Lost Wings ch 2
Universe: G1
Rating: R/Mature
Characters: Starscream, Skywarp, Thundercracker, Ratchet
Warnings: Graphic violence
Notes: No pairings highlighted, will note if changes. The collaborative efforts of Feather_Storm and WriterAnon95.
When Skywarp hit the dirt from his unplanned teleport it was with a crash of bodies. He and Thundercracker held a protective grip on Starscream, trees all around and rolling into one with an unpleasant crunch of metal and wood. It took a minute to really settle, to stop expecting something to hit them next, some shot to be fired, before his processor automatically pinged him their coordinates.
Washington, Tiger Mountain. Off trail, deeper in the mountain, and somewhere the Decepticons would have to comb for them for days. At least he had unconsciously aimed for the safest spot around.
His grip tightened on his Trine before he loosened it, sensor net spread wide as he looked for anyone, anything that could pose a danger to his injured teammates. Thundercracker’s helm was lolling, his grip weakening as the damage to his lower half caught up with him and he had to turn his neural network down as low as it would go, just so he wouldn’t be lost in pain.
Skywarp carefully lay Starscream down on the ground, grimacing at the mud. It was raining, a steady clink clink against their armor, steam rising slowly from Thundercracker’s still heated ped, and Starscream started twitching as it plunked down on them.
Thundercracker shook himself, shaking claws crimping and tying off severed lines and cables as best he was able, Skywarp’s claws joining in until they were at the limit of their war necessitated field medic knowledge. He heard Thundercracker send out a distress call to the Autobots but focused on the here and now, something at the back of his processor telling him his trine’s well being was the immediate concern, nothing else needed his attention.
Starscream twitched again and again and Skywarp could feel panic though their Trine bond, bubbling up at each plunk of water hitting his armor, even as he tried to curl over their injured Trine leader and protect him from the harmless droplets. Processor screaming at him to protect, protect, even when he wasn’t sure what he was protecting Starscream from, or how.
The panic blossoming and blooming into a warbled keen that rose and fell in volume as Starscream pleaded with his invisible adversary. The garbled words interspersed with bursts of static that tore at Skywarp’s coding. DEMANDING that he help his Trine, his leader, but left at a loss as he realized there was nothing to fight. Whispering encouragement and comfort close to the thrashing helm in an effort to soothe whatever demons were running rampant over his commander and spark kin. Hands smoothing over twisted and broken metal, petting whatever he could find that was undamaged, trying to take away the pain both mentally and physically that he could feel over their link.
A soothing hand after what he’d been through might be all the difference between complete breakdown, and knowing he wasn’t alone.
Thundercracker’s claws joined his, both of them pushing away their own worries to try and force those demons away.
A single word, “Hide!” was understandable against the background of static and garbled noise and Skywarp wondered if Starscream even knew what he was trying to hide from. The noise of a huge space worthy engine cutting through the patter of the rain and his processor. He looked at Thundercracker, who only looked back with bleak optics, the pain from his dead lower half starting to shut down his higher functions and leave him running on base coding instinct.
His teleport mod already running through dozens of calculated trajectories for escape as he scrambled up to pull them both again his cockpit.
“No! ‘Warp, no. Need their help...” Optics pleading with him to try and understand, stay still, not panic, even as he could see the autobot flyers approaching over the tree lines. Closing in, a couple of minutes, maybe. Then what? There was any number of things that the Autobots would do to a captured trine. Let alone Megatron’s Lead-
Skywarp started shaking, the movement rattling his armor over his protoform, claws digging into both Thundercracker and Starscream as they closed involuntarily. His optics zipping back and forth between his Trine and the Autobots, processor running scenarios, calculating their survival if he took them away. If he stayed here.
“TC, I... Megatron.”
An understanding look flashed through the blue flyer’s optics, a slow moving claw coming up to weakly grasp his black one.
“Please?”
He’d killed Megatron. He was loyal, and he’d killed Megatron. Even if the other ‘cons didn’t come to kill him, he should kill himself for treachery.
