A/N: Thank you guys for all the wonderful reviews, it really gets me motivated, you know? I appreciate all of them! Off topic, I've started watching the new Sword Art Online II, and it looks more promising than the first right now. We'll see how it progresses.
Also, this chapter is a little longer than normal, but you can always take a break and come back later if it's too much.
As always, read, review and enjoy!
"This is ridiculous." Megatron mumbled to no one in particular, deliberately stomping the ground out of anger, the pavement now filled with many small craters from the force he stuck it at. Starscream's walk had developed into a small jog to keep up with the ill-tempered mech, and he had started huffing at their current pace. They would arrive where they wanted at the same time, whatever pace they went, so why did Megatron insist on speeding ahead?
"I asked if you wanted to fly there…" Starscream kindly reminded the tyrant, trying his hardest to remove his foul mood. It wouldn't do well for business if he had an oversized sparkling stomping and causing havoc everywhere he went. "If you really think about it, there's no need for you to be scared of heights."
"I am not scared of anything!" Megatron snarled back, his pace unrelenting. "I just have a rational wariness of their dangers." He lied. Starscream gave him an incredulous look that the gladiator fortunately didn't see, but decided not to pester him with this topic. He was already angry enough right now.
The streets ahead of them were packed with mechs, their individual colours blurring into each other from the speed they bustled about. Starscream could already feel the spaces around him and Megatron slowly close up. As for most seekers, Starscream didn't like being confined to small spaces. He could already feel his wings twitch with anxiousness, his processor clouding over. He was about to turn on his thrusters and shoot up to merely get some breathing room, before a large servo clamped over his own, starting to drag him towards the mass of colour.
"Megatron, we're not going to be able to get through, there's too many-" Megatron paid his advice no heed, and Starscream's mouth made a small "O" shape as he watched the warlord literally slam other mechs to the floor that blocked his path. Starscream glanced back to see some of them begin to pick themselves up and try to start some sort of fight, though a wave of mech's had already covered them from view. At first, Starscream had to jump and bounce away from other pedes threatening to intercept his steps, but once everyone seemed to get the message, a small path cleared itself for the pair. The seeker glanced awkwardly at some of the passers-by, smiling weakly in apology to a few of them.
Before the poor mech handling the ticket station could even look up (they had decided to go by train when flying had been ruled out as an option), Megatron shoved two small pieces of paper into his hands, almost knocking the poor thing over, and dragged Starscream past. Not bothering to calm down first, the disgruntled gladiator threw both him and the seeker down onto a nearby bench, finally relenting his grip on Starscream's servo. The air commander let out a sigh of relief, Megatron had not exactly been gentle with it. Upon closer examination, the damage wasn't too bad. Assuring himself that he was well taken care of, Starscream glanced up at Megatron, who's wrath seemed to have lessened from earlier. He still seemed rather annoyed though, tapping his pede impatiently.
"Hey." Starscream poked Megatron in the arm, albeit a little hesitantly. He didn't receive any sort of response, and so opted to poke a second time. "Was that really necessary?" The seeker asked his commander gently, careful not to provoke him in any way. Starscream waited patiently, and after the third poke, drew out a sigh from the ground pounder.
"I… could have possibly dealt with the situation more efficiently." Megatron conceded. It wasn't really much of an apology, or much of anything, but Starscream would take it. It was more than he'd gotten out of the tyrant before. The seeker in smiled in victory for a moment, allowing himself to cherish the small period of peace, before striking up conversation again.
"It's one thing to act like that around the base, but you can't do that sort of thing in public." Starscream scolded him. If you could call it scolding, he sounded more like the victim of the situation with the quiver in his voice. Megatron looked up from his sulking to stare at Starscream, not really understanding the problem.
"Why not?"
"It's rude. What will other mechs think?"
"You act like I care what they think."
"You should do." Still on the receiving end of an inquisitive look, Starscream realised he wasn't going to understand. Further explanation would be needed, apparently.
"I'm not saying you need to need to make friends with them" he added, "but you have a pretty large political status." The seeker inwardly flinched at the smirk on Megatron's faceplates at the boost to his ego. That was the very last thing he needed. "It's therefore important that you play the part of a reputable character. No cursing, no death threats, no violence, nothing." Megatron huffed at having the three things he valued dearly in his life being taken away from him. He did recognise the point that Starscream raised, but whether he could restrain these characteristics, he was not exactly sure. After all, sometimes even in the comfort of his own base, he would lash out at mechs without meaning too. It just came as second nature sometimes to remove the cause of the problem.
"That's asking a lot." Megatron growled back in response. Starscream only grinned at this.
"Of course, I'll be subject to the same conditions, for the time being…" He reminded the commander, hoping it would help persuade him. Megatron seemed to enjoy this idea a little more than Starscream had hoped.
