Chapter Text
The meeting takes a long time to arrange.
Too long, for such a time-sensitive issue— but security is paramount. Nobody else can ever be allowed to know that this talk ever took place, much less what is being said. The continued existence of the Decepticons might rely on it.
Soundwave slides the door open.
Shockwave is already waiting for him. The room is clean— Shockwave has already verified beforehand, but he does not mind that Soundwave takes another two kliks to secure the room again, just in case. It is logical to independently check conclusions. That is, after all, why this meeting is taking place.
Finally, Soundwave nods. He begins to speak. “Evidence: viewed?”
“Indeed,” Shockwave confirms. “As you said, it was all circumstantial. But on the basis of the sheer mass of data you have provided, I choose to believe that your conclusions are… not unreasonable. However, I am having difficulty understanding the motive for these actions. Do you think that this is a part of some new scheme?”
“Starscream’s actions: eternally in service to his own predictable goals.” Soundwave’s EM field radiates contempt as he taps a digit on the table. “It is typically more efficient to wait for his plots to collapse on their own. But the fallout of this particular plot, when it backfires and fails…”
“Incalculable,” Shockwave concludes. “And with the fighting on Sol-3 being so frequent, any sort of disruption within planetary command could lead to a catastrophic blow to Decepticon morale. This cannot be borne.”
In Shockwave’s own processor, the evidence replays, yet again. When he’d first viewed the archived videos, an orn ago, he’d originally dismissed Soundwave’s concerns offhand. It has never been Shockwave’s prerogative to understand the inner workings of Starscream’s mind. He had set it aside, sure that his fellow officer had been fussing needlessly. And yet…
The screen blinks on— a security drone’s view of the Victory’s command center. Starscream is at the monitors, muttering to himself. The jet is hardly ever silent or still.
The door slides open behind him. Megatron enters, and Starscream’s wings twitch violently, though he does not otherwise acknowledge his lord’s presence. Megatron’s eyes snap to the movement, and he pauses, for just a fraction of a second. His gaze trails downwards, across the entire span of Starscream’s back.
Another perspective—an angle on the strategy room, this time. Scrapper and Onslaught are arguing over resource allocation. It is evident that the dispute has gone on for quite some time— Motormaster has started doodling on his meeting agenda, and even Megatron has acquired a slightly glazed look to his faceplates that signifies that he is thinking about more important things. In fact, if you follow his line of sight, you can see… on the opposite side of the table, Starscream, absentmindedly chewing the end of a stylus.
The data continues to pile higher.
A lingering look, here. A certain strange emphasis on glyphs, there.
For the first— second— hundredth time, a powder blue hand skims close to gunmetal gray plating. Shockwave watches, reading meaning into the tiniest of movements. He would be the first bot to acknowledge that interpersonal relations are not his forte, but he is not blind.
The seductive arch of Starscream’s backstrut— the sultry way that he presses a digit against the soft protoform of his lips— The rapid decrease in personal space between him and Lord Megatron that could lead to actual physical contact by the solar vorn’s end!
An audio clip: doubtlessly gathered by one of Soundwave’s cassettes through their periodic sweeps of the ship.
“ —plan.” Thundercracker says, voice muffled. “That idiot Starscream is going to get us all killed this time for real. I don’t understand why you’re defending him, Skywarp.”
A loud, disruptive slurping noise. Per behavioral models, 76.33% chance that the action was deliberate. “Well,” Skywarp says. “Look at it this way. It’s gonna be really funny to watch him fail, and honestly, it’ll be even funnier if he succeeds.”
Shockwave feeds the data provided into his models again and again. Every time, his margin of reasonable doubt grows smaller. He shakes his head. “We cannot allow Starscream to seduce Megatron. Illogical! Completely incomprehensible!”
“Indeed.” Soundwave intones. “Conclusion remains the same: something must be done.”
“Of course.” Shockwave agrees. “I have, of course, already made plans.”
On dead, cold Cybertron, there is nothing for Shockwave to do but think . He is in possession of one of the finest processors ever constructed in Cybertron’s protracted history, and, during the long and lonely cycles leading up to this meeting, he has set all that incredible, high-performance CPU, churning away at the rate of petacycles per nanoklik, to solving this issue— endlessly returning to that shocking message that Soundwave had delivered, and to the lurid, scandalous, positively hedonistic images enclosed.
Shockwave’s optic flashes. “In order to stop Starscream from seducing Lord Megatron, there is only one logical path forward.”
