Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

The low rumble of a Volvo 240 eased into the suburban driveway first, its maroon paint faded to a dull, muted red. The engine idled with the steady confidence of a veteran runner, a sound that had been a familiar part of the neighborhood for years.

Behind it, the deeper, throatier growl of a Suzuki Boulevard rolled in - its charcoal blue color catching the afternoon light, with chrome trim gleaming as if it had just been polished. Dante downshifted, smoothly guiding the bike to a stop beside the Volvo before cutting the engine.

Penelope popped her door open, eager to leave the day's stress behind, as her tote bag slid across the passenger seat. She stepped out in her work shoes, keys in one hand and a cheesy travel mug in the other, the Volvo clicking into silence behind her.

“Beat you home,” she said with a small, victorious smirk.

“How? Nelly, you drive like a grandma,” Dante shot back, pulling off his helmet. His hair was wind-tossed but deliberately so, as if he had figured out the exact speed to hit the perfect messy look.

She walked toward the house, tossing her keys in the air and catching them. "Better a grandma than a grease stain on the pavement." She smiled.

He just grinned, leaning down to unclip a saddlebag. “Funny, coming from someone whose ride would’ve died ten years ago if I didn’t keep resuscitating it.”

As if on cue, the Volvo gave a faint metallic tick as its engine cooled; not a protest, just a reminder that it was still here and still running.

Penelope shot the car an affectionate glance before disappearing inside, the screen door snapping shut behind her. Dante lingered for a moment, giving the Boulevard a once-over before parking it neatly in the garage. Two very different machines, kept alive by two very different people. But parked side by side, no one could deny that they belonged together, regardless.

The screen door creaked open again just as Nelly was setting her tote bag on the kitchen table. She'd already kicked off her shoes and was halfway through brewing herself another coffee when Dante walked in, helmet in one hand and a leather jacket draped over the other.

“You’re gonna over-caffeinate yourself into an early grave at this rate,” he said, heading straight for the fridge.

She took a sip from her mug without breaking eye contact, “Better caffeine than exhaust fumes…”

He chuckled, pulling a juice carton from the fridge and taking a swig from it. "I'll have you know, those exhaust fumes are the smell of freedom."

Nelly rolled her eyes and set her mug down. "Funny, coming from someone whose 'freedom' needs its oil changed twice as often as my 'grandma car," she said with a chuckle.

“That’s called maintenance, Nel,” he countered, gesturing with the carton still in his hand, “You wouldn’t even make it to work if I didn’t keep that Volvo on life support.”

“‘Life support’? Please," she leaned back against the counter, "It's more like... physical therapy. And besides, you like working on it.”

He shrugged; the jug was halfway to his lips for another swig. “Maybe I just like proving I'm the reason it hasn't given up yet.”

The fridge door swung, and for a moment the kitchen was enveloped in a comfortable silence, punctuated only by the clink of a spoon against a mug and the gentle hum of the fridge. It was the kind of silence that came easily between them, the kind born from years of this exact routine.

Dante set the jug down on the table and nodded towards her tote bag. "So, which poor kid bombed the essay this time?"

She grimaced, “We’ll see once I start grading, but understand me when I say I don’t have the highest hopes this time around…”

Dante just laughed and said, “Guess dinner's on me tonight,” already pulling a pot out of the cupboard.

The desert cools fast after sundown. Through the screen door came the sounds of a coyote complaining to the moon and the low, steady rattle of the swamp cooler.

Inside, the house wears both of them like a favorite jacket: Nelly’s 9-in-1 player spinning a Hozier record on low, Dante’s pile of car mags trying to colonize the dining table, currently losing ground to a fortress of half-graded essays.

Nelly, bare feet, hair up, red pen in hand, flips a paper, grounds, and mutters, “‘Metaphor: bad.’ ‘Tone: louder bad’. How did you even make it to high school writing like this?” She circles the two sentences, draws an arrow, then writes ‘revise’ in the margin with equal parts menace and mercy.

Dante shoulder-checks the swinging door with a hip and backs in from the kitchen with two bowls of pasta, bleached-white hair catching the lamp light. He set a bowl down beside her and dropped into the chair opposite, coveralls pealed and tied at the waist, and the ghost of a grin tugging at his lips.

“Report of the day, Counselor,” He says, sliding her a fork. “How many teenagers demanded extra credit because they ‘participated mentally’?”

“Four,” Nelly says, “One of whom turned in an essay that was two paragraphs of pure chaos and the line ‘I feel like Hamlet is, like, vibing against decision-making as a concept’. I mean she’s not entirely wrong, but still…”

Dante tries not to laugh. He fails. “Let me guess…”

“Miko…” Nelly taps the page, sighs, then softens, “She’s smart. She is. She just… skateboards through her studies. I’ll offer her a rewrite.”

He twirls a fork full of pasta and leans back, ankle hooked over a knee. “My turn. A really nice car rolled past Rizzo’s today.” He says it like it was a holy experience. “This gorgeous candy-apple red, glassy finish, sang like a choir. I heard the engine before I saw it - clean, tight, high rev. Swore it must have been this exotic import-European maybe?-But something about the engine’s harmonics sounded… off…”

Nelly chewed thoughtfully, “Off how? I only know ‘go vroom’ and ‘broke’.”

“It didn’t sound like a combustion,” he says, just warming up, “Not exactly. When you have a really good motor, you can hear this like heartbeat, you know? Pistons, valves, all that percussion laying down this steady beat.”

“Yeah, you’ve compared a well-tuned engine to a good drum-line: gets in your chest and gets your heart pumping.”

Dante shrugs, “I mean, that’s what it’s like for me, dunno about anyone else.” He leaned back, staring up at the ceiling, “This thing? It sounded too smooth to be a combustion, but made too much noise for a hybrid or straight electric. Like it was just the idea of an engine. There was this,” He squinted, trying to find the right words, “Stacked hum? Like two sounds laid one over each other, perfectly in tune.”

He gave a quick laugh, gesturing with his fork, “Passed right by the shop and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.”

“So, what?” Nelly deadpans, “An alien spaceship just decided to cut through downtown Jasper?”

“Please,” Dante scoffed, “What kind of alien spaceship has chrome and steel belted radials?”

“Point taken,” Nelly concedes with a chuckle, “Think you’ll see it again?”

He tips his head towards the window, where the highway threw a faint ribbon of light across the scrub, “If it’s local, yeah I hope so. You don’t hide a paint-job like that on purpose.”

Nelly flips another essay. The red pen stills. “God, I hate doing this…”

“Doing what?”

“Giving a low grade,” She holds up the essay she just finished grading, a red 68% next to the name ‘Miko Nakadai’ written at the top of the page. “She phoned this one in. And I can’t in good conscience give her a grade better than this, even if I like her.” After a moment, she started scribbling something on the page. “But I can leave the door open for her to do better. Offer her the chance to redo this one, encourage her to put more effort into the next. Let her earn the win.”

“Sounds like you already solved the issue,” Dante says before taking a bite and continuing with his mouth full, “You’re good at that.”

“Just don’t tell my students,” Nelly warns half-heartedly, “They’ll never let me hear the end of it.” Beat, “And don’t talk with your mouth full, you animal, what would Mom say?”

“Mom’s not here, Nelly.”

“But I am, Dee.”

The record flips on a soft clatter. The house exhales with them.

Dante reaches into his jacket on the chair back to fish out a folded scrap of paper with a smeared sketch of a sleek front end of a car. He slides it over, “Rough shape of that red car. If you see this out there, do me a favor and text me. I wanna pick the owner’s brain about that engine.”

“If I see it, I promise you’ll be the first to know.”

They eat and grade and talk in that easy twin-language where silence does the heavy lifting. Nelly scribbled ‘try this angle’ in the margin; Dante cued up a history podcast on his phone and commandeered the Bluetooth speaker in order to play it - something about railroad strikes this time, a narrator explaining how a supply line can strangle a war.

“Cheery,” Nelly says.

“Educational,” Dante counters.

The swamp cooler drones. The record crackles. Nelly’s red pen hovered over another student’s work when the whole room flickered. The kind of light that’s too white to be lightning.

Dante’s head snaps up. “What the hell?”

A second streak rips the sky - white-hot, fast, and close. It knived down beyond the low ridge, north of the highway, and the night answered with a distant whump that rattled the window panes.

Nelly’s already on her feet. “Yo, Dee, did you see that?”

“Yeah,” he says, halfway to the door with his jacket and keys, “You wanna go check it out?”

She looks back at the stack of essays and grimaces. “Sure, why not. Beats grading.”

Nelly snatched her keys and, on muscle memory, grabbed the bat leaning by the door. Dante palmed his favorite wrench off the workbench as they hustled through the garage.

They took the Volvo. Dante called shotgun with the grim solemnity of a knight swearing an oath; Nelly threw the old brick into gear, and the veteran engine answered like it was born from emergencies. They hit the service road out past the water tower, the full moon crawling higher and higher in the dark sky above and bathing the scene in a strange blue hue.

By the time they crested the last rise, the smell hit: burning metal and ozone. The ground ahead was a gouged scar punched into the desert scrub, still smoking at the edges. Something huge had slammed down here.

Nelly eased onto the shoulder. The engine ticked as it cooled. Dante scanned the low ridge circling the crater, eyes narrowing. “Nel, stay behind me,” he said automatically.

And then they both saw it.

Not a satellite. Not a plane.

A machine. Taller than a two-story, all sharp angles and armor plates in a dark, oil-slick black with harsh purple accents. It stood in the crater like a bad idea that had just learned to walk, its red eyes locking onto them with clinical disinterest. A symbol neither of them recognized, sharp and angular, glinted on its chest. Despite its intimidating presence, there was a subtle hint of authority in the way it moved, a commanding presence hinting at a rank beyond foot soldiers, suggesting it might have been an enforcer or a lieutenant among its kind.

“Okay,” Nelly breathed, softly sassing on reflex because fear hated dead air, “So safe to say the fire department’s gonna have some questions.”

The giant’s arm reconfigured with a hiss. Panels slit; a cannon locked into place and leveled straight at them.

Dante stepped in front of his sister without thinking, planting himself between her and the towering, sharp-edged mecha with his wrench raised like it meant something against a tank gun.

“Back off,” He said with his shoulders squared, voice steady enough to pass for brave and fully prepared to throw hands with a 20-foot nightmare and win on attitude alone.

The machine’s head tilted, curious, and then the weapon’s core began to glow.

“Hey!” Nelly barked, heart hammering in her chest, “We’re not-”

The world suddenly split into motion and noise.

A red-and-blue semi roared through the scrub from the access road, horn bellowing. It braked hard, jackknifed - folded - and rose, parts sliding and locking until something even larger stood between the twins and the cannon.

The newcomer’s voice cut through the shock like a commandment:

“Autobots-defensive formation! Protect the civilians!”

A yellow Camaro shot past like a bullet, flipping up into a lithe biped mid-slide. He chirped - the sounds coming out like a series of urgent, electronic bursts - and skidded to a stop right in front of Nelly and Dante, arms out in a protective sweep as blue fire lanced past and scored the asphalt where the Volvo had been a second before.

“Move! Move!” Dante translated anyway because some things just transcended language barriers.

The yellow bot ushered them backwards with quick, careful pressure, guiding them behind a chunk of broken culvert. He planted himself between them and the crater, small compared to the red-and-blue giant but crackling with coiled energy regardless.

Two more shapes hit the scene fast: a flash of blue on two wheels that flipped into a razor-edged fighter and a green bruiser who took one look at the hostile and decided the quickest path to victory was ‘through’.

Blaster fire filled the air. The back machine pivoted. Cannon spitting bright bolts, kicking up dirt and sparks, and the taste of metal on the tongue.

Nelly and Dante hunkered down behind the culvert. Dante kept his wrench in a white-knuckled grip. Nelly, very human and very small, met the yellow bot’s eyes for half a second. He chirped again, gentler this time, as if to say Stay low, I’ve got you.

“Are the good guys?” Nelly whispered.

“Working theory,” Dante muttered, eyes never leaving the crater rim, “Let’s not test that by dying.”

The red-and-blue bot advanced with measured gravity, returning fire with a thunderous report that echoed across the ridge. The black machine staggered, recalibrated, and swung its cannon back - straight towards the culvert where two humans hid and one yellow guardian stood.

The yellow bot didn’t hesitate. He flared his stance, raised his forearm to shield, and braced for the hit-

-and the world lit white as the shot was fired.

Chapter Text

​The shot struck the yellow bot’s arm shield with a sharp clang that rattled through the culvert. Energy bled off in crackling tendrils as he held the block, heels digging into the dirt. When the light faded, he glanced back at the twins, just long enough to make sure they were still breathing, then flicked a sharp, reassuring salute.

And then he was gone, sprinting back into the fray.

The yellow bot darted between the red-and-blue one’s legs, firing in short, precise bursts at the dark-colored bot’s knee joints. The green bruiser took the cue, barreling forward and shoulder-checking the hostile hard enough to send him skidding sideways in the crater. The blue, bike-born femme swung around from the other side, twin blasters peppering his arm cannon until the housing smoked.

The thing that had cornered the twins roared a metallic, grinding sound and swept his cannon in a brutal arc. The green bot caught the hit, staggered, then snarled something guttural and slammed both fists into the hostile’s torso.

Armor plates buckled. The bike femme slid in low, firing point-blank at the cannon’s power couplings.

The yellow bot made the last move - leaping up onto the hostile’s back, driving an electroblade into the shoulder plating, and sending a jolt through the systems. The black machine dropped.

“Stand down,” The red-and-blue bot ordered, voice carrying the weight of a commander who’d seen enough fighting to last a lifetime.

The defeated assailant’s optics flickered between them - then caught sight of the twins still half-hidden behind the culvert. His field flared, not in rage but in something colder, resolved.

“No,” He said, the word deep and metallic, “Not to you.”

With a deliberate motion, he reached to his chestplate, pressing something beneath the armor. There was a sharp rising whine - too fast to stop.

The hostile locked optics with the red-and-blue one and said, steady and certain, “Better I die as myself… than live as your prisoner.”

The yellow bot’s visor flashed an urgent warning, but he was already moving even as he gave it. He smashed his forearms across the mech’s chest, desperate to stop the inevitable.

