Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Optimus stares at what used to be Iacon, for a long time.

At the ramshackle buildings, at the unloading ships, at the hustle and bustle of more Cybertronians than Iacon– in name only, if nothing else– has seen in… in so long.

And then he turns around.

And vanishes back into the molten wilds.

They probably think he’s dead.

And the tired part of him, the aching part of him, the free from the Matrix part of him, thinks good.

Let them.

He’d known something was different, when he’d woken up.

Waking up at all had been startling.

But that thing that had gotten him was that his helm wasn’t… loud.

It didn’t feel like it had before the Matrix had bonded itself to his spark.

But it was… it was quieter.

He felt like he could think again.

It took almost a joor of walking through ash before he realized that nothing hurt.

He felt light.

He felt okay.

He felt… almost free.

The Matrix had always hurt.

It had always blazed.

Like it was burning up from the core.

Now it sits cold and quiet in his chest.

Silent.

Soft.

He thinks it’s broken.

He doesn’t really care.

And he leaves it on the edge of what was once Iacon where it can never bother him again.

There’s plenty of fissures in the surface of the planet exposing raw energon deposits.

Optimus– Orion had never been one for eating raw crystals.

It wasn’t proper for a Prime, and such.

He doesn’t really care anymore.

He doesn’t have the Matrix anymore.

He’s not Prime.

He’s Orion Pax.

And he’s alone in the middle of a primordial landscape that used to be something he almost knew, so he can really just do whatever the frag he wants.

Who’s going to stop him?

Whatever had happened to him, it hadn’t emptied his subspace.

So he’s just got.

Several datapads.

They’re full of reports.

One of them is stories from Earth.

He thinks he’ll keep that one.

He wipes all the others.

And then he starts just… writing down what he sees.

Drawing out a map.

Sketching the shape of the new landscape.

Someone’s got to, right?

Might as well be him.

And ships continue to pass overhelm.

He makes markers to warn himself when he gets too close to the circumference of what used to be Iacon.

Orion doesn’t want to get spotted.

He’s dead right?

He wants to stay that way.

He likes it out here, where everything tries to kill him and nobody is asking him to choose who lives or dies.

There’s a certain freedom to death, to the sandstorms and the violent plants and the magma flows.

He thinks he’s learning to love it.

He nearly thinks it’s all over the first time he sees a turbofox.

It’s in the corner of his optics, the edge of his vision, and he startles, thinking it’s a mech, nearly bad enough to drop his datapad.

But it’s just a turbofox.

Which haven’t been on Cybertron since… since he doesn’t even know how long.

But there’s one right in front of him.

Sniffing cautiously, and following whatever rout programming it has.

Alive.

It gives him hope.

Because if there’s a living, venting mechanimal –

What else is there?

Orion gets used to being alone.

He gets used to following the energon veins, to judging how many he’ll need for a set amount of time, to calculating how much fuel each scrap and jagged edge can count for by color and facet and size.

He gets comfortable with only the occasional mechanimal or -beast he sees for company, with the familiar stars, with the unfamiliar landscape.

He doesn’t mind being alone.

At least it’s proper loneliness rather whatever distance being Prime made between him and every single mech he led.

There hadn’t been a lot that still treated him like a person towards the end.

It was always… looks of reverence and admiration.

He had always hated it.

Always… always hated it.

He didn’t miss that.

Maybe he missed his friends, what little he’d managed to hold on to.

But he didn’t miss that.

One day, there’s a great explosion in the sky.

Orion doesn’t know what it is, or where it came from.

Just that it’s loud, and bright, and– a lot.

It feels like it takes up the whole sky.

There’s no rain of parts, not that he can see.

Just a crack of sound on the horizon, a great flash of light, and then… 

Then absolutely nothing at all.

He supposes it was inevitable, in a way.

They always do seem to run into each other eventually.

He finds Megatron in a cave, bare struts and wires in some places, cracked and shattered plating in others.

He looks a mess.

A tired, tired mess.

Orion isn’t sure what he himself looks like.

But whatever it is must not be good because Megatron tilts his helm to the side, exposing sparking wires, and draws his lip up in a “What happened to you?”

It’s very judgmental, for someone obviously, stubbornly, barely alive.

“Haven’t you heard?” Orion asks him almost curiously. “I’m dead.”

Megatron throws things at him for three days.

Mostly rocks.

Orion always checks in every three hours anyway.

He thinks Megatron hates it.

It’s kind of funny.

Orion starts throwing things back.

Mostly energon crystals.

He watches Megatron suspiciously glare at them for almost ten kliks each before picking them up and biting through them much easier than Orion had been.

He had the denta for it, he supposed.

Something to look into changing, if he could.

Sharper denta.

On day four, Megatron just glares from his corner of the cave, all narrowed red optics, but he accepts the offered energon well enough.

Day six, Orion can sit across from him, legs folded to his chestplates and pedes flat to the floor, arms wrapped around his knee joints and as small as possible.

Day nine is when Megatron actually initiates the conversation again, with an inspiring, “You look terrible,” and he can’t help laughing.

He doesn’t know the last time someone just told him to his face that he looked awful.

It’s kind of… great.

He’s never hunted turbofoxes before, but it’s the same basic principle as tracking a hostile through enemy territory.

He catches… a lot.

He’s probably going to have to continue to catch more.

Or find bigger game to hunt.

Then he starts to strip them for parts.

For repairs.

