Out in the Open

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers Animated/Masterforce, or any of the characters used within.

"I know I made a promise, but this is so boring," the white sports coupe moaned as she sat there in the parking lot, shining resplendently in the sun as she waited patiently for her driver.

An odd situation to be sure, were one unaware of the fact that said car was an Autobot from the world of Cybertron, who had taken a very wrong turn upon her arrival to Earth and wound up in Quebec, Canada.

Needless to say, she had been a little bit agitated at her initial situation (she had been sent to assist Ratchet, after all. Ratchet! How often did you get to work with a living legend?) and the rampant organic threat that was supposedly all over Earth didn't assuage her worries any.

"Still," she reflected, ignoring the lone teen on the sidewalk take a glance at her and stop dead. "I guess this isn't so bad."

Her outlook had changed when she had scanned her alternate mode – that had been the first time she had met her friend, and despite the initial burst of fear from both parties the two soon had an inseparable bond.

It was that bond that led the medic to stop fearing humans, it was that bond that made her all the more determined to do a fantastic job when she got her chance, and it was also that bond that had her sitting in the parking lot at 11:30 AM. Better than leaving her to walk, though she hadn't taken into account the long wait at school until classes let out.

"Primus, I hope her car gets fixed soon," she thought, not bothering to pay the approaching footsteps any mind until the human they belonged to stopped suddenly in front of her.

The structural changes associated with changing modes kept her from doing anything other than engaging the drive train of her vehicle form or activating her transformation cog, both which took a conscious effort – a good thing, because she would have jumped a little bit had she been able.

Car regarded teen, teen regarded car. Long-ish spiky brown hair, dark eyes, medium height, athletic build, little tan – pretty good looking by Terran standards she supposed, though admittedly she hadn't quite gotten the grasp of that concept yet.

He said nothing, simply opting to walk around her and scrutinize every curve of her form; it was a little bit uncomfortable, but she had gotten used to it. Apparently the car she had chosen to model herself after was a new one, and as a result many people stopped to 'ooh' and 'ahh'.

Flattering? She supposed, but then again she couldn't do much else besides rationalize. Still, she was only going to put up with this for a little while longer, and it wasn't like any of her admirers stuck around for too long.

Still, there was something… odd, about this one. There wasn't any adolescent admiration in his eyes; he was looking at her with a gaze that was almost inquisitive. Like he very much wanted to ask her a question, but he couldn't quite work up the nerve.

That alone should have been a warning sign.

The teen (finally!) finished his cursory inspection, and walked around to the driver's side door. Looking almost nervously left and right, he stepped closer, and suddenly the medic realized the possibility of him being a thief.

"Don't even try it," she thought, getting her alarm system ready and sending a transmission to her friend's phone. "The faculty may be kind of lax here, but they still come running when anti theft devices go off…"

Finally, satisfied with the fact that no one was around, he leaned a little bit closer to the car – and spoke words that left her neuro-processors scrambling for a foothold.

"So," he said in a light, even manner. "Why aren't you in Detroit with the rest of them?"

The blonde wasn't having the greatest day. While she didn't have to worry about rides thanks to her Cybertronian friend (something she still felt guilty about) the fact remained that A: this couldn't go on forever, and B: they were still having issues with fixing the engine.

"All right, so maybe the new car wasn't a foolproof idea," she moaned under the breath – the offer had been too good to pass up, even if she felt it was kind of a bribe for Mama and Papa being away for so long on their diplomatic work. Besides; it had looked great, and this was coming from someone who honestly didn't care about anything mechanical. How was she supposed to know that issues with new cars usually made themselves known in the initial models?

Her problems had started coming recently; an electrical issue here, an unpleasantly loud shift there, nothing major. Then the car had trouble turning over, and soon she found herself having to accept rides from an Autobot medic, who had assured her it was okay at first but was sounding more and more haggard after school as the days went on.

"Hopefully they're done soon," she mumbled, as a vibration alerted her to a text message. Absentmindedly unlocking the screen, she let her eyes roll over the brief message –

And she suddenly started running for the front door, blowing by the surprised receptionist without a word of explanation.

"I don't know who you are, but you've got some explaining to do when I get over there…!"

"I mean," he continued blissfully unaware of the medic's current state of shock. "I thought they'd need all the help they could get with all the Decepticon issues. Don't tell me you got lost," he added, laughing as if it were meant to be a joke.

… well, it probably was, but she was too busy panicking to be even remotely amused. She had been taught to deal with a lot of things, but talking with someone for whom the secret wasn't even a secret was not one of them, and she was debating not saying anything at all.

But then again, her cover had been broken. At the very least, she had to find out how.

"How did you know?" came the question, the audio from the speakers being carefully modulated to keep it to a radius of a few meters. The teen blinked guilelessly a couple of times before breaking into an easy grin.

