Chapter Text

Act One: A Tale that Casts a Growing Shadow

An enraged Megatronian bellow echoed through the halls. Sweet, beautiful music!

Starscream lifted a hand and waved it to an unheard rhythm, as the bellow gained shape and turned into something resembling hackneyed, monosyllabic attempts at Starscream’s designation in ugly Kaoni. Starscream fluttered his fingers as something metallic and piecemeal clattered far away.

Thundercracker looked to the door mildly over the top of his datapad. Skywarp continued on his journey of dead recharge horizontal on one of Starscream’s laboratory countertops.

Starscream’s wingtips waved in gentle accompaniment to the clanging, banging rattle of clumsy mecha. His trinemate flickered his optics from them to his face. “One of yours?” Thundercracker asked. Skywarp’s vents rattled in between flasks of hydrochloric acid.

Something crashed violently a deck below them. Starscream’s long clawed fingers swept up in a conductorial ray.

“He’s boring me,” Starscream sighed, and looked to his other hand, busy swirling a vial of his latest compound, green and smoking and not quite acidic enough for reinforced barrels. It would have to do.

“He’ll bore something into you,” Thundercracker huffed, looking nervously to the door. “Haven’t you got other hobbies?”

“Certainly!” Starscream crowed. “But you’re not that adventurous, Skywarp’s not that flexible, and he’s not let me shoot an Autobot in eons!”

“Three cycles, and how… considerate of me you are,” his trinemate deadpanned, slowly and unsuccessfully tucking himself into a ball of smaller Seeker, slipping his datapad into subspace, and gently toeing the chair he sat his aft in closer to their charge-challenged third.

Starscream’s wings flicked you’re welcome. “Eons,” he sighed.

With a percussive ker-chunk! of a triple-locked door being overridden, the entrance to the laboratory shunted open. Starscream took aim, and with unerring military precision, launched his beaker of acid directly into the intruder’s face.

…as the fat-helmed intruder ducked and, Starscream would admit, gracefully, let the beaker shatter directly into the faceplate of a hapless underling behind him. A gratifying scream, to be sure, but it didn’t hit the spot. Starscream pouted and Megatron strode into the room, took aim, and fired.

Starscream, of course, having anticipated this, bent backwards, and let the beam of fusion energy sail over his cockpit as the seat descended underneath him at the pull of a lever. 

“Let me give you a gift, you winged wretch!” Megatron screamed into the laboratory. As Starscream’s audials rang from the noise, from his upside-down view of the room behind him he saw Skywarp bolt upwards and grasp outwards with both hands. One connected to Thundercracker’s wingtip with a yelp from the mech. The other pawed at empty air, but with a bleary shrug, Skywarp zworped into nothingness. Starscream huffed. No appreciation for this particular chase.

“I will admit fault!” his Lord-cum-adversary said by way of announcement, and stomped towards Starscream’s chair, toppling towards his outstretched pede.

“Do tell,” Starscream said, and activated his thrusters, propelling himself and his wheeled chair down the middle row of the laboratory, clear of obstacles, the runway for this particular engagement. 

Megatron fell forward with a gigantic thud. “I allowed you to continue to function,” he said from his frail position on all fours, a quickly-diminishing figure as Starscream reached the other end of the room, “after you convinced me of the fortifying properties of the Earth substance known as Tab—”

“Aspartame does a body good,” Starscream called, nudging the switch under the desk where his thrusters brought him. “That your malformed frame is so alkylic it hydrolyzes such a sweet thing into methanol and stinks you up is a you problem.”

Megatron took aim once more. The floor underneath Starscream parted, and magenta fusion energy arced over his helm as he and his chair dropped below deck.

“I nearly exploded!” Megatron shouted. “Yet you assured me if Optimus Prime were provided it, it would be his end—”

“He’s less basic,” Starscream crooned, and prepared the net. “At least he lost his Pepsi brand deal.”

Megatron came crawling to the hole as he expected, barrel first. Starscream stood and wiggled his claws in greeting.

“You expect me to follow you down there,” Megatron hissed, popping his head past the rim of the opening when his arm was not removed or otherwise scuffed. “When my second mistake was allowing you the continued use of your brain module and spark after the ‘the humans have dug a hole to the People’s Republic of China’ business.”

“We were halfway there,” Starscream sighed.

“Neglecting to inform me of the molten mantle of this infernal, horrible planet!”

“Soundwave told you not to jump, but when do you ever listen to your betters?”

The net activated, but the carbon fiber prototype, apparently, was not a winner. Starscream cursed in two different Polyhexi dialects internally as Megatron roared in rage as he ripped his carefully woven web and Starscream flipped into alt mode, gliding above the waterlogged aquarium of Earth life the lower levels of the Victory had been transmogrified into. There were other tricks and traps laid, but he hadn’t planned so far in advance this cycle…

He twisted upwards and out of alt, floating into root mode at the end of the hallway where the dilapidated turbolift shafts stretched at an acute angle to the water. He soared upwards, and—

With an undignified squawk nearly became one with an unforeseen turbolift placed neatly between him and his destination. His optics reset to see Megatron on his painfully slow antigravs hurtling towards him with all the airborne grace of a particularly ugly asteroid.

“I’m beginning to think I should not listen to any of you, at all!” his Lord howled.

“Beginning to?” Starscream asked, and the turbolift below him crumpled him with a shout.

Megatron barrelled into him before the window of opportunity to do so closed, and instinctually Starscream bit into his assailant as metal met metal and they grappled mech-to-mech. He felt the two of them be lifted upwards into the upper mass of their ship. Damn! Soundwave’s doing most certainly, pincering him with the damn turbolifts. He should have disabled those controls ages ago and claimed innocence. The saltwater ate into our controls, mighty Megatron, sly Soundwave, certainly it will be too much Decepticon mechpower to repair…

He was brought back to the present as Megatron’s mitt closed around his neck cabling, making him yelp as his dentae released.

“I feel as though I would be remiss if I did not kill you after this latest adventure in sadism,” Megatron grunted. Starscream scrabbled at his hand, grinning.

“I have no idea what you mean.”

Megatron paused, then leaned in close, poor fuel smell still lingering on his ex-vent. “You know very well what I mean,” he hissed, and transformed away the covers of his cabling.

Starscream feigned — barely feigned — affronted surprise. “Flattered, my Lord, but perhaps when you’re older, after you’ve bought me a flute of engex—”

“They nearly detached!” Megatron screeched in his face, and with barely concealed amusement Starscream noted that the equipment was, in face, sparking in a way that looked painful. Oh, it had totally worked.

“You ought to be more careful with those, Megatron, you’ll get a virus that way—”

The turbolifts stopped with an awful metallic crunch and Megatron swung Starscream bodily. His covers transformed back with a lovely hiss of pain, and Starscream rolled aft-over-helm to come to a stop at the wall of the airlock control room. He observed Megatron advancing towards him upside-down from in-between his legs.

Megatron lifted a pede and placed it on Starscream’s nose bridge. “I am not going to crush your cabling, Starscream,” he hissed, almost regretfully.

A bolt of disappointment in the impending end of the chase came over him, and his wings slid downwards against the wall. “What? Why not?” Starscream asked, unable to keep the hint of upset out of his vocalizer.

“You enjoy this!” Megatron said, then sniffed magisterially. “I in my wisdom have decided on alternate punishment.”

Which meant Soundwave had decided on alternate punishment. “Being?”

“I have devised a beautifully simple plot,” he rumbled. “We have problems.”

“Obviously.”

Megatron stomped. Starscream shrieked piercingly.

“I am being besieged by my own Second,” Megatron hissed, “while my real nemesis eludes all detection and shows no activity.”

“Prime has been rather quiet,” Starscream muttered, rubbing his face where Megatron’s disgusting pede had touched it.

“You are far too loud!” Megatron placed his hands on his hips and leant downwards. “And having far too much fun. You’ll get a virus that way,” he hissed.

Oh, he had found out about that thing on his chair he’d barely had to wile Skywarp into earlier. Starscream let an amused smirk cross his face.

“Therefore,” Megatron proclaimed, “I will kill two aviformers with one blaster bolt. You will be expelled from the Victory, out of my wiring, on a,” — he waved his hand dismissively — "reconnaissance mission.”

Starscream could have raised a brow, but schooled his expression and his wings. “I’ll assemble a team from Air Command—”

“Alone,” Megatron sang, spreading the syllables of the glyph out like a fan of cover fire. “For stealth.”

His wings stiffened unwillingly. No. Would not do. “You are no fragging fun!” Starscream began, rolling downwards to right himself. “You can’t be a proper leader if you can’t take a fragging joke during a lull in our dreadfully dull little war.” He spun around to face Megatron and cocked his helm, arranging his wings most demurely. “The Decepticons deserve a leader that can laugh at himself! See, now, I can giggle at Soundwave’s imitation of my voice, and I will admit most readily that the way you bowled me down the hallway was most amusing. So, really—”

“If you nearly ripped my plugs out, Air Commander, I could argue that a retaliation of plug-blocking you for, oh, an Earth year or two seems almost… generous of me.”

Starscream shut up for a moment.

Then, he tittered in a traditionally Vosian arpeggio of judgemental amusement. They were in the fourth deck airlock hangar. How providential.

“Oh, I see,” he laughed, optics flickering to and from Megatron’s burning red optics and the lucky break on the wall a distance away. “You’re making fun of me for how I cross cables — easily, well, and with regularity, I might add, if we’re mentioning it — and this is me laughing with you, Megatron.” Starscream stood slowly, lifting his hands innocently. He gave Megatron a winning smile, hoping he’d forget he was just biting him with those dentae a klik ago. He needed to keep talking. “Don’t worry, it will happen for you when you meet the right mech—”

“I have met the right mech!” Megatron spat.

Starscream paused. That was a rather unusual amount of bluster. He narrowed his optics.

“Do you— I have— I have skills to sway even unlikely candidates,” Megatron growled.

Starscream held back a gag, but he had to keep the mech going, arguing with him. He sidled oh-so-slowly to the control panel for the middle airlock. Such great luck Soundwave had tossed them in here. “Unlikely candidates, such as… ones with a sparkpulse?” he asked innocently.

“The mech I am tasking you to recon,” Megatron purred, strained.

Starscream blinked. Was that a bluff? Megatron was stupid and bloviating, but rarely like that. “Optimus Prime,” he said flatly.

Megatron spread out his hands in a gesture of display. “The singular one. Are you not—”

“The red and blue one,” he clarified. “You plugged in with—”

“Optimus Prime, and your task to avoid my retaliation that is well deserved is to seek him out,” Megatron grit out.

 “Ah,” Starscream said, drawing out the syllable in hesitation. “Your skills are so great, oh mighty Megatron, that you must send me to find out why he’s… avoiding you.”

Megatron’s optic twitched. “You are not even a little impressed?”

“You said unlikely, Lord,” he said airily. Yes, Megatron, keep sniping. He slunk a few mechanometers further as out of the corner of his optics Megatron’s backstrut straightened and his chest puffed out.

“What a quick turn to flattery you make, Starscream,” Megatron said, suspicious. Damn! Only a few more fragging steps— he made a gamble. Flattery or attack, two options to keep Megatron’s attention. All he needed was a few steps!

“Hardly,” he said sweetly, rolling the cyberdice in his mind. “I’m not surprised you idiots finally managed to find your panel latches and plugged in. Your obsession with one another has bordered on the obscene ever since he twisted your cannon so hard it made you—”

Megatron picked him up by his scruff bar between his wings.

“...decide to conquer him so utterly and completely, my Lord,” Starscream peeped.

Megatron looked to where he was heading, then pounded his fist into the left airlock control, and tossed him into the yawning lock.

“Sycophant your way to the surface, you simpering Seeker, and your mission to complete on pain of celibacy: find me my Prime!” he yowled petulantly, and before Starscream’s silver glossa could curl any further to compliment him on his alliteration, he was sucked out into the ocean.

Ah, slag. He would float upwards eventually.

After he’d picked his chassis clean of kelp on a rocky shore and called Megatron every name he knew in most languages he’d shoved in his langpack — save Vosian, those names were too elegant to be wasted on Megatron, really — the next half-cycle was spent in a gleeful montage of free flying, shooting the local wildlife, and noting the noises they made with scientific inquiry.

His comms were jammed — his access to the Decepticon wide-band communications frequencies had been revoked, and his regular internal comms couldn’t pierce the oceanic barrier. It was a fair advantage to be made undetectable by Autobot scans, but meant he couldn’t even send a warp me back to his trinemate. He would even add a please, at this point. Or, at least, he would think about it. The trinebond told them both he was alive, and they could probably detect a hint of annoyance, but not for the first time he wished he could articulate things through it.

He poked the brown thing called a bear with his pede and decided not to shoot this one, as its proficiency in biting the fish that leapt from the river amused him. It made a growling noise that reminded him briefly of Thundercracker in a poor mood, and Starscream ex-vented exasperatedly at the thought. The brief respite from Decepti-nonsense was refreshing, but this really would not do, brief solitude driving him to find pieces of his trine in organic animals they would surely be offended to be compared to. 

“He can’t really have been serious about wanting me to find Prime because they’re cabling,” Starscream said to the bear-thing. “That was a bluff. Right?”

It hollered at him, hot vent from its mouth misting in the air. Just about as helpful as his trinemate, too.

“Right,” he sighed.

The bear looked at him with beady little eyes.

“Shut up, Thundercracker,” he hissed. “The thought is repellent.”

Bearcracker averted his gaze back to the river.

“I suppose the only way to find out is to find Prime, though I hate to do what he tells me.” Starscream huffed, drawing his pede through the current and watching the silt kick up, clouding the water. “And I can either go to him, or make him come to me.”

A snaggle-jawed fish leapt from the water. The bear caught it easily in his teeth. Starscream tilted his helm.

