#but I’ve decided its canon that Optimus is wayyyy cornier than people first estimate

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What was OP thinking when Harry asked him to rename him? And then his happy dancing? Bc tbh that was cute as hell and OP just—fritzing was also funny

Aww thanks, I had a lot of fun writing such an adorable scene!

Sorry about the wait, I got a weirdly intense influx of business. Idk why every third family in my area had to vacation right now.

I’m just gonna jump right into it, since I really did love that scene and would be happy to expand on it a little further.

At first he was completely shocked. He really thought it was gonna be Ratchet who named him if Harry was gonna pick a new name at all, so that came right out of nowhere. 

And then when Harry asks about shooting him down, some jaded part of Optimus wonders if Harry simply doesn’t want a new name and is using Optimus’ comparatively calmer presence to come to terms with that.

He was glad to provide security, it was his duty, but it would be unwise to hope for more.

As a Prime and then, later, as the Prime who banished the Allspark, he hadn’t ever thought he’d have the opportunity to name a sparkling. He hadn’t even considered it, the notion was so far past what he felt could he had the right to expect.

Still, on the off-chance Harry was being sincere, no matter how unlikely, he would give Harry the one and only name Prime would ever give another being.

He spent the entire night silent and apart from the others, contemplating all he knew of Harry. They hadn’t interacted directly very often, but Prime was always watching, always checking on the physical and spiritual wellbeing of their youngest charge.

It was a difficult decision.

What he’d seen, since their very first day at the base, was humbling. Harry was a gentle creature, naturally empathetic with a strong sense of justice. Genuinely good sparks like that were rare to the point of nonexistence now, an age of battle and death had tarnished even the most honorable of Autobots by the end. 

Besides that, how could Prime concisely summarise even a vague approximation of the hopes and wishes pinned on Harry at this very moment? The first child in a millennia, holder of the Allspark, alien-born, so much of him was new and stunningly bright in their darkest hour.

When Harry finally reconvenes with him the following morning, Prime awaits his decision. He’ll make his peace with whatever Harry decides, whether it be to ignore him completely, contemplate the matter further, or demand his answer as soon as they come to a halt out beyond the base.

It was then, when Harry did ask for a name, that he understood his own caution to be a complete lie. He hadn’t realized how much of himself he’d invested in this endeavor, how unfathomably precious this moment would be to him, until Harry peered up at him oh so shyly, and requested Prime’s designation.

This wasn’t a duty, Prime realized past the searing ache of his own spark expanding far past the limits of its casing, it was a gift in every meaning of the word. And he had been desperate to recieve it.

It was all he could do to croak out his heartfelt gratitude. Wonder was such a rare thing to feel, and yet Prime felt fit to bursting. He had inspired within the last sparkling enough trust and affection to allow him a lifelong connection, and he wasn’t terribly certain how to exist in a world wondrous enough for that to occur.

He can see it the moment Harry accepts, the flurry of coding burrowing it into the deepest recesses of Harry’s processors, overwriting and overruling until it is Silverline who looks back at him. 

And Prime...soaks it in. Like a flower towards the sun, he is enraptured. For once, he is not a Prime staring down at his charge, that is much too plain for what he’s feeling. Formalities and obligations withered and died in the intensity of his own vulnerability. Here, he is simply Optimus, watching over his child. 

Silverline warbles a simple thanks over his com, as if he hadn’t given him the greatest blessing Prime could dream of, as if Prime could part with any of his own gratitude and share it with the sparkling. He is helpless to communicate this, though. The appropriate words too grand and complicated to fit past the lump in his throat.

Silverline’s expressive optics shimmer with gentle care, his posture is open and utterly relaxed, and his charming little wings pluck and pull at his heartstrings with every swoop.

Optimus doesn’t dare reach out and interrupt the sparkling, he’s never had the privilege of being so close to Silverline without a pall snuffing out any of his natural light and he couldn’t bear to ruin this moment stumbling through affection. Silverline’s happiness was dazzling at it’s brightest, it was easy to see how his troops might become possessive over this feeling.

Then, the world melts.

A syrupy, honey-sweet haze slogs Optimus’ processors to a crawl. His spark skips. splutters, and dies right in his chest and Optimus can only watch as overheating warnings and system failures roll in.

Muddled and confused, Optimus waits for the burning fire in his fuel pump to ease and for death to take him.

Except, he doesn’t die? It feels like he should be dead by now, he has most certainly ceased functioning. But as one second, two seconds, fifteen seconds carries on without him, he remains trapped in place.

True awareness swam just before him, elusive, but close enough to that snippets of stimuli brushed him. It was overwhelming, a tidal wave of excruciating emotions, none of which were upsetting, but that only made them more confusing.

His feeble matrix buzzed and whirred with the effort to drag him to the forefront of himself, and he is forced to process the audio data first. It is a purring hum, low and easy. It is a single note that snatches him up by his very core and yanks him out of his daze.

It is an optimal status alert, and it is directed solely at him.

If there were air left in his vents, Optimus might’ve choked. He was left reeling, the burning in his fuel pump ticking higher and higher as what he understood that it must be elation scorching through him. Satisfaction, praise at its highest, acceptance at it’s deepest, a bot wasn’t built to withstand such a brutal onslaught of unrefined joy.

His visual data was processed next, unrelenting, and the sweet haze gumming up his processors doubled its efforts.

Silverline was killing him, Optimus was sure. It was the most deadly, precious attack he’d ever witnessed.

Silverline was dancing. His paper thin wings fluttering wide and trusting, his optics huge and bright and focused right on Optimus. His steps were spiraling, childish, shrouded in Optimus’ shadow as Silverline danced mere inches from him. The optimal status alert hikes higher in volume with each almost-brush of armor, and Optimus couldn’t have torn himself away for all the galaxy.

I trust you, Silverline said in so much more than words, I love you. Stay with me and love me too.

It was a moment of intimacy that would only feel like hello in hindsight. Like they were finally reaching each other, like a bond could be forged. Whatever struggles cluttered their path were at once, easily defeated so long as they stayed together.

Optimus drifted in the euphoria of that connection. In so fiercely loving and being loved in return that he was rooted in place like an insect in warm amber. He could’ve stayed like that for eons, or until Silverline did something else so unreasonably dear that he really did crash.

Thankfully, although he did not feel very charitably toward Bumblebee in that moment, the scout shattered his amber with a loud radio clip and ushered Silverline back to their human charges with a teasing whistle.

Creaking, aged and wizened beyond his admittedly formidable years, Prime straightens and tries to look less wrecked. From the aura of smugness permeating the air, he isn’t succeeding.

-Ventilate, Prime- Bumblebee eventually suggests, and it is only then that it occurs to him that he should do something about the overheating problem reaching critical temperatures in his systems.

He ventilates.