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"Did you enjoy yourself?" the holo-room proprietor asked, his fins flaring in a friendly way.
"Yes," Optimus said absently, responding to the tone more than anything, hardly hearing the words. His processor was still churning away, drives ticking with strain. "No. I don't know."
"Not quite what you were looking for?"
That was the question, wasn't it. He hardly knew himself what he'd been looking for when he'd come chasing down this memory. He'd seen Megatron fight in the arena only that one single time, almost nine million years ago. He'd wanted.... He supposed it was the same impulse that kept him reading and re-reading The Sacrifice of Violence: not just reminding himself of the wrongs of the past, but trying to understand.
What he'd really been looking for was the same thing he'd been looking for all along: a way to end the war. They were closer now than they'd ever been, and Optimus wanted more than anything to prolong the unlikely truce that had sprung up between their factions. And if he wanted to do that, he needed to be able to hear what Megatron was trying to tell him.
Watching the recorded battles, he'd caught a glimpse of the same thing that sometimes shone from between the lines of Megatron's poetry: that brilliant mind reaching out for his own, if only he could understand the message.
There'd been something of Megatron's poetry in the way he fought; the driving rhythm of the violence, the unflinching brutality, the keen intelligence shining through in every split-second tactical decision.
But it still wasn't what he'd been hoping to find. He'd wanted to understand. Seeing Megatron fight, Optimus still felt like he was reaching out for a connection that just wasn't there.
The world around him froze, stuttered, froze again, optical processing lagging as his processor churned through the reams of data he'd analyzed during the fight, still reaching—
"Maybe there's something else I could offer you. Something a bit more... intimate?"
"Yes," Optimus said instantly, relieved: yes, that was what he needed. A way to get closer.
The proprietor grinned at him, baring his teeth in a friendly grimace that made Optimus feel faintly uneasy, but he was already being ushered back into the holochamber.
The holo was unsteady footage from someone's helm camera. It had been edited, but not enough to completely smooth the shaking caused by excited footsteps. The owner of the camera paused in front of a large, ornate door. "Do I just—go in?"
"You might want to hurry. He's waiting for you. He gets... impatient, after a fight."
The door opened into an enormous cavern of a room: gaudy golden decorations everywhere, a huge berth, and Megatron in the middle of it all, pulling off a bent and acid-spattered panel from his hip plating with a grunt.
"Finally," he said, and then, "Are you recording?"
A flustered voice piped up from behind the mech with the camera: "What? I'm sorry, I didn't realize—I'll have him removed right away—"
"I'll turn it off, if you want," the camera mech said, unbothered.
Megatron looked at him for a long moment, his red optics flashing, and then he shrugged. "I don't suppose it matters. Leave us, Brickbat."
The berth groaned as Megatron sat down. Even sitting he was a massive presence, legs sprawled apart, his armor still scratched and dented, smears of greenish oil all over his torso and arms.
There was a whirring sound of fans speeding up; after a moment, Optimus realized it was coming from the mech with the camera. Megatron smirked, hearing it. "Yes. Come here," he said, the panel between his legs unlocking with a click.
Optimus froze, finally realizing what he was watching just as the simulation flashed a message at him:
Enable full immersion? Y|N|Abort
He was going to abort the sim, of course. This wasn't what he'd come for. But processing still lagged, and the whole situation was so entirely unexpected, and somehow, when Y started blinking to the five-second countdown of a default choice being activated, Optimus didn't move.
The disorienting sensory input of a full-immersion sim washed over him. The Autobots hadn't had the resources for full-stim sims in ages, and anyway it was recommended to stick to sims recorded by mechs of a similar frame type to avoid exactly the kind of dysmorphic irritation he was experiencing now. By the time he'd settled into the feeling of moving in a much-smaller body, he was perched over Megatron's lap with his panel open.
Megatron trailed his fingers through the lubricant leaking freely from between Optimus' thighs, bright sparks of unaccustomed pleasure coming through despite the muffled quality of sim-induced sensation. "Ready?" he asked, in a low purr of a voice.
