[TF] Despicable Me - 08

[dracoqueen22]

Despicable Me
Chapter Eight

In the dim silence of the medical bay, it occurs to Megatron that this is perhaps the first time he’s perched at the berthside of one of his injured Decepticons. How many times has Soundwave occupied this very seat while Megatron recovered? Not only as a Decepticon, but in his gladiator days as well.

Megatron had been injured often, frequently badly enough to need medical attention, or time spent in a CR chamber.

The steady beep of the equipment monitoring Soundwave brings Megatron no comfort. It’s a cacophony of noise. The whooshing hiss of the manual-ventilators pushing air through Soundwave’s overheating systems. The gurgle of the intrafunial drip as it carefully and sluggishly eases medical-grade energon into Soundwave’s lines. The discordant chimes of both the spark and cranial monitors -- tracking Soundwave’s sparkbeat and his neural activity.

Megatron doesn’t need to be a medic to read the hopelessness of Soundwave’s condition. Without the Synth-En formula and the cybermatter which had powered the Omega Lock, there is no hope for the Soundwave Megatron remembers. He’ll be a newspark in everything but frame.

Is it selfish to want the Soundwave he remembers? Would it be better for Soundwave to forget?

Megatron offlines his optics and bows his head. He clasps his hands in front of him, and he can’t keep staring at the scratches in his armor. He can’t keep trying to match his ventilations to Soundwave’s machine-driven ones. He can’t will Soundwave into recovery.

He can only sit here and wait.

Megatron has never been good at waiting.

“What am I even doing?” Megatron murmurs, aloud because the words keep running nowhere in his processor. He has to get them out before they drive him to madness.

“What is the point of all this?” Megatron asks a mech who can’t hear him, and who can’t give him an answer. Not that Soundwave had been one for conversation after taking his vow of silence.

He’d only sat and listened while Megatron ranted and raved about whatever upset him most in that moment. He’d been a stalwart ally, the only mech Megatron was certain he could unilaterally rely upon.

“Why am I even alive?” Megatron asks the silence of the room, the arrhythmic beeping cadence, and unsurprisingly, there is no answer.

He vents a sigh and leans back in the uncomfortable chair. He stares at Soundwave’s still frame, gray as death, his dock visibly empty. There’s been no sign of Laserbeak, and again, Megatron wonders if trying to restore the Soundwave he remembers is selfish or a kindness.

Laserbeak was the last of Soundwave’s symbiotes. He’d lost all the others to the war. To Megatron’s war.

Yet, he never once complained.

“You fool,” Megatron mutters, his spark spiraling into a tight clench in his chassis. He doesn’t know what to name the emotion. “You’ve lost everything, and I’ve brought you nothing but pain. I should let you forget.”

“That’s not your choice to make. It was always Soundwave’s.”

A shudder runs down Megatron’s spinal strut. In his peripheral vision, the ghost of his spark ripples into view, opaque and shiny, Orion Pax not Optimus Prime. Megatron doesn’t know which one hurts more.

“Choices should be made with all the facts,” Megatron mutters, barely avoiding a growl. He doesn’t want to attract attention.

The apparition in his peripheral vision moves closer, and Megatron swears he can taste the sweetness of Orion’s field, the warm affection of it. “You’re not done yet.”

“What the frag are you talking about?” Megatron demands.

Orion flickers, and then he’s standing on the other side of Soundwave’s berth, looking down at Soundwave with something like pity in his optics. “You found him. Shockwave will restore him. But you’re not finished.” He looks at Megatron, and his face ripples, caught between Orion and Optimus Prime. “There’s still work to be done.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to start fighting again.” Megatron’s knees wobble, and he finds himself on his feet, restlessness burning through his limbs. He wants to pace, but there’s limited space in the Intensive Care room.

“Not every battle is to be won with your fists, Megatronus,” Orion says.

Megatron snarls, and swallows down the rage. This ghost has no business parroting Orion Pax’s words back at him, as if it knows, as if it’s really the mech Megatron loved and not some figment sent by Primus to torment him.

