I NEED those machines

The second night it happened, there was no warning before Isaac was being lifted into the air by the back of his coat. He yelped in shock, arms swinging uselessly. His ascent was dizzyingly fast, and when he was released it took him a few seconds to recognize the black metal underneath his hands. He looked up, his heart already rising into his throat, and met Megatron’s crimson gaze. 

They stared at each other. Megatron’s expression remained impenetrable. All Isaac could glean from the set of his frown and the slope of his brows was that he was thinking. About what, Isaac couldn’t know. He could only hope it didn’t involve the hand he sat in tightening around him. 

Megatron slowly, lazily tilted his head. His other hand rose up and he nudged Isaac with a finger. “Organic,” he murmured. It wasn’t a question, so Isaac held his tongue. “I don’t know how you've survived this long. You’re so soft,” Megatron’s finger pressed at Isaac’s middle. Isaac winced even though it didn’t hurt. 

Then, Megatron tilted his hand. Isaac cried out as he was unceremoniously rolled into Megatron’s other palm, just barely stopped from falling off the side by his thumb. He clung to the digit like a lifeline as he tried to catch his breath. Over him, Megatron sighed. “So easily moved.”

“M-most of our predators are not as large as you,” Isaac wheezed—then froze. He had told himself he wasn’t going to speak. He had promised himself he would give Megatron nothing to latch onto with his ire.

“Predator… Hmm. No,” Megatron let out a breathy chuckle. “That would suggest I need you to survive.” He stroked one finger over Isaac’s neck and up the side of his face, dragging a shiver from the smaller man. “You are a plaything to me, Sumdac. Never forget that.” 

No, Isaac thought when Megatron placed him back in his cage, he wouldn’t. 

His captor, however, seemed to doubt that. Every night thereafter when Megatron drank, he took Isaac out and simply… Toyed with him. He seemed to relish moving him from hand to hand, even lying back and setting Isaac on his chest so he could poke and prod at him with both. He displayed an unnerving interest in the tenderness of human flesh. He would use his finger and thumb to squeeze Isaac’s biceps, his stomach, his thighs, testing how tight his grip could become before Isaac would wince and pull away from him. 

But strangest of all was when Megatron asked questions. “There’s something hard in there. I can feel it,” he said as his thumb shifted down Isaac’s chest. “It’s… Bumpy. What is it?” 

Isaac blinked at him. Megatron surely could have connected wirelessly to the internet and found his answer within seconds. Why was he asking him? He didn’t voice this, of course—that enormous thumb was still resting over his chest, after all. He answered. “All humans have endoskeletons. Bones made of calcium. They’re, ah- scaffolding, of a sort. They provide a frame for muscles and nerves to wrap around. Th-these,” he placed his hand over the tip of Megatron’s finger, “are my ribs, which protect my vital organs. My lungs, which cycle air similarly to your ventilation system, and- and my, ah-…”

Megatron cocked his head. “Your…?” He drew the word out in a low rumble. 

Isaac swallowed. “…My heart.” 

Something in Megatron’s bleary optics sharpened. His thumb pressed down a little harder. “It’s beating faster.” His lip curled up in a slow grin. “Are you frightened, Professor?”

Isaac’s throat went dry. “I,” he croaked, “I-…” 

Megatron’s optics narrowed. “Don’t try to lie to me. Humans,” he hissed between sharp teeth even as his grin widened. “Your biology betrays you. How pathetic.”

Isaac held his tongue. It wouldn’t do to anger his captor, though his face flushed hot with indignation. Who was Megatron to speak on biology, Isaac thought, when he often caught the mech’s plating tightening to his frame? When he noticed the lights dotted along his body flaring and dimming? Or, indeed, when Megatron hiked up or relaxed his shoulders in a way Isaac never saw the other Decepticons doing? It was a very human mannerism, Isaac thought but didn’t say.

His silence seemed to displease Megatron. His vents expelled a huff of air as his smile disappeared, and his grasp, though he didn’t release Isaac entirely, loosened by a measure. “...How can you stand it? Feeling it move inside you?” His nose wrinkled, but his voice was strangely soft. His gaze focused on Isaac’s chest. His thumb began to rub gently at it. 

