Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Cold metal servos tightened around his neck, squeezing the delicate cables underneath the dark metal plating. "Let's end this once and for all," the Prime hissed. Scourge's entire body was slammed against one of the pillars and he felt something inside of him crack and splinter. 

Prime's servo squeezed harder into his neck plates and his voice box shorted out into static. "Last one!" the human shouted from where she was hunched over the control panel, swiping through the screen rapidly.

He had the perfect opening to take a shot at the panel, damaging it sufficiently to prevent anyone or anything from stopped Unicron. The god screamed at him in his mind to do it, to take the shot and let him eat at last. The god in his mind screamed at him to not be a weak little coward and to prove that he was worth keeping alive. The god in his mind screamed at him to make himself useful and let this planet fall.

Scourge should have, and yet he did not. He - just - did not. He didn't transform either of his servos and he did not take the shot and he just let it happen. Somewhere very close by and yet very far away, the human shouted in triumph as the last piece of the security code slipped into place and the Transwarp Key was deactivated. Somewhere very close by and yet very far away, Unicron shrieked in anger and dismay, shoved out of Earth's atmosphere as rapidly as he had entered it. In his mind there was a blast of sharp, debilitating pain that left a broken gasp escaping his shattered voice box - and then there was quiet.

Quiet in his mind. For the first time in millenia. There was no on in Scourge's mind but himself. And it was quiet and empty and dark.

"F-finish this, Prime," he growled, static overlaying his words.

"There is nothing to be finished," Prime said evenly. "This is over."

The last thing that Scourge felt before the darkness crawling at the corners of his optics overtook him was his Sweeps scampering over the ashen ground and reattaching to his backplates. Reassuring waves of green were sent through their bond, but there was little that could cut through the pain that permeated his every inch. And then the darkness overcame him and he gave into the exhaustion, falling into the grasp of an unfamiliar mind that no longer felt like his own.

. . .

Scourge onlined his optics to find four stone gray walls. He sat up with a groan and ran an assessment of the damage to his frame. The report did not come back in his favor - damage just about everywhere damage could be done, damage to Novakane and Freezer, a partially crushed voice box, and low energon. He ran a second diagnostic that returned slightly more reassuring - the majority of the damage had been fixed, and when he lifted up one arm to examine himself, he could see the fresh weld marks on it. Wait. Weld marks?

Where am I? The room offered no clues. What did offer clues, however, were the stasis cuffs locked firmly around Scourge's wrists. He tugged on them several times, but they did not budge. His t-cog was similarly locked, and trying repeatedly to transform back his weapons offered no avail. He was, however, able to deploy his Minicons from his backplates. Scourge first looked them over for damage and was pleasantly surprised to find that they were relatively unharmed, and were also sporting several fresh weld marks. He sent them to survey the entire room, as there was a certain weakness and exhaustion that clung to every part of him that made it exceedingly difficult to stand up.

However, their scans revealed nothing further, other than the fact that the door was at least six inches thing. Without his weapons, he was trapped. Not to mention that the room seemed to be part of a sprawling, multi-layered building of some sort. Oh. The answer seemed obvious now. The Autobots had scraped his half-dead frame off the pavement, repaired him, put him in cuffs, disabled his cog, and then put him here, in this... not room, but cell.

Scourge checked his chronometer and was startled to find that it had been several cycles since he had last been online. His systems had logged no other data whatsoever, leaving him blind as to the fates of Battletrap and Nightbird. Dead, most likely, at the servos of the Autobots and the Maximals. The Transwarp key had been disabled, and Unicron had been ejected from Earth atmosphere back to whichever distant galaxy he was stuck in. Unicron could thus only move at the rate he naturally could, which Scourge knew from experience was extremely slow. Earth had millions of vorns until Unicron even somewhat neared.

Unicron.

He reached into his own mind and expected pain. But instead he found nothing but peaceful silence. Scourge was confused. It was... empty. There was no one in his mind but himself. His thoughts were his own again, as were his emotions. He ran several scans on his processor, all of which turned up nothing - and no traces of dark energon to speak of. Unicron's grip on him was... gone. That could not be right.

They had made a deal, a deal that Scourge had long thought to be completely unbreakable. And yet, whatever the shutting down of the Transwarp key had done, it had wrenched Unicron's control of him away as well. His empty mind was unfamiliar, startling, and he had to admit, a bit terrifying. But that left an even bigger problem for him. With Battletrap and Nightbird (presumably) offline, and Unicron back into the far reaches of deep space, he had no allies whatsoever. 

Without Unicron's dark energon to protect him, he was just as vulnerable and just as mortal as any other mech. And with his weaponry disabled and his servos cuffed, he was practically helpless. Scourge had... nothing. There was no one coming to save him and there was no way for him to escape himself. Ha. It served him right, he supposed, for failing once more. And failing in the ultimate way.

When Unicron found him - and he would, because evil was inevitable and evil was unstoppable and evil was Unicron - Scourge would be torn from limb to limb. A cold shiver of fear slithered its way down his spinal strut. Novakane and Freezer reattached themselves to his backplates and he readjusted his position for them to be more comfortable. More waves of soft, comforting green, mixed in with some gentle hues of yellow. That didn't do much.

Scourge was in enemy servos, far from any allies, and utterly helpless to whatever fate the Autobots had in store for him. That was... that was far from desirable. But to sit here sulking was to do and to be nothing at all. The one thing he still had now was his mind and he had to start planning now, while they still thought him dazed and weakened. Scourge was sure that there was a camera somewhere in the cell, but neither him nor his Sweeps could locate it, so he gave up on that particular task. Instead, he drew his knees up to his chestplate, looped his arms around them, and leaned his head back in apparent boredom.

His comm links had not been disabled, even though it would have been easy to do. Given the fact that his extensive weaponry system was completely disabled, they had took the time to go through his frame and disable anything that could be a threat. That lead Scourge to believe that his former subordinates were almost certainly dead. Just in case, though, he commed both of them and waited for a response. Not only did neither of them reply within the breem, but it also took him a few kliks to realize that the messages had not gone through at all. Which could only mean that there were dead.

This was... a very sobering thought. Scourge seldom let his emotions affect him at all, but he rested his head on his knees and let the grief overtake him. For better or for worse they had been his only companions for millenia as he travelled the galaxy, drifting further and further from a home that no longer existed. There had been so much shared between the three of them - love, loss, anger, grief, hatred... Everything. And to lose that was... He let himself admit it, in the privacy of a mind that was now his and his alone. It was devastating, and it left an ache in his spark that he suspected would never go away.

Lest he lose himself in his misery, he moved on quickly to other things. Unicron, too, was out of reach and now had no control or grip over Scourge. He could no longer feel his (former) master, and he suspected that that went both ways. Unicron would not reach Earth for a very long time and until there, the two had no way to communicate. Unicron's power did not reach far enough to latch onto him, and now that their deal was over, in a sense, his mind would have been impossible to worm back into regardless.

Unicron's mission of ridding the galaxy of all life would have to be one he embarked on alone. And that was if Unicron was even still free. It was equally possible that he could have been trapped by whatever the Autobots and their grimy little human pets had done to the Transwarp Key. Scourge had no intents on continuing that mission. Serving Unicron had benefited him, because he was rewarded for it. The act of extinguishing life itself, however, did not bring him any benefit at all. Not only that, but he also no longer had the means of doing so. He could not even activate his own weaponry, for Primus's sake.

Speaking of which... Scourge examined the stasis cuffs around his wrists. They were sturdy and well-built, and in fact the exact same model that he himself used in the rare event that he needed to take prisoners. Battletrap and Nightbird also had several pairs, he recalled, but not for prisoners. For their own, er, extracurricular activities. The memory of that brought back a brief moment of amusement, until he remembered that they were... Could they even be one with the Allspark if dark energon had flowed through their veins?

It had been many vorns since he had prayed to Primus for anything at all, but he briefly considered praying that they find peace, until he realized that if Unicron had any lasting grip on him at all, he would be punished for that as well. Oh well. They would have to find their own way.

Back to the cuffs...

He had nothing that he could pick the lock with, and his Sweeps were useless in that regard as well. Their own internal weaponry systems had been disabled too, after all. The best he managed was to crouch awkwardly against the wall and bang his wrists repeatedly against it. The sound of metal clashing against metal rang in his audials, and before long, something cracked. But the wrong thing cracked. Scourge examined his cracked wristplates, now bleeding bright blue energon - not a hint of dark energon purple in it - and then he glanced at the cuffs, which were completely untouched. Frankly, the only way to get the cuffs off was to snap his entire limb off, which he also briefly considered.

