Chapter Text
Perhaps, looking back, it hadn't been the wisest idea for the Autobots to engage in a round of truth or dare with the kids. Although you couldn't blame them, since it was Raf's idea to play the game and the boys had nothing but merciful tasks and questions. The problem lay more with the human equivalent of the word “YOLO”, also known as Miko Nakadai, who had clearly made it her new mission in life to coax every unpleasant secret out of Arcee, Bumblebee and Bulkhead. And even if the bots made an effort to avoid the questions, they expected tasks that no person in control of their own mind really wanted to do.
So... here goes nothing! It wasn't long before the metaphorical milk was spilled and no amount of crying in the world was going to change that, as the humans used to say, and an ill-considered answer to a cleverly posed question provided information that could be compared to blackmail.
“What do you mean, you have holoforms?”
Miko clenched her fists and glared at one bot after another, then at the boys and finally at Ratchet, who was standing by the computer absorbed in whatever he was doing. Her exchange of glances, amusingly enough, made for an interesting pirouetting dance.
"You guys could have turned into humans all this time and you didn't tell us? Have you any idea what kind of betrayal of trust that is?" she ranted and stomped her foot on the ground, making her pigtails dance. Her eyes darted over to her guardian, who winced a little under the teenager's sharp gaze. It was almost funny when you thought about the fact that the green, beefy bot was a few tons heavier than the girl.
Calmly, he raised the servos in an attempt to de-escalate.
Unfortunately, de-escalation was the complete opposite of calming Miko Nakadai. A quick trip to a metal concert or a few laps in the rapids might have worked better.
With an accusing finger, the japanese girl glared at the big bot: "Bulkhead, I don't know if I can ever forgive you for this. You broke the Bro Code. You broke the Brode!"
"Could it be that you have just made that up? " Arcee chimed in, having watched the whole incident with an amused grin, but not lifting a finger to intervene. Instead, she crossed her arms in front of her chest and shifted her weight from one leg to the other while placing bets with Bumblebee on a private channel about how long it would take Bulkhead to give in and grant the Japanese woman some insane wish to make up for his mistake.
“Doesn't sound like something that actually exists,” the blue femme finally added.
“Just like we didn't know holoforms existed?” Jack turned to the warrior with a cheeky grin and a raised eyebrow and rested his arm on the back of the couch on which he was sitting with his legs bent. “Why are you dropping the bomb now?”
“What are you talking about?” Now it was Arcee's turn to raise a metallic brow. "You know my hologram. Or do you think Sadie is just pretty decoration?"
“But a hologram is different from a holoform,” the boy next to Jack remarked, adjusting his glasses, putting down the laptop on his lap and turning around. “At least you don't call it a hologram, but a holoform.”
“Yeah.” Jack shrugged his shoulders. “What's the difference?”
Ratchet, who was standing at his console and had been listening to the conversation in silence, snorted, making a sound not unlike a horse.
“What's the difference?” the medic squawked like a parrot, more to himself than to the others in the room. Finally, he turned to the group and crossed his arms. "A holoform is something completely different from those ridiculous projections you humans are talking about. Because unlike that childish stuff, a holoform is a highly technical achievement that we Cybertronians have been born with since we first went online."
His chest puffed out with pride, he folded his arms and for a horrible, brief moment it looked as if the doctor was going to sink into another one of his hymns of praise for Cybertron. Something no one ever felt inclined to engage in and which soon ended in hasty apologies so that they could leave the room as quickly as possible. Amazingly, even Optimus Prime, the Doctor's oldest friend, sometimes took a tactical retreat when Ratchet sank into one of his exposés.
But that wasn't the case, as the bot soon opened the optics and looked at the humans one by one: “A highly complex part of our anatomy and certainly no attraction for organic beings.”
"Okay. Then show it." Miko shrugged her shoulders and looked at the medic with an almost challenging grin. It was a sight that briefly unsettled him.
"What? I... I'm certainly not going to be an entertainer for you. Besides, a holoform takes time. Something like that doesn't just happen overnight. You have to adjust their appearance..." the Medic began digressively in a bit of a singsong, which only caused both children and bots present to raise their eyebrows, or the Cybertronian equivalent, one by one as they looked at the Medic with tilted heads.
"... and find clothes that you humans appreciate so much. Also, we need to tell Agent Fowler about this and... and... you know what? I don't owe you any explanation!"
Visibly caught by surprise, the doctor made a face.
"Holoforms are not toys and you have no right to force us to use them. And that's it!"
"Oh come on. It can't be that bad to be human for once." Jack watched Ratchet patiently. “Besides, we could show you a few things from our world.”
