I Walk a Lonely Road (TFP Optimus Prime X OC Fanfiction)

Chapter 40: Black Queen

—Optimus' POV, Hospital—

He had seen dozens of his friends and comrades hospitalized before. Injuries were not unusual in a war. But seeing Aria of all beings just lying there? Completely unresponsive, cold, unmoving and pale as ice? It felt ten times worse.

Upon first seeing her lying in the hospital bed, Optimus' spark felt like it stopped completely in that moment.

Over and over, he replayed the scene in his mind in slow motion, watching as Aria was shot multiple times by an unknown assailant before somehow managing to escape and drag herself all the way to a hospital, half-dead. At least, that was what the doctors, who had theorized about had happened, said since Aria still had not woken. She barely clung to life as it was.

He shook his head. Honestly, what had she even been thinking, dealing with MECH all alone? Why had she not come forward sooner? They could have helped! Did she not trust them enough? Optimus was beginning to feel like there was no logical explanation. And again, Aria was still unconscious, still recovering from several bullet wounds as well as deadly poison mixture, which had been found laced on the bullets according to the medical examiners; so he couldn't ask her any of this himself.

Taking a seat in the closest chair, Optimus sighed shakily. A habit he had picked up from Aria, he realized wincingly.

Was this how Aria felt when he had been dying?

They had said that she was lucky to be alive. Not only did the bullets miss any major points in her body, but she apparently possessed a strong enough immunity to poison—via a tentative method called mithridatism—that she was able to fight off the poison mixture long enough for them to deduce what type of toxins had been used and find the proper vaccine to help treat it. She was lucky that the poisons did not work well together and had begun counteracting each other halfway through trying to Aria's system. And for whatever remained, the hospital managed to find a suitable antidote for what she had been nearly killed with.

A shiver wracked his frame. According to some of the hospital staff, he had been so close to losing her a few short hours ago...and that frankly terrified him. What if it happened again? What if he wasn't there to save her? What if...she didn't make it?

He shook his head, trying to clear the harrowing thoughts from his processor.

No, she needed to make it. She just had to.

Unsure of what to do, Optimus reached out, hesitating slightly before taking one of her hands in his own. It felt almost as cold as she looked, hand barely retaining a hint of warmth as he felt the sluggish beat of her heart beneath clammy skin. Spark breaking all over again, he intertwined their fingers together gently, kissing her knuckles with all the tenderness in the universe, and praying to Primus that she would awaken soon as he took in her unresponsive features.

"Please, Aria, wake up soon. I..."

—Aria's POV, Dream/Memory—

The first things I heard was low murmuring. But with the fog of sleep still clouding my senses, their words evaded me. They sounded deep, masculine perhaps.

Then, the memory of what happened lazily drifted to the forefront of my mind and I shot bolt upright in bed. Wait bed?

Panicked, I looked around, fully expecting to see the leering faces of the gang known as the Phantom Lords leering down at me or maybe even the bars to the jail cell they use to detain runaway kids like myself in the police station.

Instead, I found myself laying on a bed of blankets that had seen better days, inside a dilapidated old building with two older men watching my every move. A squeak of surprise left my lips—an act that would only serve to fuel my future nickname the Russian would give me—as I scrambled backwards, freaking out.