The final charge built in a single, sick heartbeat. A sun the size of a fist.

The yellow bot grabbed the green bruiser by the shoulder and threw the larger bot back. The blue two-wheeler sprang, hauling on her ass to drag both of them away. The red-and-blue one shoved forward, trying to shield, to smother.

White heat punched the world.

The blast was compact, inward - designed to erase rather than scatter. It gutted the mech from within. A shockwave rippled through the crater, kicking up a halo of dust and debris. When it settled, only a scorched patch of ground and a few twisted fragments pattered the dirt like hard rain, then fell still.

Silence held for a beat, broken only by the crackle of cooling metal.

The yellow bot stood where he’d landed after the blast, frame tense, then turned towards the culvert. His posture softened when he saw the twins still huddled behind cover. He stepped closer, offering a chirp that was half check-in, half reassurance.

“We’re okay,” Dante managed, voice hoarse. He still had the wrench in a death grip. “We’re - yeah. We’re okay.”

Nelly nodded, swallowing hard, “You too?”

The yellow bot dipped his helm - once, crisp - then rose, positioning himself as a wall while the others regrouped.

The green bruiser stood, armor smoldering in a few places, and let out a breath that sounded like a garage door giving up, “Scrap.”

The two-wheeler put her weapons away and kicked a fused shard of armor that had been a chest plate. “Coward,” she muttered - no bite to it, only anger that had nowhere to go.

The red-and-blue leader approached the scorched circle and stared at it for a long, still second. Whatever crossed his faceplates then was private: regret, acceptance, an old soldier recognizing an old choice.

He turned, optics settling on the culvert and the two humans sheltering behind a yellow guardian. He soon moved to join him, towering over the humans but lowering his voice in such a way that it felt gentle despite his size over them.

“You are safe now.”

Nelly and Dante exchanged a long, wordless look - the kind where both were thinking Did that actually just happen but neither could fully wrap their heads around it.

The smoke, the heat, the fact that the crater was now missing its main occupant. All of it hung in the air.

Finally, Nelly broke the silence. Her voice was far calmer than the situation deserved. “Can I ask the obvious question of… what is going on here?”

She shifted her gaze between the towering red-and-blue mech, the green bruiser still cooling down from the brawl, the blue femme standing calmly to the side, and the yellow one who’d planted himself like a wall in front of them.

Dante, for his part, hadn’t relaxed. He still had the wrench up - not waving it around, just holding it like he meant it, in case anyone thought about getting close without permission.

The yellow bot’s helm tilted slightly at Nelly’s tone, as if surprised she wasn’t screaming. Then a small projector built into his chest emitted a clipped, radio-crackle voice that sounded spliced from a dozen sources:

“We… are not your enemy.”

He glanced towards the red-and-blue leader, who stepped forward with deliberate slowness, lowering himself a fraction to meet the humans at something closer to eye level.

“I assure you,” he said, voice steady and resonant, “We mean you no harm.”

The yellow one added a quick sequence of beeps - fast, precise, the same kind he used mid-battle before playing another spliced soundbyte over them:

“Bad bot. Taken care of.”

He punctuated it with a small, almost apologetic shrug as if to say sorry about dragging you into this.

Nelly glanced at Dante, “Okay, so giant robots are apparently real. And some of them explode when cornered.”

“Yeah,” Dante muttered, not lowering the wrench, “And we just met the one with better aim. I think…”

Yellow gave a quick affirmative chirp, optics brightening a shade.

The blue-and-red’s gaze lingered on the twins for a moment - assessing, perhaps - before he straightened again, “You are in danger if you remain here. There may be others.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Dante said under his breath, but he finally let the wrench drop to his side.

The dust was still drifting down in lazy, glittering specks when Nelly stepped out from behind the culvert. Dante’s hand twitched like he might snag her elbow - then let her go, jaw set, wrench still in his other fist.

She stopped a safe distance from the red-and-blue tidal, lifted her chin, and offered her hand like this was a staff meeting and not a battlefield.

“Penelope Cruz,” She said, “But most everyone calls me Nelly.” She tipped her head towards Dante. “The guy with the understandable trust issues is my twin, Dante.”

“Nel?” Dante warned, not quite lowering the wrench.

“It’s only polite,” She murmured, then met the big mech’s optics again, “Because something tells me we’re involved now, whether we like it or not.”

The towering mech went very still in that careful way that said he was thinking about scale and fragility. Then he knelt, servos humming, and lowered two broad fingers like a makeshift bridge. His voice came warm but formal.

“I am Optimus Prime,” he said, “And your courtesy does you credit, Nelly Cruz.”

She stepped forward and placed her palm against the smooth metal - brief, deliberate, nothing more than what it appeared to be. Just a handshake, if you squinted and allowed for the size discrepancies.

The yellow bot bounded up beside them, a cheerful radio-stitch of a voice crackled from his chest projector:

“Nice to meet you!”

He added a quick, proud beep-brrp then pointed at himself with both thumbs.

“Bumblebee,” Optimus supplied.

The blue, razor-edged femme approached, weapons already safetied. “Arcee,” she said with a nod that read good composure for a civilian.

The green bruiser ambled over last, rubbing at a scorched dent like it was a sore shoulder. “Name’s Bulkhead,” he rumbled, then glanced at the crease his last tackle had carved into the road and winced. “Uh… sorry about the mess.”

Dante angled himself half a step in front of Nelly again - habit, not hostility. “You keep saying names like I should know what team you’re on.”

Optimus’s gaze flickered to the scorched crater, then back, “We are Autobots,” he said, “We protect life, in whatever forms it takes. The one who attacked you was a Decepticon. Our war should never have touched your world… but it has, and for that I apologize.”

Nelly exhaled through her nose. “Fantastic. We skipped ‘aliens are real’ and went straight to ‘alien civil war in our backyard.’”

A faint hum rose behind them as Arcee tapped her comm. “We’re clear for extract. Recommend we take them with us before the Decepticon’s friends come looking.”

A ring of light irised open across the road. Just this swirling, green-white tunnel snapping into existence and bathing the moon-lit surroundings in neon.

Nelly blinked, “You have a teleporter?”

Bumblebee lifted a finger and played a clipped byte:

“Groundbridge.”

“Functionally the same thing,” Arcee said dryly.

Optimus rose to his full height. “I will answer your questions,” he promised, “and see you safely home when it is possible. But to remain here would be unwise.”

Dante looked from the vortex to Nelly, then to the Autobots. “If any of you try anything with her,” he told the towering machines, pointing at them with his wrench, “you’re going to eat this.”

Bulkhead’s mouthplate curved like a self-deprecating grin. “Buddy, I’ve swallowed worse by accident.”

Bee emitted a quick, earnest trill and played a soft bute over it:

“You’re safe with us.”

Nelly considered the portal for one long heartbeat, then squared her shoulders. “Alright,” She said, voice steady, “But the Volvo comes too.”

Bulkhead glanced at Bee; Bee glanced at Optimus.

Optimus inclined his helm. “We will recover your vehicle,” he said. “For now, please. This way.”

Nelly slipped her hand to Dante’s wrist. He didn’t drop the wrench, but he nodded. Together, with Bumblebee pacing protectively at their side, the twins stepped towards the light.

Chapter Text

The world snapped from wind and moonlight to concrete and hum.

The Groundbridge spat them into a cavernous hangar lit by industrial fluorescents. Catwalks ringed the space. A bank of consoles that looked cobbled together from both alien and army surplus hummed under the steady hands of a white-and-red medic who barely glanced up before stabbing a button and sealing the portal with a whump.

“Finally,” he groused, “Try not to bring the battlefield home next time.”

“Nice to see you too, Doc,” Bulkhead muttered.

“Ratchet,” the medic corrected, already sweeping a scanner over the twins with a put-upon sigh, “Hold still. Auditory trauma. Elevated heart rate - normal given the circumstances. Congratulations, you’re not dead.”

Nelly blinked against the sheer bluntness, fingers still wrapped around Dante’s sleeve. Bumblebee stayed close, a steady yellow wall at their backs.

Before anyone could say more, a voice like a brass section with a migraine cut through the hangar.

“Prime!”

Agent Fowler strode out from under the catwalk, tie askew, aviators tucked in his shirt pocket like a warning label.

“Does the phrase ‘low profile’ ring any bells, Big guy?” He jabbed a finger in the air, “Because a Decepticon lighting up half a county qualifies at the exact opposite! I’ve got local law sniffing a brushfire that wasn’t, I’ve got a blast crater I can’t pave over with a press release, I’ve got superiors who think I can conjure miracle coverups out of thin air, and-” He finally noticed the twins, “And now we’ve got more civilians in the base. Terrific. As if your other minors didn’t keep me up at night.”

Optimus absorbed the storm like a cliff face. “Agent Fowler,” he said evenly, “A Decepticon initiated hostilities in proximity to these civilians. Our priority was the protection of life. He elected to… end his own rather than be taken into custody.”

“Which is a neat, tidy way of saying he exploded,” Fowler pinched the bridge of his nose, “On U.S. soil. Again.”

Dante’s grip tightened on his wrench. “Hey! If you’re gonna yell at anybody for keeping us alive-”

“Stand down, son,” Fowler said, only half-looking at him. “I’m not here to chew you out. I’m here to chew them out.” He threw a thumb at the Autobots, then pinched the bridge of his nose again. “And now I have to figure out how I’m to explain any of this to the suits when we’ve already got Darby, Nakadai, and Esquivel to babysit and now their English teacher and her grease-monkey brother just hitched a ride through the magic hurricane.”

Silence held for one tense beat. Nelly blinked once, “Excuse me… their what now?”

Ratchet’s scanner paused mid-sweep. Bee emitted a small, guilty brrp.

Fowler lowered his hand, grimacing. “Right. Cat. Bag.” He waved vaguely towards the far corridor. “Your students are… already in the loop.”

“My… students… My students… My students?!” Nelly repeated, her brain catching up to reality in pieces. “Jackson Darby, Miko Nakadai, Rafael Esquivel; those students of mine?”

“Those would be the ones.”

Nelly scrubbed a hand over her face, then let out a disbelieving laugh, “Of course. That tracks.” She dropped the hand and added in a deadpan, “And Miko's the one who had the audacity to pass off lyrics for a heavy metal track on her last poetry assignment.”

Bulkhead tried to hide a chuckle with a cough. Arcee tilted her helm like Yup, that sounds about right.

Dante finally put his wrench away. “So lemme get this straight,” he said, brow raised, “Those three have been hanging out with-” He waved at the 30-feet of alien robot standing in the room with them, “-these guys long enough to justify getting letterment jackets made if they wanted to, and they still complain about homework?”

Bee’s projector popped on with a quick, apologetic snippet:

“Teenagers.”

A beat later, another clipped bite was added almost conspiratorially:

“We try.”

Fowler blew out a breath, some of the steam bleeding off, “Look, welcome to the party, Ms. Cruz, Mr. Cruz. You’re now part of the world’s least official, most classified situation. That means NDAs thicker than a Thanksgiving turkey and me getting yelled at on your behalf,” He gave Optimus a side-eye. “Again.”

Optimus inclined his helm, diplomatic without yielding. “Your vigilance is appreciated, Agent Fowler. As ever.”

Ratchet holstered his scanner with a click. “They’re stable. No permanent damage. Aside from the poor life choices that let them into a Groundbridge.”

“I mean,” Dante said, half a grin breaking through now that his adrenaline was wearing off, “They did ask nicely.”

Bee gave a soft, triumphant trill and pointed towards the far end of the hangar. The Groundbridge spun up for a brief moment and deposited one more survivor: the maroon Volvo, rolling to a dignified stop on a maintenance dolly. Bulkhead gave a little ta-da flourish.

“Told ya we wouldn’t leave your antique,” he said.

“It’s a classic,” Nelly corrected, hand over her heart in mock offence. Then, softer, “Thank you, Bulkhead.”

Fowler clapped his hands once. “Alright. Debrief in five. After that, we have decisions to make about your continued proximity to my ulcer.” He pointed at the twins. “And you two? Don’t wander, don’t touch anything that looks like it could explode, and if Miko shows up with her guitar, do not encourage her.”

Dante’s mouth twitched, “No promises.”

Optimus gestured to a safer corner of the platform. “We will answer whatever we can,” he said, “and - if you wish - you may contact Jack, Miko, and Rafael. But first… breathe.”

For the first time since the streak in the sky, Nelly and Dante did. Together. In a secret base under the desert, flanked by robots the size of buildings, the twins let reality catch up - just enough to stand on it without tipping.

“Okay,” Nelly said, finding her teacher voice again. “Start at the top, please. What exactly is an Autobot, what’s a Decepticon, and what exactly did we just get pulled into?”

Optimus gave them the basics: Cybertron; the two factions - Autobots and Decepticons; a war that cracked their worlds and spilled out into the cosmos; why Earth mattered, and why secrecy mattered more.

Ratchet filled in the hard edges with all the bedside manner of a buzzsaw. “Yes, the hostile self-terminated. Prevents interrogation, data capture, and tracking. Grim and a senseless loss of a spark, but undeniably effective.” Then, as a gentler addendum after noticing Nelly’s posture, “You handled the shock well, all things considered…”

Bumblebee translated the mood to something more human with a short sequence of upbeat beeps and a clipped soundbite: “We protect.” He pointed at the twins, then at the team, and then made a little circle with his fingers that somehow read as together.

Fowler, satisfied the immediate fires were out, went off to call his superiors and chew discreetly on a pen cap.

That gave the twins a few pockets of breathing room - and the bots a chance to meet them as people.

Ratchet had already migrated back to a side console, logging data into neat lines of code. Nelly drifted over with the practiced calm of someone who’d walked teenagers through panic attacks and pop quizzes alike.

“I’ve got a small first-aid kit in my bag,” she offered. “Human-only, obviously. But if you ever need someone who can keep a nervous teenager still while you scan them, that’s kinda part of my day job.”

Ratchet’s optics flicked her way. A pause, then he angled the scanner at her again, softer this time, “You’re… remarkably composed for a civilian…”

“Kids don’t need to see you panic,” she said, “They copy whatever you model.”

“Hm.” A tiny hum that might’ve been a note of approval. “It’s… refressing, having another adult…” He snapped a compartment shut. “For the record, though, if any of your other kids show up bleeding, do me a favor and announce it first. The last time I triaged kids, one tried to apologize for getting coolant on the floor.”

