old man slam poetry

[ceaseire]

OPEN POST

This is an open prompt post for IDW Megatron. Feel free to leave a starter or picture/music/quote prompt.

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[infomatics]

[ they've been through worst, but it was undeniably a close call. any later and he would have become a lesser version of himself, ineffective to the decepticon cause and fitted to be what zeta prime wants him to be - probably another tool or a spy on his own fraction. it would have been unacceptable. death would have been a better choice.

their base of operation isn't quite a home, but it was made comfortable by the fact that he was back in it and away from the threat of saws and needles. he can pick up the fine electrical signatures of each decepticon inside it. and he's suddenly thankful that starscream and overlord had not followed him back; even at a distance, those two's thought processes roared louder than their engines. but no matter how loud their thoughts were or how crowded a space, there is one that pulse that he can always find. he has both instinctively and purposely trained himself to do so. because for soundwave, sensing that, skimming the surface of that mind and having it occupy his own came as close to it can to the feeling of coming home.

the brain signals that he hones onto pulls him towards one room and into the adjoined one. and there stood megatron. soundwave dutifully reported in - because he is a soldier first, megatron's right-hand man, that he understood - to his leader. ]

Megatron. Starscream and Overlord has completed their mission, unscathed. The New Institute was found and has now been decimated.

[ceaseire]

[ Within a week after the anti-D.R.A. riots culminated with Nyon being razed to the ground and Zeta Prime lighter from the shoulders up - Megatron had not suffered from any untoward optimism that putting a bullet in the head of one despot thoroughly dislodged that thorn in their sides entirely. Zeta's attempts to rebrand Cybertron; sterilize history and the darkest facets of the Senate put into motion consequences felt on boths side of the war outliving its progenitor long enough that whispers of the New Institute were still heard when the big push for total war in off-world theaters of combat were in the finals stage.

It had been no secret, given that entire chapters of his compulsory autobiographical works, that Megatron openly denounced all facets of the Senate with Shadowplay or any fundamental removal of agency inflicted on his fellow Cybertronians. That he called it a perversion in the worst sense, but never went deeper even in his flagship work than moral outrage. Megatron put up a good front about indulging such rumors with only superficial regard of their legitimacy as a concern of morale. All the while the Decepticon Secret Service was combing through Cybertron for even the slightest hint of the New Institute. Tracking disappearances, sudden changes in behavior or upswings of suicides.

No one questioned nor even had the slightest inkling the depth of Megatron's understanding of mnemosurgery and all unanimously agreed it was one part of a larger plan to dismantle the archaic Senate. This was not untrue, but it all came to a head when Soundwave went MIA under mysterious circumstances. When that happened the DSS and by extension the entire Decepticon power structure was rendered deaf dumb and blind. Megatron answered with one word.

Overlord.

You send a strike team for extraction - there is almost a tried and true ratio for the number of bodies required for the almost surgical precision needed for a rescue operation. The Infiltration protocol was in its infancy but there was not being oblique with mobilizing Overlord. You send Overlord when you want the earth salted and everything left standing a smear on the ground.

No one questioned nor even had the slightest inkling the depth of Megatron's understanding of mnemosurgery. No one looked twice when Megatron barked loud enough to send tremors through the floor at everyone present in the room to vacate the room immediately when Soundwave was reported alive and en route. Megatron stood stock still alone in that room, body tense as trip wire until he heard the small sigh of automated doors sliding apart. ]

As was expected.

[ Megatron rarely gave praise even in his best of moods - even to Soundwave. When he turned slow on his heel, facing Soundwave - it was apparent now that he held something small and blockish in his hands - an ultraviolet light stick. Megatron took one step forward with the slow, loping strides of a large predatory until he was a hairs breadth from Soundwave. A large grey shadow hanging over him.

His next words were noticeably thick, laced with fraying agitation masked as being terse despite present company knowing better. ]

Show me your neck.

