"You've got it?" Sideswipe asked.

Sunstreaker rolled his optics, "Who do you think I am? Of course I do."

The yellow Lamborghini held up a small vial of clear liquid. His twin grinned and grabbed it. Sideswipe pulled out a cube of energon and poured the liquid into it.

"Now we just put this cube into the reck room and whoever drinks it will be compelled to tell the truth for the whole day," Sideswipe said excitedly.

"This is not going to turn out well," Sunstreaker said with a sigh before walking away.

…

Optimus Prime casual walked into the reck room intending to get a cube of energon before the next battle with Megatron, when the alarm rang out and his com blazed to life. Optimus sighed and hugged down the nearest cube of energon before rushing out of the room.

This time the Decepticons were attacking a mine, forcing everyone to fight much closer than they usually.

"You will never beat us, Optimus Prime!" Megatron yelled.

Optimus sighed tiredly.

"My this sounds familiar," The Prime thought sarcastically. "Next something will go wrong and you will retreat, blaming Starscream. I'm really getting tired of this."

The battle pause as everyone turned to look at the Prime. Optimus blinked in confusion, had he said that out loud?

Megatron growled in outrage, "You're getting tired of this?! If it weren't for you Autobots we would not have to fight at all, but you probably don't care! You're nothing but a privileged noble. You will never understand why we fight!"

Optimus paused at the ferocity of Megatron's response before he laughed. It wasn't like a laugh any of the Autobots had ever heard from their leader, it was almost bitter.

"What do you know of me before the war?" Optimus asked.

Now it was Megatron's turn to pause, "You were an archivist, and since that is such a prestigious position I assume you are of noble birth."

Megatron looked to Soundwave for conformation. Soundwave just shrugged his shoulders, he had no information of Optimus Prime before his Primacy.

Optimus let out a bark of laughter, "My creators were miners."

Everyone froze. That couldn't be right.

"I think I know who drank the truth serum," Sideswipe whispered to his twin as he stared at his leader in shock.

"You idiot," Sunstreaker groaned.

"There is no way that is true. In the old system it is impossible for a miner to rise to the position of archivist," Megatron ground out.

"Not impossible, just extremely difficult," Optimus countered.

"How?" Soundwave asked.

"I got lucky," Optimus said with a snort. "If you can call it lucky. As I said my creators were miners. They worked in a low quality mine and barely made enough to stop themselves from starving."

Everyone cringed at the description, remembering how bad all of the mines were, along with other sections of Cybertron.

"So when they found out my carrier was carrying me, they were less than thrilled. They didn't have enough for a sparkling, but for some reason they kept me anyway. They worked longer in attempts to gather more credits for energon. Despite all they did to try and keep me healthy during development I was still born small. They hoped that I would grow bigger, but with how little energon we had by the time I reached the age where I could work I was too small to work in the mines."

Optics widened. Megatron thought about the archivist he had seen, he had been almost half of his size. He had been too small, to fragile for mining, he would have died within weeks.

"I'm sure you can imagine the problem. Very few jobs would accept a worker from such a low class. I was jobless and my creators were already falling behind in their work due to lack of energon. Soon they would be out of a job too or dead and we would all starve to death."

Many of the Decepticons couldn't help but feel sympathy for the Prime. Many of them knew what it was like to starve.

"That's where the luck kicked in, though for the longest time I couldn't help but think it might have been better to have starve," Optimus said bitterly. "The owner of the mine came to check on it. During his time there he saw me and took a… liking to me. It turned out he didn't just own mines, he owned brothels too, and he wanted to buy me. In their desperation, my creators agreed, thinking that I would at least be fed."

The bots in the mine looked at the Prime in complete shock. To them the Prime was a noble, invincible, almost holy figure. They never would have suspected that he had been brought so low in his life that he had to sell himself to survive.

"So that means…" Skywarp started but was cut off by his trine. They were willing to insult the Autobot leader about many things, but this wasn't one of them.

Optimus seemed to get what he meant anyway and gave a humorless laugh.

"That the great Prime was a whore?" Optimus asked, Skywarp wilted under his gaze. "Yes I was, and I was really good at it. I was a fast learner, almost as strong as a miner, a good size, a good actor, and most importantly I was beautiful."

"But it was almost as impossible to get out of a brothel as getting out of a mine," Ratchet said. "How did you get out?"

"I bought myself out," Optimus said.

"But how?" Ratchet asked.

"I never turned anyone down. Despite what you might think we did have a choice of turning down people who have asked for certain kinks. As a result of so few buts being willing to take on certain kinks that meant that those who were willing to endure them got payed better. So I turned down no kink. Luckily for me I had inherited the pain tolerance of a miner," Optimus almost growled.

Many around him flinched at both the implication and the tone of his voice.

"So I went on that way for many decades, saving as much as I could, working my way up the totem pole. While I did that I also looked for other small street jobs. I ran packages back and forth along with a few other things. Some of it probably wasn't legal but I never asked and my employers never said."

Prowls fingers twitched at that.

"Eventually I saved up enough money to buy myself and support myself for a few months, longer if I lived on the street."

"I know how many of the brothels work. There is no way they would have just let you walk out of there, money or not," Starscream said, optics squinted suspiciously.

"They wouldn't have, but one thing about being a prostitute is that people love to talk in berth, and they say such interesting things," Optimus said slyly.

"You blackmailed them," Megatron said, some respect leaking into his voice. He never knew his enemy had it in him, of course he never knew any of this.

"I wouldn't say that. It was all very legal to the point that if the police had come to investigate it they would find nothing on me. I just made sure that the owner would uphold his end of the deal," Optimus said innocently.

