Seeker In Crisis.
Chapter Four: Starscream's Escape.
A/N: Thanks to KDZeal for the idea that Seekers instinctively need to form a trine or triad.
A moment later, Starscream saw Ratchet approaching his recharge unit and pull open the clear canopy.
"Starscream, are you okay?" Ratchet asked, reaching out to Starscream's face.
"Yes, yes I'm fine." Starscream said calmly, pleased to notice that his voice didn't shake and in fact reflected the calm that had replaced the panic when he had decided to join his wingbrothers in death. The pain was still there, unabated, but now he could comfort himself with the thought that soon his death would end that pain.
"Like slag you're fine!" the medic said gently, touching his fingers to the Seeker's face and bringing them back slick with pink energon. "You've burst the small lines feeding your optics, only a severe cranial or optic impact, or stress enough to put up the pressure would cause this, and your cranial unit looks undamaged, as do the optics themselves. What stress is so great that this will happen with new lines, Starscream? Something's happened. What is it?"
Starscream could see by the expression on Ratchet's face that this time the medic would not leave unless he explained himself. The Seeker found the medic's concern touching, it was seldom that any but his wingbrothers had cared for his well-being. He closed his optics and huffed a long blast of air through his vents. He felt a soft cloth wiping at the energon he had not even noticed trickling from his optics and kept still, with optics shuttered, until the wiping stopped.
He opened his optics to find Ratchet, cloth still in hand, looking at him. Starscream inclined his head, acknowledging the unspoken expectation.
"My wingbrothers are both dead." he said. "I felt them die."
Starscream saw Ratchet flinch: as a medic he would know about trine-bonds, it was one of the better-known aspects of Seekers, even many non-medical people knew of them. As a medic, Ratchet would know that the breaking of such a strong bond would cause pain, the severance of two causing the agony he felt. Ratchet moved over to Starscream and leaned against him, and Starscream did feel a slight comfort from the contact.
"You go back to your recharge, Starscream." he said soothingly. "I think I may have a solution to your problem. When you wake, I will have found two people willing to bond with you, a short-term solution possibly, but you should feel better."
He pushed Starscream back into the recharge unit, the Seeker did not resist. As Ratchet pulled the canopy down enough to let it fall into place, he did not notice Starscream slipping a digit between the canopy edge and the unit, keeping it from closing. He didn't notice it had not closed completely, but turned, pulling Hound away as the Seeker's optics closed.
"Keep an optic on him, Hound, after a shock like that he should not be that calm. I'll be back soon, I need to make some enquiries."
As Ratchet walked out, comming for any Autobots who could use jet packs, or knew they tolerated flight well, he fretted that somewhere he was missing something.
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Starscream listened to Ratchet's footsteps receding, thinking about what the medic had proposed. His lip curled in a sneer.
It was fairly common practice if a trine had lost a member to take on a new one to salve the injury of the loss and fill the void caused by their absence. In the absence of other Seekers, it was even acceptable to form a trine with two grounders, such was the urge to be one of three, and such mismatched trines could and did exist.
Starscream was not worried so much about potentially trineing with Autobots, he was sure a couple of the members of the growing ranks of Autobots would be compatible, and he might even grow to like them. He could think of a few he wouldn't necessarily object to, but they all lacked one necessary prerequisite, and that was wings.
Starscream had met his wing brothers early on, he had never been forced to trine with non-fliers, but had met some of those that had. All had stated that it was unfulfilling to fly as a duo, or alone, and although carrying a non-flying trinemate was a temporary solution, it was not an ideal one. No, Starscream could stomach trineing with Autobots, but he would not be pushed into a bond with a pair of grounders, and he knew that is what he would end up with, for he knew that so far, none of the few Autobot fliers had arrived.
He cracked open his optic shutters a little, and was pleased to see that Hound had assumed he was sleeping and had gone back to his inventorying, though he still stole the occasional glance back his way. Starscream waited until Hound had turned back to his work before silently swinging the canopy open and sitting up. Pausing to switch his arm blasters down to stun, he aimed at Hound and fired.
Starscream was up on his feet before the green Autobot had hit the floor and he picked up Hound, holding him with one arm against his chest, pointing his blaster at the hologram expert's dataports with the other, before heading out of the medical bay and up the corridor towards the exit.
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Ratchet had spoken with each of the Autobots who had answered to his com, for he had realised that just getting any two Autobots to bond with the Seeker could be a disaster, He needed two Autobots who could get on with each other, who would be happy to bond with each other as well as with Starscream, and whose temperaments would not clash. In fact his ideal pair would be two as close in temperament and attitude to Thundercracker and Skywarp as he could find, as well as two who could take flight and preferably knew how to operate (or could learn to operate) a jet-pack.
