Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first thing he sensed were the sounds of static. No, not static – voices, but his audials weren’t able to properly resolve them. The next thing he noticed was the feeling of a surface beneath him, and the gentle push of gravity pressing him into it. He hadn’t felt that in a while. Light began to filter into his vision, which became pixelated images, and eventually identifiable objects. He started to recognise the voices as belonging to Windblade and Knock Out, and the objects above him as their faces. He was paralysed at first, but then he was able to twitch a finger, then shutter his optics, and steadily he started to gain control over each part of his frame. Two arms, two legs, two wings. So far, so good.

Windblade was smiling at him. At him, not to the side of him, not through him, but at him. And she was smiling. A genuinely happy smile. She could see him, and she was happy to see him. Starscream shifted the protomesh of his new face for the first time as he smiled back.

Suddenly, a data pad was shoved in front of his face, blocking his view of Windblade. He winced as his fresh optics were assaulted by a swirling, flashing morass of colours and shifting, moving shapes. “How many triangles do you see?” Knock Out asked in a bored tone.

Starscream squinted, trying to keep track of the various types of triangles as they moved over the screen, changing size and colour, weaving in between other shapes. “…e-leh-kzzt-” Starscream coughed up a bit of static as his new vocaliser adjusted to his characteristically scratchy voice, “…eleven,” he finally managed.

“See?” Knock Out said, addressing Windblade. “I told you we could get through this a lot faster if we skipped straight to the 19^th cognitive test.”

She gave him a long-suffering look, “Because nothing’s more important than speed.”

“Exactly.”

Windblade offered Starscream a hand, “Do you want to try standing?”

Starscream reached towards her and clasped her hand, feeling its solidness and gripping it tight, as he tried to process the fact that they were really touching. She put her other hand on his shoulder as he got off the slanted medical berth, and he couldn’t resist leaning into her touch, and almost stumbled over as a result. She just helped right him without any reprimand or mockery for his clumsiness, and then before he had a chance to say anything, she placed a canister of energon into his hand.

Starscream’s hand instantly shot to his mouth without him even thinking about it, and he threw his head back as he downed the canister in two massive gulps. It was simple, unflavoured, medical-grade energon, but as the first fuel Starscream had drunk in over an Earth year, it might as well have been the innermost energon of Primus.

“If you must take your time, use it to admire my work,” Knock Out said, gesturing to a mirror nearby.

Starscream had been denied innumerable physical pleasures as a phantom, but simply being unable to see his own reflection had been one of the most maddening deprivations of all. It had exacerbated the eerie, cold sense of unreality that came with being unable to even feel the ground beneath his feet. And of course, it had left his eternally ravenous vanity famished. So Starscream was almost tripping over his own heel thrusters to get in front of a mirror now.

Starscream gazed at his new reflection. It wasn’t the form that Windblade had shown him when they’d mind-melded. Now that he was no longer Supreme Ruler of Cybertron or Second in Command of the Decepticons, he actually had to pay for his bodies like the rest of the plebs. Windblade had foot a lot of the cost, reasoning that resurrecting a citizen of Little Cybertron into a new frame counted as government-subsidised healthcare. Bee had then used his own savings to upgrade the basic Seeker frame with some of the more…exotic features Starscream liked to include, along with some stronger armour, since Starscream still wasn’t exactly popular and would probably need it. The body Windblade had revealed to him in their vision was the kind of frame he would have to spend more time saving up for.

The new body was pretty similar to the one he’d had when he died. It had the same sleek lines, the same pronounced turbines and raised heel thrusters, the same arrangement of vents, and a similar colour scheme. It was more compact around the cockpit, in accordance with Velocitronian fashion. His face was the same as before, thank Primus. A lot of Velocitronians seemed have something against noses, but he found his where he expected it to be. He had discussed his preferences (as constrained by the budget) with Bee, who had passed them onto Windblade and Knock Out. There was a reason that his new form so closely resembled his last one – namely that Bee had spent a lot of time telling him about the things he wanted to do to his old frame, and Starscream wanted to give him the opportunity. As he inspected himself from various angles and flexed his cabling, he found himself satisfied that they’d done an acceptable job interpreting his instructions. If this was the body he’d be stuck with for a while, he could do a lot worse.

“Thank you,” he said sincerely.

A look of surprise passed over Windblade’s face, she’d never received such straightforward gratitude from him before.

“You’re welcome,” she replied with a warm smile.

Starscream felt a surge of affection towards her. He had spent his many millennia of life constructing all sorts of grandiose fantasies of his future – dreams of empire and eternal glory. But now, looking at Windblade, Starscream found himself having smaller scale dreams, although to him, they seemed just as magnificent. Dreams of having a genuine friendship, based on something deeper than mutual convenience or petty bitching. A friend with whom to discuss both the frivolous and profound, to turn to for help and advice, to laugh with, to drink with, to endure the bad times and forge the good. Someone whose presence made life richer, lighter, happier. It had been so long since he’d had a proper, true friend. Well…one he didn’t take for granted in the worst possible way. He wasn’t about to make that mistake again.

He had a body now, he had his freedom (with some conditions), he had a real friend, and above all, he had…

“Bee-” Starscream began.

“-he’s wearing a dent into the floor outside with his pacing,” Windblade interjected with a small smirk. She looked towards Knock Out and asked, “Do you prescribe rest doctor, or is Starscream stable enough to handle…having company?”

Knock Out raised an eyebrow, “Well, he won’t die. Probably.”

Windblade pushed a button on the roomy medical berth that Starscream had woken up on, and it shifted from a slanted to horizontal position. “Take the rest of the day off Knock Out,” she said nonchalantly.

Knock Out raised his eyebrow higher, but then just shrugged. “Well, if you’re still paying me,” he said, dropping the pad carelessly onto a table.

“Try not to make too much of a mess,” Windblade murmured as she passed Starscream on her way to the exit, Knock Out following behind her.

Seconds after the door shut behind Windblade and Knock Out, it opened again, and Bumblebee practically fell through it. His optics met Starscream’s, and instantaneously the air between them became thick with crackling charge. They’d seen each other only hours earlier that day, but then and now felt like two entirely different eras, and now was the Era of Possibilities. Bee walked towards Starscream as though in a trance, his optics locked on Starscream’s as he closed the distance. Starscream just stared back, equally entranced, his spark pulsing, his wings quivering. Bee got close enough that they could feel each other’s fields for the first time in years; both awash with the same fervent want and trembling excitement. As Bee grew close, a huge arc of blue electricity jumped between their frames, stunning them both for an instant, freezing Bee in place as he reeled from the ecstatic shock. Then their fans roared on almost simultaneously, and Bee broke into a run, only to instantly trip over his own feet in his dazed state. He toppled forward, right onto Starscream, who hadn’t been a ghost long enough to lose the reflex to reach out a grab a person falling onto him.

The moment their frames made physical contact was more shocking than the bolt of electricity that had passed between them. They both paused for a second, Bee’s face pressed up against Starscream’s cockpit as Starscream held him in place by his shoulders, both processing the fact that they were actually, finally, really touching. Bee felt the smooth cockpit glass under his face, which he’d always imagined to be cool, but right now it was warm, like the rest of Starscream’s sizzling frame. He felt Starscream’s fingers twitch and then tighten against his shoulders.

What happened next was a blur. One second, Bee had been leaning against Starscream, and the next he was pinned on his back on the medical berth, Starscream on top of him, their mouths crashing together in a crushing, desperate kiss. Bee opened his mouth and the kiss became deep and frenzied and even more crushing as they pressed closer into one another, like they’d forgotten they were no longer able to occupy the same space. Bumblebee felt the solid weight of Starscream pressing down on him and was overwhelmed with the undeniable fact that this was finally happening. Starscream practically assaulted Bee’s mouth with his own like he was in a nucleon-fuelled warrior-frenzy, as though he was trying to cram years’ worth of missed kisses into one. Sparks of electricity crackled visibly between their writhing frames as they kissed one another frantically.

For the first time in years, they could not only touch, but smell and taste each other as well. The hot air from Starscream’s many vents blew onto Bee, and Bee could smell that new frame smell, mixed with the rich, aromatic, almost sweet scent that was characteristic of most jets, thanks in part to the more refined fuels they used and the way their bodies processed them. Bee had found the smell vaguely pleasant when it came from other jets, but now that it was coming from Starscream, it was completely intoxicating to him, and he vented it in deeply. Fuel-efficient cars like Bee had a very light scent and flavour, but after being unable to taste or smell anything for a meta-cycle, Bee may as well have tasted like triple-distilled engex as far as Starscream was concerned.

Bee reached up to run his hands over Starscream’s frame, but then remembered that he was holding something in one of them, “Brou-mmph! You-mmwah! Gif-mmmmph!” Bee tried to articulate in between getting attacked with kisses, and pressed a bottle into Starscream’s chest.

The moment he registered its presence, Starscream snatched Bee’s gift out of his hand, and his full attention switched to it like he was a hunter-destroyer drone that had just been given a new target. Starscream wrenched the top off the bottle and chucked it aside, then threw his head back and downed the high-grade jet fuel with the same ravenous fervour that he’d just been channelling into kissing Bee. The large bottle of fairly expensive fuel was almost completely drained in moments, and then Starscream’s attention switched back to Bee just as quickly, and he dove down for another frenzied kiss.

