Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Well, we can hardly let you surrender without it, can we?"

"Let us surrender?"

"Good, then we don't surrender at all."

"No, no, we do."

"This is ridiculous."

"It doesn't count-"

"Ridiculous!"

"How about we all collectively yell 'Uncle!' and call it a day?"

"What is an uncle?"

"It doesn't count!"

The camera work shoddily zooms onto the face of the young newscaster, her large optics bright as the smelting pits in Kaon. "This is Day 13 of the Autobot surrender to the glorious Decepticon Empire," she announces. "Sources inside the Decepticon fortress tell us that negotiations remain at a stand-still. Despite their agreement to a peaceful surrender, sources allege that Autobot High Command is refusing the Ritual of Submission. This would be the first war in Cybertonian history without the symbolic gesture, leaving some to question if the surrender will be legally valid. Is this a ploy by Autobot Command to prepare for a later resurgence? One must ask: Why?"

The vidscreen flickers off. Optimus tosses the remote to the far end of the couch, then guiltily retrieves it and places it nicely in the center of the low living room table. It is not his vidscreen remote, and he thinks the Decepticons might charge for damages.

"This is ridiculous!" Ratchet sighs. He has been making this argument unsuccessfully for two and a half days now. "The whole point of the surrender is a peaceful transition. Now they want you to collapse on live television?"

Optimus falls back into the couch and leans his helm backwards to vent his frustration to the ceiling. "I think you should let me do it," he says. "A little restructuring of the timeline and I think I could make it to you before I collapse. Off the stage, I mean."

Ratchet's rolling optics are practically audible. "I am your medic, and I say you cannot endanger yourself for no Primus-Slagged Reason!"

"They insist," argues Optimus. "Let us just get it over with." Truthfully, Optimus would prefer to be kept in a nice air-conditioned jail cell for the rest of eternity, but for all the things he is willing to sacrifice for peace, he will not stubbornly insist on not doing something as simple as this.

"You will blow up like a dog-shaped balloon for a child at a carnival," argues Ratchet, "And then you will fall over, your spark incapable of pushing energon through your internal organs, and then you will die."

"I won't die, you will be right there."

"We lost!" cries Ratchet. "Must the indignities continue!"

Optimus thinks this is a little dramatic. He tells Ratchet so, and is met with the tail-end of a wrench that seems to him like it might just be more painful than his Primus-slagged allergic reaction would be.

"Have you ever felt your internal organs die from energon starvation, Optimus?" Ratchet asks. Then he answers, "No, you haven't, because you were unconscious, and I had to split you open like a pinata at that same little girl's 7th birthday party!"

"Where are you getting these similes? A human television show?"

"You are not going to be drinking from that stupid bowl, Optimus," Ratchet declares. "I don't care if I have to restart this goddamn war myself!"

"Ratchet says that I cannot drink from the bowl," Optimus reports. "Or else."

Megatron looks up from his datapad – or rather, he glances up with one single squinted eye, with impressive technique. "Your medic is running your High Command?"

It had been decided by the Autobot High Command, sans Optimus, that it would be better never ever to reveal his weakness for rarefied energon to the Decepticons. Optimus had argued that poisoning was never really Megatron's style, but had been overruled. And so they had been in unsuccessful negotiations for two miserable weeks, their one hiccup the ridiculous (to the Decepticons) refusal to perform the required ritual.

"If you wish to betray our agreement, I promise you drinking from this stupid bowl will not be what I take offense to."

Despite himself, Optimus laughs. "The reason I cannot is even stupider than that," he says. "And I cannot tell it to you."

Megatron beckons for him to sit across from him then, seeing Optimus’s brief confusion, points to a chair shoved to the far wall. Optimus fetches the chair, being above pitching fits over small indignities. 

"So you can't drink from the bowl," Megatron says matter-of-factually. Optimus nods, grateful that Megatron has seemingly acquiesced to this unexplained requirement. Megatron returns this nod, optics off towards the wall or something past it. Then he returns his gaze to Optimus. 

"Alright, fine then."

Optimus tilts his helm. "Fine?" He asks, with the suspicious tone of a mech who has spent the last four million years becoming intimately familiar with the fickle and conniving layers of the mech before him. 

Megatron shrugs. "What do I care if you do or don’t drink from a simulacrum chalice of Quintus Prime?"

He is, in Optimus's official opinion, full of slag. There is that twist of his upper lip, imperceptible to all but the most keen-opticked Megatron-lip viewers, of which Optimus has successfully ranked premier for the last few million years. The select manner in which Megatron's words are slag-filled is lost in a melted smelter pool of infinite possibilities; perhaps he truly does not care for the Ritual of Submission, and wants some other insidious pledge-sealing activity; perhaps he has intuited Optimus's medical secrets and desires to catch him off-guard, replacing his energon with the rarefied variety on some random Monday; perhaps he cares deeply for the Ritual, and this is only a counter intuitive method of persuasion. The trickeries are endless.

Ah, but that is reassuring in its own way. Optimus settles back into his borrowed chair, relaxing into the comfort of the soon-to-come back and forth. Megatron, a dear, readily provides.

"But I might need something, shouldn't I?" He asks, rhetorically. "It is difficult for me to provide my response without understanding your terms, you see. Is it this ritual itself you take issue with, or the replica at hand? Do you worry about precedent, or a weakened negotiating power?"

"It is an issue with the replica chalice," Optimus states, truthfully.

"Ah!" Megatron brightens. "You are not a fan of Quintus Prime? Surprising, but that can be easily solved. Would you be more comfortable promising your surrender to a chalice of Solace? It is important to me that your complete and total defeat be pleasurably vacation-esque."

Ah, Optimus is being taunted. "Interesting words, they might imply a mech is invested in rituals from Quintus Prime," he replies. "Considering how adverse you are to his ideals..."

"A leader provides for his people, and in return they provide for him. They have brought your Autobots prostrate to my pedes, I give them this simple, metaphorical victory, and next they give me Cybertron."

Optimus is unsure how to interpret such a response – both surprisingly considerate of his Decepticon's desires (the bar being set so low) and yet undeniably transactional. 

"Are you saying that you would sacrifice some other aspect of our defeat for the purpose of fulfilling your underlings' demand for a ritual involving a fake chalice and a pinkie's worth of energon?" Optimus asks. 

"Is it the energon?" Megtaron asks, instead of an answer. "Are your people concerned it will be poisoned?"

"The energon will drip from your lines into the goblet and be mixed with pure rarefied. Would you poison yourself to hurt me?" Even as Optimus says it, he becomes certain that yes, in fact, it would be the most natural thing in the universe for Megatron to do. The thought is oddly comforting, in a mawkish way. To think that Megatron would never be capable of mixing rarefied into Optimus’s dinner, but would take upon him self the pain of delivering poison through his own veins – it is endearing, but somewhat counter-intuitive, and yet Optimus is utterly certain it is the truth.

Megatron rolls his optics as if to dismiss the possibility entirely. "I am saying my people want a show that you are fully committed to your agreement. Something beyond political arrangements and conference-room talks. You understand this?"

"I do," agrees Optimus, and he does. "Have you a suggestion for such a gesture? I imagine it must come from a Decepticon."

Megatron brings his hand to his jaw, his index digit tracing his bottom lip, and he is silent for a long minute or two. Optimus does not interrupt and, truthfully, finds no desire within himself to do so. He is perfectly content in watching the back-and-forth petting of Megatron's hard digit across his lip plating, which itself has only the littlest of yielding mesh. If Optimus trains his audials just so, he can hear the small screeches of metal catching on the tiniest of interlocking mesh filaments.

Megatron, over the course of those minutes, grimaces and smirks, all with a peculiar twist to his upper lip. Had Optimus anything else to study, he certainly would, but he feels it is best not to interrupt. And he is correct at that, as somewhere along minute two Megatron raises his helm – pulling his lip from his hand – and says:

"Alright."

"Alright?"

"Alright, I have an idea." Having watched the process in which this idea was formed, and having seen each movement as it occurred, Optimus is somewhat reassured of the plan's genuineness. Still, he bolsters himself for the possibility of a strong rebuke, should the next words be something akin to 'kill yourself'.

"What do you have in mind?"

Megatron nods in a self-assured manner, takes another moment of thought, and then replies: "Pick one of my High Command, and pretend to fall embarrassingly in love with them."

Optimus, in all his worries, had not imagined such a suggestion. "How did you arrive at that idea?"

Megatron grimaces and, with a directness enviable to a scientist, lays out an ordered pattern of thinking. "I categorized your potential reasons for denying the Ritual of Submission into three possibilities: a religious aversion to oaths potentially unkept, a distaste for drinking another's energon (or squeamishness, in this regard) and the associated medical concerns, or a political need to soothe the egos or sparks of your people. As you have refused to explain which of these is the correct context, I must assume all three for a potential replacement. I require a method for reassuring the Decepticon populace that you intend to uphold your word – thus, the endeavor must be public, humiliating in some way, and provide proof of commitment. It cannot involve any religious or historical contexts, per the first condition, requires no actual touch or harm to you or your person – so no battles, no energon oaths, etcetera, and must not be so outwardly humiliating that your Autobots reject it entirely. In fact, knowing the fickle and responsive natures of your High Command, it is better if the solution requires no input from your High Command at all. Therefore, the action you take must be personal and outside the bounds of the treaty table. It must be somewhat passive, but embarrassing, undermining your authority to the Decepticons, but not the Autobots. You understand?"

"Well, yes," admits Optimus. "Though I do not see how I can publicly, privately, be visible to Decepticons, but not to Autobots, not touch but be obvious, fall in love with any of your High Command."

Megatron shrugs, a surprisingly helpless sort of gesture. "You must be pointedly, pathetically obvious, and allow Soundwave's rumor mill to impress upon every Decepticon how your sad forlorn-ness commits you to this agreement until the day you die. You cannot restart the war, because you have fallen helm over heels in love with a high-ranking Decepticon. Your Autobots have no idea; your High Command has spent the last few weeks refusing to submit to the Ritual of Submission, you unable to convince them without admitting to your terrible, miserable, love-sickness for the most embarrassing mech alive. I would suggest Starscream."

Optimus considers this. He has no qualms against his own personal humiliation, and has the ability to quash any rumor that might jump party lines easily enough. "But how would I be so patently obvious in my fake affections?" he asks. "And how will you explain dropping the Ritual of Submission?"

"I will tell my people the truth: I do not give a single slag about a ridiculous Prime-age ritual. Also, I prefer to keep all of my energon inside of me." Megatron pauses, then looks Optimus up and down appraisingly. "Might I suggest longing looks?"

Optimus imagines himself in the mess hall, half bent over a cube of Decepticon energon (all energon will be Decepticon now), forcing himself to stare at the Decepticon Second in Command with longing fervor. "I don't know what longing looks like," he adds. "Is it somewhat miserable?"

"Horribly so," replies Megatron, "But it is also the only reason for being. It's a great joy of mine. I've always longed for your helm on a stick."

"Well, I cannot be giving the impression that I want Starscream's helm on a stick," he says. "And what of when Starscream catches wind of my affections?"

Megatron grimaces. "Don't frag him, no matter what he says. Better yet, ignore him altogether. Look lustily after Soundwave; it's less embarrassing, but more believable. And he would never turn-tail, too, so there will be no rumor of you pulling him to your band of precious ideologues."

Optimus weighs his options, and finds that making optics at Soundwave across a room is better for his health than an allergic attack in front of the Decepticon army. "Alright," he agrees. "If you ensure the rumor is spread, and withdraw the Decepticon request for the Ritual of Surrender, I will do my very best to be visibly in love with your communications officer."

Megatron nods sharply and, as a matter of business, they shake servos on the matter.

Chapter Text

"Well Venom, we don't really know." The young femme with the monumental optics is back, this time seated at a large desk and shown with a stable and almost professional camera. Almost professional, in that every few kliks or so the whole thing blurs and refocuses, and at the occasional inopportune moment the whole set-up is nudged by the unseen camera-mech flickering waste-product of his cygar onto the floor.

"Everyday without an announcement is another day of war," she continues. Her parlance is scripted, which would be obvious in its stilted speech even without her rapid glances off-camera. Across from her is a resolute and blocky purple insecticon, the first generation variety with pincers and pointed helmets and very little else in the way of insect-physiology. He sits with perfect and painful posture and, unlike many of his coevals, replies in perfect grammar. 

"I must push back on that point, Twirl," he says, in the Queen's English. "While one might argue that an indefinite ceasefire is not the same as peace, it is certainly not akin to war. The Emperor could, in his right, spend the next thousand years constructing the glorious Cybertron the Empire has dreamed of, and do so without issue, as long as this ceasefire remains in place."

Twirl, pink in the cheek as well in the frame (and clearly somewhat taken with her older companion) nods along as she asks: "You mean to say that by holding out on the Ritual, the Autobots are doing nothing that could stop the Decepticon victory?"

Venom waves one (somehow) diaphanous claw. "Not as such. By stalling, the Autobots are retaining the right to withdraw their surrender. That being said, with the majority of the Autobot population now on Decepticon lands and their High Command well-watched in the command center, it is doubtful that their withdrawal would have much impact at all."

"Well then why-" Twirl says, "would they care about the Ritual of Submission at all?"

That, Optimus thinks, is a damn good point.

As is proper, Optimus confides his scheme in Ratchet. Ratchet, as is his natural way, returns this confidence with a wrench thrown straight to Optimus's metal cranium.

"You-" he cries "Are a goddamn idiot!" Ratchet, in his ever-evolving quest to reduce Primus's influence to nilch, has taken to human curses. "What a stupid idea!"

"And it might be so," replies Optimus. "But Megatron made a good point – this way, I will not do myself any actual, physical harm."

"What about emotional harm?" Ratchet waves a second wrench about maniacally. "My emotional harm! Watching this shit-show unfold!"

"It is Soundwave, Ratchet. He is the least embarrassing mech to feign affection for. He is competent, intelligent, not brash-"

"It hardly matters who you make goo-goo eyes at, only that you are making them," replies Ratchet, with finality. "But I suppose as long as I don't have to see it and you make no physical contact, go run your own reputation into the ground. Yeah, what do I care? I'm getting a new medbay. With cooler shit. Fucking hell." With that apostate declaration, Ratchet flings himself and his spinning chair off to the other side of the patient room.

So Optimus takes that as unconditional support for his brilliant solution. Feeling more confident, he departs the medbay with only the most tame of taunts thrown to his back. But when the door shuts behind him and he is left alone with a long hallway and only the most basic of plans, he pauses. Unfortunately, he hasn't the slightest idea what he ought to do next.

Per the agreement, Optimus cannot (and would not) reveal this plan to the rest of his High Command. They, not under medical confidentiality, might spread the news, and should they do so the whole endeavor might become not only useless but more embarrassing a situation that is already stands to be (for, despite what he had said to Ratchet, Optimus understands there will be some humiliation in his show of eager adoration). Thus, with his only confidant now fully informed, Optimus is in want for a step two. 

After some consideration in the empty corridor, he decides the simplest next move would be to locate Soundwave. Thus begins an hour-long (a whole morning period long) search across three floors, six labs, and 12 offices, most of whom he is prevented from ever entering by a vast array of armed and nervous looking Decepticon guards. He eventually finds the elusive object of his soon-to-be affections in Optimus's own "office" (the constrictive little room given to him for the duration of their negotiations), leafing through Optimus's files and spinning around on his chair.

"Hello, I don't think you are supposed to look at those," Optimus says, taking pains not to sound accusatory. Soundwave looks up at him as if to say 'the materials in this office are ours, read your lease' and then he stands, walks around Optimus's desk, and hands him a datapad. He departs with a sharp nod, and Optimus turns to watch him leave.

He's a lither mech than most of his colleagues, but well-formed with an undeniable strength. His shade of dark blue is enjoyable to the Cybertronian optic – not so light as to gaudily allude to the colors of love, not so dark as to be off-putting. Yes, Optimus decides, he could choose far worse mechs to feign undying love for.

