Disclaimer: I own nothing – at least nothing Transformers related. Not even the song. Pity that….
AN: Finally! A Beta for me. Many thanks to my new friend with the unpronouncable name: mdnytryder.
So, I've had other related chapters before, but they can also stand for themselves. But this chapter is the beginning of something like a continuity. Not tightly related, but one builds upon the other and together they create an AU of my own at the end, even if most things are still G.
I know there are many things similar to this chapter around the server, but hey, I never said that I would invent the wheel anew – only that I would try… . Sometimes.
8/28 Naïve (G1 AU) I
Yeah, this prayer is for me tonight
This far down that line and still ain't got it right
And all in a while confessions not yet stated
Our next sin is contemplated
Never did we know what the future would hold
Or that we'd be bought and sold, no
We were innocent
When we were innocent…
Innocent by Fuel
Starscream's first conscious memory was of a pair of ruby red optics staring down at him, while he was held by something behind his neck, what he later learned was his scruff-bar.
The optics belonged to his Creator, a tall flyer of Seeker build, with an almost expressionless faceplate.
The elder Seeker looked down at him, examined him from all sides, eyed his little wings, which were nothing more than tiny, excited fluttering stubs at this time, measured him and finally came to the conclusion that this Sparkling would have to do.
If the Seeker had more time and patience at hand, he would create another Sparkling to replace this one, who looked more frail than sturdy and whose annoying tiny squeaks and squeals, all at least an octave higher than they should be, hurt his audio receptors.
But he had no other choice than the little red and silver thing in his hands, utterly unmoving because of the firm grip at his scruff-bar, but otherwise chirping, beeping and trilling, the little red optics curious and the tiny lips showing an expectant smile.
The elder Seeker felt the spark of the little creature reaching out to his own – and blocked the attempt adamantly.
He had no intention of getting emotionally attached to the Sparkling. It would only complicate their relationship as teacher and student, commander and soldier. The Sparkling would become an aerial warrior, ruthless and cold, not a sniveling mess that was constantly at his heels, begging to be hugged or something ridiculous like that.
And besides, he looked weak and his voice certainly showed some sort of malfunction in the vocalizer.
He squinted his optics a bit as the Sparkling began to cry softly, bright Energon tears staining the dark faceplate, the little hand twitching in an attempt to break the instinctual paralysis caused by the grip of the scruff-bar and to reach for the taller Transformer in front of it, to a Spark – any Spark – to feel inside its own, to warm and comfort him.
The elder Seeker sighed. Perhaps there would be a possibility in the future to make another Sparkling. Something more… fitting and useful.
He took a cup of Energon from a nearby table and offered it to the upset infant, still holding him at arm's length, as far away as possible. The Sparkling still cried, but being hungry and with nothing better to do, accepted the nourishment. When its Creator decided that it had had enough, he sat it down on the floor and went away, closing the door without so much as a last look back.
The Sparkling stared after him, still weeping and not understanding why it was so cold, why he felt so alone and simply wrong.
His little Spark tried again to reach out to another, if not the Spark of his Creator then at least a Spark of a Caretaker, but there was nothing, only a large white room, a few old toys on the floor beside him and some colorless blankets and pillows in a corner.
The Sparkling, now silently sobbing, understanding somehow that nobody would come to make him feel better, regardless how loud he cried, crawled to the cluster of pillows and hid himself as far away as he could from the cold world around him.
Why had the taller mech gone and had left him here all alone?
Why didn't he come back to make it all right again?
What had he done wrong?
Starscream walked slowly down the corridor, intimidated by the huge building housing the Iacon Academy for Science.
The whole atmosphere made him feel even smaller and more useless than usual and the deeper the Youngling went into the proud Academy, the more he asked himself if the director and all the other teachers and instructors hadn't been right when they had said that a military mech like him didn't fit in an environment like theirs.
His steps faltered and he stopped at one of the windows to look longingly at the wide open sky over the golden city of Iacon.
Perhaps he should leave right now, when he still had the chance to disappear unnoticed…
He shook his head to rid it of the depressing thoughts of hesitance, fears and doubts.
He couldn't leave, not after all his hard work hacking countless systems to fake his age, not after he had forged the signature of his Creator to apply for the Science Academy, not after all the tests he had passed to be accepted.
Besides, he had nowhere left to go.
Starscream had run away from his Creator, who was probably glad that he had disappeared out of his life. After all, Starscream had always been a disappointment to him as far back as the Youngling could remember.
If Starscream tried to return, tailfin between his legs, he would only get angry….
And the whole plan, to go to the Academy, where his Creator would never look for him, would be entirely pointless.
He would stay. Period.
Starscream tightened his shoulder plates and formed his most arrogant expression on his features.
He could do that.