A few he had rejected straight away: Optimus was too big, had too many responsibilities already, and had a pre-existing bond with his femme, which could destabilise the unusual trine. Mirage, although almost Seeker-framed, and taking flight well, didn't know one end of a jet-pack from the other and was so unwilling to offend he'd likely end up being figuratively walked all over by Starscream. Cliffjumper, although he was able to handle a jet pack, was the opposite: so suspicious and argumentative that putting him with the Seeker would be a disaster. He had already told Bumblebee not to even come to the base. The scout could also handle a jet-pack but had a responsibility to guard Sam.
Finally he had found the nearest thing to a perfect pair: willing to bond with Starscream, different but balancing each other out nicely. One was easy-going, like Thundercracker, the other a trickster like Skywarp. They were each already bonded, but with each other and nobody else, so there was no problem there. He smiled with amusement at the irony: who could have seen the Twins trineing with the Decepticon Seeker?
He was feeling rather smug as he headed to the medical bay with the pair when Ironhide contacted him by com.
"Ratchet, Starscream has just left, I'm sorry, I couldn't stop him."
"What do you mean, left?" Ratchet asked, his elation vanishing. "What about the force-field? I thought that was up at all times? How could he just leave?"
"He had Hound with him, stunned by the looks of things, and he said if I called anyone, or didn't lower the force-field within five seconds, he'd shoot Hound on full power," Ironhide explained. "I wasn't about to risk calling his bluff, he looked like he meant it, so I did as he asked."
Ratchet frowned.
"What happened to Hound? Did Starscream take him with him?"
"No, the moment the force-field dropped he dropped Hound, ran, and launched off. Hound's out here, and as I said I think he's just stunned," Ironhide told him.
"Ironhide, tell Mirage to get on the scanners, if he sees so much as that Seeker's wingtip, I want to know about it," Ratchet replied.
Ratchet turned to the Twins.
"Okay, Starscream's not here at the moment but if we find him, you need to be ready at a moment's notice to drop whatever you're doing. I'll have a word with Prowl and get him to let you off your duties." He frowned a little as Sunstreaker and Sideswipe hi-fived each other. "Don't go more than fifteen minutes away from the Base, in fact I'd prefer you don't leave the Base all if you can tolerate that." he said.
"Come on, Bro, there's a couple of cubes of energon in the rec-room with our names on them. We'll see if we can stick around the Base, Ratchet," said Sideswipe.
Sunstreaker, Ratchet noticed, was already disappearing into the rec-room. Sideswipe nodded to Ratchet and followed his brother.
Ratchet huffed through his vents, and told Ironhide he was on his way as well as informing Prowl that the Twins were free of their duties for medical purposes until further notice. He cut Prowl off when he protested that he'd have to re-do the rotas, and headed out to see to Hound.
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The voices were back, but Starscream held them at bay as he sat, hidden in his deserted hangar, and meticulously dug one claw into his newly-repaired hide, beginning to carve a glyph in it.
He knew his wingbrothers were right, it had been his fault they had died. He hadn't waited for them, he'd left them to follow without even considering they might run into trouble. As such, just killing himself would be too easy, too good for him. If he drew it out and punished himself first, maybe he could earn back their respect. He hoped they would understand the reason for the delay. As he had done wrong, he had to punish himself for it.
Energon welled up in the cut and Starscream bit back a cry as his new sensors registered the injury and signalled pain, but he ignored it, drawing the claw around. He finished the first glyph and moved on to the next, then carved out another, and then another. Once he had run out of room on one piece of hide, he moved on to a different surface, carving glyph after glyph into his exoskeleton. None of the glyphs spoke of nobility or sacrifice, all denoted the bearer to be dishonoured or guilty of some crime. Once he had finished, few parts of his hide were unadorned, only the parts he couldn't reach, and he had even carved some on his canopy glass, although once he had passed out from the pain for the second time, he stopped carving them there.
"Okay, TC, okay 'Warp, I'm coming!" he said out loud. "Stop shouting, what will another six breems matter, I'll be with you soon enough, I'm going now okay, just stop yelling at me!" He checked with a hand one last time, feeling the glyphs on his helm, covering his wings, his arms, his legs, even his fingers and hands and feet.
He stood, his sensors screaming at the movement, and stumbled out of the hangar, wincing as the wind blew over the glyphs. He launched himself unsteadily into the air, determined now to do as he had said and join his wingbrothers in death. As he flew upwards, ready to drop again from a vast height and this time use his thrusters to help plough himself into the ground, rather than pull up as he had before, a bright flash of movement below caught his optic.
He zoomed his optics in on the moving yellow dot, and it resolved itself into the shape of a car, a very familiar car. Dropping down a little, he zoomed in further. Yes, it was the Autobot scout Bumblebee, and his squishy friend, the Witwicky boy. The road they were on looked relatively deserted, and Starscream decided that dying could wait a little.
Those two had thwarted him too often. Perhaps he could blast them where they were, or perhaps he could catch the little squishy boy, take him with him, and they could die together, burning in the atmosphere or hitting the ground with an impact that would bury their twisted remains feet deep in the dirt of this world.
Either way, before he died, he had a score to settle.