The datapad Soundwave had delivered is a copy of his schedule, heavily redacted. It helps that Optimus knows that his acts of love-sickness will be met not with confusion but instead knowing obsequence. He decides to begin as Megatron had suggested – longing looks across the cafeteria.

Timing is the first set-back. Soundwave is scheduled to arrive at the mess hall for a grand total of 5 minutes, 3 days a week. It is not a satisfactory amount of time for gazing upon. But if Soundwave were to change his own schedule it might arouse suspicion. Optimus goes to Megatron. 

"Is there any reason Soundwave might be delayed in the cafeteria today?" He asks, having barged into Megatron's office with an audacity that, under any circumstance that does not involve a secret plot, might be considered rude. "Our mealtimes do not ordinarily overlap, but mine ends as his begins. I need an opportunity to, as they say, 'make eyes'."

Megatron, standing behind his desk with four datapads balanced on the inside of his elbow, 'makes eyes' of a different variety at Optimus. His eyebrow pulls a lot of the expression's weight. "I don't have any interest in designing your attraction to my third in command," he says. "I'd be just as fine with you throwing yourself at his pedes, if only you were a convincing enough actor."

"Just a reason to stay," Optimus pleads, with a bit more dignity than the word implies. "Is there someone he might discipline there?"

Megatron shifts, and the datapads shift with him. It does wonders for enunciating his hips. "I'll call him over for quick conversation," he decides. "You'll have your time, but not much of it."

"Thank you." Optimus bows his helm and backs towards the door. A quick entrance belies a quick retreat, especially when concerning secret plots. That, and Optimus has failed to meet with his High Command today, and the next negotiation session is scheduled for two hours from now.

Megatron's eyebrow returns to its place sky-high on his face. "Optimus," he calls, when Optimus is halfway through the door. Optimus pauses.

"Yes?"

"Are you secretly an automaton that runs on oil, incapable of consuming energon?" Megatron asks. He shifts as he speaks, so that Optimus's optics are drawn to the light touch of the datapads against his waist. The words, however, are befuddling enough to bring Optimus's attention back to his egoistic eyebrow and quirked lip.

"What?" Optimus replies.

"Why you can't participate in the ceremony," Megatron says. "Is it because you are secretly an automaton that runs on oil?"

Optimus grimaces, though somewhat comically; this must be Megatron attempting humor, and Optimus replies with a similar tone. "I should hope not. I hate the taste of gasoline."

Megatron frowns, so perhaps he had truly thought the automaton idea feasible. "Truly? You prefer crude?”

“All oil,” admits Optimus.

“All oil? Even the celebratory variety."

"Fancy oils are just oil topped with perfumes," Optimus tells him, in full honesty. Ratchet has a crate of the stuff sitting around for the day the war ends, be it through victory (the original intent) or a surrender in which they all live (the current goal), and Optimus has been informed he'll be roped into a toast regardless of his preferences. "The perfumes taste as miserly as the oil," he adds.

Megatron frowns, which isn't much different from his usual expression but is distinctly crooked, and waves Optimus off a moment later. "Let your tastes be miserable then," he says, but the teasing is friendly in tone, and leaves Optimus with a surging sense of appreciation.

"Thank you for substituting Soundwave instead of Starscream in this charade," he says, as he is leaving. "Your third in command is a handsome, competent, and respected mech. Of all the Decepticons to show public affection for, he will be the easiest."

Megatron's frown only deepens, to Optimus's dislike. But then he is waved away again. "I will see you in a few hours, and we can fumble our way through this poorly executed surrender of yours," he says. And, well, even if Optimus thinks it wasn't that poorly executed, he nods his helm and leaves regardless. He supposes he ought to be grateful, and he is.

The Autobot surrender had been a masterful subversion, a brilliant tactical victory. Autobot High Command, having read the tea leaves with the derisive and long-stubborn sneer of the foolhardy and optimistic, had stalled for several centuries, banging their infantile fists upon the hard metal of their tactical table, which was naturally conductive but not conducive to punching, and they had damaged many a deranged servo upon it. When it had finally been decided, and planned, it had been a masterpiece. Yes, ingenious, and Optimus was to blame.

There could be no convincing the Decepticons that the Autobots had simply decided they longed for subjugation, not with Optimus's own lengthy diatribes about freedom, and any initiation on the Autobost’s part would have stunk of either treachery or bruising. In fact, it was the latter that had inspired the move – or the desire to escape it. When Prowl had eventually declared that the Decepticon Fleet amassing in the Beta sector would be their doom, and the question of surrender had been resolved, they had been left to ponder over the conundrum of conditional surrender. That is, how to prostrate themselves with enough dignity that Megatron might not look up to his quietly growing, distant fleet and think to himself, yes, I can wait patiently for the 1,000 years it will take them to arrive.

The ingenious solution was to design a less total, instant defeat. They had rode out and tumbled straight into the newest iteration of Decepticon trap, obvious and insulting it might be. And then Optimus had knelt before Megatron and humbly requested permission to surrender with dignity, so that his people might one day live harmoniously under Megatron's rule and not be beaten by the Decepticons' clearly superior minds.

And Megatron had said, shoulders slumped and frown as glorious as ever: "Yeah, alright."

Optimus fumbles about in his office for a bit, writing to his own team about the afternoon's negotiation meeting and the going-ons of the Ark. And then, some 15 minutes before he ought to, he heads to the cafeteria. The cafeteria is one of the few inter-factional spaces being integrated onto the Decepticon ship. It had been decided, some five months into the process (it had taken five and a half for negotiations to begin, this had been a pre-negotiation negotiation) that ten Autobots would be allowed in the Decepticon base at a time, to be monitored by Soundwave. The end goal was to integrate the two forces (though obviously the Autobots would play subordinate). Jazz had insisted the cafeteria become available for those Autobots on site, as he had argued to the Decepticons that it would be a lower-stress environment for mingling and to the Autobots he had argued they take a look at their dwindling energon supply. His arguments had been successful, though Jazz himself had been banned from Decepticon territory.

Still, inter-factional or not, the cafeteria is not an inviting place to be. When Optimus enters he becomes one of two Autobots in the cramped space. It is also odorous, like all wet spaces are on this planet. It holds in the air, creeping into the vents so that it can send the reek of stagnancy along with the fresh air meant to overcome it. The energon dispenser has rust in one of its corners. The tables are long and drilled to the floor, with hard benches at various heights.

Optimus nods to Sideswipe, who is frowning into a glowing cube with such vigor that the cube itself has begun to dim. Optimus would not be surprised if the taste itself were being flattened under Sideswipe's distress. Clearly, this morning's game of 'soldier integration' had gone as poorly as the last.

Optimus, overly-cognizant of the beady-bird optics watching him from some distant nook, puts a perfectly normal amount of standard military nutrient-blend additive to his energon. Then he steps over to Sideswipe's lonely bench, feeling an adrenaline thrill tickling his back-struts and lightening each echoing step. He settles beside Sideswipe with an equally jittery fervor. The younger mech looks up at him glumly.

"I think a Decepticon is in love with me," he proclaims, with little excitement and only miserly fanfare.

Optimus pauses, cube halfway to his lips, and sets it down onto the cold table. "What do you mean?"

Sideswipe wraps his arms around his chest. "There's this random Decpeticon, super low-ranking, but now I'm with all these low-rank dudes, ya know, cuz I'm an Autobot and I don't even wanna be here. And he – I don't even know his name, but he talks to me a lot, and we hang. He's chill, and we are forced to be there together, so I didn't mind-"

Sideswipe eagerly relays his story with increasingly extravagant gesticulations, his arms unfolding from about him as he speaks. "And then, today, he gave me a nice bottle of oil!" he continues. "So now I gotta – I don't know! I mean, I'm an Autobot! We haven't even signed this stupid surrender yet. What a bummer."

Optimus replies slowly. "A bummer because he gave you nice oil, or because you feel the factional difference makes the relationship impossible?"

Sideswipe's face scrunches up like sheet metal under a wrecker's fist. "I don't want a relationship with a Decepticon," he objects. 

Optimus, with foreknowledge of his activities to come – a quick check of his internal clock reveals about two minutes from now – chooses his words carefully. "It's perfectly fine for you to be interested in a relationship with someone of another faction," he says, slowly. "Be that relationship romantic or not. Alliances easily form strong bonds, even if the terms are less than ideal." He thinks about Megatron, in his office, with the datapads held carefully to his waist, plotting away so casually with Optimus.

"I don't," replies Sideswipe, obstinately. "I'm just worried about losing my chit-chat buddy. This team is so boring."

Optimus supposes that's that then. Sideswipe's arms have returned to their crossed position around his chest. Optimus twists himself back to the table and sips from his cube.

Soundwave arrives perfunctorily. He stands patiently in the energon line, collects his cube, and walks to an empty table. It is only when he has reached the table and sat that Optimus realizes he has been staring, thinking all the while about how he ought to appropriately stare. His glazed expression is doubtless ineffective for his goals – he imagines he has looked more haunted and crooked than desperately in love. He reorients his face accordingly.

A few searches for frames of romantic comedies had revealed to him that the slightly crooked upper lip – the ghost of a smile – and eyebrows of softened pain can coalesce into a dreamy expression, and this he tries on like a new battlemask – awkwardly, and with some facial discomfort.

He then thinks that perhaps a truly in-love mech would be self conscious of this fact, especially if his would-be lover were of another faction, so he mimics Sideswipe with the crossed arms and averted gaze, and allows his optics to drift back naturally.

In this manner he continues to make a fool of himself, for some two minutes or so, and he thinks he is doing a rather splendid job of it. But his time with Soundwave is now half over, and he must sell it so that he can be done with it all. His averted gazes allow him to glance about the room, where to his dismay he finds most of its occupants self-absorbed or otherwise distracted, and none paying much attention at all to him. Some, instead, are now glancing at the door. His curiosity betters him, and he follows their gazes to where Megatron has now entered.

Megatron marches down to Soundwave's bench, giving Optimus only the glimmer of a look and no acknowledgment, and he plants himself beside Soundwave with one leg under the table and the other on the other side of the bench, so that his torso is facing his spymaster and his thrown right knee and curved thigh might draw the onlooker away from his twisted, grumpy face.

Here he is to play the buffer, and Megatron does a fine job at it. Optimus watches curiously, tries to read Megatron's lips, the specifics of which he has never been good at. They are expressive, but only is such a way that makes it clear their owner's mood, rather than intent, and so Optimus discovers that Megatron is in a decent mood, pleased by the conversation, and otherwise not likely to punch Optimus in the face and declare victory over Saturn's third moon.

Megatron manages to stall Soundwave for some time. Sideswipe had finished his cube at some point, and Optimus had offhandedly sipped at his own. And when he had set his cube down Megatron's optics had lifted – like wind under the wings of a seeker, pray Primus – and flicked over Soundwave's shoulder to rest on Optimus's own, and one of his eyebrows had raised and Optimus had smiled softly back. Success, he'd said, to the silent question. And then Megatron's eyes had abandoned him for loftier things, like his third in command, and swinging his hidden leg over to join his esteemed other, and escorting himself and his spymaster from the cafeteria with practiced ease.

They pass Starscream on the way out. Upon obvious signs of their immediate departure, Optimus had redoubled his glances to Soundwave, thinking he had blinked away all the time Megatron had provided him, so now he watches with flicking optics as Megatron claps Starscream on the back in an oddly jovial mood, his other arm affectionately around Soundwave's shoulders. Starscream curls his lip but smiles when Megatron's back is turned.

"That was odd," comments Sideswipe, the first reminder in ten minutes that he is present. Optimus turns to him, freed now that the doors have closed behind Soundwave's back.

"Hmm?"

"Just, ya know, chummy Decepticons." Sideswipe has crumpled his cube for want of something better to do, clearly stalling the return to his own position. Now he watches Optimus with curious optics, and Optimus knows he must have seen the looks, for that was the entire point of the exercise, and now is the time for him to look perfectly abashed and secretive, which is strangely exactly how he actually feels.

"I am not surprised that there is some buried familiarity," replies Optimus, a little defensively. "One doesn't spend every battle for millions of years together without some affection."

"No," says Sideswipe. "'Guess not."

"I'd like to start this meeting by reminding the Autobots that they are surrendering to the superior Decepticon cause, defeated and ashamed, begging for our mercy!" crows Starscream, just as he begins every meeting. Even, Optimus assumes, those in which the Autobots are not present. That is what Megatron mutters, at least.

"Every slagging meeting." But he says it so fondly, Optimus thinks, that the snark of it is lost entirely. Optimus has the honor, or lack thereof, of sitting along the table to Megatron's right instead of at the opposing head. Upon the first of these meetings, Starscream had explained it like so:

"Megatron would much rather stare at my pretty face. And it is our table."

To which Megatron had replied: "Your glossa is as obtrusive and loud as your paint, Starscream, but at least I am somewhat more fond of your coloring than your voice box." Optimus had shifted uncomfortably and then, once Starscream's red and blue color-scheme had wormed its way to recognition in Optimus's processor, again in abashed pleasure. For the briefest of moments, his placement by Megatron's side was a combination of his paint and his less-pliable glossa, and not meant solely as a leash.

Today, he feels the position will finally be paid its dues – morphing from control to comradery, he and Megatron will combine their respective places and powers to lasso their audience and haul them towards consensus. They will end this back-and-forth; the Ritual of Submission shall be conquered.

Megatron had arrived a few minutes after he, Soundwave and Starscream by his side. Prowl and Ironhide, by virtue of being his highest ranking Autobots allowed in the Decepticon Base, follow behind, escorted by a blank-faced guard. The guard is Ironhide's tail; Prowl, like Optimus, has been allowed the appearance of running free, though they both have a cassette undoubtedly watching from above.

When they had all settled, Soundwave across from Optimus and Shockwave across from Ironhide, the dour Dirge dealing deleterious looks at Prowl from his place beside Shockwave, and Starscream adorning the opposite table head with his haughty presence, it had been almost the same as it had been that first awkward, monumental day.

Now, as Starscream basks in his self-aggrandizing bliss, Optimus is as eager as ever to end their discussions properly. "Yes, Starscream, we are surrendering," he replies, in a tone so neutral it might be kicked from the planet and forced to spend the rest of its days serving energon in an abandoned space station cafe.

"Well," Ironhide gears up. "Then I'd just like to start by reminding everyone this is a conditional surrender, and the condition is that I get to kick his ass." He raises his finger to point at Starscream, of course, who naturally devolves into a true fit.

"No it is not!" Starscream cries, like a toddler. "What stupid nonsense- I say we call it all off! Clearly we were winning, my Liege, why else would they come beg on their knees-"

Megatron, helm already held in hand, mutters "Wouldn't I give to have him on his knees."

"You were not winning," lies Prowl, so well Optimus almost believes him. "As already declared, our surrender is meant as the only way to achieve lasting peace for both our peoples. It is a sacrifice!"

"Yeah right," mutters the generally discursive Dirge, disaffectedly doodling into the dark discussion table.

"Sacrifice, schmacrifice, we should throw you in cells for eternity-"

"That, I believe, would be the condition previously mentioned," Shockwave chimes in. When that succeeds in earning him three uninterrupted seconds of attention, he adds: "This meeting, however, is likely to be both ineffective and inefficient. If the Autobots insist on not participating in the Ritual of Submission, and our party refuses to continue without it, then this is a waste of my time. I would seek your permission to leave, my Liege."

Megatron recovers quickly, or else his misery over Starscream's ministrations was feigned. The latter seems more likely, considering his earlier mood and his general insistence upon Starscream as a Second. Fond of him, Optimus thinks. Nevertheless, Megatron is as comically immoderate as ever when he replies:

"Not granted, Shockwave, we have dreams to crush and worlds to conquer." His perfunctory reply does, somehow, subdue his seemingly-sequacious subordinate (oh, Optimus's processor has gone for a loop, he thinks, with the adjectives it is supplying). Shockwave, for his part, settles down silently into his seat, unaffected by Ironhide's smarting glares and Starscream's upturned nose.

