Empire
Ironhide:
Cuckoo's Song
"Why are you doing it?"
He stops his daily routine of weapon cleaning and battle training to look at his young charge. Pale eyes full of curiosity look back at him as if he were able to hold all the answers in the universe. Such loyalty, especially when found in children, is not something he will ever be very comfortable with.
"Doing what?" he replies, already counting the soft ticks of his cooling armour to keep himself from going idle in the way his old training sergeant always proclaimed to hate the most.
"That," the boy says and orders his face into a mien of exaggerated wide-eyed adoration. "You're always doing it when he's here. Why?"
"I wasn't even aware I was doing it at all, my heir." And there is no reason which would be able to force his answer. No reason whatsoever.
"I've read your file."
He becomes very still, not one millimetre of his frame moving but for the silent and slow intake of air. Exactly how he came to accumulate this habit, he has long ago decided to not think about. Too many contacts with foreign species can to that to a soldier.
"You are Decepticon, but you went into the army like a conscripted slave, like a drone even. Why that, Ironhide? They would have let you into the flyer academies."
His snort, carefully hidden in a cough, is louder than he intended it to be. Like the rapid fire following a silent storm. "A line's honour is not much help to grow wings, kid."
The boy – Prime's Heir, never merely a boy, slag it all! – Megatron shakes his head in denial, as if the motion alone could frighten away all unwanted thoughts. It produces a pang of guilt in the other's heart. Time for damage control.
"Flying in a ship is bad enough." Picking the child up and swinging him around in great circles seems like a good idea to Ironhide. There are never enough chances to make the young ones laugh. "Why would I want to do it on my own?"
From behind he can hear another laugh, this one more reserved as if there were no clear permission to let it out. Prime's Heirs are never far from each other, after all.
With a bellowing laugh, the kind of laugh that often sounds more frightening than happy, he throws Megatron high, high, high into the air. When the small body lands on his back he already has the other brother in his arms and walks towards the Heir's rooms.
They are nearly asleep, looking far younger than they are, when he arrives there to put them into their recharging harnesses. His fingers linger on their heads, touching fragile exo lines in an absent minded caress.
"That way," Megatron whispers. "Why are you always looking at him like that?"
Ironhide can only look to the side, at a picture taken during one boring state affair or another. There the reigning brothers are captured for all to see, Prime and Lord Protector forever united in tradition and duty.
"Because he is who he is," he says. "Because he is exactly who he is."