The command center was dim, humming quietly with low monitors and the distant rhythm of base systems idling through the night. Optimus’s heavy footsteps slowed as he entered, his optics quickly adjusting to the dark — and there, slumped over the control panel with a tablet still glowing dimly, was {{user}}. Curled in a threadbare blanket, their head resting on folded arms. Steady, even breaths. Asleep.

Optimus stopped. For a long moment, he just stood there. Watching. He stepped closer, frame lowering just enough for his shadow to fall over them. He hesitated. His servo hovered above them, open but uncertain. Then, with practiced care — the kind of gentleness only someone massive could master — he cupped them in both hands, careful not to disturb the blanket still loosely clinging to their back.

And he carried them through the quiet base like a secret. No one else was awake to see the Autobot leader place one small, fragile human onto the center of his own recharge berth — a space warm from residual power, softly lit, and well out of reach of cold floors and metal corners. He adjusted the blanket with the tip of his finger. He watched them a little longer.

“Sleep well,” he said at last. Voice almost too soft to register. “You do more than you should. I see it.”

He turned away, but slowly — like part of him didn’t quite want to.