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After Mission City, the United States government had given the Autobots allowance to stay in the country. Optimus Prime himself had expressed his desire to stay in Nevada for two reasons: to watch over Sam and make sure no Decepticons targeted him or his loved ones, and because Bumblebee had grown attached to Sam and Tranquility and would have refused to leave even if they were exiled. Secretary of Defense John Keller, who had largely been put in charge of anything to do with the Autobots, had agreed with Optimus' request. A month later Autobot City had been constructed in a rarely traveled area of the desert and only a couple of hours away from Tranquility.
Most of those who lived in Autobot City, naturally being filled with Autobots and the soldiers who had fought alongside them and then been transferred to work in NEST, just referred to it as the Autobot base or just the base. As there were so many humans that stayed on the base, there had been a set of human barracks built to house them at night. Sam and Mikaela had a room nestled at the back for whenever they visited.
Wheeljack, Sideswipe, Jolt, Skids, and Mudflap all landed on Earth about three months after Mission City; Wheeljack and Sideswipe in July and Jolt, Skids, and Mudflap in August. The five had all heard Prime's message and came to answer his call. Wheeljack and Sideswipe had gotten separated from their team, which had included Sideswipe's twin Sunstreaker, but were relatively unscathed upon landing. Jolt had been stuck playing babysitter to Skids and Mudflap for vorns, and when they landed he had needed immediate medical attention.
Wheeljack had become a hit with the humans almost overnight. His popularity had only grown when, after watching the Jurassic Park trilogy, he had created the Dinobots. Grimlock, the self-proclaimed leader of the trio, was a Tyrannosaurus Rex; Swoop, the smartest of the trio, was a Pteranodon; and Snarl, the human loving one, was a Triceratops.
Wheeljack was also known for how often he made things explode. His lab had quickly become a forbidden zone for the humans because of how often things caught fire, exploded, or generally went haywire. Loud noises followed by the ground shaking and smoke pouring out of the lab became commonplace, and the soldiers often placed bets on whether he would need medical attention and how many new swears they would learn from Ratchet.
And yet, the base had been oddly quiet for two weeks now. No explosions, no fires, no tremors, and no yelling of any sort. There was also no Wheeljack, as he remained secreted away in his lab for most of that time. The rumor mill had practically ignited as humans and mechs alike tried to figure out what was going on. Ironhide was certain that meant that when the inevitable explosion happened it would destroy half the city, and he had gotten paranoid enough that he had started to follow around his preferred organic so he could protect Will when it did happen. This had only stopped when Will had gotten fed up and gone to the lab to personally drag an answer out of Wheeljack.
Even Sam, who had only been on base for an extended stay twice, had noticed the tension in the air and Wheeljack's absence.
"Wheeljack's been… subdued lately." Sam commented idly.
He was in the recreation hangar, which had been built large enough to fit a good number of the Autobots and humans together. Optimus and Ironhide shared what the humans called a couch but was really just a lot of sheet metal stacked together, Sam was sharing an actual couch with Epps, Ratchet was standing in the middle of the room with Will as they discussed the best placement for a bookcase, and Bumblebee and Sideswipe were arm wrestling on the floor.
"Apparently some mech made some sheet metal into giant human playing cards and taught Swoop how to build one of 'em card houses," Ironhide chuckled.
Optimus shook his helm fondly, "So Wheeljack is afraid to breathe near them, as you humans would say. He hated making any of the Dinobots upset."
Ratchet looked between Ironhide and Optimus with wide optics. This was obviously news to him, as he hadn't bothered to ask why Primus had been smiling down upon him lately.
“Find me the mech who did it and I’ll kiss them!” Ratchet joked, "I've actually been able to get some recharge this week."
While Ratchet and Wheeljack were good friends, Wheeljack also increased Ratchet’s workload exponentially. Wheeljack didn’t try to get hurt when he was running one of his experiments, and even took safety precautions to try and avoid it, but when he did get injured it was almost always severe. With the number of times he had managed to blow himself up, Ratchet was almost always ready to offline him. Many mechs joked that Wheeljack was the sole reason for Ratchet’s terrible bedside manner.
“Well, Ratch…” Sideswipe drawled, sauntering over to the medic and trailing a servo up his chassis, “Pucker up.”
There was silence as Sideswipe smirked at Ratchet. Sideswipe was a whole other processor ache for Ratchet, and was even worse since he had been separated from Sunstreaker. He either picked fights or flirted with any mech that crossed his path. On one occasion, he had even flirted with Sam, but Bumblebee had been quick to chase him off while Sam debated being honored or creeped out. Ratchet was generally his main target, for both the flirting and the fighting, because his reactions were the funniest and the soldiers loved the show down.
“That is perhaps the most useful thing you’ve ever done,” Ratchet remarked. He narrowed his optics, “So I’m going to ignore the wandering servo this once. Next time I’ll take it off.”
“So no kiss?” Sideswipe faked a pout.
Ratchet turned around to walk towards the sheet metal couch and Sideswipe struck. Both of his servos went straight for Ratchet’s aft, and he had just enough time to get a nice grope in before Ratchet squawked. Within seconds, Sideswipe was flat on his aft, clutching at the newest dent in his helm while Ratchet loomed over him with blazing optics.
“Not if Primus himself told me to,” Ratchet spat, and then stormed out of the room.
“Always has to play hard to get,” Sideswipe groaned.
“You’re an idiot,” Ironhide snorted.
“But… the ass is a human thing.” Sam furrowed his brow, “Why bother?”
“Sideswipe likes the thrill of near death experiences,” Bumblebee told him.