Chapter Text
“You think we pushed it too soon?” Thundercracker said quietly.
Starscream paused his pace, looking at Thundercracker. The blue seeker was sitting rigidly in his chair, but his talons were nervously picking at his legs. Skywarp was poking around the various tests that their trineleader had lined on the wall. In his slight paranoia, Starscream had demanded they bunker in his labs in the lower regions of the Nemesis until it was clear what Megatron decided.
“Nah. He’s probably writing some grand speech or whatever declarations grounders do,” Skywarp grinned as he carelessly tapped on a glass vial holding a mysterious liquid.
“Embarrassing,” Thundercracker whispered, “they should just reciprocate a gift.”
Ever since the trine learned about grounder courtships from Soundwave, Thundercracker and Skywarp had been picking at the odd ways of expression.
“They really are all empty-headed if they can’t recognize gifts,” Skywarp laughed, “Didn’t you say he just stared at the rock, Star?”
“The blankest look,” Starscream confirmed, before pacing again. Skywarp sighed, before teleporting in front of the moving seeker.
“He’s not gonna get angry.”
“What if he does?” Starscream sidestepped but Skywarp matched him. “Skywarp!” he shouted, quite exasperated by the other mimicking his actions.
“He’s not,” Skywarp reassured, “He’s probably writing a rejection letter.”
“I’d rather he avoid us,” Thundercracker voiced, “less embarrassing.”
“I’d rather he just pretend it never happened,” Starscream’s voice pitched nearly into a screech.
“I’d rather us go back to our quarters. Nothing’s gonna happen,” Skywarp complained. A knock on the door sent all of them silent. Skywarp jumped at the sound and teleported behind Thundercracker, wings down to hide further.
::Coward:: Starscream spoke through the bond before walking over to the door. His wings dropped at the sight of Megatron. The trine just stared, seeing no sign of a datapad that could hold an acceptance or rejection speech.
“After some considerable thinking,” Megatron began, “I accept your gift and offer.”
All he got were three blank looks from the seekers. Megatron sighed, before pulling out a dreaded datapad.
“I’ve researched what to expect from you three, and it seems forward enough,” Megatron scrolled through the datapad, “and hopefully Soundwave gave you a file to read on typical ‘grounder’ courtship. We prefer the term dating.”
“That’s a weird word,” Skywarp spoke up, wheezing when Thundercracker elbowed him in the side.
“I hope you don’t expect us to talk for hours going over this ‘dating’,” Starscream crossed his arms.
“There’s this thing called compromising, Starscream,” Megatron glared, “I’m not going to expect you three to be perfect at communicating but I expect some effort.”
“No no we can do that,” Thundercracker jumped up, going over to Megatron. His blue wings moved in a pattern as he reached out to touch the leader's arm but froze. “Oh. Sorry. May I?”
Megatron lifted his arm, and Thundercracker trilled quietly as he finally got to touch. His face scrunched up, and his talons released and began digging into seams, “Ugh, you’re filthy.”
Skywarp appeared on the other side, taking hold of Megatron’s other arm, “Oh you’re right.”
Megatron looked increasingly annoyed but then seemed to resign to his new fate. Starscream was smirking, not even trying to call the seekers off of their leader.
“Don’t assume I’m going to treat you any different when we’re on shift,” Megatron warned, specifically looking at Starscream.
“Didn’t expect it,” Starscream puffed.