Archive of Our Own ^beta

Minimus prides himself on being one of the first bots on the Lost Light to rise out of recharge each simulated solar cycle. Not that it's a particularly hard feat to achieve, considering the ilk they tend to harbour onboard. Still, his sleep schedule is a strict regimen he’s kept since even before his days as the duly appointed officer of the Tyrest accord and he doesn’t plan on letting it go any time soon. There’s comfort to be found in a rigid routine. At least he thinks so.

In the process of making his way off the berth, he allows himself a minute (no more, no less) to sit at its edge, however. There’s almost a meditative quality in doing nothing but allowing his systems to defrag right after his rousing. Sure, recharge does that too, but not while he’s conscious for it. It gives him a moment to think; go over the schedule for the day again, plan his route, ponder whatever dream he just left, all the while spinning the gears in his sleep-heavy actuators, stretching out.

Blearily resetting his optics a third time in a misguided attempt to clear the smudged optical fluid caked on from recharge, his cloudy vision lands on the Magnus armor leaning precariously out of where it’s situated in the open habsuite closet. He leaps up to right it before it has a chance to clatter to the ground, which would probably startle the poor mechs in the neighboring suites, who did nothing to deserve such a rude awakening. Fastening the clamps which hold the armor upright, he looks up at its expressionless face and lightless visor.

It used to be that he could hardly imagine himself taking the Magnus armor off at all, not while constantly surrounded by bots not privy to Tyrest’s fabrications, not even in the privacy of his own locked room. If he’s being honest,  he sometimes felt terribly exhausted by the perpetual need to ensure no one finds him out, the paranoia searing the back of his processor and driving him to levels of uptightness that, even knowing himself, would later surprise him.

But that was way back when, before they had to confront the newly deranged Tyrest, when he spent days locked in a cell, bare-framed for the first time in millenia. When the others joined him in his incarceration, under the well-trodden facade of fortitude, he was actually terrified of the idea of them uncovering his ruse. They had no reason to ever again place trust in someone who concealed the truth from them, especially when that someone is Minimus Ambus.

Perhaps to his ultimate benefit, he was never all too good at lying, least of all with his exposed form out for everyone to see. Granted, Nightbeat was the one to call him out, and bots with deductive skills as sharp as his are few and far between (or, wait, had it been Nightbeat? Getaway, maybe? Surprisingly, he can't quite recall). Still, his deceit lasted all of fifteen minutes worth of conversation, and then it had no ground to stand on; he had to come clean.

To this day he finds himself deeply puzzled with how the others took it in stride with only a little bit of, very understandable, initial shock. The ease with which his true identity was accepted sometimes made him wonder what was it that he was so paranoid about in the first place. Was it the consequences of inadvertently causing the illusion of the Immortal Lawman to come undone, or was it the fact that it was him left standing in the middle of its shattered remains?

Nowadays, he finds himself comfortably walking the Lost Light halls regardless of whether he has the armor on or not. And, unsolicited as it is, he took up the challenge of living more in accordance with the advice, which he’d received from multiple sources at this point, to ‘loosen up’; whatever that entailed.

Since it’s had such a rate of success, maybe the first step is to pass up on the armor for the day.

Minimus double checks the clasps, ensuring the armor doesn’t fall out and cause a racket in his absence. Quick trip to the ensuite washracks to finally clean out his optics and face later, he’s circling back to his berth, where he picks up one of his personal datapads from inside the berthside cabinet, and finally steps out.

His current destination is the bridge. At the start of each day it is imperative to check over the ship’s vitals, communications, run the deep space sonar to scan for potential hazards, and, if need be, course-correct the autopilot accordingly. He gladly takes up this responsibility for most of the time. He enjoys personally making sure everything is running smoothly and filing away their progress in the ship’s logs. It serves to settle his worrier's spark. On a vessel like the Lost Light he has to seize such opportunities whenever he can.

There is, of course, one other reason.

And it, he , is currently standing in the elevator lobby of the habsuite sector.

See, this is why he has to settle for being among the earliest rising bots, instead of being the first one to do it. In that regard, Megatron has him beat.

As Megatron sees him turn the corner into the lobby, only then does he press the button to call their usual ride.

He slightly inclines his helm in greeting. “Minimus.”

“Megatron.”

This is exactly why he likes routine.

They take their first elevator up into the recreation section of the ship in comfortable silence, savoring the early morning quietude. Nothing but the hum of the elevator and the subtle buzz of electricity running through the circuitry in the surrounding walls reaches their audials. Once they reach their designated floor, they take a walk through a series of corridors to reach sector one, on top of which resides the bridge. Megatron, cognizant of Minimus’ shortened stride for the day, paces himself to fall in step at his side. It may be a small gesture, but the fact that it’s something Megatron does automatically, and that, unlike with many taller mechs, he never had to outwardly ask for in the first place, makes him feel pleasantly seen.

After a while they reach the second elevator lobby, and this time it’s Minimus that presses the ‘up’ button. From down below, where it had dropped off its last passenger at sublevel twelve, arrives their second and final elevator of the trip, ‘A3’, designates the blue writing on the wall above the frame. The doors slide open with a hiss before them, inviting them in, and so they waste no time in embarking.

They take their places, standing side by side and facing the now closing elevator doors. Megatron selects the biggest of the buttons, situated at the very top of the pad, clearly marked and softly glowing, lest someone forget how to get to the bridge.

Minimus is resigned to preserving their shared silence, until he notices Megatron reach into the subspace at his hip and pull out a datapad from inside. He turns it on, the dim blue light reflecting off the edges of facial plating and gleaming in optic glass. That’s odd, he’s not usually on his datapad when not seated. He argued beforehand that only then is he able to ’dedicate proper attention’ to his chosen lecture. Whatever it is he’s got his servos on must be especially interesting.

“What are you reading?” he asks.

Startled out of his focus, Megatron glances at Minimus.

“It’s an autobiography of a travelling merchant beast-former from around the beginning of the Golden Age.” he answers, and Minimus feels as though the other is glad he posed his question, judging by how he livens up. “I’ll readily admit that a lot of it is overdetailed reports of supply runs and him waxing poetic about himself, but his writing and commentary on the time period is gripping, whenever he does get to it.” he swipes at the screen, casually paging the file. “The excerpts from his journal are especially compelling, and they have apparently provided insight into some previously unaccounted for blindspots existing in other chronicles from that era. With his dealings, he somehow managed to find himself in the middle of multiple major historical events, yet he and his writing remained undiscovered until about two centuries ago.”

That does actually sound interesting. He can understand why Megatron would be so absorbed. Maybe he’ll ask him to send him a copy later.

“What kind of dealings?” Minimus inquired further. He always enjoyed listening to Megatron, doubly so when the other was this consumed by whatever he’d been studying.

“That’s the thing, he often worked on commission , hence the obsessive cataloguing of trade contracts, I’m assuming. The abstract mentioned him working with Nova Prime once, though I have yet to reach that part. So far, one of his more fascinating stories describes his involvement in an illicit transport of freshly emerged forged sparks -”

Intrigued, Minimus listens as Megatron goes on about this bot that was lost to history. He'll definitely need that copy, he decides. If it’s something they can base later discussions on, then that’s all the better.

With his focus fully on Megatron’s impassioned rant, he almost doesn’t notice the way the elevator floor sends an unusual series of trembles up his pedes. They subside after a brief moment, so he pays them no further mind besides filing away a quick note to ask a qualified bot to give it a check-over later.

“…Allegedly, the contractor for that job had himself been hired to do so, but it was never clear by whom exactly. Obviously, whoever wanted their tracks covered had the resources necessary to ensure a plausible deniability to their involvement, as well as a damn good reason to do so, which implies a level of status. By using a middleman notorious for his shady dealings, this bot had insofar managed to shift blame to one prominent crime syndicate of the time in particular, but thanks to the merchant’s connections and a frankly bizarre for his line of work tendency to conduct background checks if he considered his job or employer simply interesting enough-”

Suddenly the floor beneath them gives a deathly rattle, cutting Megatron’s retelling in half. Minimus just manages to catch his balance, stance wide and arms awkwardly thrown out, the datapad he’s been holding in his servo nearly flying out of his now-tight grip. He whips his helm around frantically, his experience as a soldier dictating Minimus try to locate the source of the ‘attack’. He quickly realizes, though, that there’s none. The elevator just keeps shaking erratically.

Out of the corner of his visual feed he spies Megatron similarly unsteady on his pedes. At once, they both turn to face each other, shocked gazes locking.

The elevator gives one last mighty shudder before scraping to an agonizing stop.

For a second no sound fills the air between them other than that of their careful vents. Minimus notices the arm Megatron has thrown out in his direction only as he’s hurriedly tucking it back to his side, straightening out.

Warily, they right themselves, glancing around at the walls, the floor, the ceiling. They only succeed in confirming their suspicions:

This is a malfunction, and the elevator has stopped.

They’re stuck inside.

It’s needless to say neither of them finds it necessary to panic. These sorts of things happen, as much as Minimus loathes that he has to be the one caught up in this scenario. The only feeling that he allows to surface is a mild irritation at his precious routine being interrupted.

Not to mention their tenure as members of their ship's crew has put them both through much worse. Due to its ordinary nature, he would hesitate to even rate their predicament on the Lost Light Incident Severity Scale™ at all.

“It seems we’re stuck.” he voices the obvious.

Megatron clicks his glossa. “So it appears.” he must be similarly annoyed. Minimus hums in sympathy.

To get them on track to sorting this situation out, he takes the elevator in properly, this time with a clear mind.

It’s nothing to write home about; three uniform walls, the doors, the lights, an access panel in the ceiling, the button pad, a digital display informing them they stopped somewhere around level twenty seven… By his estimate, there’s enough space to fit around six average sized bots standing pauldron to pauldron, so that leaves just him and Megatron with enough to spare. It’s a good thing he’d forgone putting on the Magnus armor before leaving his habsuite, he realizes.

Overall it’s a completely ordinary elevator.

And every ordinary elevator comes equipped with contingency measures in case of emergency.

Minimus looks at the button pad again, and just like he suspected, there it is; the alarm.

Since Megatron is standing closer, he asks: “Could you press that emergency button?” Megatron does so without delay.

The LED light inlaid underneath it turns on for just under fifteen seconds, then the button goes dark. It might be a little while until they get an answer, so they settle in. They wait an additional minute after the LED switches off.

Nothing.

Megatron presses the button again.

Two minutes later, still nothing.

Megatron presses and holds the button down until the light, once again, turns off.

Nothing happens at all. Not the intercom turning on, not the clattering of approaching pedesteps, nothing.

“Say, Minimus, where is the alert from this button received?”

Hm. That’s an apt question. They don’t get many elevator emergencies on the Lost Light, at least not of such mundane nature as their current predicament, so he can’t recall right away. As far as he’s concerned, the elevators are more likely to spontaneously explode or get detached from their hoists and plummet forty stories down, turning themselves and the bots inside into a fine metal paste all due to some freak accident instead of just…stopping. But he has gone over their schematics once upon a time and if he’s remembering correctly then the place which is currently receiving their alarm would be…

“…The bridge. The security console on the bridge.”

He’s suddenly not so proud of being such an early riser.

He figures Megatron must be thinking along the same lines, as he just stands there frozen, servo on hip and expression mixed.

“Is there a chance someone is there and just hasn’t…noticed?” Megatron asks, tentatively.

Not completely unlikely. It’s not like the bridge is ever locked down. They do occasionally assign bots on night shifts, too, but that’s only when they’re traversing particularly treacherous territory, and constantly need someone on navi-comp duty. Unfortunately, he knows for a fact there hasn’t been anyone scheduled like that for a while.

But, suddenly, a memory from yesterday evening comes to him and gets him to brighten.

“Rodimus mentioned he’d be on the bridge till late.” charting the course of their glorious voyage , or something like that, though he’s not sure how much of it he believes. Primus knows what he was actually doing all night. “Knowing him he could still be there. Should I try calling him?”

“Please.”

With that, Minimus’ servo flies to his audial and he dials Rodimus’ comm. It goes unanswered the first two times, until finally:

“H’llo?” comes through the groggy voice of the co-captain. Static fizzles through their connection and Minimus realizes his incessant calling must’ve just woken him up. Perhaps he went back to his habsuite for the night after all?

“Rodimus. Apologies for the awakening.” he receives a series of barely coherent grumbles in response, which sound like they’re meant to dissuade his worry. “Are you, by any chance, still on the bridge?”

A short pause. He can imagine Rodimus blearily looking around to confirm his surroundings.

“M’yeah. I am.”

Normally, Minimus would be concerned with Rodimus’ blatant disregard towards his need of proper recharge in a comfortable berth. This time, however, he finds himself thankful for it. As a token of his gratitude, he reschedules the lecture on proper self-care from ‘right now’ to ‘immediately after they get out of the elevator’.

“Oh, perfect. Could you go over to the security console?”

A noise of startlement leaves Rodimus’ voice box. “Why, did something happen?” he seems much more awake now. There’s the sound of something clattering to the floor in the background.

Minimus rushes to reassure. “Nothing too serious. Me and Megatron were just on our way to you, but the elevator we took malfunctioned. We’ve been pinging you on the console, but you must’ve slept through the alert.”

“Malfunctioned? You okay?”

“We are completely unharmed, no need to worry. We’re merely stuck. ”

A drawn-out silence creeps into their call as Rodimus seems to ponder this for a while. Must be his systems still coming online. Still, it’s a bit unusual. “...Stuck?”

“Yes. Is there anything you could do on your side? The console should be able to generate a malfunction report if you prompt it. You could send that to a technician-”

“Wait, pause, pause, pause. You’re saying you and Megatron are stuck. In an elevator going to the bridge.”

“Yes, we are. Elevator A3.”

“You and Megatron?”

“Correct.”

“And no one else?”

“No one else.”

“Both of you. Completely stuck? And not hurt at all?”

“Yes, we- You keep asking that.”

“Nevermind that, just- You guys sit real tight, alright? I’ll call you back in a minute.”

The call ends with a click of static before Minimus can utter another word. Confusedly, he lets his servo fall from where it was pressed to his helm. He turns to gauge Megatron's reaction, only to lock with a pair of optics filled with infinitely more despair than when he’s seen them from between the bars of a Luna-2 prison cell.

“Wha- Megatron?! What’s wrong?” he sputters.

