Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Terra.

She was beautiful to look at from a passing view on a ship. She wasn’t so beautiful to look at when their ship was hurtling towards it at max speed.

Every corridor was flashing red with warning. Energon cubed slid off tables and smashed. Mechs slammed into each other. There was lots of screaming. Some others were fighting each other for whatever reason. Others were clinging to each other, even if they didn’t know who they were holding on to.

“Can’t you do something already, you incompetent drone?” Starscream screeched at poor Soundwave who was trying to regain control of the ship. He had his servos grasping the sides of his head tightly due to the loud blaring noise of the warning sirens.

“I don’t see you doing anything, fool!” Megatron barked back at him through the noise. Starscream snarled at him and attempted to punch him in the face. Megatron caught his hand quickly with ease. “That won’t solve the issue at hand!”

Soundwave seemed completely fine and calm. He was manning the control center with ease even though nothing was working. He at least looked like he knew what he was doing, but on the inside he was screaming so loud that his scream would only reach the ears of Primus.

Primus did not answer. He was rude like that sometimes.

It was amazing at how quickly they had gone from calm and organized to hurtling towards an unfamiliar planet. They had been fighting the Autobots while flying out in open space, which tended to never really be a great idea. Megatron had insisted, though. It was only because the Prime himself was on the ship. Had it been any random Autobot ship, he would have probably not gone through with the attack.

To be fair, it was probably a bad idea already given that Starscream of all mechs had been the one to convince him to attack. So they did. They shot canons at them. Apparently it didn’t cross Megatron’s mind that they would attack back.

At least they were both hurtling towards Terra. If the Decepticons had to suffer, the Autobots did too.

Suddenly, their ship took a huge slide again. Soundwave grasped on to the control panel to stay put. The metal beneath his digits gave slightly. Starscream was slammed right into Megatron’s chassis with a deafening shriek.

All the way on a different side of the ship, the seekers were screaming, running around, and hitting each other with their wings by accident. The only ones not behaving like idiots were Thundercracker and Skywarp.

“Do you think we’re gonna be safe?” Skywarp asked, huddled to Thundercracker close enough so he wouldn’t have to scream for him to hear what he said.

“...Yes,” Thundercracker hesitantly replied, but the uncertainty in his voice was obvious. Not comforted in the slightest, Skywarp tightened his arms around his trinemate. Thundercracker did the same.

On an entirely different side of the base, the cassettes, now outside of Soundwave’s chest compartment, were also screaming. Rumble and Frenzy we’re attempting to maul each other. Ravage was trying desperately to part the two of them. Laserbeak and Buzzsaw were squawking in panic and Ratbat was shrieking as well.

In the medical bay, patients almost rolled off of their berths, only getting stopped by the Constructions running about. They were just managing to push them back on their berths at the last second. Hook tried in vain to keep the medical equipment from falling.

To put it simply, they were having a bit of a crisis. Just a small issue of how their ship could enter Terra’s atmosphere, crash, and kill them all.

Not too big of a deal.

“Soundwave, can you turn this ship around?” Megatron demanded. Starscream tried to push himself off of him in vain. The ship just kept slamming him back into Megatron’s frame. Megatron turned his rage on him. “Would you cut that out?”

“I’m trying!” Starscream screeched.

“I cannot,” Soundwave answered Megatron’s question. Their leader grit his teeth and growled between them. Even though Soundwave’s voice normally lacked emotion, anyone could hear the audible panic in his answer.

They were going to crash into Terra and die. Megatron glanced at the Autobots’ ship. They were at least suffering the same fate.

Suddenly, he felt a sharp prick of claws on his arms. Megatron looked down and glared at Starscream.

“What?” Starscream shouted. “If I can’t get off of you, then you’re being my shield!” Megatron sneered at the fool, but didn’t make any movement to push him off. It was useless to fight anyway.

The screaming from the entire base was growing louder. It almost drowned out the noise of the sirens. Loud clanging from fights began to cease, at least. Some were finally catching up with how dire their situation was.

Suddenly the ship lurched forward as they broke Terra’s atmosphere. They were hurtling towards a blue mass. From their view it looked close to land, but they still weren’t close enough to see how far the distance actually was.

Starscream had let go of him and was screaming at Soundwave more. He was trying to help by smashing random buttons too. At least he was making some attempt to assist, even if it was fruitless.

Suddenly, they smashed into the blue mass. It seemed to be a liquid. Odd. Was their dominating species aquatic? There seemed to be a lot of liquid everywhere on the planet.

The liquid was strong when the hit. Parts of the ship were torn off on impact. The speed of the hit decreased, and now they were slowly sinking.

Not that anyone had time to think about that though. The impact of hitting the water forced everyone into the air, and they all hit their helms and passed out.

~

Soundwave’s visor flickered. Then it flickered a few more times. Then turned on completely, and he was finally online again. He pushed himself up. Apparently he was leaned over the console. He looked to his left.

It was quite an odd scene to look at. When they crashed, Starscream had fallen backwards on to Megatron. Megatron was leaned over against a wall. It looked a bit like his arm was wrapped around Starscream protectively. They both looked like they were only peacefully sleeping... together.

If it wasn’t the two of them, Soundwave would’ve thought the scene looked cute. But he didn’t.

He tried to walk over to Megatron, but he found himself almost sliding down. Was their ship at a tilt? When he turned his half-online gaze down the rest of the room where it led out the hallways, he almost jumped when he saw it was all filled with whatever liquid they landed in. When he stepped forward, he heard a little splash.

Ignoring the liquid, Soundwave walked towards Megatron, knelt down, and tapped him lightly on the head. He didn’t budge. Reluctantly, he hit him in the head a bit harder. Unfortunately, Megatron became a much deeper sleeper when he was stasis-locked.

Feeling regretful and terrible even before the impact came, Soundwave reeled back his servo and punched Megatron in the head.

He awoke with a start. Megatron sputtered, his optics flickering aggressively before turning on fully, and he attempted to hit the first thing he saw. That happened to be Soundwave. Soundwave held up his servos to block the fist, but it never came.

“Ah, apologies, Soundwave,” Megatron said, bringing his fist back down. He looked at his lap, where Starscream’s head had been knocked on to when he woke up. He flicked his head. Starscream immediately online. Strange. Why did he never online when he was literally thrown to the wall (which had happened numerous times when they crash landed), but a simple flick to the helm woke him up?

Starscream immediately pushed himself off of Megatron in disgust, making sure to enunciate the emotion in his expression. He looked around.

“What the frag happened to our ship?” Starscream screeched. He whipped his helm to look at Megatron with a glare. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything!” Megatron furiously replied, offended. He brought a servo to his chassis, almost covering the Decepticon insignia on it entirely.

“Exactly!” Starscream yelled back, pointing a sharp digit at him. “All you did was scream at us, while I actually attempted to help!”

“And you didn’t succeed, fool!” Megatron sneered.

Soundwave looked between the two of them tiredly. Great. They just online again and the first thing they did was bicker with each other. Why couldn’t they just try to wake everyone else up, or salvage the ship, or do something that leaders were supposed to do? He dragged his servos down his face. He needed a vacation.

“Soundwave!” Megatron barked all of the sudden, breaking Soundwave out of his trance of fatigue. Soundwave glanced at Starscream, seeing his irritated expression and his arms crossed. Megatron had won that argument, then. “Do you know how long we’ve been in stasis?”

Soundwave checked his processor for the last time he was online. Due to them being on a different planet, it automatically adjusted to it’s time, including the year. “We had crashed on 1984 in Terrarian time. It is now 2019 in their time.”

“Thirty-five years then,” Megatron responded thoughtfully. “Wait. ‘2019?’ This species has only been alive for two thousand years? Primus, who knows what help they’ll be! They’re probably idiots!” He had a severely constipated expression on his face.

“Lord Megatron—“ Soundwave was interrupted by Starscream. On the inside, he screamed.

“They’re probably no smarter than you!” Starscream spat unnecessarily. Megatron glowered at him, not looking to get into another argument.

“Lord Megatron,” Soundwave attempted to address his leader again. Megatron looked at him with a brow raised, prompting him to continue. “Permission to online the rest of the Decepticons?”

“Of course, we should get on that,” Megatron sharply nodded, then turned his head to Starscream. “You, awaken your seekers!” Starscream rolled his optics.

Soundwave stood up. So did Starscream. Being unnecessary and dramatic, Starscream cracked his digits and his neck, then took one large step forward—

—and promptly slipped in the liquid and fell flat on his aft.

Megatron chuckled quietly. Starscream hissed a rather rude curse, making Megatron’s laughter cease with a surprised expression.

“It’s dihydrogen monoxide,” Starscream said while standing up, trying to recover from the embarrassing slip. “It’s harmless to us, but for whatever reason there’s sodium chloride in it.” He groaned in irritation. “It’s already in my joints and it’s microscopic! It’ll take forever to get out!” He stomped out of the control center to find his seekers, fuming.

“My, my, what melodrama,” Megatron muttered. Yet even though he seemed severely unimpressed, the look in his eyes made it look like that he truly was impressed Starscream was identifying things scientifically on the spot. Megatron nodded at Soundwave. “Retrieve your minicons. I’m sure you desire them. On your way to get them, wake up anyone else you pass by. Once you finish getting your minicons, work with Starscream to wake everyone else up.”

Soundwave thought that Starscream could wake up the whole base on his own given that he would probably just scream at the seekers until they woke up. He wished he didn’t have to work with Starscream, though. Soundwave looked at Megatron and nodded to show that he heard his command.

“I’m going to try and turn our main computer on again,” Megatron said. Soundwave nodded once more, but his processor was bringing up old memories of all the times Megatron had said that and resulted in him punching the screen in rage. He mentally wished him luck and exited.

~

Starscream walked through the base, trying to recall where his idiots last were. Every step he took resulted in a splash. The dihydrogen monoxide was rising higher now. It was a quarter up his legs already. There was a pink liquid swirling within the rest of the dihydrogen monoxide. Predicting the worst, Starscream experimentally dipped his digits into the pink and tasted them. It was exactly as he expected, unfortunately. Energon, and not the version they used for fuel. The idiot Decepticons had been fighting.

He continued to stomp the length of the halls, checking in rooms. When he didn’t see his seekers in the rooms, he just ignored them. They weren’t his priority.

Now his legs were almost fully submerged in dihydrogen monoxide. The energon around him increased slightly when he entered the next room he came across. This would either be very aggressive brawlers or his stupid, idiotic, imbecile seekers.

Lo and behold, it was the latter. Starscream groaned loudly at the scene before him.

Wings were bent at unsettling angles. Some seekers were fully submerged in the dihydrogen monoxide. Others had their heads peaking out, while some lucky ones were almost not submerged at all. Or perhaps they weren’t so lucky because they were only above liquid due to being on top of a pile of bodies.

Starscream looked around the room to find his idiot trine. He spotted them in a corner of the room, huddled together, offline. With a huff, he stomped over to them, splashing himself more with the liquid. Starscream hit Thundercracker in the head with unnecessary force. He awoke, wide eyed, optics filled with panic.

“Huh—Oh!” Thundercracker noticed Skywarp first and started shaking him awake, his expression already shifting to worry. “Come on, ‘Warp!” When it didn’t work, Starscream got annoyed and hit Skywarp in the helm as well, twice as hard as he hit Thundercracker.

He woke up immediately. “Owww!” Skywarp moaned, rubbing his helm where the blow was dealt. He glared up at Starscream. “You didn’t have to hit me that hard!”

“It woke you up, didn’t it?” Starscream sneered. Thundercracker also looked at him, having just noticed he was there. Dumbaft. Starscream gestured for them to stand up. “Up, now. Help me wake the rest of these blundering idiots!” And so they stood up shakily, not used to the sudden liquid around them. Starscream was already moving towards others to scream into their audials and punch them in the helms.

“Starscream?” The mech in question glanced at Thundercracker. “What’s the liquid that we’re standing in?”

Starscream rolled his eyes. “Dihydrogen monoxide, obviously.” Except it wasn’t very obvious to them because they didn’t spend a large portion of their lives studying science like a nerd.

“What did he just call it?” Skywarp whispered to Thundercracker. He shrugged. “Was it just a big science-y word?” He nodded.

The three of the, went about waking up the seekers. Thundercracker shook mechs lightly, to which Skywarp assumed control of the mech he was shaking and shook them harder, to which Starscream called them dumbafts and kicked the mech they were shaking in the helm, ultimately waking them up.

“You don’t have to try and dent my helm, afthole!” Ramjet yelled at Starscream, who was punching the mech’s trinemates awake.

Starscream whipped his helm back to him, all while holding poor Dirge, who was already awake, by what could’ve been his throat if he wasn’t a conehead. “Excuse me, but you are not allowed to call me that! I am your superior officer!”

Ramjet scoffed. “As if that means anything to me!” Starscream promptly threw Dirge into Ramjet. The two coneheads screamed. To add more salt to the wound, Starscream also threw Thrust at them.

Ignoring the groaning of the coneheads, Starscream continued punching mechs awake. Thundercracker and Skywarp tried to do the same, but only Skywarp succeeded in waking a few.

“Uh!” They heard a familiar voice. Slipstream. “Starscream, you idiot, there’s a much safer way of waking us all up!”

“You shouldn’t have offlined, then!” Starscream spat back, as though he hadn’t also offlined in a much more embarrassing place. He didn’t want to think about how he woke up with his helm in Megatron’s lap. That was weird.

He continued punching and kicking mechs until everyone was awake. “Now get out of here and do whatever you imbeciles do already!” Starscream commanded. Everyone groaned. “Oh, please! I didn’t have that childish reaction when I was told to do the same!” That was probably only because he immensely enjoyed his way of waking mechs up.

Just before he stepped out, Thundercracker nervously asked, “Starscream, how long have we been offline?”

Everyone’s helms immediately turned in Starscream’s direction, awaiting the answer. What if it had been a really long time? What if the Autobots had been awake the entire time they weren’t and told every Cybertronian that the Decepticons were dead? Were they offline for centuries? Millenia? Eons?

“Thirty-five years,” Starscream replied. A collective sigh of relief was heard. That wasn’t very long at all!

Starscream pushed through them when they stood in the way of the door stupidly. “Go, you idiots!”

~

Soundwave had gotten all of his minicons to awaken and transform so they could go into his chest compartment. He had managed to awaken the Constructicons and a few other random mechs. On his way to search for Starscream so he could complete Megatron’s orders, he ran into a gaggle of very awake seekers.

“Soundwave!” Slipstream called out, pushing her way to the front. Next to Thundercracker, she was usually one of the more sane and reasonable seekers. Probably more than Thundercracker, actually. “That blithering idiot Starscream didn’t give us any orders when he onlined us. Have you woken up the Constructions yet? I’m sure some of us are in need of repairs.”

Soundwave nodded. Slipstream continued to assume command of the dumb seekers behind her and forced them to follow her to the medical bay.

If the seekers had awoken, then Starscream was obviously walking about doing whatever he desired. If the seekers were also all alone, then he probably had just assumed his job was done and was walking back to Megatron.

Soundwave decided to walk back on the path he took to the command center. Sure enough, he saw Starscream stomping his way through the... what was it that he called it? Dihydrogen monoxide? There had to be a shorter term for that...

This meant that Starscream had to be around here somewhere. Perhaps he was making his way back to Megatron, thinking that his job was done. Soundwave started walking in the direction back to the command center.

He was correct. Starscream was indeed walking the same path. Soundwave tapped him on the shoulder.

Starscream jolted and spun around, null rays pointed directly at him. When he saw that it was only Soundwave, he rolled his eyes with a scoff. “Oh. It’s you. What do you want? I’m trying to get back to the command center. Did you get your tiny leeches yet?”

Soundwave felt a tinge of annoyance but shook it off. “Megatron wants us to work together after we woke up those we were told to awaken.”

“I have to work with you?” Starscream pulled a disgusted sneer. “Ew.”

Yet he followed him anyway when he began moving to online everyone else.

~

The Primus-damned computer wasn’t turning on. Megatron wanted to punch it, so he did. At least, he would’ve if two very blue servos with black digits hadn’t wrapped around his raised arm and forced it down.

“Don’t punch the damn thing, you imbecile!” Starscream shrieked. Megatron felt extremely annoyed, but the stupid seeker was right. It wouldn’t accomplish anything.

He looked to his other side to see Soundwave already there and working on the computer. Soundwave pushed a few buttons and it turned on. Megatron blinked, feeling stupid. He felt Starscream’s servos, which were still around his arm, shaking. When he whipped his helm back at him, the blasted afthole was laughing at him. Megatron sneered and grumbled.

Soundwave turned his head to him, awaiting his next command.

“Do you think you can get us off of this planet?” Megatron asked, allowing himself to feel a small bit of hope.

Alas, Soundwave shook his helm. “The engines are too damaged as well as other components. Our ship is also filled with water.” When Megatron raised a brow at the term ‘water,’ Soundwave pointedly looked at Starscream. “A much shorter and easier term for ‘dihydrogen monoxide.’” Starscreams face turned a rather entertaining shade of pink and scrunched up in displeasure.

“It’s stupid term,” he muttered. Megatron grinned in a slag-eating manner before his face shifted back into a deep frown.

“We should get the Constructions started on draining the ship of the water,” Megatron stated. “At least, after they repair most of our soldiers. Once we can safely leave our ship, we should explore this ‘Terra.’”

“The dominating species of Terra call this planet ‘Earth,’” Soundwave said. “The dominating species are called ‘humans.’”

“Earth?” Starscream asked, finally releasing Megatron’s arm from his ever-tightening grasp. “I was here before! But humans didn’t exist back then!”

“You were a scientist before the war, fool,” Megatron reminded him. “That was about five million years ago! These humans have only been around for 2019 years.”

Starscream folded his arms, feeling old. “Well when I was here, the dominating species were just a bunch of miscellaneous, brainless mammals.”

Well, now Megatron felt old. Their war had been going on for so long that a species took their time to dominate a planet during then.

Soundwave was pulling up images and information during his conversation with Starscream. Megatron leaned over the console and began reading the words on the screen, feeling his optic twitch in irritation.

“So the Autobot ship had landed too, haven’t they?” Megatron said in that slow and deep voice that signaled he was extremely irritated. “Oh, excellent. They got to be the ones to crash on land and we were the ones who hit water.”

Megatron straightened and forced a more stoic expression on his face. “No matter. We’ll kill them all, as we planned to previously.” He spun around with a bit of unnecessary flare. “We’ll repair our ship. We’ll find enough fuel to live and we can conquer this planet too.”

Starscream glanced at Soundwave with an expression saying ‘can you believe how dramatic that was?’ He was the one to talk.

Soundwave looked at their leader. He was marching out of the command center to round everyone up and tell them what was happening.

It was a good plan with good intentions. Unfortunately, they needed more than just promising words to fulfill Megatron’s wishes.

No matter. Similar things had happened before.

Chapter Text

“Everything about what you just said was stupid!” Starscream screeched at Megatron, pointing an accusing digit at him.

“I said ‘good morning’ to Soundwave, you insolent little fool!” Megatron roared back, utterly confused and angry.

“Correct!” Starscream replied, still yelling. When Megatron was incredulous, he continued, “It is a terrible morning! I wouldn’t even consider it a morning! The light doesn’t even reach down here in the Primus-forsaken ocean!”

How were they arguing already? Soundwave was slumped over the console, extremely tired. He hadn’t recharged the previous night or the night before. The night before that as well, and the night before that, as well as... well, Soundwave never really felt he needed to recharge all that much, was all.

He was trying his best to keep track of how many days they’d been stuck in the bottom of the Earthen ocean, low on fuel and other supplies. It had been about 73 Earth days. They had consumed a large portion of their fuel, so they had to ration out even less than usual. Soundwave had a sneaking suspicion that Starscream was stealing extra fuel, but he was too tired to bring it up.

They had managed to drain almost the entire ship of water, save for a few unimportant parts like random solider’s quarters. Everything that could be moved around had to be bolted to the floor upon discovery that their ship was at a rather concerning tilt. Most had managed to grow accustomed to it, while some others were a bit less fortunate.

One of the less fortunate happened to be Megatron. It was most likely because he was so large and held so much weight. Every time he had to head away from the command center, he almost slid right into a mech. Anyone with at least half of a processor would know to simply get out of the way or apologize, even though it wasn’t their fault.

Even more unfortunately, a mech that Megatron often slid into happened to be Starscream because the seeker walked right next to him almost every second. Technically it wasn’t wrong for him to do so since he was the second in command and a second should follow at their leader’s right side, but Soundwave knew it was only to plot Megatron’s demise.

Starscream was very intelligent. Yet, when he was around Megatron, he suddenly had an eighth of a processor and only knew how to scream, argue, and kill. Or attempt to kill. He would also bite, and not in an argumentative sense. Soundwave still remembered the day that Starscream had somehow managed to rip off a piece of Megatron’s armor with his teeth. They found out he had worryingly sharp teeth, but Starscream had insisted he was created with them. Soundwave begged to differ.

Every time Megatron slid into him he screamed and pushed him away. It was rather annoying, but so was everything that Starscream did.

Soundwave had been so focused on reading the status reports on the condition of their ship that he didn’t notice Starscream had made his way over to him. Great. Obviously this was to bully him. Sure enough, Soundwave’s analysis was correct. Starscream was slapping his shoulder with a datapad for no good reason. Soundwave attempted to push the datapad away.

Out of the corner of his optics, he saw Starscream grin. “Why, whatever is wrong, my dear Soundwave?” Soundwave’s visor darkened at the top edge, indicating his eyelids drooping down in exasperation. Starscream’s grin widened. He continued hitting him with the datapad, a bit lighter but much faster than before.

Soundwave almost wondered why, but he knew the answer. He was Starscream. The fragger barely had reasons for anything he ever did.

~

Starscream hadn’t gone down to tell the air force what to do in two hours. Slipstream knew that meant he wasn’t going to do anything with them for the rest of the day. The most they could do was practice fighting each other. Starscream hadn’t been telling them what to do for most of the time that they’d been stuck in the ocean. He would tell them he was too busy trying to help get their ship un-stuck, but it was obvious that he just didn’t want to.

So Slipstream assumed command. It was only right. She was the only competent mech out of all of the seekers. Sure, speaking in order of command, Thundercracker or Skywarp would have to lead, but they were a pair of idiots. Thundercracker, for whatever reason, liked to pretend to be the strong and silent type, which he wasn’t. Skywarp was... simply put, blatantly stupid.

When Slipstream first started commanding them without warning, Starscream’s two processor-less trinemates immediately protested.

“Hey, ‘Stream, you know that we’re the one’s who’ll be in charge?” Skywarp hissed. Thundercracker nodded silently. Rolling her eyes at the butchering of her name, Slipstream stepped to the side and gestured to where she was standing. Surprised but satisfied that she had given up her position, Thundercracker and Skywarp stepped into the little area that she once stood.

Then they were quiet. They stuttered, whispered to each other about what they should say, continued to say nothing, and stared at everyone dumbly.

“Do you still want to be in charge?” Slipstream eventually spat. Before Skywarp could say that he wanted to even though he didn’t, Thundercracker shook his head. He took Skywarp’s wrist and pulled him into the crowd of seekers, thoroughly embarrassed at how bad they were at leading. Slipstream smirked and took their spot. With ease, she began shouting commands and telling them to practice battling each other given that they couldn’t fly at the moment.

As everyone began sparring, some more terrible than others, Skywarp cursed, “Aw, spike!” Thundercracker whipped his head over to him at the vulgarity. “We don’t have Starscream! This’ll be harder!”

“You do realize that it’s fine to simply duel, right?” Thundercracker replied. “That’s how most fights on the battlefield usually are anyway.” Skywarp shrugged. Thundercracker knew he just wanted to attempt to beat Starscream’s aft even though he almost never did. No matter how many times he teleported all around him, Starscream always knew where he was. No one liked Starscream, and all were reluctant to admit it, but he was a rather good fighter. Even if most of his time fighting was focused on trying to kill Megatron instead of an Autobot.

And so they sparred together, albeit terribly.

“You’re punching me like a sparkling!” Skywarp whined.

“I don’t want to actually hurt you!” Thundercracker replied. Promptly, a miscellaneous seeker was launched just above their heads. Energon that was spilling from them splattered on to Thundercracker’s head. Disgusted, he wiped it off thoroughly, but still felt extremely unclean.

“Was that Sunstorm?” Skywarp asked. It was a yellow seeker. There didn’t seem to be any radiation emitting from them, so he guessed it probably wasn’t. And their grunt of pain was definitely not as high pitched.

“Idiots!” A feminine voice scolded from somewhere. Thundercracker whipped his helm to see Slipstream behind him, covered in... the energon of other seekers. Alright. That was cool. That was fine. It wasn’t like she wasn’t deterred that she was covered in the blood of her own people and allies or anything. “Aren’t you two supposed to be sparring and not chatting?” Thundercracker had the audacity to look at the floor sheepishly. Skywarp, however, was unfortunately blessed with idiocy from the moment he was created.

“Aren’t you supposed to be practicing fighting and not trying to rip people’s heads off?” Skywarp snarked. Slipstream sneered. “I mean, no one wants to fight you anyway! Your only strategy is to catch others off guar—“

Before Skywarp could finish, a black fist connected with the side of his face quite hard. He heard something cracks but he didn’t know what. Instead of wiping off the energon, Skywarp looked up to find Slipstream in a fighting stance.

“Oh,” Skywarp smirked, getting in his fighting stance as well. “I see how it is.”

~

Hook didn’t know why the patient beds were suddenly filled with seekers. They were all moaning in pain. Usually when this happened, they were just being dramatic and had gotten a little cut, but for what ever reason, they all looked like they had gotten in a seriously bad fight.

“Mind telling me what happened?” Hook asked Ramjet, who had the top of his conehead dented in much more worryingly than usual.

“We were sparring and we thought we would win,” he replied, failing to elaborate. Hook gave him a look that implored him to go on. “...With Slipstream.”

Hook cringed and pulled a sympathetic face.

~

Skywarp looked a bit roughed up. Well, if one were to look at his one wing, they would say he was more than a ‘bit’ roughed up. For what ever reason, perhaps being that he was an imbecile first and cared about his physical health second, he continued to spar with Slipstream. Thundercracker was beginning to feel like this wasn’t even a spar anymore.

“‘Warp, I think you should—“ Clang. He was thrown against the wall again. “‘Warp I really think you should—!” Clang. Now he hit the ceiling. It was almost like Slipstream was playing a game to see how fast she could hit him on to each wall. “Skywarp! I think you have to—!” Clang! Clang! Clang! Thundercracker winced with every hit. He had attempted to intervene multiple times but both Slipstream and Skywarp just pushed him out.

Finally, the hits stopped. Slipstream held him up by his wing, which was twisted at a painful angle. Skywarp didn’t seem all that deterred. He liked to fight most of the time, especially when he was winning. It was very obvious that he was not winning, but he was still grinning like a fool anyhow. Some of his teeth were missing, but not in rectangular chunks, rather in shards. It looked like he had the maw of a turbo-fox.

“Slipstream!” Thundercracker yelled, rushing over and hoping they wouldn’t just push him away again. “Would you please let him—!”

“I am,” she snarled, dropping Skywarp carelessly to the floor. With her servos on her hips, she bent down to gloat. “Next time, watch your mouth when you try to criticize the way I fight. After all, your only strategy is to catch others off guard.” She grinned, and for a nanosecond, Thundercracker almost expected her to have sharp teeth or fangs given her animalistic yet graceful way of fighting. Slipstream straightened and glared at Thundercracker. Or maybe she was just looking at him? She always looked angry. “Get your stupid trinemate to the medical bay.”

“Yes sir!” Thundercracker squeaked. He watched her stomp away before he leaned down towards Skywarp. “What were you thinking? If it wasn’t high treason to kill someone from the Elite Trine, she would have had your helm by now!”

“What?” Skywarp said dumbly. He spat out energon and a few more shards of teeth. “I totally won. Did you see how angry she got? I’m the real winner here!”

Dumbfounded, Thundercracker replied, “The floor is literally covered in your energon and your teeth! I don’t think you’ve won in any situation!” He put his arms under Skywarp’s and hoisted him up. He was still limp with pain, so he didn’t help at all. Thundercracker was not in the mood to drag him.

“No, no, no! That’s where you have it all wrong!” Skywarp titled his head up to look at him, looking like he thought of himself as an enlightened genius. “Her strategy is to hit and run repeatedly so that you can never hit her but she can always hit you! Guess what I did multiple times, Thunders?”

“You hit her?” Thundercracker wanted to drop him.

“Exact-a-mundo!” Skywarp shot him finger guns. He was not given any in return. “Thunders, come on! You have to admit that it’s impressive!”

“You know what?” Thundercracker said. Skywarp looked at him hopefully. Then he was promptly dropped with a loud thud. “I’m going to look for your teeth.” He got on his knees.

He was impressed. He just didn’t want to enable even more destructive behavior for temporary approval.

~

Slipstream was stopped in the middle of the hallway by a tri-colored afthole.

“Do you mind telling me why my trinemate’s wing looks like it wants to penetrate his aft? Or why his cockpit looks like it’s glass was stolen for money by space pirates?” Starscream shrieked.

“Do you mind telling me why your trinemate is an idiot?” Slipstream bit back. That wasn’t too much of a sting, though, given that everyone and their creator knew that Skywarp barely even knew how to read by choice. “Or why... oh, I don’t know, why you’re never commanding your Air Force?”

Starscream sneered. “My apologies that I also happen to be the second in command and that my services are needed more than yours!”

“Apology accepted,” Slipstream smirked. Starscream fumed. She swore a little puff of smoke came out of one of his head-vents. He got riled up so easily. “What ‘services’ could you actually have? We’re trying to repair the ship, and last time I checked, craft was never your strong suit.” She still remembered when he attempted to fix the hole in his wall a millennia ago by himself. It was horrific. He somehow made a second hole in a completely different room, which happened to be Megatron’s room.

“Oh, perhaps analysis of the planet that we’re on?” Starscream began listing it on his digits. “Finding weather or not the domineering race is intelligent in any way, finding if there are any helpful recourses or fuel outside of our own supply, testing if there are any dangerous chemicals on the planet that could harm us...” Starscream put his hand down with an overconfident grin. “Just to name a few.”

“I forgot you were a science nerd,” Slipstream muttered. No one liked to admit that Starscream could manage to do some impressive things other than fight and not fear Megatron. If they did admit so, his ego would exceed that of the length of Cybertron’s orbit around their sun. “Wow, Commander, four whole duties! And how many does Soundwave have?”

Starscream scowled. “Why don’t we just get back to the conversation we were supposed to be having? Such as why more than half of my air force is already in the medical bay again?”

“We were sparring,” Slipstream said simply. Starscream’s optic twitched. “They all wanted to beat me.”

“I have my doubts,” Starscream sneered. “Who even decided to allow you all to spar any way? My trine hate sparring.”

“Well, to be fair, Skywarp seems to enjoy getting thrown into the walls quite a lot,” Slipstream remarked. “And I ordered it. Because you trined with two idiots.”

“Excuse me?” Starscream screeched, indignant as Pit. Primus, what was he angry about now? “Who wears the black stripes on their wings, Slipstream? Me! And who wears the silver stripes on their wings? My trine and I! You have no right to command!” He was getting all red in the face and there was angry smoke pouring out of his head-vents.

“Your trinemates happen to be rather inept at actually doing their job of commanding others,” Slipstream went on. “As a matter of fact, their processors can barely command their limbs to move correctly. They fight like slag. I don’t even get how they’re still alive!”

Starscream was making some interesting angry noises. His servos were brought up but he didn’t know what to do with them, so he kept clenching and unclenching them and twitching his claws. He waited for her to finish without a threat or insult in mind given that his processor was filled with distracting rage and surrounded by smoke.

It’s not that he cared about his trinemates too much. He just didn’t like it when people other than himself insulted them. It was rude. Especially behind their backs. Only he was allowed to do that! They always take the insults from him, but they don’t just take it from others. Well, Skywarp normally doesn’t like to take insults from him either, but that’s besides the point. Starscream just didn’t like it when others hurt his trine or was blatantly rude to them. He wouldn’t know if they were getting hurt. He shut himself off from their trine bond a while ago and it was rather hard to open back up again. Physically and mentally.

It’s not that he cares about them.

“And what gives you the right to call my trine blundering fools when you’re the one tripping over your pedes after every big mech with an accent that you find?” Starscream spat. Now it was Slipstream’s turn to turn red. In reality, she wasn’t chasing every big, accented mech. She was just... extremely interested in Strika. She was on Cybertron under Shockwave’s command, which probably was the reason why Slipstream was even more sour than usual.

“What gives you the right to bring up my personal affairs?” Slipstream yelled. Starscream cocked his helm to the side with an infuriating raise of his brow and a smirk. She had brought up the multiple times that Skywarp got behind random mech’s interface panels before in different arguments, so her excuse of a response was invalid. Boom. Now she was in a corner. “You—ugh!” She pushed past him roughly, muttering curses.

