Work Text:
The datapad hit the surface of Megatron’s desk with a dramatic twist of yellow fingers. He didn’t look up. Rodimus had been unable to let a silence lie in his entire time on board when he wanted something, it wasn't like he'd need to ask.
Silence dragged longer than he thought it might.
Rodimus wasn’t tall by any means, but the office Megatron had requisitioned—well, hijacked, the Lost Light was full of tiny office rooms, completely unused—wasn’t large, and with two full size Cybertronians it was verging on cramped. There was a reason he prefered to discuss datawork with Ultra Magnus on the bridge.
One of the yellow fingers was tapping on a panel of orange arm plating, an arrhythmic staccato that set Megatron's teeth on edge and he sighed deeply enough to make his vents flutter. "What is it?"
Rodimus didn't answer for a moment, but he at least sounded amused when he answered. "It's a datapad. You know, those things you can read that hold information?"
"Ah, I wasn't aware you knew that."
Rodimus huffed, but unfortunately didn't leave, instead choosing to perch on the edge of Megatron's desk, awkwardly twisted with a foot over one knee so he could keep making eye contact. "You need more chairs in here."
"I have exactly the right amount of chairs in here." Megatron picked up the datapad and clicked it on. It was yet another notice from Rodimus about the planet side stop to 'stretch their legs' that was currently happening and he clicked it off immediately and set it down again. As if he could have failed to notice.
Rodimus snorted again and leant over to click it back on, cutting into Megatron's personal space with the curve of his chest plating in a way that forced Megatron to lean back in his chair. He gave Rodimus a flat glare as he did, crossing his arms over his chest.
"You know these things scroll too?" said Rodimus, undeterred.
"I sincerely doubt that anything urgent enough to require my immediate attention about this would be something you'd take the time to write into an official memo, rather than Ultra Magnus contacting me directly."
"Oh for the love of—just read it."
Rodimus had that deeply irritating look on his face that said he was actually going to be stubborn about this one, and Megatron picked it up, skimming through the text til the end of the pad. He grunted an acknowledgement and dropped it again.
"Well?" said Rodimus, impatience colouring his tone.
"It's not necessary," said Megatron, returning to his datapads.
"Oh my god, how are you worse about this than Ultra Magnus?"
Megatron sighed and turned his paperwork off. "Are you going to let me get any work done or do I have to entertain you until you get bored?"
Rodimus snorted. "When was the last time you left the ship on a recreational stopover? When was the last time you even used your alt-mode?"
"You realise I'm a tank, yes?"
Rodimus gestured at him in an all encompassing way that felt strangely like he was being sized up. "I'm starting to doubt it with the way you're hermit-ing it up."
"The way I'm what?"
"You know we can see when you're staring out the windows, right?"
Megatron scoffed but Rodimus barrelled on.
"It's uninhabited, very flat, the engines need at least eighteen hours to rest before we can go up again, leisure time for everyone, you included, this is your off shift: get out and take a drive! Captain's orders!"
"Captains'," corrected Megatron. "And no, it isn't."
His unimpressed glare was getting a workout today, but like so much other disapproval it splashed off Rodimus's coat of water resistant wax polish without him so much as acknowledging it. Not for the first time he found himself wondering why Ultra Magnus had volunteered to come along, and if he was lying about that.
"Look," said Rodimus, and his voice hit a dangerous note of 'not-very-friendly-friendliness' that said he was aware the line of social acceptability was in his rear view mirror, but that he was planning on hitting the accelerator anyway. "You can either come with me and roll your wheels around outside the ship for like, five minutes, or until you get bored or whatever, or you can sit here with me while I play Swerve's new 'Top 40 Crew mate Covers' playlist at you at full volume. Your choice."
Megatron stood up.
"Finally," said Rodimus, vents huffing as he jumped to his feet. "Come on, big guy."
He opened the door to his office and gestured in front of him, but Rodimus shook his head. "Nuh-uh, after you. That only works on me the first eight times."
Megatron snorted despite himself, and strode ahead, pretending not to see the pleased smirk on Rodimus's face as he passed him. He did pause, however, at the turn off between the bridge and the main gangway, long enough to hear Rodimus start his sound system threateningly.
