omgosh this was so fun to WRITE! YAY FOR MIRI, off on her adventure that's gonna change her life! *fangirl dances*
A few orders of business: I decided to open myself an account over on Archive of Our Own (Ao3) so if any of you are more comfortable over there, go find me! Subscribe, because I guess we're doing that now over there, bahaha! Sound like a dang Youtuber...pfft. ANYWAY - my penname over there is MareRPrime! This story will be uploaded over there, so HUZZAH for crossposting!
Another huge set of thanks to Musical Medli, who has become a great sounding board and fan for Miri and Prime's story. And welcome, icanhascamaro, it's good to see you again! I'll talk to my editors, Megatron and Starscream, about those grammar errors - though no promises! Muahaha.
So stoked to have you guys read this one...I kinda love it. tehehehe xoxoxo
They'd pulled up to the landing strip in the Peterbilt with less than any trouble - it was almost suspicious the way people stepped away from the truck, giving it all the room in the world as it rumbled down the tarmac. A suspicious brow mounted over Miri's eye as she sat forward in the seat, gripping the hand-hold with a fist that was white-knuckled, her nails biting into her palm sharply as her eyes scanned the airfield.
It was empty, the line of small hangars closed and seemingly barren. Lennox had, casually and off-the-cuff, commented that he'd had the entire property cleared by government order, insisting they required all the privacy the airstrip could muster. Miri had looked at him with an almost star-struck expression, her eyes widened behind the aviators she'd put on during their commute. He'd just smiled at her, winked, and insisted that everything was fine.
"If this isn't real and you're taking me to rape and murder my body, Lennox, I swear to God I'm going to kill you myself," was her offhanded comment, which made him laugh as they pulled to a stop at the rear of the frickin' C-130 transport that was just finishing its fueling process.
The airport crew basically sprinted away from the craft, their eyes cemented on the Peterbilt, and Miri froze her rummaging through her purse yet again to stare back at them. She didn't even see Lennox drop out of the cab, jog out to meet the pilots, gesturing to the manifest they presented while exchanging conversation. Miri watched him, then slowly reached for the seatbelt, unclicking it and easing it back home beside the door.
The Major parted ways with the flight crew, who boarded the plane swiftly up the ramp, setting about their duties. Miri watched them in their uniforms, not missing Lennox's put together presence either. She very suddenly felt out of place in her jeans and boots, and she smoothed her hand over her abdomen, dropping her gaze to consider her black tank top and open flannel. She swallowed a bit nervously, then dismissed her concerns - if she'd have been required to wear professional clothes, it was on Lennox for dropping the communication ball.
Lennox hustled over, rapped on the door twice, and popped the latch, catching the door and smiling up at her. "You ready to roll, Miss Otten?" Miri pinned him with a deadpanned look, noting the glint in his eye. The tone in which he'd said Miss was invocative of his teasing, but if the man was going to work with her, he'd better start getting used her of personality, right now. She despised being addressed by a title, the same way she hated headshots - it was too formal.
Miri spun in the seat and retrieved her luggage, dropping it to the tarmac outside the truck. She dropped out of the cabin, adjusting her purse and draping her jacket over her arm. Looking down to peer at Lennox over her sunglasses, she then pushed them up on her nose. Lennox retrieved her bag for her when she moved past him, taking in the full height of the plane before her - she'd never seen one so...military. Something rose in the back of her throat; a spark of anxiety churning to life in the pit of her gut.
An officer moved out to meet her, accepting her bag from Lennox. His attention found her and he flashed her a bright smile, accented by the whitest teeth she'd ever seen. Her name flickered to his breast, where his name was proudly stitched into the uniform: Santos. Her eyes moved back to study his face, and she gave him a small lift of the corner of her lips when he extended a hand after pushing up his sunglasses.
"Welcome aboard, ma'am," his accent was evident, as was the obvious onceover his eyes made down her form. "Sergeant Santos, at your service. You can call me Miguel, though, when the boss isn't lookin'," he thumbed over his shoulder to Lennox, who was already intercepting flight instructions from a crew member. Miri's attention turned back to the Sergeant, who nodded to another soldier moving to intercept the semi.
Lennox, however, had heard Santos' passing statement and glanced over his shoulder. "Don't call her that!" was his comment, gesturing between the two of them with a wagging finger. Santos' brows popped tall on his face, and he looked between Miri and the Major, his mouth partially open and unsure of what to say. Lennox then walked backwards up the ramp, smiling at the pair.
