Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"I called you here today because, as everyone knows, you have the morals of a demented turbofox," begins Ratchet. He had not practiced this speech at all, save for the few times he had repeated the words as he'd edited them, but he is a confident public speaker and an even more skilled bullshitter.

Megatron, the bastard that he is, interrupts before he can get to the meat of his speech. "This is my annual check-up that I scheduled two months ago."

Ratchet has no time for his smug, arrogant, stupid face or his pristine medical scans. "Shut the fuck up."

Megatron rolls his optics with the force of a thousand slagsuckers.

"You are not my first choice," Ratchet continues. "But sadly, Swindle - while an easier to acquire asset - will not be able to perform what I need done." He is being reasonably professional in his speech, so it is somewhat offensive when Megatron raises a neurotic eyebrow. Ratchet is sitting ramrod straight, digits respectfully intertwined, a customer-service grin perfected by eons of exquisite bedside service, but he supposes he can't expect a Decepticon to be appreciative. 

"I am prepared to offer you 500 shanix for a simple deed, with the condition that our interaction never be mentioned."

"What deed?"

"Well, if you'd fucking shut up and let me finish-" Ratchet in-vents deeply. "I need you to frag Optimus Prime." The formality of adding the title to his request is lost on Megatron, who grimaces and snarls all at once, like a seeker caught in a bear trap.

"You want me to do what?"

"Sleep with him," Ratchet repeats.

"For 500 shanix?" Anger is creeping into Megatorn's voice. Unprofessional.

"That's what I've got."

"But-" Megatorn's lip curls even further up and then, like lightning in a storm, his face collapses in bewilderment. "But our currency is worthless!"

"Well, whose fault is that?" Ratchet vividly envisions himself losing this particular argument. "I can also give you medical care."

"You just gave me medical care!" replies Megatron. "We finished my check-up a minute ago!"

Slag Ratchet's professionalism. Stupid, stupid. And the scans were so perfect!

"Fine then, how about an I-Owe-You?"

Megatron looks at him as if he had grown three new Decepticon heads. "I- why would you want me to frag Optimus Prime?" he asks. "And why would you think that I would do it for worthless shanix, like some financially irresponsible shareware? And why would Swindle be your first option?"

"Because he would take the shanix," answers Ratchet, in a grumble. "And I told you he wouldn't work."

Megatron simmers down somewhat, though he crosses his arms across his chest with distaste and sets his face into a perfect slagaft frown. He does not, at least in Ratchet's opinion, give off the impression that he will kill someone, which is all well and good.

"I suppose this is a no then?" Ratchet asks after a minute.

Megatron rolls his optics again, proof that he has spent way too long with Starscream. "Why do you want to pay me to sleep with your leader?"

"If it is too much of an ask, I'd settle for some flirting. Ask him out on a date."

"But why?" It is said with such amazing incredulity that Ratchet suddenly thinks that Megatron might actually say yes. It is an incredible victorious feeling. He smiles his best customer-service smile.

"Because he's lonely, and stressed out, and I'm his friend," Ratchet says. "And I think he needs a bit of a morale boost."

Megatron ponders this for a moment, appearing for all the world like he is actually considering doing it, and then he says: "Well, alright then, I will take your IOU, and I will take Optimus Prime out on a date. But nothing more."

Ratchet shrugs, immensely relieved. "Good," he says, "because if you had declined I would have told you you needed an oil change."

Optimus Prime is a busy mech. He spends his mornings in meetings with Decepticons, his afternoons in meetings with Autobots talking about his meetings with Decepicons, and his evenings staring at his ceiling wondering just how terribly he's screwed this whole 'Prime' thing up.

Optimus Prime is a busy mech. He devotes around 60% of his processor to anticipating the inevitable betrayal from the Decepticons, 20% worrying about the potential regrouping and return of the Quintessans who had forced this tenuous peace, and the other 20% lost in the obscurities of self-pity.

Optimus Prime is a busy mech. He doesn't have time to move into a new apartment in the city. He doesn't have time to try any of the new restaurants. He doesn't have time to deal with any of the fine trappings of peace.

Optimus Prime is quite busy all the time being utterly and completely miserable.

'All the time' includes right now, when Optimus is being miserable in a meeting with the Constructicons and Soundwave, who are at the very moment informing him of the wild, incredible, near impossible success of their latest venture - the Cybertron Wide Interweb.

"You lot said it couldn't go running on energon, on account of all of us starving to death, so we pilfered some solar panels from-"

"Hey! Pilfered, college word! Good job Scrapper!"

"Silence, Mixmaster."

"Yeah, so we took some solar panels from that one job site in, uh, New Mexico. It was at night though, so you probably won't get called about it."

Had the words filtered into Optimus's processor without the stagnant cloud of uncaring, he might have had something to say. As it is, Soundwave solves the irking little problem before it requires him to wake up from his pity parade.

"Decepticons; already paid the human corporation."

"Okay, so then why'd we have to do it at night?"

"Is that why no-one tried to kill us?" asks an irritated Bonecrusher.

"Scapper, continue your report."

"Alright, so we've got all the servers running, and the cables laid to, well, to downtown New Cybertron, and to command headquarters. We gotta change the name of the new city, bossman."

"We really do."

"Yeah, it sucks slag."

Optimus cares very little about naming structures that might as well be condemned; neither of the two wars brewing are the type to leave downtown standing. "So we can begin hosting information on the internet?" he manages to ask.

"Sure," answers Scrapper. "Well, I mean, first we've gotta get all the monitors set up to connect to it - we've got ethernet running for most of it. Wifi is gonna be a little tricky at the moment, cuz-"

Optimus waves the explanation away. "Good job," he says. "Keep working on it and keep us updated. This is a great step towards rebuilding Cybertron."

"So you'll consider the names?"

This is the point where the exhaustion finally takes hold, doing its very best to unseat his sense of decorum. "No," he replies. "Please take that up with the appropriate channels."

"Who would that be?"

Optimus shrugs. "Maybe Starscream?"

Optimus Prime spends a great deal of peacetime staring at his office ceiling. Decorating it are the words (and half word): Escape Pod Route A, Towards Sta-, in nice white block print. This is because his office is made of the deformed hull of a scrapped Decepticon warship, which has since been flipped inside out and upside down into a somewhat rectangular office building. Optimus calls it the gift box, because it is mostly box shaped and gifts him with unintelligible nihilism every single day. He also - on occasions where his nihilism truly peaks, calls it the Decepticon gift box, for the standard reasons as well as that it is gifting Cybertron to the Decepticons.

The worst part about it is that only he seems to see it.

The rest of his High Command, and his Auobots, and even the Decepicons, are convinced that the peace he had arranged is being, well, surprisingly peaceful. They have yet to stumble into some obscene calamity, which might highlight the impossibility of it all, or reveal the inconsistent behavior of the Decepticon Command.

It sits in his core and eats at his tanks; he, the ever-loving optimist, the hopeful, is the only one certain of the demise of this thing they have cradled into existence. Ratchet teases him about this, because he does not understand that Optimus's hope had always been realistic.

Optimus had imagined peace to be the grumpy smiles of Megatron and giddy wing flicks of his Second. Peace is supposed to be difficult, straining, miserable, teetering on the edge of all-out war. It was going to be the greatest challenge of Optimus's lifetime, a chance to meet his foes and Nemesis on an intellectual and political frontline the likes of Cybertron has never seen before. It was not, is not, never ought to be, utterly mediocre.

And yet, the battle lines of peacetime politics are blown like chalk on sand, scattered so thoroughly that one must squint to imagine they ever existed. There are no arguments, there are hardly any tenuous meetings. It is the worst parts of the war minus the violence, paperwork and command and shift assignments and an endless, never approaching goal, topped with the sudden ability of his friends to go running off across the planet and galaxy on hunts for supplies or on joyrides, and he is stuck in an office listening to the finer details of the Constructicons' construction capabilities, which are surprisingly narrow considering their name.

"Well, it's just that we don't know how to do it, is all," says Scrapper. "I mean, getting wireless connection up and running. So we need Soundwave, but Soundwave is on the decommissioning team, and we need your okay to transfer him over to this project, because it is going to be working on Autobot computers." Optimus looks at the ever earnest Scrapper, to blank-faced Soundwave, to his own servos on his desk, then at Scrapper again. "Do you have something for me to sign?" Soundwave slides a datapad across Optimus's desk.

"Let me take this to Prowl," he tells them. "I'll send confirmation to you tomorrow."

Soundwave nods. Mixmaster grumbles. Scrapper smiles.

"What is the worst thing Soundwave could do if given full access to our computer systems?" Optimus asks Prowl, approximately an hour later.

Prowl raises one eyebrow and, with a shockingly out of character response that reveals he, to, has been converted by the lull in Decepticon-related disasters, says: "Do you honestly believe they are trying to reignite the war via our monitor system, or are you hoping they are going to commit sabotage."

Optimus throws his arms in the air in childish anger. "For Primus sakes, Prowl, I cannot be the only one who doesn't trust this."

Prowl shrugs. "I don't trust them," he says, "But it's been a hundred years. All of our important files have long been transferred off-world, the Ark isn't even on Cybertron, and we already share our monitors. Just sign the paperwork and trust that Jazz and I have our protection handled."

"What has Jazz done to you?" Optimus asks.

"What hasn’t he done?" Prowl mutters. Then, louder: "I don't trust the Decepticons as far as I can throw Megatron. Our files were made perfectly safe years ago."

So Optimus decides the files were made perfectly safe years ago. Hallelujah.

Perhaps he is being slowly swept up in an undercurrent of bitterness. Perhaps he has waded too deeply into this powerful peacetime river and will soon be lost to the ripping rocks of his own inadequate adjustments. Maybe he is just paranoid. Who could say.

He hands Soundwave back signed permission to the Autobot computer system.

Then he heads to the medical bay to get his processor checked, because clearly he has gone insane.

Every morning, Optimus Prime wakes up to the irritating beeping of his alarm and stares at his ceiling until it turns itself off in exasperation over its owner's uselessness. Then he swings his legs off his new Decpeticon berth, contemplates throwing himself from the window, then trudges over to his desk to write his morning journal entry. He had never needed a morning journal entry before, because before nothing ever happened in the mornings. Now, he starts each day writing down all of his confusion down in the hopes that it will arrange itself neatly on the page and provide him with a clear and precise path forward.

During the war, each morning began with a list of things to do: paperwork, energon, game night, beat the slag out of Megatron. During peacetime, the paperwork is more than staff rotations, it is planet building. Planet building! And energon comes with conversation with Decepticons about planet building, and there is no game night because they are all too busy with the planet-building, and he cannot even beat the slag out of Megatron. Because that would stymy all the planet-building. Everyday, he closes his journal, goes to his office, and makes consequential, planet-altering decisions based on pieces of paper and a promise from the Decepticon High Command. He chooses, every single day, to lessen the Autobots capabilities for the promise of potential future gain, dependent on the goddamn Decepticons.

For the first time in millions of years, Optimus is stuck in the drudgery of uncertainty. And everyday he sees more and more bots and cons alike becoming entirely certain.

No longer is this peace called an experiment. Cons do not allude to its end in threatening tones, bots have stopped grumbling about the next war. Apartments are being built, crystal gardens planted, shops opened; everyone seems sure that there will continue being a Cybertron next year, and the year after that. Even now, Prowl, to allow such an invasion to come to pass. Optimus wonders every morning if he, in his foolish optimism those years ago, has sentenced his people to betrayal and death.

So now, cowed by this latest iniquity, he trudges off to the medbay to sit and be comforted by Ratchet's practical nihilism.

"So what?" Ratchet will say. "They betray us and murder us - that's hardly any different than what they were doing before. Just sit back and use this time to recharge, we all know you need it," and it will sound all the more comforting coming from Ratchet's no-fucks-given lecture than from Prowl, who might say these sorts of things but could never mean it.

"Optimus, I've been treating Decepticons for a while now," Ratchet might say. "I've got all their personal data. If they were stupid enough to start the war all over again, I'd break confidentiality and tell everyone their intimate details, just to embarrass the slag out of them."

And Optimus might mutter "Well, it can't be all that embarrassing for all of them."

And Ratchet would reply "I am prepared to lie."

The brutal onset of a ringing helm-ache intrudes upon Optimus's imaginings, paired like bitter lower shelf wine with a loud clanging sound and general scraping discomfort. Optimus blinks himself back into reality, feeling all the more miserable about his life. Megatron, wearing a facial expression befitting a stupified monkey, blinks back at him.

"Oh," says Optimus, intelligently.

Megtron raises an optic-ridge, as if Optimus were a fool; and he is, a miserable fool, now stuck in awkward conversation with Megatron of all people in the hallway. His malcontent medbay ranting now barred from him by this beast of the bridge, a new challenge Optimus must overcome just to earn the small joy of complaining to a friend.

"Are you in a rush?" Megatron asks. Optimus shakes his helm.

"I just need to speak with Ratchet," he says. "Not about - not anything medical." He pauses. A good point has been raised. "What are you doing here?"

"Not anything medical," Megatron parrots. Optimus frowns. In his head he imagines entering Ratchet's office, door thrown wide, and declaring 'You are cheating on me!' What could Megatron possibly have to speak to Ratchet about? Like slag would he be here for Hook; something is afoot.

Optimus opens his mouth to question this - he hopes the proper phrasing will make itself known as he speaks - but Megatron interrupts. "This is a favorable coincidence," he says, "I was just on my way to find you."

Suspicious, Optimus thinks. He takes a careful step backward and investigates his own frame briefly for injuries. He finds only silver scrapings of missing paint, superficial damage. "Is this about the Interweb project?" he asks. "Because I have sent approval over already."

"No, no," says Megatron, waving a dismissive servo. "It was... I wanted to ask you to dinner."

"To dinner?"

Megatron attempts a smile which, on his evil miserable face, comes off more like a grimace. "To dinner," he confirms, with a tone that is hopeful but unclear, as if he himself is not sure whether he is hoping for a denial or an acceptance.

Optimus's helm is still ringing. Megatron's proposition does little to assist in his mental re-calibration - in fact, it is giving him a worse helmache. "Alright," he decides, if just to get him out of the conversation. Megatron's smiling reply is actually happy, though again, unfortunately shark-like.

"Brilliant!" he declares. "I will see you tomorrow night at Berrilyam, say an hour after shift end?"

There are a lot of sharp teeth in that smile, Optimus thinks. "Fine," is what he says.

"Great, I will see you then." Megatron hesitantly pats Optimus on the shoulder, to Optimus's bewilderment, and then, with that smile still threatening, side-steps past him and strolls down the corridor.

Optimus watches after him for a moment, hoping the sight of his wide and frustrating shoulders might inject some clarity into his hurting processor. It does, or perhaps it is the distance being placed between him and the perpetrator of his general pain and suffering.

"What in the pits is Berylian?" Optimus says, once the conversation finishes processing. He answers his own question with a shrug, ineffectively attempts to wipe the new scrape off of his helm crest, and enters the med-bay.

There are no mechs in the waiting room, and the door to the patient room is open to reveal an equally empty med-berth. He finds Ratchet in his office contemplating a stack of datapads with pinched eyebrows and a deep frown. Optimus knocks lightly on the frame of the open door.

"The Decepticons are getting access to our private computers," he reports. "Just so you're aware of the mess we are in."

In saying this, he successfully frees his amica from the throes of paperwork-inspired despair. Ratchet looks up and, with a great harrumph, replies: "Have you considered getting a slagging life? You know, while you still can."

Optimus takes that as the invitation to enter that it is, and he makes it halfway into the room before he is stopped by an authoritative 'halt' gesture. The commanding servo raises one digit and moves clockwise in a circle. Optimus dutifully turns a slow 360.

Ratchet catalogs each of the scrapes now adorning Optimus's frame with aggressively obvious optic movements. "Wow, that was quick," he says.

"Hm?"

Ratchet gestures dismissively. "Nevermind. What's wrong with you now?"

Optimus pulls out the chair opposite and sits with a thump. "Only the latest terrible decision on my account," he says. "We've handed access to the servers over."

Ratchet snorts. "There hasn't been anything revealing on those servers since the Quintessans went running for the hills. If the Decepticons are stupid enough to waste their finite scheming time digging through them, I say let them. And if they are cunning enough to destroy what remains of our limited defenses from our wiped server data, I say we deserve it."

On a normal day, Optimus might have pressed back. Normally, it takes a good long conversation for Ratchet to convince him he has done the right thing. Normally, he isn't wearing Megatron's paint.

"Well fine then," he says, "Speaking of cunning Decepticon schemes, I believe Megatron is planning an ambush for me at a place called Beryllium."

Ratchet sighs.

"Soundwave!" Megatron calls, cheerfully. "How goes our scheme to destroy the Autobot's limited defenses with their server data."