Bee could taste the jet fuel lingering on Starscream’s tongue. Jet fuel was dangerous, even deadly, for small cars like Bee if drunk in normal volumes, but tiny samples of it had an intoxicating, adrenalizing, even aphrodisiac affect. Bee’s engine revved as his kissing became more aggressive, and he pulled Starscream closer with momentarily enhanced strength. His interfacing panels had snapped open uncontrollably seconds after Starscream had pinned him to the berth, and now he couldn’t resist grinding his painfully pressurised spike against Starscream’s smooth cockpit glass. Starscream growled and reared back, breaking their kiss, and looked down at Bee’s exposed wetware with a predatory expression. He took the bottle he was still holding and poured the last dregs of the high-grade over Bee’s spike and valve, before tossing the bottle over his shoulder, where it landed somewhere with a smashing sound.

Bee made incoherent noises as Starscream descended onto his wetware with his tongue, voraciously lapping up both the spilled high-grade and the copious amount of lubricant gushing from Bee’s burning valve. Bee very nearly overloaded when Starscream cleaned the high-grade from his anterior node, but once Starscream’s mouth enveloped his spike and sucked greedily, Bee was done. White-hot, mind-wiping pleasure overwhelmed him, and he let out a delirious cry as he pumped more transfluid into Starscream’s mouth than he realised his little frame could produce. Starscream swallowed it down with starving, almost cannibalistic hunger, and then just carried on sucking vampirically, driven almost as much as by hunger as by lust, a meta-cycle of unsatisfied physical desires blurring together into one confused, insatiable craving.

Bee would have been afraid that Starscream might actually eat him, if he wasn’t so horny in that moment that he was down for practically anything Starscream could possibly want to do to him. When Bee’s spike didn’t immediately offer up more transfluid for Starscream to gulp down, he instead buried his face in Bee’s valve, and ensured that Bee would be providing plenty of lubricant for him to lick up. Bee squirmed and sobbed from both overstimulation and sheer joy, his hands griping the top of Starscream’s shoulder stacks as he bore the brunt of the jet’s insatiable desire. Lubricant gushed over Starscream’s face as Bee overloaded again, his whole frame shaking violently.

Starscream licked his lips and sat up on his knees, then growled as he grabbed Bee’s legs and roughly pulled him down the berth, so that Starscream was kneeling between Bee’s spread thighs. He gave Bee a smouldering, voracious look as he reached down to his own crotch, but then his optics widened with horror when his hand grasped at nothing, and he screeched, “W-Where’s my spike???”

Bee’s head snapped up in alarm. Surely Knock Out of all people hadn’t forgotten to install wetware, especially given how much Bee had paid to have it customised. Bee saw that Starscream’s panels were popped, but his wetware was nowhere to be seen, and he laughed with relief when he saw why, “It’s alright, they’ve just put them behind seals.”

Starscream’s expression quickly shifted from outrage to licentious excitement, and he leaned back, spreading his legs obscenely wide in unspoken instruction. Bee didn’t need to take a hint. His hands were on Starscream’s inner thighs and his tongue was on Starscream’s spike seal in moments, and he started licking fervently to dissolve the barrier with his oral lubricant. The moment the seal was pierced, Starscream’s new spike activated, and shot up into Bee’s mouth, immediately fully pressurised, practically punching the back of Bee’s intake. Bee took it in his stride, and swallowed around the shaft. That was all it took for Starscream to let out a primal shriek as he overloaded in a massive discharge of electricity that filled the room with a dazzling flash. It was as much a rush of catharsis and relief as it was one of pleasure – all the deprivation and frustration and yearning and need finally bursting out of him.

The tremendous rush of charge flowing straight into his mouth managed to scramble Bee’s processor for a few seconds. His senses all turned to static and he was left utterly disorientated, with his head speared on Starscream’s spike. There hadn’t been any transfluid accompanying the charge; transfluid production only started when the seal was broken, and Starscream had overloaded almost immediately, before his frame had the chance to synthesise any. When his brain managed to reset itself, Bee lifted his head, and Starscream’s spike fell out of his mouth, still fully pressurised.

Bee took a moment to admire Starscream’s new spike, it was similar to the previous one – longer than Bee’s, but it had a similar girth, was coloured red, blue and white, with rows of red biolights running up the shaft. The arrangement of knots and ridges decorating the spike was different this time; now they were configured so that they mirrored the arrangement of sensor clusters in Bee’s valve. Starscream had said that, since Bee was the one paying for it, it was only fair. Anyway, even though they weren’t planning on having a closed relationship (few Cybertronians their age did), Bee would still overwhelmingly be the one getting the most use out of Starscream’s spike.

He was keen to get use out it now. Bee was torn between sticking the spike back in his mouth and sticking it in another hole. He wanted to taste Starscream’s transfluid, but his valve was greedier, and won the argument. Bee straddled Starscream’s hips, and lowered himself down. Bee was small, but he was used to fragging bigger bots, sometimes much bigger, so he had no trouble adjusting his valve to take Starscream’s spike. He shuddered with a shock of electric pleasure as he felt his valve envelop the head, and then pushed himself down maybe a little faster than was advisable in his eagerness. When he made it to the base of the spike, he brushed up against a spike mod that was positioned in just the right place to grind against Bee’s node. As Bee contacted it, he felt a jolt of delicious charge tickle his node, prompting his valve to ripple in delight.

He started riding Starscream’s spike, and felt the magnetic mods embedded within it tugging at his callipers, adding to everything else already bringing him bliss. He already knew about all these mods, he’d paid to have them installed after all, but it was one thing to know about them, and a whole other set of circuits to feel them stimulating every sensor in and around his valve, milking them for every hedon of rapture. Bee whimpered as he slid up and down on Starscream’s spike, simultaneously overcome with sensation and greedy for more as he increased the pace of his bouncing.

Starscream grabbed Bee’s hips, not so much to lift the minibot up, but more to have an anchor to hang onto as he completely unravelled. After a meta-cycle of feeling nothing but the touch of his own hands, being inside Bee was more than he could handle. Bee’s valve was everything he had dreamed it would be – sopping wet, searing hot, and so perfectly tight around him. The ridges of Bee’s valve caused friction in all the right places while his callipers gripped and rippled so lusciously up and down the length of Starscream’s spike as he bounced up and down on top of him. Starscream’s spark felt like a star about to go supernova as it whirled in his chest. After his time in the void, everything seemed so hyper-real now that it was completely overwhelming. His fans struggled and it felt like he was headed for a meltdown as he clung to Bee’s hips tight enough to leave dents.

And then Bee revved his engine.

If Starscream had any capacity for coherent thought left, he would have wondered if Knock Out was an undercover terrorist who had secretly rebuilt him as a nuclear K-class in an effort to wipe out Little Cybertron. Because the moment the vibrations of Bee’s engine pushed him over the brink, Starscream felt exactly how he would have imagined transforming into a nuclear bomb and exploding would feel. Assuming transforming into a nuclear bomb and exploding felt wildly, insanely, feverishly, devastatingly, mind-meltingly, spark-ignitingly good.

Bee’s own overload was practically simultaneous. He threw back his head and let out a shameless scream as Starscream’s charge and transfluid erupted into his valve while his callipers locked down on Starscream’s spike. He was utterly overwhelmed with delirious bliss; it felt like the world was moving beneath him, like he was flying through the air. Bumblebee felt incredible ecstasy and a thrilling rush and violent whiplash and a short drop…

…wait a second…

Bee reset his fuzzy optics, and then immediately flinched as something bounced off the top of his head. He could smell the typical post-overload smell of ozone, but it was accompanied by the scent of burning. He was still on top of Starscream, but Starscream was on the floor, and they were surrounded by rubble and broken and scattered medical equipment. There was a teetering shelf above them, with various hospital items still rolling off it, and next to it was a huge, cracked dent in the wall.

Bee put all this together and almost overloaded again when he realised what had happened – Starscream had overloaded so hard that he’d lost control of his heel thrusters and shot them both across the room. Bee’s fans roared at the thought that he could get Starscream running that hot – this had to be one of the sexiest things that had ever happened to him. Then he looked down at Starscream’s face, saw his expression of utterly mortified embarrassment, and burst out laughing.

A buzz of humiliated static electricity rose over Starscream’s cheeks as he cringed. What the frag was that??? He was an Elite Decepticon Seeker (until very recently anyway), who was supposed to have absolute mastery over his frame, not a freshly defrosted MTO still figuring out how to transform! He hadn’t done anything like that since…since before the war against the Autobots even started, when Megatron had celebrated their taking of Kaon by taking Starscream on the throne he’d fashioned from Sentinel Prime’s body. That had been a memorable night.

“I haven’t synced up with this frame properly yet!” Starscream cried indignantly, because surely that could be the only explanation.

“You’re adorable,” Bee gasped in between his laughter. In addition, to arousal, affection and amusement, Bee felt gloriously smug. He recovered from his laughter enough to cup Starscream’s abashed face in his hands. “I might need to tie you down if you’re going to get this excited,” he purred, before moving in for a kiss. He wanted to get back to some of the best interfacing of his life, but he made sure to file away this incident in his memory banks for teasing later…while also secretly pledging to spend the rest of his life trying to make it happen again.

