Chapter Text
Of all the things Megatron could rely on from Starscream it was that he would pitch an almighty fit about everything.
He would inevitably toss datapads if he was told something he perceived as stupid. Heels got kicked into cassettes if he thought he could get away with it - even if he never actually did - when some poor mech had to point out an oversight in his fundamentally flawed plans. He would start yelling before Megatron got a chance to switch off his audial receptors and screech an utter slagfest if he found out that Megatron had done such a thing. If someone pilfered his treats, Primus forbid, Starscream would go on a righteous rampage through the base and pilfer them right back. Usually with a severed arm wrested as interest.
So with five-or-so million years of war at his back, when Megatron agreed to armistice he fully expected Starscream to go nuclear.
As it was, Starscream made a valiant attempt of shorting out every mech's audials within a twelve-mile radius, and when he realised his yelling was getting nowhere he dragged his trine along with him for a flight. Megatron suspected that meant they were going to bomb some human settlements and cause the war to start up all over again, but when he weighed his options, he felt like he had a better chance of assuaging Optimus Prime about a seething Air Commander than soothing said Air Commander. So he opened up the line on their communications deck.
"Megatron." Optimus's expression said that he had definitely heard about Seekers blowing up something along the coast. Megatron hated everything about his face, he always had, told himself he always would, but the agreement of truce meant he couldn't go pointing that out.
"Starscream decided a tantrum was better course of action for his disagreement to our laying down of arms," Megatron started with, because blaming Starscream was easier than admitting he had certain feelings about this truce. "We are retrieving him at this moment."
A lie. If someone so much as attempted to wrest Starscream back they would return a slagged pile of bolts, if they returned at all. Megatron suspected the only mech capable of wresting Starscream from the grasp of his rage was Megatron himself, and he really did not care enough. That's what he told himself when he wondered what Starscream was up to, anyway. It didn't concern him. He could forget about it. He needed to forget about it.
"Right." Optimus didn't look convinced. With Prowl and Ratchet flanking him on the big screen, it seemed laughably formal. They had agreed to this armistice in a strange sort of events that consisted of a tired argument on a battlefield and a few snarled words on the communications deck deep into off shift.
He hadn't thought he ever would agree to some sort of truce. He always thought it would end with surrender or death. As it was now… it had ended with a conversation. With exhaustion. With heated words, yes, but ultimately with two exhausted old mechs who couldn't agree on anything except the fact they were old. Odd, how that had become a constant. Odd, how being young hadn't been something they had in common even when they were.
Megatron didn't want to think about his own failures, and this truce was in itself a type of failure. He wanted it, partly, but he saw the way his soldiers looked at him. Even Soundwave, ever loyal, seemed disapproving. It was, however, Starscream's disapproval that rankled the most… yet Megatron had no desire to bring that up with even himself.
"Starscream is prone to tantrums," Megatron tried. "Just as he is prone to forgetting about why he was so upset. He'll be back within the cycle. If he causes trouble, rest assured he will be dealt with."
Optimus's face goes a little pinched. Not in the way Megatron has seen him try not to yell countless times - but almost like he's trying to avoid making a totally different expression. "If we're going to do this, Megatron, you cannot be hurting those close to you. That will affect our agreement."
Megatron has to bite his tongue to stop from yelling. It's Starscream. If any soldier should be slagged, it's Starscream, plus his trine as collateral. Optimus Prime is too soft-sparked for his own good, and before this week, Megatron would have done a valiant Starscream impression and yelled at him until his vocaliser shorted out.
As it is, though… he's tired. He is tired of fighting. He is tired of yelling. He is tired of always going to Knock Out to get his split knuckles welded. He is tired of having to watch Starscream come and go with his wings held high and inviting. He is tired of wanting to grab them, drag Starscream somewhere he can't see him, and tell him to stay away so Megatron doesn't get distracted.
"Fine," he spits. Then just to make sure Optimus doesn't get any ideas of having the upper hand, adds, "Then you have to stop bending to every organic's wishes. This is about our species. This truce is about us. Got it?"
Prowl's face suggests he agrees, which is as disconcerting as it is encouraging. Megatron had always thought he'd make a good Decepticon. Although he can't think like that anymore.
"Yes." Optimus Prime surprises him. Megatron just blinks, caught off-guard and prepared to fight, and almost wishing he could fight. That he had someone to at least verbally spar with and get some emotion out of.
