Rodimus Prime, angsting.
A.N. Fixed the formatting, finally.
Disclaimer: Transformers and all related indicia are the property of Hasbro and Takara. Shakespeare and Henry V belong to Shakespeare, history and the public domain. Blame this one on the wine, as well.
He hadn't wanted this. Any of it.
Hadn't wanted the Matrix; hadn't wanted the burden of leadership, this utter inability to let things slide, to let others take care of a problem he himself could solve. He had been utterly unprepared when it had been thrust on him, and had been similarly unprepared for his own reaction to the task: to take it on, and deal with it, and deal with the next crisis, and the next, and the next, forever and ever, world without end, a-slagging-men. Hadn't been able to deal with the nightmares it gave him when at last he had time to recharge; and certainly hadn't been able to foresee the way it wouldn't let him rest, even when times served, when movement itself was impossible through fatigue.
Leadership had looked pretty from the outside, of course. He, like any other fairly ambitious Autobot, had at times considered how nice it must be to be Prime, and have people jump when he snapped his fingers. None of them knew.
Upon the king, let us our lives,
Our souls, our overcareful wives,
Our children, and our sins, lay on the king.
And like all other reasonably ambitious Autobots, hadn't considered what it would be like from the other side. What the responsibility would entail; what sort of horrors he would see behind his optics when a time came to make decisions that would end in deaths on either side.
We must bear all: oh, hard condition
Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath of every fool
Whose sense no more can feel but his own wringing—
It had been easy then, when he'd been Hot Rod.
He sat outside the Autobot headquarters on Cybertron, and stared up into his homeland's sky. Black, now, of course. It was black most of the cycle: there was a brief day while their current primary peeped between its satellites and shed a thin and unforgiving light on the metal world. He wondered how much different it would have been had the Matrix chosen someone else in that hideous, wonderful instant in Unicron's internal structure when it had decided to open for him, and to allow him the power to hurl Galvatron into the distance. Ultra Magnus, for instance. He who had carried the Matrix but never really borne its power and its responsibility. It would have been better had the Matrix chosen Magnus, for reasons so obvious he hardly bothered to enumerate them to himself.
What infinite heartsease must kings neglect
That private men enjoy—and what have kings
That privates have not too, save ceremony?
In fact, he thought now, leaning back against the remnants of a pillar, what the Inferno had it gained him except for a slightly taller body shell and a rather silly truck-mode transform? Headaches upon headaches, and the inability to relax in public, ever, except on those rare instances where the only ones who'd see him were Magnus and Springer and Arcee—and of course the responsibility to say the right thing at the right time in diplomatic situations, and to make nicey-nice with the twerps from feuding planets which he'd been tasked with mediating? None of them knew him, none of them cared to know him, the Hot Rod inside the Rodimus outer shell. He felt, sometimes, as if he had to put on an outer exosuit like Spike or Daniel when he left his chambers every morning.
And what art thou, thou idol ceremony?
Art thou aught else but place, degree and form
Creating awe and fear in other men,
Wherein thou art less happy being feared
Than they in fearing? What drink'st thou oft
Instead of homage sweet, but poison'd flattery?
Oh, be sick, great greatness, and bid thy ceremony give thee cure.
Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee,
Command the health of it?
It was the height of hypocrisy, he thought now, staring up at the stars that had meant new discoveries and adventures before that last and fateful skirmish in the depths of Unicron. His own people respected him because they had known him as he was before, but there was still an added layer of distance now between them. Those who met him in his official capacity signed treaties and exchanged courtesies, but there was no truth in them. He felt a sudden howling loneliness, inside the structure of command.
No, thou proud dream, that play'st so subtly with a king's repose;
I am a king that find thee, and I know
And not for the first nor the last time, Rodimus wished he hadn't jumped into the fray in Autobot City, and sealed Optimus's fate and his own with that one stupid act. The old Prime had been wounded, yes, terribly wounded, but not yet defeated; he could have taken Megatron even in his weakened state, and nobody would have to deal with the current situation. He hated hearing the word "Prime" from their mouths now. It felt like something of an accusation.
'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the high shores of this world; no, not all these,
Laid in bed majestical, can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave
Who with a body filled and vacant mind
Gets him to sleep, cramm'd with distressful bread,
Never sees horrid night, the child of hell, but like a lackey from the rise to the set
Sweats in the eye of Phoebus; and all night sleeps in Elysium.
What he missed most, of course, was the pure and dreamless recharge he remembered from before the change. Sure, he'd had lousy days, hideous days even, but the minute he lay down on the recharge couch and coupled the cables to his ports, he'd fallen into utter, dreamless rest. There was none of this wondering if he should have said things differently at a banquet, no agonizing over whether the economic benefits and risks of a certain enterprise were balanced correctly, no counting up of potential victims in a battle yet to come. Megatron—and now Galvatron—were unknown quantities back in those days, and yet they hadn't instilled in him the weariness and the surety that he would come off worst in any conflict that they did now. He would give anything—everything—for one peaceful, uninterrupted night's recharge.
Next day, after dawn, doth rise, and helps Hyperion to his horse;
And follows so the ever-running year with profitable labour to his grave.
And but for ceremony...such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
Had the forehand and vantage of a king....
Rodimus sighed, and got up, noticing again the ache in his left shoulder and making yet another mental note to go and get it looked at by First Aid whenever any of them got a chance. He knew that the Matrix chose for its own reasons, and he was not quite young or innocent enough to believe he knew better than the combined wisdom of millennia of Autobot leaders; but he still wished, in that part of his mind he still kept for himself, that its choice had fallen on another.