XFMR Prompt Generator
Title: Prompt Generator Drabblets
Fandom: XFMR
Characters/pairings: All of the above
Rating: All (average around PG-13 to 15)
Summary: n/a
Warnings: language, slash, AU's, whatever.
Notes: I don't even know where I got the original prompt generator from anymore, but when the muses are being bastards, I open it up and hit F5 for an hour or 5 and write what comes to mind. Posted in batches by date.
Table of Contents
o o o
12AUG08
Xbot360 / Ironhide / habit
Old habits died hard.
None of the humans expected him to be a paternal mech, to be the one to watch over young Sparklings and keep the out of trouble and teach them how to interact with others and the world around them. None of them expected him to treat Miles' little sentient Xbox with anything less than outright distrust. None of them expected the Xbox to show any emotion for him but fear, as it had all of the rest of the Cybertronians.
None of them expected Ironhide to be sitting on the ground, rumbling hexadecimal tones at the happily chittering minibot scampering up and down his arms.
TSgt Robert Epps / Bumblebee / saturated
Epps was reminded of the knobs on the bottom of the first computer monitor he'd ever owned. Particularly, he was reminded of the way images looked when one cranked the 'saturation' knob all the way to the right. At night, or in shadow, the paintjob was fine, a rich gold that managed to not look gaudy. But in the full sunlight, Bumblebee's chosen coloring was physically painful to look at.
Jazz / Optimus Prime / trustworthy
Optimus looked at the head of his infiltrators, his head tipped thoughtfully. "The mercenary?" he asked. "Digger, of all mechs, I would question your judgment of others the least, but..."
The slim mech smiled in his slow way. "You wonder if he is trustworthy." Optimus nodded and Digger looked off over his leader's shoulder, his face taking on the lazy, languid look that often set his enemies off guard. Optimus knew better, knew that there was a fearfully sharp mind behind those clouded optics, and he waited patiently. “He shouldn’t be,” Digger said eventually. “I shouldn’t be able to trust him as I do. He is every inch a mercenary, and, at least I thought when he first came to me, a disrespectful little minibot with an ego too big for his chassis, a maniac, and a Decepticon hiding behind an Autobot insignia. But I know now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that were anything to happen to me, that the Autobot cause would be best served with Jazz as the head of infiltrators.”
“So be it,” Optimus said heavily. “Don’t tell the other officers, I’d rather not deal with their reactions unless necessary.”
Frenzy / Barricade / in jest
"It was a joke!" Frenzy shrieked, trying to twist his legs out of Barricade's grasp.
"A joke?" the larger Decepticon snarled, a twisted grin crossing his face. "Really? Well, it's only fair that I share something that I think is funny."
Barricade / Scorponok / grieving
They weren't mourning.
Barricade certainly didn't know what he'd call it, but they weren't mourning. Respecting the fallen, maybe? Except that the only of the fallen that both of them respected was Megatron. Respecting their fallen leader, then, because the only reason the Decepticons had lasted this long under Starscream and Soundwave's fractured rule was because all believed Megatron to still live.
So, their movement was dead, their purpose destroyed, their companions dead (or in the case of one cowardly Seeker, fled) their enemies were hunting them down and as far as they knew, they were the only two Decepticons left on earth. And as the final proof that Primus was laughing at them, they were probably the two on board the Nemesis who had interacted the least over the millennia.
Well, Scorponok wouldn't take Barricade as his master the way he had Blackout (the shock trooper was too small) and Barricade wouldn't have accepted the bond anyway (Frenzy under his dash had been bad enough) but they could still work together and plan.
But they wouldn't mourn.
Ironhide / Ratchet / conspiracy
Someone had once told him that no one could plan an ambush like a spy. Optimus Prime knew better. Because he knew that Ratchet and Ironhide were planning something, Primus only knew what, and whatever it was, Optimus would rather take his chances with the entirety of Jazz's spies, assassins and scouts.
Bumblebee / Ironhide / pressure
Ironhide grinned in the smaller mech’s face, his arms tightening around the yellow chassis until struts creaked in alarm. “Just tell me when you’ve had enough,” he taunted.
Bumblebee spat out a curse and tried to wriggle free. Were this just a normal training spar, he would have tapped out by now. But all of Iacon was watching, the Prime and the Lord High Protector and Cliffjumper and Arcee and there was no way he was dropping out yet. No, he’d get out of this and, somehow, take down this great lunk of a mech and really, he didn’t want to drop out of the tournament in the second round with everyone watching and how in the hell had he ended up facing the Prime’s Guard, anyway?
He felt the struts in his back starting to bend under the pressure of Ironhide’s arms, and he cursed again.
Mikaela Banes / Ironhide / kinky
The silence in the cab after she speaks is deafening.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Mikaela says hastily. “Really, I shouldn’t have used that word, it’s just, you’re alive and it feels kind of weird knowing that the seatbelt is still part of you and-”
“Mikaela,” Ironhide says patiently. “I really don’t want an explanation.”
14SEP08
Epps/Ratchet/ in need of repairs
The fear present in his eyes as he tells them is clearly visible. Colon cancer, detected too late, and the wayward cells have already spread to his lymph nodes. He's too thin, too haggard, a tennis ball-sized collection of cells in his gut sapping the strength from his body to feed their own malevolent growth.
Ratchet clenches a fist in frustration. The tools within his hands are designed for cutting metals and silicates, not organic tissues. He can't weld skin, can't swap out organs, can't destroy that which is slowly killing their friend.
Except-
Frowning, he brings up the specs for one of the thin laser cutters in his left hand. Could he not dial down the power, to an acceptable level for a human? He already had a modification that allowed him to make sutures. He had vision that could be highly magnified, enabling him to see details that any human could miss. And if he was taught, he only had to learn once, unlike humans who had to spend decades training for what he was contemplating.
"Robert,"
Everyone turns and looks at him, and he can see the sudden hope racing through the room like wildfire, among mechs and humans alike. He wants to remind them that he's a medic, not a miracle worker, but he can't bear to see that hope turn back into the resigned dread of a moment ago. "Robert, may I talk to you in private?"
He has never let an Autobot in his care die without a fight. He's not about to start now.
Blackout/Brawl/disagreement
Barricade glared at the still-smoking craters marring the walls of the command room. The next time Brawl and Blackout had an argument, he was kicking them out of the airlock to settle it.
John Keller / Reggie Simmons / Are You Challenging Me?
