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Velocity shuttered her optics at him several times, a little thrush by what should've been a very predictable question. Her own smile was a little forced as well, and she hoped that Optimus wouldn't notice that she probably looked... a little worse for wear with regard to proper recharge and refueling habits since her recent adventure in the lava fields.

"It's been, um. It's been good! Really good, actually!" She lied, like a liar, and shifted guiltily in her seat. "How about yours, though? I hardly really remember what it's like to really be able to be spontaneous like this sometimes, you know? I came here straight from passing my medical exams to be a doctor, and from there went straight to working in the medibay. So this is! Nice! Thank you for indulging me. Truly."

As someone who's own recharge and refuelling habits leave much to be desired, Optimus would be highly hypocritical to bring Velocity's own up to her. This wouldn't stop him, but fortunately his current line of thought lies with her own fatigue being the unfortunate common that all medics suffer. He remembers how the ones he knew would not respond well to being told they should try to rest a bit more. As chipper as Velocity is, he would presume she might feel the same way about being told how to conduct herself.

Not that he doesn't care and want to say something, though.

"I too have had a very strict schedule to adhere to for the last few decades," he says lightly. What he did with GHOST did have some variety, but the bones were always the same. Endless meetings, endless missions cleaning up. "Congratulations on passing your exams. I hope you find this a source of pride."

Young, then. Very young.

"This is not an indulgence. We are meeting on equal footing as two mechs in the same situation. Have you much planned for the rest of the day?"

Velocity topped her head curiously, before her optics flickered. "I am! Really! Though it, um." She shuffled a bit, and gave a little laugh. "It took me ten tries to pass. Is that odd to say? It probably makes me sound like a miserable doctor," she muttered, and started to hunch a bit before she forced herself to stop and meet his optics again.

"But, um! That's why I'm proud, actually! It was the reading and writing parts I was struggling with, not the knowledge. So when I found out about verbal tests, I did fine! Really fine! So it mattered, you know? All of the effort wasn't a waste of time like- Well, like I thought."

She then brightened up again, at least a little. "I'm going to be prepping, actually! I'm going on another mission with a friend of mine! And I think this time will go much, much-" Her smile faltered, and shrugged. "It will just be good. That's all."

"Quite the opposite. It makes you sound like someone so dedicated to the health and care of those around you that you did not let anything stop you from learning to help. It's admirable."

Optimus stays sitting bolt upright in the seat, to an almost caricature level of someone sitting up straight. He has examples to set, don't you know!

He also thinks that her tutors possibly should've known to suggest the verbal tests earlier, if they'd paid the right amount of attention to her needs, but that's not a very Prime-like thing to say, so he doesn't.

"I am sure it will go fine," he says with a smile that wouldn't be out of place on a mannequin. "Do you know what the mission will entail? Perhaps I can offer some advice."

Velocity jumped a little in surprise and stared at Optimus. "Not many people have said that to me before," she said slowly, thinking of Riptide and Ratchet and Nautica and Windblade and, in his own way, her favorite of the Megatrons. He wouldn't have invited her along if she really was stupid, right...? "Thank you, it- That's... really nice..." She hunched a bit, feeling overwhelmed for no good reason. He was just being nice!

She then shuttered her optics uncertainly at his next question. "What? Oh! Well, I, um-"

She shuffled a bit in her seat, but while she was guiltily casting about for a reasonable sounding lie, a thought occurred to her. It took her a bit because she wasn't exactly the best at reading nonverbal cues (or verbal ones, either, if you asked her former classmates and professors and) but slowly it percolated that Optimus wasn't being genuine. At all.

Her expression fell, and Velocity looked away, one arm coming up to hug herself. "You aren't- you aren't making fun of me, are you? Only, everybody used to. They used to pretend to be friendly and wear fake smiles when they invited me places or complimented my research papers or... everything."

He's patiently waiting for her to answer (or not, it seems) the question, but her own takes him by surprise. Optimus's expression becomes a more genuine frown of concern as his finials droop, trying to work out why she would think that.

"No, I would never..." he puts a hand to his face. "Is this another battlemask issue? Would you prefer if I had my face covered?"

Velocity lifted a hand at once in alarm, already thinking she'd done something wrong, again. "I- oh no! No, it's- It's not- Your face is fine, you have a very nice face and it's shaped! Like a face! No, only if you want to, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to make it worse!"

She hugged her other arm to her stomach, too. "It's just... I'm not good at reading people until it's too late, and you seemed- I'm sorry."