"Well, since we've suddenly decided to conquer the world, let's be on with it," says Starscream, sardonically. "Drink the rarefied energon mixed with the disgusting slag that will pour from our Majesty's lines, Optimus Prime, and revel in your lameness."

Prowl sits up straighter, a feat almost unimaginable, and prepares for the same argument as ever. "He will not," he emphasizes. "As we have been saying for weeks. We will not be participating in the Ritual of Submission. We have agreed, in what most would consider to be a startlingly self-sacrificing manner, to end this brutal war by surrendering ourselves to your cause. We are giving you Cybertron, and all we want in return is our own safety and those of the organic species aligned with us. Will you truly turn down such an offer over a ceremonial custom of the regime you overthrew?"

"Yes!" cries Starscream, at the very moment Megatron declares:

"No, we will not." He does not, however, elaborate further, which sends the table into a nice bout of silence. Optimus gears himself up to speak, and makes it so far as to say a beginning "Uh-" when he is preempted by Prowl.

"Clearly, putting the proverbial 'pin' in the issue is not conducive to a lasting agreement," he says, "and we cannot continue circling back to it. Our arguments remain the same and, to be perfectly candid, this really should be a non-issue."

Starscream sneers. Optimus has found that, upon the appearance of these sneers, one is forced to blink and wonder if there had not been a sneer there beforehand. It is a strange effect of memory, a surprise to find that perhaps there had not been one, just a second before.

"If you are just going to tell us that you're afraid of a little pageantry, we don't need to hear it again," says the sneer. "And if my Liege has suddenly decided not to care for pageantry, then this faction has clearly gone to shit."

Megatron rolls his optics. "Believe it or not, Starscream, I never cared as much about colored lights as I do about stasis cuffs. Clearly we have different preferences in berth, but let's bring our discussion back to the negotiation table, shall we?"

Ironhide snorts loudly, and then looks down at his servos in shame. Optimus hopes the color drains from his cheeks quickly, and wonders at the indignant expression upon Starscream's face. Not for the first time, he briefly considers the possibility that Megatron and his second had been previously amorously engaged. He glances over to Soundwave, who stares back at him with a withering aura.

Optimus chooses then to speak, if only to wretch himself from the mortification of being solely considered by Soundwave. The optics of the rest of the table are – despite their array of emotions – a soothing balm to the disdain that Soundwave can accomplish. "I hope that we might be able to settle the issue today, so that we do not have to have a similar discussion tomorrow," he says.

"You will comply?" asks Shockwave.

"Well, actually-" Optimus trails off, waiting for Megatron to interject. Megatron does not, though he does raise one mildly perturbed eyebrow, as if to say 'Optimus Prime, what on this Primus-accursed planet do you think you are about to say right now?' which is so successful in its delivery that it earns its place upon the pedestal of Soundwave-level mood-killers. Not for the first time, he briefly considers the possibility that Megatron and his spymaster had been previously amorously engaged.

"Actually," he manages, "Megatron and I are discussing solutions to the conundrum of the Ritual of Submission in private talks. I believe it would be best to push the topic for now, and allow us to come to our own agreement privately." It is not, as he would have hoped, a complete end to the charade but, considering the apathetic look on Megatron's face and the previously threatening eyebrow, it is what he can manage.

Megatron, for his part, doesn't disagree. "Yes, fine," he says, and waves the whole debate away as if it were nothing but water under a bridge. "Utterly ridiculous that you won't submit to a harmless bit of ritualistic fun, but we will discuss that further alone. Let's get on to the important parts. I want 'In Service to the Emperor' engraved on all of your Autobots' afts."

"What?!" roars Ironhide, taking the obvious bait.

"Oh, excellent idea!" cries Starscream exuberantly.

"That seems unnecessary," says Shockwave.

"We politely decline to consider the possibility," provides Prowl.

Optimus sighs. Megatron grins. Optimus prefers the maniacal tilt of it to the disinterested frown of before. It has a certain charm.

"Alright, everyone get your sorry afts out of my meeting room," Megatron orders exactly two clicks after the meeting's scheduled end-time. "I have slag to do. Not you, Prime." The others file out, Dirge the first to disappear, the others dissipating in a slower fashion.

Starscream flits his wings as he glides the long way around the table – and there is another door behind his own chair, but he insists on using the one by Megatron for reasons that had previously surpassed Optimus's understanding but now, accompanied by the sway of his strut and the words he calls as he passes -

"Maybe I'll enjoy that flatteringly expensive oil you bought me tonight, my Liege, and sort through my collection of warlord-proof stasis cuffs."

- and Optimus feels the small thrill of a theory perhaps confirmed, paired with the light flame of embarrassment and the off-putting smoldering of envious interest. The embarrassment is understood – such things as stasis cuffs rarely make professional appearances in Autobot conversations – but the rest...

Optimus Prime is not a prude. If this is his processor telling him he might have a prurient interest in handcuffs, then so be it. Still, this is hardly the time to be exploring the avenues of desire, considering the vast and dangerous highway he is steering his Autobots down. Anyway, he has his own stasis cuffs, even warlord-proof ones.

He does take note of the loud announcement of a gift, and the rolling optics of Ironhide, who now also certainly believes there is some affair spilling out over its personal rim onto the negotiation table. Perhaps he ought to use a similar tactic in his effort to woo Soundwave and court public opinion.

Prowl leaves last, filing after Soundwave, who of course has no care for potential backstabbings with Buzzsaw gliding gently over Prowl's helm. Prowl scowls upwards, shoots a questioning glance back at Optimus, and at Optimus's nod, departs.

"I want to talk about that performance," Megatron says, voice dripping with disapproval.

"Yes," Optimus agrees diplomatically. "I thought we had decided that-" but Megatron interrupts him before he can voice his complaint.

"You said you thought my spymaster was an intelligent and talented mech, did you not?" he asks, or rather tells.

Optimus pauses, uncertain, and worries his bottom lip for a moment in confusion before he speaks. "Yes, I suppose so."

"Not unattractive?"

"Uh." In the short few moments this conversation has taken, Optimus's processor has failed to intuit its topic. He stumbles for what Megatron could possibly be alluding towards and, in failing, speaks the truth. "Not as such."

"Then we agree," Megatron smiles, which only sends Optimus further into confusion. Considering the display of a minute prior, he had not assumed – well, no, that seems perfectly alright, that Megatron and Soundwave and Starscream might all be in some sort of arrangement, and now – oh, this conversation still doesn’t make a lick of sense.

"...yes?" replies Optimus, like an audience volunteer agreeing to stick his hand in the trained lion's mouth. For once, Megatron does not bite.

"Then how-" Megatron pauses here for emphasis. "could you fail so spectacularly at being dramatically in love with him?"

Oh, Optimus's processor supplies. "I did not," he retorts. "In fact, I stared at him nearly the entire time." It is not a lie, as Megatron had been sitting just beyond him, so any brief glances at Megatron were not a grand deviation from Soundwave's frame.

"I certainly saw you. You resembled a doddled old fool, processor addled, less lovestruck and more lost. Soundwave is an excellent fighter and tactician. You ought to be enamored!" Megatron sounds almost offended. Perhaps he, being so enamored with Soundwave himself, is upset at Optimus's failures.

"I will endeavor to do better," Optimus promises.

"I am unconvinced of your capabilities." Megatron's frown alleviates somewhat at this, as if he finds relief in Optimus's failures. "You are a miserable actor," he says. There is a beat's pause and then, with sudden onslaught, his face falls into a miserable anger which lasts only for the briefest of moments before it is replaced with his regular frown. "If you truly felt any sort of affection for anybot, it would be read from you like a broadcast report. We should call the whole thing off. I don't know what I was thinking."

"No," cries Optimus, in turn taking his own offense. "I am perfectly capable of making a fool of myself, and-"

The briefest of upturned lips. "Well, in most every other case."

"-if my choices are this foolishness or that blasted Ritual I will choose this," Optimus declares. This is, frankly, the less painful option. "It was your plan to begin with. There is some merit to it, and off the top of my helm I cannot come up with another form of humiliation which might convince your Decepticons of my commitment." Optimus crosses his arms and sighs. "I might take the Decepticon brand, but my people would riot. Obviously no words will suffice. I would stake my life on it, but that isn't much, considering the circumstances. I could publicly promise my services to the Decepticon military-"

Megatron waves that suggestion off. "Oh, you'll be providing that regardless. In any case, a condition that predates the decision to surrender – and in fact, might be responsible for encouraging it – will be better than any easily-revoked assurance."

Optimus sighs. It would be problematic from the Autobot side, certainly. Such is the thin line to trod – a reason the Decepticons can latch onto for their surrender, as of course the Autobots had not explained it truthfully (that the Decepticons would have won the war in 1,000 years had they not), but Optimus cannot send the Autobots into confusion with an outright and upsetting lie, as they too do not know just how close the Decepticons were to victory. Still, he could deny he holds any feelings, and his Autobots would believe him over Decepticon rumor. "I could – what if I were to declare my love in front of him and a few Decepticons, instead of these inefficient games?"

"Sure," says Megatron, "though Soundwave may feel the need to kill you for it. It would trespass on his unapproachable aura."

"Would you kill me for it?" Optimus asks, in a moment of inspiration.

Megatron's face performs an interesting series of cartwheels. First it goes up, then it goes down, and then briefly up again, before it tumbles down into tired discomfort. "No," he decides. "That would not be for the best."

"What more can I do?" asks Optimus, crossing his arms in frustration. "If the looks are not enough. What would be an effective illustration of my desire for your spymaster?"

Megatron imitates his position, though his arms clutch across his stomach, lower than Optimus's aggrieved stance. He purses his lips, thinks "You might...act foolishly? Uncoordinated, and more visibly than your previous attempt. Fumble your datapad when he approaches you, and stutter in conversation with him. That should at least act as kindling, and Soundwave and I shall spread the fire around ourselves." He does not, Optimus thinks, sound pleased about it.

"I wish you had performed the damned Ritual," Megatron mutters. "I'd have preferred to drink your energon."

If the mix in the chalice had just been their energons, Optimus would have felt the same.

Chapter Text

"You know what the real question is, Twitch?" The camera, at the steadiest it has ever been, pans in a slow and deliberate movement across the broad, clearly repurposed ping-pong table at which the reporter and her interviewee speak. The interviewee, for reasons beyond comprehension for the average viewer but not for Optimus, is Thundercracker. Optimus, by virtue of having Jazz at his disposal, knows that Thundercracker runs the one and only Cybertronian television station, which consists of three requisition security cameras and, well, Twitch.

"What would that be, sir?" asks Twitch, in that tone reserved for bosses who are superior in both age and skill.

Thundercracker knits his digits together and speaks in a slow imitation of wisdom. "Why did the Autobots choose now to surrender?"

"The clear show of tactical and physical superiority during the battle of Two Hills forced Optimus Prime to beg for a dignified surrender, which our Great Lord provided magnanimously for the good of a unified Empire," Twitch recites.

"Well, that's certainly the official line." The camera pans between the two as they speak, but does so with such steadiness and with such gentleness that by the time it has moved to the new speaker the other has begun to talk. As a result, the broadcasted visual is little more than the briefest of glimpses of un-moving faces and the expansive backdrop of a CGI Tokyo cityscape.

"Sir, you are a Decepticon official," chirps the disembodied voice of Twitch.

"I think there is more to this story. There's something the Autobots aren't telling us. Optimus Prime is refusing the Ritual of Submission, and I'm willing to bet it is related to the surreptitious circumstances of their surrender." Thundercracker's pointed, matter-of-fact finger makes its appearance onscreen and then, shortly thereafter, his face. It now displays a telethon seller grin as he proclaims: "And our investigative team is going to get to the bottom of it! Stay tuned for future reporting!"

Optimus is telling Ratchet the plan as they tour the semi-abandoned Decepticon medbay #2 . "I'm going to work up my courage to go speak to Soundwave in the cafeteria and then, out of nerves, fumble my energon across the floor and his pedes. Then I apologize profusely, kneel to clean it up, Laserbeak takes a picture of that, and Megatron complains loudly that I am in love with Soundwave."

"Ah-huh." Ratchet pokes at a machine with a disturbing number of tubes affixed to it. He does not appear to be paying attention to the story, which is fine, because at the very least Optimus has the complete unwavering and unnerving attention of Ravage. The cassette pads alongside them, speaking very little and saying quite a lot. He has an expressive face for a mech whose features do not so much as twitch.

"Ravage and Frenzy and Rumble will then spread an unsubstantiated rumor claiming that I ended the war because I couldn't bear to hurt Soundwave anymore-" Ravage's optics darken - "or rather, couldn't bear to let him keep hurting me."

"That's good," comments Ratchet distractedly. He is poking one digit inside one of the yellowing plastic hoses of unknown medical use, which seems to Optimus like a revolting idea. "Solve that problem before Thundercracker can get involved, I suppose. Hush up that stupid television."

"Yes," agrees Optimus. "Wait, no. What?"

Ratchet looks at him for the first time in the conversation. "You didn't watch this morning's program?"

"The news?"

"Yes, Thundercracker is moving into investigative journalism now. He thinks you had some other reason for ending the war early."

"I wouldn't say we ended it early..." it had been, by most estimates, a long fragging war.

"Listen, this is fascinating and all, love to hear about your idiotic endeavors, but I have to concentrate." Ratchet returns his attention to the octopus-like machine. He sticks his digit back inside one of the hoses. Ravage glares.

"Ratchet, I'm not certain that the Decepticons want you molesting their medical equipment." Despite himself, Optimus reaches his own finger over to prod at the ridged tubing. Ratchet slaps his hand away.

"No," he retorts, "clearly they want you molesting their spymaster. Why are you here? To watch me beat the living daylights out of Hook?"

"You are going to beat the living daylights out of Hook?"

"Ass over teakettle, that's the way." Ratchet extracts his finger, raises it to the fluorescent lights, and squints at it. Optimus would do the same, except that the tell-tale whoosh of the medbay doors opening reminds him that he doesn't want to.

"I will depart now for plausible deniability," he tells Ratchet, who waves him away with his free servo. At Hook's approach, Optimus makes rapidly for the door, and he would swear on the Matrix Ravage chuckles as he does, though his face remains entirely neutral.

"Hook!" he hears Ratchet cry, just as his pede hits the doorway. "Want to tell me why your dialysis machine is sitting in a corner with dust in its intake tube?" The door shuts behind Optimus before he can watch their peace be destroyed by doctors in fisticuffs.

Optimus lies in wait like a crocodile on the river bank. He takes fake sips of his energon. The cube is filled near to the brim, his trap laid. He keeps as still as the log he impersonates. He sniffs the air and salivates, his optics slitted, his teeth sharp – well, perhaps he would not go that far, but the imagery is enchanting in its own way. In that unfortunate manner of slithering, sliding, and dare he say sensualizing, he sits at the dented and lonesome cafeteria table and reads a book of poetry.

He is studying this book of poetry because it follows a complete narrative of seduction – Optimus Prime had not been aware that collections of poetry could follow complete stories and had been shocked to discover that such verbose narratives were not kept solely for plays. In his defense, Orion Pax's education had been restricted to warehouse safety manuals and pulp fiction novels, and Optimus Prime's advisors had been interested in his ability to parse through tactical status reports, and really he ought to be commended for taking the time to read the old Primal plays at all. 

He is going through his own religious experience now. He'd read a few of the poems the night after shaking Megatron's servo on this scheme of theirs, and while it had revealed to him the nature of romantic facial expressions (the furrow of the brow of some young lover, an ode to, etc etc), and given him some ideas for future wooing (he must learn to dance), he hadn't noticed the creeping enchantment of language manipulation until it had hit him over the helm and knocked him unconscious into a pool of unbridled metaphor.

