Chapter Text
The city of Iacon had been mostly deserted in the days after Sentinel Prime’s brutal execution, and the split between D-16, now Megatron, and Orion Pax, now Optimus Prime.
Bracing himself to get dizzy, Optimus Prime looked down into the large hole that led into Iacon from the surface. For a brief moment, he contemplated stepping in. Then, he decided against it for now, and only sat down at the edge to reminisce about the first time he’d come back after he’d received his transformation cog.
It felt like it had been a lifetime ago, and also like it had just been a solar cycle prior.
The city had been bright and vibrant. Now, without enough bots to maintain the city’s power, many screens that had still been flickering with the last images they’d broadcast of Sentinel Prime kneeling to the Quintessons, went dark. Lights in office towers dimmed, on their way to a total blackout.
If this was how the upper echelons of the city looked after these many decacycles, vorns, of abandonment, Optimus wondered how the crowded barracks and streets of the lower-class mining bots looked like.
He wondered if there was anyone left in Iacon at this point. Bots scurrying around, finding energon, ways to survive the desolation.
A small part of him missed the parts of Iacon he knew, the comfort of it. But then as he thought about it further, all he really missed was what the comfort of his memories of mining in the caves came with - the memory of Dee.
He would give the universe to have Dee back. Especially now, when he was in his current state and needed someone else there.
The sparkling sent a pulse to him over their creator and creation bond, still a new thing he was getting used to. It was so strange having someone so close, even his own creation. Placing a servo over his chassis, Optimus then turned around. He looked up at the sun, feeling the warmth on his malleable metallic faceplates for a second before he took on his alternate mode.
It would be potentially the last time he could do so for a while. As time passed, as the sparkling grew, his plating had shifted to further pad his abdominal plating, providing further protection for the cargo in his forge. If one was seeing him for the first time, they may not have realized he was carrying, but all the Autobots knew.
As Optimus drove over the terrain towards the makeshift base, his internal systems beeped a few notifications at him. One was a message from Prowl, one a message from Ratchet, and one a notification that his frame gave him about how it was getting difficult to transform and that soon his transformation systems would lock, and refuse to let him change frame in order to avoid any damage to his sparkling.
He opened the one from Prowl. Prowl said he was getting the requested number of bots together for the trip down into Iacon that was planned, but he was going to have to request that Elita stay behind to help guard the base, as he felt the base would be more likely to be attacked when Optimus wasn’t there.
It was a fair point. They were going to have plenty of heavy-hitters on the team to go into Iacon already.
Then, the one from Ratchet was him yelling at Optimus and telling him that he better get his aft back to the base that very instant and go see him.
When Optimus arrived at the base, he walked right into Ratchet’s medbay-combo-Wheeljack’s-workshop.
Ratchet glared at him for a second, and then glared at Wheeljack. “Wheeljack, out. I need to talk to Orion - Optimus, sorry - privately.”
Wheeljack scooped up whatever experiment he was working on at the moment, and then scurried out. He’d been witness, as all of them had been, to how uncontrolled Ratchet’s true self could be when it came to his exasperation and rage, and no doubt had had a few wrenches thrown at him in the short time they’d all been on the surface.
“Optimus,” Ratchet said, his last thread of patience clearly frayed, but calmer than when he’d sent that message, “you’re almost at the point where you won’t be able to transform for a while. Why are you doing this?”
“Ratchet, there’s useful weapons and equipment back down there in the mines,” Optimus replied, keeping his tone soft to match Ratchet’s own softened voice.
The medic gave him an exasperated look. “Elita, Ironhide, Brawn, any one of them can lead the other bots down there. Why does it have to be you, in your condition?!”
Optimus closed his optics and took a deep in-vent, slowly letting air out and reopening his optics before he replied. “If I can still go out in the field to lead, I will do so.”
“You understand that the more you keep doing this, you’re increasing your chances of getting hurt? Or Primus forbid, you hurt your sparkling?”
The notification he’d received from his frame regarding transformation came to his processor. He proceeded to forward it to Ratchet via his communication link, and watched as the medic read it, and then his shoulder struts drooped minutely.
“I will do this last one,” Optimus said. “Prowl’s calculations indicate that the chances of the Decepticons attacking us as we re-enter Iacon is lower than the chances of them attacking the base. We’ll take everyone we can to protect me.”
