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Who: June & Dadtron
What: weirdly civil conversation, parenting advice
When: after the complete fucking disaster with Tarn and Rodimus
Where: idk somewhere in the city
Warnings: awkward, probably

The days since June first arrived have definitely been...informative. Alternate universes and all that...it is a little hard for June to wrap her mind around, and admittedly a big part of her prefers the ordinary, the expected... But being around the Autobots and their wild adventures has primed her for this somewhat, and June can't deny that she'd sort of like to have adventures of her own. Besides, she's met some truly delightful people so far -- some of them she feels like she's already made fast friends with, some of them are just so polite and charming she can't help but like them, some of them helpful and curious, and she knows she can rely on Optimus Prime if no one else.

And then there's Megatron.

Truth be told, June can't figure out how she feels about Megatron. This Megatron, anyway. She's heard an awful lot about him from various other Autobots, bits and pieces that don't really form a clear picture, disjointed as it is. There's only one consensus that anyone can come to, it seems, and that's that no one feels quite the same about Megatron. June had expected it to be easier to maintain her base resentment and suspicion of Megatron, but when she finally runs into him again -- not as soon as she'd expected -- she's surprised at her own desire to talk to him again.

Curiosity is probably a factor, since he looks a lot more...down then the first time they'd met. When June sees Megatron again, he's half-slumped against a wall, one hand pressed to his face. He looks tired.

"What's got you looking so down?"

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Megatron is so god damn tired. He looks up – well, a little way up – as June addresses him, looking slightly surprised to be approached. It takes a moment for the question to sink in, but when it does he laughs, rough and curt. He doesn't know where to even start with that, honestly.

"A run-in with an old follower," he says, dropping his hand to his side. "I won't bore you with the details, but I'm sure you can imagine few Decepticons are elated about my defection."

"Mmm, yeah. Facing those sorts of consequences can't be fun."

It's sort of a flippant reply from someone who's usually so genuine -- because come on, really, Megatron kind of deserves it -- but there's a thread of sincere sympathy in there, too. He looks truly wrung out. So June hoists herself onto the nearest reachable piece of rubble, just because she's tired of calling up from 20 feet below, and she makes herself comfortable. Clearly this was an invitation to talk about it. Even if it wasn't, she's just invited herself. Scoot over, Megatron, it's time for a chat.

"So what happened?"

Don't give him your human sarcasm, June

He looks down at her, frowning; after a moment he vents a sigh, and shakes his head. "Are you familiar with Tarn?" He has no reason to assume she necessarily wouldn't have heard of him – she seems pretty tight with the Autobots from her timeline.

June furrows her brow, looking thoughtful, but nah, it's not ringing any bells. It's not like she is an expert on Decepticons, okay, she mostly just knows the main ones.

"Tarn? No, I can't say I am. Who's Tarn?"

He nods. Lucky June. "The head of the Decepticon Justice Division," he says, rather wearily, "an elite group of brutally, fanatically loyal Decepticons tasked with hunting down and destroying deserters and traitors. If I'd been anyone else he wouldn't have hesitated to kill me, I'm sure."

"The Decepticon Justice Division," June repeats. Hope you've got some high def vision there, Megatron, so you can see June raising her tiny human eyebrows. "That's a little gauche, isn't it? I thought you said you dissolved the Decepticons when you defected. Besides, if he's so fanatically loyal, wouldn't he listen to you regardless?"

"Gauche?" He actually looks kind of amused. "You have no idea. But no, Tarn is loyal to the cause – or to what the cause has been perverted into, anyway. Dissolving the Decepticons isn't as simple as just my saying so. I'd hope there are Decepticons out there who'll take my announcement as... permission to stop fighting, but Tarn isn't one of them."

June's vaguely surprised at his reaction, faintly amused as he seems, although not as surprised by the fact that she is engaging in strangely enjoyable banter with Megatron, of all people. For all that she thinks he's kind of full of shit and, you know, a mass murderer, he's quite the conversationalist.

"No such luck, I guess," June muses, though she does look sort of concerned. It's sort of alarming to know that one of the most fanatical Decepticons out there is here on this Cybertron, and also phenomenally displeased with the one person he might have been inclined to listen to. "...How dangerous is he? To the rest of us, I mean."

"Extremely," says Megatron. "It was my hope that he could be convinced to cooperate as long as we shared a common goal, being trapped here like this, but... well. Have you ever met the Autobot Rodimus...?"

"Can't say I have, no," June says, eyebrows still firmly raised. She also looks pretty fucking alarmed at Megatron's response. If he thinks Tarn is dangerous, they're probably all fucked. "What happened?"

"Rodimus is... rash and hot-headed," Megatron tells her, frowning. "I couldn't stop him from antagonising Tarn..." He huffs in frustration. "Of course I can hardly blame him for his anger, but it got him his arm torn off and destroyed any hope of getting Tarn's cooperation that we might have had."

Rash and hot-headed Autobots? Those June has some experience with, although none of it will even remotely prepare her for Rodimus. No one is ever prepared for Rodimus.

"He got his arm torn off?" Fuck's sake, Megatron. More than that, though, June is still really god damn concerned about what an apparently extreme threat Tarn is to literally everyone here. "Fantastic. Just excellent. And now Tarn's off the leash, is that what you're saying?"

"Indeed." Megatron's expression is stony. "I doubt he's about to launch some kind of berserker rampage, but... sooner or later, he will need to be stopped."

"Hmm. You're right about that." June taps a finger against her lips, looking a little thoughtful but mostly troubled. She sighs slowly out her nose, but after a moment she looks back up at Megatron, a kind of expectant resolve settling over her face.

"So what are you planning to do about it?"

