Who You Are
Chapter Two: Settling In
By Dreaming of Everything

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers in any way, shape or form.

Author's Notes: It's hard to write people who need to come across as totally irrational for reasonable reasons, especially when they need to be only slightly dickish.

I'm upping the rating on this to M for language—and yes, I suppose there's the possibility of sex scenes later on. A further warning: there are homophobic slurs in this chapter, because it's hard to write this version of Trent without them.

This is about half the material I had planned to put in this section, but this chapter just kept on sitting and sitting in my hard drive without being added to, and I figured my subconscious was trying to tell me something.

As always, tons of thanks to my beta, mmouse15! And thanks to Daya-chan, who's just awesome, and was also the one who gave me the drive to start working on this chapter again!

oOoOoOo

Trent came to in a room he'd never seen before, with pretty much his whole body aching in that numb way that spoke of heavy painkillers.

He could see the ceiling and the tops of the walls from where he was lying, and a human body to the left of him, just out of the side of the eye. More to the point, he couldn't see any giant robots, which—was good, he guessed, but still not as calming as it could have been. For all he knew, the fucking bed he was lying on turned into one of the things. He was just glad he couldn't see any machinery, or any electronics, in the room.

After a minute he turned his head, slowly and cautiously and still in a way that sent spikes of pain down his spine, to look at the person next to him. His eyes narrowed into a cold glare as he realized it was Sam Witwicky.

He stopped glaring after a minute, once he realized the other boy was asleep, head half-propped on a pillow, one arm dangling down. It didn't make much sense to keep on doing it.

On the other hand, it did make him even more nervous about the transforming robots. He knew Sam—Witwicky—Sam was in this deep. His car… It explained that crazy speed he'd seen, before he'd been shredded by the evil robots.

And that pain had to be from that. Yeah, he could remember it now—everything had gone hazy. He vaguely remembered holding somebody's hands—maybe two people's—with those giants looming above them, faces unreadable and their voices, everyone's voices, too much for him to make out words through the pain.

He'd thought he was going to die. God, he'd really thought it. He almost had. They all almost had: him, Mikaela, Sam, and the giant Camaro-robot-thing.

Holy fuck.

He was seventeen, and he'd thought about joining the army. It would mean that he'd be able to stop worrying about getting a sports scholarship or what sort of school his grades would get him into, and his dad would like it. He was all for the army—or the Marines, even better. He said it separated the men from the boys.

Trent knew which one he was supposed to be.

But then, he'd just come closer to dying than his dad ever had. He hadn't done much other than whimpered, but he hadn't cut and run. He'd stayed to face the things—stayed and tried to push them away as well as he'd been able.

He'd thought about joining the army, but he'd never really thought about how that might mean he might actually die. Or he had, but he hadn't thought that facing death would—be like that.

Trent started as the door opened and instantly regretted it. The movement pulled hard on his stitches, and the world went blurry for a minute as he gasped.

"Oh. You're awake." Mikaela blinked at him, looking tired, dark bags underneath her eyes. "How do you feel?"

Her voice was remarkably quiet, remarkably soft, considering that the last time they'd talked they'd all thought they were about to die, and the time before that she'd split up with him, angrily and publicly.

That had been the main joke on the team for a full week, and it would have been for longer but they'd caught some loser with girl's panties in his bag.

"Like shit," he muttered, through a mouth that didn't want to move right.

"Sorry… And you, Sam?" Mikaela asked, moving closer. Understanding crossed her face as she saw him, and she smiled, slow and sweet and loving. Trent stopped mattering at all for those few seconds. He just wasn't there. Mikaela walked over and ran a hand through her boyfriend's hair, stopping on his shoulder and rubbing it gently. "Sam, you awake?"

"Hngh? Oh—Mikaela. Five more minutes…"

"So," Mikaela said after a minute, pulling out another chair and sitting down. "Autobots. Guess you're part of the secret, now."

"Yeah."

"Don't tell anyone," she said, voice still quiet to keep from waking Sam up, but tone harsh.

"Who the hell would believe me?" he snapped back, glaring.

"It—Hushing up Mission City wasn't easy. The Autobots have a program running full-tilt all the time dedicated just to finding and removing, subtly, conspiracy theories about it that cut too close to the truth. We're still afraid someone's going to find out."

"How many?"

"How many what, conspiracy theories?" She paused slightly. "Oh, Autobots. Well… Five originally. Jazz died at Mission City, but they managed to revive him two months ago or so. Then Wheeljack, then the three new ones that just arrived. You might remember two of them—one yellow, one red. They're the only reason we're still alive. Then there's a third. He was the bait that lured us—Sam, Bee and I—out there in the first place." She scowled suddenly. "I can't believe you were following us!"

There was a long pause. "…But I guess it's okay," she said at last. "I'm really sorry."

"It's not your fault," Trent said, half absent-mindedly, eyes wandering over the blank room. "Where am I?"

"Some secret government base."

"You're joking."

"Honest to God, I swear. I know—it's like being in a, an action movie, or a sci-fi one. It's—crazy. It makes school even more boring than I thought possible." Her eyes were bright with laughter and excitement, and Trent knew that she'd never looked this happy when they were dating. His eyes flicked quickly to the still-sleeping Sam and back to her, and he bit back his desperate confession: 'I kissed your boyfriend. I don't fucking know why, okay? So don't ask me. I'm not gay!'

