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Optimus shook, kneeling over the sword piercing his chassis, trembling as its ridged edges barely scraped against the spark in his chest. Megatron stood over him, energon dripping in rivulets down his body from broken metal and cracked armor plating. He vented heavily, crimson eyes alight with hatred.
“You,” he spat, gripping the handle of the sword to push it deeper, twisting it as Optimus cried out. “You are a fool . A naive, cowardly, pathetic fool. You destroyed Cybertron, you killed millions of our people, all because you couldn't fucking use your optics to see the state of our world. It could never be saved, Optimus! Not with the combined efforts of the both of us, who you still refuse to accept are so similar. We are the same, Prime. Going on and on forever with no destination in sight. We're doomed to hate each other until our sparks go out and then continue feuding under the gaze of Primus himself.”
Megatron loomed over Optimus, metal thrumming with charge and energy that reverberated through the air in pulsing waves. The emotion in his field, so strong it nearly knocked out Optimus's processor, rolled into him again and again. His vocalizer spat static, and he hacked up a spot of energon onto the gravel ground. The glowing blue of his life essence sank slowly into the Earth, to be drank greedily by the creatures dwelling in its alien depths.
I don’t want to fight you, my oldest friend, I never wanted to fight you I only wanted to save Cybertron together- the words were lodged firmly in his glitching throat. The silver warlord loomed above him, watching with a sneer as he struggled to get the words out. Optimus tried again, forcing his vocalizer to function, before he spoke. “I- never hated you, Megatro-n.”
Above him, the silver warlord laughed, sneering with disgust. “Ple-ase, I never did. I abho-rred you, was disgusted by y-ou, wanted to rip your spark out. But it was ne-ver as s-imple as h-ate.”
Megatron snarled at him and grabbed him by the side of the helm, claws digging harsh grooves into the metal. Optimus groaned, flinching away, but Megatron’s claws were deep and unyielding. “Listen to me, Prime ,” he said Prime like it was a vulgar word, the epitome of everything he stood against in his entire functioning. “You hate me. You can't deny it no matter how much you pretend to be the noble warrior, right hand of Primus. You're just like me, a stubborn mech who will never forfeit and because of that very trait born of our race’s hubris and entitlement, we will never end this war. I will never end this war. Cybertron is a lost cause because of us , Prime. I fight to regain control of what was stolen from me, a chance of freedom and justice, and so I fight you. I fight to rip your spark from your noble chest and eat it . You let me destroy our world and myself. You watched as I fought every day in those pits and encouraged that I release that onto our world, that plague of thirst for survival that was instilled into my very programming because of the system you willingly turned back to. You let me murder our people and then blamed me! So yes, what you did to me was most certainly born of hate , because you hated that I had the strength to do what you could not.”
His voice dragged roughly against Optimus’s audials, his gravelly growl cutting against his insides. Megatron's servos were practically cupping Optimus's very processor, his claws dug so painfully deep that his blue optics began to flicker, vision glitching until he could only see the crimson of Megatron's optics.
Not hate, never hate- Megatron is wrong he has to be, we shared the same vision, we shared the same spark we were brothers once- “I…- you're wro-ong. It was a s-ick kind of sy-mpathy that allowed me to understand you. You w-ere always so ri-ghteous, back then. I be-liev-ed in- in you, thought yo-u could fix - “ Megatron’s claws squeezed, impossibly deeper, and Optimus cried out, but he forced his voicebox to form the words.
“Beli-eve me, please , I can’t of-fline knowing that the o-nly mech I’ve- …yo-u are my only equal. Before the wa-r, before the h-ate, before Optimus Prime , you were the on-ly one who un-derstoo-d me. I followed you beca-use I truly belie-ved in you. And no-w… Fuck, now you’re the o-nly one knows me. If so-meone asked any of the Au-tobots what my favo-rite dessert was, they’d laugh and say the Pri-me doesn’t waste his time with those lux-uries. But yo-u…” Optimus saw the way Megatron’s glossa formed the words, energon cake rolls, with crystal decor .
