Chapter Text
Salpulpa, huh? Mirage thinks, looking at the human asleep in his backseats with his rearview mirror. After a quick google search, he finds out that Salpulpa is a place in Oklahoma, a good twenty-hour drive.
What makes you want to go there? It seems to just be some rest stops and a museum, and that it's along route 66.
Mirage hears the clearing of an intake beside him, and points his field in that direction.
“How is he?” Ratchet asks quietly, gesturing with a servo to the backseat where Noah is resting. Mirage sighs. “He could be better. Getting home from a mission and immediately responding to one of Optimus’ calls, and then watching himself on screen for a few hours would be taxing to anyone, I guess.”
By now, the other autobots circle mirage as well, or stand near where his field can pick up on them, a few of them decide to sit down so they are closer in size to Mirage to speak, like Bee and Wheeljack.
“Something isn’t adding up.” Arcee finally speaks, crossing her servos together as she sits down as well. “The way he kept referring to his Jet as a ‘he’, and seemed to know some cybertronian terms that could pass as human, like the word Rust. and even if he is a mechanic and his mother is a doctor, there is no way he was able to put you together like that so easily.” The femme huffs out. “I don't trust it.”
Mirage sighs out, but he agrees. “It is a bit suspicious.” he admits to his comrades. “But Noah has never really been open about his past, and there's not really much we can do about it. If he decides to tell us then he decides to tell us, but I won’t pry. Everyone has something they want to keep hidden.”
He fizzles his holoform into existence in the driver's seat, a tanned man with blue and grey ombre hair in a ponytail, eyes as blue as his root mode and a pair of blue jeans and a white tee on, with a plaid shirt on top.
“Look,” His holoform sighs, placing the hands on his wheel. “I’m going to take Noah to Salpulpa, he asked to go there before he passed out. I don’t know what he’s wanting to do there, but I'm going to take him there, maybe as a honeymoon or something.” He laughs at his own joke. “You guys can come if you want, it's a 20 hour drive and I’m leaving now before Noah wakes up. I want him to get as much rest as he can.” He starts to move out of the warehouse, hearing a few mutters behind him as someone else transforms, and his holoform smiles, and he starts driving to Oklahoma.
After about Nine hours of driving, Noah wakes up in the backseat groggily, face pressed against the leather and the blanket still wrapped around him. “Mir’ge?” He groans, yawning and closing his eyes as he sits up, the sun shining through his eyelids as it comes through the window. “Wha– Where are we?”
“You said you wanted to go to Salpulpa!” Mirage chirps from the radio, as his holoform starts to shimmer slightly when Noah opens his eyes so he can see that it is Mirage’s holoform and not a random man. “So when you fell asleep last night, I started driving! We should be there in ten hours, not counting when you need to eat or use the bathroom of course.”
Noah freezes mid yawn. “You.. are driving me to Salpulpa Oklahoma because I said I wanted to go?” he asks incredulously, looking at the holoform, who nods. “Yeah! I thought it would be fun to take you somewhere you wanted to go, and we could make a honeymoon out of it!” He speaks, and then the cheeks on the holoform go pink. “If you wanted it to be one, that is.” he trails off and the radio goes silent.
Noah smiles and leans in between the center console separating the back seats from the front seats, and presses a kiss to the holoforms cheek, and Noah can feel Mirage’s root mode shudder underneath him. “Thank you.” He says to Mirage. “There are some people there who I haven't seen in a long time, and I'm worried, in a way.” Noah admits, rubbing the back of his neck.
“The matrix was able to play my past when I met you all, right? I’mm worried something is going to happen, and Kate and I’s past is going to show–”
“Woah, Woah, Woah,” Mirage asks. “Who’s Kate? An ex? A friend? Family?”
Noah hums. “We were friends in College, both studying Meteorology. I think I did have a crush on her at one point, but then she started dating Jeb, and I didn’t want to risk anything.” He sighs out. “And then she moved to New York and I met Tyler and we had a thing for a while while I was working for StormPar but then Kate came back and she and Tyler got together and since Tyler and I were never official it was awkward.” Noah shrugs, settling back against the seats again.
Mirage stays quiet, and for a moment the only sound is the click on the turn signal as he switches lanes. Noah winces. “Sorry I didn’t tell you I was dating people before I married you?” He asks a question, and the holoform waves his hand. “Nah, it’s all good. Human nature and all that. I was just thinking that you were right, and it probably would show you and your friends' pasts, and now I'm wishing I asked Stratosphere or someone to take us since we’ll be on the road for a while.”
Noah nods, and places his cheek on his hand and stares out the window.