Chapter 145 – Strange Femme
(SePOV)
"Ratchet, do you guys get cancer, or scar tissue... teratomas?" Mikaela asked with a frown, still gently disconnecting fibres in his shoulder. It twinged, but her hands were gentle.
"Teratoma?" Ratchet asked blankly.
"It's a type of tumour in humans, containing one or more types of tissues, but in entirely the wrong spot." Mikaela stated musingly, continuing to dig through his shoulder, Sentinel grimaced slightly, but it was more than tolerable. "They're known to have hair and teeth." she finished before reaching deeply into his shoulder. "Got you you little bastard. Now what the hell are you?" she murmured, holding up a dead scraplet and frowning at it.
"Scraplet!" Ironhide roared, his cannons coming online.
It had stayed in his shoulder. No wonder it had hurt so badly.
"Is that what it is?" Mikaela asked calmly, examining it patiently. "Nasty looking little thing, what the scrap was it doing in your shoulder?" she looked at him curiously.
"It burrowed its way in," Sentinel grunted. He would have to thank her for removing it.
"Huh, really nasty little things then." Kae murmured with a frown. She offered it to Ratchet. The medic promptly gave her his patented 'are you kidding me?' look.
"It's dead," Mikaela snorted. "Fine, here, if you're so worried about it, here." she promptly levitated it and caught it with a disintegrating beam.
That made him feel quite a bit better, actually.
"Now then," she continued, gently poking at his shoulder again, reconnecting wires and repairing the damages.
Which gave him an incredible view of her chest-plates, the gaps in her armour illuminated by the flickers of her spark. He looked down.
Which was not a safe place to look either.
There could not be a single rough edge to this femme, even her etchings were smooth!
Sentinel promptly turned to stare holes into Optimus' armour. That was safe.
"Sentinel?" Optimus rumbled gently.
"Your mate is exquisitely beautiful," Sentinel choked out. "And she is also straddling me."
"She does that," Optimus nodded calmly. "I find it makes getting repaired quite tolerable." Sentinel stared at him, he couldn't help it. Optimus laughed. "My old friend, you are struggling to not stare at my mate, I would advise against it, she is quite proud of her body."
Well, that was a relief. This femme was both gorgeous and somewhat strange.
"That is still a bad idea, she's right over my spike," Sentinel grunted.
Ironhide promptly began hooting with laughter again. It was nice to know that some things never really changed.
"Did you want me to get off?" Mikaela asked him sweetly.
"No!" Sentinel barked out before covering his face. "Optimus, precisely what did you do to me, I am act-behaving like a scrapping youngling."
"Blame Kae, we all do," Ratchet snorted.
"I deny all allegations," Kae stated placidly. "There we go, that's your shoulder, give it a try." she added calmly, shifting back to sit on his legs. Sentinel promptly began moving his arm about, checking the repairs. Not only was the femme gorgeous, powerful and somewhat strange, she was also remarkably efficient.
Mikaela frowned slightly as he tested his shoulder out, she calmly got off of his legs and began massaging him, stroking his neurals, easing the tension from them and flushing energon through his systems. Repairing him.
It felt So. Scrapping. Good.
::. Optimus!.:: Sentinel sent to him desperately, it was testing him to the limits. In fact, it was all he could do to not reach up and begin teasing the gorgeous bot's neurals right back.
::. Sentinel?.:: the young Prime rumbled curiously.
::. Your femme, does she never stop torturing a bot!?.:: Sentinel demanded.
"Why do you not ask her that?" Optimus rumbled aloud, fighting, and failing to not laugh.
"I'm sorry, do you mind?" Kae asked in a concerned tone, her hands drawing away from Sentinel's neurals.
"Primus don't stop!" Sentinel moaned. Mikaela laughed softly and got back to work on his body. Those hands, those gentle, powerful, incredible hands! Sentinel shot a guilty glance at Optimus. She was his bonded, after all, but the bot was smiling.
"You're trying to not offend Kae," Ironhide rumbled with a snort. "Don't worry about it Sentinel, if you offend her she tells you. You do the same thing a second time she tells you firmly. Third time she whacks you upside the helm."
And that was a true relief.
"Our kind of Femme," Sentinel sighed, laying back on the berth.
"Now you know why we let her get away with not saying the lines," Optimus rumbled with a low laugh.
Except then those hands began inching toward his spark chamber. How she combined so many functions was beyond him. Multi-tasking was one thing, he'd have to ask how she could simultaneously ease the tension of a bot's neurals and heal so readily.
