A two part follow-up to my previous Transformers and Aventure Time fanfic All That Is Left, albeit this one is a full-fledged crossover with more emphasis on Optimus Prime instead of Finn and Marceline. Still, Finnceline fluff and Optimus-as-father-figure. What's not to love.
For those of you who don't wish to risk delving into the depths of my previous postings, here's a summary of the previous story: Decepticons attacked Ooo and killed the whole thing, the other Adventure Time characters went out like total badasses, and Finn and Marceline were rescued by the Autobots in time for Optimus to get all noblebright and angsty over humans being gone 'cept for these two, setting the stage for some Finnceline-centric Hurt/Comfort goodness.
I'm really astonished by the attention this story has gotten; people have made fanart and comics for it, and that is...uh, oh my God, I can't describe how that makes me feel, if I do I will explode from joy. I seriously will. Joy-splosion is a serious threat, people! And heck, this was written almost solely because people were asking for more information on the timeline of the fic and stuff, and it got me to thinking. Mostly it's because I was getting requests on 'what happened next', espicially by you, The Stinky Foot; THIS NONSENSE IS YOUR FAULT.
It was going to be a big one-shot, but I decided to split it up. Normally I have reservations against that kind of thing: I like big long stories and one-shots, and I dislike it when people complain about it being too long (longer stories means there's more to read!) but I'm trying to get in the habit of writing shorter things, and I really wanted to post something right away, so I chose to post this in two parts. For my frequent reviewers who disapprove of story-splitting, I apologize, but the story must flow. (I fail at Dune references. Yo.) By the way, I'll try to include a few references to the comics and stuff made for All That's Left; let us play a rousing game of Spot The Reference, ladies and gents.
Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers or Adventure Time.
...
The stars shone brightly enough through the massive window before them that they could have illuminated the entire chamber even without the truck-sized lights in the walls and floor, and sitting on an upraised portion of the roof of a small building floating several dozen feet above the ground and wide enough to support six giants upon it's weight was Marceline and Finn, the smaller and younger boy curled so tightly to her that he might well have been trying to disguise himself as a bump on her side, and the arm she had locked around his shoulder was so firmly clenched on him that she might well have been forcing it on him. Being apart from each other was a notion they found intolerable and terrifying, and even a matter of inches was far too much space sometimes.
Clinging to each other in the face of all probability and the death they'd left behind them was a small of surviving. Perhaps it was unhealthy and certainly disturbing to some, but Marceline didn't care about any of that.
Her mind wasn't on that sort of thing now, anyway. The two of them beheld the view in front of them with solemn and quiet faces, changed since Ooo had been lost and left only the two of them behind as a testimonial that humanish-kind had ever existed. Finn, still short and blonde through the ragged remnants of his hat, watched the glorious expanse of the nebulae and pulsars the ship they now lived in was going to move through at unimaginable speeds. (Well, he couldn't imagine them, anyway.) He was so close to Marceline he could feel the slight inflations of her phantom-breaths, feel the extremely faint beatings of her heart stirred up in his presence and it was enough to make the all-too-familiar aching part from his face into a faint smile as he tilted his head up through the rich spread of night-black hair falling over Marceline's back and most of him, the great mass of hair moving like it was alive and curled protectively around him. It moved some, and his gaze moved was irresitably attracted from the stars to a visage he plainly found more significant: Marceline's face, his eyes studying the sharp tilt of her jawline, lingering on the sharpness of her fangs and the darker blue-gray of her lips, finally centering on teal eyes half-lidded in fascination, dark bangs falling over her forehead in a spikey mess.
She was already looking at him, a concerned smile for him. It was far past time for him to have gone to sleep, as proscribed by some scholars in the now nearly-useless art of human physiology, but he'd stayed up for reasons that eluded and infuriated Marceline, but she tolerated his stubbornness regardless. Their gazes locked and the vulnerabiltiy that had left his face more careworn that it ever should have been slipped almost entirely (but not completely, never completely these days, he was too scarred on the inside and the ouside and so was she) and he smiled even more widely at her, and it struck her how it's awkwardness was overturned by the open adoration present in all of his expression. Her own expression was even more intense, emotions running as hot in fierce as only a vampire could manage in the heat of the moment, and it was perhaps a testament to the weariness that had settled over her that she only smiled. It was a smile just as intense as his, though more guarded, but just a smile. The expression was very similar, both in intent and affection, and where her's posessesed a protective assertiveness, he had a childlike adoration so profound it stunned her sometimes.
