Chapter Text
William Lennox woke with a start, finding himself strapped securely to an examination table. He blinked a few times to focus his blurry vision; what had happened?
Flashback
Lennox watched the two much larger metallic brings argue, barely able to understand them through the pounding in his head and the whirr of unidentified machinery around him.
"And why exactly are we doing this?" the larger mech -Megatron- rumbled.
"Three reasons, sir," the second bot -Starscream, if he remembered correctly- hurried to respond. "One: I am quite curious to see if it is even possible; two: he has valuable knowledge about the Autobots; and three: the only methods we have of obtaining said information would kill him. It must be done this way."
What had the Decepticons done to him? He warily scanned the room, and nearly stopped breathing at the sight of his own body lying on a nearby table, lifeless. Alarmed, he looked down at himself. Silver and blue. Metallic. Cybertronian. "Impossible..."
The door slid open, revealing a smirking Starscream. "Ah, Colonel Lennox, you're awake." There was a slightly malicious lilt in his voice that chilled Lennox to his core. Seeing the partially shocked, partially disconcerted expression he had been unable to repress, the seeker added, "don't worry, you'll get used to it soon. If you live that long."
Lennox had been dreading what the Decepticons planned to do to him, but the almost giddy excitement radiating off Starscream downright terrified him.
Lennox bit back a scream of agony. No matter how the Decepticons tortured him he refused to give them any satisfaction.
"Just tell us what we want to know, insect," Starscream snarled in his face, "and your death won't be as painful."
"Never," Lennox hissed.
Starscream shoved a claw into Lennox's throat, earning a choked cry of distress from the soldier. "If you refuse to talk then I shall simply rip your voice box out so you can't."
"Go... Ahead... Then."
Starscream frowned. "Well, it just won't do if you don't care..." He hooked his claw around the voice box, slowly pulling it, a sadistic glint in his optics. He stopped when most of the wires were disconnected, leaving Lennox hissing static.
"You'll never get anything out of me," Lennox growled, voice strangled and distant. He coughed up Energon, and tried to spit it into Starscream's face.
The Decepticon didn't flinch.
Lennox woke to a loud crash, unsure of when he had fallen unconscious. He didn't see any Decepticons in the room, but shuddered weakly as an involuntary response to the sight of his body still lying limply on the table.
The door exploded in, and Ironhide emerged from the resulting cloud of smoke and debris. Lennox had never been happier to see the trigger-happy blue Autobot, but the weapons specialist immediately headed to the soldier's abandoned human body, shaking it lightly. "Lennox? Lennox, wake up." He cupped the small body carefully into his hands and slowly raised it to his optic level. "Will?! Say somethin'!"
Lennox tried to call out to his partner, but his damaged voice box refused to make any noise.
"Will!" Lennox was surprised to see a single tear roll down Ironhide's faceplate, a crack in his façade. "Will, wake up!"
Lennox's intakes hitched at the unexpected sight, and he abruptly started coughing.
Ironhide's head snapped up and he locked optics with Lennox, cannons rotating in warning. "Who're ya?" He stalked cautiously forwards , cannons powering up. "Ah'm warning' ya, if Ah don't get an answer Ah'll blast yer aft straight back ta Cybertron!" He aimed a cannon at Lennox's head to make his point even clearer.
"It's me," Lennox finally managed to whisper, almost inaudiblely. "You have to believe me, Ironhide."
Ironhide's optics widened, having recognized the voice, even as damaged as it was. "Will?" His cannons powered down, no longer pointed threatening at the soldier's head. "Wha' the scrap happened t'ya? Yer Cybertronian... Pit, yer a seeker!" One hand curled into a fist, the other still protective clutching Lennox's original body. "Those slagging glitches! Ah'll send 'em all ta the Allspark!"
Lennox's intakes hitched again.
"Lets get ya outta here." Ironhide blasted the restraints keeping Lennox on the table. He wrapped an arm around his partner, supporting the injured mech and guiding him slowly toward the door.
"Why did you think I looked like a threat, 'Hide?" Lennox asked after a moment.
Ironhide hesitated, but stopped in front of a reflective section of the wall. "Look fer yerself."
Lennox finally saw what he looked like, the pair of wings flared behind his back, the black facemask hiding his mouth, the scarlet optic band. "What?" He slowly raised a hand to his face, blinking at the claws he found there. "No..." He looked like a Decepticon.
"Lets go, Will," Ironhide whispered in Lennox's audio receptor. "C'mon." He gently pulled the shocked soldier toward the door again.
Lennox slowly nodded, and pulled his optics away from his reflection; now was not the time to dwell on what he had been turned into. He stumbled forward next to Ironhide, biting his lip under the facemask against the pain of his injuries