no one mourns the wicked

[thanksoptimus]

Who: Optimus Prime and AUTOBOTS
Where: The Autobot campground.
When: The evening/night after the dance off.
What: Orion Pax has been restored to his past and future self. Optimus Prime is NOT HAPPY. Also, very very tired.
Warnings: Injuries, intense robot ass devastation. Angry dad. Angry mom.

Optimus Prime, unlike Orion Pax, leaves no time for argument or complaint. After he's finished dealing with Megatron, he orders the Autobots to roll out, provided assistance to injured comrades where necessary. He takes no assistance for himself.

Which is stupid, because after days of starvation and torture and minus the burst of power from the Matrix he was utilizing just before, he is extremely fucked up. It's less obvious that he's on his last legs than it might be with some bots, but he is very injured and trying hard to pretend that he isn't. He drives back to base by his own means, and doesn't speak but to give the occasional order until they are there.

He wants everyone safe and tended to and organized, and he needs to have a talk with just about everyone on the team, and besides that he needs to catch up with everything he hadn't been paying attention to as Orion Pax...he doesn't see how he could possibly take a rest quite yet, there is too much stuff to do, and if he made it this far he can make it a little bit father.

More than tired, though, he is angry. He's angry at Megatron, angry at some of his team, and angry at himself. He doesn't pause to talk to anyone once they get back to camp, and immediately starts to ineffectually try to organize things with as few words as possible.

[Feel free to tag in as someone at any point in this, including later in the night or the next day. He will probably pass out in the medibay within the hour, though. Either that or Ratchet will get him.]

Comments

[worstprime]

Rodimus puts a hand to his mouth, his expression unabashedly distraught. This almost seems like an opportunity to explain himself, but Rodimus knows better than that now...he'd made some serious mistakes in the past couple of weeks. Some mistakes that even he knows there's no explaining in the world that is going to make right.

"I...okay. Okay." He vents a sigh, steeling himself as he scrambles to organize his thoughts. "It's not...it's not really all that complex, I suppose. I um...I thought, when you were still Orion and, and things weren't looking all that great that I would..." He hesitates briefly, feeling suddenly very self-conscious. "I decided to....um.....infiltrate the Decepticons. You know, to gather intel. I thought I could do more good doing that than sitting around the base doing...nothing."

He pauses, clasping his hands together, looking down, unable to bring himself to look at Optimus while he explains.

"And I...." he exhales a vent sharply. "I didn't tell Arcee."

He fully expects a bad reaction at that, so he doesn't leave a window for one, and instead plows ahead, speaking rapidly as he does.

"I spent some time tracking them down, and when I did, they let me join up with a little convincing and...I...traded them some non-essential intel. It - it wasn't anything that would hurt anyone, just bits and pieces. Miscellany, really. I was there for almost two weeks and I didn't find out anything. I didn't even know you were there, I swear. It was...it was a waste of time.

"And besides," Rodimus' expression hardens briefly. "Obviously, it turns out they'd been on to me the whole time. I know, it was stupid. I was stupid. And. Well. Here we are."

It's a rough version, and it's watered down, but that's pretty much it. Minus one small thing...the thing that he's most concerned about sharing, and he hovers precariously on doing so, deciding to give Optimus a moment to react first.

[thanksoptimus]

It's basically what he'd already surmised. He suspects that he will need to speak to Arcee and Ultra Magnus before he can consider himself fully informed of the situation, but with just this alone it is exasperating enough. Even more so when it seems that Rodimus is already far down the path of berating himself for it - not that that actually resolves the problem.

His words are measured as he speaks, with a rigidly level tone that suggests one is controlling their temper.

"Arcee was your commanding officer, Rodimus. What you did was not only inappropriate tactics, but a frankly inexcusable level of disrespect to her as your leader and your teammate."

[worstprime]

Rodimus' frowns looking more miserable by the second, still refusing to look directly at Optimus.

