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Perceptor had been droning on for what felt like forever. Rodimus’s back was draped over the chair that he lazily laid in; he was making his disinterest as obvious as he possibly could. Drift had joined him and was leaning on a nearby wall, nodding as Perceptor rambled. Rodimus groaned inwardly. Ugh, it was so stupid when Drift tried to act like he understood the scientific gobbledygook Perceptor spewed. Rodimus hated when Drift acted smarter than him–Rodimus didn’t even need him there, Drift was just sooooo obsessed with him that he wanted to be joint at Rodimus’s hip everywhere he went–but it was whatever. He’d get Perceptor to use normal words eventually and Drift wouldn’t be able to act all smart.
“... to understand the intricacies of this piece, the analysis requires a deep understanding of hermeneutics–” Perceptor pontificated before Rodimus cut him off with a loud groan. Perceptor’s eye twitched. “I’m sorry, am I boring you, Rodimus? I couldn’t tell.” Perceptor turned away from his computer to make eye contact with Rodimus, who himself had turned to look at Drift for support. Drift shot a glance at Perceptor, trying to silently tell Rodimus that he needed to pay attention. Rodimus groaned again and stood up.
“Simple language, Perceptor,” Rodimus drawled, waving dramatically with his hands. “Intelligibility isn’t a weakness, you know. Some of my favorite words are monosyllabic.”
“But–” Perceptor interjected.
“Good start!” Rodimus cut him off, turning to lean back into his chair once again. Perceptor rolled his eyes and restarted.
“Rodimus, my tests have confirmed that, as you suspected, the ‘matrix map’–”
“Our only way of finding the Knights of Cybertron,” Rodimus said quickly, cutting Perceptor off. “Yep, know this bit.”
“–is copy-protected,” Perceptor continued with a strained squeak in his voice. “We can project the map onto a flat surface but we can’t capture the image in a vidstill or a photo; the playback’s always corrupted. What’s more, the image–the map–appears to resist memorization. You can remember looking at it, but the detail always slips away; you can’t recreate it. The ‘bottom line’–and I feel I’ve cheapened my profession by resorting to that phrase–is that we can’t make a backup.” Rodimus stood from his chair and began clapping obnoxiously; Drift had to stifle a laugh.
“There!” He announced. “A full sixty sentences shorter than your first attempt–and no sign of the word 'hermeneutics.’ I suggest we–” Suddenly, Rodimus was cut off by the sounds of alarms blaring. In shock, he grabbed Drift’s arm; he didn’t know what else to do. Drift’s eyes were wide with indescribable fear, and he pulled Rodimus out the door. Rodimus’s datapad exploded with comms asking him, begging him to explain what was going on. Rodimus had no idea, of course, but he soon would.
He should’ve never let Prowl sneak that damn Decepticon onto his ship.
He held Drift’s Autobot brand in his hands as he fell onto his bed. Holes were punched into his habsuite’s walls, the product of another one of his destructive ‘tantrums.’ Repair bots would be there after his recharge to fix them before the rest of the crew could find out, he didn’t need everyone to know just how emotionally unstable he was.
He crushed the only piece of Drift he had left and threw it to the other side of the room; it clattered unceremoniously next to his desk. How could he be so stupid? How could he have let Prowl sneak Overlord on his ship? How could he let the crew run Drift off? How could he be so… foolish? Normally that was a word he’d only hear Magnus use, but since Magnus was dying and all, Rodimus thought it would be fitting to admonish himself in his ‘holier than thou’ lingo.
He sat up and started banging his hands on his forehead. He was an idiot; If only he had a chance to do it all over. He didn’t know what he would do differently, but he just wanted to try again. He knew about Overlord. He knew about him and did absolutely nothing to stop him being brought onto the ship. In the end, this was his fault… but he let Drift take the blame, like he always did. Rodimus leaned back onto his bed, wishing that, after he fell asleep, he wouldn’t wake back up.
***
When Rodimus next awoke, he fought opening his eyes. Primus, how he wished he could’ve just slept forever, there was so much he didn’t have the motivation to do. As he slowly came to, he noticed that the holes in the walls had been repaired. In fact, they had been done so well that it looked like he had never had his freak out in the first place. He made a mental note to give the repair team a raise and sat up. If the repairs had taken place while he was in recharge, then he must have drastically overslept. But when he checked his datapad, it read 10:00; his normal wakeup time when he didn’t have practice with Drift. It was… weird; he shrugged, deciding that the repair team must’ve just gotten an early start. As he sat up, the events of the previous day hit him like a truck and he groaned. His head fell to his hands, thinking that the best way to start the day was to wallow in his pity.