[infomatics]

[ the flurry of activity in the last hour, the panic followed by relief made him unaware of the filters he had let down, momentarily. soundwave caught himself in time before the maddening voices starts. but the effect had his observation slow, it is with a delay that he notices what is in megatron's hand. soundwave tilt his head.

it's... unnecessary. and he would prefer not to show his neck, despite the absolute trust in his leader. repeated exposure of the vulnerable network of cables and metal has made him hesitant, cautious of baring a flaw in his armour again. but this is megatron. he skims along the surface of his thoughts, electrical impulses firing rapidly - rage - but slowing, fractionally - relief, perhaps. still, this is fundamentally megatron, whom he has trust with his life in more than one occasion, who he would still follow blindly and without raising question, only helpful tactics.

he reminds himself that this anger is not directed at him; it is the new institute, the mnemosurgery and everything that it stands -- stood for. soundwave knows better, he knows megatron better. this is for their causes' sake; security is of utmost importance in this critical time. the decepticons cannot have their main comms officer be compromised. ]

...As you wish.

[ soundwave's movements are slow and stiff, but he does comply. he tilts his head and allow access, repeating a movement that was forced on him only hours ago. his hands are clenched in fists and he keeps his mind as blank as possible, only reading the surface thoughts of the other bot in the room. ]

[ceaseire]

[ Do not allow them the opportunity to stand back up. Megatron had said those words exactly; he would not be oblique with the likes of Overlord. To allow room for needless reinterpretation of his orders. Once Megatron caught wind of the New Institute wiped off the map with no chance of it resurfacing or to parse out what could be salvaged from that place. No mnemosurgeon was innocent; not one of those Autobots were without blood on their hands. Megatron would lose no sleep knowing there were gunned down with impunity. None of them really smiled - they only showed their teeth like animals.

The fact neither Overlord nor Starscream reported in for the debrief was troubling, but not related to the matter at hand.

Megatron almost apologized. This action alone implied waning trust in who was the cornerstone of this new and growing movement besides its founder. While he cut no corners, even where his inner circle was concerned, Megatron balked at the idea of making Soundwave doing something he didn't want to. It was gamble to lose even some small measure of that trust Soundwave placed in him with what felt like his own eyes at stake. Without Soundwave, Megatron really would be deaf and blind.

Megatron almost apologized. Only the side of his thumb easing down thick metal cord running down the side of Soundwave's neck as the latter tilted his head the best he could offer in lieu of something needlessly spoken. ]

They're too shallow.

[ Megatron's voice was thinned somewhat as though he had been sucking in air. The UV light clicked off once he confirmed that Overlord had really cut things short and that the needles barely even scratched the pliable metal at the nape of the neck, not even deep enough to scrap at surface thoughts or red letter day memories. It was...it was a close call.

Are you a thinker, or a fighter

Joints stiffened Megatron's arms fell to his side, the UV light made a loud noise as it fell to the metal floor. It had been a long day, his own thoughts and memories shaking loose. He could just be exhausted, but even as he pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head the memories continued to slip through like water falling between the spaces of his fingers.

Try not to resist - oh, the noise in your head!

Restraint pressed down on his wrists and ankles like hot irons even though the entire room was a freezing chill; the lowest floors of the Messatine mines were always unbearable cold. He can feel the words in his head pressing behind his sore, damp eyes before they start to fade away.

In a Cybertron built around a grand Cybertronian taxonomy that is obsessively....that is obsessively. In a Cybertron built around a grand Cybertronian taxonomy that is obsessively revised and...and...and and and-

Messatine.

Messatine.

Don't go back to Messatine. ]

Soundwave. Thank you, that will be all.

