Those Five Minutes

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
IDW
Megatron, Prowl
warnings: spoilers for Ongoing 21, 22.
for tf_rare_pairing : Megatron/Prowl the lower class.
Meant to be a sort of response/homage to wicked3659 's fic Individual. She takes them partway through Megatron Origin: I place them in the curren issue of Ongoing.

 

Megatron laughed. The sound echoed, gaining depth and timbre, in the small room. “Friend?” He let the sound echo down to nothing, studying Prowl’s response. “Really. It’s too much.”

“Too much.” Flat. Refusing to comprehend. Or pretending to, Megatron thought. Prowl was not a consummate actor, but playing the same role for…centuries, eventually some skill developed. Or instinct. 

Megatron knew this fact intimately. He smirked. “I am not so…enfeebled for companionship that I would consider you a ‘friend’.” He let his optics travel around the room, his prison. “Or this some token of ‘friendship’.”

“The closest you have to one here,” Prowl rejoined. 

Megatron’s optics flared with amusement. “Possibly.” Go ahead, Prowl, he thought. Guess. Live in indecision if I’m lying or not.

I’m not. One side of his mouth curled up in a smile.

“And then you think,” Megatron continued, “that I will brag to you, gloat, because…what? My ego? Narcissism? Boredom?” Inside the heavy restraints, he balled and flattened his hands. Such a ludicrous position they immobilized him in, spread-eagled, exposed. It was deliberate, of course. An attempt to humiliate. Oh, Autobots, he thought. You should not have ground me down so low before. 

Prowl smirked. “You’re doing it right now. Talking. Because you have an audience.”

“Oh? Is that why?” A laugh. “You discern even my motivations, Prowl. Truly, you’re an asset to the Autobot forces.”

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re wrong.” He rolled his shoulders. “This game is boring, Prowl.” A hint, that, and the only one he’d give Prowl. He wasn’t Optimus Prime, creature of borrowed vainglory. Or Prowl himself, too snared in his ancient righteousness. 

“I wasn’t aware this was a game.”

Heh. Halfway there, Prowl. “It’s all been a game, Prowl. All of it.” His smile curled, feral, exposing his dentae. “Are you just now figuring that out?”

“Mechs have died.”

“Have they?” Megatron sneered. “I hadn’t noticed.” He cocked his head.”I’m sure you have. Neat little databases. Spreadsheets.  Who. Where. Why. Accountability.” He gave a rolling sigh. “Bureaucracy. Even harder to kill than your Prime.”

“Or you.” An admission, and a ripple of dissatisfaction. Oh, is the mask slipping, Prowl?

Megatron laughed, flinging his head back, feeling the shoulder servos stressed from his bonds. “Or capture, for that matter.”

“Really.”

“I surrendered.” He cocked his head. “Three times, if memory serves.” 

“The Arena.”  Cool contradiction.

“You remember,” Megatron drawled, feigning astonishment. 

“That wasn’t a surrender.”

“No?”  

“Restraints. Inhibitor claws. You were outnumbered.” His blue optics flicked over Megatron’s shoulders, as if redrawing the inhibitor claws.

“But not outmatched.” He tipped his chin. “Simple manipulation. Who won, after all, in the end?”  Starscream, back then, had performed beautifully. A natural actor, that one. How much Megatron had learned from him: how to forge his cold charisma into something like charm. How to soften his mine-hardened edges into…this easy smirk, silky drawl. Weapons and more weapons. In those days Megatron had collected an…armory. 

And the weapons Soundwave and Starscream had taught him could not be stripped off, locked down, neutralized. All the inhibitor claws in the world could not stop his mind, his vocalizer.

Well, they could; but that would violate their so-precious principles.

“And now?” Prowl’s optics traveled up Megatron’s arms, down his legs, taking in the level of restraints, the Variable Voltage Harness. 

“I’m not losing.”

“You’re not?” Rich irony, coloratura inflecting the Autobot’s voice for the first time. “You have no army. You have no freedom of movement. You have no options and no future.”

Megatron snorted. “How is that any different from when I was back on C-12? Other than that was all metaphor and this is literal?” He moved his shoulders in the small circle that the restraints allowed. “Really, Prowl.  I expected better of you.”

“Cheap gibe.”

“Hnh. It’s all I can afford right now.” 

“Self-pity.” Prowl shook his head, as if disappointed.

“Self-pity. Self-aggrandizement. Which is it, Prowl? Which little box do you have checked on your precious little forms?”