Starscream was about to laugh to himself before he realized he forgot where he should have been going. The command center? Probably. That’s where he usually resided.

~

Soundwave determined that Starscream had forgotten what he was supposed to be doing. He was supposed to dig up old plans on building the ship as back-ups in case the ones they had didn’t work. Instead, Starscream returned empty handed. Soundwave gave an auto-tuned sounding sigh.

It was fine. Megatron was yelling at him about it anyway. “Do you mind explaining why you’ve returned with nothing, fool?”

“I do mind!” Starscream yelled back, already getting flushed in the face for having forgotten his duties.

“Well, excuse me for wanting our ship repaired!” Megatron howled back. He was looming threateningly over Starscream, the shadow of his frame enveloping Starscream completely.

However, Starscream was not deterred, as he never was or would be. The cogs in his processor were slowly turning as he recollected what he was supposed to be doing. “I didn’t know where those old plans were! Primus, they could be on Cybertron for all we know!”

“Last time I was made aware by Soundwave, you had taken them to your lab for whatever weird things you do in there,” Megatron replied immediately, as if he knew Starscream would make up that excuse.

“I assure you, they’re not!” he said, making his way out of the command center and towards his lab.

When he made his way into his lab, the second datapad he picked up had the old ship plans on it. So was the third and fourth datapad. Starscream decided to sit next to the box that he found the plans in and seethe for a while. It would make it seem like the possibility of the plans being there were slimmer if he stayed longer anyway. He already felt his face getting hot with embarrassment, so it would be better to let it wear off before he went back to Megatron.

By the time he was ready, a whole hour of seething had passed. Starscream made his way back to the command center, clutching the three datapads tightly. As soon as he entered, he frisbee’d the datapads right into Megatron’s dumb bucket-head helm. He took momentary satisfaction with Megatron’s surprised yelp.

Slowly, he turned his head. “Starscream,” he hissed. The mech in question simply grinned like the little glitch he was.

“Why, what is could possibly be wrong, mighty Megatron?” Starscream said in faux worry and surprise, even making a show to bring his servo to his mouth. “I got you the plans. You can’t take a few datapads to the helm?”

He really felt like he couldn’t. This stupid seeker was getting on his nerves, but he did every single day. Grumbling, Megatron bent down to pick up the plans only to find that they were already gone and in Soundwave’s possession. Soundwave, who had been on the complete opposite side of the room. Bless him. Silently, Soundwave handed them to Megatron.

“Thank you,” he muttered. Soundwave gave a curt nod and was back to the main console in less than a second. Megatron glared at Starscream, who was trying to read some old reports but was giggling to himself.

Megatron made his way over to him and bopped him on the top of his helm with one of the datapads. Starscream flinched and turned his head towards him with a furious expression so fast that Megatron head a pop in his neck. He only smirked. “What’s wrong, fool? The fearsome Starscream can’t take a datapad to the helm? Now, work.” Starscream audibly grit his teeth, which was probably a little painful given how sharp they were.

As soon as Megatron turned his back on him, he heard a loud crack and saw some shards of a datapad fly to the floor.

~

Skywarp dramatized his version of his fight with Slipstream to make it seem like he was doing much better than he actually had been. Thundercracker sighed, dragging a servo down his face. To be fair, given Skywarp’s physical state, he probably genuinely believed the story he was telling was true.

Some called him out because they had been there in the beginning before they left to the medical bay. Others weren’t as good of a witness so they couldn’t confirm. Thundercracker could confirm. He had to tell everyone that, no, Skywarp hadn’t managed to hit her so hard that she had to stand still to catch her breath multiple times. He only did that once, which, while impressive on its own, didn’t do much for his fight.

News of Skywarp’s exaggerations got to Slipstream, unfortunately. That was why she currently had trapped Thundercracker in a literal corner.

“I’m glad that you’re trying to heal my name from Skywarp’s stupid mouth,” she hissed, “but that’s not really helping to make him stop!”

“I can’t just force him to shut up, Slipstream,” Thundercracker replied in a bored tone. He could be fueling with the other seekers right now. Instead he had Slipstream’s black servos pressed against the wall by each side of his helm.

“Can’t you do something with that stupid trine bond of yours?” Thundercracker heard the metal on each side of his helm give in with a creak.

“That’s not one of the things you can do with a bond,” Thundercracker explained tiredly, feeling sufficiently hungry now that he was missing his evening fuel. “You can’t physically make someone do something. The only physical things that can happen with a bond is the actual bonding process or opening the bond back up after shutting it.”

“Ugh!” Slipstream shouted, throwing her hands up and storming off. She wouldn’t know what someone could do in a bond. She didn’t have a trine. That was, of course, by choice, but even if it wasn’t there wouldn’t be a lot of people willing to trine with her.

As Thundercracker made his way to get some fuel, everything started flashing red. Then everything was moving. He fell over, along with many other mechs in their surprise.

Their ship was actually moving!

Thundercracker heard some mechs begin to cheer and bonk heads just as Nemesis dropped down again.

This time, it just wasn’t at an angle. The only progress they achieved was setting the ship down flat on the Earth ground. At least it was progress. They didn’t have to nail things to the ground anymore, but given that Starscream just loved to throw around furniture when he was angry, it was probably best to keep most things nailed to the ground.

Thundercracker was pushed right back into the floor as soon as he got up. A sudden burst of water through wherever it came from had swept him right off of his pedes. Today just wasn’t his day.

He heard Megatron’s booming voice calling someone a fool. It was quite obvious who the fool was. Starscream was screaming back about something not being his fault, which meant that what ever happened most likely was his fault.

Thundercracker had pushed himself off of the now flooded ground. The water had stopped rushing in. He wondered why it was coming in in the first place.

~

Starscream had opened up one of the Nemesis doors to the outside world. Why, exactly, was anyone’s guess. He claimed that he thought it was safe to go out now that their ship was flat on the ground. To give him credit, that was probably exactly what was going through his mind.

Megatron was scolding him. “We need to get something built that can get us safely out of the water, fool! You can’t just open up a door as soon as you think it’s safe!”

“How do you expect to build something that will get us out of the water without going outside the ship to build it,” Starscream snarked, “which happens to be, oh, I don’t know, in the water?”

Soundwave looked out of the newly revealed windows of the command center. When the ship had been hurtling towards Earth, it had immediately shut down extra protection on the windows to keep them safe save for a small part in front of the main console. It did work, but after everyone had come online again, they had to figure out how to open the window protection.

It was dark. Starscream had been right in the morning. No light would reach down all the way to wherever they were in the ocean. But now the ship was on, and it casted some faint illumination from the lights that were all around it.

The ocean was somewhat pretty. The faint glow allowed them to see some of the creatures on Earth. Soundwave stared at an odd creature that had its entire head jutting out and bigger than the rest of its body. It’s teeth were long and huge, and it looked like the fish couldn’t even close it’s mouth. It looked brown. Frankly, it was a little hideous, but Soundwave still found it fascinating.

“That’s a fangtooth fish,” Starscream’s voice said from behind him, surprisingly soft. “The dominating species are actually smart enough to give these things names now.” As soon as he stopped talking, Soundwave noticed the creature eat a different that seemed to have armor on it. Well, the armor didn’t do much. A colored liquid spilled from the fangtooth’s mouth which Soundwave could only assume was the blood of whatever armored creature it just ate. Disturbing. He glanced at Starscream, who seemed to be observing the fish with a little bit of enthrallment in his optics. “Interesting.” His voice was still soft, as if he became so interested in a simple critter that he forgot to yell everything he said.

Suddenly, it appeared that Starscream remembered he was in public. He looked at Soundwave wide-eyed, just realizing that he was still there, straightened, and fixed an irritated sneer on his face. “Gross. Organic creatures are disgusting.” Curtly, he turned away and walked off to a different area of the command center.

Megatron sauntered over to Soundwave to place a heavy hand on his shoulder. “We’re making progress, Soundwave. Not a lot of it, but progress nonetheless.”

For once, listening to the sound of construction already going on, Soundwave did not beg to differ.

Chapter Text

Construction was loud, but if that was what you were made for, it wouldn’t faze you. That’s why loud yelling wouldn’t faze you either, and neither the sound of the pressure of the ocean blasting into your audials.

They were called Constructicons after all.

Sure, it was extremely irritating to have to listen to the sound of drills and hammers non-stop, but it’s easy to get used to. All of this construction was for a good reason anyway. They were building an elevator of sorts that could safely take them out of the ocean. It would remain in the ocean until it gets used, which by then it would extend out of the water when the elevator room gets closer to the top, and then it would open. To enter back into the Nemesis, one would have to comm whoever was stationed by the elevator.

If they stayed here for longer than they wished, or if situations became dire, they would have to build more elevators to get more mechs in and out.

It was more peaceful, building in the ocean with no one except the other Constructicons, the brainless fish that kept eating each other, and the sounds of the ocean pressure going by. The only thing they had to worry about was nailing the wrong pieces together or what ever possibly dangerous creatures could be lurking in the sea. So far, the worst that had happened was that a random fish tried to bite Scrapper’s leg. He kicked it off, which might’ve broken something and killed it because it stopped moving entirely. How unfortunate.

The only other thing that they could possibly worry about would be if Megatron decided to suddenly alter their plans, which he rarely did. He wasn’t as tactless as he was in the beginning of the war. He made sure to double check the plans to see if they were as perfect as they could be. Another issue was fuel. Once they got going, it was very hard to stop, and they forgot to fuel quite frequently. They realized it was an issue when Scavenger spontaneously passed out from lack of fueling, so they had to schedule breaks. They listened to the schedule... most of the time.

An example of them deliberately not listening to their break time was the current time they were working. They should’ve had midday fuel an hour ago but they were going so well, so why stop?

When they saw a blue form with a glowing red visor move towards them, they found their reason.

“Commander Soundwave?” Scrapper said, surprised. He finished drilling in a screw before turning to give him his full attention. At that, the rest of the Constructicons turned their helms in Soundwave’s direction.

As always, their commander was creepily silent for a good ten seconds. His visor emitted a dull, red light. It gave off some sort of eerie vibe that Scrapper couldn’t find himself able to name. He got the urge to just turn his back to him and continue working given how long it was taking him to respond.

“You all have not had your first fueling nor your second one,” Soundwave said in his usual flat voice. “You must do so before the quality of your construction and the speed of your work decreases.”

Scrapper heard a groan. He slowly looked in Bonecrusher’s direction. The mech in question was attempting to spit the water out of his mouth that went in after his groan, but that only allowed more to go in.

Staring at Bonecrusher for a little while longer than the others, Soundwave continued to speak, “But you may continue to work for thirty kliks to a joor if it is desired.”

Scrapper nodded, “Of course, commander.” He watched Soundwave state at him a little bit longer before turning around and retreating back to their ship. It was so... creepy. It was like he disappeared as soon as he turned around but obviously he didn’t.

“Pick up your wrench, loser!” Long Haul yelled at him. Scrapper looked to his left and found his wrench being slowly carried away by the ocean. He must’ve dropped it in fear. Scrapper rolled his optics and snatched it back up again.

~

It was a little irritating when Starscream kicked the walls of the ship when he was angry. He was angry a lot, too. It was basically a part of his personality.

Megatron always felt as though their ship, Nemesis, was alive somehow. Apparently, Starscream did not share that feeling. Or perhaps he did, and he was just bitter and angry at every single living thing in the Primus-forsaken universe. He always seemed to have some sort of abnormal anger issue. It never went unnoticed with how smoke poured out of his head-vents and how his internal temperature would rise to a worryingly high degree. Starscream had passed out multiple times from overheating in a fit of rage. It was only funny the first three times.

Megatron witnessed his rage the most, especially considering how badly the fool wanted to kill him every waking moment. His ambition would almost be charming if it didn’t involve the desire of his unceremonious death. It became a daily occurrence, though. So much so that it didn’t even faze Megatron anymore.

Currently, Starscream was fuming about something. Megatron didn’t know what, but apparently it was so infuriating that he was going red in the face and gesturing wildly because he didn’t know what to do with his servos. Megatron watched him continue his inane ramblings with interest. He decided to tune back in just as Starscream was miming throttling someone.

“—and he just doesn’t even know the purpose of privacy!” Starscream shrieked. “I don’t understand why Soundwave thinks he has to get all up in my business! He doesn’t listen when I tell him not to, which is disrespectful as slag because I am his superior officer! He always lectures me about Primus knows what, too. Like, why does he care that I spilled Ramjet’s energon all over him? He called me a rude name, so that bastard deserved it! And sure, it might have been uncalled for when I flipped Hook’s medical table over an orbital cycle ago because he hit a sensitive crevice, but he doesn’t need to tell me reasons not to for well over an hour!”

Megatron watched him throw up his servos with such an indignant expression that, had it been anyone else, he would have been concerned that something was actually wrong. His wings hiked up and down and always managed to lower and rise at surprising heights that Megatron didn’t know was possible.

He was tempted to stop him but it was just so entertaining to watch him throw a fit over the most ridiculous things. Though when the smoke pouring out of Starscream’s head-vents began to get a little to severe as it started clogging up Megatron’s internals, he realized he had to stop him.

Megatron brought a servo to his mouth and coughed rather loudly, waiting for Starscream to get the hint. When he didn’t, Megatron coughed again. It, of course, did not deter him as he continued to rant. Megatron sighed out the little clean air that was left in his system and placed a heavy servo on Starscream’s shoulder. In response, the seeker literally jumped up, thrusters ignited and all.

He whipped his helm towards Megatron with a very offended look on his face. The smoke coming out of his head-vents only blew out even fiercer. “What is it, you great oaf?”

“You’re making the air a little too hard to breathe, fool,” Megatron stated bluntly. Starscream squinted at him and his lip curled up in disgust.

“Oh, I’m ever so sorry that the great and mighty Megatron can’t breathe in some smoke,” Starscream hissed. Megatron rolled his optics and began walking away from him. The idiot was still yelling. “Because Primus forbid the air get a little dirty every once in a while!”

Primus forbid someone would want to breathe in clean air for more than ten minutes, too.

Megatron pretended not to notice how Starscream simply ran back up to him and continued walking next to him as if nothing changed. They were both silent. The only noise coming from them was Megatron’s loud, heavy steps and the occasional puff of smoke coming from either Starscream’s head-vents or Megatron’s chest-vents. The silence was almost a little peaceful. If Megatron didn’t look at Starscream’s irritated expression, it would be easy to fall into a world where he wouldn’t get stabbed every single day.

~

Something was broken, but no one actually knew where or what broke. It could’ve been a loose screw, a forgotten patch of metal, or that the metal they were using was weak. All of those options were very high in probability, especially the last one. They were using a bunch of scrap pieces of metal from the Nemesis, so if some of the stuff they used actually turned out to be from some of the more delicate components of the ship, it would be an issue.

If whatever was broken was small, it wouldn’t be something they’d fret about for long. The Constructicons would fix it after they did some more important stuff. Unfortunately, the broken thing was not small. A large piece of metal must have somehow dislodged from its place in the elevator shaft, and now the whole thing was filling with water. Which, if it wasn’t obvious yet, was not very good.

The Constructicons huddled together after giving up on their short-lived search of trying to find wherever the hole was. They had searched for at least a joor, but forgot that water would rush in and break more stuff faster than they could search, which made them have to give up their search and repair more things, wasting more time.

“Commander Soundwave is going to check on our progress soon, isn’t he?” Mixmaster said. “Can’t we just tell him and he’ll send in some help?”

“That’ll just irritate Megatron,” Scrapper replied. “And I hate it when we irritate Megatron because he’ll give us more guard duty after we finish this thing.”

“What if we just try and search again?” Scavenger suggested. The other Constructicons simply gave him a look. “Right, right, stuff busts open, sorry...”

“Can’t we just repair the hole with the extra metal?” Bonecrusher asked with an irritated tone. “I hate doing this dumb ‘team huddle’ thing. We get all close together and you guys all smell.”

“So do you,” Long Haul bit at him. “None of us have gone to the wash racks in a few cycles.” Bonecrusher inhaled to begin a flow of insults, which was a big mistake, because a bunch of water rushed down his intake and he started choking on it. Scavenger panicked and started slapping his back to try and get some of the water out. It didn’t work.

“We cant repair the hole if we don’t know where the hole is, dumbaft,” Hook snarked, ignoring that Bonecrusher was choking too much to respond. The mech in question made a rude gesture with his hand and continued to cough.

“Maybe you should just let the water stay in you for now,” Mixmaster looked at his choking friend. “When we get back in the base for refueling at the end of the cycle, you can have Hook drain it out of your system.” Bonecrusher nodded at him and pressed his mouth into a thin line, looking rather uncomfortable from being filled with water.

Meanwhile, Soundwave was beginning to make his way over to the Constructicons to check on their progress when he saw no actual construction going on and the group huddled together and choking on water. Soundwave gave an auto-tuned sigh.

He started to swim towards him. Scrapper, being the one who could notice their surroundings better than the rest of his group, saw him first and immediately stopped talking, looked at Soundwave with a panicked expression, gave a salute, and stood still.

“Commander Soundwave!” Scrapper barked. Upon hearing his greeting, the other Constructicons jumped, spun around, and got in the same position as Scrapper. Soundwave inclined his head in their direction.

“Is there an issue with your work?” Soundwave inquired, heavily implying the undertone of ’why the frag aren’t you doing anything?’

“Uh!” Scrapper squeaked. “We... well... we have an issue.” His voice got quieter with every word, and even though he had a visor, Soundwave could see he averted his optics.

“I request that you elaborate,” Soundwave said, even though it was obviously a command.

The Constructicons started mumbling to themselves and shifting in their places.

“There’s a hole,” Mixmaster blurted. The others gave him a look of betrayal and disgust at the audacity to admit the mistake. “It flooded the shaft and now all of the water’s rushing in. It’s breaking stuff.”

Soundwave only gave the elevator a glance before his gaze returned to them, tired and long suffering. He felt like he aged a trion. “Have you checked the area under the top, by chance?”

Realizing how they missed such an obvious spot, Scrapper at least had the sense of embarrassing to put his face in his servos. Bonecrusher, Scavenger, and Long Haul, on the other hand, instead turned to look at the top of the elevator.

Lo and behold, there was the hole they were looking for.

“You have my appreciation, Commander,” Scrapper said, muffled through his servos. He dropped his servos and turned to look at the hole with a sigh.

Soundwave nodded. They had at least made a considerable amount of progress since the last time he checked up on them, which was only a few joors ago. He didn’t say it, though, because the praise would distract them from actually fixing the hole. He could tell them he was impressed later. To him, they were a little bit like considerably larger versions of his cassettes, except they feared him and wouldn’t cause problems on purpose right in front of him.

Soundwave made his way back to the Nemesis.

~

Megatron didn’t have a lot of things to use to help others dry off. No one actually wanted to use their berth covers because that would just get them soaked. Megatron knew that Soundwave at least would willingly get his berth covers wet so that he wouldn’t get water everywhere, but the issue was that he didn’t have any berth covers. He didn’t need them. Temperature never affected him, somehow, unless in extremely harsh conditions.

It was an issue to try and find a suitable asset that would dry Soundwave off. The wonderful, ever self-sacrificing mech told him he could just let himself air dry and not touch any consoles or datapads, but Megatron wasn’t having it.

“I can’t put you by the ship’s fans because we’ve turned them off to conserve energy,” Megatron mused, “but I’m sure that we can find something.”

“I’m going to go back into the ocean in a few joors,” Soundwave replied. It was in complete monotone, but the plea in his voice was audible. “You do not need to waste resources on trying to dry me when I’m going to get wet again.”

Megatron considered it. He had a point, but five joors was a long time and he needed him at the main console.

Then he got an idea. It was horrendous, but that didn’t cross his mind. A grin spread across his face. Soundwave looked at his leader’s expression with disdain.

“I have an idea, Soundwave,” Megatron stated, and refused to delve into more detail. If he did, Soundwave would give him a horrified face and tell him he’d prefer to stand in a corner and do nothing before he had to go back out into the ocean again. The worst part was that he most definitely would do that.

When he lead the dripping wet Soundwave to Starscream, they both gave him a look of utter contempt. “Why did you bring him to me? I don’t want him. He’s wet.”

“I require your help,” Megatron stated.

“Consider it not given,” Starscream spat, crossing his arms behind his back.

“It’s a command, fool.”

“When have I ever listened to you?”

Megatron pressed his mouth into a thin line and glared at him. “I can give you guard duty again.” Starscream gave him a pointed look that said it didn’t matter because guard duty wasn’t a death sentence. “Well, the issue I have is that Soundwave needs to dry off and we don’t have anything to dry him off with.

“How unfortunate,” Starscream replied, voice dripping with sarcasm. “And what does this have to do with me?”

“I order that you turn on your turbines,” Megatron replied.

It was a little entertaining to see his reaction. His face turned a very interesting shade of pink and his optics widened. “Excuse me?”

Megatron ignored the fact that Soundwave was also incredibly scandalized and removed the servo that Megatron had placed on his shoulder. He took a large step away from the both of them.

“Your turbines,” Megatron stated. “They can blow air. Soundwave needs to dry. Problem solved.”

“Problem not solved!” Starscream screeched, indignant and flustered. He crossed his arms over his chassis in the form of an X and then threw them down. It turned into one of those rare moments where Soundwave actually agreed with Starscream about something, and Megatron could see that. “Can you not just... go ask another seeker or something? This is ridiculous!”

Then a violent puff of smoke came out of Starscream’s head vents and hit Soundwave square in the face. The smoke didn’t appear to stop hitting Soundwave either.

It wasn’t a solution Megatron thought of, but it was a solution nonetheless. “Because other seekers can’t do that, Starscream.” With a satisfied grin on his face, Megatron moved Soundwave closer to Starscream, causing the mech to stumble from not wanting to move. Megatron backed away and said, “You can just keep getting him angry.”

Soundwave cast him a suffering look while Starscream replied in a rather rude tone, “What’s stopping me from just walking away, you dolt?”

“I can take away your lab privileges,” Megatron replied coolly, expecting his response, “and give you guard duty with the people I know you hate the most.”

Starscream sputtered, face reddened. “Well, I hate you the most!” Megatron was already walking away and waved a hand nonchalantly at his response.

Soundwave watched their leader walk away with annoyance and disdain etched into his faceplates, but his visor and mask covered it. He felt a rough tap on his shoulder and looked back down at Starscream. He had a sneer on his face and puffs of smoke violently pushing their way out of his head-vents.

“If I walk away, will you tell on me to him?” Starscream asked, cocking his head with an irritated raise of his brow. Soundwave shook his head. “Good. I’m leaving. I don’t like you.”

And leave he did.

Soundwave moved to go stand in that corner he wanted to stand in before.

~

They fixed the hole. They fixed everything that was broken, as a matter of fact. To make things even better, they finished the elevator. They even managed to connect it to the Nemesis, which they feared doing the most because it could have messed up everything they worked so hard for. It wouldn’t be very fun if they messed it up.

“Now we just have the issue with all of the water,” Scrapper stated cheerfully. Then his joyful expression turned upset. “Right. The water. How are we going to do that again?”

The Constructicons just started mumbling, looking down, and Mixmaster even mimed kicking away a rock. A fish swam by his foot in perfect timing, so he kicked it unintentionally instead. It either died or became paralyzed. Whoops. Scavenger stared at the fish with the most apologetic expression, as if he was the one who kicked the fish.

Scrapper didn’t know how, but Bonecrusher and Long Haul started arguing about something again. Bonecrusher inhaled water again and started choking on it. Long Haul laughed. Scavenger panicked and told him they would just drain the water out like they did before.

Drain...

“Oh, I got it!” Scrapper suddenly exclaimed, slapping a fist onto his outstretched servo. “We’ll use the drains and drain it!”

“All of the drains are in the Nemesis, dumbaft!” Hook told him. “You wanna flood the ship? Huh? And make Megatron mad at us?”

“We can use the drains you used on Bonecrusher,” Mixmaster suggested. Hook gave him an incredulous expression and mimed his hands being from one side of his chassis to the other, indicating that it was only that big.

“Primus, if we have to ask Soundwave for help again I’m going to scream,” Scrapper said tiredly. The others agreed.

Then they remained there, huddled together, floating in the ocean and doing nothing.

“Usually when we say things like that, he appears,” Mixmaster muttered.

“Ugh!” Hook suddenly said, throwing up his servos. “We don’t need that drone! I’m sure we can figure it all out! We can just go back into the Nemesis and pretend we’re there for fuel! Then we can search for some sort of drain.”

The other Constructicons agreed, given that they had no better plans.

~

Soundwave stood in his corner, still wet but considerably drier than he was five joors ago. He checked his internal chronometer. He should start to check on the Constructicons now.

Right as he moved to do so, the door leading to the construction site opened, and water rushed in. The five Constructicons all rushed in and shut the door quickly so no more water could get in. They were yelling at each other about something.

Soundwave cleared his intake to get their attention. It was an odd sort of sound given how his voice was, but it did the job. Soundwave inclined his helm towards them, waiting for their explanation.

“We’re refueling,” Scrapper quickly said in a very small voice.

Soundwave could read their processors, and they knew that. He was the last person they wanted to bump into on their journey for a drain.

“We know there’s a drain for this type of stuff!” Hook suddenly said, gaining a stare from everyone. “We just don’t have it on us so we need to find it!”

Oh. Well that was a little surprising. Usually they would just look at the ground sheepishly and waited for Soundwave to tell them what they needed and then point them in the necessary direction. Soundwave nodded and pointed to his right.

The Constructicons all nodded and quickly muttered their gratuity before heading right.

Soundwave didn’t miss Scavenger quietly ask Hook how he knew that would work. He realized that he probably had to supervise them. Great.

~

Something loud was happening outside of the ship, and it was extremely irritating and rather grating on the audials. Starscream didn’t have anything he could use that would successfully muffle the sound. He also didn’t mis that there was a lot more water inside of the ship than there used to be.

All of the few cleaning drones they had died in their crash to Earth, so the Constructicons became their cleaning crew until they could find a replacement. Alas, they were doing something with the elevator that supposedly required a lot of noise. How annoying.

Out of the corner of his vision, Starscream saw Megatron thoughtfully rubbing his chin at the unwanted surplus of water. “Soundwave doesn’t make this much of a mess whenever he leaves to check on them. And he’s been out for an awfully longer time than usual...” He trailed off.

“Obviously he has to help those dolts,” Starscream snapped. “They can’t do anything slightly more complex than hitting a nail without competent supervision.” He had his servos placed on his hips and was looking at the water with sheer disgust. He didn’t even know what he was disgusted about this time. He lifted a pede and looked at the water dripping off of it with irritation.

“Speaking of Soundwave, did you actually stay and dry him off or did you run away?” Megatron asked. Starscream scoffed. “You know what? I know that Soundwave will tell me the truth, so it doesn’t matter about whatever you say.”

Good luck. Soundwave hated every second of the drying, and Starscream made sure that he would lie. Megatron wouldn’t even question it because of how easily he believed him.

His train of thought was interrupted by a series of loud clangs. Starscream squinted and leaned forward. “What in Primus’s name is going on out there?”

As if the world wanted to give him an answer, the door leading to the construction site suddenly burst open in a rough manner. Water shot out immediately and blasted Starscream to the other side of the room. He didn’t even have time to yell.

The Constructicons rushed inside, looking rather proud of themselves. Scavenger pulled Soundwave in by his hand and they shut the door quickly. Soundwave looked like he aged a teracycle. He probably had tried to tell the Constructicons that he could open up the door without letting water in, but they must have been too excited about something to listen.

“Lord Megatron!” Scrapper saluted. Megatron nodded. “We’ve finished the elevator! It’s safe to travel through now!”

Megatron grinned. “Excellent job, Scrapper.” The mech practically glowed at the praise. Megatron nodded at the others too. “Same goes to you, Hook, Mixmaster, Long Haul, Scavenger, and Bonecrusher.”

They all seemed rather flustered at his praise even though they’ve received it about a thousand times before on other projects. Bonecrusher, though, looked like he was struggling with something and choking at the same time.

Soundwave slapped his back. Bonecrusher opened his mouth and coughed violently before a rush of water came out and a few... fish. How disturbing. They all looked a little dead and fairly crushed by Bonecrusher’s internals.

It appeared that Starscream was back at his side again because he saw the white pair of wings kneel down and look at the mangled fish with curiosity. It was a little disgusting that he found interest in dead, crushed sea creatures but it didn’t matter.

Yet it did matter. Those were just a few of the creatures on the planet, and there were thousands more as Starscream had confirmed. Maybe Megatron could let him indulge in his weird fascination with the organic creatures.

“I say it’s about time we start figuring this planet out, hm?” Megatron said with a confident grin.

Chapter Text

Just because Starscream had been to Earth before didn’t mean that he was fond of it. Sure, the creatures on the planet were very interesting to observe and the nature and landscapes were rather intriguing, but that didn’t mean he liked any of it. Just because he could spend hours sitting by a window and watching all of the brainless fish eat each other didn’t mean he liked it.

It also didn’t mean that he couldn’t still take some of the creatures into the base without telling anyone.

He was clutching a fangtooth fish in his servos and running to a more secluded area of the base so he could get a better, more private look at it. Starscream huddled himself into a corner and took his one servo off of the other to reveal the fish flailing about for its dear life. He forgot that creatures from the ocean couldn’t survive in air. Oh well.

He marveled at its small size. In terms of measurement from ‘humans,’ he determined that it was only six inches long. Astoundingly minuscule. Starscream could barely even see it, it was that small. He had to squint.

“Starscream!” Megatron barked from wherever he was. Starscream flinched and clapped his hands together tightly so Megatron wouldn’t see the fish. He realized too late that he probably just crushed and killed the thing. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the command center? What are you doing here?”

“Nothing!” Starscream quickly spat. “I don’t see how it’s any of your business!” Megatron raised an irritating brow.

“What’s in your servos?” He reached out to get ahold of the fish that Starscream was so intent on squeezing to a pulp in his servos.

“I already told you, it’s nothing!” Starscream screeched. Megatron started to get irritated and tried to grab Starscream’s servos. He panicked and slapped the servo that was holding the fish over his mouth and... swallowed it. Starscream grimaced at the slimy, slippery feeling of it going down his intake, but shifted his expression to a scowl. He held out his servos, hoping Megatron wouldn’t see the small splashes of fish blood coating his palms. “See? I told you!”

Megatron stared at him, looking unsure if he was supposed to be disgusted or irritated. It appeared that he didn’t want to waste his time on deciding on an emotion, because he simply said, “Come down to the command center as soon as possible, fool.” He sounded uncomfortable. Good! He just ruined valuable research.

Starscream watched Megatron walk away, still looking visually confused and uncomfortable. As soon as he was gone, Starscream attempted to purge his tanks of the fish by shoving his digits into the back of his intake. It didn’t work. There was a dead fish in him now. Great. What was he supposed to do, let it decompose? His tanks obviously couldn’t digest the thing. Primus damnit. He could feel it just sitting there. Gross.

Starscream didn’t make his way to the command center, but rather to their new elevator. He needed a new fish. Maybe he should get more than one this time. Where would he put them? Obviously not in his cockpit because that’s disgusting, but what other places did he have before he could move them to his room?

Right before he could enter the code in the elevator doors as he arrived there, a white arm striped with red shot out before him.

“Soundwave,” Starscream hissed. “Can’t you see I’m busy?” He practically spat every word. Which was good, because he really wanted to spit that fish out of his system.

“You are required in the command center,” Soundwave stated, but with slight curiosity in his voice, he added, “There should be no reason for you to be using the elevator.”

“You don’t need to know what I’m doing!” Starscream snarked, pointing sharp digit at Soundwave. “My decisions overrule your own, so you can’t stop me.”

“Megatron’s decisions overrule yours,” Soundwave responded blankly, sounding bored. To be fair, they had the same conversation a million times. The only thing that made it different each time was that Starscream found a new insult to spit at him.

Starscream pursed his lips. “Tell that bolts-for-brains that I don’t need to listen to every single word he says. I’m busy and I intend to keep it that way.” He said the last few words a little strangely. Something felt odd. Off. His tanks felt extremely uneasy and he felt a weight in his throat.

“I cannot tell Megatron that because his orders still overrule your own,” Soundwave said. He looked at Starscream, who had a strange expression on his face and a sickly tinge of color. “Are you—?”

Starscream leaned over and purged his tanks onto Soundwave’s pedes. He vaguely noted that the fish was still somewhat together, given that it was sitting in the acid of his tanks for quite some time. Then, Starscream straightened and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as though nothing strange at all had just happened. He looked Soundwave square in the visor and said, “I’m fine.”

