Chapter 6 Morning

Optimus woke in the spare berthroom, glorious morning light streaming in the elegantly arched and peaked window. He resisted the urge to swear at it. Morning meant getting up and starting to adjust to the recent changes in his life. He seriously missed the days when he mostly had to worry what Sari and Bumblebee were getting up to, or that Prowl was off watching pigeons hatch and wouldn't be available next time they ran into a Starscream clone.

He felt a pang in his spark. It still surprised him, how much he missed Prowl. It wasn't like Elita. The ninja had chosen to be a hero, had died in the service of all Cybertronians and the myriad life forms on Earth. Elita had died…had been lost in a stupid accident, which had been partly his fault, if only for going along with Sentinel's foolishness.

Speaking of his spark…he cautiously felt along the bond, expecting it to be raw and painful, like a wound. It was nothing like that at all, just a vague sense of another being. A somnolent being, deep in a defragmentation cycle. Megatron was still asleep. He could actually tell from here, if he really concentrated on it.

The Decepticon felt completely different this way. Instead of a vortex of rage and hatred and concealed fear, he was a warm and solid presence. It figured that the war machine would seem peaceful only when unconscious.

With a sigh, Optimus dragged himself off of the comfortable mesh and foam platform and sat up. He would let his new roommate sleep in. After the day that mech had had, he probably needed all the recharge he could get.

He took his time on standard maintenance, and checked his messages. There were several, mostly from his team, as well as a lot of weasely congratulation notes from politicians.

He poured himself a cube, and turned on the info-net monitor. Taking a sip of the light-grade, he settled at the table in the entertaining area. Then he nearly spat the mouthful out when he saw the bulk of the main stories.

Apparently all of Cybertron had heard the news. And it was controversial. And apparently, attracting a lot of prurient interest and lurid speculation. All the major news outlets were delicately skating around the issues of what an Autobot Prime does with a powerful Decepticon in his quarters, but many of the less reputable ones weren't so discreet.

And then there were the…fan sites. He gaped at the infonet shrines to him, to Megatron, to flying bots, to them as a pair…

He cycled his optics off, then back on. Unfortunately that didn't change what he was seeing. He switched back to The Cybertronian. It was a reputable information brokerage, known for accuracy but also a certain degree of stoginess. Bots were arguing heatedly on its forums if it was ethical, or if it was wise, to bind Megatron to him. Some were worried that the power of having the lord of the Decepticons at his back and call would corrupt him. There were angry tirades against taking the same kind of actions that had catalyzed the Decepticon uprising in the first place.

Other editorials and comments argued that the war hadn't really been about that at all, had instead been a lot of complex socio-economic factors and had been inevitable… It was a relief that bots weren't blaming him for this cluster-frag, at least.

Eventually, he had to look. Optimus dialed up Cybertronian World News, and braced himself. Thankfully, it mostly consisted of stills from his fight with Megatron- especially ones that could have been misinterpreted if taken out of context. He was fortunate that he had been such an obscure mech before Earth. There simply wasn't much in the way of slag for them to dig up.

The articles were filled with lurid speculation, and there were old, old cases of abuse of Decepticon slaves by Autobot masters, and brutal murders of those same masters by slaves, or more often, by free Decepticons. He shivered slightly.

His comm pinged a very familiar frequency, and he opened a vid feed to Jazz. "Hey Op, how's it going? You and Mega Con still in one piece?"

A reluctant smile pulled at Optimus's lip components. "Hello, Jazz." He said. "Fortunately we are still in two pieces, but yes, I'm fine and Megatron is still asleep. He had a rough cycle."

"Fair enough, man" the ninja replied. "Just wanted ta check in with some intel. Your teammates are getting antsy about making sure you're okay and the Con hasn't offed you. You might want to check in soon. Otherwise the young bots will be knocking down your door soonish rather than later."

Optimus nodded. It had been next on his list, but he had gotten distracted by the tabloids. "I was planning to head over to Omega shortly. I just wanted to make sure Ratch and Arcee were ready for guests, and perhaps some panic from Bumblebee and Sari."

Jazz looked a bit more serious. "That little femme is more likely to blast first and question later, Boss-bot." He said. "She seems ta think you're in danger from him even with the slave code. And she's a lot scarier than someone so small ought ta be."

