Chapter Text
Optimus woke up in near darkness, his HUD swarming with error messages.
He shook them away and tried to sit up, and promptly almost overbalanced from the effort. What—oh. He was missing most of one arm. The arm itself was right there, lying on the ground next to him, but it wasn't… attached.
Not a great place to start, really.
Optimus could only see any of this because of a tiny camp lantern nearby. Where was he? The plants around him were the glowy underground type, but he was in a room of some kind—just one long overgrown. There was a rectangular doorway leading out into pitch black, and the lantern's light picked out textured tiles on the floor. Next to him were the gutted remains of a field medical kit and a bunch of other odds and ends Optimus recognised from his subspace. Someone must have used the kit to stabilise his wounds, stop the bleeding… he'd lost an arm, after all.
How had he lost an arm?
He checked his agenda for the day, hoping for a clue—and then it all came rushing back to him. He'd set out on a training excursion, him and a small team of Autobots led by Hot Rod, an Iaconian but a highly skilled wartime scout, intending to learn more about navigating on the surface of Cybertron. They'd made it a daytime mission given the lack of Quintesson sightings in the region—the Quintessons had historically been most active on the day-side of the planet, for some reason, but they hadn't made an appearance since Optimus' ascension, and he'd assumed that meant they'd be safe. Starscream had insisted on accompanying him, and it wasn't like Optimus would get in his way about that. (B-127 had been delighted to see Starscream would be joining them. Those two were getting along better than anyone had honestly expected them to—Bee had a good spark, but even Optimus would admit he was a bit of an acquired taste.)
It'd been going well—the Autobots on the mission had learnt how to read the planet's magnetic field to orient themselves, always useful on a planet constantly in motion—when things started going downhill. First had been the Decepticons showing up, a small party of them sneaking around quietly and refusing to engage. Megatron had been among them, and that had distracted Optimus so completely that he'd missed the shadow in the sky sinking down over their heads.
It had been a Quintesson fighter craft. Small, agile, and bristling with close-range weaponry.
Optimus recalled the ground caving in under the assault, but not much of what happened after that. He was still underground… could he have fallen into a subterranean ruin? Where had the other Autobots ended up? He tried his comms and found them damaged; to make matters worse, his self-repair wasn't working as well as it could be, either. He knew he'd be hearing it from Ratchet about letting his nanite levels drop, when he got back to Iacon. If he got back to Iacon.
No, that sort of thinking wasn't helpful. Optimus vented out and tried to remain calm. It was clear he'd been found by an ally, though they were no longer here. They'd probably come back. The smartest thing to do was stay put and wait. It was certainly what Elita would want him to do.
Well, nobody'd ever accused him of being smart.
He lasted about a minute before he was staggering to his feet, his systems struggling to accommodate for both the missing arm and the extra weight of said arm in his free hand. The medical kit and everything else on the ground had been scooped back into his subspace, and he turned on his headlights so the doorway out didn't look quite so ominous.
Outside the room was a sort of wide corridor, the walls heavy with carved reliefs, though there wasn't enough light to really see what they were about. There were more doors in the wall at regular intervals, and the end of the corridor seemed to lead downstairs. Plant roots snaked underfoot; when Optimus stopped and listened as carefully as he could, he thought he could hear running energon. It seemed likely—there had to be some nearby for all these plants to live off of, and enough buildings in Iacon had running energon installations that the odds of one in here were good. He reached the end of the corridor and carefully moved down the stairs, arriving at a sort of landing with more dark doorways leading out.
He shone his headlights down each doorway, on the lookout for his mysterious ally—or anybody, really, there had to be others down here, how big could a ruin be—but he was entirely ill-equipped to counter what he did find.
Optimus had seen Quintessons before. He'd seen them in recordings and broadcasts, and he'd seen them in person that fateful day so long ago, but he'd never seen one this close… and he was utterly unprepared for the wave of strut-deep revulsion that ran through him at the sight of it, at the glimpses of exposed sinew between its plates and the wet gleam of its tentacles and the malevolent glow of its yellow eyes. His HUD splintered into artefacts—maybe there was useful information behind the static, but his terror made it impossible to read.
The Quintesson moved closer. It made an extended grumbling noise and exhaled a puff of opaque smoke, and Optimus knew what it was saying with a spark-deep certainty, despite never having learnt the Quintesson language.
THE OVERSEER AND THE KEY? WHAT LUCK.
And then it was moving towards him, its manipulator arms reaching for his chest, ready to pull him to pieces and take the Matrix for itself.
Optimus knew he needed to do something. Anything. But his fear and disgust had frozen him to the spot, squeezing down on his internals until he felt like he might purge. His nerveless fingers dropped his arm; he couldn't run, he couldn't even move—
"NO!"
A multicoloured blur shot in out of nowhere, slamming into the Quintesson hard enough to shove it against the wall. Optimus stared, reeling back, shocked right out of his terror. Starscream?
It was Starscream. Optimus could hear his shrill voice shrieking curses over the Quintesson's pained gurgling, though all he could see in his headlights was a mass of flailing tentacles. Optimus desperately wanted to help, but no part of him would let him get any closer to the Quintesson. It was a fear unlike anything he had ever felt before. And it didn't fade when the bulk of the Quintesson slumped to the ground. It was clearly unconscious (or even dead!) but he still couldn't move. What was wrong with him?
Starscream emerged from underneath the mass of the Quintesson's tentacles, stained and venting heavily. He climbed the body as if to stand on top of it—and then began prying at its armour. What was he—?
A section of plating gave way, parting with a wet SHRAKK from the mass underneath. Optimus winced at the sound, but Starscream only flung it aside and started on another segment. This too went flying. Then he started ripping at the stuff underneath, pulling out steaming handfuls of what looked like the Quintesson's organs and viscera. "Starscream," started Optimus, shakily, finding he could speak now, "it—it's dead. You don't have to—" Do that, but his voice caught on his words. Could Starscream even hear him? Should Optimus get closer? (Except he couldn't. He really couldn't.)
Starscream finally stopped, evidently having found what he was looking for, and he turned to Optimus so suddenly he flinched. "Optimus," he said, his voice mild, his face unreadable. "I need you to do me a favour."
Optimus blinked. "What?"
Starscream hopped off the Quintesson and moved towards him, his arms dripping with greenish-gold ichor. There was something in his hand, something the size and shape of a spark chamber, glowing a muted green. He raised Optimus' empty hand and placed the object in it. "Make a fist."
It was a simple enough ask. The object —unpleasantly slick and body-warm—resisted his strength for less than a second before collapsing into shards and slime.
The effects were immediate. A wave of starlight-hot euphoria slammed into Optimus, swamping his spark and surging down his lines. His body felt energised, invigorated, ready to fight; the exposed joint of his shoulder tingled. Optimus vented hard, unnerved by the feeling, and he shook his head to try and clear it.