"Simmons, haul ass!" Keller bellowed over the sound of gunfire. "I'm seventy damn years old and I'm leaving you in the dust!"
"Just trying to make you feel better about your age, sir!" Simmons yelled back, grinning.
Cpt William Lennox / Blackout / protocol
He'd probably get snapped at if someone saw him, but he couldn't help giving the metal corpse's head a swift, vicious kick as he helped tighten the crane's straps.
Reggie Simmons / Tom Banachek / 90 Triangle
It was a three-way balance. Reggie handled the military aspect, the security, the stability of the Dam. Tom handled the civilian aspect, the paperwork, the funding, the reports to the president. And between the two of them, they kept the way-too-intelligent scientists grounded in reality, even as the scientists made new discoveries about the Cube and NBE-1 every week. They didn't often (if ever) see eye to eye to eye, but that's why the balance of power existed the way it did in the first place.
Sam Witwicky / Judy Witwicky / touch
Bumblebee told him that Cybertronians didn't equate touch with affection the way humans did. Oh, there were ways they enjoyed touching each other (Sam didn't ask for clarification) but casual affection was displayed verbally, if at all.
Sam didn't understand that, was pretty sure he didn't want to. Because, really, there were few things in the world better than his mom's hugs.
Optimus Prime / John Keller / 92 All That I Have
He thinks about what Optimus Prime had told him on his drive home. He tries to imagine what it would be like, having only a few close friends around him, far, far from home with no way of knowing if any of his family or friends or co-workers were alive. He tries to think about knowing that he can never go home, with the fear that only enemies will pick up on his signal.
"They are all that I have," Optimus Prime had said, infinite sadness in his voice as he looked across the tarmac at his companions. "Long ago, we stopped fighting for our home. Now, we fight for each other."
The first thing he will do when he gets home will be kiss his wife senseless.
Ironhide / Jazz / in jest
"It's not funny," Jazz grumps.
"You're right," Prowl says blandly, looking over Ironhide's handiwork - Primus, how had the weapons specialist managed to pull a prank of this magnitude on the normally-un-prankable spy? "It's hilarious."
TSgt Robert Epps / John Keller / protocol
There was fraternization. Then there was sitting in a lawn chair at the Secretary of Defense's house, drunk off his ass, and regaling the various military and civilian guests with the story of Fig and the Egyptian brothel.
Optimus Prime / Ironhide / 23 Cat
Ironhide's grinning when he compares the pleased rumble of Optimus's engine to Sarah Lennox's friendly cat; he's considerably less amused when Optimus points out that he's the one whose face plates resemble feline features.
Ratchet / Bonecrusher / alone together
The grin on the Decepticon's face is sickening as he stalks around the medic. There's no one within hearing distance, and Soundwave had the entire area on a communication's lockdown. Ratchet is on his own for this battle.
Grimly, Ratchet slides his saws out of his arm, the blades clicking as they form. If Bonecrusher thinks he's still a weak Senator, he's in for a big surprise.
Reggie Simmons / Cpt William Lennox / monotony
"Jesus," Simmons mutters in disgust, thumping his head against is desk. "I almost wish we would get attacked, just so we weren't so bored." Lennox, busy seeing how many rubber bands he can shoot out the window, privately agrees.
27OCT08
Mikaela Banes / Tom Banachek / 63 Do Not Disturb
"Touch anything," the teenager snarls, her entire upper half deep within Hound's too-still chassis. "And, agent or no, I will personally kick your ass all the way around the block." Banachek obligingly positions himself in an out-of-the-way corner of the workshop and wonders just how much time Banes was spending with the Autobot medic.
Reggie Simmons / Glen Whitmann / 56 Danger Ahead
"You do realize, this isn't going to be like last time."
The hacker eyes him warily. "Whad'ya mean?"
He gives the man - the kid, really - a cold look over the top of his sunglasses. "This isn't just going to be four humans against a swiss army knife with an attitude. It's just you, me, one gun, and that laptop of yours against a whole base full of pissed off aliens. And if they catch us, we will be killed if we're lucky, tortured and interrogated if we're not. We will not have the option of backup, and after we get in there, we won't have the option of retreat. You get what I'm saying?"
The kid looks like a rabbit in the headlights, his chin -only one now, Epps had run the kid ragged and then some getting him into some semblance of shape- quivering like he's about to cry. "Y-y-yeah, I get you," he stammers out.
"You still gonna do this?"
His eyes turn hard - not hard enough, not by far, this kid would never be hard enough, but it's something. He tried to speak, fails, and instead gives a sharp nod, clutching his laptop case to his chest like a life preserver.
"All right, let's go."
Megatron / Tom Banachek / holiday
"When I said 'feel free to celebrate the holidays', I did not mean ribbons and lights on NBE-1."
Jazz / Mikaela Banes / 3 Light
She looks at the torn corpse with sadness. Blank optics look back, his face frozen in a rictus of pain, and she tries not to imagine what it felt like for him, to get ripped in half like that.
She feels bad. She can't exactly miss him, as she had been in his company for all of about five minutes, but the sadness the other aliens feel at his passing is clearly visible. His Spark was gone, Ratchet had said. Extinguished, like a candle, and they couldn't just bring him back, couldn't just patch him up and flip a switch and he'd be back.
She moved closer without knowing why, her hand flexing, and abruptly, she thinks of the Allspark. She had touched it, a brief caress when it was in Bumblebee's back seat. It had felt like skin and static, not a dead artifact but a living creature, and her hand had been feeling funny ever since. Sam had reported similar sensations in his hands, and Ratchet is keeping an eye on them both.
She reaches out with her weird-feeling hand, touches Jazz's face with gentle fingertips. A little jolt of static jumps from her fingertips and she curses, yanking her hand back. She shakes her hand and notices that it doesn't feel weird anymore. She also notices something else, a little glimmer deep within the robot's chest cavity, a little blue light way down where the heart would be for a human.
Optimus had said that the Allspark created their race, and gave them life.
She screams, for Ratchet, for Optimus, for anyone, and Jazz screams right along side of her, horrible electronic pain, and Ratchet is there, shutting him down, and Sam is clutching her shoulders, and someone is demanding to know what the hell is going on, and Mikaela laughs.
Bonecrusher / Barricade / bad touch
Barricade snarls and claws and twists and Bonecrusher leers and puts more weight on the scientist and drags those spines along Barricade's legs.
