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niyazi-a.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
shadow_vector2011-06-28 09:20 am
Clutching the Darkness
IDW
PG-13
Megatron, Wing
WARNING: This is a h/c prompt 'dungeon'
sort of a derpy AU, where Wing, hopeless idealist, confronts Megatron in the early days of the war, before it really IS a war.
I would not take credit for something I only half-wrote, but I'm indebted to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
saeru for the idea.
Also liberally plays off the fanon thing about jets 'needing' to fly.
It was dark. And Wing was learning to hate the dark, almost as much as the confinement. The cell Megatron had thrown him in was…just big enough for him to move, take a step or two before stumbling into a wall.
He’d stopped trying to walk, days ago, sitting instead on the floor, trying not to notice the filth smearing his white armor. A ration of energon lay by his foot, thrust in once a day. This one lay next to two others, still unopened. Fueling: he’d given that up, too.
For their part, they’d given up having a guard to point a weapon at him some…time ago. Wing had lost track of days, time entirely. It seemed sometimes he’d been here forever. Memories of sunlight, of Altihex, seemed distant, and almost too bright even to the memory, and like they had happened to another mech.
Had he ever been that naïve? Coming to confront Megatron himself? Thinking that he could talk him out of a war he had so thoroughly owned.
It seemed…impossible now. Rash, foolish…idiotic. Megatron knew fighting like a native language, he seemed incapable of understanding Wing’s logic, reason. Wing had never heard the term ‘pacifist’ used quite so mockingly before.
The grating sound of the door: was it that time already? Wing…didn’t know. He burned to see a slice of the sky, the wings, folded against his backframe for what seemed like ages in a sort of hollow agony for the air. Instead he had to settle for the vertical slice of light from the corridor outside, the shifting silhouette of whatever mech had been tasked to shove in another cube.
No, this one was bigger, massive, almost blocking out the corridor’s thin light. The optics were bright and red and focused on him as he stepped in. Wing could feel the EM field against him, a thick, almost raspy ripple.
“Pacifist.”
After so long, the sound of a voice was almost alien to Wing, who had grown accustomed only to the scraping of his metal on the plascrete floor, the rough walls. His own voice was scratchy with disuse. “Megatron.”
A light flared, strobing brightly in Wing’s optics, so used to lowlight that he was dazzled for a long moment. Megatron’s optics flicked to the stack of full cubes. “I see you refuse my hospitality.”
“Imprisonment,” Wing said. He thought, briefly, about sitting up, about preparing to defend himself. No. Not worth it. He could feel the diminished charge in his cramped joints. It would be…laughable. And Wing might be pathetic, but he would not be Megatron’s amusement. “Please call it what it is.”
A throaty laugh. “Polite even in your arguments, pacifist.” He inclined his head “Imprisonment, then.” A rush of movement, the EM field thickening as Megatron dropped to one knee. He picked up one of the cubes, turning it over idly in his hands. “Valuable resource, energon.”
“You may take it back,” Wing said. He would not be beholden, not be grateful, to Megatron for his captivity. “Use it for something more…useful to you.”
“You aren’t?”
“What use?” Wing felt power divert to flare his optics. “What use do I serve you?”
“What use do you want to serve…me?” A sly curve on the mouth.
“To talk you out of this…cruelty.” The answer had come so glibly…then. Now it seemed hollow, a battered piece of tin thrust before him like a shield.
“Not…quite…successful.”
I’ve noticed, Wing thought. His optics slid to one side.
Megatron held a cube out to him. “Drink.”
“I am not one of your soldiers,” Wing said, exhausted, resisting sheerly on principle. And he knew that was the point—Megatron was testing exactly that.
Megatron tilted his head, considering. As if not entirely sure what to do with this: it wasn’t obedience but it wasn’t—quite—insubordination. “You will die. Or…,” the red optics went distant, as if tasting an option. “We could forcefuel you.” He seemed to find the option amusing. “Now, jet.” And the smile fell away. “Would you like to see the sky?” He gave a soft snort, swirling the energon in its cube, making the conditions clear.
Wing’s optic shutters drooped closed. The sky. The word seemed almost alien to him now, the sound of it, the shape of it just…foreign. His wings twitched, betraying him, and he winced at Megatron’s answering smirk. The large hand held the cube closer.
Order, or make it such an agonizing choice. Megatron seemed to know no other way. But Wing felt his resolve weakening, the smell of the outside world redolent from the larger mech.
“I would let you fly,” Megatron said, his voice soft. “I am not a brute. It is your nature to fly, little pacifist.” He reached with his other hand, the plates of the hand dented, scored, little nicks and scratches through the enamel, to touch the wingspire behind the jet’s neck.
Wing flinched at the touch, expecting pain, but the larger mech only ran a curious hand over the spires. Wing’s resolve broke—his hands closed over the cube, trembling from lack of charge to the stabilizers. The energon burned in his throat as he drank it, wetting the dry channels. He shuddered, the fuel cascading through his lines and he could feel his optics brightening, his lowlight vision sharpening, his hands stabilizing. He tried to study Megatron over the cube’s rim, searching for some ulterior motive. “If I fly,” he said, quietly, “I won’t come back.”
The smile, onesided. “You will come back.” The hand stroked down the wing, over the shoulder nacelle. “Your honor will guarantee it.”
The energon seemed to burst in Wing’s throat, the sharp, helpless, explosive pain of knowing you are being used against yourself. He felt naked, exposed, that Megatron should read him that easily, that well. The cube lowered from his mouth. They had all misjudged: everyone had presumed Megatron to be a thug, a brute, a mindless sadist, seeking violence and disruption out of some bullheaded desire to destroy. No one had granted him—and Wing was guilty of this as well—intelligence. It was a refined, cruel sort, but something one did not expect from a miner, from an arena fighter.
Nor had they granted, or predicted, this—the gentleness behind the strength in the hands as Megatron shifted forward, pulling Wing’s shoulders off the wall, lifting him as easily as if he were a bare strut. Power, but controlled. Wing clutched at the cube, some of the energon slopping over the lip and onto his chassis as Megatron scooped him up against him, rising to his feet. “Put me down,” he said, weakly, squirming his legs over the larger mech’s arm, the calf-guards scraping over the warrior’s cannon.
“Can you even walk?” Touching him, the vibration rumbled from Megatron’s chassis against Wing’s side. He had forgotten, utterly, the sweet comfort of another mech’s touch, and hated how his EM field flickered against it.
No. Probably not. The consternation must have shown in his face; Megatron laughed, the sound filling the room, almost deafening.
“I approve of the symbolism,” Megatron said, crossing the threshold, Wing’s feet waving gentle in time with his careful stride. “But I’d rather imagine you want out of this cell.”
He wanted out. To see the sky at any price. And he knew he’d never fly away entirely; Megatron had him bound by ties of honor, thinner and lighter, yet more unbreakable than any chains. “Yes,” Wing murmured, hating the admission, hating that he leaned into the chassis, as Megatron carried him out of one darkness, out of a cell into a larger prison of Wing’s own making. And hating that, as he let his audial fin rest on the dark shoulder, that he wrapped himself inside this consolation, anyway.
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I can't even understand how you took a scene we vaguely talked out and made it so much more interesting, so much more in-depth...
But I think it's hearing Wing's internal monologue. I particularly loved watching his opinion change, watching him figure out the neat little trap he'd fallen into. It...oh gosh, it just makes me wanna see what happens next. I really like how you write Megatron.
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