"HE WILL NOT COME."

"He has to."

"MASTER—"

Megatron whirled around and glared at Soundwave. "He has to, for his sake and not mine."

The two mechs just silently stared at each other. Megatron stood in the middle of the field and glared up at the moon. Dark grey clouds moved on and off it. A cloud drifted away from it and for a single second the moon shone upon Megatron like a spotlight—

And then a new cloud moved in, Megatron was in darkness again, and Soundwave was in it with him.

"WE MUST GO BACK TO BASE. REPLAN. REBUILD."

"This is a part of the rebuilding process," Megatron said softly.

"THIS DUEL WILL GAIN YOU NOTHING."

"It will gain me everything, don't you see?!" Megatron roared as he turned around and unsheathed his blade. A cloud drifted away, moonlight shot across Megatron and his sword like lightning, and then darkness returned and the only light came from Megatron's optics again.

Soundwave slowly prowled around his Master. He tensed as he watched his second-in-command come in closer and closer until soon the two mechs were only feet from each other.

Soundwave held out his talon. "WE SHOULD GO BACK."

Megatron glanced back and forth between Soundwave's outstretched and scratched talon and the glint of the moon's light off of his own unsheathed sword.

He sighed. Megatron reached out and grabbed Soundwave's talon. A vent escaped Soundwave's tense frame and his armor drooped slightly. He very rarely managed to dissuade his Master from his chosen course of action, but when he rarely succeeded Soundwave couldn't help but feel as if he had just shifted the orbit of a planet itself—

The grip on his talon abruptly tightened and grew painful. Megatron pulled and Soundwave was flipped over and onto his back.

He just laid there as his HUD flashed at him and the sky flashed at him as the clouds moved in and out, in and out, in and out—

Megatron moved into view. His faceplate was perfectly blank.

"Back to where?"

"..."

Megatron sighed as he slowly leaned down over Soundwave's laid out form.

"Back to where? Back to my empty throne room?"

Soundwave turned his helm away.

A slight growl entered the warlord's voice. "Back to Cybertron?

Soundwave began to speak. "BACK TO..."

He went silent again.

Megatron hummed as he got up, turned away, and went right back to sentinel mode as he stood alone in the field. "Your silence says more than your words do. You do not even know where we are meant to go back to, do you? Fine then. Until you do know… I will be back. Here."

Soundwave got up to his pedes and stared at Megatron's back.

He slowly turned around and vanished into the woods.


Starscream walked out of the medbay and just stood there in the hall. He looked left and right for signs of any other bots before he then leaned back against the wall. His helm made a clunk noise as he learned against it and slowly slid down the floor.

It would be nice to sit there for a few seconds. Or decades. Either option was fine, he just needed to offline his optics. He the faint glow of the computers shone through his optic lids and then—

A shadow fell over him.

"Shoo," Starscream snapped out.

The bot who stood over him hummed in acknowledgement.

"Find somebody else to bitch at. Maybe Optimus is available. Go onto Facebook or something and find some like-minded old coots to grope with."

"Prime is indeed available," Optimus said.

Starscream's optics shot open and he looked up at the Prime.

"...Oh. Uh."

"Are you disappointed to see me?" Optimus frowned.

"No, no, you're just the Prime I wanted to see! I just..." Starscream jumped to his pedes and stared at Optimus for a moment. "It was rough."

Optimus's field fell heavily around him. "I could tell. The team is fine and the synth-en is…?"

"Ha! We're all only mildly traumatized and the synth-en is all gone, so all-in-all it was a success." Starscream frowned and pointed at Optimus's side. "How's the injury doing?"

Optimus's field suddenly roiled with an intense emotion that vanished before Starscream could discern what it was. His plating tightened as he glared down at the healed seam in his side. "It is good."

"Glad I didn't get you hurt too badly," Starscream mumbled.

"This injury is not your fault."

"I know, I know, just—why do you look like that? Like you just pulled an all-nighter and oh no, you did pull one, didn't you?"

Optimus blinked. "I… perhaps?"

"Oh, Megatron was right, you are a bad actor. Did you just stand there and fret the entire time? If I find grooves in the floor from where you obsessively paced back-and-forth then—"

A large arm wrapped around him and he felt himself get pushed back into a broad metal chest.

"Uh, Optimus?"

The Prime's field shuddered around the both of them.

"I am just glad to have all of you back. I lost contact with you and your sparkrates went flat. I was uncertain if we really had just lost contact, or…"

Starscream gulped. "If Megatron had finally won?"

Optimus's engine vibrated underneath the Seeker. "Yes."

"Well, he didn't," Starscream smirked as he patted his red arm. "Thanks to my ingenuity, we got away!"

Optimus frowned. "Just this time, though," he said so softly that only Starscream's audials could hear.

Starscream twisted around to look up at him. He stared off into the distance with a deep frown as his field grew harsh and frothy.

"Um, eh," Starscream's processor went into overdrive as he struggled to find the right words. "Let's just be glad we're alive and safe for now?"

"For now," Optimus said hoarsely as raw and pure exhaustion bloomed like a bruise in his field. "Only for now," he duly repeated.


Optimus watched the screens of the computer console power down and plunge the main room of the base in darkness. He let out a heavy sigh as he reached forward to grab a vial of energon to drink from. He grabbed the vial, tilted it up to his intake—

And slammed it right back down on the desk.

Not energon. Synth-en.

The green glow mocked him.

"This is our fight and always has been," Megatron's voice whispered in his helm.

Something broke and he looked down again. His tight grip on the vial of synth had been so intense that it shattered right there in his grasp. He watched the puddle of synth-en slowly drip down and paint the room green until it was the only color he could see. Every drip of synth-en that dripped onto his frame felt as if it burnt him even though it was in reality just very cold.

Optimus stared at the dark and empty form of the groundbridge. The entire base hummed softly and he didn't have to go and check to know that everybody was asleep.

His team members hadn't caught him before in the past and hopefully they never would.

Somewhere out there was Megatron, geared up and ready for a fight. Optimus looked back down the hallway. It would be all too easy to just shut the door of his room and pretend not to exist for a while.

The Matrix pulsed warmly but firmly in his chestplates. His responsibilities always existed, though.

He clutched the groundbridge control level in his servo as Megatron's cold laughter echoed around his helm.

Optimus turned and looked into the dark halls of the base one last time. Perhaps he should tell the team where he was headed—

"This is our fight and always has been," Megatron's voice whispered in his helm.

No. He would go see what Megatron wanted now and then be back before the team had any idea anything was wrong at all. This was not the first time he'd had secret battles with Megatron and it would most certainly not be the last.

He stepped through the bridge.


Starscream stared at the wall.

The warm surface of his berth lured him but it was as if some barrier had fallen between him and it.

He offlined his optics and saw green.

"Oh, frag!" Starscream swore as he dragged both his talons down the sides of his helm. "This is stupid, it's over, it's all over now." Megatron was defeated, the synth was spilt away. It was all gone.

So then why did it feel as if it was still there?

Starscream sat there on the edge of the berth and just continued to stare at the wall.

The door creaked open and the dim light of the hall illuminated a familiar blocky silhouette.

"I thought even the Doctor of Doom needed his recharge."

"Are you ever going to let me live that down?" Ratchet moaned.

"Are you here to put another saw to my neck cabling?"