In lieu of an answer Megatron pinches his nasal ridge tightly and heaves an exhale from his vents so massive Minimus can feel the air curling around him.

“We should not have called Rodimus.”

Just as Minimus was about to push out a confounded  ‘what do you mean?’ he gets cut off by the Lost Light PA system suddenly squealing to life. The grating noise filters both through the tinny elevator intercom speakers as well as the ones mounted in the corridors outside, muffled and cacophonous all at once. He can hardly suppress a flinch. Megatron is all but burying his face in his servo.

“Good, uh…yeah, good morning Lost Lighters! This is your co-captain speaking.” comes through Rodimus. He’s using his ‘self-satisfied’ voice. The one he uses specifically when something unexpectedly goes his way. But what-

Ah.

So that’s why Megatron has the look of someone who shouldn’t be left unattended around airlocks leading out to open space. At least he gets it now.

“Ladies and gentlemechs you are in for some fantastic news because I’m here to announce that today everyone gets a day off! That’s right, all of today’s shifts are cancelled. If I woke you up then I order you to go back into recharge immediately, because you get to sleep in as much as you want. And if for some ungodly reason you’re up and working right now I want you to drop whatever it is that you’re doing regardless of consequence and get your ass over to Swerve’s (or wherever you get your drink from, I’ve been told as co-captain I’m not supposed to endorse, or whatever) pronto! Now move it people! Or don’t. Sweet dreams to you sleepy guys.”

What crimes has Minimus committed to deserve this as his sentencing (and was it the identity theft)? As much as he hates pointless exaggeration, Garrus-9 must be more merciful than this, right?

“Also, if you or a loved one happen to receive a call on the Lost Light managerial frequency, DO. NOT. Pick up. Under any circumstances. In fact, just turn off your comms for the day. You won’t need ‘em anyways.”

At least the cells there were a bit more spacious, if he recalls correctly.

“Also also, totally unrelated, don’t use elevator A3 in sector one. It’s uh…out of order. Don’t approach the elevator lobbies in that area at all, actually. According to reports the, um…electric installation has broken down and is- emitting a frequency which confuses your auditory sensors into thinking you’re hearing voices. Shouting for help and whatnot. Crazy , right?”

And Rodimus was not there serving as the warden. Sounds like quite the lovely place, actually.

“Okay, that’s all. Have an amazing day off, everyone! Rodimus, out.”

The PA system goes offline, and the ship is once again bathed in quiet. Neither he nor Megatron break it, frozen to their spots due to equal measure of disbelief and disappointment.

And the quickly budding fury, of course.

“This is not happening” Megatron grits out, face still hidden in his servo. Minimus feels a helmache coming on.

Before either of them can get too worked up, Minimus receives a call on his comm. Furious, he doesn’t bother looking at the caller ID, already knowing who exactly is trying to get through. He accepts, but doesn’t say anything.

He doesn’t need to, either, as the co-captain cheerfully pipes up for him.

“Hi guys.”

He nearly revs his engine in rage. “Rodimus.”

“Shush, Mims. Let the crew have this.”

He has to bite back the unbridled irritation rising at this bot’s neverending audacity. He hasn’t even said anything yet and he’s already getting shushed!

“This is not about the crew Rodimus, you have just essentially stranded your co-captain and second in command-”

“I know! We get to kick back for a day, you get to stop working yourselves halfway to death, isn’t it great?”

“Rodimus, if you do not-”

“What? Sorry dude, you’re cutting out. The reception in that elevator must be terrible.”

Maybe it’s not the crimes he has committed. Maybe this is the divine punishment sent down upon him for all the sins which stain his heavy, heretic spark. Drift would probably agree. Perhaps he can schedule a meeting with him (once he’s able to attend one) to discuss how they can go about absolving him of this cloying wickedness.

Who knew this is what it took for him to start considering spirituality?

“Anyways, you guys just chill out for a little while okay? I’ll come get you later. Think of it as a little vacation. Mandatory vacation, yeah. Ok bye now, love you, give Megs a smooch from me.”

Once again, Rodimus hangs up quicker than Minimus can gather his wits.

Nevermind the spiritual awakening. Primus can’t help him now, and he won’t be able to help Rodimus either, that much he can guarantee.

He feels himself grow oddly hysterical.

Megatron, on the other hand, seems completely despondent, heaving yet another world-weary sigh. “He cannot be serious.”

The sheer absurdity of the situation causes a grating sound to bubble forth from within Minimus’ voice box before he can even register it forming. It sounds like a cross between the cries of an agonized turbofox and an entire electrical installation shorting at once. Ugh , what an awful noise.

He may hate his own laugh, but he ignores it in favor of letting the first thing his hysterical processor supplied him with in response to Megatron’s defeated statement to tumble out, too.

“If by that you mean he’s physically incapable of it, you’d be correct.”

Humor, especially spontaneous, is still somewhat new to him. It doesn’t exactly come to him naturally. Usually it takes him anywhere between two to four work days and a peer review to construct a solid punchline, and even then it’s usually met with a lukewarm response. This feels different, though. He finds he didn’t have to think it over much at all, and now it’s out in the world, but only for Megatron to hear.

The digits pressed over Megatron’s face part to reveal one of his gleaming optics. “It’s like he has a medical condition.”

Despite their ridiculous situation he finds the corners of his intake tugging up ever so slightly. He has always secretly found a shameful amount of delight in Megatron playing along with his attempts at jokes. He’s been practicing, after all, so he’s glad to see them doing their job, even if for such a small audience.

He exceeds his own expectations when in no time at all he shoots back: “Maybe we should get Ratchet to check him over.”

Megatron scoffs. “Forget that. Once we’re both out of here I’ll set that bot straight.”

“...”

The silence quickly grows suffocating.

“I-” the click of Megatron's voice box being reset seems to echo in the confinement of the elevator.

Minimus merely raises his optical ridges. “That-”

“-sounds abhorrent coming from me-”

“-It does.”

“I apologize. I shouldn't have allowed myself to get swept up in the banter.”

“I know you meant nothing by it. Besides, it was my fault for starting it in the first place.”

“Nonsense, you’re not to blame for the things I say. But…thank you. I do appreciate the faith you put in me,” the outline of the sentence comes out laced in static. “though I can’t imagine the others being as gracious. It’s best I not make a comment like that again, jest or not.”

“Precisely.”

“Let’s just…focus on the task at hand.”

“Let’s.”

Minimus allows the awkwardness to dissolve in the air between them. It’s actually both of them that still have a somewhat tenuous relationship with humor, despite its abundance among their crew. Neither one of them could ever really keep up, except for maybe with each other. However, knowing someone is just as hopeless as you makes the silence following your attempt at contributing to a running joke (a ‘bit’ as they would call it, Minimus remembers) much more bearable. It’s oddly reassuring. Sparkwarming.

And now, even hearing a threat come out of Megatron’s mouth (in an unserious manner, but still), he can’t find it in himself to be concerned in the slightest. He’s long since proven with his actions that he’s worthy of their, of Minimus’ trust. Megatron still finds it necessary to apologize, of course.

Moving on from that failed exchange, he settles on reexamining the elevator-turned-prison. His optics travel up, to right above where he’s standing. The access panel. He promptly dismisses that as a potential escape route, however, noting the sizable bolts screwing the panel flush with the ceiling. They’d need something like Nautica’s wrench to get something that heavy-duty open. He doesn’t bother reporting that dead-end observation to Megatron.

His gaze logically lands on their only remaining option: the elevator doors. Surely if they’d used them to get on they can just as easily use them to leave.

“Megatron?”

The mech turns from where he was observing the ceiling above Minimus’ helm.

“Yes?”

“I think we should try the doors.” he points. “Could you get them open?”

Megatron smirks. “ Could I .”

Minimus amusedly rolls his optics at the uncalled for snark. Yes, he knows Megatron could get a pair of elevator doors open, he’s seen him rip his arms out of a pair of handcuffs that were basically a solid slab of concrete as thick as Minimus is wide.

He totally doesn’t think about that at least once every day.

Shaking himself out of the memory, he watches as Megatron steps over and digs the very tips of his digits into the seam of the shut elevator doors, which give in after a moment with a languid creak, allowing him to jam the remaining length of his digits in between and grip firmly. From where he was standing, Minimus can just about make out the tensing of the thick cabling beneath Megatron's back plating and the contraction of pistons along his arms as he wrenches the doors apart. A small part of himself is surprised at just how much effort Megatron is clearly having to exert to open a measly pair of elevator doors after all. Maybe it has something to do with the nature of the malfunction; perhaps an issue with the circuitry keeping them jammed? He can’t say he’s overly familiar with the engineering of the Lost Light elevator system (it’s the sprinkler system that takes up a disproportionate chunk of his processing power). He chastises himself for not having prepared for this eventuality. It's a glaring oversight on his part.

A much, much bigger part of himself is trying its best to keep him from completely losing his mind. The small groan that Megatron unwittingly let out at the unexpected strain has done a funny thing to Minimus’ fuel tanks. He finally wills his optics to travel from where they were still stuck to Megatron's form to the now-being-held-open doors, only for them to instead get caught on the sight of digit indents left in the metal along their edges.

Primus .

This elevator feels oddly small all of a sudden, even by his standards. Bit stuffy too. Must be poor ventilation. Maybe the malfunction stopped that from working properly too.

“Minimus.”

A shiver runs up his spinal strut like electric charge. “Yes?” he glances up.

Megatron has put himself in between the stubborn doors, pressing his back to one and pushing at the other with a stretched out arm and a pede planted on the ground. He points up with his free servo.

“See that?” his optics follow in the set direction.

Minimus does. There, above their helms, just barely within the confines of the open elevator frame, a sliver of yet another pair of doors, leading out to what must be level twenty seven. He can see where Megatron is going with this.

“Do you think you could fit through?”

Already he knows that might be tough. The part of the doors they do have access to is horrendously slim and paired with the fact that it’s approximately four times the height off the ground he is, climbing through would be awkward at best and outright impossible at worst. Definitely not while he’s still wearing a layer of armor. But in his irreducible form…He’d be remiss not to at least try.

A streak of unease does pass over his spark at the thought, however. It’s not often he goes without his intermediary augmentation armor. Now that he thinks about it, he’s not sure whether Megatron has ever even seen him in his irreducible form. He definitely knows about it; they’ve discussed it before, however briefly, and he’s seen his late brother without any armor on, too. Hence the question, he can assume.

And as much of a thing of the past it is, the functionist doctrine ostracizing bots with beast alt modes had left an indefinite mark on Minimus’ psyche. It may have been millions of years since then, but he still feels a certain kind of vulnerability when his form is exposed. At the very least he never had much visible kibble which would make his alt mode easily identifiable to the untrained optic, unlike poor Dominus. Nevertheless, they both chose to opt for additional armor as a safety precaution.

But, thankfully, he finds that it’s not something he’s particularly worried about now, besides that brief moment of initial apprehension. For one, it may help save them from this ridiculous mess they’ve found themselves in. Second, he will not need to transform. Third, he knows he’s in safe company.

“Let’s find out.”

Without further delay, he sends a command to disengage the armor's locks and it promptly falls to pieces around him, letting his irreducible self out. He kicks the pieces into a corner and lays his datapad down next to them.

“Come, let me help get you up there.” Megatron beckons with his servo.

For some reason this was something Minimus hadn’t fully considered. He inexplicably assumed he’d be scaling up to the doors himself, but now that strikes him as obviously illogical, not when Megatron could easily assist him.

It’s not like he hasn’t been picked up before. He’s sort of optimally sized for the act. Still, he has never enjoyed being handled , as he doubts many fellow bots of similarly diminutive stature do. Just because they can be picked up doesn’t mean they necessarily want to be. Frustratingly, it’s something many bigger bots still have trouble understanding and respecting.

Megatron, however, is not one of those bots. Ever since they began to work on the Lost Light together, he has not felt as though his bodily autonomy was violated in any way by the ex-warlord (and isn’t that a humorous statement in itself).

Well- There was that one time when he got punched across the ship’s lecture hall. Then again, he should’ve known better than to approach someone who was clearly having an episode. It was unnerving, seeing Megatron snap like that, sure, but he could never find it in himself to hold it against the other. He was honestly more upset with Nautica for knocking him out once, during that whole scraplet infestation situation. What a mess that had been.

Either way, on each occasion that Megatron did hold him, it had always been because Minimus had chosen so. The other scantily ever even suggested it in the first place. Minimus had liked that.

But a while ago now his perspective on the matter had…shifted somewhat.

Some time back they stopped by a trade planet to replenish their energon reserves. Both the co-captains as well as a team of others went on what was essentially a glorified shopping spree. Minimus, however, stayed behind on communications.

That, as any of their missions really, turned out to be a huge disaster. While the others were planetside, a gang of small-time, overzealous organic pirates took an interest in the enormous Lost Light orbiting a planet in their supposed territory. They must have shot at it with an EMP cannon meant to cripple the ship’s electronics and render it inoperable for the time of their attack. Instead, upon getting on, they noticed that they managed to knock out every single mechanical-based lifeform aboard too (that is to say everyone), and, what do you know, the small-time pirates suddenly made it big. Primus knows where they got a weapon powerful enough to put everyone to sleep long enough to ransack almost one fifth of the ship’s circuitry, cabling, electronics, and, to Brainstorm’s unending anguish, half of his ridiculous weapon inventions. Thankfully, it seemed as though the organics were ignorant to the worth of the Lost Light’s quantum technology, otherwise that would be sure to all be stripped as well, and it would be positively impossible to replace. Regardless, their stay in the trade planet's orbit got extended by multiple weeks worth of grueling repair.

All that Minimus remembers is calmly monitoring the console on the bridge one second, then waking up to a splitting ache in his processor and being almost completely unable to move his body the next.

Not that he needed to, as he soon realized. He was being carried.

From what he’s heard afterwards, upon multiple unsuccessful attempts at getting in contact with the Lost Light, the planetside team sensed something was wrong and rushed right back. Apparently, when they first came upon a group of conked out bots piled on top of each other in the corridors, Megatron sped off in the direction of the bridge before Ratchet could even proclaim that everyone had merely passed out instead of away .

