TFP – Screwed it up all

Prompted here: tfanonkink. livejournal. com ?thread=12872704#t12872704

There were times when he wished he could undo the past. There were times when he looked at the deep black space, at the tiny dead ball of metal that once used to be Cybertron. It wasn't exactly regret that he felt – he wasn't going to take the Autobots' stupidity on himself, and he wasn't responsible for Primus's decision either – but he wished things happened differently in the past. There was no turning back now, and it wasn't simply his pride that kept him from returning to his Decepticons after that poseur Unicron assertively turned down his offer. Unicron was the one being that Megatron was willing to serve. There will be no other, and Unicron won't get a second chance either, Megatron decided. No, the god-or-what will dearly pay for his arrogance.

Staring up at the dark sky, Megatron recalled an old memory. Ancient, it really was. He remembered the time when being subservient had an entirely different meaning. It was a synonym for valve-mech, back when he had friends, not troopers or enemies. He couldn't help but grin at how, once, he believed that being spiked would have been degrading. He recalled young Orion. Oh, in that valve-and-spike sense, the red and blue mech had been submissive to him. He would have never thought that his partner and pal would present him the worst obstacles in his life. That he would become a Prime. The Matrix-bearer.

Megatron transformed in mid-air, slowing down, hovering above the clouds festering above Unicron's planet-form. He liked Orion Pax, back then. They weren't simply friends and berthmates (not that they would have often used an actual berth, more like, the rough and windy rooftops of Iacon's most towering buildings or the barren Rustlands near Simfur – ah, good old days) but they were two halves, completing each other. Or, well, he had completed Orion oh so many times, and the blue and red mech loved being completed by young Megatronus's imposingly stern spike... and, of course, young Megatronus was just as eager to complete him, to be one with him, until, well, until all are one. After fragging, they would always lie down on their backs, stare up at the stars, and, still panting, gaudily let the other know how heavenly they felt. Megatronus heard it as a praise of his equipment and his abilities. He knew what he was able to do to Orion Pax, and his compatitive gladiator self would never have settled for less than accomplishing the greatest achievement.

Good old days, Megatron thought again. Good old days that were gone like Orion Pax, like glory, like Cybertron itself.

He still recalled that last night, on the dome of the Celestial Spires. He recalled Orion's heavy panting as they untangled their limbs from around each other and he rolled down from the smaller mech's heated body. "Next time" Orion said "I will show you how good it feels."

"What?" Megatronus asked back then. "You think I don't know how..."

"No, I think you don't." That was Orion's answer, Megatron still remembered each glyph of his voice. "I think you don't know. If I really was your first, who would have ever given you a proper valve overload?"

Back then, Megatronus was deeply insulted at the thought. Megatron, now looking back, had only found the situation (and his own reaction) childish. Horribly immature. They had been arguing about who shall spike whom, next time they'd meet, as if that was the most important detail in their existence. Back then, Megatronus had almost thrown his flightless partner off the three-hics-tall spire for the insult.

Then... there was no next time.

Orion Pax was given the Matrix. The submissive little mechanism, his mate and former friend, was upgraded into the Autobot leader Optimus Prime. He was given the burden only Megatron would have been able to carry. From that time, things started to change for the worse.

There, Megatron thought. Optimus and his tiny team had been getting slagged by Unicron's rocky avatars. The wrecker femme, the simple-coded green destroyer, the speechless yellow sparkling, and some Earthen local kids were facing a hillful of angered rocks, and (what a surprise!) they were losing. Optimus Prime, whose task, by his job description, would have been to use the wisdom of the Matrix and undo Unicron for good, was getting slagged by numerous bulky stone-avatars. If he would just hover and wait, he would have soon witnessed the horrible deaths of all these idiots who should have never even got close to the Matrix. To the Matrix that was waiting for him...

But Megatron was once a gladiator, the one in the heart of the battle, never the bystander, onlooker. Especially not when his passivity would have meant Unicron's success over Cybertron's last hope. He transformed, activating his fusion cannon as he piqued to the battle scene. He dive-bombed the stone giants. He saved Optimus's life. He made Unicron pay for his arrogance. He HAPPENED.