"Well, apparently you're not going to let me live that down either." Ratchet grumbled as he hoisted himself up to sit on the berth beside Starscream. The two mechs had their backs to each other and both stared off into space.

"What the frag is happening right now?" Starscream sighed.

"What the frag is happening to us?"

Starscream's frame shuddered and then fell. "I didn't know I had a fellow insomniac."

"I thought when we rid the moon of synth all would be well. But for some reason it feels as if our fight has just begun."

"Primus, our lives are a mess. Look at us, a battered Seeker and some old coot moping around in the middle of the night and feeling bad about ourselves and our lives."

Ratchet twisted around and lightly smacked the Seeker's shoulder. "Hep hep hep, this old coot still has some exciting things left in his life!"

"A hip replacement?"

There was a second smack against his shoulder that was definitely a lot harder.

"I didn't—" Starscream dragged his talon down his faceplate. "I didn't wanna see those sides of the team."

"But we did," Ratchet said hoarsely. "We really did."

"But I just can't help but feel as if we didn't save everybody. I think I left a piece of myself up on the moon."

Ratchet's field flared. "You have missing frame parts?!"

"What, no I'm just being melodramatic!" Starscream groaned as he hopped off the berth and wildly gestured in the air. "Let me have my melodrama for Primus's sake! What I'm saying is… I think…."

Ratchet just stared at him. "I understand."

Starscream stared off into space again. He wasn't sure why but the air felt wrong and a familiar sense of dread had begun to drop down into him again. "Is Optimus okay?"

Ratchet blinked. "Why would he not be?"

"Alone at base all day, cut off from his team, injured. I would've ripped my other wing off had that been me."

"I just spent the last few months patching that wing so please refrain from gnawing it off like a synthed-up scraplet, thank you."

Starscream shot up from his berth and left his room. Ratchet scowled and ran after him. "You already have a habit of whining, please do not develop a habit of wandering!"

"Where is Optimus?" Starscream said. The air lingered with the staticky remnants of a departed mech's EM field.

Ratchet scowled. "What emotion is that in the air?"

Starscream took a deep vent. "Fear. I'm familiar with it."

They both went into the main room and both their optics widened at the sight of an empty console. The bridge remained open and whirred on and on.

Ratchet sighed. "Please tell me he didn't just up and leave."

"You always tell me not to lie to you, Doctor. I am not going to lie: he left."

A wrench was thrown from behind him and spiralled off into the green bridge.

Starscream whirled around. "Did you just chuck a wrench into the groundbridge?!"

"Why—just, why?!" Ratchet groaned and dragged himself over to the controls as he blearily stared at the screen. His voice came out so soft Starscream hardly heard it. "Why, Optimus?"

"You ask why he fled. I think… why wouldn't he have?"

Ratchet kept his back turned. "He is not the kind of bot to abandon his team."

"He didn't abandon us, we abandoned him!"

Ratchet spun around. "How so?!"

"We left him here!" Starscream hissed. "We just left him!"

"For good reason!"

"Still doesn't change the fact that we left him and didn't even bother to check on him after we returned!"

The two mechs just stared at each other as they breathed heavily. Something wet dripped onto the back of Ratchet's leg and he turned around to glare at whatever the distraction was. His spark froze and his field went coldly solid in the air.

Starscream rolled his optics."What? Did you see your own reflection?"

Ratchet mumbled something under his breath as he stared down frozenly at something behind him.

Starscream yelped as the medic suddenly reached out and yanked him forward. Starscream finally got a glimpse at what it was that had the medic so spooked.

"... Frag." A stream of synth-en spilt down from a shattered vial of synth that had been left on the desk.

"I left it there," Ratchet said hollowly. "I left it right. There. In the midst of my madness, of my stupidity, I left vials behind to drink throughout the day. I think—I think Optimus drank one by mistake."

A sharp laugh broke through the air. "Oh, it just gets better and better, doesn't it?" Starscream chuckled as his frame began to shake. "What?! Did you just leave it out on the workbench? 'Oh, sure, I'll just leave this dangerous substance just right out in the open, ahaha, nothing wrong with that!''"

"I don't know, okay?! Maybe I did leave it out, maybe I didn't! Whatever the answer is, your sass is not helping!"

"My sass is highly helpful!"

Ratchet scanned the workbench with wide and fortunately now-blue optics. He clutched tightly onto the metal with scratched servos as his plating began to shake.

"I already felt terrible about my creation hurting the rest of the team, but to think that I left it out and that a tired Optimus might have drank it by accident…"

Starscream steered Ratchet away from the workbench. "What matters is that we find him, okay? We will find him and bring him back before the sun rises and this will all just be one bad night. No night lasts forever."

Ratchet opened his optics and just looked into the bright glow of the bridge. "The team…"

"...Does not need to know about this. Optimus didn't drink that much, he's not going to go around punching Megatron or something like that. The team has been through enough already. Besides, they could use a break from having to stare at you."

"Stop. With. The sass!" Ratchet hissed at him.

Starscream lightly punched his shoulder as they both went through the bridge. "It's how I cope, Ratchet, let me cope—"


Optimus stood in the snow and waited. Any second now the calm quiet of the woods at night would be replaced with the familiar and ferocious EM field of Megatron.

He extended his sword out beside him and watched the snowflakes lazily drift down and coat its layer in a thin frost. His own reflection stared back at him and he turned the sword away with a sigh.

Megatron did not usually take this long.

The bridge wasn't too far. Far enough to be a trek of course, that was the idea, but still close enough for Optimus to reach it.

Except...

No. He would not leave. Because if he left then Megatron would be alone and whether the warlord would admit it or not, he needed Optimus. If Optimus wasn't there to steady him, if he wasn't there to duel him when he just wanted to fight, then Megatron would just go off and find a new target.

Optimus offlined his optics and remembered the blackened skeletal frames of Cybertron's buildings and the way they groaned in the breeze. Oh, the way they creaked.

Optimus took a deep sigh and felt his old joints creak as well.

He would fight Megatron for as long as there was a Megatron to fight.

He sat down in the snow and watched the snowflakes whirl around and around his helm.


"WILL YOU ACT? OR WILL YOU CONTINUE THIS... WHATEVER THIS IS?"

Megatron scowled. "This is vigilance, my second-in-command."

"THIS IS FOOLHARDY. PRIME HAS COME TO FIGHT YOU. YOU WANTED TO FIGHT. SO FIGHT HIM."

"It's not easy to explain," Megatron rose to his full height and pointed the tip of his sword at Soundwave's chestplate. "You wouldn't understand!"

"YOU SPENT A THOUSAND YEARS TELLING ME I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO UNDERSTANDS. NOW ALL YOU DO IS TELL ME I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO MISUNDERSTANDS."

Megatron reached forward and gripped both of Soundwave's shoulders in his tight grasp. He could see the reflection of the woods in his second-in-command's cracked visor. He turned around to see if Prime was still there and he was, just as expected. Optimus stood a ways off down in the forest clearing far down the hill. Megatron had the high ground. All he had to do was take advantage of it.

But something immobilized him.

He didn't want this to end. The thrill of being above the enemy, of being able to look down upon him, of being able to lunge in and start the fight whenever you wanted—

It was a thrill unlike any he had ever experienced and that would never get old. And he would not give it up.