It was an unsettling touch—Isaac started to lean into it before he caught himself and grit his teeth. He was starved for contact, he told himself, that was all. Still, the quiet glow of Megatron’s optics coaxed an answer from his throat. “I suppose because I’ve always had it. It’s part of me.”

Megatron’s other hand drifted to his own chest, fingers drifting over the violet Decepticon brand at its center. He didn’t seem to realize he was doing it. “Part of you,” he murmured.

Then, abruptly, Megatron’s optics brightened and he sat straight up, snapping himself out of whatever spell he had been under. He shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose as he unceremoniously returned Isaac to his cage. He said nothing to Isaac. He didn’t even look at him before he left the cavern. 

He was getting used to this, Isaac thought with a pang of annoyance as an enormous shadow crossed over him. His hands paused in their typing, a movement that, though he wished he hadn’t, he knew Megatron had caught. His fears were confirmed when he was plucked up and out of his chair. He tried to force his body to relax—his back muscles were already strained from hunching over a computer for days on end and sleeping on a pile of blankets on the floor—but it refused. Something deeper, more primal inside him refused to let its guard down around the metal beast that had taken an interest in him. 

As Isaac was turned about to face those burning red optics, he thought perhaps he should listen to that deeper instinct. Megatron looked different tonight. There was no lazy grin on his lips, no looseness to his shoulders, no cube of high-grade in his hand. In fact, Isaac couldn’t find any trace of that oily, electric smell. As alarming as their usual sessions (because what else could he call them?) were, there was some level of safety in that routine. This broke the pattern. This was dangerous. The hair on the back of Isaac’s neck stood on end. 

“Good evening, Professor,” Megatron drawled. This was how he usually was: stoic, controlled, careful. If he had drank that night, Isaac couldn’t tell. “I’m going to ask you to do something for me.” 

“A-ah. But aren’t I doing as you said? I’ve made some progress on the schematics-”

“Not that,” Megatron cut him off. Dropping Isaac into his palm, he strode over to a patch of sloped stone and sat down, reclining against the cavern wall. “I have a different task for you.”

Isaac glanced around the room. None of the other Decepticons could be found, and Megatron had yet to present him with anything. He had removed Isaac from his workstation as well. What could the mech want him to do?

It was the hiss of alien hydraulics, a fraction of the sound he usually heard when Cybertronians transformed, that drew Isaac’s attention back to Megatron—and the plating of his chest drawing apart. The Decepticon symbol split in two and slid away, revealing layers upon layers of dark violet metal that each opened up until at last the gloom of the cavern was lit by a third red glow. Inside Megatron’s chest lay a circle of red glass nestled in thick, coiled wires. Underneath it something shifted and flared with light, and if Isaac held his breath, he almost imagined he could hear it crackling like living electricity. 

Megatron brought him closer and the buzzing became a physical sensation. It felt like approaching an exposed livewire, the charge tugging at the exposed hair on his body and sending prickles down his spine. When he opened his mouth the air tasted like iron. “What-... What do you want me to do?” Isaac looked from the spark chamber to Megatron, who was watching him with an impenetrable expression. He had seen this for a moment back on the Autobots’ ship. Underneath that circle of tinted glass lay Megatron’s spark, a cerulean ball of energy that spun and danced. He was only a few feet away from it. Isaac subconsciously drew his arms in and laid a hand over his left breast. “Is- is it damaged?” 

“No.” A flash of teeth. “But you’re going to make it so.”

Isaac’s gaze whipped up, eyes going wide. Megatron met his incredulous stare with a smile. Even this was different. No wide grin, but something small, understated—only the barest hint of white metal between his lips. This was a Megatron who knew what he was saying. Isaac's brow furrowed. “Wh-what? If this is a joke, it’s- it’s a very poor one!”

