ahahhhhh lets try this again

this used to be a oneshot turned short fic but after seeing tf:one I got an idea for a proper story. This is a tfp x tf1 au bc holy shit that movie changed my brain chemistry lmaooo (please go see it)

No spoilers for tf1 as of now

General fic wide TW for gore, death, and a lil bit of spiciness. This fic is tagged as mature so expect it to be written as such. More in-depth warnings will be present in chapters that I feel require them. Don't like it, don't read. if you do like it then I smooch u on the forehead <3

It rained the night I first met the Autobots.

It was the end of another too-long day at work, where more tasks had been tossed atop my to-complete pile and forced me to stay another few hours overtime. Unfortunately, it was a common occurrence. Rare was me leaving the office at a humane hour.

The hood of the raincoat I left at my desk for emergencies was thin, covering me from the sudden downpour but not thick enough to shield me from the chill. The public transport of Jasper, Nevada, was a pain. It wasn't a surprise that my nose was already beginning to run by the time the bus finally pulled up. At least it was empty. It was always empty after nine.

I watched the empty streets pass and tried not to let myself doze off. I'd missed my stop too many times because of it, and the extra twenty minutes spent walking back home was an extra twenty minutes I wouldn't have to recover in preparation for the next day. The next day of answering phone calls, of inputting credentials, of assessing requests and fetching coffee for people who weren't even grateful for it.

I was called an office assistant. I think I was just thrown all the jobs nobody else with a higher title could be bothered to do. I was given tasks that were both below me and far too advanced. The pay wasn't even good enough to reflect it. I didn't have much of a choice in job - Jasper was a town of limited opportunity.

Given the time it was when I finally arrived at my family's home, everybody had already eaten. I could hear them laughing at some comedy movie from the living room. I grabbed the plate of food that had been set aside for me and heated it up in the microwave, watching it spin from behind the glass with an impassive frown.

Masters in Criminology for this. I hadn't known it was possible to already feel like a failure at twenty-five, but I certainly did now. I was pretty sure I was the only person from my graduating class who still lived with their parents.

I had tried, though. I'd been excited to move out when I started my job, but with the hours they kept making me do, I didn't last two months. It was fine. My family was large and my parents occupied with their jobs and my younger siblings, so I just drifted unbothered and invisible like a ghost. At least I didn't have to rely on freezer dinners anymore.

Drifting on autopilot, I ate and got ready for bed. Work was particularly tough, with me being dumped a half day's worth of work (that my supervising manager really ought to have done himself) an hour before I'd hoped to clock out, and I hadn't skipped the consequences. A headache was well underway of seizing my brain.

I'd only just made it to my bedroom when a young voice stopped me from closing the door.

"Y/n!"

I winced at the greeting of my youngest brother. Inhaling deeply, I turned around to face him and his hopeful smile. His farsighted glasses made his doe-brown eyes seem even sweeter and larger, and he was half-dressed for bed, having changed into his pyjama bottoms but still wearing his collared shirt and favourite vest, as if deciding against it halfway through. His arms were ladened by one of his large remote-controlled race cars.

"Hey, Raf," I tiredly replied. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"

Rafael Esquivel was the youngest in our family of nine and me, being the eldest child, practically raised him myself. Despite being the siblings with the largest age gap, we were the closest with each other. He was my favourite person in the world and I was his. It was heartwarming.

"Maybe," Raf said with a nervous grin. He lifted his yellow car as though he were bestowing to me an ancient relic. "Wanna help me reprogram the velocity locks on my car? I'm gonna make it go three times as fast!"

Heartwarming until I was the only sibling he wanted to hang out with. It was fine before my days became submerged by work and headaches, before I lost myself to the corporate slog of a ladder I wasn't even yet beginning to climb. I barely had the time and energy spare to take care of myself, let alone hang out with the family baby.

Saying no to Raf was like taking a hammer and throwing it into my chest. It was crushing to watch him be disappointed by me time and time again, but I also dreaded the day he'd stop asking. We were already far more distant than we'd ever been before.

I smoothed back his unruly hair and apologetically smiled. His own wavered. He already knew what I was going to say.

"I'm sorry, Raffle, I can't tonight," I answered. "Next time, okay?"

The light in Raf's eyes dimmed with dejection. I'd lost count of how many times 'next time' had fallen through and I wanted to kick myself. Didn't I have enough energy in the reserves to spare ten minutes? The ache behind my eyes sent a fresh, debilitating wave of pain in retaliation for such a disobedient thought.