Megatron sat in the snow, watched Prime down below, and waited.

A sharp strangled noise escaped Soundwave's vocalizer as he vanished into the snowy trees again. His second-in-command could come back and try to coax him as much as he wanted to: he was not going to go back to the Nemesis, not until this duel was over.

No, no, they were supposed to be back on Cybertron, Megatron was supposed to be on its throne now, Laserbeak was supposed to be safe now.

Soundwave stood atop the high hill and dragged his thin servos down the sides of his helm so harshly that it made a high-pitched scratch noise that sounded like a scream.

There was a burst of green light from far off in the woods.

Soundwave went still and stared at the distant cluster of trees he had seen the light come from. He'd know the distinct flash of a groundbridge from anywhere.

But Prime was already down below. Unless…

Soundwave's visor flashed red. Unless he brought backup. Prime had broken his promises before, so it wasn't too strange to think that he'd done so again.

Soundwave could not help the madness of his lord. But he could help him in this way at least.

He slinked down the hill and glided after the newcomers.


Starscream glared into the woods. All he saw was white, white, white, with not a hint of red or blue to be found.

"Stupid snow—stupid, you just had to wander somewhere cold enough to freeze my spark, didn't you, Optimus?" Ratchet grumbled as he angrily swatted the snow away.

Starscream flared his wing. "Your spark is already frozen. But anyway, let's say that… you're a Prime, you have just ingested a dangerous substance, and you have decided that it would be swell to go on an impromptu midnight hike without telling anybody. Where do you stumble off to first?"

"Knowing Optimus? Somewhere calm, peaceful, but also…"

"Lonely."

Ratchet's helm shot up. "How did you know that he likes lonely places?"

"I've witnessed some things," Starscream said as he remembered the forlorn way Optimus sat alone on that mountain top just a week ago. "I also go to lonely places when I have a breakdown."

"Well, you're not going to be alone anymore from now on and neither will Optimus."

"How did you lose Optimus again?"

Ratchet gaped. "What? Lose him? You talk about him as if he's some lost cyberpuppy who wandered off!"

"You're his medic, it's your job to watch over him!"

"Well, I can't be on Prime watch 24/7!"

Starscream stomped down the snowy hill as he gestured wildly. "How do you even lose track of a giant red and blue mech anyway?"

"He can be stealthy when he wants to be."

"This has happened before?!"

"He's never drank a dangerous substance by accident and then wandered off before, especially a dangerous substance made personally by me—"

Ratchet sucked in a shaky breath and his optics went wide. He clenched his servos into fists by his sides and oh, Starscream knew that look. The look of a mech whose plan had just fallen out beneath him and who has completely and utterly lost any control.

"Ah, no, wait come here, shoot," Starscream clambered his way back up the hill and shook Ratchet. His blue optics had a thousand-yard stare as he looked off into the woods. "We will gain control of the situation and find him again," Starscream said with a sense of confidence he didn't quite feel.

"Easy for you to say," Ratchet scoffed. "I'm going to do all the work!"

Starscream recoiled. "Oh? You think I won't play my part in finding him? Listen, the majority of our relationship throughout the years has consisted of shooting at each other, but things are different now and I do care for Optimus."

"That's… that's not the problem. It's not that I think that you don't care."

"Then spare me the riddles!"

"I think that you care too much. I think you'll endanger yourself too because whenever somebody you like is in danger, you feel the need to take the danger upon yourself. And I have only just begun to tolerate you, so you better not get yourself scrapped!"

"Ah, I feel so loved." Maybe if he whipped out some confidence he didn't have then maybe Ratchet wouldn't notice the way his words made him lock up on the inside.

Ratchet gave him a long look as he walked off.

"He took away so much of your metal," he sighed.

Starscream's frame locked up. "What are you talking about?"

"You know precisely who I mean, Starscream."

"Do not dare say my designation in that tone of voice!"

"What tone of voice?!"

"Your sad-medic-who-needs-to-console-his-local-Seeker voice!"

"The sheer amount of metal Megatron removed from your frame over the years is highly disturbing!"

Starscream smacked Ratchet with his wing before he wandered away deeper into the trees. The green glow of the groundbridge faded away and the only light came from their red and blue optics. The air tingled faintly with the soft troubled waves of an EM field that had passed through. Deep pedeprints were imprinted into the ground and were already half-full of new snow.

"Maybe I'll take away some of your frame's metal," Starscream grumbled back at Ratchet as he followed the pedeprints.

"No, you need me. Who else will patch you up and throw wrenches at you?"

Starscream waved a lazy servo. "Bulkhead could do the job."

Ratchet balked. "But he can't do either of those things! Well, er, he could throw wrenches, but he couldn't do a complex patch job for Primus's sake!"

Starscream rolled his shoulders smugly. "He could try!"

"He would fail, he'd kill you!"

"I'd still let him try to fix me anyway. He'd have the right can-do attitude for the job."

"No, just no! You're just trying to get me riled up!"

Starscream hummed. "I'd even give him a gold star for effort and all that."

"Oh, Primus, you'd just bleed everywhere and hand out congratulatory stickers to him after he'd fail to patch you up, is that what you want to have happen?"

"'You triedddddd'...'"

He ignored the angry medic's mumblings as they both walked out of the woods and came to the edge of a vast frozen lake. Memories of cold icy water all around his frame returned to Starscream and he shivered instinctively.

Nope. No. He'd go around the damn thing if he'd have to, even if it was miles long. There was no way he'd set another pede on one of these wretched icy deathtraps ever again if he could help it.

There was a flash of color off to the side and he squinted at it.

Optimus stood far off in the middle of the frozen lake.

"Ah! Look, look," Starscream yanked Ratchet's arm and pointed right at where he'd seen Prime.

A flurry of wind blew in and obscured Optimus from view.

Ratchet stared into the thick white snow. "I don't see anything."

"The wind blocked him! But he's there, I know he is!" Starscream looked over the thick white ice sheet and flattened his armor. "Oh, he just had to go and wander to the one place here where he shouldn't have. I… don't think I can handle another lake."

Ratchet snorted. "What? You've suddenly stopped boasting about being the ultimate Seeker?"

"I am a Seeker! Seeking is my specialty."

"Seeking trouble," Ratchet grumbled. "Are you sure he's out there?"

"I have lied about many things, but I would not lie about this." Starscream took a step onto the ice. Nothing happened, not yet at least. There was no way he could get to Optimus unless he dared to walk across the lake.

The wind blew and Optimus became visible again.

"Hah!" Starscream pointed. "And you thought I was lying—"

"Oh, Optimus!" Ratchet transformed and drove across the ice at him.

Starscream stared after him for a few moments. He looked at the ice, groaned, and ran onto it. "I thought I was the reckless one. Hold up, hold up, I don't think the ice can handle your fat weight, Ratchet!"

Ratchet did a sharp u-turn on the ice and shined his headlights right at Starscream as he drove around the Seeker in circles over and over again. "Don't you dare hold me back! These are the last consequences of the mistake I made and by Primus I am going to set things right!"

"Driving around like an idiot is only going to get you killed!"

Optimus's distant form turned his helm at the commotion.

Ratchet transformed swiftly and stomped up to the Seeker. The ice under their pedes shuddered. "I'm not going to be held back anymore."

