Chapter Text
The Lost Light had returned to the homeworld to restock on various supplies and to allow the crew to visit old friends before heading back out into the unknown. In the interest of showing goodwill (whether or not it was actually his idea, no one knew), Starscream had invited everyone on the ship, as well as the higher-ups of the Cybertronian government, to a sort of “welcome home party.”
Ultra Magnus refused to go, citing that he had work to do on the Lost Light and “had no time for such frivolousness.” It had taken some serious arm-twisting, but Rodimus had at least convinced Megatron to come. The former warlord had eventually (after several minutes of Rodimus whining at him) demanded to see the guest list, and whatever he’d seen on it had evidently persuaded him to agree.
Rodimus was starting to get a pretty strong hunch about which guest Megatron had been so eager to see. He glanced back over at the corner of the dimly-lit event hall where his co-captain was seated with Optimus Prime, deep in discussion with their chairs pushed juuuust a little too close together. Rolling his eyes, Rodimus was about to turn his attention back to his engex when he heard someone make a noise of annoyance mirroring his own right next to him. Turning to see who it was, he about jumped a mile, having nearly forgotten he was in the “seat of honor” right next to the High Chancellor of Cybertron.
Having evidently noticed he’d been looking in the same direction, Starscream made eye contact with Rodimus, a corner of his mouth curled down. “Those two are absolutely insufferable,” he remarked, jerking his head in the direction of the former arch-enemies.
“I know, right?!” Rodimus exclaimed, a little surprised to have found common ground with the generally disliked ex-Con. “Back on the Lost Light, you can barely mention the name ‘Optimus Prime’ without Megs getting this super weird look on his face.”
The seeker scoffed. “That’s nothing compared to what he was like during the war. The way he talked, I could barely tell if he wanted to kill Optimus or frag him.”
Rodimus swivelled in his chair to fully face Starscream. “Oh, believe me, I saw plenty of that. D’you remember when Megatron randomly turned himself in to us, a bit after you guys somehow managed to revive him from getting shot by that human?”
Starscream’s wings twitched down, obviously remembering something unpleasant. “Yes, quite clearly.”
Rodimus paused to take a drink, feeling the need to be a little more buzzed to retell this particular story. “Yeah, so we had him prisoner, and while we were heading back to Cybertron on Omega Supreme, Optimus decided he wanted to have a chat with Megs, even though he’d already had Prowl interrogate him.”
“Oh Primus, I can already see where this is going,” Starscream said, already looking disgusted.
Rodimus nodded. “So we all leave the room, and all the security cameras in there had been turned off- but Optimus had forgotten to turn off the live audio feed. The next thing we know, we’re all listening to the two of them having a nice little conversation like they were best friends, and not a couple of guys who’d been trying to kill each other for the past four million years. Megatron wasn’t even restrained or anything!”
Starscream rolled his optics. “Why am I not surprised? I guess he couldn’t resist the opportunity, even though the only reason he was there was to get a way to get the Decepticons back to Cybertron.”
“If only the Autobots and Decepticons could all get along as well as their leaders do,” Rodimus snorted. “Bet that’d make your job easier.”
The seeker grinned, his red optics brightening with amusement, which was possibly the most pleasant expression Rodimus had ever seen on his face. “Oh, I don’t know. Seems like then we’d just have a different kind of ‘tension’ to deal with,” he air-quoted.
Rodimus laughed, the sound trailing off as he glanced back over at the two in the corner, an idea starting to form in his head. “You know, we should give them a taste of their own medicine,” he said conspiratorially, looking back at Starscream.
Starscream just frowned, looking confused. “Er… what?”
“Oops, sorry, that’s an Earth idiom,” Rodimus apologized, remembering belatedly that for the majority of the time the Autobots had been stuck on Earth, Starscream had been on the asteroid belt. “What I mean is, we should show them how it feels.”
“By doing… what, exactly?”
“By being all weird with each other, like they are!” Rodimus attempted to explain, gesturing vaguely in the direction of Megatron and Optimus. “I mean, only when they’re around, of course, otherwise what’s the point.”
Starscream’s previous friendly posture had gradually evaporated throughout this exchange, and now he seemed downright distrustful, his wings drawn up tensely from their relaxed position. “You do realize that I have a public image to keep up, which I have enough problems with without pulling immature pranks.”
“Aw, come on! It doesn’t even have to be anything major, just enough to mess with them.” Rodimus protested. “Just imagine the looks on their faces if they thought we were getting all buddy-buddy.” He held up a hand and crossed two of his servos as if to illustrate the concept.
