#bulkop

With the battle at Thunderhead Pass over, all that remained was to pick up the pieces… collecting the dead and salvaging what hadn’t been ruined beyond use.

Normally, the Wreckers left that sort of work to other Autobots. Their jobs were to make the messes, not tidy up, but Optimus Prime had asked the team to stay behind and assist.

The Autobots were more and more shorthanded every day, so Bulkhead had remained. Wheeljack had promised to come back and pick him up later.

Now, knee-deep in mountain rubble, he found himself doubting his part in this war.

Stone crunched underfoot as he shifted it to search for anyone unfortunate enough to have been caught in the landslide that had brought this cliff-face down. Well, Wheeljack’s explosives had technically brought the cliff-face down.

Bulkhead had spent most of his life building things, constructing both that which Cybertron needed, functional infrastructure, and that which Cybertron desired, monuments and crystal gardens. Then, after joining the Wreckers early in the war, he had spent so much time destroying, sometimes even bringing ruin to something he had once created. After a time, it had become too easy to simply get lost in the violence.

 Maybe there were survivors, simply trapped and in need of help. There had been some Vehicons in this area when Wheeljack had decided to bring the cliff to its knees. Bulkhead tried to cling to the weak hopeful thought as he dug, looking for signs of any other Cybertronian, living or dead.

So far, not even a smear of shed energon caught his optic amongst the rocks.

Perhaps those Vehicons had gotten out of the way in time, but then again, they could have just been buried further down.

The sound of rubble dislodging further down the slide caught his attention. What if someone was digging themselves out? Bulkhead turned around to face the noise, only to see that he was being approached, not by a half-crushed Vehicon, but someone he had only ever seen from a distance.

Prime.

Why was the leader of their entire army coming over to him? Maybe he just wanted a status report. That was probably it. Wreckers were mostly autonomous so Bulkhead rarely had a direct CO on the field to relay a report for him.

He straightened up, readying a salute, dropping the boulder in his hands off to the side in an area that had already been cleared. Primes, historically, had been stuffy, detached warrior-caste nobles, and while Bulkhead didn’t doubt Optimus Prime’s moral compass, he fully expected there would still be a noticeable class divide to bridge. That was always exhausting.

“Sir—“ Bulkhead’s deference was cut off with a waved hand as soon as Prime crossed into conversational distance.

“At ease—It is… Bulkhead, yes?”

It took him a moment to relax from his stiff, ready-to-salute posture, instead dropping his arms to his sides. That was hardly a comfortable position, keeping his arms rigid just in case he was perceived as being too casual, too… low-caste. It wouldn’t do to be seen as “another uppity worker reaching beyond their station.”

“Yes, sir.” Minimal words in the highest register available to him. Keep the higher-ups happy. Why care about his name though?

“Good. Well, Bulkhead,” Prime began, with a level of hesitance that Bulkhead would not have expected out of someone like him, “I… wanted to thank you for your assistance with the recovery effort.”

Thank? Why would he do that? Rough work like cleaning and Wreckers assignments were thankless jobs that the brass expected as a matter of course. Bulkhead shifted his weight uncomfortably on the spot.

"I'm just doing my duty, sir."

"No, Bulkhead, you've gone above and beyond." By checking for crushed Cons under the rubble? "I know your unit doesn't usually remain behind to take responsibility for the fallout of your missions and you, like your brethren, could have chosen to leave this labor to others."

Yeah, Bulkhead thought, Wheeljack never liked sticking around to clean something up when he could make it blow up instead.

All the same, he wasn’t sure what he could say in response… or if there was even anything to say.

A stock phrase was all he had.

“Thank you, sir.”

Being directly commended like this by a superior officer, especially the Prime, was something he wasn’t used to. Normally, the brass, both in his current role as a Wrecker and previously as a construction worker, would maybe say a nice word or two broadly. Never to him directly, of course, and never with any meaning behind it. It was all perfunctory, his labors taken for granted.

Times like that, Bulkhead knew the Cons had a valid point or two, but not enough to sway him to the rest of their games. It was a shame there was no third option between burning it all and maintaining the status quo.

“No, I mean it, but—”

But the more he watched Prime stand there uncomfortably, like a new-build lost and separated from their mentor at a work party, the more Bulkhead wondered if maybe the status quo wasn’t what this mech wanted out of the conflict. It was oddly charming, a little disarming even. That challenged his ability to keep up a “perfectly behaved, well-mannered soldier” façade.

So many Autobots, especially senior officials, were merely reactionaries, but Prime had known Megatron personally, been friends even. Prime, not having been one of those noble, high-caste mechs fresh out of the Well, probably had a different perspective than all those who were simply afraid of change.

“—There is something else I need to ask you.”

“Yes, sir?”

“After seeing your work on the battlefield and here in the pass afterward, I have a proposition for you, Bulkhead.”

It was almost as though the high-caste register was affected, the words a little uncomfortable. Not practiced and polished for social acceptance in the same way Bulkhead’s was.

“Will you join my team? We could use someone like you.”

And for the first time since the war began… Bulkhead saw, where once had been only the promise of more destruction, the opportunity to build, to create.

He let his unnaturally rigid posture drop.