Volatile Mixtures

[heliopauseentertainments]

Part of MegOp Week 2024 Prompt - Day 5: Heat/Scars

Continuity: IDW1

Rating: Teen

Relationships: Megatron & Optimus Prime

Characters: Megatron, Optimus Prime

Warnings: Ambiguous Relationships, Vignette, Silly, Tomfoolery, Minor Injuries, Accidental Arson

Summary: In which Optimus tries to rescue Megatron and himself from a blizzard.

Crossposting: AO3 | Tumblr

Fic under cut. See AO3 for complete notes.

Optimus let the heavy door to the hangar slam shut behind him, blocking out the worst of the howl of the blizzard outside. Collected snow fell from his armor and onto the dusty, concrete floor.

It was a lucky thing he had happened upon this abandoned human military installation when he had.

Megatron’s unconscious body on his shoulder seemed to weigh far more now than when he was awake to kick and scream about it.

Their kind were far less vulnerable to most changes in temperature than organics with their comparatively fragile internal chemistries, but extremes could kill Cybertronians just the same, especially when water was involved.

The arid polar climate of Iacon was nothing; no special protections were required to stroll the streets whether under the midnight sun or the noontime moon, but Earth… Earth was notoriously damp . Water with the right minerals could corrode or melt into fragile seams and refreeze. Otherwise tolerable or even comfortable temperatures were made dangerous by the addition of such a simple chemical.

It was dark inside the hangar; the walls effectively blocked the what little sunlight penetrated the blizzard. They didn’t, however, block the roar of the wind nor would they completely insulate the new temporary squatters from the cold.

But some shelter was more than no shelter.

And, despite the advice that Optimus knew he would have been given by some of his trusted friends and soldiers, he couldn’t just leave Megatron outside, injured and exposed to the elements. Especially because the injury had been his fault.

The wasn’t the Autobot way to abandon someone in need. Even an enemy was worth saving. Unfortunately, Megatron wouldn’t have said the same, he was sure, if their positions were reversed. Though, Megatron acting contrary to his own words wasn’t… unknown . Perhaps….

War philosophy aside, Optimus was still left with the unenviable task of finding a way to get both him and his unconscious erstwhile companion warm.

Or warm er , anyway.

Currently the only source of warmth was whatever radiated off of Megatron’s unconscious frame—Optimus consciously knew he too threw off some warmth, but regrettably could not sense his own aside from the chill in the air as snow melted off his armor.

In the glow of his optics, Optimus saw a stack of crates nearby. He put Megatron down in the corner the crates formed, hoping their walls would better reflect body heat back towards the source. The layer of snow on Megatron’s armor began to melt, giving Optimus hope.

Even in the dark, Optimus could make out the large dent in the side of Megatron’s helmet. Left by Optimus’s own foot.

As far as he could tell, like Optimus, Megatron must have gotten separated from his men in the storm after commlink signals went down. Optimus had blindly tripped over his enemy while stumbling through the thick snow.

The injury though…. It was all speculation, at least without being able to see it in better detail. Not that Optimus had any kind of medical training to speak of. Anything he might attempt in way of treatment could very well make the situation worse.

If only Ratchet were here, he thought, spark heavy; Ratchet would treat an enemy no matter what he was ordered to do. Even if he were ordered not to.

All Optimus could do on that front was wait for the storm to clear so he could signal for a rescue. Who knew how long that would be.

Perhaps, though, there would be something around this hangar he could use as a source of heat. Humans used many energy-dense carbon-based fuels for their machines; surely some would have been forgotten when they left this hangar behind who knew how long ago.

Leaving Megatron alone, propped up against the crates, Optimus began to feel his away around in the dim hangar. The lack of additional light severely hampered his progress.

In the dark, his palm came upon something smooth and round. He ran his hands over the cold surface. If he weren’t certain it was just a trick of sensation from the cold, he would have thought his hands had come away wet.

A barrel.

The stale yet pungent smell of some sort of fuel lingered in the air. Promising.

He pried the lid off to check the contents; it came up surprisingly easily.

In the dim light given off by his optics, he could see that the barrel was only about half full, the surface of the liquid glinting as he jostled the container.

The fumes wafting up reminded him of a mixture of what humans put in their ground vehicles or used in certain lanterns. Acrid and awful.

He would need to figure out how to best use it, of course. Humans preferred to use liquid fuel for their machines, not unlike how energon was most useful in it’s refined liquid state…. Perhaps they could drink it—No. Well, maybe . The smell was vile. It would have to have been a last resort.

Optimus put the lid back on the barrel and carried it back over to where he had left Megatron, only bumping into items in the dark a few times.

He heard a groan from where Megatron had been left.

Finally, he was waking up.

Optimus leaned over the propped up frame of his companion. Red optics burned up at him in aggravation, but no obvious malice. Not yet anyway. Maybe there was hope, maybe they could put their disagreements aside.

“Take it easy, old friend.” He put his hands out towards Megatron, ready to steady him if necessary. That dent was nothing to scoff at, after all. “You’re injured.”

“What in the—“

Optimus interrupted before Megatron could start swearing; he already knew what question would follow any preamble of cursing anyway.

“I rescued you from the blizzard; unfortunately, the raging of the storm outside is preventing us from summoning our comrades for aid.”

