It still puzzled Sam when people got freaked out- bad freaked out, after meeting the Autobots. And it confused him even more- angered him, actually- at how people could just not get along with them. How Galloway could look right into the fathomless optics of Optimus Prime, or hear his voice, and still think he was tied hand in hand with the enemy, just made no sense.
True, Sam himself had been freaked out at first. He acknowledges that, as he sits next to his dad's workbench in the garage, astronomy summer homework that he should be doing spread out in front of him, while really watching Bumblebee tinker with a small radio antennae. The scout is trying to wire it so that they can pick up the radio frequencies of NEST anytime Lennox or Optimus need their help- and Sam really hopes it works.
But still, after seeing Bumblebee for what he was- what he really was- he found in himself that he could not be afraid. All that had been inside of him, when Mikaela asked if he was crazy, was steady acceptance and, well…fascination.
They were a giant race of Autonomic Robotic Organisms from the planet Cybertron. They were wicked-cool, twenty-foot plus alien warriors that defended the universe from harm. And they were his best friends.
How could that dumb-ass Galloway still think they were the cause of all that was wrong in the world? How could anyone?
Because he knows there are more of them out there. People who will never understand, people who will never accept, even though they've done more good in this world than any of those idiots have done put together in a lifetime.
True, it isn't easy being friends with the Autobots, he muses. There are drawbacks that hurt almost as much as never knowing them. He watches Bumblebee now, playing with the radio and making those little sounds that are uniquely him, like a little kid messing with a Rubix Cube, and knows that at any moment if Bee's not careful, he'll get ripped apart in battle before he could blink-even thought Bee himself is far from defenseless. Then there was that time when he had to watch as Optimus got his spark stabbed out of him from behind by Megatron and blasted into the air, while that noble leader's last dying words were only in concern for Sam's safety, despite the fact that everything that had happened was Sam's fault. There's the isolation, the enemies- he thinks of Simmons in his Aloha! boxers, handcuffed to a light post- and the constant stress of having the weight of two worlds crashing down on your shoulders, and of running through a city or a blistering desert with some ancient artifact that inexplicably found you in your hand while all hell in plasma fire and sabot rounds opens up the earth around you.
Yeah, there are drawbacks.
But the good outweighs the bad so much that he wouldn't have it any other way.
He could take the desert heat of Giza as long as it meant he could sit in Bumblebee's cab and floor it till boy and car were just a bright streak on the horizon. He could endure - and has- the scars from Megatron's cannons as long as it meant he could hear Optimus' newly risen again. It was all worth it- and the better, stronger person he has become because of all of it acknowledges that every day.
And he knows he isn't the only one changed- Lennox, Epps, Maggie Madsen and Keller, and Leo, and even Simmons- all of them have changed because of those warriors. Hell, Lennox and Epps spent so much time with them- on and off duty- they were practically as much as one of them as Sam himself, and people who knew them could see it.
How anyone could think they did anything wrong by this place was ridiculous. Because once you got to know them, and saw what they really were, you were never the same. In fact, Sam thinks, it is pretty much impossible to meet the Autobots and not change after that. They just open your minds so much- to new realizations, and to other worlds, and make him so grateful every single day for what he has, he knows he will never regret knowing them. He was proud to be the Alienboy, the robot-rep, the bridge between their two worlds. Because with them by his side, he knew he could take it.