Ratchet gave him a measuring look, and then seemed to lose whatever bits of fight he still had in his frame. “Fine. But this one is the last one. Do you hear me?”
Optimus’s optics flicked over to the assortment of medical tools on the nearest tray and noticed there were five differently shaped wrenches on it. He closed his optics and promised himself, and the little one as she pulsed an inquisitive little wave at him, that this would be the last one, before he looked Ratchet in his optics and nodded in affirmation. “This will be my last outing.”
.-.-.
Almost as if Primus were laughing at Optimus’s promise to himself and his sparkling, there was an explosion in Iacon that sent a small edifice tumbling to the ground.
The road continued to build itself in front of Optimus Prime and the Autobots that accompanied him. Where the explosion had been, was where they were supposed to be, in the abandoned mining shafts that undoubtedly still had large amounts of energon there along with the equipment and old weapons.
As Optimus led the Autobots towards the explosion, he saw that the building that had collapsed was a checkpoint for the miners before they reported to their shifts.
He took on his bipedal mode and stood in front of the smoldering ruins. After a moment of pondering and waiting for whomever had bombed the building - likely the Decepticons, he bitterly presumed, wondering how Prowl had gotten his intel that said the Decepticons were more focused on surface missions - Optimus went to go lift rubble to make the entrance into the mines smoother.
Only to feel arms wrap around him before he was lifted up by Jetfire. Ironhide, Elita, and Bee took the initiative to start removing the rubble of the collapsed building, followed by everyone else as they arrived at the front of the group.
Optimus huffed and looked at Jetfire. “I can help, you know.”
Jetfire gave him a smirk. “Ratchet’s orders. We do everything we can to make sure you don’t injure yourself.”
Elita hefted a large bit of rubble over her shoulder strut. “Yeah, or else he’ll injure you with a wrench.”
“Have you been hit with those things before?” Bee said. “I joked to him about how I was always meant to be a stuntmech and then he hit me with more wrenches! I don’t know where he even got them.”
“Did he hit you with more than five?” Elita asked.
“More like ten. I think he had them hidden in his servos.”
Ironhide grumped and then stepped aside, waiting for everyone else to step aside before he announced, “Path’s clear! Weapons at the ready, the explosion could be the Decepticons.”
“Do you think it could be the Quintessons?” Bee asked Optimus as they all began to congregate at the pathway, going back down into the sub-levels they’d never thought they’d see again.
Optimus shook his helm. “We haven’t seen any of their ships. I doubt they would have been able to get down here without us seeing them.”
A hushed quiet came over each bot as they traveled down the tunnels into the mines. They were all bigger than they’d been before, and where the tunnels had previously been large enough to stack three or four of them on each others’ shoulders before reaching the top, they were now too close to the jagged ceilings for comfort.
“It’s eerie,” Elita said softly, and Optimus turned to see her kneeling down, picking up badges that other miners - the last ones that had a shift - had discarded on their way out of the mines to celebrate Sentinel’s death and receive their own transformation cogs.
Optimus breathed in, his olfactory sensors picking up the smell of the dirt and energon that still surrounded them. “I never thought I’d be back here.”
They emerged into a large room. Large wheeled bins of energon were overturned and energon cubes were scattered across the floor. In the back, an empty train, filled only with carts of machinery.
Somewhere had to be the door that led to the weapon caches that the overseers used to keep the miners in line.
Before Optimus could look around to figure it out or before anyone else could take a scan, a sneering voice called out. “Optimus Prime , is it?”
Starscream.
Everyone turned and raised their weapons. Starscream was high in the air, suspended by the jets in his pedes, and Shockwave and Soundwave led an approaching ground army.
The Seekers all fell into formation behind Starscream, posturing menacingly and flicking their wings.
Jetfire, Air Raid, and Silverbolt flicked their wings at them in return, and whatever it was they had said in flightframe body language enraged the two Seekers that came to Starscream’s side, Skywarp and Thundercracker, flaring their own wings high up in open defiance, glares shooting bullets at them all.
“Starscream, you have no need for any of this.” Optimus said, stepping forward. “Do you even know how to use mining equipment?”
