Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

If Axel had anything to admit, it would be that he should probably have watched where he was going while walking in the woods.

If he had a counter argument to that regret, it would be the reason he was regretting his ignorance was not at all what he expected, or planned for.

Normally, the problems that arose from wandering blind through the woods would probably be something like tripping over a log, or maybe walking off a cliff and dying. In terms of living things, which Axel was beginning to assume his predicament fell under, one might expect to have problems with wolves or a bear, maybe even a moose. All of those situations wouldn't have been great, but Axel had some idea of what to do about them, even the cliff. Here however, he was stumped.

Axel, through little to no fault of his own, had managed to encounter a giant robot. Well, encounter was putting it lightly, it would be more accurate to say that he managed to walk nose-first into the robot’s ribs, or where the ribs would be on a human at least. This wasn't in itself an issue, he was only walking, and he knew enough about where he was in the woods to keep going home at a sprint if he had to. The problem came from leaving.

From where he was standing, Axel could see most of the robot’s lower body, as well as its arm. Axel didn't have the clearest perspective on it, because he could only see the robot's side, but it was red and light grey, and its forearm was definitely blue, looking almost like a really boxy glove. When he first bumped into it, Axel had tried walking away, he really had, but the robot proceeded to lazily block his path with its hand. Axel had been trying to escape for at least half an hour at this point (probably), but all attempts met with similar results. He wasn't fast, and he was also only as big as half of the robot's forearm, so he was incredibly easy to block. Occasionally, in between the gaps that the robot’s arm made when moving to block him, Axel could see its head. A glowing red eye absent-mindedly glancing at him, some type of mechanism barely visibly moving to follow his escape attempts. If he hadn't already been panicking about being trapped, that sight would have really set Axel off. Even now, it definitely didn't make him feel any better.

~~

Axel had stopped mentally keeping track of the time, but he could tell that the robot had stopped watching him directly, instead staring absently at the passing clouds. Axel felt his legs slow, he was practically gasping for air and felt like if he moved another step his legs might give out. So, he stood for a minute, just to catch his breath. 

A chill ran down Axel's spine as the robot began to laugh. It was a shrill chuckle, just as lazy as the rest of the robots actions. If Axel had any doubts that it (he?) was playing with him, they all crumbled away with that sound. It took another minute for Axel to calm himself down enough to think rationally.

He obviously wasn't getting anywhere with the running strategy, especially now that he was sure it knew what it was doing. That being said, he wasn't about to try and climb over the robot's chest, that seemed like a surefire way to get swatted like an overzealous spider. As he calmed down and planned, the robot moved his arm back into a casual resting position, even though Axel was sure that he could still move to block him at a moment's notice. Axel did still try a couple passes, just to check.

Axel quickly concluded that his only option was waiting for the robot to get bored. After deciding that, he settled himself down on the ground and got ready to wait. After a few minutes, Axel noticed that the robot's hand was absent-mindedly drumming on the forest floor. Axel waited a little longer, checking his phone (he already knew he had no signal here,) before attempting another escape. This attempt was quickly stopped, and Axel also ran headfirst into the robot's hand, which was more startling than painful. Axel stumbled back and settled back down, trying to think if there was anything else he could possibly try. Currently, all he was coming up with was to wait for the robot to fall asleep, if robots even slept at all. Circumstances were grim, Axel was starting to think he would be stuck there until he starved to death.

As Axel calmed down farther, he started to take stock of what he had on him. It was a good amount, considering. He had been walking home from school, so he had his backpack on him. And, Axel quickly checked the bags contents to confirm his excitement, he had an unopened box of protein bars! Sure, they were for if he needed emergency lunch, but an emergency was an emergency. That made prospects a whole lot better.

~~

If they were playing a game, then the opponent would probably stop when they got bored. Unfortunately, in the boredom war of attrition, Axel found himself quickly losing. The robot seemed content lying on the ground like a very colorful wall. Axel assumed that keeping him contained was a small distraction to pass the time. The only problem was that he had no clue how much time the robot had to pass. Axel was also currently experiencing an antsy type of bored, he had homework, and telling himself that he shouldn't be bored while being held hostage by a giant robot wasn't helping. Axel resigned himself to lying down as well. The sky was actually really pretty, picturesque, like a background in a children's story. 

Axel had to shake himself out of falling asleep, that seemed like a really bad idea in the current circumstances. However, it occurred to him, if he was stuck here he could get some work done to pass the time. Axel sat up and dug through his backpack for homework. 

He didn't want to do anything with writing, he didn't have a surface to write on. That, limited him severely. Most of the homework was on paper, of course. And he didn't have the Internet to submit any digital projects either. Axel’s fingers hungrily hung over a purple folder before he grabbed it out with a snap. Maybe, just maybe he could make something out of this situation yet. And it might even help him, people had told him Shakespeare was boring. Axel briefly glanced over at his captive audience.

“so foul and fair a day I have not seen.”

Axel quickly cleared the accent from his throat, he didn't have anyone else to run lines.

“N’ then, Banquo. Yada yada, witches, uh…” he checked the script, “ah, that you are so…”

“speak if you can, what are you?”

~~

Axel had managed to make it to the first scene of act 4 before doing his own cues felt too awkward to continue. He was still working on subconscious memorization, so he had mostly been paying attention to his lines and stage directions instead of the robot. Axel took a small sip of his water bottle and checked the contents of his bag. Maybe he could stack folders on top of each other to write on…

Suddenly, the ground started to shift under Axel. He barely had time to grab his things before he started to fall.

On to a large blue hand. 

Axel glanced around, his eyes quickly landing on a large metal face. Two red eyes staring at him like he was a dog that had dragged home a deer skull. Axel backed up a step, desperately shoving things back into his backpack. He started to zip it up when he walked backwards into something. A quick glance behind him showed that the robot had raised one of his thumbs to stop Axel from stumbling to his death. Axel looked around properly. If he was up any higher, he would be able to see over the tops of the trees. The robot, seemingly acknowledging Axel’s realization he had no escape, uncupped his hands slightly so Axel had a clearer view. Axel turned to face him again. He could see the entirety of the robots upper body now, mostly grey with some red parts. He could also now clearly see a set of wings, one of which he could faintly make out a cluster of dusty bootprints on. Axel could feel something welling up in his chest. He didn't want to cry, so he started laughing.

Axel was snapped out of his laughing fit by the robot sitting down on the forest floor. He was still being watched closely, but it seemed like his brief episode of mania had earned a concerned look. Axel bit down the urge to start laughing again. Axel's attempt at calm seemed to have successfully convinced the robot that he was fine, because he raised his hand to his mouth and made a crisp sound that seemed to serve a similar purpose to clearing his throat.

“I assume,” said the robot in a voice that was both shrill and entirely too quiet for his size, “that was some type of rote memorization?”

Axel was stunned. It could talk? He could talk? Why was he talking to him? Was he talking to him? He had to be, there was no one else around, and he had probably only spoken at a whisper for someone of his size.

“What?” gasped Axel, suddenly unable to form coherent thoughts.

“That… performance,” elaborated the giant, using his free hand to emphasize. “It seemed incomplete on its own. I assume you are attempting to remember the words you were speaking aloud?”

“Yes!” Squeaked Axel. “Yes, I'm performing, or I should be performing, so I need to know the words–”

“Hm, primitive, but I would expect nothing less…” the robot less than carefully balanced the hand Axel was standing on on his knee. “You seem young for a performer.”

“It's a school production!” Chirped Axel, tamping down the advertising spiel from when he was handing out fliers, “it’s a production of Macbeth. We are working in collaboration with the English class!”

“Oh, it's educational,” the robot tilted his head back to stare at the clouds again.

Axel quickly started walking down the buzz he had worked up. While he loved talking about theater more than he loved breathing, evidence suggested that his new audience was bored. Axel looked around from his new position, he was still very high up, too high to jump down. Maybe he could try jumping onto one of the trees and climbing down? Axel started to pace, trying to assess the robot's character. He knew he was on metal now, so he could do his writing directly on the robot's hand, which might be comical enough to appeal for his freedom. Actually, now that he knew the robot could talk…

“Hey, uhh…” Axel spoke as loud as he could. “Can I go?”

The robot's eyes were glowing even clearer from the front, Axel wouldn't have been able to see the mechanisms if he didn't know they were there. But, he could see the robot subtly glance at him. The knowledge of that glance gave him chills.

“Human,” the robot sounded slightly annoyed. “I don't know how long I need to wait here, so neither do you! Neither of us will talk about this after we're done”

“That… doesn't sound like a fair deal,” Axel tried to keep his voice steady, easy for a great actor like himself. “Why wouldn't I tell everyone about this?!”

