Don't Let Me Down

About a mile down the road sat an old bus station bench. Even in the dark, Mikaela could tell it must have been an abandoned route: there was no sign with pick up times, nor even any advertising that she could discern on the bench. Its paint had mostly succumbed to the weather, and other than the stop sign standing guard over the highway's intersection with a dirt access road, there was absolutely nothing else to be seen.

She stared at the isolated bench a moment, then dragged the key card out and ran its edge along one of the planks. It scraped along roughly, skinning wood off in uneven layers, testimony to the splinter hazard, and so she shook the plastic off and stuck it back into her pocket. Funny, that no one had taken the thing down at some point – it'd just been abandoned to the elements, though surely if there were a bus stop for a place like this, it must've been known to everyone at one point...

Mikaela shook herself, tucked her hands under her arms and gazed down the highway. She was distracting herself – this interest in an old bus stop was pure distraction, that iron little voice in her head told her. Because she didn't really want to think about the irony in the fact that she'd spent the entire trip south terrified that her dad would figure her out. And now he had, in a way – he knew she was embarrassed, but the rest... the rest was all wrong, and she just hadn't counted on that, somehow. If he'd figured anything, he should've grasped everything, and otherwise, nothing at all. But he'd only guessed part of her mind and then gotten her mom mixed up in everything, and God, why had he told her that? Why? What was she supposed to do about fixing her parents' problems, when she hadn't really been aware of them...?

Agnus dei, qui tolis peccata mundi, whispered her grandmother's voice. Which was a problem, because there wasn't a superabundance of innocence running around in sheep form that Mikaela had noticed. She certainly couldn't be accused of that. She wasn't even her mother! She was his daughter, and that was the problem...

Dammit, she thought viciously. And even as she cursed, something moved at the edges of vision. She almost didn't catch it, and might have thought it just her imagination, but that it was accompanied by the sound of something heavy moving carefully over dirt and loose pebbles, and by a low, soft vibration that made itself felt. Mikaela started as she turned toward the noise, just in time to catch a faceful of high beams as a semi roared past on the highway.

Swearing, she blinked furiously and squinted into the darkness, feeling adrenaline surge suddenly. Someone was out there, and she had no idea who it was or where he was...

"It is not advisable to travel alone," came a familiar voice just then and, despite its disapproving tone, Mikaela sighed in relief, though it was with some irritation that she replied:

"God, Ironhide! There's no war – you don't have to go sneaking around in the dark! You could've just called."

"I did. You left your phone in the motel," he pointed out.

"Because I didn't want to deal with talking to people!" There was a silence in which the illogic of her complaints echoed nicely, then:

"You can not-talk to people on the curb outside your motel door, which would make my task simpler should Barricade show himself and attempt to attack either you or your father or both of you."

Barricade. Mikaela grimaced. Neither she nor Sam liked to think of the 'Decepticop', as they'd taken to calling him, but she knew that the Autobots were keeping watch for him, trying to trace any anomalous bank transactions or unusual repair requests at garages in Nevada and surrounding states. Getting ploughed into the center divider by part of a flaming bus at high speed did tend to leave a mark, even on Cybertronians.

So far, though, all they'd gotten for their trouble was a truly appalling record of financial shenanigans, none of which traced back to anything likely to be a Cybertronian on the lam. If Barricade was out there, he was keeping a low profile, and the need for secrecy from even the cops doing the physical end of their research didn't help matters. Even wounded, Barricade could probably still muster the ability to shift his color scheme and swap out his lights for a heavy duty carry rack, and that'd be enough to hide him from anyone investigating sightings of or repair jobs on damaged police cruisers.

Still... Mikaela gave Ironhide a look that was probably wasted on the darkness. "You're really worried about Barricade showing up?" she demanded.

"I'm always worried about Barricade showing up," came the prompt, growled response, and a few clicks and clacks, as of internal parts shifting agitatedly.

And that was likely all she was going to get, unless she insisted on pushing him. Which she wasn't going to do, because, as she'd told him, she didn't want to talk to people – not even people who were extraterrestrial car-robots. But she couldn't shake suspicion, because she just had this feeling that if Ironhide were truly concerned about his ability to protect her father from Decepticon attack at this distance, he would've insisted on her returning to the motel room even if he'd had to transform and carry her back there.

Instead, Ironhide sat to one side of the access road with his lights off, and she, despite the risk of splinters, sat on the old bus bench, and between the two of them, it must've been fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour without a word spoken. It was Mikaela who broke the silence.

"Thanks," she said abruptly. Across the way, an electronic warble of confusion greeted her gratitude, and she clarified: "For playing taxi."

"You needed a ride," he replied after a second. She snorted.

