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Megatron has no slagging idea how long he’s been sleeping, but the first time he wakes up, he feels like shit.
Everything is too white, too bright, and Primus, he hates that stupid Autobot blue light. He further dims his already dim optic, nearly offlining it.
Maybe he should consider getting an optic filter. He’s already in the hospital, right? There’s beeping beside him, tracking the spin of his spark, he’s sure, and an IL stuck somewhere in him so he’s probably in a hospital. Maybe he could ask the doctors to install the filter right here and now. He’s only got one working optic anyway, so it should be a quick procedure. And it’s not like he hasn’t already felt optic pain.
The patch over the left side of his face feels heavy against him. His spark throbs, an uncomfortable tightness tugs on warped plating, welded and stretched thin, and he’s already developing the makings of a horrid processor ache. He can’t feel any worse at this point, especially if they give him enough stabilizers to hallucinate odd Earth advertisements.
(That’s a lie, there’s always a possibility things can get worse, and he’s had personal experience.)
The blue light to his right flickers. He automatically shifts to glare at it and then finds a better reason to glare even harder.
Optimus Prime doesn’t even notice him. He’s too busy pushing up bright red glasses (since when did Prime have glasses?) frowning at the datapad in his servos, lightly flickering a warning that it will run out of charge soon. He continues to scroll through it anyway. Megatron watches his optics move back and forth over the glyphs.
“What are you doing here, Optimus Prime?” His voice comes out in a pathetic, hideous rasp. Prime’s helm shoots up like a singlehorn, blue (those wretched Autobot blue) optics wide and surprised. “Don’t you have a planet to lead?”
Optimus watches him, frozen in place, digits gripping the datapad hard enough to crack it. His faceplates are ever still, but Megatron has known the mech long enough to recognize the myriad of emotions flitting across his face like a flock of tiny Earth birds.
Then, slowly, Optimus sets the datapad down on his lap, and he… he smiles?
It’s nothing cordial, nothing like the kind of forced professional smile the Prime would attempt in paltry efforts to be diplomatic. It’s a genuine, warm thing — curves into his dimming optics, the barest hints of his dentae peeking through his lips.
Pressing a servo onto his chestplates, right atop of where the Matrix — his spark — resides, he shakes his helm. “I think you’ll find that Cybertron is in no need for a Prime like I any longer.”
The seams of his chestplates split like the tide.
Blast that Prime — that once Prime, his processor corrects as he stares where the divine light of Primus’s favor had once glowed. Left behind is simply his spark, gentle and somber like a river or rain, spinning upon it’s axis.
“It is strange not to feel it anymore,” he comments, quiet and thoughtful. “I didn’t realize how powerful it’s presence was until I relinquished it. But now Cybertron has become a place where it doesn’t need mechanisms like either of us.”
Violently tamping down the urge to reach for it, Megatron tears his gaze away and returns it steadfast to the ceiling.
“Put that thing away, Prime,” his title unintentionally escapes Megatron’s vocalizer, but the mocking tone doesn’t. “The light is insufferably grating.”
Optimus hums apologetically, before his seams come back to close with a lowo hiss.
“So?”
He can feel the Pr- Optimus quirk his helm in confusion. “I’m sorry?”
“So, what have you done with the Matrix?” It’s meant to be sarcastic — something to prove that the mech has no reason to be here, nor show him as much openness as he is, but by the Primes, Optimus is stupid and doesn’t even hesitate.
“Oh! It’s been passed down to someone more worthy,” he says with another small smile. “Hot Rod has become a Prime now, by the name of Rodimus Prime. I assumed that some of it was attributed to the skill he displayed during the Quintesson invasion where we couldn’t, but he’s proved himself to be a wonderful leader.”
That has Megatron fall into silence for a breem too long.
“… Megatron?” Optimus asks tentatively.
Brows furrowed, he just slightly turns back to Optimus. “Just how long have I been… out?”
Optimus’s expression falls, becoming something somber. “A while… you’ve missed out on quite a bit.”
“Well,” Megatron scoffs. “It seems like I have nothing but time. Go on then.”
