I'll Always Follow You, My Stubborn Lover

Summary:After a rough flight in a sand storm,Megatron lands himself in a tribe with small,pretty mechs who can't fly and he doesn't know what to make of them, especially the young mechling who had found him and saved his life.

A/N: HI! We meet once again, I would hope. I have decided to write another story, still TFA, but I am sorry that it is not the promised story of A Dog's Howl. The thing is, I started it long before this one but I still finished this story's first chapter long before I finished that gigantic oneshot. I still need some time for it, but I can assure you that A Dog's Howl will be finished before I upload a new chapter of this story.

So, about this story. It's something I have been wondering about. Usually, its Optimus who stumbles upon a tribe of bigger, strange mechs, that are the Decepticons, and he becomes Megatron's, at first, slightly unwilling mate. And so I wondered what would happen if Megatron ended up in a tribe of Autobots? How would he cope? How would the others view him?

These musings inspired me to write this story and I hope that you will like it. Please read and review!

Warnings: cultural differences, size differences, misunderstandings, eventual love, cussing, mean Autobot tribe, sparkling abandonment…

It was an ordinary day. Haden was shinning, the mechano animals had been making their usual noise outside his window, Strika was insisting on his attention when she was reading reports and Starscream was screaming at him because he would not pay attention on the seeker himself. Megatron often wondered if he had been crazy when he had agreed to eventually become mates with the annoying jet, but they needed the connection to Vos, so he had agreed to his sire's proposal that he one day bond with the back then Winglord and now Airlord of Vos.

Sure, he was definitely hot and stirred desire in most Decepticons, but Megatron was way past that. He wanted a partner that would understand him and take some of the burden that was ruling a city-state on a dying Cybertron at least partially off of his shoulder struts, but Starscream wasn't such a person. He was too selfish and Megatron knew that his supposed to be lover wanted his throne, so that was a big minus to the seeker as well.

Not that he could do anything about it now. The deal was made and short of him finding his destined sparkmate, he was stuck with the seeker.

It had been one of those days, when he had a bad helmache and his closest circle wasn't helping any. Lugnut, who had appointed himself as Megatron's protector, had been his usual loud self, not noticing how Megatron's left optic kept twitching any time he went into his tirades about his lord's greatness. Strika had been merciless in her demands that he read and deal with her reports. Cyclonus was still mourning and sulking about the recent death of Galvatron, Megatron's uncle of sorts, who the horned mech had insisted was supposed to kill Oil Slick, one of their chemists that especially got on his nerves. Starscream was whining about one thing or the other and demanding Megatron's attention like a spoiled brat or a demanding turbocat.

He had been missing his once closest confidant, Shockwave, even more these days and it had reached quite a high level that day, as usually the one-opticed mech would make everyone shut up.

Thankfully, he still had Soundwave, a sparkling he and Shockwave had brought up together as he had been found with both creators dead. The young mech was just as good at reading Megatron as Shockwave had been and he had threatened everyone out of the room, then suggested that Megatron go for a brief flight while they were leaving him alone.

It was supposed to be a fine day for flying, no strong winds and no sand storms in sight, yet this one had more than surprised him with its suddenness. It was not unusual for a sandstorm to come out of nowhere, but those were extremely rare. Then again, he had ventured quite a bit away from the city and as such he couldn't return to Kaon. He had tried landing and finding shelter, but the winds were too strong and kept pushing him upwards.

This was the first time Megatron felt fear and panic since he had been but a mere youngling. He tried everything in his power to keep his course, but before he knew it, he lost control completely and was at the mercy of the winds. He was thrown this way and that by the wind before he slammed into the ground and he lost his grip on reality.

Megatron woke up some time later to the burning light of Haden almost blinding him. He tried to squint his optics to lessen the light input but it wasn't much help. When he tried to move, he couldn't stop the cry of pain that escaped him. Everything hurt. His left servo was undoubtedly broken, his stabilizers were jammed and his thrusters were filled to the brim with rusted sand. His helm hurt and when he raised his good servo to rub the pain away, he felt a crack just over his right audio. The energon there was running down the side of his helm, making even more sand stick to him. Half of his torso was buried in sand and even his Fusion Cannon was malfunctioning. He tried to call for help but it yielded no results. It would seem his communications systems were as damaged as the rest of him was, if not more. The only good news was that his chronometer still worked, although he didn't know if it was as accurate as it used to be.

