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Starscream woke up, yet again, to a bright orange ceiling above him, and he braced himself for another. . . trying day. See Optimus? He could work on his “““negative””” language. It was great.
He sat up slowly, stretching his wings out behind him with a tremble and a yawn. It didn't hurt as much as it often tended to, since he’d managed to get a proper berth pad. To think that these grounders hadn't the slightest idea of the accommodations needed by those with wings—he would assume they might catch a clue from the young aerialbots at least, but apparently the little bits didn’t know that their wings weren't supposed to hurt after every recharge cycle!
He nearly smacked Ratchet over the helm for that one, but decided instead to send him a data-pack on the care of winged and rotored sparklings (a packet he couldn’t remember why he had. . . a school project, perhaps). The Autobots certainly hadn’t anything similar within the Iaconian archives.
Ratchet, for his part, seemed to take the criticism to spark, if he took into account the numerous tiny fliers running up to him and thanking him for the new berths.
(And he made a note to talk to that medibot about keeping his damn intake shut. Starscream had a reputation to uphold, after all.)
In any case, his wings felt. . . fine. At least in regards to the berth situation. They still ached in an abstract manner, sensors firing randomly and making him twitchy, and it felt like it was migrating all the way to his backplates.
Starscream pushed himself to his peds with a groan. Nothing a long trip to the washracks couldn’t fix.
🃁
It turns out, there were things that long trips to the washracks couldn’t fix. It felt nice for a while, but the sparkbreaking reality of having to eventually leave the racks and get on with his day dawned on him eventually and really sucked the satisfaction out of the whole thing.
But what’s a mech to do? If he felt like hiding in a miserable ball all day he would’ve found a nice hole to starve himself in, but instead he stalked his way to the energon dispenser in the rec room and—discreetly—pumped as much gold and cobalt into his cube as possible. He pulled up his recent pings while he sipped it in a corner far, far away from everyone else in the room.
Unsurprisingly, the Prime wanted him at a sort of war room meeting, something about Megatron’s latest attacks on human research facilities, almost certainly in an effort to bring yet another hare-brained scheme to fruition. How fun. Starscream couldn’t wait to get a front row seat to that circus. Even better if Ironhide was there to threaten his well-being again. That was his favorite part, really. Added a lot of spice to his new life.
He checked the time listed in the ping, and he was due in the north war room in. . . five minutes ago.
Great.
Starscream rushed to the meeting with a scowl on his face and a candy-sweet cube in-hand.
🃁
This whole situation was not his fault. Starscream could take responsibility for plenty of things in his time, but he was drawing the line here. This slag was not his fragging fault.
The stuck-up enforcer bot holding his servos behind his back would probably disagree.
Let’s start earlier; Starscream was sitting in an uncomfortable seat between said enforcer bot and a paranoid EMS siren, nursing his energon and half-listening to Ironhide complain about—er, report on the latest siege, when he noticed an interesting pattern between all of the attempted raids so far.
Perhaps the issues all started when Starscream didn’t deign to raise his servo to speak like a good little Autobot, not that the others did that either.
“Since you mentioned the distinct lack of explosives and explosive rounds being used recently,” Starscream began, cutting off Ironhide’s inane ramblings and causing everyone in the room to stare at him with various levels of disdain. Starscream was not awake or pain-free enough to care. “We’ve established that whatever Megatron desires with these facilities is not strictly destructive—and it’s hard to believe that it’s due to a sudden change of spark for the mech regarding organics.”
Ironhide narrowed his optics and crossed his arms, clearly upset with having his nonsense interrupted in favor of actual intelligent progress on the topic of the meeting. “Oh yeah, Screamer? Not like you, eh?”
Starscream in-vented deeply and counted back from ten in his helm. His favorite, favorite part. “Yes yes whatever you say—now, the premier reason for this would be to preserve the equipment for further use by the Decepticons, though that brings the question of why they would need to steal primitive human technologies in favor of using Cybertronian-based—”
“That’s real interestin’,” Ironhide interrupted in turn, “Sure sounds like ya give a great big damn about those ‘primitive’ humans and such.”
Starscream resisted the urge to make furrows in the lovely meeting table with his talons—and no Prime, he didn’t actually believe that your crew was free of functionalists nowadays; they might let those war-born twins wander around with their claws tucked away but Starscream sure caught a few mecha staring at his—
“That has nothing to do with what I’m talking about. What matters is that Megatron is clearly planning something with all this machinery he’s stealing, so we should focus on getting the science and construction teams to review a list of everything both stolen and attempted stolen and narrow down what they could possibly be trying to build—”
“Oh, I think it has plenty to do with this.” Third consecutive interruption.
