FIC: Prompt 5, Glen/Maggie
Universe/Series: 2007/RotF, with somehow-Jazz-is-alive-again syndrome added in for extra fun.
Characters/Pairings: Character-wise, Jazz, Glen and Maggie. Pairings-wise it is currently, Glen/Maggie. It will eventually become Jazz/Maggie/Glen, and if I'm doing my job right there should be some (probably invisible) Glen/Maggie/Jazz UST, but currently it's human het with some Jazz thrown into the fic for funsies.
Ratings/Warnings: Eventual xeno threesome, not present in the current fic? Some language (PG-13) and a chaste human kiss.
Summary: Maggie and Glen are working for the government, sometimes with Jazz. It begins with exhaustion, and ends with a few questions, and coffee. Overworked government technolackeys and a journey of emotional-sexual discovery, fraught with peril, attempts at techie miracles and deeply rooted awkwardness.
Inspired by femme4jack's fic for prompt 4 ("optimist sees donut"), but actually--and very, very loosely--prompted by prompt 5, "Too much/Not enough." That's not particularly apparent in the finished product, or semi-finished product at least. Also, this is going to be expanded, but I ran out of time despite typing furiously for the full two hours, which is why it's only at the Maggie/Glen phase.
Maggie, Glen and Jazz: Late Nights
“Come on, Glen,” Maggie was saying. He looked up, eyes taking a second to focus. He shook his head, blinked, then frowned over at her.
“What?” he asked, reaching for his water bottle. Empty again.
“We should be getting home.”
“I'm almost done. I think,” he said, starting to shift back towards his screen again.
“Then you should wait until tomorrow,” Maggie snapped. Then she paused and sighed, pressing the palm of her hands into her eyes. “Sorry. I'm tired, you know what it does to my mood. I mean-Glen, we've been at this for days, and you're hardly sleeping. I'm hardly sleeping. We need to take a break, we're not even being productive at this point.”
“Probably,” Glen muttered, resisting just going to sleep right there on his keyboard. He should at least move it before he collapsed, make sure he didn't mess anything up. “Dammit.”
“Come on,” Maggie said. Glen jumped as her hand landed on his arm, tugging him up. He followed, largely because he was too tired to fight it. And it was a girl, pulling on his arm. No. It was Maggie, pulling on his arm. Not a girl. Okay, Maggie was a girl, but not-
“Grandma's going to be asleep,” he muttered as he leaned against the wall outside the lab, waiting for Maggie to finish locking it.
“I've never seen a woman that good at hearing people moving around while she's dead asleep,” Maggie agreed, almost cheerily. But mostly exhaustedly. She finished resetting the security alarm, and headed for the street, Glen turning to follow her. “It's pretty impressive.”
“That's my grandma,” Glen muttered, and Maggie giggled, punch-drunk. “We really did need to stop working.” Even the Mountain Dew had stopped working, sometime that afternoon. But it was important, figuring out a new security system for the United States, one that was hopefully a little more Decepticon-proof...
They were just at a disadvantage, as humans. Thankfully, they weren't working alone-but Jazz had what he called a “day job,” which was a little more-direct. Glen was never sure to be ecstatic or upset that he wasn't facing the Decepticons head-on with a gun. Probably happy, but-well, he didn't measure up to the muscle-y soldier-types very well. Except in IQ, and a lot of them weren't exactly stupid. And being able to hack into almost any (human) computer on Earth didn't get you chicks.
Looking like Maggie did. Well-not chicks for her, but she probably could if she felt like it. Definitely could. Maggie was gorgeous. It wasn't fair.
Anyway, nothing-even all the women he could handle (in his head, his grandma told him that it probably wasn't very many, as in less than one)-would be worth almost dying all the time. Decepticons were pretty fucking awesome, but also terrifying. Hell, even the Autobots were scary sometimes.
But he was doing secret government work for giant robots from outer space on top-level computers with a budget that would make millionaires weep. Fuck yes!
Just, now he was too busy to find a girlfriend. And he couldn't really tell her anything even if he did.
