Chapter Text
Traitor.
It was a brand that marked him, scarred him, penetrated deep into his chassis and infected his spark. Megatron, traitor of all Cybertronian kind. To the Autobots, he betrayed them when he started the war and became a warlord, a tyrant. To the Decepticons, he betrayed them when he defected and turned on them, aiding those who they once swore to destroy, abandoning his own cause in the name of compromise and peace after millions of years of torture and abuse to keep them in line. And to the Maltos…
He betrayed them when he held up his cannon to execute Twitch, little more than a sparkling, and fired… with not so much as a blink of his optics. Dorothy’s daughter. The hope of their entire species. All because he was too weak to fight off a human’s… hacking.
Megatron. Traitor. Terror. Monster.
They were synonyms.
To think he ever thought he could change into something, someone better. Why Dorothy ever looked at him and reached out an open hand was beyond him. Why Optimus ever deluded himself into thinking they were friends was beyond him. Did the Prime genuinely believe that, or was it a lie he told himself to help him recharge at night, as much as Megatron did?
What good did he ever add to the universe, to this world?
Starscream’s words still echoed in his processors.
Nowhere is safe if it’s with you.
So what if he… wasn’t… here, anymore?
Birds fled from their trees as Megatron slowly walked deeper into the forest, calling out to alert the others of a predator.
If he was doing this, then he needed someplace private. Hidden. Somewhere his body would never be found. The children did not need that added trauma to what they had already endured. He would not subject them to that. No, it was better if he just… disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again.
He’d considered, briefly, going down into the ancient tunnels and allowing the Dweller to extinguish his spark, but he could not risk it escaping and harming anyone. He also considered dying in a deep cave, but the Terrans fueled themselves with cave water, and he could not be certain they would never find his remains. He could walk to the bottom of the ocean and do it there, but the spilling of his energon would harm the native wildlife.
With a frustrated snarl, Megatron looked up at the sun and wished he had the means to throw himself into it.
Perhaps the most frustrating part was that he had already died. Dr. Meridian succeeded in his genocide of their species. Through the power of Quintus Prime, Robby and Mo resurrected them all, and for some accursed reason, that included Megatron.
Weary, Megatron knelt on the ground and hung his head.
How long he stayed like that, he did not know, but the sun went from one side of the sky to the other and was dipping behind the trees when he felt the earth tremble.
Whirling upright to his feet, he spun around and primed his cannon, only to freeze at the sight of Optimus wading his way through the treeline, his servos raised in a gesture of peace. Held at gunpoint, the Prime stopped and opened his faceplate, then said in his soft baritone, “It is only me, Megatron.”
Megatron, it’s me! Please!
Baring his teeth with another snarl, he shut down his cannon and turned away, using his free servo to clamp down into the metal hard enough to dent it, warning, “Leave me alone, Optimus.”
“We are worried about you, old friend. I am worried about you.”
“Who is this ‘we’?”
“Ranger Malto, Alex, and their children, for one.”
Glaring over his shoulder, Megatron growled, “You involved the Terrans in this?”
Optimus’s brow furrowed. “You uninstalled your com, removed your signature from the Autobots database, and rigged yourself with an energon dampener. I never would have found you if it were not for Hasht-”
With a roar, Megatron lunged towards Optimus and punched him. The Prime brought his arms up to shield his chassis just in time and bent his legs to absorb the impact, skidding back a few meters. He readied himself to defend from another strike, but Megatron’s spark wasn’t even in the first throw. Instead, the larger mech backed away, clawing at his helm. “You…” he managed, his vocal emitter glitching faintly. “Are they here?”
Optimus hesitated a long moment, then opened his stance, raising his hands again. “I came alone.”
“Why?”
Optimus hesitated again, his sapphire optics looking so very, very tired. “I did not know what I would find,” he said softly.
Megatron narrowed his own red optics before closing them and turning his head away, his metal heating in shame. “I did not want to be found at all.”
“Megatron…”
“Do not speak to me as if I am worthy of pity. I left because I did not want to further burden our kind, to further burden Dorothy.” He heard the other mech whir as he took a careful step closer and snapped his head up, growling as he took a step back. “Stop.”
“What did you intend to do?”
“You already know the answer, fool.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“I never took you for a sadist, Optimus.”
“I do not ask from a place of sadism, I ask from a place of concern. I do not think you know what you are doing.”
“Do not treat me like a sparklet!”
“I am treating you like you are a danger to yourself, Megatron.”
“So what do you intend to do with me, Optimus? Put me in a cell? I’ll fire my cannon at my own spark; remove it from me and I’ll sever my energon cables. Would you put one of those GHOST devices on me to force and bind me in my alt-form?”
Optimus’s optics widened. “I would never-”
“You never hesitated to use those infernal things before on our kind.”
“They were not you, and that was before-”
“I am spared solely by your attachment to me?”
“-before GHOST revealed the true depths of its depravity!”
Megatron took another step back and shook his head. “Our depravity, Optimus. We created a surveillance state that robbed Cybertronians of privacy, agency, freedom— We enabled the torture, deaths, and dismemberments of untold decepticons-”
“That is not your fault, Megatron,” Optimus said forcefully, taking a step closer. “You protested every step of the way, and it was I who assuaged you. If anyone is at fault, it is me.”
Megatron clawed at his helm again. “You cannot take my crimes and add them onto the burdens already on your shoulders. I will not allow it.”