Deep vents deep vents deep vents. Pretend you’re in open debate at the Science Academy.
Oops. Didn’t help. Only made him angrier.
“How so?” Starscream asked perfectly genially, smiling and/or baring his fangs, whichever interpretation was preferred.
“Glad ya asked,” Ironhide drawled, “If ya don’t give a slag about these organics, then how can you be trusted to come up with plans dealin’ with preventin’ them from bein’ attacked?”
Starscream’s forced grin became even more forced and he really did dig his talons into the table that time. “Good thing I didn’t make any mention of attack prevention then!” he chirped.
Ironhide’s expression took on a smug quality as though he’d just proved his point. Which he didn’t. The only thing he proved was that Ironhide’s love of rocket-launchers had left him without a pair of functioning audials and an active logic center. “Why should we be listenin’ to your scrap, then? If ya couldn’t give a frag one way or another?”
“Because,” Starscream said through grit denta, quickly rethinking his plan to stay civil, “If Megatron is planning to build a planetary death-ray, and I happen to currently live on said planet, then I might want to stop that from happening, maybe.”
“Or,” Ironhide drawled, “You’re just ”blowin’ smoke up your own pretty little aft and ya expect us to just sit here and—”
“Ironhide,” Optimus warned, the first thing he’d said that meeting since the introduction.
Too late.
Starscream stood violently and slammed his servos on the table, pushing his chair back with a horrible shriek. “No no Prime! Let him finish!” he seethed, hiking his wings high, “Tell me more about my ‘pretty little aft,’ would you? Instead of addressing my points—”
In his rage, Starscream did not notice the paranoid bot beside him squawk in alarm, stand up, and reach for his back.
“—And I’m sure you’d love it if I were to sit around all quiet like a good piece of optic-candy while—”
He cut himself off abruptly when a servo gripped the leading edge of his wing and pulled hard, as though trying to drag him away from the table.
His lenses narrowed to slits and his frame reacted before his processor, and he rammed his fist directly into the nasal ridge of the mech behind him.
The rest happened quickly; Red-Alert squawked even more, the room exploded into pandemonium, and Prowl had him pressed against the table with his servos held behind his back before he could blink twice.
Great choice you made with this one, Starscream. Way better than the Decepticons, truly. This place is amazing.
Starscream stopped to catch his breath despite doing very little, and he pulled his wings as tight to his frame as he was able. The sensors in them were practically screaming at him, as that glitch of a Praxian was damn-near leaning his entire not-inconsiderable weight on them.
In his periphery, he saw Optimus stand up as well.
“Soldiers,” he barked, loudly, over the incoherent chattering of the rest of the room, bringing with him a sudden silence.
Starscream was quick to break it. “Your soldiers attacked me, Prime,” he snarled, doing his best to make optic contact while unable to turn his helm, “Now please order your dogs off of me!”
Optimus opened his intake to respond, but someone else beat him to it.
“I attacked you?” Red-Alert practically howled—and people call him loud? “I was preventing you from attacking my coworker!” He said all this while clutching his leaking nasal ridge, but not even perfectly justified bloodshed could make Starscream feel better. He couldn’t help the ugly snarl that escaped him as he listened to the bot’s pathetic sniveling.
“That big bad weapon’s specialist of yours is so weak to my words that you must protect against them with force?” Starscream mocked, jutting his chin towards the big mech in question, who was holding himself with such an air of both self-righteousness and disgust that Starscream changed his mind—yes actually, perhaps he did want to put a few more scars on his infuriating faceplate.
“Words?!” Red-Alert shrilled, incredulous. “You looked like you were ready to leap across the table and assault him!”
Starscream narrowed his optics at him, pulling his lips back. “I always ‘look’ like I’m ‘about’ to do something, don’t I?” he hissed, engine growling low, “Let me guess, you saw it in my caste—I mean,” he laughed, though the sound was far from happy, “optics.”
“Enough,” Optimus snapped, slamming his palm against the table, not unlike how a judge may bang a gavel. He was glaring at the group’s direction, but curiously enough, his ire didn’t seem focused on Starscream at all. “Prowl, release Starscream this instant. I have observed no violent intent in his actions, up until and including now.”
Ironhide, ever the pragmatist, opened his mouth once more. “But Prime—”
“I will speak with you later, privately,” Optimus interrupted, then turned back towards them. “Prowl, that was an order, not a request.”