"Let it pass." Starscream was watching him carefully. His hand hovered over Optimus's closed fist, not quite touching. "Can you approach the Quintesson now?"
Optimus didn't understand what was happening, but he trusted Starscream. He looked up from his hand and found his HUD clear, pointing out the Quintesson Sublieutenant [Deactivated] lying on the floor in front of him. He took a step forward, his legs now responding perfectly, and his view lit up with the meanings of the metal bands on the Quintesson's manipulator arms: its rank and experience. It wasn't particularly high up on either, which had likely saved his life.
And Starscream hadn't been surprised by his paralysing fear of the Quintesson. "You've seen this happen before."
"Yes," said Starscream. "Megatron… experienced something similar."
Megatron. Red eyes. Regret. His tumbling spark pulled in a frequently accessed memory—and suddenly his missing arm loomed large in his awareness. He'd lost it again—there was a searing howling hole where his chest should have been—but no, there wasn't, this was different. He hadn't been shot. His arm was right there on the ground. He could take it back to Iacon, back to Autobot HQ, and Ratchet would pop it right back on, grousing the whole time.
Speaking of Ratchet. "Starscream. The Autobots! Are they—"
"They're fine," said Starscream, interrupting him, smiling slightly. "Calm down. I found you first, and I hid you before I went to look for the others. They've set up camp in the main hall downstairs. Hot Rod's teaching them how to build a fire."
Optimus vented out in relief: Hot Rod could keep them safe, and it didn't look like they'd lost anybody. "That's good to hear." He bent and picked up his arm, grimacing when the slime on his hand squidged its way into his finger joints. "Ugh. What was that thing, anyway?"
Starscream was silent for a little too long. Optimus looked up to see him frowning. "It's a Quintesson memory core," said Starscream, slowly, like he expected Optimus to know this already. "I thought it would…" and then he trailed off, staring at his head like it had sprouted a third finial. "Huh. Aversion coding. Interesting."
That sounded ominous. "Starscream?"
Starscream met his gaze. "When Megatron encountered his first Quintessons, he froze up just like you did. We thought it was fear." He sounded abashed. Perhaps he'd been cruel about it. "We fought them for him, and Soundwave let him have a memory core as consolation. I thought he was being soft, as usual, but… more Quintessons arrived in minutes, eager to find what had become of their forward scouts. Megatron had no trouble fighting those." A quick glance down at Optimus's hand. "It's only a hypothesis—has to be, with a sample size this small."
Optimus didn't understand most of that, but he grabbed onto the image of Soundwave giving Megatron a memory core. Obviously because crushing it felt good, but— "Hold up. Why does breaking a memory core feel like that?" It didn't make sense. Starscream had pulled that thing out of a Quintesson's guts.
Starscream went back to frowning. "Reward coding, Prime. Remember?"
Optimus just stared at him. He was sure he'd have paid attention to something like this.
Starscream's frown deepened, and his mouth opened slightly, as if to complain, but then his eyes went wide. "Sentinel. Magnus did tell me the Archives were incomplete, but I didn't think he would have—Optimus. Tell me." His wings rose slightly, and he turned to face him, his expression keen. "What do you know of Quintus Prime?"
Bit of a non sequitur, but Optimus guessed this was going somewhere. "He's… green? With tentacle arms. One of the quiet ones." Not unlike Alpha Trion in that way. Orion had once read up on all the Primes—at one point he'd wanted a favourite of his own, to match with Dee—and Quintus had been one of the worst documented. He'd been elevated to Primacy after the start of the war, which was sort of interesting, but it did make his Quintesson-like appearance even more questionable. (And Orion hadn't found an explanation for that in the Archives.) "I don't know that much about him, actually."
"Mm. Sentinel would've been thorough. And of course nobody would see a need to repeat something universally known." Starscream sighed and ripped some leaves from a nearby plant, using them to wipe his arms clean. "Quintus… before his ascension, he was a deep cover operative within the Quintesson Co-Prosperity Sphere. Word was he got a significant way up the hierarchy before they sniffed him out." He glanced at Optimus and shook his head. "Don't hold his shape against him. He'd spent dozens of cycles wired into a Quintesson frame by the time he was extracted. His mind couldn't adjust to having only four limbs to control."
That was why, then. "What did he do in there?" It had to be something impressive, to be awarded the Primacy.
"He discovered the real reason why the Quintessons wanted Cybertron." Starscream gestured widely. "Cybertron—the planetformer, Primus, however you think of it—it used to be a Quintesson megastructure. A self-contained factory. From the Quintesson point of view, they are simply recovering a runaway slave."
His words were so matter-of-fact that they took a moment to sink in. Optimus went still, his spark doing something unpleasant in his chest. The corridor suddenly seemed much larger around him, the darkness ahead more forbidding. "That—that can't be true." He knew he'd met a presence of some kind, down in the depths of the planet. It had repaired him, upgraded him, given him the Matrix and the energon to repair Iacon. And it had felt—kind. Benevolent. Like it cared about him and all the other cogless. He didn't think it was a god, exactly, but he could see why people got that idea. To hear it was just another bot, and that it had been created by the Quintessons…
Starscream didn't meet his eyes. "The Quintessons have certainly never confirmed it for us, no." But it must have been true, or Quintus wouldn't have been made Prime for discovering it. That presence—Primus—would have known.
He thought of the Quintesson he'd just met, and what it had said. How he'd understood it as naturally as base-language Cybertronian.
(—THE OVERSEER AND THE KEY—)
The key was quite obviously the Matrix, given the way it had been leering at his chest.
(—THE OVERSEER—)
The energon refinery had once had overseers, picked out from among the cogless. Orion had never been one, but he'd seen them getting reamed out for not meeting quotas. (By Iaconians, of course.) Could the Primes have played a similar role back when Cybertron had been a factory? "What does that make us Cybertronians?"
"Defective product, probably. Primus's children. Both, to some degree." Starscream shrugged, his wings rising and falling with the movement. "Every bot created after the Quintessons made contact was instantiated with incentive coding—reward coding—and it activates when they destroy a Quintesson memory core. Older bots like Kup and Xaaron—is he still around? Xaaron?—they don't have it. But most of Iacon does. All of the Decepticons do." Starscream met his eyes. "The Quintessons that besiege us are the overextended dregs of a long-senescent empire, but that doesn't stop them from being formidable enemies. The Thirteen were sure this coding was meant to help us fight them off."
Optimus understood. It sounded to him like Primus wanted the same thing Orion had wanted for the cogless: autonomy. Freedom. Optimus might technically be overseer now, but he would never grovel before a Quintesson for not meeting quotas. (Like Sentinel had. Hadn't Orion watched him do just that? His betrayal got uglier, somehow, with this knowledge.)
