Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Starscream couldn't remember when it had started.

At some point after that time travelling incident, perhaps. It could be a matter of him having accidentally ripped apart the fabric of the universe, leaving gaping wounds in the walls of existence for all the accursed monsters of unreality to come crawling through to haunt him to an early deactivation. 

But that was only assuming it wasn't the fault of some undiagnosed glitch, a catastrophic failure of most of his sensory net. Maybe from when he'd flown headfirst into that low hanging bridge... 

"Do it now," the oily, snide voice of the phantom currently provoking him sneered in his audial, unseen and unheard to all but him, as they watched Megatron turn his back to study the read outs on the main console. "Shoot him. Through the neck, where the armour is at it's weakest-" 

"I know where his armour is weakest!" Starscream hissed, insulted at the idea he wouldn't already know the weak spots on the mech he had been trying to kill for centuries. 

"Fool! Do it now!" 

Starscream whipped his helm towards the imaginary seeker. "Shut. Up!" 

"Something the matter, Starscream?" 

His apparitions could never be heard, but Starscream was. Megatron had lifted his helm to glower at him over a shoulder. His optics were focused solidly on Starscream, and not the bizarre, maroon-coloured figure with the tiny hips and disproportionately long chin, so out of place, hovering next to him. 

So, Starscream pretended it wasn't there either. "Nothing, my Lord." 

"Cowering simp." The phantom sneered. “You’ve missed your chance.”

Starscream ground his denta together. If he had the opportunity to shoot anyone in the room, it wouldn’t have been Megatron. 

The first time it had happened, it had been the middle of the night and he had been alone in his quarters, winding down for a much needed recharge, when the most terrifying, beige-coloured, inverted triangle of a machine had manifested right next to his berth, standing at over thirty-feet, spitting and spluttering and garbling gibberish like something that had crawled straight up from the Pits of Unicron. 

When Starscream had shrieked in terror and fired on it, the blaster bolt shot straight through it's huge chest and hit the bulkhead behind. 

Then it had disappeared. 

A nightmare, he'd decided. Not that he was prone to those- but it was easier than acknowledging it might have been real. Or worse, that he was losing his mind and seeing ghosts. 

But as much as he would have liked to ignore it, the latter was beginning to look likely, when next he saw one during a patrol with his trine. It was a narrow, silver arrow of a jet, serpentining through the clouds with a manoeuvrability unseen in anything the humans could have engineered. It came rushing down on Thundercracker, the silver of it’s armour camouflaged by the grey clouds. 

Starscream spotted it in his peripheral and squawked an order for evasive manoeuvres, diving into a spin to dodge any incoming missiles. 

Only for none to be fired. 

An unfamiliar voice cackled from above, vocaliser low and gravelly.  

"What the Hell, Screamer?" Skywarp demanded through the comms, falling back into formation behind him. "You getting spooked by the clouds now?!" 

The silver jet still loomed behind them, matching their speed with ease. He wasn't appearing on Starscream's scans, and his trine, who he knew were not so completely hopeless that they wouldn’t notice an unfamiliar jet when it was right on top of them, weren't reacting to it at all. 

“…Do you see it?” He asked quietly, attention fixed on the bare, ugly silver of the other jet. 

“See what? The rainbow?” Thundercracker grunted, even as the silver jet barrel-rolled metres from his right wing. “Yeah. Pretty.”

“Primus, you two are nerds,” Skywarp mocked.

"I was testing you!" Starscream snapped at him, forcing his voice steady, his spark hammering in his chest. "Your reaction time is getting slow-" 

"Our reaction time against rainbows!?" Skywarp laughed. “Better watch out for those leprechauns, TC.”

Starscream simmered in fury, watching the silver jet spin into a playful dive through the clouds and out of sight. 

Starscream hunched over his nullray, keeping his servos as steady as he could manage as he lowered the super-charged power-cell into place with a pair of tweezers. The heat coming off the glowing red cylinder was so great he could feel it warming his fingers. One wrong move, one slip of the finger, and his experimental ammunition could blow up half his lab. Nullrays were not designed to house power-cells of such great output, but if he was going to supplant Megatron he’d need something strong enough to melt through that thick pit-mech’s armour and-

“That’s clearly unstable,” a soft, musical voice spoke at his immediate left. 

Starscream jumped. 

The power-cell flew into the air. Starscream scrambled to catch it, tossing it back and forth between his servos as it scorched the armour of his palms. Hissing as it sizzled and smoked between his fingers, he managed to place it back into the suspended-energy field-generator where he’d been storing it for safe keeping, and turned on the idiot nearly responsible for getting his face blown off. 

Two crystal blue optics blinked back at him. Autobot. 

Starscream went for the throat, intending to rip out wire, tubing, and fuel-lines in a flurry of savage swipes before the Autobot could engage their weapons. But his servos flew through air and he stumbled forwards and through his assailant with an undignified snarl of frustration. 

“Again!?” He roared, realising what had happened. 

“Sorry,” the nonexistent Autobot-seeker-thing in his lab apologised with what sounded like honest, spark-felt sincerity?! “I thought you’d heard me arrive-“

“How can I hear something that doesn’t exist?” Starscream sneered at it. 