Granted, that piece of information had been relayed to him by Swerve, and Minimus is not sure how much he trusts that bot’s ability to resist embellishing his stories, especially when it would ensure Minimus’ continued patronage. Primus knows he’s not there for the watered down engex drinks. He can’t handle those. What he does know for sure is that the very first thing he saw upon cracking his optical shutters open was Megatron’s darkly determined expression, not yet aware of his waking, following the path of destruction alongside Rodimus and Drift down towards where a couple of pirate stragglers were cowering in the corners of the unlit sectors of the ship. He even ended up aiding them in their efforts to locate the hidden intruders, blurting out a panicked ‘watch out!’ just as one got the drop on a distracted Megatron from where the organic was hanging from the ceiling somehow.

But if the Lost Light had to be overrun by pirates, stripped of valuable resources, and the crew, along with himself, all rendered unconscious again just for Minimus to experience the full weight of Megatron’s undivided attention, the terrible mix of unrestrained concern and spark-deep relief shining in his unstraying gaze, and the feeling of his arms ever so slightly tightening their hold the moment he did finally notice Minimus’ stirring then, well…

…he can’t say he’d be exactly opposed.

So it’s safe to say he hasn’t felt the same about Megatron picking him up for some time now.

And now that he’s thinking about it, he suspects what the underlying cause of the elevator’s malfunction might be. Seems they missed a couple wires while fixing the ship. He adds his theory to the report already forming in his processor. An incident report. Oh yeah. It’s worked its way up onto the Scale™. He wonders whether a co-captain and SIC getting trapped and left to fend for themselves by the other co-captain, as well as a mass infringement of work schedule and ship-wide neglect of duty counts as a one or a one-and-a-half out of ten. Should he technically file it under mutiny?

But that doesn’t matter right this moment. Right now he prays he comes off nonchalant and steps closer to where Megatron has leaned down slightly to give Minimus a pede up.

“May I?” Megatron asks.

Minimus is not sure whether the question is necessary as he feels he’s given permission enough. Still, he doesn’t voice this thought as he’s come to know that it’s just one of those things Megatron always does. Never has he so much as laid a digit on him without asking first (the whole pirate fiasco had been a wonderful exception. Minimus wishes those exceptions would happen more often). It’s awfully considerate. Dare he say sweet.

He settles on responding with a resolute nod. He would trust Megatron with far more than this.

But instead of Megatron lowering his servo for him to step on like he expected, he watches on in mounting horror as the ex-warlord deliberately reaches out to almost entirely encircle Minimus’ waist with the same digits that put dents in metal just a minute prior. He all but scoops him up and Minimus’, ah, well…aft, for lack of a better term, ends up nestled in the crook of Megatron’s palm. Only once he’s settled securely does Megatron lift him up off the ground, pedes dangling gracelessly in the air.

He has to manually override the fans that would’ve otherwise immediately kicked into full gear. It was bad enough the grilles of his vents have fully retracted to help billow out the rapidly heating air circulating his systems. He hopes it’s not too obvious. He hopes nothing about him doesn’t absolutely scream ‘obvious’ right now. He fears his hopes might all be in vain.

“Is this okay?”

Megatron’s voice startles him out of his frantic thought process. Quick, say something.

“Ah, yes,” cough “perfectly acceptable.”

“You’re tense.” the other states bluntly.

Sometimes Megatron’s perceptiveness can be a blessing; he regularly seems more aware of Minimus’ emotional state than even himself. He often finds himself thankful for it as it spares him from having to dedicate effort to detangling and stating his needs, be it for company, advice, or a little bit of peace and quiet for once. It is an invaluable asset when conducting any kind of talks or negotiations. Ironically, Megatron makes for a skilled diplomat, his words infinitely more compelling than Ultra Magnus’ long-winded speeches ever were, his ability to parse and respond to the intentions and moods of others accordingly truly invaluable.

Right now, however, he can’t help but be frustrated with how easily the bigger bot can read him. It only serves to fluster him even more.

“Apologies, I was merely…” he can’t say he was startled, Megatron asked to pick him up, and he telegraphed his movements in that horribly thoughtful way of his, for crying out loud. “...My back struts have been giving me trouble lately.”

Awful. Awful. Cretinous excuse. He knows Megatron is going to see right through him, he just established that! If they were not trapped he’d be laughed out of the room.

“Is that so? Oh- I am terribly sorry.” Megatron apologizes hurriedly, tone almost alarmed. His grip immediately slackens until Minimus is nearly laid back against the palm of the relatively massive servo. The new knowledge that the size of his irreducible form in comparison to Megatron’s makes this possible does nothing to dispel the fluttering feeling radiating from deep within his abdomen. Before he can stop it his processor is graciously generating a staggering number of scenarios of the various ways Megatron could, ah- utilize this, which has him dreadfully light-helmed all of a sudden. “In that case, are you sure you’re up for this?”

Hold on. That worked?

Wait, he can’t have Megatron thinking he’s backing out now.

“Yes, please, you don’t need to concern yourself with me. It’s nothing major.”

Megatron seems to mull this over for a moment, then opts to readjust his hold on Minimus. “If you’re sure. Please do not hesitate to tell me if anything makes you uncomfortable, though.”

“I will.”

Megatron looks at him meaningfully.

“I promise.”

This finally does the trick, and Megatron resumes lifting him up towards the ceiling, but not without a muttered: “Make sure to come by the medbay once we’re out. I hate to see your work affecting you negatively like this.” Then, even quieter: “I can’t help but to be concerned with you.”

Minimus is glad he doesn’t have to acknowledge that statement, lest he melt into a simpering puddle of metal and drip right through the gaps in the floor. He has a job to do.

He comes face to face with the pair of closed doors. Just as Megatron has done beforehand, he reaches out to pry at their meeting point. Thankfully, unlike the inner elevator doors, these seem unaffected by the malfunction, and he’s able to pull them apart without much trouble. At a point they automatically slide all the way open and remain that way.

He’s met with the sight of the dimly lit level twenty seven. It’s not out of the ordinary for it to be dark; it’s still before the set hour at which the lighting system’s motion sensors turn on for the day. The only thing weakly illuminating the hall is a thin, navy blue LED strip neatly concealed by the floor’s skirting board. It snakes off along the wall in both directions and vanishes far off behind the curve of the corridor. It’s there to guide anyone who might find themselves wandering the ship at night, but, unsurprisingly, there is not a single bot in sight. As numerous as The Lost Light crew may be, the ship is technically capable of housing hundreds more. There naturally exist spots which are simply not as frequented. Floor twenty seven of sector one could very well be one of those places. Either that, or it could simply be attributed to the early morning hour. Or Rodimus’ announcement (which he can’t help but seethe at the memory of) to stay away from them really had been that effective. Normally he’d think there’d be at least one non-conformist willing to check something like a busted elevator out, especially when it apparently involves broken machinery that makes you think it’s screaming for help, but clearly the siren call of getting sloshed beyond belief is all too alluring. As it stands, the hallway is as good as deserted. There is, however, a possibility that someone might be occupying one of the numerous rooms the entrances to which cover the opposing wall.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” Minimus shouts into the darkness. “Can anyone hear me?”

No response. No noise of movement either. Any hope of seeking out someone to help them that he’s been foolishly harbouring is promptly extinguished.

“That’s to be expected.” Megatron comments wryly from below.

No matter. He’s sure that if he manages to squeeze through he can get assistance to then come and get Megatron out, too.

He gets his hanging pedes under himself and pushes off Megatron's servo. First, he gets his forearms through and scrabbles for purchase against the dusty floor. Then, he has to turn his helm to the side for it to fit through the tight gap.

“Hold on. Minimus, there might not be enough space for you to-”

“I can do it. It’s a bit- cramped, but I can do it.”

Megatron huffs, but dutifully continues holding Minimus up.

He presses on. His pauldrons are next to go and he manages to get both of them over the threshold without much trouble. His helm and arms are now fully out in the hallway.

Next is his chassis.

That…may pose a little bit more of a challenge.

At the very least his irreducible form does not possess a sizable chassis. In comparison with, say, a bot with a vehicle alt mode, whose chassis transforms into the vehicle’s front, his is pretty in line with the rest of his frame. It still does protrude notably, however.

But he has an idea.

He takes a deep inhale in preparation, until he can feel the stretch in his couplings, and then- lets out as much air as he can.

Hurriedly, he once again pushes on. And lo and behold, his strategy worked! A quarter of his chassis is through, then nearly half, and then-

He stops. It’s not that he’s stopped trying to move forward it’s just-

He can’t. He managed to get exactly half his chassis out before reaching its widest point.

And now he’s stuck.

He tries to move again, digits clawing at the floor in search of anything to latch onto and pull himself further, but there’s nothing. He’s still not going anywhere. A bit frazzled now, he switches strategies and tries to go back instead, but again, he doesn’t budge an inch. He’s properly wedged.

“Minimus?”

Without thinking, he draws in a breath and feels his expanding chassis dig into the frame of the elevator painfully. A pitiful wheeze escapes his voice box as a result.

“Minimus.”

It might be that his systems can now only be cooled by the idly circling air, unaided by venting, or the fact that he can’t recall when was the last time he felt this undignified, irreducible, stuck in a wall with his aft hanging out, with Megatron of all bots in front row of this one-mech freak show, but he can feel his frame becoming increasingly warm.

It’s starting to get uncomfortable, too. A warning pops up on his HUD regarding the concerningly high temperature. His wriggling grows more desperate and ever more pathetic.

“ Minimus. ”

As much as his position allows, he whips his helm around, only to be met with two glowing optics glaring at him from within the elevator.

“You’re stuck.”

“I’m-”

Before he can finish what would’ve been a blatant lie, Megatron’s optics gleam at him intensely, blazing a more saturated red. A second shiver of the day roves over his frame.

“I’m stuck.” he concedes, and it feels like defeat. His HUD is blaring warnings about CPU temperature.

Megatron sighs, as he’s been frequently doing throughout the entire duration of their circumstantial imprisonment, before honing in on Minimus’ frame. He resists the urge to squirm.

“Relax yourself, this might hurt a little.”

Megatron gives him no time to ask what exactly ‘this’ entailed, as he soon feels digits winding around his waist tightly, and starting to pull . Catching on, he promptly scrambles to help, pushing with his servos and pedes, but it’s of little use. He’s really in there.

As if his helm had been dunked underwater, Megatron’s voice drifts faintly into his audials. “Minimus, I’m gonna need you to breathe out again.”

It must be due to the strain of still holding the elevator doors open and now trying to pull Minimus out, too, but in saying this, Megatron’s tone is husky .

“Can you do that for me?”

If critical system overheat or getting bisected by this blasted elevator doesn’t kill him, that might just finish him off.

Stomping his flusterment down into the unreachable depths of his spark where it belongs, he expels air once more, sucking in his chassis to the best of his ability.

Finally, with a terrible squeal of metal on metal, he feels his frame coming loose. He grits his dentae at the itching sting of paint being unintentionally peeled off.

An excruciating moment later, he pops out of the wall unceremoniously. Gasping, he blissfully swallows cool air for it to wash over his overheated systems and takes a moment to calm his venting, optic shutters involuntarily fluttering closed.

When he opens them again, he finds himself once again laid out on Megatron’s servo, the aforementioned mech having stepped back into the elevator, the doors behind him shut once more. Minimus’ helm is delicately cupped by the tips of the bigger bots’ digits, while his pedes rest against his forearm.

They look at each other, and Minimus is relieved that he can blame the warmth of his plating solely on being stuck in the wall. Megatron has tangible relief written all over his face, optics half-shuttered. He murmurs.

“ Good. ”

“...”

Minimus needs out of here. He needs out of here before he loses it entirely. He might already be losing it, judging by what he’s just heard. That cannot have been anything other than a feverish hallucination caused by system overheat. For a second he considers reattempting squeezing out into the hallway to escape this personally tailored nightmare.

Stopping his mental spiral in its tracks is Megatron kneeling down to gently let the smaller bot back down onto the floor, but not without making sure he’s steady on his pedes. His servo stays resting on the back of Minimus’ pauldrons.

“So, we’re not getting out through the doors.” he stares dejectedly at the sealed entrance.

You could say that again.

Warily, he resets his voice box twice before allowing himself to speak. “So it seems.”

Minimus is fresh out of useful ideas. He looks to Megatron in hopes he can offer up a new solution. Minimus was the one to suggest the doors, after all, so now it’s his time to shine.

Disappointingly, however, the mech does not rise to the occasion, and stays silent.

If they’ve tried sounding the alarm, calling someone, with that someone in turn ensuring that no one comes to their aid, and they’ve exhausted the one possible escape route, then…

“Should we…wait for Rodimus?”

Megatron gives an almost theatrical exhale.

“As much as I hate to say it, right now that might be our best bet.”

That’s that then. To think all that effort, all that humiliation he went through was for them to just stay here till evening anyway.

Sigh. “Very well.”

Resigned to wait till the end of the solar cycle and praying Rodimus will actually keep his word, Minimus decides it’s been enough of walking around in his irreducible form for the day, and goes to the corner to start rearranging the previously discarded armor pieces in order of which go on first. It’s an easy enough process, he’s done it a number of times before, so it’s merely a matter of motor memory. He readily dismisses Megatron’s (generous, but needless) offer to help. Primus knows there’s a limit to how much of his digits roaming all over his frame he can handle in one go before self-combusting. He unconsciously picks at the silvery spot stripped of paint, right in the middle of his chestplate.

Back in his intermediary form, he takes in the state of their seclusion cell. Besides a small bunch of his peeled off white paint, littering the floor beneath their pedes in little shavings, there’s nothing to occupy one’s attention with. Megatron has taken to sweeping the mess away from one of the corners, in which he promptly seats himself. He decides to do the same, taking the opposite side.

Itching for something to do while they wait, he picks up his datapad from where he left it on the floor. It’s only as he’s settling himself down and fiddling with the power button, though, that he sees Megatron sigh and pull out his own.

Odd.

He looks down at the library of files.

Minimus’ personal datapad is filled with a variety of reading material. He’s toyed with the idea of properly learning Old Cybertronian, so he has a collection of translated texts and a glossary he’s been creating to practice with. There’s a couple books on calligraphy; on different techniques, ways to practice, the history. One of the largest files on the device is the Autobot Code, though it takes up a lot of memory not because of the length of the original text, but rather due to the amount of the annotations he’s added.