There is a price to pay, for the speed and dexterity that larger Decepticons lack, and though he is strong for his size, he's not strong enough once Bonecrusher has him pinned like this. So he goes limp, submissive, and Bonecrusher growls in disgust because he wants a fight and has been denied.
The weight is lifted, and Barricade looses a flail, and Bonecrusher howls as it tears into his side, and Barricade shoves him back with a grin. The tables are turned, and Barricade means to show Bonecrusher that just because he is small, doesn't mean he is weak.
Reggie Simmons / Mikaela Banes / habit
It's cold, colder than Simmons had ever experienced in the dry desert. A sharp wind batters his cheeks as he hustles around the corner of a building to the smoke pad, huddled into his jacket and muttering curses under his breath.
There's one other person at the smoke pad, taking scant refuge from the biting wind behind one of the roof supports of the small gazebo and trying to light her cigarette. Simmons lights his own with less difficulty - his lighter is more like a miniature acetylne torch, and even this wind can't put it out, unlike her cheap Bic. He hesitates only a moment before offering it to her, and she gives him a baleful, untrusting look before she accepts it mutely.
They'll be right back to sniping at each other once they're inside, but out here they smoke in silence, their shared habit driving them out in this too-cold weather and into a temporary truce.
Jazz / Glen Whitmann / 97 Safety First
Glen dives into the open door of the waiting Solstice, nearly whacking his head off of the headrest in the process. "Go, go, go!" he yells at the dash as Simmons jumps in the drivers side.
The doors shut, and seatbelts snake around their bodies. "Fasten your seatbelts, ladies," purrs a smooth voice from the radio. "It's gonna be a hell of a ride." Then the car kicks into gear and Glen grabs the 'Oh shit!' handle and hangs on for dear life.
23NOV08
John Keller / Tom Banachek / grieving
John Keller saluted the casket as it passed. The man within it had been obnoxious, rude, asinine, disrespectful and an all-around jackass. But he'd also been intelligent, quick-thinking, a born leader and one of the biggest human thorns between the Decepticon army's toes. He'd planned and executed multiple raids on Decepticon strongholds, he had known more about the Cybetronian's than anyone except the aliens themselves, and he'd given his life for a group of people who didn't even like him very much, staying back to hold off Soundwave's little minions with a hand-held rail gun while Witwicky and Lennox got out of the battle zone.
He glanced at the man beside him. Banachek looked back with eyes that were suspiciously red around the rims and gave a half-smile. "He'd have booted me in the ass for even thinking about 'getting sappy' over him," the agent said quietly.
"We'll drink a toast to him later," Keller replied. "He'd appreciate that."
Banachek laughed harshly, watching as an Autobot honor guard carefully lowered Reggie Simmons' casket into the earth.
Mikaela Banes / Blackout / 18 Rainbow
She's helping Ratchet pull usable parts off of the Decepticon corpses before they're disposed of. The Decepticons are almost uniformly ugly; they've slowly reverted to their most natural forms as they lost the current holding their disguises together, and their shapes were obviously chosen for maximum intimidation.
But there are surprises among that ugliness, little touches that are almost pretty, in a gruesome sort of way, beneath the general 'rar, me horrible killer' facades. Frenzy's natural armor is mirror-bright, throwing reflected darts of light around the room. Barricade has scroll work along his claws in shimmering platinum. Brawl has an etching along some of his inner struts that Ratchet translates as an ancient prayer-poem for strenght. Blackout's armor is irridescent black, colors swirling beneath the surface like motor oil in a puddle.
Mikaela tilts a piece of rainbow-black armor in the light, watching the colors shift, then looks at the Decepticon's harsh, insectile face, and wonders about what kind of war creates such contradictions.
Maggie Madsen / Ratchet / captured
Tracks shoved open the door, hydraulics straining against it's weight. Maggie was in as soon as there was enough of a gap for her, ducking between her partner's feet to get into the holding cell. Leaving Tracks to finish shoving his way in, she crossed the room to it's occupant, a harsh lump rising in her throat at the sight. Ratchet was barely recognizable, all of his redundant systems (and probably a few of his primary ones) torn away, his too-thin frame locked to the floor and covered with injuries that had nothing to do with removing his spare parts.
The medic turned his head the tiniest bit, his remaining optic blinking at her warily. "Madsen?" he croaked, the end of her name blurring into static.
"Don't talk," Maggie managed, unslinging her laptop case and pulling out cords to plug into the electronic shackles. "Save your strength. We've got a ways to go before you're to safety."
Ratchet nodded, almost imperceptibly. Tracks finally joined them, looking shaken by the medic's condition. "We'll get you outta here," the mech said, kneeling beside Ratchet and starting to link them together, preparing to transfer energon directly into the weakened medic. "Promise." Ratchet's only response was a slight twitch of his facial plates. Maggie swallowed and went to hacking the shackle controls in earnest.
Cpt William Lennox / Bumblebee / 25 Trouble Lurking
Bumblebee's door wings twitched, turning this way and that like bizarre radar dishes, trying to find his opponent by electromagnetic signal alone. The scout moved as fast as he dared, searching out his footing carefully, his optics and hearing and chemical sensors disabled. He carefully sorted the signals he was getting, trying to sift out the tiny, slick, human pulses of electricity from the hard-edged machines around them. He turned, wings swiveling - there. Almost lost against the steady pulse of a transformer bank. Bumblebee raised his gun, trying to target without seeing.
The human moved, fast, darting, and Bumblebee fired, turning to follow the human's signal, and hard pings against his armor told him the human had found him first. He fired off a last few rounds, feedback from the projectiles informing him he'd hit something not metal, something squishy.
Bumblebee cycled on his disabled systems to the sound of pained cursing. Captain Lennox was examining his arm, the helmet with it's blackout visor shoved on top of his head. The Ranger gave him a sour look as he approached. "You won this round," the man grumped, massaging the forming bruise on his bicep.
"Not at all," Bumblebee replied. "I just went down fighting." He cycled his gun, checking the amount of simunitions he had left. Plenty enough to keep going on. "Another tango, Captain?"
Lennox grinned, picking up his gun.
Scorponok / Bumblebee / 65 Horror
Bumblebee's broken vocalizer snags, terribly silent when he tries to scream in rage, in horror, in grief, as Scorponok plunges his deadly tail into Cliffjumper's chest.