He knew that it was bad to stare up at the sky when Haden was shining this brightly but he didn't exactly have a choice. Besides, even if he did look down, he will be equally as blinded by the heated sand that surrounded him. Instead, Megatron made the decision to dim his optics almost all the way, reducing his visual feed quite a bit but at least it lessened his helmache that had gotten worse due to the strain his optics receptors had been under. He was even more vulnerable like this but it's not as if someone will just drop out of the sky randomly, just so they can kill him. (Then again, he had randomly just fallen out of the sky so he hoped he hadn't just jinxed himself.) With the new dimness, Megatron unfortunately finally realized just how tired he actually was. He tried to fight off recharge because there was no way he will let himself lose that one last line of defense while he was out here, all alone, who knows how far away from the first ally he has.

He slipped into sleep and woke up periodically a few times, always seeing only sand and the bright sky overhead. The scenery changed only slightly, the sand dunes a little bigger, Haden changing its position in the sky above him and more and more sand right in his face. His vents were slowly filling up with dust and he knew the he will die before anyone could possibly find him. He had ventured deep into the desert and even if he hadn't crashed due to a storm, it would have taken quite a bit of time to find him without comms or trackers, even if Soundwave had organized a search party as soon as Megatron stopped responding on his comms. As it was, it was going to be either from overheating or from infection, although he might just die from lack of energon with how he was still leaking. It had slowed down but his frame was struggling with repairs. There was simply not enough nanites for the job and the ones he had were too weak from lack of nutrients and energon. He slipped into recharge again, hoping that that will stall the inevitable by conserving energy.

The last time he woke up in the desert, near night time, the first thing Megatron registered was a blurry, colorful form not that far away. Before he could fully think about it, his systems sprung into action, battle protocols activating at the proximity of a possible threat to his vulnerable self. He even somehow managed to power up his Fusion Cannon and its whir filled up the desert air, heard even over the wind. But instead of backing off in the face of a threat of one of the most powerful weapons a mech is onlined with, the colorful mech just started coming towards him. Rather fast, too, Megatron thought before he blacked out. The strain from powering up the Fusion Cannon when both he and it were in such a sorry state was apparently too much on his straining systems as it were and he was out for a few breems.

When Megatron onlined his optics again, he only registered that the blurry shape was right in front of him and it was a mech. He was right above the bigger mech's body, smaller hands fluttering over his wounds and trying to stem the leaking, so achingly gentle that Megatron wondered if he was dreaming this or if it was a merciful reality in his last breaths. Then the mech moved closer to Megatron's face when he noticed his red optics were online and he was met with the most beautiful pair of royal blue optics Megatron had ever seen. The only pair of blue optics he had ever seen, but still, they were beautiful. He then heard a sound and he tried to focus his CPU enough to think up a source when he saw full, pale blue lips moving beneath the optics that had captivated him so. He suddenly got it that the other was talking to him and so he tried to concentrate in order to process what the other was saying. It took a while but then Megatron could hear him clearly, but the words he was saying made no sense. He focused a bit more, thinking that he must have hit his helm a lot worse than he had already feared, because that was the only explanation.

He reset his vocalizer a few times, trying to tell the mech to speak more clearly but his voice was too filled with static for even him to know what he had said, although it sounded vaguely like ''Hurt''. Yet it was enough for the other and the stream of strange words stopped and suddenly there was a servo near his neck, still so tender but now very much threatening, and the mech drew himself closer to the gray mech. Then one of the most soothing and sweetest voices reached Megatron's audios clearly, now familiar and understandable words registering as he said to him ''I know. I'm going to help you. You will not like this, but I will have to put you in stasis in order to take you back to a medic. I am sorry if this is invasive.'' and then he felt too small digits pressing on a specific wire before darkness overtook him and he fell into forced emergency repair stasis.

