Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Uncle Ron expects him to want a car.

He’s meant to be a sixteen year old boy, going on seventeen, and he is expected to want a car. Allegedly.

Sam does not want a car.

He has a lot of reasons for that. The main one, however, is that the car would take time and money to maintain, and Sam doesn't really have either of those things available for that sort of thing. Sure, he has money from doing odd jobs around the neighborhood, and the thing he does for Grizzly, and sure, he technically has time since all he has to do ‘officially’ are things like his tutoring to catch up on his schooling, exercise routine, and the therapy that would be a lot more useful if he didn’t have to lie to the lady so often. The only reason Sam has the money in the first place is because of his anxiety and carefully tuned paranoia forced him to, not because he actually wants to spend it on something. As for time, he has a lot more on his plate then he felt like telling his guardians about.

Even if those things include sitting in Chai’s room playing on his guitar while Chai taught Miles how to crochet, it is time well spent, and they don't need to know about it.

He’s doing okay, okay? He doesn't need to add one more thing to worry about to his list.

Besides, combine the fact that Uncle Ron said he’d match Sam’s two thousand dollars, with the man’s favorite saying ‘no sacrifice, no victory’, and you get an unappealing picture.

Two thousand times two equals four thousand. In this day and age, the only car you can get for that amount of money is a clanker. Clankers take a lot of maintenance. Maintenance takes time and money.

Given that mechanics had not been a useful skill to learn over the past sixteen years, and Sam’s Dad had been a lawyer, and his Mom a house wife, Sam knows diddly about machinery. So he’d need to go to a mechanic.

All of this boiled down to two options. A) get the car and deal with the resulting stress and anxiety the inevitable failure his brain insists will come, or B) tell Uncle Ron Sam doesn't want a car, and avoid all of it.

There was the unlikely third option C) get the car, and miraculously handle everything it throws at him like a calm, functional teenager. But unless the car ended up being involved in some active war or had something to do with body snatchers, and Sam’s skills or life experiences were needed, option C was a far off pipe dream, and as such not worth the waste of thinking time.

Uncle Ron, decent man that he is, likely sees option A as a learning experience, and so will probably refuse to cooperate if Sam decides to take option B.

So Sam needs to decide if he wants to avoid dragging Aunt Judy into the thing, resulting in weeks of high tension in the house, which will ultimately be worse for his anxiety, or get the car, and slowly die that way instead.

Well, Chai can help him with the car. She cant help him with tensions in his house. More to the point, she wouldn’t help him with tensions of his own making. Because she is the kind of friend who will save you from your accidents, but not the consequences of your choices.

Which is why he is in the passenger seat of Uncle Ron’s car, and not hiding from reality in his room with his guitar and butterfly picks.

Uncle Ron is talking.

“—really proud of you for going through with this. We know that this is going to be an up hill battle for you with your anxiety, but Judy and I just want you to know that we will be with you every step of the way.”

Sam glances at him in the corner of his eye and bites the edges of his tongue.

Thank you, Uncle Ron. Your pride is appreciated, but ultimately not helpful.

Uncle Ron turns right, directly into a dealership... filled to the brim with Porches.

Sam’s heart just about explodes in his chest, and he comes to the abrupt realization that getting a new car would be worse then getting a clanker because a new car gave him that much farther to fall.

He ruthlessly shuts that thought down and stuffs it into a box.

Chai will help. Chai will help, he chants. Worse case scenario, he spends more time as a snake, and he doesnt use the car that much. It will be fine.

“A Porche? Really?” He pushes the words out of his throat, aiming for nervous, but cautiously optimistic. He misses by a mile. The box creaks ominously.

Uncle Ron cackles. “No!” He smacks his steering wheel, grinning. “For a first car? Nah,” he turns that grin on Sam, who returns his gaze owlishly, “this is a reminder for what you can one day get.” Uncle Ron chuckles to himself, and rolls back out of the lot. “A Porche.”

Sam drags a small smile onto his face as the box collapses in on itself, and hides shaking fingers between his knees.

Uncle Ron’s sense of humor is awful, but at least now Sam knows that it can get so much worse then a clanker.

