[TFA] Hard Truths
a/n: In honor of getting ready to write like three updates of this *fingers crossed*, have an update that I forgot I had in my 'To Post' folder. Also, self-edited so any mistakes are mine.
Title: Hard Truths
Universe: Art of Self Destruction, TFA S2 AU
Characters: Optimus, Megatron, Barricade, Blackarachnia
Rating: T
Warning: None
Description: Torn after recent revelations, Optimus gets advice from an unexpected place.
For dellessa's May flash fiction friday prompt of Megatron/Optimus, trapped
Megatron is exactly where Optimus expects him to be. And with recent knowledge still burning through his processor, Optimus has no qualms on barging in on the Decepticon leader. Megatron hasn't killed him yet, obviously wants him here, and right now, it would almost be a mercy if Megatron does shoot him.
At least then he won't be tense wondering if Megatron's going to do it or not.
But Megatron doesn't. He simply looks up when Optimus enters and gestures to the empty seat in front of his desk. The monitor behind him is dark. Optimus had interrupted nothing. Pity.
Optimus glares as he drops into the offered chair. He crosses his arms over his chest, just waiting for some self-aggrandizing trash to come spilling out of Megatron's mouth.
Megatron puts down his stylus and leans back in his chair. “You must have questions,” he says.
Optimus twitches. “Questions,” he repeats flatly. “That's what you're going to lead with.”
“I considered 'I told you so' but felt it was beneath both of us.” Megatron gestures toward him. “I assume you read the information that I provided.”
“It's not going to make me defect,” Optimus snaps, tension gripping him inside and out. “No matter how you think my origins define me. I'm still an Autobot.”
“Of course you are,” Megatron says casually, as though he hadn't considered otherwise. “But I do think you had a right to know the truth. I won't pretend, however, that I don't see it as proof.”
“Proof,” Optimus repeats again.
Megatron's lips pull into a slow, careful smile. His denta seem especially sharp. “That you've always been one of us.”
There it goes again, a ripple of anger and indignation and beneath it all, where he doesn't want to admit, the fear. That he doesn't belong with the Autobots. That he never has. Because he's not a hero, he's not good enough, and when is he going to learn that all he'll ever be is a cog?
Worse in it all is that Optimus knows Megatron isn't lying. The data hadn't been falsified. He'd recognized all of the originator stamps on it. He'd thought, at first, that maybe it had been doctored. That Megatron had somehow found a way to manipulate the system, transmit data that didn't actually exist.
Until he realized that it all makes a scary sort of sense. And then he'd been horrified, at himself mostly, for daring to believe in the words of a Decepticon.
Optimus scrubs his hands down his thigh plating. “I'm not like you,” he bites out and his gaze wanders away from Megatron, to the stacks of datapads on the warlord's desk, where it is safer. “I'm nothing like any of you.”
“Say it enough times and you may even convince yourself,” Megatron says, more a murmur. His chair creaks as he leans forward, toward Optimus. “Why are you an Autobot?”
Optimus cycles his optics. “What?”
Megatron plants his elbows on his desk and laces his fingers together. Only then does Optimus notice he's not even bearing his cannon.
“Why are you an Autobot?” Megatron asks, in all seriousness. “What choice did you make that encourages you to be so certain that you do not want to join me?”
Optimus stares at him. “Choice?”
“You say you will never defect, that you are not one of us,” Megatron says, and there's something cutting in his gaze, that slices straight through to Optimus' spark. “What makes you so certain? When did you decide you were an Autobot? Why are you so loyal to them?”
He isn't sure he understands the question. And perhaps his confusion shows on his face because Megatron continues without further prompting on Optimus' part.
“You are an Autobot because it is all you've ever known. You don't think to question your orders because you have been taught to obey. And all I'm asking you is to tell me why you are so loyal to the Autobots. Why you are convinced that you'll never be anything else.”
Optimus frowns. His optics narrow. “Because I'm not a murderer.”
“And neither, I suppose, are the Autobots.”