But that was neither here nor there. Her hands were on his chest.
"By the gracious hand of the All-spark," Sentinel whispered.
Mikaela glanced up at him and her mate caught her optics.
They were silent for a moment.
"You're talking about me behind my back," Sentinel grumbled.
"We are," Mikaela stated calmly, point to her. "When was the last time someone touched your spark properly?"
Sentinel couldn't help but stare at her. Of course he wanted to interface her, but she was his pupil's mate. Relationships like that tended to become... tangled.
And femmes weren't precisely known for their patience for those who took their mates.
All of the bots stared at her.
So this wasn't... normal for her?
"Okay, let's see if I can get this straight," Mikaela snorted, her hands began caressing him again. "You lot spend damn near a year tiptoeing around me, trying not to say the wrong thing and now I'm the one being too bold? Wow. Who'd'a thunk it?"
Ironhide began laughing again. Thank Primus.
"Two vorn before we left on the Ark," Sentinel replied quietly. Mikaela shook her head.
"You're a gorgeous bot, why the scrap weren't you taking time off?" she demanded sternly. Sentinel stared at her.
"I am an old bot," he told her flatly. She snorted.
"Grandfather has you beat by a hundred odd vorn, if he can manage to flirt with Flare and get Mirage into his berth you don't get to use that excuse." she stated with a small smile, lightly tapping his helm. Impertinent femme.
He liked her already.
"Beside the fact that you greatly lessen our ageing process?" Ratchet piped up cheerfully. Optimus snorted.
"Completely beside the point," Kae stated patiently, lightly waving her hand.
"How is that beside the point?" Ratchet laughed.
"Because Sentinel does not have the excuse of rust slowing him down," Mikaela stated placidly. "Now, if he says that he did not have the desire I will buy it, however even Optimus managed to interface with bots, albiet platonically while he was grieving Elita."
Sentinel stared at her. He was doing that a lot, actually.
Optimus smiled, walking forward to wind an arm around his mate.
"Why did you say nothing?" he rumbled gently.
"You would have seen my spark, seen my betrayal," Sentinel sighed. "All to save Cybertron, and yet still I failed."
"None of that," Mikaela stated gently, sitting down beside him again. She gently took his hand, twining her fingers into his. "It does not do to dwell in the past, simply learn it's lessons and continue on to tomorrow."
Sentinel looked at Optimus' mate. A femme like her...
Cybertron would have been saved, likely would never have seen war if...
"Would that I had had you for a mate," Sentinel finally sighed, gently pulling her hand to his face and kissing her fingers. She cupped his cheek with a gentle smile and rose, striding to the schematics hovering nonchalantly over her worktable.
That re-iterated his belief.
Sentinel sat up and Optimus settled beside him.
They sat in silence, side by side for a long moment. Sentinel watched the femme as she moved, as she continued moving. Working, creating, thinking, all in preparation of a future that they would try to avoid.
Just in case it did happen.
Optimus was sitting beside him again, the way they always had. He decided to test the depths of the chasm, find out what had changed...
"Where did you find her, and where do I get one?" Sentinel murmured.
"She began her life as a human," Optimus rumbled gently. "and as a human I fell in love with her beautiful spark."
He had what!? Sentinel looked at him incredulously.
"You should have seen..." Optimus trailed off with a smile. "Kae, your holoform?" he asked with a small smile. Optimus' beautiful Kae laughed and sat at her workbench, onlining her holoform even as she summoned the metals she needed.
The holoform walked toward them, and Sentinel couldn't help but admire the tiny creature, tiny by even her own species' norm.
But she walked upright, frank and smiling with the unconscious stride of a predator. Her eyes were the same, sparkling with mischief, laughter and more... in her eyes you could see the universe, a universe that was free of oppression. One without fear.
Because she was not afraid.
They were the eyes of a femme Prime, with all the ferocity of a protector, the kindness of a lover, and the wisdom of the ages.
Optimus' spark flared as she stopped, looking up at him with her head cocked to the side. He leaned down and offered her his hand, it looked completely automatic for him.
"It's been a long time since I last sat here," Mikaela commented softly through the holoform, squirming into what immediately appeared to be her spot.
The two of them were far too familiar with it for it not to be.
"If two years is a long time for you, the rest of your life will be interminable," Optimus rumbled with a low laugh.
"Just so long as you're there with me," she stated gently, leaning over to kiss his jaw.