And even so, the deep-rooted affection born on a all-too-recently dead world (and taken bone-deep root in the time since, blossoming into a magnificent bloom that had become nearly all of their sanity and self-image) was very much the same. In so many regards, she and Finn were just the same.
They'd been sitting there for a while, just watching the view, Marceline patiently waiting for Finn to admit defeat and go to sleep, and when Finn spoke it was the first thing either them had said for a while. "Pretty," Finn said, the word slipping before lips that barely opened, as if afraid of murderous retribution from the universe if he dared speak up too loudly. It was unclear if he meant the stars, Marceline, or both.
Her lips quirked, not the least because Finn was starting to talk more frequently and honestly. It was progress of a sort. "Yeah," Marceline agreed, no matter if he meant her or the stars, and a smug grin as she assumed that he most certainly did mean her. Her already powerful semi-hug tightened, dragging him even closer to her, brushing his head along the portion of the side between her bust and her shoulder. He snuggled in, the side of his head sinking peacefully on her, and they both made a small sigh of contentment.
Neither of them needed to talk much at the best of times, and right now, in that little quiet time between lingering grief and stubborn shock, there simply weren't any other words to think of. Even with their world destroyed, their friends and family little more than memory, they had one another, and that was good enough for them to a degree that several psychologists they had spoken to found disturbing. Invaribly, their thoughts of 'myself' turned back to the other; Finn and Marceline, the concept of self-identity increasingly defined by their relation to the other, almost all that mattered to them strictly related to the well-being and happiness of the other. They twisted and chafed at being apart, melding together until it at times seemed that they were a unified whole split across two bodies, one young and and male and wounded and so fiercely protective, the other older and female and scarred and so madly possessive. Winding around each other, coming closer as they bled together, regret and loss thicker than blood and binding them far closer than anything else might have in normal circumstances. The fury of losing the people they loved, the pain of living every single day still half-expecting them to suddenly be there again and the fresh wounds anew at the knowledge that they were gone and would never come back...and then there the other was, still there and intact and more than willing to soften the pain.
Perhaps now they were truly functionally incapable of really living without the other. The madness of grief had been subsumed into a lesser, gentler madness, love and need mixing together so that something pure and good had formed the shape of it, turning what might have been genuine insanity into a firm tether rooting them to reality. It probably wasn't healthy. It certainly wasn't sane at all. But, in the circumstances, it might well have been the best thing for them. Codependency had it's faults, but at the least they still had each other.
The idea of being alone was worse than madness; when Marceline turned her mind towards the more cruel of the 'what-ifs' and thought of Finn dying in the final death throes of Ooo, it was all she could do to rip him out of their bed and just hold him until the shiverings and borderline sobs stopped cold. She knew it was crazy, and she really didn't care at all. She'd promised him that she'd be there for him, and he had promised that he would do the same for her; winding tighter together, they came closer to staying sane. There were worse things, skulking in the shadowed places of their minds, gnawing on every scrap of self-doubt and battered ego, all too willing to grow larger and welcome in true madness. Love and family, regardless of how slightly off-kilter it was, kept them intact.
Marceline, not so long ago, might have shivered in quiet satisfaction at Finn's inch-near proximity, back when she was still wrestling with what Finn meant to her and still needed to sort out her feelings for him. This was no longer the case, and she found herself thinking that he was still too far away, not nearly close enough, distant enough to set her teeth on razor-sharp edge and need him there; the feel of his skin was an addiction, warm and alive and all hers, willing property to her delicately exploring fingers. The smell of his breath was a reminder that her Finn was still alive, defying the odds with every fresh breath, and the sound of his heartbeat were renewed promises between her and whatever Powers there were that ran the universe and, against all the apparent odds, had something benign in mind that it really wound turn out okay. And then some days she just felt like curling up with Finn clinging to her and lying down, holding him so tight they just totally fused and he was drawn into her and just stayed there forever in a kind of willing consumption, safe and perfect and hers forever and quite apart from her growing suspicion that getting her planet blown up had given her issues.
