Warnings: Canon typical violence, mild battle injuries, mild gore. Please see AO3 entry for full applicable tags.
Summary: In which Megatron finds an injured Starscream after a skirmish.
Crossposting: AO3 | DreamWidth | Pillowfort
Fic under cut
Megatron and Starscream were the only ones left on the field. Alive anyway. Assuming Starscream was still alive.
A strange, almost painful tension clenched his chest at the thought as he hiked through the debris of battle and over the rough, cluttered terrain.
He didn’t understand why. Pain usually had a reason, some obvious cause, but this time he could locate nothing as the source.
The hills of this rocky planetoid had been abandoned by both belligerent armies.
The Decepticons had come into a territorial dispute with an alien race, another mechanical species, but warm-wired rather than spark-based. The dispute itself had been minor, over a few-planet system that the Decepticons had been targeting for resource extraction on their way elsewhere, just while passing through. The other race had considered this system their territory despite not having any actual settlements or outposts here.
It was the backwoods, what did they care? Maybe it was a matter of principle.
Not that it mattered now. The Decepticons had earned mineral extraction rights… by decimating the troops sent their way.
They were lucky that Megatron had decided it wasn’t worth it to follow them back to their actually settled systems to take that too, to prove a point.
Picking his way through and over fallen metal bodies, Megatron couldn’t recall the name of their enemy right now, not with his head pounding. What was left of the enemy forces had retreated, but not before getting a lucky punch in and ringing his damn bell.
He could barely remember his own designation… or where Starscream had fallen.
Should have been around here somewhere, amid the corpses. They probably should come back and take these for recycling. There was likely some use these warm-wired mechs could be put to.
Soundwave had taken the rest of their forces at Megatron’s order, leaving a shuttle for him to use when he was ready to leave.
Starscream, or what was left of him, had to be collected before he could go.
Megatron had half a mind to leave the fool out here as a lesson, but it would do no good. Besides, he still needed Starscream. He hadn’t actually seen the impact that had knocked the seeker out of the sky, but he had seen him fall after hearing his unique, pained shriek. Something unknown, unfamiliar, had caused his spark to ache at the sight.
The bastard was most likely alive, too stubborn to die from falling and probably too stubborn to die from whatever injury had actually grounded him.
Good.
That was good.
Megatron decided not to call that warm, uplifting thought such a weak word as “hope.” It was a logical assumption, that was all.
Theoretically, he could have ordered one of his subordinates to go searching for Starscream’s damaged frame, but this time… he preferred to do it himself.
Something in his spark panged in a way he didn’t recognize at the thought of someone else being out here, digging through the hell and havoc for Starscream. It was the same nameless sensation that had gripped him when he saw the fool go down.
Even now, as he scowled with disgust and kicked a random fallen alien out of his path, that feeling continued to plague him.
The metal of the alien’s carapace crumpled from the impact of his foot against its plating, its many limbs splaying wildly as it flopped out of the way.
Perhaps, Megatron thought, Hook could have a look at him later. Maybe he had just picked up some sort of disease that affecting his spark. That was probably all his sense of being out of sorts was, some minor infection that could be purged with a little technical know-how.
More practically, searching like this also let him survey the aftermath of the skirmish personally, rather than waiting for some dry report.
After cresting the next low rise, Megatron saw something move in the shallow ravine below. From underneath the bodies of the alien mechs, a clawed blue hand punched up into the air, followed shortly by a sharp, angry shriek.
Starscream was fine.
Or at least… alive and well enough to complain.
A pressure on his spark that Megatron hadn’t noticed before was suddenly relieved as he ran down the gentle stone slope towards that blue hand. The fool had most likely been knocked unconscious and had just come back online.
“Get me out of here!” he shouted, impatient.
Starscream had probably heard the approaching footsteps, but it was possible he hadn’t known who exactly had come to his rescue.
As soon as he was within reach, Megatron grabbed that flailing hand, unconcerned if he got scratched by those claws in the process. A few scratches were a meager cost to pay to get one of his most skilled soldiers back.
“Thank y—“ The words stopped in Starscream’s vocalizer as soon as his head was free of the pile, now able to see who had him in hand. His optics widened.
“Hold still!”
“Put me back!“
The seeker began wriggling to get free.
“Stop whining!”
The struggle was a futile one anyway.
Uncaring for Starscream’s sudden desire to bathe in the dead, Megatron pulled him up, disentangling him from the alien corpses in the process. Proper washes would be necessary to rid them of the foreign bodily fluids and fuel, but that would be a problem they could deal with back aboard the Nemesis.
