Look TFA Optimus is absolutely a middle class maybe lower-middle class kid who joined the army out of misplaced patriotism from propaganda and also bc it was one of his best choices
TFA Megatron maybe started with fuck all but he’s now the equivalent of new money. He’s Jay Gatsby. He likes the finer things but also has no fucking idea of the REALLY good stuff that like the Tower nobles deal with. He’s learned manners and speech but he’s still “horrifyingly” plebian
What I’m saying is, if they take over Cybertron together they ducking horrify the old elite bc like. They do the robo equivalent of wearing their shoes inside. Their outside shoes. They have awful kitsch knick-knacks instead of graceful minimalism (Megatron is a hoarder fight me). They garden WITHOUT gloves and plant hodgepodge awful arrangements that are a riot of colors.
Megatron absolutely knows he’s horrifying the elite and why and finds it goddamn hilarious. Optimus is just like “why r people upset that I used the same fork for the salad and the meat”
Rumble shook his head. “Not sure that’s your problem, Boss, if
you don’t mind me sayin’. Your problem is, you think too much.
It’ll be fine, you’ll see.” And he strolled off to find his
brother, leaving Megatron sitting on a makeshift bench below an
illegal fighting pit, staring at his hands and wondering whether he
could really do this. True, when he’d smashed his fist into that
Senate enforcer and felt plating buckle beneath his fingers, felt the
warmth of living fuel spatter over his face, it seemed to awaken
something in him; but to take on a lackey of the Senate in the heat
of the moment was one thing. To walk calmly into a gladiatorial
arena and hurt a complete stranger, possibly kill him – that was
something else.
In the tense quiet, Megatron could hear someone humming. Then
singing, very softly:
Rain fall sharp, and the mist rise cold,
And the foreman come down for his purple gold,
He’ll take it from your cart, or he’ll take it from your
lines,
Or he’ll take it from your spark, ’cause you’re married to
the mines.
Megatron rose without really meaning to, and followed the sound until
he stood over a spindly bot with a drill arm that reminded him, for a
painful moment, of Impactor. “Where were you a miner?” Megatron
murmured.
The bot started. “Uh – Luna-2. Before the energon started
drying up. You?”
“Messatine. Much the same.” He sat down a little ways down the
bench, giving the stranger some space. “We had the same song.
Only… some of us came up with a variation, on the chorus.”
“Yeah?” The bot seemed grateful for the distraction, and turned
towards Megatron. “You remember it?”
“Oh yes.” Megatron hummed deep in his throat, finding his pitch.
Then, in a voice a little rusted with disuse, he began to sing.
Rain fall sharp, and the moon rise blue,
No purple gold without me and you,
Take your axe, take your hammer, meet the foreman at the door,
Tell him we ain’t married to the mines no more!
The song began in silence, but by the time Megatron was halfway
through, there were a few mutters, here and there; whispers of,
“Mmm-hmm,” or, “Right on,” though their owners kept their
faces turned away. By the third line, a few smiles were breaking
out, and when Megatron finished, he lifted his head to find half the
room looking at him, grins on their faces.
“Sing it again, miner,” someone called.
Megatron obliged, and this time, a few other voices joined in. The
third time, most of the bots in the room were singing, and the rest
were stamping along with the beat; and when Megatron roared out,
“Take your axe, take your hammer, meet the SENATE at the door!”
cheers broke out.
The whole crowd chorused back, “Tell
’em we ain’t married to the mines no more!”
“Boss?”
Megatron turned. Rumble was grinning in the doorway, but all he said
was, “We’re up.”
“Hey, miner!” a voice shouted after him as Megatron turned to
leave. “What’s your name?”
“Megatron.” And with that, Megatron of Tarn entered the arena
for his very first gladiatorial match.
He didn’t say, “With an R.” He didn’t say, “As in
neutron.” But for once, he didn’t have to, because no one got it
wrong. When he won, the waiting fighters started chanting, and the
audience took it up in turn: “Meg-a-tron! Meg-a-tron!”
