Inward Toll

by Spoon888

Summary:

D-16 isn’t just a fan of Megatronus Prime.

-

A figure had moved into the recording, falling from the sky to land weightlessly beside Megatronus, transforming from altmode to bipedal in less than a sparkbeat and matching his Prime’s stride. It wasn’t the first time D-16 had seen this particular High Guard in holos. In fact, he featured frequently. Was something of a show stopper.

A jet.

Red, white, and blue.

Starscream. 

Chapter 1

Megatronus was the strongest of the Primes. So it stood to reason the bots under his direct command would be the strongest of the High Guard too. 

“Here,” Orion pressed a holo into the palm of D-16’s servo, just as he was about to settle back into his recharge pod. “Found another one.” 

“Megatronus?” D-16’s spark buzzed with excitement.

“Even better,” Orion flashed him a grin, settling into his own pod opposite.

D-16 had begun to build quite a collection of old world memorabilia, encouraged by Orion’s frequent finds. 

Because he idolised not just Megatronus, but the times he had lived in; when everything was fresh and new, when energon ran freely, when the planet and its inhabitants were protected by the dedicated and skilled ranks of the Cybertronian High Guard. 

Over time he had collected image stills, decals, holo-footage, archive files, anything with a link to that era, with Orion risking spark and limb to bring him grainy footage and staticky holos of the Primes and their High Guard in action. 

Megatronus was a Prime, chosen by Primus to lead his people, but the High Guards… they were just bots, like everyone else. Primus hadn’t chosen them, they had chosen duty, as loyal, ever-present figures at Megatronus’s side. 

Across from him, Orion had shut down into recharge. Many of the other miners had followed suit. 

D-16 leant out of his pod, looking left, then right. All the pods were occupied, everyone had turned in for the night. 

D-16 activated the holo Orion had given him, holding it close to his face. 

Megatronus appeared as a hologram in motion, marching through what looked like a battlefield, calling orders and directing troops. His stride was long and his great shoulders rolled as he walked. Within moments, another figure moved into the recording, falling from the sky to land weightlessly beside Megatronus, transforming from altmode to bipedal in less than a sparkbeat and matching his Prime’s stride. It wasn’t the first time D-16 had seen this particular High Guard in holos. In fact, he featured frequently. Was something of a show stopper. 

A jet. 

Red, white, and blue. 

Starscream. 

D-16 leaned back in his pod and zoomed in, focusing on the jet. His serious, handsome face and his strong agile frame. He walked beside Megatronus like he alone belonged there, his wings tall on his back, his helm high. His attention solely on Megatronus. 

D-16 pictured himself in the Prime’s place, standing tall and powerful, at the front of an army at his command, the brilliance of the High Guard at his beck and call. Starscream, at his beck and call. 

Through all the memorabilia he had collected, he had seen this jet do incredible things, awful things, unexpected things. It was obvious why he had been Megatronus’s favourite. D-16 had always wondered if Starscream’s exemplarily performance extended elsewhere?

He found himself wondering again, looking at him now. His frame began to warm. 

He shut down the holo, having seen enough, and glanced around the recharge station once more before allowing his codpiece to open with a quiet, pneumonic hiss. 

He thought of Starscream’s face, his full lips and his strong jaw, of the cinch in his waist, of the shape of his thighs, and grasped his spike, running his fingers down its length, then up. 

Starscream held his gun in a steady, unshakable grip. He would handle a spike just as well. 

D-16 pictured Starscream wrapping his fingers around him, imagined it was him pumping his length. Megatronus had been so much bigger than him, would he have even fit in Starscream’s servo?

As he jerked his spike quicker, harsher, D-16 began to imagine himself as a cogged mech, large and imposing and big enough to dwarf even a High Guard, even Starscream. He imagined pinning him to the floor by his wings, keeping him there with just his weight. He imagined Starscream moaning for him, like he would have done for Megatronus. Calling him big, calling him strong, telling him to give it to him, all of it. The High Guard’s duty was to serve their Prime, serve them in any capacity they could. 

D-16 bit his lip to keep from making noise, pumping his spike frantically.

He pictured Starscream’s valve, how the colours of his frame would match the mesh between his legs. His anterior node glowing and needy, flashing with every in-stroke, throbbing with every gasp and mewl. 