Starscream felt Prowl very, very reluctantly loosen his grip, and he tore away his wrists in record speeds. As he whirled on the mechs behind him and scowled, Prowl spoke his first set of words since the whole thing began. “I believe I had every reason to—”
Starscream clicked loudly to prevent Prowl from spilling that deluge of slag he was about to be forced to listen to. “klk klk klk, not interested,” he trilled, rubbing his scuffed wrists and flicking his aching wings up and down, “Please save it for your superior officer. And speaking of—” he turned towards Optimus, expression carefully masked, “Prime. Do I ever appreciate your personal invites to these delightful parties, but I am afraid I’ll have to call it quits on them for a while, or at least until you learn how to get your animals to behave around me.”
Starscream then walked over to the door, letting his heels click loudly against the floor as he passed Optimus by. “If you desire my input on anything that you might invite me to a meeting for, either talk to me in person or send me a ping to respond to. Anything else, and I expect you to shove it up your wise, merciful aft.”
With all that said, Starscream slammed the door behind him with a metallic clang.
🃁
Starscream could’ve only hoped that chewing out a group of irritating Autobots and fragging off to sleep the rest of the afternoon away would’ve fixed his back pain, but alas, much like showers, the relief was temporary. Starscream was soon lying face-down on his berth in a failed attempt to recharge while resisting the urge to slam his wings into a wall and cry.
It should not hurt that much, he knew. He was no doctor, but he knew a few little scuffs on the edge of his wings shouldn’t feel like a rust-infected turbofox bite, but just because it shouldn’t doesn’t mean it didn’t. He even checked, several times, thrusting his wings at the mirror and looking for so much as a dent, but not even.
His frame refused to let him initiate recharge while it was under siege from such horrendous damage, so Starscream eventually cut his losses and left his room, looking for. . . something. Logic would dictate he go to the medbay, if for nothing else besides a pain blocker, but that would require an interaction with Ratchet, and Starscream had quickly learned during his stay on the Ark that Ratchet was a perfectly tolerable mech up until the point you became his patient. In such a case, he became an insufferable harpy filled with nothing but righteous anger and was best avoided at all costs.
So instead, Starscream padded around base and wound up in the rec room for the second time that day, this time blessedly deserted. He grabbed a small cube, stuffed it with enough copper to settle his tanks (and some gold), warmed the energon like a pathetic sparkling, and finally slid into a small corner booth facing the exits.
He stretched out over the table and laid his helm on his arm, willing his mind to wander, to think of anything besides pain.
It was a bit difficult.
He did manage to at least zone out, which was the only reason he jumped when the rec room door swung open and revealed the silhouette of a tall, broad mech.
Starscream blinked slowly as crystal blue optics locked with cool garnet, the Prime’s lenses flickering a bit as they adjusted to the darkness.
“Ah, Starscream,” Optimus greeted quietly, stepping into the room a lot more silently than he would’ve expected from a mech of his size.
A few weeks ago, Starscream probably would have been at least a little apprehensive of his new leader walking towards him in a dark, empty room right after he punched his security officer and insulted him to his face, but Starscream generally understood at that point that Optimus was as much of a pushover as he was a staunch moralist. Since his quote-unquote ‘integration into the Autobots’, he could hardly count on two servos the number of times the Prime had raised his voice—let alone hit anyone—outside of battle, and he’d seen enough interactions between him and Ratchet to understand that angry rants and vicious insults rolled off of him like Earthen rain. Starscream could reasonably count on his safety with him; he had no weakness to puppy-optics.
Optimus lumbered his way towards his table, and after a few awkward moments of being stared at in silence, Starscream gave in and gestured for the Prime to sit beside him.
What Starscream had just said was a lie. He was weak to puppy-optics. Especially from stupidly nice and obnoxiously handsome librarians from Iacon.
“Hello Starscream,” Optimus said once he’d settled, and Starscream almost laughed, “How are you doing?”
Autobot high command really should let the Prime out of his hole to socialize more. Not quite the best at things that aren’t orders or speeches or shooting.
“Oh, just tell me what you want with me,” Starscream muttered, poking at his cube instead of looking at his company, “I hate small-talk.”
Optimus ex-vented, slumping just a bit in his seat. “Well, first of all, are you alright—physically I mean,” he amended quickly, avoiding any and all small-talk-adjacent questions. “I couldn’t help but notice that you did not go to the medbay after the, ah, meeting.”