Despite his wounded pride, Starscream couldn’t help but shiver at Bee’s suggestion, and he melted into the kiss. He started to kiss Bee back more aggressively as his arousal and bruised ego started to synthesise. The next thing Bee knew, he found his legs being slung over Starscream’s shoulders, and he was lifted into the air as Starscream got to his feet. Bee reflexively grabbed Starscream’s shoulder stacks as Starscream hands supported his aft.

“No not this posit-ahhh!” Bee’s objection was cut short as Starscream buried his face into Bee’s exposed array. Bee didn’t always hate this position, but it was something that medium-sized bots always insisted on doing with minibots when they wanted to feel big, and not all of them had the strength and balance to pull it off. Despite his annoyance, Bee’s leg still spasmed when he felt Starscream’s tongue flick his node.

But then Starscream started walking, “Watch where you’re going!” Bee squeaked, tightening his grip on Starscream’s shoulder stacks as the jet navigated his way across the rubble-strewn floor with his face in Bee’s crotch.

Bee felt relief when he was deposited safely on his back on the berth once more, but then also a little disappointment when Starscream lifted his face from his array, “I told you, I’ve had practice” Starscream said, licking his lips. That had been quite a nostalgic experience for him. He ran his hands up from Bee’s aft to his ankle joints, and pulled Bee towards him.

Starscream let Bee’s feet rest against his chest, and Bee’s legs were bent back as Starscream leaned over him to grab his wrists and pin them above his head. Bee felt Starscream’s spike sliding against his own as Starscream started to move his hips. Starscream’s spike was modded out with a line of magnets, and as it moved up the length of Bee’s own spike, Bee could feel him ramping up their magnetic pull. By the time the head of Starscream’s spike had passed Bee’s own, their spikes were practically glued together. Bee squirmed his hips at the intensity of the sensation, which caused him to pull at Starscream’s spike via their magnetic connection. Starscream chuckled and decreased the magnetism so he could slide his spike back down, until its head brushed against Bee’s anterior node, at which point Starscream increased the magnetic pull again. Bee gave a little cry as he felt the sudden pull on his sensitive node, causing it to press crushingly against the head of Starscream’s spike.

Starscream moved his hips a little, and Bee whimpered at the resulting sensation of his node getting tugged around by Starscream’s spike. Suddenly, Starscream reversed the polarisation, and Bee felt a magnetic field pressing down on his node as Starscream’s spike was repelled away from it. “Oh frag,” Bee gasped weakly as a shudder of pleasure racked his frame.

Bee felt the head of Starscream’s (now magnetically neutral) spike pressing against his entrance, before Starscream thrust forward and filled him in one fluid motion. Bee cried out as his callipers fluttered against the welcome intrusion, before Starscream pulled back until only the head of his spike remained inside, and then filled Bee once more, harder and deeper this time. Bee shrieked as he felt the spike that had been specially designed to stimulate his sensor clusters do exactly that, and writhed under Starscream’s grip as Starscream got into a steady rhythm of deep thrusts. With each thrust, the mod at the base of Starscream’s spike crashed up against Bee’s node, delivering that sweet little pulse of pleasure each time. On top of that, Starscream had reactivated his magnetic mods, and Bee could feel them pushing and pulling against his valve walls as Starscream cycled their polarisation.

“Oh Primus…oh frag…ahhh…oh slag yes ahhh!” Bee moaned and babbled as delicious charge built up under his plating, “Hnnghh Starscream…frag…yeah that’s…frag! Frag! Starscream! OH SLAGGING PIT STARSCREAM!!!”

“You…you say I have a dirty mouth?” Starscream spluttered as he increased his pace, driving his spike mercilessly into Bee’s valve.

Bee had been alive again for over a year now, but he remembered his time as a ghost vividly enough to really appreciate how incredibly good it felt to finally be pinned down and given a rough fragging. This was his first time ‘facing with another bot in the actual, solid mesh since the war had ended, and by Primus, he had needed it. This felt like the exact opposite of the physical and social deprivation he had experienced while trapped in Infraspace. It was all just overwhelming; Starscream’s spike mods were flooding his processor with a cocktail of delightful data with each hard, deep thrust into his rippling valve. But it was the fact that it was Starscream who was pinning him down, stretching him open, driving deep into him and delivering him all this pleasure that really made it all too much for Bee. The bot he loved and had craved but couldn’t truly have, was now finally inside him, on top of him, holding him, and it was driving him feral. He started shrieking Starscream’s name with abandon over and over and thrashing under his hold as his overload quickly approached.

Starscream was barely holding it together himself. It was indescribably gratifying to watch Bee unravel beneath him, but the wanton display was making it extremely difficult for Starscream to maintain his control. He tried to concentrate on of modulating the magnets in his spike, observing how different combinations of strength and polarisation affected Bee, although honestly Bee just seemed to be loving all of it. At the completion of one of his thrusts, Starscream ramped up the attractive force along the shaft of his spike, but increased the repulsive force around the tip. This made Bee’s callipers clamp down hard on his spike, but drove the ceiling of Bee’s valve forward, the magnetic repulsion pressing on his ceiling node as though Starscream’s spike had increased in length. This made extra room for the transfluid that exploded into Bee’s valve when they both overloaded; Bee first, Starscream moments later. The transfluid didn’t have anywhere else to go; the magnetic attraction between the shaft of Starscream’s spike and Bee’s valve created a seal that ensured everything stayed inside, filling Bee up with the conductive fluid that was saturated with the charge of their overloads.

Bolts of electricity arced between their frames like a lightning storm and they both trembled and screamed, red and blue optics flaring bright. Starscream’s wings shook above him while Bee’s doorwings rattled against the berth below. Starscream squeezed Bee’s wrists hard enough for it to hurt; or it would of hurt if there was any room left in Bee’s consciousness for pain alongside the overwhelming ecstasy, which he articulated with a shriek, “F-FRAG, STARSCREAM!!!”

A smoky haze surrounded the berth as their straining fans attempted to cool down their smouldering frames. Starscream pried his hands from their cybertanium grip around Bee’s wrists, and then moved to interlace their fingers with a gentleness that was starkly opposed to his earlier rough treatment. Bee could feel Starscream whispering the endearments he was too embarrassed to say aloud in chirolinguistics against his palms. Starscream moved his face down towards Bee, and whispered softly, “Language.”

Bee burst into uninhibited, joyful laughter, before he wriggled from Starscream’s grip and tried to push him up. “Get on your back, I haven’t finished unwrapping you yet,” he bossed.

Starscream obliged, laying himself out tantalisingly, legs spread wide. Bee got on his knees between them, tracing his fingers over the seal that hid away a treasure he couldn’t wait to discover.

“Use your spike,” Starscream commanded.

Bee paused, “Er, you sure about that?”

“Yes, do it.”

“Well…well if you’re sure,” Bee said hesitantly, as he positioned himself so that his spike lined up with Starscream’s seal. This wasn’t the advised way to do this, and certainly not the way Bee had ever gone about it before, but it was Starscream’s seal, Starscream’s choice. He took his spike in hand, tried to judge the right force to break the seal without pushing himself in too far, and then gave a quick, short thrust.

Starscream gave a small gasp as he felt his new valve come online when the thick head of Bee’s spike forced its way through the barrier and into a space that hadn’t had a chance to properly accommodate it.

“…do you want me to pull out and use my fingers?” Bee asked, sounding uncertain and apologetic.

“Don’t you dare,” Starscream growled, his entrance tightening around Bee’s spike greedily.

“I’m not that small.”

“Prove it.”

Bee sighed, and started to slowly push his hips forwards. Starscream’s lubrication protocols hadn’t come online until the seal had broken, but since he was very aroused, they’d quickly begun to produce slick. Still, they hadn’t yet had a chance to make him completely wet, and there was still some friction as Bee worked his way into the tight space. It burned for Starscream, but he savoured the sensation as much as the pleasure that soon followed. Bee’s frame flushed with fresh charge as he felt the ribbed interior of Starscream’s new valve configuring its default state to perfectly fit the dimensions of his spike. His prior apprehension dissolved and was rapidly replaced by intense arousal as Starscream’s valve locked into place around him, its sensor clusters mapping to fit the bumps and ridges of Bee’s spike.

Bee grabbed Starscream’s hips and did a couple more careful thrusts, just to ensure that Starscream was truly ready for him. When Starscream responded with lewd moans, Bee gained the confidence to go to town on him, thrusting with gusto into the space perfectly configured for his spike. Bee turned on his engine, and its purr sent vibrations down his spike to tickle Starscream’s callipers, and Starscream responded by enthusiastically locking his legs around Bee’s hips and urging him on. Bee’s original Cybertronian engine had been almost completely silent, which had certainly been useful when he’d been a spy, but he’d had an amplifier installed when he’d needed to disguise himself as primitive alien vehicles. When he’d realised how useful it could be, he’d made sure the amplifier was included in all his future frames. Each time he sheathed himself fully in Starscream, he made sure to rev his engine, making Starscream cry out in delight as he grabbed Bee’s shoulders and pulled him closer.

