Chapter Text
“I don't like him.” Starscream announces loudly. “...He's creepy.”
His advisor, a decrepit old mech named Moongraze, rolls his optics and pinches the bridge of his nasal ridge.
“He's not there for you to like, Prince Starscream.” He says with the last dredges of his patience. “He's there to keep you safe.”
The new bodyguard standing before him doesn't move. His visor and mouthpiece hide his expression. He just… Stares, and stays as still as a statue. Incredibly offputting.
“I can keep myself safe.” Starscream sniffs disdainfully, eyeing the mech. “...He doesn't even have wings.”
“Soundwave can fly, don't worry.” Moongraze rolls his optics again. “I had imagined you would appreciate a quiet, obedient guard rather than someone… More like yourself.”
There's a thinly veiled insult there and Starscream's narrows his optics, bristling, but he doesn't really want to start an argument with the advisor right now.
No, he'd much rather pick apart the new guard and figure out how to make him lose his composure. So he has reason to fire him, and rub it in the old mech's ugly faceplate.
“Fine! Whatever. To my quarters, then.” He huffs, wings twitching irritably as he spins on his thruster and waltzes off down the hall to his room.
Measured footsteps follow. He does not look behind him.
When he enters his quarters, he perches on the edge of the berth, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back on his servos, eyeing the newbie with distaste and derision.
The door slides shut behind him as he takes one step in, no further.
“Can you even talk?” Starscream asks bluntly, lifting a servo to check his talons. After a beat of silence, he looks back up. The mech, Soundwave, was it?, nods once, curt and simple.
Starscream rolls his optics.
Ugh. Soldiers are always so dull.
“Speak.” He commands.
“Soundwave: fully capable of speech, Prince Starscream.” Soundwave says, voice low and electronic.
Starscream arches an optic ridge.
“Good boy.” He muses. “I suppose you make a decent enough guard cyber-dog. Do you know other tricks, too?” He cocks his helm, smirking. “Fetch, maybe? Shake?”
Soundwave says nothing.
“Let’s try something simple, dog.” Starscream shifts over on the berth and condescendingly pats the spot beside him. “Sit.”
Soundwave doesn't move, then slowly walks over and sits heavily on the berth, stiff, servos clenched in his lap with what might be irritation.
Starscream's smirk widens.
“Good boy.” He mocks, reaching over to pat a knee. It twitches minutely. “You're dreadfully dull, you know. Do you think for yourself at all, or did Moongraze have you custom made to be a boring wall of stone?”
“Prince Starscream: prefers disobedient subordinates?” Soundwave says immediately, dry and unimpressed.
Starscream pauses, blinking once, twice, processing.
“...Ha!” His wings flare and he grins viciously. “So you do bite. Much better. That is something I can play with. There’s a personality in there after all.” He flexes his talons eagerly. “I’ll dig it out if I have to.”
Soundwave does not flinch, but his helm tilts ever so slightly toward him.
“Threat: noted.”
“You’re not supposed to scare me, dog, you’re supposed to protect me.” Starscream muses, pushing at Soundwave's shoulder. He doesn't budge. “Yet you stand there like a looming shadow, and growl back when I poke you.”
“Protection: not mutually exclusive with intimidation.” Soundwave replies evenly. His tone is perfectly flat.
Starscream smirks, smug.
“Careful. If you’re not obedient, I’ll report you. I can have you scrapped before your plating ever gathers dust in my service.”
Which, of course, is exactly what he's hoping for.
Soundwave's visor glints in the low light of Starscream's quarters.
“If desired outcome: removal. Recommend efficiency. Proceed now.”
Tch. As if Moongraze would allow him to do so without demanding good reasoning.
He leans forward, voice dropping to a saccharine, velvety purr.
“You’re either very brave,” he coos, “or very stupid.”
“Soundwave: neither.”
A beat passes. Starscream studies him, wings twitching faintly, then he grins again, sharp and excited for a challenge.
“Oh, I’m going to enjoy breaking you.”
“Attempt: acknowledged.”
