TF Gift Exchange: prototypal
Title: prototypal
Author: Synaltern
Rating: PG-13
Verse: Bay/Movieverse. RotF/DotM AU, very much.
Content: I'm hesitant to say there's actually any DotM spoilers, but just to be safe, if you're avoiding them, there you go. Otherwise, het and mentionings. Ooo.
Characters: Mikaela Banes/Wheeljack, Ratchet, Sam Witwicky. Others mentioned.
Summary: Mikaela was warned about Wheeljack by more than one resident mech. This was written for Femme4Jack for the TF Gift Exchange hosted by Merfilly. I'm glad it pleased!
Disclaimer: I don't own none of it. Except what I did with them.
This was written for Femme4Jack for the TF Gift Exchange hosted by Merfilly. I'm glad it pleased!
X-posted to TF2007fun & Flesh&Steel.
prototypal
-.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.-
There were three new mechs making landfall near an officially unnamed, muddy riverbank. Two came down well enough - a bulky form who stood as solidly as he had landed, and a smaller, lithe one, standing barely half the other's height. The third cometary form didn't crash, exactly - it slid into the mud bank before careening through a few trees, the mech uncoiling as he rolled.
A few parts went flying. One landed near Mikaela's feet, kicked aside by a frantically dodging Sam Witwicky.
The first two mechs were introduced as the sturdy Trailbreaker and the curious-and-cool Beachcomber. The third - once given the all-clear by a fuming Ratchet - cheerfully lit up the night in a cascade of yellows, greens and reds and called himself Wheeljack. Ratchet cuffed him on the shoulder; an old, friendly gesture accompanied by much grumbling.
While Sam maintained the drowning fish look, mouth flopping wide and shut while searching out a wry statement to quote, Mikaela went searching for the whatever-it-was that had spun away from the tumbling Cybertronian. She tripped over the thing, partially buried in the viscous mud of the shoreline, gingerly schlurpling it out. Somewhere between shock and awe, she made her way over to the newcomer: “You carry extra fingers?”
“And an arm...just in case! You never know when you'll need one!
Mikaela barely held back her laughter as she handed up a finger half her height. “Like now?”
-.-__-.-__-.-
Halfway through the trip back to Diego Garcia, Sam plopped onto the bench next to Mikaela, eying in the iPad-turned-Cybertronian datapad sitting on her lap. The Cybertronian body diagrams set on the touchscreen were complex, degrees beyond what he was capable of understanding: there was some pride in having a girlfriend that could make some sense of the spinning numbers.
It almost took more than a gentle shove for Sam to get her attention. She accepted the proffered water bottle with a grimace of broken concentration, just waiting for the spurt of verbal rumination that followed any “adventure” of this sort. Amusing and cute as the typically one-sided conversations generally were, she had studying to do.
“So. This one new guy. Engineer, right?”
Mikaela guzzled half the water, screwing the lid back on before setting the bottle down at her feet. “Right.”
“They're robots.” At his girlfriend's confused glance, he did a kind-of-halfway-there gesture, keeping his hand low and not wanting to be seen pointing at certain apparently-infamous robotic individuals. “They're robots, Mik,” he repeated. “I get the medic. Medic is to doctor as...as...a medical professional and that makes sense, see, because they heal, I've - we've - seen it. You help and that's just so totally awesome-“
Mikaela gracefully raised a single eyebrow, waiting for him to catch up to his own tongue, peripherally aware of having gained some of Ratchet's and Wheeljack's attention.
“I'm not seeing it. The difference, I mean. Do they have architects? Geology people? Medic is just, its like a mechanic, really. So what's the engineer do? Are you a mechanic or a nurse?”
Mikaela grunted, chewing on her lip, thinking quickly. “Ratchet works on the bodies. Wheeljack's in charge of everything else.” She tried to get back to her studying - Ratchet wanted those diagrams memorized yesterday, and dealing with a landfall is no excuse, young human! - but Sam continued muttering questions and second-guessing her halfhearted nods and shrugs. “Sam-“
“And what are those blinking lights on his head for? They have their radios and he can talk - heard him - I don't...Mikaela...?”
“Clearly,” she hissed with a glare, “They're for the party I won't be going to if I don't get this done!”
She didn't see Wheeljack's considering smile or the quick gesture in her direction as he questioned Ratchet, the thinly-set finials at the sides of his head glowing a pale blue.