"Ratchet and I wish to schedule a meeting," Optimus says. "Myself, Ratchet, and Jazz will be the only mechs present to discuss medical service. It is my intention to invite you, Starscream, and any of your current medics along for the discussion."
Discussing medical service - yes, he supposed it was a good thing to do. The Decepticons have no forged medics whatsoever and have been suffering for it, although Megatron has a suspicion that sparing them Ratchet's ire is a blessing in disguise. Starscream, though - he would pay to see that slagfest of a mech be treated in a proper medbay. Starscream thrashes like a turbofox when in Knock Out's medbay for a solder, let alone any full fixes, and he won't let Hook so much as five metres within grabbing distance. Megatron knows he's a prideful creature, but having others touch him somehow makes him hissy, no matter the reason for it. He's only ever seen Starscream allow his trine to do such a thing, but their bond is something so deep Megatron will never be able to understand it. He gets irrationally angry when he sees them all fluttering their glinting wings at each other.
"I will bring them along," Megatron says, hiding his amusement rather badly, he thinks. "Anyone else?"
Ratchet's face suggests this was not his idea whatsoever, but he doesn't open his mouth to object. It's an impressive show of self restraint from him.
"Just Starscream and the medics for now. I thought it would be a good symbol for both of our troops," Optimus says, and despite the annoying fragger that he is, Megatron knows he's right. It's a good thing to focus on the health of their troops first, as much as Megatron despises admitting it.
But then the Prime continues. "Starscream of course isn't a medic, I just thought you may wish for him to be there."
Megatron isn't sure what that means, and against his better judgement, barrels into the bait. "Why would I want him to be there?"
Optimus Prime pretends he isn't setting a trap, all innocent blue optics and a tilt of his helm. He looks almost young again, and just as dangerous as he once had been because of it. "I would have thought that with your bond, you would wish to know Starscream was close by."
Megatron feels a little like his gyroscope is knocked off-kilter. "Our bond?"
Prowl glances at Optimus, but the Prime doesn't seem to notice. He's got a furrowed look on his faceplate, pinched again. "I have witnessed how bonded mecha can get when far from their chosen partner, and I wish to spare you the pain."
Megatron ends the call before he even realises he's reaching for the button.
"Soundwave," he snaps, and the blue mech veritably hiding in the corner jerks to attention, "When Starscream returns, instruct him on the schedule for the meeting and that he is expected to be present. Tell him his polish job needs work and the medic has better materials, I don't care - just get him there."
Soundwave, at least, doesn't argue. His visor barely even glints. Megatron considers the job basically done - Starscream doesn't listen to Soundwave but any prod at his pride is wont to cause ripples. The Autobots need to be ready for a fight - possibly a physical one as well as a verbal sparring. Starscream, he hopes, isn't stupid enough to violate a ceasefire while within enemy territory. But Megatron's faith isn't extremely strong.
He walks the halls of the Nemesis, plating itching with something strange he can't quite name. Hook is passing by with Scavenger and Bonecrusher, chattering something ridiculous, and when they see Megatron they go all hushed. Before, Megatron would get a sense of pride from such a reaction. He should be feared. He wanted to lord over them, proud and domineering.
As it is now - and he isn't sure when it became this - he feels almost ashamed by the reaction. Bothered. Uneasy at the feelings themselves. He wants discussions, craves pushback, desires engagement, and no mech is either confident enough - or in Soundwave's case, talkative enough - to engage in it. Those that would… Shockwave, Rumble, Frenzy, Skywarp… aren't the most riveting of conversationalists.
And then there's Starscream. Always there to leer and sneer, crack a sharp criticism and then flee the room like a coward. An opportunist, a brat, and yet he matches Megatron blow for blow - verbally at least - far more often. It's as if peacetime has become Starscream's new confident companion, rubbing off on him and making him bolder. On the flip side, it is making Megatron more complacent.
Partner. Prime said it and drilled it there into his processor, where it feels like it is gaining traction and volume. Yes, Starscream is a partner of sorts… Second in Command, the Air Commander, and although Megatron always wanted to destroy the coward and leave him a pile of bolts, Starscream is useful. No other Seekers can command authority like he does, and without him the Air Force would be in total ruins. That and he has good ideas. Megatron would never admit it aloud, but the Seeker is tolerable when he has something to focus his work ethic on. The ideas are sharp, fresh, undoubtedly savage and altogether brilliant.
Sometimes it's a wonder to watch that processor work. Like gears turning, a faint click click click as Starscream puzzles something out and then speaks. His voice is less grating when he thinks beforehand, and yet Megatron feels as if he doesn't mind the sharp, gritty state of his vocaliser these days.