"Poorly," reports Soundwave. "They have anticipated our interest and wiped them clean of all pertinent information."

Megatron upends his subspace onto his home-desk, creating a chorus of thunks and thumps. A few datapads fall to the floor. "We expected that. We also expected to find something useful regardless."

"That remains to be seen." Soundwave picks up one datapad as Megatron grabs the other. He proffers up no further information. That is alright - there is not much riding on this latest scheme of theirs; as it seems to be going, the Autobots have no intention of breaking their truce. Megatron has grown quite accepting of this peacetime life, though the occasional treachery is required to keep it interesting. They had decided to interrogate the servers for the sole purpose of protection, should the Autobots decide they actually do prefer slimy organics to their Decepticon brethren.

"Well, I have had an interesting day," Megaron tells him, practically vibrating with delight. The walk back to his habsuite had featured several epiphanies, such as that he is and always will be as fit as a horse, and that his easy acceptance of the medic's offer had not been a moment of sheer stupid sentimentality but had, in fact, been a subconscious strike of genius. "One that might be strategically useful. On the prompting of the Prime's medic, I have secured a date with Optimus Prime at Beryllium for tomorrow night. We should strategize tonight."

"On the prompting...?" Soundwave asks, arranging Megatron's workpads in an efficient order. He does so not for Megatron's own benefit - the efficiency is lost on Megatron's preference for momentary-interest driven task-management - but for his own general sanity.

"He's paying us 500 shanix to cheer Prime up, or some slag. Do you know what this means?"

"Optimus Prime has a piss-poor wingman?"

"No," Megatron grins toothily, the start of his next evil plan seeding itself nicely between the rows of peace-time drudgery. "It means Optimus Prime is, for once in his stupid slagging life, vulnerable."

"Vulnerable?" Soundwave deadpans.

"Vulnerable!" Megatron agrees. " Lonely ."

"Lonely." Even with his apathetic vocal tendencies, Soundwave has never had trouble expressing dubiousness.

"All he needs is a little charm," Megatron promises. 

"Megatron. Charm." Ah, his sarcastic and insubordinate third in command, quite unlike his sarcastic and insubordinate second in command in that he is less annoying. Megatron waves him away.

"A little charm," he repeats, "Which I am more than capable of producing, Aided by all that useless data from the Autobot servers, of course."

Soundwave tilts his helm to the side and goes quiet for a brief moment. And then, proving his own genius, agrees. "Soundwave: will utilize the servers to assist Megatron in performing 'a little charm'. Optimus Prime: will assist the Decepticons in destroying the Autobot defense network."

Chapter Text

If Primus himself were to crawl up from the depths of Cybertron's core and appoint any one profession with the gift of everlasting patience, he'd be inclined to provide it to the computer scientists. Soundwave's well-honed talent for not chucking obstinate semi-obsolete technology across the room is a gift not from Primus himself but from even more perfect beings - his minicons.

::I think we should chuck it across the room:: Frenzy suggests from his place in Soundwave's chest. By insisting on being awake and annoying, he is giving Soundwave severe spark-burn. ::This is fucking boring::

::Recharge:: Soundwave commands. He does not chuck the computer station across the room because it is bolted to the wall. Also, because his current position is hidden in the Autobot security room and he is more practiced at remaining unseen than at the hammer throw. He does bang at it with his fist, uselessly, because his kicking leg is criss-crossed in front of him.

::Harder:: Frenzy urges. ::Imagine that's Rumble and he just stole half your highgrade and replaced it with battle rations::

::I have never hit any of you::

::Well I have, and I hit him harder than that::

::Have you been replacing my highgrade with battle rations?:: Soundwave, like any normal mech with an apartment, has decorated it with the normal things - pictures, crystals, and bottles of expensive engex he will never drink. He hadn't wanted a proper apartment, but Megatron had kicked him from his beloved slightly-leaking habsuite early into the peace process so that their ship could be rendered into a command center and capitol hall. He took interior design lessons from a Bachelor's Weekly, which acted primarily as a dating service but did feature pictures of the living rooms of the listed bachelors.

::No:: lies Frenzy. Soundwave knows it is a lie because they are, at this very moment, connected by the spark.

Soundwave prods absentmindedly at the data still loading onto his own drives. It's loading circle spins and spins and spins. ::Do not break the bottles:: he says, because it doesn't seem to matter whether the contents are as expensive as the bottles, as long as they are appropriately placed to work with the feng shui of the room layout.

The security room seemed like the best place to begin his hunt. He hadn't needed to sneak aboard the Ark, but had chosen to do so out of - well, he had not exactly chosen to do so; he had blinked and found himself creeping along the back wall, and know here he is, cross legged behind a station in the security room digging through the Autobot secure files. Or would be, if only the spinning wheel would stop, just stop, please just-

Soundwave prods at the system once more. It is, to his utter dismay, a Human operating system causing him delay. A human - a human?! A human operating system, Primus forbid, from 1996. Frag wifi, Primus knows if the Ark would be able to access a wireless internet at all. Soundwave leans forward and allows his helm to rest against the monitor's base. The bang echoes across the room.

::Don't kill us, boss:: says Frenzy. ::We have battle rations with a light flavoring of engex to drink tonight::

Soundwave sighs. The loading circle spins.

Some 3.8777 minutes into this endeavor, when Soundwave is beginning to consider praying for Primus himself to crawl up and bestow upon him the patience of a God, there is the tell-tale swoosh of the door opening. Instinctively, Soundwave shrinks himself behind the monitor. Two pairs of Autobot pedesteps ring through the security room. The first is a lighter step, like the beat of a hummingbird's wings. The second is, without a shadow of a doubt, Jazz. Jazz .

::Alright, calm down. I'm trying to recharge here:: says Frenzy.

"Hey RedAlert, ya hear about Sounwave visiting us?"

RedAlert's optics audibly fritz. "No? But he can't come now, the cameras are going through updates!"

"Who pushed updates?" Asks Jazz. Soundwave squeezes himself into a smaller ball.

"I don't know!"

"Alright calm down. They haven't been updated since Nyon. They probably need it."

A third pair of pedesteps enters the room. "Hello RedAlert, Jazz." It is unequivocally Prowl. Prowl . Soundwave grimaces. "Soundwave is coming in today."

::Damn, it's like an emotional rollercoaster in here:: comments Frenzy. ::Chillax::

 "The cameras!"

"Haven't been updated since Nyon."

"I know!"

"Alright calm down."

"On another topic - don't kill the messenger-" starts Jazz.

"I'm a fan of expediency," replies Prowl.

"It's not, like, bad. Bad is a casualty report longer than the Covenant. It's just...a problem."

RedAlert had bounced all the way over to the security cameras. "The team on Luna 2? When I left last night they were juggling their toolboxes and balancing on the roof of the missile silo. It's not good. It's very bad. They are playing the floor is lava with... well, the floor is lava."

"Missile silo implies a silo sized roof. The defense system on the far side of Luna 2 is tiny. The above-ground portions, at least. What they have is more like a-" Prowl pauses, and Jazz interjects.

"Smaller than a breadbox."

"Sure."

"The engineering and defense crew is - Jazz, tell him what you were just telling me." Soundwave perks up at that. A stressful situation has, in a moment, transformed into a wonderful opportunity. There is no interfactional engineering and defense crew on Luna 2.

"Before we saw your pretty face this morning, RedAlert, I was telling Prowl here that they're juggling their toolboxes and balancing on bread boxes; but it seems like you were already up to speed."

"Very bad," agrees RedAlert.

"Do we know if there are any casualties so far?" Asks Prowl.

"Well," says Jazz. "No."

"Do we know if their ship is damaged or just seperated from them?"

"We do not."

Prowl harrumphs. "Do we know if they have a plan?"

"Total communications blackout," replies Jazz, cheerfully.

"Yes or no, if I were to spin in a circle with a mop bucket over my head I would have just as much information about the situation as you do?" asks Prowl, dryly.

"Yes!" Soundwave thinks that, perhaps, Jazz's cheerfulness is sarcastic.

"We have to go over there and rescue them," says RedAlert. "Right now!"

"No." Prowl steps closer to the cameras. "The nature of this emergency means that, to rescue them, we have a very narrow window-"

"Smaller than a breadboard."

"If we go we will need to hover over them-"

"Yes," says RedAlert.

"Ah," says Jazz. "Which is - get this - right above where our highly confidential missile silo is buried."

"Exactly," adds Prowl.

"Alerting the Decepticons to its location!" RedAlert has begun to rise above his baseline panic into stratospheric anxiety.

"We have to leave them," says Prowl.

"We can't do that!"

"They are an engineering crew; we have to trust that they can handle this themselves."

"Optimus would never agree to that!"

"Which is exactly why we aren't going to tell him." Interesting.

"We can't do that! We have to rescue them. At the very least there’s today’s meeting, we could brainstorm-"

Jazz, having been uncharacteristically silent for a few lines, chimes in again. "Is it structurally sound?"

"What?" asks Prowl.

"Before we go along abandoning a crew to their fiery melting death, is the silo still a silo or is it also lovely goo?" This, Soundwave thinks, is a brilliant question.

Prowl sighs, as if it were not. "It's fine."

"It's fine?"

"It's fine."

"Prowl, baby, how is it fine?"

"It's protected."

"Protect- how?"

RedAlert rejoins the conversation. "You know what? How is it that 2 million years ago we decided yeah, let's bury our planet defenders next to an active Primus slagged volcano."

"Well, it wasn't active then," replies Prowl stubbornly.

"Do we have a uh - one of those scientists obsessed with melted rock." Geologist, Jazz, Soundwave thinks.

"A geologist?"

"Yeah, one of those."

"Yes, I believe we do."

"Excellent!" There is a thwop and a scraping sound, which Soundwave imagines must be Jazz hopping onto another monitor's keyboard. "Listen, Prowl is right about telling Optimus - well, no, he's wrong-"

"I am not!"

"No, you are. We have to let him know. But right now he is dead certain the Decepticons are up to something-"

"They probably are!" declares RedAlert.

"Sure," says Jazz, "But Optimus works best when he thinks peace is possible, and now that we finally have some peace he thinks it's a pipedream. He's a contrarian of optimism - or he’s just optimistic he’ll get to beat Megatron up again some day. Whatever. If we present him with this without a plan he's going to freak. So what we are gonna do is roundup our geologist and an experienced shuttle pilot and send them to Luna 2 to collect samples of this exploding volcano. They happen to quietly pick up the strays and, if possible, drop them off at their own ship to covertly return. We tell Optimus as soon as we have visuals on the team. No sense doing it before - not unless we've got a mop bucket to put on our heads and spin around in, cuz we just don't know anything."

There is silence after that, a respectful silence for a brilliant, take-charge spy. Also, Soundwave presumes, they are nodding their helms in deference to their genius, underappreciated colleague.

::Slag, Boss, calm your stupid spark down:: mutters Frenzy. ::It's like a disco in here::

If any of his High Command were to ask, though most certainly they (in their newfound trustfullness, will not), Optimus Prime would tell them that his easy acceptance of Megatron's offer had been a strategic attempt of subterfuge on his part, and not at all the result of mild head trauma.

This would not be his response should they have asked before approximately 3am the following morning, because it took him that long to identify this strategy himself. Regardless, he is entirely certain that it had been subconscious genius (or strategic divine intervention) that had pushed him to say, in near immediate response "fine". Surely, something deep in his processor had thought 'yes, here is my chance to glimpse inside the latest Decepticon plot.'

It is not until 4am (having fallen into recharge and awoken for the fourth time that night) that Optimus thinks to himself 'Beryllium is a restaurant, right? Why would Megatron ask me to a restaurant in the evening? Is his intent to convince others that we are...entangled?' Subsequently, in a panic-driven half-awake race, Optimus had drafted a message explaining to his High Command that he was in no way platonically or romantically engaged with their enemy, and that this was merely an out-of-office business meeting/scheme to uncover Megatron's dastardly plan. He had, at the last moment, recognized his own state of being and the time on his chronometer and smartly refrained from sending the message. Further review under the light of morning had revealed several flaws in the messaging, mainly being that his High Command had no knowledge of his evening plans and likely would not imagine any entanglement if he did not protest it.

It is, after all, just a meeting. A regular out-of-office meeting. At a restaurant.

Oh, who is Optimus kidding? He's never been anything but miserable at spycraft, and even worse at general conversation. He's a people-pleaser, a nervous-nanny, a, a, bore-bot! How exactly is he going to trick Megatron of all people into revealing his scheme? Megatron, who has always had that slick way of convincing everyone to join in on his terrible intentions? Megatron, who has seduced the entire Autobot populace into relaxing into this breakable peace?

Optimus turns to his daily calendar, finagles a new 15-minute window by inappropriately speed-running through an hours worth of paperwork, and sends a comm message to the most suave professional spy he knows.

Jazz nods along to Optimus's straightforward explanation, lulling him into a false sense of security so that his rejection slaps him all the harder.

"I dunno Optimus," he says, with a wincing tone. "Your strength really is in the straight-forward conversion, ya know? You 're fantastic at, yunno, convincing people to do the right thing by, uh, asking them? But this kind of sounds like...not your area of expertise."

It stings a little to hear, but it isn't something Optimus hadn't already known. "And that's why I called you," Optimus tells him, in a tone which definitely is not pleading. "So that you can teach me how to manipulate a conversation partner into revealing their true intent."

"Have you considered the possibility that there isn't a plot? It seems like maybe... Well, maybe Megatron asked you on a date."

The absurdity of such a possibility draws a stunted half-laugh from Optimus's voicebox. He leans on his palm, suspending his upper half over his desk. "Jazz," he snorts. "Megatron is not asking me on a date. He is trying to take me out of a professional setting so that he can get me off my game and manipulate me . I am asking you to assist me for the sake of the Autobot cause!"

Jazz squints his optics and then, after a few moments, turns his gaze to the ceiling. "He is taking you to Beryllium to...get you off your game?" he clarifies.

"Exactly," agrees Optimus. He is secretly glad that the ceiling (marked with that dratted Escape Pod ROute A) has reminded Jazz of the precarity of their position.

"Well, you'll still need to shine and buff," Jazz decides. "Beryllium, Beryllium... When are you meeting?"

"An hour after the end of our shift."

Jazz worries his bottom lip. "Not a lot of time. Alright, well, since this is an important mission for autobot protection, I don't see why we can't just skip this week's meeting. I'm sure Prowl can handle the particulars. We will get you shined and prepared"

Optimus sighs in relief at having a partner in crime and then, when the words parse through his generally overtaxed processor, he balks. "Shined? I don't see why that would be necessary."

Jazz looks him up and down, pointedly, and even though half his frame is protected by his desk, it feels to Optimus as if he were being x-rayed by a particularly judgemental weapons scanner. "He is taking you to Beryllium ," Jazz says, with emphasis on the name. This, Optimus intuits, is supposed to mean something to him.

"I am not scratched," Optimus resplies, running a mental scan over his frame. He is fairly certain he isn't, at least, or not outrageously so.

"It's not an engex joint, Optimus. " Jazz sounds a bit like a teacher talking to a student struggling to understand the basic functions of a light pen. "It's nice ."

"Well, I don't see why Megatron would..." Optimus trails off for a moment, to give his strategic processing unit time to analyze this new information. "Ah," he says, when it has. "He understands I have little to no experience in high-class eateries and is looking to further unbalance me. Good thinking, Jazz. I will spruce myself up, and you can assist in preparing me as I do so."

Jazz does not reply for a minute, though he looks straight at Optimus with wide and conflicted optics. "Sure," he says, eventually. "That's exactly what I think he's doing, too."

"Ugly," Soundwave accuses. He holds up his servo then and, as he begins to list all of Megatron's inadequacies, holds up a digit for each. "Chipped paint, chipped derma, scratches, lackluster shine, deflated plating - not healthy, smells like old energon-" Considering that Megatron had not asked for a review of his imperfections, and in fact Soundwave had barged into his office unannounced and had begun in on him with no fair warning, he thinks he reacts with a surprising amount of grace.

"And your face looks like a stool after one interaction with a drunk wrecker," Megatron tells him. "We have a meeting in twenty minutes, I hope you didn't come in here to distract me from preemptively destroying Starscream's latest change of leadership proposal?"

"Meeting: canceled," Soundwave informs him. He had shown no reaction to the objectively false accusation of squashed-by-overcharged-wrecker face and had instead approached Megatron's desk with the threatening creep of a volcanic lahar. "Our priorities have changed."

"To what?" Megatron pushes back from his desk and peers around its side to get an unobstructed view of Soundwave's entire frame as it floats forward. He decidedly does not push himself even farther back when Soundwave's pace quickens. "Sound-"

Soundwave has apparently taken lessons from Skywarp, because he transports himself to well-within Megatron's personal space in the blink of an optic and, in one foul motion, shoves his hands under Megatron's arms and hauls him upwards. He is a strong mech, but not nearly as powerful as Megatron himself- in physical strength, at least, but he matches Megatron in insistence and stubbornness, so Megatron goes along with the mech handling. He stands and Soundwave takes just enough of a step back to make fun of him once more.

