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”We are the life's blood of Cybertron, we are the corpses on which they've built their thrones. They step on our bent spines to rise above the squalor they so viciously keep us, attempting to smother our pride and break us.”
“They have forgotten us. Decided our sparks are not worth their consideration. That we are somehow unworthy because of the means of our birth. Our shape and our stock defining us more than the aspirations and ambitions we desperately cling to as means of surviving beneath their heel.”
“This is not a rebellion, this is a revolution. They've spilled our fuel to craft mortar for their castles. I say it's time to spill theirs.”
----
That the old dormitories remain despite years of war was impressive. This sector of Iacon had been especially scorched and ruined, the institutions and long-standing houses of education and science were crucial raiding locations at the start of this war. Both sides clambering for what they could scavenger before bombs fell or territory skirmishes sparked imminent devastation of the city blocks.
The dormitories had been looted long ago, but those who once lived here were either dead or long gone across the stars. Scientific minds, who lacked either the posturing nobility of the Autobots or the survival instincts of a Decepticon, fled when it was clear this war would not stop any time soon. The body count kept rising and with each spark snuffed bearing either badge, so too did Cybertron’s pulse weaken.
Starscream has not been back to this place in many years, stepping over debris of toppled walls and rusted pipes with a curling distaste. Though still standing it was hardly thriving. Walls blown out by nearby explosives, the building itself now leaning in a precarious angle. Ready to finally surrender at the slightest disturbance. But Starscream was quick and light and knew these cracked and misshapen hallways like a reoccurring nightmare.
There's painted defacement scarring the walls as he goes deeper into the building. Climbing stairs as the original architects never did put much consideration for flying builds. Watching the graffiti of Decepticon propaganda or familiar senator shapes burned on a roasting spit become more vivid as he climbs. Yes what a creative bunch they were.
If Starscream didn't know better he might begin to suspect that they were the bad guys in this war.
After some time he reaches his intended destination, taking pause outside the crooked frame and long faded glyphs etched into the door panel. The sight morbid as a worn headstone and twice as bitter
The locks dont work any longer so it takes only a loud tug to force the door along its track. Making enough room for Starscream to step inside and greet the quiet home he'd nearly forgotten.
He left Iacon years ago in much the same frantic state as he'd flown away from a cold planet that mocked him in escape. Almost died on the way back, having burnt up most of his fuel reserves searching a planet for a sign of life that never came. Halfway back to Cybertron before his abused engines failed, left floating in void as he screamed and cursed Primus for not just letting him die on that foreign planet.
By luck a freighter found him on their trip back from Messatine, delivering the harvest and bodies back home for the next round. Starscream was catatonic through most of the trip. Buried under a supplied ratty blanket and handed a lo-grade energon cube from a miner whose face he didn't see. Unable to exist past the looping horror of his memories. The echoing of ancient winds, the scream of warnings pressing deep into his processor when they fell...
Skyfire's touch slipping from his hand as his partner used what little strength he had to spare Starscream from the net of the storm.
He couldn't talk anyways, having blown his vocal box screaming for the other, circling a cruel planet with utter abandon for his own safety. So he never thanked the worker for the moment of generosity in a world that so hardly afforded them kindness without a price.
This home is just as he left it. Mocking scattered mess, the final victim of his outrage.
When Starscream was young this housing unit seemed so grand that even he spilled over into excited laughter with Skyfire when they first moved in. For the first time his wingspan could remain outstretched when stepping through doorways, no need to hunch or shuffle past limited corners or unaccommodating furniture. It had taken time and countless hours of argument with their supervisors, but they finally had this place. Their own. Somewhere they would begin the rest of their lives, a place of comfort to always have upon their return when their dreams brought them to such distant worlds.
Such idealistic children they were, such stupid little fools.
He sets down the equipment too large and delicate to fit comfortably in subspace, feeling the broken glass rattle in the weight. Stepping around the bulky device and dares not touch the overturned desks or tools strewn about the main room which served as their workshop. Actually every room was their workshop, even their berth more often than not came with balls of wire and freshly soldered bits needing to cool. Datapads bunched up at their pedes as casually as the insulation covers, Skyfire's melodic chuckle when Starscream would find a loose bag of screws under his cushion.
