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There's an oddly reassuring factor in having Wheeljack up and functioning again. When everyone and their long lost brother from Velocitron expects you to keep the last city on Cybertron from falling apart (more than it already has), it's nice to have someone to rely on. Someone with a wealth of experience solving esoteric problems that might otherwise lead to explosions if left unsolved. Wheeljack's currently working to salvage the remaining Aerialbots, and by extension Superion, but Starscream can also trust him to help the next time Metroplex starts developing acid-filled paint bubbles, or blows a piston the size of three mechs, or - or starts giving off an electro-magnetic pulse that cancels out gravity and curdles all the engex at Blurr's bar.
Alright, that last one hasn't happened. Yet. Windblade can go on about how Metroplex is still 'recovering' in the wake of someone trying to activate the space bridge for her own paltry ends, but the fact is that the Titan is a sorry heap of scrap held together with duct tape and promises, and whenever something goes wrong, all the complaints come to Starscream. Blame Starscream. Want answers from Starscream.
Fine, fine. What else is new. He and Windblade have a...polite understanding, now, and with Wheeljack back, Starscream doesn't have to necessarily trust her analysis of the extent of Metroplex's repairs. He's pragmatic about these things; when Windblade decides to make a power play (Starscream always takes such things as a given), Wheeljack will be there. It's nice to have someone around that he doesn't feel the need to lie to constantly (apart from some judicious omission). He's still not used to this 'helping' and 'friends' business, and only about 45% sure that he's sincere about it on a good day, but hey - that's significantly more sincerity than Starscream has bothered to expend in centuries. Usually he's only truthful when it benefits him, or when the other party will soon be too dead for it to matter what they know.
He leaves Rattrap at the door, as usual, and locates Wheeljack on one of the scaffolding platforms near the part of Superion that used to be - er, Fireflight. He's sure it was Fireflight. The component Aerialbots are mostly still comatose, but stable enough these days for Wheeljack and few others to continue repairing them without losing another like Slingshot. The sooner it all comes together, the happier Starscream will be. For now, the main goal is to keep things running smoothly until he has a whole combiner on hand.
He transforms to reach the scaffolding more quickly, and his approach can't have gone unnoticed; as a courtesy he lands light on his feet to avoid knocking any sensitive equipment, but his engines aren't quiet. Wheeljack doesn't look up or acknowledge Starscream's approach, though, seemingly engrossed in the play of red and orange light emitted from the scanner, pinpointing sections of Superion's armor. If Rattrap were here, he'd do something obnoxious and unfortunate, like announcing Starscream's arrival like this was the floor of the Senate. Without that to roll his eyes over, Starscream braces a hip on one of the railings, folds his arms, and waits, inspecting the back of Wheeljack's head as the mech rearranges the scanner's light array with a twitch of his fingers, then makes a note of the change on his datapad. After mere clicks, however, Starscream's already losing his patience, shifting against the railing and running through several suitably droll potential conversation starters to break the silence.
But Wheeljack finally (finally) deigns to look back at him, running a finger along one of the seams of his faceplate as though trying to pick out a fleck of debris. "Look, Starscream. You coming over here or what?"
Well, he didn't really intend to, seeing as there's barely enough room on this particular branch of scaffolding for all the equipment plus two mechs of their relative size to stand, let alone maneuver or transform, but if Wheeljack's going to be like that – "Hmph." Starscream's chin comes up on reflex, and he pretends to survey the battered sections of Superion as he crosses the platform rather than meeting Wheeljack's eye. I do it because I want to, not because you tell me to is the sort of bitter taunt Starscream might have thrown at Megatron – it wouldn't feel...right, to snipe at Wheeljack instead, no matter how defensive Starscream feels by default. He smooths on charisma instead: a tool that stopped working on Megatron and most of the Decepticon elite as the war dragged on and they got wise to his methods, but which served fairly well in recruitment efforts right up until there stopped being anyone new to recruit. "And how is it – are they doing today?" he asks, clicking past the stutter so fast that with luck Wheeljack won't have registered it. Wheeljack prefers treating the Aerialbots as though they're still separate entities, where Starscream has his doubts – and is far more concerned with their combined, gestalt potential.