And then some days she could just hold him and let him hold her and sit a while, listening to the universe go by and be content in it all. Those were the very best days, and those were the days like today. Marceline sighed, not quite at ease enough to consider herself content, but she was still feeling pretty good all things considered. Not quite close enough to real happiness, not with everything still weighing on her mind, but everytime she thought about that she kept remembering that she still had Finn and that perked her right up.
"We should be asleep, you know," Marceline remarked. "You more than me, anyway."
"Hmph," he said, still peering up at her and trying to stifle a yaw, squirming and shifting beside her when she gave him a sudden squeeze for that impertinent answer. "Sleep is for nerds and...uh, super-nerds! Yeah."
"Uh huh," She said, unconvinced. "You're lucky I went along with this window-watching thing. Just 'cause it's pretty doesn't mean I'm gonna put up with it so much longer."
He gave a gentle head-bump to her side that was supposed to be a nod made difficult by his position. "As you command, my Queen!"
Marceline snorted. "I'm not anybody's queen," she said gruffly, rolling her eyes. "...Don't got anyone left to be Queen of."
"Yes you do," Finn said, with quite but unexpected fierceness. "You still have me. Milady."
Marceline jerked her head at him, mouth slightly open and unsure whether to deck him or kiss him for that or both, and she settled for blowing a raspberry at him. "That puts you under my command even more than you were, henchman."
"I know," He said, and from the sound of it he found the prospect rather pleasing.
"Good that you're used to it. Now scoot a bit closer, you're too far away."
Finn blinked, perhaps acknowledging that his waist was curled into the swell of her hip, his arms were wrapped around her midsection and his head was resting on her side. This was still not enough for Marceline, and she pulled him in until his legs aligned with the outer curves of her own legs, the whole of him neatly conforming to her. He offered a single solitary squeak of shock and she nuzzled her whole body against him, instantly at ease and comfortable. After a moment of tense inadequacy, he quieted and snuggled against her, shivering a little bit. "You know," Finn said quietly. "It's not so bad here. We've made friends and stuff."
Images passed through Marceline's head, of the multicolored machine-gods that called themselves the Autobots, that had spoken to her and been kind or stern or behaved more strangely as the weeks and months had gone by; amiable Hound, small and green and so interested in the way their bodies worked (and with the growing suspicions that the Autobots wanted them to produce a new generation of babies, Marceline's easy-going interest in the matter had spawned a embarrased rant from Finn centering around how he just knew that if he had babies with robots they'd fart sulfer and that amused both them and Hound to no end); acrophobic Silverbolt who kept asking Marceline how she could stand to fly when she was made of vulnerable squishy parts; brash Chromia and her habit of ambushing Marceline out of nowhere for 'dueling practice', something that Marceline actually appreciated since she hadn't had a good fight in way too long; brutish but totally awesome Grimlock, who Finn had taken an unexpected shine to in spite of the warrior Autobot's frustrations with sometimes being followed around by a squishy human boy and a vampire lady; and then...HIM. The greatest and foremost of them all, the one that had seen them through the storm that had taken them when their world had fallen, the machine-god that had saved them from it's destruction, a seeming embodiment of everything good in the world.
Because of them, Marceline kept being reminded that apart from Finn there really were still good people in the world, and it was a thought growing more profound as she was building herself back up. It's okay, she was thinking more often these days, and it was a good thought. It's all okay.
An increasingly familiar noise broke through her disorganized cloud of Finn-oriented thoughts; the sound of large mechanical joints moving against each other with nearly organic smoothness still at a scale audible to her ears, not quite clanking but close enough, and due to the Autobot's different frames she was begining to recognize who was approaching based on the very sound of their impending noises.