He would stay and show everybody, all the stupid science bots, that he had a right to be here and learn and that he was not worse – no, he was even better – than all the other pupils of the Academy.
Should they laugh and insult and hate him for it, he didn't really care. He would go through with this and someday he would be the best scientist Cybertron had to offer and everyone would see how much he was worth and envy him.
Starscream puffed out his chest and turned on his heel, willing to fight against the universe itself if he had to – and stared right into the chestplates of another mech, who was easily a head taller than himself.
And who had two equally tall and massive looking friends.
Oh Primus….
"Well, look at that. Who do we have here? A military mech in a Science Academy," one of them drawled with a nasty little grin on his faceplate.
"Not only some military type but a Seeker," corrected one of his friends with a curious look at the white and red wings, that twitched slightly at the uneasiness of their owner. The student looked to the third of the bunch: "What have we learned about Seekers?"
The tall blue and green mech rubbed his forehead with an exaggerated gesture, as if he was desperately trying to remember something. Then a delighted expression flitted above his features: "Ah, yes. Now I remember. It was so unimportant I already had it transferred in my personal junk file. Heh… Let's see. Seekers are loud, have a bad taste in paint jobs, think they are Primus' gift to femmes, have the cranial capacity of a retro-rat and the attention span of a glitch-mouse and are strictly confined to Vos and Kaon for their own safety, because there everything you have to know as a Seeker is painted in nice little pictures on great shiny markers and explained at least three times to make sure the little bird-brains understand it."
"Well done," praised the second mech.
"Now the only remaining question, my dear students, is: What the slag is this little glitch doing here in Iacon? And in our Academy?"
Starscream winced as three cruel blue gazes suddenly locked on him like a target system on his tailfin.
"Now, now…," the first mech said, a red and yellow giant of a Cybertronian with strange little spikes jutting out of his shoulders and a malicious glint in his optics. "Don't be scared, tiny… you understand, we only want to help you."
"Yes, we only want to show you your way out," the blue one agreed and grabbed one of Starscream's wings. The Youngling wanted to say something, anything, preferably something brave and threatening, but his vocalizer had clenched painfully inside his throat, still used to vorns of silence in which shouting, yelling and crying had done nothing to make things better.
"And to show you your place, you slagging little warmonger," said the third mech, his face twisted into a snarl, and grabbed the other wing.
Starscream only cowered and hoped that it would be over soon.
"What are you doing here?" The new voice wasn't overly loud, but calm and stern, with strong, hidden depths.
Starscream's three attackers looked up from their prey, their faces grimaces of disappointment and annoyance. The young flyer had switched his optics off so he couldn't see who his savior was, but he felt the other mechs release him with some complaints, insults and whining.
The Youngling used his chance to curl up into a ball, with only his wings jutting out to each site, even as he tried to press them as close to his body as possible.
It hurt….
It hurt so much….
And he should be a warmonger? A violent mech who's only purpose is to injure and kill others? What kind of logic was that?
He felt tears running down his cheeks and tried to press even further into himself, away from this world he didn't understand.
Suddenly a warm and huge hand was placed on his shoulder and something wiped away some of the pale pink droplets. "Are you okay?" said the fourth voice, warm and… caring?
Starscream felt the other scan him for major injuries, then he heard him sigh. "Okay, I admit that was a stupid question. But do you think that you can stand up so that I can bring you to a medic?"
Starscream gave no reaction to the concerned words.
Something brushed again over his cheek and the next words sounded even closer to his audio receptors than before. "At least online your optics." His savior waited a short moment, then he tried again. "Please. They aren't here anymore, I promise. You're safe, trust me."
Trust?
Starscream hesitated a moment, then, against his better judgment, he onlined his optics, still leaking fluid. "Trust you? Why should I?" he wanted to ask, but his vocalizer only produced a pathetic croaking sound.
Perhaps it was better this way, because above him knelt the tallest Cybertronian he had ever seen, who smiled encouraging and relieved at him. If this giant would hit him, Starscream would be nothing more than a smeary spot on the floor, that he was sure of.
"See... They are gone. Nobody will hurt you anymore." The giant white mech held his hand out.
Starscream eyed the huge hand, then hesitatingly put his hand on the palm and was pulled to his feet. The giant mech, a flyer like him, perhaps a shuttle or something like that, stood up and scanned him again. Then he held his hand out again, saying, "I'm Skyfire. I'm sorry for my fellow students. They are…."
He shrugged helplessly, his smile faltering just a little and his blue optics sad.
Starscream examined him carefully, trying to judge if this was all a cruel joke or if the white flyer was sincere. The Seeker couldn't find a trace of treachery, so he shook the offered hand timidly. "Starscream."