"So you won't be sarcastic, whining and sparkling-like?" He mused, prodding the seeker with one of his digits after each adjective.
"Witty, important sounding and mature." Starscream corrected the larger mech, too offended to push his fingers away. After Megatron thought it was a good idea to continue poking him, he eventually batted the servo away, which meant he briefly caught Megatron's optics.
"S-stop staring at me like that." He mumbled, turning away a small bit. Instead of obeying the request, the gladiator only took more notice of him, raising an optic ridge at the strange behaviour.
"When does the train arrive?" He asked, dropping the gaze. Starscream fiddled around with a datapad for a short while before replying.
"About ten minutes."
"Ten minutes?" A loud voice struck Starscream's audios like a mallet. The seeker instantly held a digit to his tightened lips, which Megatron took to mean 'be quiet'. He let out a large sigh, folded his arms and glared at the tracks, as if it would make the train arrive quicker.
It didn't. It took twenty minutes in total.
He popped his head out from around the corner. There was no one there. Grinning mischievously to himself, Skywarp bounced along the corridor excitedly, making his way further and deeper into the base. To his joy, not only were Megatron and Starscream out doing their own thing, but Thundercracker and Soundwave had gone out too! They'd said that they were going to buy something for Starscream to wear, but what exactly it was, Skywarp wasn't allowed to know. The purple seeker had found this extremely unfair that gossip was to be had and yet was prevented from reaching him, but had it let it slide to hurry the two mechs out of the base. Having the place all to himself (sort of) meant he could go wherever he wanted!
Smiling once more at his freedom, he made his way into the forbidden realms, the place only one mech on the entire planet was supposed to enter; Megatron's quarters.
Skywarp's mouth left itself agape for a good few minutes. First of all, the place was quite large. In fact, it was enormous. Were it not actually residing within it, Skywarp would have bet it was bigger than the entire base. Most of it of course, was probably work related (as to be expected by a ruler-to-be of the entire galaxy), but it still had plenty of luxuries that the purple seeker wouldn't mind waking up to in the morning.
Skywarp being the polite mech that he was…
…
The seeker scoffed at the very idea of politeness. Skywarp, being the nosy mech that he was, took it upon himself to venture around the gladiator's place as if it were his own. After all, when else would he get the opportunity to do this, what with all the other 'mature' mechs breathing down his neck?
Shuffling through a few datapads, he eventually found one titled "To do list". His optics roughly scanned the list, eventually finding a bullet point entitled: Discipline Skywarp.
"Well, he could do without this one. I'll just lighten his load a little, like the helpful mech I am." Skywarp murmured to himself. Satisfied that he would not be undergoing any negative activity in the near future, he moved on. Not much else of interest was really about, but he did spot something rather peculiar sitting near the birth (Which as with everything else in the room, was obnoxiously large). He could make out some sort of photograph glowing faintly from a datapad, though from this distance he couldn't make out what it was of. Moving in for a closer inspection, the seeker gave it a good look.
It was quite old judging from the scuffs around the edges of the datapad, though there was no dust lingering on the surface. It must have been looked at quite often. Once the lighting had finally turned on, Skywarp could make out two mechs. The first, was Starscream, who was standing proudly at the front, smiling. The seeker couldn't quite tell why, but he looked a lot younger than normal, and a lot more innocent too. The other mech, considerably taller and older, was Megatron, who also seemed to be happy. He has two of his servos placed on both of Starscream's shoulders, gripping them firmly. Skywarp recognised this picture to be taken from the day of Starscream's promotion, as he remembered a particularly funny joke he'd told Thundercracker back then.
"I wonder why he keeps this here… That's nice of him." Skywarp whispered, not expecting anything Starscream related to be in the room at all. He stood for an awkwardly long amount of time, before remembering why he actually came here in the first place. Skywarp jumped up from his seat on the berth, bouncing quickly over to the private computer systems, and coincidently, the only one able to call the Autobot base. The purple mech bashed the call button in, humming along to the dialling tone.
"Optimus Prime is not here right now, if you wish to leave a message-" The mech on the other line stopped speaking suddenly, surprised to find something that wasn't Megatron's fearsome optics glaring down at him. Before saying anything else, he let out a sigh of relief; the Autobot didn't know how the Decepticons could work around someone so, for lack of a better word, scary.
"Skywarp?"
"What's up Bumblebee? How are things going?" Fortunately, Skywarp and Bumblebee were probably the only two mechs who seemed to remain completely oblivious to the fact there was a full scale war going on. Bumblebee just had so much fun annoying the other Autobots, that he didn't really notice anything else that was happening around him, and Skywarp just didn't consider it important enough to change his behaviour about. As long as he and his trine were unscathed, nothing really bothered him anyway.
