[Behind the Scenes] Jump Then Fall
Jan. 17th, 2019 06:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dracoqueen22Title: Jump then Fall
Universe: Behind the Scenes, G1
Characters: Wheeljack, Starscream, Ratchet, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker
Rated: T
Description: It was the kind of situation that sent Wheeljack’s romantic spark to thumping, except Starscream was not your typical damsel in distress, and Wheeljack did not at all resemble the handsome hero.
Well.
This was… awkward.
If Wheeljack hadn’t been one of the two mechs currently trapped in a cave, he wouldn’t have believed the circumstances. This was the kind of thing that tended to happen in the torrid romance novels occupying so much of his shelf-space. He didn’t think it would happen in real-life.
Yet, here he was.
Trapped underground.
With Starscream.
Wheeljack oscillated between knowing to keep a wary distance and the urge to inch closer to a mech who had haunted his dreams, both before and during the war. Starscream, like Wheeljack, was in surprisingly good condition considering the floor collapse that had landed them here, which was immediately followed by a cave-in blocking their only avenue of escape.
Agitation, however, was obvious as Starscream stalked in slow circles around the periphery of the rock-littered space. His wings hiked high. His engine snarled. His field was a dizzying assault of unease, fury and outrage.
Dust streaked across his face. There was a dent in his aileron. He walked with a limp, and Wheeljack suspected the grinding noise he heard was a small bit of debris caught in Starscream’s knee joint.
He was still the prettiest thing Wheeljack had ever seen.
Wheeljack reminded himself he had no business offering to help Starscream clean up.
“For the record,” Starscream hissed without so much as a blood-red stare in Wheeljack’s direction. Dismissive of him. My, wasn’t this familiar? “I blame you.”
Wheeljack blinked. “How is this my fault? You’re the one who--”
“If you hadn’t startled me, I wouldn’t have blindly fired!” Starscream snapped with a sharp growl. “Stupid Autobot. You have no business poking around here!”
“And you do?” Wheeljack couldn’t decide if he was amused or offended. Perhaps a mixture of both. “What were you doin’ here?”
Starscream ruffled. “None of your business!” He sniffed and folded his arms over his cockpit, half-showing Wheeljack his back, his wings giving off agitated, arrhythmic tics.
Wheelajck tried not to stare.
“Fine,” he said, and tried to de-escalate. Because if there was one thing his centuries of pointless watching had taught him, agitating Starscream never worked for anyone. “Are you hurt?”
Starscream blinked. “What?” His tone labored somewhere between indignant and outraged.
And, sadly, a touch confused.
“Are ya hurt?” Wheeljack asked and lifted his hands, wriggling his fingers. “I ain’t Ratchet or anythin’, but I’m qualified as a field medic. I can patch ya up and stuff.” He instantly regretted bringing up Ratchet, as much as he was glad he had because there was something there.
An old something, granted. A lifetime and a war ago, to be fair. But sometimes, calling on old friendships – old lovers, his processor snidely reminded him – was the only way to survive this war. Besides, they’d all been fighting for so long, certain things were starting to slide.
Starscream stared at him as if he’d sprouted wings, fangs, and declared himself a predacon. “Why on Earth would you think I’d let you touch me?”
Ouch.
Right to the spark that one. Wheeljack hoped he didn’t visibly flinch.
He scratched his head and played it cool. Luckily, he’d built himself some thick armor over the years. “This kinda situation usually calls for an unspoken truce, but if ya’d rather we barely keep from killin’ each other, I guess that’s all right with me.” He shrugged. He didn’t know if it was as nonchalant as he meant it to be.
“Situations likes this?” Starscream parroted and the smirk he gave Wheeljack was just this shade of cruel. “Have a penchant for romantic frippery, Autobot?”
Wheeljack refused to flush. “We all have our hobbies,” he said. “And I’m Wheeljack.”
“I know who you are.” Starscream rolled his optics.
Wheeljack’s spark did a stupid little pitter-patter. He crushed the hope before it sprouted any kind of wings. Of course Starscream knew who he was. There were a little over four dozen Autobots on Earth. After a while, you started to remember who you were shooting at.
Millennia ago, the Wheeljack who was Ratchet’s best friend and roommate was much quieter, a touch smaller, and an entirely different color. Wheeljack doubted very much Starscream remembered him at all.
“Then you know I’m pretty trustworthy,” Wheeljack pointed out.
Starscream arched an orbital ridge at him, offering a dead look. “You’re an Autobot,” he said, in the same kind of tone Spike used when he said ‘duh’.
Wheeljack tried again, injecting innocence into his tone, while his fingers gave him away, twisting and tangling without something to keep them occupied. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I’m not nice.”
“I’m a Decepticon.” Long, elegant fingers pointed at Starscream’s wings as though Wheeljack were blind and had somehow missed the bright purple brands.
Wheeljack sighed. “You have a talent for stating the obvious, you know.”
Denta bared at him in an angry hiss. Starscream glared. Perhaps not the best choice to mock him. Wheeljack should have known this. He’d spent far too much time Starscream-watching. He was practically an experiment.
What? No. He absolutely did not watch recordings of their battles in the privacy of his suite either. And any viewing he might be guilty of was purely for the sake of discerning new methods to help the Autobots win the war.
Innocent. Completely innocent viewing.
Wheeljack cycled a ventilation and rubbed a hand over his indicator. He tried again. “All I’m saying is that a truce is in both of our best interest, right?”
“I suppose,” Starscream ground out, so grudging it should not qualify as cute, yet somehow it did. His armor remained clamped, defensive.
Wheeljack kept up a wary guard. “Good. Then I don’t attack you when your back is turned, and you don’t try to claw my optics out because I sneezed funny.”
Starscream straightened, wings hiking upright and twitching. “You’re very odd.”
“I get that a lot.” Wheeljack chuckled, and it seemed to ease the tension in the small space by a tiny degree.
A tension, Wheeljack realized, that may or may not have been entirely due to their circumstances. Specifically, that of two members of opposing factions being stuck together. No, perhaps it was the ‘small space’ aspect of it which was making Starscream uncomfortable. Tiny space and the fact they were trapped underground.
There were a lot of rumors floating around about Seekers. Wheeljack may or may not have greedily learned them all, for a piece of a chance, a small snippet of understanding for the mech who caught his optics.
“So… is it true?” Wheeljack asked.
Starscream rolled his optics. “You’ll have to be more specific, Autobot. To my knowledge there are many, many rumors about me.”
“Are Seekers claustrophobic?”
Starscream stared at him and snorted. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.” He started pacing again, arms crossed over his cockpit. “If that were true, every flyer in the army would’ve gone mad by now.” His wings twitched. “I’m uncomfortable now because I’m trapped with you, not because I’m claustrophobic.”
“Me? What’s so scary about me?” Wheeljack asked, amused despite himself.
He looked down at his dirt streaked frame, but beneath that was even more dirt not from the rockalanche, plus spatters of weldash, grease, and experiment remnants. Prior to his fall in this hole, the only thing reasonably clean about his frame were his hands. He kept them in as mint condition as possible. Like Ratchet, they were his life’s work.
“Not you specifically,” Starscream ground out with another roll of his optics. “You’re about as dangerous as the molding meshcloth on my washrack floor.”
Wheeljack planted his hands on his hips. “Alright. You don’t have to be mean about it.” He puffed up. “I could be mean if I put effort into it.”
“I highly doubt it,” Starscream drawled. “The only Autobot I’m less afraid of is that gaggle of anklebiters you lot call minibots.”
“That’s pretty unfair.” Wheeljack waggled a finger at him. “I know for a fact Cliffjumper can fit all manner of weaponry in places you don’t even know.”
Starscream scowled, his nose wrinkling in a way that made Wheeljack’s spark skip a terribly pathetic beat. “I’ll give you that one,” he said, grudgingly.
Wheeljack was immediately glad for his blastmask, because it meant Starscream couldn’t see his grin. “So we’ve established I’m both not dangerous and not threatening,” he said. “And you’re reliably confident in your ability to take me down if need be, right?”
“Right,” Starscream said, but his optics narrowed, and suspicion radiated from him in waves. “Where are you going with this?”
Wheeljack tilted a little and stared pointedly at the bent tip of Starscream’s wing. “You need repairs,” he pointed out. “And since I’m less dangerous than that dirty cloth which is probably gaining sentience at this point, you should have no worries about sitting down to let me do that.”
Starscream’s mouth opened and closed. His wings snapped high, before drifting down again. His optics narrowed. He was caught, and he knew it. He could refuse and acknowledge Wheeljack was a big scary Autobot. Or he could bend his pride a smidgeon to let Wheeljack repair him.