“As if we’d be caught using such a thing,” Starscream snarled. “We’re after those weapons that your mining bosses carried around.”
Before Optimus could ask how he knew about such a thing, Starscream continued. “Megatron got the location out of your old boss - what was his designation? Darkwing. We captured him and got the information from him before, well…” Starscream trailed off, pointedly held his wings high, and then made a slashing motion across his throat.
On one servo, good riddance, Optimus thought. On the other servo, he wished that - just as with Sentinel - Darkwing and the other overseers had been subjected to a trial and sentenced to the same unending labor in the mines that they had been forced into.
“You’re not getting those weapons,” Optimus said. “Where is Megatron?”
“Like we’ll tell you. Decepticons, get those weapons!”
It was a mad scramble and blasters began firing.
So much for the quick in-and-out that Optimus had hoped for. He shoved down his irritation and grabbed for his blasters, only for a white-and-black mech to immediately step in and stay his servos.
“Orion,” Jazz said sharply, before correcting himself, “Optimus, you’re carrying. You stay behind us.”
Optimus was about to protest but then Ironhide bodied his way in and gave him a glare. Getting the idea, Optimus nodded and then dove into a small opening in the wall that showed no signs of having been breached. He would stay there, dig himself further in with the abandoned mining equipment until either he was called for, or until he reached the surface by forcing a way out.
The vast majority of the Decepticons only knew the surface of Cybertron and the skies and the stars over it. The Autobots, on the other servo, lived in the mines, the dirt and the dangerous air choking and clogging their intakes as their gears stripped so they worked to pay off a debt they’d never incurred.
It was the weight of what they owed to a society that had never accepted them, that told them they did.
Veins of energon crystals glowed dimly at him, almost as if beckoning him further into the tunnels.
He traced his fingers along the walls of the tunnel, feeling the ridges and bumps of the dirt they’d tunnel into, feeling the tiny chips of leftover energon crystals that the miners never bothered to try and dig up, as they were so small that they’d expend more energy trying to dig up a few than refining those chips would give them back.
As he traveled along the length of the tunnel, he thought about the last time he’d been down here, with Dee and saving Jazz, getting Elita demoted (she thankfully didn’t seem to hold that grudge against him anymore)... the memories flooded back. He could almost smell the fumes of the explosion that Wheeljack had triggered.
Then he got to the deep part of the tunnel, which was the end of it all. The mining carts were still there, still broken and knocked over from the explosion.
In his peripheral vision, a form emerged.
Upon realizing he was not alone in this specific mining shaft, Optimus immediately moved into a defensive stance.
The figure moved from the shadows and into the dim light cast by Optimus’s own optics.
It was Megatron.
Panic filled Optimus’s spark. He wondered if the explosion at the old mining barracks and the Decepticons raiding the mines for the stores of refined, unpackaged energon had all been a ruse to get him and Megatron into the same, small space.
But the way that the irises of Megatron’s optics cycled a little wider in surprise, and the way his optics dimmed for a moment, told Optimus that it wasn’t a ruse after all. Megatron seemed just as shocked to see him there as Optimus was.
He didn’t know that he could trust the Decepticon leader. What would Megatron do now that they were both in this small confined shaft?
Protectively, Optimus placed a servo over his middle and took a step back. An inquisitive pulse came from the sparkling over their nascent creator-creation bond, and he responded with a reassurance that she was safe.
“What in the Pits are you doing down here?” Megatron asked, tone low and growling, his optics cycling back to their normal parameters and going back to their usual level of brightness.
Optimus narrowed his optics. “I could ask you the same.”
Megatron’s faceplates shifted into an expression that Optimus remembered from a different lifetime. Dee would tell Orion Pax that he had a point, and then he’d be upset at himself for saying such a thing.
Steam escaped Megatron’s vents, and his expression shifted back to the measuring look he’d had before. “Fair point, Prime. I’m surprised that your Autobots even let you out of the base and go into a risky situation, given your…” he paused, and his red optics flicked down to the Optimus’s servo that protected his midsection. “You really shouldn’t be here.”
The memory of their argument in front of and between their armies came to Optimus’s mind. Remembering the hurtful words that Megatron had said brought a well of spite to Optimus’s spark, and he huffed. “Funny that you choose just now to care about me and my safety.”
