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Optimus woke up.
His awakening wasn’t soft or gentle—it was rather violent, in fact. His optics snapped open, and he shot upward, gasping and scrambling back before hitting something hard behind him. He didn’t know where he was. Though in all fairness, he hadn’t known where he was before, either. He was in too much pain to consider his surroundings.
Pain. Right. Wasn’t he supposed to be in agonizing pain?
Slowing his venting, the Prime traced trembling servos up his own arms, hugging himself. He felt no dents or blemishes, nor did his digits tear on any cuts. Something was wrong. His sensitivity was off, and his arms felt less defined than usual.
Not to mention that a few moments ago he was about to die, and now he seemed healed in his entirety.
Optimus had felt every second of the searing agony since Smokscreen pulled him from the wreckage. He had felt pain before, but not like that. Not the continuous, unending suffering that having every circuit in his frame crushed had him in. He tried to be clear with the young soldier, to walk him through what came next. After all, death seemed imminent. Optimus was almost comforted by the finality of it. He was glad Ratchet wasn’t there to see it, as well. And then Smokescreen had gone and retrieved the Forge, and for a split second, the Prime let himself imagine living. Of course, he would never let the soldier use it on him.
Returning home would just mean he would continue to fight over nothing, over what was long dead and what would remain dead because of him. Ratchet would never forgive him, and shouldn’t forgive him. How could he ever look his medic in the optics again, after what he did? Damning them all in a single swing of that cursed sword. And what was the point of returning if he wouldn’t be returning to him?
The Forge had to be used to fix his unforgivable mistake—the mistake that drove Ratchet to the brink. A mistake that Optimus would die before remedying.
Oh.
The realization came about a minute too late, but came nonetheless.
Optimus Prime was dead.
He sat there, immobile, for what felt like hours. Clutching his mesh as he shuddered through the thought, until the sound of the space around him caught up with him. Soft murmurs of Cybertronian glyphs and the sliding of files against other files. The quiet keystroke pings of a nearby computer. The gentle strobing of the flickering light above that they never did fix. In an instant, he was calm—soothed by the familiar surroundings. And just as quickly, he was frantic, pushing himself away and up from whatever he was pressed up against.
He turned around and felt his spark skip a proverbial beat.
By the Allspark… he was home.
The Hall of Records was serene. The few mechs who didn’t work there were simply meandering, reading whatever they had selected while moving to their next destination. Optimus turned to his left and spotted a coworker whose designation he had long forgotten, assisting a guest in their search for an obscure poet’s works. No one paid him any mind, moving about their business, as if completely unaware of his presence. It was unimpeachably real. Every sound, sight, and moving part acted exactly as they had in the years before he had even heard the name Megatronus, tranquil and simple and easy. A comfortable lie, of course, but a comfort regardless.
By instinct, he had activated his console without sparing it a glance, before his own processor knew what he was doing. The monitor flashed at him, a taunt and grace all at once.
: WELCOME — ORION PAX :
His reflection in the screen gave no room for doubt. The young, unmarred face of a naïve data clerk stared back at him; his vibrant optics still filled with light and hope.
Startled, the Prime threw himself back until he had slammed against the desk, scrambling to find purchase along the edge to keep him steady. That was why his frame felt lighter, and his weapons hadn’t emerged out of instinct when he arrived. He was in his old body. Orion Pax, the data clerk, did not have weapons. Why would he? Who would need a gun in a library? His vents grew rapid, and his optics darted around—cataloging every inch of the Hall.
The worst part wasn’t the panic. It was the crushing relief that nearly sent him to his knees. It was the admission that sometimes all he wanted was to return to his old life, his simpler life. And now that he had, the guilt for daring to want it was suffocating. He felt tears well in his optics and a shaky gasp flew out of him before he could cover his mouth.
Apparently, death had given him everything he ever wanted. He couldn’t tell if the Allspark was merciful or merciless.
He turned around to face the entrance, the wide and arched doors that led out to the city he loved. Iacon, long since annihilated, stood proudly once again. He couldn’t stop the choked sob that tore from him before he was moving, running around the desk and to the doors and to his home.