So now he is a crocodile on a riverbank, hiding his body beneath the glassy surface of his datapad, his optics half above in search of his next meal. The erstwhile Decepticon spymaster, whom he will taint with spilled ener-

A shadow falls over Optimus's screen. He freezes, like the crocodile, and then, slowly, glances upward. Megatron stares down.

Optimus Prime has been out-crocodiled. How had he managed to creep his entire body to Optimus's back so silently?

"What are you reading?" Megatron asks, though it sounds much like an interrogation.

Optimus flashes a toothy smile. Unlike most dangerous organic beasts, it is disarming. "CyberSmith's The Longest Rain, "  he says. "It features this organic creature prominently, which is like a crocodile, and it consumes-"

"I've read it," Megatron interrupts. "He is a half-decent writer, but I much prefer Talon. CyberSmith has miserable metaphors."

Optimus decides he is not a crocodile.

"Would you like to sit down?" His neck is beginning to hurt from the upwards craning. But Megatron shakes his helm.

"I am meeting with Soundwave," he informs him. "You will make a fool of yourself?"

"Grandly."

Megatron smiles, not as toothily as Optimus had, but with some merit. "Wonderful. Does the Matrix handicap you?"

"Hmm?" Optimus's neck is aching in earnest now, but he does not want to be the first to look away.

"Is the Matrix a hindrance to your ability to perform the Ritual?" Megatron clarifies. "Is it sacrilegious?"

"Quintus Prime’s legendary Ritual of Submission for the continuation of life after war?"

"Yes."

"Is it sacrilegious?"

Megatron shrugs. "I'm asking you."

"Well, Quintus Prime didn't seem to think so."

"Alright then." Megatron pauses. "Good luck then." With that he departs, leaving a cool gust of air at Optimus's back. He feels like he has failed the conversation, failed miserably, in that Megatron had fled abruptly and that he had not known of Talon before, and that the Ritual isn't particularly sacrilegious, and perhaps he should have said that it was so that Megatron might have stayed, or he could have said something particularly clever about poetry or CyberSmith's tendency for extended metaphor. He could not be a crocodile, he decides, because Megatron's field makes him decidedly warm-blooded. For the life of him, he cannot play it cool.

He eventually pulls himself together to watch Megatron walk the length of the room to the door closest to the energon, where Soundwave had snuck in and stolen his ration while Optimus had been distracted. Optimus thinks this might be a sign that he will fail this fumbling most egregiously. Well, best to get it over with before Soundwave sits down.

Optimus stands up and, as his aft leaves the seat, mid-motion, he realizes that perhaps Soundwave might prefer to be allowed to finish his energon before being rudely maligned with someone else's scheming. Yes, he decides, it would be best to wait, except that his aft has already left the seat and now he is standing, energon cube in hand, and several people are looking at him.

So he will do it now.

Optimus walks carefully up the aisle that Megatron had so recently passed, steadying his near-full cup. Megatron and Soundwave are strolling slowly from the energon dispenser to his usual seat, and all Optimus has to do is -

"Hello Soundwave," he calls, with a wide smile. No, that is too much. A smaller smile then, he decides, and shrinks it accordingly. "I am – It is nice to see you here."

Soundwave looks at him as if he can't decide whether Optimus's stupidity is purposeful or not. Optimus can't decide for himself. By his side, Megatron's helm tilts and his brows furrow.

To think strategically is easier than this, so Optimus plots out how the energon in his hand will end up by Soundwave's pedes. The first step is to loosen his current hold to one servo, so he does. "I have um, I have been admiring your work on our treaty. I am appreciative of the – um, skill that you have with technical wordplay – not wordplay, uh, with the technical legal language of these things-" the energon inches farther from Optimus's chest. Megatron's frown deepens. Soundwave is, naturally, unmoved. His usual apathy will be useful in proving his own disinterest in Optimus, which will make this scene all the more pathetic and worthwhile. Still, Optimus is unconvinced of his own performance, and Soundwave's lack of reaction makes it difficult to gauge his success. He looks to Megatron instead.

"-Which isn't to say that I didn't think you could write up treaty drafts before, I am just particularly impressed with your – he thinks back to compliments he had paid earlier – your competence and intelligence." Megatron's face morphs at the last word, a scrunching of the faceplates, and aversion of the optics. He appears as if struck, and perhaps uncertain. Of Optimus's success? He needs to do better, to play it up. Optimus takes a leap.

"I was wondering if perhaps I might have lunch with you?" he asks Soundwave. Just a moment more, and he will send his energon to Soundwave's pedes. "I would love to discuss the future of – what you think peacetime could look like, together.”

Megatron's scowl is one for the ages – sharper than his blade, fiercer than his battle lust, more murderous than a post-defeat glare. Optimus's spark sinks. The taste of total failure – Megatron was right, he could not act to save his life! He's bungled it all, and now he will be forced to explain his pathetic performance to their audience. He's failed Megatron after he had been so gracious to exempt Optimus from that ridiculous ritual!

In the swimming hole of his misery, Optimus's foot bumps into a log. He grips about for it; it is right there, tickling the back of his processor. And when he finally snags it and draws it upwards, it strikes him with an epiphany. Perhaps, he thinks, Megatron is playing a part! If Optimus had been actually flirting with Soundwave, of course Megatron would be angry! If it is a well-known secret that the two are, say, in some sort of relationship, then the Decepticons are expecting his anger.

Optimus, feeling a surge of victory, struggles to maintain his glee. Then he remembers he ought to be talking, and pushing the energon slightly forward, and shaking his servo with lovelorn nerves. "If you would have me," he stutters out, and waits for the smack-down, be it from Megatron or Soundwave himself. He hopes it is from Megatron, for old times sake. But Megatron does not deliver, which would be odd if his scowl were an act for the audience.

Unless, Optimus thinks, his relationship with Soundwave is a secret, and he is terribly angry but can't express it, and -

Energon splashes over Megatron's chest, streaking it a glorious pink. The mostly-full energon cube in Optimus's servo is now no longer full and also not in Optimus's servo. It is, instead, by his pedes. Optimus feels a little faint. He also feels a little wet.

There is, by his account, a full two minutes of absolute silence. Megatron's shocked expression is the loudest thing in the room, beaten only, perhaps, by the dripping of energon off his buffed and polished frame.

Optimus hadn't noticed that before. Buffed and polished. He looks nice.

Well, not so much anymore. Now he looks pink, and very upset.

"What. The Frag. Is wrong with you," Megatron grits out, and Optimus doesn't know if he is acting or not anymore. He shrinks into himself like a speedster receiving his punishment from a commanding officer with tire tracks over his frame.

"I'm- um, so sorry," he says, wondering where the Matrix and millions of years of commanding experience fled to during this conversation. "I am so, so sorry."

"If you are going to flirt so poorly with my third in command, the decent thing to do is avoid collateral damage!" Megatron shouts, as if their audience couldn't hear them before. "This is pathetic! Primus, pathetic!" He throws an arm in the air as if gesturing rudely toward the universe at large. "I cannot imagine spending peacetime watching this disaster. Did you ever honestly think you could have him?"

"...no?" Optimus replies. His faceplate burns like an oil tanker in love with a flamethrower. If part of their goal today had been his own humiliation (which it was), he had at least succeeded at that.

"This was what you were after?" This feels like a rhetorical question. Optimus doesn't answer, and Megatron continues on, his face contorted as if he were fighting back the tears of a spurned lover. Megatron, Optimus thinks, is either a splendid actor or terribly upset. "You turn into a garrulous, whimpering fool for him? What happened to glory, Optimus? Pathetic, and now I am dripping in the Decepticon energon we so graciously allowed you to hold!"

Optimus fears that Megatron might never forgive him this blunder which, if he were to apply some rational thought, might be the oddest thing in their history not to be forgiven for. But he has no rational thought at the moment and so chooses instead to do what he is best at – fumbling on in a state of self-hatred and misery. "Yes," he admits, "And you know the most pathetic part?"

Megatron's scowl lightens and darkens all at once. It sets Optimus far closer to the verge of tears than he ever imagined Megatron might bring him, and based purely on the notion of disappointment, at that. "What?"

"I've never read Talon!" Optimus cries.

"Oh, you must be fragging kidding me!" Megatron throws both hands in the air and then brings one to rub his nasal ridge. He is silent for a long moment and, considering his most recent of terrible acting choices, Optimus does the same. Finally, Megatron says "Alright, I'm going to my habsuite." And he turns about and walks towards the door. Optimus stares after him, but he never looks back.

Soundwave, the poor silent party to this all, walks to his usual table, sits, and drinks his energon. Eventually, the energon on Optimus's own frame begins to track all the way down to his pedes. Optimus leans down, fetches the empty energon cube, recycles it, and decides to spend the next twenty minutes lamenting his failures in the communal wash racks.

His walk towards the door is a funerary procession.

"Huh," says Ironhide from beside the door. Optimus turns his helm and wonders just how long his weapons master has been there. ‘Primus Slaggit’, he thinks. Then, in Ratchet's honor and for good measure, he adds ‘God Fucking Dammit’.

Ironhide follows him to the washracks ten minutes later. His guard extends his trailing distance so as to avoid the spray and steam from the four other running showers, each filled with a Decepticon eyeing them warily. Optimus, who had been staring into the wall and allowing the warm water to wash his ridiculous sensation of failure away, feels more than sees Ironhide park himself just out of the water's reach.

"I heard Ratchet tore Hook a new one," Ironhide tells him, though his serious tone betrays that this is not at all what brought him here. Optimus treats the non-news with the appropriate disinterest. Plus, the deeper and meaner parts of him are beginning to feel a little annoyed at Ironhide for interrupting his blissful solitude.

"Yeah," he says, which is about as much as he can say without swallowing water, anyway.

"I said I heard Ratchet tore Hook a new one," Ironhide repeats, slightly louder.

"Yeah."

"Optimus. I said-"

Optimus turns his helm from the wonderful cascade of warm water and affixes his general with the close cousin of a glare. "What, Ironhide?"

"Ratchet's getting all gung-ho about his new medbay. Means he thinks he's gonna be getting a new medbay."

Optimus sighs and shuts off the water. It peters out like medicine in the IV of a hospice patient. "The Decepticons made it perfectly clear that they would be utilizing Ratchet's medical prowess. Integrating our peoples is the only way we survive this surrender."

"Sure," says Ironhide. "I just mean, sounds like he's gonna be more than a grunt. They're gonna make me a grunt."

Optimus grabs a towel. "Ironhide-"

"Probably not you though."

Through sheer willpower alone Optimus does not collapse to the floor. Still, the sleek wall does a great deal of the work. "Yes, well, Ratchet is a skilled trauma surgeon. And I would make an awkward low-level soldier," he tells him. "But I don't think they are going to make you do grunt work. They've been fairly forward thinking about this approach, and-"

Ironhide interrupts. "What I'm trying to say-"

"What you are trying to say is that favorites are being played, and they aren't." Optimus is not particularly pleased that Ironhide is even making the argument, both because it is baseless and because he interrupted Optimus’ shower to make it. "Ratchet is a catch, top of his field. And I am probably going to be put under intense surveillance and left to rot in a house. Jazz will be under similar surveillance, and Prowl will be slogged with so much senseless paperwork – probably placed in charge of some unnecessary and overly-bureaucratic subdivision which will manage to take him 26 hours a day to manage, and you will get some low-level gig sequestered from most other Autobots. It's the nature of a surrender, Ironhide, we lost. We are lucky to keep our helms on our shoulders."

"That's not what I mean, Prime. What I'm saying is that Ratchet gets a lot of leeway here, cuz he's vital. And you are in a special position because Megatron likes you – if you're getting house arrest, it's gonna be his house-"

"I don't think Megatron wants me in his house, Ironhide," Optimus interrupts, biting down a startlingly bitter laugh. He can't imagine the awkwardness of walking into the kitchen in the morning and seeing the Decepticon High Command berth-ruffled and armor-scratched. He scrubs at his arm with more force than strictly necessary.

"I'm saying," Ironhide repeats, with emphasis. "That leeway and special treatment has got a nasty flipside, Optimus. I'm saying Ratchet should be more careful, and so should you."

Optimus pauses his somewhat vicious drying. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what I mean. I mean Ratchet's irreplaceable until they train his replacement. I mean Megatron likes having won you until he forgets he had to fight for it. You understand?"

Optimus understands...minutely. "You are trying to reiterate that our surrender places us at the mercy of the Decepticons, and that having a place of higher importance or closer to their presence comes with the danger of sudden reversal?"

Ironhide nods. "Yeah. I just – Prime, listen, you aren't interested in Soundwave, right?"

Optimus glances over Ironhide's shoulder at his distant guard, considers the running showers and curious glances of the other wash rack occupants, and lowers his voice. "I am not," he admits. "That was an unfortunate miscommunication, embarrassing-"

Ironhide raises a hand in a stopping motion. "Good," he declares, "but I've got a proposition for ya."

Optimus's armor is dry, but he absentmindedly moves the towel in comforting circles on his left arm. He's feeling too exhausted for appropriate curiosity, but he musters it for Ironhide's sake. "A proposition?"

"Or a plan. Let him keep thinking you've got a thing for Soundwave." Ironhide says this straight-faced, straight-laced, straight – Optimus Prime is caught off-guard. Optimus Prime is still embarrassed at never having read Talon. Optimus Prime is tired.

"You want me to... pretend I have romantic inclinations towards Megatron's third in command?" he repeats. "Why?"

Why why why? If only Optimus ever received a response for his questions, from mechs or from Primus.

"It's like I said," Ironhide says casually, as if he were not plotting up a fake dating scheme in the Decepticon washracks. "Megatron's gonna like having won ya until he misses the fight. So give him a fight. Not forever, just until we can seal this thing. If we are smart about it, we can get your freedom written in the treaty. Prowl's already on it-"

"Wait," Optimus interrupts, trying to shake the shower steam from his processor. "Why would pursuing Soundwave – are you not worried that it would serve to anger Megatron further? Thankfully today he was...relatively calm about my covering him in energon. But if I were to court Soundwave, would I not be legitimately jeopardizing our place in this surrender?"

Ironhide shrugs, which is not a particularly reassuring response from a co-conspirator. "I know these kinda guys, Prime. Megatron likes a challenge. Give him a fight. Pretend to fall madly in love with Soundwave."

"He won't just start the war again?" Optimus asks, dubiously. It seems to him like the best way for Megatron to win this fight would be to banish the encroaching suitor (Optimus) to the other side of a battlefield, and then maybe shoot him. Optimus wouldn't mind that – in this state of exhaustion and ensconced in warm steam, Optimus thinks fondly of their mid-battle tussles. He hasn't touched Megatron in so long, he realizes. Isn't that odd?

"Nah," Ironhide promises, supremely confident. "That would be losing. He'll keep you close, and he'll like the chance to fight for ya."

"To metaphorically fight me? I would think he would want to literally fight me, Ironhide."

Ironide's helm moves backwards in a question mark, complete with a confused furrowing of the brow. "Well...I guess that's the prerogative of the two of you. I mean, Chromia and I like a good tussle."

Optimus has lost track of the conversation. He's not entirely certain he had it to begin with. He needs to escape the steam. "Listen, Ironhide-"

"So we're doing it then? I'll tell Prowl we have Megatron distracted and on the defensive and maybe a little more willing to compromise on what's gonna happen to you?"

Optimus brings the towel up to his face and tries to rub the condensation from his processor. "Listen, what were you saying earlier about Ratchet?"

"Prowl's on that too. You'll pretend?"

"I-" Optimus looks Ironhide in his earnest optics. "To be in love with Soundwave?"

"Yeah."

Chapter Text

Thundercracker’s investigative team seems to consist solely of the ever-evasive Skywarp, whose relationship with film is as fickle and fluctuating as his relationship with physical reality. The cameramech – now touting four angles – struggles to keep Skywarp’s rapidly moving physical form both focused and in-frame.