Wheeljack moved toward a large boulder that had fallen with them, bits of rust clinging to the surface. He made a show of brushing it off with a grease-stained rag he pulled from his subspace.
“Have a seat,” Wheeljack said with a charming blue flash of his indicators. “Let me see what I can do.”
It occurred to him that if there was anyone in this cave-in who should be wary of immediate danger, it was probably himself. Starscream was mercurial, prone to lashing out when cornered, and predictably self-serving. If he thought it would benefit him to shoot out Wheeljack’s spark, he would do it.
Wheeljack prayed that leaning on Starscream’s sense of self-preservation would keep his spark intact. He rather liked living. And the offer to repair him was purely to foster good rapport between them, and not at all an excuse to get his hands on those gorgeous wings.
Starscream squinted at him for another long moment before he moved stiffly across the ground and sat on the boulder, making an obnoxiously large production of it. One wing twitched. The other attempted to do so and made a horrendous grinding noise.
Wheeljack winced.
“If you harm me, Autobot, my vengeance shall be swift and merciless,” Starscream said, like he’d been memorizing terrible lines out of a Villain’s Handbook.
“Well, you know, you’re kind of already dented,” Wheeljack pointed out as he crossed his arms and tapped one foot on the rock-strewn ground. “So I can’t be held responsible for--”
“Just fix it.”
“Sir, yes, sir.” Wheeljack threw out a salute that would have made Ratchet proud and silently surveyed the damage.
The aileron on Starscream’s left wing was dented and couldn’t pivot properly. Wheeljack held a ventilation and reached for it, only to pause and curl his fingers back.
“I’m going to touch your wing,” he stated, both as warning and both as a request for permission. He didn’t want a null-ray to the face.
“Since you’re intending to repair it, I had assumed as much,” Starscream said in a dry tone. The arched orbital ridge was implied.
“Well, excuse me for trying to be considerate.” Now would have been the point a crueler mech would have grabbed Starscream, to be an aft.
Wheeljack was not such a mech. Instead, he carefully brushed a finger over Starscream’s wing in warning. Starscream tensed, but said nothing, and Wheeljack firmed his touch.
He examined the dent and was relieved to find he could easily bend it back into place himself, without any further equipment required. It would be sore, but if Starscream’s self-repair was up to snuff, the aileron would be good as new within a matter of hours.
“I can bend this back into place,” Wheeljack explained, brushing the area with a fingertip to indicate what he meant. “It’ll hurt. I don’t have a sensor block.”
Starscream scoffed. “It’s only pain, Autobot. Just do it.”
‘Only pain?’ What the frag did that even mean?
Wheeljack cycled a ventilation and pulled some compressed air out of one of his storage compartments. He gave the joint and aileron a few spritzes to make sure debris wasn’t caught in the pivot. Starscream startled beneath his touch, and then abruptly went still as stone, a flash of embarrassment running lukewarm in his field.
“Sorry, should’ve warned you,” Wheeljack said.
Starscream growled. “Be careful.”
Wheeljack nodded, until he realized Starscream couldn’t see him. “Yes. Of course.”
He took a moment to steady himself, and then he grasped Starscream’s aileron and bent it back into place. The metal gave easily, it was thin and flexible for its purpose, and he took note of the way Starscream tensed, but said nothing. Not so much as a squeak.
‘Only pain.’
Wheeljack examined his work. The aileron was straight now, pivoting easily along the hinge, and the area surrounding it was warm, indicating the arrival of repair nanites. All good signs.
“Feel okay?” Wheeljack asked.
“Fine.” Starscream’s tone was tight, and a ripple ran over his armor. He held his field too closely for Wheeljack to discern if that was a good ripple or a bad one.
“You want me to…?”
“Just fix whatever needs fixing,” Starscream ground out, and folded his arms over his cockpit, wings giving little twitches of unease.
“Right.”
Wheeljack circled around to Starscream’s front, compressed air at the ready, eying the knee he’d been favoring. He felt the hot weight of Starscream’s glare on him, watching him for any wrongdoing.
It was very disconcerting.
Wheeljack lowered himself to a kneel, hoping to put Starscream at ease. “So,” he said. “What kind of books do you like to read?”
“… What?” Starscream could not have sounded more incredulous if he tried.
Wheeljack didn’t look at him, pretending he was completely absorbed by his efforts. “I know you read. You’re very intelligent. So what do you like to read?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“It’s better than sitting here in a tense silence, isn’t it?” The air compressor blew a gust into Starscream’s knee joint, dislodging some of the grit. “But we could do that, if you’d prefer.” He paused and looked up at Starscream. “I wasn’t fishing for intel, by the way. I was genuinely asking.”
Starscream squinted at him. “You’re very odd.”
“So you’ve said.” He sprayed the air compressor again and lifted Starscream’s leg by the calf, putting the knee through a small bit of motion. “I prefer fiction. The more fantastically romantic, the better.”
A small scan informed him of a larger piece of debris lodged behind the joint. Wheeljack carefully manipulated Starscream’s knee to expose a clear path, then transformed two digits into a slender pair of forceps.
“Romance,” Starscream echoed. He snorted a laugh. “Now I’ve heard everything.”
With a twitch of his wrist, the bit of rock popped free. Starscream audibly sighed in relief, tension visibly easing from his frame. Wheeljack flicked the debris aside, gave Starscream’s knee another spray of compressed air, and rested his leg back on the ground.
“We all have our hobbies.” Wheeljack moved to Starscream’s shoulder, where a dribble of energon precipitated a piece of metal stuck between two thin plates of armor. “Don’t you?”
Starscream’s vents wheezed. “I spend all my time plotting Megatron’s imminent demise and my eventual takeover of the Decepticons,” he said, his tone dry and without inflection.
Wheeljack leaned away from the piece of shrapnel. “You’re mocking me, aren’t you?”
Starscream arched an orbital ridge. “No more than you just mocked me.”
“Hey, I was being serious.” Wheeljack planted his hands on his hips, directing his most fierce gaze at the Seeker. Ratchet called it his serious look. “I read romance novels, and I love romance musicals, and I have a whole catalog of romantic ballads on a specific harddrive that I’ve been keeping safe for centuries.”
Starscream stared at him. “That’s….”
“Odd, I know.” Wheeljack rolled his optics and pinched the end of the shrapnel between thumb and forefinger. “Hold still so I can get this out without doing more damage.”
“I was going to say impressive, but odd certainly fits as well.” Starscream froze, though his head turned to watch Wheeljack work, which wasn’t distracting at all. “And given the war, I guess I can’t blame you for wanting some escapism.”
Wheeljack paused, glanced at Starscream, and there was a distant look to his optics, a slight frown on his face. It was the first genuine expression Wheeljack had caught from him.
His spark gave a little throb. Starscream understood wanting to escape as well.
“Right.” Wheeljack coughed to clear his intake. “Let me just...” He trailed off as he gave the piece of shrapnel a ginger pull, easing it free of Starscream’s shoulder and provoking a fresh stream of energon.
He tossed the shrapnel aside, pulled a tube of sealant out of his arm compartment, and squirted a fair dollop against the puncture. Starscream’s nanites would take care of it soon enough, but in the meantime, this would keep him from losing more. Wheeljack knew Starscream couldn’t afford to waste energon.
“Done,” Wheeljack declared. He took several steps back, pulling a rag from subspace to wipe his hands. Already grease-stained and soot-smeared, the rag didn’t so much clean his hands as dirty them further. “Consider this one on the house. No bill.”
Starscream poked at his shoulder. “Your charity is appreciated,” he said, in a tone that rather implied Wheeljack should go frag himself with a rusty pipe.
Wheeljack found a pile of rock suitable for sitting and took a moment to catalog his own wounds. Not that he had any. By order of Ratchet, he was sturdy by nature, built to take a blow. Not that great at dealing them out, but he could walk away from just about any bludgeoning or impact attack without a scratch.
He checked his comms again.
Static.
Well, Prowl knew where he was. Ratchet would get worried sooner rather than later and start harassing his conjunx about it. A search party would be sent when Wheeljack missed his first check-in. All he had to do was wait and hope they were quicker than Starscream’s friends. And that Starscream didn’t kill him in the meantime.
“Historical fiction.”
The comment was so soft Wheeljack almost missed it.
He blinked and looked at Starscream. “What?”
Starscream pulled a meshcloth from somewhere and wiped at the energon streaks on his armor. “Historical fiction,” he repeated. “For casual reading, I prefer fictional tales based on past events. Re-imaginings of how history could have gone, if different decisions had been made.”