“Sounds like something Jack would do,” Nelly said dryly, “And just for the record, the poetry assignment I mentioned Miko trying to turn in? I gave her a chance to resubmit. She did… in blood-red gel pen…”

Ratchet made a noise halfway between an exhale and a chuckle, “She certainly knows how to make a lasting impression.”

“That she does…”

Bulkhead found Dante first because big guys who throw themselves between danger and family instinctively notice each other on sight. They shared a quiet acknowledgment, a mutual understanding of what it means to step up to protect those who matter most.

"That was gutsy," Bulkhead said, nodding at the wrench now secured at Dante's belt. "Dumb, but gutsy. Wrecker kinda gutsy."

Dante huffed a laugh, recognizing that despite their differences in size and origin, the protective instinct ran deep in both of them. "Story of my life."

A new voice joined - looser, more amused. “Wrenches are a solid choice, I respect that.” The voice’s owner stepped in from a side bay, goggles up, grease streaking his white, red, and green paint-job. “Name’s Wheeljack. Wrecker engineer, occasional bad idea.”

“Dante,” he introduced, shaking the offered digit, “Grease-monkey, former bad apple.”

Wheeljack eyed the tool, “You swing that at a ‘Con?”

“Was about to,” Dante admitted. “Plan A lasted right up to ‘enormous cannon’.”

“Kid,” Bulkhead grinned, “That’s already farther than most.”

Wheeljack jerked a thumb towards a cluttered workbench. “When you’re not busy not dying, I’ll show you how to turn that wrench into something that buys you more than bravado. Could also use an extra pair of hands that aren’t afraid to get singed.”

Dante’s grin sharpened, “Careful. You might get me hooked.”

Bulkhead bumped Dante’s shoulder with a knuckle the size of a toaster. “You looked out for your sister. That’s Wrecker enough for me.”

Nelly and Arcee ended up shoulder-to-shoulder near the railing, watching diagnostics crawl across a holo-screen.

“You didn’t flinch,” Arcee said, not quite a question.

“Kids watch everything,” Nelly said, “They take their cues from us. Can’t teach a bunch of teenagers if you’re busy screaming.”

Arcee’s mouthplate quirked. “Used to teach too. Cadets, mostly. Turns out the universe loves irony.”

“Small world,” Nelly said, and they both smirked at how not small the world currently felt.

Arcee’s optics softened a fraction, “Worst student?”

“Miko, on days she decides homework is a suggestion,” Nelly said, fond exasperation creeping in, “Yours?”

“Had a bot who tried to jury-rig a thruster with a cafeteria tray. Burned his desk, passed the exam. Still sends me the occasional message about propulsion.”

“Yup,” Nelly said, smiling, “That’s the job in a nutshell. You hold the line until they figure out where to aim themselves. You can suggest and nudge, but in the end they gotta figure it out for themselves.”

“Respect,” Arcee said simply, and Nelly nodded it right back.

Bee approached like sunlight - bright but gentle, visor dimmed a notch so he didn’t overwhelm.

He beeped a question at Nelly - short, inquisitive - and played a clipped byte: “You okay?”

“Ask me again when the adrenaline finally wears off,” She said honestly, “But… thank you for the save earlier.”

Bee gave a bobbing nod - anytime - and turned to Dante, tapping two fingers to his own forearm like a suggestive fist-bump.

Dante carefully obliged, “You’re quick.”

Bee fired off a delighted trill and a mosaic of canned voices that stitched together into: “Fast is kinda my thing.”

“Show-off,” Arcee called out, though with no heat behind her words.

Bee pointed at Arcee, then at himself, then made a tiny flex like teamwork, and Nelly couldn’t help it.

She snorted.

When the bustle finally thinned, Optimus stood at the edge of the platform looking out over the canyon beyond the open bay doors. Dante joined him, letting the dry wind do some of the talking first.

“You good?” Dante asked, pretending he wasn’t talking to someone three stories tall.

Optimus glanced down, surprised by the question being directed at him. “My well-being is… of no concern.”

“Maybe,” Dante said, “But I’m picking up a familiar vibe. You sound like my sister when she’s carrying the whole school on her back. She tends to forget to eat when the essays pile up.” He gives a small, human shrug, “Just… make sure you’re not running on fumes while saving the world. I know how that sometimes turns into a bad habit.”

Optimus’s optics softened, something old and grateful moving behind them. “Sage counsel,” he said. “I will… endeavor to heed it.”

Dante nodded, like that settled it. “Good. Someone’s gotta remind the captains they’re people too.”

Optimus looked back out at the entrance of the base. “It’s… reassuring,” he said after a beat, “to be reminded.”

Fowler reappeared with a stack of forms that could have passed as a prop gag if it weren’t real. “Alright, Cruz and Cruz - welcome to the circus. Sign here, here, and here. We’ll get your car discreetly towed back to your address. And Ms. Cruz? Try to keep your lesson plans free of, oh, I dunno, battlefield explosions from here on out.”

“I’ll make sure to pencil that in between grading and existential dread,” Nelly said lightly, taking the offered pen.

Bee played a cheerful note under the moment: “We got this.”

And for the first time since their worlds were flipped upside down, it felt like maybe - just maybe - they did.

Chapter Text

The stack of NDAs thunked shut.

“Giant alien robots, and we still have to deal with paperwork…” Dante muttered as he signed the last page. “How does that even work logistically…”

Nelly flicked her pen closed. “And yet it’s less than I had to deal with to get my teaching license.”

A yawn ambushed her. She covered it sheepishly. “No offense, but it’s getting late, and I still have a class to teach tomorrow. Plus, I’ve got balloons to inflate and ungodly o’clock.”

“Balloons?” Bulkhead echoed.

“I’m starting the unit on Lord of the Flies,” Nelly said. “It makes sense in context.”

“It does,” Dante confirmed, solemn as a priest.

Optimus inclined his helm, “We will see you home.”

Fowler opened his mouth to object, then glanced at Nelly’s yawn and Dante’s thousand-yard stare and just waved a hand. “Fine. But try to keep it quiet. I don’t need Mrs. Kravitz on Maple Lane calling about a parade os semis at midnight.”

Ratchet pointed a wrench at the twins, “Get some sleep. Call if you experience ringing in the ears, headaches, or existential crises.”

“Which number is for the existential crises again?” Dante asked.

Ratchet deadpanned, “All of them.”

The Groundbridge bloomed like a green iris, and the team rolled out onto a back road some distance from the Cruz household. The desert night pressed cool against the cab when the red-and-blue semi eased to a stop and popped the passenger door with a gentle click.

“Seatbelts,” came Optimus’s voice from everywhere and the dash at once, soft and faintly amused.

Nelly and Dante climbed in - bench seat, old-school belts already tugging into place like they’d been waiting their whole lives to restrain two very specific humans. The cab smelled faintly of ozone and clean metal. Gauges glowed a calm blue.

Bumblebee slipped out behind them, a quiet yellow escort car, while Arcee ghosted a block ahead to scout. Bulkhead hung back with the closed Bridge, ready to drop the Volvo directly into the garage once the street was clear.

The convoy rolled slowly. Streetlights flickered past. Nelly rested her forehead against the cool glass for a second, watching their neighborhood look exactly the same as it had before, despite nothing being the same anymore.

“Thank you,” She said into the cab, “For earlier.”

“You are welcome,” Optimus said. He paused for a moment before adding, “Your students are quite fortunate.”

Nelly huffed a tired laugh, “They’ll still complain about the reading.”

“They will,” Optimus agreed, a hint of warmth in his voice.

Dante adjusted the belt and eyed the immaculate dash. “For the record, I will be deeply offended if this is the smoothest ride of my life.”

The speedometer needle nudged up by a hair, playful as a wink.

Bee drew up alongside on the driver’s side, matching pace. His radio clocked on with a quick, stitched-together byte:

“You got this.”

“Don’t jinx us,” Nelly said, “I for one still have to survive seventh period tomorrow.”

Acree’s voice crackled over comms: “Block’s clear. One literal porch possum, zero nosy neighbors.”

“Proceed,” Optimus replied.

They turned onto the Cruz’s street. Porch lights dotted the block like low stars. Optimus parked at the corner, out of sight of bedroom windows. Bee idled at the curb like any other compact car that absolutely wasn’t an alien.

“Home,” Optimus said gently.

The passenger door unlatched, Dante hopped down, turned, and offered a hand to Nelly so she wouldn’t face-plant out of an alien semi in front of God and the HOA. She landed, blinked at the familiar sidewalk, and exhaled like her lungs had been holding the while base inside them.

The garage door whispered open from the inside - Bulkhead’s doing - and, with a soft whoomp of air and a shimmer of green, the maroon Volvo appeared on a dolly in its rightful spot.

Bulkhead’s voice came sheepishly over comms: “Didn’t scratch her.”

Nelly pressed a hand over her heart, “You are a godsend, Bulkhead.”

Bee rolled up just close enough for a goodbye. He chirped, lifted a hand, and then played two clipped bytes in quick succession:

“Call us.”

“We’ll be there.”

Optimus’s headlights dipped - his version of a nod. “We will maintain a discreet watch. Rest. Tomorrow will come soon enough.”

Dante gave the grill a look that was half gratitude, half warning big-brother energy. “And you. Remember what we talked about, alright? No running on fumes, big guy.”

A beat, then the faintest rise of engine tone that read like a smile, “Understood.”

Nelly touched the cab’s door with her fingertips and stepped back, “Good night, Optimus. Goodnight, Bumblebee.”

Bee trilled something bright and rolled off. Arcee’s taillight winked once from the shadows and vanished. Optimus eased away from the corner, the big rig’s low rumble fading into the regular city noise.

The garage door slid shut. Silence snapped back into place, broken only by the tick of cooling metal from the Volvo and the rustle of a late breeze.

Dante leaned his shoulder against the doorframe, “So. Balloons at dawn?”

Nelly groaned, then laughed, “Balloons at dawn.”

They locked up, texted Fowler the all-clear, and just let the house around them feel like a house.

The Nemesis purred like an idling predator. Stars slid by in slow ribbons, reflecting on the armor of the warlord who stood with his hands braced on the rail. His gaze was distant, fixed on the scarred abyss beyond.

Soundwave’s screen flickered beside him - silent, clinical. The replay needed no narration: a black-armored trooper, knee down in a smoking crater; Autobots closing in; two small humans tucked behind a culvert; the red-and-blue titan stepping into the frame like a verdict.

The audio came last, filtered clean from the battlefield static:

“Better I die as myself… than live as your prisoner.”

The screen flashed white. The crater emptied. Dust fell.

Megatron’s jaw worked once. He didn’t slam a fist, didn’t snarl. When he finally spoke, the words were low, scraped smooth by the pointlessness of wrath.

“Find his designation.”

Sounwave’s visor pulsed. A dossier window blinked up - serial, assignment, grainy pre-war still from a mine corridor. No name. Just a number that a system insisted was enough.

Megatron’s optics cooled to an ember. “From before. Not what the Towers stamped over him.” A beat, “He will not be a number in my Ledger. He died on his feet and on his terms. That is more than the Council ever offered any of us.”

The visor dipped in silent assent. A small pane flickered to a freeze frame: the Autobots. The red-and-blue leader front and center, protecting the humans like a statue come to life.

Megatron’s gaze fixed there. The palette struck him like an old wound.

“Red and blue,” he said, almost to himself. “They never tire of that joke.” The contempt in his field tightened, as old as the mines. Megatron paused and allowed himself to linger within the fissures of an old scar. The sight of those colors was a knife twisting slowly, a reminder of promises made in the dark corners and forgotten places. “Paint their puppet in Orion's colors and parade him before the dispossessed. A twisted symbol so we never forget what they took...”

It was as if they mocked his every choice, his every loss. With each memory, the bitterness twisted deeper, bound tightly with the echoes of the life and bonds stolen from him, now weaponized against him.

He didn’t look away. He didn’t see the face - refused to. Centuries of pain and fury made sure the lines never quite focused into the miner he’d once held in the dark.

There was only the Prime: a Tower-made answer to a question Megatron hadn’t stopped asking since the day they took everything.

“Prime,” he said at last, making the title sound like a venom-filled insult. “On our world, you jailed us. On this one, you shelter the small and call it virtue. Very well. We’ll show them the rest of the story you leave out.”

He straightened. Purpose sharpening his voice.

“Soundwave: scrub the blast site. Identify the civilians. I want names, routines, vulnerabilities. Observation until I say otherwise,” His optics cut towards the two human silhouettes in the still. "If the Autobots bleed for them, then they are leverage whether they know it or not." A calculated pause followed, during which Megatron's mind spun intentions like a loom weaving its web. "Mount surveillance along their most frequented paths. Show them how hollow their sense of security can become."

Megatron’s optics narrowed, then softened by a micron - an infinitesimal recognition of a variable he had long since chosen not to crush. “Route the raw footage to Longarm on the usual channel. Minimal metadata. He’ll want to… corroborate.”

The encrypted ping went out as a tight, invisible beam.

“Also, triangulate the bridge energy the Autobots used,” Megatron continued. “Backtrack for a fixed base. Somewhere on this planet is a threshold they cannot afford to lose, and if possible, I want it found.”

Soundwave’s screen clicked shut, acknowledgement a silent cord.

Megatron looked back at the starfield. For a moment, the war was quiet enough that he could hear old things - promises made over stolen moments and soft words in a language no one used anymore.

He set them down where he always did: on the altar of what had to come next.

“Log the fallen,” He said, voice back to iron. “Mark his end as chosen. Had he been taken, they would have unmade who he was.” He drew in a breath, as sharp as a blade. “No more of mine die as their property.”

He turned from the rail, a cloak of shadow and steel settling across his frame like a vow. Behind his optics, the red-and-blue afterimage burned like a brand - and meant exactly what he needed it to.

“Enjoy your borrowed colors while you can, Prime…”

The doors slid shut behind him. And the Nemesis shifted from idle to intent.

Chapter Text

The kitchen smelled like coffee and latex. A small mountain of balloons bobbed in a laundry basket between them. Their glossy skins squeaked faintly when they shifted, a collection of multicolored rubber that would definitely make sense by seventh period.