Starscream looked conflicted. He glared silently at Rodimus for a moment, then looked towards where Optimus now had a hand on Megatron’s shoulder, and finally turned back towards Rodimus, his eyes narrowed determinedly. “All right. Let’s do it.”
Rodimus pumped his fist. “Yes! This is gonna be hilarious, just you wait.”
“I don’t suppose you have an idea for how to actually set this plan in motion, do you?” the seeker asked derisively, taking a sip of his almost-forgotten drink.
“Well, I barely even expected you to agree, so no, I don’t.” Rodimus grinned, unruffled. “Give me a klik and I bet I can come up with something, though.”
It was eventually decided that Rodimus would give Starscream a tour of the Lost Light the next day, since it was easier to come up with a feasible excuse for that than if Rodimus were to abruptly start hanging out in the capitol building.
As they left later that night, Rodimus decided to start The Plan a little early, giving Starscream a friendly pat on the back and chirping, “See you tomorrow!” Starscream jumped a little at the unexpected contact, but managed to recover quickly, turning to nod at the Autobot with a devious grin on his face before transforming and flying off into the night.
Megatron caught up with Rodimus shortly afterward, squinting after the receding light of the seeker’s thrusters. “Rodimus, what in the world was that?” he questioned him, sounding somewhat bewildered.
“What, with Starscream?” Rodimus asked, feigning innocence. “We had a good chat tonight. You know, he’s really not such a bad guy if you look past all the bluster.”
Megatron looked down at him with an expression on his face like he’d just drunk sour energon. “Is that so.”
Rodimus just grinned. “What, are you the only one allowed to befriend old enemies around here?”
Megatron sputtered indignantly at that. Rodimus just laughed, transformed, and sped away.
✩✩✩
Thus, Starscream found himself by the Lost Light’s main entry port the following morning, receiving a mildly intimidating staredown from an Autobot war hero.
“I assure you, Ultra Magnus, as improbable as it may seem, I was actually invited here by your superior officer,” the seeker said cooly, his arms crossed across his cockpit.
Although it barely seemed like it should be possible, Ultra Magnus’s frown deepened. “Megatron invited you here?”
“What?! No!” Starscream shrieked, wings flaring in outrage. “Rodimus invited me here, you-- listen, will you just call him, if you refuse to believe me?”
The big Autobot sighed and commed the captain, while Starscream tapped his pede and glanced around at the other ships in the docking bay, which were dwarfed by the immensity of the Lost Light. Where in the world Rodimus had found such an impressive craft, he couldn’t imagine.
Mere moments later, the doors slid open behind Ultra Magnus to reveal Rodimus who, judging from the speed at which his cooling fans were running, had just run the length of the ship in his haste to get there. “Hey, Stars!” he exclaimed, nudging past his second in command to shake the seeker’s hand.
“Please don’t call me that,” Starscream grumbled, but accepted the handshake. Rodimus then proceeded to not let go of his hand, using it to tug him through the door, past Ultra Magnus who looked like he was using most of his willpower not to protest what his captain was doing.
The first room Starscream was dragged into appeared to be a massive main entry hall, with various doors leading off of it and a balcony that was likely used for the officers to make announcements from. The room was empty save for them, most of the crew likely out enjoying their time back on Cybertron. Hanging from the ceiling was a banner that read “WE’VE ACHIEVED SOMETHING” in bold black letters, with “AGAIN” scrawled awkwardly underneath.
“As you can see, this is our main congregating hall. It’s got enough room to comfortably fit everyone on board the ship,” Rodimus announced. “When we first took off, w-”
“Are you going to let go of my hand?” Starscream interrupted him.
Rodimus blinked. “Why? Aren’t we supposed to be starting our plan?”
“Well, yes, but-” Starscream glanced around, wondering if he’d missed something. “There’s no one else around.”
Rodimus shrugged, jostling Starscream’s arm. “Well, there will be soon. C’mon!”
And so Starscream found himself tugged through a set of double doors, and into a long hallway. All along the hallway were numbered doors, which seemed to lead to individual quarters. About halfway down the hall, one of the doors abruptly slid open just as they were about to pass it, and out stepped a bot Starscream only knew of from old wartime vids about the Wreckers.
Whirl’s lone yellow optic dilated wide at the sight of them (well, probably just him), and there was an audible hum of the guns in his torso coming online even as he greeted them.
