Dance Lessons

[heliopauseentertainments]

For MegaStar Week 2022

Day 3 Prompt: Music / Dance

Continuity: General

Rating: General

Relationship: Megatron/Starscream

Characters: Megatron & Starscream

AU: Some canon divergence, canon blending

Warnings: N/A. Please see AO3 entry for full applicable tags.

Summary: In which Starscream gets frustrated while teaching Megatron how to dance correctly.

Crossposting: AO3 | Tumblr | Pillowfort

Fic under cut

 

“Stop! Stop it!”

Starscream waved his arms in offense, prying them free of clinging hands in the process. His wings flapped frantically to provide more leverage. Unnecessary since Megatron had let go, but a little show of defiance could go a long way down the road.

All the while, the upbeat music continued to play in the background. Soundwave paid them no mind as he sat with his datapad in the far corner of the throne-room, reading Primus knew what.

“You graceless oaf!”

Over these past few years, he had come to absolutely despise Kaon’s ancient “keep what you kill” laws, left over from when the province had been a mostly uninhabited part of the Darklands, before the “Golden Age.”

“I’m sick of your two left feet and your death-grip!”

He furiously pointed down at Megatron’s feet, which had mercilessly trodden on his own no less than five times in as many minutes.

Starscream hollered over his shoulder to Soundwave.

“Cut the music!”

The music stopped long enough for Soundwave to play a recorded “record scratch” noise, but resumed immediately after at a lower volume.

Whatever.

At first, those ridiculous laws had provided a legitimate foothold when their band of revolutionaries had toppled the local council and aristocrats. Slaying the province’s duke had earned Megatron the pompous bastard’s title and the right to control the walled city of Kaon and its surrounding territories. What a strange way to become a viable heir to the local dignity, but it had been convenient at the time.

Theoretically, the Cybertronian Senate still had authority here for planetary laws, but no way to enforce. They couldn’t get their goons across the borders or through the checkpoints, which the Decepticons, with Starscream’s wise counsel, had wasted no time in securing and fortifying.

Back then, Starscream’s largest complaint had been how downright ugly their fortress, Kolkular, was. An utter eyesore of imposing brutalist architecture, but it served its purpose.

A fair price to pay for a favorable legal situation. At the time.

Now, however, it was that keeping up appearances with the other, more “traditional” polities on Cybertron was an absolute nightmare.

Starscream continued scolding, wings canted high to underscore his agitation with Megatron’s lack of social—and physical—graces.

“It’s like you’ve never held anything that wasn’t a pick or a weapon in your entire life!”

They had to at least play nice with their “peers,” while their forces were still comparatively weak. The alternative was their cause being pulled out by the root… all because Megatron had taken to aristocracy with all its demands and trappings like a muddy turbofox to bath time.

Starscream could understand that Megatron didn’t like the aristocracy as an institution. Sure, it was full of vapid wastrels and sapped vital resources, but for now… they had to play the game.

Unfortunately, next week they were invited to another social event, this one in Helex. As the newly minted duke was a bachelor, that meant Starscream, as the highest ranking official after him, had to attend in the stead of a consort. Nominally, this was fine.

He even got a courtesy title out of it and got to playact at belonging in high society, hanging off a high-ranking noble’s arm like a beautiful yet deadly accessory. A shame, he sometimes thought, that it was just pretend and would one day have to end. Starscream certainly played the part of socialite better than Megatron did.

If their roles were reversed, the situation might have actually worked out better, with Starscream as a mannered noble and Megatron his crude but loyal guard. A powerful, loyal protector who would do whatever Starscream asked of him.

Oh well, a mech could dream.

However, the present danger was that dancing was not a natural outgrowth of Megatron’s skills in combat. In combat, stepping on an enemy’s feet was a valid tactic to gain an advantage and not a surefire way to upset a dancing partner that might very well enact vengeance.

“I am not going to be embarrassed by you in public again!”

He stamped his foot in frustration, a threat to do to Megatron what he’d been doing to Starscream for the last half an hour. They both knew it wasn’t a toothless threat either. Whether or not Megatron actually cared about being injured was still up for debate.

“You need to hold gently!” He mimed carefully closing his hand on his opposite wrist. “Like this, nicely, like you actually like me, like you think I’m fragile and precious and you don’t want to break me.”