He snarls, turning a corner. Prime has put things in his processor that shouldn't be there. Acid Storm casts him a glance and shuffles out of the way, wings glinting, and Megatron resolutely does not look at them. The flight deck of the Nemesis, now open and inviting to all, is up ahead. He can hear voices.
Partner.
It's rattling around in Megatron's helm when he turns the corner and spots glinting plating and angled silver wings. Starscream is looking remarkably like he hasn't just endangered a very fragile truce by setting human settlements on fire. A while ago, Megatron might have led the charge instead, but today he is tired and has seen that peace is somehow a possibility, and found that he wants it. He wants to rebuild, to have the Cybertron he always knew they were capable of making, but it's a faraway possibility now. Cybertron is dead, inactive, and somewhere far away, and they have no way of leaving Earth. Not yet, anyway - he knows they will do it, they will find a way, but the problem fo fuel has to be solved first. Optimus Prime's words of one step at a time are starting to feel reasonable.
There is, however, a bit of a hole still. A gap. A missing piece. Megatron is conscious of it when he flexes his digits and feels them twitch, when his knuckles creak and feel too clean. When he snaps at his subordinates his fusion cannon glows, and they all scramble out of the way, which would be good if it meant his battle protocols would actually power down a little bit afterwards. But they don't. They keep pushing, insisting, making his plating ruffle and cabling go all hot, right down to the protoform which feels itchy and sensitive like the thrumming between his audials.
It's Starscream's presence that powers up the cannon simply by walking past, because he tried to stab Megatron in the back the other cycle and although the metal did pierce, it was in the upper shoulder rather than the backstrut. An easy weld, as opposed to the damage Megatron's kick did to Starscream's waist kibble.
Only after the fact, when the knife was in his servos and his digits smoothed over the warped point, did he realise he was no longer twitching.
It's much the same now. Seeing Starscream returned smooths something down and yet also makes Megatron heat up to the point of discomfort and irrational anger at him. Starscream walks right past, wings angled high as he flutters them at Thundercracker to say something nonverbal, and Megatron wants to bite them.
His fusion cannon powers up with a deep thrumming noise, and Starscream's wings twitch their edge flaps. Minimal, and Megatron wouldn't think it was because of him at all if Starscream wasn't now looking over his shoulder, crimson optics narrowed.
"What?" Starscream snaps, making an about-face even as Thundercracker behind him waves his servos in admonishment, "Did you have something to say?"
Megatron should snarl something vicious about Starscream ruining things. He wants to. All he can think of, though, is the look on Optimus's face as he said partner, and the idea of Megatron following Starscream to the medbay like a doting-
Megatron shoots blindly and misses.
His habsuite is as constricting and dark as Megatron prefers it. He's always preferred things dreary and his quarters are really just a place for him to recharge when he cannot stop avoiding it. He enters it now not because he has to, really, but because he cannot keep functioning like this.
Starscream is infuriating. He always has been and always will be, but Optimus's words, that one word, rankles. Megatron's plating rustles and hisses steam from the cracks, and he very much wants to take Starscream by the throat and squeeze until he squawks - but the pleasant image of him doing so has now been infested by… ideas. Ideas he knows Prime very much wanted to put there and have done their job.
Megatron cannot walk past a Seeker without thinking of their Commander. He cannot go anywhere without hearing or encountering said Commander, and therefore seeing the way his wings flick and his ailerons tilt, or how his helm catches the light as he arches his neck cabling in a sinful stretch. His digits are the worst part - reaching out with curling claws and tracing the edge of a fuel ration or tapping along the screen of a datapad. They're wickedly sharp, Megatron knows, because Starscream has scratched him many times even if his favoured assassination attempt weapon is a knife, or if he's really impulsive, his nullrays. Megatron hates that all the images his processor is coming up with are enticing and often include said attempts on his life. Humiliatingly, they only serve to make his charge climb higher.
It's a humiliating feeling that curls up through his struts as he seats himself on his berth and stares down at the ground between his pedes. He shouldn't. It would be perhaps the worst decision he could ever make, because he knows, he knows it won't stop here. It's not a one-and-done. Megatron may as well sign personal peace away and concede to the Autobots' every demand - let alone what this would mean for confronting Starscream in the inevitable future.
He transforms back the panel between his legs anyway, and the rush of cooler air on the hissing hot protoform is both bliss and agony.