Somehow the horrid mess still did nothing to detract from the oddly pleasing sight of Starscream being whole and hale. He’d always been nice to look at, easy on the optics, a bonus when having to work with him constantly. But managing to still shine even when scraped up and covered in the visceral results of battle was a special gift.
Not that Megatron would say so with a gun to his head.
That would have been too close to a compliment for his comfort.
“And be grateful I even came out here for you! I could have left you here on this pathetic rock!”
But he hadn’t, a voice in the back of his processor reminded him.
“Sure, or maybe you’re out here for some other stupid reason.”
Starscream pulled away as soon as he was turned loose, immediately checking his hand as though Megatron might have crushed something.
Megatron huffed, insulted that the mere idea he might have been unable to control his own strength even crossed Starscream’s mind.
“Like you finally realized you can’t run this ramshackle army without me.”
Something else, however, caught his optic.
As Starscream stood there, atop the pile of bodies, fretting over his hand, Megatron noticed his left wing hanging somewhat loose, like one of the connecting hinges was yanked out.
He stalked over for a better look, the aliens crunching underfoot. Starscream hadn’t seemed to notice him.
“You’re right,” he mumbled, leaning closer than he usually would have. Generally, they tried to keep out of arm’s reach of each other. For safety. “I can’t, but that’s not why I’m—“
Megatron stopped himself, upon seeing the damage.
Yes. Two of the three hinges that usually kept a seeker’s wing firmly attached to their chassis were pulled out of place, the bolts shorn off and the hinge-pins long gone. There would be no finding them in the debris here and they’d have to be replaced back on their ship.
Fuel and oil that had leaked from the injury had dried and coagulated against the plating, but no longer seemed to be actively escaping. The only thing keeping the oil from oxidizing into a thick sludge was the lack of a thick, oxygen-rich atmosphere on this barren waste of a planetoid.
That pang in his spark returned at the sight.
“You’re damaged,” he said, not really thinking as he reached out to put a hand on Starscream’s back next to one of the broken hinges.
There was no way Starscream would be able to fly like this. He would need to either walk back to the shuttle or be carried.
Carrying him would be no trouble at all.
As soon as his hand made the barest contact, Starscream let out a howl of pain, whipping around with his clawed hand.
No trouble save for whatever fuss the seeker kicked up about it.
Megatron luckily caught the wrist with his hand just before any fresh damage could be done.
“You’re in no shape to fly.”
“I know that! What makes you think I don’t know that‽”
That wrist was warm in his hand, a somehow comforting reminder that Starscream was alive and well, even if he was hurt. It was unnatural for him to find anything about his second-in-command as “comforting.” Sometimes it was like having chained himself to a wild animal.
Yet there was still something just so… uniquely appealing about him.
Maybe it was the danger.
Starscream was glaring daggers at him with this sharp, judgmental, handsome optics of his, but all that did was make Megatron confident he would be fine.
All was as it ought to have been.
“I’m merely making an observation.”
“Make a smarter one!” Starscream struggled for a moment to free his wrist. “Let me go!”
Twisting his hand to the side, the seeker yanked it free with a sharp pull, breaking Megatron’s grip, not that he had been holding on that firmly.
Definitely the danger.
Maybe he could test that theory. Maybe it was more than an aesthetic appreciation.
“Hm.”
“Primus, what are you thinking now?” Starscream stepped back, just out of reach again. “If it’s ‘if I kill him now, no one would ever have to know,’ I was just thinking the same!”
“Oh, no.” Megatron stepped forward after him, once more closing the gap, allowing himself to smirk. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”
Starscream took yet another step away, a new repulsed look on his face.
“Put that smirk away, you old pervert!”
That was a new insult.
“Beg your pardon?”
“I’m not fragging you on these dead aliens.”
Megatron froze before he could follow, jaw slack in bafflement. He hadn’t even considered the possibility.
“I—Of course not! Don’t be disgusting!”
He waved an arm between them, as though to ward off the very thought that sort of contact. Not on these aliens!
“That is revolting!” Where could Starscream have even dredged up such a suggestion to refute? “I had deigned to carry you back to the evacuation shuttle so that you could save your energy, but now I am rescinding that offer.”
Megatron swung his right arm wide, pointing back up the hill he’d descended to pluck Starscream from the refuse.
“You are walking! You are clearly well enough to walk!” Still waving his arms in exaggerated gesture to underscore the sheer affront to his dignity, Megatron stomped off up the hill. “I don’t care if you start leaking out of your wing again. You are walking the entire way! If it were possible, I’d make you walk the entire way back to the Nemesis!”
