Loki has to take another moment to rub her eyes and tame the urge to cry, but it gives way to a bright smile as it fades. The feeling that this is getting serious more quickly than is healthy has not left her, but the fear of it being too good to be true is fading like frost in sunlight. Good things do happen sometimes, whether the recipients deserve them or not. But maybe they deserve one another.
"This feels right," she observes, calming as the breeze whistles past them, and nods to herself. "The Winter Spirit warned me once not to allow myself to be tamed, or reduced into a single, simple self that does not acknowledge all aspects of Loki. I've thought about it a lot since then. I am a parent now, and a sibling, and a lover, and I can be all those things. I am fire and frost and wind and darkness, and I can be all those things, as well. I can be both the serpent and the victim of its dripping venom. But the turn of the Wheel, the cycle of lives and seasons, occurs outside of us and inside of us. I do not have to be the terrible herald of apocalypse and the tender mother of monsters all at the same time."
"My nature is changeable, but I think that you will understand that, even as you see it occur in front of you. I think you will still love me. That is a faith I did not expect to find."
"I trust you, with myself, and with the others I love." And that is a more momentous confession, to Loki's mind, than an I love you. After all, she never stopped loving Odin but she wouldn't trust him as far as she could throw a small planet.
"I don't know what the title of Lord Protector would even entail," she says wryly. "But you are, at least for me, a shelter from the cold both within and without."
"...and I'm sorry, I was trying to be sweet but you mentioned getting drunk and now I need to know what sort of spirits you drink in case we do have a party to attend at some point." Aaaaand there's the familiar glitter of mischief in her eyes.
Megatron is listening and he has about a million sweet things to say and then.
That.
Scrap. He hasn't told her that yet. Well. At least he can try to be cute about it.
"The only thing I can still get drunk on is you," Megatron says, and kisses her. But then, he vents in, and looks down past her eyes.
"I had a problem, Loki, and it got...pretty bad. It got so bad that Scorponok took over the fleet and hurt people, and I had to oust him. I had to get it taken care of. I didn't have time for discussion groups or religious nonsense. They modded my FIM chip, you won't know what that is, but no energon-based intoxicant has any effect on me now, nor ever will again."
Well, Loki's ability to kill a sentimental mood is still intact! She winces, not sure whether to apologize or backpedal or neither, but the kiss eases the flicker of worried guilt, and she finds herself thinking instead about Thor. Who also has a problem.
But it's not her place to tell Thor's business to someone he does not know, even someone she trusts.
There's a thrum as magic cycles through her energy fields, and then the form nestled against Megatron's side is Loki's masculine Jotun form, enlarged to be closer to him in height. It becomes clear why he's done this a second later as he simply gathers Megatron into his arms and squeezes him close. "Then I will have all of your attention at any parties we attend," he says in a voice that's still teasing but manages to be gentler nonetheless. "A silver lining in every cloud."
Transforming may be the strangest reaction Megatron's ever got to this confession, but the embrace is one of the best ones, and he closes his optics and leans into it. "Yes. You will. And I'll be happy to tell you what to get for other Cybertronians. It's just wasted on me."
He nuzzles Loki's throat. "I don't know what the title of Lord Protector entails exactly, either, although Soundwave's started calling himself Lord Protector of Destron. I think that might just mean 'Lord Protector of Ravage', though," he says with a chuckle. "I just thought it was funny, I guess. Your trust means more to me than anything. To shelter you is an honour. And now, here you are, sheltering me."
He tightens his arms around Loki. "And I will. Love you. Regardless. Man, woman, Jotun, Asgardian, wolf, spider, mother of monsters, herald of apocalypse--although I hope we do not have one soon--fire, frost, wind, light and darkness. I will hold you close through all your transformations and be endlessly grateful, not just to care for and protect you, but that you also do the same for me."
He ex-vents, quietly. "And I know. This is crazy. I hear it from Ravage whenever we speak. The suddenness frightens him. But I'm not being manic, and when he tells me this, I remind him that Soundwave fell in love with him at first sight. I'm using my circuit-stabilisers, and...mania makes me feel invincible. This is quite nearly...humbling. Spark bonds come on suddenly sometimes; sometimes, people just know. Thank you for deciding to be mad with me, Loki."
"I thought a hug would be more comforting if I were a bit bigger," he murmurs in explanation, and tucks his chin lightly over Megatron's head. "I certainly enjoy the reverse."
The moment of immediate concern passes, but Loki will remember this conversation, both as a potential sore point and as a matter that may need to be discussed again some day, in more detail. He doesn't say so, but now that he thinks about it, it's no wonder that Megatron suffered a substance abuse problem. Leadership is a very heavy burden, and more so to someone carrying baggage from his own past.
"I will love you, too," he murmurs. Which is cheating, in a way, dodging his own uncertainty by making what sounds like a future promise rather than a current confession. Is this caution or cowardice? Either way, it's not a lie. He could say I love you now and it would not be a lie. He's just not quite ready.
