Chapter Text
Starscream needed to get up. But as he laid on the berth, the idea seemed less and less appealing. What would he even do? He dismissed a low fuel alert and sighed.
Then, the door slid open. Blitzwing stood at the doorway, tilting his head at Starscream. Buster darted through the cracks between his pedes and the wall, leaping at the base of Starscream's berth and barking.
"You never pinged."
The quiet voice made clear which aspect was speaking. Starscream stretched and pushed himself into a sitting position, facing toward Popshot.
"What am I supposed to do?" Starscream said. "There's nothing I'm working on and nowhere to go."
Popshot stared down at him for a moment.
"We could get energeon together," Popshot said. "You have to be low by now."
Starscream pushed himself off of the berth. Anything was better than wallowing in his own misery. Just as they were about to leave the room, Popshot turned back toward him.
"The medicine?" Popshot said.
Starscream grumbled, then walked back across the room and grabbed the bottle. Stupid fragging crystals. Stupid fragging fuel lines. Stupid fragging body.
He followed Popshot to the too-loud mess hall. They settled in the same corner as before. Starscream opened his cube, read the instructions for the medication, and sprinkled the correct dose into his cube. He swirled the cube around lazily in his hand, hoping to Primus that the medication didn't have a flavor.
Luckily, it didn't. He sipped his energeon as Popshot glanced nervously at him, optics flitting from Starscream to the tables nearby. Just as he was about to ask Popshot what the issue was, Popshot finally spoke.
"Game night's tonight," he said. "I really hope you'll go."
"What else do I have to do?" Starscream said.
☆☆☆
He should have said no. He should've stayed in berth. He should've never woken up.
The room went silent when they entered. Mecha stared up at them, optics wide. Starscream had always wanted to be the center of attention, but not like this.
"Over here!"
Starscream suppressed a jump, though his wings still fanned out at the call. The mech responsible for the yell—Knock Out—waved at them from the side of the room. Popshot and Starscream made their way to him.
"What games do we have tonight?" Popshot asked.
Knock Out shrugged. "Nova Storm brought them. She said they'd be surprises."
Skywarp appeared in the center of the room, hand raised as she yelled, "Is everyone here?"
Knock Out stood and called back, "Not yet!"
Starscream gritted his dentae at the noise. He turned to Popshot and whispered, "Why don't they just use comms?"
"It's part of the fun," Popshot said. "Or something like that."
A mech entered through a door opposite of the one Starscream and Popshot entered through—which happened to be just beside where they settled. Starscream had seen him before. He was an Autobot scout during the war. His name was just out of reach—
"It's good to see you, Bumblebee," Popshot said.
That was nowhere near what Starscream was going to guess. Bumblebee smiled at Popshot.
"Likewise," he said, making some strange gesture with one of his hands. His face fell as his optics met with Starscream's.
"Hello," Starscream said.
Bumblebee stared at him. "Hi."
Bumblebee kept staring. Starscream refused to yield. He drummed his fingers against the table, maintaining optic contact.
Skywarp popped up behind him, nearly startling him out of his seat. "Is this finally everyone?"
Knock Out nodded. Skywarp scanned the table, optics lingering on Starscream. Then, she warped to the center of the room. Nova Storm joined her as the room hushed.
Then, Skywarp disappeared. She reappeared moments later with a large shape covered in a tarp. She glanced at Nova Storm, who grinned before calling out.
"Our first game of the night is—"
Skywarp ripped the tarp off dramatically, exposing a tower of bricks.
"Towerfall!"
Ugh. Not this again. Starscream sank in his seat. Beside him, Popshot smiled.
"I'm not participating in this one," Starscream hissed.
"That's fine," Popshot said. "Most of the mecha in here are just watching."
"All participants gather 'round!" Skywarp shouted.
Popshot and Bumblebee rose from their seats. Knock Out and Starscream shared glances, neither moving.
"You're not joining?" Knock Out asked.
Starscream grimaced. "Towerfall is not a game I enjoy."
"Then we have that in common," Knock Out said, leaning against the table. "It's just so… rudimentary."
Skywarp removed the first brick from the tower. Tapping his fingers on the table, Starscream was suddenly glad that they hadn't taken Buster with them. Popshot reached for a risky brick, pulling it out with enough force to make the tower sway. The rest of the players made noises of surprise as the tower stabilized.
The game was, to some degree, deterministic. While strategy would carry a mech toward the beginning, the less bricks there were left, the less it mattered. Eventually, one mech would pull the brick that stabilized the tower and it would all fall. There were no ways to pass on turns—if a mech had only essential blocks left, they were forced to topple the tower.