And then the rock giants had changed the tides. The Autobots had needed time. They had needed covering fire. They needed to get their wounded leader home, to prepare him for a much closer encounter with Unicron. Megatron was agile and fast... but he was outnumbered. Not even he could fool all these rock beasts for long. And time was exactly what his new allies needed.

He could hear Unicron's laughter within his own frame. He could feel him reading his mind, connected by the same dark energon that was flowing in them both. He could tell that Unicron was re-reading his mind about that memory he just played for himself. He suppressed a shrug as Unicron made a nasty comment about his brother Primus, and asked whether Megatron knew what the Celestial Spires in Iacon really were.

Megatron fiercely decided not to be embarrassed about that piece of information.

Optimus and the others were almost at the ground bridge. For a moment, Megatron wondered how it might have felt for Unicron when the Autobot leader travelled through him. Even when he was asleep, he must have felt the energies of the Matrix travelling with the Prime from one place to the other. And it would have been high time for Megatron to learn the coordinates of that other place.

As he cast one last look at the departing Autobots, Megatron was snatched out of mid-air. And Unicron knew exactly how to degrade this mech who dared fight him. This mech who held him back, who prevented the death of the last Prime and the destruction of the Matrix. He had read Megatron's mind, and he did not hesitate to break through the seals of his never-before touched valve. After that argument with Orion Pax on the highest of the Celestial Spires, so long ago, it had never even occured to anybody to approach the silver robot's valve. It had pleased Unicron to be the first.

The stone giant didn't intend to let the mech go. Not even after that painful overload that had soaked the rock giant's middle finger in precious, purple dark energon. Megatron writhing helplessly on his finger was going to be a visible reminder for all those who would ever stand in his way. He wanted to make the mech not just ashamed, not just broken... he wanted Megatron to be his trophy. If he could have made Megatron beg for Primus's help, that would have been even better. The interfering idiot had killed his own creator in his attempt to get the Matrix and the power it had held. Now it was time he had dearly paid the price for that.

Megatron was barely conscious, but he could very clearly feel the rock giant's talon scraping the inside of his abdominal plates. He, the one who should have been the Matrix-bearer, had been whimpering like Starscream. Without hope, without the Matrix... without Primus to call upon...

Suddenly there was a flash of green light, and Megatron could feel Unicron's annoyance as his non-consenting finger-glove was grabbed by a red and blue mech and he had been torn off the merciless hand of stone. Another flash of light, brightness... and the horrible pain was gone along with the rest of his consciousness. For now.

"Would somebody please tell me just why are we keeping Megatron in our base?" It was the sound of a female Earth inhabitant. Not exactly the best thing Megatron intended to wake up to.

"No." Bulkhead and Ratchet replied in unison, and this, if nothing else, should have let the annoying fleshling know that this was not her place to ask such questions. Not her place to ask any questions, Megatron wished. Not her place to talk at all. Not her place to be, ideally.

He grumbled something in Primal Vernacular. He tossed a little. His gladiator programming associated pain with fighting, and he indeed wanted to fight. He had to slag the Slagmaker for what his avatar had done to him.

Easy, Megs.

Was it a voice? Was it a thought? Was it a memory, a flashback from many vorns ago? Was he the triumphant gladiator who outlived his many opponents by a mere breem before he offlined from the loss of energon? Yes, he remembered now. They all had fought for their keeps, but the ring owner refused to refuel them before combat – he didn't want to waste energon on anyone who wouldn't make it out the ring. He had won... and he had been tossed away. Exactly like this.

He read his body's damage reports. Broken valve. Offline pain sensors in his lower body. He will deal with that later. He sat up, and faced a very familiar pair of blue optics. It was the same mech who had once brought him fuel after that gladiatorial combat.

Don't mention it, I could not let you die like that.

He easily kept that. Neither of them brought it up, ever. He forced himself to forget, but at the same time, he was reluctant to erase a memory. The gladiator ring's owner had been killed long ago. There was no need to feel ashamed about helplessness anymore.

"Ratchet repaired your valve as much as he could. He says your sensors will online as soon as the welds cool down."

Hmph.

Megatron sniffed the air that was full with the smell of recent interfacing. If he hadn't known better, he would have believed he had an orgy with that slag-pile stone beast. Speaking of whom...