He didn't bother saying anything, waving a hand dismissively. He had no illusions that Rodimus would leave him alone, but if all he had to do was walk off the gangway, claim he was already bored, then walk back in, he would at least be winning a point in the useless back and forth of petty one-upmanship that Rodimus so beloved.
The problem was that when he walked off the gangway he didn't want to go back in again.
They didn't get much attention when they walked out, mercifully, everyone taking too much advantage of the enforced down time to entertain themselves without worrying about their COs. The planetoid they'd dropped onto wasn't close enough to a star for a meaningful difference in light, and had a thin atmosphere, just enough to allow for circulation of air and a decent level of gravity. Annoyingly enough it felt good to get out, despite the increased workload of their unofficial pitstop that Rodimus was busy pretending didn't exist.
There weren't many natural outcroppings, and most importantly, no sign of organic life. Jagged risings of sheet rock that couldn't quite be described as mountainous dominated the landscape, and the surface was mostly pebbled; not smooth enough to satisfy someone like Rodimus's tyres, but with no fine particles to have the medical team complaining about clogged filters.
Rodimus stretched his arms over his head, affecting a yawn. "Going to abandon me back to your depression hole now?"
Megatron ignored him, turning to stride in a direction that didn't appear quite so well trod by the crew. He'd held invasive forces on Earth for so long without picking up any of the affectations his soldiers had, but one short stint with an Autobot crew was seriously threatening his ability to resist rolling his eyes.
Unfortunately after only a moment the crunch of footsteps was echoed by Rodimus following him. Megatron let it pass without comment until the Lost Light had disappeared from view, snatched shouts of arguments caught by the wind and deafened by the rock formations.
"Are you worried I might do something, like sit down and enjoy the environment, without your constant, one-on-one supervision?" he asked, unable to help himself.
Rodimus didn't answer, and when he turned to look, his co-captain wore a sceptical expression. "You're seriously just going to walk?"
"Are you going to follow me the entire time?"
"Is your T-cog rusted stuck? Do I need to ask Velocity to take a look at you?"
"Do you have a tank fetish? Why do you care how I enjoy my walk?"
Rodimus snorted, crossing his arms over his chest and speeding up to overtake him, spinning on one heel so he could make eye contact. "Why are you avoiding transforming?"
Megatron scoffed loudly, eyeing the scree under Rodimus's feet. When he tripped he was going to take great satisfaction in leaving him there to limp back to the ship. "I am not avoiding transforming."
"Literally no one on board has seen you transform in your entire captaincy," said Rodimus, still maintaining a truly disconcerting amount of eye contact. Was he trying to be intimidating? "I checked. It's not healthy—and that's true, I checked that too."
"Your concern is both noted, and deeply unnecessary, I assure you," said Megatron, feeling the beginnings of a truly fierce migraine building in the back of his processor. He wasn't interested in becoming one of Rodimus's fleeting projects, but a small, slightly sadistic part of him wanted to keep the conversation rolling so Rodimus would stay distracted enough not to think about his balance. "My physical health is fine, which I'm assuming none of our medics were unprofessional enough to actually share with you."
Rodimus rolled his eyes, and Megatron tracked the slide of scree underfoot with some interest. "Did I say anything about your physical health?"
"Did they say anything about my health at all?"
"No! But that's not the point—oh f—"
Rodimus went down like a sack of bricks, sliding into pure binary as he swore. The scree carried him further than Megatron had been expecting, and he fought to keep the smile down as he slowed to a halt. "Did we learn something valuable from that?"
Rodimus flatly beeped at him before resetting his vocaliser. "Shut up."
Megatron snorted and kept walking, keeping his audio receivers trained on Rodimus's location. The satisfaction didn't last him as long as he'd like—he could hear some muted scrabbling, but he wasn't standing up or swearing.
When he backtracked, Rodimus was lying in the stones and doing a very poor job of not looking panicked. "I'm fine, it's whatever," he said through clenched jaws. "Just go and I'll stop bothering you."
Primus. Megatron knelt with the smooth slide of stones clinking against metal and checked Rodimus over, narrowing his eyes.
"Just piss off," snapped Rodimus, ineffectually slapping at his knee. "I tripped. It's fine."
Megatron sighed, identifying the problem and reaching out a hand for Rodimus's. "Yes, you will be," he said, tugging him up. "You've got stones wedged in the plating over your spinal struts."