Megatron tilted his head. “No joke, my dear Professor.” With his other hand, he picked a cable from his exposed chamber, catching it with the underside of his claw and pulling it out. His expression tightened as he did so, cheek twitching. “You’ve had more than enough practice, haven’t you? Just do what you did before,” he said as he held the wire out to Isaac. “Unmake me.” 

Isaac’s mouth was dry. Under his gloves, sweat gathered on his palms. “I- I don’t-.. You want me to- to hurt you?”

“I want you to do as you are told,” Megatron's voice dropped a few degrees.

“But why? I- I don’t understand.” And Isaac truly didn’t. The dissonance between their usual pattern and this was making his head throb. Megatron relished in tormenting him, terrifying him, dancing at the knife’s edge of actually hurting him. Now he wanted to reverse their roles?

Megatron’s nose wrinkled. "You don't need to understand. I'm giving you a golden opportunity, aren't I?" He gestured toward himself. "Strike back at your captor. Your enemy."

"But- I don't- I don't want to!"

Megatron stopped short. His lip curled. "You don't want to? Have you forgotten exactly what I did to your home? Your little Autobot friends?" His optics flashed as he growled, "I would gladly do it all again."

"I remember," Isaac said, clenching his fists in the hope it would hide their trembling, "but you want to attack them either way!"

"That may be true, yes." Megatron's optics narrowed into blazing slits. "I suppose all that leaves, then, is your irritating progeny."

A cold pit opened up in Isaac's stomach. Megatron must have seen it in the way his face took on an ashen tone, as his snarl tilted upwards into a sneer. "I could have snapped her in half, you know. She was standing in my way of the Allspark. I could have crushed her under my heel, but I was kind," he spat out the word like it disgusted him, "and merely moved her aside. Perhaps I should rectify that mistake."

"You wouldn't," Isaac cried, "she's your-!” He stopped, choking on air for a split second. "She's not your concern. She's not your enemy."

Megatron's gaze bore into him. A moment of tense, rigid silence passed by. A bead of sweat dripped down the back of Isaac's neck. "…I will do what I like, Professor. And if I would like to hunt down an insignificant little insect of a human, that is what I will do."

"No," Isaac said, lifting his hands in an open plea. "Please, just leave her alone-”

"Then do as I say," Megatron shoved the cable into Isaac's arms, "and hurt me before I hurt her."

Isaac took a startled step back. The cord in his hands was warm. It buzzed with living electricity, a steady, low hum he could feel leaking into his arms even through his gloves. His movement alone was enough to pull it, the length that hung between him and Megatron's spark going taut, and Megatron flinched. A grunt escaped him—and his smile grew.

"Go on, Professor. Before I change my mind." Megatron traced another wire with the tip of his claw before yanking it loose from its resting place and forcing it into Isaac's hands. His vents were open, warm air gushing from them as some internal fans whirred to life. "Before I decide whether to rip her arms or her legs off first."

"No," Isaac begged, unintentionally squeezing the wires in his grip. The pressure, though it must have been minuscule, sent a shudder through Megatron's frame. "Don't say that, don't-”

"Whether I should lock her up and let her starve before killing her," Megatron snarled, "or execute her immediately!" There was a terrible, wild glee in his grin now, and under its glass shell his spark flashed and spun.

Isaac was going to be sick. He didn't want to do this. He didn't want to hear this! "Leave her alone, please- please!"

Megatron was panting. His optics were wide, fixed on the human in his grasp and blistering with some emotion Isaac was too frightened to name. He didn't seem to hear Isaac. He didn't seem to know what he himself was saying. His smile was full of teeth. "—Whether I should present you with her corpse, or- or make you watch as I tear her head from her body-!"

"No!" Isaac shouted, and yanked the cables with all his meager strength.

Megatron gasped. His whole body jolted, his mouth dropping open then slamming shut as he bit down on his lip hard. His free hand scrabbled at the ground under him, claws digging into the rock and plowing open deep furrows. His back arched and his legs shook. A few sparks leaked from his half-closed optics, and in his chest his spark glowed so brightly Isaac thought for a moment it might just go out. And the sounds he made. Underneath the panic washing over him, Isaac felt his face grow hot as that low, guttural moan met his ears.