Maybe it didn't matter that much. The secret government thing would finish up eventually, and maybe then he'd get hired somewhere else, and when his grandma was feeling better he could move out and get his own apartment, and that'd be cool.
“You're really out of it,” Maggie said, as they left the elevator. He followed in her wake-she knew where she'd parked, after all.
“Yeah,” he said. “Kinda. Thinking.”
“Seriously?” Maggie said, lip quirking and the smooth arch of her brow visible in the half-darkness and gloom of the parking lot. They smoothed out again as they reached the next puddle of light, harsh and fluorescent. “I'm too tired to think at all anymore. I might be too tired to drive.”
“Don't kill us,” Glen said, too tired to put much effort into the weak joke. “I've got so much to live for.”
“Like free time?” said Maggie, with a humorless laugh. “Hah.”
“We could get donuts tomorrow,” said Glen with a shrug. “Threaten to reveal government secrets if they don't give us the next weekend off...”
“I'm watching my girlish figure,” Maggie said, for the sake of it, but her heart wasn't in it. Mostly, ever fiber of her being was crying out for sleep.
“Like you need to worry,” snorted Glen. “Tell you what-we meet at ten for breakfast somewhere that's not work, and then we can start the whole work-until-we-collapse cycle over again.”
“You hedonist,” Maggie drawled. Glen swallowed, and forced the thought from his mind. She was a co-worker. Wasn't that, like, a bad idea or something? Hell if he knew.
There was a sudden flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, and Glen screamed-like a girl, he knew it, but hell! Aliens!-pivoting around to at least see what he was going to be running from. Maggie was quieter (she really was a better man than him) but just as terrified looking. It took him a minute to recognize the car that slid smoothly forward-Jazz-and relax.
“Jesus, man, you're going to kill me,” he gasped, leaning forward.
Maggie was more composed. Like always. “Jazz,” she said, breaking out into a (dazzling) smile. “How are you? Everything going well?”
“Fine as always, beautiful,” he said, easy as he ever was. “How's things?”
“Frustrating,” she said.
“This project is going to kill me,” added in Glen, scowling. “They want miracles!”
“They found the right humans, then,” Jazz said. “Speaking of-you want rides? I'm not sure if you should be driving.”
“Good call,” Maggie said, collapsing into the driver's seat as Jazz shrugged open a door. Glen followed her, the car dipping a little as he ducked inside. He winced, hopefully invisibly, and pulled the door shut-not that he really needed to, since the car was more than capable of doing it himself-and settled the seatbelt around himself.
“Are you back on duty with us?” asked Glen.
“We could use the help,” said Maggie, a little grudgingly. Glen smiled to himself, eyes closed-she wouldn't want to admit that they needed the aid, even though she knew she did. Just her little weirdness. That, and it felt really good to be not-typing for a little while.
“Yeah,” Jazz said, pulling out onto the street and accelerating smoothly. “I'm with you again, for now. Optimus says they're good over there without me.”
“We've got the latest files for you,” Maggie said brightly, looking out the window. One of her hands rested lightly against the steering wheel, probably for the show of things.
Wordlessly, Glen shuffled through his pockets until he found the appropriate thumb drive and held it up.
“Awesome,” said Jazz, so that you could almost hear the smile. “Mind leaving it with me? I can look it over tonight, go over shit tomorrow.”
Glen groaned. “I don't want to think about tomorrow ever again,” he muttered. Maggie laughed, the sound clear and bright. He hid his own reflexive smile.
Jazz stopped-traffic light. “Who's first?” he asked-Maggie and Glen lived in opposite directions.
“We're both headed to my place,” Maggie said quickly, looking sideways over at her co-worker.
“What?” Glen said, suddenly awake, or more awake-he stared over at her like she was crazy. She blushed.
“I figure you don't need to wake up your grandma. I have a spare bedroom, we both need to sleep six hours ago, might as well...”
“O-kay?” Glen said, voice unnaturally shrill.
“It'll be fine,” Maggie said, firmly. Glen took it as an attempt to calm him down a little which was, admittedly, necessary. Maggie was pretty sure that it was just as much for her own nerves as for his.