"Things are good, I guess." The minibot scratched the back of his helm sheepishly, letting out a small laugh. "You know, if you don't count the whole 'on the verge of starving to death and stuff' thing."
"I can see how that would be a problem." Skywarp nodded in appreciation.
"Hey, hey, don't worry about it. Optimus allowed me a second helping of energon today, so I'm not too bothered" Bumblebee replied. The yellow mech laughed again, before returning to his caller.
"So what's up? You'd better spill it quick, you know Optimus doesn't like me talking with you guys. He says you're evil, all voodoo and that. You know what I mean?"
"Yeah, we get it a lot." Skywarp sighed. "But hey, this will really blow your mind!" Bumblebee wasn't certain that the excited look Skywarp had was promising, but nodded on to show he was listening.
"Well I mean, I don't know any way to sugar coat it, so here goes." The purple seeker took a short breath, before leaning in closer to the monitor. "The truth is, Starscream totally has a crush on Megatron!" Bumblebee's optics widened in disbelief, he himself leaning towards the screen.
"What, reeeaaalllly? I mean, these are the two Decepticons I think we're talking about, right? Those two?" Bumblebee spoke impossibly fast, his processor simply not able to comprehend the idea. Didn't those two hate each other? He would always hear about the poor treatment the seeker received from the larger and more powerful mech. He felt sorry for the seeker, even though he probably deserved most of it, in the bumbler's opinion.
"I'm serious! The seeker is literally obsessed with him, you know?" Skywarp rambled on, clearly too excited for his own good. "I tried to point out that he could do better, but the guy wouldn't listen, just kept listing the stuff he liked about him. Maybe some mech's would find it annoying, but I thought it was sweet, really." Bumblebee stared and nodded, still wondering whether this information was true, before a thought started to nag his processor endlessly.
"If you don't mind me asking," The yellow mech mumbled, "Why are you telling me this? I mean sure, it's good to know, but this could be pretty damaging to your side if someone else where to find out." Bumblebee reminded the seeker. He then frowned at a pause Skywarp seemed to take, as if debating whether or not to ask something.
"Well, I was wondering… Since the situation is so delicate and all, we need some time off on all this fighting. Do you think you could…" Skywarp looked up hopefully at Bumblebee, who now twiddled his thumbs around and stared off somewhere to the left.
"I could try, but… I dunno if Optimus will be so keen on the idea."
"Maybe… Maybe if the two get together, we could get Screamer to persuade Megatron to conduct peace with you guys?"
"Do you think he could?" the minibot asked, genuinely intrigued.
"We could try." Bumblebee mumbled something quietly to himself, before nodding.
"I can see that working… And hey, wanna race when everything is sorted out?"
"Sure, you drive like a snail anyway."
"Yeah, well you fly like you've only got one wing!" The two mechs laughed at each other, before Skywarp decided to cut the call short. He sighed, leaning back in the desk chair, hoping that everything would go well. The seeker felt a slight tug of guilt that he hadn't gotten Thundercracker's permission to do this, but assured himself it was for the best. He could function just fine on his own, after all.
"Wow, look at it all!" Grumpily, Megatron tilted his helm upward to observe his surroundings, after Starscream's many pleas. It certainly was different from anywhere the Decepticon commander had been before. The area wasn't so busy that neither mech could see in front of themselves, but there certainly was a loud buzz in the air, full of different voices. Every inch of the place seemed to be either covered by merchandise or a customer of some sort. He'd only been here a few seconds, and Megatron already felt like killing something.
His sulking was interrupted, however, when a servo waved itself in front of his field of view.
"How long do you plan on standing there?" Starscream asked him, the seeker placing both hands on his hips and scrutinizing the other mech, trying to look down on him despite being quite a bit shorter. "You're going to have to pay more attention if you don't want me doing anything suspicious." Megatron considered arguing, but concluded he was too fed up to give any points worth making. He sighed, nodded, and allowed Starscream to lead the way for both of them. Curiously, the seeker seemed rather enthusiastic today, more so than usual. The gladiator observed how his wings were propped up higher than usual, and he almost bounced around like Skywarp would, rather than his usual arrogant saunter.
"Where to start, where to start…" The seeker mumbled to himself, not having actually gone outside the base for anything in a good while. He scanned the market for anything that he thought would be needed, deciding to go for what was closer first. "So we'll need materials for the base of the weapons, chemicals for the reactions, materials for the bullets…" The seeker made a mental checklist to himself, unaware that the mech he was now travelling with was beginning to get increasingly impatient.
Not having much else to do at the moment, Megatron decided to observe the air commander's behaviour. Sometimes, he would pick something up, toss and turn it in his servos a few times, before putting it back down with dissatisfaction. Other times, he'd throw something in the direction towards Megatron, who would be forced to catch whatever it was, adding to the already large pile of items that had accumulated in his broad arms. He didn't have a clue what any of them actually did.