Megatron makes various offended, incredulous, disgusted, and resigned faces at him throughout the entire affair.

“You can’t be serious.”

“You will offline without medical attention.” Orion points out while layering armor pieces to smelt and then eventually hammer into big enough pieces to replace Megatron’s own cracked armor.

He’s going to need to make a hammer.

Possibly an anvil.

Direct the magma into a forge.

It’s a project.

Something to do.

Something constructive.

Orion doesn’t know that he’s ever done something quite like this in his life.

He’s kind of excited.

In the meantime though, he can strip the scavenged wires for insulation to help deal with all of Megatron’s… sparking.

And go scouting for a nearby deposit of energon so the both of them don’t starve and Megatron’s self repair can start to kick in and heal his protoform.

That’s something Orion can’t fix himself.

He knows that much.

He’s not a field medic, not by a long shot, but he knows enough to not bleed out or catch his insides on fire.

Megatron hasn’t said anything.

Orion looks up from his careful work, and finds himself being stared at.

“Have you completely lost your mind, Prime?” Megatron asks him in the blandest, calmest tone he’s ever heard.

Like they’re talking about the weather.

Like they’re back on Omega, talking and chatting like old friends instead of bitter enemies.

He wonders what that means.

“No.” Orion responds, and looks back down at his servos, covered in energon and delicately peeling wires from rubber coverings. “I rather think I’ve found it.”

Megatron, for all his protests, doesn’t complain all that much once his split and sparking wires are more or less all dealt with.

It would take a while for everything to integrate with his natural nanites.

One step at a time, though.

Wires, then patches, then… the whole affair of making new, proper armor.

Primus.

He has no idea how to do that.

He’s thrilled.

“Please tell me how this is supposed to convince me of your sanity.” Megatron drawls, seated some feet away on a perch that gives him the tactical advantage, for all that fragging matters out here.

Orion weighs the steel stone in his palm and ignores him, tapping a leg strut from a turbofox against his thigh.

It’ll… probably work.

Interim.

He might have to spend more time on tools than he thought.

Definitely on hunting for more armor plate quality metal.

It is… unfortunate.

Then he carefully lays the stone in front of his crossed pedes, and starts to bore the strut into the center– ish– of the metal.

There’s a 50/50 of him cracking the stone with the strut, of the stone cracking under later use, of the whole thing not staying together, but.

Well.

He needs a place-holder-hammer so he can make an actually-useful-hammer.

Possibly tongs.

Definitely that anvil.

“The great Optimus Prime,” Megatron grandly recites like poetry, “Reduced to this. Stones and mechanimal struts in the middle of nowhere.”

Orion can almost see him lying dramatically on his perch, which is really just a big rock outcropping.

It’s rather easy to picture.

It's considerably more difficult not to smile.

“I go by Orion Pax, now.” He tells him conversationally.

Megatron doesn't say anything.

"You don't have to call me that." He continues, holding the stone steady. "But I would prefer it."

Megatron still doesn't say anything.

That's fine with him.

He has work to do anyway.

Eventually though, when he's halfway through carefully, slowly, boring a hole into the steel chunk, there's a hum.

A grunt.

The creaking of joints.

Pedesteps.

Megatron sits next to him with a huff, dust and ash fluttering into the air at the impact.

His optics burn into the side of his helm, and Orion stops what he's doing to look up at him 

"Do you not like being Prime?" Megatron asks him, something heavy and weighted and unnameable in his red red red optics. "Did. Did you not. Past tense, I suppose."

Orion smiles at him.

He's not sure how kind it is.

He leans in close as though to tell a secret.

Megatron lets him, and Orion breathes out in a bare whisper the monster that had coiled around his spark from the moment the Matrix took him, 

"I hated it."

They stay by that cave for a long time.

There’s a ready source of steel for tools, magma for heating, an energon deposit within walking distance–

It’s workable.

Easy.

He ends up making tongs after all, but just by bending some struts into the proper shapes and then hammering a pin into it.

Orion just doesn’t have the tools or the molds for it, he’s pretty sure.

He’s not sure why he’s so sure.

But he’s pretty sure.

He makes due anyway, with some trial and error.

Megatron watches most of his efforts in silence.

Orion doesn’t mind.

Forging is nice.

It’s hard work, but it’s… something about it is calming.

Lets him zone out and run defrag processes and background protocols.

It’s almost like resting but with more burns on his servos.

Honest, hard work.

He likes it a lot.

He likes it more than he ever liked being Prime.

More than… more than he ever liked being an Enforcer.

They argue.

It would be stupid to think they wouldn’t.

Megatron can’t exactly walk off on his own for long distances, and Orion doesn’t have anywhere he could even really go, so most of their time is spent in close quarters.

Or as close as Megatron watching from a distance is.

And eventually, they argue.

“You said you hated being Prime,” is the start of it, Megatron sitting beside him and not flinching at the sparks flying when Orion’s hammer meets plate metal. “You said, and I quote, ‘I hated it’.”

He finishes up the armor– a shoulder panel– before speaking, dunking it in a makeshift vat of scavenged coolant.

Water would be best.

But he’s working with what he has.

Then he sets the plate aside, and turns to properly face Megatron.

“That is what I said, yes.” Orion nods. “What of it?”

Megatron stares at him, optics searching for something, and then he frowns, tugging at the new gouges down his faceplates.

“If you hated it, why did you keep the Matrix?”

Orion frowns back, and resists the urge to scratch at his chestplates.

