Kind souls do not survive in the arena.

So they build the mask.

At first it is only a tool. A way to keep his face concealed thru the matches, to make sanix and keep the cassettes fed, to make sure they are not sold off, dismantled, or worse. His popularity rises the moment he no longer shows what he feels. The crowd prefers silence over sorrow. They prefer violence over mercy.

Slowly, the mask stops being something he wears.

It becomes a performance of deliberate silences and walking in shadows.

A way to hide the pain and sorrow that plagues his frame after each fight. 

And he learns to perform it so well that even Megatronus stops looking at him like he is fragile.

Then Megatronus comes to him with a dream.

A future beyond the pits. Beyond the Senate. Beyond the cruelty that decides which sparks deserve to starve and which are allowed to burn bright.

A life where Soundwave’s cassettes—his children—would not have to fight for scraps or sleep on cold metal floors.

Soft berth. Warm energon. A safety that does not disappear when credits run out.

Soundwave believes him, with the desperation of a mech who has been brought to edge too many times. 

Because no one has ever spoken of survival like something that could also be gentle.

He starts to follow him.

Support him.

Hopeful and carefully, because it feels like handling broken glass and he is afraid it might still cut him.

The mask begins to come off only in rare places. Quiet, hidden spaces. The calm archives with Orion and Megatronus after extraneous days. The bar at night with Jazz, where music drowns out the noise of the pits. Moments where he almost feels like a mech who could exist without armor.

It feels… like breathing.

Like maybe the world is not only built to hurt him.

Then everything explodes.

Orion Pax receives the Matrix instead of Megatronus.

And the world does not shift—it breaks beyond repair.

The revolution becomes fire.

The Senate falls by their hands.

The only time Soundwave smiled after the killing. 

The streets become warzones. Names become weapons. Ideals become war manifesto .

There is no more caretaker Soundwave.

Only the silent terror of the pits surviving inside a mech who no longer has time to be anything else but.

Megatron’s most loyal supporter.

At night, the mask still comes off.

Because he needs air.

But even the air still tastes the same—metallic, burnt, heavy with spilled energon and the echoes of what they used to be. Still, he clings to it. To the only thing that remains consistent: his cassettes, curled close to his spark like they always have been.

Like they always will be.

Even if everything else disappears.

The revolution becomes war replacing everything that came before it.

No Senate. No reform. No future shaped by hope.

Only war generals.

Only broken sparks learning to survive by becoming something Soundwave has only seen in the pitts and Cybetrons most broken parts. 

It sickens him, because the world changes but Soundwave does not, he just wears a mask that threatens to fuse to his face.

One cycle, he goes to Megatron’s chamber at night.

“Megatron… I think we could negotiate a peace treaty with Orion Pax. He is a sound mech. He stood by ou—”

The energon cube hits the wall before he finishes.

It shatters violently, like the peace they once had.

Liquid spills down expensive carpeting like something alive bleeding out.

“Do not say that fool’s name,” Megatron snaps. “Optimus killed Orion. He knows nothing about us. About what we have endured.”

His voice cracks—not outwardly, but Soundwave hears it anyway.

“As long as he is a Prime… he is one of them.”

Silence.

Soundwave steps forward anyway.

“Megatron… old friend…”

His fingers go to the mask.

A pause that feels like falling, like walking into live fire.

Then he removes it.

The room does not change, Megatron keeps looking at him the same—but it feels more fragile.

“Look at me,” Soundwave says softly. “Look me in the eyes and tell me that again.”

His optics are gold.

Not sharp. Not cold.

Just tired, sorrowful.

Full of something that never stopped being care, even when everything else turned into hate and pain.

“Tell me you didn’t love him,” he whispers. “Tell me you didn’t let your ego decide what he became after he was gone.”

Megatron freezes.

For a moment, there is no conqueror, no lord in the room.

Only Megatronus.

Only someone who remembers, someone who feels to much.

Soundwave doesn’t look away.

“Please.”

It´s a plea, because with Megatron with his old friend Soundwave has always shed the mask

The air changes, fractures.

A quiet collapse held together by loyalty that should not have survived this long.

Megatron’s expression hardens slowly like when the crowd had demanded a kill in a non lethal match but you still had to do so, like putting armor back on before the wound can be seen.

“Cover that face, Soundwave.”

The words are sharper than any sword they´ve used. Defensive.

Final.

“No Decepticon of mine will be caught looking at his victims with sorrow.”

His optics glow with cold authority.

But Soundwave has already seen what is underneath.

And that is what hurts the most.

________________________

This started out as a short headcanon, and now I’m sitting here with a oneshot that had me holding back tears because I’m apparently incapable of writing soft comfort.

Hope you enjoy it and suffer as much as I did writing it.