Wheeljack shrugs as Starscream stops level with him. From here Starscream can read the datapad where it rests on the crook of Wheeljack's knee joint, but it looks like more of the same numbers they've been seeing all week. "I could give you a rundown of their current specs," Wheeljack says, one blue optic trained on Starscream even as he gestures toward the unconscious combiner, "but I think we both know you're not here to have me tell you 'no change' in person when you coulda just commed me."
Starscream is – miffed. Ugh, that's such a squishy human word for it, but their informal phrasing is so horribly infectious. "Oh? And what makes you so sure of that?" he starts, putting on his best noble, well-intentioned airs. "I'll have you know I'm very concerned and invested in Superion's recovery, for the sake of Cybertron -"
"I'll bet," Wheeljack says, dryly, and Starscream catches his slip too late. Drat. "Well, Fireflight here is still in no shape to be detached from the others without continuous life support, but give him a few more cycles." Then Wheeljack goes back to flicking through the scanner's projections in what Starscream has a growing, grating suspicion is a silent hint for Starscream to go away and leave him to work in peace.
Or maybe it means nothing at all, which is almost just as bad. He stands there awkwardly, cut short, long enough for the momentary paralysis to burn away with the acrid need to slap back in some fashion, to even the score, and is about to open his mouth and let his vocalizer run when Wheeljack sighs again. "If you want to talk, s'fine with me. I'm all audials."
Urk. Starscream did come here to talk, is the thing – it's just for the life of him he can't remember what the original reason was. He must have given some excuse to Rattrap to make him stop muttering about going all the way to the combiner hanger after a long day, but present Starscream has a sneaking suspicion that it really was just an excuse. Wheeljack has been diligent about keeping a timetable that includes actual units of time, after all, in stark contrast to Windblade's hedging and questionable translation work, which Starscream appreciates because it gives him concrete numbers to feed back to the general public in a nice, neat sound bite.
When in doubt, turn it back around on them. Everyone loves to talk about themselves, once you get them going. And if Starscream can be just as (maybe more) guilty of that than some mechs, at least he knows how to use it to his advantage. "What about you, Wheeljack?" he asks – it doesn't come as smoothly as his usual delivery, but people have been calling him 'slimy' lately, so his coaxing technique has needed a revamp for a while. "What, you have nothing to get off your chest? You've been cooped up in here too long if all you can talk about are repairs."
"Hnh. Just repairing friends, you know. They're doing as good as can be expected, is all I'm saying." Wheeljack scrolls through the readout, but then pats the platform beside him. "C'mere and sit."
Being wary is just basic protocol. "What," Starscream says, voice flat, and it comes out wrong – too harsh.
This time, Wheeljack turns his eyes up to the ceiling before answering. "I said, come here and sit or something, so I don't have to crane my neck to look at you."
Put like that, it sounds innocuous. Except nothing is innocuous. Hm. A quick scan of the hanger indicates that no one is around but the drones set to monitor the combiner's vitals around the clock, but that doesn't mean nobody's there. Starscream's personal scanners are good, but there's nothing like a civil war for driving the stealth tech arms race at a pace no one outside of special operations or sabotage could keep up with. And who even knows what tricks those neutrals and aliens have in their toolkits. But if he keeps hovering around, he'll start to look ridiculous, and that would be unacceptable. Rattrap's at the door, most likely ready to stick his nose in the second he thinks he can get away with snooping, but he'll also know to keep others out. Starscream sits primly, trying to maintain some personal space between his wings and Wheeljack; there really isn't enough room at the edge of the scaffolding for the two of them to sit without jostling each other. While Starscream fusses with the arrangement of his legs dangling over the edge, Wheeljack hits another tab on the scanner and the constellation of lights playing across Superion turns pale blue, stitching lines across the tears still open and in need of patching. Starscream has ordered them to hold off and wait for replacement armor plating to be constructed with a minimum of welds – only the best for the combiner he needs to counter Prowl's Devastator, after all.
Wheeljack starts reading the scanner again and for all intents and purposes ignores Starscream. Up close, that scanner looks like it's been modded to the point it could very well double as a frag grenade. It's probably just meant to scan the weird joined physiology of the combiner for anomalies, but Starscream errs on the side of 'it can probably function as a weapon,' and doesn't try to poke at it. "Windblade and her guard have been giving me the runaround again," he complains at last, succumbing to the need to fill the silence with – something. "They're so transparent about it." He glowers at the scanner's projections, visions of Windblade's (very poor) poker face skulking in his mind. The Camiens are too new to the kind of games Starscream has survived and thrived on for millennia – they fumble and trip over each other as they learn the basics of scheming, and they suffer from one critical weakness: they appear to have...genuinely good intentions.