He…

Why did he keep it.

“It wouldn’t let me remove it.” Is what he says, and Megatron’s optics flicker in– something.

Surprise, maybe, but he wouldn’t bet on it.

Recalculating due to his answer, most likely.

It’s not like he can feel his field.

He’s not even sure he’d be able to read it.

“It… wouldn’t let you?” Megatron says slowly, like he’s trying to make sure he has that right.

Everyone thought that the Matrix was some– some great gift.

A wealth of knowledge and power and status.

And it was all of those things.

It was also the most painful, awful thing Orion had ever felt, and even now he sort of wondered how it hadn’t killed him.

It had been– like red-hot coals, sitting on his spark.

All mega-cycle, every mega-cycle.

It had been better, sometimes.

More manageable as he got used to it.

But sometimes it–

Sometimes even moving had ached.

And he couldn’t beg off his shift in the bridge or not go out into the field or not show up for his meetings.

So he just.

Had to work through the agony.

Only an idiot wouldn’t try to claw something like that out of their chest.

It had never worked.

“Yes.”

Megatron ripping it from his spark had–

It had almost killed him.

But after the other aches had faded from his frame, for the first time in millennia, he had been able to breathe.

It hadn’t ached.

It hadn’t hurt.

It hadn’t burned.

When Hot Rod– Rodimus – had given it back to him, he–

He hadn’t wanted to take it.

He really hadn’t.

But he had anyway.

And it had been… it had been a return to familiar agony.

“It wouldn’t let you.” Megatron repeats, but this time it doesn’t sound like a question, and Orion doesn’t say anything. “You make it sound as though it’s alive.”

Orion… shrugs.

“It was, in a way.” He admits uncomfortably, and picks at where his self-repair is itching along on a burn across his thumb. “The collective wisdom of the Thirteen, of the Primes before me, which really had only been… Nova and some of Nominus. Sentinel and– Zeta had never had it. It had… some form of consciousness. I was never alone in my own helm.”

Megatron stares at him.

He’s been doing a lot of that lately.

Like he’s constantly having to restructure his world every time Orion opens his mouth.

It would be a humorous sort of thought in basically every other situation except for this one right here.

And then Megatron says, “And you just had that all in your helm? All that once? There was– less than a joor between when you… fell and when I saw you again.”

“You can say you shot at me.” Orion points out. “I’m not– mad about it. But… yes. More or less.”

That was somewhat of a lie.

He had been mad about it, for a long time.

For Megatron shooting the floor and making him fall and leading to him stumbling into the Matrix.

There had been–

He’d been resentful.

Angry.

But he’d gotten over it a long time ago.

“Unbelievable,” Megatron mutters, looking away and putting a servo over his faceplates to rub under his optics.

Orion isn’t sure what part of his sentence exactly that’s directed at.

He decides not to ask.

It’s probably for the best.

He stifles the curiosity fairly easily, and picks at the burn on his thumb a little bit more.

Instead, all he says is, “Why do you ask?”

And Megatron frowns behind his servo before it slides down his face to cover his mouth and he tilts his helm up.

It’s a very… human sort of movement.

Expression.

Action.

“You’re telling me,” Megatron starts carefully after a long moment of looking to the sky, “that the Matrix was alive, would not let you remove it from your chassis, and you had– what would you even – imprints? Of Nova Prime, amongst others, in your helm?”

Orion makes a vague gesture with his servo.

“More or less?”

“What about that is more or less, you just–” Megatron takes a deep invent and looks away.

His plating prickles.

“It’s more or less.” He repeats, smoothing his plates back down. “You’re predominantly correct, none of the things you said were wrong–”

“It’s not a more or less kind of question!” Megatron snaps back, his own battered and broken plating rising in an angry bristle. “It’s a yes or no! You don’t just– just more or less have a– a parasite, apparently, in your chest! At the very least!”

Orion clenches his jaw, and feels something in his chest go cold.

It’s always cold, lately.

But this feels different.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” He– he sneers, drawing back, and he sort of–

Orion knows what he’s doing.

He knows what’s happening.

They’re falling back into old habits.

But he just–

He doesn’t care.

“Well I really think it might be!” Megatron snarls, leaning forward and straightening out and pressing into his space more – “Considering immediately after you got it you named yourself Prime and decided every single Decepticon that had just helped you was suddenly a criminal!”

And Orion–

Something catches in his throat.

He doesn’t–

“People were scared –”

“You were scared!” Megatron interrupts, snarling teeth and angry glyphs and magma pouring from his optics, from his lips. “You were scared and you didn’t want us in charge! So as soon as we’d done what you wanted you branded us criminals and went on your little way! I have a right to know why you did that! I’d– Primus I’d been stupid enough to almost think you were different.”

He says it with a sneer, with cruel lines to his mouth and his face and his shoulders, and Orion can feel his field now, he can feel how–

How angry it is.

“Your entire group of Decepticons were rioting and attacking mecha that had surrendered and were making the situation worse!” He argues back, something bitter clogging up his throat. “Zeta was dead and civilians were terrified and you weren’t doing anything about it! You were just letting your soldiers attack whoever they wanted! I had to do something!”

Megatron laughs.

It is unkind.

“Oh yes, you had to do something.” He says derisively. “You went and made yourself a replacement for the mech you just helped murder, you kept the privileged populous happy, you–”

“You weren’t doing anything, Megatron!” Orion hisses with a snarl of his engine. “Civilians were terrified and you watched and smiled because you thought they were finally getting what they deserved, and maybe they were, but that doesn’t mean you can just lower yourself to the level of the Senate where they ruled everyone by complacency and fear.”

