Work Text:
Protect/ Denial.
The final hours of the war were over. Peace had been declared after Shockwave's defeat. Jubilation reigned in the streets, as the bodies of the fallen were being arranged for processing.
"Prime. What will we do with him?" The silence was broken.
The elephant in the room was too big. Too heavy to be ignored. Especially since it was standing right behind him, locked in a cell.
"He surrendered. We won the war," he said solemnly.
"And what about our fallen comrades, the people he murdered, the ones he tortured?" Prowl pointed out angrily. "Ours friends!"
"There will be a trial, the people want it. He will pay for his actions, but attacking him while he's in custody will make us no better than them and will make us look worse than we already are." Megatron's optics swiveled in disbelief at the irony of who had said those words and to whom they were directed.
Prowl's face changed drastically, to Megatron's delight.
"Prime... You... not... you... We'll talk later in private," Prowl said before leaving the room, seething with rage.
And then, the silence fell upon them both again. Heavy and dense, to the point of making it difficult to breathe.Megatron sat on the floor, seeking relief from the residual post-operative pain, and Optimus did the same, trying to get closer to him.
"You're still the same prude I once knew," he said with a half-smile, and Optimus nodded.
"You know... It was nice meeting Bumblebee; that boy had the same noble spirit as you." Megatron gently stroked his Autobot insignia.
"He was quite stubborn and optimistic... I always wondered why you tried to keep him away from this, this war, this chaos."
"But when I met him, when I met him properly, I understood why you did it, and despite your attempts to protect him, you never underestimated him like your men did."
"They didn't see the nobility in him, the one you and I once had before everything went to hell." Megatron grimaced, not knowing what was worse. The pain in his body, the pain in his spark, or what might have been.
"What made you change, Megatron? I don't believe this boast at all." Optimus broke his silence, his blue optics displaying a curiosity Megatron had rarely seen.
Megatron's face relaxed, and then he let out a laugh that echoed throughout the empty cells.
"It's funny. When I spoke to him, the boy went on and on about how good and protective you were. The boy almost idolized you blindly...almost, because even...he had his own mind." Optimus widened his gaze.
"He reminded myself... A version of me from a long, long time ago."
"But let's not talk about him anymore. Let's talk about us. I know they'll execute me, Optimus. Everything is lost now. You made me back down in front of everyone." Optimus lowered his gaze.
"If your men don't do it, those i was command will do." A signal on Optimus's chest began to migrate to different parts of his processor.
"Why Optimus? Why, after all, did you never give up on me?" There was something sad in his eyes. Megatron felt it.
"The answer isn't simple, Megatron." The matrix began to burn in his chest; he felt unworthy and dirty.
"Why do you still protect me at the end of my days?"
"Megatron... Sometimes... We become what the times require." He said subtly, hiding his pain, just like Megatron, and he looked him with a confused face.
"I never asked for this responsibility; it was forced upon me," Optimus said, some emotions escaping from the leadership matrix's blockade.
And then...Emotions that was ignored and denied for millions of years, they screamed for attention, and with their power, they burned through the reinforced walls that had been built around them to contain them.
"Megatron. If our life's had been different, I would have..." A mystical pull took the quickly escaping emotions, not giving them a chance to see the light.
Optimus's face paled; the feeling of being unworthy overwhelmed him as the relic in his chest burned.
"There was a responsibility I had to assume. I couldn't let Cybertron suffer like this." Megatron, roll his eyes...Optimus always putting others before himself.
Inwardly, Optimus wanted to scream. He wanted to let him know how much he loved him, that he was willing to go with him to explore the stars. How much he needed him.
But the feeling in his chest numbed and numb many of these emotions and thoughts. His face grew stoic.
"You're still someone with goodness deep inside, Megatron." His voice was robotic, strained. Megatron had seen this before; he had his own assumptions about it.
"But I'm not the right person to bring that out of you." Optimus wanted to scream at the top of his lungs as these words were spoken.
"I have to go, Megatron. In a few moments, Ultra Magnus and the pyrobots will come for you to take you to the Lost Light." He wanted to scream, to stop, and look back...
To take Megatron's hands and run away from this. But his mind and his Prime status. don't allowed him to do this.
And Megatron, fall in the cold deception of waiting the reciprocal love that one time it was almost clear to him.
The idea of a possibility of a life with Optimus banished away with every step from his Prime. In silence, he though that maybe that love that one time he knew, today was sepulchre in mountains of data inside in that module. Optimus don't says what he wants to say. But it made Megatron move on on this time.
But to Optimus. The time he came to, he was far, far away from Cybertron, traveling into the distance without the Matrix in his chest as his true self slowly began to seep beyond the Matrix's little residual influence. At the time he wanted to look back, it was too late.