Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He was deep in recharge, stable and comfortable, when the cosy darkness was broken by a soft voice near his audials, calling his name. He stirred. “Uh, TC?” Marissa. She sounded very close and very… nervous? Why would Marissa be nervous? He onlined his optics – they felt, tingly? They stung, they wanted to… shut down again. “TC!” Something shook him, and he was surprised by how rough he felt it. He onlined in a rush. “Yeah?!” Visual was blurry, but he could make out Marissa’s face, right in front of him. Something was wrong…

…why was her face so big?

She quickly backed away and looked away from him, cheeks pink with human-juice. He frowned, looking from her feet to her head trying to figure out what was off. A (no-longer-quite-as-)tiny Puggle threw herself happily onto his chest, claws stabbing into him and helping him with that conclusion.

“I’m…” He looked down at himself – a human chest, with human skin and fibrous tissue, awkward human male legs sprawled out on the couch. Buster was almost as big as his whole torso, panting hot exhaust into his face and waggling her tail like mad, digging into his (his??) bare skin. “I’m…”

“Naked.” Marissa completed. He was, in fact, in the human protoform state. “Ah, right, that’s a breach of politeness. Especially for different, uh – the G-word?”

“Whatever.” And she threw a carpet at his face.

TC hacked, dust flying into his delicate new human intakes. Buster barked with delight at her daddy’s new game, scrabbling up and attacking the cloth, tangling him up further. “Marissa! You’ll – cough cough ­– pay for this!”

She laughed at him.

While Marissa drove off to get him some proper clothes, TC delighted himself by playing with his girl. Like the smart little thing she was, she knew that he was her owner, even like this. She jumped around like crazy as he chased her around. They were both panting tiredly before long. He scratched her belly like the humans liked to, and she happily rubbed against him. It was a wonder, the feel of her short fur against his skin. As a cybertronian, his understanding of softness had been in negatives, in the lack of resistance. But for a human, softness was all its own sensation. He wondered at the feeling of every individual hair, the un-piercing pinpricks of the ends, the soft warmth of her life, and her wet, sticky, stinky licks of affection. He hugged her tight, pressing his face into her head, love like a nearly-painful grip around his spark.

Marissa was back soon. He dressed while she turned her back on him. Done, he turned and looked at her. She startled as he put his hand on her hair. It was softer, longer, than Buster’s. “It’s…” He searched for a word for shiny to the touch. She pushed him away with shocking strength. “Get off, dog-hands.”

“Oh?” He grinned a Skywarp-y grin. He raised his servos.

“TC-I-swear-if-you-keep-acting-like-a-child-we’re-not-going-to-the-dog-park!”

“A dog park?!”

Chapter Text

Rafael knew, instinctively, that his eyes were closed and he was curled up, but he couldn’t feel anything at all. He was hearing voices far below, but knowing he was hearing it and hearing it were two different things, a distinction he had never needed to understand.

Flickers of writing, binary, code, something at the edge of his not-vision. He thought about opening his eyes instead of just opening them, and that worked. Except- they didn’t open, they turned on. From darkness to static to monochrome to full-colour, he opened them and saw – the autobots. Of course, he was in the base. Somewhere high up, judging by how small some of them looked.

“Rafael, can you understand us?”

“Of course, Ratchet!” Odd though, there was something… “What’s with my ears? My – voice?” It was oddly tinny. The sounds felt strange too – Oh.

“Oh.” He… he was a bot.

“Damn right, ‘Oh’!” Someone yelled from very far down. Raf squinted, not that dimming his, uh, ‘optics’ helped him see here – Miko was the size of a dormouse, and Jack looked mildly uncomfortable next to her. “You’re huge! You’re like, Optimus-size!”

“I- really?”

“Actually, he’s a bit taller,” Ratchet said, almost amused. Raf stood up – and it was strange, how much data whizzed through the edges. Did Bulkhead or Bumblebee deal with this all the time? Or not – it was just stuff about his position, his stability and so on – human brains had all this data too, they just didn’t show it, they felt it. Everything around him was translated into his – processor, they called their brains, and he hadn’t realised how literal it was! – like writing on a book, but all the pages of the book were tracing paper- Oh, wow, he really was taller than Optimus now.

:hey, *hah* big guy: Bumblebee called up from his knee-level. The processor – him – explained the beeps in binary and electromagnetism, where Raf himself had just – understood. “Hey, Bee!” He grinned, and the emotion for playful, friendship, joy, translated into electric charge through his wiring.