Optimus works his jaw. His ventilations stutter and his hands pull in and out of fists. The anger crops up again, and it leaks into his field before he can fully rein it in.
“I know they aren't perfect,” Optimus grits out, because that damning datacube had been proof enough. “But that's not enough reason to side with someone like you.”
“Like me?” Now Megatron is amused as he leans back, making himself comfortable. “Tell me, Autobot, what am I?”
That's a trap. One Optimus isn't walking into.
He thrusts himself to his pedes and Megatron doesn't so much as flinch. Neither does he look surprised. He only stares evenly at Optimus as though waiting.
“You are the mech who took me prisoner and then allowed me free in some sort of sick game that I'm tired of playing,” Optimus hisses. “I know you don't respect me, but you could at least give me the courtesy of remembering that I'm not stupid.”
He spins on a heel strut and stalks toward the door. His backplates rustle, clamping down, half-expecting the blast to the back. Surely Megatron will not condone anyone talking to him like that, much less a loathed Autobot.
“Optimus.”
The door slides open in front of him and Optimus would have gone through it, were it not for rarity of Megatron calling him by name rather than by title. He half-turns, acknowledging Megatron, but refusing to meet his optics.
“We are taking Cybertron back in three orns. It is your choice where you stand when the curtain falls.”
Optimus' fingers rap on the frame. “The Autobots will stop you,” he says curtly and he leaves before Megatron can refute him.
He has a sudden and desperate urge to do some damage right now and he can't make the mistake of directing that toward Megatron. Optimus is under no illusions that he can take Megatron down in a fight, fair or otherwise, and especially not weaponless. Megatron outmasses him in every way that matters.
Perhaps Onslaught will be so inclined, however. Or one of his other sparring partners, though Onslaught is preferred because he's the one who seems to bother Megatron the most.
Optimus roams the hallways, seeking out all the usual haunts. Onslaught is not in his quarters or on shift. Neither is he in any of the training rooms or refueling stations.
When he enters the refueling station on gamma deck for the third time, Optimus gets an answer as to why.
“He's not here,” Barricade calls out to him. The smaller Decepticon currently lounges at a table nearest the door, claws spinning an empty barrel of oil.
Optimus tosses him a look. “I am not blind.”
Barricade shrugs, making his shoulders bounce. “Didn't say ya were. Just telling you. Onslaught's not here. As in, he's not on this ship.” He lifts his barrel and then frowns as if noticing that it's empty.
Optimus' optics narrow. He gets closer to Barricade, who is among his least favorite of the Decepticons he's directly interacted with. “Where is he?”
“Transferred. To Kalis' Lament. Strika's ship.”
“Why?”
Barricade smirks as he lowers the barrel and starts to fiddle with it again. “If I were to guess, I'd say it's because he doesn't know how to keep his hands to himself.”
Optimus' jaw drops before he can stop himself. “Who did he..?”
“Are you really that naïve, Prime?” Barricade hauls himself to his pedes, swaying a little as though he's imbibed a bit of high grade. “Megatron don't like when other mechs touch his things. And Onslaught was skirting the line by getting close to you.”
Optimus shakes his helm, backpedaling. “I don't know what you're talking about.”
Barricade snorts and drains the last of his barrel, smacking it back onto the table. “For a mech who claims he isn't blind, you sure don't see much.” He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, all four optics blinking at Optimus. “Good thing you aren't gonna be one of us. You wouldn't last ten kliks.”
“Your leader seems to believe otherwise,” Optimus says. It is pointless to be offended, but there it is, rising up within him, a feeling of inadequacy.
It doesn't help that his current situation is all a result of his own immense failure.
Barricade rolls his shoulders dismissively, the tires setting off into a spin. “He's been wrong before.”
Barricade throws a wave over his shoulder and strides out of the refueling station, meeting up with the rotary Optimus tends to see him with all the time. Grinder, he thinks is the mech's name, but he can't be sure because they haven't been introduced.
