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Stepping in front of the blast wasn’t instinctual. Not a single living being’s instinct is to step in front of harm and face it head on. It takes thought, whether it’s eons or moments. To move with the speed at which Orion did wasn’t to take the blast, to stare death in the eye and welcome it. The optics he had been searching for belonged to an old friend, and that drove instinct. The memory of getting close so many times before, to touch, to calm, drove the jump between danger and Sentinel. Everything that happened after had been consequence, had been an afterthought.
All he had really wanted was to see D-16. And amidst the pain, the shock, the force that drove what was left of him back, he had.
Feeling his touch one last time, at least in a way that was familiar, Orion had seen him. Like so many times in the past, he had seen him, watched him change, despite fading consciousness. The mech who had gone with him on so many whims, who had followed him through restless nights of impulsive ideas, gotten him out of the aftermath, changed. D-16 died, and Orion bore witness.
“I’m done saving you.”
The touch was gone in an instant. The fall began. D-16 died, and Orion Pax died with him.
-
Optimus wakes, blinking slowly as his vision does its best to compensate for lack of light. His arm aches for only a moment with old memory. New memory takes its place in his processor soon after, and a different, very real ache comes with it.
Cybertron. After so many ano-cycles of war, it had been too much. They had mere moments, a few kliks, before the atmosphere would give out. The war raged regardless. Chaos and destruction as the planet died (like D, like Orion) made it rain one last time. Fiery debris fell as the population fled in any way they could, violence ensuing, continuing all the while. He was there. Megatron stood tall, angry, brutal. Fire and smoke filled the air that would soon be gone, and he was there, and Optimus was, too. They fought, like they had so many times. Vicious and desperate. They fought.
(It was always them, in the end.)
The memory is foggy after that. He moves, pushing to sit up and be alert. He scans the darkness with his optics, and finds very little but dim reflections off of metallic walls. A ship, small, hardly a shuttle. An escape. Silence joins the dark, save for his own body shifting against the floor. No sound of engines. No lights from a console.
The sound of scraping metal slashes the silence then, and Optimus turns to find red optics meeting his own. Stillness takes hold of his existence. He doesn’t know for how long. But he knows the scarlet glow like he knows his own spark, which splinters into another knife-like piece with each time he recognizes it.
The quiet has returned, and it isn’t broken for the time he can’t bring himself to move. He finally points, the moving parts in his arm stirring and giving him a weapon. It isn’t instinctual, but it’s nearly there. Enough so to feel it.
Megatron blinks, before a low sound fills the space that seems to be shrinking, joyless but amused. His own weapons remain undrawn.
“C’mon.”
Optimus hesitates.
“Do it.”
There are options. Limited, yet there. Optimus knows the one Megatron is referring to. It would be easy, now. To put out his spark in hopes of putting an end to this. To spare any survivors the pain of losing more. Cybertron is gone, the demand of both sides in war bringing their home to a breaking point, and to lose anything else?
(To lose his oldest friend?)
“Prime…”
(They’re dead. The mechs who had been friends, who had been anything other than hate, were killed long ago.)
The weight in the word is heavy atop the grief of losing home.
(His home had been someone, once.)
And before today, too. Before the death of a planet was the death of others, friends, strangers, enemies and allies. So many lives lost.
(He cannot bring himself to end another. Not now.)
He lowers the limb that had been outstretched, unarming it as he does. Wordless. Megatron moves in an instant, the click and grind of transformation far too audible as he shoves Optimus back against the ground. The barrel of his blaster is familiar against his cheek. His digits grab at it (instinctual), not pushing, simply gripping.
“I wondered if you’d changed,” Megatron mutters. “Maybe you dragged me here to kill me. But you’re still a fool.”
Optimus is still. So he brought him here. The memory won’t come, but it must be true. He can’t tell himself he wouldn’t. Despite it all, he knows he did. His optics fall closed for a moment. The blaster prods more harshly, painfully.
“Nothing to say? No last words?”
Quiet. His fingers tighten on the barrel.
“You used to run your mouth so much…I guess you have changed.”
Finally, carefully, he replies. “I don’t want to fight.”
Another sound akin to some sort of laugh. “This is hardly a fight. It’s an execution.”
Optimus pushes hard against the blaster, managing to get it somewhat out of the way as his other arm digs into the floor for leverage until he’s managed to turn over. Megatron falls off balance beside him, and he pushes to one knee. “No.”
Red optics glare, somewhere between incredulous and intrigued.
“Not today. If you must tomorrow, but not today.”
