#You just know Optimus calls him 'son' unironicaly

[yuukirita]

With the addition of Cliffjumper, do you think that Optimus and Elita would kind of imprint on him because of how similar he is with Bee and they miss him?

That would make it even more angsty in the secondbee au since I imagine the protectiveness would get 10 times worse after Bee's death, OP wouldn't let Cliff out his sight half the time, Elita trains him to death almost everyday and neither could look him in the optics. It doesn't help that Megatron seems to have it out for Cliff as well.

Just some worm thoughts :)

Elita is chill about it- Optimus is not.

Like the moment Optimus learned they were spark brothers he was like 'ah yes, you two are similar' and adopts him in his head. That's his son now. He doesn't even think about what Cliff thinks about it- Because with Bee it was so natural he naturaly tries to take a mentoring role for his brother as well. It dials back over time and it becomes mostly internal but he fusses over Cliff as much as he would Bee.

Cliff is hella annoyed by it because... he already has a mentor??? and he's an adult??? And Optimus is his boss??? But eh, he likes Prime on a cosmic level so he lets it go most of the time.

For a while after Bee's death none of them let the other two out of their sight. Next chapter we see more Cliff and Elita bonding :D

I think Elita internalizes how much she cares for them. Elita sees Cliff more like a friend or a coworker than a son. They get black out drunk together (which she would never do with Bee) But she also would shoot at anyone that looked at him funny. She's actually a bit put off by Cliff at first, it's just when she realizes that he ISN'T just a red Bee that she's like 'okay, I like this guy'.

I'm kinda writing Cliff as a... D-16 stand in more than a Bee stand in... Kind of... We'll see more of that in future chapters.

Hug hug!