[infomatics]

[ they don't apologize. megatron - the unbreakable gladiator from tarn, the leader of the decepticons, the warlord in the front lines - he does not apologize. and soundwave does not expect it. apologies in the face of a cybertron diseased by corruption is meaningless. and soundwave does not need it. they would not be where they are if they hadn't checked under their beds frequently - if soundwave had not gotten into the heads of too many to count, weeding out the traitors and the half-hearted followers who would sit on the fence rather than commit to a cause he knew to be just and true.

soundwave acknowledges the need. there is no betrayal. only his survival instincts creeping along the edges of his mind and fear, left over from the trip in the new institute.

the feeling against his neck made him pause. it would have been easily mistaken for an accidental touch or pity for the wounded, but he can see it - the brush of apology that grace his mind. he would say there is no need to be, reaching out with a hand on top of megatron's as he does. there were many - many - ways to show that there is no need for such apologies.

but that is not their way.

soundwave dismissed the use of words. words are fragile; more often than naught, words are said but not meant. touch is even more volatile, there were too many ways to interpret and reinterpret such things. neither has time for such things. soundwave, thankfully, has a clean way to bypass both of these. he relaxed his clenched fists instead and megatron's examinations continue with soundwave's trust in his leader's hands and mind.

that doesn't halt the haunted cold slide down the back of his neck when megatron spoke.

too shallow.

that was not what he felt. with every approaching moment, he felt the minds of his "doctors", saw what they felt as they held their modified fingers to his neck, as his neck prickled with static and his mind clench to hold on to what was an inevitability. they had barely scratched the surface but he saw what was practice movements, memories of their practices, the phantom noise from their patients. countless hours in a fraction of a second. it would have been preferable to crash his own systems, if they had not kept him from doing so. idly, he wonders if this is something he should invest time in.

it's not the crash of the UV light brings him to the present. there's a howl of memories in the air, one that only he can hear.

messatine messatine messatine messatine messatine

it's suffocating and not at all the quiet focus he has found himself relying on on more than one occasion.

soundwave slowly turns towards megatron. caution and survival instincts tells him to go, he should leave this room now. to breach the topic would be going beyond their current working relationship, it would be too personal if it was spoken out loud. he has been in megatron's mind before and he knows this would be too personal. yet he steps away from the door and thinks, words are such fragile constructs.

he doesn't reach out. he stands stoically to megatron's side. whatever he feels at this moment is, as always, well hidden behind his faceplate and visor. picking up on megatron's wavelengths, the high crests and low troughs, he settles it with a singular clear thought. there is very little calm in their lives to draw on. he only remembers the first time he met ravage, the first sense of peace and quiet he felt when he touched upon his friend's head. with that, he quietly brings that feeling to megatron's mind. ]

[ceaseire]

[ Megatron is no Outlier; he had even submitted himself to be tested and thrown through the ringer of carrying, contentious, academic definitions to confirm what he already knew. There was no explanation neither mental nor physical beyond residual trauma for him to even register the thoughts and feelings of others. Surface or others; it was a sound and accepted improbability.

And yet if anything - Messatine was a door locked from the inside. That was when he heard the knock. The rap of knuckles striking from the inside of a door locked away in the furthermost recesses of his mind for centuries. A subtle sound that resonated deep within, but did not inspire the most ardent response it should have.

Instead, in almost defiant subversion of his anti-Senate and New Institute sentiment, the sensation is almost conciliate to his souring mood. Where the thoughts of needling stabbing in the sensitive, malleable biosynthetic flesh at the nap like ice that chilled to the innermost circuits. Megatron only felt and imagined, warming pressure on his burdened back. The comforting weight and dimensions of familiar hands that knew the circumference of his wide shoulders easing down upon him.

For the briefest moment, Megatron could sense his own hand ghosting towards the phantom weight nearing the intimate and marred spot between his neck and shoulders. Only for it to dawn on him that it was all in his mind. The mentally dulling haze of triple filtered engex mingled with an exposed, caressed sparked casing in one simple application of hitched on the back of mental telepathy. ]

That is an old wound.