“Okay then,” Jazz said, and he did a terrible job of hiding his amusement. There was a long pause.
Then Jazz spoke again. “I was going to ask if you were together,” he said, voice filled with unholy glee, “but I guess if you are Glen doesn't know about it.”
“Shut up,” Glen said, possibly automatically. Just like his cousins, only it wasn't normal to be teased but not have it be about not going out with a girl.
“Just be quiet,” Maggie said, her own tone much sharper, almost acidic. “For a culture that doesn't reproduce sexually, you've certainly embraced certain aspects of humanity a little too well...”
“But I'm guessing it's not about reproduction with you two,” Jazz said suddenly, wickedly. “At least not entirely. And we do believe in a little pleasurable fun between mechs, relationships-you know. Sex, kinda, but no robobabies.”
Glen managed to choke on absolutely nothing. Maggie sat frozen, face pale and set, mouthing to herself as she tried to find words.
“I had no idea,” she said, finally. “How on Earth does that...?”
“Not Earth,” said Jazz, obviously smirking this time-not smiling. This was an out-and-out smirk. “Well, until recently.”
“Fucking hell,” said Glen, surprisingly calmly considering the situation, he thought.
“I'd like to think I'm better than that,” Jazz said.
It was Maggie's turn to jump.
“Anyway,” Jazz said, and Maggie almost thought that he would have sounded guilty but it was, you know, Jazz, so it wasn't. “I shoulda thought-I kind of thought you did, you know. Know about us, right-I forget you aren't in the loop most of the rest of the humans are. Y'know?”
“Yes,” said Maggie, with a sigh. She looked down, then her eyes flicked back up, sharpening and fixing on the dashboard, which was as close to a face as she could determine with one of the Transformers like this. “Which doesn't mean that you weren't positively gleeful about the chance to mess with us.”
“Well, yeah,” Jazz said, and Glen rolled his eyes and smacked Jazz's handle, yelped with his seatbelt tightened momentarily, then tried to go back to his impromptu drifting-off-to-sleep.
Which ended as soon as Jazz pulled to a stop in front of Maggie's apartment complex. There was another moment of rising horror, before he managed to choke it down. Mostly. She was giving him that weird look that told him that he wasn't doing a very good job of hiding it. Oh well. Wasn't like she was going to think he was cool anyway. Not after that whole interviewed-by-the-government-for-leaking-secrets thing.
“Have fun,” Jazz said, giving the word way too many implications, and he pulled away as his creepy blank-faced holo fell into place. None of the Autobots ever did a really good impression of a human-something always seemed a little off about them. How the face moved, Glen thought-there'd been some paper or something he'd read about it. The Autobots said it wasn't worth the processing power to make a one-hundred-percent convincing one. He wasn't going to argue with them about that.
Now they were walking up the stairs. Maggie's apartment was unexpectedly downscale. Maybe it was how she dressed, maybe it was how she looked like a movie star-and she was a genius, it really wasn't fair, damn it-but somehow the slightly seedy, aged air to the place just didn't fit in with her.
“It's home,” Maggie said with a one-shouldered shrug, looking back at Glen. She felt surprisingly awkward about this. “I'm almost never here, so it just didn't make sense to spend a lot of extra money on a nice apartment. And my flat works fine-it has a shower, a bed, and I made up an extra bed in the office space. You can use that.”
“You don't use the office?” Glen asked, but her door was swinging open and it was pretty clear that the entire living room was her office, with the clutter starting to invade the kitchen. He blinked, eyes flicking around before finding something to settle on. “Nice set-up,” he said It really was a damn fine computer-which made sense.
“I'll have to show it to you some time,” she said. “Now, bed. Bathroom's there-” a pointed finger “And you can stay there. See you in the morning.”
That was enough for Glen. He was too tired for things to be weird and awkward, anyway. He pulled off his shoes and pants, decided taking off the shirt wasn't worth it, and collapsed.
