Chapter Text
Optimus was surrounded by orange-yellow sand on both sides, the road stretched on before him as far as the optic could see.
Endless.
Just like the war. Just like the animosity between two factions of one people riven in half. Just like the chasm between his conjunx and himself.
Endless. Nigh insurmountable.
Optimus let his navigation system guide him on autopilot to the coordinates of the AllSpark while his processor drifted.
Megatron. His conjunx. The other half of his soul. His estranged lover. Before intercepting Decepticon intel that Megatron had ended up captured on Earth, Optimus hadn’t dared to think about him for years. He wanted to save himself some pain from what they had lost, from his bonded’s presumed death after half a century of silence and absence from the battlefield and from the frozen, withering bond that had stretched out to nowhere for millenia now. It was broken and tainted with death and agony, just like everything they had once had.
Optimus still remembered how Megatron had lost himself to power and greed. At the beginning, Optimus had noticed it, but he was too secure in his faith in their bond and in both of them that he didn't question it when Megatron pulled away. Too naive. By the time he had uncovered the Fallen’s sickening influence over Megatron, the extent of the manipulation was so great that Optimus couldn’t reach him anymore. And just like that, in the span of two short vorns—just a blip in their million-year existence—Megatron was lost to him. Under the Fallen’s allure and false promises, Megatron would be lost to Optimus for longer than he had ever been his, their bond muted and silent.
The years of war had served to strip Optimus of whatever naivety and trust he had in others. His bonded had—even before their bond had been broken—maimed him, mutilated him, crippled him. Every cut Megatron had ever put on Optimus was like a slice into his soul. Every slash of Optimus’ blade on Megatron’s broad silver chassis cracked like the lash of a whip on Optimus’ spark. Now there could be no going back, not until they had ripped each other to shreds to atone for what they’d done to each other and their subjects—their whole pit-darned planet.
All this and more would be Optimus’ punishment for failing his planet, his people and his bondmate.
Now, he had also failed Bumblebee. Another article to add to his list of misdeeds and failures.
Optimus could only hope that they could reach the AllSpark before the Decepticons did. He would not allow Bumblebee’s sacrifice to be for nothing.
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Optimus was dragged from his thoughts by the feel of the Matrix pulsing unusually in his chest—something was very wrong.
Faster.
His spark tripped slightly at the command, it wasn’t often that the Matrix spoke directly to him. It hadn’t done so since the start of the war when it pulsed with wrongness every time Optimus slew his kin or shot at his conjunx. Whenever he did so it screamed like the amalgamation of past Primes inside it—like Primus himself—was crying with the sparks of a million mechs as they were extinguished on the battlefield. The pulsing wrongness had made coolant drip from Optimus’ optics in rivulets and his spark twist in anguish. But sometime during the war, he learnt to live with the constant pain and the Matrix had gradually silenced. No matter how much the Autobots needed the Matrix’s guidance or Optimus its solace, it stayed silent.
Until now.
The Matrix’s command felt like the wails of the thousands of mechs he had slain during the war that haunted Optimus’ recharges.
It reverberated through his processor, flowed through his circuits and urged his frame to go faster. Faster. His engines were pushed to overdrive, his systems pinged to engage his secondary cooling fans. It wasn’t until a questioning beep came through on the shared comm line that Optimus realised he had done all this unconsciously, driven by a bone-deep instinct to protect, to act that felt both familiar and foreign. With effort, he overrode the abnormal Matrix-induced protocols and forced himself to slow down.
:: I’m fine, Ratchet. Thank you for your concern. :: He reassured his companion. :: My haste was caused by the Matrix. It triggered a minor emergency protocol in my core emotional system. :: Optimus explained to his slightly disturbed comrades—speeding off without a word wasn’t typical behaviour for the leader of the Autobots.
His message was met with a brief pause. :: The Matrix? Scrap…how long has… :: Ratchet trailed off uneasily. :: The Matrix made you panic? ::
Optimus didn’t reply and that was an answer in itself. With the fate of this planet, their captured comrade and their war in the balance, the ensuing silence felt ominous and oppressing. They all sped up considerably in tacit agreement.
