This chapter did not want to be written. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing though! I love each and every one. :D

Chapter 5

"Is it just me, or has the pipsqueak been following Starscream around lately?" Skywarp muttered to his wing-mate as he sipped his energon. Most of the decepticons were having a little downtime in the main hanger while they waited for Megatron to reveal his next big plan. Though it looked like that might not be for a day or two.

"Pipsqueak?" Thundercracker inquired before tilting his head. "Do you mean Rumble?"

"Yeah. He's sitting over there with him right now." Skywarp pointed with a single servo towards their air commander sitting at the end of the officers' table with Soundwave, Megatron and Onslaught. Rumble was sitting on the table centered in front of Starscream instead of with Soundwave on the other side. "And he's been on every single mission Starscream has had in the past few weeks. Even ones where Soundwave didn't come! It's like he's purposefully trying to work under him or something."

Thundercracker looked over and did indeed see the smaller mech sitting and what appeared to be chatting with Starscream. That was odd in itself, but it wasn't uncommon to see Rumble at the officer's table. That's where Soundwave was, after all. "What's your point? He spends a lot of time with Starscream on missions."

"Yeah! But he's been doing it way more often lately!" Skywarp frowned. "Like last week when we were taking Astrotrain to that planet with the purple people. Rumble sat right next to him on the ship!"

"So?"

"Well, normally we sit next to him!"

Thundercracker sighed and tried to force his processor to slow down. It was already overworked and it did not need to try and figure out what was up with Skywarp on top of everything else. "So Rumble sat next to him. Big deal. It was a mission, not like it was a social hour or that Starscream felt obligated to sit between the two of us."

Skywarp frowned. Thundercracker had a point about that but, right they were having a social time at the moment, right? Starscream wasn't sitting with his wingmates. He was across the room with that miniature idiot! The air commander should be sitting with his troops. If Thundercracker was right than Starscream should be over here because they were having a break from fighting or planning. "Well...why isn't he sitting with us now then?"

"Rumble?" Thundercracker questioned. He was pretty sure that Skywarp did not like the little cassette and now he wanted him to sit with the fliers?

"No! Starscream!" Skywarp growled. "Why is he sitting over there with Rumble instead of us."

Thundercracker cycled air through his vents and cooled his systems. "When has he ever sat with us when Megatron's at the officer's table?"

Skywarp wilted in his seat and let his head clunk to the table next to his half finished cube of energon. "Never."

"There you go. Just drop it 'Warp." Thundercracker shook his head. "My processor is killing me."

"What's up?"

"It's running hot. I think I pushed it too much yesterday using the targeting protocol to try and hit all those stupid mini-bots." Thundercracker sipped his energon a little deeper and enjoyed the liquid clinging and coating the inside of his throat. "It's still stuck in high capacity."

"Huh." Skywarp frowned. He remembered that yesterday. Thundercracker had taken a hit to the wing and was grounded so he had to think twice as hard about what he was doing when he got swarmed by that stupid red bot with the horns and the idiot truck. He'd basically shorted out by the time Skywarp had arrived with Astrotrain as backup. "Want me to find someone to take a look?"

"No, I'll be okay." Thundercracker nodded and finished off his energon cube. While it did serve the double purpose of distracting Skywarp from his own troubles, his head really did hurt. "Let's go get some air."

"Okay." Skywarp spared one glass back towards his air commander and tried not to get frustrated. He hated when Megatron ate with the troops. Thundercracker was right when he said Starscream always took this opportunity to be closer to their 'glorious' leader. Skywarp missed it when it was just him, Thundercracker and Skywarp. Before all this war or Megatron or little runt happened. For now though, he had the one buddy still around to look out for. "Hey Thundercracker, wait up!"

Rumble had been having a good couple of weeks. That wax session with Starscream had opened up lots of doors he didn't think possible. Now granted, he hadn't had his hands on the flyer since then (not that he wasn't well stocked and prepared in case Starscream asked...), but he did get to make up for it with time. Missions, hallway passings, and of course the best benefit of being a cassette? Seating at the officers' table. Not to mention he could count at least three times he'd had a conversation with Starscream that didn't involve an order or some sort of work business.

Life was good.

"Now where are they going?" Starscream muttered as he watched Skywarp trail off after Thundercracker. Normally they waited for Starscream to leave the mess before they wandered off to their rooms. He hoped they were just turning in early. Sadly, Starscream was a pessimist and assumed the worst instead. "They better not be getting into trouble."

So life was mostly good. Rumble still had the annoyance of Starscream's wingmates. Somehow they always seemed to mess something up. For example, the other day that idiot Thundercracker was thinking too hard and threw his processor out. Skywarp came over and interrupted what had been a fun conversation about kicking autobot skidplate at the end of one of their few victories and turned it into a fret session about the blue flyer.

