The Decepticons’ strike on the Kaon pipeline was meant to cripple Autobot fuel lines for cycles.

The plan was clean. Efficient.

Until it wasn’t.

An Autobot ambush caught them in the narrow processing corridors — long halls of humming machinery, the walls alive with the thrum of unstable energon flow.

Megatron was at the front, cutting through resistance, while Soundwave coordinated the team from midline, his visor alive with tactical overlays.

Then the charges they’d set in the pipeline triggered prematurely.

The floor shook violently. Pressure readings spiked. If the chain reaction hit the main chamber, the entire facility would erupt — taking everyone inside with it.

Megatron’s voice came over comms, sharp and commanding. “All forces — evacuate!”

Soundwave was already moving the team out when he saw it — an Autobot lieutenant had locked a blast door between Megatron and the only escape route.

The warlord was trapped, the energy build-up already audible in the walls.

Calculations flashed across Soundwave’s processors:

Distance to Megatron — 37 meters.

Chance of survival if entering the unstable corridor — 3.6%.

Chance of Megatron surviving without intervention — zero.

His loyalty to the cause screamed for him to lead the others out.

But this wasn’t about the cause anymore.

Soundwave turned back.

He forced the emergency override on the blast door, slipping into the corridor despite the rising heat and the deafening hum of overloading conduits.

Megatron spun toward him, optics wide. “Soundwave, go!”

Soundwave didn’t answer. He crossed the corridor under heavy fire from the few remaining Autobots, his cannons cutting through them with cold precision. He reached Megatron, locking one arm under the warlord’s to pull him toward the exit.

“You’ll be caught in the blast!” Megatron snarled, trying to shove him away.

“Correction,” Soundwave said, voice steady despite the chaos. “We will leave together.”

They pushed through the corridor, the heat from the energon conduits searing their armor. The final blast door gave way just as the chain reaction ripped through the pipeline behind them, a wall of blue fire chasing their steps.

They dove clear as the facility exploded, the shockwave rattling their frames.

Outside, Among the Ruins

Smoke rose in towering columns. The ground was scorched, the air thick with the stench of burnt circuitry.

Megatron stood, still breathing heavily from the run, turning on Soundwave with a glare that was more shaken than angry. “You disobeyed my order.”

“Affirmative,” Soundwave replied.

“Why?”

Soundwave’s visor dimmed, then brightened in a slow, deliberate pulse. “Because the cause can survive without me. It cannot survive without you.”

For a moment, Megatron said nothing. The battlefield noise seemed to fade, the weight of their words heavy between them.

“That’s not loyalty to the Decepticons,” Megatron said quietly.

“No,” Soundwave confirmed. “It is not.”

The silence stretched until Megatron stepped forward, closing the distance between them. His voice was low, almost rough. “You said you wanted proof. I’ve given mine. And now… you’ve given yours.”

Soundwave didn’t move as Megatron’s hand came to rest briefly against his arm — not a command, not an order, but a connection.

“From this point forward,” Megatron said, his optics locking on Soundwave’s, “there is no war between us.”

Soundwave’s visor flickered again — and for the first time, his response wasn’t just an acknowledgment of orders.

“Acknowledged… Megatron.”

The use of his name, without title, carried more weight than any vow.

And they both knew there was no returning to what they’d been before.

The war had not ended.

It never did.

But for the first time in vorns, the Decepticon warship was quiet. The Nemesis glided through deep space, its engines a distant, steady hum beneath the decks.

Soundwave preferred the quiet.

Normally.

Now, with no battle to keep his systems occupied, the quiet only amplified the memory of what had happened in the Kaon pipeline. The heat of the energon conduits. The sound of Megatron’s voice ordering him to leave. The look in Megatron’s optics when Soundwave refused.

And the words after — there is no war between us.

He replayed them more times than he’d care to log.

The message came through his private comm channel, encrypted in a way no other Decepticon would dare use:

> Come to my quarters. Alone.

Megatron’s signature was unmistakable.

Soundwave almost ignored it. In personal spaces, without the structure of battle or command, he was… exposed. Uncertain.

But his feet still carried him there.

The warlord’s quarters were nothing like the rest of the ship — dark, but not cold. Metal walls, lined with relics of Cybertron’s lost age: fragments of banners, scorched and faded; weaponry from a hundred campaigns; datapads holding ancient speeches and manifestos.

Megatron stood near the center, back to the door, as if lost in thought. When Soundwave entered, the warlord turned — not with the commanding presence of the battlefield, but slower, deliberate.

“You came,” Megatron said simply.

Silence settled between them, and for once Soundwave did not rush to fill it with data or tactical reports.

“I’ve been thinking,” Megatron began, pacing a slow half-circle around him. “You’ve given me loyalty for longer than most soldiers survive. You’ve followed my orders without hesitation. But I know now that what happened in Kaon was not about loyalty to the Decepticons.”

Soundwave’s visor flickered in quiet acknowledgment.

Megatron stepped closer, his voice dropping. “It was about me.”

The words landed heavy, not as an accusation, but as something almost… raw.

Soundwave shifted slightly, his frame taut. “Clarification: Megatron seeks confirmation?”

Megatron’s mouth curved — not a smirk, not quite a smile. “No. I don’t need confirmation. I know. But what I don’t know…” He stopped in front of Soundwave now, optics steady on his visor. “...is whether you believe me when I say the feeling is returned.”

Soundwave’s systems hummed with quiet static. He wanted to — Primus, he wanted to — but trust was not something he granted freely.

“Unclear,” he admitted, and the word seemed to slice through the space between them.

Megatron’s expression didn’t harden, as Soundwave half-expected. Instead, the warlord nodded once, almost to himself.

“Then I will give you something undeniable.”

Megatron moved toward the far wall, where a tall, locked case stood. He keyed in a code Soundwave had never seen before, and the case slid open with a hiss.

Inside was an object so rare, so precious, Soundwave’s visor brightened instinctively — a pristine Cybertronian data crystal, glowing faintly with stored energy.

Megatron lifted it carefully, turning it in his claws so the light caught its edges. “This,” he said quietly, “was one of the last crystals saved from Iacon before the archives burned. It contains recordings of the Golden Age — art, music, voices of those who lived before the war.”

Soundwave stared at it, processing the magnitude. Data crystals like this were priceless, irreplaceable.

“I have kept it for centuries,” Megatron continued, his tone low. “Through campaigns, through near-death, through every betrayal. I told myself it was for history. For the cause.”

He stepped forward and placed it in Soundwave’s hands.

“But I realize now… I kept it for the one mech I could trust to protect it — even from myself.”

The weight of the crystal in Soundwave’s claws felt heavier than any weapon. His visor dimmed, then brightened in a slow pulse, his internal comms silent for several long seconds.

“You would give this… to me?”

Megatron’s optics didn’t waver. “I would give everything to you. The war, the Decepticons — all of it means nothing if I lose you.”

For the first time in cycles, Soundwave reached out without hesitation, his free servo resting against Megatron’s arm — not as a soldier to his commander, but as someone finally lowering his defenses.

The gesture was small, but in their language, it was everything.

“I believe you,” Soundwave said, the words quiet but unflinching.

Megatron’s expression softened in a way Soundwave had never seen, and the warlord covered the hand on his arm with his own, gripping it as if anchoring himself.

There was no kiss, no dramatic declaration — but for the first time, there didn’t need to be.

The walls between them had finally fallen.