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“Ratchet asked me to check on you.”
No response.
“I can see your optics are online, you know.”
Nothing. A broken wing creaked in the gloom of the cell. He hasn’t let anyone touch it. Less so the severe damage to the main energon line in his leg; allowing Wheeljack to tentatively solder it, flinching at every moment as though it could have been a blast from the patient’s null ray, had been an exercise in self preservation for the both of them.
“Do you need anything?”
He needs to be left alone, that much is clear. There is no part of a physical body that could be broken quite so thoroughly as an ego. “Go away.”
“Oh! So your vocaliser does work.”
“I am not in the mood, human. Go. Away.”
It’s something, at least.
*
When Chip arrives the following morning the shuddering hulk of metal and wires on the surgical table appears to be in the exact same position as he had been the previous day. “You should be able to stand,” he says as he rolls along one of the ramps Ratchet and Brawn had installed around the Ark, allowing their human friends to walk and talk with them at a more convenient height for them all.
“More than I can say for you,” Starscream snipes back unexpectedly. His voice, usually so...insistent, comes out as little more than a weak, static-laden croak. The jerry-rigged IV drip of energon attached to an inlet on his arm assures he has more than enough power to speak and even walk around should he wish to, but clearly he wishes to do neither.
Still, engagement of any kind is a win. The attempt at devasting cruelty hints that fragments of the seeker’s shattered personality are starting to knit themselves back together from the scorched remains Megatron had left him with. “Why don’t you give it a try?”
“Why don’t you go play with traffic.”
Less conviction than before. More of a mumble. It’s not helping, and Chip leaves.
*
Ratchet is there when Chip arrives this time, fitting a new sheet of metal into Starscream’s broken wing strut. The seeker is still laying on his side, seemingly indifferent to the sparks of the blowtorch behind him, but the arms folded about his waist give away his anxiety. Chip has had the displeasure of being in the Decepticons’ custody twice as a captive and he imagines the experience of their medbay is most likely the same as their prison cells. Worse, probably. If you were in the medbay it would mean you had failed at something, and Megatron did not tolerate failure lightly.
Starscream being left to die after his latest failed plot was testament to that.
Ratchet is frowning and he he been human Chip always imagined he’d have his tongue poking out from between his teeth. “It would help,” the medic ground out, “if you would sit up.”
Starscream’s shoulders bow as he shrugs. “You’re the one who wanted to do this.” His words are tight, the consonants sharp around the edges, the petulance the Autobots often joked about starting to creep back in. “Just leave it off. Go away.”
“I could ask Red Alert to step in and help me,” Ratchet replies. “I don’t think manhandling you would be much of an ask of him after that stunt you pulled last year.”
Starscream’s field flinches. It has taken Chip a while to get used to being able to sense the emotions of the Cybertronians around him. The sharp acidic tang in the air when they were angry – Ironhide especially – or the way the hair on his arms stand upright when Optimus laughs. The worst is fear, and he is glad his friends do not frighten easily; it feels like invisible music tapdancing in his bones.
“I said leave me alone.” Starscream snaps. The words are flat and give even Ratchet’s steadfast apathy pause. He glances questioningly at Chip, who has to suppress a smile. The Autobots have been at war so long that they have begun to rely on their human friends to gently course-correct when they cross the invisible line between sensible prudence and being an asshole without even seeming to realise they were doing it.
“Maybe leave it for today,” he suggests.
Ratchet shrugs and downs his tools in one fluid motion. “His loss.” He casts a glance back over his shoulder at his reluctant patient. He speaks loud enough for Starscream to overhear him. “But we want him out of here, you know.”
*
“I don’t know why you’re even doing this,” Spike grumbles later as they sit atop the Ark and watch the sun go down. It’s a mild winter’s night and they’re sharing Spike’s coat as a blanket draped over them both. “He’d have left you to die.”
“I know,” says Chip, remembering the brief glint of hesitation in Optimus’s optics and the distaste set into Skyfire’s mouthplates when he had pleaded with them to not leave the seeker where he lay in a pool of his own coolant and energon. “That’s why I’m doing it.”
*
“What is that.”
It’s not really a question: there’s no rise in tone at the end and no real curiosity in the words themselves. But it’s the first time Starscream has spoken without being prompted and his sudden interest in the world around him startles Chip.
“It’s a television,” he says, pushing the wheeled cart along the wall ramp until it was roughly opposite where Starscream’s dark face hung in the shadows, illuminated by the red glow of his optics. “I’ve rigged it so you can control it with your internal systems.” He shrugs. “Thought this could help you get out a bit, even if you’re determined to stay in here.”
His optics narrow ever-so-slightly. “What makes you think I’d be interested in the dribbling noises you humans pollute the airwaves with.”
“I suppose it beats staring at nothing all day.”
“Maybe I’ll beat you instead.”
Chip doesn’t even bother to roll his eyes. “Uh-huh. See you, Starscream.”