He thinks he misses laughing most of all - there's not much of that in war.
Untethered, unashamed laughter. Letting joy or warmth bubble up and pour from behind covered mouths. Moments bent over a workbench cackling as Skyfire pouted that it wasn't funny. Looking utterly divine with the remnants of the minuscule explosion coloring his white armor gray. Smelling like sharp chemicals and that Primus-awful polish he insisted on wearing to protect his bright armor rather than change his coloration.
“If you change your appearance you'll blend better. They won't notice as much when you're outdoing them.” Starscream had suggested more than once when Skyfire's presentations were often ended with compliments dipped in aggression. (”How interesting that someone like you could have proven such a theory.” “Amazing, to come so far with your disadvantages.”)
“I shouldn't have to change anything.” He always said, never once letting the way they noticed bother him. Or at least was a better liar than Starscream ever gave him credit for. “I can’t be bothered with their opinions, I have actual work to do.”
When he first met Skyfire he thought the big oaf was just that. Too earnest when they met, too quick to shake his hand and smile at a complete stranger. There were a hundred seekers on the campus (as guards or couriers and they had looked at Starscream like he was a foreign entity distorted from the pack) and never once did Skyfire mistake him for any of them. Their friendship was not immediate as Starscream was foul jerk - not easy to win over - but Skyfire had tried with no sense of bitterness towards him. The only one who ever saw his uncapped anger as something more than poor personality. He was the first to stop and ask Starscream if he needed help and the first and only one Starscream ever asked.
They were going to conquer the universe together. Catalog every anomaly and discover what those stuffy science board members so feared beyond Cybertron.
Starscream refocuses his attention, moving to crouch by the bulk device. It’s simple to start up, a trail of claws clattering against dull keys. The hum of the machinery powering on and emitting a low-level vibration that catches his wings with irritation. He should call-in but he's not ready just yet. He’s ahead of schedule, it would be a problem, and besides he built these things. He didn’t need to have their systems explained to him unlike some of the others.
At his pede there’s a stylus. Dusty, forgotten. Chewed maliciously and Starscream can almost hear Skyfire’s chiding voice, gentle and firm, commanding him to stop. That he’s ruining their supplies and Skyfire wouldn’t replace another one even though he always did.
This home echoes in him, Starscream didn’t consider that. Didn’t stop to question whether or not he would see Skyfire lingering in the hall towards the sleep quarters - or if the shadow of his builk would travel across the debris as if standing near. Watching. Laughing. Forever patient and kind at the edges of Starscream’s proximity - but always out of reach. He fooled himself into thinking he wouldn’t feel anything and this trip became something of a test for him. Whether he could actually say goodbye to the ghosts and ever-following emptiness clutching his spark even after all these years.
He finds he’s following one of these ghosts. The glance of great white wings disappearing around the corner, Starscream careless where he steps as he proceeds. Glass and wire and rusted floors all sullying his pedes as the bedroom is the same as before - but how many years left to rot?
Skyfire isn’t here, of course, no matter how much he wanted to believe that shadow playing tricks on his memories. Just another empty room where Skyfire left his favorite covers on their bed. The small thing which barely fit one so Starscream had grown so used to just sleeping on top of his partner - what a foolish duo they made. It almost makes him smile.
Almost.
Starscream hadn’t been able to sleep on that berth when he returned to Cybertron. Desperate and screaming at anyone who would listen that they needed to go find Skyfire. That he was lost, not dead, and waiting for him..but no one would help and that was the start of Starscream realizing how little his life mattered to the world. An inquiry was made and to Starscream’s horror they had begun to suspect that HE was responsible for Skyfire’s disappearance. That by some sadistic means Starscream would benefit from losing the only one who ever mattered in his life.
Starscream returned to this home, took what he needed , and destroyed the rest. He wanted their home useless for others, untouchable. He wanted to leave all evidence that they had a life shared as impossible to identify as he could and what a sickening turn of events he thought. They were so forgettable by their teachers, their professors and so-called friends that their home was left to wither.