This one was mockingly similar to him, with the same frame structure even. It was white and red and pale faced, but their features were the same. Starscream might even have thought it handsome, if not for the pathetically forlorn expression it was wearing. 

Like all the others, it was wearing a Decepticon insignia. But in red. 

Blasphemy. 

“I’m real,” it said. “Perhaps not in this reality, but in my own I am.”

Starscream scoffed and turned away, counting down from ten with the hope his psychotic episode would be finished by the time he turned back and he could continue with his experiment in peace. 

“That fuel cell is unstable,” the hallucination continued talking anyway, it’s voice clear and strong. “And that weapon isn’t designed for high levels of power output. If you try to fire it out of a nullray-“

Starscream groaned in frustration and started waving his hands at the apparition, trying to disperse it like he could a cloud of smoke, “Shoo, shoo! I have work to do-“

The imaginary seeker looked vaguely offended, “There’s no need to be rude.”

“Rude?” Starscream stared, choosing to ignore for a moment that he was talking to himself in an empty room and if Soundwave caught wind of it he’d have his processor cracked open and taken apart for inspection faster than he could break the sound barrier. “You are a figment of my imagination, and worse than that, an intruder in my lab!”

“If you want to get technical, this is my lab too.” The white seeker said with a weird, knowing little smile.

“No, it isn’t!” Starscream said shrilly, annoyed that the best his imagination could conjure up was such an inane, nonsensical argument. 

“It is,” the white seeker pointed to the door, where Starscream’s glyph had been stamped into the metal above the access panel. “This lab is reserved for Air Commander Starscream’s private use.”

“Me.” Starscream growled. 

“And me.” The phantom smiled. “Where I’m from, I’m known as Starscream too.” 

Starscream glowered at it in unimpressed silence. 

“Yeah, and I’m Optimus Fucking Prime,” he muttered. 

“Ah, still at war are we?”

Starscream never experienced his hallucinations at ‘a good time’, but this was taking the oil-cake. 

The next new apparition appeared in the middle of a raid, just moments after Starscream had landed and been ambushed by half-a-dozen Autobots. He’d ducked behind an overturned truck for cover (native, non-sentient, and not likely to suddenly turn into Prime), and found he had company. 

The idea that any of these walking delusions could be alternative versions of himself had, so far, been borderline insulting. so far he’d spent the last few cycles being harassed by a parade of multicoloured, winged clowns, who were either stupid, ugly, pathetic, monstrous, or a combination of all four. 

But the Starscream impersonator presently in company could have passed for a sleeker, futuristic, modern version of himself. He was detailed, angular, tastefully coloured, and near-flawless. 

Forgetting he was being shot at by Autobots, Starscream paused to give him a once over. 

The other seeker was clearly doing the same. “You’re very square,” the apparition concluded, with what sounded like an exaggerated high-caste accent. 

Starscream decided that this Starscream wasn’t attractive at all actually. He glared, “And you look very flimsy.” 

It was true. One punch and he bet he could flatten that sharp little nose the other seeker had sticking in the air. What more, the weapons Starscream could see concealed on his frame certainly weren’t military grade. He almost looked… civilian. Urgh. 

The other Starscream huffed humourlessly, glancing at his digits with disinterest. “Looks can be deceiving.”

A shot flew over Starscream, close to his wing. He slid lower behind the over-turned truck, trying to use the reflections in the window of the storefront to see what the Autobots were doing on the other side of the street. He was alone in his reflection, sat talking to no-one, but the other Starscream was still with him, watching him judgmentally. 

“Are you going to die here alone, little square seeker?” He asked with sarcastic sympathy, dark lips curling into a cruel smile.

“No,” Starscream grit his denta, “If you weren’t distracting me-“

“Where are your reinforcements?” The other Starscream asked bitterly. “Have they left you? Have your trine?” 

Starscream shot him a surprised look at the mention of his trine, but was too distracted by the sound of approaching Autobots to answer. In the window’s reflection Starscream could see Ironhide and those low-caste thug twins of his, moving around the wreckage strewn across the road, getting closer.

“No one is coming,” the bitter Starscream warned. “You’re on your own. Again.” 

It didn’t matter that he was right, Starscream zoned him out and steadied himself. Behind him, broken glass crunched under Ironhide’s pedes. Starscream charged his nullrays. 

He was about to leap out, to fire on his enemies as frantically as he could to buy himself the time he needed to get airborne again and hope he didn’t take serious enough damage to prevent in the meantime- when purple light flashed and static energy electrified the air. Suddenly Skywarp was on Sunstreaker’s back, choking him, and Thundercracker was throwing Sideswipe through an Auto-garage shop, shouting some terribly unfunny joke about getting an emissions check for his fat mouth. 

Starscream was free to jump up and blast Ironhide right in the face. As the fighting kicked off again, he didn’t have time to throw the stunned looking apparition a smug look, but he also knew he didn’t need to. 

He quickly came to realise the Maroon Bastard Starscream was the most annoying. By far. 

