Chapter 2

No…

No, no, no.

Dot wished she had a firearm on her so she could shoot at the towering robot before her. Her instincts urged her to shout at her kids to run while she distracted him. Her communicator was back at the house, which she needed now to call Megatron or any of the Autobots, yet retrieving it meant leaving her children unprotected – an option she absolutely refused to do.

"Ah, Dorothy Malto," Starscream drawled, his tone oozing condescension as he surveyed her. "I must admit, seeing you again isn't a delight…"

Dot's glare shot daggers at him. Before she could retort, Twitch interjected.

"Starscream!" Twitch squealed, and Dot's heart sank as her daughter hurled herself at the Decepticon. She expected Starscream to strike her down the moment Twitch wrapped her arms around his waist, but instead he flinched and staggered back, staring down at Twitch as if she had sprouted another head. "We're so glad you're finally here!" she exclaimed, gazing up at him with gleaming optics.

Starscream was as stiff as a rock. A sea of emotions swirled in his gaze before he composed himself mentally.

"Yeah… I can see that," he let out, his voice momentarily pitching higher due to a flicker of nervousness. With a somewhat awkward motion, he gently disentangled Twitch from his frame by her shoulders, less abrupt than his initial reaction to her embrace weeks ago.

The only reason he had shoved her off so harshly the first time was because he had panicked. He didn't expect her to hug him, not after she had shown to favor Megatron immensely to the point she tried persuading Nova Storm and Skywarp to follow the former Decepticon leader instead of him.

Now, he didn't push her away this time around because he disliked her touch. On the contrary, her embrace held a certain warmth to it, yet it also made him feel uncomfortable. A tinge of anxiety accompanied the strange blend of emotions. He wasn't sure why he would feel such conflicted feelings. Though, now that he thought about it, maybe the fact that anyone who had laid hands on him without inflicting harm on him was close to none, Twitch being the exception these days.

Hashtag ran over with a grin of her own and seeing her immediately brought a warmth in Starscream's expression and eased him a bit. A gentle smile graced his features, a sight Dot had never considered possible, and left her utterly confused.

"I got to hand it to you Starscream, but that was a badass entrance," Hashtag said with amusement. Her compliment made Starscream stand tall with hands on his waist and puff his chest out slightly with pride.

"Of course, it was great," he declared with a trace of a smirk, the arrogance that Dot expected of him slipping out, but for Hashtag, it was a sign of confidence. "After all, I am the fastest and greatest Cybertronian flier that ever existed." He let out a moment of self-satisfaction wash over him as he chuckled to see most of the Terrans look up at him in awe.

Thrash, on the other hand, rolled his optics in an exaggerated display of mock exasperation.

"Ohhh, is that true?" Twitch asked curiously before she had a rush of excitement coursing through her frame. "Then I challenge you to a race right now!"

"Oh?" Starscream asked with some amusement. Strangely, he didn't have the urge to ridicule her request.

"I don't think you have a chance against him, Twitch," Jawbreaker spoke up as he approached the group.

"Jawbreaker is right," Nightshade said. "Starscream's alt mode is meticulously engineered for peak aerial performance while yours is not."

Twitch crossed her arms on her chest. "I'm not expecting to beat Starscream in a race," she said. "I just want to see how fast he is compared to me." Of course, mentally she wanted to test him out so she could find a way in the future to beat him, but she wasn't going to share that information with anyone.

"Well, now that does seem like an interesting experience to have," Nightshade responded with a chuckle.

"You guys can do that later," Hashtag said, pulling out a tablet. "We have so much to do today, and the first thing in the list is to show Starscream around."

"Show me around?" Starscream blinked at this with confusion.

"Yeah!" Jawbreaker said with excitement. "We gonna show you our amazing home and our favorite spots to hang out then later see a movie together!"

Starscream turned to Hashtag, looking at her questioningly.

Hashtag let out a sheepish smile. "Yeah, sorry, I had to kind of trick you to come over," she said.

"You tricked him?" Twitch asked her with surprise.

"I've tried asking him to come over before so we can all hang out with him, but he kept saying no. So, I convinced him by telling him I wanted to talk to him in person and that it was very important." Hashtag explained herself and then she gazed up at Starscream. "But I was serious that I wanted to talk to you, but later privately, if that's okay with you."

"You deceived me," Starscream commented and was kind of impressed. He wasn't mad about it, but he for sure wasn't going to stick around now as he felt paranoid that Megatron would show up later.

Dot sighed after taking the whole scene in before she stepped forward.

"Hashtag, you shouldn't be lying to anyone, even if you meant well," Dot lectured her.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to lie to you," Hashtag said to Starscream, now feeling guilty since she didn't want Starscream to feel like he couldn't trust her.

Starscream simply shrugged. "Psh, it's not a big deal," he said.

"It is a big deal," Dot retorted him before she turned to her Terran babies gently.

"And you kiddos can't go inviting others over without my permission," Dot said to them then she gazed back up at Starscream. "And since they asked you to come without my permission, I'm going to have to ask you to please leave."

Starscream frowned at her.

"But mom, we can't do that," Twitch said to her. "It's rude to just send Starscream away after he came all the way here."

"Yeah, super rude!" Jawbreaker piped in.

Hashtag dropped her gaze to the ground, feeling guilty for not handling things better, and ashamed to have troubled Starscream.

Starscream, on the other hand, changed his tune.

Of course, he wanted to leave, but the fact the human was sending him away now made him want to stay, just to annoy her.

Because no one told Starscream what to do…

Especially a pathetic human.

"Jawbreaker is right, it's pretty rude to just tell me to leave after I was invited," Starscream drawled. "And we don't want to teach them to be awfully rude to their guests, am I right?" he let out a sly smirk to Dot, which she couldn't help but glare at him.

"Starscream knows my name?" Jawbreaker let out quietly to Nightshade with surprise.

"Well, I guess that's settles it," Starscream said, clasping his hands together with amusement after Dot remained silent. "I'm staying," he declared to the Terrans. All of them, except for Thrash, cheered with excitement. "So, what's the first thing in that list of yours?" Starscream asked Hashtag who once again was grinning.

"Let me show you where we sleep!" She quickly grabbed his hand, taking note though the way he slightly tensed up under her touch, and guided him toward the barn.

"Can I touch one of your wings?" Jawbreaker asked Starscream curiously as he tagged along.

"Don't even think about it," Starscream grumbled at the Terran.

Dot stood rooted in place as the group went into the barn. She felt slightly panicked and irritated at the fact Starscream clearly was planning something terrible now.

She didn't want him going into their base, but damn it, she couldn't stop them, especially since Starscream somehow found a way to get the kids eating from his hands. But she shouldn't be shocked. Starscream was known to be extremely manipulative.

However, she noticed Thrash was wearing an expression that mirrored her own annoyance, making her glad that at last one could see that Starscream was bad news. Though, she was surprised to find out it was Thrash of all people.

"Thrash, please keep watch over your siblings," she instructed him. "I'm going to contact Megatron and Optimus."

Thrash emitted a sigh, not really wanting to be near the Decepticon. "Fine," he said before he made his way to join the others while Dot quickly dashed to her house and grabbed her communicator, immediately trying to contact Megatron.

Though… for some reason, something in her was telling her that perhaps she was overreacting. She had just witnessed Starscream interact with the children with some tenderness and awkwardness, completely different to who he's supposed to be.

But as she stared down at her communicator device, she couldn't help but remember vividly how Starscream, amidst chaos, would let out a sinister laugh like the monster everyone would paint him to be.

Author's After Note

For those that have access to archive of our own, i got the rest of the story uploaded there. I'll be updating here too but slower