:: Is it Bumblebee? :: Jazz broke the silence as Ironhide, their tactician, sent packages detailing a new route that sacrificed covertness for speed. Optimus plugged them into his navigation system before directing his attention to Jazz’s question. The pulse hadn’t felt directed at anything in particular and Optimus probed slightly at the Matrix to see if it would deign to reveal anything more.
Optimus was not surprised to find nothing. :: I do not know. :: He said truthfully. He hoped it wasn’t, but the sooner they secured the AllSpark, the sooner they could move on to rescuing Bumblebee.
The comm line was silent after that. As they sped off-road, Optimus redirected his processing power to researching the Hoover Dam—their final destination—for any clues of where the AllSpark could be within and how it could be reached.
Even as his spark ached from the loss of another comrade, he did not linger on earnest wide blue optics framed by dark grey and bright yellow, or on gunmetal grey lines sleek and powerful under his hands so long ago.
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“They’re a primitive and violent race.”
“Were we so different?”
Optimus tried to remember his own words as his audials strained with the force of Bumblebee’s cries. Beeps that would have been screams from a normal bot whose voice box wasn’t damaged, echoed through the dam and reverberated in the water that surrounded the Autobots. They were punctuated by incoherent high-pitched sounds whenever Bumblebee’s systems were overloaded by pain and short-circuited.
The humans were torturing Bumblebee, the youngest among their ranks, the least experienced—the one that shouldn’t even have been in danger from humans as the protector of a human himself. He had only been captured because he was trying to protect the humans. There was no explanation other than torture for the crackle of charge, the beeps of pain, the whirs and groans of parts and plates shifting to escape the pain only to find no relief.
They were overloading Bumblebee’s systems with a regular surplus of charge, forcefully triggering his emotional and sensory circuitry with fear and pain. Jazz’s comment about human experimentation was brought up by his processor—he had not really thought about what the words “human experimentation” actually implied.
For a long moment, the Autobots simply looked at one another, their faceplates twisted with emotion. Ratchet was frozen with a shock that quickly turned into rage, Jazz’s features were pulled into an ugly mixture of pain and anger while Ironhide looked thunderous. Optimus felt his own brow and lips curl in disgust.
:: By the pits… ::
The transmission echoed loudly in Optimus’ processor, from who he didn’t know. Gritting his denta, he issued his orders. :: Jazz, Ironhide, recover Bumblebee by any means necessary. Ratchet, we will find the AllSpark. :: Once he received acknowledgements from his bots, they moved from the bottom of the river.
Their heavy movements alerted the humans of their presence immediately and their fans blasting the river water away didn’t help. But unlike the encounter in the expressway, they had the element of surprise on their side and were fully prepared to face the humans. As the humans scrambled to call reinforcements and the alarms blared for them to evacuate, Jazz, having the most experience with sabotaging enemy operations, plugged into their systems to disable all communications from within the facility and to the outside.
As Jazz brute-forced the firewalls and accessed the systems, he opened a direct feed for Optimus, giving him the blueprints of the facility and the exact routes to Bumblebee and the AllSpark. While the intel fed into his sub-processor, Optimus and Ratchet moved on deeper into the centre of the facility where the AllSpark lay. Jazz and Ironhide made their own way to Bumblebee.
The ominous feeling brought on by the earlier incident with the Matrix was now renewed as the amount of non-essential information about cybertronian lifeforms registering in his sub-processor jarred him slightly. Humans could hardly have gotten so much information in the little time they had Bumblebee. From what Optimus knew, there had been little to no human contact with cybertronian life…other than Mega—
“Optimus? Are you all right? You seem off…distracted. Is it the Matrix?” Ratchet’s raspy voice broke him from his thoughts as they walked unopposed through the large empty hallways.
Why were they so large?
“Optimus?” Ratchet asked again, laying a hand on his shoulder, his tone concerned. Optimus noted distantly that his hands were quivering.
Optimus turned to his oldest friend. “Yes, my friend. I was simply unsettled by the humans. Their knowledge of our existence…The man from the expressway, he was not surprised to see us at all. That is disturbing.” His mind spiralled. “Do you think Megatron—?” Optimus felt his own voice shake. He didn’t know what he wanted to ask. Did he die at human hands, perhaps? Did the humans pick him apart to dissect his inner workings? Had he hurt?