"Yeah, I can feel them, thanks for that."
"It's interrupting the signal to your legs, you won't be able to stand up on your own."
"Really? I hadn't noticed."
Megatron waited patiently. He didn't need much; Rodimus gave up and grabbed back onto his hand very quickly. Rodimus wasn't especially heavy, and he was more smooth angles than sharp ones, but he was thrumming with tension, kept twitching, and had some truly awful kibble that threatened to take Megatron's eyes out when he lifted him. "You need to stay still."
"You are not helping," said Rodimus, a tightness in his voice that belied how upset he was, moreso than even the overconfidence and rebuffs had.
He was, actually, Megatron could tell from the way Rodimus's plating was shifting that the movement was helping to dislodge the stones. "You need to be moved to let them work their way out."
"Just—you don't need to carry me!"
A circuit connected somewhere and Rodimus's entire left leg flinched, kicking one of Megatron's cables that was exposed because of the way he'd needed to twist to lift him, and Megatron dropped him reflexively with a curse as it knocked him off balance.
Rodimus hit the ground with a yelp.
"Right," said Megatron, trying not to glare at him.
"Go away," said Rodimus resentfully, with no such compunction. "I'll figure it out."
"Oh yes, leave it to me to explain to Ultra Magnus, of course," said Megatron, stooping and grabbing Rodimus's arms again. "Just hold on."
Resentment or not, Rodimus gripped tightly as Megatron initiated his transformation.
It did feel good, after so long. Megatron tried not to think about it as his limbs and plating rotated and locked into place. Rodimus's death grip around his barrel perversely helped, a hot, consistent pressure against him that distracted from his targeting software engaging and locking into his feed overlay. He needed it to navigate in alt, it was his only visual tracking process.
"Are you alright?" he asked when he was done, having lost his eye on Rodimus. He was fairly certain he could feel where he'd ended up—Rodimus ran at a very high internal temperature and weighed about as much as the average mech—but the thickness of his armoured plating made it difficult to confirm without a visual.
"Yeah," said Rodimus, sounding distant. "You?"
Megatron grunted.
"Sorry," said Rodimus, still distant. "This, this wasn't a dumb ploy or anything."
"I would never accuse you of being that stupid," said Megatron, trying to inject some humour into it and falling flat. He engaged his treads instead, carefully feeling out ahead of him for a path that would create the least noticeable damage to the environment.
"That'd be a first," said Rodimus eventually, like he hadn't been able to decide on a snappy retort. Then: "You're right, I think this is helping."
"Good." Megatron tried to focus on the stones under his treads, plotting a route back to the Lost Light and a medic who could physically get under Rodimus's plating and make sure nothing was really damaged. All the picturesque outcroppings would make it difficult, he'd been ignoring his mapping software for the most part and some of the way they'd come already would be too narrow to navigate in alt-mode.
His targeting software kept locking in on peaks of rocks.
"Keep talking," he said abruptly, deciding instead to try and pinpoint through his sound and plating pressure exactly how Rodimus was pressed against him.
"Don't you usually want me to shut up?" asked Rodimus, and it sounded like he was clenching his jaw again. "This is very weird."
"That I'm asking you to talk or that you have rocks interrupting your ability to walk and transform?"
"Take your pick, but I was definitely talking about you wanting to hear me chat." Rodimus's own ability to joke was also falling flat, but Megatron had pinpointed where he was at least. He had his arms wrapped around the turret, and was essentially hanging limply against him, which was an absurd enough image to make up for it. "Are you okay?"
"Perfectly," said Megatron, tracking the way Rodimus was swaying with the movement along the path.
"You seem kind of, uh, high strung. Higher strung."
"My only visual feed is weapons targeting," said Megatron as neutrally as he could. "If I'm too relaxed I could cause a landslide."
"Oh." Rodimus was silent for a long moment, and Megatron could feel some of his redundant gears start to grind on each other. "That's uh, part of why you don't use your alt-mode much, huh."
"I already want to shoot you, I don't think training a gun on your face will help me with that impulse."
Rodimus laughed, startled and honest. "I don't know, if I let Ultra Magnus try that he might actually relax a little."
"Allow me to preemptively veto that particular crew bonding activity."
"Killjoy. I bet being allowed to shoot at me would inspire loads of camaraderie."