Besides the academic writing, the prose category also has its dedicated fiction subfolder, and separate from that is a folder for poetry; by others and some of his own. As he’s been told, he apparently doesn’t come off as the type to enjoy anything other than drab law books and scientific studies (and he’d argue that they’re not drab at all), which comes as quite the surprise to him. In reality there probably does not exist a type of writing he has checked out and not found some merit in, at the very least.

As much material as he’s faced with, a wide selection of potential ways to spend his time, he still finds himself somewhat discontent. He’s settled for a psychology paper on the impact of frequent and prolonged meteor surfing on the decision-making process (and he has that study on his ‘to read’ list for a very good reason), but the glowing words on the screen are lost in the haze of a growing…dissatisfaction.

And he has plenty of things to be dissatisfied with at the moment, too. The blatant disrespect shown to him by his co-captain chief among them. He knows it to stem from elsewhere, though.

He wants to pass the time, yes, but the reason he enjoys taking the morning shift at the bridge with Megatron so much wasn’t them not sharing a word and staring at their datapads at the opposite corners of the room for several hours. He feels as though he’d been robbed. Robbed of satisfying his need for productivity, of a serene morning, of a perfect excuse to let their frames bump into each other as they stand by the same console-

…Then again, that last one could technically be remedied, he realizes trepidatiously. Are they not both in the same tiny box for the foreseeable future?

He only needs to come up with…a different excuse. A believable enough reason.

And Megatron is not an easy bot to fool. The hardest perhaps, considering his history. But he has already fallen for one of his lies today.

What if he were to just- use the same one again?

As nervous as taking this half-witted risk is already making him, it’s something he feels he needs to try, lest he waste their precious time together on reading psychology papers.

“You know, with those back struts of mine-”

Megatron quickly looks to him from above his datapad. “Yes?”

“It’s just that the wall is not exactly comfortable.” Minimus draws out, significatively. “I’d rather not lay myself down on the floor either…” he prays he’s not coming off too presumptuous.

Megatron, however, is quick to concede. “Of course, the walls are a terribly ill-suited thing for someone with back pain to recline against.” he says matter-of-factly. “And you definitely shouldn’t have to use the dirty floors. We don’t need more of your paint scraping off.

Please, if it’ll help any, do feel free to rest against me. I’m sure we could find an angle that doesn’t aggravate your struts.”

Minimus cheers internally. That went even better than he'd hoped. He gives himself a figurative pat on the (pain-free) back strut for his deceitfulness.

He watches Megatron rearrange himself against the wall before lifting an arm and signaling for Minimus to sit by his side. He takes his spot with no small amount of smugness, all of which is promptly doused by the dizzying feeling caused by Megatron's arm settling against him, and pulling him in close to his frame. Sandwiched like this, he’s enveloped by the pleasant warmth coming off from under Megatron’s plating.

Scrambling to appear completely casual, he wriggles a bit, faking arranging himself in accordance with his pained back, until he’s practically flush with Megatron’s flank. Where his audial ends up pressed just under the side of his chestplate, he can hear inner mechanisms whirr.

Megatron’s voice reverberates throughout his body when he speaks, too. “Does that feel better?”

Minimus swallows.

“Much.” it slips out, and it sounds all too breathless. He tries to backpedal. “-Better than the wall, that is. Yes. Much less, um- vertical.” he clips, and is immediately taken by the undismissable need to smack himself in the face. Why doesn’t he just go ahead and put his pede in his mouth before he speaks, next time?

Megatron just snickers lightly, and brings his arm over to cushion Minimus’ back more firmly.

Needing a distraction from the feelings the combination of the proximity and that sound elicit, Minimus pulls his datapad up to cover his optics, willing himself to focus on the words it’s displaying. Megatron seems to take his sweet time with resuming his own reading.

This is much different to the occasional brush of the servos by the consoles.

Before long, though, he finds himself getting accustomed to their closeness, in no small part thanks to the persistent warmth, staving off the chill which would otherwise find its way beneath the plating of a smaller frame so much more easily. Soon, he truly does unwind, stiffness seeping from his sagging extremities, and the findings from the study he finally starts reading in earnest soaking in (just as he thought, excessive meteor surfing does make one more impulsive!).

After a while, though, a nagging sensation begins to build up at the back of his helm. It starts off small, almost negligible, but soon grows to fester over his cranium like a migraine. Unnerved by the inexplicable feeling, Minimus glances up.

Only to find out he was being stared at.

He shies back under the inherent intensity of that gaze, but, surprisingly, it remains unchanged in its trajectory. Megatron is not looking at him, then, but down…

At his datapad.

Unbothered with the fact he’s been caught, Megatron idly comments. “I knew that habit of his was harmful.”

Oh.

Minimus looks back down to the ‘conclusions’ column of the paper. So, this whole time, that prickling at the back of his helm was Megatron being more interested in Minimus’ reading than his own. That’s strange. Wasn’t Megatron taken by that biography he was talking about so passionately before?

Just as he’s about to call him out, though, it’s as if Megatron reads his thoughts and beats him to the punch. “I reached a bit of a dull point in my book. But that hardly matters. I was more curious about what new things you’ve managed to find for your library.” he finally looks Minimus in the optics. “I find your tastes invariably excellent.”

How is he ever supposed to think straight with Megatron saying things to him like that? While looking straight into his optics, no less!

“Ah, thank you. I admire your tastes as well.” he stammers at the unexpected compliment. He hadn’t known Megatron held his preferences in literature in such high regard. Sure, Minimus would often provide recommendations, as Megatron would in turn do for him, but the knowledge that they went this appreciated has his spark warbling longingly in its casing. An idea comes to him as a result, something that would let him show his appreciation, and indulge Megatron’s earnest interest all at once. “If you find it amenable, I could lend you my datapad for you to look through, and you may give me yours? That way you don’t have to look over my shoulder, and we both still have something to read.”

He was convinced his suggestion would be taken with enthusiasm, but Megatron seems slightly hesitant instead, his mouth twisting.

Minimus curses himself inwardly. Of course, how could he forget?

“I will not look through any files you do not wish for me to see.” he says with a conviction that could not be any more genuine. He needs Megatron to know he can trust him with far more than just his possessions. “I promise.”

And despite knowing that there is a very high likelihood that Megatron’s personal datapad contains some of that never-yet-seen or maybe never-to-be-seen-at-all, in the works poetry, the very same that he held so close to his spark for so long even before knowing who the bot who penned it was, he would rather be forever deprived of all of his writings than dare disrespect their creator by prematurely exposing them to the searing, judgemental optic of an outsider for them to atrophy under. He knows himself to be cagey about his own poems, and much more so when they’re still in stage of chrysalis. He can only imagine what a prodigious writer like Megatron would feel like about his.

But with his sincere assurance, Megatron is instantly appeased. “Thank you. And likewise.” He relinquishes his datapad without further delay, and Minimus does the same, pleasantly surprised with the ease of their exchange.

Megatron’s datapad is larger than his own, at least larger than the one he carries around in his intermediary form. He actually has two; for when he’s in the Magnus armor and for when he’s out. They’re synced to each other, so they possess the exact same content. The datapad that’s now in his servos is similar to Ultra Magnus’; hefty, with a case on, though no screen protector installed. He grimaces at the accumulation of scratches brushing over his digits.

They do share a propensity for organization, though. Megatron’s file library rivals even his own when it comes to clarity and traversability. There’s not even a single folder left unalphabetized! Truly a sight for sore eyes.

Next to him he can see Megatron’s digits pressing deftly on the screen of his datapad, no doubt as impressed with his cataloguing skills.

Minimus gleefully navigates back over to that biography. He must see what it’s all about for himself. He settles in for what will probably end up being a couple hour long reading session.

Time passes by lazily, it, too, seemingly uninterested in expediting their liberation, though surprisingly, he can’t find it in himself to complain, with the comfortable seating arrangement he’s managed to create for himself, Megatron’s digits grazing unthinkingly along where they ended up resting against his plating.

Only, those grazes soon turn to intermittent twitches.

Then, Megatron himself starts to stir in place, ever so slightly.

“…Minimus?”

“Yes?” he forces his optics to stray from the book, and turns to Megatron.

He, however, is not quite meeting his gaze. Confused, Minimus tilts his helm in a silent question.

Megatron is visibly troubled. “I hope I have not encroached on something I shouldn’t have, I was simply browsing through your recently downloaded works, and I stumbled upon this…novel.”

Minimus has to wrack his processor for the book Megatron must be talking about. None of what he remembers obtaining as of late should warrant this kind of reaction. What could he possibly be referring to?

It’s only as the next sentence leaves Megatron’s voice box does it finally hit him. His frame is suddenly awash with dread.

“It’s titled ‘Mechanisms of the Spark’?”

His faceplates instantly start burning up, and each of his joints has locked in place, actively working against his unshakable need to run away from having to answer to the presence of that file on his datapad.

Because ‘Mechanisms of the Spark’ is not the standard fiction book he sometimes dabbles in. Nor is it a textbook on anatomy, as the title may imply, but Primus does he wish it was.

It’s a romance.

And from how Megatron’s been acting, he must know that too.

“I do not mean to pass judgement, I merely felt I needed to ask. It seems quite…outside of your usual range, is all.” When he’s not met with an immediate response, he coughs awkwardly and mutters: “I apologize for overstepping.”

The sight of Megatron’s servo entering his vision, trying to hand him his now turned off datapad back is what finally gets him to shake out of his stupor.

His servos fly up to bat away at the device. “No, you don’t- There’s no need for that, you haven’t done anything wrong.” It’s his turn to mumble “I…forgot that was there.”

They’re bathed in a brief silence.

“So you haven’t…?”

“No. I have.”

He has read it. All of it.

Megatron appears to weigh his next words, intake opening and closing a couple of times. “It didn’t leave an impression, then?” he ventures.

Minimus lets himself exhale, forcing his frame to finally let go of its tension.

He actively shuts down the impulse to overexplain himself, for fear of digging himself into an even bigger hole. “You could put it that way, yes.”

“Then what convinced you to give…this genre a try?”

Minimus finds himself thankful for Megatron avoiding naming the book for what it really was; a romance, a melodrama, a love story. A mushy, cloyingly sweet, disgustingly oversentimental love story. He might’ve not been able to handle hearing the words come out of his mouth.

He steels his nerves in preparation. “I was just curious. This work is among the more popular of its kind, so I thought it a suitable point of reference.”

He knows he’s hardly answering Megatron’s question, but he’d rather be difficult about this than admit what it truly was that made his spark so restless each night when he was supposed to be already recharging, enough to make him desperate in his search for understanding.

Besides, he has a funny feeling Megatron will try to pry it out of him anyway.

“And this curiosity…” there it is. “Where did it come from?”

He falls quiet long enough that were it any other bot talking to him, they would probably assume he wasn’t going to answer at all, and drop the topic. Not Megatron, though. He was far too persistent whenever he wanted to be. Yet another quality of his he admired so deeply. Persistence and patience. Primus, he would treat Minimus with such patience sometimes it ached. It wasn’t helping him get his thoughts in order at all.

This isn’t something he could ever possibly convincingly lie about. He got lucky a couple of times today, but there must be a limit to that, of this he has no doubt. Besides, he’s surprised to find that he doesn’t really want to necessarily lie, either. Not right now. Not about this. Not to Megatron.

He settles for something halfway down the road to reaching the full truth.

“Recently I-” Primus, he’s really admitting to this, isn’t he? “I found myself wondering what it would be like.”

Megatron’s optics are, once again, burning a hole in the side of his helm. He can feel them without needing to look. And he won’t, just so he doesn’t shrivel into himself at their sight.

“What it would be like-?”

“To have a sparkbond.”

The staring does not let up at all, he can tell. The metal underneath must be melting by now.

A tentative air blows into the space between them. They’re treading ground they haven’t even considered approaching before, and it’s clearly affecting them both. For Minimus it’s obvious; it’s not just about the intimate nature of the questions, but also about the bot who’s asking them. Not that he’d ever admit to that, of course.

For Megatron, though?

Besides the awkwardness the situation must elicit for him too, he’s not sure.

Sensing the silence has gone on too long, he rushes to break it.

“Amica, Conjunx, doesn’t matter.” he supposes it might not. He has thought about both, afterall, but to say he didn’t skew towards one of the two would be misleading. It’s obvious from the choice of that specific story, anyway. “It’s beyond the scope of my experience, and, frankly, my imagination.”

Megatron finally pipes up again. “What about it specifically?”

“The…sensations of it, I suppose.” he shrugs one pauldron. “I’ve heard it being said that the spark gets altered somehow. That you can always physically feel the connection to the other, no matter the distance. I didn’t know if I believed it.” a huff of air escapes him. “It always sounded made up to me.”

“Was the novel not convincing, then?”

Minimus frowns. “It wasn’t.” the memory of devouring the whole thing in a single sitting one late sleepless night resurfaces in his processor, alongside all the frustrations it caused to arise. “The book was even worse than the rumors. It would describe sharing thoughts, dreams. It implied that the two Camiens were even… predestined for each other. That their bond was in place even before their sparkmerging.” he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh or scoff at the notion. Two sparks, linked not by choice, not by the virtue of meeting a stranger and getting to know them and spending time with them and finally falling for them, but by the orchestration of some cryptic, uncontrollable cosmic force! In what world would that ever appeal to anyone, he has not the slightest clue. And yet it made for one of the most popular works in the genre, apparently.

“From the moment they simply laid eyes on each other everything ceased to make any sense at all.” he rants, the simmering anger he’s been unknowingly fostering towards the story making him forget all about his earlier timidness. “They stopped acting like any bot would, they kept saying and doing things that would border on harassment were it to really happen, they didn’t even really know each other.”

He remembers being so outraged that night. If that was anything remotely similar to what sharing a bond was like, he wanted nothing of it. It was crude, rushed, disturbing, even. His body seemed to outright reject the mere idea, shuddering at every other sentence he skimmed, peeking from between the digits covering his burning face.

And yet a tiny, inscrutable part of himself would keep on telling him that yes, it’s not supposed to be like this and no, this isn’t what it’s really like .

Because how would he know , exactly?

It drove him mad.

“They fell much too quickly for each other.” he finishes, indignant.

Megatron hums above him. The embarrassment from before makes a return, having reminded himself that he was indeed talking to another bot about this, but Megatron does not seem keen on mocking him. Quite the opposite; he seems to be putting serious consideration into his words.

