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There's an ugly sort of single-mindedness that comes from pain. A separation of physicality from spirituality. Once a mech sloughed off most of his frame skipping across a bare hard surface on a high speed impact, there's a certain amount of thought left behind with the bits of his shattered frame.
A frame was an entity at base elements, looking to prolong its own function. It heaved to clear passageways. It shuddered and shook and shed pieces in frail attempts to grasp at life.
Getting shot down always made Starscream face that reality. That as lofty and aspirational as his goals were, he bled and would one day perish like the rest of them.
He wasn’t sure who it was who had landed the hit, the snowstorm had been wretched and the shot had most likely been a lucky guess more than phenomenal raw talent. But it had landed and Starscream had crashed and lost track of whatever odd macguffin they were fighting over that day.
His body had skipped across the barren icy landscape like a stone on water. He had finally ended in a skittering roll that approached the canyon at a daunting speed.
Maybe if he had been slightly less disoriented, he could have grabbed the ledge. He had certainly tried, scrabbling desperately for a moment before losing his grip and falling a couple hundred feet to land on a ledge of ice.
The ledge was generous, both in size and its ability to hold his weight and withstand the impact of his fall. Starscream glanced over the edge to see black nothingness, meaning there was yet still more to fall if he made a careless mistake. Wasn’t that the way it always was.
Starscream glanced up to see sunlight was a distant dwindling memory, a slim crack a few hundred feet up.The canyon was convex, getting narrower towards the top. Which meant he had little to no hope of being seen by air scouts. He tried his radio only to be met with a pathetic surge of static.
While he was sure the canyon shape didn’t help, the north pole of Earth had been notoriously perilous for Cybertronian telecommunications. Starscream sighed harshly as a prickle of dread rose in his fuel tanks. To top it all off, his wing was broken.
Megatron would kill him.
Scratch that. Megatron would dismember him, have him recite what an idiot he was on repeat in between bouts of begging to have his fuel tank reattached. Then he might kill him. Maybe. If he was feeling generous.
That was if the current situation didn’t do the job first. Starscream thought he landed in an ice canyon, which as far as dire situations on Earth went, was only slightly better than falling into a volcano, in that it at least offered him a bit of time to contemplate his own grave misfortune before killing him.
He had learned about ice canyons, Earth’s tidal cycles, warming patterns, all sorts of geological data. He had built hypotheses and even simulation models, all trying to understand what could have happened to Skyfire.
He’d long ago given up finding him in any serious measure, but had still gotten into obsessive bouts of trying to figure out what potentially could have caused his body to become so well hidden and undetectable so spontaneously.
He supposed it was his own attempt at a meager form of closure. His obsessive streaks often lined up with massive losses or failures in which secluding himself from Megatron’s line of sight was well-advised.
Down in the canyon he would have little hope of escaping without outside help. He checked his comm and it was impossible to get a signal out. A strange sort of relief came to Starscream with the realization that he was bereft of options besides yelling and hoping someone could hear him and would even bother to save him.
Nonetheless, he tried. He tried climbing out of the canyon only to fall several times, once landing on his broken wing, which left him wheezing in pain for an unspecified amount of time.
After giving up on that, he shouted and screamed and did anything he thought might garner attention. At one point he unsubspaced a rescue flare, attempting to see how high he could throw it, only to knock down an unsettlingly large amount of loose snow.
He settled into restless pacing after that, realizing that all his struggle might only amount to triggering an avalanche. In his state, that would be as good as a death sentence.
It must have been the delirium induced by his injuries that allowed him to first think death would offer any form of respite. He had never allowed himself to indulge in the fantasy of death. There was too much to do, too much at risk if he left things as they currently were, to the forces that be.
He had been huddling against a wall of ice, trying to conserve heat and thus fuel, for several hours when his systems had calmed down enough for him to notice a peculiar tug to his spark. It was a kind he got when lingering too close to a trinemate, and surely being alone made him all the more aware of himself.
He turned to see a familiarly large shape looming in silhouette. At first he didn’t recognize it through the darkness and fractured nature of the ice. He switched to infrared vision and saw a clear outline.
“Skyfire?” Starscream breathed. There was, of course, no response. It was mostly on reflex, but the sight had startled him.
Starscream drew closer, peering desperately through the ice, pressing his cheek against the cold wall as if proximity would clarify or answer the million questions bubbling up in his processor.
