[CF] Off The Record

[vosseeker]

WHO: TFP!Starscream and Knock Out
WHEN: Following this vision
WHAT: Starscream needs a scan and discretion, enough to prompt him to finally have a proper conversation with Knock Out.


"Knock Out."

The medic looked up from his datapad with a start — how long had Starscream been standing in the doorway of his Medbay office? More importantly, why? The Seeker had avoided him both subtly and overtly since their arrival on the R2, and Knock Out had only been able to put together partial reasoning why. Oh, it wasn't hard to miss the blatant lack of a Decepticon badge on his chassis, of any badge there, but this felt more... personal.

"Starscream," he returned cautiously. Normally he was able to get a better read from the commander, but his body language was betraying very little. "Are you here for medical reasons, or...?"

(Or did he need to be concerned about how fast Security could get here? The shipboard hour was late, but...)

"Medical but off the record," Starscream replied. He hadn't moved, hands clasped behind him, wings filling the doorway. "If you are not otherwise occupied."

It still sounded vaguely like a threat. Knock Out automatically put on a winsome smile and got to his feet. "As if I wouldn't make time for the esteemed Air Commander," he said, because flattery usually worked, and surely no universal upheaval was enough to change any Starscream of that, right?

It didn't look as effective as he'd hoped, but once they'd settled in one of the private consultation rooms and had the privacy lock engaged, Starscream got straight to the point. "I want a full scan to detect any traces of dark energon."

Knock Out's field flared in alarm. "You've been re-infected??"

Starscream ex-vented loudly. "No... not that I am aware of." But the vision he'd received had been a terrible thing to behold, and it was on his mind. He had to be sure.

The quick denial seemed to reassure Knock Out slightly. "If there's been no new exposure, we did scans, after—"

"I want new scans, Knock Out, is that so difficult for you to understand?" the Seeker snapped, temper already frayed because of the vision, and for a second Knock Out shot him a black look that was quickly smoothed away.

Ah, Starscream thought lowly. So there were signs before it happened. I didn't see them back then. But there had been a lot of things he hadn't been able to see back then, hadn't there? He tried again with a calmer tone. "I'm sure you've heard, if not directly dealt with already, the chaos Megatron is causing. Dark energon is playing a role in that, that is no secret. Is it really so unusual that I would want to be certain?"

"No," the racer allowed after a moment, and turned to the console to begin programming in the scan parameters to look for dark energon's signature. "How 'off book' is this supposed to be?"

"Live scan only. No saved data, nothing for Soundwave to find."

Knock Out hummed, using his medical clearance to override the saved recording feature. Starscream hadn't volunteered to have a baseline medical profile set up for the R2 database either. Once that was done he moved to hook up the appropriate wires, silently noting that there was a lot of framework here that he didn't recognize, and only when the last one has been clicked into place did he break the silence again. "You're different. Not in a way that's easily put into words though."

"It's been more than three vorns since the war ended, for me. Many things are different."

Knock Out digested that; he'd suspected something along those lines, but he hadn't envisioned the length of time. And while yes, that was ultimately not a long time, not on Cybertronian scale, it was definitely long enough for things to shift drastically. He busied himself with activating the scan, watching the readings as it began to run through Starscream's systems one by one. A live scan meant no cross-checking later, so it had to be done by someone with a keen eye for detail.

"You're not going to ask what happens?" Starscream asked, when it didn't seem like the medic was going to say anything else about it.

"You say that like I've got so much to look forward to," Knock Out answered. The remark should have been sarcastic, but to Starscream who knows the reasoning, it only sounds resigned. "I assume it's to do with the reason for avoiding me like I'm carrying the Rust Plague," he added.

"It is more complicated than that, which won't make sense unless you have the context."

"Of course not."

The scan finished, Knock Out shook his head. "I don't see any new traces, Starscream. Your spark still has some microfractures from the initial... incident, but they're smaller than I remember meaning they're still actively healing, which is excellent news. I'm not showing anything here that's cause for alarm."

Something wound taut in Starscream since he'd been jarred awake with images of a corrupted Matrix and mountains of dead loosened, just a little. "I see... good news indeed then."

"You were really expecting something different, weren't you? What happened?"

The concern in Knock Out's tone almost sounded real, Starscream thought bitterly, disconnecting the scanner wires and standing. "A question for another time perhaps, doctor. I would appreciate your continued discretion about this."

"The scans are already gone."

Your memory isn't, is what Starscream almost says, but he knows better. Instead he merely inclined his head to Knock Out, and left the Medbay.