The next time Megatron woke up, it was not to the bright skies or buried in rusted sand. He was in a strange tent like thing, the ceiling a strange mesh he had never laid his optics on as it kept most of Haden's light out but still enough for the tent to be bright enough to walk around without difficulty or need for lanterns. He was lying on a semi-comfortable medical berth only barely fitting his frame and there was a sheet thrown over his abdomen and chest plates. The next thing he registered was that he was no longer hurting nearly as much as he had before. In fact, there was only a faint ghost of pain still present, meaning that a skillful medic had taken care of him. He still ran an internal scan of his frame and was relieved when he found that his circuits were fine now, although still healing and in great need of rest. He then looked around the tent, trying to determine if it had been Hook or Scalpel that had did the fine patch job. They were equally skilled so he can't say from the welds, which were still rather fresh all things considered. At least he hadn't been out too long. He spotted a tool he knew would forever be too small for Hook to use and decided that it must have been Scalpel then. It didn't matter, he was just thankful that they had found him before he had offlined and in such a disgraceful way, too. He wondered how they did it, though, and if what he had seen before falling into stasis had been a dream or something more. For some reason, that bothered him more than how long he had been asleep.

He was brought out of his musing when he heard the flap that acted as a door being moved and he was about to call out to his visitor and ask why they were still in the desert (neither of his medics would stand for living and working in a tent unless it was an emergency or absolutely necessary) when a mech, the mech from his dream, no less, came in!

Megatron felt his breath hitching and his spark skipping a few harmonics. He was breathtakingly gorgeous! There was no denying it and anyone who tried would either be lying or blind. He really was smaller than Megatron, maybe coming up to his chest at best, all glorious red, blue and creamy white-silver colors. His chest was red and it and his upper servos were covered in blue flames, a shade darker than the blue of his digit to elbow servos and his pedes from below the knee struts. He had black windshields over his spark chamber and his waist was just as black, while his hips and codpiece was as blue as his servos. He had yellow headlights on his shoulders and two yellow stripes on his helm, which was as blue as his servos and pedes as well. There were two yellow squares on the up-side of his hands and pedes, as well as a few yellow details on his codpiece. And he had audio finials, Primus help him! Those were so rare amongst his kind that any mech or femme who had them was infinitely more desirable. Megatron knew they were his only weakness, his kin if you will, and he wasn't ashamed at all. The mechling (it was becoming obvious when Megatron had noticed that he still had one more upgrade to go through by seeing that the transformation seams still looked mostly underused) had beautiful, endlessly long silvery thighs that Megatron was sure was a gift from Primus himself just to tempt his creations with them. He then saw those full, pale blue lips in an equally pale blue and pretty face, surrounded by silvery faceguards which almost blended in with the same colored neck cables. Those blue optics he remembered so intensely from his dream were now even more beautiful, since he could see them a lot more clearly.

The mechling smiled at him as he noticed that the gray mech was awake and observing him. In his hands, he had a cube of energon and a bowl with a clean rag in it. He walked over to Megatron's berth and pulled a chair so he was sitting next to him before holding out the cube for the bigger bot to take. ''Here, it's mid grade energon. I thought that you would like something stronger than medical grade you have been forced to take while you were recovering.''

Comforted by the familiar words of his language, as opposed to the unfamiliar anything and especially that strange language the other had used when he had found him in the desert, Megatron gratefully accepted the fuel and didn't even hesitate when chugging it down in a single gulp. It was not the same mid grade he was used to, not nearly as rich as the one he would get back home, but it was clear that his savior is a grounder and not even a military one so he can accept whatever he could offer. It would be rude to do otherwise, especially since the other had basically saved his life. His host only smiled and Megatron swore it was as beautiful as a supernova.

After he finished his fuel, the mechling took his cube away and instead wet the rag and started cleaning away the unneeded metal left over from the welding. Megatron observed him for a moment before starting with the questions.

''Who are you? Where am I? How long was I out? How do you speak my language when we are not even of the same frame? From what city-state are you?''