As much as every internal script he has is telling him to go back into PR Mode, Optimus resists it. It would clearly only make her feel even worse about all this! It throws him off a bit because he always falls back on PR mode and it always works. He could try talking to her like she's one of his Autobots, but that feels slightly... disrespectful.

"I apologise. I do want to be here, or I would not be. I would never try to mock you." He puts a hand to know of his windowpanes as he says this, near over his spark. It's regrettable to him that it's his actions that have unsettled her so, even if he didn't expect it. This time, he doesn't let the smile return to his face. He doesn't want her to think he's being ingenuine again. "Would you like to tell me what it's like in the medibay? Your experiences thus far, if you'd like to."

Velocity wavered, but the apology was reassuring and he did seem really nice so far. She then gave a start, optics going wide. "Oh, it's wonderful, it-" She shifted a bit, but her face lit up at being asked to talk about one of her passions. "Every day is new and exciting and just interesting! If there were medical journals here to submit things to I would have started writing things already, as best I can anyway..."

A little laugh. "It takes me a long time to get the same amount of things out that somebody else would, but it's still worth doing, right? But um, I'm a general practice doctor as well as a surgeon, so my days vary a lot. Though, um," she shifted a bit with a wince, reminded of the disastrous first meeting with Monk and Starscream and Chill, "sometimes I say the wrong things. Or too much things. A lot of a lot too much... Things just pour out, you know?"

"Perhaps it would be worth writing it all down anyway? I find that sometimes goals set for oneself can offer a small amount of independence where you might not have any."

Not that he often feels like everything is out of control and spiralling away from him into deeper depths he won't ever be able to get out of because of the choices he's forced into making, or anything. Not at all! He's fine.

Optimus hums as he listens, interested in even a small peek into the life of a medic on the ship. "It's natural to make mistakes. Necessary, even, to learn from them."

Velocity blinked up at him. "Maybe," she said slowly. "I just thought... You're supposed to submit it to places, right? Go through the rules to get things peer reviewed, it's how it's supposed to work. And if I can't do that, it's-" Her mouth worked for a second as she struggled to articulate the thought that she wanted to cling to at least one thing from home, before she shrugged.

When he said what he did about mistakes however, her gaze skittered away. "I can't afford to," she said quietly. "Well... you know the old saying amongst medics, right? When we make mistakes, people die. When I make them, it's that much harder to convince myself that everybody wasn't right about me. Can you imagine if I bungled something and somebody died...? There'd be no coming back from that. Not for me."

"Theoretically, yes, but perhaps there'd be some way to keep it within the ship's professionals while it's Cybertronian related? Unless you're starting on things that're relating to the organic anatomy..." he says with a slight incline of the head. "I would also happily read anything you write, even if my input would not be able to comment on any of the medical content. Advanced field first aid is about my limit, unfortunately."

Whatever his expression is currently, it becomes slightly tight while she continues speaking. Optimus understands quite unfortunately intimately how you lose part of yourself when someone under your care dies. Sometimes, even, when you feel like you have nothing left to lose.

But she's not experienced that, and he wouldn't be keen to mention it anyway. Optimus is glad she hasn't had to see someone on her operating table die and understands slightly better why she seems so nervous.

"What if you didn't bungle it?"

Velocity looked almost stunned at the suggestion that he'd be interested in anything she had to say about medicine, and almost asked again if he was making fun of her before she bit it back. "I- If you want to?" She asked cautiously. "I'll forward what I make to you. If I end up making anything."

Venocity then shrugged and looked away, only to glance back at the last question. "Of course I will!" She said with a short, humorless laugh. "No one can succeed at everything forever, right? And even if that wasn't the case... I always mess up everything. Sooner or later my bad decisions and worse instincts will meet up, snd I'll irrevocably break something or someone. Haven't you ever met someone who was just? A mistake? That's me. I'm just running as fast as I can to outrun that realization. Some days I even manage it."

"I would be happy to," he says, and pings her his comm channel to underline this. He feels if he was to confirm that then get distracted and forget to share it, she might believe he was lying to her again.

His expression pinches further as she keeps speaking, many of her words hitting his spark in a way that he finds uncomfortably familiar.

"No, I haven't," he says firmly, slightly sternly even, as he feels so strongly. "Because there is no such thing. You are holding yourself to far too high a standard, Velocity. Would you think the same of any of the medics you work with, should they make a grave mistake?"

Velocity winced and shrunk down a little. towing with one of the energon cubes she'd preemptively ordered for them.

"...No," she admitted, looking away from him. "I'd say something nice and try to comfort them, because death is an inevitable part of the work. That's what one of my professors said. 'You can't separate out being a doctor and being the last set of optics a lot of mechs are going to see,' she told us. I just wish I was-" She wavered, about to say 'anybody else but me' then sighed. "You're right. Sorry. For making our lunch awkward. I really did just mean to welcome you to the ship."

