Chapter Text
He tried to sneak into his quarters, he really did.
His work often kept him up late— blasted paperwork, why did there have to be so much of it? He wished he could just use his nullrays on it like he did his other problems— and though his trinemates often attempted to wait up for him, he usually found them sprawled in their shared berth by the time he got back, deep in recharge. He would climb in and curl up next to them carefully so as not to wake them, but selfishly he wished they’d wake up and pull him onto the pile or online enough to ask him how his evening was. Normally, they just slept on.
But of course tonight, one of the few nights he wished they would just stay in recharge, they didn’t.
Thundercracker’s optics onlined dimly, still half groggy from the interrupted defrag. He waved his trineleader over, motioning to the only empty spot left on the berth. Skywarp was hanging off the other side as usual, with Thundercracker’s arm slung over him in an attempt to keep him from falling off in his sleep.
“C’mere,” he trilled sleepily.
Starscream shook his head, wincing as the movement pulled on a sore seam. “I need a wash first, then I will.”
Thundercracker hummed with disapproval. “In th’ morning.”
The noise must have woken Skywarp up, because his helm popped into view over Thundercracker’s cockpit as he looked in his trineleader’s direction. “Screamer’s back! Come lay down.”
“I really need a wash first,” he repeated. He moved towards the washracks carefully, but hissed in pain suddenly as a fresh wound tore open again.
That caught his trinemates’ attention.
“Star?” Skywarp asked as a light flicked on, an insinctive ~status ping~ thrown his way through the trinebond. “Are you okay?”
Starscream quickly backed away, trying to put a bit of distance between them before they could notice his wounds. “I’m fine,” he assured with a smile.
Drip.
Starscream offlined his optics. Slag.
“Starscream,” Thundercracker said slowly, “please tell me that is not your energon dripping on the floor.”
“What?” Skywarp shrieked, vwopping suddenly over to Starscream’s side. He gasped as he noticed the dents and scrapes covering the other’s frame. “Primus above, what happened?!”
Worry trickled through the trinebond as Thundercracker made his way over. “Starscream, what is this?”
Their wingmate sighed. “Megatron and I had a… disagreement. It’s fine.”
“It is not ‘fine!’” Thundercracker exclaimed. “Just look at you!”
“Okay, well it may not be fine, but it’s normal.”
Somehow, the clarification just served to darken their moods further. Skywarp and Thundercracker shared a Look.
An intense feeling of ~protect~ surged through the trinebond. “C’mon, let’s get you cleaned up,” Thundercracker said after a moment, grabbing his arm.
“No, it’s okay, just go back to recharge,” he said quickly, startled at the sudden contact. “I can do it myself, don’t worry about me.”
Skywarp shot him an unimpressed stare. “It’s our job to take care of you, just like it’s your job to take care of us. Stop fussing and let us help.”
“Really, I—”
A wave of ~no arguments/listen~ from Thundercracker hit Starscream strong enough to make his knee-joints buckle beneath him.
Starscream scowled at them but didn’t protest further. His trinemates led him into the washracks, sitting him down on a chair that Skywarp had vwopped away to steal from some other part of the Nemesis. Slowly, carefully, they cleaned his wounds with washrags soaked in solvent, cooing and fussing over him in Vosian the whole time.
Thundercracker had to grab a patch-welder for a particularly nasty wound. “Holy Hand, Star, what did you do to get Megatron this slagged off?”
“Don’t blame this on me!” Starscream screeched. “All I did was tell him how stupid his plan was and why it would never work. We Seekers may be the most competent mechs in his entire army, but we can’t pull miracles out of our afts.”
Thundercracker finished the weld and shut off the torch. “Did you have to say it like that?”
Starscream rolled his optics. “I didn’t use those exact words.”
“Yeah, but I’m sure you implied it.” Starscream shot Skywarp a death glare. “What? We all know it’s true,” the purple Seeker said with a shrug.
“I just—“ Starscream cut himself off with a huff. His trinemates waited patiently as he struggled to find the right words to say.
When he spoke again, his voice was defeated and weary. “Even the Grounder troops are down almost half of what they were two orbital-cycles ago. We’ve already lost so many of our own kind; I don’t know how much more I— we— can bear.”
Thundercracker and Skywarp shared another look, feeling Starscream’s exhaustion creeping through the trinebond despite his best attempts to keep it out. With a lifespan as long as they had, time often seemed to blur together. It was easy to forget just how long they had been at war when sometimes it felt like they had just visited Vos yesterday.
But even though their home had been destroyed long ago, Starscream still felt it was his duty to lead his people as their Winglord. He had no choice but to ally the Seekers with the Decepticons after the Autobots destroyed Vos, and he was doing an admirable job of making the most out of a bad situation.
Especially when you considered the long-lasting animosity between the Seekers and Grounders. None of them wanted to work together, yet Starscream had managed to not only make them behave but also actively cooperate with them.
Skywarp leaned over to rest his helm on his trineleader’s shoulder. “We know you’re trying your best, Star. All of the Seekers do.”
“It’s not enough,” Starscream muttered.
“But it’s something,” Thundercracker replied.
A long moment stretched out between them. Then: “Do you know how many Seekers are left?” Starscream asked, voice so uncharacteristically quiet that they hardly heard him speak. When neither responded, he continued. “Two hundred and twenty-three. There are eight trines who have lost at least one member. We used to number in the thousands; now look at us.”
The air in the room was suddenly too heavy, thick with the weight of grief.
