Chapter Text
...
crush my heart into embers
and i will reignite
...
REIGNITE
The Nemesis is a lonely place to be.
The Archival Halls of his creation were such, and Orion Pax considers himself no stranger to loneliness. And yet, this is different: the dark, looming corridors and small, low-roofed rooms seem to swallow up their inhabitants, reminding him more of the shadowy alleys of the Pits of Kaon than the wide aisles and mazes of high shelves of his long-ago home. He's an Iaconian at spark, used to wide-open vistas and the sight of the horizon; the smallness of it makes him feel claustrophobic.
He spends most of his time shut away in his little records room, picking away at the small parts of the Iaconian Databases which Megatron has managed to recover. It is his duty, but it also provides an excuse to avoid the rest of the warship.
Even when he emerges late at night for his daily energon ration and a well-earned berth, it is rare for him to meet another living mech in the dimly lit corridors. At first he tries – if not to make friends, then at least to find the pulse of the crew, the ways in which the Decepticons go about their business. He wants to fit in, unused to the staring attention he gathers whenever he steps into a well-populated room.
He quickly finds that he is not welcome throughout most of the ship. His entry to the rec room on the first day casts a blanket of thick, awkward silence over the entire room. He collects his ration – thin, watery low-grade with a petroleum sheen over the surface – with stares drilling into his back. They are hostile, but wary.
Megatron had warned him that he was unlikely to make friends within the crew. Orion believes him, now.
He focuses his efforts upon the Databases, attempting to prove that he belongs here. To himself, as well as others.
It is a miracle that the Databases survive at all. Megatron had taken the ship down low over the ruins of the once-proud Imperial capital to show Orion what had become of his home, swooping past above burned-out hulks and the stumps of fallen towers. Destruction like no other, flash-burned onto the backs of his optics.
Orion gives thanks to Primus for that small shred of luck, and vows to safeguard what remains of the Databases with his life.
He recharges often, something in his strangely delicate and unfamiliar systems draining his energy. So much coding he doesn't remember, systems he can't even begin to decipher – had the Autobots performed experiments upon him while he was in stasis?
The thought is terrifying. He wakes to stiff hydraulics and crackling pains in his joints, sensor ghosts flickering on the edges of his processor.
Orion knows he can't afford to falter, no matter how miserable he feels. Megatronus – Megatron – is depending upon him.
He gathers his strength each morning, and sets himself to work.
:::::::
Megatron is very different to the gladiator he remembers; sharp-edged and jagged, as if he means to cut a path through the world through force of personality alone.
Relief swamps Orion's emotional cortex the first time the revolutionary invites himself into the third-floor officer's berthroom he'd set aside for Orion's use. Starved for friendly interaction, he spends the first couple of breems fighting off unnatural giggles.
Megatron's presence is powerful and intimidating, his intent plain. His red optics, so much more intense than the blue he had once worn outside of the gladiatorial arena, measure the length of Orion's stride and the faint sway of his hips. Hyperaware of his attention, Orion tries not to trip over his own pedes.
“I am very glad to have you back,” Megatron says. He puts his hands around Orion's waist, his field layering itself over Orion's in near proprietary satisfaction. “I missed you a great deal, my brother.”
Orion's neural net warms beneath his plating. His armour, warframe-thick, flares out without his prompting.
He draws in a quick vent, surprised at himself. “I can imagine that.”
Megatron's lips curl back from his sharpened dente. “You always did have a great deal of vision.”
He tugs Orion forward, pressing their frames together for a quick moment. Orion feels the pulse of his spark through the heavy press of his EM field, the vibrations of his sturdy power plant transmitting through his armour. He pushes a knee between Orion's legs and takes his weight in his own hands, guides him backwards, down onto the floor.
Heat and weight, bearing down on him. Surprise whirls through Orion's quartexes, but Megatron's advances are not unwelcome.
