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ckret2 · 6 years

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Here’s my @secretsolenoid gift for Kiwii! The prompt was “[IDW] Megastar: dancing”! (You also made a reference in your wishlist to drawing and i spent all december like “o shit are you hoping for fanart” i hope you’re okay with fanfic i am sorry im but a humble ficwriter.)

Also posted on AO3 here.

About 3k words of Starscream talking Megatron into learning to dance as Iacon burns.

“Lead Me”

For the first time since Optimus took control of the Autobots, the Decepticons held part of Iacon.

Just a small corner of it, west of the Septentrio Expressway, not quite reaching all the way north to the warehouse district—far from where Metroplex had squatted down over the Citadel. But it was several square miles—most of which they’d already gleefully bombed to rubble the day before, and tonight were very personally finishing the job of flattening—and it included a massive convention hall with underground hotel facilities that had been once used by the Senate and those few elites who had been rich enough to move in the senators’ circle.

Now, the hotel facilities were Decepticon bunkers—even with six to the average room, it was far more luxurious than anything they'd had in Kaon—and the convention center on top was filled with weapons and makeshift medical facilities. Most of which were currently empty, except for a couple of stragglers getting outfitted with weapons; everyone else was in the streets, slaughtering the cowardly neutrals who had failed to evacuate the blocks that the Decepticons now controlled—making an example of those who didn't either bow down to the Decepticons or get out of their way.

Megatron had elected to spend this battle—if it could really be called that—back in their headquarters. This close to Metroplex, if he showed his face outside, it would invariably lure Optimus into battle, and he felt his troops deserved an opportunity to slaughter the civilians in peace without having to worry about Autobot retribution. Shockwave had stayed behind as well and was somewhere in the armories, no doubt scavenging parts from the choice weapons for some unsanctioned experiment. Soundwave was out with the troops, going street by street and building by building, telepathically scanning them one by one for survivors hiding in the dark, and sending his friends in to kill them.

Which left one question.

Where was Starscream?

Megatron hadn't seen or heard him anywhere in the convention center-turned-base of operations. His comm unit was off. A call to Thundercracker, out dropping bombs on tall buildings with Skywarp, confirmed that Starscream wasn't with them, although Megatron commanded Thundercracker to report if they found Starscream. Where was he? Starscream wasn't the type to vanish quietly into the shadows, especially when there was a victory to revel in—and if the victory was too boring for his tastes, he was eager to let Megatron know. So what in the world...?

He was trying to decide whether he should be irritated or start suspecting foul play when he got a comm from Skywarp. "Found him! Sir."

"He's with you?"

"No, sir!" Skywarp sounded far too chipper for Megatron to like where this was going. "He's back at the command center."

"Where?"

"In that big room, near the top, with the giant window wall."

Megatron had surveyed this building top to bottom, and there was only one room that met that description. "The ballroom?"

"Yep!" And Skywarp promptly hung up—Megatron would have Starscream chew him out for that later—before Megatron could ask what, exactly, Starscream was doing there.

One way to find out. He found the stairs and headed up.

Megatron found the entrance to the ballroom—entrances, really, an absurd bit of ostentation, three broad double doors right next to each other, each tall enough to accommodate a shuttle with a car standing on each shoulder—and pushed wide the door that Starscream, evidently, had left ajar. And stopped dead in the doorway. "What on Cybertron are you doing?"

Starscream stumbled, but didn't stop. "I suppose you talked to Skywarp?" Which didn't answer Megatron's question, but really, it didn't need answering; Megatron might not have been terribly acquainted with the high arts, but he knew dancing when he saw it. "He was waving at me from the window." Starscream gestured toward the massive floor-to-ceiling window that covered the long wall of the empty ballroom, from which in the day time there could have been an excellent view of the one-sided battle below—but in the dark, only the fires and occasional tiny flashes of lasers were clearly visible.

Starscream turned the gesture toward the window into a twirl as he glided across the floor. If he was at all self-conscious about having been caught dancing alone by Megatron—and Megatron had little doubt he must be—he was doing an excellent job of hiding it by carrying right on with what he'd been doing. That, Megatron thought, deserved a little admiration.