Megatron’s lips draw back in a grin that bares all his denta.

“What do you know about complacency and fear,” his grin melts into a sneer. “Little Autobot, cog of the great Functionist machine.”

Orion–

Cracks.

All of his plating flares out in a furious rip of his engine as he shoves himself into Megatron’s space and–

“I know Shockwave!” He roars, howls, suffocating on nothing at all– “I know Senator Shockwave and how the Senate ruined him. I know the outliers, I know Nyon, I know Shadowplay.”

Megatron–

Falters for just a moment, before his plating clamps down with a snarl of his own engine, and he says–

He says–

“If you know Shockwave so well, then why did he join me?”

Orion stops venting.

Megatron doesn’t.

All he can hear is Megatron breathing.

He–

He’s–

Something frozen slithers down his intake.

And he–

Orion resets his vocalizer.

Then– 

Then he gets up.

And he walks away.

Eventually, after he’s about burned a magma waterfall into his optics, the numbness curdles into an awful pit in his tanks and his chest and he walks back.

He takes his time.

He– 

Megatron shouldn’t have said that.

But he… he shouldn’t have gotten aggressive or– he thinks the word is cagey.

He didn’t need to be so– defensive.

Megatron… also wasn’t wrong in most of what he said and that–

That was a different kind of hurt.

Than the old sort of wound that Shockwave had made in him.

Megatron is still sitting there when he walks back into the clearing before the cave that’s sort of become… theirs.

He’s just… staring into the magma flow.

Servos linked together.

Completely unreadable.

Orion sits down across from him.

The ash and sand still hasn’t settled from his abrupt departure.

It doesn’t look like Megatron’s even moved an inch.

“I apologize for pushing you.”

Orion looks up from his servos.

“What?”

Megatron isn’t looking at him.

“I said I apologize for pushing you.” He says tersely. “You were obviously uncomfortable, and I pushed on regardless. And I am– Shockwave was uncalled for. I’m sorry.”

Orion frowns.

“I– no, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so defensive. I shouldn’t have gotten angry. You were right.”

Megatron does look up at that.

He’s squinting.

“What?”

“You were right.” Orion says again, and finds a new burn curling into his palm to dig his fingers into. “Nothing you said was uncalled for or– or untrue. I was scared. I reacted– poorly. I shouldn’t have done what I did. I know that. I’ve known that. It’s four million years too late for apologies, and it means very little in the grand scheme of things, but I am– sorry. I am sorry. For what I did. If I hadn’t, maybe this whole war wouldn’t have happened.”

Megatron is staring again.

It seems to be his new favorite activity.

Just– staring at Orion like he’s become a flier or something when he wasn’t looking.

It’s somewhat disconcerting.

He thinks he might be getting used to it.

“There was truth to what you said too,” Megatron eventually says, much softer than before, and something about it is… painful, maybe? It makes his chest hurt. “Over time the Decepitcon ranks devolved to little else but complacency and fear. And I did think they deserved it, those Iaconians in their Towers. I was… angry. And I did shoot you first. Maybe if I hadn’t done that then this all would’ve been avoided.”

Maybe.

Maybe maybe maybe.

Orion folds his knees up to his chest, and rests his chin across his arms.

“Our share of blame in this conflict is not unequal.” He murmurs. “I’m sorry.”

Megatron doesn’t say anything.

Just– breathes.

That’s fine.

Orion doesn’t mind.

He turns away, part of his back to Megatron, and picks a shape to map with his optics.

He’s gotten behind on that project.

Maybe he needs more time away from Megatron so they don’t blow up at each other again.

Maybe–

“I didn’t mean it.”

Orion startles.

He looks over his shoulder.

“What?”

Megatron is looking past him.

“When I said you weren’t different.” He says, heavy and careful and fragile, and folds up one of his legs to rest his arms and helm against it. “I didn’t mean it.”

His optics flick over to him, steady and sure and unreadable.

And Megatron tells him,

“You are different.”

There’s a difference between bickering and arguing.

Orion finds he likes bickering more.

That’s– easier, and softer, and it doesn’t feel like standing on the edge of a chasm.

It’s more fun.

Orion hadn’t been needled much by anyone but Ironhide and Ratchet, towards the end.

He’d missed it.

Him and Megatron find all sorts of unimportant things to bicker about.

Who takes watch while the other recharges, if the sequel to something is always inherently worse than the first, whether so many societies having vehicles similar to their alts is weird or not.

Orion likes to bicker about nothing.

It’s almost like a debate, without all the pressure.

It’s… nice.

And probably good for stress relief.

He knows he’s going to argue with Megatron again, eventually.

But he doesn’t… want to.

He doesn’t want to argue with Megatron about something awful and serious.

He just wants to poke fun at his opinions about Earth literature.

He hadn’t known that was something he really wanted.

Not until he had it.

And Orion, now that he’s got it in both servos, doesn’t really want to let go.

Forging gives him lots of think time.

Megatron says he makes a face while he does.

Megatron says a lot of things.

But forging gives him lots of think time, where he just… thinks, as the name implies.

He’s well over halfway through making replacement plates, and Megatron grumbles about the itch of repairing protoform just about every day, and he just–

Orion isn’t sure how he got here.

Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

But he doesn’t know how he got here, how they got here, or what’s going to happen when he finishes making Megatron’s armor.

He wonders if they’ll stay together.

He wonders if they’ll go their separate ways.

That one bothers him.

And he thinks about it.

He thinks about it a lot.

“Where did you learn how to do this?” Megatron asks him suddenly, pointing with a newly armored forearm at Orion.

He’s on his second hammer.

Curves were… difficult.

“Do what?” He absently double checks his reference plate and then hammers out another edge.

Megatron makes a vague gesture with his servo.

“This.” Is what he says. “Forging. Where did you learn how to do it. It’s an easy question.”

Orion… pauses.

Where did he… 

He frowns, and rocks back on his heels, setting his hammer down on his anvil.

He stands when he works, now.

Finally got around to that anvil, and to sticking it on a high enough platform.

Orion stares at his servos, at the burns, at the discolored nanites.

They’re… familiar.

He’s never done this work before.

He wonders what that means.

Then he looks up.

And “I’m not sure,” falls out of his mouth like a damning thing.

Eventually, there’s not as many ships passing above.

The traffic slows, in a way.

Not all together.

But enough to be noticeable.

“Do you think they’ve realized it’s not paradise?” Megatron asks him curiously, helm tilted towards the sky from his place on a boulder. “And they’re telling all of their neutral friends that there’s no real home to come back to?”

Orion hums and squints at the plate in his servos, turning it this way and that.

He supposes it’s good enough… maybe.

“What do you think?” He shoves it into Megatron’s face for inspection.

Megatron barely blinks and he twitches his helm to the side like a bird.

Or a seeker.

He was a flier for a stretch.

Still is, actually.

Then his gaze falls onto Orion.

“I think you’ve remade almost all of my armor by hand.” He says, taking it in his servo without looking, and then tapping it against Orion’s helm vent, a flicker of his field slipping from his fingers to tweak his own with a ripple of exasperation. “I’m going to take it regardless. Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, and such.”

Orion smiles and doesn’t flinch.

He likes… whatever this is.

It never would’ve happened when he was Prime.

“That’s an Earth expression.” He points out, and cocks his hip to the side as he crosses his arms.

Megatron makes a face at him.

“I know what it is.” He says blandly, fiddling with the armor plate still in his servos– which is supposed to click into place on his thigh– before ruffling the kibble on his back in an audible ripple. “I just said it, didn’t I?”

“Did you like your time on Earth, Megatron?” Orion asks before he can think better of it.

It’s a dangerous question.

It edges closer to things that he knows they’ll argue about, and he doesn’t want to argue.

Not ever, but especially not today.

Megatron just shrugs his shoulders, though.

“It was– an organic planet.” He answers without saying much at all. “There was always something to read, I suppose.”

Orion puts a servo on his chin, and tries to cover his growing smile.

“Did you have a favorite?”

Megatron stares at him with immense judgment.

“I don’t trust that face.” He says wearily, and Orion laughs in a burst of sound before he can help himself.

“I won’t tell anyone.” He promises through stifling the blatant amusement in his field. “There’s no one to tell.”

Megatron scowls and flattens all of his plates down to the protoform.

“Well now I just don’t want to tell you even more.” He rumbles under his breath, turning away and stoically clicking his new armor plate into place.

In lines up with the others Orion has made almost perfectly, and some small part of him preens.

He ignores it, and steps back into Megatron’s visual range.

“So you admit you have one!” He says triumphantly, and Megatron groans. “Tell me. Please. I need to know.”

Megatron resolutely turns his helm away from Orion.

He smiles just a little bit wider, and moves so he can see him again, clasping his servos together in front of his chest.

“Please?”

Megatron stubbornly doesn’t look at him for almost a full minute, risks a glance, and then groans again and leans back until he’s completely horizontal, pedes and helm dangling over the edges.

Orion risks leaning over him and tilts his helm to the side with a flick of his audial fins.

Megatron covers his optics with his arm.

“I hate you.” He mumbles, but it– it lacks heart. “You aren’t going to let this rest, are you?”

Orion lets himself laugh a little.

“Absolutely not.”

And Megatron mumbles something under his breath, in with one vent and out with the other.

Orion perks his audial fins and tries to smother his grin.

He is… perhaps taking too much joy in this.

“What was that?”

“I said,” Megatron grumbles, louder this time and with large arm gestures that force him to lean back and away, “I like Les Misérables, you vulture.”

Orion shutters his optics at him for a second.

Processes.

Looks through his memory banks for the title.

Megatron’s faceplates grow pinker in the silence as he stubbornly stares at the sky.

And then it clicks and Orion bursts out laughing.

“Why did you join the Enforcers?”

Orion stops his hammer mid swing.

Megatron just… loves his loaded questions, doesn’t he?

Why… did Orion join the Enforcers?

He sets his hammer down.

He can work at the armor later.

He’s just… getting rid of dents at this point. 

Why did Orion join the Enforcers?

He crosses his arms, servos finding purchase in the seams of his arms.

He… he’s asked himself that question a lot, lately.

He’s still not quite sure of the answer.

“I…” He flexes his fingers, and stares into the magma. “Because… I was told they were supposed to help people.”

Orion sounds small to his own audials.

He could’ve… he could’ve been so many things.

A dock worker, an archivist… 

There’d been so many ways he could go.

So why had he picked Enforcer?

“And when you saw that they didn’t?” Megatron asks him, voice… very, very blank from where he sits out of sight.