He spins away from Orion and slams his fist on the window controls, raising the shutters so he can look through the transteel. In its reflection, however, Orion is still there, staring at him, expression solid for all that he’s mostly opaque.

“This would be a lot easier if you’d just tell me what you fragging want,” Megatron hisses over his shoulder, but he doesn’t look at Orion.

No, he looks out the window.

At the mechs in the sky, the mechs on the ground, the construction equipment swinging over the skyline, the skeletal structure of buildings in the process of being reborn. Colorful banners decorate a street that’s become home to private vendors, peddling all manner of wares from Earth and nearby star systems willing to trade with Cybertronians.

Many Autobots have come home. Many Neutrals have returned. The newly bloomed sparks wander around with wide optics, the violent and bloody civil war completely anathema to them.

Not a single mech down there wears a Decepticon brand. Not any of the Eradicons, the Vehicons, or Megatron’s former soldiers. Point of fact, the only mech proudly declaring their Decepticon affiliation is Starscream, and he’s hardly a reliable historian, as attached as he is to Optimus’ favorite pet medic.

If things continue, it will be as if the Decepticons have no home on Cybertron. No voice. They will be effectively erased from Cybertronian history, stories told by the winners, the victors, the Autobots, who will no doubt paint themselves as the virtuous heroes.

No.

This cannot stand.

Megatron grips the window sill, his optics narrowing.

There are no Decepticons on the council. There are no mechs who proudly claim their allegiance to the Decepticon cause -- again, except Starscream, who does not count. The pious Autobots and their hypocritical ways have made no efforts to call the Decepticons home. They have probably actively encouraged it.

No Decepticon wants to return to a Cybertron under Autobot control while the rumor of Megatron’s defeat and surrender runs rampant through the universe. What Decepticon thinks they’d be able to come home? Will the Decepticons simply wither away into nothing? Will the mechs who have fought so hard for a taste of equality realize they’ve gained nothing in the end?

Guilt claws across Megatron’s spark.

His shoulders hunch. His reflection stares back at him, and Megatron hates what he sees. The defeat in the slump of his shoulders. The gray echo of Soundwave behind him, lost to the Shadowzone if Megatron had not shown up and reminded the Autobots that Cybertron is not theirs alone.

Even Predaking, all but banished to the fringes, while relying on Shockwave to restore his kind. Is this not his planet, too? Is Cybertron not home to the Predacons as well?

Megatron does not want to fight, but there is a part of him stirring. A part of him thick with the injustice of it all, and the rage boils in his tanks. It sluices through his lines like the siren call of the dark energon.

The Autobots may have won, through some trick of luck in Unicron’s appearance and the healing properties of the Omega matrix, but Cybertron is not theirs to own. Either they are hypocrites, chasing away all Decepticons because they don’t believe in their own propaganda, or they will remember what Optimus Prime has always promised, if Megatron would only lay his arms aside and discuss peace.

“You see?”

Megatron drags in a rattling ventilation as Optimus Prime materializes beside him, reflected in the transteel of the window, his gaze on Megatron as much as it is on the city beyond.

He lifts a hand, and it rests on Megatron’s shoulder. He swears he can feel the weight of it, the warmth, feels it all the way down to his struts. He shudders, a low keen deep in his intake, as his spark writhes.

“This is the Megatronus we love,” Optimus says, his face warping like a heat mirage, some cross between Orion and Optimus. “This is the Megatron you promised them.”

The windowsill cracks beneath Megatron’s fingers.

“They still need you,” Optimus murmurs. “If you don’t fight for them, who will?”

Megatron’s joints ache, his spark burns, and his vocalizer spits static. “I don’t know if I can,” he admits, the shame clogging up his intake. “Not without you.”

Optimus’ expression melts into sympathy. “I’m only as gone as you want me to be,” he says. “I’m always with you. I never left.”

Every ventilation is agony. His vision wavers, and Megatron knows he should cycle his optics, but he fears if he looks away for even a millisecond, Optimus will vanish all over again. Will leave him alone.

