Name: Ceteris Paribus

Rating: NC-17 (G for this chapter)

Pairing: Optimus Prime/Starscream

Summary: Set just as the wheels of the Third Cybertronian War begin turning. Optimus Prime has had his title only for a few hundred years, whilst within the opposing party a scientist-turned-Seeker named Starscream is clawing his way up the ranks, next in line for the post of Air Commander of the Royal Decepticon Air Force. However, said jet has a habit of foolhardiness, cowardice, opportunism - and plain getting caught up in all the wrong situations.

Author's Notes: "Ceteris Paribus" is an economic term meaning "with all other conditions remaining the same.". It was chosen in irony. Also, many thanks to GreyDrake, Moglenstar, James and especially the tireless Okamichan for their invaluable beta-reading!

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On Cybertron, it seemed sometimes as though the rain fell at the most inopportune moments. To Starscream, it felt as though it were now falling specifically to spite him. If only the battle hadn't occurred that day: if only that fool Skywarp could shoot straight, or if he, Starscream, had seen the laserfire before it hit him. If he had not been hit that crushing second time as he fell - accursed Autobot filth, he added to himself - or if, if only the rain hadn't started falling. He grimaced in anger and frustration, and then – as the hated acid rain began to interfere with his systems – in pain, and suppressed fear.

Starscream was a coward by nature, no matter what he liked to think. He was stranded out in Autobot territory, grounded by that ill-fated hit between his wings, preventing him from transforming, and the damage to his fuel lines wasn't patching properly. Warm energon was flowing down his back, between his scorched wings, sickly and unstopping. And now his systems were being cut altogether. He tried to pretend he wasn't, but Starscream was absolutely terrified.

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At the first signs of rain, Hound radioed back to base.

"Hey, Prowl, it's getting cloudy out here."

There was a moment's delay before the tactician responded.

"Understood. Report back to Iacon headquarters."

The Autobot glanced at the sky, intending to turn, leave patrol and transform, and get back to Iacon before the rain started.

"There's not gonna be any Decepticreeps around now anyway, nobody goes outside in the bad weath-- huh?"

A pause. "What on Cybertron?"

He was cut off, astonished, by the sight of a Decepticon seeker stumbling on foot, its wings scorched and twisted, not a hundred astrometers from where he stood. He brought his weapons online. Prowl's measured voice cut through on his radio systems again, keeping him firmly in the present moment.

"Hound? Is something happening?"

Hound saw then the trail of energon leaking down from the jet's back. He kept his weapons running, just in case.

"Yeah, I, uh-- aww, slag."

With a deceptively gentle pattering, the acid rain began to fall. Hound hesitated for an astrosecond, disconcerted, and winced as the rain seeped into his circuitry. He looked up curiously at the place where the Seeker had been; he saw that the jet had fallen to his knees, and then on his face. No tricks here - no Seeker would pull such an ungraceful, belittling deceit, they were too vain, too self-conscious. The Seeker's armour sparked ominously, his already weakened defences serving only as a hindrance in the ruinous weather. Granted, the thing was a Decepticon, but if he left the defenceless Seeker out in the rain, it would without doubt be rendered inoperational within a couple of cycles, if not before then due to the Energon haemorrhaging from between its wings.

He felt uneasy, wished he had more time to examine the Seeker, check out the situation - but with this rain there was no time for that. It took Hound barely a few astroseconds to make up his mind; he grabbed the jet, hoisting it over his shoulder, and unable to transform with the added burden simply ran flat out for cover. He had been patrolling the perimeter of the walled city, and the closest entrace was perhaps eight hundred astrometers away. Hound made it through that gate and inside in less than half a breem. He doubted he had ever run so fast outside of a battle.

Starscream had fallen unconscious and collapsed, his CPUs going into standby in an attempt to remedy the effects of the fuel loss, so he did not register the Autobot lifting him into the air, the lights of Iacon replacing the darkness of Cybertron outside, or the rain no longer assailing his circuitry. Hound shifted the Seeker's weight on his shoulder, gasping for breath and waiting a breem or so for his internal maintenance to counter the effects of the rain, cycling coolant, leaning against the inside of the gate until the pain subsided and he felt safe to move again.

He straightened up and made his way to the infirmary; the slow pit-pat of the jet's Energon dripping on the floor sounding to Hound almost unbearably loud. He could feel the jet was heavier than he should have been, a completely dead weight, that his systems were almost inaudibly quiet. Hound earned himself several disapproving stares before he reached the medbay, and by the time he arrived he almost wished he'd left the thing out in the rain; it was hardly in the spirit of the war that a Decepticon should be brought inside the walls of Iacon, offered assistance - but he knew of course that he could not have left him to die. He didn't know what the jet had done to find himself out there in such a state, and after all, would Prime have done any less? Thus he justified his actions to himself, and stopped outside the door of the infirmary, knocking urgently.

