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It had been a few decacycles… no, a few vorns since Optimus Prime had been seen on the battlefield.
When Optimus had last fought the Decepticons, he’d taken blaster-fire from Soundwave and Ravage had made good work of his lower legs before Ratchet and Bumblebee fought them off and helped a limping Optimus to safety. Megatron had chuckled, sure that that would keep Optimus out of battle for a while, and maybe he and the Decepticons could slowly encroach on Autobot territory and take it for themselves.
What he hadn’t expected was to go this long without seeing Optimus. As much as D-16 had hated Orion Pax for turning on the ideals they both professed to share, Megatron found that a part of his own spark was missing by not seeing his former beloved, the love of his lifecycle, bounding towards him in battle with the Matrix of Leadership shining brilliantly through the glass panes of his chassis.
Starscream returned from the most recent battle with Skywarp and Thundercracker in tow, all three of whom reported that it was the twentieth battle with the Autobots, and Optimus had yet to show his face.
Megatron pursed his lipplates and looked skyward for a brief moment, before turning around and heading for the communications room, where Soundwave would undoubtedly be doing his job processing data and intel for the Decepticons.
The communications room was discretely located, down a hallway with a few turns and a door outline that, if you weren’t looking, you wouldn’t find it. Megatron placed the palm of his servo on the hidden scanner and once it confirmed his identity, the door slid aside and let him in.
Soundwave was at the central console, with Laserbeak on his shoulder strut and Ravage lounging on the seat that Soundwave undoubtedly was meant to be sitting at, but had refused to because of cyber-cat. Megatron made a noise deep in his throat and reset his vocalizer, prompting Soundwave to look up.
“Soundwave, I require use of either Laserbeak or Ravage. Or both, now that I think about it.” Megatron looked at the bird and the cat. “Both could get this job done quickly and be out before the Autobots notice.”
The communications mech tilted his helm minutely to the side, showing that he was listening.
“Optimus Prime hasn’t been seen on the battlefield in vorns. It’s not like him. If he were offline after the last time we saw him,” the thought made Megatron pause before he continued, “the Autobots would have made a martyr out of him, and we would not hear the end of it. I need Laserbeak and Ravage to infiltrate the Autobot base and see where he is.”
.-.-.
Half a solar-cycle later, Soundwave entered Megatron’s quarters, followed by Laserbeak, who swooped down on Megatron’s helm and dropped a data chip on him. Ravage pounced on the spot in front of Megatron’s pedes, a data chip reader in his mouth.
“What did they find?”
Soundwave gave him a pointed look, and Laserbeak let out a low screech as he flew to the data chip that had fallen off of Megatron onto the ground, and pecked at it.
Getting the idea, Megatron grabbed the data reader and the chip, inserting it and pulling up the information it contained with a holograph for display.
The first thing he noticed was that the information was a medical file. Specifically, it was Optimus Prime’s medical file.
Knowing that he would be told to keep looking if he asked what the importance of the medical file was, Megatron did so and kept looking through. A lot of shorthand for medical terms met him, and his optics nearly fully glazed over and he scrolled through the file as quickly as possible, trying to spot any specific word that could mean something as to why Optimus hadn’t been seen outside the confines of the Autobot base in so long.
Then he saw it.
It wasn’t a word, but a diagram, and then a body scan.
He nearly dropped the data chip reader as he said, “Optimus is what ?”
At that prompting, Ravage stood up and opened his mouth, a holo video that had clearly been taken inside the Autobot base playing back. In it, the little yellow bot that Megatron had known in another life as B-127, now Bumblebee, was standing guard in front of a door with a prominently-pink bot that Megatron recognized as his old friend, Elita.
The door opened, and out walked the Autobot medical officer, Ratchet, with an assistant who Megatron didn’t recognize, and then-
“It’s… it’s a trick of the light,” Megatron tried to convince himself as he saw Optimus walk out, a servo protectively placed in front of his very-obviously heavy middle. But, there was no trick of the light. Optimus moved as beautifully as he always did, and that trick of the light that Megatron hoped for didn’t stay, and his optics focused on the Prime’s body.
Carrying. Optimus was carrying .
He went back to the data file that had been snatched from the Autobots’ medical records and scrolled up again, finding notes that Ratchet had written near the beginning of the entire file. There was a timeframe for the conception of the sparkling, a specific decacycle.
A decacycle that saw the further breakdown of his and Optimus’s relationship, the further deterioration of the sociopolitical climate on Cybertron. Somewhere in that decacycle, he and Optimus had laid together for what would be their last time, merging sparks in a desperate attempt to get the other to see the other’s point of view.