"I was ready before I even came into the room," Optimus said in a voice not his own, and by the time he'd recovered from that bout of disorientation, Megatron had him flat on his back with his legs spread wide, a shockingly enormous spike nudging teasingly at Optimus' valve. He pushed inside in a single clean stroke, pressing him open almost but not quite to the point of pain, several dozen connection points lighting up in pleasure—
Optimus wrenched himself from the simulation so abruptly he ended up sprawled in a heap on the floor. He stayed down there cycling his vents, fans whirring wildly. His spike was nudging at the inside of his panel so insistently he got a damage warning on his HUD. Optimus shut it down ruthlessly, shut down the whole sensory suite connected to his pleasure circuits, and still didn't feel like he was getting enough air; temperature management couldn't seem to keep up.
He pushed lurching to his feet just as the proprietor came into the holoroom to look at him in concern. "Are you all right, sir? If there was a malfunction—"
"Fine," Optimus managed to get out, in a voice so distorted he sounded like a drone. "There is a situation I need to deal with. Elsewhere. Not here," and thankfully by that point he'd reached the door and could cut himself off by closing it firmly behind him.
He got himself to the transport without thinking at all, and then he folded himself into the smallest shape he could manage without developing a whole new transformation protocol and shut off high-level processing altogether.
***
They had a conference with Decepticon Command the next morning. Dance parties were great for fostering cross-faction goodwill, but they weren't a viable venue for working out the details of what was starting to turn from a temporary cease-fire into actual peace negotiations.
The first two conferences had consisted largely of posturing and bluster from both sides, but slowly Optimus had managed to convince some of the other Autobots that this wasn't all some elaborate Decepticon trap. Megatron seemed to have made similar strides with his own leadership. Optimus liked to think they were making progress by now. He'd almost started looking forward to those meetings.
Today, he'd rather have faced a firing squad.
Megatron and Optimus sat at opposite ends of the long table, directly facing each other, which now seemed like a terrible mistake. Optimus kept his eyes on his padd, although the text was blurred beyond recognition. Optical processing still lagged at unpredictable intervals, although his imaging processor had captured several extremely high-definition pictures of Megatron that kept getting flagged for his immediate attention no matter how many times he deleted the priority markers.
Megatron had left his weapons outside, just like the rest of them, which still made him the most dangerous threat in the room: physically larger than any of them but Ultra Magnus, easily strong enough to hold a mech immobile with nothing but his hands—
"My Prime," Magnus said in a concerned tone, and Optimus became aware of the fact that he'd lost track of his surroundings again. He'd already lost the thread of the negotiation several times, fumbled an important proposal, and dropped his stylus on the floor twice. As he frantically tried to replay the last minute's discussion, he realized to his horror that not only had he failed to listen, he'd failed to so much as record it.
"I apologize—" he started.
Megatron abruptly shoved his chair back from the table, the legs screeching over the floor. "Enough. Leave us," he barked, directing his glare at the Autobots on Optimus' side of the table as well as his own troops.
The Decepticons stood up straight away, clearly knowing better than to argue with that tone, and even a few of the 'bots jumped up. They only hesitated when it became clear that Ironhide and Prowl were making no move to leave.
"Now," Megatron snarled.
"It's all right," Optimus said quietly, nodding reassurance to each of his mechs in turn. He owed Megatron some sort of apology, and he'd just as soon make it in private.
Ironhide and Prowl both tried to argue, but he waved them off. "Wait outside, if you like," he said, and they finally shuffled off, still protesting. The heavy door fell shut behind them.
Optimus looked down at the padd in front of him, trying to decipher his own notes, which were mostly gibberish. He still couldn't make himself look up to meet the red gleam of Megatron's optics.
"Are you sick?" Megatron asked abruptly. "Intelligence had you on Colianos III yesterday. They have several new strains of Circomiosis going around—"
"I didn't contract Circomiosis," Optimus said, indignation overriding his paralysis for a brief moment. You couldn't even catch Circomiosis except through the kind of unprotected interface that allowed for neural access, an idiotic risk to take with a stranger.
"So what in the pit are you doing then?" Megatron asked, and Optimus finally woke to the rising threat in his voice. "Are you trying to stall the negotiations? If this is some sort of Autobot ploy—" The capacitators on his right arm hummed, as if he were instinctively trying to charge a cannon that wasn't there.
"No," Optimus said in horror. If he'd managed to threaten the peace talks—
He had nothing to say. His processor stuttered, unable to come up with a single good excuse other than the truth, which was no excuse at all. Megatron's eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"There's a full-immersion holo sim recording of you, um—Um," Optimus blurted, and shut his mouth too late. Why had he said that?
