[Bay] Indomitable Part Three
Apr. 19th, 2018 06:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dracoqueen22Title: Indomitable
Universe: Bayverse, Interwoven
Characters: Megatron, Ratchet
Pairings: past Megatron/Sunstreaker, past Ratchet/Ironhide
Rating: K+
Warnings: None so far
Description: For Megatron, grief is an ever-shifting presence, first in the echoes of loss, and then in the ebb and flow of healing. And as it turns out, no one understands this better than Ratchet.
Indomitable – Part Three
As happy as Megatron is for his brother, he can’t help the tangled envy and spite.
It had been painful to stand there as Optimus pledged his spark to another, a mech he truly loved, like he hadn’t Megatron. It had been agonizing knowing he would never have that for himself. His own love is gone, lost to the war, ages upon ages ago.
That agony is what draws Megatron away from the after-bond celebration. He stays as long as politics demand, and then he makes his excuses, in no mood to spend the night drinking and reveling, politely engaging in small-talk while everyone pretends to tolerate his presence.
He feels Optimus’ gaze on him as he goes, but fortunately, his brother is then distracted by his new mate, and all that remains is the weight of the look. Half-warning, half-sympathy, all pity. Megatron wants none of it.
He escapes into the dark night, all quiet and still the further he gets from the celebration hall. Work has paused for the entirety of the ceremony, to allow everyone to attend the festivities. Their limited population makes such a stipulation possible.
Megatron doesn’t have a destination in mind when he sets off, but his feet carry him to the mausoleum. To the one place in all of Cybertron he can see his beloved, who would have stood beside him tonight, if not for the vagaries of fate.
It’s not fair, he finds himself thinking, like a new hatchling yet to understand the world. If not for Sideswipe, Sunstreaker could have lived. If Sideswipe had loved his twin just an ounce more, he would have stayed his hand. They could have fought, endlessly, neither gaining ground, until the war came to an end, leaving both of them alive.
It is not logical to blame Sideswipe. Yet, Megatron persists. Sideswipe had struck the final blow, but the war had been Megatron’s from the start. Tracing the cause to the root of it means Megatron should only blame himself.
Such thoughts cause a pang of agony to ripple through his spark.
The mausoleum is dim and empty. Most of the lights have been shut down for the evening, leaving only emergency runners and the occasional showcase. It makes for awkward shadows and pools of light, the quiet hum of a cooling system the only noise to break the silence.
Megatron walks down the central hall, passing row after row of shelves and drawers, their nameplates glinting in the showcase lights, some bigger than others. Some don’t even open, are only present because all that remains is a designation.
Every day, they add new names. Every day, someone lost is remembered. Every day, Megatron is reminded of the destruction he’s wrought.
Soon they’ll have to build another wing – the third – to hold all of the grief, the sparks lost, the lives destroyed. There are already plans in place to start another floor underground, and add another floor above. Megatron knows, deep in the core of his guilty spark, that such additions still won’t be enough.
There is so much energon on his hands.
He finds Sunstreaker’s plaque with ease. Like so many others, it stands empty, little more than a nameplate against a metal setting. The drawer behind it is slim, holding the few precious memories Megatron was able to surrender. But not the piece of Sunstreaker’s spark chamber, nestled so warmly against his own.
Megatron shudders, his spark squeezing into a tight ball at the carefully engraved glyphs depicting Sunstreaker’s designation. It holds only the date he died, because Megatron never knew his spark date. It speaks nothing of his relationship to Megatron, but that is a precious, precious detail he doesn’t wish to share.
He doesn’t need some mech with a grudge to ruin Sunstreaker’s memory out of vengeance alone.
The silence wraps around him.
Megatron stands before Sunstreaker’s plaque and feels his spark shrink smaller and smaller. His hand trembles as he rests his fingertips over Sunstreaker’s glyphs. He ex-vents, in and out, feels it rattle out of him.
His optics shutter. He tips forward, resting his head against the plaque, glad that he had thought to put Sunstreaker’s name at level height.