It seemed to last forever yet ended after only a few seconds. Megatron's head lolled back, slight whines slipping between where his teeth were still embedded in his lower lip. His legs twitched, thighs rubbing together with a screeching, scraping sound that stuck in Isaac's ears before they finally went lax against the ground. A hot gust blew through Isaac's hair as Megatron sighed.

Isaac tried to step back but stumbled on the joint of a finger and fell onto his behind. The impact, though small, was enough to stir Megatron out of the haze that had settled over him. His optics cracked open. The tension, the mad fervor that had wracked his face before—all of it had evaporated away. He looked…. Satisfied. "…Good work, Professor," he purred.

Isaac could only stare. He abruptly realized he was still holding Megatron's wires in his hands and recoiled, dropping them like they were burning coals. Megatron chuckled at the sight. He took the cables, wincing slightly as he did as if they were still tender, and tucked them back inside himself. "I think," he took a deep breath and rolled his neck langorously, "that will be all for tonight."

Isaac swallowed. His head was pounding. He felt like a dishrag that had been wrung dry, yet his whole body was damp with trapped sweat, itching at his skin. Or was that leftover static from the wires he had held? He could have sworn his palms were still tingling. What had just happened? What had he done? "What," he croaked, but couldn't make himself say anything else. His voice lapsed into a breathless, bewildered wheeze.

Megatron paid no attention to this. He didn't seem to care about Isaac at all. The plating over his spark closed up, and he brushed one hand over the Decepticon symbol as if dusting it off before getting to his feet. He had to draw Isaac close to him as he did so the human wouldn't fall from his grasp. Isaac stiffened as his front was lightly pressed against Megatron's chest; perhaps it was simply his imagination, but through the fabric of his gloves he thought he felt a lingering warmth in the metal.

That warmth kept coming back to him long after Megatron had returned him to his cage and left. He sat down in a daze and tried to get back to work, but his fingers kept pausing at the keys. The image of Megatron's lips parting in that gasp refused to leave his mind. The sound he had made rang in his ears.

Isaac did not sleep that night.

A few days had passed when it happened again. Isaac knew it was coming from the heavy steps thudding over the cave floor. They made his monitors shake the closer they came, but they were relaxed, unhurried. He turned to watch Megatron approach this time. Once again, there was no trace of oil on his breath as he lifted Isaac from his cage and carried him to the same spot he had sat the previous night. "We're going to try again," was all he said by way of explanation, but that was all Isaac's stomach needed to start twisting.

Laying against the wall, Megatron shifted aside the plating over his spark and tugged two coils of wire free. "Pull harder this time, Professor," he said in an airy sigh as he handed them to Isaac. He traced his fingers up along the human's side, lifting his chin with one long, pointed claw. "I want to feel it burn."

Isaac's cheeks flushed. He could already hear fans kicking on inside Megatron's frame. He considered refusing for just a moment before the red glow that washed over his skin made his will falter. He swallowed down the lump in his throat, shut his eyes tight, and pulled.

It was a pity he couldn't plug his ears as well. The noises Megatron made that night echoed through his dreams the whole week after.

The third time, he couldn't take it anymore. Dread bubbled up in his gut every time Megatron walked by, a sickening squeeze that pushed out every other thought in his mind, leaving only a primal, prey-animal drive to run and hide. A part of him (which spoke in a voice disturbingly similar to Megatron's) questioned why it was this that made him so nervous; the warlord wasn't toying or teasing or threatening to crush him under his heel. His words had been violent and wretched the first night, but with the benefit of distance it was easy to see how they had been spoken purely to push Isaac into doing as he was told. Isaac hadn't been hurt at all. It was Megatron whose grunts and groans drifted between pleasure and pain. It was Isaac who inflicted such harm.