“Oh.” Wheeljack tilted his head, noticed the faint flush staining Starscream’s cheeks. “I’ve read historical romances. Do they count?”
Starscream snorted. “Why am I not surprised?” He looked up at the ceiling before giving Wheeljack a sidelong look. “Are you injured?”
“Me?” Wheeljack was too slow to hide his surprise over being asked. He patted his chest pointedly. “No, I’m fine. Built to take a lickin’ and keep on kickin’.”
Starscream squinted at him. “You’re going native, Autobot.”
Wheeljack laughed. “Yeah, a bit. Probably.” He scrubbed the back of his head. “So… uh… what do we do now?” He pointedly looked around their cramped space.
They had enough room to move around. The ceiling above was a precarious balance of broken, twisted beams keeping up a groaning mass of stone and debris. To the left, where the door Wheeljack had used should have been, was a gnarled, blackened mass probably two levels above. There were, presumably, computer consoles somewhere in the periphery, but most were half-buried under the rubble since they had dropped down.
Flickering lights gamely tried to illuminate the space. Combined with their own biolights, it was slightly brighter than dim. It smelled musty and ancient, like rust and dust.
From an engineering standpoint, there honestly didn’t appear to be much they could do without risking the entire ceiling caving in, or the ground beneath them further crumpling and dumping them deeper into Cybertron’s old tunnels.
“We wait.” Starscream looked up, optics narrowed at the ceiling. “Unless you’ve got a brilliant plan for digging us out of here without killing us that doesn’t require the use of explosives.”
Wheeljack settled into his rocky chair. “We wait,” he agreed, though he mourned the fact he wouldn’t be able to use the new device he had in his subspace. If he was one-hundred percent certain it would work, he’d pull it out. But the last thing they needed was for an acidic explosive to blow up in their faces.
Literally.
“I’m quite sure your allies will get here first,” Starscream said, his tone almost bored if Wheeljack didn’t know better. He pulled a datapad from subspace and started flicking through the screens. “I don’t know which is worse. This cave-in or the cell your Prime will shove me into as soon as he sees me.” He paused, lips curving into a frown. “I wonder which torture they’ll try this time.”
Wheeljack twisted his jaw behind the mask. “We don’t torture mechs.”
Starscream huffed a little laugh. “Of course you don’t,” he said, looking at Wheeljack over the top of the datapad. “And I’ll be sure to remind that menace of yours of such a thing the next time we meet.” He winked.
Discomfort pooled into dread in the pit of Wheeljack’s tanks. His hands scrubbed down his thighs, clamping around his knees. “The Decepticons could get here first,” he offered.
Starscream snorted. “And you consider that a better outcome?” He lifted an orbital ridge, lowering the datapad so he could give Wheeljack an assessing look. “You’re not that sturdy. We’re not more gracious hosts than you are.”
Neither option was particularly preferable.
Wheeljack gnawed on the inside of his cheek.
Starscream lifted his datapad again, appearing to get lost in the contents. But there was definitely a tension around him now. His armor clamped tight, his wings were still and pressed hard against his back. His vents, rattling though they were, had gone a bit rapid.
He would never admit to being afraid, Wheeljack was sure of this.
“I guess we’ll have to see,” he said, trying to keep his tone light. He hoped the rescue team was composed of the more level-headed of the Autobots.
He didn’t want to be responsible for Starscream getting captured or tortured. War was war, but Wheeljack didn’t like the idea of torture. He didn’t think it was necessary.
Right now, the war was a stalemate. Neither gave ground. They’d had no serious deaths. The Autobots protected the humans. The Decepticons desperately scrounged for energon. There was no real victory or defeat.
There had to be a better way.
“Yes. Well. Autobot optimism,” Starscream said with a sneer.
Wheeljack sighed and stood. He roamed the small space, giving Starscream a wide berth so as not to alarm the Decepticon. They had time to kill, and it didn’t hurt to inspect their surroundings, on the off chance he found an escape.
Twenty minutes later, he had to concede they were well and truly trapped. The debris fall could, perhaps, be dug through if he had some way to shore up the walls in order to prevent it from falling back down on him. A series of beams blocked the hole they’d fallen through. He actually had no idea where they were in relation to where they had been.
This research facility had been a longshot from the start. A piece of spotty intel brought back and handed over to Wheeljack because he was bored and stuck on an experiment and could be spared to investigate. It shouldn’t have been any trouble.
Hah. Well. That was his luck.
“Would you sit down already?” Starscream demanded, his cross tone catching Wheeljack by surprise. “You’re not going to find an escape, and your constant searching is irritating.”
Wheeljack glanced at Starscream, whose wings were indeed twitching, and there was a general air of unease about him. “You sure you’re not claustrophobic?” he asked as he found his perch from earlier and sat back down.
It wouldn’t hurt to be polite.
“I’m sure,” Starscream sniped. “Don’t you have a romance to read or something?”
Wheeljack held up his hands. “Fine, I’ll stop asking.” He tilted his head, narrowing his optics. “You going to tell me what you were doing here?”
“The same thing as you, I’d imagine.” Starscream aggressively swiped across his datapad, glaring firmly at the screen. “Looking for an impossible thing and failing to find it. Per the usual.”
“To be fair, the place collapsed before we could find anything.”
“Are you always this obnoxiously optimistic?” Starscream asked as he dropped the datapad with an aggrieved sigh.
“It’s one of my more charming traits.” Wheeljack chuckled and leaned back on his hands, trying to effect a pose of ease. “What are you reading?”
“Optimistic and chatty,” Starscream commented as he scrubbed his fingers over his forehead. “Well, at least I didn’t get trapped with the spy.”
Wheeljack laughed, his indicators flashing purple. “Would you believe that most people consider Jazz more charming than me?”
Starscream propped his elbow on a folded arm, and his chin on the heel of one hand. “Has a good mask, that one does.” He tilted his head, lip curling into a smirk. “I prefer your company, to be honest, as sanguine as it might be.” He paused and the smirk curled into amusement. “You’re certainly more attractive.”
Heat clawed up Wheeljack’s backstrut and took up residence in his cheeks. Thank Primus for his battle mask. “Now I know you’re mocking me,” he said.
Starscream’s ailerons twitched. “Am I?” He looked Wheeljack up and down, like one might a new machine they were going to purchase. “You have nice colors, a nice build, you’re firm and sturdy.” His fingers rapped over his cheek. “Shame you’re wearing a battlemask.”
Wheeljack’s engine revved. He searched for something, anything to say in response to that, and his mind came up blank. Was Starscream being genuine? He couldn’t tell.
His comm crackled.
Wheeljack shot to his feet, startling Starscream in the process.
“--jack? Are you there?” Ratchet’s voice poured through his comm, anger mixed with worry, as Ratchet does.
Wheeljack’s hand snapped up to his comm. “I’m here, Ratch. Thank Primus, you found me.”
“We’re on the other side of the rubble,” Ratchet replied, much clearer now. “I should’ve known. You couldn’t resist making me worry, could you?” His tone was sharp, chastising, but he sounded relieved, too.
Wheeljack glanced at Starscream, spark aching as the playful look in Starscream’s optics wiped away, and he tensed, snapping out of his relaxed pose.
“Sorry, Ratch. It’s just the way I am.”
Wheeljack paused and listened. He heard, through the layers of debris, the sound of movement. Several dull thuds echoed in the small space. Tiny bits of dust and debris rained down, pinging off his armor.
“Thanks for coming.” Wheeljack moved away from ceiling and the noise. “But I’m not alone.”
“Yeah, we’re reading two spark signatures in there.” Ratchet’s comm fuzzed with static for a moment before it clarified. “You okay?”
Wheeljack grinned behind his mask. “You know me. People can’t help but love me.”
Ratchet and Starscream somehow managed to snort in tandem. The Seeker had stood, his arms crossed over his cockpit, his face a mask of nothing. He looked up at the ceiling, and a frown curved his lips downward.
No doubt he imagined the prison cell awaiting him.
“Sure thing, Casanova,” Ratchet drawled. “Just stay back before Sideswipe brings the ceiling down on top of you.”
Wheeljack groaned and slapped his forehead. “Why didn’t you bring Grapple and Hoist? They would’ve been better at this.” They were finesse whereas Sideswipe was brute force.
This sort of scenario definitely required finesse.
“We didn’t have time to find them,” Ratchet said.
The thuds got louder. More debris rained down. There was an ominous rumble and rub of metal together. Wheeljack inched closer to Starscream, until he was within a few paces. He had a bad feeling about this.