Bee allowed Starscream to pull him down against his cockpit, and took the opportunity to lean over and nip at the pointy cone of one Starscream’s turbines, flicking it with his tongue as he held it between his teeth. He reached up and played with Starscream’s fanblades; he’d spent so long staring at Starscream’s turbines, but only now did he finally have a chance to touch them. He felt his spike pulse inside Starscream as he twirled one of the fans with his finger; oh he was definitely into jets now. Starscream purred and his valve rippled in response to Bee’s attentions. He felt Starscream’s conductive valve mod come online to corral the charge crackling in his valve into a current that flowed up Bee’s spike, spreading a euphoric warmth through his array and up his spinal strut. Starscream was missing the suction mod he’d had in his previous frame, since Bee hadn’t been able to afford it, but honestly Bee was glad. If there was suction on top of everything else he was feeling at that moment, Bee honestly feared Starscream’s valve might offline him.

Starscream wrapped himself around Bee possessively as his valve eagerly swallowed his spike, making debauched, wanton noises as the vibrations of Bee’s engine tickled his sensors. Starscream didn’t ever want to let him go; he wanted to keep Bee in his arms and in his valve where he belonged. As Bee felt Starscream’s charge ramping up, he started thrusting faster, but also began struggling against Starscream’s grip, trying to sit up. As Starscream finally let his climax take him, screaming and squirming and clawing at Bee’s back, Bee clenched his teeth and did his best to contain himself. Finally, when Starscream’s convulsions started to weaken, Bee managed to struggle out of the grip of Starscream’s limbs and callipers enough to pull out his spike, just in time to splatter his transfluid all over Starscream’s cockpit with a shuddering groan of relief.

“Why?” Starscream asked, disappointed and a little hurt that Bee hadn’t filled him up.

“I haven’t had a chance to taste you yet, I didn’t want to change the flavour. Besides, this is a good look on you,” Bee grinned, admiring the mess he’d made over Starscream’s front.

Bee didn’t waste any further time on explanations before he scooted down to get a good look at the valve he’d just ravished. The simplest valves were just round openings without additional fuss, but it was more common these days to have the opening surrounded by two small mounds of soft protomesh, like full lips on a sideways mouth. Some bots had inner and outer lips, more closely imitating some organic species; some had actual lips down there that actively sucked and kissed back (a mod that frankly freaked Bee out); some had elaborate petals of mesh resembling exotic alien flowers – the variety of external valve customisations was endless. Bee was happy with what he’d almost always had: the classic single pair of soft lips, crowned by an anterior node, a design that Starscream shared.

The lips of Starscream’s valve had been pressed down flat under his seal before, but now they were plush and swollen with arousal, the same silvery grey colour as Starscream’s face. Bee eagerly bent down to give them a kiss. Starscream’s intoxicating scent was stronger down at his array, and was joined by muskier notes of lubricant and coolant, and the lingering scent of ozone from his multiple overloads. The heady mix made Bee’s senses tingle as he vented it in, and he pressed his mouth hungrily up against the soft mesh fold of Starscream’s valve, delving his tongue into the opening. The taste was much like the smell, but even more intense, and Bee lapped at Starscream’s entrance voraciously, like it was the first meal he’d had after being pulled out of Infraspace. A fuel efficient minibot like Bee could theoretically get overcharged on enough jet lubricant and transfluid, although it would have to be a truly absurd amount. Nothing he and Starscream, or even he and Starscream’s whole Seeker platoon could realistically achieve, but still, Bee thought, it would be fun to try.

Starscream moaned and whined as Bee ate him up, and reached a hand down to idly play with Bee’s horns. Bee hummed with appreciation – his horns weren’t purely decorative, they contained antenna (another feature that had been useful as a spy), which granted them some sensitivity. Bee swirled his tongue around Starscream’s swollen, pulsing anterior node, and then sealed his lips around the glowing ruby red nub to give it a little suck, evoking a wail from Starscream, who squeezed Bee’s head between his thighs. Bee then ran his tongue down Starscream’s valve lips, over two columns of smaller red, slightly-raised biolights lining the slit where the lips met, like lights on a runway. Starscream moaned as Bee’s tongue traced up and down the biolights – they’d been designed to be sensitive. Bee then reached up and separated the valve lips with his fingers, allowing an inviting blue glow to escape from within. Bee gazed inside for a moment, his spike twitching insistently, but he ignored it, instead pressing his fingers within to explore.

Bee went as deep as his little fingers could manage, pressing at every internal sensor he could reach, observing the different sounds and reactions he could get out of Starscream as he pressed against each one. He then lifted Starscream’s legs over his shoulders to give himself better access, and used both hands to spread the valve lips, before putting his tongue back where it belonged. Bee’s fingers and thumbs massaged Starscream’s valve walls and the biolights along his slit, while his tongue and mouth alternated between delving into Starscream’s valve and licking and sucking around his anterior node. Starscream’s trembling thighs almost crushed Bee’s head, while lubricant gushed all over his chin as Starscream started to overload. Bee sucked at Starscream’s node until the grip the jet’s thighs had on his head loosened as his overload started to pass, at which point Bee lifted his head to lick his way up Starscream’s spike. He wrapped his lips around the tip and then lowered his head, swallowing it down his intake, reigniting Starscream’s fading valve overload into a screaming spike overload. Bee let Starscream’s transfluid rest in his mouth for a moment as he savoured the taste, before he swallowed it all down.

Starscream barely had a moment to recover before Bee was lapping at his valve once more. Bee started to stroke his own spike as Starscream just lay there, letting Bee have his way with him. Bee clearly knew what he was doing, so why should Starscream interfere? He just let go and allowed the sensation he’d been denied for so long to overtake him. His surrender was so much sweeter knowing at the back of his mind, that if he asked Bee to stop, Bee would stop. He couldn’t remember the last time he was able to give up control while still maintaining that power. Not that he had any intention of asking Bee to stop.

Bee stroked himself vigorously as he put equal enthusiasm into licking, kissing and sucking Starscream’s node and valve. Bee paid attention to the fluctuations in Starscream's field, the quivering of his valve, the squirming of his frame, and all the little noises he made. When all signs started to point towards Starscream’s impending overload, Bee quickly replaced his tongue with him thumb and pressed rhythmic circles around Starscream’s node as he sat up, Starscream’s legs still slung over his shoulders. Bee pushed his spike into Starscream’s sopping entrance, which was the final push the jet needed to start shrieking and shaking through his next overload. It only took a couple of thrusts into Starscream’s spasming, electrified valve before Bee was following suite, and his pulsing spike was pumping transfluid into the perfectly tight space. Starscream’s callipers clamped down on Bee’s spike even tighter, as though he was trying to hold all that transfluid inside him.

“Is that what you wanted?” Bee purred.

Starscream just made some sort of garbled noise in response, but he certainly sounded happy enough. Bee grinned and snuggled up against Starscream’s cockpit, his field radiating adoration and contentment. He found himself idly playing with Starscream’s turbines again, delighted that he could now touch them.

“I’m going to have to make sure these don’t take my optic out now,” Bee said with a laugh as he poked at the pointy cone of a turbine, which was exactly at his optic-level when they were both standing up.

“Oh, you’d love that,” Starscream mumbled groggily.

“I’ve definitely lost optics in much worse ways before.”

Their overpowering passion sated for the moment, Bee took the time to properly explore Starscream’s frame. He focused on the turbines for a while, tracing his fingers over the blades, spinning them around, before his hand wandered lower, finding the edge of a wing. He felt Starscream shiver beneath him as he gently stroked a finger against it.

“Do you want to tell me how to properly touch these?” Bee whispered.

He felt Starscream shift under him, and he got up to allow the jet to move onto his front, giving Bee better access to his wingspan. Bee repositioned himself so he was sitting behind him, and felt a little pang of regret as Starscream’s turbines disappeared from view, despite having them in his face almost all the time. But then the full span of Starscream’s white wings were in front of him, which was another very fine view. He ran his fingertips over them gently, taking in their impressive breadth.

“These are so beautiful,” Bee cooed. The wings fluttered under his fingers at the compliment. Starscream absolutely adored getting praise for all parts of his frame, but he especially appreciated compliments to his wings.

Bee had watched Starscream pleasure the wings of his previous frame a few times, and had tried to memorise the map of sensor clusters, but he didn’t know how similar it would be in his new frame. Judging by the way a wing trembled when he circled a fingertip around where he remembered a particularly sensitive cluster to be, there were at least some similarities.

“Yeah that’s…mmm…trace my leading edge…back and forth, that’s right. A little faster,” Bumblebee obligingly followed whatever instructions Starscream gave him, feeling Starscream’s wings quiver under his ministrations. “Pinch my aileron. Harder. Ah! Oh frag that’s right…”

“I bet you can’t wait to take flight with these,” Bee said in between Starscream’s commands, “to be able to actually feel the wind under your wings, and the air through your turbines.”

“Not til I’m done with you,” Starscream purred hungrily.

Bee laughed, “I’m fuel efficient, by the time I’m done with you, you’re not going to be able to fly anywhere for a while.”

Starscream glanced over his shoulder and smirked, “We could always combine the two. I love fragging in freefall.”

