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Waiting has never been easy for Jetfire, but right now, he thinks it’s the worst torture that’s ever been inflicted upon him, some sort of penance for every mistake he’s stumbled through. The sense of looming dread, of feeling like everything he knows will be turned upside down again that accompanies it is becoming all too familiar.
Jetfire is many things but patient is not one of them. The first few hours are the worst. He’s huddled himself in the farthest corner of the Decepticon flight deck where no one will look at him with undeserved pity in their optics or ask him how he’s doing, but the silence sits with him like an unwelcome guest. And no matter how hard he tries to sit as still as a ghost and think of absolutely nothing at all, his traitorous processor always drifts back to Starscream.
It had been a fight to get him to let go of Starscream’s spark even after he’d returned to the rest of the Decepticons with it. He never wanted to leave him alone, not anymore, never again. But, he knew that he would be in good hands, with those who could return him to his frame again and so he reluctantly handed it over.
What if his spark rejected a different frame? What if he wasn’t the same after what had happened? How much would be left of him if he did survive the transfer? Traumatic spark injuries were extremely dangerous and the same technology had left Starscream’s code half-corrupted the last time he tried to sync with a Titan. He didn’t want to think about that possibility and where it would leave him if it came to fruition.
—
(It’s another few hours before Megatron comes to see him, a cube of energon in his hand.
Refueling is the last thing Jetfire wants to do, just the thought of it makes his tanks flip inside out, but he knows it’s an inevitability. Life goes on and he needs to keep surviving to keep up with it.
“How is he?” Jetfire asks when the cube is half empty.
“He’s… adjusting,” Megatron says carefully, the word feels bitter in the air. “He’ll pull through. He’s always been stubborn like that. I don’t think he’d know how to give up if he tried.”
That pulls a smile out of Jetfire, the first time he’s smiled since this whole ordeal started. “That’s Starscream for you…”
There’s a moment of calmness unbefitting the both of them. It feels like the closest they’ll ever get to forgiveness.
“Thank you for bringing him back, Jetfire.”
“Thank you for always looking after him even when I couldn’t.”)
—
“It may get worse before it gets better,” Soundwave had said. It’s a cold comfort at best, but he holds it close to his spark as the hours pass and he watches the horizon shift.
Life continues on and all he can do is wait. He owes Starscream that much at the very least.
Even if he never comes back online, no matter what form he may take, no matter how damaged his spark might be. He’ll wait for him forever and always.
—
(Jetfire likes to think that he’s always known.
He’s always known because he can’t remember a time before Starscream—a time before they were going to change the world together and revive their planet’s past. From the beginning, it’s been the two of them against the world, fighting an uphill battle that most bots wouldn’t spare a second glance at.
But in a second, a fraction of such a long lifespan, he realizes just how blind he’s always been.
It’s only as he’s helping Starscream up again, side by side after millions of years torn apart and pitted against each other, that it finally clicks. Just like that, a yawning chasm that’s been so painfully empty for millennia is filled again, given a second breath of life. And everything finally makes sense.
He’s been in love with his best friend the entire time, so foolishly, irrevocably in love it nearly knocks him off his pedes how blind he’s been this entire time. The kind of love that there was never going to be a happy ending for. The kind of love that neither of them would come back from because Jetfire had been too blind and too weak to admit it to himself before it was far too late.
The worst part, he realizes, is that Starscream will forgive him for it in the way that he always does. They’re both as bad as each other and they’d both rather die for each other than ever admit it.
“Heh. Think he missed… my spark…”
“Good.”
And just as Jetfire’s world is cast in a whole new light, like he’s seeing for the very first time, it’s thrown completely off its axis. Just as quickly as everything makes sense, everything shatters.)
—
“How much longer are you going to make me wait, Jetfire?”
Jetfire’s optics shutter and then open slowly. There’s condensation and dew rolling down his frame in rivulets when he comes online again. Light has fractured the darkened skyline and his chronometer alerts him that it’s been a full solar cycle. He must have recharged outside overnight.
Starscream stands in front of him on the empty flight deck, looking untouched by the cruel hands of time. There’s a moment where they stare at each other in a competition to see who breaks first. Jetfire almost wonders if he’s still in recharge. He waits a painfully long moment where silence hangs heavy between them before he finally allows himself to move even a centimeter. He opens his mouth to speak and then shuts it. The words won’t come, not in the way that he wants them to. There’s not anything Jetfire can say big enough to fill the gap between them, to mend the rift left by millenia apart.
“Took you long enough,” Starscream is the one who finally breaks the silence. He’s smiling and it’s a sight Jetfire’s longed to see again more than anything.
“Huh?”
Starscream sits next to him, swinging his legs over the edge of the flight deck peacefully like they’ve never been at war. “When I was… in Metroplex, I could feel whenever you were nearby. You were always circling, never getting too close. I was wondering when you were finally going to act. You sure know how to keep me waiting!”
“I was just…”
“Waiting for the right moment?” And Starscream honest to goodness laughs. He laughs like nothing has happened between them, like they’re still friends and colleagues and partners.
Hope isn’t something Jetfire’s used to feeling, not anymore anyway. Hope had been burned out of him a long time ago. Maybe it was when the first cities started falling, senseless destruction running rampant and millions of lives being tarnished by grief and loss. Or maybe it was when they had finally won the war but winning had never felt so hollow, a meaningless victory that only promised more unrest. But, now hope clawed at his chassis like it was trying to rip out his spark.