It might’ve been the most one-sided conversation they’ve had in years. Optimus tells him of the other Megatron’s defeat and demise, of Tarn and his — in hindsight, inevitable — betrayal, of the former Decepticon super soldiers, of the Cortex Helm, and of Soundwave’s sacrifice.
“He was in a far worse condition than you were,” Optimus murmurs. “In pieces. Ratchet had to seal many of his lines right where we were before we could get him to a hospital. He has yet to wake up.”
“Hm.”
“Lazerbeak has taking a liking to Shadow Striker and Rodimus, but he waits at Soundwave’s window often.”
“You sound worried,” Megatron replies through a tense jaw and grit dentae.
Optimus pauses, thoughtfully narrowing his optics. “I am not sure if that’s the case. Of course, I hope that he wakes up and comes out of it okay, but…” a small, amused smile pricks at him once more. “Rodimus has been saying that he’s only calling Soundwave his friend just to spite him, but I know he comes to check on Soundwave whenever he can. I… I can understa–”
“You offer me all this information so willingly,” Megatron interrupts bitterly, scowling, “and yet, none of it explains why you are here.”
Optimus opens his mouth. Closes it. Stares down at Megatron’s frame, a muted, resigned look flickering in his optics. Placing the datapad to the side and pulling his glasses away, Optimus moves to kneel beside Megatron’s hospital berth. He’s uncertain but covers Megatron’s servo with his own, and when he allows it, leans his helm against the edge of the berth.
Only then does Optimus release a shuddering sigh. “I was waiting for my friend to wake up,” he murmurs, voice too soft.
Megatron stares down him, too tired to lift much more than his arm. He scrubs a servo over his face. “I’m on too many stabilizers for this.”
It startles Optimus into a small, muffled laugh, and Megatron has to wonder; ‘how long has it been without war for Optimus to respond so freely?’
He peeks from beneath his servo to find Optimus already watching him, face squished against the berth, an expression that’s too fond. Too domestic. It’s strange on a mech he’d come to learn as a fighter. The one he’d always known as a hard worker. Peacetime is a good look on him.
He turns his optic back beneath his servo. Maybe the doctors actually gave him too many stabilizers. Maybe he is hallucinating.
Optimus squeezes his servo before standing.
“There are more things I believe we need to talk about,” he says steadily, smiling to himself. “But we can… ‘catch up’ later I suppose.”
Grabbing his things, Optimus pads to the door. Catching Megatron’s optic once more he… he looks happy.
“Rest for now, my friend,” he smiles, nodding to a nurse as he walks out the door, and Megatron is left to process his thoughts alone.
🩹
It was to be expected. He knew what kind of mech Optimus was, and yet he still finds himself staring blankly when Optimus walks in with two datapads in his servos and his glasses (seriously, when did he have glasses?) sitting atop his helm. Megatron tries to push himself to at least a sitting position, but a disgustingly kind servo presses against his chassis, right over that aching scar.
“No need to get up. It’s just me.” His thumb moves in a nearly imperceptible rub over the welded metal, and the corners of his mouth just barely twitch downward.
Megatron scoffs, rolls his optic, but obliges, collapsing back into the berth with a flump as Optimus pulls a chair.
“I brought you a datapad,” he blurts out the moment he’s seated. “To pass the time.”
Megatron does nothing but hum in response.
“Restoration efforts have been going well. Maccadam has returned as the heart of our community. Perceptor is doing a fine job running the place.”
And pulling down his glasses to work through his datapad, he simply drones on like that; about small specifics, about the disbanded High Council, and what a wonderful job Rodimus Prime, Bumblebee, Windblade, Shadow Striker, and the others have been doing — far better than he had when they first called for a ceasefire he recalls with a small laugh.
He speaks like nothing had ever happened between them at all.
“How long have you been doing this?” Megatron interrupts. It’s the first time he’s spoken since Optimus arrived, and the way it cuts him off makes him think with no little amusement that he’d forgotten that Megatron was actually awake and listening.
“The restorations? It has only been a couple quartex since-”
“Not that, you clueless dolt. I mean this,” he snaps, gesturing between them. ‘This. Visiting me.’