It hurts.
After so long, the pain should have dulled to an ache, but this night, it feels as raw as the moment he found Sunstreaker’s battered frame on the battlefield. When he’d knelt in the spilled energon and grime, scooping his beloved’s frame into his arms. Sunstreaker had felt so light, so limp, smaller than Megatron remembered him being.
He hadn’t known how much he loved Sunstreaker until that moment. He’d mourned the emotion he’d never been able to speak.
The grief now is as raw as it had been then. It feels fresh, all over again. Optimus is making a new life with a mech he truly loves, and once more, Megatron is alone. Abandoned. Left with nothing.
We will be free, Sunstreaker had whispered to him, moaned to him, murmured over him, hands stroking Megatron’s head as they curled together.
Only, Sunstreaker is the one free and here Megatron remains, chained by his responsibilities, by his burdens, by a grief that won’t leave him be.
He’s alone, inside and out, left behind by the only one who could have understood.
Megatron works his intake and forces himself to draw back. He brushes his fingers over Sunstreaker’s glyph in a soft farewell – he’ll return he always does – and then he makes himself turn away. He cannot spend the night here. He cannot wallow in his grief. The burdens of leadership are still his to bear.
He must take his punishment as is due.
The quiet wraps around him like a cloak. Megatron’s spark is heavy as he makes his way toward the exit.
His audials catch a whisper of sound, and Megatron pauses mid-step. He dials his sensors up higher, picking up what is certainly a voice. Laughter.
Who else would be here on a night of celebration?
Curiosity compels him. He follows the echoes of the voice, words clarifying out of the murmur, until he recognizes both their owner and the recipient of the conversation.
“--so proud of him, ‘Hide. Don’t think I’ve ever seen him so happy.”
Megatron pauses, in the shadows of a shelf, and peers down one of the aisles, already knowing what he’ll find. It still doesn’t prepare him for the sight of Ratchet sitting on the floor in front of the plaque bearing his mate’s designation – Ironhide’s plaque a bit larger than the others as he had more remains to claim.
He was also a war hero. Like Jazz. Like Shockwave and Soundwave. Equal Autobot and Decepticon heroes. That had been Megatron’s stipulation as he constructed this mausoleum. There are two sides to every war, no matter the victor, no matter the villain. Each side convinced they are in the right.
Starscream and the rest of Megatron’s command team are no less heroes for being Decepticons. They died for what they believed in. They are due their just recognition.
“I missed you tonight,” Ratchet continues, voice soft and somber. There’s a flagon in front of him, a cube in his hands, the bright glow suggesting high grade or a potent engex. “I missed you grumbling about the noise, the colors. I missed you teasing me onto the dance floor and me ending up with bruised feet. I missed… you.”
Ratchet sighs, and Megatron’s spark clenches in sympathy. He knows the tune of that sigh. He knows the grief of it. He feels it himself tonight.
“You should have been here,” Ratchet says and takes a sip of his energon, optics half-shuttered and downcast, his armor clamped tight. “I wish you were.”
This is quite clearly a private conversation. Megatron chastises himself for eavesdropping. He takes a quiet step backward, intending to slip into the dark and make his way from the mausoleum.
“I can feel you lurking, Megatron. Might as well come out.”
Caught, Megatron debates for a moment. Feign ignorance or admit spying. Better one than the other. He steps out from behind the shelf.
“I apologize.” He dips his head, lowering his gaze in a show of remorse. “I came here for my own memories and accidentally overheard.”
“Only we would choose grief over celebration, eh?” Ratchet chuckles, dry and humorless. He lifts a hand, beckoning. “Care to join me?”
Megatron’s gaze flicks to Ironhide’s plaque. “I do not want to intrude on a private moment.” Any more than he already has at any rate.
“It’s fine.” Ratchet waves off his protest. “He’s always known the important things. The rest is just companionship.” He takes a long sip of his energon and then pours more into his cube. “Come on. Sit.”