"You've got an Autobot symbol on your roof rack," he told her, shrugging his shoulders. "I mean, it's not that big and a lot of people probably wouldn't look there, but…"

She groaned. Her faction symbol. Somehow neither one of them had considered the possibility that someone might recognize it. Whoops.

He waved a hand in response. "Don't sweat it. Supposedly Decepticon presence doesn't extend to anywhere near here, so I think you're safe."

"Good to know," she responded guardedly. This human seemed friendly enough, and there was no hostile intentions signaled as of yet. Still…

"Who are you?" the Autobot asked, a little calmer now but wanting answers. "Comparatively speaking, few humans know of our presence, and most of them have made contact with the main Autobot contingent here on Earth in one way or another. You, however…"

He coughed lightly, raising one hand to scratch his cheek a little. "Fair enough. I'm – "

"Hey!"

A loud voice echoing across the parking lot caught the attention of both parties. The medic was relieved to see her partner striding across the half-full concrete lot, annoyance radiating from her blue eyes.

The male blinked a little, surprised by the intrusion – but he didn't exactly consider it unwelcome, judging from the split-second look on his face.

"Right," she muttered, "I sent her a warning because I thought you might have been a thief. The way you were skulking about, I had reason to be concerned."

The blonde immediately stopped dead, her mouth dropping open, and the car belatedly realized that she had never spoken in front of anyone else before. Double whoops.

"Ah, whatever. Can't blame you, really – I took my time coming up to you, anyway," he told her, looking toward the now alarmed looking blonde. "Good choice in cars, by the way," he said to her with a small grin. "Cybertronians get pretty fantastic ratings across the board. I'm a bit jealous, rainy days make mine dangerous to drive…"

The poor girl was now looking at the boy with an expression of utter confusion – clearly, she had no idea what to say, either.

"You were introducing yourself, I think," the medic finally said to the other teen, and he took the prompt without pause.

"Right, right," he said, nodding as he walked over to the girl and extending his hand. "I'm Shuta Go. Nice to meet you."

It looked as though being surprised out of her wits wasn't enough to keep her manners from coming to the fore, as before she knew it her hand was slipped into Shuta's and shaking it like she had been taught ever since she was young. "I-I'm Minerva," she got out, finally looking a little bit more at ease now. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Shuta smiled apologetically. "Sorry about causing the ruckus. I saw the symbol on the roof and couldn't resist. Think I creeped her out a little bit – my bad, um…?"

"Minerva," came the medic's response.

Dead silence.

"… really?" he asked, looking a little bit amused. "What are the odds on that, exactly?"

"Astronomically low – I crunched the numbers. Believe me, we were surprised too," the Autobot told Shuta, her mood considerably lighter than it had been a few minutes ago. Beside her, Minerva couldn't help but giggle a little.

"But yeah, I'm guessing you want answers?" Shuta asked, crossing his arms and looking at the pair with a significantly more serious expression. Upon seeing the girl's nod and the car's flicker, he continued on.

"My father's a scientist," he began. "His public work is focused on astronomy, space exploration – stuff like that."

"And his non-public work?" the car asked, having caught on almost immediately.

"Robotics. To be more specific, integration between man and machine at a nanomolecular level. It's got some amazing possibilities, I'll tell you right now."

"I'm sure," Minerva said impatiently, drawing a slight frown from her human counterpart. "But you know of us how…?"

Shuta laughed. "My dad knows Isaac Sumdac. They aren't super-close friends or anything, but here on Earth when two scientific minds turn out to be kindred spirits, they're a lot more forthcoming with findings and such.

"'The' Isaac Sumdac? Of Sumdac Systems?" the girl asked, clearly having recognized the name.

"The one and only," Shuta confirmed. "A lot of Sumdac tech was engineered from a singular source, according to my dad – a Cybertronian source, we know now."

"Megatron," the Autobot growled darkly, the legend of the Decepticon warlord having been spread far and wide across Cybertron, even after his so-called defeat.

"Yeah," he nodded, looking grim for a moment before speaking again. "Anyway, my dad and Mr. Sumdac have been keeping up correspondence for a long while now – I've been privy to a lot of it, of only because I've been helping my dad more and more with his work."

"Which is?" came the simultaneous query from both Minervas, resulting in a look of surprise from Shuta and an embarrassed flush from the human.

"Better… humans, kind of. Like I said earlier, nanomolecular integration between man and machine has amazing possibilities. Enhanced healing and recovery. Making people faster, stronger. And that's just scratching the surface. With one-to-one integration, if we ever get there… who knows?"

"I can see why that might be non-public," the medic said. "It seems as though the military would like to get their hands on something like that."

His gaze hardened slightly. "No chance. That's actually why one of the reasons why my dad and Mr. Sumdac get along so well – they both refuse to let the military monopolize their work. The closest thing to a concession Mr. Sumdac's done is allow the construction of armed police droids – and even then, there's a wide gulf between conquest and defense. And my dad? As far as I know he wants to push human potential as far as he can possibly push it."

