Thinking about how Jro said that Rodimus would call Drift a Decepticon to get him to reply when Drift doesn’t answer his messages immediately. There’s a lot of backlash against that, but here’s the thing… I think that would be in character for Rodimus, and not entirely because Rodimus is extremely arrogant, hates to be told he’s in the wrong, and talks before he thinks.
In Rodimus’s mind, it’s probably a non-issue: everyone knows, at least vaguely, that Drift had at one point been a Decepticon. Cybertronians in general are shown to be extremely irreverent and prone to joking about things that are horrific or traumatic, needling each other in mean-spirited humor; not because that’s the intention, but because they’re all so thoroughly desensitized to any of it due to having been at war for four million years, and it’s the most unstable of these mechs who for the most part became the Lost Light’s crew. We see characters who haven’t been through the war either unable to grasp the full implications of any of it (Nautica, Velocity,) or outwardly frustrated and taken aback at how dulled out everyone is (Tailgate). And Rodimus isn’t immune to the almost-humorous absurdity the horrors of the war have evolved into in the minds of those who suffered from it and need alleviation. He was responsible for Nyon.
In light of that, paired with Rodimus being the person he is, it’s easy to see that he could either just outright not think about the effect his words might have on Drift or excuse it away in his mind as not a big deal, because it’s conveniently the one thing that always without fail gets Drift to respond to him, or give him attention when he wants it. And we’ve seen multiple times that Rodimus isn’t above taking advantage of Drift being eager-to-please with Rodimus specifically. Ratchet at one point or another calls them both out on that dynamic, telling Drift that he just says whatever Rodimus wants to hear, and telling Rodimus that he takes that advantage.
This would only be perpetuated further by the fact that Drift has done a very thorough job of erasing exactly who he was from the minds of the general public. Sure, people know he was a Decepticon. For the vast majority, that seems to be the full extent of it. They don’t know that he was Deadlock, and a number of them - MTOs made in the mid-late war - possibly don’t even know who Deadlock was, too wrapped up in their own rivalries and battles and the threat of mechs who cast a much more dramatic shadow than Deadlock did. It’d be a name pulled from a history book, someone who was relevant in the Decepticon’s infancy but since had disappeared, so thoroughly that at one point he was marked off as terminated by presumption. And the mechs who were older and might remember Deadlock would have difficulty reconciling the two identities, because really? You’re telling them that Drift, the flake with fancy sword moves and a mouth full of spiritual anecdotes without a solid opinion of his own, was Deadlock? The notorious Decepticon assassin who could kill you in one shot, infamous for being a pain in the aft who’s insubordination was made up for by being just that damn good, who’s kill record was so near-perfect that you were considered a lost cause if even a single word was breathed about him coming for you? Sure.
So Rodimus, who is already prone to letting himself off the hook, has the actual weight of his words alleviated by an environment of Drift’s own machinations. So of course Drift isn’t going to say anything because it’s a good thing if Rodimus considers it such a non-issue that he feels it can be joked about. Drift doesn’t have the benefit of that distance. He’s still hyper aware, every hour of every day, of the weight of his own past actions, of his involvement with the founding of the Decepticons as they are now, of the energon that stains his hands. He’s hyper aware of every move he makes and every word he says because it’s purposefully crafted to be that way. So it hurts and it’s not funny but he’ll suck it up, because it’s better this way. Rodimus doesn’t take it seriously, and the rest of the crew will follow, because Rodimus’s charisma is undeniably infectious and influential, even if he was a bit shallow at times. Insofar that Rodimus’s arrogance and self-consumption perpetuates this dynamic, so does Drift’s dishonesty and self-shielding guile.
There is of course, one other mech aboard the Lost Light who is just as aware of the full extent of Drift’s history, just how far he’s come, and just how hard he’s had to fight - for better or for worse - to be where he is today. That mech being Ratchet, the very mech who later calls Rodimus out on his careless words and tells him, essentially, to treat Drift with more care. Which we see Rodimus take to heart and begin to do in Lost Light, forging a healthier, more equal, and more genuine friendship between them. Because Rodimus does care. He cares a lot. He’s just someone too self-involved to notice the fallout of his actions sometimes, who needs a hand snapping their fingers in front of his face saying hey, pay attention. But he, as always, tries to fix it.
(Honestly it’s not all that different from our own relationship to humor; we joke about being failures, about our extremely low expectations of “paying rent”, about not needing to put a retirement plan together because we’ll all be dead from global warming if Little Lady Rona doesn’t get us first. We do all of these things, and objectively it’s fucked up. It’s not funny. That’s partly why we find it funny, because it’s so absurd.
Inappropriate humor as a means to alleviate stress is a coping mechanism as old as time. And between being constantly compared to Optimus Prime and being on a quest no one took you seriously for to find a group of people who might be mythical for the core purpose of, oh that’s right, reviving your dead planet? Rodimus has plenty of stress. So retreating into himself and not being thoughtful because he doesn’t have the capacity to step back and rethink things isn’t unrealistic at all. Besides Drift must know that Rodimus loves him, right? They’re on this quest because Rodimus believed him about the Knights and vouched for him in a room full of Autobot High Command who outright mocked Drift, so of course Drift has to know Rodimus loves him. Right?
If only it were that simple.)