“Tell him to be careful!” Wheeljack insisted.
Something snapped above them with a loud crack, coinciding with the booming thud of a large impact. Finely honed alarm bells rang loudly in Wheeljack’s head. He didn’t think, he just acted.
He dove for Starscream, tackling the Seeker out of the way as the ceiling crumpled right where the Seeker had been standing, sending debris and grit raining into the tiny space. Wheeljack twisted at the last second, putting himself between Starscream and the floor. His hands found their way to the relative safety of Starscream’s lower back, cradling the lighter Seeker against him.
Lighter, but certainly not smaller.
Starscream sprawled on top of him, in his arms, as debris plunked down with several loud thuds and plinks of metal on metal. Their faces nearly collided, but Starscream caught himself, their optics mere inches apart. Starscream’s expression was startled, his optics wide, their fields clashing at the proximity.
Warmth. Amusement. Interest…?
“Uh...” Wheeljack’s mind went blank.
Starscream straddled his waist, and the heat and weight of him was all too noticeable. They were close enough Wheeljack could feel Starscream’s rapid ex-vents over his lips.
There was a moment where time seemed to still before another loud crash of impact had Starscream scrambling away from him, and Wheeljack struggling to right himself, nearly tripping over a huge piece of debris in the process. If it wasn’t for the battlemask, he’d be aglow with a blush right now. As it was, his indicators flushed a dark, dark pink.
Dust lingered in the air. Wheeljack automatically closed his vents. Starscream wasn’t so lucky and coughed as his fans sucked in the grit before he could.
Dim light poured from the hole above them, debris jagged in the rim of the collapsed floor. A shadow crossed in front of the circle of light before a head popped into view. A head attached to a familiar face.
Wheeljack slid to the side, automatically moving in front of Starscream, trying his best to shield the Seeker from view.
“Jack!” Sideswipe said, gleefully. He leaned further out and waved one dented, scratched arm. Sunstreaker would pitch a fit about that. “You’re okay!”
Wheeljack sighed and palmed his face. “I almost wasn’t! You could have crushed me!”
Sideswipe rolled his optics. “Oh, come on. We all know you’re sturdier than that. It’s just a little--”
He was yanked out of view, and Ratchet’s cross voice floated down.
“Sideswipe, shut the frag up,” Ratchet snarled. “And be more careful next time.” The ringing slap of metal on metal was followed by a startled yelp.
“Ratch! Not in public,” Sideswipe said, all playful affront, the little tease.
“I’m going to turn you into a waffle iron one day,” Ratchet threatened, and then he came into view, leaning over the edge of the open hole. “The idiot didn’t hurt you, did he?”
Wheeljack shook his head. “Not this time. You can spare him further punishment.”
Ratchet snorted. “Don’t do him any favors.” He tilted his head a bit more, and his optics slid past Wheeljack’s shoulder. “Oh. You do have company.”
Behind Wheeljack, Starscream coughed a vent. Wheeljack’s peripheral sensors caught Starscream crossing his arms over his cockpit, weight shifting, wings flicking out behind him.
“Nice to see you, too, Ratchet,” Starscream said. “I presume you have a pair of stasis cuffs with my designation on them?”
Ratchet rolled his optics, but his grin was a bit too sharp for Wheeljack’s liking. “Starscream, please, I’m in a committed relationship now.”
“We’re not putting him in a cell,” Wheeljack said, and surprised himself with how firm it came out.
It must have surprised Ratchet, too, because he blinked, and the amusement wiped away from his face. “No, we’re not,” he said, an odd gentleness to his tone. “In fact, as far as anyone else is concerned, you’re alone in that hole.”
Gratitude washed through Wheeljack.
Starscream’s field, however, spiked with unease. “And what favor am I going to owe you for that?”
“None, you ungrateful brat.” Ratchet scowled as another face appeared beside him – Sideswipe’s – and Ratchet narrowed his optics. “We’re not in a battle right now, and frankly, I don’t want to have to deal with hauling you back.”
“So we’re going to pull Wheeljack out of there and walk away, and you can get yourself out of that hole and everything’s even,” Sideswipe said. His slag-eating grin made Wheeljack more than a little uneasy, though he couldn’t put a finger on why. “Sound fair?”
Wheeljack half-turned in time to catch Starscream’s scowl. “And I’m to trust the word of one of your pit-spawned menaces?”
“You can trust my word, can’t you?” Wheeljack asked, quieting his vocals so only Starscream could hear him. “I promise we’ll leave you be.”
Starscream’s lips pressed in a thin line. He looked at Wheeljack, optics searching his face, before he cycled a ventilation. Some of the tension eased out of his shoulders.
“Fine,” he bit out. “But be prepared to make yourself a very dangerous enemy should you go back on your word.”
“I won’t,” Wheeljack said. He looked up at the ceiling. “Lower a rope or something! I can’t get myself out!”
“On it!” Sideswipe playfully saluted and vanished from view.
Wheeljack moved away from Starscream and stood under the opening. Ratchet was glancing between him and Starscream with a queer look on his face. Wheeljack had known Ratchet for a long, long time, but he wasn’t sure what to call that look. Ratchet could be quite inscrutable when he wanted to be.
“You’re not hiding any injuries from me, are you?” Ratchet asked, his voice a bit quieter now that Wheeljack was closer. His gaze kept slanting toward Starscream before focusing on Wheeljack again.
“Nothing that can’t wait,” Wheeljack assured him.
Sideswipe showed up, carrying an armful of chains, which he dropped down into the hole with a loud clatter of metal on metal. Wheeljack winced, praying it was attached to something on the other end, and indeed, the links snapped taut.
“Careful!” he heard a voice snarl, and of course Sunstreaker was here. One never could find one twin without the other. Even if the mission meant digging in a dirty hole.
Wheeljack moved to the grab the chain, but paused. He had a thought, and he debated it for all of a second before he dug in his subspace, rifled through his collection, and pulled out the first datachip he could wrap his fingers around. He fiddled with it for another long second and then turned to Starscream.
“Here,” he said as he held out the chip. “I think you’ll like this one.”
He gave the chip a toss, and Starscream snatched it out of the air with ease. He peered at the chip, turning it around in his fingers.
“Trying to convert me, Autobot?” he asked but the curve of his mouth suggested humor rather than outrage.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Wheeljack grabbed the chain, hauling himself up the links.
Starscream’s dry chuckle chased him out, and Wheeljack committed it to memory. This was an interaction he’d never forget.
Hands reached down to help him up as he neared the edge, but it was Ratchet who pulled him out with a single yank. Medics and their hidden strength. Amazing.
Wheeljack wobbled a little on the upper floor, head spinning from the rapid ascent. In the brighter light above, he was absolutely filthy, covered in grit from head to foot, until the white of his armor was a pale brown.
He’s pulled into an embrace before he could get his wits about him, Ratchet’s hand slapping his back and causing a puff of dust to rise.
“Stop scaring me, Jack,” he said, gruff, before he leaned back, hands on Wheeljack’s shoulders, optics narrowed in consideration. “You sure you’re alright?”
Wheeljack was ridiculously glad no one could see the smile on his face. “Just fine.”
He glanced back at the hole, and was relieved to find that while Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were staring at it curiously, they didn’t have weapons drawn or restraints in sight. No one else had come with them. Apparently, Prowl had decided the twins were protection enough for Ratchet.
Well, he wasn’t wrong.
“We should go,” Wheeljack said.
Ratchet patted his shoulders before drawing back. He walked to the edge of the hole and crouched, peering down into the dim. “Give us ten minutes and then you can be on your way.”
“I owe you nothing,” came sulkily out of the hole.
Ratchet chuckled. “No, you don’t.” He pushed himself back upright, dusting off his hands.
He slung an arm over Wheeljack’s shoulders, guiding him toward the exit, something else Sideswipe had apparently ploughed his pile-drivers through as the hole was ragged and the metal awkwardly bent.
“Come on. Let’s go home,” Ratchet said.
Wheeljack nodded. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker exited ahead of them, Sideswipe leading the exit with Sunstreaker guarding his back. Their forward guard, apparently.
“Did you at least find what you were looking for?” Ratchet asked as they stepped out of the damaged hole and found themselves in the middle of the abandoned city, starlight twinkling above them.
“No,” Wheeljack said.
He rubbed his hands together, thinking of that brief encounter and the tiny bits of insight he’d gotten into Starscream.
“I think I found something better instead,” he corrected.
Ratchet gave him a little shake. “Good for you, Jack,” he said. “Now don’t ever worry me like that again.”
