Chapter Text
The first thing Starscream processed wasn’t pain. It was panic. Odd. He normally didn’t react the situations with immediate panic unless he was at the wrong end of Megatron’s fusion cannon. He barely had a moment to understand the panic taking over his processor before the pain hit next. He groaned, shifting slightly and attempting to online his optics. After a moment, they flickered online. The intense light of the sun filled his vision, causing him to hiss and squint. He grumbled to himself, forcing himself into a sitting position. It was about then that his memories came flooding back to him.
There had been a battle. Autobots against Decepticons, some Earth city Starscream couldn’t remember the name of being destroyed, flying, the usual , then feeling a pain in his wing. Right . He’d been shot while he was flying to follow one of Megatron’s oh so important orders. The shot had caused him to spiral out of control and hit the ground. It must’ve been enough to trigger a hard reboot of his systems.
His systems had a couple hundred alerts popping up, blocking his vision. He ignored all of them in favor of looking at the damage done with his own optics instead. Looking down, he saw his paint was ruined for starters. One of his legs definitely shouldn’t have been twisting that way-- he’d be lucky if he could even stand on it. He couldn’t feel one of his arms and while that sucked, nothing actually made him flinch until he noticed the damage done to his chest. His cockpit was shattered and the armor surrounding it was in ruins. That panic he’d woken up with returned two fold.
“This can be fixed…” He said in a poor attempt at calming himself. He bit his lower lip and looked back down at his shattered cockpit. ...There was no fixing that. It would have to be completely replaced. He’d suffered bad injuries before, replaced more than a few broken parts, but rationalizing his newest injuries didn’t make the panic go away. And that only made him panic more.
One thought filled his processor: Something is wrong . Well, obviously there were many things wrong, but the tightness in his chest-- where his spark is-- that worried him. Had the damage done to his armor damaged his spark casing? His spark itself, even?
The thought alone sent off a thousand alarms in his mind.
If there was something wrong, he wasn’t going to wait around for some Autobot to discover him and finish the job. He immediately commed Skywarp his location with orders to warp to him right now, immediately . No, Starscream wasn’t going to sit there and wait to die. He was getting the Hell out of there and figuring out what was wrong with his spark.
Lucky for him, Skywarp and Thundercracker appeared just moments later in a flash of purple smoke. Skywarp took one look at him and whistled, clearly amused.
“Damn Screamer, looking good.”
“Shut up!” Starscream shouted. “Warp us back to the Nemesis this instant!”
Thundercracker and Skywarp exchanged an exasperated look.
“Megatron didn’t call for a retreat yet.” Thundercracker said. “He won’t happy if you leave over a few dents.”
“A few dents?!” Starscream repeated, “Look at me! I’m clearly seriously injured, something feels wrong , I’m not risking my life for some unimportant , unmemorable battle over wherever the Pit this place is!”
“It’s Detroit.” Thundercracker informed him, “Starscream the damage is likely all cosmetic--”
“Cosmetic my aft.” The seeker hissed, pulling a face. The bitter expression only lasted a moment before it melted into something like genuine worry. “I want nothing more than to return and find the Autobot who did this to me. But my-- my spark …”
Starscream hesitated, half hoping his trine wouldn’t make him explain just how bad his entire chest region felt. He didn’t want to appear vulnerable to them, but if it’s what was needed to get out of this situation and somewhere he could safely assess the damage…
“I think my spark casing is cracked. It feels wrong , I can’t focus on anything else, even if I wanted to.” He admitted.
Skywarp glanced at Thundercracker, clearly worried now. This could all be an act to get out of the fight, it wouldn’t be the first time Starscream had over exaggerated an injury, and Thundercracker would be able to see through it if it were an act a lot better than Skywarp. Thundercracker caught Skywarp’s gaze, frowning. He sighed,
“Alright. Skywarp, you know what to do.” The blue seeker murmured.
Skywarp nodded and reached a hand out to Starscream to help him up. Starscream glared at the hand for a long moment, considering his options. Take the hand and seem vulnerable or get up himself and risk falling on his aft. He took the hand in the end, grumbling while Skywarp hoisted him up.
The trio disappeared in a puff of smoke, reappearing deep within the Nemesis.
“Alright, let’s get you to--” Thundercracker began, but was cut off by Starscream violently pulling away from the two of them and nearly doubling over.
