Nothing was built to last forever.

Which was why Starscream was uncharacteristically silent as he waited on a medical examination berth for Hook's "professional" verdict.

"Your vocaliser's broken," the medic stated flippantly as he dropped a medical report into Starscream's lap.

Starscream held the report close to his face, and then at arms length, before exploding silently and launching it across the room. Hook watched passively as the second in command waved his arms in threatening gestures, mouth snarling and sneering as his lips formed vulgar but inaudible words.

It was like watching a psychotic mime.

Luckily, Hook had a general idea of what the seeker was trying to tell him, and was quick to make the bad news worse. "No it can't be repaired," he hardly bothered to adopt a sympathetic tone as he told him. "It's dead. Unsalvageable. Probably from overuse-"

Again Starscream began to flail his arms and point threateningly.

"-and I sincerely regret having to tell you that we don't currently have any replacements on base." It was difficult not to sound sarcastic, though he did try, as Starscream's faceplates were turning purple, and he might have been seconds away from a blaster bolt to the face.

"I'm sure if you spoke- ah... messaged Lord Megatron, he could arrange with Shockwave to have one sent through the space bridge from Cybertron."

To say Starscream looked angry would have been a gross understatement, and though Hook would never claim to possess the skill of reading lips, even he knew when someone was telling him to stick something unpleasant up his afterburner.

With that attitude, it looked like the Decepticons were in for a quiet couple of weeks.

It had taken Megatron a surprisingly long time to notice a lack of indignant, obnoxious shrieking in his command centre.

The seeker stood beside Soundwave, ready for the latest pre-raid briefing. He was unrepentantly slouched, a bored sneer plastered across his repulsive face. Next to the straight-backed and attentive Soundwave, he looked every bit the rebellious juvenile he consistently acted.

After an appraising glower, Megatron decided to ignore the seeker for now, and continue with his briefing. At least until the glitch interrupted.

And to his immense surprise, Starscream didn't interrupt. Not once. He remained completely silent throughout Megatron's entire outline, nary a sarcastic comment or derisive snort passing his poisonous lips.

It was incredibly suspicious.

He loomed closer, scowling at the seeker. "Nothing to say, Starscream?"

The seeker's lips twitched, and Megatron could see his deceitful glossa working around his mouth. He clenched a fist in preparation. But nothing was said.

He frowned, and Starscream glared back. "Well?" He snapped.

Still, nothing.

Confused, he glanced to Soundwave. His third considered Starscream for a moment, before reaching a conclusion everyone else was already very aware of.

"Starscream; malfunctioning."

Megatron shuttered his optics and murmured a, "When isn't he," under his breath.

"Vocaliser; inactive. Damaged." Soundwave continued as if Megatron hadn't commented, "Assessment; irreparable."

Starscream was glowering at the floor, jaw tight and wings shaking with repressed frustration, but he was blissfully silent. And Megatron realised it could only be true.

It took a moment to sink in, but when it did, the smile that stretched across Megatron's lips nearly cracked his faceplates. Starscream's optics flickered up to meet his sadistically pleased gaze, and the seeker's frame began to vibrate like it was ready to self-destruct.

Megatron couldn't help it. He laughed.

There was a clang as Starscream stamped his pede, but the mouth biting and barking aggressively was emitting no sound. Megatron watched the silent display with increasing glee.

Starscream's lips formed a string of words that Megatron was familiar enough with the seeker's insults to assume were something along the lines of 'old', 'stupid', 'fat', 'rusty', and 'old' again.

Towards the end of the rant, his second spat what appeared to be a human curse, before spinning on his heel and marching out of the command centre, sending mechs scattering out of the way as he continued to mime threats.

Megatron looked skyward, feeling he'd been privy to nothing short of a miracle. Primus was indeed merciful.

He hadn't expected Starscream to show his face so soon after his failed tantrum in the command centre, but sadly, the mute seeker was again present to disturb yet another of Megatron's war councils. At least now, voiceless, Starscream was incapable of undermining Megatron's authority.