Wheeljack chuckled. “I can only promise to try.”
~
Universe: Behind the Scenes, G1
Characters: Wheeljack, Starscream, Ratchet, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker
Rated: T
Description: It was the kind of situation that sent Wheeljack’s romantic spark to thumping, except Starscream was not your typical damsel in distress, and Wheeljack did not at all resemble the handsome hero.
Well.
This was… awkward.
If Wheeljack hadn’t been one of the two mechs currently trapped in a cave, he wouldn’t have believed the circumstances. This was the kind of thing that tended to happen in the torrid romance novels occupying so much of his shelf-space. He didn’t think it would happen in real-life.
Yet, here he was.
Trapped underground.
With Starscream.
Wheeljack oscillated between knowing to keep a wary distance and the urge to inch closer to a mech who had haunted his dreams, both before and during the war. Starscream, like Wheeljack, was in surprisingly good condition considering the floor collapse that had landed them here, which was immediately followed by a cave-in blocking their only avenue of escape.
Agitation, however, was obvious as Starscream stalked in slow circles around the periphery of the rock-littered space. His wings hiked high. His engine snarled. His field was a dizzying assault of unease, fury and outrage.
Dust streaked across his face. There was a dent in his aileron. He walked with a limp, and Wheeljack suspected the grinding noise he heard was a small bit of debris caught in Starscream’s knee joint.
He was still the prettiest thing Wheeljack had ever seen.
Wheeljack reminded himself he had no business offering to help Starscream clean up.
“For the record,” Starscream hissed without so much as a blood-red stare in Wheeljack’s direction. Dismissive of him. My, wasn’t this familiar? “I blame you.”
Wheeljack blinked. “How is this my fault? You’re the one who--”
“If you hadn’t startled me, I wouldn’t have blindly fired!” Starscream snapped with a sharp growl. “Stupid Autobot. You have no business poking around here!”
“And you do?” Wheeljack couldn’t decide if he was amused or offended. Perhaps a mixture of both. “What were you doin’ here?”
Starscream ruffled. “None of your business!” He sniffed and folded his arms over his cockpit, half-showing Wheeljack his back, his wings giving off agitated, arrhythmic tics.
Wheelajck tried not to stare.
“Fine,” he said, and tried to de-escalate. Because if there was one thing his centuries of pointless watching had taught him, agitating Starscream never worked for anyone. “Are you hurt?”
Starscream blinked. “What?” His tone labored somewhere between indignant and outraged.
And, sadly, a touch confused.
“Are ya hurt?” Wheeljack asked and lifted his hands, wriggling his fingers. “I ain’t Ratchet or anythin’, but I’m qualified as a field medic. I can patch ya up and stuff.” He instantly regretted bringing up Ratchet, as much as he was glad he had because there was something there.
An old something, granted. A lifetime and a war ago, to be fair. But sometimes, calling on old friendships – old lovers, his processor snidely reminded him – was the only way to survive this war. Besides, they’d all been fighting for so long, certain things were starting to slide.
Starscream stared at him as if he’d sprouted wings, fangs, and declared himself a predacon. “Why on Earth would you think I’d let you touch me?”
Ouch.
Right to the spark that one. Wheeljack hoped he didn’t visibly flinch.
He scratched his head and played it cool. Luckily, he’d built himself some thick armor over the years. “This kinda situation usually calls for an unspoken truce, but if ya’d rather we barely keep from killin’ each other, I guess that’s all right with me.” He shrugged. He didn’t know if it was as nonchalant as he meant it to be.
“Situations likes this?” Starscream parroted and the smirk he gave Wheeljack was just this shade of cruel. “Have a penchant for romantic frippery, Autobot?”
Wheeljack refused to flush. “We all have our hobbies,” he said. “And I’m Wheeljack.”
“I know who you are.” Starscream rolled his optics.
Wheeljack’s spark did a stupid little pitter-patter. He crushed the hope before it sprouted any kind of wings. Of course Starscream knew who he was. There were a little over four dozen Autobots on Earth. After a while, you started to remember who you were shooting at.
Millennia ago, the Wheeljack who was Ratchet’s best friend and roommate was much quieter, a touch smaller, and an entirely different color. Wheeljack doubted very much Starscream remembered him at all.
“Then you know I’m pretty trustworthy,” Wheeljack pointed out.
Starscream arched an orbital ridge at him, offering a dead look. “You’re an Autobot,” he said, in the same kind of tone Spike used when he said ‘duh’.
Wheeljack tried again, injecting innocence into his tone, while his fingers gave him away, twisting and tangling without something to keep them occupied. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I’m not nice.”
“I’m a Decepticon.” Long, elegant fingers pointed at Starscream’s wings as though Wheeljack were blind and had somehow missed the bright purple brands.
Wheeljack sighed. “You have a talent for stating the obvious, you know.”
Denta bared at him in an angry hiss. Starscream glared. Perhaps not the best choice to mock him. Wheeljack should have known this. He’d spent far too much time Starscream-watching. He was practically an experiment.
What? No. He absolutely did not watch recordings of their battles in the privacy of his suite either. And any viewing he might be guilty of was purely for the sake of discerning new methods to help the Autobots win the war.
Innocent. Completely innocent viewing.
Wheeljack cycled a ventilation and rubbed a hand over his indicator. He tried again. “All I’m saying is that a truce is in both of our best interest, right?”
“I suppose,” Starscream ground out, so grudging it should not qualify as cute, yet somehow it did. His armor remained clamped, defensive.
Wheeljack kept up a wary guard. “Good. Then I don’t attack you when your back is turned, and you don’t try to claw my optics out because I sneezed funny.”
Starscream straightened, wings hiking upright and twitching. “You’re very odd.”
“I get that a lot.” Wheeljack chuckled, and it seemed to ease the tension in the small space by a tiny degree.
A tension, Wheeljack realized, that may or may not have been entirely due to their circumstances. Specifically, that of two members of opposing factions being stuck together. No, perhaps it was the ‘small space’ aspect of it which was making Starscream uncomfortable. Tiny space and the fact they were trapped underground.
There were a lot of rumors floating around about Seekers. Wheeljack may or may not have greedily learned them all, for a piece of a chance, a small snippet of understanding for the mech who caught his optics.
“So… is it true?” Wheeljack asked.
Starscream rolled his optics. “You’ll have to be more specific, Autobot. To my knowledge there are many, many rumors about me.”
“Are Seekers claustrophobic?”
Starscream stared at him and snorted. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.” He started pacing again, arms crossed over his cockpit. “If that were true, every flyer in the army would’ve gone mad by now.” His wings twitched. “I’m uncomfortable now because I’m trapped with you, not because I’m claustrophobic.”
“Me? What’s so scary about me?” Wheeljack asked, amused despite himself.
He looked down at his dirt streaked frame, but beneath that was even more dirt not from the rockalanche, plus spatters of weldash, grease, and experiment remnants. Prior to his fall in this hole, the only thing reasonably clean about his frame were his hands. He kept them in as mint condition as possible. Like Ratchet, they were his life’s work.
“Not you specifically,” Starscream ground out with another roll of his optics. “You’re about as dangerous as the molding meshcloth on my washrack floor.”
Wheeljack planted his hands on his hips. “Alright. You don’t have to be mean about it.” He puffed up. “I could be mean if I put effort into it.”
“I highly doubt it,” Starscream drawled. “The only Autobot I’m less afraid of is that gaggle of anklebiters you lot call minibots.”
“That’s pretty unfair.” Wheeljack waggled a finger at him. “I know for a fact Cliffjumper can fit all manner of weaponry in places you don’t even know.”
Starscream scowled, his nose wrinkling in a way that made Wheeljack’s spark skip a terribly pathetic beat. “I’ll give you that one,” he said, grudgingly.
Wheeljack was immediately glad for his blastmask, because it meant Starscream couldn’t see his grin. “So we’ve established I’m both not dangerous and not threatening,” he said. “And you’re reliably confident in your ability to take me down if need be, right?”
“Right,” Starscream said, but his optics narrowed, and suspicion radiated from him in waves. “Where are you going with this?”
Wheeljack tilted a little and stared pointedly at the bent tip of Starscream’s wing. “You need repairs,” he pointed out. “And since I’m less dangerous than that dirty cloth which is probably gaining sentience at this point, you should have no worries about sitting down to let me do that.”
Starscream’s mouth opened and closed. His wings snapped high, before drifting down again. His optics narrowed. He was caught, and he knew it. He could refuse and acknowledge Wheeljack was a big scary Autobot. Or he could bend his pride a smidgeon to let Wheeljack repair him.