Ironhide / Bumblebee / 13. the best article in the market
Bumblebee submits to the examination in silence, trying to not recoil away from the feeling of a foreign presence slithering through his weaponry programming. His gun is cycled, the targeting is checked, the solar panels on his back are prodded, and finally, the Autobot Weapon Specialist steps back. "Not bad," the big mech rumbles, almost grudgingly. "Can't say I approve of using solar power to recharge the thing, but I guess it works better for a spy than an oversized fuel pump like your red friend has."
Bumblebee has come into contact with Ironhide enough times in the past to know that this is fairly high praise from the old warrior. "It should be good," he says smugly. "I paid top creds for this setup."
Ironhide rolls his optics. "Spend all the creds you want," he says. He holds out one arm and cycles out the single most incredible looking cannon Bumblebee had ever seen. No wonder Ironhide is the Weapon Specialist. "I put this together from pure ore and scraps," Ironhide continues. "All the creds in the world can't buy a weapon more suited to you than one you make yourself."
Ironhide / Ratchet / 81 Pen and Paper
Ironhide leaned against a wall and watched, bemused and a little sad, as Ratchet (wielding a marker the size of a human infant and a piece of cardboard) taught Sam and Mikaela how to write the intricate glyphs that made up the Cybertronian language.
Mikaela Banes / Maggie Madsen / 92 All That I Have
All eyes turned to the two females, and there was no hiding the looks they were getting from the men around the table. The rules stated that a team could drop out once they were down to their undies, and the two of them certainly had reached that stage.
Mikaela met Maggie's eyes, and the analyst grinned wickedly. Mikaela smirked back, and the two wiggled out of their panties in tandem, dropping them to the table. Sam and Glen boggled, Will and Bobby grinned, and the cards were dealt again.
Optimus Prime / Ratchet / hacker
Ratchet snarled, his hands buried deep within Optimus Prime's chest, sockets in his fingertips making a direct connection to the Prime's main processor and memory banks. Soundwave was there, a hideous presence coiling through the Prime's thoughts, attacking not his body but his very mind and programming, dealing lethal damage from within.
Ratchet stood between the technopath and his Prime, throwing up every block and shield he could, repairing the damage as soon as it was formed, and forcing out the Decepticon, transistor by transistor, completely ignoring the damage he himself was taking, unless it hindered his defense. He was dimly aware of Ironhide at one side and Wheeljack at the other, of the body beneath his hands bucking in response to the war waged in his circuits, of the Matrix of Leadership too hot against the side of his hand, but he tuned them all out. This was a battle he would not, could not, lose.
26DEC08
Mikaela Banes / Starscream / inside
Starscream snarls when she climbs into his cockpit and Mikaela snarls right back at him, cringing away from the walls and false panels and everthing around her in disgust, wanting as little contact with the Decepticon as she can manage. Neither of them are happy with the arrangement, but both are too intelligent to not realize they need each other's help to get out of this alive. Resigned to carrying the hated little femme, Starscream takes off.
Blackout / Glen Whitmann / 23 Cat
Barricade laughs cruely, lifting Blackout's new pet's head with one talon. "Adorable," he says dryly. "You should put one of those little belled collars on it."
Blackout sits back, his pet balanced precarously on his leg. "You know," he muses, "I just might." He runs a deceptively gentle finger down his pet's spine, and Glen shivers in fear.
Sam Witwicky / John Keller / in jest
Sam drops his balloon in pure horror. He'd thought it would be Epps walking in the door, not John Keller, and he'd just hit the Secretary of Defense in the chest with a glitter-and-whipped-cream balloon and the man's suit would never come clean.
The balloon Sam had dropped bounces without breaking, rolling to a stop next to one cream-flecked wing-tipped shoe. Keller bends down and picks it up with remarkable calm, and Sam doesn't quite realize what that means until the balloon splats against his shoulder, coating the side of his face. "Next time," he hears Keller say, as he wipes glitter out of his eyes. "Make damn sure you know who your target is."
Optimus Prime / Judy Witwicky / 15 Silence
He offers her a ride back home without a word, simply pulling up next to her outside of the graveyard and opening his door. She should ride back with Sam in Bumblebee, but all she wants is to be alone, and she starts to turn down Optimus, too. "I'm sorry," she says, in a voice harsh with weeping. "Thank you, but, I don't want to be around anyone right now."
"I more than understand," he says, gently. "But your home is a long distance to walk, and I'm sure you don't want Bumblebee trailing you the whole way, either." She thinks about that for a moment before climbing up into the truck, twitching her black skirt out of the way as he shuts the door behind her.
Optimus pulls away from the curb, and she sits back, letting the rich rumble of his engine soothe away some of the grief-etched stress in her back. "I hope you'll forgive me," she manages, pawing through her purse for a less-abused tissue. "If I'm not up for conversation right now."
"Sometimes," he says quietly, and the empathy in his voice makes her ache. "The thing one needs most, after a loss like yours, is silent company." She can't help it; the tears start again, gratitude and grief and loneliness and she bows her head against his steering wheel and cries for what she has left behind in the graveyard.
John Keller / Tom Banachek / toy
Banachek only looks mildly embarrassed when he walks into his office to find Secretary Keller examining the row of custom Gundam models lining his desk.
Maggie Madsen / Starscream / denied
"Take that, you son of a bitch," she mutters, clacking away at her keyboard, throwing up blocks in the face of the Seeker's hacking attempt, and Maggie cackles as Starscream falls back from them, and she can hear him cursing over Jetfire's open comm lines.
Reggie Simmons / Jazz / 74 Are You Challenging Me?
Jazz growls in frustration - he can contort himself into many more positions than some of his larger friends, but he can't come close to the human when it comes to the extravagant hip-swings and arm movements of disco.
Brawl / Megatron / 82 Can You Hear Me
Blackout to his left, Bonecrusher to his right, and above, Lord Megatron. And all around was the cold ocean, slowly getting darker and heavier. He calls out to the too-still silver form above, on every frequency he has, but Lord Megatron doesn't answer, and together they fall deeper into the silent depths.
Mikaela Banes / Tom Banachek / 53 Keeping a Secret
"I don't think," Banachek says neutrally, his hands folded neatly on the table before him. "That I need to expound heavily on the fact that you can't talk to anyone about Mission City, correct?"
"Never mind that they could just turn on the news and see it all," she quips dryly. Really, what kind of person does he think she is? She won't say a word about the aliens to anyone.
Mainly because it might endanger the Autobots. And she wouldn't do that for anything.