"Yes, I know. Several. They used to retail on the black market for ludicrous amounts," Megatron said, unconcerned, and then squinted at him, anger replaced by rising amusement. "But how do you know? Why, are you saying—"
"It was an accident," Optimus said desperately. "I didn't watch it. Most of it."
Megatron threw his helm back and barked a laugh that rattled his vents. "You did watch it! Who would've thought. The pious leader of the Autobots. Did you enjoy it, Prime? Were you impressed?"
He'd gotten out of his chair and was stalking towards Optimus, moving much more silently than a mech that size had any right to be. He went to one knee in front of Optimus, bringing their helms almost level, and leaned in, optics gleaming mockingly. "Were you scandalized?"
Optimus turned his optics down, away from the cruel glint of amusement in Megatron's face. "I apologize. It was an accident, I wasn't looking for—But it was still an unforgivable invasion of your privacy. I turned it off as soon as—" His vocalizer crackled with static. He'd never been a graceful liar. "—almost as soon as I realized."
His helm felt hot. Warmechs tended to keep their infrared sensors active; his mortification must be painfully obvious to Megatron.
Megatron froze. His optics glowed brighter. "You did enjoy it," he said, but the mocking tone was gone from his voice. He reached out and grabbed Optimus roughly by the back of the neck.
Optimus winced and braced himself, finally meeting his optics, but there was no rage in Megatron's face. He was staring fixedly at Optimus, watching him with a hungry intensity, as if waiting for some sort of signal. Optimus looked back helplessly. He didn't know what Megatron wanted, if it wasn't an apology—
Megatron's hold gentled on the back of his neck, his claws smoothing over the tiny dents he'd left in the metal there. And then he leaned in and pressed their foreheads together.
Optimus froze. Megatron was so close the air from their vents mingled warmly between their bodies. Interface protocols came back online so fast all other processes stalled out for whole microseconds. His fans started to whirr. Megatron himself had the almost-silent cooling systems of a warbuild, but hot air was wafting from his body, a red-golden haze in the air between them to Optimus' infrared vision.
"What are you doing?" Optimus asked. His vocalizer crackled badly. "What is this?"
"It's not a trick, Prime," Megatron said impatiently, as if it should've been obvious. "In eight million years, you were the only worthy opponent I ever had. You must've known I wanted you."
It felt like being smacked over the helm hard enough to rattle his processor. "Wanted me dead," Optimus protested.
"That, too." Megatron sounded utterly unapologetic. "Did you think it was a simple thing, what I felt for you? I couldn't exactly compromise the war effort because you're beautiful."
He said that as if it should've been obvious, too, the furthest thing from flattery imaginable; as if it was just another mildly aggravating fact of the war Optimus had been forcing him to deal with.
Optimus looked at him: the size of him, the power, the sheer presence he had. He'd never been able to look at Megatron without a guilty thread of want. He'd felt bad about it back in the arena, the first time he'd ever seen Megatron fight; he'd felt like there shouldn't have been anything to want, in all that violence and spilled energon.
It'd been worse when that secret desire hadn't gone away, not even once they were enemies, not any time during the endless slogging war. He'd never been able to stop looking. And this entire time, Megatron had been looking back.
Megatron was looking at him now, something intense in his face, an echo of the way he'd looked at that mech in the arena: that same hunger, but something else, too, some emotion Optimus didn't dare put a name to. Megatron leaned in, and Optimus' legs spread without conscious volition. Megatron pressed in between them, kneeling so close their chest plates pressed together, their EM fields mingling.
Optimus had to reboot his vocalizer twice before he could produce anything but crackling static. "Prowl and 'hide will be waiting outside the door."
Probably with their audio sensors pressed to the metal, if he knew his mechs at all.
Megatron chuckled, his engine purring. "Better not make too much noise then, Prime," he said, and put his hand right on the panel between Optimus' legs. Optimus' engine revved involuntarily, and the panel unlocked with a click. He shut his optic feed off, mortified; for a moment he couldn't bear to look into Megatron's face.
"No. Look at me," Megatron grated out. There wasn't a trace of the earlier amusement left in his face. He was watching Optimus with a fixed intensity, even as his fingers rubbed firmly over the edges of the rapidly heating panel.