“If you won't keep quiet, I'll make you keep quiet,” the robot twitched his fingers for emphasis, then chuckled when Axel flinched. “... No one would ever believe you anyway.”

“ah…” whimpered Axel

“I know you have activities in your little bag,” the robot pointed for emphasis with his free hand. “Keep yourself entertained, you may even try to escape if you are so inclined, as long as you keep this between us I will let you live.”

Axel stared up into the robot's red eyes. The robot moved his head slightly to better look at him. Axel took a minute to breath.

“Why are you doing this?” Asked Axel

“Why not?” said the robot, “I haven't been given anything better to do.”

Axel opened his mouth to speak, before realizing he had nothing to say. He closed his mouth and hissed air through his teeth.

~~

Axel quickly worked through his history and science homework. History drew no interest, but Axel was allowed to talk through the tree taxonomy he was working on and was offered a couple leaves from the surrounding trees. Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that the two of them were working with completely different levels of scientific knowledge, and neither of them were inclined to bridge that gap, so the topic was dropped at the end of the worksheet. Axel assumed math would result in more of the same, but he was good enough at math that he wasn't worried. He tugged out his worksheets, one for this week and last week, and got to work. It was multiplication, so it was extra easy, and Axel was able to let his mind wander as he worked.

“So… you have a name?” Floated Axel, casually. “Mine’s Axel.”

“one of the few sensible names I've heard on this planet…” mumbled the robot before standing, barely accounting for Axel's position, and taking a more dramatic pose. “I am Air Commander Starscream, future leader of the Decepticons.”

That sounded important. Axel wasn't entirely sure what any of those titles meant, but it was his first time meeting someone with titles, and Starscream seemed proud of them. That being said, he had to continue the conversation somehow.

“Oh…” well, he couldn't leave it at that, “nice! Cool!”

“Well, I wouldn't expect you to understand,” Starscream chuckled and settled back into a sitting position. “you don't seem very observant.”

“Yeah, that's fair!” Squeaked Axel. He stared at Starscream for a minute before settling back with his worksheets.

Chapter Text

Axel didn't have any English reading to do. He had already read the material cover to cover six times at this point, and was trying to memorize it. The only problem was, now that he had worked his way through the rest of his possible homework, he was beginning to regret doing that worksheet in Study Hall. A lot of people had told him to stop reciting his lines because it was annoying, but it wasn't like he could put on a full performance by himself…

“Wait!” Axel quickly started digging through his pockets for his phone. 

“What?!” Yelped Starscream, startled

“I have the national theater performance of Macbeth saved on my phone!” Axel pulled his phone out triumphantly. “If I share the recording with you, will you let me go?”

Starscream hummed introspectively. Axel noticed that his hesitation seemed partially for show. “That would be the performance you are doing?”

“Yes, it's a professional production of it,” Axel quickly pulled the video up on his phone “it's about three hours long, so it's a great way to spend time!”

The two of them stared at each other for a minute. It slowly dawned on Axel that he had no idea what kind of phone Starscream had, if he had one at all. Axel had to get his parents help to call his grandfather, and he couldn't imagine that a giant robot phone line would be any easier to connect his phone to. And he still wasn't sure if Starscream was even interested in the play…

“I'm hardly an expert on communications technology, but it can't be too difficult,” Starscream offered his other hand to Axel, “give it here, I'll try and set up a temporary connection to my comms. You can drop the file there.”

Axel hesitated for a second before placing his phone carefully on Starscream’s finger. He paused for another second.

“Please don't break it, I can't get it replaced,” Axel took a step back.

~~

The process of setting up the temporary connection was evidently a little harder than assumed. Most of that difficulty probably came from the fact that Axel's phone was doll sized in Starscream's massive hand. After a moment of fussing, Starscream clearly decided that he needed both hands for the task, and slowly brought Axel up to his shoulder. It only took a little persuasive jiggling for Axel to slowly lower himself down to the new perch. The new vantage point offered a perfect view of Starscream fiddling with the phone like an old man trying to read a medication bottle without his glasses.

Axel still wasn't sure if this interest in Macbeth was genuine or from boredom, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. When it became clear that he was going to be stuck for a little longer, he got himself settled down.

“So, this production of Macbeth has been a nightmare so far,” Axel paused before clarifying. “The school play, not the one I'm sending you.”

Starscream didn't say anything, and Axel couldn't clearly see his face from the angle he was sitting, but a faint whirring implied that he glanced in Axel's direction. Another whirring quickly followed as Starscream resumed his work. Axel hadn't been asked to stop talking though, so he took a deep breath and continued.

“We've been going for about a month now, and I swear, half of the cast doesn't even want to be there,” Axel hesitantly moved to sit down on Starscream's shoulder. “Our usual teacher director is on maternity, so that whole process is being run by our math teacher. And, considering his whole job is numbers, he did a horrible job balancing tech and cast. Any director worth their salt knows it takes more than one person to work a set, and to never ‘study from the tech.”

“Hm,” said Starscream, possibly talking to the phone. “Is there no one to stop him from making a mess of the production?”

“Well, he's a teacher, so his word’s final,” Axel felt tension leaving his body. “But, he's mostly here to impose the worst cast list known to man and make sure we don't kill each other about it. Most of the actual directing falls on the student director, and I think they're usually able to veto a bad casting call, because they're spending more time with cast and crew. The problem is, our student director is the teacher director’s daughter, and she seems fine with whatever garbage is getting dropped on us.”

“I mean, our Banquo hasn't even shown up to school in over a week, and his understudy is also making all the costumes! I found them crying in the bathrooms last Tuesday, they barely have time to breathe right now.”

“And what is it you are doing in this production?” Starscream brought the phone closer to his face. “I'm guessing that you're acting, cast?”

Axel debated lying. He could say that he was acting, just like he wanted. A lot of people had told him to stop complaining, the casting was final, after all. But, at the same time, it wasn't like he was going to be meeting with Starscream again.

“I wish!” Axel growled. “No, I'm working understudy.”

“Understudy?”

“If Jamison stops being able to act, I take over his role for him. They didn't even put me on tech, so I'm just supposed to memorize my lines and then sit. I could probably do music better than shitty audio Tony.” Axel sighed “I was so close, so close, to getting to play the lead. Then the math teacher had to take over as director, and then he had to get his stupid daughter and his stupid son involved in the production. Jamison isn't even memorizing his lines, it's like he doesn't even care how important he is!”

There was a pause. The air felt heavy. Starscream had stopped working with the phone at some point. Axel realized that he was panting with rage. 

“Why don't you just kill him?” Asked Starscream, as he started fiddling more casually with the phone.

Axel laughed, harsh and cold. He really had to work on that laugh, supposedly it was creepy.

“No, no, no one else cares about the production that much, they'd call it off if anyone died…” Axel took a deep breath, steadying himself. “And they'd suspect me for sure, it's not like anyone else wants to get rid of him.” Axel paused to think “and it's illegal, so they would probably kill me.”

It was Starscream's turn to laugh. A chuckle that managed to be both deep and flute-like. Perhaps comparable to some other woodwind.

“I might be able to incapacitate him, just for the three performances, I'm already practicing more than he is,” Axel started relaxing again. It was nice admitting this to someone who didn't care. “It would need to look like an accident though, the board wouldn't let me keep my role if I hurt someone to get it.”

Axel was knocking it out of the park with socializing all of a sudden. Or, that was what he was hoping that Starscream's fits of giggles meant. 

“Well, at least no one else knows about your little plans,” despite Starscream still choking down laughter, Axel noticed that this statement was laced with melancholy. “I believe I have finally sorted out your horrible device, here.”

Axel jumped onto Starscream's open hand and picked up his phone. The phone was, surprisingly, undamaged. Starscream had managed to get halfway through creating a phone contact named o)Rd dfezttfes fcrm, and had also installed a separate app with his actual contact information, along with some other features. Axel assumed this had something to do with compatibility. 

“I could not make it temporary,” he said with heavy annoyance, thankfully directed at someone other than Axel. “delete it yourself when you are done.”

“The code, or the whole App?” asked Axel 

“The app is public, I don't care what you do with it,” grumbled Starscream brusquely, “however, my comm code is personal, and having it out there would show that I was here.”

“Oh,” Axel fumbled with the chat interface. “If you're so worried about people finding out we met, why would you just let me leave?”

“Had I known you were a child, I would not have kept you here in the first place,” muttered Starscream. “As long as you can keep a secret, neither of us should have any trouble.”

“But why though?”

“Animals tend to be protective of their young,” stated Starscream, “I have been strongly advised to avoid drawing unnecessary attention while we are in the area, and getting a human search party called into the area would be a direct violation.”