He swears Optimus’ grip on his shoulder tightens. That his face wavers back to the earnest affection of Orion Pax. That he opens his mouth to speak this time, saying, “Megatron--”

And then the door to Soundwave’s room cracks open, the click of the latch disengaging causing Megatron to startle, whirling toward the door. Optimus vanishes, and it’s only Megatron and Soundwave and that fool Smokescreen, poking his head into the room.

“Were you talking to someone?” he asks, face all pinched in confusion. “I could have sworn I saw…”

He trails off, maybe because of the look on Megatron’s face, or maybe because he realizes Megatron doesn’t care.

Smokescreen straightens a bit, still only his upper body visible, and says, “Never mind. I just thought you’d want to know that Shockwave’s here. They’re escorting him to the research lab now.”

Megatron has to cycle several ventilations before his voice manages to emerge evenly as he swallows down the rage. “I did want to know. Thank you, Smokescreen.”

The rookie blinks at him several times. “Um. Wow. Okay, you’re welcome.” His gaze darts around the room before landing on Soundwave. “How’s he doing? Any better?”

“There’s no change,” Megatron says. He moves away from the window, back to his chair, and sinks into it with more grace than he feels. “Was there anything else?”

Smokescreen shakes his head. He looks around the room again, going so far as to peer behind the door, and stare in the direction of the window for longer than seems necessary. “Nope. Just… checking.” His fingers rap a nonsense rhythm on the door frame. “That’s it.”

Smokescreen sucks on his bottom lip, releases it, and then vanishes out the door, closing it with a quiet click behind him.

Megatron sighs. He touches his shoulder, as if he can feel the lingering heat of Optimus’ hand, but of course there is nothing, only his own cold armor. Because Optimus is dead, Orion is gone, and no one had been there at all.

~

There is a ping to Starscream’s comm when Shockwave arrives, rolling up to the main gates of Kaon as if he hasn’t been missing for the better part of the year. The Autobots have been warned that he’d be coming eventually, so there isn’t a fuss, just advanced notice sent to Starscream and Ratchet and Knock Out.

He looks over at his partner and Ratchet looks back at him, face carefully blank of expression, though Stascream’s sure worry broils beneath the surface. “Are you ready for this?” Ratchet asks.

“I should be asking you that question. He’s the one who performed the cortical psychic patch and nearly killed you,” Starscream replies. He focuses on keeping his ventilations steady so as not to betray the discomfort squeezing his spark.

He is not afraid of Shockwave. He never has been. But Shockwave unsettles him in a distinctly different way than Megatron, perhaps because of all the times he’s not so subtly stated that he’d like to pick Starscream apart to see how he functions. And that he’s suggested Megatron hand Starscream over to Shockwave to make Starscream more pliable.

There’s nothing Shockwave loves more than the science of it all, and that kind of blatant disregard for any sort of decency makes him dangerous in a way Megatron isn’t.

Ratchet snorts. “I’ve been in Decepticon custody more times than I count. Even because of you, if I recall.” He turns back to the scanner he’s been futzing with. “I can handle Shockwave.”

“You weren’t so keen on him when I first suggested we look for him,” Starscream points out. That particular argument is never far from his thoughts, not only because it led him to finding Megatron and not their initial target.

Of course, it would have helped if Ratchet told him they’ve always known precisely where Predaking could be found.

“No, I wasn’t,” Ratchet grudgingly admits, and the armor in his back slicks tight. Defensive. “There are larger matters at stake now. It’s not my decision alone anymore.”

It wasn’t to begin with. Starscream had fully intended to take his proposal to the council, see if they all felt the same way about whether or not the Synth-En and cybermatter were worth the risk. He suspects they may not have voted the way Ratchet wanted, which is why Ratchet refused to bring it to them himself.

Still.

If Ratchet needs this small bit of control, Starscream will give it to him.

“It’ll benefit everyone,” Starscream says with more confidence than he feels. He looks at his console, equations blurring across the screen, beyond his focus as he waits. “Cybertron needs more than the few hands we have to rebuild.”

Ratchet mutters something, too subvocal for Starscream to catch, but he doesn’t disagree aloud, saving both of them from a potential argument.