"I know. I know. And I don't have an excuse for that. I don't know what I was thinking," He slouches further looking like he's trying desperately to disappear into the berth. If he resonates sounds regurgitated it's because he does know why he didn't tell Arcee, but "she's a cranky, fun-sucking, pain-in-the-aft" probably isn't going to fly with Optimus.

"And there's...there's something else." He vents a sigh, finally looks tentatively over at Optimus. "I...I...gave Starscream your personal comm link frequency..."

[thanksoptimus]

His optics widen very slightly, and then narrow, the implications of that statement occurring to him. He puts a hand to his head, looking away as well, but mostly just out of utter exhaustion with everything.

"I see," he says.

[worstprime]

Rodimus is watching Optimus, his optics wide, searching his expression for a reaction...to no avail. Usually difficult to read, Optimus is now impossible.

This isn't how Rodimus had hoped Optimus' return would be. It isn't how he'd envisioned he own return to the Autobots was going to be. He'd wanted to do something good, something worthwhile. He'd been hoping to do something that would make Optimus proud.

Instead he feels like he betrayed him.

"I didn't know what would happen...I....I thought it was harmless. I had no idea...if I had, I wouldn't've...I'd've never..."

He breaks off, his anxiety about what he'd done reaching a pitch, straining his voice and he realises how futile and childish his explanation sounds, anyhow. It didn't frankly matter what he'd thought...he did it.

[thanksoptimus]

This is so frustrating. Rodimus is clearly regretting the things he's done but...none of it was even remotely acceptable. Being sorry isn't enough, not when they are in a war, not when there are lives at stake. It hurts a little, even which how angry he is, to make this worse for him. But Rodimus needs to learn.

"I understand that you did not intend ill," he says, maintaining a forced control of his tone. "However, such is the risk of leaked information - you cannot always see how something might be utilized until the damage is done. If you had had the rest of the Autobots on your side, we could have been prepared for what information would be given. Arcee might have known what to do."

Optimus strains to get up, more fully, venting heavily. It's obvious how weak he still is, how extensive the damage done was. He doesn't blame Rodimus for this, but it is a very physical representation of what can go wrong.

"She could have found the Conquest after I was discovered missing, had she known how she could locate you."

Those days of misery don't mean much to Optimus Prime, not after how long and hard his life has been thus far. But to Orion Pax they had been devastating.

[worstprime]

Watching Optimus try and get up, struggling against his many injuries drives home Rodimus' guilt further. He would like to crawl into a hole and die, please and thank you.

Even still, if it were anyone else lecturing Rodimus on the details of how and why what he did was in very poor judgement, he would tell them go fuck themselves in a nanokilk, but considering it's not anyone else, he keeps his mouth shut until Optimus finishes.

"Forgive me if I'm not particularly confident in the likelihood of high command doing what needs doing," Rodimus says with an undisguised note of bitterness. Arcee would have never let him go in the first place had he told her his plan...nevermind that his plan had completely fallen apart. It was the principle of the thing.

"Besides...It's easy to say what should be done when you're not actually there."

Rodimus doesn't intend that statement as a jab at Optimus but it ends up sounding like one and he doesn't bother correcting himself.

[thanksoptimus]

Both of those statements are somewhat insulting, and Optimus is not in the mood to be as good about tolerating that kind of crap as he'd usually be. There is no sudden flash of anger as his optics narrow - more like, for a few moments, he tries a little less hard to force his emotions into check.

"Do you doubt my ability to do what is necessary, then? Are you really so arrogant as to assume that you know better?"

His voice is a rough growl - he doesn't raise his volume, but he's rarely needed to in the history of his command.

"You underestimate the burden of command, and to so willingly make such a task harder for your fellow bot demonstrates not only selfishness, but a pivotal weakness of spark. Arcee had the weight of the world placed on her shoulders regardless of her own desires, and you disrespected both her as your commander and teammate, but me as her appointer."

"This is no minor betrayal you have taken part in, Rodimus. And you will be penalized accordingly."