And the longer he thought, the more it made sense. The world existed in natural signals – frequencies of light absorbed or reflected by valence electrons, vibrations in the air, tiny electric nerve-impulses. ‘Reality is just a mind bending under what it can’t comprehend’ – but it wasn’t scary at all! Human beings need interfaces for machine language, but a cybertronian was a machine, their experiences scraps of naked code.

“I understand this may be difficult to take in.” Optimus said from near his shoulder. Raf startled at the autobot leader’s voice coming from a nine-year-old’s height. “But Ratchet is searching for any way to reverse it.”

“Oh! No, no, it’s fine, just – you guys have very different brains from ours’.”

:well, duh:

“And I believe you are the only one to have experienced both.”

“Yeah, it’s…” A stray line of code caught his eye, and he forgot he was talking. “It’s a lot!”

“Ugh, never mind that, let’s get to the good bit!”

“Miko…”

“What does he turn into! Go on, transform!”

“Not in here!” Ratchet yelled. “From my scan, he’s a shuttle!”

A shutt-

“I/HE CAN FLY?”

Chapter Text

Jazz was good at improvising: that’s a fact proven many times over the past four million years. Waking up as a naked human male in some alley, with no way to contact anyone? That’s life, mech! Nothing to do but make the most of it.

Right now, he was sat in a cute little eatery he’d only ever seen from outside. They often asked up-and-coming musicians to play of them. He let his eyes close, feeling the low sweet tunes fill his ears, the simple jazz and soft voice mixing in his organic brain.

A word from the waiter brought him back to Earth, as he put a hot plate before him: Jazz liked Earth culture, even if he couldn’t understand a single thing from the menu, and he’d heard good things about ‘lasagna’.

The very first bite made something like an electric charge shoot through him. It tasted nothing like anything he had had before, as different as a guitar and drum. His mouth burnt a bit, but he barely noticed, enthralled with the texture and, and taste.

Energon was always energon, whatever form it took. Additives were nice, nickel and zinc and chrome; better the stronger your chemoreceptors were. But he’d never considered food that was for the taste what music was for sound.

The carbohydrate was the closest to what good energon was like, warm and filling, but the tastes of the tomatoes and meat were completely different.

He dug in, digging huge bites out of it with his fork and fingers, and never mind the looks he was getting. The music was sweet in his head and the hunger-cramp in his stomach was soothed, and he wouldn’t mind spending months like this just to differentiate the tastes of the meat, grain and vegetables. It was such simple pleasure, easing out months of monotonous tiredness.

He could try the thing called a ‘chocolate brownie’ next.

Chapter Text

This must be a dream, or a trick, or a punishment. Megatron’s organic servos trembled as he held them before his face. They were wet and cold with secretion, as was his face. His internal organs ached horribly in misery and shock – and the eternal, chewing guilt.

How many humans just like this had he destroyed? Aliens with minds that functioned so differently, that felt so foreign but still so much, too much, the same?

If someone, anyone – any cybertronian – were to come here, he knew just how helpless he would be, how dependant on their morality and opinions on organics and mood and past, their most banal whim a sentence of life and death.

Was it not sickening?

He knew, full well, what this body would look like when it was killed – the scent of iron-rich blood (only tangible to him when miles around were drenched in it), the colour of bones becoming paste with flesh, the way clothing ripped and skin burnt, the colour of body-smoke and the exact consistency of that meat-paste under metal soles.

There were sounds on the planet around him. Some of those sounds were human young, but they blended together with the cawing birds and barking non-turbofoxes and other wildlife. The young were talking, laughing, arguing.

Screaming.

Something crashed into the tree, far above his head (where his waist should be). The cries of the young had grown for a moment before it hit, in a chorus of groans. Megatron finally looked up from his servos.

A crowd of tiny humans, the tallest of whom barely his chest, all somewhat raggedy and grimy, were pointing up at the tree. When he followed their gaze, he saw a black-and-white ball stuck very high up. He was standing next to the tree, and without much thought he put his servos on it. He would have been able to do this with something of proportional size and weight in his bot form. He grasped the trunk, and with a great aching of muscles and cracking of bark, he shook it hard. The ball fell, and another chorus, this one joyous, swelled out.

In their cheers and laughter, he heard an echo. If he had had his way, those happy sounds would never have been –stifled in a flood of misery, then silenced altogether.

“You’re strong, Grandpa!”

He looked up. It was one of the smallest of the young. It – they – smiled at him with a look even he could tell was admiration. He tried to smile through the queasiness. “I – am. Yes.”