Iacon was the most beautiful place in the universe, and Optimus doubted his fractured memory could ever do it justice. But as he stood at the top of the grand stairs to the Halls and looked out on everything that was dead and gone, it looked so alive he almost forgot. Hundreds of mechs busied about, rushing to their work and their homes and their lives. Skyscrapers stood so high he couldn’t see the tops, golden and glistening. Music rang out, and work announcements echoed around the streets. Primus, it was alive again—his home was alive.
An ancient nostalgia had him waiting for a young medical student to bound up the steps and offer to walk him to his apartment. But no one came, no one even noticed him as he sobbed his optics dry. He cried millennia’s worth of tears—tears he couldn’t have cried for the millions of mechs who had died for a long-dead dream. He crossed his arms over his chest, digging his servos into his shoulders and hunching over, waiting for someone to wake him up and break his spark.
How long had it been since he had shed tears? Since he had allowed himself to?
He didn’t know. He didn’t care. His home was alive and he wasn’t, so why should anyone care? All that mattered was this—the soft sounds of sparklings’ laughter as they ran through the streets, free from suffering. Optimus hadn’t heard a sparkling in over a million years.
He mourned, he rejoiced, he loved—he felt everything he had shoved so far down he didn’t know if he would ever feel again. He was home. He was home.
He stood there for hours, watching his world pass him by until he ran out of tears to cry. A gentle breeze wrestled with his archivist’s stole, a fine piece of fabric he hadn’t worn since his past self’s death, which was embroidered with Alpha Trion’s mark. It flashed in the sun, quiet in its message.
He snapped up, exventing sharply. If the Hall was here, then so was—
He was running again, his frame carrying him without his mind supplementing a location. He knew where to go; he always knew. Back to the one mech who truly knew him, who guided him, who saved him. His office was in the very back, humbly placed yet dramatically designed. The desk was on an overhang, reached by two stairs on either side of the circular room. A light blue, almost white, was the color of everything within. He remembered it like he was there minutes prior. He was moving so fast that he was stumbling, almost falling once. He ran right through some poor visitor, the mech disintegrating into ash—but he couldn’t notice. He couldn’t stop to notice. The double doors remained the same, always unlocked. He smashed into them, sending them both flying inwards, and let his vision fall on where he always stood, waiting for his arrival.
He was turning before the doors were opened. He always knew.
Gentle optics which crinkle with the same soft smile—the same silver flowing cape and the same long beard. Optimus found he had more tears to cry at the sight.
“Hello, my pupil.”
Alpha Trion stood before him, alive and well.
He opened his mouth to try and say something, but all that came out was a pathetic noise somewhere between a gasp and a squeak. He tasted the salt of his exult, slowly shaking his helm in disbelief. Trion didn’t seem surprised by this reaction, nor concerned. He simply smiled, the way he always did—like he had seen it all before.
Optimus hadn’t known the fate that befell his mentor. But Smokescreen’s recollection only confirmed the Prime’s worst fears; he had likely died during Iacon’s siege. He had tried to ignore the palpable grief that ripped at his spark with that knowledge. It should have been easy to mark it as just another to the tally of those he had failed—Elita, Roller, Dion, and so many others alongside them. But there was something about the loss of the mech who had made him, who had taken an arrogant, loudmouthed sparkling and turned him into someone worthy of a Primehood, that had him hurting just a bit more than usual.
“Trion,” he finally choked out, starstruck all over again.
“It has been a very long time, hasn’t it?”
He nodded weakly, unblinking. He feared that if he closed his optics, he would disappear.
“I—” I’m sorry, I missed you, I love you—there were a thousand things he needed to say.
“I know.”
Of course he did. He always did.
Suddenly, he was moving again, racing up the stairs and to the small overhang. And then he was reaching out, to hug him or just check to make sure he was really there. He only crossed a short distance before his mentor held a servo out to stop him, freezing him where he stood, not three feet from him.