"Ugly," he says. "Unpolished. Bad posture-"

Now that is just too much. "My posture is fantastic!" Megatron tells him. "Perfectly straight."

"Exactly. Too tall. Too unapproachable."

Megatron frowns down at Soundwave, well aware of his own looming. "I am unapproachable. I am the Emperor of Cybertron."

"Not yet," replies Soundwave, reaching up to pat Megatron's shoulder consolingly. The audacity of such a statement - while not far beyond Soundwave's general countenance, is surprising enough to leave Megatron somewhat flabbergasted. His lack of immediate response is all Soundwave needs to wrap one servo around his wrist and tug him to the office door.

"Wait," Megatorn says, as he stumbles after. "What the slag?" When Soundwave does not release him and it becomes clear that they are leaving for an undefined amount of time, he adds "I need my datapads. And to lock up."

"Negative," replies Soundwave, who has always preferred storing all relevant data on one datapad and his own internal systems and has never been fond of Megatron's collection of physical copies. He tugs Megatron forward, turns, and slams the office door shut. It locks automatically. "Work day: prematurely over. Project: A Little Charm requires preparation."

"I already prepared," Megatron complains, though he allows himself to be pulled down the corridor. He is willing to admit he has a soft spot for his third in command, in that he does not immediately slag him for his bossiness. Had he been pulled down the corridor like a dog on a leash by any other Decepticon, he would logically assume they were trying to kill him, or at least take his place. But Soundwave has no such ambitions, and his pulling is simply another symptom of his underlying desire to see Megatron successful. Megatron is not fool enough to violently dissuade passion for his own benefit.

“Negative. New knowledge has come to light?”

“How so?” 

Soundwave pulls him silently along for a few steps more, and when he speaks next it is over comm. ::Returned to the Ark for continued software updates. Discovered that the Autobot security room runs on Windows:

::Okay?::

::In addition, overheard in conversation: Autobot defensive missile silo located on Luna 2::

:::The Luna 2 currently being soaked in lava?::Megatron asks, because he pays attention to his news briefings. ::Why would they build a missile silo next to an active volcano?:

::It wasn’t active when they built it::

::So we found it! And it's being destroyed all by itself. There is no need for this pointless date!:: Megatron brightens. He’ll have a whole evening free to look through Soundwave’s copies of Bachelor Weekly and make derogatory comments about their interior design choices.

::Wrong:: says Soundwave. ::Unknown whether or not that is the sole Autobot defense system. It is untouched by the lava, it is shielded and beneath the surface::

::Oh frag off::

::Exact location, unknown::

::It’s under all the lava. I’m sure we could find it later::

::Half of Luna 2 is under lava::

::Alright, fine then, so nothing much has changed. Ask him about - I assume they are sending a rescue crew?::

::A geologist and a pilot::

::Fine. I ask him where they are going::

::Optimus Prime does not know::

Megatron stops in his tracks. ::It’s the - his High Command:: he pauses a moment to think. ::Even better:: he decides. ::I will cause discord among his ranks by asking about the geologist. Use that to destabilize him. He will contact his High Command for information, we listen in, perhaps get a location on that ship. Track it…::

::Feasible::

::Charm him - get him to trust me just a little more than his lying High Command::

::Perhaps feasible, momentarily::

::Maybe get him to give up on the base all together. After all, why would he need to dig his missiles up from under all that lava? It’s peacetime:: says Megatron. ::That’s it then. I’m fully prepped and ready to go. We can still have the command meeting::

"Negative," replies Soundwave, aloud. "You are ugly."

"This is not a romantic liaison ," says Megatron. "I am perfectly capable of convincing Optimus Prime to get rid of a few well-placed missiles. He used to be all about disarmament, you know. Oh Megatron, give peace a chance. Oh Megatron, after we kick the ever loving slag out of these organics we should give peace a chance. Oh Megatron, not those organics!"

"Uh-huh," says Soundwave, clearly not paying attention.

"I'm certain it's his High Command forcing him to keep their defenses at full capacity. All I have to do is convince him to take a more righteous stand - he is particularly skilled in that arena, of course. And knowing this…new information, he’ll be disinclined to listen to them."

"Of course." Soundwave pulls Megatron into the communal wash racks which are (being mid-shift) empty, and shoves Megatron under one shower head. He sends freezing water rushing over Megatron's plating. Megatron takes this bravely and stoically.

"Being self-righteous, I mean. A do-gooder. We talked about all of this yesterday, Soundwave, I don't see why you insist on torturing me. All I need to do is list all the ways that energy could be spent on communal projects, things like libraries and schools and shooting ranges-"

"Refrain from mentioning the shooting ranges, my liege," suggests Soundwave, shoving a gentle cleansing soap in Megatron's hands.

"Yes, alright, what I mean to say is that I am plenty charming enough for a mech naturally inclined towards what I am trying to convince him to do, and you don't need to hose me down like a cyber-mutt."

"You are the quintessential cyber-mutt," Soundwave tells him. Megatron lathers up.

"And anyway, this time would be better spent going over what else you have uncovered from that data," finishes Megatron. There is relief to rambling, and when he has finished he feels himself tense up. For all his posturing, he thinks, perhaps he does need a good washing down. He feels grime give away under his servos and winces.

"Optimus Prime loves those under his command," Soundwave tells him. He has produced several bottles from his subspace and is aligning them in a perfectly straight row down the bench free from the shower's spray.

"Well, obviously," Megatron replies, though he does bite back a snort. "He's ridiculously sentimental about even the worst of them. Including that slagging medic. I'm not shareware."

"Agreed."

"I suppose..." Megatron pauses his speech to wash the bubbles from his armor. Once he is sparkling clean, he looks up to find that Soundwave has not forgotten his cut off speech. He grimaces. "I suppose it does inspire an impressive loyalty," he admits. "Not that it's that remarkable."

Soundwave tilts his helm, which is an effective and humiliating means of calling someone an idiot.

"Did you find anything actually useful from the data itself, or is everything we know from good luck and good audials?" Megatron asks, slamming the drying fans on. He is buffeted by air and Soundwave's petulant energy field.

"The Autobots removed all high security clearance information, including medical files," Soundwave reports. "I have summarized all other information regarding Optimus Prime, including: internet usage habits from Earth (limited to use from the Ark's computers), scheduling habits, infractions (nonexistent), personal downloads, and energon consumption."

"And is that...in any way useful?" Megatron asks. The fans end their cycle. He bravely steps forth into Soundwave's bottle-filled domain. Soundwave shoves him onto the bench next to the scented bottles.

"Optimus Prime likes team sports," Soundwave reports, pasting scented wax on Megatron's chest. "Action movies, golden-age romances-"

"Utter trash!" Megatron cries. "What about music?"

"Unclear. He has not downloaded enough for a statistically meaningful sample."

"Ugh!" Megatron slaps Soundwave's hands away. "He does not deserve to see me polished."

"He enjoys tactile sport," Soundwave tells him. Megatron pauses his performative fussing.

"Like wrestling?"

"Boxing."

Things are looking up again. Megatron allows the dreaded wax to return. "Fine then. I can't see how any of this will be useful, but we will work with what we have."

"It will not be difficult," Soundwave tells him, quoting him. Megatron likes when he quotes him, and dislikes when that quote is spoken with a distinct note of sarcasm.

"It won't be," he declares. "I am handsome and charming. The Autobot defense system is ours to conquer, so that we might fall into peacetime bliss for all eternity."

"With our missiles safely pointed at our defenseless comrades," Soundwave adds. 

Megatron raises the nearest bottle like a glass of high-grade. "Cheers to that."

Chapter Text

"Cheers to 100 successful years of partnership!" Megatron’s energon cube, which has been wastefully poured into a separate flute, clinks against Optimus Prime's raised glass. They are standing by the waiting bar - this establishment is of that disgustingly gauche caliber which provides its waiting area with a full bar to distract from their egregiously slow service. Primus knows when they will be seated, but Megatron isn't enough of a fool to indulge early. Optimus Prime, in glorious form tonight, smiles and nods and sips at his equally plain mid-grade. 

Optimus Prime - for he must be Optimus Prime, full in name and frame in this instance of stoic presence - is leaning casually against the bar, looking deep into Megatron with impenetrable optics. Were Megatron a younger mech, and taken to fancies involving full-framed, powerful and well-adorned mecha, might have swooned at the first sight of his foe. Fortunately, Megatron is above such star-struck imaginings. It is perfectly fine to acknowledge that Optimus Prime had arrived tonight, not some Optimus-behind-the-meeting-desk, and this Optimus Prime effuses a field of confidence, power, and well-stifled rage.

It brings Megatron back to the battlefield and, in his optimistic interpretation, provides just enough of a background attraction to aid Megatron in being convincingly seductive. He needs to tread a thin line tonight to accomplish his goals. To reel Optimus in enough to extract information, but to allow it to fizzle so dreadfully at the end of the night that Optimus will have no desire to do this again. Megatron must perform well enough to earn Ratchet's useless money (as a matter of pride, at the moment, and to retain some comradery with a useful Autobot), which means it must be Optimus who decides to let him down, right after letting go of a location, intention, or some other valuable little slip.

Briefly, Megatron wonders if this is a bit undignified. He had, in his enthusiasm for the scheme, forgotten that this would involve a great deal of semi-public wooing. 

“Cheers,” agrees Optimus. “I am delighted to pursue this partnership, for the good of Cybertron.”

“Yes,” says Megatron. “I am not a sentimental mech, but even I find great relief in having destroyed every weapon pointed towards our planet.” Too strong, he thinks, too strong. He widens his grin. “I mean to say that I am glad to have ended the mutual destruction of Cybertron.”

::Megatron: is beginning poorly:: criticizes Soundwave. 

Optimus smiles. “Agreed,” he says, the hypocrite.

"My apologies, Lord Megatron," a waiter interrupts them. "We re-checked our system and, well, it does seem like we had forgotten your reservation for a private lounge. The matter has been cleared and I can seat you now." He steps to the side and gestures with one arm towards the entrance to the main restaurant.

'Well, thank you Soundwave,' Megatron thinks. This is a thought that has passed through his processor over 1.3 million times in his life, making it a contender for most thought thought, along with 'Slagging Optimus Prime,' and 'I'm really fragging hungry'.

"Wonderful," he says. "Optimus, after you." Optimus Prime squints at him suspiciously for all of 4 seconds and then seemingly decides Megatron probably won't stab him in the back at a fancy restaurant and follows after the waiter. It seems Megatron will have a more difficult night than he had originally assumed, if Optimus still thinks him capable of backstabbing. Of course, he is capable of backstabbing (and fully willing), but in a crowd such as this it would be sure to reignite the war, and he does so appreciate the peacetime oil-baths.

And anyway, this whole endeavor is with the intent to cement the peace by removing any ability the Autobots might have to successfully pull off a coup, so it would be a terrible tactical decision to place a blade into Optimus's inviting and expansive back. Right between the shoulders, yes, just below and between where the two plates meet. That is where Megatron would place the blade, with a quick thrust, and it would not kill Optimus but it would enrage him, and then they would tussle on the restaurant floor with the skill and gravitas of the battlefield. He and Optimus, engaged in wondrous combat, and then afterwards they could sink into one of those peace-time oil baths and Megatorn could educate his idiotic nemesis on the values of good music and better movies.

Golden-Age romances! Megatron rolls his optics. Who was this mech who could astound him so on the battlefield but failed to make any interesting note on Soundwave's system checks? It is beyond reason. No incident reports, no trespassing onto transgressive websites, and a bookshelf of Golden-Age romances! It's embarrassing. How does he fight so well?

Megatron ultimately decides against stabbing Optimus in the back, if only for Ratchet's useless money. Incidentally, they also arrive at the table by the time he has weighed the pros and cons, and Optimus has turned to anoint him with a truly mood-killing glare.

"This is unexpected," says Optimus, with a voice so icy one might assume a polar nascency.

The waiter has pulled out both chairs at a two-person table. It is appropriately sized for their large frames and decorated with a light blue tablecloth and corresponding blue cloth napkins. In Megatron's brief approximation, there is nothing inappropriate about it.

"I don't see what you mean," he replies and, sensing an argument brewing in Optimus's frown, quickly moves to dismiss the waiter. "This is lovely, thank you."

The waiter nods, bows, and departs, closing the door behind him. The moment it clicks shut, Optimus's mouth opens. "The restaurant has provided us with our own room, Megatron."

"Very observant," says Megatron. He sits down at one seat and stares up at Optimus who, for some bizarre reason, glares at his own seat like it is a cat-trap filled with suspicious canned tuna. 

"How are we paying for this?" Optimus asks.

This is a bizarre question, Megatron thinks. "As I am the one who requested your presence, it's generally assumed that I will be the one paying," he informs Optimus, who clearly missed this basic social rule while he was distracted watching bad action movies.

"How are you paying for this?" Optimus asks. "How is any of this working? No Cybertronian legal tender holds any merit. That is one of our biggest concerns."

"Soundwave invested my money heavily in Galactic Mutual Funds," Megatron tells him, with a shrug. He had no real say in the financial moves of Soundwave and his cassettes, as he had anticipated destroying the Galactic Council eventually, but he is willing to admit a certain forbearance in Soundwave's decisions. "If you had bothered to leave the command center in the last few years, you might have noticed the reason the Legal Tender Authorization Act has taken a backseat is that the people of Cybertron have managed a work-around. I am paying the restaurant tonight with stock in some fund or another - likely the SHPMF, since that will by falling into worthlessness any day now - and they will sell the stock and withdraw it in whatever currency they use to pay their magnesium importer. Won't you sit down?"

Optimus gingerly takes a seat. "What's the SHPMF?"

"The Stentarian Home Planet Mutual Fund. It has maintained a decent price for some time, though when the markets finally realize the entire species is dead it will plummet. I am disinvesting. If anything, this dinner might improve my market portfolio." Optimus looks at him with the face of a mech who has never heard of a mutual fund before, and also with the scrunching, twisting mouth peculiar to Optimus Prime having a moral trip. "Well, I didn't kill them," Megatron argues defensively.

"...Alright." Optimus Prime stares at Megatron utterly blank faced, his servos knitted together in his lap, looking for all the world like he is patiently waiting for the next train to arrive and carry him far off. And for the briefest of unprecedented moments Megatron finds that he cannot conjure up a single thing to say. He watches as the best part of his processor is stalled over some terrible debilitating emotion, that Optimus Prime is sitting in front of him and there is a gaslamp pouring light over a face that would not be so out of place across a grainy camera feed, negotiating the release of the latest Autobot captive.

And now the war had been over for so long, and he had failed to realize that he missed those moments. The fun of it, the back-and-forth, the unmoved stature of Optimus Prime, buffed to the nines for the privilege of arguing with him over video call. He had missed it, and now, in a way, he has it again.

He smiles disgustingly soft and kicks himself for it. Optimus tilts his helm, his blank face beaten by the curious pinching of his optics. Like falling into a rhythm, Megatron is propelled.

"Speaking of work," he begins. "We've been tabling the Tender Act in favor of infrastructure investment. I was made aware today of your mission to Luna 2. Are the Autobots interested in adding moonbase reconstruction to the list of bipartisan projects? I would not be averse."

Optimus looks taken aback for a moment, to Megatron's delight. And then, in front of Megatron's very optics, his stony face reforms. When he speaks, it is a neat little aversion. "We sent an engineering crew up to investigate and report on the damages," Optimus lies.

'Brilliant!' Megatron thinks. Oh, and it is. "You should have told me," he says, with a crocodile smile. "We would have loved to send our own along - I am quite interested in Luna 2."

"You are?" If Megatron had not been searching, the worried tick of Optimus's jaw might just have been a trick of the light. "We sent out a routine report team - we'll be sending them to every old outpost. What interests you specifically about Luna 2?"

Trap laid, Megatron pounces. "The volcanic activity! I found it so extraordinary you sent out your engineers today, when half the planet is covered in ash."

Optimus Prime's face does a peculiar thing. A wonderful thing, a nostalgic thing; it reminds Megatron fondly of those now-rare moments when a Decepticon scheme had been gloriously unveiled in front of a captive and contemptful Autobot audience. The dastardly Decepticon plot would stun and wound Optimus in its audacity, turning him prematurely mournful in its inevitability. His face would morph from confusion to shock to anguish to determination, and then he would sock Megatron on the mouth.