Raf nodded in quiet understanding. Cradling his toy car to his chest, he trudged back down the hall to his room. Martin, Jace and Keira came sprinting out from the living room in hopes of winning the bathroom first, shoving past the youngest and shouting loud enough to exacerbate my headache.

"Stop running!" I grumpily exclaimed, before slamming my door shut.

I tried to decompress by watching an episode of the mindless series I'd been following but I couldn't shake the guilt of making Raf disappointed again. It dug at me, scraping through my skin as if it had tangible claws. With each minute that passed, my heart felt more and more like concrete.

"I'll talk to him tomorrow," I told myself. I pushed my old laptop to the end of the bed and switched off my light.

I couldn't sleep.

I wrapped my arms around my head and whined. The painkillers were taking too long to kick in. Exhaustion dragged at me, but I couldn't even let myself pass out. I just kept seeing Raf's upset expression and his combo of clothing that told me he'd raced out as soon as he heard I was home.

I was the worst sister in the world.

Shoving back my covers, I sat up with a groan. It seemed my sense of morality wouldn't let me sleep until I saw my baby brother smile again. Tugging on a jersey, I shuffled from my room and down the hallway to where his door was firmly shut. It was still covered by the car stickers he slapped on it when he was seven.

"Raf? Hey, buddy, you still awake?" I gently knocked my knuckles against the door. "I'm sorry I haven't been able to hang out with you lately. I'm gonna take a day off from work and I'll ask Mama to let you stay home with me. We can do whatever you want. How does that sound?"

I waited for a response. When nothing came, I knocked again with a yawn.

"Raffie?" I mumbled. "Are you ignoring me?" He always suddenly came down with a case of selective hearing when he was upset with someone, but I normally wasn't the recipient of such treatment. "Raf?"

He was probably asleep. I carefully creaked the door open and poked my head inside to check. His bedroom was far neater than your average twelve-year-old's, but he was also leagues smarter than your average twelve-year-old. His current computer project was half-dismantled on his desk. His bookcase was full of coding and car mechanic textbooks. His bedside table held a framed photo of us at the local rodeo. His bed was empty.

His bed was empty.

I shoved the door open and scanned the room. "Rafael?" I went to the empty bed and yanked the covers off. "Raf?"

I tried to think rationally from beneath my sharp panic. Maybe he was just in the bathroom? Maybe he was getting a drink of water?

The fluttering of a robot-patterned curtain caught my eye. His window was unlatched, opened just a smidge.

Cold horror shot down my spine like a bolt of lightning.

Dashing from his room, I snatched up my coat and shoes and paused at the living room entrance. My parents, Rosa and Dominic looked up at me with confusion.

"Raf's gone!" I gasped.

"What?" Mama looked over her chair as I shoved on my sneakers. Dominic and Papa stood from the couch, worried.

"Raf's gone!"

"Raf?" Rosa sat up straight. "Are you sure?"

"Obviously, yes!" I snapped before pulling on my jacket. "I think I know where he's gone. If he's not there I'll call, okay?"

I was out the door before I could get a response.

The rain had grown heavier, lashing the street like whips and making everything slick and slippery. My hair was soaked and my sneakers drenched in record time as I sprinted toward the canal at the edge of town. It was his favourite spot to disappear to and drive his toy cars.

"Raf? Raf!" My voice echoed down the silent street. It was so cold and late, and the storm was only getting worse. Why the hell would he go out on a night like this? Even shouting was doing nothing, the drumming of water on tarmac too loud. "Raf?"

I'd never ran so fast nor felt so terrified before in my life. My body was driven into a frenzy, adrenalised twice over by Raf's absence. I should've just said yes! I should've just faced the consequences the next morning. I should've quit my stupid fucking job years ago. My CV wasn't as important as Raf.

What if somebody took him? What if he got hurt? What if he slipped down the side of the canal and cracked his head on the concrete? It would all be my fault.

The canal bridge came into view when I turned the last corner. I pushed myself faster, desperate to see him and make sure he was safe. My eyes burned with frustrated tears.

"Raf?" I staggered to a halt and planted my hands on the bridge's railing, peering down at the shadowy canal. My limbs trembled. My lungs tasted of iron. "Rafael! Are you down there?"

