Chapter Text
If Optimus had to describe Sentinel, he would end up going off on an annoyed but relatively honest rant. He was a lot of things, he was egotistical, selfish, bratty, and power hungry. He was also clever, experienced, a skilled fighter, and a hard worker.
There was one word that never crossed Optimus’s processor when it came to Sentinel, and that was-
“Jetfire! Jetstorm! By the Allspark, will you two pay attention!” Sentinel shrieked
A mentor…
Sentinel had taken it upon himself to once again come to Earth and bring the council's newest creation. Jetfire, the orange one, and Jetstorm, the blue one, were a spark pair of flight/war frames that were the size of civilian frames. They were able to combine into a giant bot by the name of Safeguard. They also-
“So Optimus, got any stories about Sentinel?” Jetfire asked while grabbing Optimus’s left arm.
“Oh yes, Sentinel won’t tell us any fun stories,” Jetstorm said while holding Optimus’s right arm.
The twins had attached themselves to Optimus, and Sentinel hated it.
“Optimus! Quite distracting my team! We have important work, ya know, finding the Allspark shards. The Allspark you destroyed by the way.”
Before Optimus could retort, Jetfire jumped up and down. “OH! Tell that story! That sounds awesome!”
“Yes! Yes!” Jetstorm chimed in.
Optimus could already feel a processor ache coming on. But seeing Sentinel get flustered was a small bonus, and it was nice to see such bright young optics look to him.
Optimus sighed, “If you guys listen and have a good mission, I’ll tell you any story you want.”
The twins cheered, and Sentinel growled, “Can we please look over the plan now?”
The twins nodded and finally let go of Optimus. He sighed in relief and gave Sentinel a tired look.
“They are a servo-full,” Optimus commented.
Sentinel scoffed, “They have the processors of sparklings. It’s a nightmare trying to wrangle them in. But they do a good job when needed. “
“They were grown in a lab, of course, they act like sparklings. They were kinda forced into full-grown frames and sent out into the world with no processor upgrades. At least we were given those upgrades.”
Sentinel rolled his optics, “ugh I hate sparklings. I swear, those two need to realize they are fully grown and can’t get away with this behavior. Also, even with those processor upgrades, you barely used them yourself."
Optimus chose to ignore that last comment, "Aren't you in charge of them? Isn’t that the whole point of you mentoring them?”
“I thought I was getting mature, trained, killing machines!”
The twins peeked back into the room, “Sentinel! Sentinel! C’mon and tell us your boring plan!”
“Yeah, we wanna get back and hear how Optimus destroyed the Allspark!”
Sentinel rubbed a servo over his face plate and groaned. “It's gonna be a long mission tonight.”
Optimus snickered, “You know you don’t have to do patrol tonight. I can-”
Sentinel whirled on Optimus, “and let you take the glory of finding an allspark shared fat chance! You just stay at the base and look pretty in case Magnus calls.”
With that, Sentinel strutted off to talk over the patrol plans with the twins, leaving Optimus mildly confused, ‘look pretty in case th-’ ok, whatever, let Sentinel take care of patrol tonight. If he manages to find an Allspark shard good for him. Either way, he was never gonna hear the end of it till Sentinel was called back to Cybertron. Optimus was going to turn in early tonight, screw Sentinel, and screw looking pretty in case Ultra Magnus called.
Optimus grumbled to himself as he went to his room. He almost missed Bumblebee standing in the way with Sari on his shoulder.
“Woah, what’s the rush, Boss bot?”
Optimus stopped short, “Oh, sorry Bumblebee, I was just going to turn in early, since Sentinel apparently has everything covered,” he said in a mocking tone.
Bumblebee giggled, “He say something about you taking his glory?”
Optimus straightened up and smiled at Bumblebee, “Hehe, I forgot he was your drill sergeant.”
“And I forgot you guys used to be friends.”
Sari took this moment to speak up, “What’s a sparkling?’
Optimus and Bumblebee froze and looked at the little human girl on Bee’s shoulder paldron.
The Prime coughed into his servo, “Oh, uh, a sparkling is a… Well, the right human word would be a baby robot.”
