Chapter Text
Starscream had a lot to recover from. The dissociative nightmare that is “light” mind control, over a year of isolation with only two corpses to keep him company, not to mention 15 years of GHOST imprisonment, and the war before that …
Needless to say, he was a mess. The meddling in his processor made him extremely vulnerable to anything that overrides his higher functions. His threat processor could make him cower in the upper corner of a room when someone drops a datapad. Memory fluxes could fully drop him into situations long passed or places that had burned to the ground millennia ago. Glitched memory fluxes could create entirely new, completely fabricated situations that left him embarrassed at best . His own emotions betrayed him during all of this.
Worse still, the Terrans had activated some ancient coding that made him want to rip out the throat of anyone who even looked at them wrong… or spend a torturous amount of time fussing over them. The older mechs just laughed at the fact he was being so stereotypically seeker.
For months he switched from hypervigilant, lashing out at anything slightly resembling a threat, to sluggish, staring off into nothing and barely responding without excessive prompting.
But he wasn't alone, the Terrans, the Autobots, even the former Decepticon warlord himself supported him in his efforts to get better. To be better.
To comedic effect, if both happened to be in a good mood. Like the time Megatron tripped and fell in the common room, and without missing a beat, Starscream stood on his back and declared himself leader of the Decepticons.
It was embarrassing when Megatron laughed so hard he fell off, but the event was remembered fondly as the first time in millennia the two had touched without hostile intentions.
Now, Starscream could even leave the base!
Under supervision. He's gotten lost inside enough times to be worth giving him a chaperone, despite Starscream’s complaints.
He’s more accepting of it when the Terrans watch him, with three of them being fliers, and the fact he genuinely truly trusts one of them. Plus, he can rationalize it as if he's supervising them .
Like today, where all 9 Malto children decided to turn a dangerously hot day in August into a snow day, taking the Hypershuttle to the abandoned Arctic base, opting to bring along Starscream.
On their way out, Twitch gets stopped by Wheeljack.
“Hey, one thing before y’go. If it starts snowing, or if he just stops having fun out there, don't hesitate to send Starscream back.”
“Why? Should I bring a scarf for him?”
“Eh, he'll probably be fine, but I have a hunch it might be a little much for him…. but if he has a good time that's really important. ”
Twitch nods seriously, catching his drift, “We'll make it the best snow day he's ever had, Dad-two!”
“Right on!” Wheeljack’s finials light up in exclamation.
Twitch flies off to join her siblings.
“That won't be hard.” He mumbles.
~~~
Despite the warning, Starscream actually did seem to have fun.
He figured out that if he angled his wings to act more like a spoiler, he could use his thrusters while sledding, letting each kid have a turn “hyperboosting” down and up the biggest hills they could find. His spark jolted when he accidentally shot Twitch out of the sky during a snowball fight, but all was well once Spitfire avenged her with a snowball that threatened to knock him over too... and once Mo and Robby dug her out. Aftermath spent an hour rolling a snowball bigger than him, so big he needed Jawbreaker's help to push it to the top of a hill.
He's gotta roll it down the hill and hit something.
Hashtag and Starscream get to work on making some evil snowmen for him to bash.
After three kinda generic figures with angry eyebrows, Hashtag sticks a disproportionately large arm on one of them. Starscream stands next to her to appraise her work.
He burns a thruster under two of his fingers, then wipes the soot under the snowmandroid’s eyes. Never before has a snowman looked so tired.
Hashtag grabs some pebbles and sprinkles it on its head. Somehow looking more bald than the featureless friends next to it.
“Not quite ugly enough yet, but I think it works!” Hashtag laughs.
Everyone gathers on either side of the poor victims, just guessing what a safe distance away is, anticipation palpable. Starscream glances over at Hashtag when her ponytail perks up behind her, swishing back and forth to scan. She doesn't mention it, so he doesn't either.
Jawbreaker and Aftermath give the giant snowball a good shove, and it takes off down the hill, picking up even more snow as it rolls. Instead of destroying the snowmen in a glorious explosion of snow, it squishes them flat and takes chunks of them with it, continuing in its path of destruction.
Actually, it manages to reach the peak of another, smaller hill, and goes galavanting off to Primus knows where. Aftermath and Jawbreaker transform and go after it, frantically trying to stop their creation.