A crack spread under their pedes and snaked underneath Starscream's form. It shattered with a boom, Starscream felt the cold water hit his pedes—

He was thrown to the side and felt the back of his helm hit the ice hard. He shot upright and saw the tip of Ratchet's orange helm vanish beneath the cold black water.

"No, no no no, you little bastard, right when I learned to tolerate you you just had to go and play hero, didn't you?" Starscream shrieked as he ran to the edge of the icy hole. More chunks of ice fell from its edges and were snatched away by the inky black current. He took a deep vent and reached into the water. His talons closed around a wrist.

He pulled but oh frag was Ratchet heavy. Starscream could be strong but the current was stronger. He pulled and pulled and pulled—

A second servo reached down into the water, grabbed onto Ratchet's other wrist, and yanked the half-frozen medic right out of the water.

Starscream looked up and his optics widened at the sight of Optimus over him.

The two mechs just stared at each other as Ratchet coughed and sputtered a few feet away.

"...Ah. Hi?"

Optimus frowned down at the both of them and opened his intake to speak.

"Ohhh, I nearly drowned, frag, I nearly drowned," Ratchet cut in.

Starscream rolled his optics. "You're fine. If you're hurt just call an ambulance or something."

"I am an ambulance!"

"Then call upon yourself!"

The two of them got so caught up into their quarrel that they failed to notice Optimus rise up to his full height and stand over the both of them until he placed both his servos on both their shoulders.

They both looked up at him and braced their frames for whatever grandiose speech Optimus had prepared.

"You should not have come here. Go back to base."

They blinked up at him.

Starscream scoffed first. "Okay, no, first of all—"

"Holdddd uppp—"

Optimus silenced them both with a heavy sigh. "I undertook this mission alone and without telling you all for a reason. Megatron and I have been duelling together for years. He would refuse to allow others to be in our presence."

"What? You're here to have a duel?" Ratchet gasped.

Optimus's entire frame and his grip on both their shoulders tightened as he scanned the trees for any sign of the warlord. "Indeed. I have to come whenever he calls."

"But why?" Starscream asked. "That's—that's the kind of arrangement he and I used to have when I was still his second! I was always at his beck and call! Are you seriously telling me that you also have to do his bidding?"

"Shortly after the war began he would call me and demand that I come and fight him. That was when he had begun to especially go mad and when he insisted that he… find ways to let out his anger. He was and still is a gladiator to his core. Brutality and battle is the only way to release his emotions and pain that he knows of. I accepted his duels and fought him whenever he desired to fight. I did this out of fear that if I refused then he would just go and fight somebody else who could not stand their ground against him. One time he called me and asked me to duel. During that one time I chose not to answer his call. And then…"

Optimus trailed off as his massive field grew cold and slow around him.

Starscream spoke up softly. "Somebody died, didn't they?"

Optimus nodded.

"Oh, come on!" Ratchet shouted. His angry voice echoed all across the entire lake and made the birds in the nearest trees take flight. "All these years you've been confronting him alone and without backup? And you're going to stay here?!"

"I need to."

"No, you just want to. You keep enabling him, that's what!"

Optimus frowned. "He enables himself. If I do not accept his wish to fight he will fight someone who cannot handle it."

"Who died?" Ratchet snapped. "Whose death shook you so much that you decided you need to just go lone wolf in the middle of the night every now and then and fight our biggest enemy all alone?"

Optimus just stared at him. An emotion Starscream could not identify passed between the two mechs. The scowl on Ratchet's faceplate fell and his field drooped and fell along with his armor. "... Oh. Her."

Prime looked up at the top of a nearby hill. "He is up there. I saw the light of his optics reflect off his sword."

Starscream clutched onto Optimus's arm. "Do not do this! Do not!"

"If I don't suffer the consequences of this fight he will go after somebody else. He might go after one of you or he might go after a human. I can see that my decision here is causing you great emotional pain, but I must go through with this decision in order to ensure you don't suffer physical pain. Please return to base. I have returned home a hundred times before and I will return to it again."

Optimus squeezed both their shoulders, let his field flare out warmly, and then walked off to the base of the hill to meet his fate.

Ratchet and Starscream watched the Prime vanish back into the cold white snow.

There was a clang as Starscream fell to the ground.

"Oh, no you don't, I lost one mech and I am not losing another. Please tell me that there is nothing actually wrong and that you're just being melodramatic!"

The Seeker laid prone on the ice and just stared up at the sky. "Let me have my melodrama."

"Starscream," Ratchet said suddenly.

"Let me please be unconscious. Please."

"No, you're staying awake, slaggit! Just tell me one thing," Ratchet's faceplate fell and he let out a soft sigh that made Starscream look up at him. "How did you know something was wrong with Optimus earlier? Back in the base? Somehow you just… could feel it."

Starscream flopped onto his back and gestured his talons around. "Oh, I used my super special and super secret Seeker powers—"

"Starscream."

"I unleashed my inner Doctor of Doom and doctored the situation—"

"Starscream!"

"Fine, fine! Put the wrench away!"

"You're not even looking at me, how could you know whether I have my wrench out or not?"

Starscream snorted. A moment of silence passed before the metallic sound of a wrench being put away clinked in the air.

"I knew something was wrong because..." Starscream began and then paused. "Because something or someone is always wrong. The question is not, 'is something wrong,' the question is, 'what isn't?' If that makes sense?"

Ratchet frowned. "It does. Even though it pains me to admit this, you are making sense. You know things are fragged when even your inane chatter is logical."

Starscream nodded his helm sagely. "I am indeed a source of Seekerly wisdom." They both stared off into the snow. "He has to come around eventually, right?"

Ratchet sighed. "I honestly don't know. He needs to. He has to. But we cannot force him to come back with us. Even if we got the entire team awake and had them physically pull him back…"

"The self-sacrificial fool would just nobly stomp right back to where we found him."

Ratchet offlined his optics. "Yes."

The snow fell harder as dread fell hard into Starscream's tank. He got up, walked off, and let out a frustrated shriek as he kicked a bundle of snow. It exploded into the air and he offlined his optics as he let it fall down all over him.

Ratchet watched the snow fell down. "Did that make you feel better?"

"Oh, not at all."

"Let's just go back to base for now and come up with a plan that isn't somewhere that is going to make me freeze my armor off."

He just stared off at the distant from of Optimus as Ratchet took the Seeker by his talon and gently led him away back to the bridge. Optimus's form grew smaller and smaller until he was just a regretful red and blue dot lost amidst the snowy sea of white.


"...Um," Ratchet said.

Starscream turned around to look at what had caught Ratchet's attention as the bridge died down behind the both of them.

The entire rest of the team stood there, arms crossed and fields tense and angry.

"Frag me," Ratchet sighed. He grunted as Starscream pushed him forward. The two stared each other down before Ratchet then groaned and went up to the team to appease them.

Starscream just stared at the empty void of the inactive groundbridge as the sounds of raised voices echoed around his helm. It felt as if a sudden fog had descended down upon him. For some reason Optimus felt closer to him than the team did in that moment even though the team was a few feet away Optimus was hundreds of miles away.

Bulkhead whimpered. "Optimus is missing?! Why didn't you get me, I could've smashed a way through to him through the wilderness with my wrecking ball—"

"We, eh, thought we could find him quickly," Ratchet said.

