Chapter Text
The room was quiet– Well, okay, maybe not quiet. You were humming something, some song you remembered, out of tune and maybe missing a few beats here and there. And as you hummed, you watered Fred.
“And then I said, oatmeal, are you crazy?” You snorted. Predictably, Fred didn’t laugh with you, but you liked to imagine that he did. You rolled your eyes, like he’d given some reply, then you set the little glass of fresh water (spring water, too!) down on the windowsill.
“Yeah, well, I gotta get ready,” You stated, “I’ve got a date.”
You turned smartly. The room was... lived in, now. The walls had pictures, and posters, and a callender with circles and dates and a few smiles doodled in the margins. You carefully stepped over a pile of discarded clothing, before making your way into the attached bathroom, intent on the shower. As you shimmied out of your clothing, you habitually looked over yourself. The bruises from two weeks ago were gone, and there were a few cuts that had scarred, but, hey, that just added to your appeal.
“Two weeks,” You whistled low, turning the shower faucet on and waiting for it to heat up, “Almost can’t believe it.”
You stepped into the shower. The hot water was amazing, and you still weren’t used to it, and even after telling yourself over and over, the fact that it wouldn’t run out seemed like some mysterious luxury. You leaned on the wall, the spot you normally did, resting your left arm in the slight indent and heaving a grateful sigh. For a few minutes, you just stood there, water running down your hair and face, sliding off of Red and swirling into the drain. You huffed after a while, grabbing a random bottle of shampoo and starting on your hair. The hair was important, but more important was making sure you didn’t use your left hand. Didn’t want the hair getting stuck in the plating. But, that meant it was just dangling there awkwardly, like always, and you couldn’t help looking down at it and doing a little frown.
“Hmp, garbage boy,” You muttered, abandoning the shampooing to grab a small pick from the side of the shower. You hunched over your arm, a little away from the water spray, and began the methodical task of removing any dirt from in between the plating. It was pretty boring, and you couldn’t help but let your mind wander. Two weeks...
Ratchet had been surprised you were alive. From what he said, and he said it while looking slightly flummoxed, your entire central organs shut down. He even gave you a picture. Then, when you woke up, all of the damage was gone. The next picture he gave you looked about ten times better. Even the nerve endings that Red had messed up were all cleaned, bundled neatly and preciously, no painful fusing to your spine with plating. Everything was fine.
Well, not everything.
You paused to get another clump of dirt out. Red hadn’t been lying when they said that all of the data would be deleted, because when Ratchet looked, it was gone. Each and every inch of the code, vamoosed. And yet, Ratchet– or anyone else, really– didn’t mind. They didn’t care at all. The only thing that mattered was that one, you weren’t dead, and two, you weren’t going to die anytime soon. Stevie was so grateful he almost threw up.
You set the little pick down, running your arm under some more water, before returning to your hair. Rinse all the lathers out. Then, about the same, you grabbed some conditioner and set that in. It smelled a little like vanilla, maybe.
“Ugh,” You wrinkled your nose. Not vanilla. You looked over at the bottle, and realized it was one of the ones Stevie gave you. It smelled like ‘frigid arctic wolf howl’, apparently. Whatever the hell that was. Smelled bad. You wrinkled your nose again, but let the conditioner set, and your thoughts drifted to Stevie.
While you were recovering still, Stevie made a point to visit you every day, sometimes multiple times a day. If he could, he’d bring James with him. Stevie was...ecstatic that you were alive. He spent a few days telling you about Backflight, how Backflight had found Optimus and the others, and Jimmy was there, and it was so cool. Then, he got quiet, every time he told he story he’d get quiet around the same part, usually the part where he remembered holding you in his arms and you dying. That was generally the time when Jimmy would butt into the conversation, squeezing Stevie’s smaller hand.