“He’s pathetic. I can hear his joints creaking from over here. Why is he not dead yet? He doesn’t even have a sword! How does he defend himself against close range attacks? Why have you not taken advantage of his obvious ineptitude?” 

Maroon Bastard Starscream liked to appear when Starscream was in company, or in a well populated space, often during his duty shifts in the command centre or meetings with Decepticon High Command. It meant Starscream could neither tell him to shut nor concentrate at all on what he was supposed to be doing. 

It also meant Megatron was often present. 

“-and that accent is atrocious. At least my Megatron has some charm. And he might fly like a scraplet shot out of a cannon but at least he can fly-“

Which was unfortunate, as there was little Maroon Bastard Starscream loved more than flying into a tirade about how stupid and useless Megatron was. Which was, admittedly, a hobby Starscream enjoyed partaking in himself. 

“-transform into a gun when he can’t even fire himself?! I’m amazed no one has simply picked him up and walked off with him! Not that that would be a bad thing. Good riddance you outmoded old-“

But that didn’t mean that some invasive species of ‘Starscream’ had any right to come into his universe and talk slag about his Megatron. That was his prerogative. 

“-kind of alt-mode isn’t flight capable, anyway? He’s a disgrace to his Decepticon coding and you should have put him out of his misery centuries ago! At this point it may as well be a mercy kill-“

If Starscream couldn’t figure out how to stop these hauntings or delusions or glimpses into alternative realities or whatever they were from happening, he was at least going to have to find some way to interact physically with these visitors. 

“-weren’t living in some rusted wreck at the bottom of the ocean, my claustrophobia is already acting up and I’m not even physically here! Do I even need to ask which idiot crashed the ship in the first place?”

Because some of these apparitions needed to be physically dealt with. 

He was in the wash-racks the first time two of his alternate selves showed up simultaneously. 

The skinny silver seeker arrived first, manifesting mysteriously out of the steam from his shower, creeping forward, frame hunched over and chuckling darkly as if he thought himself some menacing spectre, and not the quivering, emaciated, stripped-down scaffolding he actually was. 

“Can’t you see I’m busy!” Starscream called over his shoulder, scrubbing into the seams around his canopy. 

The silver seeker threw his arms up in an over-animated display off annoyance. “Extra-dimensional visitors take precedent over superficial maintenance.” He declared self importantly, glaring at the backs of Starscream’s wings.   

“Not in this reality they don’t,” Starscream muttered, and deciding that if he was even going to entertain the idea that this was real and he really was conversing with his alternative selves from across the varying universes, he might as well get some answers out of it. “What do you want?”

Silver Starscream’s optics blew comically wide, “What do I want!? I want to be left to my own business in my own universe, but some bizarre cosmic force seems compelled to throw me through countless layers of reality all so I can stand here and watch you shower in contaminated Earth fluids!”

“It’s a solvent solution!” Starscream hissed. 

“It’s disgusting is what it is.” Silver Starscream shuddered, dancing away from what solvent puddled on the tiled floor. “Where is it pumped from? The ocean? Knock Out would have a fit-“

Starscream made a mental note to re-name Silver Starscream Neurotic Starscream instead.

He sadly didn’t get an opportunity to ask Neurotic Starscream who Knock Out was and if he’d be visiting soon too, as at that exact moment, the ginormous beige triangle of his nightmares was suddenly blotting out all of the overhead lights. 

“What is that?!” Neurotic Starscream’s low vocaliser pitched into a shriek at the sight of huge jet, sounding just as surprised to see it as Starscream himself felt. Neurotic Starscream rushed on long spindly legs to take cover, crouching to cower behind Starscream and the wash cloth he had instinctively held up to defend himself with. 

Unbothered by their less than dignified greeting, the beige seeker, helm an inch clear of the ceiling, grumbled something completely nonsensical and flared it’s armour plates angrily. In the full lighting of the wash-racks it didn’t look any better than it had the night it had manifested over his berth. It was covered in what looked like ancient tribal tattoos, all it’s weaponry was on display and out in the open, it had twice as many joints as anything Cybertronian ever should have, and in place of a proper mouth were just… fangs. 

“Brr-rhhh-ssss!” It said, very vehemently. 

Starscream, soaking wet and covered in suds, stared back dumbly. 

“Give it what it wants!” Neurotic Starscream cried. 

The beige monstrosity repeated itself with more even vigour, vocaliser spitting coolant, which almost splattered Starscream’s armour. He inched back. Neurotic Starscream, despite being an apparition that couldn’t be harmed or even touched, did the same with a mournful noise of revulsion. 

Beige Monster lifted it’s shoulders, which were also sort of it’s wings, and bleated something that sounded electronic and ancient. Like a human computer struggling to connect to the internet. It’s small red optics were glaring down at them expectantly. 

“…What’s it saying?” He whispered to Neurotic Starscream, not quite brave enough to take his optics off it. 

“I don’t know! I don’t speak Demonic-Monster!” Neurotic Starscream hissed back frantically. 

Beige Monster hissed like some sort of feral animal and flapped a massive clawed hand at them. They both flinched, but the Monster only turned away from them, rolling it’s tiny bead-like optics and heading towards the wash-rack door, through which it couldn’t possibly fit. 