The other chuckled at his rapid fire questioning but never took his optics away from his task, the touch just as tender as it had first been when he had found him. ''Well, first off, that's a lot of questions.'' Megatron threw him an unimpressed look which the other returned equally, much to the bigger mech's surprise. Larger and older mecha than this one mechling had covered under his intense red-optic gaze, yet this young bot wasn't intimidated.

''Second, my name is Optimus. When I found you in the desert, you were pretty close to out tribe's camp so I took it upon myself to drag you back. Meaning, you are in a medical tent that belongs to out best medic, Ratchet, the Chief Doctor of the Autobot tribe. You were in stasis for three days and than slept another two. meaning you were out for five days due to your various injuries. And you are not the first big mech we have come across. The last one decided to stay with us and he thought me while I was teaching him our language and culture and tradition. And this is not a city-state. This is a... a,'' The mechling, Optimus, frowned as he thought about what word in Megatron's language would fit best while the bigger mech watched him, noticing how cute he looked when he was thinking hard about something and he instantly wanted to slap himself for even thinking about him that way! ''A village, I guess would be best to compare it with.'' Megatron nodded as he observed Optimus while the younger bot moved down to his legs, having cleaned off his torso. The welds had settled just fine, his body not rejecting them at all, be it that they are foreign or that they might have viruses on them.

"We call it New Iacon, although it looks nothing like the actual city of Iacon. Even its ruins look magnificent, while this place ... Well, you'll see as soon as Ratchet clears you."

Megatron smiled wryly. "I've never been to Iacon, so I wouldn't know." Optimus smiled back before returning to the task at hand, optics focused in fascination to the thrusters in Megatron's pedes.

''So, can you fly then?'' The question took Megatron by surprise as he had been almost lulled by Optimus's soothing voice as he explained where and how Megatron was. He looked suspiciously at the mechling, not understanding where this was coming from.

"What?"

"Can you fly?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because I once saw a flying mech while my mentor and I have been traveling. No one in the tribe believes me, but then again, they like being wrapped up in their cocoon of ignorance. They don't even believe that we saw Iacon!" If the situation was any different, Megatron would have laughed at the pout that formed on his companion's faceplates right now, but it wasn't a different situation so he repressed the urge.

"Wait, you've actually been to Iacon?! How? That place has been one of the first destroyed in the last war, millions of stellar cycles ago!"

Optimus shrugged. "It is. Destroyed, I mean. All ruins and rubble, I'm afraid, although you can still see the traces of its past beauty and culture. And you're avoiding the question. Stop doing that."

The larger bot just gave him this look before he shook his head and decided to answer. It's not as if that knowledge would mean anything other than the mechling now having personal truth that he was right. "Yes, I can fly. Although, given my state after my fall and the inexperience your medic has in regards to flightframe anthropology, I am not quite certain when I'll be able to fly again."

Optimus grinned at him, making Megatron wonder if he was usually this happy or if it was just with him. He rather liked that idea, although it was a sad one he wouldn't upon anyone. "Don't worry. Ratchet's a great medic so I have no doubts that you will be soaring through the skies in no time. Although I wouldn't recommend leaving the berth without his say. He can be quite ... intimidating when he goes into full medic/doctor mode."

And as if summoned, a red and white mech with a blue face walked in, his expression set in a grumpy scowl. It disappeared when his optics, as blue as Optimus's, settled on the mechling, who had finished his self appointed task and was now casually talking with their patient. He smiled at Optimus and the red and blue mech returned it before the medic, Ratchet as Optimus called him, started asking questions while locking optics with Megatron. The youngest mech in the room immediately started translating the questions to the gray, red and black mech before giving Ratchet his answers whether anything was hurting or more numb than was normal for such a situation, how the welds felt and held or if he needed special fuel requirements. Megatron was rather impressed by the ease with which Optimus translated long and complex sentences, almost talking in time with either of them, only a few beats behind so that he can hear what they were saying. Ratchet nodded after everything was said before waving at them with some final words and walking out.