“I’m gonna be big and strong too, someday!” It exclaimed. “Oh! Are you sad, Grandpa?”

“No.” It reached out and took one of his servos in theirs. It was squeezed into a tight fist. They pried it slowly open, putting their palms together. The youngling’s tiny, warm servo couldn’t even cover his whole palm.

“If I be your friend, will you not be sad anymore?”

Chapter Text

“This feels strange.” Tailgate giggled, smiling up at his conjux through strands of curling silvery hair. Cyclonus stroked them away, warmth growing through his chest. “Strange, yet wonderful, would you not agree?”

“You just say that because I can reach your face now.” The minibot giggled, pressing his fair forehead to Cyclonus’s dark cheek. The latter just hummed, eyes fluttering shut. His arms were wrapped around Tailgate, and he never wanted to let him go. He could feel his spark beating strong through his chest. His body was soft and rounded where Cyclonus’ was bone and muscle.

“Heeeeey, lovebots!” A raucous whoop and a sudden boom of music. All of them winced, and Whirl left it on for juuust long enough to be inconsiderate before lowering the volume again. “Come on,” he grinned, paper-white hands on hips, “Dance, y’all!”

“Honestly.” Cyclonus chuckled. “So bossy.” Tailgate agreed.

He took one of Tailgate’s hands in his. Tailgate put his hand on his thin waist, hooking it into the belt there. To the tune of the beginning synth of the song, they moved back and forth, gauging each other. Cyclonus led, telegraphing his moves and speeding up steadily, until they were twirling around merrily, Cyclonus’s skirt swishing out around them.

I get up in the evening

And I ain’t got nothing to say

They stepped just less than an arm length from each other, raising one leg each and stomping on the ground twice. Tailgate giggled, Cyclonus, pulling him back close, could feel the breath against him. He could feel himself falling into a kind of trance, between the music and the steady motion. The trance broke when he spun Tailgate around and the shorter mech tripped, falling forwards. He was there in a minute, catching him in his arms. Their soft chest-areas squished together, and both winced at the soreness. “Clumsy me.” Tailgate giggled.

Hey there Baby,

I could use just a little help

The chorus began, and the two paid more attention to each others’ movements. Tailgate squeezed Cyclonus tight in his hold once then moved further away.

You can’t start a fire

He raised one hand, waving it idly in the air as they moved from side to side. Cyclonus still held his left one, and took his heavy mauve skirt in his own left one, swaying it.

You can’t start a fire without a spark

This gun’s for hire

Cyclonus pulled Tailgate’s hand to the side: he understood and let go to twirl about. It was still there waiting for him when he took it- with his right hand. For a moment he looked up at Cyclonus, big blue eyes as confused and worried as ever. Their arms were awkwardly crossed for a moment. Then Cyclonus recovered and pulled his conjux forward close to him again, lifting that hand above his shoulder.

He was rewarded with the sight of those same blue eyes widening, sparkling, and wrinkling in a wide smile. Whirl jeered, but his voice was oddly quiet.

Tailgate seemed to understand, his smile becoming just a bit sad. Oh. It was Whirl’s favourite part of the song.

You sit around getting older

There’s a joke here somewhere and it’s on me

I shake this world off my shoulders

Come on Baby

This laugh’s on me

With a look, Tailgate made Cyclonus let him go. He rocked back and forth on his feet for a few moments, humming, then singing:

‘I’m dying for some action

I’m sick of sitting around here trying to write this book

I need a love reaction’

Whirl blinked, as though remembering they were there. Tailgate held a hand out.

‘Come on,

Baby give me just one look’

Whirl took it, anarchic grin back on the face he now had, gratitude still warm in his eye. Cyclonus, watching his two bots, wondered at how expressive his lover was, how innocent his human face (another wonder that would have been lost from the world).

Bare-footed and skinny, Whirl was shorter than even Tailgate: they held their hands together and spun around, ignoring the song. That annoyed Cyclonus a bit.

He closed his eyes and tapped away by himself, the words, even if not in his beloved mothertongue, still poetic, the melody still lovely.

“Cy!”

This time, it was Whirl’s hand in his. Even without his eerily detailed human face, he could have told that he was shy.

You can’t start a fire!

He twirled Whirl once, one handed. His braids flapped about like whips or flails. Whirl finished grinning, and stamped on the ground with a slap of skin. He let go of that hand-

Sitting ‘round, crying over

-and spun around too, lifting his skirt to knee-height and letting it fly around him.

A broken heart

He clicked his heel on the ground primly. Something about that set the other two off giggling.