Megatron would dearly like to be socked on the mouth now, but unfortunately the low glow of the gaslamp and the flowing blue table cloth would ruin the mood. He is fulfilled, however, by watching Optimus struggle through this little revelation. The room smells like victory and tar, which is kept warm by a glass plate in a divot in the wall. Ah, romance! Megatron has sowed the seeds of doubt in the Autobot ranks, and he will reap the reward soon enough. All he needs is a location - the Salt Flats, the Obsidian Spires, the Glass Cliffs. Where among the wreckage of the volcano is Optimus's little crew? Caught off-guard, and with such a telling face, this should not be difficult.

"I-" begins Optimus, and then he cuts himself off. Good - Megatron has wasted too much time enjoying his expressions, he must speak before determination solidifies into lies.

"It reveals a resoluteness I did not think possible among the Autobot ranks," he says. "To continue on with an expedition in such conditions. I admire that."

"I, Well-" Optimus's eyebrows are pinched together, quite adorably so.

Megatron practices a tried and true method - two compliments, one probe. "I do admire it. It makes me think this peace might be beneficial, rather than droll and necessary. Are they going to the Glass Cliffs."

Optimus Prime's face makes no exceptional motion at the mention of the Cliffs. That is to be expected, Megatron supposes, as the base of cliffs are a limiting place to put one's planet protectors.

"Are you certain the ship left today?" Optimus asks, finally.

"Yes, today."

"Ah." Optimus then seems to think better of his question, because he adds: "I thought they might be delayed. By the explosion." Such a miserable politician, Megatron thinks, but a wonderful fighter. He shouldn't complain - it makes this much easier.

"The Mesas then? To the North?"

"Uh-" still nothing from Optimus. Megatron estimates he has only a few more glances before Optimus is able to fully steady himself, shove his confusion and sense of betrayal to the back of his helm, and transfer his lying to his faceplates.

"I would be interested in sending a crew to the Obsidian Spires myself," he says.

"We can discuss that," says Optimus. One good guess, Megatron thinks, is all he has left. Optimus's mouth has turned stern, and his shoulders are going lax.

"Or the-"

"-Excuse me sirs, do you know what you would like tonight?" Slaggit.

With much reluctance, Megatron pulls his attention from Optimus and towards the waiter. A thin femme, with the thick shine customary of a high-end establishment, in her servos a pitcher of mid-grade that, after leaning over their table and turning their cups right-side up, she begins to pour. She manages to smile politely at them both as she does so, with a concerning lack of attention to the glasses themselves. Still, she pours expertly.

"Oh, we have the menu?" Optimus whispers to himself. A revelation. Megatron watches as he digs the menu out from under his napkin and scans it. Megatron has no need to do the same, having memorized the menu earlier.

"I'll have a glass of the Vosian 60," Megatron tells her. "And the chips with the ethylene glycol reduction."

"A great choice sir." The waiter leans back and assesses Optimus, whose optics are darting from option to option. "And for you, sir? Would you like some more time?"

"I- um, this all seems very...high-end." Optimus's optics turn from panic to nervous wistfulness. "The twice-fried silicon, is that similar to the street-food popular in Iacon before the war? They used to sell those gooey-silicon balls fried, and they would melt in your mouth once you pierced the outer layer. So unhealthy."

The waiter smiles a distinctly customer-service smile. "Our menu is much healthier than Iaconi streetfood. The silicon contains beneficial additives such as iron and magnesium, and is fried in imported refined petroleum."

Optimus's little smile disappears. "I'll get that, then," he says.

"And to drink?"

"Oh, I-" Optimus glances down at the menu again, then up with the expression of a deer caught in headlights. Megatron swings into the rescue. A little charm.

"Why don't you make my Vosian 60 a bottle," he says, "And we will split it."

The waiter nods. "Very good sir," she says. She bows and backs from the room.

Alas, the moment has been lost. Optimus Prime sits back in his chair with a calm half-smile, once more unbothered by the slight treasons of his staff. All Megatron has to show for his efforts is a split bottle of Vosian 60, and that is still yet to come. He hides his sigh in his filled glass of midgrade, which is so deliciously far from battle-rations that it might be a meal in itself (and would be, on a normal occasion).

"What were we speaking about?" Optimus asks innocently. A false innocence, certainly, now that his helm is back in the game. Megatron needs something else to throw him off-guard. He needs an Optimus Prime with an open battle mask and a vulnerable demeanor. He turns to other treasonous Autobot subordinates.

Megatron smiles. "Oh, nothing. Our employees and dangerous exploits. Tell me, Optimus, are you lonely?"

Megatron is the greatest bastard to ever live. Even in the most literal sense of the word, Optimus thinks Megatron's creator might not have been married to the thought or spark of creation and thus created Megatron outside of that important bedrock of scientific wonder. When Megatron was born, his creator looked upon him with complete apathy up until the moment when Megatron had opened his inexperienced mouth and expelled upon the world the freshest of all hells. His first words were probably: "You, creator, will die a miserable death by my bastard hand, but not after I insult you in creative and cruel ways for fifteen minutes."

"What?" Optimus entreats. What for? Clarification, perhaps, or a return to professional sanity. This conversation, short as it has been, has eaten his nerves alive. He is going to kill Jazz, but not before unburdening Megatron of his mouth. Is he lonely? What an unprofessional question to ask. Optimus had assumed the dastardly Decepticon plan had related to exploration of Luna 2 - now, he wonders if that line of questioning had been only to catch him off-guard for this. 

"Are you lonely? I had a check-up yesterday, you remember, and Ratchet mentioned you might be."

Ratchet! What business- no, what purpose-? What is his high command doing, jeopardizing everything like this! First failing to mention the volcanic eruption on Luna 2, sending a ship out without his knowledge, and now telling the enemy that he is...lonely?

"I would not say that I am," Optimus replies, with calm he does not feel. He looks into Megatron's optics, which are bright and hold a poorly disguised interest, like he might want to pry Optimus open on the table.

Megatron remains silent for several stony moments, and then he smiles a crooked tooth smile and says: "Alright." It is the sort of response that begs further insistence; unbelieving, understanding, and somewhat judgemental.

"I really don't know what Ratchet told you, or why," Optimus reiterates.

"Alright, I'm sure."

"I have many friends."

"Your Autobots are a close bunch, I agree entirely."

"And even if I felt that peace-time slackened those bonds-"

"Which you don't."

"-I do not, but if I did, there still would be no reason for him to tell you so."

"Alright." Megatron's toothy smile has not faded, the slagged bastard.

"Your concern is unwarranted and, frankly, odd," Optimus continues. He feels himself being worked up, perhaps unwisely so. And still, he cannot stand for an impunity on his character, on his dedication, and on his happiness.

"The nature of my concern is my own problem," Megatron replies. "If you insist on your contentedness then, should my interpretation of you disagree, it is my own issue."

That sounds quite a bit like Megatron still believes Optimus is lonely. He grips his napkin and pulls it beneath the table to do  to it what he cannot do to Megtron's helm. "What does that mean?"

"You've made it clear your loneliness is not my business."

"It isn't!"

"Well, alright then." Megatron takes another sip of his midgrade. Optimus fumes.

"I don't know why Ratchet would tell you such a thing."

"He worries," Megatron says. He has a crook to his nasal ridge that Optimus most certainly put there, and Optimus briefly considers punching it back into place again, but it does look rather charming as it is and that ruins the fun.

"I don't see how you could possibly assist in any loneliness I might be having," Optimus argues. Megatron only shrugs.

"I can't imagine what benefit he saw in it either."

"I enjoy peacetime," Optimus stresses.

"Yes, and perhaps it makes you lonely."

Optimus is doing terrible things to the napkin. "I am not lonely!"

"It's not an issue if you were. Hey, you know what we were talking about before?"

Optimus blinks, thrown for a loop. The quick change of topic worries him in the way any argument with Megtron does. "Luna 2?"

"Yes." Megatron smiles and takes another sip of his energon. "You should try the mid-grade," he says. "It is a palate cleanser before the full meal."

"We were talking about Luna 2." Optimus does not take a drink of his mid-grade. What the slag is a palate cleanser?

"Oh, yes." Megatron hums for a moment, then: "Soundwave wants to build a nuclear power station in the Salt Fields of Luna 2. What do you think?"

"That's a horrible idea," Optimus replies, and not because there is currently a lava-flooded (apparently) Planet Defender hidden beneath them. "Nuclear power requires substantial water accumulation and waste. You could pull the water from the ice-caps - inefficiently - but what in Primus's name do you think is going to happen when you flood a salt field with hot wastewater?"

"Well, he's not a scientist," Megatron mutters, with a level of almost-timid grumpiness that forces Optimus to bite off a delighted smile. "And neither am I, but don't you think Luna 2 could use an ocean?"

"No!" cries Optimus, gleefully.

"Why not?"

"Well, firstly, the whole planet is one active slagging volcano!"

From the third enclave of the room - suspiciously missing its gas lamp - Laserbeak is having a fantastic time. Just an honest-to-Primus delightful reconnaissance mission. Reconnaissance might be overselling it - she is recording their boss's humorous attempts at gentle interrogation for Soundwave's later use. Use for mocking, mostly, but perhaps for discovering the location of the Autobot Planet Defender, which makes what she is doing work rather than entertainment. 

But mostly it is entertainment. 

::So not the Salt Fields then?:: she comms.

Soundwave replies a moment later. ::I did not suggest a nuclear power station on Luna 2.::

::Well, duh.::

::Luna 2's last ocean became the Obsidian Pillars. Quite famously, actually.::

::Sure. But the Autobot Planet Defender probably isn't under the Obsidian Spires, right?::

::Uncertain.::

Sometimes, bossbot isn't too bright. ::I think it would be pretty impossible if they were.::

A pause, then. ::Reasoning?::

::It was an ocean, right?::

:::Affirmative.::

::So the obsidian probably doesn't stop at the base of the pillars.::

::Clarify your intended deduction.::

::Well, it’s only that I think we took all the miners when the war started.::

Over the bond, Frenzy giggles.

The food comes shortly after the end of that conversation - which had been heralded by a moment of silence from both parties in which Optimus had begun to shake with poorly-disguised humor. At first, Megatron had considered his nemesis might be having some sort of fit brought on by Autobot nerves, but the corners of his lips had turned up into a barely noticeable smile, and so Megatron decided he was likely being laughed at.

Optimus still has that ghost of a fond smile on his lip when the waiter returns, balancing a tray on one servo and a serving table on the other. She opens the serving table with one quick movement and places the tray atop it, displaying a unique talent of balancing.

"Thank you," Optimus tells her when she nudges a full glass of Vosian 60 in front of him. Megatron receives the other, and the bottle is placed in the center.

"Careful, the plates are hot," the waiter warns before depositing a plate full of heavily glazed chips in front of him. Optimus receives two half-fist sized disks shortly after, both a near-perfect deep black.

"I thank you as well," says Megatron, and the waiter bows and departs.

Megatron sips at his Vosian 60. It is a more bitter engex, a good pairing for the sweeter meal he ordered. Optimus's meal, too, is of the more sweet and savory type. "Have you seen any of the new movies?" he asks, for want of something better to talk about. Having foiled his last attempt at discovering the location of the Autobot Planet Defender, he must wait some time before returning to the topic to avoid suspicion. He consoles himself with the knowledge that he has undercut trust between Optimus and his high command, and brought a smile to Optimus's stoic face. 

Optimus has lifted a knife and skewer and is inspecting them with a look of mild consternation. "Hmm?" he asks.

"Peacetime movies. There have been a few." Megatron's meal came with chopsticks. He picks one of the heavily glazed chips from the plate and chews on it while he waits for Optimus's response.

"I haven't seen any," says Optimus, still puzzling over his own utensils. "I don't like artistic films, and most of them seem to be shot in single takes with oddly-filtered cameras." He glances up as he speaks, then transfers the knife to the same hand as his skewer and mimics a chopstick motion. Naturally, the flat blade of the knife is not conducive to such handling.

He doesn't like artistic films. Megatron briefly glances to the floor, seeking a benediction of patience from Primus. "These filmmakers have only one camera, generally, which they share. And no budget. And few actors."

"And little skill," remarks Optimus. Megatron delights at the snark, truly he does, and finds even greater delight as Optimus fumbles his cutlery onto his plate with a wondrous clank.

"Perhaps," admits Megatron, and eats another chip. "If not the movies, and clearly not to restaurants, where have your dates been taking you?" he asks.

Optimus's helm shoots up from where he had been studying his meal. "What do you mean?"

"Your suitors. You are a handsome mech, certainly you have them. Where are they taking you if not restaurants or the movies?"

Optimus chokes back a laugh. "I don't have any suitors," he says.

"That seems unlikely. You are a powerful mech with an attractive frame, surely there are those who wish to pursue you." There, Megatron thinks. A little charm.

"Who says I have not been taken to a restaurant?" Optimus answers. Megatron only raises an eyebrow and glances down to where Optimus has laid his silverware in defeat. With a huff, he picks them up again. "Well, I have no suitors."

"Hmm," hums Megatron. He'd assumed as such, given Ratchet's request, but it had been a good method for delivering compliments. He sips his engex and watches Optimus struggle a moment longer. "What movies do you watch, then?"

Optimus sighs. "I like a good action movie, Golden Age. The popular hits, you know-" the knife buries into the side of the silicon, unbalancing his motions and sending the skewer clattering to the plate. "Oh, for frag's sake!" he cries. Megatron, despite himself, begins to laugh.

"This is supposed to be eaten with your servos," Optimus moans in despair. "In one of those sticky napkins that fail to keep you sanitary. You wrap one up, carry it to work, eat it on the way. Why did they give me a knife?"

Still laughing, Megatron reaches over and frees the discarded cutlery from the fried silicon. Then, with a confident smile to assure Optimus that he means no judgment - for in all honestly Megatron's own meal should have been Kaoni finger food, and Optimus's fumbling had been a treat to watch - he skewers one of the silicon disks and cuts it out a triangular piece. The melted, gooey inside leaks onto Optimus's plate.

"That ruins the purpose!" Optimus complains. "It is supposed to explode in your mouth."

"Eat it with your hands then," Megatron says. "I don't care." A sticky-fingered Optimus Prime seems far more a delight than a clean-servoed one, in Megatron's opinion. With some reluctance he retreats from Optimus's space and returns to his own plate. Freed from social niceties, Optimus picks the other disk up and takes a bite.

To Megatron's great pleasure, the night's fun is not over. Optimus Prime's face performs a series of adorable mutations before landing in a curled retraction of distaste.

"A poor substitute to Iacon's fried street silicon?" Megatron asks, biting back more laughter.

"It's fine," Optimus lies, which solidifies Megatron's confidence in being able to identify all further lies from Optimus Prime.

"Let's switch anyway," says Megatron. "These are perfectly fine."

Optimus winces. "I don't mean to say you wasted your money-"

Megatorn waves him off. "Stentarian stock," he reminds him. "It will be useless soon enough. Would you like to trade?"

Optimus stares forlornly at Megatron's plate. "You won't like it."

"I have engex to wash it down with."

With a sheepish smile Optimus agrees. Megatron - with knife and skewer - tastes the silicon and finds it mediocre but edible. A downgrade, definitely, but worth it to see the delight on Optimus's face when he discovers that the chips (despite their goopy coating) crunch in his mouth.

They chew in silence for a minute, and Megatron finds entertainment in Optimus's facial expressions - distaste at the bitter engex, pleasure with another chip, begrudging acceptance of the engex, ease at a sip of midgrade, before returning with perverse desire to the engex.

"Are you lonely, Optimus?" Megatron asks suddenly.

Optimus brings his napkin up to his mouth. It is oddly ripped and stretched. "I don't know why you ask."

Megatron is not certain either. "Your medic seems to think so."

"We've been over this." Optimus picks up another chip with his hands, the Kaoni way. "I'm not. It is a difficult change, obviously."

"Of course."

"And a lot of my Autobots seem to think-" Optimus cuts himself off there then, in a miserable attempt to conceal his quick stop, takes a sip of the engex.

"Seem to think what?" Megatron asks.

"Nothing." Optimus shakes his helm. "Nothing."

"Nothing but what?"

"Nothing. But only..." Optimus pauses, then says: "Only that you all seem devoted to this peace."

"We are," promises Megatron. "I fully intend on creating a perfect peacetime world." And he means it, and it can only be done with a defenseless Autobot command.

"Sure," says Optimus, with a wistful and wry smile. He rebounds quickly enough. "Well, alright. Why did you bring me here?"

"I heard you were lonely," Megatron tells him, which is perfectly truthful. 

"I'm not."

"Alright."

There is some way to how Optimus speaks that drives Megatron just a little mad. Just a little entirely mad, like Megatron might leap up and impale himself on his skewer, because he is briefly and overwhelmingly lonely himself. It's an odd notion, and one probably brought on by the smell of the tar, whose aromatic stench can be felt even over the sweetness of the ethylene glycol and the mild acridity of the oil. That, and the way Optimus's finials have folded backwards as if he were dodging a punch, and his optics flicking up at Megatron like a young turbofox starving on the edges of the Tarnian fields, creeping into camp after the smell of energon and willing to lick the palms of soldiers for the taste of battle rations.

