Who You Are In High School
Chapter One: Accidentally Involved
By Dreaming of Everything (or Dreams of All, or Dream it All)

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers in any way, shape or form. Even though there are an awful lot of them out there—two movies, cartoons, new cartoon, various comics, movie novelizations, etc.

Author's Notes: Okay, so this is Trent/Miles (or Miles/Trent, take your pick) slash. Yes, there's something wrong with the way my mind works. I think this is kind of my human-only Transformersverse OTP at the moment. Clearly, I am under a lot of stress.

While we're talking about pairings, the Miles/Trent comes with a side order of Sam/Mikaela, entirely free of charge. However, that's merely an incidental—this fic isn't going to focus on them as a pairing. Actually, romance in general is only one of the two main genres; the other is action/adventure. Yes, there's going to be plot mixed in with all this.

More to the point, this story came out of nowhere and blindsided me while I was innocently working on Getting to Know You, and I started writing with no real idea in mind except for this one scene that I needed to work up to (one that ended up being scrapped and then salvaged and reshaped at a later point, no less) and I still don't actually have an outline. Or much of anything else, really. We'll see what happens.

Many, many thanks to my incredible betas, mmouse and hradzaka. They are phenomenal!

And now, story.

oOoOoOo

Trent had never meant to end up following Sam Witwicky. Stalking him. And he sure as hell wasn't gay or anything. It hadn't been like that, at the beginning—he'd just been watching him, because there was something fishy about everything.

Somehow, Sam Witwicky, high school nobody, one of the biggest losers in their grade if you ignored his only friend, had ended up with a brand-new Camaro, custom-painted to match the old junker he'd only had for a few weeks at the outside, and he had this feeling that it had something to do with Mission City, but not with what Sam said or the government said—which was just fucking weird.

Sam had said that he'd gotten it to replace his old car when it had ended up crushed, but the government didn't shell out tens of thousands of extra dollars—at the very least—to buy a high school kid a car that wasn't only an improvement but a whole new order of being. Of course, ordinarily they wouldn't buy the car in the first place, but Mission City had been different. Everybody knew it was a cover-up for something.

And Sam and Mikaela—they'd never had a chance, and his hopeless sighing had been kind of funny. But all of a sudden they were closer than Mikaela had been with anyone—and he willingly included himself in that—for no real reason and, again, it had happened almost overnight. Plus, the two of them acted like they had some sort of a secret—a real one, not that thing some people ended up doing when they started dating, with the hushed giggles and in-the-hallway whispered conversations.

He hadn't liked it. Didn't like it. Something was wrong. He had a good nose for that kind of thing. And then his dad'd been pressuring him to find another girlfriend—to get Mikaela back, preferably, or someone else even hotter. His dad didn't like it when his son didn't have a good girlfriend—he'd dumped one girl because she'd been plain, even if she'd been nice. His dad liked having pictures to show around, of his son and his current 'prize,' and his friends laughed if it wasn't anyone worth having. They did the same with their own sons, and Trent knew it meant a lot to his dad. He wasn't going to say know to having a hot chick, either.

So he'd started watching the Witwicky boy, and things had just gotten stranger. Once, coming in or out of the school parking lot on his way back from lunch—open campus during breaks was his favorite part of being a senior—he'd noticed that the Witwicky's car wasn't in the parking lot, even though he could see with his own two eyes that Sam hadn't left the campus—he was eating lunch up in the bleachers with Mikaela, and they were kissing—and he could have sworn that the loser had driven to school that day. He'd checked that afternoon and, sure enough, Sam had driven back home in his bright yellow-with-stripes brand-new 2008 Camaro.

Something was off. The more he watched, the more wrong things were.

And so he'd started following him—casually, at first, to see if he could catch something that would explain what was going on. He didn't know what would explain everything, although he knew that it centered around that damn car, but then, he'd never been good at mysteries. He'd always been the sort of person left with no clue until the very, very end, when everything was spelled out. Bothered the hell out of his English teachers, that, but the dumb bitches weren't going to make a difference. He was going to college on a football scholarship, and it didn't matter if he couldn't analyze lit-ur-a-tur or not as long as he wasn't failing.

But there hadn't been anything obvious, and there hadn't been any ending in sight to make everything clear. And so he'd kept it up. He'd found some chick to replace Mikaela to keep his dad happy—she was cute enough, he guessed. She was nice, when she talked to him. He didn't talk back much—he never knew what to say. Some girls liked that. Mikaela hadn't. He'd never really known what to do with her, and when he did do something or say something, it always came out wrong. She was a lousy kisser, but whatever.

So when Sam had all but ran out of class in the middle of third period chemistry with Chalcedin, saying that he was about to be violently ill and needed to go home right now, followed minutes later by Mikaela, who said she needed to use the bathroom, Trent followed both of them, trailing the yellow car as it wove in and out of the mostly-deserted mid-morning streets, heading further and further out into the middle-of-nowhere desert surrounding the city. As he'd expected, Mikaela had headed out to meet up with Sam instead of going anywhere near the bathroom, and Sam wasn't going anywhere near his home, with Mikaela or without. It wasn't like they'd skipped school so they could go home and fuck or something, then.