"Yeah, I needed a ride," she repeated, and rubbed at the side of her face, anxious and upset. She'd needed a ride, all right. She still needed a ride – like somewhere impossibly out of this mess. Too bad there wasn't a road or ride to get her there. Mikaela sighed, stood and walked a little ways away. "Hell!" she muttered.

After which, she lapsed into a more pensive silence, standing there with her back to the road now, Ironhide a still, dark presence on the edge of vision, more felt than seen. Way out in the fields behind the strip mall, somebody had a light on in a window, a sharp square of brightness all by its lonesome, and she found herself thinking of the motel room light, and feeling, well, outside. Very, very out there, like 'space: the final frontier' out there. It wasn't so far-fetched – the aliens were here already, and she was beginning to think she was riding home with a pod-person.

She hadn't quite expected that, somehow. She hadn't seen her dad since the trial, and phone calls were mostly Christmas and holidays and occasionally when word trickled in that some kind of prison riot had occurred, but such conversations were always brief. He hadn't written – her dad wasn't the letter-writing sort, and neither was she, really. It'd been a long time, and people changed. But she'd rather thought that when or if he finally made parole, her dad would be... well, her dad, more or less like she remembered. And he was – sort of. Sometimes.

Who are you kidding? that metallic voice demanded, and Mikaela bowed her head, tense as a wire, before with an explosive sigh, she began pacing slowly, agitatedly.

Where was the man who'd told her to spit in the eye of whoever looked at her funny because of him? The man who made her laugh and laughed with her about anything? Where was the guy who couldn't keep his hands off a car, and could even fall in love with a little Chevy sub-compact? They hadn't even talked about cars and they'd been in one for eight hours! Except for that quick once-over of Ironhide in the prison lot and that remark about the Autobot's unwarranted revving, he hadn't so much as commented on a single one – he hadn't even really looked at one. Instead, he was not-talking about her to her face, and divulging marital problems while comparing her to her mother! And what was this implied stuff about her birthday making things 'easier'?

The last part, at least, she got, even if she wished she didn't. After all, she knew what it felt like to disown someone tacitly, and she imagined that part of the floaty-out-there feeling came of being on the other end: of being 'let go.' And okay, so she was seventeen, working on eighteen, and should be glad about that, but...

But if that were so, why did she feel so damned disappointed about it? Disappointed, and betrayed, and pissed off. It was like, she'd been freaking out for this? For her dad to just admit that he'd royally fouled up and then some, and then belly up? What the hell's wrong with him?

Like you can't guess, the unwanted little voice calmly countered. That put the breaks on fury at least. With a muttered curse, Mikaela paused, then glanced over at the slightly more solid patch of night that was Ironhide, patiently waiting her out. With a deflationary sigh, she crossed the distance between them, but rather than make for one of his doors, she folded her arms atop his hood and put her head down. Big as he was, she almost had to reach up to do it. Ironhide's engine revved in surprise – she couldn't hear it, but she felt the vibration from the inside out, as if her very bones were rattling.

But he didn't say anything, and other than that initial surprised reaction, he kept perfectly still – so still, she was moved to say, "You can tell me to move if you want – I won't 'leak' on you."

"You'd better not," came the immediate, growled reply, with a bit of harrumph! thrown in toward the end for good measure. And despite herself, Mikaela laughed a little at that, shifting position just slightly so her chin rested on crossed forearms. The Autobot gave a whuff! of warm air through his stacks and grill, but then said gruffly, "Work yourself up this much, you'll blow a board."

"You sound like Ratchet," she accused, not bothering to remind him about the difference between circuit boards and brains.

"I'm more sensible than Ratchet," the weapons specialist retorted instantly. Mikaela made a yeah, sure noise in the back of her throat, but otherwise did not dispute him. He jostled her a bit for it nonetheless, pushing forward on his suspension before settling again, and for a little while, a more comfortable silence reigned before Ironhide asked, with blunt abruptness, "So what's the cross-link between your question and your walking out tonight on your cr—father, girl?"

Thrown by the complete non-sequitur, Mikaela blinked, brow knitting in confusion. "I'm sorry?"

"Your question. From yesterday. Or was it only – " a note of incongruously prim disapproval entered his voice then and thrummed in the undertones " – idle curiosity?"

Considering the sobering influence of that reference, Mikaela was mildly surprised to find that she felt no particular urge to fight answering the question. Possibly it was because she'd done enough brooding to be sick of it tonight; possibly it had something to do with the fact that despite how it must look, she was comfortable where she was at the moment, and that did a lot to mellow her mood. And so, after a second, she responded:

"It wasn't curiosity." She paused. "Did 'Bee tell you about texting me last week?" she asked.

"He passed it along as a transcript," Ironhide confirmed.

"Then you know what he thinks," she said, a little unnecessarily, before admitting: "And he's right. About me being scared."