“So the latter. But what can I destroy that will make the Autobots pop up without blasters blazing? Something important, but perhaps something the humans wouldn’t much miss…”

Bearcracker blinked at him with kind optics — erm, eyes — fish wriggling futilely in his mouth.

Starscream smiled. “You’re smart. Don’t let it go to your namesake’s helm.”

He felt the revving of powerful cars and the roar of a distinctly Cybertronian flightframe engine in his wingtips, feeling it before his audials heard them. Such Seeker superiority had its benefits. The Autobots arrived with a… lack of urgency? Starscream looked down from his perch and his wings dipped low.

“What? Where’s Prime!?” he cried. The crowd was so sparse! Sure, he was only one Decepticon and he’d avoided killing the locals, but he was second-in-command and they usually loved knocking Decepticon helms when they targeted large human monuments — even the ugly ones in the ruder areas.

“Can you put that down, please?” the little yellow one whose designation he kept forgetting said.

He threw the piece of the tower down that he’d been using to file his claws, point-first, regrettably missing the bothersome thing’s helm as he evaded it with a yelp. The point embedded in the grass, springing back and forth with an eerie cree-creak like Dirge’s knee joints occasionally made.

Air Raid materialized from the cloudbank and spun out of alt to hover at Starscream’s opticline on his antigravs. Oh, Primus, they hadn’t even sent Superion—! “This is insulting,” Starscream spat from his perch. “I take out the Rifle Tower and Prime sends a half-baked sparkling to corral me?” Air Raid wordlessly raised a brow, then flipped back into alt and sped off. Starscream watched him retreat with a skeptical glare.

“Beat it,” Gears growled from very, very, very far beneath him.

“In not so many words, what he said,” Jazz called, striking a casual arms-crossed pose, flanked by grim-looking pipsqueaks. Starscream suddenly missed the bear.

He squinted. Everyone was acting strange. Sure, the war had lost most of its conquering luster on this new battlefield after the several-chords-long nap and they really didn’t do a lot of killing anymore (shame), but they still put their spark into their scuffling. What fun was it if he never had to worry about his helm?

“Prime can tell me to go,” Starscream said, hooking his arm around the latticed metal. “Get Prime to show up beneath my pedes and we’ll discuss our options!”

Jazz held up a blaster and pointed west with his other hand. “Options one and two.”

“I see Prime or the rest of this precious tower goes down in jet-fuelled flame!” Starscream yelled, pointing a thruster-heel and tapping it against the base. It creaked ominously and Starscream clung to it, wings flaring.

Gears thrust a clenched fist towards him. “I’d rather see it go up your—”

No. Starscream stopped listening. With his wings waved out again, he could feel the vibrations of approaching aircraft. Perhaps they had brought in the rest of Superion’s whelps to give him a fair fight. That would soothe his ego even if he’d failed this round of Bait-the-Prime. Oh, well. Results rarely came after a single instance of experimentation.

“A sad cycle for Prime, to have missed on the fantastic opportunity of matching wits with me,” Starscream sighed, and ignited one thruster-heel. He held it to the tower. The yellow one made a noise of upset.

“Hey, uh, Starscream,” Jazz said, pitching up his voice. “You might really wanna scram.” Starscream rolled his optics and decided which trees looked most flammable in the area around the monument.

“Show me your leader’s stupid fragging faceplate, and we’ll—”

The engine noise increased in volume. Starscream whipped up his helm and turned to see Air Raid’s nosecone very swiftly meet his nose.

Chapter Text

When he woke, Optimus Prime’s stupid fragging faceplate hovered beyond the energy field bars where he laid.

Starscream hauled his chassis up with immediacy despite every wiring harness howling. Chunks of soil and probably endless amounts of disgusting little microorganisms fell from between his plating. And what in the Pit was—? He opened his intake and spat out a chunk of — his sensors gave it a once-over — limestone. Sedimentary. His least favorite. He lifted his faceplates in a sneer and ran his glossa over his dentae.

“You have been taken into the custody of the Autobot military force,” Prime said from behind his faceplate, arms crossed gravely over his windshield. “This is a formal military imprisonment recognizing your state as a combatant of an enemy military force. You will be provided with fuel and care for as long as you remain in custody. You w—”

“I like the part of the speech where you list off which crimes I’m imprisoned for, usually,” Starscream crowed, smacking his intake loudly, “but let us skip to the part where I thank your brainless Autobots for rewarding me with exactly what I wanted.”

The brig of the Ark was a place with which Starscream was intimately acquainted. A handful of pink energy-barred rooms impenetrable by scan, teleportation method, and inaccessible by even Soundwave’s least incompetent spawns. It was orange, small, uncomfortable, always too warm, smelled like rubber and washer fluid, and made him ill. Today was no different. The scene beside him was familiar, too: Prime looking annoyed, security mecha beside him, ready to lead him either to interrogation or to some vital inter-faction exchange.

Starscream scooted to the edge of the miniscule berth before dipping his helm and aiming Prime a proper look of provocation. Today his only mech was Ironhide, the red military truck with, Starscream would begrudgingly offer him in compliment, a fantastic right hook and a sneer right out of the old Tetrahexi holovids.

He flicked the limestone at Prime’s head. Ironhide smacked it out of the air before it could make contact. Starscream’s wings wilted.

“My Autobots tell me you had a rather singular demand while holding a precious human monument hostage,” Prime huffed, doing away with the formalities. “Does my appearance here satisfy it?”

Starscream gave him a once-over. Megatron had demanded he find Prime. Presumably, so he could suss out why Prime was so absent after the two of them had — allegedly — jacked in and swapped some current. Starscream could come up with ten thousand reasons why Prime would be doing so, and wouldn’t need to even touch the desperate theoretical possibilities Megatron surely had concocted in the mixing bowl he called a helm where Prime was desperate, but somehow physically unable, to contact or accost him for further electrical euphoria.

He’d fulfilled Megatron’s ask in its most literal sense. Starscream assumed if he did not return with Prime’s location and a rather good explanation as to why the Autobots had been so damned quiet, this exile business would be extended and an Air Raid-shaped impression in his plating would be the least of his health concerns.

“Your appearance never satisfies me,” Starscream sneered.

“Careful,” Ironhide grunted. Starscream gave him a look. The mech didn’t often speak when Prime was making overtures of brig hospitality.

Optimus made a dismissive gesture to the mech behind him. His optics were a little less bright, weren’t they? By a matter of scant lumens, but they were dimmer to his sensors. Oh, how fascinating.

“Have you gotten a virus, Prime?” Starscream asked sweetly, and Optimus startled. “From shoving your sanctimoniousness down all our throat tubing, perhaps? Is that why you were so absent and Air Raid had to substitute with Parisian geology?”

“Is it a conversation you want?”

“Sure,” Starscream said, tucking his pedes up and folding himself into a gravity-defying shape, inviting on the edge of the slab they called a berth. “What’s gotten into you?”

“It is what has gotten into my brig that perturbs me—”

“Quite rude to speak of your subordinates that way, Prime, he’s standing right there.”

Optimus’s finials folded downwards and his engines expelled a whuff of engine wash as he looked towards the ceiling of the room, coppery and foul orange like the whole rest of the ship. Starscream’s intrigue morphed from playful to serious. When they were playing captor and prisoner like this, in the thick of their little war games, Optimus’s demeanor never faltered. Those points on his head never gave the game away.

Behind the bars, Ironhide and Optimus most certainly had a comms conversation. Optimus’s optics closed and with delight Starscream saw his fingers twitch as the two mecha conversed. The mech was a lit fuse away from exploding at the joints… forgive his humor, but primed for a meltdown. The last time Starscream had seen him at this level, Optimus had crumpled a Constructicon into construction paper, and… done that thing to Megatron’s barrel he’d needled his Lord for earlier. Now this was something to bring back to Megatron — precious and glittering gossip.

“Do you need medical attention?” Optimus growled, and began to properly glower. Starscream’s whole body perked. Ironhide’s body language went stiff.

“Do you?” he asked excitedly.

“Air Commander,” Optimus said evenly. “Medical check. A washrack. Cube of energon. Do any of these things appeal to you?”

“A spark-to-spark over engex?”

“Be serious for a single, solitary moment!” Optimus yelled. Starscream plastered himself against the far wall with a wide grin on his face. Volume?! From Prime!

“I am! And is it serious?” Starscream asked delightedly, and Optimus’s smokestacks rattled as Ironhide pressed a stern hand onto his shoulder faring. “Are you flickering out, Optimus Prime? Far less fun if it’s long-term and painful, but certainly Soundwave loves an extended play…”

“You are not here on an intelligence mission,” Optimus bit out. “You wanted to see me personally. This is personal. If you are not defecting, Starscream, then I do not know if we have much else to discuss.”

“It’s personal,” Starscream said, sweeping a leg forward and inching closer to the quivering Prime. Who was this mess? “Though not between you and me.”

Optimus’s optics flickered between the smirk on Starscream’s face and his wings — held perfectly still, Optimus, and how dare you assume he had anything less than perfect control over what he gave away for free — and stepped forward. “Between who?”

Starscream popped a hip. “You, and the lordly he who will be simply sparkbroken if you’re too sick for a second round,” he joked, lacing his fingers together and placing them against his cockpit.

Both Ironhide and Optimus visibly cringed in tandem. Starscream’s jaw dropped just slightly. 

“Primus, Megatron was telling… You actually, really—?” Starscream screwed up his face without finishing the sentence, and held out his hands in a silent plea. “Ah! Don’t answer! I don’t care to know!”

“Starscream—”

“Quiet! He wanted to know why you have been skipping out on us!” Starscream screeched . “Obviously, I am the perfect messenger for such an important task. Checking up on his… spark-held frag-enemy, or something.”

“You be quiet,” Optimus said wearily, tucking one arm across his chest and the other coming to rub at his brow ridge. Ironhide stood stonefaced beside him.

“So it’s a charge-transmitted disease. You can’t just plug into anyone, Prime, even Autobots have the brains to know that, surely,” Starscream tittered with lingering disgust.

“You’ll be remanded to Megatron’s custody,” Optimus grit out very deliberately. “If this is all you allowed yourself to be captured for.”

“What? No!” Starscream cried dramatically, and got up close as he could to the bars without touching them. “No, I can’t go back to the Victory with only ‘Oh, Lord Megatron, he’s fine, he’s just avoiding you because you’re just incompatible star signs, and terribly selfish with charge!’ Give me something! What’s the name of the ITD he gave you!?”

“Enough,” Ironhide said sharply.

“Plugrust? No, no, you’d be uglier.”

“Starscream,” Optimus grunted. “This is not a quid pro quo—” 

“Brainboot sectoring? He seems like the type, and you’re acting that weird.”

“We already got the long-range transcomm out towards Soundwave’s audials,” Ironhide said. “You’re outta here soon.”

Damn. The rumor would have to be enough to perhaps strike Megatron’s laughably unlikely good mood. Starscream felt a pit open up in his fuel tank as he watched the two Autobots fix him with stony looks. “Chin up, Prime,” Starscream said, sighing as he attempted one last jab. He examined his arm plating, woefully dented from the fledgling’s tackle. “Whatever you have, it could be worse. At least you didn’t bump sparks. Ha! Who knows the last time he’s cleaned that? All sorts of filth rattling around in there, not the least of all being the mech’s code—”

He looked up. Optimus’s wide gaze was firmly trained on the brig’s exit, finials flatly parallel to the floor. His hands gripped tightly at the crooks of his arms.

All of Starscream’s systems froze. A haggard appearance, short temper, dimmed biolights, a tendency to cover the chest, hard-working engines with harder-working fans, right after one had crossed cables and… and sparks. “No,” he said distantly.

“Alright,” Ironhide said, accent twanging in hard. “Time t’go.”

“No. Prime, no mech could be that stupid,” Starscream whispered, shoving his helm against the energy bars to a gentle shock.

“As soon as a place for the exchange is arranged you will be handed back to Megatron,” Optimus growled, optics tightening.

Unicron’s dangling plugs, Optimus had made an incalculably enormous error in judgement. The Autobots … did they know they were being led by a mech who had such a reckless streak of self-destruction and hedonism alongside his usual idiocy of moral standing? Did they realize the tilt of the Earth’s axis had fragging altered? This was— wait.

“...you aren’t even trading me for anything?!” Starscream shrieked, shoving his helm farther into the energy field, ignoring the sparking and burning.

“Being rid of you is the value!” Optimus shouted as Ironhide darted in between them, and with previously unrevealed strength tilted Optimus onto his heels and pushed him out of the door, leaving the brig with pede-wide metallic scuff marks on its floor and Starscream stumbling backwards to sit in a pile of vile French dirt, burdened with the world’s — no, perhaps the galaxy’s — most disturbing intelligence. And a lingering pout. What gave? He was always traded for something good.

Megatron, Slagmaker, Lord of the Decepticons, render-aparter of weaklings and those of unsound morals and loyalties, generous lover, emancipated mecha’s own special delight, wielder of Cybertron’s pinnacle of weapon technology and genius of their time, had spent most of the day stalking the halls of his temporarily out-of-service warship (pride of the Decepticon fleet, pinnacle of maneuverability, fierce and full of firepower, by the way), letting his internals self-repair work and muttering to himself.

…Patrolling to boost soldier morale while recuperating from an assassination attempt and plotting various demises and operations of great intelligence. That is what he meant.

At one time, he would have called himself Lord of the Decepticons, agent of all Autobot destruction, and proclaimed his enemy was Optimus Prime. He would have called himself the conquering force. Optimus would be the tiny little brassbug to be crushed and squished into a little smear of exoplating and conductive fluid under his pede. The chant of these supposed truths had went repeated in his (mighty!) mind, over and over again. Lord, enemy, conqueror, bug. Lord. Enemy. Conqueror. Bug!

