~Lucía~

The hangar was quiet except for the steady hum of the Ark's systems.

Starscream leaned against Skyfire's broad chassis with all the confidence of someone who refused to admit he'd come here on purpose.

"You have been avoiding me," Skyfire said.

"I've been busy."

"You've been hiding."

Starscream scoffed. "You always did think you knew me better than I know myself."

Skyfire smiled; a small, patient expression that somehow irritated Starscream more than any insult. "Because I do."

The jet pushed away from the larger mech, wings flicking. "Arrogant."

"Honest."

The silence stretched between them, full of stellar cycles neither of them could erase.

"You still look at me like I'm the scientist you left behind," Skyfire said quietly.

"And you still look at me," Starscream replied, softer than he'd intended.

The shuttle stepped closer, careful, giving Starscream every opportunity to retreat.

He didn't.

"I remember Vos," Skyfire murmured. "The stars. You explained every constellation as though you owned the sky."

"I practically did."

"I remember thinking no one burned brighter."

Starscream laughed, though it lacked its usual edge. "That's dangerously sentimental."

"I'm allowed one sentimental moment every few thousand vorns."

"Only one?"

"Unless it makes you smile."

"It didn't."

"It almost did."

Starscream rolled his optics.

Almost.

Skyfire reached, brushing a servo lightly against Starscream's wing strut in a gesture that was more reassuring than possesive.

"You don't have to keep fighting me."

"I know."

"But you probably will."

"Absolutely."

The bigger mech chuckled, the sound low and warm. "There's the Starscream I remember."

For a moment, the war, the betrayals, and the impossible distance between them seemed to dissolve into the quiet of the hangar.

Starscream rested his forehead briefly against Skyfire's chestplate before pulling away as though he'd never done it at all.

"Don't get used to this."

"I'll treasure it anyway."

"...You're insufferable."

"And yet you came to find me."

Starscream's wings fluttered in embarrassment and reluctant amusement.

"Don't make me regret it."

"I won't."

For once in a very long time, Starscream allowed himself to believe it.

A/N: I've always wanted to write a fluff fanfic about these two and I'm super OBSESSED with them rn!!! I wanted to make it larger but I was afraid my writing inspiration could suddenly vanish (trust me, I know me too well)

The battlefield was silent.

Not peaceful (Cybertron had forgotten peace long ago) but silent in the way a frame fell quiet after surviving too much pain.

Jetfire knelt beside the containment chamber cradled in his hands.

Within it floated a tiny sphere of yellow light.

Starscream's spark.

It flickered weakly.

"...Still here," Jetfire whispered.

For the first time in countless stellar cycles, his voice held hope instead of obedience.

Behind him, Soundwave emerged from the dust.

"DECEPTICON FORCES REGROUPING."

Jetfire didn't look up.

"I know."

"MEGATRON REQUESTS YOUR PRESENCE."

"...Does he?"

"CORRECTION."

Soundwave tilted his head.

"MEGATRON EXPECTS YOUR PRESENCE."

Jetfire almost laughed.

The old him, the loyal Autobot commander, would have bristled at the implication.

Now?

Now he was simply tired.

──

The Decepticon camp had no grand fortress.

No towering monuments.

No banners proclaiming eternal victory.

Just engineers repairing one another.

Workers rebuilding shattered shelters.

Medics treating Autobots and Decepticons alike.

Jetfire stared.

He'd spent millennia believing these robots were monsters.

Yet every horror he'd witnessed...

Every execution.

Every "necessary sacrifice".

Every order from Goldbug...

Every betrayal by Ultra Magnus...

...had come from his own side.

Megatron approached quietly.

"You came."

"I brought him."

Jetfire held up the spark chamber.

Megatron's blue optics softened.

Not with triumph.

With grief.

"So much was taken from us."

Jetfire finally asked the question that had haunted him since Goldbug snuffed Starscream's frame.