Optimus looked at him, all his sensors dialing up to maximum sensitivity without his conscious input, and let his panel slide open. Megatron rubbed his fingers over his valve, which was mortifyingly dripping lubricant already. Megatron gave an approving hum and ran his fingers over the sensors around the rim. Optimus shuddered, his hands clenching on Megatron's shoulders for support.
Megatron unlocked his own panel. His spike really was ludicrously big; they clearly hadn't needed to edit that for the holo.
"Here, come," Megatron said, urging him off the chair and right into his lap. He took Optimus by the hips, holding him up, and lowered him down by the smallest of increments, sliding inside with a seemingly endless amount of patience. He kept watching Optimus with that same strange intensity. It was nothing at all like the frantic coupling from the holo.
"There. Is that good?" Megatron asked, when he'd finally lowered Optimus all the way down, spreading him open far beyond what he'd have thought was possible.
Speech had dropped out along with most higher processing functions. Optimus could only nod, rocking mindlessly back and forth, all his sensors lit up with pleasure. Overload took him suddenly, far more quickly than he'd wanted; by the time he had some awareness of his surroundings back, he'd slumped limply against Megatron's frame. Megatron was holding him up with one hand, and had the other wrapped loosely around Optimus' spike. Optimus belatedly managed to turn his optics back on, and Megatron smiled and started stroking him again.
"So what were you looking for?"
"Huh?" Optimus managed, barely coherent. Megatron tightened his grip on Optimus' spike, and a burst of static escaped him.
"You obviously didn't plan to watch a holo of my berthchamber excesses. What were you looking for, Prime?"
"Oh. No, don't stop," Optimus said plaintively, when Megatron let his spike slide from his grip. Megatron obligingly started stroking again. "The… arena. You. Just… trying to understand," he managed. He wasn't sure if any of that had made sense, but Megatron looked satisfied.
"You might have asked. Try this, then," he said, and unspooled a cord from a hatch in his chest.
Optimus froze. This was the sort of thing they taught you never to do with anyone but the most long-term, trusted partners: interfacing, cord to plug, with not even an adapter for protection, was the surest way to catch a virus, or worse. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd updated his firewalls. It hadn't seemed relevant for such a long time.
It was also exactly the thing he'd been looking for on Colianos III, and hadn't found in all those holos: a way into Megatron's mind.
He opened a central port, and let Megatron plug in.
The direct connection was intense, like turning your sensors directly onto a nearby star: blazing heat and a blast of sensation. Megatron radiated a feeling of strut-deep satisfaction and a warm, genuine pleasure. Deeper down, there was a whole tangle of complicated emotions: protectiveness and curiosity and hunger, and somewhere beneath everything else, a vast old reservoir of anger and pain, as deep and hot as the plasma lakes that seethed beneath Cybertron's crust.
But the rage wasn't for him, and the pleasure was. Megatron laid out a loop of it for him and fed Optimus' own pleasure into it, too, until the sensation was arcing back and forth between them in a spiraling feedback loop that wiped everything else away. Megatron was there with him through it all, holding Optimus against his own frame almost tightly enough to hurt.
This time, overload knocked all other threads clear out of his processor and sent him into a deep reboot. By the time he'd finished sorting his processes, Megatron had slid past half a dozen firewalls and was busy rifling through his memory banks.
Optimus lifted his head from Megatron's shoulder in exasperation. Decepticons. What had he even expected.
He didn't bother cancelling neural access. Megatron wasn't trying to look at the folders of classified military information. He was examining motivator trees, and as far as those went, Optimus didn't feel like he had anything to hide.
Even as he watched, Megatron was retreating from his processor, tension going out of his frame. "You were sincere, then."
"Always," Optimus said with a sigh. And yet neither of them had managed to listen to the other once in eight million years of war.
Megatron took him gently by the hips and set him back on his feet as if he weighed nothing. Optimus hissed when Megatron's spike slid from his valve.
"Sore, Prime?" Megatron asked, rubbing his hips solicitously, but there was a hint of pleased satisfaction in his voice. Optimus shook his head in exasperated amusement. Of course Megatron liked leaving his mark.