"That sounds interesting," the blonde commented, genuinely impressed. "And you're helping him with this?"

Shuta laughed aloud then, surprising them both. "It's… actually not," he chuckled, shrugging his shoulders. "I mean conceptually it's amazing, but there's a lot of busy work and research to hack through too. Plus needing to get take out all the time because neither of us has the time to cook, the constant moves, learning the lingo – oh man, if I hear the word 'Transtector' one more time…"

"Moves?" the girl asked, looking confused.

"Yeah," he nodded. "There's so much to do that I haven't been in one place ever since I was twelve. We left Japan and bounced all over the globe for the better part of five years, and even before it was the two of us Dad was doing this by himself because I wouldn't have helped that much."

The grin had faded slightly, and there seemed to be a slight weight to Shuta's shoulders now. While there was no doubt that the young man believed in what his father was doing, there was also no doubt that it was also hard on him as well. A quick look at her partner indicated that she was wearing a sympathetic expression – as the child of diplomats who were constantly out of the country, she knew all too well what taking care of herself was like.

Shuta evidently saw this, because he started waving his hands hastily, as if to ward her off. "It's not that bad," he told her, nodding in affirmation. "It's been tough, but there've been a lot more good times then bad ones – I mean, I have a friend who lives in the jungle. You think I would have met him just staying in Japan?"

She laughed. "Fair enough," she told him, smiling slightly as she brushed some hair out of her eyes.

A companionable silence.

"Anyway," Shuta finally said, stepping away from the pair and turning to the side. "I should probably get going – I've taken up a lot of your time. Sorry for the false alarm," he apologized again.

"That's all right," came the response from the blonde. "I had a free period, anyway, so I didn't miss anything."

"And I just stay here in this parking lot because her car's out of commission," said the coupe, chuckling a little bit much to her friend's chagrin. "You humans need to learn how to make better vehicles."

"Hey, they do the job," he defended. "Still, guess that's pretty nice of you offering yourself up for transportation."

"Of course. Minerva's my friend. She was the first organic I met," the car replied easily. "She let me scan her car for a vehicle mode, and she helped me find a place to hide when I came to after I crash-"

She cut herself off immediately, but she knew the boy had heard. His eyes widening, he asked incredulously "That was supposed to be a joke earlier! Don't tell me you actually got lost?"

"Oh, she won't," Minerva assured him, as she laid her hands on the bonnet. She's still kind of sore about it, actually."

"Not as sore as you'll be if you have to walk home today…!"

Shuta couldn't help it as he threw his head back and started to laugh. Minerva joined in quite quickly, and despite the jibes the medic found herself joining in.

"It's a shame, though," he managed to gasp out as his fit wound down. "I never got to hear your guys' stories. Guess that'll have to be another time, huh?"

"I suppose so," the blonde acknowledged, a hint of melancholy in her voice, before she stepped forward and extended her hand.

"It really was nice to meet you," Minerva told her new friend as he reached out to take it. "I do hope we see each other again, and sorry for making such a bad first impression."

"Oh, I'm sure we'll run into each other somewhere down the line," he responded evenly, maybe holding on a little bit longer than he strictly had to before letting go. "And again, don't worry about it. If I'd seen someone talking to my car, I'd have been creeped out, too."

Turning around to walk away, he raised his index and middle fingers and gave the pair a two-fingered salute. "Take care, guys!" he called out, as he began walking. "We need to finish this conversation one day!"

"We well, I promise!" the girl called out, her voice carrying easily in the slight breeze.

A minute or two, and the retreating figure was down the street and out of sight.

"Well," the coupe finally said, breaking the short spell. "He was interesting, wouldn't you say?"

"Mm," came the quiet response.

"Talkative, aren't we?"

"I just hope – I hope that the two of them maybe settle down for a while," she finally said, crossing her arms. "Close to the end, he looked…"

"Like you did, when I first met you?" the medic thought, not daring to voice her opinion but remembering all too well the pained look in her eyes that preceded the surprise when she saw a giant robot standing above her.

"Lonely," she finally finished, looking a little uncomfortable.

"That's a yes."

Out loud, she assured her "He'll be fine. He seemed strong, that one. Personally, I'm just glad to know that there's another ally for us Autobots if that ever comes down to it."

"He seemed like he'd be glad to help, if he could," Minerva noted, sitting on the hood of the car with a faint sigh. "It's also kind of nice to know that there's someone like me out there."

"Someone with knowledge of us, you mean? Another secret-keeper's good for the psyche, I suppose. At least you know you're not doing this by yourself."

Her partner didn't reply.