Starscream finally looked the mech in the optics, though he didn’t deign to raise his helm from its comfortable position within the crook of his elbow. “I have a better question: is that siren doing alright? Did he go to the medbay?”
Optimus sighed. “Red-Alert is fine. The leaking stopped after a minute or two.”
“Goody. And the weapon’s specialist; did he require extensive therapy for all of the horrible things I said to him—”
“Starscream,” Optimus cut him off, a hint of exasperation coloring his tone, “Were you injured?”
He huffed, annoyed that his just and correct tirade was interrupted, but did begrudgingly make a show of shuffling his wings, doing his best to hide any twinges of discomfort. The newspark energon wasn’t helping, he still felt like slag.
“Not necessarily,” he eventually decided on, wincing. Ugh, couldn’t this have waited until morning? Starscream wasn’t as good at lying when he was tired.
“Okay,” Optimus ceded lightly, though his expression made it clear that the topic was far from dropped. “Now, there is something else I have to speak with you about,” a deep in-vent, “I would like to apologize on the behalf of my officers. Their behavior—”
Called it.
“Save it Prime,” he groaned, rolling his optics so hard they hurt. “You’re sorry for how they acted, you’re not functionalist you super promise, not the Autobot way, la la la,” Starscream sniffed, turning his chin up. “Don’t put words in your officer’s intakes. If I ever expect an apology from you, I’ll let you know.”
Optimus shrank back, nearly abashed. “I. . . understand your perspective, but I feel as though some of the onus still falls on me for—”
“No it doesn’t and no you didn’t. Move on.”
Optimus leaned back against the booth with something between a huff and a sigh. “Tough crowd, I suppose.”
Starscream raised a brow. “I think I’m the easiest crowd you’ll ever have, Prime. I only ask that you be a bit more forthright with me. In spite of my deepest wishes, I am not yet a politician.”
“Alright, you win Starscream. I will no longer apologize to you for the behavior of the mecha I command.”
“You say that like it’s unreasonable!”
Optimus rubbed his nasal ridge with a pinched expression, and Starscream smiled. “Let's move on. Clearly, no one is being convinced either way at this rate.”
“Let’s,” Starscream agreed.
Optimus nodded, relief clear in his field. “I would like to go back to what you said about ‘not necessarily’ being injur—”
“Nope.”
“. . .‘Nope’?”
“Mhmm.”
“I would prefer to know if either Red-Alert or Prowl harmed you during that altercation, so that their reprimands may be more appropriate.”
“I appreciate your appeal to my love of getting others in trouble, but no.”
“Look—” Optimus started, “I can see you holding your wings in an odd manner, at least from my limited frame of reference, so please, tell me the truth.”
“I never lied,” Starscream cooed, stretching idly, “I only said I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Starscream. . .” Optimus implored, but trailed off. Starscream snuck a glance towards him.
Frag. Bad idea. Those damn optics could constitute psywar, I swear.
“Fine! Fine. My fragging wings hurt, but your officers and their trigger-happy servos didn’t do slag to them, and I don’t know why—”
He was cut off when, while sitting up emphatically and spinning around, he hit the tip of his wing on the table edge. The resulting full-frame agony tearing through his struts knocked the air out of his vents. The pain only became bearable once the ringing in his processor lightened up and the Prime ceased his incessant, worried exclamations directly into his audials (with the assistance of a few encouraging elbows to the side).
Once the worst of it passed, Starscream planted his helm right back down onto the tabletop and shut his optics.
“. . .Yeah,” he finished lamely.
Optimus hummed sympathetically, and he could feel him shift beside him. “Do you want me to call Ratchet over here?”
“No,” Starscream hissed quickly, cracking an optic. “I’m fine.”
The sheer disbelief on Optimus’ face was nearly enough to lift his spirits. Nearly.
“Would you like me to get you a pain blocker, at least?”
“No, Prime,” he muttered. Pain blockers hardly work on me anymore, he didn’t say.
Optimus was silent for a moment, before speaking up again. “You were saying that you do not know the cause of this pain?”
“Mmh,” he mumbled into the table, dignity thoroughly abandoned after that earlier display, “Since I woke up today.” And every day before that.
Optimus looked away thoughtfully, then turned, almost sheepishly, back towards him. “May I. . . Would you mind if I checked?”
Starscream blinked. “‘Checked’?”
“Check your wings for injuries, I mean. If you are adamant about your refusal to go to the medbay. . . well, I apologize if the offer is untoward.”