…but lately he discovered brassbugs did not make noises like Cybertronian mechanimals, and Optimus Prime did.

Optimus Prime made a lot of noises.

He was still Lord, conqueror, but Optimus suddenly had been… oh, he was still the enemy, that was an unspoiled truth, but the metaphorical Vector beneath their feet had cracked open and shown Megatron the secondary truth that Optimus Prime was also the prize. An enemy could be defeated, yes, but made yours utterly was a purer victory. The revelation had left him unsteady on his pedes — yes, even Lord of the Decepticons with a brain module of such prodigious girth could be surprised every once in a while — and Megatron had rapidly begun constructing a glorious Decepticon future where perhaps Optimus would be swayed by Megatron’s singular mind and body and spark… Optimus Prime would be an enemy in name only, an adversary in an ever-shifting dyad of wits and battles of mental and physical strength… and could only make cybercat noises? He hadn’t fully sketched that part out yet. It was a future of intense interest to him, a fixation, one a leader had to have in order to make the desired future real.

And then Optimus didn’t return his comms. Even when he’d started burning things down.

A bump in the road, to be sure.

The Starscream banishment was an effort of random happenstance and great desper— of unconventional procurement. Megatron’s lurking and stalking among the corridors of the Victory had lasted an Earth day before he decided perhaps he would be anticipatory to the Autobots’ next move. Therefore, he sat in his (big!) throne and waited, and when Soundwave informed him with gravitas a transmission request was coming in from Autobot High Command, the piled cubes on the throne’s arm were swept away with a great heave as he woke up from his rechar— arose from his cerebrations.

“Yes, Soundwave, up onscreen, now.”

“Lord Megatron: would prefer to gather officers before accepting comm—?”

“No. Onscreen.”

Megatron lifted one pede onto the seat of the throne. The screen flickered on, and suddenly illuminating it was the face Megatron most hated and most desperately wanted to mash into his own.

“Optimus,” he crooned. “To what do I owe this immense pleasure?”

The masked mech on the other end of the video comm squinted, horrid blue optics diminishing for a moment. Awful! Megatron would change those. A classic red would be dashing, but purple would contrast so nicely with the rest of his shiny, smooth armor…

“Megatron,” he growled. Ah! So lovely when it came from Optimus, dripping with disdain. Though Megatron wasn’t sure which version of his designation he enjoyed more, at this point: this growled expression of contempt that surely heralded a close-quarters fight in which Megatron felt Prime’s strength strain his actuators, or that divine new mewl of it Optimus had let escape his vocalizer when he’d writhed like a cybercat in spark-volatility beneath him. All that hate, gone! A few cables in jealously-guarded ports, and Optimus’s headlights had glowed under his fingertips, his smokestacks—

Oh, Optimus was waiting for him to say something. Slag, what had he meant to open with?

“We have Air Commander Starscream in custody, Megatron,” Optimus said in a most annoying formal voice when Megatron’s vocalizer failed to initialize. Megatron blinked. Oh, right, he’d put that slimeball Seeker out to sea. It was just like the little wretch to surface right into the hands of the enemy, but at least it meant this call could occur. Megatron’s plans never failed, obviously. “He was captured without injury to his frame and spark.” Optimus paused. “Major injury.”

“Shame,” Megatron said quickly, admiring Optimus’s twitching finials and feeling lubricant pool on his glossa. “I don’t want to talk about Starscream.”

Optimus seemed to wilt. “Under any other circumstances, neither would I, but…”

“Good! We’re in agreement!” Megatron exclaimed, and leaned forward into the camera lens. “Then shall we discuss the three-Earth-month break you have thrust upon me in which I have replayed certain memory files so often the diodes have begun to degrade—”

Optimus’s finials flattened. A gleeful shudder ran through Megatron’s backstrut. “No!” Optimus honked, and he looked so beautiful doing it.

“Optimus Prime, the things I have been plotting…”

“Starscream is a valuable asset to you, Megatron, and you must—!”

“I believe it had been shortly after you wrapped your legs around my waist and begged me to use the charge from my fusion cannon to pulse into your—”

Optimus sputtered. “Th-that was— He’s your second in command! Do you truly not care for the freedom of the imposing commander of your Air Forces and your top strategist—”

“Stop complimenting him,” Megatron said, narrowing his optics.

“I don’t want him!” Optimus shouted, and Megatron reared back from the camera, due to a… systems glitch.

Optimus bleated something in binary, then reset his vocalizer. “I— I don’t want to— to hold onto him as I am sure an exchange for something of equal value can be struck,” he hastily corrected.

Megatron leaned back in. “An exchange,” he purred. Something fascinating was occurring behind Optimus, he noticed. Optimus nodded stiffly.

“Naturally, Optimus Prime, I am amenable to trade. You are aware how generous I am. Here is my exchange offer: I will take Starscream, and you will take the plunge alongside him, Optimus, and join me here on the Victory.”

Optimus’s optics snapped wide open. “What? Why in Primus’s blasted bolts would I agree to that?”

“Because you are desperate to be rid of a Starscream in captivity, and I am desperate for the feeling of your conductors against mine once more. You deprive me after I get only a taste…”

Optimus’s engine growling with pique was audible over the comm line. “And you figure I am as driven by my interfacing equipment as you, Megatron?”

“Yes,” Megatron cooed.

“Pray tell: why buy into that delusion?”

“Because your smokestacks are going, my Prime.”

Optimus shut off the feed.

Megatron intook with anger, and looked to Soundwave, who had his helm in his hands.

He had ordered Soundwave to reconnect the commline at once, of course, but Soundwave merely repeated the same unwelcome nonsense: comms were very much up, and there was nothing to do to reconnect the line but continue sending handshake requests, which, yes, Lord Megatron, he was doing.

He had banged the terminal with his fist once out of anger and twice for good luck, and it was at that point that Soundwave had suggested going for a walk. He had his mouth open, ready to shout at his Third for insolence, but—

His internal comm pinged. Megatron’s jaw snapped shut with speed and an audible snick! 

It was an unsecured personal line. The last two times he had answered this line, a squeaking little voice had squoke and he had given the thing a piece of his mind. If it was the flesh creature again he would scream at it for stress relief. But, on the off chance…

“Hail me for nothing but complete planetary fragmentation or if Starscream is executed!” Megatron commanded with great ethos, and stomped off the bridge. 

He answered the line with a low sawtooth growl. “If this is the organic worm calling about my rebidgenator—”

“...You had better go catch it?” Optimus Prime answered.

“Prime!” Megatron crowed, and he made haste to his quarters, knocking aside a Seeker he didn’t care to remember the designation of. They were horrid and pastel anyways. “Your communications console seems to be subject to typical Autobot failures,” he said.

“I— yes,” Optimus said with an edge in his voice.

“You return to me without visual,” Megatron crooned. “Caught out by your treacherous frame.”

“It was distracting you,” Optimus said exasperatedly. “Starscream. Your second-in-command?”

“No. Boring. Something else.”

“Megatron, if I promise you that I…”

He trailed off. Megatron reached the door of his quarters and paused, cocking his helmet.

“Promise me what?”

Megatron listened closely. On the other end of the comm, he heard silence, not the twittering of Autobot sycophants in his High Command circle, but interestingly, he heard… the sound of doors.

Optimus was on the move. He was not on his console, and they were very, oh-so, deliciously private.

“We are alone,” Megatron said with a creeping smile in his voice, and slammed the door controls, striding inside.

He heard Optimus’s engine cycle upwards. “Alone, not alone, that certainly didn’t make a difference for you! You’re unfathomably cruel, Megatron, that was a disgusting display—”

“Yes,” Megatron said, and stretched out on his berth. “And yes, and yes. You are ill at ease, Optimus, very ill. What ails you?” he asked, beguiled.

Optimus made a growling, angry noise. A shiver ran down Megatron’s backstrut. “If I promise you a measure of candor between us in this private space, will you extend any modicum of honesty and privacy to me?”

“Of course,” Megatron lied.

Optimus’s ventilations came across the commline. Megatron rolled over onto his front and let his pedes kick up into the air. “There is no easy way for me to admit what I must admit,” Optimus murmured.

Megatron’s spark spun fast. Oh, three Earth months of torturous waiting was simple lead-up to this. Optimus must have been hiding away, conflicted in the depths of his spark. Torn between his inane moralizing and Trion-made brain module and his deepest darkest desires in the raw lines of his code, lingering charge coursing through him. He felt it too, didn’t he? The push and pull of the passion and immutable dark physicality of enemies. Optimus must have hated him. Just as much as Megatron hated him, wanted to crush his finials between his fingertips, wanted to punch and shoot and tie him—

“I am carrying a newspark,” Optimus mumbled witheringly into the commline.

Megatron cocked his helm. “What? That makes no difference.”

The line went so silent Megatron thought Optimus may have hung up again.

“It makes no difference,” Optimus repeated flatly.

“No! Why would it?” Megatron asked incredulously. “You have come to your senses and understand the deep dynamic we have, dear Optimus, and want to take your rightful place at my pedes. I don’t care about whatever Autobot you have mistakenly decided to carry for. Hook can simply get rid of it for you.”

“You idiot,” Optimus groaned. “It is yours.”

Megatron blinked. “Ah.”

Silence reigned on the line. First try, Megatron thought to himself.

“So when shall you arrive, or shall I stage a raid and sweep you away, my Prime—”

“Raid—! Megatron, I am not going to the Victory!” Optimus hissed. “Do you have nothing to say to me about th-this life you have given me?”

Megatron rolled onto his back, feeling the healing wiring cramp as self-repair yanked something back into place. “I am speaking of the thing. I am its sire. It will be with me, and you with it. Do not protest so much. I am aware how much agony the choice to embrace your place must have brought you, but you do not have to perform as if it still plagues you.”

“Oh, my God,” Optimus ex-vented in one of the human languages Megatron hated to hear from his vocalizer.

“Don’t speak like that to the sparkling,” he chastised. “There is no world, Optimus, where an heir to the Decepticons is brought into the world it will own surrounded by Autobots. And besides, the ones who build Decepticon frames are here, and they hate the Ark, I listen to them complain about it far too often—”

“I am not going to the Victory,” Optimus said with insulting slowness.

“...Why n—”

“A million, thousand reasons why not!” Optimus cried. “Least of all being—”

And Optimus had gone on and begun refuting and refusing him. The glorious future fractured away piece by piece, and Megatron could hardly believe what he was hearing. His rage ticked upwards further, further.

“I see no reason why not!” he interrupted when he could bear no more of the nonsense. Gibberish, all gibberish. No, none of it worth considering.

“You listened to none of that, did you—”

“You will not leave that newspark without contact from its sire! Its carrier being stupid will not impede its destiny!” Megatron bellowed into his comm, and listened to Optimus groan exasperatedly. “Are you mad?”

“Obviously! Obviously I am,” Optimus said, vents heavy with rage. “Because I am willing to consider contact with its sire.”

Megatron’s jaw snapped shut and his head lifted like a snaketicon scenting prey.

“F-for the good of the sparkling,” Optimus breathed.

Megatron felt a wicked grin draw across his faceplate. “Oh, Optimus,” he purred. “Perhaps there is sense in you yet.”

Optimus was quiet for a moment. “You are so cruel, Megatron.”

Despite the self-repair warnings blaring, he opened his cabling access and twirled one cable around a dark finger. “And what else?”

When Megatron’s joints stopped steaming, he realized he’d forgotten to bargain for Starscream’s return. Had Prime—? Had he connived that?...

Slag, why was he worried about Starscream? He rolled over and firmly did not care.

Chapter Text

Rumble saluted with some kind of ridiculous flourish Megatron wondered if Soundwave would stomp out of him eventually. Hopefully. “Intelligence Operative Rumble, presenting report of intelligence mission coded triple-A-dash two-dash-zero-dash-seven-dash-Kalis-Border-Kalis,” he warbled in his undefinable accent, puffing up his little chest with a lopsided and somehow hesitant grin.

Megatron’s helm rolled to Soundwave standing with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. “And again, you, my Third, my head of Intelligence, are not doing this because…?”

“Cassette Rumble: needs practice.”

Megatron wished Soundwave had chosen any other time and method with which to rear his sparklings. But Soundwave had been rather insistent, and what Soundwave insisted upon usually was done. Obediently, quickly, diligently, on pain of death. Megatron just hated it when it was his pain.

“Lord Megatron: may also consider getting used to sparkling behavior,” Soundwave had said, cocking his helm, just before Rumble and Frenzy had entered. “Lord Megatron: lacks sparkling experience.”

Because of course Soundwave had been informed immediately of his great success of virility and of Optimus’s verge of sensibility. He’d listened with his usual face (to say, none at all) and only put his hand to his helm once, after Megatron started wondering what title a Lord would give his heir. Ravage had made noises much like that of the times he hacked up a ball of metal shavings, and Megatron had ignored the mech as Soundwave encouraged him to do. But Soundwave had agreed very obediently, loyal soldier and greatest friend he was, that this situation required monitoring. Who knew what Optimus might do while unattended before Megatron could convince his betwixt-sides loverspark to make their war much smaller, perhaps berth-focused? It was only a matter of time, but Soundwave’s goal was to make sure no time passed without his knowing about it. So, thus, intelligence operation, thus, a report.

But no experience! Megatron had resented Soundwave citing a “lack.” Because he’d been there for all of Soundwave’s sparklings and certainly that counted as experience…! Soundwave had just shaken his helm and Megatron didn’t feel like arguing with him. Indeed, Soundwave was lucky to receive such a reprieve, as Megatron’s logic was unimpeachable on the worst of days. 

Later, he believed this might have been a worst of days.

