Optimus handled the cylinder carefully, setting it down and taking a hasty step back, his weapon aimed and ready for any surprises. Megatron had called it a gift. Primus only knew what sort of "gift" a warlord like Megatron might bestow upon his rival.
You ought to throw that thing away, Optimus.
He could hear the words in his mind, exactly as his closest friend would speak them. Ratchet would cycle a sigh through his vents and huff. You know better, old friend. You have to know better by now.
But Ratchet hadn't been there when Megatron had found Optimus. And Ratchet wasn't the only one he'd been close with, long ago.
"Why give this to me, Megatron?" Optimus asked the empty room. "You had me at your mercy, as you said you wished."
He looked down at one shoulder. Just yesterday, it had borne the insignia of the Autobots he led - the last refugees from his home world, banded together under his leadership. Now it bore a livid wound, a black dent where Megatron's blade had sliced through the metal. The insignia and the plating beneath had rotted away, corroded through in seconds. Megatron had forged his blade of dark energon. Energon was the substance of life. Its dark counterpart was the blood of the Chaos Bringer - the stuff of death.
The wound should have been agonizing, Optimus knew. But it didn't pain him. It only felt cold, a deep chill that the heat of Optimus's spark and circuits could not warm. The dark energon had deadened the sensors, leaving only those at the cut's edge to sting as though freezing.
"Why didn't you kill me?"
The Star Saber was broken, split asunder by the dark counterpart Megatron had forgred for himself. Optimus shuddered, his optics flickering, remembering the blow that had splintered the ancient blade. Without it, he could do nothing against Megatron and his new weapon.
And surely Megatron knew it.
Optimus looked down at the cylinder. Its surface glowed with veins of purple light - Megatron's favored color - but offered him no answers. On its side, one light-strip blinked.
This one was red, the color of Optimus's own plating. Cautiously, he leaned down toward it.
"I must believe, old friend, that you spared me for a reason," Optimus murmured, touching the red light and feeling it depress under his finger.
It shifted, its sides falling away and its top rising. A flare of light burst forth from it in Megatron's signature purple. Optimus slid back, moving instinctively into a defensive stance, but the beam did not sear him. It merely coalesced into an image, the figure of a tall blue and red mech.
A mech Optimus recognized as himself.
His spark seized, paralyzed by dread, as though the chill of the wound in his arm had seeped through his circuitry to pool there in his chest, attacking the source of his life itself.
The figure's shoulders bore neither the insignia of the Autobots, nor black wounds like the injury on one of Optimus's shoulders. Instead, the insignia of the Decepticons shone silver against the red, the metal smooth and new. That was Megatron's mark, the symbol of the revolution he had led long ago.
Optimus stared, mesmerized by the image of himself.
It's not real, scoffed the voice in his mind that sounded like Ratchet. It's some hologram that madmech made to make you doubt yourself. You know him, Optimus. You know the lengths he'll go to just to worm his way inside your head.
Optimus put a hand to his helm. That's not true, old friend, he told himself. I bore that mark once.
He remembered little of it. The loss of another relic had come with the loss of his memories.
The Matrix of Leadership stored the memories of every mech who carried it. Its power allowed each to access the wisdom of those who had come before him - an invaluable aid to any leader. But carrying the Matrix meant losing a part of himself. It had integrated itself into his very systems and changed the way his memories were stored.
He had been forced to unleash its power in battle. The Chaos Bringer himself had awakened, deep in the bowels of the world, and only the power of the Matrix could bind him again. Setting the Matrix's power free in a rush of purifying light, he'd forced the demon back into his dreamless slumber. But using the Matrix meant losing a part of himself.
His allies had journeyed to Cybertron and recharged it. When they'd brought it back to him, it had restored most of his memories. But he could recall nothing at all from the time between using and reinstalling it. He'd come to on the battlefield as though pulled from the very sleep he'd sent the Chaos Bringer back to. Battle had raged all around him, a battle whose beginning he'd remembered nothing of.
He'd shaken off his disorientation as best he could, defeating Megatron and driving him off. Only once the battle was over had he seen the symbol welded to his armor, the metal bright with newness.
For months now, the mystery had haunted him. What had Megatron done to him? What had he done in Megatron's service?
His team had told him one thing: that Megatron had put him to work, decoding information stolen from the very Hall of Records in Iacon where he had once worked as a clerk, a mass-produced data indexer who'd chanced upon the words of a warrior one day, a gladiator calling for revolution...