Starscream cackles at the ridiculousness.
He looks over at Hashtag, but she's serious, eyes flicking in her visor like they do when she's doing something in her HUD.
“Hashtag?”
“Hm? Oh, sorry. I caught a stray signal for like, half a second and I'm trying to see if I can…” her ponytail transforms into a satellite dish, “Got it! Dang, that's quiet.”
Starscream suddenly feels like he's falling from a great height. A signal. Near the pole of this planet. It's too good to be true. He tries to shake off the dizzy feeling.
“Can… Can you boost the signal?” He tries to hide his excitement. Failing.
“Mmmm, I think I can play it loud enough for you to hear. It's just beeping, I dunno what it means.”
A set of four beeps, a beat of silence before repeating plays out of her speakers, distorted by how much she's had to increase the volume, but unmistakable.
“That's a cybertronian distress beacon . An… extremely old one.” Starscream’s legs feel wobbly.
Before he knows it, he's sitting down in the snow, part of him suddenly back in the haze of panic and exhaustion he was in while trying to listen for exactly that sound .
“You okay, Star?” Hashtag puts a hand on his shoulder. He's cold.
Hyperventilating could literally freeze him out here. What was that venting exercise Arcee taught him? He breathes in…. shuts all his vents…. then slowly lets it all out. His body starts to heat back up.
Calm again.
“We need to check out that signal.” He finally says, determined.
“You sure? You got all shaky just now.” She sits down next to him.
“I know, I just… I won't be able to get my mind off of it.”
“Hey, that makes sense, it sounds like someone needs our help.”
“It could be nothing. Someone- someone may have just forgotten to take their beacon with them when they got rescued.” Starscream rambles, “Or… It's someone in need of a proper send off.”
Hashtag grimaces, but nods. “Sounds like a mystery!”
Starscream invents, and gets to his pedes with a smile, “Then let's solve it.”
“All right!” Hashtag cheers. “Hey Twitch!”
Twitch looks over from across the snowball-path
“Starscream and I are gonna go check out some weird beeping I picked up!”
“Okay! Have fun!” A moment of thought. “Call me if you need me!”
Man, she's a pro at this big sister thing.
Starscream crouches down, letting Hashtag crawl onto his back. Once she's firmly grabbing his shoulder intakes and he's got her legs held, they blast off, the fastest piggyback ride in the world.
He flies low, following Hashtag’s directions. She keeps pointing in the direct it's coming from… until it's strong enough for her to give basic coordinates. At that point, Starscream's scanners can just barely pick it up.
Hashtag yelps when he accelerates to the spot so quickly her satellite dish flings backwards, flapping in the wind.
They come to a landing in the general vicinity, and Hashtag starts walking, eyes closed behind her visor.
“It's like playing a game of hot and cold…” she explains, unprompted.
Starscream follows closely as she walks across the snowy ice. He opens his comms, listening to the sound of the distress beacon, just reminding himself it's real. A real sound both of them are hearing.
He grabs Hashtag by the shoulder just before she walks off of a cliff.
“Woah! Uh. Okay, yeah, maybe I should keep my eyes open.” She giggles nervously. “The signal is down there, though.”
Starscream nods. He holds his arms out, and Hashtag jumps into them.
“Bring us down, Starscream!”
He jumps off the ledge, freefalling for just a moment before engaging his thrusters to slow their descent.
Down they go.
And down.
And further down still.
When they finally reach the bottom, they can barely see the ledge they came from above them… but the ground they stand on is flat, making the world's largest stairstep.
Hashtag points towards the cliff face, “It's coming from about… 40? 50 feet inside the ice? It's kinda thick to be getting accurate readings but. Vaguely there.”
Starscream approaches the wall, brushing snow off the side… he peers inside. The glacial ice is almost clear, and he can just barely make out… something. A blurr, distorted shape roughly where Hashtag said the signal was coming from.
Starscream desperately fights his processor to keep it from filling in the blanks with hope. He slashes his claws at the wall. He slashes again. He backs up and aims his null rays, before realizing he doesn't have them. Right.
“I'm uh, gonna call the others and see if they can help us dig.” Hashtag suggests.