-.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.-
Mikaela was warned about Wheeljack by more than one resident mech. He was prone to explosions and clumsy accidents, he caused more damage than he fixed, he had to be fixed more times in one solar cycle than a frontliner in the entire length of the war. He was a pyrotechnic genius, a designer and inventor of weapons that did amazing jobs of disabling without irreparable damage.
Really she realized, after a few weeks. Even these guys remember the worst-case scenarios more often than the real common ones.
Any explosion that occurred was hastily contained. There was always plenty of smoke, but rarely were there anything beyond the most minor of injuries for human and mech alike. As it was, Wheeljack's preferred method of removing potentially dangerous or unworkable prototypes was to set them on fire.
Under careful supervision.
“A medic,” Wheeljack told her, “is an extremely specialized engineer. A mechanic focused on our Sparks and the living metal of our bodies, and all the coding that goes with it. I can do some of Ratchet's job in a pinch, but I don't have that kind of programming.”
“You're a generalist,” was Mikaela's response. “Specialized in generalizing so much that you practically know everything.”
Finials strobing blue and green, Wheeljack co-opted most of Mikaela's off time.
-.-__-.-__-.-
The summer before Sam had gone to college, Mikaela had worked with her father to get his auto shop going. Her off hours had been dedicated to reading and memorizing everything Ratchet sent her way - she devoured everything, and kept asking for more. Then there was Egypt, when she informally accepted an actual apprenticeship position. After Sam's first year of college, it became an official career track. For purposes of practicality, she relocated to the Autobot base at Diego Garcia on a more permanent basis. The human side of operations had required that certain forms be signed, protests overcome, provisions given. In the end, very little had actually been signed - she was smarter than the appointed liaison thought her to be, and would not be roped into revealing secrets of technology.
Her father was proud. That meant more than she had thought it would. Sam, however, was reluctant. He too was proud, amazed at what she was beginning to accomplish. Yet... Mikaela declined to spend spring break with him. She was neck deep in another project, something to do with geothermal sensors and earthquake warnings with Beachcomber. At the beginning of summer, when he flew to Diego Garcia with Bumblebee, she spent nearly every hour in the labs.
They had lunch a few times. They went on an aborted dinner date - she responded whenever Wheeljack called, regardless of the time or situation. The mech refused to keep human timetables. So did Mikaela.
Sam joined her in the labs, once or twice. He would quickly retreat from the buzz of activity, mind numb from foreign terms and the occasionally high static charge in the air, wondering how his girlfriend could tolerate it. She certainly seemed to be thriving in the frenetic environment, her entire being focused on the aliens around them.
He asked her once why she took orders from Wheeljack and Beachcomber when she was Ratchet's apprentice. “For them, apprentice to one pretty much means I'm working for all of them. Learn all the theory first, figure out where I want to focus,” she had said with a satisfied grin. “Besides...I want to. 'Jack's fun to work with. And he outranks Ratchet outside of medical matters.”
Mikaela hugged Sam goodbye when he got on the plane to head back to the continental U.S. It was three months before she realized just how many emails she had forgotten to respond to. It was six months before she noticed that Sam hadn't called in three.
When she finally did call, it was quiet and mutual and really for the best. She cried for a few minutes anyway, until Wheeljack called on her to sort those wires, then start the welding in sub-section B-
-.-__-.-__-.-
Wheeljack set a human-sized tarp-covered object down in front of her. “Had a thought that one of us won't always be right there to cart you somewhere quickly, so I put something together.” He removed the cover with a flourish, finials flashing a muted green while awaiting her response.
“You made me a...Segway?”
“A what? No, I...” Wheeljack paused a moment, accessing the word and tracing its usage. “...ah.” He paused ever so briefly. “Its not just a Segway! Its a Cybertronian Segway! It drives itself - just tell it where to go and you can get updates through the human and Autobot network feeds on the go-“
As Wheeljack expounded upon the benefits of the two-wheeled drone (with a blaster holster and scatter-gun - unloaded - just in case and a handy slot to put her datapads!), finials flaring bright blue, Mikaela ran figure-eights between his legs.
-.-__-.-__-.-
Hip deep in a tub of goop, cleaning a sheet of thin, surprisingly sturdy but pliable something that looked vaguely like the schematic projected on the whitewall, Mikaela was glad to be out of the new summer's heat. And not thinking about the invitation to Sam's college graduation.
“How's that spar coming there, Mik?”