“Okay, sure…” Axel fidgeted with his phone. “I… can’t figure out how to send the file.”

“You can't…” hissed Starscream, “it’s a direct comm link, it should take all the usual formats! I’ve sent human video files over comms!”

“It’s not the files, it’s the app layout!” yelled Axel. “it’s like they forgot to set the connection to files up for someone using their hands!”

“They–” Starscream erupted into a fit of laughter, his fingers closing dangerously close to Axel’s head. “and they say they like working with humans!”

“Wait, I think…” Axel wiggled his hand in front of the phone camera. “It’s… gesture based? I've got it!”

The video file successfully appeared in the chat window. Starscream started laughing harder when Axel figured out how to access the file, but he did acknowledge the message by moving the hand holding Axel so it was less actively dangerous. Axel wasn't sure exactly what was so funny, but he had other things to worry about.

It turned out that the app required both parties' confirmation to delete a contact, so Axel sent out a ping and hoped that Starscream would notice what he needed to do on his end. He then quickly browsed the rest of the app's functionality. A lot of the things on the menu were things like “warning ping” or “local updates” which might have been useful to him an hour ago, but Axel was actually proud of mostly sorting out the situation by himself. He still decided that he would keep it on his phone, just in case he needed it. He tucked his phone into his pocket and straightened his backpack straps. 

“So!” Announced Axel, just loud enough to be heard. “Can I go now?”

“I see no reason why not!” Starscream chirped through his laughter. He let himself get settled a little before continuing. “Well– hm?”

Starscream paused for a second as he was setting Axel on the ground. He wiggled his hand slightly and waited for Axel to get off before standing to his full height and putting two fingers to his ear. Axel took a step back into the treeline after he was back on the ground.

Starscream made another clearing his throat sound before emitting a very angry sequence of chirps and drones. This conversation (?) quickly turned into a very angry session of pacing and yelling(?) and ended with a very weary sigh. This was followed by some more curt humming whirrs, which definitely sounded like the resigned mutterings of someone trapped in the principal’s office. Starscream then dropped his hand from his ear and checked to see if Axel was still there. Upon seeing him, Starscream cleared his throat again and leaned down to speak with Axel directly.

“It would appear that I was going to let you go regardless,” Starscream was definitely trying to appear calm and intimidating, but something else was poking through his facade. “Don’t tell anyone about me, and do not forget to delete my comms”

“Already done,” Axel grabbed his phone and waved it in confirmation. “Nice meeting you, I guess.”

Starscream scoffed.

“No it isn't,” he took a few steps back into the center of the clearing.

Starscream dusted Axel's bootprints off his wing and took a few tentative hops on his toes. Then, in a cacophony of whirring and humming and clicking, Starscream leapt into the air as his body simultaneously began to twist in on itself. Axel stared dumbstruck as a colorful jet blasted away from the forest clearing, only snapping out of it when the slipstream whipped through the trees, severely ruffling his hair.

“Huh,” said Axel, barely able to hear himself over his ears ringing. “Okay.”

~~

Axel stumbled through the back door of his house as the sun began to set. He made himself a microwave dinner as quietly as possible and brought it to his room to eat. As he ate he worked on his digital homework and managed to finish it with good time. He then disposed of his dinner mess and reorganized his paper homework. He spun a maple leaf in his fingers as he got his small collection of leaves ready to be pressed. It was nice to be completely on top of his assignments, for once.

When Axel had done the rest of his nightly tasks he got ready for bed and settled in with his script. Whispering, he went line by line.

He barely got to scene 6 when his mom walked in.

“Hi Axel, just checking in,” his mom stood in the doorway, “you're not trying to stay up late reading, are you?”

“It's only eight thirty mom,” whined Axel “I still have half an hour, I'm practicing.”

“Oh,” his mom took a step into the room before stopping. “Have you finished your homework?”

“This is homework,” said Axel, “but other than that, yes.”

“Well, that's good,” his mom shuffled awkwardly. “Don't stay up all night.”

“Wasn't planning on it.”

“Are you sure you're not just making it worse?” his mom asked, almost at a whisper. “I just think you're focusing a little too much on something… unimportant.”

“If I don't do this work then there's no one to do it if something goes wrong,” grumbled Axel. “We've been over this.”

“It's just–”

“I'm getting extra credit in English regardless of what I'm doing,” hissed Axel. “And I'm going to bed right after I'm done.”

“I just think you're paying too much attention to this,” his mom said in a motherly tone. “Couldn't you focus on something more, useful?”

Axel glared at his mom. He could hear his script crumple in his hands. He took a sharp breath through his nose.

“Get out of my room,”

“I'm sorry Axel, it's–”

“Get. Out.”

“Try to keep it down,” said his mom, with a worried smile. “We all need to get our sleep.”

“I’ve been doing that.” said Axel through clenched teeth. “Get out.”

She left the door cracked open. Axel debated for a second before sliding out of his bed to close it. He briefly leaned out of his doorway to look at his mom walking down the hall.

“You don't go to bed till eleven!” Shouted Axel, before slowly closing his door. He couldn't slam it or the doorknob would fall off.

Chapter Text

Starscream couldn't believe it. He could not believe it. No one could make it through multiple insipient plans without noticing one in use. And yet, the other Decepticons had, for some reason, thought that he wouldn't notice that they had started assigning him unimportant stations to keep him out of the way.

It had all the telltale signs. The secluded location, the lack of backup, the fact that they kept asking him to come back to base without doing anything. Starscream knew Megatron preferred a blunt approach within his army, but he could have at least tried to hide what was happening.

Well, two could play at that game. It would just be a matter of waiting for a plan to go axel-up, and then sitting back and watching the resulting oil fire. The only question would be what to do in the meantime. Maybe he could speed the process up somewhat, there were plenty of ways to make himself needed, and then he could watch everything fall apart when he wasn’t allowed to be around. It would mainly be an issue of actually getting people to acknowledge his plan, which might be difficult with the current base atmosphere, but should be doable as long as he didn’t run into–

“Oh, Soundwave, funny meeting you here,” Starscream cursed internally.

“Current location: inside base,” replied Soundwave in his usual inflection. “Soundwave: could say the same.”

“I meant in the barracks,” elaborated Starscream. “I rarely see you down here, considering you have a private room.”

“Starscream: also has private room,” stated Soundwave. “Reminder: Starscream has been temporarily relieved of commanding duties, due to repeated sabotage attempts.”

“That’s not why I’m down here,” Starscream had forgotten about that. “Sometimes I like to sleep in the barracks with the other seekers, for team building”

That last statement was only partially a lie. The commander's rooms were all built close together, which subtracted from their privacy quite a bit. 

And Megatron snored.

It really was a sad state of affairs when the seekers barracks were one of the quieter locations on base.

“So, what brings you down here?” Starscream could easily find himself at an information deficit as long as he was basically in exile. He would need to find a more reliable source than pestering Soundwave.

“Starscream’s location: previously unknown,” announced Soundwave. “Starscream’s location: vital information, it prevents accidents.”

“Ah,” sputtered Starscream. “Well, now that you know I’m here… how was today’s raid?”

“Today’s raid: acceptable success,” Soundwave announced. “Allocated rations: remain steady.”

“Well, that’s good,” he needed to continue the conversation somehow, “I couldn’t do much from where I was stationed, but I have discovered that the Autobots have created a program to connect to human communication devices, perhaps something you could look into. 

Soundwave’s mind reading was nearly impossible to detect if you didn’t catch it when it was activated. Being a cautious mech, Starscream immediately felt the faint buzz of his frame being targeted by the ability. He took the initiative to move a couple memories to an encoded repository. This earned him a slight glare.

“What?” This had happened before, of course. “How would you like it if someone started poking around in your file directory?”

“Concern: unfounded,” said Soundwave. “Query: who is Axel?”

Starscream flinched. How did…

Oh.

It would have been nice to know that the contact required mutual deletion an hour ago. Well, that was how it worked normally, Starscream just forgot. Or maybe he remembered, and had just double encrypted the memory, it was hard to tell sometimes. But, what was done was done, Soundwave was too smart to completely brush off.

“Ah, well, the program I mentioned is meant for the human communication devices, it just connects directly to comms,” Starscream reorganized his files to better support his story. “I encountered a human in the woods, and coerced him into allowing me to use his. I deemed it unsafe to eliminate him directly, to avoid unnecessary human attention in the area while we are stationed here”

“Query: direct confirmation, opposed to indirect searching?”

