Chapter Text
Mirage stood up in his tiny garage and stretched his sore servo’s. His body was still recovering from his incident with scourge and traveling while not in vehicle mode was still a bit difficult. He knew Noah would be in soon to get on his ass about physical therapy, he groaned at the thought. As if on cue, Noah knocked on the door.
“Yo Mirage, you awake yet?” He called from the other side.
“No.” Mirage called back and quickly flipped back into vehicle mode. Noah rolled his eyes with a smirk on his face as he entered the garage.
“How are you feeling this morning?” He rested a hand on the top of Mirage's hood.
“Peachy.” Mirage replied with his usual sarcastic tone.
“Damn, you’re grumpy this morning,” Noah walked over to get his rolling car repair bed. “Have you started your stretches yet?” A loud groan from Mirage was enough of an answer for Noah. He sighed and laid down on the rolling bed with his tools and slid underneath Mirage. “Dude c’mon. You’re acting like Kris now.” He joked as he started doing his routine checkup. “You gotta take care of yourself, like for real man. You can’t take something heavy like that and then just be fine. Recovery takes work. Trust me, I wo-”
“You would know, I know man. I’m just itchin’ to get back out there!” Mirage sighed.
“Well, quit moving for just a sec and we could maybe see about that.” Noah replied.
“For real?!” Mirage jumped.
“Ow! Mirage, I told you to stay still!” Noah groaned as he rolled himself out from under Mirage and he immediately transformed back into bot mode. He kneeled down to his level as Noah gripped his head.
“You knocked me pretty good.” Noah said, grabbing a cold soda from the mini fridge to place on his new injury.
“Nah I could do better than that.” Mirage smirked.
“Dude what the fuck is that suppoed to mean?” Noah asked in a rhetorical tone.
“Nothin’.” Mirage laughed. Making vaguely dirty jokes was his favorite way to piss off his human friend. Noah just looked up at the Porsche with a confused look on his face.
“Whatever man, you’re mad weird sometimes you know that?” Noah chuckled, setting down the soda and inspecting the wound on his upper forehead.
“I’m weird? Hey I’ve been on the human internet and YOU GUYS like some weird shit man.”
“What were you doing lookin at it then?” Noah questioned with an eyebrow raised.
“Hey don’t point the finger at me! That shit is way too easy to stumble across. I've seen things…” Mirage stared into the distance for dramatic affect. Noah let out a loud laugh before turning back to his giant friend.
“Alright man, so here's the deal, you do your stretches today and we can go out tonight.”
“That sounds like you're taking me on a date.” Mirage crossed his arms with a smile.
“Wha- No! Whatever man, just do your stretches alright?”
“Alright alright, chill man.”
“Cool, I’ll be back later. I gotta take Kris to his mini league gaming tournament.”
“Uh, and you didn’t invite me?”
Noah gathered his things and headed out the door. “Stretches!” He pointed at Mirage as he closed the door. Mirage scoffed and threw his arms up in protest.
“Still sounds like a date!” He teased back as he heard Noah’s footsteps leaving. He let out a long, exasperated sigh and threw himself down into a criss cross sitting position. “Do your stretches Mirage meh meh meh.” He grumbled as he sat there willing himself to start physical therapy because despite his hatred of it he really did want to go out with Noah tonight. Before long he was looking longingly at the garage door for a long moment. One little spin wouldn’t hurt.
Before Mirage had fully thought it through, he was already burning out of the garage. “Oh yeah this”ll count as stretches!” Mirage exclaimed as he took a turn way sharper than he legally should have and sped down the long stretch that followed. He drove out to back roads where there were less people going twenty over the whole time. He took another sharp turn into a back alley that led into an open area where Mirage did not hesitate to start doing donuts in. “Whooooo!” Mirage whooped with excitement. He hadn't driven like this since before his lights went out. Mirage drove around doing rather reckless things for quite a while before remembering he was on a time crunch.
He screeched to a halt and suddenly became acutely aware of the time. He didn’t know when Noah would be back and he didn’t want to risk it. Mirage peeled out of another alley way and drifted around the corner, but right as he did he felt a small twinge in his steering module. “Ow, that was wie- OH SHIT.” He hollered as he felt his steering go out the rest of the way causing him to crash directly into a street light. “Oowwwwiee.”
Mirage whined as he slowly reversed back into the road and accelerated to the speed limit.
He drove himself back to Noah’s garage with much more caution than he had left it with. It was now taking him a tremendous amount of effort to turn his steering wheel and it didn't feel too good to do so either. As soon as the garage door closed behind him the porsche turned back to bot mode and laid flat on the ground clutching his side. “Ow.” He complained to himself. He stayed sprawled out on the floor for a few minutes before he heard a knock on the door once again. The bot perked up immediately to sitting position and tried to look like he wasn't in pain. Kris bursted in through the door followed by Noah, both with the energy of twice the people.