It's just getting rid of inopportune charge, he tells himself as he rubs a digit over his spike housing, the length quick to pressurise and firm up into his grip. He's been crackling with charge the last few joors. It's a natural response to being frustrated with Prime and utterly infuriated with Starscream's brattish behaviour while he practically flounces through the corridors. The confidence. It's a horrible look on him.
But it's what Megatron pictures when he strokes his spike in a rough, hard upstroke, squeezing about the middle on the way back down. He pictures those legs, glinting white plating as Starscream's lengthy thruster heels click against the floor. Of the path upward, seams on the insides of his thighs, sharper waist plating and an appealing slope to his lower backstrut. A waist that Megatron is fairly sure he can wrap both servos around and almost link his digits, at least at the smallest point, because Starscream has always preferred being lean and aerodynamic in the most infuriating of places.
He vents a puff of steam from his intake as he works his fist over his spike some more, rubbing a digit over the tip where silvery prefluid is already gathering, dripping down the side. He's not usually this easy to rile up. The only things in the past that really rev his engine had been those hard-won fights in the beginning, the frustration and the sting of loss somehow pushing him to seek an outlet that he did not have. Megatron hadn't taken anyone to berth in the beginning of the war. He hadn't taken anyone to berth during much of the war at all - it had been his own servo or nothing. Easy to ignore when the world was on fire and anyone could stab you in the back - even your own Second.
Which is another reason to add to the list that peacetime infuriates him. His libido seems to wait for nothing and no one, because he'd really rather not be craving an awful Seeker to bite.
"Frag," Megatron hisses, dentae clenched hard enough a faint squeal of metal reaches his audials. He's thinking too much. He keeps stroking, servo moving up and down in the rough jerks that he likes, quick and hard enough to get this over with even if, in an ideal world, he would want to take his time.
Starscream would be an impatient lover. He's sure of it. All sneering lips and fanged snarls as he demands more, insults, whines, and bickers. He would writhe delightfully and hiss obstinately at the same time, and likely wouldn't return the favour of an overload. He would be selfish, rude, and not at all worth the effort.
Megatron squeezes at the tip, the delightful pressure making him gasp. He's leaking fluid a lot more now, slicking the way for his palm and losing the friction. It's easy to fall into a rhythm of fast, quick movements of his arm, but it's not as raw. He can almost liken it to a valve, wet enough to at least think of the image a little more clearly. Starscream would be wet and dripping - easy to rev up and far harder to get to come down. His insistent, desperate, demanding nature would translate into berth, and Megatron… frag, but he wants it. He wants it desperately.
He wants to dig his servos into polished white and red plating until it dents. He wants to bite down on neck cabling and feel the rush of energon, hot and pulsing with energy. He longs for scrabbling blue claws on his frame, scoring burning lines he can look at afterwards. He craves hissed demands and vicious barbed whispers, juxtaposed by the wobbling admittance of pleasure. He yearns for fluttering wings to pin down, to bite, to lick, to take into his mouth and listen to a sparking vocaliser of a seeker in overload.
Megatron pictures Starscream's valve as his servo speeds up, wrist cramping even as he persists. Would it be white, like his legs, neat and fancy? Would he have modified his valve to be prettier, to suit his tastes? Primus, Megatron can picture so many possibilities that none of them stick, all flying past his processor as he imagines Starscream wailing while riding the edge of pain-pleasure. His valve, tight and hot and soaked, sucking in Megatron's spike and rippling callipers with his overload. Squeezing tight as he throws his helm back, wings flapping wild, and screams.
Sparks pop behind his optics and his overload suffuses through his sensor net like a cracked energon mainline. For a moment Megatron almost worries he did somehow snap a line, because he's so warm he feels wet, but he can't even remotely check for damage because his optics are still sparking, vision suddenly infrared and swimming. Everything crackles and faintly buzzes with charge, dissipating slowly enough to indicate that one overload probably isn't enough to get it all out of his system, but it's all he should indulge in.
Frag but it was a bad idea to do it. To think of Starscream while stroking his spike and then overloading harder than he has in years. Granted, he hasn't had a good overload in a long, long time, but Megatron is still very much aware that this… this was a mistake he will likely pay dearly for.
He stares down at his servo, sticky with pink transfluid, and imagines Starscream on his knees, licking them clean.