Rumble stood looking miniscule and kickable in front of Megatron’s throne on the dim bridge of the Victory. The regular bridge crew — a few of the less obtrusively neon Seekers, and a dually-moping set of incomplete Combaticons in Brawl and Dead End, today — sat scattered around the room, populating the far edges while Soundwave, Ravage on his shoulder, and Frenzy at his pedes stood at Megatron’s left side. Megatron waved a hand to permit Rumble to report, perching his chin on the other, clenched into a balled fist.

“Yessir bosssir! So um, we, uh, deployed via means of the transport elevator to the ocean’s surface…”

Skywarp had listened to Thundercracker proclaim super assuredly that he would be happy to spend a few cycles enjoying no screaming from their Star. No shattering beakers, no death threats, peace and quiet. It had been a tirade, really, one that he had definitely gotten a few pointers on from said Star. Skywarp almost felt like clapping at the end, twitching his wings in a well-done on the monologue, but he was pretty sure Thundercracker would have frowned and locked his cable access panels for like, at least six cycles.

Just this cycle-open before they were supposed to be on duty, though, Thundercracker had pouted three times and had his second mope in as many duty shifts. Skywarp knew what that meant: ignore whatever he said, and go grab whatever was totally not making him upset to have missing. This cycle’s case, whoever.

…Um, that’s what Rumble had been told in the Victory’s transport elevator to the ocean surface, anyways, by uh, special Air Force agent Skywarp.

The Big Boss looked at him with increasing Big Disgust, which made Rumble’s knee-joints rattle together for a moment and he looked to the Boss. Boss nodded gently, and so did Ravage.

“Who allowed Skywarp’s melted module out of the base?” Megatron sneered, leaning forward. “I didn’t tell him he could do that!”

“Uh,” Rumble said. “Lord Megatron, he, uh, kept that part a secret from me an’ the uh, other operatives,” he said, raising a hand.

“Rumble’s raised hand: unnecessary.” Rumble reversed course.

Megatron growled and gripped at the throne’s armrests. “Starscream is banished on a mission of… well, a useless mission now! But banished he’ll remain until I decide a proper use for that shrieking harpy! Skywarp’s extracting him?”

Rumble frowned. Hey, that big purple jerk already made his life hard. Now he was taking the spotlight off of Rumble’s big moment?

Soundwave crossed his arms. “Teleporters: historically difficult to confine.”

The Big Boss looked queasy with anger. The Boss put a hand to his visor. Rumble reset his vocalizer. “Yeah, so, uh, anyways— Me an’ operative Frenzy. operative Laserbeak, operative Buzzsaw, and oper—”

“Cassette Rumble: will cease usage of the glyph ‘operative.’”

…so all of them and Ravage headed up the elevator.

“So what are you pipsqueaks up to? And Ravage,” Skywarp said, quickly tacking on the last few glyphs.

Ravage rolled his helm and squinted his optics, which meant someone was doing something dumb. Rumble was happy to see the motion directed to some other mech. “As is standard procedure for intelligence operations, the official glyph on that matter is… I believe the exact phrasing is ‘none of Specialist Skywarp’s business,’” he purred.

Skywarp’s plating ruffled at that, and he stuck his nose ridge in the air. “Gee,” he said, flicking his wings. “Fine. I won’t tell you all who I’m extracting, then. Live in mystery. See how you like it.”

Ravage rolled his optics, and Laserbeak and Buzzsaw side-opticked each other. Well, they were always kind of side-opticking each other, but— well, everyone knew what Rumble meant.

The presence of Skywarp meant that their time to target location was reduced by a matter of Earth hours. Because he had an alt mode that was, well, pretty fast, and could fit a lot of cassettes in the cockpit, and Laserbeak wanted him to say that operation time could have been reduced further if Skywarp would have just warped them there, but Skywarp had already told him that if he warped more than himself and two sparks he purged energon, quote, “everywhere,” and it was “really gross.”

But Megatron frowned at the color commentary, so Rumble got on with it. They got to the Ark at a brisk ten A.M. sharp local time and Skywarp disappeared with a jaunty wing-gesture, a parting snipe, and a vworp. Ravage was the best at finding the Ark’s current weak points for infiltration, so him n’ Frenzy and the birds sat back while Ravage crept around. He reported it oddly quiet over the commline, but there were a few lookouts posted, and sent them their positional information. Ravage engaged attention deflectors and went sniffing where there was stuff to sniff.

Don’t like how easy they’re making it, Ravage commed after a proper examination of the operation zone and scouting for infil and exfil points. Be cautious. Be ready to disengage and retreat on my mark—

“Rumble, skip to the pertinent information.”

Rumble’s flow broke and he pouted. “I thought we were s’posed to give a comprehensive operation overview with methodologies employed in military opsec framework and proper terminology—”

“No, you dolt!” Megatron said, leaning forward and putting a huge finger directly on his helm. Rumble squeaked. “What do you think this is?! You are supposed to give me critical information I want on Optimus Prime’s—!”

“Aft-er-noo-o-on, Decepticons!” Starscream sing-songed.

Rumble whined wordlessly as his extremely important first report got wrenched off course by yet another birdie. Primus, six of them, he’d brought wingnuts two and three, and the cones too. At the noise he made, Starscream whipped his helm his way. Ugh, but maybe, if Starscream mucked this up, he wouldn’t have to be the one to tell him about the, uh. The thing.

Rumble was so distracted by this possibility and Megatron’s classical background raging that he didn’t see the lunge in time.

Rumble rolled backwards like a struck bowling pin, tumbling helm over pede as Starscream barrelled into him to the exclamations of his air force behind him.

“No! This is my gotten gains!” Starscream yelled in his faceplates when they finally smacked against the console below the viewscreen with a unison oomph. “You’re not the one with mission grit in his gears!”

“And in his brain module, tin-turkey!” Rumble hollered, planting a pede in between his optics and shoving.

Before Starscream would pop off his helm, Boss, bless his spark, stuck a limb in and removed Starscream by the scruff. Starscream wriggled in the grip, but Boss had a grip from the Pit, so he played nice as Megatron got up into his face.

Frenzy came over and tugged Rumble up as their command trio bickered on, one aloft. “Maybe you’ll make it out still functioning after all,” his twin muttered.

“No no no, frag his report!” Starscream crowed. Skywarp and Thundercracker stood closer to the knot of mecha with dually cringing expressions, Skywarp trying to get a glyph in. “I found something so much better. You asked me to find your Prime, Lord Megatron, and so I have — with the unbearably delectable addition of my having I found incredible intelligence that will fundamentally change the course of the war.” He gestured dramatically to his cockpit with a fan of his claws.

Megatron growled. “Skywarp, report, as you went on a completely unapproved mission into enemy territory to retrieve a very intentional prisoner—”

“Hey! I just told you I have the gossip of a lifetime and you ignore me?!”

“It was a, uh, extraction mission for, you know, Decepticon morale. TC— um, Thundercracker morale, sir—”

Whispered: “Oh, Primus, leave my name out of it.”

“You abandoned your post and went off null-rays blazing because of one neurotic staff sergeant—?!”

When all the voices started overlapping and getting louder, Rumble grabbed Frenzy’s hand and attempted to slowly back into the ventilation shaft opening beneath the central bulkhead. They could make it to Bermuda in an hour, maybe—

Soundwave shook Starscream bodily, placed the other hand on Megatron’s advancing bulk, and glued Rumble and Frenzy to the floor with a sharp glare. Ravage silenced the rest of the room with a deadly hiss from where he was perched, directly into Megatron’s face, and it went sourer than a sparkling with an intake full of of lithium-lemon.

“Starscream’s banishment: short,” Soundwave said.

“Banishment? I’d use the glyph mission, really, and you know, the mission was a wild success,” Starscream said in a small voice.

Soundwave glared deadpan. “Soundwave: overjoyed. Starscream: will route intelligence through Intelligence Officer Soundwave. Skywarp: will explain ‘extraction.’”

“Like Pit I don’t get to tell it! Megatron, guess what, Optimus Prime is—”

Soundwave tightened his grip with an ominous metallic creak from Starscream’s backstrut. His jaw snapped shut.

“Skywarp: report.”

Oh, they’d already heard the elevator part? Okay, great, Skywarp wouldn’t bore them.

Mostly, the big thing was that Skywarp expected far more Autobot resistance than he was actually met with.

He’d warped into one of the unsecured unstable shafts of the Ark they hadn’t bothered to port-protect yet and shimmied into the ship proper via one of the hull faults with all bits and bobs intact. On one wing, a search and rescue mission without any blaster-burns was a fantastic cycle, all things considered. If this amount of nothing and nobody continued, he’d consider it shore leave. He knew where all the turret guns were in the Ark at this point, and for some reason, they’d never changed their locations, so there was a decent chance he’d get out of this clean as cloudbreak. That is, if he could get Starscream out without his trineleader waltzing right into the line of fire while telling him Skywarp was sending them in the wrong direction and how did they ever make Skywarp navigator, yeah yeah.

He made it all the way to the brig clear and unaccosted. He’d definitely accidentally stuck a wing into one of the lines of sight of one of Blaster’s cameras, but no tiny rhino-settes came charging in as he poked his helm into the deep-set brig. Coppery walls blared unwelcome orange at him, and standing behind the only activated cell was Starscream, looking very spangly with his colors against the orange, and also, sad.

What? Okay, fine, Star, not looking sad, not looking bereft and covered in Earth dirt like he actually had been, because apparently looking dirty and sad in jail was “demeaning” and not pretty normal, but whatever, it wasn’t like this was Skywarp’s report or anything.

Starscream perked at his trinemate’s appearance in the brig and rushed forward. “Skywarp!”

“Hi! Decepticon cause needs you before you eventually get traded back,” Skywarp chirped back as he sidled up to the bars. “And by ‘Decepticon cause’ I mean Thundercracker.”

Starscream rolled his optics, but his wings totally gave the front away. “Goody for me. Let me out of here. Megatron sent me on a mission, and I was backtracked for a moment by dint of an ill-tempered mechling—”

“He sent you on a mission after you tried to kill him?”

“Don’t interrupt me! We are all fully aware Megatron’s helm is full of…”

Well, Skywarp figured he would leave the exact words out of the official report.

“Eh. We’ll just keep you in quarters for a few cycles until he forgets,” Skywarp offered after Starscream’s… debrief.

“No. You’re going to bring me back and find him with haste. He’s going to crown me instead of pound me, with what I have,” Starscream said, cackling as his wings raised. As he did, however…

“What is that?”

“What? What is what?” Starscream asked, nervous, his voice pitching upwards.

“That,” Skywarp said, and reached an arm around his trinemate’s cockpit through the bars. Because what he had in his other hand was entirely delightful and rare and intake-watering and abso-fragging-lutely communal trine property by law—

“It’s— get your mitt off of me!” Starscream yelped as Skywarp just poked him a little, the wimp. “It’s an Autobot scheme is what it is, so don’t touch it.”

“Frag off! What scheme could they possibly have for a delicious energon goodie?” Skywarp whined. Rusting rotors, he hadn’t had one in forever. It looked soft and pink and unbearably sweet. 

“I… Well, I’m not sure yet,” Starscream mumbled.

“Is it like, if it’s beryllium flavored they’re trying to get you to give up information, if it’s magnesium they’re trying to cover up poison—”

“I don’t know— mitts off, you blockhelm! The Autobots gave it to me and said they ‘felt bad’ for ‘forgetting about me and ‘leaving me off the guest list.’”

Skywarp’s pawing was momentarily forgotten. “...the Pit does that mean? No one ever feels bad for you.”

Starscream’s wings rolled in mystification.

“Worse yet, Optimus Prime was the one who brought it to me,” Starscream said skeptically. “Looked… well, it was annoying. I’m not sure what it means.” Skywarp examined the goodie. It looked alright. Tantalizing. He intook just slightly. His olfactory didn’t find anything wrong.

“Stop sniffing. It’s mine,” Starscream said, put-out.

“It’s probably poison,” Skywarp said, perking one wing inquisitively. Starscream lifted his chin and pouted.

Skywarp couldn’t help but smile at him. “Well. In any case, I’m here to save you. From jail. And poison. Or whatever.”

“My hero,” Starscream deadpanned.

“Aw,” Skywarp said, fluttering his wings. “Heroes get kisses.”

Starscream glared at him from behind bars. Skywarp grinned wider.

“Indulge me,” he whispered.

Starscream ex-vented heavy and rolled his optics, but pressed his wingtips up through the bars. Skywarp brought his forward with a small clink and put their helms together. “So Vosnian drama,” Skywarp sighed. “TC’s gonna be jealou-u-u-us—”

Rumble raised his hand. Skywarp stopped talking. Primus, finally.

Big Boss’s completely venomous sneer went in his direction, so Rumble guessed that meant it was his turn. “Yeah, can we skip you being fraggin’ disgusting behind enemy lines, or?”

Skywarp huffed. “It’s relevant.”

“It was not relevant!” Starscream shrieked from the other side of the room, held away from the group by a wan-looking Thundercracker and an upset Dirge leaning slightly away from him. “You shoved your glossa down my intake, distracted me, and then stole half my goodie before breaking me out! End of story!”

“Query: was it poisoned,” the Boss said painfully.

“Nah. Beryllium-flavored.”

“I find this to be tedious, pointless, and unworthy of my time,” Megatron said with a deeply furious even tone. “I want Rumble to tell me what more of his report he has, tell me of Prime,” — Rumble cringed — “and for Starscream to be sent back to the ocean. With immediacy.”

“No!” Starscream wrenched away from Dirge’s hold to point an accusing finger in Megatron’s direction. “Megatron, you’ll hear me now: the reason Optimus Prime has been absent for so long and avoiding engagement is because the mech— is— sparked!”

He punctuated the proclamation with jabs of his pointer finger. The bridge went hushed, and Starscream’s chassis heaved with the force of his ventilations.