Megatron obeys, lowering himself down next to the medic, wincing as his hydraulics hiss, and his cables creak, and his frame groans. He’s as well-maintained as his frame can be, but the weight of war is a heavy burden.
“I envy you,” Megatron says as Ratchet pulls another cube from nowhere and hands it to Megatron, but not before liberally splashing some energon into it.
Megatron gives it a sniff. Engex, and potent at that. The sort that burns down your intake, into your tanks, and settles there, simmering.
“Is that so?” Ratchet sets the decanter back on the floor in front of him, the liquid sloshing around inside. “Can’t imagine why.”
Megatron stares into his cube, admiring the speckling sparkle of some kind of additive. “I can’t speak to Sunstreaker. Words are difficult. Even now, I’m afraid he never knew how much he meant to me.” He sips the engex and shivers as it indeed sears down his intake.
Ratchet makes a noncommittal noise before replying, “He knew.” He takes a long drink of his engex. “Sunny never understood words anyway. Actions made a lot more sense to him.”
“You knew him well?”
“Hide and I… we looked after the twins for a bit.” Ratchet sighs, his gaze dropping to his engex, which he swishes around the inside of the cube. “Before the war, before they went their separate ways.”
Megatron shifts his weight to get more comfortable, though the harsh metal floor remains unyielding. “Do you know what happened between them?”
“No. Sideswipe wouldn’t tell me.”
“Neither would Sunstreaker.”
Ratchet shrugs. “Some secrets are meant to be kept I suppose.”
“Mm.” Megatron agrees.
It is sometimes difficult to put such things into words. The chasm that built between he and Optimus, is a multi-layered thing. There is no one cause to define it, but multiple failings on both of their parts. They had always been an ill-fitting bond.
Megatron consumes more of the engex, enjoying the burn, the flavor of it. Like memories of a time forgotten. It’s an old recipe, Primus only knows how Ratchet came across it. It doesn’t taste aged, but freshly mixed. Perhaps purchased from one of the newly opened bars then.
It is a pauper’s drink, as the Senate would say. Cheap but quick to burn, with a flavor that doesn’t linger, and masks the overall dull charge. One cube is not enough to intoxicate, not for a mech of Megatron’s size, but it is enough to eat the grief until it is tolerable.
“… I envy them,” Megatron finally admits, as the silence wraps around him, and Ratchet silently refills his cube.
Perhaps he intends to finish off the decanter tonight. Megatron cannot think of a reason why that would be a bad thing. They’ve shared many a flagon of energon between them over the past several months. Granted it’s been mid-grade but still…
“I know,” Ratchet says, equally quiet, his field flowing over Megatron’s with a wealth of understanding. “But maybe there’s some luck out there for you.”
“Luck,” Megatron echoes with a snort. “Right.” He holds his cube out, and Ratchet knocks the two together – a cheer. “I’m lucky to be alive.”
Ratchet’s grin is wry. “Aren’t we all?” Sorrow glimmers in his optics, and the rest of his expression is hidden behind his cube.
Megatron squirms, guilt his discomfort. There is not much he can offer to assuage Ratchet’s many losses but perhaps a small hope is better than none.
“About your creations...” Megatron begins, only to hesitate. Is it better if he doesn’t speak?
But then, looking at the light in Ratchet’s optics, the way he perks at the mere mention of the younglings he and Ironhide had sponsored, Megatron receives his answer.
“Hm?”
Megatron cycles a ventilation. “For what it’s worth, I never received notice of a confirmed kill. There is a high possibility they are still out there somewhere. It could only be a matter of time before they pick up the transmission.”
“Hah. You should hope not.” Ratchet smirks behind his cube, tension bleeding out of his frame, replaced with amusement. “They aren’t too fond of you.”
Megatron snorts. “Few are.”
“Well, you’ve at least got one sitting next to you,” Ratchet drawls and lifts the decanter of high grade, giving it a waggle. “So you better help me finish this whole bottle.”