Soundwave stared at him a while longer before taking Starscream by the arm and bringing him to the command center by force. There was a lot of protest and attempted biting. Soundwave was a little more disgusted at the biting part than usual given that Starscream had just vomited.

Soundwave practically threw him into the command center. Out of the corner of his optic, Starscream saw Soundwave frantically wipe his vomit-covered pedes on a nearby wall. How rude! He wasn’t sick! His tanks simply were unable to find a suitable way to atomize the dead fish, due to it lacking any of the nutrients his frame needed.

Starscream stomped his way over to Megatron, already irritated with the day even though it had barely just started.

“May I politely ask, what meaningless task is it that you find so necessary as to send Soundwave after me?” Starscream sneered. Megatron, though, didn’t seem to be paying attention and appeared to be looking over his shoulder at something. Starscream was beginning to feel even more annoyed. “What is it?”

“Soundwave?” Megatron asked. Soundwave looked up from the wall that he was wiping all of the vomit on. Starscream didn’t realize how much he puked. It was quite a lot, it seemed. Well, good. He never liked Soundwave, and now he got to suffer for being so dislikable.

Soundwave trudged over, glanced at Starscream with an uncomfortable look, switched his gaze to Megatron, looked him directly in the optics, and bluntly stated, “Starscream purged his tanks on me.”

Starscream made an offended noise, bringing a servo to his chest. Megatron’s helm snapped in Starscream’s direction, as he looked at him with a lot more disgust and annoyance than usual.

“May I ask why?” Megatron growled. Couldn’t he be more concerned with the fact that one of his most useful soldiers was now contaminated with vomit? Or the fact that his second in command literally vomited and could possibly be sick? To be fair, he was not at all sick, but that was far from the point.

“You may not,” Starscream curtly replied, turning to bully whoever was at a monitor without knowing what he was actually there for.

Megatron opened his mouth but closed it, knowing it was a lost cause. He looked back at Soundwave. “You should probably hit the wash racks. Or perhaps the medical bay first. Yes, the medical bay. So they can... examine... the vomit? And make sure none of it will turn you ill.”

It was easy to tell that Megatron was at a loss for words with this odd situation. Soundwave sympathized and nodded respectfully. He turned around and made his way towards the medical bay.

Megatron then switched his gaze, yet again, back to Starscream. He never had known the mech to get sick often. Sure, he would throw up when he drank too much high-grade, but he was obviously not intoxicated. Yet he didn’t seem ill or uncoordinated. He was perfectly fine, but for whatever reason, he threw up. Megatron couldn’t think of a moment in the day that would explain as to why.

Curious.

~

Gross. Really, really gross.

Soundwave walked into the medical bay with his pedes visibly covered in vomit.

“What the frag?” was all that Hook could say.

“Starscream has thrown up on me,” Soundwave stated, a bit of disgust seeping into his usually emotionless voice. Hook gave him a look of even more confusion. “Megatron has sent me to get it examined to ensure that I will not become incapacitated.”

Hook gave him a funny look. “You want me to examine Starscream’s puke?” Soundwave nodded. With a sigh, Hook barked, “Bonecrusher!” Soundwave saw Bonecrusher pop his head in from a different medical room. “You like gross stuff, right?” Bonecrusher nodded enthusiastically. Hook gestured for him to come over. “C’mere! I got a job for you.”

Bonecrusher practically sprinted over at the thought of doing something gross for a genuine reason. Hook pointed at the barf on Soundwave’s pedes.

“Starscream purged on him,” Hook stated. Bonecrusher nodded enthusiastically before stopping and looking very confused at the statement. “No, we don’t know why. I just need you to examine it to make sure Soundwave won’t get sick or something.”

Bonecrusher nodded again. Hook left the room, already looking rather green in the face. Soundwave would’ve sighed. The day had barely started and he was already tired of everything.

Then it felt like hit pede was... licked?

Soundwave quickly looked down at Bonecrusher, who was wiping his glossa frantically.

“It tastes gross!” he exclaimed. “You shouldn’t eat it.”

This time, Soundwave did sigh.

~

Megatron was told that Soundwave did, in fact, have a small virus that got into his system and it was from Starscream’s vomit. When Megatron tried to dismiss the both of them from working to recover from illness, they protested with different cases each.

“I am perfectly fine and functional,” Soundwave calmly stated. He ignored that Starscream was fuming next to him, waiting for his time to scream. “If my illness becomes dire, you may dismiss me, but for now, I am fine.” Megatron didn’t have the spark to tell his determined friend that his speech and movements were already a little slow along with how his internal systems had been recorded to had raised a few degrees.

On the other hand, “I’m not fragging sick! You didn’t even test if I was! You just assumed because Soundwave’s dumb immune system couldn’t take a little puke! It may not have even been me! Primus, I purged on his pedes, not directly into his open spark chamber!” Megatron was less sympathetic for Starscream’s case.

“Your vomit was observed to have toxic organic matter in it,” Megatron pointed an accusing digit at Starscream, “which is the prime thing that turned Soundwave ill. Care to explain?”

Starscream’s face turned a shade of red, further proving that he was probably sick. Perhaps he was just flustered about something, but Megatron would rather think the former. Yet, instead of flipping out, he took a deep breath and said, “I would care not to explain, actually! How about you test my internals instead of jumping to conclusions? I assure you that my immune system is far more superior than Soundwave’s.”

“Seekers come down with ailments much more often than others.”

Starscream grit his teeth, which had to have been a little uncomfortable given their sharpness. “I’m an older seeker model,” he spoke through his teeth.

“Wouldn’t that make you more vulnerable to illness?” Megatron smirked. At this point, he was just messing with him. Though, at the same time, he was a little curious. “Older models are less perfected than the most recent kinds.”

“I must contradict,” Soundwave piped up. He didn’t really ‘pipe up,’ per se, as his volume didn’t increase at all, but he spoke out. “When Vos made newer seeker models, their only purpose was to be faster.”

Starscream pat Soundwave’s arm with an annoying grin, as if saying ‘see? The guy who hates me most even agrees.’ Soundwave shied away from his touch.

“That doesn’t change that seekers have weaker immune systems,” Megatron grumbled, irritated that Soundwave chose Starscream’s side instead.

Starscream scoffed. “Just test me, will you? I’d rather you look like an idiot than allow myself to be taken out of any possible battle or important work.”

And so Megatron allowed him to skitter off without direct permission. What was he gonna do, stop him? It was probably better for him to get tested anyway. Let him be taught a lesson that he can’t just self-diagnose himself as being healthy.

Megatron started talking with Soundwave about who would take over his work and man the monitor when Starscream came running back twenty kliks later yelling about something. Megatron smirked and guessed that he did, in fact, have the virus that Soundwave had.

“I’m clean you dumbaft!” he screeched with a smile. Megatron gave him an exasperated look. He was rather looking forward to a lack of Starscream but no.

Megatron tried to ignore his overwhelmingly smug face.

~

This meant, of course, that Starscream could go back to sneaking a bunch of fish into the base. It was still hard because Megatron always asked for his reason why he was using their elevator when they had a limited energy supply. He told him the same thing every time.

“I’m looking at our surroundings. You know, taking in what sort of stuff may be out there.”

Megatron never looked convinced each time. He didn’t stop him, though.

Starscream found that he could simply take a bunch of empty energon cubes, fill them with the ocean water, and plop the fish in there. Right now, he had ten of them. The fish didn’t seem very well, but that was probably because some small droplets of energon were on the walls of the cube. Apparently, it appeared to be toxic to organic life. How unfortunate. That’s what happened when he wanted to observe them in secret, he supposed.

One day, he had left his room for a refueling. When he came back, the cube was empty and void of fish. He wasn’t too concerned because he could just get more, but it was still bothersome. Starscream decided to ignore it unless the issue arose.

Until his wing received a firm pat. The servo wasn’t large, so it couldn’t have been Megatron. Still, Starscream flinched, spun around, and grabbed the wrist of whoever touched him, digging in his sharp digits.

“Ow! Screamer! Jeez!” Skywarp yelped. Starscream let out a puff of air and loosened his grip, but not letting go entirely.

“What do you want?” Starscream snapped, sneering.

“Ugh, okay,” Skywarp muttered, trying to pick Starscream’s digits up. His servo lay unmoved. Skywarp gave up. “You know that weird cube you had in your room? Don’t get mad, but I went in your room and drank it.”

“Weird cube?” Starscream asked, letting go of Skywarp’s servo. Skywarp nodded. “What w—oh! That!” He snapped his digits at the realization.

“You’re not mad?”

“No, no, no,” Starscream cooed comfortingly, which wasn’t comforting at all coming from him. He pat Skywarp’s shoulder reassuringly. “I’m not mad at all. I’m furious!” He screeched the last part.

Skywarp covered his audials at the screech. “Look—I didn’t mean to! It’s not why I came in there! I was just trying to snoop for fun but then I found the cube and there were weird brown things in it, so I thought, ‘why not?’ And I downed it! It was gross! Sorry! Don’t hit me in my tanks again!”

Starscream was tempted. Skywarp had just eaten ten of his fish because he was curious of all reasons. Now he had to sneak new ones! Great. Wonderful. Spectacular.

Starscream pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. He muttered, “Have fun purging your tanks, I suppose...”

“What?” Skywarp shouted, apparently able to hear him. “Uh, I can take it! Trust me, I will not throw up!”

~

He threw up. It was a little violent, unfortunately. Thundercracker wished it hadn’t been a projectile vomit onto his cockpit, but everything happened to fast for him to move.

Thundercracker nervously pat Skywarp’s back as he continued to cough up more puke. “I think I know the answer, but are you alright?”

Skywarp coughed, “Yeah! Must’ve uh, been something funky in our fuel or something. I’m fine! That was probably it.”

Thundercracker nodded nervously and guided him to the wash racks. Skywarp seemed a little uncoordinated. It took a full twenty kliks just to get him down the hall and to the wash racks. It then took a whole joor to clean him and himself.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Thundercracker asked. Skywarp nodded and flashed him a bright smile, but his optics looked a little tired. Thundercracker stared at him, unsure. “Really?” Skywarp rolled his optics at his concern.

“‘Course!”

Realizing that he couldn’t get him to back down on what wasn’t true, Thundercracker guided him back towards where they were originally headed. The command center. Megatron summoned them.

On their way there, Skywarp purged five more times, each on another different person. Each time, he assured Thundercracker he was fine, even when he yelled at him to just go back to their shared quarters.

As Thundercracker stepped into the command center, a horror dawned on him. What if Skywarp threw up on Megatron? That would be a disaster.

Thundercracker shifted nervously. Megatron finally noticed them and it took him only three big steps to reach them.

“May I ask why it took so long for the two of you to arrive?” Megatron grumbled, arching a brow. He crossed his arms over his chassis, almost completely covering the Decepticon insignia graced on his front.

“We ran into some issues, sir!” Thundercracker squeaked. Megatron’s expression shifted to annoyed confusion.

“And what issues were they?”

“Well, uh,” Thundercracker shifted again, optics farting around the room. He noticed a lack of Soundwave. Odd.

“We’re here! Isn’t that what matters?” Skywarp piped up. At the sound of his voice, Thundercracker wanted to die. He practically drawled every single word.

Megatron bared his teeth and leaned down, getting uncomfortably close to Skywarp’s face. Their noses were barely touching. “I would rather like to know now that you’re so insistent on not telling me. Did you break into the energon reserves again? Is that it?”

Skywarp opened his mouth and closed it immediately, looking green in the face. Thundercracker realized what was about to happen and pushed Skywarp back, turning him around.

To say his purging was loud was an understatement.

Megatron sent them both to the medical bay.

Thundercracker found out that they now both had the same illness as Soundwave. Was it because Skywarp had also thrown up on him? Well, there were a lot more people where that came from, then...

~

“I feel like you’re responsible for this,” Megatron growled at Starscream, glowering at him. He sat on his throne, looking down on the fickle seeker.

A large portion of the Decepticon base was now sick with the same virus. The symptoms were excessive sneezing, lightheadedness, being very tired, and, of course, purging their tanks every hour or so.

“How can I be responsible?” Starscream hissed. “My goal is to kill you, not the whole base!” Megatron pressed his mouth together, considering him.

“How can I know that this isn’t just a plan to get me sick as well? Might I add that you’re perfectly fine even though you’ve been more exposed to this than anyone else who wasn’t ill.”

“My apologies that my immune system isn’t just a few dogs slapped together!” Starscream shouted, bringing an offended servo to his cockpit. “I was made with quality.” Megatron rolled his optics.

“I order you to work with Hook to find a cure for this thing!”

“That’s not my field of science, you buffoon!”

“It’s an order, fool!” Megatron bellowed. He swore that it echoed throughout the whole base. Perhaps that was a little excessive.

Megatron practically had to push him out of the room to the medical bay. He spat curses the whole time. By the time he finally got him to agree, Megatron was exhausted. He practically fell into his throne when he got back to it. He offlined his optics, deciding to get some well deserved recharging.

He awoke with a start at a bucket being forced into his chest. Megatron looked at the contents inside of it. It was a small mush of organic blood and brown. “What is this?”

“The cause of the virus,” Starscream spat. For some odd reason, he was at eye level with Megatron. “We found the stupid cure. Go have fun with that organic mush. I don’t care.” He seemed rather irritated but it didn’t seem to be at the fact that he was forced to find a cure. Megatron couldn’t put a digit on what it could possibly be. Starscream seemed to be looking at the mush in the bucket with a different sort of disdain.

“What is this, though?” Megatron repeated, attempting to appeal to whatever interest he had in the mush.

Starscream crossed his arms, looking off to the side. He mumbled something that somehow, despite everything, was practically inaudible.

“Care to speak up?”

“Fish!” Starscream screeched, audial shattering. Megatron winced. “Primus, it’s just a gooey pile of dead fish! It shouldn’t matter to you! Look, everyone is cured! Just shut up and leave me alone!”

Megatron felt even more determined to understand what his issue was with the fish mush, but Starscream had already bolted out of the room at an impressive speed, red-faced. Megatron looked at his pedes and found there was scorch marks on them now. That must’ve been how he was up at eye level with him.

The next morning, Megatron made an attempt to speak a little gentler around him. Something was just so off about him.

Right in the middle of Megatron speaking to him, Starscream sneezed. Then sneezed again. And again. And once more.

Megatron vaguely recalled that excessive sneezing was a sign of the virus that had infected their base not too long ago. “Are you quite alright?”

Starscream roughly wiped his nose and rubbed his eyes, looking rather... tired. Another symptom. “I’m fine.”

Starscream sneezed again. Megatron allowed himself to give a small smile. He begged to differ.

Chapter Text

Megatron decided it was finally time to explore this ‘Earth.’ No more messing around with brainless fish and getting internals filled with water. They would really explore Earth. He was told there was land that they could actually step on, so that was where he wanted to head first. It would probably be a little tough to find land, though. Apparently, the planet was seventy-one percent water. How inconvenient! And the dominating species lived on land? How were they managing to survive? The whole species was only two thousand something years old according to their calendar!

Megatron was beginning to wish that they actually had at least one Decepticon who could transform into a liquid riding vehicle and traverse the ocean for them. Alas, all of those kind were in the Autobot battalions. Rotten Autobots!

There was, of course, another way for Megatron to get himself transported to the Earthen land, but it was a little... humiliating. Mortifying, maybe? Demeaning? Or he could just say that it was really awkward.

“Don’t you trust me?” Starscream asked with a smug face, smiling untrustworthily. “Transform, why don’t you? I can bring Soundwave too!” He was clearly enjoying how demeaning that the only way to get to land was.

Megatron grumbled, arms crossed over the Decepticon insignia that graced his chest plates. “Are you quite sure that there’s no other possible way?” Starscream nodded with a slag-eating grin. Megatron blew out a loud puff of air from his chest vents and summoned Soundwave on his comm. He appeared at his side almost instantly.

“We have an issue with a mortifying solution,” Megatron told him. Soundwave cocked his head, confused. “We want to explore the terrain of this planet.” Soundwave nodded. “But no one here can travel on water. We happen to have our fair amount of soldiers who can travel above water, but mechs like you and I need a mode of transportation. Luckily...” Starscream peeked from behind Megatron’s large back with a smug, sharp grin. “...and unfortunately, there is a solution.”

Soundwave stared at Starscream, wishing that the solution was not what he thought it was. “What is the answer to this problem?”

Megatron grumbled an answer, practically inaudible, but Soundwave knew what he said nonetheless. He had to stop himself from slumping over.

“Come on!” Starscream taunted. “It’ll be fun! I can even take you two for a spin too!” Megatron visually went green at the last comment. Starscream’s green, seemingly impossible, only grew larger. He knew of his motion sickness. He wasn’t going to exploit it though. If Megatron managed to throw up in his cockpit in gun mode, he would never see the light of day again.

To be fair, Starscream was actually disgusted at the thought of having the both of them in his cockpit. He knew Megatron hadn’t washed in a few days to ‘conserve the ship’s energy,’ and he did not want Soundwave, a spy, inside of his cockpit and possibly finding a hidden knife in there. The only reason he was so eager to put them inside of his cockpit was because it made them uncomfortable, which made him happy.

Soundwave transformed first, like a parent eating a child’s unwanted food to show them that it wasn’t so bad, except Megatron was not a child and should’ve been able to make the decision without the nudging of Soundwave. Starscream picked him up and stuffed him in the bottom compartment of his cockpit. Roughly. He held out his servo for Megatron, looking all too pleased with himself. Reluctantly, Megatron also transformed. To make it all a whole lot worse, Starscream shoved Megatron into his cockpit mid-transformation. He bit back a scream.

“Do you ever slow down?” Megatron asked with tension in his voice. He felt himself being thrown around at whatever speed Starscream was going.

Starscream scoffed. “This is slow, dumbaft!” And just to prove his point, Starscream sped up. Megatron didn’t know that was possible. He really wished it hadn’t been. Unfortunately, Starscream wasn’t given the title of the fastest flier of the entire Decepticon force for nothing.

As fast as it all happened, so was their landing. It was a little rough, but Megatron learned over the past four million years that Starscream practically never landed peacefully. He opened his cockpit and practically threw them out. Soundwave transformed midair and landed gracefully on his pedes. Megatron also transformed in the air but fell face first into some sort of brown organic sludge. He pushed himself up and wiped it off.

Oddly enough, Starscream trapped the servo that was covered in sludge and looked at the substance with immense curiosity. Annoyed, Megatron pulled his servo away.

“I didn’t enjoy that flight,” he hissed. “Be more careful, will you? I can make you regret it if you aren’t.”

“Oh please,” Starscream snarked. “If you weren’t such a sparkling about any sort of fast motion, you’d find that enjoyable. Just be glad I didn’t do any spins.” He made a twirling motion with his sharp digit at the last sentence. “Plus, I bet Soundwave enjoyed it. He isn’t a sparkling like you. Right, Soundwave?” Starscream glanced at the mech in question cockily.

Soundwave didn’t protest. He actually rather did enjoy high speeds, even if it was rough. He didn’t want to give Starscream the satisfaction of letting him know that though, so instead he stayed silent on the topic. In response to his silence, Starscream scoffed.

“Whatever,” Starscream muttered. Then he turned around and started walking forward in a miscellaneous direction. “Let’s just get this whole ‘exploring’ thing over with. I know more about this muck-ball than the two of you, so I suggest, and command, that you follow my lead.”

“And what gives you the right to give commands?” Megatron caught up with Starscream and stopped right in front of him.

Starscream placed his servos on his hips. “Have I not just stated it? I know more about this planet than the two of you combined. Knowledge, in this situation, should outweigh power.” Of course, and he was smirking like the know-it-all fool that he was. He was right. It was safer to follow the lead of the person with the most knowledge. But when the leader would have to be Starscream in their current situation? It was far more welcoming to just abuse power.

Alas, Megatron relented. It would do nothing to keep up their relentless bickering anyway.

Lost in his thoughts of annoyance, Megatron failed to notice that Starscream and Soundwave were already beginning to walk off without him. The only mech that actually cared to alert him was Soundwave. He felt the tap on his shoulder and immediately almost punched whoever was closest in surprised response. Soundwave barely dodged, looking excruciatingly vexed. Megatron caught up with Starscream.

Starscream didn’t appear to be doing anything productive. He was staring at a long brown thing with green slag at the ends of its sharp growths with curiosity. Then he realized he was being watched and immediately pretended that he wasn’t very curious about the object.

“It’s just a tree!” He squawked. “Nothing more! I was just checking! ‘Cause, well, oh, who knows what could be on this planet? That could’ve been something sentient!” At that point, he was just spewing words.

Instead of snapping at him to stop getting distracted, Megatron arched a brow and asked, “What’s a tree?”

Starscream blustered in befuddlement, and then gestured haughtily to the ‘tree’ he had been observing. “They all look different, of course.”

‘Of course?’ Megatron didn’t even know what a tree was. How would he have known if they looked different or not? Despite everything, he held back his irritation at Starscream’s assumptions on his limited Earth knowledge. He supposed it was a little difficult to not think people knew every single thing you said.

“May we please move on?” Soundwave asked, monotone but somehow still audiably exasperated. “We are here to observe what is on this planet, look for resources, look for civilization, and possibly find the Autobots.”

“Oh, we don’t need to waste our time on wondering what the muck we step in is,” Starscream cockily said with a smirk, crossing his arms. “I can answer any and all questions. Sure, it’s been a couple million years since I’ve been here, but how much can change in that time?”

Well, for starters, a war could happen. Like the one they were in at the moment. But that could be ignored.

They decided that yes, it would be a little bit easier to question Starscream on things instead of going out of their way to give a tree a good look, even if it would feed Starscream’s ego. That narrowed down their list to resources, civilization, and Autobots. Blegh! Hopefully the Autobots just died in their crash. That would make things considerably more convenient.

Soundwave and Megatron could sense energy sources easier than Starscream. For Megatron, it was due to the panels he had underneath his dumb bucket helm. For Soundwave it was... something. Possibly some sort of sensitivity to literally everything ever.

As they walked around, Soundwave held out an arm all of the sudden, stopping Megatron and Starscream in their paths.

“What now?” Starscream hissed.

“There’s something here,” Soundwave concluded. “No— Someone.”

~

Normally, when the high command left for a mission, it would be one or two of them. For whatever inane reason, all three of them left. No one seemed to know who should’ve been in charge. It was never made clear who that should’ve been. That was a small issue in comparison to almost everyone trying to take the spot as temporary commander.

Thundercracker and Skywarp were, in terms of rank, supposed to be the ones in change. Unfortunately, they were incompetent dolts when it came to leading, and were quickly pushed out of the question. Another option would be all of the Constructicons at once. That was stupid. Most of the time, they were all idiots working together or working apart. There were really only a select few competent ones that wouldn’t actually be so bad leading the Decepticons for a short while, but they were all insistent on working together.

Of course, Ramjet, Thrust, And Dirge wanted to lead the Decepticons. Of course, they wanted to do it together. Of course, the people refused because they were so dumb that their main hobby was smashing their heads into things to try and see who could dent the wall or dent their helm worse. They were, therefore, out of the question.

There were a few random mechs that suggested themselves as well, but they were so unremarkable that only a select few knew their names. Those random mechs were quickly shut down, given that if they didn’t do some sort of thing to get their names known, it was pointless to think that they could rule an army.

Then there was an oddity.

Soundwave’s minicons. Most of them were still in the base, being Rumble, Frenzy, and Ratbat. Technically, they had the same issue as Skywarp and Thundercracker. Being closely connected with someone in the high command, there was a possibility for them to lead the Decepticons. Unfortunately, the three most responsible minicons were all with Soundwave. Yet, if they didn’t let the remaining minicons lead, even though they’d probably just throw a party and waste resources, would Soundwave be angry with them? It depended on his mood and the minicons in question that would allow him to pardon their rejection for them to lead.

If he was in a good mood when he returned, they’d be pardoned because Rumble, Frenzy and Ratbat were all unfit to lead. If he was in a bad mood, there would be inescapable consequence.

Everyone decided to gamble on it and not let the minicons lead. Alas, that still left them with the question of who the frag was going to be put in charge.

Slipstream smirked into her half-filled cube of energon and tilted it up, drinking the contents. Sure, they were only allowed such a small amount, but it felt more filling than usual to watch everyone scramble about and throw unnecessary punches.

They’d figure it out.

~

“I hate the both of you,” Starscream hissed into Soundwave’s audial. Soundwave repressed a shudder at his hot breath. The three of them had been forced to scramble for a hiding spot big enough to cover them. Each of them, uncomfortably, picked the same spot. They could all fit, but just barely.

Behind a mound of rocks, trunks of cut down trees and leaves, Starscream was squished between Megatron and Soundwave, with his back facing Megatron and his face smushed up to Soundwave’s helm. His wings had to hang at an awkward angle. Starscream was holding himself up a little by his servos, but in reality if he pressed his palms to the ground they would all fall over, so he was really just using his first three digits. Megatron, whose arms were big enough to hold all three of them, held their Decepticon ball together the most. He would’ve been fine if Starscream’s aft hadn’t been pressed hard against the top of his chest plates. The sentence itself sounds sensual, but it truly wasn’t in the slightest. At least he didn’t have to work his servos around a pair of wings. Megatron easily held onto Soundwave’s flat back. Soundwave wasn’t really holding them together as much as Megatron, but he did have to be forced to hold Starscream specifically so that he wouldn’t slip out or throw a fit. If Megatron wasn’t there, it’d look like a weird hug.

Why, exactly, were they hiding?

To get away from the Autobots of course! Because, to make everything a whole lot harder, all of the ‘bots aboard the Ark had survived their crash. They also, ever so conveniently for them, hit land.

Had it been under any other circumstances, the three of them would’ve fought the Autobots without hesitation. They’d even do it if they were severely outnumbered. Yet, they were sufficiently underfuled, exhausted, didn’t know their surroundings, and weren’t as physically prepared to fight anyone as they normally were. Among other things.

That was why they were in a Decepticon-ball, waiting for the Autobots to pass so that they could go back to what they were there for with one more task checked off.

They’d been in their position for quite some time, and the Autobots were taking their sweet time just talking about nonsensical things.

Ugh, the red one with a country-ish accent had even said “Well, we still thank Primus that we crashed inta the land, huh? After our whole fiasco with the ocean, imagine how sucky it coulda’ been!”

Ohhh, weren’t they just so lucky? Gosh, shut up!

Starscream decided to try and stop listening to the conversation and instead hiss profanities and complaints into poor Soundwave’s audial. Though, it was a little hard because Megatron was also there, lowly growling every time the Prime’s voice sounded. If Starscream’s servos were free, he’d smack his shoulder and tell him to knock it off.

It was silent for a little while. Worryingly, Megatron wondered if they had sensed their energy signals nearby and were coming for them. But then they heard their footsteps crushing all of the leaves and sticks growing fainter, farther and farther away.

Though things couldn’t end that easily for them. The three of them peaked from between the tree leaves and gaps in the junk pile they were behind.

“Autobots!” Optimus Prime’s deep voice called. His team stopped in their tracks, turning around to face him. “You should all head back to base. I’ll catch up with you soon.”

“But Prime—“ the dumb accented red one sputtered.

“I’m fully aware that we’re not sure of where the Decepticons are or any other possible dangers of this planet, Ironhide,” Prime reasoned. “But there’s something here that I wish to look further into.”

There was a little argument that was won by the Prime. Eventually, his team left, never questioning what it was that he was looking for. Optimus Prime turned around, optics hardening as his gaze zeroed in on their little hiding spot.

Starscream sneered, ever so tempted to spit an insult, but held back. Their lives could be at stake, after all. He felt Soundwave tense up, almost holding him tighter, as if protectively. Megatron tried to set his mouth into a hard line but it wobbled ever so slightly, letting some of his anger seep through.

Optimus Prime seemed to stare at them for the longest time. Maybe he spaced out. Maybe he accidentally died while standing. The latter would’ve been pretty nice.

Then abruptly, he turned, walking off into the direction that the rest of the Autobots had headed, most likely in direction of their own base. Megatron stood loudly, joints creaking and getting leaves everywhere, accidentally forcing Soundwave and Starscream up along with him. There was a yelp of protest from Starscream and a grunt coming from Soundwave.

Megatron ignored the curses coming from his second and moved away from their hiding spot. Something caught his optic. It was bright and blue, looking almost like a folded datapad. He moved over to it and picked it up. His assumption was correct. Megatron unfolded it to find it was a map of some kind. Perhaps it was of the planet? Soundwave had already made his way over to him, observing the map as well.

“There is writing on the top left corner,” Soundwave stated, pointing. He was right. It was written in neat Cybertronian. “It says ‘Earth.’”

“Earth?” Starscream repeated, jumping up in between them. He grabbed the map, hissing, “Give me that!” Megatron snarled at him, but his annoyance lessened at the confused expression on Starscream’s face. “This is all wrong. That was... there, and that was there to, and... that top one was over there! How could they have written this map so terribly wrong?”

“It appears that your assumption of not much changing in six million years was incorrect,” Soundwave told him, sounding a little smug. Starscream went pink in the face, looking very flustered.

“But it didn’t look like this six million years ago!” Starscream exclaimed. “It can’t just change like that!”

Megatron grabbed the map out of his servos, folding it up again and stuffing it away in his subspace for later use. “However this planet looked isn’t our main concern, fool. We have the correct geography down now. The only things left that we need to do is find resources and civilization. Maybe, if Prime hasn’t twisted his words with the people of this planet, we can still manipulate them into helping us.” He looked pensive.

None of them needed to wonder why there was a map conveniently placed on the ground for them. The three of them had learned a while back that Optimus Prime was a kind idiot, even for his enemies.

~

Skywarp had learned, from past experience, that there was at least one good leader among the lesser ranks. Sure, she had beaten him to a pulp multiple times, but that showed... strong leadership? He wasn’t sure because Megatron never beat his subordinates, save for when Starscream challenged or jumped in him, but that was just one leader. There were other ways to lead.

He slid out of the argument about leadership and made his way over to Slipstream.

“Hey,” Skywarp said. Slipstream gave him an irritated glance. Skywarp took that as an invitation to talk. “So, everyone’s a lil’ dumb today.”

“They’re always dumb,” Slipstream replied, getting a strong urge to smash her cube in his face. “The difference is that there’s no one with enough of a processor to regulate the stupidity.”

“I think that you have enough of a processor,” Skywarp said coolly, trying to play to her ego. It normally didn’t work as well with her as it did with Starscream, but as long as he picked the right words, everyone’s problems would be solved. “More than enough, actually. ‘Cause Starscream has half. Megatron has three-fourths, and Soundwave has a full processor.”

“What do I have?” Slipstream spat.

“Do you want me to be entirely honest?” Skywarp asked nervously, realizing he backed himself into a corner. Slipstream narrowed her eyes as a form of saying ‘yes, you dolt.’ “You have five-sixths of a processor.”

Slipstream considered what that meant. He was still calling her a little stupid, which was unnecessary and also not true, but at the same time he was saying that she was smarter than Megatron. That was definitely a good thing. She smirked.

“You’ve convinced me,” Slipstream concluded. Skywarp smiles, happy to know that he would now have no responsibilities and would be able to see everyone but him get yelled at. Even if he did absolutely nothing, he wouldn’t get in trouble because he appointed Slipstream as temporary leader. They should make that an official thing for her, really. “You do realize that the high command can return any second now, though?”

“Then let those seconds be spent yelling at idiots.”

Slipstream smirked. After four million years of beating the crap out of Skywarp, he’d come to know her well.

~

“By the way, where are we?” Megatron wondered aloud. They definitely weren’t going in circles, but that didn’t help. They were still lost in this ‘forest.’ Whatever that is. Starscream identified the word.

“We’re in the fragging middle of nowhere!” Starscream spat at him. Megatron dismissed his umpteenth insult of the day. Their bad luck had put him in a pissy mood and he was not feeling the need to help it. Soundwave, unfortunately cursed with the ability to always care for others even when they bullied him as a pastime, made multiple attempts to calm him down. They were normally successful, but Megatron wasn’t exactly sure what he was doing to make it work.

Eventually, Soundwave gave up. He was starting to get a little pissy himself, but in more subtle ways. Like pretending to find an energy source so that he could escape a conversation, or kneeling down to the ground to pretend to do something only to have set up something that would make Megatron trip. Little things.

This time, Soundwave was not being petty when he started looking for an energy source. He felt something. Something strong. It wasn’t a living creature either, which was a huge plus. It must’ve been energy. Real energy! So he told his superiors so.

They decided to search for the source. The pull was stronger and stronger with each step they took, to the point where even Starscream could feel it. It was just behind a large amount of trees and shrubbery...

There! The weirdly-shaped... wait, what was that thing? Whatever it was, it was pumping out a slag-load of energy. But there were little things by it. The three of them heightened their audial sensors to try and make out any sounds. The little things were talking in a surprisingly educated manner.