He wasn't. He couldn't be. That was for people like Max Dursham, who wouldn't shower after PE until everyone else was done, and who locked himself in a bathroom stall to change. And Mr. Kenting, who dressed in neat pull-over vests and button-down shirts, smiled too big at his students and hadn't married or even dated in the twenty years he'd lived in town. Dustin Hoffner, on the wrestling team, who spent too much time with and stood too close to pretty-boy chess-team-player Kevin Adams. It was for ugly chicks who didn't put out and man-hating feminists—feminazis, his dad called them, when he was with his buddies.

It wasn't him. He'd dated girls, and fucked them. He watched porn. He was on the football team, and he didn't look at boys. He didn't sigh over them and cut out their pictures and paste them in his binders, like Victor Hayes or that little freshman with the zits. He'd never jerked off to anything with a dick. He wasn't gay.

He'd just—it'd been fear. He'd been confused. It had been—hell, who knew. But he wasn't gay. It wasn't because he wanted Sam fucking Witwicky. He knew that.

Hell. He'd dated his girlfriend.

Mikaela interrupted the silence that had fallen. "I guess you'll have to get to know them."

"Who—Oh shit, the robots? Fuck no!"

"They're not that bad," she said, looking amused, and Trent flushed angrily. After a minute, she continued. "Bumblebee just saved your life, you know."

"—yeah," he said, reluctantly. He knew. He remembered.

"Well, I say 'just,' but that was two days ago, now. It's Saturday."

"What?" Trent yelped, then hissed, suddenly in pain again.

"Yeah, you've been drugged pretty heavily. Actually, the doctor said you probably wouldn't wake up for another day, at least—guess she was wrong there. And don't worry about your parents. The government's gone all paranoid so they haven't told them the truth, for now at least, but they've made some sort of excuse for you. You'll get the cover story explained to you before you head home."

"—so they won't just keep me here?"

"Nope. I guess it's not entirely like a bad movie. …Well, you'll be here for a while, actually. Just a few more days, and then you'll stay a while at the Autobot base. I don't know how long. And no human experimentation either, I promise—or alien experimentation, for that matter."

"With all the robots?"

"Yes. You'll like them, I can't imagine anyone not liking them. …And you don't believe me, do you. Oh well. But like I said, Bumblebee just saved your life. Our lives. And he risked killing himself to do it. He'd have been fine if he hadn't been protecting us—if nothing else, he could have cut and run, if it had just been him out there. But he stood still, to keep us safe, to give us at least a little protection."

Trent shivered again.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, after a while.

"Sam and I, we've been taking turns watching over you." She smiled, voice dry as she continued: "We figured that having someone you knew explain what happened would be a little bit easier."

"The—robot-things that attacked us?"

"Decepticons. Do you remember the little one?" Trent shook his head. "He's called Soundwave. He—controls the others, kind of. They're all sort of attached to him. Like, they're almost a part of him, but they can go wherever they want, without him being near—and he still knows what they do, and can give them orders. It makes him… Dangerous. More than they would be otherwise. He's some sort of master tactician, too."

Trent shivered.

"We're on our guard now, but he will be, too. That's part of the reason it's best you stay here."

He couldn't think of anything to say to that.

There was a long pause.

"I'm really tired."

"Go to sleep, then."

He did.

oOo

When he woke up again, Sam was there, not asleep this time. He looked bored, but his expression switched to pissy as he realized that Trent was awake.

"Finally," Sam said. "Took your own sweet time, didn't you?"

Pissy was a good word for it.

Trent thought about saying something like 'What's it to you, Witwicky?' or 'Mikaela not putting out?' or even a nice, straightforward 'Fuck you,' but he remembered Sam's car—he wouldn't piss off someone with friends like that—and also he remembered the way they'd cowered together, fearing for their lives (he remembered kissing him) and how he'd been spending hours besides his bed waiting for him to wake up, so that Trent would have someone to explain things to him.

He wondered what Sam remembered.

He just shut up his fool mouth for once (that's what his grandmother would say, his mother's mother, and then she'd smack him, when he was younger. His paternal grandmother called him Ben and asked him why he wasn't still at camp—.) because he didn't know what else to say.

The kiss hung heavy in the room, making his body feel leaden—or the painkillers were.

"We're moving you out of here today," Sam said, sounding sullen, looking pointedly away from him, to one side. "You'll be on the base for a while, though."

"Yeah," Trent muttered, even though he didn't want to leave this quiet, empty room for some place full of alien robots.

There was a long silence.

"Look," Sam said, roughly and abruptly. "I know, you were trying to kiss Mikaela, whatever, I thought I was going to die too—"

He caught the strangely too-strong relief that flashed across Trent's face. "What, you thought I was going to hit you or something?" he demanded. "I'm not saying I didn't think about it—"

"The hell you could!" Trent snarled back without thinking.

"What, then?" Sam demanded glaring back, not even bothering to mention that Trent was bedridden and wounded. They both knew it, anyways.

"I— It's nothing! It's just what you thought! I just… Just wanted to kiss a girl one more time before I died!"

"She's not just 'a girl,' she's her own person! And my girlfriend!"

"I thought I was going to die! —And hell, just fuck off, Witwicky! I don't need your damn permission!"

Sam drew breath for another angry reply.

