"The trauma the children have experienced is not unlike what a soldier sees, I'm afraid," Loki murmurs. "But without them having blood on their own hands. But I know that you will care for them, and I think that given time to know you, they will trust you as I do."

When Megatron lies down, Loki is quick to follow, stretching out atop him with his legs half looped over him and half stretched back into the long grass. He doesn't hesitate to accept that kiss--accept isn't the right word; he encourages it, taking all the affection and reflecting it back. "I would have loved him, too," he confirms when they pause, looking into Megatron's eyes. "And I will remember him with you."

Shifting again, Loki's shape dwindles back into the softer, paler feminine form, and she stretches her arms across the span of his chest, resting her head close to the panel behind which his spark lies. The cuddling, the star-watching, this is what she had hoped for, but the conversation, painful as it is, was important.

"I think we will have a number of these revelations in our first weeks and months together," she says. "Because we are still learning where one another's scars are, and because we began and mean to go on with openness about our pasts. But I'm ready for that, if you are. There's joy to be had here, too."