Fandom: XFMR
Characters/pairings: All of the above
Rating: All (average around PG-13 to 15)
Summary: n/a
Warnings: language, slash, AU's, whatever.
Notes: I don't even know where I got the original prompt generator from anymore, but when the muses are being bastards, I open it up and hit F5 for an hour or 5 and write what comes to mind. Posted in batches by date.
Table of Contents
o o o
12AUG08
Xbot360 / Ironhide / habit
Old habits died hard.
None of the humans expected him to be a paternal mech, to be the one to watch over young Sparklings and keep the out of trouble and teach them how to interact with others and the world around them. None of them expected him to treat Miles' little sentient Xbox with anything less than outright distrust. None of them expected the Xbox to show any emotion for him but fear, as it had all of the rest of the Cybertronians.
None of them expected Ironhide to be sitting on the ground, rumbling hexadecimal tones at the happily chittering minibot scampering up and down his arms.
TSgt Robert Epps / Bumblebee / saturated
Epps was reminded of the knobs on the bottom of the first computer monitor he'd ever owned. Particularly, he was reminded of the way images looked when one cranked the 'saturation' knob all the way to the right. At night, or in shadow, the paintjob was fine, a rich gold that managed to not look gaudy. But in the full sunlight, Bumblebee's chosen coloring was physically painful to look at.
Jazz / Optimus Prime / trustworthy
Optimus looked at the head of his infiltrators, his head tipped thoughtfully. "The mercenary?" he asked. "Digger, of all mechs, I would question your judgment of others the least, but..."
The slim mech smiled in his slow way. "You wonder if he is trustworthy." Optimus nodded and Digger looked off over his leader's shoulder, his face taking on the lazy, languid look that often set his enemies off guard. Optimus knew better, knew that there was a fearfully sharp mind behind those clouded optics, and he waited patiently. “He shouldn’t be,” Digger said eventually. “I shouldn’t be able to trust him as I do. He is every inch a mercenary, and, at least I thought when he first came to me, a disrespectful little minibot with an ego too big for his chassis, a maniac, and a Decepticon hiding behind an Autobot insignia. But I know now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that were anything to happen to me, that the Autobot cause would be best served with Jazz as the head of infiltrators.”
“So be it,” Optimus said heavily. “Don’t tell the other officers, I’d rather not deal with their reactions unless necessary.”
Frenzy / Barricade / in jest
"It was a joke!" Frenzy shrieked, trying to twist his legs out of Barricade's grasp.
"A joke?" the larger Decepticon snarled, a twisted grin crossing his face. "Really? Well, it's only fair that I share something that I think is funny."
Barricade / Scorponok / grieving
They weren't mourning.
Barricade certainly didn't know what he'd call it, but they weren't mourning. Respecting the fallen, maybe? Except that the only of the fallen that both of them respected was Megatron. Respecting their fallen leader, then, because the only reason the Decepticons had lasted this long under Starscream and Soundwave's fractured rule was because all believed Megatron to still live.
So, their movement was dead, their purpose destroyed, their companions dead (or in the case of one cowardly Seeker, fled) their enemies were hunting them down and as far as they knew, they were the only two Decepticons left on earth. And as the final proof that Primus was laughing at them, they were probably the two on board the Nemesis who had interacted the least over the millennia.
Well, Scorponok wouldn't take Barricade as his master the way he had Blackout (the shock trooper was too small) and Barricade wouldn't have accepted the bond anyway (Frenzy under his dash had been bad enough) but they could still work together and plan.
But they wouldn't mourn.
Ironhide / Ratchet / conspiracy
Someone had once told him that no one could plan an ambush like a spy. Optimus Prime knew better. Because he knew that Ratchet and Ironhide were planning something, Primus only knew what, and whatever it was, Optimus would rather take his chances with the entirety of Jazz's spies, assassins and scouts.
Bumblebee / Ironhide / pressure
Ironhide grinned in the smaller mech’s face, his arms tightening around the yellow chassis until struts creaked in alarm. “Just tell me when you’ve had enough,” he taunted.
Bumblebee spat out a curse and tried to wriggle free. Were this just a normal training spar, he would have tapped out by now. But all of Iacon was watching, the Prime and the Lord High Protector and Cliffjumper and Arcee and there was no way he was dropping out yet. No, he’d get out of this and, somehow, take down this great lunk of a mech and really, he didn’t want to drop out of the tournament in the second round with everyone watching and how in the hell had he ended up facing the Prime’s Guard, anyway?
He felt the struts in his back starting to bend under the pressure of Ironhide’s arms, and he cursed again.
Mikaela Banes / Ironhide / kinky
The silence in the cab after she speaks is deafening.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Mikaela says hastily. “Really, I shouldn’t have used that word, it’s just, you’re alive and it feels kind of weird knowing that the seatbelt is still part of you and-”
“Mikaela,” Ironhide says patiently. “I really don’t want an explanation.”
14SEP08
Epps/Ratchet/ in need of repairs
The fear present in his eyes as he tells them is clearly visible. Colon cancer, detected too late, and the wayward cells have already spread to his lymph nodes. He's too thin, too haggard, a tennis ball-sized collection of cells in his gut sapping the strength from his body to feed their own malevolent growth.
Ratchet clenches a fist in frustration. The tools within his hands are designed for cutting metals and silicates, not organic tissues. He can't weld skin, can't swap out organs, can't destroy that which is slowly killing their friend.
Except-
Frowning, he brings up the specs for one of the thin laser cutters in his left hand. Could he not dial down the power, to an acceptable level for a human? He already had a modification that allowed him to make sutures. He had vision that could be highly magnified, enabling him to see details that any human could miss. And if he was taught, he only had to learn once, unlike humans who had to spend decades training for what he was contemplating.
"Robert,"
Everyone turns and looks at him, and he can see the sudden hope racing through the room like wildfire, among mechs and humans alike. He wants to remind them that he's a medic, not a miracle worker, but he can't bear to see that hope turn back into the resigned dread of a moment ago. "Robert, may I talk to you in private?"
He has never let an Autobot in his care die without a fight. He's not about to start now.
Blackout/Brawl/disagreement
Barricade glared at the still-smoking craters marring the walls of the command room. The next time Brawl and Blackout had an argument, he was kicking them out of the airlock to settle it.
John Keller / Reggie Simmons / Are You Challenging Me?