Orion rolls the question around in his processor, and then shuts off his optics.

Vision gone, exposed back to Megatron, not focusing on his surroundings… 

He never would have done this before.

What changed?

“… I thought I could do something about it.” He decides on, each glyph careful and slow.

He remembers…

Orion remembers being angry.

At his fellow officers.

He remembers being angry enough that he could barely speak.

Because they were supposed to help, not–

Not do whatever the Pit it was they were doing.

But at some point he just–

“But you couldn’t.”

“No. I couldn’t.”

–stopped being able to get angry.

Something would happen– anything at all– and he would feel it, the indignation, the rage, the offense, and then it would just… fizzle and die and leave him hollow.

“And you stayed anyways.” Megatron says, and it’s still so… blank.

Neutral.

Devoid of judgment.

It’s… uncomfortable.

He tries to smooth his prickling plating.

And it… doesn’t really work.

“I never said it was a smart decision, it’s just– it’s what I did.” Orion says weakly. Why had he never left? Why had he never left? “I got in fights with the other officers for a long time. Ended up suspended. Put on leave. Roughed up. Over and over. Eventually I just… stopped.”

Why had he stopped?

Why had he stopped?

Megatron doesn’t say anything for a long time.

Orion doesn’t online his optics.

They feel… very far apart, in this moment.

Almost horribly so.

He’s almost surprised to find he doesn’t like it.

And then Megatron mutters, “Of course you got in fights.”

Orion laughs, but it’s weak.

“Why must you say it like that?” He asks, voice smaller than he’d like.

Megatron huffs, and the sound seems to echo.

“This is just what I sound like, Pax.” He says dryly, and Orion can almost picture the face he’s making.

He laughs again, stronger this time.

Tilts his helm towards the sky, onlines his optics to stars.

So very many stars.

And he breathes out to them,

“Liar.”

Megatron tilts his helm side to side by his chin.

Orion placidly lets him.

“Well it doesn’t look too bad…” He mutters, and there’s almost what could possibly be construed as worry bleeding to relief in his field.

It is, however, very definitively smug and amused.

“You’ll live.” Megatron announces, and lets go of his jaw.

It feels… colder, without his servo there.

You’d think living next to magma would keep things warm.

Orion tentatively pokes at the new gap in his lip with his glossa, and then hisses, audial fins canting back sharply.

Megatron snorts.

“That was dumb.” He says, and sounds far too delighted for his own good. “Very stupid. Absolutely foolish.”

Orion draws his hammer from his subspace and points it at him threateningly.

“Shut up before I decided to just not finish your armor.” He scowls, and then winces at the tug on his faceplates, raising a servo to cover his mouth. “Aaahhh oh Primus ow ow ow.”

And Megatron– starts to laugh.

Starts to laugh, and doesn’t stop.

Megatron… laughs.

Open and bright and–

It’s nothing like the wild cackles, the dark chuckles, the nearly hysterical bouts of laughter from the war.

Nothing like those at all.

Orion’s never heard him sound like this before.

He’s never heard him sound… almost happy.

He’d started to feel bad about all the turbofoxes, and had moved onto different prey.

He needed more material for plates anyway, if he was going to repair the last of Megatron’s back and pedes, and his bad shoulder.

More material, in bigger swaths.

So he goes looking past the turbofox trails for something new.

It’s how he gets that first injury, right across his face and through his battlemask, into the plates beneath.

Nitrotigers are much bigger than cybercats.

Good to know that those are back too, though.

“So, what did we learn?” Megatron asks him when he trugges back with a new gouge in his side, and an offlined nitrotiger across his shoulders.

“Need bigger sword.” He huffs out, dropping the damn thing next to his pile of already stripped parts.

Megatron makes a considering noise.

“No,” he says slowly. “No, I don’t think that’s it.”

Orion huffs out another vent, and settles onto the ground to start removing all of the usable pieces.

“You are lucky,” he wheezes out. “That I like you. So lucky. If– if Cliffjumper asked me to do this, I would– I don’t know. I would something. I’m tired. Limited processing power.”

He works in silence for a while, alternating carefully stripping off the dense armor plating and chewing down energon crystals.

It had… not quite hurt– though it definitely hadn’t been comfortable – at first.

But he’s gotten used to it.

It’s kind of like… human hard candy, maybe.

He doesn’t mind much, regardless.

“Say that again.”

Orion looks up, turning his helm to face Megatron.

Who is staring at him with a peculiar, maybe even pained sort of look on his face.

“Pardon?” 

Megatron’s vocalizer clicks.

“Say that again.” He repeats, voice strangely hoarse.

“Uh.” Orion looks away and stares blankly as he tries to remember what exactly he said. “Hmm. I’m tired? Er. Limited processing power?”

Megatron shakes his helm.

“Before that,” he says almost– desperately? “What you said before that.”

He flicks an audial fin in thought.

“You’re lucky that I like you?” Orion tries.

Megatron makes a face like he’s dying.

Puts his helm in his servos.

Emits a sound not unlike a broken fan.

It is… somewhat concerning and humorous.

“Are you alright?” He asks bemusedly.

The sound increases in volume and Megatron scrunches in tighter.

“Are you dying? Is this you dying? Did I fix you wrong? Did I replace almost all of your armor and get in fights with several Nitrotigers just for you to–”

“You like me!” Megatron shouts, throwing his servos up, one coming back down to grip at the side of his helm. “You’re– Pax, you can’t just say that.”

