Chapter Text
“There is this…human custom,” Optimus slowly began from where he lay on the grass. Lounging upright beside him, Megatron scoffed against his cube of Engex.
“‘Valentine’s Day’, as they call it,” he continued, holding his own cube to his chest. “It’s a celebration of love, namely the romantic kind...”
“Surely you did not invite me here just to enthuse about this planet’s primitive inhabitants?” asked Megatron.
A comm from Optimus of all ‘bots was an unusual thing; a vague invitation was even more so. That was, Megatron had learned, precisely the issue with having the Prime as your enemy: despite how insufferably pure yet pitifully futile his intentions tended to be, they were never truly readable.
And Megatron just had to be curious wherever Optimus was concerned. When he so freely admitted to seeking only “friendly discussion” tonight, Megatron obliged without fuss. The wicked part of his processor simply itched to see where this uncharacteristically cryptic meeting would lead.
Which was how he ended up here, beneath the stars, nursing a glass of surprisingly exceptional Engex procured by Optimus himself…
And listening to him open with pointless facts about a species he did not care for.
“Surely you did not accept my invitation without considering the implications of ‘friendly discussion’?” retorted Optimus.
Megatron’s optics rolled. “Humans may be a topic of interest to you, but they are beyond worthy of any recognition to me.” He paid no heed to Optimus’s affronted face in his periphery. Instead, he sighed with false weariness. “No matter…From where did you learn of this occasion?"
Optimus raised a skeptical brow at him but answered nonetheless: “The children. Miko had asked the eldest of the two boys, Jack, how he was to act on his feelings for a girl in his cohort, Sierra…”
Megatron gave a non-committal hum.
“She was very emphatic with her suggestions: gifting sweets, flowers—anything one would typically find romantic. Before mentions of it could even be made, Arcee rejected the idea of a motorcycle ride.”
Another hum, though faintly amused this time.
“Jack ultimately settled with dinner and a movie. If his proposal went well, the two of them should be eating together around this time…” Optimus’s frame creaked softly as he sat up to take a sip from his cube. Pulling his knees to his chest, he watched the liquid sway and then settle.
“All of that to say I…resonated with Jack’s choice,” he expressed quietly. “Quality time is a luxury I can no longer afford. Even when it manages to make room for itself for brief periods of time, I fail to realize it. It slips away. I take it for granted…” He held his drink closer and cast his gaze to the stars once more.
“To me, that is the greatest form of intimacy: to sacrifice privacy for community; to carve space in our lives just for others…”
For a moment, Megatron let the thought linger. He’d always valued material possessions the most. Once upon a time, Megatronus especially enjoyed gifting them, but…but…
But then, like an epiphany, everything came together too perfectly.
The invitation, the setting, the Engex…
“...What are you getting at, Prime?”
Optimus turned to him with equal curiosity, as if he had no idea what he was talking about. His typically stoic face looked so soft now: cheeks tinted, brows relaxed, optics dimmed. Megatron couldn’t recall the last time he'd looked so…at ease.
He wore serenity so beautifully.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Optimus replied.
Megatron scoffed, though not unkindly. “You know better than to attempt deception in front of a Decepticon.” Placing a hand on the ground, he dared to lean a little closer. “Out with it.”
Optimus pulled back marginally. “Megatron,” he warned, though it was more of a bait than a threat; he wanted to hear what the warlord had so proudly gathered.
“Oh please,” Megatron drawled. “You shared with me coordinates to this scenic location,” he raised his cube, “and offered me Engex of the highest quality. Then you proceeded to wax poignantly about there being no greater intimacy than ‘quality time’.” He lolled his helm to the side with a smirk that was nothing short of flirtatious.
“Am I right to assume that you’re hoping for more than just ‘friendly discussion’ tonight?”
“These gestures,” Optimus quickly argued, “are not exclusive to romance. They can be performed between friends as much as they are between lov—”
“Are we friends?”
A genuine, irritated sigh escaped him. “You do not see me the way I see you.”
Megatron chuckled, suddenly derisive. “Who are you to tell me that?”
“I welcome you to prove me wrong, then.”
“Oh by all means, Matrix-bearer, do elaborate. I certainly don’t understand myself as well as The Seven and Primus himself do—”
“You do not yearn for me. You yearn for Orion.”
Sharp words died slowly on a dulled tongue. Megatron went rigid and stared owlishly at him, as if the Dark Energon within had taken hold.
Optimus’s tone only climbed from there.
“Though you do not speak it, you act it—act as if ‘Orion’ and ‘Optimus’ are not the same; as if a Prime had replaced him; as if I had terminated him—”
He held his drink tight then, too tight. A small crack formed where his fingers squeezed.
“Yet here he sits before you, drinking with you, speaking to you. Indeed I no longer bear that name, nor do I look and behave the same, but my spark—it has never changed. In the way that I debate reason, bury myself in a data pad or two, struggle for peace, I’ve never truly stopped being Orion. He lives on in me as Megatronus does in you…”
His voice gradually softened with fatigue. He wasn’t sure if he was making any sense, if that was the fault of his anger or the Engex.
Or if Megatron was even listening.
But, despite the violent hammering within his chest, he willed himself to be upfront.
“I desire you,” he confessed, tired, defeated, broken. “I desire you, ache for you as much as I ache for an end to this war, which puzzles me because you are the antithesis of everything I uphold…” He hugged his knees and lowered his head in shame. “...But as much as these feelings should have stayed with Orion, they did not…and I tire of hiding them...”
For once in forever, Megatron struggled to find words. He didn’t think it was wise to speak at all right now.
What was he to even say when the spark he’d spent eons of peace and war with wept for him so openly, so delicately, so deeply? Longed for him even now, when they’d both become someone neither of them recognized; mere echoes of voices long passed?
But then his own spark answered for him.
“Then do not hide,” he said, leaning closer. “Do not hide from me.”
Optimus drew in a sharp breath at that, optics lit with disbelief. “You…You do not want that…”
“I do—”
“Then tell me,” Optimus begged softly, “Tell me that you want this—that you want me.”
“I want nothing more,” Megatron breathed with all the desperation he could mirror, “I want to touch you, feel you, hold you; to renew my memory of your body, your warmth, your spark; to try adoring you as I once did before. Let me accompany you for a while longer, just for tonight?”
Oh how Optimus’s spark throbbed with pain, how he ached to ask, “Why only tonight?”
But he knew he couldn’t be greedy—didn’t deserve to be greedy. So, with one last savory swig of Engex, he set his empty glass aside and looked into earnest red optics.
“For tonight.”
And then those distantly-familiar lips were on his, kissing him slow and deep.