shadow_vector | Take Wing

PG
Bayverse (Reign of Starscream)
Starscream, Thundercracker
no warnings.

written for prompt 'wing envy'

Thundercracker bent under Starscream's weight as the bronze-gold jet collapsed against him. The current that sparked over Starscream's body rippled through his own, delicious warm prickles of power. The long arms dragged over his shoulders. It had been a long time since the Seekers had gotten together, a long time since this kind of trust, this camaraderie. How long had he been in charge of that blasted orbital station? Shunted off to the side as though he didn't matter, he wasn't good enough.

He'd practically jumped when he'd received Starscream's summons—they had found Megatron, and he was needed. He was needed. All he had to do now was to live up to the expectations. He was strong enough. Just not as fast as the other Seekers.

But this was his chance.

“Get me onboard,” Starscream gasped. “Need…uplink…to Cybertron.”*

Immediate needs, Thundercracker knew. Starscream clutched a tiny techling frame in his hand, the other hauling down over Thundercracker’s shoulders. Starscream needed medical aid as well as the uplink.

He pulled Starscream's chassis against him, metal sliding against metal. “I've got you,” he said, his voice throaty and gruff. He led Starscream gently to a repair bay, settling him down in a cradle, stepping back as the repair bots scampered over him, to start the slow process of a comm uplink.

One repair bot gathered itself and launched upward, two of its pincer legs deftly grabbing the energon supply hose, dragging it down with its bodyweight. Another scrambled to shut down flight systems, while a third clicked and beeped frantically at some charring and scoring on Starscream's armor. Yet another made a series of horrified-sounding squeals as it spotted the jet's cockpit, splattered with some red-black substance. Thundercracker winced as well.

The blue jet studied his former team leader, taking in the subtle changes of an alien-based alt. Always a little disturbing to see foreign shapes, alien aesthetics, mapped over a Cybertronian flight frame. He tried to read the transformation, his cortex mapping what the vehicle mode would look like: sleek, fast, shapes rounded, belled, designed as if to gently push through the air instead of slice sharply. Almost no sharp corners or square edges. Bilateral symmetry, though the alt made Starscream's robot form unnecessarily top heavy. “Worth the weight shift?” he asked.

Starscream nodded, weakly. It was a familiar ritual when mechs encountered a new alt. “Planetary militarized.”

“Thrusters stable?”

“It is more maneuverable in alt.”

“Lift?”

“Simple thrust-drag, but the engineering is respectable.” Starscream winced as one of the repair bots slipped from its perch splicing a damaged circuit wire. The circuit sparked, firing an actuator, jerking the folded wing. Thundercracker was transfixed. He stretched one blue hand and unfolded the wing panels, curiously toying with the flaps. He feels a hunger building in him. With this alt, he could overcome his slow reaction time. With this alt, he could prove himself.

Starscream saw the greedy glitter in his optics, bent low over his body, transfixed on the wing engineering. He managed to frown. Scanning another mech’s alt without permission was a violation—the scan perforce intruded on various systems schematics. Like seeing one naked, only worse. Thundercracker hungered, but knew when to back off.

A repair bot clucked displeased, almost scolding Starscream, one pincer leg pointing at a series of pock-marks in the bronze armor.

Thundercracker hadn't seen the damage before, too intent on keeping Starscream upright, getting him aid, proving himself. “Ran into resistance,” he said. Observant, as always. In a better mood, Starscream would not have missed the retort.

“Yes,” Starscream said, exhausted, his vocalizer almost out of charge.“Megatron is dead.”

“Dead?”

“I saw it with my own optics.” Starscream tilted his head away, in disgusted avoidance of the sight of the repair bot prying open his cockpit. Whatever it was...looked unsightly. How had Starscream gotten that in him? Thundercracker did not care to contemplate. Some alien weapon, he figured. The red goo was obviously some corrosive substance. He stepped aside as the repair bot wielded a pressurized cleanser hose, and the red gunk devolved to a gloppy pink with disturbing chunks of white and grey. Repugnant, alien weaponry.

He realized he was using his speculation to distract him from letting the weight of what Starscream had said sink in. Megatron...offline? “What now?” Had he been called here for nothing? “Do we retreat?”

Starscream snarled, weakly. It should have looked pathetic—instead it looked like a well of defiance boiling to the surface. “Retreat is irrelevant when the battlefield is meaningless. We have nothing left for us here.”

“Vengeance?”

“Vengeance is an admission of pain,” Starscream said, darkly, his optics strange. Thundercracker began to wonder what had happened to Starscream in the ages since the Seekers. “Our past is buried here: let it be so. Our future lies on Cybertron.”

ETA: * Dialogue from Reign of Starscream issue 2 page 13.

Take Wing

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