Of Sketches and Sneak Attacks
Kitty lay awake she looked at the digital alarm clock on the otherwise empty bedside table, it flashed two-am at her. Sighing, she knew she wasn't going to get anymore sleep that night and walked barefoot across the plush carpet she slipped some clothes and tied her hair in a tail on the top of her head. She grabbed her backpack and her boots and tiptoed to the door with them, making sure to pick up the neck chain with her access card on it before she left.
There was one male soldier on duty at the desk, she nodded to him like it was normal to be up at this time, he glanced at her then went back to his magazine disinterested. She slipped her feet into the boots before shouldering the backpack and leaving the building.
She walked to a stony outcrop over the sea and sat down cross-legged, pulling out her sketch pad and a pencil. Under the harsh floodlights she drew Ironhide, as he had looked on the firing range the day before although he had likely been showing off because he knew he was being watched. Each time he fired a canon the outer casing recoiled back leaving only the thinner barrel of the canon, though it was still large enough that she could probably sit inside. This was the moment she was trying to capture, the look of pure focus on his face as he aimed.
She vaguely wondered if she should turn the drawings in, after all no pictures were allowed to be taken on base. It wasn't like she was giving them to anyone on the outside, it just helped her think.
Daniel had found out about the lie she had given to Optimus and the others after their little racing adventure, but he hadn't wanted to shame his new bosses by pointing out that she had lied. He had given her a two hour lecture and made her clean out the storage cupboard in his Med bay, the irony was not lost on her. He pretended that the punishment was for driving without a licence, not the lies. She insisted that it hadn't been a total lie, after all she was the one who asked Bumblebee to go faster, and then goaded him even more when the twins got involved.
That was not the point, apparently.
She thought that must be a reflex reply for adults when they were argued out of something. She actually got on well with the autobots and Sam, Optimus Prime had made good on his promise to introduce her and even let her into the hangar where the Bots hung out. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker had somehow heard about the beach incident and had worked out the truth behind it. She guessed that you couldn't BS a BS'er, they had amiably told her of the time when Ironhide's door code to his quarters had been mysteriously changed back on Cybertron, it had taken ten maintenance bots and in the end a rotating saw to get him back in.
They were all kind and friendly, though she had seen Ironhide chase after the Lamborghini's after they told of their prank, they had been hoping that several thousand years was enough for him to get over it but apparently it wasn't long enough. She liked them, all of them.
She flicked back in her sketchbook to her depiction of the twins after the crash, Sam was in the background yaking into his pile of seaweed and Bee was in the foreground looking worriedly after his charge. She had changed the positioning of where they had actually been standing but she liked to draw important events in her life, to her, this was the moment he had gained her first friends.
The next page was the Lambo mechs posing, she had remembered this from them sparring in front of her. Both had blades in their armour which they could retract. They were both idiotic, especially Sunstreaker who seemed to make a point of showing off all the time, he reminded her of the guys at her old school who would constantly have arm wrestling competitions in the cafeteria and seemed to judge 'manliness' by how many girls they had seen naked. The worst part was they were all good looking and in some cases smart and funny too, then they made the mistake of hitting on her. She shot the first one down flat but their entire troupe seemed to be interested in her until she heard one of the girls talking in the bathroom and found out they were making a game of it. So she had knocked the next guy down on his ass, then when they didn't get the message she broke the next guys nose. And got expelled.
That had been fun. Not.
She screamed as a hand touched her shoulder, or rather a servo did, more than twice as big as her but the gentle touch of one finger to gain her attention. She had been completely and utterly surprised. Sunstreaker howled, bent almost double laughing loudly while Kitty felt her face heat.
"Shut up, you're going to wake everyone!" she hissed, and he managed to dial down the laughter to fits of chuckles. When he had finished he took her place on the outcrop, sitting with his legs dangling almost to the sea below.
"You should have seen you jump, and you screamed!" He broke off into laughter again. "It was adorable." He added seriously, making her face heat again.
"I didn't jump, I… squeaked, and I'm not adorable! I'm just… me." She finished lamely. He chuckled again.
"You are at that. What are you doing hanging around at three in the morning, I heard humans need to offline every day for eight hours or so. They seem to choose the dark hours more than the light ones."
"Couldn't sleep." She shrugged, tucking her sketchbook under an arm and picking up her pencil from where Sunstreaker had kicked it. The book was pulled from under her arm and before she could grab it Sunstreaker had begun flipping through the pages, there were pictures of the soldiers and the autobots filling the first half of the book. A grin was on his faceplates as he saw the picture of him and his brother sparring.
"Been watching, huh?" He said with the arrogant 'of course you were' implied on the end. She declined to answer and was trying to get the book back.
"That's private!" She told him, climbing up his other arm and onto his shoulder to try to get the book from him.
"Ah, ah, you have to get taller than me before you can get it back." He told her, smirking.
