"What? I'm joining the winning team!"

And when everyone else is too shocked to act, Miko does. She swings and puts the Decepticon down with one punch, thinking it's only fair since he was Breakdown's friend and Breakdown was Bulkhead's archenemy, so naturally she as Bulkhead's friend has a duty to make Knockout her archenemy to complete the square.

Except the war is over now – she thinks – so that one punch is it – she thinks.

She says too many goodbyes in too short a time, because after the Autobots go back to Cybertron she goes back to Japan. She was supposed to finish out the school year in Jasper, but no one in Jasper is finishing their school year because Jasper kind of doesn't exist anymore. So Miko goes home to be smothered by her worried parents who don't know why. Fowler puts together a cover story for her, of why she couldn't call and why she couldn't return sooner and why why why and none of it is true.

Fowler also gifts her with unlimited free international calls and texts on some secure government line, so she can keep in touch with Jack and Raf who know why. She becomes nocturnal, texting the boys all night – their day, and some days she gets plenty of responses and other days it's "Miko we are trying to rebuild our lives here can't talk today" – and sleeping during school, because what's the point of it anyway? There isn't one, there never was, and now there's even less of one. Life without the Autobots is empty.

Updates come from Cybertron, two or three words usually. "Predacon still loose." "Rebuilding at Kaon." "Most Vehicons cooperating." Then there are three longer messages: "Starscream and Shockwave still at large." "We need to teach Prime how to relax" and "Wheeljack needs never be let near the comms again."

Miko learns to live with the silence.

And then, suddenly, a midnight text from Jack – "Did you hear?" – and "hearing" is reading a status report emailed to her from Fowler, a transcription of a message from Bumblebee on Cybertron – and the silence shatters with the words, so many words, of more Predacons and zombie Predacons and Knockout is an Autobot now and Unicron and Megatron were back and gone again and Optimus –

Optimus.

She buries her head under her pillow and texts back "yes" and Jack does not respond, which is okay because she spends the rest of the night awake in shock and skips school the next day, telling her parents she is sick but really she is mourning.

And in the following days the silence falls again.

She starts staying awake during school because she makes a deal with her parents that if she keeps her grades up she can go back to America for a visit over the summer. Jack and Raf send worried texts after not hearing from her with her usual regularity, but when she explains the deal they understand.

Anything to go home – "home" meaning wherever Bulkhead is.

In the two weeks that she is home, they visit Cybertron. Fowler somehow procures space suits in all of their sizes but Miko wears the Apex Armor instead. Arcee warns her not to risk it, they don't know if the armor will make Cybertron's atmosphere breathable for her, but she finds that it does when Wheeljack sneaks her and the armor through the space bridge anyway.

Bumblebee sighs and June is livid, and Ultra Magnus – Miko expects him to yell but he simply shakes his head and says something about Wreckers and their irresponsibility.

Bulkhead talks about all of his construction plans and shows them around the parts of Cybertron that they are slowly bring back to their former glory. Knockout hangs off to the side of the Autobot cluster until the group reach the ruins of the Omega Lock, and there Miko remembers glass tubes and a trade and she breaks the crosses the gap between Autobot and ex-Con to punch him in the face. To his credit, he does not ask what that was for, he looks at their location and he knows.

Bumblebee pulls her to the side later and tells her he understands, really, but don't do that again, all it took to bring Knockout to their side was a little bit of compassion so please just try to show that to him. Wheeljack barges into the conversation just then and throws his arm around Miko and says that punching others is how Wreckers make friends. "And also enemies," Ultra Magnus tosses into the mix and Wheeljack laughs and says yes, that's true.

Miko nods but Knockout avoids her for the rest of her summer stay with Unit E so she does not have to deal with trying to show a little bit of kindness.

Back in Tokyo, life is dull again. One day it is raining and she runs into a familiar red sports car hunkered down in an alleyway, trying to hide from the weather. She leaps off of the sidewalk into a puddle, splashing water from the street up his side. "How's the winning team?" she asks, sitting down on the hood and bouncing her wet boots off of the shiny rims.

"Generally less hazardous to my health than being on the losing one," Knockout replies smoothly. "Except when you're around, I've noticed."

