Chapter Text
Speed was everything to Cybertronians. Cade first learned that when he met Bumblebee. That kid couldn’t sit still for even a couple of minutes, much less abide by a speed limit. For a while, Cade had just thought it was because the black-and-yellow menace was the Autobot equivalent of a teenager—and a bright, flashy sports car to boot—but it wasn’t exactly unique to just Bee. Drift and Crosshairs sometimes raced each other, engines revving louder than a goddamn rocket taking off and kicking up outrageous amounts of Texan dust in their thundering wake. Bee could easily breeze past 500 miles per hour if he felt like it, could lift off straight from the asphalt like it was a runway, if given the chance. Cross wasn’t that far behind, and even Hound could book it faster than most human-made supercars. Being fast, driving fast, was part of being a Cybertronian. It was woven deep into their code, as easy to them as breathing was for Cade.
Optimus Prime was the only one of the Autobots who made an effort to obey humanity’s traffic and speed laws. Cade figured it was out of respect for their flimsy legal systems, or something similarly courteous, because that was just the kind of stand-up guy that Optimus was. For all of his ferocity during a fight—and Cade didn’t think he could ever forget the image of Prime’s battlemask clamped down hard over his face and hot energon dripping from his blade, snarling like a feral beast, dangerous when he was pushed to the limits of his carefully crafted control—the leader of the Autobots, at his spark, was just a big softie. He was gallant and compassionate and entirely too selfless for his own good; he was as sweet as American apple pie and downright chivalrous to boot.
Cade had never once seen him relax. He supposed there was the aftermath of everything that happened with Merlin’s staff and that rotten bitch Quintessa. When they all returned to Cade’s new property—courtesy of one very remorseful and very grateful Joshua Joyce post-Galvatron fiasco—Optimus ventured out into the overgrown fields surrounding the farmhouse, letting the dry breezes whistle through his plating and silently watching Bumblebee do joyful burnouts in the dirt and grass. The old Prime had hovered in some kind of motionless meditative state for, frankly, long enough to freak Cade out. He’d been worried Optimus had died standing up out there in the fields like some massive, otherworldly scarecrow. The few times he approached his giant friend he hadn’t so much as twitched in acknowledgment, and his normally blazing optics were dark. He figured even Primes needed time to process their trauma, which was an unsettling thought. He had wondered how much trauma Optimus had to process, if he would ever get over everything he had seen and done in his millenia-long lifetime.
After a few days of silent contemplation, Optimus had emerged from whatever zen headspace he’d been wallowing in with a fierce growl of his powerful engine and no more than a short nod to Cade before he’d transformed and disappeared down the dirt road that would eventually lead to civilization. Hours later, he’d returned and disappeared into the huge, hangar-like barn Cade had requested from Joyce that served as a sheltered living space for the ‘Bots, and presumably had powered down for the night. But simply staying in one place for days, silent and stuck in your own head, wasn’t really relaxing. Cade would know.
The engineer winced when Cross dinged Drift’s bumper, triggering a loud, angry horn blare from the triple-changer that unceremoniously ripped Cade out of his thoughts. Drift flipped through a transformation sequence into root mode and jumped on Cross with an unholy bellow of rage. The offending Autobot yelped and fumbled out of his alt mode, shouting right back and flailing his fists against Drift’s plating. Bumblebee screeched to a halt, dust billowing around his sleek form, and keened a long, loud cry in binary that reminded Cade of the way Tessa whined whenever he embarrassed her. He made a mental note to call her again soon—it’d been a minute since he’d seen his baby girl’s smiling face.