Optimus willed himself to focus. The Megatronus I knew no longer exists, he thought, shaking his head. Just as the Orion Pax I was is gone.
What had he become among the Decepticons? Had he cursed his own followers, beguiled into believing the Decepticon leader was still the comrade he remembered? Had he faced his team in battle, determined to destroy them? Had he behaved as a Decepticon would, delighting in the fear of his new "enemies," venting all the rage and wrath his true foe deserved on his own kind?
Had he, Primus forbid, harmed them?
If I have done such things...
He turned away, his optics shuttered, not wanting to look at the projection.
If I have done such things... I cannot hide from them. I must know what they are, so that I can make amends.
But with that thought came another. A wave of nausea roiled through Optimus's tanks. Megatron had once been his closest friend. The gladiator had known him better than even Ratchet did. He would know very well the doubt that Optimus had lived with since his restoration.
He would know that Optimus would watch the recording, no matter what it contained.
It seems that I cannot refuse you, Megatron. Just as the version of me that you deceived could not.
He lifted his head wearily, forcing his still-unwilling optics open.
The holographic version of himself stood, staring at something in front of it. The hologram did not reveal what that was, but Optimus recognized his double's intent, patient expression. The silver faceplates were his own, pitted with all the dents of long war and exile, but somehow they looked younger. The optics, wide and open, glowed bright, and a half-smile softened the intense look of concentration.
"Orion Pax," rumbled a voice, rich and amused.
Optimus froze. How long had it been since any mech had called him that name?
And how long had it been since he'd heard tenderness in that voice?
"Lord Megatron," he heard his own voice say.
Megatron's image appeared slowly, a shimmering mass of silvery light that coalesced into the form of a massive mech, sharp spikes rising glittering from his shoulders and hands and curling from his chest plates. The hologram's glow made Megatron's plating look both delicate and dangerous, a translucent array of blades with a light or a spark held trapped inside.
Optimus shuddered, his wound stinging with sudden cold. It had been many long years since he'd found Megatron beautiful.
"I must commend you for working so diligently." The crimson optics glittered, the distortion of the hologram making them glow bright enough to sting. Optimus's optics irised partially closed to block out the searing light. "But you ought to take a break, old friend. You've earned it."
"I would like to, but I fear I cannot," Orion answered, half-turning to regard his lord. "This work is too important to our cause."
Megatron chuckled, sidling closer. "You understand your duty well, old friend. But you have hardly recharged at all in days."
He reached for Orion's shoulder, wrapping silver claws around the red plating and over the Decepticon insignia welded there. The wound on Optimus's shoulder throbbed and he shuttered his optics, trying not to think of how Megatron's touch would feel, the sharp claws scraping over what he had lost.
His own voice drew him from his thoughts. "Cybertron is lost." He saw Orion's head droop, his optics flickering. "I - I was not there to help save it. If my skills can end this war, I cannot delay."
"No -!" Optimus gasped, his spark seizing in dismay.
I was there, he thought, remembering the devastation, the long gray miles of rusted metal that had once gleamed with life. He took a step toward his mirrored self, wishing he could step between it and the image of Megatron. Do not be deceived, he thought, wishing he could leap into the projection and warn himself. Megatron is the very reason it needed saving in the first place.
"Understood," Megatron said, inclining his head, the rasping voice soft. The claw moved again as Megatron stepped closer. "But - you have returned to more than a mission, old friend. You have returned to me."
"You -"
"Come away," Megatron said, wrapping an arm around Orion and gently but forcefully turning him away from the console.
Then his other hand moved, sliding from Orion's shoulder to his chin, tilting his head up. Orion's optics flickered, perhaps in eagerness, perhaps in nervous expectation.
Optimus's engine stalled. How many nights had he spent in uneasy stasis, dreaming of the feelings he could finally confess, if only his old friend would see reason and turn from his path of destruction? How many times had he awoken alone, his spark sick with sorrow? How many times had he gone out driving alone in the twilight, wondering what might have happened if he'd told Megatron sooner, before the gladiator's ambitions had twisted his spark into something incapable of love?
And now you show me, Megatron. Optimus thought, the fuel roiling in his tanks. Now you show me that you knew. Now that all you know is manipulation.
Megatron murmured into the kiss, his projection shimmering as his scarred mouth met Orion's. Optimus imagined the warlord's silent, gloating laughter and his spark whirled, sick.