Optimus drags a hand down his face and leaves the refueling station, though he goes the opposite direction from Barricade. The smaller Decepticon has never been friendly toward him. In fact, that conversation is perhaps the nicest Barricade has ever been to him. Which says a lot.
To be fair, most of the Decepticons treat Optimus with a fair amount of disregard. Some hold a chilly disdain, others find him a fascinating specimen to be observed. It's arguable whether Flatline's fawning treatment is preferable. Optimus has taken to avoiding the medbay at all costs.
No one ever goes to the observation deck. Optimus supposes that Decepticons have better things to do than to stare out into base. But as for Optimus? He doesn't have any duties and right now, solitude is the better course.
He keys open the door to the observation deck and steps inside, only to draw up short. For once, it's not deserted, and one of the last people he would have expected to see is standing inside. She turns at the sound of the door opening, but her expression doesn't betray nearly the same amount of surprise as Optimus'.
“Optimus,” she purrs, tilting her helm toward him. “Isn't this fortuitous? And here I thought I'd have to track you down.”
Optimus steps further onto the deck as the door slid shut behind him. “I didn't know you were onboard,” he says. He instantly feels the lack of his weaponry and wonders if any of his new training will help keep him alive.
“Recently onboard,” she corrects and grins at him with a mouthful of fanged denta. “Prisoner transfer.”
Optimus' orbital ridge flattens. “Prisoner,” he repeats only to startle. “Autobot prisoners?” Had Megatron brought Rodimus and his team onboard this ship? For what purpose?
Blackarachnia flicks one of her hands in a dismissive pattern. “Hah. He wishes he were an Autobot. That might actually make Megatron more merciful.”
“Who?”
“Well, I think if Megatron wanted you to know, he would have told you.” Blackarachnia's grin widens as she struts around him in a circle, her tone thoughtful. “So, Optimus, you're a Decepticon now.”
“No!” Optimus grimaces as the denial comes out a lot more forcefully than he intended. He ex-vents. “I mean... yes. I mean... frag, I don't know.” His shoulders slump.
“Wow. And I thought I had problems.” Blackarachnia pauses directly in front of him, her gaze raking him up and down.
“Yeah.” Optimus throws himself into one of the benches, well aware that he appears like a petulant new-spark. “I thought you were still on Earth.”
Blackarachnia leans against the back of the bench, her purr traveling straight to his audial and making him shiver. “Yes, well, Strika presented better opportunity.”
“And then she sent you here.”
“I volunteered. Heard a little rumor about Megatron's new project and had to see for myself.” Her finger tickles at his audial and Optimus flinches away from her. She smirks. “And what do you know, the rumors are true.”
He shakes his helm. “It's not like that.”
“Isn't it?” Her finger drags up his shoulder, pulling a burr of metal on metal. “Any other Autobot would find himself in chains and in a cell. Or dead. And yet here you are, wandering free through his warship.”
She has a point, as little as Optimus doesn't want to admit it. He crosses his arms and angles his shoulders away from her. “He seems to think he can convince me to change sides.”
“Is it working?”
Optimus frowns and stares into the distance. He doesn't know if he can answer that question honestly or not. Because up until two days ago, he would have swore upon his very spark that he would never betray the Autobots and join the Deepticons. But up until two days ago, he'd been under the mistaken impression that he was Autobot through and through.
“Oh, I know that brooding face. I remember that brooding face.” Blackarachnia circles around the bench and plops down next to him, crossing her legs. “Talk to me, Optimus. For old times sake.”
He gives her a sour look. “You tried to kill Sari.”
Her hand flicks dismissively. “Collateral damage. She had something I needed.”
“Wanted,” Optimus corrects.
She pokes him in the side, right through a seam bared by his crossed arms. He quickly jerks them back down as she laughs at him.
“Are you going to argue semantics with me all day? Because it's not going to give you the answers you're looking for.” She tilts her helm down at him and he's given the impression her optics are seeing right through him.
Some things don't change, even when the rest of the world has.