“It was a juvenile human, so his disappearance would draw more attention,” Starscream sighed like this was obvious. It was admittedly a bit of a stretch. “he was easy enough to coerce, and if he goes back on his word now it would be easier to dispose of him in a less suspicious manner.”

“Explanation: acceptable, acknowledged,” Soundwave politely ignored Starscream's sigh of relief. “Query: designation Axel?”

That was an interesting question. Why would he…

“It's a placeholder,” said Starscream. “There are a couple default names that are deemed ‘human enough.’ I'm guessing it's to allow more civilian connections without putting them at risk.”

And that statement would be easy to disprove if Soundwave managed to get access to a human’s communicator. (Axel had called his a ‘phone.’ was that a singular instance or the collective name of the device?) 

But, Starscream had just come into a lot of relatively unmonitored free time. One anonymous pointer to the Autobots and the discrepancy could be corrected, he just had to do it before Soundwave had the opportunity to check. Perhaps he could get some use out of his probation-isolation yet.

“Acknowledged,” stated Soundwave, before starting to walk off without another word

“Hold on a kilk Soundwave,” Starscream subtly blocked his path. “Doesn't your little ability have a heavy energy drain? I've noticed you using it more, do we have the means?”

“Energy drain: significant, accounted for,” Soundwave subtly tilted his helm at Starscream. “Starscream: priority surveillance, reduces risk.”

It was impressive how Soundwave managed to sound smug, barely altering his voice. Starscream glared at him, but declined to comment. He continued to glare at him as Soundwave left down the hallway without another word. It was rare for Starscream to win these types of arguments, and they both knew it. Especially with this level of preparation, it was best to just let it drop. 

~~

They had definitely scheduled his trial placeholder positioning during when Starscream had been relieved of his command. And, loathe to admit it, it was cleverer than some other attempts to keep him in line. Not knowing the exact nature of the plan, Starscream’s best guess was that they were waiting for him to become overwhelmed by the tedium, and then he would be begging for better assignments on his knees. It was an attrition play, one that a seeker would be ill equipped to handle unprepared. It was disappointing that they thought so lowly of him, but at least they had done a modicum of research. 

And so, his plan remained the same. Starscream just needed to find ways to entertain himself while he was waiting for the crash and burn that would let him back into the ranks without a hit on his assignment quality. There would be no sabotaging anything now, not with his authority stripped. Starscream started an encrypted list of things to do. 

First, he needed to send an anonymous pointer to the Autobots to update their program. This would cover his lie.

Second, he would like to know exactly who suggested this punishment. It seemed better thought out than anything that Megatron would come up with on his own, and Soundwave seemed more pleased by the plan rather than proud of it. The investigation would be difficult, but that was what made it a good choice as a distraction.

Third, Starscream had been recommended some media he hadn’t had the time to properly look through, which might be good for filling a few empty hours.

The list was worryingly small, but Starscream was sure that he could find some way of filling it farther. Especially if he started a sub list for the investigation and the media. It was also a lot more sitting based work than Starscream was comfortable with, he was always careful to work an active task in his personalized schedules, otherwise he found himself getting jittery and more ill-tempered than usual. 

It was the solitude that was the problem, Starscream knew he could successfully keep himself sane with conversation, if only because he paced when he talked. Perhaps that was goal number four, convince the other Decepticons that someone else should be stationed with him. And, if all else failed, he did have a strut up on starting conversations with the local populace. 

Speaking of the local populace, Starscream had managed to extort a video file from Axel. Perhaps he should start with that, considering he already had it downloaded on his processor. From the snippets of it he had gotten, it sounded interesting enough. And, it gave Thundercracker an extra day to procure any of the movie files that he had been insisting Starscream take a look at. 

~~

The human datanet being free had been interesting at first, but it seemed they recouped the monetary loss by making it obtuse to download from. Paired with the fact that it was discouraged for the average mech to connect directly to open databases for safety purposes, several Decepticons had come to the conclusion that it was a waste of time. Starscream was not one of those Decepticons, a good database could be incredibly valuable at the right times, and since the humans had no internal data connectors their external technology was easy enough to appropriate. This foresight often led to staying up multiple nights with a modified datapad, looking for useful information. 

Tonight was working out to be one of those nights.

It started small, as usual. Starscream had quickly determined that human theater, or the theater he had, used more abstract language than usual. As he was researching how to work through that, he had gotten distracted. The play involved a lot of treachery and murder, something Starscream was at least partially familiar with. But, while thinking on the topic, Starscream's processor landed back on Axel.

Axel had evidently been planning a little duplicity of his own, although Starscream doubted he had the ambition to follow through. Still, the parameters given provided an interesting challenge. Humans were naturally fragile, so the caveat that the other human, Jamison, had to stay alive to keep the production ongoing certainly gave things to process. And the fact that it had to be discreet too, Axel was quite lucky that his succession was pre-assured. And yet, was he doing anything to place himself as the better choice?

Starscream did make an effort to uncover flaws in Megatron's plans, and while he did sometimes use them for assassination attempts, sometimes it was better to point out the flaws and then gloat when the ignored issues became problems. Axel had rightly complained, but had he complained to the people in charge? And was he doing any other undermining? Starscream had figured out a lot of his treachery on his own, it was interesting seeing the start of it from someone else. Would it develop? 

And how would you go about incapacitating a child? Really, the questions wrote themselves. Perhaps medication, what medicine would a child likely take?

“Hey, Screamer,” whispered a voice from the berth pedeside to his, “if you're going to stay up all night, could you do it somewhere else?”

At the same time, the mech at the helmside berth took a different approach, along the lines of kicking the bottom of his own berth and yelling,

“Oy, some of us are trying to defrag here!”

The commotion of which of course inspired annoyed grumbles from the seekers that had claimed the top berths that night, who Starscream had been unable to convince to move. This was, of course, the risk of choosing to sleep in the seeker quarters. 

Normally Starscream would use his authority as air commander to quiet the room down (and also claim top berths,) but since he wasn't allowed to command his troops at the moment, he had less options.

“I'm not helping if you get your pede stuck in the supports again,” muttered Starscream as he opened another search. If any of the other troops couldn’t get in a proper defrag because of the commotion, that wasn’t his fault. 

Starscream queued the search for ‘how much benadryl will kill a child’ for the next morning and decided it was actually time to retire for the night. He shut off his datapad and quickly counted how many people were glaring at him.

Five visible, not bad for a disruption, any more would have probably resulted in a minor revolt, which he wasn’t ready to deal with that night.

Chapter Text

The morning started like any other. 

Wake up at six, stare blankly out the dark window, get dressed. Cook eggs, make sure you cook enough eggs for the whole family, eat.

Axel had already packed for school last night, which was good. Axel was not allowed to wear a decorative scarf and glittery hair clip to school, why did he even have those? Axel put his script in his bag, and also slipped in the scarf and two hair clips when his parents weren't looking.

Almost forget lunch, find out that the bread is moldy, grab five dollars from change jar. The box of protein bars would live another day.

And then the bus was late. Again.

Thankfully the day was clear and crisp. A mid-autumn breeze tickled Axel's face. He was probably still going to be late for history. Axel sighed. Better than rain, still always better than rain.

~~

It wasn't until after he got on the bus that Axel finally got the chance to settle for a minute. He claimed a seat that wouldn't cause problems and got himself properly dressed for the day. And then, when he finally had a minute with nothing else to do, curiosity caught up with him.

Axel started on the app. He checked the permissions (it had location and contacts, nothing else) and looked through the generic options again with a clearer mind. Most of the general app functions were designed with the Autobots in mind, which Axel figured out were one of two robot factions that were currently present on earth. They had both been around for a little while, but it was only a couple days since they had started turning up in Axel's state, which explained why he had never heard of them before yesterday.

It also didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Starscream had mentioned being a part of the opposite faction yesterday. Axel assumed that the use of the app was because Starscream's faction, the Decepticons, didn't seem even slightly committed to human relations. The thought was slightly alarming, but Axel had managed to make it out of his introduction unharmed. 

Next stop was the ol’ reliable, the web browser. Axel was able to actually get some basic information from his search, as opposed to jumping straight into reading random news stories like some kind of historian. Apparently, there were a couple web pages set up specifically for the discussion of the topic, with special asides for people who had just gotten interested in the topic.

There was a lot of discussion regarding government involvement. Axel was still a little young to really be in that ballpark, but he did know the types of situations that ‘government involvement’ would be thrown around. Apparently, the giant robots were on earth as a result of a war. A space war. A space war that they started. (By the way, the robots were aliens and also alive.)

Luckily, for the humans at least, ending up stuck on a hostile planet had managed to cool their war down significantly. They would still meet up and fight every now and again, but the majority of the conflicts involved tactics like spying and strategy, as opposed to wanton destruction. 