A familiar mop of unruly brown hair peeked out from the shadows. His spectacles caught the glare of the streetlight above me, mouth agape with surprise. My relief was so potent that I felt drunk from it, legs threatening to fold over and collapse me onto the ground.

"Y/n?"

"Oh, thank god," I breathed. My head hung for a brief second as exhaustion swallowed me whole before I inhaled sharply and straightened. "I'll be right there."

"No!" Raf's shrill voice made me stop in my tracks. He winced at my baffled look and began to fumble. "I, uh- I just mean that I'm gonna meet you. Up there. I'll meet you up there!"

My eyes narrowed. Raf was never a good liar and I'd practically raised him. The natural affinity of being a Rafael Esquivel lie detector was one of the perks of being me. Alarm bells rang in my head.

I held his gaze for a moment. Then I broke into a run.

"Wait! Wait!" Raf squeaked as I careened down the side of the canal. He flinched when my sneaker slid on the slippery concrete and sent me sliding down the rest of the way on my now-sore ass. "No- Y/n-!"

I stumbled to my feet at level ground and hissed through my teeth in pain. Raf's glasses held onto drops of water as he nervously glanced between me and the shadows of the bridge behind him.

I turned to him with a scowl. "Rafael Jorge Gonzales Esquivel, what the hell are you thinking sneaking out on a night like this?" I lifted my arms in exasperation. "What the hell were you thinking sneaking out at all? Do you know how much you scared me?!"

Raf raised his hands in an attempt to placate me. "I'm sorry! Can we just go?"

I faltered at his nervous expression. "Why are you acting so weird?"

"I'm- I'm not acting weird," he said. Grabbing my wrist, he tried to tug me back up the side of the canal. "C'mon, Y/n, it's cold."

"Is there someone else here?"

"There isn't!" Raf shrieked.

That just made me think the opposite. I pulled myself from his grip and stepped closer to the bridge's shadow, peering through the gloaming. Raf snatched my jacket's sleeve and tried to yank me back.

"No, wait!"

My eyes widened as they adjusted to the darkness, finding the streamlined form of an expensive-looking car that rich, cocky boy racers would zip around town parked before us. I yanked Raf behind me.

"Who the hell are you?" I demanded.

Raf groaned in misery. "Nobody! Can we please just go?"

My hand gripped Raf's jacket with a clench. What on earth was he up to, hanging around somebody like this? How did he manage to land himself in this kind of trouble? He was Raf - quiet, hardworking, polite little Raf. He didn't hang out with rich racer boys. What would they want with a young kid?

"Get out of the car!" I shouted.

"Y/n, please," Raf begged. He tugged on my arm and sent me pleading eyes when I glanced down at him. "Can we just go home?"

My rage flared, ignited by my urge to protect my little brother. "Is this guy threatening you?"

His eyes blew wide with shock at the direction my assumption had taken me. "What? No! Bee wo- he would never! He's my friend!"

Bee? What kind of name was that? Was it a street name? Did street racers have aliases or something? Did I seriously just get replaced as Raf's favourite by a guy named Bee?

The car rolled forward a few inches and I staggered back, hand raised in defence. When it edged out of the shadows and the rain began to ricochet off its yellow coat, that was when I recognised it.

It was the same car that had started parking on our street a few months back. I recalled being envious of its owner while I'd walk to the bus stop.

"Hey!" I clasped Raf's arm tighter and ushered us back. "Don't come any closer, dickhead! I'll call the cops!"

"Y/n," Raf whined as he fruitlessly jiggled my arm. "Leave him alone."

"Raf-!"

My exasperated reply was cut short by the distant sound of heavy engines echoing along the highway. Raf paused for a second before tugging at my arm with renewed vigour. The yellow car's engine began to growl.

"Seriously, Y/n, we have to leave now!"

Startled by his sudden desperation, I sent him a confused look. Bee's car revved with a thunder crack of a roll and bumped closer again. His passenger's door swung up and open. A shrill, synth-like warble pitched from inside. My knowledge of cars was limited, but even I knew that wasn't a sound they usually made.

Raf glanced between me, the car and the highway above before shoving me toward the open door. "Get in!"

I dug my heels in. "What the-? Raf-"

"Just get in the car!" he snapped.