Ironhide seemed to think this one over a moment, before he said, seeming to seek confirmation: "But your father has no violent history."

"No – but that's not the reason," she quickly clarified. "He's my dad, Ironhide." This garnered a longer silence – probably, the Autobot was attempting to narrow down a definition of 'dad' that would explain the explanation. Good luck with that! Mikaela thought and closed her eyes. "Sorry," she apologized. "You probably wouldn't get that, not having a father."

"Why don't you let me determine what I don't understand?" came the rather sharp response. Then a little more calmly: "Your father made you to be a mechanical engineer, yes?"

"He taught me a lot of what I know about cars," she replied, correcting him just slightly.

"And you intend to take up his trade?"

"One of them, anyway," Mikaela murmured, wincing slightly.

"Then you value the function that he taught you." This, in a rather satisfied tone, though Mikaela fleetingly wondered at the need for this conclusion – she was out on the base every weekend hanging around Ratchet's workspace, wasn't she? Something, however, had evidently come clear to Ironhide that hadn't been before, as he emitted a low hum that seemed to her... pleased. She waited, expectantly, but the Autobot apparently felt no need to share the revelation, and Mikaela was just wondering whether she should ask him, when he spoke again:

"There were twelve of us fabricated as defense prototypes for our cohort," he told her, and she blinked at the sudden change of subject. "These were a kind of 'brother' – less close than twins, but closer than the rest of the cohort because we were designed to work together in sub-units."

"Why twelve?" Mikaela asked after a moment.

"Minimum number required to test the model's viability on-shift – it was a tactical issue," he said, but did not explain further. Instead: "The war as we know it officially broke when Megatron took Polyhex, and Kolkular declared its allegiance to him. At that point, on the non-Decepticon side, military upgrades and models got construction priority. My brothers and I were already made to fight, even if we were hybrid models. We weren't high on the list for upgrades because of that: we already had what we needed to be effective, and modification was going to those who would've been helpless otherwise. Didn't bother most of us, but it did bother Hardstop."

"Hardstop was one of your brothers?" she guessed.

"Number four," he confirmed, then added: "Which was a problem, since that made him a command model. There were three of us equipped for that function: first, fourth, and seventh."

"Which one are you?"

"None of them: I was fifth, originally." At Mikaela's soft noise of surprise, he responded, "Not everyone who ends up in a command slot started that way, even on Cybertron. Point being – while the Autobots were producing military models from scratch, they weren't doing full conversions on anyone else. And they didn't like having units completely made up of military-made 'bots. There are a lot of reasons for that, but what is important," Ironhide said, emphatically cutting to the bottom line, "is that because of those decisions, Hardstop felt the Decepticons held a military function in more respect, that he was more likely to be able to be what he was made to be with them than with us. So he defected and crossed the border out of Iacon before it could be sealed. And he took Adamantex, the other 'bot in our sub-unit of three, with him." That got her head up.

"But what happened to you, then?" she asked.

"I got integrated into another sub-unit," Ironhide replied, before adding darkly: "By rights, I should've been dead. If they'd really thought it through tactically, they would've terminated me for turning them down, along with the other two command models, before they left."

"You were their brother!" Mikaela protested. To which Ironhide just grunted, and said patiently:

"But that's the smart move, if you want to prove your loyalty to a faction that has no reason to trust you. Hardstop got caught between his two capabilities. We were all split by design between a military capability and the construction capabilities that gave us a civil function. He and Adamantex went the way of their military capabilities, but they didn't quite reconcile that with their original, non-military function. So they left without harming any of us or even sabotaging any of the city's defenses – which they could've done. As construction 'bots, we knew a lot about how Iacon's protective barriers were organized."

Ironhide paused a second to let that sink in, then concluded: "Megatron still took them in – early in the war, a lot of 'bots were aligning for the first time. Later on, it became harder to defect – to either side – without bringing some kind of bargaining chip like that with you as proof of commitment."

Mikaela said nothing for a time. The phrase, 'to either side', was still ringing in her ears, and rousing unpleasant suspicions, but there was a more basic question that needed to be asked. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because if you want me to answer your question, then it is necessary to understand this," Ironhide replied, and gone was any of the pretense that her question yesterday had ever been understood as being about anyone but him. "Do you want my answer?"

In the darkness, Mikaela gave him a rather owl-eyed look. Since the Autobots' arrival, she'd noticed that Ironhide didn't tend towards rhetorical questions – if he asked one, he was looking for an honest answer, because he also didn't do 'idle curiosity.' Of course, he didn't do confessionals, either, and he'd never shown that Ratchet-y penchant for letting that top layer of thought get thought out loud. And he certainly wasn't the diplomat that Prime was...

When, a suddenly panicky part of her wondered, had her reliably reserved Ironhide gone Bumblebee on her?