But his coding had turned its focus to the Autobots and he shook even harder. His claws let go of his Trinemates to clutch at his helm, conflicting thoughts turning his processor on itself. Starscream and Thundercracker would offline if they didn’t get help. Would die if they didn’t get help soon, their flimsy field repairs wouldn’t hold for very long, and they had no supplies to do anything other than they had. They had no available source of energon either, and Starscream’s wounds dripped a continuous, glowing stain to mix with the forest mud. They’d be lucky if he survived another hour without a medic.
The autobot flyers, three of them anyway, were cautiously descending, two other mechs hanging on, and Skywarp had been in enough battles, shot enough bots, to recognize the red and white medic that usually handled repairs on the field.
Another Aerial, he didn’t remember their names, had his blaster out, trained on him as they landed. Ratchet and the other grounder rushing over to his Trine, the helicopter and other flyer pulling out their own guns to guard the medic’s backs if needed. No one was firing, and the medics were at their side before he could try and think about taking out his null ray.
“What happened?”
He just stared at first. Processor hearing the question but not hearing the question. Optics hazed as he felt his coding recognize ‘medic’ and begin to stand down. A thousand other thoughts rushing back into his rapidly returning coherent thought as he stood there. Knee joints buckling and nearly failing from the feelings of relief and horror that simultaneously coursed through him.
White noise filled his audios as he heard Thundercracker croak out “Megatron.” Not, Megatron did this. Not, Megatron was dead. Just Megatron; a name, a cruel reminder. Circuits shorting from the sheer quantity of data that was trying to force its way through, all the same thought. Multiplying and filling his processor until he didn’t see Ratchet look at him sharply, optics concerned as he swayed. Mouth opening in words that he couldn’t hear and barely noticed, a hand reaching out, grabbing him by the shoulder vent and shaking him.
Megatron. Megatron Megatron MegatronMegatronMegatron.
Dead. He’d killed him. The leader of the Decepticons, the only mech other than his Trine that he’d ever been loyal to. The only other mech to have his respect. The only mech that he WILLINGLY served. Killed for. Fought for.
He thought it was his own voice... The words ‘Megatron’ and ‘dead’, ‘I killed him’ and ‘protect’ flowing out in a continuous stream. His claws clutching his helm, digging furrows into the metal as he heard himself scream those words. Finally dropping to his knee joints, mud spattering him, and scratching himself until he felt energon drip from the lines he’d made. The mech shaking him nothing but a far away sensation, his Trine coding again buried deep and silent.
Vaguely he felt Thundercracker push on their bond, trying to get through to him, but when he looked up all he could see was Megatron’s dead body. Face and chest nothing more than smoking holes as he lay on the Nemesis’ floor.
It was too much. He staggered to his feet, throwing off the mech that had a hand on him, ignoring the way all the guns whipped to point at him and screamed. Hurt and confusion raw and visceral in the mud and rain. Teleport gate pulling him in any direction, away, and he engaged it without even a second thought. Warping in a flash of purple light, away from his Trine. Away from the Autobots.
Thundercracker’s mouth was open, his optics flashing hurt and anger as he lay there. Skywarp had left them, had left the Trine. Gone without even a backward glance towards them, not even a burst of emotion through the bond.
Ratchet waved off Silverbolt’s hand, climbing to his pedes with a guarded look. Moving back to Thundercracker and giving directions to the Aerials and Blades, getting them up into Skyfire as quickly as possible. They needed to get back to the Ark, before they lost another mech.
ooooooOOOOOoooooo
Starscream came online in portions. His deep defrag pinging complete and engaging a medically induced hard reboot of all his systems. Processor pinging each one as they sent status reports back.
Hydraulic fluid, coolant and Energon levels all registered as full, something that hadn’t happened in a long, long time. Neural net missing some of his flight sensory information, and he tried to ping for information only to get an error message. Pinging again to get the same result.
He searched through his neural pathways manually, looking for a block or bit of code that had escaped, but there was nothing. Literally, nothing. Almost as if there was a blank spot where it should be.