"Simmons, haul ass!" Keller bellowed over the sound of gunfire. "I'm seventy damn years old and I'm leaving you in the dust!"
"Just trying to make you feel better about your age, sir!" Simmons yelled back, grinning.
Cpt William Lennox / Blackout / protocol
He'd probably get snapped at if someone saw him, but he couldn't help giving the metal corpse's head a swift, vicious kick as he helped tighten the crane's straps.
Reggie Simmons / Tom Banachek / 90 Triangle
It was a three-way balance. Reggie handled the military aspect, the security, the stability of the Dam. Tom handled the civilian aspect, the paperwork, the funding, the reports to the president. And between the two of them, they kept the way-too-intelligent scientists grounded in reality, even as the scientists made new discoveries about the Cube and NBE-1 every week. They didn't often (if ever) see eye to eye to eye, but that's why the balance of power existed the way it did in the first place.
Sam Witwicky / Judy Witwicky / touch
Bumblebee told him that Cybertronians didn't equate touch with affection the way humans did. Oh, there were ways they enjoyed touching each other (Sam didn't ask for clarification) but casual affection was displayed verbally, if at all.
Sam didn't understand that, was pretty sure he didn't want to. Because, really, there were few things in the world better than his mom's hugs.
Optimus Prime / John Keller / 92 All That I Have
He thinks about what Optimus Prime had told him on his drive home. He tries to imagine what it would be like, having only a few close friends around him, far, far from home with no way of knowing if any of his family or friends or co-workers were alive. He tries to think about knowing that he can never go home, with the fear that only enemies will pick up on his signal.
"They are all that I have," Optimus Prime had said, infinite sadness in his voice as he looked across the tarmac at his companions. "Long ago, we stopped fighting for our home. Now, we fight for each other."
The first thing he will do when he gets home will be kiss his wife senseless.
Ironhide / Jazz / in jest
"It's not funny," Jazz grumps.
"You're right," Prowl says blandly, looking over Ironhide's handiwork - Primus, how had the weapons specialist managed to pull a prank of this magnitude on the normally-un-prankable spy? "It's hilarious."
TSgt Robert Epps / John Keller / protocol
There was fraternization. Then there was sitting in a lawn chair at the Secretary of Defense's house, drunk off his ass, and regaling the various military and civilian guests with the story of Fig and the Egyptian brothel.
Optimus Prime / Ironhide / 23 Cat
Ironhide's grinning when he compares the pleased rumble of Optimus's engine to Sarah Lennox's friendly cat; he's considerably less amused when Optimus points out that he's the one whose face plates resemble feline features.
Ratchet / Bonecrusher / alone together
The grin on the Decepticon's face is sickening as he stalks around the medic. There's no one within hearing distance, and Soundwave had the entire area on a communication's lockdown. Ratchet is on his own for this battle.
Grimly, Ratchet slides his saws out of his arm, the blades clicking as they form. If Bonecrusher thinks he's still a weak Senator, he's in for a big surprise.
Reggie Simmons / Cpt William Lennox / monotony
"Jesus," Simmons mutters in disgust, thumping his head against is desk. "I almost wish we would get attacked, just so we weren't so bored." Lennox, busy seeing how many rubber bands he can shoot out the window, privately agrees.
27OCT08
Mikaela Banes / Tom Banachek / 63 Do Not Disturb
"Touch anything," the teenager snarls, her entire upper half deep within Hound's too-still chassis. "And, agent or no, I will personally kick your ass all the way around the block." Banachek obligingly positions himself in an out-of-the-way corner of the workshop and wonders just how much time Banes was spending with the Autobot medic.
Reggie Simmons / Glen Whitmann / 56 Danger Ahead
"You do realize, this isn't going to be like last time."
The hacker eyes him warily. "Whad'ya mean?"
He gives the man - the kid, really - a cold look over the top of his sunglasses. "This isn't just going to be four humans against a swiss army knife with an attitude. It's just you, me, one gun, and that laptop of yours against a whole base full of pissed off aliens. And if they catch us, we will be killed if we're lucky, tortured and interrogated if we're not. We will not have the option of backup, and after we get in there, we won't have the option of retreat. You get what I'm saying?"
The kid looks like a rabbit in the headlights, his chin -only one now, Epps had run the kid ragged and then some getting him into some semblance of shape- quivering like he's about to cry. "Y-y-yeah, I get you," he stammers out.
"You still gonna do this?"
His eyes turn hard - not hard enough, not by far, this kid would never be hard enough, but it's something. He tried to speak, fails, and instead gives a sharp nod, clutching his laptop case to his chest like a life preserver.
"All right, let's go."
Megatron / Tom Banachek / holiday
"When I said 'feel free to celebrate the holidays', I did not mean ribbons and lights on NBE-1."
Jazz / Mikaela Banes / 3 Light
She looks at the torn corpse with sadness. Blank optics look back, his face frozen in a rictus of pain, and she tries not to imagine what it felt like for him, to get ripped in half like that.
She feels bad. She can't exactly miss him, as she had been in his company for all of about five minutes, but the sadness the other aliens feel at his passing is clearly visible. His Spark was gone, Ratchet had said. Extinguished, like a candle, and they couldn't just bring him back, couldn't just patch him up and flip a switch and he'd be back.
She moved closer without knowing why, her hand flexing, and abruptly, she thinks of the Allspark. She had touched it, a brief caress when it was in Bumblebee's back seat. It had felt like skin and static, not a dead artifact but a living creature, and her hand had been feeling funny ever since. Sam had reported similar sensations in his hands, and Ratchet is keeping an eye on them both.
She reaches out with her weird-feeling hand, touches Jazz's face with gentle fingertips. A little jolt of static jumps from her fingertips and she curses, yanking her hand back. She shakes her hand and notices that it doesn't feel weird anymore. She also notices something else, a little glimmer deep within the robot's chest cavity, a little blue light way down where the heart would be for a human.
Optimus had said that the Allspark created their race, and gave them life.
She screams, for Ratchet, for Optimus, for anyone, and Jazz screams right along side of her, horrible electronic pain, and Ratchet is there, shutting him down, and Sam is clutching her shoulders, and someone is demanding to know what the hell is going on, and Mikaela laughs.
Bonecrusher / Barricade / bad touch
Barricade snarls and claws and twists and Bonecrusher leers and puts more weight on the scientist and drags those spines along Barricade's legs.