Encased in a moderately thin wall of ice was Skyfire. There was no doubt. Shuttles were a rare sort, unaligned shuttles encased in ice even more so.The ice distorted his frame to a wavering flimsy image. Peering more closely, Starscream could just make out the familiar white and red of his frame.
He stared at him in wonder for a while, blinking multiple times, afraid snow or the violent landing was deceiving him. But everytime he blinked, Skyfire was still there.
The next stretch was agonizing. Starscream couldn’t radio for help. Instead it was him, several hours of his thruster flame, and the unconscious body of Skyfire. He kept his thruster setting low enough so as not to melt his friend, but he would be unsurprised if the shuttle complained of sensory damage later. He was not exactly working with optimal tools.
The process was wiling away energon that Starscream admittedly didn’t have to spare.
It was around two thirds of the way through the melting process when Skyfire’s barest functions began to flicker on. Starscream wasn’t even sure if they would work, seeing how long Skyfire had been in stasis, but he supposed his luck had to turn eventually.
Starscream kept working, even as he heard Skyfire’s heating system click on in a desperate bid to keep him above freezing. Starscream unsubspaced a spare cube of fuel he always kept on him for occasions such as this.
He pressed it to Skyfire’s lips and tilted it up, watching as it drained slowly down. Starscream kneeled over him, patiently waiting for any sign of life to arise from his lifeless facial features.
About half an hour later, Skyfire’s optics came to life. He rose slowly, joints creaking and clicking with the effort as he rubbed his face and blinked blearily, staring at Starscream vacuously for a moment without speaking.
“Starscream?” Skyfire asked, his voice creaky and whispery but still oh so very familiar, even after all these millions of years apart. It creaked the same way, took the same shuddering little hitch it used to when Skyfire was overcome with an emotion at a situation, pushed beyond words.
Starscream felt parts of him breaking and giving way at the display of open tenderness. A part of him wanted to embrace vulnerable emotions he’d shut away for the better part of the war. Another part of him knew if he didn’t pull himself together and get out of this area, they would be in another volatile situation.
“Yes, it’s me,” Starscream answered simply. For once no lies or deceit arose, only the truth. “Skyfire, do you think you can fly?”
“Fly?” Skyfire said slowly, then paused. Starscream assumed he was checking over his equipment to see if it was flight capable. “I wouldn’t advise it,” he said after a moment of thought, before rubbing his face again. He was clearly still waking up, some of his systems taking a while to boot out of stasis.
“Can you not?” Skyfire asked, before he pulled a face. He seemed to have noticed Starscream’s snapped appendage and that brought him more fully into himself.
“You need a medic,” Skyfire said immediately, urgency plain in his voice as distress began to radiate through every fiber of his frame. How strange it was to see a reaction like that to something as minor as a broken wing. Starscream wouldn’t even bother to mention what his internal readings were telling him.
“I need,” Starscream was going to say he needed to contact his faction. Even that was a bad idea. “I need medical supplies. There are no nearby medics willing to help me.”
“Are you sure? I have a panic beacon, still, if I set it off, no one will come help?”
“They might come, but not to help,” Starscream admitted dismally. “The beacon is no good here. We need to get to higher ground. Please Skyfire, can you just help me to the nearest medical station?”
“I can,” Skyfire replied, concern still coloring his expression. “But if the medical station is of no help, is there no one I can call for assistance?”
“My injuries are not grave,” Starscream insisted, rising to a wobbly stand.
As he straightened he was immediately faced with the brunt of his lie as his whole frame wanted to cringe in on itself. Starscream swallowed a grunt of pain and forced himself upright. Still, he couldn’t suppress the involuntary tremor to his frame.
“Your wing is snapped, surely you must be in a great deal of pain,” Skyfire pushed, expression clouded with worry and stress as he glanced between Starscream’s dangling appendage and his face.
“I have suppressant patches. My systems will be alright for a while,” Starscream lied. The truth was he had wanted to lie down in the snow, set out a panic beacon and purge for the better part of the last few hours.
His frame was in shock so the pain in his wing was a dull, numb throb but Starscream knew from experience once the shock and perilous cold wore off his frame would be ravaged by pain and violent nausea on top of the distress he was already struggling to hide from Skyfire.
“Is your comm still active?” Starscream asked as he tried to remember if their comms would even still be compatible.
“It’s the same frequency it’s always been,” Skyfire said, opening a small panel on his wrist to show Starscream the glyphs on a minute screen.
Starscream quickly noticed the frequency was far too short for their current comm format. He scrolled through his settings and found the outdated version.