An excuse, perhaps, but it’s a flavor of truth that doesn’t need further explanation. Megatron understands (even after D-16’s death, Optimus knows it’s true) whether he says it aloud or not. He understands the weight of grief. It’s a matter of what he decides to do with the understanding. “So what. We just sit in a dead ship until tomorrow?”
Optimus moves to lean against a wall. He will die again, permanently, more than likely. By Megatron’s hand, his spark will be extinguished and join his old name. He’s made peace with that already, deep in his core. If he’s to die, it shouldn’t be anyone else. He hopes, foolishly, that he will be allowed the mercy to sit with his guilt and grief for a while longer regardless. “Please.”
Metal grinds to signal the disarming of a weapon. The relief he feels is small in comparison with the confusion. He doesn’t question it verbally. “One solar cycle.”
Optimus nods once. “All I ask.”
Megatron huffs, the red glow and the clank of metal the only proof that he sits against the other wall. “I’ll be counting.”
Memory hits for a fragment of time, ancient. A simpler time. No. A kinder time.
“C’mon, I’ll be fast.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Two kliks, and I’ll be right back out.”
“...Fine. I’ll be counting.”
It joins the ache in his joints, the sting caused by violence and fleeing all he’s known. The blame is his own, in many ways. He carries it with the sharp pieces of his shattered spark. Something could have been done differently. Some decision could have saved the mech who became tired of saving him.
The silence allows him to ponder it. To dig out each shard from his core and study it, reflect, even if it cuts through him. Inevitably, the conclusion is the same. The blame is his, and there is nothing to be done. No changes to be made. Simply a war to keep fighting, even after this. Still, he clings to the pain like it will save him.
Still, he steals glances across the room to ensure the glow of two optics is still there. And he can lie. He can say it’s for fear that Megatron will change his mind and end his life sooner. But to outlive him is still a fear he holds, after all this time, and he still slips into thoughts of careful touches and gentle smiles. The betrayal is still fresh, though bitter. It doesn’t change the thought.
“Why did you bring me here?”
The question tears through the darkened quiet like the sharpness of his spark. The answer he gives is quick. Automatic, even. Instinct. “I’m a fool.”
Megatron’s optics narrow. “Yes. Though I didn’t take you for suicidal.”
Despite the connotation of them, the words are spoken as an unbiased observation. Optimus’ gaze moves down to the ground between them, though invisible in the dim light. “Hope, maybe.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“I a-”
“You are, I know.” He shifts. “I meant don’t be stupid and assume I believe that.”
Optimus goes quiet.
“It’s been a long time,” Megatron continues, and his voice is only just softer. “And I won’t give you a reason to forgive me.”
He feels caught. Because that’s it, isn’t it. The sliver of hope that he finds every now and then, nostalgic and dusty from age, is selfish in the end. “I know,” he manages, and he meets Megatron’s gaze to show he means it. The mech across from him turns away.
“I’m going to kill you tomorrow, Prime.”
He doesn’t doubt it. “...I know.”
“I loved you.”
It catches him off-guard, and he doesn’t miss the past tense. It doesn’t hurt like he expects it will. “...And I, you.”
Megatron looks at him again. There’s something in his optics that Optimus can’t name. It’s familiar, somewhat. It’s the flicker back to their original color when he told him to go. And it’s different, too. “You were right. We could’ve built the future together.”
Silence.
“You were just too hopeful to understand the reality of how.”
Optimus’ spark breaks more, and it aches, but he’s primarily tired. Exhausted from the crushing feeling he bears, and the fact that he still, still cannot bring himself to let go. He has, in most ways. The selfish hope that was so abundant when he was Orion remains for himself. “Hope is a means of survival.”
“I don’t want survival, I want life.”
Another moment of quiet, and he’s so tired.
“And I’m going to build it, no matter what it takes.”
He turns to where the faint glimmer of light reflects off the window, peering out into more darkness littered with distant stars. Cybertron is out there somewhere, uninhabitable. He wonders if, hopes that Bee and Elita got out in time. “I know.”
They don’t speak again. Even when his time is coming close to an end, they don’t speak.
(Restless nights used to be filled with so much laughter.)
He manages to power down at some point, trusts Megatron will wake him before killing him even if he trusts nothing else. He’s changed, and D-16 is dead, but there are still things he knows. Things he relies on, though in a different way.
His trust is betrayed once again when he wakes to an empty shuttle, and Megatron is long gone.
(The final piece of Orion Pax stays alive but sleeping in his spark.)