A frown curled instinctually over his lips and he nearly hissed a quick retort for the Prime’s trouble, but he paused. He was a little ashamed to admit he had a hard time grooming his own wings—those things were massive, it’s not his fault he couldn’t reach the middle of his back! Before, he would’ve gotten help from his trine. . . no matter, he could manage just fine with a decent shower-head and a brush.
But if he were injured in a place he couldn’t see, well, logic would dictate that was what medics were for, but he’d denied going too many times at this point. The Prime’s offer though. . .
Starscream painstakingly shoved himself up to a somewhat-decent sitting position and slowly turned his back to Optimus.
“If you insist, Prime,” he answered steadily, watching for the mech’s reaction. “Go easy on me, we’re not in the redlights, grounder.”
Starscream suppressed a grin as Optimus jolted at the comment, faceplate warming. He was surprised the high-society mech even knew what the redlights were.
“Of course,” Optimus said, not quite making optic contact. “I will be careful.”
It shocked him, just then, how much he believed him. How awful.
Starscream could feel Optimus’ lenses roving over his back, and it took him so long to do anything else that he thought he’d scared him off from touching him at all, but then a large, warm servo brushed against the leading edge of his left primary, tilting it away for easier viewing.
All at once, Starscream’s mind went blank, in a far different manner than before.
When his senses returned to him, after a few milliseconds that felt like a few eternities, the first thing he thought was 'Oh Primus I know exactly what’s wrong with me.'
Starscream slammed his helm into the flaky mesh padding of the booth backboard with a low, self-pitying noise, and Optimus jumped.
“Are you alri—”
“If you ask me that one more time, I will punch you in the face.”
Optimus went quiet.
It was as though the miniscule contact had broken the seal; his wings felt like they were crawling with electricity, pinpricks of painful need tearing at his glitching sensors, so much so that it was nauseating.
Even more so by the reason—damn it all, he needed preening. He hadn’t seen his trine—and it was so obvious, now that he thought about it—since he’d left for the Autobots. Skywarp was so enamored by Megatron’s shiny aft that he refused to see reason, and Thundercracker—maybe he just liked Skywarp more than him. He didn’t know and he certainly didn’t care—
Starscream forced himself to vent evenly and to blink away the unprecedented beads of coolant gathering in his optics. Point was, outside of battle or other indiscriminate instances of violence, he hadn’t had his wings so much as touched since he’d left the Decepticons, and his tender flight sensors were finally punishing him for it.
“Starscream?”
Right. And Optimus was still there, watching him have a nervous breakdown over the cursed physiological needs of his frametype.
“Before you ask, Prime; No, you did not do anything wrong. I can feel you wanting to say it.”
An intake audibly clicked shut behind him, and Starscream laughed at him, a little deliriously.
“I’ve deduced the issue, by the way,” he added, “That, in and of itself, is also an issue.”
“How so?”
Starscream sunk further into the kind embrace of the seat cushions and practically whined, “Well it’s embarrassing, you see.”
“I will not judge you for any physical problems you may have.”
It is more of a personal shame, but thank you.
He stared blankly at his lap, considering the pros and cons of explaining the depth of the situation to some grounder who probably didn’t even understand that trines were bonded and not just a military title (thank you for that, Flight Academy of Vos).
On one servo, it sounded like too much work and he didn’t feel like doing much at the moment. On the other, his wings hurt so fragging much and the Prime might just understand enough to help him.
Okay, choice made. Pain made pretty good arguments and Starscream wanted to recharge at some point tonight.
“How much do you know about seekers, Prime?” he started with.
“. . .That feels like a loaded question.”
Starscream couldn’t help but snicker. “Okay, I’ll ask a better question; how much do you know about seeker trines?”
He watched Optimus begin to answer, but then he tilted his helm. “I. . . can’t say I know much. They consist of the other two seekers you fly with. Are they distinct from other military jet formations?”
Thanks again, Flight Academy. Your notoriety has created an entire generation of ignorant ground pounders. No wonder they think we’re all war machines.
“That’s not—” Starscream stopped, biting back some of that vitriol. Can’t fault the mech for not knowing, especially since he was pretty sure that the Vosnian government spread that misinformation on purpose. “We do fly with our trines, but it is not strictly militaristic. They are. . . important social structures unique to fliers.”
No matter how much he trusted the Prime, he did not feel like doing bond-talk. He’d seen Megatron intentionally kill off the mates of traitors too many times to trust military leaders with that kind of information. He believed in the safety of his trine with that warlord solely due to how good they were at making themselves useful to him.