So now he was speeding along behind them at a discreet distance, midmorning on a Thursday in October, without the slightest idea of what they were doing or where they were going.

He had that gut-feeling that his dad had always told him to trust, like a real man, though, and it said that he was going to get all this all figured out, today, and that was enough for him.

oOo

Sam hadn't been expecting a text message in class—the only people who had his number were his parents, Mikaela, Miles and probably the government, anyways, and it certainly wasn't going to be any of them—and especially not one from his car.

"New Autobot arrival," the message read—Sam resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the perfect grammar and spelling, no shorthand or chatspeak in sight. It was a text message, for God's sake. "We're closest. Coming?"

He passed a note to Mikaela, and then he headed out the door. To hell with school—he was going to go serve as an interstellar diplomat. Anyways, it was only right that new arrivals to earth be greeted by its native inhabitants, even if the existence of their very species was totally unknown by the vast majority of humans. He'd said as much, to Optimus, who had, to his surprise, agreed.

oOo

"The signal's disappeared," said Bumblebee suddenly.

"And what does that mean?" asked Mikaela hesitantly.

"That there's something wrong."

"Fuck," said Sam vehemently. There had been a handful of new arrivals, but they were almost invariably new Decepticon arrivals, whether under the direction of Starscream or some other 'Con, or working on their own. The one new Autobot who had appeared had been followed by, preceded by and arrived with Decepticons. New arrival plus strange circumstances had come to equal a whole hell of a lot of trouble.

"And we're being followed," continued Bumblebee. "I'm not getting a Cybertronian energy reading off of the car, but that doesn't mean that doesn't mean it's just a regular earth car. It's not inconceivable that someone could fool my scan programs."

Mikaela twisted around in her seat to look behind them. Sure enough, there was a faint plume of dust at the very edge of visibility, and a slight gleam that could be metal or glass. "How long?" she asked, as she turned back around.

"I don't know. Every one of my senses says it's just an ordinary car, and it might be—but it might not be. Anyways, it's taken me so long to notice it because it's just another earth vehicle, as far as I can tell, it's just following us. It's been behind us since before we crossed the county border, but I don't know how long before that."

"Can we lose him?" asked Sam.

"Not out here," said Mikaela. It was true—it was flat, open clear desert, nothing but a few small, scrubby trees for miles. There was nowhere to hide.

"We could try outrunning him," said Bee. "We're well above the speed limit already, but these roads are deserted; I'll sense any police before they know we're there—and if he speeds up to keep pace with us, we'll know for sure that he's after us."

"Let's do it," said Sam.

oOo

They'd been going fast already—well above the speed limit. That was okay; Trent was a good driver and had a better car. He'd been able to keep up with them.

And then they'd started really moving.

"Holy fuck," Trent said, out loud and involuntarily, as the car started accelerating. There was driving a little bit too fast, then there was speeding, then there was plain fucking stupid driving, and only then there was what they were doing. He'd only ever done the first three. That damned Camaro had to have been illegally modified, on top of everything else. He was sick with jealousy.

Resolutely, he speeded up as well. He couldn't keep up with that, but hopefully they'd slow down after a short ways. It wasn't like they could really hide, out in the desert like this.

oOo

"He's still there," said Bumblebee grimly.

"What do we do?"

"We get to where the signal came from first—if the Autobot that sent out the signal's still there, we'll have backup. And then we'll see."

oOo

Trent followed the car, and then the dust it had thrown up—it wasn't like there were any roads to turn off of, anyways, even if he couldn't keep up. They'd have to stop eventually.

And eventually they did, and he did catch up. The car had slowed down again, moving at a slower pace than it had since they'd left the city behind, as much at random as it had speeded up in the first place.

He fell back into place as far away as he could get and still have the Camaro—and with it the two people in it—clearly in his sights. He didn't want to miss anything—he was sick of this game. He'd have turned around right then and there, but he was too close, now, and it was too much of a mystery. He just wanted to have the damn thing done with.

oOo

Bumblebee slowed back down as they approached the original location of the beacon. It was hard to scan, especially accurately, at high speeds, and this wasn't a situation they wanted to be rushing into blind.

There wasn't anything showing up, but something about the situation struck him as subtly wrong, even more than the facts warranted.

He paid closer attention to his still-active scans, the most refined one. Everything was running like clockwork—this wasn't a virus, especially considering that Ratchet had just checked him over the other day. Carefully, he watched the progression of the scan.

And—there. It was skipping just a little, the tiniest bit, so slightly that it was as much instinct as actual observation that noticed the slight wobble more than a quarter of a mile in front of him and to his left.

"There's something over to the side," he said. "You should stay here, and let me transform—I can't get there as a car, and you'll be safer."