"Shoulda sent Bulk here instead, then you'd be safe from me." Miko frowns at the sky. She knows Bulkhead is in charge of reconstruction on Cybertron but she still wishes he could visit. She wishes that of all the 'bots she could see, it was any of the ones that she actually cared about. "What are you doing in Tokyo?"

"I'll have you know I didn't have to come here at all." Miko waits and Knockout goes on when he realizes that she isn't going to say anything until he's done. "I was out this way on your planet making sure all of the old Decepticon mines are shut down. Bulkhead, while excavating Iacon, found some music he thought you would like and I offered to bring it to you."

"You guys have music?" It was a dumb question.

"Of course. But we didn't have much time to bother with culture during the war." The passenger-side door pops open and Miko slides down from the hood. She finds a CD sitting in the seat. "Ratchet had the files converted to your technology."

"Thanks, mailbot." She takes the CD and thinks maybe she should say something about how their last meetings have gone, for Bumblebee's sake if nothing else, but she doesn't.

Her afternoon is spent listening to the CD and she calls Ratchet that night to tell him that she expected Cybertronian music to be a little more metal than it is. There is silence on his end of the line for a full minute before he says, "I'll tell Bulkhead you enjoyed it." A moment later, Ratchet says, addressing someone else, "Yes, she really did say that." Miko giggles hysterically and he hangs up on her.

Her phone blares "Sexy and I Know It" around midnight one night.

Her phone does not have custom-set ringtones for her contacts.

"Who is this and how did you set that ringtone?" she asks once she fumbles around and finds her phone to answer.

"It's Knockout and it picked me." She swears she can hear his smirk on the latter half of that sentence. "I need a Wrecker, and all of them but you are busy on Cybertron."

"If you've got the armor and can pick me up, you've got one."

A Groundbridge opens in the middle of her room. She does not hesitate – she has done dumber things than this without hesitating – and she gets out of bed and walks through it, to find herself in the Unit E hanger. The bridge closes behind her but opens again a moment later, and Knockout leaves the controls to come over to her, carrying the Apex Armor. He sets it down in front of her and gives her pink pajamas a critical look.

She stomps on the Apex Armor and suddenly she is eye-to-eye with Knockout. Whatever he was about to say dies. She grins. "So what's the deal?"

"Picked up an active energon signature in one of the old mines, and frankly, I would prefer to have backup."

"Ratch wasn't up for the job?"

Knockout snorts. "Please." Silence for a moment, then he says, "I don't know, I didn't ask. Now let's go before anyone stops you."

On a nearby wall is a rack of weapons. Knockout grabs a spear and Miko for the heck of it hoists up a hammer. If they run into trouble she'll probably just punch it but in the meantime she feels extra-badass carrying a Cybertronian weapon, even if it's still not as cool as the Forge. That thing was awesome.

"Hammer time?" Knockout quips, and they tromp through the Groundbridge.

The exposed energon is due to a lone Insecticon that seems to have been burrowing its way out of the ground for at least a year. No one involved in the confrontation is much in a talking mood, so they never find out how it ended up astray from its fellows – and it doesn't really matter unless more rogue bugs start turning up.

Miko wishes they had Wheeljack and his grenades to immediately take care of the problem, but the little bit of unmined energon left makes a good explosive. Knockout is convinced they nearly died but Miko doesn't think it was that bad. Then again, Knockout mostly played the bait while Miko attacked, so it's a matter of perspective, she concedes.

Knockout calls Ratchet for a Groundbridge and his dry, "Yes, that was us," makes it sound like all of Unit E's equipment picked up the massive energon explosion. "There was an Insecticon, now get us out of here." His expression freezes in one of horror, and Miko would bet her phone that Ratchet just asked who exactly makes up "us."

The bridge opens and Miko holds out her fist to Knockout. "Well, that was fun," she says, but he jumps backwards at the gesture. They stare at each other questioningly for a moment before Miko realizes. "You thought I was going to punch you again?"

"It has been a common enough occurrence," Knockout replies, and so as they walk back through the bridge Miko explains the concept of the fist-bump.

Then they get yelled at by Ratchet and Fowler and June and they make increasingly ridiculous faces at each other while the responsible grown-ups are ranting until Jack and Raf, watching from the sidelines, start cracking up and Ratchet snaps, "Just send her home." He points at Miko and looks at Knockout and stomps away, grumbling.