Megatron blinks. A flush spreads over his protoform, heating his facial armor. He stares at Ratchet, the words echoing in his audials. It’s been a long time since anyone has wanted to claim Megatron as a friend, and certainly not an Autobot.
“I… yes, of course.” Megatron holds out his cube, though it’s only half-empty, for lack of a better response. “It is a day of celebration after all.”
“That it is.” Ratchet grins and salutes him with the cube. “Drink up.”
Their cubes knock together without spilling a drop. Ratchet’s easygoing field is infectious, and the welcome in it all too easy to embrace. Megatron relaxes, as he hasn’t in centuries, shoulder to shoulder with his brother’s chief medic, in front of the grave of his former general.
Later, after they’ve finished the bottle of engex and the small flask of high grade Ratchet summoned from somewhere mysterious, Megatron walks Ratchet back to his habsuite. He’s not sure, however, who’s truly walking whom. Or propping up whom. They list together, a pair of ships bobbing on an uncertain tide.
Ratchet giggles. It is not a sound Megatron has ever heard from the stern medic before. Yet, he finds it enchanting.
The world is a fuzzy, warm place, full of acceptance, the likes of which he believed he’d never experience again. They arrive at Ratchet’s hab, and Ratchet has a hand hooked on Megatron’s arm, and he invites Megatron inside.
There are dozens of reasons he should decline.
But Megatron doesn’t want to be alone. Grief and envy riot inside of him, and the raw ache of both make him hesitate. There is acceptance in Ratchet’s field. Honesty, too. Trust, even more weightier, and hunger. For the same as Megatron, he thinks. That painful desire to ease loneliness. The realization that there are few who understand how long and loud loss can echo.
Megatron knows that he should shake his head. He should politely decline and return to the cold, barren, sterility of his own quarters, large and fit for a Lord High Protector.
Instead, he accepts.
No cables cross, but their fields intertwine, warm and with an echo of familiarity, of trust. Ratchet’s berth is too small for two, especially when one of them is Megatron’s size, and it’s a bit dusty besides. They manage to fit, two soldiers in a foxhole.
Ratchet snores in his recharge, vents snuffling and flapping, like a mech who hasn’t seen to his own maintenance in centuries. It occurs to Megatron that while Ratchet is skilled at bullying others into getting the proper medical care, there is no one around to ensure Ratchet sees to his own. Megatron makes a mental note to do so. Surely Ambulon is more than capable of tending to Ratchet’s dirty filters and creaky joints.
Their fields mesh and tangle. Megatron can count Ratchet’s very ventilations. He thinks, if he focuses, he can even measure the beat of Ratchet’s spark. It is surprisingly comfortable, soothing even, despite being crammed into a space far too small.
He wants to blame this on a moment of whimsy, but Megatron knows very well what it is. There are few mechs who can stand his presence without flinching or with barely concealed loathing. There are even fewer who can match Megatron in wit and strength.
He wonders if he started falling for Ratchet long ago, or if it’s a new thing. And then the tug of recharge pulls too strongly, more than it has in years, and Megatron tumbles into it, wrapped in warmth and content.
He later onlines beneath a frame that matches him in mass though not height, the snuffling ventilations puffing over his armor. Still snoring, Ratchet is. A six-fingered hand is hooked on a gap in his chest plating as though ensuring Megatron cannot leave without waking his berthmate. Megatron's own hand has found its way to lay possessively over a yellow-plated aft.
He wonders if he can convince Ratchet into a repaint.
And then he wonders how much of a bad idea this could be.
He can already hear the protests. The accusations. Best, he thinks, to keep this platonic. Two friends comforting one another, two friends who share a similar grief.
Two friends.
Friendship is something Megatron thought he’d never have again, much less anything further. Friendship is more than enough, is more than he deserves. He daren’t ask for more.
He lays there in silence, waiting for Ratchet to waken, unwilling to disturb the medic who quite clearly needs all the rest he can muster.