'Good' just doesn't always align with Starscream's intentions. It's endlessly annoying to deal with.
"Uh-huh. And that's not at all because you keep messing with them right back," Wheeljack says, snorting as he folds in the scanner's sensor with a cupped hand, and the lights turn off. Starscream's bristling, ready to point out that he is being positively nice when it comes to Windblade – he hasn't even tried to have her killed properly yet! The fools went and nearly assassinated themselves, and has Windblade been talking to Wheeljack about Starscream again? Because she's working with painfully amateurish assumptions – but Wheeljack finishes stowing the scanner and exchanges it for a much simpler tool. "Alright, I'm almost done here. So, uh, you're sure there's nothing worse'n Windblade bugging you? Has Luna 2 dropped out of the sky, transformed into a primordial being, and threatened to evict us from Cybertron for our crimes against the universe, or something like that?"
That's...er, that's just mind-boggling to try to process. "Um, is that likely to happen?!" Starscream demands, his voice creeping toward a shrill screech. Damn and blast his vocalizer. "At any point in the near future?!" Because this is Wheeljack, and if he's not joking, this might be the worst news Starscream has gotten since Megatron walked out of the wastes to try to ruin everything, as per usual.
Wheeljack has to stop to consider it. "Nah, probably not," he says after far too long a pause. "From what I hear, though, Rodimus and the others saw weirder on their we're-not-dead odyssey through the stars. Probably can't rule anything out, these days. Heheh."
He shifts, and somehow there's not enough room for him to do this without brushing against Starscream. Suddenly having an arm pressed against his sets off Starscream's sensors and internal alarms – if it's not contact he initiated under his own terms, it's dangerous. He recoils on instinct, metal scraping loud on the scaffolding, and it opens up distance between them again. Not nearly enough, but...Wheeljack is most obviously too focused on tuning something in Superion's outer layer of transformation seams to have done it on purpose. Starscream – ugh, has to give him the benefit of the doubt. He doesn't know why he keeps giving that to Wheeljack, but apparently it's too late to tell his processor to knock it off.
"You're twitchier than Blurr off the track." Oh. Wheeljack isn't that absorbed in repairs, then. Ugh. "Relax, mech," he continues, when Starscream tries to scoot another foot away.
Wrong words. Starscream does more than bristle, hooking an arm over the railing to either lever himself up or boost himself over the edge and into the air – both would work for a quick exit. "Excuse me, then. Perhaps you should sit somewhere with more room, since you're so clever," he snaps. "I'm sure there's a fresh round of messages waiting on my desk already. Ruling Cybertron – the work's never done."
Wheeljack puts his free hand on Starscream's arm; touch like that keeps throwing up red flags, multiplying with each second this ill-conceived meeting drags on. If Starscream ever tried to get this handsy with another mech on his own terms, it would only be because he wanted something contact could get him, or as a distraction. Wheeljack isn't him, but this could still be manipulation. "Look, you came here for a reason, yeah? Well, I think I got something figured out. Humor me for a sec and just – sit."
Now Wheeljack's talking reasonably. Urgrhgh. Jaw clenched, Starscream fixes his expression until it's a tight smirk, and settles back down. "This is invigorating. Really," he says, clipped, when all Wheeljack does is let go of his arm and return to working on Superion, very deliberately not looking at Starscream while their arms are still too close to each other. So much for that.
"You say I'm your friend," Wheeljack replies, apropos of exactly nothing relevant, and Starscream regrets letting that opening be so unguarded. It works better when he's lying about things like that.
Overly conscious, now, Starscream slips on a charming mask. He's good at making people feel appreciated, and if Wheeljack's fishing, it's not too much of a hardship to reassure him. "Of course. You said that you trusted me, and I don't forget things like that, even if you don't trust me anymore. You gave me a chance; I don't intend to squander it." All of that's a little too true for comfort, though the words are all ones he has used before. Reel it in, Starscream.
"Right, right." Odd. Maybe Starscream hit the wrong note – Wheeljack's voice is too non-committal for him to read the response. His arm's flush with Starscream's now, and Starscream mutes enough of his proximity alerts that it's almost not-unpleasant. "Yeah. So, relax," Wheeljack says at last. "In my experience, if you can't siddown and trust someone to watch your back for a second, something's up. Humor me for a bit?"