Then it vanished. 

Starscream turned around to find Neurotic Starscream still, unfortunately, present. 

He threw his wash cloth down in frustration, “Just how many of you freaks are there?!”

Neurotic Starscream puffed out his minuscule chest and set his long-fingered talons on his hips. “Who are you calling a freak, block-head?!” 

“You recharge alone? Sad.” 

Starscream refused to online his optics. He kept still and silent on the berth, hoping the handsome but bitter Starscream would get bored and go away. 

“Some people enjoy their space,” the gentle voice of the pathetic, blue optic’d Starscream responded. 

Starscream snapped his optics online and sat up. The two Starscreams were wandering about his quarters and appeared to be snooping through his things. Pathetic Starscream turned away from the data-pad he had been nosing at, looking embarrassed, but Bitter Starscream seemed invested in the schematics on his desk. 

“Get away from that!” Starscream snapped, throwing off the covers. 

“Primitive work,” Bitter Starscream scoffed, “A sun harvester, really? Just build solar panels.”

Starscream stomped to the desk and rolled up the schematics. He stuffed them in his subspace angrily. “Get out.” 

“One of the other Starscream’s told us you were being terrorised by this gigantic beige triangle?” Pathetic Starscream said kindly. “We just wanted to make sure-“

“You wanted to make sure.” Bitter Starscream interrupted. 

“-that were you alright,” Pathetic Starscream continued, shooting the other a glare. 

“No, more accurately, I wanted to ask if it was another Starscream.” Bitter Starscream corrected again. 

“How should I know?” Starscream snapped, hoping none of his neighbours could hear him arguing with himself through the bulkheads. “And how the Pit are you all talking to each other? Is there some extra-dimensional energon bar you all meet up in after a hard cycle’s work harassing me!?” 

“Sometimes we appear and you’re asleep.” Bitter Starscream explained, bored. 

“So you’re in here, watching me, while I recharge, completely unaware?” Starscream stared. 

“You snore, you know,” Pathetic Starscream smiled, trying to dodge the question. 

“Exactly, no wonder he recharges alone,” Bitter Starscream commented nastily. 

“What if I wasn’t recharging alone!?” Starscream snarled, a sudden thought occurring to him. “Should I expect an audience to manifest next to the berth every night from now on?”

“We don’t appear every night,” Pathetic Starscream missed the point entirely. 

“He’s worried we’re going to materialise while he’s getting clanged,” Bitter Starscream explained. “But with an aft as square as his, I don’t think there’ll be any danger of that.”

“Oh.” Pathetic Starscream’s pale face brightened with colour. 

Starscream’s own darkened with rage. He picked up his pillow. He might not be able to suffocate them but he probably could himself. 

Starscream landed on the mountainside, overlooking the dam where below Megatron was trading blows and insults with Prime. He dodged swing after swing of the axe, and barked a laugh of amusement at Prime's growing frustration. Which was then abruptly cut off when the blunt end of the axe hit him directly between the optics. 

Clang! 

"Gaarghh!" 

"Aren't you going to fly down and help?" The clear, bell-like voice of the Pathetic Starscream asked, apparently here to watch this disaster of a raid unfold. He hopped down to stand on the ledge beside Starscream, concerned by the scene unfolding. 

Starscream didn't bother to look at him. "He wouldn't want me to." 

Pathetic Starscream hummed in understanding. "My Megatron can be somewhat overprotective too." 

Starscream almost slipped from his precarious position on the ledge. "He doesn't want me to interfere!" He snapped. "He couldn't care less about me coming to harm." 

Pathetic Starscream looked shocked, and ready to argue, as if he somehow had a better insight into the mind of Megatron than Starscream himself did. Luckily he was saved from having to listen to sentimental soft-sparked nonsense when they were joined by another. 

"That is true for all of us," a low, oily voice agreed, its slender owner slinking out from behind the trees.  

Starscream rolled his optics at the sight of him. Great, Neurotic Starscream was back. 

"Megatron tends to be quite particular about Prime being left to him." Neurotic Starscream began explaining to Pathetic Starscream. "Wants him all to himself. Make of that what you will. Though I dread to imagine what he'd do with poor Optimus if he ever actually managed to, ahem, conquer him." 

“…Conquer?” Pathetic Starscream repeated, looking somewhat unwell. 

“Unresolved tensions aside, this Megatron only wants to kill Prime,” Starscream shut them down before Neurotic Starscream went into any greater detail about the specifics of his own Megatron’s relationship with their Optimus Prime.

He didn’t want to know. He didn’t need to know. And he could do without the mental image, thank you. 

"Prime, which Prime?" The very loudest of the Starscreams, the Maroon Bastard, then arrived, leaping down to stand directly in front of Pathetic Starscream, blocking his view.  

"Optimus Prime,” Pathetic Starscream glared, trying to see around his wing.  

“Who!?” Maroon Starscream pulled a face, “Never heard of him.” 

"His nemesis, you pink monstrosity,” Neurotic Starscream bit impatiently. 