The three quicker Autobots had been racing again, tearing up the dirt track that was far out in the property. Hound and Grimlock had pounded it out the second week of the ‘Bots’ stay at the farmhouse. They’d done it with supervision, of course, Cade watching them with a keen eye and begrudgingly contacting Shane for tips on dirt tracks. That had been the worst part, if he was being honest, but sometimes Tessa had popped her head on-screen next to the leprechaun’s and that made it more bearable. Today, the real competition was between Crosshairs and Drift—really, when was it not—and Bumblebee was just participating to spin his tires. They all knew he could leave them choking on his dust if he wanted, but today seemed like a lazy day for the scout. Of course, it hadn’t taken very long at all for Drift and Cross to start getting rough with each other, which had now graduated to a full-on brawl in the grass on the other side of the track.
“Hey, hey, hey! Guys! Come on!” Cade tried to yell over the sounds of metal fists punching metal armor and silently despaired over the state of the track. “You’re better than this! Knock it off!” He threw his hands up when all he got in return were two angry shouts of “ Frag off, Yeager!” He stomped over to Bee, ignoring the flying clods of dirt and grass the two idiots were ripping up during their tussle. Bee slowed to a stop and beeped cheerfully.
Cade put his hands on his hips and glared at the scout’s steering wheel, which was as close to making eye contact—or rather, eye-to-optic contact—as he could get with the ‘Bots in alt mode. “This is why I don’t like lettin’ ‘em race each other.”
Bee trilled in agreement, swinging open his passenger side door. Cade ducked inside the blessedly cool interior and exhaled hard. “I swear, it’s like raisin’ Tess all over again with you ‘Bots. Lemme tell you, that girl was a menace when she was your age.”
He didn’t need to see Bee’s face to know he was being glared at. Cade chuckled and patted the dash affectionately. “I know, you’re better’n they are. Let’s head back before they start shootin’ each other.” The loud sound of gunfire pierced through Bee’s windows and Cade yelped. “Too late. Retreat, soldier!”
Bee’s radio played a tinny fanfare and the scout swung into a half-donut, his engine growling happily. He took off through the fields, easily dodging and weaving around the odd tree or shrub that rose up out of the grass. Cade grinned, laughing brightly when his companion rolled the windows down and the late summer breeze tumbled in to ruffle his hair. A giddy rush bubbled up inside his chest and spilled over into the kind of pure, easy joy he’d come to treasure after missing it for so long. The outside world passed by in dreamy smears of color and light. Cade closed his eyes and let the warmth soak into his skin.
Before too long, they were turning onto the long driveway of the farmhouse, where the little Dinobots were tussling in the front yard. A sleepy Grimlock watched them from his relaxed, loose sprawl in the grass. Bee honked his horn as they pulled in. He was answered with a chorus of loud, excited chitters and trills and one low, irritated roar. Cade chuckled when Grimlock swung his head around to glare at them and then immediately dropped his chin back onto the grass, blinking his glowing optics slowly like a giant, fire-breathing metal cat. The engineer patted Bee’s dash again and climbed out through the opened passenger door with a pleased sigh, adrenaline still buzzing comfortably under his skin. He cast his eyes up towards the sun dipping down in the sky, careful to tilt his head so the sweat beading along his hairline didn’t roll into his eyes, and brushed the dust from the road off of his pants as best he could. A shower once he was inside the house sounded perfect .
“Hey, Grim,” Cade said warmly, going out of his way to rest a hand against the big Dinobot’s sun-warmed muzzle. “Babies give you any trouble today?” Grimlock growled in what Cade took to be an affirmative and the engineer chuckled, petting soothingly along Grim’s spiny nasal plating. He heard Bumblebee unfold into root mode behind him, engaging the Dinobot sparklings in a lively and, regrettably, loud bout of play fighting. Cade huffed and shook his head, giving Grimlock’s warm snout one last pat before heading up the steps of the wrap-around porch.