But that was the problem, wasn't it? Isaac hated Megatron—hated him for lying about his identity, hated him for making Isaac into a fool, hated him for forcing him to help the Decepticons and thus put both the Autobots and his own daughter in danger. Yet whenever he looked at Megatron, the guilt that sat dormant inside him would stir. He had been an idiot for believing Megatron's lies, but he couldn't resent himself for wanting to undo the violation he had committed upon the mech's body.

In the days after the Autobots had first appeared, Isaac had had nightmares of them coming upon his lab and seeing the deconstructed head of one of their own, metal skin peeled back and wires exposed, a corpse mid-dissection. In the dreams, they would recoil and shudder, then turn upon Isaac. Monster, they would call him. Madman. And among them, Sari would stare at him with wide, horrified eyes, and she would realize who the person she had called her father truly was.

Isaac knew now that the Autobots would not have considered him a depraved scavenger—from their words after Megatron's sudden resurrection, they thought him a traitor more than anything—but the core of the nightmares hadn't left him. He had blood on his hands. His palms still tingled days after he let go of the wires attached to Megatron's spark.

He couldn't do it again.

When Megatron settled against the wall of the cavern and offered himself, Isaac summoned up all his strength, closed his eyes, and said, "No."

"…No?"

"I won't do this. I can't." Isaac curled his hands into tight fists.

Megatron was silent for a long moment. Isaac opened his eyes but kept them low, glaring hard at his feet and the metal of Megatron's palm beneath them. When Megatron at last spoke, his flight engine purred underneath his voice like the growl of a tiger. "And why, exactly, can't you?"

"I- I don't want to hurt you again. I did before, yes, but that was different, that was—" when I thought you were dead, he didn't say. When I thought you were an unfeeling machine. Isaac's young mind had never once considered whether the head that had crashed in the field outside his workshop could have been alive. He cursed himself now, but how could he have known? "It's not right. I don't know why you want me to hurt you, but it's not right. I won't do it."

"Oh?" Megatron's hand moved. Isaac found himself pinned against a wall of fingers by Megatron's thumb, the claw that had unsheathed itself pressing into the fabric over his collarbone. It poked at his skin with every shallow breath he took. "So now it's below you?"

Though his mind begged him not to, Isaac looked up. Megatron's optics simmered, their light unwavering in a way that was distinctly wrong to a human's brain. Eyes were supposed to shift, to twitch, to blink. Megatron only stared. "Such petty ethical concerns never stopped you before." His lip lifted for a moment when he spat 'ethical,' flashing the white metal of his teeth.

The guilt began to rise from its pit in Isaac's stomach. "I've said it before, and I will say it as many times as I need to—I'm sorry. I- I shouldn't have done what I did to you." He shoved down the urge to wring his hands.

Megatron's browplates rose. He hummed quietly. Then: "No." The growl had disappeared, smoothing out into something slick and understated. "I know you, Professor. You shouldn't have. But you did." He shuffled backwards, sitting up straighter, his upper body looming over Isaac. "Tell me… When those wretched Autobots emerged from their ship, how did it feel? To look upon them and realize that for fifty years, those weren’t wires and gears your hands had been buried in, but guts?" His smile was like a wound across his face, peeling open to reveal the white bone underneath the skin. "Were you ashamed? Were you guilty? How did you sleep knowing what you had done? Did you sleep at all?”

Isaac flinched like Megatron's words were spears. He brought them down like they were, his tone growing sharper and sharper with each question, a whetstone honing their edges. "No, I- I'm sorry," Isaac said, but his faltering voice was lost under the rumble of Megatron's engines, growing louder. "I'm sorry-!"

“Would you like to know how I sleep?" Megatron cocked his head like a great bird eyeing its prey. "Would you like to know that every time I fall into recharge, I fear that all this has been a dream and I will wake up back in your laboratory," he hissed, "handless. Bodiless. Helpless.”

Isaac bit down on his lower lip. The claw at his collarbone was digging into the skin now, and though he knew he had no hope of doing so he still grasped at it, shoving uselessly at the digit pushing into him like a pendulum descending. Underneath it, as if in a mirror, the guilt was crawling up through his chest, twisting and twining between his ribs—creeper vines, slowly strangling him.

