Chapter Text
For the first time in what felt like his whole existence, Optimus Prime knew peace.
The burden of leadership no longer weighed on his shoulders. He had done what he needed to - what was expected of him. What he believed in. His spark for the good of thousands - it was an easy decision to make. The others, his dearest friends and comrades, no longer had need of him. Finally, with the war finished, with the Decepticons disbanded, with Megatron disappearing into self-exile -
He could rest. He could rest, and allow all of the burdens and guilts and expectations that had been anchoring him down to break away. His spark, the Matrix of Leadership, to help jumpstart Cybertron into a new era.
An era of peace, and prosperity.
It was the logical choice to make. It was the one he wanted, in a selfish bid, to make as well.
He was done, and he was happy.
Primus, it would seem, believed that he was far from being done.
And if not Primus, then it was some other force that was sadistically not allowing him to rest peacefully within the depths of the Allspark.
Awareness came to him in flashes. The sound - klaxons blearing, loud and piercing in his audials. His vision fritzed in and out - the dim blues of a familiar place he couldn’t quite put a name too, thrown into red relief as the alarms sounded.
There was a screen before him, he realised dimly. The glyphs and words on it didn’t make sense to his glitching processor, still reeling from whatever had put him in this state, but there was something about this situation that felt -
Familiar.
He struggled to rise. His limbs felt heavy, too heavy. In direct contrast, his chassis - his spark chamber - felt too light. Empty. Something was missing, something important, something -
Voices. Shouting. The familiar sound of energy weapons charging.
A demand reached his ears.
Optimus couldn’t understand it.
Awareness slipped from him.
“Orion Pax.”
It had been millenia since he had been addressed by that name. Well, save for a tiny, insurmountable little blip that Optimus did not want to think about.
He onlined his optics. Reset them and tried again when he got nothing but static. When he had the same result, he gave up and tried to speak instead, but all that emitted from his vocalizer was a reedy, garbled noise.
There was a sound droning. A voice - the same that had spoken his old designation, but no matter how hard Optimus tried he couldn’t focus. It was like a heavy blanket of fog filled his processor, his limbs, his very spark, and the only thing he could do was drift through it. There was something lingering in the deep recesses - a fear of what was going on, of not being able to function properly that pinged across his sensors every now and then, but even that was short lived.
More flashes of awareness came, as an insurmountable amount of time passed. He couldn’t even check his chronometer to tell.
More voices. He was unable to discern what they said, but he had the distinct impression that they were interrogating him. Optimus remembered staring into the optics of the faces of mechs that seemed familiar and yet not, and one time - just one - he was able to get his vocalizer to cooperate.
The words that he said seemed pathetic, in the wake of things. “I do not know.”
As pathetic as they were, they were true. He knew they were asking things, important things that required proper answers, but he couldn’t process what they were asking. He didn’t understand their accusations.
He didn’t understand what was going on.
Slowly, as yet more time passed and he went through more flashes of awareness, he began to realise something - they, whoever they were, thought he had done something. Seen something. Seen something that he wasn’t supposed to have seen.
Fear coiled through his circuits. Fear had been a great component of his life, though he had managed to keep it at bay. He had to be strong - showing fear would be a detriment to morale. There were already too many things at play that affected the morale of his comrades, so Optimus refused to allow his feelings to affect them negatively as well. So used to playing the fearless leader that over time, it had become so much easier to ignore the fear.
He couldn’t hold it back now.
He remembered - when he had first woken up. The familiar screens, the familiar glyphs. It had been his old work station in Iacon. It had been destroyed millenia ago.
Some of the faces he saw above him - brief glimpses when he was able to focus - names floated through his processor, attaching to the faces of Senators that had been long since offlined.
This couldn’t be happening.
Primus, what was happening?
Finally - after what felt like so many solar cycles had passed - he heard something that pierced through the haze coating his processor. Clarity had never been so terrifying.
“There’s no telling what he saw. Not in the state he is in. Killing him will be too troublesome, so for now the best decision would be to remove his vocal processor. Just in case .”
“Then what do we do with him? We can’t just let him go free! ”
A scoff. “Of course not. I think the gladiatorial pits sound like a good idea, hmm? Simply say that he is guilty of espionage and throw him to those savages. Who knows, maybe he’ll put on a good show for us. Look at that frame - it’s practically built for war.”