Maybe they feared ghosts? Maybe they just didn’t care but there’s still writing on the walls where Starscream lurched off Skyfire’s torso and began writing frantic across the surface. No time for a datapad, he’d finally figured out the solution to one maddening equation and Skyfire had forgotten to be upset about the damage to the wall because he was so thrilled at the discovery.
He could do no wrong in Skyfire’s eyes and Starscream knew he would never get that again.
Even Megatron, whose poetic words coiled around the idea of imperfection as something to delight in rather than shun, found fault in him. But that had taken a long time to uncover...
After he fled he stayed with whoever would suffer him. Boasting false claims of his worth, inventing a new identity for himself as it was easier to blend in with rough wrecks of slum dwellers if they thought you were running from something. After some time Starscream began to believe it himself. No longer a scientist, an explorer, now he was a Starscream who could swipe the credits from your hand with only a smile. A Starscream who found it was easy to manipulate others with a flash of wings they’d never seen before in these lesser cities. Who let brutal servos reach for him and fled just as quickly when he got what he wanted from them.
Skyfire always said he was too clever, thankfully that worked in his favor trying to survive stealing contraband tech that only he recognized. First hand experience with it and all, the Academy really had a problem holding on to their toys...and Starscream still knew all their security ticks.
Each day spent waking in whatever berth he'd fallen into, taking what job he could, hoping if this was the day he'd finally die.
It was during this chaotic time he met Skywarp and Thundercracker. He wanted to be alone but there was something about them, pitiful and small, which resonated with his spark. He couldn’t go home to Vos, having burned those bridges in his youth, so perhaps this was the next best thing? All his life he’d been told a seeker needed others - did poorly when alone - and Starscream still can’t verify or deny. He honestly doesn’t know if surviving with these two was better or worse than dying in a ditch somewhere at the time.
But he survived - because there was no other choice really. Whether he was fighting each day for himself, or his new companions...or if Skyfire’s gentle voice still cradled him in the dark urging him to live was unsure. Those were messy times highlighted in a glaring haze of frantic desperation and near-death experiences caused at his own sass. Learning where he stood in the shadows of long-established Kaon criminals and the pecking order of black market merchants. He couldn’t go back afterall, there was no place for him unless he choose to follow in the leashed expectation of all seekers. Errand bots or pets. Pretty or pretty useful. Nothing more than a shiney model in a display case to show off the owner’s wealth over another living being.
No. Not for him - and not for Skywarp or Thundercracker. He wouldn’t allow it.
Once he was satisfied being a student, waiting for the day his discoveries would bring his designation to Cybertron’s history. Quiet and patient, working hard to earn that right.
Now he finds he doesn’t like it when eyes are off him. They should be looking at him. Everyone should know who he is - because unlike Skyfire - Starscream did not plan to be forgotten so easily.
He stumbled across Megatron during this time, the second worst and second best day of his life.
Skywarp wanted to see the gladiator rings despite Thundercracker’s dislike for the sport. TC, with his stern front and soft spark, playing it up to seem dependable for Skywarp. It was admirable and stupid and Starscream didn’t encourage the behavior. They were only going to ruin themselves falling for one another and he should know.
That day felt like a dream, or a nightmare. The crushing crowds, the screaming fans like hysterical mobs as warrior after warrior bruised and blooded themselves against their fellow mech. Cybertronians tearing each other apart at the symphony of the stands urging them on. It was furious and devastating, a building crescendo with no fall as the world just seemed to grow louder. Angier. Bloodier.
And Starscream found he loved it.
A lullaby to soothe his long-broken spark, filling the fractures with molten chaos and convince it to feel again.
Finally he got to see others suffering the way he felt and there was suddenly nothing greater than the charge of the crowd demanding more. A sea of bitter mechs unsatisfied and wanting.
Then there was Megatron.
A voice which carried over the stands, the starved crowd shocked silent as this poet commanded the chaos. Weapon sharp and bright as he addresses his citizens, as he greeted his equals in the arena and they cheered his name with adoration. (Starscream had been adored once in such a way, a single voice smiling across a crowded room.) Echoing patterns of stomping pedes as the crowd united in his presence. This pale and scuffed gladiator who vowed his victory as example of their uprising, who pledged to fight for them as he did in the ring.
