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It’s strange to indulge in domestic mundanity. Dorothy insisted that they make more frequent visits, and Optimus had somehow coerced him to oblige. Merely standing by and giving the occasional encouragement as the little human children and their Terran siblings perform for seemingly no reason at all, Optimus is clearly well within his element to make small talk with everyone with hardly any effort, while Megatron…well.
He can’t say he dislikes the little ones. They’re refreshing, particularly after a hard week of scouting and chasing his former followers, most of which gleefully spit acidic vitriol on his character for what he’s done to end the war. Unlike many of their comrades, Autobot and G.H.O.S.T. alike, the Terrans are completely unguarded around him. Bumblebee, grown as he is, still flinches if Megatron moves too quickly. But the newsparks just hop about his pedes (and flit about his helm, in the case of Twitch) just as they do with Optimus.
Unfortunately, that makes these visits bittersweet. While his thoughts should be present, encouraging to the little ones, maybe training them if they were so inclined, his processor drifts.
Back to war. To pacing around in front of a projection map. To an unreadable visor, giving perfectly analytical comments and advice whenever he asked, and sometimes when he didn’t.
Far too late for that, now.
His wandering reminiscing is snapped away when a vocalizer resets. Megatron blinks and peers down. Bumblebee is- actually, all of the mature individuals are staring at him with some mix of concern and fear. Apparently he went quiet for much longer than he thought. “Oh, my apologies,” Megatron says lightly, easily brushing aside those ugly knotted emotions, “This processor still analyzes data like we’re in the middle of a battlefield.” He taps his helm with a soft chuckle. “Fifteen years of peace is rather insignificant in the face of a four-million-year war.”
“Right,” Bumblebee says uneasily, “I was just talking about how the Terrans have been doing in their training. Twitch and Thrash have done a great job of taking on responsibility as peers, and…” The scout continues talking, but his voice slowly drifts away.
Megatron’s gaze flits to the Terrans. Twitch and Thrash are jumping about together, shifting portions of their frames to perform stunts in root mode that they otherwise couldn’t. As much a unit as a pair. Nightshade babbles about topics as though their function depends on expelling all the information they can accumulate as quickly as possible. Hashtag fills in blanks with constant resource checking, interspersed with theatrical gestures. Jawbreaker watches in silent awe, merely happy to exist among his siblings.
A familiar hand gives the armor of his pede a hearty slap. “Hey, Meg!” Megatron glances down to see Dorothy waving him forward. “Why don’t we go talk in the barn for a minute.”
Megatron arches an optic ridge, glancing between Dorothy and the aforementioned structure. “I won’t fit.”
“Behind the barn, then.”
“That’s hardly any more privacy.”
Dorothy chuckles and gives him a softer pat. “Guess you’ll have to crouch, then. Come on.” With no room for argument, Megatron shakes his helm fondly and follows.
He has to watch his steps very carefully, navigate through the small maze of simple rusted machines and materials the Malto’s keep on the far side of the barn. One of the Terrans – Jawbreaker – gives a shy, polite wave as they pass, and Megatron returns it, and feels a gentle warmth in his spark when the reciprocal gesture makes the little one’s optics brighten.
As expected, when they reach the back of the barn, Megatron can still be seen, quite easily, from the front. He kneels, though, expecting his old partner to have a reason for seeking some manner of privacy.
“What did you wish to speak with me about?”
Before, Dorothy had seemed happy. The reported daily norm when she spends time with her family. But when she turns to face him, her eyes are narrowed, brow pinched, like she’s trying to peel back the metal of his plating to manually sort through his processor, not unlike Shockwave.
She presses her palm to his leg. “Are you okay?” She asks, with such sincerity and care and concern.
“Of course,” Megatron responds automatically, “I’ve not been injured since our joint venture with Mandroid, and the damage has-“
“No.” Dorothy steps forward, and despite the lack of an EM field, Megatron can practically feel her turmoil. “Are you okay?” The emphasis feels poignant, but Megatron can’t parse what the difference would be. Taking his silence for confusion, Dot sighs, rubbing her temple. “You’ve been distant, is all.”
Megatron shrugs and puts on what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “Nothing more than an old warbuild reminiscing.”