Skyfire used this chance to grab a hold of Starscream's hand and pull him gently, but firmly in the direction of the medbay, trying all the way to hinder the younger mech from reverting back into his shell.
"It's unusual to see a Seeker outside of Vos. Were you visiting Iacon and got lost?"Skyfire asked after a while.
Starscream, who really had begun to feel somewhat safe and comfortable in the presence of the taller shuttle, winced a little, half sad that even his new acquaintance thought that he didn't belong here. He prepared himself for the cry of outrage that would follow his answer: "No. I'm… I'm a new student here."
Skyfire was stunned for a moment and Starscream snuck his hand out of the enormous digits of the other flyer, ready to run at any moment. But then, faster than he could react, the now free hand clasped around his shoulder. "That's great! Perhaps we'll have courses together? What are your disciplines?"
Starscream looked up at the smiling face of the white flyer, absolutely stupefied at his reaction.
Was he being honest…?
Then, timidly, he answered Skyfire's smiling expression with a shy smile of his own.
Starscream could never exactly tell how long it took until Skyfire had become his best – and only – friend.
He didn't even know why he had trusted the shuttle to begin with. Perhaps because he was the first mech ever that had been nice to him, that had shown him any kindness.
Sure, there had been other Cybertronians that had tried to crack his protective shell of arrogance and venomous behavior, but nobody ever came close to succeeding.
Starscream always stayed mistrustful and distant and every mech gave up after an audio full of scathing comments shrilled in a high pitch nobody could endure.
They flew off and left the Seeker alone – except for Skyfire.
And Starscream thanked Skyfire by centering his entire life around him, even if the shuttle didn't noticed.
The big, white Cybertronian became Starscreams entire world, his universe, his pillar to lean on and to hide behind, the steady constant in his life which secured him, who showed that he mattered and that perhaps all would be all right again.
And then, suddenly, Skyfire was gone….
Starscream sat on a shattered metallic boulder on the outskirts of Kaon.
He twirled a half full cube of Highgrade in his hands, gazing into the bright neon liquid, searching for something, anything to distract himself from the lost and depressed feelings inside of him.
He was older now, no longer a real Youngling, but still not yet an adult.
His once shiny paintjob was scratched and dented, pink Energon and dark lubricant leaking from some minor wounds. The young Seeker had stumbled into a bar fight in his search for enough Energon to soak his circuits, to blow his logic chips and memory banks and to drown himself up to the intakes in a drunken, ignorant stupor.
No such luck.
He hadn't had credits to drink himself into oblivion, so he could only gaze at the landscape or the bright glowing liquid in his hands, still a victim of his dark thoughts.
Well, at least he hadn't left the bar without some positive memories. He had never thought that all the training from his Creator would someday be useful. He had always tried to bury that knowledge deep inside his CPU to disprove all the nasty remarks about him being just another violent military type.
But today it had not only saved his life as one of the brutish groundpounders in this bar had seen him as easy prey, but it had also taught that particular idiot to never mess with him again, not if he liked his limbs attached to his body.
And how the slagger had whined and moaned on the ground, while Starscream had relished insulting and ridiculing him.
Skyfire had been right, it was always better to speak what was on his mind and not to just stay mute and let everything happen – even if Starscream was sure that this hadn't been the sort of situation that his tall friend had in mind when he told him that. Heh…
The flyer took a sip of his cube, a sad half-smile tugging at his lips, while new tears ran down his cheeks.
He would never know how Skyfire felt about his little bar fight, or that he spent his last credits on Highgrade, with no way to earn any more money. His friend would certainly be aghast if he could see Starscream now, accused of the murder of his best friend, expelled from the Academy, sitting somewhere in one of the worst areas of Cybertron, drowning his sorrow in Highgrade, while all around him raged a war he didn't even knew the purpose of. All he knew was, that military types like him were now not only disliked in Iacon anymore, but even hated.
Perhaps it would have been better if he had let the slagging groundpounder finish him. No more problems, no more guilt, no more questions nobody answered for him….
It only took the rest of the cube before he screamed his pain at the open sky above him, not caring who would hear, who would laugh about him, who would see him cry, as long as he could do something to release some of this terrible ache within his Spark:
"Primus! Why does everything go wrong? What have I done to deserve this?"
He fell to his knees, hugging himself searching for some sort of weak comfort.
"What have I done?" he sobbed, while bright tears streamed over his face.
He didn't know when he wept himself to sleep, but he awoke some hours later, with the worst hangover of his life and stiff joints, protesting painfully against his mistreatment. One simply shouldn't black out randomly on the ground somewhere. It just didn't pay off.
Starscream groaned and carefully onlined his optics, wincing as some of the few working neon lights of Kaon started fireworks inside of his head, with accompanying explosions, background music and everything….
