shadow_vector | Grey Haze

G
IDW, Chaos Theory, Megatron Origin
Megatron, Impactor
spoilers for above series?
for

tf_rare_pairing weekly request: Megatron/Impactor hazy days

“Idiot.” Impactor hobbled out the door of Deltaran Medical Facility, his face contorting into a scowl.

“Yes, you are,” Megatron said, levering himself off the support pillar in the narthex.

Impactor stopped, his optics whirring down in the bright sunlight. “I’m not the idiot that wasted a day of leave.”

“Mine to waste,” Megatron said, shrugging. He extended a hand, which Impactor waved away with hot scorn.

“You and your idealism.” Impactor’s face tightened as he descended the steps, new joints grating and sore and under lubricated. Megatron hated how quickly he speculated if it were deliberate: a thorough enough repair, but omitting the basics of comfort. Time was, he would never have had that thought, not even in the idlest, most fantastic speculation.

But he had seen, in Rodion’s police cell, the hollowness of his sunny idealism, his idea that the problems of the world could be solved with words and hope.

No words could right this, and hope would be…noxious.

“There’s a Pharmax down the street,” he said, blandly. “We can get you some proper oil.”

A glare, as if Megatron had broken some sacred bond, some covenant in even acknowledging the other’s pain, but the glare crumbled, something melting behind the optics, as he guessed, somehow, what had happened to Megatron during his incarceration.

“Hmmph,” Impactor muttered, “Probably just here to sling more poetry at me when I can’t run away.”

Megatron heard, under the words, the clawing after normalcy, the rough attempt to invoke their friendship. He felt a grin, dry and wide, but hopeful, spread over his mouth.

[***]

“…Megatron.” Impactor’s voice, as harsh and blunt as ever, from the battered helm. His expression was unreadable, a sort of rictus of pain. Clench’s repair techs crowded around him, rubber treads squeaking in the garish spill of fluids in the repair-bay floor, floating in a haze of pain.

The tone betrayed neither surprise nor pleasure, as if he always knew this moment would come, and that he would find it distasteful.

Megatron snorted. Impactor had always accused him of rhetorical fancies. “You don’t sound pleased to see me.” He had seen Impactor's match, and had felt a swell of recognition and pride--two things he rarely allowed himself to feel anymore.

“Pleased.” Impactor’s lipplates ground down, as though crushing an obscenity, fighting for consciousness . “This what you wanted?” He waved the stump of one arm, splattering the faceplate of one of the repairtechs. “Beating mechs half to death is an improvement on the mines?”

“An improvement on the Rig,” Megatron said, flatly. Impactor seemed to have forgotten: he’d had no choice. Prison or this. This, at least, he could make something of. “And tell me you’d have gone quietly.” A challenge, almost fond.

“Hmph.” Impactor glared at him, which was, in his language, an acknowledgement. But Megatron knew it was just a pause before the other found another angle of attack. “This what all your pretty poetry was aiming for?”

“Pretty words,” Megatron said, wryly, “as you always told me, were a waste of charge.”

“And that’s not.” A chin point to the cannon on his arm, still new, still gleaming.

“Not at all,” Megatron said, easily. He rested one knee on the side of the repair cradle, enough to rock it to one side. He’d come off the Pit floor more intact, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t hurting. His left ankle gyro was wrenched, and his right knee had a cut coolant line, blue fluid spurting fitfully between the plates. “You remember.” A quirk of a smile, dusting off an old argument between them. “As you told me, pain is the universal language.”

Impactor leaned back against the cradle, glowering. “Thought you were better than me.”

“Am I?” A smirking challenge.

Impactor’s glance raked down his battered chassis, taking in all of the mods he’d had since he’d begun this hard, new life. “Not anymore.” He sounded almost…disappointed.

[***]

“Now,” Megatron said, his voice low and sensual, like a lover’s, “Do I kill you, or not?” He knew Impactor would parse the question, know what he was truly asking: how far did the loyalty forged in the dark mines go?

Impactor stood before him, defiant, almost as though willing the two guards flanking him invisible. That had always been Impactor’s way. Behind them, Nyon burned, Centurion droids storming the streets. And he…caught on the wrong side.

“Do you?” The orange optics were wary, hostile, but unafraid. Impactor was never afraid. And Megatron felt a twinge: if he could win Impactor to his side, his goals. His first friend, his first ally. If only.

But the world was running out of ‘if only’s; choices and decisions and allegiances created a haze of obligations, a morass of the real that made speculation seem absurd. The fog of war, it was called, but to Megatron it merely seemed a haze, a dense mass of quantum probabilities knotting together. This is merely one of millions, he tried to tell himself. One minor choice, one infinitesimal branch. But still, waiting for Impactor’s answer hurt more than any pain he’d felt before.

Grey Haze

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