Stiffly, Starscream straightens his back, wings flared ever so slightly. He turns to squint at Wheeljack properly, because this calls for a good, solid, suspicious stare. But Wheeljack's still acting (infuriatingly) benign, even as he folds up the latest tool and returns it to the kit without grabbing a new one to replace it. He leans back on that arm instead and meets Starscream's stare with a level, measured look that gives nothing away but honest invitation.
Then the look turns contemplative, and Wheeljack taps his faceplate with a finger, pensive, as a thought appears to occur to him. "Huh. Unless you're scared."
And ooh! That's blatant. That's worse than Windblade on an off day! Starscream's trained himself out of making strangling motions to people's faces because a) horrific human-induced habit, Cybertronians can't even be strangled, b) it's too obvious a sign of frustration, and c) Megatron was less tolerant of such outlets after each time Starscream failed to successfully pull off a coup, and progressively more volatile about punishment. "Ridiculous," he seethes, and has to content himself with folding his arms tightly to his chest. His main options are to leave (unacceptable – it would read too much as admitting to fear); to stay seated and maintain this distance (better, but still leaving the advantage on Wheeljack's end); or regain control of the situation. Deliberately, Starscream heaves a put-upon sigh and insinuates himself closer to Wheeljack all at once, one arm sliding back around his waist and cinching tight enough to make metal creak. As long as Starscream is in charge here, everything's fine. "Better?" he asks, sweet like sugar in an engine, but his tone comes out all wrong; that was far too defensive. But it's fine, the arm around his waist should be enough to set Wheeljack back a few steps. Both of them on the defensive is better than just Starscream.
Except Starscream forgot – he's dealing with an Autobot, not a Decepticon, and Autobots are...eurgh. Wheeljack nods, completely unfazed by Starscream's move, and then sets his chin on top of Starscream's head with a tiny tnk. "You good now? There," Wheeljack says, his vocalizer apparently satisfied with this outcome, and Starscream's once again left horrible off balance and at a loss for where he went wrong; it's like having a wing shot out from under him.
And the worst part is, it doesn't feel bad. After the first few awkward, cringe-inducing minutes of waiting for the other pede to drop, his paint stops crawling with tension and it's almost...okay. He has to shut off the last of the proximity alerts with a flicker of annoyance at how redundant they're being when he knows, already. Wheeljack inches an arm across Starscream's shoulders, making him twitch again, but once he stops moving the arm covers the base of his helm where anyone with the right vantage point might try to take a shot at him. Not that Rattrap has shown anywhere near that kind of initiative, but...
The last time Starscream had someone this close for this long, for anything other than schmoozing or fighting or torture, was – well, he can't remember. It happened at some point, that's all. Information creeps, and anything irrelevant to the politics of civil war got distant and smudged to make room for more important things. If this is how friendship works, he doesn't know how he feels about it.
"Didn't really answer the question, though," Wheeljack says, still musing, and ugh, he's not going to drop this, is he.
"This is far more acceptable when there's no talking," Starscream starts, cross at being jolted back to awareness of the vast hanger around them. Any of the other workers and medics could walk in without much warning, depending on what Rattrap thinks he'll get out of being reliable today. Agitated, Starscream tenses to pull away, armor pulled in tighter to minimize vulnerable points – it shouldn't have been relaxed in the first place.
Then Wheeljack makes a disgruntled noise and Starscream finds himself oddly put out when Wheeljack breaks contact first. "If you don't want me touching you, just say. If I'm overstepping', I'll stop. Period. Just say the word."
This would be easier if he felt like lying to Wheeljack. "I didn't say that," Starscream says, petulant and not entirely sure why, as he sulkily slouches more against Wheeljack. In any other context he'd be pushing to claim more space for his wings, and it galls him that that's not the most prominent motive in his mind right now. He's too unfamiliar with this situation, and leaning against Wheeljack feels too nice. For all he knows, Wheeljack may be pressing or distracting Starscream on purpose, but it feels too...sincere. It's discomfiting to try to parse it when Wheeljack keeps using lines from a script Starscream hasn't used in years. He needs to flip this back in his own favor somehow quickly, or he'll lose his already tenuous grasp on the balance of power here.