Glen woke up to the smell of strong coffee, and stumbled out of bed-thankfully remembering to put pants back on-as if summoned. There was, he noticed as he blinked at the empty kitchen, nobody else there. He shrugged, and made himself a cup of coffee, then sat down on one of the stools that was pulled up to the kitchen counter, very gingerly. He peeked over at a piece of paper, trying hard not to disturb anything, then decided not to-well, he was a hacker, but reading someone's mail was just wrong, and his grandma would yell at him for it and he'd actually deserve it for once-and leaned back over, not sure what to do but twiddle his fingers.
Half an hour later, Maggie emerged from her own bedroom, looking utterly exhausted. She also looked kind of more human in a way with bags under her eyes and her hair messed up. She muttered something at him, after a weird wide-eyed look at him, but mostly zeroed in on the coffee, although she shuddered as she took her first long drink. “That's disgusting,” she said. Then, fishing around for something else to say, she continued. “...I have an automatic coffee timer, so it's supposed to go off so the coffee's all ready when my alarm rings. But I turned my alarm off today...”
“Yeah,” Glen said. It was all the awkwardness of the morning after, except without the sex. “I dunno. I think it's good. Better than my grandma's.”
“Your grandma's ancient,” Maggie pointed out reflectively, absent-mindedly running a hand through her hair, trying to straighten it out some.
“Yeah,” Glen said, again. Maggie seemed to actually focus on him.
“You don't have a boyfriend, do you?” she asked, and now her gaze was pointed at the middle of a blank wall to his left.
This time Glen had coffee to choke on. “What?!”
“You heard me,” Maggie said, a touch of her more-normal acidity coming through. But she still wouldn't meet his eyes.
“No! I'm straight! What the hell-I'm-I told you that was my cousin!”
“Fine, fine. ...Girlfriend, then?”
“What the hell is this? Invite me over and then ask me twenty questions? I got enough of that from the FBI, thanks-”
“Just answer the question, Glen.”
“No, I don't have a girlfriend.” He glared at his coffee. Not that it was the problem. No, the problem was damn nosy coworkers...
And that he didn't have a girlfriend.
“So it's just me,” Maggie said, almost reflectively.
Glen's brain short circuited. “No, seriously, what the hell, Maggie?”
“You never look at me,” she pointed out.
That was just stupid. “I look at you all the damn time. We work together!”
“Not like that. Like-like I'm a-I don't know. You never tried to date me-well, not since the very beginning. But not even now...”
“You're a co-worker?” Glen pointed out, trying not to cringe back too obviously.
Maggie just looked at him, the sort of look that normally said “you're being stupid,” only ramped up to eleven.
“...You're totally out of my league. You could be a damn supermodel! You're-tall, and beautiful, and you do things with code that make me want to- Wait, why are you asking me this? Now?” He glared at her, suspiciously.
“You're really smart,” she said, looking down. Which only drew his attention to her boobs. Damn.
But that wasn't the point. “Yeah, maybe I am, but I still don't have any idea what the hell you're talking about.”
“No,” Maggie said, suddenly looking straight up, meeting his eyes. He couldn't look away, and swallowed nervously instead. “You don't get. You're really smart.” Something about the way she said it...
“You think I'm hot?!” he yelped.
“Kinda,” Maggie said. Then she hesitated, hunched her shoulders in a little, defensive. “No, that's not right. I do. I really do.”
“Holy shit,” Glen said, holding onto the counter for support. This was even weirder than the robots. “What-I mean-me? That's just weird, Maggie.”
“So, are you attracted to me?” Maggie said, turning her now-empty mug in her hands.
“Duh,” said Glen, before his brain could catch up. Dammit. He'd admitted to it, now he couldn't take it back, without looking incredibly stupid. Stupider. “I mean, yes. Fucking hell, yes.”
“Sweet,” said Maggie, tone acerbic, but she was walking forward, and she mostly looked terrified, not pissed off.
She reached him and leaned forward, trapping him against the counter top-but Glen wasn't going to be running from this, God no-and leaned in close, breath soft against his cheek, and hesitated for what felt like a lifetime, before pressing a kiss into the side of his mouth. He breathed out, something almost a sigh, and pulled her close, reality still not making sense. But it was so much better like this.