He looks slightly panicked.

Orion cocks his helm to the side.

“Why not?” He asks curiously, shuffling to better face Megatron.

Who just– stares at him.

And makes a strangled sort of sound.

“You are– impossible.” He breathes out. “Four million years– ‘you’re lucky I like you.’”

Orion smiles.

“We’ve since established we don’t hate each other.” He points out, grinning wider at the look of despair on Megatron’s face. “And I am repairing you. I don’t think I would repair someone I didn’t like. Didn’t you once say you had two constants in your life? Your hatred, and me?”

Megatron puts his other servo over his mouth.

“I’m regretting telling you things.” He vents in a hissed whisper, looking incredibly distressed.

Orion feels his smile soften.

“You don’t have to make it a big deal, you know.” He says gently. “It can just be a thing. I’m not asking you to say that you like me. Just know that I don’t hate you more than the bare minimum of not hating you. Think you can do that?”

Megatron wheezes another dying sort of sound, and Orion laughs.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He snickers, and turns himself back around to return to his nitrotiger.

He should be done with Megatron’s armor within… two orns? Maybe less? Give or take.

Just to be safe.

It’s not like they’re going anywhere.

They’ve all the time in the world.

“Thank you.”

Orion doesn’t look up this time.

Not even at the pedesteps, or the creaking of joints, or the impact of someone sitting.

“Hmm?”

Not even at the sudden warmth at his back, or the whisper of venting over his plates, or the feeling of someone pressing their helm into his kibble.

“Thank you.” Megatron repeats in a bare whisper.

“You’re welcome.” He says back.

Orion doesn’t ask what for.

He keeps burning his servos, though not for lack of trying.

It doesn’t seem to matter what he does, he always manages to knick a finger or the edge of his palm or a stretch of his wrist.

He doesn’t really mind, strangely enough.

It feels important.

A little piece of his craft burning itself into him.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t annoying, though, and Orion rips his servo away from where it strayed too close to the magma and metal with a hiss.

There’s a curious noise behind him, a shuffle of plates, and then a resigned-sounding sigh.

“Again?” Megatron asks him, already approaching it seems, judging by the sound of pedesteps.

Orion nods mutely, and shakes his servo out a little bit more.

It’s– a curious motion.

He’s not quite sure who he picked up shaking out an injury from.

He doesn’t even twitch when Megatron takes his servo in his own, turning it this way and that with a critical optic.

It had been– somewhat surprising to know Megatron had medical knowledge.

Somewhat surprising, but also not. 

“Nothing a mesh patch couldn’t fix…” Megatron eventually diagnoses, and then sighs again. “If we had those. Go about it the same as the others, I suppose. Dunk it in the solvent, move on. Another one for the books, as they say.”

“You could argue they build character.” Orion points out with a smile. 

Megatron looks up from his servo, expression melting from scrutinizing to unimpressed.

“I think you have enough character, thank you.” He deadpans.

Orion smiles wider, and Megatron lets out an exasperated huff before dropping his servo all together and walking away.

It’s kind of funny.

Orion watches him trek back to where he’d been sorting through their energon crystals, and feels his smile quiet to a smaller, softer thing.

He doesn’t think he would’ve ever, in any reality, imagined he would end up… here.

With Megatron.

In the middle of a reborn Cybertron, just… living? Together?

Living together.

Because that is what they’re doing.

And it’s… it’s not bad. 

It’s kind of… great.

Great and new and different and–

And wonderful.

He likes this life, he likes not being in charge, he likes – just being a mech.

Not a Prime.

Not a Captain.

Just… a person.

A living being.

A blacksmith, maybe.

Not a Blacksmith, but… he likes forging.

He can kind of see himself just… doing it forever.

Which is a strange sort of thought, but it feels true.

He doesn’t think he would mind it, him and Megatron living this life, looking for energon and mapping the world together, coming back to this place whenever they’re injured, Orion and him putting their helms together to fix each other up.

He doesn’t think he would mind it.

He kind of… really wants it.

He wants this life.

Because for the first time in millennia he feels… almost happy.

Sometimes Megatron sings.

Hums, really.

Under his breath, with the exhale of his vents, like he doesn’t think Orion will notice if he’s just quiet enough.

Orion doesn’t know what he’s singing.

But it’s rhythmic, and nice, and easy to work to.

He likes them.

The songs.

Megatron has a good voice.

He always has, really.

Orion likes listening to it.

He likes listening to… him.

And he dimly sort of wonders if Megatron still does poetry.

They get into another argument.

Orion can’t remember how it started.

It had been– something small, though.

Unimportant.

And he’d– gotten defensive.

Again.

Stupid.

He hates when Megatron pushes him, and Megatron hates it when he clams up, and they feed into each other, and it makes the argument worse.

Makes something petty into something volatile.

Orion can’t even remember what he said.

All he can remember is the look on Megatron’s face.

The look on his face and words he said and how he’d gotten so close Orion could feel his excess warmth.

That was all he could remember.

All he could remember was–

“You were perpetuating the system! That’s what mechs like you always do!” Megatron howls, hurt and ache and frustration and– “You pretend you care and use mecha for your own gain and then once you’re done with them and they’ve served their purpose you just throw them away! You turn on them! You preach for change and unity and that things are going to be different but you’re no better than Sentinel!”

–and it hurts.

It digs into his chest and his spark and he can’t–

Orion can’t move.

He can’t breathe.

He can’t– think.