“No, that’s not—Prime, you smell revolting." Megatron pushed him away. “What did you do?”

“Oh. Hm.” It was likely the fumes from the barrel. It wasn’t exactly a refined bouquet like one would find in commercial fragrances. “I sourced some fuel from nearby.”

Megatron grunted as he got to his feet, clearly trying to not to acknowledge the injury that had to be terribly painful. Putting on a brave face no matter the adversity, an admirable trait if he didn’t always use it for selfish purposes.

“You mean to say that you stole it.”

“I procured it,” Optimus corrected, standing aside as Megatron staggered the few paces between his resting place and the partially filled barrel.

He would say “scavenged” would have been more accurate.

“You can hide misdeeds behind obfuscating language all you’d like, but we both know better.”

“You are the last one I would expect to hear complaining about theft.”

Not that Optimus stole anything.

He pried the loose lid back off the barrel, releasing the unpleasant fumes into the air once more.

It wasn’t as though there was anyone around to pay for it, though perhaps he could leave some nominal amount shanix with whatever human military agency had previously owned the facility. Then again, humans had balked at shanix before since it didn’t readily convert to fungible currency as they understood it.

They probably wouldn’t have been concerned about a half-empty barrel of aircraft fuel. Megatron surely knew that; he must have just wanted under Optimus’s plating. As usual.

Megatron reached into his subspace and pulled out an empty cube.

Optimus clutched the lid to his chest, aghast.

“Megatron, surely you can’t intend to—“

“Do you see any energon around here that isn’t already in our lines? Or have the Autobots at last sunk so low as to regularly engage in cannibalism?”

Without hesitation, Megatron plunged the cube into the fuel.

“Megatron, that’s not at all what I was implying and you know that.”

The only reply was a defiant huff as the cube was retrieved. The foul-smelling liquid inside appeared clear in the dim light of their optics now that it wasn’t backed by the solid metal canister.

“I was actually planning on burning it so that we can better dry our armor and—“

Ignoring him, Megatron took a swig from the cube and immediately spat the swig back into the barrel.

“Revolting.”

“That should have been obvious by the smell alone, don’t you think?”

With a sigh, Optimus turned back to the barrel itself. Megatron could amuse himself with his distasteful meal while he did something productive. It served him right.

He didn’t have a purpose-made lighter on hand, but he would make do. If he struck the lid with his arm just right, it ought to generate a spark.

Holding the lid over the barrel at an angle, Optimus began scraping the edge of his forearm armor against the metal. If only he could have done this without the earsplitting screech.

“Prime.”

“Hm?”

It was difficult to hear over the racket of metal on metal.

Megatron said something, but all Optimus heard was “leaking?”

He finally managed to make a spark with the makeshift striker, the spark landing in the barrel.

“What was that?” Now that he could actually hear again.

The fuel within roared as flames spread across the surface, rising high over the barrel’s metal side where it had been splashed in transit.

Excellent, now they would have a source of warmth for… however long the fuel lasted. He was, regrettably, unfamiliar with this mixture’s particulars. He could only assume it was intended for human aircraft.

He turned back to see Megatron pointing at something on the floor, now that there was sufficient light by which to see.

“The barrel is leaking, Prime,” he said, pausing afterward to take a sip of his cube.

On the floor there was a wet-looking trail extending from the barrel back the way Optimus must have brought it before. There was no way he would have seen the clear fuel in the dark, especially not when he had been wet from the snow.

The flames drew themselves down the sides of the barrel and raced down that trail of dropped fuel.

No good deed went unpunished.

“Excellent work, Prime. You’ve made an improvised incendiary device. And aimed it at yourself.”

As though Megatron himself were somehow exempt from whatever fate would befall the both of them as a result.

“The sarcasm is unnecessary, old friend.” Especially while continuing to sip the rancid fuel like he actually enjoyed it.

“Well, I think freezing to death will be the least of our concerns.” Megatron paused, looking around at the hangar, as though determining how flammable the contents were. “For about twenty minutes….”

The fuselage of one of the abandoned aircraft exploded, splattering ignited oil over the hangar, including onto additional barrels of… Primus knew what. Probably more gasoline… or oil.

“Correction: two minutes, Prime.”

 

---

 

There had been two small blessings out of this whole fiasco, Optimus thought as he stood there with Megatron, watching the conflagration that had once been their meager shelter.

Firstly, the blizzard had died down enough—though the snow still gusted by in rough vortices—to get SOS messages out to their respective troops. Soon, they would be rescued.

Secondly, the flaming wreckage of the hangar at least kept one side of their frames warm, preventing the ice and snow in the seams of their armor from freezing and causing damage.

Unfortunately, Megatron was still loudly sipping at his cube of fuel. An awful, wet sound.

“I always wondered what enforcers did for fun,” he said, giving Optimus a brief respite from the earsplitting noise. “I always thought it was something like beating prisoners or availing themselves of confiscated circuit boosters. Now, however, it is clear you do what the rest of us do.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Megatron let out a rough laugh and slapped Optimus on the shoulder, like he expected him to be in the joke.

“Arson—“ He paused, swirling the remaining fuel around the cube clutched in his hand. “You know, after you get used to it, this human fuel has a certain surprising appeal, Prime. You are truly missing out. ”