Attitude towards humanity ranged from allyship to begrudging acknowledgement. Most fortunately (for humans,) there was a general consensus was that the majority of the human populace was better off alive. They actually seemed to benefit a lot from human structures, power plants especially. Being in the middle of a war meant that they had limited time for construction, and borrowing (or ‘borrowing’) human power meant they could spend more time working on things like death lazers, or helping the locals with highway infrastructure.

Axel paused his reading. He turned away from his phone and watched as the bus driver took a wrong turn. That was annoying, but also normal, it helped Axel settle his nerves.

He was lucky.

He was very, very lucky that his first encounter with a Deception was with one who could think of a reason to keep him alive. Especially since he was alone, Axel wasn't a mechanic or construction worker or scientist, so the only thing left for him to be was a witness, and witnesses had the worst life expectancy out of anyone. Axel realized his hands were shaking, and he willed himself to stop. If he thought about it a little longer, he hadn't just been let go, he had been given an excuse. Even if he doubted his parents would call a search party for him…

Oh, and Axel also figured out the deal with the plane thing. It turned out that all the robots (Cybertronians, calling them robots was actually really rude,) could turn into something. It was usually a vehicle, although some had some more specialty transformations, and they had been able to do it since before they arrived on the planet. While they had always been able to use this ability, it was supposedly a step above running on their home planet, they most often used them on earth as a form of disguise.

Being mechanisms roughly the size of a house, there weren't a lot of ways to avoid standing out, especially if you wanted to. And, even if you were being friendly with humans, sometimes you would prefer to be left alone. There was an interview that explained the process of changing an alt mode, but the, (mech? Axel was pretty sure he read the correct word was mech.) but the mech they interviewed used way too much jargon for Axel to understand. The long and short of it was, they could always be vehicles (and other things,) but now that they were on earth they were earth vehicles (and other things,) which they used to hide when they didn’t want to be noticed. Axel made a mental note to try picking some out in traffic, it seemed like a fun activity.

~~

Axel entered school much wiser, but not about the curriculum. With that fact, the day was very normal. Class to boring class, turn in overdue assignments, continue on.

Mr. Harper, the math teacher and substitute teacher director, actually had the nerve to suggest Axel was intentionally slacking off in math class, And that he could be doing something much more productive with his time if he changed his afterschool project to the mathletics. Axel managed to get out of that confrontation without yelling, barely.

The school lunch was horrible in a way that was impossible to complain about. Axel really wished he could have made himself a sandwich, but he was going to have to hold off on that lunch until his parents went shopping on Saturday now. Hopefully they would remember to buy bread this time, but they often forgot. Maybe he could add it to the list in his mom’s purse without her asking why he was in there…

Axel ate lunch alone that day. Not because he didn’t have anyone to sit with, but because he couldn’t take the tray out of the cafeteria, and the people he sat with had brought lunch from home that day. Axel ate at the end of one of the long tables, listening in to the group he was closest to, but not picking up on any of the words.

The second half of the day was more of the same. Axel was, however, able to get all his homework done in his study hall. Little mercies.

And finally, his monday wednesday friday afterschool arrived. Theater. The word rested in his mind like honey on his tongue. Axel slid inside the theater and settled in one of the stage chairs. The rest of the cast was there too, some in groups, some just waiting for the director. Scripts were being ruffled, but not everyone felt the need to get theirs out at the start anymore. That was good. Dennis, who was playing one of the witches, noticed Axel and slid into the chair next to him.

“Still showing up to the rehearsals?”

“Yes, of course,” grumbled Axel, deciding to prop his feet up on the chair in front of him.

“Right,” Dennis sighed, and leaned back in his chair, “still, it would be nicer if our Banquo showed up.”

“True,” it was Axels turn to sigh. “Do you remember his name?”

“Does anyone?” Dennis tugged his script from his bag and flipped to ‘double double,’ as he’d been calling it. “Some people are saying he’s actually a ghost.”

Axel couldn’t help laughing at that.

“Wow,” muttered Dennis. “If the roles weren’t already cast, I’d put you in the lead from that laugh alone.”

“You’ve already said,” noted Axel. “I almost made it…”

“As you’ve said,” said Dennis. “Are you still trying to curse the production?”

“Mister Harper is already doing that, says we shouldn’t be so superstitious,” Axel glanced at the door, Mr. Harper also was five minutes late. “I’m just making it worse.”

“And you’re doing it on purpose?” asked Dennis

“Yeah, hold on a minute,” Axel stood up on his chair. “Macbeth! Macbeth!”

“Stop!” shouted one of the more dedicated cast members

“Are you trying to summon him like a ghost?!” yelled one of the less serious cast, probably Macduff

“Care to join me?” asked Axel, with a smirk.

“Might as well, If I’m being honest,” answered Dennis. “The production’s cursed anyway, you’ve seen the cast.”

“That’s normal incompetence I think,” groaned Axel. “how the hell do you undercast Macbeth?”

“Maybe Banquo really is a ghost, to enact vengeance for the director being so underqualified,”

“That’s the plot of Hamlet, I think,”

“It’s definitely the plot of one of them, Shakespeare did a lot,” Dennis paused to think. “Unless I’m thinking of A Christmas Carol, that’s not Shakespeare.”

“I think it’s at least the inciting incident–” Mr. Harper finally arrived, with his kids in tow.

Mr. Harper, as well as being the least qualified teacher to take over directing the school play, also had two kids. Because the universe was unfair, both of those kids had important jobs in the play as well.

His daughter was known around school for having a confusing name. She went by Polly if you liked her, Paul-Aye if you didn't like her, and Pallet if you liked her even less. She was also the student director, which gave her the most authority over how the play was run, usually surpassing the teacher director due to the learning opportunity. Axel usually called her Polly, because she was the last deciding factor in casting, and he didn't want to get kicked out of Theater.

And then there was Jamison. The less said about him the better. 

“Sorry we're late everyone!” Announced Polly, striding on to the stage. “as you may know, it's mathletics week, and our adult supervision is overbooked.”

“Paul-Aye.” stated Mr. Harper.

“Despite that, we're here now,” announced Polly. “We're focusing on the act one problem scenes on the stage today. Anyone not in these scenes can rehearse quietly amongst themselves, or leave when they see fit. Please don't force understudies to double up.”

“Well, that's that I suppose,” said Dennis, to Axel. “Do you want to help me do the séance with the other witches?”

“When you aren't on, sure,” Replied Axel

“We've only got two scenes in act one,” stated Dennis. “And we've got scene one down.”

“Yeah, but you can't get through scene three without at least one of you slipping away yet,” rebutted Axel. “Plus, you've got the slackers with you.”

“Hey, Puzzle’s pretty good.”

“Yeah, but they're not even the original cast,” said Axel. “And you're on! We'll talk séances when you're done.”

Axel hassled Dennis onto the stage, and settled back into his chair. It was going to be a long rehearsal. 

~~

If Axel knew how right he was, he wouldn't have stuck around. They had actually managed to get all the witches on the stage this time, which was good. Normally they had to go find Amy outside and end her smoke breaks, or pry Lissa off of Brett so one of them could act. 

No, today the issue was worse. It was Jamison.

It was normal. It was so normal that it was the reason they were running the scene. It was just that they usually had more trouble with the witches so Axel could ignore it. 

The witches started the scene. And they were great for the timeframe. Dennis was dedicated, he had to be to play a witch, and since he always managed to get at least one other witch on the stage everyone knew their lines. Then, when they got to the end of them, there was a pause. Polly glanced at her script.

“Enter, Macbeth, Banquo!” she sighed. “Is Troy in?”

Puzzle didn't say anything, but they poked their head out of the curtain and shook it no. Polly sighed again.

“We'll talk about that later,” Polly looked at the stage, where everyone was starting to look impatient. “Why… Jamie! Your queue! You are Macbeth!”

Puzzle looked around backstage, before poking their head out again.

“He's outside again, I'll go get him.”

“Wait–” and then Puzzle left. Polly sighed again and glanced at Axel. “You're covering for him the next time he pulls this stunt.”

“Paul-ey!” gasped Mr. Harper, talking like he hadn't barely been paying attention to the room before. “Jamison is your brother! Don't talk about him like that!”

“I'm just saying,” snipped Polly. “We can't ruin everyone else's chances because he refuses to think about this production!”

“Paul-ey.” Stated Mr. Harper. “Stop.”

Polly settled down with a grumble. And the show went on.

The show ground to a halt three minutes later. The witches ran their lines again, (they were fantastic when they showed up,) and Jamison had been found. Puzzle and Jamison trudged onto the stage with only mild pushing, and then it was Jamison's line. Everyone stood in silence.