Sam crushes the wisp of longing for the predictability of the War.
~~~~~
Several minutes later, Uncle Ron turns into what looks like a repurposed gas station.

The sign looks like it had been put up in the seventies and hasn’t been touched since. Colorful triangles fluttered on strings everywhere, and an ostrich in a very small corral is proudly labeled Bolivia’s Petting Zoo on a hand-painted wooden plank.

All of the cars are, almost certainly, older than Sam.

He stares incredulously.

Uncle Ron hums merrily as he pulls his car into a parking space. A clown who looks like his make up was dripping off his face spun his arrow sign advertising the lot half heartedly as they pass.

Sam forces himself to breath in through his nose, hold, then out through his teeth. Chai will help. It will not be a Porche. Chai will help. This is fine.

Sam almost rips off the hand that claps him on the shoulder. Only seven months practice kept muscle memory from taking over. Three months before, he wouldn’t have been successful.

“Ready Sam?” Ron enthuses.

No. He forces air back into his lungs.

“As I’ll ever be.” He says instead. He only sounds slightly unstable.

“Good man!” Uncle Ron claps him on the shoulder again, then hauls himself out of his car, and slams the door shut behind him. It takes another breath before Sam can even begin moving his hands to first undo his seat belt, then to pop open his door.

As he pulls himself out of Uncle Ron’s car, Sam forces himself to take everything in. His eyes scan methodically over the cars, catching on faded and chipped paint, the odd patch of rust, and shapes that didn’t look even a little bit like miles per gallon had been considered when they had been designed.

He is about half way through his scan, when he feels something click into place as he settles himself into his carefully cultivated mission mindset.

Sam takes a deep breath, and closes the door behind him, feeling more like himself then he had in...awhile.

That thought is carefully folded, then set on fire before it can throw him off his groove.

Some of the cars look okay, for all that he wouldn’t know for sure until he had someone take a look at the engine. All Sam knows for sure is that if Uncle Ron tries to set him up with that lonely looking slug bug sitting over there by itself, he was going to raise hell. He may not want a car, but he is so not going to let himself get saddled with something like that. War kills vanity like nothing else, but he hadn’t been fighting for that long.

Sam follows Uncle Ron as the man trots up to the refurbished gas station that probably passes as an office. A middle aged man with dark skin and questionable taste in clothing comes out of the building before they even reach the door.

“Gentlemen.” He greets, teeth bright agains his skin. He shakes the hand Uncle Ron holds out to him with what looks like firm hold. “Bobby Bolivia, like the country, except without the runs.” He chuckles at his own joke, a creepy fake sound, before switching over to a more professional attitude. “How can I help you?”

“Well,” Uncle Ron starts. He glances at Sam, then claps him on the shoulder. Sam tries very hard to look...at least somewhat excited. He’s pretty sure he fails spectacularly. “My nephew here is looking to buy his first car.”

Mr. Bolivia smacks a hand to his chest, looking touched. “And you came to see me?”

Sam glances at Uncle Ron, then nods, forcing his lips to turn up in the corners. Why is it always when he needs to remember what Chai says about faking smiles, he forgets it? “Yep.”

“Well, that practically makes us family.” Mr. Bolivia says.

When the sky falls. Sam agrees. ...Again.

Mr. Bolivia trusts out his had, flashing another smile. “Uncle Bobby B, baby. Uncle Bobby B.”

Sam takes his hand and shakes it. “Sam.”

“Sam. Let me talk to you.” He steps forward and claps a hand to his shoulder, then slide his arm around Sam’s shoulders to squeeze the back of his neck as he steers Sam toward the car lot. It takes ever ounce of control Sam has to keep himself from elbowing the man in the gut. The hair on his neck and arms stands on end. “Sam, your first enchilada of freedom awaits under one of these hoods.”

The man has still not let go of Sam.

Then, all at once, he peels himself off of Sam’s person, and turns to look at him. “Now, let me tell you something son. The driver doesn’t pick the car.” Bobby B smiles knowingly. “The car picks the driver. It’s a mystical bond between man and machine.”

As he is talking, Sam oh so carefully edges away from him until he is confident that, while he is not out of arm’s reach, it would be a social faux pass for Bobby B to actually reach that far to touch him again.

A smooth hum pulls on Sam’s attention, before cutting off, and he looks over.

His heart just about skips a beat when his eyes land on a car that had definitely not been there even forty seconds ago. The bug had been by itself; instead it now had a brand new neighbor.

Had he just missed it? Is he that rusty?

He stomps on the sharp edged fears before they could propel him into a full blown anxiety attack.

Not conductive to the mission. It is a car; Earth is a safe as it is going to get.

Focus.

Sam is here to buy a car.

Nothing more nothing less. Maybe someone simply dropped it off, and...then... promptly evaporated into thin air.

Yeah.

If all else fails, Chai will help. The new mystery car is of no consequence.

With Bobby B’s chatter in his ears, and his anxiety a frozen weight on his chest, Sam scans the rows of cars even more carefully, looking for anything else he may have missed. Rust, and patched frames all but flare up and wave at him, faded paint doing little to protect the metal from the elements. If this is how the surface stuff looks, how badly maintained are the engines— or worse, the frames? He tries to recall the estimates he’d looked up for the different repairs he’d looked into, and shudders.

A small piece of him noted that if he wasn’t in recon mode he’d be neck deep in panic right about now, and he would pay for ignoring it later.

But that is later.

Why is it that the mystery car is the coolest one here?

“Can I get a motorcycle instead?” He eyes the eye-searing box of a car with grey-black racing stripes, and felt something shrivel up and die in his chest. It was probably what remained of his hope in humanity.

Maybe the sickly green used to be pastel? A nice olive, maybe? Is that how sun bleaching works?

Sam looks at Bobby B, with his leopard print leaf and black shirt, and decides that is unlikely.

“Aw, nah, you dont want a motorcycle!” cries the car salesman. “Do you know how dangerous those things are?”

Sam gives him a flat look. “Maybe my greatest goal in life is to be a meat stain on the road,” he deadpans.

Bobby B eyes him like a rattle snake, before shaking it off and bumbling to the beat up mystery car with chipped racing stripes. “I’ve got every piece of car a man might want or need.” He rounds the car, and plants his hands on the lip on the car’s trunk. Uncle Ron followed, and Sam forces himself to move.

This is fine. Maybe he’ll get an opportunity to acquire an ostrich morph before they leave. They can run fast, right? Yeah, this is fine.

“This is a nice car.” Uncle Ron not so subtly points out. Sam shoots a look at him before he catches himself, and forcefully turns his eyes to the vehicle.

“It has racing stripes.” Sam says, pitching his voice to show interest. Play along, this will be okay. At least he’s in the shade now.

“Yeah, this one has racing— what the heck is this?” Bobby B cut himself off, confused. “I don’t know nothing about this car.” Sam bent down to look through the rolled down window on the driver’s side. There’s an even layer of dust over everything, the yellow and black leather seats, the barebones steering wheel, the black interior, likely from driving through Nevada with the windows rolled down. “Manny!”

Sam glances at the man that comes out of the building in workers overalls, then dismisses him when he doesn’t even round the cars between them to come closer. Instead he yells at his boss, and flings his arms out to the sides. Sam turns back to the car.

“What?”

There’s something about the dust that jingles in the back of Sam’s head, something that will probably answer a lot of his questions about the car. He touches a patch of rust on the edge of door next to the windshield, and notes that it was mostly surface damage. That would be pretty easy to fix.

The dust will answer things, but raise more questions.

“What the heck is this? This car— come check it out.” Bobby B orders.

Well, alright then, if you want to be that way. Sam pops the door open, and slides into the seat.

His gut jolts, and his heart just about jumps up to strangle him, before freezing. His blood pulsed in his ears. The disco ball and bumblebee tag swing from the rearview mirror. Light flickers mirror bright off the cheep little ball.

“I don’t know, boss! I’ve never seen that!” Manny expressively flings his arms around some more. “That’s loco!”

Almost as quickly as it started, the explosion of fear loosens, then drains away altogether. Sam’s hands come down from where they’d frozen above the wheel, and settle on the edge, fingers curling around it. Calm gathers then wraps around his limbs to sink into his bones.

Oh.

Sam’s mind drops out of mission mode like it hasn’t in more then seven months.

He felt...safe.

“Don’t go Ricky Ricardo on me, Manny! Find out!”

They tried, but he and Chai were only two people. They couldn’t make the feedback loop needed to make the ‘all’s well’ feeling of being surrounded by a half dozen Morphers on home territory. They needed at least one more person to even begin to scratch barely enough, much less the six plus to get to true relaxation.

This here? Where his muscles are trembling ever so slightly, how he’s almost involuntarily melting against the leather seat?

“This feels...this feels nice.” Sam rolls the word around his mouth carefully. He doesn’t remember the last time he’d called anything except a cuddle pile in HQ ‘nice’.

He rubs at the dust crusted horn in the center of the wheel with a shaking thumb.

A gleaming emblem catches the light in a flare of silver as soon as it is cleared of dust.

A small rational part of him, the part that he had consciously, willingly, foraged into a living weapon, that condoned ripping living peoples’ throats out with his teeth and never quite shut up, says that he should get out of the car before whatever instinct was saying he should be hearing a theme song was proven right.

Sam has seven months practice ignoring that part of himself, and so stays exactly where he is.

“How much?” Uncle Ron asks.

Bobby B breaks off his argument with his employee, and turns back to lean casually against the roof of the car. “Well, considering the semi-classical nature of the vehicle,” he begins, “with the slick wheels, and the custom paint job—“

Sam makes a protesting noise. His tongue tripped over itself, half numb in his mouth. Bobby B pokes his head into the passenger side window. “Custom? The paint’s faded.” Then he remembers the rust, and chipped paint, and continues, because not even safe is worth getting scammed, “Not to mention the work that will need to be done on the frame to treat the rust, and a heavy duty touch up cover up past patch jobs at the very least.”

Bobby B looks almost offended. “This is your first car, I wouldn’t expect you to understand.” He pulls away, and Sam stares after him in disbelief.

Excuse me?

“Five grand.” Bobby B offers.

“Nah,” Sam can almost hear Uncle Ron shaking his head. “I’m not paying over four. Sorry.” Sam is pretty sure the sorry is for him, but doesn’t do anything to take the edge off the stab of betrayal in his chest.

He was the one who wanted Sam to get a car. And when Sam picks one, what does he do?

I’m not paying over four.

Gee, thanks.

Bobby B ducks back down and gestures with one hand. “Come on, kid, get out o’ the car.”

Sam half peels back his lip from his teeth, before he catches himself. People don’t do that. They use words. “I’m sorry.” He says to give his brain time to scramble up something like a half decent argument. “You said that cars pick their driver!”

As soon as the words leave him mouth, Sam knows he picked the wrong argument.

Bobby B turns a mocking look on him. “Well, sometimes they pick a driver with a cheapskate father.” He jabs a thumb over his shoulder. “Out the car.” He props himself back up, clearing his throat loudly.

Sam growls at him low in his throat, before forcing himself to swallow it. Not the time.

Bobby B turns to the cursed slug bug, with the sad pastel yellow paint job. “Now this one here for four thousand is a beaut.” He pops open the driver side door and swings himself in.

Sam opens his car door, but hesitates on actually getting out. He wanted this car, dang it!

He did one last mental scramble, trying to think of anything that would let him keep the car, the sense of safe, without forking over an extra grand to the hustler. He comes up empty.

Sam grinds his teeth together, trying to keep his emotions off his face. Why is Earth so difficult?

A swell of determination rises up in his belly to crash over his shoulders, down his spine.

He has time. He’ll think of something.

“There’s a Fiesta with racing stripes over there.” Uncle Ron offers in what he probably believes to be a helpful manner.

Sam pauses, then climbs out of the car, trying to remember. The only other car he remembers seeing with racing stripes was the hideous green box on wheels.

He looks at Uncle Ron, baffled. “The sickly boxy thing over there?” He checked. Uncle Ron nods. “Uh, no. I do not want a Fiesta with racing stripes.” Sam scoffs. “Why would they call a car like that a Fiesta?”

“This is a classic engine, right here.” Bobby B breaks in. He pulls the bug’s door shut with a loud creak. “I sold a car of this make-“ Sam swings the mystery car’s door shut.

The passenger door flys open on impact, slamming into the side of the bug Bobby B was in with a force that was not at all equal to what Sam had put into closing the other door. The bug skids to the side, knocking over a display rack of some yellow bottles. Bobby B rocks violently in the seat, then scrambles to the other side of the car to check the damage.

“Woah!” Uncle Ron jerks, then rounds the back of the mystery car. “Holy cow. You alright?”

Bobby B climbs out of the passenger side door of the bug looking absolutely flabbergasted. He waves off Uncle Ron. “Ah, nah, nah. I’ll get a sledge hammer and knock this right out.” Sam frowns at him. A sledge hammer? Isn’t that overkill? Bobby B twists to the side and waves at his building. “Hey, hey, Manny! Get your clown cousin, get some hammers and come knock this stuff out, baby!” He cackles that creepy chuckle from earlier, and glances back at Sam and Uncle Ron almost nervously.

The radio to the mystery car turns on with a burst of static, dragging Sam’s eyes down into the car’s cab, then immediately starts jumping channels.

“That car over there is my favorite!” Bobby B says, pointing. “Drove it all the way from Alabama.”

Sam squinted at the radio, alarm bells ringing in his head. What? His eyes catch on the dust in the cab again. Or rather, on the dust free driver’s seat.

Several things click into place in his head.

A dracon beam powers up, and Sam drops to his knees, slamming the first sturdy animal he thought of to the forefront of his mind. His skin ripples down his arms then hardens and bleaches grey even as his midsection bloats, stretching his shirt.

All of the windows of the cars shatter, spraying glass over hoods, and pavement alike.

The dracon beam warps, then ebbs away like a wonky car alarm.

Sam looks around sharply, freezing his morph in place. His heart thumps heavily in his misshapen chest, half human half not.

Uncle Ron straightened from his half crouched position he’d dropped into, straightening his shirt. Bobby B was slowly picking himself off the ground where he had thrown himself, looking around with wide eyes, speechless. The triangle flags flapped in the wind.

There was no threat.

Sam’s eyes slide to the mystery car his side was pressed against, and amended that statement.

There is no dracon beam. No Yeerks.

No War.

He forced himself to take a deep breath, then focuses on himself. His skin softens, then bleeds into a much more human tone, and his ribs fold in on themselves as his insides slosh back into a more familiar configuration.

Just as the last of Sam’s organs settle into their places, Bobby B snaps out of his shock. He spins on his heel and thrusts out four fingers.

“Four thousand!”

Satisfaction curls down Sam’s spine to settle in his gut.

Sam slowly pushes himself to his feet, eyeing the car suspiciously. He ran through what he knew.

It was not there one moment, then was the next, after Sam had heard what he now realizes was probably an engine. There hadn’t been anyone walking away from the car, no sign of anything even remotely like that. The inside of the car had an even layer of dust everywhere before Sam got into the cab. After he got out of the cab, the driver’s seat was clear of dust, and he’d left finger marks on the steering wheel, meaning there had been time from the last time the inside had been cleaned and the time Sam had sat in it for dust to settle undisturbed. Since it had clearly been driven between those two events, either someone didn’t need to be in the cab to get it places, meaning it was remote controlled somehow, or...it could drive itself.

So Sam was dealing with either some advanced tech since he hadn’t noticed anything obvious, or...it was an AI of some sort.

An AI that apparently wanted him to buy it.

Well, okay then.

No one has ever said he’s smart.

Sam turns to Bobby B. “Sounds good to me. You have the paperwork ready?” He wouldn’t, because it wasn’t his car to sell, but whatever. Future Sam could deal with that.

Or never. Never sounds good too.

When Uncle Ron and Bobby B make their way to the ex-gas station, Sam waits until he is absolutely certain they are no longer paying him any mind. The moment that happens, he ducks down to hiss at the dash through the open window.

“You and I have a few things we need to talk about, camero. Please wait here; I’ll be back.” Without waiting for a reply, Sam sets off after his uncle.

Time to get this over with.

Chapter Text

Sam flees the muggy gas station turned office the moment he could get away with it.

He’s sweating, and not just from the heat. His hands are shaking, had been since he had decided he was going to be buying the car. A car that not only had a way to trigger instincts Sam had spent just over seven months burying like it was nothing, and also apparently armed with, at a minimum, a sonic weapon, and a strange possessiveness in regards to himself.

Well, if nothing else, at least the presence of intelligence means reasoning capabilities, so Sam should be able to set some boundaries, right? Boundaries are good.

Sam pops open the driver side door, and slides into the seat. The door closes with a snick before he can so much as reach for it.

The only thing that keeps Sam from literally jumping out of his skin and through the passenger window is that same weighted blanket of safe that had happened last time, turning his limbs to jelly.

He shakily wraps his hands around the top of the wheel, and counts from ten backwards. He lets himself lean back into the seat, then, carefully, one set of muscles at a time, forces himself to let it all go. His breath hisses through his teeth.

“Okay.” He walked into this with his eyes open; he just... needs to expect the unexpected. Breathe. “Okay.” He can do that.

Sam opens his eyes, unsure when he closed them, and eyes the radio.

“Before we go any further, I’m going to need you to promise me something.” The words coming out of Sam’s mouth are a lot more conversational then he had expected. The thing around his lungs, squeezing, was quivering. His anxiety. Normally that meant he couldn’t keep his voice steady for the life of him. Though, he notes, the bands grew looser the longer that blanket of warmth radiated down into his muscles. Sam decides that doesn’t matter, and let’s it fall away. He can deal with that later.

There is a long pause, and Sam resists the urge to say something else. Words will only hinder him, he needs confirmation.

The feeling of safety ripples...almost thoughtfully. Sam waits, barely breathing.

The safe solidifies.

Sam twitches when the radio abruptly switches on with a burst of static. After a couple of seconds, it switches off again. Sam waits for something else for another four Mississippi seconds.

When nothing else is forthcoming, Sam shoots a frown at the dashboard, but continues anyway.

“You know that sound that you made, when you were building up to the sonic blast the blew out all of the other car windows? Its kinda a funny sound, like something powering up. That sound?” Sam flexed his fingers then curled them into fists against the wheel. Not around it, because that would probably be rude, but just resting his closed hands against it, just to have something solid to plant his knuckles on. “Don’t ever make that sound again without warning me first.” His breath catches in his throat, but he drags it in anyway. “Or never. That would be preferred. Please,” he tacks onto the end, because...it’s not like the car knew his issues.

Concern bubbles through the firm warmth of safe, before something that feels kinda protective laced with the barest hint of sorry rolls over Sam to settle like acceptance in his lap.

Sam sends a pulse of reassurance back.

He frowns when the feelings don’t so much as twitch in response.

The radio switches back on, and Sam lets that thought go too. Several channels are skipped through, before pausing on one.

“Sounds good to me, babe.” A woman drawls.

Sam huffs out a sigh of relief, and smiles crookedly at the steering wheel. “Thank you.” He uncurls his fingers and lightly grips the wheel, half surprised he could do it so easily, with barely any reassurance. Though, Sam thinks as the acceptance curled in his lap shifts and the sorry weight of safe perks up, dragging his arm hair with it, it could be because he was getting a lot more of the type of communication he was used to, even if he didn’t remember anyone else being quite this free with projecting their emotions. “So, we have a few more things to settle before we can really do anything, but I don’t want to talk about it here. Do you have something you would like me to call you?”

The radio fuzzes out, then settles on one.

“Fly like a bum-bum-bumblebee,” a man’s voice filters through the very good surround sound speakers, singing leisurely, “defy everything...with nimble wings.”

“Bumblebee? Like the black and yellow insect?” The radio chimes affirmative, and the weight shifts to amused. Sam smiles, and he knows the only reason he doesn’t outright laugh that the sentient yellow and black striped car had named itself Bumblebee of all things is that he truly doesn’t have any idea of where this is going to go.

That’s okay. It will be just as funny later.

“Well, I can’t say that it doesn’t fit. Do you mind if I call you ‘Bee sometimes?”

The radio hums agreeably.

Sam smiles bigger and drags a hand through his hair. “Excellent. I’m Samual Witwicky, but everyone calls me Sam.” It still feels like a lie, even after seven months. “Do you want to drive, or would you mind me driving? We should really get out of here.”

Excitement edged with apprehension prickles over Sam’s arms. The key turns, and the engine starts with a smooth hum that, now that Sam is thinking about it, was probably unusual for such an old looking car.

He shoots a frown down at the keys. Bobby B was full of it, and Sam had definitely been scammed. Bumblebee hadn’t been his to sell; he hadn’t even had the decency to pretend to look for the keys to give Sam, and Sam was disappointed in himself for not realizing it sooner. Miles will tell him that panic does that, but still.

“Alright buddy, let’s find someplace quiet to talk.” Sam rests both hands on the wheel, but is careful to keep his feet off the pedals, and his grip loose, so he didn’t hinder ‘Bee.

The seatbelt rattles next to Sam’s head. Sam scrunches his nose at it before a lightbulb goes off in his head. He whips around to stare incredulously at the dashboard. “Is this you?” He points at the seat belt. The engine rumbles, conveying laughter as easily as the swell of what can only be mischief over his skin. Sam narrows his eyes at ‘Bee suspiciously. “We’re not going anywhere until I put on the seatbelt, are we?”

The radio crackles on, and plays “No, sir-y!” in a high pitched crow.

Sam huffs a laugh, and reaches for the seat belt. “Please tell me you’re not a mother hen.”

Confusion rubs over Sam’s scalp, before settling into more amusement around his shoulders.

Sam sends an inquiry to ‘Bee absently as he slides the clip home. Bee rolls forward without so much as a hint that he had heard Sam. Sam frowns again.

Bumblebee hadn’t reacted last time Sam had sent him something either. Maybe...he’s mentally deaf? So he can send things fine, but can’t get anything in return?

Sam spends the entire four minute drive trying to send something, anything, to Bumblebee, to no avail. Happiness doesn’t get anything, neither does anxiety, or a really strong memory of fear. Sam even tried hunger, before realizing that he and ‘Bee probably processes that kind of thing in entirely different ways.

He gives up when Bumblebee finally pulls into a random rundown gas station, and try’s to rub out the tension in his eyes as he swerves into one of the more out of the way parking spaces.

‘Bee kills his engine, and the seatbelt clicks open and snakes off all on its own.

Yeah...Sam is not going to be touching that with a ten foot pole. He’s got bigger fish to fry.

He rubs his face whit both hands. Why did they come here, again? He looks through his fingers at the dashboard. Right. Basic human decency, and acknowledging body autonomy. He straightens in the seat, and folds his hands in his lap.

“All right, first things first. Do you, Bumblebee, mind being my car?” Sam asks. Straightforward is best for this sort of thing. “I’m used to,” not walking—Sam rarely walks places if only because wings were so much nicer, “getting places on my own, and I don’t have a problem continuing at least some of that, though there are somethings I’d appreciate a ride for.” He taps his foot in the foot well, stops, then let’s it go. It’s not like it’s hurting Bumblebee, and he can obviously convey irritation when he wants. It’s fine. “I also have two friends I had been planning on taking places as well.”

The radio fuzzes out, then sputters for a second before cooing, "No problem-o," in a really bad Spanish accent.

“Do you need gas? If you don’t, then what do you need? Because you’ve got to need some sort of fuel.” Sam straightens as a thought occurs to him, alarmed. “You don’t need, like, jet fuel, or anything like that, do you? ‘Cause if you do, you are on your own; I cannot afford jet fuel.”

Amusement buzzes over his skin, and ‘Bee’s engine restarts. The thrum quickly settles into harmony with his emotions hum. Sam smiles.

“So not jet fuel,” he fills in. “Would gasoline work, then?”

Bumblebee starts flicking through radio stations. He paused on a few, let them play for exactly as long it took for the speaker to say what he wanted them to say, before speeding through a dozen more stations to the next one. After a few minutes, Sam got the gist.

Gasoline would work in a pinch, but he runs on something else. Bumblebee could find that fuel on his own.

“So I won’t need to provide fuel for you?” Sam checks. ‘Bee buzzes a negative, warmth and fizzy amusement pops up his arms and legs. Sam mentally checks that off his list of things he needs to take care of, and pulls his phone out to make a note to adjust his budget accordingly.

It takes a couple seconds, but the moment he’s done he hits the power button again, and drops it into his lap.

“Right.” Now what? What does everyone want? What can Sam do for him? Sam answers that immediately. “If you want to go out for a drive without me, I’ve absolutely zero issues with that, especially if you’re going to be getting your own fuel.” Not that Sam could really stop him without playing his hand, but it’s the principle of the matter. “That being said, we’re going to need to work out a way to make sure it doesn’t get linked back to me if you decide to take a cruise down a random highway and get caught.” Indignation pops in tiny bubbles over Sam’s chest. The radio spits static. Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re too good to get caught, or whatever. Point is, I’m not going to be paying for any speeding tickets I didn’t earn myself.”

"My friend—" 'Bees skips several stations, "you under estimate my power!" Anakin Skywalker raged. More stations spit out static and fractions of songs that pass too quickly to recognize. "Don't you worry about a thing~!—I've got this in the bag."

Sam stares at the dash, incredulously. Where in the world had he found Star Wars on the radio waves?

He pushes that out of his mind, and quirks his lips in amusement, humming in agreement. Somehow, he didn’t doubt it. He continues, “I’d also like a heads up for whenever you decide to take off, just so I don’t plan on something that involves a ride, only to walk out of the house or gym or something just to find you gone.”

'Bee chirped cheerfully, excitment fizzing, then switched on his radio. "—Slip me a napkin and get to clapping. Hey, Papa can I get them digits, Papa can I get them digits~!"

Eyebrows shooting up, Sam palms his phone and unlocks it, even as he asks, “Can you message me?” He rattles off his number. Not even a second later, his phone pings, telling him he's got a message. He taps it, and the screen brings him to the messaging app Bumblebee had apparently decided to use. A honeybee emoji. Sam grinned. “Cool, that’ll work.” He tucked his phone under his thigh, glad that could be crossed off his list.

“How would you feel about having other people in your cab? I have two friends I like to go places with, and my guardians may ask me to drive them places. Would you be okay with that?”

"Fine.~ It'll turn out fine.~"

Sam smiles. “Thanks, Bee. I...” How to explain his life without spilling his guts? “I could probably figure something out for my friends. Chai’s reasonable, and Miles will accept what I tell him, but I can’t really say no to my guardians.” Not without drawing attention to himself that he really couldn’t afford with his anxiety. Even if the punishment is something small, like getting his phone confiscated, would be more then he can handle right now. Especially since Sam’s list of secrets just gotten longer.

He taps a finger on his thigh, and dismisses that line of thought. Nothing lay down that road but a panic attack and misery. Focus on what you can do. “So,” Sam runs through what they’ve discussed so far, and decided it’s as good as it is going to get in this time frame, and changes tracks. “It there anything you would like to put on the table?”

The safe pings inquiry directly into Sam's skull, and sends it bouncing around his brainpan. Sam...can't quite keep a grimace of pain from twisting up his face, even while 'Bee's radio chirps quizzically. Sam quickly runs a hand over his face to hide his expression long enough to get his expression back under control.

It only takes a second or two for the stabbing pains bursting into existance alover his head fizzle down into something much more bearable. He lets his hand come down to his jaw cautiously. That was new. Sam swipes his tongue over his lip to get it moving, and reiterates: "Do you have anything you'd like me to be aware of, and make adjustments for?"

Bumblebee buzzed like the insect he'd named himself after, and Sam got the distinct impression of shrugging.

While not a new experience—Sam's mission partner on Bedrock had been fond of that action—it was strange to get it from a being shaped like a car that didn't have shoulders to shrug. Live and learn, it is a new day.

"Well, alright, then." Sam concedes. He adds, "If you do think of anything, just let me know. If either of us come up with something else we can talk about it as it comes up.

“I had been planning on picking Chai up, then going to a mechanic to check out the engine, then somewhere else to check the frame—“ Sam cuts himself off. He is a person, act like it! “Would you be okay with going to a mechanic to get checked out? Or do you have something under the hood you’d rather remain a mystery?” Sam asked. “Do you need to go to a mechanic?” He sends a totally useless inquiry and a crackling worry to him.

Bumblebee shrugs again, buzzing uncommunicatively.

"Nuh-uh." Sam raps the steering wheel with the tips of his fingers. The sensation twists, surprised. "This is a partnership," Sam tells him firmly, "partnerships are equal, but they can only be equal with communication. Bumblebee, do you need a mechanic?"

"Negative, Captain—its all shipshape here."

"So, you're fine?" Sam presses. "Can you, I don't know, run a diagnostic on yourself or something? Because that would be handy, and really cool."

'Bee's press of safe heats into warmth like he hadn't picked up on the entire purpose of this conversation. "—Got all sorts of tools, for all sorts of problems—I've got this in the bag, man."

Sam's lip curls at the surprise. Common decency should not be a new thing. It shouldn't be surprising. "Don't be so surprised, Bumblebee. This is your body we are talking about. I'm not going to force you to go through something when its not absolutely necessary. I wouldn't want some stranger poking around in my insides; I'm not going to make you do it."

The warm feeling intensifies. 'Bee skips through a bunch of happy sounding music channels.

Sam shoots an amused look at the dash. “Alright so, I had been planning on going to the mechanic, then to get the frame of whatever car I got checked, then going to a place to check out paint jobs.” Sam drums his fingers absently against the wheel, then makes himself stop and crosses his arms over his chest. He hasn’t asked ‘Bee if he minds being touched for anything but passing as a regular driver and car. “Since mechanic is off the list of to dos, how’s your frame? Any spots you need patched up, or what not?”

"'S all good, homie. —shipshape."

“Are you sure?” Sam checks. “I saw some rust earlier.”

"It's all cool, my dude."

“Well, alright.” Sam runs through his list again, and arranges words carefully in his head. “How would you feel about a fresh coat of paint, then? Because while I am dead serious about not forcing you into doing anything you don’t want to, I haven’t made it a secret I had been planning on getting whatever car I ended up picking a touch up, at the very least.” He scratches at his chin awkwardly. Should I—? Ah, might as well. “I can come up with something to explain it away, but I’m not the best at that kind of thing, and I’d rather avoid it if at all possible.”

'Bee is quiet, even his engine revs down for a moment. The press of safe stills for a heartbeat, watchful. Then it oozes warm and bubbly, and his engine cycles back up. "I'll consider it."

Sam can’t help but pat the steering wheel softly. “That’s all I ask, ‘Bee.”

“Speaking of,” he continues, changing the subject, “is it okay if I introduce you to Chai? She’s my—“ partner, other half, sanity, “—best friend. She’d be cool with you being more than a car.” Sam shrugs, and rubs a hand through his hair. “She would also be fine if you want to wait a few days to think about it,” he explains, “but we would have to think of something to tell her, because we’re practically attached at the hip, me and her, and she’ll know something is up.” Confusion prickles over Sam’s neck before smoothing out into amusement, even as the unending warmth and safe press down on him. Sam smiles slightly, partly because of how Bumblebee just projects everything, partly because of Chai. “I—“ Sam swallows and just breaths for a moment.

He lets his head fall back on the seat. ‘Bee’s curiosity drums like rain on Sam’s skin. “I can’t really keep anything from her.” He finally says. Side effect of being telempaths, he carefully keeps to himself.

That was more then just his secret, more then just his and Chai’s. It wasn’t his to tell.

‘Bee’s radio whistles questioningly, inquiry taps over Sam’s skull.

“Nah, man, she won’t tell anyone. Partly,” he explains, “because it wouldn’t be any of their business, partly because it wouldn’t be her information to share, and partly because no one would believe her.”

Bee’s engine rumbles thoughtfully, matching the curls of thinking snaking like smoke through Sam’s arm hair. Seconds tick by. Sam’s heart rate spikes, and no amount of compartmentalizing slows it. He starts gnawing on the edges of his tongue to keep himself from talking. This is Bumblebee’s decision, Sam will not force him to bend to Sam’s wishes.

The thinking twists into something more solid, and ‘Bee plays an upbeat tune.

Sam’s heart just about skitters in his chest. “Yeah?” ‘Bee plays another snippet, just as peppy as the last.

Sam lets the anxiety that had been building up in his chest at the thought of keeping something like this from Chai evaporate with a shaky exhale. All is well. He can handle this.

A fleeting thought darts through his mind about asking ‘Bee if he minds Miles knowing too, but forcefully stops that thought before he can start thinking of ways to convince him that it was a good idea.

Chai is enough for Sam, and he has no idea if ‘Bee has some sort of trauma with people knowing about his existence. He was not going to push him any more then he already had. Miles would probably forgive him. Eventually.

“Thanks, ‘Bee.” Sam says, sending a pulse of appreciation at him, only half hoping at this point that it would get through. “Are you ready to pick up Chai?”

‘Bee’s radio squees to life, and excitement buzzes on Sam’s skin. “Let's get this show on the road!” His engine turns over on its own, and Sam doesn’t even try to keep himself from grinning.

“Let’s.” Sam agreed. “I mostly know the way by instinct, so to avoid my shoddy directions—” he picks up his phone again, and pulls up Google Maps, quickly typing in Chai’s address, “—I’m going to put my phone on speaker.” He finishes triumphantly. Gotta love technology.

“Turn right onto Febrero Road.” The monotone British woman vocalizes. Bumblebee turns his wheel, and reverses obediently.

While ‘Bee pulls out into the road, Sam carefully exits Google Maps on his phone, and starts tapping at the screen to send a heads up text to Chai, since she was out of thought-speak range.

-Incoming. Got someone to introduce you to.

Chai replies a bare few seconds later.

-Acknowledged. It’s not you car dealer is it?

Sam laughs lightly, before sending a text back.

-No, but they are related.

-Anything you are willing to tell me?

What intel do I get to prepare for the latest crisis? Classic Gorilla. Though if Chai had been anything less he would have lost his mind sometime in the last few months. He is not used to having so much time on his hands.

-Think Gate Guardian, but with built in projector and much cooler looking. Sam sends, then swipes over for Google Maps, and props the device against ‘Bee’s dash.

Bee's gearshift moves, and Sam settles back in his seat, lightly resting a hand on the wheel even as Bee turned it himself to go around a dusty van.

Sam gropes around for something talk about. Small talk is a thing right? Is it just a human thing, or will it translate well? He picks a classic, and aims for casual. "Where do you come from, if you don't mind me asking?"

"—Rain down from the heavens, like hallelujah!"

"So—" is it possible for a healthy guy to get heart palpitations? "—you're from outer space?"

The alien car applauds.

It is a very good thing Bumblebee was driving, because every last one of Sam's deepest fears rear their ugly heads and just about strangle him. It was even better that his mission mindset dropped right back into place, keeping his limbs loose and breathing steady. If experience hadn't taught him what a stopped heart felt like, he would have thought he was having something like a heart attack. His voice is casual, smooth, when he says, "So are you here to invade, or something? Because if you want to be introduced to humanity's leader, you have come to the wrong place, and picked the wrong human." Not that humans actually have one leader, but that really wasn't a point of concern.

"—Got my key—" static fizzles harshly through the speakers, before smoothing back out, "—glasses—" stations flicked by, faster than Sam could keep up with "—just gotta find it—maps and legends—something like treasure!"

"You are here looking for a map to a treasure," Sam reiterates. "What is the treasure?" He has no idea what glasses of all things has to do with maps or anything else, but steadfastly focuses on the slightly more important details. Like resource management.

They couldn't afford another war so soon.

'Bee's engine reved slightly, and he turned left. The radio spat static, before, "As we sing holy, holy, holy!"

Sam stares blankly out the windshield. Really. Is this what his life has come to? "It's religious?" This kind thing definitely never happened to other Hawks. Sam would bet a very large amount of pizza on it. "You're not, like, looking for some kind of resource, or anything?" Not slaves. Please don't be looking for slaves.

"Negative."

"And..." Sam trails off. He really didn't want to ask. He thinks he might actually get to like Bumblebee, and not just because he was prone to Projecting. But Sam had not spent sixteen years doing unspeakable things in the name of Freedom to loose Earth to a sentient car and his friends. "When you get your...treasure... you plan on, what, leaving again?"

"Yes, sir!"

Sam makes another mental note to save up for another car. This one apparently came with an expiration date. Great. At least he knows what all that saved gas money can go towards.

Chai can help. Chai will know what to do. The words rolled soothingly through his brain. He really needed to find a better way of coping. He makes another note to look that up when he got back to home base. Something that isn’t mission mode, and not Chai, or even Miles. In the mean time, they will cross that bridge when they get to it.

Sam forced himself to start from the top. Alien invasion, Sam.

“You are an alien from outer space, looking for a lost treasure from your home world that was lost...forever ago,” He summarizes. And something to do with glasses, and Sam himself likely, from how hard Bumblebee had pushed to get himself purchased, he adds in his head. Just something else to tell Chai. Though this did bring up a question. “So why did you decide to be a car?”

Mission Impossible starts playing.

"Ooh," Sam laughs. "Smart!"
~~~~~~
In no time at all, Bumblebee was parking in front of Chai's house.