Case in point, them not being very useful to Starscream during his defection, leading to this little snowball of a situation right here.
“One of the more important functions of a trine is to recalibrate the flight sensors of the other members.” Primus, I sound like a textbook.
“Not to be. . .” Optimus trailed off, “Well, could you not do so by yourself?”
Starscream quirked a brow. “Examine the length of my arms, and then the length of my wings.”
Amusingly, he actually did so, before looking a little embarrassed. “I see,” Optimus stalled a moment, ducking his helm. Thinking about it now, the mech was probably just as tired as he was. “And your flight sensors malfunctioning, that is the problem you are facing right now?”
“Yes,” Starscream breathed, shoulders dropping. “Due to my impromptu departure from the Decepticons, my trine can no longer assist me with this for obvious reasons.”
Optimus leaned heavily into his side, absorbing the discordant sociology lesson slowly, before he opened his intake to ask another question.
I bet it’ll be an extremely stupid questi—
“May I ask why you did not go to a medic for this? Recalibration sounds—”
“If the sensors in your spike happened to malfunction, would you rather fix it by yourself, or ask a doctor?” Starscream snapped, “Quit asking me about medibots.”
Optimus winced and shrank away from his glare. “A-apologies, I did not realize wings were. . . analogous. To that.”
In spite of the inherent satisfaction in making the Prime stutter, Starscream felt a little bad. He may have mildly exaggerated out of pain, frustration, and the traumatizing mental image of Ratchet petting him.
“No no,” he sighed, “It’s close, I guess. Something in-between.” Starscream studied Optimus’ frame for something to comment on zeroing in on his helm crest. “Your audial fins, they receive sensation differently than your armor, do they not?”
Optimus nodded, said finials canting forwards in an unbelievably—dare he say—cute manner.
“It’s like that, I believe. The difference is, you can easily touch the entirety of your finials.”
Understanding clearly dawned on the Prime, and he ducked his helm carefully, optics turned away from Starscream’s and returned to his backplates. Starscream shifted mildly as he waited for a proper response, though. . . he wasn’t sure what response he even wanted. An apology?—no no, he’d had enough of those from the Prime already. Did he want—want help, still? With this, he didn’t—
He sighed, shoving his wings down sharply in a vain attempt to ease the discomfort. He’d just had a conniption over how important familiarity was to preening, but was there even anyone within miles he actually trusted?
But he. . . Primus, he wasn’t stupid, in spite of how the past day made him look. He couldn’t go on like this. Especially now that he was explicitly aware of how bad it’d gotten, he just knew he would either have to deal with it soon or start abusing pain-killers like a syk addict. And with that said, he didn’t feel like staking his life plan on becoming a junkie.
So he would have to deal with this one way or another, and one particular way was sitting quite neatly behind him.
“Prime.”
Optimus straightened at the address.
“Now, know that when I say what I am about to say, that I mean nothing untoward,” Starscream stressed first, reluctantly catching Optimus’ optics, “But. . . I—I ask that you assist me. Just this once.”
God, I am never going to live this down.
It’s not as though he did not like the Prime. In fact, it had surprised him just how much he enjoyed the mech’s presence. Perhaps it was the sheer juxtaposition between him and Megatron; Starscream had come to the Ark, one wing snapped and half the struts in his frame broken, expecting hardly better than the Decepticons, only hoping for a mildly higher chance of survival if he were to spill enough insider secrets and a cell with a berth in it. But as time went on and the restrictions on him grew ever more lax, it came to his attention just how soft the Autobot leader was.
At first, Starscream had thought lesser of him for it. Now though. . .
Optimus’ gaze stilled on the back of his neck, and he stubbornly refused to meet his optics. In his periphery he saw his expression soften, and Starscream surprised himself by how little he was offended by the display of pity.
Or concern, his processor corrected.
“Are you sure?” Optimus asked, almost sounding worried, “I don’t want you to do anything you are not comfortable with.”
Starscream sniffed. “‘Do anything I’m not’—I am capable of making my own decisions you know, and I am asking you if you could do me a favor.” Finally having steeled his nerves, Starscream met the Prime’s optics carefully. “Besides, you. . . I do not hate you as much as you must assume. If I minded you touching me, we would not be here right now.”