Wheeljack moved toward a large boulder that had fallen with them, bits of rust clinging to the surface. He made a show of brushing it off with a grease-stained rag he pulled from his subspace.
“Have a seat,” Wheeljack said with a charming blue flash of his indicators. “Let me see what I can do.”
It occurred to him that if there was anyone in this cave-in who should be wary of immediate danger, it was probably himself. Starscream was mercurial, prone to lashing out when cornered, and predictably self-serving. If he thought it would benefit him to shoot out Wheeljack’s spark, he would do it.
Wheeljack prayed that leaning on Starscream’s sense of self-preservation would keep his spark intact. He rather liked living. And the offer to repair him was purely to foster good rapport between them, and not at all an excuse to get his hands on those gorgeous wings.
Starscream squinted at him for another long moment before he moved stiffly across the ground and sat on the boulder, making an obnoxiously large production of it. One wing twitched. The other attempted to do so and made a horrendous grinding noise.
Wheeljack winced.
“If you harm me, Autobot, my vengeance shall be swift and merciless,” Starscream said, like he’d been memorizing terrible lines out of a Villain’s Handbook.
“Well, you know, you’re kind of already dented,” Wheeljack pointed out as he crossed his arms and tapped one foot on the rock-strewn ground. “So I can’t be held responsible for--”
“Just fix it.”
“Sir, yes, sir.” Wheeljack threw out a salute that would have made Ratchet proud and silently surveyed the damage.
The aileron on Starscream’s left wing was dented and couldn’t pivot properly. Wheeljack held a ventilation and reached for it, only to pause and curl his fingers back.
“I’m going to touch your wing,” he stated, both as warning and both as a request for permission. He didn’t want a null-ray to the face.
“Since you’re intending to repair it, I had assumed as much,” Starscream said in a dry tone. The arched orbital ridge was implied.
“Well, excuse me for trying to be considerate.” Now would have been the point a crueler mech would have grabbed Starscream, to be an aft.
Wheeljack was not such a mech. Instead, he carefully brushed a finger over Starscream’s wing in warning. Starscream tensed, but said nothing, and Wheeljack firmed his touch.
He examined the dent and was relieved to find he could easily bend it back into place himself, without any further equipment required. It would be sore, but if Starscream’s self-repair was up to snuff, the aileron would be good as new within a matter of hours.
“I can bend this back into place,” Wheeljack explained, brushing the area with a fingertip to indicate what he meant. “It’ll hurt. I don’t have a sensor block.”
Starscream scoffed. “It’s only pain, Autobot. Just do it.”
‘Only pain?’ What the frag did that even mean?
Wheeljack cycled a ventilation and pulled some compressed air out of one of his storage compartments. He gave the joint and aileron a few spritzes to make sure debris wasn’t caught in the pivot. Starscream startled beneath his touch, and then abruptly went still as stone, a flash of embarrassment running lukewarm in his field.
“Sorry, should’ve warned you,” Wheeljack said.
Starscream growled. “Be careful.”
Wheeljack nodded, until he realized Starscream couldn’t see him. “Yes. Of course.”
He took a moment to steady himself, and then he grasped Starscream’s aileron and bent it back into place. The metal gave easily, it was thin and flexible for its purpose, and he took note of the way Starscream tensed, but said nothing. Not so much as a squeak.
‘Only pain.’
Wheeljack examined his work. The aileron was straight now, pivoting easily along the hinge, and the area surrounding it was warm, indicating the arrival of repair nanites. All good signs.
“Feel okay?” Wheeljack asked.
“Fine.” Starscream’s tone was tight, and a ripple ran over his armor. He held his field too closely for Wheeljack to discern if that was a good ripple or a bad one.
“You want me to…?”
“Just fix whatever needs fixing,” Starscream ground out, and folded his arms over his cockpit, wings giving little twitches of unease.
“Right.”
Wheeljack circled around to Starscream’s front, compressed air at the ready, eying the knee he’d been favoring. He felt the hot weight of Starscream’s glare on him, watching him for any wrongdoing.
It was very disconcerting.
Wheeljack lowered himself to a kneel, hoping to put Starscream at ease. “So,” he said. “What kind of books do you like to read?”
“… What?” Starscream could not have sounded more incredulous if he tried.
Wheeljack didn’t look at him, pretending he was completely absorbed by his efforts. “I know you read. You’re very intelligent. So what do you like to read?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“It’s better than sitting here in a tense silence, isn’t it?” The air compressor blew a gust into Starscream’s knee joint, dislodging some of the grit. “But we could do that, if you’d prefer.” He paused and looked up at Starscream. “I wasn’t fishing for intel, by the way. I was genuinely asking.”
Starscream squinted at him. “You’re very odd.”
“So you’ve said.” He sprayed the air compressor again and lifted Starscream’s leg by the calf, putting the knee through a small bit of motion. “I prefer fiction. The more fantastically romantic, the better.”
A small scan informed him of a larger piece of debris lodged behind the joint. Wheeljack carefully manipulated Starscream’s knee to expose a clear path, then transformed two digits into a slender pair of forceps.
“Romance,” Starscream echoed. He snorted a laugh. “Now I’ve heard everything.”
With a twitch of his wrist, the bit of rock popped free. Starscream audibly sighed in relief, tension visibly easing from his frame. Wheeljack flicked the debris aside, gave Starscream’s knee another spray of compressed air, and rested his leg back on the ground.
“We all have our hobbies.” Wheeljack moved to Starscream’s shoulder, where a dribble of energon precipitated a piece of metal stuck between two thin plates of armor. “Don’t you?”
Starscream’s vents wheezed. “I spend all my time plotting Megatron’s imminent demise and my eventual takeover of the Decepticons,” he said, his tone dry and without inflection.
Wheeljack leaned away from the piece of shrapnel. “You’re mocking me, aren’t you?”
Starscream arched an orbital ridge. “No more than you just mocked me.”
“Hey, I was being serious.” Wheeljack planted his hands on his hips, directing his most fierce gaze at the Seeker. Ratchet called it his serious look. “I read romance novels, and I love romance musicals, and I have a whole catalog of romantic ballads on a specific harddrive that I’ve been keeping safe for centuries.”
Starscream stared at him. “That’s….”
“Odd, I know.” Wheeljack rolled his optics and pinched the end of the shrapnel between thumb and forefinger. “Hold still so I can get this out without doing more damage.”
“I was going to say impressive, but odd certainly fits as well.” Starscream froze, though his head turned to watch Wheeljack work, which wasn’t distracting at all. “And given the war, I guess I can’t blame you for wanting some escapism.”
Wheeljack paused, glanced at Starscream, and there was a distant look to his optics, a slight frown on his face. It was the first genuine expression Wheeljack had caught from him.
His spark gave a little throb. Starscream understood wanting to escape as well.
“Right.” Wheeljack coughed to clear his intake. “Let me just...” He trailed off as he gave the piece of shrapnel a ginger pull, easing it free of Starscream’s shoulder and provoking a fresh stream of energon.
He tossed the shrapnel aside, pulled a tube of sealant out of his arm compartment, and squirted a fair dollop against the puncture. Starscream’s nanites would take care of it soon enough, but in the meantime, this would keep him from losing more. Wheeljack knew Starscream couldn’t afford to waste energon.
“Done,” Wheeljack declared. He took several steps back, pulling a rag from subspace to wipe his hands. Already grease-stained and soot-smeared, the rag didn’t so much clean his hands as dirty them further. “Consider this one on the house. No bill.”
Starscream poked at his shoulder. “Your charity is appreciated,” he said, in a tone that rather implied Wheeljack should go frag himself with a rusty pipe.
Wheeljack found a pile of rock suitable for sitting and took a moment to catalog his own wounds. Not that he had any. By order of Ratchet, he was sturdy by nature, built to take a blow. Not that great at dealing them out, but he could walk away from just about any bludgeoning or impact attack without a scratch.
He checked his comms again.
Static.
Well, Prowl knew where he was. Ratchet would get worried sooner rather than later and start harassing his conjunx about it. A search party would be sent when Wheeljack missed his first check-in. All he had to do was wait and hope they were quicker than Starscream’s friends. And that Starscream didn’t kill him in the meantime.
“Historical fiction.”
The comment was so soft Wheeljack almost missed it.
He blinked and looked at Starscream. “What?”
Starscream pulled a meshcloth from somewhere and wiped at the energon streaks on his armor. “Historical fiction,” he repeated. “For casual reading, I prefer fictional tales based on past events. Re-imaginings of how history could have gone, if different decisions had been made.”