He takes in a deep breath and lets it out again in a soft, drawn-out sigh, drinking in the affection while giving back what he can. The mention of mania and circuit-stabilisers prompts a pensive little hum from his throat. Context makes this sound very much like medication, and some part of him is relieved to hear that, even hopeful. Thor has been treated by Eir for trauma and depression, and the children have their therapists and doctors, and Loki...wouldn't even know where to begin with his own issues, but despite being built of very different materials, perhaps there is common ground between them all.
One hand comes up to stroke Megatron's head and upper back in a few slow, smooth passes. "Circuit-stabilisers," he echoes. "Will you tell me more? I do not believe you are being manic, either. I know the feeling too well, myself, from the inside."
"My culture, the culture of Asgard, has never dealt well with mental and emotional wounds, or innate differences in the inner worlds of its own people. That is one of the reasons I think the children are better with me, and why I am protective of them." He kisses his forehead. "There are changes being made in the new Asgard, slowly but surely, but I have no patience when it comes to the welfare of my little ones."
"My brother struggles. There have been times in the last two years when I watched him break and scrambled to pick up the pieces, and times he did the same for me. If I'm interpreting context correctly, your insight might help."
Edited 2020-12-09 05:02 (UTC)
warning: this may not be as comforting as you expect it to be ...
"You should know that Cybertronian psychiatry has been thoroughly weaponised and has been used as a means of social control since long before I was kindled. So if you're thinking I have a prescription for this, I'm about to disappoint you terribly. This is a hack. Soundwave told me that modified circuit-boosters could be used to correct extreme mood swings, and I discovered that it worked. Unfortunately, I did not learn this trick in time to avoid becoming a genocidal tyrant, and since this particular brain-hack is slightly illegal, I had to stop doing it while I was on trial."
Megatron smiles wryly. "Ravage got me to go back to it; it was one of the promises he extracted from me before he left the ship."
He frowns. "I've survived a shadowplay attempt, Loki. They call it 'personality adjustment' when it's done to someone disposable, which I absolutely was at the time. I was fortunate not to lose my intellect or creativity, but it left me with a phobia of needles, because I woke up while they had needles in my spinal circuitry and brain module, and a propensity for manic episodes that got more and more severe as the stress on me increased over time."
He lets himself slump against Loki and cling to him, resting his head on Loki's shoulder, face pressed into the curve where neck and shoulder meet. "I'm a piece of work, and also a work in progress, but you knew that. That's only one of the things that happened to me during the first worst day of my life. Right after that narrow escape, the mines began to collapse. That's when I lost Terminus. I've told you bits about him, here and there. He was my first real lover, and he was already dying. I would rather have taken his life myself, out of love, than left him to die like that. I decided not to go to my next assignment, since someone had already decided I needed my attitude managed, and went to the arena instead. That's when I really started to drink. We all did. But while I was in the arena, and later, when we were actively in revolt and they were hunting us, we had to be careful about it. After the revolt got well under way, though, and I had my own flagship, the others cut back, and I didn't; it seemed safe for me to get worse, and I did. It took Scorponok's betrayal to make me realise how fragged up I actually was."
Megatron closes his optics as tightly as he can, but he's going to cry anyway, no matter what he does. "There are so many things I want to tell you about those days. Good things, even. Not everything was unrelentingly awful. But even when we were happy, there was usually a body count."
He presses a kiss to Loki's throat, where the pulse surges against his lips.
"I may be of more use to your brother than your children, in this respect. A lot of people drink when they have gone to war. But I'll do whatever I can to help."
"Elskan," he murmurs gently, "I wasn't asking for you to fix anyone, only for sympathy. Though I know you would, if you could." He's already made it clear that whoever is important to Loki is important to him, after all.
He thinks it better not to go into excessive detail about Thor's problems, not until he can check with his brother and see how receptive he might be to empathy from a stranger, but he dares to hope a different perspective--even one as dark and painful as this one--might be supportive.
The unfolding tale takes his breath away, and for more than one reason. His clasp around Megatron's shoulders tightens a little, protective, and simultaneously the temperature of his own skin and the air around them drops, an instinctual Jotun reaction to fear or pain--or the memory thereof. Undirected as it is, it's not the searing chill that can destroy Aesir armor, but the energy flux is noticeable.
"The Black Order had microsurgery needles," he says quietly. "Which could be heated to burning temperatures inside the body."
There's a lot more that could be said there, but Loki absolutely will fall apart if it's discussed in detail; he can still hold himself together and be comforting right now. But he understands the horror being described to him, intimately.
The tragedy, on the other hand--the talk of Terminus and being forced to abandon him--that is somewhat beyond his personal experience, but it hurts to hear. His hands are restless, stroking over Megatron's back as if looking for some sort of physical wound that could be healed or comforted.
"If I could change that past for you, I would," he says. "But if it will give you any comfort at all, I will light a candle in honor of your lost love, when next I burn one for my mother, and the children for their dead families."
