Unfinished Business - Epilogue
Title: Unfinished Business
Epilogue.
One hundred years.
It was hard to believe a full Earth Century had passed since Mission City ended their old world and set them on the path to a new one.
Children played in the park now. Not many, to be sure, but the seven new sparks laughing and running circles around the bronze plinth were more than had been recorded in the whole of Cybertronian history. Optimus Prime sat and watched them, feeling old and young, weary and refreshed all at the same time.
Unbidden, his optics rose to the statue on the plinth and the figures that watched silently over the sparklings. Two mechs stood side by side, cast in bronze and a gleaming, incorruptible alloy of steel. Prime's lieutenants would never be forgotten, but already the tales of their exploits were taking on the awed overtones of folklore. Each grew with the telling. Optimus had heard stories of the lithe silver trickster who had defied chance, who had fought for his friends with a fierce skill and endless love, and at last stood before Megatron alone and unafraid. He'd heard of the genius tactician who had snatched mechs from the servos of Primus, who had guided Optimus Prime through the long vorns, who embodied security and order, and had given the last of his spark's strength to see their people would know safety.
He recognised every tale. Alone of the surviving mechs, with perhaps Ratchet as the sole exception, he knew how much truth lay behind the awed words, and how little exaggeration.
Losing Prowl, in the same orn when they celebrated the gift Primus granted them, had been hard. The whispers of the Matrix, and the steady warmth in his spark as Primus smiled on them all, were Prime's comfort. He'd feared the day would come since he'd seen Jazz's broken frame in his brother's servos, hoped for it since the spectre first gave him a shrug and a lop-sided grin, expected it since Prowl proved himself sensitive to a sight denied others.
As he'd told Ratchet, sometimes things happened because they must.
Dimming his optics, Prime summoned the memory of Prowl radiant in the night. He remembered the way the Matrix had throbbed in his chest, the moment when he'd known, and smiled softly. There was no sorrow in the memory.
A cry disturbed Prime's meditation. The keen of distress in a young voice bounced him to his feet, his plating flared and his systems battle ready within nano-klicks.
The scars of war still ran deep in the mechs who had lived with it for an eternity.
He forced his weapons offline, flattening his armour before the sparklings could take fright. Two careful steps took him forward to the base of the podium, and the small mechling, alone, uninjured and unthreatened, who stood in its shadow.
"You know, rubbing your optics will just make them hurt."
The keening sparkling startled. The little one stumbled back a few steps, his clenched servos dropping away from his faceplates. He blinked blearily upwards, his lubricant-streaked cheeks raised to search for the source of so deep a voice.
Optimus looked down into tiny blue optics that seemed almost too bright in the morning sunshine. The infant keened again, ducking his helm. Optimus squatted, reaching out with infinite care to caress the small helm with a single finger servo that rivalled it in size. He gathered the little sparkling to his side, cupping him in one gentle hand.
"Small one, tell me. What is wrong?"
"Hurts." The word escaped between keens. The sparkling was rubbing at his optics again, and, too late, Prime remembered Ratchet's report of the week before. The news that the youngest of their precious sparklings was showing signs of optic oversensitivity had shaken all the council, but Ratchet had assured them that it was nothing to concern them. Prime had no hesitation in agreeing. Both Optimus and his medic had known mechs whose protective visors were as much boon as burden. Glancing up at the statue beside him, turning so the infant was sheltered in the shadow between his bulk and the images of his long-gone lieutenants, Optimus reminded himself of that fact.
"Do you have a visor, sparkling? Did Ratchet give you something to cover your optics?"
The little one blinked. His physical pain was lessened now, with most of the light blocked. Cupping the sparkling to his chest-plates, Prime felt the Matrix pulse reassurance against the infant's emotional distress too.
"Lost." The child peered up at Prime, tilting his helm as he tried to focus. He blinked once more before lubricant overflowed his too-bright optics. "Hurts," he sobbed again.
"Op'mus?"
Optimus Prime's sensor grid warned him just seconds before he felt a small servo pat his pede, and heard a thin, high voice call his name. Reaching out, he gathered the second sparkling into his hands beside the first. This little mech was taller, his form a little bulkier even given the few years between them, but his energy field buzzed with curiosity and concern.
The newcomer squirmed in Prime's grip, and it took Optimus several klicks to notice the sparkling had one arm outstretched, straining as he offered his crying friend a slender curve of glass and shaped metal.
"Found it," the slightly older mechling explained, his expression serious as he looked up at Optimus. "Here." He warbled, the familiar sound attracting his friend's attention, and offered the visor again when he had it. "Found it."
The little mech blinked, reached out, and then Prime found himself juggling, trying to stop the infants from falling as the first mechling tackled his saviour in a full-body embrace.
Both laughed - a happy, carefree sound - before pulling back.
The elder sat in Prime's hand, looking down at the visored infant beside him with a shy, amused half-smile.
The younger sparkling's keens had faded, the tracks of lubricant drying on his faceplates. He tilted his helm and favoured the taller mechling with a broad, lop-sided grin.
The moment was spark-shatteringly familiar. Prime stood, his vents frozen, while deep in his chest, the Matrix pulsed its welcome and delight at the reunion.
"Op'mus?" It took Optimus a few klicks to notice that the elder mechling was standing on his outstretched palm, the younger close at his side, both looking up at Optimus with too-familiar frowns on their small faces. The little one warbled a query, words beyond him but the concern audible.
Prime looked up at the statue behind him, and then down at the infants cradled next to his spark.
"Op'mus okay?"
Optimus Prime smiled.
"I've never been better," he told them.
The End