“What—”
“I am gone, Optimus. But you are not… yet. If you lay even a digit on me, you cross to the other side.”
He shook his helm in confusion. “But aren’t I already—?”
“Not yet.”
Alpha Trion returned his servo to his other one, neatly held against his stomach. Collected as ever, the master archivist watched as the gears turned in his student’s brain. Eventually, the Prime relented, allowing his servo to drop as he stood up straight and wiped the remaining tears from his optics.
“So you’re—you’re really here.”
“I am, my kin.”
“So… you have died.”
The archivist nodded, somber. The Prime drew in a shuddering vent, quietly distraught.
“Know that I did not go without a fight,” he said, tilting his helm to reveal several blade scars around his neck and shoulders. “As I have always said, never go quietly into the night.”
Optimus took little comfort in that, but a little was better than nothing. Confirmation was almost a relief. This way, he knew his grief was proper: knew not to fight it with hope. His servos shook with the force it took not to reach out, to grasp what was in front of him, and never let go.
“I’m not done?” he whispered. Alpha Trion shook his head slowly. Optimus trembled.
“I- I want to be done.”
It was a shameful, bordering on treasonous thought. If any Autobot had heard him say it, he would be berated with psychiatrists and doctors and court martials. But Optimus was so very tired, and if this was his afterlife… he couldn’t imagine walking back into the cold and dark of reality.
“I want to come home.”
“I know,” Trion said in a low voice, without judgment. “But I am here to convince you otherwise.”
“Why?” he asked, despondent. “Don’t you want me here?”
“Of course I do. But I can wait for eternity,” he said, stepping around Optimus and beginning his descent down the stairs. “There are those waiting for you who cannot.”
“The Matrix will choose another to lead them.”
“It will not be you. And it is you they are waiting for.”
Optimus shook his helm in frustration, following the master archivist as he exited the office. A part of him wondered if he just touched him, despite his protests, if that would be the end.
“They wait for their Prime.”
Trion sighed, the way he did when Orion wasn’t getting something—not because he couldn’t, but because he was stubborn.
“Does Ratchet?”
The Prime froze in place, as did Alpha Trion, who looked at his student over his shoulder.
“How did you—?”
Trion cocked a brow ridge, faking disappointment. Optimus caught himself. The archivist continued, turning corners that the Prime knew led back to where this had all begun. He chased after him, letting them walk a few minutes in silence before continuing his crusade.
“Ratchet has every right to despise me for the rest of his days. All my return will do is spur his ire and remind him that his home is gone. If he lives.”
“You seem so sure of that,” Trion said, entering the entrance hall with the Prime trailing behind.
“He made his opinion quite clear, last we—”
He stopped, shocked into silence at what he was seeing.
Because that was him leaning over his desk, flirting with Ratchet. Orion Pax teased the student over old medical texts, Ratchet feigning outrage but laughing alongside the clerk. They were at ease, casually joking and pestering one another in the middle of a workday. They were young, in love, and so wonderfully happy.
Optimus unwittingly took a step forward, entranced by their bliss. When was the last time Ratchet had smiled like that, relaxed and unfettered? How long had it been since his optics were so bright? At that point, the student reached across the desk to run a digit against Orion’s servo, and in a moment of boldness, the clerk simply took his servo in his. The teasing ceased. They just stood there, hunched over a desk, smiling sappily at each other like the rest of the world either didn’t exist or didn’t matter.
By the Allspark, Optimus had forgotten how perfect their lives were, living in their ignorance.
“He lives, Optimus. He waits for you.”
“He waits for a version of me that is long dead,” the Prime whispered, speaking aloud the deadly admission.
“Not anymore.”
Furrowing his brow, Optimus tore his optics away from the scene before them to look at his mentor inquisitively. Trion just smiled the smile of a million secrets, flicking his gaze between him and his former self.
“In this time of uncertainty, he waits for who you are now. And he will do so forevermore.”
He didn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it—Ratchet loved Orion, not him. Their relationship was always a farce at best. It was the medic clinging to whatever few shards of the archivist still existed. Optimus had accepted that; he would take whatever love he was given. Even if the mech giving it wanted to give it to someone else.