He tripped forward when I side-stepped him. I grabbed his jacket before he could face-plant the concrete and yanked him back up to peer into his frantic eyes. "Did this 'Bee' guy give you something? Are you on drugs?"

Raf made a sound of frustration that surprised me with its intensity. I'd never seen him lose his cool like this before. The engines overhead grew louder and the yellow car beside us made its strange noise again, shriller and sharper. When it rolled forward again, I managed to peer through the rain and into its blue-lit cab.

I was so baffled by the empty seats that I almost fell over. "Who's driving?!"

Raf took my shock to his advantage and all but football-tackled me into the passenger seat. The door slammed shut. My exclamation of terrified anger was cut short by Raf placing his hand over my mouth and hysterically gesturing for me to be silent.

The car swiftly rolled back beneath the shadow of the bridge. Raf watched the pouring clouds from out the tinted windscreen, as still as a picture. I followed his gaze.

Two jets speared across the sky. The car gave a low, quiet drone.

"Decepticon scouts," Raf whispered. "Do you think they saw us?"

With his hand still firmly over my mouth, it was clear the question wasn't for me. I wouldn't have been able to answer him, anyway. What on earth was a Decepticon? Was it the new youth slang for a scammer? Was this me showing my age?

When the jets disappeared from view and another silent minute passed, Raf collapsed atop our tangled heap with a sigh of relief. I gave him another moment before shuffling him from me. The centre console was digging into my back.

When I was sitting in the driver's seat and Raf held his head while in shotgun, I took the chance to stare at the high-tech interior of the yellow car. Were all fancy cars this ridiculous? How much did something like this cost? Should I have taken my shoes off before getting body-checked inside?

"Raf, answer me honestly," I murmured. "Did you manage to make a full-sized car remote controllable?"

"What?!" Raf sent me another gobsmacked look.

The insignia on the wheel illuminated in sync with the warbles and chirps the surround sound system played. Raf glanced at the dashboard and sighed.

"You're right, we should get home. We don't want to still be here when they come back."

"The scammers?" I asked.

Raf met me with confusion. "What are you talking about?"

My brows furrowed. "The conner's you were just talking about."

He only looked more confused. A pair of thuds heavy and loud enough to make the ground shake cut our brief miscommunication short. We turned our gazes to the canal.

Three very large, very sharp, and very intimidating black and purple robots raised their guns at us. I was already so high on adrenaline that I was already launching across the cab to protect Raf when the seatbelts shot out around us and latched into their buckles.

The car punched into reverse so fast that we both grunted at the painful yank of the belts catching us from going through the windscreen. I glanced through the window and found the robots giving chase, sending rounds blasting against the ground, landing just short.

I made a sound of terror. They looked like something from a horror movie.

"Faster, Bee!" Raf urged.

The steering wheel spun and the car went with it, violently turning to the front on its pivot and zooming off again with a guttural purr of the engine. Raf and I swung about like rag dolls, latched only by the seatbelts around us. I held mine with a white-knuckled grip. Raf took the knocks with more experience.

I sent my brother a horrified look. "Who are they?! Who the hell is Bee?!"

"Those are Decepticons." Raf patted the dashboard. "This is Bee!"

The car chirped. Another volley of blasts set off at our tail and instinctively made me duck my head.

"The car is Bee?!" I shrieked.

"Yes, the car!"

That answered nothing. "Then who's controlling it?!"

"Nobody!" Raf answered with little patience. "Bee controls himself. He's not a car, Y/n!"

I was so stressed and confused that his answer almost made me grab a handful of my hair and yank it out. Incredulous, I sent him a wide-eyed, lost look.

"What do you mean it's not a car? It's literally a car!"

Raf groaned. "He's not a normal car, Y/n, he's-"

Another shot hit Bee in a back tyre and sent him spiralling across the canal ground. I screamed. Raf shrieked. The car dizzyingly split apart into various moving components and separated beneath us, leaving Raf and I tumbling across the ground while the screech of metal-upon-metal attacked my eardrums.

My entire body ached in protest. I shook my head and lifted myself on shaking arms, looking for Raf. He was halfway across the canal from me, sitting up and nursing a sore arm. The presence of something gargantuan and dangerous had my spine bristling. Goosebumps spread across my skin.

I turned my head up. Above us stood a yellow robot with his own gun drawn.

Raf recovered faster than me. He limped across the canal and gathered my arm in his hands. "Come on!"

