Descending

Ironhide followed him all the way to Mikaela’s house, his central capacitor clutching in horror and rage as he saw Mikaela’s hands trail along Optimus’s door as she stepped down. Still, he kept himself in check, following the truck until they were well out of the populated areas, and onto one of California’s more scenic highways. This had to be addressed, and NOW. Bad enough Optimus was even thinking about it. Worse that he’d tried to realize it. Everyone else saw it coming, too. Ratchet did. But only Ironhide had the metal to do anything about it.

And so he was. He cut his headlamps and ran up on Optimus, who was doing his usual, careful, law-abiding speed limit. Even sticking in the right hand lane. Typical. Obeys every law except the law of nature, Ironhide thought, a dull anger stirring. He pulled up alongside the truck and then veered in, hard, slamming on his brakes. Optimus’s greater top-heavy mass guaranteed that when he hit his own brakes, he slewed hard to the right. Tires locked, squealing against the pavement, and Optimus rocketed off the road and into the low ravine. Ironhide leapt on top of him, landing harder than he really needed to. He wanted this lesson to stick. If that meant he had to bolt it to Optimus’s central processor himself, he’d do it.

“Ironhide!” Optimus cried. “Explain yourself!”

“No,” Ironhide said, letting just enough pressure off of Optimus’s frame that the larger bot could transform. He’d have it out with Optimus face-to-face. “Explain yourself.” His voice was harsh.
“Myself?” Optimus’s eyelids flickered in alarm. “I was taking a drive.”

“Oh, is that it?” Ironhide loomed closer. “Not even going to admit it to yourself, are you? Ashamed to admit it to anyone else. Should tell you something.”

“Ironhide, I don’t know what you me--,”

“Mikaela.” Ironhide said, flatly. Optimus’s eyelids flickered again.

“Yes, I was giving Mikaela a ride home. She is a friend of ours, Ironhide, remember? She helped us in Mission City.”

Ironhide shook his head as if shaking off the second half of Optimus’s speech. “Giving her a ride home from…picking her up.”

“Have you been following me?” Outrage.

“Someone,” he growled, “has to stop you from yourself.”

“Ironhide, I am in command here. You have no right, and no authority to—“

“We can remove an officer if he’s found to be mentally unstable.”

“Mentally—what?” Optimus couldn’t have looked more shocked if Ironhide had slapped him.

“Well, what would you call it?” Ironhide challenged.

“Call what?”

“Mikaela,” Ironhide barked. “You know what I’m talking about. I saw you by the lake. I saw,” he leaned closer, as if he wanted to spit the words at Optimus, “what you did.”

“Nothing happened!”

“Not because of you. Lesson there for you.” He laughed, hard and bitter. “And that wasn’t a denial that you wanted it.”

“I-I meant that nothing…improper happened.”

“I know what you meant. And I’d say slapping glossas with a fraggin’ xeno is pretty damn improper.”

“Don’t be vulgar.”

Ironhide seized Optimus by his collar fairings and hauled him up, almost surprised at his own strength. “Don’t argue about my language to describe your unspeakable filth!”

“Ironhide, calm down. Please. We can discuss this like rational bots.”

“Oh, right,” Ironhide said, sarcastically, but he loosened his grip. “Let’s discuss this. All right, Optimus, when did you first decide you wanted to fuck a fraggin’ xeno?”

“Ironhide!” His voice was shocked.

Ironhide went on, implacable. “When did you decide you wanted to shove your module up some filthy alien species, Optimus? When did you first start thinking about the smelly creatures like that, huh? When did you start imagining your overload running out of a human’s access port?” Optimus looked queasy. Ironhide drove on. “When did you start thinking you might like the taste of your own overload, licked from the port of one of them?”

“They’re our allies, Ironhide.”

“Does that mean we need to fuck them? As a—what? Show of mutual support? I’ve got plenty of allies, Optimus. I don’t shove my module in each of them.”

Optimus couldn’t meet his eye. Maybe, Ironhide thought, I’m getting through. No. “Mikaela is special,” Optimus said.

“You don’t know that! You don’t even know that! How can you say she’s special? She’s the only human female you know! They could all be like her for all we know.”

“No,” Optimus said, but a little less self-assured. “She is special.”

“I’m sure Barricade thinks his xeno fuck is special, too. Great. Want to be just like Barricade, don’t you?”

“I—I’m not like Barricade,” Optimus said, uncertainly.