“Oh,” he vents softly. His finial flicks. “Every day. I have come by every day since.”
‘Maybe I should kiss him,’ Megatron thinks scathingly. And then: ‘Shut up.’
Perhaps when he grows tired of the silence is when he finally leaves again.
🩹
Optimus continues this… this routine, coming by the same time every day, rushing and venting heavily when he doesn’t.
He’s not the only visitor, much to Megatron’s surprise. More Autobots — or rather, former Autobots, come to visit than he expects. Windblade out of everyone holds a rather interesting conversation with him. It’s filled with the air of threats, of course, but were he not completely berthridden and constantly on numbing pain stablizers, he wouldn’t mind rising up to the challenge.
For now, his spark continues to spin, dull and lazy, and his chassis, right where the Decepticon emblem used to be pangs, twists, and tug on his frame like it’s trying to tear another hole into him.
A nurse, the least nervous of all, had told him the state of his spark. Apparently, his internals had melted around it, and if the initial injury didn’t extinguish his spark, that certainly would have. The damage was egregious, hence why he’d be remaining here, in this too white, sterile hospital for regular spark checks and scans.
They didn’t know for sure if his spark would ever heal entirely. He’d be likely to have terrible chassis and spark pains for the remainder of his functioning and would need to take regular stabilizers if it came to that.
His spark feels particularly terrible today. He blames it on Optimus.
That mech — that stubborn, old, thick-headed mech — makes it a point, to come visit him every day and talk mindlessly about the day’s events, no matter how meager. The datapad he had first brough sits untouched at the tiny berthside table, and Optimus continues to ask about it, every time. He’s grown sick of it. Megatron’s so sick of it.
He’s sitting up, feeling the deep, warped metal on his chassis — one that no solder or buffer would ever be able to smooth, when Optimus walks through the door.
Megatron merely glances at him, with enough heat in his glare that Optimus freezes in place.
“What are you doing here?” he spits like venom.
Optimus’s brows come together in an innocently confused, worried furrow. Megatron hates him all the more for it.
“Megatron? I do-”
“Why are you here, Optimus Prime.” Megatron’s face twists with something filthy and ugly and so familiar — dermas curling and dentae bared like a caged animal for the world to see. “Why do you keep coming back when you know as well as I, our history? We’ve been at war for longer than we’d been friends!”
“That’s- There’s-” Optimus stammers. “There is not a war any longer, Megatron…”
He scoffs. “Please! The war being over will not change the fact I have killed your friends, Optimus. I have betrayed you. I have used you. I have personally tried to put a hole through your spark more times than I can count.”
An uncontrollable laugh bubbles out of him. “And you continue to return here! To sit with Megatron — the tyrant, the Slagmaker himself! Even with what you claim a peaceful Cybertron around us, there will be repercussions to come with a mech of your standing, former or otherwise, lowering himself to visit the hospital berth of his greatest enemy.”
Optimus’s optics look much younger than he had seen in a long time, rounded and wide, almost like a sparkling. Unspeakable horror this mech has seen, and he looks like a Primus forsaken sparkling. His servos slip away from the door, come to wrap around his datapad. “May I come in?” he asks in soft, small voice.
Megatron clicks his glossa, turns away. The door closes in a soft shuffle behind them.
The bed dips down as Optimus seats himself beside Megatron’s pedes.
“Back then…” he slowly starts. “When the Other One first arrived, you saved me. As easily as you could have killed me, you told me to get down and avoid the blast.”
“It was tactical. I needed your Matrix.”
Optimus shakes his helm. “And before that, after the Quintesson invasion, you were willing to call a ceasefire. And even before that, you tried to negation terms of peace with the Autobots. With- With me.”
“What are you tying to get at, Prime?” Megatron says impatiently, forgoing not using the mech’s former title.
“That you tried.” Megatron glances down to find Optimus’s servos clenched into fists. “I am far from an innocent mech myself, Megatron. As much as I was a leader, I too was a warlord, even if it was to fight you. But this new era has allowed us the change. I help with rebuilding and rehabilitation. I’ve been collecting literature and histories to refill our libraries. And I know enough about our past to make sure it never happens again. I… I wanted to offer you the same.”