His optics force booted and he sat up, gyros spinning as he tried to get his balance on the...
Where was he?
Hook didn’t have medberths, he had makeshift tables made out of welded metal, nothing with, was this foam?
A wild glance told him that the walls were orange, that he was in a silent, private room, not even the monitors that were hooked up to him making any noise.
The Ark. Why was he in the Ark’s medbay?
Everything looked hazy, the edges blurry even when he tried to focus on them. Some sort of sedative, then. Or pain relief- again, something he didn’t see much of on the Nemesis. He looked down to see his arm, he was pretty sure that was his arm, without his nullray. The other arm bare as well and he scrolled through the system checks to find that weapons were offline and locked down.
Starscream reeled, claws clutching the edge of the medberth. The automatic pings to his flight system coming back reading errors each time, like his Tcog had been disabled, optics shifting back and forth as he remembered pain, and flashes from a cannon. Reaching up to touch his neck and finding it undamaged, even though he was sure he remembered-
Megatron. He remembered Megatron. Holding him against the wall? The floor...
He covered his optics.
It didn’t help, sound assaulted him in the back of his processor; Megatron accusing him of being a spineless wretch. Megatron looming, yelling, anger making him seem twice his usual imposing size, spitting accusations, he was a spy, he was a mole, he had been eating at the foundation of the mighty Decepticon army-
Sound and images merged, breaking through the haze in his processor, something not even the Autobot sedatives could keep him from remembering.
He’d been curled up in a ball, his vocalizer had been spitting static- he’d realized much too late that something had been off, but he hadn’t expected that. Megatron usually would have sneered at him, made a grandiose speech about cowards and their place, and his spark pulsed erratically, trying to convince him that that was what happened, because the truth was so much worse than the cost of his pride. He would have-
No, he wouldn’t have. Panic welling, claws ripping holes in the foam of the berth, the truth was, he wouldn’t have. NEITHER of them would have. Even if he had kept his mouth shut, Megatron wouldn’t have relented. If it had been a day. A week. A vorn. The warlord had snapped, looked for the closest thing to explain his failures other than the fact that HE was a failure, and that thing had been Starscream.
Numbers and solutions and NOTHING. Even if he’d seen it coming, how would he have planned his way out of it? He tried to stand, motor functions still sluggish and caught himself against the berth, something very, very critical not hitting the edge like it should have.
Megatron had pushed him down, a ped on his cockpit. He in-vented, trying to calm his panicking systems, because this could still be a mist- no, it wasn’t a mistake. Panic panic panic welling up at the fact that something hadn’t rubbed against the berth, something important that he needed, and Megatron had grabbed his wings, grinning and gloating and-
Something had ripped, something metalic had made the worst screeching noise, amongst screaming voices while he was laying on the cold floor of the Nemesis. Shuttering his optics, he sent a desperate ping to his T-cog, getting a functional ping back.
HIs vocalizer screeched with feedback as he wailed. Clawing for his back, trying to grab his wings and passing through air to his back, where he could feel the newly welded edges of what was left of his wings, sensors that SHOULD have been there were gone, his wings, GONE.
The panic rose in waves and he flung himself away from the berth, overbalanced, missing the usual weight on shoulders. Legs wobbling and falling to the floor when his gyroscope couldn’t tell up from down. Crawling to the wall and hauling himself upright, looking for something, anything reflective in the room.
There! Starscream moved over to the small mirror attached to the wall, forcing his peds to turn, optics offlining in one last desperate plea that no, when he onlined them again he would see-
Nothing. No wings. Twisted metal, welds. A barely there remembrance of his beautiful white panels. Like they’d never existed.
He collapsed to the floor, the door opening and Ratchet rushing in as he tried to rip past his cockpit into his chest cavity.
Tried to rip out his spark.
Ignored the screaming mechs running into the room. Tried to shake the servos off his arm, jerking and clawing out when something sharp jabbed into his neck.
His own voice the last thing he heard before he fell again into darkness.
