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It started off rather unnoticeable, so unnoticeable in fact that Starscream himself wouldn't have noticed it if the one of Autobots human pets friends hadn't pointed it out.
"is it just me, or is screamers gray starting to look a little blue?" Miko pointed out, and Starscream quickly tried to deny her claim, he found that the usual silver coloring on his legs and arms had taken on a blueish tint to it. "hmm, I suppose it has. and don't call me that." he grumbled out. he felt something in the back of his processor was nagging at him, making him feel like he was forgetting something.
"awesome! wait no- does this mean you're getting some sort of robot sickness?" Miko questioned, which garnered the attention of ratchet who had been working near the ground bridge. "unlikely, there aren't many sicknesses that can change the color of a cybertronians plating, and even more unlikely that those diseases would have found their way to earth." ratchet says as he glances over to the two of them, before letting out a sigh.
"however," he started "it would be our luck that one of those diseases would find their way to earth somehow." he grumbles out begrudgingly. "Best to look you over just in case it does happen to be the start of something."
One quick check up later, starscream was given the all clear. Ratchet didn't say anything when he saw the plethora of servo shaped scars across his wing plating, it wasn't his business to.
"The good news is you're not carrying any cybertronian sickness, but I still have no clue why your coloring is changing." Ratchet said as he goes over his medical test notes. "It could be a seeker thing, but my knowledge of your frame type is very limited."
"We could do some more tests, but seeing that it hasn't affected you in any negative way, I doubt it would be necessary. Just come back to me if anything else comes up."
A few more days pass by, and what was once a blueish tint to his sliver has become full on azure blue. It wasn't just the blue either, as he stood in front of a mirror that he kept in his habsuite, he could see that his chest and parts of his wings had also started to gain a reddish tint to them, seeming to also be in this strange process.
It was now that he realized what that nagging feeling was. He recognized these colors, colors that once had been his own many stellar cycles ago. It had been so long since he last looked like this that he'd nearly forgotten about it.
memories of the past fill him as he takes in the sight of the vibrant blue, memories of his trine, and of a certain shuttle. It was rather bittersweet to see these colors return.
He had heard of this process before when cybertron was still thriving, a process where seekers had lost their colors due to living in poor conditions, or even just stress from jobs making their colors dull. It had even happened to him during his academy days, when he was stressed over much more simple things like school projects. he missed when his shuttle would spend time relaxing with him after particularly hard days.
He remembered the sense of loss he had felt durning the early days of the war when he first realized he had become pure silver with only some red remaining, but with the war raging on there was hardly anytime to mourn his vanity. it was so much more than that. It the loss of who he had used to be.
It still ultimately left him with questions, why was his color coming back now after all these years? What could have brought-
Oh.
He was with the autobots now. How could he have forgotten?
Gone are the days of crushed wings and plating under large servos, gone is the paranoia that clung to him like a second skin.
He hadn't even realized just how much happier he had been these days now that he had escaped the clutches of megatrons tyrannical rule. He was so used to being so stressed constantly from having to watch his own back, less he anger megatron for failing something that was likely not even his fault in the first place, that he had nearly forgotten what it was like to be free.
Perhaps it was time he finally embraced this new chance he was given. He had been so stand-offish with the autobots, not that anyone could blame him, cycles of being enemy's would hardly make a mech willing to be friends with the mech you had shot at a few days ago.
But even so, he should at least give this new life a shot is he was going to be stuck with them for the foreseeable future. He could practically hear Skyfire's words about putting himself more out there.
Starscream could feel a small smile grace his faceplate. Perhaps, just this once, he could let himself be happy.