The Autobots looked at their leader in a new light, though for most it changed nothing.

"After that I moved to a different city with a clean slate, a new identity. Not that I was ashamed of what I did but it allowed me to get a job at the docks, a mid class job."

Prowl's fingers twitched again but Jazz nodded in understanding. He knew what it was like to need a new identity, even if it was under different circumstances.

"Wait what about your creators?" Bumblebee asked.

Optimus shook his head sadly, "A few years after I was sold there was a cave in in the mines. They didn't survive."

"Oh," Bumblebee said, shrinking in on himself, Optimus just patted his shoulder and continued on with his story.

"So I started saving up money again, living as cheaply as I could. Eventually I saved up enough for a tutor. You see I wanted to be an archivist, but as Megatron said that was a prestigious position. It was rare to dee anyone other than a noble in that position because of how expensive the education was. Somehow I managed to pay for it and began to learn. My tutor hated me because I was a lower class but he still did a decent job, saying that anything less would be an insult to his skill. It was hard work but I completed the education."

Everyone could see how proud he was of that accomplishment, and he had every right to be. Many couldn't imagine how difficult it must have been.

"Then came trying to get hired. In many ways it was almost harder than completing the education itself. I got turned down by fifteen archives solely because of my class. Eventually I ran out of archives in that city and the surrounding ones. I was about to move to a different city and try again (I had gotten that far I wasn't giving up now) when a kind old mech, who had seen how determined I was, recommended I go to Iacon and talk to Alpha Trion. I had no better plan so I did. Keep in mind I had no idea who Alpha Trion was, so imagine my surprise when I asked for him I was directed to the Hall of Records, the biggest archive on Cybertron."

Ratchet chuckled along with a couple of other bots, they could just imagine the awe in shock at being directed to one of the most famous places on Cybertron, especially after spending his entire existence in some of the worst places in their world.

"I was even more shocked to realize that Alpha Trion was the head archivist. It turns out that the mech that directed me there was an old friend of Alpha Trion," Optimus smiled under his mask at the memory. "He gave me a fair interview and hired me. He trained me and watched as I rose in rank. I was happy. I had accomplished my dream. It stayed like that for a century before the war happened."

Everyone cringed. The war had changed all of their lives.

Optimus shook his head ruefully, "It started as a protest and became a movement, their leader a charismatic gladiator. I attended quite a few of his speeches and was impressed. I archived and studied many of his speeches. We shared many ideals, and after I dug into his history, I found we shared some similarities in our past as well. I watched the movement as it grew and liked what I saw to the point I was thinking of joining them."

That earned a sharp exclamation from everyone. Megatron himself was staring at his enemy with wide unbelieving optics.

"What? Is it so hard to believe?" Optimus asked in amusement. "Though I guess not many remember how it was in the beginning. If the movement had continued the way it was I would have become a Decepticon with no hesitation, however something changed. Slowly the movement became about revenge instead of change. It became violent, cruel. I knew how many of the Decepticons felt but I couldn't condone their methods, so I stayed out of the war. That is until Sentinel was murdered.

"Most of you know what happened after that. The council knew they needed a Prime to have any chance at wining this war. So they began searching. They shove mech after mech at the Matrix, but only those that they knew they could control. They had known that the lower class's situation was bad but they hadn't cared. They like thing how they are. They were hoping they could use a puppet Prime to force thing to stay how they are. The Matrix, however, refused all those presented to it."

Megatron had a strange look on his face as the story continued.

"Eventually they grew desperate. They opened up the temple and allowed anyone to try their luck, and many did, however, they all left disappointed. I never intended to try myself. I didn't want it and didn't think I would be worthy of it even if I did. Instead I accompanied one of my friends who wanted to give it a try. They, of course, got rejected and ran into the an empty room and locked the door. They never did take rejection well," Optimus said.

Ratchet snorted, "Yet they decided to try an artifact that is known for it's pickiness?"

Optimus just shrugged, "I was waiting in the hall for them to come out when I heard a voice calling my name."

That caused everyone to perk up. No one actually knows how Optimus was chosen.

"I felt compelled to follow it. Before I realized it I had walked into the main chamber of the temple where the Matrix was kept. Once I set eyes on it everything else seemed to fade to the background. I barely registered the priests gasping as the Matrix glowed or them running out of the room to inform the council. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the Matrix as it floated towards me, I never even noticed when my chest plates slid open. I blacked out after the Matrix entered my chest, which I was entirely grateful for. I heard later that during the reprograming I only stopped screaming after my voice box burned out."

That cause most of the Autobots to cringe, much to the Decepticons confusion. The Autobots knew how high their leaders pain tolerance was. For something to have him screaming like that? It might have killed a lesser mech.

"After that I was shoved into a world of politics and conspiracies. I learned quickly. I tried my best to remove as much power from the council as I could and tried to fix as much of the lower class problems as I could while I trained with the army. I was doing as much as I could but it wasn't enough. The council made a stupid move that allowed me to remove them but started the war in earnest. At that point there was nothing I could do to stop it, so I gathered the army and went to wage a war I wanted no part of."

The Prime looked exhausted as he turned to look Megatron in the optics, "So yes Megatron I understand exactly why you fight, and I am so very tired."

Optimus turned to look at his troops, "Let's go, this battle is over," Optimus let out a tired sigh. "For now."

With that Optimus Prime walked out of the mine, leaving the two factions to stare at each other.

"I told you that was a bad idea," Sunstreaker whispered to his brother.

Sideswipe looked at the expression on Megatron's face. It was a mixture of shock, understanding, and consideration.

"No I don't think it was."