Starscream just nods, not breaking his focus on the all important task.
Hashtag goes a few feet down the wall, “Hey, Twitch?”
“Hashtag! You guys find the beeper yet?”
“Well, kinda . We found something stuck in the ice, and we don't know what it is.. well, I don't know what it is but Starscream is kinda freaking out.”
“I wonder if this is what Dad-two was talking about…”
“What?”
“Wheeljack said… well, implied that Starscream might get triggered by the snow. He didn't say why … I wonder if he lost something out here.”
“Or some one ….” Hashtag whispers.
“Crap…”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want help digging?”
“Please.”
“We'll be there in a flash.”
Hashtag turns back around to tell Starscream the good news, and finds he managed to carve almost a foot deep into the ice.
“Let me help. I called the others.”
Starscream pauses. He looks at her in disbelief.
“For real?” Starscream says that horribly Earthly phrase he picked up from her.
“For real!” She repeats.
Hashtag plants her feet, squares her hips and shoulders, and delivers the hardest kick she can to the edge of Starscream’s progress. Fractures spread out, and she scoops the pieces away, almost doubling the size of the hole.
Starscream gives her a watery smile, before composing himself and continuing to carve.
A few minutes later, Aftermath crashes into the ground behind them, making Starscream jump 10 feet in the air. Spitfire swoops down after him.
“I told you not to let go!” Spitfire stands on the edge of the Aftermath-shaped hole in the ground.
“I thought we were landing !”
“We were like 100 miles up!”
The two of them bicker as Twitch and Nightshade fly in after with Mo, Robby, Jawbreaker and Thrash.
“Hey Hashtag!” Mo jumps off of Nightshade, turning the fact she slips into a cool somersault.
“What's going on with Starscream?” Robby hops down from Twitch… normally.
Hashtag gestures, and the siblings gather in something resembling a meeting circle.
“About 50 feet into the ice, there's something buried. It's emitting an old cybertronian distress signal, and I don't think Star’s gonna be okay until we find out for sure what it is.”
Nightshade looks up, “By my calculations, the ice we intend on digging into is roughly 4 million years old. With the weight of the thousands of tons of ice above it…the chances there's anything there are… astronomically small.”
“But whatever made the signal survived!” Thrash offers.
“Can we just say the quiet part out loud?” Spitfire… well. Spits, “We're digging up a corpse, and D-Starscreams gonna cry about it, and we're not gonna know what happened until Megatron says some stuff really delicately to us in about a week.”
“That sounds fun,” Jawbreaker says. It is unclear if this is him trying out sarcasm again or if the dinosaur part of him genuinely thinks digging up bodies would be fun.
“It'll be one more bit of closure for him, at least!” Twitch says, encouragingly, “It's probably gonna suck, but he clearly really cares about whoever's in there. Now he's finally gonna know what happened! Hopefully.”
“So we're digging?” Jawbreaker asks.
“We're digging for Starscream!” Mo shouts, summoning her sword.
A loud sniffle draws their attention. Everyone sees Starscream turn away to hide his tears and frantically wipe his face.
They give him a minute to compose himself before approaching the dig site.
With the Terrans, it's quick work. Five of them have energy weapons that melt through the ice like butter. The other four can dislodge and remove chunks no problem
Starscream is gifted two feathers from Nightshade so he can feel like he's doing more.
Soon the little dent is a genuine tunnel that even Starscream can stand up in.
As the blurry smudge comes closer, it's almost in the shape of a person . The fact they're almost all white makes it hard to discern their shape, a couple red parts vaguely marking an end to their silhouette.
“Terrans.” Starscream doesn't turn away from the blurry shape.
Everyone stops.
“I just wanted to let you know that we're going to be excavating an empty husk.”
“We know. It's okay.” Twitch leaves one of her swords in the ice and pats him on the shoulder.
“Yeah, we were empty husks for a while there!” Aftermath makes an attempt at comforting.
Starscream ponders this.
“Then I'm letting you know that I'm aware of that.”
“That's really good!” Hashtag gives him two thumbs up, “that… wasn't a guarantee!”
“Yeah.” Starscream sighs.
The work seems to go faster after that.
Soon, they're close enough to discern, yeah . That really is a cybertronian encased in ice.
