#mommytron canon 🤯

[k1drobot]

People assumed much about Megatronus and Orion's relationship before the war broke out. The intimate, private history was always outweighed by the grand and operatic droves of war. No one really cared much about the fine details, because why should they? A few incorrect assumptions here and there wouldn't hurt anything. It was past.

Megatron clenched his fist, on the throne of New Kaon, the throat of this whole new world in his claws.

Orion was the carrier. He had loved Megatronus, and Orion had brought the sparkling all the way to term, only for the gladiator, Megatronus, to kill it in a rage-blind rampage. Thrown it against the nearest wall as if it were nothing but scrap metal, his decepticon mind brimming with evil intentions. Or maybe Megatronus left Orion with the care of the child, who later died to war, exposure, disease. Or maybe it had been a stillbirth. The newscasters couldn't seem to decide what story was more slanderous. Did it matter that it was all a total lie? Of course not. It was about political tactics and cheap shots. Anything to make that filthy, mouthy, rebellious low-rank keep his helm down and out of the higher-powers way.

His lip curls in fury. His face burns into anger, melts away into something calmer. Something much rarer to see on the warlord's face, mournful of a being that never was.

Megatron had been the carrier. He was a carrier type after all, not Orion, not Optimus Prime. He and Orion had loved each other fiercely, and because Orion was a hopeless romantic with too much charm for a simple archivist, and Megatronus was so, so easy to swoon over him, it resulted in a lot of… hands-on activities. And a lack of proper preventative measures, to the point where he'd told Orion that bluntly, and Orion had just grinned all broad and silly, like the likelihood of it was both impossible and beautiful.

And since Megatronus had been charmed, and was so deep in puppy love to the point where some fucking how he thought risking being knocked up was a good idea, he grinned too, and they had continued, until Megatronus had felt that minor little shift in his energy levels, that little charge somewhere deep within, and he knew.

Looking back, it was the worst thing that had ever happened to him, by far. Nothing really compared, not in relation to this. He much rather would've lost his vision or had impaired audio input if he could've been spared of this. But at the time, he'd been so excited. Scared of course, for many reasons including the toiling political climate and his involvement, the decepticon rebellion on the verge of blooming, the rising tension all over Cybertron. But it was also refreshing how… normal his fear had been. All the classic questions and what-ifs that every parent had, has, and always will have. Would he be a good carrier? Would the sparkling like him? Would they like their sire? Would Soundwave babysit?

Upon hearing the news, Orion had gone blank, then that wide, ridiculous, dorky smile rose on his face, followed quickly by tears, frantic hugging. Promises of love, devotion, the little librarian absolutely weeping with joy. It was ridiculous, and overly dramatic. He would never admit that he, too, had cried in sheer contagious happiness.

It was stupid. It was so fucking stupid. How he thought, how either of them thought they would ever live in a universe where they could do something like that together was foolish. They couldn't have everything they wanted. The universe was not swift to balance the scales, however. It had been slow. Long enough that Orion and Megatronus had even, Primus forbid, got caught up in picking a name. They had come to something of a bargain, because both were too stubborn to relent; if it was a femme, Megatronus could pick the name. If it was a mech, Orion got to pick.

"I like Skywatch. Doesn't Skywatch sound nice?"

"I know too many other miners with the word 'watch' in their names, Orion. Please pick something better, or the sparkling is going to get bullied."

"Backdome? Savageblitz? Slipstream? Silverwing?"

"... Slipstream and Silverwing are alright. Where in the pit you thought of those other two I don't want to know."

He grits his fanged denta on the twisted throne, some kind of ache, dull and reverberating, in his abdomen at the wash of horrible memories. They never settled on a proper designation. Not that it would’ve done any good.

Fate seemed to laugh at him at every turn. Even after the war had begun, he still had the sparkling in its gestational period. It was still too young to make a change in appearance on his body, but it was there. He and Soundwave had sworn to keep it an absolute secret. No one, absolutely no one, decepticon or otherwise, could know about it. Both the sparkling itself and the fact that Megatron was a carrier type. Both would be catastrophic.

And Orion… Optimus had not said anything after his graduation to a Prime. By then, the war was in full swing, bombings, poisonings, and more subtle ways of warfare had exploded into long winded battalions. At the time it had perplexed him, even slightly offended him that the Prime didn't seem at all interested in their child's status. Megatron had thought the Prime a coward for that.