Characters/Pairings: Character-wise, Jazz, Glen and Maggie. Pairings-wise it is currently, Glen/Maggie. It will eventually become Jazz/Maggie/Glen, and if I'm doing my job right there should be some (probably invisible) Glen/Maggie/Jazz UST, but currently it's human het with some Jazz thrown into the fic for funsies.
Ratings/Warnings: Eventual xeno threesome, not present in the current fic? Some language (PG-13) and a chaste human kiss.
Summary: Maggie and Glen are working for the government, sometimes with Jazz. It begins with exhaustion, and ends with a few questions, and coffee. Overworked government technolackeys and a journey of emotional-sexual discovery, fraught with peril, attempts at techie miracles and deeply rooted awkwardness.
Inspired by femme4jack's fic for prompt 4 ("optimist sees donut"), but actually--and very, very loosely--prompted by prompt 5, "Too much/Not enough." That's not particularly apparent in the finished product, or semi-finished product at least. Also, this is going to be expanded, but I ran out of time despite typing furiously for the full two hours, which is why it's only at the Maggie/Glen phase.
Maggie, Glen and Jazz: Late Nights
“Come on, Glen,” Maggie was saying. He looked up, eyes taking a second to focus. He shook his head, blinked, then frowned over at her.
“What?” he asked, reaching for his water bottle. Empty again.
“We should be getting home.”
“I'm almost done. I think,” he said, starting to shift back towards his screen again.
“Then you should wait until tomorrow,” Maggie snapped. Then she paused and sighed, pressing the palm of her hands into her eyes. “Sorry. I'm tired, you know what it does to my mood. I mean-Glen, we've been at this for days, and you're hardly sleeping. I'm hardly sleeping. We need to take a break, we're not even being productive at this point.”
“Probably,” Glen muttered, resisting just going to sleep right there on his keyboard. He should at least move it before he collapsed, make sure he didn't mess anything up. “Dammit.”
“Come on,” Maggie said. Glen jumped as her hand landed on his arm, tugging him up. He followed, largely because he was too tired to fight it. And it was a girl, pulling on his arm. No. It was Maggie, pulling on his arm. Not a girl. Okay, Maggie was a girl, but not-
“Grandma's going to be asleep,” he muttered as he leaned against the wall outside the lab, waiting for Maggie to finish locking it.
“I've never seen a woman that good at hearing people moving around while she's dead asleep,” Maggie agreed, almost cheerily. But mostly exhaustedly. She finished resetting the security alarm, and headed for the street, Glen turning to follow her. “It's pretty impressive.”
“That's my grandma,” Glen muttered, and Maggie giggled, punch-drunk. “We really did need to stop working.” Even the Mountain Dew had stopped working, sometime that afternoon. But it was important, figuring out a new security system for the United States, one that was hopefully a little more Decepticon-proof...
They were just at a disadvantage, as humans. Thankfully, they weren't working alone-but Jazz had what he called a “day job,” which was a little more-direct. Glen was never sure to be ecstatic or upset that he wasn't facing the Decepticons head-on with a gun. Probably happy, but-well, he didn't measure up to the muscle-y soldier-types very well. Except in IQ, and a lot of them weren't exactly stupid. And being able to hack into almost any (human) computer on Earth didn't get you chicks.
Looking like Maggie did. Well-not chicks for her, but she probably could if she felt like it. Definitely could. Maggie was gorgeous. It wasn't fair.
Anyway, nothing-even all the women he could handle (in his head, his grandma told him that it probably wasn't very many, as in less than one)-would be worth almost dying all the time. Decepticons were pretty fucking awesome, but also terrifying. Hell, even the Autobots were scary sometimes.
But he was doing secret government work for giant robots from outer space on top-level computers with a budget that would make millionaires weep. Fuck yes!
Just, now he was too busy to find a girlfriend. And he couldn't really tell her anything even if he did.
Maybe it didn't matter that much. The secret government thing would finish up eventually, and maybe then he'd get hired somewhere else, and when his grandma was feeling better he could move out and get his own apartment, and that'd be cool.
