[The Cyberverse continuity is the primary inspiration, with references made to the 2019 comic reboot and other sources of events, lore and characterisation.]

Starscream throws out a hip and crosses his powerful arms over his shapely chassis, tapping the floor beneath his heeled pedes in his fury.

"Oh, do not look at me so."

"I demand to go with you!"

"And I require that you continue to prepare yourself and your Seekers for what is soon coming," Megatron rumbles patiently in reply, stroking a wing with a gentle digit until it twitches at the keen sensation of pleasure. "I shall be but a few hours. Were he not so insistent on seeing me in person, I would remain at your side. Forgive me, my dear Star."

"Bah! Who does he think he is? How dare he, after all he has put you through! He calls and just expects you to answer him, to just drop me, and go to him!"

"Star…"

"He could've conducted this meeting virtually! Imagine it! You, seated at my desk, with my hot little intake on your throbbing, heaving spike below–"

"Star."

"Suckling you to madness as he drones on and on like he always does at those rallies, so boringly sanctimonious!"

Thrust quirks an optic ridge from his station within the armoury, his servos filled with Energon cells. He is so jealous, right now.

Starscream is very loud. The door to his office may as well not be sealed shut, levels and corridors away, with how his vocal processor carries through solid objects. It is his namesake. He truly could scream to the stars.

Megatron suddenly silences the Seeker Captain with a finger to his plump, grimacing dermas. "Star, listen to me."

A moody huff, before a slick glossa swipes at that digit.

"When I return, I will make up for your upset tenfold." The digit withdraws, slick.

"You'd better! I am extremely displeased!"

"Rest assured, I will work myself very hard, for your enjoyment." It drags a slow, meandering trail down a cockpit, leaving slick in its wake.

"Ugh, you tease me so!"

"Only to heighten your desire, for my inevitable return." The retired gladiator allows his digit to get scooped up and sucked on, hard, with a low rumble. "I knew distant correspondence would not tide Orion over for long. But do not despair. I am yours, as you recall."

Starscream takes Megatron deep, until gagging automatically with a wretch, then jerks his helm back, wrenching himself off of the dripping digit, a bridge of stretched, suspended lubricant connecting. "Well, too bad for him! You are mine, and I want you in my berth! Now!"

"Later."

"Now!"

"Later."

"Oooh, you are fortunate that I adore you! I do not appreciate being denied what I want. Humph."

The older, more wearied mech only smiles indulgently down at his enthusiastic lover.

"Fine, fine! Do not forget me, when you are alone with him. Do not allow yourself to be swayed by his seductive ways! I am possessive of whatever and whomever are mine, and my wrath when scorned is terrible."

"I would never betray your trust. Not even Shockwave himself could erase the whole of you from my memory banks. It would only do damage to who I am."

"…You have me saved in your core memory data?"

"Indeed. You are quite permanent."

Starscream softens with tender emotion. "Megatron, I…"

"Wait for me."

The uniquely gorgeous, overall enhanced, highly modified Seeker simply kicks upward upon the great heat of his improved thrusters, leaving a blackened scorch upon the floor that will need to be buffered out by one of his underlings, rising to kiss the hulking old gladiator at his full stature.

"Mmm…"

Starscream is all shapely arms and long legs and his dermas are sinfully full as Megatron sets the slender mech upon his desk and bears down until the metal creaks below their grinding frames, scattering datapads to the floor with a crystalline clatter.

Orion Pax can wait a while longer.

"Two-wheelers, am I right?" mutters a random mech to his leering friend, paused upon the side-walk to observe the confrontation from a safe distance.

"Mmhm. She's kinda bad, though. Bet she's wild in berth."

"Two-wheelers always are."

Flamewar is kinda bad and wild in berth, actually, and not just because she is a two-wheeler. She would twist the poor mech's helm right off his pauldrons before spitting down his severed pipe and stuffing his decapitated face plate up his friend's tight aft for a laugh, were she not immediately preoccupied just then.

"Now, see here–"

"Get that propaganda outta my grill if you wanna keep your servo!"

She has drawn more onlookers with her sheer volume and agitated gesticulation than even the pompous presence of the gaggle of gleaming, preaching believers intending to spread the holy message of form and function. They stick out painfully in their dilapidated surroundings, garnering much criticism for attempting to justify the systemic insignificance of all who dwell within this more impoverished district due to possessing less financially compensated alt-modes.