For a moment, Megatron thinks he hasn’t heard him right. His helms whips towards Optimus. “What?”
Optimus nods, hesitant. “I wanted to offer you what was offered to me — a choice. A second chance. Not as a leader, but as a guide.”
Megatron stares agape before slowly, almost imperceptibly shakes his helm. “I am a mech who should be left behind to history, Prime. What is it you always say? ‘One shall stand’?”
“One shall fall,” Optimus finishes quietly.
“It was how it should have ended. The fighter, the cruel leader should have lost to the noble one. Everything I’ve fought for is now over, and I have nothing to fight for anymore.”
“You certainly seem to think it’s worth arguing with me,” he mutters before his optics go wide and startled. Megatron’s own intake snaps shut in surprise.
A silent conversation passes between them.
‘Did you just sass me?’
‘I… I didn’t mean to say that.’
Kliks turn into breems as they silently stare at each other. Optimus lifts up his servo and awkwardly clears his throat behind a fist.
“I don’t want that to happen,” Optimus says, voice wavering just slightly, but conviction glowing in his blue optics.
“Wha-?” but he falls silent when Optimus reaches forward to hold onto his servos.
“I want a future with you in it.” Optimus squeezes his servos. “We are- were enemies. We have fought the same war, Megatron. I have had a taste of what life could be, as something peaceful and beautiful. We have fought for so long — I want it for you too.”
He’s too earnest. Damn him and his stubbornness. Damn his passion and sincerity. Damn him.
And damn Megatron for crumbling like sand beneath it.
“You fool. You selfish, soft sparked fool. Do you even know what that sounds like?” he asks, voice crackling with static.
Optimus smiles, small, gentle, apologetic, and kind.
Megatron pulls a single servo free from Optimus’s grasp, watches the way his soft blue optics widen and try to follow the tips of his digits as they brush against his intake. Megatron revels in the faint shudder beneath the panels of his servos and pulls Optimus forward.
The noise he makes is muffled against his lips, soft and surprised — a noise that has Megatron panic for a fleeting moment before Optimus’s servos grip almost desperately over his own and presses into him. The light of his optics flicker shut like a small flame. His fans click on in a soft, low whirr.
He barely manages to conceal his own startled noise when Optimus’s glossa runs a quick sweep over his dermas. It’s cautious, but still, shockingly forward. However, Megatron knows he’s like putty in Optimus’s hands — his mouth falls open without protest and lets Optimus eagerly press in.
He presses forward and forward until, much to Megatron’s dismay, he loses his balance and falls back into the berth with a curse.
He can’t find it in himself to complain too much though, when he looks up to Optimus’s optics, flared bright and strobing, red glasses askew over his olfactory sensor, his chassis heaving with his vents, and his smokestacks pouring lazy tendrils of curling steam above him. But most all is the expression on his face — a mess of relief, desperation, and something far more emotional than either combined into one as he glances down at Megatron’s dermas.
Megatron opens his arms, an invite to the smallest challenge — inviting Optimus forward.
His lips press thin, his intake bobs when he swallows, but there’s a leg swinging over Megatron’s torso in a straddle, servos cupping his jaw, glasses bumping against his face, and fervent lips pressing against him once more.
Megatron’s arms instantly wrap around his waist. He trails them up Optimus’s sides until he reaches the smooth silver of his smokestacks, already dewing with condensation. He runs his digits down one curiously. The thrum of stream pulses even harder under his attention, and when Megatron pokes into one, Optimus makes a small noise that can’t be described as anything but a moan — sending heat jolting through his frame in a wild spiral.
Optimus pulls away, a servo slapping over his wide-opticked, mortified face, and Megatron can’t stop him for accidentally shifting further back — right over his heated spike housing.
Optimus flinches in surprise as Megatron violently tries to shut down his both his cooling fans and interface protocols, and finds himself vehemently unsuccessful.
“Slag,” Megatron mutters with a grimace, trying to wriggle away. “Slag, sorry. I didnngh?!”