"Fine," said Sam, sounding somewhat grudging but also understanding, accepting. Even considering that he'd been the one who killed Megatron, he knew how outclassed he was—how all humans were, really—when it came to fighting the Transformers. Not that they couldn't do a considerable amount of damage to a Decepticon, but it helped when they had guns, lots of backup and Autobots to help.

Bumblebee stopped, and the two humans got out. A few short seconds later he was standing fully upright, silently thankful for the incredible remoteness of the location. Honestly, he didn't know why anyone had bothered to put a road out here at all.

oOo

Trent stared in unbelieving horror as the giant robot—the yellow giant robot—suddenly appeared on the horizon. It had been Sam's car. The Camaro that'd been haunting his sleep for months was a fuckinggiant robot. That had been a car. Jesus Christ.

He'd automatically slammed on the brake when that—that thing had appeared, and now he turned off his car, because there were some things you just couldn't deal with and drive at the same time. Still in a shocked half-daze he stumbled out of his car, and thought about running away as fast as he could in the opposite direction.

And then the robot was looking at him, and he just about wet himself.

"It's just a human," said Bumblebee to his friends, relieved that it wasn't a real threat—it wasn't a Decepticon—and worried about how to deal with this now. The Autobots were still a well-kept secret, and Optimus had given them orders to keep it that way. "I think I've seen him at your school." Probably one of the kids who tended to stare enviously, and there were a fair number of them. It was the only real benefit to driving Sam to school each day—other than the chance to spend time with him, of course.

"Who?" said Sam, sounding baffled. "Because having someone following me from school is really, really creepy."

"I had a boy stalk me once," said Mikaela, looking deeply unnerved. "It was…" She didn't finish the sentence.

"You go deal with him," suggested Bumblebee. "I'll head over there."

"Okay," said Mikaela. "Come on, Sam, let's go get this straightened out."

"Be careful," said Sam, worried, to his best friend.

"You, too."

"Give us a little credit," said Mikaela with a small smile. "Only one of us is going to end up dealing with 'Cons, after all."

The two humans and the Autobot turned and went their separate ways. Slowly, cautiously, Sam and Mikaela approached the form still standing, half-leaning against his car for support, down the road from them.

"That's Trent's car," said Mikaela, frowning slightly, as they approached.

"That's Trent," said Sam, sounding confused. "What the hell was he doing, following us?"

"Jealousy?" suggested Mikaela.

"Of what? It's not like you were going to hook back up with him, even if you weren't dating me."

"Still, were not talking about someone who's going to make sense, here. How do we explain this?"

"Can we tell him that if he ever bothers anybody in high school again we'll sic our robot on him?" Sam only half-sounded like he was joking.

"We probably owe him the truth," Mikaela said resignedly, answering her own question and ignoring Sam's.

"Yeah," Sam replied, half serious and sober and half resigned. "But how do we tell him that?"

"Slowly, and with small words." Sam laughed at Mikaela's comment. "Hey, I never said dating him was a good idea."

"Mikaela? Witwicky?" said Trent as the two approached him. "What… What—?"

"That was Bumblebee," said Sam with a sigh. "My best friend."

Trent looked lost, confused, horrified, disbelieving.

"He's an Autobot," Sam continued. "And he's here fighting Decepticons, who want to kill or enslave all of humanity and then strip the earth's resources. He's helped save the world from them, including your sorry ass. The question is, what are you doing here?"

"I was following you," said Trent. The other two humans waited for him to continue, but he didn't explain himself any further.

"Because…?" prompted Mikaela.

"Something was wrong!" Trent blurted out. "I didn't know it was giant robots! Oh God, please don't let it kill me."

"He isn't going to kill you," said Mikaela, irritated.

"Or any other humans," Sam added. "Much as I sometimes wish otherwise."

"'He?'" asked Trent, clinging to the little details like a life raft. "Jesus Christ, they have dicks?"

"No, they have personalities," explained Sam, voice heavy with pretend-patience and irritation. "He is a person, and so we don't refer to him as an 'it.'"

"They? How many…?"

"Six Autobots," said Sam promptly. "Maybe seven now—that's why we're here. We don't know how many Decepticons."

"And… Those are the ones who want to kill humanity. Jesus-fucking-Christ. The government?"

"They know, and they're helping to keep the secret. So this isn't something you can tell anyone. Parents, best friends, girlfriends—Optimus Prime or the Secretary of Defense have to approve the person before you do." Not technically true, but everyone currently 'in the know'—Sam and Mikaela and their parents, Maggie, Glen, the Lennoxes, the highest-up government officials—wasn't likely to go blabbing secrets around to anyone and everyone. Sam didn't trust Trent's discretion.

"Oh God," Trent whimpered again. Mikaela sighed heavily.

"Oh, deal with it. Most of the Autobots are better people than you will ever be, and—and Sam, why is Bumblebee coming back?"