He saw Megatron clench and then unclench his jaw. “My concern is mostly for our sparkling. I know you can defend yourself. Them, not as much.”
The sparkling that Megatron had said would be used against him… clearly, he did care, on some level.
Optimus felt himself relax a little bit, unaware that he’d previously been that tense. That was probably why the sparkling had been as startled as she had been, picking up on his emotions.
“I’m also surprised you care about them too,” Optimus said softly. He met Megatron’s gaze as the mech looked at him. “You didn’t seem entirely enthused when I told you what our little shenanigans on that rooftop made.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth, Prime.”
“I believe your words were that I would use this sparkling against you.” Optimus shook his helm and blinked back the tears that threatened to come out as he remembered how Megatron looked so betrayed, how betrayed he felt, and wondering how he would handle a sparkling on his own. “While I would like for you to at least be involved in our daughter’s life, I cannot force the issue. I can, also, see it would be… hard. Given we’re at war.”
An uneasy silence fell between both mechs. Explosions from the fighting above them shook the ceiling, raining pebbles on them, bouncing off their armor and onto the ground.
“So, what do we do now?” Megatron said. He leaned against a toppled over mine cart. “I can go out, but since your Autobots saw you come in here, they might think I did something to you and jump on me.”
“And I was urged to come in here for my safety so the Autobots can get me out, so they’ll yell at me to come back in here,” Optimus gave a laugh. “Looks like we’re both at an impasse.”
Megatron went quiet for a moment, looking up at the ceiling, and then to Optimus. “What if we just… no.”
“What?”
“Nevermind?”
“What is it?”
Megatron shook his helm. “It was a stupid idea. I’ve missed you and was going to propose that we just…”
He trailed off, and then he looked at Optimus’s servos. He reached for them, and for some reason that Optimus didn’t want to put into words, he let Megatron take them, watching as the Decepticon brought his servos to his lipplates and laid the gentlest kisses on them that he’d ever felt, even more gentle than the kisses Dee gave to Orion.
Optimus Prime’s cooling fans clicked on. Normally it was due to overexerting himself during such a physically-taxing time, but the labored breaths that came from his venting systems would tell anyone near him that this was not that time.
Then, he heard Megatron’s own cooling fans activate.
To his surprise, Megatron divested himself of his cannon, removing it from its holster and tossing it to the ground, away from them.
With the echo of the Autobot and Decepticon battle in the main cavern above them, Optimus leaned in and kissed Megatron, as he’d been yearning for for such a long time.
Megatron stiffened, his intakes hitching in shock. He was flustered, just as D-16 used to get when Orion Pax would take his servo and kiss him.
Then, growling deep in his chassis, Megatron wound his arms around Optimus’s frame and melted into the kiss. Servos trailing down, he possessively grabbed at Optimus’s hips.
“I’ve missed you,” Megatron hissed. “Primus I’ve missed you so much.”
Optimus slid a servo between their heated frames and grabbed at Megatron’s array panel, making Megatron’s intakes hitch hard. “I’ve also missed you, so so much” he whispered.
It was like time had never passed and the war had never begun. Desperate kisses and touches, gentle and sweet murmurs between both faction leaders, the clicking sound of their array paneling sliding back.
Orion Pax had always said that D-16 was made for him, and Orion made for D-16. Optimus Prime felt the same way as Megatron’s erect spike slid into him, the calipers of his valve flexing around the length, guiding Megatron closer and closer to his ceiling node. Their sensors seemed to line up so perfectly, every ridge of Megatron’s spike sliding against perfectly placed calipers, sending fire up Optimus’s spinal strut.
Hooking his legs around Megatron’s waist, Optimus leaned his helm back, a servo shooting out to grab at the dirt he was laid on to serve as some sort of anchor to reality, and he gasped as Megatron rocked into his valve, gentle at first, almost as if afraid to break him.
“Keep going,” Optimus urged, desperate for further stimulation. “Please. You’re not going to break me.”
Megatron seemed to mull over Optimus’s request for a few seconds, and then he secured his grip on Optimus’s thighs that were pressed against his sides, and began a rougher pace.
