Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Beginning experiment trial number twenty-two," Starscream dictates into his internal recorder. "Lowering mixture onto agitator plate."

The gears of his arm whir loudly as he sets the beaker down onto the clunky, misshapen device. He's due to get his joints oiled- how long had he been putting that off now? "Securing mixture," he continues, placing a set of tiny, circular magnets onto the base of the plate to hold it in place.

He narrows his optics, a complaint about even needing to do such a thing hanging on the end of his glossa, because- honestly, what kind of laboratory didn't even have magnetized equipment? What century were they in? But the last thing he wants is another angry mech breathing down his neck about how uncooperative he's being.

Rolling his optics petulantly and grumbling to himself off the record will do for now.

"Beginning emulsion," he sighs, flicking the machine on.

The tiny motor stutters sharply before quieting into a gentle whir as the plate begins to shake, jostling the liquid inside the beaker until the motion settles into a proper rhythm.

Starscream watches the swirling liquid intently, ignoring a notification on his HUD informing him that he's holding his vents for too long.

He checks his chronometer and frowns.

...it should be changing composition by now. Well. If he did his calculations right. The presence of the massive pane of glass installed on the far wall that he'd been scribbling down his notes onto for the past few weeks looms over his shoulder. Starscream makes a pointed effort to ignore it and just focus on his... presently failing experiment.

"Damned thing," he mutters coldly, pushing himself back from the counter.

The energon sample was contaminated with a specific chemical concoction that rendered it inedible and toxic to Cybertronians, and though thus far it'd only been found on a specific asteroid belt in a specific region of a specific quadrant, the threat of some foreign body having the capacity to render their sole life source in such a state had the newly formed Council clutching their chassis in fear.

And, of course, because all the head scientists and self-appointed important slagards were all busy inventing new ways to mass produce a city in the most egalitarian way, the duty of figuring out a solution to the so-called "problem" fell onto the shoulders of Starscream, who wasn't allowed to bitch and moan about what his jailers wanted him to waste his time doing.

The hum of the agitator's motor drones on, swirling the viscous, sludge-like contents of the beaker placed atop its surface. He taps the tips of his claws rapidly against the surface of the work station. Somewhere behind him, a cooler hisses refrigerant out through its systems. He checks his internal chronometer, then checks the contents of the beaker once more, just in case there was any possible change in the milliseconds that had passed since he last looked at it.

The contaminated energon continues to swirl.

Starscream feels a cable in his neck jerk and tense.

Why the hell wasn't this working?

Frustrated, he lets out a gruff scoff and turns away sharply from the machines, muttering incessantly to himself as he marches to the wash basin of the small, windowless lab and kicks the lever in the base. A sanitizer spits out, and he sticks his servos down into the stream as though meaning to drown them.

Damn experiment. Damn trials. Damn laboratory. Damn-

In his enraged muttering, the bases of his wings pull in, and pain instantly shoots up his spinal struts as the locked clamps around the base pull, forcing him to grit his dentae and pinch his face together while the sensation blew over him. "Pits!" Starscream bites out. "This outdated, unmanaged, scrapletnest, piece of-"

The lights in the hall beyond the door to the lab flick on, and whatever Starscream was about to continue on with dies on his glossa. He freezes, face dropping into a slackened expression, before the resounding echo of pedesteps begins to filter into his audials.

He scowls.

Kicking the sanitizing station back off, he leaps back to the work bench, snatching the failed experiment off the agitator in one servo and the vials of spent chemicals in the other. Starscream all but hurls them into the open trash chute, not even checking to make sure they landed before turning back around to shut the machine down and wipe up any last traces of his failed attempt.

The last thing he needs right now is for them to decide this is a fruitless effort and send him back to that hole in the damn ground. He couldn't even lie and claim locking flightmechs up was bad for them, because some idiot with wings in the Autobots had to ruin it for the rest of them and tell them that ground sickness wasn't a real condition, and most of them, like Starscream, were just using it as an excuse to get some fresh air.

Still, even if he hates this assignment, being stuck in a windowless room for half of the day and using his processor for something is a lot nicer than being stuck an entire day in an even smaller room. Reliving his worst decisions over and over again had started to become a bore.

Just as he throws the wipe away, the keypad outside the lab chimes mutely, and the doors open. Prowl enters without fanfare or even a greeting. Never one for civility, even now. Starscream leans a hip against the counter and watches silently. After a second, he decides to fold his arms over his chassis as an added attempt at looking unbothered.

Prowl's steps sound identical to a metronome. His optics look distant, a feature Starscream has come to understand happens when he's busy with whatever that... tactical computer-thing is in his head. Freak. "Starscream," Prowl says with a hard blink, clearing the haze from his optics and leveling the mech with a blank, rather unimpressed look. "How goes the experiment today?"

"Haven't started," Starscream lies, which Prowl seems to simply accept with a muted hum and a look away, back toward the scribble-filled glass pane. Well, at least Starscream's still able to lie through his dentae. That's one thing he hasn't lost.

"That's good," Prowl reaches into his subspace and withdraws a datapad, of all things, and it takes Starscream a second to register those two words.

"Good?" He parrots in a high tone, looking the Autobot over with a baffled expression. Prowl, busy with whatever he's got on screen, merely hums. Good? This was good? What should, at least in his optics, be evidence of Starscream slacking off is good?

He might have made stupid decisions in the past, but Starscream is decidedly not stupid- that's the entire reason why he's here to begin with. Not following the orders explicitly laid out for him is decidedly not good for someone like Prowl, who was supposed to be making sure Starscream wasn't in this lab cooking up any nefarious methods to try and bring everyone to an untimely demise.

As if anything in this busted up laboratory could be considered worthy of a plan of that nature.

"You have a new assignment." Prowl states, so simply and casually that its meaning fails to register for Starscream for several additional seconds.

"What!" He all but barks. Prowl says nothing, merely keeps himself busy with whatever it is on his datapad. Starscream feels a cable under his facial plating twitch. "What the hell do you mean by that!?" Was he being reassigned or being cut off? Or, even worse, being sent back to that horrible hole in the ground? Did they think his efforts here were fruitless? Did they think Starscream was useless? "Oi!" He snaps, jumping forward an inch in a poor attempt at an intimidation tactic. Prowl isn't phased in the slightest, merely blinking his optics in neat, evenly timed intervals.

"New assignment," Prowl hands over the datapad.

Starscream snatches it away with a growl under his breath and wrenches the thing up to his face, scowling more and more as he reads what's on-screen.

When he gets to the "off-world expedition" and "two-member unit" and "long distance research vessel" part of it all, his face begins to fall.

Even after reading it all, he stares into the screen until his vision begins to blur at the center.

"Windblade has already made arrangements for what you need to be on the ship for you," Prowl continues, intake open and ready to spout out more nonsense, but Starscream barely even remembers he's in the room at this point.

Rage boils Starscream's fuel molten. The steady, deep vents he's forcing himself to take hardly make a dent in the rapidly rising temperature of his processors.

Clipping his wings, shackling him and tossing him behind prison energy-fields one day, only to wrench him back out and keep him cooped up in this claustrophobic lab half of the day, toiling away at some project he was beginning to doubt the upper command even cared about, only to now decide he was better off being thrown out into Primus-knows where and left alone with some other nobody?!

Was his life some- some game for them to all toy with? Was this what he had to look forward to for the rest of his slagging existence? Starscream was more than aware of the fact that a loss of his bodily autonomy would go servo-in-servo with incarceration, but was this really the will of the Autobot command- or whatever piece-of-slag mutual alliance the two factions had formed in the wake of their war was even called now?

Starscream stands stiff despite the rolling waves of chaos pounding the walls of his processors. Moving in eccentric, exaggerated ways meant he was guaranteed to pull on the clamps locking the bases of his wings in place, and that was a sure fire way of ending up in a world of agony in as few steps as possible.

Instead of doing what he really wants to- whipping out every single possible weapon and throwing them directly at Prowl's stupid helm and wiping that horrid placid look off his damn face- Starscream exvents, low and deep, nearly growling the air out.

"And just why would I agree to this?"

"You aren't agreeing, you're doing it." Prowl raises an optical ridge at him, looking surprised that Starscream would even insinuate otherwise.

Deep vents, deep vents... the last time Starscream thought he could try anything, he lost half of his full wingspan, and he hasn't been allowed to have these damn clamps cut off for even a moment to vent since. "And which sorry spark is going to be making my acquaintance- hm?"

"That's still to be determined," Prowl answers calmly. "Though, based on the preliminary reports, Wheeljack is hoping to find someone with experience in xenobiology to help identify any potential adversaries. We wouldn't want armor melting off because of anything down there, after all."

Maybe by this point Starscream isn't actually doing that well of a job keeping the emotion off his face, because Prowl relaxes his stance and sighs somewhat, lifting a servo to take the datapad back. "Look," he starts once Starscream finally gives the tech up. "We argued in your favor to get you on this."

"Oh, how lucky I am," Starscream mutters under his breath, turning away from Prowl with a shake of his helm.

"Doing this expedition without causing any... undue trouble might convince the High Council to reduce your sentence."

This gets Starscream to stop. He doesn't even react to the little self assured huff of air Prowl snorts.

"... by how much?" He turns his helm just enough to catch Prowl out of the corner of his vision.

"Again, to be determined." Prowl shrugs once more. "But I'd assume if it all goes well, even if they opt to keep you monitored for the entire duration of your sentence, there might be more research missions in the future."

Narrowing his optics, Starscream focuses in on the now dimmed datapad, exventing slowly though his intake.

He was trained in off-world missions. It might have been millions of years since Starscream partook in an exploration of an uncharted mission without the use of force, but he still knew the protocol. It was a smart idea to send someone like him out there. "Oh, good, how fun, another claustrophobic box to throw me into."

"Actually, this vessel is the largest one we brought back online."

Starscream glares. Did Prowl have no class at all? He was trying to bitch and complain, it wasn't an invitation for suggestion. "I'm not teaching any freshly assembled mech how to calibrate a remote scanner." He snaps.

"Like I said, Wheeljack said he had some mechs with experience in mind." Prowl looks around the room slowly, taking in the little messes Starscream has left around the space. "If everything goes according to plan, this mission should be an easy in-and-out for the both of you." With a quiet hum, Prowl turns again, walking toward the door. "Vessel leaves in forty-eight hours." Prowl calls.

"I want a repaint first!" Starscream calls after him, gesturing to the flaking color of his joints. "With polish!"

Prowl snorts. "You haven't earned enough gold stars for polish."

Before Starscream can open his intake wide and yell back, the door to the lab swings open to let Prowl out, and slams right back shut with a deafening thud, the numerous locks on the outside sealing shut all at once.

With nothing heavy or sharp nearby that he's willing to sacrifice for the sake of some cathartic relief, Starscream drags his claws through the air and mutters violently to himself before giving up with a dramatic sigh.

His haggard looking equipment still looks as haggard and unsightly as it had moments ago when Prowl showed up. Starscream drags a servo down his face and exvents, opening his optics to stare with a bleary gaze at the formulas and thoughts scribbled down on the glass pane.

✦

Jetfire holds the large, faintly transparent blueprint scroll out, squeezing an optic shut as he craned his helm to and fro, attempting to properly visualize where exactly they were in terms of progress on the internal structure of the build.

"Where are we puttin' them!" Hollers one of the various Constructicons over their comm. Scrapper, Jetfire thinks, though it's hard to tell them all apart.

"Uh," Jetfire lowers the scroll and steps forward, peering down the incredibly steep drop to the base of the construction site, where three of the similarly colored mecha all sat in their idling alt-modes. Piles of scrap metal and unprocessed ore sat in their loading bays. "Uh," Jetfire looks around, relaxing a little when he spots a clearing just over another pile of rust. "I think those should go over there for now!" He instructs with a point of a digit.

A chorus of grunts resound in his comm piece, and then the Constructicons take off in a neat line, speeding down toward the area. Jetfire huffs softly to himself, watching them all with a vague feeling of amusement.

He never expected to like the group of combiners as much as he does. They were... eclectic and a bit brash, but honest in a way he didn't realize Decepticons could be. Plus, it was nice to see a group of mechs with such intense comradery. That was probably something that came natural to them when they had to merge together to form a single functioning unit. Oh, what Jetfire wouldn't give to be able to understand just how six individual sentients combined into one so seamlessly... maybe there was literature published somewhere about it.

"Oh, there you are!"

A voice makes his shoulders jerk, and he turns to find Wheeljack slowly making his way over, energon in servo. Jetfire finally notices a ping in the corner of his HUD informing him that his fuel tanks have dipped under fifty-percent, and breathes a sigh of relief when he spies the second cube in Wheeljack's grip. "I hope one of those are for me."

"Course," the corners of Wheeljack's optic shutters crinkle together at the edges, giving the impression he's smiling beneath that mask of his. Jetfire silently takes the cube, inclining his helm a few degrees in thanks. They each take their first gulps in silence, the sounds of distant construction and hissing of machinery filling the atmosphere. "Looks like a lot of work here has gotten done," Wheeljack comments.

Jetfire blinks. "Does it?" He looks across the construction area again, attempting to see the space through Wheeljack's vision. It was still the same hollow metal frames surrounded by dirt as it was before. Though, maybe now there was a little less dirt piled around the area than there was before. "I... well, maybe there is some progress, yes."

"You're doing a pretty good job at managing the project."

Jetfire makes an awkward sound and has to look away so he doesn't see whatever look is in Wheeljack's optics. "I- thanks." He manages, quickly lifting his cube up to his intake to hide his face while he drinks.

"But, you know, I've been curious about your plans after this." That brings his gaze right back to Wheeljack, now watching him with open confusion. The other mech gestures out to the project. "After the institution is built."

...oh. That. Well...

Jetfire had been actively avoiding any and all thoughts about what "comes after" this. Acting as the overseer of the rebuilding of an academy was his plan, at least for right now. It seemed like a Herculean task that would take an inordinate amount of time that Jetfire could spend actively avoiding his plans about what comes after- when there was no longer a restriction on his time and limits to what he was allowed to do.

After the chaos that had become his life since waking up from his entombment, thinking about what he was now and what he was doing felt... wrong. Strange. Being forced into a war he didn't want and hadn't even been at the start of, being thrown from one side to the other, and losing the most treasured part of himself in the process- Jetfire has survived the past several thousand years by doing just that: surviving. He hadn't had the time to think and, frankly, he wasn't really sure he wanted to.

Freedom had become a very nauseating concept to him after the end of war.

When Jetfire can finally feel the words come together properly, his voice is slow and calm. "I've been too busy to think about that," he answers with a gentle shrug.

Wheeljack keeps watching him even as the seconds pass by. Jetfire looks between him and the construction below rapidly, finally settling on the construction when it starts feeling a bit too awkward, even for him. "You know," Wheeljack shuffles from pede to pede, shifting his weight about. "We've got a few mechanical ships back up and running now."

"Oh- so fast?"

"Mh," Wheeljack turns from the sight below the clifftop, focusing entirely on the shuttle now. "Long range vessels."

Jetfire's optics drift upward in thought. "I... thought Optimus' focus was on keeping pedes on the ground for now."

"It still is." Wheeljack says with a bit of hesitation. "Bu-ut, uh... bit hard to do that and focus on rebuilding when we... don't got much to rebuild with." Jetfire can only huff out his vents at that. Having the Constructicons as the primary work force for this project meant he avoided most of the supply issues. He had tried asking once just where all of their material was coming from, but it only took a single stern look from Bonecrusher to make him shut his intake just as fast as it had opened. He supposes as long as they aren't hurting anyone, it's fine for them to keep their secrets.

"But that's half the reason I wanted to talk to ya'," the sincere tone Wheeljack's voice takes on has Jetfire raising his optical ridges in silent reply. The multicolored mech takes in a deep vent, expelling it slowly. "We got those vessels online 'cause we're in the process of arranging exploratory missions again. Mechs going out and getting pedes down on asteroids and planets with materials for us."

It takes Jetfire's mind all of two seconds to jump from one fact to another. And when he does, a heavy feeling settles along the plating of his shoulders. "... oh," he sighs. "I get it."

Seemingly flustered, Wheeljack lifts his empty servo up in a show of defenselessness. "You can say no!" He gets out quickly. "We just, uh... ya' know. Figured most mechs are pretty tied up doin' what they know doin'. Plus, we especially don't got the resources to teach new young ones how to handle all that deep space travel and what not."

"No, no, I get it," Jetfire cuts Wheeljack off before he can babble on any longer. "I do."

In the strange, awkward silence that follows, Jetfire finishes his energon, keeping his gaze fixated on the sky.

He did miss it, despite it being the reason he was unaware and completely detached from his own people following the events of the Decepticons siege and eventual civil war. Exploration and research was in Jetfire's CNA. It was the reason he breathed for so many years. Learning was beautiful, and knowledge was among the very few things in life he thought having more of was actually a good thing.

Traveling that far out never bothered him. Even when the planets he was sent to ended up being hostile, unworldly things he could hardly get a pede on let alone study. Jetfire had never been alone in the face of all that unstable uncertainty. He always had...

Ah. He sighs. A wave of bitterness sours the fond memories that linger of his youth. Jetfire didn't want to think about him.

"They aren't solo expeditions, are they?" He asks cautiously.

Instantly, Wheeljack shakes his head. "Oh, no, no." He assures. "Two mech unit. With a vessel to match. I even got the biggest one we could salvage online. Figured if you said yes, you'd want the venting room, yeah?"

Despite his initial apprehension, the longer Jetfire turns the idea over in his processor, the more open he feels himself growing to the idea of it. It could be nice. A return to what he knows might be what he needs to lift his spirits up again. Plus, if the ship is big like Wheeljack is promising, he wouldn't even have to settle for having cable cramps in his neck for several weeks at a time. That alone made the prospect of any expedition that much sweeter. "... can I have time to think about it?"

A pause. And then, Wheel makes a quiet, awkward sound. "It's scheduled for two days from now."

"Two-" Jetfire cuts himself off with a guttural sound.

"It's not ideal, but there's a star spittin' out solar flares on a schedule right near the planet," as he speaks, Wheeljack takes out a datapad from his subspace. "There's a sweet spot right in between flares that gives you ju-st enough time to fly right by it 'fore the next one.' If we wait any longer, it'll be a minute till we can get there again, and it's hard to tell if we'll find another suitable planet in that amount of time." He exvents deeply as he finishes, and hands Jetfire the pad.

Accepting it, Jetfire immediately turns it on and begins flicking through the information.

Class E planet, heavily oxygenated atmosphere, no outward signs of technorganic or sentient life, abundant organic life detected...

He frowns as he looks, shocked at the lack of data. "Is... one of these solar flares active now?"

"That it is," Wheeljack says. "But, 'ccording to the team, in about two days, we'll have our window."

"Was this planet so impressive on scans that we're going to such lengths?"

Wheeljack's face softens up, and he tilts his helm. "The satellite readings show anomalous levels of cadmium II ion present in the atmosphere, so... on the planet..." and he pauses before he can finish, liking seeing the light return to Jetfire's optics as they go wide with interest.

"Energon." He finishes breathlessly. A flicker of hope flashes on Wheeljack's face, and he stares with open anticipation at Jetfire.

A loud group of cheering draws Jetfire's attention away, back down to the gathering of Constructicons below. Now joined by two of their others, the five mechs were once more in their root modes, tussling in the dirt or patting each other on the shoulder. Every last pile of rust from the area they needed gone had already been moved. There was even a growing pile of viable scrap metal that one of them was still actively tossing more into.

His gaze lingers on them for a while more. There was a group of mechs who knew exactly who they were and why they were alive. Where was he in that mess?

"... alright," Jetfire says quietly. "I'll go."

✦

The chaotic nature of a shuttles and cargo being prepared for delivery and take off never changes, no matter what else about life has. Even though he used to hate it, Jetfire has grown to appreciate fact about it. There was something comforting about having to lug his bulky steel containers and his even bulkier form through crowded, tight-knit corridors until he made it out to the vast, expansive space of the loading bay.

Cybertron, being left in the state that it's in after the war, needed centuries worth of love and care if their species had any hope of returning to any semblance of what it once was, workers, supplies, and resources all needed to be shipped out to the appropriate location on the planet as fast as physically possible.

All that means the bay is probably as hectic as Jetfire has ever seen it get before in his life, but the sight is a marvel to watch.

Autobots and Decepticons alike, all stripped of their previous side's insignias but still sticking out like sore thumbs from the paints they all gravitated towards, all working side by side in an attempt to make the supply chain flow as easily as possible. A large pink mech was barking orders to a group of smaller multi-colored mechs, who were working together to heavy a heavy piece of equipment up into the cargo hold of an altmode shuttle. The mech looked a tad familiar to Jetfire, but he didn't have the time to stop and try to catch up, and he knew that mech probably didn't have it, either.

He forces his attention away and looks up to the numbers etched into the top of each dock windows, slowing the closer to got to the number Wheeljack assigned him over comms earlier in the morning.

"Ah!" Jetfire exhales, relief flooding him when he spies the familiar white mech's audial fins. He pats the side of his cargo transporter as though it was a live mechanimal that could respond to touch, widening the length of his steps until Wheeljack finally noticed him back.

"Just on time!" Wheeljack greets, before someone off to the left of them both shouts for him. He offers Jetfire a quick grimace and holds up a finger as a signal for him to wait there, rushing off to handle what ever it was he's being called to.

"Yeah, looks like it," is all Jetfire can add to that, sheepishly ducking his helm as he looks around.

The vessel was large, possibly the largest in the entire bay at the moment. Long and oblong in shape, its outer hull was a mess of mismatched sheets of metal welded together, covered with a thin layer of pale gray paint to give it some level of cohesion. There were a few glass panels along the top, and presently, a narrow, heavy-looking set of steps descended from the back of it, leading up an opening that led into the interior of the ship.

Three mechs wrestled with the fuel pump hook-up to the vessel. From this distance, Jetfire could hear one of them complain about how heavy it was, while another called him weak and laughed.

A little purple mech he hadn't even realized was there was already leading his own cargo up the narrow stairs, and he whips his helm back to this side just to check and make sure that, yes that was his own luggage and not an identical set. "Wow," he breathes.

"You say somethin'?" Wheeljack's voice causes his shoulders to jump. When he turns to look at him again, there's a bundle of cloth in his servos now. At the shake of Jetfire's helm, he continues, "'right, so, I think Prowl's gettin' the last of his stuff set up in there, the console should have an updated report on the path and anticipated duration of the trip, as well as the latest reports from the satellite, but it'll be leavin' orbit of the planet soon, so don't rely on it for too much longer..."

As Wheeljack speaks, Jetfire slowly processes the facts he's being fed, until his processor cycles back around to something he nearly missed. "Am I- is Prowl going with me?"

"Hm? Oh, no-" Wheeljack barks a quick laugh. "Prowl? Science expedition? That's rich."

Jetfire looks back up to the open entrance of the vessel while Wheeljack continues to laugh. "No," the other mech continues, "but Prowl found someone to go with you. I haven't gotten the chance to talk to him this morning since he was preoccupied, so you've got as much of an idea as I do." He offers the cloth to Jetfire, who hesitantly reaches out to scoop it up into his arms. "Some extra tarp for ya'."

Wordlessly, Jetfire nods. "Go on and get yourself settled in. Take off's scheduled in about half an hour." Jetfire isn't even given a chance to comment on how fast this seems to be moving, because Wheeljack is already walking past him and toward the vessel's thrusters, where someone was doing a last minute repair to the outer supports.

Didn't Wheeljack tell him that he was "just on time"? Cutting it by that short wasn't really what Jetfire would have described as "on time", but... ah, well. He's here now, isn't he?

The sounds of the bay filter out as he climbs the stairs, growing softer and softer until the ever-present buzz of the vessel's internals begin to fill up his audials instead.

The interior of the ship is a plain dark steel grey that was only interrupted by the occasional panel of a slightly lighter carbon steel, obviously ripped from other vessels. The smell of fresh welds lingers in the air, and Jetfire wonders just how recently this ship actually came back online.

He could imagine Wheeljack and his crew of assembled workers working around the clock to get this finished. If Jetfire had learned anything about that mech from their time in the war together, it was that he was nothing if not committed to his projects. There wasn't a doubt in his mind this ship couldn't handle anything the journey had to throw at them.

Even though these lifeless machines lacked the same sentience as Cybertronians, Jetfire would argue that they were in more ways noisier than riding in someone's altmode was. The various parts needed to keep the vessel running all cobbles together in such a tight knit space meant there was no room for silence. Beeps and whirs began to filter into Jetfire's processor, many that he was familiar with and a few more that were entirely new.

Venting in the cool, regulated air with precisely the amount of nitrogen and sulfur dioxide to please their cybernetic pallets made him strangely nostalgic about this.

It was nice to be inside one of these vessels again.

Trails of voices coming from deeper within the ship's main deck prompted Jetfire back into moving. If he's as late as he is, his partner must already be onboard. The least he could do now was go in and introduce himself. And probably apologize for being as late as he is, too.

The ship's receiving bay transforms neatly into a functional hallway, with sealed doors going down until the other end, where pale white light spilled out from an opened doorway. Jetfire could just barely make out two distinct voices having what sounds like an argument. Distant muffled noise became clear words as he steps over the threshold of the hallway passage and makes his way to the main area of the ship.

"-it's the best we could do." Says what he knows is Prowl's voice. "All the scanners are operational-"

"The best you can do is operational?" Spits back a sharper, far more grating tone.

A frown pulls at Jetfire's face as he steps over the lip of the floor. If he didn't know any better he would have said that voice sounded like…

Light floods his vision when he enters, and he squints to allow his optics time to readjust to the brightness.

"Everything is within its normal functioning range," Prowl continues. Then, under his breath, he adds a quick, "so says Wheeljack." He clears his throat before returning to a normal volume, but still retains that level of condescension that Jetfire has come to know. "You'll have to forgive us for not making sure the latest and greatest in scientific innovation is here, but the processors behind that sort of thing are busy building hospitals right now."

"A high functioning proton transmogrifier is hardly a chore to build! A sparkling could do it!" Jetfire's frown deepens as he opens his optics.

And when he does, his face goes slack.

"Well, if it's so easy," Prowl raises an optical ridge and folds his arms below his broad chassis. "How about you build one yourself while in transit?"

The mech he's talking to stands up and splutters out a garbled mess of sound in reply. His violently white and red armor gleams in the artificial light of the vessel, highlighting the blue accents by contrast.

Prowl smiles when he sees Jetfire, attention shifting to him. This prompts the mech who'd been yelling to do the same, and he slowly turns the same.

When Starscream's optics lock with Jetfire's, they both freeze.

"Ya' partner on-board yet?" Calls Wheeljack from behind Jetfire. A set of quick, jogging steps rush up from behind him, ending in Wheeljack's servo clasping his shoulder. "Did Prowl- oh."

He, too, freezes at the sight of Starscream and Prowl.

"Ah, slag."

Chapter Text

"What the hell is he doing here?!" Starscream spits, jabbing an accusatory claw at Jetfire with optics so wide they seemed to bulge out of their sockets.

Wheeljack lifts a finger to speak, and Prowl rubs the base of his chevron with a deep grimace, but Jetfire hardly pays the two of them any mind at all. Flustered and annoyed, he stammers out a series of unfinished words before finally getting his bearings together. "Me?! What are you doing here!"

"I'm not working with him!" Starscream starts walking, all but shoving past Prowl with his shoulder. Prowl blinks rapidly, a genuine look of shock overcoming his face for a moment.

He blinks, and the look instantly vanishes. "Ach-ach!" Prowl grabs Starscream by his shoulder, hard enough that the nicely polished metal dents. Starscream squawks and flails his arms, yanking his body away hard, but no longer walking toward the exit. Despite this, Wheeljack steps away from Jetfire, angling his body toward the only exit of the vessel. "You are going on this mission."

"Well! Then!" Starscream's helm whips around between the three mechs, lingering on Jetfire for a faction of a second longer than the others. Though his voice drips with anger and malice, the look in his optics seems anything but. He turns sharply to Prowl, jabbing a claw in Jetfire's direction. "Get me someone else to work with!"

Prowl, expression flattening out into a rather unimpressed look, glances between Wheeljack and Starscream. Wheeljack, thankfully understanding the silent request, clears his vocalizer, prompting Starscream to pivot instantly back to him. From what he could see of his wings, they twitch and shake, shuttering low and dipping out of few completely. Jetfire's optics narrow- a typical angered Seeker wing dance, but one done incorrectly. He's seen the routine done thousands of times, nearly every one of those times from Starscream, himself, and it's never looked so... sloppy.

He fights a scoff, instead just folding his arms tight across himself. "Departure time is less than an hour," Wheeljack says in a serious tone. "Even if we were going to find a new member- which we are not," he emphasizes at the bright, devious look that begins to sprout in Starscream's gaze. It deflates back down into muted petulance. "We'd have no time to find someone as qualified as Jetfire is to participate in this mission."

Starscream turns his frustrations back on Prowl. "You set me up!" He barks.

"Actually, I had no clue." Prowl shrugs, looking as though Starscream's anger at him is a routine affair that he's grown bored of. Jetfire furrows his optical ridge. Were they... close? It was difficult to tell. Both of them were crude, and neither of them were particularly nice to the mechs they actually liked. "I wasn't lying before."

"Liar!"

Jetfire scoffs, and the act snaps Starscream's attention back to him. A brief war crosses over his face. Again, Jetfire isn't entirely sure it's just rage on his face. He glowers right back, not caring that he's the first to look away.

He's long since made peace with the fact that his partner- his friend was gone. Starscream was Starscream, and the mech Jetfire cared about was dead. And yet, it still hurts his spark to see that face, and that angers Jetfire even more.

"Would you get over yourself?" Prowl says, voice a little quieter now as though there was any chance of privacy in a ship like this. He might have been softspoken now, but sound carried in small places, and research missions were never known for being rich with personal space. "He'll be the lab. You'll be engineering."

"We'll be in the same room! Sharing the same tasks!" Starscream stomps his pede once. "You think I want to stand around listening to someone blab on and on about how wonderful freedom peace is? I didn't agree to be antagonized by a traitor for the entire duration of a-"

"You didn't agree to anything, Starscream. I meant what I said earlier."

At the aggressive sound Starscream chokes out, Jetfire risks a look back.

Starscream stands stiff, arms held at his sides so tightly they began to shake. Whatever emotions are flashing on his face, Jetfire doesn't have enough time to read them. Wheeljack steps forward, directing all three of their attentions to him, but Starscream quickly turns away, marching away from the scene and back to whatever console he'd been standing at before Jetfire entered.

"If there's anyone here who should actually get a chance to agree to something," Wheeljack's hushed tone hardly registers. Jetfire's gaze remains fixated on Starscream, or, more specifically, on his wings.

