Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Can’t believe I’m buying him a car…” Ron says in a proud tone that’s laced with small hints of annoyance
“He’s sure as hell worked hard for it. But, it’s still quite a bit of money.” I force down a chuckle, if there’s one thing I know for sure it’s that Ron is definitely a cheap skate.

My name is… On second thought, I’ll keep my name a secret from you. Make this book a mystery of sorts. Anyway, I was adopted by the Whitwicky family a few years ago. I think I was like 6 or 7? Don’t remember, it’s not that important anyway. Ron, the man who’s currently talking, is my adopted father. He’s a decent guy by my standards… A little sexist too but that’s slowly beginning to change. Regardless, he's a good guy, and would never want to have anyone else be my dad. That’s a lie, having a robot as a parent would also be very cool, but it's close.

“What’s got ya smiling so much…” he pauses momentarily, trying to correct his unspoken words, “kid?” Fun fact about me: I don't have gender. And, not having that in the year 2007 isn’t very common. Both Ron and Judy have a little trouble with the concept, sometimes slipping up and calling me a girl or something similar, but they always try to correct themselves, something I’m very grateful for. Not every day, you’re lucky enough to get adopted by a supportive family…

Tossing those thoughts to the side, my smile widens as my laughter stifles out. “Yo- you’re such a cheapskate!”

Seeing that I’m making a joke, Ron’s old-man laughter starts up, sounding like an old car engine. His laugh has always been funny. “Ya got me there kid.. But don’t go saying that to Judy. That woman will never let me live it down!”

He puts his hand on my head and ruffles my short, brown hair affectionately messing it all up. Damn it, Judy spent at least 5 minutes on that this morning! Letting out a displeased squeal as I tried to get away from the affection, trying my best to protect the lovely work Judy did. It’s all joking, of course, it’s just hair. But, I still feel slightly bad about messing up her hard work and the green convertible we’re in doesn’t help with my efforts to protect it thanks to the very little room in the backseat.

“You’re having all this fun without me!” A voice suddenly says picking me up from my armpits, taking me away from the front seat. “And you’re in my seat!” It’s Sam! He’s my brother and the one Ron’s buying the car for. I start kicking my legs back and forth, yelling at him to put me down. Unfortunately for me, he does, just at the cost of the lovely front seat.

Letting out an annoyed sigh I sit up and fix my hair. I’ll get my revenge eventually… Maybe I’ll steal those old glasses he’s trying to sell. Of course, I won’t do anything to them, that would just be an asshole thing to do. I’m a thief, not an asshole… plus, I’ll return them if he asks or really needs them.

Once he sees that I’m safe in the back of the car (the unfortunate disadvantage of being a 13-year-old, LET ME BE SILLY AND DANGEROUS!) Sam shoves a paper into Dad’s face, boating in with a large grin.

Ron snatches the paper from his hands, mumbling something under his breath while scouring the paper, looking for the fateful grade that will either make or break this moment for Sam.

“It’s an A-,” Sam quickly states, trying to defend the grade like it’s the last thing he’ll do, “Still an A though.”

“Technically it’s not tho…” I bud in, trying to get under his skin. I know it’s still an a and I know that Ron will still take it, if he didn’t both of us would be pissed cause he deserves a car. But, it’s still fun to piss him off sometimes.

He shoots me a glare, knowing what I’m doing. Mission accomplished, my boy is angy. Sam quickly brushes off my successful attempt to annoy him and looks back towards Ron, waiting for his answer, ready to protest if he says no. He knows he won’t, but the anxiety that he will is still there.

“Alright,” he says in an exasperated tone, slightly regretting his decision but not going back on his promise, “you're getting a car.”

Jumping out of excitement, Sam lightly smacks the car door before climbing in, asking Dad if he’s really, truly good and getting a car. The response he gets is a small nod and “yeah” as he shakes his head in disbelief, pride, and a little bit of saltiness at the fact that he promised the kid he’d spend a grand on him.

With another yelp of excitement, a backpack gets chucked my way, hitting me with a thump. Knowing he intentionally did that I let out a displeased huff before chucking the backpack to the side.

If I remember correctly, Ron did mention something about pulling a little prank on Sam… Although he said it in a much more slow, cringy way that made me remember that he, in fact, was my father and an old man.

Anyway, I can’t wait to see his face when he realizes the dealership that we’re going to. Until then, I got myself a free 15-minute ride full of zoning out and ignoring my dad and brother!

Chapter Text

“Dad, dad, this is where we’re going? Are you kidding me!?” Sam’s voice rings through my ears as we pull into a run-down car dealership. Don’t know why he’s complaining, though. He’ll get over it… eventually.

Who knows, we might even find a hidden gem of a car lingering around in this dump.

The two get out of the car, looking around at all of the less-than-ideal cars. Sam turns to me, asking if I’m going with them.

“In a minute. Just need to find something.” He nods, walking away with Ron. Thank the A03 gods for deception skills… Hehe, Deceptioncons. Now, it’s time for some revenge!

Grabbing Sam’s bag, I start looking through it for those glasses. Honestly, it’s easier to find than I thought it would be. Sam needs to work on hiding his stuff better, especially if he’s trying to sell them. I’ll just keep 'em for a bit until he needs them… but that’s it. Will I damage them in any way, shape, or form? No. It’s still his stuff. If you’re going to be an annoying little shit, you must do it responsibly.

I gently set the glasses into my overall pockets, making sure they won’t get scratched by anything before running after the two standing in front of a yellow car with two black stripes. It looks like a very, very familiar car from a certain movie…That’s it, I’m nicknaming it Bee in honor of Bumblebee, my beloved.

Sam starts to argue with Ron about it before the salesman interjects. OooOo drama! My favorite. Sam gets up and starts to walk to another car... I feel like something’s about to happen. Looking towards Bee, I raise an eyebrow. What’s this bitch about to do? Oh, is it that time already?

Ducking down and covering my head, a weird explosion happens, shattering every single car window, minus Bee. That was really loud... Ow, my ears are ringing. That was very much not a fun time.

“Holy…” Sam starts, voice shaky before he quickly gets up, running to me, “You okay? You’re not hurt, right?” He quickly asks in a panicked tone. OoOo, yay! Big bro protection is my favorite. I say no and get up, asking if he’s okay as well and making sure that the glasses don't break when no one’s looking.

“I’ll give it to you for 3 thousand.” The car salesman said, fear in his voice. Oh hell naw, this bitch is scared shitless of this car and he wants us to pay that much? Not on my watch.
“Bro, it literally just broke the windows on every other car you had. Do you know how easily it could probably do it again?” He looks to the ground, thinking slightly, his fear still there. “Honestly, you’re basically asking us to pay you to be in a death trap!” I really don’t mean any of this, it’s just a good excuse to get a cheaper price. I’ll apologize to Bee later for it.
“But, at the same time, you do wanna make money, right?” The man nods, fidgeting with his fingers. “Honestly, no judgment there. I would do the same. But, you do have to admit, with all of these new things, 3k is not a good price.”
He nods again, biting his tongue. He knows that I’m right but doesn’t want to admit it. “Fine, how about 2 thousand?” That’s hella better than 3. “Deal!”

Chapter Text

“Can I ride with you on the way home?” I ask Sam, putting on my best ‘innocent’ voice. It’s a new car that looks really, really cool. Of course, I wanna ride in it. Plus, I may or may not have gotten the best grade on my most recent test that I really don’t want to tell Dad about.

“Why? Don’t you wanna ride with dad?”

I give him a small glare. “Yes, riding with Dad is fun, but it’s a new car! Plus, I got you the deal on it. Might I add 1k less than it would’ve been.” He rolls his eyes, knowing that isn't the entire reason.

“What else?” Of course, he knows. Somehow, he almost always manages to know if I have another reason to do something. Key word, almost. I can still get away with a lot of things with him, but not all of them.

I start to fidget with my hands, “I may or may not have gotten not the best grade on that one test from today and wanna avoid telling dad about it… I also wanna apologize to Bee…” I say quietly, frustrated with the fact that he can read me so well.

He looks at me with a confused look. “The car's name’s Bee,” I interject before he can say something, “you don’t get a choice in this. That isn’t important, tho. I said a lot of shity things about Bee so the… guy, forgot his name, would give us a cheaper price on him, and now I feel bad, so I wanna apologize.”

Sam looks at me with an annoyed and disbelieving face. “That’s stupid, it’s a car.”

“You’re stupid.”

“No, you’re stupid.”

“No u.”

Buckle up folks, this is gonna be a long ass argument.

— — — — —

Dusting off the old dust and dirt from the car seat, I plop myself down. The familiar scent of metal and leather floods my nose, a comforting smell. Riding in older cars is always a fun thing to do, especially ones that look cool.

“Are you happy now? You finished apologizing to the car?” Sam's voice rings out, annoyance taking over his tone. He’s still mad that I delayed us going home. That just makes me apologize all the better tho-

Folding my arms over my chest, I turn away dramatically, “His name is Bee, and yes, I am happy, thank you very much.”

Another eye roll is stent my way along with a hair ruffle. “When we get home I’m gonna beat your ass.”

“In Minecraft, right?”

He, in return, gives me a confused look. “Why do you keep talking about Minecraft? What even is Minecraft?” Sam questions. Really, he should be used to me saying, “random” shit like this.

“Cube.”

Another questioning glare followed by a loud sigh. He’s tired of my weird, and what he thinks, fake ramblings. Oh well, it sucks to be him I guess cause he’ll have to deal with it until I die… or he dies but that’s the less prefered option.

I’ve always talked about “random” stuff like that, so he should find it normal at this point. But nooooo, he just has to question every little thing I reference… not that I’m complaining, it does make talking about that stuff a lot more fun. Seeing the confusion on an older persons face as I yap about whatever the fuck is very amusing, but he always asks me to explain it which is very less amusing. You should stay oblivious, Sam.

“Whatever, just… don’t distract me while driving.”

Chapter Text

Home at last-

“Finally, you two are home!” the voice of Judy rings out. “It took both of you long enough, I was worried sick!” And there it is, I should’ve expected a small panic attack from her when we got home. I mean, it is 4:39- wait, 4:39?! That argument took way too long! We should’ve been back home at 4! Curse you, time skips, CURSE YOU!

Sam lets out a chuckle, breaking my inner monologue. He sets his backpack down on the couch, thankfully not in the spot where I sit, and moves to head into the garage. “Tell that to this kid, who wanted to apologize to my car…” Sam snarkily says.

“I- well, you have a good heart.”

Yippy! Praise!

“Ask about their latest grade.”

FUCK!

Damit Sam! That was supposed to be something you don’t tell Mom! Just for that, I’m keeping your glasses for longer than I normally would! Will it potentially mess up a little bit of the timeline? Yes. Do I giveafuck? Absolutely not

I start to feel the mom glare pierce through my skull as Judy looks at me with a rage I don’t dare describe. Oh, please stop looking at me like that, I will cry-

“Grade?” She questions, remembering that I did have a test today.

“D...” I mutter, looking down at my feet.

She repeats me in a tone of shock, disbelief, and disappointment. Oh, I hate that… Hate that, hate that, hate that. You are so screwed Sam!

“I can’t believe you! I-” She cuts herself off, taking a deep breath to calm her anger. “Why? You normally get a C+ or a B, never a D. Did you even study like you normally do?”

I nod. “Yes, I did study. But, I studied a week before the test rather than the night before like I usually do.” Why did I do that? I wanted to try something different from my normal routine, see if it would help or not. Turns out, it didn’t.

“Well, you still got a bad grade, so you’re grounded. No TV, video games, friends, or books for 2 days.” YES! A lesser punishment! Normally a low grade like that would get banned from doing shit for 4 days not 2!

“Yes, ma’am,” I say with one last solemn nod. I head up to my room, seeing Sam peek his head out of the garage and give me an apologetic look. Why did that bish even do that? Was it revenge for the argument earlier? Maybe he was just trying to be an asshole.

Hey, at least she didn’t say anything about me drawing! Pulling out a sketchbook, I quickly flip to a brand new page before starting to sketch little guys. Drawing is fun… sometimes. When Artblock strikes, it becomes much less fun.

Oh well, if that does happen, then it happens. Can’t change that. Plus, if I’m right, the plot is soon gonna progress and I can start focusing on our lovely giant robo-boys and figuring out how to help their afters out.