“Our preliminary investigation shows that the Autobot surrender was the result of them sucking,” Skywarp is informing the camera. His voice is fast-paced and gives the impression that he is flitting from word to word like a butterfly hopping from flower to flower but never settling to drink from any. That is to say, he is quite obviously reading from a teleprompter and processing the words after they’ve already spilled from his mouth. This theory appears proven correct when, having finished with ‘suck!’, he suddenly breaks into humorous grin and adds: “Yes they do!”

Twitch is less wide-eyed in Skywarp’s presence than she had been with Thundercacker. Metaphorically, that is, because an outside observer might imagine her optics incapable of squinting. Perhaps she had been created with optic sockets unable to contract.

“What about reports that Optimus Prime is romantically entangled with a member of the Decepticon high command?” she asks. “Is there any evidence that could actually have had a part in his surrender?”

“What?” Skywarp squawks. His lip curls. “Ew, no! Well...not Starscream,” he decides. Then he shrugs. “I guess we’ll look into that next.”

Megatron approaches him with veritable steaming indignation. Optimus fights the urge to shrink back into his uncomfortable Decepticon-designed seat. Still, his decision not to engage in a physical submission does not preclude him from the verbal variety.

“I want to apologize again-” he begins, taking a moment to thank the presence of his desk between them. Megatron huffs on.

“Enough of that – tell me, are you actually afraid of my energon?”

“What?” Optimus asks. He straightens himself and the few datapads on his desk. Megatron glowers down at him from above, like an all-seeing creator with a strict bed-time policy. Optimus Prime does not squirm under such glaring, but he does whither slightly in his confusion. He seems to be confused a lot, these days. It is as if everyone has decided not to include him in their discussions, even when they are talking to him!

Megatron juts his chin out. “Does your High Command genuinely believe I am disease-riddled vermin? Are you enacting this foolish humiliation upon yourself to avoid infection, utterly convinced I have rolled in the berth unprotected with a variety of unclean serpents, or stabbed myself with the claws of an infected corpse?”

“Oh,” says Optimus, happy to have found the plot. “No, not at all.”

Megatron carries on as if he had not heard him, his face crumpled into a vulnerable rage the likes Optimus had only seen during desperate second offenses. “Are your Autobots so invested in their moral superiority they imagine their foes all sick fools, incapable of healing themselves, too stupid to protect themselves, and so cruel as to knowingly pass such things along in a, a Ritual of Surrender?”

“No!” Optimus cries. “Obviously not!”

Megatron ends his tirade there, looking down his nose at Optimus who has only remained seated because standing would bring him closer to Megatron’s fists. He blinks once, then twice, then harrumphs a harrumph worthy of Ratchet. “Oh,” he says. “Alright then.”

There is a brief moment of silence where the hot anger filters out of the room via the air vents and is replaced by the usual rusting stench of the underwater base. Then Megatron rears back and slams a datapad on Optimus’s desk, pointing at it afterward as if it proved undeniably correct in all matters.

“I had my energon tested,” he proclaims. “I’m perfectly clean. Let your High Command know.”

“We hadn’t even considered it,” Optimus promises. Honestly, too, as they had been far more concerned with his swelling and screaming and dying than with Megatron’s potential diseases. “I am glad you are healthy,” he adds, somewhat awkwardly.

“Of course I am,” Megatron replies. “I won’t give you Soundwave’s records,” he adds, spitefully. His tone seemed to imply such records would be less undoubtedly clean, and a moment of reflection quickly has him backtracking. “Nothing has ever been wrong with Soundwave, not in his life.”

“I seem to remember I once threw him onto a bed of laser-spikes,” says Optimus.

Megatron’s nose hikes further up so that he might look down upon Optimus with grander self-righteousness. “And he was perfectly fine.”

After that declaration, which Optimus has no energy or desire to object to, there is silence. Megatron doesn’t seem to have anything more to say, and Optimus searches desperately for something of his own. He had decided, after careful deliberation, that informing Megatron of Ironhide’s own plotting would be mildly treasonous and undercut whatever Prowl had in mind for protecting him and Ratchet. Despite being a terrible co-conspirator, Ratchet is a faithful friend and Optimus would not want to jeopardize his place. Also, it might anger Megatron more than he already has.

“So,” says Optimus eventually, “have you and Soundwave convinced your mechs that I am in love with him yet?”

“No!” cries Megatron, reigniting his annoyance and proving that Optimus should never be allowed to speak again. “You dropped a cube of energon over my front, you utter imbecile. Half of them believe you are in love with me!”

“Oh dear,” says Optimus, because it is all he can think to say. “That’s not good.”

Megatron looks practically murderous. “No,” he spits vitriolically. “Of course that’s not good. I am, according to your High Command, a disease-ridden monster.”

Optimus timidly pats the new datapad on his desk. “Not according to your health report.” This is the wrong thing to say.

“How is it that even when you do not need to act, when you clearly do appreciate the talents of my spymaster, you still manage to fumble a simple scene?” Megatron asks. “I know you are not a fool – is it that you were constructed solely to ruin any moment of equanimity that might happen to befall me? I am not blessed with many such moments. Are you placed in this Universe with the purpose of stripping those that might slip through our creator’s net?”

“What?” asks Optimus, bewildered. This is not the first time Megatron has spoken in this verbose dramatized manner, arguably not the first time in this conversation, but it is one of those odd times when Optimus cannot even make a little sense of it. “I didn’t do it on purpose, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Obviously not.” Megatron waves the accusation away. “I mean only that your poor acting was preferable to your incomprehensible prattling yesterday, and then the miscalculation with your projectiles – like rubbing rust in a wound.” He mutters this last bit to himself, looking a little miserable with the memory of the ordeal.

“Alright,” says Optimus. “Well listen, I am going to get Soundwave a gift. That will be convincing enough, won’t it? What does he like?”

Megatron’s glare – which had previously hidden itself behind abject suffering, returns in a minatory fashion. “I ll not assist you in your pathetic attempts at seducing my spymaster,” he declares. And then he spins upon his heel, storms from Optimus’s office, and allows the door to slam behind him.

“Uh,” says Optimus, staring at the closed door. It is as if he is completely incapable of holding a proper conversation with Megatron – at some point everything goes wrong, and he feels like he is the problem. Megatron speaks with… not a candor, but a, a truthfulness even when he lies, and if Optimus could only pick apart his processor and understand what Megatron means when he speaks, rather than Optimus’s usual style of ‘getting the drift’...

What he could possibly have against a gift, Optimus can’t imagine. Perhaps gift-giving crosses some sort of cultural line? Had Optimus caused actual offense with his proposition? He glances tentatively at his computer, screen now darkened, but which had open several tabs of the infant Cybertronian online marketplace. He considers closing them and coming up with some new plan, but the next step in The Longest Rain involved learning to dance, and he has poor dance-floor coordination.

At that moment, Optimus’s door slams open once more. Megatron strides in with such momentum it was clear he had never stopped. “He needs new stabilizing magnets,” he declares, “And you’d better not cheap out, Prime. You’ll get him the best to be found.” With that, Megatron glares, spins on his heel, and begins to march for the door once more.

“Wait!” Optimus cries. He stands excitedly, which serves only to bang his knee on the underside of his desk. He winces. “Wait one moment.”

Megatron pauses. “What?” he sneers.

“You seem upset. Is there something wrong with gift-giving?

“There’s nothing wrong with gift giving!” Megatron shouts. Then he huffs. “Do you need help?” he asks, more calmly.

Optimus taps his wall-mounted computer awake. Then he navigates to the homescreen of the collected marketplace and types ‘stabilizing magnets’ into the search function. “I don’t know his size,” he says, “and you won’t give me his health report.”

Megatron scowls. “What is this? Online shopping?”

“Yes.”

Megatron explodes again. It is his one stabilizing feature, constant madness. “You can’t buy stabilizing magnets online! You’ll end up swindled by Swindle, you fool.”

“Well, where else am I going to buy some?”

Megatron rolls his expressive optics and grabs Optimus by the wrist, thereby providing a new last-contact point for Optimus to think upon in the shower. His servo is as large as Optimus remembers, but most of his memories come from its size as a fist, so he finds this to be a fascinating change of pace.

“We have markets,” Megatron says. And then, with an added huff. “Obviously.”

The Decepticon marketplace – the physical Decepticon market place – was on the moon. Why was it on the moon? Primus only knows. It turns out, however, that the moon is not so difficult a place to get too when you have two-hundred fliers bouncing around.

The latest uptick in the Decepticon population had been a concern at one point, before the thousands of troops amassing in deep space had made their presence known. Now they serve as a helpful transit system for Autobot Primes in need of stabilizing boosters. He and Megatron buck the day’s negotiation meeting to hitch a ride to the moon, leaving their commands alone to battle out whatever particulars Prowl has in mind. Optimus agrees to the plan because removing Megatron from the room actually seems beneficial to Prowl’s plotting. He decides this when he has already been pulled onto a shuttle, as he had very little time or ability to think when Megatron had been dragging him.

Now they are seated together, knees occasionally meeting between them, not talking. Megatron has his arms crossed and is glaring out a window, sneaking the occasional glance at Optimus. Optimus is watching Megatron glare out a window, attempting to predict those glances back so that he can pretend to be watching the floor. All in all, it is not an unpleasant traveling experience.

They are also alone on the shuttle, besides, well, the shuttle. They could have sat themselves on opposite ends of the cabin, but Megatron had pulled him down beside him.

“I suppose of all the mechs you could be in love with, Soundwave is the ideal,” Megatron says, eventually.

That’s what they had both agreed before. Optimus nods. “He is a capable, intelligent, skilled mech. You are lucky to have him.” He makes a lot more sense that Starscream, Optimus thinks, who is really rather more of a threat to Megatron’s well-being than anything. Warlord-strength handcuffs. He frowns. “Thank you for being so lenient with my...failed attempts at flirtation.”

Megatron looks to the window again, a tick in his jaw. “I will speak to Soundwave,” he says. “About the gift and… what’s next?”

“Next?” Optimus asks.

“After the gift, what will be your next courting mechanism?” Megatron is looking at him again, with stern, brilliant red optics. Optimus grimaces.

“I had been hoping that this might sort it out,” he says. “So that you might convince everyone that it is him I am after.”

Megatron’s look morphs into a glare. “You can’t be done. Soundwave deserves the world, not two failed attempts at flirtation and some stabilizing magnets.”

“Well, I was rather hoping you might convince him…”

“No!” cries Megatron, and returns to the window. Optimus stares at him for a while, not entirely certain what Megatron wants. Optimus would give it, if he could.

“It’s just that I don’t know how to dance,” he admits. Megatron frowns, but at least he is looking back at him now, and not away at the rapidly growing white sphere out the window.

“We are beginning our descent,” announces the shuttle. The cabin gets rather rocky after that, and Optimus will admit he clutches Megatron’s forearm with a bit too much force. Megatron doesn’t call him a wimp, though, so perhaps their alliance is deepening.

The moon-base market is a giant warehouse attached to the landing pad. From the outside, it looks like a shoddy, unstable box with no protective elements and no visual embellishments. From the inside, it is an oasis of delectation, a confectionery and blacksmith and pleasure-shop and personalized key-chain booth all rolled into one. Optimus looks around in awe.

“When did you have time to build this?” He asks, staring up at the three floors of fascinating smells and sounds. They are walking forward as he gawks, a feat that is only possible by his grip on Megatron’s forearm. The personal intimacy of it is fine now, post-arm clutching descent.

“You surrendered almost 8 months ago,” Megatron tells him. “What else could we have possibly be doing.”

“Well, arguing, mostly,” Optimus replies. “Oh, candy!” Optimus cannot remember the last time he had rust-sticks. He stares at the storefront as they walk by.

“Do you have any credits?” Megatron asks.

“Some.” Optimus’s optics move to the next booth, with its sign proclaiming self-serve rubber chews. “Not worth much anymore.”

“Worth something here,” says Megatron. “My empire backs the credit with a variety of stocks in galactic banks. It is mostly stable. It helps with inter-planetary transactions.”

“You don’t do many transactions, though,” Optimus says. “Mostly invasions.”

“When needs must,” replies Megatron. He pulls Optimus along.

“Oh,” Optimus exclaims only a few steps later. He stops short, feels the tug on his wrist as Megatron’s momentum comes to an abrupt halt in front of him. Megatron doesn’t drop his wrist, but does look imploringly at Optimus and the small book-shop window beside them.

“It’s The Complete Works of Talon,” Optimus says, taking one tentative step forward. Megatron follows, which Optimus takes as permission to push his way inside. “In the front window, beside the Treatise of Sentinal Prime.”

“Soundwave won’t want that,” Megatron replies gruffly, but he ducks inside the shop behind him. Optimus smiles over his shoulder. “For me,” he says. He slides his way between the cases crammed into the crowded shop, waving a little hello to the curious-looking seeker guarding the register. He hears Megatron stop at the counter as they pass, and a moment later his grip is gone from his wrist. It leaves a figurative handprint, an aching spot of warmth that Optimus decides to ignore completely.

“Are there any more of The Complete Works of Talon?” he calls behind him.

“No,” says the seeker. “Just take the one up front.” Optimus nods and continues on, dodging the errant stacks of misplaced titles and overhanging decorations.

“Let’s talk price,” he hears Megatron say.

He locates his desired datapad in the window display, and lifts it gingerly from its case. He dusts off its cover, which is made of a preserved, soft organic sheaf. He folds it open, finding a scratch-free screen. A quick fumble for the on-button reveals that it functions well.

He takes it back to the counter, where Megatron and the seeker are shaking servos. “How much is it?” he asks.

The seeker waves him away. “Lord Megatron has graciously covered the fee. Are there any other titles you seek?”

“Oh, he didn’t have to-” Optimus looks to Megatron, who raises an eyebrow. ‘What are you going to do, pay twice?’ says the eyebrow. Optimus smiles. “Thank you,” he says. Then, to the bookkeeper: “Not at the moment, but hopefully I will be returning soon.”

“And Primus help the literary community when he does,” mutters Megatron, but the quirk of his lips says the taunt is affectionate in nature. Optimus lets Megatron lead him back out of the store, most of his attention fixed on his gift and the rest distracted by the return of Megatron’s grasp.

“It has 6,984 poems!” Optimus reports. “And that isn’t counting the short stories!” It is an overwhelming number of poems, actually, and Optimus begins to feel a little anxious at the prospect of reading and understanding them all. “Have you read Burning the Countryside?” he asks.

“I’ve read them all,” Megatron answers. The bookshop door shuts behind them with a chime. “That particular story deconstructs the feeling of nostalgia, its purpose and how it makes one vulnerable to untruths. It is well-written and effectively communicative.”

“You’ve read all of these?” Optimus closes the cover so that he can look at Megatron and the markets, and hopefully avoid falling flat on his face. “That is very impressive.”

“Not really,” says Megatron. “Anyway, Soundwave has never been a fan of these things. Literature. The spoken word, the written word. Obviously. He prefers the mathematical.”

“Okay.” Optimus resumes their search for stabilizing magnets. “But you like the written word?”

“I like words written well,” says Megatron. “Come on, in here.”

Optimus is pulled into another shop, this one filled with boxes labeled in scribbled handwriting. The door emits a jingle as he enters, alerting a construction-frame mech who emerges from a back room.

“Ay, my liege,” the mech says with a short and inflexible bow. “What can I get you.”

“Stabilizing magnets,” Megatron says. “Size 7.5.”

“Good to know,” Optimus whispers, for want of something to say.

The construction mech squeezes past them to get to the shelf by the door. He ruffles through one of the scribbled on boxes and produces a plastic container with two stabilizing magnets, which he brings to the front and scans.

“$43.6 credits,” he says. “That’s for both. You want both?”

“Yes please,” says Optimus, scrambling for his credit chip. It is somewhere in his subspace, deep down under his trailer where he never goes. He finds it next to a bag of expired Bolt-Ohs.