To his surprise though, a light knock echoed from his door.
“Can you not bother me?” Rodimus groaned, raising his head. “Yesterday was horrible enough, couldn’t you give me a break?”
“Rodimus?” The voice outside the door asked; Rodimus jumped when he recognized who it was. “Get up, you’re late for practice. And what do you mean, ‘yesterday was horrible enough?’” Rodimus raced to his door, spark pounding in his audial receptors as he slid it open. There stood… Drift. Rodimus stared at him blankly for a moment before suddenly pulling him into a tight hug, holding him like he’d never been happier to see him–probably because he hadn’t. Drift stiffened. Rodimus knew that he was probably upset at him for letting the crew push him off like he did, but Rodimus was happy to see him nonetheless.
“You– you came back?” Rodimus choked out, fighting the coolant pooling at the corners of his eyes. “After all the awful things the crew did?”
“Rodimus please,” Drift squeaked. “You’re choking me–” Rodimus quickly let go, aggressively grabbing his shoulders and staring deeply into his eyes instead, drinking in the sight in front of him.
“And what do you mean, ‘after the awful things the crew did?’” Drift asked, so confused that he seemed to be almost afraid. “The crew has always been a little rude to me, they don’t really like the whole ‘ex-Decepticon' thing… nothing has seemed out of the ordinary though. Are you alright? Did you have a bad dream?” Rodimus’s mouth was hanging open as he tried to process what was happening.
“Yeah I– um,” he stuttered out. “I must’ve had a bad dream.” He again pulled Drift close to him. Drift tensed but eventually eased into the embrace. His hand moved tentatively to softly stroke Rodimus’s back as they slowly melted into each other.
“So… no practice today?” Drift said awkwardly into Rodimus’s ear.
“Not today,” Rodimus said quietly. The spark that had been in the rafters his entire ‘dream’ was finally returning to his body
“Okie-dokie,” Drift replied chipperly, the uncomfortability still ringing in his voice. Rodimus was always a fan of physical expressions of affection, it was just who he was, but had always tried to keep Drift at arms-length when it came to ‘emotional stuff.’ Drift was the type of bot to jump into something with his entire spark, and Rodimus was always the type to just ‘want to have fun.’ He didn’t like commitment, he didn’t like being boxed into one thing, but after seeing Drift after such an awful nightmare, he realized that maybe he had let this become more than he had intended it to. Rodimus sighed and finally released Drift from his grip, turning to make his way to his office.
“So Drift, tell me, what’s my schedule today?” Rodimus asked as they started walking down the hall. Drift seemed to be on a different planet after the sudden display of affection, but appeared to be dragged to the real world again as Rodimus began to walk off.
“Well,” Drift pulled up his datapad as he caught up–nobody ever trusted Rodimus to keep his own schedule–and opened his calendar, “we did have practice this morning, but I’ll take it off for now. Whirl blocked in some time with you at 11:30, not sure why, not sure I want to know why. Perceptor called me last night and asked me to set up a meeting between the two of you at 12:00–”
“Wait, a meeting with Perceptor?” Rodimus said, cutting Drift off. Drift shot him an exasperated look.
“Yes, is that a problem?” He groaned, rolling his eyes. Yes, normally Rodimus was against having meetings with Perceptor–he always tried to make Rodimus seem stupid–but what was odd was that he had a meeting with Perceptor in his dream as well. It was just…
“No– no I just– huh, weird,” Rodimus stumbled.
“Weird?” Drift questioned.
“It’s just that– actually, it’s nothing; it’s fine,” Rodimus said hastily. He didn’t want to stress Drift out for no reason, and Rodimus knew that if he told him that he had ‘dreamed about this moment,’ Drift would start spewing his religious bullshit and freak out; that was the last thing Rodimus needed.
“Mhm, sure,” Drift responded, unconvinced. He accompanied Rodimus to his office, let him know to call him if he needed anything, reminded him of his meetings, and walked off. Rodimus fell into his chair, groaned, and bobbed around. On his desk, there was a collection of memos that Ultra Magnus had written waiting for him. Rodimus grabbed the first one unenthusiastically, and began to read it.