Ratchet opened the door, mouth open, ready to yell, but fell into a stunned silence at the sight before him. It didn't keep him quiet for long.

"Hound?! What the blazes is going on?"

Faced with the intimidating medic, Hound faltered.

"Well, uh, it was raining outside-"

"That's a Decepticon!"

"Well, yeah, but he's damaged and it was raining and I didn't have much time and it didn't seem right to just leave him there!"

Ratchet looked at him dourly, narrowing his optics, knowing he had no choice but to help now that he was confronted with the dying Seeker.

"What were you thinking, bringing that in here? Haven't you realised we're in a war? That thing is the enemy. The Decepticons have their own medics to deal with their casualties."

"He was alone outside, and he was damaged, and it was raining. There wasn't anybody else."

Ratchet grumbled sourly, turning and walking away from the medbay door, implicitly allowing Hound inside. Breathing a sigh of relief that the medic had not continued to glower and lecture him, he hauled the Seeker inside, laying him down on one of the empty tables and turning away to leave. Behind him he heard Ratchet grousing and tutting over the state of the Seeker, going to work to fix him up, and the exhausted Hound made his way out of the medbay to recharge until his next shift began.

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Weary and silently frustrated, Ratchet made his way from the medbay up to Optimus Prime's office. The Autobot leader was sitting upright, optics fixed upon a datapad, which he set down as Ratchet knocked and entered.

"Ratchet. What can I do for you?"

Prime's voice was mellow and calming, and Ratchet felt his irritation ease up just slightly in anticipation of a solution to his problems.

"Optimus. I have an offlined Decepticon in the medbay."

Optimus' optics widened in astonishment; whatever he might have been expecting Ratchet to tell him, it was clearly not that.

"What do you mean?"

Ratchet sighed wearily.

"Hound found a damaged Seeker collapsed outside Iacon as the rain was starting, and the fool brought him inside and dragged him up to my infirmary."

The medic spread his hands. "I couldn't turn him away with it dying in his arms, but... well, it's in there. I checked it for bugs and other traps before I did anything, of course - it's completely clean. Its wings and transformation circuits were badly damaged and one of its main fuel lines was ruptured."

He listed off the injuries categorically.

Optimus said nothing for a few hundred astroseconds, deep in thought.

"It won't compromise our safety here? You're certain?"

"Yes. And in any case, I had to anaesthetise his sensor net, and disconnect parts of his CPU - amongst others, his optics and most of the mechanism around his canopy - in case there was any static or discharge damage while I worked on the damaged circuitry. I have not reconnected them yet, as a precaution both for him and for us."

Prime nodded.

"Good job, Ratchet. You made the right decision."

Ratchet said nothing, his face remaining set in its customary scowl, but inside he felt somewhat relieved. As with every Autobot, his respect for Optimus was automatic, born of several hundred years' experience. He trusted Prime's decisions. Since the end of the Golden Age of Cybertron, when Optimus had taken on the mantle of leader - that savage ending to the peace time and start of Cybertron's third civil war, barely five-hundred years previous, that in hindsight seemed inevitable - Prime had been an unerring force of assurance. A source of hope and trust for all those under his command, those displaced from their precious cease-fire-turned-Enlightenment.

"Is that all?" Optimus added.

"Yes, that's all. I'm going to recharge now, if that's all right," said Ratchet. "I'm exhausted."

Prime's gentle optics were all that was visible of his face, giving him a serious, impassive look. His voice was the only thing about him that conveyed a smile.

"You go, Ratchet. Don't worry, I'll take care of it. Stay in good health."

Not quite sure of whether by "it" Prime meant the Seeker or the situation, Ratchet left the office and set off for his quarters. The fatigue was really starting to set in now that he was no longer focussed on working, his reticent fears about the Seeker abated in the face of Optimus' confident reassurance.

Several joors later, after he had finished reading the interminable reports and memos, Optimus decided it was time to check on Ratchet's Seeker.

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Starscream awoke to total blackness. He felt numb, sluggish and confused, and turned on his night-vision in an attempt to see through the darkness. When the capability didn't even engage behind his optics, a panic gripped him. He tried again and again, growing more and more frantic with each failed attempt. As it slowly dawned on him that his optics weren't working at all, a cold panic began to curl around his spark. He knew he was lying on a flat surface, and from what he could tell of the air pressure he was indoors. His sensor net was slow, but what he could feel ached a little. Indoors, anaesthetised, and blind. It could have only one result: a deep, cutting claustrophobia that ran through him like liquid nitrogen. The inescapable blackness where his optic feed should have been relaying seemed impenetrable and suffocating, like a smog, now that he knew he had no way of alleviating it. His joints locked up in terror and he could almost feel the crushing weight of the invisible walls around him; completely overcome, in the absence of sight, by the power of his own imagination.