The mech extends a servo, on which Optimus intuits he ought to place his chip, so he does. It is taken, scanned, and returned in only a few moments, and the payment device turned to Optimus so he can confirm the purchase. He does.

“Should I wrap it?” Optimus asks, as the door jungles shut behind them.

“Just put it in a box, he doesn’t care,” says Megatron, a little gruffly. It is the same way he had spoken on the shuttle and in the office. Optimus notes this and worries his lip.

“What box?” Optimus asks. So Megatron pulls him to the confectionery they’d passed on the way in.

“A 12-count box,” Megatron orders. To Optimus he says: “Just stuff it in with the – oh, they have magnesium gels, I like those.” He looks to Optimus. “Soundwave prefers the sour crystals. You should make the pick, however.”

“I don’t know him as well as you,” Optimus replies, but Megatron proffers up no other information and the mech behind the counter clamps his tongs impatiently. When Megatron moves to the register in an attempt to pre-pay, Optimus figures he is on his own.

“The sour crackling crystals,” he orders. The confectioner places four in the box. “And, uh, what is most popular?”

“Rust-sticks,” says the mech, gruffly.

“Oh, obviously. Those please.”

“Last choice,” huffs the mech.

“Um…” Optimus looks over the choices, down the aisle and to Megatron who is staring impatiently with his credit chip hovering over the scanner – and Optimus thinks it is a cute scene. That Megatron would be so eager to purchase Soundwave’s sweets, though through the hands of a pretend suitor.

“The magnesium gels,” Optimus says, and watches as four are dropped into the box.

Megatron makes the purchase despite Optimus’s best attempts to the contrary. “This was all my idea anyway,” he says. “Got me into the mess.”

“Well, I don’t know about that.” Optimus shoves the stabilizing magnets into the box alongside the rust-sticks and magnesium gels and crackling crystals. It’s a nice box, he thinks, and it probably isn’t proper to be placing dirty plastic next to sticky gels, so he grabs some napkins on the way out and attempts to form a barrier.

“I’ll talk to Soundwave,” Megatron reiterates inside the shuttle. “So he knows to accept this.”

“Alright,” says Optimus. He doesn’t know why Soundwave wouldn’t just assume this was a continued part of their scheme. “This gift isn’t particularly embarrassing, is it?”

“No, it is both practical and thoughtful.” Megatron sits in the same seat as before, and pulls Optimus back into his own. “It is good. Let’s go.”

Gruff. Very gruff. It makes Optimus uncomfortable, like he is missing something vitally important. Or perhaps he is losing Megatron's regard. Maybe this whole ordeal is leaving Megatron with the impression that Optimus is a fool or, Primus, that maybe he really is in love with Soundwave! He dismisses the thought a moment later as a figment of his processor's self-conscious imagination. Little feelings of self-flagellation bubble up within him sometimes, and more frequently as of late. They are just the remnants of a scared dockworker thrust into a world where Warlords who read poetry as voraciously as they spring into dramatic lamentations attempt to conquer the Universe and he, who had misread the cleaning schedule at least once a vorn, is tasked with countering immovable forces of tactical brilliance with the power of friendship. That is it, he decides. He has spent an hour wallowing in the shower, was second guessing himself at every turn, because of Megatron.

He likes this theory because everything wrong is always Megatron's fault, so the logic tracks. Megatron, casually dragging Optimus along into this plot, laying out his thought process like he had, just to show off his clever little tactical genius. Casually leaning over Optimus and criticizing his choice of poetry, just to reveal his own omnilegence. Pulling Optimus from shop to shop – Optimus has a small epiphany; maybe this is Megatron marking his territory, a reminder that this is only a political plot, that Megatron holds Soundwave's affections for good reason. He is the one who knows Soundwave's magnet size. He is the one who'd read all of Talon's work and understood it. He is the one who'd won the war.

Optimus must concede on all counts. He is just a dockworker who spilled energon on the wrong person. He looks glumly out the window and thinks miserably that Megatron might genuinely think Optimus actually has the audacity to pursue his third in command. He doesn't feel particularly pleased at this success. Megatron clearly doesn't consider him a threat – why would he assist in this pretend wooing if he did? No, this whole ordeal was just a little whap on Optimus's wandering hands, a nice reminder that while Megatron wanted Optimus to pretend to pursue Soundwave, he would never have a chance if he attempted the real thing. Megatron is so much better at this sort of subtlety than Optimus is.

But Optimus better give it his all regardless, he decides. He feels a small surge in confidence at the notion – he'd always been a fan of hopeless causes. Yes, Ironhide and Prowl need more time, right? He will distract Megatron in this web of drama, he will fool-heartedly attempt to seduce Soundwave away from him, and fail miserably at it.

“Our subordinates have let the meeting run exceptionally long,” Megatron informs him as their shuttle drops onto the landing platform. “We will have to go end it for them. Come on.” He doesn't grab Optimus again. Optimus steps from the shuttle unassisted; he never thought he would want that sort of gesture, but now it's absence is uncomfortable. So is the sight of Megatron's back as he marches through the corridors. Optimus traipses after, feeling all the more miserable about his position. The excursion had been so pleasant, for a moment. He wonders if Megatron will reconsider Optimus's candidacy as a rival lover once he's read The Complete Works of Talon.

Megatron barges into the negotiation room without knocking, which startles Starscream to such a degree that he jumps from his seat. Ironhide does the same, with a more threatening air. Dirge, distracted by a dark datapad, is unmoved. 

"Alright," Megatron says. "What do you fools have to show for yourselves."

"Excuse you," replies Starscream, "I have noting to show you."

"So you did nothing this entire time."

"No." Starscream sniffs the air haughtily. "Just nothing you deserve to see." Optimus has never understood their dalliance, or their alliance. Megatron allows this somewhat childish interaction to wash over him unsullied by sense.

"Fine," he says. "Tell it to Optimus then. Soundwave, let me speak to you outside." He reaches back to hold the door open, only to discover Optimus in his way. His arm crosses over Optimus's shoulder, tucking him in. "I will tell him to accept the gifts," he says quietly. "Give them to him when we come back in." Optimus nods and, feeling like his entire frame was made of warm styrofoam, slips under Megatron's arm. He passes Soundwave on his way to the table. Soundwave slides under Megatron's arm with a more confident ease. 

"We have been drafting personnel agreements," Prowl tells him. "We decided that it would be in the best interest of both parties to reaffirm and retain the loyalty of certain mechs to the new Decepticon regime. To do so, compromises must be made to make certain the safety of key officers."

“I could not agree more,” says Optimus, taking his seat. Ironhide leans over and whispers into his audial:

“Lord Slagsucker took you to the moon-mall?”

For a brief moment, Optimus revels in having completed something successfully. He had dragged Megatron away on a quest to seduce Soundwave, convinced him of his affection, and in that time Prowl had swayed the negotiation table to protect Ratchet. For once, he feels like bragging.

“I needed his assistance in purchasing gifts for Soundwave,” he tells Ironhide. “And he accompanied me to keep my ambitions in check.”

“Harsh,” replies Ironhide. Prowl clears his voicebox.

“As I was saying, the Decepticons agreed with us-”

“You agreed with the Decepticon position,” Starscream corrects.

“We all agreed,” discloses Dirge in funerary fashion. He continues frowning at the table, as if entirely aware that he is present only to combat Ironhide’s firepower should tensions devolve, and emoting the sort of end-of-life dejection of a piece of detritus.

“We began with the simplest candidate,” Prowl begins again. “Namely, Ratchet, being an important asset and a non-combatant. We’ve drafted up a preliminary deal here – that Ratchet’s position remain available to him, or that of similar pay and prestige, with the professional funding currently received, until that time which he so resigns.”

“And how might that be enforced?” Optimus asks.

Starscream huffs his displeasure. “You Autobots have retained that outpost on one of the moons – who cares which one – and in the event that the medic decides he’s had enough you’ll blow your own slagged base to pieces.”

Optimus frowns. “That does not seem like effective collateral.”

“Starscream failed to mention that the base contains the Autobot Science Division’s recreation of the Cybonic Plague,” adds Shockwave, with disturbing cheer. “I look forward to the day it will be released. I believe my manipulation of its strands was most effective, and a grand advancement. I am curious to see what you’re scientists have created.”

“I’m not,” delivers Dirge, dejectedly.

“Oh,” says Optimus, a little stunned that Prowl had chosen devastating plague as their ‘stick’ in this game of donkey and cart. “And that is all just for Ratchet’s sake?”

“Ratchet is our test case. In further discussions we will be adding individualized contracts for at-risk Autobots,” Prowl reassures him.

“And in return the Decepticons get…?”

“A medic,” says Shockwave. “Ours has absconded for fear of his life.” Ironhide snickers.

“Well, I am glad you made so much progress,” Optimus says. “I would like to speak with Ironhide for a moment.” He stands and pulls Ironhide to the other side of the room. Through the door he can hear muffled cajoling, angry ex-vents, and what must be Megatron’s plating sliding over itself. Probably his arms, Optimus concludes.

“What’s up?” Ironhide asks.

“How much longer do you expect me to keep this up?” Optimus asks.

“It’s only been one day.” Ah, right. It has only been one day for Ironhide. He was mixing up his schemes! How are the Decepticons so good at this?

“Still,” Optimus emphasizes, “you have this agreement? I did not enjoy today.” That is not necessarily true; Optimus had greatly enjoyed most of it, up until he had considered that Megatron might think him actually enamored with Soundwave, and then the poetry and the grip on his wrist had faded from shining exuberance to something akin to the greying paint of a dead mech.

It is difficult to think of Megatron standing outside, informing Soundwave that Optimus’s affections were actually real, but that Soundwave should accept his gifts regardless so as to continue their scheme. If that is what Megatron is saying. Optimus honestly could not say. The not knowing upsets him.

“You didn’t have any fun shopping?” Ironhide snickers. “Really, didn’t get some nice snacks or nothing?”

“He bought me a book,” Optimus admits, and despite himself he cannot resist the smile that the thought brings. Megatron had bought him the book, even though he thought Optimus his foolish romantic rival.

Ironhide returns the smile, giving Optimus a comrade’s slap on the shoulder. “There we go,” he says, “He’s fighting back. Good job. We’ll do you next. Why don’t you ask him to help you pick up Soundwave’s color paint, or something?”

“That feels cruel,” Optimus replies. “Should I ask him to help me locate a bottle of oil for Starscream? One nicer than the last, I could say, truly make myself an embarrassing villain.”

Ironhide’s optics pinch together like he is trying to read glyphs of smudged paint. “Sometimes I don’t know how your mind works, Prime,” he says. “Can’t tell if you’re ambitious or crazy.”

Soundwave and Megatron re-enter the room then, Soundwave with his floating, serene walk and Megatron in a glum slouch. Optimus’s spark twinges in sympathy. Surely it would be painful to watch one’s nemesis bestow gifts upon your lover for the benefit of a crowd.

“Alright,” Megatron declares, “Good job, I guess. Soundwave tells me you got something done, at least. But it’s a joor past end of shift and I don’t pay overtime. Get the slag out.”

That, Optimus thinks, is his cue. He pulls the box from his subspace. “Soundwave,” he calls. “Before you leave…” He takes the few steps from Ironhide’s side to the object of his ‘affections’ and presents the box with what he hopes is a respectful manner. Starscream scoffs, but at least his Autobots are aware that this is a feigned interaction, and Dirge is still directing his depressed demeanor to the table top.

Soundwave’s look, while visor-hidden, has that sort of intensity that might fry something, or at the very least heat it up to near-boil. He delicately extracts the box from Optimus servos. He flips open the decorated lid and inspects the merchandise for a moment. His digits hover over the crackling crystals, then the rust sticks, and then finally the magnesium gels. Then, in what must be the most avid and explosive motion Optimus has ever seen from the mech, Soundwave spins around and shoves the box into Megatron’s hands.

Megatron stands stunned for a brief moment holding the gift box with an infirm grip, like his servos have malfunctioned and left him incapable of bending his digits. Soundwave glares at the rest of the room as if daring for comment, which none so dare, and then at Optimus, indignant like a pit-bull having stolen a chihuahua’s bone, attempting to communicate through eye and stance that it would tear the little creature limb from limb if it so much as whimpered. Optimus bites his glossa to keep the instinctive apology from breaking loose.

And then, in a whirling movement a Vosian dancer would be envious of, Soundwave spins about, grabs the box back from Megatron’s hands, rips open the lid, pulls out the stabilizing magnets (and, after a moment’s pause, two crackling crystals), shoves the tops back on, and thrusts it back at Megatron. He then storms from the room with equal fervor, stopping only to ‘accidentally’ whack Megatron across the back. The door shuts with a bang behind him.

“Hey,” declares Dirge, finally distracted from his dispirited distress. “What the fuck is going on?”

Chapter Text

Optimus cannot hear the words Megatron dumbly and mutely mumbles after Soundwave's retreating form, but he reads emotion from his lips easily enough. There is confusion, hurt, and then anger. Optimus is intimately familiar with the last two, but the first is a novelty he does not treasure. Megatron shoves Optimus's gift box rudely under his arm and, with his shoulders pulled back, marches towards the door.

"Wait!" Prowl calls. Optimus has never heard him reach such a volume at the diplomatic table before. Prowl bursts from his chair and shoves a datapad under Megatorn's nose. "Sign this first."

Megatron swipes the datapad from his hand, scrawls his name on the line, and thrusts it back at Prowl. His subsequent storming from the room leaves something to be desired – it has none of Soundwave's grace.

Prowl turns. He does not grin or, as has become the new hand-signal among his troops, flash that ubiquitous thumbs up, but he holds the datapad to his chest victoriously. Ironhide sighs.

____

“Reporting Live from the Nemesis Halls, it’s Decepticon News Channel 1’s very own Morning Report!” the television announces, with an automated telecast-style voice which is clearly Thundcracker attempting a human-announcement flair. The screen switches from the shoddily animated opening graphic to a live feed of Twitch, one servo to her audial as if she were receiving breaking news.

“This is Twitch with Decepticon 1, and we have some breaking news!” Her attempts at a serious tone are counteracted by her wide optics and star-shatteringly bright smile. “I am here with Skywarp of the Command Trine, our correspondent covering Decepticon Channel 1’s investigation into the Autobot surrender-” the camera widens to include Skywarp, sitting a few meters apart from Twitch at the wide news desk. “What are you here to report, sir?”

Skywarp’s grin shows a great deal of dentae. “A message from deep space has revealed treachery from the Autotbots, Twitch, and you’ll hear all about it after this message from our sponsor.”

The feed cuts off abruptly, and there is a solid ten seconds of black before an add for Swindle’s Emporium of Great Deal begins to play. The chiming, saccharine music flows over a five concerned Autobot faces.

“Oh dear,” says Ratchet. “Well, you’ve really done it now.” With that, he buries himself back into his stack of reports, which he had been reading at the Autobot Command table (instead of listening, as command meetings were his habitual meditation time, he said, and he meditated by doing reports).

“This could be bad,” Jazz comments. “Or not. Who knows what Skywarp of all people has figured out.”

The commercial pans over shelves of Autobot weapons, some with limbs still remaining. It does so with a pinkish, flower-adding filter, which is a little too gauche even for Optimus.

“Not- not-” Prowl looks between Optimus and Ironhide, apparently reluctant to reveal their... scheme to the others. Optimus doesn’t think he could embarrass himself further with Ratchet, and Jazz would only find it humorous.

“I genuinely do not know,” he says.

“But it is Skywarp,” adds Jazz. “So, you know, probably not anything that important.”

“And we are back with Skywarp from our investigations team!” Announces Twitch, with her characteristic alacrity. “What Autobot treachery have you uncovered?”

“The possible, real reason the Autobots have surrender,” Skywarp says. “We’ve received a message from sources in Deep Space – Commander Strika has rounded up thousands of Decepticon troops and they have started this way. They could arrive in a thousand Earth years – and we think Autobot scouts might have known about their presence before even us!”

