"Megatron."
He tensed instinctively, power cycling to his cannon before he remembered it wouldn't be necessary. He willed himself to relax, to stare evenly back at the large mech stepping toward his throne, the plates of the broad chest gleaming, the legs strong and solid, their strides powerful and laden with purpose.
After centuries of war, Megatron knew that voice as well as he knew his own. And he knew the tone in it now: thoughtful and determined. The speaker wanted something - and he would not leave or stand aside until he had it.
"There is something I must know," the mech said. His optics shone, flaring an intense blue.
"Orion," Megatron rumbled, his voice a dark purr.
After all, the mech in front of him wasn't his enemy. Not any more. Not with the hated symbol he'd once worn replaced with Megatron's own emblem, the shiny new metal winking on his shoulders.
"What is it you want to know, old friend?" Megatron asked, the energy curling through his weapon now, a pleasant heat. Alertness crackled through his spark, a coiling energy that could have him at his former enemy's throat in moments if need be.
There were truths he was not ready for Orion to remember.
Not yet.
The azure optics flickered, and the proud head faltered, drooping slightly. "Vorns ago, you and I were to meet with the Council. To tell them, once and for all, that their rule over our world had become unjust and cruel. To call on them to change their ways - or to step aside, and make way for the just to rule instead."
"That is so," Megatron answered warily, feeling the energy hum through his cannon.
"I do not remember that meeting."
Megatron opened his mouth to speak. Orion held up a hand.
"I know that you know this, Megatron. And you have told me that that meeting changed everything. That the war that began then ravaged our world."
Megatron nodded, his optics narrowing.
He'd rehearsed this moment many times in his mind, carefully rehearsing the words he would say, the lies and truths alike that he would feed Orion when he asked too many questions about the past that had torn their alliance asunder. About the moment that, finally and irrevocably, had plunged them into war not against the Council, but against one another.
"I do not know what happened that night. Nor do I - nor do I wish to. Not yet. Not when I have lost so many memories that I fear I would not understand it."
Megatron relaxed, the tension draining from his frame. He spoke quickly, to cover the sigh of relief that cycled all too obviously through his vents.
"That is wise, Orion. Many vorns have passed since the last moment you remember. Much has changed. Our homeworld is dead, and even our frames have been reforged for a war you cannot remember."
Orion nodded, his optics lingering on Megatron's face. Red optics burned in the sockets there, and rust-filled scars pitted his face, some of which Orion himself had left there. Megatron's frame was larger too, the broad frame of a gladiator rebuilt as the unstoppable, deadly frame of a war machine.
Orion also had been remade for war, his once-light plating reforged into thick armor, his decorative and ornate helm now fully functional, complete with a retractable battlemask. He peered down at himself and shook his great head. The movement was subtle, no more than a slight shake. But Megatron was the one mech in all the galaxy who would never have missed it.
"Then grant me one thing only, Megatron. One answer to one question."
"Anything," Megatron replied, not knowing yet whether or not the promise was a lie.
"Tell me - in all the time I cannot recall, all the days of war and fire and what came before it - had we ever been - intimate?"
"No," Megatron answered, shocked into forgetting deception. His engines roared, a dull thunder echoing through the throne room. A sound he could not have hidden even if he'd wished to.
"No, we had not," he said again, quietly, shuttering his optics against the visions that came unbidden to his imagination. The thoughts he'd had of victory, of Orion standing at his side as together they blasted away the old order that had corroded their planet almost beyond repair.
The thoughts of what would happen after, the flames of rebirth gleaming, reflected in the armor of his closest advisor and confidant as they celebrated the inauguration of a new world and a new order, together -
When he looked up again, Orion's optics were a dull, lightless blue. "I - thank you. I did not - I did not believe we had."
"Why do you ask it?" Megatron drew back his lip plates, showing fangs.
This time, Orion did shake his head. Megatron saw a glitter of silver on his shoulder, as the new symbol welded there caught the room's light. "Because it seems - I waited too long. I believed that - that the meeting with the Council, whatever its outcome, would be our greatest moment."
Ozone crackled around the cannon atop Megatron's arm. Energy whirled through it, a lavender maelstrom. Had he heard what he thought he had, or would this simply prove another betrayal? Another proof that, symbol or no symbol, Orion would never be his?
"I believed the same thing," he rasped, leaning forward.
"I had hoped - I intended to confess my admiration, and my feelings, that evening. I do not know what happened, but I - I regret that I did not."
Megatron's spark wheeled in his chest. He threw back his head and laughed, the heat collecting in his weapon spreading through his every circuit, setting his sensornet aflame with the desire he'd held in for so long.
He threw back his head and laughed, rumbling and exultant.
After so long, Orion Pax, you truly mean to make this easy?
He straightened, willing himself to calmness, his claw curling as he beckoned Orion closer. "Then perhaps, old friend, we should make up for lost time."