Chapter Text

I let out a sour grumble as I move stone after stone in place. Damned stupid, pretty grass. You see, being grounded in this household comes with a few hidden terms and conditions, one of which being “you become free labor”. And if it isn’t the most annoying thing in the world, I don’t know what is-

That’s a lie, that Sentinel Prime fucker is pretty annoying. Luckily, he shouldn’t show up for a while. In my opinion, Man’s is one of, if not the most annoying, Sentinels in this franchise. I mean; TFA gave him some depth and lore, plus a relatively good design and several funny moments; TFone did wonders for the dudes looks and did such a better job at panting him in an evil light, like manipulating a whole populus into believing you’re this incredible guy when you kinda invented racism on your planet is insane. Still, for the bayverse… he could’ve been so much more.

“Sam, the grass,” Ron’s voice cuts through my thoughts, hating on Sentinel.

Sam cocks his head towards him, giving him a questioning look. “What?” Right, the grass.

One of the rules I don’t like in this household is the “no stepping on Dad’s grass” rule. Like, I know old men like to take care of grass, and I would understand if it were our front lawn. But our yard? The place designated to chill? That I don’t get. It took me forever to convince the man to give me an area that I can roll around and have fun in, and even then, it’s barely any.

“He wants you off the grass cause he doesn’t like footprints on it.” Now he gives me a questioning glare. I glare back at him. The memory of him outing me is still very prominent in my head… also, I don’t like the rule either. So the glare is a mix of hatred and mutual confusion.

Sarcastically, Sam looks behind him, pointing at the lack of nonexistent footprints. “What foot- there's no footprints.” That’s what I’m saying! The only footprints that get left behind are if you stand in place for an hour.

“It’s called a path!” he scolds, “and I didn’t spend all of today making it only for you to not use it.” Hey! I also spent my afternoon making this path. Thank you very much!

Sam walks onto the path, hands raised in defeat, when Mojo barks. It looks like he’s about to say something about his collar, aka, what mother deems as swag. Not on my watch!

“Don’t you dare insult his swag!” Is that what people say nowadays? I think so. Anyways, he will not insult the lovely Mojo’s fit if I’m here. Mom spent a while finding that collar for him.

Where did she even find that collar for him in the first place? Like, no pet stores near us have anything like it. Maybe she got it from eBay- haha, funny reference! Eh, who knows?

Hey, random thought. Shouldn’t Lennox and that team be in the desert right now? That also means that Scorponok is stalking them or some shit like that… Lucky. Actually, not lucky cause Scorponok isn’t on their side. Forgot about that.

“Wow, you are so damn cheap, Ron-” “It’s his first car!” Oh, did he already leave? Man, I wanted to say goodbye to Bee. Curse you, questioning everything that doesn’t make sense! Curse you!

Chapter Text

Making a fake account on eBay just so you can pretend to buy those stupid glasses your older brother is trying to sell, so you can make it so said brother won't be attacked by giant robots, is quite the silly situation… At least, I think it is. But who am I to judge?

Speaking of which, why the hell is Sam so dumb? I mean, our ancestor was one of the first dudes to explore the Arctic. Literally anything he owned should be considered a historical artifact and not be sold to some randos online. Like, what was bro thinking?

That’s besides the point, I guess. What’s more important is you. If you haven’t guessed yet, I know way too much about this world for my own good. I’m not gonna tell you why, cause I just don’t want to. But, I will tell you that, like my other fanfic protags before me, I will try to change the timeline and make everything become more okay for our traumatized robo-aliens and my sibling, plus family, I actually like!

Although I’m gonna try not to get too involved. Aka, I’m not gonna throw myself into the middle of the spotlight and try to fix shit that way. It’s something that, for me personally, will most likely end poorly, very, very poorly.

I don’t plan on talking to the bots at all for the first movie timeline stuff. Keyword: plan. I know that interfering like this will get my silly little aft eventually thrown into the spotlight, but I’ll figure out what to do when that happens.

I also don’t plan on talking to the cons at all for the first movie as well… we’ll, maybe some, but not at all. Although, despite not talking, I do plan on having interactions with them. If everything goes smoothly, I’ll be able to have a conversation with Sam that’s filled with some info that’ll make me sound intriguing. Once I do that, I might be able to plant the idea of no killing Jazz/any of the bots into their processors and, since I could be seen as interesting to them, they might just listen.

You might be wondering how that conversation with Sam is going to get transferred to the Decepticons. Well, I present to you Frenzy- wait, is it Rumble? No, no, definitely Frenzy-. The only catch is, the bitch is disguised as Sam’s phone and is listening in! Remember when he does the phone transformation in the middle of the Bee and Barricade fight? Yep, we’re gonna be banking on that for the plan!

It’s stupid af, but it’s what I’m working with here.

I do have a backup plan, though. It’s why I’m making a fake eBay acc.

I’m gonna pretend to be a buyer for the glasses, fake buying them, and then if all hell breaks loose in ways Sam and the bots can’t handle and someone sees that Sam doesn’t have them anymore, I can step in and become the main target. I know, I know, I said I didn’t want to get thrown into the spot light, but this is just a more ‘worst case scenario’ plan, and even if I do get thrown in the spot light, I can pull a lot of shit to get out of said spot light.

What am I gonna do if I get caught? Who knows, we’ll figure out something then if it comes to that.

Chapter Text

“Look, I can't be any clearer than how crystal clear I am. It just stood up.” Sam tries to explain to the deputy who’s looking at him with the most ‘I’m not buying your bs’ face ever.

I kinda wanna defend Sam. I mean, he is speaking the truth, and this man isn’t taking any chances to believe him… naw, he got me grounded so he can suffer.

Also, on a side note, this dude does kinda look like he is on drugs, just a lil bit tho… kinda.

“It just stood up. Wow. It's really neat.” The Deputy starts. Oh, might as well tell you that Sam got his car stolen. Well, Bee just left, but I'm not supposed to know that. “Okay, chiefie. Time to fill her up. And no drippy-drippy. What are you rolling?”

Oh yeah! I forgot this dude accuses Sam of being on drugs. I mean, if I were normal and just heard some rando teen talking about transforming cars, I’d want whatever they’re having. Not really. That’s a joke. Don’t do drugs unless they’re legally prescribed by a literal doctor in a medical office and are for your actual health. And then, when you do that, take them as prescribed and nothing more. Why am I lecturing you on drugs? I’m like, a teen. I shouldn’t care… fuck it, go get high off of the zaza and ignore all previous advice.

“Whippets? Goofballs? A little wowie sauce with the boys?”

Huh? What? Fucking “Wowie Sauce”??? I- no. I have to bite my tongue to stop myself from wheezing out a laugh louder than a sonic boom. No way, bro just said that. Like, I get that there are other words for drugs, but I’m like 90% sure that Wowie Sauce and Goofballs are not one of them. If someone walked up to me asking if I wanted to do Wowie Sauce with The Boys, I would laugh myself to death. It sounds so silly, and I love it!

“No, I’m not on drugs.” Sam just looks confused. Mood Sam, mood. I go to make a snarky comment, but all that comes out as a wheeze. He slaps a hand over my mouth in an attempt to stifle my laughter. Sorry, Sam, but this shit is funny.

The deputy slams something down on the desk to interrupt the interaction. It’s Mojo’s meds. “What's this? Found it in your pocket.” He brings the container up to his nose and sniffs it oh nonononononnonononon- I can’t- “Mo-jo.” He sounds so fucking suspicious, and not serious suspicious, funny suspicious.

“This is no laughing matter!” Ouch, targeted much. “Is that what the kids are doing now? Little bit of Mo-jo?” Nope, I’m gone. Goodbye, cruel world, I’m going under the desk to escape the funny because, if I don’t, I fear I will actually die of laughter. This talk has absolutely no reason to be this funny, but it somehow is, and I’m blaming it all on the deputy.

Sam kicks my side, embarrassment flooding his face as he stares at the deputy with shock. “That’s my dog's pain pills,” he sputters out, trying to ignore my laughter. Primus, I feel bad for him right now. But, he can suffer because I haven’t laughed this much in forever.

Ron cuts in, “You know, a chihuahua. A little…”, standing up and pulling me out from under the desk. Father is very much regretting taking me along to pick Sam up from jail… Speaking of which, why did he even do that in the first place? I mean, yeah, sibling in trouble, but I am technically supposed to be grounded, and I’m not supposed to be getting dragged places. I’m also probably not supposed to be in a police station, especially after last time. Don’t worry, last time wasn’t that bad, and I will not be elaborating further.

The deputy slams his hands down on the desk again, making me jump. Holy guaca-fucking-moly that was loud. “What was that!?” he shouts out, looking at Sam like he just muttered something offensive under his breath and, newsflash, he never did. I swear this man is definitely on drugs, cause what?

Sam seems to also be thinking that and gives the man a confused glare, which is pissing off Wacky Man once even more. “You eyeballing my piece, Fifty Cent? You wanna go? Make something happen. Do it. 'Cause I promise you. I will bust you up.”

… “Are you on drugs?” both Sam and I say at the same time. Guess the dude threatening my brother knocked me out of my laughing fit. I give that a questionable hell ya!

The deputy, in his first moment of clarity, just sighs before pointing to the door. Do we get to leave? I look towards Ron, who is still holding my shirt collar. Please, father, say we can leave this weird man?

He ignores me (mean) and signals for Sam to come with him, which he does gratefully. Little does he know, he’s gonna get a talk about drugs from father. Though it is a short talk. Anywho, I wonder how Lennox and his crew are fairing right now… Hehehe, Scorponok should be messing with them again. They’ll make it out. But, until then, I’ll be putting the operation “yap about Transformers in the vicinity of Transformers” into action.

Chapter Text

“Soooo… u good? I mean like, after the whole wacky ahh cop thing?” I ask Sam hesitantly. I know he’s gonna be okay. Of course he is. He’s the MC of this movie. But, he’s still my brother, one I actually care about, and has genuinely tried to be a good sibling to me. Op- lil past life trauma spilling out there! We’ll touch more on that in a later chapter, but now, back to our squecudaled programing of ‘heart to heart sibling talk’.

He sighs and looks at me funny. “You were laughing your ass off the whole time- No!” He muttered the first part, so that means bro is mad at me. I think that’s what that means at least.

“In my defense, it was really funny from my pov! Also, valid, probs shouldn’t have laughed, but when the words ‘wowie-sauce’ came out, I broke.” I do feel kinda bad about it, not that bad, but still a little bad.

“Dad shouldn’t have brought you to that in the first place…”

He is right on that point. The man should’ve had me stay home with Mom. Granted, she can be a softy sometimes, so she might’ve let me off of being grounded a little earlier than scheduled. That’s only if I do something really good like clean the kitchen without asking. Other than that, the woman is the epitome of a stoic knight and won’t break for anyone.

Eh, whatever, time from a mild shift in topic, but not really. “Did your car actually stand up? Like, I already believe you and stuff, I’m just double-checking to make sure you weren’t bull shiting the cop.”

He gives me a look of pure disbelief at this information. “YOU BELIEVE ME?”

.
.
.
.
.
.

“Right, you're you.”

“There ya go, you're starting to get it.”

Annnd straight back to awkward silence! I love this… I don’t actually, and I would like it to stop. “Do you wanna go get food?” Another distraction, but it’s better than nothing.

I’m looking down at my feet when he stands up. “Yeah, I’d like to do that, but you're grounded. Plus, we have no money and no source of transportation.”

“Heheh, *you* have no money, loser.” That felt a little too mean- why is stealing glasses not mean in my book, but calling someone a loser is!? “Sorry, that was mean.”

“How do you have money? You’re literally 13?” Hah! Sucks to be him, cause now I’m mentally… wait, how old am I mentally? Nope, not gonna think about that yet! I don’t wanna know that info and get sent into a spiral about how old I technically am and how much time passed in my old world and a lot of other things!

I shake off the potential existential dread and give him a smirk. “That’s something that you shall remain oblivious to, my good sir! I also dgaf about the grounding at night, and I have a bike with a wagon. There you go, my effeminate fellow! All your worries are solved!”

“You know I question you all the time? Like, there is genuinely not a point in time where I don’t question you and how you were born into this family.”

“I’m adopted.”

Chapter Text

I look down at my bowl of Barbie Fairytopia cereal with a gaze full of apathy and malice. As much as I love Barbie, her weird ass cloning lore, and the Barbie movie, that love can unfortunately not erase the sheer boredom I have with being stuck waiting.