“Wow!” says Twitch. “Thousands of troops ready, and they could be here in only a thousand years! The Autobots must have tried to surrender before we knew of their total defeat!”

“Exactly!” cries Skywarp. “Those snakes weren’t prepared to get slaughtered like real mechs!”

Ratchet snorts from behind his stack of medical reports. “Well, at least they didn’t find out about your allergy,” he comments.

“And furthermore!” Adds Skywarp, “We have uncovered the reason for their refusal of the Ritual of Submission – Optimus Prime is allergic to rarefied energon!”

“Never mind,” says Ratchet.

“This is not good,” Prowl mutters. Optimus wonders if this is his tactician’s professional advice. He also sends a worried glance down towards his morning energon, in case either of the two Decepticon High Command members he’d angered the day before happened to learn of this investigative report before it aired. He’s not dead yet, he supposes, and allows himself another sip.

“Still, could be worse,” says Ironhide. “They could have the, ya know, the thing.”

“And the last big reveal of the morning, folks,” says Skywarp, “We can confirm that Optimus Prime has been in love with Soundwave this entire time!”

“Never mind,” says Ironhide.

“Well…” says Optimus. It’s not exactly their plan, or… actually, he must admit that this had been the goal of one of his schemes. His plot with Megatron. Not the one with Ironhide and Prowl, who had only wanted to convince Megatron of his Soundwave-adoration, and Optimus does not want to think about Megatron right now. He ponders the merits of admitting his and Megatron’s plan to his High Command and decides that they don’t need further reminder of the total mess he has helped make. Further accruing of embarrassments is unnecessary – and selfishly he finds comfort in the guilty looks Ironhide is sending his way. Yes, he decides, let his weapons-master shoulder the blame for part of it, at least in this room.

Jazz coughs the energon out of his throat. “You’re what now?”

“I don’t know about that one,” Optimus tells him. “Prowl?”

“His trinemate was in the room when you offered your gifts,” Prowl tells him. “This was to be expected. Still, we can handle this. In the meantime, we have only successfully acquired an agreement on Ratchet. Our best course of action may be to continue with Ironhide’s suggestion. He understands the minutiae of emotional mecha better than I; I am sure his advice on Megatron’s motivations is worthwhile.”

“What suggestion?” Jazz asks.

“Certainly,” says Optimus, at the same time, and with a sarcasm rarely brought to the Autobot meeting table. “Yesterday’s scene most definitely convinced him I am a feasible suitor for his spymaster. Clearly he sees now that Soundwave is considering my suit.”

“What?” asks Jazz again. Ratchet waves a dismissive servo at him.

“You don’t want to know,” he says.

Ironhide, still flashing a guilty grimace, rubs his nasal ridge with his servo. “Well, I guess...You’re affections don’t actually need to be reciprocated here, ya know, for this to work. I’d sorta guessed he’d be silent about it, but this works too.”

“I’m not going to pursue a mech clearly uncomfortable with my pretend affections for the sake of upsetting Megatron,” Optimus replies. He decides it is about time he put his pede down, and having succeeded in one plot and partially succeeded in another, he ought to take his wins and split. “It is immoral. We’ve secured Ratchet’s place, we can do the same for yours, and I will take what happens to me.”

“What on Primus’s-” Jazz stops when Ratchet hisses, then capitulates to his fellow Autobot’s sacrilegious campaign. “What the fuck are you on about?” he asks. “And why does it matter? They just figured out they’ve got a battalion out there headed this way to fuck us up, and apparently yesterday you managed to slag off their High Command with some weird ass courting scheme. How about we make sure we even have a peace before we go screwing it up even more.”

This, Optimus must admit, is a sensible point.

While the war had its benefits – Optimus is wary to ascribe any positives to the war, but must admit in the special context of Megatron there were a few – peacetime has its own unique wonders. For example, he is now a confidant in that small circle of beings that knows of Megatron’s peculiar datapad holding habits. That is to say, across the battlefield one might have the privilege of watching him fight, but in a quiet office one has the equally enchanting sight of well-balanced datapads propped on a hip. Paired with the glasses held on the tip of his nasal ridge and the chaotic rumbling of Decepticon command in the adjoining control room, on onlooker might convince himself he has stumbled into the office of a University professor balancing textbooks and assignment papers, a far cry from what is assuredly plans for Decepticon control of the Unvierse.

“Tell him to keep his thrusters cold,” Megatron says upon Optimus’s pedesteps and the shutting of the door. He glances up from the desk he has been leaning over and, recognizing Optimus, raises an eyebrow. “Never mind. What is it you want?”

“A peace treaty,” says Optimus.

“Could have been done by now, but apparently you are allergic to rarefied.” He straightens to his full height and adds another datapad to his collection. “Are your Autobots in a tither?”

“Tithered completely,” admits Optimus. “They are certain my actions yesterday have sentenced us all to defeat by Strika’s almighty servo.” I am equally worried, he does not say.

“Do you want them to have?” Megatron asks. His voice has remained strangely sedate the entire conversation, at odds with his usually mecurial nature. Optimus wants to push the glasses back up his nose.

“Not particularly,” he says instead.

Megatron’s optics are burning, a stark contrast to his ice cool words. “Would you not find it preferable to performing the Ritual?”

Blast it, but Optimus suffers so completely from confusion when Megatron does this. How could Optimus possibly find it preferable? Is their deal off? Has Megatron now decided he must prostrate himself in front of the blasted chalice in an allergic fit? “What do you mean?”

“You are a religious mech, I said so myself only a few days ago. You deny that you find the Ritual hedonistic, and you’d have no reason to lie. So I have been thinking…” Megatron trails off briefly, hikes the datapad stack farther up his hip. “Skywarp is not a fantastic investigator. We fed him that line – your infatuation…”

“Oh,” says Optimus. Of course they did – whether Megatron now believes it or not, that had been their original intention. “Alright.”

“I don’t believe Skywarp of all mechs managed to find a leak in your command,” Megatron continues. “Not unless the leak formed itself.”

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you might be inferring,” Optimus says, which is a lie. Megatron has taken a circuitous route to a simple destination – that Optimus’s medical information had been shared rather than stolen. It would be a ridiculous proposition, were it not being suggested by the mech who would have been responsible for such spywork.

“Did you conjure up an illness to avoid performing an intimate ritual with me?” Megatron asks. The directness is a relief, if the content is not. “If so, I will admit it was clever. But why not just begin with it? Had you come out a week ago – two weeks ago – with this excuse, we could have avoided our recent...troubles. Unless you could have predicted my suggestion and only wanted an excuse to pursue Soundwave, though I admit that seems a little far-fetched for you.”

A few thoughts ram themselves down Optimus’s processor lines like race cars on the Iacon speedway. Firstly, he thinks that he would very much like to inform Megatron that he does want to perform intricate and intimate rituals with him for the good of their people, and that it would be utterly ridiculous of him to make up a health condition to avoid such a wonderful opportunity for inter-factional bonding. Secondly, he wants to protest the idea that had preferred to pretend pursuing Soundwave over pretending to have an allergy, which is a bizarre proposition in itself. And he would like to lay this all bare at Megatron’s pedes, with his stupid inability to intake rarefied energon. Except that his fourth thought is that his high command would prefer he not do so, because he has been given a clear chance here to deny a weakness whose presence had kick started this entire mess.

Oh, but he has had it with schemes! Of Megatron’s, of his own command’s! If he had his way, this entire affair would have been sorted a week ago, before the dozen humiliations and investigations, back when all he had wanted to do was admit to his allergy and trust that Megatron would not poison him the next morning.

Clearly, he thinks, doing what his high command had ordered had led him only here, and to general misery. And to claim that his allergy was a lie would only confirm the idea that he had meant only to escape performing the Ritual with Megatron.

A part of him thinks that Megatron might have lied when he’d expressed apathy towards the Ritual. At the very least he is upset that Optimus would have objections. He is taking it personal, Optimus thinks, and that is why he has been searching for a reason these past few days. And maybe why he is acting so strangely now, shifting restlessly, adding and removing pads from his collection as if at random.

So, in what might be the best decision of the last few months, or the worst, Optimus abandons all plots, schemes, or plans untoward.

“I do not know who the leak might be,” Optimus says, with the sincerity of a love confession. He feels the urge to aggressively blink back nonexistent tears. “But I promise you Megatron, it is real. It is time I told the truth. I am deathly allergic to rarefied energon. I am told my lines swell up like a clogged waste line.”

“Oh,” replies Megatron. His eyebrows furrow. He sets all his datapads down on the desk with a grand thump, his optics never turning from Optimus’s face. “Good. I’m glad.” Megatron removes his glasses and lays them gently on the datapad stack as he speaks.

“Thank you,” replies Optimus, his processor a little numb. “All of this – My Autobots didn’t want me to tell you. For security purposes. And, and – I am so sorry.”

“Well, listen,” Megatron continues, after a brief moment when his lack of reaction makes a fool of Optimus’s cracking voice. “I suppose we can keep the peace without it.”

“I’m glad,” says Optimus. There is a dragging moment of silence, almost two moments in fact, with such direct optic contact that Optimus imagines someone of more feeble nature might swoon. He does not swoon at mechs who are not wearing their dignified statesman’s glasses, however, so Optimus remains upright until the pressure exceeds his capacity and he bows.

“Thank you,” he repeats, and beats a hasty retreat.

“You told him what?” Prowl is not pleased. Prowl is never pleased about anything, but this is a particularly startling emotional turn because only a few minutes prior he had been on his proverbial grand-stand, silently gloating about his abilities as a superior negotiator and Megatron-tricker.

“The truth,” Optimus tells him, “which is what we should have done to begin with.”

“Do we have a device that could, ya know, detect rarefied energon in your morning cereal or something?” Jazz asks. He is ignored, because no-one particularly wants to admit that they do not.

“I would like to point out that the far more important issue – of our continued peace – has been addressed,” Optimus says. “I have confirmed with Megatron that the news of Strika’s force does not eradicate all the progress we have made. Maintaining the stability of our surrender is our upmost priority.” If the phrasing leaves room for a more favorable interpretation – that perhaps he had played a greater role in convincing Megatron than simply asking nicely – well, that’s hardly his fault.

“Sure,” says Ironhide, “But how are we gong to protect you? We’ve got Ratchet covered-”

“There is nothing stopping us from releasing the plague should Optimus’s life be threatened,” suggests Prowl. Optimus rubs the insistent ache away from between his optics.

“Let us not rain the pits of Primus down on mortals for nothing but mortal sins,” he recites, earning him only a curious look from Jazz. He does not explain, because Talon did not explain it either.

“Here’s how I see it,” says Ironhide. “We can still work this. Ratchet was just a test run though, we are really going to need Megatron distracted if we want to slip by a promise for your protection, Prime.”

“Honestly,” Optimus interrupts, “I am not sure why you are so certain he would not agree to a simple insurance for my safe treatment. It is not as though he has claimed he wants my head on a pike recently. Why would he protest now over a document saying...what, that he cannot have me summarily executed?”

Ironhide looks a little guilty. Prowl does not, which is all the assurance Optimus needs to assume some sort of foul trickery is afoot.

“What, tell me, are you thinking of putting in this agreement?” Optimus asks.

“Assurances,” replies Prowl. “That you will be safe, that’s all.”

That sounds like a load of nonsense. “Define ‘safe’.”

“As far away from Megatron as physically possible,” Prowl says. “A promise that contact will be made only through mediators, unless in a state of catastrophe – that we are willing to negotiate upon. For example, if the Quintessans were to make a reappearance, we might want…”

Optimus isn’t listening. Optimus is being transported far away on the glorious wide wings of panic personified, whisked into the ever-spinning storm of disaster. He imagines the signing of this document, and then himself, being dragged away to spend the rest of his days far far away. He imagines Megatron’s tight face, a mix between anger and sadness – Optimus cannot decide which it would be – as the distance between them widens.

He had only just discovered that Megatron’s favorite candy is magnesium gels. That he balances his datapads routinely upon his hips, that he has read all of Talon’s work and thinks CyberSmith too readily dives into metaphor. All these years, and he knows nothing! Could this really be all? Could tomorrow they be split forever, and all he will ever know is that Megatron’s favorite candy is magnesium gels?

“They seem to believe the Soundwave story,” Ironhide is saying. “So let’s keep that up a little longer.”

“I want nothing to do with any more plots,” Optimus tells them, a little distantly. He is still lost in his lonely little world, which he imagines as a blotted gray, and the only real structure is a candy shop which serves only to tease him with magnesium gels. Maybe there is a bookshop too, he decides, which will loudly boast the newest iteration of Talon collection just to haunt him.

“Just leave it then,” says Ironhide. “Don’t do anything, don’t say anything, just let him believe it a little while longer.”

The idea makes Optimus almost physically sick, and he doesn’t know why. It cannot be so cruel, can it? To keep himself from Megatron – that would not hurt Megatron as the opposite hurts him. Megatron actually loves Soundwave. Megatron has his partnership, and soon it will be free of Optimus’s intrusion. But still, it all feels unimaginably cruel.

His lack of response is agreement enough.

Optimus decides the root of his troubles must be his lack of common sense. He decides this because Ratchet beats it into his head with a tuning wrench, and he does not do so gently.

"You are a fucking idiot who deserves what he gets," Ratchet shouts. "By the P-Porpoises, why would you agree with Ironhide? My position does not need so much protecting that you need to sacrifice the last scraps of your tattered dignity. And Megatron is hardly going to poison you – Pi-pistons, even I know that. Why are you so stupid?"

"At least you should be impressed that I managed it!" Optimus shouts in desperation. "In one day I was able to convince Megatron I was infatuated with his spymaster. I am a successful counterintelligence officer!"

"You are a successful idiot," Ratchet says.

Optimus decides the reason for his idiocy lies in a misunderstanding of the Cybertronian condition which would normally be found in a well-honed education. So he reads the Complete Works of Talon. Or the next few poems, at least. His mind wanders elsewhere, wondering about which line might be Megatron’s favorite, and how he might interpret one poem or another. He doesn’t learn much about the Cybertronian condition, but some thirty minutes in he is gifted with an epiphany on who might be willing to give the enemy his medical information.

“You told Skywarp!” he accuses Ratchet, upon barging into his medbay. Ratchet leaps to his pedes.

“I most certainly did not!” he argues.

“You – you said you knew Megatron wouldn’t poison me!”

“He’d beat you to a slag with his bare hands, everybody knows that!”

“Who else would tell them?” asks Optimus, still high on the righteousness of having solved one small problem in the face of a thousand.

“That would be medical malpractice.”

“Did you leave a copy of my file open in the Nemesis med-bay?” Optimus asks. “Maybe locked on the page which says that I cannot consume rarefied? In a locked room that only you and a mech with teleporting abilities and a mission to invade Autobot spaces might access?”

“Well, I can hardly be blamed if someone snooped,” says Ratchet. “Anyway, you are still an idiot. Why let Megatron stew? You’re only making yourself miserable.”

"Ironhide said..." starts Optimus, and then he stops. "Oh, slag it all, I'm doing it again."

"You know, some might say you've been acting cruelly with this scheme of yours," Ratchet says. "Not the first one, the second one. Megatron got his stupid aft into the first one. But this garbage with Ironhide and Prowl. Why not just be honest? It always worked for you before, didn't it."

Leading an army with sunshine and rainbows, Optimus thinks.

"I shouldn't further undermine Autobot security," Optimus says. "I can't tell him about Prowl's plan. But I can tell him that I am not interested in Soundwave."

"Sure," says Ratchet. "And then you could kiss him."

“Soundwave?” Optimus asks, confused.

Ratchet rolls his optics. “Megatron.”

“Why would I kiss Megatron?”

"Are you telling me, in your never-ending quest to rid the Cybertronian race of common sense, you managed to endure this entire fiasco without realizing you're in love with the very mech you've spent the last week pining over?" Ratchet asks.