“Ha. No.”

“Ugh, grounders. I’m not going to drop you. Not that you’d have to worry about that if you became a flier...”

A note of genuine irritation entered Bee voice, despite his touch remaining tender, “Starscream, for the last time, no. If you want me, you’re going to have to have me as a grounder. Don’t worry, I’m not going to make you fondle my tires.”

“You think you’d have to make me?” Bee quickly leaned back as the wing he had been feeling up swung around when Starscream suddenly turned. The next thing he knew, he was being pushed onto his back, Starscream looming over him, looking mildly offended and like he had something to prove.

Starscream had certainly been known to be a selfish lover at times, usually when he was with a partner he didn’t care to impress. But this time, he did care. Not about impressing Bee, well, that too, but he also just cared about Bee, and wanted Bee to understand that. And if proving it meant putting his hands all over Bee’s tires, then he was more than happy to do so. He lifted Bee’s arms up so the lay above his head, giving him access to the tires under his shoulders. He was more used to dealing with treads than tires when it came to grounders, but he was over four million years old; even if he didn’t do this frequently, he’d still done it plenty of times once you counted up all the eons. He knew that pressing too lightly would be pointless, while pressing too hard would cause pain or even a puncture. There were some grounders who considered a puncture proof of a good ‘facing session, but Bee hadn’t said or done anything to indicate he was one of them.

Starscream wasn’t really attracted to tires, certainly not like he was attracted to wings, but touching them didn’t disgust him or anything like that, and he was very attracted to the noise Bee made when he gave them a squeeze. Bee had been a considerate little car and given his wheels a scrub at the facilities after driving over, so Starscream felt little in the way of dirt or detritus lodged in his treads. Bee needn’t have bothered though, Starscream was too clouded with lust to give much of a frag. He kneaded at Bee’s tires, watching the expressions on Bee’s face to make sure he was getting the pressure right.

“Ohhh…you’re actually pretty good at this,” Bee sighed, and Starscream’s wings fluttered at the compliment. Starscream didn’t realise that what Bee actually meant was ‘good at this for a flier,’ because while Starscream’s tire massage was definitely pleasant, it didn’t really compare to the massages Bee had received at the deft hands of other grounders who really knew what they were doing. But Bee’s expectations had been pretty low, so there was pleasant surprise added on top of the physical pleasure, and the very fact that it was Starscream who was making this effort made the massage feel almost as good as getting it from an ambulance.

Bee’s entire frame had gone floppy, save for his spike, which was standing to rapt attention. Starscream decided to pay it some attention in turn. He leaned forward and swirled his tongue around the tip, teasing at the opening, before licking down towards the base, wriggling against the ridges as he went. He licked back up to the tip, then took the head in his mouth and sucked, lowering his face down until his nose brushed Bee’s plating. Bee’s spike wasn’t long enough to go down his throat, but its tip did tickle the back of his mouth, and Bee gave a little cry when Starscream swallowed around it. He raised his head back up and used his soft lips to lavish the head of Bee’s spike with sloppy kisses, before taking it all into his mouth once more and sucking. Bee gasped and moaned; Starscream might have been only slightly above average when it came to handling tires, but frag did he know his way around a spike. It didn’t take long before Bee was filling Starscream’s intake with transfluid, which the jet gulped down gladly.

Bee just lay there limply, enjoying the pleasurable aftershocks, as Starscream looked down at him with the satisfaction of a (blow)job well done. His optics wandered downwards, to the Autobrand in the centre of Bee’s chest, which looked back up at him with that expression of eternal stoicism that had always irritated the scrap out of Starscream. The sight of it activated an instinctive aggression within him that only fed into his lust. He found himself giving into the impulse to lean over and possessively lick the symbol of his ancient lifelong enemies. Doing this didn’t satisfy whatever urge was sizzling in his circuits, so he straddled Bee’s chest and started pressing the head of his own pulsing spike up against the Autobrand.

Bee recovered enough of his faculties to lift his head and look down at his chest to see what Starscream was up to. “…of course,” he mumbled, witnessing Starscream’s little self-indulgence.

Starscream felt a shiver of wicked delight as he rubbed his spike against Bee’s brand. This was the sort of thing he’d fantasised about for a very long time – defiling the Autobrand was a treasured Decepticon pastime, but it was so much better when it was attached to an actual Autobot pinned beneath him. He grinned devilishly while he stroked himself, pressing his spike against the branded face on Bee’s chest as though he could actually shove his spike into its mouth. He smeared the lubricants on his spike over the symbol, getting it nice and filthy, until the dirty thrill he was feeling burst forth from him in thick reams of transfluid that shot from his spike in pulses, coating Bee’s Autobrand until it was hidden from view.

“Enjoying yourself?” Bee asked wryly.

“Oh don’t pretend that you wouldn’t be all over my brands if I still had them,” Starscream said, staring down at the mess he’d made of Bee’s chest with an expression of evil satisfaction.

“…...we might be able to print off some stick-on decals later?” Bee ventured hopefully.

Starscream chuckled, leaning over Bee and lightly nipping at the minibot’s lower lip, before grinning and asking, “What position do you want this wicked Decepticon in, Autobot?”

Bee grinned as he pushed Starscream onto his back, he had a few ideas in mind.

***

Later, they lay in each other’s arms, exhausted from over a dozen overwhelming overloads each, plus the effort of bending themselves into various positions. Bumblebee vented a happy sigh; he’d wanted to snuggle up to Starscream like this for so long…wanted this maybe even more than he’d wanted the interfacing. Part of him wished they could remain suspended in this moment forever, while another part of him couldn’t wait for them to get back to Bee’s apartment, their apartment (at least until they could save up for somewhere bigger), and just fall into the routine of living together. Fuelling together, recharging together, washing together, cuddling up on the couch to talk and watch movies together…that was Bee’s idea of paradise.

He looked down at them. Primus they were filthy, caked in each other’s lubricants, transfluid, and paint, with all their interfacing ports and cables exposed.

“I’ve totally ruined your new frame,” Bee mumbled into Starscream’s chest with a grin.

“Well…you did pay for it,” Starscream replied, a dopey smile on his face.

“Best shanix I ever spent,” Bee said with sleepy sincerity.

“Well,” Starscream said, stretching beneath Bee, “you should get your money’s worth.”

Bee could feel Starscream shift to get on top, but he shifted his own weight to keep Starscream on his back. Normally the jet would have no trouble flipping Bee off of him, but Bee could tell that Starscream was more tired than he possibly even realised. Being an Infraspace ghost didn’t involve recharging, and when Bee had been resurrected, it had taken him time to get used to feeling tired again. Plus, he knew that Starscream had been conditioned to push himself past his limits during interfacing, and Bee didn’t want him to think he was expected to do that anymore.

“You just relax, let me take care of you,” Bee insisted gently. Starscream looked like he might argue for a moment, but then an expression of gratitude passed over his face, and Bee felt him settle beneath him.

Bee caressed Starscream’s cheek, and the jet’s optics dimmed as he leaned into the tender touch. Bee’s thumb traced over Starscream’s soft lips, before he pressed a gentle kiss upon them. He sat up, straddling Starscream’s waist, then stroked down his arms, taking Starscream’s hands in his own, caressing them delicately, and then lifting them to his mouth to kiss Starscream’s palms and suck at his fingertips. Hands were one of the most sensitive parts of the Cybertronian frame, as Starscream’s moans attested to, and Bee took full advantage of their sensitivity.

After giving them ample attention, Bee gently placed Starscream’s hands at his sides, and then moved on to explore all the seams of Starscream’s new frame. He was meticulous, tracing every sensitive seam he could reach from their position, his little fingers able to reach in deeper than most. Starscream’s fans were already blasting when Bee moved on to his wings, finding some of the sensor clusters he had mapped out earlier. He gazed at Starscream’s face as he moved his hands over his wings in just the way Starscream had said that he liked.

“I’ve wanted…needed to touch you like this for so long…I need you in my life Starscream,” Bee whispered with such earnestness that it was hard for Starscream to doubt that he meant it.

Bee leaned down and placed a sweet little kiss on Starscream’s cockpit over his spark, before trailing kisses lower and lower until he was between Starscream’s legs. Bee ran his tongue from the bottom of Starscream’s valve to the top, licking the lines of sensitive biolights, before leaving a sucking kiss on the anterior node, drawing a shuddering gasp from Starscream. Bee’s tongue ventured further upwards, licking up the length of Starscream’s spike, and teasing the opening. Bee took the head of Starscream’s spike in his mouth, and worked his way down to swallow the whole thing, as his fingers found Starscream’s valve, and delved into the entrance, pressing against the sensor clusters within. Bee listened to Starscream moan and coo as he worked his spike with his mouth while fingering his valve, Starscream’s legs trembling and moving restlessly on either side of him, heel thrusters scrapping against the berth.

Bee raised his head and sat up, Starscream’s spike popping out of his mouth as he did so, but it wasn’t without stimulation for long, as Bee quickly wrapped his fingers around it and stroked tenderly. He removed his other hand from Starscream’s valve and wrapped it around his own spike, pressing it against Starscream’s entrance. Bee’s spike sunk gently into Starscream’s valve, which wrapped tightly around him like a warm hug, as Bee continued to lazily pump Starscream’s spike. He gazed intently at Starscream’s face, and saw the pleasure glowing in the jet’s optics as their frames merged.