She bumps shoulders with him, her field a staticky whirl of unpleasant emotion and sensation. With her organic half comes a more difficult time reading her. It makes Optimus' processor ache to try.
“Come on, Optimus. Didn't we use to be close?”
“Until I let you die.”
Blackarachnia examines her talons, the overhead lighting catching the sharp edges. “Mmm. Yes. There was that.” She glances at him. “You left me to die, I turned into this hideous creature, and joined the Decepticons. Funny how life turns out, isn't it? Because here you are and here I am, and we're both with the Decepticons.”
“I'm not--” Optimus bites off, frustration eating into his field.
“Aren't you?”
Optimus turns his helm away from her and rubs a hand down his face. “I'm not an Autobot,” he admits.
“I gathered that much.”
“No, I mean. I'm not... Autobot.” He gestures toward himself, his frame, encapsulating everything he is beneath the armor and behind his spark. “Deep down, beneath the paint, I was supposed to be a Decepticon.”
Her stabilizers tip-tap on the floor. “Sorry, Optimus, but that doesn't make any sense.”
“I know,” Optimus groans and he tilts forward, his elbows grinding on his knees. “But it also does. I mean, I always felt something wasn't right. But I could never figure out what it was.”
“Actually, you might have a point.”
He looks at her and finds Blackarachnia tapping one elegant talon against her chin. “You always asked questions. Our instructors were always shushing you.”
“I remember.”
She points at him. “So you're a Decepticon.”
“I'm not! I'm an Autobot!” Optimus leaps to his stabilizers, pacing as the agitation settles into his spark. “Whatever my protoform was shouldn't matter.”
Blackarachnia shrugs. “Okay then. You're an Autobot.”
“It's not that simple!”
“Isn't it?”
“Nothing ever is.”
She laughs, and it's not a pleasant sound. “You're telling me.”
Shame crowds out the frustration. Optimus spins on a heel and stops, his helm bowed. His ventilations are ragged and he shouldn't be this worked up over a small detail, but he is. Because that small detail has wrecked merry havoc over his entire existence!
He looks at Blackarachnia, comfortably sprawled over the bench now that he's vacated it. “Why did you join the Decepticons?”
Her optics narrow. “Because I couldn't be me and be an Autobot.” Her tone is flippant but Optimus isn't fooled.
He's more than aware of Sentinel's fear of organics and knows that same fear is shared by a good portion of Cybertronian mecha.
“And at least here, I don't have to pretend,” Blackarachnia adds.
“What do you mean?”
“Have you even looked at the Decepticons?” Blackarachnia makes a broad gesture, encapsulating the entire ship. “How many of them have you seen that look alike?”
“Not many,” Optimus admits. Not that he's seen the entirety of the Decepticon armada. In fact, the closest he's seen to duplicates are Starscream's clones.
“Exactly. They'll take anyone who's willing to work, to be useful, no matter how small. The Autobots? If you don't fit in their mold, if you're a maladjusted cog, you're tossed aside.”
“That's not true.”
Blackarachnia snorts. “Of course it is. You just never saw it. You never wanted to see it.” She rises to her stabilizers and plants her hands on her hips. “That's your problem, Optimus. You see too much of the good in people. And you ask all the wrong questions.”
“What should I be asking?”
She looks at him and he almost sees pity in her optics, which is an abrupt turnaround. “I never thought I'd see the day you were more lost than I am.” She shakes her helm. “I can't solve this for you, Optimus.”
He watches her go, leaving him alone on the observation deck. Optimus sighs and slumps back into the bench, tilting his helm back. The stars are visible through the windscreen above him, rushing by in a rapid pace toward their destination.
Cybertron. And whatever Megatron's end game is.
Optimus doesn't have long to make his choice.
***
a/n: And the cast expands. This is my first time writing Blackarachnia so my apologies if I completely mangled her character. I had fun writing her though. So hopefully I nailed her.
Slowly but surely getting a hold on where this story is going. All the background anyway. Megatron and Optimus aren't cooperating in figuring out when they are going to start clanging, but I hold out hope for them.