"I spent the last week pining over Soundwave," Optimus replies. This is the Primus' honest truth. That is what he had very public ally been doing, and all he had been doing, in a desperate attempt to avoid seizing in front of a live-stream that would be in every Cybertronian history book for the rest of eternity. That, and then so that Prowl could get Megatron to distractedly sign an agreement protecting Optimsu forever by ensuring that they would never ever see each other again.

"That's not what literally any of the Autobots who've been in the cafeteria this week have said. Or, you know, everyone in the moon-mall. Or anyone that heard about the moon-mall. Or anyone who has listened to you spout poetry for the last three days." One of Ratchet's eyebrows raises high and arching over his stack of reports. "Have you considered stopping for a single moment and considering your own thoughts about this whole thing?"

Optimus shrugs. "I am trying hard not too," he says. "It has not been a particularly comfortable week for me."

Ratchet nods sympathetically. "It must be difficult having a lump of unburned coal for an emotional processor. Why don't you go bury your nose in that nice book of mostly-romantic poetry Megatron bought for you?"

Optimus nods and does exactly that. Doctor's orders.

He flips to Burning the Countryside. Megatron liked it, had he not? What had he said? The story deconstructs nostalgia. A young writer returns home after some years studying abroad and, in a fit of passion emboldened by his romantic liaisons with his former first love, burns the acres he had roamed as a youth. Optimus frowns and reads it again, and again, and again. And in it he cannot find where nostalgia lights the match. The dreadful spark, in Optimus's opinion, is the re ignition of a poorly thought through romance.

Yes, he decides, it was a horrible, horrible idea. It would be a horrible, horrible idea. He'll burn everything down.

The issue is that Optimus cannot stay away. Not when his interpretation of such a fascinating story differs so greatly from Megatron's. Who else is he to tell this too? Never mind his torrid little desires, which now released come unbidden to the forefront of his processor. He tells himself he has done well enough to harm Megatron's relationship with Soundwave, and though Starscream appears entirely unbothered in their next days' meeting, Primus knows what the domino effects of Optimus's foolish trespassing have been. Clearly, Optimus had forgotten the nature of Decepticon schemes: they always backfire. 

Megatron and Soundwave are not speaking to each other, though they trade meaningful glances every time Optimus speaks. The meeting is tense. Prowl brings up the agreement with Ratchet only to open the possibility for future talks, perhaps at another table. Why require Megatron and Optimus's presence for the hashing out of details? They have a functioning framework already. He and Starscream can handle the rest.

He itches. His entire frame itches. He must tell Megatron that he disagrees with his interpretation of Burning the Countryside. Was it never about nostalgia? Is it ever?

Oh, what does Optimus have to miss about the war? What could he have then that he cannot have now?

"Just keep quiet and give Prowl space to work," Ironhide says. "Prowl and Starscream are going to hammer it out tomorrow. You don't have to make eyes anymore."

"I'm not," Optimus says. "And I will." That is a lie. He cracks the next morning. 

It has been a week since their original meeting, in this very office. Optimus is vibrating with pent up energy and pent up desire. One shall be released this day, he decides, and it will not be to wreak further damage upon Megatron's relationships. He thinks he is handling this revelation rather maturely - yes, he will admit to himself that he wants Megatron on another level entirely, but he will contain himself to poetry.

He lays the Complete Works of Talon on Megatron's desk, open to the correct page. "Here," he says, "Listen. 'Upon him came the strongest of urges, that to maintain what was so grand and so fragile and so youthful, he must emblazon it onto his own spark. And while fire that is struck from the spark cannot remain there, it might jump to what cradled and what is cradled by it. So that it was his very spark which leapt from him and fell to the fields and licked them and ate them and left them, as he once had, in a state of emptiness and newness.'"

Megatron pushes his datapads to the side and pulls Optimus's own forward. "I know this," he says.

"It is Burning the Countryside," Optimus tells him. "You've misinterpreted it."

Megatron raises an eyebrow. "I have?"

"It isn't a longing for the past that brings fire from his spark – if we are to interpret this literally, although clearly the narrator is not a reliable witness-"

Megatron nods. "No, it is unlikely the fire came from his actual spark. He lit the fields on fire."

"Yes," says Optimus. "But here, it says that it his relationship with the femme which inspired him. In an attempt to keep a relationship which ought to have remained in its past form, he destroys their futures."

"I disagree." His own work thoroughly discarded, Megatron leans forward over the book. "It is nostalgia for his previous life, the naivety of sparklings. That is what is 'so grand and so fragile and so youthful', and he was what was cradled by it. His desire for the past is what urges him to strike the match and burn his home and himself to the ground. In doing so, he is freeing himself."

"Freeing himself?" Optimus ponders this. Optimus ponders this for much longer than Megatron seems to anticipate, if the curious and tilted gaze is anything to go by. "Do you mean that?" He pauses again. "You criticize CyberSmith for his use of metaphor."

"His poor use of metaphor," Megatron corrects. "Talon's use here is enjoyable."

"I disagree that it is entirely his past which brings him to this point," Optimus says. "Clearly his hopes for the future, his ill-conceived notions of the future, encourage him. But I am suddenly keen on your interpretation of the ending."

"What? That is is positive?"

"Yes," says Optimus. And he smiles. "That burning the hillside might be freeing. I might enjoy that."

"Alright." As if freed from a spell, Megatron falls back into his chair. "Is this why you came?" he asks.

It is, but Optimus has had an epiphany, and now he must pursue it to the dogged end. With tact, naturally, whatever he has of that. He will attempt to burn it all down in his own way, with plenty of firetrucks lined at the side, forming whatever barrier he can around Soundwave, whom has been knocked about so roughly in this game of theirs.

"I am here to ask your advice on the concept of match-striking," he says. "From the spark."

Megatron raises an eyebrow. His confusion quickly morphs into anger, by the click in his jaw. "Now, I don't know what you are attempting to imply-"

Optimus is getting ahead of himself. "Are you upset with me about my pursuit of Soundwave?"

"I don't know what you mean," Megatron says. "Unless you are apologizing for you lack of talent-"

Optimus waves him off. "I mean quite simply – are you angry with me?"

Megatron assesses him for a long moment. "Yes," he admits.

Optimus might have come out and said straightly that he oughtn't be, but it occurs to him just then that Megatron might not actually believe it all, and so instead he asks simply: "Why?"

"Why?" repeats Megatron, angrily.

"Just tell me why, and I will explain myself after," Optimus promises.

"I don't agree to those terms." Megatron is becoming increasingly agitated, but Optimus is no stranger to puffed plating.

"You must," he says, "I won't risk myself by giving my reasoning sooner."

Megatron stands abruptly, so that they are nose to nose over his desk. "I don't appreciate games."

"Tell me."

"Oh, Primus slaggit, you glitched processor, half-bit half-wit, I am upset because I am jealous." Megatron waves his hands about like a fanatic on laudanum. "How is that not obvious to you? Are you so blind to the world around you? Have you not a thought at all? Or were you attempting to let me down gently?" Megatron's face morphs (unbidden, in Optimus's opinion) into furious offended outrage. "I am not some fragile glass art to be shattered by straightforward rejection, you condescending aft!"

Optimus feels the need to interject, needing a moment to interpret Megatron's response (but functioning always at his coal-powered pace) recognizing insults when they arise. "I haven't condescended a bit," he argues, drawing himself up. "It was not I that suggested we use Soundwave for this little ploy, and neither was I the one to suggest this game. Whatever I might say next, I hope you remember your own part in this scheme. If you are feeling territorial, you ought to have mentioned so before. My affections for Soundwave were never real. Do not take any insecurities about your relationship with your spymaster out on me; I suggest you communicate your desires with him."

"I do not have a romantic relationship with Soundwave," Megatron cries. "He's the most talented mech alive, efficient, and the only loyal mech on this stupid planet, but I'm as in love with him as you are!" He pauses a moment, then adds: "Though of the two of us might be the closest to deserving of him, but perhaps it is really no-one at all, at the rate we have tangled ourselves."

"Alright," says Optimus. He feels a little like a rock on a beach being bombarded with the high-tide, swirled around in a confusing current he can't quite understand. "Alright then." He had not expected that. He had expected Megatron to yell and to shoot and to puff himself up; to reject Optimus's assertion that he was not pursuing Soundwave, and then to beat him over the head with prideful jealousy. "Good then," he says, repeating Megatron's words from days before. "I'm glad."

Megatron stops, full body, as if he were zapped by a freeze-ray. "You're glad?"

"Ratchet tells me this whole exercise was stupid," Optimus says. "I can't imagine why you are jealous, however. You should not be upset at me. You chose Soundwave as the object for my pretend affection."

"I am not jealous because of Soundwave!" Megatron cries.

"Well-"

"I wanted to choose me!" Megatron admits, pointing a contradictory finger into Optimus's chest. "But it wouldn't have worked as well. No one would have believed it."

Optimus feels oddly mawkish at that admission. But let him! Was that not sweet. Never mind the ordeal it had led to. There had been some good moments, hadn't there? In between the humiliations. "I have this idea," he whispers, "For what could have happened."

"What?"

"I could have come into your office and told you I was deadly allergic to rarefied energon." Optimus closes his optics and imagines this world in his head. "And we would have performed the Ritual of Submission the next day without it. We would have drunk each other’s energon like proper foes, and at no point would I have spilled any all over your nice polished armor."

"I like that story," Megatron says. "But does it end as well as this one?"

Optimus peeks open one optic to find Megatron still nose to nose with him. "I don't know," he whispers.

And then Megatron kisses him.

"This would have been more exciting if Talon wrote it," Optimus says. "People would probably die."

"What?" Megatron rubs an irritant out of one optic. "I'm - we are in my office."

"I didn't mean interface," Optimus says. "Obviously we can't do that in your office."

"Obviously."

"I meant his idea of romance usually involves some terrible and violent metaphor."

Megatron is sitting behind his desk. At some point, Optimus had migrated around to perch atop that very desk. Now he looks down at Megatron, his lump of coal for an emotional subprocessor doing its best to come up with something to say.

"I consider this exciting, violent metaphor or not," replies Megatron. He places his elbows on the desk to either side of Optimus's hips and leans up for another kiss, which Optimus provides. It is more chaste than their last, which had been slow but drawn out, as had been its predecessors. Optimus's first and honest opinion was that fewer people had died than he had anticipated, and he hadn't even needed to learn to dance. So he was languidly relaxing into this success, enjoying the feel of it.

Then his piece of coal kicks into high gear (he remains inelegant in the art of metaphor himself). "What about Starscream?"

"What about Starscream?" Megatron asks. His mouth is a straight and thin-line, though the message of distrust is undercut by the small streaks of off-colored paint Optimus has left on his lips. Optimus brings down his servo and wipes one such streak away.

"You are not beholden to Soundwave, but what will Starscream feel about this?"

Megatron's face twists up in dismay. "Why would... Do you believe I am also sleeping with my second in command? How many people do you think I keep in my berth?!" His voice raises to such a high pitch that Optimus winces.

Optimus attempts to justify himself. "You bought him oil."

"That was for you!" Megatron stands, looming over him. Despite the threat in his upset blazing optics, Optimus smiles.

"Oh!" he says cheerfully. "I don't like oil, but I appreciate the gesture."

"Yes," Megatron explains slowly. "That's why I gave it to Starscream."

"I like you a lot," Optimus says. They are still so close, he thinks joyfully. Megatron's servos are still at his hips. They could kiss again. Isn't that wonderful? "I don't want to be banished."

"...What?" Megatron leans back for the sole purpose of delivering a quizzical eyebrow.

"Ironhide tells me that you'll get bored of me once you have me," Optimus explains. "Once you've won the war, I mean, which you have. You'll rejoice in your victory for a while and then become bored, and send me off or lock me up just to be rid of me."

"That is a cynical idea," Megatron replies, after a brief moment in which he stares oddly down. "And you believe him?"

"No, but I have never been skilled at understanding your motivations," Optimus tells him. Then he leans up for a kiss, which he receives readily. It is another slow and long kiss, and Megatron's servos travel up his hips, and Optimus lets himself sink into it with nothing but appreciation. They are rudely interrupted a minute later by a knock on the office door.

"Ah," says Megatron, and he takes a wretched step back. He huffs and growls and otherwise makes his displeasure known. Optimus frowns. The knock repeats itself, and the echoes finally make their way through Optimus's thick helm, and he jumps to his pedes and rubs the evidence from his lips. 

"Yes," Megatron growls, once he has pushed and tugged Optimus back to the proper side of the desk. "Come in."

The office door opens to reveal Prowl and Starscream. "Good, Optimus is here," Prowl says. He brandishes a dAtapad. "We have something for you to sign really quick."

"Yes, yes, give it here," Megatron huffs. "I assume Starscream hasn't snuck my own murder in here."

"I would never," Starscream says.

"It is only additional protections for high-ranking Autobots," Prowl says. "As emperor, you are naturally free to ignore any Starscream-esque stipulations. The Autobots will only be enforcing our part of the deal."

Optimus has remained quiet for this conversation, but only because his entire fame has frozen up and taken his mind with it. Still, when Megatron's servo has closed around the datapad, he cannot keep quiet.

"I would not like to be banished," he says again.

Megatron turns, a frown on his lips and a question in his optics. He raises the pad and clicks it's screen bright. "No," he says. "I presume this is your protection."

"You assume correctly," replies Prowl, but Megatron is looking only to Optimus.

He shakes his helm. "I do not want to be banished from you," he says.

Megatron frown deepens. So does Prowl's. "Optimus..." he warns.

"No!" Optimus steps forward and grabs the pad from Megatron's hands. "I won't sign it. This entire surrender is based on omissions and lies. I am allergic to rarefied energon, Megatron, and you have an army coming to slag us all. Let us do the Ritual of Submission tomorrow, make a proper Saturnalia out of it, I will grovel at your pedes for our lives, and then we may spend the rest of eternity arguing about the proper interpretations of Talon."

"Optimus!" cries Prowl. Or rather, growls with great agitation and even greater fear. Optimus ignores him.

"No!" he continues. "No one is in love with Soundwave-"

"I wouldn't say that," Megatron interrupts, but only in a whisper. He seems unwilling to end Optimus's tirade completely, and is scrolling through the datapad with furrowed brows.

"And I have unsuccessfully fought off the Decepticon force with the power of friendship. Fine, well, let us use it to end it. Megatron, do you intend to never speak to me again?"

Megatron turns the datapad off with a loud click. "Not in any case," he says. "Let's drink each other's energon, sans the rarefied."

"Exactly!" announces Optimus. "Enough of this. Prowl, Starscream, you may write an agreement for Ironhide, keep him from the lower positions. I will never agree to release a plague for one mech, understand, but do what you will."

"I don't know what's happening here," says Starscream, "But I am going to leave. There is an awkward tension going on, and it is messing with my finish."

"This is a terrible mistake," says Prowl.

"Grand," says Optimus. "Would you say it is violent as well?"

"Hush," Megatron chastises. "It was a good deal he wrote for you. No one could guess my motivations, they are well hidden."

"Ha!" exclaims Starscream. "Like slag they are. The epitome of pining. Say, what is all this with Soundwave?"

"Really?" Optimus inspects Starscream's reaction and sees little but truth. He returns to Megatron. "Longing," he repeats, from that conversation that started it all, "The only reason for being. Who is a fool now?" Megatron puffs himself up in embarrassment, optics flicking everywhere but Optimus.

"Well, as interesting as whatever the frag you two are talking about it..." drawls Starscream. "...Are you going to sign this thing, or has all my work been for waste?"

"For waste," says Optimus. “Prowl, let the agreement be reworded, I will be haunting this office for eternity.” He does not move his optics from Megatron, who finally looks back at him. And, with a sudden burst of emotion, he exclaims:

"Allergic to rarefied! How stupid an allergy!"