I stumbled upright and followed him in an attempt to escape the battleground the canal had become. I glanced back at the yellow robot just as he took a blast to the shoulder. One of the other robot scammers had decided that we were more interesting targets and gave chase.

My heart sprinted double-time. I shoved Raf on faster but even then, I knew it wouldn't be enough. The robot was swallowing the space between us faster than we could flee. The canal didn't offer anything that could serve as protection.

"Up the side, Raf, now!" I directed him toward the slope that led up to the street. He obeyed, not wanting to waste time in arguing.

I sprinted on, hissing breath through my teeth. I looked over my shoulder and found the robot looking to follow Raf's escape route. Lifting my foot, I yanked my shoe free and lobbed it at the thing. It flinched when it made contact and snapped its attention to me.

"Hey, ugly!"

It didn't seem to like being insulted. It changed target, taking off after me with a pace that had my brief bout of courage draining fast. A look at Bee showed me that he was still busy taking on the other two robots. He shot one robot point-blank in the face and then sliced the other's arm off with a glowing blue blade.

I spun around at a run again and stifled a sob when a blast exploded just shy of my left. I heard Raf call my name. Shut up! Hide! Go home!

I slid off my other shoe and lobbed it over my shoulder with a grunt. The sound of it hitting a metal body only filled me with a tiny smidge of pride, but it didn't last long. The next round from the robot hit close enough to send me flying.

My body hit the ground hard. Something in my shoulder popped and I cried with pain, before hobbling into a crawl with my heart in my throat. My nails split against the concrete as I clawed away from the robot that had stopped just behind me. I heard its gun take aim.

A sudden crash beside me had me scrambling away, only to see the robot on the ground with Yellow's foot on its chest. It raised its gun, only for Yellow to knock it aside and blast a nearby office building instead. When Yellow's twin blades pierced the robot through its face, it finally went still.

Frozen, I watched as Yellow slowly slid the blades out from the robot's corpse. Big, round, aperture-like eyes turned to me. They were as neon-blue as his interior lighting.

I startled when he raised a blade and waved it with a chirp. Realising my fear, he glanced at his weapon before squeaking with apology. His blade transformed into a hand and he waved again. He was no less intimidating than before.

"Y/n!" Raf stopped at my side and caught his breath. "Are you okay?"

I couldn't look away from the yellow robot who'd knelt on the ground and inquisitively watched us. The twin doors on his back fluttered like wings. Rain patted on him like the sound of it against a tin roof.

"What the hell is that thing?" I whispered.

Raf faltered. He and the robot shared a look before it made another warbling sound, shrugging as if in suggestion. Raf turned back to me with an awkward smile.

"He's from Japan?" he nervously said.

My expression remained unchanged.

"I told you she wouldn't buy it," Raf grumbled to the robot. He sighed before walking toward it and patting its knee in introduction. "This is Bee. I told you he's not a car."

My shock was still so potent. I slowly shook my head. "This is impossible."

Bee trilled another round of beeps and chirps. I clocked onto the fact that the strange sounds it made seemed to be its way of communicating. Raf grinned.

"He says that you have a good aim."

I wasn't exactly in the right state of mind to be accepting compliments. Wincing at my injuries, I slowly made my way to my feet. Raf steadied me when my legs wobbled with exhaustion. I blinked water from my lashes.

"You can understand it?" I asked.

"Him," Raf brightly corrected. He was a lot more chipper now that I knew who Bee was and we weren't being chased down by Terminator wannabes. "Yeah, it's like-"

The sudden crumbling of a building interrupted Raf's answer. The three of us turned to watch the familiar office complex that had been shot at before fold halfway over before crumpling into rubble. Raf and I covered our eyes when its aftershock of dust came careening down the canal.

When I looked back up and found it completely destroyed, I felt numb. My heart sunk to my feet so fast that I was left teetering.

"... that was my workplace," I listlessly mumbled. My reaction was a dizzying mix of elation, relief, dread and horror. Yes, the job sucked, but I needed that paycheck.

Bee winced with a low drone. Raf's eyes widened.

"Sorry, Y/n," he guiltily mumbled.

I stared at the spot where the building once stood helplessly as rainwater dropped from my chin. Or was I starting to cry? My headache had returned, furious at being ignored, and every single limb ached from the abuse it had endured during the robot death match. The shock was so much that I felt sick.

