Earth, Location - Undisclosed
Starscream couldn't move his servos, his digits had been welded tight against an interrogation table by a magnetic-clasp. The entire surface was made of a purple-gold alloy he couldn't identify.
But it felt familiar - so horribly familiar.
The fact he couldn't identify the metal in front of him bothered him - the feeling inane but there all the same. Starscream used to be a scientist - used to be - he had been so cocksure he'd understood his position. He was Second In Command of The Decepticons - he was - wasn't he?
But across the table stood Shockwave, fiddling with a computer screen and thick wires he couldn't identify the purpose of.
"Shockwave," he tried to say, to ask a question. "What's taking so long?"
But Starscream's audio-cords had been snipped. He felt the cut flowing open as he lifted a split-chin from across his front to look behind him - he was sure his head had been slammed once or twice against the mysterious alloy-table - wires dangled from his broken chin like an unconventional beard - leaking teal energon in controlled little spirts as his clotting-factors settled in.
It was hard for Starscream to see, the ceiling was obscured by an intense white-green light, dangling and squeaking as the unknown instrument swung back and forth, taunting what precious little patience Starscream ever had.
Finally, there was a click and clacker from Shockwave's side of the table and his huge yellow cycloptic-optic seemed to disfigure with some sort of amusement.
"You are free to go Starscream. Don't be late next time." Shockwave gestured towards him with his arm-cannon, causing Starscream to reflexively - mentally scatter - his chair tipped backwards - and he shrieked - static-hissed like flares - the noise made more awful by a disgusting splatter of energon. He would've cowered against the floor, but his chair was kept upright by the magnetic restraint of the purple-gold interrogation table.
Seconds passed, and the chair slammed back against the ground. Starscream was still held in place, his wrists had been stretched painfully from the rest of his body, and he could only scrap his talons uselessly against a slippery-smooth flooring.
Starscream collected himself with a quick shaking vent, giving Shockwave his most murderous glare. He wanted to scream all manner of insults - to mock Shockwave to his face - but he knew as well as anyone else with a bit of self interest, that making Shockwave mad wasn't within the realm of possibility.
Another click and clacker from the table, and Starcream flung his hands free, almost falling backwards from the momentum of ripping himself from his seat. He wanted nothing more than to attack Shockwave, to blind him in his one eye, but by the time Starscream stood ready to throw his first swing - Shockwave was nowhere to be seen - having already retreated deeper into the laboratory facility - places Starscream did not have clearance nor desire to explore ...much to his chagrin; he had been apart of Shockwave's project long enough! He was Decepticon Second-in-Command, was he not?
He had earned the authority to do as he pleased!
Surely...
But when it came to arguing with Shockwave ...it wasn't worth it...
He had to constantly lie, anyway.
Constantly.
To himself.
That the war on Earth mattered.
To say that the Decepticon-cause was real.
A reality.
And not some delusion of Megatron's.
Some twisted joke.
Starscream was better than most when it came to dismissing his thoughts and worries; he had to be, to fool himself - to be the actor and commander the people of New Vos expected him to be.
Starscream left the room without the slightest bit of hesitation, already well familiar with the hallways he needed to traverse to get back outside.
But first.
A weary servo cradled his neck and chin, his optics shuttered off for one peacefully long minute.
He needed his vocal-cords replaced.
A twist and turn down the corridor took him swiftly to the medbay. He didn't have to go far; a medbay was always built around an interrogation table - always.
Starscream hesitated in front of the medical-repair office, knowing full well who was inside.
Each time Starscream saw the bot, he felt nothing but despair, and he kept his head bowed, refusing to look upward, as he was too tired to deal with any sort of emotional outburst.
Humiliated, he was feeling, but he could only ever understand it as frustration.
The medbay doors shuddered open with a sprinkle of dust. Him and Shockwave were the only ones allowed clearance into this section of the facility.
As he jumped up onto a painfully familiar medical-berth, he tried to ignore his surroundings; but from the corner of his optics he couldn't help but spy the bot who took up his attention. He shuddered as he looked away, but with a stubborn huff he stood up and addressed the issue.
The paint was purple and black.
The metal was dented and severed beyond repair.
It was the corpse of Skywarp; and it hung from hooks on the ceiling, spread upright in display as a particularly gruesome trophy.