At that moment, Optimus Prime walked through the door to the medbay. The Autobot leader took a moment to recalibrate his optics for the dim light, and then closed the door and looked around the room. He quickly spotted the Seeker prone on the exam table. Even though his optics were switched off, it seemed that the jet was unfortunately awake. Prime called out softly, to alert the jet to his presence.

"Hello. Are you awake?" He said, and the other mech froze. It became apparent that something was wrong. The Seeker's hands were splayed flat on the surface of the table, and his entire body was stiff and trembling; he was even whimpering softly, barely audible, his expression contorted into a mask of abject terror.

"What's the matter?" Optimus couldn't help but be concerned.

"Wh-what happened? Where am I? What's wrong with my optics?!"

Optimus sorted the barrage of questions and answered them in order of importance, trying to talk soothingly to the jet, to comfort him.

"I am Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots. You are in Iacon, in the infirmary. You were severely damaged, and were brought here for medical attention."

At the mention of Prime's faction, the Seeker recoiled slightly.

"What did you do to me!?" He cried. "Don't terminate me!"

"No, we don't intend any harm." Prime assured. "You're quite safe."

The jet was trembling. Prime sighed, wondering how best to approach this situation.

"You were damaged in battle, and caught in the rain. One of my soldiers found you outside and took you to our medic. You were in a bad way; I doubt he intended for you to come online before he had finished his repairs. Please don't be frightened - you are not our prisoner, and we will not hurt you."

The jet didn't look very reassured, although this seemed more due to an invisible distraction than to mistrust. Prime bent over him, irrepressibly concerned.

"What's wrong? Are you in pain?"

The Seeker jutted his jaw out and said nothing. Confronted with his insurmountable stubbornness, Optimus tried a different tactic.

"What's your name?"

The jet sneered, a tone and expression that seemed more consciously called up from habit to mask the more instinctive fear on his face.

"Why should I tell you, Autobot?"

"Well, we are talking. You know my name, I may as well know yours." He made sure to sound friendly, to iron every bit of potential hostility from his voice. The jet was still shaking. There was a long, long pause, before he finally spoke.

"Take me outside."

Optimus sighed.

"It's still raining. And in any case, you're not fully functional yet. You can't possibly think to fly anywhere like that, even in clear weather."

The Seeker's response surprised Prime, not only because his voice dropped down to barely more than a whisper but also with his sudden tone of defeated pleading, completely absent from his voice before.

"Please, take me outside, I can't stand it in here."

Starscream had been trying so hard not to give in, not to beg, not to tell the Autobot leader anything that might amount to a weakness on his part, but in the end he caved in. The fear became too suffocating for him to continue to say nothing.

Optimus realised suddenly the source of the Seeker's unease. Thinking to distract him, he put a hand out and touched the flier on the shoulder lightly, reassuringly. He looked shocked and pulled away, startled into movement by Prime's daring move.

"Don't touch me!"

Prime let go, but sat down on the edge of the exam table.

"Does it hurt?"

The Seeker said nothing, and Optimus kept his hands to himself.

"There's no need to be scared," Prime reiterated. "You'll come to no harm here. You will be repaired later, and you can go then." He hoped that the promises of freedom would distract the frightened Seeker from his enclosed predicament now.

"That sounds altogether too good to be true, Prime." The Seeker snapped. "What aren't you telling me?"

Optimus laughed. He couldn't help it.

"There's nothing I'm not telling you. You expect us to hold you here?"

"I expect you to act as though you are in a war." His tone was arrogant, contemptuous. "It is no longer the Golden Age."

Prime sighed heavily - the Seeker's words lay far heavier on him than perhaps they were meant to.

"What is your name?" He asked again, after a long silence. Perhaps it was the sadness in his tone or something else entirely, but this time the jet did not refuse right away. Optimus said nothing, letting him work out whatever he wanted to.

"I'll tell you," the Seeker offered. "If you take me outside."

"I will not," replied Optimus. "I cannot let you leave this medbay in your current condition. It's for the best."

"Then I shan't tell you my name." The Seeker snapped back.

Optimus nodded, even though he knew his interlocutor couldn't see him. The jet's tone was so final that it marked the abrupt end of their exchange. Optimus let the silence hang - if the Seeker didn't want to talk, he wouldn't make him talk. He had turned his face to one side, away from Optimus, sulking determinedly for all the world like a miffed Sparkling; it was only the trembling in his hands and his wings that betrayed his distress. Optimus Prime sighed resignedly. The Decepticon wasn't setting bombs and devices around the mebay, and nor was he in any great danger. Apart from the claustrophobia, he seemed positively healthy. With no especial desire to spend his whole evening looking at a huffy Seeker, Prime got to his feet and walked across the medbay to the door.