Optimus smiled. "She has her reasons. Besides, that's a major reason I want plenty of adult supervision on this little meet and greet. Between them, Arcee, Ratchet and Omega should be able to keep the others out of trouble. Bulkhead's usually pretty reasonable, but Bee and Sari…"

"I getcha, Op." Said Jazz. "'Nother important bit o' news, though. You've got spy-eyes. By which I mean reporters. They're camped out as close to your place as they can get, which is right by the building doors, and the only reason they've gotten stopped there is that you're in the housing for diplomats and sensitive-clearance government bots."

Optimus groaned. "I saw the news. They're going to swarm me if I walk out the door, with or without Megatron, aren't they?"

A sympathetic smile was his response. "Fraid so, Op. You might want to fly, if the techs reconnected Big and Pointy's thrusters."

Optimus thanked Jazz for the excellent advice, commed Omega Supreme, then went to get his jet pack. He had a feeling he was going to be wanting to avoid crowds for the immediate future.

When Megatron emerged from the comfortable room he had recharged in, he knew his master's location like a magnet knows a pole. It was highly unsettling. He indulged himself in a little growling grumble. It was nice that he wasn't being tortured or molested, but he would prefer the bond to be much weaker. A few of the other old-model Decepticons had mentioned things like this, but he had always thought they exaggerated. He had certainly experienced no such thing, before.

A strong, empathetic Slave Bond meant that it was much more difficult to accidentally get your master killed without harming yourself. He had no desire to end up like Starscream, after all. Things were going to be difficult if his Decepticons couldn't just shoot the Prime through the spark from a distance.

He was in the short hallway leading to the main rooms. The flooring was laid out in interlocking tiles of textured metal, in restrained but elegant designs. The whole place spoke of wealth and status, but lacked any personal touches. It had probably been issued to the Pime at the same time the council decided to bind Megatron to him.

At least the ceilings were a comfortable height. He didn't even have to duck when going through doorways.

The young Prime was sitting at the table in the study off the main entertaining room, meticulously tuning the engines of the winged jetpack he had used at their last battle. Useful technology. He hoped it did not become popular amongst the Autobot Army or Elite Guard. They were quite troublesome enough as it was.

The morning light made the Autobot's bright colors glow like gems, and with his battlemask down, the expression of concentration on the Autobot's face plates was almost endearing. He could have been any civilian, recently entered the army during the Quintesson Wars, determined to fight the alien menace as well as any mech built for the purpose.

He looked terribly young.

Those big blue optics widened slightly, and the mech smiled a little awkwardly at him. It was almost…cute. Which was foolish. Megatron was not some bright-eyed young soldier just brought online, to be deceived by the pretty civilian mechs who would only turn on their warrior brethren once the wars were over.

He scowled at the tri colored Autobot, who dropped his optics slightly and fiddled with the screwdriver he held. "There's fuel in the dispenser." The Prime said neutrally. "Please help yourself. We're going out shortly, and flying will save both of us a lot of time and annoyance."

Fortunately, Megatron could, in fact, fly. His transformation cogs were still offline, though.

Optimus felt an almost guilty pleasure at being able to launch himself off his balcony and soar over the city of Iacon, avoiding the traffic and curious onlookers below. He sternly repressed the urge to indulge in some acrobatics. He would wait until sometime no one was watching to do that.

The air was crisp and cool and the sun warm against his plating. He had to admit it, he adored being able to fly. It was lucky that the military science division had created flying Autobots before he got his jetpack, though. Mecha were used to seeing the occasional personal-sized wingspan over the city nowadays. It hadn't even been too much of a hassle to get a flight path clearance over the city, since they were so much smaller and lower-flying than the regular transport planes that they didn't use the same airspace.

To his right, Megatron flew in formation with him. He could feel a touch of fierce enjoyment over the bond, with a bit of annoyance, probably at their sedate pace, or the fact that Optimus had insisted upon taking the point position. He was expected to be in charge, after all, and it wouldn't look right if he was following his…prisoner. Guard. Fine, Megatron was technically his slave, but there was no reason to belabor the fact.

He glanced at the bulky grey and maroon form to his right side, and slightly behind. Perhaps once Megatron had adjusted to their situation, they could fly maneuvers with the Jet Twins. Just watching a seasoned flier like the Decepticon in action would be educational for the much less experienced Autobots. Including him. He had learned from a combination of trial and error, and watching Decepticons fight.

Optimus appreciated the irony that he had learned so much about both fighting and flying from Megatron and his soldiers. It was truly too bad that they had to be enemies… He could only hope that someday he would have the kind of aerial mastery that Starscream and his clones could display. Of course, he did turn into a fire truck and not a jet, so perhaps he should set his sights a little lower. For all that he loved flying, he had been very much sparked a grounder.