Mik. Once upon a time, only Sam had gotten away with that. Now it was Wheeljack, and it just seemed right coming from that mech's vocalizer. “Almost done. Where does this-oh, I see. Hip?”
Wheeljack's finials glowed blue as he turned back to whatever he was working on at the table twice her height. Blue is positive. Yellow is doubtful. Red is danger, Ratchet had said well after she had figured things out for herself. Adjusted the colors so you humans would know what you were looking at.
“Awesome,” she whispered to herself, grinning. Louder: “What's this going to be?”
Wheeljack gave her an optic wink over his shoulder. “Don't have a name for it yet, but that there's a prototype for better armor for you smaller ones.”
“Wow.” Mikaela stood still for a few moments, examining the projected schematic with a new perspective on its final purpose. “Will it have to be custom fit? Or are we talking growth nanites like your bodies use?”
“That's why you're here, Chief of Human-Cybertronian Mechanical Development! Or Human Testing. Prototype Generational Theorist? We'll think of something!”
Dream job come true? Definitely.
-.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.-
This explosion had not been a planned one.
Not that anyone could plan a practice missile from the target range on the opposite end of the base being misprogrammed by an amateur to go the wrong direction, causing a cascade reaction that started with a golf cart and ended with a case of just-delivered inflammable materials cartwheeling over a railing into a highly-electrified console hanging open for repairs by a human named Mikaela Banes. The sort of freak accident that tended to happen to mechs who carried spare spare arms and fingers integrated into their chassis just in case, not young, workaholic humans.
All she would remember afterward was a voice that was never meant to sound so terrified and the metallic reverberation of her name through red-and-yellow blinking smoke.
-.-__-.-__-.-
It was three weeks before Ratchet let her out of bed. The human doctors had been dismissed after the Ratchet-directed surgeries; the techno-biological assistance he provided quadrupled her healing rate and rendered the skin-replacement surgeries for her burns nearly unnecessary. Even so, he couldn't fix everything. She had been nearly burned alive in an instant. If we had a category beyond “critical” and “shockingly not dead”, it'd be renamed “Mikaela,” had been said in a far too honest way. At least she had heard it second-hand.
Hands.
She didn't have hers, now. And Wheeljack's spares wouldn't help.
-.-__-.-__-.-
Wheeljack had stopped by her hospital room window only once. Ratchet assured her there was a good reason, but she found herself depressed, regardless. Inexplicably, she convinced herself.
Wheeljack continued to send her datapads loaded with file after file to learn. When not focused on her physical therapy, she put herself to it, mind bent to the task in a daily struggle to ignore her disfigurement. The first few were standard fare: variations in mech chassis layout, more advanced drone programming, the diagrams for the nanites still flooding her bloodstream-
Torn between anger and celebration at the permanent, customized additions to her biology, she demanded to know everything.
The next batch of datapads contained programming specifications and variations for the nanites, alongside notes and formulas detailing cellular-level techno-biological interaction and neurological implants that the entire science team had to have played a part in. The nanites weren't just keeping her alive - they would allow the integration of the new arms Wheeljack was custom designing to match her old ones.
-.-__-.-__-.-
The attachment surgery was delayed, though Mikaela could honestly say she didn't mind quite so much. In perfecting the manufactured limbs and testing to make triply certain there would be no complications, Wheeljack had quite literally worked himself into stasis.
-.-__-.-__-.-
It took a full month before Mikaela was comfortable utilizing her new limbs. They responded the same as her biological ones, though they were slightly heaver and far, far stronger. Full-body muscle augmentation dealt with the excess weight, and she was now able to work directly with systems she had been forced to avoid due to her inherent organic nature...but none of that was an issue.
No, the problem was the feel of things.
Her arms were constructed of a lighter-weight, customized-to-her-specific-biology version of Cybertronian living metal, networked through the self-replicating nanites to wetware implants in her brain and camouflaged as her own flesh. Sensors acted as nerves, allowing the use of her built-in tools and giving her more direct and informative readings than her native sense of touch could otherwise provide. She could trace a circuit to find a fault and fix it without dragging an entire toolbox.
Before, she could vaguely, occasionally, sense the hum of a mech's Spark behind a charged electromagnetic field...if she was standing atop their open chest plates. Now, she could read that same mech's charged field from across the entire medbay. It was distracting when she was attempting to concentrate on work, only to find herself attempting to put an English word to a reading with no direct translation.
She badgered Wheeljack until he began teaching her Cybertronian script.