Sam peered out the passenger window while blindly groping around for his phone. <Chai, I'm here.>

Chai's house was an older building. She and her mother were in the surprisingly long process of renovating it.

Two stories, in addition to having an attic and a basement, it was a very large building to only have two people living in it. So far they'd had the roof redone to address the water damage, finished both of their rooms, redone the entire very impressive kitchen, and ripped out every last square foot of carpet in the house.

The front porch, which was basically just a six by six square in front of the front door, was made of sun bleached, unpainted boards, that matched the equally sun damaged siding. Each window was framed with equally faded shades, that, ultimately were there for looks rather than function. Chai had the siding written in her to do list next week, and the porch was set for total replacement as soon as the siding was finished. Chai had mentioned something about a wrap around porch, so that could be cool. The yard was a mess of different wild grasses and flowers, tiny pollinators hovering in surprisingly high numbers all around. Only the brand new trail of pale cream stepping stones and 'elfin creeping thyme'—a sort of moss that apparently flowers purple in spring, and doesn't grow taller than three inches— marks that anything has been done to the house at all from the outside.

In any case, Sam couldn't see any sign of Chai, and she hasn't responded to his thought speak, so he pulls up his messaging app and key-smashes her some emojis. Three seconds later, she sends a thumbs up.

Not long after, Sam spots movement in the corner of his eye. When he turned to look, he sees Chai round the corner of the house.

All of five foot nothing, she waded through the very tall grass with all of the single minded determination she had honest to a razor edge over the years, paying no mind to the bees and wasps buzzing around her yard. It takes much less time than it should for her to reach her elfin thyme path, if only so she didn't get stung.

Sam takes a moment to absorbs her chosen outfit for the day.

Black and pink athletic capris, with a matching pink sleeveless cowl-neck top she had definitely crocheted herself, went very well with her twin black-brown dutch braids. She was also wearing her typical three in one shoes that, as a dude, Sam could not buy in his size, much less get away with wearing, for all that they made the perfect morphing shoes when you removed the flats. She also had her favorite bag strapped to her thigh like a gun holster.

She waves at him, silver rings flashing in the light, grinning. Sam smiles, wiggling his fingers back. She starts making her way down the path, and sends a peppy greeting to him. He sends her one back, then sends her the carefully bundled info pack he had been putting together instinctively since things had taken a distinctly not-normal turn at Bobby B's. Her steps barely pause, and her smile doesn't so much as hitch.

Sam taps the driver door with a knuckle, and Bumblebee obligingly pops it open. Sam pulls himself out of his seat.

"Hi, Chai." He closed Bee's door, and moves around him to Chai. He tucks both hands into his pockets. "Decided to enhance your more asian features today?"

They meet on the brand new sidewalk. Chai tips her head back to look at him, and flutters her impeccably lined lashes. "But of course. I wanted big eyes to go with my dutch braids. Black eyeliner is the way to go. Don't I look fabulous?" She poses semi dramatically.

"Don't you always?" Sam asked rhetorically.

Chai shrugged, relaxing. "Well, yes, but it's nice to hear it. Speaking of which, you look pretty good your self."

Sam pulled a hand out of a pocket to press to his chest. "Aw, thank you. The boss sent it in the mail three days ago. I have the complexion for red, don't I?"

Chai chuckled, and tugged on the front of his rust read t-shirt, thumbing the embroidered spray of red-tailed hawk feathers over his left shoulder, down his chest and back. "I suppose you do. The tan cargo pants and knock off Timberlands were a good choice." His playful swipe is dodged expertly.

"She does have good taste," Sam agreed. He tilted his head to Bumblebee. "Ready?"

"To meet your mysteriously missing person?" Chai scoffed. "Anytime, feathers."

Sam grinned. He took the three steps back it took to reach 'Bee's side, and tapped his hood. "This is Bumblebee. He's from outer space, and comes in peace. Bumblebee, this is Chai. She's basically my sister. We haven't decided who's the Mom Friend between us yet. Would you like to say hi, 'Bee?"

The radio switched on, and Adele came on. "Hello.~"

Chai grinned, dark eyes crinkling in the corners. "Nice to meet you, Bumblebee. Can I take the passenger seat? I promise I showered this morning."

'Bee played a laughing track, and swung his passenger side door open. "Let's go!" A man crowed.

Chai sends Sam a burst of stress and worry, but smiles and slides into the offered seat anyway. The stress increases when the door shuts on its own. Sam sends her a thread of care and reassurance while he walked back to the driver's side.

He feels when Bumblebee's natural presence worms under her skin.

Safe was nearly addictive for people who have not felt that way in months.

'Bee opens his door for Sam. He mutters an absent thanks as he slides into the seat, distracted with Chai's abrupt thought-speak silence.

'Bee rattles both of their seatbelts. It takes a mental nudge from Sam to get Chai to reach for hers.

