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It’s practically the strength of divine intervention that has Orion ripping his stare away from D. Away from the crowd of shouting mechs, away from his towering form, away from the burning hate that’s brewing in his optics.
Instead, his gaze settles on Starscream, who has managed not to get crushed by the clamoring of mechs to D’s side and is further up on the throne steps. It isn’t much better for Orion personally to look at the mech D was about to kill—if Orion hadn’t stepped in would he— he has a cannon on his—but Starscream is something Orion can handle.
An injured mech in front of him is something Orion can never ignore, despite that mech being someone who not only threatened them, but fought D. But Orion’s processor is about to crash itself with too many thought trees about D and what’s happening to him, so Orion does what he always does and throws himself helm first into the distraction without any processing power attached to that decision.
Because how is Orion supposed to deal with— Bear witness—!
Orion heads over, already running a scan. Points of interest pop up all over Starscream’s frame. Weaknesses, and advantages he has. The injuries that D gave him.
He’s never had a tactical scan before.
He’s never had guns and yet it felt so natural to move— is that why D— is that why that cannon formed—
“Starscream?” he asks.
Starscream’s helm snaps up to glare at him, getting Orion to freeze in his tracks a couple steps away. His face then drops the scowl as he takes in Orion’s frame, red optics going up and down.
“I’m not going to fight you. I… I just want to see if you’re all right.”
“Your friend sure is charismatic,” Starscream spits out, voice crackling.
Orion winces and then chances a step forward. “How bad is the damage?”
“It’s not critical.”
“Can I still take a look?”
Wariness takes over Starscream’s expression. Orion tries not to fidget. “You a medic?”
“Not really, no, but you pick things up in the mines. Have to.”
Starscream does not give him an answer. Instead, he continues to stare at Orion, servo still protectively covering his throat. Now that Orion knows that it’s apparently possible to actually read another’s processor without jacking in, he wishes for the ability desperately. Not just to figure out what Starscream is thinking, but for D because—
Orion purposefully shuts that thought tree down. And then starts snipping the others clogging his processor while he waits.
Things just need to calm down a little, that’s all. Everything has changed so much, and they haven’t been able to stop, and the two of them can talk. Like they always do. The two of them always manage to come back together, no matter what; they’ll work this out together. It’s just… been a lot. Yeah.
Yeah…
With a resigned flourish, Starscream removes his servo. Orion immediately steps forward, then kneels down in front of him. His helm-lamp comes on with a program and not a button push now. It’s going to take some getting used to.
The flexible plating covering Starscream’s throat is crushed completely, exposing wires, tubing, and cables. Orion hasn’t dealt with a throat injury like this before; all the ones he’s seen have just been jabs or punches. Nothing as… damaging as this.
Nothing as brutal as what D did.
It’s always been something easy to help fix and then leave for the mech’s self-repair. This… and with Starscream’s voice box the way it sounds…
“Do you have any medics?”
Starscream scoffs, and it’s really only a burst of static. His expression and frame movements are pulling their weight now. “What do you think?”
Orion can’t find a response for that; he just lifts his servos and waits for Starscream’s nod before touching. The tips of his digits move along the underside of his jaw to angle Starscream’s helm to either side. He gently straightens wires and cables, peering deeper to see if the main energon lines to the helm were badly damaged.
“I don’t see anything big enough that your self-repair can’t handle, but your voice box…”
“Is fucked?”
“…you said it.” Orion looks up at him in horror, but thankfully the corner of Starscream’s mouth twitches up and he counts it as a win. “Without a proper medic—”
“I’ll make do.” His optics cut into Orion’s. A burning and deep red, Orion finds himself looking over every micrometer of his optics, analyzing the way they cycle, how the hue shifts. He’s never seen this optic color before. “It’s what I’ve been doing for fifty cycles, after all.”
It’s then that Orion realizes he’s still cradling Starscream’s jaw in his servos, and with his examination of Starscream’s inner circuitry, he’s gotten close. And his processor is pinging him about how pretty the other mech apparently is. Silver facial mesh framed by a dark helm with enticingly big vents on each side of his cheeks. His features are elegant in a way, with his nasal ridge and chin, just like the rest of his bigger frame— sleek lines and intricately connected panels.