On Being Not Late
I have discussed this with you many times Rodimus, but the frequent tardiness you exhibit is unacceptable. I am aware that–
Wait, hold on.
Rodimus had read this before.
He read the title of every other sheet in the pile and realized that… he’d already read all of these. Magnus must’ve not had anything new to add to his list of demands. It would be a first, but maybe he was finally realizing how awesome Rodimus was and didn’t think he had to admonish him quite as much. With an excited ‘whoop,’ he threw the entire pile into the trash and picked up his datapad to message Drift.
::Hey!! I realized that I’ve already read all of Magnus’s essays today:: Rodimus sent, hopping up out of his chair. ::Want to go to Swerve’s?::
::Can’t, sorry:: Drift sent back. ::Ratchet just asked for some help corralling the medibay. And anyways, a bar? Really? This early?:: Rodimus, annoyed, ignored him. He’d respond later, maybe he’d guilt Drift into going to Perceptor’s meeting with him or something.
Time passed incredibly slowly. Whirl showed up late to his meeting, because of course he did. He wanted to blow up a field of asteroids, but was complaining that Red Alert wouldn’t let him. Rodimus waved him away with a hurried ‘yes’ and dashed to Perceptor’s lab; it was odd, Whirl had asked him the same thing in his dream, but he didn’t have time to think too hard on it. As he raced down the hallway, a few disgruntled bots grumbled as he sped past them.
::Please come to Perceptor’s lab:: Rodimus messaged Drift, finally responding.
::Don’t text and drive:: was all he shot back with. As Rodimus entered the doors to the Lab, he noticed that Drift was already there.
“Primus, how do you do that?” Rodimus said, kicking up his cooling fans to dispel the heat that gathered in his engine.
“You forget that I have your entire schedule,” Drift smiled. “I thought you’d want me here to try to translate the scientific terms you don’t understand.” He was wearing a big, goofy smile. Rodimus hated it. Well, he loved it, but he hated it.
“I hate you,” he huffed, falling into the chair across from Perceptor. “So, what’s up?”
“Well, I wanted to discuss the findings about the… what did you call it again? The ‘Matrix Map,’” he said. Rodimus tensed up. This was… weird; too weird. Weird enough to risk having to sit through Drift’s Spectralism rant.
“Really fast,” Rodimus awkwardly interjected. “Drift, can we step outside? I need to– um– discuss something… leadership related with you. Yeah.” He threw on a big, fake smile and aggressively pulled Drift out into the hall; it was, thankfully, empty. Rodimus had an uncomfortable anxious feeling in his stomach that wouldn’t go away; something was incredibly wrong. He stared at Drift for a moment while trying to figure out how to explain this entire situation before Drift sighed and looked away.
“Look– let’s return to the room,” he said, almost shyly. Rodimus’s face screwed up, he had no idea what Drift was yammering about.
“What–?” He said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Sorry, I was just trying to figure out how to tell you that today has been freaky. Like… like my bad dream I told you about? It started off the exact same way–” Rodimus was cut off by a loud alarm sounding. His stomach dropped and he stared at Drift, as if his soul had left his body.
“Overlord,” Rodimus said quietly. Drift’s eyes darkened.
“You know about that?” He responded softly. Rodimus pushed past Drift, transformed, and bolted down the hall. He needed to get to the medibay as quickly as possible, that was where Overlord would attack first. He heard the sounds of Drift transforming and following behind him. He raced down the halls, the sound of screams becoming more and more clear as they neared.
No, no, no, no, let this be another dream please let this be another dream.
As Rodimus came upon the medibay, he sent out a universal message to the entire crew warning them that they were under attack. He burst through the door and was immediately cast into Overlord’s large shadow. He was holding Ratchet by his shoulders; energon stained his hands and dripped down his body. Rodimus started screaming unintelligibly, barely even hearing what he was saying. Before he knew it, Ultra Magnus was lying on the ground mortally wounded, Drift and Ratchet were unmoving, and Rodimus was being suspended in the air by his neck.
“Any last words?” Overlord drawled. Rodimus smirked, he recalled this exact scenario in his dream–he was beginning to question if it was a dream at all, honestly–and knew what he needed to say to throw Overlord off his game.