But only a little. "You're not going out to raze the city?"

"Is it an order?"

"No. But I thought you'd be able to appreciate the value of helping."

"Hah! We're bombing empty buildings and civilians." He twisted his wings as he spun, and Megatron could feel the breeze from the air they displaced. "They don't need my help."

"It's not about whether help is needed. There's no serious resistance out there, and that's precisely why we're fighting them—to give the troops a chance to celebrate, and to assert the superiority of the Decepticons. To show how easily their city crumbles and their people fall. We're dominating Iacon."

"Hmm." Starscream twirled across the floor, and in the split second that Megatron's gaze was captured by Starecream's arms and shoulders rather than his legs, he could have sworn Starscream was gliding, his motions were so effortlessly smooth. "You're not going to dominate anything until you take out Metroplex."

Starscream was, regrettably, right. Megatron looked past him and out the massive windows at Iacon. Even from here, even with the fires and intermittent explosions occasionally overtaking the dark, even with the reflection of the ballroom making it hard to see through the window—he could see the dull red light, the one atop Metroplex's tallest tower, flashing on and off like a single optic winking tauntingly at Megatron: here I am, here I still am.

They could crush all of Iacon to dust, but until they conquered the Autobots' stronghold, they'd dominated nothing.

"It's psychological warfare," Megatron said crankily. "To terrify and intimidate the opposition, and make them easier to crush. Not your area of speciality, I know."

Starscream snorted. "You're only terrifying neutrals, and they're already terrified. The Autobots aren't going to be impressed at seeing we can kill unarmed, defenseless civilians. If anything, they'll be inspired to revenge on the civilians' behalf."

Revenge they wouldn't be able to get, because they were too weak to do anything but hide behind Metroplex's walls, and the Decepticons had just seized control of the main route by which they were bringing in supplies; but Megatron couldn't make that point without first conceding that this wasn't about intimidating the opposition, and he wasn't ready to surrender that point yet.

He was still contemplating his next argument when Starscream continued: "Besides, if you're going for psychological warfare, a fighter jet dancing in a ballroom used by senators is far more terrifying than a pack of fighter jets dropping bombs."

Megatron could see what Starscream was getting at—oh, the existential horror that would inspire in Functionists—but he was going to make Starscream work for the point before he awarded it. "And how is that more terrifying?" Go on, Starscream, elucidate your argument. Megatron started a global resistance movement with a couple of essays; he grades hard.

Starscream arched back, lifting one leg into the air—could he lift it as high as his head? Primus below—and wrapped a hand under his knee to help keep it lifted. "Thrusters," he said, kicking his lower leg demonstratively. "I'm going to leave horrifying scrapes and exhaust stains all over their pretty marble floor."

"HAH!" Megatron hadn't expected that answer. He didn't mean to laugh. Starscream obviously knew that, if the smug smirk he favored Megatron with as he lowered his leg was anything to judge by. All right. Megatron conceded the argument to Starscream. He was more productively serving the Cause by dancing than he would be by bombing Iacon.

And not just by scratching the marble. A fighter jet dancing in a senators' ballroom was equivalent to flashing one's tail lights at the entire lineage of Primes and the Functionist Council all at once.

Megatron had often wondered: if he were to ever write another essay, what would it be about? It seemed unlikely that he would. Right now, he was far too busy waging war to focus his thoughts on writing—if there was one thing that could be said for mining, it was that it was mindless enough that he could turn his mental faculties to writing in his head as he worked. And ideally, once the war was over, there'd be nothing he lacked the power to fix through direct action and so he’d have no need to try to change it through polemics. But, if he did write again...

He had already decided that his next treatise would be on Starscream: a case study on the mistake of Functionism. Because of the shape of his wings, the density of his armor, and the power of his thrusters, he was relegated to the position of common soldier. The highest rank he could ever hope to achieve in life was cannon fodder for the Primal Vanguard. Anyone who ever met him could easily see what a waste to Cybertron it would be to force him to serve as a flying gun.