Sari’s eyes lit up, “WHAT!? You guys can have babies!? But when I told you about human babies, you were freaked out.”
Optimus blushed a deep, dark blue. “W-well to be fair-”
Bumblebee laughed, “Oh my Primus, did you forget sparklings were a thing that day or something? HAHA!”
Optimus grimaced and tried to hide himself in the brim of his helm. “I- I had just woken up from a 50-cycle stasis. I was still- ya know, …tired.”
Bumblebee laughed some more while Sari now looked determined to learn more. “Wait! Wait! I have to know more about this! Do you feed them baby bottles of oil or something? Do you have to change them? Wait, I’ve never seen a toilet for you guys. Uhh- OH! Do they come out of-”
Optimus was becoming very flustered very quickly. “Slow down, Sari! I don’t think this conversation is appropriate-”
Bumblebee had taken to facing the wall to try to stop his annoying cackling. But Sari was even more determined to get answers as she put her hands on her hips and stood proudly on Bumblebee’s helm.
“My dad taught me to always learn about new things when given the opportunity. He also said I should never be embarrassed about these kinds of talks because, in his own words, they are important things to talk about and understand. After all, I myself may want kids someday or have friends who have them.” Sari said matter-of-factly.
Optimus was shocked to hear such a well-thought-out and actually pretty sound argument from the little human girl. “Oh- Well, maybe you should be asking Ratchet about that kind of stuff, he knows more about it anyway.”
Sari pouted, “Ratchet’s asleep!”
“Then wait till tomorrow!”
With that, Optimus opened his room’s door and quickly slipped in, slamming the door behind him. Leaving behind a disappointed Sari and a laughing Bumblebee. Optimus exvented as he pushed off the door and made his way over to his berth. He flopped down on the giant bed and tried his best to get comfortable.
But recharge was fighting Optimus every step of the way. The conversation between him and Sentinel and him and Sari just kept replaying in his head. Sparklings… They weren't really a thing anymore. It was just easier to make fully grown frames and put sparks into them. All you had to do then was give them a couple of language and information download packets and ship them off to school that would teach them everything they needed to know.
Optimus could still remember when he was forged. He and Sentiel were so close back then. They learned some of the basic mundane things, but being with each other made it more fun. Sentinel loved races, even despite his alt mode not being built for speed. Sentinel liked to race when it came to other things. He wanted to be the first to transform, the first to start reading and writing, the first to socialize with new bots, and the first to mature.
Optimus was a bit slower, he was the last to transform in his class and the last to get the hang of writing. Reading was something Optimus had truly excelled at. After Sentinel learned how to read, he didn’t really do much of it afterwards unless he had to. Not Optimus though, he quickly fell in love with reading. So much so that he completely forgot about the socializing and maturing race Sentinel was in.
Primus, thinking back on it now, made Optimus flush in embarrassment. Socialization classes were the worst for Optimus. Turns out not many people seem to care about how planets in the solar systems are made, or how the story of Metal Thorns was a lot deeper than what people thought was a mushy romance storyline. Optimus was labeled a weird bot from day one.
“Such a strange bot.”
“He’s so quiet and never talks to anyone. Even when he does, I have no idea what he’s saying.
Optimus probably would have benefited from being a sparkling and having a creator. From what the Prime knew of sparklings, is that a lot of the problems that Optimus faced back in school were just basic things that sparklings needed to be taught personally. No one would question why a sparkling was quiet they were obviously just shy and needed extra help to meet new people. A sparkling who had trouble transforming was normal. They were young, and their frames weren’t fully developed yet to properly transform they just needed more time. They didn’t have to mature right away, they just needed more time to be a sparkling.
Optimus never got that, he was just too slow.
“O-14, you are embarrassing yourself! It's been days, and you still can barely transform into your alt mode. How can you expect to enter society without being able to do that most basic thing that a cybertronian is made to do!?” The instructor yelled.
His classmates were laughing at him, he was lucky that his helm was currently stuck in his body, right now so he didn’t have to see their face plates.
He was too quiet.
“Speak up, O-14! We don’t mumble!”
“Sorry…”
“What was that?”
“I- I’m sorry.