Relationships are not easy. Relationships between Autobots and Decepticons, no matter how former or current their label, are even more difficult.

“I can work with Shockwave,” Ratchet says. He glances in Starscream’s direction, concern worrying into the reasoned waves of his vocals. “Can you?”

Fortunately, Starscream is saved from answering a question he doesn’t have an answer for by the door whooshing open. He turns to acknowledge their visitor, and a chill washes through his lines as Shockwave strides inside as though the laboratory is an extension of his own. There’s no trace of wariness in him, and why would there be?

Shockwave fears nothing and no one. He’s logical to a fault, and he knows his value.

“Quaint,” he says as he takes a long look around, optic flashing as it scans each and every piece of equipment. “But functional.”

He has only one hand. The other is an empty socket where his laser cannon had once been. Likely, Predaking had removed it for him. Starscream does credit the Predacon with a modicum of common sense after all. Though he doesn’t know if Shockwave hasn’t bothered to build a hand for himself because he doesn’t want to, or doesn’t see a need.

“It’s better than what we had on the Nemesis,” Ratchet says with a scowl. He plants his hands on his hips and looks Shockwave up and down, every inch of his expression reflecting how unimpressed he is. “Did you come here to help or be offensive?”

Shockwave’s single optic focuses on Ratchet as if he’d just noticed Ratchet’s presence. “I said nothing offensive.” His tone is bland as he approaches the central dais where they’ve clustered the main computing units. “This equipment is adequate for our needs.”

Ratchet’s engine revs.

Starscream rolls his optics. “Honestly, Shockwave. Do you have to practice at being this irritating or does it come naturally to you?”

“The same could be asked about you,” Shockwave says, his optic sliding over and past Starscream as though acknowledging him and dismissing him in a split second. “Is this your progress on the formula?”

Starscream’s wings twitch. He grits his denta, resisting the urge to kick Shockwave away from the console and decline his assistance. If anything, the fall of the Decepticons has made Shockwave more arrogant, rather than less so. And why shouldn’t it? The Decepticons were never a cause to Shockwave; they were always a means to an end.

“Yes,” Starscream bites out.

“Hmm.” Shockwave stares at the screen before he lifts his fingers and starts tapping through the various equations and notes both Starscream and Knock Out have made. “This is very familiar. I believe you are on the right track.”

“Good. Then you can get to work and help us finish it,” Ratchet says from Shockwave’s other side. “Soundwave doesn't have all year.”

“Of course,” Shockwave demurs with a tilt of his head. His panel pops, one of his cables obscenely spooling out. “I assume I’m allowed to plug in?”

Only Shockwave would pull out his cables without warning. He probably propositions mechs in the same manner, if he propositions them at all, not that Starscream wants to think about anyone interfacing Shockwave.

“It’s a closed system,” Ratchet grunts. “You won’t be able to access anything but what we’ve put on these databanks.”

Shockwave syncs his cable into the console port without a moment’s hesitation, a little shiver running across his armor in a sinuous wave. “How prudent.”

Starscream folds his arms and leans his hip against his own workstation. “What did Megatron promise you?”

“Beg pardon?” Shockwave asks, giving Starscream a peripheral look.

“For your help,” Starscream clarifies, though he knows he doesn’t need to. Shockwave’s not stupid, he just likes to pretend he is to throw others off-balance.

“Ah.” Shockwave focuses on the screen, optic spiraling in and out, before he sweeps his palm over the holo-display, wiping it clean. “I volunteered. The cybermatter will be quite useful in a variety of ways.”

Yeah. Shockwave probably thinks he’s going to walk out of here with his own copy of the formula, but Starscream’s got news for him. It’s not gonna happen. He actually trusts Shockwave less than he trusts Megatron. Not because he thinks Shockwave plans to come back with an army, but because Shockwave cares less about consequences and more about the discovery. He’ll create an army because he can, not because he needs one.

Starscream stares at Shockwave. “The formula will be used to restore Soundwave and afterward, power the Omega Lock to restore as much of Cybertron as we are capable.”

