A/N: You'll notice that I am not making use of Robin's affinity for word creation. This is because I feel that I would botch it up so badly that it would be physically painful to read (update: That does not mean I don't actually know what non-words he invented, just that I shouldn't attempt to include them because I would do a shoddy job of it). Also note that it had been months since I viewed either series at the time I wrote this story.
Robin leaped up onto the metal skin of one of the purple robots. The edges of the metal plates made excellent hand holds and he soon reached the robot's shoulder. It was barely aware of him, consumed by what it was doing. He had anticipated this, indeed he had counted on it.
He pulled out an explosive and dropped it beneath the robot's plated skin. He didn't pause to see what effect it would have, leaping immediately to another robot and planting an explosive on that one in the same way. As he lunged onto the third, the first one's back exploded.
Metal shards flew violently from the robot's back and it staggered, flaming from the inside. It made a sound akin to a scream, thrashing and clawing futilely at itself, unable to reach its flaming backside. After several moments, it collapsed to the ground, twitching and sparking occasionally.
Robin had enough experience with robots to know that lobbing grenades was a futile exercise. But he had been hoping that sticking an explosive under the robot's plating would at least be somewhat like sticking an ice cube down someone's shirt. He hadn't expected to actually kill the robot, and maybe he hadn't. But he did succeed in distracting it and causing chaos among the others as the second one burst into flames.
No sooner had Robin planted the third explosive than the horde turned on him. They had ignored him before, dismissing him as utterly harmless. Now they had rethought that assumption, and decided they didn't like what they'd thought of. The robot Robin was perched on snatched at him, but he was between its shoulder blades, clinging on like a monkey. This was a bad place to be, as this location would shortly be on fire.
The other robots would undoubtedly attack him if he tried to hop to them, so there was only one choice. He jumped onto the Autobot in the hopes that it would (unlike the others) not attempt to smash him flat, landing on a wing-like protrusion on its right shoulder. It let out a startled buzz. Then, in a whir of motor noises, it transformed back into a car and Robin realized what he'd been holding onto had been a door.
He found himself in the passenger seat of the car, which roared away from the battlefield as quickly as it seemed capable of, kicking up clouds of dust as it went. The other robots gave chase, also transforming into cars. Robin looked out the back window at them, and saw that they were well able to keep pace.
The Autobot had taken damage which was uncomfortably apparent as it lurched violently from time to time. Bright blue laser flashes shot by the windows, but the Autobot was a talented dodger and swerved side to side fluidly, avoiding each potentially deadly beam.
The car made a clicking sound, then buzzed urgently. At first, Robin thought it was once again trying to communicate with him, but then he realized that it was speaking through a radio. A voice replied, one clearly metallic, but not quite so flat as the voices of the purple robots.
"Where are you, Bumblebee?" the voice asked.
A series of buzzes and chirps followed. Robin listened closely, detecting a clear pattern to the at first meaningless sounding noises. He was fluent in a number of languages and excelled at pattern recognition. If this was indeed a language, he figured he could learn it, given enough time. He didn't want to be here that long but, if he was, he might as well start learning now.
"Arcee and Bulkhead will ground bridge to your coordinates."
The intonation of the acknowledging burr sounded like a request that they hurry.
A moment later, a shimmering vortex opened on the road ahead. A slim, feminine blue robot and an army green behemoth who somehow resembled a tank or else a large bowling ball emerged. The vortex spun out and disappeared. The Autobot swerved around them as they assumed a fighting stance.
It swung sideways and began to transform, slowly enough that Robin could reposition himself. It was clear that the Autobot wanted him to get out and hide behind some nearby rocks, but instead he climbed up onto its shoulder. There was no time for argument.
"Who's your friend?" the female robot asked.
It was at this point that Robin decided he should stop thinking of the robots as 'it'. Clearly, there were male and female varieties. This was a thought which had not occurred to him until now, seeing as he was somewhat preoccupied.
The yellow robot made some kind of reply, which roughly sounded like 'I'll explain later'.
Holding to the Autobot's shoulder with one hand, Robin pulled out two explosive birdarangs. The advancing horde seemed smaller than before, and did not include the coward leader. They transformed on approach, looking less confident than before. Yet Robin knew 'his' side was still outnumbered.