“Oh.” Wheeljack tilted his head, noticed the faint flush staining Starscream’s cheeks. “I’ve read historical romances. Do they count?”
Starscream snorted. “Why am I not surprised?” He looked up at the ceiling before giving Wheeljack a sidelong look. “Are you injured?”
“Me?” Wheeljack was too slow to hide his surprise over being asked. He patted his chest pointedly. “No, I’m fine. Built to take a lickin’ and keep on kickin’.”
Starscream squinted at him. “You’re going native, Autobot.”
Wheeljack laughed. “Yeah, a bit. Probably.” He scrubbed the back of his head. “So… uh… what do we do now?” He pointedly looked around their cramped space.
They had enough room to move around. The ceiling above was a precarious balance of broken, twisted beams keeping up a groaning mass of stone and debris. To the left, where the door Wheeljack had used should have been, was a gnarled, blackened mass probably two levels above. There were, presumably, computer consoles somewhere in the periphery, but most were half-buried under the rubble since they had dropped down.
Flickering lights gamely tried to illuminate the space. Combined with their own biolights, it was slightly brighter than dim. It smelled musty and ancient, like rust and dust.
From an engineering standpoint, there honestly didn’t appear to be much they could do without risking the entire ceiling caving in, or the ground beneath them further crumpling and dumping them deeper into Cybertron’s old tunnels.
“We wait.” Starscream looked up, optics narrowed at the ceiling. “Unless you’ve got a brilliant plan for digging us out of here without killing us that doesn’t require the use of explosives.”
Wheeljack settled into his rocky chair. “We wait,” he agreed, though he mourned the fact he wouldn’t be able to use the new device he had in his subspace. If he was one-hundred percent certain it would work, he’d pull it out. But the last thing they needed was for an acidic explosive to blow up in their faces.
Literally.
“I’m quite sure your allies will get here first,” Starscream said, his tone almost bored if Wheeljack didn’t know better. He pulled a datapad from subspace and started flicking through the screens. “I don’t know which is worse. This cave-in or the cell your Prime will shove me into as soon as he sees me.” He paused, lips curving into a frown. “I wonder which torture they’ll try this time.”
Wheeljack twisted his jaw behind the mask. “We don’t torture mechs.”
Starscream huffed a little laugh. “Of course you don’t,” he said, looking at Wheeljack over the top of the datapad. “And I’ll be sure to remind that menace of yours of such a thing the next time we meet.” He winked.
Discomfort pooled into dread in the pit of Wheeljack’s tanks. His hands scrubbed down his thighs, clamping around his knees. “The Decepticons could get here first,” he offered.
Starscream snorted. “And you consider that a better outcome?” He lifted an orbital ridge, lowering the datapad so he could give Wheeljack an assessing look. “You’re not that sturdy. We’re not more gracious hosts than you are.”
Neither option was particularly preferable.
Wheeljack gnawed on the inside of his cheek.
Starscream lifted his datapad again, appearing to get lost in the contents. But there was definitely a tension around him now. His armor clamped tight, his wings were still and pressed hard against his back. His vents, rattling though they were, had gone a bit rapid.
He would never admit to being afraid, Wheeljack was sure of this.
“I guess we’ll have to see,” he said, trying to keep his tone light. He hoped the rescue team was composed of the more level-headed of the Autobots.
He didn’t want to be responsible for Starscream getting captured or tortured. War was war, but Wheeljack didn’t like the idea of torture. He didn’t think it was necessary.
Right now, the war was a stalemate. Neither gave ground. They’d had no serious deaths. The Autobots protected the humans. The Decepticons desperately scrounged for energon. There was no real victory or defeat.
There had to be a better way.
“Yes. Well. Autobot optimism,” Starscream said with a sneer.
Wheeljack sighed and stood. He roamed the small space, giving Starscream a wide berth so as not to alarm the Decepticon. They had time to kill, and it didn’t hurt to inspect their surroundings, on the off chance he found an escape.
Twenty minutes later, he had to concede they were well and truly trapped. The debris fall could, perhaps, be dug through if he had some way to shore up the walls in order to prevent it from falling back down on him. A series of beams blocked the hole they’d fallen through. He actually had no idea where they were in relation to where they had been.
This research facility had been a longshot from the start. A piece of spotty intel brought back and handed over to Wheeljack because he was bored and stuck on an experiment and could be spared to investigate. It shouldn’t have been any trouble.
Hah. Well. That was his luck.
“Would you sit down already?” Starscream demanded, his cross tone catching Wheeljack by surprise. “You’re not going to find an escape, and your constant searching is irritating.”
Wheeljack glanced at Starscream, whose wings were indeed twitching, and there was a general air of unease about him. “You sure you’re not claustrophobic?” he asked as he found his perch from earlier and sat back down.
It wouldn’t hurt to be polite.
“I’m sure,” Starscream sniped. “Don’t you have a romance to read or something?”
Wheeljack held up his hands. “Fine, I’ll stop asking.” He tilted his head, narrowing his optics. “You going to tell me what you were doing here?”
“The same thing as you, I’d imagine.” Starscream aggressively swiped across his datapad, glaring firmly at the screen. “Looking for an impossible thing and failing to find it. Per the usual.”
“To be fair, the place collapsed before we could find anything.”
“Are you always this obnoxiously optimistic?” Starscream asked as he dropped the datapad with an aggrieved sigh.
“It’s one of my more charming traits.” Wheeljack chuckled and leaned back on his hands, trying to effect a pose of ease. “What are you reading?”
“Optimistic and chatty,” Starscream commented as he scrubbed his fingers over his forehead. “Well, at least I didn’t get trapped with the spy.”
Wheeljack laughed, his indicators flashing purple. “Would you believe that most people consider Jazz more charming than me?”
Starscream propped his elbow on a folded arm, and his chin on the heel of one hand. “Has a good mask, that one does.” He tilted his head, lip curling into a smirk. “I prefer your company, to be honest, as sanguine as it might be.” He paused and the smirk curled into amusement. “You’re certainly more attractive.”
Heat clawed up Wheeljack’s backstrut and took up residence in his cheeks. Thank Primus for his battle mask. “Now I know you’re mocking me,” he said.
Starscream’s ailerons twitched. “Am I?” He looked Wheeljack up and down, like one might a new machine they were going to purchase. “You have nice colors, a nice build, you’re firm and sturdy.” His fingers rapped over his cheek. “Shame you’re wearing a battlemask.”
Wheeljack’s engine revved. He searched for something, anything to say in response to that, and his mind came up blank. Was Starscream being genuine? He couldn’t tell.
His comm crackled.
Wheeljack shot to his feet, startling Starscream in the process.
“--jack? Are you there?” Ratchet’s voice poured through his comm, anger mixed with worry, as Ratchet does.
Wheeljack’s hand snapped up to his comm. “I’m here, Ratch. Thank Primus, you found me.”
“We’re on the other side of the rubble,” Ratchet replied, much clearer now. “I should’ve known. You couldn’t resist making me worry, could you?” His tone was sharp, chastising, but he sounded relieved, too.
Wheeljack glanced at Starscream, spark aching as the playful look in Starscream’s optics wiped away, and he tensed, snapping out of his relaxed pose.
“Sorry, Ratch. It’s just the way I am.”
Wheeljack paused and listened. He heard, through the layers of debris, the sound of movement. Several dull thuds echoed in the small space. Tiny bits of dust and debris rained down, pinging off his armor.
“Thanks for coming.” Wheeljack moved away from ceiling and the noise. “But I’m not alone.”
“Yeah, we’re reading two spark signatures in there.” Ratchet’s comm fuzzed with static for a moment before it clarified. “You okay?”
Wheeljack grinned behind his mask. “You know me. People can’t help but love me.”
Ratchet and Starscream somehow managed to snort in tandem. The Seeker had stood, his arms crossed over his cockpit, his face a mask of nothing. He looked up at the ceiling, and a frown curved his lips downward.
No doubt he imagined the prison cell awaiting him.
“Sure thing, Casanova,” Ratchet drawled. “Just stay back before Sideswipe brings the ceiling down on top of you.”
Wheeljack groaned and slapped his forehead. “Why didn’t you bring Grapple and Hoist? They would’ve been better at this.” They were finesse whereas Sideswipe was brute force.
This sort of scenario definitely required finesse.
“We didn’t have time to find them,” Ratchet said.
The thuds got louder. More debris rained down. There was an ominous rumble and rub of metal together. Wheeljack inched closer to Starscream, until he was within a few paces. He had a bad feeling about this.