In the privacy of his own processor, Optimus had to admit that he enjoyed the chance to observe the Decepticon without having to avoid lots of weaponry coming at him with killer intent. Earlier, Megatron had endured his attempts at a nice professional level of normality while he applied a coat of protective wax to his hard to reach back plating. He couldn't help the mixture of contentment and fascination he got from the activity, though he didn't let his servos wander anywhere inappropriate.

The Decepticon leader hadn't been nearly so flinchy about it this time, for which Optimus was extremely grateful. He also hadn't really relaxed as much, which was something of a setback, but for all his badaft posturing, the mech had been through a lot in the days leading up to last night, and there were few things more relaxing than a nice hot cleansing after being beaten up and thrown in jail, not to mention hacked and…well. Spark raped.

He still couldn't quite wrap his processor around the fact that he, Optimus Prime, who would never, ever even consider forcing anyone to do anything in the berth that they didn't want to do had actually been a party to such a thing. Orders, yes, but it had been…horrible. Despite the pleasure.

And the worst thing was, a tiny part of him wanted to do it again. Oh, not the rape part, but the spark bonding. It had been amazing. The pleasure still echoed through his struts if he thought about it. He had never gotten to that stage with Sentinel and Elita. Young and foolish as they had all been, at least the tree of them had stuck to purely physical explorations back when they were in the Academy together.

Optimus wondered if he would ever be able to have a true spark partner, now that he was bound to Megatron by this mockery of a bond. It was certainly possible to have a group bond, but all the participants had spark share with one another. He couldn't imagine taking another bot to his berth in such an intimate way and including an unwilling participant, for any reason.

He turned his optics towards their destination, resolutely ignoring the disturbing thought that he might be forever prevented from having a True Bond by the slave code and sparking with his enemy.

It was an unspeakable relief to fly, when he had been unsure if he would ever do so again. Megatron reveled in the sense of freedom, illusory though he knew it to be. He hadn't seen Cybertron in thousands of vorns, except for when he had first been captured, and the inside of a cell, which really did not count.

Iacon was beautiful, full of life and color. It reminded him of a time long ago, when they had still been rebuilding after the Quintesson wars, before the civilian populace had turned on the warrior builds.

He had worked for a time in civilian professions, first steering building materials up to the tops of towers on antigrav palettes, and later on maintenance for the great floating platforms used to finish the same structures. It hadn't lasted, of course. He had gone back into the military, and served for eons before the Rebellion. The little Prime would probably be surprised that they had such a prosaic thing in common.

They left the city limits more quickly than he would have expected. It had been a very long time, of course, but it seemed like the city had been bigger when he had been here last.

They cruised past the outlying industrial sector, and into an area with warehouses, shipyards, and landing pads for transports and freighters. Though they stayed at a reasonable distance from structures and ground, he could zoom his optics onto civilians, turning and pointing at him. He was glad they hadn't had to walk, or worse, that he hadn't had to walk behind the transformed Prime.

He had faced the mech in battle, manipulated him with trickery, and created his own brand of copies of the great war machine, but still a tiny part of him shivered in memory as they came within sight of Omega Supreme, folded into his alternate mode and covered by scaffolding and maintenance workers.

For all their vaunted "peaceful" nature, the Autobots had manufactured some damn fine war machines. Even the ones who had clearly been repurposed from their original specifications, like the little Prime. The red, blue and silver mech angled for an area near the warship mech's boarding ramp. Megatron followed, his programming insisting that he follow his master as ordered.

The winged Autobot landed neatly, waving to workers and greeting them with voice and comm., to all appearances unaware that said mechs were eyeing his looming escort with wariness and not-so subtle touches of panic. These mechs obviously knew the Prime, and he was not so high in the political structure that he felt himself above such common worker mechs.

Admittedly, Megatron was pleased by the Autobot workers' fear. He would have happily killed them all, if it meant his freedom, or his peoples'. Despite that, these were the mechs he envisioned himself ruling, after taking Cybertron. Little would change, here in the shipyards, if the leadership of Cybertron consisted of Decepticons instead of Autobots. The work would be much the same, and Megatron wouldn't interfere with their functioning. There would be more large, dark chassis among the foremechs and managers, but other than that, he had never had any grand plans to change things here among the skilled workers of the planet.

Omega Supreme's outer blast doors were already open, and the inner portals opened smoothly at their approach. A deep, chassis rattling voice sounded around them. "Greetings Optimus Prime. It is good to see you again. Megatron, I will not listen to your words this time."

They stepped into the great ship, Megatron reluctantly trailing after his new Autobot master.