Chapter Text
Sentinel is talking.
Sentinel has always been a talker so this wasn’t unusual, but the circumstances were unusual. This is the first time that Sentinel has testified in court, and it’s also the first time Sentinel has spoken against him in any capacity. They’ve argued before, but Sentinel has never sounded this denigrating.
Optimus isn’t looking at him, he can’t, not when he knows all he’ll see is hatred and contempt. All well deserved, but more importantly, unprofessional. But he is listening to the way Sentinel talks, not the words since. Since.
Since, this will be the last time he’ll likely get to hear Sentinel, anyway, in anything resembling a casual context. There are some questions from the prosecution, to which Sentinel explained and All too soon, quiet overtook the courtroom; in clear anticipation of the Magnus to speak.
“Optimus,” Ultra Magnus’s voice booms in the courtroom, interrupting his stupor. You couldn’t ignore the Magnus’s voice when it spoke to you directly. “You have been silent in the entirety of the trial; is there anything that you wish to say in your defense? Anything relating to, perhaps, whose idea it was to go to Archa - Seven to begin with?”
While there was some parts within him that were grateful for the opportunity to be honest from Ultra Magnus, the rest of him knew he would not be able to accept such a generous offer.
How could he, after his failure with the loss of - of a fellow cadet, one who he was responsible for? Who he chose to allow and follow on their fool-hardy and ill-advised mission to it, instead of doing anything to prevent it as the commanding cadet?
“No,” He answers. “I was commanding cadet; everything that happened on that planet was my responsibility.”
Ultra Magnus takes a long look at him, before he slowly nods once. “Very well.”
The end of the hammer hits the ground with a final slam of finality.
“Optimus-” Magnus’s voice declares. “For leading an embarkment to an off-limits organic planet and failing to protect your fellow cadets adequately, you are hereby stripped of your rank and expelled from the Autobot Academy.”
It had been what Optimus had originally feared. Not just for him, but also his fellow cadets, before. Before.
Now, he knows the punishment fits the crime for his failures.
“Am I understood?” Ultra Magnus asks.
The only other words he’s spoken in this entire trial, he speaks now:
“Yes, sir.”
And the end of the hammar comes down with yet another ‘slam’.
“Court dismissed,” Ultra Magnus states, and then he’s leaving the courtroom, because it’s over.
The trial - and by extension - Optimus’s life as a Academy cadet, are effectively over, for good. He watches as the rest of the court moves out at a brisk pace, as they - unlike Optimus, he notes with some sadness - have important roles in Autobot society and likely lead very busy lives. He would be just a footnote in their days.
Out of the corner of his optics, he watches Sentinel take one last look at him, his face of grim smugness, before walking away from him.
It’s fitting, and ironically, some what poetic. That the first and last sight of Sentinel he’ll ever see of him is his back.
He flinches when something touches his shoulder. The combat protocols he has start to activate, but, they are halted when his processor regonizes the
It’s the guard, a stocky blue femme, face constructed in a careful manner of neutrality had it not been the grim determination of duty in her optics.
“I’m here to take you back to your habsuite,” She said. ‘And make sure you don’t cause a scene in the meantime,’ went unsaid, but noted.
It’s a small mercy that she doesn’t put the cuffs on him; his transformation cog and his combat gear have both been disabled for the trial to prevent escape and/or a fight. He wouldn’t have the earlier flinch aside - but there were enough prior cases and instances of said actions - accident or no - during the war draft that it was made to be a proper precaution.
They make their way out of the courtroom, her front of him, out to the streets of Cybertron. There was of course, a small gaggle of reporters and mechs interested; it wasn’t often that Cadets disobeyed orders on this scale, with the results as devastating as they were.
Sentinel was often such a case, though he had managed to skirt by it with - his processor still stutters at the thought of her - with help.
Larger than the gaggle of reporters, was the other cadets, and the future as well as the current members of the Elite Guard. Of his former trio, they hadn’t been the top cadets of their class, but they had some of the most promising of their class. From that number to go down from three to one was surprising, if not disappointing. But there was a tragedy in how only two sparks had come back when three had left the planet.
The other cadets and upper ranks - most of them, if they didn’t turn away immediately - openly stare at him, if they weren’t judging or glaring, as the guard led him away. Out of the three of them, she was the most popular of the bunch, the most well-liked, the most willing to lend out a hand, and one of the brighter minds the Academy had refined to a polish. To have lost her was, devastating, especially when it hadn’t been in any official capacity, and instead had been in a ill-advised, ill-planned jaunt to an illegal - an organic - planet. The scale could stall the processor.
He doesn’t bother to look back at any of the mecha staring, glaring, or judging him; there wasn’t any point since the trial and sentence was already determined. There was no more they were going to get from him.
He chooses to keep focused on the road ahead with the guard walking him back behind him, making him move to ensure he wouldn’t slow down too much. When she had shifted from being in front of him to behind him, he wasn’t sure. The guard walking him back, now that the trial was over. The thought gives him some pause.
“Why are you walking me back?” He asks, still keeping his eyes ahead. Her obligation should have ended the second the trial was done, to his understanding. Unless -
“The Magnus and the council still need to decide the terms of the punishment and the harshness of the sentence.” She states. “As such, you are still under the protection of the court.”
He’s tired enough that the dread feels like a transformation locks on his pedes.
“Didn’t I just have a trial for my crimes already?”
“The earlier trial was for the Academy procedures for an academy cadet , of which you were removed from, as it was determined to be your responsibility,” She explains. “As a result of now being an ex-academy cadet, you are now a cog in the Autobot system. A cog that is responsible for an expedition to an illegal planet that resulted in the death of another cadet, but more importantly, another fellow Autobot. The Council and the Magnus now need to find a place that you are to fit into, so that you do not cause further damage to the system.”