She nodded in Lennox's direction. "Oh, I can already see that he's going be a huge pain in my butt," she muttered to Santos, moving past him towards the ramp. Then, turning on her booted heel, she thumbed over her shoulder and gestured to the aircraft with a jerk of her head. "I just make myself comfortable anywhere, or...?"
Santos regarded her with a nod, flashed her a one-second finger, and turned to hustle back around the semi. Miri paused on the ramp and watched, seeing nothing other than the increasingly weak-knee-inducing truck glinting in the sunlight on the tar. She was appreciatively studying its rubber when Santos hurried back around, looking somewhat flustered as he rubbed the back of his neck, her bag still in hand.
He thumbed to the semi over his shoulder. "They're loading him up," he explained, guiding her to the side of the ramp. "I'll show you to where you'll be -"
"Do they always refer to the vehicles with a sex?" He realized she had stopped at the top of the ramp and was watching the semi, her hands slipped midway through the pockets of her jeans. From behind her shades she watched the semi roll forward slowly, the heavy sound of its engine roaring loudly into the cavern of the plane as the driver, who had situated himself in the front seat, fed it fuel. After correcting a few times, it slowly rolled up the ramp.
It passed by her, and Santos came up beside her, reaching to take her elbow gently. He shrugged a shoulder, looking to the semi. "I suppose we do," he led her alongside the Peterbilt, towards the front of the plane, "You'll find they kinda develop personalities of their own, over time." He rapped the side of the semi with his knuckles, chortling at his own statement. "Ain't that right, big guy?"
For a minute, Santos seemed as if he expected the vehicle to respond, pausing long enough to make Miri's brow pop over her eye. She slid her sunglasses on top of her head, adjusting her eyes just enough to be able to see without the aide of prescription lenses, opting not to change her eyewear until she was seated and had time to sift through her bag. Eyeing the man carefully, she followed him to where the other members of the flight crew were congregated. He gestured for her to sit along one of the benches, lifting one of the harness straps.
"After you," he dropped the bag to the floor, and nudged it under the bench with the toe of his boot, and gestured for Miri to sit. She did.
. . .
After a painfully awkward few minutes - which took two other flight members assistance - Miri had been belted into her seat for the flight. Embarrassingly enough, she was at least two sizes larger than the seat's former occupant, because she had to adjust the harness straps to click home across her chest and waist. She was still trying to hide the scarlet blush on her face, by instead staring down into the lit screen of her Macbook.
Their takeoff was evident, because Santos and other crewmembers belted into seats on either side of her and across the plane. Miri's attention fell to Lennox, who was double checking the Peterbilt. Miri found it rather odd it wasn't strapped down - she didn't even see anyone engage the parking brake. She assumed it was none of her business, but, one confused look to the truck had her glancing at the Major as he passed by. Without warning, she reached out for his hand and gestured to the vehicle with a nod.
"Isn't that thing expensive?" She questioned, furrowing her brow at it. "Aren't you, I dunno, gonna tie it down or something? Or do you assume if we go down that the truck is toast anyway?" For a moment she could've sworn she saw the semi lower on its shocks, looking almost settled within the plane. She blinked, bit the inside of her cheek, and found that Lennox was glancing back at the vehicle, following her attention.
The smirk on his face, accompanied by the snort, told his hand. "If that thing goes, it's the last of my worries," he shrugged a shoulder nonchalantly. "The owner has it well taken care of, I promise," he made a clicking sound out of the corner of his mouth, flashing her the a-okay signal with his fingers, before he moved across the plane, to seat himself beside a lovely woman with short, cropped hair.
She had an open laptop, and was discussing something with him, handing him a huge, blown-up satellite reading of something beyond Miri's paygrade to know. Miri watched the Major only a moment longer, instead glancing back down to her work. Santos had already informed her about the plane's internet connection, and that it would be fine for her to connect, if she wanted to work. Miri took it upon herself to do so, finding that the network was not only strong, but that it was without security.
Opting in, it took the computer a few moments to connect, and she bypassed the fine print on the security page. Almost immediately she noted the movement in the top right of her screen - she squinted and leaned in to study it, finding that a painfully small icon had appeared, almost indistinguishable. She'd never seen it before - anywhere.
