Chapter Text
Skywarp was on reconnaissance that night. There had been at least one of them watching the prison like clockwork ever since they escaped , a matter of decacycles ago. Starscream never strayed far from the compound, for a multitude of reasons. For one, he had every intention of performing a jailbreak of his own, if the opportunity ever presented itself. Knowing, also, what lurked beneath the surface of the compound and its surrounding area… he wanted to be the first to know if there was a breach.
Of any kind.
That was currently beside the actual point: Skywarp was on reconnaissance, and she was the one who reported on the Terrans’ movements outside of the compound. They certainly hadn’t expected it, due to the chaos that had been occurring that night, separate from the prison. Something about— spires popping into existence, out in the middle of nowhere, and some sort of military coup d'état. Starscream and Nova Storm mobilized, immediately, to keep a closer optic on things.
Watching the Decepticons pour out of the G.H.O.S.T stronghold filled them all with relief and pride— that was one thing they no longer had to worry about, in what was turning out to be an extremely chaotic night. The force’s movements were unhurried. Certainly not the actions of mechs being pursued — they almost seemed reluctant to Starscream, which struck him as odd.
“... where are the Terrans?” Starscream asks, his spirits slowly sinking.
“I believe they are going in the opposite direction.” Nova Storm curls her servos into fists as her irritation lashes out across their bond.
If that was the case, the only logical conclusion was that the Decepticons were fleeing like ungrateful cowards . Starscream couldn’t believe their memories were so short , or that they could be so blatantly unashamed of themselves!
They had all fought to be recognized , to be free. Starscream understood the urge to run, better than anyone — but he’d been recently reminded that having the power to choose only made staying all the more important . It mattered what you did with your freedom, just as much that you possessed it.
It’s what Decepticons were meant to do, in the first place.
Starscream would not stand to watch this. His flight path slices a sharp curve through the air as he attempts to get ahead of the Decepticon force, processor spinning with memories of precisely what they were running from, in the first place.
Starscream wasn’t quite as sure of himself as he needed to be, to change their minds, but he knew well enough how to lie.
******
Earlier…
Starscream remembered jail. Distinctly. He’d been slagged over in just about every manner a mech could imagine — and nothing got under his mesh quite like being trapped, and left to rot. There was nothing he could do— nothing to fight back against, or fix. There was only time, and ten thousand tons of steel and concrete towering above his helm. He was thankful that his sisters did not have to share his experience, but it had made it worse that they were not there.
Such a long period of isolation– underground at that–was not a natural experience for a Seeker. Starscream spent half his imprisonment wondering where they were, between his morbid waking daydreams of what might happen if the ceiling caved in above him. He didn’t want to be buried.
Of course, Soundwave didn’t make it any easier. He just… sat there, slumped against the wall with his helm lowered to the ground, in complete silence. Every solar cycle, without change. Like a corpse. Like he’d given up entirely.
Save for, of course, half a megacycle before the prison wardens came to shove cubes of low grade into the cells… in which case, Soundwave would sit up properly and face the hallway-entrance of his cell, as obedient as ever.
It was sickening. Starscream hated it.
After receiving the cube of fuel (which was some of the worst you could force a Cybertronian to subsist off of without it killing them) Soundwave would first offer the cube to Ravage, allowing her to drink her half first— and then finish it. Generally, this would be swiftly followed by an hour or so of cuddling on the ground, before they returned to their corpse-like, meditative state.
At one point, Starscream decided he couldn’t take it anymore. It was like Soundwave had accepted that he might never escape, and decided to just roll with it, like it didn’t bother him. He wasn’t fighting! Why was no one fighting?
“Are you trying to win some kind of award ? ‘Soundwave: Best Autobot Prisoner of War?’” Starscream spat, irritably, shortly after they received their rations.
Soundwave stared at Starscream, blankly, as if he were an idiot.
“No.” Soundwave answered. “Distress: is unproductive.”
Silence followed, as Starscream wasn’t willing to dignify that with a response. Unproductive! Unproductive? He couldn’t believe it.
Somewhere, directly over Starscream’s shoulder, an engine rumbled.
(He would like to impress upon the reader that he did not jump, or screech in a distinctly undignified manner… because it was just Ravage, after all, who had slipped into his cell again to lurk over his untouched rations.)
She stared at him, intently, and then at the cube of low-grade on the floor, before tilting her helm as if to ask: Are you still protesting your imprisonment? If so, may I have your low-grade?
