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Megatron's left leg clicked and pulled with his every step, a red warning notification flashing up on his HUD in time with the laboured huffs of his vents. There was a hole in his side, where a blaster bolt had sliced clean through him, dangerously close to various parts of internal hardware, and though his peripheral vision was hindered by the edges of his helmet, he was quite certain he was missing a large portion of his head.
It would explain the complete lack of audio he was receiving from the left and why he didn't hear Starscream's clumsy landing until the seeker was stumbling loudly through the ratty remains of an Autobot flag and tripping over into the dust with a sharp curse and dull clunk.
With half his processor exposed to the open air, Megatron's reaction time was somewhat delayed. He turned slowly and found Starscream on the floor at his pedes, tangled in the flag's remains. The reason for the clumsy landing was obvious. One wing had been blown clean off.
He watched Starscream angrily claw the flag from his frame and rip it into shreds of fabric.
"Where the Pit are the medics!" He demanded, rolling onto his front to push himself up. He teetered sideways, unused to being so unbalanced. Megatron caught him by the elbow out of pure instinct, and was slapped across the wrist for his trouble, a sting he barely registered with his other pulsing injuries. "Have you seen my wing?"
"That depends," Megatron growled. "Have you seen the other half of my head?"
Starscream looked up from brushing himself off, optics darting to the left side of his head. "...Huh, that wasn't like that this morning?"
Megatron couldn't tell if he was joking or not, "What do you think?"
Starscream sniffed, and as his face twisted into a sneer Megatron noticed that that had taken a blow too. Likely from a large fist. His nose was dented and his bottom lip impressively split open. Poor thing. He'd be inconsolable when he saw a mirror.
"Honestly Megatron, I think you're covered in so many ugly scars and holes that you never bother to fix that it'd be impossible for me to remember them all anyway." Starscream looked him up and down. "At any rate, I try not to look at you. Grey is such a depressing colour-"
"Hail a medic," Megatron ordered before he was forced to listen to Starscream natter on about the fragging colour wheel again.
"Comms are down," Starscream snapped snippily.
Megatron groaned softly. He had hoped his own inability to contact Hook had been a side-effect of his damage.
"Then take to the sky and find a medic by sight."
Starscream stared at him incredulously, "How do you expect me to achieve such a thing with one wing?"
"You have thrusters, don't you?"
"I wouldn't have any more directional control than if you were to fling me into the air," Starscream protested.
"That can be arranged."
Starscream's fat lip meant his pout was twice as pronounced than was standard. Megatron worked hard to keep his own expression stoic as his merciless air warrior became more visually akin to a grumpy youngling.
"I have an idea," Starscream began to smile -and it wasn't a good smile, the small, surprised, wry sort of smile that appeared once in a blue moon and was quick to be replaced with an over compensating scowl- no, it was the dangerous smile, the Cheshire Grin of a seeker plotting his superior's suffering. "Why don't you stay here, and I'll get help on foot?"
"Why would I remain out here?" Megatron crossed his arms and leaned back on his heels. "Five miles into enemy territory?"
"You think I can't tell when you're hiding an injury?" Starscream's optics sparked. "And no, I don't mean just that chunk missing out of your head. Through really I have to ask, what's the point in wearing such a disgusting bucket if I doesn't even do the job of protecting you? You might as well be wearing a sunhat."
Megatron sneered, taking slow limping steps towards the seeker, casting his shorter frame in dark shadow. "Injured or no, I am still perfectly capable of walking."
Starscream held his ground, looking fairly un-menaced by his advance. "Oh really?"
The smile was back, and that was Megatron's cue to get out of mauling range.
Unfortunately he was injured, and barely managed a backwards stumble before Starscream's foot shot out and kicked him right in the knee cap, jolting the damaged struts and sending such an intense throb of pain through Megatron's sensor-net that he dropped to his knees with a soundless gasp.
"What about now?"
Megatron hissed through his denta, clutching his leg above the thigh, "Brat-"
"Fear not, Mighty Megatron~" Starscream sung, sauntering past him. "Your loyal Starscream shall-"
Megatron caught his wrist and swung him back, "You're not going anywhere-!"
"Oh, what are you going to do? Bleed on me?" Starscream scratched at the fingers encircling his wrist. "Let go of me, you old fool, don't you want me to get help-?"
Megatron tipped up his fusion cannon, pushing the last of his reserve fuel towards powering it up. Sparks of purple illuminated Starscream's face, which was now filled with fear. Megatron met his gaze behind the glowing barrel. "You fix me."
Starscream was silent for a moment, staring down into glowing, neon violet death.
"Well I'm flattered that you think I have the mechanical skills to put a processor as deranged as yours back together-"
Megatron squeezed his wrist, cutting him off. "My leg," he snapped.
"You're being ridiculous," Starscream was clutching at his fingers now rather than trying to prise them off his wrist, "You don't trust me to find help, but you'll trust me to take you apart and put you together again?"
"No," Megatron waved the cannon slightly, "I trust your sense of self-preservation, but I can't very well threaten you if you're not in range."
Starscream glanced at the fusion cannon again.
"...I rue the day I gave you that thing," he relented with the deepest of sighs, accepting of his fate.
But he certainly wasn't quiet about it. Their bickering continued well into Starscream's begrudging repairs.
Megatron couldn't recall what had ever possessed him to promote such an argumentative fool into his inner circle. He wasn't delusional enough to pretend Starscream had been any better behaved all those years ago when he had just been one of the many seekers under his command- his ambition and arrogance was what had set him apart in the first place. He had known what he was even then.
Soundwave had warned him. Shockwave had warned him.
So he had no one to blame but himself for the predicament of being unable to trust his own Second in Command with the simple task of relaying his coordinates to a medic and not leaving him out in the ruins to die. Anyone else would have returned with help by now, and he'd be blissfully unaware of his own injuries as deftly skilled medical fingers spliced wires and circuits.
