Chapter Text
Original post - submitted to Zenxenophilia on tumblr by anonymous:
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Imagine a human on Optimus’ team. Optimus practically treats them like a sparkling, Ratchet is their grandpa and Bee and Arcee are like siblings. This human wants to fight in the war. For earth, for humans, for their family. Of course, cybertron’s atmosphere is dangerous to humans making it difficult for the human to get involved. After begging and pleading to Optimus the human is put under extensive training with self defense and handling a weapon (thanks to Bee and Arcee).
The human is outfitted with a mech suit disguised as a cybertronian. Even inside the mech the human has an armored space suit along with a blaster that can filter oxygen out of Cybertron's atmosphere just in case the mech were to break. It doesn’t take long for the human to climb the ranks(being the ‘child’ of Optimus helps a lot). The human uses a cybertronian persona. Later they go out to the cybertronian battlefields.
This is where they meet Deadlock, Megatron’s maddog, the one responsible for so many deaths to the human’s friends. The Human quickly becomes Deadlocks rival, able to counter all his attacks and save Autobots from his clutches. After a while Deadlock develops a strange liking to the 'mech’, he seems to almost enjoy seeing them on the battlefield.
One fateful day the Human and Deadlock run into each other on the battlefield, it’s just the two of them. Deadlock has trained a lot more after the first few encounters with the 'mech’ and the 'mech’ sadly couldn’t keep up, however, it didn’t stop them from doing a number on Deadlock.
Deadlock it’s smart, he makes sure to damage the mech’s legs to most so they can’t run anywhere. The one thing that he enjoys about fighting the 'mech’ is that they don’t seem to feel pain. The mech can no longer stand up or move, it’s stuck. Deadlock oddly enough doesn’t kill them.
“You would make a great Decepticon”. … W-What? Was that an offer? Oh hell no! The Human would never join this monster after all he’s done to their friends! The Human gets out of their mech, much to Deadlocks surprise. What a lovely twist! The Human uses their blaster to keep damaging Deadlock, ducking for cover. Even out of their mech they were a threat to any cybertronian, however, they weren’t as fast as one.
Deadlock didn’t use his weapons, that would make it too easy, instead, he scoops the Human up ignoring the humans screams. He takes away their weapons and destroys their comlink.
“Well well well. Who would have known? This explains a lot…” Deadlock forces the human to look up at him. His little obsession, his rival, was an organic… and a pretty cute one too!(Though he’ll never admit it) The Human struggles in his grip. “Now now. I don’t think you should do that” His grip tightens around the Human. 'It would be a shame if your armor were t’ break…’ the human stiffens, without the armor they would suffocate. “Heh.. I think I’m gonna keep you for a long while friend…”
Deadlock keeps his rival on him at all times t the decepticon base. No one is allowed to touch them but him. Most decepticons see the Human as a living trophy to Deadlock, a pet, not knowing of Deadlock’s obsessive desires.
Megatron is quite surprised by Deadlock's new pet. Megatron knew the mech that the human-piloted was Optimus’ favorite bot, not only would the Human be a good bargaining chip, but they probably know all the Autobots' little secrets. Megatron will let Deadlock do whatever he wants to do with the Human for now, after all, he earned it. Deadlock was happy with this.
Meanwhile back at the Autobot base, Optimus is filled with grief. His precious human, his child, gone without a trace. He didn’t know if they were dead or not, Optimus sends out search parties for them, he regrets letting them in this war, they were too young. Ratchet is constantly checking for signals in his free time, for any sign that they were alive. Bumblebee goes quiet for a long time. He knows his sibling HAS to be alive! They have to be! They don’t die easily. He tries scout on more missions so he can find them.
Arcee is filled with rage. That was her precious little sibling. Her anger is taken out on the battlefield. She questions any con she can for a sign of the human. She’s always training always, looking, always holding back her grief and the ideas that her sibling could be dead or tortured. No one has ever seen her like this.
The human's disappearance is hard on everyone. That kid would constantly befriend and check up with everyone they saw, they were kind, helpful, and eager to learn. It’s dull without them at the base. They’re not there to tell Prowl to stop overworking himself. They aren’t there to help Wheeljack or Percy with their experiments. They aren’t there to jam out with Jazz or Blaster or to talk to and check up with everyone in the base. No one to listen to Ironhide's or Kup's stories. No one to complement Sunstreaker and play with Sideswipe.