He parts his legs willingly and Megatron takes him by the knees, spreading them up and out, opening him. Warmth licks down the insides of his thighs, curling into a throbbing knot at his groin.
Orion smiles, reaching up for Megatron.
“It must have been a long time,” he says.
Megatron's hands sweep up his sides, dipping into the gaps between his ventral plating. He lowers his helm, kissing and nipping the cables of Orion's neck. Orion arches up against him, a groan escaping his vocaliser.
He turns and tips his helm back to give Megatron better access. The scrape of pointed dente over his main sensory track sends tingling bolts down into his belly.
Wetness gathers under his panel, his external components swelling with eagerness.
He amends his earlier statement. “A very long time.”
“Longer than you know,” Megatron rumbles into his neck.
The brush of his scarred lips drifts upward, he mouths the tip of Orion's audials, forces a servo beneath Orion's lower back to keep him sensually arched. The lust in his EM field reaches deep into Orion's frame, exciting his neural net and curling around the edge of his very spark. He adjusts his hips, and his spike pressurizes between them, rubbing against the smooth, tight plating of Orion's belly.
“I miss you,” Orion murmurs, sliding his hands between them. He strokes Megatron's spike from base to tip, the reverse-set barbs tickling his palms. Megatron shudders, thrusting into his hand.
“Is that so?” he says, smiling down at Orion. The subsonic rumbles of his engines transmit through their frames. “I can fix that, you know.”
Orion laughs, and clutches the stray threads of his sense, finding the codes to open his array. Megatron grabs his wrists, pulls his hands away, pinning them to the floor above his helm. His free hand grasps Orion waist, angling him, and his spike finds Orion's wet, swollen entrance. He pushes inside in one smooth, deep thrust.
It hurts. Orion had expected a little discomfort, was prepared for it, but this is worse.
He makes a ragged noise, halfway between a moan and a snarl.
Megatron is massive inside him, stretching him beyond his limits, splitting him open. Each throbbing pulse of electricity through him makes his overstressed calipers twitch, sharp pains in his muscle cable walls. Pain makes him tense; he struggles to relax, to accept Megatron the way he wants to, so very badly.
“Tight,” Megatron groans into his audial. “It's been a while for you, too.”
He starts to move, and it's too soon, too hard. The thump of their pelvic frames together makes Orion squirm and cry out.
“Megatron!” he manages, his voice small. “Give me a moment more!”
Warm vents puff over his forehelm.
“Of course,” Megatron rumbles. “My apologies.”
The ache eases. Orion concentrates on relaxing his internals, and gradually the sensation of Megatron's length inside him lessens. He'd prefer to wait a while longer, but Megatron is growing restless, and every small movement bleeds off more of his charge into Orion's receptive valve systems. It's intoxicating, frustrating, and he needs more, now.
“All right,” he says, lifting his pedes over the backs of Megatron's thighs to adjust the angle of penetration. “I'm ready.”
Megatron, for all his new impatience, fucks him gently at first. Long, slow gliding thrusts in and out, deep and strong, rolling his hips in to meet Orion's splayed frame and grinding his spike housings against Orion's stretched external components at the moment of peak connection. His charge nodes scrape over the sensory channels inside Orion, bursts of energy transmitting between their systems. His barbs catch on Orion's internal ridges, tickling the neural net into delighted spasms.
The persistent ache remains, discomfort goes to war with the warmth of willing arousal washing through Orion's frame, the slick slide of their components and the delighted expansion-contraction flutter of his loosening calipers. He'd once liked a little discomfort during interface, feeling that it made the pleasure all the sweeter, but this is not that.
It's conflicting. Orion is half-torn between the instinctive shying away from the burst of pain inside him at the peak of every thrust and the way it sharpens his senses, making him intimately aware of the mechanisms moving and the flow of Megatron's charge into him, intimate and invasive. He moans aloud, unsure which instinct to follow.