He looked at the cooling corpse. At the Sublieutenant. And the weight of Starscream's revelations suddenly came down on him like a cave-in. Primus a factory—his friends and even his enemies mere product—he could only think of the neat blue cubes that came out of the mines' energon refinery. Was that all they were? He didn't know how to feel. How had Quintus felt on learning this? How did the Iaconians function if they all knew this already? Starscream himself seemed unaffected, but he'd had a long time to get used to the idea.
Perhaps that was it. The Autobots had certainly gotten used to the grim truth of their own origins. The answer was time.
"As for the aversion coding…" Starscream's eyes were half-lidded, his mouth twisted. He sounded a lot more unsure than he had before. "I led the High Guard, Optimus. I'm a soldier. I can hypothesise, but this is hardly my field of expertise." He moved towards one of the doorways leading off the landing. "Besides. We need to get moving, or your Autobots will worry I'm up to no good."
Your Autobots? "We can walk and talk at the same time," said Optimus, who still had questions. They began to head down a long flight of stairs, interrupted regularly by landings and intersecting corridors. "What is this place, anyway? It's huge. No lifts either… imagine if you dropped something. You'd have to run all the way down. Rolling after it would be faster."
Starscream snorted. Optimus' spark spun madly in his chest, idiotically eager to forget the grim subject of their conversation, and he caught up with the seeker in time to see him suppress a smile. "This is the old Jekka amphitheatre complex in Tyrest. I hid you in one of the visitors' rooms… and of course there's no lifts. Tyrest lost its substations several hundred cycles ago." A quick glance his way. "Mind where you step. Wretched plants have grown daring with the energon back."
Optimus would take a spill if it meant Starscream would laugh, but he watched his footing. "Do you think there's more Quintessons in here with us?"
"No," said Starscream. "Altayr class fighters have only five onboard. Hot Rod's accounted for the remaining four." He looked knowingly at Optimus, his eyes glittering. "Disappointed? You can't fight without an arm, your combat subroutines need adjusting for your new centre of balance."
"What about the, uh—the aversion coding? I know, you said you weren't sure, but is that going to be a problem?"
"Going by the evidence, no. Crushing a memory core should break the fear-paralysis permanently." Starscream looked contemplative. "I expect a copy of it is carried by every bot created after the fall of the Thirteen. Not the most elegant implementation, as you've seen, but it certainly is effective."
"What do you mean?" They'd have to get all the Autobots out here, then, or start collecting memory cores… a gruesome task. "I don't get it. Why reward us for killing Quintessons but then make it impossible to fight them?"
"Why indeed," said Starscream, suddenly coy: he wanted Optimus to figure it out. "Renember—while the Quintessons see all of us as defective to some degree, they draw the line at those who have killed a Quintesson master. Some sins are beyond expiation."
And Optimus abruptly understood. "But Sentinel—"
"Was the pen to my sword. Always far from the front lines." Starscream looked at him with approval, but Optimus couldn't bask in it. "You see the shape of it now."
"Yeah," said Optimus, unable to hide his unease. Aversion coding meant none of the Autobots could so much as move around a Quintesson before they had crushed a memory core. And no Quintesson would tolerate an Autobot after that. It was designed to puppet them into war with no chance for parley… and perhaps that was the point. If Sentinel hadn't been able to make a deal with the Quintessons, the Thirteen would still be here. The cogless would never have lost their cogs. Primus had seen these things happen, and it had acted accordingly.
Optimus searched himself for anger at being toyed with like this—they were autonomous bots, not pawns, not slaves; he should be angry at this overreach, how could Primus do this to them—but he turned up empty-handed. The aversion coding seemed to him the act of someone untrusting and afraid… and he certainly knew what that felt like. He might be Prime but he still found it hard to trust most Iaconians, and he knew the Autobots did too. But they still had to take the risk of letting them in, letting them help. Giving them the chance to make up for their inaction with action.
He looked down at his chest. Perhaps the Autobots could still regain Primus's trust. It had to be possible. Primus had given him the Matrix, after all. It had given him the Key. It was letting him in.
"You're taking this better than I expected," commented Starscream.
"I try to roll with the punches." Optimus shrugged his good shoulder, smiling. He would absolutely have a crisis about it at some point, but that could wait till he was back in Iacon. "Elita, now, she's not going to be happy about this." Prowl wouldn't be, either. They'd probably have an action plan ready within the tenday.
"Elita." Starscream's tone was thoughtful again. "We've spoken a few times now. She's never given me any indication that the Autobots don't know about incentive coding."
"Yeah, Elita's just like that." She'd always been a bit neurotic about appearing fully aware and completely in control to the Iaconians, even back in the mines, and a cog hadn't really changed that. She'd never let on that she didn't know something to Starscream of all bots, who was both Iaconian and someone she wanted to impress. "We're working on it."
"Perhaps she already knows. Wasn't Elita-1 your boss back in the mines? Is she truly content being second-in-command?"
Optimus frowned slightly. That wasn't how they worked, but he knew what Starscream was getting at. What was it with Iaconians suggesting Elita wanted to be Prime? Ultra Magnus first, then Mirage of the noble Houses, and now Starscream too. "One, there's no way she'd know and not tell me. Or tell Prowl, at least, so they can start scheming. Prowl tells Jazz everything, and Jazz would tell me for sure. And two, Elita really doesn't want the Matrix." They'd fought about it once. Optimus had been sad and stupid and Elita had been tired and mean and somehow it had ended with the Matrix in Optimus's hands, and him on his knees holding it up to her. Take it, he'd begged. I don't want to lead. I never wanted to lead. If I wasn't Prime maybe he would talk to me—and she'd pushed it back into his chest and called Ratchet, who'd promptly bullied them both into recharging. "She thinks it's tacky. And Temple stuff gives her plate itch." She'd told him he was good in a way she didn't think she could be, the kind of good that made bots want to try to be better people. Including her, she'd said. You'd have been upset if I'd executed Proteus and his House, she'd told him, the day after. They're thugs. They silenced every Iaconian who tried to question Sentinel. They deserved worse than death, and I'd have given it to them. Whatever that would've turned me into! I was so angry I didn't care. But you would have cared. She'd flicked the glass of his chest. Whoever gave you that thing knew what they were doing.
"You trust her," said Starscream, and he didn't sound entirely happy about it. Maybe he was thinking of how the Thirteen had trusted Sentinel.
"I do," said Optimus. "I can't do this alone." He'd had nightmares of Elita and Jazz and even B-127 turning on him like Dee had, and each time he'd been a sparkbroken mess on waking, hating himself for every paranoid thought that passed through his head. He couldn't function like that, even if it was safer in the long run. He didn't have Prowl's tacnet, which could run those variables without getting emotions involved. "They're—"
"OPTIMUS?"
Optimus had kept his headlights trained down on the steps so he didn't trip over some cracked tile. Now he swung them up to see—"Bee?"