Arching his back, Optimus felt the wave of pleasure shoot up his spinal strut, the built up sensations exploding in his processor, making his vision go purely white as overload hit him.
Just a few moments later, Megatron reached his own overload, shooting thick ropes of transfluid into him.
A message popped up in Optimus’s visual, letting him know the transfluid donation would start the absorption process into his frame, with the end result being that the necessary coding would be passed along to his growing child to continue building their frame. He shuffled that notification out of view, and curled onto his side so he could face Megatron, who had collapsed onto his own side so he lay next to Optimus.
Megatron pressed his faceplates against Optimus’s chassis, a protective servo over the Prime’s middle. The gentle weight on top seemed to rouse the sparkling, and for the first time since before they’d begun this, she began to quicken again.
The movement was faint, fluttering, but after some time of feeling it, Optimus could now tell when it was happening.
He didn’t realize he’d pulled an expression on his faceplates, until Megatron gave him a curious look. “What is it?”
“Oh.” Optimus shook his helm gently. “She’s just moving. That’s all. Still weird to get used to.”
Immediately, Megatron put both of his servos over the expanse of Optimus’s midsection. After he didn’t feel anything for a bit, he then moved his helm to place his cheek against Optimus’s middle.
“I don’t feel anything,” Megatron said softly.
Optimus moved his servo to stroke over Megatron’s helm. “I can barely feel the movement. It’ll be some time before you can feel it, I’m afraid,” he chuckled lightly. “Sorry.”
Then he remembered. He had a small clip Ratchet had shown him at one of his more recent checkups. It was a clip of the scan of the sparkling in his forge. It was little more than a faint point of light surrounded by the wisps of a frame beginning to form, but it was something for when Megatron had absolutely nothing.
To his surprise, he still had D-16’s communication code saved. As he began loading the clip to send along, the contact name changed from D-16, to Megatron.
It took a few moments, but then Megatron sat all the way up, his optics slowly brightening, his faceplates softening. “You… this is our sparkling?”
“Yes.” Optimus smiled up at Megatron. “She likes kicking. I think she takes after you.”
Never had he seen a look of pride in Dee, or Megatron’s, face before, quite like he was seeing now. Megatron put a servo over his own spark. He smiled, thinking of how wonderful it was that he and Optimus would have such a lively sparkling.
Then his faceplates shifted into sorrow, and he closed his optics.
“I’ve been haunted by a vision of Megatronus Prime,” Megatron bitterly laughed, reopening his optics. “Basically since you kicked me out of Iacon. I went to recharge, and found him glaring at me. I’ve never seen videos of him with optics that white before,” he said.
Thinking of how he kept summoning Primes with the Matrix, Optimus held back his own laugh.
“But the night after I told you that I would rather not have known about you carrying our sparkling,” Megatron stroked his digits over Optimus’s middle, “I dreamt I was in a battlefield, and Megatronus Prime was my enemy. He lifted me by the throat, and pinned me against a monument to Sentinel Prime that then broke apart.”
Megatron then fell silent, and moved his digits away from Optimus, moving from his sitting position and getting to his pedes. Optimus sat up, planting the palms of his servos on the ground next to him as he turned his helm to track with Megatron’s pacing.
“And then what happened?” Optimus asked after a few minutes of silence in the cave that was filled only with the sound of the other mech’s pedes stepping on dirt, gravel, and microscopic bits of energon crystals.
Megatron stopped, his intakes hitching, and he hung his helm, facing away from Optimus. “He berated me for taking his name and defiling it. He worked with the other Primes for the good of all Cybertronians, and didn’t take power all for himself the way I did. And… then he told me that he and Prima would give anything to be returned to life, to welcome a sparkling that they had always wanted. He asked me how I could dare desert you in your time of turmoil.”
Amazing. He’d only spoken with Alpha Trion and Prima, but clearly in that astral plane where their spirits went to, the Primes really did speak amongst themselves.
Optimus could imagine it now. Prima taking his conversation with Optimus to Megatronus Prime, and Megatronus becoming further enraged to the point he manifested a nightmare for the mech that had taken his name for himself and deserted his carrying partner.
