue seeker and why the two protected each other that viciously. Of course a mated pair would act like that.
When Triage began to describe the device Soundwave had implanted inside the helm of the blue seeker and the function of the device, Ratchet had recognized the description and remembered the report he had made on the guard about a device sounding much like the one the former decepticon described.
Finding the report, he had enlightened the autobot command about the deeper specifics of the device that Triage held little to no knowledge of, not having had the device in his own servos to study. Listening to the explanations made by the CMO, Triage had been able to, from the information provided by Ratchet and the report, to verify that it indeed was the same type of device.
With that knowledge they finally had an answer to their question.
Still no solution came out of it, since they knew that no one would be able to do what Megatron had done back then to enslave the seekers.
To undo it, they would need access to the seeker to remove the device.
Something that was impossible.
Megatron had surprised the seeker back then. There was no chance for them to surprise the seeker now. And even if they managed to score a hit on the seeker and sedate it, they still had the whole armada of seekers to have in mind. And with the position they now knew the blue seeker held among its own people, they were certain that any attack made on the seeker that succeeded in subduing it wouldn't be ignored by the rest of the fliers.
At the end of the interrogation Prowl had asked the former decepticon about the origin of the knowledge he held that hadn't been provided the medic by the former Lord High Protector. At the question the defecting medic had paled and his optics had turned distant, haunted by vivid images he had tried to erase from his memory.
Then with a sigh Triage had confessed his own involvement in the process of enslaving the seekers, confessing that he had been there at the ambush. Explaining the reason for his partaking in the act, he told them about the hopes he had had back then to gain more knowledge of the seekers. He admitted that he had been naïve and thought that he could avoid getting caught up in the atrocities done to the seekers. His feelings about what had transpired that orn, was the reason for his imprisonment, a light sentence for him while his medical team had been sentenced to death.
With only a slight hesitation he had offered them access to his memory of the ambush to verify his words. At that, they had all connected to the medic through hardline and watched the memories the former decepticon still held of the actions back then.
When the memory file played and Ratchet watched the experience Triage had had back then, he had felt more and more appalled.
Triage had not held anything back; he had showed them everything, from the shot that took out the black and purple seeker to the moment where the decepticons left the sedated blue seeker and the black and purple seeker who still had been in stasis.
Following the interrogation and the experience through the hardline with the defecting medic, Ratchet had had a deep conversation with Triage afterwards to gauge the medic's feelings during the encounter back then. That was one thing the hardline wasn't able to show and he needed to know if he could trust Triage after watching the horrors done to the innocent beings that had been in his care.
Triage had been rather withdrawn when he gave them the knowledge he held and had described the seekers with a strange clinical tone. That had told the experienced CMO that there was more he needed to know than the memory file had showed.
Ratchet had been greatly affected by the torture the black and purple seeker had been put through, something Triage had confessed that he had made possible without really intending to. For any medic the sight of a being, no matter their origin, or being sentient or not, put through torture would cause the medical code to go haywire. Ratchets own had screamed at him to do something, even when he knew that it was only a memory he was watching and not something happening now. How Triage had managed to handle it back then, to not be able to do anything to stop the torture and just watch as the being lastly entered stasis due to the damages done… He had shuddered, feeling a chill run down his backstruts at the thought.
When he during their conversation learned of the existence of a newspark in the black and purple seeker and why Megatron especially had wanted the device tested the CMO had been horrified. After Triage had told him that the newspark had terminated at the test, Ratchet had been filled with a deep hatred towards the former Lord High Protector.
One thing was forcing them into a war; another was to deliberately seek to kill a newspark, a new life not even given the chance to live before terminating it.
Then Triage, aware of his anger, told him of the continuous terminations, again going into the knowledge of the seekers and their reproduction which occurred every few stellar cycles. Counting the vorns of war Ratchet had almost exploded at the number of newsparks he came up with which had been terminated. Now he also understood why the black and purple seeker always was present during their battles.
When Triage had explained the reproduction and how the seekers treated their carriers, protecting them and keeping them at their camps, during the interrogation he had wondered why the black and purple seeker always had been at the battles with the large blue seeker, if carrying left it unable to fly at some point or if the seekers really were that protective of their carriers and newsparks.