Sure, his paint job is scratched and patchy, and there is no shine or gloss, but the mech makes it work.
“I’m sorry you’ve been out here for fifty cycles.” Because that’s the normal thing to say in this situation. And not mentioning how Orion’s frame wants to heat back up again because there’s a pretty mech in front of him. That he’s still touching. And isn’t telling him to stop.
“You’re not the one that needs to grovel at my pedes about it.”
Orion sighs, servos falling. “No. I’m not.”
Looking over his shoulder, he notes that the cheering has gone down, but the crowd around D hasn’t thinned at all. Quickly, he searches the swaths of dark paint for two bright colors. B-127 and Elita are off to the side, thankfully looking unharmed from the rush of mechs. The two are huddled close, talking to each other. Elita, though, is keeping a wary optic on the others.
Good.
“We need a plan.”
“I agree, Sentinel’s death is near and—”
“We don’t need to do it now,” Orion shoots back. “We deliver the evidence and all of Iacon will call for a trial. With his level of deception—”
“Do you truly think the courts will be fair?” Starscream leans forward, the smell of ozone wafting with him. “When he has all of Iacon held tightly in his grip, under his pede, dazzled by his smile?”
“If we want to be able to fix Iacon, we need to start by keeping to our principles. If he corrupted the courts that says more about him than us and—”
“And the courts remain corrupted. The only way to make sure he doesn’t run away like a coward is to kill him.”
Orion invents, hoping the cooler air will help. It doesn’t. “What if— what if we kill him, and he becomes a martyr? He’s beloved in Iacon, no one would even fathom him lying, much less this. Murdering the Primes, deals with the Quintessons, taking our—” his voice box skips. Right now, the cog of a Prime is in his chassis, not his own.
“You would see to it that he doesn’t die?”
“I’m saying let the court execute him, not us. If we take that kind of power into our own servos—”
Starscream laughs and leans ever closer. Fangs glint in the yellow light. “That’s the only way you get what you want. By taking it.”
“Would the Primes agree with that?”
Starscream shoots up to stand so fast Orion knocks himself backwards. Low-level combat protocols have him contorting so he’s not falling down the steps, but he’s still an awkward heap on one of the ledges.
“How would you know!?” Starscream shrieks, sharp in his audials. A claw gets pointed at him. “You have no right to say that! If you ever—”
Orion raises his servos in a placating motion. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I won’t.”
“They’re not here!” He steps forward, into Orion’s sprawled legs. Orion doesn’t know if his voice breaks because of the damage or not. “They’re dead. Because of Sentinel. He killed my thirteen Primes, and the majority of my guard, and that will not go unpunished. It cannot go unpunished. It will be because of my servo so help me—”
Slowly, Orion pushes up to stand, aware that Elita and B-127 are coming up behind him. “And it won’t go unpunished,” he soothes. “Bit if we don’t do this right—”
“Who cares about what’s right!?”
“I do! If no one cares than what’s the point!?” Orion shouts back. “What’s the point of all of this then? We worked grueling shifts in the mines for cycles—for energon that wasn’t even going to our own people—and got treated as lesser just because we had no cogs! No one cared that that wasn’t right! That we were forced into these positions, that the choice was taken from us. I’m not going to repeat that!”
Starscream holds his gaze, facial mesh still scrunched into something nasty. Orion forces himself to calm down, bringing his flared plating in and sucking in cooler air into his regulation lines.
“Right now, we need to work together. That’s the only way we have a chance of doing anything. We need to deliver the evidence and subdue him. At least.”
Starscream’s optics then dart behind Orion, to where Elita and B-127 are standing with him. Then, he backs down, ending his looming over Orion. But he doesn’t truly leave his personal space. Orion watches as his face shifts into something wary and contemplative as he looks over Orion once more. Hopefully, it means he’s truly processing what Orion is saying.
He's not expecting an immediate agreement, not when that same hate he’s watching stew in D is already a comfortable boil within Starscream, but it’s something.
It has to be.
“You’re a very strange mech,” is Starscream’s deadpan statement.