It pulsed every few seconds, triggering her attention, until she sat back and tapped Santos on the knee. He looked up from his phone, and followed her finger to the corner of the screen. "What's this?" Her voice lifted, as there was a lack of noise and vibration reduction on the aircraft. She tapped her nail against the retina display, and Santos nodded, reaching to remove one of the earbuds he'd slipped into his ear.
He waved it off. "It's nothing," he shook his head, and waved his hand in front of his throat in a no-go motion. "Just part of our security. You can ignore it!" He then popped a piece of gum into his mouth, discarded the wrapper in his front pocket, and slipped his earbud back in, going back to the music on his cell.
Miri blinked at him, then looked back to the screen. She wasn't entirely convinced that her laptop wasn't suddenly being monitored, but, she took the man's advice - there wasn't much to hack on her computer, save for company records, which were backed up anyway on an external drive. And, if she was hacked by Lennox's division, she had proof and could shove it right back into his face. Swallowing a thick breath, she glanced back up at the small symbol, wishing she knew what exactly it was as she set back to looking over her speech and presentation.
Before she even knew what had happened, an hour had passed by, and her eyes were beginning to burn from pain. A dull ache had set in her temple, a telltale sign that she'd spent too much time staring into a screen in too much of an unergonomic position. Closing the top of her Macbook, she sank back into the seat, reaching up to move her glasses on top of her head, only to massage her eyes with the palms of her hands. Releasing a rough exhale, she peeked through her fingers to find that most of the crew was asleep, save for Lennox, who was suddenly working on a computer.
Her brow rose and she found Santos passed out beside her, his earbuds still in and phone at and. He was rested back against the side of the plane, his harness the only thing keeping him upright - otherwise, Miri was certainly he would've toppled off the bench onto the floor. Careful as to not disturb the soldiers sleeping at either side of her, she reached for her bag, which was by her feet on the floor.
She was about to bring it to her lap when the strap suddenly fell from her hand, tipping her bag over and spilling a few of its contents onto the floor. Her lipgloss went rolling towards the Peterbilt, and Miri panicked before it completely vanished beneath the vehicle. Without thinking whether or not she should've been unbelted, she unclipped the harness and wrangled out of it, lunging to the floor with her heart in her throat. She was careful about making noise, and lowered to the floor carefully, stretching at length to brush her fingertips for the cosmetic tube, which had rolled to a stop against the Peterbilt's tire.
Miri was almost to it when a pair of boots stepped in front of her, just beside the Peterbilt's tire. She froze, withdrew her hand, and studied the footwear for a second - whoever the owner of them was was a man, because she'd never seen boots that masculine on a woman. They were combat boots, black, laced over a pair of black camouflaged military pants, which left little to the imagination as her vision crept up the legs to whomever had materialized in front of her.
Supporting herself on one hand on the floor, she rocked back to stand on her knees, now staring into the face of man who had stopped to consider her. She was instantly sabotaged with the female stupid disease - she knew it immediately, because her mouth materialized a dryness she would've sooner associated with the Sahara Desert than her own body. Her heart throbbed achingly against the ribs in her chest, and she felt her stomach basically float up to her throat, as if it were no longer subject to gravity.
He was stunning. Never had she been so taken with a man's appearance. He was tall, sure, but his looks. His hair was a dark ebony, almost black, and was cropped short, but not to military standard - it curled across his forehead, matched terrifically with bearded stubble and a goatee. His nose was dominant but not intrusively, albeit attractively crooked, and he had a strong jaw, with deep eyes that were the most alluring, magnificent, almost glowing blue she'd ever experienced. His rustic, hard features told her he was an experienced man, which was further confirmed by thickly-corded arms that were barely confined within the tight-fit of his tactical black t-shirt.
He was staring at her, in a militant stance, arms crossed in front of him. He wore some kind of dog tags beneath his shirt, and he had a black beret with a small symbol she didn't recognized embossed into it. There was a name etched into a patch on the side of his shirt's sleeve, though she didn't dare stretch to see it.
A smattering of amusement pulled on his lips, as well as a few light, hardly distinguishable scars mingling about his face. He looked amused in a superior way; like he just caught her, which he had. When she didn't say anything, dumbfounded for words as she was, she almost died when he lowered into a squat across from her, resting an elbow on the tire of the Peterbilt, a curious brow raised over his eye.
"Looking for something, are you?" His voice was unbelievably low, almost seductive. Sweat exploded on her palms almost instantly.