“Use me,” he’d hiss as D-16 relentlessly pounded into him, his hips clanging against Starscream’s polished aft, rubbing transfers into the paint, marking him as his. “Harder. Till I can’t walk, till I can’t fly-“

D-16 stilled his servo and began to thrust into it, feeling close to the edge, imagining Starscream beneath him, such a powerful bot held down and at his mercy, and enjoying it so much. D-16 would give it to him, everything, mark him every which way so the whole planet would know who he belonged to. More than just a lieutenant at his side, more than just a High Guard, his-

He overloaded, transfluid spilling over his digits as he wrung his overload out, thumbing over the tip of his spike, over and over again, picturing Starscream’s glossa in it’s place, lapping him up, swallowing him, praising how good he tasted. 

He slumped against the back of his pod, venting heavily, servo and wrist covered in transfluid.

Across from him Orion recharged on, oblivious to his friend’s perversions. 

As the high from his overload began to recede, D-16 felt his predictable shame creep in. 

It was a dishonour to the memory of Megatronus, to the memory of the High Guard, and to Starscream. He had been an accomplished warrior and leader, not a plaything, not Megatronus wartime whore. 

He lifted the holo Orion had found for him, playing it again. 

Starscream landed beside Megatronus, pedes light and graceful on the ground as he fell into step, strong and proud, helm tipped towards Megatronus, expectant and eager. 

D-16 switched it off and offlined his optics, leaning back in his pod. 

One cycle, he would find someone to look at him like that. 

Until then, he had his holos, and the distant memory of a loyal jet. 

Chapter 2

Days were longer on the surface, and Megatron was often weary and aching by the time he retired for the cycle. 

They were in the ancient city of Vos, built out of the depths of a chasm in the living earth, where energon was closer to hand, and Quintesson scanners struggled to reach. It’s architecture was an extension of Cybertron, complex and ever-shifting, and would have been impossible for a cogless mech to navigate. 

And even cogged now, Megatron struggled, when walkways transformed into slopes, when steps folded away beneath his very feet, when entryways sealed themselves into solid walls. 

“Blast!” Megatron snarled when he walked face-first into one, servo flying to his now dented nose. 

“You ought to get your optics checked,” a harsh voice reprimanded as someone shoved Megatron sideways. 

With a snarl, Megatron whirled around, denta bared. 

Starscream stood with his servos on his hips, mightily unimpressed. 

Megatron stamped down on the tiny whispers of admiration floating through his processor. Starscream was a pest, and seemed to be a constant presence when it came to these embarrassing mishaps, already ready to tut and roll his optics as Megatron stumbled his way through his new home. 

“You are following me?” Megatron accused. 

“I am guarding you.” Starscream’s optics narrowed. 

Megatron resented the implication he needed guarding, from anything. “Against what?!” 

“Solid walls, apparently.” Starscream huffed. 

Megatron turned his back on the seeker, armour locked with tension and his shoulders up to his audials. He stamped to the next entryway opening up, further down the walkway, and stepped through quickly, lest it seal in his face again. 

Infuriatingly, Starscream pranced through after him. 

“Leave me.” He ordered. 

“I will.” Starscream promised silkily. “When you’re safe and sound, back in your quarters.” 

It was infantilising, the High Guard’s treatment of their new leader. He was freshly cogged, yes, but not freshly built. And though Soundwave and Shockwave were being respectfully patient with his inexperience, Starscream was leaning hard on it as reason he could not, should not, lead.

Never mind Sentinel’s defeat at his hands. Never mind how much more prolific they had become at eradicating the Quintesson problem under his leadership. 

He was about to step out onto a sky-bridge that would take him across to the next building, when Starscream’s servo wrapped tight around his wrist, halting him. Megatron faltered, then went to tear himself free- 

“Unhand me, you-!“

The sky-bridge folded away beneath his pede and the only thing keeping Megatron from a hideous fall was Starscream dragging him back to solid ground. 

“Did you go blind in the mines?” He demanded, squeezing Megatron’s wrist before releasing him. 

Megatron hated how Starscream’s touch left his armour tingling. He clenched his fists. “Is that how to speak to your superiors?” 

Starscream smiled mockingly, “I don’t know if I have any.” 

Megatron advanced on him, drawing himself up to his full height. There had been a certain satisfaction to putting Starscream in his place before, to knocking him down off the throne he had built for himself and reminding him that he was a ‘guard’ not a King, not a Prime. 