On what's... left of his wings.

The massive, sleek set of jet wings, the prized feature of every Seeker, had been... halved? No, not halved- bent. Starscream's wings were folded down the seam of the middle back toward the base where they emerged from his back, gears and joints left exposed. Two thick bands of dull blue steel wrapped around each of the bases, pinning the tips in place.

Jetfire frowns. That looked... uncomfortable. And cruel, too. Was that why he couldn't properly cant his wings shake earlier?

A servo claps his shoulder, nearly sending him shooting up into orbit from freight. "It should be you." Wheeljack finishes. Judging by the look in his and Prowl's optics, Jetfire was just asked a question. One he completely blanked on in favor of staring in confusion at Starscream's broken wings. Frag. What the hell would Wheeljack have asked him about...?

He's given an out, thankfully, as Wheeljack appears to interpret his hesitation for something else entirely, sighing deeply and rubbing the back of his helm. "Look..." he sighs. "I know this ain't, ah... the best of situations now." Starscream's wings twitch, he act causing the mech to flinch. "I know I said we can't replace you now, but, if you really don't want to go, I s'pose I could make do with sending one of my own out?"

Prowl, optical ridges raising in shock, opens his mouth in a clear attempt to deny what Wheeljack's just said, but stops when the mech shoots him a deadly glare, audial fins flashing rapidly for a vent. Prowl rolls his optics and sighs, tossing a dismissive servo in the air before walking away.

As his pedesteps echo out, Wheeljack looks at Starscream, standing alone at the other edge of the room, clearly attempting to look unbothered by fiddling with a datapad in either servo, before turning back to Jetfire with a shake of his helm. "I mean it," he whispers. "I know you two ain't uh... on the best of terms."

There's a certain level of guilt in his voice, now. One that hadn't even been there when he was asking Jetfire to come.

Wheeljack was serious. Jetfire could say no, he could avoid this shaken canister of volatile combustible fluid all together and leave here, go back to his nice, simple rebuild project, with Constructicons who would certainly be pleased to see him back again. He could avoid this helmache altogether.

But that would put him and Starscream in the exact same boat. Mutually hating the other, mutually loathing the other's presence and making it known by their actions. Jetfire could imagine the sneer on Starscream's face if he says yes, he could even imagine what he'd say- 'just like I said! Always predictable. Once a traitor, always a traitor!'

Jetfire fights a scowl, rubbing a servo over the bridge of his olfactory sensor instead and letting his optics shutter tightly. At the sound of Wheeljack opening his intake, he lets the servo fall back to his side. "No, it's fine." He announces, causing the Autobot to blink hard once in surprise. From the edge of his vision, he catches Starscream turning just enough to catch a look.

A flash of something immature causes Jetfire to stand straighter and speak a bit louder, projecting his words. "This mission is bigger than me or any petty squabbles. It's important to Cybertron. If there's something I can do, I won't let something as little as this get in the way. Plus, who else knows as much about xenobiology as I do, you know?" Unable to keep the serious demeanor up any longer, he pulls a lopsided smile.

Starscream scoffs, returning to his datapads. His wings sink, or, they attempt to, only managing a matter of centimeters before snapping back up to their initial position with a shutter. Wheeljack smiles, looking impossibly relieved. "... you're a real one, Jetfire." He says. "Here, why don't I show you the recharge quarter?"

Servo on Jetfire's arm, the mech all but drags him out from the room, forcing Jetfire to blindly stumble after him for a second. He shoots one last look at Starscream before the corner of the hallway blocks his vision, and tries not to wonder if he sees his shoulders droop.

✦

For what its worth, Starscream would have liked to shove it in someone's face that he was, in fact, trying.

It'd been at least an hour, and he still hadn't exploded.

Face buried into the readout screen of his navigational console station and jaw clenched so tightly that there's stress alerts popping up over his HUD, Starscream decides the most effective use of his time is starting his fourth check of the ship's current operating levels and hydraulics. Maybe even throw in a scan of the filtration system, too. Hell, while he's at it, he might as well review the damn schematic prints of the vessel.

As long as he keeps the appearance of being frustrated and busy, the chances that he will leave Starscream alone for a bit longer go up.

Starscream glares into the optical scope of his screen, uncrosses his legs, shifts in his seat, and crosses them again, making a pointed effort to tilt his chair further away from the center of the long navigation console. The chair creaks unsettlingly below him, and he fights the urge to scoff.

Some top of the line vessel those Autobot rats scrounged up for him. He would bet shanix on some of the welds in this damn thing still being ember hot and glowing by the time they shot off into space!

Across from him, at the other end of the console, Jetfire's chair creaks in a similar fashion. Though, it's more likely his chair is just screaming from the sheer weight of the shuttle's form seated in it than him actually moving.

The air between them is silent, tense, and uncomfortable, nearly worse than the dark quarters of Starscream's first jail cell.

When it had been just Starscream in the ship, those moments of peace and quiet had actually felt blissful. The electric thrum of the vessel existing just beyond the scope of his EM field and making enough noise to be heard but not enough to annoy had been such a welcomed change from the constant void of sound Starscream existed in these days down in his locked lab.

Now, though? With Jetfire of all mechs sitting right next to him? He wasn't sure if this was any better to being in a cell.

Not a single word has been exchanged between the two of them since Wheeljack and the last of the maintenance workers left. Jetfire hadn't even made optic contact with him when the other re-entered the room, walking past Starscream as if he hadn't been there at all.

... not that it bothered Starscream or anything like that. He totally would have done the same. And he should continue to be doing the same. There was no reason for him to look up from his own screens.

A conflicted war raged in his spark as a result. One Starscream was also actively trying to ignore, on top of everything else about this situation that was bothersome.

Unable to hold it in, he exhales deeply. When a similar sigh from the other end of the console answers him, he frowns, feeling a cable beneath his facial plating twitch.

He used to be good at this, at holding himself together even when he was in the most annoying of situations and surrounded by people he hated. It didn't matter if the war was over and there weren't actually soldiers or spies lingering around every corner waiting to spring onto others and execute them, someone like him needed to keep their guard up at all times. He was a bit more high profile than other mechs were!

Starscream thought he managed it well around the others, but something about Jetfire, of all fragging mechs, weakened every single resolve he had. It's good Jetfire still hates him. Starscream isn't sure what he'd do if the mech actually tried to peel back the layers of his armor and cared about at he found.

Whatever part of his spark ached at that fact was stupid and weak. Hopefully, two weeks of isolation with that mech will teach it how different they actually are.

"Starscream."

Starscream refuses to acknowledge that the sound of Jetfire calling his name so sternly startles him, even with the violent shutter of his spark. He whips his helm and fixes his face into a stern glare. "What?!" He demands, staring unflinchingly at the way Jetfire raises his optical ridge at him.

"The current voltage management panel report. Do you have it?" The exasperated edge in Jetfire's tone makes Starscream's optic twitch. "I asked you twice already."

"Well speak up, then!" Starscream snaps back, turning back to his monitor with only a little hint of embarrassment coloring his cheeks. He jabs the keys of his console noisily, ignoring whatever Jetfire mutters, until the diagnostic reports are done. Two more taps, and he flicks the pad of his digit over the screen toward the empty gap between them.

Instantly, the display embedded into the smooth metal of the navigational console lights up, and blue pixels swarm together to project a read-out of the vessel's current fuel storage and consumption rates. Jetfire taps his own console, and more information joins the read-out, completing the profile with projections of how long their supplies would last and calculations on optimizing what they had.

Jetfire hums mutely. "The one of the oil tanks in the rear is low."

"Because, it's a piece of junk." Starscream scoffs. "It probably burned through itself already."

The shuttle makes a muted noise of displeasure, then his digits fly across the keypad, the embedded keys clacking mutedly. "I'll try sending a message to Wheeljack's team now, but there may not be enough time… we'll have to monitor it for the duration of the mission."

Starscream gives in and actually checks the report readouts himself. When it turns out that Jetfire is actually right, he finds himself more annoyed than anything else. In place of acknowledging it, he merely huffs and throws a servo into the air, frustrated. "When are they going to-"

A burst of static coming into their vessel's communication device startles the both of them, shutting Starscream up and making Jetfire grunt in surprise. For a second, all the vox does is spit out garbled static. Starscream catches Jetfire glancing over at him, but makes a pointed effort to avoid looking, himself. "-reading- at all?"

It's Wheeljack, that much is clear. Jetfire leans closer to the center of the console and fidgets with the command keys. He dismisses the display, and the holographic pixels fall instantly, disappearing into nothing. The feed clears up the second it does, and Starscream rolls his optics.

What a cheap ship. It couldn't even do two functions at once? How were they supposed to survive on their own? Maybe this was a suicide mission after all.

Eventually, the feed levels out to a comprehensible level. "... maybe there's something up on our end."

Jetfire hits the button to open their line. "We're hearing you now," he announces.

"Ah! There we go!" Wheeljack's delight crackles harshly through the feed. "How is everything inside? Settling in?"

When Wheeljack's voice fades out, the seconds of total silence that fill the cockpit are probably some of the most awkward Starscream has experienced yet. "We're fine," Jetfire's tone is clipped. Starscream huffs, turning back to his console to at least pretend like he was working. "Is everything clear for us to take off?"

"Just about!" Wheeljack replies after a ten-second delay. "Y'all got everything calibrated?"

"It's been calibrated for nearly half an hour," Starscream grumbles to himself.

Shockingly, Jetfire doesn't complain about that. Starscream figures he's antsy to get this started, too. The sooner they start, the sooner they finish, and Jetfire won't have to deal with him anymore. "We're ready when you are."

"Hang tight just a little longer! I'll signal you when we detach the restraints."

The feed cuts out, signaling that Wheeljack's ended the line. Jetfire quickly returns to fiddling with the controls, messing with their radio signals as though attempting to find something. Just as Starscream's tolerance for ignoring something reaches its limit, the garbled mess of static and feedback turns returns to a comprehensible stream of words.

"...the situation we find ourselves in today is one that requires our total devotion." Optimus Prime's voice crackles out of the vox. Really? Starscream thinks ruefully, rolling his optics. He shoots Jetfire a look, but the mech is staring intensely at the vox as though the Primes' visage had appeared before them. "The problems facing Cybertron today are ones we must face united as one people. I stress to us all once more that we must abandon our prejudice, our grievances. These are ideals that have been holding us back centuries."

Starscream eases back into his chair, looking out through the narrow viewing screen. Mechs were still scrambling outside, though their numbers had dwindled now that their take-off time was approaching. Starscream recognized some from the Decepticon ranks, and simply assumed the ones he didn't were low level Autobots that never mattered. "Our home has fallen into disrepair, with several cities entirely wiped from existence." Prime pauses, and Starscream and perfectly picture the way he's likely fighting emotion. "It falls on us all now to right our wrongs. No single mech is to blame for our past. We share this burden equally as one."

"Tch," Starscream tuts, turning his helm away sharply. What a load of scrap. 'Share this burden'- his aft! How was locking him up while hundreds of other Decepticons were allowed to go roaming free his interpretation of justice?

Optimus continued to prattle off whatever nonsense he'd been given to bolster Cybertronian spirits, but Starscream tunes it out, giving his helm a shake.

If he notices Jetfire looking at him out of the corner of his optics with interest- he pretends not to acknowledge it.

✦

"...which is to say that going forward, any action needed to be taken will require the continued efforts of all citizens. I, along with your fellow counsel members, will begin to take part in search and recovery missions outside Iacon, with the hopes of identifying and recovering more of our unaccounted for."

Jetfire exvents deeply, letting the inspiring words of Optimus' speech float over him.

He's glad the radio on the vessel is decent enough to have caught this while they were still planet-side. Based on the rest of the ship, he has a sneaking suspicion that there was more than a few corners cut to get the vessel back in working order. He was used to having poor connections out in space, but he's never had such issues while stationary on their home planet.

He could only imagine what so many days out in space with Starscream as his only speaking companion was going to do to his sanity. He really should have purchased more novels to bring with him...

Jetfire had been listening to Optimus' weekly recovery summaries ever since their rebuilding efforts started. Despite Jetfire's role in the Autobot forces, he's had little contact with the Prime since the end of the war, though in all honesty, he's more than happy to keep it that way. He'd never been a mech to enjoy having his individual effort be seen, he'd much rather just contribute and go about his day quietly.

"...the only solution to break this vicious cycle of war and begin to build the bridges of trust between our people once more is mutual cooperation towards our rebuilding efforts. We are stronger together. We always have been."

A loud, sudden 'slam!' from his right shocks Jetfire out of his trance, causing him to gasp in shock and whip his helm around to see Starscream with his fists braced against the console. "Argh!" He exclaims with force. "Would you turn that damned drivel off already?!"

Jetfire blinks hard, Starscream's sudden outburst taking him by surprise. "Drivel?" He echoes as the words finally settle in his mind.

"Blah, blah- oh everyone's guilty, is that right?!" He mutters more, seemingly frustrated enough to take action into his own servos and stand to reach over the gap between them, clumsily slapping his servos against the console.

Reason smacks back into Jetfire. "Stop that!" He gasps, reaching out and grabbing Starscream's wrists for what might be for the first time in several thousand years. "You'll break something!" The jet stops moving instantly, flinching at the contact between them. The anger and annoyance morph over to shock- or was that fear?

What it is doesn't matter, as the distinctive airlock buzzer announces the last of the maintenances workers detaching from their vessel. Moments later, their vox crackles to life again, cutting off the speech. "You're clear to do your final checks!" Wheeljack announces. It takes Jetfire several seconds to understand the meaning of the words, too slack with shock.

Starscream takes advantage of his lapse in vigilance, lurching away from Jetfire and wrenching his body out of his grip. His joints make a sound that's vaguely concerting, but Starscream returns to his seat promptly, resuming the same position he had been in now for hours like nothing had transpired at all. Jetfire can't even see his face from this angle, but he hears it when Starscream announces, "fuel levels, hydraulics, and engine ready for take-off charge."

The shuttle slowly returns to his seat, not quite over just what all that was. He blindly taps away at his own workstation, silently bringing up the reports he'd been pouring over before.

"... route trajectory charted and locked on," he says. "All systems green, interim status reports ready to be logged at every way point passed until the dead zone."

Wheeljack makes noises of approval. "Alright, consider this your official all-clear to begin take off." Before Wheeljack is even done speaking, Starscream hits a large switch on his side of the navigational console, causing a panel to slide back with a loud 'click!', revealing a set of dials and knobs. He pushes two of the sliding dials up, then flicks a series of switches with a claw tip. "You two stay safe out there. What was the old sayin'..? Never stall..."

Despite everything else, Jetfire smiles to himself. "And travel far." He finishes.

"That's it!" Wheeljack gives a laugh. "See you in two weeks!"

He drops the line before Jetfire can add anymore, but the smile continues to linger on his face.

"Systems engaged," Starscream says, his voice far more tempered than before. "Awaiting command sequence."

Right.

Jetfire brings himself closer to the navigational workstation, clearing his mind of all other nonsense for at least this one moment. He flicks the command switch of his side, revealing a set of hidden dials and knobs that looks near identical to Starscream's, initiating a sequence of presses and clicks.

As the ship's systems began to activate, the engines deep within the recesses of the ship began to howl, their discordant roar resounding throughout the narrow halls of the ship. He wordlessly glances at Starscream, who, despite not looking at Jetfire, is clearly wondering about the series of sounds himself. Shaking it off, Jetfire returns to the controls.

The ships landing gear retracts into itself as the thrusters come to life, the panels beneath Jetfire's pedes rattling with their intensity.

With a single tug of the yoke, the ship lifts off the ground. Within seconds, the two of them are airborne, climbing up miles within the blink of an optic. Within minutes, Jetfire can barely make out the rebuilt habitation zone of Iacon.

The rattling of the vessel continues until they surge up through the layers of Cybertron's atmosphere, when Jetfire begins the artificial gravity generator. It kicks in just as the last of Cybertron's grip releases, causing his internal gyroscope to have a momentary panic.

He dismisses the mapped route to gaze out the front screen, looking down at the war torn remains of their planet. Jetfire's face softens, and he sighs quietly.

Cybertron still looks so... dead. A cold, lifeless planet. The only evidence of life returning was the tiniest blip of light shining from Iacon's center. Surrounding it was hundreds of thousands of miles of war-torn land, corpses left to decay for so long that organic material had grown over them.

It'd be a long, long time before Cybertron was anywhere close to what it was before. It pains Jetfire to think of, but it's as Optimus said: they can only move forward from here. With a sigh, he lets go of the piloting controls, engaging the autopilot.

Jetfire's optics flicker to the vox, which sat lifeless now, as it likely would for the remained of their mission until they returned to Cybertron.

Before he can stop himself, his optics continue past it, until he's looking directly at Starscream.

For once, he seemed calm. Staring out over the slowly shrinking mass of their home planet. The little lights blinking along the console dancing in the domed lens of his optics. Starscream blinks slow, watching on with a flat expression and his chin resting in the palm of his servo.

There's a small hole in the core of Jetfire's spark that Starscream's presence is pushing open, exposing the foolish, softer side to himself he had to bury for the sake of the war. The side of Jetfire that still missed Starscream- still missed Ulchtar. It didn't matter how many times Jetfire told himself Ulchtar was dead and gone, that whatever Starscream had made of the pieces of himself was nothing like the mech Jetfire once considered his best friend. His partner. And, perhaps maybe if life had gone their way and they'd never embarked on that mission together, his conjunx.

His sighs silently, sitting back in his seat.

"... what," the word slips out of his intake before he has time to think, causing Jetfire to press his lips together tightly and look away. He hopes, stupidly, that maybe Starscream was lost in his own thoughts and hadn't heard, but the mech tilts his helm toward Jetfire.

Ah, scrap. Well, maybe Starscream's rage has been tempered enough...

"What was with that?"

"With what?" Starscream bites out with only the embering remains of his anger.

Jetfire sighs again, a bit louder this time. "Before. With Optimus' speech."

Starscream's face sours, and he pushes himself back from the console, arms folding in front of his cockpit. Thankfully, though, he doesn't start to yell again. "It's all nonsense, every last word of it." He mutters coldly. "Build the bridges of trust," he spits in a high mocking tone, "mutual cooperation- my aft!" Starscream scoffs. "What a load of nonsense. He doesn't mean any of that!"

Jetfire blinks, optical ridges furrowing. "Of course he does," he answers calmly.

"Hah!" Starscream jabs a claw in Jetfire's direction, optics alight with a crazed emotion. "You're as much of an idiot as the rest of them! Buying into this talk of unity and working as one. How the hell is that Prime boasting about that slag when it's his Autobots that have just shoved me in a box to rot in since the damn war ended?!" Jetfire's expression falls, just little.

He had been... curious about Starscream's conversation with Prowl, and why he'd been with Prowl of all mechs to begin with. The enforcer's presence and the existence of those heavy clamps locking his wings into place... the only logical conclusion to come to was that Starscream had been in jail up until this very moment.

"Honestly!" Starscream barks again, throwing his servos in the air with a cold, dry laugh. "Yes, let all the Decepticons roam free, may they all become the arbiters of their own fates- every last one of them! Even slagging Megatron for all his grave injustices against our own people, but, no, Starscream can't join the side of unity- that villainous little slag!"

Jetfire's processor zeroes in on a single key phrase out of Starscream's rant, ignoring everything else tumbling out of his mouth. "... what do you mean?" He asks, mildly surprised when his quiet words still Starscream's mouth. "Megatron is dead, Starscream."

Starscream inhales sharply, then falls silent.

Silence passes between them. His red optics are wide in shock and alarm, bouncing back and forth between the floor and the console. He shoves himself out of his chair with a loud stomp of his foot, causing Jetfire to jump back an inch.

He's quiet for a moment longer. "I'm going to check on the engines," Starscream announces in a quiet tone. Before he's even finished speaking, he's turning away, marching out of the main hub of the ship and down the access hall toward the back end of the room, leaving Jetfire alone with the shrinking speck of Cybertron in their viewing screen.

Chapter Text

As the vessel lifts into the atmosphere and ascends, climbing through the air faster than any one flightmech could manage on their own, Wheeljack takes a step back from the launchpad, smiling contently. "It works!" He declares.

"Yes, obviously," Prowl, already distracted by some new topic of interest in his personal data pad, sighs, flashing an unimpressed look. "We can see see that."

A pair of jet engines from behind them flare to fire and cut out just as fast, pushing the two of them to turn in sync to see Wheelblade land and look up at the vessel with a mild look of surprise. "Ah, shucks. I missed it?" Before Prowl can even open his mouth and respond, Windblade is already moving on, shaking her head and waving a hand to dismiss that remark entirely. "That's no bother- you got my message from this morning, right?"

"About the request for enforcer presence in the city gates proposal from Prime? Yeah, I replied already, if you had-" Windblade blinks, her featuring schooling themself into a blank slate while confusion swirled in her optics.

"What?" She grunts out, stopping Prowl dead in his rant. Wheeljack looks between the two of them, waiting for the next move. "I sent that to you last night. I was referring to the brief I was sent this morning. I was hoping to see you before we sent them off, but by the time I made it to Starscream's cell, he and you were already gone." Prowl blinks. Windblade blinks back. "... you read the brief, right?"

"... what brief are we referring to right now," Prowl's slow words do not inspire any form of confidence in Wheeljack.

"From the Council. I put in an appeal to free Starscream's transformation cog for the mission, and it was granted."

Silence.

"... it's an off world expedition into an unknown planet, a cog would be invaluable to that kind of mission."

More silence.

"... you... didn't read it, did you?"

In place of answering, Prowl turns and looks up at the vessel, now nothing more than a spec in the sky with trails of displaced clouds spooling out behind it. Wheeljack and Windblade step closer, staring up at it together as a unit.

Prowl clears his throat. "... I'm sure they'll make do."

✦

Left, right, left, right, left...

Anxiety thrums through Starscream's body like an exposed live wire. He paces what little length of the engine room is accessible by pede, its comically small span only adding annoyance into the tangled web of emotions whirling in his spark.

He can't think, and yet, at the same time, every single thought he could ever possibly have runs wild through his mind.

Left, right, left, right, left, turn, left, right, left, right...

The system hub drones loudly with the effort it takes to send and receive information. It was only designed to accept and alter the conditions of the engine and it's functioning parts, but tapping into the datanet for simple queries should be well within its capabilities. The key word here being should. Based on the way it shuddered so violently and was taking this long, Starscream wondered if it could even monitor fuel usage, let alone pull data.

One pede in front of the other. Left, right, left, right, left, turn, left, right, left, right...

Their vessel is still close enough to Cybertron that they should have access to the datanet from this distance, but it won't last long. He made sure to phrase his query in such a way that any recent information should return, but in the event it didn't, he needed to be able to shoot another through the system as quickly as possible to finally get what he-

The hub's vibrations stop so suddenly it spooks Starscream out of his daze, and he narrowly avoids tripping over his own two pedes as he launches himself back to the hub, crouching down to peer at the tiny readout in the domed screen embedded into the engine's diagnostic system.

A news posting with attention-grabbing, bold lettering right in the center of the page.

"MEGATRON EXTINGUISHED, FUTURE OF UNITY PROJECT UNCERTAIN"

The engine systems continue to hiss and sputter all around Starscream, providing his spiraling processor at least one concrete detail about the environment to cling onto.

For several seconds, he doesn't even read the article. The headline alone takes him four times as long to fully process than it likely should.

"...a day like any other turned historic and momentous within the span of minutes as in the heart of Old Iacon, Megatron of Tarn, former Supreme Commander of the Decepticon forces since its inception during the days of the Primes, took his final vents. Since the end of the war, Megatron and our honorable preceding Prime, Optimus the Thirteenth, have worked tirelessly to establish the base of Neo-Iacon's new core. This news has caught several by surprise, as only days from now, a new expedition into the Wastes was scheduled to carry out..."

At the end of the article is a recording, its caption identifying it as an excerpt from a speech Prime gave regarding the matter. At Megatron's funeral no less. Trying to play it would be a waste of time. This far out, the download would take ages, and the audio he received could be marred with radiation and signal decay.

Once Starscream's read enough, the words begin to blur together, coalescing into a pixelated nightmare within the bulging, ancient screen.

Servos braced on the sides of the monitor, he straightens his back, pushing himself back into a proper standing position. He stares out into the minuscule port window, into the black vastness of space, his face slack and emotionless.

The time of the article put it at just under five months ago.

Megatron. Dead. For five months?

And no one had thought to tell him? Him? The former Second in Command of the Decepticons? The Starscream of Vos? The only mech who'd tried to end Megatron's miserable existence more times than Optimus Prime, himself?

No one had thought to tell Starscream anything at all?

Not only that, but for months now, he's been alone in that damn lab, or cooped up in his cell isolated from the world around him, stripped of his damn dignity and not even able to stretch his own wings without armed supervision, agonizing over every single second of his existence. And according to the article, Megatron had just been... free?

Free to do as he pleased? Free to act like a changed mech?

Starscream's face sours, and he fights the urge to spit coolant onto the floor. Please. Megatron must have had them all taken for fools. That was the only explanation. He and Megatron- they were- no matter how much Starscream might have loathed to admit it- they were one in the same.

There was no way in hell that piece of scrap "changed his ways" and decided to "embrace" unity and change.

Scowling, Starscream turns sharply on his heels, balling a servo up into a tight fist and throwing it out with a shout of anger. It collides with the other wall of the engine room, which is so close to him that the punch connects without even fully extending his arm. The clash barely even resounds, muted by the sheer amount of wiring laying just under the metal walls.

A row of four neat dents and pain reverberating up his arm is the only indication he'd done anything at all.

The pain barely even helps take his mind off it all.

A simple question circles the perimeter of Starscream's mind.

Why him? Why was he the punished? Why? Why? He committed crimes, sure! Some might even claim he's committed the worst of the worst, and while it may be true for some, Starscream was positive that whatever he's done, Megatron has done far worse! So, why, damn it, was he the one continuing to suffer for everything-

A sharp spat of static from the vox, and Starscream jumps, snapping out of his personal pit of anger.

"Starscream?" Jetfire's voice sounds distant, like it's coming from light years away and not mere meters from where Starscream stood. "If our engines are stable, I'd like to review our flight path and schedule together."

It's hard to deny that hearing Jetfire's voice soothes the burn that was this revelation about Megatron, but Starscream does his best to do so anyway. He pretends hearing that request sends his energon boiling again and riles up every last bad habit and hostile nature he has while continuing to stand still.

Eventually, he sighs, letting both arms drop. His wings twitch, pain sparking where they're clamped.

"... Starscream?" Jetfire tries again after Starscream has been silent for too long. "Is... is this damn thing even on," his finishes his words low, sighing heavily.

Starscream offers no response, but he smacks the panel for the access door loud enough for it to reverberate, and as the doors calmly slide open, he hopes that was enough of an answer for Jetfire.

✦

Jetfire turns on the holographic projector just as Starscream finds his way back to the central hub of the ship. A cursory glance at him shows he's still in one piece and no worse for wear, so his original fear that Starscream had trudged into the back of the ship and destroyed their only recharge station in some sort of confused rage hadn't come to pass.

He and Starscream may not be... close anymore, but he could still be civil, even if Starscream often could not.

Regardless, Jetfire clears his vocalizer and waits an appropriate amount of seconds before trying to start any sort of conversation. "How are our engines?" He asks as casually as possible.

In response, Starscream only grunts and overtly avoids eye contact while making his way toward the same seat as before. When Jetfire only stares, the Seeker is prompted to shoot a look at him, where he huffs at the neutral face Jetfire's put on. "They're functional," he says. "At least."

"Functional," Jetfire echoes, frowning a little. That didn't instill the most hope in him, but, then again, that could just be Starscream's attitude talking. In place of prying further, he taps the keys at the base of the projection to arrange the pixels around, pulling up their charted course.

A simple mock-up of the route coded by Wheeljack's team projects up into the previously empty space, bathing both them and the room around them in a bright blue as the ambient lighting surrounding them dims to allow for better viewing.

A nearly direct route toward the planet blinks gently in the air, notes popping up along side it. Jetfire points a finger in the air to one, pinching it, then stretching his fingers to enlarge it. Comments about anticipated radio wave disruptions or requests for data collection at a particular location pop-up. Jetfire taps in a command to remind him to gather whatever readings the team on Cybertron must want.

Already too comfortable in the familiar space of interstellar travel, Jetfire finds himself murmuring a, "I wish we had a bigger lab..." before remembering who it was he was with now.

Starscream scoffs. "We're not collecting samples," he huffs, something haughty and annoyed coloring his words. He folds his arms and leans back in the chair, legs crossed underneath the console. Ever the perfect image of aloof indifference, a farce Jetfire might actually fall for if it weren't for the memory of Starscream's horrified expression in the wake of learning Megatron's fate. "We're here to scout for energon."

"I know, I know," Jetfire grumbles quietly. "There's still a potential for other findings that could still be relevant."

"Not for our mission," Starscream shoots back. Not quite playful, but not hostile either.

Jetfire throws a look at him, their eyes meeting and quickly parting. "Since when did you follow the objectives of a mission?" He asks, hoping to kindle that lighter tone. Starscream only smacks his lips and looks away with a sharp jerk of his helm, effectively ending that attempt.

Ah, well. At least no one could say Jetfire didn't try to have a normal atmosphere between the two of them. "We're here for one purpose, and one purpose only. So, why don't we just look away from each other and do our damn job." Starscream says, still looking at the wall of the ship. His wings twitch behind him while he speaks, causing his face to pinch up quickly.

Jetfire's gaze lingers, but eventually, he makes himself act like he saw nothing at all. "Yeah," he agrees, shifting the map's focus to the next item of interest.

He's already accepting facts about this situation that are simultaneously annoying and relieving at the same time.

The first was that despite his best efforts to remain detached and professional and pretend like the millions of years of history between them was not a thing, Jetfire's spark still longed to be in Starscream's company. Because of that, Jetfire was begrudgingly coming around to accepting the fact that he was concerned about the other mech. Which was a problem in and of itself because Starscream was... well... Starscream. He required a delicate hand even when he liked someone, and Jetfire most certainly did not have his favor right now, though he was starting to wonder if anyone actually did.

The odds were against him, but another twitch and wince sequence from the Seeker decides for him that he can't just simply allow the potential to hang between them in the air for the next two weeks.

"Why are we flying around this channel?" Starscream suddenly interruption to his thoughts brings a welcomed reprieve to the worry that was only festering in his spark. He blinks, and focuses as Starscream leans in and drags his thumb through a portion of the map, highlighting a long stretch of space between a planet and its moon. Their projected course took them around the large side of the planet that faced its sun rather than through the side of the moon.

