Chapter Text
The cigarette smoldered dreamily between your cold fingers, ash slowly falling onto the dirty asphalt, baked by the scorching sun, and your worn shoes like snow on a Christmas evening. Every time you said it would be the last one, and every time it was a sweet lie you fed to your own mind and anxiety.
Anxiety and despair had been your companions for the past month. When the dreamy, inspired nursing student graduated, the last thing she could have imagined was facing something like this. That’s who you were: a simple, young, green nurse who had just started working at a hospital in the town of Jasper, Nevada until a simple, solitary dinner at a roadside diner after a twelve-hour shift decided to put an end to your former life.
You remembered that day so clearly, as if it were yesterday. Jasper’s heat was, as always, unbearable. The bitter air hung still, as if frozen, and even the asphalt beneath your feet seemed alive, pulsing with heat. After a grueling shift where every patient demanded more than you could give, you could barely stand. Despite the town not boasting a large population, there was always plenty of work for the relatively small staff whether it was a housewife who got a little too enthusiastic chopping salad, or a careless teenager who believed a bit too much in their cycling skills. It wasn’t surprising that by the end of the day, you always needed a dose of fast carbs.
The diner along the road to your quiet home greeted anyone willing to step through its glass doors with the smell of fried grease, stale coffee, and dust carried in by the desert wind. Neon lights flickered, and the ceiling fan only pushed the hot air in circles. You sat in the corner, waiting for your order, clutching a glass of ice water as if it were the only thing tethering you to reality after the long shift aside from the dull ache in your legs.
The cold of the desert night in the parking lot crept beneath your clothes sharp and unexpected after the heat of the day, like a someone else’s touch when the door of your old Ford Mustang, inherited from your father, opened, and a grease-soaked bag of leftovers landed on the passenger seat. You were not meant to make it home that evening, nor to rest. Very soon, your cherished car would be crushed beneath the massive body of an alien robot, and you yourself nearly fried by one of their bizarre weapons.
Who could have imagined that the son of your sweet coworker June Darby and two other kids from the local school were involved in a top-level government secret? Sand crunched between your teeth for a long time after they pulled you from the wreckage of your former life. The smell of melted metal and smoke clung to your clothes and skin, mixing with sweat and fear as that secret settled onto your shoulders too.
When the yellow Chevrolet Camaro potentially dangerous carried you down Jasper’s night road, and a nervous teenager begged you not to tell his mother about everything you had witnessed, the realization of just how deeply screwed you were hit like a tsunami.
That was when you met him for the first time.
“Optimus Prime,” he introduced himself, before delivering a long lecture about the history of their home world and the scale of a war that destroyed entire planets, his deep, captivating voice filling the air. By then, you were already pulled into this conflict just like the Earth itself.
Then the other robots the ones you had seen earlier in the desert introduced themselves. Each one carried a presence, a character, a history stretching far beyond Earth. Tons of information about a great war, about another faction of hostile robots the ones responsible for your car’s destruction flooded your mind, already exhausted from the long day.
You clearly remembered how the yellow Camaro had thrown a purple robot one that looked like some twisted sculpture over its shoulder, ruining valuable property in the process. The robot, who turned out to be named Bumblebee, apologized through strange sounds and signals, which one of the kids at the secret base translated for you.
The three teenagers seemed oddly ordinary against the backdrop of all this, as if sharing space with extraterrestrial beings was nothing more than routine.
Standing now on a grimy gas station parking lot in the middle of nowhere, you could hardly believe you would miss Miko’s energy, Ratchet’s biting remarks, and the silent nighttime drives home with him. You would give anything to see them again though you had little to offer besides a few bucks in your pocket and the clothes on your back.
The pristine paint of the Peterbilt standing proudly on the other side of the nearly empty lot gleamed under the midday sun, blinding anyone who dared glance at it including you. Taking one last drag, you dropped the cigarette to the ground, crushing it under your boot to avoid starting a fire, and headed toward the driver’s cab of the massive truck.