As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.
This entry was originally posted at http://dracoqueen22.dreamwidth.org/291220.html. Feel free to comment wherever you find most convenient.
Title: Hard Truths
Universe: Art of Self Destruction, TFA S2 AU
Characters: Optimus, Megatron, Barricade, Blackarachnia
Rating: T
Warning: None
Description: Torn after recent revelations, Optimus gets advice from an unexpected place.
For dellessa's May flash fiction friday prompt of Megatron/Optimus, trapped
Megatron is exactly where Optimus expects him to be. And with recent knowledge still burning through his processor, Optimus has no qualms on barging in on the Decepticon leader. Megatron hasn't killed him yet, obviously wants him here, and right now, it would almost be a mercy if Megatron does shoot him.
At least then he won't be tense wondering if Megatron's going to do it or not.
But Megatron doesn't. He simply looks up when Optimus enters and gestures to the empty seat in front of his desk. The monitor behind him is dark. Optimus had interrupted nothing. Pity.
Optimus glares as he drops into the offered chair. He crosses his arms over his chest, just waiting for some self-aggrandizing trash to come spilling out of Megatron's mouth.
Megatron puts down his stylus and leans back in his chair. “You must have questions,” he says.
Optimus twitches. “Questions,” he repeats flatly. “That's what you're going to lead with.”
“I considered 'I told you so' but felt it was beneath both of us.” Megatron gestures toward him. “I assume you read the information that I provided.”
“It's not going to make me defect,” Optimus snaps, tension gripping him inside and out. “No matter how you think my origins define me. I'm still an Autobot.”
“Of course you are,” Megatron says casually, as though he hadn't considered otherwise. “But I do think you had a right to know the truth. I won't pretend, however, that I don't see it as proof.”
“Proof,” Optimus repeats again.
Megatron's lips pull into a slow, careful smile. His denta seem especially sharp. “That you've always been one of us.”
There it goes again, a ripple of anger and indignation and beneath it all, where he doesn't want to admit, the fear. That he doesn't belong with the Autobots. That he never has. Because he's not a hero, he's not good enough, and when is he going to learn that all he'll ever be is a cog?
Worse in it all is that Optimus knows Megatron isn't lying. The data hadn't been falsified. He'd recognized all of the originator stamps on it. He'd thought, at first, that maybe it had been doctored. That Megatron had somehow found a way to manipulate the system, transmit data that didn't actually exist.
Until he realized that it all makes a scary sort of sense. And then he'd been horrified, at himself mostly, for daring to believe in the words of a Decepticon.
Optimus scrubs his hands down his thigh plating. “I'm not like you,” he bites out and his gaze wanders away from Megatron, to the stacks of datapads on the warlord's desk, where it is safer. “I'm nothing like any of you.”
“Say it enough times and you may even convince yourself,” Megatron says, more a murmur. His chair creaks as he leans forward, toward Optimus. “Why are you an Autobot?”
Optimus cycles his optics. “What?”
Megatron plants his elbows on his desk and laces his fingers together. Only then does Optimus notice he's not even bearing his cannon.
“Why are you an Autobot?” Megatron asks, in all seriousness. “What choice did you make that encourages you to be so certain that you do not want to join me?”
Optimus stares at him. “Choice?”
“You say you will never defect, that you are not one of us,” Megatron says, and there's something cutting in his gaze, that slices straight through to Optimus' spark. “What makes you so certain? When did you decide you were an Autobot? Why are you so loyal to them?”
He isn't sure he understands the question. And perhaps his confusion shows on his face because Megatron continues without further prompting on Optimus' part.
“You are an Autobot because it is all you've ever known. You don't think to question your orders because you have been taught to obey. And all I'm asking you is to tell me why you are so loyal to the Autobots. Why you are convinced that you'll never be anything else.”
Optimus frowns. His optics narrow. “Because I'm not a murderer.”
“And neither, I suppose, are the Autobots.”