James was a little different than Stevie, because he was glad you were alive, sure, but he was more glad that you had saved Stevie. In his own words: “Little nerd doesn’t have any quit in him,” which was code for, ‘thank you so much for keeping him safe’. They both offered you a place to go after you were done recovering, and you considered it, you really did. Hell, you could go back to college, claim a family emergency and slip right back into your schedule as if nothing happened. You could keep going with your life as usual, like no giant alien robot kidnapping ever occurred.
You said no, obviously. Not because you didn’t love them, but because maybe, just a little, you loved Optimus a touch more. And your dream was here, in the base, not out there with some college and mountains of debt. Stevie and Jimmy were a little sad at your refusal, but mostly, overwhelming, happy that you were okay. You were happy too.
The shower didn’t last much longer. You rinsed your hair off, then twisted the faucets to ‘no’, stepping onto the bathmat and grabbing one of the many plush towels. It was like being wrapped in a hundred hugs, and you couldn’t help the smile that stretched across your face as you dried off with the thing. After that, it was back to the room, but this time you went to the closet.
“What should I wear?” You sang, hanging off of the opened closet door a little, “What should I wear?”
‘What’ turned out to take a little while to find. It was a date, and a pretty fancy one, maybe. You hadn’t decided exactly where yet, if you were being honest. But, it was fine. You ended up grabbing something fancier to wear, one of the things Jimmy had insisted on getting you (him being an aspiring fashion designer, you’d trusted his judgement). You made sure to take out the shoes he’d selected too, before closing the door and plopping down on your bed. As you struggled the clothing over your head, making sure your left arm didn’t rip it, you wondered how Shiftdrive was doing...
Hm. Maybe the colors of the outfit were making you remember him. Either way, you idly picked at the thought, like a loose tooth.
After saving you–or after you saved them, you weren’t quite sure how it was– Shiftdrive and Backflight had sworn their allegiance to the Autobots. It meant new emblems for them, and new members for the team. Two new, very excited members, actually. Shiftdrive was relieved that he didn’t have to call everyone ‘Lord’ now, and Backflight was just glad to be safe. Actually, you were secretly glad you had two people you could spar with now. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, but it was a hell of a lot better than punching boulders. Besides, Arcee seemed to enjoy watching you guys go at it. Well, when she was around.
You yanked a little too hard on a zipper when the thought came to you, the sudden ‘oh yeah’ moment of remembering that, oh yeah, Arcee and James. Carefully this time, so you didn’t rip anything, you wiggled the rest of the clothing. Since Jimmy had been the one to find Arcee, and he and Stevie wouldn’t be staying, they needed someone to keep an eye on them. Decepticons, and all that. Arcee had been the one to say ‘I can do it’, which honestly made you feel... a lot better.
“Especially since Megatron is still out there,” You mumbled to yourself, stepping into the shoes and testing your balance. A deep breath, and you calmed yourself. Yeah, Megatron was still out there, but it wasn’t like you expected him to have died. In fact, you were safer now than ever before. If he wanted to try and grab you (which would be really stupid), he’d have to deal with ten times more punches. And there was no way he’d survive ten times more punching. You smiled viciously, taking a measured step forward, letting your confidence swell.
Who cared about Megatron? There was time for that later. Tomorrow, you’d go with Prowl and Jazz and look for any information in the city. The day after that, you’d help Bumblebee out at the range. And after that, you and Arcee were going to testing out her top speeds. But for now, you had a date.
“Optimus!” You called, walking to the door, “You ready?”
Optimus called back, and you laughed, the door closing behind you, the sound of your footsteps fading off.
The room was quiet. No humming, no movement, only what you had left it as. On the desk near the window, positioned right under Fred, a framed photograph could be seen. If one looked closer, they might see it was two people, embracing, one smiling wide at the camera as they kissed the other. One might realize that was you, Orion’s eyes warm as you kissed his face. A nice photograph, a city park, vibrant greens and blue sky in the background. A happy picture. And, at the bottom of the picture, written in a neat little scrawl:
“Caught ya!.”