Curious, Jetfire leans in, tapping keys until an explanation appears in the form of another one of Wheeljack's notes. "There seems to be... an asteroid field here," he answers slowly, making sure he properly understood just what it is he's looking at.

Starscream appears to do the same, leaning forward and narrowing his optics. He only watches for a short span of time before his red optics widen slightly, and he sits back in his seat once more, snorting. "Those are blasted remains of another moon," he huffs. Jetfire, blinking rapidly in surprise, spins the perspective of the map.

"Oh," he exhales, noting the placement of the field and the smattering of additional moods laying just off to its side. "How can you be sure-"

"Because we did it."

Starscream cuts him off, and Jetfire pauses, his hand hovering in the air as the words spin in his mind. Jetfire looks past the holo-projection and straight into Starscream's expectant gaze.

We, he said. The Decepticons.

Why blow up an uninhabited moon in the middle of nowhere? Jetfire couldn't exactly see a purpose for it, unless it was out of sheer boredom, but based on what little he knows from his time in the war and what the Constructicons have shared with him during their time together, there was never a dull moment on board that ship of nightmares. Although, really, he should know better than to try and logically explain anything that faction did during their time in action, but-

Starscream's optics narrow at him. This time, Jetfire is the thing he's scrutinizing and sizing up.

Ah, Jetfire thinks to himself. He's waiting for a reaction.

One of the Seeker's favorite social games- setting obvious bait and laying still until his chosen victim bites.

Too bad for Starscream, Jetfire isn't exactly in the mood to play it.

Jetfire sighs, choosing to simply move on to the next issue in their route. Out of the corner of his optics, Starscream slumps in his chair, looking every bit the grumpy child he wanted so badly to pretend like he was. "I don't think going around this juncture will add that much time to our journey," he comments absentmindedly.

"And here I thought our goal was to make it there as fast as possible to provide for our darling little planet."

A cable under Jetfire's optic twitches. "Sure," he agrees, forcing his face to remain flat. "But, if it's all the same to you, I'd much rather arrive there alive. We have to keep an eye on the closest sun to this planet- it puts out wicked solar flares." The effort he spends to maintain a calm demeanor is worth it when Starscream huffs again and rolls his optics, clearly upset there's no one biting at his trap. They haven't worked together for some time, true, but certainly Starscream hasn't forgotten that Jetfire already knew all his tricks- right?

How ridiculous, he thinks, smiling to himself-

Jetfire's digits pause, hovering over the next sector of the map. He blinks rapidly, staring at nothing in particular.

Was he... enjoying a moment with this mech?

For a second, Jetfire doesn't know what's worse- that he's actually acknowledging the feeling or the fact that the feelings exist in the first place. That he can still do that with Starscream. Silently, he pretends to look over the route, instead eyeing the shape of Starscream's body through the haze of pixels, at the tense hold of his body and the rigid posture.

He can hear the words of Optimus' speech echo around his helm.

We're stronger together.

No matter how much he tries to dismiss the thought, it persists in his helm. Despite that, he pushes on with his task. "Our radio connection will cut off..." he pauses, noting the markings on the route. He makes a soft noise of displeasure, because- well... that couldn't be right, could it?

Jetfire enables the projection's stylus and points into a blank space on the map, pixelated green numbers appearing in the air as he draws them out with the tip of his digit. Even if he doesn't remember the formula correctly and he's miscalculating the speed of their vessel, they should still have more time than just this, shouldn't they?

"Well?" Starscream intones with an impatient tone.

"Two days?" Jetfire's answer is unsure, and he scratches the side of his helm with his other servo, his writing hand still hanging in the air.

"What?" Starscream barks back, jumping out of his seat and rounding the console in one quick lunge of his legs. He wedges himself against Jetfire, and very likely would have shoved him to the floor with the force of it had it not been for Jetfire's hulking mass. Jetfire steps an inch to the side anyways, giving Starscream the space to take the digital stylus and scribble out the very same calculations as Jetfire did.

When he reaches the same conclusion, they lean away from the projection in sync, each one taking the display in like a broken marvel.

"... that's fast," Jetfire comments.

"They gave us a broken vessel," Starscream scoffs, throwing his servo as though the stylus in his hand were a physical object he could launch across the room. All he does in reality is carve a garish, harsh line straight across the very top of map in bright green. "How certain are you that this isn't just a suicide mission, again?!"

Growing less and less sure that it isn't by the second, Jetfire wants to say. What he does instead is sigh deeply and press his mouth into a line, looking over his and Starscream's near identical calculations again, as if going over it all a third time would make it any less shocking.

A mission like this should have been passing satellites and interstellar buoys for days. It wasn't like they needed a direct line of communication with Cybertron, though that would definitely be nice to have, especially with a maiden exploration, but if the worst were to happen and their vessel go missing on another planet entirely... there'd be little chance at recovery. And that was assuming the planet they crashed on had the environment suitable to not damage or erase all traces of their bodies completely...

Okay, so, perhaps Jetfire was slowly loosing his absolute confidence in this vessel.

"I'm sure it'll be fine," he says, though isn't sure at all if he's trying to assure Starscream, or assure himself.

To his side, Starscream sputters out mouthful after mouthful of choked sounds of disbelief. He stops to collect himself, blinking hard enough that his helm bobs with the force. "Being an Autobot has rotted your processor."

"Not an Autobot anymore," Jetfire tosses out as an aside while minimizing their sketches and scribbles from the map's surface. Starscream lets out a flat, 'hah?' that almost makes the corners of Jetfire's mouth quick upward.

The shuttle turns, startling Starscream into taking half a step back, optics flashing. Jetfire taps the dead center of his chassis twice, right along the canopy of his cockpit. The small panel where the insignia used to be blasted across the front of his chest was all white. Perhaps Starscream simply hadn't noticed- likely because the mech had been doing everything in his power to avoid staring at Jetfire- because his optics were now locked on the spot. He seemed frozen in place, not even caring that Jetfire was staring right back at him.

"I took it off a while ago," Jetfire's words are quiet, but he doesn't need to shout for Starscream to hear him in this confined space of theirs. Starscream's gaze feels hot, as if the mech could see past the layers of armor and plating and right through to his spark. He says nothing, and yet, Jetfire can see the wonder on his face. The urge to question him. "It just... was never who I was."

And that was the truth in the end. Those labels didn't exist for Jetfire for nearly all his life, and even during the war, it all just felt like he was wearing the costume to fit in. Both during his time with the Decepticons and the life he led as an Autobot. He hated everything that divided them, and hated the violence caused as a result of it even more.

No amount of speeches and discussions could convince him it was worth it. Even when he participated in the war with his own two servos, no one could make him think the numbers of death were worth it at all. Jetfire never shot to kill, no matter what, and perhaps that's why he ended up where he did after the war. Isolated, without the company of many of the mechs he had fought beside and allegedly bonded with, and left with groups of former Decepticons that many were still afraid to be near.

... that statement is still true even now, isn't it? Jetfire blinks as an odd emotion washes over him, leaving him... not shocked, but perhaps in disbelief.

Here he is, once again paired with a former Decepticon many were too afraid to be near despite what good he could add to their united cause.

That was, of course, so long as Starscream dropped the attitude and actually contributed properly...

When he crosses his arms to cover the blank spot on his chest, the movement breaks whatever spell Starscream was under. He sharply turns his helm, still wide optics cast elsewhere. Starscream dismisses the map on the projection entirely, apparently done with their debrief. Jetfire raises an optical ridge, but says nothing. It was... probably fine, anyway. After the initial few points of interest in their journey, there was nothing but endless space until they were scheduled to arrive, anyway.

Jetfire's gaze slides over to one of the few research tables embedded into the walls of the vessel, empty desks that housed simple equipment under their surfaces that could satisfy a scientist of any specialty for a few rounds of basic experimentation.

"... surely we'll have enough time for additional work while we're there..." Jetfire mumbles aloud, drawing an unimpressed glare from Starscream.

"Didn't we go over this already?"

"A few additional samples won't hurt our main research."

"It'll distract you! The last thing I need is you screwing this up for me!" Starscream jabs an accusatory digit closer his way with every word with enough vitriol to pique Jetfire's curiosity.

Trying to be subtle, he sits instead of jumping to question Starscream about that, busying his hands with flicking through the options menus in the console's list of presets. "... you're working with... Prowl, now? Is it?"

Starscream makes a violent noise of disgust, and Jetfire instantly knows that was likely the wrong choice of words to pick. Though, it's incredibly likely that there was no proper choice of words for that question. "Maybe all the indulging in peace you've been doing has rotted your processor, but I know you aren't so dumb as to not see the obvious." Jetfire lifts his helm to look at him once again, blinking owlishly. Starscream pulls a face, then rolls his optics. "I'm a prisoner, you blithering idiot."

At the shocked expression Jetfire's face falls into, he continues. "You think I'm doing this for fun? That I'm like this," he gestures toward his back, his clamped wings twitching, "because I want to be?" He scoffs. "Don't make me laugh."

It didn't seem very funny at all. It seemed rather cruel, in fact. "For what?" Jetfire feels stupid asking. For what? What wouldn't Starscream deserve a sentence for, was a better question. But he wasn't the only mech out there with horrible crimes under his belt. Hell, he might not even have the worst under him.

"The hell would I know? I've been there since the treaty," Starscream's anger feels high enough that the mech is likely to blow up and flee just like he had before, but to Jetfire's surprise, he chooses to collapse back into the same seat as before, opposite of where Jetfire sits. "No one tells me scrap."

Jetfire lets this sink in, his processor dedicated to picking this newfound information apart and trying to understand where it fits in with what he already knows.

... maybe he will allow himself to be distracted after all. This doesn't feel like the type of conversation that would get either of them anywhere positive. There's still too much animosity between them left hanging for it.

With a few taps of his finger and an active effort to cancel all of his analysis subroutines, he brings up a list on-screen, tapping the option to mirror his display to the other side for Starscream to see. "Care for a game while we wait?" He asks with a pointedly neutral expression.

Starscream looks incredulously between him and the screen, like he can't quite believe this is Jetfire's reaction to his personal status.

Whatever he thinks must not be too detrimental to their potential working relationship, though, because the Seeker only sighs once, and smacks his lips twice, before leaning forward and tapping the option for a round of a survival exploration game.

Chapter Text

They only fight once, which is a shockingly good metric for them, all things considering.

It isn't even over anything all that important.

By the time their radio contact has dropped and they've cleared all the physical way-points on their route and there's no longer anything visually interesting to stare at out the windows, they've already exhausted all the games programmed into the ship's consoles that they can agree on. Jetfire's insistence on teaching Starscream how to play the games adapted from anything off Earth and Starscream's stubborn reluctance to do so had been the catalyst for said argument in the first place and what caused Jetfire to give him the cold shoulder for a full day's worth of their journey.

Starscream actually enjoyed the time to himself! He needed a break from the constant yapping and bids for conversation from Jetfire nearly every single time they crossed paths in the main hub of their vessel. Which was often, considering there were a limited number of rooms and only one recharge station they took shifts to use.

His initial apprehension of receiving snappy remarks and hostility appears to have been for nothing. Logic tells him not to push his luck, but Starscream has never been one to listen to anything it says.

It's too tempting to try and press Jetfire's buttons, but try as he might, the damn shuttle refuses to budge.

Starscream catches glimpses of the reaction he desires, flashes of annoyance in his optics when Starscream refuses to play a game right or brings up topics Jetfire doesn't want to engage in, but in the end, it's still Starscream who reaches the end of his fuse first.

Screw those stupid organic humans and their stupider little board games...

How can a game designed by primitive little mammalian animals be fun? How can a mech like Jetfire ever think Starscream would stoop so low to go and encode their stupid rules and mechanics into his processors? He'd put trash in him before, but never filth!

That's what he'd been thinking to himself at the start of their extended day in the furthest corners of the ship from each other, at least.

In some part of his spark, the time spent by himself was all too similar to the time spent in his cell and lab. Confined to a small space with limited room to walk and spread his limbs out in, with no one but himself to speak to. He didn't have all his equipment here, there was no tainted energon to pointlessly try and "fix" to fill the time, just manuals and datapads and whatever nonsense had been downloaded to the ship's storage prior to them leaving the orbit of Cybertron's data network.

Starscream became an expert in Cybertron's recent history and schematics of recharge stations and energon dispensers, and was nearly on his way to being fluent in hydraulic systems management too before he finally snapped and returned to the flight deck where Jetfire sat.

There was no formal apology, just Starscream sitting down next to him, sending a request for another round of a team-based weapons game, and the hope Jetfire would at least be quiet when he accepted it.

He pretended that he didn't notice a smile on the mech's face, and that the existence of said smile didn't make his body feel light for the first time in several years.

Because he didn't notice it. He didn't.

✦

Starscream has to have gotten even more bored with trying to get Jetfire to bite at his bids for fights, because the mech doesn't even pitch at fit when Jetfire decides it's high time for them to do an inventory check when they're nearly all the way to their destination.

He sits slumped in a chair, chin resting in the palm of his hand, as he checks off items Jetfire rattles off on a datapad one by one.

"We don't have a portable fire suppression system?" The Shuttle asks, elbows deep into a supply cabinet.

"It's built into the ship. Allegedly."

"What if it fails?"

Starscream snorts, wondering if this was a research expedition or a suicide mission in disguise. Jetfire continues on, his concern for the fire suppression system dropped in favor of a new object of interest. "Oh- good! We have a medkit." The excitement in his tone gives Starscream the impression he hadn't expected to find it at all. "And it's brand new!"

"You expected them to offer a used medical kit?"

"Well," Jetfire shrugs, noisily bouncing the box of supplies in his arms. "It's new-new. Look-" he lifts what Starscream assumes at first glance to be a gun from the kit, and his optics widen, gearing up to react as if that were the case until Jetfire's thumb presses against a hidden lever where the trigger of a gun would be, and sparks spew from the narrow barrel with a loud bzzzt. "Portable medical welder!" He barks a laugh. "Nothing portable to stop fires, but plenty of portable things to start them." With a more firm laugh, he puts the welder away, closing the box back up. "At least where ever it is we land, we won't risk being cold."

Talk of the planet they were to land on distracts Starscream from the comment he was forming about the Autobots potentially sending them out on this mission to kill them. He sets the datapad aside and stands, turning from where Jetfire was beginning to make a mess of their research counters. "Hey- we aren't done!" Comes the Autobot's whine.

Wordlessly, Starscream hits a button on the nearest console, bringing up their projected flight path. "We're close enough to get preliminary scans-"

And that's all he's able to get out before Jetfire all but jumps to his feet so fast the momentum of his body shakes the ship. Starscream nearly jumps out of his own frame, optics going wide as he clings to the edge of the console. "Are we?" Jetfire asks, optics wide with wonder and smile bright. Starscream blinks several times, still rather stunned from being shaken, and then when he realizes that he's staring directly into Jetfire's happy face, he sharply looks away to the computer screen.

Jetfire taps commands in, turning their radar scanner in the right direction and starting the programs to begin the calculations to parse through what chemicals and radio waves they could get traces of, even from this distance.

The planet looked... unremarkable, at least in Starscream's eyes. Bright pinks and yellows obscured by a haze of blotchy blue and gray clouds. "Wow," Jetfire breathes. "What do you think we'll find in its atmosphere? Methane- obviously. Just look at all that blue! I wonder if there's any nitrogen or oxygen like there was on Earth..."

Starscream silently raises an optical ridge and turns to look at Jetfire, studying him closer now that the mech wasn't focused on him.

His joy was palpable and practically contagious. Starscream could feel it threaten to peel back the layers of protection around his spark, threaten to make him feel happy over something as stupid as the chemical composition of a planet's atmosphere.

...was he happy? Was he enjoying Jetfire's company- wait a damn second.

A swooping sensation rockets through him just as his tanks threaten to grow wings and flutter about in his abdomen. Before he can, though, the Shuttle lets out another loud exclamation of joy, standing up straight and pointing somewhere beyond Starscream's helm, giving him an excuse to not think about if he was having a more pleasant time than he'd like to allow himself to. "Look!" Jetfire says, and Starscream does, turning to look straight through the open area of the ship to the pilot's console.

Through the hazy glass of the front tip of their vessel lay the massive pink and yellow giant, looming before them like a stationary giant.

"We're even closer than I thought!" Jetfire mutters, abandoning the console in favor of rushing to the pilot's chair.

Starscream stands still, choosing to watch him issue more commands through the console's keyboard with a grand smile on his face, like a sparkling who'd just been gifted their most coveted toy. The entire time he stares- Starscream can't help but feel like he's been transported back through time to millions of years ago, on a ship not too different from this one, standing in a spot just like this, watching a Shuttle just like Jetfire excitedly gush about what he hoped to see on foreign planets once they finally left Cybertron.

✦

Jetfire can hardly keep still as the locks to the outer hull of the vessel drag themselves apart, metal screeching and grinding against itself with annoyingly slow hisses of gears and pulleys.

The first glimpse of genuine sunshine that breaks though the dark hall makes him gasp, and as the doors lift and stairs descend with a series of metallic clicks and he's bathed in bright, oppressive light, his breath is taken away entirely

"Stars!" Jetfire gasps aloud the second his pede takes the first step out of the ship.

His senses explode with light and color and sounds and pure sensation.

Humidity hits him first, a wave of thick steam vapor that fogs his optics over and gives the scene before him a hazy glow, turning towering trees and lush greenery into mere splotches of pinks and reds and yellows and blues before him. He laughs open mouthed, blinking away the fog to take it all in.

The clearing they'd crashed into landed them smack in the middle of the thickest parts of the forest, and yet, the brightness of the planet's ever-present sun shown through the thick foliage above them with striking clarity. Below the ship, the lushest, greenest moss covered every inch of the planet's surface. Bits and pieces of other plant species speckled the ground, leading up toward massive bushes that would have reminded him of the kinds he'd encountered on Earth had it not been for the fact that they weren't made up of leaves at all, but entire flowers.

Was every leaf on these bushes a flower, or were the bushes themselves massive flower petals? Was it truly a bush of multiple different flower heads, or one huge flower that took up so much space? Were there multiple species of this... this plant-like creature, or was what they saw from space covering the entire side of the planet all this one singular species?

A breeze blows gently from behind him, rustling the leaves and branches. They waved back and forth across the sky, waving to Jetfire, welcoming him to their home.

His smile only widens as he continues out, nearly stumbling down the steps with how focused he is on the scenery around. Jetfire tries to be careful once he reaches the true surface of the planet, looking down again. His wide, clunky pedes crush the moss underneath them no matter how softly to tries to walk, but he doesn't let it deter him from moving forward.

Reaching out, he clutches his datapad close and heads for the nearest explosion of flora, a bush that seemed to grow up the length of a tree and invade its branches, dripping rows of petals down like wisps that swayed with the breeze.

"It's breathtaking," he whispers, reaching out to cup one of the bulbs. It feels soft and delicate against his hardened metal exterior. Jetfire finds himself afraid to do much more than hold it for fear of damaging it with just trying to push the petals apart.

Loud pedesteps grab his attention, and he turns around, looking back at Starscream, who's just emerged from the ship. The other mech squints in the harsh light and lifts the large, stiff tarp up to block the sunshine from hitting his face directly. Starscream's face scrunches, then sours a little as he sneers, the upper corners of his lip twitching. "Organic," Jetfire hears him mutter coldly. Starscream puts his free servo on his hip once he locates Jetfire. "If you're done," he starts haughtily, raising an optical ridge at him and waving the folded tarp with his other. "We have to set up the survey site."

Something about the way he said "we" leads Jetfire to believe it was going to be him doing much of the setting up, and Starscream taking on the unnecessary supervisory role. Starscream taps a small handheld screen, and from the four corners of it, tiny, nearly invincible drones deploy. Barely a centimeter wide, the four drones buzz about the air, swirling around Starscream's helm as he descends the stairs in stiff, noisy clomps of his pedes.

He tosses the screen down at the base of stairs in the dirt, and the four drones immediately shoot through the air, rocketing out in the four separate navigational directions.

It was an old school, rather rudimentary piece of technology that Jetfire was honestly surprised to see the Seeker still remembered how to use. They were heat readers, drones that could only make maps of heat signatures of the terrain they covered and nothing more. If there were any sentient hostiles on this planet that they couldn't have seen from space, the readers would alert them now.

"Come on," Starscream calls without so much as a glance in Jetfire's direction, turning sharply and marching right back up the stairs he just came from.

In the end, all Jetfire can do is sigh and cast one more look back at the bright flower in his palm before letting it go just as the wind blows through them once more.

"Wait for me!" He whispers with excitement before turning away from them, only feeling the tiniest bit silly for speaking to the plants as though they were sentient creatures.

✦

With their limited supplies, their main survey site goes up in record time.

A tent large enough to house Jetfire without him needing to squat or bend over now stands in the middle of the clearing, a short distance outside the ship's stairs. Inside of it was a table with three simple computer screens linking back to a clunky portable console. Starscream busied himself with two of the screens, connecting a long, shovel-like device to the screen which displayed a sonar radar of the grounds nearby. Once they synced up, the device would extend the radar's range and allow further distances to be displayed as they walked with it.

The second screen displayed preliminary chemical and elemental readings from the first, giving them an idea of what exactly laid under their pedes hidden from view. The remaining screen was an amplifier beacon, occasionally drawing heavy surges of power from their ship via bulky cables that could, so long as it functions properly, get messages sent to Cybertron with only a two day delay. Jetfire is already in the process of transmitting their first message, a short confirmation that they landed safely and are beginning their research, but there's no telling if it'll be functional at all.

Jetfire would be monitoring their survey camp for now, as Starscream was making it clear that he wanted the first trip with their radar locator.

Based on what Jetfire knows now and the state Starscream has been living in for months now... he didn't feel particularly inclined to pitch too much of a fit.

Besides, Starscream gone meant Jetfire could sneak one or two samples in between reading load-outs of their equipment. The thought alone has him smiling to himself.

"Comm check," Starscream speaks aloud and through their comm system, producing a double layer feedback that makes the both of them wince. "Works. Fine." He turns his attention back to the screen, letting out a little huff as he heaves the radar's strap up his shoulder. "I'll head south, for a mile, then return and go north." He announces, optics flicking toward Jetfire to make sure he was still listening. "If there's nothing on the radars by then, we'll do the other directions."

"I think those should get us what we want," Jetfire looks over their set-up, nodding to himself.

Humble, but more than enough.

Starscream stomps a pede hard, causing Jetfire to jump back from their workstation and shoot him a confused glare, but pauses at the finger being jabbed toward him again. "Don't," Starscream grunts lowly. "Get distracted."

Jetfire scoffs incredulously and returns with a high voice: "I will not-"

"Ach!" Starscream points his finger more aggressively, then makes a show of turning sharply on his heel thrusters and marching out, equipment in hand. Jetfire stares, watching the sunlight wash over him. The luster of his fresh polish had dulled, but Starscream was still vibrant as ever against the landscape. His harsh lines of red and white cutting against the gentler flowers as he passed through them.

Jetfire is quick to focus in on their screens, waiting for the displays to update. He sags in relief when they radar pings, its map range expanding by just a few pixels as the information from Starscream's exploration feeds into it. "Radar is working," he says into his comm.

Within seconds, Starscream answers with a, "good. Tell me if something interesting pops up," and then the line goes dead.

Oh, they'll be interesting things, but Jetfire can't promise that Starscream will all too interested in them.

He waits a few moments, just to ensure Starscream is a far enough distance that he wouldn't be able to hear the metallic sounds of Jetfire's body. Once he's in the clear, though, a wide grin splits Jetfire's face.

Jetfire fights the desire to skip that fills him as he makes a straight line over to the floral bushes that had grabbed his attention, withdrawing a small stack of specimen containers from his subspace. "I hope you won't mind," he says with a gentle whisper. "I'll only take as much as I need to learn- okay?"

A breeze gusts by, and the petals sway in the wind. Jetfire carefully plucks some of the petals, placing them two in each of his containers before tucking them back into his subspace. "Fascinating," he whispers, mouth agape. The stems where the petals used to grow from left little nicks in the surface that appeared gummy, almost tacky to the touch. Jetfire watches with baited breath as the outer surface of the vine grows over the holes, plugging up it's own wounds. He smiles open mouthed, laughing in surprise.

What a marvel, he thinks. This planet had to be rife with potential!

"Getting a strange reading from this area," Starscream's voice in his comm shocks him back to reality. "What does the map show?"

Jetfire rushes back to the console, a rush of embarrassment flooding his lines. It's just the comm system, Starscream didn't see anything, he's still in the clear...

He focuses in on the flashing dot on the screen representing Starscream's location, then to the readouts of the minerals around him. "There's..." Jetfire pauses, and blinks.

"Oh."

✦

"Oh?" Starscream echoes, a combination of disgust and surprise and maybe even a hint of fear, bleeding into his voice.

He used to be better at controlling that. The unwanted emotions. Starscream used to be able to swallow down everything he felt and dawn a mask so thick there were times he stopped being able to tell where his true emotions ended and where his performance began.

But that was then, and this is now. Now, where he's years out of practice, and all his tricks and tools have been systematically stripped away from him.

While there's no one to hide from out here, close to a mile away from the only other living soul on the planet, he would have still preferred the ability to hide from the audience inside his own helm. Just Starscream knowing he was uneasy made him also alarmed.

The sudden jarring change in atmosphere wasn't helping his current predicament. Standing beneath the thick canopy of the tree-like plants and shaded from much of the suns, all of his surroundings were shrouded in darkness. There were no sounds here, no animals or sentient life to make any. Starscream's voice lacked any echo, and his breaths felt like explosions in the air, ripping the silence apart.

Starscream shifts on his pedes, unsure if progressing forward was the best course of action or not. "Oh- what?" Starscream snaps into his comm, the beginning threads of apprehension rooting in the base of his spinal struts.

What the hell has happened to him- was a dark forest seriously making him nervous? Who even is he?

"Nothing, nothing," Jetfire's voice is far too casual for the uneasy emotions that had been burgeoning in Starscream, causing them all to pop at once into a disgruntled anger that boils low in his tanks. His subsequent scoff is so loud it nearly drowns Jetfire out as he continues, "there's just... an interesting amount of carbon around you."

"Carbon?" Starscream echoes, rolling his optics. He continues onward again, upset in the same way a child might be for having stopped and gotten worried over something so stupid. "Why the hell is this device tuned to signal carbon as a suspicious reading?"

Jetfire makes a little noise, and Starscream can see the scrunch that's likely wrinkling his olfactory. "It could be anything," he tries, sounding more upbeat than Starscream felt, that's for certain. "Perhaps this is the first time it's registering carbon on this planet."

"It's the first time its registering anything on this planet," Starscream points out. He swings the his radar out in a grand sweep, smacking a few of the leaf-looking oddities on the ground with it as he passes. A quick glance down reveals his previously pristine pedes are utterly caked in soft moss and damp dirt. He scowls. "What makes the stupid carbon any different?"

"We'll just have to continue scanning until we can find that out, won't we?"

In place of replying, Starscream plasters on a mocking expression, miming the words back out to the endless forest. Once he drops the face and continues on, that same creeping sensation comes back to him.

Stupid. There's no one on this entire planet but the two of them. There wasn't even a trace flicker of sentient life anywhere on the planet, bio-organic or techno-organic. Just simple organisms like all these damn plants.

Starscream notes a long winding strand of a branch hanging isolated in the middle of his path, and swipes at it with the radar, continuing to look dead ahead and missing the fact that the end of the radar hadn't returned to him until he meets resistance on his next swing.

He whips around with a snarl, only to freeze.

The branch holds on.

Blinking rapidly, Starscream watches with sudden rapt attention as it creeps along the outer metal dish, tiny tendons growing and spreading like ink blooming in water. The color is difficult to make out in the dark, and his already tinted night vision isn't helping, but it's light enough in color that it stands out against the dark metal and dirt.

Disgust fills him again.

Starscream yanks the device back as hard as he can, fighting the urge to spit on whatever vile little planet inhabited this barren wasteland. The tendril doesn't break off, but retracts, whipping about in the air as if trying to find a place for it to land and grab a hold of once more.

Gross.

Starscream wants off this damn planet already.

"Anything?" He grunts, hoping Jetfire has something at least marginally useful.

There's more static in the feed as Jetfire's comm comes online, no doubt because of the distance put between the two of them now. "Actually, try going, er... twenty degrees east?" Numbers swirl in the corner of Starscream's HUD, presenting him with a new arbitrary guide that turned the approximate distance Jetfire suggested. "The radar is starting to pick up traces of cadmium now."

Finally, something useful.

✦

Mud cakes Starscream's legs up to his knees when he finally makes it back up to the clearing with their ship.

The twin suns meant this planet never saw any true "night", but they fell low enough near the horizon that everything was cast in a hazy, intense orange, the trees and vibrant greens from before made dull and rusted in the light, long shadows stretching out from every form like claws.

As Starscream trudges closer to the ship, he squints, attempting to readjust his vision from the settings he had in dark forest to a lens that could stop the suns warring fires from blinding him while he tries to seek the survey tent and Jetfire's silhouette.

Once he's under the shield of the tent and it becomes clear that Jetfire isn't here, Starscream scoffs, casting a look over at the ship. The sensor lights of the stairs and entryway were on, meaning someone had just passed over them a short time ago.

Starscream shakes his head, but keeps his words of dissatisfaction to himself. No one would be around to hear them anyway.

He breaks the device back down in silence, opening the latches that kept the head held in place and prying it apart. Starscream cringes at the dirt, but fights the urge to clean it, knowing it'd just end up filthy the next day, and it would likely just end up being a waste of their solvent.

Once the device is in a more compact form, he slots it into the docking space built for it into the portable computer system, taking a step back to roll his shoulders out and up, lifting his arm high above his helm. The data begins a slow sync, both devices exchanging the information to crosscheck and insure everything sent over their connection had been accurate. He emits a low noise that evolves into a deep, pained groan as the stiff, exhausted cables in his back stretch and shift and bases of his wings twitch along side it.

Primus what he wouldn't give to be able to stretch his wings...

Jumping right into the strenuous task of lugging machinery around a long distance when he's done nothing but pace tiny rooms for the past few months was certainly a mistake he was going to be regretting more tomorrow than he is right now.

"Oh!" Jetfire's soft exhalation is loud in the quiet clearing, and Starscream is quick to turn, relaxing his body once more.

The shuttle descends down the stairs, with, shockingly, not one, but two cubes of energon in servo. "I was hoping I beat you back out here. I would have cleaned up."

It wasn't until then that Starscream notes the mess the mech has made of the table.