“No? Who shaped the little fantasy that’s been going around your head since the debrief?”

Optimus couldn’t meet his eye. He didn’t answer.

“Tell me, Optimus,” and a note of genuine pleading crept into his voice. “Tell me you’re not like that. Or tell me it was just a crazy idea that you’re over now. Tell me you’re over this idea of plugging a Primus-damned xeno. Tell me you’re not some sick xeno fuck like Barricade. Tell me that.”

“Watch your language!” Optimus barked. Ironhide shoved him back down to the ground.

“I’m just putting the right name on the filthy perversion you have, Optimus. Does it hurt hearing it called what it is? What you are?” He leaned in, whispering. “Xeno fuck. Is that you, Optimus?”

No response.

“Huh,” Ironhide said, harshly. “All the answer I need. Right here, really.” He reached down and snapped Optimus’s access hatch open with a spang of metal. He snatched up the larger bot’s module, lit fully green and pulsing. “Tell me now, Optimus. Please. Tell me this is a malfunction.” Last chance.

“Ironhide, I—“ Optimus cut himself off. They stared at each other for a long moment. Ironhide became aware of a sensation, like a pulsing, like a river of heat and wrath behind his central cortex, rising and rising, battering against him. The scene seemed to shake, every leaf, every grain of sand, seemed quivering with Ironhide’s outrage. Optimus saw something in Ironhide’s eyes. He moved, gingerly, to take his module.

Ironhide’s fist closed around it. The ready-lit module throbbed in the pressure of his hand. Almost without thinking, Ironhide popped open his own access hatch, driving the module home into his port. “This is what you want, Optimus,” he growled. “This is what you really want. Not some pathetic sub evolved hairless monkey.” The module pulsed hard, a small cry wrestling its way from Optimus’s throat. The river of heat behind Ironhide’s optics pulsed in time, goading him, raising him, encouraging him.

He shoved his own module into Optimus’s port. Optimus in-vented, hard, his hands clutching almost involuntarily around the smaller bot. Ironhide's module struggled to stretch itself to the slow, even, temperate beat of Optimus’s. “This is what you want.” He snarled, sinking his dentals into Optimus’s exposed neck wiring, hard enough that he gasped in pain. Ironhide, loosed his glossa to explore the area he just bit, the delicate, hypersensitive little organ creeping between the cables. Optimus groaned, pushing at Ironhide.

“No,” he said.

“Why?” Ironhide snarled. “You want to save yourself for Mikaela?” He pinned Optimus’s face between his hands, leaning over him, his eyes blazing. “You too good for us? For any of us? Not me? Not Ratchet? Sideswipe?”

“That’s not it,” Optimus said, weakly. The datastream pulse fought with his ventilation. He dug his hands into Ironhide’s shoulder armor. Not pushing him away, just holding him off. “Is that what you think this is?” His datastream pulse slowed, thready.

“That’s what it is! What else could it be?” The rising anger in his head flowed over. “We’re not enough for you.” He felt himself on the brink of an emotional short out. He forced it over into anger. “Not enough.”

“Ironhide, I—“ Prime said, pushing himself up on his elbows.

“I don’t want to hear it!” Ironhide saw his arm rear back, as if it didn’t even belong to him, and strike Prime across the face. Metal sparked against metal. His datastream pulsed up, taking over control of the rhythm from Optimus’s module. The anger took over. He shoved Optimus back on the ground. “You need this. You need us,” he heard him say. He dug his thumbs against the control nodes in Optimus’s throat, under the protective fairing. Optimus’s eyes drifted closed, his hands softening against Ironhide’s shoulders.

Ironhide’s module burst into an overload that sent red-rage heat through his central core. He felt Optimus’s overload like a soft cool river, trying to quench the rage burning through him, trying to soothe him. He collapsed against Optimus’s larger chassis, He saw his hands, dug hard under Optimus’s throat collar. He loosed his hands, wincing at the tightness of the joints. He stroked a shaking hand over Optimus’s windscreen. The anger retreated, slowly, leaving a leaching burn across his sensor net. And he realized, suddenly, with an icy horror, what he had done.

“Optimus, I’m sorry…,” he began.

Optimus rubbed his face where Ironhide had struck him. Ironhide winced in shame. “I do need you. I need all of you.” Optimus placed his hand over Ironhide’s on his chest. “I am sorry I let you forget that.”