Dante tied off another balloon, the latex snapping against his fingers, and pointed it at her like an accusation. “I know that look.”

“Dee…”

“C’mon, Counselor Troi,” He waggled the balloon, “You got a read off the big guy yesterday, didn’t you? Used the ol’ lie detector.”

Nelly blew a balloon, tied it, and dropped it into the basket. “Yeah. Wanted to be sure he was actually one of the good guys.”

“And because you didn’t shove me into the Volvo and peel out, I know he was.” Dante’s smirk softened. “But that’s not just it. Giant alien robot or not, a read’s never left you like this before. So, spill.”

She sat back in the chair, a finger rubbing absent-minded circles over the wood-grain of the table. “It was like… an echo. If that makes sense.”

Dante didn’t interrupt. Just motioned for her to continue while keeping his hands busy by blowing up another balloon.

“Like there’s something missing in him he doesn’t even realize is gone,” she said softly. “Walls. Big, clean ones. And I got this impression he didn’t build them himself. When I touched him, it was like trying to listen to a radio in the next room with the door closed. I could hear something, but it was muffled and… lonely.”

Dante’s jaw worked. He set the balloon down gently, as if it were glass instead of inflated rubber. “Okay. That is a lot.”

“I know,” she said, a little laugh slipping out, breathless and not quite steady. “I’m not gonna push past anything, I assure you. I just… felt the edges. And there was this ache in there. Something that felt old and… careful.”

He leaned on his elbows, watching her like he always did when the world tried to ask too much from her. “First off: Glad you checked he was legit. Second: please don’t go breaking your knuckles on someone else’s walls, Nel. Not unless they ask for help taking ‘em down.”

She nodded, “Wasn’t planning on it. You do know how I feel about that kind of thing.”

“I know. Just felt it was worth saying out loud is all.” He nudged the basket with his foot, balloons jostling like restless planets. “I’d say we should keep this between us for now. If it matters later, we’ll tell him what you noticed. If he wants it.”

“Deal.” She blew up another balloon. “He kinda reminds me of some of my seniors, the ones who’re carrying their families on their backs and still insist they’re ‘fine’.”

“Yeah.” Dante tied and snapped his balloon neck with a little flourish. “He also reminded me of you when you forget to eat during finals week, Miss Caffeine Queen. I already told him not to run on fumes.”

“Of course you did.” She smiled into her coffee. “Thanks.”

“Always.” He bumped her shoulder. “Now, before we fix an alien with repressed trauma, you gotta introduce to a bunch of teenagers the concepts of civilization - with balloons.”

“As one does,” She raised a balloon in a mock toast, “To order versus chaos.”

“To not letting Miko use them as grenades after school.”

A balloon popped in the basket, the sound like a gunshot. Both twins jumped, then met each other’s eyes and laughed - too loud, too relieved, the kind of laughter that chased fear back into its corners.

Nelly exhaled, a hand on her chest until her breathing managed to settle. “Okay. We can manage with today.”

Dante scooped up the laundry basket, balancing it on his hip. “We generally do.”

She grabbed her tote, checked her keys, then paused at the door. “If they reach out-”

“I’ll text you.” He flashed her a crooked grin. “And I’ll keep the wrench on me just in case.”

“Grease stain,” she teased without thinking.

“Grandma driver,” he shot back, as easy as breathing.

They stepped into the morning, balloons bobbing like silly little planets - two humans with coffee and a plan, and somewhere out there, a very big someone carrying echoes he didn’t have a name for anymore.

The Cruz twins, to their credit, managed to keep things normal, like they didn’t just find out the night before that giant alien robots who can turn into cars, trucks, and bikes existed around them.

For Dante, that involved performing an oil change on the pastel pink Chevy belonging to Mrs. Marlowe. He got it up onto the lift, like a flamingo with a manicure. With his forearm streaked with oil, he slid out from underneath while his phone continued playing a podcast chattering on about the Taiping Rebellion.

“See?” He said to the car, wiping his hands with a spare rag, “Civilization collapses when you skip maintenance.”

He popped the drain plug. Watched the old oil ribbon down, then moved to the filter. The rhythm of it all - loosen, catch, replace - was a series of motions that had become second nature to him. He could do this in his sleep if he wanted to.

And yet, every now and then he found himself glancing over to the shop door, half expecting a yellow Camaro to nose in with a chirped hello or a white, red, and green sports car giving off more engine rev than common sense. Some part of Dante couldn’t help but laugh, one day in and he was already expecting that kind of thing.

Imagine that…

He snapped a picture of the, admittedly kinda adorable, pink Chevy and texted it to Nelly with:

|D: Order vs Chaos: oil change edition

|D: How’s the Balloon Battle Royale?

He tucked the phone back in the speaker’s dock, lined up the new filter, and grinned when the podcast’s speaker pivoted the discussion to ‘social contracts’.

Yeah. That tracks.

The classroom smelled like rubber and pencil shavings. Before her students arrived, she made a point of leaving the graded essays face-down at everyone’s assigned seats, alongside one balloon and a pencil just sharp enough.

By the time her students filed in, Nelly had already made her retreat. Just out of sight of her students.

Nelly let the silence ride out for a good twenty minutes from her hiding place in the hallway - just long enough to see who her students were without her supervision, making a point to observe her students that also knew: Jack just sat there calmly, honestly looking about ready to fall asleep at his desk; Raf had pulled out a paperback that was far above his grade level; Miko doodled in her sketchbook, tongue out in concentration.

If no one told her, she never would’ve guessed…

That’s when Nelly decided to step back in.

“Okay, seriously. None of you popped the balloons?”

Heads snapped up.

“Wait,” Miko said incredulously, “We were supposed to pop the balloons?”

“Yeah,” Nelly said with a bit of a laugh, “That was kinda the idea.”

Chaos detonated almost immediately, joyous and unanimous. Balloons squealed and burst; new alliances formed along the fault lines of ‘mine’ and ‘yours’. Friends temporarily turned into enemies, and enemies turned into allies. Some tried to protect their balloons from being popped by others. Jack actually managed to launch a successful sneak attack against Vince’s.

It took thirty seconds. Tops. Shreds of rubber littered the floor like confetti. A few were still breathless from laughing, and Miko had that rare glint of genuine amusement that came from when chaos was not just allowed but encouraged.

After all, it wasn’t every day students were given a free pass to be pure gremlins.

Nelly clapped once, crisp and clear, cutting through the last of the noise. “We’re starting Lord of the Flies today. Every single one of you just disproved Golding’s entire message, and I couldn’t be more proud.”

She turned to the board and wrote ‘CIVILIZATION vs. SAVAGERY’ and underneath ‘COOPERATION/RULES/EMPATHY ←→ IMPULSE/POWER/FEAR’.

“Golding’s claim,“ she said, tapping the right side of the words written, “Is that we are, by nature, savage. Evil. And without the consequences of social convention, we’d devolve and default back into that state of chaos and cruelty. You all had every incentive to go nuclear when it was apparent I wasn’t here. But you didn’t,” Nelly said, smiling, “Until I gave you permission. What do you think that tells us about rules and choice?”

Raf’s hand shot up, “That social order is… the choice we made? We followed the rules we thought were legitimate, just because. And when you weren’t here, we defaulted to… a truce?”

“Nice,” Nelly said, “Remind me to put you on the phone with my old professor given that is a very good and valid point of view.”

Miko leaned back in her seat, “For the record, I could’ve popped like ten before you came in, but I was being chill.”

Jack gave her a side-eye and a smile, “You were drawing a guitar with a flamethrower.”

“It’s called ‘self-control’, Jack.”

“Those words sound so wrong coming from you…”

Nelly smiled. “So, homework’s gonna be to read and annotate the first two chapters. Recommend that you focus on moments where the boys choose order and moments when they succumb to their impulses, along with any other aspects you feel may be important. And no,” she added, aiming it at Miko gently, “song lyrics technically don’t count as textual analysis.”

Miko clutched her chest, “You wound me, Ms. C.”

“You’ll live,” Nelly said fondly. “Now, quick warm-up: turn to a neighbor and answer this - what’s one rule you follow that nobody’s policing, and why do you follow it anyway?”

Pairs quickly formed. Jack and Sierra had an earnest debate about crosswalks. Raf explained to his partner how he makes an effort to return library books early, and always in as close to the same condition as when he got them. Miko, surprisingly, told another classmate how she never posts photos or videos of others without asking if they’re okay with it first.

And there it was: the proof she wanted them to see in themselves before Golding tried to push onto them.

“Ms. Cruz?” Sierra interrupted her train of thought, “Are there any rules you follow just because?”

“Yeah, there’s one I can think of,” She said with a bit of a laugh. “I don't know how many of you knew before, but my brother and I used to live just outside of Boston. It’s not allowed within the state of Massachusetts to make clam chowder with tomato,” Nelly explained. Her demeanor then changed to one of dead seriousness. “Even after moving to Jasper, I still refuse to have clam chowder with tomato.”

That earned a few laughs from her students, with one commenting, “Respect,” before everyone returned to their paired discussions.

Nelly’s phone buzzed on the desk. She glanced down between the groups and hid a smile at Dante’s photo. She hastily typed under the desk:

|N: Battle Royale: achieved. No casualties. Social contracts continue to live.

|N: You’re on dinner.

Back at the shop, Dante lowered the Chevy, topped off the fluids, and gave the pink paint-job an oddly approving pat. “Some reason, I get the impression you and Bee would be friends,” he said before he could stop himself, then shook it off and retreated to the work desk in order to write up the work order.

He checked his phone: Nelly’s texts, a calendar reminder that it’s his turn to pick up the groceries, and - after a pause - a new, unnamed contact that had pinged a single emoji: 📻

He snorted. “Subtle, Bee.” He typed back a thumbs-up and slid the phone away.

He locked up, helmet in hand, and stepped into the afternoon. Balloons and books, oil and old history - order and chaos in their personal forms of neat human doses. The big stuff could wait a few more hours.

Tonight, they could still just be the Cruz twins.

Tomorrow… Well, tomorrow could bring the next impossible thing. But today they’d done the best they could.

Chapter Text

Last bell, last stack of papers shoved into her tote, one last ‘don’t forget chapter three’ - and Nelly stepped out into the afternoon sun. The after-school parking lot was a sea of kids, buses, cars, and the odd tuba case with legs… in short, the usual ant hill impression.

And on her way out, Nelly caught up with Jack, Miko, and Raf halfway to an all too familiar yellow Camaro.

“Okay you three,” she said, interrupting them with a teacher-smile that meant business. “How about we don’t insult each other’s intelligence by pretending we don’t know what we know. Deal?”

Jack froze. Miko blinked big and innocent. Raf hugged his backpack as if it were a life raft.

Nelly lifted a hand and waved at the Camero. “Hey there, Bee.”

The radio popped on: the bright “Hey!” from Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love.”

“You’ve got good taste,” Nelly laughed, giving the grill a thumbs-up.

The driver’s side door popped open, silently and sheepishly inviting.

Jack was the first to find his words. “Ms. Cruz… you… uh…”

“Ran into your science-fiction club a few days ago,” Nelly said gently, “Long day, NDAs, and overall way too much to unpack in the parking lot.”

Miko’s grin crept out despite herself. “The cool teach just got cooler.”

“And this ‘cool teach’ knows enough to ask for some honesty from you three,” Nelly said, “Ground rules: Communication, please. If you’re going to be late or miss an assignment because you’re-” She gestured vaguely at the sky, “You know, just tell me. We’ll make it work. Safety first, school second, but school still exists.”

Raf nodded instantly, “Yes, ma’am.”

Jack exhaled, relieved. “Thank you.”

Miko salutes with her sketchbook, “No lyrics-as-essays. Got it.”

“Just save the literary analysis in song-lyric form for the creative writing elective next year. That I’ll know how to grade you on.” She told Miko firmly, without discouraging the young creative soul.

“And you,” Nelly turned towards the Camero, “Seatbelts. Full stops. And no donuts in the parking lot.”

Be answered with a quick trio of bytes, two of which were her own voice repeated back at her:

“Safety first.”

“Seatbelts.”

“Copy that.”

“Good,” She dug out a notepad from her tote and scribbled something onto it, and handed it to the kids, “That’s my personal cell. Text me when you make it to your sci-fi club so I know you guys made it in one piece, even if it’s just some dumb emoji.”

“Seriously?”

Nelly stepped back, hand on her hip, a single eyebrow raised, “Fun’s only fun until someone gets hurt. I know I can’t stop you, so might as well be something resembling a responsible adult, huh?”

None of the kids argued - couldn’t really - and that was all Nelly needed.

“Now go on. Have the fun.” Nelly gave them all a cheeky grin. “And don’t forget to do the reading. Through to chapter five, annotations for choices under pressure.”

Miko groaned theatrically, but smiling nonetheless, “Didn’t we just live that?”

“Great. Bring it to the text discussion next class,” Nelly said, amused. “Now scoot.”

Jack held the door for Raf and Miko, then hesitated. “You coming, Ms. Cruz?”

“I’m good,” She said and meant it. “And you know, you three can call me ‘Nelly’ outside of class. I’d say you’ve earned it after everything we’re both involved with.”

“Thanks Nelly, for not making this weird.”

“World’s weird enough without me needing to contribute,” Nelly reassured her students, “And Bee? You drive safe.”

The radio cracked: “Anytime.”

“See you tomorrow,” Nelly said.

Jack ducked into the Camero, cheeks a little pink, while Raf offered a shy wave and Miko bounced in after, already chattering about what the next adventure could be. The car hummed, Bee’s headlights flickering in a way that almost looked like a wink. Then, with a practiced whir, the Camero merged into the late-afternoon crawl of student traffic, leaving Nelly in the golden spill of sunlight and exhaust.

The lot slowly emptied, the symphony of engines and laughter fading to a distant echo. Nelly let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. It wasn’t the strangest end to a school day she’d ever had, but it was definitely close.

A smile lingered on her lips, nonetheless. It was good to know that, even in the chaos, there were still moments like this - tiny sparks of hope and trust that lit up the world. That reminded her of why she still had hope for humanity as a whole, even during the darkest moments. And those three, Jack, Miko, and Raf - kinda reminded her of why she got into teaching in the first place: they each had these sparks that could be fanned into a fire that could light up the world. And that was something to look forward to seeing.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Fishing it out, she expected to see a group chat meme or a reminder about tomorrow’s faculty meeting. Instead, it was a single emoji: 🚀

Nelly let out a quick laugh and texted back a thumbs-up.

