based on/sequel to Escalation
SERIES: Imperfection Deviation
AUTHOR: Macx
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters belong to me, sadly. They are owned by people with a lot more money :)
Author's Voice of Warning (aka Author's Note):
English is not my first language; it's German. This is the best I can do. Any mistakes you find in here, collect them and you might win a prize The spell-checker said everything's okay, but you know how trustworthy those thingies are....
FEEDBACK: Loved
BETA: okami_myrrhibis
The first days after Soundwave's brief but rather disruptive appearance in his life, Will Lennox was still in too much of a shocked state of mind to notice the changes. He had fought off a kidnapping attempt and survived Ravage's subsequent attacks. The bruises and scrapes had been minimal. He had had worse in his time as an Army Ranger. A lot worse. The Protoform was able to withstand a lot more damage, but it was still painful.
The base had been a bee hive: busy, busy, busy. Ironhide hadn't surfaced for more than an hour because he was now making sure that nothing and no one not authorized should ever be able to gain access again without either Prime or himself clearing the one in question. Epps was up to his eyebrows in security issues and procedures. Stark had disappeared back to his Malibu haunt together with Hot Rod, and Sam and Bumblebee hadn't been seen since the last meeting. Will envied him that. He wanted to disappear, too, but he had acquired several shadows, either human or mech, and simply going out to get hopelessly drunk had never been an option.
For one, he couldn't. It took insane amounts of alcohol to give him a little buzz. Getting drunk was probably impossible.
And then there was the fact that he couldn't go out. The runes made sure of that, though lately there had been fewer.
Just why that was so was revealed to him barely forty-eight hours later.
Lennox had joined Bowman at Nellis Airforce base to handle revealing the presence of mech life forms on Earth to those soldiers who hadn't known so far. He noticed Bowman looking at him oddly now and then, but he didn't pay it too much attention. Maybe he was over-reacting. Bowman himself hadn't come away unscathed and had acquired his own small but fierce guardian in the form of WiFi. The cell phone didn't leave him alone for a minute and watched everyone suspiciously.
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"Are they supposed to do this?"
Lennox looked up from the files he had been studying and blinked. "Huh?"
Bowman
gestured at his hands. "The runes. They've been stationary for a while
now. I mean, usually they move and it's… normal, y'know." He grinned a
little. "But they don't move."
Lennox looked at his fingers and
frowned. Bowman was right. The runes weren't moving. They were faint
impressions only, more like shadows than actually writing, but they
were still visible. And not moving.
"It's been like that since Ravage's attack. I…" Lennox stopped, reluctant to mention his abilities. Finally he said, "I can fire something like energy blasts in protoform. Now it happened while I was still human. Energy collected between my fingers and I released it at Ravage. It was like instinct."
"Energy blasts?" Bowman echoed.
Lennox nodded.
The captain frowned. "And that's the physical result? You have stationary runes?"
"Apparently."
"Weird."
Because Will had been in battle simulations with Ironhide and done the same in protoform and nothing of the like had ever happened before. As a human he had never been able to do anything out of the ordinary. He had been human – well, as much as was possible when looking like a walking advertisement for cosmic runes.
Rubbing a finger over the faint runes he wondered what was going on. He didn't feel different after the kidnapping attempt. He had never felt different after battle simulations. He hadn't done anything out of the ordinary, except face a real foe. The adrenaline spike had been massive and the fear had been very real.
"Let Keyron or Ratchet check you out," Bowman advised. "Better safe than sorry."
Lennox grimaced. Being a hybrid he would never be normal, so even if that this was something connected to his changes… what good would a check do? It was hard to scan him anyway. His body had a natural shield against that and it took an effort to suppress the instinctual reaction. And if it turned out to be another freak change… so what?
He finally shrugged. Bowman gave him a light smile.
"If it's any consolation, you still have some of those glyphs moving along your left cheek and temple."
"Yeah. Very consoling. Thanks, Mike."
Bowman grinned more. "Always glad to be of help."
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It took Lennox twenty-four hours to come up with the courage to contact Ratchet and ask him for a full-body check because of apparent changes in the runes' behavior. The medic was surprised, then mystified as Will described the changes, but he made time immediately and Lennox drove to the base.