His charged field was soothing to remain near.
-.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.-
A new civilian director of something-or-other was being led on a tour of the facilities. Wheeljack had mentioned it briefly to her while she was underneath one of the primary power transfer junction a few days prior - she hadn't paid much attention. There was some new official parading through every few weeks since the existence of the Cybertronians had been officially unveiled, and she remained out of sight for all of them. She would rather work in the background than become the next island curiosity.
At least, until the name Samuel Witwicky was mentioned.
She had no clue who the blonde on his arm was, but the woman certainly knew her. Mikaela was greeted with outright admiration, gushing over how Sam had nothing but glowing praise for her tenacity and intelligence and found her to be an inspiring figure that drove him to higher objectives and see how far he has come now, working the aliens legitimately and not just from chance based on his ancestry?
Mikaela didn't know whether to hate the wife or adore her.
She retreated to her own corner of the lab, filled with her works-in-progress and an impressive array of schematic printouts adorning every vertical surface. Sam found her there and watched for several long minutes before saying anything.
“I heard about the accident. They, uh...the arms look good.”
She turned, not pausing in her adjustment of a solar sensor panel. “...thanks. They're useful.”
There was a long, awkward pause before Sam stepped forward to one of the tables, eying the diagrams and her copious, non-human notes. “Can you read this? I mean, did you write it...? And design all this?” The impressed awe in his voice managed to wipe away the rest of her nervousness for being around him for the first time in seven years. She set her project aside and started talking, smiling all the while.
-.-__-.-__-.-
“How'd it go, Mik?” Wheeljack asked her afterward.
“Fine,” she said, before leaning against his leg. Ah, there. Much better. She could feel Wheeljack lock the knee and ankle joints to avoid accidental movement. She relished the feeling of feeling the reflection of affection in his EM field, every time.
“Just 'fine'? The kid seems to be doing pretty good,” he replied, distracted while digging through his leg. He had pulled a toe flange out of there, once. “Ah ha!” as he pulled out a chunk of something. “I found this under some extraneous code in one of the databanks.”
She blinked, gesturing to the whatchamacallit in his fingers with a bland tone: “What is it?”
“What? Oh.” Wheeljack casually tossed the irritant down the smelting chute. “Transferring to your datapad now - there.” He strobed his finials as bright a blinding blue as they could manage, lending strength to his mischievous grin. “Upgrades!”
Mikaela skimmed the data critically. “Will this...really? Really?”
“Yeah. It'll take a little time, but we can do it.”
“So want!”
-.-__-.-__-.-
She had always known that Wheeljack was a rather spiritual mech in comparison to most of the others. Oh, they all shouted praises to their deity, but she only knew Prime and Wheeljack to actually pray to him. She'd heard him before, the whistles and clicks and tones underscored by engine rumbles and groaning gears - the native Cybertronian language.
She'd heard it. Now she understood it.
It was beautiful, and she told him so in transmitted glyphs via her new implant. His EM field flared with affection and finials shone brilliant aqua as she asked questions she couldn't quite ask the way she wanted before, a flood which he answered over several days.
-.-__-.-__-.-
One morning, he didn't lock his joints when she leaned against his leg. He picked her up instead, examining her from foot to head with a critical optic and a thorough scan, finials a muted green. She shivered. He set her back down without comment, and they returned to work. She didn't lean against him again for the rest of the day.
That night, Wheeljack picked her up again and set her to sleep on his chest plates while he settled in for his weekly recharge.
-.-__-.-__-.-
“I don't get this one. I get the segment here,” Mikaela paused, sending the modified indicators to the engineer, “and here. But I fail to see the need for a third redundancy.”
Wheeljack sent a new set of diagrams, cleanly pointing out where the connections actually went. “Its not for that piece. Its to act-“
“...as a backup protector for the primary junction. Got it.” She worked at the new shield prototype schematic for several minutes before she realized he had stopped his work and was staring.
At her.
Slowly, she set the datapad down and stood, moving to lean against his leg. He locked the knee, the ankle, automatically, EM field fluctuating with something she didn't know, didn't need to know, because she understood on some instinctual level.
Wheeljack picked her up.
-.-__-.-__-.-
She couldn't quite describe how or what had happened, but somehow, Ratchet knew. “I'll warn you now: Wheeljack's a kinky glitch.”
Mikaela didn't have to ask what he meant by that. She understood, every time Wheeljack had her shouting to Primus.
And every time she had him doing the same.