Tailgate slipped an arm around his waist, and he put one over both his and Whirl’s shoulders. Whirl was confused over what to do with his stick-like arms, so he just crossed them. Tailgate’s other hand was on his ample hip.

As the lyrics from Whirl’s pocket swelled one last time, they got to stepping in awkward time to each other, smiles easy on their faces.

You can’t start a fire

Worrying about your little world falling apart!

This gun’s for hire

Even if we’re just dancing in the Dark

Even if we’re just dancing in the Dark

Even if we’re just dancing in the Dark

…

‘Even if we’re just dancing in the Daark’ His deep voice echoed.

Chapter Text

Boom

Fulcrum winced at the sound and the vibration that went through the ground. What were his idiots up to now?

Boom

Actually, those sounded awfully like –

PEDESTEPS!

He shot upright, grabbing at his torso subspace for a blaster (what could it possibly do against a – titan? Combiner? What the heck could be that big?). Instead, a sharp pain hit his middle, and breath wheezed out. His hand hurt too. Like he’d punched a hole in himself.

“FULCRUM!” An enormous voice boomed.

He looked up, terror filling him as he looked at the giant – Misfire? “Misfire? How’d you get so big?”

“Me, big?” He wheezed with laughter. Fulcrum resignedly waited for him to recover enough to talk. “Lo-lo-look at yourself!” He hooted. “Squishy!”

Squishy?

…SQUISHY?!

“No. NO NO NO NO-”

“Oh great,” Krok appeared in the doorway, just as ridiculously big. Two gun barrels edged over the frame beside him. Fulcrum’s scream increased in volume and shrillness. “He’s online.” The captain came over; two enormous knees hit the ground, each lifting a small cloud of dust up. Fulcrum’s disgusting organic pipery itched, and the pitch and amp lifted again. It really was a pity Fgudgy opera wasn’t more well-respected in the wider galaxy; he’d have been a hit.

“Hey, hey, calm down.” Krok whisper-boomed. His upside-down face hovered high over Fulcrum ominously. “Calm down, Fulcrum, you’re safe, we’ve been figuring out how to undo this-”

“But why would you?” crowed Misfire, scooping his friend up. Fulcrum gasped for air, finally silenced. His insides felt dry, he thought stutteringly, which led to the thought that they were supposed to feel wet, and he was off endangering the warranty on the plexiglass again. “Look how shmall he is!”

“Shmall.” Spinister agreed, face near and squinting.

“And how squishy!”

“Squishy.”

Lubricant dripped down Fulcrum’s face and head-fur, and his paws felt sticky and disgusting. He curled in on himself, and tried not to give up completely. He could feel his internal functions, he could feel his internal functions, he could- Crankcase had turned up as well, gun still cocked. “Grr.” Maybe that should be reassuring. As in, Crankcase was about an inch from shooting him at the best of times, perhaps that would level the field, so to speak.

It did not.

Fulcrum fainted.

He woke up wishing desperately that everything had just been a bad flux. The bruises from sleeping on metal said otherwise. He squeezed his optic shutters closed, sucking air in, in, in, and then rolled upright.

“Hullo.” Krok rumbled. He was on his shoulder. His optic threw shadows about his profile in the night. Fulcrum croaked a, “Yeah. Hi.”, his throat stinging like he’d swallowed a splinter.

“I sent the others on a flight,” Krok continued. “I thought you’d be better off waking up without them.”

“Yeah.” There was a rapid hammering against his chassis. He didn’t like it, but then he didn’t like any of what he could feel of his new body. Some parts felt like they needed oiling, others felt too too heavy. And of course, there was the smell. His tanks churned, and it felt wrong to lack any pop-ups on his HUD about his messy health, but-

-He suddenly realised he could feel his flesh on his flesh, and immediately the churning made itself a much more current threat.

Chapter Text

Jan’s thundering steps echoed down the corridor of the station as he ran, grinning all the way. “Holey! Come back here!”

“No!” The Autobot was running ahead of him, and just barely managing to stay there. “You’re not real! I don’t believe it!”

They turned a corner and reached a long flight of stairs, and Holi jumped, shifting into alt-mode midair. For a moment, he just hung there, Jan staring with optic visor brightening and sending an alert as they switched modes to admire his trajectory. Of course, this was still Holi- so he hit the ground, not with an aggressive screech of wheels and burning rubber and speed, but on his side, bouncing once, rotating (excess momentum from transforming, Jan’s processor told him what he could have figured out on his own) before crashing, loudly, onto his hood. “Oww…” He groaned. Jan slowed down to a jog, not really worried – that would have killed a human, but he’d seen other transformers shake off worse. Like –

Star Saber! He rushed to Holi, crouching over him. “Holi! What were you thinking, young bot?”