And when Megatron swung his weapon and tore a combatant in half - Starscream felt a strand of his own hurt snap and fall away just as swiftly.
It was impossible to approach Megatron afterwards. Either locked away in his chambers beneath the arena or surrounded by hoards of fans, of disciples desperate to listen to his words of a new age. His Tarnish drawl illegal and powerful - his very voice a defiance to those gilded bastards who watch from their thrones. Let citizens like them suffer. Let kind mechs like Skyfire be forgotten because it’s easier to abandon their own than save them.
They attended rallies and riots, watched from perches above or in the thick of crowded streets. Listening to this gladiator turned savior demand satisfaction on their behalf. Teach them how brittle the podiums on which their oppressors stand truly are.
Megatron, scarred from a life of hardship and battle - with rough servos and a poet’s voice - refused to lay down and die.because his existence was inconvenient for the upper echelon.
“Fight.” He said to his followers, his swarm of broken mechs who were finally told they mattered. “Live.”
Years ago Skyfire pushed Starscream from the storm, sparing his life and damning himself, just so Starscream could live.
Live.
He could do that.
Starscream picks himself off the berth where he'd rested, hypnotized by the scuff on the cracked ceiling where Skyfire stood up too quickly once and hurt himself. Too much time had passed and he was being summoned by multiple sources. Messages asking his status, if he'd run into trouble. One from Skywarp calling him all sorts of names if he didnt pick up. One from TC apologizing for Warp's behavior but also cursing at him to answer.
His Trine. They fight and they bicker and they don’t fit together the right way, but Starscream knows well enough he would not have survived to meet Megatron without them.
“Starscream, reporting in.” He pauses in the doorway. His back to the berth and the memories etched in peeling walls and dusty books as laughter and Skyfire’s warmth begins to fade. “I’m in position, activating the device momentarily.”
[Took you long enough.] Skywarp huffs and only through their bond can Starscream feel the tension unravel as worry lessens. [Passing along to Soundwave, you have ten minutes.]
Ten minutes. Ten times as long as he had to lose Skyfire in a foreign world so long ago.
Starscream steps from the quarters, moving back to the main room where the machine waits with impatient purr. Cooing to life as he begins activation in the room where Skyfire said so many wonderful things. Starscream tries to remember the shape of those words, the way they embedded themselves into his spark and how easily they faded overtime. Played memory logs until they burned out, tried to scald his processor with the sensation of large servos pressing down his back - keeping him safe and close.
Yet all he remembers now is the last brush of their hands slipping apart and Skyfire’s expression washed away in the white haze.
He activates the device and stands too long watching the room remain the same. Untouched, undisturbed from his escape so many years ago. Forgotten by those who once dictated their lives, left to shrivel and only this shadow of their past remains. It’s poetic, Starscream thinks Megatron would like it but that’s perhaps exactly why he chose this location. Megatron told him once to use his past to settle the doubt - to press deep into old wounds and overcome hesitation with the memory of pain. Old romantic that he is, Megatron was right.
“Should I say goodbye?” He speaks out loud and half expects a response from around the corner. A bright and cheery voice which has begun to change in his thoughts and has left only an imprint in his spark.
No one answers. Of course not.
There’s a ghost standing in the corridor, wrinkled expression as Starscream faces him and knows it won’t speak. That it can’t. It smiles, mimics a mech Starscream loved more than himself and he considers opening fire on it. Just to be sure. Just to make a point to Primus or whatever gods think it’s cute to leave him this way.
[Starscream, you’re taking kinda a long time... ] Skywarp’s voice increases in worry and Starscream cuts the connection as the ghost vanishes. A bad hiccup in his computers, no more than a mistake revisiting his thoughts as he follows the only path to the balcony, stepping through the unhinged door and out to greet Cybertron. The once great planet whose sickness was disguised so well - now folding in on itself. Showing true colors as the corruption and disdain for it’s very citizens dissolves the veil so desperately stitched by the senate and their followers. Leaving only a corpse half buried in a frigid void of space.