"This was the femme I fell in love with," Optimus rumbled gently, reaching out and stroking the holoform's arm with a finger.
Sentinel surveyed the holoform for a long time, then turned to look at the Kae he had first met. In the holoform, and in the bot he could see the similarities.
That the human had come first...
"Fascinating," he rumbled softly.
Mikaela smiled at him and kissed Optimus' jaw with her holoform before it winked out.
Optimus threw a small pout at her, which Sentinel couldn't not find amusing.
"But all the while I was human, tiny, fragile and sitting on your shoulder, I never could tell you how much I wanted to be this size," Kae murmured gently, rising and striding toward them again. "If only so I can do this."
She wound her arms around him and kissed his jaw.
Sentinel flicked his optics to first observe his former pupil, then the senior officers.
Optimus became the bot he had always been, at peace with himself and the universe when the femme was with him. Ironhide and Ratchet were watching her with a smile, Arcee beaming at the larger Femme.
"You are truly one of them," Sentinel murmured, looking back at Kae.
"I try to be," she shrugged gently. "Unfortunately, my human side tends to get in my way at times."
Optimus promptly snorted in amusement.
"Your human side is the one I fell in love with," he told her with a smile.
"For which we all think you're completely insane, but I love you too," Mikaela lilted cheerfully, pecking a kiss to Optimus' lips before returning to her work.
"You never actually explained why we're thinking he's insane," Ironhide called out cheerfully, looking at his niece.
"What business does the largest of us have falling in love with the tiniest of us?" Mikaela asked with a laugh. "And a human besides, we... sorry, they go squish so easily."
"Is that the only issue you had?" Sentinel asked with a grin.
"That and a few issues with conflicting cultures," Kae shrugged, waggling her hands in the air for a moment before she synced her processors and began producing the model the two of them had perfected.
"Like what?" Sentinel asked with a grin.
"Our favourite glitch got it set in his processors that none of the humans would even consider interfacing with a bot." Ironhide rumbled with a snort.
"I can see it," Sentinel nodded. "But how did it conflict?"
"Well, among my race, sorry, former race, interspecies unions aren't exactly a norm. Particularly since the Auto-bots are the first fully sentient species that humans have come across. I'm still considered a freak in some circles, but then I've never spent any particular amount of time giving those circles much credence," Kae stated with a small laugh. "Lena struggles with it from time to time, right up to the point that Jolt or I are in the room. She's always saying it's damn difficult for people to intimidate her when her seventeen foot lover and her favourite human-turned-bot ally is in the room."
Sentinel snorted in amusement and looked at his pupil.
"What have I taught you about remaining open minded?" he demanded with a snort.
"Oddly enough, Kae herself had to beat your lessons back into my processors," Optimus snorted in amusement.
"Tiny human Kae beat you up," Sentinel snorted.
"Oh, don't ever get on her bad side, by the way. Kae is one of those people who can give you a verbal beat-down that leaves you breaching all over the place," Ratchet snorted.
"Which is why you call her daughter?" Sentinel shot back at the medic with a grin.
Ratchet grinned at him.
"There's the Sentinel we've loved and missed," Ratchet laughed.
Sentinel felt his spark flare at the simple statement.
"You have been missed, old friend," Optimus rumbled gently.
Sentinel couldn't help but smile at his young friend.
"I am grateful that it was you who found me," he rumbled quietly.
"I should have found you sooner," Mikaela groused quietly from her workstation.
"Now Kae," Optimus rumbled gently. She shook her head irritably.
"How would you have found me?" Sentinel rumbled curiously.
"My sister," Mikaela murmured softly. "My human sister told me to look into the human conspiracies, I should have paid it more heed."
Sentinel sat for a moment. The gorgeous femme had a sister? He leaned over and lightly touched Optimus' shoulder with his own.
"She has a sister?" he murmured quietly. He wanted to meet this sister.
"Had," Optimus rumbled sadly. "Her sister was murdered several years ago."
Sentinel straightened indignantly.
"You have taken justice from the frame of the one who would murder the sister of a Prime?" he demanded sternly.
"That was before Optimus entered our atmosphere," Mikaela stated quietly. "My uncle killed the man with his bare hands, even though I begged him not to. Wo Shang's death did not bring my sister back, it took my uncle from me as well..."
Sentinel's spark flared in pain on behalf of the femme. Hesitantly, he rose and laid his hands on her shoulders.
"I grieve with you the loss of your family," he murmured softly.