Megatron nearly bites his glossa clean off trying to stop the hideous noise escaping him when Optimus — fragging Optimus — grinds the palm of his servo against his codpiece. He thinks Optimus is giving a question look, an ask for reassurance, but his helm has fallen back into the berth’s thin pillow and his vents shake, ragged like old cloth.
Arousal coils in his tanks, deeper than a submarine, but none of it even compares to the warmth radiating temptingly from Optimus’s own array, right over the span of his belly. Optimus presses his servo down again, and Megatron tenses his jaw.
“We’re…” Megatron vents slowly. “We’re going to end up caught, you know.”
Optimus shakes his helm, derma caught beneath intent dentae. “It’s fine. I don’t- I have- I want to. With you.”
Megatron releases low groan, helm lolling back, an enthusiastic desire shooting down like electricity to his array with a lingering pang. “Peacetime has made you rebellious, Prime.”
Optimus doesn’t reply, too absorbed in trying to coax his spike from it’s sheath. His faceplates are tinted, glowing shy blue that Megatron thinks he’s starting to come to terms with how much he adores.
With a telling click, Megatron allows his paneling to slide away, sighing when his spike pressurizes into the waiting circle of Optimus’s grip.
Scrap, it’s — a shuddering moan rattles itself free from his vocalizer — …it’s been a while.
He grits his dentae, trying to keep himself from making too much noise. Optimus carefully tests the waters, pumping him agonizingly slow as he feels for every single sensory node and ridge. He thumbs at the most sensitive, near the head of his spike, and Megatron’s servo comes shooting out to grab at the plating of Optimus’s knee, venting harshly.
Something unmistakable snaps, and Megatron immediately onlines his optic, only for them to go impossibly wide.
Optimus hardly gives him a klik to admire the deep blue of his valve, the pale biolights extending from his thighs, or his brightened yellow node because he quickly shoves his own digits into mouth and pulls them out just as quickly. They connect with a silvery string, coated in his oral lubricant before he impatiently presses them to his node.
Megatron’s mouth goes dry, fans clicking hopelessly high.
“Why-?”
“It- I don’t, nh… I don’t lubricate easily,” Optimus vents, dentae sinking into his lower lipplate. “I need to- I need to…-”
His digits dip shallowly into his valve. Megatron thinks he might just overload right there, before they even start. His grip tightens on Optimus’s knee, spike painfully hard.
Other servo coming to rub at the slicked nub that is his anterior node, Optimus delves his digits just a little deeper, strokes them pointedly upwards against what Megatron assumes as his ceiling node.
Optimus moans, long, low, and soft as his servos move in tandem, desperately attempting to coax his lubrication protocols on properly. He ex-vents pure steam, fogging up his glasses, still sitting charmingly lopsided on his face.
Megatron grunts as he pushes himself up on an elbow and carefully pulls the glasses away from Optimus’s face.
“When did you get glasses?” he asks quietly as he places them on the safety of the berthside table.
“They… They are reading glasses. I’ve- mnh- I’ve needed them for a while, but I c-could… hah… could not find the time to read until re-recently, so I-I- ah!”
Optimus cuts himself off with a jolt, hips canting forward spectacularly to thrust himself onto his servos. Megatron swallows thickly as he feels warm lubricant drip onto his frame. Optimus’s optics flicker, faceplates flushing as he pulls his digits out with a lewd squelch.
‘Next time,’ Megatron promises himself, watching Optimus’s servo come away wet and pink with a hunger that even surprises him.
Optimus presses his cleaner knuckles gently against Megatron’s chassis, just below his scar.
“Lie back,” he commands in a soft vent.
A part of him wants to retort with something foolish like: “Megatron is commanded by no one”. The other obeys without question, falling back onto the berth as Optimus shuffles back, high on his knees until his soaked, glistening valve kisses the tip of his spike.
Optimus releases a shivering vent where Megatron holds his, servos curling into fists against the berth eagerly. And slowly, in one fell swoop, Optimus sinks onto him.
‘Oh… Oh Pit. Sweet slagging Primus-’
The noise he makes is strangled, choked as Optimus envelops him with a wet heat so fervid — it nearly sends him hurtling directly over the edge. His calipers pulse around him greedily, fluttering, squeezing, taking the shape of every single node and ridge upon his spike.
