Chapter Text
“Tell him…Jetfire, just tell him the truth. It was always me…” Starscream both hands and knees on the floor as he just fell down from the cuffs that hung him on the wall for days ago. “Tell him you betrayed my trust. Because you thought you could…protect me…from their war–” - Starscream tries to hold himself up before Gold Bug impatiently frustratingly kicks the kneeling mech on the ground in the back.
“Shut up!! You don’t get it, Starscream! You ain’t flying out of here. Either Jetfire kills you, or I’ll kill the both of you!”
Before Gold Bug could activate his cannon for his misery small size, an ‘earthquake’ washed through the wall that surrounded them, through the base, through the floor that they stood on, signalling the moment Megatron and other Decepticons successfully destroyed the barrier between them and Autobot to give their attack the best shot.
“You seem…stressed. Is it because of all that noise outside? Sounds like Megatron’s—got you panicked. Boss” smirked Starscream, despite himself being so affected by the wave of all those motions too that he still couldn’t bring himself up together.
“HOW dare you?! —” Goldbug totally bought those mocking words.
And right in the middle of the crisis, Jetfire suddenly stands up and punches Goldbug’s visor’s corner into pieces that the force was strong enough to fly Goldbug out of their way for a few metres. But cannons were built to turn distance in battles into a total joke.
“I hope you can stand as well as you can talk, Starscream” Jetfire easily puts two of his huge hands under Starscream’s wings to help lifts the mech up effortlessly.
“That’s unfair. I’m a brilliant…speaker. But yes, I can” Starscream stumbles on his own legs when he stands up with Jetfire’s help, but perhaps the two will still manage to get out of that damned place anyway….
“Starscream, I —”
“Now isn’t the time. You’re not nearly…as eloquent as I…am” A sharp cough tears through the conversation. “Your action’s enough–”
“--I agree” that somehow covered the sounds of charging cannon.
“STARSCREAM!!!”
A loud deafening sound of cannon’s blast collided with Starscream’s back, forcing out a painful hiss from the hitted target.
“Talk indeed is a waste. It’s all about action” Goldbug smirked under the mask, while the cannon’s mouth was still fussing from the fire earlier on his shoulder pads
“No, no Starscream, not now—” Jetfire held the other’s shoulder tightly in his grip, as if doing so could help the other stay on their feet.
“Heh. He… missed my… spark”
“Good” Goldbug stands up from the floor, and takes his time slowly walking to the two as if he genuinely enjoys the scene.
From behind, while Starscream still held onto Jetfire for balance, for an instant, the world seemed to fall apart: When Starscream’s spark was grabbed, while still throbbing and alive. Physically by Goldbug and that moment when Jetfire’s expression was pure horror.
A scream instantly pierce through the atmosphere. Perhaps both, but it seems like Goldbug’s scream was slightly louder than Jetfire’s because he was the one that lost that one hand into the sudden light streak anyway.
“Starscream…?” Jetfire snapped out of that intensive mentally invasive moment before realising Starscream disappeared into the blinding alien light with one hand of Goldbug still in his spark’s chamber.
“WHAT DID YOU DO” Jetfire and Goldbug screamed into each other’s face, Jetfire was ready to punch the other side of Goldbug’s visor again while Goldbug was frustratingly holds the arm that missing the supposed to be hand but now was appeared with a clean cut still freshly spilling out energon.
—
Somewhere else outside the battle that was going on, Shockwave checked the transport chamber as the sounds went shut and when the light went out indicating the success of the operation, again.
When the grey dark figure covered in old battle scars steps up to open the doors with force, they had expected an another confused familiar red blue greyish body who would be inside screaming demanding answers for whatever just happened to them. Yet this operation brought him someone else entirely - they did not expect the figure inside would fall directly into their arms.
An unconscious Starscream with a bizarre hole in the middle of the back slid to the front of his chamber AND someone else’s hand grabbed the beating spark slowly loosen its grip.