It was B-127, his big blue eyes shining, standing at what must have been the foot of the stairs. "Optimus! Starscream!!" He waved his arms and hopped a little. "You're okay!" He looked a bit dusty, but there were no visible injuries on him.
Optimus eagerly scrambled down the few remaining steps, tripping a little at the end—but Bee caught him and righted him. "Whoa, haha. Thanks. What about the others? Where are they?"
"By the fire," said Bee, pointing off to the side, and Optimus stepped forward into one of the largest rooms he'd ever seen in his life.
So this was an amphitheatre. It was a massive hall cut in two by a bright energon flow that formed a bit of a lake in the middle. Plant growth fanned out from the energon, covering all of the performance space and curling up the audience seating arrayed along the walls. The ceiling was a vast dark expanse dotted with thousands of constant little points in giant shoals, stars that didn't twinkle—though Optimus didn't recognise any of the constellations he'd read about. A couple of signal deer by the lake raised amber-horned heads to look warily at Optimus before lying back down green.
There were two fires lit in the hall, one on either side of the energon flow. One was the Autobot camp, and the other—
It was Megatron. He was looking right at Optimus. He was getting to his feet and walking towards him, cannon on his arm, his eyes burning. The rest of the world receded into irrelevance as he came closer.
Then Starscream shot forward and into focus, breaking Optimus's moment of tunnel vision. He met Megatron at the energon flow, his wings flared, refusing to let him cross. "No! Absolutely not. I'm not letting you—he's missing an arm! Are you going to finish the job? Do the Quintessons' work for them?" His voice was shrill and aggravating, likely on purpose—but at this volume it was obvious that he'd been allowing it to heal properly. And Optimus knew from the way Megatron's eyes slid to Starscream that he'd heard it too.
He stared at the seeker for a long moment, his face unreadable. "Watch your tongue, traitor." The words were hostile, but no attack followed. Megatron's cannon folded back into his arm, and he looked over at Optimus again and said something too quiet to catch. Starscream's wings dropped slightly, but he didn't move. Did he say something back? Why had that worked?
Megatron then turned and walked back to the far camp, where a bunch of Decepticons were sitting and watching the proceedings. They looked oddly at ease given what had just happened, no readied weapons or combat stances. Almost like they knew a fight would never have broken out. One of them patted Megatron's shoulder when he sat back down, and this went unchallenged.
"That got scary for a moment there," said Bee, laughing nervously. He'd been at Optimus's side the whole time.
"Yeah," said Optimus, his eyes still fixed on that silver frame. Megatron met his gaze, and Optimus looked away—only to see Starscream glancing between the two of them.
"Come on," said Bee, tugging at his elbow. "I'll give you a stick to poke the fire with. It's a lot more fun than I'm making it sound." Optimus let Bee pull him towards the Autobot campsite, and Starscream followed them, his steps loud against the plants underfoot. Megatron was watching them, both of them: Optimus could feel the prickle of his gaze.
The campsite was a warm bubble of air with a merrily crackling fire in the centre. The plants had been cleared away from the ground, baring smooth-worn stone. Hot Rod held court from a chunk of broken-off seating, with Ironhide and Hound on either side. Next to Hound sat Arcee, her midriff wrapped in field tape, an energon cube in one hand. She grinned and waved at Optimus as he came closer. "Hi! Hot Rod says you found a Quintesson upstairs!"
"We did," said Optimus. Starscream must have informed him about it, as they still had working comms. "They're so much uglier up close, you have no idea."
Hot Rod laughed. "Aren't they?" He was still shiny, somehow, even down here, and in the firelight the effect was quite dazzling.
"Lucky you. We didn't see any," said Arcee. "By the time Hot Rod found all of us, the 'Cons had already dealt with them." She sounded impressed, and maybe a little jealous. "I guess they've had a lot of practice." Starscream made a hmph sort of noise in response, and she beamed at him.
"Do you know if we'll be seeing reinforcements?" asked Optimus. He wanted to sit down with his friends and refuel, but he needed to know they were safe.
"I doubt it," said Hot Rod, now serious. "This was a scout fighter with mostly rookies onboard. If I had to guess… our Quints were on patrol when they found the Decepticons. The 'Cons tried to shake them, but then we showed up—with the Matrix." He gestured at Optimus. "Very exciting day for them. Probably why they broke protocol and followed us down. Someone'll come looking eventually, but it'll take a few hours."
"I see," said Optimus. That gave them some time to rest and plan. He placed his arm on the ground and lowered himself carefully, sitting across from Hot Rod. "What about the Decepticons?" He glanced over at the far side of the hall, where he could still see Megatron watching them. "They seem… oddly quiet."
"We ran across—Slipstream, I think, in purple and green? She told us to get lost," said Arcee. She sounded more intrigued than offended.
"That sounds like her," said Starscream, sitting down next to Optimus. (Bee immediately sat on his far side, and Starscream didn't stop him.) "She's never been too enthusiastic about fighting Autobots. Or Iaconians." Hot Rod hadn't taken the badge yet, though that was just a matter of time.
"Never seen an Iaconian call 'em Iaconians," commented Ironhide. He passed energon cubes down to Optimus and Starscream. "Tell me if you need more. I brought extra." He was trying to sound casual about it, but Optimus understood. None of the Autobots were really used to having extra. The idea that you could drink as much energon as you could possibly want and there would still be more… it didn't feel entirely real. And while there was a physical limit, obviously, Cybertron generated enough from stellar radiation that flowing energon was effectively a renewable resource. (Lancer had worked out those numbers herself, unwilling to believe it without evidence.)
"You'll have to come up with a new word soon," Hot Rod said, smugly. "Elita's this close to giving me a badge." He wasn't wrong. Elita liked him because he'd been targeted by Sentinel and his associates—he'd asked too many uncomfortable questions about the cogless and the fall of the Thirteen, made too much noise to be ignored. He was a proficient racer and a minor celebrity so he couldn't be disappeared the way other Iaconian protestors had been—he'd participated in the Iacon 5000—but that didn't mean he'd gone unpunished.
(Hot Rod was a reminder that some Iaconians had cared about the cogless, cared enough to be loud and troublesome about it. Optimus liked him a lot. If he ever had to pass the Matrix to an Iaconian...)
"Will you be wearing the Autobot badge, Starscream?" asked Hound, in his curious and undemanding way.
"Mm." Starscream sipped his cube, frowning. "Getting branded once was bad enough. My wings are still numb where they used to be. The sensors there will take cycles to grow back." He glanced at Optimus, and there was some guilt in his eyes. "Even if they're painted—I wore no insignia when I served the Primes before you. I don't need one now."