He did not mean to prompt such painful revelations, but the kiss to his throat tells him he is forgiven--or perhaps that there is nothing to forgive. "I'm here," he adds softly, a whisper of reassurance he's offered to Thor and the children in the past. "I'm here."
"Beloved." Megatron sighs. "I didn't think you wanted me to fix anyone. I'm not...I'm not in that line of work, and the fixes I know won't work on organics. It's just that you asked about insights. I have plenty of insights into the problems of soldiers. But as I told you before, children are outside my experience; I'm prepared to love them, and I'm sworn to protect them; but I haven't the first idea how their minds work. You've got my sympathy for all of them anyway."
He kisses Loki's throat again. "The candle, though. Yes, that is a comfort. You would have loved him, too, I think. He was sly and funny and ruthless and brilliant. He used to proofread my earliest writings. We fell in love because we both loved books, living in a place where most of the people we knew could barely read. He was the first person ever to read my poetry. Some people I've known would disapprove of it if they knew, because he was so much older than me. But he understood me, and was proud of me, and I don't remember the first time I ever interfaced, but I remember the first time with him as if it had happened yesterday. It took me such a long time to convince him, even though he wasn't ill yet, then, that someone as young and beautiful as I was then could want him.
"I often wonder what he'd think of me now. He told me often enough in those days that I was too idealistic, and too forgiving, and that Orion--who at that time was only a friend, a correspondent I'd never met--and I were going to have to understand that the changes we wanted to see would mean war. I wasn't ready to accept that until the day they nearly destroyed me, and he died. I can't believe I ever thought I wouldn't have to be a murderer. But I found out that killing was a whole lot easier than I had ever thought it could be after that, and that in fact, I had a talent for it."
He's calmer now, though suddenly feeling quite tired. "You know as much about this, now, as Ravage does, and he's my amica. More than Orion did." He needs to lie down, for a moment at least, and lies back on the ground, tugging Loki down with him with quiet pleading in his optics, and then he kisses him: thoroughly, but not with fierce hunger or urgency, more for close comfort and to anchor himself in the present than anything else. Here, they are together, and everything's as fine as it will ever be. Here, in the Nexus, under different stars. Here, where he doesn't have to be or do anything other than love and be loved.
He'll go back to the ship, but he doesn't want to. He finds it strangely hard to care about the Knights of Cybertron or their justice. The people there don't need him. Except for Minimus, he's alone there, really.
"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."
Megatron cuddles her, resting his hand on her head. "Given how long we have lived, I think 'months' is a conservative estimate, dulscintara*." There's a warm humour underneath the ache in his voice. "I feel...light. Like I could float with you into the stars. I'm grieving all over again, but I'm not alone, and I'm happy, somehow. I did not want to make you sad, but you're grieving with me anyway, and for a mech you never knew. I feel...he would have loved you, too. And that he would be happy, for us. Even though, in many respects, I failed to do what I meant to do then. I did make things better than they would have been otherwise."
His arms tighten around her. "I don't think joy is ever far away when we're together like this. It's not the same joy I felt when we were in bed...but I feel more whole than I did this morning."
____ [OOC: "sweetspark (loved)", because I can google Icelandic but I make up Cybertronian words myself out of the languages they used for the canonical words we already have, and they're all portmanteaux from those languages...]
"Mmm," she sighs contentedly at the touch to her head. Her hair is soft and smooth, like brushed silk. "Months or years, then. We have the time, do we not? An Asgardian lifespan is thousands of years. A Jotun span is longer than that, though I couldn't say by how much. But I have already died more than once, and returned stronger. I think I will be here as long as I am needed, or wanted."
She nods a little without lifting her head. "It's different, to recount old hurts to sympathetic ears. It's different when you can trust the person you are with to hear you with understanding."
One of her hands reaches out to find his and thread her fingers between his. "This is beautiful."
((ooc: that is lovely. Loki always tries to use unique endearments for each lover and for each of his children.))
"I thought gods were immortal?" Megatron's voice quavers slightly. Losing her in a few thousand years isn't something he's ready to face. "I'm not going to worry about it. Somehow I've got out of the habit of expecting to die by the end of the day. I'm starting to think like a person who believes in a future. When did that happen? The war hasn't been over that long..."
After a moment, he realises this might be ridiculous. Even if he never leaves the Nexus again, there are plenty of people who still want to kill him, and the anti-violence field is not perfect.
"I'm going to believe you're right," he says, "especially since you've come back once already. I'm going to believe you'll be here as long as you're wanted and needed. So. Probably at least three million years. I've somehow managed to reach an age where mechs start to feel older rather than younger, but I'm not on the downslope yet. Most Cybertronians don't die of old age."
He lifts their joined hands to his lips and kisses her fingertips. "What's beautiful? Us? I agree." He smiles and looks up at the sky. Planets and stars move. A million years from now, when they are lying here, what will the stars look like, then?