Or perhaps that was only pleasure, making Megatron's systems hum and his massive frame vibrate. Optimus felt his own circuits crackle at the thought, watching Orion reach to wrap trembling hands around Megatron's back, pressing Megatron to him as if some part of his processor remembered how long they had been enemies.
Megatron's claws dug into Orion's back, deep enough to scratch the paint there. The light of the hologram made the scratches shine, glowing a pure white. Now it was Optimus's turn to shiver, his sensornet flaring with the ghost of their sting.
"Orion -" Megatron gasped, drawing his mouth away, the rasping voice staticky with lust.
Heat surged through Optimus's spark, hearing what he'd always hoped to hear. He felt it pooling in his interface equipment and shook his head violently.
"Megatron, I -"
"Quiet -"
"It's - it's been longer for you than - than it has for me. I - I regret that I never told you -"
Megatron drew his head away, laughing, his fangs shining with the projection's light.
"No matter," he said, his voice sharp with bitterness. "You are mine at last."
"Yours? I don't believe -" Megatron's claws traced the lines they had left on Orion's back. Their touch was gentle and restrained, as though Megatron were all too aware of his strength and holding back on purpose. "- that any mech can - own another -"
Megatron silenced his new recruit by kissing him again, hard, his claw gripping tight around the back of Orion's helm.
Optimus heard Megatron laugh as their mouths met. Hearing it didn't stop his spark from crackling, or a thin dribble of lubricant from leaking from his valve. His wound stung, a frozen counterpoint to the heat building in Optimus's systems.
"Come with me," Megatron finished. Optimus frowned, his vocalizer buzzing a monotone note of dismay as Orion let himself be led away.
###
The projection faded out in a whirl of dissolving light. Optimus sighed darkness and silence descended. So that's what you wanted me to know, Megatron.
But apparently Megatron wasn't finished with him. The hologram flickered again. He saw Megatron's form flare to life again, the luminous silver making him look like a god or a savior. His wound burned, a sharp chill.
He remembered the blade that had made it. A weapon fit for a god, forged by the hammer of the Primes, a sacred artifact meant to aid in the fight against evil. But Megatron had twisted even that, forging his dark counterpart to the Star Saber from the blood of the Chaos Bringer himself. The blade was black, twisted into jagged points, wreathed with purple mist and surrounded by an eldritch lavender glow.
And cold. So cold...
Orion emerged next, his hand in Megatron's. Then a shape appeared before them, flat and gray and unadorned. A berth...
Optimus felt his valve spasm, his spike thudding against its cover, and cried out his dismay. "Don't go," he whispered, knowing that his former self had already gone, feeling his spark pulse, mocking him with the memories his processor could no longer access.
Orion took his place on the berth without any prompting from Megatron, the holographic optics burning bright. He reached out a hand, touching Megatron's arm, then moving to touch the cannon mounted on top of it gingerly.
"I never liked this," Orion said softly, tracing a fingertip along its surface, the purple paint pitted and dented.
"It is a necessity. In the pits of Kaon we fought to the death."
"Don't remind me."
"And after came war." Optimus flinched, hearing the low hum of the cannon charging. He saw Orion draw his fingers back as if stung. Megatron laughed and powered it down. "You are a Decepticon now, Orion. This is no place for the squeamish."
"War is not a joke, Megatron," Orion answered, the thin line of his lip plates set in a grim line.
"No, it isn't," Megatron answered, the mirth gone from his voice.
Then he smiled. Optimus gasped, seeing the scarred faceplates shift. He'd seen Megatron smirk many times over the years, his mouthplates curling back to display his gleaming fangs. A warlord's smile, a grin of cruel glee that spoke of madness, not of joy.
The smile he saw on Megatron's projected face now was wide and open, marred only by the scars pitting his face.
"Old friend -" he whispered, his voice breaking into a fuzz of static. His optics flickered, unable to focus.
When he recovered himself, Megatron was speaking again, the rough voice gentle. "Still, the revolution led you to me."
"It did." Orion laughed softly. His hand moved from Megatron's cannon to his chest, tracing over the pointed metal and resting against the symbol branded there. His own Decepticon insignia glowed."And although I do not remember the long years of war that have separated us - I too have waited a long time for this."
"Show me."
Heat surged through Optimus's interface equipment as the plates covering Orion's spike and valve slid aside. He stared at his own spike, rising high and proud, a few drops of fluid already leaking from it. Below it laid Orion's - his - valve, glistening with lubricant.