Datapads and smaller tablets, markers, and an already emptied cube now cluttered the surface. The screen showing the newly expanded map Starscream's journey was marked up with pixel ink, as was the lone datapad that was projecting what Starscream sees as a crude recreation of the map drawn by Jetfire. He's highlighted various areas in large color-coded blobs, with several areas overlapping at points. "What's all the mess for?"

"The map and readout doesn't label any of the mineral traces together," Jetfire begins as he steps back under the tent, stretching a servo out to offer Starscream a cube, which the Seeker takes quickly, instantly gulping down a mouthful. Even recycled and low grade energon like this is heaven to his glossa after a long day in a strange land. It's cooling properties sooth his minor aches on the way down, his starved tanks greedily sucking it into his system. "So, I drew one that does. Look," a tap on the datapad's base, and the display enlarges.

Jetfire points at the largest blob colored orange, the one that seemed to encompass nearly all of the visible map. "This is the carbon I mentioned to you before. The darker colors represent a higher density of it." Starscream raises an optical ridge. Only the edges of the blob were a soft orange, while the middle was so dark in color it was nearly brown. It was quite the high concentration. "Over here," Jetfire's fingers move to the light green section, "is the cadmium."

The areas of cadmium began around the section of the map that turned, signaling the point Jetfire had him change direction. There, only one shade of green colored the area. "There should be more in that direction, then."

"That's what I was thinking," Jetfire continues, stopping only to drink from his cube. "I was playing around with mapping out the other chemicals your scan was picking up on and trying to compare it against other minerals that break down or appear in the presence of energon ore, and I believe that if we continue on down this way..."

Starscream's gaze drifts while Jetfire falls down the hole of rambling about current projects and tasks, an act that's so familiar to him it's nearly scary.

What's scarier, though, is what Starscream catches hiding underneath one of the tablets. His accompanying sigh is loud, and yet, Jetfire is too absorbed into an explanation on how weather might effect the breakdown of energon emissions for him to even hear it. "What is that," Starscream drones, wholly unimpressed.

"Hm- this? Ah, it's the fourth mineral that gets released, see-"

"Not that," Starscream juts his chin toward the screen, then reaches to push past Jetfire. "That."

The shuttle takes one look in the direction Starscream is referring to, and immediately stiffens, stepping forward to block his path with his bulky form. Starscream nearly headbutts him in his pauldron, their chassis still bumping into each other when he corrects course and straightens up his body too to avoid said collision.

Starscream blinks, nonplussed, and looks up, an impatient, expectant look on his face. Jetfire does not meet his gaze. He instead looks out toward the horizon, sipping his energon. "...nothing," he says after a gap of silence that stretched far too long for that to be remotely true.

"My aft," he grumbles, stepping around the shuttle with a quick motion and snatching the tablet off the table before Jetfire has the chance to pull any other sort of maneuver that would have resulted in him blocking Starscream. "Ah-hah!" Starscream announces with delighted triumph, only for said triumph to instantly erode into annoyance at the presence of three specimen containers sitting for anyone to see now. "...hm."

Jetfire drops his energon onto the table and grabs the three containers up in his arms, stuffing them away into his subspace without so much as looking Starscream's direction, but every line and light in his face spells out guilty plain as day.

"Mhm," Starscream leans away, tossing the last of his cube down and letting the empty glass clatter noisily against the top of the monitor. He sets his servos on his hips, and stares, saying nothing.

Playing the silent card works, because Jetfire cracks, and sends a few hesitant glances down at Starscream. "...it's just a few."

"I told you no distractions!" Starscream snaps, his words coming out as one loud bark.

"I wasn't distracted." Jetfire, by contrast, is the picture of tranquility, a feat he's only succeeding at because he still isn't letting his optics linger on the other. "See?" He waves a hand at the screens. "I can multitask just fine."

Starscream wants to scream that the fact he can or can't multitask wasn't the Primus-damned point. This wasn't some joy mission to flounce about in or a fun little getaway, they had a reason for being here. There was a set goal for them to achieve and the sooner they get to it, the sooner they can go home and the sooner Starscream can be freed-

He blinks, inhaling sharply. His clamped wings twitch, the folded seams of his delicate circuitry pleading to be freed from their pained prisons. Jetfire's grand spanning wings move with him, bulky and unbending just like the rest of him, totally static piece of his body, save for the fans that spun in their engines.

The fight drains out of Starscream near instantly.

...he has changed.

"I'm taking a shower first," is all he says, sidestepping Jetfire entirely and making for the stairs instead. Behind him, he can hear the shuttle turn in around with sudden whirs, signaling the speed at which he did so. He stumbles over a few syllables and sounds, but ultimately gives up when Starscream doesn't stop.

He scoffs to himself, shaking his head. Jetfire always picked the easy ways out.

Chapter Text

The door to the recharge suite is closed by the time Jetfire finishes securing their survey camp and packing up for the night.

The one benefit of being on an uninhabited planet was that there was no fear about equipment getting stolen during the night, but they still had to account for any inclement weather patterns that might form. Jetfire makes a note to himself to put running weather forecasts at priority number one once he gets out of his sonic soak in the wash racks.

Seeing as Starscream's already used it and gone to recharge for the first half of the night, Jetfire takes his time getting clean, indulging in the heated solvent beating against his face and body, letting its warmth melt away the nonstop pestering questions he still had about the planet's energon and if anything they even found here would be viable for life on Cybertron.

The main hub of the ship is still and quiet as he comes back out, lights dimmed low to preserve power. Jetfire taps a screen embedded into the wall close to the hallway with the recreational area, setting the temperature low to further reduce strain on their energy reserves. They were in no way pressed for power, but it couldn't hurt to conserve energy and strength where they could.

Jetfire knew from experience how devastating getting caught out in rocky situations with no battery or charge reserves could be.

He frowns.

Remembering that freezing ordeal was certainly a way to put a damper on his good mood.

A hearty shake of his helm, and Jetfire pushes all those thoughts far down into his processor. Lingering on what has happened to him in the past can come later. He needed to focus now.

He gets to work at the main console, setting one computer to run the weather forecasts, while bringing up his maps and collected data from outside to further refine them here on the second screen.

As data begins to fill up the screens, the processors of the computers whir and their fans kick on, filling the small area with the pleasant lull of white noise. Coupled with the soft lighting, and the ambient hisses and clicks of the ship's environmental controls fluctuating as needed, peace blankets over Jetfire's processor.

Jetfire sits back and watches his programs run, finding himself smiling.

These were the moments that made this type of exploration truly worth it.

He might claim to others that it was the joy of knowing he was working toward a common good or that collaborating with groups of other scientists to invent revolutionary technologies was the fire that spurred him into these missions, and those things might even be true, but if Jetfire was being truly honest to himself... it was this.

Being alone, but comforted by the knowledge there was still someone living in the same ship as him, and left to his own devices with nothing but his data to pass the time.

Do the speakers in this ship sync to his internal audio databases? Oh, music would truly make this an indulgent experience. Jetfire downloaded several albums worth of human music into his internal hard drives before he left Earth-

Tch. Tch-tch.

Jetfire stills, lifting an optical ridge as he stares out into nothing.

... did he... hear something?

Slowly, Jetfire turns, wondering for a second if Starscream was still awake in there, but the lights of the suite are still off, and the door remains shut. The ventilation hisses from the grates in the walls, a sound that would normally be nondescript to him made unnerving by the unexplained tapping.

He's being silly. There's nothing on this ship except him and-

Tch-tch-tch.

Again!

Jetfire stands up fully this time, turning around in a circle and looking back and forth, checking over every corner of the room until he could be certain that-

Tch.

A tickle from his subspace sends a shiver up his spine, and Jetfire all but yelps into the silence, jumping and nearly stumbling right onto his aft, using both hands to grab onto his chair and console so he avoided that embarrassment.

"What the hell?" He mumbles to himself just as the tickle strikes again.

Suddenly, his optics widen. The samples!

In a flurry of movement, Jetfire yanks open his subspace and withdraws the clear dishes, or what... should have been the clear dishes.

From the time he collected the until now, what had begun as tiny little leaf-life scraps have grown, multiplying in their containers. Instead of little slivers of life contained on the stiff agar inside, massive blobs of slick, gelatinous matter now sat bubbling within.

Jetfire's jaw drops, his mouth hanging open in silent awe.

What... happened here?

The specimen within continues to move ever so slightly, little tendrils of yellow and pink moving millimeter by millimeter, exploring the space they've been put in.

Ideas rush through Jetfire's helm the second fear drops off his list of emotions he's actively experiencing.

Was this... not a plant mere hours ago? Did Jetfire not pluck these straight off a vine from a tree?

Or was it just made to look like vines on a tree? Was this even a plant at all? Was this a stress response? Could the organism be adapting to a new environment? His subspace is dark, it's possible this species has never experienced true darkness before and is rapidly changing its form as a result. Or could this be normal for it? Was this something it did when taken from its source?

The smile from before returns to his face, wild and full of glee.

"Just what kind of creature are you?" He whispers softly, bringing the petri dish up further to his face to give the specimen inside a closer look.

The tendrils writhe under his gaze, as if understanding they now had an audience for the what was likely the first time in their entire existence and were shy as a result. Jetfire chuckles to himself, keeping his optics trained on the container even as he blindly begins to walk toward the opposite end of the room.

He only looks away once he's reached the lab surface built into the hull of the ship. It takes him a moment of fumbling along the surface of the wall with his bare servo before he feels a little latch, and with a simple tug, it gives, revealing a small hidden alcove in the wall. From it, Jetfire pulls out all the basics a researcher could hope for- microscopic lenses, larger sanitized containers, and most importantly for him, a light source with shocking brightness.

"Something like you has probably always enjoyed your star's light, right?" He asks aloud, not even once feeling the littlest bit silly for speaking to himself. There was no way to tell if this creature had the ability to hear. On the planets he's visited, creatures like this often lacked the proper features to function as highly as Cybertronians did, but who was he to consider this little being below him before he's even begun identifying it?

He sets each of the dishes down in one of the larger sanitized boxes before lifting the entire box onto the light source. "It isn't as powerful as a star, but I hope it will do."

Jetfire flicks on the light, and a bright, nearly blinding yellow light bursts forth from the surface.

The moment it flicks on, the creature begins to settle, the tendrils slowing to a point of being practically motionless once more.

A muted laugh puffs out of Jetfire's mouth as he stares with a soft, stunned smile.

Adaptations to light, then? But it hardly reacted to the ambient light of the vessel...

Not wanting to waste anymore time, Jetfire sets it down on the counter and returns to his console, pulling out his spare datapad, the only one he hadn't filled with scribbles about mineral deposits on the planet, and grabbing the stylus pen out from the edge of it. He jots all the questions floating in his processor down, his aft finding the nearest seat, again, without him even looking.

"I'll note my observations and get back to it," he tells the specimen as if it can hear and understand him. It's entirely possible that it could, no matter how unlikely it was in practice. Regardless, any good scientist would note their findings and thoughts down as soon as possible. He'll get them down on a datapad, get back to work, and have everything nice and ready for his and Starscream's next course of action for tomorrow so the Seeker would have no choice but to acknowledge Jetfire could have his intellectual fun and focus, too.

More questions float into Jetfire's processor as he begins to write his thoughts down. "What trials would you be best suited to? Something to test your reaction time? Ooh- or, maybe, an adaptability or maybe even…"

As he talks, his voice grows soft, turning into a stream of barely legible mutters that block his audial feed just enough to not pick up on the slow tap-tap-tap coming from the counter.

The previously small specimen writhes in the tiny glass dish, tendrils growing and stretching, splitting in half once and then in half again, stretching out only to tap-tap-tap at the glass again and bulge outward, as though someone were blowing gulpfuls of air into it bit by bit.

Jetfire still doesn't notice it. Not until it grows to a size large enough to pop the lid of the dish clean off- sending it flying into the air to shatter onto the ground with a sound akin to a bomb in such a small ship. Jetfire jumps to his pedes with a shout, thinking Starscream has to be behind this, only when he turns back around, the sight that now greets him on the counter is nothing he could have ever considered.

His optics go wide, and for a brief second of time- he's frozen.

Dread curls around his spark like a vice.

"What-"

At the sound of his voice, the creature- the thing- it moves. Jerks like it was reacting to him, and Jetfire jerks back too, stumbling out of the way of his seat, but the second he does so, the creature lunges for him with a roar, and-

✦

Alerts pop up on Starscream's HUD even before he's even onlined his optics.

Little flashing notifications that inform him he's not even four hours into his rest cycle, and a minor flux in his environment is the cause of his recharge's disturbance. He grunts mutely and shifts his limbs around, stretching them out and trying to pretend with his sleep-addled processor that it was his wings he was stretching out instead.

Starscream does his best to ignore the notifications as they pop-up, silencing them all one by one. They would all just be notifications that his diagnostics and defrags aren't finished, anyway. The most annoying part of waking up mid-cycle was dealing with them. They used to plague him constantly during the war, his processor always swarmed with half-baked plans and schemes and reminders to check in on his Seekers and make sure they weren't slacking off...

But they'd stopped since the war ended. Starscream's more used to struggling to fall into recharge instead, these days, which is likely the reason why he's still awake now.

With a heavy sigh through his olfactory, he begins the code to execute a full HUD wipe and a sub-routine that'd hopefully lull him back into the allure of sleep, until he stares too long at one of the notifications and actually registers the words being shown to him.

Heat Warning, it states in bright white glyphs, a flashing red square surrounding it, external heat temperatures increasing!

His optics snap open without another second wasted.

What he sees causes Starscream to frown, grabbing the sides of the berth and pushing himself forward hard enough to dislodge the dock from his neck port.

The room before him is exactly how he left it when he'd settled into the berth, but the dimmed lights catch his attention immediately.

Battery conservation? This early into the expedition? But their vessel had more than enough power to last them the duration of the mission, plus the solar panels built into the upper hull...

Starscream cuts his thoughts off before he can start speculating on what's going on. Likely, this was the result of a stupid accident Jetfire's made from whatever little side game he'd gotten himself into.

That shuttle was always, always, getting himself into problems.

A healthy curiosity and drive for science was important for any researcher, but Jetfire's field of vision always felt limited to that of a sparkling's. He sought out projects for no reason other than they put a smile on his face or made him happy, wasting time in any countless number of fruitless pursuits while real, tangible work lay untouched until someone more responsible with their processor, like Starscream, came in and got the work done in his place. Or, more realistically, yelled at him until Jetfire set his toys down with a sheepish expression and got to work.

Thinking of those times brings forth a strange warmth in the pits of Starscream's tanks that, coupled with his confusion from his interrupted resting cycle and the unusual status of the ship, leaves him almost... concerned for his former partner.

He scoffs, and exits the room without any further lingering on days past. His memories were just that- memories. Little movie snippets of a life he'd never lead again. For all intents and purposes, those mechs they had been were dead.

Starscream had thought he'd excepted that fact by now, but he guesses being forced into a small space with Jetfire again is causing all his weaknesses to bubble up to the surface again. Wonderful.

The short hallway that opened up to the main area of the vessel was dark to begin with, as it lacked any window opening and was lit only by long strips of lights built into the corners of the floor. Now that even those were taken away, the hallway was cast in an absurdly uncomfortable dark.

Before Starscream can even notice the dimmed lighting coming from the main area, he registers the smell first.

A thick cloying acidic sweetness, like overripe organic fruit with shiny skin that was just on the brink of bursting open with rotten pulpy flesh.

A lifetime of living on the blade's edge of active war made every battle protocol in Starscream's body shoot through the priority list of executable tasks to explode in the forefront of his HUD, only for the Autobot's programming override to call them off, meaning all that actually happens is a flash of code in his optics that leaves Starscream momentarily dazed.

He shakes his helm and forces his pedes onward, despite the now gnawing sensation in his spark that he is now in danger. "Jetfire," he calls out in as steady as a voice as he can manage, attempting and mostly succeeding in sounding annoyed and tired, because he was still both of those things underneath the paranoia, and if Starscream had no actual weapons to defend himself, he was sure as hell going to weaponize his feelings. "Quit messing with the damned environmental systems. You'll remember I was trying to rest."

Nothing.

He squints.

Alright. That's fine. That could mean nothing. There's a chance Jetfire simply... stepped outside. A slim chance, but a chance nonetheless.

Swallowing down the nagging worry, Starscream confidently strides through the remainder of the hall- and stops near instantly the second he stands in the mouth of the archway. All the internal babbling convincing himself this was all normal ceases, leaving his mind so empty and still the quiet buzz of his internal circuitry floods his own audials.

A massive amorphous yellow blob clings to the side of the ship like a cancerous growth, pulsating, undulating. Its surface was shiny and tacky, stretching out in little taut spikes where it clung to the wall while several long, thick rope-like appendages grew out of it at all angles, roots to embed itself into the wall of the ship, to the floor and ceiling, to the-

There, on the floor.

A shuttle. All white, with blue and red accents cresting along the back of his helm and in his wings.

"Skyfire!" The name explodes from Starscream's mouth before he can stop himself when his optics spot the downed mech laying partially covered by the gelatinous mass.

A mistake. The sound triggers a rippling effect across the surface of the blob-like creature that serves as Starscream's only warning before it launches forward, hurdling directly toward him.

On instinct, he throws his own weight to the side, tucking in his arms and legs as he rolls into a crouch. His venting comes in quick, shallow puffs as he scrambles upright again, pausing only when he notes the creature has stilled, too. Starscream stares, a sense of morbid fascination washing over him at how stiff and blade-like the limb that shot out at him was now when the rest of the organism was so squishy in appearance. Sharp as a weapon, it was now embedded into the wall of the ship, slowly withdrawing to reveal a clean hole in the metal left behind.

Starscream shutters. His sensory nodes inform him it had just barely grazed the fold of his wings in his roll. Had they been unlocked, his right wing would have certainly been impaled straight through.

Even now that it was still again, its body jiggled, movement just under the surface of its exterior, as if it were teeming with live insects. Millimeter by millimeter, Starscream nudges his pedes in the direction of Jetfire, trying to angle his body so that the damaged computer terminal the pair had been using was between himself and the blob. He swallows thickly, optics darting over toward Jetfire for factions of a second, trying to keep an eye on the creature still.

There isn't any energon on the ground that he can see, but that only means so much when the mech was clearly unresponsive.

Movement happens from the creature's side before he can make any further progress. Two fleshy tentacles launch outward toward him this time, and a slew of pointless expletives fire out of his mouth as he ducks and jumps backward.

In the flurry of movement, Starscream realizes all too late he's miscalculated his position in the room, and slams his back directly into another computer console. A cry of pain rips out of him, his optics cycling wide. His wings take the brunt of the impact, and his already sore wing joints scald in the agony that pours down them.

Even in a moment like this, there's still enough processing power in Starscream's helm left to spare to acknowledge just how much he hates the fucking Autobots.

He hasn't got the time to wait around and let the pain go away on its own. From the other end of the room, a bubbling, gelatinous sound grows, and without even looking Starscream ducks and rolls to the side once again, repeating the same evasion tactics from before and chooses to throw himself further toward Jetfire instead of closer to the other computer terminal.

The moment after he does so, the sound of a sharp whip cuts through the air, and the tip of the creature's limb pierces through the floor, smashing through the hardened layer of reinforced metal. The mere sound alone is enough to make Starscream wince and brace himself to tuck and roll again.

Physically speaking, he could keep this game up forever, his body was still flexible enough despite the rust deep in his joints from his sedentary prison lifestyle, but there was only so much hiding from a seemingly easy target that Starscream's ego would allow him.

There had to be something else- but what?

Now that he was closer to Jetfire, he chances another look at the mech, and whatever thoughts and worries he had in his processor drop out from underneath him so fast, he vaguely registers the sensation of falling before he feels nothing else at all.

The world around Starscream begins to slow, his vision narrowing in on those dull, sightless optics.

Jetfire's dulled optics stare back at Starscream with a sightless horror, his lenses nearly gray without the bright blues of his optical node lights. They were dark. Dark, and empty. Condensation has formed behind the dome, the hallmark of a sudden, dangerous shut down. Cooling fluids beading up on glass, fogging up his optics.

Starscream feels cold just looking at them.

He feels... he feels...

He feels bitter wind whipping at the soft, malleable metals of his youth, the decorative plating installed to make himself appear larger than the damned tower mechs that snickered at him in their lecture halls. An appointment to get them removed before embarking on a mission with Skyfire had been made, but he'd skipped in favor of letting Skyfire's glossa be the one teasing another set of plating on his body open.

He was regretting it now, knee-deep in frozen snow so cold his hydraulic lines were freezing over.

Warnings flash in his vision, alerting him to critical conditions, to the fact that his systems were moments away from failing, that if he didn't transform and blast off this Primus-forsaken planet now he'd shut down and be lost amidst the snow plows.

But he can't leave Skyfire. He can't.

His vocalizer has long since crackled away, but Ulchtar calls regardless. The wiring in his throat frays with every scream and cry, producing sparks that light up his mouth but produce just enough warmth that the coolant in his mouth stays fluid.

Ulchtar's head whips around on a pivot. He's walked this way already hasn't he? The winds are so strong, the tracks left in the snow by his pedes are swept away the second he lifts them to take another step. His spark aches. The cold has traveled so far up his body that it's affecting his life source.

He needs to leave. He needs to leave- he can't leave.

Skyfire. His only friend, the only mech who wanted him at that damned academy, the only one who trusts Ulchtar, the only mech Ulchtar has ever loved-

A meaty, wet smack across his back, and Starscream is thrust back into reality at speeds he can't even achieve during flight.

He screams- a noise that comes out of some guttural, animalistic corner of him. Starscream turns fast, but the limb-like structure coming off the creature is wet and sticky enough that it has all but suctioned to the plating of his lower back, and he throws his own pedes out from under him, kicking them up into the air as he falls.

Starscream throws his servos out to break his fall, but still manages to land right atop one of his folded wings, sending blinding pain shooting up through every neural receptor in his body. He stiffens and tenses up, body jerking as if it were trying to rip himself from the experience of agony, unwilling to tolerate any sort of pain now that he's had so many months away from abuse.

The only good it does for him is that it jostles the creature enough, and the limb dislodges from his back.

Working fast, Starscream scrambles to turn off his side and onto his aft, servos and pedes clambering on the floor for any kind of purchase. His vents come in sharp, shallow gasps of air, spark whirling and pulsating so fast that it, too, was starting to cause him pain.

The creature has stretched out from its position near the wall, appearing now like less of a blob and more like a tube. The area closest to him stretches out more, another long tube-like portion branching off the end, looming up over Starscream.

It lacks a face, a voice, or any other features to give itself any discernible kind of appearance, and yet Starscream still feels like a cornered prey animal looking up at it. He's completely defenseless- no weapons, no allies, not even his words, something that had rarely saved him before but at least could buy him time to prepare himself for the worst, were at his disposal.

The thought of dying at the whims of this thing is at once both disgusting and relieving. At least it wasn't Megatron. At least his death would be mysterious and strange, and he might even go down in history as being some noteworthy unlucky soul.

Spiky limbs slash through the air fast, whipping the still air filling it with cracks of flesh shooting outward. His body reacts on instinct, signals sent to fluff out his wing armor, to fire his thrusters and pull in his auxiliary kibble to propel himself away, but in the state that he's in, the thrusters in his pedes only sputter out weak wisps of flame that-

That send the creature reeling, shrieking. It wrenches away from him at lightning speeds, tendrils and limbs pulling back in on itself. The sound it produces is alien and strange, but similar enough to steam rising through a narrow pot of boiling liquid that Starscream's internal processor almost attempts to label it as such.

It continues to screech at nothing, gyrating together until it's formed one large sphere of gelatinous mass again. Starscream stares, dumbfounded.

Slowly, his vision drifts down to his pedes. On a whim, he tries to fire his thrusters up again, but the lack of proper jet fuel in his body leaves him unable to do more than spark flames that last seconds before fizzing out.

From the other side of the room, the creature whistles out another set of high-pitched shrieks, like a little sparkling being shown a monster from their nightmares once more.

Starscream looks rapidly between his pedes and the creature.

Fire, he thinks simply, the solitary word swelling up in his mind until it's the only thought he can process. Fire. Fire. It hates fire- fuck, he doesn't have the ability to make any more fire on his own, the fact that he can manage as much as he can now is some miracle in and of itself. His shallow panting has progressed to the point of shaking his entire frame.

He looks from the creature, to Jetfire, to the damaged consoles, to Jetfire, to the hallway, to Jetfire- until finally Starscream notices the counter surfaces embedded into the wall, with tiny alcoves in the metal below for storage, where the emergency kit lay untouched since Jetfire's spur of the moment cataloguing session.

Without wasting another second, Starscream makes a mad scramble to stand, claws scraping down the surface of the ground metal. Bubbling, guttural noises pick up behind him, and he doesn't need to check to know that the creature is gearing up to launch another assault at him. Starscream launches himself over Jetfire's fallen body, denying the soft part of his spark the chance to look at his comrade and keeping his focus trained on the supplies.

The creature's limbs propel toward him, only to wind up embedding themselves into the floor in a shower of puncturing metallic pops as they pierced through it rather than Starscream's body. The structual integrity of this damn vessel was already poor to begin with, if this slimy thing didn't kill Starscream, trying to exit this planet's atmosphere in this certainly would.

Starscream dives as he reaches for the emergency kit, latching on with his claw tips and yanking it off the shelf at the same moment his body slammed against the counter top, his entire body cringing inward at the blow to his abdominal plating.

There isn't time to fret about that. He all but rips the lid of the box off, sending loose supplies scattering across the floor in a series of shockingly loud bangs. "Come on, come on..." Starscream murmurs under his frantic breathing, digging around the container with growing panic as the yellow blob of the damned monster in their ship grew ever closer in his peripheral vision.

Is it even still here? Did it get misplaced when they-

"Yes!" Starscream's voice cracks on the single word as he grabs and clutches onto the flare in his hands as a lifeline.

Brandishing it like a weapon, he throws the box down at the base of the creature, and is overcome with relief when the creature seems to stutter and stop at the action, giving him enough time to trip his way back upright again, hook a claw tip in the pin for the flare, and pull.

The chemical reaction is immediate.

Intense, bright red fills the room as the flare in his servos warms rapidly and flickers to life with a sizzling crackle, blinding Starscream and forcing him to squint and look away to save his optical receptors from being burnt out.

The monstrous creature screeches in abject horror. Even with the blinding light, Starscream can still make out the edges of the creatures shape, and takes a grand step towards it. It's deafening cries grow even louder, rattling plugs and causing already loose cables in his helm to disconnect.

Enough of this, Starscream decides with a grit of his dentae.

He forces his vents as flat and even as he's possibly going to get them and walks slow, ignoring the tremor forming in his servos. He manages a snail's pace as he blindly navigates his pedes through the litter now strewn about the floor. A processor ache explodes into existences within his own helm as the creature screeches and thrashes at his approach.

Sharp, spiky formations bubble to the surface of its body only to be sucked right back inside of the massive blob. Starscream waves the flare out in front of him, using the sounds of the alien's terror to guide his pedes. It attempts to shoot limbs out at him once more, but the light and heat of the flare's fire causes them to shrink the moment they get to close to him.

In a fit of anger, Starscream wrenches his arm back to throw the flare, launching it straight at the monster.

The screams break, only to skyrocket back up to even higher octaves, rattling the plating of the cramped ship. Yellow limbs burst forth from every inch of the creature's body, turning itself into a pin cushion in a vain effort to protect itself. Glass shatters, beakers and unattended console screens exploding from the vibrations while the creature ignites into a massive wall of flame, roaring to life with a force so strong it shoves Starscream back with a wave of heat.

He tumbles to the floor, the dead weight of his wings weighing him down working in his favor for once. Blistering heat rolls above him in what feels like an unending torrent. Red and orange flames lick the ceiling in spiraling curls of wrath, and staring into them for too long just makes Starscream dizzy and nauseous.

His optics shutter and open again sluggishly, muck and grit caught between the rungs of his outer lenses.

He isn't sure when the foreign screams stopped, but Starscream lays still even as it becomes apparent that the flickers of flame are his only companion. Risking sitting up only to have that blob jump out at him while he was dazed seemed like a suicide mission- although, honestly, this entire Primus-damned mission was starting to feel like one big suicide mission now.

Only when the majority of the heat ebbs away and the distant shrill alarms of the ship's piloting systems filter into Starscream's audials does he attempt to sit up.

And attempt, he does.

Pain explodes across his side, pinning Starscream back to the ground with a cry that's cross between a groan and a cough. His servos rush to clutch at his side, and a cold sense of dread washes him clean of any other emotion as his claws come away wet.

He sits up far more gingerly this time, even though he wants nothing more than to propel himself upward and launch his body into the nearest medical bay. Bands of sharp pain roll through his body with every centimeter of movement. Even continuing to pant out vents feels like a herculean task requiring every ounce of focus he has left.

The first thing Starscream sees is splatters of a tacky yellow substance sprayed over his body like paint. He blinks, feeling oddly detached from the sight of his own body once he manages to rip his optics away from and chance a look further down himself.

A wide neat hole punctures the metal just left of his cockpit. Cracks spidered over the entire piece of domed glass, only one wrong move away from shattering inward completely. Any further right and it would have shattered the glass, though looking down at the rest of him, it seems the structural stability of his cockpit was where his luck ended.

The limb that had stabbed him melted in to a viscous yellow foam that fizzled on his armor, peeling paint off him in little chunks as it slid down the curve of his body.

Following the line of yellow foam along the floor, Starscream stares in shock at the puddle of yellow that had just been attacking him relentlessly not moments ago. Reduced to bubbling goop on the ground, he felt a little stupid now for being so afraid of it.

A flash of white in the corner of the field of his vision catches his eye, and he gasps, realization hitting him like a bullet.

"Jetfire," he exhales heavily, struggling his way to his pedes. His vision swims and spins, Jetfire's still prone form bleeding into clouds of color, and the violent urge to purge his tanks overcomes him.

Starscream manages precisely one step. The moment he puts weight down on his left pede, something snaps within his lower leg with an audible 'pop!' of cable, and he howls in pain as he collapses to the ground once more.

Acidic frustration burns in the back of his throat. He balls his fists up tight, growling out a loud, "fuck!" before slamming his hands hard into the metal floor.

He pants, optics boring into the drain grates along the floor that the melted monster was presently leaking into with a steady drip, drip, drip...

Starscream swallows the coolant in his mouth, sucks in a deep breath, and looks up.

The alarms of the ship continue to shriek, multiple sets coming from all different corners of the ship and assaulting Starscream's audials from all fronts. The pain in his body dulls when he remains still, but then he looks up, and takes in the state of the ship, and it's plain as day that there's no way in hell Starscream will be able to just sit here until Jetfire wakes up.