[worstprime]

There's a long hollow moment while Rodimus doesn't respond, letting what Optimus has said sink in. The words hurt. But he also feels a fresh anger rising in his spark.

"'Underestimate the burden of command'?" Rodimus echoes in disbelief before a sarcastic, bitter laugh bursts from his vocalizer. "I'm not so arrogant that I think I know better than you but I do know that high command makes decisions...and people die."

Rodimus knows he shouldn't be saying these things, knows he should stop, and if he could, he would probably leave now, childish as that might be. But it's too late. He deserves the berating, certainly, but the insinuation that he doesn't understand the burden of command makes' his spark burn. There isn't a day that goes by that Rodimus' own disastrous experiences in command don't cross his mind; the faces of the people he's still trying to make it up to still haunt the edges of every decision he makes, for better or worse.

He continues, despite knowing better, his fists clenched and his voice full of undirected venom.

"Maybe you'd know that too if you paid attention to your top ranks...the high command you have so much faith in. Maybe you'd see how many people they send to die in their stead for the sake if a...a....a fuel outpost If you spent more time paying attention to what matters in this war instead of your...your relationship with Megatron!"

[thanksoptimus]

Optimus doesn't know exactly where this is coming from, but more importantly he feels that it is irrelevant to the current situation. Arcee has hardly been making anyone her canon fodder - Rodimus projecting his distrust onto her is no more appropriate than anything else.

He finds the first part irritating, but largely unmoving. If Rodimus things that he is unaware of the things that happen in his army, he is misinformed. The avoidance of collateral has always been one of his most central concerns.

But he doesn't end up arguing that point, because of the fact that that last remark catches his completely off guard. His optics widen like he's been struck, before narrowing again critically.

...And then he just stares at him, his gaze absolutely piercing. There is a note of disbelief, but mostly there is just this supreme bitterness that consumes him now, an age old wound with freshly leaked blood.

There is a certain violence to his silence that seems to imply that if Rodimus allows him enough time to choose his words, he will most likely regret it.

[worstprime]

Rodimus is a little off-put by this unexpectedly intense reaction, but his statement stands, and he says nothing, glaring back at Optimus silently.

[thanksoptimus]

And then...well, it's not much like it seemed like it is going to be.

In the past, it could be genuinely ambiguous as to whether or not Optimus Prime had any kind of interior personal life, or interests outside of being a Prime and the commander of the Autobots. Nothing is ever about him. It's about the war, and what is wise, and what is decent, and in balancing all three of those things the best he can. He doesn't laugh, he doesn't cry, he doesn't do anything but work for the cause except in the rarest of moments.

He's been fine that way - content, almost - for thousands of years. And now he has no idea what to do when nothing feels fine anymore at all.

When his anger finally starts to fade, there isn't anything beneath it anymore. All there is is raw hurt - humiliation - and a complete lack of defense. He stares at Rodimus for a few more moments with that hollowed out, fragile expression, and then he just lays back down on his berth, turning his helm to look away from the other bot. It is tired, and it is resigned.

It takes a few more moments for him to finally speak, and when he does, his voice reflects that expression. It's quiet, and it holds firm, but it's empty.

"You are restricted to the medibay until further notice. Your sentence will be given once the issue has been fully accessed."

[worstprime]

This isn't the reaction that Rodimus was expecting at all, although it makes more sense than the intense and uncharacteristic anger brewing just a moment before. Optimus seems to shut down, and Rodimus feels his spark drop like a cold weight.

"Optimus...I...." Damn it. He puts his head in his hands; this isn't what he'd meant to happen. He'd gotten reactionary, gotten defensive and now...well, he's never seen Optimus like this before. He feels sick with guilt, and even that makes him feel guilty because it's ultimately a self-serving emotion. He wishes desperately that he could be somewhere else.

[thanksoptimus]

Optimus doesn't respond to that, nor does he say anything else for some time. Instead, he just allows himself to lay there, blankly staring into the middle distance ahead of him, reflecting dully on the pains that are currently ravaging his spark.

He can't even be truly angry anymore.