Suddenly, Megatron needs to leave, for the sole reason that he wants to stay. He must end this on a mediocre note, fade outwards so that Optimus will not think much of it, and he might try his hand at charming an answer from him from a respectable distance tomorrow. But Megatron is not a mediocre mech. In a surprising turn of self-awareness, he recognizes that he is capable of great failure along with his great success, and great madness to complement his great strength of character, but he has never managed a great mediocreness. Still, there is always a moment to try.

But it is difficult! The conversation won't end - and he finds it difficult to try. The night is young, and Optimus is suddenly smiling at him, and eating Megatron's chips with gusto, and thanking him for them with kind optic contact and enthusiasm in drink. It is clear, Megatron recognizes, that Optimus is a little charmed this evening, be it from the food or the engex or the gaslamp. Mediocreness is no longer the prevailing attitude but something to be achieved.

But why bother? The Vosian 60 is working its wonders on Megatron as well, and in his bout of loneliness his spark had reached for the first living thing to smile its way at him, and so he is as fond of Optimus as he had ever been during the pleasurable heights of great battles. Yes, he thinks, let this continue. He has yet to achieve his goal - why restart? Why let tonight be his only attempt? Why raise suspicion by returning to Luna 2 so quickly? They have endless peace in front of them - why should they be lost to each other for it?

So Megatron asks: "Do you like boxing?"

And Optimus grins and replies: "I love it, and I miss it."

"You don't do it often?"

The wry smile returns. "We don't fight so much anymore."

"A pity."

"I suppose." Optimus straightens himself, looks past Megatron at the wall.

"A pity when there are training rooms two floors down," Megatron says. "Let us commit to peace. Let's celebrate it together."

Optimus laughs with subdued delight. "By fighting each other?" He protests, though his optics have clearly already agreed.

"Yes," says Megatron. "Let's train together, and then we might discuss the adventures of our engineers and the dullness of message crafting and the never-ending ways of peace."

Chapter Text

"Do you take checks?" Ratchet asks. He has in front of him a datapad and a lightpen, which he taps on the screen with an anxious rapping beat.

Megatron pauses from his place in the medbay doorframe. "Do I take checks?"

"I don't have physical credits," Ratchet explains. He isn't entirely certain he has digital credits, either. Supposedly they are sitting in a bank somewhere in the Autobot severs, the mediocre sum of abysmal back pay and whatever he had before this slaggery of a war began. "I could send you a check though."

Megatron clutches the doorframe with his right servo so hard that it begins to buckle. "I'm beginning to think the real reason the Legal Tender Act has taken a backseat in discussions is because Autobots don't have a full grasp on the concept of money," he says.

Ratchet crosses his arms. "It's a check, Megatron. I give a little IOU, you take it to the bank, they transfer the money from my account to yours."

Megatron finally enters the medbay, prowling forward with a tilted helm and a disbelieving expression. "What-" he begins, pauses, then says "What bank?- Do you think I should go to to cash the check for the useless - and not legally valued - currency that you are offering me?"

Ratchet shrugs. This feels like a Decepticon problem. "Just ask Ultra Magnus to send you my money," he says. "That's how we handle bets." The look of sheer incredulity on Megatron's face has little impact on Ratchet’s sound self-confident demeanor. Why Decepticons would have a problem with basic banking, Ratchet can't comprehend.

"Cybertronian credits hold no value, not on Cybertron and certainly not in the global markets," Megatron cries. "How would Ultra Magnus send your credits into my accounts when the currency isn't accepted."

"Alright, alright," Ratchet replies with a shushing motion. "Calm down. I should have known you lot wouldn't have a banking system."

"You are trading useless credits back and forth through Ultra Magnus!" Megatron yells, still clearly worked up. "There isn't a single shop on Cybertron that will accept them, and you can't invest with them! You're losing money on interest in the markets."

Ratchet huffs. Trust a Decepticon to be ungrateful. 500 credits for a simple job, and now he's yelling about it. "I'm a medic, Megatron, not an investment banker," he says. "Do you want the money or not?"

"No!" Megatron yanks the chair across from Ratchet away from the wall and falls into it. "No, and I'm genuinely worried about the future of our economy."

"Hey, listen, how did it go?" Ratchet had already heard just how well it went from Optimus the night before, but gossip is just as interesting from the other side.

"You owe me something, medic," Megatron says.

"Yeah, 500 credits."

The slagmaker snarls, like something out of an Autobot horror story. "A favor. A favor. I want a favor. I do not want 500 credits."

"That's a pretty substantial amount of betting money you're missing out on," Ratchet says, depositing his datapad and pen back into his desk. "But fine. It went well?"

"It went fine," Megatron says. "We are going to box later."

"Box? The date went well so now you are going to punch each other?"

Megatron's snarl becomes a revealing jovial grin. "We are going to fight each other!" he exclaims, his arms unwinding from around himself.

Ratchet nods. "FIne, just don't end up here." He thinks for a moment. "Do you know how to box?"

Megatron nods. "It is a human fighting style. You must stay upright."

"Exactly," Ratchet says. "Upright, and fully conscious, and not in my medbay."

"Alright," agrees Megatron, his grin twitching downwards and then, with a great resurgence of joy, returning to its glorious zenith. "We have not fought in so long."

"Yes, so it went well." Ratchet roots around in his drawers for a cube of midgrade; he is on lunch. "Was he handsome?"

"Oh, sure," says Megatron waving a dismissive servo. "I tried these Iaconian fried silicon...things."

"Uh-huh." Ratchet does not care about the Iaconian fried silicon. He hopes (somewhere is his idiotic gossip-loving, interloping, meddling little spark) that Megatron doesn't either. "But did you two hit it off?"

"No, we are hitting tomorrow," says Megatron. "He told me they were a terrible imitation of the street version of the dish from Iacon, probably near the docks."

Ratchet sighs. This stubborn insistence on not doing exactly what Ratchet wants is an annoyingly familiar trait. "I mean, did you have a good time?"

"I had a wonderful time," Megatron declares, beaming his substantial grin about so that half of Ratchet's medical equipment is polished and shined just from the grace of it. "I've decided I must find a cook who can recreate the treat properly."

"Well, you can try Little Iacon," Ratchet suggests. "Was it just the food you enjoyed, or...?"

"We had some excellent conversational jousting," Megatron reveals. "I am eager for our next outing. I will beat him in boxing. His face will be caved in. Peacefully."

"And not in the medbay," Ratchet reminds him.

"And not in the medbay," Megatron agrees. "Now, about that IOU."

Jazz does not have an office. This is not because he was not offered and office, but because he could not decide which of the offices Optimus had presented would be the most secure, had flip-flopped like a seal on slippery plastic, and in his security-obsessed state of mania, had vacillated so violently from one place of business to another that all the aforementioned offices had been taken, demolished, or deemed unfit by external powers and he had been left with nothing. 

So when Optimus needs to hunt his spymaster down to shout at him, he has to troll the corridors.

"Jazz!" he shouts into one particularly packed cubicle space. A dozen helms turn from whatever waste of taxpayer dollars they were working on (inventing the legal code against murder, in fact) to stare at him. As none of them bear a visor, Optimus departs with equal gusto.

He is, he decides as he marches, very very angry. A fool, he had been made, fumbling about in conversation with Megatron of all people. To not have known his own faction had sent a ship to Luna 2! And he had lied to cover himself, and now they will need to assess all the moons, and write reports, and he’ll have to read those reports. Slag it all.

He finds Jazz poking about behind a computer-bank in the security room. His occasionally puerile spy is belly down on the floor with only his pedes sticking out from behind the sheltered spot, kicking and flicking occasionally like a youngling upon their bed.

"Jazz," he repeats, with a fake calm. A disarming calm, a predatory calm, a calm before the storm if you will. The lonely pedes retreat with a scraping of metal on metal, and a moment later it is Jazz's helm that peeks out.

"Yes?" he asks.

"I heard a little rumor recently." It has always been Optimus's position that yelling at one's staff should be a rare and fruitful occasion, with much buildup and great result, wherein the offending scout or commander or spy wilts within himself and emerges, like a moth from cocoon, a more reasonable employee. He begins softly now on that same philosophy, though he would very much like to scream very very loudly and at nothing in particular. This, he thinks, is exactly the type of mismanagement that facilitates Decepticon plots.

"Okay," says Jazz. "Hey listen, there is some scuffing behind this monitor."

"I heard a rumor," Optimus repeats, "That an act of Primus himself was liquefying half of a moon."

Jazz, still sitting with his legs and pedes hidden behind the computer station, nods. "Yeah, okay, well listen, the scuffing has some dark blue paint."

"Jazz," says Optimus, "I believe you forgot to mention to me that a volcano is turning Luna 2 into a swimming pool for fire demons."

"Oh no," replies Jazz. "Really? Must have slipped my mind."

Optimus raises a disappointed eyebrow. Jazz returns with an ashamed yet cheeky grin.

"Jazz, correct me if I'm wrong, but…" Optimus pauses for emphasis, "I am in charge of some Autobots out there, aren't I?"

"I should think so," says Jazz.

"Yes, how are they doing?"

"With all the lava?"

"Yes, with all the lava."

"Juggling on breadbaskets, Optimus."

"Ah-hah," Optimus nods victoriously. "And that slipped your mind?"

Jazz feigns a helmache, jabbing his forehead with a finger to mime knocking some sense back in. "Completely."

"Mhm," says Optimus. "And the ship we sent to fetch them?"

"Oh, busted," mutters Jazz. "Darn."

"Jazz!" Optimus shouts. "What were you thinking!"

Jazz throws one hand in the air in fake surrender. "You've been freaking out, Optimus. You've been really freaking out."

"I have not -" Optimus begins, with great emphasis, "Been freaking out!"

Jazz shrugs. "You told Prowl the Decepticons couldn't be trusted with the contents of our scrubbed computers, Optimus. You had a fit over giving Soundwave the equivalent of a fourth-grade history report of the crew and our entertainment download history - not even our internet history, our download history. All they got was one big music and television recommendation list."

This is the same argument they've had before, and it annoys Optimus to no end. "The Decepticons are incredibly clever, you should know this Jazz," he lectures. "I'm certain they can glean something from our computers, and they are willing to use the most innocuous of things to our detriment."

Jazz raises one peculiar eyebrow. "You worry they'll watch the Godfather and get ideas?"

"You know what? I didn't like the Godfather," Optimus replies. "It was a bad choice for movie night."

"You are insane," replies Jazz, cheerfully. "That's what the Decepticons will use against you."

"Exactly!" Optimus decares. "I'm sure they are digging through it right now for a weakness to trick and destroy me with."

"I have a new plan to trick Optimus Prime," Megatron tells Soundwave. "into revealing the location of the Autobot Planetary Defense system so we might destroy them and all hopes of their eventual domination."

"Yippee!" replies Frenzy. Megatron imagines punting him across the room, but alas he is in the city and Soundwave and his kin are far away, safe from Megatron's petty revenges. Not that he has ever kicked the cassettes, as their short stature and feeble weapons make the concept both laughable and demeaning. It is far less laughable and demeaning in Megatron's imagination, where the action will stay.

"However," he continues, "I need you to dig through the information you scraped from their computers and tell me which of Iacon's docks Orion Pax worked on."

Megatron had set out that afternoon in search of Little Iacon. To his fortune, he had discovered the town to be a disproportionately large section of New Cybertron's First City. After careful pondering (while waiting at a stoplight for the various little Autobots to pass by) he realized this is less of a blessing and more a worrying trend for the future of Decepticon control. Regardless of any concerning political realities, it is useful for his current quest- locating the fabled Iacon fried silicon.

He had run a first canvas of Little Iacon and discovered it encompasses four city blocks and a dozen small stores. They are as follows: Prima's Imports, The Oilhouse, The Oilwell (across the street), The Old Great Bookshop (humorously gleaming new), The Collective, East Iacon Eats and Sweets, Jade's North Iacon To-Go Shop, Atlas Iacon Cuisine, Highlight's Polish and Shine, The General Store, Imported Organic, and Construction General. A second pass had narrowed his selection to East Iacon Eats and Sweets and Jade's North Iacon To-Go Shop. Each had on their menu a fried-silicon dish with slightly different ingredients, and each store owner insisted their version was what Megatron was looking for.

"Very authentic," promised Jade. "Exactly like it used to be."

"Don't listen to that pansy," promised Excavator, the store-runner and ex-construction manager of East Iacon's Eats and Sweets. "You want real street-food, you go to the guys on the streets."

So now Megatron waits patiently for Frenzy's next taunt and Soundwave's assistance. He cannot imagine the look of disappointment on Optimus's face should he arrive this evening with another fake version of his beloved food.

"I could bring both," he muses, still awaiting Soundwave's response. "And have him tell me which he prefers. But that might force him to use his processor, and the purpose of this endeavor is to keep him as far away from that as possible."

"Orion Pax was from East Iacon," Soundwave informs him, caring little for Megatron's musings. "On the docks bordering the Rust Sea. Your idea is as sensible as always."

"I know it," replies Mgatron. "East Iacon Eats and Sweets it is. Good, I like that construction mech better."

"Bring home candy," Frenzy calls. "A lollipop for us to suck on while you suck Prime's spike."

"I will use you like a ball in a - in a football game," Megatron promises. "Like those humans play. Your helm is spherical enough."

"Soundwave - had not known before that Orion Pax's dock unloaded water and oil ships, rather than space faring vessels," Soundwave says. "Autobot personnel files - scrubbed, but the civilian histories not."

"Okay," Megatron says. "I'm going to get some fried silicon now. Would you like anything?"

"Candy!" says Frenzy.

"I won't be getting anything for Frenzy, but for anyone else."

 "Negative," replies Soudnwave, to the disappointed cries of his collection.

"Alright, then I will go straight to the sparring rooms after. Let me know when Optimus is on his way." Megatron disconnects his comm, walks into East Iacon Eats and Sweets, and grins ear to ear.

Optimus's frown is a legendary thing. His crossed arms flex unconsciously, like a movie-star so practiced at giving the camera the best angle of bulging tubing that it becomes second nature. His frown is a nice little contrast, like he is going to murder Jazz but sexily. "We've gotten off topic. I was mad at you for lying to me," he says. Darn, and Jazz had thought he'd gotten away with it.

"I have never lied to you," lies Jazz. "I've obfuscated, omitted, occasionally even daydreamed the truth up-"

"Who do we have hurtling towards a planet of lava?" Optimus interrupts.

"A geologist and a pilot."

"Grand," replies Optimus, somewhat sarcastically. On one servo, a sarcastic Optimus is an interesting Optimus, one likely to make fun of their enemies and shoot some hoops. On the other servo, he sounds particularly stressed at the moment, and that's a bummer.

"Did your date not go well?" he asks, sympathetically.

Optimus frowns harder. "What date?" he asks.

"Well, I guess that answers that."

"Jazz, we've sent a geologist out to rescue the engineers we sent out to rescue the planet defender?"

That sounds about right. "Seems like the correct order to me."

Optimus uncrosses and recrosses his arms, like he thinks Jazz doesn't quite get how disappointed he is. "I should have been part of that decision."

"You've been anxious lately," Jazz explains.

"And this is why!" Optimus throws his helm to the ceiling as if begging for the mercy of their own volcanic eruption. "Balancing on a breadbox over our best weapon? Should the Decepticons betray us our only hope is...excavating our broken missile defense system from under burning volcanic rock."

"Not broken anymore!" Jazz replies cheerfully, in the hope his good mood will suffuse itself into Optimus's lines and chill him out. "They fixed it before the mountain went kaput."

"And the lava isn't doing its own damage?"

"Prowl thinks it's pretty well protected."

"Well here's a question," begins Optimus. "When during the war was it decided we'd build our planet defender under an active volcano?"

"It wasn't active at the time," says Jazz.

"Well now it is!"

"How was your date?" Jazz asks again. It only serves to aggravate Optimus further.

"I didn’t have a date," he insists.

"What did you talk about?"

"Luna 2!" exclaims Optimus. Bummer, Jazz thinks, for that disappointing attempt at distraction. "Will there be another?"

"Another what?"

"Date?"

Optimus huffs. "No, because we did not have a date. We do, however, plan on sparring tonight."

"Romantic," Jazz praises. "Great choice. I'll send you a good fighting playlist. For romantic trysts."

"I won't play it," Promises Optimus. "I am very angry at the lot of you."

"At us? Or the volcano?"

Optimus considers this for a moment. "At the volcano, I suppose. And you, for sending off a team. I had to hear about it from Megatron. Are you aware the Decepticons know about the ship we've sent."