Knockout strolls over to the bridge controls and opens up the coordinates for Miko's room. He waves at it with a flourish. She leaves the Apex Armor in the middle of the hanger floor and walks through the bridge calling back, "Goodnight everyone!"

The next morning she finds a bundle of songs she wrote while in Jasper, one of which is called "My Fist, Your Face" and it seems so fitting for her budding friendship (is that what it is?) with Knockout that she immediately calls him up, and, without preamble, launches into singing it. She checks several times through the course of her singing to make sure he didn't hang up and surprisingly, he doesn't.

Once she's done he growls "Wreckers," sounding wholly annoyed but still half amused.

Then he hangs up.

On the first day of winter break she takes a Groundbridge to the hanger and finds that Bulkhead, Arcee, Bumblebee and Smokescreen have come back for a visit. It is just like old times, almost – they play video games and go out racing and argue and just enjoy each other's company.

Then they marathon Christmas movies with the 'bots until two AM and Miko realizes that she has seventeen voicemails from her parents asking where she is and saying that they've called the police. Fowler is not happy to be woken by this news but he agrees to run damage control. Miko doesn't like his decision that damage control means telling the truth – she does not want her parents obstructing her time with her 'bots – but she has no choice but go with him and Bumblebee to meet her doom.

It goes better than expected, because she says something about how Unit E wants her to work with them as soon as she's of age and her parents latch onto that with a frightening amount of happiness – she knows that they don't think she'll amount to anything so the fact that she has a guaranteed job is a good thing, no matter if it comes from her hanging around with giant alien robots for the better part of two years.

Even after the core of Team Prime go back to Cybertron Miko still makes regular visits to the hanger for the rest of her break. Jack and Raf spend most of that time learning more about Cybertronian technology from Ratchet – Raf being the genius that he is, and Jack because he's proficient enough with ordinary human cars. Miko doesn't ask if she can join them and they don't extend the offer to her. She mopes around for a while, complaining about how she can't go help Bulkhead with construction on Cybertron – Ratchet, the very picture of trusting, moves his workstation to right next to the bridge controls – until finally Knockout kicks the Apex Armor across the floor at her and tells her to do his heavy lifting for him if she's so desperate for construction work.

"You're missing the point," she says and he informs her that it is deliberate on his part, now there's a few boxes he needs from the other hanger – and hanging out with Knockout is entertaining enough so she manages to not punch him in the face for it.

She comes back laden with unknown materials once time to find Knockout arguing with Fowler. "We've got plenty of mechanics who need to learn more about your tech," Fowler says while Knockout pointedly does not look at him. "Why don't you give a few of them a chance?"

Miko announces her arrival by plopping her armload of boxes on a workbench and saying loudly, "I think Doc Knock just likes having dumb muscle for help."

Knockout smirks. "Yes, my ego prefers that I be the only one with any expertise in these things in the room."

Fowler grumbles something about disagreeable medics and stomps out. Having finished her last round of "fetch" for the moment, Miko disengages the Apex Armor and Knockout deposits her on his lab table, far away from anything that she might break or that might break her. "So do you think I'm dumb?" she asks. She expects a brutally honest answer – because this is Knockout – a "yes of course" backed by even just the abridged version of "times Miko tagged along that she shouldn't have."

But Knockout shrugs and simply says, "Breakdown was dumb."

She is woken up one morning in the spring by her phone ringing, and when she flips it open she finds a text from Bulkhead – Bulk's back on Earth! – and she's so excited she can barely read it, but when she does she finds that it says "look outside." She rushes to her window to see him sitting in the street, waiting for her.

She skips getting dressed and breakfast and letting her parents know she'll be out and everything. She skips the door. She climbs out the window and pouts until Bulkhead stops scolding her. "Dude, you saw me climb those rocks in Scotland, right?" she asks. "Building? No problem!"

She flops in the passenger seat and Bulkhead cranks up the radio and it's just like old times. "I missed you," he says, and she nods and says yeah, she did too.

They drive until they find an empty street where Bulkhead can call for a Groundbridge and then they are in the hanger. Jack, Raf, June and Fowler are all awake and waiting, and Miko finally thinks to ask if there's something going on.