“It’s what the writers for these stories tend to do, I believe. They exaggerate.” he draws out, a hint of distaste in his voice. “A real, slow romance…I can’t imagine that selling all too well.”

At that, Minimus feels somewhat vindicated. “Yes…Exaggerate.” he echoes. “With how common it is for bots to forge sparkbonds on Caminus, I assumed a writer from there would be able to provide insight.” he crosses his arms. “Evidently, I was wrong.”

“There does seem to be a cultural push for Camiens to form long lasting partnerships.” the bigger bot pinches his chin and stares off in thought. “I reckon the work reflects that, idealizes it.”

“That might just be the case.” Minimus acknowledges. “I certainly hope so. Otherwise the whole affair seems rather…dreadful.” he shakes his head, banishing the memory.

Megatron turns to him again, expression wholly unreadable, least of all to Minimus.

“How would you rather the story went?”

Minimus is never one to doubt the purpose of an intellectual discussion; taking up even a benign topic, especially with a good conversation partner (such as Megatron), often led him to conclusions he’d never otherwise stumble upon. But he’s already feeling rather rattled. These exact questions have been hanging over his mind for a long time, and now they’re being forcefully unwound, and by the very source of his worry, no less. He can hardly be blamed for treating this persistent inquiring with a smidge of suspicion.

A suspicion which he is trying very hard not to taint with a defiantly blossoming hope. He firmly stamps the feeling down.

“Like I said, that’s the exact part I struggle with conceptualizing.”

When he says nothing more, Megatron’s optics dart to the side, and he works his jaw in concentration.

Finally, he asks. “Then, if nothing else, if you were ever simply given the option - would that be something you’d ever consider?”

From where he’s relegated it to, that fervent, insolent hope is clawing at the inner walls of his spark chamber. He takes a conscious vent in, willing for his processor to take its rightful lead. This is nothing but them exchanging hypotheticals. And it never will be anything but.

There’s a level-headed, rational answer to that question, and he will not let some half-witted desires muddle his judgement.

“ No .” he intones.

The plating he’s leaning against twitches, almost imperceptibly. He still doesn’t look to meet Megatron’s face, lest his resolve crumble completely.

“No?”

“No. I couldn’t possibly.”

“…Couldn’t.”

“Precisely.” his mind is already working to supply him with justifications, all perfectly logical and not directed by whatever nonsensical whims his spark had dreamt up for him. “It would mean…shirking of duty.”

“Shirking of duty.”

“Yes.”

Perfectly logical. Irrefutable, even.

His frame feels like it’s caving in on itself. There’s condensation forming on his temple.

“My judgement would be clouded.” he says before Megatron could begin to deconstruct his argument for him.

He quirks an optic ridge at him. “How so?”

“Showing preferential treatment, probably.” it’s getting harder to keep this up. His digits tighten around Megatron’s datapad, still resting in his lap. “Even if I tried to act rationally, it would likely be unavoidable. An impairment like that is unacceptable in an officer.”

The mech seems to not be having it at all. “Is that really your reasoning?” he asks, words shot through with skepticism.

 “Just imagine it. If I weren’t fully present, if my attention was- elsewhere, if I weren’t able to fulfill my sole purpose as one of this ship’s superiors…”

His voice box inexplicably hitches. It wasn’t too obvious, probably barely audible, but it sends him reeling nonetheless. He resets it hurriedly.

He aims for steadfast, but the forming words pass through his traitorous mouth, and end up enveloped in the tacky membrane of dejectedness instead. “…no one on the crew would approve of that.”

In an extraordinarily rare instance of all of his self-assuredness suddenly evaporating, the first time for his iron-tight grip on the emotions these thoughts cause to fester to slip while in the presence of another bot, he pulls his pedes towards his chassis, wrapping his arms around them, and resting his chin atop his knee joints.

“…No one would want that.”

The overhead lights buzz on obtusely, the lone sound a perfect accent to the bloated stillness he’d managed to turn their previously companionable atmosphere into. He can’t help feeling bad for Megatron, for forcing him to sit through the rancid air following Minimus’ pitiful admission, barely concealing the rampant insecurity underneath. Of all bots, he knows Megatron must see it plain as day, and it must repulse him. His weakness has never been anything other than absolutely revolting.

“And you?”

In an instant, he’s snapped back into his own helm. Caught up in his increasingly depreciating spiral, he can’t make out what the question is referring to, exactly.

“What?” he gapes cluelessly.

“Is it something you would want?” Megatron reiterates.

Him ?

Caught off guard by the unexpected direction this line of questioning is starting to take, he’s unable to formulate an immediate response.

“I don’t see how that would depend solely on what I want.” he presumes, unsure of what the other is expecting to hear from him.

A partnership; it’s a two way street, is it not? What does it matter what he wants, when he could never imagine someone else ever…wanting the same.

Megatron’s tone is entirely indecipherable. “But if it did?”

Minimus frowns, unconsciously picking at what little dust managed to accumulate beneath his knee pads. This exact scenario is something he’d never bothered to truly entertain before. What use would it be anyway, to contemplate something so outlandish, so divorced from reality? It’s not how a relationship works, and they both know it, so why waste breath on it?

But now that he’s being made to, he doesn’t come to such a dry, dismissive conclusion. He surprises himself with the budding, tender sensation turning his inner mechanisms to mush.

“I suppose I would be…willing. To consider it. Given the option.” he clips quietly, the newborn revelation unfurling like a flower from his intake, one petal at a time.

There’s more he feels necessary to add, to temper the unruly divulgence; little insecure self-assurances of ‘but that wouldn’t happen’ or ‘it’s conjecture either way’ but he keeps those to himself, stunned speechless by the look Megatron graces him with.

Megatron holds his gaze, unyielding.

“I see.”

And with that, he strays back off into the privacy of his thoughts, expression an impassable fortress, leaving Minimus to flounder in the aftermath of his realization.

What was that ?

Minimus has half the mind to inquire whether Megatron was going to explain why he’d asked in the first place, but the other just resumes idly scrolling through the download history of Minimus’ datapad, vision hazed with an uncharacteristic unfocus.

He settles down again, subtly shaking himself out of his confusion. He supposes he can always ask later, when Megatron will be more open to it.

Weird as the conversation was, he supposes he can appreciate not being ridiculed for the mere presence of the novel in his library, at the very least. Were it anyone else, they would jump on the opportunity to rip on their SIC, and to then keep bringing it up until the end of his functioning, probably. If anyone had to, he’s glad that it was Megatron who discovered it. At least he won’t go around touting his secret to everyone onboard.

Minimus unfolds from the ball he’d contorted his frame into. The arm around him minutely constricts its hold as he straightens his pedes in front of himself. He’s briefly distracted when he notices their tips only reach just past Megatron’s knee joints.

They each return to their respective lectures of choice. Time, once again, slows to a crawl. Occasional checks to his internal chronometer yield nothing but the irking realization that only a couple more minutes have passed. The overhead lights dim to a lower setting, their motion sensors not picking up on the subtle movement of Minimus’ and Megatron’s digits flicking to following pages. The atmosphere becomes almost cozy.

Key word: almost. Before long, Minimus has to stir in place, if only a little. Static has started steadily climbing up his unmoving struts, and to combat it he has to shift his position every once in a while. It’s not that he’s particularly uncomfortable, but the hard floor does leave a little to be desired. He’ll be fine, of course, his frame is not that old just yet, he can still handle sitting on the ground (or so he hopes).

Megatron seems to take his recurrent squirming in a different way, though.

“I can’t imagine how painful it must’ve been for me to pull you out when you got stuck.” he comments during one of Minimus’ attempts to rearrange himself.

He has to pause for a second. He does feel bad about trudging further into this whole back pain lie, but at the same time he’d rather do a flip off of the very top of Metroplex than admit to being dishonest. He has to find a way to downplay this.

“Like I said, you do not need to worry about me, Megatron.” he argues, in hopes of de-escalating the whole thing. The same words had worked before, maybe they’ll work a second time, too.

“Oh, I know I don’t need to. You are a very capable mech.”

Satisfied with his deflection working, he lets out a small, relieved sigh. With how well they’re holding up today, maybe he has gotten better at constructing lies since being so quickly discovered in that cell on Luna-1. Not that that’s necessarily a good thing, but a little omission of the truth here and there to save his own backside never hurt anyone, did it? He preens a little under that tacked-on compliment, too.

“But I’m choosing to, Minimus.”

And just like that, the relief is gone, like a popped solvent bubble.

“Please, allow me to help. Here-”

With that, Megatron uses the arm Minimus has been leaning against to nudge him over. Helpless but to comply, he detachedly watches himself be arranged against Megatron’s frame anew; this time to lay across his chassis.

He wonders if it’s possible to suffer a spark implosion from just this.

“Is this comfortable?”

Minimus cannot wring a coherent answer out of himself, and Megatron does not wait for one. Instead, the same servo which he used to situate him stays glued to his back struts, and after a moment, starts to move . Megatron proceeds to caress the armor plates, lightly at first, as if testing the ground, then more firmly, tracing the edges of transformation seams with the flittering tips of his digits in between each unhurried, heavy stroke.

There’s a big piece of kibble on Minimus’ back, right between the pauldrons. It turns into the cabin of his minesweeper vehicle mode when he transforms. He feels Megatron’s servo slip its way right underneath it, rubbing at cabling that felt like it must’ve been neglected for centuries . Maybe it had been. He has to stifle a blissed-out groan at the foreign sensation.

It seems he didn’t succeed in covering up just how much all of this is affecting him, though, as Megatron’s chassis is soon wracked with a light chuckle, bouncing him along with it. Even so, he couldn’t possibly find it in himself to complain.

“I’m assuming I can take that as a ‘yes’ then?”

Minimus can’t answer beyond a nonsensical mutter and a slight nod. He’s rewarded with Megatron’s servo pushing itself further under the kibble, searching for any aches to massage out, which causes its couplings to stretch delightfully with a series of drawn-out creaks.

For Minimus’ part, he reaches out with his arms for something to hold onto, if only to find something to ground himself with. They climb up the bigger bot’s chassis and settle on the top edge of the chestplate, digits digging in strongly, though evidently unable to cause even the slightest amount of hurt to the warframe.

As if all the touching wasn’t enough, after a short while he feels Megatron’s engine kick in under him, sending vibrations to travel from Megatron’s frame directly into his. Before he can think any better of it, his own engine instinctually comes to life in response, purring in delight at all the attention he’s receiving.

“That’s better, isn’t it?” Megatron asks, even though he clearly knows the answer.

Minimus might not have had actual back pain, but even so his struts have hardly ever felt this good.

It takes everything in him to push out, through clenched teeth: “It is agreeable.”

He gets a smile in response, equal parts amusement and, dear Primus, he can’t believe he’s seeing this, care glinting in Megatron’s optics. “I’m glad to hear that.”

The lull in their conversation is quickly substituted by the combined rumble of their idling engines, killing whatever tiny trace of panic-induced need Minimus had to try and fill it with needless words. Right now all that he can do is finally unwind.

Even so, Minimus can’t even begin to wrap his processor around any of this. If there is a way to rationalize Megatron’s behavior, he’s failing to see it. This is completely unlike their previous interactions. As many talks, vulnerabilities, and occasional physical contact they previously shared, nothing ever felt this charged. It felt like there was something writhing just underneath the surface of it all, a previously absent…intention? Primus, he can barely bring himself to hope.

His mind is racing trying to make sense of it all, but even his higher computational subroutines soon fall victim to Megatron’s continued ministrations. He finds himself quickly falling into a sort of trance, being so suddenly and unexpectedly plunged into a deep state of relaxation unlike anything he’d experienced since…ever, maybe. Certainly not since the beginning of the war, at the very least. With his protocols finding nothing to latch onto for once, no looming threat, no potential disaster scenario he’s come up with, no imperfection, and a great majority of his sensory systems overtaken by the need to detect and process the absolute flood of calming sensations he’s receiving, he’s been reduced to a formless pile of (barely) sentient metal, slung over the chestplate of his spark’s chosen like it’s not something he’d been dreaming of for so long now. Chest to chest, the delirium supplies, like a mimicry of a sparkmerge. If it’s even possible, he melts even more.

Actually, with his audial pressed to Megatron’s frame as it is, through the thick armored plating, he thinks he can just make out the thrum of his vibrant, one-percenter spark, spinning lowly in its chamber. It’s less a sound and more a resonance, an undertone in the overwhelming ensemble of his powerful, roaring machinery, rewarding only the most keen-eared of listeners. And Minimus was nothing if not a music enthusiast. How could he not be, when presented with such a beautiful melody? He can feel his own spark spinning ever so quicker, in its very best attempt at harmonizing with this magnificent chorus. It might just be his overactive imagination, or his shot CPU, but he swears he hears Megatron’s spark respond in kind.

Over time, his servos lighten their vice-like grip, unfurling to rest slack-jointed against Megatron’s collar fairing. He’s aware of the miniscule trembles ravaging the tips of his digits, though he’s not sure he’d be able to stifle them if he tried. His optics shutters finally slide shut, after having done nothing but flutter uselessly this whole time.

One would assume Megatron would at some point use the servo currently not engrossed with prodding at all the gaps in Minimus’ armor to pick up the datapad again for him to occupy his mind with, but, when after a while of drifting in and out of conscious thought Minimus lifts his helm and is met with nothing but undivided focus, it becomes clear that that’s not the case. His faceplates are set aflame again, and he promptly ducks back out of sight to hide them, though this time they’re colored less so out of embarrassment and more with a cautious, daringly hopeful ardor.

They stay like this for what feels like hours, though time has warped itself into a nebulous stretch, at least in Minimus’ eyes, and so, for once, he’s disinclined from putting trust in his own intuition on the matter. In any other circumstance that in itself would raise alarm enough, but lulling him into docility is the unrelenting, hypnotic drone of the mighty engine below him. It reminds him of the distant rumble of the Lost Light’s own quantum engines, working away at night when all the world’s gone to sleep. They have aided his falling into recharge plenty of times, drowning out the wandering thoughts of a troubled processor, and it seems he’s experiencing that same effect now, too.

(But of the two, he knows perfectly well which he’d rather fall asleep to on those long, cold nights)

Much to his chagrin, however, Megatron’s engine eventually stalls to a slow stop, silence stalking into the broken down elevator in place of the soothing croon. Minimus is about to ask why he killed it (especially since it felt so nice), but he’s cut off before he can.