What am I waiting for exactly? This fuCKING PLOT NEEDS TO MOVE FASTER BEFORE I CRASH THE FUCK OUT-

Okay, listen. When you’re so used to watching a movie that’s 2 hours and 24 minutes long, you’d expect things to go by much faster when you're living the bitch. But noooo, time persists, and I now have to genuinely live out several fucking days until I can see something happen with this plot.

I’ve done well so far! I mean, I've literally gone two days with just waiting and planning, and more waiting. And I know that wouldn’t seem like a lot, but consider it from my perspective. I have to sit here in a 13-year-old body, practically twiddling my thumbs, while I sit and watch my sibling unknowingly be sucked into a whole ass fucking robo-war when I know almost every little detail about said robo-war and robots who are fighting said war.

Damn, felt kinda good to get that off my chest… not really, I’m lying to you. You can’t do anything in this situation except watch and pray to whatever thing you worship, that I don’t fuck it up.

“You're letting your cereal get soggy! Eat it up, we spent good money on that!” Mom’s voice pieces through my anxiety-driven thoughts. I don’t want to eat it right now, though! I just want to stare into the abyss and contemplate this damn situation I’m in.

Spitfully, I take the spoon of berry-flavored cereal and shove it into my face hole. I would use my free will and just face-plant into the bowl and eat it while I’m half-drowning in milk, but the last time I did that ended with a not-so-nice wack on the head with a wooden spoon and a nose that burned from milk being shot out of it. We love being slightly stupid like that; it leads to good dad lore.

Mom looks at me with a sigh before giving me a little head ruffle or whatever the hell it’s called, “There you go, now, I’m off to work. You know the rules, and Sam will be out of his room to keep watch over you in a little bit.”

I let out a grumble at that last bit. Sometimes I do just wish I could spill the beans with someone other than myself, let everyone know that I’m actually much older and can handle myself, tell people what’s going to happen without consequence… No, no, it’s fine. I shouldn’t do that. Also, child privileges are banger ngl.

“Can I head outside before he does? The inside makes my mind feel itchy and in not a good way.”

“I- sure,” She seems very exhausted and amused at my comments, “get your mind, er, itchies out and go run. Just stay off your father's grass.”

YES! FREEDOM- Why am I so happy about doing childish things when I just complained about it? “Kk, I will. Now go to work… That sounded mean but not really- love you, please don’t die! Bye-bye!”

I run outside before she can respond. Outside time is a good time to help cure boredom, especially when you’re grounded.

Chapter Text

Finally, a non-specific amount of time passes, meaning that the plot can advance, yippy! I was just starting to stare back into the void again when I heard the sounds of a certain yellow car pull up with no driver.

I look up and see the Bee boy roll into the grass, revving his engine.

He stops for a second as I stare at him and his empty car seat. I can feel him stare back. He stares, I stare. Ah yes, a healthy dose of -

PROLONGED EYE CONTACT. (prolonged eye contact)

Heheh, I wish I had my phone on me so I could play that song by our lovely lord and savior Bo Burnham.

In other news, the stare down continues. How long is this gonna continue? No idea! But it is starting to get awkward, yes! Also, if I use my little brain and think really fucking hard, I would be able to recognize that this is probably gonna start a chain reaction that will lead to all of my plans crumpling before my very eyes.

Will I realize it now? Nope, not yet. In a second? Not yet. How ‘bout 5? So close, but you just need to add a bit more time. 30 seconds? Ding, ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!

30 seconds into this stare down, I force myself to look down in the most nonchalant way I can because, oppsie! I just stared down one of the main characters of this universe as he did a very not normal car thing of driving himself- Well, not a normal car thing for 2007- and didn’t freak out.

Now, I know most human children have a lack of self-awareness, especially with an item one might unrightfully deem ‘uncool’ like a car. But that’s for children mainly 12 and under, and, gosh golly darn, I just passed that mark physically. Wahoo, go me.

I see Sam peek his head around the door and wave me inside in the most rushed manner he can. Shit- I forgot how that chase scene with Bee starts. Actually, I didn’t, but what I didn’t take into account, when I made my plan, was that I have the king of crashouts for a brother who has a 30% chance of being responsible for my dumass.

If it were any normal day, Dad would be watching over me since his job is the head of the neighborhood watch. But noooo, today had to be the only fucking day where he had to go to a stupid meeting.

God, Primus, literally any otherworldly entity that people tend to pray to, I am begging you, do something that goes my way! Literally one thing, and I will be happy.

Standing up, I march over to Sam. Why does he have to have actual responsibility when it comes to me? Why can’t he just be like ‘whatever, you got this shit’ and dip?

“What’s-” “Hurry up, go grab your bike from the garage, we gotta go, now.” He grabs me by the head and drags me inside, slamming the door behind us. Ow much.

Making him let go, I catch up, “Why-” “No time to- you saw my car driving itself! And don’t you dare say huh or what, especially after you claimed to believe me last night. It is chasing me, and we need to go.”

And there goes the ‘what do you mean? I didn’t see anything’ excuse. I follow him into the garage, severely less panicked than him, and grab a bike. He grabs my arm, dragging me again, this time into the outside world.

Great, this is so fucking perfect. Now, I’m being dragged into this wacky-ah chase scene I didn’t want to be in.

Pause- “You… you grabbed my bike :(, that’s mean” “NOW IS NOT THE TIME- STAHP!!!” Heh, at least I can get some mild amusement out of this. I look back at Bee, who is just slowly chasing us on the sidewalk.

“Pft- he's going so slow.” Sam makes another panicked yelp as I snicker at his pain. Me when I encounter a flying cockroach. “SHUT UP!”

I sigh, fineeee, I listen to my older brother for once and actually be quiet… I’m not gonna stop laughing though, he’s over here yelling at a fucking car as we run away in the slowest chase scene ever.

Looking back at Bee again, I start another stare down. I’m already in deep shit, might as well dig a hole in it. He looks exactly like what you’d expect him to, a car. I’ve seen a few replicas of him at car shows and stuff to know what he looks like in real life, but I do have to say, knowing that it is really him gives me happy feelings.

Like, I know it’s kinda cringe, but bro is kinda a hero to me. I mean, my intro to Transformers was the Bayverse, more specifically, this movie. He was technically the first Transformer I was introduced to, so he does hold a special place in my heart. That doesn’t mean he’s the fav tho, that title is held by both Ratchet and Soundwave.

He reves forward a little bit, scaring the shit out of Sam and making me laugh at the sound that comes out of his mouth.

We finally make it into the city, and Sam biffs it on a weird open grate, flying forward and falling off his bike. Mikaela? O,h right, this is how she gets involved.

I pick up his bike and go around the grate carefully, ignoring the small conversation the two have as I wait for him to get back on it. As much as I think Mikaela is a decent character and had a lot of room to be truly good if Michael's fantasies didn’t get in the way, I currently don’t have enough brain power to communicate with her. Nope, any brain power I have left is dedicated to watching a curtain cop car lurk in the distance.

Time to keep up the trend of prolonged eye contact! I stare, I presume he stares back. I blink, he doesn’t because he currently has a lack of eyelids. Sam gets up and continues. I give Barricade a small nod and a smile, but he doesn’t give one back.

Okay, listen. I know what I said about me not wanting to meet any Cybertronians for the first movie. But, since things have already gone to shit, I’m gonna make a call and say that he’s the one I’d be half comfortable with knowing about my presence. Why? Because he relates to my og plan.

You see, he’s currently partnered/with Frenzy, hopefully meaning that information I say will go through him. It’s a stretch, I know, most info will most likely go through Soundwave, but it’s still a better hope than not having any.

Any thoughts my mind could think are silenced as Sam gets thrown off his bike again, this time by a cop car door, aka, Barricade. Curse you, thoughts, for providing convenient transitions!

I point and laugh.

He’ll be fine, mildly traumatized but fine. Also, I’m not going to make any moves to help him get up. Why, because I have an escape plan that will allow me semi-freedom from MC syndrome.

I watch with a smile as Sam tries to explain what the hell is going on to this ‘cop’. I stare at Barricade’s hollow form; he stares back. I know him, I know who he is, I know what’s about to happen, he’s catching on.

He lunges forward, revving his engines at Sam, not running him over but threatening to do so. I kinda feel bad now.

Sam looks at me, panic in his eyes. He’s worried about me even when his life is threatened. He should stop that.

Sam sees my calm, how relaxed I am, and gains a puzzled look before focusing back on the ‘cop’ trying to run him over.

Its headlights expand, coming out and molding into something threatening, something alien. “Ah- OKAY OKAY, WHAT DO YOU WANT!?” Sam pleads. Bingo.

I can’t suppress the smile on my face as I watch Barricade transform. Each piece that clicks into place, each part that moves, and every noise made makes me so happy it’s unreal. I just watched a Transformer transform.

My brother's eyes widen, he’s terrified, and I’m ecstatic. He looks at me for a second, looks at my joy, at how I practically jump with joy and shake my hands back and forth with glee, how I’m happy stimming at the most terrifying moment of his life.

“oH GOD, NO!” He goes to lung at me in an attempt at protection… He’s a good brother.

“Sam,” I start, hopping on my bike, “I’m gonna go home, see you soon?” His face looks back with pure confusion before morphing into something akin to disbelief before settling on hesitant acceptance.
“Got it.” He starts to run for his life, sprinting away as fast as he can.

I look at Barricade for a second, and he looks at me. Brown eyes meet red optics, human meets alien, child meets monster. He looks at my pure joy, joy that shouldn’t exist for him, joy that is unexplainable.

I give him a nod, and he turns away. A silent acceptance so we can both achieve each other's goals. Him: hunting down my brother. Me: going the hell home.

Chapter Text

The ride home was quiet, mostly because I’m now by myself and have successfully escaped being the center of attention, but also because, now that I think about it, abandoning Sam was kind of a dick head move.

Just imagine that you’re experiencing the most terrifying moment of your life and your little sibling, who you just happened to bring along for the ride, is just like: ‘Aight, see ya, ' and leaves you. It’s making me feel bad while also amusing me.

Even if it is mildly funny, the bad feelings overtake that funny by a lot, so we’re going to be making up for it.

He is technically supposed to be watching me right now, but the thing is, he isn’t. He’s currently getting chased by a giant robot, which is something that isn’t too believable, aka, if he tries to make an excuse to our parents, his ass is fucked.

That’s where I’m gonna come in!

If he’s doing some good and actually believable, Ron and Judy will provide him forgiveness very easily. The good and believable thing is called washing a friend's dog.

I ride my bike up to the back yard fence of a house. “Miles! Hey! I know your dumbass is washing your dog right now, so you can 100% hear me, so get your but over here!” I shout.

That’s right, I’m calling in Sam's best friend to help make a cover story.

Miles sighs and makes his way over to the fence, sticking his hands over it. That’s the cue for me. I jump up, grabbing his hands, and he pulls me over the fence and into his backyard. I land on my back. “Mother-”

“What do you want, twerp?” Let me introduce you to Miles Lancaster. While he already existed in the og movie, he only had a minor part, so he was mildly forgettable,e which is perfect for me.

Our relationship is a little weird but overall good. He’s a weirdo who likes to climb trees, I’m a weirdo who has oddly true predictions, the dynamic goes together mildly well… kinda. We have an ‘I tolerate you because you're my best friend's sibling and nothing more’ relationship because, well, he finds me annoying.

“WHat dO YoU waNt TwERp,” I mock, “that’s what you sound like with that team rocket ahh insult. Anyway, I need a favor.” He knows what I mean by that. Thankfully, this man doesn’t only like to climb trees, but he also likes Pokémon. Not as much as me, mind you, but it’s still nice to have someone actually get a reference you're trying to make.

He sighs, going back to washing his dog as I speak. I like that dog, he’s nice to me.

“No,” I thought he would say that, and I was right. “You still haven’t paid me back for the last favor I did for you.”

Last favor? What was the last favor I had him- Ohhhh, right. Sending him to the LEGO store to buy me the King's Castle Siege set was the last favor! “Hey, I did pay you back for that! I told your ass that Sam would ditch you on the side of the road for that Mikaela girl he has a crush on! Whatever, not the point. This favor is for him actually.”

That seems to catch his attention. He looks up from dog washing, “for Sam?”