“Whoa, you ok?” Skywarp asked, concern clear in his voice.
Starscream clutched at his cockpit, optics wide.
“I think that made it worse!” He cried dramatically.
Thundercracker gently placed a hand on Starscream’s shoulder, expecting to be shaken off but was surprised to find he wasn’t. In fact, it seemed like his touch grounded Starscream ever so slightly. He hadn’t expected to get this far into plan “comfort Starscream” but he wasn’t going to back down now,
“Try to calm down. We’ll get you to Knock Out and he’ll be able to tell you what’s wrong, ok?”
“I know what’s wrong! My spark casing is broken, that’s what! That’s the only explanation, it’s shattered!” Starscream was close to hysterics.
Thundercracker gently eased Starscream to sit down and pried his hands away from his cockpit.
“If it were shattered, I think you’d be in a lot more pain, not this panicked.” Thundercracker tried, “Think about this rationally.”
“I am thinking rationally!” Was shouted, followed quickly by the noise of Starscream’s chest plates triggering back.
“Starscream--”
“Shut up and just-- check . I need to know how bad it is.”
Thundercracker sighed heavily and nodded. The armor pulled back to reveal Starscream’s glowing spark, perfectly protected, and the completely untouched casing surrounding it. That should have been the end of it, it should have been everything that was needed to write this off as another dramatic outburst of Starscream’s. But there was something else that caught Thundercracker’s attention. He fought to control his expression as he looked, but his silence was cause enough for alarm.
“Starscream…” Thundercracker began slowly, carefully.
Skywarp, growing impatient, leaned over the other mech’s shoulder to catch a look himself. His optics widened immediately.
“Oh slag.”
Starscream’s jaw dropped.
“ Oh slag ?! Thunder--”
“Starscream,” The blue mech said again, “Your spark casing is fine but there’s another problem. We need to get to Knock Out right now.”
Starscream stared at him for five long, judging seconds. Thundercracker expected him to return to his hysterics, probably start screaming that he was dying or something, but he did not expect the very stern,
“No.”
“Wh- excuse me ?!”
“No. I’m not moving.” Starscream quickly triggered his chest plates back into position and glared at his trine. “Not until you tell me what you saw.”
The two looked at each other, wordlessly exchanging a “no way in Hell” that Starscream definitely picked up on, but Skywarp and Thundercracker didn’t care. They were not equipped for situations like this .
“It’s not bad--” Thundercracker tried but was cut off,
“Maybe it’s a little bad--”
“It isn’t bad, it’s just complicated , and we don’t want to say the wrong thing, so we’re going to Knock Out and he can tell you what’s going on.” Thundercracker said sternly. “This isn’t up for debate.”
“I can’t walk.” Starscream muttered. “So i’m not going.”
Thundercracker rolled his optics.
“I’ll carry you.”
“...Fine.”
The trip to the medbay was painfully silent. Starscream would sigh dramatically and complain that his trine were keeping secrets from him, but one threat from Thundercracker about dropping him made him stop. Once they approached the doors to the medbay, Starscream stiffened in Thundercracker’s hold.
“...Am I going to die?” He asked, voice far too even for the weight of the question.
“No.” Thundercracker said with certainty, “You’re not going to die...I promise.”
Starscream huffed.
“Like I believe you, but fine.”
Skywarp opened the door and in they all went. Knock Out had obviously been commed ahead of time, having already cleared a private berth for Starscream to be sat on. In fact the entire medbay seemed empty. Good , Starscream thought, if he was going to get bad news he’d rather no one overhear it and spread rumors.
Once Starscream was settled on the berth, Knock Out turned to him,
“So aside from the obvious, what seems to be the problem.”
“That’s what I would like to know.” Starscream hissed. “These two are keeping my condition a secret from me!”
Skywarp coughed awkwardly off to the side.
“Well if you saw what we saw--”
“And what exactly did you see?” Knock Out asked, hand on his hip.
“Oh. Y’know.” Skywarp said sheepishly. “Spark shenanigans.”
Knock Out sighed and motioned towards Starscream.
“Open up.”
Starscream, reluctantly, did as told. He wished he had a mirror so he knew what was making everyone look so god damned shocked -
“Oh. Well then.” Knock Out’s deep voice cut through his thoughts, tone filled with something Starscream couldn’t quite place “Congratulations, Starscream. You’re sparked.”