“The only nemesis Megatron has, is me,” He declared loudly. “After all, I was the one to kill him!”

Starscream turned in surprise, as did the others. Maroon Starscream preened under the attention for a moment, “Of course, he did get better but I-“

Starscream and Neurotic Starscream turned away with impatient huffs. 

"You should go to him," Pathetic Starscream started imploring again (and sweet Primus, what backwards universe did he come from?!) “Defend your leader, your friend-" 

“Friend!?” Maroon Starscream gagged. 

"He seems to be doing fine on his own," Starscream peered down his nose and passively watched Prime haul Megatron up into a headlock to start choking him. Megatron’s limbs flailed about as he struggled.  

"I like this Prime," Maroon Starscream said, joining him. “I wonder if he’d be willing to hold down my Megatron for me…”

Yes. Starscream could also see the appeal in-

Primus, where was his mind wandering?! 

"Stop distracting me!" Starscream snapped his gaze away from the scene of Megatron and Optimus below, trying to refocus on the air above. He was supposed to be on the look out for the Aerialbots. The last thing they needed on this raid was Superion showing up. 

"I think it's Megatron who is distracting you," another voice mocked, superior sounding and smug, and Starscream wanted to throw up his arms when yet another Starscream appeared. Everyone was showing up today! The sleek, handsome, bitter Starscream sauntered over with his perfect frame and his perfect poise to stand with them on the ledge, watching Megatron grapple with Prime. 

He sighed wistfully, expression softening, "I miss him like this." 

"Like what, rolling around in the dirt screaming or getting his aft kicked by Prime?" Starscream growled. 

"Both," he breathed, optics glowing with an intimate heat. "All fierce and arrogant and stupid." He licked his lips. 

Alarmed, Starscream took an awkward step away from him. 

He wasn’t the only one. 

"By the All-Spark…" Maroon Starscream rolled his optics in disgust.

"If you saw what had become of my Megatron you'd understand," Bitter Starscream said hauntingly, lifting his chin and wings high, optics still fixed on the spectacle that was Prime and Megatron rolling around on top of each other on the ground, fists clanging, shouting brain-dead quips at one another. 

Neurotic Starscream made a considering noise, "I suppose as far as Megatrons go, this one is tolerable." 

"Tolerable?!" Maroon Starscream squawked. “No Megatron is tolerable.” 

"I’ll take any Megatron not high on dark-energon at this point," Neurotic Starscream hissed back. 

“High on what?” Pathetic Starscream looked over with concern. 

"Bzzz-rkkk!" Terrifying Giant Starscream snarled from behind them, towering over the nearby trees, having just arrived to involve himself in the conversation. 

By now used to him, Starscream ignored him, as did most of the others. Pathetic Starscream did a double take. "Oh, he really is quite triangular." 

"Enjoy him while he lasts," Bitter Starscream was still advising Starscream on Megatron dramatically, in the wistful tone of an old mare lamenting her lost youth. "You'll never know how much you will come to miss that deranged glint in his optic. The savage glee in his face when he rips someone’s spark out-" 

"You really ought to help him." Pathetic Starscream interjected, watching with concern as Prime slammed Megatron's face into the ground and starting rubbing it into the dirt. 

"No, you shouldn't. He's doing fine.” Neurotic Starscream said tonelessly, deeply invested in watching Prime assault Megatron. 

"I am in the middle of a military operation!" Starscream reminded them, and himself. He wasn’t supposed to be watching Megatron. Megatron could handle himself. He was meant to be patrolling the sky for enemy jets. 

Terrifying Starscream blurted a series of tones and beeps that made absolutely no sense, pointing at the dam then at the sky then at Starscream. 

"Does anyone know what he's saying?!" Starscream snapped impatiently. 

Pathetic Starscream shook his helm, Maroon Starscream scoffed, and Neurotic Starscream muttered something about it being the uncivilised grunting of a drone. But Bitter Starscream turned and studied Terrifying Starscream, listening to his grumbling noises with interest. 

"...It sounds to me… like indigestion." He said after a long pause, dashing Starscream’s hopes for a serious answer. 

"You can all leave now." He informed them. 

"Not until I see Prime subjugate Megatron," Bitter Starscream argued, voice low with arousal. 

Neurotic Starscream made a noise of utter disgust, "Go back to your own universe and be a pervert over clunky old has-beens there.” 

"Oh, like you haven't thought about it," Bitter Starscream glared. 

"With Megatron?" Neurotic Starscream screeched, optics growing so big and bright Starscream wondered if they’d explode. 

"We've all been there," Bitter Starscream said with entirely too much confidence. 

"I haven't!" Starscream yelped. 

"Disgusting," Neurotic Starscream sneered. 

"Rrrzzz!" Terrifying Starscream buzzed. 

"I had one dream!" Maroon Starscream snapped defensively. 

"I...” Pathetic Starscream hesitated. “We’re conjunxed.” 

Starscream turned towards him, shocked into silence. From the sudden quiet penetrating the air, it seemed the other Starscream's were just as taken aback. But it was a small relief to know marrying Megatron was only a near-universally condemned idea. 

"That," Maroon Starscream was the first to speak, "is vile." 