“Who else, bozo? Look, he’s supposed to be watching me right now and, as you can see, he’s not. I’m gonna head back to my house and, as soon as one of my parents get home, he’ll realize that Sam isn’t doing what he’s supposed to. I’m going to have my parents call you, and all I need you to do is tell them that Sam was helping you wash your dog or do chores or something, and that I got bored and just went home. Deal?” That’s a long ass explanation that I’m not going to be saying again.

Miles puts the dog soap down and shoots me a questioning look, “What’s he doing? He’s super good at actually babysitting you.”

“Eh, you know, getting chased by giant alien robots and being pulled into a robo-war.” An eye roll gets sent my way. The good thing about knowing stuff like this is that, if you actually tell the truth to people, it just sounds like you're lying.

“Yeah, yeah, that's sooo believable,” he scoffs. “What are you willing to do for me if I actually do this favor?”

Hadn’t thought about that. Money is always a good motivator, right? “$20.”
“How do you have money?” Everyone who knows me always questions that, even Ron and Judy. I don’t get chore money; Ron’s too cheap for that. I, as a 13-year-old, shouldn’t be able to get money, but as an act of defiance to god, I somehow am the one who always has money.

I snicker, “Good question. No. Now, do you want the $20 or not?”

“Fine, I’ll take it.”

Chapter Text

I sit in the living room, eyes glued to the TV. The deal with Miles earlier turned out perfectly. I had Ron and Judy call him after they had a mini freak-out about how I was alone, and he absolutely went hard with the cover story. Not only did he tell them that Sam was over there helping him out with chores and other tasks, but he also lied and said that I had ‘fallen asleep’ while over there, saying that Sam so graciously brought me home, like the dutiful brother that he is.

They didn’t believe it, not at first. All I needed to do was back him up with a few well-placed timestamps and soap-stained clothes I had lying around, and Sam is now off scot-free… at least until he isn’t. I can safely assume that once the Sector 7 bozos show up and raid our house, parents will be upset until the full truth comes out about the whole robo war thing, then they’ll finally be chill again.

Anywho, the rest of the bots are here, and I am literally bouncing with joy! Who cares if emergency services are everywhere and the building next to Ratchet's crash site also caught fire? The Autobots are here and real! Also, there are no casualties, only fire, so we’re good.

Ron puts a hand on my jittery head. He and Judy have been discussing the crash site, questioning the motives behind whether or not it was a government purposeful opsie or not. “Kid, are you good? You’re smiling a bit too widely for the news.”

OF COURSE I’M GOOD! Hell, I’m the best I’ve been in several days! Trying to keep everyone's shit together while knowing secrets of impending doom for certain people and bots is a very stressful task for me to take on, even if I’m mentally older and have a past that specifically built me to handle extremely stress-inducing situations!

Wow, that was a lot. Let’s take a second and talk about something else. Something like a new plan.

While I might’ve fucked myself over in chapt 10, I can continue to nudge the plot in a way I like. I might also be able to continue to avoid being in the spotlight, but that path keeps looking darker and darker as we continue this shit.

Anyways, my plan is torture.

That’s a lie. Did I get ya with that one? Don’t worry, I’m not going to fall down that rabbit hole yet. What I’m actually gonna do is my og plan of just yapping and hopping for the best. Except, if things do go wrong, then we’re going to involve theft, a knife, the glasses, and an interrogation scene with Frenzy.

You already know the first plan. Just talk about future shit like a mysterious physkick and warn against anyone killing anyone (mainly Jazz) and to not let the Nokia bot die.

The demands, if the second happens, are simple, depending on how you look at it. All his skittering aft has to do is save the Nokia bot and either attempt to get Jazz to live. I say attempt because I know that task is a lot harder to do, and if he does end up failing it, I’ll just have him bring the bots' remains to me.

Now, no matter what happens, we’re gonna start to get into a little bit darker territory afterward. I want his remains because I believe I know a way to revive the fucker if he dies. It’ll take some time, especially since I’d need a lot of energon, other materials, and to convince a special one-eyed freak to assist me.

If you’ve caught up with the energon universe, you’d know that the bots provided a lot of revivals. Some went really good, some went a lot less good. I’m hoping I’ll be able to replicate whatever the hell they did, so if things do go poorly, I can do more than just grieve.

The only problem is, I’m a dumbass who doesn’t have that many practical skills. I can learn something on the fly with a YouTube video, but I don’t think there are many ‘how to revive a Cybertroian in 10 steps or less’ tutorials on YouTube. That’s why I’ll be inviting an emotionless scientist who only runs by logic to join me. That’s right, Shockwave.

It’s a terrifying thing to do, but it makes sense to me right now. Plus, I do have a higher chance of surviving if I tell him something that piques his morbid and purely goal-driven curiosity.

“Kid?” Oh shit! Stared into space, talking to myself for too long again!

I get up from the floor. “Sorry, Ron- dad. Stared into the void for a second there, thinking about morally fucked up stuff! I’m gonna go upstairs. See you both, love you, bye-bye!” Forget dinner, I need to go prep for the bot’s arrival and stuff.

“Is our child okay?” Judy comments before I slam my room door, cutting off any other words from being spoken. To answer her question, I have no idea, but hey, that’s just life, baby!

*CRASH*

FUCK. I look outside my window and see our lovely lord and savior Optimus Prime looking down at his peeds with his robotic brows, or whatever the hell his face caterpillars are called, furrowed. Right, he stepped on the fountain-

Wait a minute. I look at where he’s standing, and it’s not on top of a broken fountain. No, he’s standing right where my little area is, crushing it. That’s not supposed to happen; he’s supposed to break the fountain. Why didn’t he? Is this a sign from god or some shit because, if it is, fuck you, god! I’m still going to refuse to be the MC!

I creak open my window. “You couldn’t wait for 5 minutes? 5? That was my siblings!” Sam's voice plays through the night, followed by “Opps, sorry, my bad.” I have to hold back everything in me to not have a panic attack fueled by sheer amazement and joy.

That’s- damn, that’s Optimus Prime. That’s Peter Cullen voicing Optimus, but it’s just Optimus. I- holy fucking hell. Can I take a 5-minute break to recover because I'm literally 50 feet away from one of my heroes, who is voiced by another one of my heroes? I am in pure awe.

NO! Now is not the time to have a freak-out about this. I need to focus.

Optimus lifts Mikaela into Sam’s room right now. All I need to do is go in there, preferably before the awkward sex talk from Judy, and yap until people begrudgingly agree or are just too confused to say no. We know what I’ll do if things go wrong, and I don’t want to think about that stuff.

I grab the glasses off my shelf, taking a good look at them. I can’t even see the coordinates. Are they even the right glass- SHUT UP ME! YOU KNOW THEY ARE. Oh dear, is the anxiety of this situation really getting to me? Well, if I think about it, it isn’t the ‘whole world relying on me’ part that’s getting to me, it’s the ‘I’m indirectly making a first impression to my heroes’ part that is.

Other than Bee, this is the bot's first interaction with me, and we aren’t even interacting! The only bitches I’m gonna be talking to are Sam and Mikaela, and Mikaela is a maybe!

I pocket the glasses and leave my room. The walk to Sam's room is long, way too long. It’s also oddly short. Awkward is the only way to truly describe it.

I don’t knock, sorry Sam. “Sam-”

“YOU'RE OKAY!” He runs and hugs me. Right, the past few hours were the most traumatic moments of his life, and the last thing I said to him was ‘see you later’... I still don’t feel bad about that lol.

This is nice, and I would like to stay like this if I didn’t have the giant blue orbs of Optimus Prime locking onto me and Sam. It’s the whole Berricade scene all over again. I see him and recognize him, like I’m meeting an old friend or like I’m a child finding a lost toy. My eyes hold love and appreciation for him that can’t be explained in a rational sense. He can only look at me, a stranger who sees him as a hero and so much more, and be confused.

Sam looks to where I’m looking before whipping his head back towards me, “I can explain he’s- Actually, I can’t explain. You know grandpa’s glasses, right? Well, we need to look for them right now, and I need to help. If we don’t get them, then… I don’t even know what will happen, but something bad will!” He lets go of me and instantly starts to search. I’m kind of glad that, if this situation were normal, I’d accept the giant blue robot even if I didn’t have the knowledge of who he is. That’s one point for being a weird kid!

I see Optimus back away from the window out of the corner of my eye. That’s good, it’ll give me enough time to do this! “Sam, listen to me, and you better listen carefully.” My eyes dart to where Optimus was, making sure he’s fully gone before going back to Sam, fuck, this is going to be awkward. “I have the glasses.”

“WHAT!? WHY!? DO YOU KNOW HOW-”

“YES BITCH, I KNOW! LET ME YAP! Anyways-” we love yelling at your sibling, “I stole them for revenge when you threw a backpack at my head when we picked up the bee boy.”

It’s now Mikaela’s turn to talk. “Does she?” “It’s them, don’t question it. They're my little sibling.” Sam cuts her off quickly. Damn, what’s with everyone cutting everyone else off? That’s a me thing only.

Mikaela nods, giving me a questioning glance before continuing. Right, I sometimes forget it’s 2007 and not 2025, it’s not too common for people to be using they/them pronouns and all that jazz. “Do they know about this whole situation? I mean, with Bumblebee and the others and the glasses?”

Ohhh, she’s not used to me! Fun! I get a whole new person to mess around with mentally until they’re forced to accept me by force!

Sam pauses. I do know about this whole situation a lot more than he does, too, but he won’t know that until he figures things out with the lore drop I’m about to tell him. “I, you know what, probably.” He just sounds exhausted. That’s the correct response.

“What do you mean by probably?” She’s just confused. Good. She can stay like that, just like Sam!

“What he means by that is yes. Now, I think how I know things is a lesser topic considering how your robo-friends are currently disguised as trucks and cars in our backyard.” I always found this scene funny, especially because it’s your classic trope of ‘alien doesn’t recognize human costumes and fucks up on several things’. Very amusing, 10/10.
Both Sam and Mikaela run to the windows to look at the poorly discussed Autobots, and I head to Mikaela’s purse, looking at the Decepticon who we know as Frenzy. Mikaela did do him bad with the saw decapitation…

I walk over, and he tries to scutter away. NOPE! I reach out and grab him, which is immediately met with one of his knife-sharp claw things jabbed in one of my fingers. Ha, jokes on him, I’m used to that stuff!

“Frenzy,” he’s caught very off guard when I whisper his name. I know Sam and Mikaela won’t be able to hear me over their panic over the bots being the worst at hiding, so I should be good to whisper for about 1 minute. “Please, stay here and listen. I have info you’ll want to tell Soundwave.”

Pro tip: if you ever want to get someone to just stay still and listen, just mention someone they care about and how you can be of potential use to that person. Works mostly every time!

The skittering head does stop, taking his claw out of my hand and slowing his movements. Blood pools out of my hand and onto Mikaela’s purse. Sorry, Mikaela, I’ll pay you back for that.

“Please hand over the glasses,” Optimus starts, saying my name, followed by Witwichky. Right, I revealed that I have the glasses, so there’s no need for the two love birds to continue looking. Kinda genuinely forgot about that.

Also, on a complete side note, do you know how long it took to get used to a new last name on the fly? Like, I just woke up in this world after dying and all that stuff, got adopted, and had to change my last name to a brand new one I’d never even consider using.

Back to the story now! Optimus continues, “It’s a matter of the fate of your planet.”

“First off, please gimme a sec, I need to tell this bozo a few things about future shit. Second off, I’m very much aware of that factoid and will have the glasses over as soon as I tell him stuff. Third, you're on our mom’s flowers, and that means to her and the flowers.”

I’M SORRY, OPTIMUS PRIME, FOR MAKING YOU WAIT! I really feel bad right now. I don’t wanna act like I normally act right now. I wanna be a pushover and just do what the robo-dad who’s about to break says. I’m sorry, Optimus.

Sam nods eagerly, “Yeah, she’s not going to be happy when she finds out her roses are crushed. Also, what happened to your hand?”

Right forgot about the actively bleeding hand. “Nothing, I’ll fix it later.”

Optimus sends a small glare to me, and oh, Primus, I feel so bad. I just wanna break down and start apologizing. “We need the glasses.” His optics also dart down to see the blood from my hand, and I swear he looks concerned for a second.