And Optimus trembles too — venting harsh, heavy pants, just barely rolling his hips impatiently against Megatron’s pelvic plating in the most unreasonably enticing, sensual movement he’d seen in all his functioning. Optimus’s node flares bright, exposed from his spread valve lips, and Megatron wants nothing more than to flip them over — to thrust madly into that tight heat, but he has neither the strength nor the processing power to act upon either when Optimus squeezes his valve like that.
Megatron groans, a deep noise from within the depths of his chassis.
And then, finally, Optimus lifts himself up, up, up — and thrusts down, again and again, rolls his hips, sets a quick and steady rhythm that has Megatron’s optics rolling back into his helm, puff out vents of pure steam. The perfect drag of his valve, the way he clenches like he can’t bear to let go has Megatron’s vision glitch.
And Optimus himself, by the Primes.
His low voice sounds thoroughly debauched, exquisite moans and blips of white static falling from his open dermas like stars — or like his clever hips over Megatron’s spike. Steam condenses over his bright, mesmerizing frame in little dewdrops, fans roaring with exertion. His normally stoic optics strobe with every touch against his ceiling node, and yet they remain just as firm on Megatron’s frame as his are on Optimus.
Optimus’s intake visibly tightens, optics spiraling wide and glassy, as his hips slow.
“Optimus…?” Megatron asks in an admittedly worried rasp.
“I missed you…” His servos briefly clench over the plating of Megatron’s belly before he bends forward, presses his lips against the unsightly scar over his chassis and burying his face against it like he needed to feel Megatron’s spark — to know that he was alive. “I missed you. Primus, I missed you, so much.”
Megatron blinks, gazes down to find Optimus’s frame shaking, his finials twisted down. For a moment, his own servos hover unsurely over Optimus. He carefully wraps an arm around the curve of his waist and brings the other to stroke the top of his in a quick drag down to his shoulder, servo splaying over a smokestack again.
Optimus glances up at him with the air of a resigned confusion.
“Get up here,” Megatron grumbles, with a light tug.
Optimus does, leans further forward to let Megatron kiss him soundly, and he continues until Optimus’s optics flicker closed.
“You’re so dramatic,” he mutters in between kisses. “I was going to come back.”
“I missed you.”
Megatron kisses him again. “And now you have me.”
“… Will you stay this time around?”
“… Hold on. Hold- Sit up, will you?” Megatron says. He quickly follows when Optimus obeys, keeping one arm loosely around him and the other to support himself up. Slowly, the seams of his chestplate open.
He ignores the gnawing twinge of pain, the way Optimus’s optic go wide mere kliks before his frame is bathed in the light of his spark. It reaches for him immediately, knowingly. He doesn’t find it in him to care — there isn’t much left to hide.
“I have given my word, and my frame to you. I have nothing more left to give you than this, Prime,” he says softly. “Sorry it’s not a very good spark.”
But Optimus’s optics sparkle in their reflection of him, blind to whatever other mess hides inside. His dermas part with something Megatron feels reluctant to call awe, no matter how correct it may be. The tips of his digits brush against his spark, cupping it with a reverence to make the Primes jealous. Megatron feels the kiss Optimus presses against it everywhere — a presence wrapping around him like something divine.
“It’s more than enough,” Optimus whispers. “More than.”
He presses one more kiss to Megatron’s lips, and wrapping an arm around his shoulders, lets his own chestplates fall open. Optimus’s spark reaches for his own.
There, he shares the world — his sight, his thoughts, his mind — and Optimus the same.
His essence, his entire being comes to Megatron like molten metal seeping through his lines — there’s him, the feeling of Megatron pressed inside him as they are now, the pleasure and the stretch. His memories, of the shock and horror that had grown when the bastard Matrix had been ripped from his frame. Admiration, joy, grief, desire, longing, and there’s so much love, love, love, love.
So Megatron presses that he’ll try. He’ll take what he’s given, and he’ll try.
Optimus smiles, tender and promising and with love. ‘Thank you.’
With one more kiss, their overload surges and they cease to feel much else at all.