"You’re not a Starscream!” Neurotic Starscream howled, pointing with his ridiculous talons. 

"They’re right. Your standards must be lower than Skywarp's IQ," Starscream joined in. 

Pathetic Starscream's cheeks had flushed with embarrassment, but also indignation, "He is a good conjunx-!”

"You're a bad Starscream," Bitter Starscream told him. "You’re not supposed to conjunx him, for Primus's sake! Don't you have any self respect?!" 

"You sound jealous," Pathetic Starscream muttered. 

Bitter Starscream started spluttering. 

Behind them, ignored by most, Terrifying Starscream started a long, emotional, but utterly incomprehensible rant that Starscream could only assume, due to the current subject matter, was about his relationship with his own Megatron. The other Starscreams were still too busy arguing over whether Megatron was conjunx-of-the-year, suitable only for casual clanging, or shouldn't be touched with a ten-foot barge pole to pay him any attention, but Terrifying Starscream’s intonation grew low and sad as he told his story. Starscream awkwardly nodded along, not sure how to empathise. 

Meanwhile, Megatron managed to kick Prime off and send him tumbling down the side of the dam, crashing into the water below. Starscream fought a smile as his leader got up with a victorious laugh, brushed himself off, and then spotted him on the mountainside, seemingly standing around doing nothing.  

"Starscream!" He roared, shaking a great black fist. "Get back to work, you useless layabout!" 

"Ah yes, a real catch," Maroon Starscream sneered at Bitter Starscream. 

“Don’t you just love when he’s angry?” Bitter Starscream wasn't the least concerned.

“Yes,” Starscream agreed without shame, and before Megatron could start screaming again, ignited his thrusters and took off.

With any luck, the cabal of invasive Starscreams would time-out of his universe before they could catch up. 

Chapter Text

"How did it happen?" Starscream asked, awkwardly starting up a conversation. 

Pathetic Starscream, as the most polite of his apparitions, had taken to lurking silently in his lab whilst Starscream worked. As a fellow scientist he knew the importance of focus, and never set out to distract him out of spite, as his counterparts often did. 

But there was something that had been bothering Starscream, a horrifying reveal that had haunted him in the weeks since he had learned of it. He had been at war with himself, on whether he would rather not know or if he should learn as much as possible to prevent himself suffering the same fate. 

"How did what happen?" Pathetic Starscream asked innocently. 

Starscream lowered his tools and shot him a glare over his wing. "You know what." 

Pathetic Starscream's cool blue optics met his gaze neutrally. Starscream assumed he was just going to continue playing the ignorant fool, but he sighed, "...If you're referring to my conunx-" 

Starscream cringed. "I'm talking about Megatron." 

"Yes. My conjunx," Pathetic Starscream repeated sternly. "The love of my life." 

"Never mind!" Starscream snapped, turning back to his experiment. "I don't want to know anyway." 

"Are you sure?" Came the voice behind him. "It's quite the story. I really had to chase him-" 

Starscream almost gagged, horror drawing him back into the conversation, "You pursued him?!" 

"For years," Pathetic Starscream breathed wistfully. "He's always been so protective of me. He rejected the idea of a relationship because he refused to put me at risk. But then I received an injury, and he realised I would be at risk regardless." 

‘Pathetic’ had never been a more accurate adjective for this particular Starscream than it was at that very moment. Despite the obvious disgust Starscream was emoting (or perhaps because of it), Pathetic Starscream continued, going into traumatic detail. 

"He told me he loved me, and he knew I already loved him. We made love for the first time on the beach, and he was gentle when he took my seals-" 

"Ahh! Stop!" Starscream cried, clamping his servos over his audials. "Disgusting!" 

Pathetic Starscream frowned, "There's nothing disgusting about-" 

"Yes, there is. It is disgusting. You are disgusting! And your Megatron sounds as appealing as a used polishing rag! And all that nonsense about mollycoddling you- don't you have any self respect?" 

"I-" 

"Obviously you don't," Starscream cut him off before he could answer, "because you let him clang you on a filthy beach! I hope you got an infection!" 

Pathetic Starscream was glaring now. "There's no need to be jealous. Your Megatron has his virtues too." 

Starscream thought he was going to throw up. 

"Virtues?! How is being a pig-headed maniac a virtue and why would that make me want to clang him?" 

"I don't know." Pathetic Starscream said calmly. "He's your Megatron.” 

He vanished before Starscream could come up with a retort, likely disappearing back to his own universe, with his own Megatron, and their unhygienic interfacing practices. Urgh. 

He should have known better. He shouldn't have asked. He should have kept his anxious thoughts to himself, and not foolishly broadcast his concerns to the one counterpart who was so uninteresting he had no choice but to commandeer other mecha's personal issues for the purpose of gossip. Pathetic Starscream liked to act like he held moral superiority over everyone else, but he was still a Starscream. 

And Starscreams never could keep their mouths shut. 

"He told you." Starscream muttered into his cube. 

Bitter Starscream, who dedicated an inordinate amount of his cunning spiteful energy solely for making him miserable, smiled handsomely. "Not that he needed to. It's quite obvious." 