Bee thrust into Starscream’s valve and stoked his spike in sync, going at a slow, sensual pace, allowing them to savour each other. Starscream moaned as Bee’s engine started to purr, transmitting gentle vibrations through his array. Bee’s free hand found Starscream’s exposed plug and play equipment, running his fingers over the tips of the cables that poked out from their housing.

“What’s your favourite circuit?” Bee asked softly.

“…three to two,” Starscream replied, his voice quavering slightly.

“Of course,” Bee said with a little laugh, knowing he should have expected that choice.

Starscream shivered with pleasure as Bee gently unspooled his cable, lightly squeezing the tip as his did so. He felt his cable lock into place in Bee’s port with a satisfying click that corresponded to the even more satisfying sensation of their components fitting together.

Before Bee had the chance to start transmitting a signal, Starscream reached up towards Bee’s own cabling, “And what’s your favourite?”

Bee looked at Starscream adoringly as he took his hand and guided it towards his top-most cable, “One to two.”

Starscream drew out Bee’s cable and plugged it into his pristine port, moments before Bee began transmitting his signal. Starscream felt a burning bliss ignite in his engine, and spread in pulses throughout his frame. He grabbed Bee’s free hand and squeezed. Bee laced their fingers together and squeezed back. Starscream transmitted a signal back to Bee, which manifested beneath Bee’s plating as a sensuous touch to his protoform mesh.

Starscream rode the glorious sensation Bee was giving to him. It was the thrill of racing through the air and breaching the sound barrier, together with the liberating exhilaration of freefall, and all the pleasures of pushing his engine to its limit, without the pain or exhaustion that entailed. He felt the power and pleasure and freedom of flight, the first love of his life, together with the tender attentions of the latest, but no less treasured, object of his adoration. Both made him feel so alive, made his life feel worth it. He wanted to share this feeling with Bee, and if he couldn’t convince him to have literal flight, then Starscream would help him take wing in every other sense. He would ensure Bee had the freedom to rise to his greatest potential, with Starscream there rising along with him. He would fight to give Bee the power he deserved, as Bee was one of the few with the wisdom and honour to wield it. With their freedom, they would seek out the universe’s most exquisite pleasures, and with their power they would take them to share together.

Bee moaned at the intimate sensation stroking his protoform. The touches were both tender and greedy, wanting to give affection and pleasure, but also to take and assert ownership. Bee felt like his mesh was being roughly grabbed, and almost painfully pinched, but in the midst of his arousal, the almost-pain felt more like sharp pleasure. Much like the rough fragging he had received earlier, the deep, intense sensations were more than welcome after the years he’d spent in the insensate void. The greedy possessiveness of the touches only made Bee feel wanted and needed, and how he wanted to be wanted and needed to be needed. Yet every rough grasp was followed up by a soothing caress, almost like an apology, an attempt at atonement. Soon, a compromise was found between the gentle caresses and possessive pinching, as the feeling turned into a deep, sensuous kneading. Too deep to be gentle, but full of tenderness and attentiveness, the sharpness replaced by lush, molten pleasure. Bee melted into the indulgent sensation, as Starscream raised his free hand to cup Bee’s cheek.

Starscream trembled as his fans roared. Bee was good at this circuit; it was the sort often favoured by racers and speedsters, and he’d interfaced with enough of those that he’d learnt how to do it right. Most of them had been grounders, however; fliers had their own anatomical quirks to adapt to, but what Bee lacked in that aspect of his experience, he made up for with his eagerness to please. Starscream tried to match his eagerness and his efforts as he fed Bee his own signal, wanting to prove himself worthy of the love that glowed in Bee’s optics.

Bee could barely manage to speak, but when his spark swelled with this much feeling he had to, “Star…Starscream…you look so beautiful…so beautiful when you’re happy. I…oh…I want to make you feel happy forever.”

Starscream was happy, but not just because of the various pleasures coursing through his circuits courtesy of Bee’s ministrations. He was happy because he could see the way Bee’s doorwings quivered, hear his fans roar, and feel the delight pulsing in his field – all indicators that Starscream was lavishing as much pleasure and happiness on Bee as he was getting in return. And he was happy that he was making his partner happy, and this time it wasn’t because it would make them more pliable for future manipulations, or because it would bolster his reputation, not even because it stroked his ego. He was just genuinely glad that someone he cared about was happy, and the fact that he was the one who had caused that happiness made it all the more wonderful.

“I love you,” the words that had become trapped in Starscream’s vocaliser so many times before now escaped his lips with ease.

Bee responded with stunned silence for a moment, before a sob escaped him and he pressed his cheek into Starscream’s hand. “I love you too,” he whispered, almost reverently.

Starscream wouldn’t let himself overload until he was sure Bee was ready to come with him, and when it became clear that Bee was trembling on the brink, Starscream pulled them both over into rapturous freefall. Even as he was completely overwhelmed with ecstatic sensations, he kept his optics onlined so he could watch Bee be consumed by the bliss Starscream had given him. His spark pulsed with desperate adoration, and he pulled Bee down onto him and clung to the minibot as though he’d be sucked back into the void if Starscream let go.

Bee lay pressed against Starscream’s cockpit, the jet’s arms holding him tight, their frames still interlocked via their cables and ports, and Bee’s spike snuggly nestled in Starscream’s valve. Bee was content to remain there, soaking in the euphoric afterglow, but as time went on, Starscream’s grip on him didn’t slacken. The incredible overload had melted away any of Bee’s remaining tension, but Starscream still felt wound up, and as Bee became more attentive, he noticed subtle spikes of anxiety in his field. He struggled against Starscream’s grip in order to sit up and look at Starscream’s face, “What’s wrong?”

There was a trace of fear in Starscream’s optics, but there was more sadness, “…you’re so good,” he mumbled.

Bee pulled himself out of Starscream and shuffled upwards so that he could look directly into the jet’s optics as he cupped his face in his hands, “Starscream,” he said firmly. “I love you. I want you. Us both being alive doesn’t change any of that. It only makes it better. I can’t wait for us to live our lives together. Actually live them. Being brought back to life was such a relief, but it wasn’t enough. It didn’t feel right without you alive alongside me. Now, in this moment with you, I finally feel complete again.”

Starscream gazed into Bee’s optics, his expression wavering between hope and sad resignation, “…I want to believe you. I really do, but…things this good just don’t happen to me.”

Bee’s energon fizzled with frustration while his spark ached with empathy. Starscream’s refusal to even now accept that he wasn’t alone anymore was maddening, but by now, Bee knew him well enough to understand why that sense of solitude was so deeply embedded with him. What could he possibly say or do at this point to convince Starscream that there was nothing he wanted more than for them to spend the rest of their forevers together?

“Starscream I…frag it, this all counts as an Act of Intimacy right?”

The room went dead quiet save for the hum of their frames. Bumblebee couldn’t believe what had just come out of his mouth. Well, he did believe it. He’d completely meant it; he’d been thinking about this for a long time now. He just couldn't believe he’d brought up like that. And here, in a hospital room? It was supposed to be done somewhere special, but well, he supposed this was a pretty special place to them both now. And he certainly didn’t expect to be doing it while they were both covered in each other’s fluids. But then, when had anything, ever gone according to plan?

“You…you mean it?” Starscream said quietly, his optics burning holes into Bee.

“Yes.”

Starscream suddenly sat up, propelling Bee upright in the process, “You brought me the high-grade when you came in.”

Bee laughed with nervous embarrassment, “…when I imagined this, I was planning on getting you a much more elaborate and expensive gift.”

“You paid for the upgrades to my frame, and my new array,” Starscream added.

“…I did, although, the array part was a bit self-serving.”

“I love it.”

“Me too.”

Bumblebee vented in and out. So, they were really doing this then. Intimacy, Profference…that just left one more thing on his part. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. He’d already told Starscream many things about his life, before and during the war, and plenty of them had been unflattering. There were still many secrets left from his four-million-year long life to reveal, things that still haunted him in a far less pleasant way than Starscream every had, but nothing that really stood out as THE confession. But the Act of Disclosure wasn’t about revealing some epic, melodramatic secret, it was about vulnerability, and Primus, did Bee have vulnerabilities. When he reminded himself of that, the words just started flowing out of him.

“You love to complain about me being obnoxiously optimistic and idealistic and saccharine, and honestly, I kinda love that you see me that way, because before I died, I didn’t feel like that at all. For most of my life I was everyone’s cheerful little friend, the guy that had always had something positive to say to lift the people around him up and bring them together. But towards the end of the war, I felt that identity slipping away. I couldn’t be that person anymore, because somewhere along the way, deep down, I’d given up. I’m not sure when it happened. Maybe it was when we lost Cybertron to Thunderwing. I just know that, even when I was telling my friends to maintain hope, and to believe in themselves, I didn’t truly believe in what I was saying.