The tips of Megatron's fingers slid around to smooth gently over his valve, which was shivery-sensitive and still slippery with lubricant. Optimus' fans were trying to start up again. He snapped his panel shut abruptly enough that he almost caught Megatron's fingers. They were not having another round in the conference room, with half his command staff anxiously waiting outside. Bad enough there'd been a first round at all.
"Fair enough. Should we move this to a berth, then?" Megatron asked, smirking. He pushed creakily up from his knees. "I am too old to be doing this sort of thing on the floor."
His panel was still open, his spike glistening wet. Optimus had never in his life allowed his private pleasures to interfere with his leadership of the Autobots, but for a moment he was sorely tempted. He triggered the manual locks on his panel firmly shut.
"The negotiations," he said.
Megatron heaved a sigh, a great gusting release of steam. "Really? Now?"
"We should have something to show for all this time locked up alone together, don't you think?"
Megatron closed his panel with another sigh and sank into a chair, knees still creaking.
"Fine."
Optimus braced himself. The Decepticons had been making unreasonable demands right from the start of the negotiations. He didn't really want to lose the warm, satisfied feeling still coursing through his frame, but it wasn't going to last if Megatron kept insisting on demanding fuel enough to restart every single Darkmount reactor.
Megatron smirked. "Don't look so apprehensive, Prime. How about this: each side gets to reopen one plasma reactor to start with. Kaon and Vos rebuilt under Decepticon control, Iacon to the Autobots."
He lifted a hand before Optimus could even say anything. "Don't quibble now, Prime, Iacon's twice the size of the biggest Decepticon city, and I'll need something to throw to the seekers. You know they won't shut up until they've got the Winglord back in Vos."
He lifted his hand again. "And yes, I know, you want an integrated city. We'll try Polyhex under joint leadership for now and see how it goes." He hesitated for a moment, and then added, "And we'll cooperate in reactivating the Allspark if you'll commit to fabricating protoforms for every sparkling harvested from it, including warmech sparks. What do you say?"
Optimus stared at him. "It's a fair offer. You were asking a lot more than that, earlier."
Megatron raised an eyebrow ridge. "Yes, well, considering your side's habit of questioning every word that comes out of my mouth, not to mention all those tenacious little negotiators you have, I decided not to lead with my final offer. If you're going to haggle for the sake of haggling, too, I'm happy to add some of those demands back in."
"A neutral teaching hospital in Polyhex, under joint leadership," Optimus said.
Megatron snorted. "You can have your medic set that up. Knock-Out will go into teaching when the sun freezes over." He sighed, and grudgingly added, "A couple of my field medics might be interested in expanding their qualifications. We're agreed, then?"
"Yes," Optimus said.
Coolant was gathering at the edges of his optics. He swiped it away impatiently. Peace. As simple as that.
Megatron shook his helm with a sigh. "Don't get sentimental on me now," he said, but he was smiling. "Here. Sign this." He'd sent their list of agreements to a padd. Optimus added his own key to confirm, his hands shaking faintly.
"Can we also agree that the details of this can be worked out by our staff? I'm sure Ultra Magnus will be thrilled to spend an orn hammering out the exact wording of the treaty," Megatron said.
"Agreed," Optimus said immediately, if guiltily. He had no head for contract negotiations, even though he felt that a leader should.
He took the padd from Megatron's hands and looked down at it. "Why did it take us so long to get here?" he asked quietly. So many lost lives. So much destruction.
Megatron shrugged. "Neither of us were listening. And none of us have known anything but war for a long time. It's not easy to change a course you've been set on for so long." He added softly, in the tone he used when he was reciting,
"But who could leave the house he built,
brick by brick, with his own hands,
even if it has become his prison."
"That's not one of yours," Optimus said.
"No. It's from one of those songs everyone's always blasting now. Rumble is branching out into fleshling poetry. You were right, some of it's not half bad. Some of them are startlingly bright for wet sacks of protein." He added, in a grudging tone, "I suppose we might as well consider an alliance with them now. If we're going to work together here."
Coolant was welling up around Optimus' optics again. He pressed his hands to his face. Megatron captured them and pulled them down to look at him.
"You're a sentimental old fool, Prime," he said, but there was affection in his voice.
"Yes." Optimus smiled. It felt like the weight of an entire mountain was sliding off his shoulders, leaving him light enough to float. He squeezed Megatron's hands, holding tight, and let joy fill him to the brim.
END