There is a price to pay, for the speed and dexterity that larger Decepticons lack, and though he is strong for his size, he's not strong enough once Bonecrusher has him pinned like this. So he goes limp, submissive, and Bonecrusher growls in disgust because he wants a fight and has been denied.
The weight is lifted, and Barricade looses a flail, and Bonecrusher howls as it tears into his side, and Barricade shoves him back with a grin. The tables are turned, and Barricade means to show Bonecrusher that just because he is small, doesn't mean he is weak.
Reggie Simmons / Mikaela Banes / habit
It's cold, colder than Simmons had ever experienced in the dry desert. A sharp wind batters his cheeks as he hustles around the corner of a building to the smoke pad, huddled into his jacket and muttering curses under his breath.
There's one other person at the smoke pad, taking scant refuge from the biting wind behind one of the roof supports of the small gazebo and trying to light her cigarette. Simmons lights his own with less difficulty - his lighter is more like a miniature acetylne torch, and even this wind can't put it out, unlike her cheap Bic. He hesitates only a moment before offering it to her, and she gives him a baleful, untrusting look before she accepts it mutely.
They'll be right back to sniping at each other once they're inside, but out here they smoke in silence, their shared habit driving them out in this too-cold weather and into a temporary truce.
Jazz / Glen Whitmann / 97 Safety First
Glen dives into the open door of the waiting Solstice, nearly whacking his head off of the headrest in the process. "Go, go, go!" he yells at the dash as Simmons jumps in the drivers side.
The doors shut, and seatbelts snake around their bodies. "Fasten your seatbelts, ladies," purrs a smooth voice from the radio. "It's gonna be a hell of a ride." Then the car kicks into gear and Glen grabs the 'Oh shit!' handle and hangs on for dear life.
23NOV08
John Keller / Tom Banachek / grieving
John Keller saluted the casket as it passed. The man within it had been obnoxious, rude, asinine, disrespectful and an all-around jackass. But he'd also been intelligent, quick-thinking, a born leader and one of the biggest human thorns between the Decepticon army's toes. He'd planned and executed multiple raids on Decepticon strongholds, he had known more about the Cybetronian's than anyone except the aliens themselves, and he'd given his life for a group of people who didn't even like him very much, staying back to hold off Soundwave's little minions with a hand-held rail gun while Witwicky and Lennox got out of the battle zone.
He glanced at the man beside him. Banachek looked back with eyes that were suspiciously red around the rims and gave a half-smile. "He'd have booted me in the ass for even thinking about 'getting sappy' over him," the agent said quietly.
"We'll drink a toast to him later," Keller replied. "He'd appreciate that."
Banachek laughed harshly, watching as an Autobot honor guard carefully lowered Reggie Simmons' casket into the earth.
Mikaela Banes / Blackout / 18 Rainbow
She's helping Ratchet pull usable parts off of the Decepticon corpses before they're disposed of. The Decepticons are almost uniformly ugly; they've slowly reverted to their most natural forms as they lost the current holding their disguises together, and their shapes were obviously chosen for maximum intimidation.
But there are surprises among that ugliness, little touches that are almost pretty, in a gruesome sort of way, beneath the general 'rar, me horrible killer' facades. Frenzy's natural armor is mirror-bright, throwing reflected darts of light around the room. Barricade has scroll work along his claws in shimmering platinum. Brawl has an etching along some of his inner struts that Ratchet translates as an ancient prayer-poem for strenght. Blackout's armor is irridescent black, colors swirling beneath the surface like motor oil in a puddle.
Mikaela tilts a piece of rainbow-black armor in the light, watching the colors shift, then looks at the Decepticon's harsh, insectile face, and wonders about what kind of war creates such contradictions.
Maggie Madsen / Ratchet / captured
Tracks shoved open the door, hydraulics straining against it's weight. Maggie was in as soon as there was enough of a gap for her, ducking between her partner's feet to get into the holding cell. Leaving Tracks to finish shoving his way in, she crossed the room to it's occupant, a harsh lump rising in her throat at the sight. Ratchet was barely recognizable, all of his redundant systems (and probably a few of his primary ones) torn away, his too-thin frame locked to the floor and covered with injuries that had nothing to do with removing his spare parts.
The medic turned his head the tiniest bit, his remaining optic blinking at her warily. "Madsen?" he croaked, the end of her name blurring into static.
"Don't talk," Maggie managed, unslinging her laptop case and pulling out cords to plug into the electronic shackles. "Save your strength. We've got a ways to go before you're to safety."
Ratchet nodded, almost imperceptibly. Tracks finally joined them, looking shaken by the medic's condition. "We'll get you outta here," the mech said, kneeling beside Ratchet and starting to link them together, preparing to transfer energon directly into the weakened medic. "Promise." Ratchet's only response was a slight twitch of his facial plates. Maggie swallowed and went to hacking the shackle controls in earnest.
Cpt William Lennox / Bumblebee / 25 Trouble Lurking
Bumblebee's door wings twitched, turning this way and that like bizarre radar dishes, trying to find his opponent by electromagnetic signal alone. The scout moved as fast as he dared, searching out his footing carefully, his optics and hearing and chemical sensors disabled. He carefully sorted the signals he was getting, trying to sift out the tiny, slick, human pulses of electricity from the hard-edged machines around them. He turned, wings swiveling - there. Almost lost against the steady pulse of a transformer bank. Bumblebee raised his gun, trying to target without seeing.
The human moved, fast, darting, and Bumblebee fired, turning to follow the human's signal, and hard pings against his armor told him the human had found him first. He fired off a last few rounds, feedback from the projectiles informing him he'd hit something not metal, something squishy.
Bumblebee cycled on his disabled systems to the sound of pained cursing. Captain Lennox was examining his arm, the helmet with it's blackout visor shoved on top of his head. The Ranger gave him a sour look as he approached. "You won this round," the man grumped, massaging the forming bruise on his bicep.
"Not at all," Bumblebee replied. "I just went down fighting." He cycled his gun, checking the amount of simunitions he had left. Plenty enough to keep going on. "Another tango, Captain?"
Lennox grinned, picking up his gun.
Scorponok / Bumblebee / 65 Horror
Bumblebee's broken vocalizer snags, terribly silent when he tries to scream in rage, in horror, in grief, as Scorponok plunges his deadly tail into Cliffjumper's chest.
