A/N: To those who follow 'Another Chance', it's not abandoned. It's just on hold. And probably up for revision. But I'll be finishing it first, yeah.

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Quite frankly, Ironhide had never seen Prime quite so angry before.

Considering the fact that he had been with the leader of the Autobots for a long, long time, as well as the fact that he had seen what Optimus could do when he was angry, like what he had done to Starscream that one time… Ironhide winced. Whatever was going to happen now, it wasn't going to be pretty. Even Ironhide could feel the pressure, and he wasn't a mech that was known for his empathy.

Optimus turned his livid gaze onto Ironhide and the warrior, stoic though he was, still flinched internally. He knew that he wasn't really the target of the Prime's frustration, but he also knew that he was at least partially to blame. I am going to kill those twins, he growled internally. He'd known that he should have protested Optimus' choice of putting Sunstreaker and Sideswipe on his team, but he hadn't said anything. Didn't want to anger the boss, as it were, and he knew the strategic importance of having twins on a team. They had the safest method of communication; one that couldn't be hacked even by mechs such as Soundwave. Besides, what could possibly go wrong? Even the twins couldn't possibly screw up such a simple mission…

Apparently, he'd been wrong. The twins and their jet judo. They took every available opportunity to practice it, for some daft reason that Ironhide couldn't quite identify. The idiots had jumped onto Skywarp, the both of them, throwing the Decepticon completely off and making the jet crash… right into Mirage. The poor mech had almost died; the impact had been hard enough to shake up the very volatile energon that coursed through the mech's fuel lines. Mirage had, quite literally, exploded. It was similar to that of one of Wheeljack's inventions, actually, although the explosion was less spectacular. There had been that time one of Wheeljack's weapons had blown up half a planet… Luckily, it had been uninhabited.

It did not, however, change the fact that Mirage was very badly damaged. Ironhide almost winced to think of what Ratchet might be doing now. Fixing Mirage, obviously, but he was probably also throwing wrenches at the twins. They were also pretty damaged by the explosion, after all. Either way, he was really glad that he wasn't in the medbay.

"I am disappointed in you, Ironhide," the Prime rumbled, and although his tone was calm, Ironhide could feel a tension behind his voice, ready to spring. Optimus was definitely very angry. He tried to move, but found that he was rooted to the ground.

Optimus was, to say in the least, terrifying when he was angry. Unlike Ironhide. Everyone was used to Ironhide. Optimus was… different. He was almost never angry. Heck, half the crew probably hadn't seen the mech angry before. Ironhide was the only one who had, and he really hadn't wanted to experience it a second time.

"Sorry," Ironhide responded gruffly. Optimus was really the only mech who could draw an apology out of him. Ironhide normally wasn't scared of anything- It was a war that they were in, and he had seen countless atrocities- But Optimus…

He wasn't like Ironhide. When Ironhide got angry, he would make threats. Shoot something. Cause explosions. Yell. Scare the crap out of any humans or smaller bots that might be nearby. Optimus, on the other hand, didn't say a word, kept everything in, and exuded an overwhelming presence. Had Ironhide been a lesser warrior, he would have been shaking. As it was, he was barely able to keep himself calm. Nevertheless, he forced himself to meet the eyes of his leader.

"You should have kept better control of your team." Optimus wasn't yelling at all. His voice was kept low, dangerous. It showed just how angry he was. "You were the commander of the team. I entrusted their lives to you. Your lack of control of the twins have nearly lost us a soldier and a dear friend."

Ironhide couldn't help it. He bristled. "With all due respect, sir, keeping control of the twins is harder than you think it is."

Optimus' eyes narrowed, and Ironhide almost took as step back. His foot unconsciously twitched. Years and years of battle had honed his instincts well, and they were now screaming at him that he was in danger. He wondered if it was too late to run. Probably.

"You could have stopped them." Optimus' eyes flashed dangerously. Ironhide didn't say anything. Anything that he could have said would only have made it worse.

Optimus' fist slammed hard onto the table, and Ironhide looked up in surprise, taking a step back. The Prime had never, ever expressed his anger like that. He was usually able to keep calm. Just how angry was he…?

Seeing the look in Ironhide's optics, Optimus frowned. He didn't want the warrior to be afraid of him. It would be best if Ironhide left before he got any more angry. Taking a deep breath o calm himself down, Optimus said shortly, "Dismissed."

Ironhide turned and walked slowly out of the room, trying his best not to show that he was afraid. He wasn't afraid. He had merely been… overwhelmed by the unexpected anger from his leader. Behind him, he heard a door open, the one that had been installed specially for humans, and stopped for a moment curiously.

"Hey Optimus, have you seen-" Sam didn't even have to look up at the mech's face to see just how angry Optimus was. He could feel it the moment he stepped in the room. Sam stopped midway, gave a little squeak, and then fell over himself trying to get back out of the room.

"Uh- I- You're probably busy right? I'm sorry and yeah I wouldn't want to disturb you so you can keep doing whatever it is that you're doing and I hope you're not mad that I interrupted you because I totally didn't know that you were busy not that you are busy of course I'm just not sure and you know what I think I'll come back later when it's safer… I mean when you're less busy, don't worry it wasn't that important anyway I could always wait a day or two…" Sam's voice trailed off into the corridor as he continued talking. Ironhide almost chuckled. The human had a strange habit of talking in a long string of words when he was panicked. Then he felt Optimus' glare on him and quickly slipped out of the room with a murmured apology.

Then he jumped as the door opened again and Optimus walked out. Apparently he had decided to take a walk. Not really a good idea, considering he was still livid and you could feel his anger a mile away.