Skywarp's initial death had been an immense relief to Starscream. Finally then, he could think clearly when he was amongst the Decepticon-ranks.
See.
Skywarp had never been a person.
But Starscream himself.
The situation - an experiment - had been due to a misjudgment on his part. Starscream had made the mistake of turning his back to Shockwave during a time of vulnerability and had paid the ultimate price for it. Funny, a backstabber like Starscream had never conceived of the idea that his own brother would backstab him.
'It's not like we share the same coding, do we?' he sarcastically thought.
Never in all the millennia upon millennia that he'd known Shockwave, did he ever think his soft-spoken and warm-sparked brother was capable of hurting him.
It was unfortunate those days were over.
Trust was one thing.
Forgiveness was another.
Starscream didn't really have either.
But he had neither the resources nor mental-fortitude to afford anything else.
He'd forgotten what was considered normal.
Backstabbing had turned into an acceptable tradition - a reminder that they weren't family.
Not really.
Not anymore.
Whatever Shockwave had been before his mutilation, the "Empurata-surgery" from the pre-war government had thoroughly destroyed him; there had simply been a delay in Starscream admitting such.
His brother died.
And he wasn't coming back.
So it had been such a joyous day when Skywarp had died, just as it had been a terrible day when Skywarp had onlined.
Shockwave had split Starscream apart, chopping his filthy servo through his spark chamber, and there he'd splintered and wedged Starscream's conscious-energy into three separate bodies: Skywarp and Thundercracker respectively, and Starscream himself, albeit as a more distorted twisted-version, full of hate and fear.
The one he was currently trapped in.
Starscream trembled, again a terrible memory, and in the quiet of the empty medbay he could dare be himself once more.
He could unite with the parts he'd lost, without worry of interruption from meddling outside forces.
What was Skywarp to him?
Skywarp was his passion, his love, his joy, his unadulterated emotions.
Skywarp was the guilt he'd feel for murder, and so much worse.
He'd tormented Autobots and Decepticons alike, eating their spark-chambers like energon-cakes, each a delightfully sweet and fluffy delicacy.
But there was no food here. Skywarp's chamber had been set aside and the wild yellow-green spark was waiting patiently in a shielded holographic-bubble. It was small enough for Starscream to hold in one servo, yet he cradled it with two against his chest, afraid to drop it.
Soon.
Soon they'd be together again.
He'd be more of himself.
He would feel.
He would heal.
He would have friends again.
Once his spark reunited with Skywarp.
But the timing wasn't right, else he would've already done it. His tumorous responsibility as Decepticon Second-In-Command didn't call for emotional-states beyond hate and fear, and Starscream couldn't afford to compromise his position.
If he absorbed Skywarp right then and there, and regained his full range of emotions, every Decepticon within the vicinity of himself would grow suspicious, and that might as well have been a death sentence. Besides, he didn't want to bet on the slim chance he would feel guilty for all the pain and suffering he continually caused others - such a sudden infliction of a conscious would put him out for days, perhaps even months.
Beep beep beep
An internal-alarm went off in Starscream's head. He was running behind schedule and he was expected outside. Sighing, he pressed a finger against his fractured chin and he remembered why he'd detoured to the medbay.
'No one can see me like this.' He thought.
The repair was simple enough; a tiny scissor emerged from one of his clawtips, and he began trimming excess flayed wires, much like how a human delicately trimmed a beard.
But unlike a beard.
It hurt.
It burned.
Painfully he ripped the split-ends of chin apart further, so he could smooth out a dent from inside his metal using a finger and some scrap-filler.
It burned, of course it did; but it was a satisfying one, as he welded and glued the snappy-ends together.
He had ripped out the flayed wiring entirely - it wasn't necessary to get replacements that very moment - he would simply have no pain receptors on his face for a while. Of course, he'd have to get new wiring done eventually, as energon flow had been partially cut off from his neck to his head, and it wasn't a good, sobering feeling.
Beep beep beep
Again his annoying alarm rattled within his internal systems, and so he darted out of the room, still splattered with energon.
Quickly, Starscream rounded a corner, skating with his ped-jets to gain speed down the hallway he knew would take him outside.
