Chapter Text
Thundercracker already knew it would be like this when it happened, every seeker knows, but the pain of a broken trine bond is overwhelming in such a way that his mental processes almost can’t keep up.
It’s been a few hours since he saw Starscream fall from the smoke-filled sky and crash, and since the pain began. It has not dulled at all, and if Skywarp’s whimpering is to be considered proof of anything, he is also suffering quite badly. It is probably a blessing that the bond broke in all directions, because feeling Skywarp’s pain besides his own would be, quite honestly, fragging terrible.
At least they have the other seekers around them. Because they no longer have a bond frequency, they can’t attune it to the other trines’ bonds, which would have helped with the pain. However, their mere presence is soothing, their croons and trills and whistles music to Thundercracker’s audials -- these are his people. It wasn’t only his trine leader that died, it was their Commander, their liberator, their Winglord-killer. They can all mourn together.
The air barracks are filled with seekers and not many other flight frames. There is less sentimentality to be had, Thundercracker supposes, by people who didn’t know Starscream quite so well. He can see Windblade, talking to Slipstream, Cyclonus in the corner, quiet, and Skyfire.
Skyfire isn’t even in the conjoined Autobot-Decepticon Air Force, as he wasn’t in the Autobot one, but it makes sense. They were beginning to make friends again, after all. Skywarp was even betting Starscream and Skyfire would get something romantic going once more, as soon as Starscream got the huge stick out of his tailpipe, but now it doesn’t matter.
Thundercracker sighs, and looks at Skywarp to his side. The other seeker is perhaps feeling even worse than him, really. Skywarp never dealt with serious feelings very well -- he was always more of a jokester, and anything that mattered was usually repressed until it couldn’t anymore, then it exploded, worse than Starscream’s own mood. The blue seeker croons and pats Skywarp’s wing, resetting sensors that may have been left askew during the battle. Skywarp gives in easily, to Thundercracker’s surprise, shoves himself even deeper into Thundercracker’s personal space. This is good, he thinks. It’s better if Skywarp lets himself feel than if he bottles it up, even if Thundercracker is now alone to deal with these feelings.
The sound of heeled thrusters coming his way catches Thundercracker’s attention; it’s Slipstream, no longer with Windblade.
“Hey,” she says. A series of complicated expressions goes through her face, and Thundercracker is not equipped to figure any of them out. “I’m sorry, TC, Warp. I really am.”
He sighs, keeps patting Skywarp’s wing. “Yeah. I know.”
Every seeker in the army has come to pay their respects to them before, even her. But she knows very well what they’re currently going through, maybe more than anyone else: it’s not been very long since she lost both of her trinemates in a single battle, the brutality of the Quintessons deeply ingrained in her.
“Listen, don’t take this the wrong way,” she starts, looking about as emotionally constipated as always, “I’m not going to trine up with you as a rebound for my trine or for Starscream, but I think you should know... I’m here for the two of you. Just as you were for me, alright?”
Thundercracker laughs weakly, “We both know you’d never trine with Skywarp, Slips.”
On the other hand, the mech in question starts bawling, his optics brightening considerably and even leaking a bit of coolant. Skywarp, much to Slipstream’s horror, hugs her.
“W-we’ll be alright, the three of us- I know we will, Slips, I p-promise!”
Everyone now looking at them, Slipstream and Thundercracker try to calm Skywarp down, which only happens once the blue seeker suggests going to the mess hall to get energon -- “with sweetener, and a little bit warm, just like you like, Warp.”
Skywarp and Thundercracker give their goodbyes to Slipstream, the former with optics still crying-bright, and head towards the mess hall. Thundercracker immediately misses the presence of the other seekers. Everyone he passes is still looking at him, talking, whispering, but none of them get it. Not really. He tightens his hold on Skywarp’s hand.
All of a sudden, about a third of the way to the mess hall, everyone goes quiet, except for the sound of heeled thrusters. The sound of familiar heeled thrusters, in the same gait Thundercracker has been used to hearing for millions and millions of years. He looks up from the floor where he was staring, and turning the corner is his dead trine leader: no longer gray, no longer with a gaping hole through his spark, no longer dead.
He stops in his tracks, as does Skywarp. It doesn’t make sense, after all. They both felt the bond break. They’re both feeling the pain of it, hours later. It doesn’t make sense.
But Starscream is there, that is undeniable. He’s got that stupid smirk that means he’s plotting something, or he knows something other people don’t, and his wings are tall and proud. It can’t be anyone else, even if Thundercracker no longer has the bond to confirm it; he would know his Starscream in the midst of a thousand identical seekers.
While he’s nearly paralyzed, Starscream walks towards them slowly, as though to show himself off.
See? I’m fine, is what he seems to say.
Skywarp shrieks and, pulling Thundercracker along, runs to meet their trine leader. Once they collide, there’s the distinct vop of a teleportation, and suddenly the three of them are in their private habsuite -- privilege of Starscream being high command.
There is much screaming, from Skywarp’s part, of course, and exchanges of glances that Thundercracker almost doesn’t get. He is still in shock, but then Starscream speaks up.
“There is something I need to tell you two,” he says, as though that isn’t plenty fragging clear. Skywarp quiets down a bit, and Thundercracker shakes himself up to pay proper attention. “It turns out my spark is also aberrant.”
Thundercracker resets his optics a few times.
“How could an aberrant spark do this, though?” he asks. “Is your ability fragging reviving after there is no sparklight or brain activity left? That seems ridic-”
“From what I understand, yes, it is exactly that.”
“Really?”
Starscream smiles while his trinemates try to process the information.
“I’m immortal, basically. There is probably a caveat somewhere, but I’m not about to try and find it,” he says. “Besides, we have more pressing matters on our hand, don’t we?”
“We do?” Skywarp asks. Thundercracker notes he’s shaking slightly, but his optics are back to normal brightness.
Their trine leader looms over them, and Thundercracker realizes they’re still all on the floor, right where Skywarp teleported the three of them a few minutes ago. He finds out he doesn’t care much; Starscream’s presence is all that matters right now.
“Can’t feel you two,” Starscream says, and taps his cockpit. Right -- the bond broke, so Starscream must also be feeling empty inside. “And you must be hurting really bad. Can’t have that, can we?”
Starscream opens his cockpit and transforms away the metal that protects his spark. The light is bright, as though it hadn’t been completely destroyed a few hours ago. Thundercracker and Skywarp stare at it dumbfounded.
“So? Not gonna trine up with me again?”
The two of them open up so quickly it’s almost ridiculous. All of a sudden, the room is filled with their blue-white sparklight, and Thundercracker feels less than a million years old again, trining up with his two idiots in the Vosian War Academy barracks while all the other seekers were recharging.
There is no need for the trining vows -- they’ve been through the civil war together and, despite their differences, came out of it together. They touch their coronas and feel the bond consolidate once more. The spark-deep pain that Thundercracker has been feeling since Starscream’s death fades away, simple as that. He also regains access to a series of information on Starscream and Skywarp: the necessary information to fly together at peak performance. Now that the bond is active again, Thundercracker imagines he’ll be able to feel other trines’ bonds resonate.
It’s good. He’s so, so glad for Starscream’s aberrant little spark; the other seeker had always been somewhat bitter about the fact that his two trinemates had one and he didn’t, and then it turns out he does have one, and it was like this.
Just to ruin Thundercracker’s moment of sentimentality, Skywarp says, “So... who wants to cable in commemoration of Screamer being a zombie?”
Thundercracker would complain, but he can once again feel Skywarp’s happiness, and Starscream’s indignation, so he doesn’t. He just sighs, contented, on the floor with his two favorite people.