It hadn’t changed either of them… but , Megatron thought as he looked again at the footage of a carrying Optimus being herded to the delivery room, this was certainly a change in plans for the war.
.-.-.
A cycle after Laserbeak and Ravage had shown them their evidence from the Autobot base, Megatron was at its door. He raised his cannon and blew a hole into the sliding metal door, ripping it open even further with his mine-strengthened servos and snarling as the alarms wailed and security bots screamed that he was there. There was a ruckus within the base, yells asking how he had even gotten that far inward, and he had taken a single step into the building before a large contingent of heavily-armored bots were directly in front of him, blocking his way.
At the head of the group were Prowl and Elita. Both bots had their blasters trained squarely on Megatron’s helm and spark, respectively, ready to deal the final blows to him if it came to that.
“What in the name of Primus are you doing here?” Elita asked. He could tell that she was just holding back from calling him “Dee”, a name he’d used in a different life.
“I need to see Optimus,” Megatron replied tersely. “ Now .”
Prowl nudged Megatron with the barrel of his blaster, his blue optics blazing. “You don’t have any business with Optimus. You, leave, now .”
No, that wasn’t how it was going to be done, Megatron thought to himself. His vents flared open and hissed. “We keep our weapons, and you keep yours,” he countered, and before Prowl could vehemently decline, he continued, “I am here to ask for a temporary ceasefire. Long enough for me to attend the birth of my sparkling and for all of us to make it out alive.”
Prowl’s optic twitched, and Megatron wondered if Prowl would give such a bold lie as to deny that there was a sparkling about to be born. “What makes you so sure that you're the sire of Optimus's sparkling?” he instead said.
Even as the words came out of Prowl’s mouth, everyone around him looked amongst each other and a quiet titter swept through the gathered Autobots.
Elita gave Prowl a sideways glance, her digits never leaving the trigger on her blaster. “Would it literally be anyone else?” she hissed.
The Autobot tactician gave Megatron a leveling glare, and then he lowered his blaster, prompting Megatron to do the same with his own cannon. He watched as Prowl brought up his personal communicator device and activated it.
“Optimus?” Prowl said, and Megatron felt his spark jolt. He knew this moment would be coming, that he would talk to Optimus outside of a battlefield again, but his spark still wasn’t ready for it.
“Yes, he’s here. Those were the alarms… there was a security breach we’re fixing up, we were alerted to it. Soundwave’s cassettes… oh, fine ,” Prowl looked a little bit cross, and Megatron had to wonder what Optimus had told him, but he didn’t wonder much longer as the other mech turned the screen of his communicator towards Megatron so he came faceplate-to-faceplate with-
“Of all the Primus-forsaken solar cycles to come looking for me,” Optimus said as he glared at him through the screen. To the side, he could see Optimus’s servo clutching at the berthsheet, hooked up to multiple wires, no doubt leading to machines that checked both his and the sparkling’s vitals. The Prime let out a harsh ex-vent. “I can’t believe of all the solar cycles,” he muttered angrily, “you come here again, and I have to deal with you.”
“Optimus,” Megatron replied as cooly as he could, trying not to betray the elation in his spark that Optimus was alive. “You’re carrying. It’s my sparkling, isn’t it?” he asked, tone low, but he knew that the other bots around him could hear it.
There was a beat of silence.
Then Optimus answered, “Who else could it be?”
Prowl cut in. “Megatron is requesting to be allowed to be there with you when you deliver your sparkling.”
There was another beat of heavy silence, and then Optimus sighed and looked skyward. “Fine.”
And then the screen went dark as Optimus ended the call.
Looking back at his army of Decepticons just beyond the doors of the Autobot base, Megatron sighed loudly and stepped out again. “We will keep our weapons, and the Autobots will keep theirs. If any of you shoots their weapon at an Autobot during our temporary ceasefire,” he glared at his gathered army, “I will remove your helm where you stand.”
The Decepticons all looked at each other, and then back at him.
“Believe it or not,” Megatron hissed loudly, “I do not intend for there to be casualties today.”
.-.-.
In some way, it was a comical sight.
Half of the delivery ward hallway just outside the private delivery room was full of Autobot soldiers, their blasters ready and aimed at the other half of the hallway where Decepticons stood and aimed their weapons back at the Autobots. All had their optics trained on the other, digits on triggers, expressions daring each other to make a first move.