Orion barely manages not to say something about the company Starscream has kept for fifty cycles.
“Our first problem is getting to Iacon,” Starscream follows with.
Elita steps forward, her and B-127 properly joining the conversation now. “Agreed. But how? They’re going to be on high—”
“INCOMING!”
The train rumbles around him as it takes another tight turn, and Orion grabs onto the edge of the bench so he doesn’t go careening onto the floor. They’re all packed into a stolen train after their quick defeat and his own rousing speech. Elita’s abnormal pep talk and the High Guard looking at him, his lexicon strung together glyphs for him without any further prompting.
It's not all of them though. D and B-127 and half the High Guard are captured, and Orion should have— who knows what Sentinel is doing to them right now? Are they even still—
“You’re going to give yourself a helm-ache,” comes the quiet statement from Starscream.
“I already have one.”
“Oh, well, in that case, it’s too late for you.”
Now, Orion looks up at him, removing his face from his servos. Starscream’s leaning against the wall across from him, half shrouded in shadows and with his arms crossed.
Starscream tilts his helm. “When you’re leader, it’s one helm-ache after another.”
“It never stops?”
“Never.”
Starscream pushes off the wall then, walking forward. Orion cranes his neck to keep the optic contact and cranes it some more when Starscream steps in closer. Orion might have a cog now, but Starscream is still bigger.
A servo reaches out, cupping his chin to stroke a thumb along it. Orion’s struts lock in place, not letting himself lean into the soft touch, but not managing to stop it. Starscream then lowers himself to a knee, a parallel to their earlier position.
With his volume low, Starscream’s voice scratches at his audials. “That’s why you can’t lose yourself to all those what ifs.”
“How did you…?”
“We need to work on your mask.”
“My mask?”
“To conceal your expressions. So, no one knows what you’re thinking. It’s completely deplorable right now.”
“Oh.”
Starscream leans closer, clawed digits stroking along his jaw as he puts his mouth at a finial. It twitches as a hot vent coats it. “If they see you’re worried, they’ll get worried. Your army should never doubt you, and they must remain focused.”
“You really think the High Guard puts that much faith in me?
“Your miners will.”
Oh. Right.
Starscream’s nasal ridge brushes the curve of an audial block, the base of a finial. Then, he chuckles. Orion couldn’t stop the heating of his vents if he tried, but he stops the urge to cover his circular bio-lights with his servos.
Starscream, thankfully, leans back, optics raking over Orion’s face in a way that makes him heat up even more. If Starscream could tell he was about to lose himself to his processor, he definitely knows he just flustered Orion.
“That’s cute. That they flash.”
Orion tries for a scowl, and going by the way Starscream’s smirk stretches enough to show fang, it’s not very intimidating.
Orion opens his mouth, not entirely sure what his lexicon is gonna spit out but it’s better than just sitting there and looking like an idiot. Before anything can come out, the train swerves again, and Orion is flying forward into Starscream.
The momentum and surprise take them both to the floor, Orion atop Starscream. There are grunts and hisses and Orion spits out an apology as he tries to scramble upright. He manages to get his servos off Starscream’s wings and instead braced either side of his helm, one knee between his spread legs and the other pressed tightly to Starscream’s hip.
Orion stares down at him in mortified shock.
Starscream’s helm tilts a little, shutters not fully open and it makes his optics look like molten metal, like embers. The smirk he gives Orion is just as hot.
“Well, now this is very forward of you, Orion.”
Orion spits static.
“But very interesting.”
Before Orion can do anything with that—especially with the way claws are starting to slip along seams, the train jerks to a halt. They go tumbling. There are more curses and Orion’s back hits metal and there’s a weight atop him now.
Starscream leers down at him, positions switched. “I think this is better though.”
“Hey!” Elita shouts and Orion’s vents steam as he remembers there are other people in the train’s cabin.
Orion tilts his helm back to see Soundwave and Shockwave impassively staring down at him—but it certainly feels judgmental—and over Starscream’s shoulder, Elita is turned around in the chair and glaring.
At Starscream. Thank Primus for small mercies.
“Get off the floor!”