"Do you realise that you're subconsciously planning to spend the rest of your life with me?" He kisses the back of her hand. "I want that too. I don't care if it's crazy. I've decided we get to be happy, now."
Oh, Norns. That little quiver in his voice seems to vibrate right through to her heartstrings. Loki squeezes his hand gently and reminds herself to explain, but later. She neglected to mention to Thor that she had been killed by Thanos until the worst possible moment to reveal it, and that did not help his shock any. "There are many types of gods," she says simply. "But I dare to believe you need not worry about it. I have a long, long while ahead."
Maybe even a few million years, between one trick and another. Which is an insane length of time to Loki, but not inconceivable. What in all the Realms will she have seen, and been, in millions of years? "If I am not permitted to get old yet, neither are you," she says and chuckles softly as he kisses her fingertips.
And then she nods. "I did realize that. That's why I was frightened at first. I do think in the long term sometimes, where others are concerned. For Thor, for the children, for my lovers. I always planned to watch over Harley and Ian for the duration of their lives, even if they cease to desire me romantically. And then Ian's children, after that."
She rests her head again. "I failed my own offspring in centuries past. I had a half-human daughter once, and she had children...but I lost track of the family line, and I regret it bitterly. I may have found one of the descendants. Him, too, I plan to watch over, though I don't think he really wants me to."
"What's a long time to you and a long time to me are two different things, but I'm not going to worry, because I know that while people make promises, the universe doesn't. When I was younger, I thought that meant people should not make promises, either. But Ravage taught me there are two ways to be truthful--one is not to tell lies, and the other is to make the lie true."
Megatron ex-vents slowly. "Don't worry about me getting old. I feel at least a million years younger than I did last month. Also, I do the same thing. Look at the way I fuss and fret over Ravage and Soundwave sometimes. There were others, but they're the ones who were always loyal to me, even when I gave them reason not to be."
He shifts his weight under her, gently, trying not to dislodge her at all, so he can comfortably wrap both arms around her and flatten his back by bending his knees on either side of her and flattening his pedes on the ground. That's more comfortable. Her hand is still in his, his other hand stroking her hair.
"The other thing I said to Ravage, when he told me this was crazy: I told him that he should be glad, because wanting a future with you means I want a future, again. A very different one from my past. A quieter one, with smaller revolutions and a lot less violence. To be sworn to people, not causes. I want to be woven back into the fabric of the universe, instead of constantly slashing at the wrongness in it trying to make things right. I want to be the mech that Terminus loved, and protect what I love, not throw myself over and over at the things that I hate until they either knock me out for a while or they fall down."
He looks up at the stars, hoping they witness this. "Someday. Not now. It's not time. It won't be an exclusive relationship, it won't exclude anyone else in your life or mine. There will always be other people we want, but you are the only one that I want like this. I don't want you not to go out, but I want to be the one you come home to."
"We have forever," Loki tells him with strange, calm certainty. "We just can't hold all of it at one time. Every moment is eternity."
...really, though, she's not a poet.
She blinks when he stirs, but she can tell by the way he moves that he is not trying to dislodge her, and so she lets herself stay where she is, a relaxed, dead weight. Not unlike a cat settled on a warm lap. But he ought to be used to that.
"Already, you're spoiling me with your affection," she tells him. "But you have the right of it, I think. It's a trick to hold another person close while letting them run free, but we are not the first to accomplish such things."
She laughs a little as if struck by something. "You know, I've given Ian and Harley magical tokens--weapons and warded jewelry--but so far you've only received a towel and artwork by the children. But perhaps that suits you best if what you look for is peace and connection."
Sorry this took forever, went to the dentist today and then I rewrote this a lot
"Cybertronians don't wear jewellery or clothing except for special social occasions and private times, when we can reasonably expect to be safe and not have to transform. Otherwise, those things get broken or lost, or they catch in your seams and gears and slow you down. I've given jewels and silks to my lovers, but that's either an intimate gift or a message to all concerned at a social occasion that someone is under my personal protection. If you give me jewellery I'll wear it in bed, or at parties, and love it, and let you show me off to your friends if you like; I'm scarred, but I know I'm still pretty. But if there's any chance I'll have to turn into a tank, it's best left at home. As for weapons..."
Megatron tries to close his eyes, because the tears have come back, but he can't. It's just that she's so perfectly right about that, about him. "I am a weapon. I'm tired of being a weapon. If there's something after us and our own that can only be killed with a rose-golden dagger that's sprinkled with my dearest lover's tears and given to me at the stroke of midnight at the site of some battle on Asgard, then yes, Dulscintara, give me a weapon, but otherwise...don't?"
He pulls her in close. Like a mech with his lover, but also like a child with a doll. Like the way he did Ravage after he had her the night they took Kalis, a day when they both nearly died.
His voice cracks. There's faint light seeping out through the seams of his chest, and the filigree on his chestplates lights up red. The metal isn't hot, just warm, but something inside him feels like it's breaking and he just wants to let it.