-.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.-
Author: Synaltern
Rating: PG-13
Verse: Bay/Movieverse. RotF/DotM AU, very much.
Content: I'm hesitant to say there's actually any DotM spoilers, but just to be safe, if you're avoiding them, there you go. Otherwise, het and mentionings. Ooo.
Characters: Mikaela Banes/Wheeljack, Ratchet, Sam Witwicky. Others mentioned.
Summary: Mikaela was warned about Wheeljack by more than one resident mech. This was written for Femme4Jack for the TF Gift Exchange hosted by Merfilly. I'm glad it pleased!
Disclaimer: I don't own none of it. Except what I did with them.
This was written for Femme4Jack for the TF Gift Exchange hosted by Merfilly. I'm glad it pleased!
X-posted to TF2007fun & Flesh&Steel.
prototypal
-.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.-
There were three new mechs making landfall near an officially unnamed, muddy riverbank. Two came down well enough - a bulky form who stood as solidly as he had landed, and a smaller, lithe one, standing barely half the other's height. The third cometary form didn't crash, exactly - it slid into the mud bank before careening through a few trees, the mech uncoiling as he rolled.
A few parts went flying. One landed near Mikaela's feet, kicked aside by a frantically dodging Sam Witwicky.
The first two mechs were introduced as the sturdy Trailbreaker and the curious-and-cool Beachcomber. The third - once given the all-clear by a fuming Ratchet - cheerfully lit up the night in a cascade of yellows, greens and reds and called himself Wheeljack. Ratchet cuffed him on the shoulder; an old, friendly gesture accompanied by much grumbling.
While Sam maintained the drowning fish look, mouth flopping wide and shut while searching out a wry statement to quote, Mikaela went searching for the whatever-it-was that had spun away from the tumbling Cybertronian. She tripped over the thing, partially buried in the viscous mud of the shoreline, gingerly schlurpling it out. Somewhere between shock and awe, she made her way over to the newcomer: “You carry extra fingers?”
“And an arm...just in case! You never know when you'll need one!
Mikaela barely held back her laughter as she handed up a finger half her height. “Like now?”
-.-__-.-__-.-
Halfway through the trip back to Diego Garcia, Sam plopped onto the bench next to Mikaela, eying in the iPad-turned-Cybertronian datapad sitting on her lap. The Cybertronian body diagrams set on the touchscreen were complex, degrees beyond what he was capable of understanding: there was some pride in having a girlfriend that could make some sense of the spinning numbers.
It almost took more than a gentle shove for Sam to get her attention. She accepted the proffered water bottle with a grimace of broken concentration, just waiting for the spurt of verbal rumination that followed any “adventure” of this sort. Amusing and cute as the typically one-sided conversations generally were, she had studying to do.
“So. This one new guy. Engineer, right?”
Mikaela guzzled half the water, screwing the lid back on before setting the bottle down at her feet. “Right.”
“They're robots.” At his girlfriend's confused glance, he did a kind-of-halfway-there gesture, keeping his hand low and not wanting to be seen pointing at certain apparently-infamous robotic individuals. “They're robots, Mik,” he repeated. “I get the medic. Medic is to doctor as...as...a medical professional and that makes sense, see, because they heal, I've - we've - seen it. You help and that's just so totally awesome-“
Mikaela gracefully raised a single eyebrow, waiting for him to catch up to his own tongue, peripherally aware of having gained some of Ratchet's and Wheeljack's attention.
“I'm not seeing it. The difference, I mean. Do they have architects? Geology people? Medic is just, its like a mechanic, really. So what's the engineer do? Are you a mechanic or a nurse?”
Mikaela grunted, chewing on her lip, thinking quickly. “Ratchet works on the bodies. Wheeljack's in charge of everything else.” She tried to get back to her studying - Ratchet wanted those diagrams memorized yesterday, and dealing with a landfall is no excuse, young human! - but Sam continued muttering questions and second-guessing her halfhearted nods and shrugs. “Sam-“
“And what are those blinking lights on his head for? They have their radios and he can talk - heard him - I don't...Mikaela...?”
“Clearly,” she hissed with a glare, “They're for the party I won't be going to if I don't get this done!”
She didn't see Wheeljack's considering smile or the quick gesture in her direction as he questioned Ratchet, the thinly-set finials at the sides of his head glowing a pale blue.