... if Jetfire isn't already dead.

It takes a moment to convince himself, but once he sucks up his own pride and begrudgingly crawls across the floor at a snail's pace to get to Jetfire, all concern for his own appearances blow away like smoke from an embering fire.

He reminds himself that Jetfire's armor still has color. His chromananites are still alive, and therefore, he must still be alive, too.

The fact doesn't comfort Starscream at all. Jetfire still lays there, motionless and cold. Starscream rests a palm down on him, hoping in a childish way that maybe that was all the shuttle needed to come back alive and yell at him for killing his little specimen pet while he was just taking a nap, but he has no such luck. The jostling of his palm on Jetfire's body shifts his limbs and reveals what has to be the source of Jetfire's condition: a gaping, dripping hole in the dead center of his abdomen in the shape of a perfect circle, with peeling paint framing the edges of exposed circuitry and internals.

Starscream sags, energy and fight leaving his body all at once.

Around him, the shrill cries of alarm systems continue, blaring sounds of panic and warning into the confined space. And still, somehow Starscream finds himself unable to hear anything aside from the haggard breathing of his own vents.

Chapter Text

Local boot program, offline.

Remote diagnostic programs, offline.

Core spark integrity, seventy-seven percent. Primary processor integrity, forty-nine percent.

Insufficient integrity required for onlining boot processes.

Initialization sequence… interrupted.

Commencing internal restructuring… loading back-up processing firmware…

Three... three... th-one...

These hallways weren’t built with Shuttle researchers in mind.

The thought crosses his mind just as Skyfire bumps into the third over-helm archway in the past twenty minutes alone, only this time his embarrassing stumble is witnessed by a group of young, pretty, smart-looking groundmechs who all shoot him varying looks of mockery, confusion, or annoyance.

Damn his height. Damn his stupid, bulky form.

Forget them, just forget them- this is the tenth floor, so his assigned labs shouldn’t be much further away. He tucks his helm and shoulders in and scurries down, away from the gathered groups of mechs.

He hadn’t seen a single other Transformer of his size, and the wide optic’d stares that the mechs meant to be his scientifically curious companions had been throwing at him were starting to gnaw away at the confidence his bright, shiny acceptance letter gave him.

Were they judging him? Were they all looking and wondering how he got in? Were they confused as to why a cargo delivery vessel was walking around their academy halls like he was a student?

A sigh escapes heavy from his lips, shoulders drooping with the weight of it.

Skyfire knows he’s doing an awful lot of wallowing for only his first day of actual research, but it's always been the part of his processor he could fall back on when stress ate away at him.

No more! He tells himself with a newfound burst of confidence, picking his body back up just as he comes to a stop before a set of closed doors labeled “10-48”. This is it- his assigned laboratory. A secluded room where just he and his assigned partner will have access to for the next five cycles.

He can make a good first impression.

No whining, no self-depreciating, no stupid self-doubt. He earned this position fair and square just like any body else. No amount of rude or confused looks and off-handed comments could change that fact, and he would prove it.

Skyfire was going to make it into the interstellar exploration program.

With a friendly smile and a forced-confident set to his shoulders, he reaches out with both servos and takes a hold of the door handles-

And is promptly thrust backward when something from inside the room explodes, and the doors are blasted open in a plume of black smoke. Skyfire only has time to shout in alarm and blink before a figure is thrown atop him, bouncing off his front and tumbling off onto it’s side in a blur of red and blue.

“Primus below,” he gasps, scrambling to push himself up despite the daze of whiplash that threatens to set in. “Are- are you-“

The mech coughs, and a wide set of gorgeous, flexible wings fluff outward, the smooth sound of loud hydraulics stunning Skyfire back into silence. “That answers that question,” mumbles a strange, scraggly voice. While Skyfire is busy marveling stupidly at his wings, the mech turns to reveal a face that was just as beautiful, even if it was covered in soot, with bright blue optics that cut through the dark mess on his face like beacons in the night-

-Insufficient integrity required for onlining boot processes.

Attempt start-up?-

-A seeker, Skyfire realizes in shock. Didn’t they never stray away from Vos? What was one doing all the way out here?

“Sorry, I was…” Said Seeker blinks, and levels Skyfire with a curious look that likely mirrors the one on his own face. “… who are you?” His voice isn’t mean or accusatory at all, but something about it strikes Skyfire as firm, like this mech didn’t take kindly to beating around a bush.

A warmth returns to Skyfire’s cheeks when he remembers that he was supposed to be working on making a good first impression.

Damn it.

“I- uh, I’m-“ The Seeker rocks backward onto his pedes with a smooth roll before jumping upright with a grunt. “Skyfire. I’m Skyfire.”

Skyfire stares in awe at the bold smile that spreads over the Seeker's face. A sense of sure-fired cockiness rolls off of him in waves. Skyfire gets the sense that this is a mech who's never taken "no" for an answer before, and has never once acted meek in the face of other's ridicule.

All at once, Skyfire wishes to be like him.

"Nice to meet you," he extends a sky blue servo out for Skyfire to grab, "we'll be- be- be-"

Beep, beep, beep.

Insufficient integrity required for onlining boot processes.

Low energon reserves... switching to reduced power.

✦

Starscream has to leave Jetfire laying where he is.

For all the shit he's tolerated over the past several hours, for some reason it's this that feels like the worst part of it all. He's too hurt to drag Jetfire, let alone pick him up or carry him back to their shared recharging berth in the back of the vessel, so he has to just... let him lay there. In the center of the chaos, surrounded by debris and filth.

For a long while, all Starscream can do is sit, surrounding by blaring klaxons on all sides, and stare. Stare into the void in Jetfire's chassis.

Logic tells him to get the hell up and get to work to do something. Fix whatever he can or fire off whatever alarm they had still functioning to get word back to Wheeljack or whoever was monitoring their reckon messages back on Cybertron.

He tells himself he isn't stalling. He's sitting still and letting the repair nanites in his body do their job to keep him from reaching any sort of critical state. Cybertronian bodies couldn't produce miracles out of nothing, there was nothing his body could do at present that was going to completely fix the damage, but he could stay away. For now.

But when his HUD flashes diagnostic report summaries that show him he's definitely not dying, Starscream has to finally force himself up.

Without thinking, he quietly gathers up the scattered supplies of the emergency kit. Whatever noise he makes dragging his aching leg and picking things up is completely drowned out by the alarms and the growing ringing in his own audials. The presence of Jetfire's prone body laying just feet away from him weighs heavily on his processor, pulling his limbs back toward his fallen partner like lead.

... there had to be something he could do. He couldn't just sit and do nothing. These vessels might not be top-of-the-line, but it had to have something here that would do... fuck, he doesn't know. But the illusion of progress was better than nothing when the mission has all but completely fallen apart at the seams.

He turns around in a circle, optics bouncing from point to point. As he spins aimlessly, nothing stands out or enlightens him as to what he should be doing until he looks back at the same table he had grabbed the supply kit from. Nearly sliding off one of the shelves completely was a long flat device with instructions printed in bold font across its sealed surface. Starscream limps over and gingerly leans in to grab it, turning it over in his palms.

His optics nearly pop out of their sockets when he catches the label.

Cybertronian Structural Regenerator.

It's... the portable medic device.

The cries of the klaxons bleed away as his entire focus narrows down onto this single object.

A portable medic device. The thing Jetfire had cheered about just mere days ago.

Perhaps the Autobots weren't all blithering idiots.

Starscream takes a wide step, forgetting in his elation that he was stepping out with the wrong pede and stumbling and swearing heavily once he sets weight down onto it and feels pain equivalent to at least fourteen yellow suns exploding right next to him.

He grits his dentae through the better half of it, only allowing a low hiss to escape as the pain builds with every staggered step.

Starscream collapses gracelessly to the floor, his knees and elbows bumping into himself and the floor as if he were a sparkling who hadn't yet discovered their own bodily coordination. Before he's even settled into a comfortable position, he reaches for Jetfire's neck, poking and scraping around with the tips of his claws until he's found the only port that will easily give from the outside.

A long press, and the port spirals open, revealing a narrow channel with different plugs. Starscream squints, studying the shapes while fumbling with the medical device. He shakes it around enough that some cords come loose, and he scrambles to unspool them from their places.

Three of the cords have shapes that match three separate plugs in Jetfire's neck, so Starscream just... stuffs them all in, hoping for the best.

After several long seconds of breathless waiting, the device elicits a string of beeps, a previously invisible screen illuminating the dark surface.

The overwhelming relief he feels is short-lived, as worry overtakes him once more as text begins to filter in on-screen, declaring the start of diagnostic scans and preemptive code splicing.

He sits back, watching the numbers tick upward on scan progress.

An uncomfortable feeling sits in the pit of his tanks. One that has been blooming for quite a while now, but Starscream had been too preoccupied with staying alive to allow himself even a second to acknowledge it.

He was afraid, and there was something in his spark ashamed of that.

How stupid to feel such things. It isn't like he's never been afraid in his life before. Quite the contrary, really. Fear and him were well acquainted with each other. There was once a time in his life where fear was what kept him alive. Fear was what drove him to push onward.

But, like many other aspects of his life that had used to be important to keep a high threshold to, his ability to function in it had vanished since the war ended. Or, as a more accurate statement might be, ever since Megatron had died.

Starscream's optics droop, and he lets his vision slip away, down to the grating along the floor that was still stained in coagulating yellow goo.

Look at him. Former Second in Command of the Decepticon army, and here he is: Defenseless. Injured. Alone. Cowering from nothing. Afraid. Alone. Afraid that he is going to be permanently alone now.

The sudden urge to reach out and grab Jetfire's servo overwhelms him. In the same breath that it arises, it disgusts himself so thoroughly that Starscream flinches away from nothing. He wants nothing more than to scream to the fallen Primes, to himself, that he didn't need stupid sentimental nonsense such as that- but he couldn't.

Maybe he'd lost more than just his weapons and freedom after the war. Maybe the only true defense he'd ever had that he could call his own was taken from him, too.

Starscream couldn't live lies anymore, it would seem. Couldn't convince himself that total falsehoods were true.

Primus, how pathetic he has become.

The device chimes, and he's grateful there's something to distract him from having to sit and mope with his stupid, traitorous thoughts.

Starscream's optics hungrily devour the words on screen, though he's only able to parse some of the medical jargon it provides.

Jetfire's mind was intact, as was his spark chamber, and that provides enough relief that the fear of ending up truly alone as the only living sentient creature on this planet dissipates. One fear down, at least a dozen more to go.

His energon lines were busted, and in an attempt to stop himself from bleeding out internally, his body had disconnected the lines before he shut down, fixing his busted pipes from leaking all over himself, but stopping the flow of energon to his auxiliary and sensory systems. His processors initiated a shut-down to avoid any crashes, and he hasn't received any additional energon to supplement what was already lost.

There's processor activity, but he's... stuck in a boot loop?

The flow of information on screen stops after that, and Starscream frowns. 

Annoyed, he smacks the side of the box, but it would appear it's unable to do much more than diagnostic scans in Jetfire's current state..

What the hell? What now? What was he supposed to do with that information? Tell him how to fix this! 

No further text appears, no matter how many times he bangs the palm of his servos against it.

Jetfire is still alive. Alive and functioning, but there was damage to his body that would need serious medical attention to repair. Attention Starscream had neither the means nor the understanding to give.

"Damn it!" He hisses, letting the device drop from his hands as they curl up into tight fists. Starscream vents heavily, feeling utterly useless. Starscream gives himself a moment to wallow in this, relishing that he could still feel something that wasn't abject fear and loneliness.

The important part was that Jetfire is, technically speaking, fine. He just wasn't getting energon flow to the right places.

Starscream silences all the nonsensical thoughts running through his helm, labeling them all as parasitic viruses for his firewalls to handle. Risking Jetfire's structurally stability, Starscream brightens the lights of his optics and cranes his helm, bringing his face down low to Jetfire's body and close to the hole in him.

He'd seen plenty of gore in his days- hell, he'd been the cause of plenty of gore of this nature for so many mechs, Jetfire included. But seeing him like this now causes Starscream to wince as he inspects the damage with a close optic.

It takes him an embarrassingly long moment to identify the various parts of Jetfire's chassis, but soon he's able to spot the main fuel line that leads to an energon tank, and from there, Starscream can see just which of the lines were disconnected and which were damaged in the attack.

Tentatively, he moves his face away and sticks a claw inside, prodding at the metal pipes. Nothing felt loose or weak, and what was damaged looked to be isolated lines that could be taken out without compromising the rest of the system. The time between the injury and Jetfire's shut down must have been quick, because hardly any energon at all spilt out into his boards and circuitry.

This is salvageable, Starscream realizes. These are basic engineering problems. Pipes that need to be replaced. Connections that need to be welded. Armor that needs patching. The two of them just so happened to be sitting in a ship that just lost its primary purpose and was practically a glorified scrap yard now.

He can do this. He's fucking Starscream, for Primus' sake!

Rip the ship apart, fix Jetfire, rip Jetfire apart for being the stupidest, most idiotic piece of scrap alive, fix the electricity of the ship, get a distress beacon home, and then rip every single Autobot involved with this disgusting mission and demand to be left alone for the rest of eternity.

A tangible list of things that needed to be done. Tasks he could lose himself in. Perfect.

✦

Neck-side port attachment identified- begin connection sequence?

No input detected. Beginning automatic connection sequence.

Repair diagnostic references found.

Boot from memory?

No input detected. Beginning...

"... sequencing methods?"

The question makes Ulchtar groan and duck his helm, pressing the top of it onto his arms, which lay folded on the table. "That's what I've been trying to work on," he says, a distinctive morose tone to his voice. "There has to be a way to extract the carbon from this that doesn't completely destroy the sample. I've been at this for weeks already, and I haven't got anything to show for it." He finishes his complaint with a long, deep groan, and Skyfire knows from experience he's baiting sympathy.

Skyfire only snorts, amusement filling him when Ulchtar looks up just enough to shoot him a glare. "Well, you could have asked me for help."

"You were too busy over there with your little organic slag," Ulchtar tilts him helm, flicking a clawed digit over in the direction of the left half of their shared lab, where Skyfire's half of the research had been slowly taking over.

He huffs, and now it's Ulchtar's turn to snort at him, but when Skyfire looks back at him, the mask of sorrow he wore to make others feel bad for him has slipped, exposing a face that was dull with exhaustion, and optics that seemed shockingly sad. "... do you actually think we'll figure it out?" Ulchtar asks softly.

Skyfire frowns, turning to face him better and resting his hip against the side of the desk.

If they could be the ones to prove there were viable energon sources outside their own galaxy, it could change the face of their species' entire existence for the rest of their natural lives. It could mean migration off their home world, interstellar communications and alliances with foreign sentients and, most importantly, it could mean he and Ulchtar could finally be the ones to put the old beliefs of Functionalism to rest.

A Seeker and a shuttle. The two outliers of the academy's scientific research and development program.

Skyfire can't remember just how many conversations he'd had with other students about Ulchtar, or how many times he'd wanted to punch one of them when they asked him how he could "tolerate" a weapon of war posing as a functioning student.

Funny, how they quickly stopped caring that someone like a shuttle, who they previously considered dumber than a shipment of energon, was allowed to rise to the ranks of the rest of the student body when a newer, more intimating mech was brought into the room.

"Of course, we will." Skyfire declares, nudging his hips and giving Ulchtar's shoulders a shove. "We'll be the ones to show everyone-"

Low energon reserves. Low energon reserves.

Switching to... switching to...

Core stability at sixty-eight point four percent.

"-mechs like us don't have that kind of luck, huh?" The question comes out of left field, and Skyfire feels his cheeks heat up when the Seeker turns to face him with an inquisitive expression. There was something about his face that didn't feel friendly, and yet, those wide, round blue optics were so inviting and kind. “No, no- sorry, dumb question,” Skyfire rushes out, waving his servo dismissively about his face.

By some measure of luck, his newfound Seeker companion snorts, a little smile gracing his handsome features. “I don’t believe in luck,” he states in a flat, yet kind tone. “Grounders are all the same. Just ignore them. Or don't. Personally, I just blow their helms clean off,” he lifts his arms, and long, military-style barrel guns transform out from his forearm armor, causing Skyfire to balk, his jaw dropping. He's seconds away from actually believing Ulchtar until the Seeker snorts again, breaking off into a bout of deep belly laughter that has him bending over a little. “Kidding!” He says.

“Ah.” He sure didn't sound like he was joking...

“Skyfire, right?” He nods, and the smaller jet reaches out a pale blue servo turned surprise. “Ulchtar,” he states, finally identifying himself and giving Skyfire’s HUD something to attach to him that wasn’t just ‘pretty’. “We’ll be seeing a lot more of each other now, I guess.”

Skyfire watches for a moment longer before smiling, taking Ulchtar’s servo into his own and giving him a firm shake. His earlier apprehension feels silly now. Of course, everything was going to be fine. Their advisors wouldn’t have set them up together if it wasn’t possible for them to work well. “I hope we can, uh… get a lot done?”

Ulchtar waggles his optical ridges as he lets go of Skyfire’s servo. “Then let me catch you up to speed, partner, we haven’t got any time to waste.”

He smiles- and the warmth of that smile remains with him even as the scene pauses. Because it isn't the present, he isn't living this. This is a scene. His memory.

Memories from his fail-safe systems, preprogrammed to play in the event his body shuts down and his processor is left spiraling without anything to grab onto, and he remains active in a sealed prison for an unknown amount of time.

Because he's been through it before. The likelihood that it could happen again was low, but never zero, and Jetfire couldn't take that risk again. He couldn't live another second stuck with nothing and no one but himself and the dark tomb of cold ice.

So he cherry picked memories from his life that made him warm. Memories that made him hopeful. Made him believe.

He was freed from himself once, he will be freed again.

He just has to hope.

✦

This... wasn't where he was hoping to find scrap metal.

The level of horror that Starscream felt before while facing an unknown hostile alien was child's play in comparison to the sheer fear that washes over him now as he shines his high beam optical lights into the dripping hole blasted into the side of the energon refinery in the base of the vessel.

The large sheet of curved metal would make perfect temporary armor for Jetfire, and the piping used to house the energon for the ship was already lined with anti-corrosive chemicals that would prevent any further leakage in his circuits, but at the cost of their energon stores.

He can't remember at what point in his confrontation with that beast this could have happened, but knowing how it happened wouldn't fix the state of his reality.

Two of the three refineries had been damaged, and a majority of their raw energon either burnt away with the force of the flare in such a confined space, or was now dripping uselessly into a puddle at his pedes. Starscream wants nothing more than to rip the damned tank off the wall and stomp on it and rip the rest of the damn ship up for good measure, too, but one tank was better than no tanks, so he just stares into the puddle and imagines himself stomping on them.

It sort of helps. The anger still simmers in the back of his helm.

One slagging tank, he thinks glumly. How was that supposed to sustain them until he could get the ship’s communication system in order? There were emergency energon patches in the supply kit, but those could barely be counted as anything other than light snacks. Two fully grown flightmechs consumed double the amount of energon as groundmechs did on a normal day. Now that he and Jetfire were both injured…

Starscream silently stews in his anger while he gets to work disconnecting the two emptied tanks, closing off the fuel lines to the dispenser to isolate the sole remaining tank. It wouldn't do him any good to risk energon flowing out into pipes and being left to harden and go bad.

He yanks the husks of the two tanks off the wall with a tug so gentle he may as well have just pinched it off. His optical rigid shoots up when the spot it'd previously been stuck to revealed poor weld lines.

A sparkling could have done better at this, Starscream thinks to himself with a shake of his helm, huffing noisily as he tucks one tank up under each of his arms and carries them back out into the main area of the ship.

His steps echo down the hall, his breathing softer by only a handful of decibels. The metal interior of the ship ate up every sound. With one of the main power cells damaged, Starscream had to reroute power to avoid risking an electronic fire on top of everything else, which meant no environmental system, no console power, and chiefly, no non-essential lights.

Without the basic luxuries he'd become accustomed to, the vessel had rapidly deteriorated from a bare-bones standard ship to a tomb, and every single movement made him feel like an intruder disturbing the stillness of a resting place that hadn't seen life in thousands of cycles.

Starscream swallows thickly, ignoring the unease by looking through the number of notifications littering the sides of his HUD. He was low on energon, charge, and most of the power that'd be dedicated to his hydraulics was now pivoted to self-repair nanites that were flooding his system and leaving him uncomfortably hot.

And Jetfire was still exactly where he was when Starscream left him.

It was stupid to think the shuttle would miraculously have been fixed by the time Starscream came back from investigating their fuel supplies, but there was still some corner of his spark that had... hoped.

"What a waste of potential," he mumbles to himself, tacking on a scoff at the end for good measure, just so he couldn't be accused of being too self deprecating. He used to be an intimidating force even the bravest among the Autobots dreaded encountering on the battlefield. He doubted anyone except that stupid slime creature would fear him now.

Starscream silences his own internal dialogue as he kneels at Jetfire’s side, setting the two emptied tanks down next to the now neatly arranged contents of the emergency supply kit. His optics flicker between the two several times. The metal of the tanks were a different thickness, color, and finish from Jetfire’s, but they were made up of the same base materials, so…

“It’s good you never cared about appearances,” he says into the quiet void of their ship, reaching for the energon patch and peeling away its flimsy covering. “I’d kill you if I woke up and found out you stitched my body shut with scrap metal. I’d rather you just let me die.” Frowning, he peers into the cavity of Jetfire’s chassis, shining his optic lights inside until he finds a bare sliver of protoform big enough to stick the patch on.

… the fact that he knows Jetfire would attempt to save him if their positions were reversed annoys him, because its all too easy to imagine the stupid desperation on his face, the panic in his optics. The way Jetfire would undoubtedly stop at nothing to try and patch him up and get them home even after all that has happened between them.

Starscream scowls. The weight of this pseudo-Jetfire’s knowing gaze makes his shoulders hunch defensively. He lets out a frustrated growl, pointing an accusatory finger at Jetfire’s still resting face. “It would just be bad optics for me- okay?!” He snaps, raising his voice as he speaks. “It’s not- I’m not doing it for any other reason. I don’t care about you! Just think of what they’d do to me if I came back alone! The poor Autobot and the evil, sparkless Decepticon sent off on a mission and only one returns. Hah! I’d be dead before I ever touched ground! They would blame your death on me! Again! And I-“

He cuts himself off with a sharp invent, his optics wide. Within seconds, Starscream deflates again, curling back down until he was just scowling at his own servos again.

No one had believed him the first time he tried to claim his innocence, and he’d still been good back then. He had still been someone worthy of redemption.

Now, though?

If he couldn’t fix Jetfire now, he was probably better off dying out here, himself.

“… I hate you,” he mutters, returning his focus to the tanks, grabbing the medical saw from the kit and setting to work cutting the curved object down into chunks of metal that could fit on Jetfire’s body.

Funny. Last he remembers, he didn’t make a habit of trying to save people that he hated.

Chapter Text

Insufficient integrity required for onlining boot processes.

The message has been replaying in the corner of his dim HUD for some time now, and he wishes it would just shut off already.

He's been here before. He's sat faced with this message for millions and millions of years and all that time it was so… so… cold.

He has to stay warm. No matter the cost, no matter what it takes. He needs it more than he needs to wake up or run away.

Anytime the first chill of cold air touches his systems- he panics.

Those final moments of his fuel lines freezing over, of his HUD filling with frantic messages of his systems until one by one they began to go dark until all he could see was the snow's rage whipping around him. The rasps of his own breathing echoed louder and louder until the stopped, and all that accompanied Jetfire for the next several million years was the howling winds of the never-ending winter storms.

Ever since his eternity spent trapped within a tomb of frozen ice, the cold had become synonymous with a fate worse than death itself.

It was fine when he could manage it. The frigid temperatures of outer space and the outer atmosphere of planets didn’t affect him, so long as he could keep his fail-safe programs online. After one too many nightmares and battles taking place on frozen moons, Jetfire had developed his own subroutine to keep himself sane even through the worst weather.

All he had were his memories to play.

The memories kept his spark and processor busy and pleasantly ignorant of the outside world. Cycling through them filled him with enough warmth and hope to stave off the hysteria and inevitable shut down.

It wasn't the most effective program, if left on for too long he could burn through his charge and end up passing out, which would defeat the purpose of generating his own warmth entirely, but Jetfire has never found himself needing to run it for long periods of time.

Truthfully, he's never found himself eager to test the limits of his own battery charges with the subroutine. Mostly because he wasn't exactly eager to push himself into a state of near-death for a random personal experiment, but there was also the fact that, well... Jetfire didn't have anyone he felt safe enough being monitored by while he was so vulnerable like that.

He certainly doesn't have anyone now, which makes a vague sense of alarm light up his helm as he awakes on a large grassy field, staring up at a vast sky. Because he knows he didn't fall asleep or pass out to this sight. This is a sight he's experienced before, a sky that no long exists.

Jetfire remembers this one.

Cybertron’s rotation was lining up with a nebulous dust cloud that spun around the planet, forever trapped inside the strong gravitational pull of Cybertron's core. The cloud was spread out over two-thirds of their planets, atmosphere, meaning on a normal night, one would only ever see the stray line of dust through the sky, but every forty-thousand cycles the angles and rotations of Cybertron and the various stars and planets in space all aligned to paint a brilliant picture of natural beauty.

And tonight was that night.

And out of all the possible companions that he could have had...

Out of no where, Ulchtar collapses onto his aft to Skyfire's left with a loud, exasperated groan, disturbing the peace of the nighttime sky and sending a flock of turbo foxes running away back into the techno forests. Skyfire snorts and side-eyes him, still smiling even as the Seeker makes a grumpy face and gingerly rubs his aft with one servo, an open bottle of high grade dangling from the digits of his other. The liquid within sloshes with his movements.

“You started drinking?” Skyfire teases. "Already?"

Ulchtar grunts, then hiccups. “No,” he huffs, clearly lying. Skyfire rolls his optics and reaches over him, grabbing for the bottle and ignoring the aghast whines Ulchtar lets out. “You bastard,” he grumbles, letting go of the grudge nigh instantly and leaning his weight against Skyfire.

The shuttle sits up properly, taking a quick sip of the alcohol. The bitter, sour taste slams into him, and his face scrunches up in disgust. Ulchtar giggles, pressing himself harder into Skyfire. “What- can’t hold a little liquor?”

“Ugh,” Skyfire pulls the bottle away and squints down at it to inspect the label.

“Don’t bother,” Ulchtar reaches up, blindly fumbling for the bottle again. The tips of his claws clack noisily against the glass. “I poured everything I had left in my dorm together.” Skyfire balks and looks down in shock, and Ulchtar snorts again and laughs.

“That’s dangerous.”

“Oh, please! You're no fun.” Skyfire sets the bottle down out of Ulchtar’s reach. “Besides, it’s just for tonight.” The Seeker reaches out for it, stretching his arms, but Skyfire takes his servos into his own and pulls them close to his chassis, trapping Ulchtar’s arms against him in an awkward hug. He smiles when Ulchtar pouts.

“Save the rest for later. You’ll be too drunk to enjoy the stars.”

Another scoff. “I’m saving my wonder for when we have a better view.”

“Oh?”

Ulchtar lifts his helm to point his gaze skyward, but his helm bobs and sways with the weight of itself, and he lets it fall right back down against Skyfire with a quiet hum. “We’ll have a better few later,” he says in a softer voice. “When we’re out there ourselves.”

Skyfire shifts his hold on Ulchtar’s arms, transferring it to one servo so that he could rest his freed one against the crest of Ulchtar’s helm. Ulchtar lets out a pleased hum in response, but doesn’t make any demand for Skyfire to pet or caress him. The shuttle looks up, staring into the glittering constellations of stars and dust that were hardly a few light years away in reality, but felt far, far more distant from all the way down on Cybertron.

“Yeah,” Skyfire agrees, smiling as a warmth fills his spark. “It’d probably look way better from up there, wouldn’t it?”

Ulchtar hums, shifts, and looks up at Skyfire. The suddenness of his movements prompts Skyfire to turn back to him, but doing so brings their faces within inches of the other.

They both pause, optics wide and blinking rapidly.

A deep flush colored Ulchtar’s gray facial plating with a glow of red, and Skyfire found himself wondering if it was just from the high grade, or if it was… something more.

He swallows nervously as Ulchtar’s deep optics bounce around his face, landing on his dermal plating and lingering there for several seconds. Ulchtar licks his own lips, and opens them-

Core spark integrity, sixty-six percent. Primary processor integrity, seventy percent.

Energon flow resuming. Engage repair nanite reserves?

✦

”Second attempt at restarting primary ship functionality…” Starscream cranes his helm over to the pilot’s station, and sighs at the static that fills the screen. “Unresponsive,” he announces glumly into his recording device. His thumb holds the recording tab down for a handful of seconds longer, a tiny feed of static looping back into him from the microphone in his comm device. He runs through the list of parts he's taken out and dusted off and stuffed back in to see if there's possibly anything that he's missed, but no.

With a sigh, he ends the recording, not even bothering to announce his next moves.

Instantly, the silence swallows him back up.

Sitting tucked into the damaged ship's floor and closed in on all sides by the tightly crammed in wiring, the silence was nearly suffocating. His vents functioned just fine, but the gathering of condensation along them was making Starscream's plating itch all over.

It was time to get out of here. There was nothing more he was going to be able to do.

Starscream stuffs the mechanical tools back into his subspace and begins the arduous task of slowly inching his way back out of the space the way he came, pedes first. It isn't lost on him that he wouldn't have been able to manage to get into this space to begin with had his wings not been physically held in place, but his mental stability has been damaged enough for one day. The last thing he needs is to be thankful for something his imprisonment has done to him.

The air of the ship is no long fresh by any stretch of the imagination, but he gasps for it as he crawls out enough to slip his helm out and finally sit up. Starscream vents deeply for several moments, staring at the flickering lights of the ship's internal wirings, collecting himself.

... it'd been hours since he woke up to that thing in their ship. To Jetfire being... incapacitated. Hours. And Starscream has gotten no where.

No- no. That was not entirely true, he reminds himself as he looks back over at Jetfire.

The mech had yet to move, which wasn't an encouraging sign, and it's possible that in the midst of failure after failure Starscream is starting to see hopeful signs where they're not even there, but he swears the shuttle's colors are brighter. The horrible welding job Starscream had done was an even bigger insult on his optics than the original damage had been, but closing his body cavity back up could signal positive signs to his processors.

Or, that's what Starscream vaguely remembers from the combat medical training he'd skimmed once and proceeded to ignore for several millions of years of war. It's not like he had the resources to double-check that now, and likely wouldn't ever again if he was actually wrong.