"Quickly? Quickly?" Arcee scoffed. "You and Starscream just had to go off and play search-and-rescue all by yourselves, didn't you?"

Bumblebee beeped sadly.

"We thought we could bring him back, we really did!" Ratchet sighed.

Arcee huffed. "Well, you didn't."

"He didn't want to return!"

There was silence.

"...Wait," Bumblebee blooped. "You did find him?"

Ratchet was silent for a few moments. "He… did not want to be found."

"What does that even mean?!" Arcee shouted.

"It means—it means—oh, Primus, help me out here Starscream, what does it mean?"

Starscream let the angry voices drift in one audial and out the other. The lack of sound the inactive groundbridge didn't make somehow felt louder than the noise of the argument behind him.

Ratchet looked at him. "Well, come on, help me out here!"

Starscream clenched his talons into fists. "How can I help you when I couldn't even help Optimus?!" He strode off and walked right past the rest of the team on the way back to his room.

He didn't even remember the walk from the anger-filled main room to his cold small one. He found himself on his berth. The back of his pedes lightly rested against the crates under his helm.

Oh, had a few minutes at least before Ratchet crawled back to him for more backup.

He just needed to see his stash. Oh, Primus, the blue glow of it comforted him so much.

The crates scraped against the bottom of the floor as he shoved them aside and—

The stash was gone.

He felt as if he had been stabbed.

No.

No.

No.

He hadn't drank it, which meant somebody else removed it, which meant somebody else found it, which meant—

There was a scoff behind him. He twisted around and looked up at Arcee's form. The rest of the entire team was there.

"We found it," she said.

Starscream swore under his breath. He should have known that they'd do routine room examinations to ensure there was no treachery.

"Okay. Okay." Starscream slowly rose to his legs as he cautiously held his now slightly shaky talons out. "This can be explained."

Bulkhead shook his helm and whimpered. "Starry, why? When we woke up and found the three of you missing we looked everywhere. I got kinda desperate so I began to look in the tiny nooks and crannies I knew you three wouldn't fit in but that I thought maybe you had managed to squeeze into anyway." He rubbed the back of his neck and laughed awkwardly. "And, well, I didn't find you, but I did find your stash."

"Where is it?" Starscream snarled as he whipped around. The team leaned back at the feral look on his face. "No, don't look at me like that, don't look at me like that!"

Bumblebee pointed at the void under the berth. "We had to make sure it wasn't synth-en or had traces of it, so we went and tested it all in Ratchet's lab. You must have been accumulating it for months now!"

Starscream made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded an awful lot like a choke. "Ah, well, yes, but—"

Arcee stepped up to him. "Why did you hide this from us?"

"I had to! I had to!"

Bumblebee beeped sadly. "Oh, but why?"

Starscream's vents came in sharper and faster as his field sparked and burned and twisted around him. He backed away and felt the sharp corner of his berth hit his thighs and found himself seated on his berth again, a wall of concrete behind him and a wall of judgemental Autobots in front of him.

"I—I—"

"—have a lot to answer for," Arcee finished.

His vents came in even faster because that was somehow possible apparently. He had to escape, the same way Optimus did, gone and away and into the night.

A heavy servo landed on his right shoulder.

Starscream flinched. A burst of pain shot through the EM field of the bot who had placed his servo on the Seeker's pauldron.

He looked up right into the big blue optics of Ratchet. He glared at everybody else."Everybody, stop, you are overwhelming him! What's the problem?"

Arcee pointed at the Seeker. "He had been hoarding energon."

Ratchet's shoulders fell. "Okay, we can discuss this, just calm down everybody!"

Bulkhead moaned. "I'm kind of panicking over here, 'Ratch!"

"No, we need to go over this situation calmly!" Ratchet snapped. "It is the way of things—"

It is the way of things.

Starscream kicked Ratchet away, slipped between Arcee and the doorway, shoved past Bumblebee, dodged Bulkhead's grab, and ran down the hall back to the common room at full speed.

"Gah!" Ratchet cried out. "No, no, come back!"

He skid into the main room and hastily typed in a familiar series of coordinates into the controls. The groundbridge whirred to life, he turned around and beheld the shocked faceplates of the team, and then leaped into the bridge.

He vanished into the green glow.

A single wrench careened into the bridge after him.


"Frag, running from my problems is hard work," Starscream grumbled as he stomped his way through the snow again. Something plopped into the snow next to him and he shrieked at the sight of a wrench.

Optimus. He'd find Optimus. He would defend him, right? His calm voice and demeanour would calm everybody down and then everybody and everything would be calm and then—

Starscream held a cold talon to his abdomen as a phantom pain ripped through it. He was full for the time being, but his tank remembered otherwise. Optimus would help him, right?

He slowed to a stop and just stood there between the snowy trees. Optimus was not the sort of bot to punish cruelly, but surely he had some form of punishment that he used to keep his team in line. Starvation was the most humane compared to the alternatives.

The sound of a distant bridge burst through the air.

"Starscream!" Ratchet called.

His wing shot up. The old cog was apparently persistent only when he felt like it. No, the only thing that would greet him if he returned to the medic would be a sharp wrench and sharper words.

He buried his faceplate in his talons as he took a deep vent. They had probably already taken the entire stash and shoved it right back into the main supply. The deep empty void right under his berth would probably soon match the void in his tank that would be there after they withheld energon from him.

"Come back, come on!" Ratchet cried out again.

Starscream slipped behind a cluster of trees and listened to the wind carry Ratchet's voice away.

"Listen, I could have phrased things better, but please! I already lost one friend, I don't want to lose my new one!"

New friend.

Starscream peered around the bark of the tree he was hid behind. There was no sign of orange metal, not yet, but if he just followed the sound of the medic's voice…

Maybe he was being irrational. Maybe—maybe they wouldn't withhold as much energon from him as Megatron had. They were kinder.

The phantom pain swept in and stabbed as the wind blew harder. His helm throbbed as his field hissed around him like an angry storm and he held his helm and moaned as his spark spun faster and faster. Too much, too fast, too much—

There was the crunch of a soft pedefall. Too soft to be Optimus or Ratchet's and definitely not his own. His spark froze and he sunk deeper into the snow. No. No. No.

He looked around the other curve of the tree and saw a glimpse of purple in the woods. For a split second he even saw the bright red flash of a distant single optic.

"Lovely," Starscream said shakily. Soundwave was out here which meant Megatron would be out here as well.

He shot to his pedes and rapidly looked back and forth between the trees he knew Ratchet to be in and the more distant other cluster of trees he had seen Soundwave's lithe form glide through.

Ratchet became visible as he scrambled into Starscream's line of sight. His orange armor shuddered with the weight of the snow and emotion on him as his helm darted to and fro.

The Seeker rose to his full height.

Ratchet saw the movement and pointed a digit at him. "You, sir, have a wandering habit just as bad as Prime's!"

Within just a minute he could close the not too distant gap between him and the panicked medic—

Soundwave glided into view. The sharp angles of his purple frame blocked out Ratchet's as he stepped in between the two mechs.

A hot burst of static exploded into the air and made tingles run across his frame. Starscream was panicked, yet, but it was the cold kind of panic that made you slow down, not the kind that made your field burst with static. So it had to be Ratchet's field he felt explode with panic… except Ratchet was so far, so it couldn't be his either.