“If I hadn’t woken when I did, how long, I wonder, would it have taken for you to tell them about me?” Megatron paused. His optics crawled over Isaac, the light they cast burning like molten metal. “You would have told them, wouldn’t you?"

To his horror, Isaac felt tears stinging at the corners of his eyes. He blinked, then shut them tight and canted his head down. He stopped pulling at Megatron's claw, instead clutching it with an air of near-desperation, fingers curling into his palms.

Megatron knew the answer just as well as he.

"Mm… Yes, I know you. You're like me, Professor." Another finger stroked up the line of Isaac's jaw, then ran back through his hair, petting him as if he were a well-behaved dog. "We are all that matter. At the end of the day, we will do anything to get what we want." Megatron leaned in close—Isaac could tell from the breath wafting over his skin as he purred, "Anything."

It was quiet in the cavern for a moment, another moment, another.

"…..No."

The finger on Isaac's head stopped.

"I won't do it. I still won't do it." Isaac's eyes shot open, and he lifted his chin to glare directly into Megatron's startled, wide optics. "I was wrong. I was a coward. Perhaps I wouldn't have told the Autobots. Perhaps I would have been too scared to ever tell them the truth. I would have been found out eventually, and they-… They would have punished me." His voice trembled audibly, but still he raised it, calling up the memory of Optimus Prime's optics gleaming with steel and determination as he stood against Megatron on their ship. He could only hope he projected a fraction of that bravery. "But I am still grateful to them. It was they who showed me how wrong I was," he pointed at Megatron, "and it was you who made me realize I needed to do better. No matter who you turned out to be, Megatron, you taught me that, and I won't give up on it no matter what you say!" He slammed his fist down on Megatron's thumb. "I don't want to hurt you again! You didn't deserve it then and you don't deserve it now!"

His shout echoed through the cavern. The silence that rushed to follow the space it left behind was thick and cloying.

Megatron's lips were parted slightly. The first exhale that passed through them was shallow, shocked, like he was remembering how to breathe. The next was more forceful. The third was a wheeze, as strained as the grin stretching out his lips. "…Who are you to decide what I deserve?" The laughter that escaped him could barely be called that. His optics were as wide as his smile.

"Megatron," Isaac began, but it was clear Megatron had had enough of the human's words when the hand undeneath him shifted, fingers wrapping around his body in a fist. Isaac yelped and squirmed, but his arms were trapped against his sides.

"You're right," Megatron hissed through his teeth. "You are a coward. A spineless, filthy, pathetic little parasite gorging itself on stolen blood, too stupid to know when it's being used and too feeble to run away when it's been found out."

In one sudden, smooth movement, Megatron swiveled around and slammed Isaac into the wall. His fist took the brunt of the impact, but the shock snapped Isaac's head backwards, and he let out a sharp cry. Megatron's optics flared at the sound. His smile grew more jagged. "You think you can change? Look at you! All you are—all you ever will be—is small. A sniveling worm who dares to think he could defy his betters when all it takes to kill you is-" his grip loosened, "-a drop."

A scream ripped its way out of Isaac's throat as gravity took hold, pure, blind panic blocking out all thought as he fell—

—and struck the ground with a thump. It took a second or two to realize he was not dead; the pain blooming across his back and the emptiness in his lungs confirmed it. He gasped for breath.

Megatron, however, gave him no time to catch it. "And yet," he growled from far, far above him, his face too high up to determine any expression. Then there was red, blinding bright and shooting down towards him, and Isaac flinched violently, his arms flying up to shield his face. Because of this he didn't see but felt the fist smash into the cave floor next to him. The earth trembled beneath his body, air buffetting his face as he gasped, gasped, gasped. Megatron was close, too close, his other hand caging Isaac against the ground and his optics searing into him. Megatron's engine roared. "You make me feel like an ANIMAL.

