Chapter Text
The Decepticons were not born in fire and glory.
They were born in absence.
When the Fallen disappeared, it left a void so vast it seemed to suck the light from the stars themselves.
It had been Starscream—the radiant, unpredictable Seeker—who was to investigate the uninhabited world. Cold, unmarked, the planet had no designation, no name. Only silence awaited there.
Starscream had smiled before leaving, a rare and beautiful thing.
“I’ll be back before you can miss me,” he had promised D-16, voice full of pride.
But he had never returned.
And D-16, the small gladiator who had clawed his way to the Fallen’s side, was left standing alone under a sky that suddenly seemed too large.
For a time, chaos reigned among the Decepticons.
Without the Fallen, the leaders fought amongst themselves. Squabbles broke out like sickness in a dying city. Disputes over resources, territories, hierarchy—each petty fight carving deeper cracks in the foundation of the faction.
And yet, at the center of it all, D-16 stood silent. Watching.
Listening.
Learning.
He had not been made for command.
He was a weapon, pure and simple: forged in the pits, trained to destroy.
But there was a strange hunger in him now, something new, something dangerous. A seed planted long ago by the Fallen’s whispering voice.
"You are meant for more, my little warrior."
The day D-16 stood before the Decepticon court, he was still young.
Barely older than a sparkling by Cybertronian standards, but his body was already heavy with scars and power.
The elders sneered.
He had no wings like Starscream.
No voice like the Fallen.
No experience beyond blood and the roar of the arena.
"You are a brute," they hissed. "Not a leader."
But D-16 lifted his helm and looked at them—not as a gladiator, not as a subject, but as a king-in-the-making.
He did not speak eloquently.
He did not make promises.
He said only one thing:
"If none of you are strong enough to lead us, then I will."
And that was enough.
By the end of the meeting, three were dead, and the rest bent the knee.
From the ashes of the Fallen’s dream, something new began to take root.
Megatron.
He chose the name himself, discarding the fragile syllables of D-16 like a snake shedding its skin.
Megatron—he who stands above.
But for all his power, Megatron was haunted.
He was missing something.
He would sit, sometimes, alone in the vast throne room, staring up at the empty place where Starscream’s presence should have been.
The Seeker had been meant to be his right hand, his sword and his shield.
Not a day passed that Megatron did not wonder: Had he abandoned them? Had he been captured? Had he been destroyed?
No one knew.
No one dared to speak of it.
Soundwave, the only one Megatron trusted fully, stayed at his side. Silent. Watching.
It was Soundwave who discovered it, finally—the signal.
The discovery happened by chance.
Soundwave had been scanning the primitive world called Earth, mapping its frozen poles when a flicker caught his attention.
At first, he thought it was a malfunction—an echo of some ancient transmission caught in the glaciers.
But when he focused, he realized it was not an echo.
It was a heartbeat.
It was a Cybertronian signal.
Weak.
Wounded.
Calling out like a dying star.
Soundwave wasted no time.
He brought it to Megatron personally.
The warlord’s optics narrowed, the unreadable expression twisting across his face as he listened to the fragile transmission:
Static.
Crackling.
But beneath it—
A voice.
"—eam... Screa... alive... cold..."
Starscream.
Megatron’s chassis trembled.
He stood so quickly the throne cracked under the force of his movement.
"Prepare a retrieval team," he commanded, voice a low growl.
He did not add hurry.
He did not need to.
His rage—his hope—was enough to set the entire fortress into motion.
The journey to Earth was not simple.
The cold of the pole was nearly impenetrable, even to Decepticon technology.
Blizzards raged across endless plains of white, screaming like lost souls.
The retrieval team struggled to move forward, and yet Megatron pressed onward, leading them himself. Refusing to slow.
Refusing to fail.
Each step closer, his spark beat harder in his chest.
What would he find?
A corpse?
A traitor?
Or the only being left who had ever looked at him without fear?
They found the wreckage half-buried in ice.
The Seeker was entombed there, like some ancient artifact.
When they dug him out, Megatron knelt—knelt—in the snow, not caring for pride or the cold.
Starscream’s frame was battered, wings crumpled, energon frozen in spiderweb cracks across his silver and crimson plating.
His optics were dark, his limbs still.
But when Megatron touched him—
Faintly, so faintly, Starscream’s fingers twitched.
Alive.
Megatron exhaled shakily, a sound halfway between a snarl and a sob.
He gathered the broken Seeker into his arms, lifting him with a gentleness that no one would have ever thought him capable of.
Starscream’s helm lolled against his shoulder, unconscious.
The Decepticon retrieval team stood frozen, stunned.
This was not the gladiator king they knew.
This was something rawer, deeper—something born of devotion that had no words.
Without looking back, Megatron growled only one command:
"We return. Immediately."
Back on the ship, Starscream was placed into a medbay.
Megatron stood watch, never moving, optics burning with something fierce and terrible.
When Soundwave approached, Megatron spoke low, dangerous:
"Find out who left him there.
Find out who did this.
And when you do—"
He left the threat hanging in the air, sharp and heavy as a blade.
Soundwave nodded and vanished into the shadows.
Starscream slept for three cycles.
In that time, Megatron never left his side.
Never wavered.
He spoke sometimes, low murmurs in Cybertronian, old phrases from the gladiator pits, things the Fallen had whispered to them both.
Words of survival.
Words of rage.
Words of loyalty.
"You are not allowed to leave me."
"You are mine."
"We will conquer the stars together."
And finally, after endless silence—
A shudder.