Where was the fun in knowing one was doomed?
A mech Starscream didn't recognize pulled a brick from the tower with practiced patience. Starscream graduated from tapping his fingers to curling and uncurling them, sighing as he leaned into the table. A flash of silver caught his eye.
He turned the sides of his arms toward himself. With a wave of embarrassment, he remembered the cause of the marks. Surely, Knock Out and Popshot had seen them. Had everyone seen them?
They needed to be fixed. He couldn't right now, but later…
Starscream crossed his arms on the table to hide the marks. Then, he turned to Knock Out.
"Where do you get your paints?" He asked.
Knock Out's optics fell to Starscream's arms. Starscream recoiled, again ensuring that the marks weren't exposed.
"Ruined my work already, haven't you?" Knock Out asked.
"No," Starscream hissed. "But—"
"It's fine," Knock Out said. "I can't give you paint, but if you come with me after this, I can reapply it in the medbay."
"Why can't you give me paint?"
Knock Out's optics fell to Starscream's arms again. Then, they locked with his. Starscream forced himself to remain still, the back of his processor screeching at the intense optic contact.
"We keep all of the paints in the medbay," Knock Out said. "It's difficult to synthesize them from earth pigments, so they're in short supply. Besides, I did a good job last time. Wouldn't you rather I do it again?"
Starscream let out an irritated noise and turned back toward the game. "Fine. I'll come with you."
The game continued for quite a while, owing to the increased size of the tower. Comparing the pitiful towers back in the Decepticon camps to the one before them now was not even worth it. Despite it just being a game, something about it made Starscream's plating crawl. He tapped his fingers on the table, watching as the tower dwindled to merely a frame.
It was Bumblebee who pulled the unlucky brick. The tower crashed to the floor, mecha leaping backward to avoid the bricks. Starscream fought a flinch, the noise attacking his audials. Still, he couldn't prevent himself from letting out a quiet hiss.
The players laughed, gathering up the bricks. Some patted Bumblebee on the back. When all of the bricks were gathered, Nova Storm placed the tarp back on top of them and Skywarp disappeared with it. She reappeared a moment later with a cart of datapads.
Nova Storm struck a dramatic pose, her wings swooping in a showy manner. Skywarp's stance was equally dramatic.
"And now!" Nova Storm yelled. "Our second and final game of the night—Wolfworld!"
Starscream had no idea what that was. He turned to Knock Out, who shrugged. As mecha began lining up to receive datapads, Popshot leaned around the line, spotting Starscream and Knock Out. He approached them.
"You should play," he said. "I think you'll like it."
"What is it?" Starscream asked.
"A collaborative survival game," Popshot said. "Nova Storm has been trying to get it to work on datapads for a while now. I didn't realize it'd be for this."
Starscream glanced at Knock Out, only to find the other mech also looking at him. He shrugged.
"What else do I have to do?"
The wait in line was boring, as lines typically were. But eventually, they reached the front.
"Where did you get this many data pads from?" Bumblebee asked as Skywarp handed him one.
"You don't need to know!" Nova Storm chirped.
Starscream snickered. In all likelihood, they were stolen from somewhere else in the base. It was so utterly Skywarp. His spark ached.
Bumblebee left the line and Starscream stepped forward. Skywarp went to hand him a datapad, optics elsewhere—until they landed on him. Neither mech moved.
"Starscream," Skywarp said. She leaned in close, shoving the datapad between them. "Don't ruin this for the rest of us."
Starscream took the datapad. He returned to his seat, spark cold. What had he expected? Numbly, he turned on the datapad and booted up the game. After entering a code that Nova Storm supplied, it brought him to a character customization screen, with a character that resembled a ferrowolf front and center.
He picked his stats first, prioritizing speed and stealth over strength. Then, he picked his wolf's appearance. After checking each option at least once, he settled on a dark rusty color. It was either that or white, and he didn't feel like choosing white.
He glanced at the mecha beside him. Knock Out chose a pale reddish wolf with nearly every point the game supplied allocated into speed. Blitzwing's face was stoic, so Starscream assumed Icebeam was currently in control. Icebeam had picked a white wolf with gray speckles. Its stats were spread evenly. Bumblebee's was a boring brown with stats leaning slightly toward stealth, but otherwise evenly spread.
Starscream saved his character. The game dropped him into the middle of a forest. Other wolves were around his, nametags making clear which mech was behind the screen. Knock Out's and Icebeam's wolves appeared near his. Nova Storm's wolf had a crown on its nametag, and the player list labeled her as 'pack leader.'
Knock Out's wolf grabbed Starscream's and threw it.
"Why did you do that?" Starscream squawked.