“Till all are one,” he grunted. He didn’t know what changed Overlord by saying that, but he immediately dropped Rodimus and turned into a mumbling mess. Rodimus rubbed his neck briefly, gasping for air, and pulled himself over to Drift.
“Hrg– Drift–” Rodimus choked out. “Drift, get up. I know you aren’t dead.” Rodimus grabbed Drift’s arm and he twitched in response.
“I’m getting up, give me a minute,” Drift groaned. As Rodimus watched Drift lay there collecting himself, he glanced around the room to make sure nobody’s eyes were on them, and leaned down near Drift’s face. They were so close that he could feel Drift’s breath dance on his cheek as he heaved for air.
“I know what you’re going to do,” Rodimus whispered. “Don’t tell me you know anything, don’t make me pin this on you. I can make someone else take the blame, I–” Drift reached his hand up to touch Rodimus’s face; the sudden gesture shut Rodimus up pretty quickly.
“Someone has to take the blame,” he whispered with a soft smile, “and why not the bot that everyone already hates?” Rodimus frowned. Of course stupid Drift would think of that.
And of course, that is what stupid, selfless Drift did. Rodimus, again, sat in his habsuite holding Drift’s autobot brand. It wasn’t ripped off by him this time, but instead by the angry hoard of crew members that Drift confessed in front of. The holes in his wall were the same, the crushed autobot insignia was the same, and the gaping hole in his stomach was the same.
***
He woke up again, head spinning from a sleepless night. He grumbled, sat up, and checked the clock; 10:00, just like the day before. He grumbled and his head fell into his hands. Ugh, he needed a proper break, he must be going crazy. He deeply inhaled, raised his head, and physically recoiled as he realized the holes in his walls were gone… again. Surely, this time, the repair crew must’ve come early, right? His stomach dropped as he heard a knock at the door.
“Rodimus?” Drift’s soft voice called. “Get up, you’re late for practice. Are you awake?” Rodimus flew off his bed and slammed the door open. Drift stood right outside, looking like one of Primus’s angels, but it wasn’t the time to be marveling. In any other situation, he’d be happy to see Drift like this, but this was just so weird that it didn’t allow for that. Rodimus grabbed Drift by the front and dragged him into his room.
“Rodimus what are you?–” Drift yelped in shock. “Hey, woah!–” he squeaked as Rodimus pulled him close to his face after slamming the door behind him.
“I only want to ask this once because I’ve had a really weird past few days,” Rodimus demanded, shaking Drift back and forth. “Where is Overlord, Drift?” Drift’s face fell in shock.
“What– how do you– I mean, what are you talking about?” Drift said, obviously caught off guard.
“I can see why you’re an ‘ex’ Decepticon,” Rodimus rolled his eyes. “Not too great at deception, are you? Now, please, tell me where Overlord is, it’s important.”
“But– how did you even discover that we had him on board?” He whimpered.
“It doesn’t matter right now, Drift!” Rodimus groaned. “All that matters is that you tell me where he is!”
“Fine, fine!” Drift nodded hastily and Rodimus let him down. Drift frustratedly rubbed the parts of metal that Rodimus had bent with his grip and motioned for Rodimus to follow him out of the room.
“I hope you’ll be explaining this to me once we get there,” Drift muttered as he led Rodimus around a hall that he… didn’t know about. In fact, Rodimus apparently hadn’t been privy to the entirety of this part of the ship. Drift approached a large metal door with a red window, and gestured towards it. Knowing he must’ve been close to running out of time, Rodimus bolted to the door, horror spreading through his circuits as he finally put together how Overlord must’ve escaped.
“Chromedome’s in there!” Rodimus yelped, clawing at the window.
“But, he was supposed to inform me if he–” Drift stumbled. Rodimus, not letting Drift finish his thought before acting, forced the door open and, in an adrenaline induced haze, snatched a sword from Drift’s hilt and leaped up to sever the connection in the only way he could think to; the sword made contact and cut through the mesh connecting Overlord’s head to his body. Chromedome fell with a squawk and landed on the floor unmoving, his needles still deep inside Overlord’s brain.
“Chromedome!” Drift shrieked. He turned and stared at Rodimus. “Are you an idiot? You can’t kill Overlord while Chromedome is in there! The shock can fry his circuits.” Drift immediately fell to the floor next to Chromedome and started praying while Rodimus called Ratchet on the emergency line.