“You know, it’s a funny thing…”

Minimus hums inquisitively, as it’s all he’s capable of at the moment. What’s funny ?

“When I was in the functionist universe I got medical training, to act as a field medic should the need arise.” he begins.

Minimus perks up slightly at the mention of that specific period in their journey. As a rule, Megatron rarely opens up about his time in the functionist universe. What was a mere couple weeks to Minimus, if miserable, were nothing next to the couple of gruelling centuries Megatron spent leading yet another war effort that has no doubt etched itself deep into his memory banks and overtired psyche. If there’s a story he’d willingly divulge on it, Minimus will be there, hanging off of every word. He goes as far as to tweak the sensitivity of his audio receptors up a bit.

“And arise it did. I patched ruptured energon lines, I pulled shrapnel out of plating, I conducted life saving surgery…” he trails off, and for a second Minimus fears he won’t continue the tale. This much he did know; thanks to the training he’d gotten, nowadays Megatron made for a frequent presence at the Lost Light medical bay. Not as prominent as their previously established team of medics, of course, since he is often more preoccupied with his duties as co-captain, but sometimes an ailing member of the crew is willing to indulge the ex-warlord in his lifelong ambition. With more or less enthusiasm, depending. Not to mention the surprising host of insight he’s able to provide on the physique of bots with more unconventional alt-modes.

Judging by how he’s quietened, Megatron has now clearly returned back to those times when he’d had the responsibility of caring for and leading an entire army of bots who Minimus will never have the privilege of knowing, decades worth of forming bonds and an ocean of energon spilt, not just in the battlefield but on the surgical table, sparks of dear friends fading away from right under Megatron’s servo and scalpel. It’s the least of what he can assume. He’d seen war too, after all. It’s no wonder Megatron might want to distance himself from its memory.

Although, it would appear Minimus had been wrong in his bleak assumption as Megatron, thankfully, quickly resumes. “It got to a point where I could tell where the inner components lie inside each and every frame type.”

At this, Minimus feels the servo which never once let up in its movements lighten its firm touch, until it ghosts over his struts. Minimus already misses its comforting weight, pinning him against Megatron’s chassis, as if the bigger bot wanted to keep him there (not that he’d dare move).

“For example, if you were to be a standard minesweeper, like your augmentation armor,” the tip of Megatron’s digit lazily traces a featherlight path, winding down Minimus’ back and leaving sparks in its wake. “then here is where your spark chamber would be. Here , your transformation cog, here , your engine, here , your spark plug…”

Megatron stops at the small of Minimus’ back, and Minimus has to remind himself how to think.

“…and here , your gestation chamber.”

Primus help him .

Megatron resumes leisurely petting Minimus’ back, like he’s nothing more than a tame cybercat.

“But that’s neither here nor there. What I’m trying to say is, I’ve helped many different bots with more ailments than I knew could ever plague the Cybertronian body.

That, of course, includes back pain. Many types of back pain, in fact. Slipped plating, torn wiring, tangled cabling, fried circuitry. Once, I even helped identify a case of psychosomatic back pain; stress-induced.”

Back pain ?

Minimus has to wonder why he’s being told all of this. He always enjoys Megatron sharing his stories with him, but what spurred this on, exactly?

“However, there were a couple of commonalities between how all of my patients exhibited symptoms of pain in their back struts, regardless of cause.”

At this, Minimus’ optics fly open, and his own engine peters off sheepishly. Wait .

His entire frame stills all at once, each tiny piston and actuator wrought with sudden tension. Maybe if he doesn’t move long enough then the vacuum of surrounding space will claim him, let him fizzle out into the swirling abyss, returning him to the bliss of nonexistence. Anything to help him escape this conversation.

Please, let this not be going where he thinks it’s going.

He can hear a steadily growing smirk in Megatron’s voice. “For one, bots who I knew to always carry themselves with perfect poise would suddenly slouch. Even those with a tendency to downplay their injuries and hide pain were off-kilter, if only by the slightest margin. Granted, they hid it well, but I knew exactly where to look.”

Oh no, no, no .

“One thing, though, is that I never got to familiarize myself with the anatomy of loadbearers. A true shame, in my opinion. It’s so incredibly rare to meet one, let alone have one as your patient. As is the case with any type of one-percenter, really.

I can’t help but wonder…If a loadbearers pain is, say, localised in their irreducible form, would putting on a layer of armor project that pain out into their enlarged form? Or would it just stay at their core?”

Please, this can’t be happening .

“Maybe they’re just more adept at hiding discomfort in general, so that even when in their irreducible state they show absolutely no sign of pain whatsoever. ”

Megatron picks up a stray fleck of white paint off the floor and turns it over in his digits, examining it.

“But, that can’t be true, since there’s this one loadbearer I know, and he had to clench his jaw when he got a little bit of his paint scratched off.”

For the first time since the beginning of Megatron’s monologue, they lock optics, and no matter how much he’d like to, there’s no escaping the singularity of that piercing gaze.

“I’d like to know what that was about.”

His higher cognition all but abandons him at the direct confrontation. Of course Megatron knew he was lying through his teeth; had he not realized he’s dealing with the former leader of the Decepticons ? It hits him then, how imbecilic it was to think for even a second that he’d fooled Megatron with that half-baked excuse.

What’s more, he played right into it! He offered to massage the pain out of his back struts that he knew perfectly well wasn’t even there! He’d corralled Minimus into a corner without him even noticing, and now there’s no way for him to deny himself out of it.

The ex-warlord says nothing more, letting the silence choke Minimus out. It would be cruel were he not perfectly in his right to do it. He’d lied to his face, simulated an ailment and used it to cover up his stupid, infantile feelings, and then - Primus, he winces at the memory now, what was he thinking - take advantage of Megatron’s good will to get what he wanted, he’s getting the least of what he deserves back.

For a split second, he halfway considers fabricating something else; another, different justification for his actions, but no matter how much he wills his processor to focus and come up with something, he finds no feasible excuse to pin the blame on.

Not that he could, with it being Megatron to call him out. The light from his optics falls on Minimus’ faceplates like he’s under a scorching, red spotlight, and it makes him cut that train of thought right off. He’d only get himself into even worse graces with the other, which is the very last thing he intended on ever doing, least of all right now, as they are still forced to wait for rescue from this accursed elevator, stuck together with no place to hide from each other.

Distressed, he almost doesn’t register Megatron speaking to him through the cloud of static stuffing his audials shut. He can only trace the words from where they are formed on Megatron’s moving lips.

“Minimus?” his pointer digit swipes him once, right under the chin. The bafflingly gentle action succeeds in snapping him out of his freeze response, optics shuttering a couple times in quick succession. Should Megatron not be furious with him right now?

He asks again, tone sharp and probing, but distinctly not angry. “Why did you lie?” he only now notices the slight smile that’s been playing at the corners of Megatron’s mouth, probably this whole time.

He’s not sure which is worse; Megatron being furious with him, or Megatron making fun of him.

He fumbles so that he’s braced on his servos, poise like that of a wild mechanimal, stuck between deciding whether to run (where to?) or to fight till its last breath in defense of its honor (what honor?). Making up his mind on which of the two courses of action would be less embarrassing to take eats up another precious moment he could have otherwise been using in any constructive manner at all. Preferably by not making a fool of himself.

There might be a third option for him, a wayward line of reasoning volunteers. Since he’s already willingly signed away all hope for maintaining any sense of dignity by starting this whole childish charade in the first place, what more harm could it do to just…admit to it?

With all the weariness of a Titan carrying the weight of an entire city on his back, he sinks back down onto his elbows, hiding his face behind the feeble shield his crossed forearms create.

He sighs, utterly defeated. “I’m sorry.” he doesn’t dare peek out of his hiding. “I had no reason to be dishonest.”

Megatron regards him with a derisive hum. “Now I know that’s not true.”

What ?

Minimus jerks his head up fast enough to give himself whiplash. Here he was, admitting his wrongs, and Megatron was- what, accusing him further?

The mech in question is looking off, pretending to ponder this deeply with a digit pressed to his pursed mouth.

“You had to have had some kind of reason, no?”

Minimus is left to gawk as Megatron’s smirk spreads wide enough to reveal the sharp teeth underneath.

“I thought you said sitting up against the walls with your back struts was ‘not exactly comfortable’?” as if anticipating Minimus to try running away, he hooks his servos over his waist again, holding him down to his chestplate. “You seemed happy with sitting right here, though.” he gestures with his chin at where Minimus was seated previously, right by his side.

With nowhere left to hide and with no dismissal at the ready, Minimus squirms uncomfortably in Megatron’s unwavering hold. There’s only one thing Megatron could possibly be getting at with this, and it only serves to deepen the pit in Minimus’ roiling fuel tanks. He feels he might’ve purged then and there, were it not for the fact he hadn’t had any Energon yet today.

Megatron has smelled the lingering stench of his foolish sentiment on him, like spilled blood in infested waters. As best as he’s always tried to hide it, overtime it must have become obvious enough; he can’t quite act himself around Megatron. Whenever he steps into the room, he feels his imposing presence like the pull of a gravity well in open space, his attention falling into its inescapable orbit. He’ll make mistakes more frequently (that is to say more than zero), he’ll make typos in the documents he’s writing out on the main console when he knows he has Megatron looking over his shoulder, he’ll fumble whatever he’s holding, actuators suddenly uncooperative, as if they belong to another mech altogether, he’ll stutter over his words when he catches the others watchful eye across the meeting room, and try desperately to cover himself up with a cough.

He must reek of his desperation now, and Megatron is trained to spot weakness. Battle, conversation, it didn’t matter.

What a pathetic sight he must make; a seasoned soldier, a decorated general in war, rendered a sputtering, flushed mess, and unable to force out a single word, all due to this immature infatuation he should’ve nipped in the bud long ago, before it grew to pervade all of his fine wiring, smothering his spark and constricting his throat.

When was the last time something- some one made him truly speechless?

“I-” he starts, although he has no idea where the rest of that sentence might be going. “I wanted-”

“Yes?” he pesters, with an uptick at the corner of his lips.

Megatron’s goading is not helping him any.

With a great effort he wills his body to not start trembling, and gathers what’s left of his wits about him. If Megatron truly has uncovered even an inkling of his true feelings, then he can kiss their unique, tentative companionship that he cherishes so much goodbye. All of their early mornings, private notes left on the margins of exhaustive reports, shared fuelings, all of that - gone under the overhanging cloud of awkwardness, just because he couldn’t keep his emotions out of the way.

Minimus takes a deliberate inhale. “I did want to…”

He curses at himself inwardly for cornering himself into using such egocentric language. ‘Want’ never sat quite right on his tongue. He shouldn’t ‘want’ something like this in the first place, let alone voice it. How selfish could he be?

“…to sit by you.”

By the time he looks to check over Megatron’s reaction, his smile has subsided somewhat, expression slowly morphing into its indiscernible version, most of all to Minimus.

“And why was that?”

A brief, barely-there flicker of anger flashes through his processor at the others' penchant for tormenting him with his incessant questions, no matter how relevant they may be, but it’s quickly doused by another wave of distress pulsing through his strained frame.

There’s no possible way for him to spin this that doesn’t involve utter humiliation. His processor frantically generates a list of predictions, logic paths branching off in separate directions only for them all to meet back at their inevitable end.

Sizzling pixelization vignettes the corners of his visual feed, and he only belatedly recognizes the moving dark gray mass as Megatron’s servo. It lingers there, close to his faceplates, but not quite touching.

“You wanted to sit by me?” he prompts again. Minimus nearly does a double take at the sudden lack of bite in his tone. Something else has taken its place, and he’s almost sure Megatron hadn’t intended it to. He’s even less sure as to what that thing coloring his words might even be.

The servo by his face casts an ominous shadow over his helm. Suspicious, he gives it a sidelong glance.

“Yes.” he tries for firm, but the end result leaves much to be desired. “That is because I-” he steels himself for the next part. “I hated seeing our shift go to waste.”

“Our shift.” presses Megatron, and despite knowing perfectly well he’s been caught, admitting the truth isn’t getting any easier.

“Our-” Primus, why does this have to be this difficult? “-time together.”

Megatron’s optical ridges rise ever so slightly, like he hadn’t expected Minimus to explain himself like this. He quickly schools them back into their neutral position, adamant on not giving his reaction away. He mulls his words over.

“And the way you wanted to stop that from happening…?”

‘Was by cozying up together ?’ the unspoken question resounds. If it’s even possible, his cheeks heat up more and more.

“…I thought it might be-” a click of his voice box. “-nice.”

This was stupid. He was being stupid. He’d gotten overconfident, too comfortable with stretching the boundary of their strict, working relationship, and now he was paying the price. Overconfident and selfish.

There exists no world in which Megatron would accept him, his feelings. He’d thought beating this lesson into his helm had worked. It had, to a point; repeating it in his mind like a mantra had snapped him back to reality many times before, but its effectiveness had run out, that much is obvious. How lowly of him to sneak around like this, trying to take advantage of Megatron’s unawareness, his trust in him, just so he could sate his shameful desires and still be able to feint innocence.

Megatron deserves so much better than this, he recognizes numbly. But after acting as he had, honesty is the least he owes to him.

It all stirs within him, the self-disgust, the resignation, the shame, the ever unrelenting languor. Unrest, most of all, a cloying bile binding it all together into a disgraceful mass. He nearly swallows it down out of sheer instinct for self-preservation, but it bubbles back up his intake anyway, like a mouthful of poorly filtered fuel.

Through the layer of digital fuzz dancing in the corners of his vision, he can see Megatron considering him, expression ever-unintelligible.

“It was.” he breathes, so quiet, as if the slightest noise could shatter the brittle air around them. Minimus has a hard time believing his audials. It must’ve been interference, a flare of radiation from a nearby star playing tricks on his systems, otherwise he thinks he’s just heard Megatron…agreeing with him?

He freezes, optics boring into a singular point on the silver chestplate he’s pinned to, before, like rolling two boulders up a hill, he trails them all the way up to meet their twin reflections.

The servo on his back slides up to hold him around his chassis. Megatron continues, hushed.

“Is that how you’d rather have me?”

They’re not talking about sitting next to each other anymore.