He can’t do anything.

All he can do is stare as Megatron heaves in great, gusting vents, mouth turned in a horrible snarl, a mockery of a smile, a baring of fangs, shoulders slowly falling as he just–

Doesn’t speak.

Doesn’t look away.

Doesn’t– 

Doesn’t anything.

He can’t–

No better than Sentinel.

Sentinel who–

Who’s guidance authorized–

Who ruined Shockwave –

Megatron is–

He looks horrified.

Why does he–

When did that happen?

He–

He wasn’t wrong, Orion had–

Optimus had–

He had used people, he’d turned against the Decepticons, he’d talked mecha into joining the Autobots, he’d promised things–

Primus he wasn’t any better than Sentinel, was he?

He–

Primus.

Primus how could he –

“Oh stars I didn’t– Pax– Orion, I didn’t–”

His optics flicker on.

When had they shut off?

His servos are warm.

Why are his servos warm?

“Slag, I didn’t–” Megatron takes a step back, and then another, and he just– feels colder–

“You were right,” he breathes out, a bare whisper, and–

Megatron’s face flashes through– through something and then he’s– he’s right there again, grabbing his servos and they’re–

They’re slick with energon.

Oh.

His fingers had… punched through the plating.

That’s why his servos were warm.

He was bleeding.

“No,” Megatron shakes his helm violently, pushing into his space, lacing their servos together where he can’t dig his fingers back in– “No I’m not, I was– I didn’t mean it, I just– just said the first awful thing I could think of, you don’t– you’re nothing like him, Pa– Orion.”

His glossa feels heavy.

His throat tight.

He limply tries to pull away from Megatron, but it doesn’t really work.

He starts to whisper, “Things said in– anger are often tr–”

“Stop.”

–but Megatron interrupts.

Megatron interrupts.

Megatron with burning optics and servos laced in his.

“Would Sentinel have re-made my armor?” He asks him, something insistent and searching and– “Would he have hunted for the materials? Scavenged for energon? Fought nitrotigers? Would he have done any of those things?”

He–

Orion–

Orion can’t look at him.

He drops his helm, finds the ground with his optics–

Megatron lets go of one of his servos and grabs his chin, forces him to look up, to look him in the optics, gritted denta and desperation.

“Answer me.” He demands angrily, and Orion–

“No.” He whispers.

“Louder!”

“No!” 

Megatron holds his jaw and just stares at him for another moment longer, like he’s searching for something, before letting go, servo falling limply to his side.

It’s… pink.

Where he’d touched Orion’s palms.

It must be on his face now.

It wouldn’t be… the first time he’d had his own energon on his faceplates.

“I’m– I’m sorry.” Megatron says, so much quieter now, anger dimming. “I shouldn’t have said that. You’re– you’re a lot of things. But you’re not like Sentinel, Orion.”

He–

He leans forward, resting his helm against Megatron’s chestplates.

Megatron doesn’t seem to breathe.

He’s… he’s so tired now.

“Maybe not all the time.” Orion allows with barely any feeling at all. “But I’ve still– I’ve still–”

“Anything you’ve done,” Megatron interrupts harshly, “I’ve done worse. So… so shut up.”

He wheezes out a weak laugh.

Their servos are still tangled together.

Their fields melted into one unreadable mass ages ago.

Their sparks are almost pulsing in time.

It’s– nice.

And Orion– hates this.

How he– how they feel fine, and then it suddenly spirals out of control, and they end up shouting at each other and arguing and saying things meant to cut–

And he knows that they both– that they both have issues, and baggage, and they were enemies for four million years but–

But he wishes they never fought.

He wishes it was just… easy.

And good.

And simple.

But nothing– nothing ever gets to be easy or good or simple.

Not for him.

Not– not for Megatron.

Not for either of them.

The war is over.

But it doesn’t feel like it.

He’s tired.

“Me too.” Megatron breathes out, voice resonating deep in his chest cavity.

Orion can feel it.

He shuts off his optics.

And tries to just… listen to the beat of Megatron’s spark.

Focus on the feeling of someone else’s field so close to his.

Squeeze their joined servos a little bit tighter, his free one hanging limply.

And they just… stand there.

Together.

Silently.

In the middle of nowhere as ships pass overhelm and on.

The last missing plate clicks into place on Megatron’s back with little fanfare, and he ripples them together and all at once as soon as Orion removes his servo.

Nothing hitches, or catches, and the shuffle finishes flawlessly.

He is– undeniably proud.

He should be.

He’d never made armor before this, never made tools, never even picked up a hammer that wasn’t made for war– and yet here he is, having remade all of Megatron’s plating by hand, piece by piece.

Some of the edges are rough, yes, and there’s somewhat of a difference in quality between his first plates and his final ones, but– but it’s nothing to– to sneeze at, to use a human term.

He remade Megatron from the ground up.

There’s pride to be had in that, justifiable and burning.

He’s just… Orion is unsure what exactly is supposed to happen now.

Megatron is intact now, fully armored to the best of his ability and healed as well as he’s going to be without access to medical supplies.

Orion’s part is… done.

Megatron doesn’t need him anymore.

They don’t have to stay together.

It’s kind of terrifying.

But then–

Megatron finishes rolling his shoulders, ruffling and clamping his plates in a full check, before looking at him expectantly.

“So what’s the plan now?” He asks curiously, genuinely, helm cocked to the side and–

Orion–

Smiles.

“How do you feel about cartography?”