Painful Recollection

[heliopauseentertainments]

Part of MegOp Week 2024

Prompt - Day 1: Memory/Gift

Continuity: IDW1

Rating: Teen
Relationships: Megatron/Optimus Prime

Characters: Megatron, Optimus Prime

Warnings: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Vignette, Ambiguous Relationships, Electrocution

Summary: In which Megatron fails to jog Optimus’s memory.

Crossposting: AO3 | Tumblr

Fic under cut. See AO3 for complete notes.

“Yes, that’s right,” Optimus agreed, “The Battle of Sherma Bridge.”

Prime had forgotten.

Megatron could hardly believe it; he had led with an obvious lie so that it could be refuted . Yet Optimus had forgotten .

Shock quickly gave way to a resigned disappointment as he stood there, arms spread wide while he was secured within the variable voltage harness.

Of course he had been forgotten way back then, when they had first crossed paths. He had been no one , just another low caste laborer tossed in a cell to be beaten. Even if Optimus hadn’t cared for the treatment Megatron had received, that didn’t mean he had stuck out in Orion Pax’s mind as anyone more than another unfortunate spark.

Megatron refused to let his feelings show on his face, aside from a meaningless scowl; Prime didn’t deserve to witness that level of weakness.

That and the fact that if he so much as twitched wrong, he would suffer an agonizing death by electrocution. The pain didn’t frighten him so much as being dead would get him nowhere. His plans hinged on being alive to actually carry them out.

And Optimus had the utter gall to stand there and blink at him stupidly while the proverbial guillotine blade hovered overhead.

“Sherma Bridge,” Megatron said flatly. “We first met on Sherma Bridge. In battle.”

The cold metal encasing his arms and hands felt almost like it was squeezing him, like it was goading him to struggle against it and summon his fate.

“That’s right.” Optimus put his hand to his chin, or rather his battle mask, which concealed the smile that Megatron could practically hear. “The battle itself stopped to watch—It feels like it was so long ago.”

Optimus chuckled, unaware of his mistake, as though he didn’t have Megatron prisoner in what was unequivocally a torture device.

If disconnected from power, he could easily have broken free; the materials were hardly novel and would rend like flimsy foil should he put his mind to it. It was the current the harness was hooked up to that Megatron had no interest in toying with.

He had put himself here in this situation, for a purpose, even if Optimus believed otherwise. Surely Optimus wasn’t so foolish as to think Megatron had just, on a whim , gifted himself to the Autobots.

The harness around his waist forced him to remain upright, a compulsory ruler-straight posture that would make weaker mechs tired in short order. If he slouched just the slightest….

Luckily, Megatron knew he was strong enough to endure the pain and discomfort in furtherance of his goals. Torment of the body was one thing, but torment of the mind was rather another.

“It was so long ago,” Megatron conceded, “No wonder your memory is failing.”

“Failing? That’s ridiculous. What are you talking about?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?” It took self-control to tamp down on the growl building in his vocalizer. “I guarantee you won’t care for what you hear.”

Prime wouldn’t understand, no, but he would likely as not take the bait, loathing not knowing something that Megatron knew.

“Try me.”

Excellent, an opening to push Optimus into the proverbial yawning hole he had dug for himself.

“We met long before that bridge was even renamed for Senator Sherma and his unorthodox lying—or rather hanging—in state. And you can’t even be bothered to recall?”

Optimus’s optics spiraled wide in surprise, like he hadn’t expected Megatron to ruin their “cozy” little trip down memory lane. He stepped backwards, as though the extra space would give him a verbal buffer zone, a shield from Megatron’s words.

It took every ounce of Megatron’s self control to not try in vain to reach out and shake some sense into his old “friend.” If he so much as flinched , he would be dead before he could even regret it.

The hydraulics in his limbs seethed behind the armor plating, restless in their static positions.

“Tell me, Optimus, do I have that right? That you can’t be bothered to recall when we first met because it wasn’t a dramatic battle for you to martyr yourself in?”

“Now, Megatron, listen. Please.“ Optimus lifted his hands up, palms out in an obvious attempt to assuage Megatron’s offense. “That’s not what I—“

“I have been listening to you this entire time. Ever since you strapped me into this dubiously legal contraption.”

Megatron couldn’t even afford to take a deep ventilation to calm himself. That would be too much movement. He hadn’t even been certain if he could get away with raising his voice, but so far verbal venom and shouting appeared to be permitted.

The entire rig was intended to inhibit his capacity for physical violence.