“Star,” Skywarp said softly after a few moments, “do you remember when Dirge and Ramjet lost Thrust?”
Starscream didn’t meet his optics, but his EM field suddenly turned sour. They could hear the echoes of his internal monologue working, catching snippets of useless and should’ve done better. “You know I do,” he replied quietly.
“Okay, so do you remember when, the next cycle, Megatron put in orders for those two to go on a scouting mission?”
“And how when you reminded him that they had just lost a trinemate and weren’t in any condition to leave base, he brushed it off and said that it would be good to ‘get their processors off it’ for a bit?” Thundercracker chimed in, coming up behind his wingmates to rest a servo on Starscream’s wing.
“What does this have to do with anything?” he asked, giving them both a glare.
“I remember how you went behind his back and changed his orders. You sent me and Skywarp instead, that way Dirge and Ramjet could have time to observe the proper Vosian funeral rites for Thrust,” Thundercracker continued, ignoring Starscream’s remark.
Their trineleader looked up at them again, unsure of where they were going with this.
“You take care of us, even in situations where you’re told you either can’t or shouldn’t. Not all Winglords are as good as you are, Star,” Skywarp explained. “I can guarantee you any Seeker in this army would follow you wherever you decided to go. And even if they didn’t, Thundercracker and I would follow you to the ends of the universe and beyond.”
Starscream didn’t look convinced. “Our previous Winglord would never have allowed the situation to get this bad–”
Skywarp frowned. “Who cares what your sire would have done? He’s dead.”
“But–”
Skywarp looked him dead in the optics. “Slag him.”
Starscream raised an optic ridge with hidden amusement. “Careful now, that could be seen as heresy.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m trinemate to the Winglord then, isn’t it?”
“Is that why you trined me? To have a free pass for all of your failed escapades?”
Skywarp sent mock-panic through the trinebond, inwardly pleased to see Starscream’s mood lifting. “Quick, TC, he’s onto us!” he exclaimed, vwopping away for a moment before coming back, a wide grin on his face. “Nah, you know it’s not. But it is a plus.”
Starscream shoved him away with the ghost of a smile. “I can’t with you.”
Thundercracker smiled at the two and sent affection through their bond. They responded instinctively, reciprocating the feeling. Their three sparks sang softly in harmony, a promise that they were in this life together. At the end of the cycle, they would always have the other two by their side. And really? That was all they needed.
“Enough of the sad stuff,” Skywarp said after a moment. “When’s the last time you had a chance to preen?” His voice was teasing as he ran a servo across the flat of Starscream’s wing.
His wing flicked involuntarily, but Starscream shook his head and started to get up. “It’s too late for that right now. We all need recharge, and—”
“Late schmate,” Skywarp waved his protests off and pushed him back into the chair. “Thundercracker, get the polish too. His finish is looking a little rough.”
Starscream’s wings flared in indignation, insistence on getting to bed momentarily forgotten. “Rough? Please, I polished it three cycles ago, how dare you–”
“Yeah, and then you got slagged by Megatron,” Thundercracker retorted dryly, tossing a clean washrag to Skywarp. “Turn around, we need to see your back.”
There wasn’t much argument after that— Starscream continued to complain for a few kliks, but his trinemates knew it wasn’t genuine; preening was the quickest way to cheer him up. They quickly got to work, dabbing the polish on and then sweeping the washrags in wide circles to rub it in.
The tension melted out of Starscream as they worked, and soon he began to lean into their touches. They were more than happy to oblige, often pausing in their work to stroke an aileron or massage their claws into a transformation seam. Skywarp especially— he all but quit his polishing in favor of caring for his trinemate.
Every now and then, when they preened too close to an old wound, Starscream would tense up and get a far away look in his optics. They would gently coax him out of his own processor again with trills in Vosian and gentle claws kneading beneath his armor.
“Hold still,” Thundercracker laughed for the tenth time as Starscream’s wings gave an involuntary flutter of satisfaction as he crooned with pleasure.
“Done!” Skywarp exclaimed a moment later. Their trineleader stood up to inspect their job in the mirror.
“It’s sufficient,” he noted with the ghost of a smile.
“Sufficient, my aft,” Thundercracker replied. “We did a good job and you know you enjoyed the attention.”
“Yes, well I suppose so.” Starscream paused for a moment, then said, much softer this time, “This was much appreciated.”
Thundercracker pressed his forehelm to Starscream’s, with Skywarp joining in. “You know we do everything we can for you.”
“And I you,” he replied.
“Yeah, plus now this means tomorrow it’s my turn to get preened,” Skywarp replied after a moment, a mischievous glint in his optics. Thundercracker smacked him upside the back of his helm.
The three pulled away from each other, EM fields radiating a mix of amusement and contentment. “Okay, now can we go back to recharge?” Skywarp whined, flicking one of his wings. “It’s late, and Screamer forced us to stay up.”
Starscream shot him a death glare. “Excuse me?! I offered to let you two stay in recharge—”
Thundercracker rolled his optics, grabbing one of their servos in each of his own so Skywarp could vwop them onto their berth. They landed in one big pile.
“Get your elbow out of my spinal strut!” Starscream screeched.
“I can if Skywarp gets his stupid cockpit off my arm!” Thundercracker replied.
The group continued to wrestle amongst themselves for a minute before finally freeing themselves and settling into their usual positions on their berth.
As he offlined his optics, squished between his wingmates, Starscream thought that maybe, just maybe, everything might be okay.
After all, he had his trine.