Urrgh, and again Skyfire had been right: Everything he did, he did with overkill.
Skyfire…
The young flyer felt new tears welling up in his optics. He wished he had died of intoxication or one of the Empties had killed him for his parts.
Before he could dive further into his depression, two peds appeared in his line of vision and blocked the annoying bright lights of Kaon. Silver peds, belonging to a tall and massive mech of gladiatorial build, who looked down at him with an unreadable expression.
Starscream made no move to change his position and gazed wearily up at him. His head hurt like the pit, but he thought he remembered the big mech from the bar last night. This silver gunformer had sat in a corner and observed the crowd without entering the fighting himself.
That was odd, did he have a little purple face there, on his chest?
Starscream turned his head just a little bit to get a better look at the strange mark. White-hot pain informed him that this had been a bad idea and he offlined his optics again.
Slag, he didn't care who this was and if he liked to paint little faces on his chest, or even his shoulder or his aft. He just wanted to die and to end his misery.
The Seeker could hear metal shifting and something thumped onto the ground right before his faceplate. Half curious, half annoyed he onlined one red optic again and saw an Energon cube right in front of him.
His gaze wandered back to the silver Cybertronian, still standing above him, like some sort of weird statue. And the statue could talk. "Drink! I appreciate it if my counterpart in a conversation is at least halfway coherent."
The corner of his lips quirked slightly up to take away the harshness of the words, but his optics stayed cold and piercing.
Starscream hesitated, and then he sat up and gingerly took the cube. After a last look at the strange mech he gulped the contents down, then he waited for the gunformer to speak. The silver mech eyed him up and down, then he smiled. "There, now you look more like the capable Seeker I saw last night. You put up a good fight at that bar."
Starscream tilted his head to one side and felt his wings rise at the unexpected compliment. Did he really mean it?
"I am Megatron, leader of the Decepticons. I'm searching for mechs like you to join my army, mechs capable of standing up for themselves, able to hold their own in a fight against more powerful opponents, mechs that won't back down even if their life is in danger. And I'm certain you can outshine anyone in the sky." Megatron looked up briefly, then down again at the little flyer at his feet.
The white and red wings, even if battered and scratched, were now proudly lifted and something near to disbelief and embarrassment played on the dark features. The red optics stared for a moment in awe, then they wandered to the ground: "I've no experience in battle, sir. I'm… I was a scientist. And I don't even know what a… Decepticon?... is."
The silver mech regarded him with new interest: "I've never heard of a Seeker scientist before."
"I was the only one."
"Impressive." Starscream's wings twitched and this time the young flyer couldn't help but beam at the compliment. "But you said that you were a scientist. What happened?"
In no time the white wings drooped again and the smile disappeared from the dark faceplates. "The Academy expelled me. They…." He couldn't tell about Skyfire, he just couldn't. "They said, they don't want a military type like me in their ranks."
Megatron's smile only grew wider as he held his hand out to help the Seeker up. "And that's exactly what we Decepticons fight against."
Megatron, a name that would forever taste bittersweet on Starscream's tongue.
Megatron saved Starscream's life that day and filled the hole Skyfire's demise had left.
But even more, he had been the first to ever see real worth in the young Seeker, potential to encourage and mold. Even the white shuttle had thought at first that Starscream was simply lost in the Academy – Megatron believed his words that he was a scientist and saw so much more to develop and mold.
The silver Cybertronian became everything to Starscream, his world, his universe, and he would have died for him….
Surely, he would make everything all right again and soothe all the pains away.
But eventually, reality reared its ugly head and shattered all dreams and hope. Starscream would never be able to pinpoint exactly when he stopped believing in Megatron's words and promises. When he finally recognized that he was no god, not the mech he hoped him to be, when he began to hate him and when everything inside him twisted and warped.
He only knew that he was cold and disappointed again, that the Sparkling in him still cried and asked someone who wouldn't answer, why everything had gone so horribly wrong. The Youngling within screamed and begged to be heard, to be answered - "What had he done, what was his fault?" - even if the adult hissed and yelled and spilled insults and accusations everywhere and at everyone.
Starscream was still lost, still couldn't understand the world he found himself in and didn't know what to do about it.
And throughout his long life, poor Starscream wandered on and on, searching for someone, or something, to make it all right again, be it a person or power or something entirely different.
But in his search, poor naïve Starscream never realized, that there never had been an "all right" to return to.
Some asked me who exactly was the lucky mech in the last chapter.
My answer: It isn't important. If I would explain it, the whole meaning of the chapter would be lost.
There was a question about a story with Skyfire, too. Until now tall and white is only a character with cameos but I have a story in mind where he has more of a main role. Unfortunately I have no fitting prompt left, so I'm posting it as a special – if I find a working chapter title.