“But I’m not—”
“You are. You always were.” Alpha Trion turned to him fully, leaning down just enough to be at optic level with Optimus’s inhabited frame.
“Do you really think I would have let anything, even the Matrix, take all of you?”
His smile grew just a touch, his helm tilting a bit to the left. “You are not who you once were, yes. But Optimus Prime is merely an addition to what was already worthy.”
He lowered his servo to right under the Prime’s chin, as if to take it, but strayed just a centimeter away so as to not touch him.
“You are worthy, Orion. Of the Matrix—” he gestured to the scene, where Ratchet had been as bold as ever and had dragged him into a searing kiss. “—and certainly of him. As all that you now are.”
Optimus had thought he couldn’t possibly cry any more tears. As usual, Alpha Trion proved him wrong.
“I keep hurting him—” he wept, “—failing him. How could he possibly still love me?”
“Love is not a logical emotion. It is not a scale of checks and balances. He decides where his limit is, and this is not it.”
“How? How could this possibly not be it?! I’ve destroyed his hope, doomed our home!”
“Have more faith in your good doctor, Optimus. Not all is lost.”
Optimus snapped up, staring up at his mentor with desperate optics. “It isn’t over?”
A curt chuckle fell from Trion’s mouth. “You and he still function.” He smirked, raising one brow ridge playfully.
“How could it possibly be over?”
Optimus fell to his knees, sobbing with relief. Alpha Trion knew Cybertron wasn’t lost, which meant it wasn’t. In his cryptic ways, he had given Optimus the assurance that they still had hope.
The illusion of the two young lovers faded, the ashes of it wisping past Optimus and catching on his stole. He lifted his helm, watching as the master archivist moved to the entrance and flung the doors open. Lit by the setting sun, he looked every bit the wise mentor Optimus knew him to be, dressed in an orange-golden glow and a gentle smile. The wind brushed his beard and cape to the side, both fluttering softly against his metal.
“It is time to go.”
Optimus grunted. “I-I haven’t made my choice yet.”
“Yes, you have.”
Yes, he had.
It took a few minutes for him to return to his pedes, shaky and slow. Walking towards the doors, he caught a glimpse of what was outside of them. Despite the glow cast from Cybertron’s sun, all that was behind Alpha Trion was pitch-black nothingness, an endless void for him to return to. He kept walking until he was side by side with Trion, and then hesitated. He glanced up at his mentor’s face, who offered him a nod and a close-opticed grin. When they opened again, pride shone freely inside of them.
Spurred, the Prime looked to the darkness and took four steps towards it before Trion cleared his throat.
Turning back, he watched him unfold his arms, holding them open for an embrace. Optimus Prime didn’t even think when he ran back and dove into his hold, wrapping his servos up his back and clutching as tight as he could. His mentor held on even tighter, putting a servo on his helm and pulling him close. It was only then that Optimus realized he was back in his frame, at level height with the mech who once looked larger than life to him.
It was only a few minutes, a brief goodbye with the understanding that one day (hopefully long in the future) they would reunite. They untangled themselves slowly, with the servo resting on his helm traveling down to cup his cheek.
“Go to him. I’ll be watching,” he whispered, horribly proud.
Optimus nodded with a sad smile. “I know,” he whispered back.
Stepping out of his hold, the Prime walked back into the cold and dark. He kept walking until he felt the need to turn back, to take one last look. He saw the Hall crumbling away, Alpha Trion with it. He wore a solemn look, facing the ground.
“Sire!” Optimus called.
His helm snapped up, a soft shimmer dancing in his optics.
“I will not go quietly!”
Trion’s optics widened. Then he smiled. Then he laughed, wild and joyous.
“I’d expect nothing less of you, Optimus Prime.”
He disappeared with a wide grin and a laugh, leaving his sparkling with a smile as well. That sparkling turned, and stepped further into the darkness—eventually breaking into a run.
He couldn’t keep his doctor waiting long.