Megatron waved a hand. “I already knew that. You prove useless again, Starscream! Rumble. Continue.”

“... how did you ALREADY KNOW—”

Rumble and his fellow cassettes heard the scream through the ship — one by a very familiar name.

The group waited for a moment to make sure no gunfire, commotion, explosions, or splattering followed the noise. When nothing followed except a very distant anguished Starscreamian wail of That was mine!, they crept further. He’d be fine.

The Ark was scary deserted, like, nobody nowhere. If they didn’t know any better they would say the Autobots had all up and left, distracted. But Ravage had made life-sign sweeps, he said they were there, just all… clustered. Rumble and Frenzy got to poke their nose ridges in rooms they’d never been able to do more than peek into through some vent slats, and really, it helped Rumble appreciate the little things in life, like skulking around and being nosy.

But, um, his directive was to speak of Prime, so he’d speed up. The copper halls of the Ark were empty, save for…

Ravage didn’t seem nervous, so none of the other cassettes tensed up when two pairs of heavy footfalls came their way. At the end of the hall, the Seeker attached to the scream appeared alongside his trinemate. Starscream looked confused to see them. “What? Why are the hellions here?”

Hellions? Buzzsaw asked over comms as Ravage growled.

“Top secret! Why are you here?” Frenzy said.

“I told you you had to live in mystery,” Skywarp said hotly.

“We’ve been asked to monitor the situation,” Ravage muttered, ruffling Laserbeak and Buzzsaw’s feathers as he was honest. “You’re making this so much more difficult.”

“The situation?” Starscream asked, sneering. “I— I know more about this situation than you.”

“Really.”

“They made energon goodies,” Skywarp said. “Not poisoned.”

“What do you know about the situation? You— I’m the one who knows about the situation!” Starscream exclaimed. “Skywarp, get us out of here. Now. If they get back to Megatron before us I’m never letting you live it down—”

So they’d skittered off, and the cassettes had infiltrated further to where the Autobot gathering was, and, uh, took their places in strategic positions around the room to view the goings-on. And Prime was there, whole and hale, addressing his Autobots, atmosphere festive.

The cassettes had already known about the potential sparkling, but it still was fairly surreal to Rumble to see the mech himself saying the words himself. This was proof.

And he’d brought out a board, and uh… um. Well, the board had, uh… Oh, Primus, the look on Big Boss’s face wasn’t really helping him remember what he’d written and he— choked. He could still make it to Bermuda, right? Maybe Starscream would let him hitch an ocean ride?

Rumble spread his hands wide, clearly something breaking in him. “Dah— You know I, uh, really think it’s great, Big Boss, that you—”

“Designation: Lord Megatron,” came wearily from Soundwave beside Megatron’s quickly-dwindling patience.

“—Lord Megatron Boss, that you with awesome, uh… display of strength and brains managed to totally woo and knock up Opti— I mean… the…”

He looked to Soundwave, who appeared to be attempting to crush his visor between his fingertips. “Target. Rumble: will present findings.”

Rumble tittered an uneasy laugh. “Right, Optimus Target.” He cleared his vocalizer. “Well, boss, it’s come to our attention that the, uh, bitty’s name is, ah…”

He turned around to his twin, an unknowable expression on his face. Megatron denied the urge to punt him across the room so hard he embedded into the wall.

“Spit it out!” he howled. “What could possibly be so unusual that you withhold information from your Lord—”

Soundwave cut him off — the only being in four galaxies that could do so without retaliation — by resetting his vocalizer with a harsh sawtooth buzz. He set his shoulders back and lifted his chin as Rumble shrank by his feet.

“Optimus Prime: has designated Megatron’s sparkling as ‘Grease.’”

To Megatron’s right, six Seekers made a single, terrible mangled chirp of stifled hysterical laughter in chorus.

…Oh, this would not do.

Chapter Text

Hot on the afterburners of the revelatory report, the immediate reaction Megatron had, as with most things, was to swing his cannon towards anything vaguely shaped like Starscream. The cannon powered up, but he held it at its charge-up point and simply watched his tittering little flock of Seekers shriek, cringe, scatter, and squawk indignantly. Ramjet grabbed Thrust and held the smaller mech in front of him.

“Go on,” Megatron grit.

Rumble cassettified with haste.

Up on the viewscreen where his “intelligence” operatives displayed their findings shone an abominable image. The first vomitous element being Optimus with a hand on his chest, happy and in good health and humor devoid of his presence. The second element more loathsome still being his Autobots whole and hale without blaster holes through their engines and tires unpunctured. The third was perhaps the most gear-grindingly ghastly: a Teletraan-provided display behind him with Cybertronian text glowing cheerily from it. They were— no, they could not be. The mech of his attentions could not possibly have furnished the glimmer in his chest with these obscenities.

“This is the uh, visual we captured of O-Optimus Target, sir,” Rumble sputtered from the console’s dock. The cassetticon’s squeaking faded into the middle distance as he explained the scene, replaced with a faint ringing noise. 

“Crankshaft,” “Lanehog,” “Throttlejockey,” “Wigglewagon,” and finally “Grease.” They were displayed on the board behind him in plain Neocybex, clearly designations, clearly unhinged.

The first four travesties had been crossed out, but the fifth was circled, positively indicated as the designation with which Optimus would burden the sparkling in his chest. Which, Megatron noted with a quickly-increasing amount of burning implacable fury, was also his sparkling.

“What’s a hog?” Skywarp stage-whispered.

Sound rushed back in with the unwelcome accompaniment of Skywarp’s cohort in silent agony of stifled hysterics. Rumble had fallen silent, unwilling or unable to continue.

“Put it away,” Megatron growled, and Rumble removed the offending image from the bridge before the air force could positively explode.

“Lord Megatron,” Soundwave intoned, and Megatron ignored him and removed the lethal threat, powering off his cannon to put his hands to his helmet.

“Grease?” Starscream said at a pitch high enough to perk the ears of turbohounds.

“Lord Megatron.”

“I am in thought!” Megatron moaned, pressing his fingertips so hard to his brow he wondered if he could erase the sight from his brain module with some effort. 

“No, there is not a way to uncross those cables,” Starscream wheezed.

The impulsive cannon blast was intercepted by Soundwave’s surge forward as he with dancer’s grace kicked the barrel upwards. The blast perforated a hole next to its older neighbors. The Victory creaked hollowly, but did not collapse, and thus Primus smiled up at them.

Soundwave took care of the minutiae in the kliks afterwards as seawater dripped into the bridge slowly. Rumble had made some sort of attempt at explaining the scene itself: a human tradition, to choose names for their unborn pink little monkey thing before it emerged from the… wherever, and to whittle down those names until the right one presented itself. But these had not been the right ones. No, no, Optimus had whittled nothing. Optimus Prime had stooped to new lows in some kind of carriage-onset madness and begun participating in these demeaning, primitive rituals. Megatron did not listen to the trailing-off of Rumble’s report, deep in thought. Grease. Grease. Grease. Like a drum pounding in the back of his helm.

Soundwave also managed to corral and control the tweeting seething mass of wings called Air Command, though he had refused to punt Starscream back out into the ocean. “Starscream’s information-gathering: of use,” Soundwave said. “Grudge: useless.” Which was preposterous, as Megatron had never heard of a useless grudge before.

“Energon goodie: given to Starscream by Optimus Prime himself. Regrets he would ‘miss’ the event: offered,” Soundwave said dubiously. “Meaning of overture: unclear.”

“The meaning of it is that he has gone utterly mad,” Megatron said into his hands. “Reason has left the mind of a mech that looks at a newspark and ponders its existence as Wigglewagon.”

Soundwave cringed. “Theory: not fully inadmissible.”

Megatron shook his helm, rattling loose the names that had taken up residence in his hard-coded files, never to be removed. He sat upright, sudden and full of righteousness. “I w— my sparkling will not be humiliated like this,” he said imperiously.

“Like this, right. Humiliation is impossible to avoid for that particular twinkle in Prime’s eye,” Starscream said from the corner.

Megatron whirled around. “Go back to the sea!” he howled. Water dripped onto his helm and he raised his cannon to the ceiling before remembering how he’d gotten there.

Starscream gave him a rude wing-gesture. He was lounging on a broken computer console, on his side. “Soundwave said no and I still have a matter to settle with you! How dare you attempt to interfere in the natural order of a trine bond,” he said affrontedly. “If you start making the air force abstinent, you’ll—”

A growl leapt from his throat, and he ignored the Seeker behind him with the willpower of all the Trions. “Soundwave! With me!” Megatron cried, having had more than enough of Starscream for one cycle, perhaps a lifetime. He’d find some way to make the mech an aquaformer without Soundwave’s glower. Later. He had different problems.

“The sparkling must have its sire,” Megatron said solemnly.

Soundwave accompanied him down the long, dark, wet walk that was the circuitous hallways of the Victory. Rumble and Frenzy had docked themselves to Megatron’s slight relief, and Ravage had excused himself for other business. Laserbeak and Buzzsaw, however, perched themselves on their creator’s shoulders, heads bobbing with every step Soundwave made.

Megatron looked around the purple, groaning cavernous space and frowned slightly. Perhaps they’d clean this place up when the sparkling came. That exposed wiring was fearsome-looking, but might also perhaps electrocute the thing. Dumb Decepticons doing so, he could handle, but— no, any heir of his would be smart, right?

Soundwave nodded. “Megatron: has come to the correct conclusion.”

“The first and most obvious method,” Megatron said, putting a considering hand to his chin. “I must take custody by force. But how? It is still orbiting its pilot spark.”

Laserbeak tilted her helm. What, like— transferring it to your own spark? she commed.

“What? No! Ew,” Megatron shuddered. “But Optimus has denied coming here. There must be a way to remove it from him without harming the thing. It cannot stay with Optimus for any longer, this is an emergency — he’s poisoning it!”

From the corner of his vision, two aviformers side-opticked one another.

Lord Megatron, Laserbeak said. I think we’re putting the cart before the equinoid. Several carts.

“Do not speak riddles to me.”

She ex-vented from her spot on her creator’s shoulder. Why has Optimus suddenly decided to volunteer information about the sparkling’s existence to you? Is there any proof that this sparkling is actually yours? And in addition, it’s unlikely he could fake its existence, but possible. I feel we have to take into consideration some of the more concrete realities of the situation—

Megatron gripped her by a wingtip and dangled her above Soundwave’s shoulder. Her creator looked up at her with a bright visor and Buzzsaw squawked.

“You sound like a sniveling Seeker! You ask asinine questions, you think me an idiot!” Megatron hissed into her little face, and when she did not grovel within the proper period of one astrosecond, he reared and hurled her down the hallway.

“Megatron!” Soundwave cried.

“She can fly!”

“Megatron: infected by Optimus’s madness,” Soundwave said, bringing up his hands angrily. “And Megatron: cannot possibly be considering as first effort the separation of a newspark from its pilot.”

“Pilot spark: Optimus Prime!” Megatron exclaimed in mocking disbelief. Soundwave gave him the dirtiest look one can give when they have a visor and facemask. “Though I have conquered him, I cannot be blind to the danger he poses!”

“Megatron: must think his next glyphs very, very carefully. Hint: apologies, multiple.”

“Your loyalty is legendary, Soundwave, but I have my limits to insolence! Assist me with this endeavor or I will baste and roast Buzzsaw served with ferrum sauce to whomever is a real help—”

Ker-krunch!

“It’s alright, Mega,” Scrapper cooed, putting Megatron’s helm to his chest and rocking just slightly. “A few more adjustments and we’ll have the worst of it done.”

“He twisted everything,” Megatron wailed into the comforting— vile — lime green. “I’ll kill him!”

Hook patted the intact metal next to his wrenched-open plating. “Yeap, Sound really got you good. That’s— ooh. That’s a, uh... haven’t seen one of those since the Rust Sea Naval Museum.”

“He’s your best friend. You won’t kill him, we don’t kill our best friends,” Bonecrusher said gently, petting Megatron’s shin. Wait, no, that wasn’t Bonecrusher, that was Long Haul.

“I’ll kill all of you—”

And before he could finish the threat, a viewport-rattling shriek ripped out of him as one of the tangled what-fors Soundwave had given him was dislodged to access the medical override systems for pain sensor management, and Mixmaster sniffled in disgusting soft-sparked sympathy as Megatron’s noise tapered off into a sob that— that never, ever happened. No, slag, that was Long Haul, the other was— ugh. One of these days he would be able to tell his creators apart, but to his credit, they were all the same color.

“Good mechlet for staying still,” Hook said, definitely Hook, and handed him a rust stick. 

Chapter Text

If Soundwave would be unreasonable and stupid, and full of insurgency, traitorism, slag and scrap metal shavings, hurtful blows — he should return to logic, and consult Shockwave on the matter.

Honestly, he should have come to this conclusion first. Shockwave was always willing to do what needed to be done in the name of Decepticon glory. Nothing stopped him. A little quibble about a cooked cassette would be nothing to Shockwave. Dear, loyal Shockwave. What a fantastic subject. Even if he was… well. He was Shockwave. There was little else to say.

When the Constructicons had released him and ceased their infernal cooing, he hailed Shockwave on the bridge, sat in his proper place on the command chair. Starscream looked to be stewing, lurking by the security officer, delightfully glowering. Megatron made sure to look extra comfortable, but it was difficult with another set of systems self-repairing.

The hail was answered near-immediately, Shockwave’s obliging eye appearing onscreen with a delighted flicker of the mech’s optic.

“Hail Megatron,” Shockwave said, bringing his cannon arm to his fore— his helm. Optic. Megatron didn’t like thinking about the logistics. “Do you have need of me, my L—”

“A hypothetical, Shockwave. How might one remove a sparkling from its carrier alive?” Megatron asked, stopping Shockwave’s praises in their tracks before the mech’s voice became too grating on him.