Starscream stepped back, his optics bright with anticipation. 

“Then perhaps I should remind you,” Megatron warned dangerously, but it was full of a whole different sort promise. From the way Starscream’s wings quivered, the seeker had picked up on it. 

And it was, of course, at that exact moment that the metal beneath him decided to transform into a staircase. This time, Starscream didn’t reach out to steady him when he lost his balance and fell down it backwards. 

 

---

 

The Starscream of reality was a far cry from the Starscream of his youthful fantasies. He was worse, and Megatron found he preferred that actually. 

He was not loyal. He was not stoic. He was rarely ever brave. And he served nothing but his own miserable ambitions. 

But he was every bit as beautiful as the old holos had shown him to be. 

Megatron wondered if the seeker had treated Megatronus this way, had been so uncomplimentary with his feedback, so unhelpful with his advice, so apathetic to Megatron’s visions for the future. 

“‘Decepticons’,” Starscream repeated with a snort, slumped down in his seat at the meeting of their new high command. “I still don’t like it.” 

“No one asked you.” Shockwave boomed at him. 

Megatron glowered, but said nothing. Because Starscream liked to get a reaction, liked to poke and tease and ridicule and insult until someone had their servos around his spindly neck, throttling him. Megatron was beginning to suspect the seeker had a thing for it. That he wanted someone to hurt him. 

And those suspicions were quite quickly proven true, when one cycle, after Megatron navigated the gruelling labyrinthine of the constantly transforming city to get to his own private quarters, and found a seeker on his berth. 

He stepped in, and froze. 

Starscream sat on the end of Megatron’s horizontal recharge-slab (another novelty), his legs crossed at the knee, leaning back on his servos, chest pushed out and face tilted up, smiling. 

Megatron readied his cog, on the verge of activating self-defence protocols.

“…You weren’t getting the hint.” Starscream told him. 

“What hint?” Megatron’s voice came out a little raspier than he would have liked, wondering if his excessive fantasising had corrupted his processor and caused hallucinations. 

Starscream unfolded his legs, letting his thighs part, slowly. Megatron stared at the space in shadow between, heat building at his core. 

“This one.” 

Megatron found it difficult to move his legs. 

“It’s fine,” Starscream began stroking his leg, letting his pretty digits play with the tight seam along his inner thigh. “You’re not a Prime, and I don’t respect you as a superior. It’s not a abuse of power if you frag me.”

“Is that what Megatronus would tell you, when you tried to frag him?” Megatron asked. 

Starscream only smiled, beckoning him with a hooked digit. 

Still, Megatron hesitated. The object of his most deeply held fantasies was longing on his berth, asking for him, wanting him, and all he would be able to do is fumble his way through his first time interfacing and likely leave him wholly unsatisfied. 

After a moment, Starscream’s expression soured. His beckoning servo dropped. “What are you waiting for?” he demanded. 

Megatron managed to take a step, shaking his helm to clear it. His spike was tight with building pressure behind his panel, and like Pit was he missing this opportunity. 

“Nothing.” He grunted, stamping closer, trying to project an air of confidence, like he always had to around Starscream. 

But when he reached for the seeker, he found himself hesitating again, servo hovering over his bright frame. In his fantasies, they just fell into berth together, stroking and kissing. Starscream scowled up at him, quite unwelcoming. 

“…Don't tell me you’re a prude.” Starscream muttered. 

“No.” Megatron’s outstretched servo clenched into a fist. He looked aside. 

“Then-“ Starscream’s optics widened, his scowl melting away. “Haven’t you ever interfaced before?!” 

Megatron turned away swiftly, his arousal dimming in the face of potential ridicule. “Not for lack of interest.” He said quickly, hoping he didn’t sound defensive. “Mining quarters didn’t afford privacy.”

“That’s a shame.” Starscream hummed, not sounding anywhere near as cruel about it as Megatron would have expected him to. “But at least you won’t have any bad habits.” 

Megatron turned back around. Starscream was still on the berth. Still waiting for him. 

He leaned further back, giving Megatron a look, “Well?” 

Between his parted thighs, a snik sounded. The gleam of crimson bio-lights caught Megatron’s optics, and he stared. Starscream’s valve was not how he had pictured it. It featured vanity detailing, with pretty patterns and bio-lights twinkling like jewels. Starscream touched himself, playing with his node. 