As he leaves he hears the tell-tale click of the set being turned on.
*
“What is...” Chip still can’t see Starscream’s face fully but he can hear the twisting of his lips as he spits out the next word: “Christmas .”
Chip considers his answer. “Depends on who you ask. For some people it’s a religious holiday. For others, a family holiday. For others still, just...a date on the calendar.”
Starscream huffs, small puffs of cool air shooting into the gloom around his head vents. “A completely useless answer. I don’t know what I expected.”
It hasn’t been a good day for Chip; his back hurts and he has a headache from helping Perceptor re-solder a failed circuit board from Teletraan-1. He takes a breath to soothe the pang of heat in his chest before he replies: “What don’t you specifically understand? Santa Claus coming down the chimney? Reindeer flight? Help me out here.”
Starscream’s optics become slim red slits. “I understand those. They’re all just dumb stories made up to keep your equally dumb offspring from asking too many questions. Like your ‘Easter Bunny’. And your ‘food pyramid’.”
“Then what is it that you’re struggling with?”
“What it is.”
“It’s Christmas. I told you. It’s different things to different people.”
There is a shriek of metal on metal and for the first time in six days Starscream moves. It takes a moment for Chip to realise it’s not an attack; the motion is accompanied by several pained grunts masked as coughs before the seeker settles into a vaguely upright position, propped up on one elbow. The forearm he leans on is badly mangled, the dried energon on the paintwork black as it reflects the red of his eyes. “What is it to you.”
Chip loves Christmas. He was orphaned as a young child and all the films he’d seen about the season told him that he should have been sad to have been alone, but he took strength from their – admittedly saccharine – messaging and always dreamed of the day where he would have a family of his own with a natural streak of optimism. The Autobots and their human allies had become that family in the past couple of years, and the Christmas of 1985 was one he would never forget.
He can’t put those heartfelt memories into words that a selfish, unsentimental Decepticon would understand. But he can try. “Christmas for me,” he says slowly, “is a time where everyone I care about get together and we tell stupid jokes and eat too much food and forget the world outside exists. I don’t know what it’s like in countries who have summer weather for winter, but at least here when it’s dark and cold and a bit depressing I can spend a few hours surrounded by light and happiness, and sometimes that’s...” He shrugs. “Sometimes that’s all you need.”
He expects Starscream to come down hard on that last part, but after he finishes speaking there is only silence. The red slits of his optics become narrow wedges as he struggles with the concept. “Where do the presents fit into all this? All your commercials and films are about presents.”
Chip smiles. Of course the first thing a Decepticon picks up on is what they could get out of Christmas. “Gift-giving is a big part of it for a lot of people. I guess folks like, uh, well...they like that people get them things because it shows that person cares about them. That they see who they are and channel that into a material thing they can present them with. Like last Christmas Astoria got Powerglide a pair of red fuzzy dice and he wears them everywhere.”
“So it’s like a communal bribe.”
“Um...not...really?”
“Well, what happens if you get a present for someone and they don’t get one for you? It would give you power over them. So everyone must think they have to get presents for people they know or they could be vulnerable to favours. It’s so despicable I almost admire whoever came up with the idea.”
Chip laughs. He can’t help it, even as he feels Starscream’s field bristle around him. “Don’t you laugh at me! ”
“I’m not! I’m not.” He holds his hands up. “I just – that is such a Decepticon way of looking at the world.” He takes off his glasses and wipes at his eyes. “It’s not a power thing. It’s just a nice thing to do for people you care about. That’s all. The aim is to just...make someone else happy.”
Starscream seems disappointed. He slumps back down onto the table, the damaged wing draping over him like a blanket. “That’s stupid. You’re stupid. Go away. Your inane prattle is tiring me out.”
Chip is more than a little grateful to be let go so early, but as he approaches the small human-sized hatch in the door Starscream says: “And get your medic back in here. My wing hurts. He should have fixed it by now.”
*
“He’s gone,” Red Alert fumes, agitated, pacing backwards and forwards in front of Teletraan-1, the floor beneath his pedes already a well-trodden path he chose to follow time and time again. “How did he just leave without anyone seeing?”
“We’re not exactly the most secure of crashed spaceships,” Spike says without a trace of fear over provoking a lecture from the wound-up Autobot. “We found Laserbeak in here on Thanksgiving, remember?”
“That’s breaking in, not breaking out.” Red Alert’s horns flash once in annoyance, a ‘tell’ he hasn’t quite gotten the hang of hiding. “It’s...it’s...it’s different. There’s no telling what he could have taken with him!”
“Decepticon Starscream removed nothing from the interior of the Ark,” Teletraan-1 pipes up helpfully. “He exited two hours ago.”
“Two hours?” Red Alert screeches, and Sideswipe – who was meant to have been standing guard at the time Starscream vanished – takes an imperceptible step backwards towards the door. “Oh no you don’t. You’re not going anywhere. You’re in deep trouble.”
