GUEST: Nope, but maybe later. XD Since it's summer in the fic right now. XD

...

CHAPTER 42
Techies and Stress

For the next few weeks, Mark spent a lot of time getting to know Alexis. Though none of the Autobots (other than Sideswipe) had met her yet, she had easily passed a background check. He learned quickly that she was a little on the poor side, but didn't act like it, and carried herself well for living in one of the crappier parts of town. For all intents and purposes, their friendship was much closer than his was with Maria, and the two often visited one another when they could. But they weren't dating, at least, not yet. After all, they were still getting to know each other, which left their friendship somewhat platonic.

That morning, he had agreed to meet Alexis at her small "hideout" at the edge of town. The girl, being a techie, had set up a little base of operations in a small abandoned building. There, she ran several forums, wrote multiple blogs, and somehow found time to hack her way into messing with others once in a while (all in good fun though, never nasty). Pushing the door to the building open as Sideswipe drove in beside him, Mark poked around the computers quietly. It was like a maze of computers that she had found in junk piles, and either fixed up or restored. The building itself was old, and musty, but kept up by Alexis enough that no one would really notice.

"Lexi," Mark shouted out as he held up a bag. "I brought McDonald's and the first season of Boy Meets World. I'm not sure what you want with the latter, but it was like five bucks at WalMart, so whatever." Poking her head out from behind a computer, the redhead waved slightly. "Seriously, what did you want with this? You do know i's for free on Youtube, right?"

"I wanted DVD-quality clips for a parody video," Alexis told him, removing the headphones from her ears. "I'm syncing it up with some Girl Meets World clips. And am going to do this two generation-wide "music vid" for "I Like Big Butts"," Mark snorted a bit as he tossed the girl the DVD. "Hey Sides," She greeted as Sideswipe transformed, being small enough not to hit the ceiling.

Sideswipe rolled towards the young techie. "Sweet! That sounds amusing," Sideswipe crouched down and looked at the computer screen. "Heh, is that an image of a dancing cat? What's that doing on KSI's main website?" He questioned.

"I got bored this morning," Alexis shrugged, leaning back as Mark approached them. "So, what's up Autobot boy? Anything cool and hip in the world of boring suits and alien wars?" Mark raised an eyebrow at her, holding back laughter. "What? I'm curious."

Mark shrugged his shoulders a bit, seating himself on one of the many desks. "Nothing, really," Mark replied with a sigh as he took out an egg mcmuffin from the bag. "They're still asking when we're going to start dating. Or at least when I'm going to introduce you to them," Alexis snorted, and looked back at him. "What? Am I that undesirable?" He asked with faux-hurt.

"You're the one that still hasn't asked, Savoy," Alexis told him in a gentle, but scolding tone. "And besides, I still haven't gotten my ride in the Ferrari. And I thought that was going to be our first date," Mark opened his mouth to explain that. "Yeah, yeah, I know that Mirage is stingy and chances are it's not happening. Have you even tried to convince him?" She asked.

Mark shook his head, picking a baseball off of the table and tossing it into the air. Sideswipe shrugged a little, and looked between the two of them. "You two still aren't saying you're dating yet?" Sideswipe asked with a hint of surprise. "Primus almighty, you two. I haven't even seen this much sexual tension since Sam and Mikaela. Or Sam and Carly for that matter," Mark stuck his tongue out at Sideswipe. "What?"

"Don't make this awkward, Sides," Mark replied, finishing off his breakfast. "We're taking this slow, like snails pace slow."

Alexis looked at Mark with a small smirk, and nodded her head a little. "Which is good. Because last time you jumped head first, the Maria incident happened," She told him rather bluntly, to which Mark frowned in response. "Come on, Mark, you know I'm not like that," She told him before turning to look at Sideswipe. "We'll call it dating when we're ready to. I'm just enjoying the ride we're on."

"You don't like labels much, I take it," Sideswipe questioned.

"Hate them," Alexis nodded in response. "He likes me, I like him, why does it have to be any more complicated than that? We've only known each other less than a month," She pointed out rather bluntly, it was a fact Mark agreed with. "Hey Mark, hand me my copy of the Fall-Out Boy CD I bought yesterday, I need some inspiration." She commented.

"Why Fall-Out Boy?"

"Because their music is sick."

Mark laughed, shaking his head a little. "You call everything "sick" though," Mark teased her as he grabbed the CD. "What do you even mean by it anymore? Awesome? Cool? Weird?" He asked.

Alexis snatched the CD from his hand, and stuck her own tongue out at him. She playfully smacked him on the chest and shook her head. "Sick just means sick, like cool, awesome, whatever," She shrugged her shoulders. "Oh yeah, and I almost forgot. You know how you said that Coulton dude is always giving you shit?" Mark nodded uncertainly. "Just wait until you get back to base, and find out someone crashed his entire computer last night." She giggled.

"You didn't," Mark laughed.

"I did," Alexis replied. "I made sure he could recover the files though. Just so you didn't get into trouble if he found me or anything."

Mark chuckled a bit, leaning forward to look at the screen as Alexis brought up the file for a virus. Then the various screencaps that she had taken of the process she put Coulton's computer through. "Alexis, be sure to keep in touch when you're out of college," Sideswipe snorted. "If you manage to torment Coulton enough to quit, we may just have a place for you at NEST."

"I live to please," Alexis replied, chewing her pen slightly. "And I didn't even show you guys the best part of what I did today."