The moment their belts click into place, 'Bee pulls away from the curb, and starts going...somewhere. Sam decides to let that be. For her part, Chai doesn't stay quiet for long.

"So, Bumblebee is sentient. What does this do to our plans for today?" She starts sending him tiny hints of the same stress she had been feeling before, but this time they were laced with her usual focus, and a hint of excitement. He squashes the urge to smile before it can fully form on his face.

There she is.

In response, 'Bee starts flicking through radio stations. "—new coat of paint—" who in the world was playing Hairspray songs on the air waves? "—I need a make over—I can dress myself, Mama!" Sam twitched at the abrupt change from music to a little girl shrieking.

Message received, 'Bee, message received.

“Oh, yeah?” Chai asks. She settles bonelessly into the passenger seat, even though she’s still sending Sam threads of focus and tension through the link. He rolls his neck slowly, trying to work out kinks he knows aren’t actually his. “Have you though about different shades? Because there are a ton of different yellows and blacks out there, and that’s without adding in sparkly, and matte, and gloss.” She ticks off each option on her fingers, silver rings flashing in the light.

Sam is pretty sure ‘sparkly’ paint is not called sparkly. He wisely keeps that thought to himself.

'Bee beeps speculatively, radiating a fuzzy sense of bafflement while still mostly feeling like amusement.

Chai wiggles excitedly, still de-boned. “We should totally go to a paint store and get a bunch of samples for you to look at.” She sends Sam an image of shelves full of tiny tins of paint she had seen when she and her mom had gone to replace the window wipers on her mom’s car two weeks ago. Her anticipation jitters against his knee caps. Sam shoots her a weird look, and a mental poke to her kidney. She sticks her tongue out at him, and crosses her arms. The jittering stops. “We have three and a half hours to kill, partner, we may as well do something with our time,” she says imperiously. Sam lets it go.

They end up getting a good handful of the tiny paint cans, and a couple handfuls of brushes on impulse. It’s not until they are standing in front of ‘Bee, shopping bags in hand that they realize—they had no idea how Bee perceived the world.

Chai sends her embarrassment to sear over Sam’s cheeks. <Well, now I feel embarrassed.>

Before Sam can do more then open his mouth to reply, she was already charging forward, searching for a solution. Step one: gather the relevant information.

“Hey, ‘Bee?”

Bee’s radio flicks on to squeer inquisitively. Sam notes that he wasn’t picking up on any of ‘Bee’s emotions even two feet away from his front bumper. So he had an unusually short projection range? Though perhaps 'inside his body' is less short, and more inverted.

“How do you, like, see color?” Chai hedges, and she has never matched her physical age so much as she does in this moment in all the time Sam has known her.

"—with my own eyes." The tone was so cheeky it was almost sarcastic. Sam got the distinct impression 'Bee would be wiggling his fingers at his eyes if he had either of those body parts.

Sam blinks at 'Bee's striped hood. "Wait. You have eyes? Like, things I would consider to be eyes, or body parts that do what eyes do?"

'Bee plays a laughing track, and opens and closes his doors cheekily. "Put a roof on it, my dude," he replayed.

Chai pouts mockingly. "You're not going to answer are you?"

"So, you want us to put the pain on your roof?" Sam asks, ignoring her. 'Bee beeps an affirmative. Sam squints at his hood. "Can you tell the difference in color shades on your frame?" Chai starts bouncing on her toes, fake disappointment evaporating. She starts poking at him mentally, sending a thread of excitement over their open link.

He catches flashes of war paint streaked on dirty faces, body art on skin that was exposed through torn morph suits, and spray painted concrete hallways. The thread of excitement sparks something deep in his own mind, and begins a tiny, two person loop.

"Let's do it," 'Bee crows.

Sam and Chai flash each other grins, buoyed on a loop of excitement they hadn’t felt in the month since they’d last gone hunting by wing. Nothing is quite like skydiving down down down straight at the sun baked ground and the rodent or venomous snake that had catch your eye, with only your own wings to catch you, and no back up for thousands of miles. Almost nothing, anyway.

They dropped the bags, and got to work.

Time passes quickly after that. They dab little spots on ‘Bee’s roof, yellows on yellow, blacks on black, naming each new shade as they go. In between each new spot, they talk. They find out ‘Bee does actually have access to the internet, and WiFi isn’t actually something he has to worry about. Chai excitedly introduces him to Spotify, and directs him to her playlists. Once he has that down, which is very quickly because of course Bumblebee the camero from outer space picked things up quickly, Sam starts talking about various genres of music. How Bumblebee could probably use just instrumental pieces if he really wanted to either convey his own emotions at a distance, or if he wanted to try to influence the emotional environment as humans often respond to music on an instinctive level.

He’s just started picking up speed on what music does to the emotional centers of the brain when an alarm on Chai’s phone goes off, signifying it was time for them to go pick Miles up.

Chai freezes just before her yellow laden paint brush touches ‘Bee’s roof. She flicks pointed look at Sam, then dabs on the color. A flash of Miles’ blond hair and his laugh flash through Sam’s mind with a distinctive echo of Chai behind it. Sam narrows his eyes at her a hair and sends her a jab to the ribs. She twitches, then clamps the brush between her teeth, glaring, and fishes her blaring phone from her pocket. A double tap of her thumb, and the alarm is silenced. She gives him a look through her eyelashes, and he manfully resists.

He holds out for three seconds before giving in. She wins because she is right. Miles deserves to know. Or at least, to not be lied to. Just like Bumblebee deserves to decide. He just doesn’t get why he has to be the one to ask.

“It’s time to pick up Miles.” Chai announces brightly. She flashes her teeth at Sam over ‘Bee’s roof. A more naive person would think it was a smile. Sam knew better.

“Do you want to be introduced to Miles?” It takes conscious control to avoid gnawing on his lip. It takes considerably less effort to ignore the twisting worry in his gut. Sam is well practiced in this aspect of his anxiety. ‘Bee will decide, it is out of Sam’s hands.

With their bellies pressed to ‘Bee’s sides, they were more than close enough to pick up the projected emotions. Caution is the most easily identifiable one, though not the loudest. That honor went to the smooth tick-tick-ticking of calculation.

Bee flicked through three different stations rapid fire. "I don't know man—seems risky—to me."

That is not a decision. Sam can’t work with this.

Chai shrugs, rescuing Sam from his floundering. “I don’t know how risky it really is, ‘Bee. He wouldn’t be my friend if he couldn’t keep a secret.” This is true. Gorillas, as a rule, are very careful about who they trust as a matter of professionalism. They had to be, or everything would have collapsed. Then again, it's not like Bumblebee knows that. "It's your decision, but consider this my glowing recommendation."

The safe weight that Sam has already begun to associate with who Bumblebee is shifts to a thoughtful kind of coil around Sam's gut.

Words come back to Sam. He pats ‘Bee on the roof. “You have time, buddy. You don’t need to decide today, or ever if you don’t want to.”

They wait.

'Bee's engine hums, then he plays, "Let's do this."

Sam checks to be sure. "You want to meet Miles?" He clarifies. 'Bee hums in agreement, the pops both of his doors open. They don't get very far before jamming into their ribs, but its really the thought that counts.

Sam hooks his fingers into the gap between the top of the door and 'Bee's frame, and takes a step back, pulling the door open. He jabs at Chai again.

<Satisfied?>he sends spitefully.