Then they're close enough to see just how big this bot is. Easily twice Starscream’s height, even Optimus and Megatron would have to crane their necks to talk to them.
Then close enough to see how crooked their wings are.
The first part to be exposed was a hand. A ridiculously large hand. If Twitch stretched out, she was barely bigger.
Starscream kneels down and holds it in both of his, tears freely flowing down his face.
He had a moment of silence.
…
…
“I'm getting life signs!” Nightshade shouts.
“ You're what.” Starscream whips his helm around so fast it must've hurt.
Now everyone is frantic. Nobody cleans up behind them.
Twitch gives her swords to Thrash.
“I'll be right back keep going I know you can do it byeeee!”
“Twitch!” Thrash protests.
Just outside the tunnel, Twitch makes a call.
“Hey Twitch, how's the sno-”
“Wheels, we need you to come out here now . Actually, I'll send you the coordinates because we went pretty far outside the usual play area but-”
“Slow down, what happened?”
“Hashtag found a distress signal, then we went to dig it up and it's a HUGE transformer and they're alive somehow and I don't think any first aid training can help and… and.”
There's clattering from Wheeljack’s end, then what's probably the sound of running.
“Y’all hold on tight. Keep clearing ice. Do you have a good visual?” Then, more quietly, “ Megatron, grab the de-fib and the biggest stretcher. Meet me at the Hypershuttle”
“Uh-” she zips back into the cave, where there was shouting and crashing, but the mysterious transformer was coming more into view, Starscream wasted no time in climbing all over them, inspecting, “Yeah. We almost got the ice off of them.”
“Did you dig down or from the side?”
“From the side.”
“Okay, don't move him.” Him? Does Dad-two know this mech, or just assuming? “Keep clearing ice. Are there any obvious injuries? Like cuts, or-”
“They kinda look squished . Like, all their plating is a little crumpled and they're probably way flatter than they should be. Wings look bad . Maybe a broken leg?”
“Does his chest look crushed?”
“Starscream's on it. He's prying it open.”
“He's checking on the spark in there. Ask him what he finds.”
Starscream is able to hold the plating slightly open, letting him peek inside. He quickly closes it.
“What do you see?”
“Looks fully intact, extremely low power.” Starscream sounds straight out of a textbook.
Twitch repeats this to Wheeljack.
“Alright, that's good. Now, stay calm, and let me know if anything changes. Megatron and I are on the way. Do you need me to stay on the line?” The whoosh of the Hypershuttle sounds from his side.
“Yeah… thanks.”
“You're handling this great, Twitch.”
The wait for help was agonizing, but in that time the Terrans had managed to clear almost all the ice off of the buried mech. Only the wings and backpack-like thing were still left.
Mo brought her sword near one wing and Starscream snarled at her. A few seconds later, he mumbled an apology.
Only hands cleared ice from the wings.
The last little chunks holding the backpack in place are all that's left when Megatron lands with Wheeljack.
Megatron waves a quick greeting to the kids, before ducking out of view near the entrance. Wheeljack runs in, nearly slipping and falling.
“By Primus you've found him! You found Skyfire!” Wheeljack shouts, but Starscream doesn't react. He's too busy looking at the face he thought he lost.
Wheeljack hooks a monitor up to Skyfire’s wrist, before gasping and slapping an energon patch on him.
He unfolds a small piece of metal from his subspace into a giant, sturdy sheet
“Alright Screamer, we gotta move him onto the stretcher. Can you help us?”
Starscream doesn't move from the giant's chest.
“Starscream?” He tries again.
Too important. Can't move.
“Star?” Hashtag tries.
Starscream only holds on tighter.
…
…
Megatron peeks into the tunnel.
“ Starscream. ”
The seeker flinches, wings flaring out as he falls off of Skyfire. He stands up straight, only to see Megatron just. Giving him a thumbs up from the entrance. Then he leaves. You can almost see his processor churn that information until he realizes when he is.
“What are we doing?”
“Moving him. Kids, we're gonna break into teams, and put him on the stretcher. Starscream, you're at his torso to make sure his wings don't get caught on anything.”
Starscream nods, and they get to work.
Even though most of them are small, having 9 bots and 2 superhumanly strong humans makes short work of moving Skyfire.