"Ugh!" He exclaims into the air, stomping his pede once in a minute fit of rage. "This is your fault," Starscream hisses, jamming a claw at Jetfire's body. "Stupid, stupid, stupid- always trying to stick your hands into pointless nonsense just to learn nothing and aid no one in getting anything done."

The words lack any form of heat. They don't even make him feel better, and yapping always made Starscream feel better.

Frowning, he looks down at the hole he'd just been in.

... he's going to die here if he can't figure out something. He and Jetfire both.

Maybe this was fate. This was his karmic punishment for everything he's done. All the terrors he's inflicted upon sentients and land. Penance wasn't meant for him after all.

Starscream could live with that. Not like he'd get a choice in the matter if it were true. There's little space in a world at peace for a bot like him. He couldn't see himself "returning to normal life" like Prime so desperately wanted out of all of them. Starscream lost the right to even dream about that type of slag long ago.

But Jetfire...

It couldn't be "fate" for him to die out here if Jetfire had to die, too. He didn't deserve it.

Primus, look him. Prancing about in his processor about fate and deserving deaths. Being stuck in prison was making a mockery of the mech Starscream used to be.

Starscream was just low on fuel and charge. If he was at one-hundred percent, he wouldn't be-

As if a light inside of his processor has turned on, Starscream perks up, his optics going wide.

The recharge station.

Docks had self-contained power generators separate from the vessels they were built into because of the drain of charge it would have put on traveling vessels. Damage to a vessel's generator wouldn't have any effect on it. And a dock needed enough power to sustain entire Cybertronians without burning up with regular use. It had to have enough to turn this entire vessel back on, or at most, enough to get the systems online to fire a distress beacon.

A grand smile splits Starscream's tired face open.

✦

Ulchtar is asleep at his lab station.

Datapads and experiments lay strew across the surface, messy scribbles that he couldn't wait to find a stylus for left etched into the surface of the desk, a lab knife still hanging from Ulchtar's servos, evidence of how he'd managed to carve up the work surface so thoroughly.

Skyfire gently plucks the knife from Ulchtar's limp digits, turning it over in his own palm and staring down at it.

A small scalpel. Meant for research, but capable of so much damage. So much destruction.

... that's how he knows this isn't real.

Starscream wouldn't use this for something as mundane as carving experiment notes into surfaces he shouldn't just because he was too lazy to grab his datapad. Starscream would have left carnage.

Ulchtar isn't real anymore. He just exists in Jetfire's memories.

Realizing it doesn't make the scene around him feel any less real. Every detail of their private labs is perfect, right down to the smell of Ulchtar's expensive wax that he always insisted on. Jetfire can't remember if Starscream still smells the same.

Jetfire blinks, setting the knife down on the desk, right next to Ulchtar's servo.

Jetfire- Skyfire- which ever form of himself that he takes right now...

He quietly turns to the large window that overlooked the campus grounds, a polished, well-manicured garden of sculptures depicted figures of Cybertron's past. Former Primes, the academy's founders, scholars who went on to achieve greatness. There's a conversation he and Ulchtar had once sitting on the tip of his glossa, one that he isn't sure has happened yet at the time of this memory.

One of them had asked the other if they'd like a sculpture of themself someday. The other had said only dead mechs get sculptures, and he wasn't planning to die with his only accomplishment being that he went to a fancy school that made a sculpture of him.

Jetfire snorts. Only one of them would have said something so self-absorbed as that.

The humor coloring his smile fades as he faces Ulchtar again. He sleeps on so deeply, undisturbed by everything, too exhausted to even find his way back to his own dorm. They had a portable recharge dock in the corner of the lab, but even that was too long of a trek for him. Ulchtar was always like this- too absorbed in his studies to care about what else went on, and when he wasn't, he was devoted to his mirror and looks, making sure that if mecha were going to hate him for being a war weapon, at least he would look pretty in their hateful minds.

Emotions race through Jetfire just from looking at him.

Saying that he missed Ulchtar would be wrong, because Ulchtar wasn't... dead. He was gone, but Starscream wasn't. Starscream was still there, and Starscream had all these memories and more.

Did he still feel the same about their past as Jetfire? The Seeker could spit venom all he wanted, but Jetfire knew him when his hostile front against strangers was little more than a guard to protect himself from their unwarranted hate.

"I wish you trusted me," he whispers, reaching a servo out at a snails pace, eyeing a smudge on Ulchtar's gray helmet. "I... I wish I still trusted you." He rubs the pad of his digits over the blemish, frowning deeper the longer he scrubs away at it. "I wish none of this happened. I wish we never got that stupid expedition that we wanted."

I wish we never met. I wish I never loved you.

Jetfire can't bring himself to say those. He can't bring himself to lie in the chambers of his own mind. Because he...

His servo drops away, and the vision of Ulchtar before him slowly begins to bleed away, shiny polished and brightly colored metal warping. The angles of his wings grow sharper, the reds and color lose their bright innocence and drain away into desaturated remnants of their past self, thin, angular white null rays grow out of his arms.

Worst of it all, purple paint bleeds from cracks in his wings, taking the shape of the Decepticon's army insignia on both of his previously perfect white wings.

Starscream continues to sleep, undisturbed. The blemish on his helmet has spread, covering every inch of the dark metal on his helm.

... Jetfire still loves him.

Even after learning what his former partner had become. Even after Starscream tried to kill him.

"I'm probably an idiot," he mumbles, sighing in defeat as he takes a seat next to Starscream. After a moment, Jetfire mimics his pose, folding his arms atop the desk and resting his helm on them, still watching him though his optics were half-lidded now, drooping an unexpected tiredness.

His charge must be running out now. That could be why his subroutine decided to cook this memory up.

Jetfire smiles a little, letting his optics close. "I'm sorry, too," he sighs, unsure as to why he's just blurted it out, but too uncaring to try and seek out a reason for it.

Repair nanites charge expired. Switch primary energy consumption to FUEL only?

Warning: switching primary energy consumption to FUEL may result in poor cognitive functionality.

Switch primary energy consumption to FUEL only?

✦

He wishes he could retract every good feeling he has ever had about anything.

Starscream collapses onto his aft with a loud sigh, the back of his armor nudging and shoving at Jetfire's upper leg. He fights off the urge to yawn, refusing to let himself acknowledge how low his charge has gotten. He was never going to be able to fix that now. Not when their only recharge dock lay strewn about the cabin of the vessel in various pieces.

Not his best idea to take apart the one functioning component of his vessel without at least using it one last time so he'd have enough energy to think through his schemes. He was too tired now to even begin putting it back together again. He was too tired to even stand up again.

Shit. Was this it?

He wants to be angry. He can feel the urge for it, boiling in the back of his throat like a comforting pain. He was so close- he just knows it!

The power generator was the problem with the ship, and Starscream had a perfectly function generator to stuff inside of it, but the configurations of the two pieces of machinery were too different, the number of hoops he'd need to jump through and the number of tests he'd have to run with the wires to figure out which color was compatible with which...

The thought alone drains half a percent of his remaining charge.

"Let it be known," he starts, not into his recording device, but to Jetfire's unmoving comatose body, "that I tried. So, you can take whatever half-baked insults you had against my character and dignity and shove it all up your broken aft."

He scoffs hard enough to send spittle flying from his lips. Starscream quickly licks them, lifting a servo up to graze the tips of his digits on them.

A warning flashes in his HUD, joining the litany of other frenzied alerts.

He was low on coolant, now.

Really? A few droplets out of his mouth is what is going to due him on on that front? Starscream shakes his helm, sighing. "This is a shit show," he grumbles, planting his pedes firmly on the ground with his knees in the air to give his elbows a place to rest on. "Not like I was allowed to even get a choice," he continues on, glaring down at a stray pebble wedges into a crack on the floor. He lets his servo slide off his lap and begins to claw at it absentmindedly. "What the hell were you thinking, though? Signing right back up for this kind of grunt labor. Oh, wait, let me guess, you probably thought it was for the greater good, or something like that- am I right?"

Silence answers him.

Starscream imagines Jetfire blushing in response, silent because he's furious that Starscream is making fun of him, but even more upset that Starscream read him so accurately. Starscream barks a dry laugh. "I bet you did. Idiot."

The insult leaves his lips in a tone more fond than he intended it to. His claws still on the ground, and Starscream closes his optics.

His low charge warning flashes violently, a request to engage fuel reserves joining it.

He's tired.

"... at least it's the both of us this time," Starscream speaks softer, keeping the words to himself even when there's no one around to even hear it. "I hated having to leave. Back then. I never said sorry for it." He pauses, blinking slowly. He still won't. He can't. Not even now, millions of miles from their home world once more, alone on a planet without even the company of his old research partner there. Starscream can't open that.

It's Megatron's fault for messing with his processor for so long. Bashing Starscream's helm into every available surface was bound to leave something amiss in there. He would bet money that's why he was struggling to confess what he thought to a man that was going to be little more than just another corpse soon.

Starscream would join him, and he still couldn't.

He lets out a haggard sigh, feeling himself begin to list to the left. Starscream reaches out with his servos, gently walking them across the floor and laying himself down slowly, making a point to keep his face pointed away from Jetfire even when his back was pressed so firmly to his side.

It's good that he's so warm against Starscream's wings. He'd hate to have to die while freezing.

✦

System integrity restored. Systems restarting...

The change in temperature is the first sign he's safe.

Energon flows, sluggish, through his lines, sensors indicating that his recycling and processing systems were intact and without any damage, which, even as Jetfire is slowly peeling himself away from the land of dreams that existed in the pocket of his processor, should be seen as strange.

The last moments before his shut-down, before he was stuck within himself and petrified to remain like that, flashes before his optics rapid fire.

The specimen. The light. The broken container- the specimen.

Jetfire comes online with a snap, gasping into awareness as his optics snap open.

A deluge of status reports flood his HUD, covering up all of his available vision and going as far as to force his fans to kick on, already the toll on his processor bumping his core temperature up three degrees. He groans, scrunching his face together. Jetfire first tries to turn his body, hoping to curl himself up into as tight a ball as he can manage and ride out the wave of deep agony rolling through his system, but he discovers that the most he can do is turn his helm and twitch.

"Ough," he croaks, and, oh, he sounds just as horrible as he feels.

After he clears any non-emergency tasks away from his vision, he runs a simple diagnostic while looking at everything that's left, which is, unfortunately, still a lot.

His medical port has been accessed, and the device is still running. He fumbles blindly, feeling around his neck port with clumsy digits until that bump against a thick plug, and he yanks it out immediately.

Haze clears from his mind the second it's gone, and Jetfire is pulled out of the recesses of his memory in absolute, gasping once more as he snaps into awareness.

Still, he continues to lay, groaning weakly and unable to spur much movement into his body just yet. "St... stars'm?"

No answer.

Figures, the thinks with a sigh. If Jetfire was knocked out, the Seeker likely took the first chance he had to run away.

But, they're... on an isolated planet. Where would he go?

Jetfire slowly brings his optics back online, fearing the blast of light all around him will damage them after being offline, but there's hardly any light in the ship. He blinks. He frowns. "Starscream?" He tries again, voice still laden with slumber but rapidly becoming more firm. "Hey," Jetfire twitches one way, then the next, trying to see if-

He knocks into something, and with a thump, glass shatters.

Stunned, all Jetfire can do momentarily is blink and stare into nothing, dread starting to creep into the pit of confusion in his spark. "Star..." he turns, and his voice fades away again, running and hiding, evading him like it didn't want to be a part of this task.

Starscream lay flat on his face next to Jetfire, unmoving, his wings still.

Jetfire fights against the sluggish weight in his body to force himself up onto his knees. His vision blurs with alerts so bright and obnoxious they fry through the strength he'd just found to get up. He cries out, shooting a servo out to brace his weight against the ground as the other grips the front of his face.

It takes several clears to erase all the obnoxious text from his HUD, and even then, his low fuel, low charge, and severe structural damage alerts refuse to dismiss without being opening first.

The last of those three catches his attention instantly, and once he's upright, his servo fly to clutch his abdomen, only to find that... there is no structural damage.

That... couldn't be right. Unless he was going crazy, which at this point, could definitely be the case.

It definitely hurt like he'd been injured, but it was a deep, faint ache, not at all the type of raw agony he'd associate with being damaged so deeply his main energon lines had been cut. He swallows thickly and looks down at himself, ignoring the tremor in his arms and the rapid, shallow vents coming from his mouth.

No, there had definitely been damage, but evidently, it had been fixed before he'd ever felt a thing. Metal that was not his own was welded to him. There were gaps in between his original armor and the new metal, and overlaps where air could sneak into the still open body cavity beneath, but he was repaired well enough.

"What..?" His vision slips down, helm moving stiffly as he looks around the floor around him.

A welding torch, partially melted strips of metal, scraps from some torn equipment, larger intact equipment and their cables draped over one another, contents of their emergency medical supplies kit everywhere and, at it's center, Starscream. The fact that he had yet to move and yell at Jetfire, as that's certainly the first thing he'd have done in this situation, alarmed him.

Wordlessly, Jetfire leans forward, crawling over on his hands and knees and grunting like some dying animal. "Starscream," he mumbles, his voice cracking and syllables jumbling together. He pulls Starscream onto his back, and the first thing that hits him is that slack face.

Vision's of Ulchtar's face in his dreams- of the version of Starscream soft and bright and such a bright future still ahead of him- fill his processor, but the face Jetfire is seeing in his reality is not one that could fill his dreams.

Bright energon is splattered across Starscream's front, originating from a puncture wound just to the side of his cockpit, the glass of which was now everywhere except on his body. What concerned him more than all this though was the bits of... yellow.

On Starscream, and as he takes a look around, more on the ground, even on the ceiling and some of the walls, like an bomb of bright yellow paint had been set off in the ship.

Jetfire kneels in stunned silence, blinking rapidly like he just couldn't believe what he was seeing. Part of him even wondered if he was still unconscious, if this was just some corrupted files in his memory inventing a disaster scenario, but he's in far too much discomfort for this to be fake.

"What... happened?" He whispers, his voice barely more than a rasp.

Silence answers him.

Chapter Text

Starscream comes online flat on his back without a single ache in his body, decent charge levels, and a quarter tank of fuel.

Immediately, he believes himself to have died. Because he's certain that none of these things were true at the time he succumbed to exhaustion... wait, how long was he out? Is it the same day? Is it even the same location?

He shifts, just enough to detach his limbs and wings from where gravity and pressure had all but fused the top layer of his paint to the floor, and his joints creek embarrassingly loud. He hasn't had access to quality oil in months, and it was evident now. Worse, though, is the tinkling sounds of fractured glass that comes from his abdomen. Starscream instantly freezes, his optics going wide.

"Ah- no, no, don't move yet!"

Any chance that Starscream would have actually obeyed those orders flies right out the window the second it becomes apparent that he's still on the expedition ship and that there's only one person whose voice that could be.

A burst of emotion overcomes him. "Jet-!" He launches himself upward just as a set of large, warm servos grip his shoulders, stopping all of Starscream's upward momentum and pushing him right back onto the ground. Vertigo hits him like a missile, and his internal gyros take such a massive drain on his available processing power to stabilize that his audials and vision go fuzzy until he feels normal again, leaving him staring up at a blurry white helm with hazy blue lights staring down at him as a mouth spouts out a muffled lecture at him.

Starscream blinks several times, letting his systems bring themself back to normal one at a time. "... a particularly stupid thing for you do considering how limited our supplies is," the lines of Jetfire's face come back into focus, and Starscream isn't sure he's even been so relieved to see anyone... ever, actually. Certainly not Jetfire. "Are you- still rebooting? Frag, did I not connect the generator to you properly..?"

"What?" Starscream instantly pivots his attention, following the line of Jetfire's vision down toward his chassis, only to shout in surprise and gawk at himself.

His previously cracked cockpit now lay in thousands of tiny orange chunks of glass scattered over the floor, himself, inside of the hollow in his body that was now exposed, revealing flickering red biolights and noisy ticking meters. Jammed inside of the hollow were a series of cables, all varying in thicknesses. Starscream trails them with his optics, following their snaking lengths out until he spots... the power generator.

He blinks.

"Destroying the recharge dock, Starscream? Honestly?" Jetfire huffs. "What were you thinking!"

Starscream... blinks. "Ship," he vents softly.

"Hm?"

"The ship. Ship's generator was busted- I needed, we needed a new..." he looks back at Jetfire, focusing his attention to the battered scraps of metal Starscream had mashed together to fix his chassis. The Shuttle's chromananites have crawled over the edges, coloring them the same stark white as the rest of his body.

It... worked?

"We need power more than the ship does! Rule number one of basic survivalist skills- you can't help anyone until you help yourself." Starscream is more than aware. He's a big fan of saving himself in favor of others. Some might even say he was the best at doing so. Those people would apparently be wrong now, it would seem because Jetfire is...

"Alive," he vents again, clearly suffering from some kind of processor damage with the way it's taking so long for inputs to reach his vocalizer and the lack of proper thoughts coming out of his mouth. "You're... you..?"

He must be making a ridiculous face, because Jetfire's expression softens, an exhausted sort of dullness clouding his optics. "... yeah," he gestures to himself, servos covering the patched metal over his abdomen. "I... guess have you to thank for that." Starscream's lips part, but no words come out. Jetfire appears conflicted, though he continues onward. "So, thank you. For saving me."

Too many emotions and thoughts collide into one another within Starscream's circuits. Relief, joy, anxiety, exhaustion, hunger, the sudden overwhelming urge to throw himself at Jetfire and hold onto him like a parasite would...

With all the confusion, Starscream settles for the familiar. His face contorts in disgust, and he snaps- "just what the hell is wrong with you?!"

His words leave him with an intensity so sudden that it shocks Jetfire, causes him to pull away with a wide stare and a blank face, stunned into silence. "I told you not to mess around! I told you not to get involved in any stupid little- little side experiments because you'd get distracted- and you went and decided to nearly get yourself killed instead!"

Jetfire visibly wilts a little, a frown pulling his features down. Oh- he feels bad, does he? Good! He nearly made Starscream regretful of his own past actions! "You always did this! Running off and engaging in your own little stupid pet projects like it wasn't going to detract from your ability to handle the actual mission at hand!"

"You're right."

"And you'd always leave me with the- what was that?" Starscream cuts himself off swiftly, lips remaining pursed in the event he needed to rant once more.

Jetfire glances at him with the expression of a scolded mechanimal, but upon noticing Starscream's face, the corners of his lips quirk upward. Just a little. "I said you're right," he says, louder so there was no doubt.

Oh. Well. Starscream liked the sound of those words. He huffs and leans away, attempting to cross his arms, only to be stopped by the protruding wires in sticking out of him. "... of course I am." He snaps.

A small huff, and Jetfire leans away, finally giving Starscream the space his frame had been screaming for for what felt like hours now. He scoots back just to emphasize that fact, but the wires hooked directly into his frame prevented him from going too far. "You broke my cockpit," he accuses.

"It was already broken," Jetfire says. "When I woke up, you were on your front."

Starscream tries to remember his last moments before succumbing to a shut down, and finds that he can't. Distantly, he hopes there's nothing too humiliating left recorded somewhere. "... how did you wake up, anyway," he mumbles.

Jetfire doesn't answer for a moment. Instead, he presses a hand to his abdomen, over the foreign metal that was nearly entirely populated by healthy white chroma nanites now. "Unpleasantly," he begins, and Starscream can't help the scoff that leaves him at that. He's seconds from snapping at the shuttle to get a move on, but Jetfire shoots him a look of his own that pacifies the urge, if only for a moment. "The flow of energon was restored. My processor could execute tasks again." As he speaks, Starscream's hands begin fiddling with the wires and cables connected to him, reaching inside his own body to blindly attempt to dislodge everything.

"You fixed me," Jetfire mutters with a quiet noise of disapproval, "let me fix you." Jetfire bats his hands away, and after a brief war between their limbs, Starscream gives up, slumping back and allowing Jetfire to reach inside of him.

The act feels far too intimate than what Starscream is comfortable admitting to himself. His body twitches and flinches at every shift Jetfire's shoulders make. He holds himself taught like he's primed to jump and roll away, and maybe he is. Starscream didn't get touched kindly. It isn't something any one does for him.

He tries to remind himself that this isn't the same, this is Jetfire, but his mind refuses to comprehend this concept.

Starscream looks away, letting himself stew in these feelings. "You were trying to get the power back online to the ship?" Jetfire, incapable of not filling silences with nonsense, starts again, hands still deep in Starscream's abdomen, diligently removing the cables.

With a heavy sigh through his external vents, Starscream bites. "Figured our only chance of getting out of this was a distress beacon." Jetfire answers this with a hum of acknowledgement.

"... I... tried to finish what you started, but..." He sighs, taking the last cable out and sitting back, continuing to fiddle with the screw-lock. "I don't... think it'll get anywhere." Starscream groans, lifting a servo to cover his face with as his expression screws up. "It's not that it isn't compatible, it is, it's just-"

"We're screwed," Starscream declares over Jetfire's beginning ramble. "What you're saying, is that we're screwed."

"Well-"

"Well- what?!"

"Would you- shut up?!" Jetfire narrows his optics, scoffs, and throws his servos in the air in visible frustration. "Primus, you're always like this," he mutters, echoing Starscream's complaints from earlier. Starscream just scowls.

He suffered plenty in those hours he spent alone, scurrying in the internals of the ship like an animal. If Jetfire was upset by his attitude- so what? He's only alive because of him. "If you would let me speak," Jetfire grunts as he speaks, leaning to the side and bracing his servos on the floor so that he could push himself upright again. "I managed to splice cables together until we had enough circuits linked to make a proper connection. We have everything we need, we just... don't have the power for it."

Starscream just stares. "... we don't have the power." He repeats in a flat tone.

"We'd have enough to power the ship, but the jump-start needs almost double that." Jetfire makes a face, turning away. "... the... engines for the ship are on the cheaper side, so... they don't have the ability to transmit power throughout the entire unit upon start-up. Everything needs to be powered individually to start."

Of course. The Autobot's wonderful, genius engineering department comes to their rescue yet again.

Jetfire makes a sound as though he wishes to say more, but gives up after only two tries. If he was out of the annoyingly high levels of optimism he always had, then they were most definitely going to die here.

Starscream slumps, venting heavily through his external vents, not particularly caring if Jetfire hears but praying he doesn't use it as an excuse to launch into their sappy feelings.

Now that the surprise that he's still alive and that he actually managed to put Jetfire back together has dulled, the reality that they're still here on this damn ship and still doomed to die a drawn out and potentially agonizing death comes back to annoy him and sour his mood.

Starving or collapsing from lack of charge was not the way he envisioned himself dying.

Starscream had always hoped he'd go out in some blaze of glory- triumphing over his adversaries until the very end and becoming a tale of legend amongst his Decepticons.

"Want to go sit outside?" Jetfire asks suddenly.

"Hah?" Starscream turns, staring at him with an incredulous expression that Jetfire only meets with a look of annoying kindness.

"The day cycle of the planet has started," he says casually, even shrugging a shoulder. "There's... there's nothing we can do here. Not like this. Maybe fresh air is what we need."

"... what we need are supplies, fuel, and a way back to Cybertron," Starscream counters, but Jetfire is pushing himself up and onto his pedes, and Starscream knows there's no point in arguing with a Shuttle that's made up his mind. "You're not going to find a miracle out there."

"No," Jetfire agrees. "But, it'll be warm."

Starscream scoffs. He expects Jetfire to go outside and leave him, alone in the dark, and maybe he'd like that. Maybe he'd hate that and like it at the same time. Something complicated and annoying that he couldn't put into works and that gnawed away at him if he thought about it for too long, and is half way to accepting this idea as a reality until Jetfire steps closer, rather than away.

Blinking in surprise, Starscream looks up, optics wide. Jetfire's extended servo comes into focus first, then his smile. Stupidly bright and honest. He doesn't say a word further, but the silent 'come on!' echoes loud in Starscream's helm.

There's a fluttering in his core that makes Starscream scoff and look away even as he accepts the help to stand.

✦

The foliage- the slime's secret form has grown over their outdoor tent site.

Jetfire and Starscream stand together awkwardly at the top of the stairs, both of them partially leaning on the other out of necessity and neither of them remembering how to properly slot their bodies together so that they'd fit, but that fact is completely sidelined by the state of the camp they had set up.

The tent and all of their belongings underneath were now covered in long spidering strands of yellow and pink and green strands, stretching out like a thin, glistening membrane over it all. Alongside the overgrowth were puddles of liquid, giving Skyfire the impression that it had rained. They descend the stairs quietly and cautiously, looking around themselves nonstop like something was bound to jump out at them. A cursory look at the sides of the ship yielded the same thing- except the creature had only made it up the legs of the landing gear and across the bottom, and that their ship would appeared to have sunk a considerable amount into the soil beneath it, likely due to the puddle that was large enough to practically be considered a pool that now sat directly below it.

The two stare in mutually stunned silence for quite some time, the strange atmosphere fueled further by the lack of any ambient noise coming from the planet around them.

"How... long were we in there?" Jetfire asks, hesitating, though he isn't sure why. It's not like their chronos got scrambled in all that mess. Unless they did, and in that case... Jetfire would certainly hope someone from the team would send a vessel out to check on them, even an unmanned one.

"Less than three standard days, more than two," Starscream replies. The fact that even he was stunned into maintaining a normal tone of voice meant that he was just as shocked to see this as Jetfire was.

It's... not like they were going to be able to continue their research now, anyway. Their equipment was as good as garbage all the way out here.

Jetfire tries to think positively. "That means we missed our check-in time," he says, the realization dawning on him as he speaks. Starscream grunts, prompting him to go on. "We were supposed to check in three times with Cybertron- not... live, but just static reports sent back. We missed the first one, so... so they should know something is wrong by now." Some energy returns to his voice, a bubble of hope growing inside of him now. "They'll come for us. They have to."

"Well," Starscream announces, then says nothing more. He lets go of Jetfire and hobbles back the way they came. Jetfire turns to watch, moments from asking if Starscream was already going to go back inside after he looked so miserable on that floor, but the Seeker just stumbles his way to the stairs and clumsily sits down on them, one hand pressed to the cloth tacked on over his middle. "Go on. Have your romp."

Jetfire raises a ridge, then smiles a little, walking back toward Starscream. “I didn’t come out here to go for a walk,” he waves a hand over the state of himself, which Starscream actually tracks with his optics, ridge raise high though his expression wasn’t entirely judgmental. “I just wanted to get some sun, and…”

He glances over at the ship, squinting a little. Jetfire hadn’t paid the outer hull much attention before, but remembering what Starscream told him about the encounter he’d had with the specimen after Jetfire was incapacitated… “Do you think that thing broke through the outside of the ship?” He asks, more so thinking aloud than he was truly asking Starscream for his opinion.

“What?” Starscream squawks, whatever else he blubbers on going completely over Jetfire’s helm as he slowly hobbles away, pedes crunching over the dried debris of the trees, heading down the length of their vessel.

The network of tendrils that’s grown over the exterior of the ship hardly resembles anything even looking like the flora on the trees that had intrigued Jetfire so much. It has to be some sort of camouflage adapted from something else, or something else.

He hums aloud in interest, turning back to the stairs to were the top half of Starscream’s helm was peaking out from the top of the railing, red optics locked in a glare. “What if this… being didn’t originate on this planet?”

Starscream blinks hard in disbelief, but rather than yell, he only rolls his optics and sighs so hard that Jetfire can hear him from some distance away. “Okay,” the Seeker drones back, equally as loud. “So what?”

“So, what if this is an adaptation from whatever environment it was originally apart of?”

“How the hell did it end up here, then?"

Jetfire hums, lips pressed together, optics drawing close to the puddle under the ship once again.. He runs through a list of logical explanations from other planetary discoveries and then a more interesting list of fantastical explanations from fictional stories. While he’s lost in thought, Starscream beats him to it. “It's likely a foreign body.” He says, finally sounding a little interested. “It didn’t originate here.”

“Fascinating," Jetfire exhales, and Starscream smacks his lips loud enough that he can hear it even as he steps closer to the undercarriage of the ship, squatting down despite the warnings in his helm telling him his outer armor integrity was nearly in the single digits.

The puddle isn't just liquid. There's something in it, floating over the surface, tinting the liquid- the water... green.

"Fascinating," Starscream mocks. "Listen to yourself- fascinated by the concept of foreign cellular life hitchhiking from planet to planet. What are you- a sparkling? All that tells us is that it's stuck in the exact same situation that we're in, probably for far longer than we have, and it never made it off this damned infested rock, and- what are you doing?" His tone drops at the final statement, all traces of anger and rage gone within the blink of an optic and replaced by a flat affect.

Jetfire sticks his servo straight down into the puddle, swirling it and dispersing the top layer of growth to reveal a basin full of relatively clear water. When he lifts it up, chunky bits of green sludge coat his digits. Starscream makes a noise of disgust, but Jetfire smiles, wicked and bright.

Algae. There's algae on this planet- algae in this basin.

"Getting yourself filthy when we don't have a working shower- lovely."

"Electricity," Jetfire breathes. "We don't have enough electricity to start the ship."

"Yes, oh genius of Cybertron, thank you for stating the obvious," he starts with a deep inhale, but before Starscream can retort any further in whatever classically snappy way he desires, Jetfire turns to look at him, and the sheer joy on his face stuns the Seeker into silence.

"We can still get off this ship," he says in a voice loud enough to make Starscream shut up, his tone full of reverence. "We don't need to rely on the ship for power- we can make our own electricity. Enough to start the ship- to power the beacons and the energon dispensaries."

Starscream's face flits between shock, annoyance, and confusion, before finally settling on something determined. Their optics lock, and for the first time in several thousand years, Jetfire finds himself thinking Starscream is excited.

✦

"No, no, bring those cables here."

"Here-here?"

"No not there, here!"

"You fucking-" Starscream cuts his growl off with a loud groan. "Get your damned head out from under there and tell me where this goes!"

Jetfire scoots himself out from the poorly constructed harvesting tank he'd been constructing. It was no easy feat trying to accomplish such a thing when his only welding tool was a small soldering gun meant for patch field jobs on mechs that overheated in his palms if he used it for longer than thirty seconds at a time and his only assistant was Starscream, who was standing hunched over with a now stained cloth plastered onto his abdomen to protect his crushed cock pit, brandishing two massive handfuls of cables he's stripped from all different corners of the ship, some still connected to their points of origin in the walls or busted computer consoles.