Starscream had completely ignored him to shout at his team mates about being stupid and other things while simultaneously checking the circuits in Thundercracker's head for damage. Between the concentration and Skywarp getting in the way, Rumble had no choice but to head back to Soundwave and help write reports. Needless to say, Rumble was starting to get frustrated. "Unlikely...Thundercracker's still got his processor in a bunch, don't he?"

"That's true. And Skywarp will probably just fret over him." Starscream circled the energon around in his cube. "At least it'll be a quiet night. Maybe I can actually get some work done."

"Yeah." Rumble nodded. "So uh, what kind of work?"

"Why?" Starscream focused his optics. Rumble had been, persistent, in his attempts to start conversation lately and was constantly underfoot. He must want something. Starscream thought to himself. He just couldn't figure out what.

Rumble shrugged. "No reason. Just askin.'"

"Don't you have something else you should be doing? Like doing Soundwave's bidding?"

"Not really."

"I see." Starscream pushed himself up from the table. It was getting late and Megatron was already reminiscing about the 'good old days' so any chance of thoughtful conversation was gone and Starscream didn't feel like getting overloaded. He might as well get some work done in the lab; his Null Rays were begging for maintenance.

"Where ya' going?" Rumble watched as the flyer started to walk away from the table. Downtime was rare and he knew Soundwave wouldn't miss him tonight since Ravage was getting his monthly check-up. So, Rumble made an executive decision when Starscream didn't deem it necessary to answer him: He followed the 'con. "Hey! Wait up!"

What Rumble didn't realize, was that a certain blue visor was watching him as he skipped out the door after the Second in Command. Soundwave cycled air through his vents. He was starting to get an idea of just what was wrong with his cassette. The overworked processor. The bouts of giddiness. The spacing out. The stocking of wax, polish and clean rags. A certain need to ask for work assignments that involved a certain flyer. It all added up fairly easily:

Rumble had a crush on Starscream.

There was no way this could end well. Starscream was not a social mech by any means and strangely adverse to relations with other decepticons. Whether it was due to lingering feelings towards Skyfire or Megatron, the communications officer was not sure but it was rather certain Rumble was being set up for spark-break. However, Soundwave wasn't quite sure what he should do about it. Ripping Starscream's wings off and throwing him into the ocean seemed like a good option. He always did feel a certain irrationality when his cassettes were involved.

Megatron may not be too happy about said course of action though, and that would mean bad things for the tape deck. His leader's odd affection for Starscream was baffling, but somewhat understandable. Megatron's nostalgia was a strong force and kept the image of a wide eyed, adoring Starscream at the forefront of his processor. Somehow the memory of the young seeker who adored him always got in the way of common sense. Such as realizing (or truly acting on the fact that) Starscream was constantly trying to offline him.

Regardless, Rumble getting involved with Starscream would end badly. So, Soundwave would just have to intervene before things got serious.

Starscream poked the cassette hard enough in the chest to push him off the desk when the small mech climbed up. He smirked at the rather loud 'clank.' "Is there a reason you've been constantly in my way lately or have you just lost what few bytes of memory you had running your CPU?"

"What? You're interesting." Rumble smirked as he pushed himself up from the floor. A little fall like that is nothing compared to the rough housing him and Frenzy used to do for fun. Doesn't mean he didn't want to get in a jab of his own as payback, though. "You're always going back and forth between being really brainy and really stupid I can't help but want to watch the show."

Starscream paused in welding a few circuits in his weapon. That stupid little music player reject had some nerve. "Get out."

"Hey! I didn't mean it like that." Rumble whined. "And it's not like I said anything that wasn't true. You're always doing cool geeky stuff like making these null rays of yours and then you go and do something stupid like shooting Megatron in the back!"

"You're starting to sound like a broken record. I'm fairly certain we've had this conversation before." Starscream huffed and went back to his null ray.

"Where'd you learn what a record was?"

Starscream looked over. "Excuse me?"

"That's a human phrase." Rumble pointed out. He and Frenzy were always reading and watching human airways for their communications work so they knew all sorts of phrases and lines. Skywarp had a hobby of watching TV so he knew a few. But Starscream didn't seem the type to pay the humans any mind. "I didn't think you paid attention to movies and stuff."

"I don't." Starscream snorted and continued touching up circuits. Though, something caused him to answer the cassette. "But I do read their literature."

"Oh." Rumble sat on the desk, happy his earlier insult was forgotten. "Like what?"

"Various things. Science texts, fiction. Whatever happens to be handy." Starscream closed the cover plate on his weapon and turned to reattach it to his arm. "The species isn't completely hopeless at least."

"I hope not." Rumble snickered. "Megatron wont' be very pleased if all his slaves are worthless idiots. He's got enough of them running around his army."

Starscream laughed.