This was so quiet she could barely hear it, and that alone made it incredibly distinct. A massive form, practically gliding through the massive chamber, clanging footsteps knelling out a steady pace like bells announcing the arrival of a benign god. The sounds of something that was so old that even she, a thousand-year-old vampire expected to continue to live even longer, drawing nearer, all attention directed to it in loving obidience for all of their sarcasm and easy-goingness, the mech so solemn and calm and Marceline wished that her people had looked at her like that-
No more time for regrets. No more time for self-pity or thinking about all the things that could have gone better but didn't. Not here and now, she thought as she turned to see a form that was so large she barely needed to do so while Finn nearly slipped out of her arms in excitement (but not completely so, Marceline's arms were safe and good and everything he ever wanted), and an unneeded breath froze in her throat as it did nearly everytime she beheld him.
The clanking slowed, and she beheld him in all his magnificent grandiosity, the machine-god that walked among the lesser immortals, that had come to Ooo in it's last moments to avenge their fallen friends and people and slain scores of deceiving monsters in a matter of moments. Saving them, avenging their friends, and protecting the last two survivors of humanity all at once.
Blue optics glowing softly at them, set into a noble gray face under a blue helmet-like head structure. Antannae where ears would be on a human, rising up like the points of a divine crown. The sections at the side of his face where his faceplates slid out to cover most of his face in an intimidating and fierce battle-mask, now retracted to reveal a solemn and kind expression, gazing down and them and Marceline could breath, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but stare at their savior with an awe that would have once made her laugh. Before him, in the face of the idealism and virtue that radiated off this compassionate machine-god like sunlight that did not burn her, the jaded cyncism gradually built up over a thousand years of people making the same mistakes as their ancestors cracked apart. She could honestly believe when she was in front of him, could almost see a perfect future waiting for her and Finn and everyone else, just waiting to be made by their hands and will, and in those moments when he was in front of her, she honestly knew that there really were good things in the universe, things of immense world-shattering power, and that they were truly blood-strong good.
This mech, Marceline had been told, had that effect on people.
Optimus Prime, commander of the Autobots, vanguard of the doomed assault upon the Decepticons that had set-up Ooo for it's annihilation and personal savior to Finn and Marceline when he struck down the Decepticon Shockwave attempting to capture them for unknown but certainly hideous purposes, and self-appointed guardian of the last humanish things left in the wide expanse of existence (and possible supporter of the romance he saw between them with the intention of eventually convincing them to reproduce), inclined his head towards the two of them, hands kept behind him and looking inexplicably awkward for a moment. "Hello, your majesty and Finn." Marceline grunted, his continued insistence on using her pointless title grating on her. "It is good to see you outside of your quarters. Even as late as it is."
That was all. No further remarks about how tired they ought to be or suggestions that they should get out more or any obnoxious comments that would have infuriated her. Just this gentle and quite greeting, stilling any possible distrust that Marceline might have held. "...Hi," Finn whispered, eyes wider than Marceline thought possible. He stared at Optimus with a open-faced and totally unabashed look of such complete awe that Marceline normally associated with the way he looked at her that she might have felt a bit jealous if their private moments didn't keep her secure in the knowledge that the full share of Finn's hero worship was reserved for her, as it should be.
Under the gaze of Optimus Prime, Marceline squirmed a bit awkwardly, suddenly as shy as a tween girl who had been afraid to tell her father anything in the fear that she would be found wanting (and she had always been found wanting; sometimes too needy or human-like or too reluctant to take revenge on the boys that threw rocks at her as she should have). "Not gonna make a habit out of it," she muttered. "Finn just wanted to see stars again."
Optimus turned his great head towards the window (really a portion of the chamber that had turned totally translucent to see outside) and nodded slowly. "Ah. I understand. Even so...it is still heartening to see you wish to do something like that."
Finn smiled widely, wiggling about and suddenly pushed his face into Marceline's side, bashfulness totally overcoming him. He murmured something and continued wiggling about in joy, and if she had spooky mind powers she just knew he would have been thinking something like 'ohmyGlob HE'S TALKING TO ME'. Marceline rolled her eyes and gave him a brief pat on the head, tolerating his moment of fanboying.