This is enough, Megatron thinks. It can be enough.
***
Universe: Bayverse, Interwoven
Characters: Megatron, Ratchet
Pairings: past Megatron/Sunstreaker, past Ratchet/Ironhide
Rating: K+
Warnings: None so far
Description: For Megatron, grief is an ever-shifting presence, first in the echoes of loss, and then in the ebb and flow of healing. And as it turns out, no one understands this better than Ratchet.
As happy as Megatron is for his brother, he can’t help the tangled envy and spite.
It had been painful to stand there as Optimus pledged his spark to another, a mech he truly loved, like he hadn’t Megatron. It had been agonizing knowing he would never have that for himself. His own love is gone, lost to the war, ages upon ages ago.
That agony is what draws Megatron away from the after-bond celebration. He stays as long as politics demand, and then he makes his excuses, in no mood to spend the night drinking and reveling, politely engaging in small-talk while everyone pretends to tolerate his presence.
He feels Optimus’ gaze on him as he goes, but fortunately, his brother is then distracted by his new mate, and all that remains is the weight of the look. Half-warning, half-sympathy, all pity. Megatron wants none of it.
He escapes into the dark night, all quiet and still the further he gets from the celebration hall. Work has paused for the entirety of the ceremony, to allow everyone to attend the festivities. Their limited population makes such a stipulation possible.
Megatron doesn’t have a destination in mind when he sets off, but his feet carry him to the mausoleum. To the one place in all of Cybertron he can see his beloved, who would have stood beside him tonight, if not for the vagaries of fate.
It’s not fair, he finds himself thinking, like a new hatchling yet to understand the world. If not for Sideswipe, Sunstreaker could have lived. If Sideswipe had loved his twin just an ounce more, he would have stayed his hand. They could have fought, endlessly, neither gaining ground, until the war came to an end, leaving both of them alive.
It is not logical to blame Sideswipe. Yet, Megatron persists. Sideswipe had struck the final blow, but the war had been Megatron’s from the start. Tracing the cause to the root of it means Megatron should only blame himself.
Such thoughts cause a pang of agony to ripple through his spark.
The mausoleum is dim and empty. Most of the lights have been shut down for the evening, leaving only emergency runners and the occasional showcase. It makes for awkward shadows and pools of light, the quiet hum of a cooling system the only noise to break the silence.
Megatron walks down the central hall, passing row after row of shelves and drawers, their nameplates glinting in the showcase lights, some bigger than others. Some don’t even open, are only present because all that remains is a designation.
Every day, they add new names. Every day, someone lost is remembered. Every day, Megatron is reminded of the destruction he’s wrought.
Soon they’ll have to build another wing – the third – to hold all of the grief, the sparks lost, the lives destroyed. There are already plans in place to start another floor underground, and add another floor above. Megatron knows, deep in the core of his guilty spark, that such additions still won’t be enough.
There is so much energon on his hands.
He finds Sunstreaker’s plaque with ease. Like so many others, it stands empty, little more than a nameplate against a metal setting. The drawer behind it is slim, holding the few precious memories Megatron was able to surrender. But not the piece of Sunstreaker’s spark chamber, nestled so warmly against his own.
Megatron shudders, his spark squeezing into a tight ball at the carefully engraved glyphs depicting Sunstreaker’s designation. It holds only the date he died, because Megatron never knew his spark date. It speaks nothing of his relationship to Megatron, but that is a precious, precious detail he doesn’t wish to share.
He doesn’t need some mech with a grudge to ruin Sunstreaker’s memory out of vengeance alone.
The silence wraps around him.
Megatron stands before Sunstreaker’s plaque and feels his spark shrink smaller and smaller. His hand trembles as he rests his fingertips over Sunstreaker’s glyphs. He ex-vents, in and out, feels it rattle out of him.
His optics shutter. He tips forward, resting his head against the plaque, glad that he had thought to put Sunstreaker’s name at level height.
It hurts.