“Oh yeah right.” Miko rolled her eyes. “Because Jasper Nevada is also a melting pot of cultural diversity.” - “You want to see the holoforms so badly, don't you?” - “And you think tempting them with probably the most boring place on Earth will work?” - “You're so determined to get them to do this holo thing!”
Visibly exasperated, young Darby threw his arms in the air as the pointless discussion went over his head.
"No, Jack. We want to see them and they want to use them." Miko sauntered over to the boy. “The feeling here is mutual,” she explained, leaning forward almost in a "I know it better than you, so listen" and having her eyes closed blissfully. "Besides, I was thinking more of places we can reach with a certain groundbridge. Wink wink!" With a jerky movement of her head, she pointed at the technology in question, which was standing behind Ratchet, difficult to miss.
“Socialism by Miko.” the teenager sighed, propping his head on his hand and glancing at Rafael, who silently returned the slight grin before turning to his own partner.
“We don't even have to travel the world,” Rafael explained, sparkling at Bumblebeee with enthusiastic eyes. "Bee, we could play some of my video games at my place. Your hands won't be so big then either."
The scout's optics lit up at the prospect and with an enthusiastic chirp, he agreed with the little tech geek, who immediately got into a wild discussion with the bot about which game would be the first to be played through in a one-night sleepover. Somewhere along the line, the phrases “building forts” and “watching action movies” were also mentioned.
"That's right. Bulkhead, think about it, we could do a wrestling match or jam on the guitar together!" Miko joined in the tone and you could already see the countless plans playing out in her mind's eye. "Oh! I can dig out my old skateboarding gear and I'll show you how to do a few lanes. It'll be awesome!"
“Arcee, I could show you how to ride a bike.” - “I have two healthy wheels, why would I want something like that?”
“Absolutely not!" the medic's voice rose above the kids' enthusiastic cheers. One by one, he scrutinized them with a sharp look. "Bumblebee will not play video games with you. How are you going to explain to your family where he's from?"
“Exchange student.”
Without responding to the shrugging answer, the orange white bot continued his tirade: "Bulkhead and you won't be doing wrestling matches. It's enough that I have to bulge that thick skull in bot form, I don't have to deal with holoforms or little girls because of it!"
“Dude, I'm fifteen!”
"And Arcee's not going to ride a bike! Whatever that is again. And why is that? Because she's not human, she's a Cybertronian warrior, is that clear?"
Ratchet took a deep breath and closed his eyes to mentally shut himself down before his processor crashed. “So let's stop this babbling about some plans we're not going to follow through with anyway, are we clear?”
“Is something wrong?” a warm baritone suddenly cut through the doctor's nagging and suddenly all optics and eyes turned to the large bot that had stepped out of the deep realms of the base into the main hall. As always, the blue and red truck carried his figure with a certain self-assurance that conveyed anew every time: Everything is fine. I'll look after you, and a sense of calm seemed to settle like a blanket over the group, which until a few seconds ago had almost been trembling with ecstasy. Whether the ecstasy was of good origin or not was debatable.
The bright blue optics of Optimus Prime briefly wandered over the children, then over their guardians, who were standing at the railing next to them, before stopping at Ratchet and observing the Medic almost curiously.
“Nothing important!” he waved it off. "Someone just had to bring the kids back down to earth. They're driving the whole base crazy with their nonsensical ideas."
“Nonsensical my ass!” Miko cursed loudly and crossed her arms, causing Bulkhead to say her name in warning, hoping to calm the cursing japanese girl down, but to no avail, because she continued to speak without point or comma, but this time directly to Optimus, who only raised a questioning metal eyebrow and tilted his head.
“Your doc's just a total bore who's never heard of fun.” She stomped over to the part of the railing closest to the Prime and leaned on it, so far that Optimus almost reached out on reflex to catch her if she fell.
“And just because he's got a jack across his ass...” - “Excuse me?!” - "...we're to blame again. And it was you guys that started the secrecy. So much for teamwork."
The Prime's brows moved higher with every word Miko said, drawing together in the middle, and the Autobot leader looked over at Jack with a help-seeking gaze, looking at the person he trusted the most besides Rafael, Agent Fowler and Mrs. Darby - wrong, she had asked the Prime to call her “June” a couple of times.
The teenager looked at the Prime over the back of the couch and then glanced at Rafael, who was still sitting next to him. The two boys had a silent exchange over their eyes for a couple seconds, then nodded and Jack started to explain everything for the poor leader of the autobots, who so far had only drawn confusion from the information he'd been given.