Steadied by Ratchet and Jetfire, Optimus Prime did his best to not show the immense amount of pain he felt from the pressure emanating from his forge, which was in the midst of trying to push a sparkling out. It had been eons since a sparkling had been borne from another bot and not just created cold by servos, but somehow the wait he endured for Megatron to enter the base, be scanned multiple times for any hidden weapons outside of his cannon, and for the Decepticon leader to show his face down the long and crowded hallway felt longer.
Megatron seemed to lose some of his color once he was up close to Optimus and could no longer deny that yes, that was indeed a sparkling that Optimus was carrying.
In those red optics, Optimus could see a hint of D-16 and what the reaction would have been had this happened before, well, everything else around them. There was a flash of awe, and a twitch of Megatron’s right servo as he made to try and reach out to touch him, which was quickly stayed when Jetfire’s own servo twitched towards his blaster.
Megatron took the hint and pulled back.
“You’re lucky I’m not having you thrown out of the base,” Optimus said flatly, clutching tighter onto Ratchet and Jetfire’s shoulder armor as he felt his legs start to give way under him. Both mechs caught him, and Jetfire helpfully carried him back to the berth in the private room, allowing Ratchet to hook the lines back up to him again.
Ratchet glared at Megatron and went up to him, poking him right in the center of his chassis. “Raise his spark rate more than should be normal and I’ll be in here again. Don’t make me need to bring in something to knock you out with.”
Before Megatron or Optimus could point out to Ratchet the terms of the ceasefire, that no weapons would be used on the other faction by either one, Ratchet clarified, “It wouldn’t be a weapon, but it probably should be classified as one anyway.”
Judging by the way his hexagonal irises focused and shifted, Optimus knew that Megatron was doing his best to hide the bit of trepidation he felt at Ratchet’s threat. A bit of pride welled up in Optimus’s spark as he thought about how lucky it was that Ratchet, with all his skills and fearlessness, was on his side.
The moment Jetfire and Ratchet left the room, leaving him and Megatron alone, the Decepticon leader turned to him and Optimus knew the exact question he was going to ask.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
The sparkbreak in Megatron's voice, and the soft tone, momentarily brought Optimus back to the mines, making him think of D-16 who was always apprehensive of drawing attention to himself. The Prime sighed and laid his helm back on the mesh cushion of the berth, looking at a fixed point in the distance - a wilted flower in a pot on one of the floor cabinets - before he looked back at this mech he had known for what felt to be many lifetimes. “We’re at war. Why would I tell you?”
“I’m the other creator of this sparkling,” Megatron countered after a moment of quiet, where Optimus was able to tell that he was processing the shock of such a bold statement. “I have a right to know if I have progeny running around somewhere in the universe.”
“You forfeited that right when you declared war with me on the other side of it,” Optimus snapped. He shut his optics and managed to succeed in stemming the flow of tears that threatened to trickle down his faceplates. “How did you find out? Prowl mentioned a security breach.”
There was a look on Megatron’s face that lasted a moment, as if he were considering playing stupid, but then he seemed to remember that it was Optimus Prime he was talking to, and if he didn’t cooperate he would be kicked out of the room and the base unceremoniously, and he’d never get a chance to see what their creation looked like. Megatron gave a weary sigh. “I asked Soundwave to send in Laserbeak and Ravage.”
That explained it. Optimus shook his helm. “And you had them come looking for my medical file?”
Megatron narrowed his optics at the Prime. “No, I only told them to look for signs that you were still functional. Because while Megatron and Optimus Prime may be at war, D-16 still cares for his old love.” Softening his glare a bit, Megatron palmed his faceplates with his servo. “We hadn’t seen you on the battlefield in vorns. I simply wanted proof that you were still functioning. I did not ask them to steal your medical records.” He leaned back in the berthside seat. “Clearly they thought that showing the file to me would help me put the facts together, because…”
The silence spoke volumes and Optimus felt a righteous indignation well up in his spark at the implied conclusion that Megatron would have reached had he only been shown video of Optimus in his current condition. “Would you really have thought I would lie with someone so soon after the war began and get sparked by them? No.” Then, in the softest whisper he could muster, he said, “It’s you, and always has been you.”
He then felt another contraction course through his frame, and he hissed between his dentae and tried to steady his breathing. Then, he felt a servo on his. He almost swatted it away before realizing that it was Megatron holding his, the same way they used to lifetimes ago in the mines.
“Remember when Darkwing fragged with the drill so it bore down into your leg?” Megatron said in a gentle tone that he hadn’t heard in such a long time. “Hold my servo, and steady vents in and out.”