It – Megatron – becomes rougher. The world begins to darken around him; his spatial awareness recedes, leaving him only aware of the frame on top of him and the hard metal floor beneath him. He closes his optics and presses himself upwards; his throat works, his secondary vents opening up.
He gasps and groans, tugging at Megatron's iron grip on his wrists.
It hurts, it hurts, but there's pleasure enough still that he doesn't want to call an end to it. He can't make sense of his linguistic centers anyway; the code trees he'd need to form the words shudder just beyond the reach of his mental fingertips.
Megatron's EM field wraps around Orion, confident and cocksure. He's huge, above him and inside him, his weight inescapable. It's hard to think, hard to do anything but give himself over to base coding and respond.
Megatron thrusts into him one last time and holds himself there, snarling. There's a flood of crackling, glorious energy into his receptive systems and Orion arches up into a sudden, sharp overload.
It's over far too soon, leaving him shaking and gasping. The fullness of Megatron inside him is suddenly too much. He tries to pull back and the movement releases transfluid from inside him, tracking down his aft and puddling on the floor beneath him.
“Megatron,” he groans, voice tailing off into a mechanical whirr. He resets his vocaliser, and tries again.
Megatron stirs above him, engine dropping down into a lower gear. Orion can suddenly hear the pings and ticks of their cooling frames, the shallow roaring of their ventilation systems sucking in cool air.
Megatron turns to him, lowering his helm. He mouths the tip of Orion's audial again, triggering warm throbs of tactile data flashing down the main data track at the side of his neck.
“What is it?” he asks, between teasing nibbles.
Orion opens his mouth, then stops.
“It is nothing,” he sighs.
Megatron chuckles deep in his throat, moving his attentions down Orion's neck. “Very well,” he says. And he stays inside Orion for a long time.
:::::::
Megatron always wants his valve. That isn't unusual, and it takes Orion a long time to connect the sudden preference to the growing sense of unease he feels around his lover.
They frag, again and again. Each time it is Megatron whom initiates the bout. Sometimes it feels so good that Orion thinks he might cry with the intensity. More often, it hurts. Orion keeps the pain a secret, ashamed to admit that with the size and strength of the frame he occupies now he cannot handle Megatron's proclivities.
Regardless, he's having some of the best overloads of his life. Sometimes he comes so hard he blacks out and wakes up whole joor later. (Alone, usually – and that hurts more than he wants to let on.) He walks to his records cubby with a limp for days afterwards.
The database absorbs his worries and pains, embracing him like an old friend.
He throws himself into his function, glad of the distraction. It's a relief to have something constructive to do.
Soundwave has looked after the data well, but it's plain he has no idea what to do with the archival ciphers and codes. That's only to be expected – his old function in the caste system, interception technician, demanded an entirely different set of skills.
Orion sends him a few tips, but handles most of the decoding himself.
The information contained is patchy, jumping from recent history to mythological references, molecular chemistry and theoretical astrophysics. Orion concentrates on the history, judging it the most likely to hold relevant information.
Over the quick cycle of the alien planet's days and nights, he reads through the translated files, gradually familiarising himself with the events of the early war.
After a few days, he comes to the conclusion that the Autobot version of events is lacking major details.
Try as he might, he can't seem to find any mention of the Warlord Ratchet. With his title or without. In fact, the older entries concern themselves with only the old Council and Senate. The Autobot faction as a whole don't seem to exist prior to a date almost a hundred vorn after the date of the High Council meeting that ended in tragedy – there is only 'loyalists' and 'Decepticons'.
Orion keeps looking. He's always liked mysteries.
Then, tucked away in the minutes of a Senate sitting, he discovers a mention of a mech named Optimus Prime.
Orion stands very still, and wonders.
The only Prime he knows of is Sentinel. He remembers that mech's death – the funerary procession had taken place mere orns before the point where his memories cut off. It had been a global holiday; Jazz had talked him into watching the Prime's body go past on its way to the nobility's catacombs.
Optimus Prime is therefore likely Sentinel's successor – but who is he? Where had he come from, and where is he now?