A warning for low energon popped up on his HUD. His tank was at 5%, which was all kinds of reassuring. His wounds from the battle must have bled profusely, and with energon being as scarce as it was, none would have been wasted on him. Certainly, Scourge would not have wasted any on a prisoner. When dark energon had flowed through his fuel lines, he had had no need to eat, as Unicron's ever-near presence kept his frame satiated instead.

Now, however, it occurred to him that he did, in fact, need to eat, or else he would run the risk of offlining himself on accident. Ah... That was a problem.

Seeing no other option, Scourge stasis-locked himself, overriding the various protocols that urged him not to. He deployed his Sweeps as to not waste any energon on them - their own, smaller fuel tanks were at a much safer 55% - and allowed them to curl up over him, the warmth of their metal a little comfort to him. Darkness claimed him once more, and he sunk, once more, in the depths of a mind that still did not feel like his own.

. . .

A jolt of electricity shocked him of stasis and back into consciousness. Scourge onlined his optics and attempted to transform one servo into his blaster, only to remember his current predicament. Ah... His Sweeps scampered back onto his backplates and he looked up. The cell door was still, unfortunately, locked, the Autobots having taken the care to lock it behind them after entering. It was the Prime, as expected, and his little yellow scout. He didn't particularly care to remember any of their names.

Still, it was rather humiliating to have them stand over him like this now, when he could so easily have torn them to pieces. At least his mask had been returned to him, and it covered his ruined face securely. Prime bent down to his level to talk, which was additionally surprising. 

"Talk," Prime said simply. "What does Unicron want? And will he return?"

Scourge looked away. "I have nothing to say to you, Prime. Tear out my spark and be done with it already, rather than bore me with your insolent prattling."

"I am attempting to be civil, Scourge. And your energon levels would say otherwise." Out of nowhere, Prime produced a perfect, solid cube of glowing blue energon. Nothing had looked quite so appealing in quite a while. Also, his fuel tank chose to cramp up painfully at that exact moment.

Scourge evaluated his options. He could either let his energon levels fall to the point of near death, in which they would most likely stick an IV in him and then repeat this entire process, or he could cooperate and give information on a master that was so far away he could not hurt Scourge, and in turn by himself some more time to figure out what to do. Scourge had no desire to die, so he chose the latter.

"He wants what we all want," he said through gritted dentae. "To survive. His fuel source just so happens to be energon-rich planets like this delightful little mud ball. It could very well have been any other planet just as much as this one. To answer your second question, Unicron's physical location is far enough away to not be a threat for millions of vorns, at least to this planet. You may have trapped him, but without the information that I doubt you are willing to provide, I cannot say."

Prime and his yellow companion exchanged glances. 

"And how can we be certain you speak the truth?"

He laughed. "You can't be. I could be pulling this out of my aft for all you fraggers know. But the truth remains that I am starving and you have energon."

There were no further questions. Perhaps they had nothing to say to him, as he had none to them.

. . .

The energon tasted bitter.

Even now, Unicron closed his dark claws around Scourge. Even now.

Chapter Text

Once Scourge’s fuel tank sat at a slightly less concerning level, he examined the cuffs around his wrists once more. Once his usefulness ran out - which was to say, once his answers to their questions ran out - the Autobots would kill him. They had spared his life once and he was under no impressions that they would do it again.

He had to get out of here, and fast. Scourge was not so sure what would come after, but that seemed to be a problem for later, when his own termination was not quite so imminent. His wrist plate was still cracked from last time, but no longer bleeding. It was fine. Scourge could handle a little pain. More than a little, really.

First, he deployed Freezer and Novakane to attempt to pick the lock. This was met with little success and involved far too much awkward maneuvering to accomplish in a timely manner. The keyhole was too small to adequately manipulate. Scourge’s own prisoners had often tried to pick these very same cuffs, always to no success.

He glanced at the wall, which was of course harsh, unforgiving stone. Good. He gritted his dentae - a little pain for his freedom. Scourge had paid greater prices for less. He eyed the wall again before slamming the metal parting the cuff into it, careful to avoid the rest of his forearm.

It hurt. It really hurt. He did not particularly enjoy the sensation of pain, despite it being his companion for uncountable millennia. Still, there was still much to do before the metal gave.

Scourge slammed his wrist into the cell wall again and then lifted it to examine. Other than a now-throbbing pain beneath the restraints, there seemed to be no indifference at all. Frag it.

He continued to bang the cuff up against the wall, taking only a few nano-kliks to allow the pain to at least partially subside. It didn’t take long before blue energon was flowing out from under the metal. Scourge could feel the discomfort of the cold, sharp metal digging into his protoform where the broken armor had split apart. He would have to repair that, whenever he got the chance.

After a few kliks, the metal was severely dented and he had to stop entirely, because a warning had popped up on his HUD about energon loss. His own blue energon had formed a small puddle on the ground. Still, there was more to do.

Scourge took a deep vent, shuttered his optics a few time, and then drove the cuff into the wall with renewed vigor. Unicron had done worse to him. He had been torn apart from limb to limb and plate to plate and then put back together before. This was nothing. His insides were still his insides and all four limbs were safely intact. More than he could say for what had happened to him before.

On perhaps the tenth strike after the warning had appeared, the cuff finally - finally - split in half. Scourge took a shaky in-vent of relief and examined the damage underneath. His spark sank. Half the armor on his wrist was quite literally hanging off, leaving wires and half-broken cables sticking out and still sparking. Drops of energon slowly fell to the ground. He could see the protoform under, bruised and damaged.

Scourge brought his other servo up to the joint, trying to stop the bleeding. It ached at even the slightest touch and he was not sure he could bear the pain of pressing down on it hard enough to stop the plating. Scourge set his injured servo down and watched as the flap of loosened plating flopped back down. It was slightly sickening.

To his absolute dismay, the stasis cuffs were still absolutely functional. Either that or his t-cog had been locked some other way. Scourge had no idea what they had done with his frame while he was in stasis. For all he knew, there was no cog even in his chest any longer, which was also slightly sickening a thought.

He had the full range of motion on his hands now, but without the ability to transform anything, including his weaponry, he was back to square one. Scourge yanked a few times in the other cuff just to make sure it was attached just as tightly. And… it was. Fantastic.

All the while, his wrist continued to drip energon into the ground. Scourge’s own plating ran slick and set with his own energon. He disgusted himself.

It was just as Unicron had said perhaps. He really was useless - useless enough to get captured rather than to die with honor, useless enough to allow himself to be rid of any potential allies, useless enough to let it come to this. The truth was, he was nothing without Unicron. And he did not know how to be anything or anyone else.

But Unicron was gone now and his silent, empty mind was his own once more. And that made Scourge powerless and helpless, a victim of whatever fate awaited him. Except… if he just did the same to his other cuff he could transform, weld himself together, and be free of this wretched cell once and for all.

Scourge ex-vented shakily. He felt weak and dizzy and very much light headed. Energon loss. Who knew so much could drip from that little wound. It was then that he remembered that some of the most critical fuel lines were located in the wrist. Cut them, and… Don’t think about that. Just don’t. 

He slammed his wrist into the wall. Pain flooded through it immediately but Scourge did it again. And again. And again. He felt something give and crack in his wrist with a sickening crunch. And then something else.

Warm energon pooled from the wound. It dripped and dripped, joining the growing puddle at his pedes. Just a few more times. Then he would be free.

The metal dented. His wrist plates cracked and shattered. Cables were snapped and something sparked and then fizzed out. The metal cracked.

Feeling rather triumphant, Scourge yanked the cuff off and tossed it to the ground. He looked at his other wrist and his vision blurred slightly - oh, energon loss. Right.

The fuel line was pierced. One of the fuel lines that kept his spark beating. That was - that was bad. Right? Yes. Yes.

The armor hung strangely and it was cracked and dented all over. The black paint and polish was flaking and crumbled. The entire joint hung strangely the wrong angle.

There was - the cell floor was coated in a layer of blue. That couldn’t be good.

More warnings on his HUD that could not be clearer. He had to transform and fight his way out of here. But he was simply too tired and too weak.

So, so weak.

His vision blurred and then blackened.

And then there was nothing.

Chapter Text

When Scourge came back online, he was greeted with a flood of notifications on his HUD, many of them from several joors ago. He read through them quickly - low energon, protoform bruising, cut fuel lines... Primus. What had he done to himself in his desperation to escape? Before Scourge onlined his optics, he opted to run several full-frame scans on himself as he x'ed out all of the notifications and warnings.

The fuel lines in his wrist were intact again. His wrist plates had been welded back together haphazardly. His fuel tank was nearly empty, sitting at a cautious 10%. But recorded energon use indicated that more energon had entered his system while Scourge had been offline, locked in stasis. The Autobots. Such pathetically merciful captors. Anyone else would have had the sense to let him bleed out in peace.