“Okay,” he sent a message to Skyfire. “Did you get that?”
“Received,” Skyfire said after a moment of quiet where he fumbled through his settings. He noticed his two most recent comms were from Starscream. Newer Starscream and older Starscream.
“I have quite a few unread messages from you on your old frequency,” Skyfire said with a flattered smile. His tanks were warm and fuzzy at the thought Starscream had kept talking to him through his absence.
“Ah,” Starscream seemed genuinely at a loss for words for a moment, looking slightly mortified before he schooled his expression again. “You should clear those out, they’re nothing important.”
Skyfire closed the comm, resolving to read the messages later.
“Here’s the coordinates,” Starscream pinged him. “We should get going, flight visibility isn’t likely to improve with the storm blowing through.”
“Okay. How should I grip you to cause you the least amount of pain,” Skyfire asked as he took a step closer. “My systems are out of calibration, so this may be a rough ride.”
“It’s not like we have any other option,” Starscream grunted dismally, jerking his helm toward his dangling appendage and wincing as the inertia of the movement caused it to jostle slightly. “Grip me beneath my wings and behind my legs,” Starscream commanded, unintentionally using the same sort of tone he took on when barking out orders to his inferiors.
Skyfire didn’t notice, or if he did, he did not comment, only nodded and bent down, placing a hand low on Starscream’s back and one under his knees.
“Like this?” he questioned.
“Yes, that should be good.”
Skyfire nodded again and then lit his thrusters. Starscream winced at the thunderous sound of them echoing off the walls, wondering if it was even safe conditions for them to be flying.
“There’s a bit of a storm currently,” he said over Skyfire’s comm. “Just fly straight through.”
Starscream decided it would be better to just pretend he wasn’t asking Skyfire to fly through an active battlezone just like he was pretending not to be asking him to help him trespass onto an Autobot medical base. At least it was abandoned.
Skyfire nodded. They got off the rotten mudball of a planet that was Earth, the flight was a stretch of time that seemed to last into infinity. Starscream waded back into distant memories of him and Skyfire, young and unaware of the signs of the brewing war, planet hopping.
They had been so excited to discover so much as a new lichen a previous scout had failed to document. The galaxy itself seemed fresh and ripe with unexplored possibilities, full of promise.
Adventure was real, social mobility was within reach, and the war was but distant storm clouds on the horizon of an otherwise clear and balmy day. He was feeling dizzy now, almost drunk, and Skyfire’s arms were the only thing that grounded him, held him steady, as they hurtled through space.
Skyfire arrived at the abandoned medical post Starscream had marked down for him via coordinates. It was on a little empty dustball of a dwarf planet. Skyfire set Starscream down, and after a moment of gathering his mental faculties together, Starscream approached the door to the facility.
The door was locked, a promising sign that raiders or other desperate fools hadn’t gotten to it yet. It took three good kicks from Starscream to bust the door open, rust and age doing him no small favor.
Hastily, Starscream made his way into the medical post, scanning for the medical bay. It was a dim and dingy building. Several ceiling panels had crumbled and fallen onto the floor, leaving exposed wiring dangling down in some places.
Starscream flicked on a switch, and maybe a quarter of the lights flickered on.Some of the wiring sparked feebly. Skyfire noticed a set of huge numbers painted on one of the walls near the back wall. Under it read “Emergency Line” in bold block lettering.
Starscream located a small room in the back and moved toward it quickly. He heard Skyfire trundling after him.
As they passed the giant orange digits on the wall, Skyfire asked, “Are you sure we can’t find anyone that would help?”
“I’ve already told you, it would be unwise. Things have changed vastly since your… incident. I can explain more at a later point,” Starscream said, having the feeling part of that statement was a lie.
As he moved into the small medical bay, Skyfire followed, his bulky frame filling the entire doorway as he had to stoop down to make his way through. He made the bay feel crowded and fully occupied. Starscream found something oddly comforting about that.
“Is there anything I can do to help? I don’t have much medical knowledge, only some field first aid from academy, but-”
“No, Skyfire, thank you,” Starscream smiled, though it came out as more of a grimace. “I would appreciate some privacy, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh. Okay,” Skyfire said with a nod, though he looked hesitant. He turned and left Starscream alone.
Once Skyfire had gone, Starscream ravaged the medbay, relieved to find it was up to date enough to have an automatic system diagnostic scanner. He gave himself a scan, focusing on his core, where he had the dreary feeling something was sorely amiss.