The bag of chips and the small bottle of water you had stolen from the store were safely tucked into the pockets of your old denim jacket as the coolness inside the cab and the leather seats soothed your overheated skin.
“You were smoking again?” came the steady baritone from the dashboard speakers as the door shut behind you with a click, sealing you off from the heat outside.
“Maybe,” you replied awkwardly, shifting into the passenger seat and pushing the cigarette pack deeper into your pocket. The feeling was strangely familiar like being back in high school, caught smoking by a strict teacher. Only a heavy exhale if it could even be called that followed from the speakers.
The heavy metal of the cab shifted softly as you settled deeper into the seat, letting it take the weight of your exhaustion. Outside, the world remained the same bright, almost painfully alive but in here, everything became controlled again, slightly distant, as if someone had turned down the volume of reality.
The silence stretched just long enough for you to feel that familiar, awkward warmth in your chest the one that appeared whenever you noticed how quickly he picked up on the smallest things. Then his voice filled the cabin again. The tone was even, but not cold. Attentive, as always when it came to your safety rather than reprimand.
“The level of smoke in the air is elevated. This is not optimal for your lungs,” Optimus stated calmly, as if presenting a fact beyond argument.
God, he sounds almost like Ratchet, you thought awkwardly, exhaling softly and turning to the window, watching the tall grass sway in the hot wind.
“I know,” you replied, softer than intended. “It just helps me not think too much about everything.”
Optimus didn’t judge. It was clear in the way he subtly adjusted the temperature inside the cab, softening the contrast with the outside heat as if trying to make the space gentler, more comfortable for you.
“I do not object to methods of reducing stress,” he said at last. “However, there are less harmful options.”
“Like your lectures about deadly diseases? For a moment I thought I was talking to Ratchet,” you muttered quietly, not with defiance, but warmth.
“These are not lectures,” Optimus corrected calmly almost stubbornly. You tilted your head slightly, as if you could imagine the expression on his faceplate. “But I can phrase it differently if it improves comprehension.”
You huffed softly, finally allowing yourself to relax a little more against the leather seat.
“No. Don’t. I like it when you sound like you.” The sincerity slipped out unintentionally, and you immediately regretted the tone. The cabin fell quiet again. “I’ll just try to smoke less. For starters.”
“That would be an acceptable compromise,” Optimus replied, a faint trace of satisfaction in his voice that he didn’t bother to hide.
The conversation didn’t continue, so you reached into your pocket for the forgotten bag of chips, while the Autobot leader returned to monitoring radio frequencies and who knows what else.
The crunch of chips sounded too loud in the quiet cab. You chewed slowly, almost mechanically, not even tasting them. The salt only scratched your tongue, leaving dryness and an even stronger thirst, which you washed down with warm water from the bottle. Outside, the wind dragged dust across the scorched asphalt. The empty gas station looked as if you were its only visitors in the last fifty years.
You cast a brief glance at the dashboard, where indicators flickered faintly, listening to the hum of the air conditioning above. In the past few days, there had been nothing else to do but endlessly listen and think over all the wrong decisions you had made in your life.
When you had finally grown used to your new routine balancing the exhausting hospital shifts with giant alien robots trying to protect humanity from others of their kind the next blow came without warning. The wind cut across your face, lifting clouds of sand that filled your eyes, your mouth, slipping under your clothes. You remembered trying to shield your face with your sleeve, but it barely helped.
The mission was supposed to be simple. Find energon deposits. Extract them. Return. But nothing was ever simple especially when kids got involved. For weeks, you had listened to how Miko’s geology project had suddenly become “critically important for science,” and how she waved her hands, insisting that her data could become something “actually cool” for the future of humanity. Back then, it sounded like just another teenage obsession one you had long since outgrown.
You had even smiled at that kind of obvious passion, despite the fact that Miko was, well… Miko and hyperactivity was practically her middle name. Until she started insisting on joining Bulkhead on an energon extraction mission, hiding behind “scientific interest” and nothing more.
You remembered freezing in shock. Because “scientific interest,” coming from Miko Nakadai, always meant something far worse than simple curiosity.