"He's running," Sam said, suddenly worried. "He's… Oh, shit! Mikaela, run!" Reacting on pure instinct and adrenaline, Sam pushed Mikaela to one side and tackled Trent, dragging the boy down to the ground with him as something metallic flashed past them, whirring as it went. There was a small explosion a ways away as it hit the ground.

And then there was another, much large explosion as Bumblebee shot at the slightly blocky, vicious looking robot that had attacked them in the first place. Sam couldn't see how much damage the shot had caused—the dust it threw up covered the scene. Carefully, slowly, he began to pull himself off of Trent. Mikaela's hand gripped at his shoulder, looking for reassurance.

"Ambush," said Bumblebee grimly, standing over the humans protectively. "Be careful. This isn't all the surprises they have in store."

"And the signal?" asked Sam, still huddled on the ground, to present less of a target.

"An Autobot, a new one. He's dead now, I think. I couldn't get a good look at him to be sure, though. We have more immediate problems. And something's blocking all of my transmissions—I can't get through to anyone else."

Trent screamed. Sam's head whipped around, to catch sight of another Transformer—another Decepticon—appearing from over the crest of a hill. And another, and another. They spread out, encircling the group, all incredibly silent.

Bumblebee's cannons were fully charged, both of them, and he swung around to follow the circling robots. All of them were small—smaller than Jazz, not big enough to be cars when they were transformed—and all of them were the same dull red color, the shade of half-dried blood.

A sixth slipped into the circle, this one shaped like an animal, more like the Decepticon that had attacked Will, Epps and the rest of his team out in the desert than like an Autobot. A smaller Transformer followed it, not much bigger than Frenzy had been. Somewhere between waist and chest high on an average human—it was hard to tell, from where Sam was, sprawled on the ground.

"Kill the humans last," he ordered, voice flat. Bumblebee spat out something in Cybertronian, probably a curse, and Sam broke out in a cold sweat. Bee couldn't defend himself properly while he was protecting them, and the one giving the orders—funny that he was the smallest of the group, some part of his mind whispered—knew that, and was going to use it to kill him.

"Oh God, I'm going to die," Trent gasped. For the first time, one of the robots surrounding them snickered, breaking the eerie silence briefly before it returned.

One of the robots feinted, and Bumblebee shot; there was a wave of dust that billowed into the air, blowing slightly away from them on the faint breeze, and the three humans flinched. The robot reappeared out of one side of it, staggering before he righted himself and resumed his pacing, limping slightly and leaking a little fluid from one still-smoking shoulder.

Each of Sam's hands was being held tightly, one by Mikaela and one by Trent. Sam squeezed back just as tightly as they were holding onto him. For once, he really might die. This might be the end of everything. He trusted Bumblebee, with his life and everything else, but this was an impossible situation, a nightmare scenario. They were badly outnumbered without a good way to defend themselves, with no backup and no way to call for it, in the middle of nowhere.

At some unspoken command, there was another brief flurry of attacks. There was the roar of Transformer cannons and a brief metallic screech, and Bumblebee kicked away the crumpled but still flailing body of the 'Con he had hit. The badly injured robot crawled back over to the leader, who was still standing to one side. He hissed angrily over the body of his damaged subordinate. Bumblebee stiffened—

And then it was chaos, a flurry of metallic forms surrounding them, a writhing, impenetrable wall. Sam kicked, hard as he could, at a body that pressed too close, keeping a slash at his face with a bladed hand from doing any more damage than a thin cut; besides him, Trent was doing the same, and Mikaela.

The noise was suddenly increased tenfold as the deeper, more resonant sound of the big guns the full-sized Transformers had joined in the chaotic mess of noises. Sam felt something in him despair—they were being aimed at them. There were more Decepticons. He crushed himself further against the other two humans, backing away from the attackers as much as there was room, and then had the sudden, brief impression of lips pressing against his—and they weren't Mikaela's, some part of him realized—before the ground was falling away underneath him and he was suddenly far, far above the ground, being held by Bumblebee—he could see enough of the hand and its paint to recognize him.

Then they were moving. He was being held cradled in that one hand, against Bee's chest; he couldn't see what had happened. "Mikaela?" he yelled, panicked for one moment before he relaxed, a little—Bumblebee wouldn't leave Mikaela behind, no matter what—but there wasn't any response. The Autobot holding him was either too preoccupied to answer, or couldn't hear him, or both.

There was another explosion, close by, and Bumblebee jerked a little, half-tripped. Sam was jolted painfully, but he knew that it couldn't have hurt him as badly as whatever had happened had to have hurt his friend.

It felt like he'd been in the hand a minor eternity, but he knew that it probably wasn't any longer than a minute. The midday SoCal desert sunshine was painfully bright against his eyes as the hand was carefully drawn back. He was set gently on the desert floor. Mikaela and Trent were deposited next to him, not nearly so gently, and Sam threw back his head to look at the Autobots who'd been carrying them. There were two of them, much taller than Bee, one bright golden yellow and the other red.

"Funny looking things," said the red one brightly. "Giving you a hell of a problem, too."