Starscream does the opposite, in fact. He leans back and settles his frame astride Orion’s hips. Orion grunts just a bit at the warm weight now pressing him down and his servos twitch with want. His waist looks very grabbable right now.
“Now, now, this is actually very comfortable—”
“This is Orion’s stop. We’re here, you moron.”
Starscream scowls, lifting higher onto his knees to look out the window. He huffs. And then he drops his weight back onto Orion and his engine stutters at the bounce. “So, we are.” He locks optics with Orion. “You better not die.”
“I’m not planning on it?”
Looking entirely amused, Starscream stands, hauling Orion up with him easily. Orion has to smother a rev of his engine at the show of strength. Starscream’s servo trails down his arm.
“You’re just as charismatic as your friend,” is Starscream’s murmured parting words.
After the reveal, after Sentinel’s murder, after the Well starts flowing once more with energon, after t-cogs are given back to his fellow miners, Starscream stays.
As much as Elita is against it, Optimus is thankful that he is. It’s not like Optimus has experience with fighting an army, or anything with tactics.
Starscream, though… he did lead the High Guard, with the Primes and after them. He’s invaluable as an advisor. Optimus appreciates it, as Starscream talks about things he never would have, and when he and Elita go at each other to tear the other’s plan apart, they’re left with something near flawless.
Coming up with battlefield tactics isn’t the only thing Starscream does. Optimus has got a jet plastered to his side practically all the time, vying for his attention, touching him in a way Optimus yearns for, and purring.
Optimus didn’t know mechs could purr.
Yet Starscream does when he nuzzles into the crook of Optimus’ neck, when he perches atop Optimus’ desk, when he allows Optimus to touch his wings.
Optimus doesn’t quite understand the significance of it, just that it is significant, and Starscream—while always happy to invade Optimus’ space and let him do so in turn—doesn’t let him in any further. Starscream is a mess of gates, padlocks, and codes that Optimus is still trying to make a cheat sheet to.
When Starscream is concerned, there’s a lot of things he doesn’t know.
One night, when it’s late enough that a certain silence cloaks the city, and everything is still in a way that is now sending Optimus’ nerves alight, he asks a question that’s been plaguing him.
“Why join me?”
Starscream is in his common place of sitting on Optimus’ desk, legs brushing against Optimus every couple of kliks.
“You weren’t happy with not killing Sentinel, why not follow Megatron? Like the rest of the Guard?”
“He killed you,” he answers, not looking away from his datapad.
Optimus stares.
Something Starscream taught him is if you wait long enough, the other mech will probably start talking without any actual prompting. Starscream sighs, ‘pad sagging in his grip. It doesn’t work on Starscream, but he takes it as it is, regardless.
Finally, he looks to Optimus. A servo lifts to brush his thumb along Optimus’ cheek, over his mask. He then strokes along the small vents on the end of his helm and Optimus shivers a little.
“You’re mine, and he killed you.”
Possessiveness quickly and clearly became a known trait of Starscream’s.
It shouldn’t be a surprise, but Optimus still asks, “that’s why?”
Starscream smirks, terribly handsome with it. “I’m not a particularly ethical mech, Optimus. We’ve been over this.”
The amusement fades from Starscream, and his servo moves to cradle his helm. Or as much as he can now that Optimus is bigger than him. His optics dart all over Optimus’ face, like he can admire him even with his battle mask still on.
Optimus doesn’t know why he wears it more often than not. He hasn’t looked too closely at that decision of his.
“You’re the best of all of us. And he killed you.”
For once, his processor spits out a decision that has no debate; it’s a perfect consensus on what he should do.
Optimus stands, taking Starscream’s ‘pad from him to set it on the desk. Optics still locked together, Starscream obligingly uncrosses his legs, letting them spread so Optimus can stand between them. Carefully, deliberately, Optimus settles his servo’s on Starscream’s hips.
Starscream lets him. Keeps his servo on his helm, ankles brushing against his legs. Optimus’ fuel pump starts to churn faster, his spark spins.
“I’m going to kiss you now.
“Finally.”
With both arms around his neck, Starscream yanks him down. He barely has enough time to transform his mask away before Starscream kisses him.