<Immensely,>Chai grins, purr-y pleased. Her warm fuzzies fizzle on the inside of his skull, and he can’t help but smile.
~~~~~~
The moment Bumblebee has parked himself, Chai clicks her seatbelt off and starts wiggling her way into the backseat.

Sam fends off her legs, scowling. “Is there a reason why you’re trying to kick me in the face?”

Chai twists somehow that results in her legs rapidly retreating after her. She pops back up like she hadn’t contorted her body as if she didn’t have a spine. Her hair is a mess, but she could probably fix it in a few seconds, which is just another way the world is unfair in all things. “Yes,” she says, gesturing to the passenger seat she had just forsaken. “Miles is going to be sitting there.”

Sam blinks at her and waits. Bumblebee watches.

“So he can run away screaming if he wants...?” Chai offers after a few seconds of Sam’s very clear not understanding, and ‘Bee’s radio silence. Her eyebrows tick up a notch when his expression doesn’t change. “We are introducing him to Bumblebee, a sentient car from outer space, but before we drop that bomb in his lap, we are going to make him get inside the alien, and drive him someplace remote.” Chai gives Sam a significant look.

Sam doesn’t catch her drift. What else can they do? Sam wouldn’t want to oust himself as a sentient car in a school parking lot.

Chai shoots him a tiny glare, and sends him a clip of a memory he knows well. The first time she had seen a Gate Guardian with her own eyes. How she’d been trapped with the thing in the middle of nowhere. And the blue streak she’d let loose as the realization set in.

Right. People aren’t used to robots from space.

Hnnmm.

“Okay,” Sam hedges, thinking. “Miles can sit in the passenger seat. However, that isn’t what we’re talking about.”

Chai blinks innocently. “Oh?”

Sam is unimpressed. “Oh.” He agrees. “Why’d you have to wiggle back there like that when there is a perfectly functional door,” he flicks a hand at the passenger door, “right there?”

“Because I could, of course.” She sticks her nose in the air, and flicks a braid over her shoulder haughtily.

“Of course.” Sam echoes drily.

‘Bee plays a laughing track. Chai flashes a smile at the dash, before schooling her face again.

“Before you started asking silly questions, we were talking about something else. I seem to recall we were discussing paint options.” She musses, biting lightly on a thumbnail. Her eyes glitter challengingly. <Loser buys dinner?> Her voice sounds in his head.

Sam lets a grin crawl up his face. <You're on.>

Someone walks up to the car a little while later, radiating the tiniest hint of bemused amusement. Sam ignores this in favor of focusing on his much more important conversation. It’s just Miles. No danger here. The only stakes he has to worry about right this moment is whether or not he will be buying them dinner.

“You don’t have to be yellow and black, you know.” Sam tells ‘Bee, who’s only response is to press amusement into his skin.

“I don’t know man, I’m digging the yellow and black.” Chai says. Sam shoots her a narrow eyed look. Her big black eyes laugh at him from her most innocent face. She cackles in his head.

“Just because his name is Bumblebee doesn’t mean he needs to look like one if he doesn’t want to.” Sam sniffs at her disdainfully.

She cocks her head to the side like a dainty bird, still cackling. Only her eyes and projected laughter give her away, and only because she wants them to. “Your point? Besides,” she waves a hand, “he can get sparkly black racing stripes.” She says it like it is the sole reason to stick with ‘Bee’s current color scheme, and the only one worth thinking about.

Sam sighs heavily, with all of the warmth he kept for her in his chest. “It’s called metallic, Chai. That’s what the sales person called it,” he reminded her for not the first time.

Her nose scrunches up disagreeably, eye narrowing. Her laughter is still jangles playfully in his skull. The next thing that comes out of her mouth was going to make him face palm, he just knows it. She doesn’t disappoint.

“That’s a really manly way of saying sparkly,” she observes.

Sam sucks in a breath through his nose, mouth pressed into a thin line. He is going to loose this argument if he doesn’t find a hole to drop through. Deflection might work. He shuffles through tactics, lightning fast. Yes. He has nothing to loose, and everything to gain.

“I’m not going to argue with you.” He tells her as silky smooth as flower petals. He is not going to buy dinner. Not today. He turns back to ‘Bee “What I meant is that you can go inverted, be black and yellow if you wanted to try that out.” He held out his hands in surrender. “I’m just trying to offer ideas.”

Miles finally cracks, and ducks down to look through the rolled down passenger window. “Why are you talking like there’s another person in here?” His blond hair flops into his eyes, and he swipes a hand through it to rake it back.

Sam smiles. Oh, this guy. “Glad you asked.” Chai sends both of them excitement for a new discovery, and the rush of starting a new adventure. Miles perks up, even though he probably has no idea where any of that is coming from. Sam jerks his head, grinning. “Get in. We have someone we want to introduce you to.”

Chapter Text

Miles is quiet the whole way there.

He's quiet when Sam and Chai toss out food options, he's quite when they settle on that little hole in the wall that lets them occasionally exchange potato peeling labor for truly amazing mashed potatoes and mac and cheese, and he's quiet when Sam drags him into the restaurant to get the food. He's even quiet when Sam pays for the food and they haul it back to 'Bee and Chai. Normally he would at least try to add ten dollars to the cause; normally he would push to contribute.

Miles is not a quiet person.

Sam keeps darting glances at him in the corner of his eye, trying to get a read on him. He almost slips a few times, but Chai sends him pointed jabs in the gut each time. Chai, the hypocrite, only curbs her own visible concern half as much as Sam does. Though, Sam concedes, as the one sitting behind Miles, she could get away with more.

Miles has a tendency of deflection when he catches them worrying over him. It would serve him well one day, Sam is sure, but it doesn't keep it from being extremely irritating when he turns it on them.

None of this stops Sam from exchanging more than a few worry laced thoughts with Chai.

This would make or break their relationship with him. If Miles couldn't handle a sentient car from space named Bumblebee , of all things, than he definitely wouldn't be able to adapt to the fact that his best friends were traumatized telempathic shape shifting semi-teenaged soldiers who had spent the better part of two decades fighting extraterrestrial body snatchers on an alien planet. They would survive, of course. They hadn't gotten this far if they couldn't handle the waves from someone else's mental inflexibility. But.

If he could though...well. One more Paximorph would hardly be a bad thing.

Minus the wait time for the food, the drive is still an excruciating nineteen minutes and eighteen seconds of tense silence. Even Bumblebee, who by all intense and purposes seems immune to receiving from the likes of Sam and Chai, spent the entire time coiled tight as a spring.

'Bee turns left, driving through a set of chain link gate that had been knocked open sometime in the past and then never moved back. He rolled slowly over cracked pavement and weeds, smoothly rounding the clearly dilapidated parking lot. Sam looked around curiously.

An abandoned Family Dollar?

Okay then.

Bee parks himself facing the gates, and Sam doesn't even bother to reach for the keys; he goes for the door. The engine shuts off the same time the driver door pops open on its own before Sam's fingers can so much as graze the handle.

<Thanks, Bee,> Sam sends reflexively, then frowns. Right. That doesn't work.

He pats the steering wheel in thanks instead, and pulls himself out the door. Standing with his hand on the top of Bee's door, one leg in the foot well, Sam scans the area, reassessing. In his peripheral, Miles pops Bee's other door open and climbs out as well.

The parking lot is small, only big enough to hold maybe a dozen cars. The late afternoon sun, bright and hot, paints every last crack and weed in stark relief.

To Sam's right, stands a very old three story brick building, so old the bricks are dark brown, and the mortar is crumbling all on its own in the dry Nevada heat. Barred off windows, mysterious protruding pipes in strange places, and graffiti so worn Sam couldn't identify the color, much less the design, all say the building has also been empty for a good long while, and probably uncared for for a irresponsibly long time before that. To the left, is a field of wild flowers and what looked like a ditched boat of some kind. Whoever thought having a boat in the middle of the literal desert was a good idea probably deserved the criminal waste of money. Beyond that was an empty strip mall, signs long since removed. Across the street was more stripped strip mall.

Sam often forgets how old and dirty Tranquility is until he came to places like this. It almost makes him miss the good old days of sleeping in trees behind enemy lines, or on practice mats stinking of sweat and blood, buried under great heaps of other living breathing Morphers, smack dap in the middle of the bunker that was HQ.

Almost.

He counts off exits absently.

One, front gate, where they came from. Not great for outrunning an actual muscle car, but straight forward, and with plenty of room for situational out of the box thinking. Two, around the left side of the Family Dollar, where he had seen the edges of dumpsters. Where there are dumpsters, there is a way for a dump truck to come. Though there might be some fence hopping involved, it would be doable. Three, over the fence to the brick building, and through the hopefully not rusted shut door in the side. Least preferable, least likely to be successful, but still a possibility. Four, over the fence into the flower field, then behind the strip mall. Worse than option three, as it leaves you wide open for attack, and the chances of twisting you ankle in a random gofer hole is too high to justify the high visibility.

If Sam is doing his math right, the closest bus stop is only twenty minutes run from here, and Miles' home only about fifty minutes more running. Much less, if he actually takes a bus.

All and all, not great, but better than it could have been. At the very least, there are very few signs of someone having been here recently. Privacy is good for discussing secrets in unsecured areas.

Miles looks distinctly underwhelmed. "The guy you want to introduce me to is out here?" His raised eyebrow says everything.

Chai's voice drifts out of Bee's cab. Excellent. Sam doesn't have to say anything. "He is now." Chai sounds entirely too smug to be of any use.

Or not. "Chai, not helpful."

Chai blows a raspberry in his direction with an affection infused telepathic punch to the shoulder before turning to start handling their bagged food to Miles.

Sam shoots a look at Miles. See? This is what he deals with everyday.

Catching the look, Miles snorts and takes the bags one at a time from Chai, setting them on the ground just out of the way of the door. Once she wiggles out of the back in a display of gelatinous bones and hair-raising spinelessness to summersault across the cracked pavement with no thought to her clothing, Miles slams the passenger door shut.

Sam follows suit. They're safe, they've done what they can to make this as comfortable for Bee and Miles, and there's nothing else they can do to make this go smoother, he tells himself firmly. It doesn't do squat for the jitters starting to work their way through his gut out to his fingers, but it's always good to acknowledge one's limitations.

Sam rounds Bee's bumper to help with the bags. Chai hands him the ones she had in her hands, and yanks on her grey thigh-bag thing's zipper. Sam wrinkles his nose as the plastic handles dig into his fingers.

"These are a lot heavier then you made them look," Sam mutters.

Chai snickers. A second later, she pulls out a flat shiny blue rectangle the size of her hand. Oh, good. She's brought a tarp. She shoots a smile at him, pulling off the clips keeping the square so compact and stuffs them back into her bag with her fingers. "Of course I made it look easier than it is," she sends amusement and mischief to tap dance down his spine. "How else was I going to convince you to take them from me?"

Sam squints at her, resisting the urge to pout. She's messing with him of course; that's kind of how teasing works. But to tease over something like this? Low blow, man, low blow.

Goodness knows that she spends way more time in the gym than he ever will.

Chai hums smugly, and flicks her wrist in a way that gets her tiny folded tarp half undone in one go. Two more shakes gets it fully undone in all its plasticky glory. Another snap and she sinks to the ground, gently guiding it to lay flat on the old asphalt. She pats in a few places to ease some creases. Sam and Miles watch wordlessly.

"...are you done yet?" Sam asks after fifteen seconds. There is no making a tarp comfortable on this kind of ground. If he didn't know better, he'd think Chai was delaying the inevitable.

Grumbling mutinously, Chai waves them over. "It's as good as its going to get."

Miles huffs out his amusement, the barest wisp of his projection brushing over Sam's nearer shoulder. He nudges Sam forward with his shoulder, and Sam goes. He unlocks his knees, and breathes out the what-ifs and the fear churning in his gut over the things he can't control, and puts the bags on Chai's tarp. Miles follows.

Sam takes one good hard look at his friend while he is distracted. He fingers that title, thinking.

Friend.

Hadn't Sam been through this before? Hadn't he made himself a promise then?

Better a friend who can face the truth and act, than one who refused to do either.

If Miles can't, won't, accept something like this, than Sam is better off without him.

Sam's jitters die a quiet death under the weight of a decades old decision.

Free of his self imposed burden, Miles near skips to Bumblebee's bumper, and turns back to face Sam and Chai with every ounce of flare in his bones. In what he definitely thinks is a cool move, he leans back against Bee's hood, and crosses his ankles, then his arms, smirking. His amusement buzzes pleasantly in the air, broadcasted for all in range to feel.

Should Sam tell him that sitting on someone's...front without asking is rude? What kind of body part does Bee consider his hood anyway?

Sam exchanges one last look with Chai. She meets his eyes evenly, dark eyes as firm as the set of her mouth, as she rises to her feet. He reaches out to her with his mind and she meets him halfway. Linked, mind to mind, they turn to face Miles and Bumblebee head on, shoulder to shoulder, together.

Her razor-edged determination and wolf-scruff thick endurance tempers Sam's own electric anticipation and river-chilled resilience quite well.

Miles smiles. "Well?"

Chai nods, softening ever so slightly, and Sam flexes his fingers.

Somehow, the words that leave his mouth are as steady as he could ever wish for. As if this couldn't change the very foundation of Sam's life.

"Miles, this is Bumblebee." Sam gestures to the car. "He's from outer space, and comes in peace. He likes music, and people wearing seatbelts. Bumblebee, the guy with his butt on your hood is Miles. He's from Earth and is currently mostly harmless. He likes stone carving, climbing trees, and fairytales."

The smile on Miles' face freezes.

'Bee flashes his lights twice, and turns on his radio. " What ya say ~"

Miles doesn't move. He just sits there, against Bee's hood like a creepily smiling statue.

Chai tilts her head to the side. <Did he crack?> Did we break him? She carefully doesn't think it, but Sam hears it anyway.

Sam's eyes catch on a tiny movement, and he drops his gaze from Miles' face to were his hands rest on Bumblebee's hood. He wordlessly draws her attention down to how Miles' fingers are peeling off the yellow metal, one by one. Chai sends Sam the mental equivalent of a long series of question marks. Sam sends his own bafflement right back.

The second all ten of his fingers had been pulled off of Bee's hood, Miles explodes into motion; flinging himself off, then whirling around to stare. Shock electrifies the air, sharply prickly, before slowly, slowly condensing into a bone beep thrum Sam could almost physically feel in his chest.

Sam holds his breath, eyeing the tense line of his shoulders.

"Dude." Miles' shoulders slowly inch up to his ears. The thrum of his tension gets deeper. Sam squeezes out a questioning hum. "This is a prank, right?" The question is flat, perfectly monotone. Sam can't tell if he wants a positive or negative response.

He picks the truth. If the truth shall kill them, let them die. "I don't really like making jokes about aliens, Miles. Getting killed by one, sure. But one being on Earth? Not my cup of tea." Not when it might mean they had failed in their primary goal after all. After everything.

"Besides," Chai cuts in dryly, "have you ever known us to be tech savvy enough for something like this?"

Wrinkling his nose, Sam concedes the point. Yeerk tech? Piece of cake. Andalite whatchamacallits? Some what iffy—Sam still doesn't know why they felt the need to build in so many alarms into everything, and only having five fingers on each hand is not ideal since Andalites have seven fingers and a thumb on top of that—but not the worst. Skrit Na thingamajigs? No problem. Guardian doodads? Sam's got it in the bag.

Human tech? Yeah, completely different beast. Its like someone found some crashed tech of some other much more advance extraterrestrial in the not so distant past, and proceeded to reverse engineer it—badly. Apes with sticks and rocks. Frankly, Sam would almost rather get his eyes gored from his skull again then learn anything more than how Google worked. Unfortunately, even if the Morphers allow that, which they don't, Sam's ingrained need for competence won't. Still, it isn't likely he would ever be more than proficient with all things human tech. Not counting the devices the Scorpions have begun to put out, but that's beside the point, really.

Chai was better than Sam about it, but it was a matter of pride for her so that isn't surprising. She spent something like fifteen years being one of the most experienced Morphers at wringing information from Yeerk tech so her professionalism demanded she be at least decent with the home grown tech. Even if the computer she had in her house was the only reason Sam had ever seen even a hint of genuine anger for something other than gross injustice from her.

Even if seeing a hyper competent ex-gymnast, turned infiltrator and information extraction specialist, and guerrilla soldier fuming over a sleek box of circuitry in her bright pink fuzzy pajamas was objectively hilarious, Sam probably could have gone without ever seeing that particular sight for the rest of his needlessly long life.

Miles, completely unaware of Sam's brooding, just stares at Bee, shock still. "So...this isn't a prank."

It isn't a question, so Sam keeps his trap shut.

Miles' shock, a near physical thing in the air, slowly stretches, curling in on itself. Sam's mouth twitches, and he reaches up to rub at the spot in irritation.

Something snaps, and Miles bounces.

Just a little, on his toes, but its like a blow to the chest. Sam huffs out what remained of his worry, and the only thing that keeps him from rattling out of his skin from the released tension he thought he had let go of—seriously, Sam, get it together. Dishonesty gets people killed, you sorry bit of crispy human—is the near overwhelming weight of his sheer relief rushing through his suddenly lead-heavy limbs. Chai's own relief is bright and high, like birdsong, washing through Sam's hair like a breeze.

They wouldn't be loosing Miles. So far, so good.

Chai knocks her shoulder into Sam's arm, and he smiles at nothing. He probably looks like a fool, but he doesn't care. He's high on two people's relief. Chai's in the same boat, and the only other two people around to see aren't even looking at him. He can smile how he likes.

Miles bounces again, more obviously, his arm bunching up around his chest. His excitement  shrills, high and sharp and gleeful, piercing as a tea kettle whistle, steam straight to the face.

Sam outright grins as English fails Miles spectacularly.

"You're—can you—ga—what's—" More of the same comes spilling out of his mouth, until Miles cut himself off. He inhales deeply, drawing himself up straight. He huffs it all out in one go, forcing himself to calm down. "You're from outer space?"

Sam pouts, only half jokingly. He had said that.

'Bee flicks on his radio, immediately playing a jaunty little tune, before cutting it off.

Miles grins. "How did you get here? To Earth? Is this how you normally look? Why is your name Bumblebee? How did you meet Sam?"

Leaving the two of them to it, Sam and Chai drift a few feet away.

Judging by how 'Bee's side mirrors twist to follow them, they weren't as subtle as they could have been. Sam shrugs at him. Miles doesn't notice, so mission accomplished.

"—how fast can you go? Like, really? Is it faster than a normal 1977 camero, or the same? Less? Do you like going fast?" The questions fall from Miles' mouth so fast they almost blur together. His eyes never waver from 'Bee's headlights.

Bumblebee rocks on his tiers, giving off really strong vibes of being uncomfortable, which was impressive given Sam was way outside his rather limited projection range and had all of the facial expression of the average beat-up camero.

Miles, delightful human being he may be, has the tendency of being extremely, unnervingly observant at the most inconvenient of times. This is, admittedly, at least one of the top three reasons why Sam and Chai had decided to get to know him in the first place. Right up there with his ironclad optimism, and near ruthless loyalty. That he had latched onto them after their first unfortunate meeting first, hardly had anything at all to do with it, of course. Neither did his inborn projection ability. Those two things simply made it easier to justify their curiosity in a civilian teenager.