Ironhide / Bumblebee / 13. the best article in the market
Bumblebee submits to the examination in silence, trying to not recoil away from the feeling of a foreign presence slithering through his weaponry programming. His gun is cycled, the targeting is checked, the solar panels on his back are prodded, and finally, the Autobot Weapon Specialist steps back. "Not bad," the big mech rumbles, almost grudgingly. "Can't say I approve of using solar power to recharge the thing, but I guess it works better for a spy than an oversized fuel pump like your red friend has."
Bumblebee has come into contact with Ironhide enough times in the past to know that this is fairly high praise from the old warrior. "It should be good," he says smugly. "I paid top creds for this setup."
Ironhide rolls his optics. "Spend all the creds you want," he says. He holds out one arm and cycles out the single most incredible looking cannon Bumblebee had ever seen. No wonder Ironhide is the Weapon Specialist. "I put this together from pure ore and scraps," Ironhide continues. "All the creds in the world can't buy a weapon more suited to you than one you make yourself."
Ironhide / Ratchet / 81 Pen and Paper
Ironhide leaned against a wall and watched, bemused and a little sad, as Ratchet (wielding a marker the size of a human infant and a piece of cardboard) taught Sam and Mikaela how to write the intricate glyphs that made up the Cybertronian language.
Mikaela Banes / Maggie Madsen / 92 All That I Have
All eyes turned to the two females, and there was no hiding the looks they were getting from the men around the table. The rules stated that a team could drop out once they were down to their undies, and the two of them certainly had reached that stage.
Mikaela met Maggie's eyes, and the analyst grinned wickedly. Mikaela smirked back, and the two wiggled out of their panties in tandem, dropping them to the table. Sam and Glen boggled, Will and Bobby grinned, and the cards were dealt again.
Optimus Prime / Ratchet / hacker
Ratchet snarled, his hands buried deep within Optimus Prime's chest, sockets in his fingertips making a direct connection to the Prime's main processor and memory banks. Soundwave was there, a hideous presence coiling through the Prime's thoughts, attacking not his body but his very mind and programming, dealing lethal damage from within.
Ratchet stood between the technopath and his Prime, throwing up every block and shield he could, repairing the damage as soon as it was formed, and forcing out the Decepticon, transistor by transistor, completely ignoring the damage he himself was taking, unless it hindered his defense. He was dimly aware of Ironhide at one side and Wheeljack at the other, of the body beneath his hands bucking in response to the war waged in his circuits, of the Matrix of Leadership too hot against the side of his hand, but he tuned them all out. This was a battle he would not, could not, lose.
26DEC08
Mikaela Banes / Starscream / inside
Starscream snarls when she climbs into his cockpit and Mikaela snarls right back at him, cringing away from the walls and false panels and everthing around her in disgust, wanting as little contact with the Decepticon as she can manage. Neither of them are happy with the arrangement, but both are too intelligent to not realize they need each other's help to get out of this alive. Resigned to carrying the hated little femme, Starscream takes off.
Blackout / Glen Whitmann / 23 Cat
Barricade laughs cruely, lifting Blackout's new pet's head with one talon. "Adorable," he says dryly. "You should put one of those little belled collars on it."
Blackout sits back, his pet balanced precarously on his leg. "You know," he muses, "I just might." He runs a deceptively gentle finger down his pet's spine, and Glen shivers in fear.
Sam Witwicky / John Keller / in jest
Sam drops his balloon in pure horror. He'd thought it would be Epps walking in the door, not John Keller, and he'd just hit the Secretary of Defense in the chest with a glitter-and-whipped-cream balloon and the man's suit would never come clean.
The balloon Sam had dropped bounces without breaking, rolling to a stop next to one cream-flecked wing-tipped shoe. Keller bends down and picks it up with remarkable calm, and Sam doesn't quite realize what that means until the balloon splats against his shoulder, coating the side of his face. "Next time," he hears Keller say, as he wipes glitter out of his eyes. "Make damn sure you know who your target is."
Optimus Prime / Judy Witwicky / 15 Silence
He offers her a ride back home without a word, simply pulling up next to her outside of the graveyard and opening his door. She should ride back with Sam in Bumblebee, but all she wants is to be alone, and she starts to turn down Optimus, too. "I'm sorry," she says, in a voice harsh with weeping. "Thank you, but, I don't want to be around anyone right now."
"I more than understand," he says, gently. "But your home is a long distance to walk, and I'm sure you don't want Bumblebee trailing you the whole way, either." She thinks about that for a moment before climbing up into the truck, twitching her black skirt out of the way as he shuts the door behind her.
Optimus pulls away from the curb, and she sits back, letting the rich rumble of his engine soothe away some of the grief-etched stress in her back. "I hope you'll forgive me," she manages, pawing through her purse for a less-abused tissue. "If I'm not up for conversation right now."
"Sometimes," he says quietly, and the empathy in his voice makes her ache. "The thing one needs most, after a loss like yours, is silent company." She can't help it; the tears start again, gratitude and grief and loneliness and she bows her head against his steering wheel and cries for what she has left behind in the graveyard.
John Keller / Tom Banachek / toy
Banachek only looks mildly embarrassed when he walks into his office to find Secretary Keller examining the row of custom Gundam models lining his desk.
Maggie Madsen / Starscream / denied
"Take that, you son of a bitch," she mutters, clacking away at her keyboard, throwing up blocks in the face of the Seeker's hacking attempt, and Maggie cackles as Starscream falls back from them, and she can hear him cursing over Jetfire's open comm lines.
Reggie Simmons / Jazz / 74 Are You Challenging Me?
Jazz growls in frustration - he can contort himself into many more positions than some of his larger friends, but he can't come close to the human when it comes to the extravagant hip-swings and arm movements of disco.
Brawl / Megatron / 82 Can You Hear Me
Blackout to his left, Bonecrusher to his right, and above, Lord Megatron. And all around was the cold ocean, slowly getting darker and heavier. He calls out to the too-still silver form above, on every frequency he has, but Lord Megatron doesn't answer, and together they fall deeper into the silent depths.
Mikaela Banes / Tom Banachek / 53 Keeping a Secret
"I don't think," Banachek says neutrally, his hands folded neatly on the table before him. "That I need to expound heavily on the fact that you can't talk to anyone about Mission City, correct?"
"Never mind that they could just turn on the news and see it all," she quips dryly. Really, what kind of person does he think she is? She won't say a word about the aliens to anyone.
Mainly because it might endanger the Autobots. And she wouldn't do that for anything.