Soundwave nods. “Proposal: refine plans for de-escalation togeth—”
“I will simply have to take the onus upon myself and seduce Starscream first. ”
Soundwave screeches to a halt in the middle of his sentence. Clearly, overwhelmed by Shockwave’s astonishingly logical proposal.
Blitzwing is on monitor duty when the space bridge opens, which sucks major slag. Didn’t manage to scrape together the funds to coordinate anything with Swindle, so he’s just stuck watching all that energon go back to Cybertron like he didn’t get shot up the aftpipe for it just a couple days ago. It sucks, you know?
He’s so caught up in his own thoughts that he almost misses the first part, but it’s fine because the story’s even better when he tells it after a cube of high grade anyways.
Five or six cubes in, this is how the story goes, as told by Blitzwing:
So, like, Shockwave steps through the portal chest first like some sort of breaching submarine, which is already strange. He says something about Soundwave swapping places with him, weird but okay, they don’t pay old Blitzwing to ask questions, whatever. Soundwave’s okay with that, but get this— both Megatron and Starscream are surprised at the news, and Starscream immediately rounds on Megatron, same as usual, whatever, it goes on for a bit and here’s where it starts getting exponentially more weird.
Shockwave butts in on the hissy fit. That’s a first, right? Whoever heard of Shockwave getting in the middle of a Megatron and Starscream fight? Sounds like a great way to get mauled, if you ask me.
NOBODY’S ASKING, BLITZWING. GET ON WITH THE STORY!
Yeah, frag yourself, whatever. Anyways, what happens next is that Shockwave totally falls all over himself apologizing about taking up the mighty Lord Megatron’s time and whatever, it’s an embarrassment to watch, but then he turns to Starscream. And he says— fuck, let me see if I can pull this off. A-hem—
“My fellow commander— shut the fuck up, I swear this is how it sounded, you can find Thrust if you think he can tell it better— no? Didn’t think so— My fellow commander, it is a pleasure to see you in such high spirits. It just so happens that I have some refreshments on hand, and a few questions for someone of your assets. Perhaps we could continue this in… a more private setting.”
And he pauses again, here, right, as if he hasn’t just got everyone on the bridge checking their reality module calibration, and then— swear on my faction emblem I’m not fuckin’ with you, I swear— he pulls a crystal bouquet out of his aft or something and puts it in Starscream’s arms and he says something like, “I await your response.” or whatever and just walks off.
Man, y’all should have seen Starscream’s face. Fuck me. Best monitor shift of my life.
Starscream walks into his lab, wings held at a stiff angle.
He engages the lock. He engages all the locks, actually, and seals the vents, and runs an anti-spy EMP through the room twice, and arms the booby traps for good measure. There’s no way that anyone could possibly spy on him now. Even so, Starscream takes one last, suspicious look around the room before finally relaxing. He picks up a beaker, considering it for a moment—
And throws it at the wall.
“Shockwave, that spawn of a glitch!” He shrieks, as glass shatters. “What is his problem?! ”
It’s not a rhetorical question. For the first time in millenia, Starscream can’t make heads or tails of that fool’s behavior at all. Energon and invitations to refuel and compliments, of all things. What? It’s— It’s—
He recalls, with perfect clarity: Shockwave’s implacable gaze, focused on him and only him, like he’s the only interesting thing left in the world. So intent that he can feel it like a physical sensation on his wings.
Starscream makes an inarticulate noise and bites the tip of one of his claws. “In front of everyone!” he continues. “Is he trying to humiliate me? Did Redwing put him up to this? Slipstream? Soundwave—?”
Soundwave. He pauses.
That’s right. Just a few weeks before this, Soundwave had gone back to Cybertron through the space bridge to meet with Shockwave. Blah blah blah, some sort of nonsense about meeting coordination, whatever. Starscream knows an excuse when he sees one. But he’s assumed that whatever plot those two were cooking up had nothing to do with him. Ha. That had obviously been a mistake.
His processor whirrs, faster and faster.
The proffered energon: poisoned, clearly.
The invitation: a sorry attempt to maneuver him into place for— for kidnapping, or something.
The compliments— the crystal arrangement…Mockery. Of course.
Starscream folds his servos behind his back and starts pacing.
“He must be trying to take my job,” Starscream concludes to himself with a sneer. “Well, well, well. I didn’t know the big purple boob had it in him. Fine then! If that’s how he wants to play it, then I have no choice but to retaliate! He’ll see! He’ll rue the day when he decided to cross me, Starscream!”
He stomps to his table and slams open a cupboard. If Shockwave wants to continue undermining his reputation in front of the troops, well, fine! Starscream can play that game just fine. They’ll just have to see which one of them breaks first.