“Line?” Asked Jamison.

No one answered. Axel tensed up, and then glared daggers at Jamison.

Line? They were three months into the production! Axel clenched the ends of his scarf to stop himself from saying anything. He wanted to stay on the directing family's good side, even if he hated their son.

“line? It's your first line in the play!” yelled Polly, becoming deserving of her respectful name. “It's literally a single sentence! You've had a month!”

Jamison didn't respond except to stand more expectantly. It was Mr. Harper who answered.

“Paul-ey!” He took the director's script that Polly was holding. 

Polly scowled, but said nothing. She leaned back in her chair and sighed. From experience, she wouldn't be allowed to direct for the rest of the scene, and sometimes a little into the next.

“Okay, the line is–”

Axel whispered along, under his breath.

“So fine and fair a day I have not seen.”

Puzzle picked up from there

“How far is ’t called to — What are these, So withered, and so wild in their attire, That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ Earth And yet are on ’t? — Live you? Or are you aught that man may question? You seem to understand me. By each at once her choppy finger laying upon her skinny lips. You should be women, and yet your beards forbid me to interpret That you are so.”

And so the scene continued, with Mr. Harper reading out each of Jamison's lines before him, and Axel reciting quietly in tandem. When the witches left, Axel left with them, to practice outside. Axel was grateful for the distraction, it allowed him to stay calm for the rest of rehearsal.

~~

Axel did not stay calm when he left school. There wasn't a point, and he would need to be calm again when he got home anyway.

Axel already knew he wouldn't get home early enough to eat dinner at the table on rehearsal nights, so he took his time wandering the forest. He didn't have any homework either, (little mercies,) so as long as he got home before 9 he was free to wander as he pleased.

Axel found a good stick. He swung it at trees as he passed, barely keeping track of the way out of the woods. He knew where to go. He often wandered the woods during summer, so he had a wide range of knowing where he was. As long as he didn't hop any fences he could find his way home.

Normally, it took half an hour for Axel to calm himself down, tops. Something about today was different though. The soup of thoughts in Axel's brain were boiling, and even hitting things with a stick wasn't helping. Axel started to growl, making flashier passes with his weapon.

It would be better to practice with someone else. He had a big swordfight at the end of the play, so…

He would have a big swordfight.

Axel swung his stick at a tree. Hard. It snapped. Axel grabbed the longer half and swung again. He kept going until his stick couldn't break anymore, and then he grabbed another.

~~

When Axel was done it took him a minute to figure out where he was. While he gasped for air he looked for any landmarks that he recognized. When he couldn't see any, he picked a direction and walked. Eventually, he saw a split tree that could be a marker.

There was only one proper cliff in Axel's stretch of woods. It wasn't dangerously steep, it was still basically a hill, but it was actually difficult to climb back over if you fell down it. It also made a great direction marker, because Axel had to know how to get home from it from both sides. Making a guess from the location of the tree, Axel started walking towards the cliff to see if he was right.

Axel’s footing got more confident as he walked, which was a good sign. He was sure where he was now, but since he was here, he might as well have a little cliff time. The air was good, and the wind was great next to the cliff. Also, Axel still wasn't sure if he was calm, or if he was just tired.

The cliff was exactly where Axel thought it would be. He still froze when he arrived. Partly because he didn't want to have to walk the long way around the cliff, so he didn't want to fall off. But mostly because Starscream was there.

Axel stood in silence. He wasn't sure that Starscream had seen him yet, and he looked distracted. Perhaps he could sneak away and pretend he was never there.

Starscream turned his head to look at Axel. Axel somehow managed to freeze again, he wasn't sure if he could use his legs. Starscream looked briefly surprised, before his face settled again.

“I see you're using your eyes this time,” said Starscream, sarcastically.

Axel had had a long day. While he would normally pride himself over the control of his emotions, he had stopped being able to do that an hour ago. Axel started crying.

Chapter Text

The day promised ‘scouting.’ 

There was no reason to scout in this forest, and it also wasn't Starscream's job. This was an incredibly petty way to get him off base, which told Starscream two things.

First, it couldn't be Shockwave who was proposing this plan. They were too soon into testing to logically know if keeping him out of missions was a good idea. and Shockwave wouldn't initiate further efforts to get Starscream out of the way until that was confirmed effective.

Second, while Soundwave wasn't suspect for the initial plan, his cassettes were now on the radar. They were definitely the most impulsively minded of the potential Decepticons. and while they didn't have the power to propose their own plans, they could occasionally get Soundwave to advocate for some plans that he vetted first. They also consisted of the majority of what the Decepticons considered scouts, which had to count for something.

If it was the cassettes, that was a problem. Soundwave was very protective of them, and he was one of the few mechs that could cause serious problems for Starscream, not counting Megatron himself. If he wanted any retribution, he would need to be careful.

That was, of course, if it actually was the cassettes. Starscream was still pressed for information, and he couldn't get any more of it hiding out in the woods. 

It had only been an earth week, he couldn't let them win yet. Even if the solitude was starting to wear on him.

What made it worse was that it was also proving impossible to contact the Autobots anonymously. Starscream wasn't an expert on communications, that was Soundwave’s job, but he did know a couple clever methods of hiding his signature. And of course he knew about the risks of calling someone who you didn't know, that had practically been soldered into his processor, but he had thought the Autobots were more trusting than that. Starscream could probably thank Soundwave for this caution, if any mech could figure out how to weaponize an anonymous signal, it would be him. This wouldn't be anything new, Soundwave had an annoying tendency to ruin Starscream's plans, seemingly just by existing. 

But that made it another problem that Starscream couldn't solve by sitting around in the woods. He was beginning to doubt the cassettes now, this punishment was shaping out to be aggravatingly effective. Maybe he was looking in the wrong place by looking at the other generals? Sure, the other Decepticon troops could be real rubber-wires, but surely someone could be hiding the processing power to think this up. Maybe one, or both, of the triple-changers. Starscream had always suspected that they could be clever if they ever put their helms to it.

And then he was entirely back to square one! If only he could fly. Starscream usually thought best when flying, especially if he was able to pick a direction and go as fast as he pleased. But, even if he hadn't been assigned to the woods, leisure flying was a gross misuse of resources. While his alt didn't work exactly like the earth jet it was modeled after, the energy needed for flight was still no joke. And root flying was out of the question, both because he could be spotted, and the heavy use of anti-gravs was even more of a power sink. 

Starscream eventually resolved himself to sitting, finding a gentle cliff that somehow perfectly fit his wings. Well, he thought it might be a small cliff, the standards on this planet were tiny, perhaps it was a very steep hill. Whatever it was, it was serving almost perfectly as a chair, with some exception for the dirt.

Starscream settled down and pulled out a datapad that had some human media stored on it, for easy watching. He could theoretically watch straight from his memory, but that required a lot of fiddling with his optics, and Starscream had been strongly advised that human media wasn't formatted correctly for it. No matter, their media, much like everything else, was tiny. Starscream figured that he could probably fit a good half of their archives on a single pad, barring any lumps of severely unoptimized code. Not that he would try, those lumps worried him, and the only Decepticon who had enough processing power to help work around them was Soundwave. 

Starscream would never ask for Soundwave's help with a passion project, he would be laughed out of the room! That wouldn't stop him from trying, of course, but he would need an incentive to get everyone else on board. Now, however, he would have to settle for whatever he could find the time to download.

Which essentially meant, it was time for Starscream to watch Macbeth.

~~

Two and a half hours later, the recording was done. Starscream stored the data pad and looked around. Eventually he resolved himself to staring at the sky, watching the clouds pass him as he tried to compute what he had seen.

Half an hour was a lot of time to omit, it seemed a bit inaccurate to round up to three hours. And, while three hours was a lot of time for a human, (probably, at least,) it really wasn't all that much. 

Starscream also couldn't help but notice the entire production was displayed on a screen and then re-recorded, with some faint gasps heard from behind the camera during certain scenes. He was pretty sure this would break some type of data protection law, not that he would tell anyone. Data protection rules were often stingy, and Starscream wasn't sure that humans even had them anyway. It wasn't like they could copy a person without permission like you could on Cybertron, and most of the other laws had been branched off of those original ones to be greedy. And what did Starscream care about human laws anyway? it wasn't like he could tell anyone.

…

It wasn't like Starscream believed in ghosts. Even then…

Even with the excuse of storytelling, a lot of what happened in the play could be attributed to glitches, or whatever the human equivalent was. Not all of them, the ‘weird sisters’ or whatever they were called definitely had something else going on.