"Unicron is getting really angry" he murmured. He collected what remained of his strength, and stood up from the repair shelf. "As a matter of fact, so am I." He looked around. He bluntly ignored the warnings of his body. He was a gladiator. He had to keep fighting. Letting a god get away with what had been done to him was not an option.

"You should at least take a rest before you go back to the battlefield." The wrecker female was concerned with his well-being? Hah! He may have been weak, but still, not as weak as some might have thought. He was not going to let the Autobots look him down. He did not need their pity. He marched into the main room of the base, radiating authority, power and the promise of victory. He'd seen the ground bridge portal – that had explained the green flash he had seen during the rescue.

Megatron steadied himself. He couldn't look like someone who had to be rescued. He needed to look confident. He gazed at the white and red docbot without a hint of thank, but not without respect.

"So this is where the magic happens."

Unicron did get slagged indeed. The core of the mud-planet, the hatred and chaos and destruction, had been neutered with the Matrix. But for Megatron, the greatest reward and compensation for his pain was not the defeat of his abuser. With the Matrix gone, he got back Orion Pax.

So many vorns had passed. Primus himself had stood between them. The leader of the Decepticons held his confused partner by the shoulders, guiding him through the corridors of the Nemesis. To Orion, it was far from coming home, but he had always trusted his overclocked gladiator friend, and if Megatronus had said that the ship was the closest thing they had to a home, he had to believe him. Maybe by decoding the script he was given, he might be able to work out the way of restoring Cybertron to its former glory. As long as he and Megatronus stood on the same side, they were unstoppable.

And Megatron knew this too.

Megatron was washing the remnants of his lubricants from between his thighs when Orion decided it was time for a break after organizing half of the Iacon Code. The encounter with the god-beast at the planet core had purged Megatron of the dark energon, and it had left back nothing but the smell of a valve overload. For all the Nemesis crew could tell, Megatron might have had some private time with his long lost partner before their return. Soundwave was the only one on board who knew the truth, but obviously he wouldn't tell anybody.

"That code is wicked" Optimus stated. "I don't understand why anybot wanted to jam it this much. From what I understand of it so far, it is essential information that should have been included in the program lines of each and every Cybertronian. But, if all goes well, maybe your sparklings will carry them." Orion looked up at the taller mech's red optics, a sad smile on his face. "I should have known you wouldn't wait for me."

WHAT?

"I don't know how long I have been held captive by the Autobots" Orion Pax continued "but I hoped that I have meant enough to you that –I would be your first spiker."

WHAT WAS THIS IDIOT TALKING ABOUT NOW?

Orion sat down on Megatron's berth, his arms around one knee.

"I thought we were inseparable. I thought that even when the Autobots had kidnapped me, you would come to my rescue. You are the mech I have always trusted most. But instead of saving me, you got yourself a replacement. Is it a Seeker? I know you were always fond of the Vosian frame types. You called them optic candy. Did you get yourself a Seeker when I was away?

Megatron shut off the flow and marched back to his main room.

"Despite the rumors being spread, I have never, I repeat, NEVER..."

But Orion's olfactory sensors told him otherwise. He nodded to Megatron, but he didn't believe him.

"I think I had better continue decoding that message" he said, briskly pushing his once-lover away. "I wish I could believe you, Megatronus. I truly wish I could."

Megatron did not halt him. If the mech wanted to work himself to death by decoding the fragged Iacon Code, so be it! It was amusing enough that the former Matrix-bearer had believed all the lies about the horrible Autobots, but he wouldn't accept the simple truth that he had never had a partner after his upgrade. He had not expected Orion Pax to be jealous. He didn't even understand, until he was left alone with his thoughts, and realized that Orion was offended because of his valve-virginity. The truckbot's memory files had been erased to the point when he received the Matrix – just a few joors after that talk about valves and spikes and doing it the other way round. Joors after their argument on the roof of the highest Celestial Spire, which was, as Megatron recently learnt, uhhh...

The Leader of the Decepticons sat down on the berth, not far from the place where Orion had sat only a minute ago. Why was it that he could make others believe the most unlikely lies, but he could not bring himself to tell the actual truth?

Primus slag it.

On some distant corridor of the Nemesis, Orion Pax had ran into the sneaky Seeker who should have NOT been there at all.

And Megatron had lost him once again.