By this point in time, the lot was practically empty, save for a few stragglers like herself, as heat shimmered off the sparse sedans and minivans still within the parking lot. She started making her way to her trusty Volvo, but before she could reach it, a white sports car with distinct red and green stripes pulled up beside her.

The driver’s side window rolled down. Dante leaned out, hair wind-tossed, and a big ol’ grin plastered on his face wide enough to rival the sun.

“Need a ride, Teach?”

“What’s all this?”

“Name’s Wheeljack,” Came a voice from the car itself, “We didn’t get the chance to formally meet before. But I’m the team’s engineer, Wrecker extraordinaire, and for today, your personal chauffeur back to base. First ride’s free, but tips are accepted in explosives or good stories.”

Nelly raised an eyebrow, unsure if she should be amused or concerned, “We’re still in a school zone…”

“I’ll drive safe,” Wheeljack’s engine chuckled but idled tamely, “Scout’s honor.”

She thought the offer through for all of thirty seconds. Thirty seconds to glance over at her car, decide ‘it’ll still be there tomorrow’ and say “What the hell…” before climbing into the passenger seat, buckling on reflex. The interior smelled faintly of ozone and warm metal, and the car hummed like a friendly predator.

Dante was leaning back in the driver’s seat, already way too excited for his own good.

“Picked me up at the shop,” he explained, “Might’ve promised I could help out in the-”

“Workshop.” Wheeljack cut Dante off, preemptively correcting him, “Call it a lab, Ratchet starts labeling things, and that’s bad for my morale.”

They rolled out of the school zone with what appeared to be saintly restraint - full stops, proper signals, the whole performance. It was almost textbook perfect. But the moment the last stop sign was behind them, restraint melted away into something quicker, sharper. Nelly’s hand flew to the oh crap handle as the sports car took a sharp turn, while Dante whooped like it was the most epic rollercoaster ever.

“Relax,” Wheeljack said, chuckling, “I only do donuts on Tuesdays.”

“Please don’t do donuts ever,” Nelly groaned, “I don’t think my stomach can handle it.”

“Aren’t you the one who taught social order with balloons?”

“That’s different, Dee…”

“Still think you’ll appreciate this. Order meets chaos, teach,” He swung them onto a frontage road, the change as smooth as silk despite the reckless speed. “Bulkhead says your brother’s got some ‘Wrecker’s instincts’. And I’ve got a bench full of bad ideas - and maybe one or two good ones - with his name on ‘em.”

Dante tried not to grin too hard. He failed. “You had me sold at ‘bench’.”

Wheeljack snorted, “Don’t worry, Teach, didn’t forget about you. Ratchet scavened a set of ear pro that won’t wreck your hair. His words: ‘If we’re going to upend their lives, we can at least keep their hearing intact’.”

A smile tugged at her lips, “I’ll be sure to thank him when we get there. Next time I’ll even make sure to bring cookies.” She paused as a thought occurred to her, “Or, whatever the equivalent is for you guys.”

“Don’t know if that’ll be possible, but the gesture is appreciated,” Wheeljack said with a chuckle. “But if you can pull it off, make ‘em sturdy. Ratchet’s got a sweet tooth he’ll deny having until the day he dies.”

Ahead, the desert air shimmered. A circle of green irised open in the scrub dead ahead, stirring up the desert dust.

“Groundbridge in three,” Wheeljack said, “Hands inside the ride at all times.”

They slid through the shimmering portal. The world flipped - heat and sunlight were traded for cool air and fluorescent lights, carved stone and concrete surrounding them.

Ratchet didn’t look up from his console, “If there are skidmarks on the floor-”

“Would I?” Wheeljack slid into a park, engine purring like a saint. A beat passed. “Probably. But not today.”

Nelly unbuckled, stepping out into the base’s cavernous main floor. The groundbridge closed behind them with a whoosh, leaving the familiar hum of alien tech and the distant clatter of someone working on something heavy. Dante hopped out after her, rolling his shoulders like he was already home.

A familiar yellow blur zipped up before either of them could say a word. Bee chirped a bright greeting, visor glowing a little brighter in the artificial light as he bounced a little on his peds:

“Welcome back.”

“Hey Bee,” Dante said, offering a fist. The bot obliged.

Arcee offered Nelly a nod that read Good class? Nelly answered with a shrug and a conspiratorial: “Homework went out. Complaints are scheduled for tomorrow before group discussions.”

She made her way up to the catwalk, with Ratchet quick to hand her a small case. “Hearing protection,” He said briskly, “Adjustable, should be comfortable, and I can’t fix your ears if you break them.”

Nelly gratefully accepted them, “Thank you, Ratchet. I’ll be sure to guard them with my life.” She popped the case open, seeing that the ear protection was a set of modified HPD, most likely army surplus left behind at the base, that resembled around-the-ear headphones.

Down on the floor, Dante and Wheeljack shared an excited look —one that made those who knew them grow concerned.

“Bench?”

“Bench.” Wheeljack gestured in the opposite direction, “Unless you want coffee first.”

Dante opened his mouth, but Nelly beat him to it: “You said coffee. That’s my cue.”

“You’re gonna over-caffinate into an early grave, Nel.” He called out after his sister. She just waved him off as she made her way deeper into the base.

On her way to what was the rec room, at least what was formerly the rec room when this was an active military base, she found herself crossing paths with Optimus.

They exchanged pleasant greetings, with Optimus's presence dialed to gentle, asking, “I trust your day was… uneventful.”

“As normal as possible,” Nelly said, “Which was perfect.”

Nelly stood at the rail beside Optimus, arms folded, watching as her brother fell into step within Wheeljack’s orbit, the two of them already bickering about torque specs and the relative merits of alien alloys versus Detroit steel, vanishing into the workshop with the kind of energy that usually preceded an incident report and a call to the fire department.

“Those two are gonna blow something up, aren't they?” Nelly asked resignedly, already knowing the answer.

Optimus’s optics narrowed faintly, a subtle sign of amusement. “Most likely...”

She shot him a sideways look, lips twitching. “When they inevitably do, you and I can trade notes on classroom management.”

He inclined his helm, the gesture both solemn and faintly amused. “I would welcome that exchange.”

A comfortable silence stretched between them, the kind only shared by professionals who’d seen their share of chaos - and knew more was coming just beyond the horizon.

Chapter Text

Wheeljack’s workshop was a cavernous corner of the base, lit by flickering overheads and looking like a hardware store and a tornado had a kid. Various tools, pipes, and scraps of metal lay scattered across workbenches and the floor, alongside an assortment of projects in various stages of completion.

Wheeljack nudged a half-finished contraption to make room on the catwalk near the workspace. “Park it right there, Dante,” he said, “Today’s agenda: upgrading that wrench of yours, make sure you don’t lose your eyebrows, and trying to build something Ratchet won’t ban.”

Bulkhead lumbered up with a friendly thump to Wheeljack’s shoulder, “He says that every time…”

“And every time,” Ratchet called from three bays over without even looking, “You build something that makes me ban three other things on principle alone!”

Wheeljack flashed an innocent grin before shouting back into the bay, “Don’t worry, we’re starting small, Doc.”

“And don’t call me Doc,” Ratchet shot back.

“Whatever you say, Sunshine...”

That resulted in Ratchet groaning, clearly and palpably annoyed by the Wrecker engineer’s antics. Wheeljack, to his credit, practically radiated self-satisfaction, soaking in Ratchet’s annoyance like it was a reward in and of itself. It was clear that he lived for those kinds of minor victories, getting a rise out of the good doctor.

“Let’s see that wrench of yours,” Wheeljack said, optics sparkling with mischief, “Had this idea for a new grip, some added stability… and a kinetic absorber.”

Dante’s eyes lit up, “You made a wrench with recoil management?!” He didn’t even hesitate to pull his trusty wrench from his belt.

“Arc-dampened, nonconductive handle, and weighted for better swing control,” Wheeljack explained, fishing out a tray of tools and parts for the insulated grip he mentioned, one that looked straight out of a sci-fi series, “You hit metal with that thing, it eats the rebound and dumps it as heat instead of recocheting into your wrist. Assuming I guessed the size right…”

Dante looked over the parts laid out and his wrench sitting beside them, “Little on the big side, but still pretty damned close if you ask me,” He said with a grin, “Let’s see if we can’t shrink this down a bit to get the weight right and the fit snug.”

The two worked on getting the wrench to fit properly, a combination of trial and error and good old-fashioned elbow grease. The two discussing their respective thought processes as they worked. Wheeljack kept the conversation light while still explaining some of the more alien aspects of the wrench design, and Dante shot back with his own thoughts and experiences while picking up on the unfamiliar surprisingly quick.

Bulkhead leaned over, fascinated by the tiny human’s precision. “Kid’s a natural,” he rumbled.

“I’m a mechanic by trade,” Dante said with a shrug, not looking up, “Built my first Strat copy out of spare sparts and spite. If you can wire tone pots without crying, you can do just about anything.”

“Strat? As in guitar strat?” Miko’s head popped around a stack of crates like a meerkat at the word. She practically teleported into the bay where the workshop was situated. “You play guitar?”

Dante twisted the last fastener with a practiced flick. “A little,” he said, doing the humble thing that meant a lot. “Probably a bit rusty though. It’s been a while…”

Miko beamed. “We are so starting a band!”

Ratchet materialized with a datapad and the face of a mech who had heard the word ‘band’ come from Miko too many times. “Absolutely not. This is a command center, not a garage.”

Wheeljack, without looking up, said, “Counter-offer: it’s a garage command center.” After a beat, added, “At least, my workshop is…”

Ratchet pinched the bridge of his nose, “That doesn’t make it any less chaotic.”

“Doc, relax,” Wheeljack said, “All we’re doing now is putting the kid’s tool together.”

Dante tested the fit around his wrench’s handle, then gave it an experimental swing. The absorber thrummed; the impact against the metal test crate landed with a solid thump, rather than the jarring clang. He grinned, impressed; the new wrench felt a lot better in his hand than he ever imagined. He didn’t even feel the usual buzz up his forearm that he expected from the force of such a swing.

His smile grew incredibly wide, “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever built.”

The following hour was filled with more tinkering and discussion, and the room was filled with the sound of laughter and the hum of machinery in the background.

By this point in time, not only had they completed that upgrade to Dante’s wrench, but also: a harness that could help make sure if a human was grabbed by a mech, they could be safely pulled free, another set of hearing protection like what Nelly had been given, and a couple of pairs of gloves.

And right now, they were in the middle of putting together something that looked like a collapsible brace of sorts. Something that could help support a human in the event of serious injury…

Miko was already trying to pivot the discussion back, “Okay, so band - what’s your style?

“Classic rock mostly, but there’s some punk too. Whatever gets the job done really,” Dante said, tightening a bolt. “Can maybe fake jazz if I’m paid enough. Why’d you ask?”

“Because Bulkhead and I like metal,” Miko said, a manic grin on her face, “and I’d say it’s high time we convert this base.”

Bulkhead, fondly doomed, added, “I can’t stop her.”

“If any of you plug into my med-bay monitors again, I will sedate the lot of you!” Rachet shouted at them from the other room.

Dante winced, but then turned to Miko with a grin, “If metal’s your scene, I know Nel has this epic vinyl collection and she’s got the odd Metallica and Linkin Park album in the mix…”

“For real?”

“As someone who had to listen to her playing that stuff on repeat for years, I can assure you, she’s for real,” Dante said, chuckling.

Miko just leaned back, reverent as she said, “Cool teach…”

It wasn’t long after that the flurry of tools and problem-solving swirled into something looser - Dante and Miko setting up with some mismatched amps scrounged up from what was left behind by the base’s previous occupants, Bulkhead lightly tapping on a metal crate in time, and Wheeljack egging them on like a roadie hopped up on way too many energy drinks.

At first, Nelly meant only to pass on by, but the sounds drifting from the workshop - tentative chords, a clatter of improvised percussion, laughter rising over the drone of machinery - eventually drew her in.

Nelly couldn’t help laughing as she walked up. “I leave you alone for an hour and you form a garage band?”

Wheeljack didn’t look guilty at all. “Educational purposes only.”

“Music often is,” Nelly said, leaning against the railing of the catwalk. “Makes a good middle ground. People meet in the middle of a song long before they meet in an argument.” She and Dante shared a look, “And for me, it’s a pressure release too. When things start to feel too big, I play or I listen. Helps keep the needle out of the red, if that makes any sense.”

“Does to me.”

She tipped her head, “You can tell a lot about someone by what they listen to - and what they think others might like as well.”

Miko turned to Dante with a mischievous grin, “Or, you know, by the weird stuff they listen to that sounds out of nowhere.”

“Dee…?” Nelly gives her brother a cautionary look, “What did you do to make Miko have that look…?”

“May have mentioned,” Dante said innocently enough, “That you have the odd metal album in your vinyl collection.”

“I mean, I wasn’t always a teacher,” Nelly said with a chuckle in her defense, “I was a teen too, and just because you grow older doesn’t mean you have to grow up. Nothing stops you from still enjoying the stuff you used to as a kid, or from finding new things you like even if it feels out of character.”

At that moment, an all too familiar yellow Camaro zoomed up beside them as if summoned by a chorus. Bumblebee’s radio crackled with a snippet of synth and snare, and then a crisp, playful byte:

“Sincerely yours… The Breakfast Club.”

Nelly’s face lit up. “Oh, that is phenomenal taste, Bee.” She gave him two enthusiastic thumbs-up. “That is a teacher-approved classic.”

Bee punctuated it with the tiniest, cheeky lyrical sting - “Don’t you forget about me…” - then immediately dialed the volume down under the sharp glare from Ratchet as if to say, See, responsible.

“Just try to keep the noise down,” Ratchet said dryly.

Miko pointed with a pair of hex keys like drumsticks, “Movie night. I’m calling it. Bee curates, and Ms. C brings snacks.”

“I can do that,” Nelly said, amused. “Also, more than happy to build a class-friendly playlist if anyone wants recs. You already know about my occasional metal, but I personally tend to skew towards classic rock to dramatic orchestral.”