It wasn't until a few vorns later that he thanked Primus the Prime never asked.

It wasn't even a big fight. Two mechs, autobots, had charged him from behind, guns blazing and swords drawn. He didn't see them in time, one grabbing his upper arms and shoving him violently forward, the other making haste with his blade, slashing the warlord on his side while the other fired a plasma shot into the flank of his shoulder. He'd shaken them off, blasted them with his fusion cannon, spearing one with the fool's own greatsword. They had been easy kills.

It was four days later that he noticed the change. Something was off. He didn't feel as heavy. His lower abdomen hurt constantly, a low, radiating ache. The lower part of his back was worse, he felt like vomiting if he bent forward just a touch too far. He woke up one morning to find energon leaking between his thighs, horror and realization stark in his face. He'd miscarried.

The warbird swallows heavily on his seat atop the universe, his to rule, his to conquer and assimilate, his to make unto himself, a brand new Cybertron.

He hadn't told anyone for weeks. He went into battles with unnatural scorn, swinging at his enemies with a ferocity that was volumes worse than ever before. It wasn't until Soundwave noticed, because Soundwave always noticed, that he'd finally had a breakdown. The TIC had approached him in his berthroom one night, because the warlord hadn't left it in three days. He hadn't cleaned the blood off his berth yet, and the blood on his thighs still left a faint blue hue on the metal. He was sleepless, delirious with grief and exhaustion.

His comms officer had not said anything, as usual. Instead, he approached the warlord slowly, as if he were doing so with a stray animal. With a gentleness that Megatron had not felt for too long, Soundwave rested a spindly hand on his shoulder, his head slowly moving to the mess on the bed, and back to Megatron's deadened eyes.

"I don't have it anymore, Soundwave." Megatron had rasped. "I don't have it." He repeated, his voice breaking.

Soundwave held the massive mech as he'd cried, wept heavy tears into the spy's arms, his extra appendages surrounding his large frame, cradling him close. He hadn't at all hesitated to drink in the affection. He couldn't have Orion's, not anymore. After the incident, Megatron didn't talk about it, and Soundwave chose not to bring it up again. It just sat there, in the corner of his mind. A specter, there to haunt him.

His claw carves a deep scratch into the iron throne.

He wanted to tell Orion. He couldn't, but he had wanted to. Or rather, he wanted to tell Optimus Prime, because Orion Pax was dead and gone, scattered to the winds just like Megatronus, just like the child. He gnaws his tongue in thought.

Megatron got close to telling the Prime, a few times. He was tempted in the height of battle, just to spur Optimus on, just to crawl under his skin and see if anything he could say would jostle that unshakeable stoicism. But he never did. Something about the idea of it felt justified to him, that the Prime should only find out in the most inappropriate of means, covered in each other's blood and wounded beyond what should be survivable. But working up the will to do it, finding the drive within himself to go through with it, it just didn’t seem to be there. It felt… too personal. Too sacred. Even in the mist of utter failure, when the possibility of bringing up such a topic could tactically benefit him, he never did so.

He supposed Optimus likely had a good idea of what happened anyhow, since a decepticon youngling had never been seen on the Nemesis. Energon was precious and scarce, the mere thought of bearing a child on the warship was unheard of amongst the ranks. The risk was so high it was tantamount to near instant death. If not from starvation, then neglect due to the carrier having to fight in battle so often, or simply being assassinated by a particularly bitter rival. The environment was totally opposed to any youth.

He exhaled, long and deep.

Taking another sire was never appealing after that, nor the prospect of finding another partner. Everything felt hollow. No one would be able to seal that kind of wound within his spark. Even after all these millions of years, time long enough for new stars to both be born and die out, that pain had never done anything for him but leave behind its ugly scar. It still felt too raw. It still, sometimes, felt like he bled the blood of his sparkling all over his berth again, the memory claustrophobic and suffocating even as the energon stains had been scrubbed out. He felt comfort exclusively in that his offspring would not live in this world. Yes, he was willing to fight until everything was dust, until the memory of why the fighting even began slipped through his digits like desert sand, but he would not want his child to be born into it. The warlord did not want them to inherit the purgatory that was their race’s current state. If that meant not having them at all, then so be it.

Megatron’s optics felt heavy, his vision blurry. He blinked it away.