“Valid, like seriously valid, but I need to talk to my brother about very important stuff. Btw, feel free to listen in on it, but I do need like 5 minutes to just tell him things. I’m so sorry that I’m ignoring your necessity right now, but can you please be patient?” Damn, that’s the first time in forever since I’ve used my gentle parent talking. The last time I used it was in my past life to defuse family arguments and act as a mediator.

Sam sees it too, looking at me like I have 3 heads. Even though this is me, the calm, adult-acting me is genuinely a big part of my personality; he’s never seen it until now. He wants to say something about it, question why the hell I’m acting differently than normal, but he doesn’t, and I’m so thankful for that. I don’t know if I can handle that conversation right now.

The Prime nods, seeing my desperation, “I can do that, V-”

“So sorry that I’m interrupting you, but please just call me kid or child or anything other than my name. Trying to keep the fic at ‘reader insert’ status as well as ‘self insert’.”

I can hear Sam face-palm behind me, and I can practically feel the awkwardness permeating the room like that one episode of Gumball. “Alright then, little one, I can do that for you. Autobots, fall back.”

Finally! Everything is lined up. Frenzy is mildly willing to pass on info, I can talk to Sam about everything, and Optimus has a choice of listening in. Also, he called me little one, I might die. Fuck you abandonment issues, especially with father figures, fuck you.

“Okay, Sam,” I turn to him, eyes glancing at the bag where Frenzy and some of my blood is. “I am begging you to just shut up and listen.” The lights flicker. Oh, poor Ratchet, running into the powerlines. That also means I don’t have much time.

I can’t wait for Sam to tell me whether or not he’ll just take in the info I’m about to give willingly; he just has to do it. “Ron and Judy are gonna be up here in less than two minutes, and if they see her in here, they will give a sex talk. Don’t ask. Also, I am begging you, when the government takes you, please don’t let the Nokia phone die. It’s just a baby, sparking if you will, and doesn’t deserve that fate. Jazz will die-” I can hear some of the bots sharply turn at that information and instantly start walking over. Right, not supposed to know any of their names or anything, also the death part is unsettling. “He gets ripped in half by Megatron. I need you to try and not let that happen, by any means necessary. No matter what, it will end in a lot more death if it happens, and will eventually topple into a breakdown from the Prime who kills Megatron via decapitation with an axe. Got it?”

Did I bend the truth a little bit? Absolutely. But, it’s gotten people's attention and will hopefully give Soundwave a reason to tell Megatron ‘no killing’ if Frenzy does relay the info.

Sam looks stunned, completely baffled. I would normally be very pleased if he looked like that any other day. It would mean that I have a potential high ground if any betrayal or something similar were to happen. It also means he would be more accepting of my bs. Right now is not the time for him to look that confused.

He opens his mouth to say something and, “THE HELL YOU MEAN JAZZ WILL DIE!?” Ironhide interrupts. I look over and see him, outraged but extremely worried about the statement.

“I mean, he’ll die. Don’t let him. I just said how to, and no, I won’t be elaborating further. Now, Sam, do you get it?” I’m sorry, Ironhide, I just can’t let this moment go to waste. Ratchet's light momentarily blinds me for a second, but I can see Sam nod. That’s it, that’s all I need.

“Good, now, here are the glasses.” I take the glasses out of my pocket, rushing because I hear Ron and Judy- shit, forgot to call them Mom and Dad in that little speech. Oops. “Now, I gotta scadadle. Please don’t die. See ya!”

I rush out of the window right as Ron and Judy start counting down from 5. Thank you, Primus. My room is on the other side of the house, on the roof. It’ll give me a little time to get to my room.

I start booking it across the roof as the bots are ‘hiding’, aka, knocking against the house and making me lose my footing. I start sliding down the roof, scraping my knees and palms against the roof as I try to catch myself. God dammit, now there’s blood on the roof!

Optimus, luckily enough, sees this and extends his arm out, catching me. Oh, please no, I just want this interaction to be over. “Thanks, bro…” I mutter, clinging onto his hand as he tries to hide once again.

As soon as Ron leaves the window, I attempt to make a run for it, key word, attempt. Unfortunately for me, Optimus seems to have other plans. I’m now being lifted in the air, sitting on his palm like it’s a roller coaster.

“The parents are very irritating. Can I take ‘em out?” PLEASE JUST PUT ME DOWN!

Optimus is quick to scold Ironhide for his abrasive language. Personally, I see why he wants to do that. It is a little extreme, though. “Ironhide, you know we don't harm the humans!”

“Please don’t kill the people who took me in. I mean, it is a viable option, just don’t do it.” He looks at me like I’m an alien here. Well, I am to him, I guess… he is on my planet though, so… eh. “I was just saying it was an option…”

“Anyway, put me down!”

Chapter Text

God that was the scariest yet coolest thing I’ve ever experienced. Getting threatened by a 20 foot tall robot is something that will take another year off of my life every single time I do it. Yes, there will be several more times this will happen. With the position I’m in, there’s no way it couldn’t happen.

Frenzy chatters incoherently as he looks around at my stuff.

Oh, right. I need to tell you about what happened.

So, long story short, I got them to make a deal with me. It’s more in favor of Berriade than the Decepticons in general, but that’s fine with me. Frenzy will stay with me until Sam leaves with the Bots and goes to the Hoover dam, Barricade will fight Jazz and spare him (nothing was said about not harming him, he just has to not kill him), and I don’t have to tell them about how I know everything.

In return, I am to tell the two anything they want about whoever, within reason of course.

It’s a simple deal and works for both sides, and I get to stay home too. I can just stay put, answer questions, and continue to be grounded. That last part sounds like something that would be not good… Oh well.

Another chatter is sent my way. “Yeah. I mean, he’s just objectively cool so like, of course Ima know about him.”

A questionable chatter.

“You’re asking me about why I think he’s cool? Bro. First off, he turns into a satellite which is like, one of the coolest things you could turn into other than a traffic light and a pen… don’t question that, they’re references. But like, his design is quite good for Bayverse and in any other continuity as well. He has an incredible story arc, is op, and looks sick as fuck. You could shadowplay me or whatever and I’d still think he’s cool.”

The silver mini-con hops on my desk, looking at the doodles in my sketch book before raising a metaphorical eyebrow.

“Bayverse = this universe. Yes, other universes exist and yes Soundwave is quite present in them. And again, yes, I know what Shadowplay is.”

I hand the minicon the sketchbook that happens to be dedicated to Soundwave. It’s full to the brim of different versions of him from different shows, different VA’s, and character sheet-esc info about him.

“Yeah… He’s actually one of the more popular ones in the eyes of the fandom. A lot of people like to joke that he’s a really good single dad.”

He looks at me incredulously.

“It’s me, I’m people. I’m also not joking about that. Hell, even the official Transformer page gave him a shoutout on Fathers day. It’s because he has a bunch of Minicons and does tend to treat them like they’re his kids. I mean, look at how he treats Ravage in most of the comics! If that isn’t dad behavior idk what is.”

Frenzy sets the notebook down on the TFP Soundwave’s page before he questions me again. Right, he is one of the outliers for Soundwave. I mean, bro literally has a screen for a face. And, while that is awesome, it’s different. He’s also purple in that verse.

“Yeah, he’s pretty cool there. He only has one minicon tho, Lazerbeak.”

A shocked look.

“Chill, we don’t know where the rest are. While a lot of people like to assume the worst with that situation, I’d like to think they’re just chilling on the Nemesis or elsewhere or are just not deployed. Normily, bro has at least 2 minicons.”

That answer calms him down slightly. You know, for a minicon who likes chaos, bro is very chill right now. Maybe it’s because I’m talking about Soundwave… Eh, I don’t know. But, I will have to figure out a good time and place to cause some havoc with this con. I mean, that just feels like an opportunity I can’t miss out on.

“Bro has a lot of minicon’s across all the series. Of course we have you, rumble, ravage, and laserbeak, but the list just starts there. There’s also Buzzsaw, Ratbat, Squaktalk, Autoscout, Beastbox, Enemy, Flip Sides, Garboil, Glit, Howlback, Overkill, Slugfest, Sundor, and Wingthing. There’s probably more that I’m forgetting, but there’s just a lot.”

He just sits there and listens as I rattle off all of Soundwave’s minicons. It’s great! This is the first time in forever that I’ve been able to talk about Transformers and not be looked at as weird! People in this world can be very stingy when it comes to a kid talking about a fictional series that doesn’t exist.

The sounds of several vehicles pulling up to the house drag me out of my ramblings to the minicon. It’s timmmme! The Bot’s are here and my official plan will go into action!

Turning to Frenzy, I start to go over the plan with him one last time. “Okay, you’ll disguise yourself as Sam’s phone and go with him. It’ll lead you to where Megatron and the cube are. In return for me telling you that info, you are to save the spark of the Nokia bot and bring them to me.”

Frenzy nods eagerly. “Also, you can 100% fuck with Sam while you’re with him. It’d be mad funny… Tho don’t break him, just be silly if that makes sense.”

Another nod, almost exactly like the last one except for the fact that it’s slightly half-assed. I send him a slight glare just as he transforms, looking exactly like Sam’s phone courtesy of some images I found online of the model.

Chapter Text

“Get downstairs right now, strange men are in the yard and house.” Judy quickly tells me, panic and rage in her voice. The government men from sector 7 are now here and ripping up her roses, mean much.

My little ass just made it to my room in time before anyone came to check on me. Thank Primus, for the awkward tension between Sam and Mikaela and Judy's motherly remarks about their relationship.

Very proud of myself for getting out of there before I could witness that whole debacle. Less proud of myself for how I handled the situation as a whole. I could’ve done many different things in many ways. For example, I could’ve just waited for the whole parent convo with those two teens to be over and then talk with Sam. I also could’ve kept up my ‘chaos-fulled-little-shit-who-cares-very-little-and-isn’t-mature-at-all’ persona and not reverted to ‘trauma-fulled-child-who-was-forced-to-be-a-voice-of-reason-in-arguments’. I tried to stop doing that since I deathed and got thrown into this amazing home.

But, now, all of that stuff has already happened and can’t be changed, yip-fucking-ye. If I want to keep my sanity intact, hopefully keep everyone I love and care about alive (including myself), and potentially keep this bitch ass plot in my control, I’ll need to start fighting for things to go more my way. I’m not gonna like it at all. Even if I’m not ready to be one, I am, in fact, a pushover and will do anything for anyone.

I don’t know what it’s gonna look like if I start to fight for control, but I hope it’ll turn out today. You could say I have some DETERMINATION about it… I miss Undertale… and Deltarune.

Judy grabbing my bloody hand reminds me that I’m alive and in the present. “What happened!?” She almost screams, looking at me with eyes full of care and worry. This isn’t the first time that I’ve gained some sort of cause-for-concern injury seemingly at random, but, no matter what, she always reacts like this. She fusses over me. I don’t like it, I almost hate it, but it is still nice.

“Eh, I don’t really know, not gonna lie. If I were to guess, I probably cut myself on something, considering how it’s a cut.” I chose you sarcasm defense!

She glares at me before grabbing my hand as gently as she could and starting to guide me downstairs, making me put a hand underneath my bloody one to stop any blood getting onto the carpet, which is a mood. Huh, kinda reminds me of when you first meet Toriel weirdly. What’s with me and Undertale references this chapter? This isn’t even an Undertale fic!

“You have to start coming straight to me whenever something like this happens!” she lovelingly scolds, dropping me off at the bottom of my stairs before grabbing a baseball bat. Yes, queen, kill! And I mean that literally. “Stay right here, mama’s gonna be right back with some band-aids, disinfectant, and a few dead men who stepped on my flowers.”

I love it when Judy’s overprotective of her flowers. I love it even more when she gets murderously overprotective of her flowers. Get that bag, queen! More specifically, get that body bag!

I watch silently as she goes to attempt to reach those objects, only to be stopped by the kinda creepy Sector 7 guy. Glad to know I’m not the only person failing at something tonight. Primus, I really fucked myself over.

I mean, really, did I have to do all of that? I could’ve been so much quieter, so much more subtle, have so much less contact. Hell, Optimus fucking Prime held me tonight, HELD ME. Do you understand how horrible that is? Well, at least for what I’m trying to do. But, seriously, I did one of the only things I wanted to avoid doing: making any form of contact with the Autobots. It’s so fucking shity and I just- fuck me, I feel like everything is going to go to shit now.

Seriously, I planned this shit out for weeks in advance and went over every detail. I mean, I did plan for a situation like this to happen, but I still feel so shity about it.