Shockwave paused, then brought his proper hand to draw a thoughtful motion along his chin— lower lip— optic ridge— ugh. That little purple metal bit above his neck. Megatron suppressed a shiver.

“An insightful question, my Lord,” he spewed. “And one I, with deepest regret, find myself lacking an answer to. Studies of the subject available to me are not factually assured, as most ventures into the field of study were deemed ‘unethical’ to perform observational or experimental procedures on due to concerns of ‘newspark extinguishment.’”

Megatron sneered. “Iaconians,” he said scathingly.

“Agreed,” Shockwave said, as he always did. “If I am provided a test subject I may perform my own experiments with an assured appropriate validity of results.”

Megatron frowned. He had no doubts that Shockwave could and would provide a result that would make Starscream’s former colleagues at the War Academy short-circuit with jealousy, but gnawing irritatingly at his logic center was the existence of a time constraint.

“May I delve into your mind, my Lord?” Shockwave said, and a Starscream-esque noise of disgust came from behind Megatron. Megatron nodded indulgently. “Are matters of Cybertronian reproduction on your prodigious processes?”

Another noise came from behind him, and he turned. Starscream was standing rigidly in military-precise standing, nose ridge in the air. Beside him, doubled over, was Thrust beside him as bridge security officer, wings trembling. Starscream gave Megatron a questioning look. Megatron took a note to toss Thrust against a bulkhead at earliest opportunity, and Starscream into a kelp forest at best convenience.

“It is mere curiosity,” Megatron said, and made to disconnect, since Shockwave was surprisingly of no help, and the urge to pound some Seeker’s faceplates in was becoming more urgent than feeling the effects of Shockwave’s balm of respect.

“Why, Megatron,” Starscream said, stepping forward beside his Lord’s chair and halting Megatron’s motion. “Why so modest? I am sure Shockwave would be over the moons to hear of your great success!”

“Success?” Shockwave said, optic wide. Wider? Did it actually change, or was Shockwave an expert of illusion?

“Starscream!” Megatron snapped, and whiffed a grab at his traitorous snake of a Second’s right wing. He went for the disconnection button again, but Starscream settled his frame perched on Megatron’s throne arm, blocking it with one sleek thigh.

“I am utterly shocked—” he paused for a proud snrk — “that he hasn’t shared news of his impending creatorhood with you,” he said sweetly towards the screen.

“Creatorhood— impending,” Shockwave repeated. Megatron placed one mighty pede on the small of Starscream’s spinal strut and heaved, sending the Seeker, yelping, aft over afterburner into the consoles in front and below him. They were broken anyway. 

“I— I conquered Optimus Prime!” Megatron shouted into the screen at an unreadable Shockwave. “He is carrying my sparkling and will be made to relinquish my heir to me!” Shockwave only stared.

“I simply have not found a way to do so yet,” Megatron said to Shockwave’s lack of reply, upturning his nose. He pointed a large black hand to Shockwave’s fa— optic— whatever! “And you were no help,” he spat.

Shockwave seemed overcome. “My Lord,” he said, strangled. “I beg forgiveness. I-If my knowledge is useless I am useless to the Cause.”

“Very!” Megatron spat, and watched Starscream wrench his helm free of a smashed-in console with a hint of joy.

“My Lord, I can be of use,” Shockwave plead. There was an emotion Megatron could not place in his voice. He narrowed his optics. Perhaps it was… goodwill towards his Lord’s heir?

“Speak,” Megatron intoned suspiciously.

“If I am provided with Optimus Prime I will do my utmost to facilitate the removal of your sparkling from his… unworthy frame. I will look deeply into such a process,” Shockwave begged. “Or, perhaps, if a sparkling is provided to a willing volunteer, the environment for testing may be controlled, and most assuredly there is a willing volunteer befo—”

“So you don’t know,” Megatron growled. “Thank you, Shockwave,” He slammed the disconnection button, and looked up to see the surrounding mecha in the room with… airs of faint discomfort on all.

He raised a brow. What was that about? “Get back to work, you tin-plated paintcans!” he calmly instructed.

Soundwave, emerging from the hall to the rest of the Victory, stood looking annoying and overpowered. Megatron scowled at him from the side of his optic. No, the lingering sting had not yet left him, and no, he had not yet apologized. Nor would he! Soundwave did not understand the indecency of the situation. He alone had been the decision-maker for his own sparklings, and raised them with dignity intact. Well. Mostly. Soundwave’s progeny were talented, yes, but largely annoyances; Soundwave was boundlessly attached to them despite their obvious limitations. Except Laserbeak. Megatron thought he might apologize to Laserbeak.

The two stared at one another.

“Megatron’s limp: gratifying.”

“I am not apologizing,” Megatron spat.

“Soundwave: comes bearing last-ditch effort of reasonability. Lord Megatron: has considered waiting until the sparkling has emerged to liberate it from Prime?”

“What? That’s ridiculous,” Megatron laughed. “I am the Slagmaker. I do not wait.”

He shook his helm and sat forward once more, pressed his fist to his chin, and thought. In the reflection of the screen, he saw Soundwave throw up his hands, and exit the bridge.

Shockwave saw himself very clearly in the reflection of the screen: a shamed mech, hand gripping the metal of his knee with unquenched thirst.

Megatron was procreating with Optimus Prime. Reproducing, sparing his spark energy, furthering himself with— with…

He intook harshly. Without him.

What’s more, Shockwave’s first formal request to be the seedbed for true Decepticon glory was, roundly, rejected. In front of Starscream, no less. He wished quite desperately for Kolkular to split apart and swallow him whole. Or perhaps his spark chamber’s integrity to fail and for his chest to explode into a million incalculably energetic pieces and kill every last Autobot lingering on Cybertron. The second one. Yes, the second one, most definitely.

He stood. Pity for one’s circumstances and meaningless hopes for spontaneous disintegration served no scientific purpose. He was trembling, yes, but broad strokes needed no fine motors. He needed a cube of energon, and he needed to think: thus he needed data. He needed an audience with Starscream, whom he would debase himself in front of for need of further knowledge of the circumstance. 

So he did, and so the debasement went, and—

Horror. Madness. “Grease!” he howled, one joor and one equally infuriating and enlightening conversation with the universe’s potentially worst Seeker later. “A precarious situation, and Optimus Prime has chosen to torture Lord Megatron’s progeny.”

Starscream had been unbelievably smug, twirling a length of tubing connection around one of his claws as Starscream spoke to him from his laboratory (something surely unpleasant had been bubbling in the background, a noxious fume appearing to rise from it, and Shockwave would report the incident). The event would fuel his machinations for eons to come, Shockwave was sure, and renewed his determination to thwart Starscream at his next turn for Megatron’s benefit. While Megatron was surely able to save himself, Starscream was, unfortunately for every mech on Cybertron, Starscream. He crowed about an ill-looking Prime quite taken with his new little whelp, but avoiding Megatron’s overtures (who on Cybertron would? Prime was without sound mind).

He paced endlessly in front of the empty, taunting yawn of the space bridge. “Steps must be taken,” he said into the cathedral of Kolkular’s interior. “Plans must be made. I must endear Megatron to my way of thinking — usually my Lord and I are so equally at pace with one another, our natural inclinations so aligned — how to do so? Megatron’s obsession— no, his… natural fascination with studying his enemy has always served him in the realm of warfare, but perhaps…”

Shockwave paused, nervousness at the grievous sin that he was about to commit lodging in his vocalizer. “Perhaps my Lord is… unfocused, and lacks… perspective in this— highly, highly specific matter,” he said hurriedly. Grief for the criticism colored his spark, and he set his hand upon his chest.

“But this is simply a missing knowledge base for Lord Megatron,” Shockwave said, recovering quickly. “It is clear that Optimus Prime has a clear inability to create a proper Decepticon heir. Crystal City clear. And it is clear that it is a poor choice for Megatron to claim Optimus Prime’s sparkling for his own. But perhaps Lord Megatron simply is not aware of the alternatives. Objectively superior alternatives. Scientifically superior alternatives. Intellectually superior. In-in all—”

He looked to his two limbs, and all five fingers to gesture with.

“In most respects, fully and completely superior. As Lord Megatron’s scientific advisor and trusted mind I must perform my utmost duty to make him aware of all Decepticon routes to galaxial domination, and prove the superiority of alternative breeding partners with which to pursue his illustrious swath of destruction.”

He looked up with his optic, feeling it burn bright. “Can you find fault in this hypothesis?”

Acid Storm, Nova Storm, and Ion Storm stood at rigid attention in his laboratory, taking the information in with wide optics. Shockwave inclined his helm, eager for input.

Nova Storm opened her intake, then closed it with a ripple of her wings.

“Right, right,” Shockwave said, resuming his pacing. Yes, Nova Storm was quite right. “More data is needed. How can a mech without previous success in procreation say with firm authority that he himself could be superior to Optimus Prime? Well, in so many aspects— no, no. I need ethos. I require…”

He paced a klik more, then looked up to Acid Storm, whose jaw seemed to be twitching. “Successful Decepticon carriers,” he said suddenly. “Firsthand experience to draw passable conclusions from, which lead to passable hypothesis, which form basis of inquiry.” Shockwave muttered. “With progeny of note. Yes, progeny of note... her, perhaps— Lord Megatron respects that particular example above many others, so—”

Shockwave stood up straight, frame protesting being still. “Seal the tower,” he commanded loudly. “The investigatory period begins. Interrupt me for nothing.”

The Rainmakers wing-saluted, Shockwave brought up a blank file, and began the process.

Soundwave was silent on the flickering comms screen for a moment, cogitating. As if Shockwave had not been extraordinarily clear.

“Of interest: my carriages,” he said slowly and skeptically.

Soundwave held up a pointed finger. “Holistic examination of the methodologies employed to create progeny of positive interest and material benefit to the cause of Decepticon total galaxial domination,” he corrected.

“Holistic,” Soundwave repeated.

“I do not know you to be a mech of slow processing speed,” Shockwave said.

Soundwave had seemed like it, though. He had been most verbal at the beginning of their conversation when Shockwave had contacted him about a proposed line of scientific inquiry to assist the Decepticon machine. The more Shockwave had spoken, however, the quieter Soundwave had become. The two of them had never had the mutual experience of splendid repartee, yes, but Shockwave knew Soundwave to possess the ability to speak instead of mimic, and did not understand why said ability was not being exemplified.

“Soundwave: processing this perfectly.”

Shockwave hummed and continued on as it seemed Soundwave had little input. “As Megatron has given me no orders I take it upon myself to pursue relevant avenues of interest that will benefit the Decepticon cause. As Megatron has lately been pursuing knowledge in the area of reproduction and spark-splitting, I find it pertinent to expand my expertise in these matters.”

Soundwave’s gaze was even. Shockwave felt a tick of annoyance lance through him. He loathed undue flattery, but perhaps Soundwave was truly shallow enough to be swayed by such low and irrational methods. “You, Soundwave, have benefited the Cause most concretely. My inquiry began with the plain recognition that of available datasets of Decepticon progeny, Megatron’s most approved was beget from you. Cassette Laserbeak is most effective, and, to put it in unscientific terms, our Lord’s favorite.”

A miniature head of an aviformer lifted into the view of the comm, from below frame. As she was named she appeared, apparently. Laserbeak merely looked without speaking, as she was unable to through traditional visual comm technologies.

Soundwave startled and quickly set his hand atop her head. “Laserbeak: return,” he muttered, shoving her down. Shockwave watched the scene with mild perturbation. Ah. Was this behavior… of the best? Well. Soundwave’s other progeny was the duo of Rumble and Frenzy. Perhaps there was a performance ceiling. He waited for Soundwave to regain control of his creation, noting for later the use of both hands to mech-handle an aviformer with a wiggly neck.

Soundwave made a strange humming noise as Laserbeak nipped at his finger, and shut the docking door with obvious strain.

“Shockwave’s reasoning for pursuit of inquiry: scientifically sound,” Soundwave began in an almost emotive voice, leaving his hands against his chest. Shockwave could not pick up on the emotion, as he could not often differentiate between Soundwave’s tones, but it certainly was there. “Soundwave… flattered by… logical interest. Proposal of cooperation: politely rejected.”

Rejected? “What problem do you find with your participation in this inquiry?” Shockwave said, mildly offended to be rejected without a reason easily understood.

Soundwave’s helm reared back. “...Shockwave: requires logical reason, perhaps? Only necessary reasoning: my lack of further desire to carry.”

Shockwave ex-vented with relief. Ah, good, it was only as simple as that. “You only misunderstand me. You would not carry as part of the procedure.”

Soundwave sat up very straight and made a low sawtooth hum. “Shockwave: asking to be…?” He leaned ever so slightly forward. 

“...Oh, you supposed I meant you and I to—!” Shockwave put his hand curled to his chassis. “No, Soundwave, perhaps I should state I am not often a mech of entendre. This proposal is… mere data-gathering of historical records, anecdotal evidence, observational experiments meant to gather conclusions of how best to behave with and rear sparklings. It requires no contact between you and I. I do not mean to imply that the procedure involved spark-splitting between participants.”

Soundwave was very still in the video image. Had the feed frozen? “Oh,” came the unusually short verbalization. “Mistake: Soundwave’s.”

Shockwave had made an error in assuming others were as direct as he. He should clear this up. “I have no interest in spark-splitting with you. I do not find you personally appealing,” Shockwave said. He thought for a moment. “I do not find your frame desirable. Parts of it even repel me. Please allow that to assuage your worries.”

Oddly enough, despite his comforting, Soundwave did not seem to be assuaged.

Chapter Text

Acid Storm snuck another silicon wafer from where Nova was attempting to hide the package underneath Ion’s wing, and crunched it between their dentae as quietly as possible.