Sometimes Optimus still had bouts of twinges and lingering pain from that incident. Being a low-class laborer meant he had no way to get back at Darkwing and other superiors when they tried to punish him for mouthing off, aside from flipping his digits at them in a gesture of severe disrespect. He curled his digits so they interlinked with Megatron’s, squeezing his servo an iota harder than was probably necessary, and set his inhalation cycle into a slow and steady rhythm.
The contraction passed through, and Optimus laid back against the mesh cushions, waiting for the next one to rear its helm. He loosened his grip on the servo he held. “Thanks.”
The corner of Megatron’s lipplates twitched upward in a partial smirk. “Just like you to get us into trouble again, Orion.”
Optimus gave him a burning glare that would have made D-16 wither, but Megatron only followed up with, “I’m not apologizing.”
“Last I checked, it takes two to make a sparkling,” he said, poking a finger right in the center of Megatron’s chassis, much like he used to do to when they were both overcharged and D-16 was trying to make a point that Orion Pax simply didn’t want to hear. “And I’m the one that carried this bit. I did everything alone after we slept together for the last time, all the appointments and changing how much energon I take and I can’t remember what else. I’ve gotten my internals kicked hard enough that I probably need replacements at some point. I don’t want to hear it.”
Megatron glowered at him, silent. Then, he sighed. “If you’d said something earlier, I would have come to your side, Orion Pax.”
Hearing his old name spoken in that reverent voice made Optimus’s spark sink. How he used to love hearing his name from Dee’s vocalizer, profuse with love and adoration. He looked to the other side of the room, away from Megatron. “Would you have really? Would you have given up your Decepticons for me?”
Before Megatron could reply, Optimus followed that question with, “If yes, then what’s stopping you from doing it now?”
The Decepticon leader opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it without an answer, looking down at the floor.
.-.-.
“Your Decepticons are getting twitchy,” Prowl said flatly as he stepped into the room a few uneventful cycles later, his blaster held firmly in one servo and slapping the barrel of it into his other servo like one would a thin rod. “I’m starting to regret agreeing to this ceasefire.”
Megatron looked at the Autobot tactician but didn’t move his servo away from Optimus. “What is it?” he hissed at the white and black-armored bot.
This time, Elita popped her helm in, her expression cross. “Shockwave is being baited by Bumblebee.”
“Then get Bumblebee to stop baiting him .”
She scoffed, but then Prowl blurted out, “Only if you get Shockwave to stop listening to him .”
Prowl and Megatron glared at each other, until Optimus cleared his vocalizer. “We’re not dealing with this.” He grabbed a personal communicator that had been laying on the berthside table on the other side of his bed and brought up a communication to Bumblebee. “Bumblebee, stop baiting Shockwave. That’s an order.”
Bumblebee’s voice came through the device. “But, Optimus, he’s-”
“No, stop it, I don’t have time to deal with this. Bait him next time you’re fighting him on a battlefield, but not when we have them as unwanted guests in our base during a ceasefire.”
With that, Optimus shut off the device and then dropped it, gripping the edge of the berth and slowly ex-venting. Megatron came back to his aid, holding his servo and coaching him through it.
Ratchet appeared, no doubt summoned by the rapid sparkbeat alarm that both Optimus Prime and the sparkling he carried set off. He maneuvered between Optimus’s legs and checked, then looked up at Optimus. “Get ready to push,” Ratchet told Optimus. “When the next one hits, give it everything you have.”
Megatron turned to make sure that Prowl and Elita had both left the room, and once he was sure it was just the three of them in the room, he turned back and held Optimus’s servo again as the Prime began pushing. In a small portion of his processor, he wondered if he should be telling Optimus that he was doing great and that he had only a little more to go until they would meet their sparkling.
Then, everything happened in such a quick fashion that Megatron’s processor struggled to realize it was all over. Optimus’s servo stopped holding his and both of the Prime’s arms reached for the wet, tiny, chirping form that Ratchet was handing over.
The moment the little one was placed in Optimus’s arms, Megatron leaned over the edge of the berth to get a proper look at what he and Optimus had made all those vorns ago, and both leaders of the Autobots and Decepticons burst into elated sobs.
Chirp?
The newspark blinked bright blue optics at them, little servos clenching into fists, tiny legs kicking. A wide open world, brand new, unfamiliar, a far cry from the warm and tight space that was previously home.
“Hi,” Optimus choked out through his tears, kissing the little one’s helm crest that was so, so familiar to both of them, a memory of his own after he’d received his transformation cog. “Hello. I’m so happy to meet you, finally.” He then turned to Megatron, and gave him a tearful smile. “I’m your carrier, and this is your sire.”