“My wings...”
Rating: R/Mature
Characters: Starscream, Skywarp, Thundercracker, Ratchet
Warnings: Graphic violence
Notes: No pairings highlighted, will note if changes. The collaborative efforts of Feather_Storm and WriterAnon95.
When Skywarp hit the dirt from his unplanned teleport it was with a crash of bodies. He and Thundercracker held a protective grip on Starscream, trees all around and rolling into one with an unpleasant crunch of metal and wood. It took a minute to really settle, to stop expecting something to hit them next, some shot to be fired, before his processor automatically pinged him their coordinates.
Washington, Tiger Mountain. Off trail, deeper in the mountain, and somewhere the Decepticons would have to comb for them for days. At least he had unconsciously aimed for the safest spot around.
His grip tightened on his Trine before he loosened it, sensor net spread wide as he looked for anyone, anything that could pose a danger to his injured teammates. Thundercracker’s helm was lolling, his grip weakening as the damage to his lower half caught up with him and he had to turn his neural network down as low as it would go, just so he wouldn’t be lost in pain.
Skywarp carefully lay Starscream down on the ground, grimacing at the mud. It was raining, a steady clink clink against their armor, steam rising slowly from Thundercracker’s still heated ped, and Starscream started twitching as it plunked down on them.
Thundercracker shook himself, shaking claws crimping and tying off severed lines and cables as best he was able, Skywarp’s claws joining in until they were at the limit of their war necessitated field medic knowledge. He heard Thundercracker send out a distress call to the Autobots but focused on the here and now, something at the back of his processor telling him his trine’s well being was the immediate concern, nothing else needed his attention.
Starscream twitched again and again and Skywarp could feel panic though their Trine bond, bubbling up at each plunk of water hitting his armor, even as he tried to curl over their injured Trine leader and protect him from the harmless droplets. Processor screaming at him to protect, protect, even when he wasn’t sure what he was protecting Starscream from, or how.
The panic blossoming and blooming into a warbled keen that rose and fell in volume as Starscream pleaded with his invisible adversary. The garbled words interspersed with bursts of static that tore at Skywarp’s coding. DEMANDING that he help his Trine, his leader, but left at a loss as he realized there was nothing to fight. Whispering encouragement and comfort close to the thrashing helm in an effort to soothe whatever demons were running rampant over his commander and spark kin. Hands smoothing over twisted and broken metal, petting whatever he could find that was undamaged, trying to take away the pain both mentally and physically that he could feel over their link.
A soothing hand after what he’d been through might be all the difference between complete breakdown, and knowing he wasn’t alone.
Thundercracker’s claws joined his, both of them pushing away their own worries to try and force those demons away.
A single word, “Hide!” was understandable against the background of static and garbled noise and Skywarp wondered if Starscream even knew what he was trying to hide from. The noise of a huge space worthy engine cutting through the patter of the rain and his processor. He looked at Thundercracker, who only looked back with bleak optics, the pain from his dead lower half starting to shut down his higher functions and leave him running on base coding instinct.
His teleport mod already running through dozens of calculated trajectories for escape as he scrambled up to pull them both again his cockpit.
“No! ‘Warp, no. Need their help...” Optics pleading with him to try and understand, stay still, not panic, even as he could see the autobot flyers approaching over the tree lines. Closing in, a couple of minutes, maybe. Then what? There was any number of things that the Autobots would do to a captured trine. Let alone Megatron’s Lead-
Skywarp started shaking, the movement rattling his armor over his protoform, claws digging into both Thundercracker and Starscream as they closed involuntarily. His optics zipping back and forth between his Trine and the Autobots, processor running scenarios, calculating their survival if he took them away. If he stayed here.
“TC, I... Megatron.”
An understanding look flashed through the blue flyer’s optics, a slow moving claw coming up to weakly grasp his black one.
“Please?”
He’d killed Megatron. He was loyal, and he’d killed Megatron. Even if the other ‘cons didn’t come to kill him, he should kill himself for treachery.
