Except you did, and your face is flaming red as you slowly turn to him, apologies springing to your tongue as you imagine with a sinking heart the thrashing you’re going to get from your human handlers when they find out you’ve insulted the leader of the Autobots. Oh god, the Decepticons are going to take over your planet because your parents divorced when you were young and then your father died and it’s been so, so long since you had anyone in your life who made you feel like Optimus does, safe and cared for and wanted. You had started to take it for granted, how gentle he was with you, how it healed something deep inside you every time he picked you up in servos you’d seen rip into Decepticons as if their armor was tinfoil.

You didn’t even feel a flicker of worry anymore in the moments Optimus, a being the size of a living building who could crush you by accident, moved around you with thunderous, titanic footsteps. And when he moved you with the confidence of a father absent-mindedly tugging their toddler out of the way of danger.

You’d gotten too used to it, had come to crave it. And now you went and ruined everything and - no, you have to fix this RIGHT NOW.

I, I’m so sorry, it’s a human thing, sometimes we get words wrong, I apologize sir. You can’t look him in the optic. Maybe he’ll take your lowered eyes and dipped chin as the act of apology, submission, desperation it is. Your heart is pounding and even in the cold air of the base, nervous sweat is breaking out on your skin.

-He’s silent. Why hasn’t he said anything?!

You hold your breath as Optimus’ huge shadow falls over you, and his servo moves closer. One finger bigger than your entire body brushes under your chin, tipping your head up so you have to look at him. Dreading what you’ll see, you capitulate.

And he’s -

The look on his face is not like anything you’ve ever seen. No, wait. You’ve seen it once. When Bumblebee was badly injured, and Optimus stayed by his side around the clock until he was out of danger, talking to him in deep, soft warbles and trills of a language you didn’t understand.

Why is he looking at you like that?

You are welcome, ambassador, is all he says, but you don’t miss the way he lets his servo stroke gently - fondly - brushing your hair out of your eyes, before turning and walking away. Leaving you on the scaffolding that leads to your office, as his footsteps reverberate through you.

He speaks to the others, briskly interrupting their joking, wrangling them like a herd of cats as he changes the subject to the patrol assignments. You look after him, a series of complicated feelings bubbling up in your chest, none of which let you get a word out. Eventually, you turn and make for the shelter of your office, to hide yourself in emails and reports.

Unaware as you go, due to the increasing distance between you - of the tendrils of energy reluctantly wisping away from you where Optimus’ powerful EM field had wrapped itself around you, as intuitively and automatically as it had wrapped around his sparklings so many millennia ago.

You couldn’t pick up on what he was thinking - not yet, anyway, you were sharp and intuitive and empathetic. But he had to wonder, how shocked would you have been to know, as he went about his duties, part of his processor was taken up with thoughts of how fortuitous it was that both your species had found something they needed, in this alliance of mechanical and organic life?

How long had it been since he’d held something small and soft and so alive, so precious? Was it ever since he had doomed his people to a slow extinction?

Such thoughts were kept strictly to himself; these organics are sentient, deserving of respect, and you are an adult by your own people’s reckoning, even if his spark aches with a painful warmth now to know you feel this connection, too. Even if you seem even less willing to acknowledge it than he is - and he will follow your lead. Or at least that’s what he tells himself.

The others aren’t fooled; that laughter had been directed at him, though he doubts you realize that. They know him too well, see his solicitous treatment of you for what it is, what it really means in their society.

Ratchet huffs and comms him on a private line.

Just tell them. You’re not going to chase our allies away because you’re going broody. And it’s not good for your systems, fighting those subroutines every klik. I doubt it’s good for them, either.

Optimus pings him a thank you and a message not as sardonic as he could have made it. Your wisdom is appreciated, old friend.