"You're a real bundle of nerves, Starscream." Wheeljack's arm stays where it was, but he keeps his chin lifted to better shake his head. "Try to let yourself stop being so damn lonely." More quietly, almost to himself (Starscream could get snippy about how ludicrous it is to pretend no one can hear Wheeljack in such close quarters), Wheeljack finishes with, "Guess hooking up's probably not on the table for a while."
That simplifies things immensely. It's far easier when it's someone else's fault. Starscream rips away, his voice hitting shrill decibels long before he finds footing, and puts plenty of distance between them. "Hooking-?!" escapes before he clamps down on his vocalizer. No need for Rattrap or any other listeners to overhear something they don't strictly need to. Something sours in his mouth as Starscream draws himself up to his full height and forces – whatever expression is on his face right now, to look wild and vindicated instead. It tastes like I trusted you, which would give far too much away, so he swallows it down and laughs instead, high and mocking as he tuts at Wheeljack, sprawled out on the floor still. "Oh ho! Well-played! Only a C on that deception, but that's higher than I've credited any 'bot for a while! Bravo!"
(That's not quite true. He gave Chromia extra points for attempting to fool Starscream and her precious Windblade at the same time, since that took real moxie, but, well. Camiens. It doesn't count.)
Now they're back on very familiar, well-worn ground – for Starscream, at least. Wheeljack looks at a loss, his arm hanging for a second while he frowns beneath the heavy set of his helm, and then tries to play dumb. "Deception?"
"Trying to sneak your way into my processor!" Starscream says it with relish, because the vindication is sweet. He almost preens, far too pleased to have finally caught Wheeljack's machinations in action; it makes the hollow, screaming pit of disappointment in his tanks easier to ignore. Ah, well, that 'friend' thing was fun while it lasted – now he knows not to try it again. First Metalhawk, now this... "That takes real ingenuity to try to pull off, so you're already beating Rattrap on that front."
"Sneak my way in?" Wheeljack's acting isn't half bad, though Starscream personally thinks he's overplaying that note of incredulity. "Starscream, I literally just said it out loud. I'm not about to jump your cables without asking first. We're friends, according to both you and me now, apparently, so I figured at some point we might try to share time together or something. See if we even could hash things out like that. If it was alright with you." Then he dares to add, almost gently, "Not everything's a plot against you. Sorry if I pinged you that way."
"There's always a plot. If there isn't, you're doing it wrong," Starscream says, with a scornful chuckle, shaking his head and keeping one eye on Wheeljack as he paces a little. He's already deconstructing that little speech in his mind, turning every word over to see how it fits into Wheeljack's endgame. Starscream usually has a gift for telling when someone is lying, particularly to his face, but he must have an established blind spot where Wheeljack is concerned. He can work around that.
Or, some traitorous part of his processor whispers, maybe Wheeljack is still telling the truth, and Starscream misread it because he's been itching to confirm that baseless paranoia for a while. Said section of his processor is clearly susceptible.
Wheeljack throws up his hands in response. "Fine, you want to know my master plan? I can try an evil laugh or something, but I don't have any practice."
It'll either be a lie, or the truth being told in such a way that someone not at Starscream's level would assume it was a lie. Any further iterations along that line would simplify down to the same two outcomes, and Starscream can plan for both options accordingly. "Well, if you insist, I'm not going to say no," he drawls, rolling his wrist as he gestures absently. He's ready. This is his element. Not odd physical interactions he didn't instigate under controlled circumstances.
So it's not fair that Wheeljack starts with another non-sequitur. "I've got friends to fall back on. You don't," Wheeljack says, and what is that. No really, what is that. Is that supposed to be a jab? An insult? A statement of a fact?! Everyone despises Starscream, even Wheeljack – hilarious. Peak humor.
And wrong. Starscream's eyes burn as he laughs, high and imperious and mocking. "I have plenty to fall back on," he says, vicious, and ready to brag in the abstract. No need for Wheeljack to get any real details out of a nice monologue.
Wheeljack beats him to it. "People you've manipulated, people you've blackmailed, people who're afraid, people who think they can get something out of working with 'Lord' Starscream. And if even one part of that network turns on you, you have three others lined up to counter it."
That's –
No, it's –
Ugh!
"Look, can you just – listen when I say, I can't even begin to be bothered keeping up with all that?" Wheeljack says, while Starscream's still staring, nonplussed. "I've got better things to do with my time. Like saving my friends, and science things. Yeah, I know we barely have time for that anymore, I get it, but there you go. You're still trying to help Cybertron, even though that mostly means the same thing as helping yourself, so...you've still got that chance. I just figure you need someone to talk to who isn't gonna enable your weird plotting shenanigans, and isn't gonna drop you the second things go south."
