Changing clothes were something new to him--sure, they had cloth imported, but the stigma behind it is lost as he walks in. Except for maybe an eyebrow raised. Humans were certainly strange, and the idea that he apparently had one on his team at one point...even stranger.

"It's Impactor."

But he pads closer, getting a bit more on her level as he watches, more looking for any injuries that may or may not be hidden. "Heard you picked a fight with one of us. Have to say I'm impressed."

"Usually they make sense." it's a blunt reply, but Verity would certainly recognize it as being oh-so-very Impactor. He might still have to learn about Moby Dick, but if it's anything like Megatron's writing, consider him already trying to get out of it. Although, the moment he says it, he's trying to figure out if there is a correlation between him and the word.

Nope.

But at that statement, he smirks, leaning back a little to get a better look at her. "You're alive, right? That's victory. At least...to a miner it is." Life was so touch and go, and with everyone at rock bottom, they had nothing left to lose. Winning meant seeing another day. Although any rebuttal was halted at the question to which his eyes shadow under the helm.

"Ngh." A grunt was telling enough. "Can't say I'm the star pupil here."

Okay fine but he draws the line at Twilight, Verity. Even emotionally stunted robots are a better love story. But her words hit him, although not quite with the tone she probably meant. His eyes further hide themselves under his helm, as if he could make them disappear. "Yeah." That's all he's got for the moment, before he'll elaborate.

"Megatron, he's pretty bright, you know. Don't let him know I said that--if it's the last thing that bot needs, it's an ego." And he knew that especially with finding out about their future. Keep him humble, so to speak. Maybe it'd avoid...well, what everyone thought was inevitable.

But that's just as scary.

"He can be a doctor. Damn, he could be anything. Guy like that's got ideals, and a future."

Which leads him to his next, and worst part. "Some of us just didn't get that. Maybe some of us were just...meant to be a miner." He didn't believe in destiny, but he knew what he was good at. Fights and mining were the big two, and nothing seemed glamorous or something he could proudly show his best friend. Not without seeing that smile fade from the poet's face.

"I'm here because they want me here. And maybe a part of me DOES."

A pause.

"Doesn't mean I should be."

"Someone's got to look out for him in this--the other world." There's a vague gesture, knowing full well that Megatron's making quite a future for himself here. But back there? He was shoved around like no one's business, his gentle demeanor more of a target there than something of praise.

And what that caused Megatron to turn into..and how maybe some of Impactor's advice in a dog-eat-dog world might have condemned his friend. How maybe that in proving that you had to fight, he'd encouraged Megatron to, in some way. The questions never ended with this one, and he wasn't one for questions. So for now he'd willingly block them.

But his eyes focus on her when she speaks up again, the yellow optics just as hardened by fighting, although much less traumatized than she remembers. It's hard to break eye contact with her with those words, and they're something he wants to believe.

"That's what he said too--Megatron, I mean." His head tilts back, optics now casting up to the ceiling. "Amazing how all options open up to me...and I can't think of a thing."