"...Why did he always spare me?"

Megatron answered immediately.

"Because Starscream never stopped believing you could choose."

Silence.

Jetfire lowered his head.

"I never deserved that faith."

"No."

Megatron's answer was brutally honest.

"But you can earn it."

──

Orns passed.

Cybertron did not become paradise.

The Autobots still ruled much of the planet.

Their prisons still overflowed.

Their propaganda still painted the Decepticons as demons.

But it changed.

Without the endless cycle of revenge, cities that had known only occupation opened their gates.

Former Autobots surrendered.

Some Decepticons demanded executions.

Megatron refused.

"We are not just ending a war. We are ending the beginnings of all possible wars in the future."

Many hated him for it.

Jetfire admired him more each day.

Whenever refugees escaped into Decepticon territory...

The shuttle greeted them.

Not as commander.

Not as interrogator.

Simply as another survivor.

Some spat in his face.

Others screamed at the sight of his insignia.

He accepted both.

One former Autobot medic finally asked him,

"Why don't you wear your badge anymore?"

Jetfire looked down.

The cracked purple Autobot emblem remained on his armor.

He pulled a knife from his hip.

Without ceremony...

He scraped it away.

Metal screamed.

Paint flaked.

The symbol disappeared.

Beneath it remained bare steel.

"I haven't earned another one."

──

Time kept going forward.

Starscream's spark pulsed stronger.

Ratchet believed a new body might eventually be possible.

Jetfire visited every cycle.

Sometimes he simply sat beside the chamber.

Sometimes he talked.

About everything.

About flying.

About old battles.

About arguments.

About mistakes.

Mostly his mistakes.

"I should have listened."

The spark shimmered.

"I called you a traitor."

A brighter pulse.

"You were trying to save me."

Another pulse.

Jetfire smiled sadly.

"I hope that's your way of saying I was an idiot."

The chamber flashed.

Soundwave, standing in the doorway, spoke without changing expression.

"STATISTICALLY PROBABLE."

Jetfire groaned.

"You've been waiting to say that."

"CORRECT."

──

The war was over.

Not because anyone had won.

Because there was no one left who still believed victory meant anything.

Jetfire stood on the highest tower of ruined Iacon, wings folded tight against the cold wind. Below him, Autobots and Decepticons worked side by side, clearing debris that had once been monuments to conquest. Nobody barked orders anymore. Nobody demanded loyalty.

Only work.

Only rebuilding.

His scanners detected familiar engine signatures.

"You're brooding again."

Megatron landed beside him with surprising grace for someone carrying enough fusion firepower to level a city.

Jetfire didn't take his optics from the scenary.

"I'm thinking."

"That's worse, knowing you."

Silence returned.

Finally, Megatron spoke again.

"You've been offered command three times."

"I declined."

"You would have made a competent leader."

Jetfire laughed; a bitter, tired sound.

"I spent most of my life serving monsters."

He remembered Emperor Prime.

Gold City's deceased ruler.

The endless speeches about peace delivered through a smoking rifle barrel.

"I don't trust anyone who wants power."

Megatron nodded once.

"Neither do I."

That was why they understood each other.

──

One evening, Ratchet found him sitting on a cliff overlooking Cybertron's horizon.

"The frame is ready."

Jetfire froze.

"...Really?"

Ratchet nodded.

"The spark accepted."

Together they entered the laboratory.

The chamber opened.

Starscream's spark drifted slowly into a newly forged frame...

And nothing happened.

"The spark is healthy. The mind..."

The medic sighed.

"...is choosing whether to come back. There's little we can do."

Jetfire seemed ready to once again fall into the abyss of dispair that had accompanied him for ages.

He wanted to grab Ratchet and demand solutions from him, by any means necessary.

However, he thought (and slightly ironically), that precise way of thinking is what had gotten him in this entire situation.

Suddenly, light exploded across the room.

Servos twitched.