Bumblebee bristled slightly. Sam probably would have said something himself, and Mikaela might have as well, but he was still far too shaken. His mouth was bone dry, and his breath was coming slightly hard.

"That 'funny-looking thing,'" Bumblebee said, voice remarkably pointed, "Killed Megatron. He's braver than most Autobots I've known."

"It did? Really?" the yellow one said, sounding incredulous.

Sam ignored him and his pronouns. "Mikaela?" he asked, standing slowly and making his way over to kneel next to her. "Are you okay?"

She moaned faintly. "Mikaela?" Sam said again, more urgently. This time, she stirred slightly, then rolled onto her back. Her shirt was riding up, revealing what looked like the beginnings of painful bruising. Sam hissed.

"Ngh. Sam," Mikaela said, voice a little breathy with pain and lost wind. "What happened?"

"We ended up with backup after all. Newcomers. Are you okay?"

"I'll live," she winced, looking increasingly more alert. "Next time someone's carrying me, though, I'd like someone who doesn't squeeze that hard, if it's all the same. Ow."

Sam glared at the two new ones.

"Sunny," said the red one reproachfully, "you should be more careful. Now the little guy's going to try something rash." Sure enough, Bee was looking minutes away from jumping one or the other of the two. Or both.

"Don't call me that," the other muttered darkly back.

"Trent's bleeding," said Bumblebee, deciding to follow Sam's approach and ignore the other two. "I've contacted Ratchet and he's on the way here—he's got an army medic with him, and we've been told to leave him here, and try to stop the bleeding. Ratchet's going to look at the Autobot they used to signal their presence here."

"So com lines are back on?" asked Sam.

"Yes," confirmed Bumblebee, but before he could say anything more the red Autobot interrupted him.

"There was another Autobot here?" he said, voice intense. The other was watching Bumblebee for his reply with just as much focus.

"Yes," said Bumblebee. "He looked like he was in bad shape. I'm not sure if he's still activated."

The two didn't even bother responding, striding off in the direction Bumblebee had indicated with his hands while he'd been talking.

"Huh," said Bee, before turning his attention back to the humans. He crouched down, to get closer to them.

Sam and Mikaela had shakily made their way to their feet, and wobbled their way over to Trent together. They were feeling considerably more charitable when it came to him—life-and-death situations seemed to do that, they'd realized.

"What can we use for bandages?" Mikaela asked, hovering over his prone form. One of the Decepticons had managed to tear a large gash into his side, and his breathing was harsh. His eyes were unfocused with the pain. Wordlessly, Sam pulled off his shirt and passed it to her. She hesitated for just a second before she pressed it against the wound.

Trent flinched as his eyes focused on Bumblebee.

"It's okay," the Autobot said lowly, voice as soothing as he could make it. Carefully, he reached out and touched the boy, gently. Trent shuddered, but didn't react any more than that. Bumblebee had protected him throughout the battle, had been the only shelter that he—that any of them—had had.

The four stayed like that, all silent except for sometimes Trent, for a few long moments. After a while Bumblebee looked up; after another moment the humans could hear the noise that had caught his attention, a repetitive clanging.

After a minute a blur on the horizon resolved itself into a muddled blob, and then the two Autobots who'd rescued them, supporting a third, shorter Autobot between the two of them—Sam guessed that he was the one whose signal had been used by the Decepticons. The clanging was one of the short one's legs, bumping rhythmically into the red one with each step.

The odd trio made their way back over to the group.

"What's the situation?" asked Bee, voice strictly professional.

"We don't know him, but we got some of the situation from him before he slipped into partial recharge," said the red one. "It's light's-on-nobody-home, right now. He's just going through the motions."

Bumblebee carefully didn't say 'Yes, but what is 'the situation'?'

"He's got isolation issues," the newcomer continued finally. "And the Decepticons cut the wires to all his sensory arrays except for touch. That's why we're all cozied up like this—Primus knows it's not comfortable. Damn kid keeps on hitting me. The only communication arrays he's got right now are the long-distance numbers, and that's how we got this much information.

"There's not much else, though—he's lost vocal speech and short-distance com lines and centers; his self-repair's shot to hell and back, to the point where he's lucky he's not growing extra limbs or something; the injuries you can see for yourself, plus some internal issues; a few subroutine malfunctions; probably some other things on top of all that."

Bumblebee whistled. "It's bad. Is there someone you are looking for, though? You seemed awfully interested in going to check the situation out."

"Nobody in particular," said the red one casually, glancing across at his companion. "Hey, we never did introduce ourselves. I'm Sideswipe, and this is Sunstreaker. Twins."

"Bumblebee," said the spy, introducing himself. "That's Sam, Mikaela and Trent."

"Like I'm going to bother learning squishy organic names," said Sunstreaker dismissively. Bumblebee growled.

"This has to be too much blood," said Mikaela, sounding slightly panicked. "Bee, how long until Ratchet's here?"