Now he understood and he felt sick at the way Megatron treated new life so carelessly.
Then their conversation had turned towards Starscream. Triage was deeply intrigued by the seeker and its presence among the autobots.
He had been especially interested in how they had managed to turn him so civilized.
To that Ratchet had laughed.
Civilized was a huge word used on his adopted creation.
Yes Starscream was more like an autobot than a seeker at the moment, but still his basic coding ruled him.
He might seem tame and civilized to those who didn't know him deeply enough, but Ratchet had seen enough through the vorns to not be fooled. He was always prepared for when Starscream, controlled by his coding would do something that could get someone hurt.
Starscream had first turned this civilized a few hundred vorns ago when they managed to invent the special comm. line that he now used to communicate with. It had made a huge difference when the seeker was able to actually interact with his surroundings. Ratchet also knew that the way he and Hound had raised Starscream had had a large impact on the seeker too. He might be ruled by his coding, but generally Starscream knew the basic rules of their society and acted by them completely, unless his coding demanded otherwise.
But Ratchet understood Triage's reasoning when the former decepticon only had dealt with the wild seekers. What a shock it must have been to the other medic to see a seeker run freely inside the autobot headquarters. Compared to the wild seekers, Starscream WAS an autobot, even if his coding said seeker.
With his knowledge of why Triage had acted that strange when he was confronted with the seeker, Ratchet had afterwards tried to defuse Starscreams aggression towards the former decepticon, however only with little effect.
-Past-
It had turned out to be a nightmare for the CMO and the science team to come up with a solution that would work with the seekers frame.
Their first attempt to give Starscream the ability to communicate with his surroundings had malfunctioned in a way none of them had expected. Wheeljack had suggested an easy solution: they could just implant a vocalizer fit for a grounder model into the seeker. It was easy to do and didn't require Ratchet to mess with the insides of Starscreams helm, reducing the risks for the seeker. Ratchet had agreed to the attempt and had wasted no time in implanting the grounder vocalizer instead of the seekers own.
For some lunar cycles it worked perfectly, Starscream was able to communicate with his surroundings for the first time and the seeker had been filled with so much joy that bleed through their bond.
Then one orn Ratchet sensed deep despair coming through the bond and not many breems later Starscream came bursting into the medbay, optics filled with energon tears.
Asking the seeker what was wrong, Starscream had talked – or tried to. Instead of any words only the lyrical tones of a seeker vocalizer was emitted. When he had examined the vocalizer he had found it identical with the one he had replaced with the grounder vocalizer.
The seekers self-repair had thought the foreign vocalizer malfunctioning and had repaired it, making it into on fit for a seeker.
While he comforted Starscream, Ratchet had felt quite offended that the self-repair dared to mess with his work. Never before had he experienced such a thing.
Lesson learned, the next attempt didn't involve any implants into the seeker.
Instead they had come up with the special comm. line.
They still needed to connection it with the seeker's communication hub, but the design wouldn't be as invasive as the implanted vocalizer had been.
It was an easy and simple design to work with that looked a lot like the comm. lines the autobots were equipped with. The only physical difference was that where the autobots' comm. lines were integrated into their frames completely, Starscreams would be connected to the seekers helm behind his audio receptors.
The largest difference would be in the software running the comm. line. Uploading the software required to run with the comm. line into the seeker's processor, a new frame on the seekers HUD would become visible when the seeker was communicating with his surroundings. It would work through text to speech, where the new software would allow the seeker to form sentences on the screen in his HUD and the comm. line, the hardware, would voice out the sentences to the surroundings.
Receiving the delicate device when the science team was done testing it, Ratchet had made his own tests of it before he had been satisfied and had talked to Starscream about the new attempt.
It should have been fairly easy to connect the comm. line to the communications hub and Ratchet hadn't expected the challenge that showed the instant he had gained access to the inside of Starscreams helm.
Seeker processors was a medical field that didn't exist so what had greeted Ratchet's optics when he glanced inside Starscream came as a surprise. His own experience only ranged to the time where Starscream had been at an age of four vorns and he had needed to disable the seekerlets access to the weapons systems.
At that time Starscream had only had one processing hub covered in a decent amount of wires.
