Maybe the way Optimus Prime is described isn't so strange to him after all. He can certainly see how things could go that way, after all this. It's just the wise leader part he's having a hard time connecting with.

Her words take the edge off of his resentment, and the hard stare of his optics softens. He vents out slowly, pausing in his welding for only a moment before continuing.

"I wonder...how I felt the first time around," he says softly. Did the gradually widening gap between them make it easier to bear? Or did watching someone so dear slowly slip away just make him harder?