They must have repaired him and hooked him up to an IV. There was no energon to spare on this fragging mudball of a planet, and Scourge was very much a waste of it. Letting him die was the obvious move - he had no more information that they could use, and he was clearly too dangerous to let loose and free. It was what he would have done in their place. And yet, here he was, perfectly fine and perfectly alive and perfectly repaired.

He took a moment to savor the emptiness of his own mind. There was nothing here but Scourge's own thoughts and emotions. There was no suffocating presence looming over his every waking moment, no tight, constricting grasp closing cold talons around him. There was no punishment for failure, no pain, no fear. There was only himself, and nothing and no one else. He only had himself now, and that was perhaps the one good thing that had come out of whatever mess Scourge had now gotten himself into.

He onlined his optics at last, shuttering them a few times to clear his foggy vision. The cell looked exactly the same. There were faint blue stains where his own energon had stained the metal ground, but someone had scrubbed them clean - or tried to, at least. The puddle it had left was alarmingly large. Accordingly, a new warning popped up on his HUD about low energon. Scourge had to get some fuel into himself soon, or else he would end up in stasis - again.

His servos were now cuffed behind him, leaving him no mobility. Clever. There was no way he could free himself of them, not again. Scourge did, however, feel around the cuffs with his digits, brushing up against firm metal. There was no way he could pick the lock, not without not even being able to see it. He gave the chain between the cuffs an experimental tug and found it stiff and sturdy. Frag it.

He was on his knees, leaned up against the wall. It was a comfortable enough position, so he did not move. Instead, he simply sat there, waiting. If the Autobots intended to starve him to death... Would it not be better to die? Here and now? Rather than continue the humiliation of remaining their prisoner, rather than continue to experience desperation that drove him to nearly terminating himself in trying to escape?

At least then it would be on Scourge's own terms. He alone held the power of his own life now, and he intended to make the most of that. Unicron no longer controlled him. Unicron was... gone. He still found that exceedingly hard to believe.

Or he could stasis-lock himself, where he could stay for vorns and vorns, frame practically dormant. Still, that was the coward's way out. And who knew what Scourge might wake up to, or what might be done to him while he was at his most vulnerable. There was no one to watch over his unconscious body, no one to protect him. All he had was Novakane and Freezer, and stasis-locking himself would stasis-lock them as well.

Scourge felt a sudden flash of guilt, which was entirely unexpected. Slowly killing himself via any means available to him was the best option so far. He did not want to endure further humiliation, or further imprisonment. There was no way for him to escape and there was no way the Autobots would let him go. Death meant peace, quiet, and calm. No more pain. No more punishment. And surely no more Unicron. Perhaps his spark was too tainted to ever hope of joining the Allspark, but wherever he went, he hoped that there would simply be a dark nothingness.

It was the best option for him. But for his Sweeps?

No.

He couldn't. He couldn't bring himself to do that to them. Through their bond, Scourge felt reassurances being slid his way. The warmth of it temporarily overpowered his trepidation, but not by much. They were connected to his frame. Should he starve, they starved too. Should he die, they died too. The only way to stop that from happening was to deploy them - permanently. And yet... The cell had no escape. If he was gone, there was no one to protect Novakane and Freezer from whatever the Autobots may to do them. If he was gone, they were entirely at the mercy of the Autobots.

He would not condemn them to that fate. The best option, Scourge thought, was to let them die with him. They had lived together and fought together, and now, they would die together. It made him sick to his fuel tank, but it was what had to be done. In the absence of any weaponry, his best option was to allow himself to slowly starve to death. It would be painful and it would be torturous, but afterwards, there would only be peace, in a place free of everything that plagued the living world.

For the first time in what had to be vorns, Scourge desperately wanted to pray to Primus. He wanted, so badly, the reassurance of a higher power. The safety of belief. The safety in knowing that there was a better place ahead, waiting for him, and that there was someone greater than him who loved and cherished him. His copy of the Covenant was still aboard his ship, elsewhere on the planet. He would likely never get it back. Which was rather inconvenient, because Scourge really did want to consult it, though he doubted scripture would bring him any comfort or answers.

But no. Even if he did pray, even if he did have the Covenant with him, what good would it do? Dark energon was a part of him, now and forever. It had been since his home had been destroyed, since everyone he had known or loved had been reduced to neat little piles of ashes. Scourge had sworn himself completely, in body and mind and spark, to Unicron. He belonged to his master, and that did not change, especially not now. And thus, he had committed the gravest crime of all against Primus.

He shuffled himself awkwardly into a sitting position, arms resting against the back wall of the cell. He tugged again on the cuffs. Unsurprisingly, they did not give at all. Further struggle would only reopen the welded wounds on his wrists... and he would bleed out. Again. 

Scourge didn't want to think about it anymore. He had arrived at the logical conclusion, and all that was left to do was execute it. It would be simple. Painful, yes, as his cramping fuel tank reminded him but not unbearable. He had been through far worse for far less in the past, after all. And after this, after this temporary, fleeting pain, there would be peace. Until the end of time. There would be smooth nothingness. No fear, no pain. Just nothing.

. . .

Prime came alone. Scourge couldn't say he was surprised. He was not exactly dangerous in his current state, with his fuel levels sitting around 6%. He had had to override stasis-lock manually several times already, as his frame struggled to keep him online. But he had to stay conscious, just for a little longer, before it was all, finally, over.

He had nothing to say to Prime. He had no further information to offer him, in exchange for freedom or his own life or otherwise. Unicron was gone and it would take him millions of vorns to traverse the galaxy fast enough to reach Earth from his current location. That was it. There was still the threat of the eternal war the Autobots seemed keen on waging, but he had no information on that. He had nothing to say to Prime, and Scourge wished that the mech would simply let him sit here and offline in peace.

He muted his vocalizer and denied another request for stasis-lock. Prime was holding a cube of energon - perfect, purified blue energon. Scourge's fuel tank was cramping up - hard - and he attempted to find the controls to disable his pain receptors. Unfortunately, the world was beginning to spin, and it was all so... Dizzying. The world moved and bent in alarming ways. He was starting to feel rather delirious, as he teetered on the brink of unconsciousness. 

Just let me die.

Prime tilted his chin up with more gentleness than Scourge had expected. He did not open his mouth. Being fed like a sparkling was humiliating, but Scourge did not intend on it. He was going to die within the joor. He could feel it. Could feel the weakness, the hunger, the pain that coursed through every part of him.

"Drink," Prime said. There was a slight undercurrent to his voice. That sharp edge of authority, of power. One of them held the power here. The other did not. One held the other's life in the palms of his servo, no matter how polite he was about it. 

Ruby red eyes bored into cobalt blue ones. Just let me die. "Drink. Or I'll make you."

He kept his vocalizer offline. He was not going to drink. He was not going to stasis-lock himself. He was going to let himself slip away, here and now. Until it was all over, until there was peace, until there was softness, until there was nothing at all. Nano-kliks dragged into a full klik. Scourge's energon level sat somewhere around 4%. Almost there. He was almost there. Toward... wherever was next. It was okay. He was going to be okay. Unicron was not here. Unicron could not follow him into what came after. No one could.

He was not here. He was somewhere far away. Where there was nothing and no one.

Cold metal digits pried his jaw open and tilted the cube toward him. He tried to close his jaw, to sink sharp fangs into the transformation seams, but Prime was strong. Much stronger than him in his current state, certainly. He could simply not swallow. He could let himself choke on it. Warm energon with the slight sweetness of iron additives flowed into his mouth and started to trickle toward his throat.

Still he refused to swallow.

Just let me die. Just let me have this one thing. Please.

"Swallow," Prime ordered him. "Do it."

Against Scourge's will, more instinct than thought, he swallowed. He cursed himself silently. The cramping ache in his fuel tank lessened immediately, and his systems screamed at him to get more fuel into his tank by any means necessary. More energon flowed into his mouth. He tried, once more, to close his jaw. His fangs caught on the tips of dark grey digits, but nothing else. He gagged a little but he swallowed anyways. Against his own will.

His frame betrayed him. It did not want to die. Not today. Not quite yet. Scourge cursed himself again, but this time, he swallowed without complaint. Prime's grip on his jaw loosened slightly, though it remained firm. Very slowly, he drained the cube. His fuel tank was still cramping up painfully, and the weakness in every one of his panels had not yet retreated. His energon was at a safe 60% now - and he - he - He was not going to die. Not today.

No matter how much he wanted to.

There will be other opportunities. I will find a way to finally be free. The pain of hunger in his fuel tank was nothing new. Unicron had, whenever he pleased, saw it fit to restrict his energon as punishment, usually when he failed horribly. But for once, it had been welcome. It had been so very, very welcome.

Prime set the cube down and finally - finally - retracted his grip. Scourge closed his jaw immediately, working the sore joint slightly. Used to dark energon as he was, regular energon still left a bitter taste in his mouth, even if the additives had masked it slightly. Someone had bothered to add additives to his energon... Strange... Now, though, he felt so very, very tired. He onlined his vocalizer cautiously, resting his head against the wall.