Optimus turned his full attention back on Megatron as he informed him of the old medic's last instruction. "He says you should be fine with walking by tonight but that you should take it slow. He also suggested that I transfer my linguistic program to you, since my processor is already fully used to both languages and he though it would be better that you got it from me than the other warframe I mentioned earlier." Megatron looked at him wearily and the red and blue bot quickly ducked his helm, apparently embarrassed. "I mean, only if you want. I promise it will only be the linguistic registration program. I won't prod."

"Relax." He told the mechling with a sigh, even though he was enjoying this a bit more than he should. It was actually quite refreshing, this genuine shyness that did not exist among his people. "And yes, I would appreciate the removal of the language barrier. It's inconvenient, especially if I am to leave this tent." And as a further prompt, Megatron opened one of his medical ports on his undamaged arm and presented it to Optimus. That was all that the younger bot needed and he opened his own medical port and retrieved a cable from a nearby table, one that the gray mech recognized as one often used for such procedures. The mechling swiftly arranged the cable before the transfer began and the world blacked out around them. They were aware of nothing else but each other for a few kliks before the connection broke as soon as the download was complete. Megatron was still a little overwhelmed by the amount of information that he had glimpsed the other to possess as well as the feeling of a whole new dictionary now being crammed into his CPU. Optimus was recovering a lot faster, the bastard.

"Okay, you should wait for it to settle for a few minutes before using it as it might cause some overheating in wires and-"

"Talk to me in your own language, damn it." He snapped, not liking how he was treated as a fragile sparkling.

Optimus huffed. "Fine then. Let it be as you say. Just don't complain to me when Ratchet is after your stupid aft for overdoing it while you're still recovering!"

Megatron grinned as he understood every word. "Ha! I understood everything you just said!" It was a little wobbly at the beginning but the last word was sure. It would seem that the program integrated just fine. Optimus grinned at his sparkling-like reaction, once again making Megatron wonder if he was this happy all the time or not. He seemed to be enjoying the easy conversation between them like a mech starved of contact and connection. He seemed ... lonely.

"Okay, you win!" The mechling said with a chuckle. "However, that does not mean you don't have to take it easy. As I have already mentioned, Ratchet can be quite scary when he's mad. Well, mader than usual."

As if on queue, the peaceful atmosphere that had been surrounding them shattered when they heard three different arguing voices just outside the flap doors. They exchanged a look as they recognized the fury in the medic's voice, but then Optimus stiffened when an arrogant, obnoxious voice snapped back foolishly at Ratchet while Megatron's curiosity was peaked by the third voice, which seemed awfully familiar. He did notice how the red and blue bot beside him was suddenly very stiff, but before he could question him why, the argument outside reached its peak, drawing both of their attention to the flap doors as the words were exchanged.

"I am the medic here! I know what is best for my patients, you obnoxious little son of a slagging glitch, and right now he needs rest and relaxation! Well AWAY from fraggers like you!"

A snort and the sneer on the speaker's face could practically be heard in his voice. "I don't care about your slagging patient. Optimus is in there and I am here to get him out."

"Too bad! He is the only one that poor mech knows right now and I ain't letting you in if it's the last thing I do!"

"That can be arranged." The speaker said ominously but Ratchet obviously didn't falter.

"I am the only trained medic this tribe has. Go ahead. Slag me. I know for sure that you will follow after me into the Well in no time, either because the Magnus will kill you or because of your own stupidity and lack of proper medical attention."

The third voice broke in before the arrogant one could say anything else. It was a soothing voice with an exotic sounding accent that Megatron was sure would sound common and normal if it was used in his own language. "Please, Ratchet. I know him! Please, just let me talk with him. You and Optimus can observe if you fear that I will in any way harm him, which I won't, and you can kick me out if you decide that I am in any way hindering his recovery. Please. He is my friend."

But before said medic could answer, the arrogant one yelled that he didn't have time for this scrap and pushed past the red and white bot, sending him straight into the third one's servos, and stormed into the recovery room.

Before he was even fully aware of doing it, Megatron had snatched Optimus up and out of his seat, tucked him safely into his side and secured his grip on the mechling. His Fusion Cannon powered up loudly, rather ominously as he pointed it at the startled, big-chinned, blue with orange details bot that had just walked in, staring horrified at Megatron's growling face.

Optimus just blushed in his hold.