"You weren't even forged to preach! Fraggin' hypocrites! You're just another data pusher who got lucky enough to be retrofitted with some fancy kibble, and I bet those idiots' tithes paid for it!" She despises them. The way they look down on her, and not only because she is forged small.

The patronising glint to their narrowed optics, the sneering curl of their smiling intakes. She cannot be preyed upon for their own ends, nor can she ever hope to resemble them, thus they hate her, too.

"That's not divine will, that's just what privilege gets ya!" Everything Megatron despises, stands personified before Flamewar. "He'll tear it all down! Then you'll be no better than me!"

"He misleads you, sister. In your Spark, you must understand–"

"Oh, my Spark understands that you fraggers aren't paying any taxes! And you own a few Senators! That's corruption! You're bending the rules for yourselves, and we're paying for it!"

Their lack of self-awareness and compassion would be staggering, if this sort of calculated indifference were not so typical of the faithful. The faithful remain pious, even as she prods one of their lanky representatives with a talon, leaving a scratch across his gleaming, ostentatious ornamentation, indicating his priestly station in life.

"Enjoy it while you still can!"

They fully intend to, and they will preach and campaign to draw out their luxury for as long as they can, until the world moves on without them. Some resistance to the divine message is to be anticipated and dealt with, in the meantime, to stave off the inevitable. The sway of Megatron's charismatic persuasion has just accelerated the change they dread, threatening the entrenchment of existing power structures sooner than they had anticipated. Hence why they have been out in greater numbers, preaching their dying bid louder.

"When you're just like me… I won't forget your faces!"

Although, the faithful could just opt to find another place to preach, with a less inflammatory reception. They thus depart altogether with murmured blessings upon her. The divine cannot speak its message for itself, after all, and she may very well get physically violent.

"Hey! I wasn't done?" A shaky gasp. "Excuse me, rude!" Flamewar throws a gesture at their departing back plates, but she does not risk chasing them, not with so many cops about. "Ugh, get scrapped. Whatever."

The onlookers quickly lose interest in the flame-emblazoned, shapely little two-wheeler with such a big voice, finally gone quiet.

She sags where she stands, letting out hot air from her dented vents with a hiss. She scratches her chin with her sharpened digits, scraping her shell unpleasantly, leaving shallow marks behind. "Now what." Her flames need a touch-up. Her options for distraction are limited, with the cops all over the place. She really should disappear, just in case. And she really does need to get more purple spray paint.

A narrow alleyway will do, leading to nowhere worthwhile going.

"Megatron, my old friend."

"Greetings, dear Orion. Pardon my tardiness."

In one of the nicer districts, the mechs embrace several floors above street-level.

"I have good news," the former archivist murmurs into the retired gladiator's cheek, depositing a kiss there.

"Indeed?"

"It is as I promised, old friend." Orion smiles warmly as he eases back, taking Megatron's servo. "You and I will have our audience within the Grand Imperium."

Standing before a great window dimmed for discretion, the retired gladiator had come to their meeting stern and quietly troubled, seemingly distracted, optics upon the Energon fountain below, where a gathering of young frames mingle. Now, he softens, optics widening as he turns to focus entirely on the other mech in the room. "You actually convinced them to listen to us."

"I only wish it took less of our time, and that fewer Sparks were roused in anger."

"You did it alone."

"I made you a promise. I have only fulfilled it. Forgive me, for taking this long to keep my word."

"What you have done alone, I could not do with you."

"Do not think such a thing." The former archivist squeezes the mighty servo within his own. "I would never have taken up this noble cause, if you had not set fire to my Spark years ago."

Megatron feels at once elated, at once enraged, and there is a creeping sickly sensation underneath the warring emotions, overall.

"I prolonged your suffering." Orion bows his great helm, sighing. "That was never my intent. But we will have our audience, and they will heed our call for change. This is the opportunity we have strived for."

"You have done what I thought was impossible. What I lacked the power to do, all this time. You… are truly the most incredible mech I have ever known, my Orion."

"Now, now, do not inflate my ego, old friend. My helm cannot afford to swell any further."

The retired gladiator returns to the window, glaring down at the crowd gathered about the Energon fountain. "Those fools who cling to their decadent ways." Affluent youths with no care in the world. "I did not imagine they could be led to reason. I assumed that some show of force…"

"I understand your frustration." The former archivist kisses the digits he cradles. "But force shall not prove necessary."