Except, being Ironhide rather than 'Bee, he hadn't set this up so that he could retreat without cost if she flinched. Oh, he was offering her a way out – and if she said 'no', he wouldn't press her. But then she wouldn't just have said 'no' to some story: she'd have said 'no' to him, after he'd made an effort to pick up on a thread she'd tossed out in a clumsy, half-hearted attempt obliquely to seek help. Didn't matter that she'd rather expected it to be rejected or answered tersely and then dropped, since Ironhide also didn't do oblique that she'd ever seen – she'd left the opening for something a lot more personal, and go figure, it was Ironhide, he'd decided to take it on that level if at all and –

So do you want him or not? that other, less tinny voice demanded impatiently, and her mouth puckered in response as if she were eating lemons. This was not the crisis she'd been looking to deal with – like, ever. Agitatedly, she tapped a nail on Ironhide's hood. Fuck, she thought, and sighed. But:

"Yeah," she replied aloud, because put that way, there wasn't anything to debate; "Yeah, I do." Ironhide gave off a soft hum, pitched oddly so that she winced slightly and pressed a finger before each ear. That was one she hadn't heard before, not from any Autobot, and she feared for a moment that she'd totally read him wrong, until:

"Good," he rumbled. Then: "The ten of us who were left spent some time changing Iacon's security protocols – cleaning up the mess Hardstop's and Adamantex's defections had created for us. Proof of commitment, like I said. After that, we were split up into different regiments and fronts. As far as I know, there are three of us still alive today from the ten who didn't defect."

"What about Hardstop and Adamantex?" Mikaela asked when he paused again.

"They died at Tyger Pax. Which isn't saying much – a lot of 'bots did," he added, and she blinked at the derision in his voice. "It's more the how that matters."

"Um, Ironhide...?" she ventured, just a little squeamishly. For despite having consented to hear this story, and despite the fact that Cybertronians had more in common with car parts than with human tissue to look at, she really had no desire to hear the exact, gory details of their demise.

"It's not what you think," he interrupted her. "They got fragged." Ironhide paused, then demanded: "I know you hear that a lot from Ratch when he's in a mood, but you do know what 'fragging' means, right?"

"Well, yeah, it means – " And then she stopped suddenly. Of course, from the way Ratchet – and 'Bee and Ironhide – normally used it, she'd assumed the 'bots had just managed, somehow, to find a weird substitute for any number of English swear-words – something that, for whatever reason, sounded right to them. It hadn't occurred to her to wonder why it might work for them, although she must've known on some level that they weren't just making a word up. She had seen Platoon in their history class, after all, and as a bizarre euphemism morphed into a direct translation, she felt her skin crawl just a little, disturbed, and for more than one reason. "Somebody in their own unit killed them?"

"Yes. The Autobot casualty record officially lists them as having gotten shot by an Autobot suppression unit securing territory that'd been hit by aerial fire earlier."

Mikaela scowled. "But you just said they were fragged," she protested. Ironhide didn't answer, just waited until the pieces fell together in her head... And then she sucked in a breath, as she let her arms slide off his hood in instinctive recoil.

"You don't pick your targets in a war by any criterion other than tactical necessity," Ironhide told her, and there was gravel in his voice. "They had a heavy gun-turret dug in on high ground. They had to be removed. I did my job."

"So... you were under orders?" she asked, hopefully. "You didn't know they were your brothers?"

"Of course I knew," came the quick answer, and Mikaela blanched a little at the vehemence of it.

"But if you knew," she demanded, reeling under horrified incomprehension, "if you knew, then why didn't you – ?"

"Let someone else do it?" A disdainful venting of air accompanied this, the Autobot equivalent of a snort. "Because it was mine to do. They were my brothers. Just as he is your father. We take responsibility for our own, and I was late doing it."

Still struggling to get her mind around this confession, Mikaela shook her head. "What do you mean, 'late'?"

"I mean that Hardstop and Adamantex weren't the only two caught between conflicting directives. If I'd held to my function – to defend – rather than some ridiculous fraternal sentiment," the weapons specialist growled self-deprecatingly, and made of the word a curse that all of Ratchet's swearing could not equal, "I would've turned them in before they could succeed in defecting. I didn't do it, however, and in addition to the inconvenience and fear their defection caused Iacon, that choice cost them their lives."

And it cost me my brothers. That unsaid price hovered in the space between them, demanding response, but Mikaela... found that she couldn't. After a few moments, she sank down and sat on the ground, folding her legs up tailor-style, which put her at about eye level with his bumper. And she listened to the nattering thoughts that flew through her mind, all of them circling a central void they were powerless to fill.