A humm of consideration. Optimus tried to move - tried to force his limbs through the fog, but he was - held down. He couldn’t even twitch a servo. A noise escaped him - something anguised, something that died in a burst of static.
“It’s a good idea.” Came the response. “No one will believe a criminal, even if he manages to survive the pits and convey anything.”
“Then I believe it’s been decided.”
Murmurs of agreement surrounded him, and once again, his awareness fizzled out.
"Hold him down! What is wrong with yo- ACK!"
Optimus' fist made contact with the mech's cheek exactly once before his arm was wrenched back down to the medical berth by a security guard and was promptly restrained by the magna lock. A growl rumbled from Optimus' chassis and he tried desperately to pull himself off, thrashing his body with all of his strength, but it was fruitless.
He was well and truly stuck.
"Oh give up already." The mech he had punched sneered. He'd picked himself up off the floor and was nursing his cracked faceplate, his optics narrowed and his lips pulled into a grimace. "There is truly no point in struggling. You want this over? Just sit still and be quiet. The more you try and delay it the worse it will be for you."
Optimus recognised this mech. At first, he had felt a swell of hope at the sight of the red, white, and blue plating, the medic symbols bright and proud on his wings. But Pharma's gaze had been cold, dispassionate as Optimus had been marched in and settled onto the berth, and Optimus began to fear once more. Pharma had been an Autobot - one of their best medics, second only to Ratchet. To think he was doing the Senate's dirty work-
Dexterous fingers manually popped the medical port on his chassis, and Optimus tried to buck again, to wrench his lumps from the magnetized berth, but it was useless. Pharma didn't look at him as he created a hardline between them, and began to scowl as he was brought up short by Optimus' firewalls.
Some of them were Ratchet's handiwork.
But the pause didn't last for long, and the medic gave no indication that he recognised his friend's handiwork. Pharma's medical overrides took care of them after a moment, and then there he was - a foreign, oily presence in his systems, impossible to ignore and impossible to fight, the feeling of helplessness only grew and grew. Foreign coding swept through Optimus' frame, and icy panic gripped his spark.
He went limp on the berth, utterly against his will, and Pharma leaned over him with a small, patronizing smile, and tapped at his neck with light fingers. "There we go. It will be over before you know it, Orion Pax. Just relax. Plenty of mechs do perfectly fine without a vocal processor, and I’m sure you will as well."
Blackness encroached his vision, and he was offline in seconds.
Optimus felt like he was floating, suspended in space. A haze of white fog swirled around him, before it abruptly settled beneath him, and spread above him as far as the optics could see was a blanket of dark, star filled space.
This felt familiar, and in its familiarity was comfort.
The comfort did not last.
A slow, creeping anxiety began to bubble within him, starting from his spark and creeping through his lines, leaving what felt like ice in its wake. A phantom sensation in his throat - a prick of sharp, stabbing pain that caused his optical feed to glitch, and a burst of static escaped him. He tried to yell - tried to speak, even - but no words managed to escape him. Just hisses and pops, a static filled binary noise, and Optimus clutched his throat and felt scarred, broken metal.
The calm peace of the world he found himself in was broken, and then - the fog around him dissolved into nothing, and Optimus fell through a void of cold, lonely space.
--
He fell.
Fell, and didn't stop falling. His spark thrummed wildly in its casing, the missing weight of the Matrix all the more noticeable, and Optimus realised that now he was well and truly alone.
The Matrix had always been a comforting, if heavy, presence within him. He had felt it in both his spark and his processor, the warmth of its power, the song made of the murmurs and whispers of the Primes of the past a constant white noise in his audials.
Long ago - so, so long ago, when he had first taken on the burden for himself, Optimus had felt like he was going to be driven into madness. The loss of his dearest friend, the loss of his own identity, and the sheer overwhelming force of the ancient artifact now nestled within him had cast him adrift into a sea of doubt and fear. Was he truly worthy? Did he really have the strength and conviction to back the words of peace and equality that he spouted?
There were many times when he stared into the alien red optics of the mech he had loved, twisted with a malice and madness that had not been there before, that Optimus thought he didn’t.
