Chapter Text
In the shared office aboard the Lost Light, Rodimus lounged at his desk, drumming his fingers in a restless rhythm. He had skimmed every report, ignored a handful of messages, and was now thoroughly and irrevocably bored. His gaze slid across the room to where Megatron sat, engrossed in his own work. The ex-tyrant was tapping away at a datapad with an intensity that Rodimus couldn’t ignore.
Curiosity winning over, Rodimus pushed himself up and strolled over. “What’s got you so focused over there, Megs?”
Megatron didn’t immediately respond, only paused his typing and glanced up. “If you must know,” he said after a moment, “I’m writing.”
“Oh, yeah? Writing what?” Rodimus leaned in, expecting something dry or technical.
“A poem.”
Rodimus blinked. “A poem? Really?”
“Yes, Rodimus,” Megatron replied, a bit defensive. “It’s… therapeutic. Something I’ve found meaningful.” There was an edge of vulnerability in his tone that Rodimus wasn’t used to hearing.
Trying not to look too interested, Rodimus shrugged. “Alright, fine. What’s it about?”
Megatron hesitated, then, as if making up his mind, said, “Would you like to hear it?”
Rodimus found himself nodding, though he didn’t know why. He didn’t exactly get poetry—it was just a lot of flowery words with not much happening in them. But Megatron’s words had a pull, a weight he couldn’t resist.
Megatron’s optics softened as he began to read:
“Beyond the stars, where silence reigns,
I search for purpose, free from chains.
A spark adrift, yet bound to flame,
Haunted by a nameless name.”
As he continued, his voice took on a warmth that Rodimus rarely heard. The lines were careful, precise, almost tender. There was a longing threaded into the verses that Rodimus hadn’t expected, something vulnerable and honest, even romantic.
Rodimus found himself caught, listening to each line, each word, feeling something strange swell in his spark. It reminded him of those feelings he tried to bury, the ones he adamantly denied whenever they threatened to bubble up. You don’t like him like that, he told himself. No way.
Megatron finished, looking at him expectantly.
Rodimus quickly looked away, arms crossed, trying to hide the faint glow in his optics. “Poetry sucks,” he muttered, trying to brush off the effect Megatron’s words had on him. He turned on his heel and strode back to his desk, heart pounding.
Behind him, Megatron watched, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. He had seen the glimmer in Rodimus’s optics, brief as it was.