His wrist plates still ached. Everything still ached.

Prime's expression was unreadable as he got up to leave. He paused, looking over his shoulder. "I will be back next cycle. I expect you to cooperate with me then."

Oh... Hopefully, there would be no next time.

Chapter Text

Scourge had a plan. It was by no means the best plan he had ever had, and he was fairly certain that it would not work, but it was better than nothing. His fuel tank now comfortably full, termination was no longer a possibility. The only way to die was to slam his helm into the wall until - well, until it all went dark. But Scourge had no wish to leave this wretched world with his helm smashed in and his brain module hanging loosely out, a slimy puddle of energon around it.

His processor was much clearer now that he had something to focus on other than hunger. Scourge had almost certainly not been in his right mind... There was a way out of this. There had to be. There was always a way out, and he simply needed to find it. There was no situation without a loophole, no cage without a lock. Death was the coward's way out. Why run like a scared mechanimal when he knew that there was a way out? Had Scourge not always stood his ground and fought, even as he looked death right in the eye?

He glanced at his scuffed, damaged plating and scoffed softly. He was not a vain mech by any means, but he was, of course, hygienic and he had always prided himself on his cleanliness. Scourge's kills were quick and clean - so quick, in fact, that the insignia was welded on his shoulder by the time his victim's optics had dimmed away to nothingness. He so rarely returned to his ship with any dust or dirt or energon on him at all. His dark, shiny plating was always clean.

But now... Dust and dirt from the battle cycles before was still stuck everywhere on his plating. Without the use of his servos, there was little he could do about the mud stuck in his transformation seams. The dark paint was starting to peel too, but that was not too much of a concern. His natural plating was all that he had in most places - rusted and worn as it was, it served its purpose well and he saw no need to ever apply fresh coats of paint. Where there was black and silver paint, however, it was chipping rapidly. He kept his plating well-polished - for no other reason than that he preferred it that way. Scourge used expensive polish, but even that was not enough to survive the wear and tear of battle several times over. The natural roughness of his plating was beginning to expose itself in large, ugly patches,

Scourge felt dirty. He felt so very, very dirty and so very, very weak. The last time he had felt this helpless, this vulnerable, was the first time he had failed his master. It had been a mission like any other, only this time Battletrap and Nightbird hadn't accompanied Scourge. He had been young then - young and stupid and far too confident in his own abilities, but without the skill and experience to back it up as he now did. Not too keen on having their planet devoured, the native lifeforms, though inferior, had proved far too powerful for him to take on alone. He had stumbled home with his plating hanging off his protoform, bleeding energon everywhere.

Unicron punished him for that. Scourge now had come to expect punishment, and it had become quite familiar to him. The pain was not any less, but he at least knew what to do and what to say to lessen the duration and the strength of it. But then... He had been so, so stupid and so, so naive. It had been pain like he'd never known before, and then his chest plates were being pried open to reveal a glowing orange spark. And then Scourge's spark was being warped and twisted, fidgeted with in the cold, dark talons of evil itself. The very core of him, his very life force, stretched and played with before his optics. That was a type of pain that could not be described in words.

And so, after, he had welded his own chest plates shut (not that that would stop Unicron) and he'd locked himself in his berthroom for a full cycle, sitting under a steady stream of warm solvent, trying to feel like himself again, trying to feel like his frame was his own. Scourge felt that way now, again. His body was not his, did not feel like his. It had not for quite some time.

Anyways... Onto the plan. Scourge had practically forgotten, but the heels and soles of his pedes had mods. Very expensive mods that he had purchased quite some time ago. They were small metal spikes that allowed him to walk on any surface soft enough to sink them into safely... as well as to sink into the plating of any mech he had on the ground in front of him. It was always delicious, to see them wiggle and squirm under a pede placed square on the chassis, spiked heels digging dangerously close to the spark chamber. They were able to retract back into his pedes, but he often opted to keep them out, especially in battle.

Now, if only he could wedge a pede onto the chain that hung between the two cuffs. The metal would give fairly easily, and Scourge would have his full range of motion on his servos again. What the next step of that plan was he was not certain, but he would have to move quick.

A slight problem. Cybertronian biology made it impossible for him to bend his legs that way... But Cybertronian limbs were capable of rotating around in a full circle. He just had to grit his dentae through the pain and deal with the unfortunate consequences of trying to push his frame to its limits. Scourge scrolled on his HUD for a moment before finally finding the option to increase lubrication to his joints. Specifically, the hip, knee, and ankle joints in his right leg, by 250%, which was the highest his systems allowed him to set it.

He leaned back for a moment, counting the kliks on his chronometer and waiting for it to take affect. After about a breem, a small notification popped up to say that his increased lubrication was now in full affect. Scourge shifted positions slightly and winced - his other joints were very, very stiff and he could hear the grind of metal-on-metal as they struggled to move without adequate lubrication. Now, though, his right leg was significantly more flexible - well, as flexible as it could be without popping it right out of the socked.

He maneuvered himself slightly, nearly kicking himself in the modesty panel, and at least, he managed to get his ankle resting on top of the chain between the cuffs. It was a little difficult without looking, but he managed. There was a burst of pain from his hip joint and he could feel things moving and adjusting beneath his plating, trying to accomodate the unnatural angle. He brought his pede down - hard - and thick, sharp spikes sank into metal. There was a crack, and then another, and another. Scourge's freshly welded wrist plates screamed in pain.

But he was rewarded for it. A chunk of metal fell away delicately and he brought his arms in front of him, relieved to see that the chain was broken. Scourge stretched, wincing at the pain in his arms and at the fact that his other joints, dry from a lack of lubricant, were starting to lock up. He returned lubricant levels to normal, waited, shoved his leg back where it was supposed to be, and finally, stood.

He was unsteady on his pedes, feeling weak and slightly shaky. His right leg and wrist plates still ached. But he was free of the cuffs now, and that was -

The door opened.

The door opened.

His energon turned to ice in his fuel lines and the suddenly the world was spinning out of control - it was all - it - Prime was here. Prime was here because it was the same time as last cycle when he had come with a cube. Prime was here.

It - Prime was here. And Scourge had just - He - He had just - Why was everything spinning? Was it - was it supposed to be that blurry?

What was - was - was happening?

It was all -

Pain - Chest plates pried apart - cold, wet servos all over his frame - pain - and more pain - and -

Helpless. Trapped - trapped. He had failed again and -

It was - He was - No. Do something - no, he was trapped. The room was too tight - too small - so - the walls were closing in - inch by inch - close. So close - close. So close.

He had failed - failure - weak - disgusting - his master - no - 

It was - happening again - no - He wasn't back there. He was somewhere else and he was safe - safe, safe, safe.

His vents were stuck in his throat, coming out fast and hollow. His plating clamped tightly shut over his protoform. Scourge vented several times in rapid succession and shuttered his optics to see Prime pointing his ion blaster directly at his spark chamber. Scrap.

There was no escape, clearly. He was not stupid enough to think that he could take on Prime with his t-cog and weaponry locked. He was not going to risk the lives of his Minicons for what he knew was a futile battle. The door was locked from the outside behind Prime anyways. There was no way to get through it other than brute force, and his frame would not survive more of that. It was either he complied and obeyed like a good little prisoner, or blast through his spark chamber ended it all here and now.

Would that really be so bad, though? Would it? Wouldn't it be amazing to go to the Allspark on his own terms? Wouldn't it be amazing for the pain to all end?

No. What was Scourge thinking? He was not a coward, grabbing desperately at whatever straws would allow him to escape the best. He was going to endure, because he knew that there would come more chances, more opportunities, to regain what he had lost. Submit and grovel and beg now, for the chance to live another day and take his revenge when this was all over. A worthy trade, perhaps. Scourge had done more for less.

"Keep your servos where I can see them," Prime hissed.

Scourge laughed. "Charming, Prime. Really. Now, why keep me alive at all? Why not simply aim your shiny little blaster and end this all? No more wasted energon, certainly." He may have been making a mistake, taunting Prime like that, not when he was completely and utterly at the Autobot leader's mercy as it stood. Still, he could hardly resist.

"It is what separates us from you."

Oh. That was a good one, he had to admit. "You're correct, Prime. It is what makes you a weak, soft-sparked idiot who is going to get himself terminated sooner or later. I wonder, is that why your petty little war still rages on, even now? Is that why -"

Prime took a step forward, cobalt optics blazing. He was... Sore subject, clearly. The movement was sharp, sudden, and wholly unexpected. Scourge didn't expect himself to flinch back as violently as he did but his helm collided with the cell wall and his vents came out shallow and short. His spark pounded in its chamber. He was scared. Truly, genuinely scared. He did not enjoy the feeling. Prime would never kill him - his heroic nonsense prevented it - so what did he have to fear? He found no answers.