Carefully taking another step closer, Optimus argued, “And I will not allow your spark to go out! We made an oath to each other-”
“She was begging me to stop, Optimus!” Megatron finally bellowed, his vocal emitter glitching again as his optics flickered, and he fell to his knees, his servos denting his helm as liquid coolant pooled at the bottom of his lenses, and Optimus actually froze, taken aback by the display. “She was begging, screaming at me to stop, and I just kept trying to kill her! The way she was looking at me, with such terror…”
Shaking himself, Optimus closed the distance and knelt down in front of him, his gaze softening. “That was not you, Megatron.”
“No, it was worse. I was hacked.” He spat the word. “Controlled.”
“As was I,” Optimus murmured, reaching out to cup his jaw, only for Megatron to slap his servo away. “I was also forced to watch as I tried to kill the Terrans, to kill Bumblebee.”
“Yet do the Terrans now look at you with fear? Was it your image who succeeded in killing Dorothy’s firstborn?”
Optimus yet again froze with shock. “...How do you know of that?”
“I saw it. In Wheeljack’s system, when I was erasing all my data. The recording of the training room.”
Seemingly at a loss for words, Optimus began a few false starts only for Megatron to stand and turn to walk away. Optimus grabbed his leg.
“Unhand me.”
“No!”
His servos curling into fists, Megatron warned, “I will not repeat myself.”
Optimus pulled on his leg and repeated, “We made an oath to each other, Megatronus!”
It was Megatron’s turn to freeze, his optics stinging with the effort to hold back the overflowing cooling fluid, his fans venting at max power.
With Megatron’s full attention, Optimus stood and grabbed him by the shoulders, pressing their helms together. “Do you remember?”
Megatron gritted his teeth so tightly that the metal groaned. “To never harm each other. To stay true to each other. The laborer and the gladiator. But that oath is long since broken. Those young men are dead, Prime. It is time I followed.”
“And why should I not join you?”
Megatron scoffed and ripped himself out of Optimus’s hold, lifting a hand to splay across the center of the smaller mech’s chassis. “You were marked with the Matrix of Leadership for a reason. You are fundamentally good, Optimus, and I…”
“No one is created inherently good or evil, not even Cybertronians,” Optimus insisted, his optics wide and pleading. “It is our actions that define us as who we are — the choices we make when we are sound of mind. You have done great good, Megatron, and I, great evil. You cannot claim that you deserve to die and I do not. Dr. Meridian’s hacking does not define you!”
“How many Autobots have I executed by my own free choice? How many Decepticons did I make an example of? How many humans-”
“You changed!”
“I deserve to die, Optimus! By Primus, just let me do it!”
Shaking his head, Optimus grabbed him again, prompting Megatron to break out of his hold once more and back away, shivering. “Megatron…” Optimus begged, “please…”
Megatron, please!
“Just leave me alone!” Megatron screamed, turning to run and transforming into his hovercraft-
The next thing he knew, his tail rudder was snagged by an ax and he was hurled into the ground, and he transformed back as he rolled and steadied himself on one knee only to be tackled and pinned to the ground by Optimus. “I will not leave your side, Megatron,” Optimus swore, his own vocal emitter glitching. “Can you not see what harm your death would bring to this world?”
Weakly struggling, his shivering more pronounced, he barked, “What’s one more crime I commit if it means an end to the monstrous Megatron?”
“You believe yourself a monster, but you are my dearest friend, the only person I feel I can confide in and trust with my own weakness. I love you, Ranger Malto loves you, and so does Alex and all their children, human and Terran alike, including Robby and Twitch! It is selfish to make them lose you, to make our kind lose you, when there is so much more good you can do! I need my partner, Ranger Malto needs her best friend, and the children need their mentor, their protector!”
An icy cold numbness washed over Megatron, then, and he realized that he had lost.
He went limp beneath Optimus’s weight and turned his head away, his fans winding down. “Fine, Optimus,” he murmured. “You win.”
Optimus did not loosen his grip, his blue optics instead looking him over carefully. Expecting a cheap trick, no doubt. Many times during the war Optimus had him begging for mercy only for a headbutt or gunshot to allow him to slip away. But Megatron had no more fight left in him.
He had nothing left in him.
His expression finally softening, Optimus released him and stood, reaching a gentle hand down to help him up. Megatron took it, and was pulled into a tight embrace.
“...I will have to tell Ranger Malto about this,” Optimus said softly. Megatron closed his optics in pain. “I will not institutionalize you, but you are not to leave my side until I and Ranger Malto are both sure you are not a danger to yourself anymore.”
“Must we burden her with this when she has seven traumatized children to tend to on top of her own pain?”
“She already figured out what you were planning when I asked Hashtag for assistance, old friend.”
Megatron let out a broken sigh. “Of course she did.”
“Will you return to the Malto home with me? They all will rest easier tonight knowing you are safe.”
“Yes… Yes, I… I am sorry…”
Optimus’s embrace grew tighter still, and Megatron weakly returned it. “You are loved, Megatron. You may not deserve it, but like it or not, you are part of a family now, and family leaves no one left behind or forgotten.”
There was a pause.
“When did you see Lilo & Stitch?”
Optimus chuckled. “Bumblebee sent it to me after it was the feature of a Malto family movie night. It was very charming. When did you see Lilo & Stitch?”
“Dorothy showed it to me when Robby was a babe. She said that the girl and the alien reminded her of us.”
Optimus’s chuckle turned into an earnest laugh, and he had to step back to double over, leaving Megatron to roll his optics. Finally collecting himself, Optimus rested a warm hand on Megatron’s shoulder plate and said, “Come on, old friend. Let’s go home.”