"Am I interrupting something?" a nurse asked, coolly professional, from the doorway. Trent flushed dramatically and Sam turned around, movements jerky and stalked towards the doorway.

"Not at all," he muttered to her as he passed.

oOo

Sam didn't know what to tell Mikaela. About the kiss. He knew he had to—and he would, eventually. Very soon, actually. He owed it to her—because Trent was just as much her problem as his. More, actually, because, loathe to admit it as Sam was, Mikaela was the one Trent was interested in, out of the two of them.

He just wasn't… Quite sure how to breach the matter with her, yet.

And it didn't help that he was still jealous. Really, really jealous. Because Trent was a jerk, and didn't even have a cooler car anymore, but he was still the one Mikaela had dated previous to the whole 'saving the world thing.' And maybe he was being stupid, but he had been an utter loser throughout the whole of high school, damn it! He had the right to be emotionally needy.

oOo

Mikaela sighed heavily.

The move from the government base to the Autobot base—a fine distinction that mostly had to do with the size of the furniture—had gone off without any—well, without many hitches, which was enough for her, at this point.

Trent was one of the hitches.

At least tomorrow Maggie would arrive, and the two of them—Sam and her—would have someone else to fob Trent off on. And considering the way Maggie looked, he probably wouldn't object too much. Mikaela felt a slight stab of guilt, but ignored it. It didn't keep her from making a guess as to how long it would take before Maggie got well and truly fed up.

After a moment's thought, she upped her estimate to three days. Trent was badly injured, after all, and Maggie dealt with Glen on a regular basis.

On the other hand, she gave Ironhide approximately five minutes before he blew a gasket. Ratchet only slightly more time. Bee—was already somewhere between exasperated and protective, he didn't count. And she had the distinct feeling that he'd rub Optimus the wrong way—which said something. It took a lot to annoy him, far as Mikaela could tell, but something made her think that Trent would be one of them. But maybe her own opinions were clouding her judgment.

oOo

They sounded vaguely like footsteps, mostly like someone banging a hammer against a sheet of metal, and they had woken him up.

All Trent could see at the moment was a ceiling—a cold expanse of smooth metal stretching above him, far overhead.

Where was he? He thought…

There was a beeping noise, a ways away, just enough to distract him from his thoughts—the sound was magnified by the empty room—and the mechanical noise sounded oddly at home in this huge expanse of an empty room.

Oh, wait. That was right.

The robots. Trent's mind lurched a little with the sudden remembrance of fear.

Then this must be… Where they stayed. When they weren't hanging out with Witwicky. Sam. Witwicky. Whatever.

Why the fuck did the government think that it was okay to let aliens kidnap innocent citizens—he was a citizen of the United States of America, god damn it—who'd gotten involved in this nightmare by accident?

Well, mostly by accident, thought some scrupulous part of his mind. He had been following Witwicky and Mikaela—which was probably kind of illegal—to find out what was going on. It was just his bad luck that he had.

Huh. That noise had stopped.

Wait a minute. Robots. (Fucking robots, some part of his mind echoed, still not over it.) Those were…

Footsteps.

He couldn't suppress another small shiver.

After another few minutes, he pulled himself upright. He felt…

He felt damn small. He wanted, distinctly, to find a corner to press himself into, so he wasn't so—so exposed, that was the word. So unprotected.

And yeah. Reallyfuckingsmall. Oh hell, there were those footsteps again. And…

Jesus Christ.

The Camaro had been little. And the… other ones, the ones who'd attacked him, had been little… Little robo-midgets. Or something.

But not this one. That was a really ugly green color. Green-yellow-florescent color. And the face was kind of weird. Bits and strips of metal that kind of looked face-like but not really. He hadn't really looked at one of them before. He'd been afraid of dying. And hadn't the yellow one had some kind of face-mask thing…?

And the robot was staring at him.

Ratchet frowned slightly, running a quick scan of the human. Elevated heart rate, but nothing fatal—frightened, presumably because of him, but nothing fatal, and most likely slightly disoriented by painkillers, on top of the fear. Nothing unexpected.

"I'm Ratchet," he said, trying to keep his voice calming—panic and stress could have any number of long-term negative effects on a human's health.

Trent made a slight squeaking noise.

Ratchet sighed and sent of a quick message to Bumblebee, telling him to get someone human to the med bay.

"I'm the medic for the Autobots. I'm in charge of watching you on a day-to-day basis; there'll be a human medic attached to the military showing up for more in-depth checkups."

The human was still staring at him, wide-eyed and unbelieving.

"Is there something wrong?"

Wordlessly, he shook his head. Ratchet bit back a mild curse.

"You're Trent, right?"

"Y—yeah," he managed, still staring at the robot cautiously.

"Hm," said Ratchet non-committedly, taking a step forward so he could move past the table and into his office, attached to the med bay.

Trent flinched as he moved forward. Ratchet didn't show any outward signs of noticing the movement.

Another set of Autobot footsteps clanging up the hallway, growing gradually louder made Trent flinch again—Goddamnit, he thought, This is fucking ridiculous, I'm acting like some pansy queer… Oh God, I don't want to face another one of them!—and look nervously from the doorway to Ratchet and back again, not sure which one qualified the bigger threat.

Not, he realized, that it would matter. One of those things decided they wanted him dead, he'd be jam. Or ash.