Wings flexed.

Optics glowed.

Starscream inhaled sharply.

His first sight...

...was Jetfire standing there, unable to speak.

Starscream smiled.

"I knew you'd find your way eventually."

Jetfire laughed.

Then, for the first time since the war began...

He cried.

And for once...

No one considered it weakness.

──

Stellar cycles turned into vorns.

Cybertron slowly healed.

Jetfire never accepted a rank higher than advisor.

Instead, he rebuilt flight academies and abandoned launch towers.

Restored forgotten shuttle routes.

Turned military airfields into schools.

Whenever someone asked why...

He gave the same answer.

"Because the sky belongs to everyone."

Sparklings born after the war knew Jetfire differently.

Not as an Autobot commander.

Not as a Decepticon hero.

As the giant who taught them to fly.

Young Cybertronians learned navigation before warfare.

Rescue operations before bombing runs.

Diplomacy before dogfighting.

The first class graduated beneath a clear metallic sky.

One student raised a servo.

"Commander Jetfire?"

"I told you not to call me Commander."

"...Professor, then."

He sighed.

"That's better."

"Why didn't we learn combat formations first?"

Jetfire looked across the horizon.

Because once, he had believed the greatest purpose of wings was to dominate the sky.

Now he knew better.

"Wings," he said quietly, "were never meant to carry weapons."

The recruits waited.

"They are meant to carry hope."

──

The former evil scientist found a damaged seeker patrol beacon buried beneath Kaon's rubble.

Autobot.

Old.

One of his own.

The signal still carried his authorization.

He could have erased it.

Instead...

He answered.

"This is Jetfire."

Static.

Then frightened voices.

"...Commander?"

He closed his optics.

"No."

"I'm not your commander anymore."

A pause.

"If you're tired of fighting..."

"...come home."

They came.

Not all.

But enough.

Seekers.

Scientists.

Engineers.

Medics.

Soldiers.

Former enemies.

Former monsters.

None trusted each other.

Jetfire understood.

Neither did he.

He just hoped he learned to. With time.

──

Deca-cycles later, Jetfire visited the chamber where Starscream rested.

Not alive.

Not exactly.

His frame floated inside a containment field, surviving in suspended animation until it became capable of sustaining itself.

Red optics met a yellowish-glowing cockpit.

"You look terrible," Starscream's voice echoed through the bond.

Jetfire smiled despite himself.

"Still insulting people while you're a disembodied spark."

"I have standards."

The shuttle stepped closer.

"I keep wondering..."

"Wondering what?"

"What would've happened if I had listened to you sooner."

Starscream was quiet.

"You would've gotten yourself killed."

"Probably."

"And I would've gone off to avenge you."

Jetfire blinked.

"...Really?"

Starscream's spark pulsed brighter in a rather shy way.

"Don't make me repeat myself."

──

That evening, Megatron found him watching dozens of young fliers streak across the sunset.

"No speeches?" Megatron asked.

"I've heard enough speeches for one lifetime."

Megatron actually chuckled.

"They adore you."

"They don't need a hero."

"No."

"They need someone who remembers what failure costs."

The two veterans watched the students perform clumsy aerial maneuvers.

One nearly crashed.

Jetfire instinctively launched into the air, caught the youngster before impact, and gently set them back on course.

The student looked up.

"Thanks!"

Jetfire smiled.

For the first time in countless megacycles...

...it didn't hurt.

Above Cybertron, black-and-purple wings carved a quiet path through peaceful skies.

Not as a soldier.

Not as a commander.

Simply as Jetfire.

And that was enough.

A/N: I have so many ideas written down but I just don't have the time or skills to make them come to life. If anyone's interested, go ahead and adopt them. A quick mention is all I ask in return. My goal is to keep posting short oneshots and mini-stories that will keep spreading as long as the writing curse doesn't get me... again. It will, eventually. It kinda already did. I'm doomed :D