“Of course,” Shockwave says.

Starscream works his jaw. He feels taut, like a cable about to snap, and it’s only the knowledge that they need Shockwave which keeps him from tossing Shockwave out on his unemotional aft. Forget Soundwave the perfect soldier. Starscream’s rather sure he hates Shockwave more than anyone else. Megatron is predictable. Shockwave is not.

The door to the lab whooshes open once more, and it’s enough to make Starscream startle, half-expecting it to be Megatron, storming in here to nag them into working faster to save his precious pet now that Shockwave’s arrived. Mercifully, it’s Knock Out instead, arriving at a fast clip, with a smile a bit too wide to be genuine on his face.

“I apologize for being late,” he says as he breezes past Starscream and logs into his own workstation. “Traffic can be such a nightmare sometimes.”

Traffic.

Right.

“Does this traffic have a name?” Starscream drawls as he eyes the yellow streaking across Knock Out’s normally immaculate crimson armor.

“None of your business,” Knock Out says with a smile that’s all denta, his tires bobbing on his shoulders.

Any closer and Starscream bets he could smell the overloads on Knock Out.

“Bumblebee is a bad influence on you,” Starscream says with a sniff. He returns his attention to his own workstation, however. He does his very best to pretend Shockwave is not on his other side.

“Your Autobot is droll,” says Knock Out.

Ratchet’s voice rises from the furthest end of the laboratory, “That doesn’t sound like scientific discussion to me,” he barks.

Starscream and Knock Out both roll their optics, but Shockwave ignores them all. Which is fine. They have to get to work anyway.

The quicker they get this formula decoded, the faster Shockwave can go away.

~

Either Smokescreen has gotten better at tailing Megatron, or Megatron is being kind enough to make it easier. He’s not sure which of the two he prefers.

Nope, the first one.

Definitely the first one.

It helps that Megatron spends a lot of time in the medbay, in the critical care unit, sitting by Soundwave’s berthside as though he can will Soundwave into recovery. Smokescreen doesn’t know what he does for all those hours, but a few times he’s poked his head in, he swears he hears Megatron talking to someone. Soundwave maybe.

It means Smokescreen’s job becomes a lot more boring than it’s supposed to be. He paces back and forth in the hallway, the urge to go-go-go crawling up his backstrut. He can’t do anything about it. He kind of prefers it when Megatron is storming all through Kaon, causing trouble. At least then he’s interesting.

This is boring, and it’s all Smokescreen can do to stay online on his feet. He takes up shadow-boxing to burn off excess energy, at least until whoever’s on shift in security pings for him stop confusing the motion sensors. Then he drops down into the nearest bench and sulks for awhile. He tries reading the historical datapads he’s carried since Alpha Trion first sent him off from the Archives, but they’re too dry and boring.

Back to pacing it is.

Smokescreen paces to the end of the hallway before it juts off to another unit, spins on his heelstrut, and paces the other direction, to the door sealing off the surgery ward. The whole medical building is lightly staffed, so there’s no one to chastise him for pacing. It’s Knock Out on duty today, he thinks. He’s probably off canoodling with Bumblebee.

Smokescreen stops at the surgical doors and spins back toward the other unit, only to let out a shriek and tumble backward as he nearly walks right into Arcee.

“What the--” His spark thuds in his chassis.

She just looks at him, orbital ridge raised, arms crossed over her chassis. “Working hard or hardly working?”

“You nearly gave me a spark attack!” Smokescreen says. He rocks back onto his feet, regaining his balance, and manually drops his doors from their high arch. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

Arcee grins. “You looked deep in thought. That happens so rarely I didn’t want to put a stop to it.”

“Hey!” Smokescreen plants his hands on his hips.

Arcee chuckles and drops her arms, turning away from him. The amusement dies on her lips, however, as she stares in the general direction of Soundwave’s critical care room. “Guess if you’re out here daydreaming, Megatron’s in there.”

“He’s with Soundwave.” Smokescreen trails Arcee as she tries to peer through the viewing window, but the privacy screen has been engaged. “Well, he’s always with Soundwave these days.”