"The towel was a kindness. The children's drawings are hope, for them and for us. If you want to give me a present, give me something you think is beautiful, or something that makes you think of me, or something that will always remind me of you, not that I ever forget--but hope and kindness are things I will always need, because sometimes I'm not very good at them. I want a life. And I want it with you, and the people we love, and the people we're going to love. The outcasts, the fallen, the broken, our own. And the Voice and the Protector of the Decepticons, neither of whom, thank providence, is me."
"No swords," Loki murmurs to him and curls against his chest. "Only plowshares. That is where I am in my life as well, I think. It may change, if a challenge arises and I feel the need to face it, but for now, what I want is peace for my children and loved ones, and a chance to piece myself back together from the hurts of the last few years."
"Just before I met you, I had returned from a battle, one that was a long time coming. I'll tell you the full story sometime, but what really matters is that I have respite now. And so do you, as long as you are with me."
The light shining through his chest-plates only makes Loki hold onto him more tightly. There is something about this visual sign of emotion that's incredibly endearing, and that makes her feel protective. "So, when it snows, we will build snowmen, and in the spring you will help plant our garden. I will teach you to braid my hair, and the children will teach you all the horrible ear-wormy songs they've learned from movies, and you will revel in the domesticity of it, as I do."
"And we will reach out to others, as we find them."
"I am never going to leave you, Loki. Even when I'm on the ship...and I'll have to go back and forth for a while...I will always be with you." Megatron holds her closely, but carefully, not because she is fragile, but because she is precious to him. After a moment, he laughs. "You know, a ship with two captains can probably do without one. Minimus won't like it, but Rodimus will be happier when I leave, and Minimus knows the way here if he cares to take it."
Megatron strokes Loki's face. "Something inside my head broke tonight, dulscintara, but it makes me feel like I just got out of a prison I didn't know I was in. I only hope I'm even half so good for you as you are for me. But I will do whatever I can to make you and the children happy. I'll braid your hair and maybe I'll teach you to polish my plate, and if you want to put wards on me, I'll show you where they ought to go, so they never come off. I'll write and study and teach, and I'll teach the children whatever they want to know, and show them how to build things that last. We'll build a safe haven for ourselves and the children and our lovers and friends, and we'll fill it with music and laughter and learning and love."
"I trust you to know your own affairs," she says, smiling at the way he cuddles her. "You will leave the ship when it's time for you to do so, and you know I will welcome Minimus, should he come here."
"Breaking things is not always my intent, especially within those I care about, but it does seem to happen around me whether I mean for it to or not." She kisses the palm of his hand, lips curled into a gently teasing smile that belies how touched she truly is.
"But elskan mín, tonight you have told me that not only am I loved, I am worthy to be loved. There are no words sufficient for the good that does me to hear."
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"This feels right," she observes, calming as the breeze whistles past them, and nods to herself. "The Winter Spirit warned me once not to allow myself to be tamed, or reduced into a single, simple self that does not acknowledge all aspects of Loki. I've thought about it a lot since then. I am a parent now, and a sibling, and a lover, and I can be all those things. I am fire and frost and wind and darkness, and I can be all those things, as well. I can be both the serpent and the victim of its dripping venom. But the turn of the Wheel, the cycle of lives and seasons, occurs outside of us and inside of us. I do not have to be the terrible herald of apocalypse and the tender mother of monsters all at the same time."
"My nature is changeable, but I think that you will understand that, even as you see it occur in front of you. I think you will still love me. That is a faith I did not expect to find."
"I trust you, with myself, and with the others I love." And that is a more momentous confession, to Loki's mind, than an I love you. After all, she never stopped loving Odin but she wouldn't trust him as far as she could throw a small planet.
"I don't know what the title of Lord Protector would even entail," she says wryly. "But you are, at least for me, a shelter from the cold both within and without."
"...and I'm sorry, I was trying to be sweet but you mentioned getting drunk and now I need to know what sort of spirits you drink in case we do have a party to attend at some point." Aaaaand there's the familiar glitter of mischief in her eyes.
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That.
Scrap. He hasn't told her that yet. Well. At least he can try to be cute about it.
"The only thing I can still get drunk on is you," Megatron says, and kisses her. But then, he vents in, and looks down past her eyes.
"I had a problem, Loki, and it got...pretty bad. It got so bad that Scorponok took over the fleet and hurt people, and I had to oust him. I had to get it taken care of. I didn't have time for discussion groups or religious nonsense. They modded my FIM chip, you won't know what that is, but no energon-based intoxicant has any effect on me now, nor ever will again."
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But it's not her place to tell Thor's business to someone he does not know, even someone she trusts.
There's a thrum as magic cycles through her energy fields, and then the form nestled against Megatron's side is Loki's masculine Jotun form, enlarged to be closer to him in height. It becomes clear why he's done this a second later as he simply gathers Megatron into his arms and squeezes him close. "Then I will have all of your attention at any parties we attend," he says in a voice that's still teasing but manages to be gentler nonetheless. "A silver lining in every cloud."