Bulkhead and Miko high-fived on ‘metal’ without looking.

Dante, still adjusting the amp’s tone, added, “She’s got some range. From Queen to Bowie to movie and anime soundtracks. She’ll read the room and pick a track that gets you.”

Bulkhead’s optics warmed. “That explains a lot…”

“Music is a good middle ground. Having eclectic taste helps,” Nelly said with a nonchalant shrug, “That said, I won’t force my tastes on anyone - but the offer’s there if you want any recommendations.”

Arcee, passing by, slowed just long enough to murmur, “Start with something with a beat I can run drills to.” Then, to Nelly, a quick conspiratorial nod, “Teachers know pacing.”

Nelly covered a laugh. Bee flashed his visor brighter like a grin and plated a soft byte:

“Good vibes.”

“That sounds about right.” Nelly said with a smile, “Thanks Bee. And you know, any time you want a playlist - or you discovered a new favorite you want to share - I’m here for it. I’ll trade you, one for one.”

Bee fired back an instant “Deal” and saved a new contact on his comms in his own way, blinking on his dash: 📻 📚

Ratchet cleared his throat, his optics narrowed, but clearly without any real bite to it. “If the ‘good vibes’ are concluded, kindly move the… music… to the farthest corner of the base…”

Miko saluted. “Aye aye, Doc.”

Bulkhead leaned towards Dante as they shuffled the gear. “For what it’s worth - music or no - Jackie doesn’t just let anyone in his bay. You’re fitting in just fine.”

Dante’s smile went a little crooked, a little proud. “Yeah, feels that way.”

Bee chimed once - agreement, simple and sure - and trailed after them with the faintest hint of 80s synth music playing softly in the background, which made Nelly chuckle and shake her head in amusement.

“And that,” Nelly said, smiling, “Is exactly why music works. It brings people together, even when they don’t realize it’s happening.”

Ratchet groaned skyward, “Primus preserve me. This place used to be quiet.” And despite himself, he stood there watching them all go with a glint of fondness that he would vehemently deny existed.

Chapter Text

The warning hit the base like a rock thrown into tranquil waters - sharp, sudden, echoing through the cavernous space, while the lights within flipped from calm white to an urgent red.

Ratchet’s voice followed an instant later, cutting through the chaos, “Energy surge, grid substation 12B. Multiple pings, Deception signatures confirmed. Three ground, two aerial.”

Arcee was already moving, ready to go, “Vehicon squad with flyers. Sounds like a hit-and-siphon.”

Bulkhead creaked his knuckles, “Or a trap.”

Fowler jogged up the stairs, phone to his ear, face set. “Local PD’s got ‘transformer issues’ - the electrical kind. I’ve got containment rolling in, but I can’t sell another fireworks show. Prime-”

Optimus, already striding towards the stairs, nodded curtly, “We will respond to the situation and make sure it does not escalate.”

He looked to the humans then. To Nelly, Dante, and the kids huddled around the small rec area they had made for themselves.

“Today’s engagement will be volatile, and has the potential to put you all in harm’s way,” he said, voice gentle but firm. “The safest course of action would be for you to return home.”

Miko opened her mouth in protest, but Jack’s hand on her sleeve stopped her before she could give voice. Raf glanced up at Bee, who gave a small, reassuring nod.

Nelly stepped in before any protests could be made. “We understand, Optimus,” she said, her teacher's voice steady but kind. “We’ll clear out so you can do your thing.”

Dante didn’t argue, though the way his jaw set said he was itching to join the fight. Wheeljack clocked it and rolled over with a tilt of his helm.

“I hate being benched too,” Wheeljack said, sotto voce for Dante alone. “But today you take the smart play by being so.” But it was also clear that he wasn’t going to let Dante - or the rest, for that matter - leave without some form of safety net.

He plunked a couple of canvas go-bags down beside them, “Emergency kits.” Wheeljack explained. “Communicators, basic med supplies, a little something extra in case things get hairy. But that’s not an excuse to go looking for trouble. No heroics, kids.”

Ratchet hovered, ready to veto, but then he eyed the kits and then how Dante visibly relaxed with the safety net, and he - grudgingly - nodded once. “If the grid flickers, stay away from any downed lines. Rubber soles and keep the doors shut.”

“Copy that,” Dante said, grabbing a bag, “We’ll keep it boringly safe.”

Bulkhead crouched by Miko. “No stunts today, okay partner?”

Miko scowled, then sighed. “Fine. But text me the minute you’re done.” She said, “I want a blow-by-blow recap.”

“Deal,” Bulkhead said, amused. “After.”

Bee dropped to a knee beside Raf, projector clicking on:

“I’ll be back.”

And then added quickly, still using the clip of Nelly’s voice:

“Seatbelts.”

Raf smiled despite himself.

Jack gave his own partner an encouraging nod, “Bring it home, ‘Cee.”

“You know it.”

Nelly crossed over to Optimus - mindful of the size difference - and offered her hand again, brief and respectful. He lowered two fingers. The touch was gentle, a simple promise: we’ll do our part and come back.

“Be careful out there, Optimus,” she said softly, “And… don’t go running on fumes.”

A flicker of warmth passed through the Prime’s optics, and he inclined his helm in a silent thank you, “I won’t.”

Fowler clapped his hands. “Okay, field trip’s over. Kids, the scout’s got you. Cruz twins - the loose canon’s your ride. I’ll keep the airwaves clean and the rubberneckers away.”

Arcee swung onto two wheels and shot for the Bridge. Bulkhead followed with a grin that read Bring it on. Ratchet sealed a med case with a snap and followed after. The portal irised open in a wash of green light, scents of dust and ozone tugging at sleeves and hair, and the team rolled out with purpose.

“Autobots, Roll out,” Optimus said, leading the charge, and the squad vanished into the light.

Bee played the opening riffs of “Don’t you forget about me” - softly, a reminder, just under the idle as Jack, Miko, and Raf all piled and buckled in. Wheeljack’s sports car rolled up, engine purring.

“Discreet drop,” He promised, popping the doors for the twins, “No donuts.”

The ride back was quiet and fast - Wheeljack the picture of restraint through the neighborhood; Bee a law-abiding yellow shadow in their rear mirror until he peeled off to shuttle the kids home.

At the curb, Wheeljack idled while Dante pulled the go-bag from the trunk. “Don’t forget to check in,” he said.

Dante gave a reassuring solute, “Can do.”

“Text thread stays open,” Wheeljack said. “Something feels off, shoot us a message.”

Nelly gave him a reassuring smile, “Just so long as all of you come back in one piece.”

“That’s Plan A,” Wheeljack said, flashing a headlight like a wink, “Plan B is uglier and Bulkhead hates it.”

“Then let’s stick to Plan A,” Dante said, shaking his head.

Wheeljack revved once - a promise, not bravado - and pulled away, leaving the Cruz twins standing in front of their house.

The Groundbridge spilled green light across a chain-link fence and the humming bones of Substation 12B. The electrical kind of transformers stacked like steel totems, ceramic insulators glowing with trapped heat. The air tensed like that stillness before rain begins to fall.

“Arcee, scout ahead. Bulkhead, shield the control house. Ratchet, containment,” Optimus ordered, stepping through last.

Arcee ghosted to the left, her path a silent blur of motion between pylons. Bulkhead thundered to the right, his massive frame planting itself in front of the squat concrete building marked DANGER-HIGH VOLTAGE, his forearms up like a battering ram turned into a wall. Ratchet materialized behind him, popping open a case and snapping together a lattice of ground cables that turned the gravel into a crude Faraday cage.

“That doohickey of Jackie’s better not blow again,” Bulkhead muttered to himself.

“Just don’t shoot anything glazed and bolted,” Ratchet replied, a hint of annoyance in his voice, “Unless you want Fowler to yell at us over causing a regional blackout.”

“Again…”

The first purple bolt carved the message across the yard anyway.

Two aerial Vehicons screamed low over the fence, cannons flinging sparks across the gravel. Three ground troopers vaulted the barrier behind them, weapons up and charged, tugging a cable the width of a human torso towards a spidery device clamped to a bus bar - an energy siphon improvised from stolen substation parts and Decepticon-style spite. Its core throbbed a dangerous violet.

Arcee hit the first flyer with a precise shot - two to the intake, one to the wing root. They pinwheeled, clipped a fence, and cartwheeled into the perimeter road in a spray of crushed chain-link.

The second flyer tried to dodge, managing to avoid Acree - then yelped static as a yellow blur slotted in from the far street.

Bumblebee vaulted over the fence, slid across a porcelain railing like a skateboard rail, and rapid-fired three neat bursts into the flyer’s rudder. They spiraled away, a trail of smoke behind them.

He punctuated his arrival with a crisp beep brrp that, paired with the two-fingered salute, translated to Hi.

“Focus on the siphon,” Optimus called. He fired once - clean, deliberate - at the clamp assembly of the siphon. It shuddered, but held firm. “We must disable it without detonating the yard.”

“And that’s my cue,” came a velvet voice over the fence.

A glossy red sports car slid under the “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY” sign like it had a backstage pass, wheels spinning as it took the turn sharp, and transformed mid-drift. Knockout straightened out of the move, smug and immaculate even while standing in an area that would absolutely wreck his finish with one wrong move.

“Doctor’s in,” he purred, flicking a claw towards the siphon, “And you’ll leave our little toy alone.”

Bulkhead groaned, “You.”

“As dashing as ever, Bulkhead,” Knockout said, already tapping a pad to push the siphon’s draw a notch higher. The whole yard moaned from the strain. “Don’t worry, she can take it.”

The fence bulged and snapped as a bigger shape shouldered through.

Breakdown.

Hammer formed in hand, his optics locked onto Bulkhead like a compass finding north.

“Hey there, Bulk,” he rumbled.

Bulkhead’s grin sharpened. “Traitor.”

They collided like freight trains, hammer to forearms, the impact shaking the ground and kicking up a dust ring through the gravel. Bulkhead shoved, Breakdown twisted, and the two of them started their usual rapport of wrestling, ham-fisted, and possibly building a small crater in the yard.

“Arcee - left flank,” Optimus said, already moving to position himself between the siphon and the control house. “Bumblebee - disrupt the power couplers. Ratchet - can you dampen the surge?”

Ratchet eyed the pulsing light from the siphon. “Not remotely. Wheeljack might be able to, though. Where is he?”

“Not getting through to him on comms,” Bulkhead shouted back, still in the middle of his own fight with Breakdown.

Ratchet looked back at the siphon, trying to wrack his processor for a plan. “Maybe if we can pry the primary clamp free, I can bleed the current down through a dump grid before it can arc to the moon. Just try not to die in the meantime.”

Arcee sprinted the catwalks, leaping from beam to beam, trading fire with the ground troopers. One tried to track her; she baited the shot into an empty bay and returned it with a kick that crumbled his cannon. “Two down on the ground,” she reported. “The third’s hiding under the bus. Cute.”

Bee slid under a live wire, his tires smoking from the speed of the slide, sent a burst into a cable bracket, and yanked a dangling coupler free. “Heads up,” his radio crackled, and he toss-passed the coupler to Optimus like a live grenade.

Optimus snatched it, swung, and hammered the clamp strut with it. The siphon screamed and spat sparks.

Knockout tsked. “You break it, you buy it.” He drew an electro-prod with a flourish and lunged at Bee. Bee blocked, whipping out a short electroblade out of his forearm with a flick of his wrist, and they blurred through a fast, precise exchange of blows - Bee’s footwork tight and pragmatic, Knockout’s fluid and wild.

“Cute blade,” Knockout said, “Did you bring a mirror to admire yourself with, too?”

Bee pinged his radio and deadpanned back a stolen sound byte:

“Does Barry Manilow know you raid his wardrobe?”

Knockout faltered for half a step, vents hitching. He didn’t even get that particular reference, but the tone was unmistakable - everyone else in earshot knew Bee had just called him tacky.

Even Arcee snorted.

Across the yard, Bulkhead and Breakdown traded haymakers that made the electrical transformers quake.

“You don’t have to keep doing this,” Bulkhead grunted, catching the hammer on a forearm and shoving it wide. “You left the Wreckers. Fine. But you don’t have to drain some poor town dark to prove it.”

“I left because I owed a debt,” Breakdown snarled, smashing a knee into Bulkhead’s side. “Still paying it.” He swung the hammer in a brutal arc. Bulkhead ducked and the head kissed a steel leg, ringing the whole tower behind the green bruiser like a bell.

“Children,” Ratchet snapped, “If you collapse that substation, you’ll take out half the town’s power grid.”

“Working on it!” Bulkhead and Breakdown chorused, mutually offended.

The siphon’s whine climbed, higher and higher. The pitch going from bad to ugly to oh no. Knockout flicked a glance over to the device, eyes narrowing, and smiled just a little too wide for comfort.

“Time to cash out,” he said, tapping the pad to trigger a quick-release on the siphon’s core. It clicked-

-and stuck.

Knockout blinked, “That’s new…”

“Failsafe,” Ratchet said, almost cheerful. “If a certain narcissist overdraws a stolen substation, the cage keeps it from letting go so it doesn’t vent a small sun through the yard. Wheeljack credits it to the last time you tried this.”

Knouckout’s mouthplate flattened. “I’ll be sure to tell him ‘you’re welcome’ next time I see him.”

“Bee! Now!” Optimus called.

Bee darted in low. Arcee dropped out of nowhere to body-check a ground trooper off Bee’s flank, and Bee sank his electroblade into the clamp’s exposed locking pins. He used that to ensure his shots hit their marks - one, two, three - and the pins sagged. Optimus stepped into the space, grabbed the primary clamp with both hands, and pulled.

It screamed. The core spat sparks. The field buckled. The yard lights stuttered. Then the clamp ripped free with a sound like thunder.

“Bleeding down,” Ratchet said, already scrambling to slam the ground grid into the scar where the clamp had been moments before. The bottled energy cascaded down, lost its coherence, and coiled down into the earth, safe and with next to no fanfare.

The siphon hiccuped, stuttered-

-and died with an anticlimactic click.

Knockout put both hands on his hips, “Rude…”

“Jackie’s doohickey didn’t blow this time…”

“Bulk!” Arcee shouted.