Or so he'd thought.

His command listened with unerring concentration as he outlined their priorities for the coming attack. No one interrupted, no one challenged the effectiveness of the plan, and no one jumped onto the table and attempted to usurp him.

Once he'd finished, Soundwave ran a few estimates, and they were good enough. Seeing as there was nothing else to be discussed, Megatron stood. He was about to dismiss the room when he caught sight of his scowling second.

And couldn't resist a little seeker baiting. He smirked, "Starscream, since you have nothing to contribute-"

But as he spoke, Starscream reached into his subspace and slammed a datapad on the table before him. With a stylus he began to scrawl something furiously, his punctuation stabbing the datapad with enough force to crack the screen. When he was done he shoved the datapad away from himself, and it slid down the table towards Megatron.

With a scowl, he lifted it.

"Your most idiotic idea yet."

And crushed it in his fist.

"Your opinion is irrelevant," He snarled, throwing the shattered pieces to the floor.

Starscream jumped to his feet and began to shout, mouth running at the speed of light despite the lack of audible words.

Megatron sneered and stalked around the table towards the exit. Starscream stepped into his path, expression desperate as he tried to convey something. He thrust a finger in his leader's face, and that's when Megatron had had enough of humouring the fool.

He shoved Starscream aside, knocking him back into the table, and was deaf to the seeker's muted scream of frustration as he strode from the war room.

The new and improved silent-Starscream turned out to be as annoyingly persistent as his loud obnoxious counterpart. Though Megatron was finding it a lot easier to ignore the datapads the seeker kept forcing on him than he formerly did Starscream's shrieking rants.

But when Starscream presented him with a fourth datapad the cycle before the raid, Megatron decided to just be abundantly clear about what he thought of the seeker's opinions, and stamped on it right before his second's optics.

Unable to vocalise his anger, Starscream had unwisely tried to punch him in the face, and as a result was now recovering in the medical bay.

Served the glitching menace right.

Megatron was glancing through the operation briefings that evening, when he noticed a datapad out of place. Frowning, he onlined it, and snorted in derision when Starscream's distinctively Vosian cursive appeared on the lit screen.

He should have smashed it, or at least tossed it back, but something in a sentence caught his optic. He skimmed the first paragraph, quickly, hardly believing he'd find anything of use there, only to end up taking a seat and reading it through more throughly.

Every word seemed to drip with Starscream's patronising inflection, but once Megatron had worked past hearing the seeker's snobby voice in his processor as he read, some of the points being made were actually quite logical. Which was a first, because Starscream never normally sounded logical when he was howling and shrieking obscenities across the command centre.

He offlined the datapad and retired to his berth. If Starscream's ideas were still as practical in the morning, perhaps he might alter some of his own.

One flawless raid later, and Megatron was beginning to think his second wasn't quite as stupid as he'd been led to believe.

Late into the evening, when the energon had been sent to Cybertron and what could be spared had been wasted in decadent celebration, Megatron opened a communications link to Soundwave.

"Location on Starscream," he ordered swiftly.

There was a pause before Soundwave responded. "Starscream; discharged from medical bay. On route to quarters."

Megatron wasn't surprised at the early discharge. The seeker was resilient, he never did stay down for long. "Bring him to me."

"As you command, Lord Megatron."

Starscream might have been mute, but Megatron still heard him coming. The banging, stamping, crashing noises muffled through the door to his throne room were unlikely to have been anyone else.

Eventually, a bright, freshly repaired seeker came stumbling in through the door, forced inside by what appeared to be the largest two Combaticons. Had Starscream had a functioning voice, he would no doubt have been spitting and cursing at the mechs as he picked himself up off the floor.

The door closed again, and then they were alone. In silence.

"Starscream," he began, straightening in his throne as he stared down at the seeker. "Recovered well I see."

The seeker threw up a servo and made a rude gesture with it. Megatron assumed it was of Earth, as he failed to recognise it. He scowled, but decided to tolerate Starscream's juvenility for now. He'd get nowhere if he fell into a repetitive cycle and landed the seeker in the med-bay again.