"I could kill you. I should kill you." Megatron's grin had twisted into a snarl. With his nose wrinkled and his lip curled, exposing the glinting white of his fangs, he looked more like a rabid dog than a man. "I look at you and I feel your repulsive hands inside of me. I feel the fingerprints you left in my mind. You unmade me, Sumdac," he barked, and the fingers around Isaac curled inward, their claws screeching over the stone. "I put myself back together but you're still inside." The plating along his arms was rattling as his optics flashed like spotlights. There was something terrible and wild in them, leaking out through the sparks breaking from their corners and the gnashing of Megatron's teeth as he spoke.

"I want to kill you. I want to crack your chest open and watch your heart squirm inside your ribs. I want to take your arm and pull," his vents stuttered in a crazed attempt at a laugh, "watch the bone break, the skin split apart, the tendons snap one by one—and then- and then I want you to do that to me."

Isaac could barely breathe. Acid burned the back of his throat. Megatron had started to press down on his body, his thumb pinning Isaac's right arm and his palm blanketing his chest. Through the maelstrom of thoughts whirling about Isaac's mind, one noted that Megatron must have been able to feel the frantic throb of his heart.

Another noted Megatron's other hand crawling up his own chest, claws tap-tapping at the metal. They paused over the Decepticon insignia, over Megatron's spark—and then dug down. Deep gouges fluttered open behind his claws as Megatron dragged them through his chest. All the while, his lips were twitching upwards. "The difference is- the difference now is you don't touch me until I tell you to. It doesn't matter what you want to do. Understand? You will do what I say, when I say it."

Isaac's jaw worked silently. Just a little more. Just a little more weight, and his ribs would shatter. Underneath the ringing in his ears, he almost thought he could hear them creaking. Tears streaked down the sides of his face. They looked like blood under the light of Megatron's gaze.

Megatron's tongue darted out from between his teeth, wetting his lips. His smile was wide and gleaming. "You are mine."

Isaac surrendered. He closed his eyes, but the pain blooming in his corneas did not vanish. Neither did the afterimage of burning, boiling crimson, staring into him, staring through him.

When he came to, he was on the cool floor of his cage. 

Megatron was nowhere to be seen.

There must have been a scuffle of some kind, Isaac surmised as he watched Lugnut and Blitzwing limp into the base, and one that had not gone well for the Decepticons. His spirits lifted to know the Autobots must have been victorious—only to plunge back down when Megatron ducked into the cavern after his damaged troops. Unlike them, his plating was nearly pristine, save for one deep gash on the side of his thigh, a tear that cut through the metal and exposed sparking wires. It was a wound Isaac could easily imagine Optimus Prime’s axe creating. 

Megatron was silent, but the ice in his gaze as he swept it over Lugnut and Blitzwing said more than enough. Blitzwing ducked his head. Lugnut clasped his pincers together and threw himself to his knees with a tremendous crash, exclaiming, “Such a failure will not happen again, mighty Megatron!” He looked up and pounded his chest with one fist. “I will ensure Blitzwing does not lapse in—”

“What!?” Blitzwing’s head snapped to the side, face whrr-clicking as his face shifted from blue to red. “We were not the one who tripped over his own lumbering feet!

“You were distracted as you always are! You cost us the element of surprise!”

“As if we could ever possess that when you’re around, you dim-witted—”

“Quiet!”

Blitzwing and Lugnut shut up and snapped to attention so quickly it was like a wince. Perhaps it was encoded in their circuits. Either way, they returned to how they had been moments before: Blitzwing with his optics on Megatron’s feet and Lugnut frantically trying to regain his lord’s favor (difficult to do without speaking, but still somehow accomplished by his bowed head and anxiously clicking pincers).

Megatron scowled at them both. Then, his optics turned to Isaac, who flinched away. "Sumdac," came Megatron's call. "You will repair Lugnut and Blitzwing."

Isaac swallowed, but nodded. The field around his workstation was deactivated by Blitzwing, the mech picking up both him and his tools and setting him on a platform that brought him chest-height with the Cybertronians. Perhaps another day Blitzwing would have idly chatted with him, his sharp-toothed alter asking various questions about Earth and humans, but today his face remained cool blue and silent as Isaac patched up the broken wires and torn plating. Lugnut was the same, though he kept several of his optics on Isaac while he worked.