Dorothy crosses her arms over her chest and huffs, eyes squeezed shut. “I know how old you are, and I know how long you spent fighting. That doesn’t make me feel better.” She looks up again, expression pinched. It’s difficult to tell whether she’s angry, upset, or both. “If coming here is reminding you of the war, then-“
“No!” Megatron lurches forward, servos coming up as if he could physically stop the words. Dot’s eyes widen, but otherwise she remains in place. Megatron heaves a steadying vent as he leans back and taps his knee joint. “No, coming here to spend time with your family is not distressing to me.”
Not insomuch, anyhow, Megatron thinks. It’s technically not a lie – he enjoys being with the Terrans, speaking with Dorothy and her husband and their little ones, enjoys the domestic leisure of it all. In many ways, it’s the idyllic life that so many of their kind had hoped for at the end of the war, and it is more than a miracle to be able to live it out, even tangentially, even with the burden of gathering up his Decepticons looming whenever he and Optimus arrive.
How would Shockwave have described it? An unfortunate pairing of abstract concepts made by the processor by chance. Something like that. Analytical and cold and not muddied by old, dredged-up emotions.
In his logical, conscious thought, Megatron knows perfectly well that the Terrans are wholly separate from Soundwave and his cassettes. The connection between them is tenuous at best, bizarre, really. But that is how his subconscious views them anyway.
He called Twitch his own particular diminutive nickname he’d given to Laserbeak in the old days. It was automatic – he hadn’t had the time to think about it with the massive abomination threatening their little cohort – and then was surprised when the Terran was gushing over it to her siblings.
Megatron sighs. “I take it you know of Soundwave’s recent capture?”
“I do.”
“That…is relevant. But difficult to articulate.”
Dorothy shrugs, then gestures to the sparse woods stretching out behind the barn. “Let’s go for a walk, then. Might help get the words out.”
Despite the inevitable debris that will certainly invade every vent and open joint, the idea doesn’t seem so terrible. Megatron nods and stands. “Perhaps it will. Let me inform Optimus of our little stroll, first. He has been insufferable since Mandroid’s latest scheme,” He adds with a fond roll of his optics.
Dorothy snorts and nods in agreement. “Well, you’re not the only one with a paranoid husband. I’ll go tell Alex and the kids, too.”
The pair of them quickly relay their plans to their respective families – predictably met with a heavy surge of promises that they’ll return the moment any sign of danger shows itself – and then set off into the woods surrounding the Malto’s home. The trees are spread thin enough that Megatron doesn’t struggle to traverse them much, but he still doesn’t care for rural ground travel.
They’re perhaps ten minutes away from the property, far out of ear- and eyeshot from any prying loved ones, when Dorothy finally speaks up again. “So. You and Optimus caught Soundwave. I’m guessing that was a hard fight.”
Megatron nods silently. Even though he agreed to this, it doesn’t make it any easier to give voice to his thoughts. To think, he used to have a career as an orator. That mech would probably be ashamed of him. “Very. Soundwave is a very capable fighter, even if he typically chooses to avoid combat. My best.”
“Your best what?”
“Well.” He can’t avoid the smile that slowly creeps onto his face. “He was my best several things. Best fighter, best recon officer, best confidant…” The smile falls as quickly as it grew. “My best friend.”
Dot stays quiet for a few beats. Probably expecting an elaboration or something else of the sort. When none comes, she hums quietly. “Weird that you managed to catch him, then,” She says, thinking aloud, giving Megatron time to sort through his own thoughts. “If he doesn’t like getting into a fight, I wonder why he tried taking you and Optimus.”
Megatron sighs, weary. “We had captured his cassettes first, and Soundwave followed shortly after.”
“Cassettes…you’ve mentioned them before.”
“Yes. Minicons that are very dear to him.” He sighs again, dragging his servo down his face. The struggle not to explode with pure rage every time he thinks of the organization he and Optimus are forcibly tied to grows with every passing day. “They just played a little prank on Agent Schloder, took his ID badge and decided to play keep-away with it. Hardly worth our attention.”
Megatron flexes his servos with the sudden surge of energy that flows through his frame. It was harmless. It was so petty. So petty that Starscream might’ve done the same thing.
He glances down, trying to fixate on something, anything distracting. Dorothy is starting to limp. “Dot? Are you alright?”