"I intend to stop him," Megatron replies, as if this should have been obvious.

"Good," June says, and while her tone is expectant, maybe even a little curt, there's a surprising fierceness behind it. She had been all too ready to doubt Megatron before -- truthfully, she still is, because she's really not convinced she's seen anything even approximating his true face -- but strangely enough she believes him now. "And how do you intend to do that?"

He looks down at her, one non-eyebrow raised. This organic is unreasonably pushy, in his opinion.

"That will remain to be seen. There are enough Autobots here that between them..." He shakes his head. "I would like to believe that there is still some hope of talking him round, considering my own history... but I'm sure that would be significantly more difficult than taking a more... traditional approach."

Hey, at least she didn't start a revolt and turn it into a galactic quest for domination and genocide. Talk about pushy.

"You mean shooting him," June says, raising an eyebrow right back at him. Her tone isn't particularly disapproving, though; she just thinks his choice of euphemisms is curious. Since when does someone like Megatron skirt around talking about violence. "Okay, so ff he's so fanatical he can't be reasoned with, if he's so dangerous, why haven't you? What's stopping you?"

Megatron laughs. "I'm unarmed," he says, gesturing to his cannonless right forearm. "Do you think the Autobots trust me enough to let me go about with enough firepower to stop someone like Tarn?"

What, you guys can't just pick up a gun and shoot it? Everything's gotta be attached, is that it. Cybertronians, man.

"Well, it sounds to me like you're the only one who stands any chance at stopping him," June points out, although the fact that most of the other Autobots wouldn't trust Megatron half as far as they could throw him doesn't exactly fill June with confidence. "You don't think they'd want to work together with you to stop him? Don't any of you have guns that aren't attached to your arms?"

He gives her a skeptical look. "Working together to stop him is exactly what I was suggesting. You asked me why I hadn't done it alone."

"I just figured the rest of them would be on board with shooting as a solution," June says. The Autobots are pretty solid on the morality front, but in her experience guns are a pretty go-to solution for them too.

But needling Megatron about it forever won't get them far, June knows. So she gives Megatron a thoughtful look as she climbs a little higher on the rubble, trying to get as close to eye level as possible. It's a valiant attempt.

"What can I do?"

"They would be, with Tarn," says Megatron, frowning – and then he pauses, looking down at her kind of incredulously, at that question. "What can you do? Keep yourself out of trouble, I should think."

"There's no need to condescend," June says, frowning, straightening up with her hands on her hips. "I don't intend to just sit around or hide behind a rock every time some kind of conflict comes up -- which, from what I gather about Cybertronians, happens a lot -- I'd never get anything done. And if there's some way I can help, I will."

"I am not condescending, June Darby." Yes he is. "You seem to have a level head on your shoulders, which is a rare commodity around here, and I'd sooner not see you stepped on by someone like Tarn." He's a little surprised to find that he actually means that.

"Oh," June says, sounding surprised, because she's just as taken aback by it as Megatron is. She regains her composure after a moment, though, giving him a long, considering look. "Well, I wasn't planning on getting stepped on. I know there's not much I can do in a physical capacity, trust me." She raises an eyebrow. "But maybe I can put my level head to use somehow."

He inclines his head slightly, a faint smile on his weary face. "If you can persuade Rodimus to act sensibly..."

"From what you've told me, that's a challenge," June says, looking a little skeptical, but she's smiling a little too -- she's surprised to see that look on Megatron's face, one she knows a little too well. He looks like she's felt on more than one occasion. "I guess I should be flattered you think I'm up for it."

She doesn't know Rodimus, but it's worth a shot. Besides, even as much as she's starting to trust Megatron (ugh, so weird), she'd like to meet Rodimus for herself.

He laughs, although it's more a quick, sharp vent of air. "We'll see," he says. "I mean it, though. I'd be a lot less worried about Tarn if I didn't think anybody was going to go deliberately antagonising him."

Getting a laugh out of Megatron, even a brief, dry one, surprises June, too -- and what's really startling her is how comofortable she's feeling in this conversation. How...weirdly and jarringly normal it feels, considering she's talking to a tyrannically murderous giant robot. June's figured out by now that she can't really judge him by the Megatron she knows of, can't use him as a metric to measure this Megatron against. But even knowing what she does know about him, she's starting to agree with the general consensus of not really knowing what to make of him now, or that they're working together.

It's easier to focus on the now, taking things one step at a time. Everything else will follow, she tells herself, even an eventual understanding of the weird working relationship she and Megatron seem to be developing.

"I'll talk to him," June promises. "Rodimus, right? What's he look like? I'm sure I can track him down."

"About... so tall," he says, holding out a hand. "Very... orange. Ridiculous shoulders."

June raises both eyebrows.

"And I thought you were supposed to be good with words. All right, I'll keep an eye out for him."

"I think you'll find that's a very accurate description," Megatron replies with a faint smirk.

The smirk suits him better than the old, tired look he's been wearing, though June's surprised at herself to note it. She grins a little despite herself, shaking her head as she starts to carefully climb down from the considerable and slightly precarious pile of debris she made her platform.

"I'm sure I won't have any trouble finding him. Keep me posted about Tarn, okay? And I'll get in touch with you when I talk to Rodimus... Actually, how do I get in touch with you?"

He hesitates, realising he'd been about to offer her his comm frequency, but obviously that isn't... going to work for her... Hm.

"You should be able to find me, if you ask around. Do you have any kind of... communication device?"

Ah, and here's where the whole "stranded on a deserted alien planet" thing really starts to make things inconvienent. June pulls a cell phone from her pocket and dangles it for him to see, a dubious expression on her face.

"I don't suppose you text?"

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