Optimus could hear the roar of cooling fans. He wondered dimly whose they were, and knew his own had kicked on to join them. His spike, pressurized to the point of pain, pressed against its housing, wanting to be freed. His valve, hidden behind its cover, clenched around nothing, as though it remembered what Optimus could not.
Megatron leaned down, wrapping a hand around Orion's spike, ringing it in sharpened points. He moved slowly, experimentally, staring at the other's face. His optics flared greedily as Orion opened his mouth, gasping.
Orion shuddered, his optics flickering. Cycling air heavily through his intakes, he slid his hand down toward Megatron's pelvic plating. "And - and you -"
Megatron's other hand gripped his wrist, stopping him. "Not yet. I - want to savor this."
Optimus felt his spike cover begin to slide open despite himself. "No," he murmured, willing it shut. With a metallic shriek of protest, it froze, half-open, Optimus's spike straining against it.
If Megatron could resist, surely he could as well. This is a seduction built on lies. This is nothing more than Megatron's desire, twisted by his greed. I want no part of it.
And yet - if nothing of his old comrade remained, why would he tend to Orion's pleasure and disregard his own?
The warlord leaned his head down, his hand still gripping the base of the spike. The angle of the hologram shifted, presenting Optimus an unobstructed view of Megatron's face and the glossa darting out to lick first Megatron's own lip plates, then the spike in front of it, slowly and deliberately.
Orion's hips jerked, and Optimus's moved as though pulled along with them. Megatron's free hand locked around one of them, a gladiator's strength freezing them in place again. Optimus stilled, imagining the hand on him, the force as it held him. He had never liked pain, but he found himself wishing he could remember the sting of those pointed fingertips, holding him, the way he'd wanted for so long -
Megatron's head moved again, obscuring Optimus's view. He watched Megatron's hand slide from Orion's spike to his hip, and as he watched the claws wrap over it, his processor spun with images. Megatron's glossa curling around his spike or sliding down and back up again, his own fluid glistening against the scarred lip plates. The warmth of Megatron's mouth around him as it opened up to take him in –
His spike and valve covers slid open, heedless of his processor's efforts to override them. His hand shook with the effort it took to keep it from moving down to his hips. He scrambled, frantic, for some thought that would help him resist the desire he'd held in for centuries.
He thought of Megatron's fangs. What had once been a solid dental plate had become a ring of sharpened blades once Megatron had changed. Can you take anyone into your mouth without causing them pain? Or does touching others no longer matter to you, now that your ambition has devoured your regard for them? Relief surged through his systems as they cooled, the wound at his shoulder throbbing with a chill he suddenly welcomed.
But apparently Megatron was aware of the risk. Orion's hips tilted, and the warlord growled, gripping hard enough that Orion keened and froze, held still by a gladiator's strength. Then the great head lifted, and Optimus could see the mouth, opened wide, sliding down over Orion's spike with the slowness of precise, exacting care.
You do not wish to harm me, Optimus thought, sighing. Orion moaned again, in time with his thought. The projection's head thrashed, his cooling fans stuttering as he fought to hold himself still. Electricity crackled over Optimus's spike, the sensors awakening in response to imagined – or remembered - sensation. His spark whirled in his chest, overfull and hot.
My desire matters to you - mattered to you – my emotions - mattered – even to the thing you have become -
"Megatron," he murmured, hearing Orion cry the name. Megatron rumbled, a deep purr of encouragement, and moved faster. Optimus watched Orion shudder, bucking in spite of himself, then still again, the broad frame locking in place as the overload hit. The holographic eyes burned, pinpricks of azure flame, widening and widening until they flared brightly and then dimmed.
Optimus felt the moisture at the rim of his valve before he realized he'd moved his hand to touch it. Horrified, he forced it to his side.
"Thank you," Orion panted, his optics flickering as his systems reset.
Megatron's spike cover slid aside. "Don't thank me yet, Orion," he said as his spike extended.
Optimus stared, riveted by the sight of the projection's spike. It gleamed silver, shimmering with the hologram's light, its tip glistening with fluid. It was large, like everything about the mech who bore it, fitting the broad frame of a miner turned gladiator. It was also wide, thick enough that even Orion's – Optimus's – valve would stretch to fit it.
"Did you think I would let you go before taking my own pleasure?" Megatron murmured straightening up and licking the last of Orion's emission from his scarred lip plates. "I have been waiting centuries, Orion Pax."