By the time Ratchet had him under his microscope, the runes on the fingers had all but disappeared.
Knowing his luck when it came to his body, Will didn't believe in anything getting better, even though the glyphs had started to move lazily over his hands an hour into Ratchet's checks.
He was proven correct when he stripped down for an examination of all his skin.
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Will stared at the screen and at his own back, shown to him through a camera lense. There, on his back, on tanned skin, stretched an intricate tattoo made up of runes and glyphs that had mysteriously wandered to his spine area and taken up residence there. They stretched from his butt to his shoulder blades, then spread out like the horizontal bar of a T, feathering out over his shoulders.
It looked… like a tattoo artist's masterpiece. The burned gold, bronze and almost black coloring gave it something of a painting's touch.
"Shit," he whispered.
What now? What did it mean? When had that happened?!
Lennox didn't make a habit out of checking his skin for possible rune alterations. They had been there for years and he had successfully learned to ignore their presence. Now they had migrated to his back and formed some kind of freak tattoo.
Ratchet hummed, sounding thoughtful. "Did you feel any different lately?"
"No. I don't feel them at all, Ratchet."
The mech knew that. He knew all about Will and the glyphs there was to know.
"Interesting."
Lennox grimaced. Yeah. Right.
"And before you ask, neither did Ironhide," he muttered.
It got him an amused smile and the blue optics glinted. "You would have been here as soon as he noticed, I believe."
"Got that right."
And it wasn't like they had seen much of each other lately.
The runes didn't move. They were as fixed to their position as the narrow band depicting Ironhide's name around his wrist was.
"We need to watch this," Ratchet finally decided. "There is nothing else I can do."
Will nodded and slipped his black shirt back on. He hadn't expected the medic to be able to do anything but take a look.
He left the lab, deep in thought, rubbing unconsciously over his fingers.
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The runes didn't fade away like the ones on his fingers had. They stayed, dark and prominent, like a tattoo artist had put them there.
Ironhide hadn't taken long to seek out Lennox and corner him, demanding to see the changes.
"Could we at least move this to a more private room?" the human snapped.
Lennox knew he was letting things get to him, but between becoming Soundwave's target and finding another freak change to his body, he had the right to snap.
Blue optics flared a little, then Ironhide punched a door opener and stepped into the room. Lennox followed, glaring at his much larger partner, glad Ironhide hadn't decided to just grab him and walk into the storage facility. The door closed.
"Show me," the weapons specialist demanded.
"A little word would help," Lennox grumbled and stripped off his black shirt. He turned around and let Ironhide see the cosmic code.
For a long minute there was nothing, then the sound of servos moving as Ironhide knelt down. Lennox felt a cool, gentle touch to his shoulder blades. He knew the touch intimately, but right now it made him shiver. Thankfully the mech wasn't trying to scan him, but Will suspected it took a lot of self-control for Ironhide not to give in to the instinctual reaction of scanning.
The blunt finger tip traced the writing over the shoulders and then down Lennox's spine. It felt curious, not sexual, and so far Ironhide hadn't displayed any human traits when it came to the latter. Feeling Will up had been limited to the intimate touches just before interfacing.
And Lennox was as far from thinking sex as possible right now. He was too freaked and scared of the changes that had hit him yet again.
"Do you feel anything different?" Ironhide rumbled.
"No. It's like always."
Will stepped away from the exploring digit and slipped his shirt back on, feeling almost ashamed of his own body. It wasn't a new feeling, but it was one he had suppressed in the past rather successfully.
"I wish all this had come with a handbook," the former soldier muttered. "What else is going to change? What if I transform and can't change back?"
Ironhide's expression was rather neutral, but he was touching again, a calming caress, gentle despite his size.
"Then we deal with it in that moment."
"Easy for you to say! You're not the one on the receiving end! I stopped being human after the accident, but at least I looked it! If I lose that, I can't even go out! I'll be some kind of freak of nature! I'm not a mech, nor am I human, and I can't transform! All I have is the base, Nellis and maybe one or two quick trips around the countryside. Preferably at night." Lennox ran a shaky hand through his hair. "And then there's Soundwave. I'm a target wherever I go. Why me?!"
Ironhide let him rant and yell until he was done. "I can't tell you why, Will. I can only tell you whatever happens, I'll be there, too."