Right now, he is not using his inconvenient observational skills, however.

Ah, well. He is still fairly young.

Best rescue Bee from his enthusiasm, before the car flees for the hills. Sam does not have an excuse to wave that away for Ron and Judy ready, and won't for some time. He'll need at least another three days, as he does not spend all of his time coming up with cover stories as the drop of a hat, unlike some he could name.

"Hey Miles? Now that you know, can we eat our food before it gets cold?"

Miles' head whips around to lock on Sam. His jaw works soundlessly for a few seconds. Chai radiates her amusement, and Sam squashes his own urge to smile. It must slip through anyway— Sam had been practicing his poker face, but it's only been a few months and he doesn't want to use his Morpher Mask on Miles of all people— because Miles' eyes flash and his teeth click shut as he straightens his shoulders. He clears his throat with all of the dignity of the average 17 year old boy.

"Sounds good, man."

They arrange themselves in a semi circle, crisscross apple sauce, sure to leave a gap for Bee to feel included. Once they settle on the tarp, they tear open the bags and attack the food containers with gusto. For several minutes none of them say a word, too busy stuffing their mouths.

When Bee slowly inches closer, Sam shoots him an amused look, smiling around his cheek full of half chewed burrito. Bee rocks forward, teasingly almost, then rolls back several inches.

"So..." Miles' voice brings Sam's attention back to his people. "Any plans for what kind of photo shoot you're going to be doing next? Or when?"

Chai chuffs, smacking a hand over her mouth to keep her food in.

Sam smiles for real now, hiding his BCST burrito with a hand. He swallows, slightly too soon judging by the way it protested going down, and says "You know, Miles, if you wanted to join all you had to do was ask."

Miles sputters, and they laugh at him.

"Okay!" He cries flinging hands and burrito into the air. "So maybe I want to join! Happy now?" Glaring hot death when they continue to die of laughter, he stuffs his burrito into his mouth, grumbling. Chai wheezes and flops over, and her head bounces off Sam's hip to thunk onto the asphalt.

Sam looses his battle with gravity, and sinks down until his forehead connects to the tarp in front of his crossed ankles if what Chai would call a bastardized bound angle pose is she wasn't also dying of laughter. Tears leaked from his eyes, and he wheezes out a sound like a dying whistle. The part of his brain that never really turned off hoped really hard he wasn't wasting food by squashing it between his hands and chest.

Miles tosses a plastic fork as them. It bounces off Sam's knee without so much as leaving a smear of food behind, but its enough to give Sam the willpower to over ride his giggles. A telepathic jab to the ribs gets Chai to do the same.

Pulling himself into some semblance or order, Sam chews thoughtfully on the edge of his tongue as he wills his heart rate to slow. It would be much easier is Chai weren't radiating mirth like a bad oder. "What are we doing for this shoot?"  He asks absently, when he can finally breath normally again. "Something to do with leggings, right?"

Chai hums in confirmation. "Athletic wear." She sends him a data packet of the sample pics from Grizzly's email. "Leggings, sports bras for me, tanks, and track suits, mostly. Not sure why they want me to model bras of all things, given my serious lack of a chest, but whatever."

"I think it's probably to show off your cobble stone abs," Sam says dryly.

Chai blinks slowly. "So give me a crop top. Long sleeves with thumb holes, maybe bands of netting around the biceps. Make it about my arms and belly." She waves a hand at said assets. "The entire point of a bra if for the boobs, and I barely qualify as having them."

Sam shifts uncomfortably. "So, tell the boss lady that, don't complain about it to me." What were they talking about again? Right.

He turns to Miles. "You don't have the build the boss want for this shoot. You're getting there, but you're not there yet. Maybe the next one?" He offers.

Miles sputters. "I have muscles!" He brings his arms up to flex. It probably would have been more impressive if he wasn't wearing a hoodie.

"Yeah, but the not right kind or enough of it." Sam pings him his apology. Miles narrows his eyes at him. Well, that wasn't well received.

"As it is, the two of us—" gesturing to herself and Sam, Chai barrels right through the beginnings of awkwardness like a pro, "—are going to need to cut back on the exercise—" and morphing, because that was the real root of their calorie deficiency, but let's be realistic here. If it was an option, Sam was going to morph snake to snap out of an anxiety attack, okay? He's been doing it for years, he wasn't about to stop now, "—and eat more fattening foods to layer on as much fat as we can manage." As she explains, she leans back onto her palms, tucking her legs into a pretzel in front of herself like it's the most comfortable position she could possibly conceive.

This is normal sitting posture for Chai when she is sitting on the ground, boneless jello woman she is.

Sam shrugs. "It won't be much, but we'll do what we can. Something about giving people a more realistic view of a healthy fitness."

"Are you saying you guys aren't healthy?" Miles grouches.

Snorting, Sam huffs out a laugh. "Nah, man, we're perpetually underweight. Our body fat percentages are way too low."

"Not low enough to kill us, obviously, but still enough to get side eyed by doctors," Chai agrees.

Miles wilts visibly, disappointment sapping the energy from the air.

Chai knocks her knee into his. "The next shoots going to be jeans and button downs, if I'm reading my emails correctly."

Sam had definitely not gotten that from his emails, but he reads situations not what's written between the lines. Scouts had stunningly little need for things like that when their biggest job was extraction, and second biggest was mapping. Infiltrators and information gatherers had no such luxury.

Sam steals a glance at Bumblebee, and decides a new topic direction is in order.

"You sound disappointed about that, Chai," Sam observes dryly.

Chai huff good naturedly, sending a ping of amused sheepishness that fizzles in Sam's chest. "Alright, so, maybe, I want to have a goth photoshoot. Just once," she stabs a finger into the air. "Is that too much to ask? I would look fantastic in black lip, and I have officially mastered eyeliner."

"You just want to wear chunky boots with a pleated skirt."

"Your point? My legs are my third best feature."

Sam smiles. "What're you first and second best features?" He asks, half expecting her to name her planning ability and tenacity.

Chai flips a braid over her shoulder. "My hair and flexibility, of course. I do not work out just to have stiff joints and bad circulation, thank you very much."

Sam blinks. Maybe she was only talking about physical things? She appreciates more than a few of her skills, after all.

Miles hides a grin behind his buffalo chicken burrito, eyes gleaming mischievously at Chai. "Speaking of work outs, how was yours today, Chai? Break any jump records in the six hours you were at the gym?"

Chai sniffs primly. "I was only there for two and a half hours, Miles," she said jokingly, like anyone goes to the gym for that much time ever. "I'm not a fanatic." She crunches into her own burrito.

Miles shoots Sam a look, half amused, half incredulous.

Sam smiles. You can take the gymnast out of the gym but you can't take the passion out of the person so easily. And anyway, she has calmed down over the years, if he was remembering correctly.

Six months in, you'd think Miles would be used to Chai's more...unusual traits. Alas.

Sam nudges what remains of a tub of mashed potatoes and gravy in Miles direction. Of the three of them, Miles has eaten the least. If the food had been evenly split in the beginning, Sam and Chai would have both finished their respective thirds, and been well on their way to eating half of Miles'. They had really only slowed down to give him a chance to eat more before they polished it all off.

Morphing takes energy, and since they aren't plants, they get that energy from food. It has some perks—Sam does like eating—but they eat as much as they do because they need to.

The consequences of not doing so are...not something Sam likes to think about. Watching someone starve to death in days because they have to keep moving at top speed isn't something any War-Gen Morpher wants to repeat.

It is also why he and Chai were going to have a hard time with building body fat in time for the photoshoot.

Miles, bless him, has never asked how they put away so much food, how Chai, who is not only two thirds his weight but also a good seven inches shorter, can easily eat more in one sitting than Miles can in an entire day, or even how Sam eats only a little more that she does.

Mikes waves dismissively at Sam. Sam raises an eyebrow. Miles flicks his fingers. He doesn't want it.

Shrugging, Sam hooks a finger into the container and drags it toward himself instead. More for him.

"How was the hell scape?" Chai asks, licking gravy off her fingers absently.

Miles rolls his eyes. "School was fine. I got a B plus on that pop quiz in US history on Tuesday, I turned in all my homework on time, and Trent tripped and fell in the cafeteria. It was a good day."

"Trent the Bully?" Sam checks. Miles hums in confirmation. "That stinks for him. Did he need to go to the nurse?"

Miles wrinkled his nose, clearly displeased with the line of questioning. He shakes his head anyway.

"Good," Chai chirps. "Did he face plant into his lunch tray? What did his face look like?"

Miles perks right back up, and launches into the tale.

Eventually, the conversation circles around to what homework he has, which is always fun. Math, an English paper, and the three other projects he's had for just under a month. Nothing Miles couldn't handle.

Sam very carefully edges around the nerve racking thought that he would have to do all of that stuff soon too.

"What'd you have for lunch?" Sam asks to divert the oncoming issue he is definitely going to keep ignoring for as long as he can. Miles eats some of the more interesting flavor combos Sam has ever heard of. Perhaps not the the most interesting—Scorpion's Summer Solstice Specialty may forever hold it's peace—but Miles never ceases to surprise.

"An apple, some crunchy peanut butter, my jar—" an old glass jam jar Miles had been reusing since well before Sam had ever met him, "—with half expresso half orange juice, and a turkey meat sandwich with lettuce, roma tomato slices, green olives, banana peppers on honey oat bread." He held up his hand, finger pressed together, pointed to the sky. "That thing was as tall as my palm is long, dude, it was epic."

So today had been a fairly mild day then. That sandwich sounded delicious—and that was even after Sam had eaten a full meal even by his standards.

"One day," Chai says darkly, "I will get you to like spinach if it is the last thing I do." It was a threat.

"Don't listen to her, Miles," Sam bumps his knee into Miles'. "Your sandwich sounds amazing. Did it have Dijon mustard?"

Miles laughs. "Nah, man; do I look like the kind of person who keeps Dijon mustard in my house? And what's with you and Dijon mustard?"

Oh, you know, I've loved it since I was six, and didn't get to eat it for over eighteen years. Only sixteen of that was because I was on another planet .

Yeah, that'd go over real well.

Sam scoffs, brushing the thought, the burst of anxiety, away. "Dijon is amazing, and you just need to stop questioning it." Miles gasps dramatically, horrified.

"Are you dissing yellow mustard? The holly grail of all condiments?" He hisses. Miles twists to look at Bee, blond hair flaring around his head. He flings his burrito-wielding arm at Sam accusingly.  "You hear that?" He demanded. "He's dragging yellow mustard through the dirt! As if anything—" a sharp look is shot at Sam and it takes everything in him to keep the smile off his face, "—anything!—could out do good ol' yellow. Back me up here 'Bee."

'Bee makes a sound of protest, then blares " Leave me outta it !" from his radio.

"Oh, smart move, 'Bee!" Chai flashes a grin, pinging all three of them with a tingling mischief that popped like the pop rocks Miles had pranked Sam into trying that one time a few months ago. "Best to stay out of this argument at all costs; they never, ever, let it go."

"You mean like how Sam will never live down the fact that he got drafted to be a free music instructor by enterprising six-year-olds when he was trying to play his guitar on a street corner?"

Sam whipped out a foot to kick at Miles legs, face hot. "For the last time, the first ones were ten and twelve, not six—"

"Because that's so much better," Chai drawls.

Sam ignores her and barrels on, "—and I'd like to see you do any better in that situation!"

Miles ignores Sam with practiced ease, continuing airily, "Or how you decided the best and only to have a good garden was to buy not one, not two—" Chai groans, knowing exactly where he was going, and Sam smothers a hysterical giggle. "—but three ! Entire! Beehives! Beehives you had no idea how to take care of!"

"I learned!" Chai protests. "And I should not be held responsible for what I do when sleep deprived!"

<And it doesn't hurt that you have money to burn,> Sam teases privately, smirking. Chai shoots him a look that should have killed him dead on the spot, and he smiles.

"And!" Miles, who Sam had not included in his thought speech, keeps going. "Even though both of you are literally models , and run blogs for the same clothing, and whatever else it is you do, you have side jobs as potato peelers!"

"Hey! We get payed in mashed potatoes and mac and cheese. Why wouldn't I exchange my potato peeling skills for such delicacies?" Chai demands.

Sam jabs a thumb at her, broadcasting his agreement, then shrugs. "And, anyway, the blogs are good for unwinding after tutoring."

Grizzly had asked them to do it, so it was like a mission, giving all those delightful dopamine and what have you boosts, but it was...honestly kind of fun? Chai did various gymnastic routines and stretches in the clothing to show the mobility and durability—turns out, most pants are horrible for anything more strenuous than running. Who knew. Sam mostly just took lots of pictures from many, many angles.

It's relaxing.

Miles takes a swig from his water bottle, eyes bright with mirth, but quickly sobering. "Speaking of, how's tutoring?"

"Let me put it this way; if I thought I had any chance of passing the stupid thing, I'd go around all of them and just take the GED." Chai scowls. "If it meant I wouldn't have to spend another day with even one of those tutors, I'd sign up for the test tomorrow. The time suck and the emotional exhaustion aren't things I want to deal with." She untangle one leg from its pretzel, and stretches it out in front of them. "The only real reason I haven't is because I absolutely bomb tests, always have. Give me a practical exam or even a conversation any day of the week, thanks."

Sam nods in agreement. He's never had the same problem with tests as her—he actually preferred them to homework—but he would absolutely go the GED route if her thought for even a second the Witwickys would let him get away with it.

As it is, there had been talk of sending them to public school when they finally catch up to their age group. Never mind that Sam can and has taught what the internet assures him is collage-level sciences to several dozen other Morphers. It's not his fault her didn't learn the English words for this stuff, or, you know, ever bothered to figure out how to vocalize any of it either. He was a telempath among other telempaths. Who needs words, really?

Still. High school? Going to high school?

Sam's stomach twists, and he stomps on the thought before the familiar anxiety can kick in again.

Especially before the extraterrestrial unknown can pick up on it.

Change the subject . "Speaking of dealing with things, how's the house progressing, Chai?"

Giving him a blip of understanding, because of course she knew why he was chinking the topic, Chai sat up and grins before launching into a long tangent about her fixer upper house.

Apparently, she is retiling all of the bathrooms herself. Because that's a skill people can just pull out of thin air, or something. Giving how many of the tiles in that house are cracked or even shattered and loose, they did need to be replaced, but...don't people normally hire someone else to do it? Or at least research how to do it themselves for longer than a couple of days?

She thinks she'll be done with all three and a half baths by the end of the week, and if that doesn't just give you chills, Sam doesn't know how to help you. Golden brown tile with dark brown grout, and hand painted hawks is apparently going to be the theme in one of the bathrooms. Sam will find out which one, and then never use it. He did not need to feel like Hawk was watching him use the restroom, okay? He made a career out of avoiding that guy's wrath, and he was very proud of it, thank you.

Had she even known how to tile a room three days ago?

Then again, it's not like she sleeps very much, so she has time. It's not uncommon among Gorillas. Or Hawks, for that matter, but Sam likes to think he's a little better at the whole sleeping on his own thing than Chai is even if it's not very hard to beat her in that particular race. One has to try to compete, after all.

Miles makes the mistake of bring up The Floor, and Sam is forced to abandon his line of thought to rescue him from Chai, who is, as ever, entirely too enthusiastic to brainstorm ways of achieving the completion of The Floor.

The Floor is very cool in concept—really! It is! A floor covered in pennies like tiny round copper tiles with a curling wire flower at the center and black back drop in the entry way honestly sounds down right awesome. Especially with the oxidized copper green color Chai's mom had decided to paint the walls. It's just...Chai has been talking about it at every opportunity for six months. They have only been back on Earth for seven.

There are only so many times someone can listen about sorting pennies by shininess, sealant brand options, and the science behind oxi-resin before they begin avoiding the topic.

Miles has not reached that point yet, but he will. As it is, he keeps walking right into the ambushes Chai set up like a particularly juicy mouse, fat and happy.

Eventually, they need to go home. It was getting dark, and, as much as it grates, Miles isn't the only one who answers to adults.

Sam sits in Bee's driver seat again while he drives first Miles, then Chai home.

He felt himself withdrawing, the closer they got to the Witwicky's home. He knew it, but even with the press of Bumblebee's safe and prickle of his mild concern , Sam couldn't bring himself to act more animated than simply alert or even offer an explanation, however true or false. They pull into the driveway just before sun down.

Bee's engine shuts off, abruptly leaving Sam in the familiar stillness of Twilight. Sam stares down at where his hands were hooked limply over Bee's steering wheel.

He didn't want to go into that house.

There are two paths open to him.

Don't go in, and potentially expose not only himself and his partner to be actively avoiding integration, but also everything the Morphers have been planning, building, changing since before they had even set foot back on Earth.

Go in, and pretend . Pretend he isn't being watched like prey, pinned beneath the curiosity and tenacity of the Witwickys, and the unwavering attention of the truly countless government-placed bugs. Smile and nod agreeably like he doesn't know, can't possibly even suspect, all so he can sell the persona of Samuel James Witwicky, anxious amnesiac, walking medical miracle, clueless wannabe-hermit teen.  He is safe in that house. His privacy respected. What happens at home, stays at home.

He had no real choice. Not really.

If it weren't for the warm weight of Bee's safe, Sam could almost pretend he was back on Bedrock, just on the edge of another mission.

Leave, and save himself. Go, and save someone else.

There isn't a single Auximorph still alive who would fault him if he just...went away. Morphed hawk, or some other bird, and flew away. They have all been there, they know. There would be no blame, and they would help him find a way to live a decent life.

But if he did any of that, there was always the risk of The Lie being exposed. The Plan being given away, and countered.

Then where would they be?

To leave would be selfish, and they were so very close.

Sam swallows, and sets his jaw. Time to go in.

"I'll clear out the garage for you in the morning, 'Bee." Huh. That came out great. Not so much as a waver. Then again, Sam admitted, he had been making the same decision nearly everyday for the last seven months, so it's no surprise at this point. Maybe one day he won't need to think about it at all. "Sorry I didn't do it earlier," Sam continues, finally, finally, relaxing into his course, "but I really hadn't been expecting to purchase a car burdened with awareness today."

Amusement tingles across Sam's cheekbones, pulling at his skin like a grin.

Sam smiles, not for the first time that day, and 'Bee pops the driver door open. Patting the steering wheel in thanks even as he sends a ping of thanks, swinging his legs out the door. The weight of safe doesn't so much as react.

Sighing lightly, Sam pulls himself out and moves out of the way so Bee could close his door. One last pat on the roof, and Sam turns away.

Sam takes two full steps to the front door before slowing to a stop. He pauses, weighting some indistinct decision in his mind. He sighs through his nose, then turns to look back at Bumblebee.

The alien camero, sentient in nearly every way Sam had ever experienced, sits there, engine off, yellow paint grey in the half light. He gives no sign he was expecting anything, and Sam is outside of his surprisingly limited Projection range.

Sam finds himself sending a farewell, and an off-hand promise to see him in the morning, knowing it wouldn't get through. It's still disappointing when his side mirrors don't even twitch.

Out loud all he says is, "Goodnight, 'Bee."

" Goodnight~"