Her head whips around as if surprised. “Me? I’m fine, Mega. Keep talking.”
“Oh, no, you don’t, come here. I’ll not have you suffering in silence while I air my petty grievances.”
Megatron kneels and offers his servo to her. Dorothy does take it, stepping up and collapsing almost immediately, although she just barely manages to make it look intentional. She rolls her eyes as Megatron straightens back up. “I don’t think imprisoning your best friend is petty, Megatron.”
“And aggravating an injury for the sake of uninterrupted conversation is not fine, Dorothy.”
The two of them share a chuckle, and Megatron resumes walking, holding his servo steady through all the uneven terrain.
She isn’t wrong, a voice sounding suspiciously like Optimus whispers in his processor, You can grieve, even if he isn’t offline. You can hurt, even if you aren’t bleeding. Ridiculous sentiment.
“So, the cassettes just had fun at Agent Schloder’s expense. Lucky guys,” Dorothy adds under her breath.
Megatron huffs a short laugh. “They certainly are. When we caught up with them, though, my mind was…not where it should have been.” Frankly, it still isn’t. But that’s why they’re walking, isn’t it? “My initial reaction was concern. Schloder only informed us of a single cassette, which did not surprise me when I heard of which one it was.”
“Does Soundwave collect them or something?”
“He does have a fair number, for a single mech. Five in total.” Megatron counts them off on his free servo, spark swelling as he recalls Soundwave returning with each of them, to his ever-growing horror at the time. “Ravage, his first, and oldest. She is also the most focused and mature. Laserbeak, a fair bit younger, but also well-behaved. Ratbat, the little slagger. And the twins, Frenzy and Rumble, the youngest and, coincidentally, most troublesome of the bunch.”
Dorothy laughs into her hand, leaning back in Megatron’s palm. “Sounds like quite the full house.”
“It was. And just like Soundwave, they were excellent soldiers, even if they rarely saw true combat.” He does try to ignore the warmth creeping into his voice. It wouldn’t do for anyone to think he still had sympathy for his former followers. How dare he feel anything positive for Decepticons that followed him so faithfully. “Frenzy and Rumble did wonders for keeping Starscream distracted while I was occupied,” Megatron reminisces fondly.
“You liked them too.” Not a question. And not an inaccurate observation either.
“They had a charm to them.” Not admitting that he did actually like the whole lot of them but not eschewing them outright. “I started to worry when we chased after Ravage and found only two of her four siblings.”
“Soundwave didn’t have them?”
“No. Ratbat may simply have been out on a different mission, but seeing Frenzy without her twin…” Scared you, you slagging coward.
Dorothy peers at his face for a long moment. Then her expression smoothes into understanding. “You miss your kids.”
“They weren’t-“
“You miss your best friend and his little minicon kids and the Terrans remind you of them,” Dorothy repeats, knowing smirk on her lips.
And she’s right, damn it all. Peace is easier, in many ways, and yet the price has been so steep. His Decepticons scattered to the winds, frightened and unsure and without a cause. All of his righteous cause, burned to the ground. And yes, Soundwave, their late night talks, discussing battle plans and tactical moves while Ravage and Laserbeak and Ratbat and Frenzy and Rumble clamber across his frame and throughout the room, their confiding in one another, their camaraderie.
Soundwave was not wrong to call him a traitor. Maybe to the cause, but certainly to Soundwave.
Megatron shakes his head violently, glaring at the ground because he can’t go destroy something to blow off steam anymore. “I do,” he admits quietly. “Soundwave hates me for what I’ve done, like many others. And he’s owed his hate. More than any other.”
Dorothy shrugs. “Of course he is. But you’re owed your sadness, you know.”
“Please.”
“Don’t give me that, Meg! You’ve been zoning out all the time for weeks now. Optimus mentioned it to me in a few messages, you do it while you’re fighting and scouting, too.”
Nosy slagger, Megatron thinks, both bitterly and fondly. Optimus is, firstly and foremostly, a meddler, which Megatron loves and hates with equal fervor. Not to mention, if anyone noticed his odd behavior, it would be Dorothy and Optimus, and they would be the first to confront him about it, just like this. Perhaps Optimus has tried and Megatron always assumed it was about something else.