"And you're volunteering? Out of the goodness of your spark?!" Starscream scrambles for something to fill in his side of the conversation, which has gone off on an unforeseen tangent. He wants to be infuriated, but suddenly he has nowhere to unload it all. No matter how he agonizes over it in his processor, he can't read whether Wheeljack's lying or not. It's possible that the mech is just that good, and Starscream has been so thoroughly played that he doesn't know where to go with that train of thought. 'Wheeljack, master of deception' rings wrong in his mind, and for a wild moment Starscream considers ending all of this vacillation the easy way: lab accidents are easy to fake if you blow up enough of the evidence.
"No," Wheeljack says, shrugging a shoulder and watching Starscream with a mild, patient look. "Just being a friend, because sometimes things don't need to be that complicated. You have a serious problem with overthinking things, you know that?"
He sounds so...frustratingly straightforward, and almost friendly about it. Starscream's combing through every syllable and analyzing them for inflection and hidden code words, but Wheeljack has this tendency to mean what he says that is absolutely maddening. "Better to be two steps ahead than one step behind," Starscream says, but it's hard to maintain a lofty sneer when Wheeljack looks so approachable and open; sincerity might be the most canny type of emotional manipulation Starscream has ever encountered.
"And there's millions of years of overthinking in action," Wheeljack points out, rubbing the back of his neck. Starscream bates to the side; standing up may have been good for the height advantage, but it feels awkward and out of sorts in the face of Wheeljack and his unreasonable reasonableness. "Not overcomplicating things for a minute doesn't mean you'll miss a step and fall down a flight of stairs. It's alright."
That's not at all fair. Starscream's wings sag a little, and he stops being able to meet Wheeljack's gaze as he mutters, "I'm still alive, and I'll have you know that's a better track record than some people I could mention." Unfortunately, that's no good – he meant to be flippant, but now there's an entire war's worth of dead people lying between them in the conversation, a significant portion of whom Starscream dealt with personally or by proxy. He cringes internally at the faux pas.
"...You're right about that," Wheeljack says. Starscream cringes again, but he can hear something shifting and he has to look; he's been shot too many times by enterprising young mechs over the years for being too cocky, and as reluctant as he is to think about Wheeljack being that obvious about betraying him (shooting someone in the middle of an argument with no premeditation is a low D at best, unless you can make it stick), his instincts scream that he needs to look and make sure. Plus, not being able to make eye contact in the fact of Autobot candor probably reeks of a guilty conscience. "You're still alive. So sit back down and give this a shot anyway, since we're on the same page here."
All Wheeljack has done is scoot back over to make room for Starscream again; the datapad's been moved to sit propped up on his other leg, and he meets Starscream's gaze steadily. Starscream can't tell whether he caves because sulking is easier than throwing a fit and stalking out of the hanger, or because Wheeljack is just that persuasive. "Fine," he snaps, armor still tucked close, and sits with considerably less care than last time, freely knocking into Wheeljack and sprawling out as much as possible. Wheeljack lets out a faint 'oof!', blocks Starscream's leg when it accidentally-on-purpose almost punts the datapad over the side of the scaffolding, but otherwise allows the squirming. "There," Starscream says with a huff when he's run out of ways to contort himself, leaving Wheeljack pressed halfway up against the guardrail with Starscream lounging on him. That should teach him to give even an inch to Starscream.
Then an arm comes up and wraps around the front of Starscream's waist. He stops arching his foot idly and stares down at this sudden development, utterly thrown. Wheeljack doesn't really apply any pressure or otherwise give off any indication he's about to pin Starscream in place, but the fact that it's happening at all –
This is cuddling. How in the world did this happen. If Wheeljack does that 'sitting in mutual silence' thing while this is happening, Starscream doesn't know what his next move would be. And there needs to be a next move.
...Easy. Call that bluff. Always one of the easiest ways to reassert control. Raising his hand, Starscream hums to himself and runs a finger down until he finds and flips open the panel on his data port, pulling out a length of cord with a flourish. "Shall we?" he asks, grandly, smirking to himself at the sound of Wheeljack's vocalizer spontaneously glitching and blurting choked static. That is the correct response.