Bulkhead took his eyes off Breakdown for a split second, and that was all that was needed for a hammer to catch him on the jaw, sending him stumbling back. He staggered, dug in, and came back up smiling with a manic grin.

“Feels like old times,” he said. Then he wrapped both arms around Breakdown’s torso, lifted, and suplexed him into a gravel mound.

Breakdown wheezed, then laughed. “There he is…”

A flicker crossed the substation’s camera - static for anyone else. But for Soundwave, it was data. High-frequency pings that mapped the Autobots’ positions; the siphon’s telemetry streamed home; the exact frequency and properties of the energy collected; a narrow-beam scrape of the Bridge residue tasted like something he could use later.

Recorded. Filed. Useful.

Knockout checked the sky, then the yard; at the wrecked siphon, ground team down one and dragging two, Breakdown happily trying to break Bulkhead’s everything…

“Breakdown, dear,” He called, tapping his comm, “bring your toy and your grudges. House call’s over.”

“Right behind ya, partner,” Breakdown said, shoving Bulkhead hard enough to make space and bounded for the fence, laughing like a fool. He scooped a dazed trooper by the scruff as he went. “Next time,” he called back towards Bulkhead.

“Next time,” Bulkhead agreed, rolling his sore shoulder like it was a warm-up exercise.

Knockout vaulted the fence with an unnecessary flourish, transformed, and shot for the access road with Breakdown not that far behind. The remaining flyer dropped smoke and sparks, covering the retreat. Soundwave stopped the feed coming in and recalled his assets from the field.

Arcee hopped up onto the substation’s roof, glancing down the route the ‘Cons escaped by, considered it for a moment, then dropped down to the ground with a shake of her head. “We won the yard. Let ‘em go…”

The grid crackled down to a gentle hiss. The substation lights steadied. Somewhere down the line, an entire strip of the city kept to its evening routine, unaware of the mayhem that had just been averted.

Bumblebee peered at the dead siphon, then pinged a small, satisfied:

“All clear.”

Optimus set the ruined clamp down. “Agent Fowler, containment?”

Fowler’s voice came through the comms, a little winded from yelling at people. “Fire department’s got an ‘equipment malfunction’ story they like. Utility’s sending a crew to stare at things and look important. I’m calling this one a win, Prime.”

“Understood,” Optimus said, a small smile on his face. He turned, optics sweeping the yard, cataloging dents and scorch marks. “Well done. Secure what you can. Bumblebee, Arcee, help Bulkhead with the cleanup. We depart in five.”

Bee flashed a thumbs-up, already jogging to kick a twisted coupler under a tarp. Arcee vaulted a catwalk to retrieve a dropped blaster before any human could find it. Bulkhead planted himself by the hole he and Breakdown had made and, sighing, started shoveling gravel back in with both hands like a grumpy giant.

“Wheeljack missed out on all the fun,” Bulkhead said, grumbling. “Wonder what kept him…”

“Thought he would have rushed over as soon as he dropped the twins off,” Ratchet said, shrugging. “If only to see his invention not blow up for-”

A burst of static cut him off. Wheeljack’s voice erupted over the comms, strained and urgent.

“Bulkhead! Ratchet! Something’s wrong - just got a text from the twins. They said they saw a ‘Con at their place, but now I can’t reach them back. Signal’s dead. I’m heading there now!”

For a split second, nobody moved. Then Bulkhead’s optics widened. “Scrap. That’s a diversion if I’ve ever saw one…”

Chapter Text

The Cruz twins’ home felt almost too quiet, that kind of hushed stillness that wrapped itself around the clink of keys dropped into that cheesy ceramic dish by the door with the tiny Paddington plush standing guard and the steady whirl of the swamp cooler in the background.

Dante sat at the kitchen table, thumbing aimlessly through a thick, well-worn paperback - the fact it was on the 1919 Great Molasses Flood betrayed it as strictly one of his - with a faint look of unease on his face. He’d glance up every few seconds towards his phone, as if expecting news of any kind to pop up.

Across from him, Nelly sat with her eyes fixed down at the open planner in front of her, the cup of coffee growing cold beside her. She balanced a red pen between her fingers, absentmindedly twirling it as she stared blankly at the open planner. Her gaze would every now and then flicker to the stack of ungraded papers, then her phone, and then back to the planner, weighing the pros and cons of each possible task based on how well it would drown out the anxious waiting.

Outside, the world went on as it always did. Inside, every small routine felt like a lifeline.

“Always feels weird when the house gets this quiet…”

“Quiet is good,” Nelly said, not looking up from the planner, “Quiet means nothing’s on fire.”

The street outside hummed with the usual evening things - a TV somewhere blaring a drama, someone’s dog barking two blocks down, the faint patter of sprinklers cycling through their dance. But beneath the suburban mundane was an undercurrent, an inaudible rhythm like the corner of perception, barely there: a whisper of thrusters throttled low, the hush of a frame designed for the sky forcing itself small, as if the night itself were holding its breath in uneasy anticipation.

Just out of sight, in the shadows above the street, a lean, angular silhouette watched the Cruz household with red optics that flickered like embers on the verge of combustion, reflecting a simmering focus and a calculating interest born from patience and intent.

Starscream…

He had watched the Autobots pour through their Bridge, counted their numbers. He watched the Wrecker engineer peel off, leaving the two humans behind without any visible protection in place.

Perfect.

He eased forward, talons curling against the shingles as his wings flexed once. The urge to strike fast burned hot in his energon, but this had to be precise. A reckless smash-and-grab would only summon Prime back too quickly, and he wanted leverage, not rubble. Hovering at the edge of the twins’ living room, his claws flexed again, more in irritation than anticipation.

Megatron’s orders still echoed in his audials: no harm to the children. Starscream couldn’t fathom the logic - a target was a target in his book, and a human was a human in all their disturbingly carbon-based fleshiness. But testing Megatron’s patience over something so trivial was out of the question. Not when the sting of his last ‘reminder’ was still raw in his circuitry.

So he’ll play by the rules for now, even if it meant swallowing his pride - and a few choice retorts - along the way.

Inside, Dante paused, frowning towards the window. “You hear that?”

Nelly looked up from her planner, pen hovering and brow furrowed. “Hear what?”

“Like… I dunno. Something.” He crossed to the curtains, pulling them aside just a fraction. Nothing, just quiet suburbia. He let the curtains fall back into place, rubbing the back of his neck, “Guess it’s probably nothing…”

Above, Starscream’s optics narrowed, a predatory smile curling across his faceplate.

“Probably everything…” He murmured to himself. And with a silent shift of weight, he prepared to strike.

The house went quiet in that movie kinda way. Air too still, fridge hum too loud. Dante and Nelly exchanged a glance, both sensing something was off.

Dante’s eyes drifted back to the window, drawn by a flicker of movement that wasn’t there before. For a split second, he caught sight of an unmistakable silhouette - angular, lean, and with red optics burning like hot coals. And if the red eyes weren’t already a dead giveaway, the flash of a Decepticon emblem on a wing sealed it.

Dante didn’t flinch. He just pressed his phone to the glass long enough to snap a blurry photo of the silhouette. “Well, that’s new,” he said, voice steady, as he attached the image to his SOS text. “Ten bucks says he tries the ‘ominous tap’ next.”

Nelly glanced up as the telltale text-tone of the message going through sounded, breaking the silence. “Let me guess. Someone tall, spooky, and thinks he’s being subtle?”

“Well, hopefully they got the text,” Dante managed a wry smile, “But if he starts tapping on the glass, I’m grabbing that bottle of holy water Nanna gave us…”

Nelly rolled her eyes, unhurried. “Honestly, if this is their idea of a home invasion, I’m offended. Are they even trying? ‘Cause one would think the giant alien robots would have better production value…”

“Should we get the flashlight, or just let him monologue?” Dante asked.

Nelly shrugged, already getting up to put her used mug in the sink. “He’s welcome to try. I’m not scared, just unimpressed.”

Outside, the shadow edged closer, claws glinting in the moonlight. Inside, the twins watched with a detached calm, as if daring the universe to try something they hadn’t already seen in a cheesy B-movie horror flick.

“So… Battle of the Line until the bots get here?” Nelly’s hand found her bat, right where she left it by the door. Same one that their father gave her when they first moved out for protection, the same one she used to rescue rogue basket and soccer balls from gutters. It felt reassuring in her hand, solid and real, but also heavier than usual tonight.

“Looks like it,” Dante said, voice even and steady as he pointed a thumb over to the adjoining hallway. “You get the to-go bag Wheeljack left us. I’m gonna get my gun. Just don’t go pulling a Sinclair, a Sheridan, or god forbid a Mollari until I get back.” 

“No promises,” Nelly said, raising the bat like it was a baton in a standoff.

Above them, something flexed its talons and grinned.

Starscream lowered himself along the roofline, savoring the moment. Building up to the proper entrance - the kind that was just missing the organ music playing and the crack of thunder for the full atmospheric effect.

Downstairs, the twins moved in practiced sync that said they’d seen too many bad movies to die in one.

Nelly came back from the hallway with the to-go bag slung over one shoulder, the bat held loose in her other hand. Dante reemerged from his room with a simple handgun, checking the magazine just because, action unnecessary but grounding. “We stick to the plan,” He said, voice low but steady, “Stay moving, but stay together.”

A shadow slid across the curtains. The house creaked, too deliberate to be chance.

Nelly pursed her lips, equal parts nerves and defiance. “He’s really going all out for that full horror-movie treatment. Should we run upstairs and split up for max clichéness, or…?”

“Nah. We’re not that stupid,” Dante snorted. “Garage. Let’s grab the bike, I want the maneuverability it gives. We draw him out, away from the neighbors. Worst case, we play bait until the cavalry shows up.”

She nodded, already moving towards the door, bat still in hand, with a purposeful steadiness. “Battle of the Line, Dee. Let’s make sure it holds.”

He grinned, adrenaline sharpening his focus, “Just keep the dramatic speeches to a minimum. I’d rather not get upstaged by a Decepticon with a flair for the dramatic.”

The house shuddered suddenly as a metallic screech split through the night air, echoing off the windows and making the twins freeze in place for a moment. Something massive had just landed onto the garage roof, rattling the walls and sending shingles skittering down the driveway.

Nelly winced but kept her tone dry, “Guess he’s not a fan of subtlety. Or garages…”

“Yeah, well, he’s about to hate motorcycles, too,” Dante shoved open the inside door. They hustled into the garage just as a taloned hand burst through the far wall, claws raking across the workbench and sending tools clattering everywhere.

“GO!” Dante shouted. He hauled the bike upright, helping Nelly swing onto the back, go-back slung crosswise and bat across her lap like a knight about to joust a dragon.

Starscream’s shadow loomed through the torn siding, one crimson optic glaring down. His voice slithered with cruel amusement, “You can’t run forever, little humans…”

Nelly smirked, heart hammering but words sharp, “You’re right on that one. But we can still make you work for it.”

Dante gunned the starter. The engine roared to life, slicing through the night air like a promise of chaos. With a lurch, the bike shot forward, ducking under Starscream’s reaching claws and bursting out into the street.

Behind them, the garage groaned, half-collapsed under the Decepticon’s weight. Ahead, the empty road stretched wide and dark, beckoning.

The chase was on.

Starscream stalked after, talons clipping concrete, head cocked at the audacity of two small carbon-based life forms mounting a motorcycle to flee him. The bike’s engine growled, spewing exhaust that smoked like a taunt. He took two lazy steps and fired a warning shot that vaporized a planter.

The Suzuki fishtailed, straightened, and shot down the driveway. Dante quickly shot back a rude gesture while Nelly held on for dear life, one arm around her brother’s waist, the other gripping the bat like that would do anything against an alien robot jet.

It wouldn’t. But she kept it anyway because it made her feel better.

“Drainage ditch,” she yelled into Dante’s shoulder. “Open sightlines and clear of people.”

They tore past the cul-de-sac. Starscream laughed, the sound low and cold, and vaulted over the street, his wings beating the air into a chaotic whirlwind and matching the bike’s speed with ease. He could have taken to the air, but something in him wanted to see how long the chase would last.

The thrill of the hunt, the rush of adrenaline - Starscream’s systems thrummed with excitement.

Taking to the air would have ended the game too soon. This was so much better…

Dante fired a controlled pair of rounds back over his shoulder. The rounds sparked off Starscream’s shin armor - more annoying than harmful, like stinging gnats or mini hailstones, but it gave him a satisfying bang when the bullets ricocheted off metal.

Starscream hissed, offended. “Annoying little insects,” he spat, and accelerated, claws outstretched to grab the bike and humans.

They cut under an overpass to avoid the outstretched claws, the bike’s tires screeching as they took the turn sharp into the dry riverbed. Concrete banks sloped down to a small ribbon of stubborn water. Starscream dropped in after them, landing right in front of them and forcing Dante to scream to a halt.

“This was fun,” Starscream snapped, patience thinning, “But I think we’ve played this game long enough. I’ll-”

“Keep talking?” Nelly cut him off. “You sound like a YouTube ad right now.”

Dante popped two more rounds into Starscream’s foot when he tried to take a step closer. Not causing any damage, but irritation. The seeker flinched, more from the annoyance than actual pain, and missed his next attempt to grab by inches.

“You insufferable gnats!” he snarled, lunging again.

“Gnats that do cardio,” Dante shot back, gunning the bike up the opposite slope and cutting across the dry riverbed to keep him turning.

Starscream switched tactics, bounding ahead to cut them off. Something fast and predatory, more than before. He landed in their path, arm up, null-ray glowing bright -

- and Nelly reached over to flick the bike’s high-beams on, smacking Starscream straight into the optics with enough light to blind him for a split second.

He reeled back, swore, and fired a wild shot. The blast blew a crater in the embankment behind them, spewing gravel and dust that had been turned to chalk up into the air.

“Nice manicure!” Nelly shouted back as they shot past him, because she couldn’t help herself. “You do it yourself, or does some knockoff-factory Ken-doll do house calls?”

For a heartbeat, despite everything, Starscream looked almost…impressed by the humans. “The mouth on you…”

“You should see the insults when I grade essays,” Nelly said, “My students get worse than that twice a week.”

The game changed again. Starscream’s wings snapped wide; enough was enough, he vaulted up the bank and, thrusters spitting blue, cut a low, lethal arc to try and pin them from above.