But his coding had turned its focus to the Autobots and he shook even harder. His claws let go of his Trinemates to clutch at his helm, conflicting thoughts turning his processor on itself. Starscream and Thundercracker would offline if they didn’t get help. Would die if they didn’t get help soon, their flimsy field repairs wouldn’t hold for very long, and they had no supplies to do anything other than they had. They had no available source of energon either, and Starscream’s wounds dripped a continuous, glowing stain to mix with the forest mud. They’d be lucky if he survived another hour without a medic.
The autobot flyers, three of them anyway, were cautiously descending, two other mechs hanging on, and Skywarp had been in enough battles, shot enough bots, to recognize the red and white medic that usually handled repairs on the field.
Another Aerial, he didn’t remember their names, had his blaster out, trained on him as they landed. Ratchet and the other grounder rushing over to his Trine, the helicopter and other flyer pulling out their own guns to guard the medic’s backs if needed. No one was firing, and the medics were at their side before he could try and think about taking out his null ray.
“What happened?”
He just stared at first. Processor hearing the question but not hearing the question. Optics hazed as he felt his coding recognize ‘medic’ and begin to stand down. A thousand other thoughts rushing back into his rapidly returning coherent thought as he stood there. Knee joints buckling and nearly failing from the feelings of relief and horror that simultaneously coursed through him.
White noise filled his audios as he heard Thundercracker croak out “Megatron.” Not, Megatron did this. Not, Megatron was dead. Just Megatron; a name, a cruel reminder. Circuits shorting from the sheer quantity of data that was trying to force its way through, all the same thought. Multiplying and filling his processor until he didn’t see Ratchet look at him sharply, optics concerned as he swayed. Mouth opening in words that he couldn’t hear and barely noticed, a hand reaching out, grabbing him by the shoulder vent and shaking him.
Megatron. Megatron Megatron MegatronMegatronMegatron.
Dead. He’d killed him. The leader of the Decepticons, the only mech other than his Trine that he’d ever been loyal to. The only other mech to have his respect. The only mech that he WILLINGLY served. Killed for. Fought for.
He thought it was his own voice... The words ‘Megatron’ and ‘dead’, ‘I killed him’ and ‘protect’ flowing out in a continuous stream. His claws clutching his helm, digging furrows into the metal as he heard himself scream those words. Finally dropping to his knee joints, mud spattering him, and scratching himself until he felt energon drip from the lines he’d made. The mech shaking him nothing but a far away sensation, his Trine coding again buried deep and silent.
Vaguely he felt Thundercracker push on their bond, trying to get through to him, but when he looked up all he could see was Megatron’s dead body. Face and chest nothing more than smoking holes as he lay on the Nemesis’ floor.
It was too much. He staggered to his feet, throwing off the mech that had a hand on him, ignoring the way all the guns whipped to point at him and screamed. Hurt and confusion raw and visceral in the mud and rain. Teleport gate pulling him in any direction, away, and he engaged it without even a second thought. Warping in a flash of purple light, away from his Trine. Away from the Autobots.
Thundercracker’s mouth was open, his optics flashing hurt and anger as he lay there. Skywarp had left them, had left the Trine. Gone without even a backward glance towards them, not even a burst of emotion through the bond.
Ratchet waved off Silverbolt’s hand, climbing to his pedes with a guarded look. Moving back to Thundercracker and giving directions to the Aerials and Blades, getting them up into Skyfire as quickly as possible. They needed to get back to the Ark, before they lost another mech.
ooooooOOOOOoooooo
Starscream came online in portions. His deep defrag pinging complete and engaging a medically induced hard reboot of all his systems. Processor pinging each one as they sent status reports back.
Hydraulic fluid, coolant and Energon levels all registered as full, something that hadn’t happened in a long, long time. Neural net missing some of his flight sensory information, and he tried to ping for information only to get an error message. Pinging again to get the same result.
He searched through his neural pathways manually, looking for a block or bit of code that had escaped, but there was nothing. Literally, nothing. Almost as if there was a blank spot where it should be.