“I’ve spent my life always trying to look on the bright side, it was something that I thought defined me, but it had reached the point where I was just too drained. Too many people I loved had died. I’d watched too many worlds burn. There was no bright side left to look on, just darkness remaining. I…I even started to wonder if Optimus was the leader I always thought he was. And I worshipped Optimus, and I still think he’s one of the most incredible bots I’ve ever known. Oh don’t get jealous, you’re the one I’m conjunxing. But…the war had gone on for so long, and he hadn’t been able to win it. Not that I thought anyone else could; not even Thunderclash had been able to win it. And if the greatest Cybertronians couldn’t end it, I started to wonder if any of us were capable of fixing the mess we’d made of ourselves.

“And as I found it harder to look up to Optimus as a leader, I also found it harder to relate to him as a friend. From the start, he kept a certain amount of distance from the rest of us, but instead of us growing closer as time wore on, it felt like he just added more and more to that distance. I wanted to be there for him, I could tell that he needed someone, but he wouldn’t let me in. And as Optimus became more distant, we all started to drift apart. Maybe that was my fault. The Autobots were my family, but somewhere along the way I think I started putting less effort into keeping us close. I guess it was a feedback loop. I found it harder and harder to maintain hope, which made it harder for me to be the glue that held my friends together. And when I felt less closeness to my friends, it became harder to maintain hope.

“It just felt like we were slowly working towards our extinction as a species. Like the war would just end with a whimper when we all finally killed each other. Or we just starved to death. I got to the point where I honestly cared more about saving other species from our war than our own species’ survival, because I’d frankly given up on us. I figured that at least those aliens had a chance, and I should try to help them have the future we’d never get to see for ourselves.

“When Cybertron came back to life and the neutrals all returned, I should have felt hope, I should have been ecstatic, but somehow it just exasperated my hopeless and loneliness. The war was over, and we’d won. I’d dreamed of that day for my entire life. I’d imagined being overwhelmed by the joy and the possibilities and the hope. But I didn’t feel any of it. It all just felt like a huge letdown. I should have been so happy to see so many other surviving Cybertronians, but they just…they felt like another species. And right away the tensions started rising again. I couldn’t help but feel this crushing sense that it wouldn’t be long before we were thrown into another war. Like we’d learnt nothing. Even the planet seemed to want us gone, like it knew we were going to kill it all over again.

“I couldn’t even bring myself to be happy when we found out Optimus was still alive. I kinda assumed he was still alive anyway. I…I feel like even now he’s gonna come back at some point, and I just know you’re going to have a blast tormenting him with our lifebond when he does. But still, I didn’t even take time to greet him or show relief that he was ok. I just wanted him gone so the neutrals would calm down. What kind of friend did that make me? And then there was the whole thing with Prowl. I was really ready to believe he’d actually betrayed us to Megatron. I’ve known Prowl for over four million years, I’ve lost track of how many times we’ve saved each other’s lives…how had I let our friendship fall apart to the point that I could misjudge him that badly? How much had I lost my sense of self that I could assume something like that about one of my oldest friends?

“So, I wasn’t exactly a fantastic friend at that point, so I guess I wasn’t really in any position to resent my friends when it felt like they’d abandoned me. But I did. Rodimus and I have always kinda got on each other’s nerves to be honest, but when even Ratchet left…I just always thought Ratchet was the one friend I could always rely on to be there for me. I’d thought he and I were still close, even when I’d grown apart from the others. But then even he left me when I really needed my friends…and then I thought that he and everyone that had left on the Lost Light were all dead, which I think destroyed whatever hope I had left.

“The friends that stayed behind didn’t do much to help me either. No…that’s not fair to them. They did what they needed to do to try and rebuild our world, and they had their own stuff going on. But they weren’t there for me in the way I used to be there for them. I used to be the one offering moral support, trying to look on the bright side, and encouraging them to make the right choices. I’d been slipping in that role for a while, but when I became leader, I couldn’t be that person anymore at all. And there was no one else offering that kind of support for me. Being leader made me realise that the only reason I was ever able to be the bubbly, idealistic one was because bots like Optimus and Prowl were making all the hardest decisions. I’ve made hard decisions before of course, but it’s just different when you’re at the top, and the buck stops with you. It’s easy to tell other people to make the right choice, it’s a lot harder to make it yourself.

“I didn’t know who I was anymore, and I didn’t like who I was turning into. I started thinking of everything in such cold, pragmatic terms. I felt so distant and resentful towards everyone. Primus, I even grabbed Prowl by the throat at one point. I felt like I was becoming a monster.

“Hey, don’t snort derisively when I’m pouring my spark out to you.

“Anyway, I think going through all of that made it easier for me to empathise with you. After feeling myself changing into someone I didn’t recognise, it made me wonder how different I’d be if my life had played out differently. Like if I was also constructed cold as a war frame, or if I’d spent the last four million years working under Megatron instead of Optimus. And then I wondered how different you’d be if you’d had the support and companionship I’d had before my friends and I had drifted apart. Maybe if you’d had real friends who were there for you, you would have found it easier to make different choices.

“It’s funny, because you’re meant to be the cynic and I’m meant to be the optimist, but at the end of the war I had lost all hope for our species, while you were still eager to seize all the possibilities of the future. Honestly, in a way you were inspiring to me, because you were so intent on rebuilding Cybertron into something better, even if I hated your methods. And as hard as it was being dead, part of me actually sort of enjoyed it, because I could be myself again. Or the person I liked to think of myself as. I could be the bubbly one again, offering advice and support while trying to push you to make the right decisions, without having to do the hard work of making those decisions myself. But I wanted to make it less hard for you, by being there for you, and I still do, if you’ll be there for me in the same way, so I don’t have to be alone again like I was before.”

Bee felt oddly nervous as he finished his disclosure. It wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever told Starscream about himself, but it was the first time he’d put these particular feelings into such detailed words.

Bee felt Starscream cup his chin and lift his head so that they were gazing directly into one another’s optics, before Starscream said, “Would you grab me by the throat?”

“No!” Bee cried, horrified at the idea. “Star I still can’t believe I- I don’t know what- I promise…” Bee noticed the smirk on Starscream’s face and the lewd twinkle in his optics and realised he’d misinterpreted the question. His mood quickly shifted from appalled and guilty to exasperated, “Starscream…” Bee sighed irritably, this was supposed to be a serious moment, but he couldn’t help but feel the corner of his mouth tug up into a smirk of his own, “…maybe later.” Well, his nervousness was gone at least, but he still had doublecheck, “So…you still want me?”

“Bumblebee, you could have told me that you were Low City Siphoner all along – you remember, that pre-war minibot serial killer they never caught, the one who slaughtered jets and drained their fuel – anyway, you could have told me you were him and you’d still be an upgrade from my last long-term relationship. If anything, I would be relieved to find out you were more in my league. I’m still not sure why you’re settling for me when you’ve now got that whole alternative universe Cybertron full of bots who have barely committed any war crimes to choose from.”

“I don’t want any alternative universe bots. I want you. I love you.”

Starscream sighed, “You have terrible taste in mechs.”

Bumblebee laughed, “It’s an acquired taste.”

“Well. You already know some of the worst things I’ve done. You know about Luna 2. About Caminus. About Metalhawk. About what happened to Grid. I don’t know exactly how good Autobot Intelligence was, but I doubt you know about all of it. Do you want me to list everything? It might take me the rest of the year, but you should really know what you’re getting into.”

“Starscream, is there really anything else that I don’t know about, that’s in some way significantly worse or different from the stuff I already do know about?”

Starscream thought for a minute, “No, not really. When you’ve already done mass murder, torture, blackmail, betrayal, brainwashing, and been an accessory to genocide, eventually you just start repeating yourself.”

“Then I don’t need to hear about anything else to make my decision. I accept you. I want you. Because as terrible as all of that is, and I’m not going to pretend it’s not terrible, I know that there’s more to you. I know that you’re more than your worst decisions and worst impulses, and I know that what you need to overcome your worst self and be the person I know you can be is some help. And I want to be the one who helps you.”

“Mmm, is that what this is about? Being my minder, to make sure I don’t turn back into a murderous villain?”

“Hey, I’m not looking to be anyone’s minder. I just told you that I need someone to support and be there for me too. This is only going to work if we both put in the effort. I want to help you make the right decisions and be the best version of yourself, even when you might not want to hear what I have to say, but I need you to do the same for me. I don’t want someone to order around, and I don’t want a new boss. I want an equal partner to share my life with, to grow into a better person with, to help me while I help them.”

Starscream was silent for a moment, and when he spoke, his facetiousness had evaporated, and his voice sounded earnest and vulnerable, “Yes. Yes, I want that too. I’ve always wanted that.”

Bee’s expression softened into molten adoration, and he took Starscream’s hand in his own and raised it to his mouth to kiss each of Starscream’s fingertips, before holding the hand against his cheek.

“My turn, I suppose,” now Starscream was the one sounding nervous.

“Starscream, I’m not expecting you to do anything anytime soon,” Bee said as he clutched Starscream’s hand. “Honestly, the whole Act of Devotion thing is kinda old fashioned; a lot of bots just both do the first three acts nowadays. And you can skip the Disclosure since I already kn-”

There was a clicking and shifting sound, and Bee’s face was illuminated in swirling blue light as Starscream opened his chest.

“Do whatever you want with it,” Starscream said, a quiver in his voice.