~~~~~~

Getting jerked into the land of the wakeful in the middle of one's sleep cycle is unpleasant and not something Sam has missed at all.

Chapter Text

Sam wakes to the sound of an engine starting. He lurched to the foot of his bed, lunging for the window. He's just in time to catch Bumblebee's headlights switch on and his engine turns over so quietly Sam can't hear it through his window pane.

Bumblebee is going for a drive.

On the nights stand, Sam's phone vibrates for half a second before going still. Sam scoops it up, and preemptively squints his eyes half shut before hitting the home button. He flinches back from the bright light anyway, hissing.

Pushing through the almost-sting, his lock screen proudly displays a notification saying he had an unread text.

'Bee.

-Need to check in

He needs to follow him.

The thought is calm, natural, and all consuming. Just because Bumblebee "said" he wasn't on earth to invade, didn't mean he wasn't lying, or even that his superiors didn't have other plans.

Sam is a Hawk. It is his job to check for dangers as a scout.

He is morphing before he finishes rolling out of bed.

Its night time, so something with the appropriate senses will be needed, so his Earth go-to hawk morph is a no go. But! He had gotten an owl morph a few days after he had gotten his beloved Rough Legged Hawk morph, when the owl had picked a fight with him in said hawk morph.

The Great Horned Owl would not only give him the superior night vision all nocturnal predators boast, but would also allow him to fly with the bonus of allowing him to blend in the Nevada sky scape, away from prying—

He hits the floor, and gasps, anxiety sending his heart jack rabbiting in his chest, spots invading his vision and nerves like the after effects of lightning.

What is he doing?

Morphing here, in his room? The room riddled with so many bugs, had they been insects, Sam would have called pest control to bomb the entire forsaken house.

Before the thought begins to pick up speed, afraid of the paralysis that would bring him—the consequences of what he had almost done!— he is flinging himself under his bed.

One hand smacks against the nearest leg, fingers snapped shut around the wood, acting as an anchor. The other snakes back-back-back, reaching up into the crevasse between the bed frame and the wall. His nails hit wood, the upper lip of the frame. Swipe to the side— where did it go —catch.

Hooking his fingers just so, the smooth oblong object jerks free of its place pinned between his bed and the wall into his hand.

Sam wiggles out from under his bed, legs different lengths, fingers half melted and ribs all wrong, and scrambles for the window. His malformed fingers fumble with his security bypass key, one, two, three times, before it sticks to the sensor by the window lock.

Earth tech continues to confuse, but they had all made sure they knew how to get out of their own houses without notice by any means necessary. Everyone had a different tool they needed.

Sam's is a set of magnets from the children's toy section.

Sensor disabled, he jerks the window open, and strips down to his morph capable leggings. The cool night air sends his bare skin erupting in goose bumps, drawing a hiss from between his teeth.

He drops his sleep shirt, and all but flings himself out of the window head first.

Ack! Stupid!

He drops several feet, twisting. His hands reach out, and snag on one of the finger holds he'd scored into the side of the house then carefully painted over months ago. At least one half morphed finger snap, bones hollow and malformed. His feet hit the side of the house, knees absorbing the worst of the impact, but he still very nearly bites through his tongue, blood flooding his mouth as his arms are nearly yanked out of their sockets

He really should have just let himself fall. He could have tumbled to avoid the worst of the impact, and avoided this. Too loud—ouchies—

He lets go dropping the remaining handful of feet down into Aunt Judy's flowers. He winces as the burgundy wood chips she favors dig into his very bare feet, but he managed to avoid crushing any of the tulips, which is a win.

A cartwheel on his slightly less injured arm gets him out of the flowers rather neatly, and it is quick work to dart across the lawn to the gap in the bushes lining the property. After that, he's home free.

Sure he will have to fix the wood chips when he gets back to cover his tracks, but that wouldn't be difficult. Also, Judy put a lot of effort into her flowers, and he didn't want to literally stomp all over her work.

Nope. Sam shoves that to the side for a later time. Not the time.

He bursts out of the bushes, looking around wildly.

The red of the old Camaro's break lights at the end of the otherwise abandoned street flare, before Bumblebee turns left.

No turn signal , the amateur driver in Sam's brain notes disapprovingly.

Sam ignores this, and bolts down the street.

He skirts around street lights, and keeps as low to the ground as he can afford without losing what speed his partially warped legs could give him. He keeps the owl in the forefront of his mind, but doesn't try to complete his morph for fear of loosing his target.

He gets to the end of the street just in time to see 'Bee turn right several streets down.

Perfect.

Scrambling to the line of bushes separating Mrs. Foley's yard from the Manson's, Sam ducks between them and the spindly red maple Mrs. Foley loved so much.

Curling in on himself, he closes his eyes and concentrates.

The Great Horned Owl.

His broken fingers click and ripple as they melt and reform. His pinky and ring fingers shrink down to nothing, quickly followed by their respective metacarpals, even as the bones and flesh for his pointer and middle fingers stretch and melt together. His first three toes stretch out, and his two smallest ones slurp into his body like particularly bony noodles, leg bones shrinking just as rapidly. His right heel sprouts a fourth toe, complete with the wickedly sharp talon, then the other three toes on that foot follow its lead one by one, followed by his left foot.

The strained muscles in his shoulders twitch and roll, smoothing over, the bones underneath warping. His sternum thickens, then lengthens, dragging his rapidly growing pectorals down to his belly, and his ribs narrow, lungs squishing unpleasantly as their protective cage shrinks down before they too fold in on themselves. The vertebrae in his lower back shrink and fuse together until his rapidly changing pelvis near touches his lower ribs. His heart kicks into over drive as the owl's circulatory system takes over.

Blood rushes through his guts as his organs slosh, partially liquified to allow new, more appropriate organs to form from the old.

His lips recede into his face, pulling taunt around his bared teeth. Teeth which were melting together and sprouting out to form a small but viciously curved beak. His neck grows longer, cervical vertebrae dividing neatly to more than double their numbers, even as his body hair all but explodes out of his skin like coarse curly fur. The fur clumps together to form ragged brown feathers. His ears flatten and meld into his scalp, and he is so very glad he was not in front of a mirror. He probably looks like one of those before pictures of abused chickens.

Then, finally, his eyes shiver in his skull, and he blinks his third eye lid once, twice, and the dim night lighting of a sleeping suburb becomes as bright as the noon day sun. A few more blinks, and his mangy hair-feathers ripple from the top of his head to his furry feet into the smooth black, grey, white and brown feathers of his morph.

Perfect.

The instincts of the owl morph flick on.

Great Horned Owls are not meant to be on the ground. Great Horned Owls are meant to by flying or perched in trees, searching for prey to swoop down on from above. The ground is where prey live. He is on the ground.

He is not prey!

Sam kicks the Great Horned Owl in the face before it can hijack his body. Mentally. Because they are in the same body and he doesn't like getting kicked in the face.

Focus, Sam.

He shakes himself out until his feathers fluff out around his body to be near spherical, before shivering them back into place.

Now. He spreads his wings. He has an ironically named alien car to find.

Getting off the ground is, as always, an ordeal. There is a reason why most predatory birds prefer to take off from high points, and it is Valid.

Once he is in the air, Sam gains altitude rapidly. Once he reaches a decent height, he starts scanning the streets for smaller, low riding cars.

As he had been partially morphed, it hadn't taken more than a minute and a half for Sam to finish it, and maybe another minute to get into the air. No one had driven down the street he had been next to in that time, so Bumblebee had not doubled back.

It is the work of several long seconds to spot the yellow and black of Bumblebee's paint.

He...wasn't moving very fast, strangely. Like he didn't care if anyone followed him to his check in point.

Or like he didn't think anyone would.

Sam narrowed his eyes. Sloppy.

Bumblebee drives for about 15 minutes. He never turns to get to the high way, instead sticking to the endless suburban streets. It isn't long at all before they come to the 'shady' side of town, near their abandoned dollar store.

Where is this guy going?

Several minutes later, 'Bee turns right—through the gates of...a construction site?

Cranes at least five stories tall, stacks of cinder blocks, and neat rows of metal storage containers Sam has seen on cargo ships in movies. It looked like it had been abandoned for some time, what with the piles of junk scattered all around the place. There are at least three washing machines, and a rusted out carcass of a car that Sam could see with just a surface glance.

'Bee rolls to a stop in the middle of it all.

Alright, Sam thinks as he angles his wings to land on the highest point of the tallest crane. Now what?

Nothing, it turns out.

Sam waits and watches for a good five minutes, Bumblebee just sitting there like...an abandoned car.

Well, he is an alien from outer space, and has more in common with a cellphone then he does with any organic being physically, Sam reasons, preening his chest feathers. Maybe he is checking in, he's just doing it stealthily, via signal, like a reasonably skilled scout would do. Maybe his alien signal was too weak to go through in the Witwicky driveway, and this random construction site is in a better place.

He digs his beak into a clump of contour and semiplume feathers on his chest.

Even though the Andalites and Yeerks had no such problems, and as a space faring people, one could assume Bumblebee's people, who are arguably more likely to find things like signals and communication devices to be second nature, would also not have those kinds of problems, it shouldn't be counted out! Maybe the Earth's atmosphere or magnetic poles interfered with Bumblebee's usual form of communication—

Sam just about jumps out of his feathers when Bumblebee unfolds in a racket of moving metal parts.

The wheel wells chunk out, then snap open, as the hood flips up and splits down the middle. The doors swing open, before abruptly spinning to point up at the sky, and the roof splinters.

Sam's third eyelids flick closed and open, once. In the space of that split second, Bumblebee...stands up.

The doors have turned into a sort of crude wing arrangement on...his back— why is this Sam's life? What greater being did he offend so causally to invoke the Chinese Curse?—his arms end in five fingered hands, and his legs with flat complicated looking feet. Bulky yellow armor, which was probably all of his car outsides, covers all the normal human spots; head, chest, shoulders, forearms, a little bit on the thighs, and a lot on the caves and feet.

It takes all of two seconds

Sam boggles. Blinking rapidly with his solid first and second eyelids does not bring clarity. He is, in fact, seeing this.

A giant morphing robot, presumably from outer space, with a bumblebee theme of all things.

He should have known this wasn't as simple as a a treasure hunt.

After looking around, seemingly scanning his surroundings, Bumblebee turns giant blue eyes—he probably doesn't call them eyes, even in English, Sam's mildly hyperventilating brain supplies—to the sky.

Then something t hrum s, vibrating through Sam's feathers. If he had hair on the back of his neck it would be standing on end. As it is, his feathers fluff up as he fights with the Owl to stay put.

Then, something clicks softly even to the impressive hearing of a Great Horned Owl, and Sam's attention snaps back to his target. Just in time for a spotlight to burst out of Bumblebee's chest and shine in unerring blue-white light.

Some kind of symbol.

Sam stares up at the symbol in a sort of stunned horror. Some small part of his mind notes the symbol matches the angular face on Bumblebee's steering wheel horn, but that part is small and insignificant compared to the all of the pieces which make up his Morpher identity screaming over all the reasons this was wrong wrong wrong. Even the Owl had quieted.

Is this necessary? An actual bat signal?

So a beam or something makes some form of sense, if one ignores the fact that a beam needs a target whereas a general encrypted broadcast was much less finicky for the other side to pick up—especially when the other party is In Outer Space! And! Why is it in the visible light spectrum? Light only goes so fast, and unless Bumblebee's superiors are somewhere in orbit, that would hardly be an efficient form of communication.

And should he even start with the symbol itself?

Yes, let's broadcast the lone scout's position and allegiances in one fell swoop.

In the name of the Cube, Sam can't handle this. Its stomping all over his professional sensibilities. He's five seconds away from doing stupid, like going down there to scream at the apparently biped robot.

So, with one last glance at Bumblebee, Sam spreads his wings and takes to the air.

He'll talk to Bumblebee in the morning. Anyway, he hadn't told Chai he was leaving the house, and that was some very bad partnering.

Getting back is simple as he didn't have to follow the streets, or a very slow car. He lands in the backyard of the Witwicky house, and demorphs with little fanfare. A quick check of the flower bed showed he hadn't done any harm, then he scuttles up the side of the house through the open window.

He pulls his limbs into his room, one by one, careful to avoid the creaky spot just below the windowsill, before gently closing the window behind him. It takes barely a few seconds to check the alignment of the security sensor, and remove the magnet, effectively locking the window.

Same sighs from the deepest parts of his chest, dragging his hands down his face tiredly.

Where did he put his phone?

A few minutes of searching later and Sam finally unearths the small clunky brick of a communications device from behind his nightstand. He takes a moment to be thankful the screen hadn't cracked, then taps in his code.

He types out an update for Chai.

- Apparently, my car is a giant morphing robot with car doors for wings .

Oh so casual. Cool as a cucumber. Freaking out? Who's freaking out? Not Sam. He has no energy to be freaking out.

Which is why he sets his phone down on the little charging pad Miles had insisted he buy after the seventh time he forgot to charge it, then flops onto his bed. If he passes out before he stops bouncing, that is between him and his mattress.

His alarm goes off at 6am.

Sam smacks it, hitting the off button on his phone screen on the first try. He groans into his pillow, feeling like a pile of noodles. And like he would rather like to go back to sleep, but after the shot of adrenaline the forsaken Old Car Horn alarm Chai probably switched his alarm tone to last time she got her thieving little fingers on his phone —yesterday, during lunch, while he was trying to get Miles to stop talking about The Floor, but when he'd checked his phone was still there. Because she had been done with it, apparently— there was zero chance he was going fall back into sweet oblivion without at least patrolling the house.

At which point he may as well start his day with food to combat the less than al dente quality of his muscles, and go on his morning run with Chai.

One handed, he picks up the phone and unlocks it, angling the screen so he can see it without leaving the refuge of his pillow.

To no one's surprise, Chai had replied to his update near instantly. Probably still awake crocheting while inspiration and nightmares kept her awake.

The reply is just as wordy as she ever was in that mind set

- Cool .

Sam scowls. Really feeling the love there, partner.

It takes a few minutes, but Sam managed to successfully pry himself out of his pleasantly toasty bundle of blankets, and switch his sleep top with a Grizzly Brand morph-capable exercise shirt. His legging would more than suffice for anything else. A quick look shows the driveway is still empty of beat-up alien Camaro, which he had not been expecting. Probably not important right now, unless the alien had gotten ambushed while Sam slept. Sam thinks about that for a second, and decides that is a problem for Future Sam, and directs himself toward his bathroom.

Sam stops in the kitchen long enough to dump a large mug of reheated bone broth, three reheated breakfast burritos, and a reasonably sized bowl of fruit salad down his throat.

While he is scarfing down his second burrito, Chai pings him. She is here.

The clock on the stove just flicks over to 6:20 when he slips out the front door after punching in the code for a 'quick exit'.

Chai, as always, is waiting for him on the other side of the bushes lining the lot the house is on, next to the mailbox, stretching. He joins her.

<Still gone.> he reports, touching his toes.

She purses her lips thoughtfully for a moment before shrugging. <If he's not back by the time we are—> a good hour if they pushed themselves, <—we'll see if we can hunt him down.>

He blips his agreement, and they both rise to their feet, and start down the road at an easy jog.

When they get back, Bumblebee is parked innocently in the driveway.

Excellent. They weren't going to have to figure out how to hide his scrapped remains, or hunt down his speculated attackers.

Chai takes one look at that, and decides she's got better things to do than interrogate the robot who can only speak in radio clips.

"See ya," she chirps, and jogs off with a wave to 'Bee.

She sends him the coiled tension of a feline predator stalking its next meal as a reminder. Careful.

She is so fake. He loves her for it. Sam waves after her, shooting the practiced feel of a veteran service worker's smile at the end of a long shift right back at her. This is nothing he hasn't done before.

He trots up the driveway, sneakered feet louder than his frayed nerves cared for. Today was not, he knew, going to be a good day for him. His little late night excursion had agitated the Hawk in him enough that he wouldn't be doing much relaxing. It'd get better on he was barefoot again, when he could be as soft footed as he liked.