“No,” you and Ratchet said at the same time, almost automatically, without even raising your voices.
She rolled her eyes. Of course she did.
“Oh, come on, it’s just sample collection!” Her voice rang with impatience as she turned toward Optimus, who was moving toward Ratchet with a datapad in his servos. “I won’t get in the way, I promise!” She ran up to the railing, clasping her hands together in a pleading gesture, looking up at the giant as he stepped closer.
“This is not a school field trip. It’s an important mission, Miko!” Jack snapped, arms crossed as he sat beside you on the couch.
“I know!” she shot back with equal irritation, turning her head so sharply toward him that for a moment you thought her fragile neck might not handle it.
“Then act like it,” Jack added more quietly, though that familiar tension had crept into his voice the one you had learned to recognize. Miko only scoffed, turning away sharply, as if trying to shake off his words along with any sense of responsibility.
Optimus stood still, but there was more in that stillness than just silence. He was listening. Weighing. As always.
“Miko,” his voice was calm, yet firm, filling the base without effort. “Your desire to help is understood. But this mission involves risks you cannot fully comprehend.”
The room was quiet except for the mechanical clicking of joints, the tapping of keyboard, and Ratchet’s low, dissatisfied muttering in the background. Arcee and Bulkhead had been out on patrol all day, and Bumblebee had taken a half-asleep Rafael home after an exhausting school day and Miko’s relentless energy. As for Wheeljack, you barely knew him at all, and had no idea where that Cybertronian was at the moment.
“I’ve been in danger before,” Miko argued stubbornly, stomping her foot.
“Yes,” Optimus did not deny it. “And that is precisely why we must minimize it not seek it out.”
You didn’t want to interfere, even though you were technically the oldest human on the base and perhaps the only one capable of restraining Miko’s fire. But engaging directly with the leader of the Autobots always felt intimidating. It didn’t matter that, as a nurse, you had seen truly horrifying things. There was nothing more unsettling than meeting the depths of that blue optic gaze or becoming the sole focus of a being as powerful as Optimus Prime.
You quickly looked away, as if you had caught yourself doing something forbidden. It was ridiculous. And yet, every time he addressed you directly or even glanced your way the space around you seemed to shift, compress into something small and contained. As if the air in your lungs grew heavier, and your thoughts louder than you wanted them to be.
Meanwhile, Miko refused to give up.
“But I can help!” she bounced in place, nearly tipping over the railing. “I don’t just watch. I analyze and see patterns!”
You exhaled quietly, feeling the weight of the long day settle on your shoulders. Ratchet, who had been listening the entire time, clicked a tool in his servos without even looking up.
“Analysis won’t save you from a shockwave if you’re standing within the blast radius or from falling debris inside a cave,” he said dryly. “Energon is highly unstable. Your fragile organic bodies are not built to withstand that. Not to mention Decepticons that may be lurking nearby.”
The endless argument was clearly starting to irritate him just as much as it did you. When you had first, reluctantly, become part of Team Prime, the irritable Autobot medic had been assigned as your guardian. At first, you couldn’t stand his sharp remarks and constant muttering just as he couldn’t stand your human presence. But over time, it turned into something strange.
Not friendship. Ratchet would never admit to that. And not trust in the classical sense you weren’t naïve enough to believe that either.
More like a habit of surviving side by side.
He learned not to question your presence every second, and you learned not to take every one of his comments as a personal attack. It existed somewhere between a truce and a quiet respect that neither of you ever voiced aloud.
You even found yourself enjoying the quiet evenings or early mornings after long shifts and the half-understood conversations about human and Cybertronian biology. You wrote down everything you could learn within those walls: culture, customs, fragments of knowledge. After all, not everyone gets the chance to be this close to a civilization far more advanced than humanity.
Optimus stood slightly apart, silently observing the exchange, and you knew he wasn’t intervening not because he didn’t care but because he was giving space to everyone involved.