Bee just stared at the spark in front of him, transfixed by the blue glow.

Starscream carried on, prattling nervously, “I know you’d be getting this when we’re Endurae anyway but…I’ll do something else for you when I can think of something, or you can think of something, but I really want this to be done now. I want this to be done before something has a chance to take it away from us.”

“Starscream, are you sure?” Bee asked. They had played with each other’s sparks numerous times before, but it meant so much more now that real physical touch and real physical vulnerability was involved.

“The only other way I know how to show devotion is to kill people for you, and I know you’re not into that. Please, just…just do it,” Starscream was practically begging.

Bee reached out tentatively, “If you want me to stop at any time, you tell me, ok? I’ll stop straightaway.”

Starscream nodded his head emphatically.

Bee reached further, before his hand suddenly froze, and he disconnected the cables still attaching him to Starscream before he made to climb down off the berth, mumbling, “Hang on,” as he went.

“Where are you going?” Starscream’s voice cracked as he reached out, naked vulnerability and borderline panic displayed on his face.

“I have to wash my hands first.”

“Oh.”

Bee quickly returned from the room’s washbasin carrying a self-disinfecting washcloth. He stopped at the side of the medical berth and fiddled with the controls, causing the top half of the berth to rise, allowing Starscream to lean back in his sitting position. Bee then climbed back on the berth, straddlingly Starscream, and reached out with the washcloth. Starscream reached back to take it, but instead Bee started cleaning his hand for him. Starscream stared in surprise for a second, before a soft smile that was equal parts amused and affectionate spread across his face as he allowed Bee to fuss over him, cleaning both his hands, and then his face.

Bee put the washcloth to the side when he was done, before he asked, “You still sure you want this?”

“Yes.”

Bee didn’t waste anymore time. With tremendous gentleness, he reached out, so that only the very tips of his fingers brushed the corona of Starscream’s spark. And yet, that slightest touch was now so much more intense than it had been when either of them were ghosts. Starscream shuttered his optics and clenched his teeth as warning messages popped up in his HUD, and his new T-cog engaged for the first time while his processor screamed at him to snap his chest shut, fold himself up into jet-mode and fly the frag out of there.

“Should I stop?”

Starscream unshuttered his optics to see Bee staring at him with such concern, such love, and the feeling of fingers in his spark that was manifesting as overwhelming terror, instantly transmuted into overwhelming bliss. Starscream’s optics flashed and his mouth opened in a silent scream as his wings rattled against the raised berth. His hand shot up and grabbed Bee’s wrist, not to stop Bee from going any deeper, but to make sure he couldn’t pull his hand away. In that moment, Starscream couldn’t imagine anything more devastating than losing that euphoric feeling.

With great effort, he managed to command his mouth and voice box to articulate the word, “More.”

Bee stared at Starscream, transfixed with wonder, as he said, “Anything for you.”

Starscream’s grip on Bee’s wrist loosened before his hand fell limply to his side, and Bee let his fingers sink a little deeper into Starscream’s spark, getting deep enough to ever so lightly brush against the deeper core, but not so deep as to cause any pain or damage. The feeling somehow grew even more intense and overwhelming, a transcendent ecstasy transfusing every aspect of his being –physical pleasure lighting up his sensor nodes like the most sensuous caress; the mental clarity of everything finally falling into place and making beautiful sense; the emotional euphoria of the deepest and most enduring love. It was all these feelings, yet somehow something else entirely, something so unique that there was no other sensation in the universe that it could be compared to.

Starscream was no stranger to extremes – he’d experienced the extremes of pain, hunger, terror, fury, grief, hatred, disappointment, shame, and want, but this extreme of pleasure and love was just too intense for him, and he started to sob. He’d never thought he could trust anyone enough to willingly open his spark and let them make him feel this way again. He wasn’t even aware of what he was doing when he started babbling a mantra of love confessions to Bee in between his sobs. The phrase that he’d kept locked down so painfully tight for years now flowed uncontrollably from his lips over and over, and he didn’t even know it was happening.

Bee could feel Starscream’s spark pulsing beneath his fingers, and an electric tingling, plasmic and warm, started flowing up his arm and into his torso. His gentle caress was filled with reverence; Bee wasn’t religious, but if there was anything he regarded as holy, it was the core essence of his beloved, offered up in the ultimate act of trust and vulnerability. The electric warmth filled his frame, saturating his own spark, acting like a catalyst on the already overwhelming amount of love he felt in that moment, magnifying the feeling to an almost incapacitating level. Bee was a small bot who could contain an enormous amount of love, but in that moment, he felt like he might be at his limit, like he couldn’t conceive of how it would even be possible to feel more love than this. He answered Starscream’s rambling mantra of love with his own slightly more coherent sentiments, telling him how much he adored his wit, his passion, his cleverness, his determination, and his secret softness that only Bee had been allowed to see.

With the greatest care, Bee stroked and swirled his fingers through the corona of Starscream’s spark. These movements added a rich complexity to the pleasure overwhelming Starscream; as Bee’s fingers brushed different parts of Starscream’s spark, he triggered all the different emotions associated with loving memories they’d shared. Moments of understanding, comfort, mirth, admiration, excitement, lust, gratitude, joy, tenderness, and affection all rose into Starscream’s consciousness like notes in a love song that Bee was playing on his spark.

Bee’s touch began to induce synaesthesia in Starscream, as the many flavours of rapture he was experiencing seemed to blur into actual flavours, aromas, and flashes of colour across his vision. It was like his spark possessed a sense that his brain wasn’t wired to process, and as his brain attempted to make sense of the ineffable data emanating from his core, it tried to filter it through every other sense he had. But through the all the rich layers of pleasures and sensations, both familiar and indescribable, the one feeling that remained powerful and constant was the love he felt for the bot giving him all this ecstasy. It was all too much. One sentient being could not withstand this much rapture without it bursting forth to be shared with another.

As Bee felt the pulses of Starscream’s spark quicken, and the warm, tingling sensation that had travelled up his arm intensify and grow hot, he leaned forward and opened his own chest, the blue glow of his spark now mingling with Starscream’s own. He kept his fingers steady despite his excitement, swirling patterns through Starscream’s plasmic corona, playing that song of rhapsody until it finally hit its crescendo. Starscream’s spark went supernova with incomprehensible bliss that created a lightning storm of electric shockwaves surging throughout his frame, temporarily frying his processor and filling his vision with static.

The thickest bolt of plasmic charge arced from Starscream’s spark directly over the short space to Bee’s own core. In the split-second their sparks were linked, they knew that same sublime sense of ecstatic, terrifying intimacy that they’d felt when spark had brushed up against ghostly spark. The connection was only momentary this time, but it felt like a little eternity. In that moment, they felt each other’s most secret selves, and their love was vindicated. Starscream knew for certain that this time, he hadn’t fallen in love with the grandiose idealisation of a deeply flawed person, instead he had fallen in love with a flawed but wonderful person. Bee knew that he hadn’t just dreamed up some better version of Starscream in his lonely desperation to fall in love with, he knew for certain that person really existed under the layers of neurosis and pain that had been peeling away.

Starscream had experienced such extremes of pain and hatred throughout his ancient existence, but in that moment, he knew with absolute certainty that there were heights of pleasure and love that were as intense as any depth of despair. For all life’s horrors and agonies, there were moments of such all-consuming, undeniable, ecstatic love such as these, that made living worth it. That transcendental joy travelled over the bolt of charge in the moment their sparks were linked, and Bee cried out as that ineffable, overwhelming rapture was shared with him.

Most memories were stored in the brain module, where they were subject to the slow decay of information creep. But there were some memories that became engraved eternally onto the spark, transforming and defining a bot forevermore. For both Bumblebee and Starscream, this was one of those defining moments. Whatever happened next, the fact that they had truly loved each other was seared indelibly into their sparks forever, becoming a part of their core selves from that moment forth.

The aftershocks of the spark-nova subsided, bringing them back down to cold reality, but it was still made all the warmer by each other’s presence. Their chests both snapped shut as self-preservation subroutines kicked in. Starscream was still sobbing; while his spark had been sealed back up, his emotions couldn’t be so easily recontained. Bumblebee wrapped his arms around him, pressing their frames together, holding him tight. The fact he was still crying didn’t stop Starscream from leaning in and kissing Bee feverishly. While his earlier frenzied kisses had been fuelled by lust as much as emotion, his lust had been exhausted for the time being. The passion behind this kiss was pure emotional need; the need to express the love he felt and feel that love returned to him. Bee didn’t let his needs go unfilled, returning his kiss with the same fervour.

They didn’t know how long this would last; they were both used to good things being snatched away from them. But maybe after four million years of war and mostly misery, they’d have four million years of peace and mostly happiness. Or maybe it would only be a million years, or a millennium, or a century, or just a year. Or maybe everything would turn to slag again the moment they broke their kiss. But however long this bliss lasted, they intended to treasure it. Whatever tragedy, pain or injustice the universe might throw at them next, it wouldn’t change that they had shared this love, this understanding, this joy. What they had gone through together, what they had shared, would be a part of them forever.

This probably wasn’t the start of a happily ever after, the universe had never been that kind before, but whatever it was, it was so very happy.