The results weren’t good.
Starscream had perforated his fuel tank on impact, something that happened maybe one out of ten thousand rough landings. His luck seemed like it had finally run out. He’d be leaking energon all over his vital components and the queasy feeling that had been with him for the past stretch would not abate.
It wasn’t something he or Skyfire could fix themselves. They needed a real medical professional. Without one, it would get worse, he would slip into delirium, and he would die.
Starscream stared at Skyfire’s turned back in the other room for a while. It wasn’t a bad way to go. It was selfish, yes.
He would die and leave Skyfire without answers or justification for his many questionable actions. But it was better than risking him being caught up in Megatron’s wrath if they tried returning to the Decepticons. Or ending up executed by Autobots if the wrong ones answered their request for help.
He leaned back on the slab, letting himself slip into unconsciousness, unsure if he would wake again.
—
It was after nearly an hour of silence that Skyfire peeked his helm into the room to get a look at Starscream.
Starscream was laying on the slab unconscious and Skyfire couldn’t help but think his friend looked unwell. That was when his optics glanced to a bit of energon dripping out one of his seams. That couldn’t be good. No. It had to be really, really bad.
He started over to Starscream and hesitated. Sure, he had some basic field medic knowledge, it was mandatory for scouting expeditions. However, there were several situations where the only advice was “don’t touch or move the injured mech, radio for professional help” and Skyfire knew suspected internal bleeding definitely fit that category.
His optics flitted nervously between Starscream’s unconscious frame and the giant white numbers banded in orange on the side wall. Starscream had told him not to call for help, but what was he to do? Let him die?
Skyfire felt his vision going slightly funny and his extremities got that cold detached feeling. He needed to do something now before he let his rising anxiety overtake him.
First glancing back at Starscream to check he was still asleep, he went to the number plastered on the sidewall. The station they were in looked abandoned, he wondered if the number would even work. If they would show up but just to attack them. Skyfire sighed heavily. Now wasn’t the time to panic, it was time to act first, improvise later if needed. He dialed it.
“Hello?” A voice came at the other end after a short few moments of the line beeping for a connection.
“Hello,” Skyfire responded, trying hard to keep his tone even.
“This is an emergency line only,” the voice said impatiently. “Can you give me your badge ID, coordinates, and emergency?”
“I do not have a badge ID. Please, I have a friend who is badly hurt. Can you help us? I’m sending over our coordinates.”
“Can you identify yourself?” The voice sounded slightly hesitant as they asked.
“I am Skyfire of Altihex. I was lost on a research mission for the Iaconian Academy. My research partner has just managed to recover me.”
“You are unaffiliated?” The voice asked.
“I do not know what that means,” Skyfire said, feeling himself grow frustrated as he glanced back at Starscream in worry. Unaffiliated? To what? His optics lingered on the curious insignias he had noticed on Starscream’s wings earlier.
“Are you an Autobot or a Decepticon?”
“No. Neither, I do not know what those are.”
“Have you suffered processor damage recently or have a history of memory issues?”
Skyfire didn’t know whether he should be offended at the implication of the question. He wondered if he should mention being in the ice to clear up any confusion, but bringing that up might only serve to distract from Starscream’s grave situation.
“I do not think there is anything wrong with my systems, please, I think my friend is going to bleed out through a major line,” Skyfire said desperately, trying to steer the conversation back to Starscream. “He’s bleeding through abdominal seams.”
“Can you identify your friend for me?”
“His name is Starscream. I am not sure about his affiliation status.”
The voice on the other end of the line was quiet for a long moment.
“Sorry, could you repeat that name for me again?” it asked.
“Starscream of Vos. He was my research partner and I believe he has internal damage to his fuel system or has severed a major fuel line,” Skyfire repeated, trying his best to convey his urgency.
“Alright,” the voice said calmly. “We will be sending a transport and a medical crew over to you shortly.” Then the line went dead.
Skyfire sighed in relief and then sat down on a small stool that surprisingly held his weight. He watched Starscream idly as he tried to process what had occurred over the past few hours.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when there came a heavy banging on the entrance to the medical bay. Skyfire glanced at Starscream, wondering if he was even still alive, before standing to open the door.
He was immediately greeted by the sight of two mecha. One was all red, with a stoic, bordering on mean-looking expression on his face. He was the taller of the two, though still considerably shorter than Skyfire himself. Probably a vehicle mode, then.