“What?” He asked, incredulous. “No, I’m — whatever, fine, you can have it. I don’t know what makes you two so crazy about this slop.”
Ravage swiftly exited his cell with the cube in tow, returning to the one she shared with Soundwave. Her tail flicked, irritably. Soundwave nodded, at something she was communicating to him privately.
“When we were young, we would fight others, like animals, for half-empty cubes of low grade … shared among us all.” Soundwave shook his helm. “We risked death for less, in the pits.”
Starscream hesitated.
“I… apologize. That was not the right thing, to say, and I know better. I had forgotten. It was not that way, during the war.”
It was the truth. Fuel hadn’t been plentiful, either , for him and his trine back on Vos, before they joined up. Starscream had some strong opinions about low-grade and the people that tried to sell it to others, but that didn’t change history.
“Things were different, during the war,” Soundwave agreed. “but fuel did not come easily, even then… no matter how stable it was, by comparison.”
Starscream had some inclination of what that meant. Megatron had pushed Soundwave the hardest, out of anyone, in part because the stupid fragger let him; he consistently worked upwards of fifteen megacycle shifts. (If you could ever even claim Soundwave was “off” duty, considering the nature of his job.) Even then, that was neglecting to mention the miscellany of problems that were less specific to Soundwave himself, that weighed on everyone.
The death, and brutality. Starscream stared through the translucent wall at the concrete floor of the hallway.
Starscream was reminded once again that the light surrounding them was artificial, produced to conceal reality; they were in the dark, separated from the sky and time as anyone knew it. He had no idea if it was truly day or night, at all, save for what he was being told. They were buried under floors and floors of other cells, concealed within the planet itself.
It terrified him. In his opinion, it should terrify any sane person. Starscream couldn’t afford to think about it, so he stood up and began to prepare. As he did every day, while Soundwave languished away thinking about how easy it was to be a prisoner.
Leading a trine required an innate awareness of position. You set the flight course. You kept to the front—to protect your sisters, to shoot straight and shoot first. Naturally, to be a better flier— you had to hone that awareness.
Starscream sprang into the air, servo outstretched, and connected with the cramped ceiling of his cell in a matter of seconds. It was routine. He engaged his thrusters, gritted his dentae, and swung around, sharply, smashing into the front-facing wall of the cell before finally rebounding back to the ground, balancing the weight of his frame heavily atop his right servo.
Thrusters: cut. Wings: down. Starscream invented, deeply, and engaged each individual biomechanical component within his gauntlets, metal clacking against metal softly, straining to hold himself upright. The precision of the act was just as important as remaining upright. The right timing, the right movement.
He counted. The silent click-click within his frame was not not dissimilar to a clock, ticking away the time he had left.
Starscream collapsed, in a heap, and took in air. Continuing was a necessity. It was more than an exercise in the physical. It was a mental exercise, in maintaining the proper perspective. Starscream would never be helpless, never again, not even as a prisoner. He would be prepared , when the time came for his escape. It would. He had to believe that it would.
He began the exercise all over again with his other side. Left. For Skywarp— wherever she was. He couldn’t feel her presence anywhere, save for the faint pulse of ‘life.’ It could be easily assumed that the same went on their side as well.
There were dozens of exercises to complete, tasks to check off one-by-one, before he could rest. Before he was forced to think. A megacycle passed, and Sarscream went through the motions.
Again. And again. And again.
Finally, he propelled himself backwards from the wall with a sturdy kick to the barrier, spiteful even in routine, and threw himself to the ground, frame screeching. Even falling could be a trained act, controlled and accounted for and perfected. Starscream was the best , though the word no longer held the same lustre now that there were so few fliers to account for.
Starscream tilted his helm back, far to the left. His optical units slid slowly into place, from where they had previously been misaligned. They were always misaligned, in some miniscule way.
He aimed for the minor scuff he’d demarcated out, in the pane. The blast was loud and produced plenty of heat, but it was futile against the walls of the prison itself.
Starscream didn’t care about that. Not anymore. He’d shot at the door enough times to know it wouldn’t open. Carefully, tentatively, he checked the most recent scorch-mark… before it began to fade away into nothing.
He hadn’t hit his mark. The act of sliding his gauntlet back to aim, had been enough to move his optics back out of alignment. Starscream would have to accept it, eventually. He would have to learn to calculate the difference, in his head, like a pursuit curve of its own.