He looks ridiculous, but, then again, so does Jetfire, covered in metal shards and temporarily half-blind from using the welding torch so close to his face for so long. Jetfire blinks hard and with his whole face, everything scrunching up like the force of pressing his dermal plating together with miraculously fix the visions of bright dots in his optics. He stares dumbly at Starscream for a moment while he does this, and the Seeker stomps a pede in annoyance. "Hello!" He yells.

"Ugh," Jetfire groans, jerking his head to the left, where a pile of stripped copper filaments and torn remnants of their casings lay scattered around like confetti. "Here, but strip them first- and only leave the ones that are at least a foot long," he instructs, getting back down onto his back and close up to the seam for the bottom of their algae troth, "it needs to touch the base of the metal to work."

Starscream grumbles, but complies, and that's how Jetfire knows the Seeker is actually stressed and fretting.

They had one final shot not to fuck this up. Everything had to line up just perfectly.

Buckets and bowls of every size all filled with algae-rich water lined the hallway leading up to the door of the ship. Jetfire had painstakingly filled every single one of them by hand, running back and forth between the outside basin and the ship, while Starscream torn through the cabin and storage, looking for anything that could be upturned and used as a vessel.

Together, they had ripped several layers of the interior walls of the ships hull and bent them into a long oval shape, which Jetfire was now welding a solid bottom to. Starscream had managed to rip out the main power and auxiliary cables to the ship's engines before, and Jetfire had gotten them into a state of fitting into place with their recharge dock's battery.

He hadn't fully connected them then because it wouldn't have worked, and because he wanted to at least charge Starscream and see his grouchy face one last time before, well, dying, but now they were stupid and foolish and had hope fueling them.

It was too late for them to stop now even if it was an option. The cables that plugged into them for their recharge cycles lay in shreds, stripped down to their bare copper just like everything else, while the rest of the battery was stitched up with bundles of cables and spliced wire ties with the ship's engine cables.

Everything was in place, they just needed the miracle to happen.

Jetfire attaches the last scrap of metal piping he has in his hands and pulls his head away, blindly feeling for the next, only to realize that was his last, and his welding has wrapped back around to the beginning. "Shit," he breathes, optics wide.

"What?! What," Starscream scrambles over, knocking over a pile of copper wire. "Did it break?!"

"No, I- it," Jetfire swallows, and wonders when his throat went so dry. "It's... done."

"Done?!" Starscream parrots his words angrily, seemingly for no other reason except that it's his default way of expressing any emotion that isn't annoyance. "Well- get up!" He nudges- kicks- Jetfire with his pede, dropping whatever he has in his hands down and once more hitting the pile of wires with his wide step as he dashes back to the hall as fast as he possibly can with his injuries.

Before Jetfire follows, he gingerly gets up onto his knees, fighting the rush of vertigo to turn the troth upright and peer inside, squinting at the base to try and see if there were any obvious gaps, but Starscream is already rushing back with the first of the bowls and, with an graceless tumble of limbs, pours the contents straight into the empty troth.

The liquid sloshes about while Starscream throws the container to the side, the two of them staring for a breath.

Well, Jetfire thinks, it isn't leaking. That's a good sign- right?

He's still staring a bit dumbly as Starscream runs off to grab another bucket.

By the time Jetfire actually finds the strength to get up and go looking for a bucket of his own to grab, Starscream has managed to grab most aside from the heaviest.

What little energy they had has long since been expended with this latest attempt at saving themselves, which Starscream had snidely dubbed under his breath as an "arts and crafts project", and they had to drag the thing across the ship's floor together, green water sloshing and spilling over the lip of the rim, leaving splatters of murky fluid in their wake.

Heaving the bucket up and over the side of the troth is another story, Jetfire and Starscream both huffing and puffing, though with far more curse words on Starscream's end, until it was finally up, and with loud grunts, they tip it far enough to spill its contents in.

"Hold it here," Jetfire pants, tapping the bottom of the bucket once more before turning and hobbling toward the long abandoned lab table. He nearly trips twice, his struts so tired that his thighs won't stop shaking, but he powers through it, forcing himself to trudge through the exhaustion and grab the light he had given to the creature all those hours ago.

The emptied bucket clatters to the floor behind him, prompting Jetfire to turn.

Starscream grips the rim of the now full troth with both hands, trembling just as hard as Jetfire, pants coming heavy through his vents and his turbine fans roaring.

The sight steels Jetfire's nerves.

One last shot, he thinks to himself. They can do this, they can. They have to.

Starscream all but collapses to the ground as he walks back over, but manages to save himself a bit of embarrassment, playing it off as a purposeful kneel into a seated position. He leans over to his side and begins grabbing the long strands of copper wire, twisting them together as he does and forming a chain. Jetfire crotches by the end of the troth and grips the light tight in his hands, pretending like he wasn't still shaking.

"Alright," Starscream breathes, reaching the last of the wire. "Which is first?"

There's a second of delay between the sound of Starscream's words and the registering of their meaning in Jetfire's head. "The... battery. First." Despite his stilted instructions, Starscream quickly picks up on them, scooting himself closer to the recharge dock's battery.

Little sparks snap up into the air as he twists the copper around the exposed terminals, giving Jetfire a little hope that, yes, there was some electricity in there. This is still doable. This can still happen.

In the silence of the ship, Jetfire can hear the current audibly running through the length of the alloy, buzzing with energy ever so quietly in Starscream's hands.

The look on Starscream's face gives him the impression he's cycling through the same kind of thoughts. The nonstop reminder of how close they are to actually having a chance to get back home, and the worry that this plan could fall apart so easily if they're wrong about the ship's engines.

Jetfire turns the light on, and the sudden intensity of it's brightness feels like a star exploding right before his eyes. While he squeezes them shut and resets them several times, he hears Starscream mutter a quiet, "okay," followed by a splash as he drops the other end of the wires into the troth. Jetfire is still recovering from his own personal flash bang, but quietly tries to angle the light just right, shining it into the luminescent green water.

Starscream kneels at the edge of the basin and sticks a long, thin strip of hull armor into the liquid, stirring it slowly, agitating the water just enough so that it began to swirl in a gentle oval, the sloshing sounds water almost pleasant on Jetfire's exhausted audials.

Neither of them say a word, they just stare into the depths of the water like it holds all the possible answers to the universe.

Even with the tension as high as it’s ever been, the time spent kneeling and waiting in the tense silence begins to wear at Jetfire, and his gaze begins to drift around again, looking at the filthy floors, the walls, the sheer amount of damage that’s been done to their surroundings. He should feel bad for the hell that’s been done to the ship Wheeljack and his team spent so long putting together, shouldn’t he?

The best he can do right now is just sigh.

“Quit that,” Starscream says, making Jetfire shoot him a quick look. “You’re loud.”

“I was breathing, and I was not loud. It’s just quiet.”

“And who’s fault is that,” Starscream grumbles. Jetfire hasn’t got that energy to bite at that, nor does he really care to, anyway. He just rolls his optics, and this makes Starscream snort.

“Just… focus on this, it should be working soon,” his voice trails off toward the end, and then his shoulders slump with an unshakable weight, one that weighs him down completely. “If it works at all.”

“You’re supposed to be the optimistic one.”

Jetfire scoffs. “Yeah, well-“

He doesn’t finish after that, just sighs again and repositions the light in his hands, petulantly refusing to look Starscream’s way for a few moments, even though he can see through his periphery that the Seeker is looking his way. He tells himself he’s doing it to preserve his energy, but really, with as stretched thin as he is now and how fresh the images of his memories are in his helm, Starscream being too annoying at this point in their journey might be the catalyst that makes Jetfire punch him.

Luckily, it doesn’t come to this.

The soft buzzing of the current begins to pick up. Slow, at first, then as the build of electricity between the alloy copper and the battery begin to pick up, the intensity picks up. Enough so that Starscream leans away, though he continues to stir the troth at a slow, measured pace. “Go- go check the battery.” He stutters out, reaching toward him with his free hand and making a vague gesture at the light, whatever calmness had taken over them in their little exchange completely gone now.

Jetfire just nods, handing it over without contest, and slowly rises up to do just that, but the closed circuit line between the troth, the battery, and the cables of the ship engine snaps once, twice, three times, and then emits a sharp- ‘pop!’- with a flurry of bright white sparks that has both of them wincing. “Did you turn it off?!” Jetfire coughs out.

“What?” Starscream squawks back, as if unaware one could even do such a thing.

There’s no time for Jetfire to inform him about this and snap that he’s an idiot because the battery repeats its firework routine again with an even bigger show of sparks than before. “Fuck,” Jetfire winces back, throwing his hands up in front of his face like that’ll save him.

“Just turn it on!” Starscream yells.

Now, it’s Jetfire’s turn to parrot back an incredulous squawk. “What?!”

“The ship! Just turn the damn ship on!”

His body launches into action before he’s even had time to consider it, just grateful enough that he’s been given a task that he can do- in theory.

Jetfire stumbles his way to the ship’s navigational console. It feels like years since he last sat here, envisioning a layer of dust caked over every knob on the display when in reality it couldn't have been more than just a few days.

"Okay," he mutters to himself, scrambling through his mind to remember the exact sequence of events needed to start the ship. He keys in the code to get his display on, then leans over and just frantically taps at some of the keys on the other, hoping that random input was enough to get it to function. Behind him, the battery snaps again, bright enough that it cast a flash Jetfire could see on the ship's walls around him. "Come on," he breathes, tapping his console quicker. Starscream yells something, but he's too focused on the task at hand to pay attention to him. "Come on, come on," he doesn't remember this being so damn stressful the first time they did it- why the hell was everything so-

"Jetfire!"

"What?!" He whirls around just in time to see Starscream- who was not kneeling by the troth like he should have been, stirring the algae and producing current, but was instead kneeling in the center of the room atop the battery, twisting one of the thick weighted cables pulled from the ship's engine against an exposed terminal at the same time that Jetfire smashed his closed fist down on the display keys.

The exposed engine bay explodes in a shower of sparks, shooting out from the console. Jetfire shouts and stumbles back, out of the chair and onto his aft, and instantly, Starscream is at his side. His hands are hot where they touch Jetfire's body, and unnaturally so.

Jetfire is so stunned from the rapid fire sequence of events that all he can do is blink rapidly, mouth gaping like a fish.

And then, the lights of the ceiling flick on all at once, bathing them in cold, bright light, and Jetfire's first thought is- hell, we're even filthier than we looked outside, and then he catches Starscream's stunned expression when they turn their helms to look at each other, Jetfire knowing good and well he had a face that rivaled that stupefied expression.

"... they're on," Jetfire mutters, stating the obvious out loud because for a second there he was no longer certain as to wither or not this was still reality or if he'd fallen back into a comforting dream.

Starscream's face screws up a little, clearly wanting to yell at him or something, but he's cut off by a sharp electric chirp.

The sound comes as such a shock that they jump, unconsciously inching toward one another and looking around wildly, before their attention shoots back to the active navigational console.

... it... couldn't be. Could it? Could... could they be receiving sent communications? Had someone been trying to hail them this entire time?

Jetfire holds his vents once again, not wanting to let even his breathing break the silence and risk him not being able to hear the blessed sounds of life acknowledging their existence and reminding them they were not alone out here and that there was help-

"Shut up," Starscream finally snaps.

"I didn't say anything-"

"Shut up, shut up! How are we supposed to hear anything over the sound of you-"

Brrr-eep.

✦

They gasp, loud and scandalized and in sync, and then go rigid and stiff, statues frozen in place.

Brr-ee-brr-eep.

The screen crackles into existence long after the console has begun to make noise, dead pixels now littering the screen where before there had been none. A faint blue glow illuminates the display, and Starscream is overcome with the sudden urge to grab Jetfire's servo and squeeze it tightly.

He might actually do it, because he feels a strong pressure squeeze his hand back. He doesn't check. All his attention, every last drop of energy and fuel inside him, attunes itself to the screen in front of him. He stares at the loading screen of a sphere building itself into a cube only to break back down and restart again until his optics sting and well up with coolant to keep his lenses lubricated.

The display flickers and the fans around them begin to roar as the engine kicks back into life, shuttering violently within its compartment, but still working.

A violent chirping emits from the display, and then a litany of alerts flood the screen- message hails, voice recordings, pings for active location data, and last of all and what catches and holds Jetfire's attention- a ship's registry code.

A ship. A ship!

With speed, he scrambles up right and accepts the transmissions, downloading whatever data had been sent over. He ignores the other and pulls up the code, and a map of their route toward the planet pops into view with a new bright blue dot flashing along the line, showing a ship sailing toward them, and only a short time out.

It... worked.

It worked, it fucking worked!

A genuine bark of laughter bubbles up from his chest and bursts forth, one that Jetfire echoes with a string of laughs that devolves into ecstatic giggling within seconds, and Starscream continues to hiccup sound, the two of them experiencing a level of emotion too raw for words, too intense to be interrupted by something so trivial.

Starscream sees Jetfire's helm pivot toward him, so he looks at him, too, just to feel a little bit more of the genuine joy coming off of him. That maybe he could sit in his transient moment for the rest of his life and never again have to subject himself to the horrors of his own endless hell.

For the first time in millennia, perhaps for the first time in his life, Starscream looks at Jetfire and doesn't once worry about how weak the smile on his face must look. He feels his optics crinkle at the edges and his mouth hurt from the force of his joy- but Primus, he doesn't care. They were alone and stranded and hours from being truly sentenced to slow deaths and now they aren't.

He sucks in a gasp of air and opens his mouth. "I-"

And that's as far as he gets before Jetfire rushes forward, crossing the invisible line that's formed between them since they both entered this ship, and presses his lips to Starscream's in a firm, desperate kiss, and Starscream feels his spark spiral and processor flicker.

Everything else falls away from focus. He melts against Jetfire, the Shuttle quickly gathering his slack form into his arms and so that he could pull him to his front- his warm, firm front, repaired so tenderly by Starscream's own hands and yet, all this time since then and he'd yet to fully feel the results of his efforts.

He makes up for that now once he remembers he has a body he can manipulate and use to touch and feel, sliding his palms up Jetfire's sides and over the broad swell of his torso, cupping his armor.

Jetfire moans into his mouth, glossa flicking against the seam of Starscream's lips, and he parts them without even thinking about it, letting the Shuttle lick into his mouth, slide his glossa along Starscream's. His own hands explore Starscream's body, taking great care not to press into the cracks and holes in his armor.

It'd been too long since anyone has touched Starscream like this- with love and care, and it was almost too much. The sensory input of fond strokes up his back and hips, the gentle swirl of someone else's glossa in his mouth. Any more and he'd surely explode in on himself and lose it, and maybe Jetfire feels this along whatever charge builds between them, because he avoids touching Starscream's wings, and Starscream feels so grateful that he could kiss him- and then he remembers that he is, and he kisses him harder.

Their fans whine, harmonizing as the two press against each other. More, Starscream thinks to himself, more, more, touch me where I know you want to.

Be-reeeep.

The sound startles them. Their lips part, and Starscream blinks, not knowing when he'd closed his optics. Their gazes meet, though he can hardly make anything out this close up that isn't the warm red glow just beneath Jetfire's thin facial plating. They pant softly, breathes intermingling in the small space between their faces. "... what was," Jetfire breathes, before the sound repeats, followed by a sharp, deafening crackle in their sound system that had been dormant so long Starscream nearly forgot it was even there.

He does so now with a choked sound. "A transmission!" Starscream shouts, scrambling to untangle himself from Jetfire's arms. "The- the console-"

The Shuttle spurs into action quickly, understanding Starscream's sudden burst of excitement. They rush to the pilot's console, Jetfire throwing himself into the navigational seat and Starscream falling into his own.

The terminal screens are alight and filled with detailed reports, notifying them of the ship's downed status, as if they'd even need a reminder of that, and other minor status updates that hadn't been obvious from external view. Starscream dismisses all of them, not caring about what new found problems the ship might have in store for them.

Static pours through the speakers. Jetfire's hands fly over the console, tapping lit sections of the screen and twisting knobs at the side of it, manipulating their antenna connection until... until...

"--come in!"

And again, they freeze. Starscream holds his breath, wondering if he just hallucinated the unmistakable sound of Wheeljack's voice through the speaker. The ever-present 'ding!' of their distress beacon hums again, a quiet chime Starscream had been filtering out this entire time.

It's Jetfire who presses the button to open their end of the connection. "... Wheeljack?" He asks in disbelief, voice cracking.

Their answer is a shout that sounds like an equal mix of alarm and joy. "Oh, thank Primus, it's you- you're alive!"

Starscream sags in relief, like he hadn't been aware of that fact until right now, too, and Jetfire shoots him grand, shining smile.

They were alive, and now, they could go home, too.

Chapter Text

The joy is short lived.

“Would either of you two mind telling me... hell were you two?!”

The static feedback caused by the low quality of their ship’s speakers had been bad enough leaving Cybertron, but now, after all the wear and tear done to the ship, comprehension was practically impossible outside of a few key words. Perhaps they should have considered themselves lucky, then, that Wheeljack was screaming so loud into his microphone.

The audio booms throughout the ship, vibrating down to their cores and rattling their bolts.

Jetfire had his helm craned at a twisted angle, holding his shoulder up to one side of his helm and his palm on the other, pressing both against the sides like that would block out the sound. His free hand scrambles over the surface of the console, desperately trying to find some way of turning the sound down.

Starscream, meanwhile, had other ideas.

“By the Pits,” he groans, wincing as the audio screeches with feedback. “Shut it up already!”

“Excuse me?” Wheeljack howls, and then howls a few more things that neither of them can parse. Jetfire squints, like this will help him hear less, and somehow finds the option in the never ending maze of menu screens to quiet the overhead speakers. It's still impossible to make out most of what Wheeljack is saying, but at least he's quieter now.

Jetfire's auidals are still ringing as both he and Starscream relax, exchanging looks that are somewhere between relief and shock that this is actually happening. "Will... answer... my damn..." Wheeljack's words continue to fizzle in and out of existence.

"Something had to have gotten fried when I turned the ship on," Jetfire says, running off no facts except his own intuition. "I doubt we'll be able to hear much."

Starscream scowls, his cheeks puffing out to little rounded domes of annoyance, and Jetfire can't stop himself from thinking about how cute the expression looks on him. He leans away from the console at the first step Starscream takes, giving the Seeker space to wedge himself up as close as possible to the microphone. "Shut up already!" He bellows, and shockingly enough, Wheeljack's static does stop. They sigh in relief once more, and then Starscream straps his attitude right back on. "Whatever you're saying- we can't hear it! The ship is totaled- just get your sorry afts here already!"

A huff of static. "The hell happened out there?" Wheeljack asks, the clearest question he's stated thus far.

Jetfire pinches his expression together and hunches his shoulders even before Starscream turns his helm and shoots him a quizzical look over his shoulder, one that read 'are you telling him, or should I?' and that Jetfire knew if he left it up to the Seeker, he'd spin a tale about Jetfire so horrible that he'd likely end up in prison, too.

Well, alright, maybe for the way this expedition turned out... he'd tolerate that. Maybe.

"We had an encounter with the organic life," Starscream explains in a voice that's only two-steps removed from being an incomprehensible grumble.

"What?" Comes the sharp retort from Wheeljack, clear as day. "There isn't... reports... no life!"

"Yes, well, your reports are stupid and wrong."

Alright.

Jetfire puts a hand on Starscream's shoulder and shoves him away, an act he only succeeds in because Starscream is too busy cooking up a new batch of sharp insults in his mouth. "We can explain more when you get here," he shouts into the microphone, still unsure if their equipment sounded just as bad on Wheeljack's end as it did for them. "We're totally downed- and the ship is only barely working."

The audio snaps little shuffling blips of noise at them, like something was being shuffled around on the other end of the line. "Understood," Wheeljack eventually replies. "Estim... about thirty-one standard hours... last till then?"

Jetfire casts a look back at the state of the ship. "... do we have any energon left?"

"Enough to last thirty-one hours," Starscream puts a hand on the side of his neck and gingerly rolls his helm back and forth. "But you better hope they're better at speed calculations than they are planet surveys."

"We'll survive," Jetfire says into the comm.

"... sending you updates," Wheeljack says, then, after a pause: "you... are getting transmissions now?"

They lock eyes again, and shrug at the same time. "Probably?" Jetfire tries, earning him a sigh from Wheeljack. Starscream cracks a little smirk and turns, walking away from the pilot's area. "I'll... we'll draft a report."

"Make it detailed." Wheeljack says. "And... don't do anything crazy."

Jetfire snorts. He wondered if there was anything else 'crazy' they could do on this planet.

✦

There's... peace in the quiet that follows.

It’s almost strange to sit there in silence and not be petrified of anything. Starscream’s sensors are still on high alert, his radar scanners stretched to their limits to pick up any slight minute change in electrical current or signal from the ship’s beacon, sending a trail of radio messaging out into the atmosphere to give Wheeljack's ship something proper to track, but the only thing he does hear with that extended range is Jetfire’s noisy ventilation fans roaring beside him.

The fans are loud enough that it actually narrows his attention to Starscream's companion completely, finally taking note of the exhaustion and hunger written in the lines of his face as Jetfire paces back and forth, datapad and stylus in hand. He'd been scribbling away furiously ever since the call with Wheeljack ended, likely committing every detail he could remember down onto the record.

“Primus,” Starscream vents, partially because there was a growing part of his spark that was concerned, but more so because Jetfire’s seemingly miraculous recovery had crumbled in near record time and the shuttle was back to looking like death warmed over. Or, more aptly, frozen over. “Sit down, or something,” he scoffs more so than says in a concerned voice.

Jetfire blinks. “Mn?” He looks down to himself, to Starscream, before focusing on the receiving scan. “In- in a bit. I just want to make sure I'm not forgetting any details…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. The rest of his body appears to become just as aware of its apparent total exhaustion and chooses that vary moment to begin to sway and wobble, enough that Jetfire moans in discomfort and Starscream lets out a rather undignified and loud squawk. “Sit! You idiot!” He grabs Jetfire’s shoulder, pushing him roughly toward the direction of the abandoned charging cables. “If anyone is going to monitor this stupid thing, it is going to be me- and that’s even if it needs to be monitored at all, it’s a simple be-“

Jetfire grips Starscream’s wrist, and the Seeker cuts himself off abruptly. His servo holds tight to him for only a second before going weak, seemingly too tired to even throttle him properly. “I’ll rest if you do,” Jetfire offers in a quiet voice. "You haven't charged enough, either." Starscream's automatic response is to scowl, but before he's able to complain, Jetfire continues, "we have plenty of ship power now. It'll survive with the two of us using it."

He sighs heavily through his external vents, sending the dust in the air swirling. Jetfire's optics are too... too open. Too understanding.

Something hurt and angry snaps at it from inside Starscream's spark, but the warmth of Jetfire's servo on his wrist, even as he begins to loosen the grip, makes Starscream remember just how long it has been since someone touched him- really touched him.

The memory of Jetfire's servos exploring his body is still too fresh on his mind. How firm those digits were, pressing and prodding in all the right places, and his lips against Starscream's that felt the same even after all this time. Warm, worn, tender. Like a warm berth that knew the contours of Starscream's body.

Why is he even bothering at this point? He's already lost so much of his dignity.

"... mention this to no one," he answers in a voice so low it was hardly even words at all, more of just an unpleasant grumble. Jetfire smiled regardless, like that had been an answer he'd been expecting.

He silently led back to the center of the ship. By now, he's gotten so used to the disastrous mess that seeing a cleaned portion of the floor comes to him as a surprise. The algae have grown greener since he last saw them, a sign that Jetfire points out apparently signaled how healthy the batch was. It was still shocking to him that it actually worked. It felt like some sort of miracle fell onto them.

Starscream holds himself stiffly when Jetfire lets go and gently settles himself on the ground, fiddling with the split cables and dragging the generator closer toward himself. As enthusiastic and interested in getting all... close up and comfortable with Jetfire as he had been heading toward just seconds ago, the reality of sharing the same charging dock and sitting on the only clear space on the ground that was hardly big enough for one mech as is was... well. Suddenly, the idea of getting close Starscream folds his arms and looks away, shuffling awkwardly while trying to pretend like he wasn't. "Come on," Jetfire says with a snort. "Enough posturing. Just sit."

"I am not-!" Starscream jumps at the chance to yell, whipping his helm and throwing his arm out to jab a claw at Jetfire, but the desire to fizzles away when instead of cowering, Jetfire laughs.

"Don't you ever get tired of doing that?"

Starscream scoffs. "I have no idea what you mean."

"Posturing. Acting." In place of answering, Starscream re-crosses his arms and takes a single step toward Jetfire, deems that close enough, and sits down right where he stands. Not a moment later, he yelps when servos take hold of his shoulders and drag him, his aft scrapping against the ground and undoubtedly leaving scrapes of bright red across its surface. "You can quit pretending. At least until we get home. Deal?"

Starscream would love to snap back that he isn't pretending and that he is not looking forward to the idea of being crammed up close to Jetfire and that his servos didn't feel like the warmest, most inviting berth he's ever felt in his life. But one look at those stupid soft blue optics and he just- couldn't!

Damn Jetfire and his stupid optics and his stupid handsome mug and his stupidly warm hands...

His wings twitch, and Starscream rolls his shoulders, using the familiar blooming ache in his back as an excuse to shake Jetfire's hands off of him, but as usual, the mech doesn't take the hint.

"They hurt, right?" He asks.

Starscream rolls his optics. "Of course, they hurt." What a stupid question. Would he like to have his wings folded in half?

Instead of pulling away or letting out some apology like Starscream anticipates, Jetfire's digits splay against the narrow gap between his wings, right under the buzz of the stasis lock holding them in place. Starscream yelps again at a decibel far louder than before. "What- what are you-!"

"Here?" Jetfire wiggles his servo in, or tries to. The sheer size of his stocky digits called to mind the image of a large electrobeast digging through the dirt for scraplets to feast on.

Despite the girth of his fingers and the knowledge that Jetfire definitely had the strength to inflict damage of a particularly heinous kind if he closed his fist and pulled, Starscream feels the tension bunched tight in the cables of his back yield to the heat and pressure of Jetfire's presses, and without thinking, he moans softly at the relief it brings.

Spurred on by the positive reaction, Jetfire rubs the pads of his digits down in firm, tight circles along the sides of a seam-line, increasing pressure whenever one panel of armor ended and another began. The result was down right divine, ripples of positive sensory inputs flooding his processor and leaving Starscream a shivering, whimpering mess. Jetfire knew exactly where he wanted to be touched, exactly where the tension in his body was held. Of course being touched by another flightmech like this would have such benefits. Jetfire had wings of his own and knew what kinds of aches could come from them being mishandled.

"I used to do this for you," Jetfire whispers as if hearing Starscream's thoughts. "Remember? Back at the academy."

Starscream blinks slowly, surprised to from his reaction time slowed. He merely grunts, too lazy to actively work and recall his personal data. It sounds correct enough. They were... close back then. And Starscream wasn't exactly the most popular Seeker back then. Or now, for that matter. He didn't even have a Trine that were obligated to help him. Few wanted to touch him then, and even fewer now.

Despite how enjoyable this was and how his body sang for such a comforting touch, Starscream squirms, trying to get away. "That- that's enough," he stammers, holding his wings as close to his body as he could. Jetfire complies, pulling his servos away. Starscream fears some sort of "don't be like this" speech from the Autobot, or some other complaint about Starscream's attitude, but thankfully, there's none. Perhaps Jetfire is still smart after all.

The other bot merely sits back, a little huff of air venting out of him.

They sit like that in silence for what feels like quite some time, the ambient noises of the ship humming or snapping, broken electronics attempting to run without success.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Oh, fuck, Starscream thinks with a drooping weight in his tanks. There it is. "... talk about what," he bites out.

Jetfire shifts, folding his legs up neater. "... the kissing?" There's a little evil circuit in Starscream's helm that's happy Jetfire sounds so awkward and stiff, but the rest of him dreads it, because he feels the exact same, and it's humiliating.

He's a war commander. A soldier. And, more important than either of those at this point in time, a prisoner. Starscream had no business batting his eyes and fraternizing with his enemy, not if Jetfire was just going to get to skip away from this happily and he wasn't.

Just as the thought crosses his mind, he looks back, chancing a glance at Jetfire, staring at the blank space of white armor that his Autobot insignia used to be, where Starscream had first branded him with the Decepticon's instead.

The war is over, Jetfire had told him. We're not on opposite sides anymore. We're all Cybertronians again.

"No." Starscream holds back the sigh that wants to escape alongside the word.

Jetfire shifts closer, and Starscream braces himself. "I think we should."

"... what's the point?" Starscream asks, hoping Jetfire would hear the real question in his tone. Why bother talking? Nothing was going to change. When this was all said and done and they were back on Cybertron, Jetfire would return to whatever nice and easy life he was enjoying for himself with everyone, and Starscream would go right back to his small, cramped laboratory prison. He'd be lucky to get a heated shower with his wings unlocked.

"Because," and he pauses here, breathing in deep and holding it, expelling warmed air through his external vents that gusts over Starscream's shoulder and wings. Damn, they were sitting closer than he thought they were. "I don't think pretending is going to make either of us feel good in the long run."

Starscream's face twitches. Feel good? Feel good? Give him a break. "Just- let me talk." Jetfire interjects, clearly seeing the writing on Starscream's face that he definitely did not like that one. Starscream just grunts, prompting yet another sigh from Jetfire.

"... look, I... I don't want to pretend, okay? We almost died, Starscream. I almost died. Again. I can't... I don't want..."

For someone who seemed to want to make a big show of talking, he sure was doing a horrible job about it. Starscream shifts, trying to make it seem like he was just rearranging his seat on the ground when really he was turning to look at Jetfire again.

The Shuttle looked awfully conflicted and torn, his face a mess of emotions, screwed up tight in a wave of anguish. "We just can't go back to... to pretending like we don't exist after that."

Starscream ducks his helm just as Jetfire tries to lock eyes with him again. "It'd be easier."

"No, it wouldn't!" Jetfire implores. "And you know that!"

"What I know," Starscream raises his voice, frowning deeper, "is that the second we get back there, everyone will go and swoon at your damn feet and fawn over how strong you must have been for braving the weather like that, and then, when they remember I'm still here, I'll get swarmed with accusations that I did this on purpose to sabotage the mission."

"Why would anyone accuse you of that?"

"Because that's how this always works, Jetfire! Fucking- look at us! Look at me! You think we were equals in any way in this stupid ordeal? What you feel doesn't matter- you're not going to get it! Whatever happened here isn't happening back there, I'm stuck in a hole for the rest of my damn life and you-!" Starscream cuts himself off, because he realizes that he doesn't... actually know just what it is Jetfire has been filling his days with. He hadn't bothered to ask. He didn't think he's end up in a position where wanting to know what Jetfire's latest hobbies were or what jobs he'd been doing was something he'd actually like to know.