Prime vented slowly. "How did you get out of the cuffs?"

Silence.

"Answer me."

Oh, what choice did he have? Scourge lifted one of his pedes to expose the spiked heels. "Modifications. Very expensive ones, I might add. A little increased joint lubrication and I cut right through that metal. Don't worry, Prime, they retract back in."

Prime shot him a short, tired stare. "Good."

He commed one of his fellow do-good heroes and told them to hurry and fetch a fresh pair of stasis cuffs. Oh, how many of those things did they have? Scourge was not certain he had another way to wriggle out of a pair, though. Perhaps those would stay on for good, unlike the last two pairs. Prime continued to stand there, ion blaster fixed squarely on his chassis, not moving an inch. The slightest movement from him and he would find a hole blown through his spark chamber. There was no way out of this one. It was humiliating, sure, but he would do what he had to in order to survive.

He had done worse for less.

. . .

A pale brown bot with door wings that shifted and shook nervously worked on his pedes, making the spikes retract back into them. Scourge played nice, for now, and allowed him to do his work. He kept fire red eyes trained on him the entire him, enjoying the way the smaller bot looked terrified out of his mind. He was, of course, fitted with a fresh pair of cuffs, behind his back once more. Ah. At least he had gotten a decent stretch in.

After, Prime finally transformed his servo back and Scourge didn't have to worry about venting the wrong way and then having his spark blown out. "Don't do anything to this pair," Prime ordered. "There are decidedly less pleasant solutions to keep you in check."

He allowed a smirk to split his faceplates. "I'll think about that, Prime. I'll think about it."

Prime's patience, clearly, had run out, if he had any to begin with. He picked the cube back up off the ground where he had set it. His fuel tank cramped up slightly - he had burned through a significant amount of energon already somehow. But the thought of refuelling made his tank churn as well. Scourge was so used to the taste and feel of dark energon - it was all that he had consumed for so many vorns. It was familiar and safe and comforting.

Ordinary energon, on the other servo, was just... It was wrong. It felt strange sliding down his throat. It felt strange sitting in his tank. And it made his tank cramp up trying to break it down. It tasted off, despite being perfectly ordinary energon. But he had to stay alive, and in his present state, connection to Unicron all but severed, dark energon would very much kill him. Scourge really did not want to refuel. But he had to, and what other choice did he have?

This time, he opened his mouth of his own accord. Prime, clearly wanted to get it over with as much as he did, held his jaw open with one servo and tilted his helm back, pressing down hard enough to hurt the joint. Energon slid into his intake, tasting bitter and off. He wanted to spit it out. He really did. Instead, Scourge forced himself to swallow, telling himself that he had been through far worse than this. 

Prime was not a medic, but he had clearly done this before. Possibly one of his soldiers had been too injured to lift a cube themself. His pace was slow and steady, giving him time enough to swallow. Still, it was difficult, because every mouthful made him want to purge his tanks until there was nothing at all left in them. He gagged a little, choking, and Prime tilted his helm back to allow swallowing to be easier.

It was humiliating. Certainly not the life he had envisioned for himself. But it was the life he got.

And certainly, Scourge had to make the most of that.

Chapter Text

The urge to die significantly lowered when his fuel tank was full, Scourge quickly found. He spent most of the day with his optics shut tightly, venting in and out, waiting as his gyros recalibrated themselves and his repair nanites took care of his torn and ruined plating. Scourge's paintjob was still rapidly chipping, dark paint and shiny polish flaking off, and he remained certain that there was still dried energon in all of his joints, but he was feeling as if he would not keel over and offline at a moment's notice, so that was, certainly, a win.

He kept his Minicons on his backplates, feeding them through his own tank. He would not deploy them again unless absolutely necessary - when the time for an escape came, Scourge would know it. He had no further ideas and there were no further developments - he had never been sloppy enough to get himself captured before, and he had never been much of an escape artist. If he couldn't fight his way out, he was truthfully at a lost on what else to do. His t-cog remained locked, as did his integrated weaponry. He checked several times.

The cuffs were on tight and behind his back, so there was no wriggling out of them. The door was locked tightly most of the day, except for a five klik window where Prime came with his cube. Truthfully, Scourge had no further ideas. So he waited, allowing his famished, tired, breaking frame to knit itself back together, all while trying not to damage it further. The allure was there - if he could get out of cuffs twice, he was certain he could do it a third time. Well - maybe. His joint lubrication settings and most other settings on his HUD - most annoyingly, stasis lock - were now disabled, courtesy of the brown bot, who was surprisingly capable with Cybertronian biology. And Scourge was no medic, but he knew that if he tried to slam his wrist plates against the wall one more time he was going to rip apart his fuel lines and offline himself, for real this time.

There was still that itch, though. He knew that with just his claws and teeth, he had a chance of fighting his way out of here. He could do it, he knew he could. Scourge lusted, hungered, thirsted for it. He wanted to rip apart Prime's spark chamber with just his teeth and yank out spark, t-cog, brain module with his energon stained servos. He wanted to weld that pathetic little insignia onto his shoulder, transform, and get off this blasted planet as fast as he could.

He wanted to do all of that, and he was sure that there was at least a chance that he could. If Scourge was a good little pet, he could find his ship again, get off-world, and find Unicron again. He could rebuild their link and once more, he would have a purpose. It would be so easy to fall back into routine - crushing whatever resistance he met, getting to toy with his next victim as much as he pleased, watching planets explode and crumble behind him as he enjoyed whatever luxuries he pleased. That had been Scourge's reality for several millenia now and it was - it was what it was.

He couldn't say he didn't enjoy any of it. Scourge knew he was not a good mech and if Primus ever judged him, he would say the same. He really did enjoy the process, seeing the looks of helplessness on their organic little faces, crushing their lifeless bodies in his servos... He did like it. It was nice. It was familiar. It go this energon flowing and - yes, Scourge quite liked it.

But that would mean... He would make himself a slave again. He would put on the chains, the collar, the manacles, all over again. Scourge would surrender his mind, his spark, his frame - his everything to Unicron. He would let the Unmaker twist and mold and play with him however he pleased. He would subject himself to the worst agony he had ever known or could ever know.

No. Scourge would not return to Unicron, no matter what was whispered in his ear, no matter what promises were made to him, made to be broken. He would rather sit in this cell till he rusted and his spark went out, stuck in limbo forever. Because even this was better than being a slave. He was free now - perhaps he was still in chains, but his mind was his own. And that, perhaps, was the only thing Scourge still had.

His mind was his own. His spark was his own. And he was never giving it away to another ever again. Scourge had learned his lesson. A four million year lesson. He had learned his lesson well, and he would never bare his spark to another, nor his mind, nor anything else. He would never trust another and he would never trust anyone that promised him anything. He was free now, and he would not throw that away again.

. . .

Scourge was in a particular mood to stir up something. He was bored out of his empty mind and also increasingly sore and stiff. His joints were still locking him from the little stunt Scourge had pulled earlier. And yes, his limbs still hurt from it. So when Prime set down the empty cube to look him in the eye, Scourge met his gaze, looking the other bot up and down. He had not changed at all since their last battle - though, clearly, he had repaired the damage from it. Prime's paint and polish were chipping in more places than one, but Scourge understood not being able to find the time for such vanities.

"So, Prime, tell me," he said, drawing out his words all slow and honeyed. "How is Cybertron doing these days?"

Prime froze like he had been struck. His cobalt eyes burned holes through the back of Scourge's helm. Oh, if looks could kill! He chuckled, low and dark. Scourge knew he should not goad Prime, should not provoke him like this - if he wanted to stay alive long enough to make his escape, that was. Maybe he didn't want to.

"In the servos of our enemies," Prime said flatly.

"And you intend to take it back, I presume?"

Prime hesitated. He actually gave a long, solid pause, before sitting back down to Scourge's level. He had been turning to leave before. "If there is anything left to fight for. Decepticon forces far outnumber our own, after all."

"Mm. And you think yourself safe... here? On this primitive little planet populated by bags of flesh?"

Prime didn't rise to the insult this time. Ah, so he was learning. "The Decepticons will find us here, too, in time. I'm not foolish enough to think that they won't. They will bring the war here, to us, as they always have. But for now there is time, and there is, as the humans say, the calm before the storm."

"For all your prattle about protecting the... humans, you seem awfully eager to let the Decepticons bring your silly little war to their home."

Prime froze again. Clearly, another sore spot. "Might I mention, Scourge, that you have already brought a war here. And might I mention, that you have already nearly destroyed this planet once, and we have stopped you once."

"And you are willing to let those who will do much worse than I follow you here?"