Megatron’s mouth began to water. His spike pressed against the inside of his codpiece until he could bear it no more. He released it and sighed in relief as it was allowed to extend. He took it quickly, stroking away the ache. 

Starscream stared at it with a sharp, intense sort of excitement. 

“You understand the mechanics of it, I assume?” He purred, optics dim.

“Yes.” Megatron snapped, annoyed. 

“Well then,” Starscream laid all the way back, opening his legs wide. His valve mesh parted, and Megatron could see the inner folds, slick with lubricant, and the tiny hole that was his entrance, clenching in anticipation. 

He climbed over Starscream, feeling clumsy, unsure, and full of too much charge. The seeker’s frame was warm, and smelt of fragranced polish.  

Starscream grabbed his face and yanked him down, kissing him fiercely, biting at his lips, sucking on his glossa. Megatron struggled to keep up. Starscream was devouring him, but his lips were soft and polished, and he tasted like sweetened energon. Megatron groaned into kiss. His straining spike throbbed, transfluid welling up at the tip. 

Starscream’s leg hooked over Megatron’s hip and pulled him down, till they lay flush together. The need for friction had Megatron grinding his spike against Starscream’s warm, glossy armour, smearing transfluid in it’s wake.  

With a huff, Starscream reached between them and took it. Megatron tensed. Starscream’s servos were smooth and smaller than his own, but not as gentle as he thought they’d be. He hissed as Starscream stroked his spike, pumping it harshly, then brought it to his entrance. 

At the first brush of his spike to wet, hot metal, Megatron rolled his hips forward, unable to help himself, unable to wait, desperate for more. Starscream gasped like he’d been punched, but it was soon a high, delighted sound. Megatron groaned, sinking in deeper. It was wet and warm and so much tighter than he would have imagined, so tight he could feel every twitch, of every calliper in Starscream’s little valve. 

“Starscream.” He groaned, rocking his hips, sliding in and out, in and out, luxuriating in the greatest sensation he had discovered since his first transformation. 

Starscream was panting beneath him, squirming with every slow thrust in a restless sort of way. 

“Faster.” 

Megatron began to pick up his pace. 

“No, faster.” Starscream growled, “Harder.” 

Megatron adjusted his position, getting his knees under him again so he’d have better leverage. He started fragging Starscream like he’d seen mecha do in professional videos, rough and fast, using his weight to pin him down, to crush him against the berth.  

Starscream’s breaths came raggedly, “Is that the best you can do.” He challenged. “C’mon, c’mon- grab me! Hit me!” 

Megatron bared his denta, and did as he was told, slapping Starscream’s thigh-

“Harder-“

He slapped again, this time the clang of colliding metal rang out. Starscream gasped, clenching around him. “Again!”

Megatron did, slapping his aft, then squeezing it harshly. Starscream moaned, and it egged him on.

This is what Starscream wanted, this is what Starscream needed. As much as he needed being put in his place before the throne, he needed it here too, in the berth. 

Starscream grabbed Megatron’s servo suddenly, tearing it from where it was squeezing dents in his wing and bringing it to his throat instead. Megatron closed his servo around the seeker’s slender neck, a firm hold, but not hard enough to choke, not yet- 

Starscream pushed up into it, “Do it- do it-!” 

Megatron tightened his hold and Starscream wheezed, throwing his helm back. Suddenly, his valve was constricting, rippling around Megatron. Lubricant spurted out, displaced by the rough drive of Megatron’s spike to splash against their thighs.

“Meh-Meh-“ Starscream’s vocaliser spat static and fizzed, “Megatronus-! 

Something in Megatron’s psyche triggered, a mess of hero-worship and longing that tipped him over the edge. He shoved deeper and overloaded into Starscream, harder than he’d ever done before, bucking through the waves of charge wracking his frame, until finally, he was spent. 

He fell atop Starscream, his vents heaving, frame throbbing from the aftereffects. 

Starscream moaned beneath him, and after a moment to gather his strength, Megatron rolled off him. 

Starscream was in a less than dignified state; face bright, coolant leaking from his optics, his armour scuffed and streaked with fluid. 

“Needs some work,” he mumbled, cracking a hazy optic online to look over Megatron. “But not a bad start.” 

‘Not a bad start’, the highest praise Megatron had earned off this seeker yet.