capitalh | no one mourns the wicked

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no one mourns the wicked

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.]

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"I am recovering," he says in a level, but tired, tone. He immediately decides to take that as a question of his physical health and nothing more. He is not sure he has the words to describe how he is feeling emotionally.

Optimus and Orion both had always been the reserved sort, but never actually oblivious to their own emotions. Orion had been uncertain, he could remember that more freshly than ever. But Optimus had never considered himself to struggle with his own emotions, or to have a difficult time understanding what he was feeling.

That's all changed now. He can't possibly measure his internal reaction to the sight of Arcee, not through all this anger and loss. Does he feel different? From the last time he was Optimus? From the last time he was Orion?

Though there has always been much that Optimus Prime didn't know, he had always known who he was. He is not certain that that is the case anymore.

He feels everything and he feels nothing.

He glances away, for only a moment.

"...Thank you for assuming command in my absence," he says. "I have no regrets in my decision."

Arcee really had only meant to inquire about his health, but his hesitation brings to light the ambiguity in her question and she feels immediately something akin to embarrassment. But it's that last that really brings the shame to surface in her spark, hot and uncomfortable, and it's Arcee who can't hold his gaze, looking down at the datapads in her hand with lips pursed only to pull any other expression from her face.

"Well, you might want to reserve judgment until after you've reviewed everything." There's supposed to be a twinge of humor to her voice, but it falls away somehow. Instead, her voice is regrettably heavy. Arcee steps closer, holding out the datapads for him.

"It's...it wasn't the same without you, sir. I think everyone's glad to have you back."

He doubts that he'll start regretting it. If there were failures and mistakes, he is in no place to condemn. His own plans had gone abysmally, and if he chose to focus on that, he could easily blame the vulnerability of this team on his own foolish decisions.

He won't, however. He knows that it is pointless now. They can only move forward.

"I do not expect a perfect showing, Arcee. This has been an uphill position for every bot on this team, and you are no exception." He takes the datapads, and glances at them, but only briefly. He'll dig into them soon enough for the sake of carrying on, but not so that he can critique Arcee's actions.

He presses his fingers over his closed optics, trying to keep himself focused through his weariness. When he opens them again, he's looking at her intently.

"I was a fool to turn away your assistance, at the start. Perhaps if I had seen beyond my own desperation, some of this could have been avoided."

In a way, it would have been better if he'd voiced disappointment. Arcee knows it is meant to reassure her, and it does, but at the same time, it somehow makes her that much more ashamed for how recklessly she'd acted points, how selfishly. She could call it an indiscretion, but that seems insulting to Orion, somehow -- but nonetheless, had Optimus taken that decision into account? Is his approval implicit in that reassurance? The whole thing makes her head spin, and she shoves it aside, trying to be present for the matter at hand.

But she's not prepared for the intensity of his gaze, of something that honest from him just now when he's been so withdrawn, and it shows. She stares back at him, disarmed, and then her gaze drops, air rushing softly from her vents.

"You can't take all the blame. I...should have pushed harder, maybe."

He vents for a few moments before speaking because he is, in fact, very emotional, and maintaining his composure takes a consistent effort. He distances his spark from the most tender of issues at work here. Right now he tries to focus on Arcee the Commander and her alone.

"Sparks more stubborn than yours have tried," he says, and there is very nearly an edge of humour to it. He can remember Ratchet telling him this, only days ago, when he was still Orion. He cannot tell if that is more recent than his memories of Unicron, or somehow parallel.

"I do not intend to deprecate myself," he says, slowly. "But command is a position of great potential error and many uncertainties. You shouldered the burden, and you did so admirably."

Just as he has been shouldering that burden for thousands and years, and has only just now has a breathe of fresh air. Optimus would not have recognized the feeling, through his own optics.

He feels very old.

If this is absolution, Arcee's not quite sure she's ready for it. She doesn't quite know how to react to so genuine and warm -- for Optimus, anyway -- a relief from her duties, and she buckles under it, her optics dimming. She's not sure what to say to that, in what context to take his words. There could be layers and layers of meaning, or there could be very little to it at all.

Things were supposed to be easier once Optimus came back.

"Thank you," she says, and she does mean it. "It's...good to have you back, sir."

She means that too, but differently. It's too hard to sort out all the tangled tendrils of feeling about Optimus and Orion and who she'd missed more, who and what she misses now and why. It's not for here or now. There are more important things to worry about, she tells herself. That's an armor, in and of itself.

"Now that you're back," she says then, although the choice of words doesn't seem quite right, but she straightens up again, military discipline always an easy fallback, "maybe you can debrief us on what happened with Unicron." Orion hadn't known anything about it, and getting the Matrix back had seemed a bigger concern at the time.

Primus. He is as stressed about Unicron as he is about everything else, if not more so. It was months ago, now - so much time to act lost. That damned Megatron has really ruined everything.

He sounds very weary talking of this.

"I came face to face with Unicron - I intended to use the Matrix's power to destroy or disarm him. I do not know what would have followed."

Ironically, perhaps something similar to what ended up happening anyway. But he has never used it that way before.

"But I was followed...by Megatron." The angry in his spark easily rises to the surface again at that, showing powerfully in his optics. It's not as if he hasn't been angry at Megatron plenty of times before, but there is something ragged and raw about the fury he has now - anger without the resignation of the years.

"He took that moment of vulnerability as an opportunity to pry the Matrix from my chest. I can only assume that the planet I sought to protect was left to be consumed."

Arcee doesn't know why she expected Unicron to be an easier topic, but the weight of what Optimus says hits her all at once and she slumps, looking hopeless. She's close enough to the berth to wrap her hand around the edge of it and she leans against it, heaving air out through her vents.