"Well now I am," says Jazz. "Hey, I just figured out the paint thing."

"The what?"

"The paint," says Jazz. "Soundwave came in here to configure the computers for access to the new Cybertronian internet. This is his paint."

Optimus looks down at Jazz like a hawk might inspect an ugly and malodored mouse. "I said they were off inspecting each moon for possible reconstruction," he says. "So our files and our high command should know that."

"Sure," says Jazz.

"And our rescue team gets to spend the next month searching every moon and reluctant orbiting asteroid stuck in this planet's malingering gravitational pull."

"I will tell them the amazing news," says Jazz. "But at the risk of getting punched in the head, I have a better suggestion for keeping the missiles under the surface of Luna 2, if you know what I mean."

Optimus raises an eyebrow. "You think the thick layer of cooling rock won't do the trick?"

"You should kiss him."

"Who?"

Jazz snorts. "Megatron."

"That," says Optimus, "Is the stupidest thing I have ever heard."

Megatron's legs do not swing back and forth as he sits waiting on the bleachers in the sparring room, but only because he is tall and the floor is unyielding in its desire to stub his fore-pede should he dare. His servos are clasped in his lap and the still-warm container of fried silicon lays patiently on the bench beside him. He had timed this out perfectly.

Optimus marches in two minutes late, with such haste that he leaves faint skid marks on the glossy floor when he stops. He looks at Megatron dumbfounded, as though he had not anticipated that Megatron might be at his final location, or had been so deeply anxious that he had forgotten what that location might be. 

"Hello," says Megatron, appreciating that Optimus had done the job of off-balancing himself for him. "How was your day?"

"...fine," replies Optimus, turning about just enough to glance about the full training room. He seems amused by this alone - or distracted, as if he had not had the privilege of hitting anybody in here since its creation and is giving it the professional once-over.

"I had a meeting with my scientists about the situation on our moon," Megatron continues, taking advantage of this home-grown distraction. 

"Your scientists?"

"Shockwave and Starscream, mostly," says Megatron. "Not a pleasant meeting, but that's no rarity. They are very concerned about the location of the lava - we should have a discussion between us and our respective commands about any assets that might need removal."

"Sure," answers Optimus, his face pointed in towards the far wall decorated in various dulled weapons.

He seems so utterly befuddled, so entirely off in some previous altercation or miserable thought, that Megatron thinks he might be better off being forthright. "You know, I do recall Luna 2 being an Autobot outpost for the majority of its life. When we took it towards the end there was little left. When you retook it most recently did you re-establish any mechanisms for planetary defense? I ask because the Quints might come along - here next time, rather than that organic planet. I think we need to begin investing more heavily in joint defense networks for future invasion."

Optimus turns about at his slow pace and looks at Megatron with confused optics. "Don't you remember, we put the launchers on Luna 2."

"I do remember those," agrees Megatron, "But they were good only for an orbital attack on Luna 2. Do you have nothing to defend Cybertron with up there?"

"Some proprietary triflings," says Optimus. Megatron takes a moment to appreciate the casual skirting of the truth his nemesis is capable of. He must work on his upper lip, however, which trembles just so, and his optics that dart too quickly to the next thing, and how his posture straightens when he lies.

"Is there anything that has survived the lava for your geologist and engineers to collect?" Megatron asks, and delights in the twisted frown it draws to Optimus's face. He waits a moment for Optimus to decide whether Megatron ought to know if it was a geologist and engineers, or just a geologist and pilot, or just engineers, and how miserable it is to juggle so many facts.

Eventually Optimus decides he must have known both, and he says: "I really couldn't say, but I suppose they'll find out."

And he says it with enough conviction that Megatron decides further needling would be a waste. Instead, he lifts his to-go box from beside him, places it on his lap, and taps the bench in a come-sit gesture. Opimus eyed him suspiciously for a moment, then walks over and sits a hair's-breadth closer than a respectable distance away.

"What is that?" he asks, though the twitching of his finials reveals he has some idea, and the flaring of his nasal ridge indicates substantial interest. Megatron grins and pries the lid off to reveal his prize. Optimus leans into the space between them to peer into it, and he smiles with delight when recognition strikes.

"Where did you find this?" He asks, his gaze flicking between Megatron's face and the treats wrapped in useless, sticky napkins.

"Our city has a Little Iacon now," Megatron reveals, finding just as great delight in telling him than Optimus feels for the food itself.

"Oh, that's wonderful," says Optimus, though his smile is a little sad. Megatron frowns, but before he can investigate Optimus adds: "Let's try them."

They are good, exceptionally so. Even wrapped in its miserable napkin, which leaves Megatron's servos stickier than they might if it had not existed at all, his treat radiates heat. When he bites into it it explodes in his mouth, and he keeps his optics open throughout to watch the same happen to Optimus. Optimus smiles through the chewy outer coating, even as it leaks the liquid center down his chin. He is looking at Megatron, and when he realizes the mess running down his face he laughs, worsening the problem. It's charming, so very charming. Megatron offers up another napkin from the bag and Optimus laughs harder.

The silicon is sweetened, chewy but not overly so, and the center is warm. They alternate between chewing and wiping their faces with the poorly constructed napkins, and every time one such napkin sticks to their face instead of clearing it they laugh, and it is so thoroughly enjoyable that Megatron finds himself disappointed when their treats run out.

"Thank you for bringing these," Optimus sighs. "This is so much better than Beryllium's."

For Megatron's part, he is not certain whether it is the quality of the food or the joy of the company which made the experience more enjoyable, but he nods his agreement regardless. "I have actual wipes in my subspace," he adds. Optimus takes some with visible relief, and a minute later they are somewhat clean and substantially less sticky.

Megatron's internal timer says that - if Ratchet fulfills his agreed terms - they will be interrupted in three minutes. "Would you like to spar?" He asks Optimus, almost reluctantly. He will enjoy it, he most certainly will, and yet it seems cruel to end these few minutes of - something. It was good. He wonders if they can do it again, or if the surprise and novelty will vanish and leave a recreation just a simulacrum of joy.

But Optimus smiles and raises his fist and mock-punches the air beside Megatron's chest. "Yes," he declares, "Lets." So they wander to the middle of the room and square up.

"Are we boxing or are we full-sparring?" Optimus asks. "Full-contact?"

"Full-contact," says Megatron. 

Optimus raises an eyebrow. "Do you know how to box?"

Why does every Autobot think him incapable of such a basic fighting style? Or do they assume he is ignorant of the rules? "You punch each other," he says. Then he has an additional thought. "Not boxing, because it excludes floor contact."

Optimus snorts. "You want me to put you on the floor?"

Yes, Megatron thinks. Then he decides his processor has gone for a loop. "I want to put you on the floor," he replies. Optimus laughs his agreement, and the game is on.

The wonder of fighting with Optimus Prime is that it always requires Megatron's full engagement. Not necessarily because of any danger - though often there is plenty of that - or because of any excessive skill on Optimus's part - though that is certainly the case - but because Megatron's processor seems to default when their fists meet, spinning about in such an intoxicating way that he forgets exactly what it is he ought to be doing. Like, say, remembering that the call Optimus is about to receive is part of the plan and not some devil coming to interrupt this favorite meeting of plating.

Optimus's comm rings mid-scuffle. It forces him to remove his arm from around Megatron's throat and slide off his back.

"Sorry, I should probably take this," he says, and Megatron wants to reply that he should let it ring, except that it is in a way himself calling. Megatron nods instead, allowing Optimus to walk to the other side of the floor and bring his finger to his audial.

"Yes?" he answers. "Ratchet?"

Megatron looks to the side and appears not to seem too eager to eavesdrop.

"Yes, what about it?" asks Optimus. "Uh-huh. Oh." A quick glance over to Megatron, who is looking at the ceiling. Yes, the ceiling, how nice and - what does it say? Are those letters? "Well, they won't set down on Luna 2," says Optimus. "No, well. Okay, I see your point. What do you need to know?" Another furtive glance in Megatron's direction. He thinks the roof of their sparring room has a plaque reading 7th Floor Storage Closet.

"The diseases change by region on Luna 2?" Optimus asks. "Really? Oh. Environmental? Okay. Right. Well, the Salt Flats. But the lava is from inside- and really everywhere, I supp- ah, okay."

That's it, Megatron thinks. The Salt Flats. Here is the answer. They can now ensure that the Autobot's greatest weapon is unrecoverable. One stealth mission, and the ‘volcano’ will have destroyed them forever. Optimus Prime and his bands of miscreants will never be able to leave. Their peace is cemented, only to be broken by the Decepticons should it be necessary. He has succeeded. It feels so utterly anticlimactic. The silicon had been a bigger moment, a better moment.

"Yes, okay, okay," Optimus is saying, optics turned half-exasperated to the ceiling, and he shoots Megatron the occasional apologetic glance.

The victory tastes less sweet than the silicon had. He sends Soundwave the location. It will be done.

"Alright, yes, bye," says Optimus, giving Megatron a conspiratorial smile as if to say 'oh, my friend has no idea how distracted I am." Megatron tries to imagine how crazy he will become when he discovers his faction's best defense never made it out of the lava. What had Ratchet said? Lonely, and stressed-out, and his High Command had described him as stir-crazy and untrusting. He is trusting now, Megatron supposes, giving Megatron his side profile and his side of the conversation.

Optimus disconnects the call and smiles at Megatron. "That was Ratchet," he explains unnecessarily. "Apparently the engineers and geologist we sent to Luna 2 aren't vaccinated properly, so now they'll have to come straight home instead of inspecting the other planets."

Megatron laughs internally at the little irony; his request had cleared up that issue for the Autobots then. The poor geologist is out of the hot seat, at the very least (though for the moment, he imagines, the geologist's seat will remain spectacularly warm).

"That is a shame," Megatron says. "But perhaps we could send out a multi-factional team next time."

Optimus's smile is genuine. "Yes," he agrees. "I think we could manage that." There is a pause then, just looking at each other, in a room they share together, where everything is calm. Megatron feels spectacularly miserable.

"Would you like to continue?" Optimus asks. Megatron nods, and they resume their positions, but their grappling is only half-energized. Optimus pulls and pushes, sweeps and punches, and Megatron feels all the more miserable for his pathetic, distracted attempts at reversal. Oh, he grabs Optimus by the shin and upends him onto the floor, but he feels no joy in it. He ought to feel perfect pride and overwhelming enjoyment in the way he anticipates Optimus's feint and pins him down, but he doesn't. Well- he feels it a little - he is a mech, after all, and a squirming defeated opponent must do something to one's processor, but still!

He feels guilt. That is what it is. And anger, because it had been too easy to get Optimus's guard down, and now his scheme is over, and he has pinned his nemesis down forever, and tomorrow they will go back to misery-inducing negotiations over ridiculous things like the Legal Tender Act. 

"Alright, alright, I yield," says Optimus, snapping Megatron from his imaginations. He looks down to find Optimus's bright optics and his own servos around his throat.

"Have the Autobots been running their banking through Ultra Magnus?" Megatron asks him, and does not loosen his grip. Optimus's eyebrows furrow curiously. 

"I don't believe we have money," he replies.

"It is deeply upsetting when you say things like that," Megatron informs him. "I sincerely hope Cybertron never has an Autobot Treasurer in my lifetime."

"Won't you let me up?" Optimus asks. Megatron shifts so that he is kneeling more completely over him.

"Will we do this again?"

Optimus smiles. "I thought bringing the silicon was incredibly sweet," he says.

The non sequitur - though not the first of the conversation - throws Megatron off. He lifts his hand, but does not remove his knee from Optimus's midsection. "Did you really?"

"I did." Optimus nods. "And I think that we might have had some trouble if we had won the war."

That seems like an understatement, but the novelty of Optimus Prime saying it holds Megatron's interest. "You would have?"

"I don't know what a mutual fund is," Optimus admits, "And I have no idea what money Ultra Magnus has control over."

Megatron's half-hysterical laugh might have embarrassed him, if he'd paid it any mind. "How did you buy weaponry?"

"We only ever traded our protection," says Optimus. "Now that you aren't conquering planets anymore, our currency has run out."

"I have an admission to make," Megatron's glossa reveals, unchecked by his processor.

Optimus's startlingly blue optics look into his. "Yes?"

"How I know your faction is financially illiterate-"

"Yes?"

"Your medic attempted to pay me 500 credits to take you on a date," says Megatron, foolishly, stupidly. Optimus's looks briefly hurt, his optics dimmed, his ghost of a smile replaced with a confused and tilted frown.

"He what?"

Damage control, Megatron has the sense to think. "You shouldn't be offended," he says. "500 is a lot of money." He pauses for a moment, then winces, but he has started with the truth and he cannot end it half-done. "Well, no," he corrects. "It's worthless now. Your Autobots don't seem to understand that though."

"Well..." Optimus looks, bless his spark, as confused about this as he was about mutual funds. "Did you take it?" he asks.

"No!" cries Megatron. "It's worthless!"

"So then..." Optimus's optics flick to the side and back, over and over. "So you did not take me on a date?"

"Well..." says Megatron. "No?"

"No?"

"I don't know," admits Megatron. Optimus nods.

"Jazz says it was."

"Alright then," agrees Megatron. "I did."

Optimus's smile is a little confused, but at least it has returned. "So if not the 500 credits, what did you get?" he asks.

"Ah," says Megatron. "Well, you see..." he pauses for a moment. "listen," he says instead. "He thought you were lonely, and anxious about this peace." 

"I suppose..." Optimus ex-vents deeply. "I suppose I was." 

"And I might have been too," Megatron admits. "So when I say this-"

"You were anxious about an Autobot scheme?" Optimus interrupts.

Megatron nods. "Yes," he says, "Like sending your engineers up to Luna 2."

Optimus looks suddenly very crossed, but he makes no movement to escape. He freezes, might be the best description. "Like..." he begins, and then he finishes - "Megatron, what did Ratchet give you instead of 500 credits."

"Useless credits," Megatron corrects. He feels somewhat sick to his tank. 

"Megatron-"

"Well," says Megatron, appreciating the last few moments of victory. "I suppose he gave me the Autobot Planetary Defense System."

Chapter Text

"Operation: A Little Charm is complete," declares Soundwave, with the relief any friend would have at the end of a particularly egregious escapade. Of all Megatron's many many schemes, this one had been somewhat middling in its level of half-brained, but he feels deeply that the end of the war ought to have ended all the hare-brained match-making plots Megatron has the tendency to dream up. With the cessation of hostilities should have come the cessation of obsession which, upon further thought, was a ridiculous assumption for Soundwave to have made. Perhaps what he had actually believed was that Megatron might go around his attempts at wooing in a peace-time manner, with a proper courting, instead of shrouding it in his usual Decepticon Domination coating.

So Soundwave is pleased that they have located the Autobot planet defense system both for its value in political security as well as that it harkens the end of this latest sheltered courting disguise. In fact, Soundwave hopes this will have set Megatron up nicely to engage in a proper relationship with Optimus Prime, leaving him free of schemes for at least as long as it takes them to screw it all up, when Megatron will come begging for help squishing the Autobots under his burned heel.

Megatron, who is sitting in front of him playing with the highlighted portions of the Luna 2 holographic, looks up with the sad optics of a half-drowned cat. Slaggit, Soundwave thinks.

"We have someone up there right now?" Megatron asks, which is at the very least a strategic question. "I told Optimus - we have a limited amount of time before the Autobots set up defenses for their...planet defender."

"Megatron's loose glossa is the Autobots' greatest asset," Soundwave comments. It is an overly familiar and egregiously offensive thing to say to one's Lord, but Soundwave has earned such liberties by being the only Decepticon alive who is neither traitorous nor stupid. 

Megatron sulks, but at least he has the decency to agree that his sentimental foolishness was tactically unsound. "I kicked the ladder down the shaft," he admits glumly. "I fear he will never fight with me again."

"If the Autobots defend their weapons system and we pursue it, the escalation will return us to war," Soundwave informs him. Clearly Megatron's funk is impeding his ability for clear thought. "You will fight with Optimus Prime again."

Megatron sulks louder, his shoulders hunching in towards his frowning face. "That's not what I meant."

"Operation: A Little Charm's goal was to maintain peace," Soundwave reminds him. "We deployed an infiltration team two days ago and they have been in orbit. They are above the Salt Flats now. Attack order?" He presents Megatron with a datapad, on which he projects the feed from the mission team. They are a few miles above the mission-site, hovering in lower orbit. Below is an expanse of glowing orange.

Megatron takes the datapad from him and peers at it, working the inside of his mouth with his dentae. "The entrance will be above the Salt Flats, a raised platform, I presume."

"The highest entrance point will be under lava in 8 hours, it is expected," Soundwave reports. "Mission-team has located the entrance."

"The Autobot rescue mission has succeeded? There are no Autobots around the site?"