Just like on the outside, the inside of the farmhouse was a very close reconstruction of Emily’s family home before it was blown to pieces—it was like building a new body around old bones. Cade vaguely remembered Joyce blathering something about heroes deserving beautiful places to live in. He’d wisely said nothing in response and had ignored the pang of discomfort he felt at being called a hero. He was no hero, and never had been. He was just a guy who’d wanted to fix up an old big rig, someone unlucky enough to become a soldier against his will. At the very least, he’d done his best to protect what remained of his family and had only helped the Autobots when it became very clear that he had stumbled his way into what remained of their war. He’d only wanted to survive.
Cade shook himself a little and shut the front door. He left the windows open so he could hear the ‘Bots outside in case any of them needed him. The house opened up before him, the coolness of the A/C washing over his sweaty, dirt-stained skin. He’d given Joyce almost full reign over the interior, but had insisted that it wasn’t over-the-top modern. The most modern thing about it was the color scheme—cool white and deep, rustic brown, the occasional splash of blue or green to break up the dichromatic palette. There were plants in almost every room and plush rugs tossed over the smooth hardwood floors, tall, airy ceilings crisscrossed by weathered rafters, comfortable furniture smothered with throw pillows and blankets, and huge bookshelves filled with all sorts of books, from trashy romance novels to foreign classics in their original languages. It was both a relaxing oasis from the Texas heat and an intellectual playground. It was perfect for Cade. The few times Tessa and Shane had come to visit, they’d pointed out as much.
He remembered the first time Tessa had stepped foot inside the farmhouse. He’d been so nervous that she would hate it, that she would resent having almost no surviving memory of her mother in the house because of the explosion. Instead, she’d seemed thrilled that Cade was finally moving on, which had been a hell of a surprise.
“You really aren’t mad?” he’d asked her.
Tessa smiled at him, that sunny grin that had always reminded him so much of Emily, and touched his arm. “No, Dad. I’m not mad. Sure, I miss Mom sometimes, but I was so little when she passed that I don’t really remember her that well.” She shrugged, the shape of her smile softening. “I’ve met so many people that care about me. I’ve done things no one else has done. And I graduated high school, just like you both wanted! She wasn’t here for any of it, but I know she’d be proud of me. I know she’d be proud of you, too. I think she just wanted you to be happy, and it seems like you’re finally getting there.”
Cade, swallowing around the lump in his throat, had felt tears burning his eyes. “I don’t want to forget about her.”
“You don’t have to,” Tessa said. Her hand squeezed his arm a little. “But it is okay to move on. After everything we’ve been through, we deserve to be happy. You don’t need ghosts haunting you, not when you’ve got giant alien robots to look after.”
“When the hell’d you get so wise?” He’d pulled her into a tight hug, his face tucked against her shoulder. If there had been tears dampening the fabric of her shirt, neither of them said anything about it.
Somehow, the old picture of Cade and Emily at the hospital holding their newborn daughter had survived the fire. It was a bit charred around the edges, the colors faded and their smiling faces smeared ever so slightly, but that made it all the more special. It had been framed and propped up on the mantel of the fireplace in the living room. On either side of it extended a row of framed photos featuring baby Tessa playing with her toys, little Tessa sitting at his workshop desk, Tessa in her graduation cap and gown, Tessa and Shane… a couple photos even had the ‘Bots in the background. Cade stopped in front of the fireplace and looked over all of the smiles and laughter captured there in film. There was even one of himself and Optimus that Tessa must have taken at some point; the two of them were huddled close, talking about something as Cade looked over the Prime’s armor for dents or holes. He couldn’t remember when that picture had been taken, or what they’d been talking about, but it made a kernel of warmth bloom somewhere in the vicinity of his heart. Every photo made him feel warm and fuzzy, but something about that one in particular made a gentle sort of giddiness flutter in his chest. Maybe it was the look on his own face, soft and fond and free of tension. Maybe it was the loose curl of Optimus’ huge fingers around photo-Cade’s body. Maybe he was just feeling overly sentimental today.
“You’re gettin’ loony in your old age, man,” the engineer muttered aloud. He turned away from the photos on the mantel and headed in the direction of his bedroom. He really needed that shower.