What did you think he was going to tell you, anyway? she wondered dazedly. That he wishes he'd been a Toyota? On some level, she supposed she'd been hoping for something more in the way of advice... which wasn't exactly the same thing as asking for regrets, and if she had been going to ask him for anything, she should've known better than to ask for what she didn't want.

Except, on another level, she had wanted to know, because she knew perfectly well, in a background sort of way, that he had to have done a lot worth regretting. All of them – Ratchet, Prime, Bumblebee – had to have, but they still seemed to be getting on... But maybe she'd been stupid to think she could handle what they might tell her: this... was just too big to be made sense of. How do you just decide you have to kill your brothers – and then do it? She couldn't figure that out. It would be one thing to defend yourself if your brother attacked you, or somebody else, and to end up killing him, but that wasn't what Ironhide had done. A part of her thought that in light of that, she probably ought to be a little more freaked out about putting herself in front of his tires like this, but...

But that kind of reasoning, with its nice, neat links, going from fact to conclusion, didn't seem to apply anymore. There was a break between reason and the apparently incontrovertible feeling that she was as safe with him now as she ever had been, that she certainly was as safe with him as with any of the others. Because after all, the realization dawned on her, how unique could Ironhide be? 'Brother' meant so many things to Cybertronians – in a war as long and bloody as theirs, how many fratricides had there been? Was it even unusual? Megatron had certainly been ready to kill Optimus, after all, and she had to think that if the Allspark hadn't been at stake, Optimus wouldn't have held back when it was a matter of defending his life. Hell, Optimus's fall-back plan had been suiciding out to destroy the thing that made life possible for his species – that had to count as attempted fratricide- to-the-nth-degree!

That made her frown suddenly, because with Ironhide's story starkly before her, thinking of Optimus knocked a picture she'd had in her mind sideways a bit, and sharply enough that she asked what would've been unthinkable before: "Are you... kinda pissed off with Prime, because he wouldn't...?"

She couldn't finish the question, but there was no need to. "Different situation. Between killing Megatron and controlling the Allspark, controlling the Allspark came first. His decision made tactical sense," Ironhide replied, unhesitatingly.

"So you're okay with it?"

"As his weapons specialist and one of his command team, yes."

"And… other than that?" she pressed, a little more cautiously.

"That isn't relevant to my function."

So, no, not wholly accepting of that decision. But apparently accepting enough to want to stay, not that Ironhide had a choice at the moment, given that the Autobots were stranded. But once they got un-stranded, and Ironhide could perhaps serve elsewhere...

But then he'd lose the squad. He'd lose the brothers he'd been with for... she had no idea how long, actually. Bumblebee had just laughed and said, "Longer than you could meaningfully count," when asked. So maybe he'd stay no matter how much he might resent that Prime's tactically sound decision would always have managed to spare him the task of killing his brother, when Ironhide, frightening thought, hadn't even tried to avoid it...

Ironhide gave another untranslatable flare of bass tones of a sudden, then asked:

"Does knowing this assist you?"

Mikaela grimaced. "I... don't know," she replied, honestly, and wished she could've said 'yes.' And to the silence that greeted this response, she said unhappily, "I'm sorry."

And she was. Because 'I don't know' felt awfully close to 'I don't want to know,' and that was worse than a straight 'no'—'I don't want to know' was as much a rejection as 'I don't want your answer.' But she couldn't help it: a revelation like that couldn't help but make a dent in a relationship. The trouble was that she couldn't figure the dimensions of that dent. Too big to take in... and so maybe just big enough to fit both of them in it? She didn't know. She couldn't know, but that inability didn't free her from the sense that she needed to know, that she ought to know.

Because though Ironhide didn't make any complaints, she couldn't help but think that it had probably cost him something to tell that piece of ancient history, just because it wasn't so far in the past, perhaps. If it were, after all, it would hardly bother him enough to be a regret, and that, at least, she could understand. Infinitely more minor though her own problems might be in comparison, she'd still spent six years hiding the truth about her father and herself from everyone, and it'd only been good luck that Sam hadn't been totally unwilling to listen to her after his initial rejection of her.

In fact... now that she thought about it, she had yet to actually tell anyone about all of it: Simmons had told her secrets for her to Sam, and Bumblebee had mostly just overheard and then looked things up on his own. She'd told Ironhide she needed a ride to Riverside to pick her father up from prison, but she hadn't told him anything else – he'd probably heard more from 'Bee than from her. As for Prime and Ratchet, she hadn't told them anything, but whether they'd heard it from Ironhide or 'Bee, they'd still had to inquire before wisely accepting her refusal to talk...

"Mikaela." Ironhide's voice jolted her out of her thoughts, and she shook herself slightly. An interior light went on as the driver's side door flicked open. "You should return to the motel: your father may begin looking for you, otherwise."