"You tried to destroy this entire planet. I doubt it can get much worse than that."

"You are missing the point sorely, Prime. Do you think you can save Earth without destroying it? Without your precious human friends turning on you?"

They were both silent for a great long while. Clearly, something to think about.

"What other choice do I have?" Prime asked him. "Return home to Cybertron and destroy my home further. Let them take the war to us and destroy our new home. Find someplace else and destroy someone else's home."

Hm. Prime presented a compelling point. It was not his war, nor his business, but Scourge was seriously thinking about it, perhaps more out of boredom than anything else. He had never concerned himself with such matters because he knew that wherever his ship landed, he would bring only death. Every world would be razed and destroyed, and then it would come time to move onto the next one. He didn't care about the cost of his actions the way Prime did, and that allowed him to make whatever choices he pleased. How cumbersome, to have a moral compass.

"Cybertron. How willing are you to fight for it?"

Prime paused to stare at him again. "Earth may be our home now, but I would lay down my life for Cybertron. Now and, I suspect, until I join the Allspark. I would lay down my life to bring peace to it again, and to restore it to it's golden days before our war destroyed it."

"Hm. Tell me, Prime, are Cybertron's golden days worth taking it back?"

It was more of a rhetorical question, but Prime clearly took it literally, because he was staring at Scourge strangely again. "Would you not know yourself?"

Scourge laughed. "How strange it is to hear you speak of Cybertron so highly. To me it is just another planet."

"And yet you are Cybertronian."

"Cybertronian, yes. I was constructed cold on Combatron and I have never once stepped pede on Cybertron." He truly did not know why he was telling Prime the circumstances of his creation. 

"Combatron," Prime said, rolling the syllables off his tongue. "A colony world?"

"Yes. Gone now, but Primus, no one will miss it."

"Gone...? So you...?" Scourge watched with a sort of dark satisfaction as the pieces connected in Prime's processor. 

He looked Prime in the cobalt eyes. "Why yes, of course. I offered my entire planet, my home, and everyone on it, everyone I knew, everyone I loved, on a pretty little golden platter for Unicron. And all I asked in exchange was to be his servant. Did you expect anything less from me, dear Prime? I would be so disappointed if so."

He savored the look of horror in Prime's gaze. And, of course, that was not the full story. The reality was Scourge had never done that, had never willingly offered his home to the Unmaker himself. There had been a time when a younger version of himself, too, would have laid down his life for his home just like Prime. The reality was, Unicron had held him in a massive, cupped palm, squeezing his planet dry in the other servo, and said to him, I will tear out your sparkchamber and I will torture every single being on this planet the slowest, worst way I know how. But if you promise yourself to me, spark, mind, soul, frame, then I will make it quick. You have my word.

And what choice did he have?

Chapter Text

Hey everyone.

First off, I'm very very grateful to every single person who has read, left kudos, comments, or bookmarked. It genuinely means the world to me.

Now to the point - It's what it says on the tin. My mental health has taken a nose dive recently and I don't have the time or energy to continue to update, even sporadically. So, yeah, this fic along with all my others are on temporary hiatus until further notice. Yes, temporary. I have no intention to abandon, now or ever, and I do still plan to write this to the very end.

I can't give you a timestamp of how long, unfortunately. Probably a lot of you know mental health is unpredictable and when I get better I can't say. However, I think at most one or two months will be the most I will be away for.

You can see updates on the state of this hiatus and, yeah, more TF content that's not fanfic on my tumblr, @smoked-salmon-official.

Apologies that this wasn't a chapter, but, yeah, I figured I'd be transparent about this rather than just leave the fic.

Thank you for reading, and I look forward to see you all again when I come back.

-kaz 

Chapter Text

Scourge fluffed out his plating, letting the drying solvent run out from beneath his scuffed plating. At least he was clean now. Solvent did little to get rid of the rust and war to his armor, but all the little bits of dirt and rocked lodged against sensitive protoform was gone. Admittedly, it was a little hard for Scourge to enjoy himself and finally let his guard down a little bit when Prime was in the corner of the very small chamber, pointing a blaster at his vulnerable back plating. But he made do and even got a somewhat decent stretch in when Prime cuffed his servos in front of him again. Everything was dirty or aching. Or both.

He had to make the best of his situation after all. He was still at a complete and total lost on what to do here. Escape was his only option because Scourge really, truly did not want to stay another moment in a cell that had been tainted with his own energon way too many times, while also being the dirtiest and most rusted he had ever been. But escape was also not an option because he had no weaponry, no opportunities, and his frame was still trying to recover from what he had done to it. Scourge's excuse was that he would wait until his frame recovered, and then he would make a decision on what to do. Stay? Or try to escape again? Escape could mean freedom, or death. Prime had patience, but that was bound to run out eventually. Testing his goodwill was fun, but not particularly productive to long term survival.

No option was ideal. The only option was to maintain his survival until a decision could be made or an opportunity presented itself. Scourge's fuel tank was full for the first time in - actually, possibly since he arrived on this wretched planet. Unicron punished him for his many failures on Earth, and he was running on fumes by the time he fought Prime for the last time. Just enough energon to keep his processor and core functions online... But at levels low enough for his joints to lock up whenever he was not fighting and diverging more fuel to them. Having a consistent source of energon was new for Scourge.

Of course, it was always on hand on his ship. There was never any real lack of it. But fuel was another thing held over his helm whenever he failed, or generally whenever Unicron found himself in a particularly bad mood. Scourge had dark energon in him and he was privy to Unicron's control - his mind, frame, and spark belonged to his master, of course, a fate he had chosen for himself. He was an easy target and apparently the Unmaker's chosen stress ball. It was fine - toying with his spark a little, denying him a little fuel here and there. Nothing compared to the wrath Unicron could shot. He had frequently told his servant that he held himself back - that he was being merciful, that if he wanted, he could rip Scourge apart piece by piece, shove him back together, and then do it all again. As long as he was in functional condition to work the next day, practically anything was on the table.

A miserable existence? Sure, by some standards. But Scourge got to splurge on all the luxuries he wanted, do all the trophy collecting and killing he lusted for, and see more of the universe that he really needed to see. It was an alright trade off. And he was practically invulnerable to all but Unicron. A little pain from Unicron and no pain from anything else. It was a good deal, Scourge thought, the very reason he had accepted it in the first place. It was fine. Even if it wasn't, it had been his life. A life that he quite enjoyed, all things considered.

Scourge wanted to go back. At least, then, everything had been expected. He knew the sorts of punishments Unicron liked. He knew how to deal with himself afterwards. Lock the door, turn on the solvent as hot as it will go, lean back, try to forget. Ignore Nightbird and Battletrap's comms. Make sure Novakane and Freezer didn't see what happened to him. It was routine. It was expected. Scourge knew when and how the pain would cone, and he knew what to do after. Simple. Easy. Expected.

Now? Nothing was anticipated. Everything was unpredictable, and Scourge's simple tasks of keeping himself and his minicons online proved to be far harder than expected. Especially with the landmine that was Prime. The other Autobots would have been easy to pick apart and prey on the weaknesses of but... Prime didn't seem to trust anyone other than himself to handle him. Which was nice, because at least Scourge still held some power. He would take what he could get.

As for what was going on in the outside world, it was anyone's guess. Prime always came in looking exhausted and mildly annoyed, but perhaps that was his default appearance. Or simply the caveats of commanding a large faction, even one that had taken losses as bad as his own. He divulged nothing of his plans or fellow Autobots - rightfully so, actually. No important plans were discussed near the door, which was to be expected. In fact, Scourge heard very little - probably because he had spent long stretches of time unconscious recently. Other than that, though, the only thing he heard was casual conversation - sometimes between the Autobots, which he knew more or less by voice now, if not by face and frame, sometimes with their human allies. As far as he could tell, only one new human had entered the mix. The other two he knew already.

He frequently half-hoped for the Decepticons to come raining down from the sky and bomb the entire building to bits, giving him an opening to run off. However, they were no more his allies than the Autobots, and at least he was beginning to learn how to navigate his circumstances here. The best case scenario was for everything to remain exactly the same until an opportunity for escape presented itself.

Scourge slept a lot, because it was the easiest way to pass the time. Being awake meant thinking too much and always expecting the dark, heavy presence of Unicron back in his mind. If he thought about it too much, the room grew tight and his vents grew shallow and his spark beat faster. Not very comfortable, to say the least. Being asleep meant rest for his still aching plating and his fragile wrist plating that he had torn apart one too many times. No wonder it hurt to flex or twist his digits or wrist joint. Permanent injury to Scourge's frame was entirely new. Unicron patched him right up after their little games. He had to be in alright condition to work the next day, after all.