Now he had five with one more under construction if Ratchet guessed right. He had seen the forming of a sixth socket beside the other five when he had poked a bit at the wires circling the processing hubs.
It suddenly made the feat of finding the exact connection a lot harder for the medic, and he needed to work around the other hubs, when he had located the right hub, to get to the deeper connections.
What should have been a one cycle operation turned into a four cycles long hunt for the right connection.
During that time, prodding and poking, Ratchet had wondered about the seeker's need for so many hubs and wires. The wires were a tangled net connecting each hub with the others in a labyrinth of lines.
Why did the seeker require so much processing power?
What were their purposes?
The questions had turned the tedious work into a hunt for answers and while he still had searched for the right connection, he had observed what different pokes to some of the hubs resulted in physically, to get some answers.
He had been surprised to realize that a whole processing hub was dedicated to the wings only. With that knowledge he had kept his tools from that hub afterwards, narrowing his search to the remaining four.
Later when he thought about his findings they actually began to make sense. The wings were a large part of the seekers frame and from experience with Starscream was littered with delicate sensors. That they would need a hub of their very own to analyze and process the data coming from the large sensory net covering the wings was understandable.
Still he didn't know much about the purpose the rest of the hubs held. At least he managed to find the hub that held the communications and was able to locate the needed connection to integrate the comm. line to the seekers internal communications and allow for the external communication transmitted by the new software to the outer hardware.
Unable to deny his medical interest in the insides of the seekers helm, Ratchet took an image capture of the look of the insides for later study, before he soldered the part of the helm he had had to cut away to gain access to the inside of Starscreams helm, sealing the entrance into the delicate circuitry safely shut.
After stopping the flow of sedation to the seeker, he had waited in anticipation for when his creation would rouse from his recharge and hopefully voice his first words with the new comm. line.
When Starscream had woken Ratchet had almost felt tears filling his optics when the seeker called for him as the very first thing. Hearing his own name voiced with so much needy affection while the seeker, disoriented booted the rest of his systems completely, had melted something inside him which few managed to touch.
He had tasked Blaster and Jazz with inventing a personal artificial voice for the seeker. He simply denied using the monotone voice that everyone knew from the planet wide emergency line, it would just drive them and the seeker crazy to hear.
And hearing the result of the work done by the two sound loving mechs Ratchet was proud of their work.
Inventing an artificial voice was no easy work.
However the only sign in the tone of voice coming from the seeker, that the voice actually wasn't Starscreams own was the slight grating the raspy screechy sound had to it, but still Ratchet felt that it truly fit the seeker. It was definitely a voice he would love listening to, knowing how much it meant to his creation, and the raspy screech as well as the grating was something that you could get used to, it wasn't that bad.
-Present-
With a sigh Ratchet lets his digits trail the now soldered wounds on the wings, feeling the edges and trying the patch he had added to them to see if it would hold. The seekers frame had to do the rest, either growing the new plating beneath the patch and when the damage was healed completely, push the patch from the frame or integrate the patch into the frame and add it to the healing. He had become a lot more skilled in what the seeker frame was capable of doing and had to accept its difference from the usual frames of the autobots.
"You're done. Relax it for an orn before you go flying again." He told the seeker.
"Thank you, Ratchet." Starscream said, smiling.
Jumping down from the berth looking to see Sideswipe already waiting by the door and Sunstreaker moving from his berth as well, Starscream turned to his creator.
He felt spontaneous and reached for the CMO and cradled him in a tight embrace, bowing his head and nuzzling his chin at the medic's neck in affection.
Pouring the deep affection he wasn't able to voice through his bond with the medic, Ratchet slowly melded into the embrace.
"It is okay. I know Starscream." Ratchet whispered to the seeker.
He wouldn't admit it to anyone but he really savored the times like this with Starscream. It was so rare for him to show this kind of affection being the CMO and having to keep it all under control even when it couldn't be worse.
Releasing the medic, Starscream turned and with a flick to one of his wings as he walked to join his friends he was out of the medbay. Ratchet knew that the three would do whatever came into mind and probably end up damaged again soon, and he would enjoy repairing them even while complaining about their damages.
The twins, even with their bad influence on Starscream had been the best that could have happened for his little seeker.
Please review.:)