She just nodded, rose and dusted off the seat of her pants, then walked over and climbed inside. On unspoken agreement, Ironhide took care of his own doors and lights and driving, while she simply laid her hands on the steering wheel for show. He chose to pull out onto the road proper rather than retrace his off-road route, and in short order, he was pulling into his spot by the curb.

But when he started to open his door, she made a grab and held it in place.

"What is it?" came the somewhat annoyed, if quiet, out of respect for their surroundings, demand.

"Just..." she began, and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry about your brothers, Ironhide."

"They did not have to be Decepticons," was the rather brusque response. Mikaela grimaced.

"I mean, I'm sorry that it ended up the way it did, so that you had to... do that... to them," she tried to clarify.

A short, gravelly flare of tones greeted this, then: "Have you determined what you have to do, girl?"

Mikaela sighed. "Yeah," she said, and hesitated a beat, struggling against inertia. And if nothing else, that weight that he'd dropped on her, answering her question, tipped the world far enough for the words to fall out of her: "I have to tell him. If I don't, dad's gonna find out anyway because everyone back home except Sam and Grandma Lori thinks he walked out on me after my mom died, because that's what I told them."

"Because you were afraid of him?" the Autobot filled in at length, after a somewhat ponderous silence.

"Because he's my dad," she repeated, quietly. "And I was always his little girl. And I just—I... don't want Simmons to be right about me. About us," she finished, all in a rush.

She wasn't sure what, if anything, that conveyed to a Cybertronian's mind, but it was the best she could do to answer his question, and if that wasn't key enough to get him from her demand to her problems… Thought dribbled out into a mute anxiety after that.

Minutes slid by and neither Ironhide nor Mikaela spoke, and Mikaela just stared at the closed motel door. After a time, she let go of the handle, and Ironhide, taking this as a sign, swung his door open for her. She slid down onto the pavement, then stood there in his door frame, still staring, before she stepped aside and shut one door before turning resolutely towards another.

The room beyond the motel door was dark. For just a second, she could see her shadowy reflection in the mirror in the bathroom, back-lit by the lot's lights, and then the door clicked shut behind her, leaving her to stand there, gathering her nerve, getting her bearings. Then, once she had the latter at least, she carefully made her way over to the aisle between the two beds, and felt around for the lamp and the pull-chord. Her father flinched slightly as the light went on, then opened eyes that were far too alert for him to have been sleeping. For a moment, the two of them just stared at each other, then her dad asked, "Mikki? You okay?"

"Sort of the big question, I guess," she replied, as she sank down onto her bed, running her palms over the counterpane, smoothing it habitually before her fingers curled into the stiff fabric. "Dad, can we talk?"

Her father, in response, pushed himself up in bed and carded his fingers back through damp hair. He seemed to hesitate for a long time. But finally, he tipped his head sideways to look at her, and she thought how much older he seemed suddenly, sitting there with his hair still half-mussed and the lamplight throwing harsh light on his face. But:

"Sure," he said. But rather than speak further, he rose and went to the little counter where the motel had left a coffee pot and some instant coffee. "You drink coffee at night?" he asked, seemingly casually.

"If you're making it…." Mikaela shrugged. Her father grunted acknowledgment. Filling the pot, he set it on the little burner and dumped the required packets into the top and clicked 'on.' Mikaela watched him, listened to the sputter of the filter, waiting until the brewing was done and he'd poured the stuff into two plastic cups, which he then brought back over. Handing one to her, he sat across from her, took a sip and grimaced over it.

"So," he asked, having braced himself, "what's up?"

"Pretty much everything," she replied, and paused a second, watching him closely, wondering what he saw. Or who. Who does he want to see? Mikaela chewed her lower lip gently. Then: "I'm not mom," she said.

He grimaced. "I know. Look," he said, heavily, "about earlier..."

"It's okay," she interjected quickly. "Really," she insisted, when he glanced up at her again.

Her father stared back a long moment, but then nodded slowly, and gave her a lopsided grin. "All right, then," he said softly, then sighed and straightened up, setting the coffee cup aside on the stand. "Shoot," he invited. "What've you got?"

Mikaela drew a breath. Here we go! "It's like this…"

Outside in the motel's lot, the moths were busy around the light poles. The air had gone just a little chill, but the traffic that had fallen off sharply for a few hours began to pick up again, as trucks and their drivers began their day. The chronometer marked another hour – four a.m.

From behind a motel door, the indistinct murmur of voices finally fell silent, and after a few more minutes, the lines of light beneath the door and the hems of curtains winked out.

In the lot, sensors teeked, noting the change, and as they did so, a host of systems turned over and remote alerts came online. Ironhide ran a quick check of them all, satisfying himself that should anything dangerous approach, he would be alerted to it. Then he settled in to wait.