Oh, for Primus’s sake, did they just find the planet’s civilization in the same location as the energy source?

“At least we found the energy,” Megatron mumbled half-heartedly. He barely ducked out of the way when Starscream tried to hit him on the helm.

~

Sure, the high command had been away for almost a whole day. That didn’t mean Slipstream couldn’t turn around the lack of productivity in only ten kliks. And so she did just that. Everything was running well and smoothly. Reports were being made, sparring was happening, and the mechs who man the consoles were doing whatever it was that they did on there. Clear to see, she was a great leader. Another plus was that people were genuinely afraid of her, so she didn’t have to scream as much.

“Ugh,” Thrust groaned, long and annoying. “Slips’, why do we have to do these reports? They’re all just on nothing and nonsense.”

In response, Slipstream gave him a steely glare. Thrust shut up with an un-warriorlike squeak. He scurried off to his trine again, for the fifth time that day. What a dumb little coward! Hiding behind his trine.

Who needs a trine anyway? Slipstream knew that Starscream proved you really didn’t. Sure, he did still actually have his trine, but apparently he had silenced his side of the bond teracycles ago. In the beginning of the war, after Vos was destroyed. He always told her it was better. He told her it helped him keep his thoughts to himself because then no one could hear what he was thinking or feeling. Even though Slipstream never had a trine or bond and didn’t plan on it, she could easily tell that it was a plus. Especially for a scheming dolt like himself.

“Slipstream!” Skywarp ran up to her, looking like he heard something genuinely useful. “They’re coming back. Lord Megatron, Commander Soundwave, and ‘Screamer.”

Ignoring the butchering of Starscream’s name, Slipstream asked, “Right now?” Skywarp nodded profusely. “Well, bring up the elevator for them, obviously! You shouldn’t have to ask me for permission to let our commanders back into base.”

Skywarp ran out of the command center to find the Constructicons, given that they were best at working with the elevator with how they built it and all.

Slipstream waited. And waited. She waited some more. She would know that they were back once—

“I’m going to rip your fuel tank out of your body and shove it up your ugly aft!” Starscream shrieked from the elevator, loud enough for the whole base to hear. Slipstream may have heard Megatron loudly respond with ‘try me, fool!’ There was more shrieking from Starscream’s end.

There they were. Their commanders were back.

Slipstream went to greet them. The elevator door opened just as she walked in front of it, with Skywarp and Thundercracker already there and waiting.

My, my, well now she could see what the source of the screaming was. The elevator wasn’t big enough to fit all three of them inside. To be fair, it was mostly Megatron’s fault given his unnecessary wide-ness, which pushed Soundwave up against the wall to his right and Starscream thrashing against the wall to his left. He appeared to be trying to puncture Megatron’s midsection with his claws in an actual attempt to rip out his fuel tank.

“Welcome back, Lord Megatron!” Skywarp greeted, cheery as ever. Thundercracker grunted in agreement.

This was where Slipstream’s facade of arrogance and confidence fell. Right in the face of Megatron. The one mech who could still strike fear in her core. She was back to being an agreeing soldier once again.

Megatron nodded at the them as if there wasn’t a seeker attempting to maul him. He stepped out of the elevator with more ease than it looked like there would have been.

Starscream scrambled out, pushing Soundwave even though he wasn’t in the way. He grabbed Skywarp and Thundercracker by their arms and said, “I have so much to complain to you two about.” He led them off, seemingly in the same direction as Megatron just so their lord could hear him complain.

Soundwave stepped out politely, brushing off the fact that he was just pushed. It happened before, anyway. He nodded at Slipstream respectfully, and she did the same. He walked off in the same direction as Megatron and Starscream.

Primus, if they hated each other so much, why did they keep teaming up every second of the day?

~

Megatron announced their discoveries to the ship. Yes, the Autobots were alive. There was an audible groan. Yes, there was energy. There was cheering. Yes, there was civilization that seemed to work with the energy. There was groaning again. He briefly went over other things, before saying something that sparked real excitement in the Decepticons for the first time in a while.

Yes, they would start fighting for the energy again need it be. That was definitely a good thing. Antsy mechs could finally fight, and ones with too much energy could let it all out without hurting their teammates.

After the announcement and the room mostly cleared out, Megatron thought of the last plus of fighting. Mechs with too much energy getting it out. He glanced at Starscream.

“What?” Starscream hissed, looking rather perturbed that he wasn’t able to steal any Earthen materials after the whole day.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to watching you tear off an Autobot’s head again,” Megatron grinned. “It was very surprising, and I’m sure you have enough in you to do it again.”

His second’s shrill, surprised laughter only made his grin grow with more confidence.

It was time the Autobots peace ended.

Chapter Text

Excitement rang through the base. Perhaps nervousness did, too. After all, no one had fought anyone but each other for the past three orbital cycles. Yet that was the cause for excitement too. Something was being planned. Megatron called it a raid. The whole idea of going on an energon raid of sorts even controlled Starscream’s urges. He hadn’t tried to stab Megatron in a while. Normally that would be concerning, but now he had reason.

They were going to go to the strange human structure and steal its energon. The thing was called a ‘powerplant.’ They were going to fill empty cubes with the energon. The cubes would be sealed. Apparently there was some sort of tube thing that would connect to the cubes and fill them. Soundwave handled that. It was the more complicated stuff that he worked on.

Megatron made the plan. Soundwave did the annoying things. Starscream made the maneuvers and had to try and find the times that the humans wouldn’t be there. Unfortunately, they worked shifts that lasted for entire days. Even three days. But there were most likely less of them at nightfall. Even if there weren’t, it would hopefully be hard for them to see them.

There was still one issue that no one knew much of yet. The Autobots.

If they had formed affiliations with the humans, there could be trouble. The Autobots may be alerted of their presence and activity, and could rush over to aid the humans. Prime did always have a soft spot for helpless organics anyway. What could they do, though? Soundwave wasn’t energized enough to start spying on them. There weren’t a lot of good spies in the Decepticon army besides him. All other possibly good spies were on Cybertron or just floating through space on random missions.

Although deep in thought, Megatron still noticed the hyperactive jumping on his right side. He placed a heavy servo on Starscream’s shoulder, keeping him on the ground. When he received a glare, Megatron responded, “Save your energy, fool. The raid is still days away.” He released his second’s shoulder.

It was obvious that he genuinely was trying to keep himself nailed to the floor, but Starscream was still filled with boundless energy. “I’m going to run,” was all he said. And he did just that. Megatron didn’t know where he went. He decided it was best if he let the fool go.

The day passed. It had mostly just been planning and practicing fighting. The next day, they were going to focus more on the scientific mechanics. Megatron still kept Soundwave on that job, knowing if Starscream was there, there would be a cube specifically designed to kill. Then he would give it to Megatron.

“Once we have enough energy to help repair the ship,” Soundwave told him, “we should first fix communications console and contact Shockwave.”

That would be smart, but Megatron wasn’t sure if he wanted to talk to Shockwave just yet. Yet, it would definitely help to, so he decided that, against his comfortability, they would fix the communications console. Plus, Soundwave would probably be there to talk more than him. Hopefully. Sometimes he betrayed him like that with those sort of issues. Saying stuff about how he was ‘the leader and should converse with his important mechs’ and ‘needed to socialize more.’ Blegh. Can’t a mech just do that over messaging? Or make someone else do it?

Megatron spent most of that day closely watching Soundwave’s activity on the main console and occasionally muttering a comment about something. He appeared to be trying to find more energy sources with the information of one being a powerplant. There were thousands of them. The fact made Megatron grin. He wondered if there were other sources. Oh, Primus forbid, were there energon mine sites on the planet? He sure hoped not.

Megatron had, unfortunately, grown used to the lack of work he had in the past three orbital cycles. He grew used to everything being a little less chaotic because mechs could relax more, but now he couldn’t. Back to business.

It was only after that thought that Megatron realized he hadn’t refueled once throughout the whole day. He should get on that. Soundwave would always insist he didn’t need to, given that however his frame was made allowed him to not be required to fuel as much. Nonetheless, Megatron would still insist that he did need to fuel. To prove his stubbornness, he pulled out Soundwave’s chair, dragging him away from the console. It was a little childish, but he needed his friend healthy.

He was almost beginning to think that he would have to drag Soundwave all the way there in the chair when he stood up abruptly, almost causing Megatron to trip. He kicked the chair back into place and put a servo on Soundwave’s shoulder. They walked to the refueling room.

It was there that they simply talked more about the upcoming raid over energon.

“I need to be sure,” Soundwave said while Megatron was mid-sip. He hadn’t consumed any of his energon. There were still some people here, and he didn’t want to retract his mask in front of others. “Please tell me that you are going to focus on the mission and not killing Optimus Prime.”

“What?” Megatron asked, offended at the thought. “Of course! We go in, take the energy, and leave! What makes you think that I’m going to get all obsessed with killing Prime?”

Soundwave gave him an unimpressed look. “The humans, if there have been relations made, will most likely call for help through the means of the Autobots. They will come. Then we’ll have to fight them.”

Megatron cast an uncomfortable glance in any direction except at Soundwave’s face. “What tells you that we’ll be spotted?”

In response, Soundwave gave him a painful silence. His face, although still masked, showed immense irritation. “We are not the most discreet of mechs, especially given the fact that we are much larger than the humans and also almost as large as the powerplant itself.”

That was definitely an issue.

When it was clear that there was not a single mech in the room other than Megatron and Soundwave, Soundwave retracted his mask to reveal the full extent of his irritation. Megatron sighed. Soundwave took a long, loud sip of his energon to further enunciate his emotions. Then he slammed his cube down, but made sure as to not let any liquid actually come out.

They sat there for a while, arguing a little. Most of the time they were planning, but occasionally Soundwave noticed the spark in Megatron’s optics that indicated he was thinking more about destroying the Autobots than properly fueling their troops. That’s when he told him to shut up about his obsession, which developed into argument.

Eventually, their discussion led to nightfall. Or, at least, nightfall on any mech’s internal chronometer. No one really knew what the time spans were on Earth. It wouldn’t matter. Probably. Even so, a few random mechs started filling the refueling room and Soundwave brought his visor and mask back.

When the room began to empty again, Megatron and Soundwave weren’t even talking much about plans and war and strategy. Just random conversation. Soundwave had retracted his visor and mask again. Megatron knew Soundwave could go on forever. Just like his oddly built digestive system, he didn’t need as much sleep as the average mech. Megatron needed to make sure that he would get enough recharge for the next upcoming day.

Right then, there was a speedy clacking of footsteps growing nearer. Soundwave moved to put back his mask, but Megatron held up a servo.

“It’s just Starscream,” he reassured. He knew the clacking of his thrusters anywhere, even if it was at a running speed.

As if summoned by name, Starscream ran up to the table that the two of them had been sitting at. Pointing at Megatron’s cube, he panted, “Did you drink any of that?” Suspicious, Megatron nodded slowly. Starscream seemed to contemplate something before shrugging, grabbing the cube, and taking a big sip. He went to go run again, but Megatron grabbed him by the wing.

“Have you been running this entire cycle?” Megatron asked, a little concerned. Starscream nodded, not quite getting his concern. “Fragging Pit, fool. Did you even refuel? Have you stopped once?” He received a shake of the helm at both questions. Megatron was exasperated. Starscream only grew annoyed.

“Don’t do that ‘save your energy’ slag,” Starscream hissed. “If I don’t get this out, I’ll have too much energy, and our whole plan will turn into uncoordinated slag!”

“Starscream, if your statements are true,” Soundwave reasoned, “then you’ve been running for the past twelve joors.”

Starscream faltered. “Oh.”

Megatron ordered them all to recharge.

~

The next day was a little worse. They were now one day away from the raid, and everyone was frantic, excited, and panicked. Some were all too excited for it to be normal, but most would just turn a blind eye to that sort of behavior. Others were way too nervous to actually be in a fragging war, but no one could change that, now could they?

Megatron didn’t know what his goal was for this day? Practice fighting? He already did that with Soundwave. It was equal winnings on both ends. Starscream turned down his offer, saying he had better things to do. Megatron noticed that those ‘better things to do’ consisted of bullying mechs, spontaneously running about the place, and reading datapads with an oddly angry look on his faceplates. This was what he did nearly every day, but it was fine. Apparently, he was already up to date on practicing fighting anyway because nearly the entire air force had gone to the medical bay at least twice. Megatron knew that it wasn’t Slipstream’s fault because she was among the group both times.

Megatron later caught Starscream and told him to stop beating the slag out of his air force before they waste all of their medical supplies. Starscream told him to go frag himself and proceeded to kick him in the shins. Megatron left him alone after that.

He noticed it was the morning refuel for all mechs, and came to a thrilling conclusion that was sure to boost up the morale in the Decepticons. Megatron announced that everyone was allowed a full cube of energon for morning refuel, midday refuel, and evening refuel. It was a little risky, but why not? It would help and give them more energy. Even Soundwave approved of this decision. There was no telling that they would succeed in the raid, but there was also no telling that they wouldn’t.

After that decision, Megatron helped himself to a full cube without guilt of abusing his rank.

~

It was late, and Megatron realized that there wasn’t much of a battle plan set up should they have to fight. That was pretty bad. He sought out Starscream, leaving Soundwave alone. He was making that mech sleep, and by Primus was he going to interrupt it. Megatron knocked on Starscream’s door. It was pointless to enter the code. He changed it everyday out of paranoia.

A very disgruntled Starscream opened the door, looking sufficiently tired and like he had just begun to fall to recharge. Megatron almost felt guilty.

“Don’t we need a ‘good night’s rest,’ dear leader?” Starscream sneered at him, words a tad slurred with a little less bite. Maybe he was more tired than Megatron thought.

Then he remembered that he had been running for twelve joors the previous day. And had ran today for Primus knows how long.

“I’m going to apologize right now before I say anything,” Megatron grunted at him. Starscream narrowed his dimmed optics. “Care to help me make battle plans?”

This time, Starscream aimed his kick between Megatron’s legs in the more ‘sensitive’ area. There wasn’t much avoiding it, which lead to Megatron slumped over in pain, servos covering the abused part.

“I should kill you now,” Starscream yawned, “while I have the chance. But I’m a little too tired, so get up. Let’s get cracking on those battle plans you’ve procrastinated on for whatever fragging reason.” Then he walked away from his doorframe, passing the still-in-pain Megatron. He waited for him to get up, tapping his pede impatiently.

When Megatron was ready (but still hurting very much, mind you) he pushed Starscream forward. When his second yelped and glared at him, Megatron grumbled, “It’s only equal after you kicked me there. Besides, you should’ve just gotten on with moving already.”

So they walked down the hall in angry silence. It was justified. They should both be getting good recharge, but Megatron was stupid enough to forget something very important. He glanced down to his left, observing Starscream’s movements. He was tired. He moved much more slowly, which was still a little too fast for Megatron, but was slower nonetheless. And of course, his optics were frighteningly dim. If he hadn’t been so sleepy, Megatron would’ve been concerned. Even with the added tiredness, it was a little odd.

“You don’t have to work on this with me,” Megatron mumbled. Starscream made an annoyed noise in response. Megatron understood. It meant, ‘well then why the frag did you wake me in the first place?’ “Right, right.”

It was obvious that neither of them wanted to put in the effort to head to the war room or the command center, so they simply walked together. They didn’t talk much. Starscream just seemed far too tired to exert a big amount of energy into plans. Megatron was really tempted to simply pick him up and carry him back to his quarters despite all protest. Still, he relented from the urge. Even with fatigue, Starscream would be sure to gouge him, which wouldn’t be very good given that they literally had an energon raid the very next day.

Eventually, Starscream said, “This is just going to turn into guerrilla warfare.”

Unfortunately, Megatron had to agree. Battles mostly consisted of half-baked plans being screamed out right before the one speaking gets punched. To be fair, it managed to work for them. Four million years of random yelling, shooting and various physical attacks kept them alive and well, so there wasn’t much of a reason to say it would stop working.

They both turned around back to the direction of their quarters. Starscream stumbled. Megatron caught his arm before he fell, noticing that his optics were far dimmer than before.

“Are you trying to sleep before you even arrive back to your quarters?” Megatron couldn’t hold back a small grin. Starscream tried to glare at him, but appeared to barely even see him. “I won’t say anything more.”

Still, Megatron’s unspoken offer hung in the air. He was very much willing to simply carry him back to his room. Starscream was never willing to let that happen. He said it was embarrassing. Well, when he stumbled for the fourth time, with them being nowhere near either of their quarters, Megatron acted upon his right to make sure that his second didn’t fall flat on his faceplates. So he scooped him up, with much unenergized protest.

Megatron learned a long time ago that it wasn’t very easy for either person to carry a seeker in a manner that one would coin the term as ‘bridal-style.’ It was hard to get around the whole issue with the wings. That forced him to improvise mid-battle one day, and then he stuck with it. Much to Starscream’s dismay.

The position consisted of Megatron using his left arm only to scoop Starscream up, with Starscream’s back facing Megatron’s chest and his legs slung over his arm. Megatron always used his left arm because, well, the right one had a fusion canon on it and it would make it harder. Even when he didn’t have the fusion canon on, which rarely ever happened in the first place with the whole fact that he slept with it on, he would still use his left arm.

Starscream tried to fight him away when he was picked up, but eventually gave up with a displeased grunt. “I fragging hate you.”

Megatron didn’t say anything until they reached his quarters. He asked Starscream what his password was this time. cd1031me04456. Oddly enough, that was Starscream’s creation date. Megatron wondered if he truly randomized it each time or actually gave the passwords some sort of meaning.

When the door opened with a schwip, Starscream didn’t hesitate to push himself right out of Megatron’s arm and unceremoniously onto the floor. Deciding that he had enough of the seeker’s hijinks for the day, Megatron left him to get himself up off of the floor, having the small bit of courtesy to at least close the door for him.

When Megatron entered his quarters, the wave of fatigue finally hit him. He checked his chronometer in a panic. There were still a few joors before anyone had to awaken. Hopefully that would be enough time.

~

When he woke up the next day, Thundercracker was nervous. He always was on days where there was guaranteed to be a battle. Especially when it had been three orbital cycles since anyone had fought anyone except each other. He was worried. Thundercracker was especially worried about his trine. Well, really, his trine basically only consisted of Skywarp because Starscream cut himself off about four million years ago. Still, he was worried about them both.

There was also something annoying that happened every battle. Seekers are usually most in sync and best at fighting with their trines. When Starscream would fight with them, he was mediocre at best. Yet, when he fought with Megatron and Soundwave, he was spectacular. It was annoying. It made it feel like Starscream was even farther away from their bond than usual.

“Hey!” Skywarp snapped his digits in front of his face. Thundercracker flinched. “I was talking, TC.” When Thundercracker apologized like the twerp with anxiety that he was, Skywarp responded, “Oh, shush! It’s pretty loud in here anyway, so I’d bet it’d be hard to hear me.”

Thundercracker decided not to mention that he simply wasn’t listening.

“So, I guess I’ll just repeat what I said,” Skywarp told him. “It doesn’t take an idiot to guess that if the Autobots try to beat us up, Starscream’s gonna abandon us and start shrieking again. So-o, are we just gonna be a duo again?”

Thundercracker smiled at Skywarp. “Not ‘just a duo.’ We’ll be the best duo.” Skywarp snickered. It made Thundercracker’s spark flutter at the sound. Skywarp was a bit of a dumbaft, but he was his favorite dumbaft, and that was all that mattered.

Skywarp grabbed his servo all of the sudden and started pulling Thundercracker forward. “C’mon, we gotta meet up in the center of the ship so Megatron can make some big inspirational speech before we leave for the raid. I wanna be there to see ‘Screamer mimic him.”

“Of course,” was all Thundercracker could get out before Skywarp practically yanked him away, running. It took a few stumbles before Thundercracker could start running too.

They made it just in time so that Soundwave wouldn’t give them a nasty glare when they walked towards the center. The two of them had the pleasure of seeing the coneheads get the evil eye a few mechs after them. In response, Thrust roughly bumped into Skywarp on purpose. Skywarp moved to challenge him to a fight when Thundercracker held him back, saying that it would only waste energy for the battle that was literally doomed to happen.

“Shoulda’ bumped Thunders’,” Ramjet told Thrust through gross laughter. “Not like he’da fight you or anything. He’ll just get all startled and give ya’ a disappointed look.”

Thundercracker ignored that. Just in time, too.

Megatron’s repetitive speech had begun. Thundercracker found himself enthralled every time even though he’d heard it a thousand times before. It was astonishing how intense he could get. To be fair, Starscream also added some entertainment with his mocking, making a point to change up what he was doing every other speech. Then Megatron diverted from his speech path earlier than everyone anticipated. It threw off both Soundwave and Starscream, leaving one of them concerned but trusting, and the other disappointed and annoyed that he couldn’t mock the speech he had so memorized. Anyone could guess which of those was which.

“I take it that nervousness fills you all,” Megatron took his servos out from behind his back and clasped them together in his front. “Some not really nervous, but more so bloodthirsty.” He made a point to glance at Starscream at that. In response, the seeker stuck out his glossa. “We haven’t made many mechs bleed in the past three orbital cycles except our fellow Decepticons. Speaking of that, whoever keeps ripping off the digits of the Constructicons needs to speak to me.”

Starscream looked off to the side, feigning innocence. Megatron didn’t notice and continued, “But all of that aside, if the Autobots come for us, take note that they haven’t fought anyone in a damn while either. If anything, they probably haven’t even fought each other. Let’s leave it hanging there because saying ‘believe in yourselves’ is slag that an Autobot would say.” He was grinning.

Thundercracker found himself grinning too. It was always a little fun to hear their leader curse in a speech.

Mechs started filling up the elevators and pouring out the other end, each in previously established groups. Thundercracker barely noticed it was his turn until Skywarp laced their digits together, urging him to move.

~

The Decepticons were not sneaky by any means. That was why they had only one good spy. Due to that, it was a little hard for them to creep up to the powerplant unnoticed, especially given how they were about twenty feet taller than the planet’s inhabitants. Inhabitants who happened to be surrounding the energy source at all times.

Megatron, on multiple occasions, had to snap his soldiers out of their awe of the strange planet’s geography. They were getting worse than Starscream. He at least had the audacity to stop as soon as someone noticed his observing of the nature, but these mechs just turned around and went right back to staring at trees. Megatron bit back the urge to shout at them.

A part of him was nervous. Another part of him told that part to shut up because he had been doing the same thing for four million years. Four teracycles. Primus, that made him feel old.

The plan was simple. They already had brought a useful amount of energon converters with them in case they ever landed somewhere that didn’t have direct energon. They also made a few quickly, but those would be used in emergency because they were a little terrible given how they had to make them in a span of three cycles. They would find the most potent source of energy in the powerplant and simply stick a dozen or so converters on it. Then rinse and repeat until the thing was empty or until they ran out of converters. Most mechs had them stored away in their subspaces, so there wasn’t a worry of how they would hide 386 converters.

Should the necessity of battle arise, those without converters would fight. If it was absolutely imperative, then everyone who was free to would fight. It was a pretty solid plan. Megatron just hoped that mechs would do their jobs correctly and discreetly.

And so it began. The first few mechs, of whom were the most competent with energon, were sent out to find powerful energy spots. Then the next. Then the next, the next, surprisingly next, unsurprisingly the next in line, then—

“Megatron!” Optimus Prime bellowed, seemingly from nowhere. Drat. “Show yourself!”

Megatron wondered which idiot made them obvious before standing up from his crouched position behind a cluster of trees. Processor working with only a few joors of sleep, he decided to uproot a tree and take it with him. It could probably make a weapon.

Blasters sounded. Although it was unfortunate that they had been caught, Megatron found himself grinning at being back to the same old same old. When he caught sight of the Prime himself, Megatron threw the tree at him. It took down a seeker of his who was mid-flight. Whoops. At least he could tell that the wings weren’t white and small and belonging to a small angry fool. Then he wouldn’t get his audial chewed off for throwing the tree. Literally.

Speak of the devil, “What in Primus’s name made you think that throwing that was a good idea?” Megatron didn’t wince at the screech given that there was so much sound around them already. He did wince when he realized that the three could apparently roll and was now taking out mechs who couldn’t take flight. Some were his. Whoops again.

“The urge took me,” Megatron stated, getting into a run to punch the nearest Autobot. He called back at him, “You’d do the same, fool!”

He was throwing the Autobots around left and right, going after his true target. Soundwave told him not to be biased towards the Prime, but Megatron couldn’t help himself. It wasn’t every day that one could uproot a tree and incapacitate at least half of the Autobots that showed up with said tree.

Megatron took advantage of Optimus Prime’s back being turned and raised his fusion canon, blasting it. He heard him grunt in pain before spinning around to face Megatron. It wasn’t long before they tackled each other and were both rolling around on the ground spitting curses.

“Megatron,” Prime hissed, pinned to the ground and trying to move his helm away from Megatron’s servos grabbing at his face mask. “There was no need to steal from the humans—“

“My sincerest apologies that my people need to be fed, you buffoon,” Megatron grimaced when Optimus managed to move his leg up and kick him square in the chest plates, knocking him off. Now Megatron was on the bottom and Optimus Prime was on top.

“You could have just—“

“Could have just what? Starved? Asked you nicely? Please! As if there’s any other options!”

Then they were rolling around again. Suddenly, a blue mass tackled Optimus off. Soundwave. Of course.

“Mega-dolt!” sounded the familiar screech of a certain seeker. “Care to do me a favor?”

“I’m a little busy!” Megatron shouted back as he got up. He didn’t even know where Starscream was.

“I can just make you do it then,” Starscream said smugly, voice sounding much closer than it was a few seconds ago. Megatron barely had the time to look for him before Starscream sped over and rammed his foot into a certain spot in his side. “Gh—!” Then he transformed. Fraggit. He hated it when the fool triggered his transformation sequence. “You could have warned me!”

“As if! You would just say no and charge at Prime!” Then Starscream used Megatron to shoot the little yellow Autobot with the horns. He couldn’t recollect his designation.

The rest of the battle was more of the same. Bickering, shooting, tacking and rolling around on the floor, trying to pull oneself out of Soundwave’s grasp when one tried to throw a tree again.

As Megatron clutched at a wound at his side, wondering who it came from to charge at them next, Soundwave comm’d him.

“Order retreat,” Soundwave droned. “The raid was a success. We must return to base to treat wounds before anyone bleeds out.”

It was only then that Megatron noticed the lack of Autobots and surplus of Decepticons on the battlefield. Or what would be a battlefield had it not been a simply human workplace. He processed what Soundwave said. The raid was a success. The raid was a success! Megatron repressed the urge to ‘whoop!’ in celebration and ordered everyone to retreat back to base.

~

About 1.2 million gallons of energon was taken from one measly powerplant. That would be enough to fuel them for, well... who knows how long! Though considering appetites, it would probably wouldn’t be all too long before they needed another raid.

Megatron couldn’t let himself get excited. They had other raids to plan for when they inevitably run out of fuel as well as other attacks. Not attacks for energon, but to weaken the Autobots. Once everyone was energized enough, it would be truly back to the entire same old same old. Attack the Autobots. Steal fuel. Rinse and repeat. Had there not been so many entertaining characters in the Decepticons forces, everyone would grow bored of the routine.

For now, Megatron would let them celebrate. Keep up the morale and all.

He nudged Soundwave. “Now you have no excuse to start starving yourself.” Soundwave shoulders shook a little in small, silent laughter. It wasn’t a problem. Just a workaholic habit.

Megatron looked around at the Decepticons, now bustling and yelling much more than usual. He grinned.

Yep. Same old same old.

Chapter Text

After a successful energon raid, there was some hooligan who ran off with some energon, turned it into high grade, and made a whole deal about it. The ‘whole deal’ always worked. People flocked towards the alcohol, there was a party, then drama afterwards because mechs would get drunk enough to mess up relationships. Beautiful.

They always tried to cover it up from Megatron. They failed very quickly because Soundwave was the world’s best tattletale. Still, Megatron usually let them go when he was in a good mood. His good moods were pretty often, too, after raids. Plus, it was always fun to listen in on the drama that would come afterward. So of course after their first successful raid on Earth, there would be a party. A significantly larger one, too, given that they’d obtained such a large surplus of energon.

Megatron decided he would come to the mess that would be a party. He would do so discreetly, though. If anyone found who respected him out he was there, everyone would know, and then it would all be ruined because so many of his mechs are blatantly afraid of him. It wouldn’t be hard to get in. All he’d have to do would be to wait for a majority of his soldiers to get drunk enough (which happened fast) and then he could enter.

“I take it that you’re going to supervise this like always?” Megatron asked Soundwave. Soundwave nodded. “You don’t have to.” Soundwave shook his helm. Megatron sighed. “I tried, then. You know everyone tries to just push you out though, right?”

“Not unless I stand near Starscream,” Soundwave replied. “He despises me, but he won’t push me out. Mostly because he always tries to get me drunk, but nonetheless, it’s safer around him.”

Starscream had reason to want Soundwave drunk. Only he and Megatron had ever really seen him intoxicated, and... it was quite the sight to behold, one could say. Megatron didn’t make that comment. Instead, he waited and sent Soundwave off. Megatron simply stayed in his berthroom to do some extra work on his datapads before he inevitably got hammered at the end of the cycle.

After reading five reports, he already felt like he wanted to go to sleep. That would be a problem. If he was too tired to get drunk, then the effort of allowing the time-wasting party to happen would be fruitless. Megatron had a high preference to his efforts being fruitful. As most did.

A pinging sound came from his comm. Megatron answered it, recognizing the number. “Soundwave? It’s 18:43. Did something happen?”

“Yes,” Soundwave replied, sounding uncomfortable and a tad bit panicked. A resounding crash echoed into the comm-line. “It is 18:43 and they’re already becoming intoxicated.”

Megatron blinked. Early, then. “Oh.”

“I hate you.”

“I’m very sorry,” Megatron replied, not concealing the lie very well. There was a smile in his voice. He heard an auto-tuned sigh come from the other end. “What? Come on, it’s a little funny.”

“I don’t understand what about this you’re finding funny with your vulgar sense of humor,” Soundwave bit back, his monotonous voice still having some bitterness seep in. Megatron had to conceal a snort at that. His humor was pretty terrible. “I will comm you again when almost everyone is intoxicated, but I will be bitter.”

“My condolences, my dear Soundwave,” Megatron said. He heard a significantly loud crash followed by multiple screams his third’s line. Soundwave hung up without a single farewell uttered.

After replaying their conversation in his head, Megatron decided to read a couple more reports. If he was completely bored, he would have a better reason to start drinking.

So he waited.

And waited.

And... waited.

Two hours later, just as Megatron was about to question Soundwave, he received a message from said mech that was floating through his thoughts. Not a call. Just a message, pinged straight to his processor.

It read, It is too loud for me to call you. I am sending you this message to inform that approximately eighty-nine percent of the Decepticon base is drunk. Do with that what you will.

Megatron grinned. He was going to get absolutely hammered.

~

Thundercracker never liked high grade. He didn’t like the taste, and he sure as Pit did not like what it did to him. He was, unfortunately, a lightweight. One or two cubes usually smacked his processor into stupidity. It was equally as unfortunate that his one good friend and companion loved high grade and always wanted him to have some.

He tapped on Skywarp’s shoulder. Skywarp jolted awake. “Huh-what? Is it over?”

“No, but you were passed out,” Thundercracker told him politely, lifting his trinemate’s face and wiping drool from his mouth. “I woke you up because you throw up in your drunken sleeps.”

“What?” Skywarp tilted his head, which ended up tilting his entire frame, which ended up with him almost falling over the table they were seated at. Thundercracker stopped him before he fell, holding him upright by his shoulders to prevent any future falls.

He realized that Skywarp probably hadn’t heard him. It was quite loud after all. People were yelling. Someone had gotten music in the room and it sure wasn’t Soundwave. A crash would sound every now and then. Thundercracker couldn’t tell if the source of the crashes were from energon cubes or actual mechs breaking each other’s bodies. There were also two intoxicated mechs interfacing under the table behind them. Thundercracker discovered that the hard way.

“You never drank your high grade, loser,” Skywarp tried to smirk at him, but it came out as a lopsided smile. His statement was wrong. Thundercracker had taken a single sip, grimaced, and decided that was enough. “Can I have yours if you’re not gonna drink it?”

“No,” Thundercracker answered bluntly and sternly. “You’ve had five already. No more.”

Skywarp pleaded more, giving him what could only be described as ‘puppy-dog eyes.’ That tactic never worked as well when he was struggling to stay upright and slurring every plea that left his mouth. Thundercracker still refused, but it was hard for his answer to be as stern when he was still miraculously sympathetic for Skywarp. Damn his polite processor, allowing him to be such a nice fragging person!