The unknown robot entered, and Trent relaxed a little, almost despite himself. It was Witwicky's robot—the yellow one.

The one who'd saved his life.

Huh. Sam was with it—him—too.

"Hey, Ratchet," Sam said, stepping casually from the yellow robot—Bumblebee's—hand to the table, like it was something he did every day. "Trent."

Hell, Trent realized. It might be. Freak.

"Hello," said the robot—Bumblebee? That was such a weird name—cheerily. It—he—had a weird voice, too. Trent didn't remember that.

"Hi," he said, feeling kind of dizzy.

"Well, that's a better reaction than I got out of him," said the doctor-bot, leaning on the doorway to his office.

"You didn't save his life," said Bumblebee.

"Thanks," said Trent, because he had saved his life. "Uh, I mean, thank you. Uhm."

"You're welcome," said the robot, leaning a little closer—to look him over or something? "Are you feeling better?"

"Y—yeah."

"Great," said Witwicky. "That means we can show you around!"

"Excuse me?" said the—Ratchet, voice pointed.

"Er, if Ratchet says you're doing well enough to," said Sam sheepishly.

Witwicky's robot—yeah, he thought it was named Bumblebee, which made no fucking sense at all—made a staticky noise.

"Oh, stop laughing," said Sam, voice mock-annoyed. "So, Ratchet, can we?"

"Maybe you should ask Trent what he wants to do, first," said Ratchet, sounding amused. "And then—yes, you can show him around a little, assuming you want to, Trent, but he's likely to be tired and slightly dizzy."

"So, Trent, want a look around?" Sam asked, turning to him, smiling enthusiastically, giant pet robot looming behind him. Trent tried to ignore the way his stomach lurched, or blame it on the painkillers.

He had no idea what to say. He didn't want to be left alone again, but he also didn't really want to get shown around, and he wasn't sure whether it would be better to meet the rest of the robots right now or not—known dangers versus unknown ones. And he did want to see the base, but he also didn't really feel like moving. But he was going to be with one of the Autobots no matter what—and the only one he really felt safe near was Witwicky's—Bumblebee, who would presumably be doing the tour, because Sam had said 'we,' not 'I' when he'd said that he—they—would be showing him around—

"Nngh," he said out loud. "I don't—fine. Okay." His tone was almost, almost angry.

"Great," said Sam, although he sounded considerably less enthusiastic than he had. He gave him a slightly questioning look.

"What?" said Trent, voice aggressive.

"God, nothing," Sam said, turning away. "You know, after all the stupid little things you've done to me over the years—and there are a hell of a lot of them—maybe you should be thankful I'm making an effort instead of leaving you alone to rot in here. Jesus, Trent, you think I've forgotten it all? Maybe you have, but my life would have been a living hell if not for Miles from the eighth grade onwards—just think about that, okay? It wasn't fun. So you were an ass, maybe—just maybe—you've grown up, so I'm giving you a chance, right? We almost died, it's a great opportunity to reevaluate priorities, but hell, you are just as much of an ass as you've always been. I'm trying, here. Are you?"

"Uh—"

"Whatever, you don't have to answer that. You want me and Bee to show you around or not?"

"…Yes."

"Whoa, Sam, your bedside manner is even better than Ratchet's!" said Bumblebee, leaning close to the human to mock-whisper to him.

"I heard that," said Ratchet dryly.

Giant robots had a sense of humor, Trent thought. Who knew? Well, Witwicky—Sam—apparently. He was snickering.

"You're not afraid of heights, are you?" Sam asked, walking closer to the bed.

"No…" Which was true. Kind of. They just made him kind of… Nervous. And there was no way in hell he was telling anyone that.

"Great. Mind if Bee carries us? It's faster than walking, and you get a better view than if he's driving."

"…Okay."

oOo

"So, these are the common rooms—that over there's a kitchen for us organics, you can use it whenever you want to. This also where the Autobots mostly hang out when they have free time. There's usually one or two people here, no matter what time it is… Kind of weird that it's empty right now."

"There's a meeting going on with the newcomers about 'appropriate behavior,'" cut in Bumblebee. "Sort of an—orientation type of thing."

"That's a really good idea," said Sam fervently.

"What?" asked Trent—he knew he was missing something.

"I'd really rather not talk about it." Weird. He was blushing.

"Ratchet's outfitted with really sensitive chemical receptors," snickered Bumblebee. "So when we first met up with the humans— 'The boy's pheromone levels indicate he wants to mate with the female,'" he quoted, mimicking Ratchet's voice.

Sam blushed harder and groaned. "I told you, I'm trying to forget that ever happened," he said, covering his face with his hands. "But between you and Mikaela—"

The two of them—Witwicky (Sam!) and Bumblebee—sounded like friends. Good ones. It was… Weird. How did something like that work out? What the hell did they have in common? To start with, Sam was a total nerd.

"Anyways," Sam was saying, turning back to Trent, shaking him out of his thoughts. "There's quite a few humans you might see around the base. There's—let's see—Maggie and Glen, they're government hackers; Captain Lennox and his special ops team, it used to be just a handful of guys but it's growing now they've been reassigned to the whole Autobot deal, and sometimes they bring family, if they're married; my parents come every so often, and Mikaela's parents, and I think Glen's grandma showed up once; Mikaela and I spend all the time we can here, of course; there's diplomats and politicians that show up pretty regularly—they mostly ignore me, except for that one creepy one and the Secretary of Defense, but I kind of got to know him during Mission City. Uh, and there's a few more government people."