Starscream electrocuted himself on a wire and snarled another curse, sucking his smoking finger into his mouth. "When were you built?" he snarled, voice distorted by his finger. "The Stone Age?"
Megatron merely grunted.
Starscream went back to the repairs, his brow furrowing as his claws tentatively dipped back into the tiny gap between thigh armour and knee cap. To get a better angle and allow in more light so he could see what he was doing, he lifted Megatron's leg into his lap, sneering at the mud caked treads of his leader's pedes.
"Now I know who traipses mud all through the ship..." he muttered under his breath.
"Because you spend hours scrubbing the decks, don't you?" Megatron muttered.
"I have to walk over those floors too," Starscream's narrowed optics met his. "This is why we can't have nice things. You and your kind smear mud and grease over everything-"
"Why must you turn everything into an argument?" Megatron demanded.
"You started the argument," Starscream angrily tugged out a wire, causing Megatron to hiss.
"Because your endless nagging drives me to distraction!"
Starscream's optics flared. "Nagging?!"
Megatron didn't have anything to lose. He twisted the knife. "Like an old mother-board."
He could tell it was taking every ounce of Starscream's self-restraint not to fly at him and remove the rest of his head. He was biting down on his bottom lip so hard he had made the split in it bleed again. A droplet of pink welled up and tracked down his chin.
"I don't know why I'm bothering with these repairs," he finally spoke, his vocaliser shrill and off-key with repressed anger. "You're so derelict you'll be falling apart before the end of this century."
Megatron only half heard him. "You're bleeding."
"You're a bastard," Starscream continued, clearly not listening.
"You're bleeding," Megatron repeated himself, drawn to the minor, almost inconsequential, injury. He reached out. Starscream saw his hand approaching and slapped it away with a start.
"What are you doing?!"
Megatron paused. What had he been doing?
"Let me see."
Starscream sucked his damaged lip into his mouth with a scowl. "It's fine," he mumbled.
They were sitting close enough that Megatron could simply take hold his head and turn it towards him. Starscream knocked his arms away and a brief struggle jostled his damaged leg, but a firm grip on the back of the seeker's neck had Starscream stiffening with a glare, unable to escape.
Megatron took his jaw and pushed down on his chin with his thumb. He squeezed, not enough to hurt but certainly enough to insist.
Optics rolling towards the sky, Starscream released the lip from between his teeth. The further abuse he had subjected it to had made it all the more swollen, and it swiftly began to bleed again.
Megatron hummed. "Self-repair should take care of it."
"I could have told you that," Starscream muttered grumpily, trying to lift his chin out of Megatron's grip. Megatron held fast.
Starscream whined impatiently, one wing dipping down. "Megatron."
"How did it happen?"
"I was punched," Starscream grit out.
Megatron's thumb moved up. He brushed the cut lightly, energon warming his thumb-pad. He could feel Starscream's ventilations brush his armour as he swept it across, painting Starscream's lip pink. "By who?"
Starscream didn't answer until Megatron tore his gaze away from his lip and met his optics. They weren't glaring anymore.
"By someone who has no respect for a work of fine art," Starscream he spoke lowly.
"Clearly," Megatron agreed, glancing at the pink smear of energon he'd made.
Starscream's breath fluttered against his thumb. Megatron met his gaze again. Starscream's optics had shuttered half-way, the centres dimming to a warm orange.
They were already so close together, heat mingling between their frustrated, aching frames. Starscream's hand on his thigh shifted and squeezed.
Perfectly synchronised with one another, they dropped their gazes to each other'a lips, and moved in to-
Starscream wrenched himself away with a piercing shriek of, "You kissed me?!"
Megatron's lips were now smeared with the same pink as Starscream's and tingling from the contact.
His defensive protocols fired up and caused him throw out an accusatory arm, "You kissed me!"
"No," Starscream jabbed a claw at him. "You leaned in-!"
"I did nothing of the sort!" Megatron's armour heckled. "And if it was so unwanted, why didn't you pull away?"
"I did!"
"Not for three full seconds you didn't!"
"I was paralysed by horror!" Starscream roared, jumping up, a full, deep blush covering his cheeks.
"I'll show you horror!" Megatron growled, surging to his pedes-
His knee buckled and he collapsed into a heap on the ground with a cry. When the throbbing pain subsided enough for motor function to restart, he lifted his (half) head out of the mud for the privilege of watching Starscream sprint off into the distance, running in zig-zags to serpentine any vengeful fusion blasts.
Megatron actually did consider warming up his cannon before an overwhelming sense of exhaustion consumed him.
He rolled over onto his back. Fantastic. He was going to rust out here, and not only would darling Starscream steal his throne but he'd also spread hundreds of unfounded rumours about their last hour together. His reputation was as good as ruined. Perhaps it was best he did expire quietly and alone.
He was still spiralling downwards into self-pity an hour or so later when the throom of approaching thrusters sounded. He blinked his optics online as a shuttle appeared overhead. He turned his helm to watch it land beside him, kicking up fallen Autobot flags and casting them into wind.
The hatch opened and out jumped the Constructicons.
"Lord Megatron, Sir," Hook sounded as surprised as Megatron felt. "Commander Starscream gave us your location."
Megatron could only stare.
"We thought we'd be reclaiming an empty frame," Scrapper, who had much less of a filter admitted to him with a note of relief.
Megatron swallowed dryly, "He told you I was dead?"
"We assumed," Hook cringed. "I guess Starscream's not as predictable as we like to think he is."
Megatron grunted softly, struggling to get his working leg under him as they began to lift him. A small smile made it's way across his face.
He knew he'd felt that lying fiend kiss back.