Once on the stretcher, Wheeljack checks his vitals again.
“Quick lesson, Nightshade. I'm checking his vitals really closely before and after every dose of energon to make sure I don't shock his systems.”
One more energon patch.
“Alright. Starscream? You and Megatron are going to carry him back to the Hypershuttle. I'll be riding along with him in case anything happens in the air, okay?”
Starscream hesitates.
“You two are our biggest and best fliers! We can get him to the med bay faster!” Twitch encourages. It's enough to get Starscream to nod.
They liftoff, back to base.
…
…
“Is he still online?” Starscream asks over comms.
“Yes.”
…..
…
“Still?”
“Yes, Starscream.”
…
…
Megatron's propellers somehow seem to be spinning more tense than usual.
..
…
“Is he-”
“I'm gonna broadcast his spark monitor to you, okay?”
“...I'd like that.”
The rest of the flight isn't nearly as bad. Though they have a bit of a logistical issue going through the Hypershuttle, everyone, including Skyfire, makes it into the base.
They run into the med bay.
Hashtag isn't even sure of the names of most of the machines Wheeljack starts hooking up to Skyfire. It's a blur, but she grabs anything that's shouted for and gives it to who yelled. A bag of energon, a ratchet, the tall monitor that's always in the corner but we never use…
Wheeljack thrusts a dent puller into Starscream's hands.
“Uncrunch his chest!” Wheeljack orders. Starscream obliges.
It looked like it hurt , but Starscream pulled the most painful looking plating back into place. When his vitals were clear, he got the worst of the damage near the joints.
Then the activity dies down.
“Not much else we can do but buff scratches and hope. There should be enough energon in him to wake up within the next few hours, but I can't say for certain. If there's processor damage, that's a bit out of my wheelhouse.”
“That's okay.” Starscream nods, his voice small. He stands at Skyfire’s side, holding his limp hand.
…
Nobody’s ever seen Starscream so… at peace. So happy. Like holding this hand is the greatest honor ever bestowed upon him. He reaches up and wipes a few drops of water off of Skyfire's face.
The spark monitor beeps steadily… then speeds up. The processor probe starts showing more activity.
Skyfire's hand closes around Starscream's.
Tears flow freely down Starscream’s face. Or maybe it's just the ice melting.
“S…..” Blue optics barely open. “Star?”
“Skyfire! I… I…” he sputters, a slight twitch indicating something in his systems looping painfully.
Starscream suddenly drops his hand, turns around, and crouches to the floor.
“Hashtag, are you there?”
She rushes over, “Right here.”
He's got his optics covered with one hand, the other grabs her shoulder.
“You promised me. A while ago, that every time I'm in a memory flux, or a delusion, you would try your best to break me out of it, or find someone who could.”
“I promised, it's still true.”
“ Even if I look really happy.”
“I promised to give you reality checks, even if it looked like the best day ever.”
“Can you upgrade this promise to a pinky promise?” He removes the hand from his face to offer a pinky.
“Absolutely.” She offers hers. They shake pinkies.
“Now,” Starscream looks at her seriously, “tell me. Is this happening? Where are we?”
“We're in the med bay.”
“Got it.”
“All my siblings are by the door.”
Starscream nods.
“We just got back from the Arctic, where we found Skyfire buried in the ice.” She feels the hand on her shoulder get tighter at that.
“That's real.”
“Now we're in the med bay, Skyfire is on the table… looking really confused, but he's smiling at you.”
“He's alive?”
“He is!”
“ For real?” Starscream's voice breaks.
“For real.” Hashtag smiles.
“Star?” Skyfire croaks, his voice still scratchy from millennia without use, “are you okay?”
Starscream stands up, turns around, and completely and utterly fails at holding back his tears.
“No!” He lunges into a hug, burying his face into Skyfire's neck, “why are you-” sniff “-asking me y-you're the one who-”
Starscream sobs. Skyfire tries raising an arm, the joint audibly straining with the effort.
He makes eye contact with Hashtag, then glances to his arm.
She grabs the disobedient arm and drapes it over Starscream’s back.
Thank you
, Skyfire mouths.
Chapter Text
They stay like that for minutes, Starscream sobbing into Skyfire's neck, holding onto each other.