A gasp.
A flicker of crimson light in Starscream’s cracked visor.
"D-16?" the Seeker croaked, voice thin, disbelieving.
Megatron leaned down, helm touching Starscream’s forehead gently.
"Yes. I’m here. And I will never let you fall again."
The rebirth of the Decepticons began that night.
Not with fire.
Not with blood.
But with a broken Seeker in a warlord’s arms, and a promise spoken so quietly even the stars might have missed it.
We are unfinished.
But we will be unstoppable.
Together.
Always.
The corridors of the Nemesis were silent as Starscream was moved through them.
Word had spread.
The stories told by the veterans—the elders who had once stood beneath the Fallen’s command—whispered like wildfire now.
"Starscream lives."
"The Seeker has returned."
"The Fallen’s right hand walks among us once more."
The younger Decepticons, warriors forged after the Fallen's disappearance, had known only legends.
Tales of the Seeker with silver wings, the tactician who fought as brilliantly as he flew, the loyal sword that cut down the Fallen’s enemies with beauty and blood.
To see him now—broken but breathing—was like watching a myth made real.
The corridors filled quietly with soldiers, optics glowing in the dim light, as Starscream was guided toward the main medbay under Megatron’s personal escort.
Some stared openly, gasping in recognition.
Others knelt instinctively, unsure whether the old rites still applied.
Some simply stood frozen, struck silent by the weight of history before them.
Starscream saw them all.
Confused.
Dazed.
Their optics gleamed with expectation.
As if he were something more than he could remember being.
As if he had returned to them crowned.
When he was stabilized, Megatron summoned the Decepticons to the Grand Hall.
Starscream stood at Megatron’s side—still weak, wrapped in repair bandages, his wings slumped—but upright.
The soldiers crowded below, filling the vast space to bursting.
Megatron’s voice thundered above them, full of command:
"This is Starscream."
"He was the Fallen's right arm—the Seeker who forged our victories."
"And he is ours once more."
The crowd erupted.
Cries of triumph.
Roars of loyalty.
But Starscream…
Starscream only stood stiffly at Megatron’s side, optics narrowing slightly.
He did not bask in the praise.
He watched Megatron instead, studying the one who had once been D-16—a child, a gladiator, a shadow at the Fallen’s feet.
Now he stood tall and terrible, a true warlord.
But something was missing.
Something critical.
That night, after the celebration faded and Megatron led him privately through the halls of the Nemesis, Starscream finally spoke:
"You have changed," he said quietly.
Megatron glanced at him, a faint smile curling his lip.
"We all must."
Starscream paused, then asked the question that burned at his very spark:
"Where is it?"
Megatron's brow furrowed.
"Where is what?"
Starscream’s wings twitched restlessly.
His voice sharpened.
"The Matrix. The symbol of leadership. The blessing of the Primes.
The Fallen carried it. You should have inherited it."
Silence.
A deep, hollow silence.
Megatron’s expression hardened.
Not with anger—but with something close to… shame.
"The Matrix is gone," he said finally.
"It was never given to me."
The words struck Starscream like a physical blow.
He staggered a step, cooling fans clicking in sudden distress.
No Matrix.
No Prime.
No divine right.
Only… force.
Only strength.
Only D-16, dressed in power he had seized but never been given.
In his private quarters later, Starscream sat alone.
The stars outside the viewport glittered coldly, distant and uncaring.
He flexed his claws absently.
Could he follow someone who was not a Prime?
Was brute force alone worthy of obedience?
The Fallen had been power and divinity combined.
Megatron… was something else.
But what?
Starscream's spark shuddered with unease.
He remembered D-16's wide, eager optics—the little gladiator who had looked up to Starscream with open adoration.
The one Starscream had defended more than once from harsher warriors.
He had once believed there was something in D-16 that could be shaped into greatness.
Had he been right?
Or had he been wrong?
He would not trust the surface of things.
He was not so naïve.
He needed proof.
He needed to know who among the Decepticons—or beyond—carried the true spark of leadership.
The Matrix could not simply vanish.
If Megatron did not have it, perhaps another Prime did.
Perhaps someone else was the true heir.
If so…
Starscream would find them.
And decide, for himself, where his loyalty belonged.
The investigation began quietly.
Under the guise of acclimating himself to the new Nemesis, Starscream accessed restricted databases.
Ship logs.
Historical records.
The oldest communications.
He was subtle, careful.
Even Soundwave would not detect the quiet flickers of code he left behind.
He learned quickly:
The Matrix had disappeared during the wars that followed the Fallen’s fall.
No one had seen it since.
Rumors spoke of a Prime hidden among the Autobots.
A new Prime, unlike the ancient ones.
Starscream’s wings flickered uneasily.
A new Prime?
A living Prime?
His spark pulsed fast at the thought.
But there was danger, too.
He could feel Megatron watching him sometimes—those crimson optics burning holes in his back.
Not suspicion.
Not yet.
But something deeper.
Possessiveness.
Need.
Megatron had waited so long for him to return.
He had built an empire and fought endless wars to create a place where Starscream could stand beside him.
And yet Starscream was not certain if he could stand there.
Not yet.
Not until he knew.
One night, alone, Starscream spoke quietly to the stars:
"If a Prime still lives…
I will find him.
I will know the truth."
His voice trembled.
Not from fear.
From the weight of what he might have to do—if Megatron was not the true leader he needed.
If necessary…
He would choose another.
Even if it broke the empire.
Even if it broke Megatron’s spark.
Even if it broke his own.