He grips his half-pressurised spike again, groaning, unable to throw the image out of his processor. He can't. It just sticks - Starscream on his knees, nuzzling into Megatron's thigh and nipping at plating until he gets to sensitive hip cabling and licking that instead. Logically Megatron knows Starscream would probably never be able to - the angle is too awkward, his armour too locked tight - but in his mind it happens anyway, and it feels like a solar flare.
The transfluid on his servo slicks the way, and Megatron jerks his hips upwards into his servo, quick and hard, and his processor supplies the enticing image of Starscream sitting there, claws in Megatron's shoulders and causing energon to flow. Fritzing red optics, frame wound tight with charge, wings tilting upward and edge flaps clattering a racket. Megatron puts his servos on them, in that phantom world, and Starscream tosses his helm back and overloads on his spike alone.
Megatron doesn't need anything else either. His spike pulses again and his vocaliser pops as he cries out, his own voice lost to his audials. He leans back, falls into his berth, strutless and exventing puffs of steam from his abdominals, optics still rebooting judging by the flickers of red and yellow in his vision when he cracks them open.
Starscream flees his processor reluctantly, and with his retreat is the arrival of shame. It's short lived. It becomes anger, something white-hot, but that burns out through his vents, too, and left behind is a tangled snarl of something both empty and not deep within his frame. Somewhere Megatron can't quite reach, knowing it will likely bite. There are so many thoughts, and his post-overload processor feels too thick and slow to compute them, yet they come to him unbidden anyway.
He recalls something Skywarp said in his endless chattering in the mess hall the other cycle. Megatron isn't sure why he still has it recorded, but it's there in his memory banks, flagged as important. He didn't do such a thing on purpose, but before he starts to worry about a potential glitch, he just plays the memory.
"Oh yeah, he's nattering about his stupid treats," Skywarp complains, staring at the ceiling while flat and spread-out on the refuel table bench. "I mean, Primus forbid I get peckish! We've had nothing but awful fuel for years! Screamer had those real nice energon goodies from Cybertron and never told us!! Imagine how long he's been hoardin' those fraggers! I think I was perfectly within my right to eat a few."
Thundercracker, standing over Skywarp and examining one of his wings, just grimaces. "Well, I hope it was worth finishing them, because now you need a trip to the medbay. Screamer sharpened his claws."
Skywarp glances at at the torn-in-half wing on his side, looking forlorn. "Yeah," he sighs. "He sure did."
Megatron stares at his own ceiling, vents still wide open to let heated air through. He's sticky, feels as if a monumental storm of something is brewing, and his protoform is still ever-so-slightly itchy.
He rolls out of berth and into the adjacent washracks, his potentially second bad idea of the cycle already forming.
Soundwave's cassettes are trouble waiting to happen. Asking them for anything is perhaps one of the most idiotic decisions he's ever made, and Megatron allowed Starscream into peace talk meetings.
But his options are rather thin. He won't ask the Autobots for help, perish the fragging thought, and if he goes to Soundwave himself he'll just get a horribly judgemental look that will be too perceptive for his own liking. The Trine are, of course, an even worse option. So Rumble and Frenzy are, regrettably, his saving graces.
"You want candy?" Frenzy's optics practically light up. "Oh, this is golden. Rumble, punch me."
"No, no punching," Megatron snaps, patience already at a razor-thin wire. "Do you have any?" He knows that, if anyone on this forsaken ship has contraband, it will be the more irritating of the cassettes.
"Hm." Rumble taps a pede, and Megatron has to resist the urge to squash him. "Well. How good are we talkin' here? We've got our own mixes but they ain't all that tasty. The stuff from Cybertron is the good slag."
Megatron doesn't even want to know how they got it, let alone still have it. "The… fancy kind," he snaps. "It's an experiment."
He almost says it's for Shockwave, but he reasons that will probably go down just as badly as the real answer. With less collateral, but with a perhaps more incensed Soundwave, so he hedges his bets.
"I can put in a word with Soundwave to take you two to the surface," he says. An idea forms, slow and tempting, and Megatron has to fight a delighted laugh. "The Autobot medic is fixing up frames. Giving them new weapons, modifications. Although, it may be a little above my authority-"
"We'll give you everything!!" Frenzy interrupts, and Rumble is already digging in his subspace to produce a pouch. "Come on, new weapons, please, you gotta say something!"
Megatron fights the urge to grin, but it's a near thing. "Just the expensive sweets, Frenzy. And I'll put in a word with Ratchet."