“Duuuuude!” Kris exclaimed
“Duuude!” Noah returned his excitement.
“Mirage I made it into the finals!”
“Dude whaaaat! No way, this can’t be the same Kris.”
“I got third fastest to beat the first 5 levels of Mario!”
“Third fastest! My boy is learning from the best.” Mirage put his hands on his hips causing him to wince slightly. He glanced from the side of his optic to see if Noah had noticed only to see the concerned look Noah was shooting him. Slag, he definitely noticed.
“You good Raj?” Noah examined Mirage from afar to look for any reason for his wince.
“Uh, yeah? Why do you ask?” Mirage replied, attempting to seem like he had no idea what Noah was talking about.
“Oh, well I don’t know it looked like you winced for a second there.”
“No I didn’t.” Mirage answered too quickly.
“Wha- yes you did I saw you.”
“Nuh uh.”
“Bro what, yes huh. I literally watched you.” Noah argued. Mirage was quiet for a second.
“Nuh uh.”
“Por el amor de Dios… Mirage, what did you do?”
“Nothinnnggg man! Chill, I'm literally fine!” Mirage protested as he scooted away from Noah. He continued to get closer until Mirage couldn’t back up anymore.
“Lift your arms.” Noah ordered him.
“Why would I do that?” Mirage laughed. Noah just looked at him with a done expression. Mirage sighed and slowly lifted his arms all the way up, as he did it sent a shock of pain down his arm to his side. He hid his wince but it was obvious he was uncomfortable. Noah sighed and took another step towards him to examine the giant bot more closely.
“Open up.” Noah sighed and knocked on Mirage's chest plate.
“Whoaaa getting a little intimate here.” Mirage's joke was met with a swift kick from Noah.
“Just let me see.”
“I’m out. I’ll see you guys later after you are done doing… whatever it is you're doing..” Kris scrunched his face and sped walked out of the door.
“Kris it's not like that-” Noah tried to protest but he was already out the door. Noah slowly turned back to Mirage with his lips pulled together in a tight line.
“What I say?” The cybertronian shrugged. Noah just sighed once again and went to grab his tools.
“Cmon, let me make sure you’re okay.” Noah pleaded, looking more sincere now. He would never admit it outloud, but ever since the incident with scurge Noah has had an intense paranoia of losing Mirage again. He also couldn’t help but feel like the whole thing was his fault and that it was his responsibility to fix it. Mirage averted his optics to the ground as Noah grabbed his flashlight. “Open up, please.” Noah asked. With a guilty look on his face Mirage opened up the top plates that covered his side and held up his arm so Noah could inspect him. “Dude you fucked yourself up.”
“Nothing my boy Noah can’t fix though, right?” Mirage looked at the human still inspecting his side.
“I mean yeah it’s just a matter of reconnecting some things but you pulled it real bad. How did you even do that?” Noah inquired and Mirage got quiet again for a moment.
“Uuhh, would you believe me if I told you it was from my stretches?” Mirage gave a sideways smile.
“Well, maybe if you hadn't worded it like that.” Noah admitted as he turned to grab some more tools.
“Oh. Slag. Well in that case I might have gone joyriding… Just a bit…” The curly haired man’s eyes rolled back into his skull at this information.
“Well damn dude were you doing donuts at every turn or something?” Noah turned back and started reconnecting the parts Mirage had torn inside himself.
“Yes.” Mirage confessed. Noah stopped in his tracks.
“Are you serious?”
“I mean, yeah.” The bot shrugged.
“Dude you- Ugh. Do you…” Noah struggled to find the correct words as frustration bubbled up in his chest. “You can’t just do shit like that, because now you’ve just set yourself back.”
“Okay but like, I’d say it was worth it.” Mirage chuckled in a facetious tone.
“No, it's not! Because if you keep going like this you’ll never fully recover and-”
“Whoa, I know you’re my bro and all but I don’t really need another Optimus being up my tailpipe all the time telling what I can and can’t do.” Mirage said as he clearly seemed annoyed. Noah tensed slightly and took a breath before continuing with his work.
“I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m trying my best to help you but you just can't accept the fact that you are sick-” Noah froze after his own words left his mouth. Mirage lowered his arm slightly to look at Noah.
“I'm not Kris, Noah.” Noah let his frozen breath leave his body in a slow sigh before he finished up the last tightening he needed to.
“You’re all good now.” Noah said in a monotone voice. “Feel free to leave, but for my sake don’t blow another gasket.” Noah grabbed his coat from off the ground and walked to the garage door.
“Noah, I-” Mirage started. Noah halted in the doorway for only a few seconds before letting out another breath and closed the door as he walked away, leaving Mirage in the garage by himself. It was safe to say there would be no going out tonight.