"I. Okay, uh, I think we missed a vital part of this conversation," Wheeljack says at last, and ha! That's stalling for time! He sounds more surprised than defensive, but Starscream almost has him now.
"What was that about missing steps?" he asks, simpering and turning wide optics on Wheeljack, unable to hide a growing smirk as Wheeljack resets his vocalizer with a click and scrambles for words. Either Wheeljack will fold and Starscream will have a firm advantage on him once and for all – or he'll follow through, and Starscream will...have to play this next part very carefully. He has firewalls for a reason; everyone does. He can't afford to think about this outside the context of a power play, though; even the thought of Wheeljack genuinely meaning this is – look, friendship is one thing, as rare as it is for Starscream, but if Wheeljack isn't trying to get into Starscream's processor for a quick hack or to spy on him...if he's truly and honestly talking about plugging in –
Starscream cuts the thought short. It's too farcical for him to even consider, and he needs to focus. If he and Wheeljack are still going to come out of this friends, this needs to play out right – which means preferably in Starscream's favor, with him no longer on the defensive and Wheeljack conceding control, none the wiser.
And Wheeljack is still ruminating with an odd look in his eye. "...You're tryin' to prove something," he says, slowly. "I’m not sure if it's to me or to someone else or to yourself, but – on a scale of one to Rodimus, that's probably about a three. Kid's got issues."
Why! Can he not! Continue these conversations in a way that makes sense?! Starscream has no idea why Rodimus the wannabe is even being mentioned in this little chat! He makes strangling motions with one hand, trying not to twist his own cable with the other, in order to avoid screaming out loud. "That scale is hideous and oh, now you have something to hide?" he accuses, a shot in the dark; something has to stick. He spins around to jab a finger at Wheeljack, who raises his hands placatingly; but that involves removing his arm from Starscream's waist, and Starscream is incensed to find that he misses it. Part of him wants to add, 'Now you decide to grow a decent sense of self-preservation?' but he instead swaps it for, "That just makes me more curious," with an extra edge to his smirk, leaning in closer.
Wheeljack keeps assessing him, eyes and faceplate unreadable, and then – slowly goes for his own data port. "Don't really have much in particular to hide these days," he says, watching Starscream's face for something. Starscream doesn't know what, apart from slack-jawed gawping, which is all he's getting right now. "But s'probably not smart to jump all the way into someone's head the first go around. Preliminary access alright?"
This...could be compromising. Starscream is officially alarmed, but at the same time, too fascinated by the prospect to back down now. "Oh, if you insist," he manages, almost casual, but he's transfixed as Wheeljack starts unwinding his own cable. Preliminary access is well within standard firewall protection, barely enough for more than diagnostics and information packet transfers with a file size cap, and that's – a relief. That's not the full on, flooring it, all-in levels of intimacy (the word makes Starscream's insides clench with something close to terror) that plugging in might otherwise imply. Who's calling whose bluff, again?
"Yeah, probably a good call," Wheeljack says, but Starscream has difficulty following along when he's preoccupied by holding a last minute internal screaming match between himself and his survival instincts. He wants into Wheeljack's processor like burning; half to see if he can finally get to the root of today's shenanigans, half because – because calling someone your friend, saying that you trust them, that's one thing, and Starscream has never in his life considered the remote possibility of going deeper than that. There's no one he'd even have wanted to test it with.
He hopes that Wheeljack is playing him for a fool. Because if he's not, Starscream is far out of his depth.
Wheeljack waits until Starscream rouses himself from that momentary stall with a jolt, before passing over his cable like it's the simplest thing in the world. Feeling rather like he's going into free fall if he doesn't get his wings under him now, Starscream hands over his cord in exchange, and tries not to be obvious about the way he holds off for Wheeljack to commit first. He'd call the sensation in the pit of his spark dread, if his traitor hand didn't give a slight tremor of anticipation as he plugs Wheeljack into his own dataport.
"And – there," Wheeljack says out loud, while Starscream's shaken off that unpleasant fugue and starts to push as far as the current access level grants him, scouring around for what he really, really needs to find right about now. It has to be here. Where is it?
A faint rumble runs up to him from Wheeljack's chest; is it normal for physical sensation to still register that much during a plugin, he wonders, vaguely irritated. Physically, he and Wheeljack are pretty well connected at the chest, and Starscream was already in a rather close position to begin with. He thinks – he knows he could move quickly if someone else interrupted, or if Wheeljack tried for something other than dataport access, but being constantly aware of that makes it harder to delve for the real reason behind Wheeljack's behavior with the constraints Starscream has to work with.