Starscream sat down, and tried to ignore the crushing weight of rock all around him. He would have to get up, and aim, again. His frame only had enough charge to produce so many shots in a solar cycle, and he had to make good use of them, or it would be a waste.
******
Starscream comes to a screeching halt in front of the procession of fleeing Decepticons, shortly followed by his trine. Together, they did not form a formidable blockade— but they did demand attention.
He surveys the group, as a whole with a scowl.
“I’m not going to hold you hostage. You‘ve been freed, and as a Decepticon I feel a personal responsibility to defer to that freedom.” Starscream pauses. “But I think that you should reconsider your decision. This is the first opportunity you will have had — to decide for yourselves — for a long while. That makes it all the more important that you choose right.”
The faces that look back at him do not look friendly, or amenable.
“Easy for you to say, Starscream. You split the first chance you got— you’ve got nothing to lose. You’ve been out of jail for ages.” Hook calls out. Starscream cannot see him, but he knows the army well enough to recognize most of its remaining members by voice alone.
Nova Storm set a protective servo on Starscream’s pauldron and squeezed. (Like she often did, when she was annoyed enough to be at risk of doing something stupid.) It was a stupid thing to say— Starscream had everything to lose. He knew that, innately, and he had not been free for long enough to make much of a difference.
“There are very few Cybertronians left. Certainly very few who are young enough to be free of the biases and notions of our civil war. Ask yourself, honestly, if you can say that they have not earned your loyalty — even if personally, you believe that principle only applies today, and never again. Decepticons have always united under the principle of being unafraid to take action to shape the world we want. Do you want to be remembered as cowards? As hypocrites?”
Nova Storm nods, fiercely.
“In layman’s terms… that means that you losers are free to run, but don’t you dare call yourselves Decepticons if you do. You will have lost that right, along with whatever purpose you once had.” She declares, from her place at Starscream’s right.
“You don’t get to tell us what being a Decepticon means! You’re not our leader, Starscream. We don’t have a leader anymore— we don’t exist. ” Wildbreak heckles, though Starscream could see him quite clearly.
“It doesn’t matter who our leader is!” Starscream snarls. “If you go around— thinking of us as history, thinking that a leader could EVER tell you who you are in the first place… you’re free to do so. My only point is that we’ve lost far too much in pursuit of our dream, to act as if being a Decepticon means nothing. Your friends died for this; that’s true for all of us. Look inside yourself, and make your brand mean something , because it’s disrespectful as the pits to do anything less.”
There was silence. Finally, someone steps out of line, from the very back of the procession.
“I’m not going to let humans drive me into hiding again. I became a Decepticon because I believed in a future— and I’m not abandoning this experiment of ours until it reaches its conclusion. ” Tarantulas glares at the others, now on the other side from him. “For some of you, I am certain that this is not the first time the Terrans have shown you kindness, or listened to you. Ask yourself, sincerely, where your priorities lie, not as a member of a faction but as an individual. Make yourself proud, and live with the consequences.”
The next person to stand out of line was Swindle, who looked deeply anxious and uncomfortable.
“Listen, I don’t know about all that mushy stuff. I’m not going to do any of… that. But I’m a rabble-rouser, alright? That’s what bein’ a Decepticon means, to me. I’m not missing out on the brawl of the century. I don’t live quietly. I say— we’re Decepticons, not glitchmice. That means that youse fight.” Swindle punctuates his statement by slapping Hardtop over the back, gruffly. “For all the time we lost.”
That prompted a sudden flurry of movement, brief, clipped declarations and nervous, embarrassed scurrying away from the departing procession by those who aligned themselves with Swindle’s simple, honest perspective.
The next to surprise Starscream is Breakdown.
“... I guess I should be feeling a little embarrassed, myself.” Breakdown let out an uncharacteristically nervous laugh. “Tarantulas is right. I’m a Stunticon, first, and that means you don’t let anyone else take the fall for you. Maybe my kind of mech isn’t the type to hang around, form ties that are bound to be broken… but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to abandon anybody when they really need me. We all need to give a slag, every once in a while, and make our shots count. You don’t always get a next chance to be the mech you want to be.”
Ravage and Soundwave make the switch without any words exchanged between themselves or the others, simply sidling over to stand beside Starscream’s trine with immutable expressions. Starscream could guess what they were thinking. Where the Cause went, they did too, no matter what shape it took.