The projection's silver arms shone as they reached down, grabbing at Orion's legs and pulling him closer, aligning his spike with the rim of his partner's still-dripping valve.
Charge crackled through Optimus's spike and valve. Megatron took him - me - like that, so soon after an overload?
Orion mewled, feeling the tip of Megatron's spike pressed up against the entrance to his valve. It was not a sound Optimus would have made. It was the kind of sound he would have made long ago, before he'd carried the Matrix. Before its power had transformed his light, small scholar's frame. Before his chassis and plating had shifted, piece by piece, becoming the massive, armored body of a Prime.
Heedless of it - or perhaps, Optimus realized, driven on by it - Megatron roared, reared up, and thrust inside.
Optimus's hand moved to the rim of his valve again. He felt the wetness there as he heard himself cry, a staticky howl of need and of protest as the sensation overwhelmed already-stimulated systems.
"Megatron is using you," he rumbled, a pointless, useless warning his projected self would never hear. He shuttered his optics to block out the sight. His fingers quivered, frozen at his entrance, his processor torn between wanting to remember and wishing he could once again forget. "Megatron is - lying -"
He widened his optics again. These are my memories, however painful they may be.
The first thing he saw was Megatron's optics, the intensity of their stare and the brightness of the projection making Optimus's own optics burn. The fanged mouth twisted into a growling grin as the clawed hands wrapped tight around Orion's frame, pulling them closer.
The warlord moved with brutal speed, his earlier solicitousness forgotten, driving deep. Optimus felt his valve clench again, charge darting over the sensors.
I must remember, he thought, watching his own neck arch and his own mouthplates twist into an eager cry.
I want to remember, he thought, his spark giving one last desperate twist as he slid two fingers inside.
###
Optimus threw the cylinder down. It landed with a hiss in the sand at Megatron's feet.
"I came alone." Optimus eyed the Dark Star Saber slung diagonally across Megatron's back. Purple mist rose around it, wreathing Megatron in sinister light. A frosty cold spread through his shoulder at the sight of the blade that had pierced him. "As you commanded."
"As I wished," Megatron answered, his grin a ring of blades. He looked down at the cylinder lying on the ground in front of him. "What did you think of my gift, Optimus Prime?"
"You mock me," Optimus answered, his hands itching for the hilt of the Star Saber - the shattered blade he would never wield again.
Perhaps, he thought desperately, if I could recover the Forge Megatron used to create his twisted version of my blade, I could rebuild it.
But how could he do that, with Megatron wielding a weapon of such incredible power? I must think, he told himself, but all that came to his mind when he tried was his own face, frozen in a gasp of pleasure, and his own valve locking hard around his fingers, trying to remember what Megatron had felt like, driving deep, awakening all the sensors there -
"You mock all of us, using your advantage to toy with us rather than bringing an honorable end to this war." He frowned. "If that is even your aim, after all these centuries."
Megatron laughed, his broad chest vibrating with it. "End this war? Then you admit, last heir of Primus, that you are finally outmatched?" His gaze was keen, his optics bright with greed.
Or something else. Optimus shook his head slowly, willing that image out of his mind. He shut his lip plates tight, refusing to give Megatron further reason to gloat.
"No matter. But if you think I meant to taunt you, then it seems you truly do not know me any longer, old friend."
Optimus's spark pulsed, heavy with dismay. Was the warlord simply lying now, to heighten his own cruel amusement?
Or had Megatron truly intended to tell him something? Was that video of himself with Orion some warped and twisted version of a confession?
Do you still feel for me, old friend? Is there some part of your spark that remains pure, untainted by the hunger for power and dominion gnawing at it?
"If this is not one of your games, Megatron, then what -"
"An explanation of my terms." He drew the blade, a black mass of twisted crystal, purple light glowing around it.
Optimus tensed, moving into a fighting stance, knowing his blasters could do nothing against the weapon's power.
"Terms?"
"You want an end to this war, Optimus Prime. I will give you the peace you crave - for a price. If you saw my little recording, you know what I want."
Optimus's spark felt as cold as the wound in his shoulder. "Me."
The sharp-fanged smirk widened. "I will spare your followers, if you will come with me. They will be free to leave this planet and live out whatever existence remains to them anywhere they wish, so long as they leave Earth and do not attempt to return to Cybertron. I will not harm them. Nor will any other Decepticon." His blade cleaved the air, tracing patterns of light against the sky. "On pain of a very interesting and very unfortunate death."