…

Why was this bothering him so much? Any similarities were minimal, and written with humans in mind. Like the concept of killing someone in their sleep. Cybertronians had two types of rest. Defragmentation, which had to happen regularly to prevent processor strain, and recharge, which needed a special device and occurred a lot less. Both of these rest methods were easy to snap out of, especially if one had safeguards in place, like Megatron did. The fact that Starscream was getting bothered by more inconsequential parallels was a waste of time. 

Although, he did have a lot of time to waste right now…

…

Were his plans destined to fail? Even if he succeeded, would his victory collapse like it had in the play? Once the war was over, the leader would be definite. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that he had felt the need to get an early start. Maybe he wasn't moving fast enough. 

…

Maybe he should continue to blame Megatron for the majority of his problems, and Soundwave for the rest.

…

What Starscream really needed right now was to hard reset his processor, all this recursion couldn't be healthy.

The humans occasionally partook in a special type of sleep called a ‘nap,’ which was seemingly a smaller portion of sleep taken at odd hours. While human sleep was strange, being both a method of physical recuperation and mental consolidation at the same time, some of the mechanics were relatively similar to cybertronian methods of rest. They all required shutting one’s conscious functions off, for one. 

The war didn't really allow for experimenting with novel methods of rest, and life pre-war was structured with strict rest cycles that couldn't be changed. Well, perhaps it was different for the Autobots. They had been very buddy-buddy with the humans, and their pre-war lifestyles were far from the top priority of Deception research. Irregardless, Starscream realized that he had just been offered a unique opportunity to experiment, and decided to take it.

It would be a bit strange to defrag while sitting up, but that was what experiments were for. There was also no reason to waste energy looking for a better place, leaning up against the cliff was surprisingly comfortable, and the amount of cybertronian sized clearings in the forest could affectionately be considered sparse. So, Starscream settled himself down as best as he was able, and set a timer to rouse himself in good time. And then he became the first Deception to ever take a nap.

~~

It was not Starscream's timer that roused him. He had been resting with safeguards, just in case someone tried to contact him. That being the case, he came out of his impromptu rest cycle not from a comm call, but from the approaching sound of snapping branches. Finding his processing properly cleared, and being fully alert from being woken up unexpectedly, Starscream was able to give his full attention to the offending sound. Or, actually, sounds.

The snapping branches was accompanied by the recognizable sounds of rage. Those weren't noises that should be ignored, so Starscream gave them a little more of his attention. They weren't directed at him, thankfully, and even then they sounded distinctly human, so not really a threat.

Starscream had never been explicitly told to abstain from interacting with humans. Most humans were not really considered dangerous, especially not any civilian humans who might be found in a random forest with nothing going on in it. While the Decepticons occasionally tried to ally with political leaders, or with particularly notable individuals, most civilians were an afterthought to be ignored until they made themselves known. No one was really worried about humans without any power behind them becoming a problem, and giving them the ability to be a problem seemed like it would be a bad idea. The thing that the other Decepticons failed to account for was that Starscream could be more focused on a plan's availability than its rationality, especially when he was being denied other options.

Having the assistance of some humans still probably wouldn't be all that helpful to his cause. But they were better than nothing. It also helped that he could threaten them with his size alone, a rare novelty in this conflict. And perhaps, because he had been mostly removed from his Deception command and duties, he could try a sympathy play.

Starscream had never had a chance to try a sympathy play before. By the time they had become a known strategy, the Decepticon ranks had become too suspicious for it to work internally. The Decepticons had technically tried to use the techniques on humans before, but in Starscream's opinion they hadn't kept up the ruse long enough after it worked. That wasn't what he had complained about at the time, there were other flaws he felt were more pertinent, and they were already known well enough in the area that it would be easy to get caught. But, if someone thought you were friends then there was a chance you could get them to do something just by asking nicely. 

The human that was in the vicinity had stopped yelling and breaking sticks. Whatever it was they were doing now, it was too quiet for Starscream to hear. That wasn't saying much, the only reason they were in hearing range before was because they were being particularly loud. They might be wandering away now, but Starscream didn't see any reason to go looking for them. It was a lot easier to catch an animal if you let it come to you anyway. 

Playing along with human whims might be fun for a little while. It would be more to do than sitting around in the woods doing nothing. Although admittedly, the bar was practically in orbit at this point. If he played his chips right he could probably find a way for them to help with his current predicament as well. The humans that the Autobots kept around could find ways of being destructive nuisances sometimes, and Starscream was pretty sure the ones who hung around them the most were just overzealous civilians. 

Starscream's focus was once again drawn to the human in the vicinity. They were walking closer now, their approach clear in the crackle of fallen leaves they were walking over. Starscream kept himself still to keep from making noise and double checked that he was currently using a human vocabulary. The best way to test a theory was to test it, and the best way to do that was to start doing it. The human paused briefly, before they started walking more pointedly towards where Starscream was sitting. 

Starscream pointedly looked away from the approach. He wasn't sure that humans were aware how good cybertronian hearing was, and the less it looked like he had been waiting for someone to show up, the better.

The human entered the area and abruptly stopped. Starscream waited a klik to give them a little time to think before turning to look at them.

It was Axel.

Maybe this wood wasn't frequented by a lot of humans. It was a bit out of the way, so maybe Axel was one of the few humans who benefitted from walking through. 

He hadn't walked directly into Starscream's chassis this time, which was an improvement. 

“I see you're using your eyes this time,”

noted Starscream.

And then Axel started crying.

Chapter Text

It wasn't actually that strange for Axel to be crying. It was obviously out of stress, and if you managed to stumble across a Deception commander two days in a row, not being stressed could be considered an insult.

Starscream used Axel’s obvious distraction to consider how he wanted their interaction to go. It would have been easier if he were working with someone new, but he had to account for any expectations that he had set yesterday as well. He couldn't just start acting friendly, then his intentions would be clear. He would need to be extra careful though, Axel was an actor, and seemed quite proud of the fact. While Starscream didn't consider himself a bad actor, it would be harder than usual to get any act to work on someone who knew what to look for.

Axel seemed to realize he was sobbing hysterically, and tried to solve the problem by starting to laugh hysterically instead. Again.

It was a strategy Starscream could respect. At least, coming from an adolescent. Due to the similarity of the sounds, they probably came from the same system. And, judging by how it seemed to occur quickly, at least one of the actions, probably crying, was involuntary. By laughing, Axel was essentially running a simple override. It was still a glaringly obvious mask, but it was an impressive feat for an organic.

“Fuck!” Yelled Axel, gesturing wildly. “Whatsethe Fucking odds!!”

That was startling, but Starscream chose not to say anything. Much better to see if Axel had anything more to say. 

“You’re not looking for me, right?!” Choked Axel, angrily pointing at Starscream. “My luck is bad, right?!”

“No…” muttered Starscream. He giggled a little. “Why would I? I completely failed to delete your comm code. Which I will take the blame for, of course.”

“Wh, you, what?!?” Yelped Axel, before regaining his proverbial balance. “I know what you are now! I know what your group does!”

“So?” asked Starscream, before realizing what he had been given. “The affairs of my ‘group’ are dead code, so to speak. If you are willing, any of our meetings can stay between you and me.”

“What!?” yelped Axel, retreating slowly toward the trees.

“From the sources you learned about my ‘group,’ I’m sure you could tell that I am not always… completely, eh, on the same line as them?” Starscream repositioned himself to look at Axel directly, with slow calculated movements. If he scared Axel off it would make any future conversations much more difficult. “Also, I will admit, our conversation yesterday has left me… mildly intrigued."  

“How can I trust you?” Announced Axel. He was posturing, he had made it to the tree line and seemed to think he might be able to escape into the woods if the conversation went wrong. He was wrong.

Starscream took a klik to reflect. He couldn’t get any farther into this conversation if he didn’t know where he wanted it to go. He would definitely play into Axel’s goals for a while, he didn’t have enough information to work on his own, and it would build trust. The main issue he was dealing with now was that Axel was rightly scared of him.

Perhaps it would be best to get more comfortable with each other slowly. Starscream was confident that he had both the time and the knowledge to help Axel with his problems. That would also serve double duty, making him easier to trust, and giving him something to do. It would also be a good code-tickler that Starscream wasn’t fighting an uphill battle to get information for. Unfortunately, in order to start working on that problem, Starscream needed to be trusted enough in this conversation for more to happen.

“Okay, I’ll be the first to admit, I’m a difficult mech to trust…” Starscream rested himself on the top of the cliff, so he was as close to eye-level with Axel as possible. “What can I do for you, to prove my honesty?”