Prowl smirked. “Psychopath.”  

Megatron’s mouth pulled, a flash of memory. A seed of doubt. He spat it out. “Labels.” He laughed. “As if they ever held me.”

“The tools for an orderly society.”

“For a numb society,” Megaron corrected. “Look at this. Look at yourself.” He looked down at the green glow of light from the harness around his chassis. “Look at me. What labels do you put on yourself, on me, to justify this? Days—weeks—since I’ve been ‘allowed’ to move. How is this civilized? How is this…any better than killing me outright?”

“That could be managed.” 

“Managed. Bureaucracy. Procedure.” Megatron laughed. “You must grant that my methods are so much…simpler. Purer, in a way.”

“Your ways are murder.”

“Tch. Labels again, Prowl. I thought you learned.” He shifted one foot, enjoying, openly, the way Prowl twitched. “The results are what matter. The labels can be added later. But,” he tilted his head, “You already know that, don’t you?”  A dry, mocking laugh. “We’re not so different, are we?”

“We are nothing alike.”

Oh no, Prowl. Nothing alike. But I enjoy how repugnant you find the very notion. I enjoy the rise it gets out of you. “One example.”

“I am free.”

“Are you?” Megatron tugged at one wrist, enough to make the green glow of the VVH whine as it boosted its immobilization charge. “Or are you just bound…less visibly? Rules, regulations…morality.” 

Prowl’s hand twitched toward the inhibitor chip activator. Megatron hissed, goading him, taunting him. The mouth flattened, the red chevron for a moment dipping to the ground.

Victory, Megatron thought. There was more than one kind, and loss wasn’t always death.

And victory wasn’t always life.

“You have nothing,” Prowl said. “Nothing except your ego which refuses to notice how helpless you are.”

“Wrong. I have more than that, Prowl. I have my hatred. And I have my memories.”

“Memories.”  A spark of interest.

Ahhhhh. He wants information. Should not have been a surprise. “Memories, Prowl. They are all the poor have.”

“The poor. You?” Prowl scoffed.  

Megatron rolled his shoulders in an eloquent shrug. “Look at my kingdom, Prowl. All I have is in my mind.” He leaned forward. “And that’s why you’re here. Even now, even your prisoner, you need me. You come begging, a supplicant.” He shook his head, the purple tracing-lights on his helm seeming to flare in the shadows. “And why? Because your rules, your ethics and principles, won’t allow you to take. To demand.”

“Won’t they.” Prowl jerked his chin, defiantly. His optics flicked to the inhibitor controls.  Oh, it would hurt. Blazing, searing agony. But it would be worth it, Megatron thought. “How little you know me.”

“By his deeds you will know him,” Megatron intoned sententiously. “Congratulations on liberating Garrus-9, by the way.” His smile took on hooks. “Or should I say, for wiping Aequitas.”

Ah, control. Megatron inclined his head in a nod, acknowledging the stony stillness of Prowl’s face, which was, for his part, as good as an admission. Point proved: the Autobots were every bit as fractured, as shattered, as he’d hoped. And even the return of their Prime had done nothing but widen the spiderweb cracks, drive the wedge deeper.  He gave a grunt. “You bore me, Prowl.” This round was done. Over. He had enough. Any more and the self doubt, the seeds of hate he had sown would wither.   “Now, what do you wish to know?”

Prowl’s optics narrowed. “And you’ll just…tell me.”

“What?” Megatron smiled, his dentae flashing. “Haven’t I made you pay enough?”  Torture, he thought. His way.

 

Comments

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Thanks! IDW Prowl was so...off to me in that issue--he spoke like 'gonna' and so on. So this isn't canon Prowl because that one is...weird. :S

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

He really is the only Megatron I can actually wrap my mind around. Bayverse's used to just be crazy, but then...he went just...crazazy. o_O

[tainry.livejournal.com]

In those days Megatron had collected an…armory.
FanTAStic!

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

His head-thoughts are really pretty fun to write. Considering he's, you know, the bad guy. Glad you liked! :D

[tainry.livejournal.com]

I did not figure out until five or seven years ago that writing the villains' headspace could be so fun! And interesting. In an oh god ow this is fucked up kind of way. ;D

[wicked3659.livejournal.com]

I love how you have these two play off each other. Mind game upon mind game both trying to get the upper hand. I love how you write both of these two from this verse (especially your Prowl!) You do him better justice than the comic writers do :D