A week passed, Minerva's car remained unfixed, and the medic was slowly starting to spiral into insanity. It had been only about ten minutes since she had left for class, but to the coupe it had already felt like six hours.

"I can only review old data tracks so many times…" she lamented, as her sensors picked up another car driving into the lot. "That's odd, I thought all of the students that drove were here already…"

A crystal white RX-7 rolled into the lot, stopping briefly before sliding into the spot next to the Autobot.

"Hmm. Car looks to be kept in good shape, but it's quite an outdated model – who would possibly – "

Her train of thought was cut off when the door swung open and Shuta almost fell out, the teen in such a rush to leave that he nearly tripped. Giving a quick glance upward as he righted himself and closed the door, he raised an eyebrow before he asked "You're still doing this?"

"Good to see you too," the medic replied with a hint of sarcasm. "What are you doing here, anyway? We thought you would have been gone by now."

"So did I," he replied, throwing a backpack onto one shoulder. "But I got a message from dad a few days ago. Looks like this'll be my home base for a while – he's got stuff to do before he comes back, though."

"I see. Well, if you're going to be here for an extended period of time, then could you please maybe see about fixing my partner's car?" she asked with just a tinge of desperation as she remembered how good his vehicle looked after her quick scan.

"I could probably handle that, yeah," he laughed, as he started to run. "But right now I'm late, so I'll talk to you later, all right?" he told her as he sprinted off, not allowing her to get a word in edgewise.

Homeroom was abuzz. Their school normally didn't get transfer students, so saying that this was a surprise was a bit of an understatement.

"Wonder where they came from?"

"You think they'll be nice?"

"Screw that, I just hope it's a good looking she!"

"Pig!"

And so on and so forth. Minerva didn't bother paying too much attention to the proceedings as she flipped through her novel; her friends had been excited, but other than a few cursory comments she hadn't really joined in. The only thing that mattered was making them feel welcome, anyway.

The sound of the door opening and the teacher muttering 'mon dieu' at the new arrival's tardiness caught her ears for a little while, but she didn't really tune in until he had started the official spiel.

"Class, as you may know we've received a recent transfer," he said, as always his tone lacking any sort of enthusiasm or energy. "Please introduce yourself," he instructed in a lower voice, as the new arrival stepped forward.

A couple of impressed sounds from her friends around her seat made her set her book down and look up, but it was the sound of his voice that stopped her cold.

"Hello," Shuta nodded politely at the group in front of him, his expression neutral. "I'm Shuta Go. It's a pleasure."

The teacher nodded disinterestedly, having already started flipping through his lesson plan. "Please feel free to take a seat at an empty spot," he told the youth distractedly, waving at the rows of desks.

Mumbling quietly under his breath "Don't sound too excited, there," he looked up and down until he spied who he was looking for and started moving.

Walking down the aisle until he was in front of Minerva, Shuta stopped and threw her a grin as he plopped himself down in the vacant seat behind her. "Hey."

"Hi," Minerva returned the greeting pleasantly, setting the book aside and turning around to better talk to him. "I didn't think I'd be seeing you again so soon."

"Neither did I, but like I told your… friend," he finally got out, having had to catch himself at the last second, "dad's got this set as home base for the next little while. Not sure why, but he seems excited. Really excited."

"Well, that's good news I suppose," she said brightly, ignorant of the growing whispers around them. "At least the two of us get to share our stories, this time."

"I'm looking forward to that. I mean, I need to know; how the hell do you get that lost?" he asked rhetorically. "Wanting Detroit and winding up in Quebec is a little…"

"Yes, I know," she shrugged. "I'm glad she did, though. C'est la vie, non?"

His expression went blank. "Huh?"

She laughed, and he found it a pleasing noise despite the situation. "You do know that French is one of the official languages in this province, yes? Hopefully you're a quick study," she jibed lightly.

Shuta threw up his hands. "I'm from Japan! When would I have ever needed French over there?"

"About as much as I needed Japanese here," she said fluently in his native tongue, and she couldn't help feeling a little bit smug as his jaw dropped. "But that didn't stop me, now did it?"

He simply shook his head in surrender. "I'm impressed, ojou-san. So much I didn't know," he replied, matching her little grin with one of his own.

"You'll learn," she teased, smiling mischievously one last time before she turned around to face the front.

AN: Wow, I'm honestly not quite sure where this came from. I was doing some reading on Animated Minerva on TF Wiki, and started making connections with how G1 characters had Animated counterparts (say hello to the Witwickys) and wondered how I could work Masterforce in there somehow. 4000 words or so and a couple of character inferences/changes later (the teenage driver that Minerva befriends in canon doesn't actually have a name, but I wanted to see if I could make it work – I kept her being half European/Japanese though – dunno how well I did with conceiving an Animated Shuta, but I believed that being a bit older would have ironed out a few of his more hot-blooded kinks) and we have this. Hope you guys enjoyed it!