The first instance of it being a bad idea came… quite soon, surprisingly. Blurr zoomed toward them, skidded to a stop when he saw Optimus' expression, and zoomed off in the opposite direction without a word. The expression on his face was comical, though Ironhide had barely caught it. The scene looked more like Blurr had run towards them and then bounced off an invisible wall. Optimus was actually caught off guard for an instant, then his expression darkened as he realised just why Blurr had run off. Ironhide winced internally. This was… not going to be a good day at the base.

Impulsively, Ironhide decided to follow Optimus. He was pretty much one of the only Autobots that would be able to hold the large 'bot at bay, after all, and even he would have trouble doing that. Given the mood that Optimus was in… Ironhide didn't think that Optimus would ever actually hurt any of them. But he might do it by accident. Or maybe a part of him just wanted to see how the others would react to Optimus. A suicidal part of him. He'd get his processor checked for glitches, but he didn't want Ratchet anywhere near him.

Sure enough, the instant Optimus entered the rec room, everything went silent and all of the mechs looked up at him. That wouldn't have been at all unusual, since it normally happened like that, but Bumblebee spit out what looked to be a full gallon of energon onto Cliffjumper's face when Optimus walked in, and Red Alert leapt up and looked about wildly, half transforming his arm into a weapon before realizing that it was Optimus that was causing the disturbance.

"Sir, I will be frank," Red Alert spoke seriously. "Are you a clone of Optimus?"

Optimus stared at the security officer in complete disbelief while Ironhide heaved a sigh of surprise and no small amount of exasperation. The security officer could sometimes make paranoia seem like an art. Where was he able to come up with a dozen conspiracies where none existed? Ironhide was mildly sure that the 'bot believed all of the human conspiracies, too. It would certainly explain why he had avoided the human Red Cross member like the plague. Not that there was any logical reason for. The conspiracy went that they took the blood of other humans; not that they took energon from the Cybertronians. Red Alert had no reason to be scared of the Red Cross members.

"I…" Optimus was, for once, at a complete loss of words. He had no idea what to say to the security officer, who was actually running a scan over the Prime to ensure that he was who he said he was. Not in the mood to handle Red Alert and his paranoia, Optimus turned and stalked out of the room. Ironhide took stock of the chaos, realizing that Cliffjumper, in his fright of Optimus, hadn't even noticed the energon all over his face. Ironhide surmised that the programs that Ratchet had installed on Cliffjumper had come into place. The programs prevented him from drawing a gun on a fellow autobot by offlining him. Normally Cliffjumper would never have agreed to something like that, but after the incident with mistaking Mirage for a traitor, he had pretty much forced Ratchet to install the programs. Ironhide almost admired him for that bravery. The bravery of facing Ratchet, that was. Ratchet was… not an easy mech to deal with. Even for Ironhide.

The next room that Optimus entered was one that Ironhide recognised as where he always went if he needed to calm himself down after a rough day. Or in this case, after getting really angry. It was Elita One's grave, a special room that the Cybertronians had set aside to honour the fallen femme. This would have been the perfect place for Optimus to relax, had Hound not been there, tending to the flowers. Well, that wouldn't have been much of a problem, either.

Unfortunately, Hound looked up as Optimus entered, and the look on the Prime's face surprised- and probably scared- him enough so that the poor mech stepped backwards and tripped over his own foot, landing with the watering can on top of him and spilling water right into his systems. Ironhide winced. Normally the Cybertronians, such as they were, were waterproof; but only because they closed their plating to protect themselves from the water. When it wasn't needed, their plating was usually left open to allow for faster cooling. In Hound's case, the water got into his systems and short-circuited him, almost instantly offlining him as subroutines automatically engaged, preventing electricity from running through the affected area.

"Slag!" Ironhide growled and pushed his way past the stunned Optimus, grabbing Hound's prone body and lifting him. He had to get the mech to Ratchet, and fast. Normally, he hated the medbay, but this was an emergency. If the water somehow got into his spark chamber, there was a chance that Hound's spark would be extinguished. Water was dangerous to the mechs. Which was why most of them kept their plating closed, despite how uncomfortable it was. Hound, on the other hand, had insisted that he wanted to experience as much 'fresh air' as possible. Where the mech had gotten the idea from, Ironhide had no idea. Either way, it hadn't been a good idea then, and it wasn't now, as Hound had proved.

Ironhide ran as fast as he could, his footsteps thundering through the hall. Many mechs along the hall looked up curiously as he approached, but a glare from him quickly made them avert their gazes, though Ironhide could see some of them still sneaking a peek. He logged their names and typed a note to kill them later. For now, he had to get Hound to the medbay.

Ironhide crashed into the medbay without bothering to knock.

That turned out to be quite the mistake, because the medic had been in the middle of operating on Mirage and looked up at Ironhide, his glare rivaling even Optimus'. Ratchet's eyes narrowed when he saw the prone form of Hound. Quickly checking, and finding that Mirage was stable, he grabbed Hound and used a spare hand to push Sunstreaker off one of the tables and place Hound on it instead. He knew that the yellow mech would complain about it later, but the slagger deserved it at any rate.

"Water damage?" Ratchet asked himself, then turned to Ironhide, eyes narrowing again. "What. Did. You. Do?" Ratchet punctuated each word with a twist of his wrench as he worked on Hound. Ratchet wasn't even looking at him, and yet Ironhide could feel his death glare. The soldier swore that Ratchet could sometimes be worse than Optimus himself. The medic could probably scare even Megatron if he was sufficiently pissed. Shuddering slightly, Ironhide took a step back, preparing to escape.

As he turned, a wrench flew right across his face and Ironhide flinched backwards.

"Don't even think about it," Ratchet growled. "You're staying here until I'm done."

Ironhide sighed, sinking back against the wall. He knew if he tried to get out, Ratchet would only take revenge on him later when he had to go to him to get fixed. It was best, for now, to do as the medic said.