Neither Finn or her had been out much since they'd come to their little understanding in the cafeteria with the other refugees, perhaps a month or two ago; Marceline wasn't sure, her sense of time all but thrown completely out of whack. Outside the apartments the Autobot called Perceptor had assigned to them (and which, funnily enough, were the very same floating building they were sitting on) was too dangerous, too risky for a lot of things. Inside the apartments was their domain, their territory, their home. In there they made the rules and had a little microcosm of Ooo-That-Was; things were safe there, sealed up into a nice little space of nothing but Marceline-and-Finn. Predictable, pleasant and perfect, half-understood desires to rebuild their little family starting with their sanity had compelled them to stay and make a home.
Marceline wanted a family and the Prime knew it; he'd breached the subject of her and Finn having a family to her a few times, never obliquely or bluntly but circling around the question, making her more comfortable before he dared to ask; it was not a matter of survival of the human species (and she was close enough to human to make it work), because that simply wouldn't matter in another generation, and anyway Optimus had alluded that he had some of his best science officers working on that particular problem, but of what the two humanish things wanted. He'd made it clear in his private talks with Marceline that he wanted to create circumstances where they could live the rest of their lives in peace, and raise a family if they wished. (That he was clearly quietly giddy at the prospect was something that amused Marceline, even as the prospect of having babies with Marceline at some point gave Finn a hyperventilating fit even before Marceline had been forced to directly ask him if he knew how babies had been made. An uncomfortable but hilarious explanation had followed, and he'd gotten pretty twitchy for a while.)
But no, she didn't think she and Finn were ready for children (certainly not at his age) yet, but the family she wanted right now lay in the assurance of Finn's safety, having him there to keep her comfortable, and the both of them being happy. The small but appreciated goodness of just the two of them being together even after all their mutual traumas. She wanted to be there for Finn, and to have him there for her. After all that had happened, she didn't think that was too much to ask, even if they had burrowed up in there and retreated into each other for a long time.
(She remembered a lot of crying. Leaning on each other's shoulders and embracing so tightly it squeezed the tears out until they were both soppy-faced and exhausted and feeling the pain so acutely their hearts felt bruised. Crying was good, but there always seemed to be more tears left.)
For a moment, Optimus Prime regarded them with an expression that, on that alien face, Marceline couldn't decipher. She had seen many strange things throughout her lifetime, and the faces of the mechanical lifeforms that had taken them in and sheltered them from the madness that had murdered their planet were not so different from a human or candy person or indeed most of the humanoids of Ooo. For a while, Marceline couldn't understand what caused the delay between the perception of the Autobot's moods and her understanding of them, and in time she had come to understand that it was not a question of appereance, but of character: the Transformers, the Cybertronians, both Decepticon and Autobot alike felt emotions with an intensity that even vampires or humans, some of the most emotionally extreme beings of Ooo right alongside fire elementals, could even truly comprehend.
It clicked in her head; the expression was that of simple kindness honed and built over millenia of warfare enough to know the preciousness of even a single life, and directed by a concern that no mere being of weak flesh could ever hope to contain without exploding from the purity of it. It was compassion enshrined in metal, pure benevolent authority described in the smooth and noble shapes of living machinery, and the little lonely girl that was still part of Marceline, so badly in need of a father that truly loved her, whimpered to be the subject of such a look. She was old enough to see far more than her share of compassion and heroism long before she met the dynamo of humanity that was Finn, old enough to begin to suspect that goodness was a force in and of itself, perfect and all-encompassing and so close at all times she could taste it's reality, but never had she seen it so radiant and vibrant, shining from the Prime's gaze like the Spark-glow of his optics, even as she knew that she had seen it's kind before: she saw that goodness each and every day, in the begining of the day when she first saw Finn looking at her with affection and awe, and again when he went to sleep in that small glance he cast her way as if hoping to secure her to reality and that she might never slip away from him like so much had. It was love, of different character from both machine-god and boy-hero: from the Autobot it was excessively paternal and even a touch shy, and from Finn it was that of an ideal mate in the making and of romantic love still in the flower of it's use, but in the very core of their concern and fierce protectiveness, they were alike. 'I value you,' it said at it's root. 'And I shall fight against a universe that would do you harm until my very body is dust or rust.'