"'Bots have been coming home and we brought some back to Earth with us," Bulkhead explains, letting her out and then transforming. "Thought you'd want to meet them."

"Why, though?" Miko asks. "Why would you all just decide to take a vacation from Cybertron?" She'd rather go see them on Cybertron.

Bulkhead hesitates but Smokescreen answers readily enough. "Because Cybertron's kind of overrun by Insecticon vampire-zombies right now."

From his lab, she hears Knockout yell, "Starscream's fault!"

She asks why they can't just go lay the smackdown on the zombiecons like usual, to which Wheeljack explains in gruesome detail exactly how they could become infected by these monsters. June and Bulkhead try to no avail to shut him up. Raf quickly excuses himself from the conversation and Jack looks like he's frozen in place with horror, but Miko soaks up every word – until it gets to the science-y parts about how Ratchet and Knockout and some new guy named Perceptor are trying to put together a way of neutralizing the compound of half-baked Synth-En and dark energon that is fueling the zombiecons. That stuff is just boring and Wheeljack quickly sees that her eyes are glazing over, so he scoops her up and takes her around to meet the new 'bots.

It's the best day Miko's had since Christmas… and then when the science-bots have a solution, she's not allowed to go with the 'bots to enact it. Knockout, conversely, panics when he's told to go with the Wreckers, and Miko offers to trade places with him. Ratchet says no.

But Wheeljack is grinning and he leans over to say something to Knockout, so Miko will bet anything that one of them has the Armor and the other will grab her and run.

And that's what they do.

Ultra Magnus's optics start twitching when Wheeljack, Knockout, and Miko a la Apex Armor tumble out of the bridge together, Ratchet's angry screams echoing across space behind them.

"I like you," one of the new 'bots says – he's red like Knockout and almost-but-not-quite as vain and Miko thinks his name starts with an "S" but she can't remember, Ultra Magnus tried to keep her and Wheeljack away from him – pointing at Miko. "If you can annoy the docbot that much, I like you."

Ultra Magnus turns his glare on the red 'bot and sends his entire zombie-fighting group scrambling away in an instant. "Why," he says at last to Miko, "do you have a complete inability to obey orders? Ratchet told you to stay on the base."

Magnus calls Ratchet to reopen the spacebridge and he is about to carry Miko back through when a swarm of Insecticon vampire bats swoop down on the Wreckers (and Knockout), and then they are fighting them off and someone screams to close the bridge because they can't let these things through to Earth and the next thing Miko knows there is weird purple energon spilling everywhere and she can't hear over the monsters' shrieks and maybe, maybe this wasn't the best battle to have tagged along with. And Bulkhead's shouting for her to get to cover and she can't see anything in the mess of flying zombiecons, and she runs flailing through the swarm and slumps behind some rocks to catch her breath.

Knockout is already occupying half of her hiding place.

"Dude," she says flatly. "You're a coward."

"Yes, I am aware."

One of the undead Insecticons lands on the rocks and Knockout shrieks and Miko grabs his spear from him and stabs it in the face. "No, no, you need to aim for the spark!" Knockout snaps, and Miko shoves the spear back at him.

"Fine, you kill it!"

And its head, oh god its head is smoking and half of its face is gone where she stabbed it and yet it's still moving and the tongue the tongue and she's not sure what happened after that until Knockout pulls his staff out of the headless corpse's spark chamber, and Miko is holding its tongue with what's left of the head dangling down and how did that happen.

She flings it away.

She sees it land elsewhere, so she can't have hit Knockout with it, so she's not sure why he's flung her to the ground, except then she lifts her head up and sees legs and hears soft laughter and there is Crazy Spider-Lady and Knockout plastered to the rocks with webbing.

Miko rolls to her feet and scrambles to get behind Airachnid. She's not sure if that will grant her more than a few seconds but it seems like a good idea. Airachnid laughs again, soft and terrifying, and as she asks "You have a human, too?" she has turned to Miko, lips parted in a smirk. Miko wants to scream that she is a Wrecker, she is no one's mere human, but she sees that Knockout has turned his free hand into a saw and is cutting himself loose, so she just needs to stand here and make sure Airachnid doesn't look back.