"Not much longer," he reassured them. "He doesn't need to worry about speed limits."

"Red's such a weird color for internal fluids," Sideswipe said, shifting his grip on the Autobot he was holding so he could lean over the small huddle of teenagers. Sam spared a quick glance overhead.

"Shut up, please," he said, before he turned his attention back to the still-bleeding boy on the ground in front of him.

"Watch it," rumbled Sunstreaker, the yellow one, from the other side of the slumped Autobot. "Sideswipe, you're going to end up scraping gray paint all over me, and don't talk back to my brother, human."

Bumblebee stood with a sudden clanging of metal against metal. "I don't think you understand the situation," he said loudly. "Either of you. Here on earth, Cybertronians are the minority. The vast minority. This is not our planet, this is not our country, this is not any sort of situation where we should press our advantage. We are here asguests, nothing more."

"And friends," interjected Mikaela distractedly, voice strained. "Sam, would you take Trent's hand? He's holding on too hard." Sam took Trent's unoccupied hand, somewhat reluctantly, wincing as the other boy's larger hand clenched around his. He didn't complain, though—he couldn't imagine how much pain Trent was suffering. Slowly, carefully, Mikaela eased her hand out of his hold.

"There is nothing that makes us superior to humanity in any way," Bumblebee continued. "I say it, the rest of the Autobots here say it, Optimus Prime says it; he owes his life to Sam. If you disagree with that, I'm sure that Starscream or some other Decepticon would be glad to have you join their cause. Probably not the ones you just helped me escape from—I doubt they'd be willing to take you, now."

Sunstreaker unceremoniously dumped his share of the not-conscious Autobot's weight on Sideswipe, striding forward to tower over Bee's ramrod-straight form. Both stood aggressively, unwilling to stand down, and Sunstreaker towered over the smaller Autobot.

"Are you implying that we're traitors?" hissed Sunstreaker.

"I'm just saying that you seem to follow Decepticon values more closely than Autobot ones," Bee snapped back, voice dangerous. Sam and Mikaela watched the two nervously.

"'Streaker," said Sideswipe warningly, looking at him seriously. "Don't. We'llreally need to join the 'Cons if we attack an Autobot within an hour of landing on Earth. And hey, he might be right—and you do end up giving the impression of being a condescending bastard when people first meet you. Probably 'cause you are."

"It's okay, Bee," Sam said. "I don't particularly care what anyone says about humanity right now, really. I just don't want another fight." Mikaela nodded vigorously.

Slowly, carefully, the two backed away from each other. The two uninjured humans relaxed visibly.

"Here, you take this guy, okay?" asked Sideswipe after another minute, to Bee. "You're more the same height, it won't be as uncomfortable as this is."

"Fine," said Bumblebee slowly, rising to his feet.

"Don't bother getting up," said Sideswipe, handing the only-barely-responsive Autobot to Bumblebee. The still-unnamed newcomer clung.

"Oof," said Bee, surprised. "He really is having trouble, isn't he?"

"Yeah, I dunno what—is that that Ratchet person you were talking about?"

"Yes," Bumblebee replied instantly, relief clear in his voice. "Good. Good. He'll have the human medic with him, and this one needs urgent care as well."

"Good," said Mikaela vaguely. Then, a non-sequitor, "I'm covered in blood." Sam reached across Trent to take a hold of one her hands with the hand he still had free.

Ratchet was there within thirty seconds. He pulled to a hurried stop, and a human Sam and Mikaela didn't recognize jumped out almost before he'd fully halted. Ratchet was transforming as soon as the woman was out of his door.

The human medic bent to examine Trent. Mikaela and Sam backed away to give him room, Sam forcing his numb fingers out of Trent's still-grasping hand as he went. Silently, they watched the medic work, waiting anxiously.

"It missed anything essential," said the medic at last. "He'll live. He needs a hospital, though—I need to get him back to the base."

Mikaela and Sam both relaxed. Trent was a jerk, and he'd been half-stalking them, but he was still human. He'd been one of them, too, when they'd all been huddling beneath Bee while he fought off the team of Decepticons. There hadn't been time to think of petty grudges, or of high school football team misogyny.

They turned to watch Ratchet, who was working on the still-unresponsive Autobot clinging to Bumblebee, who was sitting patiently on the ground and moving as Ratchet told him too, so that the medic could reach one part or another of the other.

Cautiously, the new human moved over to where Ratchet was working. After a second, he looked up. "Can I help you?" he asked, still distracted.

"Yes," said the woman. "I need to get the injured one to somewhere with medical facilities."

"Have one of them take you," the medic said, indicating Sideswipe and Sunstreaker with a toss of his head. "I need to get this one stabilized and then conscious—or reactionary, at least, he's not actually unconscious—before we go. He's too big for me to carry."

She frowned slightly. "Okay," she said, a bit hesitant. "It would be better if you took us—sirens—but this will work."

Ratchet looked over at the two newcomers. "Which one of you takes the humans?" he said, glancing between the two.