He scoffs, spittle flying out of his mouth. What good would knowing that do him if all it's going to do is make him miserable in the long run? "We're just going to part ways when we get back. Accept that and move on. Quit acting like there's anything going on here."

Jetfire shifts suddenly, turning his body toward Starscream and reaching out with both hands. Starscream hates the way he flinches seeing his massive servos heading straight toward his body, but whatever pain his primitive coding thinks is coming doesn't come. Jetfire takes one of Starscream's hands between his massive servos, cradling it as though he were something delicate and precious.

Scowling, Starscream wrenches his helm away, trying to tug his wrist out of Jetfire's grasp, but the Shuttle's grip is strong, and he's seemingly refusing to even start speaking unless Starscream is looking at him.

And when he does, it isn't at all the lecture Starscream thinks he's going to get.

"I still care about you," Jetfire states, his optics staring into Starscream with such intensity that it's almost blinding. "And... and you're right, it isn't fair that you're stuck serving so much time when seemingly everyone else isn't- okay?" Starscream interjects with a petulant 'hmph!', his bottom lip jutting out. About time someone agreed that his treatment was unjust. The corners of Jetfire's lips twitch. "We can... we can deal with it together, okay? You don't have to try and do this alone. I want to help you."

Jetfire shifts his fingers, one at a time, until his palm is flat against Starscream's and he's lacing their fingers together. He squeezes Starscream's hand firmly, not enough to hurt, but enough that the plating between his fingers threatened to give.

"Believe in me, okay? I can... I... we..."

Starscream raises an eyebrow just as Jetfire begins to tip forward.

"Woah- woah- hey-" Starscream yanks his hand away, a feat that's suddenly achievable as Jetfire's grip goes slack, just like his body, and just like his face. His optics slip shut as he falls forward, pulling a squawk of alarm from Starscream, who immediately crumples to the ground under the heavy weight of Jetfire's body. "Hey! Hey!" He continues to croak with every inch of weight that settles atop of him.

He can't deny the brief moment of panic that storms through him, the fear and worry that Jetfire was going to die now, after all that time Starscream spent fixing him, after all the effort they put in together destroying the last of their supplies to power the ship again, after knowing that they were going home-

But it stops when the warm, slow vents of Jetfire's breathing hits him.

The mech isn't dying. He's sleeping. Likely having fallen straight into a stasis after expending the last of his energy trying to convince Starscream of... of what? That he can get out of prison after this?

Starscream scoffs, flopping down and scowling up at the ceiling of the ship.

"...why are you like this," he grumbles to no one, feeling Jetfire settle on his body comfortably, like Starscream's battered frame was the warmest berth every made.

What was it that Jetfire was so convinced they could do, huh? Storm the Iacon Tower together and demand to see them Prime, demand that Starscream be given a pure, clean slate after all that he's done? Maybe he could just go sneak off when they land and crawl in a hole somewhere and wait out the storm. Prowl kept himself busy to a fault, that much Starscream knew. Just what the hell he got up to aside form bossing Starscream around like he owned him- which, alright, perhaps he did, or at least the Autobots did- is beyond him. But he'd grow bored of searching for Starscream at some point, right?

A huff, and Starscream looks down at Jetfire's head, trying to angle himself so he could see the mech's face, but he was contentedly dozing, face buried in the crevice between Starscream's broad middle and his turbine cover.

He rolls his optics.

Why did Jetfire have to worm his stupid way into Starscream's spark and make him... want to feel again? Being mad at everything was easier. Being alone wasn't fun, but it was familiar, and it was safe. There wasn't much in his cell that could hurt him where it mattered, with the exception of himself, and Starscream was more than okay with that.

But wasn't he... sick of it? It's hard to deny the comfort that settles over him now. The simple joy of knowing there's someone there that he... might be able to trust, and that was the biggest 'might' of his entire life.

The last time he felt this willing to engage with hope and believe he could get something that wasn't the short end of the stick, he ended up with locks around his wings and a tiny hole he was supposed to spend the rest of eternity in, with no one on his side to try and claim that maybe it wasn't all that fair.

... does he have a person on his side now, he wonders as he gazes at the top of Jetfire's slumber form.

"Fine," he whispers. "You get once chance."

✦

"Hey."

Jetfire groans, confusion clouding his system. He feeling alarmingly well rested, which is weird, because the last thing he remembers is...

His optics snap open immediately, and he's greeted with an alarmingly bright shade of red slapped over his HUD. For once, it wasn't critical status alerts signaling an emanate shut down, pulling a sigh of relieve from his olfactory, but then the red moves, and he remembers that it's Starscream he had his face totally planted in.

He pushes himself up onto his palms with an shocked 'hmn?!', wiping his helm back and forth in search of what caused this, only to stop when Starscream just stares up at him with an amused snort. Jetfire stops moving, staring down at the Seeker with a surprised expression on his face. Starscream snorts again, his optics crinkling at the corners. "Our chariot awaits, you know."

"Wha?" Jetfire lifts a servo to his neck, blinking several times in surprise when he finds a thick cable connected to his charging port. "Did you plug me in?"

"Had to. Your stupid aft passed out on top of me." Starscream knees him in the thigh to emphasize this point. "On the disgusting ground, I might add."

Jetfire yanks the cord out of his neck, and finishes sitting up with ease. Primus, it's been so long since he felt this well rested, the ache of his bad welds doesn't even bother him that much. Diagnostics run in the back of his processor while reports of the defrag in his recharge slowly fill his HUD. "... wait," he breathes, finally registering what Starscream said. "What was that?"

"Our-"

A heavy, weighted 'tho-oom' from outside cuts him off, a slow shake rattling their ship only seconds later. Jetfire feels fear for all of one moment before the telltale sound of heavy hydraulics hiss one right after the other, the sounds of a ship landing on organic terrain.

His optics go so wide they nearly bug out of his helm all together, and Starscream snorts for a third time, and laughs.

✦

The mold creature has grown even more over their research camp's tent and equipment, and Wheeljack makes such a scene out of the state of all the equipment and the outside of the ship that Jetfire has half a mind to tell him that he shouldn't go inside at all. The Autobot cries out with such deep sorrow, reaching forward for the slime covered equipment.

"Wait!" Jetfire yells at the exact same time as Starscream yells "don't!".

They all freeze, the two of them, Wheeljack, and the two other Autobots that accompanied him on his trek out here, Grapple and Tracks. The silent breeze blows between them. "Er," Jetfire takes a step forward. "I... uh. I wouldn't touch that. If I were you."

"It's the... aforementioned sentient life." Starscream finishes, taking a step away from the tent and toward the new fully functional ship.

Instead of backing away like the other two newcomers do, Wheeljack makes a sound of interest and leans his top half closer toward a particularly big patch of growth on the tarp. Starscream sighs heavily behind Jetfire, mumbling something to himself about Autobots and organics and 'stupid death-wishes'. Jetfire fights a grimace. There was a reason he and Wheeljack got on so easily, he supposed. Their mutual curiosity into the study of xenolife was something they had bonded over during the war.

"If he dies, he dies," Starscream says, voice now distant enough that Jetfire looked over just to make sure. He was already half way up the considerably wider set of stairs of their rescue, practically shoving Grapple out of the way. The younger, smaller mech was pointing at the tent and Wheeljack, blinking owlishly.

Wheeljack hums lowly to himself, finally backing away from the site and turning to Jetfire. "Were you able to accomplish any surveying before the... encounter happened?"

"Uh," Jetfire shoots a glance between the two ships, hoping the silent 'shouldn't we do this inside and get the hell out of here?' question that remained unspoken was loud enough. "We... conducted a couple of surveys and I was in the process of making a proper map of all the possible deposit locations."

"I see," Wheeljack nods along to his words, staring at the mass of mold once more. If Jetfire noticed any movement coming from it, he's going to blame it on a sudden bout of rapid on-set delirium from not eating properly, or something. "Shame that we have to abandon this, but!" He places his hands on his hips and turns to face Jetfire, optics crinkled in such a manner that gave the impression he was smiling behind that thick mask of his. "We can always return with better weapons."

With that, he turns to walk back to the ship Starscream disappeared into, leaving Jetfire gaping like a dying fish.

... they nearly died, and he still wants to come back here?

Seriously?

Jetfire finds himself sighing again, this time with a heavy, exhausted weight. Maybe Starscream was right about Autobots and death wishes.

Chapter Text

The void of space rushes by them silently, fast enough that the stars and planets they left behind appeared like little comets through the window, shooting through the blackness to never be seen again.

Jetfire feels himself getting lost between the gaps in the stars, staring off into the nothingness.

They hadn't been gone long.

The return home should be easy.

He should be feeling bright eyed and refreshed after filling his tanks and getting a proper recharge and, most important of all, taking a near hour long solvent shower with the heat turned up as high as his external vents could handle- but he doesn't.

There's something... unsettling about this, now.

Jetfire swirls the last sip of his energon cube in his servo slowly, tearing his gaze away from the display outside to draw it downward, just to lose himself in the motion of the liquid, too.

His systems had properly rebooted and synced to the time and date provided by the ship, and it was well into Cybertron's night cycle now, the lights in the halls and rooms dimmed to soft hues of dark blue to reflect what their home's night sky would be, but the light display outside the window to this temporary suite counteracted any sort of relaxing effects the ship's lighting could have given him.

He didn't mind. Jetfire couldn't get himself to recharge, anyways. Not like bright light was going to do any more harm. It was a pretty distraction from the rampage of thoughts that have been plaguing him over the last day, but even it's shiny luster was beginning to fade in effectiveness.

With a heavy sigh, he downs the last of the energon and casts the cube aside. His HUD pings a happily little message about his fuel reserves sitting at a pleasant eight-seven percent.

Jetfire kicks his leg and spins in the reclining chair slowly, pretending like he was soaring through air.

Maybe he should go work on his final report of the mission. That would take up a considerable amount of time, no? He might even be able to work himself into a recharge if he focuses on the task enough. The datapad he'd been using to jot down his preliminary thoughts and timeline of events sat atop the unmade cloth berth, partially covered by the charging cable, and Jetfire finds he has zero desire to get up and actually do the work he needs to right now.

Damn it all. What's gotten into him? He was fine just hours ago being led onto the ship and getting a proper meal with proper companionship. Now, he felt...

Jetfire shutters his optics, forcing the active pathways in his HUD to stop and attempting to adopt some sort of meditative trance that he might be able to speed through the next several hours of the night and...

A knock at the door with a heavy hand, as impolite and rude as a knock could possibly sound. He blinks back into awareness just as soon as he's closed his optics, and Jetfire regards the door with a curious eyebrow raise before finally getting up.

And when he presses the button to activate the doors, and they part silently to reveal Starscream, he pauses again.

The Seeker avoids his gaze for a several vent cycles as he pretends to be preoccupied inspecting the new polish on his wrist, but there isn't a trace of any façade in his eyes when Jetfire does finally catch a look at him.

"Can't sleep?" Jetfire asks, surprising himself with how tired he sounds.

"Haven't tried." Starscream looks past him toward the room, and Jetfire can read the request to enter in the look he gives the berth, as if his own travel suite didn't provide the same accommodations. Regardless, Jetfire steps to the side, and he rushes in like he was diving for protection.

As the doors close, Starscream plants himself firmly on the corner of the berth, stiff and rigid, not quite... inviting, but not closed off enough to be avoided.

Asking him what's wrong feels stupid. Asking him if there's anything Jetfire can do for him feels even stupider, as he doesn't even know what to do for himself. So Jetfire simply joins him, sitting far enough away that their bodies didn't touch, but close enough that the outline of Starscream's body still sat in the corner of his optics.

They sit like that, letting the air stretch between them. For once, it doesn't pain him to sit like that. Starscream, though stiff and rigid as he was, was now a welcomed presence near him once more. Maybe he had always been, and Jetfire was simply pretending that he wasn't all along just to make the cold ache in his spark hurt a little less.

"Did you mean it?"

The way Starscream breaks the silence surprises him, and he lifts his helm to watch him with raised eyebrows and a slow blink. Starscream's gaze is already locked onto him, his servos gripping the edges of the berth. "... before you passed out. In the ship."

His recall subroutine takes less than a second to bring up the recorded files from before his latest shut down. The image and audio quality decayed with how low on power he'd been, and it takes a long moment for the audio feed to sync up properly. In that moment, dread feels Jetfire as he thinks up every possible horribly embarrassing or worse, incriminating, thing he could have said to Starscream that would drag him out to seek Jetfire's company once again.

You don't have to do this alone.

I want to help you.

Believe me.

Jetfire tilts his helm away, trying, and failing, to pay attention to the stars outside and not the one that sat beside him, wound together so tight he could have been mistaken for a statue. He tries to imagine himself as Starscream right now, tries to imagine the feelings that might be weighing his tanks down if he knew these were his last few hours of freedom, and that no matter how badly he'd like to go home, actually going home meant being returned to prison.

He could just be latching onto Jetfire's words because he wanted an easy out. Using the only olive branch he's been extended in years to climb up from his imprisonment and once he's gotten it, he'll run away, flee the scene of his crimes, and never return.

The Starscream of the past would have been itching to take that route. Seeing him here, now, asking about it even before they've landed, makes the war-born cynic in Jetfire shout in alarm, because of course Starscream would be asking about himself. No 'are you keeping up okay?' or 'do you want to talk?' or 'nearly dying again didn't scare you half to death all over again, did it?', yet, stupidly, Jetfire cannot bring himself to be mad. Not in good faith.

Damn it all. This stupid mech always did this to him.

"Yeah," he finally says. "I did."

Starscream looks forward, watching the display beyond the ship, and Jetfire wonders if Starscream is just as in awe of the spectacle as he is. "Why?"

"I meant it when I said I still cared about you."

This earns him a rueful laugh from Starscream. "Why?"

Jetfire huffs, shrugging a shoulder. "Because I..." am stupid? Am an idiot who likes being hurt? Am still in love with him? "Want to believe in you. I want to believe you're better than everything says you are, or even how... you might act like you are. I know you-"

"You knew me," Starscream interrupts, making Jetfire groan in anguish.

"See- it's that! You- you keep trying to push people away! You want to act like you don't need anyone when it couldn't be further from the truth." Starscream twitches forward, as though he meant to stand up and leave, but his face is conflicted, caught between a grimace and scowl. He's just... he's still trying to get a rise out of Jetfire, like Starscream wants to prove it to himself that Jetfire is lying.

"I still know you," he emphasizes, slowly reaching out toward the hand closest to him. "I'm not going to hurt you- or sell you out, or whatever it is you think I'm going to."

Starscream is silent for several long moments, and the pulsing of Jetfire's spark quickens, his vents shallow.

He's expecting... an outburst, maybe, but what he gets instead is a little huff of laughter, which should be better, though coming from Starscream's mouth, the sound was borderline hysteric. "Hurt me? You?" Begins Starscream with a soft voice. "Maybe. But not physically. I always assumed you'd take a more... intimate route. I don't know. Something worse a person like me deserved."

"Something worse than physical pain?"

"If you keep saying you know me, then yes."

Jetfire holds himself back, hesitant to say anything and risk chasing this moment off. This was big- wasn't it? Opening up should have been a major step, but they used to share so much together, hadn't they?

This wasn't a brand new development at all. This was a stroll down a lane they used to live on. The houses and trees and residents were all different, but they were still... them. And on this berth in this ship in space, that was what was most important. Jetfire rests his servo atop Starscream's and squeezes.

"I'm too used to physical pain," Starscream continues, seemingly unfazed by the contact. "Everyone does it- did it to me. That's just a part of war. It loses it's impact, and I figured you would know better than anyone that it isn't enough to keep someone down, or away, for that matter."

A memory of pain flickers to mind, along with the image of Starscream standing over him, smoke billowing from his null ray as energon poured out of the hole in Jetfire's chassis. The crazed look in those violently red optics that had let Jetfire to think his beloved Ulchtar was truly, thoroughly, gone.

"It might have been true before. But it isn't now." With his free hand, Jetfire touches his chassis, feeling where the jagged edges of Starscream's patchwork effort to save him used to be. It'd been replaced by a more sophisticated regenerative alloy sheet, and the surface was smooth to the touch, but it still felt like it was holding him together. Like Starscream's efforts were still holding him together. "I changed. And so can you- I think you already did."

Starscream makes a face, clearly moments from asking what the hell he meant be that, but one look at where Jetfire's other hand was, and he stopped, seemingly coming to a total halt. "I... I didn't, I just." He makes an attempt at pulling his hand away, but Jetfire only squeezes it tighter.

"What? Are you gonna say fixing me was an accident?" Starscream scowls and opens his mouth, but Jetfire rushes to beat him with a growing smirk on his face. "Bit hard to accidentally save my life like that."

"I would have looked bad if I didn't!" The Seeker finally snaps, looking away sharply, like he thought that would stop Jetfire from seeing the rising blush on his cheeks. "And I just would have gotten more time added to my sentence." Jetfire's smirk deepens, and he goes long enough without saying anything that Starscream slowly peaks back at him. "What?" He snaps. "Wipe that look off your face."

Jetfire slowly threads the digits of their hands together. "Thank you," he says, hoping his voice conveys how genuine he feels for this. "I mean it." Starscream's shoulders slump, his folded wings lowering as whatever fight was fueling him leaves. Emotion continues to war in his optics even though he keeps his mouth shut.

He didn't know where to go from here, not with Starscream, not with himself- but it wasn't like that was new, was it?

Jetfire knew trying to keep Starscream in his life going forward wasn't going to miraculously fix that, but at least with him, there was someone else afloat with him in that constantly drifting void that was the future.

✦

The true return to normalcy is even stranger than the trip back home was, mostly due to the fact that life on Cybertron continues on as though nothing ever happened. After all the war and terror its people had been through as a collective, the quiet horror two mechs faced on a planet out in the depths of space alone meant little when so much focus was placed instead on getting their own world straight again.

Something about that was... comforting.

Jetfire was glad their mission wasn't headline news. He didn't know what he'd do with himself if they had returned home only to be swarmed with reporters wanting to know every gruesome detail of what they encountered. Those who needed to know would be given a copy of his and Starscream's reports, and after they were done analyzing it, the only people who would continue to speak of it would be the few mechs still crazy enough to want to go rocketing off world before Iacon had better resources to devote to exploration vessels.

The words he and Starscream shared still weigh on him, even as he returns to the construction site he left behind. The promise he made, the many more promises he should have added to it. He told Starscream to believe in him.

Believe in him, Jetfire sighs. How could he have nearly begged Starscream to do such a thing, when he, himself, was just floating about, letting those around him decide his own fate for him? Giving him tasks to do, assigning him teams...

"Oh- Jetfire!"

The call of his own name startles him, and he's shocked to not only find himself at the entrance of the fenced area that blocks the construction site off from the rest of Iacon, but to find Wheeljack standing there, two cubes in hand. "Were you... waiting for me to show up?"

"Yeah, obviously." Wheeljack hands him one of the cubes, and Jetfire accepts it, despite having ate before already. "I wanted to come tell you in person that the council's finished reviewing your reports."

Jetfire places the cube into subspace and blinks in surprise, lifting his eyebrows high. "I... did they have anything to say..?"

"Ah, not really, just they agree better surveillance of the planet was likely needed before we tried attempting such a mission." His optics crinkle and he looks away as he speaks, his voice taking on a more sheepish tone. Jetfire wonders if he got chewed out at all for the what happened, or if the council wanted to chew Jetfire and Starscream out for wasting so much equipment when they didn't have much of it functioning right now. "I did want to tell you that we recovered a lot of the data you made at the site, and some of our own decided to try and complete what was started."

"Anything good?" Jetfire asks, though what he really wants to ask is: was it worth us almost dying over?

"There's an entire layer of raw energon buried beneath a few miles of sediment under the planet's surface," Wheeljack puts his own cube away in favor of pulling up a holographic projection from his wrist, showing Jetfire a slowly spinning sphere with a heat-area map flashing multiple large blotches of bright red. Jetfire leans in a little, his optics widening a fraction.

"It's all energon?" He asks, breathless, letting out a little huff when Wheeljack nods and hums.

They'd been so close to so much. And Jetfire had gone and ruined it by getting distracted by his own stupid interests. He stands up straight again and attempts to stomp those feelings out before they rise any further in his helm.

What's done is done. Wasting time on making himself feel bad for something he couldn't undo would only serve to make him feel miserable with no end in sight. Besides, if he really wanted to make up for this, he needed to...

"Well," Wheeljack claps the sides of his thigh with his free hand and rocks back on his heels, giving his helm a shake. "Aside from that, there wasn't much else to say. Just that'll be our last off-worlding mission for a while."

"Wait- really?" Jetfire asks, shocked. Surely they weren't calling all explorations for the foreseeable future off just because of some possibly-sentient goo. They've encountered far worse in their past and braved through it for far less. "But, you just said, there's tons of raw energon on that planet."

"Yes, but, there aren't nearly enough resources for use to go get those resources without sacrificing projects at home." Wheeljack makes a sweeping gesture toward the construction site "We have to rely on mining veins closer to Cybertron, for now. Our radar scans show that there might be healthy ones yet." He makes a wounded sound, looking genuinely upset as he says, "I... might have gotten too ahead of myself, sending you two out there like that without taking proper precautions. We should have spotted that thing long before you were in any position to be hurt."

Quickly, Jetfire throws his hands up in a placating motion and shakes his head. "It's not your fault," he assures, though truthfully wasn't all too certain if he totally believed in what he was saying. Certainly, some of it was Wheeljack's fault. Most of it, actually, if he was the one to pick a planet so far out when they lacked the technology to give planets proper detailed scans from such distances, but it wasn't like Jetfire was just going to say that to him. "That... stuff had developed incredible camouflage, maybe it had developed to the point where it could even fool our scanners, since we only look for specific signs of life."

This only makes Wheeljack sigh even deeper, his sounds growing into a groan that he slouches into. "All the more reason I should have taken some with me to observe," he cries morosely. Jetfire winces. Before he can comment about how that kind of thinking was what nearly led the substance to killing him, Wheeljack straightens up. "I'll let you get back to that rowdy bunch of yours," he drawls, while Jetfire just cocks his helm in confusion.

"The Constructicons? They're not-"

"Ay, bossman's back!"

"Yo!"

"Bossman!"

The arrangement of three new voices brings their attention toward the site beyond the fence, where Long Haul and Mixmaster stood in the gaping maw of Scapper's alt-mode, lifting them both high up into the air in a way that was undoubtedly not safe. "You missed it! All the slabs are all done!" Two of them declare, though Jetfire isn't quite sure which two of them.

"Uh," he instinctively reaches for the back of his helm, rubbing it. "I'll... I'll be down in a moment to see! We'll figure out what to do from there!" He calls

Their reply is a mix of hooting and more hollering down to the rest of their group else where on the site.

"You were saying?" Wheeljack snorts. Jetfire smacks his lips playfully, and the inventor laughs. "I'll see you around, Jetfire. Unless you-"

"Actually-" Jetfire's interruption cuts them both off. He avoids looking at Wheeljack, though he knows the mech is watching him, instead keeping his eyes fixed on the gaggle of former Decepticons there were back to being tiny little figures in the dirt, talking amongst each other animatedly, without much of a care in the world. How free they all look together down there, he thinks.

Jetfire looks down at Wheeljack, determination filling his face. "I... there is something I want to ask you." Wheeljack's optics brighten, the finials of his helm lighting up as he hums inquisitively.

✦

"Beginning experiment trial number twenty-four," Starscream dictates into his recording software, watching with a bored expression as the latch between the distilled iodine and soiled energon is removed, and the first few beads of powdery blue begins to collect at the base of the tube. Starscream waits until they drop, fanning out into the murky energon and forming a film along the top of it.

He sighs, optics narrowing. He already knows this trial is a bust, but has to at least provide the physical evidence that there was an attempt on his behalf.

The cramped walls of his laboratory feel even more cramped than they used to not one week ago. Despite his hatred of organic life, the wonders of real, genuine wind on his plating and sunlight warming his wings had been... Primus, it had been euphoric. At least compared to the sterile lights and chilled recycled air he'd grown accustomed to.

He should have fought more when Prowl assigned him to that stupid mission. He should have pitched a fit like never before and made it so Prowl had no choice but to restrain him and send him back to his cell for a month. At least then, he wouldn't have been reminded about everything he was missing out in life now.

At least then, he wouldn't be stuck with the knowledge that everyone he'd hated was living a happy life holding servos with their former enemies and skipping through fields of flowers together. He wouldn't have been reminded of how tender Jetfire made him feel.

Starscream smacks his lips and scowls, claws tightening over the lip of the counter top.

'Believe in me,' was what Jetfire had said to him.

"Believe, my aft," Starscream mutters. Two weeks, and not a peep from anyone except a maintenance bot come to service Starscream's energon dispenser, and he hadn't even risen to any of his jeers or snide comments!

He thought he was done believing in mechs that weren't himself. The last time he did so, he'd ended up on the front lines of a civil war with a burgeoning revolutionary and his wicked way with words.

"Trial concluded," Starscream announces, reaching out to clamp the line shut and stop the waste of iodine. "Results inconclusive, further trials must be held to..."

His monotonous drone of words trail off, as the sounds of the heavy, creaking doors down the hall from his lab echo, signaling someone's arrival. Starscream looks around quickly, leaping into action to hide things he isn't supposed to have- but there isn't anything to hide. Everything given to him was cleared by Prowl, and he no longer has access to his subspace.

Starscream turns and leans on the counter, attempting to act as normal and natural as he could for Prowl's impending arrival, cooking up a brand new batch of insults and carefully crafted slights that were probably not going to warrant Starscream any reaction at all, but a mech could dream.

Except it... isn't Prowl. At least, those aren't his pedesteps coming down the hall.

Whoever is walking toward him is... heavy, and huge. A massive frame that could still walk quickly, and likely wasn't stepping with their entire pede, like they were conscious of how loud they were and actively attempted to mitigate this with every step they took.

Realization begins to dawn on Starscream's face, but he still holds himself back from reacting too much out of fear that he's wrong.

He pushes himself upright and stares as a keycard is swiped and the door chimes pleasantly, granting access and swinging inward.

Jetfire stumbles directly into the wall above the doorway with a 'bang!', wincing and rubbing his forehelm gingerly as he lowers himself and steps through. "Ow, ow, ow..." he whispers to himself, turning to scowl at the metal wall like it did it on purpose. Starscream can only blink and stare, disbelief building up inside of him the longer Jetfire just... just... exists in this space that's supposed to be his prison.

The shuttle recovers from his awkward entrance quickly and stands as tall as his height will allow him to with such a low ceiling. "This is horrible," Jetfire grumbles emphatically, glancing between the ceiling and the other points of interest in the room. "How can we still construct buildings like this? I have to have a word with Long Haul about establishing some sort building regulations going forward. It's got to be some form of frame discrimination at this point-"

"What," Starscream interrupts, unable to contain the elephant in the room any longer, stopping Jetfire's ramble about discriminatory practices against larger frames dead in its tracks, "the hell are you doing here?"

"Oh!" Jetfire smiles, reaching into his subspace and procuring a datapad that he promptly hands over to Starscream, who cautiously accepts it. "I've haggled your sentence down!"

Starscream blinks. Partially from shock, and partially because it'd been so long since he actually blinked that his optics were beginning to burn. "You... what?" He manages to get out, narrowing his gaze at the dark screen of the pad for a moment longer before turning it on.

"It's... conditional, and I wasn't able to net you a total release, but," Jetfire continues to speak even as Starscream's optics sweep over the wall of text on his screen, and he feels his tanks lurch for an entirely new reason. "Wheeljack and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out a release that would make the council happy. Can you believe it? All these years, and we still have to work to please a council." He snorts. "But, it's better than nothing- so don't act all... 'put upon' when you see it."

It has to refer to the bottom most paragraph of text.

Effective immediately, Starscream wasn't a criminal of Cybertron, but a prisoner of Iacon. A distinction that meant he wasn't the worst of the worst, locked up in tiny boxes for the rest of his life, but a paroled individual that wasn't allowed to leave Iacon, but could have full reign of the city.

The bitter corner of Starscream's processor wants to snap that this is hardly a good deal, considering what was technically "Iacon" was little more than a few cobbled together buildings in between a multi-million year old city that had been reduced to rubble in the matter of a few thousand years, but he doesn't act on it.

"The wing locks..?" Starscream exhales, his wings twitching with the desire for release.

"That's the other caveat," the tone of Jetfire's voice makes Starscream's spark seize. Is he stuck like this for the rest of his life? What good was freedom if it didn't include his freedom to fly? He was built for it- surely there was someone with wings on this newly made council of leaders that could-

Jetfire lifts another data pad from his subspace, this one thinner, an older model, the kind Starscream distinctively remembers Windblade lugging around from whatever old-fashioned junkyard-type of shop she found all of her goods, and the kind Starscream has been uploading and writing all of his chemical trials with tainted energon in. "We still have to purify this energon first before you actually get to leave."

"... we- we?" Starscream jerks back, eyebrow shooting upward while Jetfire levels him with a equally surprised look.

"Well... of course," he says, as if this should be obvious. "You didn't think I was just gonna dangle this over your head and leave- did you?" Starscream blinks. He wouldn't know, nicer mechs have done far worse in the past. Jetfire just snorts and smiles, walking up beside him and setting the pad down. "I made sure to read through every report you've made this far- and I have a few suggestions we can try on reversing the chemical polarity..."

Starscream continues to stare in wonder, like Jetfire is some... marvelous, amazing ray of sunshine and beauty. "You're going to help me," he mutters, still in shock and processing reality at a rate much slower than he should.

Jetfire huffs, humor coloring his tone. "Well, at this rate, it looks more like I'm going to be the one doing the work, unless you're going to close that mouth up." Starscream hadn't even realized his mouth had been hanging open, and he snaps it closed with an audible click. Jetfire grins. "Come on, partner. We've got our work cut out for us."

Slowly, Starscream matches Jetfire's smile, feeling the beginning corners of his spark start to unfurl- just a little.

Instead of starting to work like the Shuttle so clearly wanted to, he lurches forward, catching Jetfire by surprise and nearly knocking him down as Starscream leapt to kiss him, mashing his lips to his with a furious passion for a second before lowering the intensity to something Jetfire could match, their mutually shared smiled breaking the seal of their kiss. Jetfire wraps his arms around Starscream's hips, pinning him onto his chassis seeing as the Seeker wasn't able to do it himself.

Little whisps of laughter sneak out between kisses, floating up into the air, warming the space between them as Jetfire stumbles back against the counter, parting his legs so Starscream could come between them.

Trial twenty-five could wait. Starscream had to catch his partner up to speed before anything else could begin.