The bots behind him mocked him, “I- i- I’m S-s-s- SoRrY.” It was followed by laughter.
He was too weird.
“Hey O-14, whatcha reading?” One of his classmates asked, “One of your lil romance stories?”
Optimus brightened, “Yeah! It’s the 3rd book in the-”
“Oh, really? That’s reeeeal cool.”
Optimus tilted his helm slightly but shook it off. “Yes, I can give you the first book in the series if you want-”
“Yeah, no- I just wanted to ask you something.”
“Oh- Ok, what is it?”
“Just wanted to know that since you looooove romance books so much. You have to know everything about dating and flirting.”
Optimus grimaced, “not real-”
The bot wrapped an arm around Optimus’s shoulder, “See that femme over there? She told me this morning that she really likes you.”
Optimus threw his eye ridges up in surprise, “WHat!? Why?”
The bot laughed, “She thinks you’re cute, and she also likes to read. You should go talk to her, maybe ask her on a date or something. I’m sure it will go well.”
Optimus looked over at the femme the bot was pointing at. She never bullied Optimus from what he remembered, but she was at the top of the class when it came to fighting. Not even Sentinel could beat her, and he hated her for it. Sentinel probably wouldn’t like Optimus dating his enemy. Also, while she was pretty, Optimus just couldn’t see himself dating her.
He would just have to let her down gently.
So Optimus approached the femme, “Um, excuse me- So that bot over there said that you liked me-”
The femme glared down at him, “He what-”
“But I wanted to let you know that I’m not looking for a romantic relationship right now. Also, S-17 hates you, so I don’t think he would like me dating you.”
“Wha- Oh S-17 said that?”
“Yeah, he said that you cheat when you fight cause your legs are longer than his, so he doesn’t like you cause of that.”
“He thinks I'm a cheater!?”
“Well, yeah, but about the whole-”
“Shut up, ya lil weirdo, I got a bot to beat within an inch of his life.”
“Oh ok.”
After that, Sentinel was very mad and said that you aren't supposed to tell bots that other bots don’t like them because it’s rude.
“Primus! You are so damn weird! Why am I even friends with you?” Sentinel had shouted.
Optimus’s audial fins lowered, “You said that you found me funny.”
_______
Optimus woke up to the sound of his communicator beeping loudly.
When had he fallen asleep?
Optimus reset his optics and looked at his call log and chronometer. It had been hours since Sentinel had left with the Jettwins to take on patrol. Sentinel, who was blowing up Optimus’s communicator.
Seeing Sentinel's designation made Optimus grimace. He didn’t want to talk to Sentinel right now. But the nicer side of him knew that it had to be important for Sentinel to call him all of a sudden. So the Prime begrudgingly answered his communicator.
“Hello? Sentinel?”
Sentinel’s voice shouted over the line, “Finally! Optimus, I'm sending you my coordinates. Make sure you have your trailer as well.”
Optimus stood up from the berth, “Wh- Sentinel, can you at least tell me what’s going on?”
Sentinel groaned, and Optimus could almost see that familiar pinched face plate. “Look, it’s hard to expla- HEY! Get that out of your mouth!”
Optimus jumped at the shouting, “Sentinel?”
Sentinel ignored Optimus and shouted again, “You little brat- OW YOU LITTLE FRAGGER!”
The sound of metal on metal, followed by a pained, high-pitched yelp, comes across the line. “Good, that will teach you not to bite.” Sentinel’s voice focused in on the line again. “Just hurry up and get over here, Optimus. I’ll explain when you get here. Oh, and come alone, I don’t want to explain all this to your slow-as-slag team.”
With that, the line was cut off before Optimus could ask another question. With another deep exvent Optimus left his room and made his way to the garage doors. Ratchet’s helm poked out of the med bay.
“Everything alright, Prime?”
Optimus shrugged, “I don’t know. Sentinel sounds like he’s in trouble and that he needs my trailer. So-”
“Prep the medbay for idiots,” Ratchet stated before ducking back into the med bay.
Optimus snickered and opened the garage doors, transformed, and rolled out. From Sentinel’s tone, he sounds ok, just very flustered. Hopefully, the jettwins didn’t finally break him or something.