"I was just trying to see what that button did!"
Bumblebee laughed.
Starscream made his wolf run over to Knock Out's. He selected the button that looked most correct and grinned when his wolf got vengeance. Nova Storm's wolf ran between them, shoving them both to the side with a growl.
"This is a collaborative game!" Nova Storm shouted from across the room. "We're all in the same pack. Stop fighting."
"Then what are we supposed to do?" Starscream said.
The nametags on Starscream's, Knock Out's, Icebeam's, and Bumblebee's wolves changed to the same color.
"There," Nova Storm said. "You're a hunting team now. Go kill some elk."
That was… definitely a task. One that Starscream knew how to accomplish. Completely. Totally.
His wolf got thrown off the elk immediately. Bumblebee (Of all mecha!) had to show him how to hunt. It didn't help much, since the mech hadn't ever played the game, either.
Then, suddenly, Icebeam's wolf overtook the rest of the group and landed a killing blow on the elk. Icebeam leaned over Starscream's shoulder and tapped a cog on the side of the screen, then pointed to a button labeled "tutorials."
"Oh," Starscream said.
A brief review of the tutorials, and the team fell into a pattern. Starscream and Knock Out herded the elk while Bumblebee and Icebeam were typically the ones to land the final blow. Their pack quickly had a surplus, which led Nova Storm to introduce the next portion of the game.
In it, they were meant to raise offspring. Nova Storm suggested pairs, but didn't force any mecha together (unlike with the hunting groups). Somehow, Starscream and the rest of his hunting group ended up together anyway. It was for the best, considering they got as far as naming the pups before they all realized they had no idea what they were supposed to do.
The tutorials helped, but not to the extent they did before. As Starscream was watching over the pups, a strange wolf darted through the camp, followed by many others. Starscream immediately moved to attack the strange wolf, but he was quickly surrounded. One of the wolves grabbed one of the puppies.
(Somewhere in the back of his processor, Starscream doubted this was how wolves actually lived.)
"Knock Out," he hissed. The other mech should've been the closest to the camp. "Get back here!"
Knock Out's wolf ran into the camp. They fought together, but it still wasn't enough. Then, suddenly, Nova Storm burst through the edge of the screen, followed by a group of other mecha. The battle concluded with a victory, leaving Starscream satisfied despite its fictional status.
Soon afterward, the game night was declared over. The datapads were collected and warped back to wherever they came from. Mecha left the room in an inconsistent trickle, many staying just to chat. Starscream was contemplating recharging in his room when Knock Out's voice startled him out of his thoughts.
"Are you ready to go?"
"Y-Yes," Starscream said. "Let's go."
Icebeam followed them, as he had been assigned to do. The halls were empty aside from the few mecha heading back from game night that happened to be going in the same direction. Then, suddenly, they were not.
Starscream let out an irritated hiss as he nearly ran into Knock Out, who had paused in the middle of the hall. He silenced himself when the reason became clear. Megatron stood before them, optics glowing in the dim light.
"Knock Out," Megatron said, dipping his head. "My apologies. I didn't realize you would be heading this way."
He stepped past Knock Out, pausing when he locked optics with Starscream.
"You're here too."
The tone made Starscream's wings twitch.
"I am," Starscream said.
"It's… good to see you outside of that cell," Megatron said. "I hope you're taking advantage of the opportunity you've been presented."
"If that's the way you're talking about it, it certainly wasn't given by you."
Megatron frowned. "No, it wasn't."
"Right," Starscream hissed, tapping a pede. "After all, why would you want a rabid turbofox roaming around your base?"
"Don't be like that."
Starscream narrowed his optics. "Be like what?"
"This," Megatron growled. "I'm just trying to have a conversation."
Something drove Starscream to keep pushing.
"When has it ever just been a conversation?"
Megatron leaned close, nearly optic-to-optic with Starscream. "And who was to blame for that?"
Starscream's spark pulsed in his chest. A painful energy zinged through his lines. He knew that tone. They both knew how this would end. Starscream nearly took a step backward, then remembered that Icebeam was behind him.
There was nowhere to go but forward. Starscream braced himself, then shoved Megatron. The brute barely moved. His optics snapped toward Starscream's arms. He grabbed one of Starscream's wrists, dentae bared.
This was it. He was doomed—
Megatron's hand slipped lower. His grip slackened. With an ice cold wave of fear, Starscream realized why: his fingers had brushed against the mark.
"What is—"
"We have somewhere to be."
The voice was coarse, but unmistakably Blitzwing. Flamecrash.
"I imagine you do, too," she said, squeezing herself beside Starscream.