"Almost definitely," agreed Megatron. His systems were starting to relax a little with the meaningless conversation, cables and treads falling into the drive and the comfortable exertion. It was a good stretch, and the further they went, the more connected he felt to corners of his frame he hadn't thought about in too long.
Rodimus gasped and he paused. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah," said Rodimus breathlessly. "Got a leg back, that, that was weird."
He slung himself up and draped himself over the top of Megatron's barrel, one leg twitching like mad and the other hanging limply against his plating. "Are you sure you're alright?"
"Yeah, I think I have pins and needles, that's so weird."
"You have what?" asked Megatron, bemused.
Rodimus laughed. "Never mind. Are you alright?"
"Yes, actually," said Megatron, "My systems are running smoothly now, it's easier to manage."
"Hah! I was right."
"And how exactly were you right?" He'd very deliberately avoided saying anything about it feeling good to avoid giving Rodimus the satisfaction. It was surprisingly pleasant, though he didn't like to imagine how he'd feel to have anyone else suddenly appear in his sights having gone looking for them.
"You gotta get out in alt more often! I was right, hah! You owe me one."
"I seem to be the one carrying you back to the ship here."
"Okay so we're even," Rodimus continued, undeterred. "I was right and you're feeling better, and you were right about me falling, and are treating me in a chivalrous manner that I promise I will absolutely leverage shamelessly in the future."
"I think you can shut up now."
Rodimus laughed again, his grip tightening on Megatron's turret. It felt a little like he was trying to press his face into it, and there were puffs of hot air registering on Megatron's plating.
He slowed down, not wanting to jolt him suddenly if he was feeling 'weird' again. "Is your back okay?"
"Uh huh," said Rodimus, venting through it with a sharp whistle. "All good, I promise, don't stop."
"What?"
"I'm, hah, really good, I promise, everything is fine. You can definitely keep going."
His temperature had increased again, and his fingers were twitching as erratically as his leg had been. Megatron slammed his brakes as realisation hit him. "Are you getting off on this?"
It was more of a grinding halt than a jerky one, and Megatron swivelled his tank barrel as far as he could. He still couldn't catch a glimpse of Rodimus, but there was a slip of plating against his and a muffled curse as he shifted. "The seams around my hips are, really sensitive. I'm not trying to, but, like…if you wanna keep going I'm not gonna object."
Now that he was in alt it would be more annoying to swap back just to have this argument, particularly if Rodimus still couldn't walk or transform and they'd have to suffer this indignity anyway. Megatron considered it. "Primus. If you're going to, do it quietly and tell no one."
Rodimus nodded so quickly that he banged his nose on the top of Megatron's barrel.
Megatron started rolling again with an entirely new awareness of the presence sitting astride him. True to his word Rodimus kept his mouth shut, but that didn't mean he was a silent passenger. He kept shifting and muttering to himself as Megatron's engine engaged and they started forward, almost laughing to himself about their situation. Once they were back on the ship Megatron would probably be able to see the humour in it himself, he conceded, but for now he just wanted to get them back.
Rodimus reaffirmed his grip on Megatron, fingers digging into the edge of the plating around his barrel. His frozen leg was hanging against Megatron's side, bouncing off him every so often, and Rodimus growled in frustration, the pressure of his grip increasing momentarily, before the pendulous weight of him spun around.
Megatron adjusted the spread of weight on his treads, counterbalancing his lean into the slight incline so Rodimus didn't immediately fall off. His goal was made apparent when metal clanged and a new line of heat clutched up against the turret of his barrel.
A faint 'hah' of success popped out, and Megatron suppressed a derisive snort. Rodimus held tightly, using his good leg to secure his grip, and no doubt increasing the stretch between his plating to further open up those sensitive seams.
This was going to be the most awkward injury debrief of his life.
Now that he'd noticed, it was difficult not to catalogue the noises Rodimus was making. Every so often there'd be the soft and metallic scrape of his plating shifting as Megatron turned or he adjusted his grip. His venting was louder than usual, fans working hard to maintain the stiff flow of warm air he was pouring onto Megatron's armour and into his cabling.
There were these tiny, electronic hitches that he couldn't place. Megatron wavered, wondering if he should check in again, but after a moment he could identify that it was Rodimus's vocaliser attempting to engage. He hurriedly dismissed the thought and turned his attention back to his visual feed.
