Archive of Our Own ^beta

Starscream was having a very, very bad day. Even worse than usual. Megatron insisted on going through with the most ridiculous plan he'd had in months. The Autobots were annoying all the time, but they never caused enough trouble to force them to give up this idiocy and come up with something better (and Starscream had done his best to achieve that goal, he really had). And, to top it all off, he had once again had to do guard work. With Thundercracker and Skywarp, to boot.

Because putting his three best soldiers out to bore themselves staring at a pile of energon cubes made all the sense in the world. Of course. His oh-so-powerful leader was never going to stop surprising him.

He was practicing aiming at some rocks to distract himself when, suddenly, a ship appeared out of nowhere.

Starscream had seen many spaceships and many alien beings in his life, so neither the vehicle nor its occupant seemed particularly strange to him. In fact, it was one of those little gray-green skinned men that humans were so fascinated with for some reason. Nothing special.

On the other hand, the fact that he had arrived like that, without warning, at the place where they had hidden their energy reserves was a bit more worrying. The three aimed their weapons at him at the same time, but the stranger did not even flinch. He looked at them one by one, as if hesitating, but finally stopped on the commander.

"Starscream, right?"

"What do you want?" he asked, suspicious. Starscream tried to remember if he had done anything to him that might cause him trouble now, but he couldn't think of anything. He had irritated too many people in these millions of years to remember them all. And besides, all little green men were the same.

"My name is Wowbagger, the Infinitely Prolonged," the other said nonchalantly. "And I came to give you a message."

For some inexplicable reason, Skywarp began to chuckle under his breath, trying in vain to conceal it. Starscream didn't bother trying to understand his worthless subordinate's processor. He was like that, nothing more.

"Let's hear it, then."

Wowbagger cleared his throat, adjusted his golden robe, and said a single word.

"Failure."

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?"

Now Skywarp had stopped pretending, Thundercracker was laughing too, and Starscream was this close to killing someone. Probably someone from his own team.

"HOW DARE YOU INSULT COMMANDER STARSCREAM LIKE THAT?" he shouted, over the uproar of his imbecilic soldiers.

"It's not personal," Wowbagger said, with the same bored expression he'd had all along. "I have a list. It's my mission to insult the entire universe."

"…The entire universe. Seriously."

"In alphabetical order."

"That's right," interjected Skywarp, who had finally managed to stop laughing. "He called me an 'ignorant, immature fool.'"

"And he immediately proved me right. He tried to kill me after I explained that I am immortal."

"AND THAT'S YOUR EXCUSE?" Starscream demanded. Now it turned out that he was not only insufferable, he was also an unambitious fool. "If I were immortal, I would do better things with my time!"

"Sure, sure," said Wowbagger as he reentered his ship. "Loser."

Starscream shot at the ship a second too late. It was obviously the fault of Skywarp, who was distracting him with his renewed laughing fit.

"I don't know, Screamer," said Thundercracker, who wasn't making the slightest effort to appear serious either. "I think he knows what he's talking about."

He was definitely going to kill someone today. Where was Megatron when he was needed?

Millions of years later...

Sitting on the bridge of his ship, Wowbagger was plotting a course to the next destination on his list when he noticed a strange power source. Something was interfering with the circuits. He didn't have time to figure out what it was: immediately, a bluish sphere shot through the control panel to float right in front of his eyes.

Then it spoke. Despite the immense number of people he had met, that voice was unforgettable.

"Smug idiot," Starscream said, and moved away before he could respond.

For the first time in a long, long while, Wowbagger smiled. Ah, it was good when he was proved right.