Everyone is heartbroken. This base isn’t a base without the kid running around. They can only hope that the human is still alive.
The Decepticon base is another story. The human is filled with information about the Autobots, with the human on their side the war is in the bag. They have coordinates and information on practically every bot in the base and maybe… with a bit of mnemosurgey they could be an excellent Decepticon.
The human is fine. They’re patient. They’re smart, they know how to play their cards, (Perceptor and Wheeljack taught them) they just have to play along with Deadlock and the cons for now. Hopefully, the Human can escape or pray that Optimus will find them. And hopefully, Deadlock has mercy on them.
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My adding to the story:
The room was filtered, much like the human’s armored spacesuit had been. The entire Decepticon base was, not that the human had spent much time outside their room. When they did leave the room, it was for “questioning.” And it was always accompanied by Deadlock. Usually being carried by Deadlock. Actually, always carried by Deadlock. He said it was because he didn't want his human to get lost or crushed under the peds of a careless con. Really, it was to feel their rival squirm in his tight grip.
Megatron had been present for a few of the first interrogations, but other duties or battles made his presence less and less frequent, which was fine by the human. As far as they were concerned, there were more than enough Decepticons around as it was. Using techniques Wheeljack had taught them, they “gave up” the info the cons wanted, just not all of it. It was just enough to keep the Decepticons from getting suspicious, get them to believe that the information that they pulled from Deadlock’s new pet was indeed genuine, but not enough info, they hoped, to really cause too much damage to the Autobots. The human needed to find a way out of this nightmare before the Decepticons caught on to what they were doing. Or before they gave up info that could actually do damage to the Autobots. It was getting harder and harder to keep the vital info they held away from their more sadistic interrogators.
The human loses track of time since being captured. Deadlock had taken their armored space suit soon after bringing them here. “No need for it here, little friend.” His sinister smile always made the human uneasy, but he just laughed at their rival’s defiant expression, putting the suit away in his subspace and leaving for another mission, making sure to lock the door behind him.
When the human had time alone in the room, they scoured every inch for some means of escape. The vents looked promising, but getting to them would be difficult, even if they scaled the height of the berth or the desk, they were too short to reach. They need a better plan.
Meanwhile, the searches Optimus organized finally turned up something. If it's a good something or not has yet to be decided. It was Bumblebee who found it- the mech suit the human had been piloting when they went missing. He brought it back to base and everyone nearly lost their minds! The human, their human, without their protective mech suit?! Their armor they wore underneath was not found though, did that mean they had it and were still alive? The mech was severely damaged, they must have tried to run on foot and been captured. But by whom? And were they still alive now?
Hopefully Perceptor would be able to find out something from the damaged mech to get some clue to the human’s location.
For the human, however, thoughts of being rescued seemed to be little more than a hopeful wish. Deadlock did his best to make sure that any such wish seemed less and less likely. “They’ll never find you,” he tells them. “They've given up looking for you long ago.” Or “Even if they did find out you were still alive, what makes you think they'll want you after what you've done? It was your information that lead us to victory in the Cronus Plains. How many of them did we kill because of you?” Deadlock took great pleasure in seeing his rival’s reaction to this. He smiled, knowing he could break his once-mortal-enemy both mentally as well as physically. Lifting their chin with one sharp finger he cooed, “I told you before, you'd make a good Decepticon. It seems I was right.” He moves closer, a dangerous, hungry gleam flashed in his optics. As Deadlock took a step forward, the human took two steps back. Deadlock chuckled and used mass-displacement to shrink down to just taller than the human.
The human dodges his reach and turns and runs towards the berth to hide. Such a tactic seemed childish, and was doomed to fail, but it was better than doing nothing, it was some show of resistance. Deadlock was a lot… “touchier”... when he was this size, simply because it was easier to be so when the risk of crushing the object of his obsession was so much lessened.
He grabbed the human by the shoulders and pulled them closer to him. “You're tense,” he murmurs, running one servo down their back. “Let me put you more at ease, my pet.” While still holding them so they couldn't get away, Deadlock stroked and prodded, massaging knots in their back and expertly melted the struggling human in his grasp. The human felt both frustrated by how effectively they'd been incapacitated, and blissfully relaxed as the tension they'd been carrying fell away. With what mental capacities they had left, the human willed themselves to make sure they made no moans or hums that would betray their pleasure to the Decepticon.