Starscream's optics widened as they locked onto Soundwave's optic. "You're scared," he breathed.

Soundwave narrowed his optic at him. He turned around to glare at Ratchet before he then began to stalk over to Starscream.

He ran.


"So I'm running," Starscream panted as he leaped over a log and hid behind a tree, "from Ratchet, who is chasing Soundwave, who is chasing me, all while I chase Optimus! Oh, and there's a chance Megatron is here as well! Ha!" A bitter laugh broke out of him.

Ratchet's voice cut cleanly through the air. "Leave my patient alone!"

Soundwave twisted around and let loose a horrible and staticky recording that made Ratchet shrink back. The two Autobots caught glimpses of each other, but then Soundwave moved between them again and held out both arms in order to stop the two of them from being able to close the gap.

"You're scared," Starscream shook out. Soundwave ignored him.

He approached the silent mech. "No, I'm not talking to Ratchet, I'm talking to you. You're scared and you were scared on the moon as well."

Soundwave's field hummed coldly as he began to slowly lift his cables.

"Ah, no, not the cables, keep those away for now," Starscream whimpered. "Why are you doing this?!"

Soundwave's optic twitched as he stalked forward again. Snow was thrown into the air in a flurry as Starscream's sharp pedes kicked it up in mounds in his attempt to scramble backwards from the encroachment of the purple mech.

"I saw you shatter that vial!" Starscream shrieked.

"Are you trying to make chit-chat with him?!" Ratchet shouted from afar.

"Don't bitch at me from a distance, you old coot, I'm onto something here!" Starscream shouted back. He ignored the echo of Ratchet's offended scoff.

Soundwave glanced back and forth between the two Autobots as they bickered.

"Eh, you get used to it," Starscream sighed. He felt his back push up against the solid bark of a tree as Soundwave stood only feet from him.

"YOU ARE GOING TO PAY."

"You have been saying that for a long time now, but I still don't know what it means," Starscream said softly.

"YOU MUST PAY THE PRICE FOR MAKING MEGATRON GO MAD."

"That is a price he must pay himself. He let himself go mad!"

A cable slammed into the tree bark inches away from Starscream's helm. He bit back a cry. "You don't want to do this!"

Soundwave's frame tightened. "I DON'T 'WANT' TO. I NEED TO."

"Oh, look at you!" Starscream spat as Ratchet came up behind the purple mech. Starscream lifted up a talon that indicated to the medic to halt. He turned his attention back to the very angry and now very snow-covered Decepticon in front of him.

"'LOOK AT ME'? LOOK AT YOURSELF."

"You don't like what Megatron has turned into, yet look at yourself! You're acting just like him! Hunting down mechs and attacking them just to release your anger? That's classic Megatron right there."

"I AM THE ONLY SANE ONE ABOARD THE NEMESIS NOW."

"And I believe you! But you will go insane as the others if you don't see the truth," Starscream shook out as Soundwave got right up in his faceplate.

"'THE TRUTH'?"

"You're enabling Megatron. All of his bad actions are partly your fault and all you do is act just like him in return," Ratchet said. He stepped up behind Soundwave and glared down over the mech.

"Yes, see?!" Starscream laughed as he threw his helm back. It hit the tree with a thunk and the soft impact of it made snow fall down all around them in clumps of snow so thick that all they could both see was just each other in the world around them.

"NO."

"Yes! And you know how I also know that you're becoming Megatron?! Megatron keeps sparing Optimus over and over again and always injures him enough to hurt him but to keep him alive. Why? Because he needs him the same way you need me—"

A sharp pain shot through Starscream's abdomen. Not a phantom hunger pain, but a real one, just as intense and real as the sharp tips of Soundwave's digits that were now dug into the Seeker.

Starscream shuddered out a breath as he suddenly reached up and grabbed the sides of Soundwave's helm. "You c-could've killed me. But you didn't. Because you need me."

Soundwave's optics widened and he stumbled back as if he were the one who had just been stabbed. In a way he kind of had been.

Ratchet shoved past him and grumbled at the sight of the wound. "The wound is small but the puncture is deep."

"Good thing I have such a grouchy doctor," Starscream sighed.

Soundwave just stood there and stared off into the woods at something only he could seem to see.

"I thought you would've slinked off by now," Ratchet scoffed.

Soundwave continued to say nothing. He plopped down into the snow and tightly held his knees to his chestplate as the wind blew louder. The only sound came from the noise of the wind and the soft sounds of Ratchet as he worked to patch the new wound.

The two mech's glanced at each other and awkwardly stared at Soundwave's snow-covered back.

"I don't want to play this game," Starscream said. "Neither do you."

Soundwave took a deep vent that shook his entire thin frame. He lifted his arm and pointed a single thin digit off at something in the trees.

Ratchet frowned. "Oh, what now?" He followed Soundwave's line of sight and his field flared with shock.

"What? What is it?" Starscream asked.

Ratchet took a deep vent. "I see Optimus." He then looked down at the Decepticon. "You… pointed him out to us. Had you not done so I might not have seen him and there was no way Starscream could've seen him from his place on the ground. You're helping us again, the same way you did on the moon."

Soundwave continued to say nothing as he began to shake more and more.

Ratchet approached him. "You've changed! I see it! I—"

"Leave him be."

Ratchet paused at the sound of the Seeker's voice and glanced back and forth between Starscream and Soundwave.

"But… but he's…"

"Having a breakdown," Starscream finished.

"But then shouldn't we...?"

"We should let him come to us on his own time," Starscream sighed.

Ratchet let his arms flop lazily by his sides. He took one last look at Soundwave's turned back and then helped hoist the newly-stabbed and newly-patched Seeker to his pedes. They turned to walk away, but then Ratchet paused and spoke over his shoulder.

"I hope that Starscream is right about you. Not for my sake, but for yours."

They walked off. A flurry of snow blew between the two of them and Soundwave, and then the purple mech was gone from sight for good.


The commlink rang over and over again.

A familiar sense of icy dread tightened in like a vice around Optimus's spark chamber as his grip on the desk in front of him tightened.

He answered it and for a moment there was just silence on the comm end.

"Megatron."

The warlord laughed. "You know precisely why I call."

"To boast? Is that what this is? To make another rageful speech? Another threat to hurt me that will never come to fruition?"

"My threats are not empty like your promises, Prime."

Optimus sighed heavily and glanced behind him to ensure he was alone. "Then what is this? Why do we keep doing this? What purpose do these pointless midnight battles serve? We haven't had one since before Earth."

"You know why I have called."

Optimus grit his dentae. "I do. And I can assure you that one day they will stop. One day you will call and I will not answer."

He could not see Megatron, no, but he could envision the warlord in his mind, tall and sharp with an even sharper grin on his faceplate as he leaned in. "You will always answer. I want to duel. And you are the only bot around willing to fight."

"Remember when you used to see me as your brother and not as a mech to let your anger out on?"

A harsh boom echoed out from the other side of the comm. Optimus did not have to be aboard the Nemesis to know that there were now two fist-shaped shaped indents on the console in front of Megatron.

"If you do not duel me then I will find somebody else to fight."

"Like who?"

Megatron went silent and only static hissed along the comm link.

Optimus's engine rumbled deeply as he leaned in close to the console and spoke in a low voice. "If I do not come and fight you… who will you fight instead?"