His mind is entirely silent for a while, almost blissfully so. Then, like at the deafening sound of the buzzer signalling the start of a race, it takes off into a crazed sprint.

Inexplicably, that brings the most bizarre thought to his helm. Turbofox racing used to be a thing back in the day, didn’t it? It’s like he got mixed up, mistakenly boxed at the starting line with his wild-caught counterparts in the booths next to him, clawing and kicking and snapping at the wire mesh fencing them in, foaming at the mouth and rabid with panic, raring to go. That’s how it feels.

Outwardly, though, not a single one of his pistons so much as twitches. He’s fairly certain his face might have rusted entirely still, only a mild surprise now permanently etched into his features. A familiar mask has comfortably slipped into its place, concealing the turmoil razing him from the inside.

Minimus was reserved on the best of days. Whenever he’d get blindsided with rampant, unwanted feeling, he’d simply freeze it out, stiffening up and pretending it’s not there. It was his go-to strategy, especially during the early days of their voyage. Overtime, he allowed for a show of emotion here and there - until here he was, curiosity, concern, contentment, all freely displayed. He even jokes sometimes.

But he supposes old habits die hard, no matter how disestablished, no matter how loud everyone screams at him to give them a well-deserved rest.

Because if there’s one single characteristic that defines Minimus Ambus is that he hides . His physical form in layers of armor, his alt mode from the functionists, his identity behind the face of an old, reanimated war hero, his accomplishments in his dear brother’s long shadow, his vulnerabilities behind a put-on ironclad composure, and his fear behind sets of unbending rules that let him pretend as though any of this makes any sense at all.

Under the microscopic stare of the very bot who most of all made it so that all of those rules went right out the metaphorical window, he feels dissected. He’s laid bare. He’s-

He’s afraid .

Like nothing he’s ever been faced with before, no foe, no world-ending catastrophe, no great burden of responsibility. He’s utterly, horrifically, spine-chillingly terrified.

And yet, in another completely inexplicable twist, he feels safer than with anyone else he’d ever known in his entire life.

The now insurmountable amount of times Megatron had shown him respect, looked out for him, entertained his silly interests, stood by him when no one else would, it all spoke to the value he holds in the other’s eyes. That he is cared for , he dares to consider.

Memories swarm, each competing to force themselves to the forefront of his mind, like bursts of solar wind threatening to topple the walls of the fortress he’d built himself into. Of how, as Magnus, after having shielded a part of their crew from an explosion, Megatron would keep checking him over, carefully running the tips of his digits along the ridges of scratches and edges of burn marks blackening the midnight blue of the armor, to ensure they’re healing properly , he’d said. Of how he’d reacted when Minimus showed him one of his poems for the very first time, with a meticulous reverie, lavishing what had to be more praise than the meagre piece warranted. Of how his servo covered his own, guiding a cube of Energon to his mouth, when he’d found him collapsed in the bowels of the ship, mid tech-check and starved. Their reunion. Their stand on the Necroworld. The trial. Noted, with thanks .

They all argue a rather compelling case, and, for once in his life, he can feel the strangling hold of the ever-present dread waver, like a sleazy, corrupt judge recusing himself under the overwhelming uproar of the jury, freeing Minimus from his forever unchanged sentencing.

But most of all, it’s because he wants to believe in them, so desperately. Had always inadvertently nursed the tiniest seedling of hope, however naive, however selfish, that there might be more for him than this unending terror, this ravine at the bottom of which he sits, deserted, treated only to the barest of slivers of the glittering sky overhead, choking on stale air and the rivulets of stardust pooling all around him. That he can one day lead, not be led, by his own life. And that he might not be so alone in his endeavour.

Maybe the first step is to pass up on the armor, for the day.

“I’d have you however you’d let me.” he answers, and he finds it to be the most truthful thing he remembers saying.

He’s scrutinized with only the barest of flickers deep within the red optics he’s drowning in, not yet giving anything away.

“However?” Megatron recites, like he’s making sure.

He simply nods in answer. Not hesitantly, and not too overzealously, either; just honestly, and very, very bravely.

“So, given the option ,” Megatron echoes, meaningfully, “would that be something you’d ever consider?”

That old, helpless infatuation, with all its clinging tendrils sinked into his very being, growing tangled around his shrouded spark, the one he’d tried so hard to uproot; he feels it bloom.

He looks to the side, and finally recognizes the still hovering servo for what it has been the whole time; an offer. An invitation.

There’s nowhere left for him to hide. The crook of Megatron’s palm though; that might just be the next best place to be.

Shuttering his optics, like preparing to be met with a strike instead (a final thread holding him back), he closes the infinitesimal distance, and presses his face into the awaiting warmth. Slow and cautious at first, he doesn’t dare move, but then- oh- there’s digits curling around the back of his helm, scratching at where it meets with his neck, painfully delicate, and he’s leaning in so hard as to almost topple off his perch on Megatron’s chassis. Almost - because Megatron is pushing back just as much. His thumb begins to caress the side of his face, running the stretch under his optic, his facial insignia, his jawline.

This continues, and he’s not sure at which point it happens exactly, but the fearful trembles he’d been doing his best to hold back now wrack through his frame, an audible rattling of his armor against Megatron’s reverberating across the room.

His HUD warns him of the sudden buildup of optical fluid, but before he can try to stop that too, a lonely tear spills over the edge of his faceplate.

“ Please .”

It’s all he says, but it’s all that was needed for Megatron to hastily wipe the remaining wet trail away. As he rides out his vicious shivers, he deliriously thinks he would gladly stay like this forever, if it only meant he’d always be sheltered here, right in Megatron’s tender grasp.

“Of course.” comes the answer, as if it was the easiest thing in the world. It’s betrayed only by the slightest hitch, Megatron’s intake constricting around the words as they rush out.

That, and the way his optics glisten, just until he quickly blinks the shimmer away. For once, Minimus does catch it.

“Trying to deceive me , of all mechs.” admonishes Megatron, but there’s clear amusement in his voice as he does. Amusement and an unmistakable note of vulnerability. He never thought he’d hear anything like it. “You really should know me better than that.”

An uncontrollable, wet laugh escapes him as a result.

“I do want to know you better.” he half chuckles, half weeps. “If you’ll allow me?” desirously, he searches the scarlet optics of the mech before him.

An arm wraps around him, bringing him up, closer to Megatron’s face.

“ Of course .” he repeats, the conviction alone enough to crumble Minimus to pieces, were he not held together so securely. “And you?”

He brings the back of his servo up to rub the last of the moisture at his optics away. Megatron’s thumb, once again, helps him out. He melts at the sensation.

“Me too.” he breathes, unhesitatingly. “I promise.”

Without breaking their eye contact, and mindful of Minimus still trying to all but burrow himself into Megatron’s touch, he brings the smaller bot even closer in. Minimus reaches out to encircle his neck with his arms. The act being not only welcomed, but reciprocated; with Megatron tightening their embrace, the dizzying knowledge that this is something that he’s allowed to do now, without fearing for violating any kind of propriety, their subtile relationship - it sets his spark aflutter all over again. It feels like setting the final puzzle piece down in its rightful place.

He’s mesmerized as the servo cradling the side of his helm slowly wanders down, admiringly tracing each of his features along the way, until it stops to hold his chin between a pair of digits.

He’d never guess he’d ever see Megatron , of all mechs, so clearly unsteady as he asks, no, pleads :

“May I?”

Minimus could never even dream of refusing.

Blame it on having quietly hoped for this moment to come since longer than he can confidently recall, but he disregards forming any kind of answer to that request entirely, proper communication be damned.

Screw waiting even one more second, for that matter.

He puts both of his servos on the back of Megatron’s helm, and, with no reluctance left to spare, brings the mech down, until their lips are sealed together in a kiss.

It’s as Megatron recovers from his shock, starting to move, so tentatively, that Minimus distantly realizes that he has no real idea what he’s doing. He’s quick to mirror the other; with gentle, exploratory brushes of his mouth. Megatron seems to especially enjoy his insignia, if the way he’s pressing into his top lip and tracing its tip with his thumb is any indication. The resulting spine-tingling sensation is what gets Minimus to unwittingly part his lips in a little, breathy whine.

And it might’ve been exactly what Megatron intended to achieve, as he tilts their helms sideways and slips his glossa in.

He’s already been well turned to putty before this point. This, though - the slide of the too-big glossa over his own, the taste - it might’ve just cut off his access to his processor entirely.

Desperately, with a fervor he thought himself incapable of, he licks into the other’s mouth, forcing Megatron’s helm into a soft clink back against the metal wall.

When they separate, he’s being swayed, up and down, by the movement of Megatron’s chestplate as he vents heavily. He’s much the same. Probably worse. His cheek plating feels scalding, a glowing flush no doubt settled firmly atop, proudly displaying exactly who it is that it’s burning for.

Embarrassment, however, is the last thing on his mind, as he watches the optics in front of him smolder with an intensity he’s never seen on them before. It’s a good look, he discovers.

“Minimus…” is all the warning he gets before the lips his name tumbled so sweetly out of are covering his once again, a thumb on his chin prying him open this time, an impatience he readily shares.

“I’ve dreamt of this.” Megatron follows up, once he’s let up on trying to shove his glossa down Minimus’ intake, somewhat. “For so long.”

“As have I.” he confesses, finally, and feels a weight lift off his whistling spark, instantaneous relief flooding his every system. Finally.

Still, he can’t help feeling as though this can’t be really happening. Maybe he had been cleaved in two when he got stuck trying to get out of the elevator, and everything that followed was his processor’s final projection, cobbled together from his deepest, unsated desires, easing him into the Afterspark.

“Will you really be mine?” he asks, voice frailer than he’d ever allowed it to be.

His worries are quickly wafted away, like a thin plume of noxious smoke, when Megatron’s mouth quirks in a disarmingly fond smile.

“There is nothing I want more.”

He cements his statement with a peck to the space between Minimus’ optics.

If this is how Megatron’s convincing looks, he’d be tempted to ask for more, were he not betrayed by the way the corners of his mouth curl up.

He’s not allowed to bathe in his satisfaction too long, though, as Megatron sits up from his recline, causing Minimus to slide down his abdomen, stopped only by the pede Megatron had brought up, slamming with his back against his thigh.

He doesn’t dare do anything but brace himself with his servos against Megatron’s abdominal plating, stock-still and optics blown open, considering he’s now sitting astride with his modesty panel right on top of… there .

Megatron leans over, and his shadow drapes over him, like the curtain of a canopy drawn shut. A servo stalks its way onto his hip, out of nowhere, and he startles at its sudden presence.

Stealing his attention back is Megatron’s face, suddenly right there as he turns back, and he can’t help but jolt again.

Their cheeks brush together as Megatron moves to the side and bows his helm down.

“Don’t worry.” he susurrates, close enough for his lips to brush over Minimus’ audial. He can’t suppress the way he shivers at the novel sensation. “I’ll be making sure you’re not shirking your duty .”

With that, whatever beginnings of arousal might’ve been licking at his circuitry briskly evaporate.

“Stop.” instantly irritated, he pushes the bigger bot’s face away, and he relents with an unapologetic laugh. He hates how infectious it is.

He allows himself to be handled back into their previous arrangement as he’s needled at. For as much as he feared it before, it’s not bad at all to be made fun of, just a little bit. Not when Megatron is still holding him so tightly.

They settle back, unfettered contentment rounding their struts and affection running through the connecting points between their armors. Their engines restart their duet when their servos find each other, digits locking together (as well as they can, anyway; Minimus has to splay his, a little).

Minimus’ optical shutters flutter, and so do Megatron’s. They share mumbled talks; about nothing, about everything, and watch each other doze off for seconds at a time. For how little they’ve done in terms of moving around, this day sure has been exhausting. It’s fine, as long as they can keep each other awake with kisses to temples and murmured, lighthearted questions as they wait.

After a while, though, cutting through the joint purr of their engines is another odd, discordant rumbling. Minimus’ optics fly open at the familiar sensation. Lifting his helm he sees Megatron must have heard it too; with their proximity, maybe even felt it.

The growling of his fuel tanks.

Oh no.

He knows exactly where this will be going.

“Minimus?” Megatron inquires. “Have you refueled before meeting me this morning?”

Expression entirely impassive, he replies, honestly. “No.”

He sinks down as Megatron heaves a massive sigh. “I’m not a fan of this tendency of yours to not fuel before completing your first shift.”

Minimus averts his gaze, optical ridges furrowing. “I know. So you’ve said.” They’ve had this argument before. What is it to him now anyway? They can’t exactly just walk out and find some fuel for him to take, so why get on Minimus’ case again? His expression pinches further, though he schools his tone to remain composed. “Many times.”

“When was the last time you had any Energon?”

The ceiling is looking mighty interesting right about now. He mutters through pursed lips. “…Yesterday morning.”

Megatron’s faceplates nearly grind against one another with how quickly his scowl deepens. “Minimus.”

“I don’t need to take as much when I’m not wearing the armor.” he rushes to defend himself, even if the other has heard this exact argument tens of times before. “You know this.”

“Doesn’t mean you should deprive yourself, either.” strangely, he goes to stand, forcing Minimus to slide out of his (very comfortable!) spot in Megatron’s arms. He places his servos on his hips, admonishing him from above. Minimus hates being admonished from above. “What’s your capacity at right now?”

He checks the blinking number at the side of his HUD.

Once again, he looks anywhere but at Megatron, arms crossing indignantly over his chestplate. “…Thirteen percent.”

It’s not often anyone hears Megatron sputter, but now the nonsensical noise is all that his voice box is able to synthesize, apparently. Soon after, though, he bellows. “You should never let it get below thirty! Twenty at the very worst! What-” he cuts himself off, only to start pacing the length of the elevator. Were they not in the middle of a disagreement, he’d find it a little humorous how he’s only able to take two of his massive steps before having to turn.

“Well, there’s nothing I can do about it now!” he spreads his arms out. “I don’t have any fuel on me and I’m assuming you don’t either.” not wanting to fan the flames of Megatron’s ire further, he closes off again, only allowing himself the tiniest snooty scoff. “It’s not like we can just go and get some.”

When he finally grows tired of the resulting silence, he looks back, only to find Megatron has stopped dead in his tracks to worry his lower lip with his dentae, not meeting Minimus’ eye, instead of still glowering at him, or pinching his nasal ridge or something, like he expected. It’s how this argument usually plays out, anyways.

