Work Text:
You're not usually one for forethought and planning, but for something this important, you're willing to make an exception. Or, well, it's less that you're willing to and more that you've already spent weeks rehearsing this conversation in your head and it's a little late to swear it off now.
"You don't have to do this," Drift reminds you. He's standing next to you with your hand in his, and maybe you should feel a little silly about that, but all you do feel is relieved. That he's here, that he's with you, that he's willing to stand—well, next to you, obviously, but also behind you, and even in front of you if it comes down to that. You hope it doesn't, you hope so badly that it doesn't, but it might.
Maybe you would have tried to do this on your own, once, but there's nowhere to run to anymore. This, here and now, the Lost Light, forever—this was the last place to run to, and now you're here, and the future is wide open in front of you like a straight shot to the horizon or a yawning pit just under the edge of your wheels. You're here now, and the future is beautiful and wonderful and terrifying, and no one's ever going to take it away from you. They won't even be able to pry it out of your cold, gray fingers. Let them try.
And this? This thing you're doing right now? This is part of that. You refuse to live in the past anymore.
"I know." You look away from the door and smile at Drift, a small one you don't have to force. "I still want to."
He turns toward you so he can throw his free arm around you in a hug, squeezing your hand where your fingers are still interlaced. You hug him right back and bury your face in his shoulder. "Okay," he says quietly. "The moment you want out, we're out, got it?"
"Yes sir," you tease, even though you know how deadly serious he is. He doesn't laugh, but he snorts, which you're going to count as a successful breaking of tension. When the two of you pull apart, he's still not smiling, but the hue of his optics is a little more serene. Honestly, it's a good sign that he's not smiling. You've talked about this enough to know that any smile on his face going into this would be fake, and that's not what either of you need right now.
You grab his other hand and offline your optics for a moment. This is… this is going to be a lot. There's almost no way you're not going to start yelling at some point. You cycle your vents a few times in the steadying exercises you and Drift have gone over together, focus on pulling your posture into something more confident, and online your optics again, their color modulated into the best approximation of do no harm but take no shit you've been able to figure out so far from what you're learning about Spectralist tradition. "Okay. I'm ready."
Drift gives you a fond, knowing look that's probably only a little bit about the optic colors. "Lead the way, Captain."
Maybe you do look a little silly tugging Drift along by a hand, but you're working on being okay with that again. You're silly, you're ridiculous, the future's too big and too real and too awe-inspiring to worry about who thinks you're having too much fun. That's why you're doing this, you remind yourself as you open the door. That's literally the exact reason you're doing this.
"Rodimus," Megatron greets, looking up from a datapad with a genuine smile you're still getting used to seeing pointed your way. "Drift."
"Hey, Megs!" You take a chair that's as far from the door as Megatron's is, and Drift takes the one next to yours with a much quieter acknowledgement. You're smiling, mostly for real, and Drift's not, and you can see the moment Megatron notices something's up, because he puts the datapad back in his subspace instead of just setting it to the side.
"I take it this isn't a typical meeting," he prompts, almost cautiously.
"Not really," you admit. "I mean, it technically is about command stuff, I guess, but…" You gesture vaguely with your free hand. For all your rehearsing, you still haven't actually figured out how to broach the subject.
Megatron flicks his gaze over to Drift's face, only needing to study it for a moment before he inclines his head in some kind of understanding and returns his attention to you. Under the table, Drift signs something into your hand that only really translates as ugh or maybe ew.
Ugh, you agree, because Drift's still not really okay with how intimately Megatron knows him, considering. "It's kind of…" No, no, wrong angle. "I've been meaning to…" No, that makes it sound like you've been putting it off. "It's just that…" No, it's too important for that!
Megatron waits, and listens, and keeps his attention on you without making it feel like he's staring you down. If he's got any guesses on what this is about, he's keeping them to himself.
"I like you," you finally say. It's not really where you planned to start, but—but you're not great with plans, really, you know that. "You're… we really do work well together, you know?"