Megatron grunted. He glanced at them one more time before heading down the hall. Starscream watched him until he was out of sight, curling and uncurling his fingers. His teeth ached as his plating crawled, the uncomfortable energy that had built in his lines refusing to fizzle away.
"Fragger needs to realize not everyone wants him around," Flamecrash muttered. "No sense in reviving something so dead."
Knock Out glanced between Starscream and the empty hall. "Let's go."
The encounter wasn't too far from the medbay, so they arrived quickly. They paused at the entrance. Inside, the lights were off, and likely had been for some time.
Knock Out turned to Flamecrash. "Can you wait outside?"
Flamecrash nodded. Satisfied with the response, Knock Out led Starscream in, motioning for him to sit on one of the berths. When Starscream obeyed, Knock Out opened a cabinet and removed a jar of paint that matched Starscream's arms. He brought the jar over and gently took one of Starscream's arms in his hand, scraped side facing upward.
Starscream couldn't look away from it. Embarrassingly, the temptation beckoned. Not here, not now—but that didn't stop the feeling. He clenched his jaw. The solution was so close and yet completely out of reach.
Knock Out ran his fingers over the scraped patch, then looked up at Starscream.
"Do you want an energeon gummy?" He asked.
Starscream stared at him.
"To help you relax," Knock Out said. "Your plating is very tense right now, which makes it harder to paint near the seams."
Oh, right. Starscream nodded. Knock Out retrieved one from one of the cabinets and handed it to him, then began his work. Starscream rolled the gummy in his fingers for a moment. Sure, they had still managed to be around during the war, but it had been a long time since Starscream had one.
He popped it in his mouth. It gave way under his dentae, a sensation completely different from plating. But Knock Out was right—it did help.
Knock Out let his arm go, finished with painting, then tapped the other. Starscream offered the arm. Soon, that one was completed as well. Knock Out released it gently, optics landing on Starscream's.
"When I was… obsessed," Knock Out paused, optics drifting away from Starscream's. "I did it because I was anxious. I thought I'd never be good enough. What drove you to this?"
What did drive him to this? His processor was blank. In the moment, he always knew—but outside of it, it was as if another mech had acted for him. There was only one consistency.
"It hurts," Starscream said.
His spark, the marks—all of it.
Knock Out sighed. "I suppose so."
Starscream pushed himself off of the berth as Knock Out turned to put the paint away. Just as he moved toward the door, Knock Out came back toward him, a small container of energeon gummies in hand.
"Here," he said. "Take some for later."
Starscream hesitated, hand hovering over the container. Why was Knock Out…? He shoved the confusion to the back of his processor and took the container, giving Knock Out an awkward nod before leaving the medbay. Outside, Flamecrash waited for him, leaning casually against the wall.
"I'm going back to my room," Starscream said.
Flamecrash nodded, not detaching from the wall until Starscream passed her. Their pedesteps echoed down the empty halls. The closer they got to their destination, the less the sound mattered.
Why did he do this? Was there something wrong with him? Was Megatron truly right?
His body filled with a stinging energy. The pedesteps in the hall were suddenly louder. Around him, the walls shifted and groaned.
There was something about Megatron—his voice, the way he moved—that set Starscream on edge. One shift of the brute's tone, and Starscream became a snarling, cornered mechanimal. But he insisted—Thundercracker had insisted—that he was to blame. The massive, stalking creature that was Megatron did not start the fights. It only finished them.
That was the rule, had been the rule for so long that Starscream had to search his memory banks to find a time without it. Starscream was an insubordinate traitor, and those could never be dealt with using gentle hands. It was a protocol so deeply rooted that reversing it was impossible.
The door to Starscream's room shut behind him. When had he gotten there? The painful energy coursed through him again. He clenched his jaw, tapping a pede as the energy pinned him in place.
Even when he led the Decepticons, Megatron had all of the power. He struggled and starved while Megatron sat beside the Autobots with all of the energeon he could ever want. The brute strode around the base as if he owned it while Starscream was locked in a cell—and would've stayed there if it were Megatron's decision.
Familiar desperation crept into Starscream's processor. He couldn't leave the base. With no containment field between them, Megatron could handle Starscream however he wished. Nowhere was safe—not if Megatron was there.
His dentae ached. His fans had clicked on a while ago, the noise buzzing in his audials. A temperature warning appeared, which he didn't bother to dismiss. He couldn't do this.
Starscream knew what would help. Still, he resisted. He just had his arms repainted! If he did this now, he would have to see Knock Out again. His hands squeezed the container of energeon gummies.
A fraction of a moment later, he was prying the container open. He chewed on a gummy, pacing the room. The agony faded to a faint buzz.
He skipped recharge that night.