"Hold still," he instructed the Autobot, hoping it would deign to listen.
Taking careful aim, he threw the two birdarangs. One lodged in a robot's forearm, the other hit its mark between the shield skin plates of another. Both made 'chunk' noises that drew attention. The stricken robots looked down curiously at their new ornaments. One did not have long to contemplate as the explosion in his chest plate took him down and left him smoking on the ground. The other was startled by the explosion, but the birdarang had not penetrated its shielding, so it was surprised, but mostly unhurt. Robin drew two more birdarangs and waited.
His play proved successful. The robots turned tail and ran, unwilling to fight three Autobots plus an exceptionally capable human enemy. The robots couldn't know it, but the birdarangs he'd thrown were the last of his explosives. He had just bluffed that he was as dangerous as they were, though he was now virtually helpless against them. As the robots retreated, he sighed heavily and patted the yellow robot's shoulder.
"Thanks," he breathed.
The robot, someone had called him Bumblebee, said something that sounded like an off-hand remark.
"I guess we can't just leave you here," the female robot said, "seeing as the Decepticons were dead-set on frying you."
"Decepta... what now?" Robin blinked slowly.
"Decepticons," the heavy-set robot explained, "they're basically evil and want to rule the galaxy. It's a good thing Bee was on patrol around here, or you'd be history."
"Decepticons bad, Autobots good. Good to know," Robin replied brightly.
Bumblebee made a flurry of buzzing noises, which seemed to startle his companions.
"Not so helpless, huh?" Arcee said, raising an eyebrow.
Were they still eyebrows if they were on robots? Robin decided not to ask.
"Helpless enough," Robin said, but did not elaborate.
"Well, come on, you're coming back to base with us," Arcee told him.
"I'd rather go home, but as that doesn't seem to be in the cards, sure, I'll tag along with you guys," Robin replied, "you seem cool."
After the disorienting chaos of the abyss, the ground bridge proved to be a walk in the park for Robin. On the other side, his quick eyes took in every detail of the Autobot base. He let out an impressed whistle at the size of the place. It reminded him of Mount Justice.
"Abandoned military base?" he guessed, "Nice."
He was still perched on Bumblebee's shoulder and felt disinclined to climb down to the ground where he might get stepped on. He enjoyed heights. You could see everything from up high, and had any number of options on where to go and how to get there. The ground was a place you really didn't want to be if you wanted freedom of movement. Or to avoid being stepped on by giants.
"What's this? Another one?" an orange and white Autobot groused, "As if we don't have enough human problems as it is," he threw up his hands with an annoyed grunt.
"We didn't have much choice," the she-bot explained, "the cons wanted him dead, we couldn't just leave him out in the middle of the desert to fend for himself, now could we?"
The orange robot, who somehow sounded much older than the others, made an irritated noise which didn't qualify as an actual word, yet perfectly described his feelings on the subject. Robin already liked him. He was so grumpy, it was really kind of endearing.
A heavy clunking sound announced the arrival of yet another robot. Robin whirled to face this new bot, forgetting for a moment that he was in a base which should be safe. He tensed and pulled out a pair of birdarangs, knowing they were virtually useless, but still better than nothing.
"Whoa, easy, he's on our side," the green robot said, holding up an enormous hand.
He didn't know Robin was unarmed (or at least he was when it came to taking down large robots anyway), knew only what he had seen, and that was that this tiny human somehow had the ability to disable and possibly even kill a robot.
"Sorry," Robin said, putting his weapons away reluctantly, "I'm a little jumpy."
"Understandable," the tall Autobot who had just arrived said, "considering your ordeal."
"Ordeal?" Robin scoffed, "You think being attacked by robots is an ordeal? That's totally normal for me. Well... very nearly normal anyway. Semi-normal?... hmm... yeah, go with that."
The Autobots exchanged wary glances, which suggested that something he'd said brought to mind an enemy they felt he resembled somehow.
