To Add Insult to Injury
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Gotta love Ironhide/Annabelle. This is set when she is 17. Despite Ironhide's opinion on the music, I, like Annabelle, fully enjoy all of the songs mentioned below, and many much crappier songs.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Transformers, or any of the italicized songs used, just this little one-shot. Everything else is copyright its respective creators.
"Somebody call 9-1-1, shorty fire burning on the dance floor, woaaah!
I've gotta cool her down, she won't bring the roof to the ground on the dance floor, woaaah!
She fire burning, fire burning on the dance floor…"
Ironhide internally groaned at the music being blasted through his speakers. It was far too loud and the lyrics were simply terrible. Not to mention he had already heard the song three times in the last foury-five minutes. However, judging by the way Annabelle was singing (shouting) along with the radio that was connected to her iPod and the squirmy "dancing" he sensed in the driver's seat, she was enjoying it, so he stayed quiet and maintained an even pace down the highway. Still, he questioned at what point exactly he had gotten glitched enough to let her connect that slagged mp3 device to his systems.
It only got worse when the song changed.
"Let's have some fun, this beat is sick, I wanna take a ride on your disco sti-"
That was it. He couldn't take it anymore. The massive black Topkick's radio suddenly and unceremoniously snapped off. Much to Anna's displeasure.
"'HIDE!"
"I will not be used as a jukebox for this perverse and addle-brained excuse for music!" the Autobot weapons specialist grumbled at her. "I demand you disconnect that… ePod immediately!"
"That's so not fair!" Annabelle cried. Then, switching tactics, she informed the particularly significant logo emblazoned in the center of his steering wheel, "Bumblebee lets me listen to it!"
Her truck-shaped guardian was silent. Jealous, she presumed. Ironhide hated when the other bots had to take over his duties, but there were times (a mission overseas, for instance, or his forced monthly visit to Ratchet) when he could not be there. Her friends at Morissey High were under the assumption she owned a whole collection of vehicles and were quite envious, as nearly every other Autobot on their team had at some time served as her temporary guardian and vehicle, including the great Optimus Prime.
The twins and Ratchet were the only exceptions, as Ratchet's alt-mode was a rescue vehicle that would arouse suspicion from the other humans, and Ironhide did not trust Skids and Mudflap with such precious cargo nearly as far as he could throw them.
The teen, figuring she had won, reached out for the power button on the radio.
"Well I'm not Bumblebee," Ironhide suddenly grumbled in response, oddly sullen. It wasn't a tone Annie heard from him often and she realized she had hurt his feelings.
"Aww… c'mon, 'Hide, I'm sorry…" the girl attempted to placate him, patting his dashboard, but the mech was not listening. Apologies be damned. He had spent the last seventeen years driving her about and tolerating all sorts of humiliation a seasoned warrior of his status had no business being subjected to. Tea parties came to mind, and dress up. Dance recitals. Sleepovers. He had stooped to terminating mere arachnids when she saw them in his garage and screamed, and allowed her as a five-year-old to sleep in his backseat for a full two weeks while she was convinced a ghost occupied her bedroom closet.
Seventeen years and she did not realize he had a reputation to maintain, and it did not involve a so-called "Lady" Gaga singing euphemisms for parts of the human male anatomy he did not want to hear about for three minutes and thirty-one seconds straight. All he had done for Annabelle, and she could not allow him to have his one final scrap of dignity.
She was still trying to regain his favor, gently poking at the steering wheel and ribbing him lightly, "Come on, old mech, you know I didn't mean it like that…"
"Old mech? You had the nerve to compare me to that slagged yellow Sparkling not two minutes ago," the pickup rumbled through the speakers, the engine seeming to growl as well. Ironhide had no ill-will towards the scout, as he had proved himself a loyal and valuable asset to their ranks many times in his short lifetime, but his enthusiasm for entertaining his human allies was at times inappropriate for a soldier or outright embarrassing. They may have been comrades, teammates, even friends, but one thing Ironhide could not say he and Bee were was similar.
Annabelle just laughed, leaning back into the leather seats, the wind slipping through the open windows pulling at her hair. She had gotten her grouchy Autobot guardian to speak again, and that was the hard part.
"Here, I'll just put something else on, then, cannons-for-brains…" The engine lodged its complaint toward her as the GMC cruised across an overpass, but she switched the music back on anyway.
"Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the- FLOOOOOOOR!"
If Ironhide hadn't been pretending to be mad, he would have laughed.
Annabelle knew him after all.
He had known all along she had.
Songs Used:
"Fire Burning" - Sean Kingston
"Love Game" - Lady Gaga
"Bodies" - Drowning Pool