"Oh."

"You'll meet some more of them during dinner. Lunch is usually just whenever, so it's not a good time to run into anyone. The Autobots tend to show up more around then, too, but that's just for socializing. If you do meet Wheeljack you'll run into him then—it's about the only time he comes out, and then I'm pretty sure it's for research."

"He thinks humans are fascinating," added in Bee, and Sam laughed. Trent covered a shiver. He didn't think dinner was sounding all that great.

"Where's Mikaela?" asked Trent, realizing that he hadn't seen her yet.

"Oh, she volunteered to go the meeting. Actually, we flipped a coin to see who would do what—I'm showing you around, and she's, uh, I don't know, a breathing body. I think Optimus Prime—he's the leader, have I told you that before?—wanted a more reliable source than the Internet when it comes to appropriate reactions to things."

They headed out of the common area and down another featureless hallway. It was quiet. Trent tried to bite back a yawn, but didn't manage to pull it off.

The robot—Bumblebee—and Sam were both looking at him when he finished.

"Maybe we should get you back to the med bay," said Bumblebee.

Sam nodded. "If you're tired. I mean, otherwise Ratchet would have our necks. He's—He's got strong views when it comes to taking care of his patients."

"Yeah," said Trent. "I'm really tired." He was starting to hurt, too, where he'd been injured, a lot.

"Maybe we can show you the rest tomorrow, then."

"Yeah…"

oOo

It was damned embarrassing, how long it had taken Trent to get ready that morning, and how tired the process had left him. Changing clothes and washing himself shouldn't be a fucking challenge.

At least he was clean.

So what now?

He didn't know where Witwicky was—no, Sam. Or Mikaela, or Bumblebee. The gr—Ratchet had woken him up, and then headed into his office after he'd given him some instructions about how to get clean with a still-healing wound.

Yeah. What now? Had he managed to really piss Sam off? Was he just going to sit here for the next week or whatever, until he was allowed to leave? Was that really a bad thing?

—Yeah. Yeah, it would suck if he had to stay here, mostly alone, for that long. Even if it meant that he never had to deal with any of the Autobots.

Bumblebee could be kind of funny. Which was weird. They were robots.

So was Sam, some part of his mind whispered. He was funny, too. He'd laughed, yesterday. It had hurt.

But maybe he'd already fucked things up too badly for that to work out. There wasn't anybody there, after all. What had he said yesterday? He didn't think he'd said a lot. Nothing too bad.

The sound of footsteps—more giant robot footsteps, did the humans here walk at all? No, there were, like, these weird walk-way things along the hallway, raised off of the ground, and then ladders, for people—in the hallway outside made him sit up, taking a deep breath. Maybe it would be Bumblebee.

It wasn't.

Trent didn't recognize the robot who walked in, and he tried to ignore how his heartbeat speeded up and his palms got sweaty.

Damn but it—he was tall. Trent needed to remember it was a he, not an it. Because he didn't want to piss off one of the things. Bumblebee had been able to turn his arms into giant fucking guns. He'd bet the others could, too.

And it was rude.

"Hello," said the robot. He had a nice voice. That was weird. "I am Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots."

Trent gulped. The giant had gone straight from mildly terrifying to unbelievably horrifying, just like that. A robot was one thing. A robot that could turn into Witwicky's car was another. A robot that could probably pick up Sam's robot—okay, Bumblebee—and throw him and was in charge of God knew how many other giant robots, all of which could step on him and not even notice, was a third.

"I'll be in the common area," said the doctor-bot—Ratchet—stomping past the two of them, heading towards the door. "Optimus, don't stress him, and minimal activity, especially physical activity." He paused and looked at Trent, then spoke again, tone slightly nicer. "Just say so if you need anything—and I'll tell Bumblebee and the kids that you're up and should be free soon if I see them."

"Uh—thanks," Trent said weakly. He didn't think that the ro—Ratchet had heard him—he was already gone, out the door. The boy looked after him for a few minutes, nervous, before he turned to look at—Optimus Prime? Was that his name? And what the fuck was up with what the robots called each other?

"Um," he said again.

"I'm sorry you're uncomfortable," said Optimus. "Is there anything I can do to help with your nervousness?"

"I'm not scared," said Trent automatically, despite the fact that that was a bald-faced lie.

"I'm sorry," said the robot again. Then, after a minute of silence, "You have an elevated heart rate, and you're breathing heavily, both of which are possible indicators of stress, and your body language seems similar to that which is associated with nervousness, although I'll admit that I'm not an expert, when it comes to that."

Fuck. Trent could feel his cheeks flush hotly—he blushed too damn easily. It was embarrassing.

After a minute, the robot—yeah, Trent thought it (he) was named Optimus Prime, Sam had said something about something (someone) named that—started speaking again. "I'm sorry you were involved with this. It would—I would have preferred that Earth was never threatened by our war, or any other planet. It's caused—a lot of death. My home planet was destroyed."

Jesus. A planet, just— Trent couldn't imagine what it would be like to have that happen to Earth.

"Hopefully, you will be able to return to your home soon—although that is largely dependent on your government. You have my word that once this is over, your life will return to normal."