Optimus nodded, hiding his unhappiness at this declaration. They'd talked about it, after the Autobots had confronted Starscream about his meeting with Skywarp and Thundercracker. Starscream had agreed not to use the loophole of his allegiances to allow Decepticon contact again: he was to alert the Autobots immediately, and protect Autobot interests. And he would, but only because the Prime commanded it. He resisted the idea of becoming an Autobot himself. Optimus didn't know why, and Starscream refused to elaborate.
"Aw," said Bee, his little head-panels drooping. "Is there no way we can win you over? Can we try?"
Starscream appeared to consider it. "I could be convinced."
"Oh!" cried Bee, playing along. "It's so worth it, let me tell you. All Autobots get full and unrestricted access to the secret Autobot snack cabinet, and the super-secret Autobot groupchat, and the super-super-secret Autobot—"
"Bee," warned Optimus, though he couldn't help his smile.
"To answer your question, Optimus," said Hound, as Starscream tried to wheedle more 'Autobot secrets' out of Bee, "the Decepticons agreed to a truce, to last till both factions have reached their respective bases." He was careful with the wording, likely repeating it from memory. "Thundercracker suggested it, and Megatron agreed."
"That's good to hear." There was no use fighting each other when that would only help the Quintessons, and both sides knew it. Sometimes the enemy of your enemy was not your friend. "We might need their help getting out of here."
"If we're taking the surface route, sure," said Hot Rod. "But there's always the Corridors."
Right. Optimus wasn't new to using the Corridors to get around. Orion had hated his stint in City Maintenance, stuck in the echoey service ducts under Iacon wiping and greasing and wiping away grease, but it had given him a thousand new escape routes for when he was being chased by guards (again). Then he became Prime, and he learnt those service ducts were just a small chunk of what the Iaconians called Planetary Corridors.
As the name suggested, it was a tunnel network that ran under Cybertron's upper layer, giving its people access to the workings of the planet. (Which made perfect sense if it was a factory. Machinery that didn't allow repairs didn't last very long.) Airachnid had once had the Corridors under Iacon tightly surveilled, but in the chaos of the Autobots taking over… it quickly turned into a security nightmare. New access points kept turning up: ones that Sentinel's cronies had used to escape, ones used by Decepticon sympathisers—and Decepticons, as it turned out. Skywarp and Thundercracker had entered the city this way. Prowl had tracked Skywarp's energy signature to a previously unknown access point behind a fuel warehouse, where the trail had unsurprisingly grown too thin to follow.
"Who are they to you?"
Starscream looked up from the gun he was cleaning. He looked slightly surprised by the question. "Are we still talking about Skywarp and Thundercracker?"
Optimus stared at his hands and said nothing. He knew he shouldn't have asked. Mirage had warned him, told him Iaconians considered it a significant social faux pas to pry into personal affairs—the information had to be volunteered first, to signal openness to the topic. Optimus had pestered Starscream about Zeta Prime, yes, back before his defection, but that was Prime stuff. That was different.
Starscream's hands resumed their practiced movements. "They are—were—my favourites, I suppose. Not that I've ever told them that." He vented out slowly, and Optimus looked up to see Starscream smiling lopsidedly at the table. Jealousy twisted in his tanks. "They are fine soldiers. Strong outliers. I wanted them by my side. And, well… nights on the surface could get cold. We all got something out of it."
"So you were more than friends." Optimus knew that couldn't be everything.
Starscream shook his head. "After fifty cycles together… not just friends, no. That word is entirely insufficient."
"What about Jetfire?" Why was he asking? He didn't care about Jetfire, and Starscream's relationships were his own. But his stupid stinging spark didn't let it lie. "Doesn't seem fair to him."
A balled-up rag hit his chest. "Stop wasting your time with gossip magazines." Then Starscream took a closer look at his face. "Oh." He seemed almost dismayed, and for a vertiginous moment Optimus thought he might have guessed. "Primus save me from nosy little do-gooders. We're—well. He's not happy with that stunt I pulled in the Temple, but we'll be fine. That interview was covering for both of us. I needed a story I could sell, and Jetfire—" Another vented sigh. "He's had trouble with some people calling him a Decepticon sympathiser. This story got them to shut up without making them look foolish." A sad half-laugh. "He's become quite the politician."
"So the two of you…" Hope. Traitorous, traitorous hope.
"No… no. He came looking for me, but I… fifty cycles apart didn't do us any favours. I did not treat him well." His hands kept moving as he spoke. The practice range was quiet with just the two of them there, the distant roar of Iacon kept at bay by its soundproofing, the only sounds the soft clicks and snaps of weapon maintenance. Optimus worried at the rag, twisting it around his fingers. "We might be friends again someday, or at least I hope that's true. But not any time soon."
"I see," said Optimus, as solemnly as he could manage. "I'm sorry." And he was surprised to realise that he was, a little. Though he suspected things weren't as grim as Starscream made them sound. Jetfire had sought him out at the Temple, after all. He'd sounded so earnest… he did still care, Optimus was sure of it.
"I hope you're satisfied," said Starscream, though his grumpiness seemed put on. "Are you this nosy with all your Autobots? Or am I special?"
Of course he was special. Optimus had neatly dodged admitting that by insisting he poked his nose into all his Autobots' affairs—not true, that was Jazz, and Optimus treasured him for it—and telling him about Hound's mystery suitor, the one who kept getting foil-blossom bouquets delivered to Autobot HQ. If Starscream had noticed his evasiveness, he hadn't let on.
(He wondered when his attraction to Starscream—surely not unreasonable by itself—had turned into full-bore pining. This was embarrassing.)
After everyone had fueled, Hot Rod suggested he and Optimus keep watch while the other Autobots and Starscream got some quick recharge in. "I took a stim earlier," he confessed, "when I thought we'd need to fight Decepticons. I won't need to sleep for a while." That couldn't be healthy. His worry must have shown, because Hot Rod smiled reassuringly at him. "Nothing to worry about, skipper. It'll flush from my system in twenty joors. We should be back in Autobot HQ by then, even if we take a surface route." They'd agreed to use the Corridors, though, guessing the Decepticons would want to go the other way.
The Autobots settled in to nap sitting up against the wall. Optimus made sure to talk to each of them first, crouching by them for a bit of privacy.
"I got cut by rebar on the way down," explained Arcee, patting the tape dressing. "Got knocked out, too, but Ironhide was with me. He woke me up, and we found a good hiding place and watched the Decepticons go nuts. You think Starscream could teach me how to fight like Slipstream? With swords?" She looked earnestly at Optimus. "I know I'd said I wanted chainsaws before but you can't get that kind of speed with a saw."
"Optimus, listen to me. Listen." Ironhide gestured Optimus closer. "I know what this sounds like coming from me, but." He sighed. "You know I've been in actual encounters against the 'Cons. All small-scale, right, because we're being careful, we're being strategic. And I thought that's why we've been doing so well." He laughed, no humour in it. "Today's the first time I saw them actually all-out fight. They butchered those Quints so fast I could barely follow it. If they've always been capable of fighting like that… they're pulling their punches. They don't want to fight us. Maybe Megatron does, but Starscream's on our side now, and their sparks just aren't in it anymore." He tapped his nose. "Just a feeling."