"He does," said Sunstreaker.

"I do," said Sideswipe, just a split second after his brother started speaking. He started transforming, rolling gently over to where Trent still lay on the ground. Together, the humans tried their best to help Trent into the car as gently as they could.

There was a brief conundrum as they realized that, with Trent sprawled in the backseat, there was only room for two other humans.

"Fine," growled Sunstreaker, even though nobody had said anything. He transformed as well. When none of the humans walked over to him he pulled up besides Sideswipe and popped open a door, making his point obvious.

"I'll go," said Sam.

"Me too," said Mikaela, voice clearly extremely doubtful, still clinging to his hand. Sam was glad for that—he didn't want to let go, either. Mission City hadn't been this—bloody, and the danger hadn't been so unexpected.

They were off within minutes, the two cars—matching Lamborghinis and damn fine cars, Mikaela thought with some distracted, shock-riddled corner of her mind, even if the one they were in had bruised most of her body, from her upper thighs to her chest—speeding down the road at speeds high enough to make Sam a little nervous. Not that Bee was much slower, sometimes, but that was different. With Bee, it wasn't just a car—well, an Autobot—moving too fast.

"Do you know where we're going?" said Mikaela hesitantly, after a minute. There was a pointed, preoccupied silence for a few minutes.

"—the medic's given me coordinates," Sunstreaker said at last. Sam had the distinct feeling that he'd just finished getting them. Silence fell again.

"I hope Trent's okay," said Mikaela, and then burst into tears. Despite himself, and despite reminding himself that the crying, at least, was probably stress, Sam felt distinctly jealous as he held his sobbing girlfriend.

"Sorry," sniffled Mikaela into his shoulder. "It's just, oh God, Sam, I really thought we were going to die." She fell silent abruptly, glancing swiftly about the cabin of the car they were in, as if she was suddenly conscious of who was obviously listening in.

"I know," he whispered softly, and he held her closer.

It was quiet for another long stretch of road that flashed past the car windows, blurring with speed. Any cop that had seen them would have had a coronary, but the military base the Autobots were currently using was in just as isolated a spot as the place the ambush had taken place was. The roads were deserted—and it was still, Sam noted with a detached feeling of surprise, the middle of the day on a sunny October Thursday. He felt like something more noticeable should have changed—it was like going home after Mission City, kind of, only less so.

Sam was surprised when they pulled up at the gates of the military complex. He was more surprised when they were let in without a fuss, both them and Sideswipe and his passenger, in front of them. He supposed that one of the gate guards must have recognized him and Mikaela or the medic, whatever her name was, or that Ratchet or Bee must have radioed their arrival in, or both.

Sunstreaker pulled to a halt as soon as they were inside the main hall of the still-being-constructed Autobot section of the base, doors popping open decisively. Sam and Mikaela, both feeling suddenly exhausted as the adrenaline wore off, dragged themselves out and into the cool air of the huge room. Most of the structure was underground; the buildings it would take to hold the Autobots would be highly noticeable above ground, and that had the possibility of raising questions among people who didn't need to have them answered.

"My interior iscovered with organic fluid," he announced as he transformed. "This is revolting."

"It's blood," said Sam, voice heavy with exhaustion. "Not just any organic fluid."

Ironhide materialized out of the far doorway on the other side of the room, both cannons fully transformed. He glared at Sunstreaker before he turned to look at the two humans, and once he did his eyes snapped right back up to the golden-yellow Autobot.

"What happened?" he demanded, voice dangerous. "Sam, Mikaela, what's going on?"

"It's not ours," said Mikaela immediately, realizing what the problem was: they were both covered in blood. "It's Trent's—he goes to our school, he's my ex-boyfriend. He realized something was wrong, mostly out of paranoia and jealousy, I think, and decided to follow us when we left school to investigate a new Autobot arrival.

"There was an Autobot, but he'd been attacked by Decepticons, who used his symbol and then attacked us. There was a lot of them—seven, I think, all working together. Bee was stuck, trying to defend the three of us. Trent got cut when they rushed us, and we probably would have all died, but Sunstreaker and another, Sideswipe, showed up and fought them off. They all escaped, I think. Sideswipe's headed to the base hospital to drop off Trent, who's with a human medic Ratchet brought. Ratchet's still back where all this happened, far as I know, with the Autobot the 'Cons were using and Bumbebee."

"Right," said Ironhide, still eyeing Sunstreaker. His expression was mostly doubtful, but the word really didn't cover the amount of trouble it promised if something went wrong and 'Hide had reason to think that Sunstreaker had caused it.

"Cannons away, Ironhide," said Optimus Prime crisply as he walked in. "Welcome to the current Autobot base. Your name…?"

"Sunstreaker," replied the Autobot. Ironhide glared. "Sir," he added, slightly belatedly but not nearly as grudgingly as Sam would have expected from him.

"Nice to meet you, then, Sunstreaker. You got the transmission I sent?"