Ratchet came into view with a cleaning cloth, wiping the effluvia off the little bit’s soft armor plating that would harden in a few solar cycles. Mostly blue, and silver, with tiny hints of black and violet that Megatron remembered having on his frame when he was forged, prior to him choosing a more neutral gray paint to go over the majority of his frame. The sparkling chirped and gripped at the cloth with tiny servos.
“She’s already practicing her grip,” Ratchet said with a tone of approval. “Very advanced and she hasn’t been out for more than a few kliks.”
She. A daughter.
Megatron kissed the sparkling’s helm crest and gently took her into his arms, stroking one of her helm fins with his thumb as he held her helm in his servo. She was so striking - she looked so much like Orion Pax had after the installation of the transformation cog, with the slightly longer helm fins. A pretty little sparklet.
But the feature that made Megatron’s spark stop was the design of her optics. They were a bright blue like Optimus’s, but the irises were not circular like her carrier’s.
They were hexagonal.
“You look so much like your carrier,” Megatron whispered. “Primus, how we love you.”
She blinked her optics up at him, as if studying him the way he used to study every bot that came into contact with him and Orion Pax, trying to see if they had any ulterior motives and ill intentions. Her electromagnetic field mingled with his, and after a few moments, a sense of recognition came over him as she pieced together in her processor that this was her sire. She gave him a curious warble and reached out for him, and he kissed the tiny palm of her servo.
“She knows my voice,” Megatron said as a matter of fact, gently passing the little one back to her carrier. His spark swelled with happiness. He was not a total stranger to this new being.
Optimus looked at him after he placed the bitlet on his chassis, and smiled faintly. “I have old audio recordings of us,” he said softly.
Megatron didn’t need further explanation. He sometimes sat in silence in his darkened room and listened to old audio recordings of him and Orion Pax in a happier time so he would never forget what he had lost. Oftentimes, he also mourned the future that he’d wanted them to build together, never to come to fruition.
His processor conjured an image of Optimus Prime in his own quarters, playing those old recordings and talking to their little one as she kicked and moved in his forging chamber, helping her become familiar with the two beings that had created her from nothing more than their own desperate love for one another. Her creation had been in the fading light of their devotion, and had extinguished for some time, but now…
The tears came down his faceplates again before he knew he was crying. He hadn’t been there. He’d been so profusely swallowed by the demands of what he had been working towards, equality and justice for all, that he’d allowed himself to fall by the wayside. He’d lost his mate for all this long time, and he’d lost his chance to be there for Optimus during the entire carrying cycle. There was no him holding Optimus’s servos at appointments, fetching energon for him, rubbing his back as Optimus upchucked undigested energon that the sparkling rejected, curling up in berth with the other mech and feeling their creation move under the touch of his servos.
And he’d almost never gotten this chance. It was only by pure happenstance, his spark and mind nagging him that he should care a little bit about Optimus Prime’s absence, that he had the chance to find out what was happening.
“Will you do it?” Optimus asked, his optics bright and pleading. “Will you just…end it? Prolonged ceasefire, or truce, or something? Can we just end this war now so we can be together again?” he asked, looking down at the little one. “So we can be there for her.”
Megatron looked at the scene. Optimus Prime in a medical berth, newspark snoozing peacefully on his broad chassis, the faint glow of the Matrix of Leadership behind the chassis glass panes illuminating her face, and then himself having to prepare to leave. He’d gotten what he asked for - a temporary ceasefire, and the opportunity to witness the birth of his own progeny.
He wanted more. There were more moments to be had and he didn’t want to lose out on them. Megatron leaned in and placed his helm against Optimus’s shoulder strut. “A solar cycle ago, I didn’t know I was going to be a sire,” he murmured. “Here I am now. Here we are now. Optimus,” he whispered, tears falling down his faceplates again, “I don’t want to be parted from her. I already had to part from you.”
There was a heavy klik of silence as Optimus thought over what Megatron had said. He sighed heavily. “We can still build a future together,” the Prime whispered, and Megatron remembered that argument and fight, how he’d replied. His spark ached. “Do you want to try? Do you think we can try again?”
Megatron studied the perfect form of their daughter. Her tiny servos, tiny pedes, delicate face and helm fins. He traced his index digit along the line of her backplates, tracing along the slanted lines of plating that indicated that flight was in her future.
Pressing his lipplates to Optimus’s for the first time in eons, Megatron’s servo came to rest over Optimus’s, who in turn had his servo resting over their daughter’s back strut.
She stirred in her recharge, little wing nubs twitching.
“We can try.”