It’s fine, it’s cool, this is sadly not a part of a Chapel Roan song~. Hah, mildly hate myself right now, but I can bounce back, I know I can. And, as stated earlier, I’m going to lock in a fight. If I make enemies from it, good; if I get hurt from it, also good. Whatever it takes for me to stay on top of this shit is what I’ll do, no matter what.

Something kicks my side and I look up. Sam looks down and gives me a frown. It’s probably because of everything, including my trauma-fulled side, he saw earlier. Damit, I’m so fucked over. I know I’ve said it a thousand times now, but I’m just so frustrated about my mistakes that could’ve had simple fixes that I can’t think of any other way to respond to myself. It just feels like weeks of work went down the drain, even though it didn’t, you know what I mean?

He ignores Simmons, crouching down to my level and allowing his, sorry, our parents to step in and keep both of us safe. “You're scratching yourself…” He says quietly, and boy howdy, I am scratching myself! How many trauma responses are going to pop back up for me on this journey!? “It’ll be fine. We’ll just have to talk after all of this is over. Is that cool with you?”

He’s lying. His eyes are full of hesitance and hope, trying his best to convince himself and me that it will be fine. That makes him a good brother. Why can’t he just be a little bit more selfish and non-self-sacrificing and just focus on himself, Mikaela, and the Bots?

I nod, giving him a look that’ll trick him into thinking I believe his lie. What else am I supposed to do? Let him know that I see through him? Hell no, that’s just gonna fill his ass with doubt and make him so much more likely to be traumatised and die in the final fight. He believes the look and stands back up, stepping forward.

That Simmon fucker is making him do the weird radiation scan for whatever the fuck… bitch. That fucking device that I hate clicks once, then twice, then a whole bunch, and bro doesn’t look happy with Sam. I wanna fight him… can’t do that legally though. “14 rad, bingo! Take-”

“You look like a human personification of a perverted dad joke.” He stops mid-sentence. If you can’t fight 'em, rage-bait ‘em!

He lets out a laugh of disbelief, looking at me like I bitch-slapped him. Good, very good, I’ve caused damage. “What did you just say, punk? Liste,n I am-”

“An old man who apparently needs hearing aids and any form of a cop to tell you that you are currently unlawfully in this house.” I mean, it is true. He didn’t get correct permission to search the house; he didn’t show a proper form of ID to prove himself to be law enforcement, just a badge won’t do, that shit just proves authority; lastly, even though he is apart of a true government brach, I’m pretty sure he’d need to co-operate with the FBI or some shit to do something like this considsidering how underground and secretive his branch is.

And I’ve pissed him off even more! Go me! That was a very needed confidence boost. I don’t even care that my fam is now being taken away. Well, I don’t care because this would’ve happened whether or not I insulted Simmon’s or not.

“Hey, Sam! Don’t say anything until we get a lawyer! I- Where are you going with my other kid?” Huh? I’m not being put with Ron and Judy? Why!? I’m a minor and feel like I should be going with my parents even if I’m just being taken in for questioning.

Both Ron and Judy's demands are silenced as I’m put into my separate car. I don’t even get to see Sam. Fuckers. Something barks next to me. IT’S MOJO! I’m with family, that’s good. Why did they put me with our dog?

Chapter Text

H-O-T T-O G-O! I might not make it home~! That’s right, folks! Your bitch might not be making it home today!

“But why?” I hear you ask. Well, it’s a little thing called this car IS FLIPPING OVER AND EVERYTHING IS BAD AND OHHHHH GOSH GOLLY DARN, HELP!

Seriously, though, I truly did not expect that the only car that would flip over to be my car. I think the driver swerved when Sam’s car got a giant robotic hand punched through it, causing a little traffic block and the driver to go ‘Oh shit! Giant robot!’

The car stills, and now, I’m just hanging upside down, holding Mojo and trying to act like glass didn’t dig its way into my face. Yep, todelly didn’t happen. I am 100% not in pain right now.

Don’t worry, Mojo is fine. I managed to hold him with my legs and kinda curl around him since my hands are still very much cuffed. I truly am confused about how the hell I managed to do that, but hey, you do wild shit when your dog is in danger.

Back to reality really quickly: the driver and the single guard they chose to put in this car (underestimating the 13-year-old once again) are limp and dangling like pigs in a slaughterhouse. They are still breathing, a sign that they are thankfully not dead. That’s a good thing. I don’t want the potential reality of being the only survivor of a car crash on my mind.

I, as gently as I can, slowly drop Mojo in the safest place I can get him to. This dog will not get hurt on my watch. He is a good boy, and I will treat him as such.

Okay, now it’s time for me to get out of this.

Shifting slightly, I manage to press the seatbelt button, freeing myself but faceplanting at the same time. It’s giving ‘everybody do the flop’, except much more painful.

I get out of the car, handcuffed and winded. Mojo licks my face. What a good boy. Now, a good question for me to have right now is, how will I pick up Mojo while handcuffed? Without logic, that’s how.

The one-eyed freak would be disappointed. Too bad for him, he’s gonna eventually be interacting with me daily, especially if I wanna figure out how to heal/revive some of these fuckers.

With Mojo, I take a good, long look at the screen behind me, which includes Bee pissing on Simmons. Hell yeah, piss on that man! He deserves it for hinting at hitting on a minor! Oh, it’s so sad that I won’t be around to see him get humbled even more.

My next plans include leaving, aka, the best way to not include myself. This wreck of a car crash is their problem, not mine. Plus, I already gave some semblance of a warning, something I didn’t need to do but did out of anxiety and plot stuff.

I mean, they won’t mind. Might be a little traumatized to find that their beloved child/sibling is not where they’re supposed to be and could’ve been flung out of the car when it flipped, but they’ll get over it. It’s not like I’m disappearing forever. No, I’m just gonna go and hide out in some random garage for a little bit until the first steps of this dumb ahh Decepticon shit is over. Then, and only then, will I come out and start to make some interaction with the bots and cons, at least more than I already have. Oh, and if you can’t tell, Mojo will be with me for the ride.

Speaking of which, it’s time for us two lost little souls to skiddadle! Just me and Mojo, only us too, sounds like heve-

You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.

Chapter Text

“STOP FOLLOWING ME YOU BUG ASS BITCH!!!”

“GRREEEOWWERERRERE!”

Welcome back, friends! On today's episode, you’ll be watching me run away from Frenzy as quickly as I can. Plot twist, the fucker is fast. Another plot twist: I hate running, especially when I'm handcuffed and carrying a dog.

God help me because I’m about to add to some statistics.

The weird, ahh, looking Con continues scuttling towards me. I don’t dare kick him because it’s Frenzy. While it might be an extremely weird Frenzy, it’s still a Frenzy, and we appreciate Frenzys in this household.

Also, kicking anyone smaller than you just feels super mean, especially if it wasn’t deserved. On the other hand, kicking someone bigger than you is awesome, and you should totally be allowed to do it without consequences. If you're short, go kick the tallest person you can find.

Anywho, why is this little freak, said lovingly, following me in the first place? What does he want? Any conversation that should’ve happened already happened back at the house!

I run around a corner, and he follows, metal scuttering across the concrete loudly. How is he this fast? Like, bro is literally just a head right now since Mikela sawed him, he shouldn’t be this fast. I also shouldn’t be this slow. NOTHING'S FAIR IN THIS WORLD AND I HATE IT!

Another turn leads to a sharp pain in my back. Mother fucker just launched himself at my back, what an asshole. He lets out several loud screeches, which I return. It sounds like a raccoon got into a fight with a cat in this alley.

Mojo is gently set down as he lets out a few aggressive barks at Frenzy as he practically mauls my back. “DUDE! GET OFF AND USE YOUR WORDS! YOU CAUGHT ME, I’M ON THE FLOOR!”

He, thankfully, listens to my screaming pleas and gets off.

My back starts to sting slightly as the cold air of the night meets deep scratches and a few bites. He probably drew a little bit of blood, not as much as when he stabbed me in the hand, though.

Sitting up and letting out a groan of pain, I start talking. “Thank you, now, the hell you want?” I ask, giving him a small glare. While I might have a no-kicking rule against him, I am still allowed to hold grudges.

A chatter is sent my way, and he paces back and forth, looking like a small rodent trying to size me up. Right, we have a mild communication barrier that I forgot about. He mainly only speaks in incoherent rambles and Cybertronian, with the occasional verbal human expression sprinkled on top.

“Okay, so, I’ma throw a wild theory out there and say it’s about the lore drop a little while ago,” I say in a sarcastic tone. Mojo comes and sits in my lap, growly now cessed but still cautious, I say it constantly, but what a good dog. “Well, there isn’t much to say about it… That’s a lie. There’s not that much to say about it to you right now, emphasis on the right now part.”

He lets out a growl. While he might be a chaotic little gremlin, he’s also smart. He knows there’s more to the story- well, I mean, that much is obvious. A teen doesn’t just have knowledge like that out of the blue. The little ‘right now’ shit I spewed out should’ve given him enough of a hint on what I want out of this.

“You don’t get to know that background info. You can stay oblivious.” Standing up, I give him a small glare, “plus, being oblivious is awesome. You can worry about less. Now, I know you aren’t going to leave me alone, right?”

The question makes his chatter grow into an excited ramble of Cybertronian and other incoherent nonsense. Guess that’s a yes. Man, am I good at guessing things or am I good at guessing things!

.

.

.

I’m not, I’m just making very basic guesses with very obvious context clues. I just look smart since everyone else is cursed to be oblivious via the plot.

“Well, feel free to join me and Mojo then.” Alright, so that’s kind of a really dumb offer, especially since this mini-con quite literally has almost all the import info to the cons in his head. Frenzy is technically going to be the worst mech to travel with. On the other hand, though, he is a more minor character compared to someone like Starscream or Soundwave. He doesn’t have as much screen time or anything like that, other than the first half of the movie and then getting killed-but-not-really-killed off in the second half.

Also, going back to the info thing, we’re both super similar! I have hell tea on everyone; he has hella tea on everyone. We can bond! It’s a stupid choice, but it might be a good one for my sanity. All I would have to do is be careful with what I say, and I should be good.

I can keep low and start to make a, hopefully, good connection ally-wise with the Decepticons slowly over time-

OH MY GOD! I just realized, this could also maybe start to get me in contact with Shockwave! Changed my mind, this stupid impulse plan isn’t actually that stupid if I just play my cards right!

Frenzy ramming into the side of my leg knocks me out of my internal dialog. I really have to start doing that. I look down at him, and he looks up at me. A few strangled gurgles of Cybertronian are sent out of his mouth. “Is that a yes or?”

“YES!” he shouts. Yooo, first human word I’ve heard out of him since I’ve met this bastard! He jumps, hopping on top of my shoulder and not questioning how I’m managing to hold Mojo while I’m handcuffed. Oh yeah, I can maybe solve that problem now.

“Yo, do you think you could, ya know, uncuff me?” I ask sheepishly. Asking things from people is always awkward.

I can practically feel him give me the heaviest eye roll ever rolled before scuttling down my arm like the freaky spider head he is. My hands get pinched slightly as he undoes the cuffs, but the freedom that comes after is very enjoyable.

Mojo is now held in a more logical position, settled in my arms with his broken leg dangling so it won't get more hurt. Frenzy scoots back to his position on my soldier, weird spider-esc limbs clinging to my shirt so as not to fall off. And, finally, I continue on the path of hiding until things die down.

The duo of me and a dog has grown to a trio with the addition of this freaky little Cybertronian. It’s time to either enjoy this new group or silently crash and burn.

Chapter Text

The chosen hideout is an old warehouse that was abandoned mid-construction 5 years ago, generic, I know. I discovered it a little while ago on a random nighttime adventure. It’s old, smells musty, and most likely has mold growing on it in the still water-filled basement I refuse to go into. This 3 floored building (including the forbidden basement) looks like something straight out of The Last of Us.

However, it is big and it is very abandoned. I think the owners ran out of construction money midway through the project, leading to it being left alone. The owners are kind of big developers in the area, so they just chose to keep it until they could finish it.

5 years later, they still have it and do nothing with it. No security, no one checking on it, and a surprising lack of homeless people. It’s perfect for me and my needs.