She blinked at him, a squeak the only thing formulating for words in the back of her mouth. She almost visibly smacked herself, but instead she looked to the cosmetic against the tire, biting at the inside of her cheek. Perfectly on cue, a curl fell into her face, which she praised the Almighty for, because she didn't think her face could become any more red beneath the man's piercing observance. Offering a thin smile, she nodded, and pointed with a sheepish hand to the assumed object of her attention, which certainly wasn't the lip gloss at the moment.
"Uh, yeah," she said quietly, brushing the curl from her face with a nervous, clammy hand. "Sorry."
She watched as his gaze pulled from her, looking down to the tube tucked against the tire. The low rumble in his chest was pleasant and dominant, rolling over her in a way she'd never experienced. What is it with me and men who are so far out of my league it is seizure-inducing? Very suddenly the man reached for the lip gloss, Miri unable to stop staring at his corded abdomen, which moved so fluidly as he stretched to retrieve the object. Lithely he plucked it from the ground, held it up for her to see, and twirled it through his fingers once.
The smirk on his mouth lit her gut on fire, but she didn't dare show it. "And there it is," he tipped his head a fraction of an inch, his gaze piercing into her as if raping her of all the secrets of her mind, "Not terribly far away. The object of your attention, restored." He offered it to her, the tube flicking forward in his hands more provocatively than it should've.
She sheepishly reached for it, plucking it from his possession. As soon as it connected with her fingers she popped tall, now staring down at him. With laser-focused attention which could only be born from the heat of battle, his gaze followed her, taking in her sudden correction smoothly. He lingered in his squatted position for a moment before Miri tucked her hair nervously behind her ear, a slow smile parting his mouth.
Miri blinked again when he calmly returned to a standing position, realizing for a moment how tall he was. Easily almost seven feet, he towered over her both head and shoulders, though he didn't look down at her in a superior way. He considered her, his eyes following the planes of her face in almost a studious way. Even from the space between them, she could smell his mind-bending scent of diesel, sparks, and smoke - she swallowed a sticky, hard ball in the back of her throat. Say something, you absolute twit!
Throwing back her shoulders, her mental reprimand spawned coherence in the back of her brain, connecting her head to her shoulders once again. "Thank you," she said hastily, and before she knew what she was doing, her hand flew out in front of her, offering itself for a handshake. "It's expensive and my favorite. I'm Miri-Miriana. Otten. Miriana Otten. People call me Miri." Oh brilliant, Miriana. Way to introduce yourself five times more than necessary!
He studied her hand for a fraction of a second longer than was comfortable, and reached to put his hand into her own at the exact moment she chose to take half a step back. Before her boot could hit the floor, the back of her heel caught the strap of her purse. As her foot very suddenly hit the ground her purse went flying forward, startling her so much that she went backwards, completely off balance. She didn't even see the stranger lunge for her with otherworldly speed.
Her eyes flew open and she squealed in surprise, her arms flying out in an absurd attempt to balance herself. However, the only thing that balanced her were the two rock solid arms around her waist. Startled and saved from falling, she looked down to where her body was conjoined with that of the man before her, who held her solidly as if she weight absolutely nothing as she practically was draped backwards across his arms. While she was unbelievably flustered and panting, he didn't seem the least bit bothered, because he just stared down at her with an anticipatory look.
Oh my god. I'm dead. Her brain was spinning with self injury, her pride mortally wounded to the point of needing resurrection. "Are you alright?" His manner of speech, coupled with his tone, was enough to send her brain buzzing with pleasant endorphins. She was far too distracted by the two arms supporting the inertia of her body to fully comprehend his question, however, and she looked to the space where their bodies connected, him grounding their pair solidly.
She nodded, slowly. "Yeah," she stood on her own too feet, balanced restored, and his arms fell away from her waist as he took a step back. "Thank you. I'm such a klutz. Especially on planes." She smoothed her hands over her curls, and then rubbed them on the front of her jeans, hoping beyond all hope he hadn't noticed her juvenile, damp palms. She looked back up to him, moving to pick up her purse. "You said your name was...?"
His eyes seemed to sparkle as he studied her movements. She looked up from picking up the other objects of her purse, to see that he'd returned to leaning against the Peterbilt, looking more than casual - like something out of her fevered dreams. She suddenly found it very hard to breathe when he smiled at her, extending a proffered hand for her to shake.
"I am Optimus," he nodded to her. "Optimus Prime."