Starscream is holding a cube of energon so close to his cockpit that he looks almost laughably small. Or it would have been laughable if his thrusters weren't kicked up on the top of his desk over what Megatron knew for a fact were important datapads. Megatron can't find it in him to berate the seeker, either - the glinting white of his legs is lean, as sharp as the rest of him, and his heels shine. It just makes Megatron angry to notice it. He doesn't usually think those things - Optimus has just rattled him. That is all. It was what Optimus did, and Megatron being distracted by odd things is just what the Prime needs to slip things under his nose during this peace agreement. He needs to focus. He is not going to think about what happened yestercycle, because it did not happen.
"You were Vosian," Megatron manages to make himself say. He sees Skywarp and Thundercracker perk up behind the chair; but not with interest. "You signed plenty of documents. You know how politics work. It's medical, but Prime will pull some sort of trick in the writing. You need to be there when Prime shoves his proposal at me with Ratchet venting down my neck."
It turns out that Starscream is just as good at doing what he did most during war even in the middle of a fragile truce; finding something to annoy Megatron with. He arches an optic ridge before saying, "Well, if you want my help, you're going to have to convince me."
It says volumes that Megatron actually prepared for such a demand. He just doesn't want to show his strategy too early; he knows from experience that if Starscream so much as sniffs weakness, he exploits it. "I came here to ask you. I could have gone to ask Soundwave."
"Yes well, we both know you wouldn't do that," Starscream snarks back, lips curled in an awful sneer that makes Megatron's processor fire off warnings about potential threats to his cooling systems. No, just threats. Normal threats. Threats on his life. The usual.
"And why wouldn't I?" Megatron snaps. He's not supposed to get riled up so quickly, but Starscream has that effect. "Soundwave at least doesn't talk back."
"No, he doesn't, does he?" Starscream's sneer grows. "So go on. Go chat to him and see if he can't help you out. Maybe he'll bring his brats with to the armistice table. Won't that be exciting? I'd like a holovid of the whole affair-"
"I'm asking nicely," Megatron growls. He knows he's not, but he also knows he's about five kliks from dragging Starscream from his gaudy custom-made desk by the intake cables. "You have experience with political jargon. You were Vos's political presence. So make use of that for once."
Starscream's expression sours, and Megatron is fairly certain he's said the wrong thing. It wouldn't surprise him. Skywarp shuffles behind his trine leader, glancing everywhere but at Megatron in a very suspicious show of angling his nasal ridge up at the ceiling and nowhere else. Thundercracker at least can pretend a little better.
"I was Prince of Vos before you destroyed it all," Starscream hisses, pointing a long manicured talon at Megatron. It looks shiny. Freshly detailed. That explains the smell of polish being far less bearable than it usually is. It smells a little like seafoam, but the nice kind, not the stench of being trapped beneath the ocean. Like flying above it. Like the first time Megatron saw the stretches of inky waves.
He snaps out of it in time to save the conversation. "What's done is done, Starscream. Do you want me to throw you a pity party? You don't want that, don't even think about derailing this conversation. Are you going to come and help or not?"
Help is a word that rankles him. He shouldn't have said it, he doesn't know why he did; he doesn't need anyone's help, least of all Starscream's. The conniving traitor hates him enough to stab him in the back in front of the Autobot peace parade and has a glossa quick enough to get out of jail before the cuffs even come out. Megatron shouldn't trust him.
He doesn't. He doesn't trust Starscream. He never has and he never will.
Megatron slaps a small fabric bag on the desk. Starscream leans forward, as enchanted as ever with unnecessary delights, and yanks it open with one claw. Megatron winces. He'd hoped Starscream wouldn't actually open it in front of him.
"Are these poisoned?" Starscream lifts a glittering energon candy from the bag. It's got a blue-tinted hard coating and inside, Megatron was told, is softer. "This is an awful assassination attempt. I thought you'd have learnt a thing or two by now. And they're minuscule, too, I mean honestly…"
"They aren't poisoned," Megatron snarls, losing his patience. "I'm bribing you. Are you there at the meeting tomorrow or not?"
Starscream examines the candy in the light of his window, holding it between two claws. It's dainty. He looks royal, but not in the awful way Megatron always pictured. He says nothing.
Megatron wants to punch him. He wants to drag Starscream close and do - do something. Optimus's words are getting into his processor and doing exactly what the Prime probably wanted - distracting him from what is important. He shouldn't have given in to his base instincts. He feels itchy on the protoform, too hot in his internals. "Starscream. Are you going to be at the drafting of the treaty tomorrow?"
Starscream pops the tiny treat into his mouth. "For your sake, you better hope I am."