Huge metal-maws slid open from down the hall, long expecting Starscream's exit. He stepped outside, onto dirt and gravel, almost stumbling, relieved to be out of that scrap-pit.
"Fragging finally." He heard a voice mutter from above and two mechlings stared down at him from both of their respective corners, each perched atop a boulder.
"Took you long enough. What happened?" mumbled the orange-white one, jumping off his rock - his name was Jetfire.
"Shockwave wasn't happy with my report today-" Starscream would've said more, but Jetfire suspiciously eyed the energon on his chin, before enthusiastically running up to him and leaned in for a hug, which Starscream let happen - slowly, gingerly, he returned the gesture. His wrists ached from being magnetized for too long, but somehow, a hug made him forget about all the little nicks and pains...plaguing his systems. His chin still burned, but he could only feel happy as he held Jetfire close.
His child.
One of the many-few to survive the war.
Starscream and Jetfire stood underneath a rocky overhang, simply holding each other with their optics closed. Oily acidic cybertronian-tears silently dripped down Jetfire's face - the reunion was bittersweet - the moments always too short and scarce.
Jetstorm, a grim navy-grey, sat atop his rock watching the two with a growing sense of disgust and impatience.
Storm didn't understand hugs, nor did he want to. His brother had a knack for acting dramatic and strange...just like their creator...dear Ma-ker Starscream.
All he wanted to do was to get himself and his brother back to the Autobot-base, before anyone began to question why the twins where out, missing. Both his brother and himself were still new recruits, technically on a probation period before they officially became stationed on Earth. Jetstorm wasn't worried about being kicked off planet; it wasn't as if the Autobots were spoiled for choice when it came to gaining new members.
But still, these outings grew increasingly risky. Storm could scarcely recall a more stressful time, than the anticipation he felt about the idea of being discovered at any moment.
The Autobots would only accept their excuse of "going on an unscheduled morning-flight exercise," so many times before Optimus himself would get suspicious - that, or his tolerance for their random outings would waver completely. Arcee might be sent to retrieve them, and wouldn't that just be a blast to witness; how would they explain Starscream casually hanging out with them, two Autobot-mechlings, to Arcee of all bots? She "hated his guts," as the human children once said.
Either Arcee would come - that, or perhaps Ratchet would make them clean the gutters and showers again, as punishment.
Storm angrily sniffed at the ideas, unnerved by all the horrid possibilities, and so he crossed his arms, just like in the petulant-manner he saw the human children Jack, Miko, and Raf occasionally do.
'We are going to be discovered, if you slags don't hurry it up!' he thought.
Storm stopped himself from shouting at the two to "get a move on," least they hugged even longer to spite him. Eventually, Jetfire did let go, smiling brightly up at Starscream, who curiously also smiled back, but he was tense with worry and bitterness, which he carried as he stepped forward - hunched over with obvious exhaustion.
Jetfire scraped residue away with his claws - his oily tears - from the corner of his optics. He had the courtesy to look bashful as Storm glared, when he walked past.
They where surrounded on both sides by moss-covered rocks - the entrance to the base was well-hidden with foliage as the trio climbed their way upwards and out of the mock-cliff cavern. Storm was the first to step into the sky and to transform into his alt-mode, an unassuming fighter-jet, which circled impatiently.
Jetfire sighed,"I guess that's my que."
Starscream gave him a reassuring pat on the head - they would see each other again.
Soon.
"Um, Ma?"
'Ugh, at least he doesn't call me anymore by one of those dreaded Earth-words.' Thought Starscream. Occasionally, the twins and their siblings teased him, calling him "Mama, Mom, Mother, or Ma-Commander."
'Strange, how humans have sounds so similar to Ma-ker.'
"Yes, sweetspark?"
"Do you think this will ever stop? Will we ever be a family again?"
Starscream stiffened, looking Jetfire up and down with a grim clarity.
"I...I won't lie to you Jetfire. Our predicament...makes that unlikely."
Jetfire always asked those questions every time he saw Starscream, refusing the same answer given again and again.
The hope in his optics simply refused to dim no matter what he said - and Starscream always reluctantly tended that fire - least it went out.
He bent down on a knee, hugging Jetfire once again. "But I will never give up trying, I promise you that."