"Even being sling-shot around the world doesn't come as much of a surprise," Robin went on, feigning obliviousness to the concerned looks, "however, being sucked into a fiery abyss into another dimension... or whatever this is... actually... no... that's pretty normal too. But not usually all in one day. So... who are you guys? I'm Robin, by the way."
As he had been talking, he'd picked up speed and begun to fidget, and actually pace around on Bumblebee's shoulders, looking curiously around, taking in the finer details of his environment as he talked, trying to relieve some of the nervous energy that seemed to be oozing out of him.
"Ooh, shiny," he abruptly hopped from Bumblebee and onto a steel platform.
He crouched before an oversized computer which reminded him of the one back home.
"Don't touch that!" the orange and white Autobot objected, "That's very sensitive equipment, not a child's plaything."
"Relax," Robin tossed over his shoulder, "I'm just looking. Besides, I've got a way with computers."
He declined to mention that he had received extensive training in hacking, figuring that was information they didn't need. Besides, it would probably not endear him to the Autobots if they knew that he had already figured how to wipe out their entire system just by looking at it.
"We," the tall Autobot said, answering Robin's earlier question, "are Autobots."
"So I gathered," Robin replied, "I was looking for something like names, designations -rank and serial number if you prefer- whatever. I already know he's Bumblebee," Robin jabbed a finger towards the yellow Autobot, "and a wild guess says that the big green is Bulkhead which makes the blue lady over there Arcee. And you would be?"
"I am Optimus Prime, and this is Ratchet," amazingly, the tallest of the Autobots did not seem in any way ruffled or off put by Robin's near-frantic energy and hyperactive mouth.
"Do you have any idea why the Decepticons were after you?" Ratchet asked, sounding somewhat impatient with the proceedings.
Robin turned away from the computer, shrugged and then hopped up onto the railing around the platform and began to walk along it. It gave him something to concentrate on other than his uncomfortable predicament and instinctive distrust of the Autobots.
They had rescued him, yes. So far they were friendly enough, but he couldn't help but feel uneasy. They were strangers to him, this whole place was strange to him, so close to comfortable normality that he could almost taste it, yet unappealing in its difference from his home.
He didn't have to try to radio home to know he was too far for them to answer. This might be Earth, but it wasn't his Earth. It was somewhere bizarre and different and that made him decidedly uncomfortable.
"I have no idea," he elaborated when the Autobots seemed to be waiting for something more than a shrug, "One minute I'm in Bludhaven, fighting the standard evil bad guy, next thing I know I'm falling, sucked into some sort of wacky-time-space field and then BAM!" he jumped down off the railing onto another platform, "some faceless tin-plated morons want to use me as a stress ball."
He paced, then flipped onto another railing and began to walk up and down it.
"And before you get all offended, I meant the Decepticons, not you guys. You seem cool, and in no way moronic," Robin couldn't tell what the Autobots were thinking, though their eyes and faces were expressive, they were carefully schooling their looks to appear bland.
"School's almost out," Arcee said, apparently at random.
It seemed to mean something to the rest of the group as they visibly reacted, looking from one to another. They looked to Robin, and a few cast glances at Bumblebee. Robin picked up on it. Bumblebee was supposed to be somewhere and they were concerned about how Robin might react to that. Having been rescued by the yellow Autobot, they seemed to realize he might feel safer with his rescuer than the others.
"Hey, don't worry about me," Robin said, then assured them, "I have got absolutely nothing better to do than hang around here. At least, not right now."
He fully intended to find his way home. But that would mean going back to where he started, where the Decepticons seemed to be hanging around. And that was something he didn't feel up to quite yet. This seemed as safe a place as any to rest, safer than most even.
To emphasize his point, he flipped over to a platform with a sofa and plunked himself down on it. He had noticed it earlier, and absorbed its probable meaning at first glance. Maybe there were no people here now, but there must be sometimes because the Autobots clearly had no use for such a tiny object, even if they did sit down sometimes, which didn't appear to be the case from the appearance of the room, which was somewhat lacking in the Autobot-sized furniture department.
Optimus Prime nodded to Bumblebee, who transformed into a car and drove off, followed by Bulkhead and Arcee, who turned into an SUV and motorcycle respectively.