“I, you…” Axel was wearing a brightly colored scarf, tied in a way that allowed it to flow dramatically. He clutched at this band of fabric, seemingly to ground himself. “Y-yesterday, you let me go because I was a kid… would you do it again, or…”

Oh, so that was it.

Starscream was certain that humans were a species that protected their young until adulthood, but sapience always clouded instinctual data. So Axel thought that he needed to give a good reason to be kept around, and didn’t believe his life was a good enough reason. In most circumstances, that idea would keep him safe, especially around a Decepticon. Starscream could work with that, he just had to convince Axel that he would enjoy spending time solving his problems. But, it would be best to lead into that. First, Starscream had to convince Axel to continue having this conversation, perhaps letting his guard down enough that the question could be raised. Maybe he could find something for Axel to do?

“So, you’re afraid I’ll hurt you, eh?” Starscream tried his best to sound friendly. “Perhaps you would feel safer if I asked you for a favor?”

“What kind of favor?” asked Axel, sounding like he already expected that the request was something like removing a limb.

Starscream paused, both to think things through, and to give Axel time to breathe. He was on the right path with the favor, but if he asked for something too big then everything would go straight off course again. Maybe he could use Axel’s information sources? It would be convenient to have any intelligence that he didn’t need to beg for. But, Axel hadn’t used those sources in their meeting yesterday, maybe they needed something they couldn’t get in the woods. Although, Starscream couldn’t imagine why that service wouldn’t be included on his stand-in communicator. 

His communicator…

“I mentioned how I forgot to delete your comm code,” Starscream considered pointing for emphasis, but decided against it. “The program we used for it, does it allow some type of communication with the developers?”

Axel quickly checked his device. 

“Yes, I think so.”

“Good,” said Starscream. “I have a request to make, and you need to make it.”

“What is it?” Asked Axel, fear slowly melting from his voice. “Am I allowed to do anything else?”

“I need you to strongly recommend the use of placeholder names for anonymous humans,” said Starscream. “You are allowed to say anything else to make it seem like you, within reason.”

“Oh, ok,” Axel quickly typed up a message. “I'm going to send it to you first, so you can make sure I'm not saying anything suspicious.”

“Oh,” chirped Starscream, pleasantly surprised. “Have you done something like this before?”

“No, that's why I'm doing it,” Axel sent a text based comm, which Starscream accepted without reading. “I'm assuming you know what we're doing?”

Starscream didn't answer, but he nodded slightly. It was working!

~~

It was working incredibly well. It was almost like Axel wanted to trust Starscream, or at least also wanted to have a suspicious conversation. Starscream was actually starting to feel a little nervous, with how well the plan was going. Normally, this was when the plan started failing, right? He was half expecting someone to start shooting at him.

Starscream opened Axel’s test note.

To whom it may concern,

Hello, my name is Axel,

I found this app, and wanted to see if it was legit. I also have some suggestions that might be good.

I noticed you were in a war, but you made this app because you wanted to talk with humans. I thought it might be safer if any humans that arent already known about could have a fake name in the chat. 

Also, I cannot figure out how to send files. I wanted to show you a picture of a cool bird I saw.

“Hm,” Starscream stopped leaning on the cliff and sat up. “I have a few suggestions.”

“That’s why I sent you the message!” said Axel, taking the change in positions as a sign to come sit on the cliff ledge. “What are they?”

“First, do you actually have a picture of a bird?” asked Starscream. “The Autobots could ask to see it, and if you don’t have one, your cover would be blown.”

“I do actually!” Axel started kicking his legs, as he seemed inclined to do when they weren't planted. “A hawk caught a squirrel on the basketball court a few days ago, and I managed to get some good pictures.”

“Okay, now,” Starscream shifted a little to try and look Axel in the face again. “What is an app?”

“It’s… what you call a program on a phone?”

“Is it short for, application?” asked Starscream.

“I have no clue,” Axel shrugged.

“As long as it’s something you would say…” muttered Starscream, before saying, “I think we need a reason that the fake names would be safer. That would make the message more convincing.”

“Well, what reason would the fake names be safer?” Axel asked, tilting his head. “Oh, an-d! Are we asking for fake names like other humans' names, or…”

Axel waved his hand in a circle, like he expected that to be a suitable end to the sentence. It wasn’t, but Starscream could work with it.

“Well, the reason that I am trying to set this up is because Soundwave assumed your name was fake when he found your comm code. Him not knowing, or thinking he doesn't know who you are called keeps him from looking you up on any human databases.” Starscream cycled his vents in a huff of hot air. “Of course, that is slightly too specific for you to know about. Let’s just say that having fake, more cybertronian sounding names would make any human looking to communicate harder to locate if their comms get found. It might also be used to trick people into thinking the code belongs to a soldier instead.”

“Okay, I’m going to make that a more hesitant suggestion than a statement,” said Axel. “Anything else?”

“No, and good job,” Starscream paused to consider, before continuing. “Why do you want to send them a picture of a bird?”

“I don't, really,” said Axel. “I just found the file directory hard to use, and I have a picture of a bird…”

“Having your own suggestion will make it seem authentic. And you can use it to avoid answering questions about my recommendation," Starscream let out a proud trill, before realising that Axel wouldn’t understand it. “Are you sure you haven't done something like this before? You seem to have an astute understanding of the techniques.”

“Well, I… I’ve read stories,” muttered Axel. “I’ve read stories where this happens, and they do what I did, or forget to do it. It’s fun to think what you’d do differently, or why your character would do what they’re doing…”

“Theater again?” Starscream moved to settle himself against the cliff, his helm resting precariously close to Axel. “It seems to be serving you well.”

“You think so!?” Axel chirped, practically vibrating with excitement. 

“Of course,” Said Starscream. He paused for a nanoklik before continuing. “I did end up watching Macbeth…” 

Starscream couldn’t place exactly what human system would make the noise that Axel made at that point, but it signalled the conversation finally settling into something casual.

~~

“...and he hasn’t even been memorising his lines!”

Discussion of Macbeth quickly turned into complaining. Axel was weak to getting an opportunity to say his piece on the state of his theater production, and Starscream couldn’t blame him. There were certain types of mismanagement that deserved a reward, ideally in the form of a hostile takeover. While Axel didn’t quite have the social positioning to put himself in charge of the production, he was in a place where he could cause some serious upsets.

“Well, it certainly sounds like Jamison is ill suited to his position.” Starscream pointedly angled his helm towards Axel. “are you doing anything to help emphasize it? Surely the rest of the cast would appreciate any changes that would be made?”

Axel sighed and started playing noncommittally with his phone. Starscream waited, this was clearly a sour subject.

“I have… tried,” admitted Axel, listlessly. “I complained to Polly, and she told me to tell her dad. When he didn’t do anything, I tried to go all the way up the school board. Apparently Jamison’s mom is on pta, and runs most of the extracurriculars." Axel practically deflated at this point. “But, I barely even got that far before my parents told me that I was taking it too seriously. They don’t like me doing theater, if I stopped doing it they’d probably sign me up for baseball or something…”

“So you’ve already exhausted all of the nobler methods. It’s not surprising that those have failed, as corrupted by nepotism as the system is,” Starscream leaned his helm as far back on the ground as he could, making sure to look at Axel. “But, the thing about corrupt systems is that the corrupting parties expect you to keep using them. You can’t solve a crooked problem playing by the rules. But if you play a little more underhanded–”

“I don’t want to get in trouble.” interjected Axel.

Starscream paused again, there was no point in rushing this conversation. He hadn’t worked in the parameters of an existing system in a long time, he would have to look into the rules to better subvert them.

Axel was dealing with everything very well. This was probably his first time dealing with something of this caliber, considering his age. It was a little like watching a sparkling figure out their transformation, knowing that something was supposed to happen, but not knowing where to start.

“I’ve found,” started Starscream. “If the people in charge want to get you in trouble, they will get you in trouble. And, in circumstances like these, getting people in trouble is a good way to deal with anyone who stands against them.” He paused, to watch Axel’s reaction. “I would rather get in trouble for trying to improve my station, instead of waiting for my station to start causing trouble.”

And then they both said nothing.

Starscream reset his vocaliser. Had he read that somewhere?

Or were those words his?

Axel coughed, and checked his phone. Then he untied his scarf, and removed some ornaments from his head, before putting them in his bag.

“I… I need to start heading home,” he sighed and stood up. “I won't be able to make myself dinner if I’m any later.”

“I will be keeping your comm code,” said Starscream.

“Okay,” replied Axel, already walking away. He turned back as he reached the trees. “Thank you for letting me talk.”

He jogged away before Starscream could respond.

~~

A human hour later, Starscream received a comm with a single image attached. It was a picture of a hawk, pausing from eating a squirrel.