She delivered it all bluntly, vocalizer stock and no emphasis on anything in particular.
Optimus nods slowly, processing the information. It was likely the nicest way she could have put it, all things considered. He knows a few mechs would have wanted him off-lined for his failures. It made sense. It made sense, but he really hadn’t thought about what would happen after the trial. He thought he would’ve been abandoned, let out to rust off on some planet so remote they wouldn’t even have a name for it.
‘But Autobots don’t abandon their own,’ The thought comes, unbidden, hurting his spark in what was becoming a familiar pain.
‘You deserve it,’ He can practically hear Sentinel say, and. The Sentinel in his head isn’t wrong.
“Ah, we’ve arrived,” She says, and- huh. They were. The walk was faster than Optimus had realized or had anticipated, and he was surprised that there were no other Academy bots or Elite Guards around. He looks over to his right, and he can’t help but grimace, looking at the reason why no one was around.
The outside of the building his habsuite resided had been covered in graffiti and other tags, labeling it as “housing a murder”, calling him a “twisted spark”, telling him to offline himself, and the biggest one of them all, “Optimus is a failure Autobot”.
The guard next to him makes a sound of disgust looking at it.
“I’ll get that cleaned up-” He starts.
“It is not your role to clean that up,” She interrupts, pulling out a datapad and makes a note on it that he doesn’t attempt to read. “Someone else will be assigned to clean up this tarnishment of Cybertron.”
“In the meantime, while...your placement is being decided, you are required to stay in your habsuite,” She explains. “It should not take long for the desicion to be made; it should be decided before the next Solar cycle, by which time you will be free to leave your habsuite as needed.”
Optimus nods in understanding, and starts to make his way to habsuite, wanting some measure of comfort and familiarity. This - this has been a lot to take in-
He’s stopped by her servo on his chest, and he looks at her. She keeps her optics straight ahead, like he had on the walk back.
“This is merely a personal opinion, but I would also advise staying in your habsuite until you are designated to leave for your new placement, wherever or whatever that ends up being,” She says, quietly. “There are those that would...expedite an unregulated version of the law, where their assistance is more hindrance than help.” Her optics finally slide to his. “Do you catch my meaning?”
Optimus keeps optic contact with her as he nods. The guard nods, removing her servo from him, and finally walking away.
“Thank you,” He says, to her retreating back. She does not give the impression that she hears, choosing to transform and roll out. It’s at a distance where the debri outside of his habsuite, he realizes, doesn’t hit him.
It makes him feel better, in the spark for a moment, that some can still treat him as a fellow Autobot, to some extent.
He walks into his habsuite and it. hurts his spark to look at. It takes away any of the good feeling he had earlier. It’s familiar, but familiar in the same way he knew from the gleam in Sentinel’s optics, that day, that was only a few cycles ago, that felt disturbance. Felt like trouble.
All his hopes, dreams, lined up in Elite Guard posters all over the walls, his datashelf - that Sentinel had always mocked him for - containing everything regarding Autobots, focused primarily on the history of it, especially of the war with the Decepticons, the small energon storage tank covered in motivational writings, and-
And the picture frame on his desk-
That he takes and shoves into his storage compartment. Optimus cannot- he can’t look at it right now.
Taking in the rest of his habsuite, he realizes he can’t look at it all; he can no longer hope to achieve being the best of the Elite Guard, not with his record being what it is.
So, he decides to take everything down, pack it away in storage containers; he’d gotten them before - before everything that happened, since after graduation he would have become a Minor, Major, and then Prime. He would have been Optimus Prime, eventually.
Despite his hopes as a sufficient distraction, it doesn’t even take a megacycle before everything is packed away; books, posters, and all.
Even after taking everything down and packing it away, he doesn’t feel tired and his fuel levels aren’t low enough to justify a fuel cube.
He doesn’t need to recharge, but he can’t bear to look at his entire education and his entire spark packed neatly into four storage units.
So he just lies down on his recharge bedding, and drifts between sleeping and lazing, facing the wall; something he’s not sure he’s ever done longer than some clicks before pursuing the next task. Time slows to the pace of molasses.
Then - a message pops on his personal inbox, startling him from his zoning out.
He recalls the guard saying this would happen, but he hadn’t been prepared for it to happen so soon within the same solar cycle. He thought he would have more time. As it was, it was barely any time at all compared to how long the trial itself took.
Optimus. really, really wishes Elita-1 would be here to read it for him. She would have, and had, in the past, when either he or Sentinel (usually Sentinel) were nervous about grades in the Academy.
Something that, with a sad realization, he wouldn’t have to worry about ever again.
With the thought sobering him, Optimus tightens his resolve, and opens the message, beginning to read it. Pauses. Reads the beginning again, then the rest of the message. Resets his optics, Optimus reads the entirety of the message, twice more, before the words, finally, process in his mind to his surprise and bafflement.
Optimus would still be a Prime. Prime of a Space Ship Clean Up crew, and he wouldn’t be able to deviate at all from his task to take a vacation or visit Cybertron or get any great benefits, but. But.
He would still be a Prime for the Autobots.
He’s- he’s still going to be Optimus Prime. Far sooner than he ever would have expected, and, hey, all it cost was one dead cadet!
A laugh bubbles out before he can stop it, which horrifies Optimus at his own reaction, his processor spinning, generating doubt.
Does he deserve this?
Does he actually deserve this second chance?
Would he be worthy of it?
He would have to be, for Elita, for all that he failed her, he cannot afford to fail again. He would be the platonic ideal of a Prime; with speeches, and grandeur, and fake it until he made it. He had to.
He had to.
With that thought in mind, and his systems finally feeling the drain from the trial he had, he decides to take a recharge to reset his processor.
Recharge, once he looks for it, comes easy, finally.