The crowd’s fear dissipated, with Soundwave’s change of spark, and all of a sudden people were re-declaring their allegiances left and right. The Decepticons would fight to live well again, regardless of the risk.
******
The town had been scrapped, by the time Mandroid was vanquished and the Autobots were restored to their former states. Many of the Decepticons that had been willing to assist with the battle fled shortly after, out of fear of what might come next. (It seemed self-evident, to many, that they would only end up recaptured as ‘thanks’ for their actions.)
For the majority, for those that stayed… it was a tense and awkward experience. The mechs around Starscream were moving with rigid frames and nervous optics, twitching every time one of the Autobots drew near. With his trine to his left and right, Starscream was more sure of himself, though there was a lingering feeling of dread that he could not rid himself of.
Starscream was much more concerned with his other thoughts, however, of the present and future. What were they doing?
He had not looked around at his surroundings, before now, hadn’t thought about how strange and fragile the human world was. From the topside, dirt was a lot less intimidating than it was strange. He didn’t know if he found it disgusting or intriguing.
Starscream would have to collect samples of “dirt” and “grass” at a later date to reflect on this matter professionally. He nearly drops the concrete slab they were attempting to drag off for disposal, when white paint flashes by in his peripheral vision. Skywarp catches his side of the slab, quickly, and scowls.
“Careful!” She hissed at Starscream, her tone a facsimile of her usual harshness, before tossing an unfairly scathing glare towards Breakdown, who was (of course) messing around on the job site.
It was hard to conceal much at all from trine, on account of the low-level field of ‘awareness’ that came with the bond. You knew how your formation felt— if they were in danger, or if they were near or far. It was a matter of sensitivity, and intuition. Often, you could guess exactly how your partners were going to change up the battle formation without them giving you any external signs. It wasn’t as simple as reading thoughts, or as precise.
Of course, Skywarp knew how Starscream felt, in that moment— though she had tried not to acknowledge this, in an attempt to save his pride. Starscream smiles, bitterly, at that, before dusting his servos off and getting back to work. Pride meant very little, in their current situation.
He’s ready to cut loose and go off on his own again, by the end of that first solar cycle. They know, without being told as much, due to that sense of awareness. As far as Starscream can tell, Nova Storm and Skywarp are in agreement. The damage is mostly handled, at this point, and Starscream doesn’t believe that cooperation will work long-term.
The Terrans are good people, but that does not change anything at all about who the Autobots are. It did not make the Decepticons’ goals any more compatible with their idea of ‘peace.’ Starscream wasn’t going to risk it; he wasn’t going to let them put him back in chains, or get Skywarp or Nova Storm hurt trying to avoid that fate.
They’re turning away, for good, when she stops him.
“You’re not leaving again, are you?” Hashtag’s brow furrowed. “We need you, here. I know that a lot has happened in the past, but that doesn’t mean things will turn out the same now. This is a completely new day. Why give up on the chance to know what might happen— when anything, at all, is possible?”
Starscream doesn’t know how to respond to that. It seems so unbelievably naive— that Hashtag could say that “anything” could happen and intend for that to be inspiring. If anything, it only made Starscream more anxious.
“The Autobots will survive without me, I assure you,” Starscream jokes, though it falls flat even to his own audials. “They’ve been coping with my absence capably for— the entirety of the war, save for one recent outlier incident.”
That wasn’t the right thing to say.
“That’s not what I—” Hashtag sighs. “Nevermind. The Decepticons need you, too. They… wouldn’t be here, without you, and you asked them to put an awful lot of trust in you. To come here, and to believe that you could help them.”
Starscream froze. He hadn’t expected this to be a permanent thing, at all. The Cause was a scrapheap, in its current state, barely warranting a leader at all. (Not to mention that Starscream wasn’t so certain he was the same mech that had dreamed of being a leader, all those years ago.)
His opinions about the risks hadn’t changed, but… maybe he needed to follow his advice, about courage in spite of risk. What were the Decepticons meant to do, in this situation he’d gotten them into? They couldn’t trust the Autobots, and certainly not their “reformed” ex-leader, to refrain from slaughtering or imprisoning them at the first sign of trouble. Not to mention the fact that they were all currently verging on directionless, and without Starscream around…
Who was going to set the flight path? Soundwave didn’t seem particularly stable, right now; he couldn’t lead if he barely wanted to live. Many of their strongest fighters were currently giving up to go… bury themselves in a shallow grave, or something equally asinine and serene.