You rarely spoke to him, but watching the Autobot leader from a safe distance was always something close to a quiet pleasure. Engineering and mechanics were far from your strengths, but even someone like you could appreciate the external beauty of him from the deep gleam of his paint to the intricate lines of cables and perfectly placed curves.
Miko finally lowered her hands onto the railing, though her gaze remained stubborn.
“You all talk like I don’t understand anything,” she said more quietly now, the earlier fire dimmed. Jack only rolled his eyes in frustration and stood up from the couch, tossing the long-forgotten game controller beside you.
“That’s enough. I don’t want to hear another word,” Ratchet barked, finally pulling his attention away from the large screens. “This planet’s daylight cycle is long over. All of you should be home.”
The conversation was clearly over, despite Miko’s dissatisfaction but even she wasn’t reckless enough to push further.
The last thing you heard from Optimus that evening was a quiet, sincere “I’m sorry,” directed at the girl. And then you saw his broad metal back disappearing deeper into the base under the fluorescent lights.
Inside Ratchet’s alt-mode, the silence was heavy and tense as you, Miko, and Jack headed back from the base to your homes. The road stretched in a blurred ribbon of light and shadow as you gradually lost track of time between exhaustion and the low hum of the engine.
Honestly, all you could think about was a hot shower and yesterday’s pizza waiting in your fridge not teenage drama and conflicts, no matter how attached you had grown to them.
You had almost convinced yourself that the strange, by all accounts unusual day had ended like hundreds of others. Work. Bitter coffee. Minor conflicts and brief truces. A familiar cycle you had learned to exist within alongside things that would have seemed impossible just months ago.
And that was exactly why the unexpected news didn’t come like an explosion but like a slow realization that something had already shifted long before you noticed.
You found out by accident. From fragments of conversation on the base. From short phrases Ratchet either didn’t manage or didn’t care to hide.
Miko hadn’t just convinced Optimus. She had found a way around the resistance of adult reasoning by using the system’s only weakness: trust. And, to your deep frustration it worked.
The cave had been marked as stable. Partially explored. Low threat level. The perfect place for a “controlled experience.” Words that only ever sounded safe in theory
You realized your name had ended up on the list again not by choice, but by the logic of circumstance. If Miko was going, Jack would inevitably follow, and Rafael after them, because leaving them unsupervised had long since become an unspoken rule. And if they were going, someone had to be there to make sure this “experience” didn’t turn into yet another crisis.
And that “someone” was you. Again. Not exactly the best way to spend your only day off that week.
The cave greeted you with a cold that cut into your skin immediately after the warmth of the surface. The stone breathed with dampness and age, as if the space itself had existed longer than any map could ever show. The lights on your gear cast narrow cones that were swallowed by darkness almost instantly, offering no real sense of safety, while faint specks of energon embedded in the walls glowed dimly like cold stars.
The kids moved too fast for a place that demanded caution and far too confidently for a situation they didn’t control. Every step echoed along the walls, multiplying your presence in a place where it should have been minimized.
You stayed slightly behind, instinctively taking on the role of the observer the one who counted risks. Rafael, always quieter, more reserved, walked just behind you, occasionally glancing toward Arcee or Optimus ahead. With Bumblebee staying back at the base, it wasn’t surprising that the boy seemed uneasy, even if he refused to stay out of it. The heavy footsteps of the metallic titans echoed through the cave, making the walls tremble faintly.
Arcee moved slightly ahead of you, her steps precise and sharp as ever, as if even here she held control through sheer will, despite her relatively smaller size. The light from her weapons occasionally carved jagged edges out of the darkness edges that looked far too sharp.
Jack walked beside her, tense, shoulders raised, his gaze constantly flickering into the darkness ahead, as if expecting something to answer him from within the cave. The silence weighed heavier than usual, but he held himself together, sometimes throwing irritated glances toward Miko.
Arcee snapped her attention toward him with a single word, assessing distance and pace, briefly stating that this place was not for carelessness and that even one wrong step could cost everyone the chance to retreat. Jack only clenched his jaw, not openly arguing, but not agreeing either, continuing forward as if silently arguing with every stone beneath his feet.