Free of dirt and sweat and feeling hungry enough to eat a horse, Cade ambled into the kitchen to throw together something for dinner. Since Tessa had moved out after her graduation, he’d been cooking for himself more and more, no longer able to rely on her reminders to eat when he was deep in an inventing binge. He’d honestly gotten pretty good at it. It helped that some of the books in the house were cookbooks, and that he was the only one who’d be disappointed if he screwed something up. He had never been a very picky eater anyway.
The kitchen, along with the rest of the house, had been updated and now felt like it was nearly twice the size it had been before the explosion. There was a floor-to-ceiling pantry with built-in organizers for spices and alcohol; massive white cabinets perfect for storing every kind of plate, bowl, pot, and pan imaginable; a sink that was almost big enough to use as a tub for the baby Dinobots; and floating shelves that the mugs, cups, and glasses that were used most frequently rested on. Every appliance was sleek and modern—the coffee maker alone looked like it was worth more than all the money Cade had ever earned in his entire life. It had something like fifteen different settings on it, but he only ever used its coffee pot function to produce as much black coffee at once without using an actual coffee pot. He was a simple man and didn’t need any kind of fancy espresso-cappa-frappe thing to get his energy up.
The best parts about the new kitchen, though, were the elegant French doors that opened up onto the patio space outside. They brought in so much light and fresh air that Cade almost never had them closed; he liked being able to listen to the sounds of the outdoors while he cooked. The French doors, like many of the doors and windows in the farmhouse, also allowed Cade to keep an eye and an ear on his alien robot friends who couldn’t come inside the house. The baby Dinobots in particular hated having to stay outside, so the open doors were the perfect compromise between their near-obsessive attachment to Cade and the preservation of the engineer’s sanity.
Cade opened the fridge and examined its contents. Without Tessa there, he didn’t feel the need to make anything fancy, so he decided to go with some leftovers from the previous night. He took out a glass container of fettuccine alfredo and popped it in the microwave, leaning back against the chilled countertop. The sun had gotten low enough outside that the horizon was bleeding streaks of deep red-orange into the darkening blue overhead. A distant symphony of growling engines and mechanical whirring quietly slotted into the air next to the hum of the microwave. Cade pushed off the counter to flip on the lights in the kitchen to counteract the gathering shadows. Somewhere deep down, he was relieved that there was something to chase the darkness away. He could admit to himself that since everything that had happened in the past few years, he had gotten a good deal more jumpy than before meeting the Autobots. It led to most of the lights being on in the house at nighttime, even in rooms that were unoccupied. Too many things could use the shadows as cover.
The microwave chirped a cheery little tune and Cade wrenched the door open with perhaps a little more force than was strictly necessary. He reached in and carefully grabbed the topmost edges of the container with his index fingers and thumbs, not wanting to burn his fingertips on the hot glass. The ground trembled outside under heavy metal footsteps.
“Hiya, Bee,” Cade called without looking up. He took a fork out from one of the drawers at hip level and stirred the fettuccine, making sure the creamy sauce wasn’t sticking to the bottom of the glass. “I’m just gettin’ some dinner together for myself but I’ll be out in a bit, okay?”
“I am not Bumblebee, Cade Yeager,” Optimus Prime’s deep, rumbly voice told him.
“ Jesus! ” Cade jumped violently, fumbling the fork, and managed a few seconds of truly ridiculous juggling that involved a 180-degree spin before he caught it only inches from the hardwood floor. He shot upright and whirled to face the French doors, where he could just make out Optimus’ face looming in the open doorway. His fist clenched around the fork until his knuckles creaked. He stabbed a shaky finger in the Prime’s direction.
“Nothin’ happened. You didn’t see that.”