The one next to him was a squat, dense looking mech, at least physically. His face looked more lined and his expression was imposing, but his optics were shrewd and bright in a way Skyfire found curious.
“Well, Ratch, he wasn’t lying,” the mech in red said as he stepped into the room. “Hands up big guy,” a weapon Skyfire had somehow failed to notice was aimed at him. Skyfire stilled, spreading his arms out wide as he stared back in disbelief.
He felt he had missed about twenty layers of subtext in that phonecall, and that was all coming back to haunt him immediately.
“‘Hide don’t point that thing at a noncombatant,” the stout mech shouted as he shoved Ironhide aside. “He’s not armed, he’s unaligned,” he said as he gestured to Skyfire irritably, his movements jerky and exasperated by his now quite apparent stress.
“He’s aligned to Starscream, that’s enough for me,” Ironhide pushed back with considerably softer irritation. His voice came out low and gruff with a twang to it Skyfire couldn’t quite place. He certainly wasn’t from a larger polity.
“Where is he?” the stout bot asked. Skyfire was now guessing he was a medic. He held a black bag in one hand and wore an impatient look on his face, his whole frame jittering.
“Through that door on the medical slab,” Skyfire said, stepping aside and gesturing in the direction he had mentioned. Immediately the medic started off at a brisk trot. Skyfire turned to follow.
“Hold on,” Ironhide stopped him. “Let’s have a chat.”
“Can we do that later? I am concerned for my friend,” Skyfire said as he stared after the medic’s retreating figure.
“Starscream? You and him are close?”
“I care very much for his safety,” Skyfire answered carefully, having the idea that responding “yes” would be a mistake. Additionally, he wasn’t sure how true that statement was.
“And you’re a Decepticon?”
“No. I told the hotline I am not. Is that an issue?”
Ironhide didn’t answer, merely watched him quietly for a brief span of time.
“Are you going to hurt him? I called the number to receive help,” Skyfire asked as the silence only served to make him feel more and more discomforted.
“We aren’t going to hurt him. Easy to promise since he’s knocked out. He’s going in the brig, we’ll interrogate him, then we’ll notify his faction of his capture and start the negotiation process.”
“Negotiation process?” Skyfire was now completely lost. Were these mechs traffickers?
“Starscream’s a high profile prisoner. We usually catch and release with the little guys. I can’t find you on any roster, so it seems like you really are unaligned, which means you're free to go.”
“Free to go,” Skyfire said slowly. He shook his helm adamantly, “I would like to stay with Starscream.”
“You’ll be sharing a jail cell,” Ironhide said incredulously.
“Are you that afraid of an injured seeker?” Skyfire couldn't hide the disdain. He didn't know much about the Autobots yet, but they weren't making a good impression. Skyfire struggled to imagine what Starscream of all mecha could be capable of. Sure he had a temper, and he was large compared to these vehicle modes, but he would never seriously hurt someone.
“That one in particular?” Ironhide chuffed a laugh and smiled bitterly. “Yes.”
“Can I talk to the medic attending to my friend now?” Skyfire said impatiently, finding he had become tired of trying to decipher whatever this mech was talking about.
“You got any weapons on you?”
“No,” Skyfire said, then thought for a minute, carefully. “Well I have a small laser for minor incisions on organic matter, but I don’t even think it could get through protometal.”
Ironhide laughed, looking at Skyfire with a glimmer of amusement. “What did you say you were again?”
“A research scientist. I used to go on expeditions.”
“And you ended up in Starscream’s company how exactly?”
“I was stranded on Earth and revived from stasis by sheer luck,” Skyfire said, still feeling in disbelief at the astronomical odds of Starscream finding him, by accident no less.
“Alright, go ahead and talk to Ratchet, nothing funny, y’hear?”
Skyfire nodded stiffly before turning and walking back to the medical bay.
“Your friend is in bad condition. It’s good you called,” Ratchet grunted without turning around. Skyfire noticed he had removed several panels of plating and was rooting around up to his elbows in Starscream’s systems.
“Can you help him?” he asked quietly, because the scene looked anything but optimistic.
“He’s stable for now. Provided he doesn’t complicate his own situation, I’d say he’s going to be fine,” Ratchet said matter of factly, turning around to look Skyfire over.
“You think you can help load him onto our ship? We need to get out of here, fast as possible, and your cooperation will ensure that.”
Skyfire nodded.
He picked Starscream up from where he had passed out on the medical slab. His body was dense as ever, but as far as he remembered, felt light. He glanced down to watch Starscream’s helm loll gently with his movements.