A little hand wrapped around mine. My gaze drifted down to where Raf stood at my side, his glasses streaked with rain and his hair waterlogged. I didn't realise how cold I was until I saw him shiver.

I swallowed against my parched throat. "We should get back home."

Raf's soft frown deepened with reluctance. He glanced back at Bee, who chirped at him again. Raf slowly nodded.

"We need to go somewhere else first," Raf said. He led my puzzled self toward Bee, who somersaulted through the air in a blur of clanking metal and moving parts and landed on his tyres. He was back to being a car.

I resisted. "We need to go home, Raf."

Raf tugged at my good arm. "We have a first aid kit back at base. If we go home, our parents will just ask questions."

"We were almost killed. They deserve to know-"

"No," Raf said firmly. "They can't know. Nobody else can know."

He said it with such conviction that I drew silent. His expression wavered into something sad and pleading.

"Please, Y/n."

My heart twisted. I turned my head away and sighed, closing my eyes with regret. Hadn't I disappointed him enough? Wasn't this my consequence of abandoning him as much as I had? I caved.

"Fine," I croaked.

Raf beamed at my answer. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to Bee, who was still waiting patiently. "You can take the driver's seat!"

I was horrified by the suggestion. "I don't want to drive that thing!"

"You won't be driving," Raf said impatiently. He pushed me through the open door and this time I was too tired to fight it. "Bee will."

I groaned beneath my breath and relented, folding myself through the door and taking a seat behind the wheel. I looked around myself uncomfortably - Bee looked so much like a real car. A really expensive car. And I was getting the seats wet.

Raf bounded happily into shotgun. I watched him with weary eyes as he got comfy in the leather seats, far less concerned about our near-death experience than I was. How was he so okay? I dreaded to think how long he'd kept this from me.

Bee buzzed and warbled like his namesake and pulled the seatbelts over us again. I supposed the robot car valuing road safety eased my concern a little - but not by much.

I leant against the headrest and watched the steering wheel move itself as Bee began to smoothly pull away from the wreckage and accelerate up the side of the canal with no problem. He even put on the heaters for us. I supposed that was kind of him.

"I can't believe I just voluntarily allowed myself to get kidnapped by my brother and an alien robot," I mumbled to myself. Bee warbled something I couldn't understand in response. "Where are we going?"

"To meet the others," Raf answered.

"There's more?!"

He nodded. "There's five of them. Optimus is the leader, he'll tell you what you need to know."

I digested that information with some discomfort. It was shocking enough just to meet Bee, but four more of him? Perhaps it was good that my workplace was destroyed because I had a feeling that all this shit was going to land me with a month-long migraine.

I watched the last of Jasper's buildings pass behind us. We were headed into the desert, away from civilisation. It didn't surprise me that a giant robot base was in the middle of nowhere. How else could they stay discreet otherwise?

"How long have you known... him?" I asked.

Raf's optimism dimmed somewhat. His guilty gaze searched the floor.

"About five months," he murmured.

I sat back in my seat with a slow exhale. Five months. Raf had known these crazy killer robots for five months? How many times had he been shot at? How many times had he almost died while I was complaining about my awful job?

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Raf sent me a sorrowful look. "I couldn't tell anyone. It's the rules. And this stuff - it's the 'government secret' kind of serious. I only got involved because Bee and I accidentally stumbled across each other."

I ran my hands down my face. "Oh, god, Raf. What have you gotten yourself into?"

He stayed quiet.

Bee's base was hidden in one of the canyon-like mountains that dotted the Mohave Desert. I held my breath as we aimed for the ochre-coloured cliffside. Before we could crash into the rock at full speed and become a robot-car-human splat, a camouflaged door slid open and we entered a long tunnel. It opened into what must've been an old government base of some kind; everything was grey and lifeless and tall, with catwalks suspended in the air and a massive empty area where equipment would've once sat.

I held my sore shoulder and leant forward, peering through the windscreen. Bee was tall, so I was expecting four more tall robots that held a similar stature. I certainly hadn't expected him to be the shortest.

Three robots of varying height - all taller than Bee - stood in the base. An orange and white boxy-shaped one was stationed at a collection of large computer screens and waving away an even taller, robust green robot that looked more like a wrecking ball than anything. The third, slender and blue, leant against the wall and watched them. They all turned at our entrance.

"We're here!" Raf hurried out of his seat. "Come on! I'll introduce you."