Kae reached up and covered his hands on her shoulders for a moment before she got back to work building the beacons.
Sentinel looked down at her worriedly.
"The only human trait that I find irking about my Kae," Optimus rumbled pensively. "She still finds it difficult to share more than her joy with us."
"You don't need to feel my grief," Mikaela stated sternly. "I lost my family, you lost your planet. You do not need me to add to your grief."
"Mikaela," Optimus rumbled irritably. She turned and looked at him calmly. "You do not have to bear such grief alone!"
"I'm not," she stated in an exasperated tone.
That was a surprise.
"Explain?" Sentinel rumbled curiously.
"Humans don't join sparks, we join hands, we join voices," Mikaela explained gently. "Optimus simply because I am not allowing you to bear my pain with me, doesn't mean that I'm dealing with it alone. You're here, as much as you claim that I am the one carrying you, the simple fact that you are here, that anytime I need the touch of your hand, the sound of your spark, you are here. That's all I've ever needed." she smiled at him gently.
Sentinel looked back and forth between the two of them, there wasn't a single tone of falsehood in Mikaela's voice.
Optimus rose and strode toward them both.
"Truly?" he whispered, reaching out and touching her cheek.
"Optimus," Mikaela murmured gently, rising and cupping his face in her hands. "Your love gives me the strength to carry the world, now stop fussing, get yourself to your recharge cycle and take Sentinel with you."
"Yes love," Optimus rumbled with a low chuckle, pulling her tightly to his frame for a long moment. "Will you be joining us soon?" he asked hopefully.
"Mmm, hopefully," she murmured with a low laugh. "However there is now a new bot on base, I have beacons to build and no doubt there are going to be feathers to smooth.
Optimus let loose a plaintive hum.
"I know love," Mikaela murmured consolingly, stretching to press a gentle kiss to his jaw. "But life continues whether we are here to watch it or not, and in times like these I do prefer to keep an eye on things."
Optimus nodded, holding her a bit more tightly for a moment before releasing his gorgeous femme. Sentinel looked at her curiously as Optimus reached for him gently.
"You are not..." he began worriedly.
Kae looked up at him calmly.
"Forgive me, I have rarely found a femme willing to share her mate," Sentinel stated quietly, looking around himself.
"Mm," she hummed in amusement. "Optimus, if you run off with Sentinel and abandon me we're going to have words. I know where you are." She reached out and tapped his chest plates with a gentle finger.
Sentinel looked at the femme indignantly.
"Optimus would never-!" he started angrily.
Except then he looked into their optics.
Kae was teasing her bot.
"You are his teacher, his mentor, his friend," Mikaela stated gently, patting his shoulder. "I am his mate, the mate of a Prime. It's a fools errand to be jealous that he cares for all of the bots around him. Particularly when that is one of the first things that attracted me to him."
Sentinel beamed at his young friend's mate and turned to the bot himself.
"You always did have excellent taste in the bots you kept around you," he stated with a smile, laying a hand on Optimus' shoulder.
"Will you at least come tuck us in?" Optimus rumbled teasingly, looking at his mate.
"Oh be off with you!" Mikaela laughed, giving them both a gentle shove toward the doors. She turned and sat at her workbench, continuing her tasks.
Optimus laughed gently and turned, leading the way from the medical bay.
Sentinel followed, gazing around himself.
"Adequate," he rumbled calmly.
"More than adequate compared to the hangar we were staying in before," Optimus rumbled with a snort.
"Mm..." Sentinel hummed, looking around. Optimus turned into a large set of doors and shrugged out of his armour, appearing as though it were done completely automatically.
Sentinel looked at him in amusement.
"A habit," Optimus shrugged with a snort. "My Kae detests sleeping in her armour, and I simply cannot bring myself to try to break her of the habit."
"For what little of her protoform shows through her armour, I can completely understand," Sentinel snorted, shrugging out of his own armour. "Tell me something, is there at least one rough edge to her!?"
"Not one," Optimus snorted. "The entire unit is waiting for her to take damage, so that they can rib her for messing up her pretty frame."
"She has not seen battle?" Sentinel asked worriedly.
"She has never once let a Decepticon into her defences," Optimus chuckled. "And when she is in true fighting form, not even I can hope to hold her in submission for long."
Sentinel shook his head.
"I want one," he stated flatly.
Optimus laughed softly, reaching up and cupping his face.
"It has been a long time, old friend," he rumbled gently.