You scratch my back, I scratch yours.

Wrapping himself in the comforting pull of the bond, Megatron felt himself begin to relax.

Hindsight, from Megatron? He never thought he’d see the day. Maybe Megatron was getting old. Apologizing? Expressing gratitude? Was this really the same genocidal revolutionary he’d followed through burning cities, trampling the dead and dying underfoot?

I’ve always heard it said that there’s nothing so inconsistent as the spark. Perhaps binding two together makes them twice as unreliable.

[This isn’t the way you expected to be repaid after you saved my miserable plating, I’ll wager?] Then he did laugh, mirthlessly but deeply. [I told you I wouldn’t let you regret it.]

A beat passed, and he caught himself thinking that he truly was, without a doubt, in too deep with no way out. It was a content prison.

A heavy ‘but’ hung in the void between them, swallowed by uncertainty and tainted with a brief pulse of fear Megatron didn’t know how to control.

He had lost limbs before, had been out of commission for extended periods of time during the war, and he had never felt what he did now, because in the before, there hadn’t been any question as to whether or not he’d be returned to perfect working order. Before there was never any doubt.

Now, however…now there was a very real possibility that he’d never be the same.

Megatron was... afraid. It wasn’t an emotion Starscream had dealt with often in the other, most of it having happened long before the war when the warlord had been called Megatronus and had feared what the next day of revolution would bring. Starscream had seen fear in Megatron so rarely that even now, after seeing it twice before, he still took far too long to form a response.

»Now, if you’ll get comfortable on the medberth we can get started.« She stated simply as she thoroughly sterilized her hands. The femme turned back to Starscream as he finished settling, her holopad appearing from her visor. »A few routine questions first.«

Quick as she was to rattle off the questions, Starscream was equally swift in responding, thankfully speeding up the rather mundane process. She recorded his responses, simultaneously updating his medical chart where it was needed. It didn’t take long, the medic giving an appreciative nod for his cooperation. While regarding the hole in his cockpit she ran a comprehensive scan of his entire frame, gradually narrowing it down toward the area of obvious injury as little else was revealed. A tray was set aside, dexterous claws wielding a pair of tweezers.

It would have felt so much less like a forced visitation, as well. Almost as if he’d wanted to swing by anyway, and all of his maimed extremities were just a random happenstance of coincidence. Knock Out would have quipped snarky banter at Starscream at the same time that he dug shrapnel out of his chassis, and they would both laugh the horror of war off as they mocked Megatron behind his back.

That was so long ago. The war was done, Knock Out was gone, and Megatron no longer required mocking. At least, not as often. Starscream lay on his back to give Zephyr better access to his internals and popped the seal of his cockpit, wondering how long before, or if ever, the two of them might reach familiarity. He wondered if he was even ready for that.