Starscream hums and stretches like a cyber-cat, wings lifting and settling with a restless little flutter. He tilts his helm and smiles at Soundwave.
“Since you’re so obedient, let’s play another game.” He gestures lazily towards the floor. “On your knees.”
Soundwave doesn’t move right away. Starscream's smile widens; resistance? Defiance, maybe? But after a long moment, the mech gets off the berth and lowers himself down with deliberate, heavy movements, kneeling at Starscream’s pedes. Starscream's engine rumbles with satisfaction.
“Good boy. Obedient indeed.” He leans forward, talons brushing under Soundwave’s chin, testing the give of his plating like one might test the sharpness of a blade. Firm, unyielding. A well made mech. “You make an excellent image, you know. Submissive and silent. Just the way I like my pets.”
No reaction. Nothing at all.
Starscream’s wings twitch.
Boring. Unacceptable . He presses harder with his talons, dragging them faintly against the silver of his mouthpiece until he hears the tiniest scrape of metal.
“…Really?” Starscream tilts his helm a bit like he's bored, frowning slightly in disappointment. “No flinch, no twitch, no sound?” He narrows his optics, dragging his servo down. His talons curl, catching against the seam of Soundwave’s throat plating. He leans down close. “How long do you think you can keep your silence before I strip it from you?”
A pause.
“Prince Starscream: welcome to try.”
Starscream scoffs, letting go and scooting backwards on the berth, lounging like a predator who’s cornered his prey but wants to play with it first. He gestures lazily with a servo, beckoning with one digit.
“Now. Crawl.”
Soundwave doesn’t move, at first. The pause is long enough that Starscream’s wings twitch with anticipation.
Then, just as deliberate as before, Soundwave shifts forward, placing one servo against the floor, then the other. His movements are measured, calculated, without a trace of humiliation. He doesn’t shuffle, or really even crawl; he prowls, with the slow inevitability of a predator closing in, even if the pose suggests submission.
Starscream leans back on his servos, optics narrowing, watching the way the light catches along the ridges of Soundwave’s plating as he obeys. He should look ridiculous like this. He should look small. But, somehow, he doesn’t.
Infuriating .
“You don’t even know how to obey properly.” He sneers, curling his derma, hiding the hint of unease he feels beneath mockery. “Crawling is supposed to be pathetic and demeaning, but you-” he waves a servo sharply, wings twitching irritably. “You manage to make it look... Not that. That defeats the point, you know.”
Soundwave stops, still on his knees.
“Prince Starscream: difficult to please.”
Starscream snorts.
“Difficult? I am impossible to please.” His wings flare, catching the low light, prideful. “And that, dog, is why you’re going to break.”
He slides off the berth, pacing around Soundwave in a slow circle. He tilts his helm, studying him from every angle like a craftsman assessing raw material. Soundwave sits back on his haunches but doesn't move to stand.
“You think you can sit there and stare me down forever, don’t you?” Starscream purrs. “But everything cracks. Everything bends. Even the strongest of alloys weaken when you strike them long enough, hard enough, cleverly enough.”
Soundwave’s helm turns to track him steadily as he circles, and offers him nothing in return.
Starscream stops directly behind him, talons ghosting across the edges of his shoulder plating before grasping tightly, digging in. He leans in to whisper in his audial.
“And you, dog , aren't going to last a solar cycle.”
He's met with silence. Grating, frustrating, bland silence. The lack of real reaction from his current audience gets under Starscream's casing like nothing else. He's used to bots fawning, or flinching, or giving him the respect he deserves as the Prince of Vos.
“Prince Starscream: underestimates difficulty of task.” Soundwave finally says.
Starscream rolls his optics.
“We’ll see.”
-
Soundwave is infuriatingly competent and frustratingly good at his job.
Starscream doesn't need a bodyguard. He's a prince, yes, but not helpless.
But if he did need one, Soundwave would definitely meet all the standards.
It grates on Starscream.
“Stop staring at me.” He snaps. He can't see his optics behind that stupid visor, but he can feel the weight of his gaze on his plating.