Once, when she had still been unsure of the Prime's intentions, had bluntly asked him why he spent so much effort in sheltering and caring for two humanoids of a lost world. The answer he had given her was both so complex and so simple that she had demanded clarification; why, she had asked with her voice knotting up in frustration over her incomprehension, did he care so much about her and Finn when he barely even knew them. And without skipping a beat or the slightest hint of trickery, as though he found it astonishing that she even needed to ask, Optimus Prime had told her, "Because someone ought to."
Not because they were the last remnant of a planet he had called home ages after his home planet had been laid to ruin by war, as had been when she and Finn had been pulled fresh and bleeding from Ooo's wreckage. Not because they were the last hope for a further generation of humanish kind (and the possibilities both frightened and excited her). Not because of any accident of fate and genetics that had led to them being of this or that species, for he would have cared for and protected them just as fiercely as he did for any other lost refugee rescued by his Autobots and brought to safe harbor aboard the Ark (and he did love them all so dearly, and Marceline simply couldn't see how anything could maintain such intense compassion for so many things he barely knew, and she knew just as well as all of them that the Prime would die for the least known and accomplished to live even one more day).
Simply because she and Finn were alone in this universe now, and Optimus Prime did not wish for this to be. He cared them, simply because he did care for. No reason, no rationale, simply compassion in all it's intuitive magnificence. Marceline considered heself quite unsentimental, and the thought still struck a chord in her. Sometimes, it was an effort not to cry at the thought of someone simply caring for her when she had done nothing to deserve it.
Her doubts of the Autobots and their commander remained for a time, but they had suffering a mortal blow from those four simple words. Such simple and yet profound kindness struck her to her soul, and it sounded very much like words that might have come from Finn if he had been older and wiser, and to deny something like that would have been to deny Finn himself, in all his goodness, and to do so was treachery and villainy on a scale that wounded Marceline to even think of.
And at last, she had come to understand something.
Optimus Prime, just like the boy she cradled to herself, was something that she barely knew the words to describe. And mere description was insufficient, and nearly felt like sacrilege. 'Good' was acceptable, but it was used for so many things, it couldn't possibly embody the wellsprings of virtue and heroic love that those two simply were by nature and choice. Altruistic? That was true, but hardly the whole of why they did what they did. Noble; yes, they were noble, but that implied certain forms of passive authority relating to kingdoms and royalty that they simply had no truck with; Finn had always existed outside the chain of command, wandering in and out of it as he pleased and befriending those on all levels, and the Prime was as far beyond such paltry things as royalty as gods were above the dirt that men walked upon and simply were in all their resplendence and glory.
In spite of it all, Optimus Prime awed Marceline. In a long lifetime where she had done so much because it amused or thrilled her, Optimus Prime and the simple fact of everything that he was past the metal frame was an honest and simple thing that defied everything she had come to believe about the essentially meaningless nature of the world. His burning belief that all things could truly become Good, the rule of benevolent law, and all beings living together in peace and freedom would have seemed like a child's dream, if she had even bothered to think of it's like before, but when the sermons and passionate speeches dripped from his lips like commandments of love and honor from a god, she understood perfectly how this one bot had led his army of machine-heroes for millenia in an all-out war against the genocidal horrors that had destroyed her world and thousands more like it; his belief burned in him like the nuclear heart of a star, a light that did not burn but inspired and guided the confused and lost from their suffering, bringing reason and drive to those who would have been lost in darkness and regret. From certain doom and loneliness he had delivered them, and this undying loyalty he showed to each and every one under his command or protection was returned in kind, and she thought that he didn't know the full extent of the borderline worship he inspired in others, and if he did it would astonish him.
Marceline knew that the beginings of such perfect loyalty had begun to awaken her a long time ago and had already taken root. In Finn, it was already so potent that she felt a surge of jealousy when she saw how intently he hung on the Prime's every word (and she intuitively felt that Finn's worship ought to be reserved for her and her alone, but she did not begrudge him his idolizing), and she was following fast. With anyone else, it would be have laughable. With Optimus Prime, if he suggested it to her, she thought she might storm the gates of the Nightosphere itself and lay waste to all within it, if only he gave the command. Here, part of her whispered with tears in it's eyes, was the being that she had always wished her proginetor could have been like, and try though she might she couldn't deny that the sentimental side of her that kept Finn so close thought of him as a being she could call father and feel no shame nor regret. After all, here was a being that would not abandon her, dismiss her, call her hopes and motives and daily life into question, but simply love her and guard her and those she cared for.