A soft, slow ex-vent escaped Optimus, and his plating settled over his frame. “I will help you, of course,”—and he says ‘of course,’ as though helping me is a given—“but, ah. . . I’m afraid I’m not sure how to recalibrate your flight sensors.”
“Just,” Starscream hummed, processor going a little slow under the prospect of some much-needed attention. He definitely needed to delete these memory logs after he woke up tomorrow. “Just run your servos over the plating, like, mmm. . .” he tried thinking of the least provocative comparison possible, “Like in the manner that humans stroke their miniature feline companions.” Did that work? Primus, he was fragging tired.
“Cats,” Optimus corrected absently, “Right. Please tell me if I start doing it wrong.”
“Mmh,” he half-responded, sinking even further into the seat and offlining his optics. Considering the state of him, he probably wouldn’t even be able to tell if he started doing it wrong.
The air shifted close to his back, and a chill ran down his spinal strut as the warmth of Optimus’ frame sank into him, and Starscream was already dizzy with it by the time his servos actually curled over his plating.
Optimus slowly, hesitantly ran his palm over the flat plane of his wings, ripples winding through the overtaxed sensors and leaving him breathless. The feather-light pressure ached, almost painfully at first, but eased into something sweeter after the first few touches. Starscream’s engine rumbled to a loud purr before he could stop himself. He wasn’t sure if he was even capable of stopping at this point, but he also couldn’t bring himself to care.
The servos stumbled over his wings a little, but mercifully continued over the tender metal dutifully, each sensor lighting up in turn under his digits. Each stroke warmed and soothed more than he was expecting. He didn’t know how he could stand to be without this for so long.
“I’m assuming that means I’m doing it right?” Optimus asked, ever-so-slightly coy in a way that he would never be able to convince anyone of and could hardly really believe himself. Starscream made a half-hearted attempt to tell him to go frag himself over the thick purr in his throat, but only managed a few needy clicks. Instead, he focused on shoving his wings further into the Prime’s grip.
“I understand,” Optimus soothed gently, continuing to work over his plating, shifting his attention closer to the base, “I won’t tease, I promise.”
Starscream ignored his assurances and busied himself by shuffling back against Optimus’ lap. Just a bit. Not much, he swore.
His digits eventually made their way towards the hinges of his wings, and a gasp tore from his vocalizer before he could help it. His optics shot open as he slapped a servo over his intake.
Too much too quickly on that one. Too much for his neglected wings, unfortunately.
And unfortunately still, the servos retreated entirely.
“Not there?” Optimus spoke up, sounding worried.
“No!” Starscream squeaked, then blinked, “I mean yes?—ah—” he hissed and shook himself, trying to re-engage his processor with reality. “I mean,” he breathed, “yes do that. If you may.”
Optimus blinked back at him and slowly reached again towards the base of his wings and cautioned a few gentle strokes, and Starscream braced himself enough to refrain from making any more strange noises.
Even so, he did chirr a little when one of the Prime’s large servos pressed right against his spinal strut. It made his legs weak and his helm fuzzy with the whole of it.
Starscream buried his face into the seat and surrendered himself to the feelings commandeering his processing power. Once this was all over (though he despised even the thought of it), he might just ask Optimus to make this a regular thing.
I wonder how often preening in necessary, he wondered distantly, attempting to engage his processor in something other than mindless pleasure, lest he pass out in the middle of the rec room on a hardly-comfortable bench, and a better question; how often can I convince the Prime that preening is necessary?
Starscream’s optics shuttered again despite his efforts, and he could feel the claws of recharge starting to get ahold of him.
And, after what seemed like mere moments later, he was being shaken gently by the shoulder, and he reluctantly onlined his optics with a whimper.
“Starscream?” Optimus murmured, so close to his audial that an electric shiver ran through him, “Are you with me?”
“Hwha?” was his quite eloquent response. What he’d meant was, ‘what did you say?’
Eh, close enough.
Apparently his nonsense was good enough for Optimus to understand, because he responded just as gently. “You slipped into recharge. You seemed tired enough so I was going to let you be, but. . . I assumed you might want to go recharge on something a bit more comfortable.”
Starscream was silent for a few long moments as he processed what was said to him. He didn't remember falling asleep but he sure believed it, considering the foggy haze of his thoughts along with the annoying crick in his neck.
“How long?” he asked eventually, trying to rub the pain from his neck cables, and it really must've said something about his state of mind that when Optimus raised a servo and stroked his neck as well, he hardly twitched. He was just too pacified by all the attention to consider the possibility of being attacked.
