Choice Location

[heliopauseentertainments]

Part of MegOp Week 2024 Prompt - Day 4: Role Reversal/Peace

Continuity: IDW1

Rating: General

Relationships: Megatron & Optimus Prime

Characters: Megatron, Optimus Prime

Warnings: Quintuple Drabble, Vignette

Summary: In which Megatron waits on a quiet moon for Optimus to arrive.

Crossposting: AO3 | Tumblr

Fic under cut. See AO3 for complete notes.

It was quiet, Megatron thought.

The void of space usually was but the silence on a barren rock, little more than a desolate asteroid named only by an automatically generated number and tucked away in a scarcely visited solar system, was different. Here there was a weight to silence, pressing down on his body rather than in space where the nothingness tried to pull his frame outward.

The small planetoid was just large enough to hold its bulk in a spherical shape, to have a small horizon…. Just large enough to have the gravity necessary to keep Megatron from floating off into space as he reclined against its rough silicate surface, waiting.

It wasn’t quite sizable enough, however, to hold onto any detectable atmosphere, which meant being functionally deaf and mute without any gaseous molecules to transit the pressure waves of sound.

When Optimus touched down on the opposite side of the planetoid, as planned, Megatron was alerted by the combined subtle tremors in the rock and the buzz of a familiar voice through his internal commlink.

“I’ve made it.”

The synthetic voice, simulated by their internal systems to mimic what was mechanically produced by a vocalizer, wasn’t quite the same. A near perfect imitation, but there was always something off. The imperfections in audio quality added to the surreality of a clandestine meeting on a nowhere “world.”

Megatron slowly pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the coating of moon dust that clung to his armor through static attraction. Standing up too quickly in such low gravity could have sent him careening into the void.

“You kept me waiting.”

“My apologies; you know how traffic can be.”

Megatron tried to scoff, but with no air for the pressure to travel, all that happened was a soundless, dull clunking sensation in his throat.

“Yes.”

His own synthesized voice was a low buzz in his signal feedback, flat and crisp around the edges. It lost so much, but it didn’t feel like it would blow away the smooth dust coating the planetoid.

“I’m sure you had to battle armies of commuters on the way to this popular vacation destination.”

The shuttle that Megatron had brought with him was only tenuously parked on the unstable regolith. Optimus’s was likely in a similarly precarious position on the other side of the rock.

It was almost as though the physicality of the meeting place itself was enforcing a peaceful interaction. Any violence, rough movements, or recoil from gunfire could send them flying away, unable to reach their respective vessels. No wonder Optimus chose this location for their meeting.

Unfortunately, Megatron would have to give credit where credit was due.

An almost poetic tactic given what they had hoped to achieve here—peace at long last— far away from the belligerent eyes of their officers and soldiers.

Cresting what barely constituted a low rise, Megatron saw Optimus, a bright, vivid bloom in the dust, waiting on the other side.

“Tell me, Prime, where shall we start?”