Soundwave doesn't move.
“Objective: keep Prince Starscream safe.”
“I know that . I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself, and glaring me down isn't going to protect me.” He huffs. His advisor is stupid for hiring Soundwave. Starscream should fire Moongraze, the elderly old mech-
“Soundwave: dedicated to the task.”
Starscream's wings flick irritably, talons tapping against the polished surface of his desk.
“‘Dedicated to the task’? You sound like a drone reciting its programming.”
Soundwave doesn’t so much as twitch. His looming, unflinching presence is like a shadow—silent, heavy, and utterly immovable.
Ugh.
Starscream leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his cockpit.
“You realize you’re wasting your time, don’t you? No assassin would be foolish enough to try anything while I’m in the palace. It would be suicide.”
There's a beat of silence. Starscream's optics narrow.
“…Unless you know something I don’t.” He adds, frowning.
Soundwave tilts his helm a fraction, as if acknowledging the statement.
“Threat assessment: elevated. Reason: attempted breach: eastern archives.”
Starscream straightens, wings angling high, alarmed.
“What? When? Why wasn’t I informed?” He demands.
“You are informed: now.” Soundwave tells him simply.
Starscream's optic twitches, sputtering.
“You-” His wings hitch higher, furious. “You waited until I asked? Do you take pleasure in tormenting me, or are you simply defective?” He hisses.
“Correction: Soundwave: efficient.”
-
Starscream storms out of the council chamber, wings flared so wide they nearly clip the doorway.
“A breach in the archives, and they only tell me now? Unbelievable! I’ll have Moongraze’s plating for this.”
Soundwave follows, silent and steady as ever.
Starscream whirls on him as they enter the corridor.
“And you—don’t think you’ve escaped my wrath! I could have you executed for- for withholding critical information until it amused you to reveal it!”
The words barely leave his vocalizer before the faintest whisper of metal-on-metal scrapes overhead. Starscream’s optics dart up; too late.
A dark shape drops from the ceiling rafters, blade gleaming.
Before Starscream can even flinch, Soundwave moves.
It’s not a step, not even a lunge—more like inevitability unfolding. One long arm catches the assassin mid-leap, crushing their wrist joint in an unyielding grip. The knife clatters to the floor. The other arm slams them hard into the wall with a servo over their intake, their casing cracking slightly on impact, yelp muffled by Soundwave's servo.
Starscream blinks.
The intruder thrashes, but Soundwave is immovable. His visor reflects the intruder's startled expression back at them as he pins them effortlessly. The intruder’s sharp venting, desperate and pained, echo down the corridor.
“Threat: neutralized.”
Starscream realizes, belatedly, that he’d pressed himself back against the opposite wall, wings trembling like a scared sparkling’s. He tries to regain composure, brushing his plating off to smooth the panic away, settling his faceplate into a scowl.
“Well. Obviously.” He manages, his tone brittle. “That was… a pathetic attempt. If I hadn’t been distracted by your stupid, unnecessary brooding, I could have handled it myself.”
Soundwave doesn't acknowledge that, instead turning his helm slightly towards Starscream.
“Prince Starscream: wants what done with the intruder?”
Starscream's ruby optics flit towards the squirming mech, their optics wide and panicked. He looks back at Soundwave, lifting his chin defiantly.
“...I suppose you are halfway decent at following orders.” He muses. “Kill him.”
“Mmph-” The intruder starts to protest, muffled.
Soundwave doesn't hesitate. The intruder's neck snaps, clean and easy, and they go limp, color slowly draining from their form until they're gray and lifeless.
Starscream grins viciously, watching as Soundwave lets go and the would-be assassin slumps to the floor, offline, a trickle of energon dripping from the corner of their intake.
“Good dog.” He purrs.
“Prince Starscream: not holding a leash the way he thinks he is.” Soundwave tells him flatly.
“No?” Starscream's grin widens. “What does that say about you, then, that you obey anyway?”
Soundwave says nothing.
Starscream turns away.
“Clean that up.”