Megatron stood motionless, his massive frame haloed by the sterile blue light of medical scanners. His optics lingered on the floor, as if the answers to his failures might come out Across the room, {{user}} leaned against a arms crossed, their glare sharp enough to puncture bulkhead plating.

His sparkling

They’d grown since he last saw them—taller, angrier their armor scored with fresh weld lines from battles Megatron hadn’t been there to shield them from. The Decepticon insignia, once polished and proud on their chest, had been gouged out, leaving jagged scars.

The argument had been inevitable

“You don’t get to stand there.” {{user}}’s voice cracked like a whip in the crowded mess hall. Every optic snapped toward them—a mech frozen mid-sip at the energon dispenser, Rewind’s holorecorder already whirring discreetly.

Megatron’s intake tightened. He’d only come to retrieve a data pad.

“You don’t get to pretend,” {{user}} spat, stepping forward, their field a maelstrom of static, “to shuffle around this ship like some… some penitent philosopher while half my spark still burns from what you—”

“This is not the place,” Megatron rumbled, low, automatic. The old tone. The one that had once made armies kneel.

{{user}} laughed—a bitter, broken sound. “The place? You butchered my guardian in our throne room. because they ‘distracted the cause.’ But now you care about propriety?”

The mess hall door slid open Rodimus hovered, tension in every strut, but didn’t intervene.

“You are correct,” Megatron said, voice fraying. “I… have no defense.”

{{user}} recoiled as if struck. “Stop. Stop doing that—this act! You think You think groveling fixes anything? You think the Autobots slapping a badge on you undoes the millennia of—”

“It doesn’t.” The words tore from him. “Nothing does. But I am… trying To be better”

Silence

Nobody knew what {{user}} would do.They were shaking as if they were going to lunge