-.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.-
Mikaela was warned about Wheeljack by more than one resident mech. He was prone to explosions and clumsy accidents, he caused more damage than he fixed, he had to be fixed more times in one solar cycle than a frontliner in the entire length of the war. He was a pyrotechnic genius, a designer and inventor of weapons that did amazing jobs of disabling without irreparable damage.
Really she realized, after a few weeks. Even these guys remember the worst-case scenarios more often than the real common ones.
Any explosion that occurred was hastily contained. There was always plenty of smoke, but rarely were there anything beyond the most minor of injuries for human and mech alike. As it was, Wheeljack's preferred method of removing potentially dangerous or unworkable prototypes was to set them on fire.
Under careful supervision.
“A medic,” Wheeljack told her, “is an extremely specialized engineer. A mechanic focused on our Sparks and the living metal of our bodies, and all the coding that goes with it. I can do some of Ratchet's job in a pinch, but I don't have that kind of programming.”
“You're a generalist,” was Mikaela's response. “Specialized in generalizing so much that you practically know everything.”
Finials strobing blue and green, Wheeljack co-opted most of Mikaela's off time.
-.-__-.-__-.-
The summer before Sam had gone to college, Mikaela had worked with her father to get his auto shop going. Her off hours had been dedicated to reading and memorizing everything Ratchet sent her way - she devoured everything, and kept asking for more. Then there was Egypt, when she informally accepted an actual apprenticeship position. After Sam's first year of college, it became an official career track. For purposes of practicality, she relocated to the Autobot base at Diego Garcia on a more permanent basis. The human side of operations had required that certain forms be signed, protests overcome, provisions given. In the end, very little had actually been signed - she was smarter than the appointed liaison thought her to be, and would not be roped into revealing secrets of technology.
Her father was proud. That meant more than she had thought it would. Sam, however, was reluctant. He too was proud, amazed at what she was beginning to accomplish. Yet... Mikaela declined to spend spring break with him. She was neck deep in another project, something to do with geothermal sensors and earthquake warnings with Beachcomber. At the beginning of summer, when he flew to Diego Garcia with Bumblebee, she spent nearly every hour in the labs.
They had lunch a few times. They went on an aborted dinner date - she responded whenever Wheeljack called, regardless of the time or situation. The mech refused to keep human timetables. So did Mikaela.
Sam joined her in the labs, once or twice. He would quickly retreat from the buzz of activity, mind numb from foreign terms and the occasionally high static charge in the air, wondering how his girlfriend could tolerate it. She certainly seemed to be thriving in the frenetic environment, her entire being focused on the aliens around them.
He asked her once why she took orders from Wheeljack and Beachcomber when she was Ratchet's apprentice. “For them, apprentice to one pretty much means I'm working for all of them. Learn all the theory first, figure out where I want to focus,” she had said with a satisfied grin. “Besides...I want to. 'Jack's fun to work with. And he outranks Ratchet outside of medical matters.”
Mikaela hugged Sam goodbye when he got on the plane to head back to the continental U.S. It was three months before she realized just how many emails she had forgotten to respond to. It was six months before she noticed that Sam hadn't called in three.
When she finally did call, it was quiet and mutual and really for the best. She cried for a few minutes anyway, until Wheeljack called on her to sort those wires, then start the welding in sub-section B-
-.-__-.-__-.-
Wheeljack set a human-sized tarp-covered object down in front of her. “Had a thought that one of us won't always be right there to cart you somewhere quickly, so I put something together.” He removed the cover with a flourish, finials flashing a muted green while awaiting her response.
“You made me a...Segway?”
“A what? No, I...” Wheeljack paused a moment, accessing the word and tracing its usage. “...ah.” He paused ever so briefly. “Its not just a Segway! Its a Cybertronian Segway! It drives itself - just tell it where to go and you can get updates through the human and Autobot network feeds on the go-“
As Wheeljack expounded upon the benefits of the two-wheeled drone (with a blaster holster and scatter-gun - unloaded - just in case and a handy slot to put her datapads!), finials flaring bright blue, Mikaela ran figure-eights between his legs.
-.-__-.-__-.-
Hip deep in a tub of goop, cleaning a sheet of thin, surprisingly sturdy but pliable something that looked vaguely like the schematic projected on the whitewall, Mikaela was glad to be out of the new summer's heat. And not thinking about the invitation to Sam's college graduation.
“How's that spar coming there, Mik?”
Mik. Once upon a time, only Sam had gotten away with that. Now it was Wheeljack, and it just seemed right coming from that mech's vocalizer. “Almost done. Where does this-oh, I see. Hip?”