“Sir!” The soldier gasped, “There’s an intruder in-”

“Supreme Commander!” Jan ran and jumped off the staircase too, cheering and windmilling his arms. Star Saber glanced up, shoulders flinching back in alarm, and stood and caught Jan (with another crash and screech of metal). He stared down at him. Behind him, Holi gaped. “…Jan?”

“Yeah!” His HUD was going crazy with all the alerts that were popping up about increased spark rate, emotional subroutines, and archived .zip files with his tag. “It’s me, Supreme Commander.”

“Uh, really?” Holi transformed into a cross-legged sit, looking skeptical at what had become a happy hug as soon as Star Saber put his son down. “Was it… the helm that gave it away?” Jan checked his reflection in Star Saber’s chestplate. He had a helm that looked like some kind of strawberry-flavoured French bread. “Shut up, Holi!”

Of course, Star Saber hadn’t been idling when he heard Holi crash, so the boys followed him to his meeting. Wingwaver wasn’t there, and Dashtacker hopped up off Machtackle’s lap to greet them. The other wobbled and fell off his seat. Star Saber glared at them, Jan copying the action to get used to having a visor. “Watch it, you two. There are children present.”

“Young ‘bots know what-” “It was Dashtacker’s idea-”

“No they don’t, and it doesn’t matter.” Star Saber’s sterness summarily shamed his soldiers. Holi shuddered. “Everyone, meet Jan. We’re not sure how this happened, but I fear it may take Blacker a time to undo or understand it.”

“Hey.” Jan raised a hand, grinning, waved it, and rested his elbow on Holi’s head on the way down. His father glanced at him – he was used to understanding those gestures, visor or not – and he removed it with a not-pout. “What were you going to discuss?”

“Battle plans.” Machtackle said.

“COOL! Hey, now that I’m a cybertron, can I-”

“no.”

“No!”

“no.”

Chapter Text

“It’s so hot.” Groaned Bulkhead, flat on his back. Well, more like balanced, and precariously too, because it was more of a dome than an arch. The warehouse’s single fan creaked above them, and all five of the temporary ones whirred loudly. Too loudly for Sari, who was lying on the sofa in a similar position, splashing water from a bucket onto her head whenever the previous mugful threatened to boil her alive. They’d set out to get a little work done while her dad grappled with Masterson (in a cast that, sadly, did not extend to his jaw), Powell (completely recovered from the time Optimus – allegedly – tried to get a T-rex to eat him) and Meltdown (allowed into Detroit why?). But eventually the heat and humidity got the better of them, and Ratchet had to rush back to base to take care of –

Optimus! He walked into the room looking thoroughly beaten-down, a 5-litre can in his hand like a shot glass. “Ratchet’s asleep,” He recited drily. “Do not wake him up, move over Bulk…”

“Pass me that, bossbot.” Bee groaned and made hands at the can. When Optimus passed it over, he tilted his head back and glugged.

“Leave some for the others, alright?”

“Mphhmm.”

Sari watched them listlessly. Then she looked down at her hands, eyeing the crease of silver where the skin could pull apart to lengthen her fingers. Her head felt like tar, the idea sinking through it like a stone, without words. She held her hand out to take the can, and Bumblebee – looking between her and Prime’s turned back once – passed it over. He turned his head to stare at her. It was green.

Her dad had made sure to drill machine safety into her head from the day it was known that she’d be homeschooled in his labs: Sari couldn’t even remember how she’d learnt that engine coolant was also antifreeze, and that it would kill her if she drank it.

Would have killed her though. But if she had had meaty organs then, she sure didn’t now: it must have been the heat, or the sudden change from eight to something-teen, but all common sense was a twitch at the back of her mind. Without thinking, she tilted her head back and swigged from the can with both hands.

Sweet, was her first thought, then gross, because it was. It tasted more like cough syrup than anything, bringing back bad memories of the chickenpox, but it had this pungence to it, it tasted like liquor smelt, but also like plastic. Not to mention the taste of the metal can. It wasn’t cold at all – it was unpleasantly lukewarm. There was an odd, pins-and-needles feeling in her tummy.

When she put the can down, Optimus was staring at her. She pointed her chin right back.

“Say, Sari – I didn’t notice it ‘til now, but you have a bit of oxidation,” He tapped against her copper pigtail, “Riiight there.”

“…I have rust?”