"I didn't think -- oh, Primus." She looks a little sick; she'd known Megatron had interfered in the worst of ways, but she hadn't ever imagined he'd done so when Optimus was so close. She should have, though. She should have known. "So Unicron's...still out there. Somewhere. Because of Megatron."

She looks angry now, too; Optimus's anger is something she can sympathize with, something she shares to a degree, although it could never be so personal or run so deep for her. But it wasn't that long ago that she had attacked Megatron outside city hall, fueled by rage and spite and bitter upset for what he'd done to Orion, to all of them; if there's one thing she has no trouble understanding, it's that.

"Through some wonder he must have escaped Unicron presence without being destroyed, and - without realizing the effects the loss of the Matrix would have - attempted to take me captive."

Optimus finally looks up, towards the heavens, some piece of that anger replaced with terrible melancholy.

"Through some trick of destiny, Unicron still lives. And I believe that this planet - Earth - is his next target. Soon enough after that...it will be Cybertron itself."

Arcee grips the edge of the berth a little more tightly, shaking her head. It's hard not to be angry right now, and more than that, it's...easy. It's easier than being this confused mess, anyway.

"At least we're here," she says, anger making her voice fierce. She meets Optimus's gaze for the first time since she walked in, her optics bright and hard. "We'll stop him this time, Optimus. You're not alone this time."

Focusing Unicron instead of the unspoken tension between them is easier. If this were Orion, Arcee might have reached for his hand -- but things are different, how she doesn't know, but they are, and she hesitates now.

He looks back at her, and then down at one of his hands. He seems less certain than her about that. He's glad that she doesn't try to get any more familiar than she has been, honestly - he is more vulnerable that way that he'd like. Ancient wounds feel like they've been torn open anew.

"...I am uncertain about my initial tactic. The full loss of the Matrix seems less viable than it had before. I had...not expected to return, but this absence, if anything, has proven to me how much my presence is still needed."

The stark admittance that he'd never intended to survive in the first place, in spite of the conversation they'd had before he'd left -- it weighs heavily on Arcee, and the fierce anger drains partially from her face. Arcee hadn't even been in command very long. If he'd never returned, what would have happened to the Autobots then?

"We'll find another way," Arcee says, the firmness of her tone surprising even her. It's full of more conviction than she is right now. "There's always another way, Optimus. And I -- we can't afford to lose you again, not now."

He looks at her then, his optics distant, but searching. They are both aware of the conflict, here. It's an unspoken truth that lingers between them uncomfortably.

"...The inhabitants of Earth have diverse and useful skills. If we are able to communicate effectively with the local government, I believe they will aid us in protecting their planet from this threat." He vents, slowly. "I can only pray that they heed us. My encounter with Unicron has likely only given him a taste for my destruction."

"It won't happen, not on my watch."

Arcee's conviction only grows as she speaks, unfolding from within itself, and she sounds earnest and determined, if not the slightest bit desperate. Now things seem more grim than ever, somehow; but whether he's Orion or Optimus, whatever the nature of their relationship, Arcee needs him here. She knows that much.

"I swear, Optimus, it's not going to happen. The people on this planet won't just sit by and let Unicron consume them. They'll work with us -- they've started to already, at least. We'll find another way."

Her determination is somewhat steadying, though it doesn't impact his outter demeanour a great deal. There are too many other, simultaneous worries to contend with. This whole interaction is one of them.

"I appreciate your support," he says, even as he feels uneasy in his spark. He's been trying to ignore it, but it's working less than less. "I believe I will be fine for the time being."

He's not completely sure what he is trying to pacify here, but he tries not to think about it.

Arcee knows the end of a subject when she sees it. She hadn't expected a full-on military debriefing, or the conversation to last very long, but even so, she can't help but feel the hints of a dismissal.

It seems an awkward place to end the meeting, though, and though Arcee finds herself hesitating, she's reluctant to just leave it at that. How often can they avoid the subject they've been dancing around, anyway? She starts toward Optimus a little, though she doesn't reach out to touch him.

"Optimus," she starts, haltingly, but there's a softness to her face that makes her look vulnerable. "About what happened before. I..."

Ahhhh fuck. Abort.

His frame tenses before he can stop it, all that lingering ill ease manifesting in a suddenly physical sense. There is a deep note of anxiety within him that inspires the sudden need to put his defenses up and keep them there.

"Arcee, I do not hold any of your interactions with Orion Pax against you," the words coming stiffly and automatically.

For a long, long moment, Arcee doesn't know what to say to that. She looks stricken for a second, because that is a dismissal if she's ever heard one, and it stings. She hadn't expected much -- she knows this is Optimus, not Orion, and that he's tired and angry and he's been through an incredible ordeal -- but it's not as though Arcee had been nothing to Optimus, either. She'd expected more than that.

The moment passes and she still doesn't know what to say. There's nothing to say to a response like that. Arcee pulls away from the berth, her gaze dropping away from Optimus's face. Her optics dim.

"I'll let you get some rest, Optimus." Her voice is quiet, but still plenty audible in the room. She starts for the door. "You're going to need it. You know where to find me if you need me."

The thing to do would be to stop her, and to amend that statement, and to try to put into words the things he has been feeling since taking the Matrix back. But he doesn't. He doesn't know what those feelings are, and out of a world of dangers, he finds that this is the thing that makes him afraid. He hasn't even considered something like it for thousands of years. And the fact that it was pulled out there, made a possibility...

He can't even quantify his own feelings in reaction. His optics follow her at first, but then they stop doing even that. His spark aches, both for her, and for whatever part of himself is feeling this.

He doesn't say anything as she leaves.

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no one mourns the wicked

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OH NO THAT ICON

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