“I follo-wed you because I could conf-ide in you, could tr-ust you. Of cou-rse you were strong, but you were a-lso reliable and cons-istent . Back then I could trust that you would have my ba-ck, just as now I can trust that you wou-ldn’t hesitate to rip my ba-ck struts out. You’re my an-chor, my constant. You’ve always been a mech wor-thy of de-votion, Megatron.” He coughed up more energon, sagging against the sword in his chest. “I’ve always be-en de-voted to… to yo-u- “
Megatron’s servos softened, imperceptibly, so miniscule that Optimus shouldn’t have felt it. But he did, because those very servos were buried wrist deep inside his helm. He felt his optics flickering, dimming, felt his sparkpulses slowing. So this is what it felt like, to offline indefinitely, to the hands of his greatest enemy and worst pleasure.
“I lo-ve-d you,” he wheezed through static, reaching up a servo to rest his weak digits delicately on Megatron’s scarred, twisted face. He couldn’t say it, the strain to his voicebox becoming too great as the lights in his processor slowly shut off, one by one, but he conveyed it as strongly as he could through his dying field. And I think I still do. I think, inside all of the hate and rage and desperation, you know this and reciprocate. I dearly hope you find what you’re looking for, old friend, and that this war has fulfilled everything you ever thought it would.
His servos fell to his sides, optics turning off, the whir of fans shutting down. The metal of the Prime’s frame turned gray and dull and his spark- Megatron looked down, at Optimus’s chassis. It had opened, the Matrix nestled inside alongside his spark. He reached for the artifact, curious what it would do when faced with someone so profoundly unworthy. It pulsed, once, then dissolved into ash. Still bright energon dripped onto his servos, leaking from the raw insides of the fallen Prime.
Megatron ignored it, guiding his servo to the cold spark inside Optimus’s dead chassis. It didn’t shine a brilliant glorious blue, as it once did, but instead was a cold gray thing. Megatron hummed as it floated out, upwards, and his clawed servos traced it gently, respectful to the sacred spark no matter how much he hated the mech it belonged to.
He let it continue its journey to the sky and stared at the dead frame of Optimus Prime. So it was over. So he had nothing left in his way of achieving what he truly wanted.
I think, inside all of the hate and rage and desperation, you know this and reciprocate.
Primus damn that mech, but he was right. He was right about everything . He did adore the way his finials flicked in annoyance when Megatron roved on about his plans. He was filled with an odd delight whenever Optimus overpowered him in battle. He looked forward to their next negotiation arrangements, even though they almost never had any real chance of fulfillment. And now he was gone, the only mech who kept alive the little part of him that was still Megatronus, still the wide-eyed naive miner with aspirations of what Cybertron could look like.
He sat back and studied the corpse of Optimus Prime. He really was so ordinary, yet his frame held the sparkles of divinity that only the right hand of their God could attain. His empty optics still seemed to speak to Megatron, seemingly asking what will you do now?
He narrowed his optics, considering. What was the point of fighting a war if half of its cause was dead? What was the point of a war itself if… if its leaders were gone?
Megatron made a decision. A foolish one, but Optimus seemed to always make a fool out of him. He scooped up the dead Prime in his arms, mindful of his caved in helm and crumbling chassis, and stared up at the starry sky. His spark was hovering above him, seemingly waiting for Megatron to follow.
And he did.
He left behind the old war, his old ways, and his old life, and followed the shattered remnants of Orion Pax to the ends of the Earth.
Days later, when Decepticons and Autobots alike start desperately searching for their leaders, they’ll begrudgingly agree they need to form an alliance. Weeks later, when they’ve been forced to coexist for far longer than they’ve had to in millenia, they’ll find the Matrix of Leadership nestled in a dark crevice. They’ll know what happened to its previous bearer, and they won’t stop looking. Months later, when the broken government of Cybertron has been remolded into something worth salvaging, they’ll find the shell of an old warlord leaning on an old friend for support on a distant planet. Both corpses would have been decomposing for a while, but they would’ve been together in the end, just as they were in the beginning.