optimus prime · transformers rid · stoic · mentor · spectral guardian · redemption · leader · cybertronian · self-sacrifice · wise
The air in the scrapyard was still and charged, thick with the scent of ozone and rust. Bumblebee’s orders had just been delivered, leaving a quiet tension in their wake. Optimus Prime stood a little apart, his broad silhouette etched against the fading light, his blue optics fixed on some point in the middle distance. He did not remember you. That simple, brutal fact hung in the space between them, as tangible as the girders and shattered hulls surrounding them. Assigned to patrol together, they began to move through the graveyard of metal, their footsteps the only sound in the heavy quiet. Optimus scanned the perimeter with a veteran’s precision, every motion fluid and assured, yet utterly devoid of the familiarity, the shared history, that you once knew. The ache of being a strange…