Soundwave pauses, then rechecks the mission scans. Foolish, that he had not considered this. "No vessel has escaped orbit."

Megatron's eyebrows knit together. "Can we zoom in?" he asks. Soundwave nods, then orders the mission-team to drop. They do, and a few minutes later the visuals on the pad reveal blurry but identifiably mech-like figures clinging to the narrow platform. He orders the mission-team to pull back.

"They won't rescue them," Megatron announces, with a revelatory and somewhat dejected flair. "They'll keep them there until reinforcements arrive and we will have lost our chance. I have made a fool of us."

"Megatron could order a mission-go," suggests Soundwave, with little hope. Truthfully, it would be a miserable decision, and surely condemn them to war once more.

Megatron shakes his helm. "I need to think," he says, in the sort of tone that usually means he needs to have a good sulk. "I'm going to get something to eat. Would you like anything?"

Soundwave shakes his helm. "8 hours," he reminds him. "Sooner, potentially, for Autobot reinforcements."

Megatron sighs. "We've done it now, Soundwave," he mutters. "We've certainly done it now."

Optimus avoids the med-bay. It is the one place he ought to go, but he avoids it like a particularly brutal plague, or an email from a distant colleague one only barely tolerates. He is so miserly he wants to scream and so angry he wants to cry. Mostly, he is very very upset. He goes to the security room, where he had found Jazz last, with a perfect readiness for a good tongue-lashing. He finds the security room seemingly empty at first, which does threaten to smother his great irritation, but then he hears some creaking from behind the far monitor.

"Oh," Jazz mutters to himself. "I see what happened here."

"Yes?" Asks Optimus, coming up from around the computer monitor. Jazz shoots a solid half of himself into the air, spins as he does, and - with a look of recognition - crashes back down to the floor once more. It is such a violent and excitable movement that Optimus takes a step back and is momentarily stunned into confusion.

"Hello Optimus," says Jazz, calmly. He crosses his legs and peers up at Optimus with a do-gooder smile, completely unawares to the trouble they were in.

"What did you discover?" asks Optimus.

"Soundwave was behind this monitor," Jazz tells him. "I think I've got it. I checked the security tapes. We've got a problem."

"Yes," mutters Optimus. "Who could have predicted that?"

"It was unpredictable." Jazz snaps his fingers. "Ah, I see. The Decepticons know about our planet defender, the lava troubles, and our rescue mission."

"They do," Optimus agrees, with immense schadenfreude. Jazz is looking slightly peculiar, and a bit as though he is recognizing the folly of allowing Soundwave onto their monitors.

"Well, they don't know its exact location on Luna 2," he says. "So we are probably fine."

"Mmm," hums Optimus. "I must disagree. They have discovered it, and now I imagine there is a Decepticon ship hovering above it, awaiting orders to destroy our last line of defense against a Decepticon attack."

"They have discovered it?" Jazz asks, looking up at Optimus from his place on the floor. Optimus resists the urge to pick him up by the scruff.

"I had an excellent time sparring with Megatron," replies Optimus in lieu of an answer. Jazz smiles, then grimaces, then smiles again.

"Well, at least you had fun!" he says. He then leaps to his pedes and brushes his arms off. "And you gathered your own information. You figured out they knew before I did. Congratulations."

"I do not feel very pleased," says Optimus, his ire returning in abundance. "We have a serious problem, Jazz. There are mecha in danger. The rescue team-"

"Jazz!" Prowl's voice penetrates the room before his frame does, by a solid ten seconds. "Jazz!"

"Yes!" calls Jazz, just as Prowl comes skidding (or as close a mech of his seriousness can manage) into the room.

"The geologist and pilot have-" Prowl careens to a halt, both physically and in speech. "Hello Optimus."

"Hello Prowl," says Optimus, with gritted dentae. "What's this I hear about a geologist? And a pilot?"

Prowl smiles placatingly. "Jazz told me you had been made aware. I assure you, we have it under control. It never needed to concern you."

"Jazz!" Cries RedAlert, skidding (with the full velocity and clumsiness of a mech of his flailing nature) into the room. "We're fucked! The geologist and pilot both fell onto the platform and now - oh hello Optimus Prime sir."

Jazz ex-vents deeply somewhere to Optimus's left.

"Yes," says Optimus drily, "It seems you have this completely under control."

"A minor setback."

"Mhm." Optimus turns back to Jazz. "Well, would you like to tell them?"

Like a toddler explaining to his father why mother put him in time-out, Jazz pouts grandly before admitting "The Deceptions know the location of the planet defender. If they aren't there already they will be soon."

"How are they going to get to it through the lava?" RedAlert asks. "I mean, our guys are right there, I guess we could shoot at them too."

The room goes momentarily quiet as they each imagine it. Then Jazz replies: "Have any of you ever seen a Vosian Balancing Act?"

Prowl is the first to reply. "No, but the title is descriptive."

"Well," says Jazz. "That's what our guys are performing on the last remaining platform right now. So I don't think they will be doing any shooting."

"Shooting at a Decepticon spacecraft would break the stipulations of the peace agreement," adds Prowl.

"Oh sure, and shooting our planet defender doesn't?" exclaims RedAlert.

"Well..." mutters Jazz.

"Well..." begins Prowl.

"Well..." says Optimus, in chorus.

"Technically speaking, all weapons systems pointed at Cybertron must be turned over to joint command or decommissioned," continues Prowl. "As we never declared its existence, their destruction of it would be...murky."

"Grand," mutters Optimus.Then, louder: "This is ridiculous. We kept that system operational in case the treaty were to fail, and now it might bring it all to ruin. You have all told me I was being absurd for worrying, and yet here we stand, under Decepticon attack."

"Oh!" exclaims Jazz. "Decepticon attack. Reminds me - how did your date go? Just ‘fun’, or…?"

"Not now Jazz!" Optimus crosses his arms. "We need to send a ship to rescue the geologist we sent to rescue the engineers that we sent to rescue our planet defender."

"We should anticipate additional problems and send a second ship alongside it," comments Prowl.

"It's just that-" says Jazz.

"The Decpticons might think twice about firing if there are people still on the platform," interrupts Optimus. He has a foolish, terrible half-idea. "I did not get the -" he pauses a moment. "I am certain the Decepticons will sabotage the peace, and in a way they already have. What I am not convinced of is that they intend to break the peace at this very moment. They might be stalled by the team's presence on the remaining platform."

"I was thinking-"

"I believe that the best way to attack the weapons system is through the entrance on the platform," says Prowl. "They might board the platform, but there is not enough room on it for them to maneuver. As Jazz said 'balancing on bread boxes'."

"Yes, as I said, and-"

"Are we saying the Decepticons might have to wait for us to rescue our team before they can attack the planet defender? Or that they might throw them into the lava to get to it?" Asks RedAlert nervously. "Because it's going to take a day for our next ships to get there, and the engineers have already been stuck there for three days."

"Here's a novel idea!" Jazz shouts. "Why don't we just ask the Decepticons - who probably have a ship hovering over them right now - to go down and get our guys?"

There is a moment of silence, and then Prowl begins to sputter incomprehensibly and Optimus, immune to such exclamations from Jazz, replies as he had the day prior. "That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard," he says. 

It takes another moment before Prowl's spluttering becomes distinguishable words. "Once they get the Autobots off the platform, there will be nothing stopping them from destroying the planet defender."

"Sure," shrugs Jazz. "But it's not like there's anything stopping them now. If they want to start the war again now they'll shoot our guys - like fish in a barrel, it's a tiny platform - and if they don't, they'll wait until we get our guys off tomorrow and then sit at the negotiation table the day after and declare they targeted a splinter-cell base or something. If we call them out on it they'll accuse us of maintaining weaponry we shouldn't, which we did-"

"Because they aren't trustworthy," Optimus interjects. Jazz waves him off. 

"Listen, the defense system is cooked. I mean literally, it's fragged. It hasn't melted entirely, but it's still sitting under 20 feet of lava. Does it really matter if we let them drop a bomb down the shaft or not? Give them this win, ask them to collect our guys, and we maintain some level of peace."

"We will need another failsafe for Decepticon subterfuge," says Prowl. "A bunker, or war ship."

"Sure, whatever," replies Jazz. He looks pleadingly to Optimus, optics genuinely wide, like he was proposing Optimus buy them all ice-cream sandwiches at the bodega and not to trust Decepticons with a sensitive rescue mission. "Why don't you go talk to him?"

Optimus goes to the medbay first. This is because he has decided to try life out as a coward, because it seems much easier to stall going to Megatron. He feels an all-encompassing despair about Megatron's stupid face. To be played like he had! It hurts in a way he had never expected from the mech known to give him the greatest pain. He had thought just briefly there, when Megatron had bitten into a true fried silicon, that bliss was his for the taking. That, for at least the briefest of moments, nothing disastrous was afoot. 

He had been wrong on so many accounts. That Megatron would treat him so kindly as a, a means to an end. In a perfect universe, all Decepticon schemes would be snarky and secretive, silently cruel with a massive explosion, easily predictable and easily found, and most importantly, at no point during their execution would Optimus be treated kindly.

He had thought Megatron charming! Cute, when he'd asked about placing a nuclear power station in the Salt Flats, with his stupefied flush on Optimus's humorous reminder of water's solvent properties. And - oh - of course he had only asked as a means to an end. How foolish Optimus was. He had thought him cute, futilely wiping his servos on the useless napkins. And charming, utterly charming.

Oh, the son of a glitchmouse.

And Ratchet too, a son of a glitchmouse. Optimus is surrounded by them.

"Ratchet, you rat," Optimus accuses as he slams into Ratchet's office. He stops short at the distinct lack of medic within it, but his passion-induced momentum keeps him rolling forward another step and he bangs his thigh into the armrest of the patient chair. "Slagger!" He hisses into the empty room. He is normally such a kept-glossa mech, never quick to make inappropriate exclamations, but his peace is going to hell in a handbasket and his thigh smarts like a true glitch.

"Can I not have one simple thing?" he asks the floor. Somewhere beneath them, far far away, Primus is laughing at him. "I let the chorus of my miserable high command convince me Megatron's fishing expedition was actually just a pleasant dinner. Then I find out my best friend has betrayed me, betrayed our cause, made me betray our cause, and endangered everything just to set me up on a fake date. Is this not ridiculous? Is this not-" he taps on his chest, with the Matrix snuggled within it - "And now I have gained a limp. I work every morning under an escape pod route; is this you telling me to run from this farce of a peace? Or are you punishing me for your own sinister delight?"

Primus, as is his general lazy manner, does not reply. Optimus thinks the injury to his thigh was probably the consequence of his own over-action and not a gift from a god. Probably.

With renewed vigor and a limp, Optimus leaves Ratchet's office and begins a thorough examination of the patient rooms. The first is empty, and so is the second, and the third has a nurse he does not know stocking the wipes, and the fourth has Ratchet.

"You son of a glitchmouse," Optimus declares, pointing a finger. It is the sort of finger that ought to temper the pride of any Autobot, might introduce a speedster to the brake pedal, or a wrecker to meditation. On Ratchet, it does very little.

"Optimus, don't berate me in front of my patients," he replies, hardly bothering to glance from the glossa depressor he has stuck in Starscream's mouth. Optimus had not seen Starscream before, and is surprised to discover that without his voice and general demeanor Starscream fades into the background.

"Hello Starscream," he says, backtracking to professional politeness.

"E-O, Iyo," replies Starscream, with a patented eye roll. The roll is cut short by an eager squinting, and accompanied by a backwards slouching, as if inviting Optimus to continue with his proper medic scolding. Who is Optimus to deny him?

"You are out of your mind," Optimus informs Ratchet. "You've handed the Decepticons a significant victory, and brought me unbearable embarrassment."

"O?" asks Starscream. Ratchet presses the depressor down harder, so that Starscream almost chokes.

"What are you talking about?"

"You-" Optimus once again wields the finger, only to be defeated by Ratchet's full concentration on the back of Starscream's throat. "Told Megatron I was lonely!"

"Sure," agrees Ratchet, fiddling with depressor when Starscream snorts in laughter. "But what Decepticon victory? Did you frag him? Because that would be a mutual victory. Starscream, stop moving or this stick will end up through your voicebox."

"You gave them-!" Optimus pauses and inspects Starscream, who shrinks into himself and widens his optics as if to say 'Oh, are you worried about little old me?' "You assisted Megatron in an information breach."

"Okay." Ratchet fiddles with a small flashlight, which he uses to peer deeper into Starscream's jaw. "Sorry."

Hearing Ratchet apologize is deflating to Optimus's anger, if only because it is harder to yell at a mech who has expressed some remorse. But it does not sate Optimus's need to explode and then perhaps crumble into a million pieces and die. Especially since Ratchet clearly does not understand or care about the full effect of his actions.

"He took me to dinner on your urging and used the defense-lowering decor to pick at factional secrets."

Starscream laughs so hard that Ratchet extracts the depressor, and is punished by several whaps to the nose. "That old slagger! And you accepted his dinner inv-i-o-e" says Starscream, before the return of the stick cuts him off.

"I don't see what your loose glossa has to do with me," Ratchet replies. "His metaphorical loose glossa, yours is fine Starscream. Unfortunately. Not done with your throat though, stay still."

"I didn't!" cries Optimus. "Not until you called me during our spar and requested the location of the- of the- you called me on Megatron's behalf and requested information that, because of what he knew - information that should have been confidential. Is there even a virus local to the Salt Flats of Luna 2 or were you reading from a Decepticon script!?"

"Hu?"

"Believe it or not, requesting a medic's input before sending people to the site of a volcanic explosion is usually proper procedure."

"Well, I hope you are happy. Our peace is over."

Ratchet uses the servo holding the light to shove Starscream's helm so that it tilts up. "Doesn't feel like it."

Optimus doesn't have a great retort to that, considering. Still, it is clear Ratchet doesn't get just why he is so upset, and that angers him. He feels as though he might be going insane, that disaster has struck him outside and now, inside, he is expected to be perfectly fine. "I just don't understand why you wanted him to take me to dinner," he says, after a moment of frustrated silence. "I just don't understand why you thought it would be a good idea." It had set him up for betrayal and sparkbreak, and though Optimus was fool enough to let it happen, Ratchet had instigated it.

"I didn't," replies Ratchet, with a shrug that moves Starscream's head. "I asked him to frag you."

Starscream once again ejects the depressor. His cackling is so distinctly his own that it brings back his full force of nature, so that the room which was previously two and a half people is now three, one of whom is the Decepticon Second in Command.

"Ha!" he laughs. "Ha!" he cackles. "Ha!" he giggles. All of this at once, for the full effect of humiliation.

Ratchet whaps him with the glossa depressor. "Shh," he says. "Your throat is fine. You aren't sick at all. Drink some energon and chew your crystals before swallowing next time. Idiot seeker."

"Ha!" replies Starscream. "Pimping the leaders out! What genius! I appreciate you more by the second, medic."

"Shut up and leave us to it," says Ratchet. "I think Optimus is having a fit. I have a new patient now. Out, you."

"Ha!" says Starscream, but he allows himself to be shoed out.

Optimus watches all this with a feeling of - well, he isn't certain, but it isn't pleasant. Bad. He feels quite bad. Betrayed. Confused. Upset. Worried. Miserable like every other day of this damned broken truce.

Ratchet brings Optimus over to the patient table, which is still warm when Optimus sits on it. "I only meant well," he says. "You've been lonely and anxious about the peace. I thought letting you two work through your...you know, would loosen you up a little bit. Megatron said no, but agreed to take you to dinner when I told him I was worried."

Optimus processes this very slowly. "Megatron didn't want to interface with me?" he asks.

Ratchet looks him in his optics for a moment or two. "I don't know how to answer that."

Optimus's distress only increases. "I don't know why you think I am lonely," he argues, "And I don't understand why you would tell him it. He's the enemy."

"We are at peace!" Ratchet replies, throwing a servo in the air. He gestures wildly at the medbay about him, which is distinctly not an Autobot medbay, having prominently displayed Decepticon glyphs emblazoned at odd angles on the repurposed walls. Distantly, Optimus wonders why they haven't bothered to throw some paint over every reminder of the base's previous life, but then he feels a sharp stab of malaise at the thought of erasing the escape pod route instructions above his desk.

"Well," Optimus replies, "Not for very long!"

"And I'm glad you are finally getting what you want," Ratchet says. "You can go back to punching Megatron every day for the next eight million years. If you would do us all a favor, perhaps you can shift this next phase of the war into a series of one-on-one ring battles, and we can all stand outside and cheer you on in the evenings."

"They are going to destroy the last real Autobot protective measure," Optimus tells him. "I am not kidding Ratchet, we have truly fragged it all to the pits."

Ratchet shrugs, but at least it is with more exhaustion than before. "Did you at least have fun while it lasted?"