"I like you too, Rodimus," Megatron says with a tiny smile of his own. Not indulgent, not annoyed with your stupidity, not humoring something he can't make heads or tails of. Just fond. "What brought this declaration on?"
"I'm getting there," you tell him, trying not to bristle at the feeling of being rushed even though it's a perfectly normal question. Ugh.
Ugh, Drift agrees sympathetically.
"It's—you're great, right?" You smile to cover up how you wince at the sound of your own uncertainty. "You're a great leader, and you help me be a better leader, you hold me accountable and make me think about the important stuff instead of just—" He's frowning. Why is he frowning? That's—your spark lurches unevenly, but you push through it. "—just, I dunno, being a mess, I guess? I was kind of a disaster when you got onboard and you helped me stop—"
"Rodimus," Megatron interrupts, and it's all you can do to be grateful that he doesn't sound angry yet, even though you definitely sound like you're trying to flatter him into something, Primus, that wasn't what you meant to do at all— "Are we remembering the same quest?"
You freeze. Drift's hand goes tight around yours. "What?"
He's been sitting forward attentively, but now he sighs and sinks back into his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose in a show of frustration you know all too well. And it's—pathetic, really, for that tiny bit of extra distance to make your spark feel a tiny bit less suffocated. "I… am willing to accept that there are certain experiences that may have held more significance to one of us than the other," he says. "And I… I recognize that I have had far longer to think on our time together than you have."
He's going to tell you you haven't improved as a captain at all, you realize dully. After everything, he's going to tell you he still thinks you're incompetent, an embarassment, a petulant child, and you—
We can go, Drift reminds you, his touch as sharp and angry as you wish you could make yourself be right now, right now, we can go.
You can't spend the rest of forever flinching whenever Megatron raises his voice. You don't think you'll survive it.
"Say no more," you laugh, dropping Drift's hand and standing up a little too fast. Megatron frowns harder and you want to scream, but you won't, you can't, you won't. "I guess I haven't really, uh—"
"I was cruel to you."
You stop with your face turned away from the table, away from Megatron. Drift's standing too, following your lead, watching your six, the only reason you haven't backed yourself up against a wall already, and he's not moving either.
"I—" Megatron starts to shift, and your plating clamps down and you hear the soft clank of Drift's hand on his sword, and Megatron stops moving. "I undermined your standing with your crew," he says, instead. "I contested your authority at every opportunity. I dismissed you at the slightest convenience, and—" He hesitates, and you make yourself turn your head just in time to catch the grim look on his face as he meets the cold stare Drift must be giving him. "I saw that you were afraid of me, and I used that to my advantage. Often."
You can't speak. The words aren't there. Or—or maybe they are, but Megatron already said all of them.
"Rodimus," he says, meeting your optics with a look of genuine pain, "I can't imagine how I could have made you a better anything."
You hold his gaze as long as you can stand it, daring him to—to what, you don't know, but whatever it is he doesn't, whatever test you're giving him he passes, and then you duck your head and cycle your vents and try to uncurl from the defensive posture you've found your frame in.
Then you sit down. Drift looks at you sharply, but you just offer him your hand, and when he sits down next to you and takes it you rest your silly, clingy joined hands on top of the table like it's a challenge. Megatron doesn't scoff, doesn't hrmph, doesn't say a word.
"I was getting to that part," you joke. It barely counts as a joke, but Drift snorts incredulously, Megatron looks at you with something like awe, and you manage half a smile despite yourself. "Okay, let's—let's start from the top here. Remember that time you shot me?"
Megatron winces. "I do, yes."
"Yeah, I have some complaints about that," you start good-naturedly, and then—and then you talk about all the stuff that's been rattling around in your head for years, and from the sounds of it a lot of stuff that's been rattling around in his head for years too. Drift holds your hand the entire time. At some point you look over and he's got the tiniest corner of a smile on his face.
Okay? he checks.
Yeah, you sign back, I'm okay. You?
Yeah.
Somehow, miraculously, none of you even start yelling. Maybe this whole beautiful, wide-open future thing is gonna work out after all.