Then Hound, technically the highest ranking Autobot here outside of Optimus himself, when you looked at it the Iaconian way. "Ironhide told you his theory? Good." He looked pensive. "It's so strange seeing Dee like this." Hound and D-16 had been friends once. Orion wasn't the only bot he'd left behind. "I keep thinking I can still see a little bit of how he used to be, and then he's suddenly Megatron again, and he's a stranger." He patted Optimus on the shoulder, his gaze a little too knowing. "Hang in there."
B-127 was nearly in recharge by the time Optimus got to him. "Starscream likes Tarnish delights," he whispered, then winked. "Never say I don't do nice things for ya." Tarnish delights? Optimus didn't realise people still made those. There were a few sweetmetal shops he could check…
(Of course Bee had picked up on it. He could be extremely perceptive sometimes. But only sometimes.)
Starscream was still alert, quietly discussing something with Hot Rod. Optimus watched as Hot Rod stepped some distance from the fire and started pulling at the plants covering the floor, apparently searching for something. "You should rest a little," he told Starscream, carefully sitting down next to him. "You haven't really had a break since we left Iacon." He made it more of a request than he might have with Wheeljack or Prowl.
"I should," said Starscream, rising to his knees. "And I will. Let me check your shoulder again, make sure it's still clean." Clearly stalling, but Optimus turned obligingly. "Your medical kit?"
Optimus stuck his hand in his subspace and rummaged. He'd bought a bigger subspace pocket once he'd become Prime—fitted all the Autobots out with them, actually—but the extra room just made finding things more of a headache. "Er. I'm sure it was in here somewhere…" He couldn't start taking things out, could he? Then his fingers grazed the flexible material of the kit's case. "Finally! Sorry about that."
"Mm. Get yourself a good fetching algorithm. It took me far too long to find your kit when I needed line clamps." And he wasn't lying about that: Optimus had seen the clutter next to him when he'd come to. Starscream opened the kit and began to poke about in the exposed parts of Optimus's shoulder joint. It tickled a little. "How'd you get so much dust—I'm going to clean this out and cover it. It will sting."
"Okay." Ratchet would be pleased to see it, and there was no way he'd pass up on having Starscream tend to him. He glanced at the recharging Autobots and noticed Arcee was still awake, sleepily watching Hot Rod root around in the undergrowth. "What's—"
A familiar VVOP split the air—followed by the thud of two heavy flight alts hitting the cleared ground by the Autobots' fire.
"—Hot Rod up to?" Optimus couldn't keep the rest of his question from leaving his giant mouth, but he felt his lines fizz with mechadrenaline at the possibility of a fight. Starscream was motionless behind him. Hot Rod had gone utterly still, his eyes up and fixed on the Decepticons. Arcee was fully alert, one foot braced against the ground, ready to leap forward.
"Yeah, what is he doing?" asked Skywarp, shattering the tension. Optimus vented out in dizzy relief, and Arcee sagged back against the wall like a cut line. "Hey, Roddy. You can't eat that."
"Why are you HERE?" hissed Starscream, whipping around, just as Hot Rod said, "I'm making rope, dipstick."
Optimus turned to see Skywarp and Thundercracker sprawled on the floor. His combat protocols went dormant on actually seeing them: they had no weapons out, and their postures were relaxed—or at least Skywarp's was. Thundercracker looked irritated and unhappy. "For what it's worth," he told Starscream, seating himself properly, "I wanted to approach on foot."
"That would've taken forever," complained Skywarp. "Megatron was this close to overthinking it again and calling everything off."
Optimus glanced at the far camp. He could see Megatron still watching them, but it didn't look like anybody was marching over. And they hadn't answered Starscream's question. "Why are you here?"
Thundercracker vented out loudly. "Might as well, since we're already here." He scooted a little closer and leaned forward, his wings high on his back. "I speak on behalf of the Decepticons. Are you familiar with the Planetary Corridors?" Optimus inclined his head, and he continued, "The Quintessons we encountered carried communicators. Their logs say reinforcements are inbound, approximately ten joors out." Hot Rod hissed in sympathy, and Skywarp nodded and shrugged. Slag happens. "This makes the surface an undesirable option. However—I was present during the retreat from Tyrest. Onyx Prime sealed every egress point into the intercity Corridor network so we could not be followed by the Quintessons in the city above. He used the Matrix to do it." He spread his hands. "There are ways of bypassing these seals, but we don't have that kind of equipment with us." He seemed reluctant to actually ask for what the Decepticons needed, but at the very least they'd need someone to undo those seals so they could get through.
"Megatron agreed to this?" asked Starscream, incredulous.
"Well," said Skywarp, and something about the sheepish look on his face was very familiar. Dee had been a chronic worrier, and Orion had never been particularly patient. Perhaps if he'd asked for permission more than forgiveness…
"Do you want to come with us?" Optimus asked. "Till we reach the bigger tunnels, at least."
Skywarp clenched his fists in victory, and Thundercracker's wings relaxed slightly. "That would be ideal, yes." He lifted a parcel with one hand, something wrapped in leaves and tied closed. "In exchange for your cooperation. We don't want this to be a favour." He set it on the ground and gave it a little shove so it slid over to where Starscream sat. Optimus's first impulse was to refuse it, but he knew Megatron would hate owing him something. Even if this—holding the door open, really—barely counted as a favour at all.
He watched over Starscream's wing as the seeker investigated. He took a utility knife out of his subspace and quickly snapped the twine holding the parcel together. It unrolled open, revealing smaller leaf-wrapped bundles. Starscream unfolded one with the tip of his knife: inside was a lump of lustrous, grainy metal. "Ah."
"What is it?" asked Optimus.
"Fresh nanites," said Starscream, his voice subdued, and Optimus realised he'd only ever seen this substance in syringes and little medication cubes. "This is… a valuable gift." Far more valuable to the Decepticons than the Autobots, who had medical printers and hospitals they could use. Accepting it didn't seem right.
He watched Starscream carefully lift some of the nanites—they came off the lump like lithium butter—and pat it onto his forearm, over a wide but shallow gouge in the metal. The stuff frothed a little, and then Optimus saw the surface begin to knit itself back together, shiny and unpainted. He knew it was the nanites doing that, though, working at scales he couldn't see without one of Ratchet's microscopes. He'd read all about it in the Archives, about the armies of nanites inside every frame, cleaning and fixing and running errands. (Like the cogless under Iacon. Huh.)