A little farther back, Miko moved in near-bounces despite repeated warnings. Her cheap flashlight danced wildly across the walls, catching those same fragments of energon that made her eyes light up even brighter. She muttered something quickly to herself, reacting with excitement to every flicker, as if this wasn’t a dangerous cave but a museum opened just for her.
Arcee stopped abruptly.
The tension in her frame shifted instantly, and you saw her turn back not just as an escort anymore, but as someone who had finally run out of patience. The entire group behind her was forced to stop.
“This was your idea. And it was a bad one.” Her voice cut sharply through the space, directed straight at Miko.The girl froze for a second, but quickly tried to straighten up, as if that alone could fix things.
“Well… yeah, but it was for research!” she tried to sound confident, though a crack of uncertainty had already slipped into her voice. Arcee stepped closer, lowering herself slightly, her gaze turning sharp and cold like a scalpel before a critical operation.
“Research does not mean dragging people into a cave where every wall could collapse without warning,” the fembot replied sharply. Miko opened her mouth to answer but didn’t get the chance.
Bulkhead stepped between them. His presence filled the space gently but firmly, as if the cave itself had shifted to prevent the conflict from going any further.
“Hey, hey easy,” his voice was deep and calm, but carried that same firmness you had come to recognize as protection, not interference. “She didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
Each word sent a faint tremor through the stone. Arcee turned sharply toward him.
“Intent does not erase consequences. This stupidity could cost us,” she cut back.
Miko lowered her gaze, but didn’t fully back down—just grew quieter, as if fighting something inside herself.
Optimus stood farther ahead, still and attentive to every sharp word. You knew he saw everything at once the risks of conflict, the emotions of the entire team, the way the situation was slowly shifting toward a breaking point. And only when the tension became almost physically tangible did he finally speak.
A single word. His voice didn’t rise, but it filled the space so completely that even the echoes along the walls seemed to fall silent before it.
“Enough.”
And the short march continued as if there had been no pause at all.
Arcee averted her gaze slightly, but did not argue. Bulkhead didn’t step back, though his position remained protective closer to Miko, as if physically separating her from the criticism around her. You walked a little behind, squeezing Rafael’s cold hand, watching as the dynamic settled back into place just as it always did when Prime took control not through force, but through calm authority.
The Decepticons appeared as if they had always been there just waiting for the right moment to emerge from the darkness.
You had been watching the energon extraction process with your own eyes, while Miko eagerly recorded and examined everything. You didn’t understand why she needed knowledge she would never be able to use in a project given its extraterrestrial nature and classified status but you didn’t stop her.
Sitting on a large rock, you felt the cave vibrate unlike anything you had ever experienced.
The battle erupted instantly. No transition. No warning. Only chaos blaster fire, flashes of light, and the sharp, violent movements of metallic giants confined within a narrow space. Every shot ricocheted off the walls, multiplied, turning the cave into a trap where it was impossible to distinguish enemy from echo.
The first to burst from the darkness was Starscream a sharp, rapid silhouette moving with excessive confidence, as if space itself should yield to him. His shots sliced through the air, cracking stone, sending debris raining down, his arrogance and aggression palpable even without words.
Behind him came the Vehicons like loyal, mindless soldiers. A mass of darker, less defined forms flooding the tunnels like spilled ink. They moved in coordination, but crudely, turning the cave into a living mechanism of destruction.
Energon pulsed at the center of the extraction site, casting a cold light that cut into your vision, making every movement sharper, almost unreal. You lost track of time almost immediately.
And then the worst happened. One of the shots hit a crystalline vein.
The energon detonated instantly like fireworks packed with dynamite, or like a living organism tearing itself apart. The light turned blinding white. For a moment, it felt like your eyes had burned out from the intensity. Stone shattered outward in a wave that spared neither ally nor enemy.
The blast threw you back.
The last thing you managed to register before everything drowned in chaos was a cold metal hand lifting you from the stone floor and the swirling, multicolored vortex of a GroundBridge, its light cutting painfully into your already overwhelmed vision.