SHOCKOP!!?!?!? OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD YOU ARE FEEDING MEEEEEEE π©π©π©π©
"Orion." THATS INSANEEEEEEEEE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!! (Delighted <3<3)
This is such an inredible slap on my face!!! THEY KNEW EACH OTHER!!
ONCE! There was a time when they looked up to one another and- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Shockwave is smiling. HE IS SMILING!!! HE. IS. SMILING.
Relieved. Grateful. Bro...
And we can't even see Optimus' face.
To me it feels like because we are looking at this comic from Shockwave's pov. To him, Optimus is this hulking figure, leader of a faction, a godlike figure, violent. Has to be. He is everything that Orion was lacking.
To him, Optimus looks nothing like Orion. He is there. He is Orion, in a way, but not really. Not anymore. Just like how he isn't the same bot either. They are both changed in a way that was out of their control. Turned into different people because of power outside of them.
And Optimus might be Orion, but he is not, not really. He does not shine like him. You can't look at him and see him. Optimus is untouchable.
Orion was. Orion did. They knew each other. Even after all the pain, there is something here. No one is privy to it. No one knows it. It doesn't matter anymore, but to them, it always mattered.
Optimus raised the gun. Shockwave can't see his face, couldn't for a really long time, but he knows the colours. He knows the baritone. He knows him. He rests. Puts his head on the barrel. Still can't see. But he doesn't need to see him to know he is there.
Shockwave isn't lost either. Some part of him is still there. He might have lost so many things about him to people, war, to time but the part that held Orion dear is still there. And he is thankful.
He can be thankful for many things. For finally stopping him. For finnaly having a chance to just rest. Or it could be that he is thankful because, after all this time, it is Orion who puts him out. Safety of the knowledge, maybe.
We can't see anything on Optimu's face. Shockwave can no longer read him. He doesn't know who this is. Orion is still there, but not really. He changed too. Because of people, war and time. He is no longer readable.
Maybe he doesn't even try.
But it does not matter; in the end, he is finally stopped by a person who knew him before. Before he was this.
It's okay now. Orion, as changed as he is, is here to help him.
I definitely think that smile is from Optimus' pov, btw. Maybe an old memory got triggered, or he can never forget how SW used to smile; no matter the reason, that smile was seen by him right before pulling the trigger.
I wonder if it hurt Optimus to kill Shockwave using Meg's canon. In a way, hurting him with the bot who used him for the entirety of the war.