He stood, and began to descend from the throne, "Now that you are once again fully functional," he began casually, "I suppose you have no qualms about assisting me with the next war council?"

Starscream's lips drew back into an aggressive snarl before the words seemed to register, and Megatron watched, amused, as Starscream's face suddenly fell slack with surprise.

"Well?" He smirked, prompting his second.

Starscream shook his helm, and then nodded enthusiastically, stepping forward. The trembling wings on his back betrayed his excitement.

Megatron considered the seeker, and found himself wondering, not for the first time that cycle, if this was really a good idea. It wasn't much, as far as trusting Starscream went, but it was still enough to result in calamities both great and painful.

"Good," he murmured instead, still watching Starscream carefully, "You are dismissed."

As the seeker practically skipped from the throne room, Megatron had to remind himself that despite an apparent eagerness to prove himself, Starscream was still a treacherous little cretin, just one with a highly advanced tactical processor. And that made him even more dangerous.

Four raids and a hoard of energon they didn't even know what to do with later, Megatron had gone from simply considering Starscream's opinions, to never committing to anything without consulting the seeker first.

And Starscream was now mostly professional. Mostly.

Every now and then he'd receive a datapad back from Starscream and come across inappropriate little bracketed messages amongst the tactical jargon, (Drunk sparklings have had better ideas), and sometimes just a randomly out of context, (You're an imbecile).

In light of their improved working relationship, he mostly ignored those times.

Again, mostly.

Megatron slammed the datapad on the desk in front of the working seeker, "What the frag is this?"

Starscream glanced at the file open on the datapad Megatron had nearly crushed beneath his servo, before scribbling something on his own screen and flashing it to show his leader. The truth.

Megatron snarled and snatched the original datapad back, reading, "'-direct combat with Prime likely to result in incapacitation'?! You don't think I can handle that soft sparked fool?!"

Starscream's wings flicked in annoyance, and he nodded.

Megatron's fist slammed into the table as he loomed closer to the seated seeker, "I can take any one of those Autobots," he hissed, denta bared inches from Starscream's frowning face, "Including Prime."

It failed to intimidate Starscream, probably because it had been so long since the disobedient upstart had felt Megatron's servo wrap around his delicate little throat. Before he could work to instil some real fear into seeker, Starscream already had another datapad and stylus in servo.

When the seeker had finished scribbling, he thrust it under his leader's olfactory sensor. And Megatron realised that rather than present him with a written response, Starscream had drawn him a picture instead. It was rather crude doodle, and appeared to feature a figure labeled 'Prime' kicking the slag out of another figure labeled 'Lord Buckethead'.

How Megatron had summoned the self-restraint not to hit Starscream was a mystery, but he promptly smashed the datapad and stormed from the room, keen to prove the obnoxious seeker wrong.

When Megatron came to, it was to find a smoking hole in his shoulder and an Optimus Prime's fist-shaped dent in the side of his helm.

Worse still, Starscream was stood at his berthside, expression both smug, unimpressed, and not at all sympathetic.

Megatron forced his pained grimace into a sneer, "Shut up," he hissed at the seeker.

Starscream leant back and folded his arms. He was smiling, and Megatron couldn't bear to look at him.

Stupid seeker.

Megatron had started to spend a lot of time reading Starscream's lips. At times, the seeker seemed to forget his vocaliser's ineffectiveness and continued to speak to Megatron as if his snide little comments could still be heard.

Megatron didn't bother to stop him, he had learned the shape and form of most of Starscream's vocabulary anyway and could understand the seeker's silent speech with little confusion.

Every now and then the seeker would pause in his reading to snap something disapprovingly, distain for whatever idiotic idea he'd stumbled upon written across every plate in his face.

And Megatron watched him, watched the way Starscream's denta would bite into his lip whenever he swore, watch his nose scrunch into a sneer when he mouthed at him 'idiot', the way his lips would purse together as he mimed 'moron', bared dentas hissing 'stupid'.