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He nuzzles Loki's throat. "I don't know what the title of Lord Protector entails exactly, either, although Soundwave's started calling himself Lord Protector of Destron. I think that might just mean 'Lord Protector of Ravage', though," he says with a chuckle. "I just thought it was funny, I guess. Your trust means more to me than anything. To shelter you is an honour. And now, here you are, sheltering me."
He tightens his arms around Loki. "And I will. Love you. Regardless. Man, woman, Jotun, Asgardian, wolf, spider, mother of monsters, herald of apocalypse--although I hope we do not have one soon--fire, frost, wind, light and darkness. I will hold you close through all your transformations and be endlessly grateful, not just to care for and protect you, but that you also do the same for me."
He ex-vents, quietly. "And I know. This is crazy. I hear it from Ravage whenever we speak. The suddenness frightens him. But I'm not being manic, and when he tells me this, I remind him that Soundwave fell in love with him at first sight. I'm using my circuit-stabilisers, and...mania makes me feel invincible. This is quite nearly...humbling. Spark bonds come on suddenly sometimes; sometimes, people just know. Thank you for deciding to be mad with me, Loki."
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The moment of immediate concern passes, but Loki will remember this conversation, both as a potential sore point and as a matter that may need to be discussed again some day, in more detail. He doesn't say so, but now that he thinks about it, it's no wonder that Megatron suffered a substance abuse problem. Leadership is a very heavy burden, and more so to someone carrying baggage from his own past.
"I will love you, too," he murmurs. Which is cheating, in a way, dodging his own uncertainty by making what sounds like a future promise rather than a current confession. Is this caution or cowardice? Either way, it's not a lie. He could say I love you now and it would not be a lie. He's just not quite ready.
He takes in a deep breath and lets it out again in a soft, drawn-out sigh, drinking in the affection while giving back what he can. The mention of mania and circuit-stabilisers prompts a pensive little hum from his throat. Context makes this sound very much like medication, and some part of him is relieved to hear that, even hopeful. Thor has been treated by Eir for trauma and depression, and the children have their therapists and doctors, and Loki...wouldn't even know where to begin with his own issues, but despite being built of very different materials, perhaps there is common ground between them all.
One hand comes up to stroke Megatron's head and upper back in a few slow, smooth passes. "Circuit-stabilisers," he echoes. "Will you tell me more? I do not believe you are being manic, either. I know the feeling too well, myself, from the inside."
"My culture, the culture of Asgard, has never dealt well with mental and emotional wounds, or innate differences in the inner worlds of its own people. That is one of the reasons I think the children are better with me, and why I am protective of them." He kisses his forehead. "There are changes being made in the new Asgard, slowly but surely, but I have no patience when it comes to the welfare of my little ones."
"My brother struggles. There have been times in the last two years when I watched him break and scrambled to pick up the pieces, and times he did the same for me. If I'm interpreting context correctly, your insight might help."
warning: this may not be as comforting as you expect it to be ...
Megatron smiles wryly. "Ravage got me to go back to it; it was one of the promises he extracted from me before he left the ship."
He frowns. "I've survived a shadowplay attempt, Loki. They call it 'personality adjustment' when it's done to someone disposable, which I absolutely was at the time. I was fortunate not to lose my intellect or creativity, but it left me with a phobia of needles, because I woke up while they had needles in my spinal circuitry and brain module, and a propensity for manic episodes that got more and more severe as the stress on me increased over time."
He lets himself slump against Loki and cling to him, resting his head on Loki's shoulder, face pressed into the curve where neck and shoulder meet. "I'm a piece of work, and also a work in progress, but you knew that. That's only one of the things that happened to me during the first worst day of my life. Right after that narrow escape, the mines began to collapse. That's when I lost Terminus. I've told you bits about him, here and there. He was my first real lover, and he was already dying. I would rather have taken his life myself, out of love, than left him to die like that. I decided not to go to my next assignment, since someone had already decided I needed my attitude managed, and went to the arena instead. That's when I really started to drink. We all did. But while I was in the arena, and later, when we were actively in revolt and they were hunting us, we had to be careful about it. After the revolt got well under way, though, and I had my own flagship, the others cut back, and I didn't; it seemed safe for me to get worse, and I did. It took Scorponok's betrayal to make me realise how fragged up I actually was."
Megatron closes his optics as tightly as he can, but he's going to cry anyway, no matter what he does. "There are so many things I want to tell you about those days. Good things, even. Not everything was unrelentingly awful. But even when we were happy, there was usually a body count."
He presses a kiss to Loki's throat, where the pulse surges against his lips.
"I may be of more use to your brother than your children, in this respect. A lot of people drink when they have gone to war. But I'll do whatever I can to help."
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He thinks it better not to go into excessive detail about Thor's problems, not until he can check with his brother and see how receptive he might be to empathy from a stranger, but he dares to hope a different perspective--even one as dark and painful as this one--might be supportive.