Will found himself smiling a little at that. "Yeah. Bonded and all."
"I'm your friend foremost. Even without a bond I'd be there. The bond is the icing, as you would say."
"If you were human I'd say you're out for sex."
Ironhide rumbled a laugh. "First of all…"
"Yeah, not sex," Will recited automatically, smiling.
The familiar banter had him relax a little more. He watched a lone rune crawl over his hand and disappear into the skin of his ring finger. Concentrating on his right hand he felt a tingle, then suddenly the runes rose to the surface, strong and steady and a burned golden color, and he watched and felt as energy gathered between his fingers.
Ironhide made a surprised noise and Will felt the scans bounce over his body.
"This might be a problem," he remarked softly.
"So far all your abilities required your conscious effort," the mech told him after a minute of silent study of the energy crackling between human fingers. "I doubt this could happen in your sleep."
Will shrugged and spread his fingers. The energy hissed a little and glowed a soft blue. Thinking 'Off', Will was more than surprised to notice that it actually did disappear.
"Maybe it's cool after all," he conceded.
Ironhide was still scanning and it was unnerving, as well as a little sickening.
"You need to train this," he finally decided.
"I knew you'd say this. I'd prefer the sex," Lennox muttered.
The grin was almost teasing. "Work first." The scans stopped and Ironhide rose. "I'll check the simulation chamber," he decided. "We'll meet in one hour."
"You're no fun," was the sighed reply.
"One hour," Ironhide repeated.
Lennox gave a mock salute, secretly glad for the distraction. Getting beat up by Ironhide would at least keep him from thinking too much – at least for a while.
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He didn't know what had woken him. There was a moment of confusion, then he blinked heavy eyes open, gazing sleepily around the dark room. Only the faint morning light coming through the half open window illuminated the bedroom. There was the soft sound of rain against the windows, which meant the weather forecast had been right for once. But it was a soothing sound, nothing to really wake him.
Faint light.
Morning.
Already?
He blinked again.
And then he became aware of the presence next to him. For a moment he felt alarmed. He rolled around and felt the weight shift.
"'Hide?"
Will Lennox tried to get his tired brain cells together. The last few days had taken their toll. He hadn't slept a lot and when he had found rest, his dreams had been close to nightmares. He had never been so glad for the fact that he didn't really need a lot of sleep. After the work-out with Ironhide the day before he had finally felt tired enough to catch some sleep.
"Yes, Will?" the presence said.
He blinked again, trying to focus on the black humanoid shape.
Hardlight hologram, he realized. As always without defined features, just the bright blue eyes that looked anything but human.
"What are you doing here?"
His brain was not yet working all that properly.
"Keeping an eye on you."
"Why?"
"You need rest. I wanted to make sure you get it."
Will curled closer to his partner and wrapped an arm around the holographic form. Hardlight felt very real. A bit more solid than a human being, but still real. Despite the fact that Ironhide didn't feel anything like a woman, he was comforting. Somewhere throughout the last decade Will's perceptions and expectations had changed profoundly. He didn't think he was 'gay'; he wasn't even human. So what if he found comfort in Ironhide? It had become so normal, like it was natural.
"Getting rest," he finally sighed.
"I woke you."
"Nope. You know I don't need that much sleep."
The blue eyes narrowed in a very human way, but the representation of Ironhide didn't move. He was still sitting next to Will.
"You needed rest. You were exhausted."
"Yeah. Maybe. You staying?"
"If you want me to."
"Energon levels?"
"I'm fine, Will," came the amused reply. "You don't have to remind me to play it safe."
"Good."
A hand touched him. As solid as the rest of the hologram. Will felt the touch on his skin, felt it trail over him, probably following glyphs and runes as they swirled over his body. One of those hands finally ran a line along his spine and over his shoulders – the stationary runes.
It was distracting.
It was nice.
Physical contact was very, very nice. They didn't do it often, mainly because it drained the mech, but Will enjoyed every minute Ironhide gave him. He was a hybrid, he had abilities like no other human, he could morph into a protoform mech, but he was human in many ways. His body still wanted touch.
Ironhide had found a way to give it to him.
Will smiled a little as he drifted off again.
Really, really nice.