His targeting system was still identifying the peaks of rocks as potential cover for enemy combatants. Megatron sighed and dismissed the alerts as they came up, trying to refocus the feed on the path ahead, instead of what his processor perceived as threats.
Rodimus had another set of those little vocaliser hitches as they passed into view of three outcroppings, a soft moan reaching him as he dismissed yet another 'target identified' alert. Megatron decided to let the feed be and returned to monitoring the progress under his treads instead.
The clutching grip at his turret was flexing, less erratic and more a deliberate rhythm following the dip and swell of the path underneath them. Rodimus was twitching his hips, and had been for a while, a motion Megatron had initially dismissed as attempts to control the still limply hanging leg, but that he belatedly realised had more of a grinding sway to it.
His engine was producing a high pitched whine, the growl of suppressed revs underneath it, and his vocal hitches had graduated to quiet moans.
When Rodimus's vents dumped a particularly heated gust of air directly into an armour gap between his turret and the body of his alt-mode Megatron received a notification about his internal temperature. It joined the slew of data cluttering his internal feed, but it wasn't about potential threats and he seized on it.
Elevated temperature, redirected energon—this time Megatron paid attention to his systems as Rodimus made one of those subtle grinding motions again, and it sent a thrill of pleasure through him. His engine almost stalled at the realisation, and he dismissed it along with another 'threat identified' and tried not to think about it.
Knowing that someone was aroused and…rubbing against you was an exhilarating feeling, it made sense that it would be affecting him. He'd never overloaded while being pawed at in alt before, so it hadn't occurred to him. That was all.
Something wet trickled onto his plating and clung to the edge of a panel, and Megatron's engine growled despite himself. "You'd better be bleeding," he warned him, knowing full well what it probably was.
…if he was bleeding they were in trouble. Megatron didn't particularly want to carry his leg back to the ship.
"Mhmm," agreed Rodimus breathily, his engine revving weakly. "Definitely energon, scratched myself on something. In fact," his vocals hitched again and he made another one of those tiny grinding motions with his hips against Megatron's turret, "I might scratch myself again, I'm just…really itchy."
The pressure lifted briefly then thumped back into him as Rodimus hefted his weight to change how he was holding on. His hands settled around the base of Megatron's barrel, stroking at the metal there.
Megatron's engine growled as Rodimus gripped the base of the gun, deft fingers slipping into places where his plating overlapped to telescope out.
Rodimus moaned when it did, pressing himself against Megatron like he could slide under his plating, somehow even hotter than he had been before. "Primus, you've got power under there."
He was rumbling at a level he'd never experienced outside of combat, engine loud, and he couldn't bring it down. Rodimus kept talking, like now he'd opened his mouth again he couldn't shut it. His internal feeds were filled with alerts and notifications and the damn tracking motions of the reticle and he couldn't figure out how to tell Rodimus to shut up, or even if he wanted to.
"I don't know how much this is doing for you, but it's doing a lot for me."
It was doing significantly more for Megatron than he'd ever have thought. He grunted, struggling to bring his systems under control. He snapped back to the pure visual feed, deciding to ignore the rising temperature. Rodimus had to pause, his voice hitching and crackling with static again.
"If we ever manage to look at each other after this I'd be down to revisit this scenario with fully functioning limbs, hah, I promise I'm usually better than this."
That might have been a mistake. All of his focus narrowed in on the targeting system, tracking his reticule as it identified threat after threat after threat. Rodimus had trailed off into muttering nonsense, doing his best to caress Megatron along the barrel of the gun.
The touches and motions were sending conflicting information to his systems, some cross-wires referring, his reticle jumping all over the feed and driving all Megatron's systems into high alert.
"How long has it been since you used this?"
Rodimus punctuated the question with a long, hot drag of his fingers with more pressure than before, and something wet between the twin spots of pressure. Was—was he kissing him?
"Megatron?"
All he could see was the red of his firing triggers and the lock-in of the targeting reticle. Rodimus's voice was too much part of the cacophony inside his processor and Megatron struggled to pull it out and figure out what was going on.
Rodimus was asking him for something. To say something? He couldn't focus.
