Right, this is connected to my longer story, The Long Road Home, and is set in the space between chapters 20 and 21.

As a GIANT thank you to every single one of my readers for their immense patience with my haphazard posting, here is a bonus chapter! Remember that night when Mirage, Hound, and Jazz got pretty much fall down drunk? (Great example there guys by the way ;3) Well, this is the morning after, and a certain techno-organic isn't too happy with one of them...

...

Bonus Chapter: Peg's Revenge!

There were lots of things that bothered Peg. Wet straw, people making her wait on them when they were late, that horrible odor human females liked to dab on their necks-

-great blue bigfoots spouting nonsense at two in the morning and interrupting her sleep.

…

Alright, so she'd never really had to worry about that last one before, but right now it certainly had her full attention.

Peg glared at the blue and white nuisance sitting against the wall to her right. Why wouldn't he sleep?! And more importantly…why wouldn't he let her sleep?!

Irritated, Peg stamped a hoof and blew out a snort of hot air. This was ridiculous, especially since she had thought her human had grown out of wanting to talk for hours late into the night ages ago. But noo~ooo. He had to amuse the bigfoot with this listening nonsense!

"Can't you do this later?" Peg irritably demanded of her human over their tether bond.

Nathanial shot his steed a sharp look that said he couldn't.

Peg snorted and stamped again. "If you're not going to be reasonable then I am going to bite you both." She threatened.

Her human's only answer was to walk farther along the counter and sit down.

Well out of her biting range.

Peg's ears flicked backwards in a threatening manner, although it wasn't nearly as threatening as the words she grumbled at him across their bond.

Nathanial shot her a sharp look. "Where'd you ever hear words like that?" He demanded.

Peg blinked at him, suddenly all innocence. "From you." She told him with too much honey in her words.

Nathanial frowned and then turned back to Mirage, pointedly ignoring her.

Peg glared at his back.

"You're being mean," she told him grumpily, "Nathanial I'm tired!" She whined.

He continued to ignore her, but she saw him turn her way just the tiniest bit. She was wearing him down. Humans were so predictable at times.

"No wonder their offspring are so annoying. It gets them what they want." Peg thought, although she made sure to keep that thought to herself.

She shuffled anxiously from hoof to hoof and snorted nervously, like she was more upset by not sleeping then anything.

"Pleeeeaase Nathanial? Can't you just take this somewhere else so I can sleep? Pretty pretty pleeeeease?" Peg repeated something she'd heard one of the smaller bigfoots use on Aria. She wasn't sure how a please could be pretty, or how saying it many times over worked better then just saying it once, but if it worked….

Peg made sure to blink large, round eyes at her human. She knew he could see her out of the corner of his eye.

She had just felt his will about to crumble when Mirage unknowingly uttered the fatal words about why he was here with the Autobots-

"Because she isn't…"

"Blast it!" Peg screamed in her head as the Bigfoot's soft words cut through Peg's spell.

Nathanial shot her a sharp look and Peg went still.

"Oh…" she thought slowly, "you heard that, didn't you?"

Nathanial's lowered eyebrows told her that he had.

Peg lowered her head, feeling contrite, and Nathanial turned back to Mirage, thinking that Peg actually felt ashamed for her callous outburst.

He was wrong of course. The only thing that had Peg feeling guilty was the fact that she'd gotten caught. Now she'd have to think of a new plan!

Peg stamped furiously as Nathanial fastened his sympathetic attention on Mirage.

"Blast you Bigfoot!" Peg thought with an irritated snort. "Why must you have such sob stories? Why?!"

Mirage couldn't hear her, so of course he didn't answer.

Peg stared at him, ears flicked back dangerously as she listened. "Yes, you left her alone, something bad happened, and you'll be lonely and wrought with self imposed guilt the rest of your life. Boo hoo." Peg groused. "The only reason my human is still listening to you is because he thinks your story is sadder than the fact that I can't sleep. Stupid human empathy…." She grumbled.

Mirage just went on talking, ignoring Peg completely.