Trent doubted that. He could still remember the little robots attacking them, all angles and shiny bits of metal and sharp knives, only the cutting edges had been part of their bodies, and the other two humans next to him, and the protective bulk of Bumblebee, the smell of dust and the press of dry lips, his mouth partway open to gasp for air—

Optimus Prime spoke again, snapping Trent out of the memory; he repressed a shudder. "In the meantime, the Autobots who have made their way here, to earth, and Sam, Mikaela and our other human allies—we will all do our best to make your stay here as good an experience for you as we can."

"Thank you," said Trent blankly. Seriously? Some human who'd been stalking their friends was—they were treating him like a guest!

Or at least they were saying they were going to.

And, of course, he hadn't had much time to fuck things up, yet. Why'd it have to be Mikaela and Witwicky? No, Sam.

oOo

Maggie was trying to eat lunch.

'Trying' was the key word in that sentence. She had the sandwich, and some place to sit, and the time to eat, and certainly the desire—none of that was the problem. The three Autobots staring avidly at her were. The really-really-new newcomers—they were red and yellow, about the same height and she had the vague idea that their names both started with s, although she wasn't sure, she was horrible with names—had matching expressions, one she'd only ever seen before on the faces of her classmates in the sixth grade, while her science teacher had been feeding his python a microwaved rat.

The slightly-less-new Autobot—Wheeljack?—looked like he was watching a nature documentary.

The hacker put down her sandwich pointedly, swiveling her seat to glare impartially at the three Transformers.

"What?" she said, loudly.

"Oh! Sorry," said maybe-Wheeljack. "Um, I'm Wheeljack, it's nice to meet you."

"Maggie Madsen," she said, introducing herself. "My pleasure."

"Ohhh, you're one of the people who caught Frenzy! I read your file—it didn't have much information, but I wanted the chance to talk to you some time! What you did—it's incredible. He got into my lab system once, it was slagging hard to fix back up—and I have something of an advantage, I think. Well done!"

"It was mostly luck," Maggie said, shaking her head a little and deciding to ignore the other two Autobots—they were apparently ignoring her. "And it's my teacher, Glen, who really solved the problem."

"You humans have weird names," said the red one, finally speaking up. "I mean, they don't mean anything." Almost as an afterthought, he added "I'm Sideswipe."

Maggie raised a single expressive eyebrow. "Really," she said. "And what does that say about you?"

"Not to drive too close," said Sideswipe, sounding sly and amused.

The yellow one made a noise that sounded remarkably like a snort, although he was now pointedly—and moodily—staring over Maggie's head, at an empty corner. It was actually somewhat reminiscent of herself talking with her mother at age fifteen, Maggie thought.

"So, who're you?" she asked, turning to look at him.

"Sunstreaker," he said flatly.

Well, he was yellow, Maggie thought—and what was it about yellow Autobots that got them names based off of their appearance? At least, she assumed Bumblebee was named Bumblebee because he was yellow with black stripes—he didn't have a stinger, certainly, (although he did have canons; then again, so did Ironhide) and he couldn't fly. Not that bumblebees were particularly good fliers, even though they were capable of it—actually, Maggie had always thought that they flew like they were drunk. They were probably the worst fliers she'd ever seen, when it came to flight-capable insects, although someone had once informed her that mosquito-eaters were worse. (1) She wasn't sure she wanted to see something called a 'mosquito-eater.'

"Nice to meet you," she said, to be polite—even though it was pretty clear that manners weren't going to be a particular concern of his. "Any reason why you two were staring at me?"

"It's weird," said Sideswipe.

"What?"

"The way you refuel—it's weird."

"I beg your pardon—"

"And kind of nasty," added Sunstreaker.

"Hey—"

"It is pretty inefficient," said Wheeljack, sounding kind of sheepish again, like he felt bad about agreeing with the other two.

'Oh, well then," muttered Maggie. "But I can see one real advantage to my method—I'm betting you don't have a sense of taste."

'No," admitted Wheeljack.

"What's so great about that?" asked Sideswipe.

"Chocolate and BLTs," Maggie said with relish, her way of answering Sideswipe's question. And then she turned back to her sandwich: she was hungry. Even if it was rude to eat in front of people.

oOo

"Hey, 'Kaela," Sam said, sitting down beside her on the couch. Mikaela gratefully put aside her book—the one they'd been assigned class, Sam realized, somewhat guiltily: after all, he had to read it too—to face him, hugging him close for a minute before she pressed a kiss to his neck, the only part of him that she could reach, and then his lips when he moved a little further away, shifting so they could share a real kiss.

"Hey," she said once they broke apart, smiling at him. Sam couldn't help but smile back.

He couldn't believe how lucky he'd been. How lucky he was.

"You two are sickeningly adorable," Maggie announced from behind them, making the two teens jump.

"Hello, Maggie," said Mikaela cheerily, twisting around to look at the other woman. "You kind of surprised me there—"

Maggie rolled her eyes, but good-naturedly. She knew what it was like to be head-over-heels in love. "I just finished my lesson today—Ratchet let me free early, said he was still working on the new guy—and I wondered if you two had any plans for today. Ones I could join in on, that is." She smirked a little, and then smiled at the expressions her last comment had earned.

"Not really," Sam said, moving over a little so Maggie had more room to sit down. It also pressed him closer to Mikaela, which was a definite plus in his book. The way she curled her arm around him, head on his shoulder, made him think she thought so, too.