"I cannot go with you," Optimus answered, his spark pulsing in dismay.
"You knew what the Star Saber could do, Optimus Prime. You wielded it. You know that the same Forge that created it made this - out of the crystallized blood of the Chaos Bringer himself. You've felt its bite. You know what it can do, as well."
He raised the blade with obvious relish. "But just in case you are in need of another demonstration -"
With a bellow, he brought it down. Energy burst forth from it in a whirlwind of light, a searing nova spreading out from it.
Optimus leapt to avoid the arc of chilling light. It crackled just beneath his feet. In its path, rocks crumbled to dust, splintering as the eldritch power touched them.
He landed in a fighting stance, the sand of the blasted ground raising dust at his feet. "My team will defy your Decepticons no matter what you throw at them," he said, his optics bright as the projection's had been.
"My Decepticons?" Megatron threw back his head and laughed. "I never said I would send the Decepticons after them. If you refuse me, I will go after them myself."
Optimus stared at the black void of the blade and the lavender mists wreathing it. "No - !"
"I will hunt them one by one. My blade is fashioned from the imprisoned essence of the Chaos Bringer. I will feed it with the heat of their sparks. One by one."
"No -!" Optimus cried again. "You will never -"
"Tell me, old friend," Megatron went on, stepping closer. "Is what you saw in that recording truly so terrible a fate? Is it worth condemning your followers to total destruction simply to spare yourself my affections?"
"Affections -" Optimus choked, his voice laced with horrified static. His processor spun with images: Megatron reaching to kiss him, calling him away from his work. Megatron leaning down to touch him, to wrap his hand around his spike. Megatron's glossa licking at him. Megatron opening his mouth, moving carefully and deliberately, to keep from hurting him -
Megatron's spike, inside him, ending his long centuries of emptiness.
An event he knew had happened, thanks to the recording. But not an event he would ever remember. Not for real. Not as long as the Matrix remained within his chest.
If he wanted to know what he had felt - if he wanted it for real, wanted something more than his own fingers, plunging into his valve as he called out the name of his oldest friend, the one he had lost so long ago - he would have to make those memories all over again.
Cycling a sigh, he shook his head. "That is coercion. Any affection you might once have had for me is poisoned."
"Is it?" Megatron's optics gleamed. "You need not even remember this bargain. You lost the Matrix once. It can be removed again."
"The Matrix is a sacred trust. The Matrix is an honor to bear, Megatron. Not a burden."
"Is that so, old friend? Without it you would carry no guilt, no shame, no useless regret. You would know nothing at all of this life you made for yourself. Or of the betrayal that began it."
"Betrayal? It was you who betrayed Cybertron, Megatron. Not me who betrayed you."
Megatron ignored him. "You would stand at my side, as you always meant to."
"You would claim me as a possession," Optimus snarled, willing himself to focus on the pain in his shoulder. The symbol of what he'd chosen to become, violently ripped from him by a mech obsessed with power and control.
"A fate worse than death, to be sure," Megatron snarled, the hand clutching the Dark Star Saber twitching with anger. "To be mine. To be treasured, prized above all others, as you once were."
Megatron's fanged mouth twisted as he fought against the urge to attack. Snarling, he forced himself to stillness again. "Would that truly be so terrible - my love?"
Optimus felt his spark freeze in his chest, as if Megatron's blade had already cleaved through it.
"You are not capable of love," he said finally, his voice cold and empty as the scar on his arm.
He did not brace himself for Megatron's attack. There was no use in doing so. Without the Star Saber, he was as helpless against the warlord as any other Autobot would have been. He straightened, standing tall and proud, waiting for the blow that would fell him at last.
It never came.
Wary, Optimus widened his optics and looked at Megatron. The warlord's own optics were dim, the red of dying embers. Megatron shook his scarred head, his arms drooping with centuries-old weariness.
"Not capable of love?" Megatron repeated, his rough voice soft. "Do you know that for certain, Optimus Prime?"
Optimus stood silent and still, thinking of the mech he'd known so long ago. Of the mech Megatron had become. Of the hologram that Megatron had sent.
"I want to remember," he said at last, bowing his head. "Whatever becomes of me, I want to know you for what you are. One way or the other."
Megatron smiled. His smile was not a smirk of triumph, not the wolfish grin of a warlord exulting in his victory. It was, instead, the simple smile from the recording, warm with affection and wan with centuries of sorrow.
"Very well," he said.