“Shockwave: has scientific interest in firsthand knowledge of carriage,” Soundwave said from the computer console, vocoded voice holding a hitherto-unknown amount of restraint. He flicked through the datapad that held part four of seventeen of the brief, which Acid considered might have been oxymoronic if the author had not been Shockwave of Kaon. They had been going over the datapads with some unexpected vigor, Soundwave suddenly spurred into action after Shockwave’s… considerate disclaimer. “Science Officer: has put much careful and logical thought into this process, as evidenced.”

“Indeed. My brain module works at a processing speed unmatched by any other mechanical life-form aside from our Lord Megatron’s immense capabilities.”

Nova’s wing quivered and her helm ducked in perhaps the most impressive display of self-preservation Acid had ever seen. Ion’s derma pursed together.

“...Shockwave: willing to share with Soundwave reasoning behind experiment being purely observational? Decepticon scientific community: could be easily convinced by Shockwave’s put-forward hypothesis to develop experimental procedure—”

“Soundwave: must know development of proper experimental procedure requires long observational data-gathering of varying methods.”

I would watch fifteen seasons of this Vosnian dramavid, Nova sent them both in their trine channel.

I didn’t know Shockwave had cabling, Ion said, message dripping with awed subglyphs.

Acid chewed the wafer thoughtfully and watched Soundwave — head of intelligence, the Decepticon third in command —  lean forwards against the comms console, just slightly, enough for the glare of the console lighting to shine suggestively off of the glass of his chest and cast a gentle purple glow onto the inner workings of his dock, having been since vacated of his creations.

Can I admit something? This is totally working on me, Nova sent. Ion violently pinched her wingtip, almost sending all three of them sprawling off of their perfect perch in Shockwave’s high-ceilinged Kolkular eyrie. Well, not eyrie, really, but— tall as one. The package of silicon wafers previously held in Nova’s grasp dropped thirty mechanometers to the floor directly behind Shockwave, in full view of his video comm camera. All three Seekers ceased to vent, and Nova clapped a hand over her intake, but Soundwave… thank Primus and reverse cyberpsychology, Soundwave was on a roll.

“Shockwave: is aware that the carrier/sire dichotomy is scientifically unsound? Former Cybertronian studies: suggested evidence to the idea that successful progenitors have similar levels of success from all split sparklings, regardless of their status as carrier or sire.”

“I theorize, Soundwave, that your capacity for interpersonal knowledge should have suggested to you that I do not trust much data that does not come from my own personal observances and scientific rigor.”

“Soundwave: feels such hypothesis would withstand Shockwave’s scientific rigor.”

“You operate now on the scientific principles of ‘I feel’ statements?” Shockwave said skeptically.

“Rephrase: Soundwave would like to feel Shockwave’s scientific rigor.”

Three pairs of red optics went wide in the rafters.

Acid set a hand on Ion’s thruster. Do you plan on telling Shockwave we have twelve sparklings living their best functioning on Paradron, and that you wrote that datafile?

Do you plan on ever interfacing again?

Point taken.

We do nothing, Nova said. As trineleader I officially declare we sit our afts on this very high vantage point and watch the best entertainment we’ve had in chords, she said, and fluttered her wings.

Aye, her wingmates chirped in joyful unison, and the play played on.

Chapter Text

Act Two: Coercion, If Not Persuasion!

Megatron felt a pall over his spark at the thought: it seemed as if the first plan may not have any capacity at all to work. He could allow Shockwave his undoubtedly gleeful time in the silicate-sandbox… still, it would not work on a reasonable schedule. Unless he could some how freeze Prime in time—? No, that was… no. He’d already tried that. That had been embarrassing and he was pretty sure the gears in his left leg still lagged a few seconds behind.

Megatron pinched his brow. The first plan was a bust. That was fine. Fine. Maybe he had overreacted, unbearably unlikely as it was. But judging by the way he’d turned the sensitivity of his audials down all the way and his wires were still crimping from pique, Megatron was pretty sure this second plan was also going to go the way of the smelter.

“And now there’s another hole in the bridge’s ceiling, thanks to your premature emitting! Scrapper has been making noise about reinforcing it, which means not only construction, but me having to look at his disgusting fragging tail—”

Starscream had been on the usual tirade now for — Megatron checked his chronometer — ten kliks. Soundwave was busy right now investigating a lead on an energy store. The mech’s absence from his usual steadfast presence as his Third unnerved him, but honestly, he was still kind of twinging in sensitive (yet indestructible!) areas. Annoying as he was, even with the fervor with which Megatron would love to pop his helm like an Earth grape, he did keep his Second around for a reason: he was a genius.

…It was just really, really hard to remember.

He’d sought out Starscream for the assemblage of Plan B. Which surely would be happening after Starscream got his complaint quota out.

The cooldown after their little spat had been quicker than usual. Perhaps the threat of forcing celibacy upon him was more incentivizing than Megatron thought possible! Starscream had even come in peace after the name discovery to simply complain about… what was it, interference? It was a rare thing when Starscream spoke to Megatron about something instead of simply disobeying him and evading punishment.

Starscream shook his head with mild disgust. At what, Megatron didn’t know. He really had not been listening.

“Shooting everywhere. Honestly,” Starscream sneered. “No discernment, no regard for the safety— you know, do you seriously not have a spark-baffle?”

“I have never needed one,” Megatron grit, narrowing his optics at Starscream’s hard glare. Obviously any mech would be delighted to carry his sparkling.

“What else are you missing, firewalls?” Starscream asked, leaning dangerously on one leg and popping a hip. “Should I tell doting designer Hook that his creation doesn’t watch his PSAs about VDs?”

“I know a very good method to prevent those,” Megatron rasped. Starscream’s jaw tightened and a shiver of anger rattled up to his wingtips.

His gaze turned back to the fish swimming outside. They’d met in the observation deck, where Decepticons often went to cast away their worries into the black inky void of not space but the… Specific… Pacific… Atlanta? Atlantis Ocean. Fish and kelp and other disgusting creatures oozed and undulated outside the windows. Megatron liked imagining what they felt like when he crushed them in his hand.

“You really should have come to me first about the sparkling,” Starscream huffed, finally veering to the point. “I’m Second! You skipped a fragging number! And I have the perfect plan for you.”

Megatron raised a brow with a start. “You’ve concocted something?”

Starscream’s plans were often maniacal and complex, but worked most of the time, when he bothered to align his interests with Megatron’s. To think that the sniveling Seeker would be so battered-down in pride by the existence of his new heir—!

“Kill the thing,” Starscream said with a grin, throwing up his hands. Megatron’s vents gave an imposing squeak.

“Shoot Optimus Prime in the fragging chest, kill it. He’s sparkbroken, weak, Oh, Primus, my innocent little glimmer of hope for the future, wah, wah, you step in—”

He slammed a fist hard on the bulkhead, making Megatron— he did not jump, but his wiring was just haywire with the self-repair. “Wham! Dead Prime, all cheer! You… eat his spark, or whatever it is you plan on doing with his frame when he biffs it, don’t elaborate—”

An unexpected cloud of rage coursed through Megatron’s body further and further as Starscream spoke. Steam rose from his plating. “I will not do away with my Decepticon heir!”

Starscream’s wings deflated and the grin sloughed off his face. He pinched his nose bridge. “You can just make a new one!” he exclaimed.

Megatron thoughts flashed to the list of missed calls he’d been levying Prime’s way. “Waste!” he proclaimed. “Another plan.”

“I doubt you’ll succeed at the second option.”

“I doubt you will succeed at intaking saltwater into your ventilation—”

“Ugh! Ditch your inane Decepticon tradition of me drag sparkmate to cave and try to appeal to Optimus via Autobot tomfoolery. He is sentimental if he is keeping your little brat,” Starscream spit. “Use it against him. Autobots are stupid, emotional, illogical, motivated by things like sparkling fever and conscience.”

…it was a fairly decent examination of things, and Megatron met it with a frown and dark silence.

“Ha! That’s your Starscream’s right and I’ve got my plugs twisted about it face,” Starscream twittered, completely ignoring that it was his dark silence face.

“You seem to be familiar with Autobot tradition, Starscream. Treachery?”

The room lit with a flash of purple light and the distinct sound of Skywarp refusing to walk anywhere. He vworped in with a jaunty salute. “Lord Megatron,” he said, puffing out his chest, and gave another less formal salute to Starscream, who gave him a distracted wave of his wing and continued.

“Treachery!” Starscream laughed. “Hardly. Autobots possess a simple credo. Whatever makes you look dumb and ugly, and suffer fits of weak-sparkedness, do.

“Prime is naming dear darling sparklet Grease according to the Autobot tradition of puerility. Soft, inoffensive, automobile-related,” Starscream said, waving a hand dismissively. He turned to Skywarp behind him and tilted up his chin to meet the other Seeker’s optics. “Dare I sound like Shockwave — to assume the Autobots operate on that level in almost all things is only logical.” Skywarp’s answering moronic giggle grated against Megatron’s circuits.

Megatron knew Grease was a stupid name. He did. He really, really did, but the desire to refute Starscream in everything that he did took precedence over all. “Do you have room to speak in all this, Starscream? Will your progeny not be called something like… ‘Lux Superioria?’” he asked snidely.

“Pah! As if I would busy myself with spawn!” Starscream exclaimed. He upturned his nose. “But my naming abilities are unimpeachable. I get a say on the sparkling glyphs when Thundercracker pops some out.”

Megatron glanced to Skywarp behind his commander. Skywarp shook his helm.

“My point: Optimus is choosing such a designation because of longstanding idiotic cultural beliefs,” Starscream continued. “You won’t be able to intellectually argue against it. You need a different approach.”

“Such as?” Megatron growled.

“If you, o mighty Megatron, can find it in your puny little brain module to play psychological games with Prime, I offer you plan B: leverage Autobot weaknesses. Start your… heir’s name change process by countering whatever Autobot nonsense Optimus wants with Decepticon ‘tradition’ you hold so spark-dear,” Starscream crooned. 

There was no real Decepticon tradition of naming. Those in his army who were irresponsible enough to find themselves sparked simply named their creations something fearsome, and that was the end of it. Top tier, of course, being on the level of Buzzsaw, Bonecrusher, Dead End… If not fearsome, then at least interesting. It did no one well to have mechlings wandering about both naturally stupid and made easy targets for Autobot taunts by being named Plug.

But Starscream’s implication was clear: make one the frag up. So Megatron would. The next time he got to see Optimus Prime, which he couldn’t anticipate. The question of why his seductive comms of Let me rock your world once more were going unanswered was beginning to overtake his processing.

“What to deceive with?” Megatron asked dubiously. He rattled through his memory. “Grand Decepticon traditions… bloodsport, the color purple, Tarnish throat singing…” None of which overlapped much with the naming of a newspark.

Skywarp shrugged. “Say we name every newspark Purp until they choose a better one themself?”

Megatron put a hand to his intake and removed him from the discussion.

“I need something undeniably Decepticon and worthwhile!” he griped, whirling to face Starscream.

“What? You’re telling me you hate Grease but have no idea for something better?!” Starscream shrieked.

“Well— this is an interim name! So Gr—” his fuel tank seized nauseatingly — “it does not stick!”

The incredulousness rolled off of his Second in waves. “You want an heir and have no idea what to name it!”

“I will come up with something.”

Starscream rolled his optics. “What, Killblaster 9000?”

Megatron furrowed his brow and put a considerate hand to his chin.

Starscream groaned. “I like it better when we chase each other down the elevator shafts,” he whined. “You’re more interesting that way.”

“I’l’chs’ydn’he’lvtr’shaz,” Skywarp said.

Megatron ripped his look of disgust away from Starscream to lay it upon— oh, Pit, Skywarp was here, right. He glanced at him up and down, then removed his hand from his faceplate. The mech smacked his derma.

“Your undoubtedly inane reason for interrupting our Command meeting, Skywarp?” Megatron hissed.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, wings flaring. “Right! Sorry! Started thinkin’ about cool sparkling names— yeah, so, we had that little moment of peace, which was great n’ all, but we still used power and fueled, of course, so Engineering came up to me with their relays in a bunch and voluntold me to tell you, ‘cos you won’t usually try to splinter me into a thousand tiny little pieces and even when you do try I can usually get out of it, so I’m more likely to survive bein’ the bringer of bad news, so yeah, they told me t’tell you—”

“Skywarp!”

As the designation echoed off the watery windows, the lights went out, and the Victory’s humming wound to dead silence.

Skywarp pointed upwards meekly. “…we’re outta juice?”

Porcariaite: long-rumored new source of human-produced energy, Soundwave briefed him via comms as the Decepticons scrambled towards the location Soundwave’s data-traps had snapped up over the human networks. Energy source: introduced outside testing environments and displayed at the Misty Springs Energy Conference, today. Decepticon mission: obtain samples of porcariaite and take in for analysis and energy transference t—

If Decepticons had naming traditions, Soundwave, what would they be?

Soundwave’s radio silence was loud. Query: Megatron combobulated?

I am proffering you a hand of outreaching peace. Give me a likely tradition. How did you name yours?

Soundwave: proffering military intelligence.

Megatron could have growled, but his fuel cells overheated in alt when he did that, and he preferred to only do it when he could burn Starscream’s hands. Military intelligence that hadn’t crossed beyond the confines of your processors until after our fuel reserves depleted themselves because… why, exactly? Megatron wished he could have screamed at him in their heads.

The air of uncharacteristic hesitance spread across the commline. Soundwave: busy mech?

Busy prying Starscream’s worst qualities out of his brain module—!

I think we should name sparklings combinations of their parents designations, Buzzsaw offered diplomatically.