As they exited the medical post, Skyfire came across a large ship. It was bigger than the abandoned medical post itself, and painted an ugly shade of gray-black. There were stairs up into the side of the ship and Skyfire had to duck to enter. Even inside, his helm was mere inches from the ceiling.
He sighed. He had somehow forgotten about that. Skyfire glanced around the ship, momentarily lost until Ratchet came up behind him.
“Just put him down on the gurney in the back,” Ratchet said tiredly to Skyfire. Skyfire nodded. He placed Starscream gently onto the indicated area at the back of the ship.
“Just go sit up front with ‘Hide, I’ll handle him,” Ratchet said as he brushed past Skyfire.
He did so, sitting in a seat that was clearly intended for passengers, as it was out of range of the control panel. Still, he would have a nice view of the passing of stars through the front windshield.
Ironhide put the ship systems through the launch start up procedure and within a few moments, they were airborne, lifting shakily off the planet’s surface before jetting off.
“Sorry, it’s always a bit bumpy on dwarf planets and moons,” Ironhide said casually. “Usually they put an auto calibration system into newer ships nowadays, but this here’s an old model and the mechanics guys haven’t gotten around to the whole fleet.”
Skyfire wasn’t sure what kind of comment to make, understanding Ironhide was trying to break the ice a bit. Perhaps he felt bad for pointing a gun at him. He hesitated, letting the silence between them grow prolonged.
Suddenly Skyfire heard a ruckus from the back of the ship, the sound of clattering and clanging, grunts and muffled shouts. Then he saw a flash of red and white rushing past him, to the front of the ship.
“You’re half bleeding out you fragger, lay down!” Ratchet shouted frantically as he tried to yank Starscream back from the ship controls. Skyfire was frozen as Starscream elbowed Ratchet harshly in the face, sending him to the floor where he lay stunned with a bleeding nose. Ratchet quickly turned to Skyfire.
“Can you do something!?” he shouted desperately at Skyfire who jolted into motion without thinking.
“What do I do?” Skyfire asked instantly, frame locked up again immediately with indecision and overwhelmed with the flurry of events surrounding him. Ironhide was wrestling with Starscream on the controls, and looked to be losing fast.
“Restrain him, knock him out, I don’t know! Something so we don’t crash the ship,” Ratchet cried exasperatedly, rising to a stand and looking like he was about to fling himself back at Starscream.
Skyfire put his hands around Starscream’s waist and removed him bodily off Ironhide. He had meant to sling Starscream over his shoulder. What he hadn’t calculated was the height of the ship ceiling compared to his own frame height.
He ended up smashing Starscream bodily into the ceiling with a loud thunk, sparks showering down as if to accentuate the insanity of his blunder. Skyfire was now stunned and holding a limp and once again unconscious Starscream out in front of him.
“Excellent job,” Ratchet snorted as Ironhide, scuffed and bleeding, started to bend over with ugly guffaws. Ratchet motioned him towards the back of the ship where Starscream’s gurney was awaiting.
“Just strap him down, his slagging tank probably sprang a leak again,” Ratchet said tiredly to Skyfire, before turning to Starscream, incensed.
“It’s going to be a fragging diplomatic nightmare if you die you rust bolted pile of scrap, do you hear me!” Ratchet shouted at Starscream’s limp frame before turning to storm off deeper into the bowels of the ship, hands thrown up and muttering to himself.
—
“Thanks for your help with that,” Ironhide said after they had settled from all the excitement and dramatics.
“Well, it wasn’t really intentional,” Skyfire said as he felt a pang of guilt over having smashed Starscream against the ceiling.
“You would be wise not to trust that one,” Ironhide told him.
“I’ve come to realize that,” Skyfire sighed, rubbing his face tiredly. His expression looked sad and drawn, emotions which Ironhide understood, though not when directed at Starscream.
“Was he your… friend or something?”
“He is a very dear friend of mine, yes,” Skyfire said firmly. “You won’t hurt him?”
“Autobots don't go back on our word. Think your little friend is more at risk getting returned to his own faction than staying here, if I am being honest.”
“Why is that?”
“It’s a long story.”
“It seems we have nothing but time,” Skyfire said sardonically, gesturing at the grand emptiness of space around them.
“I only know about a quarter of it,” Ironhide said with a shrug. “What goes on between your little pal and Megatron is any mech’s guess. It’s between the two of them. We’ve tried to reason with Starscream before, trust me.”