A resonant, almost subsonic hum reverberated the air. Cade felt the sound vibrate the cavern of his ribs and pressed the fork-holding fist over his chest. He was always awed by how strong and smoky Optimus’ voice was—hearing him speak was like standing on top of a subwoofer. It was soft silk layered over coarse gravel, gentle and fierce all at once. It was the kind of voice you found yourself listening to, no matter what it said.
“My apologies, Cade,” Optimus murmured. Upon closer inspection, the leader of the Autobots was delicately crouching on the patio pavers outside, his head tilted almost parallel to the ground so that he could see inside the house. The light of his optics lit up the kitchen in an icy blue that clashed with the golden lights over Cade’s head. “It was not my intention to startle you.”
“No… no harm done, man.” Cade’s free hand rubbed at his sternum. Adrenaline dumps always happened whenever he was shocked or spooked by something. He’d picked up the habit of pressing his fingers into his sternum sometime in the past few years and found that the pressure helped ease sudden fear and anxiety. “You okay? You’re lookin’ a little cramped out there.”
Optimus shifted in the doorway, the fading sunlight cascading over his armor in mesmerizing shimmers of color. “I am alright.”
“Well, don’t stay all hunched up on my account,” Cade said quickly. “I was just about finished up in here anyways. Get yourself all comfy-like and I’ll be out there in a sec.”
Every chance he got, Cade would try to encourage Optimus to relax. Even if it was something simple like saying, “make yourself comfortable,” he wanted to reinforce that the farmhouse was a sanctuary—a place of rest. Lord knows none of the Autobots had gotten any rest in the decades since they had landed on Earth. It helped that he’d been raised with good manners and Southern hospitality hammered down into his bones.
Suddenly, he was craving his mama’s cornbread. He quickly wrote a note to himself—he’d long ago made a habit of leaving sticky notes and pens everywhere for when he had sudden bursts of inspiration or needed to remind himself of something—to check the pantry for cornmeal and flour. The ground shook a little under his feet as Optimus presumably unfolded himself from his crunched-up huddle in the doorway. Satisfied, Cade slapped the sticky note onto the cabinet closest to his head, picked up his container of fettuccine, and walked out onto the patio. He sank into the thick cushions on the long wicker sectional with an audible sigh of relief. Whatever interior designer Joyce had called in to work on the farmhouse had, thankfully, chosen outdoor furniture that was comfortable and not just made to look pretty.
The sun was low enough in the sky that the horizon was becoming a hazy smear of color. A drowsy sort of glow lit the patio up with warm orange light, chasing the lengthening shadows like lazy cats running after mice. Optimus Prime had settled himself a ways away from the patio pavers, sitting under the great old hackberry tree that towered over the backyard. The flames crawling up his arms and across his chest leapt and shimmered in the fading light.
“I was thinkin’,” Cade said, twirling fettuccine onto his fork, “that tomorrow might be a good day for an energon run. Whaddya think, Prime?” He popped the fork into his mouth and hummed happily. He’d put the pasta in just long enough for it to warm up all the way to the bottom without burning the roof of his mouth. Or his tongue. Or his fingers. Tessa would be proud.
Optimus’ head tilted to the side, which was highly amusing to witness on a 30-ton giant robot, rather than a mid-sized dog. Cade stifled a chuckle. “That would be wise. I believe that Crosshairs and Drift’s moods are… worse than usual, as of late. Replenishing our energon stores would likely serve to bring them back to whatever serves as a normal level of anger for both of them.”
Cade, surprised and delighted, nearly choked on his pasta. When he finished laughing, he regarded the Prime with a cheeky grin and raised eyebrows. “Was that a joke? Did you really just make a joke?”
“I have no idea what you mean,” Optimus replied primly. The smallest of smiles warped the fine plates of his face. Cade threw his head back and laughed.
