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Megatron could never look small. Hunched to fit into the confines of his too-narrow cell, he looks as if he could burst through the walls at any moment. In the dark, with only the red of his optics for light, he seems more nightmare than living metal.
Optimus Prime stands in the corridor outside Megatron’s cell. The light that shines from his matrix blue eyes would have once been considered holy, but Primus had only been a mech, and now he was dead and forgotten.
They are alone. Cybertron is alive once more, but in this solitary prison, they have been exiled from it. The air is as cold and dead as the vacuum of space, the definite emptiness that heralds the fate of the universe. In the face of it, Megatron and Optimus are as powerless as the stars.
The hard-light barrier of the cell had been deactivated. For the first time in four million years, there are no walls between them. It is difficult not to think of their first meeting, of the people they used to be. Their idealism came more easily, then. It was never untested. Even after all that followed, it was impossible to look upon the past of Cybertron with anything resembling nostalgia. Still, uncountable generations of atrocity and justification killed the mechs they used to be, and their idealism had died and been reborn with them.
Megatron had believed in peace. He believed in the power of his words to change the world, but the world changed him instead. He started a war for what he believed, until all he believed in was war, until peace was himself, alone on his mountain of corpses. Now his war was over, and he is still alive, and the corpses still lie at his feet, and it had all been for nothing. Still, Megatron believes in peace.
Optimus had always believed that peace was something that must be fought for. His existence had been plagued by inescapable irony. His infinite capacity for love compelled him to stand between the galaxy and total annihilation, and doomed him to a life where he could have no victory. Even as he killed, he mourned, and every corpse he added to his mountain was joined by his own. Defeating the Decepticons had ensured that there would be survivors, but he has no place among them. Still, Optimus believes in peace.
“Megatron.”
If there had ever been a sign Orion Pax was destined for greatness, it was his voice. It contained within it all the compassion in the universe, wielded with the full force of his conviction. He was certain enough in his power to be kind. Even as he spoke the name of his greatest enemy, it could only ever be with hope.
“Prime.”
It has been five million years since Megatron was kind, and the weight of every year can be heard in his voice. He steps forward, into the space where the barrier would be. He’s close enough, now, that he could reach out and touch Optimus. Even without weapons, at this distance an attack stands a genuine chance at succeeding. Against almost anyone else, it would be a guarantee. Megatron’s arms remain at his sides.
They stare at each other, each casting the light of their optics over the other’s face. It is Megatron who speaks first.
“You came.”
“How could I not?”
It is not meant to be a rhetorical question. The silence drags all the same.
“We need to hurry. They’ve agreed to give us some privacy, but I do not know how long that will last.” Despite the urgency of his statement, Optimus makes no attempt to move. Neither does Megatron.
“Please.” Optimus’s voice is painfully soft.
“You would not beg me for your own life, but you would beg me for mine?” The wonder in Megatron’s voice is genuine. The root of Megatron’s hatred has always been fear, he had always feared that Optimus was exactly as merciful as he pretended to be.
“I would beg you for the life of a friend.”
“Are we friends?”
“I called you friend, once. I would be proud to do it again.” There could be no doubt that Optimus meant it. There was only one being Optimus could never forgive, and it was not Megatron.
“Then, old friend, we both know why you have come.”
For a moment, there is quiet, the same quiet as just before a rainstorm. It has not rained on Cybertron for four million years.
“It’s not too late. We can still leave. Cybertron no longer needs us.”
“Cybertron needs justice.”
“You have changed. This would not be justice.” Optimus is desperate, now. It is an expression Megatron is used to seeing.
“We’re so close to the future you once fought for. You must live to see it.”
The full force of Optimus’s faith shines brighter than the sun. Megatron, a monster of the shadows, could never survive it.
“The only future worth fighting for is not one with me in it. Kill me, so it may be born.”
“Nothing will be born of this.”
“Kill me then, because it’s what Cybertron deserves. What the galaxy deserves. What I deserve.”
“And I?” Optimus’s voice is a whisper. Megatron leans closer to hear it. “Do I deserve to be your executioner?”