“I- Well, yeah.”
“I knew you’d say something like that. That’s my Jetfire.”
My Jetfire.
“Are you okay?” Jetfire asks when his vocalizer finally starts processing full sentences again. “Did the frame transfer go alright? There’s no corruption, is there?”
“I’m fine, Jetfire. You’re in one of your slumps again, aren’t you?”
“I almost lost you.”
“It’s only thanks to you that I didn’t lose myself,” Starscream retorts.
He’s been thinking of how this conservation was going to go down for the entire time he’s been waiting and yet he still finds him so wholly underprepared. Just like back then in Gold City, Starscream’s words have always had the power to shake him to his core and pull his footing out from under him.
“When I was in Metroplex, I could… feel parts of myself slipping away, becoming something I didn’t recognize. I tried to hold on for as long as I could, but it was a constant fight. But then there was you. I could feel you nearby for the entire time my spark was imprisoned. It was only your presence that reminded me of what I was fighting so hard to hold onto. Thank you, Jetfire.”
“You shouldn’t thank me. I’m the one who put you in that situation,” Jetfire says, defeated.
“Well, obviously. You’re the only one in the autobots with a good helm on your shoulders. You were the only one who knew I would return to Metroplex. I doubt Goldbug could think about anything other than himself for long enough to work that out on his own.”
“Starscream.”
“Right, sorry,” Starscream holds up his hands in a sheepish gesture, “Regardless, we’ve both made the decisions we thought were right at the time for better or for worse. We’ve both made choices that have hurt people we care about. But that doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters now is moving forward… to a brighter future where we won’t have to make those types of decisions anymore. I think we’ve both made more than enough of them.”
“I killed him, you know. Goldbug, I mean.” Honesty is hard when he’s spent so long doing away with it to survive alongside the Autobots. He’s lived in half-truths and omissions for far too long.
There’s a shudder that runs through Starscream’s frame like dying electricity. “I suspected as much. Good riddance. I won’t lose any recharge over it.”
“Not very Decepticon of you to say that.”
“And it wasn’t very Autobot of you to save me even at a great risk to yourself so I’d say we’re about even.”
For a moment, they are neither Autobot or Decepticon, just Starscream and Jetfire. (He hates to admit it, but it does sound more euphonious that way.)
“What are you going to do now, Jetfire?”
“I don’t know,” Jetfire says, hating how unsteady the words come out.
It was easier when the war was over and they thought that they’d won. Life under Autobot rule was far from idyllic but at least Jetfire knew where he stood. He understood his position in the hierarchy and what needed to be done to survive, but the Decepticons, fractured and broken as they were, could never settle for a life like that. And that left Jetfire unsure of where to go next in this new world that Decepticons were building.
“What I mean to say is,” Starscream continues, voice lowering so only Jetfire could hear him, “Are you going to stay with the Decepticons?”
Are you going to leave me again? Going unasked.
“The war is over.” It’s a non-answer, he knows that much, but it’s the best he can come up with. “The world doesn’t need Decepticons or Autobots anymore.”
Starscream, beside him, still has it in him to look indignant despite everything. At least that much hasn’t changed.
“Of course there is. Even with Prime and Ultra Magnus… and Goldbug gone, there will be others that rise up to take their places, eager to win the power struggle. As long as there are those out there that would seek to maintain the Autobot’s tyranny, there will always be a need for us. And… even after that, it’s going to take a lot of time and effort to rebuild everything. Very few of us can even remember a world where there wasn’t a war. That kind of wound doesn’t heal overnight.”
Cybertron is worth fighting for.
Jetfire sighs, spark heavy and hopeful at the same time. “If… If you think there’s a place for me in the Decepticons, then I will stay.”
“For someone so smart Jetfire, you really can be dense sometimes. There’s always been a place for you in the Decepticons. Lord Megatron told me of how you worked together with us in order to retrieve my spark, how you rallied the troops, raised their morale after solar cycles of desolate hopelessness. You gave them a mission again, something to fight for when they’d lost the will to stand up and fight at all.”
“Did he really say all that? I think you’re embellishing again. It was hardly anything that impressive,” Jetfire settles for saying, choosing pointedly to ignore how those words make his spark stir and skip. The fondness in his voice is something Jetfire didn’t realize just how much he missed.
“I might have added a little flair,” Starscream shrugs with an unabashed smirk, “But it’s still true. You more than anyone should know just how much I mean it. You don’t have to fight to keep your place in the Decepticons, you’ve more than earned it.”
“And if there ever is a future where the Decepticons are no longer needed?”
Starscream leans against Jetfire’s side, staring forward into the horizon. “If that day ever comes, and truthfully I hope that it does eventually, I think… I’d like to go back to being a scientist again. I can’t say I’m eager to revisit the subject of Titans ever again… but researching things just to sate one’s own curiosity and for the common good instead of researching for new ways to do harm… I think I couldn’t ask for anything better. And if that happens, Jetfire, I wonder will you be my lab partner again?”
For once, Jetfire doesn’t have to think about his answer. He’s never been more sure of anything else. “You already know I would.”