"I wonder how Trent's doing," Mikaela said, a little doubtfully. She hesitated, then added "Want to meet him?"

oOo

Optimus Prime had only been gone a little while, but because Ratchet hadn't returned, Trent had gotten the chance to regain a little composure, calm down a bit.

He'd heard someone—some Autobot—walking down the hallway outside the med bay once times, but it hadn't stepped in—he hadn't so much as caught a glimpse of who or whatever it was—so Trent wasn't expecting it when Bumblebee stepped into the room. He jumped, choking his urge to scream. He needed to be a man—that's what his dad had taught him. Otherwise you ended up weird, like Sam or his nerd friend—Miles Gillon.

But Sam had his ex-girlfriend and a wicked car. Who was a robot. Sam was happy. He didn't really care when he got spitwads flicked at him anymore—yeah, it annoyed him, but it was like it didn't even matter. It was weird.

"Hello," Trent said, realizing he needed to—he'd taken too long already. God damn, though, he didn't know what to say—He kind of wanted to thank the robot again. He'd saved his damn life. But he already had, he thought. And what did you say to a robot, anyways? Maybe he could ask Witwicky—Sam. If he was willing to answer Trent's question. Even if he did, Trent wouldn't know if he was telling the truth or not. Yeah, Sam seemed nice now—Mikaela had said something about how living through a battle bound people together. He thought so at least, but the pain meds were kind of fucking around with his head—but Trent had done a lot of stuff to him over the years. And Mikaela…

"Want to look around the base some more?" Bumblebee asked, jerking him out of his thoughts and into the real world. "You can meet Maggie."

"Okay," Trent said, trying not to think too hard about what he was agreeing to. He'd learned from football games just how easy it could be to psyche yourself out, and what happened when you did. "Sure."

He felt safe around Bumblebee, too—he wouldn't kill him after he'd saved him, right?—even though he also felt scared, or maybe just awkward, at the same time. And damn but he had no idea what to say. He didn't even know what the fucking weather was like, so he couldn't say something stupid about that.

Where the fuck was he, anyways? And how come there weren't any damn windows? What were they, underground or something?

Bumblebee had said that Mikaela would be with them, this time. Trent hated spending time with ex-girlfriends.

But he didn't want to get back together with her. That was some sort of revelation. It was like a bolt of lightning as he carefully found a seat on Bumblebee's hand, so the robot could carry him.

Because he'd thought he had. He'd been all prepared to start the game all over again, take up the pursuit. He wasn't sure how he'd been going to go about it, other than waiting until something went wrong between her and Witwicky, but he'd been going to. After all, his dad had wanted him to. He'd said things like "A man dumps chicks, not the other way around," and scowled into his beer all night when Trent had told him he'd been dumped—been dumped in front of the rest of the guys, what's more, for something stupid—it would have been all right if she'd found out he'd been cheating on her, or something. His dad hadn't liked that. And Mikaela had only put out once, a few days before that had happened, but had been damn good. He had no complaints there.

(See? He couldn't be gay. He fucked chicks—and liked it. He wasn't a fag.)

But…

Damn it, he knew it wouldn't work now. Sam—Mikaela liked him. It—he had no chance.

And he'd feel bad if he did. Fucking hell. It was Witwicky.

He'd kissed him…

"So, rumor has it you met Optimus," said Bumblebee cheerily. Trent jerked again, involuntarily, and felt a wave of fear sweep through him at the uncontrolled movement. It was a long, long way to the floor.

"Yeah," Trent said, trying to ignore his dizziness.

There was a pause.

"…Well?" Bumblebee said, sounding slightly consternated.

"He was nice," Trent said, sounding distracted. "…I don't really get it." Damn. He should have been thinking more. He hadn't wanted to say that out loud—

Bumblebee was quiet for a minute. Trent sat still, feeling his face burn with embarrassment. God damn it! All he'd done since he'd gotten mixed up in this nightmare was fuck things up!

"Optimus Prime is my role model," Bumblebee said finally. "My hero. He's a lot of the reason I fight. I'd give my life to save him—and he wouldn't want me to. That's partly why I'd do it.

"He feels bad about you getting involved in this: it's not your battle, and you haven't even had the chance to choose, like Sam and Mikaela did. He just wants to do whatever he can to make up for what's happened to you."

"…Really?" Embarrassingly, Trent's voice squeaked, like the past three years hadn't happened and he was in the middle of puberty again.

Bumblebee stopped, pausing in the middle of the hallway. He shifted his hands a little, making Trent hold on tight with sudden panic, so he could look at the boy more fully. "Yeah," he said. "For what it's worth. I'd like to make this easier for you, too."

oOo

"Hey, Bee," Maggie called as he entered the room. "And, hey, newb. Nice to see someone else around this place. I'm Maggie."

"Hi," said Trent blankly as Bumblebee set him down—he seemed kind of eager to get off. Sam figured he was wondering what a gorgeous Australian in her early twenties was doing with the giant robots. He would probably blow a fuse when he found out that she was part of the resident geek unit. "I'm Trent."

"What's going on?" Bee asked, pulling up a chair and sitting down at the table the humans were sitting on, then leaning his head on his folded arms so he was more or less at eye level with them.