“Martyr yourself one last time, Prime”. It is in the same gentle whisper that Megatron responds. By cruel irony, the soft tone in which he had spoken his first poems now sounds unnatural in his new voice. Perhaps, if he had more time, he would be able to speak it as his native language once again. By his own choice, he does not.
“Optimus. If you are going to ask this of me, call me Optimus.”
“Optimus. Will you be my executioner?”
“Megatron…”
“Freedom is the right of all sentient beings. Let this be my choice.”
Cautiously, Optimus reaches out across the doorway, servo stopping just above Megatron’s chest. It hovers there, as if the inch of air were something impossibly fragile. He can go no farther. “I will miss you.”
Megatron, more delicately than he has done anything in his too-long life, grasps Optimus’s wrist in his servo. “You have spent four million years missing me.”
Slowly, Megatron kneels, and Optimus, unwilling to break their connection, steps forward to the entrance of the cell. His arm bridges through the doorway, between the constraints of the universe and infinity of Megatron’s cell. At this distance, it’s more difficult for Optimus to maintain the final bit of distance between him and Megatron than to finally press his palm above Megatron’s spark. Megatron’s grip offers no resistance, nothing more than the barest impression of pressure. Like Atlas against the weight of the sky, Optimus’s servo makes no advance.
The mechanical whirr of Megatron’s chest cuts through the silence of the solitary cell. In some distant way, he expects pain. He expects his sins to be written on his spark, expects it to turn to ash under the light of Optimus Prime’s optics. Instead, there is only empty air.
The emerald glow that washes over the room is unbearably intimate. Electricity leaps off Megatron’s spark, arching into Optimus’s fingers and racing through the sentient metal of his body. Optimus is hurtling through the space between them, thrown from a four million orbit into free fall, and he has never longed for anything so much as the earth. Their end has always been as inevitable as gravity, and yet still, Optimus hesitates, suspended in the supercharged air. Beneath Optimus’s mercy, Megatron transforms from tyrant to subject. This time, as always, Optimus submits himself to his duty. He falls.
Somewhere in a distant galaxy, a star explodes. By the time the light of the explosion reaches Cybertron there will be no one left who remembers its people. In this galaxy, in this time, Optimus Prime holds Megatron’s spark in his servos.
Optimus is gentle as he pulls, a sharp contrast to the metallic screaming coming from Megatron’s chest. He’s careful to damage only the surrounding metal, careful to keep the pressure light on Megatron’s fragile spark. Optimus can’t look away from Megatron’s optics, still glowing brilliant crimson. Neither of them flinch. Pain has long since lost any meaning for Megatron, and Optimus has never been able to turn away from suffering. For Megatron and Optimus both, there could be no refuge in ignorance.
With his servo still on Optimus’s wrist, Megatron adds his own strength to his enemy’s, and together, with a final tear, his spark comes free. Optimus lifts it between them, the light almost too bright to look at directly. Megatron is struck by the realization that it is beautiful.
As the light fades, with the last of his strength, Megatron raises his free servo into the space between them. It hovers over his spark, and goes further still, to just above the clasp on Optimus’s battle mask. He’s so close, the slightest turn of Optimus’s head would bring them into contact. All Optimus would have to do is look away.
Optimus does not turn his head. They do not touch. The last of the light fades from Megatron’s optics, and his servo falls. Optimus, driven from his stupor, moves to catch it, dropping the now transparent spark. It, too, cannot resist the absolutism of gravity, and it crashes to the ground besides its still-kneeling body.
In another universe, Megatron never returns to Cybertron. He lives the rest of his unknowable lifespan traveling the stars, surrounded by those he has come to call his friends. He will save lives, and they will never number more than the lives he has ended. He will never forgive himself, but he will learn to live around his guilt. The future will arrive, and his death will have no part in heralding it.
In that universe, the light of Cybertron’s sun will never reach him. He will never know what became of the planet he once loved, nor the people he once swore to protect. His specter will forever hang over the universe, awaiting his violent return. He will wait alongside it, terrified of the day he will find a cause just enough to require a monster.
In this universe, Optimus holds Megatron’s empty servo and weeps. His tears fall down to the earth, and down further still, down the mountain of death where he stands alone, forever.