The unfolding tale takes his breath away, and for more than one reason. His clasp around Megatron's shoulders tightens a little, protective, and simultaneously the temperature of his own skin and the air around them drops, an instinctual Jotun reaction to fear or pain--or the memory thereof. Undirected as it is, it's not the searing chill that can destroy Aesir armor, but the energy flux is noticeable.
"The Black Order had microsurgery needles," he says quietly. "Which could be heated to burning temperatures inside the body."
There's a lot more that could be said there, but Loki absolutely will fall apart if it's discussed in detail; he can still hold himself together and be comforting right now. But he understands the horror being described to him, intimately.
The tragedy, on the other hand--the talk of Terminus and being forced to abandon him--that is somewhat beyond his personal experience, but it hurts to hear. His hands are restless, stroking over Megatron's back as if looking for some sort of physical wound that could be healed or comforted.
"If I could change that past for you, I would," he says. "But if it will give you any comfort at all, I will light a candle in honor of your lost love, when next I burn one for my mother, and the children for their dead families."
He did not mean to prompt such painful revelations, but the kiss to his throat tells him he is forgiven--or perhaps that there is nothing to forgive. "I'm here," he adds softly, a whisper of reassurance he's offered to Thor and the children in the past. "I'm here."
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He kisses Loki's throat again. "The candle, though. Yes, that is a comfort. You would have loved him, too, I think. He was sly and funny and ruthless and brilliant. He used to proofread my earliest writings. We fell in love because we both loved books, living in a place where most of the people we knew could barely read. He was the first person ever to read my poetry. Some people I've known would disapprove of it if they knew, because he was so much older than me. But he understood me, and was proud of me, and I don't remember the first time I ever interfaced, but I remember the first time with him as if it had happened yesterday. It took me such a long time to convince him, even though he wasn't ill yet, then, that someone as young and beautiful as I was then could want him.
"I often wonder what he'd think of me now. He told me often enough in those days that I was too idealistic, and too forgiving, and that Orion--who at that time was only a friend, a correspondent I'd never met--and I were going to have to understand that the changes we wanted to see would mean war. I wasn't ready to accept that until the day they nearly destroyed me, and he died. I can't believe I ever thought I wouldn't have to be a murderer. But I found out that killing was a whole lot easier than I had ever thought it could be after that, and that in fact, I had a talent for it."
He's calmer now, though suddenly feeling quite tired. "You know as much about this, now, as Ravage does, and he's my amica. More than Orion did." He needs to lie down, for a moment at least, and lies back on the ground, tugging Loki down with him with quiet pleading in his optics, and then he kisses him: thoroughly, but not with fierce hunger or urgency, more for close comfort and to anchor himself in the present than anything else. Here, they are together, and everything's as fine as it will ever be. Here, in the Nexus, under different stars. Here, where he doesn't have to be or do anything other than love and be loved.
He'll go back to the ship, but he doesn't want to. He finds it strangely hard to care about the Knights of Cybertron or their justice. The people there don't need him. Except for Minimus, he's alone there, really.
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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."
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His arms tighten around her. "I don't think joy is ever far away when we're together like this. It's not the same joy I felt when we were in bed...but I feel more whole than I did this morning."
____
[OOC: "sweetspark (loved)", because I can google Icelandic but I make up Cybertronian words myself out of the languages they used for the canonical words we already have, and they're all portmanteaux from those languages...]
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She nods a little without lifting her head. "It's different, to recount old hurts to sympathetic ears. It's different when you can trust the person you are with to hear you with understanding."
One of her hands reaches out to find his and thread her fingers between his. "This is beautiful."
((ooc: that is lovely. Loki always tries to use unique endearments for each lover and for each of his children.))
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After a moment, he realises this might be ridiculous. Even if he never leaves the Nexus again, there are plenty of people who still want to kill him, and the anti-violence field is not perfect.
"I'm going to believe you're right," he says, "especially since you've come back once already. I'm going to believe you'll be here as long as you're wanted and needed. So. Probably at least three million years. I've somehow managed to reach an age where mechs start to feel older rather than younger, but I'm not on the downslope yet. Most Cybertronians don't die of old age."
He lifts their joined hands to his lips and kisses her fingertips. "What's beautiful? Us? I agree." He smiles and looks up at the sky. Planets and stars move. A million years from now, when they are lying here, what will the stars look like, then?
"Do you realise that you're subconsciously planning to spend the rest of your life with me?" He kisses the back of her hand. "I want that too. I don't care if it's crazy. I've decided we get to be happy, now."
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Maybe even a few million years, between one trick and another. Which is an insane length of time to Loki, but not inconceivable. What in all the Realms will she have seen, and been, in millions of years? "If I am not permitted to get old yet, neither are you," she says and chuckles softly as he kisses her fingertips.
And then she nods. "I did realize that. That's why I was frightened at first. I do think in the long term sometimes, where others are concerned. For Thor, for the children, for my lovers. I always planned to watch over Harley and Ian for the duration of their lives, even if they cease to desire me romantically. And then Ian's children, after that."