After so long, the pain should have dulled to an ache, but this night, it feels as raw as the moment he found Sunstreaker’s battered frame on the battlefield. When he’d knelt in the spilled energon and grime, scooping his beloved’s frame into his arms. Sunstreaker had felt so light, so limp, smaller than Megatron remembered him being.
He hadn’t known how much he loved Sunstreaker until that moment. He’d mourned the emotion he’d never been able to speak.
The grief now is as raw as it had been then. It feels fresh, all over again. Optimus is making a new life with a mech he truly loves, and once more, Megatron is alone. Abandoned. Left with nothing.
We will be free, Sunstreaker had whispered to him, moaned to him, murmured over him, hands stroking Megatron’s head as they curled together.
Only, Sunstreaker is the one free and here Megatron remains, chained by his responsibilities, by his burdens, by a grief that won’t leave him be.
He’s alone, inside and out, left behind by the only one who could have understood.
Megatron works his intake and forces himself to draw back. He brushes his fingers over Sunstreaker’s glyph in a soft farewell – he’ll return he always does – and then he makes himself turn away. He cannot spend the night here. He cannot wallow in his grief. The burdens of leadership are still his to bear.
He must take his punishment as is due.
The quiet wraps around him like a cloak. Megatron’s spark is heavy as he makes his way toward the exit.
His audials catch a whisper of sound, and Megatron pauses mid-step. He dials his sensors up higher, picking up what is certainly a voice. Laughter.
Who else would be here on a night of celebration?
Curiosity compels him. He follows the echoes of the voice, words clarifying out of the murmur, until he recognizes both their owner and the recipient of the conversation.
“--so proud of him, ‘Hide. Don’t think I’ve ever seen him so happy.”
Megatron pauses, in the shadows of a shelf, and peers down one of the aisles, already knowing what he’ll find. It still doesn’t prepare him for the sight of Ratchet sitting on the floor in front of the plaque bearing his mate’s designation – Ironhide’s plaque a bit larger than the others as he had more remains to claim.
He was also a war hero. Like Jazz. Like Shockwave and Soundwave. Equal Autobot and Decepticon heroes. That had been Megatron’s stipulation as he constructed this mausoleum. There are two sides to every war, no matter the victor, no matter the villain. Each side convinced they are in the right.
Starscream and the rest of Megatron’s command team are no less heroes for being Decepticons. They died for what they believed in. They are due their just recognition.
“I missed you tonight,” Ratchet continues, voice soft and somber. There’s a flagon in front of him, a cube in his hands, the bright glow suggesting high grade or a potent engex. “I missed you grumbling about the noise, the colors. I missed you teasing me onto the dance floor and me ending up with bruised feet. I missed… you.”
Ratchet sighs, and Megatron’s spark clenches in sympathy. He knows the tune of that sigh. He knows the grief of it. He feels it himself tonight.
“You should have been here,” Ratchet says and takes a sip of his energon, optics half-shuttered and downcast, his armor clamped tight. “I wish you were.”
This is quite clearly a private conversation. Megatron chastises himself for eavesdropping. He takes a quiet step backward, intending to slip into the dark and make his way from the mausoleum.
“I can feel you lurking, Megatron. Might as well come out.”
Caught, Megatron debates for a moment. Feign ignorance or admit spying. Better one than the other. He steps out from behind the shelf.
“I apologize.” He dips his head, lowering his gaze in a show of remorse. “I came here for my own memories and accidentally overheard.”
“Only we would choose grief over celebration, eh?” Ratchet chuckles, dry and humorless. He lifts a hand, beckoning. “Care to join me?”
Megatron’s gaze flicks to Ironhide’s plaque. “I do not want to intrude on a private moment.” Any more than he already has at any rate.
“It’s fine.” Ratchet waves off his protest. “He’s always known the important things. The rest is just companionship.” He takes a long sip of his energon and then pours more into his cube. “Come on. Sit.”