Of course this only made her more annoyed. "I see what you're doing there Bigfoot. You're trying to steal my human!" She rumbled angrily in her narrow chest. "With your sadness and your crying and your whininess. Well it won't work! I'll get you for this Bigfoot! And Nathanial will like me best like he always does. You just wait and see…"

Different devilish plans were already beginning to float around Peg's head even as she finally managed to drift off to sleep as Mirage's story ended.

...

Despite her ruined sleep schedule the night before, Peg woke up bright and early like she always did. She waited a little while, and then roused her human when she got tired of waiting.

"Wake up sleepy bones!" Peg ordered Nathanial as she nosed his hair. "You have to get up and make me look pretty. And then you have to make you look pretty."

Nathanial groaned from where his face was buried in his makeshift bedding. "Human males aren't s'pposed to look pretty Peg…" he mumbled just loud enough for her to here.

Peg switched her ears at him and rumbled as she nosed him again. "I'll make sure to tell Aria that when she gets here." She told him.

Nathanial lifted his head and blinked at her with bleary eyes. "Aria's coming over?" He mumbled, still not quite awake.

Peg looked at him with wide open eyes. "Oh yes, you told her to."

Nathanial tried to think, although this early it was hard. "I did?" He asked his partner.

Peg nodded. "Yes you did. Now get up. My back itches."

Nathanial groaned, but did as she said, slowly hauling himself up to his feet, letting his covers land in a rumpled heap on the countertop.

A short while later, any lingering angriness Peg had been harboring from the night before disappeared when her human fed her and then set to work attacking the persistent itch on her back.

"Yes, that's the spot…" Peg sighed and hung her head. She was feeling much better now that Nathanial was paying attention to her again.

"As he should." She thought proudly.

A loud, mechanical groan – like gears grinding together unpleasantly – interrupted her preening. Opening her round eyes, Peg looked over to see the Bigfoot moving from where he'd fallen asleep against the wall.

Nathanial looked over Peg's back at him. "Morning Mirage." He told him tiredly. Though he had woken up a little more after he tried to feed Peg his socks instead of her breakfast.

Mirage just groaned again. He tried standing up, but only ended up stepping on himself and sliding back down to the floor. He moaned again and steadied his wobbling head with a large hand.

Her human had more empathy for the mech than Peg did. "How's your head?" Nathanial asked, some sardonic tweak coming back into his voice.

"Feels like it's going to split open at any moment." Mirage confessed, his voice barely more than a rasp.

"Hm," Nathanial snorted as he stood up, "serves you right. You probably imbibed enough to pickle a large mini-con."

"Doubt it." Mirage muttered. But then a particularly loud hiccup made him jump against the wall. He cradled his head as soon as he landed.

"Sweet Primus!" He groaned as he tried to keep his circuitry inside his skull.

Now Peg remembered why she had been so annoyed with him. "His groaning is almost as bad as his whining." She thought in annoyance.

Mirage's optic shutters slit open, revealing a blue-green light that was just off of their normal color. Peg couldn't get a good look though because the blue bigfoot groaned and quickly shuttered his optics again against the dim light of the room.

Peg whickered a laugh. "He's funny when he's not busy being stupid." She told her human.

Nathanial barely had time to roll his eyes before Mirage half slurred, "Nathanial, would you kindly tell your techno-organic mule to keep her opinions to herself?"

Peg's ears pricked up. "Mule?!" She shouted furiously.

She had the satisfaction of seeing Mirage cringe and hold his head again before Nathanial pulled her away. It was probably a sign of just how well her human knew her, because by the time she had managed to start her transformation so she could fly over and bite him, Nathanial had dragged her back, well away from the edge of the counter.

"Okay," Nathanial grumbled, "that's enough of that."

"It most certainly is not!" Peg told him, wings flapping twice to try and escape, but when she couldn't, she collapses back down into her usual four-legged form. "Nathanial, he called me a mule." She whinnied plaintively.

Nathanial ran a hand through his rat's nest of hair and sighed loudly, but before he could try and sooth her someone tentatively rapped on the door outside.

Knock knock knock. "Hello? You up yet Nat?"