Thundercracker never enjoyed these parties. He hated the noise and he despised the high grade. He only came because Skywarp would continuously bug him about it. If he made it clear that he wouldn’t go, then Skywarp would be irritated at him for the next day or so. At least, that’s what he imagined would happen. He never actually told Skywarp he wouldn’t go, ever.

Besides, it was a little fun when the annoying coneheads weren’t hanging out around then and being terribly annoying. When no one was around irritating them, Skywarp would simply drunkenly ramble about Primus knows what to him, and Thundercracker would listen to every word. It was a little selfish, maybe, but Skywarp had the full option to leave him whenever he so desired. He just didn’t.

“Primus, imagine being a blue, tall, depressed deadbeat?” Ramjet’s annoying deep voice came from behind him. Speak of the fragging devil. The three of the coneheads laughed loudly and obnoxiously from behind him. “Like, jeez, imagine being the kind of loser who doesn’t drink high grade at a party?”

Drunk coneheads were the worst kind of coneheads.

“Wow, you three are talking about Commander Soundwave behind his back?” Thundercracker spat back, not daring to look them in the optics should his confidence go away. “You sure are brave, considering that he has his audials everywhere.” Another plus of not drinking high grade was that he could still stay witty and interrupt Skywarp before he said anything stupid.

“Oh, pfft! You know we’re not talking about Commander Soundwave,” Ramjet quickly replied, sounding a little panicked. He stumbled his way into the one of the chairs at their table with his trinemates following suit in a frenzy. Thrust almost fell out of his chair as soon as he got in. In a lower tone of voice, Ramjet leaned towards Thundercracker and said, “Soun—Soundwave knows that we ain’t talking about him, right? He knows we’re just making fun of you?”

“Well, now that you said it, yes,” Thundercracker said stiffly, folding his hands in his lap so the coneheads wouldn’t see his clenched fists and continue to goad him.

“Wait, Soundwave isn’t tall,” Skywarp realized. “He’s shorter than you!” He pointed at Thundercracker.

“What? No he’s not!” Thundercracker incredulously blew off Skywarp’s comment, but now he was suspicious. Should he ever grow a pair and stand close enough to Soundwave to test the statement about his height, he would.

“So, ‘Cracker,” Ramjet smirked at him, unfortunately not drunk enough to look ridiculous while doing so. “Gonna drink that?” He pointed at the full cube of high grade.

“No,” Thundercracker responded. His answer came out much less stern than he wished. At least his voice didn’t crack.

“Really?” Ramjet asked, unconvinced. “And just leave ‘Warpy here drunk and alone?”

“I’m not alone, slut,” Skywarp hissed. “Thunders stays by me the whole time. I know that.”

“Did you just call me a slut?” Ramjet yelled angrily, rising from his chair. His trinemates rose with him.

Skywarp rose too. “Yeah, I did! I saw you sneak off with Brawl before!”

Oh Primus. Oh frag. Thundercracker didn’t want to interfere, but dear lord he was going to have to.

“That wasn’t me, that was Dirge!” Ramjet pointed at the newly accused, getting very red in the face.

“What?” Dirge glared at him, shocked that his trine leader would turn on him even though he’d done so before. “That wasn’t me, that was Thrust!”

“Frag you!” Was all Thrust said, confirming that it was him.

“Still, I damn well know that you’ve slept with almost all of the Combaticons,” Skywarp said, crossing his arms over his chest plates. “You are a big slut.” Thundercracker wanted to die. Why did they have to have this fight when they were all drunk?

“You little, purple, hyper, slagging fragger!” Ramjet exploded. He looked ready to lunge at Skywarp, and Thrust and Dirge looked ready to do the same. There was going to be an all-out battle of the whores because Skywarp couldn’t be polite for one damn second. A thousand ideas rushed through Thundercracker’s processor. There was only one very unfortunate option that would possibly work.

“I’ll drink my high grade!” Thundercracker blurted. The four of them stopped and looked at him. “I’ll drink my high grade if you don’t lunge at each other!”

Ramjet’s gross look of victorious smugness came over his face. “And I’m supposed to believe you?” Although he said that, he was already getting back into his chair with his company doing the same.

Thundercracker couldn’t believe he just peer pressured himself into drinking alcohol just so Skywarp’s aft wouldn’t get handed to him. To prove that he would drink the gross beverage in front of him, he picked it up and took a large sip. He had to stop himself from gagging and grimacing.

“You don’t have to, you know,” Skywarp whispered to him after he took the sip, sitting down.

“Trust me,” Thundercracker replied, already feeling tipsy, “I do.”

~

Megatron sat at his lone table in close proximity to Soundwave. Soundwave didn’t sit. He stood and observed the crowd to make sure no one died. Megatron sipped at his high grade happily feeling a buzz in his processor after the fourth cube. Sure, he was drinking alone, which was pretty sad, but Soundwave was right behind him. He could still converse with him. It was just a little more awkward.

Of course, all good things would and must come to an end. Megatron heard the unmistakable loud, nasally voice of his second speaking to Soundwave. Megatron turned up his audial, for once unable to hear Starscream’s voice due to the loud room.

“...looking mighty fine for someone just standing around and being an afthole,” Starscream was smirking. Of course he was. And—wait—was he flirting with Soundwave? Megatron owed him a day off.

“Desist your advances,” Soundwave droned, but Megatron could hear the stiffness in his voice.

“What advances?” Starscream asked, feigning shock. “Why, I’m just trying to start a conversation! What’s wrong with a compliment?”

“If you’re trying to ease my mind so you can kill Megatron, it’s not going to work because I don’t like you,” Soundwave said, sounding ready to commit a murderous act against Starscream. Murderous acts, such as, well, murder.

“Ugh, frag you,” Starscream scoffed. He mumbled something that sounded like ‘that never worked anyway.’ “Can I at least talk to our dear bolts-for-brains?”

Soundwave seemed pensive. If Starscream tried to kill him, he would be right there. He wasn’t drunk anyhow and would be far more coordinated and able to stop any heinous crimes. Considering that he was angry at Megatron for having him have to supervise every idiot ever, it was likely that he would force Starscream’s company upon him. Drat. Soundwave nodded curtly at Starscream, allowing him to be a nuisance.

“Megatron, Megatron, Megatron,” Starscream made his way over to him, very ready to be annoying.

Megatron kicked away the one other chair that was at the table he was at. “It appears there’s nowhere you can sit. How unfortunate.”

“No matter,” Starscream replied, sounding far too calm to have any reasonable solution as to sitting at the table with Megatron. What the frag was that going to mean?

Megatron found out when he looked at the ceiling in exasperation for just a few seconds and felt a sudden, heavy weight in his lap. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Megatron looked back down. There sat Starscream, right in his lap, his head reclined onto Megatron’s right arm with his legs sling over the left arm, disrespectfully over the fusion canon that rest on it. And his aft was right in the middle.

“What are you accomplishing with this, fool?” Megatron inquired. Now he had a purpose to want to drink.

“I needed a seat,” Starscream answered, sounding all too pleased with himself, “so I found one. It’s a nice seat, don’t you think? A little rusty and dented, maybe, but otherwise, it’s quite comfortable.”

“I detest you,” was all Megatron said in response. So they left it at that.

Occasionally, Megatron took a sip of his cube. Then his cube became very empty, but there was still a seeker in his lap. At this point, it would just become a battle of stubborn-ness. Starscream got up eventually, snatching Megatron’s empty cube away. He was willing to accept that. Then Starscream came back with two full cubes.

“I’m not leaving,” Starscream smirked. He set the cubes down and plopped back into his position in Megatron’s lap. Starscream looked him right in the optics, picked a cube up, and took a long sip of it, not breaking eye contact.

“So be it,” Megatron said, picking up his cube as well.

They entered a casual conversation, as though one of them wasn’t in the other’s lap. Starscream talked to him about how all of his seekers were arguing with each other over meaningless things because they always spilled their secrets when they were intoxicated. Megatron told him that the soldiers who didn’t fly weren’t any better. They tried to see who could punch the hardest, which resulted in blood stained tables and a surplus of needed medical attention the next day. Starscream squawked out his loud, obnoxious laughter. He was definitely getting more drunk if he was starting to laugh at little things.

“What’s so funny?” Megatron couldn’t help but smile whenever he laughed. His laugh was loud, shriek-y, had spontaneous rises in volume, and was overall a grating noise to hear. That simply made it all the better to listen to. It was such a stark contrast from his prim-and-proper attitude.

“Sss-s-seekers and grounders alike are gonna visit the medical bay all right!” Starscream stuttered out, snorting. Yep. He was very drunk. “Cause—cause—cause, they’re gonna be getting together too! If you fragging know what I mean!” To seal the deal for his terrible sense of drunken humor, Starscream let out a loud “HA!”

Megatron couldn’t help but chuckle, too. Soundwave was right. His sense of humor was quite vulgar. At least he had someone to share it with. “Are you implying what I think you’re implying?”

Starscream nodded, which sent himself into another fit of obnoxiously perfect terrible laughter. Megatron laughed with him.

If he was letting himself get this loose, then he was much more intoxicated than he originally gauged. Whoops. He didn’t even notice the stares he was getting from other mechs noticing Starscream giggling in his lap.

~

Thundercracker didn’t feel so good. Maybe it was because he had drank about one and a half cubes of high grade. The coneheads were trying to goad him into drinking more. Mentally, Thundercracker was trying to goad himself to not take another sip. Alas, due to having a weak will to being pressured to do something, he took another sip. It tasted as bitter as he felt.

“Dude,” Skywarp said to him, his servo on Thundercracker’s back. It was a wonder that he could manage to be concerned while drunk. Perhaps high grade made him a tad more sensible around him. Weird. Skywarp tried to lift Thundercracker up. He was face-down on the table, completely slumped over. “Bro. Homie. Thunders. TC. Are you even awake? C’mon.”

“‘S your fault that you trined a lightweight,” a conehead snarked. Thundercracker couldn’t tell which one said that anymore. Their voices were too similar. Skywarp might have glared at whichever one spoke. Thundercracker heard Skywarp say something to him about how he should stop drinking.

“The moment he stops drinking is the moment I pound your stupid face in and break your nose again,” a different conehead threatened.

“Don’t!” Thundercracker snapped his head up at the threat. “I’ll... fragging kill you...”

“Oh, really?” Ramjet said, signifying that it was him to had spoken that time. “Can you even lift your arms, or are you too drunk to even move?”

“I can move, actually,” Thundercracker replied with more confidence than the sober version of himself would ever have. He attempted to stand. He stumbled. He fell. Skywarp caught him.

“Let’s go back to our quarters,” Skywarp declared, hoisting himself and Thundercracker up. Thundercracker found himself agreeing.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Ramjet got in front of them, stopping forward movement. His trinemates, or what at this point appeared to be his cronies, followed suit. “We never said you could stop. As I’ve been tellin’ you: ‘Cracker drinks how much we give him, or we break your fragging nose.”

“Sorry, I don’t fight whores,” Skywarp coolly replied. “I don’t wanna be viewed as if I’m prejudiced against sluts.”

“They wont try to fight you if you stop insulting them,” Thundercracker tried to reason, slurring his words. “Just apolo—“

“No, I’m gonna fight them,” Skywarp cut him off dismissively. Of course. It was easy to forget how clouded his judgement was when drunk when he spoke in fully formed sentences. To make sure that Thundercracker couldn’t be a pressured wimp and drink his alcohol, Skywarp knocked the cube he was drinking out of off the table. There wasn’t really much stopping him now.

Skywarp let Thundercracker go and walked up to the coneheads, who were all looking ready to fight. Primus damnit. Thundercracker decided that tattling was the best option at this point and attempted to keep his balance as he went to find Soundwave. He edged towards the wall, knowing that his commander always kept his distance from mechs at all times. Just as he looked to his side, he felt himself bump into someone.

Thundercracker muttered an apology before looking over and finding that he had conveniently walked into the commander he was looking for. Then he found that he was almost looking down. Huh. Skywarp was right. He was taller than Soundwave after all. Soundwave’s head was just above his shoulder. Weird.

“Is there something that you need?” Soundwave eventually questioned, breaking Thundercracker out of his train of thought.

“Oh! Y-yeah, uh,” Thundercracker stuttered. It wasn’t any better that his speech was slurred at the same time. He decided not to meet Soundwave’s disappointed stare. “Commander Soundwave, the coneheads are going to—What is happening over there?” Thundercracker pointed at where Megatron was seated, noticing a familiar seeker’s head resting on his right arm, cackling about something probably inane.

“Ignore them and proceed with what you were saying,” Soundwave snapped at him. He must’ve been tired and annoyed.

“Oh, uh, yeah, that. The coneheads are gonna try and beat up Skywarp. They’re all drunk.”

Soundwave looked as though he aged another millennia. Thundercracker pointed him to the direction that the fight was. Wordlessly, Soundwave left, leaving Thundercracker completely alone.

Thundercracker tried to sort out his drunken thoughts, but it became more than a little hard when Starscream’s shrieks of laughter kept getting louder and louder. It almost sounded like he was getting murdered. That would be very unfortunate. If Starscream was dead, then Slipstream would take charge and she was equally as mean, if not ruder.

The more surprising part of what looked like Starscream sitting in Megatron’s lap was that Megatron was laughing along with him. Odd. It was almost like they were friends. Then again, they were probably both intoxicated too. It was strange to hear his ever so feared leader laughing. He had an old man chuckle. Thundercracker decided not to interrupt their weird relationship. He shifted on his pedes, unable to decide what he should be doing next.

Soundwave returned just in time before he started getting drunk, existential thoughts.

“Collect your trinemate,” was all he said. He returned to his lone, quiet spot against the wall. Thundercracker did as he was told.

Skywarp allegedly was unharmed, which was very good, but he seemed a little more dazed than he was at first. He probably had taken a few hits before Soundwave came in.

“Why’d you tell Soundwave?” Skywarp asked.

“Because I like your nose as it is,” Thundercracker answered. “Unbroken.” Skywarp nodded. The two of them decided to leave. Just before they left, Thundercracker noticed Ramjet, Thrust, and Dirge all face down on the table. He decided not to question why.

~

“Having fun sitting here?” Megatron asked as the room began to empty out. A few mechs still gawked at them. He decided not to glare at them.

“So much,” Starscream drawled.

“I hate to end your fun, but I need you to get up so I can go to my quarters,” Megatron started shifting Starscream to pick him up. Starscream groaned in protest. “It’s 00:12. You and I both need sleep.”

“Are you not actually drunk?” Starscream asked as Megatron set him down on his pedes on the floor.

Megatron shook his helm. “I never was.”

Starscream grinned in a bastard-like way, crossing his arms in a far too coordinated manner. “Neither was I. I sat on you to cause problems on purpose.” The little gremlin then transformed and sped out of the room, cackling.

Megatron sighed. Of course. Starscream’s unpredictable personality had stricken once more. Soundwave slowly made his way over to Megatron’s left hand side. Megatron met his glare and decided to retreat to his quarters before Soundwave decided to punch him in the gut.

~

The next day lacked any and all productivity and was filled with hangovers. Only a select few of mechs didn’t suffer from a hangover because they hadn’t drank enough for the effect to come.

Megatron found himself feeling, remarkably, sorry. He spoke in a lower tone than usual, which was appreciated. It was most likely because Soundwave would give him a death stare when he raised his tone. He hated seeing everyone wince at loud noises. It lowered productiveness.

Starscream, on the other hand, had never possessed the ability to feel sorry for anyone. He had almost never felt empathy or sympathy in his entire 7.5 million years of life. That would not change, ever. As a matter of fact, he made a point to speak even louder than normal just to be mean.

“I’m going to kill you,” Skywarp muttered to him angrily. He paused. “And then kill you again.”

“You can try, but I’ll scream the whole time!” Starscream yelled back in response, taking way too much pleasure in other people’s pain than what could be considered healthy. He laughed his broken lawnmower laugh, loud as ever.

Everyone started to limit their high grade intake after that.

Chapter Text

It all happened fast, as most things did. First, the Autobots were safely and calmly cruising through space, making their way back to Cybertron after helping other Autobot troops stationed on far away planets. Next, they detected Decepticon presence. Then they were hit with the blasters on the sides of the ship. And then they were hurtling towards an unfamiliar planet alongside the Decepticons.

Yes, they were in a panic and a frenzy. Can you blame them? Even after four million years, it’s not everyday that one would get blasted by an enemy spaceship into a random habited planet in a random solar system.

Optimus Prime was concerned about his crew mates first and the inhabitants of the planet second. It was obvious that their collision couldn’t be prevented, but the most they could do was attempt to veer their ship away from where the people on the planet could have any population in. He guessed that the dominant species lived in the vast ocean that seemed to almost envelop the whole planet. There wasn’t a whole lot of land. So he, along with Jazz who had been manning the ship’s controls at the time (anyone who was competent enough to fly took turns with others to fly their ship) forced themselves to crash on to land. It was rough and very bumpy. Everyone had passed out from the shock of the collision. Then their internal controls forced them online for the necessity of things such as fueling and movement.

Optimus sent Bumblebee out with Cliffjumper to scope out the surroundings of their ship. They came back with the information that the dominant species was not, in fact, in the water, but rather on the land that they had oh-so-dangerously crashed on to. Luckily and conveniently, there were no casualties to the intelligent life on the planet. They landed away from the highly populated area. It was a simple city on the “east coast” of “America.” Those words flew right over their helms.

The dominant species, which were called humans, were first distrusting of them. It wasn’t every day that a ship full of very big, metal, threatening aliens collided with their planet. After assurances that they weren’t out to cause them harm, a temporary alliance was formed until the Autobots were to depart from Earth. They had to have associations with the government, and the knowledge of their presence was to be kept as secret as possible from any human not affiliated with the government. That, of course, failed. It was a little hard to hide the identity of a hundred or so Cybertronians that were nearly all over twenty feet tall. Their presence was soon spilled all over “socia media.”

Geez, they really had to learn about these human terms.

Sometimes people tried to search for them. If they found them, they would try to interview them. Then they’d find their gigantic hulking frames terrifying, barely utter a syllable, and then scatter.

Ratchet said it was better that way. “I could do without them pestering us with questions when we have bigger problems at hand!”

Optimus agreed, but a part of him wanted to interact with a human that wasn’t a serious government official.

Then the Decepticons came out of the blue from presumably the ocean. Optimus didn’t know why he gave them that map. It was a little stupid to do so. Yet, his processor urged for him to be the helpful mech that he was. After all, the ‘cons didn’t seem all that fit for battle anyway. What was the harm in giving them a map?

Energon raids. Energon raids were the harm. Not too long after Prime gave them a map, they raided a powerplant. The Autobots couldn’t fight them off well enough, even though the Decepticons were severely underfed. The powerplant was shut down, and the human media was really grilling them now. They didn’t care how big and threatening they looked at that point. There were evil robots now. What would happen next? Would they lose their home? Would they die?

Try as he might, Optimus Prime couldn’t assure the humans that their doom was not all that imminent. Besides, he didn’t know for sure if that was true. Megatron was quite unpredictable. At most, he tried to give the humans as much context as he could. They were at war with each other and they had been for the past four million years. Yes, he was over four million years old. No, he didn’t remember how old he was. No, the Decepticons were not an immediate threat. Yes, the worst they could do would be to steal energy. The questions went on and on.

Eventually Optimus found old “WANTED” posters of some of the more higher up ‘cons and showed them to the humans. First he showed them numerous random soldiers and gave their names and descriptions. Then he showed Shockwave’s portrait. In the portrait, he did not exhibit any emotion as it would be difficult to do so. His face was only a single eye after all. Prime told the humans that he was number four most wanted Decepticon due to his high intellect and excellent weapon craftsmanship. He wasn’t good at fighting.

Under his mask, Optimus couldn’t help but smile at remembering how terrible of a shot Shockwave was.

Then he showed them Soundwave, number three most wanted. Some would argue that he should’ve been higher up, but there was a reason he wasn’t. Soundwave was amazing at doing literally everything. He was imposing, a great fighter, frighteningly intelligent, and great with computers. Soundwave didn’t show any emotion in the portrait at first glance, but if one looked harder, they could see the visible irritation in his optics behind his visor. He never in his picture taken.

Optimus always found Soundwave to be the most respectable. Was it that he was juggling war responsibilities while raising his spawn? Or was it just that he was the most competent of the high command?

Next was Starscream. Number two most wanted for the worst possible reasons. He was obscenely smart for a seeker, yet at the same time, he didn’t like to think long enough and would often act without thinking. That being said, his spontaneousness was his most threatening quality. Sometimes he would fight simply by shooting and flying. Other times he would sever a mech’s head clean off with his digits or bite someone hard enough to severely damage a fuel line. You’d never know with him. To top it all off, he was grinning cockily in his photo, showcasing his unnaturally sharp teeth.

Starscream had bitten him once. Ratchet needed to reattach his hand after that.

Last was Megatron. In his photo, he had a small, lopsided smirk like he knew something you didn’t and was going to tell your mother and you would get in trouble. He was most wanted overall, obviously. Besides being the leader of the Decepticons and all, Megatron was also a skilled fighter and knew a lot more about Optimus Prime that he could use against him than Prime would’ve liked. Yet, unlike the other three, Megatron wasn’t too smart for one to be scared of the bounds his processor could break. He was good at strategy, but back in the day Megatron would have to ask Optimus for the product of two simple numbers. It may have been from his less educated background, but at the same time he was an amazing poet and writer. It was odd.

Optimus still missed the old days where Megatron wouldn’t go to the extreme to set his ideas in stone in Cybertron. Back when he would let himself laugh a little more. Back when he went by a different name with a couple more letters. When he was Megatronous.

Unlike Megatron, Prime didn’t push those thoughts away. Let them happen. What would be the use of stopping such thoughts only for them to predictably and eventually resurface later?

After five or so orbital cycles, or months as they’re called on Earth, the media’s pressure to talk to them died down a little more. Their lives could focus more on defeating the Decepticons and protecting Earth than talking into a much too small microphone.

Back to business then.

~

“Oh my god, get back here!” Marcus shouted after Nonnie. Good lord, she would not stop running. Marcus wished he had the endurance of the five year old he was babysitting, but alas, he was sixteen and could barely survive running the mile in gym class.

In response, Nonnie giggled like a baby witch. Of course she didn’t know. She was five. She didn’t have to care about raising money to pay for a future car. No, Nonnie’s biggest concerns would be if she could eat the red crayons before anyone else could. And she could. She was fast. Marcus couldn’t stop her if he tried.

Seemingly bored of running in the opposite direction of her exasperated caretaker, Nonnie turned around and sped back to Marcus. Marcus stopped, catching his breath. Nonnie started hopping excitedly around him.

“Look, Non’,” Marcus said between breaths. “I took you out here because your older sister told you about robot aliens that she found on the internet and you wanted to find them. That doesn’t mean you can just run off as far as you can from me, okay?”

In response, Nonnie nodded. She didn’t actually seem to comprehend his words after he said “aliens,” though.

They were in the woods because the “robot aliens” were allegedly in there somewhere. There were blurred photographs of the robots, which were called Cybertronians apparently, and the backgrounds of the photos seemed to be woodsy areas. Marcus didn’t want to play Connect Four with Nonnie all day before she got bored and tried to rip off the strings of his hoodie, so he tried to do something new. She babbled on and on until Marcus heard her mention wanting to find the robot aliens, so he got the bright idea to take her with him to the woods and find the spaceship.

It wasn’t much of a bright idea anymore. The woods were huge, and Nonnie was so, so small and so, so fast. Fortunately, she decided to pick up Marcus’s hand and began skipping forward, bringing him along with her.

“Nonnie, I swear to god, you’re about to walk into a tree,” Marcus warned. She suddenly noticed the tree at his statement and steered their party of two away.

“How big do you think they are?” Nonnie asked innocently, her skipping speed increasing with her excitement. “My sister says they’re bigger than a house. I think they’re bigger than that tree!” She pointed at the tallest one she could see.

“I think they’re just a little taller than a shed,” Marcus replied nonchalantly. To be fair, his own sister, Noelle, said the same thing. That didn’t mean anything though. Sure, Noelle was far more credible than a five year old’s word, but she had only gotten her information from her phone.

“I think that’s stupid because their ship is super big so they have to be super big and your shed is super small and has squirrels in it,” she rambled.

“You don’t know how big their ship is, Nonnie.”

“Yeah I do! It’s right there!”

Marcus looked up and barely got out, “No it’s not,” before realizing that she was very, very correct. There was a giant spaceship in front of them. Who would’ve thought? Marcus began to feel very lightheaded. “What?”

Nonnie let go of his hand and ran up to the ship, prompting Marcus to chase after her. He tried to pull her away from the ship, but she was very resilient and insistent on knocking on the ship to get it to open.

Open it did. Goddamnit. Out stepped a giant robot with a blue helm, a mask over his mouth, and a red body that resembled that of a truck.

“Can I help you?” he asked, as if five year olds attempted to barge into his home every day.

Marcus’s vision got fuzzy. Nonnie squealed.

~

Ratchet heard Optimus’s panicked voice and sighed with immense exasperation. The humans had finally started to leave them alone. Were they back again? What did a mech have to do to do surgery in peace?

“Should I help—“

“No, for crying out loud!” Ratchet pushed Bumblebee back onto the medical table. “I have your fuel tank open right now! Do you not want me to take the fragging shard of metal out of it?” Bumblebee grumbled and complied. He had gotten hit when trying to spy on the Decepticons. Despite his small size, he was still terrible at spying. They weren’t able to send Jazz or Mirage out due to injuries from previous battles. They were capable, but not fully healed and therefore at risk of further injury.

“Ratchet?” Optimus asked from outside with an edge in his voice.

“Bumblebee’s fuel tank is open right now and if you want me to drop my tools in him and let him bleed out and die because a fragging reporter won’t leave you alone, I’m not going to help you,” Ratchet snapped.

“I’m gonna bleed out and die?” Bumblebee asked, not sounding all too concerned at such a notion.

“No,” Ratchet replied, failing to elaborate.

“Jazz?” Optimus called.

“My pede’s suspended, Prime! Sorry!” Jazz called back. His foot wasn’t suspended. He just didn’t want to get up. In fact, all he was doing was spinning around in his swivel chair.

With a sigh, Prowl dropped his datapads back on the table he was working at and moved out their door to the outside. He seemed to have a conversation with their leader in a low tone before coming back inside, this time carrying a human. A littler human followed behind the Prime, looking at everything with amazement.

“No,” Ratchet turned around. “We’re not doing this.”

“They’re children,” Optimus reasoned. That reasoning didn’t work given that Ratchet detested human children immensely. They were annoying. “I’m not saying that we’re going to humor them, but they’re obviously not reporters. Besides, we just need to wait for the older one to wake up and we can send them back to their homes.”

Ratchet groaned. He would be fighting a losing battle if he kept arguing. Prowl slapped the panel on the door, closing it, and then carried the larger human child to the nearest chair, setting them down there. It only became apparent that the chair was very big for the human when they were laid down only to have their entire body fit on the surface.

Optimus crouched down to the smaller human, realizing that they were immensely small. Was that even healthy? “Young one, what is your name?”

The little one appeared as though they had to process what he said for a good five seconds before suddenly jumping up and down and giving an answer. It was hard to make out what they said because of their jumping.

“Little one, can you please stop jumping?” Prime asked, sounding confused and a tad uncomfortable.

“Okay!” The youngling piped up, having an unsurprisingly high pitched voice. “My name is Nonnie, I’m a girl, I’m five years old, my favorite color is blue, my least favorite color is brown, and—“

“Th-that’s enough information, Nonnie,” Optimus shut her down. What was she going to say next? Where she lived? Why in the world would she give out a bunch of random facts about herself?

Then Optimus remembered sparkling back on Cybertron. Back when there were still sparklings being made. There certainly were less once cold construction rose in popularity to create due to efficiency. Then the war happened, and there were virtually none and then none at all. Sparkling were hyper, giggly little things who would say all sorts of stuff such as their address and life story.

A tidbit of her information stuck out to him. “You’re five years old?”

“Yeah! I’m in kindergarten!” Nonnie squeaked. Prime didn’t know what ‘kindergarten’ was. He had to guess that it could have been a grade level in their education system.

“You’re quite young,” Optimus remarked with surprise. It made him feel so very, very old.

Nonnie shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I can tie my shoes and read, so I think I should be in twelfth grade.”

Ignoring that, Optimus asked, “Would you mind telling me who your companion is?”

Nonnie ceased ant and all excited movement. “What’s a companion?”

Ah. “Your friend? The one over there who fainted?” Optimus gestured to the child who was passed out on the chair that was far too big for them.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Nonnie replied, dragging out the word. “That’s Marcus! He’s my babysitter. He’s sixteen. He’s kinda mean to me. He didn’t want me to run away from him but that’s his fault for being slow. I like his sister better but she can’t babysit me because she has student council and—“

“Nonnie,” Optimus interrupted. “No need to tell me everything.” Nonnie pressed her lips together and made a motion of moving her index finger and her thumb past her mouth. “Ratchet, is Bumblebee alright yet?”

“If you’d stop interrupting me, he would be already,” Ratchet barked, holding up an energon covered scalpel. Optimus wondered why he kept Bumblebee awake during the operation. He didn’t ask.

“Jazz? I know you’re not elevating your pede.” Prime stood up from his crouched position to give Jazz a disappointed stare. He replied with something along the lines of, ‘you got me.’ “Can you keep an eye on Nonnie over here? I want to help Marcus.”

“Gotcha,” Jazz hopped out of his swivel chair. Behind his visor, he squinted. “Where is she?” Optimus gestured far down. “Woah!” He quickly made his way over to the little one, kneeling down. They began to converse immediately.

Prime started to walk towards the chair that Marcus laid on, glancing back at Jazz and Nonnie only once. The little one was gesturing wildly about something, waving her arms about. They were fine. He looks back at Marcus, who seemed to be regaining consciousness. His eyes widened in confusion and fear as soon as he became fully awake.

He looked up, “Holy shit!” Marcus backed up into the chair distrustingly. Oh dear.

“Marcus, I’m not going to hurt—“

“How do you know my name?” Marcus spat out quickly, his breath audibly quickening. “How did I get in here? Is Nonnie okay? Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” He pulled up a piece of his clothing from his back over his head, pulling the two strings on his clothes to make it cover his face more.

“Slow your breathing, young one,” Optimus said reassuringly. He knelt down. “Nonnie told us your name. We took you in when you fainted at my presence.” At the mentioning and gesturing of Nonnie, Marcus tilted to the side to look at her. She was there, unharmed and talking to a different robot. With her gesturing, it was probable that she was telling the story of how she had eaten a spider off of the school slide on a dare.

“Oh?” Marcus replied, still sounding confused. There were questions swarming around in his head, but he decided on the one important one. “Can I... go home? Or are you getting attacked by the Decepti-somethings right now?”

Optimus was surprised at his desire to go home rather than interrogate every single bot on the ship like anyone else seemed to want to do. He was grateful for it, though. It would mean less of a hassle for them. He looked at Nonnie. She was trying to climb Jazz. He looked back at Marcus and nodded, saying, “Of course. Would you like us to personally bring you to your homes, or—“

“No, no! It’s all good!” Marcus blurted in a panic. “Don’t—uh—don’t worry yourself or anything! I can get home fine.” His distrust was obvious. Prime let it go. He was visibly riddled with anxiety, and there was no need to make it worse.

They made their goodbyes. Nonnie shrieked in anger at the prospect of having to leave, but eventually complied with the promise of a snack among various other things.

~

They had been on Earth for officially seven Earth months. They did not celebrate. They very much so wanted to go home rather than jump for joy at the fact that they had been stranded on a random planet in the galaxy.

Throughout their time on the planet, many things had happened. The Decepticons were back with high levels of energy and therefore had very successful energon raids and random attacks. They had even spied on them a couple of times. Of course they didn’t find anything, though. The main concern of the Autobots at the time was to get back to Cybertron, not to engage in random battles with Decepticon spies. The Autobots had also repaired their main console, allowing them to come in contact with any space-traveling Autobots within the range of a couple solar systems. There weren’t a lot of bots that they could talk with, unfortunately, but there were some ships. There had been discussion of if any bots should come to Earth and rescue them. That was shut down once they learned that all of the ships were too small to carry everyone, and there weren’t enough repairmen to fix up the Ark.

They could also come in contact with the Decepticons. Megatron, specifically. The ‘cons started changing their comm number frequently after Jazz and Ironhide started messing with them and contacted them every five minutes to be annoying. Random Decepticons were ordered to pick it up only to find the two of them snickering at their ability to be so, so annoying. It was fun while it lasted. They got to witness quite a few fun scenes from that. Eventually Soundwave started picking it up and stared into the camera with a look that said he was going to kill everyone on both ships if they didn’t stop. They stopped after that. Soundwave was liable to make that promise happen. Plus, Ratchet yelled at them for it because screaming ‘cons were distracting him from operating. He wasn’t even operating on anyone at the time.