“Heya, Rodimus!” the hovercraft said in what seemed to be an attempt at a cheerful tone, waving a claw. “What’s with the ‘Con arm candy, huh?”
“Just giving Cybertron’s new leader the grand tour. You know how it is,” Rodimus replied nonchalantly, evidently unfazed. Starscream, on the other hand, was poised to bolt the instant the ex-Wrecker made a move.
“That so?” Whirl stared at Starscream, face (or lack thereof) utterly unreadable, for a few more nervewracking seconds, before abruptly relaxing, roughly patting Rodimus on the shoulder. “Well, you have fun with that. I’m off to Maccadam’s- s’been too long since I’ve had some engex that wasn’t so watered down you could read through it.” With that, he strode past them, accidentally-on-purpose clipping Starscream’s wing with a fin as he went.
It was at that point that Starscream realized that he was gripping Rodimus’s hand hard enough to practically dent the metal. Muttering an apology, he loosened his grip.
“Welllllllllll,” Rodimus said awkwardly. “What say I show you the bridge?”
The rest of the tour went on comparatively uneventfully, with the pair of them drawing a few odd glances from the skeleton crew still working on the ship, but no other confrontations.
Rodimus had decided to “save the best for last,” so the final place he took Starscream to was Swerve’s bar.
As soon as they entered, there was the sound of a glass shattering on the floor.
“Yeesh, Rodimus, give a guy a little warning before you bring a high-ranking Decepticon into his bar!” complained the stocky minibot behind the bar, who Starscream assumed was Swerve.
“As if there isn’t already one in here,” scoffed Cyclonus just loudly enough to be heard by everyone in the room. He was sitting at the bar next to another minibot, who had turned to stare at them wide-eyed from behind a bright blue visor. At first, Starscream thought Cyclonus was referring to himself- then, he noticed the couple in the corner booth.
“Ah, hello Rodimus,” Optimus Prime called from his seat across from Megatron, who had turned around to see who had just walked in and seemed to be deeply regretting it.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Starscream muttered, simultaneous to Rodimus yelling, “Oh, hey Optimus! What brings you here?”
“I was just checking in on your co-captain here,” Optimus explained benignly, gesturing to Megatron. “It would seem your travels have continued to be… quite eventful.”
Rodimus shrugged nonchalantly, shaking Starscream’s arm again as he continued to determinedly hold onto his hand. “Such are the risks one takes travelling in a quantum-powered ship with such a motley crew.”
Optimus then evidently saw fit to address one of the multiple proverbial elephants in the room. “Might I ask why you have Starscream with you? I would not have expected him to be willing to take time out of his schedule to... socialize.”
“Well-” Rodimus started, but Starscream interrupted him.
“Starscream is standing right here and can speak for himself, thank you,” Cybertron’s leader retorted. “Rodimus here courteously offered to give me a tour of his vessel at the party last night, and I, of course, accepted. I have Rattrap taking my calls until I return.”
Starscream didn’t miss the mildly incredulous look both Optimus and Megatron fixed Rodimus with. After a moment, though, Optimus nodded sagely. “Well, Rodimus, I’m glad to see you making efforts for diplomacy as well. Don’t let me keep you any longer, though- I’m sure both of you have business to take care of.”
Rodimus shrugged again (Starscream was going to have to talk to him about that if this hand-holding thing was going to become a habit), turning to look at the seeker. “I dunno, you feeling like sticking around for some engex before heading back?”
Starscream shook his head. “I should get back to my duties. A leader’s work is never done, as I’m sure you’re aware,” he added with a slightly smug smile.
Rodimus just grinned back at him. “You know, I should probably check up on things, myself. I’m sure I’ve missed a couple dozen memos from Magnus by now.”
“All right. I’ll… see you later, then?” Starscream asked hesitantly, which actually fit flawlessly with the illusion that they were a recently-together couple, when he was in reality just unsure of how a couple would act towards each other at all.
“Of course,” Rodimus asserted. “I’ll be in touch. Here, I’ll show you to the exit- these hallways can be tricky.”
With that, the two of them exited the bar, Rodimus’s hand braced familiarly on the small of Starscream’s back. As soon as the two of them were out of earshot, Rodimus broke down laughing, leaning on Starscream’s shoulder for support.
“Did you see the looks on their faces?!” the Autobot howled, his vents wheezing. “I thought Megs’s optics were gonna pop out of his faceplate!”
Starscream couldn’t help but grin as well. “I have to admit it- you were right. This has the potential to be the perfect revenge.”