heliopauseentertainments | One Nightmare Of Many (Reply)

Part of MegaSound Week 2023 - Hosted on Tumblr by @mega-wave-superior

Prompt: Day 2 - Joy/Grief

Continuity: IDW1

Rating: General

Relationship: Megatron/Soundwave

Characters: Soundwave & Megatron

Warnings: Ambiguous Relationships, Coma, Nightmares

Summary: In which, while comatose, Megatron experiences a nightmare where he is separated from Soundwave.

Crossposting: AO3 | Tumblr

Fic under cut. See AO3 for complete notes.

Megatron remembered the battlefield. He remembered pain, at first across his face and then his entire head felt like it had been smashed open with a battering ram.

And then it was dark.

Had he died? Was this death?

And then Soundwave’s voice, indistinct.

Somewhere out there in the dark. Lost.

He tried to reach out towards the voice, but his limbs felt slow and heavy, like they weren’t really his own, like the dark weighed him down.

He tried to call for Soundwave, to tell him where he was, to come get him—All that escaped his mouth was a choked static, his vocalizer burning in his throat.

Soundwave was the only one left he truly trusted, the only one he could rely on to remain loyal. The only one who could chase the dark away.

Soundwave’s voice grew quieter in the blackness. There was no way to tell which direction he was in now. He could have been anywhere. He could have been nowhere.

Soundwave. Where was he?

The voice disappeared, slipping from his consciousness like sand through fingers.

Megatron couldn’t recall the sound of it nor even Soundwave’s face. It was as though memories were crumbling around him.

Was Megatron dead?

Separated from Soundwave forever?

Fear.

Heavy, sickening, and cold on his spark. He could no longer feel it spinning in his chest.

And yet he felt suspended in this empty, unseeing place.

Was this now his eternity?

Soundwave looked away from the monitor as it beeped, opting instead to watch Megatron’s face. His optical ridges and mouth contorted, hands clenching like he was reaching for something in the torturous machinations of his half-asleep mind.

He had just managed to shoo Starscream away.

The seeker had gone from “loyal” second-in-command to a vulture nearly as soon as Megatron had been put in the medbay. He still seemed convinced that the Matrix of Leadership would do him any good to rally the troops, to bring them into a new age.

Reaching down, Soundwave took hold of one of those hands, hoping it would help piece together whatever shattered “reality” Megatron was experiencing in his nightmare, something familiar and safe to anchor to.

There would be no new age without Megatron.

And when Shockwave was finished with his work, however long it took, Soundwave would be the first to welcome Megatron back.

Until then, he would stand silent vigil.