“Yeah. I noticed.” Arcee leans a hip against the wall, but doesn’t take her optics off the window. “What do you make of all this?”

Smokescreen cycles his optics. “Huh?”

She tilts her head toward the room before she looks up at him. “Megatron. Shockwave. Soundwave. Pit, let’s throw Starscream in there, too. All of these Decepticons suddenly showing their faceplates.”

“What about ‘em?” Smokescreen asks.

“You don’t think it’s a problem?”

Arcee’s looking at him now, and though Smokescreen can’t read any aggression in her tone, he knows how she feels about Decepticons in general. He knows how hard she argued against Starscream being allowed to stay, and how vehement she had been against Megatron. She trusts a mech’s ability to change the least of any of Earth’s Autobots.

Smokescreen rubs his chin, trying to give himself time to come up with a proper response. “I mean, it’s supposed to be a good thing. This is their home, too. Isn’t it?”

“If you want to be technical,” Arcee concedes, but it’s grudging. “They did their best to destroy it.”

“Maybe.” Smokescreen squirms. It won’t help to point out how much armament the Autobots had thrown during the war, too. “We should still give them a chance. Starscream’s done all right, hasn’t he?”

Arcee scoffs and glares at the window, which for her, might as well be a concession. “You’re too naive for your own good sometimes.”

“And it’s not healthy to be as cynical as you are,” Smokescreen points out.

Arcee punches him.

Not hard, and it’s only in the shoulder. It doesn’t even leave a dent, but Smokescreen should have seen it coming, should’ve dodged, and he knows it. Arcee knows it, too if the way she’s looking at him is any indication.

“You’ve skipped your last three training sessions,” she says. She looks him up and down, assessing and dismissing. “I don’t think you can afford to skip a fourth.”

Smokescreen would pout if he thought it would do him any good, but Arcee is unfairly immune to his charms. “I’ve been busy.” He rubs his shoulder, trying to smooth out the dent, but he thinks this is a job for Ratchet.

Or maybe Knock Out. He’s easier to convince when it comes to cosmetic damage.

Arcee pokes him in the chassis, between his racing stripes. “I don’t think Megatron is coming out of that room anytime soon. You’ve got time.”

“I’m on duty,” Smokescreen says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He’s been trusted with this duty.

Arcee pushes away from the window and starts down the hallway, toward the lifts. “I’ll cover for you with Ultra Magnus,” she says, to sweeten the pot.

Well.

Smokescreen’s only spent the last several hours pacing. What could it hurt? Megatron isn’t going to leave, and even if he does, it’s not like it’s against the law. Technically, Megatron is a free citizen who can go wherever he wants.

“Fine. Let’s go,” Smokescreen says. He turns to follow her, but something stirs in his peripheral vision.

He whirls toward it, sensory panels jutting upward in his surprise again. He swears there’s someone standing at the end of the corridor, in front of the surgical ward doors. Smokescreen cycles his optics, his spark flaring.

Is that… Optimus?

And not Optimus after the Forge rebuilt him, but Optimus before, the one who tried to offer Smokescreen the Matrix and he’d refused.

What the…?

“Smokescreen?”

He glances back at her and points toward the surgery ward. “Do you see that?”

“See what?” She frowns.

Smokescreen looks back.

Optimus is gone.

He cycles his optics a few time, looks all around the halls, but if Optimus was truly there, he’s not anymore. Smokescreen doubts he was ever there at all. Has he been thinking about Optimus so much he’s now hallucinating him?

“Nothing,” Smokescreen says, and he hurries to join Arcee, trying to smile away the worried frown on her lips. “I think you’re right. I need a break.” He jostles her playfully. “You kicking my aft around the training arena should do the trick.”

She narrows her optics at him, but the lift arrives, and if she’d planned to ask, it slides away with the opening of the doors. “We’ll make a real soldier out of you yet,” she says.

Smokescreen follows her into the lift.

He glances back toward the surgical ward before the doors close, but the corridor is as empty as it’s always been.

He really needs some rest.

****