Dante juked under an overhang, hugging the pillar. A missile locked, lost, re-locked. He popped a shot into the seeker’s intake; it pinged harmlessly, but the sheer audacity of it pulled Starscream’s aim wide, forcing him to compensate and lose his lock again right as he pulled the trigger.

The missile detonated farther down the channel, water geysering. A fine spray rained back, hissing on hot concrete.

Dante’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and tossed it to Nelly for her to see who it was and answer so he could focus on keeping them alive.

It was Wheeljack.

“Finally! We’re thirty seconds out!”

“Make it twenty,” Dante shouted back, leaning into the next S-curve.

Starscream dropped again, talons skittering and swiped at them. The bat met a descending claw with a resounding whack that did absolutely nothing to him and rattled Nelly’s arms up to her teeth. But it bought them a breath and, more importantly, a moment for her to get in another shot.

“Also,” she panted, “you smell like someone spilled nail polish remover in a jet hangar. Have you guys ever heard of deodorant?”

He blinked, scandalized. “It’s high-grade solvent, you insufferable little-”

Green light irised open ahead, down the channel. The Groundbridge painted the world in neon, wind whipping trash and dead grass into streamers. A yellow camaro burst through at a full tilt, transforming mid-sprint, and sliding into place between the bike and the seeker like a shield.

“DOWN!” Bee’s clipped soundbyte snapped, and he took a blast to the arm that would’ve cored the Suzuki.

Arcee shot out next, already firing as she slid to draw Starscream off the humans. Wheeljack followed in hard, throwing an explosive magnetic charge that slapped into the seeker’s forearm with a wicked clack.

“Tick tick boom,” Wheeljack called out, a mad grin on his faceplate. Only for that to instantly wilt when the explosive charge didn’t detonate. “Uh…”

Starscream ripped the charge free and flung it back at Wheeljack with a snarl. “I was having a conversation here!”

“Yeah?” Wheeljack caught it on a bat of his own - a collapsible staff that hummed - and sent it skittering into the water where it fizzled, completely harmless. “Conversation’s over.”

“Kids, ditch the bike!” Arcee snapped, carving the space with blaster fire. “On me!”

With a sharp twist of the handlebars and practiced slam on the brakes, Dante sent his bike into a controlled skid. The rear wheel swung wide, rubber burning, carving a perfect sideways arc across the concrete - the kind of move he’d only ever tried in empty parking lots, inspired by too many midnight anime marathons.

The world seemed to hold its breath for a moment as the bike slid, sparks showering, before Dante killed the engine with practiced precision and let the momentum carry them forward that last few feet. In one fluid motion, he bailed, dragging Nelly off with him, and dove for cover behind Arcee’s legs.

Bee dropped a hand, palm down, offering cover. They dove under it, landing in a roll as blaster fire continued to zip past.

Because it was crystal clear that Starscream wasn’t finished just because the cavalry arrived. If anything, he seemed more determined than ever. Darting up the wall to gain an angle, dropping again in a vicious stoop for the humans, forcing the Autobots present to choose between defending the humans or fighting Starscream head-on.

“Primus, he’s persistent,” Arcee muttered, her voice tight with focus tracking, firing, moving.

Bee chirped in agreement, peeking a visor edge over his forearm and peppering stars in Starscream’s paint.

“And irritated,” Wheeljack added, already charging forward.

He skated in low, snapping his staff into a pry-bar and jamming it under a plating seam. “Hey, Screamer!” he called out, smug. “Try my new and improved shut up and sit down stick.”

Starscream recoiled, shrieking, and kicked free -

- only to rebound into Bulkhead, dropping in from the bridge like a meteor. The green Wrecker hit the concrete with a thoomp and grabbed for a leg.

“Miss me?” Bulkhead grinned.

“Not even slightly!” Starscream spat, twisting free, a missile already armed and ready to fire.

“Optimus, we need a push!” Arcee called into comms.

The Bridge flared open once again. A red-and-blue semi roared out, transformed in a heartbeat, and planted himself like an impenetrable wall. “Autobots, hold the line.”

The twins were already where they were supposed to be: behind the Autobots, a solid wall of protection between them and the seeker.

Starscream, optics blazing, swept his arm away from the Autobots. Not at them, but past them, aiming for something else entirely.

Wheeljack saw what it was he was aiming for, his optics widening in alarm. “Don’t-!”

Starscream fired.

The missile that had been armed this entire time soared past the Autobots, straight into the Groundbridge still open behind them. It detonated within the green light, making the portal shudder before glitching closed in a snap of sparks and light.

“Did he just-?”

“By all means,” Starscream purred, a dangerous smile spreading across his faceplate, “Let’s keep talking.”

He moved first.

A blur of speed and motion, Starscream vaulted into the air, sliding under Bumblebee’s plasma fire. Talons snapped out, and before anyone could react, Nelly was yanked off her feet.

“Dee!”

“Nelly!”

The ground dropped away as Starscream’s wings flared. He lifted Nelly into the air, her bat clattering uselessly below.

Ten feet up, instinct cut through the fear. Nelly’s hand shot out, catching the inner plating at his wrist.

Contact.

It hit like static. She hadn’t meant to do it, hadn’t meant to open something by doing so, but in her panic she blew the door wide.

She’d braced for rage. For pride. For triumph.

Instead, it was this deep, choking, bitter emptiness that rang through her like the aftermath of a bell’s toll. A gnawing ache of something buried beneath ego and anger and cruelty. A loss so old and constant it had calcified into resentment.

Not weakness.

Not regret.

But an all-consuming longing.

She couldn’t see who or what had been lost - her current panicked state wouldn’t allow for a more thorough read than that - but she felt everything… and the echoes left her shaken.

And in that moment, Starscream flinched. Jerked back as if her touch had burned him.

“What did you do?!” he snarled, dropping her.

Nelly hit the ground hard, rolling with the landing, and lay gasping. Bumblebee was over her in a heartbeat, engine snarling, cannon up, his frame acting as a shield between her and the figure still in the sky.

His radio snapped, clipped and urgent:

“Stay behind me.”

“Nel!” Dante shouted, dashing towards her before dropping to his knees beside her. She’d rolled well, so she’d avoided any serious injury. Just a couple of scrapes and bruises, nothing too bad. “You okay? You good?”

“I’m…” Her breath caught. “He’s hurting.” The words slipped free, raw. Soft, even, just loud enough for Dante alone to hear, “Th-The ‘con, he’s hurting…”

Starscream hovered, optics locked on Nelly like he was seeing her for the first time… and he both hated and feared what he saw in her. Then, without another word or shot, he peeled away. A streak of silver that vanished into the night sky.

Dante glanced up as well, just in time to see the quickly dissipating trail, and then back at his sister. “We’ll talk later,” he muttered, already moving to press his keys into her palm, “promise…”

Nearby, Wheeljack was on comms, “I’m tellin’ ya, Doc. Missile disrupted the signal, but the Groundbridge is fine. Now we need a pick-up and you have a patient.”

Bee holstered his cannon, visor dimming as he dropped to one knee. He offered Nelly a careful hand and a tentative brrp that was clearly an are you okay. She braced on it, letting him lever her back to her feet as she reassured him that she was fine.

Ratchet sprinted through the green flare of the Bridge a second later, his medkit already open and ready. “Do not move,” he ordered, already scanning Nelly for injuries. “Anything broken? Ringing?”

“Couple scrapes. Bruised mostly,” Nelly said, wincing as she straightened but still noticeably steadier than she was even moments earlier. “If anything, I think my pride took the brunt of that fall.”

“You’re fine. Just need some rest,” Ratchet confirmed, “But you’ll be sore like the pits tomorrow.”

“Tell me something I don’t know…”

Acree’s gaze cut sideways. “So, why’d he drop you?” Knife-clean, but not unkind. “Not that I’m complaining, but he had you.”

Dante was already there with the cover. He jingled his keys after prying them from Nelly’s hand. “Jabbed the keys into the wrist joint. Lucky shot.”

Nelly opened her hand with a wince. The grooves from the keys that Dante had made sure to have pressed into her palm helped sell the story.

Bee chirped in approval:

“Nice move.”

Ratchet humphed. “That was stupid, but can’t deny it was effective. Just don’t go doing it again.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Nelly muttered.

Bulkhead kept his frame to the street, blocking curious eyes. “We might need to clear out. I think we got rubberneckers incoming.”

Fowler’s voice cut sharp over comms. “Tell me those were fireworks, Prime. Fireworks.”

Optimus’s answer was even. “The attack on the substation was a diversion to attack the Cruz’s home, Agent Fowler. We prevented escalation.”

“The twins’ house was the mark?” Fowler asked, trying to wrap his head around that revelation, “That’s just perfect… I’ll do what I can to contain the block, you just get my civilians out of there.”

Optimus gave a nod in acknowledgment before kneeling before the twins, his presence a steady anchor. “Nelly, Dante, with your permission, we’ll relocate you for tonight.”

Nelly looked back and forth between her brother and Optimus. “Yeah. Tonight…”

“Besides, that Decepticon kinda wrecked our garage,” Dante winced, “Don’t think it’s safe to stay there, structurally speaking.”

“Escort in two,” Ratchet said, already rolling up the medkit and cuing up the remote activation of the Groundbridge.

Bact at the base, Ratchet pressed a cold pack into Nelly’s hand before she could protest, or even question where the pack even came from. “Ten minutes on, ten off.” He angled a scanner at Dante too, just enough to give the medic some peace of mind. “And both of you, sit.”

Nearby, Optimus and Fowler discussed how best to handle the fallout of the attack. “This one’s gonna be tough to contain, Prime,” Fowler said, his voice a little worried, “I don’t even have a clue how to spin the damage done to their house.”

“They are more than welcome to stay here until repairs can be completed.”

“That’s at least one thing that I don’t have to worry about,” Fowler said, a small sigh of relief escaping his lips. He then turned his attention back to his phone, not looking forward to the task of spinning this one to the suits.

Arcee leaned on the rail near Nelly, voice pitched private. “Keys-in-the-seam was a good move back there. But next time, let’s try to avoid there being a next time.”

“Trust me, that’s the plan,” Nelly said, a small smile.

Bee posted himself nearby, like a yellow wall half a step behind the twins, projector flicking to life just long enough to play a quick, reassuring byte:

“We got you.”

Dante gave Nelly’s hand a reassuring squeeze, once, a whole conversation condensed into a single gesture.

Later, when the questions would fade and the base settled, they’d talk. In the quiet corner they’d find in the space that they could bed down for the night, they’d discuss and decide what to do next with the truth of what startled a predator into flight.

For now, they kept that truth where they always kept that part of themselves, the part they each felt no one else was ready to carry: between them.

The replay ran in cold, clinical freeze-frames across the central console: the substation; the planned retreat; the Bridge flare at the drainage ditch; the yellow scout blocking fire; the Wrecker engineer’s failed explosive(earning a few snickers from some of those present at the irony of that); The Prime’s arrival. Then…

Pause. Magnify.

Soundwave froze the frame where Starscream lunged and snatched the human. Another frame: the female’s hand catching the thin plating at the seeker’s wrist. A third: Starscream’s entire field spiking, micro-tremors coursing through his entire frame, spark-rate stuttering far from his normal baseline.

But not visible injuries. No EMP.

“Again,” Megatron said, voice low.

The sequence flickered a second time; the contact, the flinch, then the drop. No parting taunt. No indulgent cruelty. Just Starscream cutting through the sky like something had burned him.

Megatron’s optics narrowed, a thread of curiosity and unease weaving into his field, “What did she do…?”

Soundwave’s visor pulsed, laying telemetry over the images: energy signatures and feedback through the sensor nets; a momentary desynchronization of the seeker’s systems; EM field disturbed at close range.

The human fell. The seeker fled.

Knockout, arms folded, made a small, noncommittal noise, “No toxins. No visible arcs. If I had to guess… neurological interference maybe? But from an unaugmented organic…” He tilted his helm. “Have we ever seen anything like that before?”

“Data: inconclusive.”

Megatron watched the loop once more, but not at the numbers. At the choices. The way the humans made it a point to draw the seeker away from houses; the scout with them never once overextending for a shot if it meant exposing the civilians; Starscream, a mech who relished in the theatrics, abandoned a sure leverage play without posturing.

He tapped a servo lightly against the console. “Reclassify the female,” he said at last. “Not just ‘civilian’. Potential asset. Flag the unknown contact effect present. Prohibit direct bare-plate contact with her until we understand more about her.”

Soundwave’s screen listed a new entry, annotations quickly stacking up like ‘touch-provoked resonance?’ and ‘emotional desynchronization?’

“Non-contact retrieval protocols only,” Megatron continued. “Stasis nets, insulated restraints, whatever it takes. If circumstances require proximity or contact, you will wear some form of protective gear.” A look towards Knockout. “Design them. Coordinate with Brainstorm if you have to.”

Knockout’s smirk twitched, “What you are suggesting would be gloves.”

“Route all footage to Longarm on the usual channel,” Megatron added, voice flattening on the alias. “He will model the interaction. Cross-reference with the Project: Resonance logs.”

At that, even Knockout’s ammusement faltered, “You think we’re looking at an empathic vector…?”

“I think,” Megatron said, his voice low and calculated, optics on the freeze-frame of the human’s hand on Starscream’s wrist, “we have seen how a mind can be tilted without a single mark being made. Omega-Null proved the principle - as crude, overwhelming, and unstable as it was.” His mouthplate thinned. “This… was precise. A single touch. One moment was all it took to drive a seeker off target…”

Silence hummed, a ship listening.

“Schedule Starscream for a debrief,” he finished. “A full sensory recount. If he’s evasive, even more than usual, I want to know.”

Soundwave’s visor acknowledged with a soft chord.

Megatron let the replay run once more: the small hand; the involuntary recoil; the brief, ungarded silence where a taunt should have been. Something ached in that gap, something old and unwelcome for the seeker.

“The diversion succeeded,” he said, colder again, “but our secondary objective failed due to an unforeseen variable. We’ll adjust. Continue observing the teacher and her twin, learn their patterns, strike where the Autobots are not. And until we understand what she is...”

A beat, then the order landed like a cold verdict.

“…no one touches her.”