Starscream smeared some of the nanites on the side of Optimus's head, startling him. "That's where your comm is," he heard Starscream say, but he could feel it by then, a sort of sharp tingling as the nanites got to work. Messages popped up on his HUD, detailing repairs to his comms systems: now at 85% and climbing rapidly. Starscream added another layer of nanites and massaged them in, his fingers cool against Optimus's temple, and Optimus—for a long, painful moment, he yearned. Desperately. The last bot to care for him like this had been Dee: his hands on Orion's plating, touching him gently, dusting him off, tending to him without a medic's clinical distance—
That was unfair of him. Ratchet was a dear friend, and Bee hugged him plenty. Jazz too. If Optimus wanted more, he only had to ask. He knew that.
(It still wasn't the same. He knew that too.)
The unwrapped nanites were almost all used up. "This won't reattach your arm," said Starscream, his confidence likely borne of experience. "The damage is too severe for self-repair to fix." He turned to continue working on Optimus's shoulder, keeping his body between Optimus and the Decepticons. Turning his back on them.
Thundercracker raised his head as if to speak, but Skywarp was faster. "We're gonna be sticking around for a bit. Till Slipstream gives us the all-clear." His tone was light, unserious. Thundercracker glared at him but didn't interrupt. "Megatron's… not super happy with us right now."
"Of course he isn't," said Starscream, bitterly. "What did you expect?"
They hadn't been asking, but Optimus gave them permission all the same. "You can stay." Starscream's mouth tightened but he didn't challenge him. Skywarp shot him two cheerful thumbs up, but Thundercracker only looked sadly at Starscream. What was going on there?
A notification popped up telling him his comms systems were functional again, picking up six local contacts. Four of them were idle: his Autobots, present but recharging. Hot Rod and Starscream made up the remaining two. Every other contact was greyed out, and they'd stay that way till he returned to Iacon and its network towers. (Hot Rod had told him about a time when they'd gotten network balloons up, and you'd been able to talk to bots halfway across the planet—before the Quintessons shot them out of the sky, anyway.)
He opened a channel with Starscream. Why are you mad at them?
Starscream didn't react. I'm not mad at them.
Optimus peered doubtfully at him. Yes you are. Or you're mad at Megatron and you're taking it out on them. It was a guess, but by the look Starscream shot him he'd come pretty close. Why?
Megatron would never have agreed to work with the Autobots when I was his Second. He needed to have absolute control over everything we did, and he hated anything to do with Iacon. Starscream sprayed something cold in the workings of his shoulder. It stung. Soundwave told me he was afraid of me calling him weak and trying to usurp him. I guess he has nothing to fear now.
Optimus didn't entirely understand how the Decepticons worked. Sometimes it felt like every Decepticon just did whatever they felt like doing—case in point, Skywarp here—with Megatron barely in charge. At other times it felt like Megatron controlled their every move, and they gladly let him. Does that mean he hates us less now?
That got him a scoff. Oh no. He's too stubborn for that. But he has started listening to his soldiers. After Starscream had defected. Ah.
Well, I need you to talk to Thundercracker and Skywarp for me. Optimus pulled the gift-parcel to him by its wrapping. He took another of the smaller bundles—Arcee could use it—before rolling it up as well as he could with one hand. I don't think it's right to keep this. The Decepticons need it more than we do. We've taken part of it to use, and they've seen us use it, that's enough. Tell them Megatron will understand. Starscream frowned, and Optimus charged into an explanation. It happened all the time in the mines. You'd get gifts you couldn't keep for yourself without looking greedy. The polite thing to do was take a little and return it, or share it making sure the gifter got some too.
What pointless pageantry. Starscream was smiling, though. Put it in my subspace. I'm doing something tricky here.
Optimus did as he asked. "You said you were just cleaning."
"Yes, and I had field tape on my fingers." Starscream stood, and Optimus inspected his now covered-up shoulder joint. "Hot Rod, make sure he doesn't poke it."
"Sure," said Hot Rod, who'd come closer to the fire. He was stripping long plant stems of their leaves and outer layers and twisting them together—to create rope, as he'd told Skywarp, adding completed lengths to the loops slung over his shoulder. "I'm making a sling for your arm," he explained, when he noticed Optimus watching him. "It'll free up your hand."
"Oh—thank you." Optimus hadn't known plants could be used like this.
"So. You and Starscream?" Hot Rod looked intrigued. "I didn't know the two of you were close."
"We—we are?" managed Optimus.
"I thought," said Hot Rod, now uncertain, "since you were in his subspace—"
Mirage had warned him about that, Optimus recalled (belatedly). The Iaconians were protective of their personal space: you didn't shout near an Iaconian, you didn't touch them anywhere save the shoulder and lower arm, and you definitely didn't stick your hands in their subspaces—unless you were close (or being rude). There had been a moment of confusion early on, when he'd been holding something heavy and Elita'd grabbed his schedule for him. Iaconian media had boiled over with assumptions about their relationship, and an understanding Ultra Magnus had invited Mirage—of the nobility but sympathetic to the Autobot cause—to coach them in Iaconian etiquette.
"Ah," said Optimus, apologetic and only a little resentful about it. "It's an old miner habit." That Starscream seemed to share. Perhaps the High Guard had dropped those rules in exile.
Hot Rod shrugged amiably. "On me for assuming, really." He went back to twisting stems. "He was close to the Thirteen, you know. I don't have the details, but Airachnid was sure of it. Told me that herself." Optimus frowned at him. "Yup. Every time she interrogated me, she'd bring up Starscream. Who was supplying him, whether he had allies in the city… as if I knew, ha. Eventually I asked her why she expected him to be such a problem."
Optimus touched his chest. The Thirteen had cared about Starscream too; he'd been their poor beloved bodyguard. An appropriate relationship given his duties and their position. Nothing like Optimus's own wants. He looked over at Starscream—just to see him again, really—and found him sitting between Skywarp and Thundercracker, talking quietly. They were too far to hear, but it looked like it was going well, and that was good. Wasn't it?
Then Thundercracker kissed Starscream, and it caught him by the throat.
Starscream moved into the kiss, his legs going wide so Thundercracker could lie in the cradle of his body. Skywarp joined them, leaning up against Starscream's wings, his hands stroking their lower edges. They were beautiful together, and Optimus couldn't look away. Jealousy squeezed his spark in its fist and he felt—he felt—
This wasn't like when he thought Megatron might have had Starscream's favour. That had been—different, somehow, an ugly rivalry where only one could win, and it couldn't be Megatron. Skywarp and Thundercracker had come before either of them, and Optimus wasn't envious of what they meant to Starscream. He just—he wanted to be there, sitting on the stone next to Thundercracker, so Starscream would turn to him and kiss him too. In his imagination Starscream smelt like polish and face cream, and his plating was liquid-smooth, and his lips, his mouth—
Skywarp was looking straight at him.