(Had Optimus failed him?)
Ratchet gripped his shoulder tighter. He was the only one Optimus would—could—let him see him so unsure, so shaken and lost. Through the long years of the war, Ratchet was the one who had seen him at his worst moments and who had stayed his steadfast friend and support. Ratchet’s optics were blue and pained right now.
“Yes,” Ratchet said solemnly. Optimus felt his spark tremble in its chamber, while the Matrix pulsated strongly in his chest. “Let it go, Optimus. You suspected that long ago and we have a mission right now. We can still save Bumblebee and this planet.”
Ratchet’s words brought back his resolve, and Optimus raised his helm to look into the medic’s optics. “Yes.” Optimus mustered a feeble smile. “Yes, you are right. As always.”
They walked into the chamber—and there it was.
The AllSpark, in all its glory—the heart of their race, the creator of life. Its glyphs spoke of Primus, birth and death; its form radiated energy only cybertronians could feel. Seeing it in its largest form, Optimus felt drunk on the AllSpark’s energy. He had been forced to eject it into space millennia ago and now he walked towards it as if in rapture. He didn’t remember putting his hands on it, so small against the rough surface of the ancient monolithic structure. He could feel the grooves against his palm as it started transforming, moulding itself in recognition of its kin. He felt faint as the Matrix pounded in his sparkchamber in elation. The past, future and all its possibilities exploded in his processor and he felt disconnected from his body—new life, salvation for an almost-extinct race, a revived planet. A peculiar light blinded his vision from within, his mind stuck in limbo and his spark felt whole once again.
As he came to himself, the AllSpark was a cube, fitting into the palm of his hand and Ratchet was calling his name.
He couldn’t focus on his friend’s face. His spark felt full—so full, as it had not been, not since—
“Jazz and Ironhide have secured Bumblebee. No human casualties. We should rendezvous with them,” Ratchet said, then stared at him for a few astroseconds.
Opitmus' sub-processor was pinging him. The alert: N.B.E. 001, chamber 2. This was flagged as important, for some reason. The Matrix chanted again, faster. Faster. Just as the image loaded from the feed from Jazz, Ratchet spoke again.
“They found Megatron.”
Oh.
Frozen. Broken and rusted. Optimus squeezed his optics shut, trying in vain to cut off the feed. Clarity washed over his processor now, as he finally accepted the truth that had stared him in his face ever since he received the intel that Megatron had crash-landed. His spark was so full, his processor filled with images of his broken bondmate at the hands of humans. Blindly, he felt the AllSpark taken from his shaking hands and he stumbled forwards. Only Ratchet’s hands kept him from face-planting.
He could hear himself mumble “thank you”, as he walked forwards. His pedes hit the ground in hurried uneven steps, gaining speed. He let his spark lead him to Megatron. His bondmate’s spark was calling out to him. After so many years, since before the Fallen poisoned him, he could feel Megatron’s spark again—the perfect complement to his own, his other half. Their fragile connection was pulling him to the other end of the facility. Optimus didn’t stop moving, didn’t have the will to deny his aching spark what it had been craving for so many years.
“Optimus!” Ratchet’s voice was behind him. He heard footsteps follow him.
Faster. Faster.
His pedes moved him down large round corridors. His thundering steps echoed the thundering beat of his spark. His conjunx, his High Protector, his Megatron—was alive. Alive. He wanted desperately to believe it.
Years and years of shattered hope and sparkbreak made him hesitant to believe in reconciliation—not when again and again Optimus failed to reach the Megatron he knew buried deep below the depths of the Fallen’s influence. His fuel tanks churned with anxiety and wariness while disbelief warred with cursed hope in his processor. Yet his spark assured him that Megatron was alive. While the space where their bond was had been empty for years, now it flickered with shared awareness. The revelation came with a thousand implications, making Optimus so heady he barely registered the cacophony around him.
The flicker of awareness grew steadily in clarity.
He barged into the chamber just in time to see familiar crimson-red optics flicker to life.
Optics at their widest aperture and battle mask sliding open involuntarily, Optimus felt his spark tremble feebly once. Twice.