With frenzy on my shoulder and Mojo lying down on a comfy pile of pillows and blankets, I managed to put here in case any emergencies happened, I cleared up the place, moving chunks of broken, graffiti-covered walls, sweeping any broken glass away, and making a path that’s void of any rusted screws and nails. It’s peaceful. It lets me actually think and go into an internal monologue. Speaking of which…

I wonder how Sam is holding up; same thing with Ron and Judy. Sam is, most likely, taking a helicopter ride to the Hoover Dam to find Bumble, the Cube, and accidentally Megatron. Gosh, I hope he keeps his unwilling panicked words and saves the Nokea bot.

Ron and Judy, on the other hand, are probably detained right now. I should be detained right now. Wait, did I commit a crime? I mean, fleeing from the police is technically a crime, especially when you have been arrested. That’s a side focus, though; my real focus with this thought is whether or not the police would tell them that I managed to escape their grasp.

I mean, I would think they’d tell the two under more normal circumstances, but if you couldn’t tell, these are ‘more normal’ circumstances. No, they’re dealing with the threat of giant robots. I, in all honesty, truly hope they don’t tell Ron and Judy of my disappearance. It’ll make them panic and worry when they should be focusing on their real kid, Sam, and the shit show he’s facing.

I’m not going through anything, just cleaning up an old warehouse to live in for the next few days while I ignore the sounds of a giant metal robot plopping itself down, along with my mass existential dread and severe anxiety that’s hidden by humor. Like, that really isn’t that bad. Plus, the whole cleaning up the warehouse bit of it is almost done! Not really, just my small corner that I’m dedicating sleep and stuff to is almost done.

All I need to do is just a bit more sweeping and moving around a few cinderblocks to give me more privacy, and the home base will be done!

Hold on a second… What did I think twoish paragraphs ago? ‘Giant metal robot ploping itself down’, yeah, that’s not what I planned on, at all.

Sounds of a wounded robot huffing and puffing like an angry dog or a drunken man after you told him that his misogynist sex joke wasn’t funny fill the room, and my face shifts to one of pure regret.

What am I regretting? Everything!

Bringing Frenzy along, even though we love and appreciate him, is a regret. Evasion to avoid arrest is regrettable. Choosing to tell Sam a little bit about the future and the weirdest way possible is a regret. Meeting Barricade is a regret. Having a stare-down with Bumblebee is a regret. Showing up in this world is a regret. When I said everything, I meant everything.

Turning around, a familiar red-eyed gaze fills my vision, and another stare-down happens. Barricade looks at me with more recognition in his optics, knowing that I, supposed sibling of Sam Whitwicky, knew who he was before I was ever supposed to know and loved him for some reason. I look at him with a sour expression as I contemplate whether taking the death route and showing up in this wacky world was really worth it.

God, I want to sit in a chair and cosplay Shinji right now.

I blink once before looking at Frenzy. “This is your doing, isn’t it?” I say in an exasperated tone. This little shit totally called his giant cop friend here, and I am pissed.

“EHhHEhehehehh,” he laughs out maniacally before hopping off my shoulder and running over to the wounded mech. Gibberish and Cybertronian are thrown Berricades' way. He responds with a hum and a pained nod, still looking at me. Little freak is spilling my tea, I would say that would be rude if I wasn’t so proud of the behavior.
The sigh that comes out of my mouth doesn’t do me justice for how tired I am. “Frenzy, I’m going to politely make you feel bad at some point… not really, that would be kind of mean- anyway, why did you bring him here?” I ask the small con. I’m sadly just met with mocking giggles.

“Great, I understood that so well. So, you-”

“Don’t you dare address me in such a tone, fleashling. If I wasn’t injured I’d-”

I’m not letting this cop bastard cut me off like that! “You’d smush me into the ground like the bug I am? Thanks, I’d take that over this dumpster fire situation any day. Now, I’m going to assume you're here for a few reasons. A) info-dump 5000, aka Frenzy, over here told you to just spawn in because it’s a safer location or some shit. B) You have hella questions for me. And finally, C) you're too injured to go fight and need some kind of repair.”

Barricade gives me the robot equivalent of a snarl. In our first encounter, I wasn’t the center of his attention, so I, and consequently he, was able to study him and how he actually looks up close. That’s why I looked at him with so much love and joy. Well, that’s what I assume I did; the true reason could just be entirely lost on me. Who really knows?

His tone is filled with pain and exhaustion as he talks, and I can’t help but feel empathetic for him, “I can already tell you're going to be more of pain in the aft than your brother.”

He guessed that right, but not for the reasons he’s thinking. “True. Anywho, I’m just going to skip ahead to the me disappointing you part and let you know that for two of those correct assumptions, you came to the wrong bitch. While I know a lot, I am neither a medic nor a mechanic. My medical knowledge consists of ‘throw some Nealsporn on it and slap it with a bandaid’. My mechanical knowledge is slightly better, with very basic welding skills and a limited understanding gained from watching one tutorial on how to build a LEGO robot. Aka, repair skills are out of here.”

“And the other ‘correct assumption’?” He says, saying the words ‘correct’ and ‘assumption’ like they personally hurt him. This is why the Decepticons are awesome: they’re filled with sass.

“The other assumption is I answer questions. That’ll be a no-go for me, thank you very much… unless-” he cuts me off again, this time with a giant arm getting slammed down next to me. It rattles my whole body and quickly reminds me that I am, in fact, just a fleshbag. Unlucky for him, this fleshbag has experienced death once and won’t hesitate to experience it again.

I, staring him down, climb on his arm and stare at him with my arms crossed and pouting. Confusion via random acts is my favorite way to diffuse any situation. “Bestie, that was mean. Apologise.”

He gives me a confused glare. Good, my tactics are working. “I- what?”

“You heard me, apologize!”

“I WILL DO NO SUCH THING!”

“‘IwiLLdONoSuChTHing!” I mock, “Yes, you will cuck! You didn’t let me finish what I was saying before. The answering questions thing is a no-go for me unless we make some kind of trade. The current trade is that I will give you one piece of information about how I know stuff if you apologise. Also! You have to take the answer for what it is and not demand more. Got it?” Hmmm, yes, yes, this will be good. If he agrees, I will answer truthfully, but it’ll be in my truthful way.

Mother fucker is so pissed off it’s not even funny. That’s a lie, it is quite funny. Seeing a robot get so mad that its face, somehow, scrunches up into a glaring hunk of metal is quite an amusing image. “FINE!” he finally yells.

“GOOD!” I yell back. This has somehow been a productive conversation. “Now, what do you want to know?” Please, universe, I’m begging you, make him ask literally anything that I can respond with a blunt statement that sounds so not true. It would be funny as fuck if you did that.

“HOW DO YOU, A PATHETIC FLESHLING, KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON!?” Universe, I thank you. Truly, thank you for giving me material. Frenzy's head perks up as well at the question. He’s also gonna wanna hear this.

“... Oh, I just died lol.”

Chapter Text

“TALK!” Frenzy screams at me, using a once in a blue moon human word. It hasn’t even 3 hours yet, but ever since I gave the ‘oh, yeah, I died’ lore drop with absolutely 0 context, I’ve gotten no breaks from either Decepticon I’m living with, practically begging me for answers.

I give him the quiet coyote hand, which leads to him stopping, not really understanding what the hell it means. A thing I’ve learned about the Decepticons in my short time knowing them is that they don’t really understand human culture at all. They can learn it if I actually choose to teach them instead of trolling them, but they fuck’s actively refuse to look up anything related to humans on their own. As much as that can be a pain in the ass for me, having to explain basic human things and all that, it’s also going to be really fun.

I can lie to them, and there’s going to be a big chance that they’ll believe it since, as stated before, they refuse to look up anything human. That means no fact-checking on what I say. The only Decepticons who would fact-check that I can think of are the two Waves, but I shouldn’t be meeting them until a while later on in this fic… hopefully.

Frenzy, finally snapping out of his confusion on whether or not ‘quite coyote’ is something offensive or similar, he continues to yell at me. I can hear Mojo, who’s currently trying to rest, whine on my lap at the noise.

I’m, honestly, extremely glad I brought him along. Firstly, I don’t need to worry about whatever place he would be sent if I didn’t grab him. Secondly, the company. He’s my rock in this situation; he’s actively giving me something to cling to and not just 100% crash over all of my failed plans. And lastly, his dog instinct is being hella helpful right now. If he was freaking out or growling or something, I would know that I could actually be in danger and one of those two Decepta-freaks was actually going to hurt me. It’s useful.

I give Frenzy a tired look. Out of the two, he’s the one who’s the loudest and the most determined to know what I meant by that. Barricade, for the first hour, was similar to Frenzy, not leaving me alone. Then he realized that I’m the equivalent of a rock when it comes to talking and gave up, choosing to use his energy on repairing himself with stuff I gathered so he could do so rather than fighting me.

Letting out a sigh, I talk for the first time in 3 hours, “Bro, give up for today and try again tomorrow, please. If you keep talking, I will kms and it’ll not be fun.” Is it true? No, I’ll stick around even if he does keep talking. I just really want to not have my ears exist while he does it.

His head cocks to the side and gurgles out a few Cybertronian words that sound very similar to kms.

“It means kill myself,” I answer. The answer seems to startle him for a second before he gets a little more serious. Barricade, who was attempting to repair his arm, lifts his head up at the statement. Are we really going to have this conversation right now?

The smaller con hops onto the pile of blankets that I’m sitting on. If I had to describe it, he almost looks worried. “You okay?” I ask tentatively, eyeing him up and down at his odd behavior.

“Are you?” Barricade questions in his aggressive tone. Why are they acting this way? Like, it’s not that big of a statement, especially for someone in my generation. I mean, like, yeah, it can mean something super bad if you truly mean it, so you gotta read/put out the vibes on whether or not you or someone else means it.

Also, aren’t they in a full-out war? At least one of them fuckers has done it before. It’s war for Prime's sake! “Yeah, why? This is a little ooc for you, and I’m questioning both of you on it.”

“Fleshling, you just told us that you died to gain this info!” He says, a little bit more rage in his voice than before. What are they trying to tell me? What message do they want me to get here?

Frenzy lets out a few more concerned pieces of gibberish. OH! I JUST GOT IT! “No, I didn’t kill myself… At least I don’t think I did? It’s a bit confusing. But offing myself was not the intention.”

“Griwiminbdfhe- the FUCK!?” cloud storage 89 screams at me, literally jumping onto me and attempting to shake me back and forth. It wakes Mojo up from the half-sleep he managed to get into, prompting him to bark at the little fucker who, recuntenly, gets off.

Grabbing the small dog, I look at both Decepticons like they’re crazy, which they are. “Why are you so concerned over this? Ya’ll are in an actual war! I feel like people ending it because they don’t wanna continue living in that state or to avoid torture or something similar, should be more normal. Is it not?”

“NO!?” Barricade raises his voice, optics looking at me like I’m crazy. I am crazy, just not like that. “IS IT NORMAL FOR YOU HUMANS!?”

“I mean, kind of, especially for war stuff. Like in WWII, there was a lot of mass suicide by the Allied forces.” I think I’m right if I remember correctly. Remembering school stuff from my last life is much harder than remembering Transformers stuff or anything I actually liked, for that matter.

If both Frenzy and Barricade were in a cartoon, their optics would be bulging out of their heads, and jaws would be on the floor. Several seconds of awkward silence go by of the two just staring at me. Any tasks from before are more than forgotten about. Hey, that’s something kind of good! It means I don’t have to keep listening to Frenzy talk my head off about how I should talk about you know what!

“... Has that stuff not happened in your war?” I question, trying to break the awkward silence permeating the air. Gosh, why has this chapter turned into a more serious one? I wanted a break from all this serious stuff. I already did too much of that earlier!

The big boy cop shakes his head. Is he in shock or…? “No. That stuff has occasionally happened, but not in mass! And what do you mean by World War 2? How many wars have you humans had?”

“A lot. We probably have a few going on right now, too. The only one I know of is the Iraq war, which was most likely what some of the soldiers who encountered Scorponok in Qatar were most likely fighting in. WW2 happened a while ago, but it was like one of our deadliest wars. “ This is making my head hurt. Why did I have to say anything about this kind of stuff? I should’ve just gone with a substitute for kms. Bad me, bad!

“Huh…” HA, motherfucker is flabbergasted! Frenzy has, for once in his interactions with me, gone quiet for more than a minute.

“So, before this talk continues, I’m going to bask in this silence and sleep. If you want more info, actually look it up or something even though I know you won’t.” Lying down and tossing a blanket over me, I snuggle up to Mojo and turn around. “Goodnight bitches, luv ya!”