Sideswipe’s shoulders slumped. “I was gone for thirty seconds. Probably.”
Red Alert doesn’t have teeth to grind, but he does a pretty good impression of doing so. “Well, I hope those thirty seconds were worth it because you’re going to be helping Grapple lay the foundations for Autobot City for a month.”
Before Sideswipe can argue his punishment, Optimus steps in. “There’s no use grousing about it now,” he says, and he sounds tired. “Starscream is gone and doesn’t appear to have either taken anything or left anything behind. Let’s just chalk this up to a good deed done in the spirit of the season and try to forget about it.”
The small team grumble amongst themselves as they leave, Red Alert with one hand firmly on Sideswipe’s elbow as he drags him the direction of the security office, Ratchet complaining about his repair skills being wasted on a Decepticon escapee to an equally sour Ironhide.
When they are alone, Chip fishes in his pocket and pulls out the thing he had found lying on Starscream’s deserted makeshift bedding that afternoon. It was made from a damaged wing strut, the burned and shipped white and red paint forming a solid stripe of colour down the middle. A discarded piece of otherwise unremarkable metal cut into the shape of a star – or, at least, how a child might draw one. There is a hole punched in the uppermost point and a small loop of dead wiring tied through it in a hoop long enough to be worn as a necklace.
Optimus crouches down beside him. “What is that?”
“I think,” Chip says carefully, trying not to put too much weight on the words, “it is a present.”
A disbelieving rumble and the sense of cold water running through his veins; disbelief from the big chief. “Or a bribe.”
Chip pauses. “You’re not – you don’t think I helped him leave?”
Optimus’s optics widen almost comically. “Oh – no, Chip, I would never – that isn’t what I meant at all.”
“Then...?”
Optimus considers. “I doubt Starscream understands the value of simply doing something nice for someone else. In fact I think he would consider it a weakness. And being on the receiving end would make him even weaker.”
Chip looks back down at the star. Well, what happens if you get a present for someone and they don’t get one for you? It would give you power over them. “Oh,” he says, and is surprised and how disappointed he feels. “Yeah. That – that makes a lot of sense, actually.”
Optimus presses a palm gently to his back – the Autobot version of a hug – and rises back to his feet with a series of ratcheted clanks from his knees. He isn’t taking care of himself the way he takes care of his friends and comrades, and Chip feels a sudden cold blast of dread at the thought that if Optimus continued to do so then one day they may awaken to him not being there at all.
“Hey,” he blurts, “thank you, for. You know. You didn’t have to, and I’m grateful that you did.”
Optimus considers his words. “I am grateful that you insisted,” he says eventually with a slow, considerate nod. “What is it that Ebenezer Scrooge says at the end of that book you like? I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. Perhaps we could all do with a touch of optimism, even...” He huffs a sigh from his vents. “Even when it isn’t all that warranted or wanted.”
*
Hundreds of miles away on a mountainside overlooking a vast lake, Starscream looks at a small screen in his forearm. It shows a map, and in the middle a small pulsing dot flashes on and off, pinpointing him the exact coordinates where Chip Chase stood blissfully unaware of the microchip soldered into the middle of the small metal star Starscream knew the human would be too sentimental to throw away.
He smirks.
“A present,” he says to nobody in particular. A nearby raven cocks its head at him. “Ironic that this should be the Autobots’ undoing. If I return to Megatron with this little gift at my disposal he’s sure to welcome me back with open arms.” The smirk deepened. “And if his arms are open, then his spark chamber is unprotected.”
He stands gingerly, flexing his repaired leg. “The Autobots are just as pathetic over this season as their little human pets,” he continues. The raven watches him walk around the clearing with a skeptical expression. “And if we always know where one of those little fleshbags is, a kidnap-and-ransom situation would be most beneficial. Especially if we have no particular mandate to return the hostage at the end of it...”
He stops.
Stops walking, stops speaking. Stops moving.
The raven blinks.
Starscream’s expression is one of bewilderment. He presses a hand to the canopy of his jet-mode, which lay over his spark as an extra layer of protection he was grateful for whenever Megatron was in a particularly petulant mood.
“I don’t...” he murmurs, “this isn’t...what did they...what is this?”
He stands still for so long that the raven loses interest and is about to take wing when he moves again.
Raising his forearm back up to his face, he taps at the screen until the legend GPS UNLINKED. ALL DATA PURGED appear in bright violet lettering. The screen sinks back into his metal skin as Starscream sinks down onto a rocky outcropping, his face unreadable.
“Wouldn’t have worked anyway,” he mumbles eventually into the empty air. He looks west, to where the sun is sinking below the horizon and where, closer, the Ark lay in its silent slumber as those within surrounded themselves with warmth and light. They won’t notice as daylight flees for another night; they all have somewhere they belong.
Without another word he leaps into the air, changing form into a roaring jet whose engines send the raven screeching for its life into the gloom, and instead heads eastwards towards the dark, cold depths of the ocean, and whatever awaits him there.