Wheeljack's finials glowed blue as he turned back to whatever he was working on at the table twice her height. Blue is positive. Yellow is doubtful. Red is danger, Ratchet had said well after she had figured things out for herself. Adjusted the colors so you humans would know what you were looking at.
“Awesome,” she whispered to herself, grinning. Louder: “What's this going to be?”
Wheeljack gave her an optic wink over his shoulder. “Don't have a name for it yet, but that there's a prototype for better armor for you smaller ones.”
“Wow.” Mikaela stood still for a few moments, examining the projected schematic with a new perspective on its final purpose. “Will it have to be custom fit? Or are we talking growth nanites like your bodies use?”
“That's why you're here, Chief of Human-Cybertronian Mechanical Development! Or Human Testing. Prototype Generational Theorist? We'll think of something!”
Dream job come true? Definitely.
-.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.-
This explosion had not been a planned one.
Not that anyone could plan a practice missile from the target range on the opposite end of the base being misprogrammed by an amateur to go the wrong direction, causing a cascade reaction that started with a golf cart and ended with a case of just-delivered inflammable materials cartwheeling over a railing into a highly-electrified console hanging open for repairs by a human named Mikaela Banes. The sort of freak accident that tended to happen to mechs who carried spare spare arms and fingers integrated into their chassis just in case, not young, workaholic humans.
All she would remember afterward was a voice that was never meant to sound so terrified and the metallic reverberation of her name through red-and-yellow blinking smoke.
-.-__-.-__-.-
It was three weeks before Ratchet let her out of bed. The human doctors had been dismissed after the Ratchet-directed surgeries; the techno-biological assistance he provided quadrupled her healing rate and rendered the skin-replacement surgeries for her burns nearly unnecessary. Even so, he couldn't fix everything. She had been nearly burned alive in an instant. If we had a category beyond “critical” and “shockingly not dead”, it'd be renamed “Mikaela,” had been said in a far too honest way. At least she had heard it second-hand.
Hands.
She didn't have hers, now. And Wheeljack's spares wouldn't help.
-.-__-.-__-.-
Wheeljack had stopped by her hospital room window only once. Ratchet assured her there was a good reason, but she found herself depressed, regardless. Inexplicably, she convinced herself.
Wheeljack continued to send her datapads loaded with file after file to learn. When not focused on her physical therapy, she put herself to it, mind bent to the task in a daily struggle to ignore her disfigurement. The first few were standard fare: variations in mech chassis layout, more advanced drone programming, the diagrams for the nanites still flooding her bloodstream-
Torn between anger and celebration at the permanent, customized additions to her biology, she demanded to know everything.
The next batch of datapads contained programming specifications and variations for the nanites, alongside notes and formulas detailing cellular-level techno-biological interaction and neurological implants that the entire science team had to have played a part in. The nanites weren't just keeping her alive - they would allow the integration of the new arms Wheeljack was custom designing to match her old ones.
-.-__-.-__-.-
The attachment surgery was delayed, though Mikaela could honestly say she didn't mind quite so much. In perfecting the manufactured limbs and testing to make triply certain there would be no complications, Wheeljack had quite literally worked himself into stasis.
-.-__-.-__-.-
It took a full month before Mikaela was comfortable utilizing her new limbs. They responded the same as her biological ones, though they were slightly heaver and far, far stronger. Full-body muscle augmentation dealt with the excess weight, and she was now able to work directly with systems she had been forced to avoid due to her inherent organic nature...but none of that was an issue.
No, the problem was the feel of things.
Her arms were constructed of a lighter-weight, customized-to-her-specific-biology version of Cybertronian living metal, networked through the self-replicating nanites to wetware implants in her brain and camouflaged as her own flesh. Sensors acted as nerves, allowing the use of her built-in tools and giving her more direct and informative readings than her native sense of touch could otherwise provide. She could trace a circuit to find a fault and fix it without dragging an entire toolbox.
Before, she could vaguely, occasionally, sense the hum of a mech's Spark behind a charged electromagnetic field...if she was standing atop their open chest plates. Now, she could read that same mech's charged field from across the entire medbay. It was distracting when she was attempting to concentrate on work, only to find herself attempting to put an English word to a reading with no direct translation.
She badgered Wheeljack until he began teaching her Cybertronian script.
His charged field was soothing to remain near.