“Tell him to be careful!” Wheeljack insisted.
Something snapped above them with a loud crack, coinciding with the booming thud of a large impact. Finely honed alarm bells rang loudly in Wheeljack’s head. He didn’t think, he just acted.
He dove for Starscream, tackling the Seeker out of the way as the ceiling crumpled right where the Seeker had been standing, sending debris and grit raining into the tiny space. Wheeljack twisted at the last second, putting himself between Starscream and the floor. His hands found their way to the relative safety of Starscream’s lower back, cradling the lighter Seeker against him.
Lighter, but certainly not smaller.
Starscream sprawled on top of him, in his arms, as debris plunked down with several loud thuds and plinks of metal on metal. Their faces nearly collided, but Starscream caught himself, their optics mere inches apart. Starscream’s expression was startled, his optics wide, their fields clashing at the proximity.
Warmth. Amusement. Interest…?
“Uh...” Wheeljack’s mind went blank.
Starscream straddled his waist, and the heat and weight of him was all too noticeable. They were close enough Wheeljack could feel Starscream’s rapid ex-vents over his lips.
There was a moment where time seemed to still before another loud crash of impact had Starscream scrambling away from him, and Wheeljack struggling to right himself, nearly tripping over a huge piece of debris in the process. If it wasn’t for the battlemask, he’d be aglow with a blush right now. As it was, his indicators flushed a dark, dark pink.
Dust lingered in the air. Wheeljack automatically closed his vents. Starscream wasn’t so lucky and coughed as his fans sucked in the grit before he could.
Dim light poured from the hole above them, debris jagged in the rim of the collapsed floor. A shadow crossed in front of the circle of light before a head popped into view. A head attached to a familiar face.
Wheeljack slid to the side, automatically moving in front of Starscream, trying his best to shield the Seeker from view.
“Jack!” Sideswipe said, gleefully. He leaned further out and waved one dented, scratched arm. Sunstreaker would pitch a fit about that. “You’re okay!”
Wheeljack sighed and palmed his face. “I almost wasn’t! You could have crushed me!”
Sideswipe rolled his optics. “Oh, come on. We all know you’re sturdier than that. It’s just a little--”
He was yanked out of view, and Ratchet’s cross voice floated down.
“Sideswipe, shut the frag up,” Ratchet snarled. “And be more careful next time.” The ringing slap of metal on metal was followed by a startled yelp.
“Ratch! Not in public,” Sideswipe said, all playful affront, the little tease.
“I’m going to turn you into a waffle iron one day,” Ratchet threatened, and then he came into view, leaning over the edge of the open hole. “The idiot didn’t hurt you, did he?”
Wheeljack shook his head. “Not this time. You can spare him further punishment.”
Ratchet snorted. “Don’t do him any favors.” He tilted his head a bit more, and his optics slid past Wheeljack’s shoulder. “Oh. You do have company.”
Behind Wheeljack, Starscream coughed a vent. Wheeljack’s peripheral sensors caught Starscream crossing his arms over his cockpit, weight shifting, wings flicking out behind him.
“Nice to see you, too, Ratchet,” Starscream said. “I presume you have a pair of stasis cuffs with my designation on them?”
Ratchet rolled his optics, but his grin was a bit too sharp for Wheeljack’s liking. “Starscream, please, I’m in a committed relationship now.”
“We’re not putting him in a cell,” Wheeljack said, and surprised himself with how firm it came out.
It must have surprised Ratchet, too, because he blinked, and the amusement wiped away from his face. “No, we’re not,” he said, an odd gentleness to his tone. “In fact, as far as anyone else is concerned, you’re alone in that hole.”
Gratitude washed through Wheeljack.
Starscream’s field, however, spiked with unease. “And what favor am I going to owe you for that?”
“None, you ungrateful brat.” Ratchet scowled as another face appeared beside him – Sideswipe’s – and Ratchet narrowed his optics. “We’re not in a battle right now, and frankly, I don’t want to have to deal with hauling you back.”
“So we’re going to pull Wheeljack out of there and walk away, and you can get yourself out of that hole and everything’s even,” Sideswipe said. His slag-eating grin made Wheeljack more than a little uneasy, though he couldn’t put a finger on why. “Sound fair?”
Wheeljack half-turned in time to catch Starscream’s scowl. “And I’m to trust the word of one of your pit-spawned menaces?”
“You can trust my word, can’t you?” Wheeljack asked, quieting his vocals so only Starscream could hear him. “I promise we’ll leave you be.”
Starscream’s lips pressed in a thin line. He looked at Wheeljack, optics searching his face, before he cycled a ventilation. Some of the tension eased out of his shoulders.
“Fine,” he bit out. “But be prepared to make yourself a very dangerous enemy should you go back on your word.”
“I won’t,” Wheeljack said. He looked up at the ceiling. “Lower a rope or something! I can’t get myself out!”
“On it!” Sideswipe playfully saluted and vanished from view.
Wheeljack moved away from Starscream and stood under the opening. Ratchet was glancing between him and Starscream with a queer look on his face. Wheeljack had known Ratchet for a long, long time, but he wasn’t sure what to call that look. Ratchet could be quite inscrutable when he wanted to be.
“You’re not hiding any injuries from me, are you?” Ratchet asked, his voice a bit quieter now that Wheeljack was closer. His gaze kept slanting toward Starscream before focusing on Wheeljack again.
“Nothing that can’t wait,” Wheeljack assured him.
Sideswipe showed up, carrying an armful of chains, which he dropped down into the hole with a loud clatter of metal on metal. Wheeljack winced, praying it was attached to something on the other end, and indeed, the links snapped taut.
“Careful!” he heard a voice snarl, and of course Sunstreaker was here. One never could find one twin without the other. Even if the mission meant digging in a dirty hole.
Wheeljack moved to the grab the chain, but paused. He had a thought, and he debated it for all of a second before he dug in his subspace, rifled through his collection, and pulled out the first datachip he could wrap his fingers around. He fiddled with it for another long second and then turned to Starscream.
“Here,” he said as he held out the chip. “I think you’ll like this one.”
He gave the chip a toss, and Starscream snatched it out of the air with ease. He peered at the chip, turning it around in his fingers.
“Trying to convert me, Autobot?” he asked but the curve of his mouth suggested humor rather than outrage.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Wheeljack grabbed the chain, hauling himself up the links.
Starscream’s dry chuckle chased him out, and Wheeljack committed it to memory. This was an interaction he’d never forget.
Hands reached down to help him up as he neared the edge, but it was Ratchet who pulled him out with a single yank. Medics and their hidden strength. Amazing.
Wheeljack wobbled a little on the upper floor, head spinning from the rapid ascent. In the brighter light above, he was absolutely filthy, covered in grit from head to foot, until the white of his armor was a pale brown.
He’s pulled into an embrace before he could get his wits about him, Ratchet’s hand slapping his back and causing a puff of dust to rise.
“Stop scaring me, Jack,” he said, gruff, before he leaned back, hands on Wheeljack’s shoulders, optics narrowed in consideration. “You sure you’re alright?”
Wheeljack was ridiculously glad no one could see the smile on his face. “Just fine.”
He glanced back at the hole, and was relieved to find that while Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were staring at it curiously, they didn’t have weapons drawn or restraints in sight. No one else had come with them. Apparently, Prowl had decided the twins were protection enough for Ratchet.
Well, he wasn’t wrong.
“We should go,” Wheeljack said.
Ratchet patted his shoulders before drawing back. He walked to the edge of the hole and crouched, peering down into the dim. “Give us ten minutes and then you can be on your way.”
“I owe you nothing,” came sulkily out of the hole.
Ratchet chuckled. “No, you don’t.” He pushed himself back upright, dusting off his hands.
He slung an arm over Wheeljack’s shoulders, guiding him toward the exit, something else Sideswipe had apparently ploughed his pile-drivers through as the hole was ragged and the metal awkwardly bent.
“Come on. Let’s go home,” Ratchet said.
Wheeljack nodded. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker exited ahead of them, Sideswipe leading the exit with Sunstreaker guarding his back. Their forward guard, apparently.
“Did you at least find what you were looking for?” Ratchet asked as they stepped out of the damaged hole and found themselves in the middle of the abandoned city, starlight twinkling above them.
“No,” Wheeljack said.
He rubbed his hands together, thinking of that brief encounter and the tiny bits of insight he’d gotten into Starscream.
“I think I found something better instead,” he corrected.
Ratchet gave him a little shake. “Good for you, Jack,” he said. “Now don’t ever worry me like that again.”
Wheeljack chuckled. “I can only promise to try.”