“Soooo,” Skyfire starts, “Have you graduated yet?”
Starscream’s sobs turn to cackles, interrupted by sniffles. He pulls back to smile at him.
“Sky- the academy-” snort, “the academy's gone .”
“I figured it's been a while. You look… different.” He drops the hand on Starscream’s back a little, “and you had a sparkling without me?”
While it went more into ‘joke’ territory, he sounded almost hurt. Starscream glances back at Hashtag, then back to Skyfire.
“Oh! No - no Hashtag isn't mine I- well I'd love to take the primary caretaker title but Dorothy would obliterate me in the battle for it-”
“You can try for second-in-dad when you're better at existing .” Hashtag pats him on the shoulder.
Skyfire gives a confused laugh. What the slag is a Dad??????
“It's been an awful few years. I'm. Not the mech I used to be. Primus, it's been 4 million years .”
…
“Oh.” Skyfire blinks for a few seconds. “I thought my chronometer was broken.”
“You missed a civil war . You missed the decimation of our species! We- we lost the allspark .” The tears are back, his voice gets louder, “Maybe. We have no way to know… We all died for a moment a couple years ago!” He's shouting, “The Quintessons came to this planet and t- oo- kk tHE L-l -ll-” his voice is crackling into static.
“Hey, hey. It's okay. You don't need to be the one to catch me up on the big stuff.” Skyfire's arms finally cooperate enough to wrap both around Starscream, “Maybe… start with something small? Doesn't even need to have happened to you.”
Starscream ponders.
“Skywarp’s a femme now.”
Skyfire blinks in surprise, “Why didn't I see that coming? That's perfect.”
“Wait, she wasn't always ?” Hashtag looks amazed.
“Arguably, she was. All it took was a can of derma paint for her to go from timid to conniving .” Starscream makes a gesture that lets Hashtag infer that he means lipstick .
“Wow… the power of makeup.” If you squint, a webpage on automotive paint and decals has already been pulled up on her visor.
“Though, I guess I have a question. Not about what I missed…”
Starscream tilts his head.
“We're still getting conjunxed, right?”
“Y’all were what ?” Wheeljack had managed to stay respectfully silent until that moment. “You were- are? I thought-”
The Terrans look confused. Skyfire catches a glimpse of a big (well, not to him) silver mech leaning down to whisper to the sparklings just outside the door. That must be Dorothy , he reasons.
“What's ‘conjunxed’?” Hashtag asks.
“Well, it's kinda like when humans get married.” Wheeljack explains.
“ Oh . Oh my god.” Her eyes go wide, “Star, is that why he's grabbing your aft?”
Starscream blinks, then frantically moves Skyfire's hands up a bit.
“Is that where they ended up? Sorry, they're still a bit numb from the cold.” Skyfire looks smug.
Starscream’s fans kick on, “is this part of a ploy to warm yourself up?”
Skyfire chuckles.
“You'll keep me warm, yeah?”
“You will never be cold again if I have anything to say about it.”
There's a loud grinding sound as Skyfire tries sitting up. He gives up on that quickly, “Then… kiss me, maybe?”
Starscream obliges, kissing Skyfire deeply. When he pulls away, he kisses him again. And again. All over his face. It's a full blown kiss attack.
Skyfire squeals in delight.
When Starscream is done, there's tears in his eyes. Skyfire's as well.
“Before I fell asleep… I kept thinking about how excited I was to get one of those when I got back.”
“ Sky. ”
He leans in again-
Some mech clears their throat.
Starscream glares at Wheeljack.
“I was ‘bout to tell you two to get a room, but I doubt Starscream’s will fit you. We needa talk logistics.”
Hashtag’s smile presses firmly into a neutral expression.
“Go wrangle your siblings. I can handle logistics.” Starscream makes a shooing gesture at her.
Hashtag leaves, as well as the last lingering terrans. Someone closes the door. Finally. The boring stuff and the awful stuff can commence.
Skyfire squints.
“Wheeljack, right?”
The aforementioned mech blinks, “I'm flattered you remember me, we only had one class together.”
“We did?” Skyfire chuckles, “I only know your designation from the time Starscream ranted to me about how much he hated your paint job.”
Wheeljack laughs raucously, “So you haven't changed, Screamer!”