After few minutes, Deadlock’s servos paused. He turned the human around to face him, holding them close and tight to his chassis. “There now, better?” One servo traveled down the small of the human’s back. The human didn't respond. Oh they wished they could be anywhere but here! They thought of the Autobot base, of their friends, of the bots that had become their family. Could what Deadlock said earlier be true? Had they given up looking for them? Did they blame them for giving up information? They must. The human sure did. As much as they tried to stop it from happening, the human let out a sob. Just the one, but it was one too many.
“There, there, none of that now,” rumbled Deadlock, “What's there to cry about? I've kept you alive. I've taken care of you. I will make sure no one dares harm you. You're one of us now.” He paused, his red optics glowing brighter. “You're mine.” He leaned forward, crushing his lips into the human’s. So taken by surprise, the human tried yelling out, which only made Deadlock squeeze them tighter in his arms, his glossa filling their opened mouth. The human struggled against his grip, but it was quickly obvious that they weren't going anywhere. As Deadlock’s servos traveled across their body, an idea of a plan came into their mind. It was a dangerous idea. It was an incredibly stupid idea, but maybe it was stupid enough to work.
Instead of fighting against him, the human pushed into the kiss. Slowly, carefully, they loosed one arm and reached around to Deadlock’s neck, stroking the sensitive cables. He shivered delightedly as his cooling fans kicked on. After another moment, the human slid their other hand slowly up his chassis to where they'd seen their space suit stored away before. Lights all across Deadlock's body flickered. He reached one arm out to the berth to try to lift them both up onto it.
It was quick, before Deadlock could process what happened, the human pulled themselves away from him, opened his subspace compartment, yanked their suit out, and with one steady movement they had learned from Arcee, wrenched his arm behind his back and pinned him face down into the ground. Hard into the ground. They hoped that would be enough to keep their captor stunned long enough to get a good head start. They jumped up and ran to the door. If they could make it to the hallway and find a hiding spot, they could get their suit on and sneak out of the Decepticon base. They'd be free!
The door was not locked, but it was closed and very heavy. They had only managed to crack it open when Deadlock began picking himself up off of the floor. Well, there went their head start. The human gave the door one last shove with their shoulder and started squeezing through. They were just about out when the door completely opened, sending them tumbling to the floor. Deadlock, now returned to his full size, reached down, scooped them up, and tossed them back into the room, sending them rolling across the floor. The door shut again with a loud metallic thud, followed by a click indicating that it was now locked.
“I must admit, you're very good.” Deadlock's voice was dangerously calm, he almost seemed amused. “I've always known you were, the first time I saw you on the battlefield, I found you to be exceptional. A challenge for me after so many boring victories. Where was that again- our first? It's been a while, hasn't it?” He picked up the human again, who groaned at the movement of their bruised body.
“Was… it was just outside... Simfur,” the human gasped, still trying to catch their breath after having it knocked out of them by the throw. “I must say... your hand-to-hand combat... hasn't improved much since then. I don't even need my mech suit to take you.” Now was certainly not the best time to sass-mouth a psychopathic killer robot, but the human was beyond caring. Deadlock only chuckled and held them close, pinning them to him so they couldn't move.
“That may be. I've found I've always done well enough with my weapons though.” He began stroking the human's back absent-mindedly as he sat down on the berth. “Perhaps with a bit of mnemosurgery, you'd be more willing to stick around and give me some pointers.” The human's voice was a bit muddled y Deadlock's hold, but they said something along the lines of “like hell I will.” Deadlock mused to himself about future days with his then-compliant human, smiling at all the implications that shadowplay could bring. “It will be interesting to see how well mnemosurgery works on an organic, but I'm sure it will do wonders.”
With the adrenaline of their failed escape attempt fading, and warm living metal surrounding them, the human felt exhaustion creeping in. Before they completely slipped away, they thought of Optimus and for a moment, they were back at the base, surrounded by the Autobots. Would they ever train with Bumblebee and Arcee again? Would they ever help Sunstreaker feed Bob again? Ever listen to another story from Ironhide, only to be interrupted by Kupp who told them ’how it really happened?’ They hoped so. They hoped the Autobots still wanted them back. “I’m sorry” they muttered as sleep finally overtook them.