“I can reason with him,” Skyfire said stubbornly. Starscream had changed, but he hadn’t changed that much. Skyfire had often talked him down from impulsive decisions and damaging plots in the academy.
Ironhide chuffed. “Be my guest. He’s not going anywhere and as an unaffiliated mech, you can’t give him any classified knowledge. You’re welcome to talk to him, once he’s up again.”
“Unmonitored?”
“The cams have sound on them for your safety,” Ironhide said pointedly. “But Starscream’s no idiot. He’s not going to say anything in an Autobot base that he ought not to. Let us land and clear him medically, then you can have your talk.”
Skyfire nodded. He was finding Ironhide wasn’t as bad as he had initially seemed. They had gotten a poor start but Skyfire could appreciate the easy honesty about him.
—
Skyfire sat hunched on the little stool. Starscream was once again strapped into the bed, now moved inside a cell. He looked like a misbehaving sparkling.
“They are afraid of you,” Skyfire said bluntly, staring at Starscream with confused, disbelieving optics.
“That is probably wise,” Starscream admitted.
"Why? What have you done?"
Starscream sighed harshly, a half laugh slipping out his intake, and then didn't bother to respond.
“Why didn’t you tell me all of this? Any of this?” Skyfire’s voice was soft, unaccusing, hurt coloring it. “And what was your plan? Just to bleed out in a medical bay? Then what?”
“I did not know how to introduce you to the truth. A lot has changed. I wasn’t sure you could accept it,” Starscream looked discomforted and exhausted. All of his emotions had been so muted since they reunited. He had been boisterous and lively during academy and Skyfire could see that some of his sardonicism and self confidence lingered, but it seemed more weathered.
“So you expected me to accept everything that has changed on top of your death?” Skyfire seemed to be processing the apathetic cruelty of Starscream’s intentions and the hurt was curdling into anger. He had not often seen Skyfire angry when they had been at the academy together.
Usually it was times when Starscream had thrown himself in harm’s way thoughtlessly. The time he had directed them off course and then forgone rations to try and spare them from calling an emergency pickup. The time he had attempted to fight several classmates over functionalist comments and gotten his cockpit smashed in.
All those incidents seemed like minor annoyances now.
“You are the only friend I have in this new world, and you would betray me?” Skyfire said quietly but his face was a stiff mask of bitter hurt.
He was shutting Starscream out and Starscream knew what this meant. He was done with him. The injury had been too grave. He had found a different course going forward and would be aligning himself with the Autobots who would trade Starscream back.
Megatron would be angry at him regardless, his wing would still be broken, he had failed to secure the objective and humiliated the faction by getting captured in the process.The best case would probably be Megatron being too angry to barter for him back.
“I thought it would be better this way.”
“In what manner would that be better? The Autobots are reasonable-”
“No one in this war is reasonable!” Starscream cut him off, voice rising slightly with anger. “You can’t go back to the Decepticons and I can’t stay here. I just wanted-” Starscream cut himself off. It was too humiliating, he would be putting every irredeemable quality he had in a neat glass box on display for observation if he said it.
“I wanted to indulge in the way things used to be,” Starscream muttered lowly at last, almost as if he was talking to himself more than Skyfire.
“If I cannot go with you to the Decepticons, then stay here. It could be like it was. They have labs here, we could work together.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I know you will not agree with the measures taken in the Decepticon cause. And I cannot agree to ever serve the Autobots.”
“Why? What have they done wrong?” Skyfire asked, confusion plain on his face.
“Giving mecha power based on the idea that they haven’t done anything to warrant losing power is how we got here to begin with,” Starscream said and he looked irate.
“You and Megatron?”
Starscream pulled a face and Skyfire wasn’t sure what exactly he saw there. Some nebulous mixture of pain, frustration, trepidation gone far too quickly for him to break down further.
“Megatron and I,” Starscream sucked in a breath. “Have a mutual need,” Starscream finished and then didn’t elaborate.
“A need,” Skyfire repeated.
“A vision, perhaps. Though we may disagree on the route to accomplish it.” Starscream’s expression grew dark.
“If I asked you to stay?”
“You would be asking too much.” Starscream said it like an apology. Because really, he was sorry. A few million years back, he probably would have lacked the conviction.
“You should stay here, with the Autobots,” Starscream said, coming to realize the truth to his words as he said them. Skyfire brought out an odd, old sincerity to him. One that couldn’t possibly last long around the Decepticons. They were dangerous for each other, he realized.