Starscream seethed. No, it wasn't obvious because there wasn't anything to be obvious about! Sat in public though, there was nothing he could do to act on his rage. Or shut Bitter Starscream up. 

“Change the subject,” he warned. “Or I will find a way to cross the dimensions to vivisect you.”

"It's perfectly normal," his unwanted apparition purred softly, unbothered by the threat. He was sat next to Starscream in the bustling mess as they watched (or pretended they weren’t watching) Megatron fuel from across the room. "Our attraction to power? It's in our nature." 

Starscream was gripping his cube so tightly his servo was shaking. "Shut. Up." He whispered. 

“He's not difficult to seduce," Bitter Starscream continued, flashing his flawless smile. "And your Megatron is still so young, so susceptible, so uncorrupted by foolish notions of peace and redemption. I can show you. I can tell you what he likes.”

Shuddering in revulsion, Starscream lifted his cube and started to chug. 

"They're so alike, you know," Bitter Starscream tapped a perfectly manicured digit against his lips, optics narrowing at Megatron like he was a predator sizing up prey. "Our Megatrons. And that mass-shifting? Glorious. Especially when he's already inside you and decides to-" 

Starscream choked and spluttered, spilling energon down his chin. Decepticons at neighbouring tables glanced over, some of them snickering. Megatron looked up as well, frowning suspiciously. Starscream wiped at his chin and ducked his helm, warmth radiating from his facial derma. 

"You're making me look insane!" He whispered, chin and servos sticky now. 

"That's attractive," Bitter Starscream growled sarcastically, more concerned with the mess of energon he'd made. "He's not going to clang you if you're going to act like such a slob-" 

That did it. Starscream threw his cube at him. It flew straight through Bitter Starscream's incorporeal form and hit Soundwave on the back of the helm, splattering energon down his back. 

Soundwave whirled around, visor dark and murderous as it searched for the culprit. Starscream was already sprinting for cover. 

There was a fairly even split between his counterparts on whether it was, or was not, acceptable to lust after Megatron. Neurotic Starscream and Maroon Bastard Starscream, despite initially being the more irritating of all the Starscreams, now seemed quite likeable for their dignified conviction that Megatron was definitely Not Clangable. 

"-Dirty, shortsighted, violent, addicted to dark energon," Neurotic Starscream was listing reasons off on his long talons where they were sat together in the shallows of a lake- or rather, Starscream was. The water was eerily still and undisturbed where it surrounded their incorporeal forms, whilst it stirred and rippled around Starscream's bent knees. "Insane, stupid, his optics don't always point in the same direction-" 

"We get it." Maroon Starscream snapped impatiently, sat on a rock with only his thrusters below the lake's waterline. He was kicking them back and forth, but the water remained undisturbed. "You have high standards.” 

Neurotic Starscream's face became pinched, "If high standards is not wanting to be chewed up and spat out by an uncouth brute who could do with lessons on decorum from an Insecticon, then I'd have to dig to get under the bar you've set!" 

"Why you-" 

“Shut up!" Starscream snapped before they could get started. They were, by far, the worst two for bickering. "You're missing the point entirely." 

"There's a point to this conversation?" Neurotic Starscream sneered. 

"It's not about Megatron having attractive qualities," Starscream ignored his tone, lifting his helm to squint at the harsh summer sun above. He leaned back, dipping the lower edge of his wings into the cool water. "Or how much he infuriates. He is an obstacle to my ambitions, a complication in my plans, and he is holding us back-" 

"Yes we know. All Megatrons are useless," Maroon Starscream agreed, "Mine lost us the war! Got us all exiled. Kicked off our own planet so those miserable little Autobots could build their pathetic utopia, and I'm the one that was labelled the traitor?! Ridiculous. It was one little bomb, if he was half the mech he pertained to be he could have walked it off!" 

Starscream scowled at the lake water lapping at his waist, indignant that a Starscream so much stupider than he had had greater success at removing Megatron than he had. Even if only temporarily. 

"And you know what the worse thing is?" Maroon Starscream continued, "I'm sure he fragged some of my clones." 

Neurotic Starscream pursed his lips together unhappily. "I had clones too." He nodded. "I dread to imagine what he did with them." 

Not at all wanting to unpack any of that, Starscream dropped back into the lake until his helm was completely submerged. Water rushed into his audials and muffled the rest of their conversation. 

He decided to stay there until they vanished, or he drowned, whichever came first. 

"On your right," said Bitter Starscream, sounding bored. 

Starscream span and shot at the Autobot. It lunged for cover. "I saw it!" 

"Behind you." Bitter Starscream yawned, waving vaguely as Starscream pulled a gear in his neck twisting around quickly enough to shoot the next Autobot before it could fire on him. "You're surrounded. Call Megatron." 

Stress high, Starscream grit his denta, running hot and vents heaving from the exertion. "No!" 

"Two on the left." 

Starscream roared and fired a volley of shots. His blaster bolts ate through a support beam and some of the ceiling collapsed. He stumbled for cover, coughing, struggling to see through the dust. Bitter Starscream followed at a leisurely stroll. 