Yet it didn’t sheathe his tongue.

Perhaps, he thought, he ought to do so of his own volition. Lest he tempt the machinery holding him to enact consequences for his “hubris.”

There was a small chance that he could shame Optimus into granting him a brief reprieve from this confinement.

“But I suppose… now I have nothing but time. Not that these accommodations are making me particularly amenable to listening to your sermon.”

“For awhile, yes, I know—Such… barbaric measures are unfortunately necessary.”

Yes, of course, Prime would distance himself from any responsibility. Yet if their roles were reversed, Optimus would probably think of the perilous confinement as another form of penitential self-flagellation.

Megatron only had to make it to Cybertron and Omega Supreme would take him right there, at the exceedingly low cost of his dignity and comfort. It would be easy. If he could just remain patient… and let the Autobots think they were taking him far, far away from the remnants of his army.

He merely gave Optimus a frown as he tried to let the anger recede; he could use it later after all.

“You’ve given us good reason, time and time again, to take these sorts of precautions.”

Of course, deflecting blame.

Optimus approached once more, standing but a few paces away from the device. Perhaps to release him.

“I haven’t always,” Megatron countered, keeping his voice down. “If you care at all to recall.”

“Well, no….” Optimus coughed, clearing his vocalizer like he was about to lecture a recalcitrant subordinate, to instill them with his vaunted “wisdom.” Bah. “As long as I’ve known you, you’d had a, let’s call it a… volatile streak.”

Ah, the benevolent condescension. Of course.

The restraints were tight on his arms. These fragile “chains” wouldn’t hold him forever.

However, instead of reaching for the controls, Optimus left his arms to hang uselessly at his sides.

No reprieve, it seemed, was forthcoming.

Megatron scowled, clenching his jaw all the while. The pain in his mouth was grounding.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. We didn’t meet before that battle on Sherma Bridge; I’m sure I would have remembered—“

Megatron let out a slow ventilation, the air hissing as he tried to keep as still as possible.

“Of course you’ve forgotten. I had been just another unimportant prisoner, beaten by your guards as an amusing diversion.”

It had even been recorded in his damn manifesto, the foundational work of his entire revolution, a work read and recited by millions , and Optimus had the gall to not remember?

“I cannot believe—“

Hot anger surged up in his chest again, foiling the efforts he had put into suppressing it for later use.

His joints began to ache from want of freedom.

“Megatron, please, calm down before—“

Caution was the furthest thing from his thoughts as he swung his arm forward on reflex, cracking the cuff wide open.

Cold and hot all at once, a paralyzing buzz shot down his still trapped arm towards his core.

The world became blackness.

 

---

 

Optimus watched, arms crossed, from the glass-walled viewing platform as, down below, medical staff examined Megatron’s unconscious, still smoking frame as it dangled limply from the broken, unpowered harness. They needed to ensure that he would be safe to move and confine in the medical bay.

He hadn’t died , thankfully, but Optimus had been hoping to avoid having to actually test the variable voltage harness. He didn’t want to actually hurt Megatron, not like this. The measures to contain his risk of violence had been extreme, yes, but, given this reaction to something as simple as a lapse in Optimus’s memory, evidently necessary.

Optimus hadn’t intended to provoke his old friend to anger, hadn’t intended to put him in this kind of danger. He had hoped that Megatron’s rigid self-discipline would have held out.

Omega Supreme’s voice echoed in the viewing platform room.

“I will not kill again.”

“So he could have died,” Optimus mumbled, not really expecting an answer. The answer was obvious. Omega Supreme had interceded, preventing a fatality. Guilt, familiar and rancid, weighed upon his spark as he dug through his memories.

The face of the mech below being cautiously lowered to a medical gurney finally matched against something, something older than the war, something older than his penpal correspondence with an idealistic poet-miner. He hadn’t even recalled beginning that friendship, as though it had just always been there.

A prisoner, a bystander caught up in a barroom brawl with some soldiers. A draft polemic, confiscated by the intake crew that had landed on Captain Pax’s desk.

It all flooded back. Megatron was right; Optimus had forgotten where their paths first crossed, where they had first exchanged words and hopes.

“I will not be a weapon again.”

The metal of Megatron’s armor was scorched where the harness had touched him.

If Omega Supreme hadn’t interfered… there would have been no chance for Optimus to apologize. One day. When he found the right words.

“Thank you; you’ve done me—“ No, that was too personal. “You’ve done the Autobots a great service by standing by your convictions.”