Now they were only allowed to contact the Decepticons when negotiations were in order or when Prime wanted to give Megatron a meaningful lecture on not being mean. That never worked. He still did it anyway. Most likely because he just wanted to have a normal conversation with Megatron again. Starscream had picked up a few times as well. He usually didn’t let Optimus utter a word before making a rude gesture with his servo and then hanging up.

Just as Optimus was about to contact Megatron for the second time that solar cycle (week), there was a shout.

“What the slag are you doing here?” Prowl shouted at someone. There was a high pitched, familiar giggle in response.

“I wanted to say hi,” Nonnie responded with a smile. Ah. Of course.

Ever since their fiasco with Marcus and Nonnie, the Autobots began to encounter them numerous other times. Sometimes they saw them running for protection when the Decepticons were attacking the city, other times they just passed them by. When they passed Marcus, they were either just in the city and discussing matters with officials, or he was doing some sort of project for his art class in his school. With Nonnie, however, it was simply that the desire struck her to interact with some aliens, and so she would act on it. Normally, it was without her parent’s permission. She would openly admit that.

“Kid, we enjoy your company, but we’re in the middle of something important here,” Ironhide reasoned with her, kneeling down.

“What’s the important thingie?” Nonnie asked curiously, completely missing the social cues.

“Kid, it’s not really any of your busin—“

“She can stay, Ironhide,” Optimus said calmly, beginning to enter the Decepticon’s new comm number that they had recently uncovered. “I wouldn’t even mind if she tried to speak in this call.”

That would soon be a mistake of a statement.

Sighing, Ironhide let her run around for a little bit before she climbed the chair next to Optimus Prime, having to stand on it to see anything. She could barely see a thing even if she stood. Nonnie marveled at how ginormous the keyboard was to her point of view.

The sound of someone answering the comm echoed. Megatron’s face soon covered the screen in low definition. “What is it, Prime? I’m not sure if you know this, but we also have important duties to tend to, and none of those chores involve listening to you drone on and on to me about being a good person.” His voice was muffled due to the low quality of both of their consoles.

“Wait, it’s Prime?” Starscream said from far back in the room. “Let me talk to him! I want to say a slur!”

Completely thrown off guard, Megatron slammed his fist on the keyboard of his own console and turned around to face him. “You are not going to talk to Prime and you are not going to say a slur!”

“I’m gonna say a slur!” Starscream screeched back at him, standing up from his chair.

“Soundwave!” Megatron barked for the mech.

“Don’t say a fragging slur or I’m going to rip your nose off and shove it up your aft,” Soundwave threatened off-screen. Starscream grumbled and didn’t say anything else, but kept himself leaned over the table to look at Optimus on their screen.

Megatron turned back to his screen and growled in an annoyed tone, “Well? What is it?”

Optimus found himself a little distracted due to Nonnie getting bored with standing on a chair and now beginning her expedition to climb the Prime, but cleared his throat nonetheless. “Megatron, you’ve caused an immense amount of collateral damage to the city and multiple humans have nearly endured fatality.”

Megatron held up a hand before he could continue. “What is that?” He pointed at Nonnie, who was now on Optimus’s shoulder. She had gotten up there surprisingly fast.

Optimus glanced at Nonnie, wondering if she should speak or if he should speak for her. Alas, there was no making that decision because five year olds liked to decide their fate on their own.

“I’m Nonnie!” She piped up, walking precariously to the edge of Prime’s shoulder. “I’m a human! I’m five, too!”

“What do you mean you’re ‘five?’” Megatron asked. Optimus was surprised that he was actually engaging in conversation with her. “Five what?”

“Years old,” Nonnie answered. “I turned five three months ago. You have a big nose.” She pointed. Megatron looked taken aback. Optimus decided to end things before she made it any worse.

“I’m hanging up,” he choked out. “You understand the point I was trying to make.”

“Prime’s hanging up?” Starscream screamed. “Wait, wait, wait! Let me call him something bad!” Megatron tried to stop him from getting up to the screen by pushing his servo him his face, but failed miserably when he pulled it back in disgust. Did Starscream lick his servo? “Prime, you’re a massive fragging—!”

Soundwave’s hand quickly darted in front of the screen and pressed the button to hang up.

Optimus sighed and looked at Nonnie, who was hopping about on his shoulder dangerously. He held out his hand for her to step on to and set her down.

Looking at Nonnie run around at high, dangerous speeds made him realize something. They weren’t only trying to get back to Cybertron. They had to protect the humans on this planet first. The Decepticons were starting becoming a threat to both the Autobots and the humans.

Prime knew that Megatron thought of humans as lesser beings. Would that opinion change if he ever met one?

Probably not. In fact, his opinion would most likely change for the worse.

Chapter Text

The Decepticons had been stranded on Earth for officially five orbital cycles. In earthen terms, that would be five months. The first two were used up on fixing up the ship and getting things back in order, of course. The next three had been normal war things. Taking energon, attacking the Autobots, spying on the Autobots, making plans, and all of that pizazz. Their goal was obviously to get off of the crummy muck-ball of a planet, but that was long term. Their new short term goal would be to finally make contact with the closest Decepticons to where they were stranded. It was wishful thinking to try and contact Shockwave on Cybertron, but at the same time, they didn’t know how close any other Decepticons were. Shockwave it was then.

“The humans of this planet gave names to stars that they’ve discovered,” Megatron told Starscream, “which is surprisingly helpful. Allegedly, Cybertron orbits Alpha Centauri, which is—“

“—the closest to Earth’s star, got it,” Starscream interrupted, grabbing the stack of datapads that Megatron was about to hand to him out of his servos. “No need to spell it out for me.” But Megatron could see the glee in his eyes. He would get to do science and math. How he found joy in those two subjects would forever remain a mystery to him. At least his weird interests were helpful. And so Starscream left to his little desolate laboratory to get buried in the stack of datapads. Megatron expected him to most likely return in a couple of joors with three times the amount of work that was given to him.

Next, he signaled for Soundwave to come over to him. “I have an important task for you.” He paused, waiting for a response from the mech. As per usual, he got nothing but an emotionless stare. “I want you to work with Starscream on this. I know, it’s terrible and I apologize in advance but his irritability will be reduced because he’ll be doing science. He will be far more tolerable to work with.”

Soundwave stared at him, not really believing in full that Starscream would be tolerable in any way, shape or form.

Megatron continued, “You’re going to try and contact Shockwave.”

That definitely woke up Soundwave’s sense of emotion. His visor brightened and quickly dimmed. He nodded and went to the main console in the command center.

It felt a little weird to simultaneously give both of his commanding officers such joy. At least they would be able to work together far better than usual. For the time being, though. Eventually they’d start going for each other’s throats.

Now was time for one more problem: Megatron didn’t exactly know what to do with the rest of his soldiers. He supposed that he could have the Constructicons begin a second elevator. They were going to need one with how much more they were leaving their base to take energon. Well, he could put in that order, but then what? He still had over a hundred seekers and even more grounders to deal with. It wasn’t like they were planning an attack yet. The most that they were trying to do would be to contact Shockwave, possibly get him to deliver them some energon and hopefully some good news, as well as most likely having to build some sort of minor space bridge to transport the energon.

He could always send out a load of mechs in groups to gather construction materials. Those types of missions (if they could be called that) usually resulted in less materials than they needed, but building parts nonetheless. Sometimes they would come back with injuries.

Megatron came to the not-so-stunning realization that the workload the Contructicons were going to get would almost equate to that of Soundwave’s. Drat. If only they had more than six construction workers that were also their only six medics. And if only all six of the Constructicons were completely qualified medics and not just one of them. Drat again. Why did they have such bad luck with those sorts of things?

He put in the order for a new elevator to be constructed, but clarified that they didn’t have to do it in as much of a panicked frenzy as they had to the last time. Megatron didn’t want Bonecrusher to vomit a fish again, lest Starscream start poking at the fish corpse with morbid curiosity. He knew that Starscream had licked his blood covered digit when he poked the fish. Megatron just knew. It was disgusting.

Before he knew it, Megatron’s pedes had then carried him to his throne once more. His throne that he mostly used to brood and sulk about how they were stuck on Earth and everything on the planet was positively lame. On rare occasions, he actually came up with a good, yet still half-baked, idea.

Megatron sat there, wondering what the frag he was supposed to do with the rest of his soldiers. He couldn’t just free them of work and let them be just like that. They’d cause chaos. At the same time, he couldn’t just send them out on a random energon scouting mission just to get them away. Most of the time if there weren’t specified plans, all hell would break loose and Megatron would have to send reinforcements for something so damn minuscule. Sometimes he could let go their inability to complete small tasks. There were some occasions where the only reason why his soldiers were busted was because their Cybertronian alt-modes were dead giveaways.

They should do something about that...

Oh! They should do something about that! The idea smacked Megatron in the helm. He would simply send groups of his soldiers out to scan Earthen alt-modes so they could become more inconspicuous. Boom. And what do you know? He thought of that while on his throne. Maybe it was the metal in the throne that made him think better, or that it was just more comfortable than most chairs in the Nemesis? That didn’t matter, though. Megatron needed to pick out some mechs to scan alt modes.

The first few he’d have to get out of the way would be the seekers. Megatron assumed that they’d all want some frivolous “pretty” alt-mode, while also having each and every one of them have the same exact vehicle mode. To avoid an army of impracticality designed fliers, Megatron decided to send the two most responsible seekers he had. Those two seekers were also, luckily, some of the only ones who didn’t care about their appearance.

In his presence were now both Thundercracker and Slipstream. “I have a very important mission for the both of you in order to keep ourselves more disguised.” They nodded. “You’re going to go find, agree on, and scan a new alt-mode for the seekers.”

Being so used to certain disrespectful fliers, Megatron almost was surprised when he didn’t receive a snarky response consisting of aggressive interrogation, such as ‘What’s wrong with what we have now, Mega-fool?’ The day was going to be very different with Starscream out of his way doing god-knows-what kind of calculus with Soundwave.

So instead of being blatantly rude, Thundercracker and Slipstream both nodded stiffly at him. Megatron dismissed them, and they left. Now he had a surplus of very different grounders who all had very different vehicle modes. The Constructicons could always change to whatever construction vehicles the humans had, but at the same time, Megatron had already sent them away to do work. Should he just stop them and tell them that they had yet another job? To be entirely honest, they probably wouldn’t mind at all. He would leave them be for now, though. Soon they would have to change.

To group up whatever left he had in mind, he had to have changed the Stunticons, the Combaticons, the triple-changers (which would be even more troubling), and the random various grounders. The Stunticons were a group of five and so were the Combaticons, so they could be sent off in their own little groups. He’d send the triple-changers out together, too. They didn’t really tend to get along, but that didn’t matter. All they needed to do was get a new alt-mode, and then they could come back to their base.

After sending off each group one by one, still leaving some soldiers at their base in hopes that they would simply copy what others came back with, Megatron realized something else. Two oddities. Himself and Soundwave. Megatron reasoned with himself that he didn’t really need to change. There was nothing wrong with staying as a gun. He wasn’t a good spy anyway. Soundwave was a big issue, though. Megatron didn’t have enough knowledge of human devices to know what his communications officer could possibly turn into. It was susceptible that he would refuse to take an actual vehicle as his alt-mode due to wanting to stay as inconspicuous as possible. At the same time, what the hell else would he turn into?

Frag. He’d deal with that later.

~

Thundercracker barely took a step out of the throne room before Skywarp was on him, pulling at his arm and asking questions. “Skywarp—“

“No!” Skywarp interrupted him. “I talk first. Are you in trouble? Because if you are, I’m very confused because you’re such a pussy about causing problems.”

“What’s a pussy?” Thundercracker mumbled.

“It’s a human thing,” Skywarp said dismissively. “When I was at one of the monitors the other day, I started looking up human insults to expand my vocabulary. Anyway, you didn’t answer my question! Are you in trouble? And why am I, somehow, not getting in trouble with you?”

Thundercracker opened his mouth, but Slipstream spoke for him. “Megatron sent the both of us on a mission because you’re to incompetent for him to send you with us. Now if you’ll excuse us, Skywarp, I want to get this idiotic task over with.”

“What’s the mission?” Skywarp asked, growing more and more annoyed with the lack of full answers. “I think I have a right to know when my trinemate is being sent out alone with the rudest and most unfortunately strong seeker ever.”

“You’re thinking of Starscream when you say ‘rudest,’” Slipstream spat. “It’s confidential.” She grabbed Thundercracker’s arm with a threateningly strong grip and pulled him forward. “Come on. I have other things to do after this.” Skywarp attempted to follow after them and protest, but Slipstream shot him an intimidating glare. He backed off. Skywarp crossed his arms irritatedly and and walked back to the doorframe to Megatron’s throne room, leaning up against it.

He understood why he wasn’t picked for a lot of important missions, but that didn’t mean he liked the reasoning. Sure, he was brash and wasn’t all that good at being discreet, but he should at least be allowed to know what missions he wasn’t told to go on, right?

As groups of mechs that Megatron summoned went in and out of the throne room, Skywarp slumped further down the wall until his aft was almost touching the floor. He probably looked like a really bad guard. That didn’t matter to him, really. It was only when Megatron himself stepped out when Skywarp finally straightened up. His leader looked down to him, perplexed.

“Is there something that you need, Skywarp?” Megatron asked, being in an unusually good mood. His mood was most likely because the day was going well so far. So far, at least. One can never be too sure these days.

Thrown off by the actual politeness coming from his leader, Skywarp stuttered, “Yes! I mean, no. Ugh, fuck!”

“Your speech pattern is turning more and more into that of Thundercracker’s,” Megatron pointed out. Skywarp pinched the bridge of his nose. Megatron’s expression shifted into confusion. “Did you just say ‘fuck?’ What is that?”

“A word,” Skywarp explained, failing to elaborate further. He didn’t want to admit to the leader of the Decepticons that he just said the human word for ‘frag’ right in front of him. Megatron’s confusion visibly heightened, but he saw that it was clear that he wouldn’t get a straight answer. “You, sir, can just go about your day! I have shit to mess up.”

Megatron’s befuddlement did not vanish at the word ‘shit.’ He didn’t say anything, though, now knowing that there would be no comprehensible answer given to him. He blew off his curiosity at the new words that were spewing from the seeker’s mouth and started at him scrutinizingly. Skywarp tensely resisted the urge to glance off to the side as Megatron intimidatingly considered him.

“You have no missions or reports due as of now, correct?” Megatron asked.

Thinking of the stacks of reports that Skywarp had never even touched, he confidently replied, “Yep!” You know. Like a liar. His tenseness began to evaporate.

“Then I might just have a duty for you to do,” Megatron crossed his arms in a definitive manner. The way that he phrased it obviously made it seem as though it wasn’t much of a mission, and more so that Megatron was feeling lonely and he needed to spend time with the most fun seeker in their air force.

Oh boy.

~

Absolute bliss. Soundwave was working on something he actually cared about, and Starscream had not uttered a single word to him. Perfect. It was one of the few moments in his life that Soundwave could actually consider to be peaceful. Who knew that his little peaceful moment would be spent with Starscream of all mechs? Looking up from his work to make sure that Starscream didn’t suddenly have a knife to his throat, he noticed that the stack of datapads they started with had tripled.

“Soundwave!” Starscream spontaneously burst out. Soundwave flinched. In the blink of an eye, a datapad covered in math was shoved in his face, obscuring all else from his vision. “Do you think this result looks correct? I find that the number seems a tad small. Do you think it’s too small? I think it is.” One of his sharp digits expectantly tapped a frighteningly long number on his datapad.

Soundwave, having barely any idea of the numbers he was getting were coming from, had to investigate. The number resulted from a terribly long number that was brought up to an equally terribly long exponent. Finding it odd that there was a five in the final resulting number when there was none in the equation to work with, Soundwave concluded, “You may have forgotten a variable.”

“What?” Starscream shouted incredulously. “Impossible! I don’t make mistakes as horrendously simple as that!” He began frantically skimming through the tripled stack of datapads he had created. As he picked one up from somewhere in the middle, his wings sunk and his expression soured. Saying nothing, Starscream pushed aside all of the datapads with now incorrect results and started working on the one with the mistake with a very pissed expression on his features.

Soundwave began to think that if the rest of his life was like this, he would die happy. Just two nerds doing math and science. Starscream was far nicer to him when he was immersed in numbers, too. He was almost like a version of Shockwave except loud, deranged, and rude.

There was a knock on the door to Starscream’s tiny little lab, which was where they had been working. The only person who would have the audacity to knock on the door while they were working and very volatile to getting interrupted was Megatron. Did they forget to eat? Probably. Soundwave got up from the far-too-tiny seat that he had been sitting in to answer. The chairs were accustomed to fit Starscream, and he had a very small waist. Therefore, small chairs.

“Soundwave,” Megatron nodded at him. He peeked behind him to see his second consumed in his own special interests. “Starscream.” Starscream made a rude gesture at him, still staring at his datapad like he was interrogating it with his optics and scribbling on it like he was trying to stab something impenetrable. Oh well. “I would like an update on your progress, and also to give you an important reminder.”

Soundwave backed away from the doorframe to show Megatron the large stack of datapads. Then Starscream pointed towards the back of the room, which was filled with stacks of work varying in heights. My oh my, Soundwave had not noticed that at all.

“Most of them are just numbers that couldn’t fit on one datapad,” Starscream said, allowing himself to smile at Megatron’s face, which was growing green at the thought of that much math.

“I see,” Megatron coughed. “I take it you’re, astonishingly, almost done?”

“Not in the slightest!” Starscream shrieked, somehow grinning at the thought. “I’d say we’re about fifteenth of the way through. That’s an approximate estimate, at least.” Megatron nodded.

“Neither of you had refueled,” Megatron added, obviously hinting at the fact that they should eat.

“Interesting,” both Soundwave and Starscream replied at the same time. Megatron’s optics widened for a split second. Damn them for being such productive workaholics.

“I take it I should leave?” Megatron asked. They both nodded and the door practically slammed in his face. The sound of Starscream’s terrible laughter echoed. With the alleged ‘fifteenth’ of progress that they had made, Megatron expected them to migrate and take over the command center in the next three hours.

In actuality, he was just paying them a quick visit in hopes that they wouldn’t be done super soon. He didn’t like the thought of being a fifteenth of the way there to contacting Shockwave, but what happens happens, he supposed. Besides, he was already having a great time with Skywarp.

The pluses of hanging out with the teleported were very good ones: Skywarp occasionally spilled whatever assassination plot Starscream had against him (which was soon to happen given that Megatron hadn’t fallen into any elaborate trap since they’d crashed on Earth), and aside from making sure that he wasn’t going to get murdered, Skywarp was a great conversationalist. He tended to not care as much about what he said in front of Megatron as long as it wasn’t blatantly inappropriate.

Skywarp was waiting right outside of the doorway next to Megatron. “Tell me. Are they being huge nerds?”

Megatron nodded solemnly, getting reminded of half of the room being filled with datapads. “The hugest. Say, you wouldn’t happen to know what’s taking Thundercracker so long, would you? With that whole trine bond thing you have?”

“I can only feel his emotions through the bond, sir,” Skywarp replied, more focused on having fun times with Megatron. Those fun times involved trying to catch the miscellaneous creatures of the deep sea. They failed each time. “Mostly, that is. To be honest, he feels like he’s in pain?”

~

Slipstream had punched him at least seven times for making the littlest of mistakes, such as stepping on a branch and cracking it, or peeking his head out of a hiding place just a little too far. Thundercracker rubbed his abused arm after it’s seventh punch as they still searched for the perfect alt-mode.

They had come to the conclusion that the best Earthen vehicles they would have to copy for perfect hiding and to be useful for war would be the military vehicles. Unfortunately for them, it’s was hard to sneak around human military bases because they weren’t as public as other areas were, and they were both over thirty feet tall. It was a tad hard to hide. Slipstream giving Thundercracker seven hard punches was reasonable due to that. Who knows how much Autobot force would be called on them if they were spotted at a military base of all places? They could be mistaken for stealing their supplies and weaponry (even though Decepticon weapons were far superior) and taken as prisoners immediately.

The two of them had glances at each and every base they had been at and found nothing good enough for the sleekness of seeker models. There were huge planes fit for shuttles, disgusting helicopters, much too small planes and other unfit aircrafts.

“Should we just stop being as picky at this point?” Thundercracker whispered to Slipstream. She promptly places her whole servo over his mouth with a single ‘shh!’ Then she pointed at a jet.

It was positively perfect. A quick internet scan through Thundercracker’s processor told him that it was an F-22 Raptor, and there weren’t a lot of them. They just happened to luckily stumble upon it. It was everything they could ask for in a seeker alt-mode with the limited vehicles that there were. There was just one teensy-tiny problem. They had to get close enough to scan it.

Clearly, only one mech needed to scan, but they couldn’t decide on who. They were both the same height, which was far too tall to be stealthy. Thirty-three feet tall, to be exact. Or 1005.8 centimeters, which was about ten meters. Neither Slipstream nor Thundercracker understood why humans had two different forms of measurement.

Thundercracker despised sneaking around for important missions, but he was very good at being quiet. Slipstream, on the other hand, was all for going straight into important business, but was far more brash and loud than Thundercracker. They were at a standstill.

“I think you should go,” Slipstream angrily whispered at him. “You’re quieter.”

“The jet is surrounded by humans, Slipstream!” Thundercracker whispered back, growing more and more panicked at the thought of actually having to go in there.

“So just step on them and scan it!”

“There’s more than just the few surrounding the jet! There’s, like, hundreds! They could all see me, and then they would call the Autobots, and then they’d arrive, and then they’d shoot at us and hit my wing and your cockpit, and then both of us will be injured so they’d take us prisoner and then—“

“Shut your fragging mouth, you paranoid piece of slag!” Slipstream whisper-shouted, the volume of her voice reaching threateningly revealing levels. Thundercracker quickly placed a digit over his own mouth, eyes wide and full of fear. Slipstream scoffed and backed off. “I can’t believe that I had to be sent out with you. Lord Megatron should’ve picked Skywarp, if anyone. He would’ve just teleported right in there and scanned it, and our mission would be over by now.”

“Well, I’m not Skywarp,” Thundercracker frowned. Way to make him feel bad about himself, he supposed.

They sat. Neither said anything. Ten minutes of angry silence passed. Thundercracker mentally compared their situation to Megatron and Starscream’s angry silences. It was not nearly as bad. At least they weren’t on that level.

“I’ll go,” Thundercracker finally gave in. Slipstream smirked at him as though she had won. And she had! But there was no need to rub it in like that. “You should distract them. I don’t know, shoot your null ray in some random direction?”

“They’ll go where I am if I do that! They’ll see the direction the light goes.”

“Then shoot, transform, and fly back to base. They’ll be too distracted looking for you to notice me scanning the aircraft.” She nodded, albeit unwillingly. Slipstream didn’t like being told what to do all that much, but there weren’t many other options.

And so in a timed five seconds, Slipstream shot her null ray into a random direction in the sky. Predictably, the humans were alarmed, alerted and began rushing towards their hiding spot amidst the trees. She transformed and sped away, leaving Thundercracker to have to quickly scan the F-22 before the humans found him, too.

He quickly stood up from his crouched position and stumbled twice on his way to the aircraft, but successfully made it as close as he needed to get. He began scanning it, mentally lamenting on how fragging long it took to scan. Three minutes passed and his hands were starting to shake. If this took any longer, he was just going to have to leave!

Then he heard the sound of his t-cog shifting. It worked. Too anxiety-riddled to care about discreetness, Thundercracker transformed and blasted away. The transformation felt a whole lot different. He realized that he would probably need to get his frame adjusted to properly fit the new alt-mode. Thundercracker caught up to Slipstream.

“Wow, Thundercracker,” Slipstream said, a little bit of respect slipping into her tone. “You look different.”

“Shut up,” he replied, speeding up so she would start being annoying to him.

~

Almost every single seeker had replaced their alt mode. The Combaticons, Stunticons, triple-changers, and other grounders had also changed their vehicle modes as well. Allegedly, when they were out searching for new modes, the Combaticons tried to fight each other. Whatever. The Constructicons would get to change their modes another day. They had other work to do. That work consisted of adjusting frames and starting a second elevator.

Every single mech had a new alt-mode that would help disguise the Decepticons further. Well, almost every mech. Megatron made his way to the command center, where Starscream and Soundwave had migrated. They were frantically doing some sort of odd programming with the main console. It looked a little broken, but it seemed more so that they were operating on it to extend the length of its signal.

“I hate to interrupt, but,” Megatron started. Starscream turned around and actually growled at him, then turned back to work. His digits were blackened, implying that there had been some sort of mild fire or electrocution. With the way that his wings were all high and stiff, the electrocution was more probable. “Fine, fine. It’s just that you should scan your new alt-mode soon, Starscream. I’ll help you out with your own later, Soundwave.”

Soundwave nodded. Starscream didn’t.

“New alt-mode?” He officially turned around to face Megatron, leaving Soundwave to do the rest of the work. It was fun while it lasted. “What’s wrong with what we have now, Mega-fool?”

Those words sounded oddly familiar.

“We have to be more cautious and can’t be spotted as much,” Megatron reasoned. Any normal mech would begrudgingly accept that answer and leave it at that, but four million years taught him that Starscream was not a normal mech in the slightest.

“Maybe if you didn’t give us such awful plans that leave us out in the open so much—!”

Megatron placed one large digit over Starscream’s mouth, completely silencing him at the abruptness. “Shut up.” He walked to Soundwave, leaving Starscream stunned and slightly disgusted that Megatron’s digit had been on his face. “Soundwave, how’s work coming along?”

As if to give an ultimate answer, Soundwave glanced at him, pressed the button to enter a comm. code, and entered the code for the main Decepticon base in Cybertron. Where Shockwave was stationed and in charge.

Megatron stiffened, waiting for an answer. Starscream speedwalked next to him, unknowingly placing his servo on his arm with a tight grasp, as though he had forgotten who was there.

The call was picked up.

“Lord Megatron?” Shockwave answered.

Chapter Text

It worked. It fragging worked. They could contact Cybertron. Megatron almost felt a little awestruck that it had happened so quickly and worked so well. Realizing that he was just staring agape at Shockwave, he quickly cleared his throat and responded, “Shockwave. Yes. It’s good to finally get in contact with you.”

“If I may inquire, my lord,” Shockwave asked, his single optic showing that he was a tad frazzled at the sudden appearance of his leader. “What has happened to you? It’s been seven orbital cycles since I’ve been able to get ahold of your frequency.”

Megatron had forgotten that they had practically abandoned Shockwave for thirty-five years in stasis plus seven months. That was entirely unintentional. They didn’t mean to crash into Earth anyway. Given the unfortunate events that led to them being unable to give Shockwave a call for so long, Megatron explained that they had crashed into a random planet during a space battle and had been stuck on said planet ever since. Shockwave listened intently.

“I can trace the source of your call,” Shockwave replied, “and send in some forces to retrieve all of you from this planet.”

Megatron shifted. There were some... issues with that. He was mixed about whether or not he should voice his concern.

Even so, there was no need for his voice. Starscream sneered, “In case you haven’t noticed the multiple leaks coming from every little crevice, Shockwave, we happen to be underwater.”

That was an easily solved problem. The bigger issue at hand was that more than half of the Decepticon faction had been on the Nemesis when it crashed. Anyone out in space didn’t have a big enough ship to take them all with them, and anyone who was out in space in the first place was very far away, fighting on other planets and whatnot. It would take a millennia or so before they were reached by the nearest Decepticon ship. And the ships on Cybertron? Broken or already flying far away.

Why did everything have to go wrong?

Shockwave seemed to process Starscream’s complaining and the actual reasoning behind why he couldn’t just send some ships their way. He almost appeared as though he slumped down a little, disappointed. “Surely the Nemesis functions, my Lord?”

Megatron remembered how hard it was just to turn the controls back on and get the Nemesis off of an angle. He almost tore off the controls to move their ship. That was how hard he had to pull. Megatron didn’t exactly know what broke in their ship, but it sure did mess it up enough to make it practically immobile. Once every orbital cycle, since they had been stranded down in the ocean, he tried to move the ship. It never worked. “No. Some sort of engine issue, and the pressure of the ocean keeps forcing us back down each time we try to go upward.”

At one point he had tried to move directly up. Their ship was forced to stand on its rear before he knocked it back down.

“I see,” Shockwave mused. Megatron didn’t have any real ideas of how Shockwave could help them now. He found it necessary to contact him, but... for what? His processor felt a little empty.

Fortunately, Soundwave’s processor wasn’t empty. It was very full, in fact. “A space bridge should be constructed.”

That would make definite sense.

Shockwave’s eye brightened. He hadn’t noticed Soundwave until now. Those two always loved to see each other. It was very odd. “Of course! A space bridge.”

“We can’t make a fragging space bridge, you idiot!” Starscream pointed rudely at Soundwave. “We don’t have enough materials to send a full Cybertronian away.”

“But we do have enough to send and receive supplies,” Soundwave but back, a tinge of sassiness in his tone. Now that! That was a good idea. Of course it came from Soundwave.

Starscream’s expression shifted from haughty irritation to bewildered irritation. His face reddened and he made a move to leave the room, or at least away from being seen on Shockwave’s side of the screen. Megatron, knowing he hated being embarrassed and shown to be wrong, grabbed him by the wing and pulled him uncomfortably close, dead center in the middle of the screen next to Megatron. Predictably, he screamed and tried to fight him away. Their wrestling shifted out of the view of the screen. Soundwave took over.

“Is that a good idea to you?” Soundwave asked, uncharacteristically bashful. Shockwave stared at him for a long second.

“Many of your ideas are good, and so was the one you just proposed,” Shockwave replied. “You’re very logical.”

Soundwave was glad his visor and mask covered his face.

~

“You really found that necessary?” Starscream spat at Megatron. “Yank on my wing just to embarrass me? I hate you. Watch your back, old fool.” They had both done damage to each other. Megatron had dented his wing when he grabbed him. He didn’t intend to hurt him. Just make him angry, you know? Unfortunately Starscream was fueled by anger and only ever fought, so Megatron had to fight him off. Now Starscream had a dented wing and a cracked cockpit. Megatron had elbowed him there.

To be fair, Starscream’s injuries were far more tame than Megatron’s. The little glitch dug his claws into his side, making him bleed. They were both trudging along to the medical bay because of their petty fight. Or, Megatron was trudging. He was trying not to bleed out and die. Starscream was practically strutting. Again, little glitch.

“I mean that you should watch your back this time, by the way,” Starscream glanced back at him threateningly. “I’ve been very lenient with keeping you alive, you know. I surely hope you didn’t get used to it.”

“As if I would,” Megatron coughed. Four million years taught him that a couple of orbital cycles without a complex assassination attempt meant absolutely nothing. In fact, a long time without a murder plot being put into action was even more dangerous. He’d have to increase the amount of surveillance Soundwave had, even if it used up a bit more energy. He might even get a new camera installed in Starscream’s lab and quarters. The seeker had purposefully broken the last ones.

They arrived at the medical bay. Abnormally, Starscream stepped aside and motioned for him to go first. Megatron didn’t fall for whatever he was trying to pull and pushed him in first instead. Starscream stumbled and yelped, but regained his composure, albeit the small puffs of smoke beginning to come out from his head-vents. Of course he got angry about it. When wasn’t he angry?

Hook sighed and gave them their necessary repairs, making a single side comment, “You keep breaking your cockpit, ‘Screamer, and we’re gonna run out of the glass to fix it.” In response, like a normal, respectable adult, Starscream hissed curses at him for making such a comment. After he had gotten his new alt-mode, everything felt different for him. His cockpit was way more puffed out than he was used to, making the glass more prone to shattering. If it kept up, he might consider leaving it broken had it not been the perfect storage compartment for miscellaneously sized daggers and knives. And, of course, it was extra unsafe to leave his cockpit broken because it was literally the window to his spark. A small part of him wished that seekers were designed to be a tad more armored. He was very prone to sudden death. Perhaps he should move those knives after all.

Starscream was promptly kicked out of the medical bay the moment he was repaired. That meant they were going to patch Megatron up and didn’t trust him not to do something evil and kill him. Feh! Amateurs. He can’t just kill Megatron in public like that. Sure, the moment the old dolt finally dies, everyone will immediately point the finger at him, but he would still need to conceal his murdering a bit more than that. It is treason to kill one’s leader after all.

A thought crept into his mind as he heard Megatron grunt behind the closed doors of the medical bay. Megatron seemed to be getting just a tad too comfortable as of late. That needed to be changed. Clearly a assassination attempt, which would be purposefully unsuccessful, would need to be put in place and set into action. Starscream began walking forward without a destination in mind. His pedes were leading him to the throne room. He rummaged through his subspace, searching for any sort of quick thing to throw on the throne or cover the floor with. Starscream’s servo caught onto something familiar and he pulled it out. A bomb. Specifically, a bomb that could latch onto a flat surface. Perfect. He would place it on the back of the throne, hide behind it, and wait for Megatron to stomp in and sit down to sulk like a loser. Then Starscream would activate it and make a quick escape.