"You should know when you're beaten." He said. 

Starscream would much rather meet his end at the hands of the Autobots than surrender his self respect by sending an emergency ping to Megatron. "Shut up-" 

Three blaster bolts struck the computer bank he was sheltered behind. He struck his null ray out and fired blindly, until he heard the Autobots retreat for their own cover. 

"Brr-zzz!" The towering Beige Starscream declared from above, having apparently just arrived. He was too tall for the building and was conveniently standing with his head in the hole where the ceiling had collapsed. It gestured with a long arm in the direction of the power station where most of his faction were stationed. "Zzzrrrg!" 

Bitter Starscream nodded, "I agree." 

"You don't understand him!" Starscream hissed, sliding across the dirty floor to peak out around the computer. 

"I understand tone." Bitter Starscream sniffed. "He thinks you're a coward." 

"Rrhh-kk!" Beige Starscream bleeped in protest, tiny red optics narrowing dangerously at Bitter Starscream. It used it's taloned servo to gesture for Starscream to stay low, lifting it's helm and looking out towards the distance at something. "Ssss." 

"Oh," Bitter Starscream murmured, sounding delighted, "Looks like someone's coming to rescue your tasteless little frame after all." 

Yeah, right. Starscream scowled, "Now you're just being- 

The doors to the building blasted open with a ground shaking bang. Debris from the ceiling tumbled down, covering Starscream in dust, as the shuddering throom of fusion firing assaulted his audials. He threw his arms up to protect his helm, flinching when a steel support beam fell with an echoing clang inches from his position. 

"-scream!" A hoarse voice roared, and other blast of fusion blew down a wall not far from where Starscream had curled into a ball and started praying. Bitter Starscream was brushing none existent dust from his perfect shoulders. 

“Blast it all, Starscream!” 

Starscream recognised the exasperated manner in which his designation was being called.

Megatron? 

He poked his head out to look and Megatron was already striding towards him, cannon smoking. A blaster bolt flew through the air and scorched Megatron's left shoulder and he responded with a quick blast of his cannon, stride unbroken. 

"I had it under control-!" Starscream started, right before Megatron grabbed him by the back of his neck and hauled him to his pedes. 

It was because he was struggling against Megatron's hold, not because he was injured and his legs felt weak and his helm was spinning, that he stumbled on the rubble and was nearly shot with another stray blaster bolt. 

Megatron cursed, and with no warning whatsoever, bent down, shoved his shoulder into Starscream's stomach, and then stood with him thrown over it like a slack of spare parts, servo gripping his legs to prevent his escape. 

Stunned, Starscream could only gawp as he was carried off, the other Starscreams watching; Bitter Starscream smirking and Beige Starscream offering him a reassuring thumbs up. 

"I didn't need saving!" Starscream hissed, servos clutching the wound in his wrist where a blaster bolt had burnt right through his armour. "I had it under control!" 

Thank Primus, none of the apparitions were present to witness this. 

Megatron was glaring at him, unimpressed. "Why didn't you ping for reinforcements?" 

"I didn't need to." 

"You were surrounded." Megatron arched a brow. And Primus he thought he was so smart and handsome, what an idiot. "If your judgement is so skewered you can't recognise imminent death when it is staring you straight in the face perhaps a demotion is in order?" 

"Ha! Good luck finding a new Air Commander," Starscream called his bluff. 

"I'll have to find one anyway when you get yourself killed. Your pride will be the death of you," Megatron growled, leaning closer. "I should have left you among the rubble, let the Autobots teach you some humility." 

Starscream clenched his jaw, chin jutting out, leaning into Megatron's space to return the favour, "But you didn’t. You had to play the hero instead, didn't you? Running in there, guns blazing, throwing me over your shoulder-" 

"Because of your pathetic inability to even walk straight-" 

"You just wanted an excuse to put your filthy servos all over my armour, didn't you?" Starscream accused. 

Megatron's optics were blazing with anger and something in Starscream thrilled at the sight of it, delighted that he could infuriate Megatron so much, could get this kind of reaction from him. He smirked, wanting to goad him further. 

Megatron's optics darted away from his, just briefly, to glance at his lips. And Starscream’s smirk slipped. He was suddenly aware of how close they were. He could feel the heat from their frames mingling, smell the fusion wafting off Megatron's armour, hear the deep angry huffs of his vents working. 

Starscream glanced at Megatron's mouth, pressed into a firm, unhappy frown. 

Oh no, he thought, spark pulse picking up. Megatron's optics had dimmed to a warm smoulder. The tip of his nose brushed Starscream's. A servo lifted, and fingers brushed Starscream's hip. 

Oh no, he thought, shuttering his optics and tilting his helm. His lips parted and Megatron's breath wafted over them. His cockpit bumped Megatron's broad chest. Another hand lifted to hold his waist. 

Oh fine, he thought, as Megatron kissed him, lips warm but chapped. He circled his arms around Megatron's shoulders and leaned up on his toe pedes, and kissed back. 

"By the All-Spark, no!" Maroon Starscream wailed from behind him, completely ruining the moment. 

Starscream deepened the kiss, but only out of spite.