Caught in the grip of an exhaustion that came more easily to him day by day, Finn wriggled, his head squirming around on her leg until it found a more comfortable position and settled down. Well, Marceline thought idlely, she certainly knew that there was at least one young boy who was so good and noble as the Prime (or perhaps it was the other way around). And some said that women were drawn to men like their fathers. And in that case, she'd had a host of self-centered, oblivious and disrespectful swine that used affection like it was a drug, and at last she found an honorable and compassionate hero that fought for everyone and everything with all his heart and soul. Optimus and Finn, she thought, were very much alike. And it was good that after all the horrors she had seen that there were still such good people in the universe. Sometimes, when she was in a more sentimental mood, she wished that the universe deserved such perfect men that did nothing but good.
That thought made her smile then. It wasn't worth the pain and loss, of losing everything she should have had, of the lost days of growing older and watching Ooo move on and her friends settle down and their grand-children being born and those grand-children's descendants living onwards. But it was still good to see such incredible goodness still extant in her life outside off myth and legend and nostalgia.
Optimus Prime looked at her a touch more intently, optics shimmering with what she thought was curiosity (and the Prime thought everyone was interesting, and she didn't wish that kind of personality flaw on anyone) and she sincerely hoped he wasn't so good with people that he knew every single thought she had just had or she would simply have no recourse but to explode and spare herself from humiliatiion. (And then Finn would have to go through life as the guy who'd had the one girlfriend in all of existence who had actually died of embarrasment and that would be a truly sucky legacy to leave behind.) She thought she saw the glimpse of a smile on that alien face, but it was gone before she could be certain.
The Prime spoke. "May I stand here with you two for a time?"
"Huh?" Marceline blinked at him. "Uh. Uh, sure. I guess." She hastily looked aside as the Prime approached, standing right next to their apartments and gazing out the star-shrining window as they had done earlier. It was hard to tell from her position and his giant frame, but an askance glance suggested that he was standing with his hands on his hips in an unconsciously dynamic pose.
She gave a glance at Finn, who was struggling to stay awake in the presence of Optimus in spite of an exhuastion that ought to have made him fall asleep several hours ago. Probably he wouldn't approve of the Prime's subtle sense of dramatics if he knew about it; in the fullness of mental health, Finn would probably convince Optimus to stop being quiet and restrained with his heroism and embrace the hammy-ness. Marceline actually shuddered a little bit at the thought.
"It is beautiful, isn't it?" Optimus said.
"Huh?" Marceline said.
"Of course," Finn said automatically, now looking squarely at Marceline and none other, eyes wide with the special kind of adoration reserved solely for her, so deep and intense in it's purity that she sometimes honestly thought that she'd go back in time and steal him out of that forest for herself if she could. Marceline chuckled, soaking up the unspoken praise and love that dripped from the boy's mere closeness and carefully dragging her clawed fingers through his hair, blunted clawtips ever so delicately tracing the marvels of his scalp, her own phantom-pulse echoing the vibrantly young and alive pulse under her hands.
"Hrm," Optimus said, giving them a sidelong look. This time, Marceline was absolutely certain she saw a smirk from the Prime. "I was speaking of...well, that, actually."
"You were talking about what-now?" Marceline said. At her side, Finn's forehead crinkled in faint bemusement.
"That," Optimus said again, gesturing towards the window. Distant nebulae beckoned through it, fainter star systems just barely visible in the steller light, and the pulse of quasers at the conrer of a screen, and there she saw a planet at the edge of a screen.
"Oh, right," Marceline said. "Yeah. Stars." She licked her lips nervously. Even shielded from UV radiation and sparing her from sunlight-related death, she wasn't altogether comfortable with this sort of view yet. And that still wasn't about to stop her from turning on the view for the hell of it. Her next statement was almost a whisper. "I don't think I'm ever gonna get used to seeing that stuff. It's just too freaking big." She snorted. "Psh, I sound like such a wuss. But there it is." She shrugged briefly. "Wish I could say something that sounded better, but that's the best I got."