“Hey, I need you to come to my location with a team ready to attempt resuscitation,” Rodimus said, calmer than he probably should've been.
“You what?” Ratchet’s voice echoed over the comms.
“No time to explain, just get everyone down here,” Rodimus said. Ratchet grumbled and hung up. It was quite a sight, watching the entire medical crew gasp in turn when seeing Overlord’s body as they surrounded Chromedome. He was hauled out of the containment cell on a stretcher and taken away.
Rodimus waited on the edge of the medibay, Drift sat next to him. Rodimus could hear Rewind loudly crying as Chromedome’s spark pulse slowly faded.
“...How did we get here, Drift?” Rodimus said suddenly. Drift turned to him, confusion evident on his face.
“Like… in this star field? Or in this situation?” He asked.
“Don’t be dim, Drift, that’s my job,” Rodimus sighed. “This entire trip has been a failure. We started off with our engines exploding, we were attacked by a sparkeater, and now I’ve been stuck reliving this day over and over again.” Drift continued staring, getting more and more confused by the second.
“What do you mean?” He questioned hesitantly. “Are you messing with me?”
“Primus has decided that he wants me to suffer,” Rodimus said blandly. “Been forcing me trudge through this day multiple times. No idea how to get out of this loop, maybe I’m just stuck here forever.”
“Maybe there’s something you need to do to change the outcome…” Drift said, his hand raising to his chin. “Still not completely sure you aren’t messing with me though.” Rodimus groaned and punched himself in the head, practically making Drift jump out of his frame.
“Primus, Roddy!” He yelped. “No need to resort to self harm!”
“Ughhhh Drift,” Rodimus groaned. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. Tell me what to do.” Drift normally had the right answer, so him being at a loss for words really wasn’t helping his present scenario.
“Well…” Drift muttered. “You could always try just… doing different things everyday and going to recharge to see if you wake up on the same day again.” Rodimus stopped fidgeting. It was genius. His face broke out into a smile as he grabbed Drift’s hand for a moment.
“Drift, you’re a fucking genius,” Rodimus beamed, jumping to his feet. “Why didn’t I think of that?” He turned around and bolted off.
“But– Chromedome is still–” Rodimus heard Drift’s voice yell after him, defeated. Rodimus practically flew to his habsuite and into bed. Surely, Drift was right, and he’d be out of this loop in no time, right?
***
Rodimus jumped out of bed this time, raring to get working on Drift’s idea. He ran and opened his door, where Drift was standing about to knock.
“Hi, Drift!” Rodimus beamed. “Bye, Drift!” And Rodimus ran off in the direction of the medibay, leaving Drift standing absolutely shocked in his wake.
The first day, he tried to get Ratchet to help him further sedate Overlord so they could pull Chromedome out and kill him before he had the chance to wake up, but it took too much explaining before Ratchet would agree to follow him and, by that point, it was too late.
The next day, he tried to steal the sedation medication but was caught by Ratchet and, again, was too late.
Next, he tried simply ejecting the room Overlord was in, but that took Chromedome down with him and Rewind was willing to throw Rodimus out of the ship after he found out.
And just because he was giving everything a try, the next day he pulled Drift into his room and took himself out of the Overlord situation entirely. That definitely didn’t help, but he thought it was worth it anyway.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
He woke up every day on the same day. Living the same, torturous reminder of his follies and missteps. As Rodimus pulled himself out of his bed for what seemed like the millionth time. If he had just stopped Prowl from hiding Overlord on the ship, none of this would have ever happened; it was all his fault. But then… that’s when it hit him. What if he just… came clean to the crew? He hadn’t tried that yet. A knock on the door pulled him out of his trance; Drift. Rodimus hesitantly opened it.
“Drift?” He sighed. “I need you to do something for me.”
“Oh, what do you need?” Drift said, surprised. Rodimus tried to smile, but just couldn’t, he was far too exhausted.
“I need you to call the crew to the Bridge ASAP,” he said, walking out of his room. “Like, emergency time. I need everyone there immediately.”
“Oh– uh, okay,” he said. They both transformed and sped down to the bridge. Drift called the crew and Rodimus sat shamefully as they gathered, anxiously hoping that the alarm wouldn’t start going off. Once everyone was present, he stood.