[ Megatron softly warns as only he can without explicitly ousting Soundwave from his thoughts. Even in the gladiatorial ring when there was only a swirling vortex of anger and outlash to focus the pain he felt at the hands of a Functionist, Ratioist upbringing - did Megatron ironically find an oasis of peace in the hands of telepath. Megatron shifts on his peds near enough that his shoulders are so close to his. ]

An old, old wound.

[infomatics]

[ soundwave's visor darkens for a moment. they all have their share of wounds; new stinging ones, still too raw to be spoken of and old festering wounds, unforgotten but shoved aside for war and battle. their scars are many and their time for rest is almost non-existent. this is the best he can do for now. his own neck still prickles with a ghost sensation and he can imagine chains around his own wrists through their temporary link. amidst the whispers of messatine, the threat of mind alterations, soundwave focuses on megatron and notes the fatigue and the scars sounding loudly in his voice.

they've had a long day.

his attempt at bringing megatron to peace was an attempt at futility. there are too many offences; the moment he quells one emotion another springs up. megatron's a torrid of the one thing soundwae fears to be overwhelmed by. but he remembers the meaning of focus and the day he found it up upon the gladiatorial arena, remember the clarity of vision when he was too tired of serving ratbat's whims to think of any other way, and that makes him stay. his devotion makes him stay.

finally, soundwave speaks. he turns and face his leader, his voice is firm with caution laced in. ]

I suggest rest.

[ he doesn't order megatron to do anything but he knows the decepticons would never survive this without megatron; he is not capable to corral their sparks, shockwave cares for none of this and starscream's pitiful attempts at leadership is a joke. megatron is what they need, and megatron cannot lapse into old memories and old wounds. the megatron decepticons needs to see is the one that triumphs, one who carries the weight of leadership in stride. he knows this because that's the leader - the focus - that he needs. ]

They will need to hear the successful destruction of the New Institute. They will need to hear it from you.

[ he doesn't push his suggestion into megatron's mind. soundwave only keeps the steady calm feeling, reverberates it between them. should megatron want him to leave, with his suggestion in mind or not, he will. ]

shows up two weeks later

[ceaseire]

[ Megatron takes a step back with shoulders nearly but never quite touching until he stands catty-cornered to a large floor to ceiling window that kept the room alight in the severe angled shadows of open deep space. Looking back at Soundwave, feels the same empty shift between the plates in his abdomen when there was nothing between him and the rapidly shrinking ground but the air burning away under JATO engines.

Occasionally, and often without warning, the razors edge he walks per his association with Soundwave is made transparently clear. What engenders the unshakable bedrock of the trust his best officer places in him was a foundation whose cornerstone was one simple as it was impossibly maintained asset: That trust was mutual even as Soundwave could see right through him. The indomitable brutality in everything that Megatron was extended to how candid he was that some of his dissenters mistakenly assumed him to be ingenuous. Being bare faced with his long term goals and ideology is what skyrocketed this movement from festering like an ulcer beneath Nova Point to intergalactic total war.

And how it would all fall out from under him the moment he gave into the pervasive, basic need to lie. Soundwave would know before even he did, and then it all might very well be over. The red glow of his eyes shifted casting shadows on the bend of the malleable metal around his optic sockets as his gaze drew along the lines of Soundwave's masked face where he could almost trace the symbol burned into his spark casing. Something about the thought of falling out of favor with him through duplicity or an inability to stay up to par struck Megatron as intensely wrong. As if it were betraying the very Decepticon credo itself.

Megatron was the Decepticon fury. Soundwave was the promise that this was all supposed to get better. ]

Look at me - wallowing in past transgressions needing to be told to rest when the marks of your own ordeals are all too fresh.

[ He lists his hand; index finger bent close to the palm so close to tilting Soundwave's chin up to look him in the eye. Soundwave isn't so much short than him that it would be necessary, and Megatron doesn't touch him. Only close enough that Soundwave eases into the instruction without physical cues. It never occurs to him why he continues to balk at the jump beyond a dum understanding that Megatron had since the first shot fired not laid a hand on another soul without violence behind it. ]

Go see Flatline in the medbay then report back here when you've made contact with either Overlord or Starscream.