“You're really out of it,” Maggie said, as they left the elevator. He followed in her wake-she knew where she'd parked, after all.
“Yeah,” he said. “Kinda. Thinking.”
“Seriously?” Maggie said, lip quirking and the smooth arch of her brow visible in the half-darkness and gloom of the parking lot. They smoothed out again as they reached the next puddle of light, harsh and fluorescent. “I'm too tired to think at all anymore. I might be too tired to drive.”
“Don't kill us,” Glen said, too tired to put much effort into the weak joke. “I've got so much to live for.”
“Like free time?” said Maggie, with a humorless laugh. “Hah.”
“We could get donuts tomorrow,” said Glen with a shrug. “Threaten to reveal government secrets if they don't give us the next weekend off...”
“I'm watching my girlish figure,” Maggie said, for the sake of it, but her heart wasn't in it. Mostly, ever fiber of her being was crying out for sleep.
“Like you need to worry,” snorted Glen. “Tell you what-we meet at ten for breakfast somewhere that's not work, and then we can start the whole work-until-we-collapse cycle over again.”
“You hedonist,” Maggie drawled. Glen swallowed, and forced the thought from his mind. She was a co-worker. Wasn't that, like, a bad idea or something? Hell if he knew.
There was a sudden flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, and Glen screamed-like a girl, he knew it, but hell! Aliens!-pivoting around to at least see what he was going to be running from. Maggie was quieter (she really was a better man than him) but just as terrified looking. It took him a minute to recognize the car that slid smoothly forward-Jazz-and relax.
“Jesus, man, you're going to kill me,” he gasped, leaning forward.
Maggie was more composed. Like always. “Jazz,” she said, breaking out into a (dazzling) smile. “How are you? Everything going well?”
“Fine as always, beautiful,” he said, easy as he ever was. “How's things?”
“Frustrating,” she said.
“This project is going to kill me,” added in Glen, scowling. “They want miracles!”
“They found the right humans, then,” Jazz said. “Speaking of-you want rides? I'm not sure if you should be driving.”
“Good call,” Maggie said, collapsing into the driver's seat as Jazz shrugged open a door. Glen followed her, the car dipping a little as he ducked inside. He winced, hopefully invisibly, and pulled the door shut-not that he really needed to, since the car was more than capable of doing it himself-and settled the seatbelt around himself.
“Are you back on duty with us?” asked Glen.
“We could use the help,” said Maggie, a little grudgingly. Glen smiled to himself, eyes closed-she wouldn't want to admit that they needed the aid, even though she knew she did. Just her little weirdness. That, and it felt really good to be not-typing for a little while.
“Yeah,” Jazz said, pulling out onto the street and accelerating smoothly. “I'm with you again, for now. Optimus says they're good over there without me.”
“We've got the latest files for you,” Maggie said brightly, looking out the window. One of her hands rested lightly against the steering wheel, probably for the show of things.
Wordlessly, Glen shuffled through his pockets until he found the appropriate thumb drive and held it up.
“Awesome,” said Jazz, so that you could almost hear the smile. “Mind leaving it with me? I can look it over tonight, go over shit tomorrow.”
Glen groaned. “I don't want to think about tomorrow ever again,” he muttered. Maggie laughed, the sound clear and bright. He hid his own reflexive smile.
Jazz stopped-traffic light. “Who's first?” he asked-Maggie and Glen lived in opposite directions.
“We're both headed to my place,” Maggie said quickly, looking sideways over at her co-worker.
“What?” Glen said, suddenly awake, or more awake-he stared over at her like she was crazy. She blushed.
“I figure you don't need to wake up your grandma. I have a spare bedroom, we both need to sleep six hours ago, might as well...”
“O-kay?” Glen said, voice unnaturally shrill.
“It'll be fine,” Maggie said, firmly. Glen took it as an attempt to calm him down a little which was, admittedly, necessary. Maggie was pretty sure that it was just as much for her own nerves as for his.