It was strangely mesmerising, watching the seeker rant, and stranger still, that he found himself struggling to remember Starscream's uniquely piercing cadence. That he even wanted to remember the ringing Starscream's howls left in his audials was bizarre. He should be thankful that his second's grating squawk had finally been silenced.

Starscream's mouth stilled. Megatron looked up to meet his gaze, realising his distraction had been noticed.

Starscream frowned, optics bright with suspicion, and then Megatron watched his lips and glossa shape the three syllables that made up his name. Megatron?

He shuttered his optics and waved the seeker off, "It's nothing," he growled, "Continue."

Starscream went back to scribbling across the datapad, already silently muttering to himself, and Megatron was right back to staring at his lying, deceitful, beautifully soft looking lips.

Starscream was proving to be a distraction, and not at all a welcome one.

So his new vocaliser couldn't have arrived soon enough. Megatron had it sent straight to Hook's medical bay, with orders to have it installed into the Air Commander effective immediately.

He had the utmost faith in Hook's medical expertise, but he still had Soundwave keep him updated on the progress of the actually quite basic surgery. If the operation somehow went wrong, and the new vocaliser became damaged in the process, then Megatron would have to wait for a new one to arrive. That would mean Starscream would remain silent longer, and that would then mean Megatron would remain distracted longer.

And as leader of such a dangerous faction, distraction was unacceptable. He needed to be sharp, focused, determined, not lost in memories of what his second used to sound like saying his name...

"Lord Megatron."

He nearly jumped at the sound of Soundwave's voice. He hadn't heard him enter.

Again, distracted.

He scowled at his third to cover it up, "Soundwave, report."

The communications officer stepped closer, "Hook confirms, Starscream's surgery; success."

Megatron nearly deflated with relief. Finally, things would return to normal. Yes, the progress he had made with his not-quite-so-treacherous second would likely be null and void, and he'd have to suffer that voice again, but he knew this was for the best.

He noticed Soundwave was still stood at the bottom of his throne, and was about to dismiss his third, when he spoke. "Starscream; requests an audience with Lord Megatron."

Megatron frowned, he had been hoping he'd have at least a couple of joors before having to suffer his second's 'dulcet' tones again.

"Bring him in," he grumbled, propping his chin up on the throne's armrest.

Within moments, Soundwave had been replaced with a glaring Starscream, and Megatron tuned down the sensitivity on his audial receptors in preparation.

"Why?" Starscream's scratchy voice rang through the empty room.

Megatron winced, dear Primus had he not missed that obnoxious tone. "Why what?" He growled back, glowering down at him.

Starscream huffed, his wings flicking in agitation, "My vocaliser, you fool! Why did you bother?"

Megatron narrowed his optics. It wouldn't do to let Starcream learn the truth. "Think of it as a reward."

This appeared to have been the wrong thing to say. The seeker did not look happy.

"A reward? For what?" Starscream started to advance on the throne, Megatron sat up a little straighter. "For doing my job? The job you have prevented me from doing for half a millennia all because your pigheaded pride was getting in the way?!"

Megatron stood as the seeker drew too close, his finger pointed and denta gnashing. "-always been a brilliant strategist!" He shouted, probably making up for all the lost opportunities. "And it was you who chose to ignore me! You who- "

Megatron had stopped listening. Starscream was still ranting, cheeks purpling with every screamed word, but his shrieks were no longer registering to Megatron's audial sensors.

He watched the seeker's lips draw back to bare denta as he snarled and spat and sneered.

"Are you even listening to me?!"

And Megatron realised that giving Starscream a new vocaliser had done absolutely nothing to solve his problem.

"Megatron!" Starscream shrieked, optics bright and wild with frustration. "Megatron!"

By the Unmaker, Megatron thought to himself, he must be insane.

"Oh shut up, Starscream," he sighed, and with a servo on a wing, yanked his second in for a kiss.