Megatron never requested Isaac repair him. He only sat down and poured himself a cube of high-grade, watching Isaac all the while.

Isaac's skin crawled under his heavy gaze. His back was still one long, continuous bruise, though somehow he had escaped without any broken bones. He tried to take his time in fixing Lugnut, part of him hoping Megatron would grow bored and depart before he was done, but he could only stall for so long before his patient grew impatient with him. "My systems shall take care of the rest! Stop wasting time, puny insect!" Lugnut yanked his freshly-soldered arm away from Isaac, who wobbled and nearly fell forward off the platform.

"Lugnut," Megatron called, and the Decepticon straightened up. "Find the Constructicons and inform them of their next task. Blitzwing, gather information on the next materials we require. I trust both of you will be able to do this?"

The two nodded enthusiastically and left, likely relieved to have a reason to avoid Megatron for the night. How unfortunate Isaac couldn't do the same. He braced himself for the inevitable, and soon enough it came; Megatron, his cube emptied, swept Isaac up into the palm of his hand. Isaac kept his eyes firmly fixed on his feet even as a nervous sweat began beading at his hairline. He waited for the vibration of Megatron's voice to travel up into him.

But it never came.

One minute passed. Isaac studied the subtly scratched metal of Megatron's palm and wondered what his captor was doing. Megatron provided no answer.

Two minutes passed. Isaac's neck was growing hot. He slowly flexed his fingers so they wouldn't cramp up, then prepared for some kind of comment, some strange question. None came.

Three minutes.

At last, Isaac couldn't wait any longer. He looked up.

Megatron's face was blank. His optics were bright as ever, but they were strangely flat, like nothing lay beyond the panes of alien glass. He stared at Isaac, not even reacting to the man's fearful gaze meeting his.

Then, Megatron's hand began to rise.

Isaac didn't even realize it at first. He glanced around, spotting Megatron's other hand a little lower than the one he sat on, hovering beneath as if to catch Isaac were he to fall off. Still Isaac rose, higher and higher, closer to Megatron's face. His hand had started to tilt forward. Isaac's stomach flipped at the sensation, and he reached out to grab at his fingers, anchor himself from slipping down. He looked back up. And he saw Megatron's mouth open.

It struck Isaac in a slow, rolling wave, a waterfall of ice dripping down his spine. Every nerve in his body froze as one.

Megatron's optics were dim as his lips parted, curling up to bare his teeth. Closer. A string of pink-tinged saliva stretched between his jaws. Beyond them, his tongue twitched minutely, the muscle pushing upwards. Closer.

Isaac couldn't make himself move. He should have been thrashing, screaming, diving out of Megatron's hands, but all he could do was watch those wet, shining teeth grow closer and closer until they were almost atop him. "No," he whispered, "no."

The hand holding him up was a wall pushing him forward, leaving him no avenue of escape. His knee brushed one of Megatron's incisors. "No," Isaac repeated uselessly. He couldn't stop this. He couldn't do anything. Another foot and that soft, pink tongue would meet him. And then…

The hand at his back stopped.

Isaac trembled before the open void, staring wide-eyed at the black pit that awaited him, frozen in place. Warm air wafted over his face.

The seconds stretched out into eternity. Isaac waited—but then again, he didn't have much choice in the matter.

Then, at long last, Megatron's hand began to move backward.

The warmth retreated, and as it did so too did the ice ebb from Isaac's veins. He could only let out quiet whimpers. "Huh. Hhuh."

At the edge of his awareness, he saw Megatron close his mouth with a muted click, his optics brightening by just a fraction as he looked down at the shaking organic in the palm of his hand. His brow furrowed.

As he set Isaac back in his cage, his thumb brushed against Isaac's chest, right over his heart. His optics remained on Isaac's shivering body as he walked away. Then, he poured another cube of high-grade.

Megatron didn't speak a word to Isaac that night.