“Okay then,” Jazz said, and he did a terrible job of hiding his amusement. There was a long pause.
Then Jazz spoke again. “I was going to ask if you were together,” he said, voice filled with unholy glee, “but I guess if you are Glen doesn't know about it.”
“Shut up,” Glen said, possibly automatically. Just like his cousins, only it wasn't normal to be teased but not have it be about not going out with a girl.
“Just be quiet,” Maggie said, her own tone much sharper, almost acidic. “For a culture that doesn't reproduce sexually, you've certainly embraced certain aspects of humanity a little too well...”
“But I'm guessing it's not about reproduction with you two,” Jazz said suddenly, wickedly. “At least not entirely. And we do believe in a little pleasurable fun between mechs, relationships-you know. Sex, kinda, but no robobabies.”
Glen managed to choke on absolutely nothing. Maggie sat frozen, face pale and set, mouthing to herself as she tried to find words.
“I had no idea,” she said, finally. “How on Earth does that...?”
“Not Earth,” said Jazz, obviously smirking this time-not smiling. This was an out-and-out smirk. “Well, until recently.”
“Fucking hell,” said Glen, surprisingly calmly considering the situation, he thought.
“I'd like to think I'm better than that,” Jazz said.
It was Maggie's turn to jump.
“Anyway,” Jazz said, and Maggie almost thought that he would have sounded guilty but it was, you know, Jazz, so it wasn't. “I shoulda thought-I kind of thought you did, you know. Know about us, right-I forget you aren't in the loop most of the rest of the humans are. Y'know?”
“Yes,” said Maggie, with a sigh. She looked down, then her eyes flicked back up, sharpening and fixing on the dashboard, which was as close to a face as she could determine with one of the Transformers like this. “Which doesn't mean that you weren't positively gleeful about the chance to mess with us.”
“Well, yeah,” Jazz said, and Glen rolled his eyes and smacked Jazz's handle, yelped with his seatbelt tightened momentarily, then tried to go back to his impromptu drifting-off-to-sleep.
Which ended as soon as Jazz pulled to a stop in front of Maggie's apartment complex. There was another moment of rising horror, before he managed to choke it down. Mostly. She was giving him that weird look that told him that he wasn't doing a very good job of hiding it. Oh well. Wasn't like she was going to think he was cool anyway. Not after that whole interviewed-by-the-government-for-leaking-secrets thing.
“Have fun,” Jazz said, giving the word way too many implications, and he pulled away as his creepy blank-faced holo fell into place. None of the Autobots ever did a really good impression of a human-something always seemed a little off about them. How the face moved, Glen thought-there'd been some paper or something he'd read about it. The Autobots said it wasn't worth the processing power to make a one-hundred-percent convincing one. He wasn't going to argue with them about that.
Now they were walking up the stairs. Maggie's apartment was unexpectedly downscale. Maybe it was how she dressed, maybe it was how she looked like a movie star-and she was a genius, it really wasn't fair, damn it-but somehow the slightly seedy, aged air to the place just didn't fit in with her.
“It's home,” Maggie said with a one-shouldered shrug, looking back at Glen. She felt surprisingly awkward about this. “I'm almost never here, so it just didn't make sense to spend a lot of extra money on a nice apartment. And my flat works fine-it has a shower, a bed, and I made up an extra bed in the office space. You can use that.”
“You don't use the office?” Glen asked, but her door was swinging open and it was pretty clear that the entire living room was her office, with the clutter starting to invade the kitchen. He blinked, eyes flicking around before finding something to settle on. “Nice set-up,” he said It really was a damn fine computer-which made sense.
“I'll have to show it to you some time,” she said. “Now, bed. Bathroom's there-” a pointed finger “And you can stay there. See you in the morning.”
That was enough for Glen. He was too tired for things to be weird and awkward, anyway. He pulled off his shoes and pants, decided taking off the shirt wasn't worth it, and collapsed.