And Megatron – always thinking – began to see the shape of
something forming, in the faces and the voices and the fuel-slick
sands beneath his feet.
(Thanks for playing! 🙂 NB – this anon also contacted me again and requested that I add the prompt “medical care”. Hope you like the result! Warning for mild gore in a clinical context. Pre-war, set around the same time as Megatron Origins.)
The blindfold was whipped off, and Ratchet blinked, trying to get his optics to adjust to the darkness. He could make out hulking shapes clustered around him, and here and there, dimly glowing slivers of red, blue, and yellow indicated mecha watching him from the shadows.
“Found ya a medic, just like ya asked for, Boss,” said a voice from somewhere behind him. Close to floor level, it sounded like.
A shadow shifted in front of him, and resolved into a massive silver bot peering down into Ratchet’s face. ”You are a doctor?” he rumbled. Ratchet nodded curtly, biting down on his fear. He’d been in a few nasty situations in the Dead End, mostly trying to get between the circuit speeder dealers and his strung-out patients, and he’d survived that. He could survive this. He could.
The silver mech tilted his head towards the back of the room. It was an oddly graceful gesture. ”We have wounded. Come.”
“Do I get to learn who my patients are?” Ratchet asked, already standing up and taking his medical kit out of subspace.
“They are my followers. They are of great importance to me.”
“And you are…?”
“The mech who will be removing your spark with his denta if you fail.” His voice was as even as if he’d been commenting on the weather. Ratchet didn’t quite manage to suppress his shiver.
There turned out to be three wounded mecha: a minibot who just needed an injection to stabilise his spark after receiving some kind of massive electric shock (like running afoul of an electrified security system? Ratchet wasn’t sure he wanted to know); a seeker with a near-shredded wing, but who was stable and awake enough to snark at him up until Ratchet put him under; and a yellow grounder whose chest and abdominal plating was mangled horrifically, and who graced Ratchet with a cocky smile and a soft, “Watch the paintjob, eh, Doc?” before passing out. It took two hours to make certain they wouldn’t lose him, and another four to patch him up to the point where self-repair could take over. Ratchet was nearly dead on his feet by the time he finished with all three of them.
Turning to his host, who had been watching impassively with his arms folded for the last hour, he snapped, “And now your arm.”
“What?”
“You’re hurt. I noticed you favouring it as we came in.”
The mech glared for a moment; then, slowly, he extended one arm. A meagre patch job and a haphazard lick of silver paint hid what was, once Ratchet got them peeled off, a particularly ugly gash. Clucking, he said, “You’re lucky you don’t have the beginnings of a rust infection. I get that you don’t want it seen, but next time, bathe it in a nanite solution before you wrap it – I can get you some from the clinic.”
“Your generosity to the mech who kidnapped you borders on suspicious.”
“Yeah, the guy who had his minions grab me in broad daylight and take me to a secret lair to treat battle wounds really has grounds to call me suspicious.” He knew he should regret saying it, but somewhere around the fifth hour of surgery, the fear had burned off, replaced by exhaustion and worry. Worry over every patient, from the kid with the torn-open plating to the mystery mech whose arm he was piecing back together.
To Ratchet’s surprise, his current patient said nothing more, until the repair was done. Then he caught Ratchet’s retreating hand in his larger one, and turned it palm up, examining it minutely.
“You have a gentle touch, Doctor.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why they pay me the big shanix.” Ratchet’s mouth went dry, watching the mech turn his hand delicately this way and that.
“I did not mean it as a compliment. I do not require coddling, like a fretful newspark.” He had a gentleness of his own, though, in the careful way he folded Ratchet’s fingers over his palm and released his hand. "However, you are skilled. You have my gratitude.“ For the first time since they’d met, the silver mech smiled, flashing bright, sharp denta. "You may find that a valuable commodity in the time to come.”
Cybertronian Database 