Ten minutes drifted by, and then fifteen, and finally, a half an hour later, when nothing changed and no doors opened and he received nothing in the way of messaging, he dropped quietly into recharge for the first time since they'd left Tranquility.

It was Sunday night at the Witwickys, and since it was past Sam's curfew, a yellow Camaro was snugged in next to Sam's mother's station wagon, his father's car of course being kept in the garage. Bumblebee ordinarily spent his Sunday evenings partly talking with Sam over text-messaging (having figured out how to bypass the satellite link the phone normally ran on, and get the cell to plug directly into the Autobot's point-to-point combat relays, bills for text messaging at least were no longer an issue between them), partly catching up on the weekly reports that Ratchet and Prime compiled, or burrowing through the 'net, investigating as far as possible something that had caught his attention about his human hosts. Later on, when he was certain that no one was awake or watching, he would make a quick circuit around the area, patrolling to be certain nothing Decepticon was lurking.

Tonight, though, he was doing his best to avoid the temptation to tap the cell net and listen in on the conversation that Sam had been having for the past two hours. It would have been so simple: the encryption on civilian phones was negligible, and being a spy didn't exactly lend itself to restraint with that sort of power, but Bumblebee firmly reminded himself that he wouldn't be eavesdropping on other Autobots at a time like this. So he had no excuse for illicitly splicing his signal into Sam's. Still...

Sensors teeked suddenly, and the Autobot nearly started his engine in surprise. The signature was familiar – it certainly wasn't one he needed to double-check to be sure of identity. Nevertheless, he sat quietly for a few moments, following its movement, before he opened his private comm line, selected 'text' display to spare themselves the risk of being overheard by passing human beings, and sent:

Don't often see you out here. What's the occasion, 'Hide? How'd the drive go?

There was a slight lag, then Ironide's message came back in a block of amber glyphs:

Do you have any idea of how slagging inefficient a Topkick's fuel conversion is? I get about two hundred miles every slagging refill, and with Mikaela's father riding with us, we had to stop five fragging times along the California coast to make the fragging trip home. One of those was just because her father didn't think there'd be a convenient refill, so it was insurance! This state's speed laws are not nearly permissive enough to make up for that! The design team and manufacturers should be shot!

Had he been in robot mode, Bumblebee would have winced. He knew how much Ironhide detested gasoline as a fuel, and had been wondering how well he would stand up to being forced to take in as much of it as would be required to maintain the fiction that he was nothing more than a Topkick on the way back. A Cybertronian's far more efficient converter meant he really only needed to refuel every other week, barring extensive live-fire exercises, and while he could do so more often, it wasn't encouraged. Ratchet had had a minor fit before signing off on the plan, declaring that if Ironhide didn't end up burning anything out from running too hot or with a case of carbon poisoning, it would be a miracle.

Even without the potential medical consequences, even Bumblebee, who was not nearly so choosy, could sympathize. It was one thing to tank up with gasoline, it was another to drink down far more of it than you needed or wanted, repeatedly, and then continue to operate as if on an even keel. Ironhide's fuel system had probably had to divert the stuff into his energon lines and no doubt his secondary cache system was saturated with it. From the sound of it, however, Ironhide had survived the ordeal without needing immediately to park himself in Ratchet's care (so perhaps miracles did sometimes occur), and had taken it about as well as Bumblebee might have expected him to. Which was why he asked, half-teasingly:

Trying to burn off the excess, are we? No smoking craters dotting the landscape?

The response was a line of garbage glyphs – Ironhide patching engine noise into his signal, probably growling at him. But:

Not yet. A pause, then: How's Sam?

Sam has been on the phone to Mikaela for the past – Bumblebee checked his chronometer – two hours and thirty-seven minutes. No sign of them getting off soon.

And you're not listening in? Ironhide was apparently in a tit for tat mood.

Not yet, Bumblebee said brightly back at him, though he added an icon for 'amused' before sending. Then, more seriously: How is she? How are they?

Ironhide did not respond immediately. As they'd spoken, Bumblebee had been aware of the weapons specialist closing in on his position, and now a pair of headlights flashed and then died as Ironhide killed the lights and slid in to sit at angles to Bumblebee at the curb, engine still running, though quietly. Definitely trying to work off as much of the gasoline as he could before submitting to Ratchet and the inevitable, 'Bee decided.

Hey, he sent.

Slagging speed limits, Ironhide complained once again, shifting on his shocks despite the risk of being noticed. But then: They talked last night, which is why we had to revise our ETA. They almost missed their motel's check-out time and decided to pull into a park and sleep for another few hours before we got moving again.

Good thing, 'Bee opined. You're hardly the easiest thing on the road to handle!

I'm a lot slagging easier than Ratchet's alt-mode!

Point, 'Bee conceded.