Don't know what you're lookin' for, Starscream, Wheeljack transmits, without a vocalizer. Starscream flinches mentally. I'm telling the truth. If you're expecting something different, I don't blame you, but you're gonna be looking a while.
Nonsense. There should still be some trace of Wheeljack's ulterior motives reverberating up here, no matter how well he has compartmentalized his processor with science team-level firewalls. Starscream quickly goes as deep as preliminary access allows him, though, and he can't find it. He can't find it, and that's terrifying. He doesn't have any way to account for the absence of betrayal or some other form of trickery. That's free fall all over again. His face is scrunched up with the effort to keep analyzing what Wheeljack's letting him see, and input from his optics gets sidelined by default so he can concentrate.
M'not planning on betraying you, mech.
Of course you'd say that. Starscream's barely conscious of shifting his weight and gritting his teeth. Things have narrowed down to the point of connection and the unrecognizable (caring) look on Wheeljack's face, and while Starscream mentally snarks back, Wheeljack's hands come to rest on either side of his waist, holding him without holding him down. He should yank away, but finds himself leaning into the touch instead; it's been too long. Anyway, if you anticipate betrayal, it's not betrayal anymore. Just business as usual. He knows that better than anyone. The fact that he's not sensing anything but patient, open welcome here, along with echoes of things that Wheeljack has said aloud over the past few minutes, is frustrating enough to make him want to stamp his foot.
Huh. Wheeljack rubs tiny circles against Starscream's sides with his thumbs, then moves one hand so that it rests along the center seam of his wings, achingly careful and slow. Well, take your time, then. I'm not going anywhere.
That's not fair. Starscream knows how persuasive touch can be, and he still falls for it. When the information probe starts to make his processor throb (with what appears to be a benign headache, inspired by rerunning multiple searches at the same time), he finds himself slowly dipping his head forward to rest his helm on Wheeljack's shoulder. More general impressions wash over once he stops word- and concept-searching for a plot against him; scraps of thought and current running processes. The same timetable that Starscream gets an update on every morning runs in real-time, counting down to the next major repairs and operations that the component parts of Superion will undergo shortly to boost their autonomous systems back to independent function; right now, disengaging any lone Aerialbot from the collective would still kill them. Something about he's all alone; another, older thought, circulating close to the firewalls between him and long-term memory: I don't know if there's enough room for guilt in this world, tenuous and weighted down with variable interpretations. On a more fundamental, wordless level – the impression of hesitation and uncertainty, tempered with determination.
Starscream can't tell what Wheeljack's picking up from him. Unlike Starscream, it doesn't seem like he's pushing for information, content just to let Starscream run in restless circles until he comes to his own conclusions.
"So maybe you're not going to betray me this time," Starscream says aloud, grumbling with his face mashed against Wheeljack's plating. His claws drum against the armor and he plucks at one of the seams close to his face moodily, with no real threat behind it, his optics on low. If he's doing this, he's going to take advantage of the opportunity, though – he presses against Wheeljack greedily, one leg slotted between Wheeljack's, and shamelessly exploits the chance at having prolonged contact without worrying too much about that scanner-that-may-also-be-a-frag-grenade. He'll know now before Wheeljack tries to consciously set anything off; endlessly reassuring.
It's not a frag grenade. Where do you even come up with this stuff? "Only you could sulk because I genuinely want to spend time with you," Wheeljack says, venting so hard that Starscream feels the engine and spark under him rumble another protest.
Starscream snorts. "This may come as a shock to you, but that's not exactly a common thing." When Wheeljack's hand starts to move from his side for some clearly deficient reason, Starscream seizes the wayward hand and plants it back on his waist where it belongs, pushing a little harder than necessary until his own plating creaks with the pressure. He needs to be able to remember this properly. "Now what, if you're so good at this?"
Wheeljack shrugs under his cheek. "Now? Didn't really think that far ahead." Intimations of silent humor flicker across the cables. "Maybe...relax?"
"Relax. Right." Starscream rolls his eyes one last time, and then, with one last scan of the hanger, and a commed note to Rattrap to go find something useful to do elsewhere, he shuts them down to rest. Just for a moment.