“You’ve changed, Mega,” Dorothy says, stroking the delicate circuitry of his inner wrist, “And trust me, I know what it’s like to lose family because of that. I know how that hurts. But…” Dorothy straightens up a bit, managing to stand on shaky leg and prosthetic in Megatron’s palm to look into his optics more directly. “You have a new family. It’s different, and they’ll never replace Soundwave. But they’re yours just as much as he was.”
Megatron sighs. He should be able to internalize the words better, to believe them better. It’s simply…reality. To refuse reality is the desperate wish of the discontent and philistine dogmatist.
Dorothy sits back down with an ‘oof’ and pats his palm. “I know it doesn’t feel like it yet. It’ll probably hurt for a long time. Might not stop. Shouldn’t keep you from being happy, though.”
Megatron can’t keep himself from smiling. “Wise and capable both, Dorothy. Alex and your children should count themselves among the luckiest creatures in this universe.”
Dorothy smiles and shakes her head. “Why don’t you tell them that when we get back home? Speaking of…” She pulls her phone from her pocket and taps through it for a moment. “We oughta head back. I think we’re about to give everyone a heart attack. Or spark attack,” she adds with a cheeky wink.
“Then I suppose we must make haste!” Megatron turns on his heel and starts to walk back in the opposite direction they’d been walking for so long now, at a brisk walk rather than the slow meander he had maintained. “I don’t think Optimus can suffer a spark attack at his age.”
“Aren’t you older than him?”
Megatron waves his servo in dismissal. “Nonsense. I’m – what do the little ones say? – built differently.”
That has Dorothy cackling half the trip back.
-
Dorothy had not been exaggerating. There is a small search party of their loved ones gathered at the edge of the woods, frantically buzzing with energy as they prepared to invade the countryside. “There they are!” Morgan shouts as Megatron pushes through the treeline, the only one of the group looking towards the woods.
As one, the rest turn in a near-comedic doubletake, and immediately erupt into relieved joy. Megatron sets Dorothy back on the ground, careful to keep her steady until she can lean on Alex’s shoulder. The human children babble to her about how worried they were, how long they had been gone, so on. Most of the Terrans followed suit, adorably herding their human family to the door of the house so she could be cared for.
Dare he say, it’s cute.
Like earlier in the day, he can’t help but think of those rare occasions when Soundwave left his cassettes behind and returned injured, how they would fret over him, sometimes hobbling his pace as he made his way to the med bay. And yet, this left a much warmer feeling in his spark.
Optimus steps closer once the little ones had clustered towards the house, subtly brushing their servos. “So. How was your walk?”
“Pleasant. Enlightening. …Freeing.”
“Is that so? I’m glad to hear it.” Optimus glances to the house – everyone is still focused on Dorothy and her injury – and carefully tugs Megatron into a hug. A public one, one that could be written off as accidental touch.
Pah. To the Pits with publicity.
Megatron throws his arms around Optimus’s chassis and lifts him bodily, nuzzling into his neck. “Ah! M-Megatron, what are-“
“Don’t act like this isn’t what you’d rather do.” The silence that follows is answer enough, as is the ginger reciprocation, with big, strong red plates winding around his own neck and gently squeezing. His spark twists. It dances. It knots. But it feels with the intensity of a revolutionary craving justice.
Megatron lets Optimus return to his pedes just in time for Twitch to zoom over. “Oh! Oh! Uh, sir, mister, sir, uncle Megatron, sir? I haven’t been able to get a hold of Dad Wheeljack again, so I was wondering, if you’re not busy, can you give me flying lessons?!”
Megatron blinks in surprise. “I’m much larger than you, little bird.”
“I know! Buuuuut, our alt modes have the same basic shapes! Nightshade drew it up to show me, see?” The little one zooms away to pluck a datapad from one of her siblings and brings it back, holding it up to show that Nightshade had done exactly that, drawing over diagrams of their respective alt modes and comparing the overall structure of them, which was indeed functionally identical. “So could you show me how to do some really wicked flying maneuvers?” Twitch asks again, bright optics hopeful.
Megatron cross his arms and raises an optic ridge. “That sounds like a terrible idea.” Twitch droops, looking away with shame written across her face. Megatron gives her a nudge on her tiny pede, grinning wildly. “Let’s do it!”
Twitch zips high into the air with a bright and clear exclamation of, “Yippee!”