Then Starscream clamped down to illustrate the principle, waving his captured arm in Megatron’s face.

“Not like you’re trying to choke the life out of me through my wrists!”

All the while, Megatron just stood there with his arms crossed, scowling impassively with his optical ridges furrowed. Of course, he thought dance practice was just a was—

“This is a waste of time.”

Starscream sighed, rubbing the tips of his fingers down the sides of his nose in exasperation.

“Yes, normally, I would agree with you—“ When Megatron had a good idea anyway. He wasn’t stupid, just married to his Cause, which sometimes had the same outward effect no matter how much processing power the lummox actually had to work with. “—But we can’t afford ideological purity right now! We need to make a proper appearance. Unlike last time.”

Defenestrating that Iaconian minister the last time, however hilarious, had not been their most shining moment.

Megatron let one optic go wide, silently disagreeing with Starscream’s assessment of his behavior. He probably thought he’d behaved entirely appropriately, because, of course, he did.

Honestly, the minister shouldn’t have made an off-color comment about manual class mechs, especially not when Megatron had been standing a few paces away. That minister had had it coming, but it had still looked bad… and reinforced the Decepticons’ reputation as a band of “no good, uncivilized brutes.”

The fact that Starscream hadn’t even for a moment attempted to stop his boss from launching the moron through a window had not helped either, nor had his immediate disclaimer that they would, in no uncertain terms, not be paying for that window. Not with the inflation in Iacon being so astronomically high.

Still, Megatron had been the bulk of the problem there. It wasn’t as though Starscream could un-toss that guy out of the window to make everything all “peachy keen” again. Megatron had dropped the minister into the gardens several floors below, but honestly it was easier to get him into an ambulance from there anyway, rather than the secure-access ballroom.

“I think at this point, they only invite us because they’re afraid of us.” Starscream leaned his palm against his forehead. “Just… not the way they ought to be.”

Social etiquette decreed that, as a noble, not inviting Megatron would have been a great insult that could result in either devastating bodily or property damage. Unfortunately, they seemed to not grasp that Megatron had no desire to go to their “asinine” events in the first place. Those that invited him were more likely to end up with a higher priority on a future hit list for being nuisances.

“Their little soirées are pointless, Starscream. We shouldn’t bother. We’d be much better served by—”

“Where does the eloquent mech who says words like ‘soirées’ go when we go to these parties? Where does he go, Megatron? Do you eat him?” His voice reached a screeching pitch as it echoed off the walls in the cavernous room. “It’s like you replace him with a barbarian specifically when I—when we need a presentable, well-mannered gentlemech the most!”

The music stopped. Soundwave must have finally taken notice of their bickering, a near constant background noise in Kolkular’s vast, cavernous halls.

This time it was Megatron’s turn to sigh, probably in preparation of saying something dismissive.

Like he usually did.

It didn’t help that his facial expressions where generally limited to various shades of scowling and its occasional friend: cruel amusement. That left Starscream little by way of different outcomes to assume.

He braced for a shout or a barked order.

“Very well.”

The words that came out were oddly… calm. Starscream tilted his head to the side, wings dropping low in confusion. A brief flash of worry crossed his processor that perhaps Megatron was ill, had come down with some sort of infection from his habit of recharging on the floor in the corner of his office.

“What?”

“We’ll try again.”

Megatron reached out to take the seeker in his grasp again. Starscream cringed away from the hands, as though they were somehow contaminated, protectively pulling his own arms in towards his chest.

He had already had more than enough of being crushed by a clumsy oaf for the last twenty minutes.

“You’re not stepping on my foot again—“

“No, I’m not.” Megatron paused. “Not intentionally. A dance partner with broken feet won’t be much help as a teacher or social companion now, would they?”

Cautiously, Starscream surrendered one of his hands… only for it to be held gingerly, like he was a delicate aristocrat and not a seasoned assassin with several dead senators in his curriculum vitae.

Upbeat bars of music began to play again, filling the room with invigorating sound once more.

Maybe this wasn’t such a waste of time after all. Provided Megatron didn’t screw it up.

“Good, because if you do, it’ll cost you your entire foot.”

“I’d like to see you collect that debt.”