Glen woke up to the smell of strong coffee, and stumbled out of bed-thankfully remembering to put pants back on-as if summoned. There was, he noticed as he blinked at the empty kitchen, nobody else there. He shrugged, and made himself a cup of coffee, then sat down on one of the stools that was pulled up to the kitchen counter, very gingerly. He peeked over at a piece of paper, trying hard not to disturb anything, then decided not to-well, he was a hacker, but reading someone's mail was just wrong, and his grandma would yell at him for it and he'd actually deserve it for once-and leaned back over, not sure what to do but twiddle his fingers.
Half an hour later, Maggie emerged from her own bedroom, looking utterly exhausted. She also looked kind of more human in a way with bags under her eyes and her hair messed up. She muttered something at him, after a weird wide-eyed look at him, but mostly zeroed in on the coffee, although she shuddered as she took her first long drink. “That's disgusting,” she said. Then, fishing around for something else to say, she continued. “...I have an automatic coffee timer, so it's supposed to go off so the coffee's all ready when my alarm rings. But I turned my alarm off today...”
“Yeah,” Glen said. It was all the awkwardness of the morning after, except without the sex. “I dunno. I think it's good. Better than my grandma's.”
“Your grandma's ancient,” Maggie pointed out reflectively, absent-mindedly running a hand through her hair, trying to straighten it out some.
“Yeah,” Glen said, again. Maggie seemed to actually focus on him.
“You don't have a boyfriend, do you?” she asked, and now her gaze was pointed at the middle of a blank wall to his left.
This time Glen had coffee to choke on. “What?!”
“You heard me,” Maggie said, a touch of her more-normal acidity coming through. But she still wouldn't meet his eyes.
“No! I'm straight! What the hell-I'm-I told you that was my cousin!”
“Fine, fine. ...Girlfriend, then?”
“What the hell is this? Invite me over and then ask me twenty questions? I got enough of that from the FBI, thanks-”
“Just answer the question, Glen.”
“No, I don't have a girlfriend.” He glared at his coffee. Not that it was the problem. No, the problem was damn nosy coworkers...
And that he didn't have a girlfriend.
“So it's just me,” Maggie said, almost reflectively.
Glen's brain short circuited. “No, seriously, what the hell, Maggie?”
“You never look at me,” she pointed out.
That was just stupid. “I look at you all the damn time. We work together!”
“Not like that. Like-like I'm a-I don't know. You never tried to date me-well, not since the very beginning. But not even now...”
“You're a co-worker?” Glen pointed out, trying not to cringe back too obviously.
Maggie just looked at him, the sort of look that normally said “you're being stupid,” only ramped up to eleven.
“...You're totally out of my league. You could be a damn supermodel! You're-tall, and beautiful, and you do things with code that make me want to- Wait, why are you asking me this? Now?” He glared at her, suspiciously.
“You're really smart,” she said, looking down. Which only drew his attention to her boobs. Damn.
But that wasn't the point. “Yeah, maybe I am, but I still don't have any idea what the hell you're talking about.”
“No,” Maggie said, suddenly looking straight up, meeting his eyes. He couldn't look away, and swallowed nervously instead. “You don't get. You're really smart.” Something about the way she said it...
“You think I'm hot?!” he yelped.
“Kinda,” Maggie said. Then she hesitated, hunched her shoulders in a little, defensive. “No, that's not right. I do. I really do.”
“Holy shit,” Glen said, holding onto the counter for support. This was even weirder than the robots. “What-I mean-me? That's just weird, Maggie.”
“So, are you attracted to me?” Maggie said, turning her now-empty mug in her hands.
“Duh,” said Glen, before his brain could catch up. Dammit. He'd admitted to it, now he couldn't take it back, without looking incredibly stupid. Stupider. “I mean, yes. Fucking hell, yes.”
“Sweet,” said Maggie, tone acerbic, but she was walking forward, and she mostly looked terrified, not pissed off.
She reached him and leaned forward, trapping him against the counter top-but Glen wasn't going to be running from this, God no-and leaned in close, breath soft against his cheek, and hesitated for what felt like a lifetime, before pressing a kiss into the side of his mouth. He breathed out, something almost a sigh, and pulled her close, reality still not making sense. But it was so much better like this.