“Only a minute or two,” he answered evenly. “But it is still quite late, you really should be recharging in a berth by now.”
It took so, so much of Starscream's self-control and sense of self-preservation not to ask ‘can it be yours?’ That was, at the very least, uncouth.
“Perhaps,” he hummed instead, but added nothing else. The lethargy hadn't worn off at all since waking up—that was probably why he should be recharging right about now.
“‘Perhaps,’” Optimus repeated, and Starscream hadn't the wherewithal to figure out if the mech was making fun of him or not, though his tone was as sweet and good-natured as ever. “Have your flight sensors stopped bothering you as much?”
Oh certainly. Starscream purred lowly as he spread his wings and fluttered them a bit. Any scrap of pain from the past however-long period of neglect was replaced by a tingling, staticky warmth that flooded his frame. The Prime really had a lovely pair of servos on him—
“Is that a yes?” Optimus prompted, amusement coloring his tone. Starscream chuffed at him and curled deeper into the cushions.
“Rude.” This exclamation was heavily muffled by said cushions.
“My apologies, then.” A servo ran soothingly up and down his backplates, and Starscream was astonished by how comfortable the mech had gotten with touching him, and even more so by how comfortable he himself was in turn. Certainly a side-effect of chronic exhaustion and nothing more. The same could probably be said for the Prime as well.
“I did mean it though,” Optimus began again after a few more moments of this fondness, drawing his servo away from him. Starscream had to physically bite back a whimper when he did. “I will walk you to your hab, if you’d like.”
Ugh. Being this nice should be a crime. One day I’ll find out what the catch is with him. Maybe he used to house a secret cabal of seeker fetishists back on Cybertron. Maybe he’s overly obsessed with sports. Who knows.
Starscream, decidedly exhausted and more than willing to stretch his already-strained luck, opened his intake. “Carry me.”
Optimus stilled, and he nearly thought he’d pushed him just that bit too far with these comments and requests, but he did answer him.
“If you're sure,” he said amicably, and Starscream quickly found himself scooped into the large, strong arms of a convoy with little warning. He gasped openly.
“Oh, now I just know you're messing with me,” Starscream complained, wriggling in his grasp in an attempt to find a more comfortable position. The warmth of Optimus’ chassis seeping into his armor was not helping him have coherent thoughts.
“Sorry, Sorry,” Optimus breathed, beginning to lower him to the floor, “That was too far, I apologize.”
“No,” Starscream insisted, making yet another sudden and ill-advised decision that night, “I. . . aha, I, uhm. . . do not mind. It was my idea.” Starscream carefully dug his claws into the seams of Optimus’ plating. “Just don't drop me.”
Or put me down. It might hurt just as much.
Optimus looked surprised for a moment, but it was quickly replaced by a look that he could only describe as fond.
“Of course not,” Optimus assured, adjusting his hold on his frame with an ease only borne of raw strength. Again, Starscream’s legs felt weak at the thought.
Good thing I’m not walking, then.
Optimus started towards what Starscream could only assume was his hab (and never before was he so glad to be stationed so far away from the rec room), and he sank strutlessly into the near-embrace, not-so-subtly burying his face into Optimus’ neck with a shuddering sigh.
Oh—oh yes, this is nice. Far better than the booth. Prime is full of amazing ideas.
He was hopeless in keeping his optics open, and they fluttered closed without a fight. The rhythmic steps rocked his frame just so, lulling him further and further into the grips of recharge. Every part of his frame sang in contentedness and, for the first time in a very, very long time, he slipped into a deep, peaceful sleep.
🃁
Starscream woke up, as he so often did nowadays, to a bright orange ceiling.
He also woke up completely devoid of pain, and rested to the point of a warm, fuzzy haze over his processor instead of a helmache.
He checked his chrono, only to see the time to be well past noon. A jolt of anxiety hastened his sparkbeat, but it lessened as quickly as it came when he saw a single new ping on his HUD. From Optimus, of course.
‘Good morning, or whenever you are reading this. No meetings for you to attend today, but I would appreciate your critical optics on the reports I’ve attached below. Thank you.’
‘PS: I do hope that your sensors are feeling better now. If not, I do not mind assisting you again, if you so wish.’
Starscream's faceplate warmed more and more as the message went on, the memories of last night floating back to him and did even more so. At the last sentence he decidedly shut down his HUD and buried his face into an obliging pillow. A few more minutes of recharge wouldn't hurt anything.
And after that, he could get around to responding to the Prime’s request. The both of them, of course. . .