Optimus works his jaw. His ventilations stutter and his hands pull in and out of fists. The anger crops up again, and it leaks into his field before he can fully rein it in.
“I know they aren't perfect,” Optimus grits out, because that damning datacube had been proof enough. “But that's not enough reason to side with someone like you.”
“Like me?” Now Megatron is amused as he leans back, making himself comfortable. “Tell me, Autobot, what am I?”
That's a trap. One Optimus isn't walking into.
He thrusts himself to his pedes and Megatron doesn't so much as flinch. Neither does he look surprised. He only stares evenly at Optimus as though waiting.
“You are the mech who took me prisoner and then allowed me free in some sort of sick game that I'm tired of playing,” Optimus hisses. “I know you don't respect me, but you could at least give me the courtesy of remembering that I'm not stupid.”
He spins on a heel strut and stalks toward the door. His backplates rustle, clamping down, half-expecting the blast to the back. Surely Megatron will not condone anyone talking to him like that, much less a loathed Autobot.
“Optimus.”
The door slides open in front of him and Optimus would have gone through it, were it not for rarity of Megatron calling him by name rather than by title. He half-turns, acknowledging Megatron, but refusing to meet his optics.
“We are taking Cybertron back in three orns. It is your choice where you stand when the curtain falls.”
Optimus' fingers rap on the frame. “The Autobots will stop you,” he says curtly and he leaves before Megatron can refute him.
He has a sudden and desperate urge to do some damage right now and he can't make the mistake of directing that toward Megatron. Optimus is under no illusions that he can take Megatron down in a fight, fair or otherwise, and especially not weaponless. Megatron outmasses him in every way that matters.
Perhaps Onslaught will be so inclined, however. Or one of his other sparring partners, though Onslaught is preferred because he's the one who seems to bother Megatron the most.
Optimus roams the hallways, seeking out all the usual haunts. Onslaught is not in his quarters or on shift. Neither is he in any of the training rooms or refueling stations.
When he enters the refueling station on gamma deck for the third time, Optimus gets an answer as to why.
“He's not here,” Barricade calls out to him. The smaller Decepticon currently lounges at a table nearest the door, claws spinning an empty barrel of oil.
Optimus tosses him a look. “I am not blind.”
Barricade shrugs, making his shoulders bounce. “Didn't say ya were. Just telling you. Onslaught's not here. As in, he's not on this ship.” He lifts his barrel and then frowns as if noticing that it's empty.
Optimus' optics narrow. He gets closer to Barricade, who is among his least favorite of the Decepticons he's directly interacted with. “Where is he?”
“Transferred. To Kalis' Lament. Strika's ship.”
“Why?”
Barricade smirks as he lowers the barrel and starts to fiddle with it again. “If I were to guess, I'd say it's because he doesn't know how to keep his hands to himself.”
Optimus' jaw drops before he can stop himself. “Who did he..?”
“Are you really that naïve, Prime?” Barricade hauls himself to his pedes, swaying a little as though he's imbibed a bit of high grade. “Megatron don't like when other mechs touch his things. And Onslaught was skirting the line by getting close to you.”
Optimus shakes his helm, backpedaling. “I don't know what you're talking about.”
Barricade snorts and drains the last of his barrel, smacking it back onto the table. “For a mech who claims he isn't blind, you sure don't see much.” He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, all four optics blinking at Optimus. “Good thing you aren't gonna be one of us. You wouldn't last ten kliks.”
“Your leader seems to believe otherwise,” Optimus says. It is pointless to be offended, but there it is, rising up within him, a feeling of inadequacy.
It doesn't help that his current situation is all a result of his own immense failure.
Barricade rolls his shoulders dismissively, the tires setting off into a spin. “He's been wrong before.”
Barricade throws a wave over his shoulder and strides out of the refueling station, meeting up with the rotary Optimus tends to see him with all the time. Grinder, he thinks is the mech's name, but he can't be sure because they haven't been introduced.