Once he enters 'Bees projection range, Sam corrects his either assumption. Bumblebee is not sitting pretty in the driveway. Bumblebee is sulking.

And he is. The weight of just how put out he is rests almost broodingly against Sam's spine. Not unpleasant, exactly, but not what Sam had been expecting either.

Maybe he was just as horrified about his light-show as Sam was, he reasons, brushing it to the side.

Sam pats 'Bee's hood. "Have a nice ride, 'Bee?" He asks, because Bumblebee should have no idea he'd been followed, so Sam couldn't very well ask what in the name of the Cube the other scout had been doing.

The brooding gets heavier.

"Paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork!-- That's all this job is --!"

Sam eyes his speculatively. "Riiight." As Miles likes to say to Sam and Chai's worse excuses: sounds fake, but okay.

It also sounds like a problem for Future Sam.

Sam raps his knuckles against 'Bee's hood again. "I'm going to go rinse off and get something to eat. Then I'm heading over to Chai's so we can go to tutoring. Would you mind taking us?"

" No problem-o, homie," 'Bee's radio drawled.

"Thanks!" Sam pats his hood again, before speed walking into the house.

If he got there fast enough, he could snag a few more breakfast burritos before Uncle Ron ate them all.

Chapter Text

Sam tips, shoulder thumping against the Community Center's glass door, allowing his weight to hit the push bar and open the door for him. Chai almost stumbles after him, all but fused to his back. His brain fizzed, empty of all thought beyond GetOutEscape and maybe the barest hint of the ever present question of food.

Tutoring is the bane of Sam's existence, brutal to the point of cruelty.

Trying to figure out which words applied to what concepts, or even if what their tutors were trying to impart is correct, is an incredibly draining activity. Especially considering neither of them were particularly academically inclined.

Between Chai's preference for all things gymnastics and data analysis, Sam's own inclination toward what amounted to Spot the Difference: Expert Edition and intense games of Where is the Nearest Exit, they were screwed when faced with Math and English Literature.

Oh, how the competent have fallen.

<Hamburgers,> Chai grumbles against his back as they shuffle away from the building like the haggard escapees they are. <Hamburgers will make this all better.>

Sam makes a noise of agreement, fumbling for his phone. He looks at the screen for a moment for the numbers make sense.

Beautiful. 'Bee should be here.

Sam looks around and—there.

He tilts his weight toward the Camaro's chosen parking space, and Chai goes with him easily.

As they approach, Sam gives in to Earth Social Norms, and peels away from his partner, straightening his spine. Chai radiates displeasure at this but doesn't fight him over it as she redirects herself to the passenger side door.

Both doors pop open before they can reach for the handles, and Sam is abruptly very glad he won't be the one in charge of driving.

He plops into the driver's seat and almost melts as 'Bee closed the door after him. Ah, yeah. The safe really hits the spot.

'Bee buzzes questioningly after several seconds.

Right. The plan. "Hey, 'Bee," Sam mumbles. "We're thinking burgers for lunch."

Sure it had been less than five hours since they had last eaten, but that was four hours of school and resisting the urge to throw a superpowered temper tantrum the likes of which no one in that building has ever seen. Only the fact that he was thirty-one years old and, thus, a master of his own actions, and the knowledge that he was much more intelligent than any of his tutors gave him credit for kept him from ruining their day.

It wasn't his fault he learned what they called "trigonometry" from alien androids who didn't speak English. Just because he can't remember the difference between fusion and fission doesn't mean he can't trouble shoot how to fly eight—count 'em, eight!— different species space craft. Just because his English reading comprehension is on par with a sixth grader, doesn't mean he can't read at all. If anything, his English reading being that good after this long says awesome things about what he's been up to in past decade plus, honestly. Not to mention all the other, much more important languages he'd had to learn and improve in the meantime.

Bleh.

Chai set up her phone as a GPS to the little hole in the wall they had been wanting to try for a few weeks, and 'Bee dutifully turned his engine over.

"Do anything interesting today, 'Bee?" Chai gives off her best casual air. It falls flat, as not only is Bumblebee unable to process projections, she is just as tired, hungry and done as Sam is. Sam sends a consoling shoulder pat to her, and gets the telepathic version of a dull glare in return.

As 'Bee pulls out of the center's parking lot, Sam's eyes catch on a police car across the street. His overworked brain fizzles like an unused radio frequency.

Huh. Sam tucks that little tidbit away to be examined later. If his instincts say something is up with that car, something probably was. He'll think about it when he has the brainpower for it.

Getting to the restaurant is uneventful. They haul themselves out of 'Bee's carriage—is that a word? Or is it just inside the car/outside the car?—and make their way inside sluggishly. They order, four different burgers to share and a large bottle of water and a large side of fries a piece, then take their food back out to 'Bee without thinking about it too hard.

They eat on 'Bee's hood in the parking lot, content to bake in the Nevada sun. They don't talk, trying to gather themselves, and 'Bee lets them, even as he radiates concern, a cool pressure against his spine. Eventually, Bee rolls down his windows, and switches to a station playing something soft and instrumental. Sam pats his hood in thanks.

Sam is three burger halves and a fist full of parmesan fries in, and feeling much better if not quite up for a conversation, when Chai's phone pings. It is only when it pings the second time two minutes later that she gives in, digging her phone out with greasy fingers.

She swipes it open with greasy fingers then stares. Wordlessly, she holds it out to him.

Quickly reading the text, he shrugs. She nods agreeably and taps put a reply with one finger, balancing the device on her knee.

When they finish, Sam popping the last of the slightly cold fries into his mouth, they toss their trash and clean Bee's hood before climbing back in.

After Chai mumbles an explanation and sets her phone up on his dash to call out directions to the little hole in the wall Chai, and now Sam, peeled potatoes for. Maybe when his head wasn't so quiet, he'd figure out how he ended up invited along when the Mrs. Champ had made no mention of him.

After Bee pulls up to the little restaurant, Sam just pats his dash and climbs out after Chai, who was already at the door. When he still doesn't made a move to roll away, Sam mimes typing on his phone, then shoos him off. Without waiting to see if 'Bee go it, Sam pushed through the door, leaving him behind.

No need for the alien to wait out here in the desert sun while they get their heads screwed on straight.

As his lunch digests, Sam peels three hundred forty-six potatoes, and his brain starts to come back online.

Likely seeing his hands slow and then pause, the assistant chef comes up behind him, and ducks down to look him in the eye. Flashes a smile.

"You back with us, Sam?"

Sam blinked. Glanced at the giant pots full of naked potatoes, and winced a bit. "Uh, yeah, sorry. Should I switch to chopping potatoes now, or do you want more peeled?"

The smile gets larger. "Chopping is good! Then we can start cooking for the dinner rush. Do you remember where the knives are?"

Sam nods wordlessly. Stops. Forces the words out of his mouth. "Yes. I'll finish this potato, then set myself up."

Chai pings him, and he glanced around to find she had been moved from potatoes to cheese shredding at some point. Judging by the heaping bowl in front of her, she had been at it for a while.

He pings her back, and goes back to his last potato, already thinking about where the tools he'd need for his next task. When he does finally get himself set up in self designated his cutting corner, he forces himself to listen to the chefs and wait staff chattering among themselves.

It is a while longer before he can bring himself to add in his own two-cents.

~~~~~~

"All right, you two," Mrs. Champ, boss lady and head chef, drops two stuffed bags on the counter. "Here's your payment for today."

"Ooo," Chai all but sticks her nose into the nearest bag and starts ruffling through it. Sam smiles, and shrugs apologetically at Mrs. Champ for his partner's rudeness. She waves him off, watching Chai fondly.

Ignoring them, as she definitely knew what was happening, Chai makes happy noises, sending him impressions of Mrs. Champ's signature mac and cheese, then the family's cheesy mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy from the second bag. She immediately follows this with a steam of possible meals, before settling on the waffle iron her mom had just bought. Crispy ridges, gooey inners, gravy drizzle—

Sam swallows the spit rapidly filling his mouth, instead snapping his attention back to Mrs. Champ. "Smells great!" He starts sending mental pokes at Chai to get out the door so they can make them. "Your mac and cheese is the best, Mrs. Champ. I'm looking forward to eating it."

Mrs. Champ props her hands on her hips, and accuses him fondly, "Flatterer." She jerks her head to the door. "Off you two get. Chai, I want pictures of whatever you two come up with from this. I'll see you next week."

Chai snaps off a quick salute. "Yes ma'am!" With that, they hustle out the door, intent on Chai's house.

They had waffles to make.

~~~~~~

The restaurant is out of sight before Sam thinks to text Bumblebee.

He shifts his half of the food to his left hand to fish out his phone. It is only the seven months of practice that allows him to type coherently with his thumb.

-Done. Walking to Chai's. See you later?

'Bee sends a thumbs up emoji immediately.

Chai twitched at his side, and sent him an image of the sidewalk in front of them. The accompanying pulse of alertaware is directed at the police cruiser parked a little ways off.

Sam put his phone away, and reaches out to clasp hands with her and draws her into his side. If this put her in position to better launch herself off him as a make shift springboard, that was between them and whoever might be foolish enough to challenge them.

They pass the police car without incident. Sam sneaks a look at the driver's seat. No one he knew.

<Weird to see a cop car,> Sam remarks.

<An entire day after you bought a Not-Car from space?> Chai's skepticism buzzes like static at the nap of his neck. <Best be on our toes until we figure out how to get 'Bee off our planet.>

<Agreed.>

They continue the walk in silence, both physical and mental, just a sort of looping awareness buzzing between them.

He hasn't felt this settled in months.

~~~~~~

The twin stacks of crispy mashed potatoes and mac and cheese of waffled-perfection gleamed in gravy goodness. Sautéed mushrooms, onions and asparagus spears surround the waffles in a moat of yet more gravy. Sam salivates, nearly drooling over his plate.

"Wait." Chai snaps a hand out, halting him in his tracks before he can fall onto his rightful portion of their culinary labors. His head whips around to bite her head off. He solum expression pulls him up short.

"Miles deserves to be included."

A noise escapes him. Oops. "Then text him," he hisses, twisting around to force himself away from his second lunch. If his hands jitter in spurned anticipation, no, they don't.

Rapid tapping comes from behind him, then a long pause.

If Miles doesn't answer in the next five minutes, and Sam eats cold waffles, he will be forced to take drastic measures to right the wrong of the universe against the perpetrator. Miles is a dear friend, so he will understand.

A ding. A manic giggle erupts from his deranged partner.

Oh good. Miles lives to see another day.

Sam spins around and crowds up behind Chai to peer over her shoulder to read the text, her glee burning like sunshine on his shoulders. He cackles.

Chai had sent Miles a picture of their waffles with a short and sweet message. As a photographer himself, Sam can safely call it "picturesque".

-Thinking of you.

Miles replied with another picture and an equally short text.

-Feeling the love

The picture is a hamburger with a bite taken out of it, showing it was just plain bun and incredibly dry patty without so much as a squirt of ketchup to cover its sins.

Chai sends him a heart emoji, before she pockets her phone and attacks her stack of cheesy goodness. Sam follows her lead.

After a few minutes of nothing but the sound of chewing and silverware scraping ceramic, Sam pings Chai. <We have a few hours before Miles gets out of school. What project do you want us to work on?>

...He kind of hates she can use thought speech to convey evil laughter.

A little while later, Sam's phone buzzes in his back pocket. He quickly finishes twisting the new bath tub spout, before plopping down to check it. Miles. He swipes it open.

—Im free! Best prepare yourselves im coming for those waffles

Sam huffs, a warm burst of fondness sparking in his chest. He looks over to the sink, where Chai is head and shoulders deep into the cabinet to fiddle with the connections.

He tapped her foot with his. "Hey, you almost done? Miles is on his way."

Chi grunts. She sends him what she's looking at. He wasn't sure when she had gone to get the caulk gun, but she was two thirds of the way done with caulking the cabinet to the wall.

He sends her his puzzlement. Was caulking in there necessary?

She sends back a burst of the horrors of mold leaks in impossible to reach places and bugs crawling through cracks, followed by the sensation of a shrug. <Can't hurt.>

Sam concedes. "Fair enough." He hauls himself to his feet. Brushing himself off, he continues. "I'm to go stretch my legs. Maybe grab my guitar," he adds, thinking about what they would be doing later, once they've fed Miles. "Do you have yard work to do?"

"Uhhhh," Chai hesitates, then confirms. <Yeah, I've bought all the supplies for that compost bin Mom's been mooning over for months.>

"Alright," Sam steps over her legs. "See you a bit." He pushes awareness at her, the telempath version of a side hug, or a light head butt, and leaves.

~~~~~~

Sam should stop making plans, full stop.

When he just does whatever comes his way, or commits to impulse activities, things go fine. The only surprises were little things he could handle because he knew they were a possibility so he could anticipate them. Like getting into a talon and fang fight with a snake for the right to eat the particularly plump-looking lizard when he and Chai went flying because they felt like it and Miles was at school. Who plans to get into a fight with a snake when you weigh less than ten pounds? No one! But he can handle such surprises because snake fights are simple and fact of life when one starts hunting in the same realm as snakes. He deals with it by winning the fight and eating the snake; the lizard lives to see another day.

This has been his life since he was thirteen. Guerrilla warfare demands as much from its participants as ninety-five percent of the tactic is reactionary.

For the past seven months, every time he makes plans—because that is what civilians do, darn it!—things go wrong.

Exhibit A: buying a car.

He planned on buying a decent non-sentient—please note, Not Capable of Independent Thought or Emotion— vehicle for personal use.

What did he get?

A disguised mechanical life-form from space.

Yeah.

He wished it stopped there, but honestly he hasn't been able to go to do a grocery run without things happening on the way there, while there, and on the way back. If he was already out and about and decided to just pick up a couple of things? Nothing, nada. No problems. If Aunt Judy tells him the night before she would be sending him to the store? Hell on Earth. Swerve around a stray dog, a pet parakeet, and a someone's child on the way there, a third of the grocery store is off limits because the roof sprung a leak that night and now they are dealing with water damage, and almost get T-boned by a maniac on the way home with only half the groceries he'd been sent to get.

He'd cry sabotage, but really, who would bother? Who would listen?

Chai didn't have to deal with this. It is incredibly unfair. Why him? The stress of it is going to make him kneel over from heart failure one of these days if the universe doesn't arrange for a more inventive death for him first.

So Sam really should have known something so simple as dropping by to do a small task would have resulted in him being stalked by a police car for over four blocks.

Such is the life of Sam Witwicky. He didn't have these problems before taking on the name, just to be clear.

But, again, he should have seen this happening. Actions have consequences, and he just paid money for the honor of escorting an alien robot off planet. Seeing a police car twice, now thrice, in less than five hours was probably a sign. A red flag, if you will. And, well, just because he had seven months of relative normalcy, doesn't mean the universe would allow him to languish in complacency. It certainly hadn't since he was eleven and he decided his friend needed an intervention; why should it change now?

Probably for the best. He makes bad decisions when he gets bored.

So when he turns the corner to the Witwicky street and the cop car—the same car from the center and the restaurant; same car, different driver, does it matter? He already knows one self-driving car and they didn't even bother changing their plates or that disturbing slogan on the driver's side—revs its engines, Sam drops all pretenses and flees.

Like he said, he really should have seen this coming.