Thrown off entirely, he draws out a concerned: “Megatron?”

It fails to get his attention, though Minimus is more worried than angry with the lack of acknowledgement.

It takes a minute for him to finally answer. He looks to him pleadingly, of all things.

“Please don’t be mad with what I’m about to do.”

Without any further explanation, and sparing Minimus no time to ask just what in the world he means by that, Megatron takes a step and reaches up with his arm, all the way up to…

The access panel.

And promptly proceeds to crumple it in his servo. The metal resists with all the might of a wet napkin, then lets out a feeble squeak, giving in completely under the pressure of Megatron’s constricting grip.

All Minimus can do is gawk dumbly at the gaping hole Megatron just single handedly ripped in the ceiling. The screws that, in the beginning, made it seem to him as though the access panel was impenetrable, rain down on his helm, plinking off as if in mocking laughter.

“What…?” he trails off, entirely stupefied.

Then, after a moment of watching tiny pieces of torn metal join the debris strewn liberally on the floor, he cries, “Why didn’t you just do that from the very beginning?!”

Megatron just shakes the warped paneling off his servo, letting it fly off into the wall, then fall to the corner like it was nothing but a used washrag.

“I figured you wouldn’t like me banging up Lost Light property without good reason. I saw how you looked at those.” he points to the indents left in the elevator doors. What?

Oh .

“That wasn’t- um…” How is he supposed to explain that? “That wasn’t me being mad at you bending the metal…”

Megatron, for one, seems genuinely confused. He tilts an optical ridge at Minimus.

“Then what…?” he trails off into thought, until he appears to stumble upon the correct conclusion, optical shutters retracting from their squint. “You mean you- found that…?”

“Yes.” he looks at anything that isn’t Megatron and coughs into a tightly wound fist once.

For as well as the bigger bot could read him, apparently he was stubbornly set on ignoring things that he deemed a bit too good to be true.

Embarrassment burns in Minimus’ frame brightly, streaking across his circuitry and lighting everything in its path on fire. If he overheats this many times in a single day he might just cause some irreparable damage.

But, wait, hold on, this still doesn’t make any sense.

He gives the bigger bot a sidelong glance. “…You don’t find just getting stuck in here with no one to help a ‘good reason’ enough?”

Finally, it was Megatron’s turn to look sheepish. Why didn’t he just get them out in the first place?

Unless…No, that couldn’t be because-

“You just wanted-!”

“I did, yes.”

But why ? He wants to push, but he senses something is awry. Megatron seems bashful, yes, but also oddly discomfited with the admission. He elects to smooth the situation over.

“You could have just asked.” he chastises gently, voice nothing more than a murmur. “I would’ve said yes.”

“Could I have?” Megatron's question comes out not sarcastic, but rather searching, unsure, and Minimus can suddenly feel as though his spark has been snuffed out.

Minimus happens to be obtuse at times, oblivious, even. He does not possess Megatron’s sharp observation skills, and, as much as he loathes it, he probably doesn’t even measure up to the average bot in regards to emotional intelligence. But the weight with which Megatron’s optics drift down to the floor, his crestfallen expression, so unlike the resolute leader he knows the other to be, he’d be stupid not to notice that something was deeply wrong.

With how well he knows him, having listened to each exceptionally rare admission of uncertainty, of insecurity , absorbing it all so as to preserve it, study it, try to understand it, in as much as he is able to. To keep it safe for the other, so that he knows he can trust Minimus just as much as he trusts Megatron. He’d be stupid not to connect the dots.

To know someone who was so dear to him didn’t even think he had the right to ask to spend time with him, didn’t feel as though he deserved for Minimus to so much as deign him with his presence outside of shared duty…it’s almost too much to bear. All this time…

Is that why Megatron never questioned his readiness to share a morning shift at the bridge? The suspicious amount of overlap on the schedules Minimus drafted? Was it because he also wanted to spend as much time together, but took work as his only opportunity to do so? The only time he was allowed ?

Minimus suddenly feels horrible. Horrible with being too cowardly to reach out, to take initiative, too preoccupied with the worry of what will happen once he finally steps out his armor to see the bot he’d barred off right outside, tied up in his own personal anguish, so much so that it took them getting stuck in a goddamned elevator to finally set the record straight.

Minimus had been so blind.

“I’m so sorry.”

Out of the corner of his downturned optics, he sees Megatron whip his helm up to look at him in shock.

“What?” he blanks. “No, I’m the one who needs to apologize.”

“You’re not, Megatron. I’m just- I’m so sorry, for not seeing you earlier.”

“No, that’s absurd! You’re not-” he huffs, uncomprehending. “I’m at fault here. I acted irresponsibly just because I’ve been- I’ve been too spineless to ever ask. And I pushed you in the most horrible way.”

“You didn’t push me. Had this not been something I wanted for the longest time, I wouldn’t have allowed for any of it to happen.”

Minimus startles both himself and Megatron into complete silence. Quiet parts out loud, huh?

He resumes before Megatron can cut in. “I’m sorry that you had to wait so long for someone to meet you halfway, only for it to- to be me .” the last part attached itself to the end of sentence like a malignant spot of corrosive rust, like it was hitching a ride out of the furthest reaches of his spark, where he’d buried all of his self-loathing for no one to ever uncover. All in vain, apparently.

Only for it to be me. And isn’t that just what all of this had been about?

“But it’s you , Minimus. You’re what I wanted. I didn’t want someone, I wanted you .”

They stare at each other, unable to break out of each of their despairing  gazes. Minimus swears there’s charge in the air, a lick of ozone at the back of his olfactory sensors.

He can actually see Megatron reset his voice box.

“And if I had to, I would wait for you a million times over.”

“...”

The sheer amount of conviction in his tone is enough to make Minimus feel as though he’d driven full speed into a brick wall. Out of all the absolutely insane things he’s heard Megatron say today, this has to be the one he has the hardest time letting himself believe. And yet there it was, clear as anything.

Megatron wanted him .

His processor, as if in an attempt to help the realization set in, puts the recorded phrase on loop. It seems to reverberate within the confines of his helm. He already loathes the degradation that will one day inevitably take hold of this memory file.

But, then again, maybe he could ask Megatron to repeat it for him.

Isn’t that an amazing thought?

It’s giddiness , of all things, that rises in him next. Like before, at the very beginning of this whole ordeal, he suddenly knows exactly what to say:

“You know I hate exaggeration.”

Finally, like a spell being lifted, the tension evaporates, and Megatron lets out a breathy sigh. Then, he laughs, relieved.

“And I’m not exaggerating.” Megatron outstretches a servo in his direction, beckoning him to come close, so Megatron can, yet again, pick him up, and they can finally get out of here.

Minimus welcomes the arm wrapping around his waist and bringing him close to the warm frame of the bigger bot. “I think you might be.”

“You underestimate me.”

There’s no excuse for them to linger like this, Megatron’s servo hanging onto the edge of the hole that used to be the access panel, with Minimus in his hold, ready to pull both of them up, but they do. As much staring into each other’s optics as they’ve been doing, Minimus suspects he may never have enough.

“...You wouldn’t- no, you won’t have to, for the record.”

Megatron slightly tilts his helm. “Won’t have to what?”

Before he can even begin to second-guess himself, and before Megatron lifts him out of the elevator, he surges forward, and captures Megatron’s lips with his own once more.

He can feel the startlement as it paints itself on Megatron’s faceplates. He can feel it. It’s an intoxicating thought.

It only lasts a second, though, as Megatron soon obligingly parts his lips, like it was nothing but second nature already, letting Minimus in. Their glossa slide against each other. A servo wraps itself around the back of Minimus’ helm, angling it to deepen their unexpected kiss, and suddenly Megatron is mapping out the roof of his intake. Not to be outdone, he slowly runs his glossa along dentae, and licks at the inside of his cheek, not stopping until he hears the other groan . It’s shaky and airy, and all he ever wanted to listen to.

(He briefly wonders what other wonderful sounds he could wring out of him, some other time)

Soon enough though, he places his much smaller servos against the sides of Megatron’s face, parting from the other slowly enough to witness (and savor) the new sight of his optics fluttering open, a slight confusion tinting their gleam, mouth hanging slightly open and breath deep. Beyond his late night imaginings, he’d never thought he’d actually see anything approaching the expression that’s gracing the other’s face right now. Least of all caused by him .

What has he done to deserve a mech like him?

“Won’t have to wait.”

Megatron’s optical ridges knit together for a split second. He does not dare to say anything.

“I want you , too.” Minimus stresses. He thinks it might be what Megatron needed to hear, too.

His suspicion is confirmed, as he’s eventually rewarded with a choked: “… Minimus .” and a smattering of ticklish kisses to each and every one of his faceplates.

They enter Swerve’s together.

The atmosphere is, as to be expected…jovial.

It’s well into the afternoon by now, and gaggles of bots too wasted to recognize their superior officers cheer at the sight of the party newcomers from where they’ve stuffed themselves into booths like nails in packets. The floors are sticky with spilled engex and Minimus cringes at the sensation. He’s itching to write this up as a health and safety violation, but that’s not what they came here for.

Or rather who they came here for.

There, standing on a table that’s been dragged to the middle of the blinking, multicolored tiles of the dance floor, is Rodimus, currently giving a play-by-play reenactment of ‘his last great conquest’. That is to say a very loose interpretation of the bar fight he’d gotten into at the last outpost the Lost Light stopped by, on a lonely little asteroid orbiting some dim old red dwarf, where after betting against the owner on whose pod can do a lap of the planetoid faster, he proceeded to cut the other off mid-air at the finish line of the race, causing the shuttle to come crashing down to the ground (not before the bar owner had catapulted himself out, thankfully), and gracing the rocky landscape with yet another beautiful crater for everyone to admire. Minimus calls it a ‘fight’, but it was honestly more of a glorified ass-beating, considering Rodimus was jumped by around twenty of the bar’s loyal patrons the instant he touched down. He’d know; Ultra Magnus had the honor of witnessing the whole affair go down, and then extracting a Rodimus that was now more dent than bot from the ravenous mob, worriedly cradling the crumpled mech like a guardian might with their injured charge, but whose state did nothing to erase his apparent good mood (or cause him to lash out at a bunch of rightly furious locals, which is the single thing he can very reluctantly commend him for). In the present, though, the mechs gathered in seats around the animated co-captain lurch synchronously to dodge the droplets spraying out of the glass he’s using as a prop, apparently standing in for the RodPod. He’s flying the thing around like a toy plane. There’s even mouth noises involved. The audience is enraptured.

It’s only when he’s done making a fool of himself that he notices Minimus and Megatron standing at the edge of the surrounding crowd. He squints his optics at them like he’s lost a pair of prescription spectacles, and then brightens, his face split in a wide grin. He flips off of the table to land into a backwards straddle on a chair which wails miserably under the impact. Minimus can’t say he’s surprised with his brazen attitude at all. So very typical of him.

“Megatron! Minimus!” he exclaims, as if nothing ever happened. “ So glad you guys could make it, we were just talking about you.”

“That so.” Minimus deadpans, arms crossed over his chassis.

“Yeah, we were all talking about how great you both are, and how we’re just so glad we have you here on the ship. Seriously, you two are the best.”

“Uh huh.”

“And wow is that-? Megatron, Megs, Megsy, that a new paint job?”

“It’s not.”

“-Looks amazing on you, love the swirly things on the chestplate, real swanky. And Minimus, wow, just look at you, you’re killing it with the ‘stache, so stylish.”

It’s been there on his face for quite literally every day of his life, but he supposes he’ll take the compliment where he can.

But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s out here for blood.

“Platitudes won’t get you off the hook, Rodimus.”

“Listen, that right there was a three syllable word, I don’t even know what that means right now, so if you don’t mind I’ll just be over here, having a great time, drinking my drink.” he peers down into his glass, the entire cocktail gone from how much he flung the thing around. The flip probably didn’t help, either. “You two want something from the bar?”

Megatron groans. “Rodimus, activate your FIM chip-”

“Hey, Minimus! Did you do that little thing I asked you to do?” Rodimus cuts in, banking on another distraction.

What?

He wracks his memory files for anything that Rodimus might’ve requested of him recently, but finds nothing under the corresponding tag. He considers going over memories dating further back, until it hits him.

And it really has been just Rodimus stalling for time, because the only thing he could possibly be referring to is what he said when he hung up on him today, all those hours ago.

The ‘smooch’.

Although, now that he thinks about it, surprisingly he did complete that part of their deal. Somewhat. Kind of.

“I almost did, actually.” he drawls disinterestedly, inspecting his knuckle joints. “But the kiss was strictly coming from me, not from you.”

Megatron looks at him quizzically, as if asking ‘what’s this about now?’.

With just a look he tries to communicate ‘I’ll explain later’ back.

“Awe man, that’s a shame. That’d be sure to tide him over,” he throws his servo up in the direction of Megatron’s frigid expression and bangs his helm on the back of the chair. “now look at what I’m gonna have to deal with.” Rodimus pouts like a little sparkling.

It’s only after a couple of seconds that his optics snap open in realization. “Wait-”

“Don’t think for a second that you’re getting out of this so easily-” Megatron threatens.

“-you guys-”

“-but, since you’re so set on acting contrarian, fine, be that way-”

“-in the elevator -?!”

“-and we’ll be having our talk tomorrow.”

“-I think I’m gonna be sick. You’re sick.” he points crudely at the air between them, abject horror painted on his face. “Oh my god, what is the crew going to think?” his servos grip the sides of his helm, positively distraught.

“For now me and Minimus have more…important matters to attend to.”

Rodimus retches. Minimus can hear the clatter of bots diving out of the way to preserve their ‘pristine’ armors, and someone hysterically yelling for a bucket behind them as they make their way out of the bar. From where he’s strung out on top of the counter like a corpse ready and eager for autopsy, Whirl slurs, suggesting they grab and use Megatron’s helmet (‘B’fore he’s gone Tailgate- hic- quick!’).

They hardly care, though. Minimus offers a servo to Megatron, who takes it with a small, private smile.

They leave the overcrowded, dingy bar together. Minimus can see himself avoiding such cramped spaces for the foreseeable future; elevators included.

Though, he’s sure that if he takes the longer route to get to the bridge each morning, he won’t be taking it alone.