He looks down at his hands where they're folded on the booth table for a minute. Optimus thinks-- this sort of wound that's been open within her for so long is not going to be helped within a single conversation. He can be consistently supportive, though. He will be. His Autobots don't usually look to him for emotional matters, but it's still his duty as Prime to do everything he can for someone in need.

Again, he finds himself deeply unimpressed with her tutors for not noticing something like this. Optimus doesn't presume med school to be easy, but surely the very basic standard for any education system is to look after the charges?

"It is fine," he says, though it's not really. "I understand some of these feelings far better than you might first imagine."

But he doesn't want to speak of his own troubles.

"I don't consider this awkward. Nothing is on fire just yet, so I'll consider this a success." This time, he does smile. It's genuine, though. "Do you usually greet new arrivals?"

Velocity's self conscious wince briefly turned to one of concern, but then she couldn't help but laugh a little as he continued speaking, tucking it behind one hand. "Oh, oh good!" She sighed in relief that he didn't think she'd ruined it, and gave a second, wobbly laugh upon seeing his smile. It looked real. Felt real. It was... nice. Comforting. "Though I think awkward covers a bigger range of things than arson," she smiled.

"And um, not often, actually? Not as often as I'd like to, anyway. Between my studies on other forms of life similar to ourselves and the hours I put into the medibay, I don't usually have the time to greet more than a fraction, but..."

She looked away again. "I haven't really been here as long as others, but... even I know that things around here tend to be either boring or unpleasant a lot of the time, and I just- I want to try to change that, if I can? At least a little. Let people see a friendly face instead of being left to fumble their way around without any help." She was clearly thinking of her schooling, but she didn't know Optimus was, as well.

"Perhaps," he says, smiling again and dipping his head. It's clear these movements are far more genuine, rather than something he's doing because he feels those are the practised movements he should be making. "But nothing quite as severe."

It's kind of her to take up meeting new people in between her own duties, he thinks.

"That's a noble reasoning for it," Optimus is definitely thinking of when he got the Matrix without anyone to guide him, as he expects was the case for every other version of himself, but he doesn't think of it for long. "It is... very difficult to emerge from the bridge and find out that we are stuck here, away from home. Have many responded poorly?"

The smile Velocity offered him in return was relieved. She dropped her arm from where it had come up to hug herself, and lightly tapped the tabletop with her fingers.

"None with me yet, but I'm sure it'll happen eventually," she shrugged, "but I've accessed what is freely available from the security feeds, and people, um. Can get a bit?" She shifted. "That's one reason I want to. The space bridge can be disconcerting and scary, and maybe if there's somebody around to greet them as or soon after they arrive, it'll be, I don't know, better? Just a bit."

"...I did notice a lot of patches on the walls and floor when I arrived," And almost added to one, had his self-control not been as strong as it is through necessity. It doesn't do for the Prime to have a tantrum, no matter how much he wants to scream sometimes. "I would hope your good luck continues; it isn't right for people to take their emotions out on others, even with this being as distressing as it is."

He looks down at his hands again, pressing his fingers together.

"I would be happy to assist you if you ever find yourself struggling with anyone, but I must warn you that I'm a relatively divisive figure."

"Primes can be, right? I read that about the war since I've got here, that back on Cybertron things were super complicated and weird and bad? Or do you mean being uh, you? Specifically? You seem really nice to me, and you're probably better at talking people down than I am, so... I would appreciate the help! If and when I need it!"

She smiled at him. "I hope you don't regret it, and maybe even that nice things will happen because of it! I'll make sure of it!"

"Mmm... all of the above," he says with a slight wince. Maybe slightly less the specific version of himself rather than just being an Optimus, which is a wild concept in itself. "Certain things and certain lines that exist between us because of the war cannot be solved with just being nice... but giving those who arrive panicking something better than the datapad provided is a good start."

Velocity isn't unlike the Terrans, in this regard.

"I won't regret it, Velocity. I trust this."

She smiled again, relief filling her up like bubbles. "Thank you," she said with plainly earnest gratitude. "I'm not the best at talking to people a lot of the time like I said, and- and even if I do all the talking anyway until I call for your help anyway, just knowing I have you willing to help me is... it means a lot, a whole really big amounts of a lot."

"You're really good at being reassuring," she added with a tip of her head and a shy little laugh at complimenting somebody like that, the way she sometimes wished for, herself. "It's a really nice quality you ought to be proud of."

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