"You're not Jack," Airachnid says, and Miko wonders what the heck is with her creepy obsession with Jack anyway? – "but as far as partners go, I think you'll still be fun to break down."

And Knockout lunges and cuts off another of the spider-legs and as Airachnid spins and snarls Miko punches her across the face. Shots of webbing go wild into the sky and the ground and everywhere and Miko isn't sure how she's been hit yet but she latches onto a few of Airachnid's legs and just tries to weigh her down, stop her from moving with her usual agility – and Miko is succeeding at it and that means something is wrong, it shouldn't be this easy to subdue the dreaded Airachnid.

Then she starts bleeding purple and green and the tongue comes out and oh. Oh. Oh no.

Miko topples off of Airachnid to the ground and Knockout – she sees Knockout is bleeding now, and he's not moving and oh god the tongue again and she lashes out and grabs it, yanks Airachnid's head away from Knockout's neck because "The only one who's gonna break is you!"

The words tear from her with a mixture of anger and desperation and then, then finally, the Wreckers arrive with a vengeance and Miko doesn't know what happens next, she crawls away from the fighting and drags Knockout with her.

"Dumb muscle," he says, pointing at her, "is supposed to take hits for me," he taps his chest, "not the other way around."

"I'll carry you back to Ratchet if that makes you feel any better."

"You'd probably drop me."

"On purpose, yes."

"Yes."

Airachnid's life ends with a wrecking ball to the chest and then a grenade in the spark chamber for good measure, and then after that Wheeljack gathers the pieces of her up and explodes them again. Ultra Magnus comms Ratchet and tells him that he can open the space bridge now, everything is clear in their area, and he leads Wheeljack and Bulkhead off to help the team of Arcee, Bumblebee and Smokescreen. Miko hobbles into the bridge, not realizing that she is half-carrying Knockout on her back until Raf points it out, and neither of them are quite sure how that ended up happening.

Ratchet rages at them about following orders – to which Knockout points out that he did follow orders, she's the problem thank you very much – and about encouraging said problematic behaviors – which shuts Knockout up – but Miko's too exhausted to really listen. She and Knockout just sit on Ratchet's operating table and stare up at him, waiting for him to finish, and finally he gives up trying to talk sense into them and June's there asking without a trace of anger if Miko is alright, and that's when she realizes that she's still in the Apex Armor. She holds her fist out to Knockout and he tiredly bumps his against it. "We didn't die," she announces. "That's cool."

And she takes the armor off and hops down to the floor and gets yelled at by Fowler because he parents are calling him asking where she is, and she takes the phone and says she's with the 'bots, they don't need to worry, and behind her Jack and Raf start choking on laughter. Miko gives the phone back to Fowler and goes to collapse on the couch and watch the boys play video games and take a nap.

Ultra Magnus wakes her upon his return to tell her that he appreciates that she followed orders to go back through to Earth the second time he asked. She supposes that he's taking what he can get from her, so she throws him a salute and mumbles something like "Yes Ultra commander sir" and falls back asleep.

When she wakes up again she is in her room in Tokyo and she has no idea how she got there.

She never mentions the Apex Armor and the battles she's fought to her parents. Ever.

Knockout is a fixture at Unit E, almost moreso than Ratchet, and one day Miko asks why. "What, you don't want to do rebuilding and physical labor?" she teases.

Knockout just shrugs. "Yes, and several Autobots have made it very clear that they don't want me around."

"Who?" she demands. "I'll punch them in the face."

"Thanks but no thanks, I don't think that will help convince them like me."

"You never know. I punched you in the face a few times and look, we're friends now."

She expects a "dumb muscle" joke there, but Knockout regards her curiously for a few seconds before he says, "Yes, I suppose that's true."

The next time he calls the ringtone is a recording of her playing "My Fist, Your Face" and she jams out on air guitar for a few seconds before she answers. "Need backup?" she asks. "Want someone punched in the face?"

"No and no, I'm looking for company. Ever been to a drive-in?"

And it seems a bit weird that he has but she hasn't when she's the human and he's the ex-Decepticon, but really, Miko's pretty sure that nothing's actually weird anymore. It's just her normal.