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This cycle, I finally did it. What you always said I would. I saved the universe. At least, for now. I suppose this makes me a hero. I do not care for such a label. You know that, of course. No, I believe the others to be the heroes. Autobots and Maximals. You remember them from my last message, I’m sure. The humans I mentioned were in the final battle as well. We would not have been able to defeat Unicron, however temporarily, without their help. How such small beings can maintain their resilience and courage through so much trauma and stress is beyond me. But after dealing so personally with Unicron in the end, I understand that it may simply be a matter of perspective. On one servo, I wish you had been h—
Optimus stopped. He stared down at the datapad in his servos. And stared. His spark twisted in on itself. His vents hitched.
He threw it.
He cared not for where it landed in the foliage. It had endured much worse. Been thrown into solid walls. On pavement. He’d kicked it once. Unlike the mighty Optimus Prime, it never broke. The mech leaned forward where he sat, his faceplates in his servos. His frame was beaten and battered, exhausted from the fight just several joors ago. It was not what ached. That was something nobody could see. Nobody ever had. Except one.
That sturdy red and blue frame trembled. Black servos grasped his helm, optics staring down at the grass between his peds. Silently, with a deep, shaky vent, he thanks Primus that he is alone. Nobody would see him break. Nobody should. Nobody ever did.
Battle mask sliding into place, Optimus stood, took up a log from the jungle floor, and with a roar of all his might he swung it into the nearest tree. Like his spark the cycle he left Cybertron, the log splintered into two halves. The half that remained in his grip, he drop-kicked in the opposite direction. It smashed into the base of a much larger tree. It rested there, unfeeling.
Optimus gazed longingly at the crumpled wood. It had no spark with which to ache, to yearn, to wish itself somewhere else. To love.
His outburst was all the catharsis he would allow himself. It was all that he meant to, anyway. He had it down to a routine. He cracked, he broke, he put himself back together. That was all he needed. He did not need to let himself stay broken. He did not need to fall to his knees at the twist of his spark. He did not need to focus on his emotions, to feel them until he cried out in agony.
Yet, here he was.
He could not stop himself this time. His spark would not let him. It refused to let him push it aside once more. It was a blade in his chassis, twisting and stabbing and slicing away as if it were a terrified mechanimal fighting to escape the cage of his frame. Optimus let it. His frame alerted him to physical injury. At first he dismissed it as faulty. The alert appeared again. With a start, he realized himself to be on the ground, not on his knees but on his back, heel struts digging into the dirt while his digits dug into his own chassis. It stayed sealed shut. He had to keep it that way. He knew what he would do in that moment if he dared let his spark bare itself. He could not handle it anymore. He forced himself to anyway.
He laid there for what felt like joors. He did not put himself back together. He felt, until he could feel no more. Until he quit writhing in his effort to claw his own chassis apart. Until he lacked the strength to even growl at his pain. He felt everything, until finally, he felt nothing.
His servos fell to the ground beside him. His optics fixed on the deep, star-strewn sky he could see through the trees. He watched. Waited. He knew what for. He did so anyway. He needed it, that final thing he could hope for. Without it - without her - he might as well fall on his energon sword.
Optimus sat up. He scanned around him and located his datapad. He had ended up an easy reach away from where he had thrown it. Slowly, he fetched the device from under the foliage, then returned to the ground. He held it up in front of him, blocking the stars. He didn’t read back what he had written. He selected the entire text and deleted it. He stared back at himself through the blank screen for a long moment. He pondered the blinking type bar and let out a heavy vent.
I miss you.