“I have,” Starscream throws a spare scrap of metal at the engineer’s face, it bounces harmlessly off his mask, “I'm a better shot .”
“Don't I got the welds to prove it,” Wheeljack must be smirking under that mask. Skyfire looks between him and Starscream, trying to piece together the story. “Anyway, are you currently in any pain? You’ll probably be in here for a day or two regardless, but it’s best to get it outta the way.”
Skyfire pauses a moment, wiggling his pedes.
“I still can’t
really
feel my legs, but I think it’ll be fine. I feel overall, weak,” he lets his head lean on Starscream, “I didn’t realize you were in the medical path,”
“Oh, I wasn’t. But I’m the best we got right now!” His tone is cheerful but there’s a clear undercurrent of
nervous
energy, “Well, you could argue Megatron would be better, since you’re a flier n’all, but I doubt the thing stuck to your side would’ve let him
touch
you.”
“Who’s Megatron?”
A sentence that hadn’t been uttered in earnest for almost as long as Skyfire had been gone.
“Long story. You’ll meet him later.” Wheeljack shrugged. He brought his scanner over Skyfire's pedes, testing out their range of motion on his own, “It's amazing how almost all your damage is superficial, now that you're awake ‘n aware, your self-repair should be able to clean up most of the damage no problem.”
The engineer thinks for a moment, “Well, maybe not your wings, but we got an expert riiiight here.”
Starscream huffs.
“Well, if anything changes, Starscream, y’know where the painkillers are?”
“Obviously.”
“Right, then I'll get out of your hair. I'll be trying to sort out a Skyfire friendly room, but in the meantime, comm me if you need anything. Or shout.”
“...hair?”
“Oh, that's an Earth term- that's the local name for this planet,” Wheeljack says.
Skyfire's eyes widen, “This planet has sapient life now?!”
“Sure does! Two humans , as they're called, even helped dig you out of the ice!”
…
“I thought those sparklings looked weird…”
“They act about the same. Anyways, rest up. Ask as many questions as you want, I'm sure the rest of the bots will come around to meet you sooner than later so… enjoy some quiet.”
“I've… had enough quiet.” Skyfire tightens his grip on Starscream.
“You've got someone who can take care of that no problem.”
Wheeljack pushes in the doorway.
“Oh, and y'aren't cleared for activities no matter how alone you are. Not till he's walkin!”
A tray donks off his finial.
They hear giggling as he closes the door behind him.
…
“Where do we even begin?” Starscream mutters
“You didn't answer my question from before.” Skyfire looks a bit… less happy.
Starscream stops to think.
“I want to be your conjunx, but…” Starscream chews on his lip, “it's been so long, I'm not the same mech you proposed to. I'm not even the same mech I was last year. Or the one who fought in the war.”
Skyfire's turn to think.
“You might be different, I can see that already… but you were here when I woke up, just like I imagined. You haven't left, or forgotten about me. I still recognize you, Star.”
Starscream sits on the berth with him, curling up.
“I… I don't want to shatter your illusions. But it'll become clear as you speak to the others just how despicable I've been. You came back during a… good time.” He snickers, “Funny how I have to be recovering from processor damage to be good nowadays. It's only inevitable that something will happen and you'll find out that the Star you knew has rotten away into something horrible. That I'll hurt you like I have everyone else.”
“Well,” Skyfire chooses his next words carefully, “Everyone here seems to trust you. You're being left alone with a vulnerable mech… that carrier, Dorothy, was it? Let you near those sparklings. The way you acted with Hashtag was adorable . You really can't be so terrible as to scare me off.”
Starscream looks away.
“You're still scared?”
Starscream nods.
“Then let's just. Take it slow.”
The seeker's wings flick in irritation.
“Yeah, that's the old Star I know.”
“I just want to get it over with.” Starscream mumbles.
“ I want to hold my darling partner for a little while longer,” Skyfire pulls Starscream closer, until he's curled against his body, resting on his arm. With his other hand, he gently grabs Starscream’s chin, “This face decal is cute.”
Tears spring from his optics once again.
“Th- annnks” he warbles.
Skyfire pulls him closer. Starscream rests his head on Skyfire's shoulder.
He lets himself enjoy this. “As a treat”, as Hashtag would say.