As he digs deeper into the database, he considers the fact that the existence of Optimus Prime might explain several baffling inconsistencies within the Decepticons' own shipboard database. For all that the Warlord Ratchet's name is followed by a string of shocking deeds – and Orion would never have thought his former friend capable of such things, not ever! – there seems to be no one primary decisionmaking figure within the Autobots. Or – and this was the really strange thing – that there had been such a mech, but that his name had, for whatever reason, been totally expunged from the records.
He shakes his helm and decides to put the mystery aside for a few days longer. Megatron had so much to worry about that was far more important than the ramblings of a simple archivist. Orion wouldn't trouble him until he had a clear conclusion.
Later, he would credit this small act of consideration with saving his life.
:::::::
Orion hears the engine noise first, his finely tuned audials picking up the faint buzzing beneath the infrasonic boom of the space bridge tearing a hole in space and time.
The little two-wheeler flies out of the gate, transforming and slamming pedes-first into Megatron's chest.
He must outweigh her by several tons, but her momentum is enough to knock him backwards a step. He trips over Orion's prone frame and goes crashing to the platform.
The little two-wheeler flips upright and leaps away, peppering Megatron with shots. He surges upright with a bellow of rage, throws himself into the new battle.
Breath sobbing through his mouth, Orion pushes himself to his hands and knees. Pain threatens to collapse him. His joints wobble and his EM field whirls, alight with grief and betrayal. Megatron is not what he'd thought.
His entire neural net aches as if he's gone under a foundry hammer. Megatron's punishment has been thorough. His armour is split and torn, energon bleeding out from broken lines beneath his plating. His protoform hurts, right down to the struts. He clutches one hand to his forehelm, feeling a deep dent next to his crest. His vision on that side is blurry with pressure.
The noise of the battle moves behind him. Megatron roars, enraged, as he tries to capture the agile little Autobot. Orion catches a glimpse of movement in the shadows at the rear of the cavern, sees Megatron lunge for it, killing sword outstretched.
He hangs his helm, guilt swallowing him alive. His fuel tank roils. How can the universe ever forgive him?
A sharp stressed keen escapes his vocaliser. He doesn't know what to think anymore, whom to trust.
The space bridge swirls again, spitting out another small form. Far smaller than the two-wheeler, covered in some sort of protective suit. Orion pings it with a hesitant scan.
Organic; the first he's ever seen. It is so small.
It is bipedal, like most Cybertronians. It has a rudimentary electromagnetic field, small flickers of electricity on a scale almost too weak to measure running through its compact little body. At first he thinks the screenlike covering at the front of its helm is one giant optic, uncomfortably reminiscent of empurata – but then it tilts its head up to look at him, and he sees through the plastic the tiny optics and mouth, the strangely intelligent regard in them.
It lifts a small item, as if to show him.
Orion refocuses his blurring optics, and gasps, recognising the shape. What is Vector Sigma's key doing on this alien planet?
He pushes himself upright, kneeling with his hands braced on his thighs. The Key of Vector Sigma, ancient repository of the wisdom of the Primes. The strange new systems inside him, the augments to his base coding, the locked memories, the exhaustion. Megatron's fury at his search for Optimus Prime.
He holds one hand to the wound at his side for a moment. It comes away streaked bright blue.
“Are you... certain I am worthy?”
He has to ask, desperate for confirmation.
The organic tilts its head, looking up at him with those intelligent little optics.
“You have no idea,” it says.
Light floods from the Key, bathing him in vibrant energy. Orion opends his chest and oh, Primus, he can feel something inside him drawing it in. The sensation of something massive and powerful floods his neural net, making him aware of his unfamiliar body in a way he's never been before. It chases away his pain and grief, buoys up his tired arms. He feels taller, stronger. Knowledge and purpose settle upon his shoulders. The memories come flooding back.
Megatron's blade descends, but this time, he is ready for it.
The battle mask snaps shut.