-.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.-
A new civilian director of something-or-other was being led on a tour of the facilities. Wheeljack had mentioned it briefly to her while she was underneath one of the primary power transfer junction a few days prior - she hadn't paid much attention. There was some new official parading through every few weeks since the existence of the Cybertronians had been officially unveiled, and she remained out of sight for all of them. She would rather work in the background than become the next island curiosity.
At least, until the name Samuel Witwicky was mentioned.
She had no clue who the blonde on his arm was, but the woman certainly knew her. Mikaela was greeted with outright admiration, gushing over how Sam had nothing but glowing praise for her tenacity and intelligence and found her to be an inspiring figure that drove him to higher objectives and see how far he has come now, working the aliens legitimately and not just from chance based on his ancestry?
Mikaela didn't know whether to hate the wife or adore her.
She retreated to her own corner of the lab, filled with her works-in-progress and an impressive array of schematic printouts adorning every vertical surface. Sam found her there and watched for several long minutes before saying anything.
“I heard about the accident. They, uh...the arms look good.”
She turned, not pausing in her adjustment of a solar sensor panel. “...thanks. They're useful.”
There was a long, awkward pause before Sam stepped forward to one of the tables, eying the diagrams and her copious, non-human notes. “Can you read this? I mean, did you write it...? And design all this?” The impressed awe in his voice managed to wipe away the rest of her nervousness for being around him for the first time in seven years. She set her project aside and started talking, smiling all the while.
-.-__-.-__-.-
“How'd it go, Mik?” Wheeljack asked her afterward.
“Fine,” she said, before leaning against his leg. Ah, there. Much better. She could feel Wheeljack lock the knee and ankle joints to avoid accidental movement. She relished the feeling of feeling the reflection of affection in his EM field, every time.
“Just 'fine'? The kid seems to be doing pretty good,” he replied, distracted while digging through his leg. He had pulled a toe flange out of there, once. “Ah ha!” as he pulled out a chunk of something. “I found this under some extraneous code in one of the databanks.”
She blinked, gesturing to the whatchamacallit in his fingers with a bland tone: “What is it?”
“What? Oh.” Wheeljack casually tossed the irritant down the smelting chute. “Transferring to your datapad now - there.” He strobed his finials as bright a blinding blue as they could manage, lending strength to his mischievous grin. “Upgrades!”
Mikaela skimmed the data critically. “Will this...really? Really?”
“Yeah. It'll take a little time, but we can do it.”
“So want!”
-.-__-.-__-.-
She had always known that Wheeljack was a rather spiritual mech in comparison to most of the others. Oh, they all shouted praises to their deity, but she only knew Prime and Wheeljack to actually pray to him. She'd heard him before, the whistles and clicks and tones underscored by engine rumbles and groaning gears - the native Cybertronian language.
She'd heard it. Now she understood it.
It was beautiful, and she told him so in transmitted glyphs via her new implant. His EM field flared with affection and finials shone brilliant aqua as she asked questions she couldn't quite ask the way she wanted before, a flood which he answered over several days.
-.-__-.-__-.-
One morning, he didn't lock his joints when she leaned against his leg. He picked her up instead, examining her from foot to head with a critical optic and a thorough scan, finials a muted green. She shivered. He set her back down without comment, and they returned to work. She didn't lean against him again for the rest of the day.
That night, Wheeljack picked her up again and set her to sleep on his chest plates while he settled in for his weekly recharge.
-.-__-.-__-.-
“I don't get this one. I get the segment here,” Mikaela paused, sending the modified indicators to the engineer, “and here. But I fail to see the need for a third redundancy.”
Wheeljack sent a new set of diagrams, cleanly pointing out where the connections actually went. “Its not for that piece. Its to act-“
“...as a backup protector for the primary junction. Got it.” She worked at the new shield prototype schematic for several minutes before she realized he had stopped his work and was staring.
At her.
Slowly, she set the datapad down and stood, moving to lean against his leg. He locked the knee, the ankle, automatically, EM field fluctuating with something she didn't know, didn't need to know, because she understood on some instinctual level.
Wheeljack picked her up.
-.-__-.-__-.-
She couldn't quite describe how or what had happened, but somehow, Ratchet knew. “I'll warn you now: Wheeljack's a kinky glitch.”
Mikaela didn't have to ask what he meant by that. She understood, every time Wheeljack had her shouting to Primus.
And every time she had him doing the same.
-.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.- | -.-__-.-__-.-