After that, the two of them sat quietly for awhile, saying nothing, just keeping watch on passive sensors. Inside, Sam and Mikaela continued their conversation, and late-night television and radio filled out the edges of Earth's airwaves. Eventually, though, Bumblebee tapped his friend's comm line again, and asked: Patrol?

You want point? Ironhide asked.

You can cover me better than I can cover you, Bumblebee replied, as he started his engine – quietly, of course, so that Sam's sleeping parents would not wake – and backed out of the driveway, angling south. He hadn't made it to the stop sign, however, before his comm line flagged an incoming text message.

Got a date?

Just patrolling, Sam, Bumblebee sent back.

O.K., came the response. How about tomorrow night? Can Ratchet patrol?

Ratchet? Bumblebee wondered. Well, of course he could – he did, actually. They all did, though Ironhide and Prime did most of it, since Ratchet had been assigned a part time position as an actual ambulance with one of the local fire units. Anything to avoid total isolation and help the Autobots earn some of their keep instead of having to depend on stipends! Besides which, as the CMO had pointed out, there was only so much Ratchet could learn about human anatomy from reading about it, and if he couldn't show himself in robot form, what better opportunity was he going to have to get any first hand data on treating injured and sick humans? Bumblebee checked the squad's schedule just to make certain tomorrow wasn't one of Ratchet's on-call nights, then sent: Sure, he can do it if you ask. Why?

Because we're having Mikaela and her grandma and dad and the Lennoxes over for dinner tomorrow, and I don't know how late that's gonna go, Sam replied.

We can manage, 'Bee assured him, adding: That sounds much more promising than last week!

Yeah, I know, Sam said, and Bumblebee thought he could almost hear the relief his ward must be feeling. They seem like they're okay.

I'm pleased to hear it.

She said to tell you 'thanks,' by the way – don't know what for, Sam informed him. 'Bee, who had his guesses, answered only:

I'm sure we'll have the chance to talk about it later. I should go – I've got Ironhide on my rear fender looking like he needs a race or a Decepticon.

Don't get leveled, was Sam's parting message, and Bumblebee gave an amused whir of his engine before checking in with his partner.

Sorry, that was Sam, he told him. Looks like Ratchet might be on patrol tomorrow night.

I heard.

You eavesdropped? Bumblebee was startled and made haste to check his logs. Usually, he could spot Ironhide...

Hardly! came the disdainful response. Mikaela called while you were talking with Sam.

Ah. The pair of them were approaching one of the main roads, and Ironhide shifted lanes, tucking himself in to Bumblebee's right, though hanging back still at about his rear wheel-well – standard covering position. And although one might expect the conversation to end at that point, Bumblebee hadn't gotten to be a spy for no reason. He debated a moment, then reopened the link to ask: Was that all she called to say?

Beside him, the weapons specialist's engine rumbled a clear No. In response, Bumblebee made his hum inquiringly and very deliberately sent open-line static Ironhide's way, clearly waiting for more.

Ironhide, for his part, gave him a deeper rumble, and blew air out his stacks, but he did reply: She called to say 'thanks.'

Which was certainly merited, and Bumblebee would've expected no less, but still... there was something more hiding in that. He knew it. He could feel it. But the light changed just then, and if they really were going to patrol, then they needed to cut the chatter and focus. Still, he couldn't resist sending: You know I'm not done with you yet, right?

Wheels, 'Bee, was Ironhide's only response.

I'm moving, Bumblebee replied and gave a disgruntled rev when he caught Ironhide's holo-avatar shake its head at him. But: You sure you're okay, 'Hide? That's all I'm asking.

There was a brief silence, then: It was a good trip. Now get yourself in gear, or I am going to level you!

There was a brief, electronic splutter, then 'Bee took a corner and shot forward, hitting the speed limit in a bare two seconds. Ironhide was right behind him, though, keeping pace easily. Sensors reached out to embrace the night and its occupants, however stealthy they might be, then Bumblebee 'squinted' as he got a ping to a sensitive door-panel with an active scan: Tag! Had he been able, he'd have blinked in surprise. It'd been awhile, he thought, since he'd seen Ironhide this playful, and they weren't even shooting at something.

I knew I liked Mikaela, 'Bee thought, even as he sent, this time over voice-com: "Welcome back, 'Hide!"

Author's notes: Ironhide's model and fuel efficiency: autoweek dot com slash apps slash pbcs dot dll slash article?AID slash 20070726 slash FREE slash 70725006 slash 1006 slash FREE

To teek: an imaginary verb that Bumblebee, in his chapter of "All That You Can't Leave Behind," invented as a very loose transliteration of the Cybertronian word for the sensation and act of feeling something with electro-magnetic sensors, since no human language had a term for this kind of sensation.