Within moments of meeting Starscream, even as he was still gushing enthusiasm at meeting his gladiatorial idol, Megatron could see how his entire personality sparkled with charisma. And it didn't take another half hour, as Starscream introduced himself to the growing Decepticon movement and struck up small conversations, for it to become obvious how intrinsically brilliant he was and what a keen observer he was of his surroundings. After making a single circuit of the Decepticon headquarters and returning to Megatron, the first thing he’d asked was "So where do you keep the big guy who splits into two vehicles locked up when he's not terrorizing gladiators?"—based on nothing but what he'd seen of Overlord in combat against Megatron, Starscream had concluded that he was 1) part of the Decepticons, even though he wasn't currently visible, and 2) too dangerous to be allowed out by himself. Astoundingly astute.

Starscream brought in recruits in droves—he knew just what to say to inspire devotion to the Decepticon Cause, when even Megatron's own words could not. He made himself welcome and indispensable everywhere, smiling and and simpering for the Senators until they let him into their confidences, smirking and swaggering for the laborers and gutter trash who needed to see someone from their end of the social ladder who could carry himself like a king. He had the benefit of no education but a fighter jet's standard boot camp training. And yet, he had the mind, the wit, the cunning, the acumen of any of the most highly-trained military minds he had been pitted against so far. He should have been—and Megatron would never use this as a compliment for anyone else—he should have been a politician.

He was cannon fodder. Had he been shipped out with the Primal Vanguard and died on an alien world, the Vanguard wouldn't have considered his body important enough to carry home.

Starscream alone was reason enough to justify this war.

If Megatron ever wrote that treatise—he didn't think it was necessary, now, but if he did—this would be how Megatron introduced it: with Starscream dancing, arms outstretched, wings upraised, legs gliding across the floor. Mechs with Starscream's frame—mechs with any warrior frame at all who hadn't been promoted to the position of global hero—were described as heavy, burly, graceless, thuggish, clomping. Starscream was twice as graceful as mechs with half his armor.

Starscream pirouetted on the tip of one foot, wobbled, stumbled to catch himself, and abruptly turned to face Megatron. "You know what would be even more horrifying than watching a fighter jet dance."

"What?"

"A miner."

"Absolutely not."

"Oh, come on." Starscream kicked the floor where he'd failed his pirouette; he'd left a nasty scratch in the marble. "Don't think you can top that?"

"I have no interest in trying," Megatron said stiffly. "Dancing is a waste of time. The idle pursuit of alt-mode exempt mechs who want to gloat about the leisure that being freed from a function affords them."

"All the more reason to do it! Since everyone should be alt-mode exempt, right?"

"Wrong. It's a hobby that's been claimed by mechs at the peak of a hierarchy that should never have existed. Imitating them would make it look like I'm aspiring to be like them. My goal is to tear them down, not to seat myself among them."

"Believe me, Megatron, there's no one left alive who would mistake you for an aspiring idle aesthete. I don't think your reputation would be irrevocably damaged if you whirled around the dance floor a couple of times." Starscream planted a hand on his hip and—his optics glittering in challenge—said, oh so very casually, "Anyway, the rest of High Command has been taught how to dance, who could hold it against you if you learned too?" A double insult: the suggestion (accurate) that Megatron not only chose not to dance but also didn't even know how; and the suggestion that, by not doing so, he lacked a skill that all of his commanders had. It was a low blow and an elitist accusation, and one that Megatron couldn't pay Starscream back for without making it look like he'd been insulted. And Starscream knew it, if his smirk was anything to go by.

Megatron would make him regret the jab later. For now, he could only challenge the validity of it. "You? Have been taught how to dance? I would think this,” he made a vague gesture that was supposed to be indicative of Starscream's graceful-but-unstructured glides across the floor, "this prancing wouldn’t be considered ballroom appropriate."