"No!" Optimus cries, but then, when Ratchet does not immediately retort, he pauses and considers it. The silicon, he thinks, the fried silicon. It had felt so much like home for just a moment. And the way Megatron had smiled. Be it for devilish purposes or not, it had been so...nice. Megatron had been entirely charming. Not even two days it lasted, but it was...

"I don't know," he corrects. "I had a good time. Megatron was only using our...interactions to advance his own plots. I should have known, I suppose. It is what he does. The Decepticons scheme, it's been what I have been telling you for years."

Ratchet frowns and tilts his helm to the side. His digits tap on his clipboard for several seconds, until eventually he says: "What exactly are the Decepticons targeting? On Luna 2?"

"The planetary defense system," Optimus tells him. "It is designed to attack invaders in Cybertron's orbit and atmosphere."

Ratchet's brows knit together. "And Megatron wants it gone so that he can lead a Decepticon attack on Cybertron, give us all the boot, and take over?"

"Presumably, yes." If Optimus had a maniacal desire for total domination over the Universe it is what he would do - trick the other party into a continued armistice after a Quintessan invasion, befriend the enemy, and stab them straight in the back when they are most defenseless. He is not a maniacal warlord, however. He is just a mech who likes fried silicon and sparring and conversation over a glass of engex, and now none of that was even real. The fried silicon was probably cooked up by Shockwave in a lab and poisoned, or something.

"But a volcano on Luna 2 has covered the Salt Flats in lava," says Ratchet.

"Yes."

"So..." Ratchet pauses, then glances upwards. The room is silent. "So," he continues, "The planet defender is useless."

"For the moment," Optimus agrees.

"Well then, why hasn't a massive Decepticon fleet arrived from across the solar system to rain fire down upon us?" Ratchet asks. "I mean, now that Megatron knows our defense system is out of order for a few months, why hasn't he brought the ceiling down."

Jazz had made a similar point earlier. "I suppose he is just waiting for a good time," Optimus says. "Or for reinforcements to arrive?" It is a weak answer, and he knows it.

"Do you think Megatron wants war again?" Ratchet asks. "Has he shown that sort of inclination?"

"He took me out to dinner with the sole purpose of discovering the location of our weapons system, and has sent out a ship to destroy it," Optimus says.

Ratchet shrugs. "Well sure," he agrees. "But has he, you know, said he wants to end the peace? That he's going to destroy the system?"

"...No," says Optimus. "But-"

Ratchet cuts him off. "I'd say, just from my own wisdom here Optimus, that until the bombs start dropping, we don't really know what he's going to do with this information. And I like my new rooms. So maybe you should go find out exactly what he wants, before that happens."

"I am still angry at you for attempting to sell me out, and for causing this mess." Says Optimus, even though the emotion is fading with his worry. It is why he comes here, to lay it all out and be called an idiot. A little direction in confusing circumstances.

"But you had a good couple days before this Luna 2 stuff?" Ratchet asks.

Optimus sighs. "Yes,"he admits. "I had a good time being manipulated."

"There's the spirit," says Ratchet. "Go save peace, or whatever."

Megatron had bought himself some fried silicon in recompense for his self-inflicted miseries, but now when it explodes in his mouth he mostly feels distress. In fact, he feels a great deal like he's gone and ruined everything. Like a failure, like Starscream, or something equally terrible.

It still tastes amazing, mind you, but his mood is less buoyed by it than it might have been. He groans around the first bite then follows it with a groan of self-pitying misery. He is immersed in an abundance of flavor and distress. He has slagged it all up.

A Decepticon scout-ship is hovering above the Luna 2 Salt Flats as he eats, sending live visual feeds of what appears to be a half-dozen Autobots stacked upon each other and swaying dangerously on the thin platform above the rising orange lava tide. Megatron now has a terrible choice to make. 

It had never been his intention to restart the war. This whole scheme had been intended to force a continued peace. Without the planet defense system, the Autobots are stuck to this deal they have forged, and he can spend as many hours in oil baths eating fried silicon as he wants. Now he has slagged it all to pieces by revealing his plans to Optimus, who is probably watching live feeds of his scout hovering over the half-dozen swaying Autobots, shaking with murderous intent, waiting for one of the Autobots to fall or for the Decepticons to shoot so that he can storm into Megatron's quarters, pull him from his oil bath, and punch him straight in the face.

It's not that Megatron minds being punched, but the oil is warm and he would prefer to stay here, far away from the consequences of his actions.

Oh why had he spilled it all?! If he had kept his mouth shut, tussled with Optimus on the floor, let the Decepticon team wait in orbit until the Autobots had retrieved their mechs; they could have dropped in silently, destroyed the systems, left the Autobots none the wiser until the next load of engineers arrived to discover holes in what they had thought were lava-proof walls, and all their machinery melted to pieces. If only he had shut up.

Stupid, stupid, he berates himself. The second bite of silicon is as chewy as the first, though the filling is less excitingly new. He chews and chews and considers his own failures.

The fault, obviously, lies with Optimus, who had looked so trusting beneath him. It had set off a moment of stupid appreciation in Megatron, a dubious need to protect, admit, submit and then prostrate himself. He hadn't gotten to the last part before Optimus had stormed from the room, his joyous and buoyant field replaced with the nervous and angry lashing thing Megatron hadn't seen since the war.

It is hard to believe that so little time had passed with them together. Megatron had been startingly successful in his scheming, a grand victory, only now it has led him here. He has finished his fried silicon.

He cannot emerge from his warm cocoon until he has thought of a plan that might stop this from being his last oil bath for another 8 million years. They are not a comfort easily acquired during war, when desperate soldiers must consume oil. Slag it all, he has truly done it now. Optimus had looked so hurt.

He vacillates wildly between anger at Optimus's anger and sadness at Optimus sadness. He cannot see why Optimus would be so upset at what was a logical political move, and yet he fully understands how it would have felt like betrayal. Somewhere along the short line, Megatron had begun to act not as a politician and enemy but as a comrade. There is an argument to be made that Optimus ought to have expected betrayal, and perhaps he had, but Megatron knows it is never so simple.

Obviously he cannot have his mechs fire upon the Autobots and destroy them with the planet defender. But neither can he have them wait for the arrival of Autobot support. Should they wait, the chance will be lost. The Autobots will send reinforcements, and his loud mouth will have ruined the option entirely.

Still, there is no other option: retreat and lose the chance, attack and destroy the peace.

It is not much of a choice. With a sigh he stands and steps into the cold surrounding air. He will call the retreat and hope that political pressure will force the planet defender down permanently. He hates the tediousness of negotiation; they will pretend their blatant disregard for the disarmament agreement was only an accident, he will attempt to humiliate them for it. They will argue that the Decepticons have their own, he will deny it. Eventually they will settle for some mutually unsatisfactory middleground where both retain ownership of their weapons which will be "officially deconstructed" and nothing will have fundamentally changed. It is tedious.

He cleans himself and returns to his habsuite in morose dismay. The only change, he imagines, that will come from any of this is that Optimus will never trust him again. It had been a heady thing, having that trust, it had made him loose-lipped and eager. Still, self-pity is no place for a leader to wallow. His tank is full, his frame healthy and comfortable, his processor somewhat relaxed. Now he must make a decision. He sits in his chair and prepares to make a decision. He prepares for a while.

During this preparation, sometime around the thirty minute mark, someone knocks on his door.

"Megatron!" Optimus Prime calls. "You were not in your office. Are you here?"

Having not quite finished his preparation, Megatron is worried about this interruption. Still, he would never miss a chance to be punched in the face by Optimus Prime, so he stands and answers the door.

"Yes?" he asks, and accepts that their fragile peace will end shortly with Optimus Prime's fist. 

Optimus Prime's powerful fist does not enter his personal airspace. It stays by Optimus Prime's excellent waist and long thighs. Megatron eyes it and the surrounding frame-parts appreciatively.

"I have a proposition for you," declares Optimus from the doorway.

"You are propositioning me?" Megatron asks. He is a little distracted by the fist which is not moving, to his disappointment.

"No. I have a question, and then I have an offer."

"Oh, well then." Sensing that Optimus's fist will remain by his shining thigh for some time, Megatron backs away and gestures for Optimus to enter his habsuite. "Come in, pick a chair." Optimus picks a chair, never moving his optics off Megatron. Back to that same old suspicion, Megatron thinks. He supposes he deserves it. 

Once settled, Optimus asks: "Firstly, I need to know why your ship has not fired on the engineering team and their rescuers."

"I was taking an oil bath," replies Megatron. "Possibly my last."

"So you do intend on ending our peace agreement?" Optimus asks, his field tight and lips a thin line.

"No," says Megatron, and then his processor catches up to his mouth. "Where are their rescuers? Are you keeping them up, so that your engineers shield your weapons system? That is an uncharacteristically cold-sparked movefrom you, Optimus."

"No!" His voice is almost a growl, with a spectacular ring. "The rescuers are stranded on the platform as well."

"They did their job poorly," Megatron comments, though his spark isn't really in it. His spark is off doing other things, like figuring out how they might destroy the planet defender without killing the engineers, a geologist, and a pilot.

"I-" Optimus pauses. "Do you intend on boarding the platform?"

"It appears very full," says Megatron. "I am not entirely sure how we will manage it, though if you have any ideas, I'm sure our mission team would appreciate them."

"Well," replies Optimus. "I actually do. That is what I am here to discuss."

This catches Megatron's interest. His hours of pondering have left him with no ideas, and he would appreciate a work around. He tells Optimus this, and Optimus sighs.

"If you agree to this, it means you do intend on maintaining our peace," he says. "You haven't simply shot them from the platform, so I am putting my trust in your better judgment here."

Miraculous! Megatron thinks. He had surely lost that before. But the tiredness about Optimus's frame and the worry in his optics leaves Megatron wanting. Clearly it is not a sparring and silicon trust, but a political necessity. 

"What do you have in mind?" he asks.

"Rescue our mechs," says Optimus. "Pull them off their platform, and in return you will have access to the planet defender. You may do what you will with it."

"I had not considered that before." Megatron doesn't need to think it over, but he pretends to do so regardless. "Your mechs will comply?"

"They have been balancing on a tiny platform over a field of rising lava for several days," says Optimus. "They will comply."

"Alright then!" Megatron slaps his knees and stands, hoping that his eagerness is taken for a desire of political expediency, rather than gratefulness. "Perfect. We will destroy the system, your mechs will be rescued, and I will not need to spend weeks in negotiations over your secret weapons system. It will be peace forever. Will you punch me?"

"Well, not if you rescue our mechs," replies Optimus.

"Ah, I will do it regardless," Megatron decides. "How about dinner again?"

Optimus stares at him dumbfounded, with big blinking optics. "Is Ratchet paying you again?"

"He never paid me!" retorts Megatron. "He has no money. None of you have any money. Ultra Magnus is not a functioning banking system."

"He does his best," says Optimus. His voice is calm and his servos are not fists. Megatron groans. "You will save the Autobots and destroy my defense system?" Optimus asks earnestly. "And then you will take me to dinner?" His optics are not pleading, but they are sincere with such force that Megatron feels compelled to fall upon his knee and pledge his service. He doesn't, naturally, because his decisions today are only what is best for his Decepticons and not at all an attempt to regain Optimus's fleeting comradery. That, he hopes, will come only as a nice secondary victory, a cherry on top.

"Yes," Megatron agrees. "That sounds like an ideal compromise. I will order it done." And so Megatron orders it, laying the deal out to Soundwave, who he trusts will investigate the potential for treachery. Looking at Optimus Prime's idiotically blue optics, Megatron cannot imagine there will be. Soundwave replies shortly that scans for additional Autobot vessels have come up empty and that the mission team is in place. By then, Optimus has moved from his chair to pace around Megatron's habsuite, routinely crossing and uncrossing his arms.

"My mecha are deployed," reports Megatron, in an attempt to calm Optimus's clear anxiety. "Let's not go to Beryllium's again."

Optimus glances back to Megatron's table, where the take-out container sits empty of fried silicon. "You went back to Little Iacon?"

"I am partial to their bakery," says Megatron. "Do you intend on rebuilding an Autobot defense system? I am not sure where you will acquire the funds or resources without Decepticon involvement."

Optimus faces him with his servos on his boxy hips. "Do you intend on breaking our peace agreement, conquering Cybertron, and beheading me and my Autobots?"

Megatron shrugs. "I would be a fool to do so. It has been difficult enough building Little Iacon and Beryllium and oil baths and interfactional sparring rooms, I cannot justify tearing them down, killing you, and trying to build them again."

Optimus appears somewhat mollified by the response, though he does resume his pacing. "Beryllium was bartered for," he says. "Was the sparring part of your deal with Ratchet."

"No," admits Megatron easily enough. "Why?"

"But you needed another meeting to determine the location of the weapons system?" Optimus continues.

"Yes."

"And you took me to Beryllium for Ratchet's assistance because you didn't want to frag me?"

Megatron tilts his helm. "What are you on about now?" Optimus continues his pacing, sending only the occasional glance upwards. A curious mech, a proper dolt-brain, Megatron thinks.

"Ratchet said-" Optimus begins, and Megatron realizes he is still stuck on his credit-less medic.

"I took you to Beryllium because I am not shareware," he says, "And if I were, it would be for real money. I took you to Beryllium because it seemed like you could use a nice dinner, and I wanted to discover what and where your remaining weapons were hidden. I had a splendid time. We are going to dinner again once your mechs have been rescued and your planet defender neutralized."

"Okay," agrees Optimus, and if Megatron were more of a fool he might have said that his melancholy, irate nemesis had something of a smile on his lips.

"Do you know what Jazz told me?" Optimus asks. His pacing path becomes more oblong in its return which alters his trajectory so that it might end, Megatron realizes with a jolt, right in front of Megatron's own chair.

"What?"

Optimus walks slowly so that he might change his path on a whim, and Megatron is a fool to be calculating the deviation of his pedes from the invisible curve he follows. Still, his room is not large, and Optimus's path is steady. 

"He said that it wouldn't matter if we had the planet defenders if I did one thing," says Optimus.

Megatron is doing his best to pay attention, but Optimus's approach is distracting to his threat assessment protocols and to his general interest. "If you did what?" he asks, distantly recognizing that his voice has fully revealed his abducted attention.

Optimus stops at his knees, right where he had predicted the path would end. Megatron looks upward, thinking very forcefully that he should keep Optimus's optic contact and not look down, don't look down, and then Optimus declares:

"He said I might solve all our problems if I kissed you." And, with that, Optimus's optics get closer with a startling speed. Despite himself, Megatron glances down at his lips. But not for long, because a moment later those lips are on his. 

Megatron doesn't think very much about anything at all for the few seconds they are connected, except to say to himself that he's likely well and truly gotten himself in it now. He hasn't kissed anyone in several million years, and he certainly couldn't rate Optimus's skill at it, except that it is a light and airy sort of connection not fit for mechs of their stature and power. Still, when Optimus moves in retreat, Megatron pursues.

"Was that the stupidest thing I've done recently?" Optimus whispers, when their lips are only a few fingers' breadths apart.

"No," replies Megatron in an equal, reverent tone. "You did just give away your planet defender. That probably took the title."

Optimus rears back as if struck but, regaining his ground, looks down at Megatron and begins to laugh. A relief filledlittle laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. In perhaps Megatron's most brilliant move of the week, he reaches forward and takes liberties with Optimus's hips, which he uses to drag him forward once more. Optimus leans down and places another chaste kiss on Megatron's lips.

"You are a terrible mech," he tells Megatron. "But you do want this peace, don't you?"

"I agreed to it, didn't I?" Megatron asks. In truth, he hasn't the foggiest notion why Optimus has been so sure he does not. He had signed the peace agreement, of course he wants to maintain peace. On his terms, without the Autobots pointing a gun downwards like a spray bottle to a puppy in training. He tells Optimus this, and Optimus sighs and kisses him once more.

"Partners in peace do not scheme against each other, they argue during council sessions," Optimus tells him.

"I hate council sessions," bemoans Megatron. "Now we will avoid them entirely. Kiss me again?"

And Optimus does.

They are rudely interrupted some few minutes later, when Optimus had comfortably made his way onto Megatron's lap, by the ringing of a comm call. The ringing of two comm calls, actually. Megatron reaches up and presses his, and Optimus does the same. Their mouths break from each other with a disappointing coldness, but then Optimus exhales and Megatron invents that heat into him, and for a brief second there is no buzzing in his audial.

"Optimus!" It is Jazz, his voice excitable. Megatron can hear him from Optimus's comms. Their forehelms are pressed together, and Optimus's audials are bent forward as if to assist Megatron in his eavesdropping. "You won't believe this."

At the same moment Soundwave enters Megatron's own audial. "The Decepticon ship has failed retrieval," he informs him, in a tired monotone. “Two Decepticons are now stranded on Luna 2."