Goodbye, he thinks he hears a ghost say behind him. Thinks he can feel the brush of a warm presence forever at the corner of his gaze and it doesn’t make him smile. It just means he has to try harder to stop looking.
He travels back home, or what will be their home now. The Nemesis, proud and grand. A warship fit for an emperor which Megatron claims he is not, yet sits on a throne with comfort. He returns and joins his trine at the base of that throne and it feels very much like beneath Kaon, asked to join Megatron in privacy after one of his first missions for his new-found leader.
”What is it you want, Starscream? Why are you here?” Megatron asked that day, standing equal to Starscream whereas now he sits at his throne - the ship busy around them in preparation for their voyage.
He looks different and the same. Proud. Immortal. Crowned by the adoring soldiers who surround and Starscream still feels the same way he did watching a fuel-soaked gladiator personally dispatch the old hurt in his spark. Like he’s looking at what will justify all the suffering, the bitterness and betrayal. Like somehow Megatron is going to hold it at gunpoint and force it to make sense.
“Are we ready?” Megatron asks and Starscream nods, standing near the throne as Soundwave pulls up screens. Various locations across Iacon which Starscream personally mapped.
“Yes sir. The subterranean Autobot base has been pinpointed. This should take care of their escape tunnels and secure or launch window.”
”Why am I here?” It felt like a test then, just like every moment with the gladiator. Like one slip would send him tumbling from Megatron’s interest.
“At your word, Starscream.” Megatron commands, turning just enough to meet his gaze, a fondness and suspicion of a warrior who hasn’t known rest in years. The same mech who waited for his answer some years ago, why was he here?, now waiting for his order.
”Because I won’t let myself be forgotten.” He answered and that seemed to be the correct choice as Megatron had looked so pleased then, like he’d found something missing in the stern and doting warriors and followers. A look which stopped him from thinking of Skyfire for the first time in so long, and that alone was worth handing over his life to Megatron.
Starscream wonders how many other Decepticons gave their vows with gasping moans in Megatron’s berth?
“Detonate.” Starscream orders and below them Iacon lights up, buildings imploding and scattering with a field of light and crackling energy. The shock blast tearing through city streets, upending the shape of the once-beautiful word where Skyfire and he met and believed they’d remain together.
The spider web of destruction is endless and as the Decepticons watch the sector bury itself Starscream stares at the location where his marker had been placed. Now only a pyre of smoke and fire rising to the sky and burning away the past like a cauterized wound.
And he feels inexplicably free.
They leave Cybertron days after the destruction and crippling of the lingering Autobot force.
It's been years since Starscream has left this planet, his home. Too afraid and unwilling to reach back into the rest of the universe out of fear a cold planet will be waiting. Struck dumb and afraid by even the smallest chill as he fled then that more seemed impossible.
Megatron has never been off Cybertron of his own free will. Only as a miner, only as hard labor and dark ships and he's never seen the stars the way they look when you are in command of your own route. His great and terrible leader is caught staring with open wonder as they rise above the empty corpse of their homeworld. Begin their path into the stars to mark the flags and chase the enemy across countless realms.
Starscream watches him watch the display as they travel free and unbothered for the moment. Megatron's shape outlined at the edge of the berth by the light of the screen as the monitor drew him back the moment Starscream's legs released their hold. A sweet fascination so different from the others usually strict expression.
There is a fragile naivety inside Megatron that Starscream finds himself wanting to reach. Push past old dried scars and dig his claws against the divide where the warlord exists and the tired poet waits. Free Megatron from the same old wounds which run deep, dementing his leader and guiding them to kill their own planet for the sake of their desires.
He thinks one day they are going to hate each other but that's not yet. For now he can freely kneel on the berth, relax along Megatron's backstreets and curl over heavy pauldrons. Join him as the universe takes shape in the screen and Megatron pleasantly strokes the edge of his jaw. Gentle. Tender and fond Where those hands can be brutal and cold.
“Have you ever been so far from home Starscream?” Megatron asks as Starscream refuses to think back on countless days spent amongst these very stars. Back to memories where Megatron was not present, where he was alone or smiling at someone who was bound to leave him.
“Not in this lifetime.” He answers and it feels like the truth.