"Asshole!" She said reflexively, now standing on his head and still reaching for the book which he was flipping through at arm's length, making comments on each one.
"Sam sure does ride on Bee's shoulders a lot."
"Hey you even managed to get Ivan's mole just right!"
Epps sighed, working out the kink in his shoulder, he had to remember to stretch after working out, especially when he had the early shift at the Ops center. The lack of sleep would couple with the tightness in his muscles and give him a really shitty day. He also had been scheduled for a check-up with the new doc, he had already covered a quarter of the base and the med bay had never looked tidier or cleaner. Plus his assistant was hot.
He turned a corner to cut past the civilian building and borrow a jeep from the motor pool when he passed Sunstreaker sitting on the edge of a pile of rocks that hung over the sea, the mech waved so he waved back. Then did a double take, hanging from the bot's other hand was the doc's little sister, a firecracker of a girl if he ever saw one.
Sunstreaker had her by a leg and she was furiously trying to reach his other hand, which Eps now noticed had a book of some sort in it, it looked tiny in his giant servo. Shrugging he walked across, knowing he wouldn't actually hurt the girl.
"What's goin' on here?" He couldn't help the grin on his face as the girl noticed him and stopped trying to go for the book, folding her arms, hair dangling below her head she even looked as though she thought she as the right way up.
"Nothing!" She said, typical teenage defensive behaviour. Eps tried not to grin wider for fear of cracking his face.
"Saw her hanging out here, so I decided to say hi."
"Well now I'm really hanging out!" Kitty kicked Sunstreaker in the head with her free leg and he moved his hand so he was out of range in case she decided to go for another one.
"Wanna see something cool, Bobby?" Sunstreaker asked lowering the hand with the book in it.
"Sure thing."
"noooooooo…"The girl wailed covering her face with her hands. Hoping it wasn't nude pictures of the girl or anything like that Bobby took the book, a sketchpad, and opened it up. He was greeted with the scene of the island from the air, likely from the huge carrier that brought them in. There were pictures of the bots and the soldiers. He wondered if this counted as a security risk, but seeing as Sunstreaker didn't seem to mind, though the fact that half of them had him in them probably helped, Eps was sure it was fine.
"These are pretty good, kid." He said looking at the embarrassed girl who was now no longer struggling at all and just covering her face with her hands. She peeked through her fingers at him when he spoke but just let out a low keening sound, like an injured animal.
He gave the book back to Sunstreaker and walked on, giving his excuses that he needed to be at the Ops centre five minutes ago. He shook his head as the teasing and retaliation continued behind him.
Daniel did all the measurements and tests by rote, careful to make the right annotations in his notes. Kitty had run off to hang out with the giant robotic aliens again, he knew they wouldn't do any harm, but he worried for her not having more human company, though he knew she spent that time also in the company of Sam Whitwicky, he was still worried for the influence they may have on his younger sister, though she could hardly get much worse than before they came here.
Maybe he would take up Ratchet's offer to exchange notes on the biology of their two races, though he wasn't sure biology was the right word for Cybertronians, it would give him a chance to see the people his sister spent her days with. Older siblings had to take care of the younger ones.
He nodded to his next appointment, Bobby Epps was an easy man to like and kept him informed if he heard anything about Kitty and what she had been up to, if she had been causing any trouble which she usually was.
He kept his Doctor's head on even while the lieutenant was telling him of Kitty being out at four this morning and having some sort of keep-away match with an autobot, Sunstreaker, though Daniel wouldn't know which it was to put a name to a face.
"She's pretty good at drawing." Epps said while Dan took his blood pressure.
"She is." He paused to make a notation, "Takes after our mother that way. The looks and temperament are all our father's though." He smiled thinking about them.
"They died?"
"When Kitty was still small, I doubt she has any memories of them."
Epps shook his head sadly, "Kid's should know where they come from." Daniel agreed, paying no mind to the hiss as he poked a needle into Epps arm to take a blood sample.
Kitty was planning her revenge on Sunstreaker, he hadn't returned her sketchbook until the entire autobot garrison had seen the drawings. They all seemed more interested in the pictures with themselves in them more than any other, and the ones who believed she had caught them on a bad day or she hadn't drawn enough of them had taken to posing in front of her as though she was going to sit and draw them right then and there.
Jazz was especially vain about the act that the only picture with him in it captured only his shoulder and not the rest of him. He had openly asked her for a portrait of himself. She was grateful that none of them were mad about her drawing them without permission and left out the tidbit that the drawings were basically her diary. She was already embarrassed enough. She went over her plan for revenge in mind, her smirk freaking out both Bee and Sam who were sunning themselves in the yard.
Okay, so chapter three! Whoo… I guess
I don't like the title for this story, someone give me a new one, props goes to the best! I hate titles and I suck at making them up… though for some reason the chapter titles are easy this time around.
I promise there will be more action next chapter, for some reason it's slow in coming to me, usually by now the excitement is peaking.