Starscream hesitated. He wasn’t certain if this was the right decision, for any of them. Sensing that Starscream was at a crossroads, Nova Storm set a gentle servo on his pauldron, and nodded.
“Of course we’re not leaving. Right, Screamer?” She elbows him, harshly. “We’re not going to surrender that which is ours, out of fear.”
“Fear?” Hashtag repeated, squinting at the three of them.
It suddenly occurred to Starscream that the Terrans could not even understand why the Decepticons had been so reluctant to come to their rescue. From their perspective— the perspective of perfectly decent, naive sparklings — the war was over, and the Decepticons had just proven themselves “innocent.” The Terrans wouldn’t even imagine, nevertheless believe that the Autobots could have (and may very well still choose to) turn around and show their appreciation for their unlikely comrades-at-arms with a personal escort right back into their holding cells.
It had been obvious to the Decepticons. It was the first thing that crossed all of their minds, particularly those who had been imprisoned the longest. They were all frightened. Starscream wants to speak the words aloud, to try to explain himself — but perhaps some knowledge wasn’t meant to be shared.
Even if they did understand, or cared, it would not benefit the Terrans to know. Starscream wished he didn’t know anything about it, himself, that everyone in the world could be as stupid and simple and… shiny.
Frag it. If the Autobots could do revisionist history, he could manage ‘revisionist present-day.’
“... fear of the many serious and solemn duties of… leadership, of course.” Starscream smiles, awkwardly. “Which is a drastic exaggeration, of course, because really I’ve already gotten over it. Don’t worry about it. We’ll be here, tomorrow, to continue cleaning up the mess the Autobots have made of this planet.”
Hashtag looked mildly offended at that, but also confused about where to even begin with her objections. Starscream turned sharply to Skywarp and made a vague gesture which roughly translated to: ‘We need to leave, NOW! RETREAT!’
She teleports the three of them out of there, in a burst of electrical charge, before Starscream could manage any further tactical malfunctions. Immediately after their ‘brilliant’ escape, Nova Storm brings to light another problem with their current arrangement.
“... the entire Decepticon army is unhoused, as of now, because whatever arrangements they might have made prior to being imprisoned are now void.” She sighs. “As much as I enjoy camping, I don’t think they’re all going to be able to fit in our hammock.”
Starscream snorts.
“You’re right. We’ll need to send out an open frequency to convene and set up a temporary encampment. If we could find something with a decent frame for expansion, and find me a couple of solar cycles worth of free time and a new toolkit— and I’m sure I could rig something better up.”
The idea thrills him more than he’d like to admit. So much of his time had been taken up by survival, that he was genuinely excited to get his servos on a new project.
“We need a fire tower,” Skywarp mutters, absently, already scanning maps of the nearby area using her datapad. “We’re in the middle of a national park, there’s likely going to be multiple unused stations.”
Starscream has no idea what she was talking about.
“‘Fire… tower?’” Nova Storm echoes.
“Oh, right. I’ve been doing some research into earth-based biology and ecosystem management. Now, I don’t care for human literature, much, but their science is decent. Carbon-based lifeforms are so intricate, you know— and flammable. A ‘fire tower’ is a station humans use to monitor “parks” like these, to eliminate risk of the forests self-destructing. Hold on, I’m seeing a promising candidate right… here!”
Skywarp turned around the datapad to face the other two mechs. The location wasn’t far off, and it appeared to be some kind of flat wooden base built into the rocky cliff face of a mountain.
“I could reinforce that to support Cybertronian weight in a matter of megacycles, and we could tunnel in from the entrance to expand the base— not to mention the surrounding area. Excellent.” Starscream approved immensely, on the basis of location alone. It was perfect, tactically, for defense.
He was quite used to watching for fires, and putting them out. That was the cornerstone of administration.
Skywarp frowned.
“... the surrounding area is home to a keystone species. Black-tailed prairie dogs, to be specific. Construction could disrupt—”
“Type me up a data packet on what accommodations need to be made, and I’ll manage it.” Starscream cuts in, impatiently. “Expansions, and the details of said expansions, need to wait.”
He had a Cause to reforge back into existence, in the meantime.