Mark only grinned as he listened to Alexis continuing on with her talk. A part of him wondered why he couldn't have noticed Alexis first. She was smart, sweet, funny, close to his age. And when he was around her, he felt more than just a physical attraction. He felt an attraction to all of her: personality, physique, and the like. And it was both the most exciting and scary prospect ever. Would she dump him like Maria had? Would they ever make it past the mutual attraction?

He didn't know, but he hoped that within time, he would find out.

...

"Mark's sure spending a lot of time with that new girl."

Hound peered over to Optimus as he walked along the hallway in NEST Base. Indeed, Mark was spending a lot of time with Alexis, not that it was a bad thing. Mark seemed even happier around her than he was with Maria. And it got him out of the base more too, it allowed him to spend more time with his own kind. "Yes, he is," Hound replied, emitting a deep sigh. "He seems very infatuated with this girl. And I'm very happy for him."

Optimus nodded in response, looking down at his data pad a moment. "When do we get to meet the young woman?" He questioned politely, a smile spreading across his face. "Surely, we would all like to meet the young woman who has our youngest member smitten."

Hound shrugged a little, even he didn't know the answer to that. Even though he did accept Mark's reasons for not bringing her around yet, he felt anxious all the same. This girl seemed to be on a much more serious level than Maria as far as their relationship was concerned. Unlike Maria, he saw Alexis often, and even for a few hours a day usually. "He doesn't want to invite her over until they are.. As he puts it, "official"," Hound explained politely. "And as long as he has Sideswipe nearby at all times, I don't see a reason to make him take her here."

Optimus nodded in agreement, knowing exactly what he meant. Mark wanted time for his relationship with this girl to develop before she met his extremely unusual "family". "A fair point, given how sound his judgement has been thus far." Optimus admitted in agreement. "I suppose his guardianship under Sideswipe is going well as well?" Hound nodded in response. "Good, very good."

"Is something troubling you, Prime?"

Optimus stopped a moment with Hound following suit. "I was simply worried for his mental state after his near abduction," Hound frowned, unsurprised. "I know that nightmares tormented him for many nights. And it concerned me," He then added. "I remember consulting Bumblebee for nearly a vorn when he went through the same thing." He explained.

Hound was silent for a moment, and sighed. It was true, Mark was still struggling slightly with that. Just the other night, he had had to comfort him after he awakened from a nightmare to ear piercing screams. "I believe that his time off-base with Kenny and Alexis is helping," Hound replied with saddened optics. "But he still has nightmares, and he's still very upset about it."

"Do I need to talk to him?" Optimus questioned calmly. "I've noticed that our chats often help qualm his fears," He added firmly. "If a talk will do him good, I always attempt to keep my doors open."

Hound shook his head, twiddling the "cigar" in his mouth as he looked up at him. "I don't think so. He barely talks to me about it as is," Hound explained, honesty in his voice. "I don't think this is something he can handle through talking out. At least until he's ready to talk about it in detail," He then admitted. "I don't even know what his nightmares entail, and that would be a start."

Optimus frowned at that, his optics softening. It was never a good idea to keep these emotions bottled, the fact that he was relieving stress elsewhere aside. Was it that Mark was afraid that one day they wouldn't be able to help him? Had Coulton said something about it that they didn't know about? Optimus inwardly growled at the thought of the latter. It would only add to the list of reasons he was tired of the mans actions. "You need to talk to him about it. If this is the work of Coultons words again, I want to know," He told him very bluntly. "I already know he got quite the scare from Grimlock soon after the incident while speaking to Mark."

Hound tensed up at the very thought of anything that could make Grimlock grow enraged. He knew that Grimlock cared for, and watched over his foster son, even from afar. But he only ever stepped up and became aggressive when he perceived a threat to him it seemed. "I'll talk to him about it," Hound replied, his spark twisting. "If that man said anything too terrible to him, I swear to Primus. I may not be able to control myself from popping multiple rounds into his skull this time."

"Easy, Hound," Optimus rested his hand on the mechs chest. "I believe that we all might be at this point. But we must handle this in a civil manner. Lest we send the wrong message to the human government," Hound huffed a bit, crossing his arms. "Don't worry, if this is the case again, I will be bringing it up to the President on his visit here next week." He then added. "I will not stand for his actions any more."

"I hope his sorry aft gets kicked to the curb," Hound grunted. "I'm tired of this. Tired of him. Tired of all this slagging drama like you wouldn't believe." He huffed, and tried to control himself. "Sorry, Optimus, I'm just... It's pushing me to my limits," He paused quietly. "There are days I'd sooner take Galloway over him. At the very least he had the good sense to get lost after a while." He explained.

"I understand, my old friend," Optimus replied with a soft smile. "If you need to speak to anyone, as I know the stress you are under... You know that I am right here," He offered gently, before turning towards the way he had been headed in. "It's time for me to go though, I have a video conference with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in less than twenty minutes." He then added "Try and calm yourself for now, Hound."

Hound watched as Optimus trudged off after that, his optics twisting. A part of him wondered if he should just storm off and find Coulton himself, confront him, give him a piece of his mind. And yet the other half knew that he would only be stooping to his level, and he hated the thought of that. The thought of bringing himself to a shameful level of spite. Slowly, he made his way down the hallway himself. His mind turned to the enlarged, Transformer-sized printer they had; and the shooting range just feet away.

He smirked to himself, if he couldn't shoot the man dead. At the very least, for the moment, he could pretend to do so. "Prowl, do you have any surveillance pictures of Coulton?" Hound asked. "No, no reason, just... A little fun."

Or a lot of fun.