"Am I a fool?"

"No, old friend."

Megatron sighs wearily, unable to quell his emotional battle despite appearing outwardly composed and calm. "I suppose, in my Spark, I never truly left the arena." And now that he has Starscream and the Seekers, there is this other hope, this most unlikely hope, renewed. Has a mistake been made?

"I have loved you as a warrior, as much as I have loved your inner poet, philosopher, and indeed, politician."

"Orion, I…"

"It is alright, now. Let us have hope." The absurd hope that Orion has clung to, alone. "We shall do our best to prepare ourselves, and I believe that we shall show them their errors, and direct their efforts towards a peaceful resolution, for the betterment of all."

"…Together?"

"Yes, old friend. Together."

The retired gladiator closes his optics. His brain module aches with what he has done, what he is prepared to do in his failure, holding servos with the former archivist who remains so beautifully naive, yet succeeds. "This I pray." Megatron's smile is quiet, subtle, chipped away by so much gruelling labour and vicious battle and brooding thought. "That the stars may yet die, but you shall never cease your brilliance." Much goes unsaid.

Orion offers a handsome, lopsided grin that makes him look millions of years younger. "And you shall remain the epitome of all that romantics aspire to be." But he is not being looked at, right now.

It hurts too much, for the tired old mech to gaze upon his first love.

A soft, tender chuckle, digits intimately interwoven. "Is this worthy of an embrace?"

"I suppose it is."

The former archivist thus moves to hold the retired gladiator, nuzzling at his broad neck, the fuel lines reinforced.

"Oh, Orion."

"I could kiss you, Megatron."

"You are… getting fresh with me."

"Truly, if my desire is reciprocated in kind. It has been some time."

"I would not mind that." However, Megatron does not kiss Orion where he wants to. It meets with a pauldron, where the retired gladiator rests his chin, as the former archivist sighs. "There."

"I would haggle for more."

"I have someone else."

The handsomely youthful grin evaporates. "…I see." Orion clears his intake. "Forgive my impropriety, I did not know."

"That is quite alright. I did not tell you, until just now."

"How long have you been accounted for?"

Megatron flushes hotly. "It is very recent. Very… new." His chin at rest on his past paramour's broad, steady pauldron.

"Congratulations. He is a lucky mech."

"I like to think so."

"May I meet him?"

"Indeed. You shall."

"And is he… very handsome?"

"He is, though he is also beautiful. Quite the character, ambitious to a fault, and far too intelligent. His energy alone is… intoxicating."

"Well, then. I am very curious! He sounds exceptional."

"He is, my dear Orion, and only because you taught me the value in maintaining high standards."

"I have always told you what you deserve, Megatron, old friend. Only the very best."

Shadow Striker is not here. When her libido is sated and she finds herself in no mood for conversation over Energon, she claims to have business to attend to elsewhere and thus vanishes for days at a time. This is not in and of itself unusual. It is in her nature, and a necessity of her profession, to offer no concrete explanations as to her activities. Bumblebee has already learned that she does not appreciate being questioned about her well-being. He cannot help but feel a little used, however, as he believes that friends with benefits can still be friends before the benefits, not necessitating that his personality merely be what is attached to an intake or a valve or a spike for a good fragging.

Slipstream is not here. When contacted over comm link, she sounds exhausted and miserable, unable to hold a conversation for long before being withdrawn by something or someone else. She says she is busy, but claims the details of her distraction are too tedious to relay, or in some way classified. When she is lying, Windblade knows it. What is classified only concerns her further. Aside from a greater frequency of observable aerial formations of Seekers in practice, none of the others have been seen for some days now, either. As a unit, they are generally not missed by the Cybertronian populace.

Chromia is a source of quiet and sincere comfort, Hot Rod's soulful infatuation with some enigmatic flame-bound femme provides fond amusement, Clobber and Lockdown are always far more pleasant to associate with than their roughened manners and appearances as labourers would imply, Grimlock and Arcee are delighted to regale with stories of their most wondrous adventures, Dead End is sort of there but he is cool too, and it is nice to see Orion finally return to the old oil house again, apparently avoiding issue with the police officers on his way over for a quiet drink, alone, but his smile is sad and his optics seem so distant.

Bumblebee and Windblade find themselves meditating on a shared anxiety, surrounded by most of their friends and trying to maintain appearances for their sake, the pretence that all is fine.