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Ratchet knew who Optimus Prime was before he was shaped into his title. Before he was moulded into something. A mask, a facade, a burden that he wasn't ready to carry. He knew a small fragile frame, and kind, hungry optics. He knew sharp denta and pointed digits’. Bright blue optics that looked at the world with wonder and fear, a depth of knowledge that no other mech would be able to understand.
It had been a while since he had seen those. The raw emotion that surrounded his EM field, the sounds that the mech made that Ratchet only realised he missed once they were gone. After he became Optimus Prime, that side of him was buried under kilocycles of conditioning, training. The medic found himself trying to reach out to his friend after the coronation, a small wave of calm, of happiness. Only to be denied, shoved off like a piece of dust.
He quickly became accustomed to this new role that he was placed in, moulding himself to become just as distant with Optimus as the rest of them. Snapping harsh words and reprimanding phrases. And maybe, just maybe some small part of the medic wanted to see his dark blue finials drop, to hear him growl and bare his fangs in retaliation or whine an apology like he did back at the archives. He sometimes saw the mech twitch when he was talking to another, his finials drooping before quickly raising to where they were settled before.
It had been a few months since they had crash landed on earth, made a base and developed a new routine whilst Ratchet had tried to repair what was left of the ship. It had happened when they were out on patrol, ambushed by rouge decepticons, and Optimus had come out a tad worse than the others.
“What in primus’ name happened out there?” Ratchet's voice echoed loudly around the base as the four mech’s came through the door, immediately picking upon the scent of raw energon and rusted metal.
“Ambushed” Arcee stated, as she sprawled out against the back of the wall, her vents working overtime trying to cool down her internal workings. She was tired, but not injured gravely, rest and a good intake of energon would set her right. Bulkhead similarly, despite a few extra scrapes and scratches on his plating. Bumblebee let out a long buzzing whine as he clattered to the floor. A few scapes, in need of a wash but otherwise intact. Ratchet felt his shoulders loosen at the sight of the uninjured mech's.
So then who-
A quiet grunt to the left caught his attention and the medic turned to see Optimus, his blue and red plating splattered with energon and a deep cut across his servo.
Ratchet felt the familiar bubbling of anger inside of him, his plating rose, he got ready to shout, to scream, to throw hurling insults at Optimus for allowing himself to get hurt on the job. A job that was meant to be a scouting mission for energon, that turned into a battle. And then Optimus met his optics, his head bowed and his optics dimmed, pupils thrumming with the internal battle of instincts.
And suddenly Ratchet was brought back in time, the walls of the base moulded into his old office and there in front of him stood Orion Pax, clutching his wounded arm, his frame small and misshapen. Finials lowered and optics dimmed after a fight broke out between him and some other bot, he couldn't remember who.
Even now, with his tall frame, inches above the old medic, all he could see was the young mech from before. His shoulders dropped and he led Optimus to the med bay after a quiet “come on”. His voice lowered and his motions slow.
Ratchet had gone through the motions enough times to know exactly what to do with both the medical supplies and the mech, even if he was a bit rusty with the limited supplies they had on the ship. Ratchet looked up from where he was cleaning the tools he needed to see Optimus, ridgid as though he was unsure of what to do.
Ratchet clicked his glossa, noting the way that Optimus’ finials twitched and his pupils shrunk as ratchet motioned towards the recharge slab. The battle must have affected him worse than the medic originally thought if it brought his active base-coding this close to the surface.
He remembered snippets from back then, only small things but the influence that Orion had on him, that Optimus had on him. That stayed with Ratchet, it sat deep in his core, right next to his spark. The day he realised that Orion had active base coding, he ran straight to Alpha Trion, worried for the young mech and ready to get revenge on whoever hurt him in the first place. It had first confused him how calm Trion had been, active coding meant that the sparkling had gone through an immense neglect or trauma inducing incident.
“He came from the wilds” alpha Trion had stated clearly, a calm wave of his field enveloped Ratchet and he found himself venting quietly. An effort to cool down himself as he looked over to the young mech beside Trion. Said mech was quietly reading through a novel at the end of alpha Trion’s desk, seemingly sensing eyes on him he lifted his head with a questioning chirrup.