The latch to the door clicked open and soon enough, on the dot as he usually was, stepped Prime in all his red and blue stoic (not) glory. He always looked at Scourge with a sort of mild annoyance, which was understandable. He had not killed him when he had the chance, and now his enemy was in his base and drinking his energon. Not great. This was why Scouge never took prisoners before. But clearly, Prime was different. In more ways than one...

Refuel was a quick affair. The energon still did not go down right - it was somehow both too thick and too thin but he knew better than to complain. The first few times, he purged his own tanks but he could at least keep it down now. Baby steps, right? 

Scourge wanted to go back to sleep because he could already feel it in the back of his head - he was going to start thinking too much. About Unicron. About everything that had happened to him. About the fact that his master was still somewhere out there and could still get to Earth. You're safe. He's not here anymore and he can't hurt you anymore, Scourge tried to tell himself, to absolutely no avail.

So the second best option was to make conversation to Prime, who was actually quite interesting to talk to, once they both got over their history with one another. Prime was apparently in the mood to talk too, because he took the hint and sat down, setting the empty cube to the side. Scourge was not sure how he had the frequent free time to simply make conversation, but perhaps that was in his schedule as well.

"In what circumstances would you let me go?" Scourge asked, because that had been on his mind.

Prime sighed. He did that a lot. "Under the circumstances in which you would not harm this planet's native life-forms."

"I won't."

"I highly doubt that. I will not take risks that will jeopardize an entire planet," Prime said.

He laughed. "It was worth a try anyways... Say you let me go with my t-cog and weaponry locked as it is now. I am harmless without them on an unfamiliar planet."

"You'd find a way to get out of that too. Or you would offline from energon deficiency. I would not do that to you."

"Would you now?"

"No."

"Interesting."

Prime looked him in the eye. "I'm glad I am so intriguing to you."

Was that sarcasm? A joke? Out of him? Also interesting. "I'm sure the same could be said for you, dear Prime. How is it that you can find time for me in your terribly busy schedule?"

"I am not that busy. There have been no signs of the Decepticons for many years now. I know that they will come eventually, but for now we remain undiscovered. Our cooperation with human authorities have evened out most of the mess left by you, so there is simply not much to do now."

That, surprisingly, made sense. Scourge got the sense that Prime was not lying to him.

"So, Prime, tell me. What do you plan to do with me? ...Kill me, Prime, and rid yourself of the burden. It is what I would do."

Prime sighed again. "How many times do I have to tell you? I will not do that. That is what separates us. I am not you and I will never not be grateful for that."

Ouch.

"So what is your proposed alternative?" He was genuinely interested to hear it. Scourge was still invested in his own future and immediate survival and Prime had been surprisingly honest with him in the past.

"I do not know. However, we have sufficient energon to keep you online with no issues, and a permanent base. I see no reason to deviate from our current... arrangement."

Cute. That's what he's calling it. Scourge fidgeted a little and flexed his servos out of habit - it had first been to check to see if that motion still hurt his wrists, but it was something of a nervous tick now. He winced visibly - it still hurt. A lot. Hopefully it would mellow out eventually, but the circuitry there was delicate and intricate. Whoever had repaired Scourge only had access to mediocre medical knowledge and the limited tools on Earth. They would likely be like this for the long term.

Prime noticed. He was fairly observant. A skill honed from the battlefield or an innate one Scourge was not certain. "Does it still hurt?"

Scourge smirked. "Obviously."

"Why would you do that to yourself?"

Good question. "To escape. I feel that that should be fairly obvious, Prime."

"Is it really worth permanently damaging your own circuitry?"

"Yes," he said with very little hesitation. "If presented with the opportunity, I would do it again. I haven't yet because that would make me entirely useless in an ensuing combat situation."

"...You've really thought this through, haven't you?"

"Of course. Wouldn't you do the same, Prime, if you were in my current predicament?"

"Yes. Fair enough, I suppose," Prime said.

A bit of silence. Scourge flexed his servos again and looked down at his scuffed wrist plates. They were permanently damaged, unless a world-class doctor from Cybertron suddenly made an appearance. He used his hands for everything, including fighting, and while he could make do, it was far from ideal. Why had he done that to himself? And had it really been worth it? Even if he was a free mech after that, he would have been entirely useless in many areas.

"I can be honest with you," Prime said after a few more moments of quiet. "I like that, even if I like nothing else about you. You hate me already and nothing will change that. I do not care if you hate me more. So I can be honest."

"And you can't be with your own men?"

"No. Our home is overrun with our enemy and we are being hunted galaxy by galaxy, system by system, planet by planet. We have no communication with the rest of our forces and for what it's worth, we can consider ourselves the last bots standing. That makes for terrible morale. I am the lynchpin holding us all together and should I falter and say the wrong thing, even for a moment, it all comes tumbling down."

"Is your situation really so precarious?"

"And do you hope to take advantage of it?"

Scourge laughed. "How would I?"

"Mm. And yes, it is that precarious. I can't even acknowledge that fact to my Autobots, because admitting how bad our situation is is counterproductive as well. This is precisely what I mean. I can tell you this, and no one else."

"I do not particularly care."

"That is another good thing. I know this isn't your war either way, so you do not judge me for any of my choices."

"An interesting view, Prime, though not a wholly inaccurate one. Is that why you keep coming back? For someone to dump all your problems on?" Scourge said with a huff of laughter. It was not outside the realm of possibility, and the thought greatly amused him, all things considered.

"Yes. And no. I think... Maybe I see something in you that can be salvaged. That may be naive of me, but that naive hope is what has kept us fighting this long."

Scourge stared at him. Prime stared back. Then they both burst out laughing. It was surreal, it was sudden, and it was so utterly stupid.

"That's never going to happen," Scourge said. "I am not your charity project and I do not care to be."

"I know that," Prime said. "That does not stop my hope. I hold onto it because without it, I truly have nothing.

"Well, isn't that depressing."

"It is."

"...You know, Prime, I don't truly hate you. Not like you say."

"See what I said? There is something in there that can be -"

"No. There isn't. Believe me when I say that."

Prime paused. "...If you say so. I will give up on you, if that is what you really want. But I hope at some point in the future, you can be honest with me as I can with you."

"That's never going to happen."

"...I know that."

Chapter Text

When Prime came with his cube of energon, he expected a few things - for it to be thick and unpleasant going down, for it to want to come back up, and possibly a conversation. A productive one? Probably not. An interesting one? Maybe. He did not expect to gag and then quickly close his intake, for fear of purging his tanks all over his newly cleaned armor. It tasted wrong. Well, even more wrong than usual that was. Scourge looked up at Prime. "Did you poison my energon."

"I - No. What's wrong with it?"

He looked back down at the cube. It looked perfectly normal and blue and inoffensive. "Something. You tell me, Prime."

"Drink."

"I'll purge my tanks over both of us."

"Not today - Oh. Oh."

"What?" Scourge demanded. He really did want to know what was wrong with his energon.

"We ran out of additives."

Additives? "You've been putting them in my energon?" He wasn't sure how he felt about this. He had never been one for flavored energon back home (before Unicron destroyed it) and later, he had never needed to drink energon, flavored or otherwise.

"You purged your tanks drinking our plain energon. I added them until you stopped doing that and, clearly, it worked," Prime said.

He... Oh. "You did that?" For me?

"I do not wish to waste more of our energon. It is hard enough to find as is."

Ah. "How long until you get more? I would like to not starve, Prime."

"Two cycles? Three? Can you try to drink the rest of the cube without purging?" Prime questioned. He was terribly impatient - but something big was happening on the outside, Scourge could tell. He was not stupid, and he had grown used to being able to pick up the smallest changes in Prime's demeanour. With nothing else around to analyze or absorb, he had fixated overly on that. Something was troubling him, even more than the usual.

He sighed deeply. He really, really did not like having to be fed his energon like a sparkling, or not being able to drink without purging unless his special little combination of additives was in it. Primus truly did hate Scourge specifically. How very, very pathetic. It was humiliating - he had had worse, but not in recent memory. It was fine, but it was not enjoyable. Scourge shook himself and fluffed out his plating - he would have time to wallow in his self-pity later. For now, he had to get some fuel into himself no matter what it took. He could go for a long time without any, but his minicons had significantly smaller tanks and needed more consistent fuel.

So he let Prime tilt it back up, one hand on the cube and the other around the back of his head, the intimacy of it all strange and unsettling and familiar all at once. Scourge swallowed and told himself he had had worse. He told himself that he was alive and he was free of Unicron and he should be grateful for that. Any suffering was inconsequential. This was mere discomfort. He could take it, as he had taken everything in the past. He would take it strong and silent and he would make it out alive. It was just energon. It could not hurt him. Unicron was not here. It was okay.

He made it halfway through the cube before he purged his tanks all over himself and Prime.

. . .