"Yes—has anyone else responded?"

"Someone you're looking for? Well, there's only been one other Autobot arrival." Nobody in the room missed how Sunstreaker stiffened. "His name's Wheeljack—he's a scientist. If you're interested in talking to him, he's currently in his lab on the base, I believe. Other than that, the only person—other than the humans—you haven't met is Jazz, who's in Seattle right now. He should be back in a week's time."

"Um," said Sam, after Optimus had finished. "I'm going to go get clean clothes on, okay? I'm covered in Trent's blood."

"Yes," said Mikaela, voice clearly saying that she wanted a shower more than she'd ever wanted anything else in her entire life.

"You don't look very good," said Optimus. "When you feel up to it, I'd appreciate it if you'd give me a full version of the events."

"Yes, sir," said Sam, before turning to wander in the direction of the Autobot areas designed and outfitted for their human friends and guests. He'd known leaving a change of clothes here had been a good idea. Installing showers had been an even better one, possibly even better than putting in beds.

oOo

Ratchet had managed to get a temporary patch on the worst of the wounds, and closed the internal leak. That had been second priority; first priority had been to fix the self-repair functions. Sometime later he'd probably have to partially dismantle the Autobot's right arm and leg to file off some of the extra metal that had built up while program had been malfunctioning. Thankfully, it hadn't gotten far, but it had been close.

The glitches in his programming would have to wait until he was at a location with more delicate, subtler tools—it wasn't field work. Still, they weren't immediately threatening his life.

Now it was time to connect the sensory wires that had been cut. Whatever had done it had been sharp, and the cutter had been precise—not much else was damaged, and the cut was clean. Good; that made Ratchet's job much easier.

He spliced the wires leading to visuals together first, watching and waiting as the optics flickered and jumped and then finally stilled and brightened. They flicked around for a few panicked seconds, taking in the situation, before the mech relaxed, slightly loosening his grip on Bumblebee, although he didn't entirely let go. Odd—most Transformers weren't extremely tactile, as a rule. Certainly not when it came to complete strangers.

Satisfied that everything had worked properly, he reattached hearing second. Once his sensors were showing it as working well enough that the 'Bot could hear, he got Bee started on explaining the situation.

Speech lines were next. They'd been cut first, considerably before the others—before the system had shorted, the repair program had tried to reconnect them, and someone had cut out a whole section of the bundle of wires. It took longer than the others had to fix, and he had to file down the small metal scabs that had formed on the ends of some of the wires, which made it take even longer. It was dull, fidgety work, the sort of thing you made apprentices do—or what you used to make apprentices do, back when there had been the Autobots, the facilities and the time for real apprenticeship programs.

The sudden crackle and hiss of broken Cybertronian, just syllables and fragments as the speech center began to reorient itself, made Bee jump and the newcomer cringe as the yellow Autobot jostled him, scraping something against one of his still-fragile wounds. After a minute the words settled back down, but they weren't in English.

"Who are you? What's going on? What happened? Where am I?" he asked, voice quick and frantic.

"Whoah there," responded Bee. "I've been trying to explain. Haven't you been listening? Or are your audio receptors still offline?" Not that asking would help, if they were—he wouldn't be able to hear the question.

"You have? I couldn't understand. It's an odd sort of language—so flat and atonal. Where are we?"

"Haven't you downloaded the local language?" asked Bee, perplexed.

"No," said the Autobot.

Ratchet groaned, and responded before he could say anymore. "Right. Disabled communications arrays—you can't receive anything, can you? That will take longer to fix, it's not just a simple patch, like the others—they really got you. We use the local language regularly, here, which is why Bumblebee here was using it. There's a local information network, and it's pretty easy to figure out. The planet is called 'earth,' regionally. I don't think it has a Cybertronian name—it's very remote. The planet's full of life, all organic. The dominant life form and the only sentient species are humans—show him a holo, Bee? You'll probably end up meeting some of them once we get you back to our current base, even before I have time to get your comm. systems fixed, and I don't want you surprised too badly, or reacting wrong. You did get Optimus Prime's message, right?"

"Yes, I did—What's your name? I got Bumblebee's, but not yours. Oh! I'm Bluestreak. Um, thank you for letting me hold you, but it's fine if you have me let go now, I'll be fine—really, I should have been fine before, but it was all kind of getting to me…"

Ratchet resisted the urge to snort. It hadn't just been 'getting to him'—that had been a full-blown panic attack and then some. And the way he was reacting now spoke of long-term issues and coping mechanisms. Now wasn't the time to bring that up, though. Later.

"I'm Ratchet," he said. "Medic, like you probably gathered. If you're ready to go, we can head back to the base."

"Okay," said Bluestreak, sounding just slightly hesitant. "…I don't have an alt. form for here yet." Ratchet sighed.

"It figures. I should have planned on this… At least it's still midday on a workday. That gives us an advantage—we're less likely to be seen. Bumblebee, where's the nearest car dealership?"

--End chapter 1--