Starscream had made up his mind to simply stay quiet and sulk for a while, but suddenly the warm presence at his side disappeared and he heard heavy footsteps moving across the room away from him. He spiralled almost instantly into a diatribe of worry that became fear that turned into another suffocating panic. He's leaving me, Starscream thought to himself, I'm stuck in the middle of the Autobot base and I'm blind and powerless and unprotected and at least this one can be manipulated and reasoned with and he's leaving me and it's cold and everything's invisible and I'm lost and alone and--

"NO!"

Optimus stopped in his tracks, shocked by the hysteria and terror in the Seeker's voice. The jet had half sat up, turned toward Optimus, hand outstretched to the sound of the receding footsteps. The Autobot leader turned, walked back.

"No?" He enquired.

"Don't leave me here!" Cried the Seeker, more of a command than a plea, but that mask of terror had settled on the jet's face again. Optimus sighed and sat down on the table again. The jet relaxed quite visibly when he did so, expression melting a little, panic abating.

"I'll stay," promised Optimus.

The Seeker said nothing.

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Starscream must have offlined at some point, because he awoke to find that Optimus Prime had left him. After this short period of recharge - his internal chronometer was offline but it couldn't have been very long as he was still in the same poor state of repair and still alone in the medbay - Starscream's plan was clear as crystal in his mind. He squashed his apprehension beneath the far greater fear of remaining alone in that accursed room, steeled himself and sat up. His gyros span but he gripped the sides of the examination table on which he lay and overrode them. He knew which way was down.

He slipped lightly off the table, wincing at the loud clang as his thrusters hit the floor, and reached out for the wall he knew must be there somewhere. After a few hundred astroseconds of groping, his hand hit glass. He breathed a sigh of relief and experimentally tried powering up his weapons. Nothing came - that wasn't a surprise. Starscream didn't believe a word of what Prime had said about his not being the Autobots' prisoner. He knew the Autobots were stupid, but nobody was that stupid. He moved without thinking, pulling his arm back and letting fly a blow at the glass, expecting the worst - failure.

The worst never came. The glass shattered beneath his hand, and spurred on by his success he all but threw himself at the glass, beating a hole in the wall and then hurling himself out of it. He hadn't thought to care about whether he was near or far from the ground. He was a flier, after all. However, this oversight proved ruinous as he went into free-fall and too late discovered they had taken his thrusters offline.

"M-my thrusters--!" He gasped, horror overriding even the ability to scream, and then had no more time to gather himself: he hit the ground so hard his cockpit shattered. He lay there, whimpering softly, concussed and stunned.

Everything hurt. Those wounds that had merely been patched and not fixed had ripped open again, adding to the numb pain of the impact. But he forced himself to his feet, wincing as he heard - felt - splinters of canopy simply fall out and clatter on the ground, and began to walk. If he could get close enough to Decepticon Headquarters, well - they sent jets out all the time. Someone was bound to spot him and take him back. He was too useful for them to simply leave him, he reminded himself - he was in line for a promotion to Air Commander. In the meantime, he had to keep moving, get away from his captors.

The first thing that Ratchet did on entering his medbay was to stop dead in the his tracks, staring at the shattered hole in the wall.

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"So I'll need the medbay wall patched before the next battle when I will need to use it, and we need to send someone out to get that Seeker back in case he's taken anything!"

Ratchet finished insistently, leaning across the table to Prime in the conference chambers. Prowl coughed lightly and took out his datapad.

"I would recommend sending Jazz after the Seeker, accompanied by at least one minibot, preferably Brawn, in case of trouble." Said the tactician. "Jazz has the optimum combination of skill, speed and guile for the job. Based on Ratchet's medical reports on the Seeker - and if there are no complications - he has a 92.7 success rate of retrieving the Seeker and bringing him back to Iacon."

Jazz grinned at Prowl, who regarded him back and then went back to his datapads.

"No." Optimus rose to his feet, commanding the attention of the room. "I will go after the Seeker."

Prowl looked up again, his eyes fixed on the Autobot leader.

"Permission to speak freely, Optimus, if you go to retrieve the Seeker you will have only a 69.29 chance of succeeding. Jazz is the best soldier to send."

"That Seeker may not be entirely stable." Prime said diplomatically - although he personally suspected that it had been only the claustrophobia that had upset the flier at the time. "I have spoken with him, and he trusts me far more than he trusts anyone else here. It would be better if I retrieve him."

"But Optimus-!" cried the tactician.

"I will not put my soldiers in needless danger, Prowl." Optimus spoke firmly to his second-in-command in a tone that left no room for argument. Prowl pressed his lip components together and said nothing.

Prime sat down, leaned back in his chair.

"Then it's decided," he said, "I will go and retrieve the Seeker. I will return within an orn."