She rests her head again. "I failed my own offspring in centuries past. I had a half-human daughter once, and she had children...but I lost track of the family line, and I regret it bitterly. I may have found one of the descendants. Him, too, I plan to watch over, though I don't think he really wants me to."
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Megatron ex-vents slowly. "Don't worry about me getting old. I feel at least a million years younger than I did last month. Also, I do the same thing. Look at the way I fuss and fret over Ravage and Soundwave sometimes. There were others, but they're the ones who were always loyal to me, even when I gave them reason not to be."
He shifts his weight under her, gently, trying not to dislodge her at all, so he can comfortably wrap both arms around her and flatten his back by bending his knees on either side of her and flattening his pedes on the ground. That's more comfortable. Her hand is still in his, his other hand stroking her hair.
"The other thing I said to Ravage, when he told me this was crazy: I told him that he should be glad, because wanting a future with you means I want a future, again. A very different one from my past. A quieter one, with smaller revolutions and a lot less violence. To be sworn to people, not causes. I want to be woven back into the fabric of the universe, instead of constantly slashing at the wrongness in it trying to make things right. I want to be the mech that Terminus loved, and protect what I love, not throw myself over and over at the things that I hate until they either knock me out for a while or they fall down."
He looks up at the stars, hoping they witness this. "Someday. Not now. It's not time. It won't be an exclusive relationship, it won't exclude anyone else in your life or mine. There will always be other people we want, but you are the only one that I want like this. I don't want you not to go out, but I want to be the one you come home to."
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...really, though, she's not a poet.
She blinks when he stirs, but she can tell by the way he moves that he is not trying to dislodge her, and so she lets herself stay where she is, a relaxed, dead weight. Not unlike a cat settled on a warm lap. But he ought to be used to that.
"Already, you're spoiling me with your affection," she tells him. "But you have the right of it, I think. It's a trick to hold another person close while letting them run free, but we are not the first to accomplish such things."
She laughs a little as if struck by something. "You know, I've given Ian and Harley magical tokens--weapons and warded jewelry--but so far you've only received a towel and artwork by the children. But perhaps that suits you best if what you look for is peace and connection."
Sorry this took forever, went to the dentist today and then I rewrote this a lot
Megatron tries to close his eyes, because the tears have come back, but he can't. It's just that she's so perfectly right about that, about him. "I am a weapon. I'm tired of being a weapon. If there's something after us and our own that can only be killed with a rose-golden dagger that's sprinkled with my dearest lover's tears and given to me at the stroke of midnight at the site of some battle on Asgard, then yes, Dulscintara, give me a weapon, but otherwise...don't?"
He pulls her in close. Like a mech with his lover, but also like a child with a doll. Like the way he did Ravage after he had her the night they took Kalis, a day when they both nearly died.
His voice cracks. There's faint light seeping out through the seams of his chest, and the filigree on his chestplates lights up red. The metal isn't hot, just warm, but something inside him feels like it's breaking and he just wants to let it.
"The towel was a kindness. The children's drawings are hope, for them and for us. If you want to give me a present, give me something you think is beautiful, or something that makes you think of me, or something that will always remind me of you, not that I ever forget--but hope and kindness are things I will always need, because sometimes I'm not very good at them. I want a life. And I want it with you, and the people we love, and the people we're going to love. The outcasts, the fallen, the broken, our own. And the Voice and the Protector of the Decepticons, neither of whom, thank providence, is me."
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"Just before I met you, I had returned from a battle, one that was a long time coming. I'll tell you the full story sometime, but what really matters is that I have respite now. And so do you, as long as you are with me."
The light shining through his chest-plates only makes Loki hold onto him more tightly. There is something about this visual sign of emotion that's incredibly endearing, and that makes her feel protective. "So, when it snows, we will build snowmen, and in the spring you will help plant our garden. I will teach you to braid my hair, and the children will teach you all the horrible ear-wormy songs they've learned from movies, and you will revel in the domesticity of it, as I do."
"And we will reach out to others, as we find them."
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Megatron strokes Loki's face. "Something inside my head broke tonight, dulscintara, but it makes me feel like I just got out of a prison I didn't know I was in. I only hope I'm even half so good for you as you are for me. But I will do whatever I can to make you and the children happy. I'll braid your hair and maybe I'll teach you to polish my plate, and if you want to put wards on me, I'll show you where they ought to go, so they never come off. I'll write and study and teach, and I'll teach the children whatever they want to know, and show them how to build things that last. We'll build a safe haven for ourselves and the children and our lovers and friends, and we'll fill it with music and laughter and learning and love."
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"Breaking things is not always my intent, especially within those I care about, but it does seem to happen around me whether I mean for it to or not." She kisses the palm of his hand, lips curled into a gently teasing smile that belies how touched she truly is.
"But elskan mín, tonight you have told me that not only am I loved, I am worthy to be loved. There are no words sufficient for the good that does me to hear."