[infomatics]

[ there is a brutal honesty in their relationship; if the stratagem that megatron concoction is unsound -- and if starscream hadn't jumped on the opportunity yet -- he would make that note. but in truth, soundwave never doubts megatron's plans, even when they are mad and too costly for their shallow supplies, as much as he should. he believes in his leader's conviction too strongly, and feels too strongly the confidence in megatron's being.

it is only in such occasions, when the mind lingers too long in the past, that soundwave truly worries. the past is something they learn from, it should be studied and rectified for the future they are to create. when they linger too long on it, their focus shifts. that, soundwave keeps to himself. because megatron's wrath and rage is a weapon, just as his certain skill sets are. it is too be mined for and kept in supply for when the physical battles makes their frames shake and threaten to fall apart.

soundwave tilts his head at the unspoken command, almost placing himself in megatron's touch. his visor and mask, his emotionless seal, contains any mix reactions that might come from their proximity. to megatron, he is a loyalist first, and an officer second. and soundwave has no inclination to be anything more than what megatron expects of him. ]

Further medical examinations will be unnecessary, your examination is enough. [ while it is still a command and soundwave will no doubt follow, it is also his duty to let megatron know that he could be available for other tasks. ] But Soundwave, acknowledges.

[ceaseire]

[ Between the two of them scrounging at the bottom of the barrel until their fingers bled for anything ranging the numbers to swell the ranks and feed the starved war machine or the energy to stave off losing everything to attrition. Not a concept that was new to them. Megatron perhaps looked to Soundwave most in want of a contemporary who knew what it truly meant to have crawled from the bottom rung of the social to breaking the damn thing entirely. More than he should, and he knew this all to well. Even know Terminus's warnings of the dangers of attachment echoed in the back of his mind. Only echos. ]

Indulge my concern. It's not solely on my back alone the Decepticon cause is burdened.

[ It was as close as Megatron came to offering gratitude. Retracting his hand he feels even his innermost energon freeze as his knuckles rake gingerly against the side of Soundwave's face just below the seam of his faceplate which was never removed as far Megatron knew. Megatron snaps his hand to his side and in one great stride physically separates himself as far away from Soundwave as he could. Back turned facing the window. ]

You have your orders.

[infomatics]

[ he never forgets at they are in a war. they have crawled and killed, and so much of what makes him up isn't what he was anymore. from a shadow in the corner of the street, prying for information for his contractor, to the comms officer in a planet-wide rebellion, his orders, his missions, his goals, they align with the decepticon cause. and no where, no time in his off hours does he forget that they are at war. it's only the briefest touch against his chin that takes him away for a fraction of a second - a moment he would reflect on later, much later - before he turns sharply, lest his pause was seen as hesitation to follow the order.

he pause, near the entrance. his posture doesn't change so much as the feel of him does - the way the stands still, head cocked to a direction of a secret in the subfrequencies or some other bullshit. ]

Overlord ...approaches.

[ it's a while later when he sees megatron again. he doesn't question the new patch work and marks. ]

[quantumechanic]

[Standing in front of the closed door to Megatron's office, Nautica shifts her weight awkwardly while she works up the courage to knock. It's not that she expects he'll react badly. He's been a good, if somewhat distant captain...but he's very imposing. Going through Rodimus is much easier, but he's not answering his comm. Neither is Ultra Magnus. (He's imposing, too, but after he'd grilled her about the Autobot Code that one time she'd realized he's just as big of a nerd as she is, and that had really cut down on the intimidation factor.) She suspects the two separate instances of radio silence--and some shouting that had drifted into Engineering from somewhere in the distance--might be related, but doesn't that doesn't help her much just this second.

And now she's just standing at Megatron's door with her optics unfocused. Great. She squares her shoulders and at last knocks.]

Captain?