Mirage groaned at the sound of Aria's muffled voice. "Infernal...knocking..." he grumbled, covering his face with his hands as if that could keep the sound out. Peg looked up just in time to see him slither to the floor with another gear-grinding groan.

Peg snickered, taking an animal kind of pleasure in Mirage's misery. "Serves you right Bigfoot!" She told him, arching her neck with pride.

Nathanial went to call out to Aria, but then thought better of it with a look at Mirage. Of course, since Aria couldn't see through walls, it wasn't long before she called cheerily through the door, "Come on sunshine! Wakey, wakey! You gotta get up and face the day and all that jazz."

Mirage groaned and lifted his head high enough off the floor to shout feebly, "Femme, shut. Up!"

The area outside the door went silent, and then-

"Excuse me?!" Aria shouted, voice rising a few octaves.

Peg nosed Nathanial's arm, getting his attention. "She thinks he's you." She told him plainly. And then when he still didn't move she nosed him harder, cursing his human manners, and told him sternly, "Interrupting isn't always a bad thing!"

Nathanial's half awake mind must've finally caught up because he made a dive for the counter's edge and shouted, "That was Mirage, Aria! Just hold on a minute!"

It took him that long just to cross the room. Peg watched as her human slapped the door controls and stepped out. She caught sight of an unhappy looking Aria on the other side, arms crossed over her chest, before the door slid shut behind them.

Leaving Peg alone with Bigfoot...

She slid one dark eye towards the blue and white mech, but he was too busy trying to keep his head in one piece to notice her.

A muffled giggle flitted through under the doorjamb. Peg shook her sensory mane out with a snort. For a brief moment she'd heard raised voices, but apparently that had changed.

"Rather quick if you ask me." Peg thought with a snort. She liked the human female, really she did, and there were only so many other techno-organics out there that she got along with, but at this point Peg still wasn't sure what to think about Aria and her own human's...flirtations.

"Just what we all need," Peg thought, ears switching with nervous uncertainty, "a little herd of their colts and fillies running around and getting under hoof."

She was distracted from her inner mutterings by the abrasive sound of metal rubbing against metal scraping across her ears. Peg looked up, dancing in place slightly, to see it was only Mirage trying to get to his feet. The scraping sound was his hand sliding against the wall as he tried to use it for support in his morning-after state.

Peg struck the countertop with her iron shod hooves a bit more forcefully this time. "Stupid Bigfoot!" She snapped at him with a snort. "You scared me!"

Mirage slowly tilted his head up to glare at her, but seeing him hunched over, wobbling on shaky legs with one hand still pressed to his head as if to keep it on his shoulders, Peg wanted to laugh more than anything.

"You look funny." She told him cheerfully.

Mirage glared harder. "Mute it organic thing." He grumbled at her. "And for Primus' sake keep it down! My processor is killing me."

Peg went still, but not out of any consideration for the Autobot in front of her. She went still because his words had given her an idea. A terrible, nasty, he-brought-this-on-himself sort of idea.

If Equines could grin, Peg's would have been positively devilish.

"Oh really?" Peg asked too sweetly as she brought her left hoof up and let it clang mildly to the ground before doing the same with her right.

Mirage flinched as her iron shoes struck the metal countertop, the sharp sound doing nothing for his hangover. "Don't," he warned her with what would have been a stern digit pointed in her direction if it hadn't been shaking so much, "Even. Think about it."

Peg watched him, prancing in place now she was so pleased with herself. And then, quite ignoring Mirage's threat, smartly whacked her hooves rhythmically against the counter.

'Shave and a hair cut-!' she stamped.

The bigfoot stopped his wall creeping to hold his head and groan. Slowly, very slowly, he turned around to glare at her.

"Don't. You. Dare." He grumbled at her.

Peg smiled sweetly at him with her eyes and then struck the ground with all her might.

'-TWO BITS!'

Mirage hung his head in both his hands, daring to let go of the wall. "Primus almighty..." he groaned sickly before delving into a series of more...creative words to describe how he felt about life at that moment.

Peg just whickered a laugh as he continued his slow crawl for the door, cursing her existence the whole way.

The techno-organic sighed to herself when he finally left. "There," she said quite happily, "much better."