Megatron obeys, lowering himself down next to the medic, wincing as his hydraulics hiss, and his cables creak, and his frame groans. He’s as well-maintained as his frame can be, but the weight of war is a heavy burden.
“I envy you,” Megatron says as Ratchet pulls another cube from nowhere and hands it to Megatron, but not before liberally splashing some energon into it.
Megatron gives it a sniff. Engex, and potent at that. The sort that burns down your intake, into your tanks, and settles there, simmering.
“Is that so?” Ratchet sets the decanter back on the floor in front of him, the liquid sloshing around inside. “Can’t imagine why.”
Megatron stares into his cube, admiring the speckling sparkle of some kind of additive. “I can’t speak to Sunstreaker. Words are difficult. Even now, I’m afraid he never knew how much he meant to me.” He sips the engex and shivers as it indeed sears down his intake.
Ratchet makes a noncommittal noise before replying, “He knew.” He takes a long drink of his engex. “Sunny never understood words anyway. Actions made a lot more sense to him.”
“You knew him well?”
“Hide and I… we looked after the twins for a bit.” Ratchet sighs, his gaze dropping to his engex, which he swishes around the inside of the cube. “Before the war, before they went their separate ways.”
Megatron shifts his weight to get more comfortable, though the harsh metal floor remains unyielding. “Do you know what happened between them?”
“No. Sideswipe wouldn’t tell me.”
“Neither would Sunstreaker.”
Ratchet shrugs. “Some secrets are meant to be kept I suppose.”
“Mm.” Megatron agrees.
It is sometimes difficult to put such things into words. The chasm that built between he and Optimus, is a multi-layered thing. There is no one cause to define it, but multiple failings on both of their parts. They had always been an ill-fitting bond.
Megatron consumes more of the engex, enjoying the burn, the flavor of it. Like memories of a time forgotten. It’s an old recipe, Primus only knows how Ratchet came across it. It doesn’t taste aged, but freshly mixed. Perhaps purchased from one of the newly opened bars then.
It is a pauper’s drink, as the Senate would say. Cheap but quick to burn, with a flavor that doesn’t linger, and masks the overall dull charge. One cube is not enough to intoxicate, not for a mech of Megatron’s size, but it is enough to eat the grief until it is tolerable.
“… I envy them,” Megatron finally admits, as the silence wraps around him, and Ratchet silently refills his cube.
Perhaps he intends to finish off the decanter tonight. Megatron cannot think of a reason why that would be a bad thing. They’ve shared many a flagon of energon between them over the past several months. Granted it’s been mid-grade but still…
“I know,” Ratchet says, equally quiet, his field flowing over Megatron’s with a wealth of understanding. “But maybe there’s some luck out there for you.”
“Luck,” Megatron echoes with a snort. “Right.” He holds his cube out, and Ratchet knocks the two together – a cheer. “I’m lucky to be alive.”
Ratchet’s grin is wry. “Aren’t we all?” Sorrow glimmers in his optics, and the rest of his expression is hidden behind his cube.
Megatron squirms, guilt his discomfort. There is not much he can offer to assuage Ratchet’s many losses but perhaps a small hope is better than none.
“About your creations...” Megatron begins, only to hesitate. Is it better if he doesn’t speak?
But then, looking at the light in Ratchet’s optics, the way he perks at the mere mention of the younglings he and Ironhide had sponsored, Megatron receives his answer.
“Hm?”
Megatron cycles a ventilation. “For what it’s worth, I never received notice of a confirmed kill. There is a high possibility they are still out there somewhere. It could only be a matter of time before they pick up the transmission.”
“Hah. You should hope not.” Ratchet smirks behind his cube, tension bleeding out of his frame, replaced with amusement. “They aren’t too fond of you.”
Megatron snorts. “Few are.”
“Well, you’ve at least got one sitting next to you,” Ratchet drawls and lifts the decanter of high grade, giving it a waggle. “So you better help me finish this whole bottle.”