Just silence.

Optimus took a harsh vent. "Who—?"

"You don't know who. That's why I know you'll always answer every comm link and will always come to duel me whenever I ask. Because you and I both know that if you do not choose to be my target then I will paint it on someone else."

A series of coordinates appeared on the screen. Then the comm link went dead.


"It's getting stronger," Ratchet bit out as he squinted through the wind that battered both their frames.

"Well, then let's be quick about this and get Prime out of here before the true storm arrives," Starscream said.

The bridge was now fortunately closer to where they had last seen the Prime. There was another flash of red and blue and their optics both widened at the sight of Optimus off and away from them. If just a few more seconds passed then Prime would be gone and lost amongst the woods again.

Optimus turned and walked off right as Ratchet and Starscream chased after him.

"Get back here, Prime!" Ratchet shouted.

Optimus whirled around and narrowed his optics at them. A deep sensation of pure grief welled up in his field before he quickly swept it away as fast as it had come up. "This is my fight."

"No, it's ours," Starscream snarled as he shoved his way past Ratchet.

Optimus shook his helm and continued to walk into the woods. His field let out another shudder of emotion as he drew to a stop.

The trees ahead were different. Crushed, torn aside, shoved around, and most importantly, sliced. Something or someone of a massive size had barrelled right through them. Whereas Optimus tried his hardest to move through the trees as gently as possible, this bot who had come right through the woods before them was upset that the trees didn't move aside for him.

"As reckless as always, brother," Optimus sighed.

"Oh, frag, now that's just fantastic," Ratchet grumbled as he stomped up beside Prime. "A creepy forest tunnel. Great, what's next, Soundwave is going to come back?"

Optimus turned around and faced the two of them. Starscream pointed an angry digit at the Prime before he could even say anything.

"You are going to turn around and walk out of here and I am going to make sure that happens."

It seemed as if some great invisible weight had just suddenly been added to all of the other ones that were already upon Optimus. "You are mistaken. Go back."

"No, you go back!" Starscream snapped. "I know Megatron! He likes to bluff! This is all just a cruel game to him and he is desperately trying to puff up his ego because the rest of us deflated it up on the moon. If you go and find him all you will do is just inflate it again."

Optimus turned and walked farther down the forest tunnel. The trees got taller and taller and the shadows got deeper and deeper as they went along. The cold air seemed to close in more thickly and the angry staticky remnants of an enraged field clung tight to their frames.

"Do you feel that?" Starscream said softly. His own calmer field flowed gently alongside Ratchet's frazzled one and Optimus's massive and sad one.

Ratchet raised an optical ridge. "Uh, our fields?"

"No. Do you feel the remnants of Megatron's field?"

The three of them stopped and sensed the air. Oh, the warlord had been here alright. The sense of anger in his field matched the same sense of anger that lingered in the air after a gruesome battle.

"He still feels that the battle on the moon is ongoing," Starscream shook his helm. "He lost, but he can't accept that. Megatron thinks he can still win a victory and that you're his path to it."

They continued to walk along again as the snow fell harder. There was a single thin slash that was in the ground and that led all along the way through the forest tunnel.

"What is that?" Ratchet frowned.

Optimus stopped and looked at it. "His mark. He… has always had a habit of 'marking' his territory by letting his sword drag behind him and leaving a long slash mark along on the ground."

"See? See? Crazy," Starscream said. "Where does this path lead?"

Optimus blinked. "I do not know."

"See? It's pointless! Just like this duel he wants to have with you."

The air swelled with grief again as Optimus shook his helm. "He watched me for awhile. I could tell. He used to just jump into our fights and begin fighting immediately. But now? Now he waits and watches me when he thinks I do not know he is there. Sometimes he waits only mere seconds before beginning our duels. Most of the time… it is hours."

"What?! You and Megatron are just having creepy staredowns in the middle of the night?"

Optimus frowned. "He claims he doesn't need me, but he does. Back when we were brothers he always came when I wanted him and I always came when he wanted me. Even though so much has changed and we are brothers no longer…"

Ratchet sighed. "You still come for him. But why?"

Optimus stared off into the woods. "Only Primus knows," he said softly.

"I think… I think I know," Starscream spoke up. "Both of your lives are disasters and everything and everyone is constantly changing and shifting and warping completely out of your control. The only constant thing the both of you still have in each other's lives is… each other. So you keep coming back to Megatron for the same reasons I did: you want the familiarity of it. It was all I knew. I didn't know that there was more out there to know. Instead of always coming back to him, please, Prime, come back to yourself. Stop playing with him! Stop being his sparring partner! So pick your aft up and let's go home."

Optimus sighed. "If I do not allow him to take his anger out on me someone else will receive it."

"He might just stomp around and throw one of his classic temper tantrums before vanishing. How do you know that he would really hurt somebody?"

"I don't!" Optimus said. He did not shout, no, but it was the closest he had come to doing so in longer than he could remember. The Prime and the Seeker just stared at each other as the snow around them whirled faster.

"You know what, Optimus?" Starscream's voice was cold. "I don't think even Megatron himself knows what he'll do next. But what he does know is this: he calls, you come. And sometimes… you need to not pick up. He needs to learn that he can't always get what he wants because if he doesn't learn that then he will keep the war going for as long as he wants."

Optimus turned around and walked a ways off into the trees as he kept his back turned to the two of them. "I enable him." Not a question, but a statement.

Starscream and Ratchet glanced at each other.

"Yes," Starscream said in a voice as soft as the snow around them. "All the time."

"But he could hurt somebody—"

"He is hurting somebody here. You."

Optimus continued to keep his back turned. Both bots kept their breaths held as they watched and waited to see what the Prime would do. A new wave of grief crashed through Optimus's field. It was the saddest Starscream and Ratchet has sensed yet.

"When I walk back through that bridge back to base... I need you to help me do so."

Ratchet scanned the Prime up and down. "Okay, where did you hurt your legs?"

Optimus shook his helm as he finally turned back around and faced them. "No, I mean… I will need your help to ensure I don't go back and return to him."

Starscream walked up to him and smirked. "You managed to stop me from returning to him. I suppose it's time for me to pay the favor."

There was a distant boom noise. The sound of trees being shattered apart shrieked through the air and a flurry of snow blasted the Autobot's way. The three of them squinted through the grey gloom as two hot violet optics shined like distant purple spotlights way off in the snowy clearing. The faint sharp silhouette of Megatron's form became visible, tall and bright and ready.

Optimus's field became as cold as the ice frozen to his frame. "So it is you."

"I arrived as usual," Megatron said. "As I always do. Because unlike you, I don't promise mechs that I'll be there for them and then not. Show. Up."

Optimus flinched.

Ratchet stepped forward and shakily pointed an angry digit at Megatron. "You didn't want death, you wanted an audience! Again! You just want bots to come by and be terrified of you so that you can feel strong and respected! You want validation and tonight you will not receive it! Validate yourself."

The wind blew harder and for a moment all that they could hear was the cold blow of the breeze and the sound of Megatron's engine as it revved up.

"It seems that all of you have returned for a rematch, then."

"This is no 'rematch.' This will be no fight at all," Optimus said as he retracted his battlemask.

Starscream looked up at the Prime with wide optics. They shared a glance before Optimus then continued.