"You never really do get used to it, your majesty, not as long as you keep remembering the full extent of what it is you're looking at. I certainly haven't." Optimus inclined his head respectively at her, still stubbornly refusing to address her as anything besides things that befit royalty even though she was nobody's queen anymore (save Finn, and the boy insisted on that) and that the concept had no relevance to him anyway. "Does that idea bother you?"
Marceline didn't answer right away. Marshalling the correct and honest response was a lot harder than she expected. And not the least because talking to people besides Finn, people she didn't have such a profound connection to that she knew nearly half the things he was going to say before he even thought them, had gotten harder. "I...ugh, I really don't know. I'd think, y'know, that it'd freak me out how insanely huge it all is, but that only lasted a month or two." She frowned in thought. "All those stuff you and your guys tell us about - those movies Hot Rod shows us about his best races on Velocitron or when Sideswipe and Sunstreaker show us replays of their best fights from their gladiator days or the boring culture stories like what Hound goes on about? Or when Grimlock tells us about his Top Ten Awesome Things he's killed, that stuff is straight-up awesome." Optimus inclined his head in a nod, gently instructing her to get on with it. "It, it gets me to thinking. All that stuff. I hear it and I see it and it makes me just think about all the stuff that's actually out there and you guys have been around for so long and gone so many places and even you barely know anything about what's actually out there." Marceline shrugged as best she could without dislodging Finn. "I guess it should freak me out. Make me feel all small and insignificant or whatever little cliche whiny babies throw out when they're talking about it. Me, I just get...revved up. It sounds fun, going around to see what's out there. We hear a lot about what we know is there, and it just makes me want to get my own ship and shoot it as far out as I can to beat everyone else to pushing the whole exploration thing even further."
"It'd be, like, the biggest adventure ever," Finn said suddenly, eyes wide and gleaming, and the weariness in his voice was easily overwhelmed by his zeal, and it made Marceline glad to hear it again after all this time of patiently building him back up from the wreckage Ooo's destruction had left him. He would never be the same Finn she'd had once, but he was still Finn, and that was enough, even if she had to squeeze him with her own two arms to stop him from falling apart into meaty chunks like he would on his own. "Finding everything, seeing everything, just because it's there."
"...Yes," Optimus said, voice gentle and plainly agreeing with Finn on this matter. His eyes blazed with something so uncannily like Finn's that it floored Marceline for a moment. "Yes. It truly is." He regarded Finn thoughtfully. "Sometimes I think, that when the war is finally over, that I'd like to take a crew of scientists and adventurers into the farthest reaches of space and simply see what is left to make contact with. Spreading the seeds of sentience on uninhabited worlds. Terraforming dead planets. Spreading awareness of all species to all life and bringing us all together and that many steps closer to making us all as one."
Finn smiled softly, like he had smiled when Marceline had heard him talking about the hero Billy. "Yeah," he said softly, awed. "That sounds good."
Human and Autobot regarded each other, and Marceline saw how they were so very much alike in spite of the meaningless differences in construction and stature and age. She thought that sometimes, friendship sprouted up very quickly even when you were standing right there to see it happen. She felt a bit left out, actually, and then Finn hugged her tightly just because, perhaps made a bit bashful again, and the Prime turned his attention to her, and she remembered that it was her he had kind words and patience for, never taking offense to her occasional bouts of paranoia or hostility, soothing with balm-soft words, and thoughts of being left out abandoned her then. In being friends with the mighty Optimus Prime, as in all other matters these days, Finn and Marceline were pretty much bound up together in mutual action.
This wasn't the longest conversation she'd held with the Prime, but it was certainly the least serious. And, somehow, Marceline felt that this made it even more profound, and she felt a sense of connection to the mighty Autobot; here was a being who knew age and sadness as she did, and the value of moving past all that and looking forward to what came next, and a sense of a real connection between her and Finn and Optimus became quite apparent. She smiled, even through the thought that she wished that Ooo didn't have to be destroyed before her and Finn had the fortune of meeting this noble and bright hero.
It was definitely felt like things would be well now.