His optics force booted and he sat up, gyros spinning as he tried to get his balance on the...
Where was he?
Hook didn’t have medberths, he had makeshift tables made out of welded metal, nothing with, was this foam?
A wild glance told him that the walls were orange, that he was in a silent, private room, not even the monitors that were hooked up to him making any noise.
The Ark. Why was he in the Ark’s medbay?
Everything looked hazy, the edges blurry even when he tried to focus on them. Some sort of sedative, then. Or pain relief- again, something he didn’t see much of on the Nemesis. He looked down to see his arm, he was pretty sure that was his arm, without his nullray. The other arm bare as well and he scrolled through the system checks to find that weapons were offline and locked down.
Starscream reeled, claws clutching the edge of the medberth. The automatic pings to his flight system coming back reading errors each time, like his Tcog had been disabled, optics shifting back and forth as he remembered pain, and flashes from a cannon. Reaching up to touch his neck and finding it undamaged, even though he was sure he remembered-
Megatron. He remembered Megatron. Holding him against the wall? The floor...
He covered his optics.
It didn’t help, sound assaulted him in the back of his processor; Megatron accusing him of being a spineless wretch. Megatron looming, yelling, anger making him seem twice his usual imposing size, spitting accusations, he was a spy, he was a mole, he had been eating at the foundation of the mighty Decepticon army-
Sound and images merged, breaking through the haze in his processor, something not even the Autobot sedatives could keep him from remembering.
He’d been curled up in a ball, his vocalizer had been spitting static- he’d realized much too late that something had been off, but he hadn’t expected that. Megatron usually would have sneered at him, made a grandiose speech about cowards and their place, and his spark pulsed erratically, trying to convince him that that was what happened, because the truth was so much worse than the cost of his pride. He would have-
No, he wouldn’t have. Panic welling, claws ripping holes in the foam of the berth, the truth was, he wouldn’t have. NEITHER of them would have. Even if he had kept his mouth shut, Megatron wouldn’t have relented. If it had been a day. A week. A vorn. The warlord had snapped, looked for the closest thing to explain his failures other than the fact that HE was a failure, and that thing had been Starscream.
Numbers and solutions and NOTHING. Even if he’d seen it coming, how would he have planned his way out of it? He tried to stand, motor functions still sluggish and caught himself against the berth, something very, very critical not hitting the edge like it should have.
Megatron had pushed him down, a ped on his cockpit. He in-vented, trying to calm his panicking systems, because this could still be a mist- no, it wasn’t a mistake. Panic panic panic welling up at the fact that something hadn’t rubbed against the berth, something important that he needed, and Megatron had grabbed his wings, grinning and gloating and-
Something had ripped, something metalic had made the worst screeching noise, amongst screaming voices while he was laying on the cold floor of the Nemesis. Shuttering his optics, he sent a desperate ping to his T-cog, getting a functional ping back.
HIs vocalizer screeched with feedback as he wailed. Clawing for his back, trying to grab his wings and passing through air to his back, where he could feel the newly welded edges of what was left of his wings, sensors that SHOULD have been there were gone, his wings, GONE.
The panic rose in waves and he flung himself away from the berth, overbalanced, missing the usual weight on shoulders. Legs wobbling and falling to the floor when his gyroscope couldn’t tell up from down. Crawling to the wall and hauling himself upright, looking for something, anything reflective in the room.
There! Starscream moved over to the small mirror attached to the wall, forcing his peds to turn, optics offlining in one last desperate plea that no, when he onlined them again he would see-
Nothing. No wings. Twisted metal, welds. A barely there remembrance of his beautiful white panels. Like they’d never existed.
He collapsed to the floor, the door opening and Ratchet rushing in as he tried to rip past his cockpit into his chest cavity.
Tried to rip out his spark.
Ignored the screaming mechs running into the room. Tried to shake the servos off his arm, jerking and clawing out when something sharp jabbed into his neck.
His own voice the last thing he heard before he fell again into darkness.
“My wings...”