Clearly, the next cycle, their fuel-additive crisis had not yet been resolved. Scourge spent most of the morning deep in recharge while his minicons scrambled around the cell room. He had to make up some excuse to get them outside. They were meant to search and sweep, to cover as much distance in as short a time as possible. Not to be confined here with him. He sighed deeply. They had never asked for any of this but they were bound to him, as he had once been bound to Unicron.

None of them had chosen this. Why would anyone ever choose this? Agreeing wasn't the same as choosing. Choosing to survive wasn't the same as choosing. Saving yourself wasn't the same as choosing. Choosing mercy for everyone else wasn't the same as choosing. None of it was. He had not chosen this for himself. Who would?

Anyways, Scourge could make up some excuse to get them out, in which case he could get out, in which case... Escape. Ah, finally, an opportunity that he could act on. Whether or not it would work he had no idea. He was getting better at tugging on Prime's heart strings, though. He could make something work. He always had. Scourge slept more after that and then flexed his hands and - wrist plates were still damaged. Fantastic. It seemed that things only ever got worse for him.

His fuel tank cramped up a little from a lack of energon. He curled up into a ball and tried to hide his own misery from the invisible eyes he felt were always on him. This was pathetic. He was so pathetic. He had had worse. After Unicron gave him a shiny new reformatted body, he left Scourge on the floating wreckage of his home for several cycles. He said, Stay here and do not move. If you leave, I will kill you. He knew now that that had been a test - of his unconditional loyalty, and one of Unicron's games again.

Scourge learned to play the games in time and he got good at it. It entertained him, in time, and now he played those same games with Prime and anyone who got near him. But then, he had been young and scared and stupid. So he didn't move. So he watched his energon storage slowly drop. It hadn't been the first time Scourge had been without fuel - life on Combatron was neither easy nor pleasant - but it was the longest and most desperate. He could find energon if he simply moved and scavenged through the wreckage. He knew he could. He could sense it near him. And yet. Scourge did not move for thirty two cycles. Exactly thirty two.

After that, Unicron shoved his dark energon into him, and after a few cycles of excruciating pain, he would never need to consume ordinary energon again. And yet, leave it up to Unicron to always find new and creative ways to torment him. Whenever he wasn't happy with his little servant, he could drop the levels of dark energon inside him - the same as starving Scourge, essentially. It hurt, but it was always when he deserved it. Failure was punished, because if it wasn't, he would only fail more.

The point was, he was used to going without fuel, but he was definitely not used to knowing that his fuel was right around the corner, but he couldn't swallow it because it didn't have the exact taste it had to have. Primus. Scourge diverted more fuel to Novakane and Freezer's fuel tanks and shut down some functions in his own frame. Time to rest. Even more. Nothing else to do - and he had to take care of his minicons. He had done enough harm to them already.

How exhausting. Being in charge of lives other than his own. It gave him enough worries already, and he thought that he understood some of the heaviness Prime carried into the room every afternoon when he came with Scourge's cube. He had been in charge of... his... Battletrap and Nightbird, and others, once a upon a time. But that had been easy. He just did what he did best and he wasn't really leading, Unicron was. Scourge was just a conveniently shaped puppet that bots tended to listen to.

But to fight a war? To lead and to know that all eyes were on you? The slightest slip, the slightest expression of genuine emotion... Any sort of vulnerability... Oh, it was all so open to all sorts of fantastical exploitation. Was that why Prime was the way that he was? It got to you after a while, Scourge guessed. It must. Who could take it for that long? He himself was excellent with his composure, but managing himself and his minicons had already been too much - now and in the past. Patching himself up and recovering after Unicron was done with him, then working again and keeping his frame functional through that - well, that was practically another job on top of his usual. Now double, triple, quadruple the responsibility.

Prime was not some sort of victim or martyr, but the more Scourge thought about it (he had nothing else interesting to do or think about) the more he understood why Prime was the way that he was. He wondered if Prime thought about why he was the way that he was. He wondered if Prime even cared. It didn't matter at the end of the day, but he still wanted to know.

That afternoon, at the ring of his alarm set on his HUD, simply titled, "energon" (not capitalized), Prime stepped into the room, as usual. From the sliver of the outside - freedom! - that Scourge got through the metallic glint of his mask, he saw Bumblebee alongside an unfamiliar human. Perhaps the owner of the third voice he had heard. He didn't get to stare long enough to speculate. Prime didn't have a cube on him this time - wise. Neither of them wanted a repeat of the previous cycle.

"You need a doctor," was the first thing out of Prime's mouth.

"I - what?" Scourge did not. He had been patching himself up since Combatron and look at him. He was entirely alright and in one piece. Well, mostly.

"If we happen to not be able to get more of the additives, you will quite literally starve. Does that not seem like a problem to you?" he asked.

I would love to die. "Yes, of course it does. I am not stupid, Prime. Let me rephrase that. Why is that your problem?" It was a dig he made often. Why was Prime was kind to him? Why did Prime care enough to keep him alive, when he had tried to destroy this whole planet mere weeks ago? Scourge never got a solid answer to any of these questions, but he was genuinely curious, so he did not stop asking, even when Prime clearly wanted him to stop.

"We have been over this before. I am not you. I will not leave you to die, under my watch or otherwise," Prime retorted. He sounded very, very tired, the sort of tone that told Scourge not to push it more, lest he wanted an ion blaster shot through the spark chamber.

"So. Doctor. You think it is a medical issue?" Scourge said. He steered the conversation elsewhere, because any thought of his own inherent worth as an individual was - It was uncomfortable.

"What else would it be?"

"I... Yes, I suppose you are right. It is the dark energon. I have not had regular energon since..." he stuttered a little. Since Combatron. Since his home was destroyed. But that was not the version of the story he had told Prime, and he really did not want any pity.

Prime nodded. He looked a little uncomfortable, because clearly he also remembered the version Scourge had told him. "And your wrist plating. I doubt it is permanently damaged. Ratchet could - He could fix anyone."

"Who?" One of his Autobots. Not one of the ones on Earth.

"An old friend," Prime said, exhaling quietly. His gaze was distant, like he was all the way back home on Cybertron, with some faceless bot still next to him. "I wish he were here... often."

A rare moment of vulnerability. Usually, Scourge would make some kind of dig at that, simply to entertain himself, but he was too busy watching something. Prime's finials. They were long and sharp and they flicked back and forth often. 

They shot straight up when he was startled and tilted back when he was thinking. They moved back and forth when he was happy (he had only seen this once, when Prime came in after talking to one of the other Autobots). They angled downwards towards the ground when Prime was upset, or overwhelmed. They remained in their usual upright position most of the time, but sometimes Prime lost a bit of his composure.

He knew all of this, not just from careful observation, but from experience. He had had finials at one point too, long before a mask covered his ruined face. For some reason, Scourge felt the need to share that. He could tell Ratchet (and Cybertron as a whole) was a little too close to home... And he had no idea why he wanted to ease Prime's discomfort. The conversation was one of the few places he held power over the Autobot leader and yet... Why did he care? Good question.

"Your finials," he began.

Prime turned to him, surprised. His finials gave a little twitch upright. "What about them?"

"I used to have ones like yours," he said. His voice was too quiet all of a sudden and the room was too big and his vents were too loud. It was alright, though. Unicron was not here. No one here was going to hurt him - at least, that was what Scourge told himself again and again like a mantra. He was terrified that if he lost sight of that train of thought, his composure would all slip and it would all start to unravel.

"Used to?" There was a bit of - pity? Horror? Something. In Prime's gaze. He had to know how delicate and sensitive finials were. They were meant to pick up miniscule vibrations and sounds and transmissions travelling through the air - they had to be. To lose them was...

"Yes. Clearly, not anymore," he replied. He tried to put his usual dried detached tone into it but somehow - No. Scourge's voice was in real danger of breaking and revealing that thick undercurrent of emotion buried within it.

"What happened?" Prime sounded... genuinely curious. Maybe even concerned. Or that was just wistful thinking. Maybe he was just desperately for someone to care. For someone to say, You didn't deserve that. That shouldn't have happened to you. And he knew Prime had too much of a spark to not offer him at least that.

"Unicron. Snapped them off after the first time I failed. It took... Well, it took quite a while to regain my senses," Scourge said. He took a shaky breath and stared down at the ground. He didn't... he didn't want to think about it. He didn't even know why he had brought it up in the first time. He shouldn't have.

Prime stared at him in stunned silence for a very long time. "And did he do that often?" he asked, strangely calmly.

Scourge shrugged as well as his bonds would allow him. "When I deserved it."

"You... that is never deserved. Even for you."

Scourge looked over at Prime. They lived in different worlds. He wished that he could give himself the same... Kindness? Forgiveness? He shook his head with a choked laugh that morphed into a sob halfway through. "I deserve it all more than you know, Prime. More than you know."