Time, however, had proven otherwise.
A cynical part of his processor whispered, Some strength and conviction. If I truly had the strength and conviction needed, then the war would have ended earlier. All those lives I was responsible for as Prime would not have been extinguished. Cybertron would have never been lost.
If I had just taken care of Megatron in the beginning, none of it would have happened.
Optimus continued to fall, and as he did, doubts and self loathing filled him until he felt like his spark was going to suffocate under the weight of it all.
Until finally, he hit the ground.
He felt cold.
A shiver wracked through his frame, causing his armour to rattle loudly. Groggily, he shifted his helm and tried to online his optics. Errors flashed up on his HUD, the warning glyphs confusing to his fog-addled processor - he saw flashing red signals, warnings - low energy, low fuel - a few joints cracked and strained that his self repair was taking care of - an error message regarding his missing vocal processor -
Awareness came all too quickly at that. He became more aware of his surroundings - of a tight grip on his upper arms, of his weight held on his… knees. Voices - a dull drone, whispers and mutters, and a clearer, louder one that became more easy to understand as the seconds passed.
“-nceforth that Orion Pax is now a part of our little family.” There was a pause, and a mocking laugh. “I’m sure you’ll all treat him with great care and respect. Drop him.”
The grip on his arms released, and Optimus fell to the ground with a loud clang. A pained noise tried to escape him, but nothing happened. There really wasn’t - his vocalizer wasn’t -
He tried to online his optics, but streaks of grey and discoloured pixels overtook his vision.
“He will be given some time to acclimate before he is organised into any matches.” The voice continued, and something nudged the side of his thigh. There was a scoff. “Make sure not to damage him too much. The higher ups want to at least give him a fighting chance. That is all for now - dismissed.”
The sound of movement - more muttered noises, mechs retreating from wherever the hell they were, and Optimus struggled to get his arms underneath him to push himself up.
Then there was someone crouching before him, large clawed hands curling around his shoulders to help straighten him. A field brushed against his own, familiar and warm and laced with fear and concern and an almost overpowering rage -
“Orion?”
Optimus’ vision focused.
Blue optics met his, scarred mouth twisted into a grimace, and Optimus acted on instinct, his battlemask snapping into place.
His balled fist hit Megatron’s abdomen, sending him to the ground with a crash. His frame was weak - he was barely in control of his limbs - but he didn’t let that stop him. He staggered to his pedes, optics never leaving Megatron’s shocked, hunched form, and lashed out with a leg. Metal screeched as the blow hit Megatron’s helm, and the warlord was forced to raise his arms in defence against another blow. A snarl escaped him, and he barked, “Soundwave!”
Stupid - stupid . Optimus should have realised that of course Megatron would not be alone. Before he could turn to confront his other foe, the sleek purple metal of Soundwave’s tentacles wrapped around his waist and one of his arms, jerking him back and away from the downed warlord.
Taking advantage of that, Optimus planted both feet on the ground and pushed himself along with the motion, turning as he did. The sound of his blade unsheathing from his arm was all the warning Soundwave got before it slid into his shoulder, cleaving through metal and wire and energon lines. A burst of pained static escaped the spymaster’s vocaliser, his visor flashing an alarmed white as he staggered unsteadily, and Optimus put all of his weight into it, pushing Soundwave back into the nearby wall. Claws scrabbled at Optimus’ plating - thick and black, stronger than the delicate ones Optimus had in recent memory - and that was enough to make Optimus pause.
“Orion! Calm down!”
He was yanked back, Soundwave’s tentacles falling lax from his frame. The blade slid from Soundwave’s shoulder, leaving energon to gush from the severed lines, and the spymaster quickly pressed a servo to the wound in an effort to stem the bleeding. Optimus twisted back around, blade raised, but his arm was caught in a firm grip and his leg was kicked out from underneath him, causing him to fall to one knee with a jarring clang.
And then Megatron was kneeling there before him, his hold tight, unyielding. Optimus vented heavily, his processor skipping and grinding to a halt as blue optics caught his own and held them.
The fight drained from him, leaving him weak and strutless, and it was only the grip of the other mech that kept him steady.
Those eyes. That field. This was… this was…
“Oh Orion.” Megatron - Megatronus murmured. “What have they done to you?”