His processor was pounding with information, and Megatron reached for what he knew would clear it. The reticle was locked onto a peak of rock, his targeting system re-aligning every time he tried to drag it off. He needed everything to shut up.
He fired with an echo-y boom that thrummed through him.
Rodimus gasped and moaned above him, his plating shaking in time with the vibration of Megatron's firing system, and as the jutting-out piece of rock shattered into a rain of pebbles everything went blissfully dark in his processor.
His emergency brakes engaged and his weight swung around them like a pivot, his engine turning over to try and compensate. The sudden halt vibrated through him, and Rodimus made a garbled noise before losing his grip, and then Megatron's armour was lighter.
Had Rodimus fallen off?
That felt like it mattered, like Rodimus had been riding him for an important reason. An automatic sub-process activated and his plating lifted, cool air running through him to alleviate the increased temperature from firing and the arousal, and the…
He didn't think he'd overloaded.
Megatron shunted that thought to the side violently, focusing on his dark feed and the peaceful moment he'd found in his own head. The energy was fading from his frame, his cables thrumming with the sudden release of energy and dearth of excitement.
"—atron? Are you okay? Megatron?"
Nothing was happening. They were on a stupid planetoid as close to their course as they could manage. The Lost Light's engines had overheated into the red and they'd had to land or risk exploding. The excitement had been over and done with hours ago. They were just waiting now. No problems. No threats.
"Megatron can you say something?"
Rodimus couldn't walk because he had a rock in his spinal plating. That was the stupidest thing he'd ever—
Megatron initiated his transformation without thinking about it. The barrel of his gun was hot as it slowly cycled past his face and retracted, and he brushed it off, rising to his feet and walking over to where Rodimus was half-propped up on the ground looking faintly panicked and wide-eyed.
"Megatron?"
He seized Rodimus under his arms where they joined the torso and lifted him to eye level.
"Oh wh—are you okay? You can slag me as long as you say—argh!"
Megatron shook him up and down like a cocktail, focusing his audials on the rattling noises at the base of his frame. Rodimus looked comically startled, but his eyes lit up as something reconnected and both his legs kicked out at Megatron.
"Okay! Okay! Put me down! Stop it!"
There was a faint click as a pair of small, smooth pebbles fell out of the mess of cables at the base of Rodimus's torso and landed on top of a pile of their peers. Megatron let go and Rodimus hit the ground with a dull thud and another, static laced yelp.
He couldn't quite hear what the specific complaint was, because he'd dropped to one knee and purged the contents of his tanks onto the ground.
The energon somehow tasted worse on the way up than it had going in. Half-processed and fouled by his internal mix of coolants and reagents, it burned the inside of his mouth and he retched again, trying to summon enough oral lubricants to wash away or even mask the taste.
He blinked several times, just getting used to having his normal visual feed again, the soft quiet of the breeze and the rocks the only things he could sense.
"Megatron?"
"I'm fine," he said hoarsely, not turning his head to look at Rodimus.
"You know, I don't think I believe you."
Rodimus's voice was shaky under the humour, and there was the crunch of rocks underfoot as he stood.
Megatron ignored him right up until a soft hand pressed into his shoulder. He smacked it away, using the momentum to spin around and push upright, looming over Rodimus's frozen and startled face. "I said I'm FINE!"
"—think it came from over here!"
Voices snatched on the wind with the sound of footsteps approaching, and Megatron couldn't move, chest heaving with the air he'd forced through it. Rodimus's eyes were locked to his, cycled open to their widest aperture, a strange intensity to them he'd never seen on him before.
"—ou see anyone?"
Rodimus glanced down, kicking rocks over the congealing pink mess of energon. They scattered and started to cover the evidence of his systems purge, and Megatron watching their progress, uncomprehending.
A smaller hand covered his, gripping his fingers, and when Rodimus spoke it was low and urgent. "Hey. Look at me. I tripped."
"I know," Megatron made himself say, forcing himself to match his tone.
"No, I mean: I tripped, and I panicked, and I shot the rock because I thought it was attacking me. It echoed really weird and loud. It was probably funny, but mostly it was really stupid."
Megatron stared at his face, processing what Rodimus was implying. The voices and chatter speculating on what the 'loud noise' had been were only getting closer, their crew coming to find out what had happened.
He squeezed Rodimus's hand back.