Optimus drags a hand down his face and leaves the refueling station, though he goes the opposite direction from Barricade. The smaller Decepticon has never been friendly toward him. In fact, that conversation is perhaps the nicest Barricade has ever been to him. Which says a lot.
To be fair, most of the Decepticons treat Optimus with a fair amount of disregard. Some hold a chilly disdain, others find him a fascinating specimen to be observed. It's arguable whether Flatline's fawning treatment is preferable. Optimus has taken to avoiding the medbay at all costs.
No one ever goes to the observation deck. Optimus supposes that Decepticons have better things to do than to stare out into base. But as for Optimus? He doesn't have any duties and right now, solitude is the better course.
He keys open the door to the observation deck and steps inside, only to draw up short. For once, it's not deserted, and one of the last people he would have expected to see is standing inside. She turns at the sound of the door opening, but her expression doesn't betray nearly the same amount of surprise as Optimus'.
“Optimus,” she purrs, tilting her helm toward him. “Isn't this fortuitous? And here I thought I'd have to track you down.”
Optimus steps further onto the deck as the door slid shut behind him. “I didn't know you were onboard,” he says. He instantly feels the lack of his weaponry and wonders if any of his new training will help keep him alive.
“Recently onboard,” she corrects and grins at him with a mouthful of fanged denta. “Prisoner transfer.”
Optimus' orbital ridge flattens. “Prisoner,” he repeats only to startle. “Autobot prisoners?” Had Megatron brought Rodimus and his team onboard this ship? For what purpose?
Blackarachnia flicks one of her hands in a dismissive pattern. “Hah. He wishes he were an Autobot. That might actually make Megatron more merciful.”
“Who?”
“Well, I think if Megatron wanted you to know, he would have told you.” Blackarachnia's grin widens as she struts around him in a circle, her tone thoughtful. “So, Optimus, you're a Decepticon now.”
“No!” Optimus grimaces as the denial comes out a lot more forcefully than he intended. He ex-vents. “I mean... yes. I mean... frag, I don't know.” His shoulders slump.
“Wow. And I thought I had problems.” Blackarachnia pauses directly in front of him, her gaze raking him up and down.
“Yeah.” Optimus throws himself into one of the benches, well aware that he appears like a petulant new-spark. “I thought you were still on Earth.”
Blackarachnia leans against the back of the bench, her purr traveling straight to his audial and making him shiver. “Yes, well, Strika presented better opportunity.”
“And then she sent you here.”
“I volunteered. Heard a little rumor about Megatron's new project and had to see for myself.” Her finger tickles at his audial and Optimus flinches away from her. She smirks. “And what do you know, the rumors are true.”
He shakes his helm. “It's not like that.”
“Isn't it?” Her finger drags up his shoulder, pulling a burr of metal on metal. “Any other Autobot would find himself in chains and in a cell. Or dead. And yet here you are, wandering free through his warship.”
She has a point, as little as Optimus doesn't want to admit it. He crosses his arms and angles his shoulders away from her. “He seems to think he can convince me to change sides.”
“Is it working?”
Optimus frowns and stares into the distance. He doesn't know if he can answer that question honestly or not. Because up until two days ago, he would have swore upon his very spark that he would never betray the Autobots and join the Deepticons. But up until two days ago, he'd been under the mistaken impression that he was Autobot through and through.
“Oh, I know that brooding face. I remember that brooding face.” Blackarachnia circles around the bench and plops down next to him, crossing her legs. “Talk to me, Optimus. For old times sake.”
He gives her a sour look. “You tried to kill Sari.”
Her hand flicks dismissively. “Collateral damage. She had something I needed.”
“Wanted,” Optimus corrects.
She pokes him in the side, right through a seam bared by his crossed arms. He quickly jerks them back down as she laughs at him.
“Are you going to argue semantics with me all day? Because it's not going to give you the answers you're looking for.” She tilts her helm down at him and he's given the impression her optics are seeing right through him.
Some things don't change, even when the rest of the world has.
She bumps shoulders with him, her field a staticky whirl of unpleasant emotion and sensation. With her organic half comes a more difficult time reading her. It makes Optimus' processor ache to try.