"Hold this." Starscream suddenly requested, holding out a tube of metallic material that the gladiator didn't recognise.
"In case you hadn't noticed, my hands are full right now." He said with ample sarcasm, gesturing to the large pile of miscellaneous items he held. Starscream rolled his optics, and instead placed the material down, before smashing it with his servo (presumably to test its durability). To both Megatron's and Starscream's surprise, the metal broke very easily, snapping cleanly into two equally sized pieces. Starscream left his mouth agape, looking briefly to its remains, then to Megatron, and then back to the metal again. In one fluid motion, the seeker picked up the metal, dropped it and swiftly brushed it under a container with his pede before anyone could see what had happened.
"Better keep that a secret…" he whispered, taking up an awkward whistle and placing servos behind his back, walking away from the crime scene. Megatron followed close behind, smiling minutely at this amusing behaviour. Apparently, killing Autobots was fine, but Primus forbid if he accidentally break some metal not worth more than a few shanix.
Finally, they had finished. Megatron huffed out air in relief, not because the physical labour was at all above him, but because he was so incredibly bored, he felt his processor beginning to melt. Starscream seemed to eyeing the cashier carefully as he counted through everything, as if not trusting the mech. Megatron didn't blame him, the clerk's paintjob was so bright there he was bound to be a few screws loose.
"Five hundred shanix." He said.
"Five hundred!?" Starscream wasted no time in raising his voice, servo's clanging loudly on the desk. You want five hundred for some measly pieces of metal and easily obtainable chemicals?"
"If you d-don't like, don't buy it." He replied, attempting to sound firm but not really getting anywhere. Starscream gave him a thorough look up and down, taking in the other mech's nervousness, before shaking his helm.
"Four fifty." The seeker replied.
"The price isn't… isn't negotiable." The cashier informed him, to which Starscream simply scoffed.
"Fine, fine, we'll put this stuff back then. There are plenty of other places we can get the same stuff, right?" Starscream winked at the other mech, who suddenly seemed to be stuttering. As he turned away, he had to quickly hush an irritated Megatron, who still let out a soft whine at having to go around collecting everything a second time.
"Okay, f-four fifty." He relented. A hopeful look took up on his optics, but it vanished the moment Starscream leaned in close.
"Four hundred."
"What? But you said-"
"I know, but times change, don't they?" Starscream gave the most unnerving grin that any mech had ever laid eyes on. "You'd better decide quickly, it might go lower soon." After a few incoherent stuttering's more, the brightly coloured mech reluctantly took Starscream's money. Starscream smiled sweetly, before hauling everything up into a back, and leaving promptly with a half baffled, half impressed Megatron.
"Did you see, did you see? And you complained about it being expensive!" Starscream beamed, struggling to keep up with Megatron as he hauled all of their purchases along with him.
"It doesn't exactly count as being nice though, does it?" Megatron grumbled. Starscream considered this, and thought up a reasonable excuse.
"It shows that we don't take any nonsense though, which is just as important." Megatron rolled his optics, but then stopped as he noticed Starscream stagger a little.
"Problem?" He asked, ever so slightly amused.
"Why do I have to carry all of this?" The seeker whimpered. "It's so heavy, I don't get how you carried all of it around…"
"You use those wings of yours too much." Megatron informed him, giving one of them a slight pinch for emphasis. Starscream jolted a little at the sensation it gave him. "It'd do you good to get some real exercise for a change." After he'd said that though, Megatron doubted that this was the way to do it. The gladiator started to lag behind a little, wanting to be there in case-
A small rock on the ground had caused Starscream to take a short an unexpected trip, the seeker desperately clinging to the possessions as he fell backwards. He stopped, however, earlier than he'd expected to. Instead of the cold, unforgiving floor, his frame found something warmer, which seemed to wrap around his sides and under his arms as well. He looked up from his daze to find a few passers-by staring in his direction. The seeker looked up to find a mildly concerned Megatron return his gaze, now starting to let go of the seeker from the hug-like position he had previously held him in.
"Need some help carrying that?" He asked, looking like he enjoyed Starscream's discomfort. Faceplates red as a beetroot, Starscream slowly unloaded some of their merchandise onto Megatron, who for some reason found the whole thing very funny. That only went to embarrass the seeker further, who now kept a few paces ahead, murmuring a small thank you under his breath. Megatron continued to stare after him. He had probably learnt more about the seeker in the last few weeks than he had since he'd started as a Decepticon.
And to his surprise, he quite liked what he saw.
Sorry, I just continue to find awkwardness between Starscream and Megatron absolutely adorable, so it keeps appearing (as you'll have noticed)!
Next time, we'll find out what Soundwave requested of Thundercracker, what it has to do with Starscream, and how that will affect the Decepticon Lord himself!