The small, anxiety-ridden part of his mind worried if the bomb was a dud. Or if Megatron would spot it. If Starscream could kill any part of himself in cold blood, it would definitely have to be the anxious part of him in the back of his processor. Ugh. Ignoring his stupid emotions, Starscream carelessly walked behind the throne, sticking the bomb onto it, crouching down inconspicuously, and waited. And waited. And waited. Perhaps he had dug his claws a little deeper into Megatron’s side than he had originally thought. That only made him feel a little prouder.

“Starscream,” came a droned voice. Soundwave? Primus, how did he always know exactly where he was? Then Starscream glanced upwards. At the security camera. Foiled again.

Starscream slowly stood up and put his servos up, bored. He turned around to face Soundwave. “Oh dear. You’ve caught me.”

“You already got your assault of the day in,” Soundwave said in total seriousness.

“Really? You’re limiting me to one injury per day? You’re simply no fun, Soundwave!” Starscream flashed him a smarmy grin, purposefully showcasing his unnecessarily sharp teeth.

Soundwave looked like he hadn’t slept in a millennia. It was most likely true, too. “Shut the fuck up. Do you have space bridge plans in your lab?”

Completely thrown off at the sudden harshness, Starscream threw down his servos. “Wh-what? What’s ‘fuck?’” He wished he wasn’t so expressive because his faceplates were definitely showing immense confusion and shock.

Soundwave knew of Skywarp’s search for new curse words. He picked them up instead of punishing him. It was fun. Everyone was thrown off by it. It was the most fun he had in many a year. “That doesn’t matter. I request you answer my inquiry.”

“What? I-yeah, yeah, I do,” Starscream replied, still a little shaken up at the curt shushing. He wouldn’t normally stutter out an honest answer like that. “Left corner box, fifth one in the stack. The datapads are green to differentiate. Soundwave, what’s ‘fuck?’”

Soundwave instead turned around to go to Starscream’s lab.

Starscream felt like his processor was melting. Was it melting? It was probably melting. Dear Primus. Maybe it was Earth’s atmosphere that was doing a number on him, but he really did not like the road that his mentality was going down.

He shook his helm. No. Starscream was not going to have Soundwave’s strange vocabulary throw him off today. One assault per day? Please. Try five. He went back to sitting behind Megatron’s throne and waited. It took two hours of waiting. Starscream may have almost fallen asleep from the lack of activity until loud, thundering footsteps jolted him awake. Megatron was here. Perfect! Starscream waited for the creaking feeling of his leader sitting down in his throne.

The feeling never came. What did come, however, was a giant servo roughly grabbing his wing and pulling him out from his not-so-inconspicuous-after-all hiding place behind the throne.

“Do you malfunction, fool?” Megatron’s gruff voice came. “You really thought Soundwave wouldn’t tell me you were trying to murder me again?”

“Does it surprise you?” Starscream sarcastically asked, being forced to stand up by Megatron’s insistent hand. “Might you have the mercy to be a little less barbaric when trying to thwart my plans, you dolt?” He gestured to the servo on his wing, which was uncomfortably increasing the tightness of its hold. His wing was released. There were dents. Again. Woo-hoo.

“You are the only mech I know who unironically calls someone a dolt as though it’s an insult,” Megatron mumbled. “Are you asking me to give you guard duty? Because that’s where this is going, Starscream.”

“Ha! As if I’d even do the job if you assigned me such a lowly duty,” Starscream turned to the back of the throne again. Megatron moved to stop him, but Starscream pressed a few of his digits to his chassis, as if to push him back. “If you’re not going to die, then I might as well remove my murder weapon, yes?”

“And I will confiscate it.”

Damnit. Starscream removed the bomb and carelessly tossed it Megatron’s way, intending for the button to accidentally press on his servo. It didn’t.

“If you’ll excuse me, Starscream,” Megatron said, subspacing the bomb. “I have actual important things to do. I don’t have time for your ridiculous schemes.”

“Of course, of course!” Starscream grinned in a manner that wasn’t convincing at all. Knowing he wouldn’t win, Megatron left, annoyed. As soon as he left earshot, Starscream took out another bomb and slapped it to the back of the throne again. He would probably forget it, but it was nice to have a backup.

There was still something in the back of his processor. What was that ‘fuck’ word?

~

Soundwave didn’t want to end the call with Shockwave, but he knew that there was some murderous seeker planning the imminent death of his leader, so he had to leave. That didn’t stop Soundwave from calling up Shockwave again immediately afterward. There were a few more problems that forced him to hang up, but he called back each time an issue was resolved. Everyone noticed, but no one belittled him for it because he was Soundwave and he could traumatize anyone if he pleased.

“Soundwave,” Shockwave said, twenty-seven minutes and forty-six seconds into their sixty-third call of the day. Yes, Soundwave was keeping track. What of it?

“Yes?” Soundwave replied.

“My sincerest apologies, but,” Shockwave seemed like he was looking off to the side with his one optic, almost appearing disappointed at what he was going to say, “I have a large amount of work to return to in order to help construct a small space bridge to transport resources. We mustn’t continue conversing unless it has something to do with our duties at hand.”

“Oh,” Soundwave cast his gaze downward. Yes, that was quite disappointing. Silence.

“I would come to Earth if I could for the scientific purposes and to help Lord Megatron better,” Shockwave broke the silence. He added, “And for you.” He didn’t elaborate, which only added on stronger feeling.

Oh geez. Soundwave was really glad he had a visor and mask. He wanted to say, ‘and I, you,’ but he didn’t. Soundwave was never really good at that kind of stuff. It was a little surprising that Shockwave could get out anything like that too. They were both emotionally distant.

They both pressed the button to hang up at the same time. Mentally, Soundwave screamed. He was the most at peace he had been since they had crashed into Earth. That was saying something because his sparkpulse was going insanely fast. His feelings for Shockwave confused him. Immensely so. Why did he get so happy whenever he was brought up in a conversation or if he was in his presence? It was very odd. Perhaps he’d have to get that checked. Maybe he had some sort of disease that was altering his processor’s capability to feel neutrally about certain mechs?

Unfortunately, Soundwave didn’t have time to focus on an alleged disease. There were duties that had to be done. Elevators to be completed. Space bridges to be made. Assassinations to be stopped. The latter was one of the most important.

“Soundwave!”

Speak of the devil.

“I need one of the datapads that can search for terms on the human search browser! I think it’s called the ‘internet?’” Starscream stomped over to him, thrusters clacking loudly on the metal floor. He got way too close for comfort. Was he getting super close to assert dominance or just to be annoying? Both, probably.

“Why?” Soundwave inquired in an interrogative way. His processor immediately drifted to the wonderings of what type of Earthen poison Starscream was going to search for.

“It’s not in your place to question your superior officer, Soundwave!” Starscream sneered at him, starting to unknowingly hover over the floor with his thrusters. He tended to ignite his thrusters from time to time when his emotions got the better of him.

“I do not trust you,” Soundwave blatantly stated, “nor do I trust that you will use the internet for non-murderous purposes.”

Starscream pulled a face. “What? No, I’m not trying to kill Megatron yet! This is for something entirely different yet equally important!”

Soundwave thought of the bomb on the back of Megatron’s throne. If Starscream really wasn’t trying to kill Megatron at the moment, then he wasn’t doing a good job of convincing him. “No.”

“What? No? You can’t just say ‘no,’ Soundwave! I am your superior officer and—!”

“No,” Soundwave said, entirely emotionless with the flat denial. “Tell me what you desire to search.”

Starscream seemed to struggle with what lie he was going to choose, optics darting to various unremarkable places in the command center. The monitors, the keyboards, the ceiling. Anything. He settled on an answer. “I need to look up the lasting effects of cyanide on Cybertronians.”

“Cyanide?” Soundwave asked, completely unsurprised.

“Yes,” Starscream confidently responded, crossing his arms. “It’s not murderous, I promise. I just want to... experiment with it. Truly. It’s quite simple, my dear Soundwave.”

“I know what cyanide is, Starscream,” Soundwave told him. He actually didn’t, but the way Starscream’s face immediately fell told him enough. “I am not stupid. Please refrain from attempting to kill Megatron.” Starscream seemed to shift his face from angry expression to angry expression before finally settling in his usual infuriated face.

“Fine then. I’ll find out on my own.” He stormed off, but something was odd about it. It looked like he was holding something. Soundwave, as uncaring for Starscream’s issues as ever, turned back towards the main monitor of the command center, where he had been repeatedly comm-ing Shockwave. He sighed the same tired sigh that had been resonating within himself for the past four million years and went to grab for the datapad that had Earthen internet on it. Only to find that it wasn’t there. He didn’t need to turn around to understand. Starscream’s shrill laughter echoed from whatever room he had holed himself away in.

Soundwave lifted his servo and pressed his digit to the comm link that was connected to his processor. The recipient picked up the call. Soundwave greeted, “Megatron.”

“Is something wrong?” Megatron’s voice came. His voice came out rather muffled, and it almost seemed like it echoed. Their leader had gotten smacked quite hard in the helm a while ago. It messed up his internal comm, but he was, at the very least, still understandable. Oh, and guess who was the one that smacked him in the helm? Hint: it wasn’t an Autobot.

“Starscream is looking up how to poison you with Earthen materials,” Soundwave replied. “I wanted to warn you.”

“For frags sake!” Megatron shouted, exasperated. He muttered a thanks before abruptly hanging up without another word.

Soundwave, completely done with everything ever, turned back to the main monitor and typed in the code for the main Decepticon commline on Cybertron. He really, really needed to talk to Shockwave. Work be damned.

~

Megatron pinched the bridge of his nose. Starscream had already assaulted him today, then attempted to blow him up. Now he was trying to poison him? Wasn’t that just positively splendid? Not! Ugh.

Soundwave hadn’t told him where the treacherous seeker had run off to, so Megatron had to take a wild guess. It was plausible that he had run away to his lab or his quarters. Yet, that would be too obvious, wouldn’t it? Primus, he hoped he wasn’t just overthinking his second’s strategic ways of trying to murder him in cold blood. Megatron decided to head towards his lab anyway. That’s where Starscream usually put himself when he was trying to read something that was very obviously suspicious.

Just as Megatron was about to enter the code, guessing that it was someone’s birthday, he heard an audial-splitting shriek resonate from the inside of the lab. Starscream was definitely in there then. But his scream sounded more terrified than happy? As soon as the screech ended, a loud clatter echoed, followed by a strange sounding shattering of glass. The shatter was, then, followed by a yelp of utter pain. There was a lot of following going on, it seemed.

Concerned, Megatron punched in his own birthday for the code, hoping it worked. Oddly enough, it did. The door slid open very slowly, like it kept getting caught on something. Megatron glanced down to see shards of what appeared to be of a datapad stuck in the hinges of the door. There was a datapad, broken in half but still blinking endlessly and quickly. It had the search browser for the Earthen internet open on it. There was a single word in the search bar. ‘Fuck.’ What?

“What the slag are you doing here?” Starscream hissed at him. He was wedged between his little desk and the wall, sitting down. Megatron made his way over to him instead of answering the question. “Answer me! You weren’t authorized to come in here, you great buffoon!”

“I am the authority, Starscream,” Megatron grumbled back at him, kneeling down to get to his lowered height. Starscream seemed to be holding something directly in front of his right optic. It almost seemed like he was trying to pull something out and failing. “Why are you hiding here?”

“I don’t have time for interrogations!” He hissed curses under his breath, but it didn’t seem like any of the harsh words were directed at anything specific. Starscream started shaking his servos, rattling whatever was in his optic. The action only produced more curses from the seeker. Megatron came to the realization that the rude words were coming out of Starscream’s mouth because he was in pain.

He went to take Starscream’s servos away from his face to try and help. In response, his servos were slapped. He growled, “Don’t test me, seeker.” But when Starscream took away one of his servos and slapped him, Megatron noticed something. It appeared that there was a handle of a knife jutting out from his optic. Megatron tried to move the jet’s servos once more, relieving more smacking. “Remove your servos and accept my assistance!”

“Assistance! Feh! I don’t need your brutish servos messing up my face, thank you!”

Megatron grabbed his wrists and moved them up above his helm. A shriek of surprise escaped from Starscream’s vocalizer. He tried to dig his sharp digits into Megatron’s wrist to no avail. Inspection began, and it appeared that there was, in fact, a knife lodged deep into Starscream’s optic. At first dumbfounded, Megatron didn’t do anything to remove it. The first thing to enter his mind were questions. Why the frag was there a knife in his second’s eye?

“Are you just going to ogle my injuries, or do you actually plan on doing something?” Starscream spat. Megatron snapped back into reality and reached for the knife handle, pulling. It did not come out. The knife seemed to be more stuck than he thought. That was rather unfortunate. Megatron pulled again, significantly harder. The knife came out, but the force of the pull almost cause Megatron to fall onto his back. He released Starscream’s servos in the process.

Starscream hissed in pain, immediately covering up his now bleeding and very shattered optic. Megatron only then noticed scattered shards of optic glass on the ground.

“Hey,” Megatron said in a lower voice in an attempt to actually get an answer and not a slap. Starscream looked at him angrily. “Why was there a knife in your optic?”

“I stabbed myself,” Starscream shakily replied, failing to elaborate. “Can I have my knife?”

Mindlessly, Megatron gave it back to him. “Did you... stab yourself on purpose?”

Very un-sarcastically, Starscream yelled, “Of course I did!” He took the knife, waving it around carelessly as he offered explanation. “I took an internet datapad from Soundwave to look up a weird word he said. It was ‘fuck.’ The results gave a weird answer, so I went to the videos tab and found a whole lot of positively horrendous results! It was disgusting, Megatron!”

“So you stabbed yourself in the optic?” Megatron asked, unable to grasp what the reasoning actually was.

“You would have, too! It was humans interfacing! And it was gross! All icky and slimy and—eugh!” Starscream seemed to actually gag, as if he was going to throw up at the thought. “Sometimes I regret choosing to study biology, you know?”

Megatron didn’t answer. He instead replayed the explanation that was given to him. Starscream searched up a word he did not understand, which was an entirely innocent thing to do on its own, and found something so horrifically disgusting that he... went through the whole motion of taking out a knife and stabbing himself with it as a response. It was a weird reason, but easily repairable. “Let me see your injury.”

Scrunching up his face in irritation, Starscream complied, moving down his servos. Energon dripped down from his broken optic, but at the very least, it wasn’t gushing. Megatron leaned forward to get a closer look, perhaps to repair something little to stop the bleeding before he threw the little idiot into the medical bay for repairs. No, there wasn’t anything he could do. It almost looked like Starscream had stabbed himself and then twisted the knife, which worsened an already bad looking injury. Shards of optic glass still jutted out from the rim of his eye, stained pink from the energon.

Their faces were uncomfortably close. Megatron’s nose brushed Starscream’s.

“You’re such a fool, Starscream,” Megatron muttered, almost fondly in some weird sort of way.

“But you’re an even bigger fool, Megatron,” Starscream said in an uncharacteristically soft tone. He grinned in a rather suspicious way.

Suddenly, there was a sharp pain in Megatron’s abdomen, directly above the scars from Starscream gouging him with his claws from their fight during the first call with Shockwave. Megatron looked down to see the knife he had returned to Starscream stuck inside him.

Any normal person would scream in pain at the attacker or just in general. Megatron, however, had been through this before. Instead, he simply sighed, ever so tired.

Starscream chuckled in a somewhat raspy way.

~

Soundwave began to make sure he was actually doing work while commuting with Shockwave. He shifted through datapads and went through the space bridge construction plans to find the best one that they could minimize to be small enough to transport energon. Eventually he found one and sent half of the Constructicons to begin building it, while the other half continued working on the second elevator. Any other work Soundwave had would involve him needing to use the main monitor. Using the main monitor meant that he had to hang up on Shockwave. That was something he did not want to do in the slightest.

“Soundwave,” Shockwave began, confused and looking a little frazzled. He had to deal with some of the seekers with him on Cybertron. Specifically Sunstorm, who was yelling nonsense about Primus’s grace and disrupting all work. Soundwave had heard it all because Shockwave forgot to hang up. He wasn’t very good at deescalating situations like that, it had appeared. “Is there not work that the both of us need to be doing?”

Soundwave stared at Shockwave’s one unblinking optic for a long time. “There is.”

“Then we should—“

“We shouldn’t,” Soundwave firmly cut him off. Shockwave looked startled, or, as startled as one could be when they had one eye for a face. “As your superior officer, I command that neither of us do our work and instead talk.”

If Shockwave had eyebrows, they would have given him an alarmed yet bemused expression. Soundwave never really used his rank on him. “And what is there to talk about?”

“I do not know,” Soundwave answered honestly. “I simply know that I desire to talk to you for hours on end.”

“I see,” Shockwave replied, his voice lowering ever so slightly.

To any outsider, their interaction would be painful to listen to. Amazingly painful. Like, ripping off a band-aid really slowly but most of the sticky part was on your wound kind of painful.

Despite the horrific awkwardness of their conversation that consisted of detailed, military-esque descriptions of their day, they still talked for hours. It was only when the lights of the ship reflecting into the deep ocean dimmed to conserve energy was when Soundwave realized that it had been far too long. Shockwave looked a tad tired. It struck Soundwave that his equally-emotionless associate actually got some sleep, unlike him, which made his processor have the audacity to tell him when it was time to recharge.

“I believe it’s late,” Shockwave said.

It was. Soundwave’s chronometer read 02:34. They talked into the next day.

The two of them exchanged goodbyes. Something in Soundwave’s spark fluttered as he hit the button to end their call.

That feeling came to an abrupt halt when Long Haul appeared seemingly out of nowhere, exclaiming, “Commander Soundwave!”

Soundwave turned and faced him. He nodded as a way to prompt him into giving an explanation as to why he just yelled his name.

“Spacebridge is complete, sir!” Long Haul elaborated. “We need energon to be sent in from Cybertron as a test.”

That was good! Space bridges being complete were very good. It was a little odd that they completed it so quickly, but then Soundwave remembered that it was supposed to be significantly smaller.

Then he remembered that in order to request energon to be sent, he’d need to comm Shockwave again.

That was very good.

~

Energon was now coming in from Cybertron. And it was real, genuine energon! Not just the slag that they harvested from powerplants and whatnot.

Unfortunately, just because they were now receiving energon from Cybertron did not mean that they were set for life. The mechs stationed on there home planet still needed the fuel, and there wasn’t a considerable amount on Cybertron. Fortunately, it did mean that they didn’t need to spend so much time planning to attack and attacking any structure on Earth that contained even the tiniest bit of fuel.

They still had to ration out their energon, though. Now some of it could start going to the ship in attempts to bring it back online again.

Megatron took a hearty sip of the real, genuine, Cybertronian energon in a full cube. Things were going swimmingly.

“Megatron,” a high pitched, grating voice said next to him. Starscream was holding a cube too, half full. The optic that he had injured was bandaged. It still needed to heal from repair. Despite that, Megatron had witnessed him rip off the bandaging multiple times and then get tackled by Hook and have his bandage then forced back on.

“Yes, Starscream?” Megatron said pleasantly. He was in a good mood.

“Enjoying your cube?” Starscream asked. He appeared to smile as he took a sip of his own cube.

“Indeed I am,” Megatron responded, beginning to grow suspicious. He started to take a sip.

“It would be a shame if something happened to it. Like a poison or something, you know?”

Megatron choked on his little sip of energon, spat it out, and went into a coughing fit. Starscream cackled obnoxiously. He didn’t even do anything to it!

Chapter Text

Thundercracker disliked the organic nature of Earth very much. The sky was always humid, which made it gross to fly in. The ground was always mushy and pieces of it got stuck in between his joints. Earth was gross. Very, very, very gross. The thought of how disgusting the muck-ball of a planet was continued to be the only thing on Thundercarcker’s processor as he walked forward in a crouched position in some sort of forest. It had rained in the area not too long ago, making everything wet, slimy, and sticky. It was also quite slippery. He managed to trip and fall on enough trees enough times that he had successfully cracked his cockpit.

The only reason why he was out was because one of the idiot coneheads lost something important in the forest and he was sent out to get it. Not, you know, the actual conehead who lost it so that they could condone their actions. Nope! Let’s send Thundercracker! He’s not responsible for the loss in any way, shape, or form, but he should be the one retrieving the item!

A part of him wanted to purposefully pretend that he couldn’t find whatever it was he was looking for so that he wouldn’t be sent out for those kinds of useless missions anymore. He didn’t even know what he was supposed to be looking for. When he asked, the only answer he got was, ‘you’ll know when you see it.’ That almost made him feel like it was some sort of toy. And not a child appropriate one. Yes, that kind of toy.

Ew, how do you lose that in a forest? Thundercracker didn’t want to think too hard about that. It was a disgusting thought that made him sad.

He decided to sit down, his processor swarmed with thoughts about his colleagues and their idiocy. If he got too mad or irritated at the thought of them, he could blow his cover. Every once in a while, if he got mad enough, smoke would start to come out of his helm just like Starscream. It was immensely rare, but it was still plausible, and there wouldn’t be any risks getting taken. He heard he distinct baritone of the Prime’s voice just outside the forest. Thundercracker would have to be quiet as he internally complained.

Crossing his legs in what would be described as ‘criss-cross applesauce’ in human terms, Thundercracker put his helm in his servos and sighed. He peeked out from between his digits to at least keep some attention on his surroundings as he mentally lamented.

He felt Skywarp prod at him through their bond, as he sensed his irritation and fatigue. Thundercracker brushed his help away, not wanting to concern him with his annoyed thoughts. Skywarp pushes his concern forward despite everything, and Thundercracker let it happen.

Yip! Yip! Yip!

Immediately, Thundercracker perked up, picking his face up from his servos in a panic, optics darting all around his surroundings. He couldn’t see anything suspicious in sight, which only worsened the worried feeling in his spark. The strange sound didn’t sound like any sort of Autobot alert, but who knew?

Yip! Yip! Yip!

Oh Primus, the noise was growing louder. Something was getting nearer to him. Thundercracker moved from his sitting position back into his crouched one. Instinctively, he began to charge up his null-rays. Who knew what the hell that noise was coming from!

Yip!

If it weren’t for the psychological terror that the sound was causing, Thundercracker would think of it as annoying.

Through the large clumps of leaves and branches (which Thundercracker had been confirmed that the clump was called a ‘bush), something rustled inside. The annoying sound that was terrorizing his mind came from what ever was making even more noise inside the bush. Finally, out popped a little... thing. The creature was some sort of tiny, hairy little thing that walked on four legs. It was primarily white and had brown patches. There was a blue thing around what could be its neck with a little gold item on it.

“Yip!” The creature shouted at him, and continued to make the noise.

So this was the thing that was worsening his anxiety? Geez. How embarrassing. At the same time, Thundercracker reminded himself of how fierce small things could be. He would never forget the day Ravage had literally clawed his optic out. It took a while for the order of new optical glass to come in, too.

The creature continued to make noise at him and actually got closer, almost directly next to him. It started to bat at him with its front legs. The legs looked suspiciously like a non-threatening version of Ravage’s paws. Thundercracker couldn’t tell if the creature was angry at him or not.

“Daisy!” a voice called. Thundercracker flinched. Another being, and they could actually speak! Oh Primus! He was only out here to retrieve a stupid item for the stupid coneheads and now he was being spotted by some organics. Wasn’t this day just getting better and better? “Daisy, where are you? God, I really need to get you a new leash!” The voice was unfamiliar. It was high pitched, almost sounding as though it belonged to a youngling. How odd.

The owner of the voice eventually pushed through the same bushes that the loud little creature had gotten through. The creature was also still batting at his leg, mind you. The voice’s owner was a human. A considerably younger looking one than the other kind that Thundercracker had seen. They had brown skin and large, unruly, curly dark brown hair. They had an odd blue object on their optics that Thundercracker recognized as the human form of optical lenses. ‘Glasses.’ Their armor, or clothes for that matter, were also in blue clad.

“Dais—“ they cut themself off as soon as they spotted their creature abusing Thundercracker’s leg. The human stared up at him, eyes wide with either fear or confusion.

Thundercracker’s wings hiked up, but he quickly forced the, down, trying to hide the Decepticon insignia on them. Perhaps he could trick the human into thinking he’s good and leaving him alone.

“What the actual shit?” The human asked incredulously. Thundercracker didn’t answer. He finally learned what ‘shit’ was recently, along with numerous other curse words. It was quite crude of the human to use such language. “Holy fucking shit—what?”

“Do you know any other words, or only rude questions?” Thundercracker asked in a whisper, fed up with this situation that had been far too long and drawn out already.

“Who are you? No, no, what are you?” They asked. Interesting that they got straight to the point. Perhaps they were more confused than afraid of him?

Thundercracker lowered his wings even further, trying to hide his insignia better. He attempted to sound more threatening than he actually was, but it was a little hard when he was caught off guard. “I’m Thundercracker, a Cybertronian.”

“I’ve never seen you on the news before,” they said. “I’ve seen a lot of your other friends on the TV, though.”

“Please, the Autobots aren’t my friends,” Thundercracker retorted without a second thought, still so used to being able to say such things without worry. “I—I mean! Like, I just don’t, uh, like them. I’m still on their side. Totally.”

“I can see your Decepticon symbol,” the human started, blatantly unimpressed. Well, sorry! He wasn’t prepared to meet a rude little human!

Thundercracker, surprised, involuntarily hiked up his wings once more. He almost attempted to bring them back down before realizing that it would be futile to do so. He tried one last thing. “I’m a spy?”

“You’re not a good liar.”

Damnit.

“Well, human!” Thundercracker said, strained. The little creature was still hitting his leg. He guessed that it was the ‘Daisy’ that the human was calling for. “How about you never mention seeing me ever, forget any of this happened, and I’ll let you live!” To prove his point, he began to charge up his null rays even more than they were before, allowing the visible light from any possible blast to show through. He had to show how serious he was you know?

The human, starting to finally look a little afraid, seemed to contemplate his threat. Then their expression shifted into a stubborn kind of face that Thundercracker had commonly seen on Skywarp. Frag. “If I agree to that and you let me go, how do you know that I won’t just tell on you to the Autobots anyway?”

He didn’t have a good rebuttal to that. He had to guess. “Say you do tell on me. What next? They already know we exist and lurk in the forests from time to time. What are you gonna accomplish with that, huh?”

“If they know that there’s a confirmed Decepticon sighting by a more reliable member of society and not by someone who is known to simply say things for attention,” the human started, sounding far to intelligent for one that looked like a youngling, “then they’ll increase security in the forests. There will be more human lookouts that have faster means of communication with the Autobots, and they’ll be alerted of your presence quicker. You’ll be apprehended. And yes, I am a more reliable member of society than others that would report you.”

Thundercracker was dumbfounded. How did they think of that so fast? Now he really didn’t have much of a counterargument.

“To be fair, I still don’t like the police, but if them being in the forest will possibly ensure that you guys won’t get to take our electrical power anymore, then so be it.” They started to move towards him to get the creature named Daisy.

“What if I just kill you then? Right now?” Thundercracker tried. He knew that killing them would simply give away his position with the bright light of his null rays, but it was worth a shot.

“Don’t your arm guns give off light?”

Couldn’t they just let him win? Once? “I have fists too, you know. I can crush you. Or step on you.

“I’ll scream and alert anyone nearby. I have a loud yell.”

“I’ll fly away.”

“You’ll be spotted in the sky. A blue F-22 Raptor is not a common sight for anyone to see.”

“What are you gonna do about it? Shoot me down? I have to laugh.”

“There’s actually Autobots outside the perimeter of this forest right now, you know.”

Thundercracker remembered hearing Optimus Prime’s voice previously. He couldn’t think of any other quick excuses, as his processor had already been jumbled up before. This human was quite annoying. How the frag did they have an answer to all of his attempts at getting them to leave and never speak his name? They were a little bit of a know-it-all. If he had to pinpoint their personality, it would almost be like a Soundwave mixed with a Starscream. They had a lot of answers and spoke in perfect grammar, but everything they said came out rather rude.

“What do you gain from tattling on me, besides getting us to be more cautious about raiding your powerplants, huh?”

“Maybe my brother wont have anxiety about getting stomped on every time he steps outside?” The human answered, looking a little ticked off. “In fact, you’re only giving me a million more reasons to tell on you, Mister... what was it? Thundercracker?”

He grit his teeth and glanced down at the creature that was insistently smacking his leg. An idea popped into his mind. One last try, he supposed. Quickly, he scooped up the little thing, earning a shocked and angry expression from the human. “I can kill this. Right now. It’s in my servo. I can crush it. Seems like you care a lot about it, yeah?”

“No!” The human yelled far too loudly for Thundercracker’s liking. He threateningly started to move his digits inward, implying the creature’s doom would come if the human spoke any louder. Reluctantly, they lowered their voice as they talked to him to more of a whisper-shout. “Put my fucking dog down! She has nothing to do with this!”

“Don’t alert anyone or the dog dies,” Thundercracker threatened. He started to close his digits in even more. The creature, now dubbed ‘dog’, started to make its weird little sounds again. “None of the outcomes are good for you. You scream, call the Autobots, or do anything else, and I can crush this thing in an instant. You wouldn’t want that, would you?” He was almost proud of himself. Normally he wasn’t this good at messing with people psychologically. Most of the time it just gave him anxiety and guilt.

The human struggled with themself and made an angry noise before relenting. “Fine! Fine! I won’t say anything! Just let Daisy go!”

“You won’t say anything after you leave me be?”

“No! I promise! God, I don’t know your technology or if you can track me down, but I don’t want to risk that. Please, put Daisy down!”

Just to be mean, Thundercracker fully enclosed the dog in both of his servos. The human’s optics widened out of fear, and it almost looked like a watery liquid was starting to come from them. Thundercracker finally put his servos to the ground and released Daisy. Instantly, the human sped towards the dogs and picked it up, holding it to their chest protectively.

“Go,” Thundercracker commanded.

They obeyed.

As soon as they left, Thundercracker felt like he just had a spark attack. He also felt very, very mean and cruel. How did his commanding officers do stuff like that so easily? The hairball creature was so helpless to him. He didn’t actually plan on killing it.

Deciding he was done with everything for the day, Thundercracker started moving in the direction he came from back to the base. Those coneheads could get whatever they lost themselves.

~

“I felt, like, a lot of negative emotions from you while you were gone, TC,” Skywarp stated to him, sounding worried.

“I just hate doing other people’s jobs, you know?” Thundercracker said, which was a partial truth.

“Didn’t know you could feel fear about that,” Skywarp narrowed his optics at him. They were walking down one of the many halls in the Nemesis, having done all their work for the day until Starscream inevitably shoved the reports he didn’t want to look at in their faces.

“Well, you can,” Thundercracker stiffly replied.

Skywarp continued to stare him down to the point that the both of them stopped walking. They were having a staring contest in the hallway instead now. Thundercracker, not normally stubborn, held his ground. He didn’t need his trinemate knowing that some little tiny human almost gave him full-on spark failure with how much they were threatening him. If their interaction could be considered threatening, that is. He didn’t know what to make of it.

“You really don’t wanna tell me, dude?” Skywarp asked.

“I got spotted by a human while I was on my mission,” Thundercracker blurted. At the very least, he made sure to keep his voice low.

“Oh, that’s pretty stupid of you,” was all Skywarp had to say. “How’d you do that?”

“‘Warp, they were using psychological warfare against me!” Thundercracker defended. It was a pretty lame defense when it was in the context of some wimpy-looking human.

“Why didn’t you just mush them? Problem solved! I do it all the time.”

“They said that they’d scr—“ Thundercracker cut himself off as he fully processed what Skywarp said. “You ‘do it all the time?’ Skywarp? What the actual hell are you saying? You kill humans for fun?”

“Not for fun, no! They’re all gross! I’d never do that for fun!” Skywarp replied all too calmly. At the very least, he had the audacity to lift his servos in front of himself defensively. “No, I’m just not a good spy so they spot me all the time. So I mash them. Done and done. You gotta do it before they even say anything or else it’ll get harder because they try to call people or—“

“You sound like a serial killer.”

“All of us are war criminals. Don’t try to be all ‘holier than thou!’”

Thundercracker gave up on trying to argue back. It was true. They were war criminals. That didn’t mean Skywarp should make it sound like it was super normal to just kill people, even if it was. “Well, I’m pretty sure they were a child anyway, so it would’ve been messed up.”

“Ohhhh, yeah, no, don’t kill kids,” Skywarp agreed.

“What’s this about killing kids?” A high-pitched, scratchy voice asked from behind them. The two of them turned around to face Starscream, realizing that they had most likely raised their voices then.