“I’ve been trying to forget it,” Megatron said, so quietly that Optimus almost didn’t hear him. “I woke up yelling, blasting a hole into the ceiling in fright thinking that I was fighting the actual Megatronus. But this…” he trailed off. “Orion… Optimus, please answer me this time.” Megatron’s red optics went dim, and even through all of the upgrades, the violence, taking Megatronus Prime’s cog from a bisected Sentinel’s body, everything he’d done, Optimus Prime could see the fellow miner that Orion Pax had once loved so much. Out of Megatron’s body came D-16’s voice as the Decepticon leader hesitantly asked. “When I killed you, did our sparkling also…”
Megatron trailed off. He couldn’t bear to finish his question.
The Prime stopped his gentle ministrations over Megatron’s helm, and then pulled his servo back. He braced himself to say the next two words.
“She did.”
He felt Megatron’s intakes hitch.
“She held on for longer than I did as I fell towards Cybertron’s core,” Optimus continued. “But she still passed. When Primus granted me the Matrix and remade me, he and Primes also revived our sparkling.”
It felt so odd, even to himself, that Optimus could just be so… forthcoming about what had happened. He presumed that he should be much more emotional, much more distraught, but he couldn’t find the energy to be so.
The sparkling stirred in his forge, almost as if to remind him that she was there and she was alive.
By the grace of the Primes, by the love and sparkbreak of Megatronus and Prima, both carrier and creation were alive.
“So consumed was I by my rage,” Megatron whispered, his voice thick with emotion, his vents hitching in such a fast cycle that Optimus hadn’t heard since Dee had caught a fatally wounded Orion’s hand. “I was so… so angry. I set out to get revenge and it cost me more than I thought it would.”
His armor began rattling on his frame.
And then Megatron fell to his knees, in front of Optimus, and buried his face into Optimus’s chassis again as he was overcome with grief, sobbing.
“I’m sorry,” he choked through his words. “Please forgive me. I didn’t want to lose you as I fought for justice for us, for all of us, and I lost you and something I never knew we had.”
Momentarily putting aside his own emotions, Optimus wrapped both of his arms around Megatron, gently stroking the shaking mech’s backplates. “And I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have told you to not be like Sentinel. It was… it was a poor choice of words.”
And it was. Megatron was not like Sentinel. He wanted justice for all, whereas Sentinel’s aim had been glory and power and stepping on anyone who got in his way, and asserting what he felt was his Primus-given right to dictate what other bots did.
It was the vengeance that had driven D-16 into becoming Megatron, into killing Sentinel.
“I had meant that you were becoming blind,” Optimus whispered after a few moments of getting to collect his thoughts. “You told me you wanted to march Sentinel through the mines as his penance for doing what he did to us all. I think we all wanted that. But along the way… we lost you.” He paused, and then emphasized, “I lost you.”
Megatron’s sobs abated, and he pulled back. His red optics were glowing bright, streaks of white down his silver faceplates that were clearly tears.
Optimus felt his own tears begin to emerge, and he didn’t bother trying to blink them away, instead letting them fall. Leaning into Megatron’s touch as the mech brought a servo up to wipe the tears trickling down his faceplates, Optimus whispered, “And even though I lost you, I still love you. I always have and I always will.”
It was then that Optimus realized that the fighting seemed to have ceased entirely. It had become quiet above them, with only shouts echoing in the caverns and mineshafts, but thankfully no weaponfire.
“Do you forgive me, Optimus? Can you forgive me?”
Optimus looked at Megatron, his face still in those large, dark servos. He nodded, and let Megatron rest his face against his neck cables.
“We can still do something, you know. We can work something out,” Optimus said softly, stroking the top of Megatron’s helm. “The Quintessons are still out there, thinking they rule Cybertron.”
Megatron chuckled, his optics dimming as he leaned in to kiss Optimus. “And we can’t let them think that, can we?”
“No. Pit no,” Optimus replied. “We can do this together, both of us and our united armies. Our original goal… was to be free of Sentinel. And then the Quintessons. We have one goal met.”
Hearing combined voices getting further, which Optimus realized were some familiar voices that were definitely a mixture of both Autobot and Decepticon. “We have more to gain together than we would apart.” He lowered his servo to grasp at Megatron’s own, gripping that dark and strong hand in his own. “Please?”
The voices were right outside.
Megatron looked at him, and then closed his optics.
He nodded.