“We've only just learned that you have holoforms.”
So there lay the cyber-dog buried.
The Prime nodded affirmatively. “Yes.”
It wasn't a question he asked, yet it almost sounded like he had asked one. Probably because he last of the Primes still didn't understand how this fact related to his doctor's tense mood.
“Well.” Visibly uncomfortable, Jack rubbed the back of his neck and looked up at Optimus through his lashes. “We didn't know about this, and we're wondering why you never said anything.”
“Puh-lease” Ratchet snorted, again not unlike a horse and turned to Optimus.
"Don't listen to the kids. Someone just put a bug in their audials that makes them think they're entitled to use our holoforms for their private pleasure."
“We never said that.” Raf curled his lips and scowled at the Medic as well. “We were just thinking about all the things we could do with you if you were human.”
"My words exactly. Private pleasure. Something that has no place in a war!"
“And why shouldn't personal enjoyment be a part of being a soldier, old friend?”
If betrayal had a face, Ratchet would now be the Cybertronian embodiment of it. Jaw open and optics wide, the Medic slowly looked over at his friend, unable to find words for the fact that the latter had just stabbed him in the back like a ravenous wolf over a defenseless deer. At least that's how it seemed to Ratchet.
“I... you... Optimus... she... we can't... you can't be serious!”
The Prime, still calm and collected, shrugged his massive shoulders.
"I see no harm in the children wanting more interactions with their partners. I would even go so far as to say that some cultural appropriation would do us all some benefit. After all, we are guests here and it would be the minimum we could do to engage with our hosts," explained Optimus, without taking his gaze off Ratchet.
“I'm sure it would do some people good to get a change of scenery, as the humans say,” the Prime added.
No one said it, but everyone got the hint that Optimus was sending to Ratchet. It was hard to stifle a grin.
“Does that mean the boss is giving us permission?” Miko now dared to hope. “Really official?”
"I think we can certainly learn a few things about the humans and, given the absence of the Decepticons in recent weeks, I also think we have the space to realize these plans. However, within the appropriate limits and with the necessary respect. Of course, that's no excuse for being careless."
“Wohoo!!!” With a leap of joy, Miko now whirled over to Bulkhead and could hardly contain her excitement. "Come on, Bulkhead! Let's get started on your holoform right away! We really need to give you some scars! And huge muscles! Oh. And maybe a tattoo!"
While Miko was already lost in infinite worlds, little Rafael hopped off the couch, trotted calmly over to the yellow scout and the two friends looked for a quiet corner to discuss Bumblebee's holoform.
Arcee just gave Jack a long look, whereupon Jack raised his hands in surrender and the two of them also disappeared into the remote areas of the base, leaving only Optimus and Ratchet behind.
Still outraged by his leader's deceitful betrayal, the Medic snorted for the third time that day and crossed his arms.
“I hope you realize what you've done.”
Optimus smiled good-naturedly. “Quite so, old friend.”
"I hope you also realize that if anything goes wrong, I will desert you faster than you can think. Just to give you a rough idea of how your betrayal just felt," the smaller bot added, causing Optimus to look at him from calm optics.
“Do you put so little faith in our tea-” - “Yes.”
An amused smile reflected on the big 18-wheeler's metallic lips as he placed a warm servo on Ratchet's shoulder plates.
"Just try to think of it as a new form of cooperation. Maybe you can use it as a way to teach the kids about our culture as much as they teach us about theirs," he explained with an angelic patience that would have made any other Prime before him envious. Apparently wars were a good opportunity to build up his own patience, otherwise there was no other explanation for how Optimus was able to deal with his team the way he did.
Ratchet pondered the Prime's words for a moment before rolling his optics in a pitiful attempt to both agree with him and still defend his own verbally very clear point of view as best he could.
"Well. When you put it that way... Rafael has always been interested in our anatomy. Maybe I can teach the lad a few little things then."
Ratchet smiled at the thought of teaching the boy more about their race, and preferably even on Ratchet's own body, which the Medic probably knew best.
“And you can finally check out those weird animal parks you're so obsessed with,” he added, rolling his optics again as Optimus gave him a questioning look in a ridiculous attempt at sneakiness.
"Please, Optimus. Everyone here knows you regularly have Agent Fowler bring you documentaries and secretly watch them in your berth room. You may be able to fool the Decepticons, but you can't fool us."
Now visibly embarrassed, the Prime averted his eyes, but couldn't help but smile at the thought of being able to pursue his own interests more.
Only God, or in this case, Primus alone, knew what the future held for the Autobots.