“We’re not killing kids,” Skywarp replied. Starscream stared at him suspiciously, clutching a few datapads to his chassis. He was walking in a direction that was either going to be towards the command center or his own quarters. “We’re agreeing that we should not kill kids because it’s bad.”

“Of course it’s fragging bad,” Starscream mumbled. Then he focused his attention on his blue trine mate. “Thundercracker! What took you so long to get back from your mission? Did you even get whatever it was you were supposed to be looking for?”

“I was, uh,” Thundercracker stuttered, “not able to find it.”

“Why?”

Skywarp answered, “There was a hu—“

Thundercracker shot him an incredulous glare.

“—a huge tree. It fell on him and cracked his cockpit.”

Starscream, disbelieving, leaned down to scrutinize the alleged cracked cockpit. It was, in fact, cracked. Who knew that icky Earthen nature would be helpful for once?

Unable to spot a flaw, Starscream straightened. “The item was something stupid anyway. I really only sent you out to stretch out your wings a bit more because you never fly out on your free time.” That was... a surprising thing to come from his mouth and weirdly sweet. Face red, Starscream immediately backtracked defensively, saying, “It’s not because I care! I just can’t have you being more sluggish than everyone else on the battlefield.”

“You care about us!” Skywarp loudly taunted. Had Starscream not been carrying an armful of datapads, that taunting would’ve earned a punch to the face.

“Watch your tongue, or else you won’t have one!” Starscream hissed. “Look, just—!” He unloaded a few datapads and shoved a few into each of their arms. “Take these reports and read them over, won’t you! And shut up!” He stormed off to wherever he had been heading, now with considerably less reports in his arms.

Thundercracker expected to get a doubled workload the next day. “Doesn’t seem like much.”

Glancing through it, Skywarp whined, “No, there’s a word with more than ten letters in here. This is gonna take a while. I’m going back to our quarters, TC.”

They waved each other goodbye. Thundercracker glanced through the datapads and saw numerous math equations. Yes, this was indeed going to take a while.

~

Three days later and Thundercracker was back in the fragging woods again. Great, great, great. At the very least, it wasn’t as gross as it was the other day. The ground had dried more, making it far less sticky and wet. Now it was crumbly and uncomfortable to sit on. Can’t win ‘em all. This weather was preferable anyway.

This time he was out doing something actually important. They were planning on doing another raid soon, and him, along with a number of others, had been sent out to spot the best possible place to go and attack the next powerplant. It was very, very odd that the humans in this city had so many powerplants. At least the Decepticons could get something out of their unusual amount of nuclear energy.

Thundercracker found himself crouched down in a strangely familiar patch of land in the forest. Strangely, strangely familiar...

“Aha!” a voice called, followed by a surplus of yip, yip yiping. “I knew you’d be here at some point!”

He tensed. What? Were they talking to him? Primus, he sure hoped not. If he got spotted by a human again, it would be very embarrassing. Skywarp wouldn’t keep it in for him again if it happened.

Out stepped, from a familiar patch of bushes, a small human with brown skin, dark brown hair, and blue glasses that were far too big for their face. In their arms was a little white dog spotted with pale brown fur. They set down the dog with a proud look on their face.

“Human!” Thundercracker whisper-shouted, completely thrown off guard. He was so thrown off in fact, that he had fallen flat on his aft in shock. “What the slag? What are you doing here?”

“Ever since our last encounter, I wanted to meet you again!” They explained. Daisy immediately ran up to him, beginning to pat his leg insistently on more. “I found you interesting. I see a lot of clips of Decepticon attacks on Twitter and seeing you guys hijack the news, and you all seem like huge assholes. But you’re not! If you hadn’t threatened my dog, I would’ve said that you were nice. So I started coming to this part of the woods every day since in hopes that you’d be here again. And you are!”

Thundercracker was silent and dumbfounded. There was no noise except for the blowing of the light wind and the scratching of Daisy’s paws on his leg. “You’ve been searching for me?”

The human nodded.

“And this isn’t to record me or report me or anything of the sort?”

They shook their head.

“Can I trust you on that?”

They paused, and then shook their head again with a smile on their face. “I mean, I’m not going to, but it’s not like you should just blindly trust me.” Smart. He wasn’t going to instantaneously believe that the human wouldn’t get him in trouble with the simply reassurances of a head shake anyway.

“Then why have you been searching for me?” Thundercracker inquired, still very much confused at the aspect. They found him to be a ‘nice’ Decepticon and went to look for him, but not to record or report him. If not for those reasons, then for what?

“For one thing, Daisy remembers you and keeps trying to make me come back to the woods and look for you,” they started, “And it’s a little hard for someone to forget an encounter with a giant evil robot who, despite the adjectives, doesn’t try to kill you. And! I think you owe me a genuine conversation and not one filled with threats.”

The dog kept hitting his leg. Thundercracker contemplated the situation. What’s the worst that could happen if he had a conversation with a little human? Sure, they might still be secretly recording him and they could very well tattle on him to the Autobots, but that was only a possibility. Maybe they were smarter than that because they knew he could recognize their face, hunt them down, and murder them in cold blood. “Fine. We can have a conversation. But only a little one. I’m out here for a reason, you know. It’s not that I actually like crawling around on this gross little planet.”

“Good!” They clapped their hands together. “I should probably tell you my name first so you don’t keep calling me ‘human.’ I’m Noelle. My dog that’s hitting you is Daisy, but you already know that.”

Noelle? That was a weird name. To be fair, all human names sounded weird to him. And, if hours of listening to Starscream ramble about Earthen discoveries to use as poisons against Megatron educated anything towards him, Thundercracker had to guess, “Isn’t a daisy a flower?”

“Yes?”

“Your dog isn’t a flower.”

“I mean, that’s pretty obvious.”

“So why’d you name them after a flower?”

“Because flowers are cute and pretty and so is my dog.”

Fair. Thundercracker didn’t understand how flowers could be viewed as pretty because they were just wet, cold, colorful messes of life. Then again, he wasn’t a human. Humans had different beauty standards.

They continued conversing and, strangely enough, Thundercracker found himself getting immersed. The human, Noelle, was actually entertainingly interesting to talk to when she wasn’t trying to mess with his processor and threaten him. He learned that she was fifteen years old, which was extremely young to him. When asked about his own age, Thundercracker casually told her that he was 5.5 million years old and counting. He didn’t quite understand why that shocked her so much. Hell, that was young for any mech still alive that was born before the war.

She rambled on about all sorts of other things. School, grades, home, the current news that didn’t involve Cybertronians, among other things.

Thundercracker also learned that Noelle had an older brother named Marcus. She fondly described him as being a huge loser and a nerd.

“Do you have a sibling?” Noelle asked after going into a story about how her brother babysat (sitting on babies?) a five year old named Nonnie who kept a lot of trouble. “Like, robot version. I don’t know how you guys are made, so I don’t really know if you get siblings, but...”

“I have trinemates, if that counts,” Thundercracker replied, still not entirely grasping the concept of human siblings. Starscream had once ranted in an extremely disgusted tone about how humans could have multiple offspring. That wasn’t very common among Cybertronians. At least, not anymore. Soundwave still had six children that they knew of, but Cybertronian siblings were different. They were born bonded to the carrier, sire, and any other possible sibling. Humans didn’t have bonds. Weird. Cybertronians that were cold-constructed weren’t born with bonds because they didn’t have carriers or sires.

“What’s a trinemate?” Noelle had a curious expression on her face.

“Well, we’re bonded, but it can be romantic or platonic,” Thundercracker said. His, for example, was platonic, but that could always change.

“No, they’re not the same then,” Noelle moved towards him, seemingly to retrieve Daisy. “Siblings can’t have romantic relationships. Or, at least, they shouldn’t because that’s gross and disgusting.”

“How so?”

“It’d be like... well, you don’t have siblings, so, being in a romantic relationship with your carrier.”

Thundercracker made a disgusted, horrified expression. “No! No, no, trines are not like that at all. Gross.” He tried to make some sort of connection to human culture to help her understand. “We’re sort of like bros with vows.”

Noelle snorted, smiling. She picked up Daisy and looked up at him. “I have to go home. I’ve been out here longer than I planned to be.”

“You’re leaving?” Thundercracker asked. She nodded. Oddly enough, he enjoyed her company and didn’t really want her to leave. Still, they both needed to leave. “Okay.” He paused, trying to find the right kind of farewell. “Have a nice day?”

She gave him a thumbs-up and turned around in the opposite direction of him, making her leave. The dog gave one last yip! before leaving earshot.

As soon as she left, Thundercracker’s comm blared on, and Starscream screamed at him to come back already because everyone else sent on his mission was back in the base.

~

“Just where are you going?” Starscream interrogated suspiciously as Thundercracker neared the elevator.

“Out for a ride,” he tried, attempting to make it sound casual.

“You? Out for a ride? Really?” Starscream squinted at him, scrutinizing. Thundercracker nodded quickly. “I’m surprised, dear Thundercracker. You never fly for fun. What changed, hm?”

Thundercracker searched for an excuse that wasn’t the actual reason, stuttering, “Well, the—the other day when you told me you, uh, only sent me out on that search mission to get me flying again and—and to be healthy and all, so it kinda stuck with me? And now I’m, uh, listening to that advice?”

Starscream looked genuinely surprised, but in a happier way. “You’ve actually listened to me for once?”

Oh. He supposed he did when he phrased his fake excuse that way. “Yeah. I am.”

“Good. Go.”

And go he did.

In actuality, Thundercracker said he had begun laving his base for ‘joyrides,’ but he had really been leaving to sit out in the woods and either wait for Noelle or come and see her already waiting for him. He hated to admit it, but he had actually grown fond of her and her dog. It lightened his opinion on humans in general. Perhaps they weren’t as bad, stupid, and gross as his superior officers made them out to be? Sure, he only met one human, but it had to count for something.

At first, the newfound, growing empathy seemed to be a good thing. Then, as guilt began to riddle Thundercracker’s processor every time they robbed the humans of their energy for their own gain, he realized that maybe it wasn’t so good. Maybe it was a big fat oopsie and he should just cut ties with Noelle before it’s too late. Yet he found himself leaving the base almost every day just to hear her talk about how her day was going.

When he came back from his ‘joyride,’ he walked directly into Skywarp.

“Bro,” Skywarp said, exasperated. “Where have you been?”

“Out,” was the one word answer Thundercracker gave. “Flying.”

“Hey, I’m not stupid,” Skywarp looked a tad annoyed. That claim... could be refuted easily. “I know what you’re like when you fly. Make excuses around Starscream all you want, but I’m the one who can actually feel your emotions through the bond. You have a lot of anxiety when you fly and are only slightly happy about it. But you felt very happy the whole time you were gone.”

Thundercracker opened his mouth to make an excuse, and then closed it. He was never a good liar. Especially to his trine. Extra especially to his one trine mate who actually had the bond open and knew what he felt. “I’ve been meeting with a human.”

Immediately taking it the wrong way, Skywarp looked at him disgustedly. “Gross! TC—“

“No, not like that!” Thundercracker quickly cut him off, mortified at the prospect. “Like, as a friend!”

“You’re friends with a human?”

Trying to at least sneak in some sort of lie so he didn’t look like some organic-loving nerd, Thundercracker said, “To, uh, get intel out of them. Autobot intel. Nothing so far though. They’re the one that, uh, spotted me the other day.”

Skywarp blinked. “Oh. You had me worried that you were going soft on me for a second there, Thunders.”

“Pshh! Nooo, never!” Thundercracker awkwardly replied. Skywarp snickered.

“Well, I mean, it’s a really good thing that you’re not getting attached to any humans or whatever,” Skywarp offhandedly said. “‘Cause that’d make our plans super bad for you!”

Thundercracker laughed. “Yeah.” Then he took in what Skywarp said about plans. “Wait, plans? What do you mean?”

Skywarp tilted his helm, then looked enlightened, then rapped his own helm with his servo. “Right, right! You didn’t know because you’ve been out getting intel or whatever kinda slag you said. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that because it looks like we’re gonna be stuck here for a while, like maybe years, our great Lord Buckethead wants to Cyberform Earth.”

Wait, what?

“Cyberform?” Thundercracker inquired. Everything suddenly sounded far away. Every time they tried to Cyberform a planet, they either wiped out every living being on said planet or nearly wiped out everything because no organic life can survive on a cybernetic planet. That would mean humans would get wiped out, entirely or not. Which meant his friend would...

“You okay, Thundercracker?”

No. He wasn’t. “I’m cool. Yeah. Yeah. I’m cool. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.” Lies, of course, but what else was he to say? ‘No, we can’t Cyberform Earth because I became emotionally attached to a rude little human and her pet?’ Frag. What was he even supposed to do about that?

“Cool,” Skywarp grinned, but his smile faltered as he sensed his trinemate’s inner turmoil. “You positively okay, dude?”

Thundercracker nodded. Smile and fake it. Simple. “Let’s just get a drink or something, Skywarp.”

Skywarp grew confused. “Thundercracker, you never drink.”

“Maybe I’ll start.”

Hell.

Chapter Text

Starscream had his all of his vents sealed as tightly shut as they possibly could, including his head vents. Had he been in any other circumstance, he would of kept all of his vents open like normal. Unfortunately this was not any other circumstance, and he had to keep the little heat in his body that he had inside himself. It was just too damn cold to let himself stay open. Why, exactly, was he so cold?

Because Megatron was an idiot and had brought them to the fragging arctic. Of all places! Allegedly, there were large energon deposits beneath the cold ground, untouched by humans. They had been able to track the larger locations with a scanner that they’d received from Cybertron. Megatron had sent out a couple of troops on a high risk mission to scan random places on Earth and they all came back with the arctic having the most pure kind of energon possible.

They’d set up a sad, tiny little temporary base in the arctic because sit was very clear that they’d be stuck there for quite some time before they got as much energon as they could. It consisted of shoddy tents, varying in sizes, and multiple work tables. They only took one computer with them and kept the most tech-savvy mechs holed away in the tent it was in. They also didn’t set up enough tents, so there were numerous awkward situations were mechs had to share the same tent, and even berth in some cases.

Yes. ‘They were roommates,’ if you will. Starscream heard that phrase on the human internet before.

Megatron had sent out all of the Constructicons along with numerous other strong soldiers to mine out as much of the energon as they could before the Autobots inevitably arrived and decided that they weren’t allowed to eat. It was favorable to just mine out the energon deposits and not beat the slag out of the strange amount of powerplants that the humans seemed to have. There was far less conflict in the cold terrain, where practically nobody lived.

Starscream, however, hated the arctic with a passion for a multitude of reasons. The first one was obvious, as it was cold and uncomfortable and there wasn’t enough fun science to explore in cold areas. The second was because he could die at any moment because he wasn’t designed to survive such harsh coldness. The third was because, well, it was a little traumatizing to lose your lab partner in a snowstorm and almost die at the same time. Starscream had tried to reason with Megatron that he really shouldn’t go and that it was far too dangerous for someone like him to leave. He couldn’t conserve heat well! It was hard to fly because it was freezing and windy! The air was so cold that it practically burned to inhale because there was virtually no humidity up in the northern arctic! It was susceptible that the humidity issue would be the same in Antarctica.

Starscream would have preferred Antarctica, though. All of the penguins that were down there were far more docile than the fragging polar bears that he had to deal with in the north. Sure, he genuinely loved the creatures that liked to kill everything in sight (megalodons), but polar bears were covered in hair and not nearly as excitingly large as the 30-60 foot long sharks that terrorized him when he was on Earth six million years ago. Oh, how he missed those sharks. One tried to bite off his wing before and nearly succeeded. He’d gotten multiple tooth samples from that event. It was one of his favorite memories from back then. Starscream hoped that the megalodons were still alive. It’d be nice to see an old friend.

He shook himself out of the wistful memories of being nearly brutally murdered by sea creatures. Now was not the time to reminisce! Starscream needed to be angry at Megatron for bringing him up to this cold butthole of a place.

Strangely enough, Megatron had been nearly glued to him since the moment the both of them arrived in the bitterly cold land. It was like he felt the need to keep a closer eye on him than usual. That was always a good thing to do in any normal situation, but Starscream was too busy sulking about the cold to plan Megatron’s demise more thoroughly.

Megatron was just constantly pestering him about the littlest of things! Reports, air force drills (which he was most definitely not doing in the horrid climate), and other inanely particular subjects. It was irritating as all hell. It was like he was babying him at all times, like he was some malfunctioning imbecile! Starscream was a full grown mech who was second in command, an air commander, and had a doctorate, so he expected to be treated that way. Megatron seemed to be making an attempt to keep Starscream in the tents as much as possible.

So, like any normal mech, Starscream would sneak out. Either at night or day. To be fair, there was almost never an official ‘night time’ because where they were stationed, the sun was directly making sure that they got as much sunlight as possible. They got an hour or so of darkness per day, tops.

And of course, Starscream’s efforts of sneaking out would prove to be futile. Soundwave wasn’t there to keep an eye on him because he was back at their real base in the ocean, but Megatron sure was. He’d poke him back into the tent, and Starscream would sulk and not get any work done.

They’d been in the arctic for twelve days and Starscream barely had gotten any action. Well, as much ‘action’ as one could get without any actual battles. Couldn’t he just, oh, explore a bit? Find a creature and conduct cruel experiments on it for his own curiosity? Seriously, he was near death with boredom!

Starscream was tapping away at a datapad, not proofreading anything he wrote and making several typos because he didn’t exactly care how terrible his report came out. What was Megatron gonna do, demote him for bad grammar? Along with his vents being sealed shut, Starscream’s joints were rather frozen too. It was a little hard to move. The only perk of being in the tent was the warmth it provided, which was little.

Movement caught his optics, and Starscream glanced up from his grammatically horrifying datapad to see Megatron moving the tent flap to enter.

Oh, he forgot to mention! To make matters worse, Starscream shared a tent with Megatron. Yes, he normally did when his trine was not on a long mission with him, but it was even more infuriating now that Megatron was behaving like the doting carrier he never even had.

“Oh,” Starscream drawled in a disinterested tone. “It’s you.”

“Pleased to see you too, Starscream,” Megatron grunted. He sat his huge aft right next to him, taking up as much space as he could. Starscream was forced to uncomfortably move further into the corner. Megatron let out a loud, dramatic sigh. Please! Like he had the right to be tired when all he did was stand around and yell all day.

“What are you here for? Giving me another report?” Starscream sarcastically asked. He went back to typing on his datapad, making sure to begin adding curse words in his writing to release frustration.

Megatron shot a glare at him. “I need to recharge too, fool.” Starscream scoffed and continued to fill his report with profanities, each one worse than the last. His mood was beginning to lighten from it.

“Recharge from what?” Starscream inquired. “You haven’t done slag in the past twelve cycles.” He decided it was nigh time to fully delve into their unnecessary argument, tossing the datapad aside to put full focus on Megatron.

“Oh, shut up,” Megatron grumbled. He reached for the datapad that Starscream tossed and skimmed it. “Really? You described this place as being ‘colder than my sire’s love for me?’ Be appropriate.”

“It’s accurate.” Starscream shifted move as far away from Megatron as possible while also being vaguely comfortable. He soon realized that it would be impossible to achieve such a thing, and went back to being squished up to the wall of the tent.

Megatron mumbled something rude and began drifting off into recharge. Sitting up. Hopefully the bad position would hurt his back, then. Starscream stared at Megatron’s near-asleep form, allowing the dastardly thoughts of murder to creep into his mind. It would be so easy, but killing someone in their sleep is such a cowardly move. Despite that, Starscream couldn’t resist.

Slowly, his servo crept towards Megatron’s neck cables. It would be so, so easy. His sharp digits were ever so close, if he could just move a little closer—!

“And just what do you think you’re doing?” Megatron blinked one optic open, unimpressed. Starscream’s servo was tightly trapped in his leader’s far larger one, just loose enough as to not crush it.

“Oh, you know!” Starscream squeaked out, surprise. Drat. Of course he’d know what he’d try to do, but it was still annoying to get caught every single time. Yes, he had tried to kill Megatron every night since they’d been in the arctic sleeping in the same tent. Each attempt a failure.

Surprisingly, Megatron pulled on his servo, bringing Starscream’s face even closer to his than before. Starscream let out a squawk of surprise.

“I can easily throw you out in the snow and leave you there, Starscream,” Megatron threatened, his hot breath getting on Starscream’s face. It was gross and uncomfortable. “I’m being merciful. You wouldn’t want to freeze out there, would you?”

Had Megatron not said the last line, Starscream would’ve given a snarky response that he would prefer to go out in the snow because it would give him something to do. But freezing to death was a rather unfortunate fear of his. “No, I... wouldn’t.” He realized he sounded like a compliant little sparkling, so he added, “Let me go. You’re crushing my servo, you buffoon.”

Megatron released his servo. Starscream rubbed it, pretending he was hurt. Eventually, Megatron fell back into recharge and Starscream joined him a full joor later.

~

Starscream woke up leaning on Megatron in a far too friendly manner. He would have pushed himself up had Megatron’s arm not been around him like he was a little youngling who slept with a toy every night. And Starscream was not a toy. He pushed the arm off of him roughly, successfully waking Megatron up in the process, and moved away from him.

They went about their day as normal. Starscream kept getting paperwork and was stalked by Megatron. Megatron yelled at people because his soldiers were trying to have a snowball fight instead of mining out the energon. Of course, he may have let some mechs continue the fight had they not been using large chunks of ice covered in snow to disguise the true, more harmful intent. There was no time for injures. Someone messed up the one computer that they had three times and it nearly short-circuited every single time. Another mech was caught trying to eat the crystallized energon off instead of mining it, successfully cutting up his lips and tongue in the process. You know, normal stuff!

And, of course, Starscream attempted to sneak out of the tent he was stuck inside once more. And, of course, he was caught by Megatron who had been inconveniently standing there.

That was how he ended up in a situation where his face was being pressed into the ground by Megatron’s servo, and his arms were being forcefully held behind his back. It was only because he tried to attack Megatron the moment he was spotted. He didn’t like to go down easy. Unfortunately, that was exactly what he did.

“You’re a restless little fool, aren’t you?” Megatron asked, sounding a tad breathless. Starscream did put up a fight, just not a good one.

“Maybe if I wasn’t stuck here, in the cold, stupid arctic, unable to fly for the entirety of the time that I’ve been here, then I’d be telling a different story!” Starscream shouted at him, though his voice was more muffled so it came out more as talking slightly loudly. He struggled a little. “Unhand me!”

Megatron warily released his arms. As soon as Starscream pushed himself off the ground and dusted himself off, he turned to retreat back to the tent and sulk. Except, this time, Megatron caught his arm and stopped him. “We’re not done here.”

Stiffly, Starscream replied, “I believe we are.” He tried to wrench his arm free from its grasp but to no avail. He turned around to face him. “What is it, you big, blundering oaf? Can’t you just take your win and leave? I have datapads to deface with profanities, you imbecile!”

“You really hate having to do nothing?” Megatron questioned. Well, duh! Who liked doing nothing? “I was under the belief that you hated the cold. If I knew you were fine with being in it, I could have let you yell at our troops more.”

Oh?

Oh!

Ohhhh.

Megatron always was stupidly soft to him at times, but Starscream really didn’t expect it to go to the lengths of trying to keep him out of cold weather. Had he not been getting stalked and covered in paperwork, Starscream would have despised having to work outside in the cold. The only reason why he wanted to get out was because he wasn’t allowed to. Megatron must have seen the realization hit Starscream’s face because he soon released his arm and cast his gaze off to the side, away from any eye contact.

Perhaps he could manipulate this now emotionally vulnerable situation.

“Maybe if you want to make me feel better—“

“I never said that.”

“If you want to make me feel better,” Starscream continued as though he hadn’t been interrupted, “you would let me explore more. Be me. Perhaps apprehend a creature and let me conduct a few... experiments. Let me live a little while I have to spend time in a place I hate.”

“You hate the Nemesis, and I don’t let you ‘live a little’ there either.”

“Incorrect. I still experiment on organisms.”

“What?”

“Why do you think the hallways get flooded with fish corpses every once in a while?”

Megatron sputtered, incredulous. It made sense, though. No one else liked to touch organic stuff willingly. Ah, yes, the perks of loving science! Megatron seemed to struggle with himself a little, before finally saying, “With supervision.”

Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Starscream had enough stalking as of late! “How the fragging Pit am I gonna shoot gamma into a polar bear if you’re watching over me the whole time?” Starscream screeched at him. It drew in the attention of some other mechs.

“Take it or leave it, fool,” Megatron challenged, raising a brow at him.

Reluctantly, Starscream accepted it. It wasn’t like Megatron could stop him from rearranging the DNA inside of the animal anyway.

~

It was surprisingly difficult for Starscream to escape Megatron’s sights without getting lost himself. Due to there being virtually nothing he could hide behind, the only way that he could evade Megatron was if he transformed and flew far away. But he would get lost if he did that because the arctic had no noticeable landmarks whatsoever.

“What are you even looking for out here?” Megatron asked him for the third time in an extremely irritated tone. Yes, they’d been walking around aimlessly, getting farther and farther away from their temporary base. Other than the one just asked, Megatron had been pestering Starscream with other stupid, fatuous questions. Primus, the idiot didn’t even know how snow worked!

“I’ve given you a different answer every time, Mega-dolt,” Starscream snarked. He shivered in the cold and walked stiffly, making sure to close his vents even tighter. There was ice in his joints. There had been since the first day he’d been forced into the stupid mission. “What answer do you want now? I already told you an animal, then I told you samples. What next? My lab partner that I lost up here six million years ago?” He sniffed, and then immediately regretted it as the forced breath filled him with cold air. “I’m exploring.”

Oddly enough, Megatron was quiet. That was a good thing. He only asked questions anyway. There hadn’t been a single regular statement to come out of him. “You lost someone out here?” Oh, boy, here he was with the questions again! Who would’ve thought?

It was definitely a less desired question, though.

“Correct, and it’s none of your business,” Starscream replied, folding his arms over his chassis. His entire frame shivered, wings hiking up as high as they could, as the wind picked up. He knew that sooner or later, Megatron would suggest heading back to their flimsy little base. As if that place would provide them with any heat anyway!

To be ever so predictable, Megatron said, “We should—“

“I’m not heading back. Not yet, anyway.” Starscream didn’t quite get why he said that in... that kind of serious tone, but he did. He didn’t know what he was looking for. He just didn’t want to go back to that stupid tent, get doted on by stupid Megatron, and be forced in the company of their stupid soldiers who liked to throw large hunks of ice at each other’s helms. He preferred to be with intelligence, and everyone at their arctic base was lacking in that department.

A part of him was tempted to say that he was looking for intelligence. A specific one. One that he’d known before. But that would be idiotic and hopeful, and the latter of those two adjectives died within Starscream a long time ago.

The wind picked up. Neither of them predicted a storm of any sorts, but they didn’t have anything reliable to use to predict the weather. Starscream found himself growing more and more hunched over, trying to curl in on himself to keep in what little heat he had while continuing to move. His wings shuddered. He heard the sound of his name being called through the harsh wailing of the wind.

Starscream turned around to face Megatron, screeching, “I swear to fragging Primus, if you try to suggest that we turn around, I’m going to—to—ugh!” He threw his servos up, and then immediately regretted it as the covered parts of his body began to rush with bitter cold.

“I wasn’t going to say that, fool!” Megatron shouted back at him. Starscream had stopped walking as a whole, allowing Megatron to catch up with him and stand directly in front of him. His hulking frame suddenly seemed far larger, as it was the only thing Starscream could clearly see as the wind picked up snow and the world around him turned white.

The world around him turning white. That was a memory he knew all too well. The only difference was that he wasn’t alone.

“Then what were you going to say?” Starscream screamed back at him. “‘Oh, my dear Starscream, let’s just shrivel up and die in this storm! Wouldn’t that be wondrous?’ Fragging Pit, Megatron! If we turn around, we’ll face the wind, and it’ll be much harder to go back! Oooh, better yet! I bet you’re thinking, ‘I’ll just leave Starscream here to turn into an icicle and freeze to death because I’ve wanted him dead for so, so long anyway!’”

Strangely, Starscream suddenly found himself trapped in a bear hug of sorts in Megatron’s giant arms. His giant, warm arms. Megatron’s vents released small gusts of hot air directly on to Starscream’s shivering frame. The bulky frame surrounding him blocked off any and all wind, save for Megatron’s slight sways at the force of it all.

The old idiot was going to use up all of his heat on him, wasn’t he?

Starscream’s face was squashed up against Megatron’s broad chassis and his arms were pressed tightly against his sides. Megatron’s hold on him tightened.

“We’ll wait,” was all Megatron said. Starscream, overcome with emotion at the prospect of actually being protected, found himself inclined to agree.

Eventually Megatron settled on the ground to fight against the imbalance of the harsh wind, sitting criss-cross applesauce. He adjusted to keep Starscream off of the snow, and Starscream allowed himself to be manhandled into Megatron’s lap without much struggle. Sure, he resisted because it was embarrassing, but he eventually accepted that he was definitely going to be in Megatron’s lap for quite some time as they waited for the wind to die down. Sometimes Starscream’s wings twitched, as the large frame around him couldn’t cover every part of his body.

Megatron’s servo lightly brushed his wing to cease its twitching. Starscream didn’t even know that he knew how to do that, let alone gently. He felt his wings droop.

The wind howled. The howling dwindled down to a bark, which dwindled down to simple yipping, which ceased.

Starscream looked up at Megatron, and Megatron looked down at him. They were still.

“If I wanted to leave you to die, I would have done so a long time ago,” Megatron gruffly mumbled.

Dumbly, Starscream could only respond with, “Megatron?”

Megatron moved one of his arms from around Starscream and moving to lightly cup the back of his helm with his servo. “Starscream.” Yes, they were both still. Peaceful, almost.

Then Megatron’s fragging comm buzzed loudly. Instinctively, he answered. Starscream was close enough to him that could hear the voice on the other end.

”Lord Megatron!”

“I’m quite busy, Scrapper. Did you break something? I told you to be more careful with your tools on this type of energon,” Megatron growled.

‘Busy.’ What did that entail? Starscream could only wonder as he sat in Megatron’s lap. Nope, nothing came to mind. Not a single thing. Especially nothing intimate or inappropriate or anything of the like.

”Sir, you’re going to need to see this! It’s important!”

Their weird little moment was ruined and Starscream snapped back into reality, violently pushing himself off of the lap he was sitting on and roughly standing up. He wobbled, and a wing twitched. Megatron sighed, pushing himself off of the ground. Whatever Scrapper needed him for had better be good.

~

Starscream decided to come along with Megatron to what ever ‘important’ thing Scrapper had. One of their idiot troops probably fatally stabbed themselves with a crystal or something of the like. It would definitely be something so unbelievably idiotic that even Megatron would agree that Starscream would be allowed to go back to their real base in Nemesis to save himself from the stupidity that would end up killing him.

His head was jumbled up with thoughts. Were he and Megatron about to kiss, or were they about to break out into a brawl? To keep his sense of self-preservation, Starscream envisioned that it would be the second option.

Perhaps it would be better to see his own soldiers being absolute buffoons. It would probably clear up his processor a bit.

As he and Megatron silently and awkwardly made their way towards where Scrapper alerted them to come, Megatron cleared his throat and inquired, “Are we going to talk about what had happened before we were interrupted?”

“Absolutely not,” Starscream quickly answered. He did not want to think about that odd little moment for another second.

“Good. I didn’t want to.” Megatron balled his fists at his sides and picked up his pace. Looking at his leader, who was walking so uncertainly, Starscream found himself being glad that they were interrupted. If they hadn’t been, then they’d definitely have to talk about it afterward, which was not something that either of them would want to do.

They finally entered the largest source of the crystallized energon that they had mined out. It was surprisingly very hollowed out. They got a lot done. It was deep, perhaps a thousand feet or so beneath the ground.

But the size of the hollowed out ground was not the thing that captured Starscream’s attention. Rather, it was the gargantuan Cybertronian who was encased entirely in ice. With optics blackened and offlined, it looked like the Cybertronian was a corpse. The only defining difference between him and a corpse was that he wasn’t grayed out, and still had his colors.

Those colors, of which, being white, blue, red, and gray.

Stunned, Megatron immediately turned to his troops and started interrogating them on the Cybertronian that they had unearthed. Did they recognize him? How did they come across him? Why didn’t he have an insignia? Was he a neutral? They couldn’t answer those questions. They didn’t know the mech.

Starscream took an uncertain step forward. No, it couldn’t have been real. He was definitely hallucinating. It was probably the cold getting to him. They definitely did not just dig up the mech he had lost six million years ago.

He took another step forward until he was right in front of the mech he recognized. He placed a shaky servo on the ice. It was smooth yet jagged.

In a soft voice that Starscream didn’t even recognize coming from his vocalizer, he whispered.

“Skyfire?”