Megatron blinks. A flush spreads over his protoform, heating his facial armor. He stares at Ratchet, the words echoing in his audials. It’s been a long time since anyone has wanted to claim Megatron as a friend, and certainly not an Autobot.
“I… yes, of course.” Megatron holds out his cube, though it’s only half-empty, for lack of a better response. “It is a day of celebration after all.”
“That it is.” Ratchet grins and salutes him with the cube. “Drink up.”
Their cubes knock together without spilling a drop. Ratchet’s easygoing field is infectious, and the welcome in it all too easy to embrace. Megatron relaxes, as he hasn’t in centuries, shoulder to shoulder with his brother’s chief medic, in front of the grave of his former general.
Later, after they’ve finished the bottle of engex and the small flask of high grade Ratchet summoned from somewhere mysterious, Megatron walks Ratchet back to his habsuite. He’s not sure, however, who’s truly walking whom. Or propping up whom. They list together, a pair of ships bobbing on an uncertain tide.
Ratchet giggles. It is not a sound Megatron has ever heard from the stern medic before. Yet, he finds it enchanting.
The world is a fuzzy, warm place, full of acceptance, the likes of which he believed he’d never experience again. They arrive at Ratchet’s hab, and Ratchet has a hand hooked on Megatron’s arm, and he invites Megatron inside.
There are dozens of reasons he should decline.
But Megatron doesn’t want to be alone. Grief and envy riot inside of him, and the raw ache of both make him hesitate. There is acceptance in Ratchet’s field. Honesty, too. Trust, even more weightier, and hunger. For the same as Megatron, he thinks. That painful desire to ease loneliness. The realization that there are few who understand how long and loud loss can echo.
Megatron knows that he should shake his head. He should politely decline and return to the cold, barren, sterility of his own quarters, large and fit for a Lord High Protector.
Instead, he accepts.
No cables cross, but their fields intertwine, warm and with an echo of familiarity, of trust. Ratchet’s berth is too small for two, especially when one of them is Megatron’s size, and it’s a bit dusty besides. They manage to fit, two soldiers in a foxhole.
Ratchet snores in his recharge, vents snuffling and flapping, like a mech who hasn’t seen to his own maintenance in centuries. It occurs to Megatron that while Ratchet is skilled at bullying others into getting the proper medical care, there is no one around to ensure Ratchet sees to his own. Megatron makes a mental note to do so. Surely Ambulon is more than capable of tending to Ratchet’s dirty filters and creaky joints.
Their fields mesh and tangle. Megatron can count Ratchet’s very ventilations. He thinks, if he focuses, he can even measure the beat of Ratchet’s spark. It is surprisingly comfortable, soothing even, despite being crammed into a space far too small.
He wants to blame this on a moment of whimsy, but Megatron knows very well what it is. There are few mechs who can stand his presence without flinching or with barely concealed loathing. There are even fewer who can match Megatron in wit and strength.
He wonders if he started falling for Ratchet long ago, or if it’s a new thing. And then the tug of recharge pulls too strongly, more than it has in years, and Megatron tumbles into it, wrapped in warmth and content.
He later onlines beneath a frame that matches him in mass though not height, the snuffling ventilations puffing over his armor. Still snoring, Ratchet is. A six-fingered hand is hooked on a gap in his chest plating as though ensuring Megatron cannot leave without waking his berthmate. Megatron's own hand has found its way to lay possessively over a yellow-plated aft.
He wonders if he can convince Ratchet into a repaint.
And then he wonders how much of a bad idea this could be.
He can already hear the protests. The accusations. Best, he thinks, to keep this platonic. Two friends comforting one another, two friends who share a similar grief.
Two friends.
Friendship is something Megatron thought he’d never have again, much less anything further. Friendship is more than enough, is more than he deserves. He daren’t ask for more.
He lays there in silence, waiting for Ratchet to waken, unwilling to disturb the medic who quite clearly needs all the rest he can muster.
This is enough, Megatron thinks. It can be enough.
***