"Sam's having kittens about something or other," Maggie said blandly, looking up for a moment from the stack of papers she was flipping through—Trent could see some sort of complicated-looking graph accompanied by a chart fitted in through the text.

"I am not," Sam said, looking affronted. Mikaela snickered, and he mock-glared, then stuck his tongue out at her. "I'm… Debating. Deliberating, even."

"About what?" Bumblebee asked, apparently playing along. Trent sat down in a human-sized chair a little ways away, feeling out of place.

"What to tell Miles," Sam said with a heavy sigh.

Bee made a whistling noise that sounded kind of rude even to Trent. And he hadn't had much practice understanding the weird robot-language sounds.

"Oh, not you too—I just don't want him to freak out, you know? Not too badly, at least, I think a little's inevitable. And I've got to figure out what to tell him—about why I've been keeping this a secret, that is. But I don't—You guys don't do subtle."

"Hey," Bee said, sounding deeply amused. "We're robots in disguise."

Maggie snorted. "You all are about as subtle as a heart attack," she said.

"Subtle as a drag queen on a bender," Mikaela said, continuing the theme.

"Subtle as a brand-new blue truck with red flames in a residential district," Sam couldn't help adding. "Or a brand-new concept Camaro. Or a pair of matching Lamborghinis. Seriously, though, you got any ideas? I don't think any of the humans here have had a good introduction to the whole transforming-robots thing… Sector Seven doesn't count. I mean, Will was attacked by a giant metal scorpion after a helicopter tore up the base; Maggie and Glen caught the little skittery thing hacking into the government computer system; I had you do weird things and then got attacked by Barricade, and Mikaela with me, only she had even less time to adjust; Mr. Secretary got this whole thing dumped on his lap— And then Trent. Yeeeah. But anybody know how Sarah getting introduced to Ironhide went?"

"Knowing Ironhide?" Bee said. "With lots of explosions."

"Point," Mikaela said dryly.

Trent knew he was missing something.

"It'll be a disaster no matter what you do," Maggie said, putting her papers aside and abandoning any pretense she'd had of actually working. "Just go with that, and hope that he doesn't wet himself." Bumblebee beeped his agreement.

"Fine," Sam said. "Hey, Trent, how're you?"

"Finally noticed I'm here," Trent muttered. Sam looked taken aback, and Mikaela bristled.

"Whoah," Maggie said. "What was that? I'm missing something, aren't I."

"History," Sam said dismissively. "I hope so, at least." He clearly changed the subject, turning to face Bumblebee more fully. "Hey, Bee, where were we yesterday when our tour got cut short?"

"We're missing the training area, brig, Autobot quarters and communications center," he said promptly. "Then there's more, but it's all unused rooms. Not very interesting. But I had an idea—we can use the database in the communications room to pull up the profiles of the other Autobots here—to give you a little heads up, Trent, kind of an advanced warning. You haven't met many of us, have you? Just me, Ratchet and Optimus."

"Yeah," Trent said, kind of wishing he was being left alone again. "Sounds great."

"Well, then, let's go," Mikaela said. "It'll take a while—with so many of us, we'll need to walk."

oOo

To his utter mortification, Trent had ended up being carried by Bumblebee. His stitches hurt too much for him to walk far.

"So what were those files you were talking about, again?" Sam asked, as they approached the communications room.

Bee paused for a minute—he was a little ways ahead of them anyways; it was hard to keep to the same speed as the humans, because of the distance of their stride compared to his.

"Well, we're a military group," he said. "We all have files. I can only get access to the basic profile with my clearance, but there's more there: medical records, disciplinary history, things like that. All we'll be able to see is a picture, a few facts and maybe a brief description or something. It varies a little. The file's attached to the Autobot it belongs to, and then you're supposed to upload it to the commander you're currently under when you first arrive. Back when we were more organized—back when there was still a Cybertron—there was a central database with it all on it, and it was supposed to get updated pretty regularly. That's gone now, of course, and I suppose someone who was a good enough hacker to do it, and do it discreetly, could fake an identity tag…"

"You mean they could be Decepticons or something?" Mikaela asked.

"Or just hiding war crimes."

"Well, that's creepy," said Sam. "Seriously, Bee, not comforting. At all. Some of us squish easily."

"Speaking of not comforting," said Mikaela.

"Yeah," said Trent, sounding like he meant it whole-heartedly.

"Oh, come on—it's extremely unlikely, especially for a pair of bruisers like the two new ones. Battle mechs never have any subtlety—And I don't know about the third, but it's just about as unlikely, I'd say. He's still in the medbay somewhere. I'm pretty sure Ratchet put him in enforced stasis lock until he got him all fixed up."

Trent spoke up, nervously. "If—If you're not a, a 'battle mech,' what are you?"

"Me? Spy and scout." He flashed a grin. "Much more intelligent, but not nearly as stuffy as the academic types."

oOo

(1) Mosquito-eaters are also called crane flies, which is what I know them as, and they really are hideously bad at flying. To be fair, they only have something like two days in their adult form, which looks like a mosquito on steroids, so they don't get much practice. I prefer the name crane flies because they don't actually eat mosquitoes—the adults actually have no mouths, existing only to mate and then die. The immature crane flies live in damp ground and eat roots, especially grass roots, making them a fairly common lawn pest—although they only thrive in soil that's too damp to be good for grass anyways.