I got out slower than my energised younger brother. Three pairs of very tall eyes turned to me, first all looking surprised, and then narrowing with various states of scrutiny, confusion and annoyance.

"Oh, for Primus-" the white and orange one threw his arms into the air with a very clear sense of irritation. "Seriously, Bumblebee, another one?! Don't we have enough humans running around underfoot?"

The perfect English surprised me just as much as my presence had surprised them. Bee transformed behind us with a beep that sounded a lot like of whine of defence, which I would've found funny if I weren't so numb. Raf hurried to support him.

"It's not Bee's fault, it's mine!" He gestured to me. "This is Y/n, my sister. She was looking for me when Decepticon scouts spotted us."

The slender one stood from the wall with a touch of concern. Her gaze, the same neon blue as Bee's, still regarded me with stony distrust.

"Are you guys alright?" she asked with a strong, feminine voice.

Bee answered for us, rambling in his beeps and squeals and gesticulating with his hands the way that Raf would when he talked about his computers. With the way that the robots and Raf were listening, it seemed I was the only one unable to understand him.

"You took on a 'con yourself?" the green one asked me with surprise. He chuckled to himself, impressed. "I like humans with ball bearings."

"I like humans out of my sight," the grumpy one grunted. He turned back to his screens, seemingly over the whole situation. I felt a strange sense of kinship with him - I was over it, too.

"Ignore Ratchet, he's always grumpy," Raf said, eager to introduce us all like this was some school event and he was showing off his favourite classmates. "He's the team medic. You've already met my best friend Bee. He's a scout." He gestured to the feminine robot with the icy glare. "That's Arcee! She's a scout, too. And that's Bulkhead, he's a wrecker."

Ratchet disinterestedly peeked over his shoulder. I lifted my hand in a halfhearted attempt at a wave, which only Bulkhead returned. His was just as feeble.

"We can trust her 'cause she's Raf's sister, right?" Bulkhead asked the rest of the robots.

Ratchet harrumphed. Arcee sent me another suspicious once-over. I felt nervous, as if sitting a test I hadn't prepared for.

"That's up to Optimus," she said.

"Fowler's gonna be happy," Bulkhead muttered.

"Is he ever?"

Raf was unperturbed by the conversation regarding my loyalty. He pulled me toward the gathering of robots (what had Raf called them? Autobots?) without fear despite their height on us. Bee followed behind us, chirping excitedly to Raf in his language I couldn't decipher.

This was all happening so fast. I could barely keep up, glancing nervously amongst the massive robots that could all probably turn their hands into weapons as if they'd suddenly aim them at me. Would that be what they do if this 'Optimus' deemed me unfit? What would Raf think?

And my body ached. I wanted to pinch myself and wake up in bed, but I knew that I'd just add another injury to the list. This was real life. This had been Raf's life for the past five months, and he hadn't told any of us. He didn't even tell me.

Before I could find my bravery and ask who Optimus was, a massive aqua-green light bloomed from a large circular-like structure and emitted a sound I could never describe. My eyes blew wide at the sci-fi look of it. Was there an end to all these shocks?

But no, there was one more, because the red and blue Autobot that just walked through the glowing rip through space-time towered at such an impressive height that I had to take a step back. He had to be at least three Bees with a width that rivalled Bulkhead.

Whereas the others were expressive, this one was unreadable, his face as impassive as what I originally considered a robot to look like. The ground shook with each step as he approached. The other Autobots all turned to him with their attention taut and focused. This was clearly their leader, the Optimus I'd heard about.

He looked more like a primordial being than anything that could exist on the material plane. I could feel my perception of reality being rewritten in real-time, my understanding of physics in tatters.

"Any luck?" Ratchet grimly asked.

Optimus shook his head. "Not a sign."

In that moment with my clothes still damp and my hair still dripping, I realised that the trajectory of my entire life had been monumentally shifted. The course had changed direction, the tracks set for a new destination, mundane worries now a long-distant past. It had changed the second I'd knocked on Raf's bedroom door. I'd picked it when I'd noticed his robot-patterned curtain fluttering. It made me listless.

The leader of the Autobots noticed the new human in his base. I felt the weight of him when his blue eyes pinned themselves on me. His presence stole me of breath, his aura both stifling and magnanimous. The dials of his eyes spun as he silently regarded me.

What I didn't realise was just how much my life would change still.