A companionable silence filled the balmy air. Cade ate his fettuccine and watched Optimus watching the sky, the upturned tilt of his elegant helm and the wistful yearning etched into his face. He always looked like that when he thought no one was looking at him—lost and hurt, looking more like Tessa when she was just barely double-digits instead of the millenia-old alien he was. A pang of sympathy echoed in Cade’s gut. He knew what it felt like to be miles away from home, but he couldn’t imagine being lightyears away. That wasn’t even taking into account how much the Cybertonians—and Optimus in particular—had lost over the course of the war. So many lives, so much history and culture, comrades, friends, family. All gone. It was an unfathomable amount of loss, doubtlessly accompanied by an unfathomable amount of pain. Cade traced his eyes over every scar and dent in Optimus’ armor, every mark his long, tumultuous life had left on him. When his gaze made its way back up to the Prime’s face, he found himself staring into electric blue optics.
“What is it, Cade?”
A tingling shudder traveled up the engineer’s spine at the sound of that silk-over-gravel voice. He shook his head, placed the now empty glass container on the sectional’s matching table. “Nothin’. Just… I’m glad y’all are so comfortable here. It means a lot to me.” That much was true; he was ecstatic that the ‘Bots had made a home for themselves at the farmhouse, that they accepted the Yeagers as their own. It had taken a few weeks for everyone to adjust—learning to cohabitate with members of an alien species with a whole host of unfamiliar, sometimes confusing customs could never be easy. But once the dust had settled and it finally sank in that no one was in danger anymore, it was as though the Autobots had always lived with the Yeagers. It helped ease some of that sympathetic ache, to know that they had scraped together this little slice of peace for themselves. It couldn’t erase everything that they had been through, of course, but anything that Cade could do to provide the ‘Bots with something resembling a quiet retirement, he would gladly do so in a heartbeat.
“You have outdone yourself as a host, Cade Yeager.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Truly,” Optimus said. There was a steel in his voice that only made itself known in high-stress situations. Cade instantly sat up straighter and faced him head-on. “Never have I seen my Autobots so carefree since before the war even began. We were one people then, and it has been…” He seemed to be at a loss for what to say, which was rather unlike the regal Prime. The fingers of his hand twitched like they could reach out and grasp the words he was searching for. “It has been a joy to see some of the life returned to them. We have you to thank for that.”
Now Cade was the speechless one. He looked down at his lap, where his hands were fiddling with the hem of his shirt. “I… I don’t even know what to say, Optimus.”
“It is the truth.” A faint scraping sound returned Cade’s attention to Optimus. The Prime lowered himself onto the grass, his huge limbs elegantly folding until he had one bent knee pointing up and the other flush with the ground. One massive arm draped across the bent leg, elbow-over-knee, and Optimus’ free hand reached behind him to plant itself in the grass. He looked a little too stiff to be truly comfortable, but maybe that was because he didn’t want to lean back too far and risk crumpling the trunk of the hackberry tree. It definitely wouldn’t hold up under his weight.
“I, in particular, am very grateful for your kindness and patience,” he added. The heavy brow plates over his optics twitched into a vaguely bashful expression, although the movement was so small it could have been a sign of discomfort instead. Optimus’ microexpressions could be hard to read, even for Cade, and he considered himself to be decently fluent in Cybertronian body language. “It has not been easy for us. Or for myself, for that matter, and yet I have found myself experiencing something… close to peace, these recent months.”
“I’m mighty glad to hear it,” Cade said quietly.
“You have been a most favorable companion, Cade Yeager.”
Embarrassed heat flared under the skin of Cade’s cheeks. He flicked his eyes away from the Prime’s face to focus very intently on the gleaming joints exposed by the bend of his knee. A light gust of wind gently shook the hackberry’s branches. Both of them looked up. The stars were just beginning to peep out of the deepening black above, the sun finally sliding beneath the horizon with a final flare of orange light. Cade sighed and, in the corner of his eye, saw Optimus carefully slouch back against the trunk of the hackberry. The sigh became a grin.
“...Y’know, you’re not so bad yourself, you old wreck.”