I've Done It Again

Chapter 5: Compulsion

"And," Optimus held out his servos, which were still bound by the cuffs, "I can't get these off."

Megatron looked at them for a moment before smirking and turning around. "Well, I'm certainly not helping you."

Wow. Optimus didn't want to admit that he was surprised, but he was. He sighed before lowering his arms and following behind Megatron.

"Do you know where Knockout is?" Optimus asked.

"Yes."

Optimus nodded. "Did you keep in touch with him after I died?"

"No."

"What exactly did you do after everything went down?" Optimus questioned. "And you never told me how you died either."

Megatron growled. "Is there a reason you're so annoyingly talkative?"

"Is there a reason you're avoiding answering me?"

He turned around suddenly. "Is there a reason you expect me to explain why I died when you're death was so incredibly selfish?"

Optimus didn't understand. "I died to put the Allspark back into the core of Cybertron. Our planet is alive because I wasn't. What about that is selfish to you?"

"You thought you could just bring the planet back and not yourself?" Megatron demanded. "You won the war and then left everything to your subordinates. You built your cause on the promise of a perfect future where everyone was happy, but the moment that future was in sight, you went ahead and killed yourself. Now take a look around. It might look like the start of a new beginning for our people, but it has been doomed from the moment you flew down the Well. How can you promise to make the world a better place and then refuse to be there?!"

Optimus stepped back and looked down. "I didn't know you felt that way."

"Does it matter how I feel?" Megatron snapped. "You entrusted the future to a bunch of fools and thought things would turn out better than they were before the war. We haven't even been here for an entire day and we've already been robbed, kidnapped, and semi-wrongly imprisoned."

"And I'm not happy about that," Optimus stated. "I hope that it will get better, but you must understand that I never intended to stay on Cybertron if we won the war."

"What?"

Optimus looked up. "Can you imagine the corruption? What would have happened if I was here? I would have become the mech in charge of everything. I would have ran Cybertron, regardless of the existence of a council or checks for power. Even if we put Decepticons in power, they would feel as if the entire system was rigged and they would be right. Nobody would listen to them so long as I gave my opinion. I have too much political power, too much influence, to ever ensure a fair government."

"And without you, do you believe they could ever achieve a government without corruption?"

"Probably not," Optimus admitted. "I had hoped that my team would fight it though. Keep it from getting too out of hand, but instead, the war had an even better outcome. You surrendered the Decepticons. You were at least partially reformed. Autobots are extremely unlikely to want to follow you, and they won the war, so they still have political power. It would have been the perfect balance of power, and I know you. You would hate to see corruption take form in Cybertron's new beginning. It was perfect... but then you died."

Megatron stood there, dumbfounded. "You expected me to take part in politics?"

"Well, after Unicron, you were different," Optimus said. "So long as you didn't restart the war, what could have gone wrong?"

He scoffed. "You expected me to do what you couldn't," he turned around and continued walking. "Like I said, your death was selfish. You should have tried harder."

Optimus sighed and the two of them resumed walking. It was a long way to go and Optimus preoccupied himself with watching out for law enforcement officers who might have their descriptions... it would be nice if they knew what their own frames looked like. Getting caught again would not do them any good. They had to veer off course multiple times to avoid surveillance. Optimus earned himself a left hook from Megatron when he tried to deter the ex-warlord from destroying a pesky camera bot.

At this rate, Megatron was getting rather dangerous and his frame couldn't handle the abuse. Optimus never realized how weak his frame (compared to Megatron) was until he lost his ability to defend himself. If Optimus wanted to live long enough to get the matrix of leadership and bring it back into trusted servos, he was going to need to work on his relationship with Megatron.

That was an easier goal than one would imagine. Before the war formally began, they'd been good friends—closer than friends. Optimus tried not to think about it much, especially since so many of his memories from Orion were so incredibly painful and unhelpful to his goals as a Prime, but even knowing they'd been in a relationship did nothing to help. Optimus tried everything he knew to keep Megatron under control, even if he knew he couldn't avoid a war with him. The prophecy declared as much. But now they were in uncharted territory.

Maybe this could be fixed.

But how? Megatron would notice anything conventional. He might have grown up in a mine and then fought for blood in the pits, but his mind was as sharp as his sword. Luckily, Optimus knew quite a few tactics that Megatron wouldn't notice. He spent a lot of time on Earth, around the humans, and he had a particular trick he learned from Miko that seemed to have worked on Jack and Bulkhead a few times. Optimus himself didn't entirely understand it, but it was worth a shot.

Optimus sped up and started walking next to Megatron instead of behind him. "Imagine falling into a hole with a bunch of guinea pigs."

Megatron stopped walking. "What?"

"Can you imagine it?"

"Are you threatening me?" Megatron demanded, grabbing his arm aggressively. "I don't know what guinea pigs are, but in return, you should know that I will stick you in a cell with your extremities bound and let one scraplet in so that it may feast on your frame slowly and painfully. I'll drop by every so often to feed you and nurse your wounds, ensuring you live long enough to feel the full extent of the torture."

How did this go so wrong so fast?

"No, no! I'm sorry," Optimus told him quickly. "Forget I said anything."

Megatron narrowed his optics and scowled at him for just a moment longer before letting go and continuing down the road.

"Idiot."