“Come on, Optimus. Didn't we use to be close?”
“Until I let you die.”
Blackarachnia examines her talons, the overhead lighting catching the sharp edges. “Mmm. Yes. There was that.” She glances at him. “You left me to die, I turned into this hideous creature, and joined the Decepticons. Funny how life turns out, isn't it? Because here you are and here I am, and we're both with the Decepticons.”
“I'm not--” Optimus bites off, frustration eating into his field.
“Aren't you?”
Optimus turns his helm away from her and rubs a hand down his face. “I'm not an Autobot,” he admits.
“I gathered that much.”
“No, I mean. I'm not... Autobot.” He gestures toward himself, his frame, encapsulating everything he is beneath the armor and behind his spark. “Deep down, beneath the paint, I was supposed to be a Decepticon.”
Her stabilizers tip-tap on the floor. “Sorry, Optimus, but that doesn't make any sense.”
“I know,” Optimus groans and he tilts forward, his elbows grinding on his knees. “But it also does. I mean, I always felt something wasn't right. But I could never figure out what it was.”
“Actually, you might have a point.”
He looks at her and finds Blackarachnia tapping one elegant talon against her chin. “You always asked questions. Our instructors were always shushing you.”
“I remember.”
She points at him. “So you're a Decepticon.”
“I'm not! I'm an Autobot!” Optimus leaps to his stabilizers, pacing as the agitation settles into his spark. “Whatever my protoform was shouldn't matter.”
Blackarachnia shrugs. “Okay then. You're an Autobot.”
“It's not that simple!”
“Isn't it?”
“Nothing ever is.”
She laughs, and it's not a pleasant sound. “You're telling me.”
Shame crowds out the frustration. Optimus spins on a heel and stops, his helm bowed. His ventilations are ragged and he shouldn't be this worked up over a small detail, but he is. Because that small detail has wrecked merry havoc over his entire existence!
He looks at Blackarachnia, comfortably sprawled over the bench now that he's vacated it. “Why did you join the Decepticons?”
Her optics narrow. “Because I couldn't be me and be an Autobot.” Her tone is flippant but Optimus isn't fooled.
He's more than aware of Sentinel's fear of organics and knows that same fear is shared by a good portion of Cybertronian mecha.
“And at least here, I don't have to pretend,” Blackarachnia adds.
“What do you mean?”
“Have you even looked at the Decepticons?” Blackarachnia makes a broad gesture, encapsulating the entire ship. “How many of them have you seen that look alike?”
“Not many,” Optimus admits. Not that he's seen the entirety of the Decepticon armada. In fact, the closest he's seen to duplicates are Starscream's clones.
“Exactly. They'll take anyone who's willing to work, to be useful, no matter how small. The Autobots? If you don't fit in their mold, if you're a maladjusted cog, you're tossed aside.”
“That's not true.”
Blackarachnia snorts. “Of course it is. You just never saw it. You never wanted to see it.” She rises to her stabilizers and plants her hands on her hips. “That's your problem, Optimus. You see too much of the good in people. And you ask all the wrong questions.”
“What should I be asking?”
She looks at him and he almost sees pity in her optics, which is an abrupt turnaround. “I never thought I'd see the day you were more lost than I am.” She shakes her helm. “I can't solve this for you, Optimus.”
He watches her go, leaving him alone on the observation deck. Optimus sighs and slumps back into the bench, tilting his helm back. The stars are visible through the windscreen above him, rushing by in a rapid pace toward their destination.
Cybertron. And whatever Megatron's end game is.
Optimus doesn't have long to make his choice.
***
a/n: And the cast expands. This is my first time writing Blackarachnia so my apologies if I completely mangled her character. I had fun writing her though. So hopefully I nailed her.
Slowly but surely getting a hold on where this story is going. All the background anyway. Megatron and Optimus aren't cooperating in figuring out when they are going to start clanging, but I hold out hope for them.
As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.
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