"You will be indulged no longer, Megatron. This battle will end before it even begins and then this war will end after it."

Megatron growled and pointed the tip of his sword right at the three Autobots. "And how do you know that I won't just turn around and slice the throats of my fellows Decepticons? How do you know I won't go after humans?"

Optimus sighed. "I see the truth now. You spare more lives than you kill because you want an audience. And there can be no audience if everybody is dead. These… duels, have been a performance for an audience of one: just you. Now they will end."

He turned around and left Megatron behind.

Raw shock fizzled in the air as Megatron's intake rapidly opened and closed behind them. "I will not be denied! Not again!"

Starscream clutched onto Optimus's arm as Ratchet stood on the Prime's other side. The sound of the forest being shredded apart behind them grated into their audials but they all ignored it as they walked back down into the forest.

Something behind them glowed a hot purple and a warm wave of heat washed over their backs. Starscream bit back bile as the familiar sound of a fusion cannon hummed behind his helm.

"You will not fire it," Optimus said.

"Do you want to really bet on that?" Megatron said as he pushed its hot barrel into Optimus's back between his smokestacks. "I could fire right now and send a cloud of smoke through your smokestacks and right through your spark."

For the first time since he arrived there in those woods, Optimus's field smoothed out perfectly calmly. "No, you will not.

He then continued to walk on as he protectively wrapped an arm around Starscream and Ratchet each.

Megatron sank to his knees in the snow as he kept his fusion cannon trained right on them. He lit it up and made it grow hotter, hotter and hotter and hotter—

He tilted it up at the last moment and let the snow fall into it. It dimmed all at once and he was plunged into blackness.


Optimus frowned and grimly stared off into the distance as his field roiled around him. That was the same pensive look he had on his faceplate when he was trying to come up with something to say and oh slag no—

"Stop. You're trying to come up with some big motivational speech to say. But you don't need to say anything."

"But—"

"Yes, yes, pah, you're our leader, it's 'your duty to comfort us,' we get that. But part of your cheesy Autobot ideology is that the team supports each other. So. I am supporting you. You don't need to support us anymore tonight. Just go to sleep."

"Starscream…"

"No speeches! No speeches! Just… rest."

"Perhaps I will do that. You sound just like—"

"You?" Starscream supplied hopefully as the bridge became visible again up ahead.

Optimus hummed. "No, your words are your own, not mine. You sound... better than before. Calmer. More at peace with yourself."

Better.

Hmphf. That was a weird word he never thought would apply to a change within him, but then again he never ever expected a day would come when he'd comfort a distraught Optimus Prime either.

Starscream froze at the sight of the bridge. "I, uh, listen, Prime, let me give you an opportunity to present my case and help you come up with a punishment for me before we go back to base."

Optimus stared at him with wide optics. "What are you talking about?"

The air hadn't actually grown colder, but it felt like it. Starscream bit down on his glossa as he mentally scrolled through his millennia-old list of lies, excuses, and fake apologies.

He let out a sharp breath. "Just—please give me the benefit of the doubt."

Ratchet came up in front of the Seeker and brushed the snow on his pauldrons away as he held Starscream tight. "Listen to me. We are going to go back to base and everything will be fine despite your… stash."

Optimus frowned. "'Stash'?"

A whimper broke out into the air and Starscream groaned when he realized it had come from him. "I kind of… hid away every other energon cube I ever received and hid them under my berth just a bit."

Optimus just stared at him. And stared. And stared.

"Oh, come on!" Starscream huffed. "Getting eaten by scraplets would be more bearable than your silence!"

The Prime just stared at him for a few more seconds before smoke then blasted out of his smokestacks. "This is a habit you developed because Megatron took food from you. Am I correct?"

"Well…"

"Am I correct?" Optimus said softly but very firmly.

"I—gah—okay, yes, this is another Megatron thing."

Optimus frowned even more because that was somehow possible. "I see."

He looked back into the woods into the direction in which Megatron had been.

Ratchet leaped in front of him and waved his arms around. "Ohohoho, no you don't! You literally just made us promise to hold you back if you tried to return to him. Besides, there's someone who needs your attention more than Megatron right now." He gestured at the Seeker.

Starscream continued to just stare into the glow of the bridge as he crossed his arms and shook slightly.

Optimus placed a gentle servo on Starscream's shoulder, nodded, and led him through the bridge.


The rest of the team was already there. The air was tense and thick with withheld emotion as they all came back. The team softly murmured and clustered around Optimus as he stepped back through the bridge, but they then returned their attention to Starscream.

His wing flared. "Fine then! Lay it on me! I'm ready—"

"We were not angry earlier because we discovered that you had been hoarding energon," Arcee interrupted.

His confusion must have been shown on his faceplate because Arcee's field grew even softer around her as she continued. "We were angry because you feared that you would be starved and you didn't tell us of this fear."

Starscream blinked and opened and shut his intake several times until eventually he settled on one word. "What?"

"We're a team and we take care of problems together," Ratchet nodded. "You should've come to us for help."

"I thought it was something everybody did," Starscream said softly. "Hiding food, I mean. I just thought it was—"

"—the way of things?" Arcee finished.

Starscream gulped. "Yes."

"Well, that's the way of things aboard the Nemesis, but not at Autobot Outpost Omega One."

He blinked. "What in the actual frag? That's the name of this hole in the ground?" He snorted. "Autobot Outpost Omega One?! Who named it? Ratchet, did you name it?"

Ratchet looked away.

"Oh! Oh! This is just rich! You were as dismally disappointed with it as I was at first and spruced it up with a cool name to make it match the Nemesis, didn't you? I bet Optimus just nodded along sagely and went along with it, 'ah yes, what a fine name for our humble abode—'"

Ratchet lunged forward and hugged him. "Do you understand now that you will never be starved?"

Starscream just let himself be held. "...I do. Now do you understand that?"

Ratchet leaned back and blinked at him. "What?"

He crossed his arms. "Well, I have come to a conclusion: I'll only stop hoarding my energon if you stop depriving yourself of it."

The medic's jaw dropped. "You bastard—"

Bulkhead shoved his way between them. "Hol' up, 'Ratch, do we have another sad angsty thing to discuss here? 'Cause it seems to me that there is another sad and angsty thing to discuss here."

Ratchet dragged his servos down his faceplate. "Oh, fine! Yes, I… may consumed a bit less of the energon than I was necessarily supposed to out of a small fear that you all… would need it all more than me."

The rest of the team just stared at him.

"Scrap," Bumblebee beeped.

Everybody looked at him.

"...What?"

Optimus came forward and rested one servo on Starscream's pauldron and the other on Ratchet's shoulder. "There is no longer a need for that, my old friend. No longer a need at all."

"But, our supply…"

"Just got slightly larger again due to the way Starscream saved some of his energon. It has been recycled."

Starscream nodded. "And when you finish attaching my other wing I can transform and fly again, which means I can use my energon-seeking suite of equipment to find more for us all. So you better stop whining and repair me!"

Ratchet buried his faceplate in his servos. "Ah, Primus. Fine, fine. You all exhaust me, you know that?"

There was a snort.

Everybody looked over at Starscream.

"What? 'Autobot Outpost Omega One,' oh my Primus I'm going to crack open my spark chamber from laughing too hard—"