Starscream dipped a wing in indication of descent. The raiding party swooped in and touched down upon an asphalt plain — Megatron’s mind reeled. Would Optimus be here, or simply send his Autobot fools? Would he be stupid enough to…? He wouldn’t endanger the thing, other than its pride, right?

Human cars laid abysmally small and ugly around a large and abysmally ugly building. From a few of them, shrill wet little screams emerged. Ramjet with the one functioning circuit he still had kicked one.

“A fused designation is un-fearsome. I need something standout, unmistakably un-Autobot,” Megatron grunted as the car arced away from them with a sickly ho-o-o-o-o-o-onk-crunch.

Buzzsaw soared off in the direction of the building with a parting What’s wrong with Optitron?

Megatron could have done the fun thing and blasted the top off with his cannon, peeling the ceiling to watch all the humans run and scream like scraplets in a disturbed nest, but his spark wasn’t in it. He spun into gun mode and let Starscream take aim with him. Ah, the reprieve that came with being wielded. All he had to focus on was deadly force. The best things in life were so simple and sweet, but…

“Thrust! Come up with a hypothetical Decepticon tradition of designating newsparks,” he growled at the cone-headed peon from his place in Starscream’s grip.

Tiny pink and brown things ran and shrieked as Thrust cocked his helm in confusion. “Um, is this an order, si—”

Megatron fired a warning shot into a school bus.

“Uh! Wh-whatever they say first is their name?” Thrust sputtered as the rest of the raiding party hurtled forward, black cloud behind them. Megatron rattled with disamusement.

The raiding party ferrum-ferreted their way into the building. They had limited time before the Autobots arrived, so efficiency was best; they tore into the human’s gathering with abandon. Starscream swung him around with dizzying velocity, and the thrill of a long overdue raid was beginning to fill his circuitry. The song of battle in his code! Conquering! Taking what was his, him and his Decepticons, and— 

…and frustration at his Decepticons’ common stupidity blocked all pleasure from his brain module.

“Whichever creator’s got the bigger gun chooses whatever they want,” Vortex offered as he nudged inside the convention center and flung a human directly into the cylinder of a model nuclear plant. 

Onslaught watched Headstrong barrel headfirst into a glowing green rock. “Glyph randomizer,” he said, shrugging.

“I believe we should only allow sparklings to name themselves once they have spilled enough energon with their bare hands to earn one,” Divebomb squawked. He grasped a human in his talons and flew out of a skylight. Hm. Semi-intriguing. He’d give it more thought when the screaming faded more… but no, no, none of these were right. He would know it when he heard it.

“Lord Megatron: requires focus,” Soundwave intoned as Rumble and Frenzy slipped away to slide a handful of exhibited radioactive isotopes into their subspaces.

Megatron flipped out of alt, landing with a tremendous thud and a brandishing accusatory finger. He opened his mouth to tell Soundwave what color the pot was calling the kyanite-kettle, but nothing came out as behind his malfunctioning Third, two cassettes careened through the air.

Starscream launched into the air before they could impact on his cockpit. Megatron whirled around with his cannon aloft to find none other than the abominable red Autobot copycatting Soundwave in similar position.

“Of course you would,” red Soundwave said, and three things happened concurrently: he shot Megatron, that little rhino thing sprang from his chest, and a rush of action swept over the pent-up crowd.

The Autobots, damn them, in all their buffoonish protective instinct of the little Earth worms, had practically damn materialized! The deafening percussive clangs of metal on metal rang out as the factions met and bodily tackling ensued. Distantly Megatron heard a mech call out an order with distinctive Tetrahexi twang as he clutched the blaster burn on his shoulder and socked the imposter across the visor. (We don’t kill our best friends rang with sickening creatorly warmth in his mind as he very much enjoyed it.) Ramjet managed to fling the rhino into a pipe that promptly burst, filling the room with steam.

He shook out his hand as white billowed across his vision, and his monumental meta spat out the association: Tetrahexi accent— Optimus’s bodyguard… blast it, he could see nothing through the hot steam! How—

A little light in his helm went ding. Red Soundwave groaning at his pedes, Megatron powered up his cannon. In a moment he aimed it towards the shout and ever so slightly upwards, and fired a fuschia beam of surely-irresistible fusion energy at the walls and ceiling of the human building with an enormous, foundation-shaking ker-choom.

When the dust had cleared slightly, he spotted a handful of mecha ducked onto the floor, helms down, and one Starscream howling something about “aim worse than his taste.” But the steam, the puny displays, and fragile little walls of human habitation had hollowed in a perfect cylinder, and just below the blast diameter laid the object of his detestments. Ash, debris, and asbestos sprinkled down on him as he stood bent over with his optics wide and finials flattened. He looked beautiful like this, Megatron thought: cowering. He hadn’t seen him in so long, not at all in the metal since Optimus had confessed. What a figure he was, what an enemy and what a bearer of Decepticon glory. And— and what was going on around him?

Megatron squinted. A banner was quickly catching fire behind Optimus, frilly, pastel. Human glyphs decorated them. The section of the center the Autobots had — made camp in? — was bare of humans, but closer observation revealed the powdery white falling onto miniscule tables at Optimus’s pedes, covered in organic fuel. Colorful boxes were scattered across the floor, knocked over from a table decorated in blues and pinks. “They were already here?” Ramjet grunted behind him.

A red mechanical arm burst from a chunk on the ground, and Ironhide (regretfully) rose from it to come to. He found Megatron where he ogled — loomed! — and set himself between Megatron and a slowly-straightening Optimus. Megatron’s vision went red, not the least reason being a red menace was pointing a weapon at his lordly self and ruining this fragging moment.

Megatron pointed the cannon at him and Optimus sprung upwards, half in front of Ironhide’s torso. Ironhide grunted in surprise and attempted to twist in front of him further. “Wait! Megatron, we’ll speak!” Optimus shouted, stretching out a hand.

Speak, or other things, preferably. The lack of immediate warfare encouraged Megatron. “You plead for parlay, Optimus!” he crooned at high volume. “As if that is not what I have been sorely desiring. Come closer, away from your… barnacle.”

“Tell your mecha to cease fire,” Optimus called, and the unbearably boring process of a ceasefire washed over both factions uncomfortably, comms sent, weapons transformed away, murmurations at all sides.

Optimus disengaged himself from his barnacle with infuriating sluggishness and flurried comms conversations went unheard as Megatron approached his dear Prime. What progress they could make in physical proximity…! They met among the ruin of whatever had been occurring as papers fluttered in the faint wind. Megatron stood close to Optimus, optic to optic, and nearly chest-to-chest. Optimus steadfastly remained where he was, putting on such a face for his mecha… Megatron pasted a roguish grin onto his face. Ironhide grimaced. In dismay at his prowess, surely.

Optimus’s wipers went thwi-thwip and uncovered twin gleaming arcs of windshield under the powder. Megatron felt a basal power surge of pure and utter glee.

“Optimus Prime,” he cooed.

“Megatron,” enemy his replied coolly.

What could Megatron say? Persuasion of the verbal kind was not his strong suit, but here they were, so close. Optimus’s mere presence was soothing his circuitry. Was it him? Was there a metaphysical field aglow about him, from the sparkling in his chest? Mind control, of a kind — was he, too, changing Optimus’s mind? Surely by merit of him being who he was, Optimus was affected, as abounding in spiritual connection they had reached as twin forces in their delightful little war, but—

“What in Pit,” Starscream sneered, “was going on here?”

Megatron tensed in fourteen separate joint arrays. “The commanders of our factions are attempting talks,” he hissed slightly to his right. His Second scoffed.

“Baby shower,” Ironhide grunted. “Which you ruined.”

Optimus’s optics closed. Megatron felt a furious buzz in his vocalizer.

“Shower? You can’t shower a spark in any solvent, much less a newspark, you’ll fry yourself to deactivation.”

“You know what, why don’t you give that hypothesis a look-see, Screamer?”

Furious bickering surrounded the two of them at once. Optimus’s optics opened back up, cast downwards to the curls on Megatron’s chest. An unusual emotion ran through Megatron, then.

“I profess some disappointment I was not invited to this cleansing ritual,” Megatron said lowly, but not cruelly. Optimus perked slightly.

“Not a ritual. A party,” Optimus murmured as the voices got louder around them. “Humans shower expecting creators in gifts for the upcoming hardship. The humans we have befriended — and yes, they are capable of such things despite their size and carbon basis — will not live to see this sparkling come into its full functioning.”

Megatron really did not care, but nodded solemnly anyways. Optimus touched his chest where the wipers had made it shine and lightly translucent. Megatron stared.

“Grease will appreciate the sentiments from our friends long since gone, I am sure,” he said, and Megatron’s intake seized. Right. Grease. Right.

“I— Ah, Optimus, I am wondering why the Autobot and h-human traditions are taking precedence in this instance,” he choked, suddenly and damningly taking Starscream’s advice, which, thinking back on it, may have upended it all to no one’s surprise.

Optimus was motionless for a nanoklik. His optic shutters blinked once. “Precedence? Over…?”

“Decepticon tradition,” Starscream offered offhandedly, veering off his argumentative track.

“Tradition! Yes!” Megatron blustered, looking between Starscream’s lifted brow and Optimus’s. “It is a matter of tradition, Prime! You cannot respect that? The name. I get no input? You simply cannot override Decepticon naming practices with— with whatever you want.”

Optimus ex-vented with an enormous whuff of air from his grille, and seemed to steel himself. “This sparkling is an Autobot, Megatron—”

“Ah, but it’s mine? To deny one’s self their origins is to deny one’s self,” Megatron quoted imperiously. The stuffy old bat must strike a chord somewhere.

“Must you quote Alpha at me?” Optimus groaned with a distinct grimace showing just slightly from above his battlemask.

He was the one with the rebuilt body from the mech. But Primus — how Megatron had missed battlefield wit like this. Perhaps Starscream’s machinations really did have merit. If he weren’t under two layers of self-repair programming… “You’ll listen to him if you will not listen to me, won’t you?” he crooned.

“Fine,” Optimus sighed heavily. The ceiling in the distance collapsed. No human screams sounded, so it was none of the Autobots’ concern, let him have this. Optimus loosened his stance. “Let’s hear it.”

Megatron froze. “What?”

Optimus’s finials lowered a fraction. “Let’s hear what Decepticon naming practices you have for me.” He stood wide-stanced, and held out a receptive hand, so, so close to his plating in the small space between them.

Oh. Frag, he hadn’t had enough time to sift through the slag he’d been offered. Megatron’s optics flickered from hand, to bright blue optics, to swirling ash in the air, to the shining, buffed metal chest— Randomized, battle, combination, no, no no—!

“Purp,” he blurted.

Optimus blinked. “Purp,” he repeated.

Megatron reset his vocalizer systems. “Yes. Are your audials tuned correctly?”

Optimus turned his helm just slightly to look to Starscream, who nodded affirmatively, and flick his optics to Megatron from his periphery. “...Sentimental value?”

“A-all Decepticons are named Purp until they are old enough to choose a designation for themselves,” Megatron heard come out of his own vocalizer.

Optimus turned away fully to Ironhide. Megatron watched hungrily and openly through the encroaching smoke as Optimus’s battlemask, slowly, so slowly, retracted.

“That was made up, wasn’t it,” he stated rather than asked, a warm, sly smile spreading across his face in profile.

Megatron’s spark lurched sideways in his chest at the sight. Optimus’s optics glittered with amusement. Perhaps — Perhaps the convoluted schemes could all be set aside. They were both right here, weren’t they? When the two of them were like this, face-to-face, together, Megatron could feel Optimus the enemy and Optimus the spark-linked all at once glowing in front of him. Like this, building rapidly catching fire around them, it was easy to think Optimus could be convinced, well convinced, through other means…

Ironhide hefted his weapon onto his shoulder. “Right, Mega-meathead. This angle is new. Break out what you call charm and you think you’re gettin’ off scot-free from screwin’ over this conference, shower, n’ contest…”

“Ironhide,” Optimus said stonily.

“You’re not gettin’ what you want, that energy source you’re champing at the bit for. Skedaddle while you have paint on your backside.”

Only curiosity managed to rein in the fusion cannon’s re-aim in Ironhide’s direction. “Contest? What contest?” Megatron asked with increasing agitation.

“Part of the… shower tradition is games and… contests,” Optimus said, reticence snowballing larger. “Part of our… partnership with the humans is taking interest in their culture, and… artistry.”

“We had a cute little shindig for our friends and for the human car companies to choose a design for Grease’s alt,” Ironhide grumbled. “For fun and t’bump up the conference attendance. Gesture o’ goodwill and all that, if you know the word means, since we’ve got the bearings to have our species and our war on their planet.”

He was hosting a contest. For Earth companies to design an alt mode. For his Decepticon heir. His Decepticon heir, Grease, shaped like a… a Hondu. A Cardillack. An Ass Martin. A completely, utterly, atrociously and execrably human Ford Binto.

Politics and reason left him, and as the punch was thrown Ironhide’s way, the ceasefire and all Pit broke.

The Great War continued on for another cycle. In the heat of battle Megatron recalled little other than Ravage’s success in the retrieval of the porcariaite and his own involuntary order to retreat, away from Optimus, away from the unfortunate thing of endless potential held hostage by him. Optimus’s battlemask had returned and the gunplay was not nearly as entertaining when Megatron’s systems hardly let him vent too hard near him. When Optimus disappeared into the ruin with his meddling mecha he howled in impotent rage — how odd, when potency was the only positive personal quality he had recently been assured of.

Though the mission was a success, Victory victoriously fueled, Megatron didn’t feel better when its lights flickered on and the systems heaved alive once more, stores of energon refilled. He merely sat on his throne, which was not feeling as big as it had been, and swirled the sludge in his cube. If possible, after such betrayal, humiliation, and near assassination of the past cycles… he might have felt worse.