He was looking right at Optimus, and there was a gleefully knowing gleam to his visor. What expression had Optimus been making? He watched helplessly as Skywarp leaned in and whispered something to Starscream—who broke away from Thundercracker and turned and looked at Optimus, his eyes large.
The comm came immediately. Optimus?
I'm sorry. What excuse could he offer? His face felt so hot it was probably glowing infrared. He stared at his feet, at the fire, at Hot Rod obliviously twisting rope. It had been foolish of him to feed this infatuation: he was a Prime, and Starscream was his subordinate. It could never have gone anywhere. He knew that, he'd always known that.
Nothing to be sorry about. He didn't sound angry or upset. Optimus refused to read anything else into his words. Come here.
Optimus's head snapped up. The message was real, right there in his comms log. He looked over at the three seekers: Thundercracker wasn't paying attention to him, but both Starscream and Skywarp were, and they looked like they had plans. A nervous thrill prickled up his spine. Are you sure?
Starscream crooked a finger at him. Not many ways to misread that, so Optimus got to his feet and walked over.
Hot Rod said something, but he barely heard it. His combat protocols stuttered between activation and dormancy, as if they weren't sure he was heading into a fight. Was he heading into a fight? Thundercracker was watching him too, now, his head pillowed on the rise of Starscream's chest; all three of them were watching him… but their expressions were far from hostile. Optimus sat on his knees before them—but why? What did he think was going to happen? He didn't know. More than anything, he wanted to find out.
"I haven't really introduced you, have I," said Starscream, conversationally. "This is Optimus Prime, as you know. Optimus, this is Skywarp and Thundercracker." He'd inclined his head at both of them in turn. This would've felt quite pointless if Mirage hadn't stressed the importance Iaconians gave to a proper social introduction. "They don't know anything about you outside of what Megatron's told them."
Optimus blinked. "Oh. What's he saying about me?"
The three of them looked between each other. Thundercracker spoke first. "He said… he said you weren't angry about what Sentinel did to you." He spoke slowly, like he didn't know how Optimus would react.
"Yeah," said Skywarp. "He told us about the cogless! Showed us plenty of evidence. Sentinel and his cronies mutilated you and your friends. Your Autobots. And you're not hunting them down?" He sounded scornful, challenging; he didn't seem afraid of a violent reaction.
"That too." Thundercracker frowned up at Optimus like he wanted an explanation. "All of Iacon stood by and watched it happen. Megatron said you weren't making them answer for that."
Optimus realised he was pinned. "Ah. That's… well. He's not wrong, exactly, I'm not—"
Starscream, who had been watching pensively up till now, interrupted with a sudden bark of laughter. "They've got you there!" he crowed. "Oh, Optimus. Say what you mean. You've delegated all of that, haven't you?"
Skywarp and Thundercracker had looked confused and appalled at Optimus's non-answer. Now they just looked confused. Optimus tried to explain. "The Autobots are doing all of those things, sure. The hunting, making them answer, all of that." Prowl and Ironhide didn't look particularly angry, but Optimus knew they were. They weren't the only Autobots who felt that way. But miners knew not to take their anger out on the equipment. "I'm not, though. I know what I'm good at." And it wasn't revenge.
Thundercracker shook his head. "Are you not the leader of the Autobots?"
"Sure," said Optimus. "But that's only because the other Autobots ask me to speak for them. I wasn't the only cogless bot in there, you know? All of us matter. I'm not special."
Skywarp looked at him like this was a stupid thing to say. "You're literally the Prime."
Optimus smiled. Iaconians always found this hard to understand. "Who says that makes me the leader?" He looked down at his chest. "The Matrix has a lot of unique powers, and I am honoured to carry it. I know, I know the Matrix is why Iaconians listen to me at all. But it doesn't give me the authority to order people around, or make decisions for others. Not by itself. Only the Autobots can give me that authority." The Iaconians didn't pick mining crew bosses, the miners did. Elita had been a crew boss because she was good at it, and her miners—including Orion—had wanted her there. (Did it get to her head sometimes? Yeah, it sure did. Optimus was certain Jazz or someone would tell him if he started letting the Primacy get to his head.)
He looked up, and saw Starscream looking at him with undisguised approval. He let himself properly bask in it now.
"I can't believe I thought Amalgamous was odd," said Thundercracker. "You're the strangest Prime I've ever met." His tone was mild, though. Optimus decided to take that as a compliment.
"Mm," said Skywarp. He still looked skeptical, but his scorn had quite vanished. "We should probably head back. Slipstream's been yelling at me to 'stop doing whatever you're doing that's making Megatron even more angry.'" He made her words extra nasal. "Too long and he's going to overthink himself into a fit."
"He thinks Optimus is that persuasive?" asked Starscream, amused.
Optimus had to ask. "Is there a chance—?"
Skywarp interrupted him with a sharp slashing gesture. "In your dreams, Baby Prime." He turned to Thundercracker. "Come on, TC." He reached over Starscream's shoulder to get his hand on Thundercracker's plating, and both of them VVOP-ed away. Starscream didn't stop them, only catching himself against the ground as Skywarp's bulk was replaced by thin air.
"Ah." Optimus's face had gone hot at the nickname. He looked over at the Decepticon camp, where he could see Megatron busy with his returned soldiers.
"Don't take it to spark," said Starscream, and Optimus turned back to him. When had he come so close? "Skywarp… he's always needed time to think things over. Rush him and he'll get unpleasant." He shook his head, looking intently at Optimus. "You held your own. He didn't take you seriously before, but he does now."
"Is that why you called me over?"
"A little." Starscream smiled. "I wanted to show them—you, I suppose. How you treated me." His head tipped up slightly, and firelight picked out the healed plating of his throat. "They worry. I find it patronising." His smile grew mischievous. "Skywarp also told me something interesting, and I wanted to see if he was right."
"He probably was," said Optimus, weakly. He'd never done this before. In the mines he'd had Dee, of course, and he'd had flings with some others, but none of them were Iaconians, and certainly none of them had been Starscream. Mirage hadn't given him any tips on wooing Iaconians, either. Orion had read plenty of romances, but he doubted those were meant to be realistic.
"Really. Well. If you've been courting me all this time," said Starscream, his nose in the air, "I would have liked some notice." There was a teasing edge to his words. He wasn't opposed to the idea…
Optimus laughed in sheer relief, his spark tumbling wildly in his chest. Oh, Primus. Did he actually have a chance? "I didn't know that either," he said, truthfully. "But I would like to. Court you, I mean."
Starscream's wings were high, and he was so pleased the lines around his eyes deepened in new ways. "You've been thinking about this for some time, haven't you?" He raised a hand to cup Optimus's cheek, his touch cool and wax-soft and vaguely medical-smelling, like disinfectant spray. His voice was soft when he next spoke. "I'd like that."
Optimus didn't trust himself to speak, so he covered Starscream's hand with his own and pressed a kiss into it.