“He was found digging through some rubbish on the outskirts of lacon” Ratchet, as much as he could imagine it, felt a horrible seething weight upon his spark at those words. “He had obviously wandered in from the wilds surrounding the city, where he originated from we cannot say but he has an autobot frame at least.”
“Any records?”
Alpha Trion shook his head solemnly “I’ve looked through the entire archives, every single tablet, nothing”
Ratchet slowly got out the materials he needed, his processor replaying memories that he once kept buried under more recent thoughts and feelings.
Optimus had been silent behind him apart from the occasional shuffle. Ratchet was tempted to ask what happened, the silence hung over them both like a blanket and thick fog. But the medic knew better than to ask Optimus questions when he was like this.
“Opti-Orion” ratchet quickly corrected himself. He could feel the bright blue optics bearing into his back. He turned to meet them, mustering up his courage and emitting a calm wave over his EM field. This wasn’t Optimus prime who sat in his office, no, it was Orion. Orion, who’d accidentally knocked over an entire shelf of archive tablets after some mech scared him enough to climb up into it. Orion, who’d stared longingly out of the window on the top floor of a building into the mountains and rolling hills and dense trees. Orion, who’d growled fearlessly at a mech ten times bigger than him because he had threatened Ratchet whilst he was down in the archives.
Orion who’d just gotten into a fight, on a strange world, with different laws of physics and different scents and landscapes.
Orion Pax. Not Optimus Prime. Orion.
Ratchet walked slowly toward him, placing what was in his hands next to Optimus with delicate precision so that the mech could see everything that ratchet was going to use.
“I’m going to clean off the excess energon” Ratchet had begun to open a packet of wipes “is that alright, Orion?”
The mech's pupils widened before shrinking back down to slits and nodding silently, not meeting Ratchet's optics.
Ratchet started with the injured arm, slowly moving from the top of his arm down to his forearm. He could tell Optimuswas slowly getting more tense the closer Ratchet got to the wound. Ratchet was expecting the bared hiss that escaped the mech as he got to the start of the wound. Optimus clutching his wounded arm behind him.
The medic was surprised when a wave of realisation washed over Optimus and he quietly placed the wounded arm back down to where Ratchet was cleaning it before.
“Apologies, old friend” Ratchet hummed at Optimus’ words, reminded that even if he saw the mech before him as someone he used to be, he is still who he is now, who he was conditioned to become, Optimus prime.
Ratchet gathered a fresh wipe “I’m going to start cleaning the wound now, are you ready?”
A grit of denta and a nod of his helm from the mech before him, Ratchet started to clean the wound of exposed circutary and internal wiring.
The silence lasted for a few clicks, when Ratchet spoke before his processor could override it.
“You don’t have to hide it you know”
Optimus didn’t look up, he didn’t make any motion to say that he was listening to Ratchet, but the medic knew that he was.
“Even if it’s not all the time, it’s healthy to let some part of your active coding take a role” a twitch of finials.
“It can be difficult to allow yourself to let go after all of the repression they put you through, and if he was here Trion would want you to do it too” Optimus looked up at Ratchet when the medic had said his name. A deep instinctual longing enveloped his optics and Ratchet ex-vented slowly.
“I know, I miss him too”
As the medic finished bandaging Optimus’s wound he gently wiped off the dried energon on the mech’s face plates. Smiling slightly at the way Optimus tried to avoid scrunching up his faceplates to no avail.
Underneath all of the big gruff facade, he was still just a young mech trying to figure out who he was.
“I want you to promise me Optimus” he forced the mech to look the medic in the eye “I want you to promise me that you’ll suppress your coding less, it’s not healthy”
They held eye contact for a while before Optimus ultimately deflated and nodded to agreement.
“I want to hear you say it” Ratchet spoke in his reprimanding tone, the one he has used since Orión first came to lacon.
“Promise” Optimus spoke. It was the most basic of languages, the one that all cybertronians are made with. Ingrained into every processor across the planet. The most basic translation would have been along the lines of ‘trust’ but Ratchet understood just fine what he was trying to say.
And if he found a couple of extra marks in his plating, well, he didn’t notice.