“Why can’t you stay?”
“Here’s a thought exercise,” Starscream began. “I’m dangling on a ledge, being held by you with one hand, you have a gun in your other hand, and a mech is coming towards us, with the intent to hurt either or both of us. You don’t have enough time to get away. What do you do?”
“Try to escape anyways?” Skyfire said with a pitiful shrug and a forced smile, because he knew it was the wrong answer. Just as Starscream knew it was the honest answer.
“I would shoot the mech, perhaps aiming for somewhere noncritical, and live with the risk that I might kill him. I’ve done it countless times. It’s easy for me.”
There was a silence between them in which they both came to acknowledge the widening gulf between them.
“You’ve changed,” Skyfire said at last. He sounded disappointed. It stung, it always did, but Starscream had become used to it.
“I adapted to the world around me. You stayed very much the same,” Starscream said softly, almost tenderly and he was looking sad again.
“I hope you’re not upset,” Skyfire said. He looked crushed, caught between what he was and how he wished things could be, and understanding there was nothing to be done to reconcile those two things.
“Do not worry about me. You need to learn self-preservation if I am to ever see you sometime after the war ends.” There was a promise there, Skyfire realized.
“Will you be alright?” Skyfire insisted, because something was wrong with Starscream. Something was wrong with the casual apathy with which he looked at the world around him. The lack of response he had to pain, to other’s emotions, to much of anything really. His reactions to everything except Skyfire seemed stilted and wrong and concerning.
When it was just him and Skyfire, for the briefest moments, it seemed as if Starscream was back. As if they could just take off and explore distant planets again. Pursue science, knowledge and adventure. All of that faded away when Starscream talked about the war.
“I’ll live,” Starscream muttered, sour expression taking over his features again. That he recognized. The almost insane, iron-clad determination Starscream had. There was something comforting about seeing that part of him resurface.
“Well, they’re going to sell me back to Megatron tomorrow,” Starscream said with a sigh and a shrug. “I am serious, don’t get blown up or something stupid.” His expression was devoid of levity, but Skyfire knew him well enough to hear the deadpan joke.
“Only if you promise not to go falling into any more ice canyons,” Skyfire said with a wry smile.
Starscream’s lips did twitch at that.
“You first.” They shared a laugh.
“You should get some recharge, I don’t think hanging around me will do you any favors with your new faction,” Starscream said.
“I don’t know if my reputation can get worse. I get the idea associating with you is the kind of stain that doesn’t wash out too easily,” Skyfire said, smiling nervously at the thought of how awkward getting over that stigma might be.
Skyfire stayed the night. It was like being in academy again, when they would pull desperate all nighters reviewing their papers tirelessly, or perfecting a project submission. They wiled away their time together reminiscing stories about academy.
Skyfire told Starscream about some of the dreams he had in stasis. Starscream told him about how things turned after his disappearance. He was light on details and his own involvement, but it was interesting to hear his retelling, though Skyfire was skeptical of its reliability.
When the night was over, and it was time for Starscream to begin engaging in his discharge proceedings, Ironhide arrived again.
“Alright big guy, I need you out,” he said with a nod. Then he glanced to Starscream. “We going to have to stun you again or are you putting on the cuffs voluntarily this time?” As he asked the question he tossed in a pair of stasis cuffs which clattered on the floor. That was the last Skyfire heard as he walked down the narrow hallway and exited through the door.
On the other side he was greeted by a tall, large blue and red mech.
“Hello Skyfire. My name is Optimus. It seems we have much to discuss.”
—
In his off time, when he was alone in his quarters, Skyfire browsed the messages Starscream had sent him while he believed him dead.
Some were funny.
“Made contact with an irritating little species today. Called humans. They are rather advanced on the organic scale. They are loud despite their size and think they are much smarter than they actually are. I have the feeling you would enjoy them.”
Some melancholic.
“I wonder if you would like me how I am these days. Probably not. There is perhaps, some comfort in knowing you never had to adapt to a world like this.”
Some concerning.
“I think it is too late. Megatron doesn’t seem to think so but Megatron hasn’t been in complete possession of his faculties for some time. I worry we’ve made a grave error.”
After that message there were several more “Message Deleted” notifications indicating Starscream had deleted the comm for both of them.
Skyfire read them and reread them and he felt he understood Starscream at least a little better. Understood why he had done some of the things he did. The war would end someday. He hoped to see Starscream come out the other side.