"Oh, of course not! That, I'm making up as I go. But I've been taught to dance properly." He snapped his heels together, raised his arms as if to support an invisible partner, and started dancing neatly, his steps forming smooth, uniform squares across the floor. "Taught by a superior who'd been to officer school—they learn in case they go to any Senate functions; anyone who moves in senators' circles is expected to know how. It might not be formal classroom training, but it's good enough that Zeta Prime never questioned my credentials as a delegate to the Senate." Starscream flashed a wink as he turned his invisible partner around a ninety-degree corner. Megatron scowled. The thought of Zeta with his filthy hands, gilded in fake armor, clutching at Starscream's waist...

"That hardly means the rest of High Command knows how."

"Shockwave was a senator. He knows, of course."

Wasn't that a wild mental image—Shockwave, dancing. "He would never."

"No, but he knows."

"Soundwave doesn't. His background is no higher than yours or mine." Megatron still didn't know Soundwave's exact origins—Megatron didn't even know Soundwave's full name—but Ravage had made passing comments to taking Soundwave in, which meant whatever his background, it had started lower than a cold constructed beastformer with no bipedal mode.

"Do you think Ratbat let his top agent get away with not learning how to dance? Even secret Senate messengers must represent their bosses well."

"At what? Black market business meetings?"

"Even black marketeers have balls."

Megatron laughed derisively.

"I'm serious! Ask Soundwave. Or Ratbat himself, if you want all the greasy details," Starscream said. "Should I go on? You wouldn't believe what Scorponok—"

"That's enough." Megatron had watched Scorponok cave Grimlock's face in, he didn't want to hear that he could dance too.

Starscream finally danced around to facing Megatron again, and favored him with a deceptively sweet little smile. "Well?"

"... All right." Starscream knew Megatron too well. Megatron couldn't abide the thought of being unable to do something his subordinates could. He walked onto the dance floor, head high and feet planted wide, as though proudly stepping into the gladiatorial ring. "Show me."

Starscream broke off his dance with his invisible partner, his little smile spreading into a wide grin. "Since this is your first lesson, and I'm going to be teaching you…” There was something subtly menacing behind his words as he said, "I will lead."

"For now," Megatron said, with what he thought was more indulgence than the look in Starscream's optics warranted. "Show me where to put my hands."

One hand in Starscream's hand, the other on his shoulder. Starscream's free hand settled on the corner under Megatron's arm, and Megatron immediately tensed, battle protocols quietly activating and rearranging his HUD, hyper-aware of the palm pressed to his side and the fingers against his back. And it occurred to him that, since he had left the mines, the only people who had touched his torso were either medics or enemies determined to kill him. The hand felt wrong. It felt dangerous.

Megatron's apprehension must have shown on his face—and an apprehensive-looking Megatron was a deadly-looking Megatron—because Starecream's smirk quickly shrank to nothing and he now looked rather like he was reconsidering this entire conversation. He could probably feel the heat of Megatron's cannon warm up next to his head. "... Sir?" He loosened his grip on Megatron's back.

Megatron tightened his grip on Starscream's shoulder, pulling him close enough that their chests nearly touched and the EM fields orbiting their sparks could brush against each other.

Perhaps Starscream had the body of a soldier, but he had the mind and spark of a politician—and a good politician, at that. If he ever decided he wanted to defeat Megatron, he wouldn't be doing it in single combat. Even a knife in the back mid-dance was too brazen an assault. Megatron had nothing to fear from the hand on his back.

It was the clever, smirking little mouth he had to watch out for. The mouth that turned day laborers into terrorist soldiers, that let cannon fodder walk confidently among senators, and that convinced miners to dance.

"You said you'll lead?" Megatron asked. "Then lead me."

Starscream's optics brightened. His grip tightened again. "As you command." He leaned forward, pressing his right knee into Megatron's left. "Everything I do, you do in reverse." Megatron stepped back with his left foot; Starscream's foot followed. "Just like that."

Megatron wasn't nearly as graceful as Starscream. But by the time the guns fell silent and the fires began to die down, Megatron had successfully learned how to dance from one side of the ballroom to the other.

He was far prouder of the ugly scuffs they left across the ballroom floor.

#starscream #megatron #megastar #transformers #maccadam #secretsolenoid #my writing

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