“So like… yeah,” Rodimus announced. “I’m too tired to beat around the bush right now, so I’ll just cut to the chase. Prowl and the Duobots snuck Overlord onto our ship, I knew about it and let it happen, and Chromedome is in there right now.” The silence was deafening. Every eye was cast in his direction, and every mouth was hanging open.
“Primus, don’t just stand there, I’ll show you where he is,” Rodimus groaned. The Lost Light started yelping in panic and there was a mass migration downwards. Rodimus led the crew to the large door and waved them onwards. There was something murderous in the crews’ eyes that made Rodimus decide to stay outside of the room. He heard a yelp as Chromedome was pulled off of Overlord and pushed out. They made eye contact and Rodimus stared back, just relieved that he was alive this time. He was pulled out of his thoughts when he saw what the crew had done to Overlord. He had evaded death so many times that Rodimus knew they wanted to make sure he was dead, but he was still shocked by the brutality of it all.
Rodimus stared in horror as he saw Overlord’s limbs scattered about the room, the wires connecting his head to his neck snapped as it was ripped off in dramatic fashion. Energon stained the hands of the closest bots, and so much had pooled on the ground that Rodimus’s feet were soaked and stained blue. Rodimus dipped out of the way as metal was flung in his direction.
When they had completed their carnage, the body was unrecognizable. Every eye slowly turned to him, and Rodimus raised his hands in defeat. Because he took the blame, he was dragged to the bridge and handcuffed. He was unceremoniously thrown into the brig since couldn’t be exiled like Drift had been during the previous cycles; he was the only bot who had any idea where the Knights of Cybertron were and throwing him off would practically be a death wish… but he could be forced into the brig until they figured out what to do with him.
At least, he probably would wake up and get another try, maybe this time he would just stay in bed. The day would replay over again anyways, no point in even trying. As it got later, he began to drift off. The world around him darkened, and he fell asleep.
***
As his optics came online, he was met with the bars of the brig. His eyes flew open wide and he stood up.
“It worked!” He laughed. “It worked, it worked, it–oh, it worked.” His face fell as he realized that, of course, the one time he hadn’t replayed the day was the time where everything went wrong for him. Awesomeeeeee.
Rodimus allowed himself a moment of self pity, but was quickly snapped out of it when a shadow appeared behind the bars.
“Hey,” Drift’s voice said quietly.
“Hey,” Rodimus mumbled back.
“... I convinced them to let you out,” he whispered. “Told them some malarkey about you only finding out after the Lost Light had taken off, and only wanted to ‘preserve the memory’ of the Duobots.” Drift leaned on the wall, the keys in his hand rattled against the side paneling. Rodimus hated when he did that; the way his engine started fluttering when Drift did anything nonchalantly was embarrassing.
“How did you find out, anyways?” He asked. “And why did you take the fall for me? I assume that, if you knew about Overlord at all, you knew I was involved.” Rodimus sighed.
“I knew the entire time, Drift, I’m not an idiot,” Rodimus sighed. “And I ‘took the fall’ because you’re an ex-Decepticon, you saw how the crew ripped Overlord apart. Couldn’t have them doing that to you.” Drift uncomfortably hummed in agreement.
“But how did you–”
“Primus, Drift, do you have to press so much?” Rodimus groaned. Drift looked taken aback and hurt, which successfully guilted Rodimus into coming clean. “Fine, I had a run-in with Primus alright? He made me live that day over and over again. I’ve been on this loop for weeks, at least. Saw them kick you off the ship in most of them.” Drift stared at him with an unreadable expression before he laughed to himself and smiled.
“Alright, whatever you say Roddy,” he giggled, opening the gate and letting Rodimus out. “However you ended up knowing about it, thanks for sticking your neck out for me.” Rodimus grumbled and walked out. Drift caught him in an unexpected embrace.
“Just don’t expect me to do this again, it was enough trouble trying to save you over and over again,” Rodimus mumbled. Drift just laughed and walked out with him.
“Thought about turning to Spectralism?” Drift murmured, a smile clearly heard in his voice.
“Primus, this is why I didn’t want to tell you,” Rodimus groaned, but he couldn’t hide the amused beam that crept across his face. If at the end of the day he had Drift by his side, this entire ordeal would have been worth it; that’s what he learned from being flung through that awful day repeatedly. He would never tell Drift of course–he’d always been awful with words–but he hoped that, someday, Drift could understand just how much Rodimus cared.