Chapter Text

You know the trope of a character getting some kind of dream that’s basically a message from someone or something? Well, apparently, bitches chose to throw me into said trope! Also, I’m now facing god.

“Human-”

“I am not talking to you.” Considering how I didn’t meet god or something equivalent when I died, this is surprising, especially since I have not gotten close to my end here.

The biggest fucking robot I’ve ever seen, aka Primus himself, looks at me with a patient look. Actually, he’s a lot smaller than he would be canonically. Probably because I, a small human child, am nowhere near the size of a planet in any regard.

Actually, my ego might be planet-sized. Just in some cases, like talking to a literal god.

“Human, I can’t explain-”

“Shut your face hole, you robot bitch. I said I wasn’t talking to you.” He might be god, but that doesn’t mean I have to respect him. I’m already going through enough shit with literally everyone else, and I refuse to be given some sort of ‘divine quest’. I’m mentally 17 and physically 13; I shouldn’t be responsible for any of that bullshit.

“Child, I will respect your wishes to not respect me, but I need you to do something.” His booming voice makes it so I can only listen to him… Kind of. I can still think, just not while he’s talking. That means bro should shut the fuck up.

Pause for a second. He referenced something that I didn’t say out loud. This mother fucker can read my thoughts, can’t he?

Primus chuckles, “Yes, child, I can.” He sounds just like you’d expect him to sound… What? You want me to describe his voice further? Hell naw, all you get is ‘booming’ for a disciplinary word, use your imagination for the rest, coward.

“Who are you attempting to communicate to?” Right, fucker can read minds. That’s going to be a pain in my ass. It’s also going to be a pain in his ass if he abuses that power. I might be a child, but I also had no restrictions on the internet in my last life. Discovering a smut comic of Sans x an AU of his at the ripe age of 10 wasn’t a good move.

Right, I gotta answer to god now. Hehehe, that’s a funny line, anywho. “Bitches, bros, and non-binary hoes that don’t include you, Mr. ‘let’s give a giant robotic organism the ability to turn into a Toyota Carola’.”

Awkward silence for a few seconds. “What’s a sumt com-”

“THAT’S NOT THE POINT!”

I swear to god that if this god doesn’t just leave me alone, I will crash the fuck out, and that’s a threat.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. I need you to do something human, child, even if you don’t want to do it.” I’m not going to be getting out of this one, am I? Fuck, that’s annoying. I don’t want any more shit!

I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do some bitch ass god’s dirty work.

“I need you to obtain the All Spark by all means necessary." I- girl, what? This bitch has to be joking, right? I mean, he just asked me to do the one thing that’ll get me involved with everything, literally.

Let’s go through the list of what would happen if I choose to compile with his request.

1st, I’d be directly involved with the war, especially since I’d have to steal it in the middle of a full-blown battle before it gets destroyed. I don’t know if ya’ll know this, but a teenager going into the middle of a giant robot battle where none of the robots know that you're there isn’t going to end well, aka, I’d be crushed before I even had a chance to mock someone.

2nd, I would either have to go into hiding permanently after the fact or run for the rest of my life. Being a thief, especially one of the most sacred relics of Cybertron other than the Matrix of Leadership, will not lead me to getting treated as a fucking hero, no, I’d be chased down by Autobots and Decepticons and literally any other Cybertronian.

For my 3rd and final point, I would be throwing everything I know and love away, and this time, I’d be on purpose. I’ve already lost everything once before I got sent to this fuck ass world that I love so much, I don’t want to do it all over again. I’m not going to risk my life being taken away just because a god told me to. If I do that, it’ll be on my own accord.

Every single reason above is the reason why I’m saying no to this side quest. Judging by the look on this god's face, it’s filled with disappointment but expectation; he already knows it.

“Of course, of course.” He starts, the look of vain expectation in his optics making my skin squirm. “I wouldn’t expect you to say yes that blindly. You are not a lamb.” Should I take that as a compliment? I think I should.

Even though he holds himself with such elegance like a god would, I’m getting the vibes that he wants to argue with my answer. That is kind of valid if you really think about it. He literally is a god, and I know he’s asked or made deals with his own children several times before. He’s probably used to people accepting blindly and not thinking it through.

While he is a god, he isn’t all-powerful. If I had to put a word to it, he’s more like an overpowered dad. This giant fucker has emotions, feelings, and all of that jazz. While he is extremely powerful, he isn’t perfect. He has been tricked, deceived, and made miscalculations before.

If I had to make a guess, he is either the board of everyone practically bowing down to him, or he is just expecting it to happen now.

Luckily or unlucky for him, I’m not one of his. I recognize that he is an imperfect god and I treat him like I’d treat any other fuck face that would ask me to do a major thing for them on short notice while I bearly know them!

“With that answer, I would like to offer up a deal then.” Okay, now we're getting somewhere. He should’ve led with that; it would’ve saved him hella mocking from me. “In exchange for retrieving the all spark, you will receive a chance to contact your home world-”

Fuck that. “Not happening, bucko. Nope, notta, zilch.” I might’ve met my end via a mild accident in my true world, but that doesn’t mean I wanna contact that place. I mean, yeah, it would be nice to say hi to my mom, let all my friends know I’m kind of safe and okay, cuddle with my family pets again, and say ‘go fuck yourself, I’m doing much better without you in my life’ to my abuser, but damn, that shit would also suck.

All of those people could’ve already moved on. They could be done with their grieving process or just getting started. In this world, it’s been 13 years, 13. I have no idea how much time has passed in my real world. My friends could have kids, my mom could be dead, my pets could’ve mutated into giant humanoid versions of themselves. I have no idea what’s going on there, and I want to keep it that way!

Even if nothing changed and my whole world stopped at my disappearance, I still wouldn't want to just pop back up for a quick minute. It could send the people I love into a crisis, and I don’t want that. So no, Primus, I don’t want that deal. Also, I’m not even going to question why or how you could do that right now because I don’t have the brain power to do so.

“Give me another or I won’t even consider fetching the All Spark,” I demand. For his sake, I hope he spits out another offer quickly because I’m about ready to wake the hell up and forget this ever happened. This overpowered god-dad has made me think about angsty things too much, and now I want him gone.

His optics widen in surprise. I know he can read my thoughts, so he heard my explanation on why I refused. This asshole shouldn’t be surprised… at all. “I see… A more unexpected outcome.” Instead of looking disappointed, he almost looks pleased at the info.

Great, I guess I was right again, on two accounts. He expects most people to blindly accept his requests, as that’s what he’s accustomed to, and he’s pleased that there’s now a change in that pattern.

“How about this, in return for the All Spark, I will give you-”

I bolt upright, sweat dripping down my face, and hyperventilating. Motherfucker, I cut myself off from my own dream!

Chapter Text

The warehouse is still and quiet, too quiet.

Gathering myself, I start to look around the room. Curse whatever the hell woke me up from that fuckery of a dream. It was just getting to a good bit as well.

Mojo is here, alert and awake just like me. He looks panicked, a bad sign. There’s no sign of Barricade or Frenzy at all. No tools, no weapons, nothing. Just an empty warehouse with me and Mojo.

My heart is still racing, refusing to calm down. I feel like something terrible is about to happen, something that’s going to, once again, make me the center of attention. That's bad, very bad.

I stand up, grabbing Mojo and keeping him close. If those two are gone, they’re gone for a reason, and the only reason I can think of right now is the battle that’s going to happen or is actively happening. I don’t care if god called on me to do some shit, I ain’t participating in that fight.

Well, actually, I do kind of care. He is god, and if he is calling on a human to do his bidding, he has to be despised. If he’s despite, then that means the cube has to be even more important than it was in the og movie, something that is mildly concerning. I’m not going to worry about that, though! I’m a child, and that’s his fucking problem, not mine.

.

.

.

.

.

Why do I feel very, very judged right now?

Whatever, I've got other shit to do, like moving locations. If a battle is going to break out, my hideout will be compromised, something that’ll give me a very bad, no good, terrible day. So, we’re moving because I’m not going to go through that at all. Nope! Call me Frisk cause I fucking refuse.

Does that reference make sense? I hope it does.

With Mojo in my arms, I scan the hideout for anything I could potentially use. Blankets would be nice but not necessary, food is under that same category, Mojo’s pills are necessary (I’ve had them in my pocket this whole time, don’t worry), what about the random bucket that’s been sitting in the corner that I’ve gotten way too attached to? Nah, I wouldn’t do that! No way would I explicitly go out of my way just to grab some rusted-up bucket that has little to no use. Absolutely not!

So anyway, we're leaving with Mojo and a bucket. Where did it come from? Where will it go? No idea, but I’m calling it cotton-eyed-tub for now.

Get it? Cause, cause tub is a similar word for bucket? Do you get the pun, or joke, or whatever it’s called? Do ya?

…I’m done with this bit now. It went on for too long, and now it just feels slightly pathetic. We’re still bringing the bucket, though.
Outside feels a little too bright and a little too loud. Noises of the city fill the air recklessly, blocking out any pockets of silence. The buildings stand tall, making the alleyway I stepped into feel way too big and intimidating.

Walking out into the street doesn’t get rid of that feeling. The green trees that were planted for decoration are oddly empty of any life; there are no birds in the sky, people walking by seem oblivious and are talking or laughing or just ignoring everything like usual.

Mojo starts to squirm in my arms, drawing people's attention for a second before they just continue on their way. I probably look like shit right now. Even if it’s only been a day, too much has happened for me not to look horrible. Just yesterday I ran away from Bee with Sam, got stabbed in the hand by Frenzy when I first met him, almost fell of a roof and scraping my knees in the process, got my house raided by the government, survived a car crash that resulted in some glass in my face (kind of forgot about that one), got jumped by Frenzy who scratched up the back of and shirt and- well- my back, and finally I met with god.

If that isn’t a lot, I don’t know what is. Honestly, I’m surprised no one has really died, more specifically, me. I kinda feel like I should be dead, granted, I’ve always felt that way. Getting thrown into a brand new life after you kind of sacrificed yourself after dealing with a whole lifetime of angsty depression and ptsd stuff may or may not fuck with your brain. But that’s a whole other story for another time.

Stepping into the street, I start to walk, ignoring any looks I get or anyone who bumps into me. I need to get away from this place and find another hide-out that no one other than me and Mojo knows about.

I don’t even quite know where I am. The tall skyscrapers and stuff would suggest that I’m in a city, hope you picked up on that, but the question of which city still remains. We didn’t drive far enough to get to downtown LA or another big Cali city. We would have to drive for a few hours for that to happen.

I mean, I can’t be stupid enough to go hide in Mission City, the place where the battle takes place. Right?

No, I am stupid enough to pull something like that.

*CHASH*

I hate it here.

The loud sound of glass shattering silences everything. People stop, staring at the giant robot with a gnarly face that just landed in a building. Awe and fear overcome the crowd as our beloved Starscream gets up, looking over everything with disgust.

That is one ugly-looking bird… Though his face is really cool. He reminds me of an ant with those face mandibles, and any character that resembles a bug means someone cooked with their design.

He isn’t my favorite Screamer, no, that right is reserved by TFP Starscream, respectively. Armada Starscream was fighting for that spot, though. That Seekers backstory mixed with his character arc is what I live for, and when bro died, I am not ashamed to admit that I cried.

Also, why couldn’t I have been tossed into one of those universes? While both would’ve been hella difficult to live in, I would’ve at least had other teens my age that weren't my siblings to rely on. Plus, I would’ve been able to make fun of TFP Megs' drug use or been able to meet more mini-cons!

By now, people are starting to panic. They’re running away, awe turning into terror. Honestly valid, but damn, that feels kind of rude. Screamer jumps down and- oh.

Oh… that’s- that’s umm… Yeah! Blood splatter is always nice to see, especially under the peads of a character you like. Right, he’s a Decepticon who isn’t really fond of humans. Of course, he doesn’t care if he crushes them.

The sounds of a jet flood the area as a very large, very spiky plane flies in over Starscream. Pieces of it move and click into place at a rapid rate, making the classic Transformer noises that I love to hear. At the end of the sequence, a very familiar face appears. Megatron stands in place of the jet.

A few people who are still around these two start running away as Megatron slumps against a building. I follow their lead and dart into a pile of rubble from Screamers' landing, giving me an optimal spot to watch the two.